Culture in Minds and Societies: Foundations of Cultural Psychology

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Culture in Minds and Societies: Foundations of Cultural Psychology

Jaan Valsiner Clark University, USA

Worcester Æ New Delhi May, 2006

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Author’s Preface This book is an adventure into the synthesis of ideas in the field of cultural psychology—building on the know-how of developmental science, anthropology, sociology, history, semiotics, and philosophy. Its basic focus is deeply phenomenological—human lived-through experience—rather than behavior-- is taken as the basis for the science of psychology. Psychology has in its history constantly struggled to prove its belonging to the pantheon of science—by way of adopting superficial understanding of the objectivity of its subject matter (in case of the widespread notion that it studies behavior), or of its methods. None of these efforts have succeeded, and in the case of the topic of the present book— cultural psychology—we face the most complex and most fascinating task of suggesting new leads for the construction of a discipline that is both general in its basic knowledge through representing human particulars in all their richness. Psychology can become science through fully accepting the centrality of human living experience within its social contexts and in all of its uniqueness. Yet—as a Wissenschaft—it builds abstract, generalized knowledge. I do not subscribe to the empiricist claim that is widespread in much of contemporary social sciences that the latter cannot lead to generalized knowledge because of the extreme context-dependency of its phenomena and the uniqueness of human experience. Somewhat paradoxically—or it may seem so at the first glance—I claim that it is precisely because of the maximum uniqueness of human psychological phenomena 1 that the science of human psychology can arrive at general knowledge. Yet this knowledge is not of the classic Aristotelian – classificatory—kind. It entails the focus on basic processes of experiencing that generate the whole range of human life experiences. The specific forms of human psychological phenomena vary across time, persons, and contexts— but the ways they are organized are universal. This is a book within psychology—yet without the orthodox mindset of contemporary psychology. It is meant for readers who want to find answers to the basic question—how is every person who lives in any location in the contemporary World integrating culture into one’s psychological life. How is culture present in human feeling, thinking, and acting—and how do human beings guide their own subjectivity through various cultural means. with a goal orientation of outlining the basic foundations for cultural psychology as a basic social science. My special gratitude for reading various drafts of the chapters, and giving me criticisms which did not let me become intellectually lazy through writing down too many words, go to my colleagues in various universities (Nandita 1

This is axiomatically given by the irreversibility of human life-time.

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Chaudhary at Lady Irwin College, New Delhi; Angela Branco at University of Brasilia, Brady Wagoner at University of Cambridge, UK.) and to my students in the Advances in Cultural Psychology seminar in Spring 2006, where we discussed various drafts of the first seven chapters. The helpful additions to the materials in the book by Anna Kupik, passionate reading of the text by Jayme Harrison, constructively ironic challenges by Kirsten Reed, and complementary suggestions by Alessa Zimmerman made significant contributions to the rewriting of the initial drafts. Danielle Kenneally, Scott Bernhegger, and Jen Bartko were always careful readers of the chapters and made very useful suggestions for extending the existing text when it was becoming too much abbreviated. Dave Messing was adamant in his insistence on the elaboration of human values that were visible behind my abstract schemes in the book, and Jonathan Mathews set his photographer’s mind up to suggest betterment of both text and figures. Boyd Timothy productively challenged my sometimes too excessive critiques of the existing “normal science” practices of contemporary psychology. Of course it is only some of the constructive solutions that were offered during the four months of the weekly seminar that I could use in the final version of the book. But the ideas will live on and may re-appear in the next work. Selective discussion of some of the ideas of semiotic mediation in our “Kitchen Seminar” at Clark, particularly the intellectual input of Nick Thompson, Roger Bibace, Vinny Havern, Emily Abbey, Sarah Strout, Rose Sokol, and Genie Giaimo is gratefully acknowledged. Part of my focusing on the dynamic social structure of humab living received input from my teaching a seminar on cultural and social psychology of genocides. The discussions of how most ordinary people may move between amity and atrocity with Becky Phillips, Tiberiu Galis, Naama Haviv, Stephanie Fischer and others were helpful for my better understanding of that part of human psyche we usually prefer not to think of—violence and politics. The book began as a plan to re-write my monograph of 2001— Comparative study of human cultural development, published in Madrid—but very quickly moved on to become a new book on its own. Still a few themes— and materials—carried over from that book. Some themes were borrowed from my other book—one can find a new version of the coverage of family and marriage here that started from my Culture and human development (London: Sage, 2000, chapter 6). While preserving the theoretical developmental core of my thinking in previous books, the present one is unique in its elaboration of the dynamic social structure within which human beings exist. The focus on child development that was present in the previous books has here almost but vanished, and replaced by a generalized interest in human development at any age level. A number of colleagues graciously allowed me then to re-print their photographic materials, as well as provided with valuable feedback. Usha Menon of Drexel University helped me with the figure of Kali (Figure 5.9.), as well as with my interpretation of the role of that powerful and ever-transforming deity. A special gratitude goes to my Editor at Sage, Tejeshwar Singh, who carefully

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charted out the making of this book, and its fit into the wider framework of the readership in India, as well as elsewhere. I am particularly pleased to publish this book in India so that my efforts to slowly learn about the intricacies of living in varied social contexts in the rich and heterogeneous cultural worlds present within the borders of India. I have so far learned from distance—and I hope the results of this learning would be a starting point for my direct experiencing of India in the future. In my personal development, this book is a milestone in a number of ways. First, it is the first time that I fully accept the identity of belonging to cultural psychology. Despite editing the major journal Culture & Psychology in that field since 1995, I had been reluctant to use the label cultural psychology for many years, despite many colleagues’ good advice. In a way, my own relationship to the imaginary “ingroup” of “cultural psychology” is as liminal as is the notion of the generic person who strives towards the center—while keeping oneself on the periphery. To me the label “cultural psychology” seemed too vague—or too fashionable—which for me are both good reasons to not take it seriously. The world is filled with nice labels that fight for social recognition at a superficial level, and I did not want to join the race for the fame with inventors of the world-saving claims of emotional intelligence, codes in the paintings of well-known artists, or mystiques of the psyche of a young boy. There is no suspense in this book. Instead, the reader finds here systematic, sometimes very realistic (and other times very remote) effort to construct a general theoretical framework of cultural psychology. After finding a satisfying solution of translating the ill-defined notion of culture into by far more circumscribed notion of semiotic mediation, I found that the identity of cultural psychology becomes acceptable for myself. A byproduct of that focus is the synthesis of psychology and semiotics in this book. Secondly, the book emerged very quickly in the process of becoming well after a sojourn as a participant observer of the life of hospitals. The resulting desire for living passionately and moving ahead with ideas is behind the urge to get this book written. I would feel gratified if the result provides serious reading for intellectually sophisticated thinkers. The real joy of human living is in the play—of ideas, and practices. Cultural psychology as conceived here is the study of the extraordinary nature of the most ordinary aspects of human daily living in any place on the Globe. We are all one—by being individually unique.

May, 2006

Jaan Valsiner Worcester, Ma.—Chapel Hill, N.C

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List of Contents Chapter 1. Approaches to Culture— Semiotic Bases for Cultural

Psychology Culture within the tradition of cross-cultural psychology Social anthropology, folk psychology, and cultural psychology The question of transfer of culture Semiotic basis for culture: the legacy of Charles S. Peirce Ambiguity re-presented: combining icon, index, and symbol The principle of redundant control Regulating the subjective future: the Promoter Sign Constraining dynamics across the semiotic regulatory hierarchy Summary: Culture as semiotic regulation system Chapter 2. Society and Community: Interdependence of Social

Webs Society—a functional abstraction and a semiotic mediator Social Structures and their Differentiation Communication Processes-- Within society and community Generalized meaning fields: collective making of “the society” Summary: Socially guided subjectivity

Chapter 3. Making Oppositions: Dialogical Self and Dualities in

Meaning Making Boundaries: created in space and irreversible time Looking at “the others”: multiple ways Bi-directionality of cultural understanding: partnership Duality in the social sciences: Dialogical models The Dialogical Self (DS) Theory Meanings emerge through oppositions Summary: oppositions in the semiotic fields of the self Chapter 4. Minimal Communities and Their Organization: Kinship groups, families, and marriage forms Quasi-stability of social identity environments The family: Ideologically presented unity of a part of the kin group Efforts to specify types of family Family as an organized small group Psychological functioning of the joint family context

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Marriages as arranged frameworks Marriage as transformation of relationship forms The polygynic marriage The polyandrous marriage The conjoint (polygynandrous) marriage The monogamous marriage Summary: minimal communities in action

Chapter 5. Cultural Wholes on the Move: Maintenance and

Crossing of Boundaries in the Semiotic Universes Meanings and movements Cultural psychology of pilgrimage Crusades: unity of war and pilgrimage The CONSTRUCTION<>DESTRUCTION dialectics Crossing borders: within personal cultures, and between Rhetorical guiding of human development Ernst Boesch’s symbolic action theory Basic duality: myths and counter-myths Dialogical processes in myth stories Conclusions: Textured dramas

Chapter 6. Thinking as a cultural process Three logical processes in human reasoning Generalization and indeterminacy. Unity of reasoning through abduction Abductive reasoning in practice Overcoming uncertainties: probability as logic Cognitive heuristics as cultural mediation complexes Strategic uses of reasoning Conclusions: abduction as process of innovation

Chapter 7. Semiotic fields in action: Affective guiding of the internalization/externalization process Human development: microgenesis, mesogenesis, and ontogenesis Affect—feeling fields and emotion categories Semiotics of the domain of feelings Cultural-historical promotion of affective field construction Rituals as promoters of hyper-generalized feeling fields

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Promotion of different levels of affective sign fields in different societies Cultural framing of affective development Dynamics of affective fields: coordination of person al and collective cultures Internalization and externalization Creating as-if structures through internalization/ externalization Structure of the internalization/ externalization process Conclusion: Functions of the multi-level affective self-regulation

Chapter. 8. Methodology for Cultural Psychology: Systemic,

Qualitative, and Idiographic Reliance on impossible axioms Methodological objectives of cultural psychology Where democracy fails: in “contributions to the literature” Methodology as knowledge construction process Looking at culturally directed psychological phenomena Systemic Causality What is experiment in the realm of cultural psychology? Modulation of researcher<> phenomena distance The conditional-genetic analysis Generality expressed within specificity Conclusion: systemic methodology within cultural psychology

General Conclusion: Culture in minds and societies References

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Chapter 1. Approaches to Culture— Semiotic Bases for Cultural Psychology

K: Sir, what does that word ‘culture’ mean? To cultivate? B: It is based on ‘cultivate’. K: That is ‘to grow.’ So we mean by culture that which grows, that which is capable of growth. What benefit is given by culture? B: Science, art, music, literature and technology. Every culture has a certain technology with which it approaches reality; certain methods have been developed to live, to grow things, to make things. K: Has thought created culture? Of course it has. B: Some culture seems to be necessary for man to survive. K: I wonder if it is necessary. B: Perhaps it isn’t, but at least it appears to be. (Krishnamurti & Bohm, 1999, p. 85) Culture has been a difficult term to use in both everyday and scientific discourses in the history of human societies. As a term, it indeed implies some constructive modification of the natural course of affairs. This can take the form of some kind of goal-directed cultivation of features or properties of objects -- be those plants, domesticated animals, or children-- in the process of their development. The whole world of human beings is a cultivated world, where our natural resources – of ourselves, and of our environment—are transformed into meaningful world of objects. Some of those objects become exchangeable as commodities—while others attain the status of personalized and sacred nonexchangeable belongings. Meanings of objects carry their cultivated value—and the objects have their own “cultural biographies.” Thus, cars lose value as they age, until—about the age of thirty they start to belong to the category of “antiques” and as such rise in value year by year (Kopytoff, 1986, p. 80). The same applies to furniture or other household objects of durable character 2—only at a different time scale. 2

Such as vases, silverware, rugs—but not plastic cups and plates that are functional precisely in their planned disposability.

