As I look for my “theory that explains everything” I see that there are two ways of knowing the causes of a problem: the mechanistic way and the organic way. The mechanistic way is the moral way of on/off thinking. It sees the first cause of disorder caused by the immoral individual. When the carburetor is bad you replace it. Case closed.

When it comes to life, the machine logic won’t work because there is no first cause in life. There is no first cause of a snowstorm. Conditions rise that create the storm, all rising at once.

So when it comes to life, you need to look at the condition of the whole body and not just picking out one part as the culprit. When that part is removed, the condition remains the same.

In the modern scientific materialism since the 17th century, the world was seen as a mechanism that can be fixed like a clock. This viewpoint being dominant as brought about Global Warming and the proliferation of new problems meant to fix old ones.

This mechanistic/moral thinking cannot solve problems like abortion, terrorism and mass shooting, or any other of the current social problems we are trying to fix.

On/off thinking is our dominant way of thinking, but there are other ways. Moralistic thinking is on/off thinking with values. On/off thinking is dualism. No matter what arises, you chop it into two opposites parts and they fight about how to put it back together buy more division. There is no end to the butchering with this way of thinking when applied to life. 

On/off thinking or its stepchild Moralistic Thinking is creating our American carnage where no matter what rises on the media it is cleaved into good versus evil, Right versus Left, so there is no solution, just the growing anger, and frustration the comes from a mechanic trying to fix an organism with a hammer. 

I’m suddenly reminded of my favorite commercial: You can’t lift the hammer, can. you son? 

The son is a programmer who is going to change the world by designing new programs. The father wants him to use a hammer, and the son cannot lift it. This is a metaphor for the Right versus Left way of thinking, both of which are valid when used in the right context. 

When it comes to bad guys in society that is a pattern, taking a hammer to them will not get rid of the pattern or the program that creates them. You have to understand the program or system in order to change the conditions that create patterns of problems. 

Life works in patterns. Nothing stands alone out of relationship with some kind of whole, context, background or pattern. Life is Russian Nesting Dolls or greater and greater wholes. 

When something doesn’t fit, you have to intuit the larger doll in which your doll fits. Analysis or on/off thinking cannot discover the larger doll in which your problem is nested.