Beyond Good and Evil: Destroying the Binaries, Banishing Shame and Recreating Our World [aka: a lengthy commentary in honor of my 50th birthday]
In the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, one definition of dichotomy is “ a division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities.” The term often gets used interchangeable with “binaries” or “binary opposition.” Though there are differences, I will be using the terms somewhat interchangeably (my apologies to queer theorists, anthropologist, philosophers and many friend). I especially want to focus on the concept of “binary oppositions,” where the guiding the assumption is that there exists a pair of terms that are seen as opposites and that there is a clear distinction between the two. Not only that, but that societal “norms” (especially race, gender, sexuality, etc.) tend to determine which one of the two opposites is viewed as the dominant (or preferable, in my opinion) pole. Dividing the world into dichotomies or binaries leads to “black and white thinking.” Something is bad or good, pleasant or painful, hot or cold. Someone