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Similar value is often put upon human beings—they become symbols for regulating other persons’ social relationships. Together with assuming social roles— in different areas of the World differently—with age, persons may acquire more social value as “wise persons” and may be trusted with complex decisions. This cultural model preserves the accumulation of experiences of persons’ lifetimes. If such focus is not considered of relevance, social actions may privilege the value of the young and inexperienced over the older persons. In various social institutions older people may be forced into retirement and their social value may be limited to the family circles as loving grandparents. At times the value of human beings is expressed in monetary terms—the sizes of payments made to persons in the social roles of slaves, business leaders, professional athletes, lawyers, doctors or academics as communicated in public are examples of creating collective value for the cultivation of social role images. In short—cultivation has its varied time lines, and areas of focus. All human socially differentiated roles are cultivated. What are the ways in which such cultivation takes place in human relations? Note that the noun-- culture -does not carry the functions that its verb-kind extensions-- "to cultivate" or "to culture"-- might carry. The crucial tension in psychologists' discourse about culture is that between treating it as an existing entity (e.g., "culture IS X"), and a process of becoming (e.g., "culturing leads to X"). All through this book we will emphasize the dynamic, processual nature of the functioning of culture within human psychological systems—both intra-personal (feeling, thinking, acting) and interpersonal (conduct in relation with other human beings). Values in culture. Culture has been – in lay use—a value-laden term. The contrast between “cultured” and “primitive” tribes has been flourishing in European discourse until it has become censored out by our contemporary social norms. Furthermore, the contrasts between “high culture” and “low culture” have been used in social stratification within a social unit. In line with the appeal of the “high culture” we often tend to emphasize our personal ties with people we label “cultured”, in discrimination of the others towards whom we may show some implicitly derogatory attitude behind the mask of social equality. The notion of culture has had a long history in the social thought (see Jahoda, 1993 for a comprehensive overview). In the present state of affairs, the notion of culture is used in psychology in two meanings. First, it has been used to designate some group of people who “belong together” by value of some shared features. Thus, all the Norwegians “belong together” as they are assumed to share the common language 3 and happen to also be citizens of the same country. The Welsh “belong together” as they share the common heritage of language, music, and the area of the British Isles where they have lived. The Basques or Kurds “belong together” by way of their shared language and customs, but not by the countries (Spain or France; and Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran, respectively) in which they live. India poses a major puzzle for delineating “the Indian culture”—given the 1612 different languages spoken within the 3

This of course, is outsiders’ belief about the Norwegians who actually “share” the co-presence of multiple “Norwegian languages”

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borders of the State of India (Chaudhary, 2004), and 675 various small kingdoms into which the present-day country was divided in its pre-colonial history 4, and not to even mention the caste segregation—what could qualify as “the Indian culture” remains a prevailing mystery. Of course in our everyday talk the use of such general labels “X-ian culture” provides some cognitive economy to the speakers—yet the analytic usefulness of such labels is legitimately questioned. Person and culture: three forms of relations. In the examples above, individual persons “belong to” a culture. This form of making sense of person and culture-- PERSON BELONGS TO CULTURE-- simultaneously denotes the commonality of such belonging (the descriptive, or classificatory role of the use of the term), and some—usually unspecified—causal system that guarantees the relative similarity of all the persons who “belong to” the given culture. This meaning prevails in cross-cultural psychology. Secondly, culture has been treated as an inherent, systemic organizer of the psychological systems of individual persons-- CULTURE BELONGS TO THE PERSON. Cultural means are brought into the personal subjective worlds where they transform subjectivities in unique—yet culturally guided—ways. In this sense, culture “belongs to” each individual person (Boesch, 1991, 2000, 2002a, 2002b; 2005—see chapter 5). It is irrelevant to which ethnic group, or country, the persons “belong to”, since culture is functioning within the intra-psychological systems of each person. The cultural means—nuances of language meanings, social norms, religious beliefs, etc that were developed in the country of origin— do not stop to function in the deep subjective worlds of a guest worker or an immigrant to another country. Thirdly, CULTURE BELONGS TO THE RELATING OF THE PERSON AND THE ENVIRONMENT. Here culture becomes exemplified through different processes by which persons relate with their worlds. If the person and environment are considered as inclusively separated, culture is considered as a process of internalization and externalization or mutual constituting between person and the social world (Shweder, 1990). If the researcher decides to introduce a boundary between person and the social world (e.g., Rogoff, 1990; 2003; Wertsch, 1998), the process of culture becomes elaborated in terms of appropriation, guided participation, or mastery. Culture here "is" these posited processes, rather than an entity. Study of culture as it is manifested in psychology exists along two different trajectories—those of cross-cultural psychology, and—more recently—of cultural psychology. Despite the fact that both of these sub-disciplines use the term culture, and study human beings, their ways of creating knowledge are quite different.

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not to speak about the heterogeneity of religious systems that have different histories in the North and South of India—Kurien, 2002

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Culture within the tradition of cross-cultural psychology Cross-cultural psychology is a branch of traditional psychology of group comparisons. The groups thus compared are different ethnic, geographic, or administratively united groups--labeled “cultures”. Cross-cultural psychology mostly uses the first model outlined above (PERSONS BELONG TO CULTURE). As such, “cultures” in cross-cultural psychology have implied properties: 1. Qualitative homogeneity. It is assumed that each and every “member of the culture” (that is, person who “belongs to” that culture) shares with each and every other member the same set of cultural features. There can be inter-individual differences in the quantitative side of such sharing (some persons share more of the given feature than others), yet all of them share the same features. 2. Temporal stability. It is assumed that the set of cultural features (shared by the persons who are “members of the culture”) is the same over time—even as the membership of persons in a culture changes from generation to generation. Even if historical changes take place in a given society, culture is expected to be characterized by its stability. Thus, the guillotines of the French Revolution, or the political homicides of Stalinist Russia, Pol Pot's Cambodia, etc. are not assumed to dramatically modify the cultures involved. Both of these assumptions fit with those made in non-developmental axioms about groups of persons (united by some characteristics, e.g., male versus female). Inter-individual differences are viewed as quantitative-- a matter of degree rather than another quality, The characteristics by which the groups are contrasted with one another are seen as ontological givens --rather than open to development. Thus, homogeneous “culture” groups are compared with one another in cross-cultural psychology. For example, “the American culture” might be represented by a sample of college undergraduates, and be compared with “the Italian culture” represented by a sample of university students from Palermo. In Figure 1.1., the basic structure of generalization of knowledge about culture in psychological issues. Let us begin from an admittedly simplified hierarchical structure of societies, which entails individual persons, social institutions, societies themselves, and an over-generalized notion of “humankind” at the ultimate top of the hierarchy. This picture is simplified as it overlooks a number of existing intermediate levels within the hierarchy—those of transient social groups (between individuals and institutions), government bureaucracies (which, as institutions themselves, introduce sub-hierarchy into the institutions <> society connection of levels). Nevertheless, the simplified picture illustrates the complexity of the social hierarchy and the ways in which cross-cultural psychology constructs its knowledge.

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Figure 1.1. The use of the notion of culture in cross-cultural psychology

The hierarchy in Figure 1.1. entails multiple connections. The same individual person can be participant in more than one social institution (e.g., individuals X, Y, V), some can even simultaneously belong to institutions of different societies (Z). The specific ties with specific institutions may change over the person’s life course. A politician in the government (institution S) of society A may be simultaneously a member of the central intelligence agency (institution T) of country B. Children who have at times lived in one country and experienced its formal schooling institution, may migrate to another society and encounter a very different schooling environment. As a result, the children may develop self systems adapted for both societies differently. Cross-cultural psychology utilizes the traditional strategy of group comparisons in establishing knowledge about culture. The particular societies (A, B., in Figure 1.1.) become re-labeled as culture A and culture B. Individual persons on the bottom of the social hierarchy become members of the culture (A or B). After such semantic change, it becomes meaningful in cross-cultural psychology to establish knowledge about culture A and culture B by comparing the two on the basis of psychological data derived from their members. Since the set of members in A (as in B) is considered qualitatively homogeneous, it is possible for cross-cultural psychology to think in terms of

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random sampling from the pool of culture members in an effort to let the sample data represent the abstraction called population. What is the population? Population is the abstract full representation of all members of the given culture, and it is hoped that data that characterize the population (as taken from the sample) can characterize the culture (“population “ = culture A). Hence it makes sense in cross-cultural psychology to make comparisons between populations (=cultures) A and B, of the general kind: A --- is (or is not) different from-- B Such kind of knowledge is the end result of inductive generalizations made in cross-cultural psychology. It can empirically map out psychological differences—dependent upon the methods used—between different groups of persons, labeled culture members, and considered to be a homogeneous set. The empirical reality is that of comparisons between sample, generalization from it moves instantly to abstracted claims about differences of cultures (see Figure 1.1.) It is possible to see from Figure 1.1. that the cross-cultural knowledge construction strategy overlooks the hierarchical organization of human social life. The organizing role of different levels (and combinations) of social institutions is not taken into account in this construction of data about cultures as represented by populations of assumedly homogeneous kinds. Explanation of the empirically discovered differences in cross-cultural psychology are not explainable within the theoretical system of cross-cultural psychology, except in tautological terms (e.g., Culture A “causes” the sample from A to be different from sample from B, which is “caused” by culture B). In cross-cultural psychology, a similar move of turning a descriptive label into explanatory essence can be observed. For example, the “italian-ness” of Italian subjects can be recruited to explain their behavior, in contrast to the “american-ness” of the American subjects. The construction of explanations like this is circular-- Italians are found to be Italian because they are from Italy; and Americans to be American because they are from America (or from the United States). To talk of “Indian-ness” given the enormous social, economic, and linguistic heterogeneity in India as a causal entity that generates all of the richness of some people—as well as poverty of many others—would be absurd. It would amount to constructing a bogus explanatory label of the kind similar to that of phlogiston in pre-scientific physics. It is obvious that cross-cultural psychology’s use of the term culture is limited to being an overgeneralizing label. If some evidence allows to treat particular phenomena (as found within a sample) as if these represent a larger collective unit (labeled culture— a given ethnic or language group, or a politicaladministrative unit-- a country), then the evidence obtained becomes generalized to all "members of the culture." This is possible only under the assumption of qualitative homogeneity (as described above). Not only is such assumption unwarranted, but it also leads to making comparisons that obscure, rather than reveal, the underlying phenomena.

