Helpmates not binaries

I came across a blogpost today I found very interesting. It's about the concept of binaries.

"One of the most well-known and defining characteristics of indigenous Andean thought is its adherence to a philosophical model based on yanantin or “complementary opposites” in which the polarities of existence (i.e.: male/female, dark/light, inner/outer) are seen as interdependent parts of a harmonious whole. Because existence is believed to be dependent upon the tension and balanced interchange between these contrasting pairs, there is a very definite ideological and practical commitment within indigenous Andean life to bringing them into harmony with one another.

It was my dismay over what I considered to be the Western world’s view of the polarities as antagonistic that prompted me to devote my doctoral research to understanding the concept of yanantin or “complementary opposites” in indigenous Andean thought. The resulting research has become a book, entitled, Yanantin and Masintin in the Andean World: Complementary Dualism in Modern Peru (University of New Mexico Press, 2012).

From Yanantin and Masintin in the Andean World, Chapter 4: Self and Other:

[T]he Andean model of reality is by no means a Utopian vision in which these oppositions are always easily and/or peacefully brought into a harmonious yanantin relationship with one another. On the contrary, the ‘paring’ of opposing forces can be violent as well as peaceful, depending on the context. In certain areas of the Andes, yearly tinkuy battles take place in which two groups (often groups of men but sometimes groups of women) meet and engage in physical combat with one another. … These violent tinkuy battles have been described as the physical, ritualized enactment of the collision of opposing forces taking place within the cosmos. While bloody and even sometimes deadly, they are said to promote fertility, moral equilibrium, and the resolution of boundary disputes (Allen, 1988, 2002; Bastien, 1992; Harrison, 1989). Bastien (1989) described the tinkuy battles as ‘a way of uniting opposite sides in a dialectic that clearly defines and recognizes the other as well as establishes their interdependence’ (p. 76). Thus, while violent, the battles are seen as a means by which points of tension are released and harmony can be achieved, for as Allen (2002) suggested, ‘Rivals in battle, like lovers, are yanantin (a matched pair; helpmates)..."

I love this idea of the binaries reinforcing one another and redefining one another, establishing their identity and interdependence not as oppositional but as helpmates.

To read the full post by Hillary Webb, click here.