Being Binary
How the binary nature of human creation shapes our stories and our cultures.
The diversity of how humans express our masculinity or femininity is vast. But there is one thing we all have in common: Binary creation. As our society discusses ideas of gender, it’s important to understand how and why our binary views are so deeply imbedded in our culture.
Suppose you needed to describe something to a friend. This thing you needed to describe was like nothing you had ever experienced prior. How could you get your point across? How could you relay what it was you experienced? In order to communicate the unknown, we must use language and categories that we do know. Hence the sweet sound of a clarinet or smooth jazz.We often describe the taste of an exotic meat in relation to chicken. When we don’t have words for what we experience, we relate the experience to something common that the receiver of our message would understand. The wider the distribution of that message, the more common that point of reference needs to be.
Thousands of years ago, as humanity began to use language to communicate, we were very limited in our knowledge of the objective world. As we discovered concepts and objects, then attempted to describe them, we needed a framework to do so. Imagine ancient humans trying to make sense of the world and relaying…
