I think the primary duality is between energy and form. Galaxies are energy radiating out, as form coalesces in. We have the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems to process the energy driving us on, along with the central nervous system to perceive and process the forms, distinctions, variations, etc. precipitating out. As energy expands out while form coalesces in, it sets up a tension between the head and the heart, between emotion and judgement. Our desires are many and will overwhelm us, if we cannot effectively sort and judge them. So it is the anarchy of desire, versus the tyranny of judgement.

Youth and age, liberal and conservative.

For instance, a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell. More the new born, than the wise old man. Consciousness seeking knowledge, than any form of it. The light shining through the film, than the images on it.

Yet no culture could function, if it simply reveled in sentience, just as we cannot run off after every desire. So this top down, father figure lawgiver is assumed as the rightful source. Though the absolute is not the ideal and it is dangerous to confuse them.

Our culture assumes good and bad as a cosmic dual, between the forces of righteousness and evil, but they are the basic biological binary of beneficial and detrimental. The 1/0 of life, from which all the higher order social codes of conduct emerge. Such as morality, respect, responsibility, trust, empathy, sympathy, etc. Though as we treat the black and white of good and bad as ideal, rather than essence, conflicts tend to quickly become a race to the bottom of basic impulses, rather than each side being able to expect and hold the other to the structure and strictures of civilized behavior.

While this monist idealism of western culture seems instinctively foundational, we have to better understand the degree to which reality is more a balancing act, than any singular form.