Dichotomy
As a logical manoeuvrer which splits into two categories that are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. For instance the kingdom of plants are not the same as the kingdom of animals, mushrooms, or the eukaryotes but these different categories together exhausts the category of all living beings. However this is not a classic dichotomy because it is split into 5 categories therefore it would be something like a pentachotomy.
Dichotomy of Digital Commons
A more XPUB related example that came up recently about the F/LOSS movement and its embeddedness in capitalist economy. On hand there are creative groups who believes in the values of sharing, studying, modifying software source code and through the circulation of source code there is added value. On the other hand when commercial market adopts these values with the undeniable goal to extract those added values and put software on the market as quickly as possible, these values cease into become a business strategy and not a collaborative effort to create. This is a sketch for the dichotomy of digital commons.
"Yin and Yang" as a dichotomy：A shorthand explanation often describes yin and yang as woman and man, and all the other dualistic pairs, as mentioned in Jacques Lacan’s seminars: je ne parle pas du Yin et du Yang, comme tout le monde vous savez cela : le mâle et le femelle.
Although Mladen Dolar, quoted earlier, deems Chinese to be incomprehensible, he nevertheless spends a long paragraph explaining yin-yang as two (and only two) poles of masculine and feminine.
He concludes there is a “strong thesis” in the “Taoist” symbol: “there is a relation. There is a sexual relation. Every relation is sexual.”
The short capitulation “yin and yang” or more “yin-yang” written together, showing an unconventional order of words, perhaps already hints at something different: the masculine habit of appearing first is at least reversed on the lexical level. Since one would never say yang-yin or yang and yin, one might at least pause for a moment before rushing into turning yin-yang into another symbol of the myth of a crosscultural, universal, and ahistorical patriarchy.