As a soft counterpoint, I usually find “definition by exclusion” in other areas to be weirder when the more “natural” position is presented as a standalone in an implicit binary, as opposed to adding a “non” in front of it.
Sorry if that’s confusing. Here are some examples:
“academia vs industry” vs “academia vs non-academia” ″Jews vs Gentiles” vs “Jews vs non-Jews”
“Christians vs pagans” vs “Christians vs non-Christians”
“nerds vs Muggles” vs “nerds vs non-nerds” ″military vs civilians” vs “military vs non-military”
As a soft counterpoint, I usually find “definition by exclusion” in other areas to be weirder when the more “natural” position is presented as a standalone in an implicit binary, as opposed to adding a “non” in front of it.
Sorry if that’s confusing. Here are some examples:
But I’m not sure which way this is going.
By ‘the more natural position’ do you mean the majority?
“Christians vs pagans” vs “Christians vs non-Christians”
Here are we assuming a society where Christians are the majority? But in any case “non-Christians” obviously need not be pagans.