A thing cannot both be and not be simultaneously. The nature of our relationship to the universe makes discernment, and therefore choice, unavoidable. Dichotomies are dangerous. Because the universe is defined by the law of contradiction, dichotomy-based thinking is understandably widespread. But our survival depends on developing an ability to distinguish between valid existential claims and adjectival attributions.
Language operates by exclusion, by the application of the law of contradiction.
Its universal use encourages the fallacy, responsible for unimaginable suffering throughout human history, that properly specific exclusions and distinctions are themselves universal. This fallacy is the illusion of the absolute. By fostering the illusion of the absolute, language can lead humans to inhumanity. Born to specific people in a specific time and place, we are thrust from the womb into a specific pattern of choices, a specific range of possibilites. Social contracts are valid only when continually, individually reaffirmed.