Contrast

Like yin and yang, we need at least two contrasting parts. Many things and situations may appear contradictory, but they can coexist — and the contrast between them is what gives each meaning.

Another way to express something similar is the saying about having a right hand and a left hand: a way of saying we need to be both hard and soft, strict and flexible, tight and loose. I also think of an accelerator and a brake. We should not always be speeding up — we could crash. But we should not always be pressing the brake either, because then we will not progress. I relate this to conservatives and progressives: right and left. We need both. We need that contrast. All changes cannot and should not happen too fast.

I think humankind is evolving and progressing, whilst at the same time taking steps back. But that is our design, our way of working — and it is part of nature. Our nature.

So the next time you think conservatives or progressives are idiots who should not exist, ask yourself: do we need them? They can be your children, your parents, any relative. And think about ourselves too — because we can be conservative about some things and progressive about others, just as we can be introverted and extroverted. Think of a scale from minus ten to ten — minus ten being pure progressivism, ten being pure conservatism. Nobody lives at the extremes. Most of us sit somewhere in the middle, and we move across that space depending on the question, the decade, the fear we carry that day.