Introduction
In The End of Culture Eric Gans re-traces his outline of a theory of language. Setting aside his previous arguments from The Origin of Language he isolates representation, solely. Gans begins initiating well-structured dialogues on what it necessitates, with the goal to mold the bounds of an analysis of culture.
An interesting by-way I considered reading this book was the necessity of historical accuracy. He mentions it’s imperative that a theory of culture match up to a cultural history. Yet, where do we draw the lines of such a hunt for artifacts emerge? Of course, as you read, Gans is practical as logical and necessary.
What really separates GA from other theories of agency?
I have even less time on my hands as usual, so I will try to be thorough, but it will not be an easy read at times. I apologize in advance for the lack of citations. At some later date, when we discuss many of Gans specific “slices” of history he anoints, we will include those.
Agential Theory
I’ve talked about boundary work in my Think Tanks article. Theories of language deal with agency and history within institutions, or the act of drawing boundaries—creating scenes. Ultimately, any theory of politics is a theory of the emergence of actions. In this sense that once the abilities are acquired, the fundamental act for future actions is the same, yet (by definition) must be expanding. The dual effects of agency map onto formal linguistic usage and institutionalized traditional structures, as we discussed in that article.
For generative anthropology, agency is isolated by the birth of representation. Representation, here, is the transformation of appetite to desire. Desire of which can have no basis for emergence without a double, an other, or minimal party of people. Further, that, then, we presume many other curious qualities for this origin of language. The goal of GA is to see rebirth through transcendence in a scientifically respectable and sociological tradition; all in encased where anthropology is the domain of human self-knowledge.
In terms of relative accuracy and perhaps rhetor-logical superiority, this may be the most commensurate, secular wording we can discuss theories of language.
Origins as Agency
I mentioned in my Organization article there’s a paradoxical revelation between dependency and independence. It is difficult to talk about, so pardon my wording at times. In here, I will be going in depth on that revelation. You can infer, in that article, I mean dependency where now I intend relationships and independence as agency itself.
The Two Modes of Agency Theories
Whether we consider a theory of agency to describe the will, or language use, it must be in opposition to where it hasn’t emerged. There are two distinct modes this is done.
Relative—in which an object of study, or attention, is set to the most minimum degree. All things act upon everything else equally, but they exist in relation to each other. This is similar to quantity, e.g.: a past event gives way to a future one, but they are not the same.
Transcendent—the quality behind relationships. A relationship, or ordering, implies there must be an inversion from the other side. Otherwise, the effect of one object on another would be so totalizing as to erase it from existence and analysis, e.g.: if the relative was all there was, the entirety of normative existence would simply blink out.
We reach a point, entertaining an origin to agency, where despite there being consecutive links between objects of study, agency always implies a transcendence of these relationships. Somehow, despite inter-dependency, agency is separate from all of that in a genuine new type of life.
(It is the separation of separatism; the emergence of the sameness; identicality of transcendence, which has no referent other than itself; the locus where Divine and Man equalizes, creating each other; the transformation between appetite into desire codified…)
History of Agency
There are infinite and innumerable descriptions of agency, as history has shown. In fact, if one is to increasingly bring our “objects of study” backwards in historical relationships (in an attempt to find increasingly original forms of agency, primal ones) you get this. We begin to trace scientific ones back to theological, and those back to magical, shamanistic ones. For the mystic, these culminate into an ineffable sense of Divinity, co-present living with themselves. Yet, the knowledge of such a relationship is so paradoxical that it must be an obviation of relative mode of analysis—leaving only a singular identification of their self with the exact Divine their attention was supposed to “see”. If it were to be “seen” and objectified it could never be transcendent, yet so many find it anyways.
If one begins to seriously treat “events” and “objects” as “relationships” and then seeks their origins, they will find paradox to always be there. You will reach a threshold where it no longer becomes imperative to increasingly demarcate the differences between objects. Sameness and agency itself are identical with origins.
Likewise, the goal of any origin scavenger hunt is to excavate the, now buried, relationships that have amassed throughout history. We must show why people have made the decisions they have, and why we continue to expand our domain; if we are to continue to expand the ineffable and transform all relationships into agency. This a backwards realization and is difficult to muster, it is no wonder that so many people lose themselves in the Divine esthetic. Never being able to accomplish the proliferation of the ineffable sensation they feel amongst all members of the community and modes of existence. If they could, they would’ve been our rulers, not these flimflam politicians and parasites with their small worries about political survival.
Originary Self-Knowledge as Epistemology
As we mentioned earlier, generative anthropology recaptures our origins through secular language. It is the first major step towards the excavation of historical relationships but is also its biggest competitor. By being the closest science to the emergence of man’s agency, it must also be unprovable as it is paradoxical.
When we intellectualize the paradox inherent in any mode of truly human existence, we find it as hard to grasp as the Taoist do The Way; for a discipline and theory of language to do that as coherently as generative anthropology has done, is no small feat. Do not forget this.
Mysticism
GA has constantly tried to distance itself from mysticism because it is bounded by its framing. We can arrive at the same “recognitions” about human significance and Divinity through other language—however, it is not done in a way that can be acceptable to the fully “academically pleasurable commensurability” experience as GA attempts. For, if every idiom were we to stop and issue a sign evoking the originary paradox (separate from its already implicit usage in the issuance of our current sign) we would just be distracting attention and disordering the situation needlessly. As we discussed in “origin excavation”, the goal is simply to bring forward relationships. Not destroy older ones; since we would still be engaging in a primarily relative mode if we did. That could never have been the “truth” of our origins.
