IT HAS BEEN SAID that the only absolute in life is that there are no absolutes.
It seems that our analytical human minds wish to neatly categorize that which is presented to us. We often prefer to see things as good or bad, all or none, and black and white – even though everyone knows that human existence is a nuanced and multi-colored phenomenon.
Although humanity sometimes tends to favor a mindset of absolutism, a lack of it can be noted when observing many functions of the human body.
For instance, if one sustains a laceration, a very elegant clotting mechanism is put into motion. This involves a series of incredibly complex steps that culminate in the rapid cessation of bleeding – provided, of course, that the initial injury is not too great.
However, this impressive clotting response can sometimes go awry. If one has injured a lower extremity, or has remained immobile for a long period of time, the coagulation process can cause a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) to form within a blood vessel. This clot can break loose, travel within the venous system up to the chest, and finally become lodged in one or more of the pulmonary arteries which bring blood to the lungs. If the clot is large, this can cause significant morbidity and occasionally result in death.
As with the coagulation cascade, complex pathways also exist to dissolve these pulmonary emboli, and any other clot in our bloodstream. This system, too, can sometimes go awry; causing hemorrhaging into vital structures.
Our bodies continuously fine-tune these opposing mechanisms; seeking a sweet spot between excessive coagulation and excessive bleeding.
Human physiology does not function in rigid absolutes. Engaging in many fluidic balancing acts, our bodies typically avoid the extremes at the margins, finding instead a comfortable range in the middle.
SOCIAL CONDITIONING
We are often conditioned to categorize each other at one extreme or the other. The kicker on a football team is often considered either hero or villain, depending on whether the ball happened to travel perfectly between the uprights at the end of the game.
Of course, he really is the same person that he was before kickoff that day – just an average guy who is not fully a hero or a villain, but probably a small measure of each.
We are often quick to assign the label of hero; and are therefore perhaps taken aback when our idols succumb to temptation. Conversely, hardened criminals occasionally surprise us with glimmers of benevolence.
The truth is that few if any people are either all good or all bad, rather differing combinations of the two. There are no absolutes. Malice and virtue engage in daily combat. One may win the war, but each claim smaller victories.
In the political realm, we often see irritating efforts at polarization by leaders of the major parties. Many of these attempts to sway our thinking are successful, and we therefore sometimes demonstrate unwavering loyalty to our team, even if logic or circumstances suggest otherwise. We may even tend to view those in other parties uniformly as the enemy.
However, in truth, most of the constituents of each party share a mutual goal, which is a safe and comfortable environment for themselves, their loved ones, and all world citizens.
INITIALLY VALID CAUSES
Those on each side of an issue or argument typically form their belief system and subsequent actions based on an initially valid reason. The corporate executive correctly realizes that we all need an income to survive, and that her company will provide jobs for many people. The environmentalist understandably recoils when he sees a business owner show apparent disregard for the safety and beauty of our natural resources. Initially, each has a valid cause.
The danger comes later, when originally valid concepts are subsequently adulterated by the proclivities of those who stray beyond the margins of reason or morality: the greedy merchant who is no longer content to provide a necessary product with little environmental impact, and at a just price; and the obstructionist environmental advocate who will unfailingly challenge every move of industry.
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One summer, between semesters as a college student, I worked for a sawmill located in the Pacific Northwest. In the first few weeks, I was assigned a variety of undesirable tasks, mostly related to cleaning up various parts of the mill.
Adjacent to a small river was a concrete deck where loads of lumber were routinely dipped into a large container of a purple colored oily solution, which was used to help prevent wood rot. When the mill foreman brought me over to this area, I could see that the purple liquid had dripped all over the deck and had made quite a mess. He then showed me a high pressure hose and directed me to rinse the chemical solution off of the deck and into the river. I protested that this action would likely kill fish and other aquatic life, and that this was not a task that I was willing to perform.
