​Dualitites in the Garden of Eden

Dualitites in the Garden of Eden

11/11/2015

One of the beautiful things about psychoanalytic thinking has always been that we need to look beneath the behavior to find the motivation, and then the meaning. Multiple meanings are possible -- in fact, usually necessary. I have been reading Lewis Aron’s article on the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Knowledge and musing about duality.

He writes about ‘radically ambiguous knowledge’; we need to be aware of the opposites inherent in the world. The blissful garden may be both good and bad -- good because it is so soothing, bad because we are not yet aware. The snake can be good or bad. He encourages learning and awareness but brings forth great suffering for mankind.

The psychoanalyst Eric Fromm interpreted the creation story as ‘good’, the symbol of mankind’s emerging from embeddedness to freedom. The esteemed Rabbi Soloveitchik, writing about the same time, saw it as more ‘bad’ -- as sinfulness involving lack of reciprocity and lack of limits.

Aron describes the story as both, and these complementary views can be held at the same time. We need to leave Eden and become free but in the context of limits and mutual respect for each other. One view balances the other so we don’t fall with a thud from the seesaw of life. Of course, we do fall constantly but hopefully can heal ruptures with this dual awareness.

As Aron points out, Martin Buber stated that knowledge of good and evil means an awareness of duality, of opposites inherent in all being in the world. This seems to me one of the bases of wisdom.

Aron, L. (2005). The tree of knowledge: Good and evil interpretations. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 15:681- 207.

3 Comments

Susan K

11/11/2015 02:51:49 pm

You provided a very interesting and valuable synthesis of ideas. How true that things in life, and life itself, is filled with inconsistencies, and we need to embrace both sides of the various coins in life. Thank-you for saying this in such a poetic manner.

Alexandra C

2/29/2016 11:40:38 am

Does Lewis Aron's discussion of the good and bad in the world, or the opposites relate at all to Melanie Klein's work? I think often of the "mature" depressive position in which the person does not have to split off the good from the bad and can hold both. In this case, it seems like the bad does not refer so much to what we not yet aware of (though it could be, of course, if we are defending against it). It's all very interesting.

Leanne Domash link

3/6/2016 04:36:13 am

Hi Alexandra,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful commentary. Yes, I can see how Aron’s emphasis on duality is related to Klein’s depressive position -- defined loosely as the ability to integrate feelings of love and hate toward the same person, originally the mother, which then leads to mourning and the wish to repair any negative attacks. In fact, if one has achieved the depressive position, then this ability discussed by Aron to grasp duality should follow. Both are an acceptance of opposites and an appreciation of intensely mixed feelings. A rich and thought-provoking connection!