Here is something related, that Gans mentions in his section Minimality and Generativity: A Note on Epistemology:
Our theory concerning the scene of representation takes place on that same scene, and even to speak of its “inherent limitations”—in comparison, for example, with divine intellect—is meaningless. The only means we have to conceive of this scene in itself—that is, as something other than the very scene on which we conceive it— is to imagine it in its nascent state—that is, as the locus of an act not yet representational but in the process of becoming so. The hypothesis we thus formulate cannot demonstrate the limits of representation, but it can provide for it in a set of preconditions the plausibility of which may be verified by the examination of real institutions.
Long long ago, now, I mentioned the relationship between these kinds of theories of agency and GA (Franklin Merrel Wolff Notes). I suggested we could learn from each other, and I think this is a stellar case of that intuition being correct and incorrect. Learning and creating new command structures must still have referents and issue-ers of orders. We can help delineate the boundaries between each, as institutional history, and where each proponent of differing theories gathers their data, but it must be tailored. It cannot be some frivolous co-mergence when letting each discipline grow into its own would better lead each hierarchy where it must. There is a way we can talk about origins—such can be thought of as exactly the birth of agency—which doesn’t step on GA’s toes.
Even though my personal experience and inclinations may dis-clude me from academic GA(in my heart), I hold my ground here in agential theories being the key between data (quantification of relative modes of theory) and true moral compulsion (in transcendent, qualitative, eventual and experiential modes of theory) for metapolitical actions. Agency as a term and theoretical nexus provides me with more flexibility in my analysis and goals; that is all. We can have coexisting world views, even identical in places, but non-substitutable terminology simultaneously. That’s simply how representation works, anyhow.
Short Aside on Franklin Merrell Wolff
I find that Wolff’s enumeration of his rational journey through mystical states to be one in which he attempts to keep agency. Rather than drowning in ananda, the felicity/joy of realization, he guards against and warns of it. He finds transcendent modes of agency where each state is a grasping for conscious Realization. While he holds the primacy of gnosis over actionability—I think for those of us are capable to read between the lines—clearly his elucidation of the paranirvanic state is one in which we transform the inclination of relativist modes of theory into transcendental ones, without losing ourselves or abilities.
To do this is an ongoing process; such one is an attempt to realize the Divine through earthly actions. Not just the personal salvation of the soul, but for the betterment of all of us. To so completely and totally accomplish this is to leave no stone unturned. To continue to press the process of the creation of new ostensives and scenes as a process of individuation. To bring about a continual change in the self as to help grow that leadership.
I don’t care about linguistic accuracy at the cost of my ability to lead and grow further beyond where I am.
The End of Culture
I have avoided most of the actual arguments in The End of Culture primarily because I wish not to drag about 30 citations, with less than my usual allotment of time to write here.
Short Synopsis
Gans goes into depth about re-wiring the originary scene to disavow mimesis in favor for culture and representation. He considers it a much weaker analysis, and by proxy, requires he go through historical movements. If the cultural analysis doesn’t match the culture how could it be true?
He states many times on the reality of Christian, rhetorological universalism (its Judaic foundation) and Hellenic estheticism being the central focus of modern culture. He doesn’t need a really thorough reason to back this, but does slowly build out his argument through the new recasting of the scene, and historical outline of each Christian/Hellenic secularist or distributed cultural modes.
Along with these, he also tackles the major modes of cultural institutions and how they must be also present on the originary scene. These are the esthetic, the linguistic, and the economical, generally. The only one in which is arguably a fully established institution from the outset is the linguistic. Institutions dedicated to the art object come latter, as the minimality of the originary scene would have to be scrapped to entertain the art object as central. Rather than the representational-linguistic object. Obviously, the secular mode of monetary exchange is a vastly different institution than the implicit Divine exchanges that occur in older cultures. As a modern innovation, it too could not have ossified therein.
There is a lot more depth he goes into, on the various intellectual formulations however the metaphysical is the most interesting. He showcases why metaphysical logo-centralisms must have its basis in regional linguistic usage. That to me, is one of the most important take-aways you can have. That metaphysics is the privileging of the declarative predicate over the ostensive.
The main focus of the rest of the book is primarily on the resentment inherent after the origin of language. Once as the deferral of violence through representation. Twice then as the evolution of a cultural forms and modes of hierarchy related to resentment.
There are a couple of other mechanisms Gans goes in depth on, such as the difference between ostensive, imperative and declarative cultures. However, I don’t necessarily think they are quite as important to discuss here and are better left to when we go into specific historical institutions.
What to make of it all
You’re free to read Gans’ work as you please if you’re impatient.
My goal with agential theory is a comprehensive system, including all notions of the un-appropriable Divine that has been central for cultures since inception. It is an integral notion that is far less onerous to me than sociological-rhetorical models of agential theory. The analysis GA takes is one of the greatest and modern-ly, intellectually satisfying you’ll find. However, there are other meta-models of human origins that can be just as awe-striking and useful. None quite so explicative in our literate culture, but that is as much as an institutional flaw as an unavoidable, and desirable, strength.
Pardon my lack of rigour and simplicity. I’ve been troubled with so many things this month. Next month we’ll dedicate to some of the many things I’ve glossed over, as well as, finally, more historical data.
Click clack click clack click clack…………