BY NOAH USSAINI
It seems that no matter where you turn in life, you run into them. Dualisms. A dualism is when you find two polar opposite options to a single question that both have evidence for being correct. It is something mercurial or capricious in nature.
These dualisms are not found only in theoretical musings. In Nigeria, for instance, we have APC versus. Coalitionists. Big Government vs. Free Enterprise. Nigerian Military vs. Terrorists. I am right versus you are wrong. The tensions between party lines are real, and the way we navigate these tensions has a far-reaching implications. However, if we wish to be part of society, eventually we must assert our interest and realize our power, whether with, through, or against lovers or friends, associates or colleagues, antagonists or enemies. Conflict is the process for doing so.
As Plato observed them in his experience. He looked around and saw the violence and destruction that his fellow Athenians heaped upon one another. Then he saw the very same people contemplating such things as beauty, goodness, and virtue. Which is it, he thought? He separated the two. There was, for Plato, the realm of ideals, which was pure thought. This realm was where the perfect substance of what is right and good exists. Then, there was the realm of the material substance, which was a mere shadow of the ideals. It was in this realm where human atrocities exist and from this realm that the seeker of goodness and beauty must escape. Plato’s dualism became a canopy that spanned across most of Western culture and still casts its shadow today.
Let us consider a dualism visible in Nigerian politics at the moment. It is the dualism of having to choose between the ruling party and the fledgling opposition party. This is very confusing. It is a conflict helix involving the power elite versus the rest of us.
The two extremes are alike and imply that two opposite or extreme situations share similarities or commonalities. It suggests that despite appearing different on the surface, there are fundamental similarities or comparable aspects between them. The task before us all is the peripheral perfusion between two extremes.
We are at the moment caught in a theoretical conundrum. Any sensible person would raise red flags and resist each of these extremes. Choosing between the APC-led government and the coalition of oppositions is like choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Even though there is a canvassing for a compromise.
But what happens when compromise leads us astray? When, in our desire to be fair and balanced, do we end up endorsing falsehoods or undermining essential truths? Are we not observing the same people, the same tactics, and the same strategy?
It was Edward Bulwer-Lytton who once said “Out of the ashes of misanthropy benevolence rises again; we find many virtues where we had imagined all was vice, many acts of disinterested friendship where we had fancied all was calculation and fraud–and so gradually from the two extremes we pass to the proper medium; and, feeling that no human being is wholly good or wholly base, we learn that true knowledge of mankind which induces us to expect little and forgive much.”
Does “The river of truth flow between the banks of the extremes” as postulated by one author? This and many more shall be revealed as we journey towards 2027.
We don’t yet know who will fly the flag of the coalition, yet some naysayers have already dismissed it as a destructive group. Ironically, they admit that the APC is bad, yet they oppose creating a competitive space to challenge a party that has brought untold hardship to Nigerians. This is the burden of dualism.
As a philosophical principle, the unity and struggle of opposites are prominent in human nature and conflict. Consider. Perception is the outcome of a struggle between opposing forces–the powers of reality bearing upon us and our outward-directed perspective-between opposing vectors. Reality itself is a complex of opposing powers struggling toward manifestation. However, what aggravates the Nigerian situation is the ‘we versus them’ syndrome. It is the deception that the masses buy into cheaply.
Life itself is a struggle of opposites toward realization. Harmony is a balance among such opposites. For society, the struggle is the balancing of powers among people–the manifest determination of their interests, capabilities, and wills: the harmony is the structure of expectations. Thus, the conflict helix, the process of balancing, balance, disruption, and balancing, is a unity of opposites through which society changes and evolves. Conflict transforms itself into harmony and harmony into conflict; war into peace and peace into war. Both are aspects of the same process, an inseparable unity in our psychological and social fields.
Obviously, in conclusion, it is clear that it is not yet uhuru for the Nigerian suffering masses.