Reduction to binary. Of course, “Reductio ad absurdum” (reduction to the absurd) wouldn’t have been far off. But I’m not a student of Latin.
Dr. Robert Mather was kind enough to answer a question I posed in his latest podcast. I asked why this “reduction to binary” seems to work so well. His answer, in summary, was that it is easier for most people to process (I strongly encourage you to listen to the podcast linked above for the full answer).
The constant insistence that every issue can be reduced to a binary choice is intentional. I don’t care if you lean left or right. It is intentional and it is designed to distract you – or blatantly hide from you – the truth. Again – liberal left or liberal right – this binary argument is by design and the design intent is to hide truth.
This isn’t new – not at all. The intent is to divide. It’s been going on for quite some time. Marx hit on this over 100 years ago. I don’t know if he was the first, but he was arguably the most influential. Marx got almost everything wrong, but on this particular topic, he was genius. Marx couched everything in “oppressed” and “oppressor.” A simple binary choice – and it worked – and it continues to work to this day.
CRT is a modification of Marx (its roots are unmistakable). CRT also holds that there are only two binary choices – again, oppressor and oppressed – but in this incarnation what distinguishes the two is skin color. Marx had a clear intention to divide along class lines, CRT has a clear intention to divide along racial lines.
When you hear any argument – on any topic – expressed in binary terms, you can rest assured that the intent of that argument is to divide – not to build consensus, not to arrive at solutions, not to solve problems, but to divide. It is a message intended to be easily processed. It is not a message intended to drive solutions. When you hear complex arguments reduced to binary choices, you are not being asked to think, you are being groomed, you are being pigeonholed.
Trump or DeSantis, Russia or Ukraine, the Second Amendment or children’s lives. These are all false dichotomies. You are being enticed to choose one or the other by Marxist “thinkers.” You are being groomed for division and conflict.
Critical thinkers reject these false dichotomies as absurd. Critical thinkers reject division for the sake of division.
Are you a critical thinker or a blind follower of reduction to binary?
Gadsden1
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