More on centers and binaries

by Seth Warren

Christianity, not surprisingly, is one clear example of both a mother (a source) and a daughter (a product) of this paradigm: God of course being the prototype of a fixed center, and (take your pick) the spirit/flesh dichotomy, for example, being a binary opposition at work in this scenario.

Certainly forming binary oppositions and center-posing is at the very root of our perception of the world (and perhaps in some ways necessarily so). Anytime we open our mouths we rely, in order to discuss anything at all, on the accepted slash-words: man/woman, good/evil, civilized/primitive, inside/outside, life/death . . .

There are two primary characteristics of (and two primary problems with) binaries. The first is that they are never of equal status, but always imply that one is somehow lesser than the other. Notice that the slash is slanted, it looks as if one term has the upper hand, squelching the other, and this seemingly insignificant slight of slant carries over into our mode of thinking about such matters. Typically the domineering term is in fact the first written and thus becomes the privileged oppressor. Only a hyphen coup d'etat might offer a kind of linguistic resolution.

The second problem is that we allow the slash too much power, we believe it to be impervious, we are fooled into thinking it is a real wall, and that the words on either side then, are external to each other, when in fact they are intertwined, indistinct, commingling, interdependent even, in short, at play.

For a deconstructive (i.e. slash-buckling) look at The Simpsons click here.