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The universal nature of the limit for inference in cross-cultural psychology. The limits of the empirical generation in cross-cultural psychology are the same for all group-comparisons based investigations in psychology. All of psychology—not only the cross-cultural side—struggles with the problem of making sense of group comparisons. The usual solution to explaining group differences is the turning of the descriptive features of the group into causal essences. For example, a comparison of males and females (samples of persons, described as “males” and “females”) leads to interpretation of the differences as if those are caused by “gender”—“maleness” is seen to cause the difference of the males from the females, whose difference is caused by “femaleness”. Notice the shift from detected (descriptive) group differences to absolute causal statements about posited "essences" that are projected into each male and female person as if those were basic parts of their psychological systems. Undoubtedly the biological nature of maleness -- XY chromosomes-and femaleness-- XX chromosomes) is systemic in the biological constitution of the body. Yet that difference is not a part of the psychological system in itself. It can become translated into gender differences at the psychological level by way of numerous organizing conditions that guarantee inter-individual variability. Cross-cultural psychology has followed the lead of the rest of psychology to make use of variability—in this case that of between ethnologically described societies—to arrive at universal generalizations through correlational approaches (e.g., by use of Human Relations Area Files—Ember & Ember, 2000; Murdock, 1981). The fallacy of using relative comparisons between societies for making absolute statements about societies of particular kind has become the methodological norm in such applications. Such cross-sectional take on variability between described social units (societies, ethnic or language groups as “cultures”) is vulnerable to violation of the assumption of independence of the sampled units (“cultures”), some of which share joint histories. Social anthropology, folk psychology, and cultural psychology The traditions of social anthropology in thinking about culture have partially supported this extra-personal look at culture. Thus, according to Bronislaw Malinowski, Culture is an integral composed of partly autonomous, partly coordinated institutions. It is integrated on a series of principles such as the community of blood through procreation; the contiguity in space related to cooperation; the specialization in activities; and last but not least, the use of power in political organization. Each culture owes its completeness and self-sufficiency to the fact that it satisfies the whole range of basic, instrumental and integrative needs. (Malinowski, 1944, p. 40)

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Here culture operates as the set of external organizing principles (and institutions) for human beings in their social contexts. What was missed in crosscultural psychology—the structure of social organizational forms that make up society— was clearly highlighted in social anthropology. On the intra-personal side, the reference to “need satisfaction” indicates that culture remains a tool for such satisfaction, rather than becoming part of those “basic, instrumental, and integrative needs” itself. However, for psychology, Malinowski’s look at culture through social institutions is insufficient. The personal side of living experiences within culture— being both “in” culture and “having culture” in one’s own feelings and thoughtswas left out by social anthropologists. Our contemporary sub-are of psychology that is labeled cultural psychology overcomes that limitation. In contrast with cross-cultural psychology, different versions of cultural psychology operate with notions of culture of inherently systemic kind. There is continuity in cultural psychology with the systemic traditions of folk psychology of different kinds (Wilhelm von Humboldt’s and Wilhelm Wundt’s traditions) as well as those of European ethnology and social and cultural anthropology. In the 1990s, the scene of psychology experiences a re-birth in the notion of culture. This re-birth of old traditions of Völkerpsychologie in the form of different versions of cultural psychology constitutes another attempt to make sense of complex psychological phenomena. All these efforts are united by treating culture as a part of the person’s psychological system. Here culture “belongs to” the individual psychological system and plays some functional role in it. The person of course belongs to one or another country, language or ethnic group, or religious belief system. That social participation undoubtedly provides material for the psychological system within which culture is located. Thus, the language the person uses to interact within his or her society is a semiotic tool within the person’s intra-psychological system. It guides the ways the person thinks, feels, and formulates utterances. As a result, the ways of knowledge construction in cultural psychology differ cardinally from those of cross-cultural psychology (see Figure 1.2.). Cultural psychology begins from sampling of an individual person together with his or her participation in social institutions (e.g., V in Figure 1.2). Based on the systemic analysis of the individual-in-social-context, a generalized model of the cultural functioning of the person is constructed. That systemic model is further tested empirically on the basis of another selected individual (e.g., z who belongs to two societies), which leads to the modification of the systemic model. The modified model is further tested on a selected individual case, and so on. Together with such hermeneutic construction of knowledge about person as culturally functioning system, the generalized model becomes ideally applicable to human beings in their generic state. Such generalizations thus apply to all humankind, as these are seen to generate the inter-individual differences between persons. Cultural psychology is part of the psychological science that is oriented towards discovery of basic fundamental principles. Thus, cultural psychology is part of general psychology as a basic science, while cross-cultural psychology belongs to differential psychology.

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Figure 1.2. The use of the notion of culture in cultural psychology

Different specific versions of cultural psychology There are two basic directions within cultural psychology. One can distinguish the semiotic (sign-mediated) and activity orientations in using culture. Culture as semiotic mediation. Culture can refer to semiotic (sign) mediation that is part of the system of organized psychological functions. These functions can be intra-personal (i.e., the functioning of a person’s intra-psychological processes while being involved in experiencing the world: feeling, thinking, memorizing, forgetting, planning, etc.). Thus, a person -- observing a painting-who says to oneself (in the mind) "I like this" is involved in an act of intrapsychological semiotic regulation of one's feelings. Complexity of such intrapsychological semiotic mediation devices can include created hierarchies. A person can create -- in one's intra-psychological system-- an "alter ego"-- with

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whom one can enter into lengthy internal dialogues. Such dialogues involve the use of signs, including in ways that entails hierarchical relations between those. Semiotic mediation can also take place in the inter-personal realm: different persons are involved in chatting, fighting, persuading each other, avoiding (one another, or some domains of experiencing). This kind of discursive practice can entail much more than mere interaction or "exchange of information". It can include strategic interactions, setting up the "semiotic traps" for the interlocutors, and ideological declarations. A semiotic trap is a form of symbolic “capture” of the other person’s self in the web of shame, inferiority, or other form of showing the trapper’s superior relation to the trapped. It takes the form of a three-stage sequence in communication: “TRUST ME, do X”Æ “HOW COULD YOU HAVE???” DONE X Æ MAINTENANCE OF THE TRAPPED in the set-up state as long as the trapper decides. Consider an example of deterioration of friendly relation of a young woman: I have a friend who got a nose job [plastic surgery on the nose] 3 days before my return to college. She has a son who I regularly baby-sit for when I am home. She asked that I stay over the night before her surgery and take her son to school in the morning as well as stopping by after her surgery if I had time. I stopped back 2 times the next day, before I went to work for 5 hours and then after I left work. Though I was there to keep her company, she did not want me to ask her questions, talk, move. It was uncomfortable to sit in silence and be yelled at when speaking. Never had I before experienced a plastic surgery or helped someone who had. I tried to talk about what anesthesia felt like, since I had some bad times with that, like when I had my wisdom teeth out, so that I could try to relate. I had many things to do the following day and then I returned to school the day after that. Since she had been in such a bad mood, I figured I would see if she wanted me to stop by on Saturday after running some errands. Because talking had been hard for her, I sent her an instant message instead, her reaction was much unexpected to me. She was furious that I was out doing errands, I would assume- instead of taking care of her. Also she was furious that I didn’t offer to baby-sit on Friday, using my 2 hours of free time that day between jobs. I was deemed a bad friend, selfish, ungrateful for all that she had done for me, because of all of her allegations. “How could you compare getting a nose job to getting your wisdom teeth being taken out, that’s like saying I broke a nail”, she said to me. As I said before this reaction was very unexpected, and was quite hurtful. Since that time, she had had instant messaged me the day after I got to school, with similar allegations and expressing her extreme distaste for me. We have not spoken again. (A. Kupik, personal communication, February, 25, 2006, added emphases)

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The intentions of the sympathetic helper were crushed by the pouring out of the “how could you!!!” dramatization of making a simple comparison of two non-lethal medical procedures. Since the decision of what kind of material to use for trapping is in the hands (mind) of the trapper, the victim of the trapping has limited possibilities to predict the first (or next) episode of such events. Communication always depends on the meta-communicational strategies that set up the ways in which signs are used for particular purposes (see also Chapter 4—Example 4.4.) Semiotic mediation is also a tool in the goals-oriented actions by social institutions, which try to regulate both the inter-personal and intra-personal psychological functions. Such institutions set up the social rules for interaction, monitor their maintenance, and expect that situated activity and interaction to lead to intra-psychological transformation of the personal cultural systems. The use of uniforms, activities like marching, chanting, and group dancing set up such semiotic mediation system. Social institutions are active “semiotic trappers” of human beings for their particular purposes. Culture and cognition. One of the forms of sign mediation is the use of folk models (in anthropological terminology) or social representations (in terms of social psychology). Both of these directions in understanding culture take into account the two opposite credos in the psychology of the 20th century— psychoanalysis and behaviorism (Jahoda, 2002). The notion of folk models is in some ways a synthesis of selected ideas from both—they are declared to be learned through experience (i.e., fitting the behaviorist belief system), while they operate as sign complexes to guide the intra-psychological processes of distorted satisfactions (i.e., a tribute to psychoanalysis). In contemporary cognitive anthropology the notion of folk models—social representations carried by persons but set up through social construction—has gained ground. The notion of folk models is a fitting compromise for anthropology and cognitive science. From the standpoint of cognitive anthropology, there exist three major kinds of views on "culture" in anthropology (elaborated after D'Andrade, 1984, pp. 115-116): 1) Culture is seen as existing knowledge: it is the accumulation of information (irrespective of the extent to which that information is shared between people who belong to the group which has access to the information). Here the focus is on the socially shared knowhow and cognitive operations by which such knowhow can be handled. 2) Culture is seen as consisting of existing core conceptual structures that provide basis for intersubjectively shared representation of the world in which the persons live. This perspective does not emphasize the moment of accumulation (of information), but is rather a set of rules that makes it possible for persons to arrive at shared understandings. The

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notion of collective and social representations (see chapter 7) belongs here. 3) culture is construction of conceptual structures by activities of persons. This perspective entails a look at how cognitive mechanisms come into being-- in ontogeny and in cultural history. Culture and action. A parallel approach to the focus on culture as semiotic mediation exists in current cultural psychology in the realm of activity-theoretic perspectives. These perspectives grow on the basis of Alexey N. Leontiev’s (and Pierre Janet’s) foci on human activity and its structural-dynamic organization, and borrow from the pragmatist philosophy of John Dewey. The focus on the unified whole of human cultural existence can be summarized in general terms: Humans develop through their changing participation in the sociocultural activities of their communities, which also change. (Rogoff, 2003, p. 11) This general perspective needs to be qualified by five elaborations: 1. Culture is not just what people do—but also what people observe in the various activities of other human beings who assume different social roles. 2. Understanding cultural heritages—one’s own, or others’—requires the drawing of contrasts between communities so as to overcome the “blinders” of existing tacit assumptions 3. Cultural practices are mutually interdependent. They form a dynamic Gestalt—it is not possible to explain differences between communities by single (or few) causal attributions. 4. Cultural communities change—as do individuals. Individuals change the communities and through that—themselves. 5. Learning from other communities does not mean the loss of the values of one’s own, but rather is a way to transform one’s own.

