Lacan's Symbolic Order / Big Other - summary

the symbolic order in Lacan's subject theory is also referred to by him as the Big other or simply the Other with a capital O (to distinguish from the other of the imaginary order). Lacan's ideas regarding the symbolic order or the big other are based on the works of de-Saussure, Jakobson, Hegel, Heidegger and Claude Levi-Strauss. Lacan, like Levi-Strauss, held that the social world is constructed through rules designated to regulate various forms of personal relations and exchange. The most basic form of interaction and exchange for Lacan is verbal communication which is the base for Lacan's symbolic order.

Like Freud before him, Lacan attributed great importance to speech during psychoanalytic therapy. Lacan held that the subject is the product of language (Foucault would "upgrade" this definition to the subject being a product of discourse), and therefore argued that spoken language is not only the main instrument of therapy but also the agent which establishes the individual's reality and reality in general. Everything which is beyond language, that cannot be spoken through language, is termed by Lacan as the real.  Language for Lacan points to an inherent absence in it, for it is something that always comes to replace something real. In language we exchange objects for words, thus eliminating objects. It is this process of symbolization which allows for human communication and understanding. The abstraction of language is what enables mutual accord regarding meaning. Therefore language is not just about relaying information, it also has the function of appealing to the other. But since language precedes the individual he experiences it with a sense of alienation. Therefore language for Lacan is the symbolic order or the "big other". The big other or symbolic order for Lacan is universal in that that it originates from outside the person. This "otherness" of language is what allowed Lacan to establish the indevidual's alienation within it.

Suggested reading on and by Lacan:

Lacan's Imaginary Order – explanation and summary

As part of his model of the subject psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan suggested three mutual dependant yet separate orders: the imaginary order, the real order and the symbolic order.

The imaginary order according to Lacan is constituted through the birth of the "I" in what he terms as "the mirror stage" (age 6-18 months). The I of the imaginary order in constituted through vision, as a coherent image that the baby has of himself in the mirror or in the presence of someone else. This coherent image, according to Lacan, is at odds with the baby's motor experience at this stage, which is characterized by a sense of fragmentation. This dissonance, between a coherent image and fragmented sensation, will continue according to Lacan to be a part of the person's life for as long as he or she lives. Much like the baby in the mirror stage, which seeks a unified and coherent image of himself in the mirror, so do adults constantly seek identification with ideas (and not just images) in order to make up for their sense of frustration and aggression that result from lack of coherence and a sense of a fragmented self.

Therefore, the term "imaginary order" takes on a double meaning in Lacan's theory: imaginary in the sense of image, something seen or visualized, and imaginary in the sense of imagination, something which exists in the mind regardless of its existence in real life.

Lacan strongly opposed previous psychoanalytic perceptions of the self, claiming that the self is not a coherent thing that one can point to. The self, for Lacan, is rather a function which points to a failure of the consciousness originating from a basic alienation of the "I" from himself. This means that instead of presenting the self as autonomous the imaginary function constructs it as a product of identification with others. For Lacan, the imaginary order is linked to the manner in which the I is caught up in competitive relations with the other.

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Roland Robertson on Globalization in "Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity "– Summary and review

Roland Robertson's "Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity" is a theoretical article which looks at the concept of globalization through the way it is deliberated in the sociological field. Robertson's agenda in "Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity" is to show the weakness of contemporary theories of globalization. Robertson's "cure" for this discursive problem is not through a better definition or more elaborate theory of globalization, but rather its replacement with the concept of "glocalization".

Robertson opens "Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity" with the semantic definition of globalization which sees it as a process and not a fixed and resolved state which has clear characteristics. Viewing globalization as  a process means in a sense viewing the world as becoming global as Robertson shows how sociologists tend position local culture in an inferior position to the rising global culture under globalization.

Robertson hold that the vagueness which characteristics sociological discourse on globalization arises in part from the concept of globalization itself, and offers to replace the view of it as a process for a view of it as a condition or a trait of culture which is characterized by globalness.

Although Robertson was one of the first to introduce the concept of globalization into the sociological discourse in "Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity" he suggests replacing it with the concept of "glocalization" – a term borrowed from the Japanese business world which refers to the process of adopting and fitting foreign products to meet the needs and taste of the local market. Paradoxically, Robertson in a sense argues that globalization is in actual fact a local phenomenon, and that the worldwide exchange and fusion of culture is always done in local terms. On the other hand, Robertson holds that what is conceived as the local is in actual fact global, like for example of the idea of the nation state which is a global idea. For these reasons, Robertson holds that global culture and local culture are not two opposing forces at odds, as the term "globalization" might suggest, but rather see them as working together, as the term "glocalization" might suggest.

