In his essay, Compensation, Ralph Waldo Emerson says that in every part of nature, we discover polarity, or, action and reaction. We find this duality in, “darkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of waters; in male and female; in the inspiration and expiration of plants and animals,” etc. A dualism, says Emerson, bisects nature, “so that each thing is a half, and suggests another thing to make it whole; as spirit, matter; man, woman; subjective, objective, in out; upper, under; motion, rest; yea, nay.” Nature, says Emerson, hates one-sided monopolies. Echoing the insights of Lao Tzu, he says that nature always strives towards balance. For example, look at the sea. No matter how high the waves might toss, they must always come back to sea level. Emerson believed that this tendency towards balance and equilibrium is an inevitable law of the universe, which he called, The Law of Compensation. Human beings as products of nature, are every bit as subject to ...
Marshall McLuhan once said that,”Violence is a quest for identity.” I find "myself," or a group finds "itself," through confrontation with another. It follows, that when a person, group or people, feels that their identity is being threatened, they lash out in violence. Violence here is really all about the creation of boundaries. We act violently in order to establish some clear demarkation between ourselves and the “other.” All of this seems to have something to do with human development. Watch, for instance, how small children, as they emerge from unconscious identification with the mother, to a gradual sense of individuality, enjoying hitting and striking. It’s as if they are trying to get clear as to where the boundaries are between self and world. Identity therefore, is always a matter of finding oneself through another. In terms of politics and history, “whiteness” is a relatively recent invention. In Europe for instance, there have been innumerable wa...