Acting and reflecting: culture as a psychological distancing device. It is precisely the capacity and propensity to make and use semiotic devices that allows human beings to become distanced in relation to their immediate life contexts. The person becomes simultaneously an actor who is immersed in the given "situated activity context", and a reflexive agent who is distanced from the very setting in which one is immersed. This duality is relevant for transcending the adaptational demands of the here-and-now context, and guide the development towards increasing autonomy. Yet any autonomy is a result of the immediate dependence upon the here-and-now context (as the open-systemic nature of any developing system-- be it biological, psychological, or social-- entails).

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Psychological distancing always includes the context within which the person is, and in relation to which the distancing takes place. The person does not “go away” from the context—that would be as impossible as staying alive under cessation of our supply of oxygen. The person creates a distance—by way of semiotic mediation—in relation to the here-and-now context. It takes the form of I reflect upon this context in which I am a part. This reflection-- which is cognitive and affective at the same time-- allows the psychological system to consider contexts of the past, imagine contexts of the future, and take perspectives of other persons (in the form of empathy). Without distancing, no considerations by a person of contexts other than the given here-and-now would be possible. Culture as dynamic substance for human living. As a part of every person’s psychological organization, culture is the primary tool for human living. Human personality is an integrated system of semiotic mediators at various levels (Valsiner, 1998). Human beings have created numerous cultural tools for construction (building technologies and materials, food for healthy and fertile living, medicines to prevent or cure illnesses), destruction (military technologies from spears to tanks and nuclear bombs—and symbolic means for justification of their use), coping with uncertainties (myths and ideologies), and realms of aesthetic needs and their satisfaction (art, music, theatre—instruments, performers, and meaning systems for beauty and artistic discourse). In summary, it can be seen that the use of “culture” in psychology has proceeded in two different ways. One of those—the external/formal use of culture as a descriptive term—has been utilized in cross-cultural psychology. Culture is an extrinsic organizer—or causal attribution means—for the myriad of action, feeling, and thinking patterns that persons in various countries (societies, cultures) demonstrate. The other—treating culture as an inherent part of human psychological functions—has been used in cultural psychology. In this book, our coverage is that of the second—intrinsic—look at culture within psychological processes. The question of transfer of culture How is it possible to transfer one’s created cultural system from one person to another? As was shown above, culture can be viewed as a process (rather than an entity). How is it possible to transfer the constructed cultural mediating devices from the parents to their offspring? Such inter-generational transfer is extremely important for continuity of society. Yet simultaneously it has to guarantee constant adaptation of the persons (through their culture) to novel circumstances of life. The unidirectional culture transfer model. The unidirectional notion considers the developing person-- the recipient of the cultural transmission or socialization endeavours-- passive in his acceptance (or failure of it-- a "miss" or an "error" of the “transmission”) of the cultural messages. The recipient's role is merely either

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to accept the messages aimed at him, or perhaps fail to do so-- but in any case the recipients are not assumed to re-organize the received message. The messages are de facto viewed as fixed entities. They are either accepted by the receiver as givens, or (in case of their incomplete acceptance) with an "error of transmission". The most widespread concrete application of such uni-directional model is in technical systems. The role of the recipient of these messages is that of the mere acceptor of all the "influences", rather than that of a constructive (albeit limited) modifier of those. The unidirectional model is deeply rooted in our common sense fits with the nature of technological systems, where the information to be transmitted is fixed, closed to development, and where the exact copy-like nature of transmission of the given message is a desired goal. We depend increasingly upon modern slaves—technological devices. We expect those devices to transfer messages without errors. Nobody is happy about modifications in computer files or poor quality xerox copies. In both cases, the desired transmission quality is 100% replication of the original, and anything less than that may be a serious fault or error. Both of course we are not expecting xerox copies to develop, in relation to the original, any new properties! A similar case is with the uni-directional model of culture transfer. Each next generation is expected to take over the cultural knowhow of their parent generation as it is given. This is depicted in Figure 1.3. Figure 1.3. The unidirectional culture transfer scheme

PERSO N

X’

X’'

PERSO N

As is depicted in Figure 1.3., the initiator of cultural transfer (person A) sets up some communicative goals (by estimation of the recipient’s current psychological state), and sets forth a message (X’) for the recipient to take over. In accordance with this model, the message X’ is taken over intact (X’=X”) by the recipient (person B). While person A creates a message on the basis of one’s internal knowledge structure (X) and on the basis of communicative goals, the recipient (B) is assumed to accept the communicated message exactly as it is given to him or her. The unidirectional model of transmission is widespread -- it permeates our common language meanings. It is preferred by social institutions which try to

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regulate the lives of individual persons. Thus, it has its counterpart in the language of psychology and education. Thus, it is often considered that children's psychological functions are "shaped" or "molded" by their parents, teachers, or peers. Knowledge is viewed as something given-- which is to be "learned" (as opposed to re-created). Discourse in traditional education, anthropology, and child psychology has habitually accepted the implications of the unidirectional transfer view. This has been possible by the lack of understanding of basic processes of development. The bi-directional transfer model: active co-construction. Development of any kind and level (biological, psychological, sociological) is an open-systemic phenomenon in which novelty is constantly in the process of being created. Hence the unidirectional transfer model cannot fit any of the open-systemic processes. It is the second model-- the bi-directional transfer model-- which can fit the nature of open systems (see Figure 1.4.). Figure 1.4. The bi-directional (mutually constructive) culture transfer scheme

PERSO N

X’

X’’

PERSO N

Figure 1.4. is similar to Figure 1.3., with the important modification that the role of the recipient (B) is depicted as active analyzer of the suggested message (X’) into its components, together with a synthesis of a new internalized form of the message (X”). In that process, some parts of the initial message are eliminated, others modified, and still others added. The bi-directional model is based on the premise that all participants in the cultural transfer of knowledge are actively transforming the cultural messages. In fact, it might be more adequately called multi-directional transfer model-- since the active role of all participants leads to multiple courses of reconstruction of messages. The "older" generation-- parents, teachers, older peers, mass media, etc-actively assemble messages of a certain unique form, which are meant to

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canalize the development of the younger persons. Yet these younger persons-equally actively-- analyze the messages, and re-assemble the incoming “cultural information" in a personally novel forms. Thus, their analysis/synthesis of these messages is the process of exchange relations with their cultural environments that developmental sciences would study. Novelty is expected to result from the syntheses some of the time-- in forms that are personally unique (even if they resemble socially known phenomena. For example, a child's first synthesis of a word meaning is new for that child, while the word may be well defined in the given language), as well as in forms that are unique in general (e.g., new inventions in technology, arts, or sciences). This view of cultural transmission entails construction of novelty both during encoding and decoding of the cultural messages. In some sense, the "message" as such never exists in any "given" form, as it is reconstructed by the encoder (who may start with a certain goal in mind, but shift it while creating the message), and by the decoder in a similar manner. As the roles of the encoder and decoder are constantly being changed into each other, cultural transmission involves transformation of culture in real time, by participants in the social discourse. This is well known in language theory (Bühler, 1990) as well as in the philosophical look at intersubjectivity (Rommetveit, 1992). Messages transferred through communication channels are necessarily ambiguous because the goal orientations of the communicators and recipients do not usually coincide. Metacommunicative processes (Branco and Valsiner, 2005) are set up to regulate such ambiguity—but it cannot be eliminated. Social norms as cultural tools How does temporary stability of cultural forms emerge from the bidirectional culture transfer process. As emphasized above, the bi-directional process is that of constant decomposing and recomposing of communicative messages. Yet, in some way, some relatively stable meanings—and their carrying forms—emerge from that process. A reasonable answer to that question was provided by Muzafer Sherif in the 1930s. Sherif’s classic work The psychology of social norms (Sherif, 1936), and his ingenious experimental study of the autokinetic movement (Sherif, 1937) are known in social psychology. However, the developmental and cultural basis that led Sherif to his clever experimental demonstrations is often overlooked. Muzafer Sherif was a Turkish psychologist who moved back-and-forth between academic positions in Turkey and the U.S. As such, he had an insider’s view of both worlds, and could see very clearly the greatest intellectual difficulty that faces psychology at large. In his own words, When, in his studies, a psychologist or sociologist imposes the norms of his own community-centrism upon the communitycentrism of other peoples, the outcome is an impossible confusion. (Sherif, 1936, p. 16)

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This verdict fits cultural and cross-cultural psychologies in the 1990s as well as it fitted psychology in the 1930s. Sherif saw the necessity for a scientist to raise above both one’s own culturally constructed values and beliefs, as well as those of the persons under study. Social norms as cultural constructions. Sherif’s look at the emergence and transformation of social norms was explicitly developmental: Social norms are not absolutes. They develop in the course of actual relationships between individuals. They presuppose for their formation the contact of individuals striving toward the satisfaction of their needs and the realization of what they consider “I” or “We,” the latter indicating the group with which “I” identifies itself. Therefore the norms may change, and do change eventually with the important changes in the structure of the situation that gave rise to those norms in the beginning (Sherif, 1936, p, 17) For Sherif it was important to take into account the whole cultural history of different societies. The cultural history is often closely intertwined by the history of major social institutions—especially those which have guided individuals over many generations towards their internalized reconstruction of the value systems, exemplified in specific activity practices (or their avoidances). History of cultural belief systems entails constructive replication—at times involving attenuation, at times—amplification—of the specific meaning ÅÆ action complexes by persons in each new generation. A particular historically maintained belief—religious or political—can be reconstructed by the young in a given society in an escalated (exaggerated) way—as a means to negotiate their roles within the changing society. This negotiation process has a parallel at the level of social organizations. Within a larger social organization (state) new religious cults emerge, may proliferate and disappear. Christianity was in the 3rd4th Centuries of our era persecuted and stigmatized as a cult. Its survival and proliferation into a worldwide religious system is a historical product—which by now creates the axis of opposition in the World with another former small cult— Islam. Sherif’s example also holds a key to the emergence of interpersonal and inter-group segregation. The person who finds pig-eating “disgusting” (as a result of one’s personal internalization of values) reconstructs also the other (pig-eater) as such. Generalization here takes place from the act (of eating) to the person (the eater), and then to the assumed class of similar persons. Experimental demonstration of social norm construction. The autokinetic movement occurs if in a completely dark room a single point of light, fixed at some distance from the viewers, is perceptually seen as moving, since it lacks any background framework relative to which its location can be fixed subjectively. If a person is asked to report the extent of the evaluating the movement differ. Yet if they are requested to report their estimates movement, he (or she)

