Non-Absolutism and Understanding

"Only a Sith deals an absolute." 

-Obi Wan Kenobi

The most striking and profound philosophy I have ecountered recently is that of the Jainist concept of "Anekantavada" or "Non-absolutism."

It's a thinking principle of immense social, political, spiritual, and educational utility.

The Jains saw existence as infinitely or close to infinitely complex. As a result, they thought no person, worldview, or theory had the complete answers because no finite perspective on existence accounts entirely for the whole system.

"No one sees the whole picture."

To the Jains, there are no absolutes. It's not a matter of whether a philosophy, belief system, or person is right or wrong on matters with great complexity and uncertainty...in a sense they are neither and both.

In the philosophy of non-absolutism, the argument is that if you simplify complex things, you'll end up missing core variables that could factor into a clearer understanding. It's harder to predict, and harder to control something, when you don't account for all the variables.

 All it takes is one variable not accounted for to foil a plan or strategy or undercut an understanding.

The more complex a system is or a "thing" in general is, the more variables and factors it's gonna have, which makes absolutes in terms of statements, conclusions, or understandings all the more difficult to do with complexity.

It's like "spectrumizing a sphere." A two dimensional single line spectrum cannot even possibly come close to accounting for all the points and positions of a sphere and its complexity.

The reason "non-absolutism" is useful in a variety of ways is, in terms of ethics, it leads to the least judgement and condemnation. In terms of academia and education, it leads to intellectual humility and the stimulation of genuine curiosity.

In terms of belief it leads to a relatively healthy uncertainty that can prevent your mind from being hijacked by ideas and sucking you in to dangerous or destructive causes.

In terms of politics it can lead to a breaking down of barriers and respectfulness of those you disagree with, maybe enabling some serious compromise. Politics is, after all, a two dimensional sprectrumization that grossly oversimplifies a multidimensional complex system.

If you mitigate absolutes and absolutist thinking, you often neutralize the contention and conflict they can cause. You create a more open system with more open minds that acknowledge it's complexity.

Healing brokenness in a complex world and complex situations can only really be done with complex thinking that accounts for the plethora of variables that our world, and our lives have.

Non-absolutism can be summed up as "an optimistic uncertainty that accounts for complexity, where in terms of the truly uncertain aspects of existence we are neither completely right or completely wrong. It's just none of us see the whole picture."