I had enough backbone to refuse to do his bidding, and luckily was not fired from a much needed job. But ultimately I failed in my duty as a citizen, as at that time I lacked the maturity and confidence to demand that the mill find a responsible way to clean up its toxic messes. I am sure that the foreman simply found another lackey to do his dirty work, and the river was polluted despite my protest.
I was personally confronted with a basic dilemma of seemingly opposing needs. I needed a paycheck, yet I also understood the need to maintain a clean and sustainable environment. This is the very dilemma that plagues each of us today, played out on a much larger stage throughout the world.
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COMPROMISE
The world often derives some benefit from the outrageous individuals who operate near the fringes, the intrepid souls whose ideas are often located just barely within the borders of reason.
The entrepreneur, who addresses a need and bravely begins a new venture, creates jobs and often delivers a product that makes all of our lives better. The equally brave environmentalist realizes the importance of preserving our world for future generations. He therefore protests damage to the Earth, unafraid to sound a clarion call for all to hear. Each has a valid cause – often with seemingly cross purposes – but each is ultimately dependent on the other.
Without the use of materials from the Earth, and without manufacturers to produce steel, lumber, and copper wiring, environmentalists (like me) would have no running water, no electricity, and no place to live. Seven billion people cannot all live in teepees. However, it is equally true that humanity requires a clean and sustainable environment if it is to survive.
Left unchecked, big business has tended to emphasize short term profits over environmental responsibility, and it is often the loud voice of the environmentalist who has forced them back onto a proper course. The corporate executive and the environmentalist each serve a vital purpose, and each is dependent upon the other.
Sometimes outliers will stray too far from reason. The corporate executive becomes greedy. Motivated purely by profit, she demonstrates a reckless disregard for the world around her. No longer her cohort, the environmentalist is now her opponent and becomes an eco-terrorist. He drives iron spikes into trees that can harm the logger, destroys property that is not his own, and files a lawsuit each time forest timber is scheduled to be logged.
In his interesting book Collapse, author Jared Diamond describes how, in previous years, mining companies would plunder resources in Montana, make a tremendous profit, and then declare bankruptcy, leaving billions of dollars in cleanup costs to be shouldered by the taxpayer.
However, Diamond also makes a point to applaud industries and individual companies that do currently engage in responsible activities. The Forest Stewardship Council, an international non-profit organization funded by business, government, and environmental groups, is a successful venture that certifies forests that are managed in an ecologically sound manner. Diamond describes how in Papua New Guinea he once visited an oilfield owned by a subsidiary of Chevron Corporation, and was very impressed by the environmental responsibility demonstrated by this company.
Chevron took great efforts to protect a pristine rainforest, transecting the property only with a single ribbon of narrow roadway, small enough for animals to cross – and actually performing some benefit, as the road provided a conduit from which one could observe birds and other wildlife.
Many companies are run by people who do have true environmental concerns, and many others are learning that it is much cheaper to employ clean practices today than to pay for the cleanup of an environmental disaster tomorrow. But it is the environmentalist, whose loud protest has alerted the consumer to prior misdeeds of industry, who has been largely responsible for the change of practice shown by many of these companies. A bad reputation is bad for business, and many companies cannot risk a public relations nightmare.
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Sometimes if you sit in the middle you run the risk of being labeled as wishy-washy. Both sides feel that if you are not with them, you are against them. But such a mindset of absolutism is often unproductive, and at times dangerous. A person can be passionate in the middle; intelligent enough to know that we live in a multi-colored world and only a fool sees just in black and white.
In a Buddhist cookbook I read the following advice: “Do not be too rich as that is like the feeling of having had too much to eat; do not be too poor as that is like the feeling of being too hungry; the middle is the place to be.” Perhaps this outlook fits well with a lot of different facets of life.
Try listening carefully to voices beyond both ends of reason, and then seek a place somewhere between the two, where practicality and compromise reside. The middle road is a wide road, with plenty of room for all sorts of dreamers.