[2] Binary opposition is an important concept of structuralism, which sees such distinctions as fundamental to all language and thought.
[3] Saussure demonstrated that a sign's meaning is derived from its context (syntagmatic dimension) and the group (paradigm) to which it belongs.
According to structuralism, distinguishing between presence and absence, viewed as polar opposites, is a fundamental element of thought in many cultures.
John Searle has suggested that the concept of binary oppositions—as taught and practiced by postmodernists and poststructuralists—is specious and lacking in rigor.
[10] The political (rather than analytic or conceptual) critique of binary oppositions is an important part of third wave feminism, post-colonialism, post-anarchism, and critical race theory, which argue that the perceived binary dichotomy between man/woman, civilized/uncivilised, and white/black have perpetuated and legitimized societal power structures favoring a specific majority.
In the last fifteen years it has become routine for many social and/or historical analyses to address the variables of gender, class, sexuality, race and ethnicity.
To be effective, and simply as its mode of practice, deconstruction creates new notions or concepts, not to synthesize the terms in opposition but to mark their difference, undecidability, and eternal interplay.
"[15] In relation to the cultural heritage of an audience having an influence on their unconscious preference for one part of binary opposition, Prasad says; "By way of studying a selection of Ethiopian folktales, the paper uncovers the presence of logocentrism and a priori binary opposition being at work in Ethiopian folktales.