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

[bookbear.livejournal.com]

X is also Chi as in Chi Ro, the Greek letters for CHR in Christ.

See, this is why LJ is a wonderful thing. I didn't know about this, and can now stand down my previously displayed defensive stance on the use of X. Cool, thanks.

I don't think I said God and devil weren't opposing forces, merely that if God created devil, then they're not on an equal footing. (Of course, if I did say they weren't opposing forces, then that was a mistake. Of course they are.)

[profundis.livejournal.com]

I suppose the abbreviation should really be written as "XPianity" in that case, but that could summon the scorn of the Mac-abees. *snort*

Rightio on the God/Devil thing. I can see how one might prefer tidy polar oppositions where each pair is totally equal and opposing, but thats more of a science/math/logic thing than what I was getting at in general with this whole post.

Me arteest rightie brain, ungawa.

[monarchprime.livejournal.com]

I think the God/Devil dichotomy isn't exactly "good" and "evil," but "submission to authority" and "rebellion," both of which were defined to correspond to "good" and "evil," respectively.

[bookbear.livejournal.com]

In the liner notes for Plague Mass, Diamanda Galas's music is refered to as "satanic", following an older translation of that word as one who rebels.

Etymology

[monarchprime.livejournal.com]

I love stuff like that; I could read the Oxford English Dictionary for HOURS!...I'm a geek, no?