On
rereading the theoretical framework of my sugar packet thesis (N.B. I will look for the actually finished version and re-upload it later on) – I’m finding it a
lot less woke than I felt when I was writing it. This is in that sense a
good thing, that it shows I’ve definitely continued learning since graduating
in 2016.
The framework
starts by comparing definitions of discourse, which is initially kind of boring
but which blossoms in a nice conceptualization of discourse that I still
support:
Discourses can stay stable or they can change. A discourse is not a
unitary, monolithic “thing”; it consists of all the separate instances and
utterances that make it up. Each gesture, posture, picture, object etc.
reaffirms or changes existent discourses. The discourse does not exist without
the individual utterances, as much as the utterances are meaningless without
the discourse: discourse can be seen as the structure of meaning precedents
within which new expressions gain and promulgate meaning. The expressions
themselves then become new precedents, based on which future expressions can
create new meanings.
One thing to note about this concept of discourse is that in every
action many different discourses are present simultaneously. Every object in
one’s surroundings is the result of a long line of production actions,
conversations, development of people's skills; one's body itself is an
accumulation of all the discourses it has encountered; the action which one is
doing is an interaction with these discourses. The built environment and the
other people close by too, are results and part of many intersecting
discourses. They have a material existence, but this cannot be seen separately
from its semiotic existence.
Next
in the chapter I am grappling with a concept of power, starting with some
originality of thought by finding that each act or utterance is necessarily a
choice for one thing and not for many other possibilities, thereby strengthening
or re-empowering the expectation/habituality of this word, object or action as
fitting in specific contexts and not strengthening the potential for other
possibilities to be adapted in discourse. It’s a good start but it can still be
taken a lot further. I am bemused now to find how lightly I touch on the actual
violence with which certain narratives are protected and enforced and other
suppressed in society – instead dwelling on hypothetical examples of everything
else you could call a dog and the dissemination of polka dots. Somehow I
managed to write a discussion of power that is hardly critical at all.
Definitely
I do agree with my past self that it is good to look at the interaction of the
micro workings of power with the macro level; the everyday reiteration and
re-enactment of norms being guided by and contributing to a bigger image. There
is a large body of normative heritage, the deposit of social expectations built
up over millennia: vestiges of e.g. patriarchy, imperialism, religion, racism,
but also probably some arguably positive things like transferred values about the
joy of celebration, good food, nature, love and care. (I would also count transferred
knowledge and skills as part of the normative heritage, though they seem to be “norms”
of a different kind: experientially based testable knowledge-norms about successful
ways of interacting with materials and other people; physically internalized knowledge
of how to move when for instance tatting lace or dissecting a frog.)
I am
reading a strange book at the minute which is called De evolutie van
het cognitieve vermogen,
written under the apparent pseudonym Alias Pyrrho. It contains no references
and there is no explanation of what institution the author forms part of; under
what “author”-ity are they writing these claims? Fittingly, the book considers
the way new knowledge is accepted and internalised.
Sommige kennis is feitelijk en onverbiddelijk hard,
andere kennis is zacht of onvolgroeid. Zacht is geloof of de aanname van het
waarschijnlijke; onvolgroeid is kennis die (nog) niet ondersteund wordt door
een raamwerk van andere kennis waarvan de waarheid vaststaat. Daarom is zachte
en onvolgroeide kennis kwetsbaar. (…)
Hoewel de zintuigelijke waarneming het richtpunt is voor
feitelijke kennis in vergelijk met wat historisch is vastgelegd, valt het
vermogen te kunnen zien en beoordelen wat dit waard is, onder de macht van de
subcultuur: de acceptatie van evidenties binnen een sociale of
wetenschappelijke gemeenschap. (…) Een filter waarin de hang naar
gerespecteerde acceptatie groot is, waardoor we liever de macht van het
culturele gelijk mijden, dan dat we de confrontatie aangaan. Kennis is noch
vrij van waarden, noch vrij van sociale acceptatie.
[Some knowledge is factual and inexorably
hard, other knowledge is soft and not yet full-grown. Soft is the knowledge
that is not (yet) supported by a framework of other knowledge of which the
truth is established. That is why soft and undeveloped knowledge is vulnerable.
(…)
While
sensory perception is the focus of factual knowledge as compared to what has
been recorded historically, the ability to see and judge its worth falls under
the power of the subculture: the acceptance of the evident within a social or
scientific community. (…) A filter in which there is a strong desire
for respected acceptance, so that we prefer to avoid the power of what is
culturally true, rather than confront it. Knowledge is neither free from values nor free
from social acceptance.]
So new knowledge
is evaluated based on how well it slots in with existent knowledge both in the individual
brain and in the social context of the person or in society at large. I like
these descriptions because they fit well with a metaphor for memory that I
often think about, where it grows in the mind like a plant. Early acquired certainties
form the constituent understanding of the world that new information and modes
of thinking develop out of and branch off from, using and strengthening the
formerly learned and thereby forming a hardening stem. I am thinking of my Christmas
cactus, of which the once soft green shoots at the bottom have now become strong
hard channels for the nutritients going up to the fresh foliage at the outer
tips of the branches. (Tell me in the comments about your early constituent
knowledge.)
But what if
your early constituent certainties later turn out to be misguided or unhelpful –
as often happens? Say you were raised with rigid ideas about gender roles,
poverty, class, God, STEM superiority, status – to name a few! To cut down the stem
and let the cutting grow roots in new soil can be a very hard and scary
process. Because the old certainties are what everything else is held up by, it
destabilizes your worldview, revealing or causing insecurity of all that you hold
to be true in your everyday life; pushing for a new fundament. It is a deep but
rejuvenating unlearning.
What I want
to think about now is how such an unlearning can (and does) take place at a
much bigger scale – how can we cut down the sequoia trees of the macro vestiges
of societal knowledge? At this point my housemate Frank might critically interject
and interrogate my stretchy extension of the metaphor (he has done this a couple
of times now and I really appreciate it – very critically tittilating.) I am
aware that for one, I am severely conflating knowledge, discourse and power. I
am also loosely applying the inner workings of the mind to not only plant growth
but also the way that knowledge is formed in society at large. I have little
basis to show that this is truly so other than that to me it has been a useful
and productive analogy, and quite a poetic one.
So if we
want to cut down, or take cuttings of, the tree of patriarchy, societally unlearn
imperialism; is it like a plant trying to be intentional about where it will
grow to next? Like a monstera trying to take a cutting of itself?