noun
” something with seemingly contradictory qualities” – Merriam-Webster dictionary
The word was encountered through the reading “Wind Sand and Stars” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The sentence that this word was used in was “Numerous, nevertheless, are the moralists who have attacked the machine as a source of all the ills we bear, who, creating a fictitious dichotomy [fake contradictory], have denounced the mechanical civilization as the enemy of the spiritual civilization.” (Note: Fictitious means not real/fictional)
The author was trying to convey the idea that people should still be able to explore who they want to be whether it be an artist or thinker, instead of going straight into thinking about business or war. The central idea of this excerpt is that the machine/mechanical civilization and society as a whole isn’t taking advantage of the human potential. Connecting the theme back to this quote, the author is trying to say that moralists create a false contradictory because they’re saying that machines are the root of all evil but that’s not true, there are many factors that are “source of all the ills we bear”. If this was to relate back to the design process I think that it would be what the industry wants in design vs human potential in exploring things that they can create.
