> ^^^^^^
> CB: Once you get to two binary oppositions related, you have a
> structure and a metaphor.
>
> ^^^^^^^^
>
>
Again, no, this is incorrect. One cannot arbitrary create metaphors
through just any binary opposition. Watch:
"The moon that night shone like a curled toe"
Perhaps that's the start of a mediocre Surrealist poem, but if I spoke like that to everyone I encountered I'd be sure to find myself in a psyche-ward rather quickly. Structure are the rules that govern understanding, just like - to go back to where we started with this - the Law is the body of rules governing our definitions of right and wrong; or, to continue with your example, structuring what judgements are going to be passed in particular cases (euthanasia, gay marriage, but also murder and rape).
^^^^^^^ CB: Exactly, above you act like a poet using metaphors. Poets are like little culture creators.
The arbitrariness refers to there being no "natural" analogy. And the arbitrariness also refers to the fact that the identity of the two relationships is due to the specific history of the culture in question. It is precisely the arbitrariness of the sign (in French; "symbol" in English) that Structural linguistics ( the model for Levi-Straussian structural anthropology) has as a fundamental principle. I'm not arbitrarily making metaphors, like a poet. The past generations of people in each culture have developed arbitrary or historical or cultural symbols, signs, meanings.
The metaphors in your Chinese example are meaningless to a non-Chinese exactly because they are arbitrary results of Chinese history.