There’s a zen koan I’m fond (perhaps a little too fond) of quoting, which goes something like:
A zen master holds up two white chess pawns, and asks whether they’re the same or different.
If you answer the same, you’re wrong, and get hit with the zen master’s stick, and if you answer different, you’re also wrong, and get hit!
I’ve thought about this particular koan quite a lot, and my understanding of it has changed over time. It’s a subtle koan – I remember mentioning it at my talk at the recent Digital Citizens Indaba. A couple of sessions later, people were debating whether blogging was journalism or not, which seemed to me to fall into the same sort of trap, so I don’t think people got it.
Put simply, the koan leads one to the understanding that the mind is being lazy if it falls into simple, artificial dichotomies.
I’ve been thinking about it in connection with the victory of the Democratic Party in both the Congress and Senate in the recent US elections, as well as recent presidential elections.
In the 2000 election, when George Bush was up against Al Gore, I remember thinking that whoever won, it would be the same. The Democrats and the Republicans were just two sides of the same coin, corporate interests would control the US no matter what, I thought. Of course I was buying into Ralph Nader’s campaign. After Bush won (probably thanks to Ralph Nader taking votes from Al Gore), and his presidency began to show certain disturbing trends, I changed to think that he really was different. Al Gore could never have been that bad, surely!
Now that the Democrats have swept both houses, there’s a certain euphoria going on in progressive circles (and even some conservatives are not unhappy). It’s a huge victory for green causes, say some. It strikes me as tending too much to the everything will be different camp, just as what happened in South Africa after 1994, only to leave us with disappointment when so much seemed not to change.
Others may disagree. The US blockade on Cuba is unlikely to end, nor support for Israel. To them, nothing has changed.
See it for what it is. It’s neither everything nor nothing, neither different nor the same.
But it’s still a good excuse for a celebration. Congrats America, and welcome back to the world 🙂
Technorati tags: 2006 US election