Between

Is between inclusive or exclusive?

Dunno why that question just struck me, but I think in perceiving it as exclusive we may be making a mistake. I also think that between is exclusive in Western culture, but inclusive in Asian culture. Though I could be wrong.

I suppose I should acknowledge that the between I am referring to here is the between that is the social and the political. The thing is that the Western tradition puts the social as something that happens between people but is exclusive of those people the social is happening between. While Asian cultures are more like to think of the social that is between as inclusive of the people it is between.

These two models are significant in what they say about the social, the political, and how it is that people interact. And perhaps by thinking of between as exclusive of what the between is between, we are creating a socio-political situation that impedes communication and negatively influences personal involvement. In other words, we are defining the very sources of the between as not part of the between and thus something that stands apart from the process that is between.

Between, in the social sense, is really something that must be inclusive of those that it stands between, so that it does not stand apart from that which defines it, but rather those that define it stand together as a functioning unit of between. I don't mean this in the sense of traditional Asian cultures, because there are other flaws with the model there. Though between is inclusive it it functions to define those who define it, rather than just letting them define the between that is between them. As such, it may be an odd quasi-circumstance where between is both inclusive and exclusive, or is claimed as inclusive but functions as exclusive.

And I have no idea of where I am going with that, it is the just the germ of an idea.