See also: Jihad vs. McWorld / Benjamin Barber

Arjun Appadurai – Disjunction and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy

The Clash of Civilizations - Samuel Huntington

Disjunction and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy -  Arjun Appadurai

Benedict Anderson - Imagined Communities

The End of History and the Last Man / Francis Fukuyama

End of History vs. Clash of Civilizations debate

Hardt and Negri - Empire

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Pierre Bourdieu – The Historical Genesis of the Pure Aesthetic - summary and review – part 2

In "The Historical Genesis of the Pure Aesthetic" Pierre Bourdieu offers to examine the ontogenesis and phylogenies of the art world with its various components such as aesthetic perceptions, main characters, taste, discourse, institutions and consumers. According to Bourdieu the questions we should be asking about art are no ontological (like "what makes something a work of art?") but rather sociological and historical ("which social conditions and historic processes cause an object to be regarded as a work of art?").

Bourdieu pays special attention to the modern perception of the artist as the autonomous creator of separate worlds and the fetishistic relation developed towards him as his products (exemplifies by the subject of the artist's signature).

According to Bourdieu, the more evolved the art field is the more it is constituted by power struggles around the ability to assign value to artists and works of art. The artistic discourse is characterized by Bourdieu by the proliferation of flexible and ambiguous terms which maintain control over the field for those with the adequate Habitus that control the artist and the art work's ability to enter and be accepted into the field of production and consumption. It is a struggle over the "truth" of art that denies the historicity and constitutive nature of this truth.

The art world, according to Bourdieu, also struggles over what he calls "pure reading" of artistic production. He argues that historical processes construct the subject which "correctly" reads the work of art. This "pure reading" is produced and reproduced through the workings of the art field.

In the last two parts of "The Historical Genesis of the Pure Aesthetic" Bourdieu discusses the role of history in the art world, a history that he claims is denied by the field itself as part of its claim for the "truth" of art. Art and philosophy of art have attempted to "purify" art from its social and historical context, suggesting that there is, always have been and always will be a "correct" way to understand a work of art. Bourdieu hold that we should reexamine the artistic "doxa" and see it for its constructed and historical nature. Bourdieu suggests a "double historicization" of both the artistic tradition and its implementation in order to examine and reveal the process through which cultural schemes assign value to art.   

Pierre Bourdieu – The Historical Genesis of the Pure Aesthetic - summary and review – part 1

see also: Bourdieu and the Art World

Pierre Bourdieu: Metamorphosis of taste

Bourdieu and the linguistic market

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Pierre Bourdieu – The Historical Genesis of the Pure Aesthetic - summary and review – part 1

In "The Historical Genesis of the Pure Aesthetic" (in: The Rules of Art) Pierre Bourdieu criticizes sociology's tendency to focus on art consumers while neglecting to study the production of art as field in itself. Following Marx and Webber, Pierre Bourdieu suggests the art field as a space of power relations played out by the interests of agents within it.

At the center of "The Historical Genesis of the Pure Aesthetic" is Bourdieu's criticism of the modern perception of art that must formulated by philosophers and art critiques since the 19^th century.

Modern view of art saw it as an independent filed in which the artist is free and autonomous to express a truth through and for the sake of art. This perception saw art as "pure aesthetic", art for the sake of art free of external constraints.

Bourdieu criticizes art critiques for concealing the social conditions which constituted their object of study – the artist and the artwork – and the artistic perspective that they themselves articulate. The art world is further criticized by Bourdieu for presenting the aesthetic experience as timeless and a-historic, thus promoting an illusion of the "absolute" regarding art. Bourdieu holds that both art and perceptions of art are historical constructs and as such are the result of specific conditions and processes in the art world.

 According to Bourdieu, one cannot separate the field of artistic production from the manner in which art is perceived and related to, for the eye of the beholder is also a product of the field. For Bourdieu, the art work has no intrinsic value and meaning which is independent of how it is viewed, and this is determined by historical and social conditions.

For Bourdieu, art is produced and evaluated according to a certain habitus of the art field. Habitus for Bourdieu is an array of traits required to assume a certain position within a field and at the same time the result of an agent's participation in the field. Artists, critiques, curators and so forth are those who sustain the art world by, in a sense, "playing it out".     

 Pierre Bourdieu – The Historical Genesis of the Pure Aesthetic - summary and review – part 2

see also: Bourdieu and the Art World

See summaries of Bourdieu's work:

Pierre Bourdieu – The Historical Genesis of the Pure Aesthetic - summary and review

Bourdieu and the Art World

Bourdieu and the linguistic market

Metamorphosis of Taste 

Distinction / Bourdieu

Suggested reading on Bourdiue:

  

Clifford Geertz – "From the Native's Point of View: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding" - summary, review and analysis

In "From the Native's Point of View: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding" (in: Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretative Anthropology") Clifford Geertz refines some of the main ideas presented in his previous studies such as "thick description" and "cultural meaning". Geertz views culture as embodies in public signs and symbols, as a web weaved by man himself which makes the world understandable. Geertz also discussed the anthropoligist's role in tracing and deciphering these meaning structures by coinciding his own as well as the native's point of view.

In "From the Native's Point of View: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding" Geertz deals with methodological and epistemological question pertaining to the anthropological quest for an adequate representation of another culture's experience of reality.

According to Geertz the anthropologist's task in neither objective nor subjective, it is both. He demonstrates this point by opposing "experience-near", which is the spontaneous and unaware experience, with "experience-distant" is the conceptualized account of reality. The anthropologist according to Geertz always shifts back and forth between these two forms of experience.

Geertz demonstrates his point through a comperative discussion of how deferent cultures perceive the concept of "person". Geertz compare the perceptions of "person" in Bali, Java and Morocco which are rather different from the western perception of the self as unique, consistent and whole.

In Java, for example, Geertz finds that the notion of person is organized through two sets of contradictions: inside/outside and refined/vulgar. The inside/outside distinction refers to two distinct realms: personal and private emotions and external behavior. The refined/vulgar distinction refer to a moral aspect in which the person assumes his correct position in the word.

In Bali Geertz shows how a rich and complex structure of personal denotations construct the person and his place in the social order (see: "Person Time and Conduct in Bali").

In Morocco the main principle according to Geertz is that of "nisba" which denotes or interpolates the person's always relative social identity.    

other summaries of articles by Clifford Geertz:

Clifford Geertz: Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture – Summary, Review and analysis 

Clifford Geertz: "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight

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Clifford Geertz - Person Time and Conduct in Bali - summary

Clifford Geertz views culture as a public performance of signs and symbolic acts (see: Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture). In "Person Time and Conduct in Bali" (in "Interpretation of Culture") geertz discusses the importance of recognizing the nature of human thought and perception as an employed social mechanism for cultural analysis. He demonstrates this notion and his idea of "thick description" in the case of the Balinese people and the manner in which they conceive and interpret the sense of being a person, time and subsequent behaviour.

In Geertz's view cultural patterns are the means through which people attribute meaning and structure various events in their lives. Therefore the study of culture according to Geertz is the study of the mechanism employed by individuals and groups in order to orient themselves in the world. These mechanisms serve as private solutions to the universal existential problems of cognition and orientation by answering questions like who we are, where do we come from, the relation between us and other people and between us and nature.   

According to Geertz one of the focal points of the need for the orientation is the private individual and his definition as a social unit. Social structures organize and construct personal identity and Geertz uses the example of Bali and the Balinese people to show hoe their complex system of names and social denotations of individuals function to construct such as personal identity through an established perception of time and existence.

According to Geertz, the Balinese name system seeks to obscure temporal differences between people and attempts at constructing them as sharing the same time, thus promoting a relative anonymousation of the personality. Geertz shows how personal perceptions in Bali are linked to perceptions of time, which for the Balinese is not linear as it is in the West but rather fragmented with specific meanings assigned to specific days. Time in Bali is simultaneous and all people are each other's contemporary.  

Finally, perceptions of the self and time are linked according to Geertz to conduct and behavior. Geertz discusses the Balinese term of "lek", misstraslated as "shame", which refers to one's failure to play out is role in social performance. Geertz's main thesis in "Person Time and Conduct in Bali" is that there exists interdependence between perceptions of the person, time and conduct which all stem from human experience and the attempt to organize social life. The next step for Geertz is try to trace the characteristics of these social experiences such as integration, change and conflict.


other summaries of articles by Clifford Geertz:
Clifford Geertz: Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture – Summary, Review and analysis 
Clifford Geertz –"From the Native's Point of View: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding"
Clifford Geertz: "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight

The Interpretation of Cultures by Clifford Geertz - Summary

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