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establishes subjectively a range and a point (in the dark), relative to which the stationary point is subjectively seen as moving (due to the viewer's own eye movements). When different persons view the same light point, their personally constructed norms for in publicly accessible ways, or discuss them in group, their subjective norm system becomes collectively coordinated. A group norm for how to see the stationary point "moving" becomes established. Sherif's experiments with autokinetic movement demonstrated clearly how human beings create mental evaluation norms (for illusory perceptual experiences-- such as the perceived movement of a non-moving light point), how they homogenize these norms inter-personally to create group norms. Furthermore, once such group norms are established, the members of the group can turn those into their internal standards of evaluation. Group consensus can create social illusions (based on perceptual ones) which become to regulate the person's own psychological system, as well as his or her expectations for others. Social norms co-constructed within a group. The social construction of group norms, and the resiliency of these norms, is constantly evidenced by various kinds of religious sects that establish their own standards for how to live themselves, and how to evaluate others' living their lives. A classic description of such cult is given by Festinger, Riecken and Schachter (1956). A group of people becomes united around the calling by the cult leader to be "prepared for the end of the World". The expected event-- the collapse of the whole World-- was fortified by the "miracle of God's revelation" to the group leader. It constituted the "symbolic version" of the stationary light (viewed as moving) in Sherif's autokinetic experiment. An event expected in the future-- but prepared for today-- is indeterminate-- and therefore open for the construction of group norms by people oriented towards that outcome. The goaloriented group establishes its internal norms, ingroup/outgroup distinction ("we the special people versus "the others"). The only difficulty may arise if the known doomsday passes without the event. Under conditions of rationality, this should falsify the system of group norms and beliefs. Yet, under the circumstances of sect-like groups, the disconfirmation can fortify the norms. Thus any social norm (or belief) can develop in three possible ways when being challenged (see Figure 1.5.)

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Figure 1.5. Transformation of social norms

The crucial issue for cultural psychology is how to understand the mechanisms operating in that bifurcation point (Directionality Node). Under what conditions would the norm be fortified, and under what other conditions may it become extinct? The reality of such bifurcation is made possible by the bidirectional notion of culture transfer (but not by the uni-directional transfer notion). The centrality of the person in cultural construction. The person's constructed intention to maintain the present social norm may distinguish between the two trajectories following disconfirmation. Thus, the two conditions can be analyzed in the following way: Disconfirmation Æ Extinction:

Disconfirmation Æ Fortification:

X is the current norm Evidence disconfirms X "I don't care about X" X becomes extinguished

X is the current norm Evidence disconfirms X "I want to believe in X” X becomes defended & fortified

The return to the discredited notion 5 of personal will is an inevitable link between person and the social world. However, we will give that notion a 5

In psychology, since the beginning of 20th century, the notion of personal will—intention, determination, etc—has been rarely considered as a central psychological notion. It allows the person the freedom to break out of the structural confines set up by social norms, behavioral rules, etc.—in total, it forces psychology to

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different meaning. Personal will can be viewed as means that provides generic orientation of the self towards the future, selectively highlighting some aspects of the present. When viewed from this angle, culture (as the system of semiotic operators) guarantees that any person would be ready to resist and counter-act social suggestions (and disconfirmation of beliefs) by the environment. Culture makes persons free from the demands of the immediate social environments.

Semiotic basis for culture: the legacy of Charles S. Peirce Semiotics is the science of signs and their uses. It was built on the philosophical and mathematical integration of ideas of Charles Sanders Peirce (born on September, 10, 1839-- died on April, 19, 1914) who was one of the institutionally non-tolerated leading scholars in late 19th century U.S. His work has become prominent in cultural psychology of our time (Rosa, 2006). A sign, according to Peirce, is “an object which stands for another to some mind” (Peirce, 1873/1986, added emphasis). Signs are made by minds—and minds operate through signs. Hence signs are cultivated tools for our relationships with ourselves—through linking with the objects in the external environment. Peirce further specified the sign<>interpretant<>ground triadic relation: … is something which stands for somebody for something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for something, its object. It stands for that object, not in all respects but in reference to a sort of idea, which I have sometimes called the ground. (Boucher, 1955, p. 99) Three kinds of signs A sign is either an icon, an index, or a symbol. The latter for Peirce was an object that conventionally is set to present something else (e.g., X presents some phenomenon of reality as its abstract symbol). However the notion of symbol can have an additional meaning of vague openness of the meaning for various intuitive interpretations where the interpretational possibilities of the sign are imprecise. The iconic sign. Our capacity to see the world in ways that are different from— yet analogical with- the objects in that world allows us to build up signs that are images of these objects. As Peirce elaborated,

recognize the principled uncontrollability (and unpredictability) of human psyche. This idea was anathema to the behavioral control ethos that governed much of psychology through the 20th century.

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An icon is a sign which would posses the character which renders it significant, even though its object had no existence; such as a leadpencil streak as representing a geometrical line. (Peirce, 1902, p. 527) As an image of an object—whether the latter is present or not—icon is one of the two loci of emergence of signs. Its power is in its similarity to its object— both in its form and in the width of the coverage (whether the sign represents a minimal class on 1—a unique object—or a class of many objects). All signs are results of generalization process—some features of their objects are emphasized, others lost. Iconic signs emerge from the phenomena—visual, acoustic, or of any other sense system—as generalized presentations of the object. Icon is the locus for emerging abstraction—which subsequently loses the feeling of being abstract! Icons become schemata—simplified replicas of the object they present, or pleromata 6 – hyper-rich depictions of reality that stand for some other realities (or irrealities). As Mieczyslaw Wallis explained, Schemata occur in the pictograms of many peoples, in traffic signs, in diagrams of scientific works, in children’s drawings, in the works of some modern painters such as Klee or Dubuffet. Pleromata occur in fifteenth century Dutch painting, in seventeenth century Dutch still lives, in paintings by the nineteenth century Naturalists or the twentieth century Surrealists, in many photographs and films. (Wallis, 1973, p. 487) The immediate perception of an object can thus become either less rich in detail (schematizing) or more rich (pleromatizing) in detail than its original object, while becoming an icon. The pleromatized iconic signs present a generalized concept of what is depicted by way of transcending the particular object that is depicted by the sign. A realist painting does not seem abstract 7, yet it is an iconic pleromatized sign that operates as a sign-field (see chapter 7). The pleromatized semiotic universe we inhabit matches with our abductive generalization readiness (see Magariños de Morentin, 2005) and operates through a socialized non-verbal level (see chapter 7) A similar process of invisible abstraction happens in the case of schematized iconic signs. In Peirce’s words, a geometric diagram (say, a triangle) is an icon of high level of abstraction from the real world—yet one that does not look abstract: A diagram, … so far as it has a general signification, is not a pure icon; but in the middle part of our reasonings we forget that abstractness in great measure, and the diagram is for us the very 6

From Greek pleroma, or fullness Architecture is filled with iconic abstractions of pleromatized kind—temples and churches are rich in detail, yet their holistic meaning is in the abstract messages these details carry (Wallis, 1975)

7

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thing. So in contemplating a painting, there is a moment when we lose the consciousness that it is not the thing, the distinction of the real and the copy disappears, and it is for the moment a pure dream—not any particular existence, and yet not general. At that moment we are contemplating an icon. (Peirce, 1885/1986, p. 163) Iconicity allows for the abstracting/generalizing processes to move smoothly between the real object and its sign presentation. The establishment of a boundary onto that dynamic continuum creates another kind of sign—the symbol. A symbol is …a sign which would lose the character which renders it a sign if there were no interpretant. Such is any utterance of speech which signifies what it does only by virtue of its being understood to have that signification. (Peirce, 1902, p, 527) The index The third kind of sign—index—is a sign that enforces our attention to an object—it only “says “There!”” (Peirce, 1885/1993, p. 163). Demonstratives and relative pronouns are close to pure indices—they denote things without describing them. As Peirce pointed out—an index is a sign that would lose its character if its object were to be removed—but not if there is an interpretant. The latter becomes a new sign that denotes the act of indicating together with the object (i.e., the object as it has been indicated): Such, for instance, is a piece of mould with a bullet-hole in it as a sign of a shot; for without the shot there would have been no hole; but there is a hole there, whether anybody has the sense to attribute it to a shot or not. (Peirce, 1902, p. 527) This explanation shows how index has also been conventionally viewed as a sign created by the impact of the object. Thus, a footprint is an indexical sign for the animal who has left the prints—and an iconic sign of the paw/foot of that particular animal species. The name of the species—detected by the unity of iconic and indexical depiction—is a symbol. Hybrid nature of signs All classifications are artifacts—and so is Peirce’s scheme of three sign types . Conventionalized icons can become symbols if their iconicity is eliminated—either by schematization or by pleromatization. Indexicality is close to the creation of an iconic sign (as making of an image of something is an index) Likewise, any arbitrary assignment of an object to present another becomes a symbol. 8

8

Actually, Peirce had a 3 x 3 table of signs—see Rosa, 2007.

