Dualism
Related: opposition - dichotomy
Definition
The term dualism can refer to a variety of doctrines, mainly in theology and philosophy, each involving the purported existence of two substances ( often opposites) of some kind. These opposites can be, among other things, opposing forces, or opposing ontological or epistemic categories. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism [Feb 2006]Eros and Thanatos
[There is an interesting difference between Freud and Nietzsche that can be seen clearly here. Nietzsche's sole metaphysical commitment is the singular will to power, out of which everything else is spun --- all the more horrifying, then, that the singular life force itself can become responsible for so great a psychic catastrophe. Freud eventually commits himself to a duality --- eros and thanatos --- a constructive force and a destructive force. For Freud, all organisms represent a balance of these two forces and the changing weight of one versus the other explains the birth-and-death cycle of all life. Because social life cannot afford the outward violent thrust of thanatos, much of its energy is turned inward and constructively used to adjust behavior through the developing mechanism of repression and sublimation. In the cultivated individual, neither eros nor thanatos emerges except in highly sublimated forms. But in Freud, this "cultivation" does not have to lead to disastrous consequences such as an excess of self-hatred. For Freud, the "discontent" attached to all civilization is the inwardly directed pain and frustration of natural instinctive energies that makes all the good works of civilized life possible. Nietzsche, I think, agrees that civilized life is good --- with all of its mysterious depth and complexity --- but sees the Christian era as far more disastrous to individuals by projecting self-inflicted pain into enormous proportions. Nietzsche and Freud, after all, were dealing with entirely different clienteles --- Nietzsche with German Lutherans in general and Freud with the more limited phenomenon of hysteria. Freud certainly saw religion as a neurosis but he never followed it out to the depth that Nietzsche did.] --http://www4.hmc.edu:8001/Humanities/Beckman/Nietzsche/reading/Genealogy.htmlNew Flesh
Therefore Cronenberg breaks down the traditional binary oppositions between man and machine, creating a "new flesh" from the transmutation of the body. -- Rowan Laing, 2000Boring binaries
We are only really just beginning to realise the complexity of the levels of those boring old binary that we have inherited, boring old binaries machines. --Kodwo Eshun