Examples Of Dichotomy

Dichotomies as false reflections of reality: Scholars also argue that dichotomies are not concrete reality but rather assumptions and metaphors which hardly correlate with the reality, which is fluid and in which such fixed concrete categories are rarely found (Barbe 2001, Eckel and Weber 2007). Katharina Barbe (2001) suggest that there is a serious need to re-evaluate dichotomies before their repeated use since its use can lead us to misconceive “relationship between opposing hypothesis” (Wilkins 1982: 22 cited in Barbe 2001). In the case of the North-South divide, Julian Eckl and Ralph Weber argue that such divisions tend to simplify issues of global inequality in two categories, wherein both the practitioners and analysts start treating

This engenders the sexual difference through such dichotomised stereotypes (Jay 1981, Tickner 1997, Peterson 1997). Jay suggests that dichotomy of either/or resist change as this has a tendency of turning blind eye to the possibility of “alternative forms of social order” (Jay 1981). Similarly Eckl and Weber (2007) also point out that dichotomy such as North/South assigns certain roles and “rules for action” to states in international relations. They provide examples of how certain laws of World Trade Organization acknowledges the situation of developing states and grant them certain rights and exemption from specific obligations while assigning the developed states to care for the South. By doing so, as Eckl and Weber (2007) highlights, North gets opportunity to intervene in the weak South politically and economically, if not militarily. They cite examples of structural adjustment policies, macroeconomic policy, democracy, human rights, and environmental safeguards to be undertaken by the developing states in order to be eligible for

These arguments are valid, no doubt. However, one prominent feature which scholars often overlook has been the extensive time period of these criticisms. Literatures critiquing the use of dichotomies are not new. They have been prevalent since 1949, for which one can refer to the work of G. Ryle, The Concept of Mind, continuously till date as is evident from the works of various scholars which we have discussed above. It is quite surprising that despite severe limitations, the use of dichotomies has never ceased in our understanding of the world. Dascal (2008) suggest that one of the problems in our understanding as well as in use of dichotomies has been by defining it as a realist and semantic category. He proposes that it should be viewed more in terms of “strategic arguments” made by contenders for certain