Binary codes unite opposites by regulated negation rather than merely separating them

Evidence

Contrary to appearances, binary schemas serve not only to separate but also to unite opposites. They facilitate the shift from one definition of the situation to its opposite by requiring no more than a negation, the admittance of which can be regulated in the system – a technique of paradoxical integration. There is a closer connection between truth and untruth than between truth and love, for instance. Above all, such a principle of binary integration can be abstracted, made specific and universal, while the connections between different media-codes (truth/love, power/money) would have to be regulated much more concretely and in terms much more specific to each situation, because neither exclusion nor interconnection can be asserted as being of general validity. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 662

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘paradoxical integration’ of binary opposites maps onto Ishiguro’s Stevens: the butler’s code (dignity/indignity) unites his total devotion with his total ethical abdication — one negation regulates the whole. — connects to: Binary schematization makes trust and distrust reversible opposites, easing transition between them. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 311; Binary schematization’s completeness claim masks the imposition behind any dichotomy; Binary codification and symbolization relieve consciousness and enable contingency orientation (+5 more)
• SEED: Angle for an essay: how binary codes let moral actors flip from devotion to complicity by a single regulated negation — Stevens’s shift from serving to excusing Darlington.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 662

Broader Connections

• Binary schematization makes trust and distrust reversible opposites, easing transition between them. #expands (0.85) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 311
• Binary schematization’s completeness claim masks the imposition behind any dichotomy #complicates (0.70)
• Binary codification and symbolization relieve consciousness and enable contingency orientation #expands (0.65)
• Symbolic systems function as instruments of domination by reproducing class relations in transfigured form #expands (0.60)