Deep Dive: Causes

Philosophical foundations of the separation between self and other

The separation between self and other is an example of a dualistic worldview based on binary oppositions. Something is defined in opposition to what it is not: e.g. self is not other; humans are not nature, etc. Western cultural constructs rely on binary oppositions (e.g self/other, nature/culture, rational/emotional, man/woman, modern/primitive, developed/undeveloped, advanced/backward, etc) to establish shared cultural meaning.

This form of binary thinking is attributed to Enlightenment thinker Descartes and his separation of body and mind (Cartesian dualism) in the 17th century. This was further developed in the Scientific Revolution through Isaac Newton’s metaphor of the world as a mechanical system and idea of fundamental existence of a positivist, objective world made by discrete ‘things’. 

Various western and Indigenous philosophies have critiqued this dualism. These philosophers favour Non-Dualism and Monism: Monism holds that reality is fundamentally a single, unified whole, while Non-Dualism highlights the deep interconnectedness of everything, transcending the idea of separation and binary distinctions. Postmodernist philosopher Derrida explores how in western thinking, one term is always given a more privileged position than its opposite (“the logic of the negative other”)  (Derrida, 1978). Post-Humanist philosophers such as Rosi Braidotti, Karan Barad and Donna Harraway are anti-dualist. They advocate for life-centric (or, “Zoe”-centric) cultures – centering life in all its forms (both human and non-human beings, seen and unseen, for example, animals, plants, fungi and rivers.). Many contemporary Indigenous and Ancient perspectives are non-dualist and monist. Examples include Advaita Vedanta Hindu philosophy, European thought, e.g. pre-Christian Celtic worldviews and the monism of 17th century Enlightenment philosopher Spinoza. Indigenous and other Animistic communities practice various non-dual philosophies. Examples include Buen Vivir, and Comunalidad in Abya Yala (Latin America), Ubuntu in Africa, Eco-Swaraj in India, Mitakuye Oyasin on Turtle Island (USA) and Interbeing globally.

References & further reading:

Read more about Post-Humanism:
Latour, B. (2012). We have never been modern. Harvard university press;
Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the Trouble. Duke University Press;
Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway. Duke University Press;
Braidotti, R, (2013) The Posthuman, Polity (or see a summary of her book: part one and two); Read about:  new materialism (on Global Society Theory);
Ladha, A and Akomolafe, B, (2017) Perverse particles, entangled monsters and psychedelic pilgrimages: Emergence as an onto-epistemology of not-knowing. Ephemera Journal.

Read more about  philosophies of “transcendence” (in which ​​existence is divided into different realms, with one ruling over the other – e.g. European’s “transcended” above everything else) and how to move beyond this:
Postmodern philosophies of immanence in which all things share the same realm (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988);
Derrida, Jacques., 1978. Writing and difference. University of Chicago press;
Morrison, T., 1994. Playing in the dark: Whiteness and the literary imagination. New York: Vintage;
Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Bloomsbury Publishing, 1988.
See Theory at a Glance: False Dichotomies (A simple overview of binary/dualistic ways of thinking).