The heart responds to group interests and the eye to contrast. That neither is much use without the other is evidenced by spiritually sterile visions, on the one hand, and obtusely earnest people on the other.
War furnishes clear examples of both problems. In war there are always many whose effective attitude is “my country, right or wrong” and such allegiance is mindfully open to compromise with evil. When this comprise is effected there is either, or both, failure to register contrast (eye) or group interest (heart).
The first case, eye failure, is illustrated by earnest Nazi soldiers, failing to discriminate fact from propaganda as they sacrificed for their families and country in response to a group interest of fighting the allies.
The second case, heart failure, is illustrated by Hitler, who was not so blinded by propaganda yet failed to respond to a wider group interest of peace among nations.
Corresponding to these two modes of failure, eye and heart, are two modes of teaching, eye and heart doctrine. Which of the two is most appropriate naturally depends on which liability to failure is greatest. For instance, eye doctrine is appropriate for mystics, who are otherwise carried away by whatever seems most impressive, and heart doctrine is appropriate for clear and independent thinkers who are more liable to hubris.
These doctrines are naturally related to philosophical monism and dualism. The contrast registered by the eye depends on duality, and the group interest registered by the heart depends on synthesis of being, the unity behind plurality.
It is important to be mindful that every practical recognition of contrast or group interest (duality or synthetic unity) is relative.
Nazi soldiers whose hearts were in their fighting still had twinges, and perhaps most could see that not everything they were told was true.
Conversely, Hitler was blind to many imports of karma, yet retained heart activity fortified by group strength via his close associates and the life of the hijacked German nation.
The relativity of eye and heart doctrines and their corresponding dualism and monism is just as significant in abstract philosophy as it is in any particular psychological and sociological contexts.
For instance, many who dislike Western materialism are inspired by Eastern traditions to imagine that a solution is monism.
Yet Western philosophical (or derivative) materialism is already a monism, and reflects most of the benefits and liabilities of monism.
These benefits include a due sense of relativity based on the fact that all things share a common origin and underlying processes, a resulting conviction that nothing is completely and inherently evil, and that we must avoid superstition, etc.
The chief liability of monism without dualism is incapacity to sustain any coherent system of values, due to its homogeneous relativism which excludes any generally valid contrasts.
The biological imports of the eye and heart provide analogy for the complimentary necessity of dualism and monism; these work together and conflict only superficially.
Moreover, irrespective of which doctrine the individual profits most by, the fact that they profit from any doctrine at all ensures that either alone would be unbalanced.
Such need for balance is even more applicable to groups, movements and epochs, since these are composed of individuals of various types and stages of development.
Consistent dualism and monism are both cultural necessities, for the following two reasons among others.
Negating monism posits an absurdly fractured universe.
To assert itself against dualism, a monism must abortively partake of it.
The latter often implicitly occurs when speaking pertinent truth is censured as disrupting unity (notwithstanding that it sometimes excessively does).
Love is not a blindness, exclusive interest, pleasantry, or mawkish suppression of friction.
Nor is it a bundling of people with compatible idiosyncrasies, or a movement to revolutionise the world without engaging minds.
Fantasy, despair and inertia are common responses to today’s challenges. These are typical results of excluding either monism or dualism, whether mindfully or not. Better results attend more expansive, sound and integrated perspectives.
