Resolve Contradictions, Relish Paradoxes

Monday, 16 March 2026, 8:13 am
Opinion: Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Journalists often use the word “paradox” when they’re actually referring to a contradiction. It isn’t just semantic, because they are totally different things.

Indeed, the difference between a paradox and a contradiction is the difference between insight and understanding, and upholding conflict and confusion.

My definition of a philosopher is a person with a low threshold for contradictions, and a love of paradoxes. Contradictions are two things that are antithetical, whereas paradoxes are elegant truths.

Consider Trump's head-spinning contradictions. Yesterday a reporter asked him: “Mr. President, you’ve said the war is ‘very complete’ but your defense secretary says, ‘This is just the beginning’. So which is it?”

Trump’s eyes darted left and right then down. “Well, I think you could say both,” he replied.

There’s a method behind that madness. Trump believes the truth is whatever he says it is in the moment, and feels no need to respond honestly, or even coherently. And when he can’t have it both ways with a question, he automatically calls it “fake news.”

The report ended with the remark, “On taxes or tariffs or health care or war and peace, you literally can’t pin down what he’s going for. It’s a real paradox.”

No, it’s not a paradox; it’s a deliberate, if largely subconscious tactic of contradiction, with the purpose of speaking out of both his mouth and his arse so he can spew gas at any time, and reverse himself the next moment if he so desires.

There is a larger question: To what degree is Trump the ultimate manifestation of decades of New Age solipsism, embraced by Psychology Today as, “Your thinking creates your reality?”

The reality of the world, as contrasted with the actuality of nature, is generated by the human mind. Even so, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

So why do journalists need to understand the difference between a contradiction and a paradox? Because when they use these words with very different meanings synonymously, it not only confuses citizens, it increases the confusion around the issues.

A contradiction is defined as “a combination of statements, ideas, or features of a situation that are opposed to one another.” For example, the war with Iran is “very complete” and “just beginning.”

A paradox, on the other hand, is “a seemingly self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained proves to be well-founded or true.”

Contradictions need to be exposed and resolved; paradoxes are to be understood and appreciated. Incoherence and conflict are inherent in contradictions, whereas paradoxes are a bit like koans, prompting insights that go beyond verbal explanation.

In short, contradictions produce conflict and chaos, whereas paradoxes are clarifying and elegant.

To be human is to be faced with many contradictions, inwardly and outwardly. When a contradiction is resolved however, there is clarity and freedom.

Many people are ok with contradictions, but those who, like Trump, thrive on them are bad actors. But he's merely the tip of America’s black iceberg. The pathology isn't limited to his dissembling inner circle, such as Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary who “defends each of Trump’s changeable excuses with equal ferocity.”

Effectively the entire Republican Party, and his hard-core “base” of 35-40% of Americans (anything over 20% is not a political base, but a cultish following), trots along behind this morally and mentally deranged man, with progressives hanging breathlessly on each tiny dip in his approval ratings.

How did we come to this pass? What are the underlying conditions in the culture and body politic that gave rise to such a president, administration and government?

Much larger issues than America's decline are coming to a head however. The greatest unresolved contradiction is humankind’s relationship with nature.

Homo sapiens evolved within the seamless wholeness of nature like all other life, yet humans are fragmenting and destroying the Earth. Why is that, and can man’s increasing contradiction be resolved, philosophically and pragmatically? It cannot as long as scientists try to efface the contradiction between man and nature.

Homo sapiens is different from all other animals, since all other animals live within ecological niches on this planet. Man is the creature that broke the bonds of ecological niche through the evolution of symbolic thought, enabling us to adapt and exploit every environment on earth except Antarctica.

Our adaptiveness is both the source of our immense success and increasing failure as a species. Success because the human species exploits all environments, and has technologically developed to the point that there are plans to mine the moon. Failure because we have depleted and fragmented the earth to the breaking point through greed and lack of insight into ourselves.

The evolution of thought gave us the unparalleled power to consciously separate and recombine reified things in our environments. But failing to be self-knowing and understand the basic illusion of thought, we alienated ourselves from nature and divided ourselves from each other, generating innumerable wars.

With sufficient insight, man’s existential contradiction resolves into a compassionate paradox. Then we'll be done with malevolent leaders, and emerge from this darkest night of humanity's soul.

Martin LeFevre

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Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Scoop Contributor

Martin LeFevre is a contemplative and philosopher.

His sui generis “Meditations” explore spiritual, philosophical and political questions relating to the polycrisis facing humanity.

lefevremartin77@gmail