[MD] If you find dichotomies immoral

[Platt Holden]

Hi All:

Every once in awhile someone on this site gets slammed for suggesting a 
dichotomy (right/wrong, good/evil, white/black) or as it is termed in 
academe, "binary thinking." A wonderfully funny article on this subject can 
be found at:

http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=0d88916qty2kc0t0b0gn0bsz1fmdjp7k  

With tongue in check, the author points out that: "Binary logic structures
the very computers on which most attacks on binary logic are composed."
He blames the assault on dichotomies on an academic "cult of complication," 
and suggests, "Perhaps it is time to return to Ockham's principle of 
parsimony, his so-called razor: 'Plurality is not to be posited without 
necessity.' "

The author is a professor of history, adding credibility to his mocking of 
academic devotion to "elevating confusion." Puncturing the "dichotomies are 
bad" balloon he points out that "some binary distinctions are worth 
recognizing if not celebrating, like the distinction between pregnant and 
not pregnant."   

Platt