In THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING, a retelling of our pre-history from an anthropologist and archaeologist (David Graeber and David Wengrow), they talk about the idea of “schismogensis,” which they didn’t coin. It translates to “difference in creation” and it’s the idea that social structures and cultures may have established themselves as distinctly opposite a neighboring culture. My friend Lila and I were chatting about the concept last week and she pointed out that she thinks it functions in all of society—from macro to micro. We see it in sibling pairs, in political parties, in ideologies—using someone else or something else as a way to define yourself as opposite.