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

[mjollnir.livejournal.com]

Simplification and generalization is a survival instinct. To be honest, I can't remember whether I picked up that tidbit in a psych class or out of a fantasy novel, but as an opinion I think it's pretty straightforward and accurate.

I disagree that duality has anything to do with right-and-left brains. There are a whole bunch of numbers out there that are just as popular (in some cultures more than other) than two. Three, for instance. Maiden/mother/crone, father/mother/child, grandparent/parent/grandchild, earth/sea/sky (which also extends into many nations' armed forces), morning/afternoon/night, past/present/future, body/mind/spirit, underworld/world/overworld, the triangle...three is just as powerful a number.

There's also "nothing"--nirvana. "Four"--fire/water/earth/air, north/south/east/west, left-right/back/forward, the four-pointed star, the cross, the fyflot (aka swastika), black/white/red/yellow (the native american colours), and the four seasons. "Five"--earth/air/sky/fire/spirit, or the same thing except 'wood' instead of spirit in the Orient.

"Two" is just one of a number of sacred numbers, with all the examples you presented and more. However, I think part of its power is in its description of opposites, which brings it into the 'simplification' thing it took me so long to tie into. "Us and them" is pretty much the most simple and the most primal set of opposites, which is the chief argument for 'simple is a survival instinct'. When opposites are presented as a choice, the better choice is obviously the one best suited for survival. "Food or hunger", "warmth or freezing", "fight or flight"...I think the duality you're talking about is because our need for simplification makes 'either/or' choices the easiest, and 'easiest' generally means a greater chance for survival. I don't think it has to do with left and right brains, if for no other reason than because we're certainly capable of decisions with more than two options.

[mjollnir.livejournal.com]

I should hasten to add, now that I think about it, that I'm positive having right and left brains does affect our thinking...I just think it's coincidence we have two halves of a brain and most pairs come in two. :)

[profundis.livejournal.com]

ROFL! Oh! Well I guess I should have read this first. LOL

But...pairs come in twos by definition, bud. ;) That much at least is not a coincidence. :D

[profundis.livejournal.com]

Thanks for expanding the discussion. Yes I know the other numbers have their say too ;) Although Maiden/mother/crone and Youth/father/sage simplfy nicely into Man/Woman...and grandfather/father/grandchild sounds tidy but isn't really since the string of "greats" in front of grand could go on ad infinitum.

But your points are well taken - however I think I should clarify just in case I was coming across too deterministic - I don't think we MUST choose in terms of duality, only that we have a tendency to boil concepts down into dualities - many of which are some of the most fundamental and powerful concepts that drive us as a species.

I think its no coincidence that we seem to like base-10 numbering so much when we have 10 fingers and 10 toes - especially the fingers - our primal primary tools are base 10 by default (barring accident or deformity) so I don't think its much of a stretch for us to tend to look for dualities.

I think the either/or simplification you mention might be a good example of that sort of thing at work. Not that one choice is left and one choice is right brained - but that these types of fundamental divisions in conceptualizaition being dual due to the architecture of that which is doing the thinking.