Misleading Dualities

- Collective/Individual: This duality is often used to suggest that the interest of an individual is positioned against the interests of a collective body. Such conflicts can exist, to be sure, but the idea of an individual as separate and distinct from a group -- the "self-made man" -- is an illusion. An individual can only develop and come into being through his/her participation in a larger collective. And vice-versa: the collective an only come into being through individuals. In other words, the two are conjoined and interdependent, not polar opposites and separate. We try to underscore this idea through the idea of the Nested-I and Ubuntu-Rationality.

- Consumer/producer. Standard economics generally sees consumers and producers as a dyad relationship: a business produces, an individual consumes. But as commons and open networks empower individuals to self-provision for themselves (individually and collectively), the duality between the two functions is blurring. Some speak of individuals who function as a "prosumer," blending production and consumption in one process. This coinage has its value, perhaps, but it still puts the discussion on an economic, materialistic plane -- production and consumption of goods -- rather than seeing that more is going on than resource-modifications and distribution. The commons paradigm points to a larger range of human sensibility and activity than "prosumer."

- Cooperation/competition: These two terms are often posed as opposites. But evolutionary scientists and anthropologists note that the two are often quite interrelated; species tend to have symbiotic relationships that entail both competition and cooperation, depending upon the circumstances. Even economists have noted such dynamics in corporate marketplaces as companies both compete and cooperate in ever-changing ways,

- Objective/subjective: In modern life, these two modes of perception and understanding are taken as opposites. The "objective" can be quantified and measured, and it is a hard, immutable fact of "reality" -- whereas the "subjective" is merely one person's emotional reactions, feelings, mood, and intuition. The former is seen as real, the latter as unreliable and transient. However, neurologists and behavioral scientists and economists have shown that the separation between objective and subjective is largely a fiction. The commons paradigm seeks to reintegrate the "objective" and "subjective."

- Rational/irrational: This duality is a variant of the "objective" vs. "subjective" one noted above. The "rational" is supposedly "objective," while the "irrational" is merely personal and "subjective." The presumption is that non-rational (i.e., qualitative, emotional, spiritual, intuitive) modes of understanding are not to be trusted, or at least confined to "private" spheres of life (family, community). The "rational" is associated with public life (and men and boys) while the "irrational" has been associated with private life (and women and girls).

- Public/private: This familiar dichotomy reflects the premise of modern industrial societies that government and markets are separate and somewhat oppositional. The government is supposedly the force for "public" purposes, and the market is supposedly "private" (even though the "Invisible Hand" of "free markets" is cast as the engine of public purpose). However, contemporary politics has demonstrated just how closely allied the state and market truly are, such that any disagreements pale in comparison to their strong commitment and allegiance to a worldview based on market capitalism. Thus debates that revolve around an opposition between "public" and "private" fail to consider a broader, larger array of possibilities based on noncapitalist forms of order.

- Pluralism is often taken as social virtue because the speaker claims to tolerate and accept alternative views on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, etc. But acceptance of pluralism within a liberal state, which has normative expectations about social aspirations and attitudes toward market society, is very different than welcoming a pluriverse / pluriversal, which implies a recognition of multiple ways of being in the world without a shared allegiance to the market/state.