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Figure 1.6. Memorial in a park: symbolic flavoring of the surrounding

Consider a memorial in a park (Figure 1.6.)--he marking of a tree in a park by a memorial plate to a murdered woman is a hybrid of symbolic (two languages and the cross) and indexical (the given location of the event) signs. What is missing is a photo or a painting of the woman (iconic sign). Dynamics of semiosis. All signs are viewed by Peirce as dynamically transforming and transformable. Peirce emphasized the dynamic nature of signs: Symbols grow. They come into being by development out of other signs, particularly from icons, from mixed signs partaking of the nature of icons and symbols. We think only in signs. These mental signs are of mixed nature; the symbol-parts of them are called concepts. If a man makes a new symbol, it is by thoughts involving concepts. So it is out of symbols that new symbol can grow. (Peirce, 1955, p. 115)

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For Peirce, the creation and use of signs permeates the human existence-- both in its intra-mental and inter-psychological domains. A sign-maker makes the created sign available to others-- and in the case of those others some of the signs are supposed to excite in the intra-psychological world familiar images, based on their memories of past life experiences. For example, in Figure 1.6. above, the memorial to a woman killed on the given spot in a city park is a symbol that flavors the whole peaceful setting of the park. Likewise, the architectural structures of homes (Salmin, 1998) or temples (Rajan, 1974) is filled with semiotic encoding of the cultural history for the current regulation of the social and personal orders. Different life From personal and social past—towards the future. experiences of the past-- the more recent ones more than the more distant ones- insist upon framing the person's way of making sense of the present. At the same time, the imagery of the possible future-- from most immediate to most distant-- creates the contrasting "pull" for the sense of the present. It is the present that affects the future through personal semiotic construction: ...feeling which has not yet emerged into immediate consciousness is already affectible and already affected. In fact, this is habit, by virtue of which an idea is brought up into present consciousness by a bond that had already been established between it and another idea while it was still in futuro. ... the affected idea is attached as a logical predicate to the affecting idea as subject. So when a feeling emerges into immediate consciousness, it always appears as a modification of a more or less general object already in the mind. The word suggestion is well adapted to expressing this relation. The future is suggested by, or rather is influenced by the suggestions of, the past. (Peirce, 1935, pp. 104-105 [6.141 and 6.142]) Time flow guarantees the constantly active novelty of semiotic processes. Therefore, for Peirce, the sign could not be something repetitive-- each time it is taken up it appears in a new act of semiosis.

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Figure 1.7. Gedächtniskirche in Berlin: unity of semiotic presentation by a whole combining iconic, indexical, and symbolic means

Example 1.1. A church that has become a sign. In the middle of West Berlin stands a church in ruins- Gedächtniskirche. It was devastated in World War II, and after the war was left standing as a testimony of the destruction of the war— in the middle of otherwise re-built large city. As it presents the history of devastation, the Gedächtniskirche acts as a generalized indexical sign—for the devastation of war in general, not just merely as a sign denoting the particular bombs that half-demolished the church. As a ruin 9 of church it stands as an iconic sign representing all churches and adding to that idea the notion of damage. In its iconicity, it is an example of a pleromatized sign. 9

See Georg Simmel’s account of the meaning of ruins : The aesthetic value of the ruin combines the disharmony, the eternal becoming of the soul struggling against itself, with the satisfaction of form, the firm limitedness, of the work of art. For this reason, the metaphysical-aesthetic charm of the ruin disappears when not enough remains of it to let us feel the upward-leading tendency. The stump of the pillars of the Forum Romanum are simply ugly and nothing else, while a pillar crumbled—say, halfway down—can generate a maximum of charm. (Simmel, 1959b, p. 265)

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The ruin of a church here is not merely a ruin—but a result of purposeful destruction in the course of a war. Its indexical function points to the history of horrors of the impact of the bombs that destroyed the long-term standing symbolic building -- the church. In contrast, the same air attack destroyed buildings next to that church—which were demolished as ruins to build new buildings in their stead. Likewise, other symbolic buildings—such as the Berlin Castle— equally damaged in the war—were not turned into a war memorial (symbolic sign) through their unity of iconicity (“castle-ness” given by its architecture before the bombings) and indexicality (indicating the impact of the bombs). The Berlin Castle was demolished—and the parliament building of former German Democratic Republic built up on the same spot 10. However, the semiotic use of the church does not end in its generalized presentation of the horrors of the past or of the heavenly promises of the particular architectural object. Its centrality in the public life of the city makes it a place for presenting the future pleasures – in the form of large-size advertisements attached to the side of the church (see Figure 1.7.). The cosmetics advertisement is in itself a combination of iconic (picture of woman), indexical (the impact of the cosmetics on her skin) and symbolic functions of the new sign attached to the architectural sign. The merging of features of a new symbolic complex onto a previous architectural form constitutes a symbolic takeover of the semiotic mediation system. The hybrid of Byzantine and Islamic symbolism in the center of Istanbul—Hagia Sofia—is a testimony of the conquest of the symbolic world through iconicity and indexicality. Representation of symbolic signs—nodes and fields The encoding of human experience (duration) in different kinds of signs has to present those aspects of the phenomena that are relevant for the phenomena. Consider the encodings in Figure 1.8. The very same experience—duration (dureé in terms of Henri Bergson) can be presented by way of different kinds of signs, as Figure 1.8. shows. What the presenter can do with these different kinds of signs varies. For example, numeric sign constructs are used widely in sciences to allow for further quantitative analyses. Hence much of social sciences turns complex psychological phenomena into numeric signs—for example, through the use of rating scales (Wagoner & Valsiner, 2005). It is not certain what a particular numerical rating—like a mark of “3” on a scale from 1 to 5—precisely means. Yet it is open to further manipulation of numbers as if its original meaning were clear in the framework of the meaning of the scale (given by the two end points).

10

The location itself carries symbolic function—replacement of one symbolic building by another on the same spot is known to lead to centuries-long frictions between different communities, and at times erupt to violent clashes—as the history of Babri Masjid in Ayodha (U.P.) showed in 1992.

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Figure 1.8. Different kind of signs to present an event Æ

Experience

Sign “HORROR” (point-like sign, a word)

{all the turmoil I lived through when my village was devastated by an earthquake}

“7” (numeric point-like sign, a rating on Richter scale)

(irregular field-like sign: my drawing of my feelings about the turmoil in myself) Figure 1.9. Theoretical terms— point or field kind—used to represent the fluidity of phenomena of dureé (from Valsiner & Diriwächter, 2005)

DEPICTION IN ABSTRACT TERMS

NODE(POINT)-DESCRIPTION

X

5

FIELD-DESCRIPTION regular irregular A B

FLUID FORMS OF ORIGINAL PHENOMENA

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Figure 1.10. Relations between nodes and fields expansion

NODE

FIELD constriction

INTERNALLY DIFFERENTIATING Signs can be of different structure—nodes or fields, regular or irregular. In Figure 1.9. a number of different sign-depiction possibilities is given. The fuzzy, always floating personal experience—intra-psychological or inter-psychological— can be encoded into node-type signs (graphically given as: a dot, “X”, “5”), or into field-like depictions (regular or irregular field). Any efforts to query respondents in node-like terms (all our questions are semiotic complexes that suggest a certain kind of answering mode) lead to a selection from the field of reality. Similarly, a narrative elicitation leads to a field-like sign encoding. Artistic depictions of reality can be seen as creating an irregular sign type of graphic representation of the experience. The two kinds of signs are not exclusive opposites. If one looks at the relationships between node- and field-representations, it is clear that a node is a minimal field, and field—a maximized node – which is internally undifferentiated (Fig. 1.10.). The theoretical benefit of considering our concepts in terms of fields, rather than nodes, is in the possibility of conceptualizing the heterogeneous structure of the field. Ambiguity re-presented: combining icon, index, and symbol As could be seen in this chapter, human construction of meanings is itself filled with ambiguities—of the boundary of time, social classes, and “we” <> “they” distinctions. The signs that are utilized on that boundary are themselves representative of such ambiguities of the opposite sides of the everyday reality

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where earthquakes may happen in the middle of festivities, or the next group of visitors to one’s village may bring long-expected relief, or be genocidal. The puzzle of mutually embedded opposite sides within a sign is well captured by René Magritte in multiple versions of his drawing the “pipe-that-isnot-the pipe”-- since 1926 for 40 years. It indicates a contradiction in the direction of interpretation of signs. It has drawn previous efforts to interpret the mutually contradictory messages in the drawing—the symbolic (verbal) denial of the iconic (pictorial) presence of the pipe (Foucault, 1983). We here use a version of the many “this is not a pipe” pipe-figures that Magritte created (dates to 1966, 40 years after the theme first appeared in his work). The focus here is on the confluence of different sign forms that create inherent duality within the sign complex. Figure 1.11. Multi-level sign construct: pipe that is a non-pipe in frames

Figure 1.11. involves combination of three kinds of signs—icon, index, and symbol—with a frame. The framing of the primary sign—an icon (depiction of the pipe) and index (the impact of the pipe—smoke) complex—being framed by a symbol that negates it (‘this is not a pipe”—but smoke emerges from the pipe). The framing itself is ambiguous—as the smoke is seen to flow on and out of the frame. The whole complex and its symbolic frame are further framed (metaframe) by the painted white border picture frame.

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Such framing can take on multiple levels of self-reflexivity (Lefebvre, 2000) as Magritte’s other versions of it indicate. By creating ambiguity of the sign presentations across multiple levels of abstraction human beings create a wide applicability of the cultural tools they themselves generate. Magritte’s painting is a sign complex on the other extreme from the “If God asks me I’d get tattoos all over my body” (see chapter 3). While the latter is fixated by a regulatory sign (“God’s will”) in a steady state, the pipe-that-is-not-a pipe is a sign of multiple open levels of reflexivity. Yet it is very similar in its openness to the hypergeneralized meaning fields of “God’s will” (or “love” or “justice”)—as it allows for specific contextualizations in a variety of contexts. The richness of various types of signs all woven into a complex makes such varied use possible. As a contrast, consider Figure 1.12. that juxtaposes two opposite symbolic messages.

Figure 1.12. An inherently contradictory sign: symbolic form encountering a verbal message

DO NOT STOP HERE

It is usable to make the point of the inherent contradictions within the message—yet its immediate action regulating nature allows for no richness in its use—it is either a “mistake” on the roadside, or an inconsiderate joke—but not a sign to regulate the complex personal-cultural feeling systems. Most of the objects in our environment are combined signs where the symbolic seeming arbitrariness of the sign may be supported by iconic or indexical means. These combined signs trigger human meaning-making within the possible semiotic world (Magariños de Morentin, 2005)—interpretations that guide human conduct without necessarily involving the verbal level of mediation (see chapter 7). The abductive rupture in the emergence of meaning (Lotman, 2002a; Santaella, 2005)—or the Aha-Erlebnis described by Karl Bühler back in the beginning of the

