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ecause it sees natural phenomena and the knowledge amassed
about it in the simple “black or white” terms. It is a
perspective that is authoritarian because it only conceives of
things in terms of “true or false,” “right or wrong,” “good or
evil,” and so on. It is a perspective that is severely
conservative because the essential natures of those polarized
contraries do not change, nor does the distance between them.
Because of all of this, then, anything that is foreign,
anomalous, or simply irresolute – anything that is uncertain –
is either ignored or denounced. And those realities or “truths”
that would willfully transgress against a status quo perspective
are deemed blasphemous. To put things simply, there is no
“both/and” of Peter Elbow’s in such a thusly constructed world:
only a resounding “either/or.”
It is not difficult to see the translation of this search
for certainty and the fundamental demeanor of perceiving and
conceiving it calls for in the traditions of what has been the
most defining influence upon Western Culture for well over twothousand
years now: Christianity. A black or white perception
of “truth” that is dogmatic because of its static nature and,
thus, that offers safety through a semblance of a control of
reality: it is all there with Christianity – at the very least,
Christianity of a very orthodox sort. But before I go any
further, however, I want to make something very clear: this is
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