The Field of Opposites

[profundis]

Recent discussions on some friend's LJ's have me ruminating on Joseph Campbell's writings on the Field of Opposites - the polarized reality in which we live - with its day/night, hot/cold, male/female, good/evil etc pairs of opposing forces.

Rich/poor, black/white, law/chaos, up/down, liberal/conservative,gay/str8, North/South, East/West, left /right...the list goes on and on.  Of course you *can* divide up the zillions of physical and mental phenomena into other arrangements but doesn't it seem that the biggest movements and forces in society tend to fall back on this pole /opposite pole axiom at least as abstract ideals if not concrete manifestations?

Seems like the most powerful and often the most violent conflicts are about thing / anti-thing.  Us/them, communist / capitalist, Jew/Arab, insider /outsider, Democrat / Republican, commoner /royal, nurture /nature, socialist /individualist...

Obviously some of those are not objective opposites and there are spectrums of grey between the blacks and whites but the blacks and whites are there, if only as conceptual paragons that spur and motivate people's actions.

Doesn't it seem it always comes down to this sort of thing?  Even macrocosms like "Four Elements" and "16 Temperaments" are essentially subdivisions of two.  Even the Trinity concept of Christianity still boils down to God / Devil in everyday usage.

I wonder if this is because we have left and right brains...dual-sided symmetry in our biology?

Comments

[johnjohn20.livejournal.com]

Your intellectual thinking only makes you so much hotter......I want you so bad! lol (no really)

Anyway, the Chinese believe in dynamic opposites called Yin/Yang. I think you have heard of it ;) But the point of the dynamic opposites is to come together to create balance. Actually the Greeks also believe in harmony balance as evidenced in their architecture - not too much and not too many. Anyway, in summary, I think of it as balance.

[profundis.livejournal.com]

Oh yes I should have included Yin/Yang most definitely, just slipped my mind. They also have the 5 element thing, which I think is pretty cool because it isnt static and even like the classical Western 4 element model. THat's one way to beat the Yes/No polarity I reckon - odd numbers.

[bookbear.livejournal.com]

The "opposites" working together, not against each other, right? Without the one, there can not be the other. They are the thing that helps define their "opposite." We can not wipe out evil, because then there would be nothing to show as good.

[profundis.livejournal.com]

Many of these pairs work together *by* working against one another. It seems paradoxical, but a balance of opposition can still be balance...if a tumultuous one. I tend to like the idea of the overall balance being the unity that supercedes the dualities. I think that's what johnjohn20 was getting at.

[monarchprime.livejournal.com]

I think too, it stems from herd mentality. When herd animals (which we were to a degree in our genetic past) group together for protection, we automatically see anything else out there as "not us." Hence the dichotomy is formed.