mohel and manjushri
A dualistic understanding of politics has pervaded Western Civilization since its inception in the philosophy of hellenistic greece, specifically in Platonic philosophy and its allegorical representation of the relationship between scientific/philosophical knowledge and political power in terms of a cavern or cave which indicates an ontological and epistemological gap between two parties: 1) those who dwell in the cave and are unable to see the things themselves, as they exist on the surface, and 2) those who can leave the cave and see things with the illumination and enlightenment provided by the Sun. The illuminated initiates use their power to control the masses who dwell in the shadows of mere reflections. This dualistic understanding of political power is still at work in modernity, whether in Hobbes' concept of sovereignty, in Hegel's concept of the State, in the real and/or fictitious illuminati, and in the completely unrealistic politic that calls itself realpolitik. A nondual interpretation of political power would call for something entirely different (and this allusion to difference is not accidental; rather, it is indicative of a quasi-transcendental interval that cuts through duality -- the mohel and manjushri lend us their blades).