some thoughts on binaries and empire

Hi dear people, it’s been a minute since I wrote to you. I have been awash, as all of are, in binaries lately — watching as they are used to justify the resource grabs of empire and attempted genocides.

It’s hard to write about binaries when they are this painful and obvious. I’m used to working with them, pointing them out, with a little bit of distance. But this past month has reminded me of the ways it can be difficult to pay attention to binaries, as they surround and shape us on the personal, interpersonal, and global scale all at the same time. And because, in service of empire and domination, they carry so much violence with them.

And so, because of this, this month’s email is pretty brief. There are just a couple of things on my mind I wanted to share:

Settler colonialism is one arm of empire. Wherever it exists, it requires and is rooted in binary approaches.

Empires love binaries because they justify horrific acts towards “bad people” in the name of safety and security. Binaries use all-or-nothing logic to justify violence: “We can only be safe if everyone is removed from X place, bombed out of existence, or dead” is binary thinking. The idea that violence creates safety, or that safety justifies violence, is a very deep way of thinking and moving that many of us have in our upbringings and cultures.

Binary thinking or approaches are an ideology, a culture-maker, not something particular to any kind of person. Anyone can use binary approaches. And, combined with state & military power, they can be especially violent and world-shaping.

I think that a subtler version of the violence of binaries shows up in the ways we’re taught to care about or look away from others’ suffering, based on any number of reasons. The act of turning away does violence to us, internally, and between us, as people are left to suffer alone.

Holding nonbinary approaches in such an intense binary climate will break your heart and scramble your brain. Sometimes this is how we know we are on to something different than what we have been taught.

Part of nonbinary approaches is wondering what is beyond the binds we’re currently in. Encouraging ourselves to dream and build the worlds beyond our current status quo. And when we ourselves can’t find these ways through the cracks in the binaries, leaning on the wisdom of those who have been in the struggle against empire for longer than we have. For me, one of those people is Arundhati Roy:

“The only dream worth having is to dream that you will live while you are alive, and die only when you are dead. To love, to be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of the life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.”

To all of us who are finding new ways to lay siege to the empire thinking within and without us. The cracks in the binary walls are always present, even and perhaps especially when they seem difficult to find.

Sending much love from the creeks,

Kali