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20th century—are examples of turning the field of possible semiotic world into an actual understanding. Making of hyper-generalized field-type signs out of everyday activities. The use of the notion of field-like signs allows us to consider the complexity of real-life experiences as complex signs. The honoring of bread or corn (in Mexico--see Sandstrom, 1990), wine (for the Mediterranian areas), beer (for Germans), or rice (Ohnuki-Tierney, 1993) by linking them symbolically with persons and deities. These crucial objects-- food-- of everyday existence perform the role of transfer of the values within the indicated field of meanings. Such transfer takes place through symbolic generalization. The object-- for instance, rice for the Japanese- may through its symbolic generalization link the person, the unity of persons, with the indefinite (but important) world of values and supernatural beings. Thus (see Ohnuki-Tierney, 1993, p. 55) a symbolic equivalence can be established: RICE = SOUL = DEITY = NIGITAMA (peaceful/positive power of the deity) Furthermore, the linkage of the person with the immediate social unit (the "we-unit") can occur through the given food ("our rice", "our bread", "our hamburger"). The process of generalization of the symbolic value allows for such linkages to be made through what was known in Gestalt psychology as vertical transfer—in contrast to its “horizontal” counterpart 11. The notion of vertical transfer entails abstraction of selected features from one phenomenon in the form of a superordinate general whole. That higher-order Gestalt is the vehicle for re-organizing another setting—so the transfer of knowledge from one situation to another proceeds through a third—higher level mediator (see chapter 7). Everyday life experiences of the whole life environment may give rise to complex sign fields. For the Finns, the notion of “summer night’s silence”, or for the Brazilians and Portuguese the notion of “saudade” (Lourenço, 1999) – are easily communicable inter-personally but basically untranslatable into other languages. To convey the whole richness of the silence of a summer’s night, it would …require verbose explanations of the different Finnish seasons, the light of the Nordic summer, the softness of the green, and especially the mental state from which the meaning of this expression or image wells forth. As a matter of fact, the silence of a summer night is not composed of mere silence; instead, it is a state of mind filled with multitudes of meanings and sensations of nature. It is also an illusion representing an ideal concept of reality. (Vainomäki, 2004, p. 349)

11

This was set up in opposition to behaviorist notion of transfer by way of “identical elements”: if setting A and B have 90% identical elements in common, and A and C only 10%, the skills mastered in A are more likely to be transferred to B rather than C

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Furthermore, the totality of experience entails the encoding of such complex experiences into more complex signs—a symphony (i.e., a system of music—a version on non-silence) on the theme of the silence of the summer’s night. Or Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel invite their listeners to listen to the sound of silence. Like living experience, the sign construction experience creates paradoxical semiotic forms. Ambiguity of signs. The ambiguity of human semiotic constructions is as important as the continuous ambiguities of living (Valsiner & Abbey, 2006). The open ambiguity of the signs makes it possible to reduce ambiguity within living— and the ambiguities of living lead to the abstracted signs of ambiguous nature. Such ambiguity parallels their making—being both re-presentational (Darstellung) and pre-presentational (Vorstellung) tools signs are necessarily ambiguous. If culture is to be explained through semiosis, then the notion of ambiguity is necessarily in the center of any of our theoretical constructs—as much as it plays a central role in our life experiences. Thus, …ambiguity is intrinsic to the Hindu concepts of the sacred, and… like the sacred, ambiguity is not confined to a small piece of the Hindu world, but pervades it all, from speech to sexuality, from dreaming to blood. If it is at all legitimate to think of “Indian culture” as an organic whole, a system that can be modeled and described as such, then ambiguity must be a key component of that whole, a key feature of the communicative system by which the whole is maintained. (Trawick, 1992, p. 41) If the most general sign—that of sacred—is inherently ambiguous in a given collective unit, it is likely to be infinitely ambiguous in the multiplicity of personal constructions that make use of it. With its help persons face new ambiguities in life—making new signs in ways that present the ambiguities of living through (different) kinds of ambiguities in the signs. There are some ground rules for emergence of complex signs at the intersection of iconicity, indexicality, and symbol formation. While the symbolic side of sign making can operate with wide freedom of making symbolic tries (see Werner & Kaplan, 1963), the iconic and indexical signs remain linked with the perceptual qualities—visual, acoustic, olfactory, or tactile—of the object of presentation. The process of sign-production and transformation How do persons create signs? Frederick Bartlett's effort to highlight the semiogenesis process included the focus upon different systems of "reaction tendencies" in the human psychological whole to enter into specific relations with one another, thus making one of the tendencies to produce symbols for the other. He posited a general mechanisms of the emergence of symbols in the sphere of mental processes:

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Material arouses a given tendency, is attended to, and put into relation with other material to help to form a particular mental system. At the same time another tendency comes into play, and by it the same material gains different relations and a place in a different mental system. Mental systems, however, are not normally isolated. They are linked together, first, because they share common materials, and secondly because among all the tendencies which take a share in their formation, one or two are always masterful. The masterful tendencies set the systems migrating, so to speak, and the watchword of the growth of symbols in the individual mental life is the 'contact of mental systems.' (Bartlett, 1924, p. 281, emphases added) Bartlett's effort to provide an account of the psychological processes involved in semiogenesis is actually very contemporary. It entails simultaneous input from some experiential event (A) into two (or more) parts of a hierarchically organized psychological system ("tendencies" which are "not normally isolated"): X ==>>== Y (where >> indicates the previous dominance relation in the holistic system). By way of A relating to Y, it becomes related to X, and integrated into the hierarchical structure, letting the latter be transformed (similarly to assimilation/ accommodation notion of Piaget). It would then be a question of how the new material (A) becomes seen as if it represents the dominant tendency. Thus, any oblong-shaped object (A) in the psychoanalytic field of meaning construction could be viewed to be a symbolic representation of the penis (Y), because of the dominant tendency of the complex of sexuality (X) already linked with the notion of penis. As Bartlett himself remarked, If we are considering the growth of symbols in the individual life, the most important clue to the whole process is to be found in the fact that, in the case of any individual, there are always certain tendencies, or groups of tendencies, which take the leading place, and dominate the others... The master tendencies of an individual always determine the direction along which his own symbolism proceeds. It may be said that, in general, two groups of tendencies have, in the past, stood out as master impulses of an individual life more frequently than any others. They are the religious group and the sex group; and as a result there is scarcely anything that a human being can attend to that has not at some time or another served as a religious or a sexual symbol. (Bartlett, 1924, p. 281) Signs emerge in the process of overcoming the demands of the given process. They come to change the process, and can lead to its disappearance. Sign abandonment by the processes that led to their emergence allows for personal construction of cultural tools freed for other applications. These further applications (construction of regulation of some process in other time-context by

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the person) involve signs operating as constraining devices. Signs make the distinction between the immediate next possibilities, impossibilities, and potential possibilities of our feeling and thinking, facing the future From mediator to regulator: overdetermination by meaning. The move of a sign into a regulator’s role creates the minimal case of a hierarchical dynamic system of regulators. I here try to make sense of the minimal case, admitting that it is an artificial exercise. In real life, we may encounter ever-increasing and evergeneralizing growth of the semiotic regulatory system In this respect human conduct is overdetermined by meaning (Boesch, 2000, chapter 1; 2002a, 2002b- see also chapter 5). The very same objective – goal orientation, immediate or recurrent task in living—such as dressing (and undressing) oneself, or preparing and eating food (and the processes of elimination), giving birth and education to children, disputing property claims and making future investments—all entail redundancy and multiplicity of meanings. On the side of a person—who lives through some experience—the overdetermination by meaning takes the form of semiotic marking of the event at different levels of symbolization (Obeyesekere, 1990, pp. 56-58). The navigation by the person across these different levels is highly flexible—the same person may at one time use a “low” symbolization tactic (“I made a mistake”), at another a medium one (“my mother-in-law’s jealousy made me make the mistake” to the highest (“the God’s will made me to make this mistake”). All these levels are perfectly legitimate within the collective-cultural field of meanings, and coincide in it. Yet the freedom of what level of symbolization to adopt is that of the person— within the boundaries of the field of meanings at the given historical period. I would add here that such overdetermination is flexible-- in some moments it is enhanced, at others limited to only one sign level (or not available at all-- e.g., there are aspects of human automated actions that have become freed from semiotic control in development). I will not look at the process of generalization within such hierarchies here. I limit my coverage to the relations of two adjacent levels of the sign control hierarchy (SIGN and META-SIGN), and their relation to the target of regulation, as well as their self-regulation:

Sign X as meta-sign in respect to Y

Sign X

Sign Y

Sign Y

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Constructed signs create the unity of both stability and flexibility. The meta-level sign as the regulator defines the boundaries of stability of the sign. By defining such boundaries it necessarily also defines the realms of instability—the possibilities for breaking through these boundaries (in accordance with cogenetic logic—see chapter 3; also Herbst, 1995). This is the universal principle of bounded indeterminacy (Valsiner, 1997) in its work in everyday world—every wall built in the middle of a city to separate two parts of the town, or every parental restriction of time “curfew” for adolescents’ return to home creates two new possibilities—to uphold the rule of separation (or follow the home rules), or to transgress these. Creating such bifurcation point—the moment of decision whether to act in one way or the other—is every time a psychological process filled with ambivalence. There can be the tension of temptation to transgress— which is tempered by the self-regulatory cultural tool (meaning) that blocks the transgression desire. The social rules are maintained—and fortified—by that selfregulatory act. What happens if different levels of signs become united in mutual control feed-forward loop that operates by the logic of intransitivity. Consider the example where a person creates one's own "personal deity"-- be it a figure of a god, ancestor's spirit, or any other powerful intra-psychological "social other." Such deity is set up as the powerful source to whom to turn for help-- yet that source is set up by the person oneself. Thus, the person's semiotic mediation system includes two hierarchical layers:

HIGHER LEVEL: "I (person) govern YOU (deity)-as you are my construction" LOWER LEVEL: "As powerful deity, YOU should govern ME" (cf. Valsiner, 1999) This example indicates the flexibility of intra-psychological semiotic mediation-- a system like the one described is an example of “cyclical hierarchy” (where PERSON > DEITY > PERSON > DEITY>… etc in a cycle). Such cyclical hierarchies dominate in flexible social systems where the system needs to be ready to cope with varied survival demands. Human feeling and thinking in its reality— which is ambiguous and filled with ambivalence (Abbey, 2006; Buller, 2006)—is regulated by cyclical sign hierarchies that follow the logic of intransitivity. Some signs are made—temporarily, or in a quasi-stable format—to regulate the meanings created by other signs. This is particularly crucial for setting the stage for facing future needs for meaningful adaptation to changing life circumstances. For that, the promoter function of generalized signs is of crucial relevance.

