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Examples of binary cultural codes

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The binary coding of actors

The binary codes are a set of evaluative terms that form that organize discourse in western democratic civil spheres.

Social actors appeal to the characteristics in the left-hand column to portray themselves as good, civically responsible, democratic citizens. They claim to be rational, autonomous, reasonable and realistic.

They cast their political opposition in terms like those on the right-hand,  negative side of this binary in order to represent them as unfit for office or as dangerous. These terms form the counter-democratic code. They are diametrically opposed to the terms on the positive, democratic side.

Counter-democratic actors are represented as being irrational, dependent, hysterical, and unrealistic.

The binary codes of social relationships


Social actors with democratic motives form relationships that are open rather than secretive.

Those in the relationships are trusting rather than suspicious of one another. They interact with each other in straightforward rather than calculating ways. 

All parties in democratically coded relationships remain critical of others in the sense that they retain the capacity and right, as autonomous individuals, to evaluate the relationship and judge its status over time.

In contrast, relationships that depend on deference to continue to exist are counter-democratic because the power imbalance indicates one side of the relationship has no capacity to act otherwise. 

 

Binary codes of social institutions


Social institutions that are represented as acting in arbitrary ways, treating people and other institutions differently, contrast with those that treat everyone similarly, as if they were following rules and applying them equally. 

Institutions that strive for power and exercise it by brute force contrast with those that appeal to law and adhere to its constraints.

The former institutions appear anti-civil while the latter seem to embody a democratic ethos.
 

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