7.6.06
Large words...
Large words trouble (that is to say interest) me in their ambiguity. Saying and not saying.
Many professional spheres rely on terminology both binding (that is to say signalling group cohesion and separateness) and blinding (the use of the word also effectively stanches further inquiry). The re-use of these terms does not necessarily arise out of laziness; rather these terms signal the limits just beyond knowing .. and in point of fact indicate a collective stepping-over-the-line. Their power for this reason is hallucinatory.
In a particular anthropology seminar, for example, I recall how the word “reification” (not used in the Marxist sense) had the power to stop conversation. Somehow now that the idea had been construed as matter and not energy, perhaps even noun and not verb (or adjective according to some schools), the collective imagination folded in on itself and ceased speculation. Notions afterall do not intercede on their own behalf; neither do they take up space. However, within this particular classroom, not simply the idea but ourselves, once reflected in Medusa’s eye, were converted to stone. “Reification” simply became the last word.
I wonder then if certain terms do not serve as incantation. But incantation too may perhaps be found in the rote hum of the machine, the curved drone of highway traffic, relying as it does on either deprivation or oversaturation (an idea very much pursued by Don DeLillo in Underworld).
Many professional spheres rely on terminology both binding (that is to say signalling group cohesion and separateness) and blinding (the use of the word also effectively stanches further inquiry). The re-use of these terms does not necessarily arise out of laziness; rather these terms signal the limits just beyond knowing .. and in point of fact indicate a collective stepping-over-the-line. Their power for this reason is hallucinatory.
In a particular anthropology seminar, for example, I recall how the word “reification” (not used in the Marxist sense) had the power to stop conversation. Somehow now that the idea had been construed as matter and not energy, perhaps even noun and not verb (or adjective according to some schools), the collective imagination folded in on itself and ceased speculation. Notions afterall do not intercede on their own behalf; neither do they take up space. However, within this particular classroom, not simply the idea but ourselves, once reflected in Medusa’s eye, were converted to stone. “Reification” simply became the last word.
I wonder then if certain terms do not serve as incantation. But incantation too may perhaps be found in the rote hum of the machine, the curved drone of highway traffic, relying as it does on either deprivation or oversaturation (an idea very much pursued by Don DeLillo in Underworld).
