Dualism

Are you a cat person, or a dog person?

If asked that question, I'd normally answer 'cat' - that was until either Boof or Nano (I suspect Boof) dragged a dead pidegon into our house at 5AM and left it outside our bedroom door, whereupon Quine, my husband, trod on it with bare feet. This has made me a temporary swing voter.

Prior to living with Boof and Nano, Quine was entirely a dog person. Nowadays, he's about a 50-50 split; or perhaps 60-40, seeing as the cats are here, while his childhood dog is in another state. Stretch that to 70-30, when Boof, endearing black fellow that he is, falls asleep on his chest; maybe even 80-20, if Nano does something cute. But switch those numbers around again, if we go to visit Gus.

That's the trouble with dualistic pidgeonholes. They just aren't helpful.

The cat-person, dog-person divide is a common example. Should one answer that they like both cats and dogs equally, they are accused of fence-sitting. A reply to the effect of being a horse-person, rabbit-person, budgie-person or mouse-person is frowned upon as a non-sequitur. Socially, we like nice, clean distinctions. Two categories is preferable; three or more is considered unwieldy. Tea or coffee? Personally, I drink hot chocolate instead of either. Result: raised eyebrows. Gay or straight? If someone answers 'bisexual,' it's considered a cop-out, even if it happens to be true. The assumption is that they're either ashamed to be gay, or straight and wanting to sound more exotic. Result: scoffs of derision. League or Union? Actually, I don't care about either. Result: filthy stare more commonly reserved for Milton Orkopoulos. Labor or Liberal? Not the only two parties, but people mislike being told that while you're going to vote for Kevin Rudd, you've actually got more in common with the Greens, and wouldn't it be nice if some bright young thing reformed the Democrats? Result: glazed expression, audience falls to floor, insensate.

At school, the schism was Maths and English. You picked sides early on: declaring for both was unheard-of, while favouring neither meant you were stupid, delinquent or both. And it wasn't just the students who thought so. After I made my English preferences clear, a succession of Maths teachers took this to mean that even though I was bright, their efforts at knowledge transferral were better spent elsewhere. I saw the same thing happen to Maths kids in English classes. Even among society's adults - parents and non-parents alike - the idea that you're either language or maths-oriented is treated not so much as suspicion, but fact. Hence the stereotyping at university: Arts students can't count higher than twenty, and Engineers struggle with more than three words per page.

At a glance, it's hard to say whether Western religion has provided a cultural context for these black-and-white divides, or if it simply sat well with something older. No matter your background, good and evil are ancient notions, reflective of other naturally occuring dualities: light and darkness, night and day, sun and moon, male and female. But even though some of these distictions are absolute, others are more blurred, with plenty of grey to explore.

When circumstances dictate that we draw a line in the sand between good and bad, the disputed ground becomes nonexistant, growing again when we have the luxury of leeway. And it's important to remember that you can't have the grey without the extremes: there's no such thing as a middle point without something on either side. But when it comes to the small things - cats or dogs, tea or coffee, Ray Martin or Kerry O'Brien - we could stand to ease up a little and let a few third alternatives through to the keeper.

Yes or no?