The Origins of the Binary

 

The Origins of the Binary 

 

Wherein originates the binary.

Is it in the inhale, the exhale

Is it in the rise and fall

The tides in and out

Ambition and gravity

Pleasure and pain

Night and day

Life and death?

 

Or is it purely linguistic 

The structuring of the individual

Legally as a unit?

You are not me. I am not you.

Subject. Object. Predicate. The Sentence.

 

Indigenous cultures speak of a group mind

We have decided: a Conciliatory approach

Based around conciliation: Unity

Working through differences for the common good

Not like the White Man’s adversarial legal model 

Is it money then?

The transactional

My possessions, my property, not yours

 

& the language I speak 

I’m speaking in the language of the Victors

The dominators, the killers

 

The Colonial approach

Was to attempt to destroy a culture’s strength

To change it

To weaken it

 

Does the binary then lie in Colonialism?

Us and them 

Reducing human life

To the point of a gun

And in polite society

To issues in the media

 

What’s your theory?

Isn’t this the essential question?

The binary?

Yes/No

Is it inevitable?

Is there another possibility?

My friend talked of early computers 

And not of ones and zeros

But of offs and ons

 

I don’t think any of this is getting me any closer

It befuddles my constrained, constructed, credulous mind

 

 

Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2023.