First things first. I believe congratulations are in order, no? If you’re reading this, you have made it through the holiday humbuggery, successfully hurdled all adjacent hard knocks and hullabaloo. Well done, you. I have also deduced your wise decision to forgo my ill-advised invitation to sharpie New Year’s revolutions onto the insides of your eyelids. Good call. Hale and hearty congratulations, en masse.
Now. Down to brass tacks! Today I’d like to talk tyranny – specifically, the tyranny of the binary. Any and every binary will do, with one important qualification.
I’m not talking binary as in a mathematical concept. No, I will rarely, perhaps never, speak to you with such language, because I am severely allergic to most any sort of math. I tell you the following with only the slightest hint of hyperbole: the application of numbers has been known to make me break out in hives, hyperventilate, snap pencils from across a room with the sheer force of mental distress, and run screaming from that same room like my pants are on fire. So, by binary, I simply mean any sort of framework that has two parts and only two parts. Systems and mindsets premised on an either/or option, an absolute “this” or “that.” Your basic all-or-nothingness.
Also, as much as I dislike numbers, I love words. In fact, if words and numbers were two options in a binary, I would without hesitation stake my claim on the side of words. I have, out of this place of reverence, quite deliberately chosen the word “tyranny,” a very strong word, to be sure. A cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control (thank you, Oxford Languages).
I probably don’t need to point out that binaries can be found everywhere. Stitched masterfully throughout the cultural weave, they pervade our lives so thoroughly that we barely notice them anymore. Good/bad. Right/wrong. Succeed/fail. Win/lose. For/against. In/out. Male/female. Black/white. Democrat/Republican. Love/hate. Sink/swim. Sigh. Speaking of that last one, I fear we have become fish swimming in a bowl of binaries, blissfully unaware, even as our tiny gills pull them in and out as though they were as essential as oxygen.
Really though, friends. Have you noticed just how destructive the rigidity of binary thinking can be? Have you felt the claustrophobia of having to choose one extreme or another when the truth really lies somewhere in the nuances in between? The pinch of squeezing yourself into a narrow slot that only accommodates a fraction of who you are and how you really feel?
Binaries leave little space for individuality, authenticity, creativity, or experimentation. They demand that you choose a side – the quicker, the better - and remain fixed there forevermore. To change one’s mind is tantamount to an act of social treason.
Binaries keep us small, rigid and brittle and push us down perilous paths of perfectionism, paranoia, and punishment. If you’re either good or bad, right or wrong, then it stands to reason that the name of the game is to constantly strive for good and right, without ever really knowing if you’ve arrived. Right? Am I right?
And of course, binaries do not arise in a vacuum, friends. No, they do not. They are strategically crafted and prominently positioned precision weapons in the arsenals of irrational authority (i.e., many of the large-scale systems we are all subject to). They do an especially crack job at defending structures of power and privilege.
You see, by polarizing people and pitting them against one another with overly simplistic logic, binaries distract from creative and critical thinking and squash pushback. They encourage action only in service of the authority behind the binary. The late historian-philosopher-theorist Hannah Arendt called this out when she said, “Under tyranny it is far easier to act than think.”
I’m not saying anything novel here. People with marginalized identities of all sorts, folks who don’t slot in easily on one side or another, or who don’t land on the more empowered side of any given binary, have long recognized binaries as instruments of oppression. But the truth is, they hurt all of us, whether we realize it or not.
Take the gender binary, for example. This binary hits me particularly close to the bone, or maybe the chromosome, as a trans person. Sure, it’s become obvious that this binary simply doesn’t work for some of us, as any nonbinary or trans person can probably poignantly attest. But it’s telling that binary thinking about gender and sexual identities has become one of the headlining wedge issues leading up to the 2024 presidential election.
Moreover, there are a million other ways, some subtle, some really, really not so subtle, that the gender binary has put us all in boxes, regardless of our gender identity or our position of privilege on the binary. If you need a hint, here are a few such ways: toxic masculinity, misogyny, internalized misogyny (aka toxic femininity), and patriarchy in general. The truth is that the gender binary leads to limitation and loss for all of us, in much the same way that a society racialized along a white-non-white binary does.
So, in a world framed by binaries, how do we build something new without falling apart? I believe the answer can be found in the form of the continuum, the spectrum, the range, the gamut. Human beings are dynamic creatures. Not fixtures. And, we generally do not travel through a lifetime in linear progression. We change constantly, and so do our bodies, our ideas, and sometimes our values and preferences. In the words of Carl Jung, “We cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of the morning; for what in the morning was true will in evening become a lie.”
Given this reality, doesn’t a sliding scale make more sense than a binary?
To be realistic, binaries will be here for the foreseeable future. And, there really doesn’t seem to be a gentler binary anywhere in sight. But let us not topple over into all-or-nothingness. Until the day when the tyranny of the binary topples under its own weight, there are things we can do. A few ideas come to mind.
We can become aware of the ways in which binary thinking has harmed us. We can tell the truth about it, both to ourselves and others. We can feel and name the grief around the losses we have incurred under the tyranny of the binary. We can question the demands of binaries far and wide and then choose to practice small acts of healthy disobedience when we’re feeling brave.
Lastly, in a shameless plug for my writing outside the loving embrace of Substack, and in service to shining the light of scrutiny on binaries, I invite you to check out two essays I’ve published in the past couple of months about my personal experiences with the gender binary: A 21-Gun Salute and Beyond the Bluffs. Whether you choose to read in part, in toto, or not at all, it’s all good. So long as it’s your authentic choice, that is.
Until next time, may you live freely in the beautiful grays of gradation.
Circling back to say wow wow wow about “Beyond the Bluffs.” The whole thing is so beautiful, but that dismount is 💯 The final image is breathtaking. What a production 👏
So many thoughts, friend. I read 21 Gun Salute which is just beautiful (and heart-tenderizing). Now I struggle to re-enter the chipperness with which I wanted to comment on your original post. When I read the Arendt line, I was like: sign me up for thinking over action! 🤗 (lol) I want to just soak in your longer pieces now. Sending love and much admiration for your poetry.