Splits Contraries
From Walter Ong’s Orality and Literacy, I’ve assembled a long list of contraries, terms that indicate opposition and interaction, terms that force division into experience in order to gain some clarity about it.
ORALITY LITERACY
speech writing
sound sight
motion rest
action reflection
event image
alive dead (immortal)
name as power name as label
recall look up
synthetic analytic
repetition novelty
participation distance
togetherness separation
riddle logic
unify divide
harmony clarity
wholism schizophrenia
cliche "make it new"
conservative liberal
presence absence
space time
circle line
feminine male
Catholic Protestant
Jung Freud
communism democracy
spirit matter
kin contract
guru professor
concrete abstract
sacred profane
myth science
body mind
public private
from Jerusalem
Hand as the Reasoning Spectre and Jerusalem as Liberty
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 3, (E 34)
"Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and
Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to
Human existence.
From these contraries spring what the religious call Good &
Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason[.] Evil is the active
springing from Energy.
Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell."