The intelligence of opposites.

Fortunately for me, I have had the very good fortune of being psychologically reared within a Jungian framework of human development.  This has allowed me to become increasingly comfortable with what often feels like endless cycles of learning and unlearning and relearning all over again.  Carl Jung calls this "integrating the opposites", and considers this process to be the central principle of individuation.  From a theoretical perspective, he posits that everything we think we know is simply an initial "thesis", which must be psychically balanced out by an initially unknown opposite or "antithesis".  This antithesis is at first constellated in the unconscious, and we are therefore entirely unaware of its presence until we are somehow forced to acknowledge it.

Recognizing and allowing any antithesis into consciousness is rarely a comfortable process for us because it typically threatens our very fragile sense of security.  Since we are creatures who have learned to feel safe in the world by labeling, categorizing, understanding, predicting, and controlling our environment, we can start to feel powerfully threatened when what we've come to rely upon is being questioned in some way.  However, the real creative treasure in all of this can only be found when we are willing to hold both our thesis and its antithesis with a degree of consciousness.  IF we can find the courage to consider not knowing what we think we know, then the stunning miracle of "synthesis" has a chance of occurring!  For example: "I'm right and you're wrong" might have the chance of becoming "I wonder if I could learn something I don't already know from this person who disagrees with my idea".  A completely gorgeous possibility for growth, right?  Unconvinced?  Here's a classic scientific application of this idea: "Turns out, light is both a wave and a particle!".

While musing over this particular psychological process the other day, it occurred to me that this kind of thinking is actually the ironic antithesis of fundamentalist thinking.  That notion made me feel really curious about the psychological principles and patterns that govern fundamentalism.  I appreciate that the term fundamentalism is most often associated with theological and religious identifications, but I think I'd like to extrapolate the term and include rigid political identifications too.  This interests me so much right now because I think we can all appreciate our current political climate of divisive, ineffective chaos.  Yes?  Sure!

I haven't come to any definite conclusions because I'm trying to be a good student of my own philosophy, but I have begun to wonder what happens to someone (psychologically) when they decide that they know anything at all absolutely.  Maybe that's the point at which we risk becoming identified with our own sentiments, and consequently unwilling to look at them critically.  It seems to me that a person in that position would thereby have to expend a lot of energy protecting themselves from anything that contradicts their particular thesis.  Tragically, the above theoretical discussion seems to suggest that the possibility of growth would also come to a screeching halt at that exact point of psychological defense.

I'm not sure how to make this notion of "integrating the opposites" sound less threatening and more appealing for people.  Nonetheless, it seems increasingly insane to think that shouting at each other from our polarized positions will allow anything new to emerge.  Instead, I'd like to imagine a conversation about health care or taxes that didn't start with defensive posturing, but began with curiosity about the opposite of what we think we know.....