(This is Part 13 of a series. Go back to Part 12.)
When Hitler came to power he immediately set about purging the "wrong" kinds of art. This was one of his lesser crimes, but it is worth discussing because it sheds some light upon black-and-white thinking.
To Hitler the only kind of art that was acceptable was strictly representational. Furthermore, to be acceptable the art had to depict one of three subjects: the hardiness of youth, the heroism of soldiers or the glory of peasant life. All other subjects and styles were considered degenerate and not worthy of being considered art.
Using these directives, 16,000 works of art were purged from German museums. Among the purged artists were Gaugin, Van Gogh and Picasso. Some of the paintings were sold abroad—the rest were burned.
In the world of black-and-white thinking, it is not enough that the "good" side be seen as superior and the "bad" side be seen as inferior. Ultimately, in this thinking, for any given dimension of life to be "perfect' it means that the "undesirable" side of it must be extinguished. Only then can that aspect of reality be "perfect".
This type of thinking was later applied by Hitler not only to art, of course, but to human beings themselves. The result was the Holocaust.
However, as we have tried to show elsewhere in these pages, the "opposites" of reality are a necessary part of its fabric. Reality literally cannot exist without what our minds call "opposites". They depend upon each other; they exist together.
Our team can't have the possibility of "victory", for instance, without the simultaneous possibility of "defeat". I can't enjoy the benefits of driving my car without the simultaneous possibility of an accident. The advance of science inevitably brings both benefits and perils. A thousand other examples could be given.
In another aspect of this subject, "hot" has no meaning without "cold"; "up" has no meaning without "down"; "beautiful" has no meaning without "ugly", "light" has no meaning without "darkness". The two opposites always depend upon each other.
In still another aspect of this subject, the two "opposites" of reality come into existence together because they are actually one thing. What we call "day" and "night" is one phenomenon, the spinning of the planet. What we call "summer" and "winter" is one phenomenon, the rotation of the earth around the sun. And so on.
Reality needs its opposites, because it is composed of them, it is made of them, it is them. Or we could say that it is composed of what seem like opposites to the mind.
Another term for black-and-white thinking is either-or thinking. This is the world of the Warrior—either you're on the side of good or you're on the side of evil—which? The Warrior sees the world in black-and-white, either-or terms because it allows him or her to maintain an enemy.
Without an enemy to destroy the Warrior has no meaning. The meaning of a Warrior's life is to make life "better" by destroying those people, things or situations that stand in the way of "good" and thus are "bad". In this connection, black-and-white thinking allows the Warrior to create the "us", and most importantly, the "them".
By thinking in terms of black-and-white, either-or, the Warrior often separates complex moral decisions into stark and false opposites. Two examples: Hitler repeatedly claimed that the only choice was between him and the communists—a false choice grounded in false opposites. Hitler also claimed that the Jews "needed to be destroyed" because otherwise they would "destroy Germany"—again, a false choice based on false opposites.
Some "darkness" somewhere is proposed and then it must be "defeated" or minimized or whatever. But "darkness" can never be truly defeated because it is part of a false opposite. "Darkness" can only be "defeated" by seeing it in a greater context—that is, by turning on a light.
It is when we turn on a light that the world gets "better", because only in the light of a higher purpose or a greater compassion can the frozen separations of "us" and "them" be warmed enough to come together. No need to stumble over the furniture in the darkness: In any situation, as we find a way to turn on a light we'll find that the "darkness" magically disappears.
Then existence regains its already-existing perfection as we see it with new eyes—and see that light and darkness are both part of the same mysterious light.
(This is the end of Part 13. Go to Part 14.)
—jim sloman, 12.15.05
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