It is a rather beautiful myth that Eskimos have multiple words for snow. It is a great explanatory device that helps us to understand that there may be many more subtle variants of the same object or experience than our language would suggest, or that we may at first surmise. For example, there are many more kinds of Eskimo than we commonly have words for: Aleut, Sirenik, Yup’ik, Qawiaraq, Malimiutun, Inuinnaqtun, Natsilik, Kivalliq, and Aivilik to name a few.

It is a beautiful thought because it helps us unlearn one of our worst habits of thinking, the tendency to just assume that if something does not exist or behave in a particular way, then it has to exist or behave as it’s polar opposite. Aristotle was a student of Plato and a teacher of Alexander the Great, and Western thinking is deeply influenced by his rather binary approach to logic. “If it is not from God then it is from the Devil”, and “If you are not with us then you are against us” are two simple binary untruths that have grown from the seeds of Aristotle’s logic, and which deeply influence our lives today.

Not that long ago, during one of our power utility induced traffic debacles, I was trying to cross a rather busy and non-functioning traffic light. It was in fact a junction of two dual lane “one-way” streams of traffic. There were those of us heading East, and those heading North. In theory, it should have been a simple exercise. The northbound cars would let the front set of eastbound cars drive through while waiting patiently, and then the eastbound cars would wait for the northbound cars to have their turn. For a while it worked simply and easily with both streams of traffic moving forward at the same cooperative rate, a little like my mother’s knitting needles on a Friday night.

Then, one of the bastards heading North shot through the intersection by tailgating the car in front of him. I angrily resolved to do the same when I got to the front of the queue, easily grouping the northbound traffic as transgressors and the eastbound traffic as the victims of the transgression. Naturally, I wasn’t the only person with that peculiarly binary view of the humanity at that intersection that morning, and all hell broke loose. It was only when I had somehow passed through the metallic mêlée that I realized how easily fully half of all people present in that conjunction of space and time had become “opposing bastards” based purely on the fact that they happened to be travelling North.

I’m no psychologist, but I suspect that the ability to identify so easily with a group based on some arbitrary criteria is an instinctive trait that has grown with natural selection, all the way from the primordial slime. A group of creatures that operate with a common goal have a better chance of survival than a single creature might.

Sadly, it is this arbitrary cohesion that is perhaps the most important lubrication in the machinery of war…

Us and Them

And after all we’re only ordinary men

Me, and you

God only knows it’s not what we would choose to do

Forward he cried from the rear

and the front rank died

And the General sat, as the lines on the map

moved from side to side

Black and Blue

And who knows which is which and who is who

Up and Down

And in the end it’s only round and round and round

Haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words

the poster bearer cried

Listen son, said the man with the gun

There’s room for you inside

Down and Out

It can’t be helped but there’s a lot of it about

With, without

And who’ll deny that’s what the fightings all about

Get out of the way, it’s a busy day

And I’ve got things on my mind

For want of the price of tea and a slice

The old man died

Written by Richard Wright and Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd.