Two story thinking

Western thinking is rooted in a Hebrew/Christian and Greek Worldview. It’s like a house of two stories. The second story is “reality.” “God, first principals, objectivity” and abstract ideas like “society,” “perspective” “worldview” and “social justice” occupy the second story.

The first story is everyday life. This is where people live. On the first story Western people experience “examples” of the “real” stuff in the second story. Of course the mundane is a kind of “reality,” but it is experienced “subjectively.” Westerners believe that, by developing abstractions and thinking within them they may “transcend” the first story and “subjectivity.” I believe that this is the fundamental Western way of thinking. Two story thinking. Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, the authors of Scripture and virtually all Western philosophers and intellectuals reflect this kind of thinking in what they propose about “reality.” This is also how I think.

In Chinese cultures (in the tradition of the “Three Ways” – Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism) people occupy only a single story. Everything that is “real” is right here, all around us (whether or not we are aware of it). This is what I have been studying and observing here in Vietnam.

I used to think that the two story way of thinking is essential to thought; that it underlies Scripture. “Principals” were more important to me than “stories.” (But Scripture is mostly stories.) St. Paul seems to make this distinction: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator…. ” That is, they worshiped the “creation” (first story) rather than its Creator (second story). But he also wrote, “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” So God exists within His creation. Everyone everywhere knows about Him!

Of course one story thought includes “abstractions.” First story “abstractions” are inductions; second story thought deducts the first story from the second. For example, “heaven” is central to Confucian ethics. (Some translate it “God.”) But it’s not “up there;” it’s right here!

I think in two stories. My ideas are so abstract that often people have no idea what I am talking about. This is how I do it. (1) I observe the phenomena surrounding me and try to summarize my experience with abstract concepts. (2) I take the abstractions I’ve induced (like “two story thought”) and try to figure them out. This may take moments or years. (3) When I’m satisfied with my analysis, then I apply what I’ve discovered back to the mundane. (4) Some of my explanations won’t work. So I try to discover why they don’t, and begin the cycle again. I have written it as a linear process; in reality I do all of these “steps” at the same time. This paragraph is an example!

What might work for thinking is devastating for moral calculation. If “Christians” are indeed the people of the Truth, then why do they behave so badly? I believe that it is because virtue must have only a single story. In this culture there is no such thing as “virtue.” There are only virtuous people. I’ll write about that next time.