Good Reads

Shrew as Serpents, Guileless as Doves

"Abel-dominant types see themselves as high-minded idealists, mystics, artists, and see the Cain types as crass, materialist philistines, as clever manipulators and game players who care nothing for truth and beauty, but only for a thing's cash value. The Cain types, who see themselves as worldly wise and sophisticated, see the Abel types as life's losers, naive hippies, rigid ideologues, easily manipulable fools with their heads in the clouds. William James in The Will to Believe talks about the same split in personality types in his description  as "hard-headed" realists and "soft-hearted" idealist psychological types. And so, Steinbeck suggests, the ideal is to be both--hard-headed serpents and soft-hearted doves."  

"The task for Cain types is to integrate the recessive part of them that is dove-like, and for Abel types to integrate the recessive part of them that is serpent like. Steinbeck's narrative suggests that the degree of our success or failure as moral beings depends on the degree to which each of us effects this integration...The fundamental moral task is not to surrender to one or the other side, but the struggle to live in the tension between them, and in doing so to effect their marriage."

Interesting reflection on the duality that exists within our own personas. Much of this rang true for me, being by nature more of an "Abel" type myself. Definitely worth a read.