In the works we have done up till now, we've talked a lot about opposites. The basic idea being: if you define something, you've defined its opposite. "Is and Isn't produce each other" or When you recognize X, unX is born. It sounds nice, but it's not sitting well with me. All these clear cut boundaries, black v. white definitions. . . the world is full of gray area, abstracts. You can try and pigeonhole all ideas and concepts systematically. . . but it just won't work. There's an endless series of exceptions , lines are blurring everywhere and it can leave you more lost than when you started.
Take "love". We say the opposite of Love is Hate. Really? So unLove is Hate? I thought unLove was the absence of love. So is that it's opposite? The lack of love? Well that's not very polar. . .but wait. . .Hate lacks love. . .so are they both opposites? What makes "hate" the opposite of love anyway? What are we talking about, are we talking about passionate anger, or something evil, how extreme should you go? If you talk about them as only emotions (I'm not sure you can define them like that), then what? You can't use the word in the definition so it starts getting hazy. Hate is angrier than love I guess? Where to from here?
I'm not even sure if I know exactly what "opposite" means when talking about abstract ideas. It's even hard with concrete ideas. . .the opposite of 2 is -2. . . or is it un2. . . which would be 0?. . . Maybe thats a stretch, but if you go back to the abstract. . .what if you get away from the easily polarized concepts (love/hate, happiness/sadness) and get more vague.
What I am opposing here, is not the basic idea that when you define one thing, you define what it is not. I am opposing that a) all these things can be defined. and b) the idea of a concrete opposite
We try to apply our systems of measurement and our categorization on everything. . .
but sometimes you have to just step back. . . take a breath. . . and at least acknowledge that the world is not black and white, sometimes human expression isn't capable of expressing what we try to define, not in the way some want to anyway.
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Elliot I agree with you. Our world is not black and white. Hate might not necessarily be the total oppposite of love and etc...
One thing I found interesting throughout our readings is that Nietzsche uses that words bad and good which are polar opposites. What I find interesting is that Nietzshe does not specifically tell us what is bad or good. He tells us what society thinks is good and what Christianity tells us is good. I think he does this on purpose to make us think deeper past the black and white. This way we can realize that not everything in our world is black and white like we would wnat it to be.
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