{"id":86,"date":"2016-06-17T23:15:08","date_gmt":"2016-06-18T06:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/?p=86"},"modified":"2016-06-17T23:15:08","modified_gmt":"2016-06-18T06:15:08","slug":"assignment-24-the-dangers-of-binary-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/2016\/06\/17\/assignment-24-the-dangers-of-binary-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Assignment 2:4 – The Dangers of Binary Thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"
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  1. First stories tell us how the world was created. In\u00a0The Truth about Stories<\/em>, King tells us two creation stories; one about how Charm falls from the sky pregnant with twins and creates the world out of a bit of mud with the help of all the water animals, and another about God creating heaven and earth with his words, and then Adam and Eve and the Garden. King provides us with a neat analysis of how each story reflects a distinct worldview. \u201cThe Earth Diver\u201d story reflects a world created through collaboration, the \u201cGenesis\u201d story reflects a world created through a single will and an imposed hierarchical order of things: God, man, animals, plants. The differences all seem to come down to co-operation or competition \u2014 a nice clean-cut satisfying dichotomy. However, a choice must be made: you can only believe ONE of the stories is the\u00a0true<\/em>\u00a0story of creation \u2013 right? That\u2019s the thing about creation stories; only one can be sacred and the others are just stories. Strangely, this analysis reflects the kind of binary thinking that Chamberlin, and so many others, including King himself, would caution us to stop and examine. So, why does King create dichotomies for us to examine these two creation stories? Why does he emphasize the believability of one story over the other \u2014 as he says, he purposefully tells us the \u201cGenesis\u201d story with an authoritative voice, and \u201cThe Earth Diver\u201d story with a storyteller\u2019s voice. Why does King give us this analysis that depends on pairing up oppositions into a tidy row of dichotomies? What\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0he trying to show us?\n

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    \n\"creation<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Binary thinking<\/a>, a mindset that takes related concepts but opposite in meaning, is a form of mental opposition that plays a psychological role in how we perceive what is \u201ctrue.\u201d Binary thinking imposes each idea into their respective black and white forms of laws and facts. In other words, there is only good\/truth (which is rewarded) and bad\/falsehood (which is condemned), and nothing in between. This rigid way of thinking forces us to view reality in terms of duality, placing identical elements into opposition, and believing that there is only one correct answer allowed in the world.<\/p>\n

    King purposely aligned the two creation stories side by side and highlighted the dichotomies involved in order to show the dangers of choosing sides and eliminating all other forms of truth once one\u2019s perceived truth is established. Binary thinking has inherent limits that obstruct one to even own the capacity to consider other essential elements, and in turn, blurs our vision of the world to be one that is limited, intolerant, and biased. King understands that the brain is wired by logic and desire of reasoning, and for humans to process a story that cannot be proven by science is virtually impossible without the use of an authoritative voice to tell the \u201cGenesis<\/a>\u201d story. This prevents any doubts from rising and in return, contributes to the story\u2019s credibility. On the other hand, \u201cThe Earth Diver\u201d story is told in a storyteller\u2019s voice to give it animation and spirit, yet runs the risk of skepticism because of its lack of convincibility. Here is when we make the grave mistake of disqualifying other possibilities in order to entertain just one. Whether or not it is human instinct to lean toward a universe governed by a series of hierarchies as opposed to cooperation, we lose sight of the value that the other holds. And that\u2019s the problem with the elemental structure of Western society: we are fixated and swear by our dichotomies for every decision-making process. Like how the author says, \u201cWe are suspicious of complexities, distrustful of contradictions, fearful of enigmas\u201d (King 25).<\/p>\n

    As difficult as it can seem, being consciously aware that binary thinking should progress in a more circular approach is necessary when broadening one\u2019s scope of life. The challenge is to overcome the toxic \u201call or nothing,\u201d \u201cthis or that,\u201d \u201cme or you\u201d mentality, because reality is certainly richer and more complex than what our recognition of the world proposes.<\/p>\n

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    Works Cited<\/p>\n

    Hilmar-Jezek, Kytka. “Creation Stories.”\u00a0Waldorf Homeschoolers.\u00a0<\/em>24 Feb. 2011. Web. 17 June 2016. Image.<\/p>\n

    King, Thomas.\u00a0The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative.\u00a0<\/em>Toronto: House of Anansi Press Inc, 2003. Print.<\/p>\n

    Ngo, Robin. “Should We Take Creation Stories in Genesis Literally?”\u00a0Bible History Daily,\u00a0<\/em>31 Jan. 2016. Web. 17 June 2016.<\/p>\n

    Schlesinger, Hank. “The Dangers Of Binary Thinking In A Complex World.” Vending Times<\/em>, 29 Mar. 2014. Web. 17 June 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    First stories tell us how the world was created. In\u00a0The Truth about Stories, King tells us two creation stories; one about how Charm falls from the sky pregnant with twins and creates the world out of a bit of mud with the help of all the water animals, and another about God creating heaven and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19486,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[941788],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engl-470"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19486"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions\/88"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}