Chapter 4/10

On one hand, the pattern is more complex that I have described, but on the other hand, it can be understood more simply: Hegel started with Being vs. Nonbeing and synthesized these with Becoming. We might look at black, white, and gray (or colors); male, female, and the reproduction of the species; truth, falsehood, and the fuzzy, ambiguous mix and mess that is the reality in which we live.

We must remember that the antithesis is not always the opposite of the thesis. For instance, if paper is the thesis, what would we understand as its opposite? Canvas, pencil, fire? Depending on the context, many things might be understood as the antithesis of paper, although not necessarily its opposite?

The synthesis may be only a slight modification of the original thesis, it may be the midpoint between thesis and antithesis, or anywhere between. It might even be much closer to the original antithesis than to the original thesis. Nonetheless, because the synthesis is a more satisfactory position than either of the earlier options, it becomes the new thesis.
The process is ongoing. Man marries woman, they have a child. The child grows up, marries, has a child, and the process moves along. One nation wars with another until some resolution is accomplished, then after a period of calm, the resolution is challenged. This, Hegel believed, is the pattern of all reality.

The root reason for this is that all is related, everything is connected, and we cannot escape all the others–personal and impersonal--in our relational world. We are not absolute; we cannot isolate ourselves. We are linked inextricably with each other, with the entire ecosystem.