Describing the Dialectic 2

We need to be aware that the dialectic goes beyond the simple schema: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. It comprises many complexities. Any given thesis might have many antitheses, giving rise to triads within triads, each complicating the whole.. The tension may be weak or strong, and may exist for a brief time or last for centuries before a synthesis is worked out.

The Soviet Union unexpectedly broke apart after almost eighty years of internal and external dialectical tensions illustrating the fact that the dialectic is at work, even when nothing seems to be happening for a long time. As long as the tension is there, process is active.

Another variable in the Hegelian pattern is that the stair step development of repeated thesis, antithesis, and synthesis is not necessarily an upward progression. It could work in a retrogressive manner or in a lateral fashion.
In the broad sense, conversation is an aspect of the dialectic, although some would distinguish the two.

The Socratic dialogues, although conversational in appearance, are more focused than an ordinary conversation. Whereas normal conversations make many shifts of subject matter and operate on varying levels of intensity, the Socratic dialogue sticks to the subject, pursues an objective, and excludes discussion of trivia. In this sense, the dialectic and conversation can be distinguished.

Nonetheless there is value in recognizing the dialectical character of free conversation. In a conversation, varying points of view emerge, and are sometimes challenged by someone of another persuasion. Even the common free associational shifts of topics make the important contribution of bringing up topics and perspectives that have never before been considered by some of the participants. The dialectic is involved wherever differing positions are recognized and dealt with.

The dialectic takes on a more specialized form: Bipolarity. Bipolarity, like dialectic, is a widely used term, with several distinct usages. I use dialectic in a broader, and more inclusive sense than many others, but I use bipolarity in narrower, more particular sense.

The most simple approach to understanding bipolarity is to picture the horseshoe shaped magnet. We know that each pole of the magnet is charged, one is positive, the other negative. Neither of the poles is the more important, neither the more necessary. If both poles were to be made positive, the magnetism would be lost. So if both were negative. The opposite poles set up a magnetic tension between. The magnetism depends on the tension rooted in this opposition of the poles.

Many of the most basic features of our world exist in bipolar tension with each other. Take, for instance, the ideas of the sovereignty of God and human freedom. These seem to be complete opposites, incompatible with each other.

In its strongest statement, if God is the sovereign ruler of the universe, then everything that happens is as he directly ordains. Everything is done precisely as God desires, with no options for variation. The human is left with no freedom of choice. On the other hand, if human beings are genuinely free, they may contradict God’s desires and may do so on a regular basis, in which case, God is not sovereign in the strongest sense.

Similar bipolarities characterize most of the basic realities of life and our understandings of it.

Quite commonly, these contradictions are accepted as paradoxical. The reference to paradox is intended to make contradictories acceptable while leaving them inexplicable. We need to note that the idea of contradiction, in the strict logical sense, means that one element--pole--must be true and the other must be be false. When two things contradict, they cannot both be true. In a paradox we have that which seems to be contradictory, but in which both elements seem to be true.

An understanding of bipolarity enables us to make sense and present a reasoned resolution of these difficulties. In contrast to many understandings of bipolarity, the concept I present here affirms, not that, while they are contradictory, both poles seem to be true. Rather, I affirm that in a bipolarity, neither pole is true--not by itself. Just as a magnet’s positive or negative pole is magnetically useless if it exists by itself, so in bipolarity either pole is untrue, if taken alone. Both poles are true, but only in tension with the other pole.

Notice, for instance, that the Bible doesn’t merely state that God is sovereign. It also emphasizes human freedom. It doesn’t simply emphasize human choice and responsibility, it also claims God’s control. We want to affirm that both are true, independently of the other--objectively true. But we live in a world where everything exists relation to other things. Nothing exists independently of anything else, thus truth always exists in some relational context. Bipolar kinds of truth are true only in relation to each other. I reiterate, neither is true by itself.

Our common response to bipolarities is to either accept the copout idea that they are a paradox, or else we polarize. We agree they are contradictory, that the truth of one implies the falsity of the other and vice versa, so we feel compelled to defend one and attack the other.

This is the root of many of our problems: we cannot accept the tensions inherent in bipolarity. If we affirm the truth of one and reject the other, the tension is eliminated. But we fail to consider the necessity of tension in the real world.

Everything exists and is held together in tensions of all sorts. If all tension--muscular, cellular, and other--were eliminated from our bodies, they would collapse into a protoplasmic heap. Reality includes tension as a necessary component. Only inappropriate tension causes problems.

The following relationships seem bipolar in character: freedom and determinism; objectivity and subjectivity; personal and social; fact and value; singular and universal; feeling and thinking; theoretical and practical; being and becoming; ideal and actual; material and spiritual. These are some of the most general bipolarities of life.