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Underground > Head Shop >

* Words create reality?

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10:01 / 08.01.02

Posted by Janina -

quote:As for Lacan, he's ...perhaps necessary to wheel out when you're discussing something like this if only for the psychoanalytic bent because the whole notion of whether words create reality has to open up in to what reality is eventually.

Janina, I am no lover of psychoanalytic theory, and deliberately did not allude to Lacan in my paltry contribution. However, I am interested to hear just what you think Lacan has to offer to the discussion.

As I see it (and I hope you'll bear with yet another poor attempt at very brief summary), Lacan extends Saussure to claim that the unconscious is structured like a language, and that it comes into being only because of language. For him signifiers form a chain of slippage which preclude our arrival at fixed or determinate meaning. The substitution of one signifier for another in metaphor and metonymy, as Haus has mentioned, further disrupt links between the signifier and the signified.

Now, isn't the point of this project to substitute *Freud's* biological explanation of our thoughts, emotions and behaviour with one which emphasizes linguistic and social factors in the development of the child/of gender differentiation? To this end Lacan develops his (*inexorably patriarchal*) theory of the mirror stage, the split subject, the three interconnected 'orders': the symbolic (the social order), the imaginary (the subject's sense of self in relation to this order) and the real (the insatiable demands and drives of the unconscious), etc. What's on offer is a theory of *subjectivity* - an analysis of the structure of what is referred to by the word 'I'.

But this was not to be the primary focus of the discussion, as I understood it.

11:16 / 08.01.02

If we want to talk about Saussure et al., could we start a new thread rather than continue with this one? The original question that started this thread, as you may recall, was "How do words create reality," which really isn't the same question as "How does language order/mediate experience" which is the direction in which this is heading. The original question and the way it was phrased was geared toward (in my opinion)the kind of metaphysical speculation, that while not inappropriate for the Head Shop, might be better served by the Magick forum (though I really don't know what goes on in there on a daily basis).

11:22 / 08.01.02

With that in mind, Haus, could you, um, explain this:

quote:Originally posted by The Halfway Haus:
Saussure? Not convinced. The linguistic functions delineated by langue and parole fail, as Chomsky pointed out, to include the possibility of flexible sentence construction as anything other than case-by-case instances outside highly formulaic syntagm; in effect, the Saussurean concept of linguistic signification cannot provide any reliable signification for the locative structural concepts necessary for any serious project concerning the construction of reality.

in little words for me? I follow up to a point and then it just becomes completely opaque to me. In particular, the clause following the semicolon just loses me completely. I'm familiar with Saussures' jargon of langue,parole and syntagmatic and paradigmatic substitutions and their connection with metaphor and metonym, but what are "locative strucutural concepts"? And where might I find Chomsky's critique of Saussure? In anything I've read in the subject, Chomsky seems merely to shrug off any discussion of Saussure and answer the question on his own terms rather than Saussures. Kind of like the way he's been handling political disagreements lately (cf. his exchange with Hitchens in

The Nation)

11:58 / 08.01.02

Re the relevance or no of Saussure, Todd, it would be good if 08 (who has been conspicuously absent from the discussion), could elaborate on what s/he was expecting from hir post:

quote:'Binary system?' .

[ 08-01-2002: Message edited by: Cavatina ]

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

12:12 / 08.01.02

quote:Originally posted by just todd:
With that in mind, Haus, could you, um, explain this in little words for me?

Well, part of the joke was that I was being deliberately opaque and oogy. But the phrase you mentioned is a riff on the failure of Saussurean structural linguistics to deal meaningfully with the structure of sentences which is necessary, presumably, for words to construct reality.

As for Chomsky on Saussure, I haven't looked at a word of Chomsky for about five years, and could never understand a word of the clever stuff anyway, but Current Issues in Literary Theory I think is quite useful.

Jack The Bodiless

18:09 / 09.01.02

Um... doesn't the sentence become an extrapolation of what he delineates as sign, with its own complex system of signifiers? Building bridges on the ocean floor, etc...

But if we're going to discuss the actual thread topic, shouldn't we begin by an attempt at an agreement on our definitions? What's a 'word'? What are 'words'? How about 'create'? And 'reality'? Let's share assumptions if we're really going to discuss this properly... at the moment, every post 'creates' a different, sometimes apposite, sometimes opposite, 'reality' with the 'words' used.

And is it possible to do it without depending on a discussion of the words others have used? Theory has its own set of assumptions, usually predicated on the system inhabited by the theorist. If we can (and I'm not saying we can) agree the rules, we can discuss it within that set of shared assumptions. What that probably means is 08 coming back to tell us exactly what ze meant in the opening post, otherwise we're just engaging in enjoyably erudite threadrot...

I think to debate forensically, we have to inhabit a hard system - I know that's wholly unrealistic, as life is a soft system composed of soft systems, but debate is not life, it's a construct used for discussing life...

(Purely as another assumptive aside, however, and if this is relevant... I like the idea of mathematics as 'reality' without the need for 'words'. It's another language, if you like, but one not predicated on the same conceptual framework as linguistics. If we agree that we're all linguistic beings, incapable of discussing this subject without being so, then prior to language development beginning, we were pre-linguistic. Does mathematics and the constructs used therein suppose the possibility of being 'post-linguistic'?)

23:13 / 09.01.02

Re Jack's point above -

quote: But if we're going to discuss the actual thread topic, shouldn't we begin by an attempt at an agreement on our definitions? What's a 'word'? What are 'words'? How about 'create'? And 'reality'? Let's share assumptions if we're really going to discuss this properly... at the moment, every post 'creates' a different, sometimes apposite, sometimes opposite, 'reality' with the 'words' used.

Jack, I couldn't agree more.

This thread is good example of what happens when the terms and parameters of the topic are not clearly laid down at the outset. There's some exploration of it, but the discussion soon becomes diffuse and ultimately - and frustratingly - doesn't go anywhere. (08 consider yourself well & truly spanked!

)

But then there's the rubric under 'HEADSHOP' to consider. This invites 'lithers to discuss postmodern writers and ideas. Those of us who are of necessity involved with this stuff as part of our everyday bread & butter existence - in reading and writing and teaching - have had to spend years of time & energy grappling with the sheer difficulty and complexity of key writers/texts/concepts. So it's not surprising, is it, that there should be some interest and emotional investment in discussing/deploying/attempting to explain certain concepts, despite the impossiblity of during justice to them in a post-bite?

Then for contributors to be damned as either wanker or ignoramus only rots the thread still further. Sigh. I'm not saying that I'm not both. But is it worthwhile even attempting to discuss such a *big* topic?

[ 10-01-2002: Message edited by: Cavatina ]

Jack The Bodiless

15:48 / 10.01.02

Yes. Because it's fun and stuff.

Jack The Bodiless

09:33 / 18.01.02

>sigh< I am Jack The Thread-Killer... Doesn't anyone still want to talk about this?

09:33 / 18.01.02

I hope so. I just got popcorn and now I'm ready for the show to start back up again.

I'm not really up on the theory enough to participate but here's a question at least:

How does the term 'Ontology' (both the technological and philosophical defs) fit into this? Is that exactly what is being discussed or are there slight or major differences?

<begins to munch on popcorn>

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