About Yin and Yang, nonduality and binaries

[Vasishth, Ashwani]

MP, to clarify, when two words are linked—like Yin and Yang—the twoness does not make a binary.

If you look at that complex of Eastern philosophies from which the concept emerges, it’s a rejection of dualistic (binary) thinking.

It’s not “good OR bad,” “light OR dark” and so on.  But rather good AND bad, hand in hand.  We can’t have one without the other.

This is the antithesis of this OR that thinking.

That’s where I begin.  You CANNOT have good without bad, in this view.  Then choice-making is not about picking the better one over the other.  Rather, we need to make peace with both. 

AI, for instance, is BOTH good and bad. Our job is to reconcile that apparent contradiction. 

It’s not to pick good over bad, but learn to live with the reality that good comes WITH bad.

Defeating the current power systems does not get us to a fairer world.  It only replaces one power structure (which oppresses US) with one that oppresses the “oppressors.”

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    Ashwani
       Vasishth      
Professor of Sustainability (Retired) from Ramapo College of New Jersey
vasi...@ramapo.edu         
(323) 206-1858 (cell)