Chapter 7/7

We polarize for two or three reasons. When we take a polar position on anything, it gives us a sense of security. Polar positions are absolute. They leave us with no questions. A correlative of this is that we polarize because at the polar position we do not have to think. And, as always, it is easier to follow our comfortable crowd. Security, with no need to do the work of thinking, and plenty of company.

But the power of a magnet lies in neither its positive nor its negative pole. Rather the power resides in the tension between them. Were we to decide against negatives and make it all positive, or vice versa, we would be left with a piece of mere metal.

We are called on, regularly, to pick a pole: conservative or liberal, pro-life or pro-choice, freedom or determinism, capitalism or communism, socialism or individualism. “Which are you,” we are asked? Every time we adopt a polar position, something is destroyed, something vital. Reality, life, and truth exist in those polar tensions.

If we insist on the supremacy of individual rights and reject the claims of society, our thinking is invalid. If we claim that individual rights must be subordinated to the needs of society, our thinking is invalid. Neither pole, taken alone, is ever right. Only with the support of a healthy society can an individual attain her full potential; only when composed of a diverse body of well-developed individuals can a society maintain its health. The bipolarities of life are true, they are right but only in relation to each other, only as the tension is acknowledged.

Nor should we look for truth in a middle-of-the-road balance. Reality, life, and truth exist along an unceasingly shifting, fine line somewhere between the poles. Think of the tightrope walker with her balancing pole. It is rarely held perfectly horizontal. Sometimes it is tipped a little to the left or right, and sometimes it is tipped rather deeply one direction or the other, whatever is needed for the walker to maintain her balance. At times we see the pole tilted rapidly back and forth, from one side to the other.