The Clare Spark Blog

May 1, 2018

The “balance” trap

Filed under: Uncategorized — clarelspark @ 5:27 pm
Tags: , , , , , , ,

balnce. JPEG

bigtimecity.com

“Balance” is a key word for liberals and moderates. It reassures us that we will not fall to the ground, that our parents will not drop us as infants, or, as we pass into adulthood, that we will avoid accidents or worse, that we will not eat of Eve’s Apple and learn too much of the Tree of Knowledge (of good and evil) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_the_knowledge_of_good_and_evil. Many Christians believe too that our earthly journey take place in a “fallen world.” Whereas conservative Jews believe that “balance” is attached to justice and integrity. (This contrast to liberalism relayed to me by my son-in-law Maimon Chocron.)

I have written about the balance trap before as a strategy to attain “common ground” and to resolve what may be irreconcilable conflicts. https://clarespark.com/2015/05/30/constructing-the-moderate-men-with-the-classics/, https://clarespark.com/2010/11/06/moderate-men-falling-down/, https://clarespark.com/2015/04/07/who-are-the-moderate-men/.

“New Balance” sneakers promise returning youth (given the appropriate exercise regimen), while (moderate) Fox News Channel tries to please warring factions in the “body politic” through its pairing of liberal and conservative commentators, presumably to appeal to a diverse audience. And “equilibrium” is a term favored by balanced economists.

I prefer “ambiguity” over the notion of “balance,” while it may be a lifelong project to determine the “good” that prevails over the “evil” supposedly bequeathed by our “first parents.”

Does “ambiguity” undermine the search for unity?

1 Comment »

  1. I’m a Native American. Does that mean you hate me too. You ignorantly push aside multigenerational oppression and seem to exibit the false ideology that white people and white culture is being oppressed. When you’re accustomed to privilege equality feels like oppression.
    No matter what you think this soil and the blood therein will always be Indigenous. This is not a white Nation no matter the numbers. That will never change whose land this is. You successfully committed your genocide of 100 million Native (meaning original) Americans but you should have got us all.
    You ARE IMMIGRANTS here. This occupated land is a multicultural land of immigrants. With every generation this Nation will become more multicultural & there’s NOT A DAMN THING you can do except keep complaining & spreading your ignorant ideology. If the pale face had not gotten help from us & we just enslaved you, freed you & started mass incarcerating you, intentionally kept you out of good neighborhoods (redlining) & schools, put you on third world like reservations, and the police continued to harass you, beat you, and shot you unarmed all the time I guarantee oppression wouldn’t be in quotations.
    The truth is your mind has been propagandized & brainwashed. Your minds been closed w/ a vice grip & only God can help you open it.

    I will not be responding to comments. I’m not going to argue because, Frankly, I’m right.

    Comment by Rev Dr JE Allen, PHD Psychology — July 14, 2018 @ 7:54 pm | Reply


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