Binaries [Will Brehm, Week 12, Reflective]

I’m going to elaborate on the idea of binaries in a broader sense, as Professor Pervez asked, and then link this idea to our understanding of Terrorism.

Binaries pervade American culture—more than one thinks. The Civil Rights movement was the struggle between black and white. Hitchcock categorizes women into “blonds” and “brunettes.” Only two types of computers exist: Apple and Windows. One follows religion either moderately or fanatically. Capitalism triumphed over communism. Countries around the world during the Cold War were either with us (and capitalist) or against us (and communist). American Presidents will always be either a Republican or a Democrat. Whom one supports for President defines oneself by the whole ideology of that political party. This means, if one voted for Bill Clinton, one must be anti-abortion (renamed pro-choice to sound more democratic), pro-globalization, pro-gay marriage, pro-taxes, pro-universal health care, and anti-big business. If one voted against Bill Clinton, one *must* believe in the opposite of the issues mentioned above. If one doesn’t believe in the Iraq War, one must be against the troops. One is either with us or against us.

First World vs. Third World. North vs. South. Right vs. Wrong. Alternative vs. Mainstream. Center vs. Periphery. The list goes on and on…

If one has a more complex set of ideas, please don’t go on the Bill O’Reilly Show or the Countdown because one wouldn’t fit into a specific box that our culture yearns for. See, everyone must fit into a nice, neat box; it fools anyone into thinking one has a true understanding of the issues at hand. The complete opposite, of course, sits on the other side of the fence.

Binaries are easy, but implicitly push a hierarchal structure; one side justifies itself as having better qualities than the other. Simply put: right triumphs over. wrong. No one really thinks of being on the “wrong” side. Binaries easily—yet wrongly—connect to each other, too. So if one supports universal medicine, one must also be a socialist and, thus, a Nazi sympathizer. Alternatively, if one voted for Bush 43, one must also believe in a strict interpretation of the bible and, thus, hate homosexuals.

See how nonsensical this gets?

With terrorism, our culture has placed any violent act that is “anti-American” into a box that is being debated as either “terrorist,” “Islam-o-fascist,” or “Jihadist.” Semantics aside, that idea completes the binary with “Pro-America,” or what can be defined as “Freedom,” “Democracy,” and “Liberty.”

Now a simple analogy shows why the terrorism binary—for that matter any binary—doesn’t work. If a white male, early-20s, robs a bank because he fell into some gambling debt, do the papers proclaim that a “Christen-fascist” commented a grave criminal act against innocent Americans? Nope. We try to understand why exactly he or she was driven to commit such an act.

I don’t see anyone (at least not in the papers) trying to understand why a terrorist committed a horrific act. Instead, we demonize the person for following a fanatical religion. What happens is that we are subtly suggesting that a person who commits a violent act, which we never fully try to understand his or her motives, must be below us, the non-violent people who only fight for democracy. And if that person happens to follow a different faith than the majority of Americans, the act must be religious based. And since binaries (wrongly) connect to others, we now see Islam blow the Christian Americans,

I have one solution to this “clash”: We can no longer allow our selves to simplify complexities. Let’s strive for compassion—what most religions preach.