The world can be confusing to simple people like you and me. However, there’s comfort in knowing that the world appears equally confusing to less simple people. It is pretty clear that in one of our primary human investigations, philosophy, we’re failing quite miserably in agreeing on a common truth. This is a bit strange considering philosophy created one of our most powerful tools of reasoning, namely logic.
(If you want to stop reading here, no one will blame you!)
Most people are familiar with some of the basic rules of logic, for instance that if B follow from A (A => B) and C follows from B (B => C), then we can conclude that if A is true, the C is true as well. In general, we’re pretty good at using a basic form of logic to get some order in our thoughts. Sure, we make quite a few (logical) mistakes, but in general it is a good tool to help us understand each other. One of the basic rules of logic is that contradictions are impossible or at least we do not accept them. There is a good reason for this: Following the rules of logic, one could day that from a contradiction “anything follows”. Put in other words, if a contradiction was true in a real logical world, it is possible to prove anything and everything is true.
And this is where I go off the deep end. What if that basic premise, that we live in a logical world, is simply not true? What if we live in a world where contradictions can happily live together, without strange things “following” from them? Note that this is not a soft kind of illogical thinking I’m proposing (irrationality or “emotional thinking”), but a purely rational world wherein – on certain scales – pure contradictions are possible. I’ll try and give some practical examples and consequences of such a situation.
“But wait!” you’ll say, aren’t you talking about paradoxes then? No. A paradox is an “apparent” contradiction, so it only applies to situations where someone doesn’t fully understand the question or the premise. This usually means that by adding information, the paradox can be “solved”. This of course could mean that I simply do not understand the specifics of the “apparent” contradictions and that they are in fact not contradictions at all. This is quite possibly true. (I’ll even try to make the examples as clear as possible, so the holes can be found as easily as possible.)
My main thesis is this: Contradictions are real and we live with them every day. We mentally defend ourselves against the difficulty of truly understanding these contradictions in many ways. Anger, psychosis, mass politics, Utopian novels, etc. However, what comforts me most is the act of embracing contradictions, of making them part of a bigger thing in which logic is not necessarily true.
Exhibit A: Socialism and capitalism
I live in Belgium, a country with a government that is often composed of equal parts “socialists” and “capitalists”. Our last federal government even had a liberal and a socialist party ruling together. However:
- Socialism envisions a world where wealth can be distributed and property or means to production can and should be owned by the community at large. The many take preference over the few.
- Capitalism on the other hand posits a world where the means of production is held privately, with individual (or corporate) profit a primary motive. The individual takes preference over the many.
It should be clear that the main definitions of these two (socio-) economic systems are in almost perfect contradiction to each other. And yet, here I am, living in a country where it is reasonable to say that we have both a socialist and a capitalist system in operation. We have public welfare, social medicine and yet, at the same time it is also possible to achieve nearly limitless wealth by owning and operating one or many businesses. One could say it’s a “mix” of the two, but this seems weird to say of two systems that are essentially not mixable: the are a direct contradiction to each other.
Exhibit B: Monogamy and polyamory
This is one of the dirty little secrets of western society: We all seem to believe in having a “single mate” for life, and yet, our actions say something quite differently. Serial monogamy (divorce and re-marriage) and adultery or infidelity (cheating) is simple rampant if you believe in statistics or if you take a short look around yourself and at yourself. So, on the one hand we say something and on the other we act opposite of it. I smell a contradiction.
Exhibit C: God and atheism
OK, this is not a real contradiction, because god is dead.
Just kidding. However, if atheism is “right” then it is not unreasonable to say that theists are suffering from a mass psychosis and should surely be treated for it. Theists on the other hand should be stoning the atheists to death or at least help them escape from eternal damnation (according to official scriptures). Even in a more soft approach to this debate, it is almost a ridiculously simple contradiction (as a society) to both say “god exists” and “god doesn’t exist” in the same context. And yet, this is precisely the case in most of western society!
Religious debate is filled with these kinds of wonderful contradictions. One of my favorite lines of reasoning against atheism is: “If there’s no meaning to life, why no jump off a bridge?”. And indeed, this is true, even if we don’t see atheists collectively jumping off bridges.
Mars attacks!
At this point, you’ll most likely feel your mind struggling to make sense and/or justify the existence of such contradictions. Common defenses:
- It’s a “compromise” or we’re still trying.
- The “other side” should be eradicated. (Possibly the most dangerous defense of all.)
Both of these defenses admit to a failure to integrate or solve the contradiction. In all of the examples you’ll find that there are both people that try to compromise or (sometimes violently) try to make one of the two premises go away. Why do we do this? My theory is quite simple actually: we are unable to successfully cope with contradictions precisely because it causes our logical thinking to fail. That’s also why discussions about these sort of contradictions seem to be eternal and why we’ve never been able to “solve” the apparent problems. Most of our approaches involve following a chain of logical steps that are doomed to fail. Think about this for a second. Look at the three problems and see how you “solve” them.
So, what’s the solution to all of this (nonsense)?
First of all, this is the wrong question to ask. It implies that I can posit a solution and “prove” that it works to you. As you may have guessed, this is simply not possible in an illogical world. However, I do think that we can become better at coping with contradictions and believe that it is best to become well trained in embracing contradictions as a whole. This means both accepting the truth and the opposite of it, at the same time. Yes, say one thing and do another. You can even believe in this theory and not believe in it at the same time. Believe that there is no meaning to life but live like it is the most valuable thing of all. Fool yourself and consciously understand that you’re fooling yourself.
Of course, there are enormous risks associated with this approach, developing a true psychosis being one of them. It is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Iwould recommend only believing in on or the other “side” to most people.
Even if it’s wrong. (Followed by an evil grin.)