I have a confession to make. I finished reading the first volume of The Matter with Things about a month ago, and I took a break from reading more of it. I finally got around to continuing, and I read chapter twenty. When I got to the end and turned to the next chapter—chapter twenty-one—, it dawned on me that volume I ended at chapter nine. I had inadvertently skipped volume II and began volume III. Oopsie. I’m lucky it wasn’t a novel, having skipped ten chapters.
Since I’ve read it, I might as well summarise it, Spoiler alert: there are no spoilers to alert. As this chapter is more about exposition and colour, this summary will be much shorter than the summaries of the first volume. I don’t know if this will be a continuing trend. We’ll find out together.
This chapter is labelled the coincidentia oppositorum, the coincidence of opposites. Effectively, the chapter wants to impart three main points.
Symmetry
Firstly, asymmetry is the norm. Symmetry is the exception. We perceive things in opposites. This brings attention to bear. Line straight lines, symmetry does not exist in nature. It is something the left hemisphere perspective approximates. No face is symmetrical; planets are not symmetrical. In fact, if one manipulates an image of a face and mirrors one side as both to appear as a face, it becomes obvious that something is amiss.
Excess
The Ancient Greeks had a penchant for moderation. Buddhists have the Middle Path. Everything is poisonous in large enough quantities. Even poisons can be therapeutic at low doses. The point is to retain this perspective.
To be or not to be…or both
This is not about Schrodinger’s cat. We need to break ourselves of the habit of thinking in opposites. Not everything is a dichotomy—black and white. Some things are black and white—and not just a draughts board. McGilchrist opens the chapter with a nice Iriqois about two brothers who were seeming opposites but were nonetheless necessary. In a manner, this is the good versus evil story. Opposition strengthens us. Trees raised in a windless environment don’t have the strength of natural-grown trees.
This story is encapsulated in a story told by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.
A faithful man finds in the scriptures that Rabbi X said that a certain thing was true. Later he finds that Rabbi Y said that the very same thing was false. He prays for guidance: ‘Who is right?’ God answers: ‘Both of them are right.’ Perplexed, the man replies: ‘But what do you mean? Surely they can’t both be right?’ To which God replies: ‘All three of you are right.’
In the chapter summary, McGlichrists ends with this:
Just as there is an asymmetry in the relationship of the hemispheres, there is an asymmetry in the coincidentia oppositorum. We need not just difference and union but the union of the two; we need, as I have urged, not just non-duality, but the non-duality of duality with non-duality; and we need not just asymmetry alone, or symmetry alone, but the asymmetry that is symmetry-and-asymmetry taken together.
Summary
As I mentioned at the start, this is a short summary. I really enjoyed this chapter and its lessons. It’s nice to be reminded of such things. This extends to the asymmetry of the hemispheres of the brain. As much as I don’t appreciate the imbalance of the left hemisphere in Modernity, I need to be reminded that we just need to tweak the dial a tab to the right. We don’t need the right hemisphere operating at eleven, to share a reference to Spinal Tap.
Philosophics 