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Figure 1.13. The principle of redundant control

. The principle of redundant control Redundancy is the coverage of the same function by more than one control system. It guarantees safety of development because of the compensatory possibilities that are built into the system. Consider the two control systems in Figure 1.13. Figure 1.13..A. gives an example of a singular mechanism over a hypothetical process. If that control becomes dysfunctional, the function cannot continue. In contrast, the function remains in case of redundant control (Figure 1.13.B.) where the role of the damaged control (A) is taken over by another (B), and can also be catered for by C

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Through overproduction of such redundant control systems, human psychological systems can operate with relatively high stability within constantly changing environmental conditions. As an example, consider how the cultural value-- respect for others-- can be set up in a developing person's world. The set of potential agents of such setup differs-- it may first include parents and older siblings, then teachers, then peers. The arenas for such promotion are also variable-- from infant and toddler activity fields to classrooms at school, or shopping malls where adolescents hang out. The examples the developing person experiences are likewise variable-ranging from positive examples (e.g. young person showing respect for an old one) to negative ones (adolescent gang beating up an adult, and the trauma of observing that happen). If one of these agents or arenas is absent (or dysfunctional for the promotion of the given value), others take over. Regulating the subjective future: the Promoter Sign Human living is focused on future-oriented temporal extension. This extension comes through setting up specific signs of sufficient abstractness that begin to function as guiders of the range of possible constructions of the future. These signs—or parts of signs—operate as promoter signs (Valsiner, 2004; 2006b). Given their generality they are best described through the use of fieldlike graphic depictions. Phenomenologically these promoter signs are deeply internalized and operate as personal value-orientations. Every semiotic mediator can function as a promoter sign—guiding the possible range of variability of meaning construction in the future. This is in analogy with the sequences in human genetic organization that promote the expression of other parts of the gene). Each meaning—sign—that is in use during the infinitely small time “window” we conveniently call “the present” is a semiotic mediating device that extends from the past to the possible, anticipated (but not knowable) future. The promoter role of these signs is a feed-forward function—they set up the range of possible meaning boundaries for the unforeseeable—yet anticipated—future experiences with the world. The person is constantly creating meaning ahead of the time when it might be needed— orienting oneself towards one or another side of the anticipated experience, and thus preparing oneself for it. Operating on the outer boundaries of possibilities. The signs in the present are promoters of the ranges of possible future meaning making, not specific meanings. The range includes each and every point within the constraints that specify the boundary of the meaning field. Hence each and every possible specific meaning is included in the range that is afforded by the promoter signs.

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Figure 1.14. The promoter function of signs at different levels of generalized abstraction

General

Range

General Meaning B

Of B

Meaning A

Range Of A

New Meanin g C

Specific

PAST

PRESENT

FUTURE

Once established—in a generalized version— a sign becomes a promoter sign through canalizing future actions and—most importantly— becoming internalized in the form of feelings. Consider the description of a person’s deeply ingrained feeling of respect for paper: Whether written on or not, printed or not, I feel respect for every kind of writing paper. I can’t stand the edges of notebooks being curled, or stacks of paper being out of order. After reading the newspaper, I can’t leave it as it is, turned inside out, with pages out of order. For instance, if someone sitting opposite me on a public conveyance raggedly opens the pages of the magazine or book in his hand, with a rip of his finger or a comb, I become upset right then and there. (Nesin, 1990, p. 42)

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The generalized field-type sign we summarily can label respect for paper colors the person’s every moment of relating with the environment. In the author’s reconstruction of his past, that respect was developed by a series of repetitive symbolic events in the childhood—four decades before: …in my childhood, whether he could read or write, whether villager or from the city, every Turk would immediately pick up two things from the ground and put them on top of a wall, between siding boards, in a hole in a tree, or some place high above the ground. One of these was bread, the other, printed paper. These two things were not to be stepped on. Bread was “God’s gift” and the printed page was holy. That is to say, he who picked up the bread, first kissed it and touched it to his forehead, then put it in a high place where it couldn’t be stepped on. It would not even be thought that something evil might be printed on the paper. (ibid.) The generalized notion of holy respect was promoted by unity of action prohibition, rituals, and meanings in childhood. Once in place, it pre-emptively set the stage for feeling toward any further encounters with printed materials. All actual encounters with paper (meaning A in Fig. 1.14.) would be subsumed under the generalized feeling (B in Figure 1.14.) over a very wide range of circumstances. It is this process of abstractive generalization of signs—to set up the feeling towards the ambience-to-be encountered—that is built through the promoter signs. Or, in other terms—generalized continuity of the developing self is the product of externalization of internalized signs that have begun to function as promoter signs. How can this general claim be situated in the context of the study of human lives? Human beings develop by way of high variety of life-course trajectories, and are capable of demonstrating remarkable moment-to-moment flexibility in their relating to their environments. One tendency within culturalhistorical perspectives on human development declares the role of signs (semiotic mediation) to be of central role in this. Yet the question remains-- how is such flexibility (and variability) actually created? The developmental orientation within cultural psychology can attempt to answer that question. Cultural mediation of personal autonomy: personal culture At the human level, ontogeny entails the construction and use of signs to regulate both inter-personal and intra-personal emergent psychological phenomena. The latter are described as the build-up of hierarchical regulatory mechanisms of increasing generalizability: through the use of signs, human beings can transcend any here-and-now situated activity context by way of subjectively constructed personal meanings (or "personal culture"). The personal culture is interdependent with (but not determined by) the realm of inter-personal signs-mediated communicative processes, which are goal-oriented by the active efforts of persons-in-their-assumed social roles. The multiplicity of such

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communicative messages (or "collective culture" in the present terminology) constitutes the heterogeneous "input" into the self-construction by individual human beings. Dramatic nature of the personal culture can be observed in the case of feed preferences: Present freshly boiled pork chops to two hungry men. One of our hungry men is a Mohammedian whose religion tells him that anything connected with pigs is disgusting—this is an established taboo, a norm. The other person is a Christian. He will seize the chops and eat them with gusto. The first person will not only not touch the chops, he will be filled with disgust for them and for the person who eats such filthy things. (Sherif, 1936, p. 28, added emphases) Sherif’s example illustrates the ways in which cultural internalization works at the level of person’s affective processes. The rejection of the “inedible” in the collective-cultural meaning system by a person takes place at the level of deep subjective feelings (and at times—of physiological responses). At the same time, the externalization of that personal-cultural sense enters into the making of distinctions between the social unit one claims to belong (ingroup) in contrast to a dis-valued outgroup. The dual process of internalization and externalization guarantees the lack of isomorphism between the collective and personal cultures, thus making each individual into a unique person, while based on the same general background of collective culture. This is guaranteed by the bi-directional culture transfer notion (Figure 1.4. above)—while the “incoming messages” can be similar for different individuals, the ways in which these messages become transformed and reconstructed is necessarily personally unique. Personal cultures are relatively autonomous of the collective culture. Why such focus on autonomy? And how can autonomy emerge? In ontogeny, the developing child is constantly operating upon the breaking of the current relations with the immediate activity settings. Semiotic mediation allows for both such break, and for retaining the breaking experience for later encounters. In their generalized form, acts of personal-cultural creation can be summarized by the following:

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The PERSON constructs MEANING COMPLEX X

...OBJECTIFIES it by FIXING ITS FORM.., (e.g. internal—internalized social norm, or external—monument, picture of deity, figurine)

...and starts to act AS IF the objectified meaning complex X is an external agent that controls the PERSON Most of the World’s religious architecture, art, rituals, and reasons for all kinds of quarrels are due to this simple projective-constrictive process. We construct the meanings that lead us to reconstructing the objective world—and the reconstructed world guides our further construction of meanings. Both the Notre Dame and the McDonalds are architectural objective realities in this subjective chain of meaning construction. Human beings—thanks to their capacity for transcending the here-and-now settings through signs—constantly live with the tension of “the world AS IS” and the imaginary—anticipated or treaded—“world AS-IF” (Vaihinger, 1911/1935). It is here where culture enters into the human psyche—and infinitely complicates the construction of the sciences of the human mind. Not only do these sciences need to depict the realms of psychological phenomena as those are—be these behavioral, emotional, or cognitive—they also have to capture the domain of what they seem to be (the “AS-IF” worlds), and what they might become. The methodological innovation needed (see chapter 9) is of the kind of developing new scientific promoter signs for better study of psychological realities. All scientific terminology—similarly to its everyday counterpart-- is in fact a version of such regulating system that entails promoter signs of abstract kind. It is that part that is meant to objectively and abstractly explain the complexity of our psychological phenomena—a scientific theory is a kind of a mental cathedral that stands in the center of the booming and buzzing confusion we call living a life. Unity of opposites and directional nature of meanings. Growth of semiotic control systems guarantees human psychological flexibility, together with its opposite (inflexible fixing of a way of thinking or feeling about something). Some authors claim (at times all too actively) that human development is a coconstruction process. As such, it entails both the active person and the active environment. If this is the case, it is necessary to make explicit what that means. This is worked out in the encounter between levels. Both the level of the psychological function that is to be regulated (base level) and that of semiotic mediators (first meta-level) we can posit the existence

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of directionality. The psychological functions are historical, in the sense of bounded within the irreversibility of time. Their directionality can be described in terms of goal orientedness. It is posited here that human lower psychological functions are goals-oriented (rather than goals-directed), as their directionality can be specified (bus specific goals can not be, as these are constructions about some possible future). Similarly, signs are specifiable by their presentational orientedness. A use or invention of a word depicting something is not only a referring to the denoted referent, but presenting that referent for some purposes, directions. For instance, if somebody in a room mentions “the door is open” (which may be true about the state of a given door here)—this is not merely a case of reiterating the obvious (which you can see anyway), but presenting that aspect of the environment for some purposes. A person need not have specific goals in mind while making such statement, yet the statement (about the obvious) is simultaneously re-presentation, co-presentation, and pre-presentation. If its representation is obvious, its co-presentation (function of mentioning it in the setting) is unclear, and so are its pre-presentational functions. Example 1. 2. “Feeling something”. Let us consider a more mundane example. A person is feeling something (but it is not yet clear to oneself what that something is). In reality, it is a field (range) of affective phenomena, not clearly specified. It is clear that the various manifestations of the feeling are precisely like, it is only clear that the feeling is moving (by the person’s introspective) towards becoming narrowly focused. Then, at some instant, the person realizes “I am angry” The range of possible senses in which the notion “angry” has developed prior to this connection point of levels is limited by the boundary of its opposite (“non-angry” or non-A’), and changes over time. From the instant of the recognition “I am angry”, the feeling realm (at level A) becomes re-directed. The previous feeling becomes now as part of the system of anger, and widens to include other feeling-phenomena through the sign of “anger”. This widening guides re-defining the range of senses at the sign level. The widening of the feeling may reach a point where it becomes “shut down” by the constraining role of another sign (e.g., “I am ashamed”), which -- if applied as canalizer -- can eliminate the previous (canalized) feeling flow. Thus, autodialogue of the person may include “I feel angry, I am ashamed at it, I should not feel that way”, followed by the dampening of the whole feeling (the person can report feeling “nothing”, or feeling “just numb”, “speechless”). In many situations, human beings just “run out of words”-- even in their autodialogue.

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Figure 1.15. Autoregulation and heteroregulation of signs

It is an adaptive way of using semiotic devices to eliminate some of the lower psychological processes. Of course there is a similar variability ranging from being “speechless” to that of unstoppable talkativeness present in interpersonal interaction. Both making and breaking silence (see further chapter 2) in human psychological worlds is a result of semiotic regulation.

The parallel process of heteroregulation and autoregulation Signs—as we create and use them-- regulate themselves (autoregulation) and their target processes, as well as other signs (heteroregulation). Hence any investigation of the semiotic mediation processes needs to make explicit these two regulatory roles at the same time. Furthermore, the two processes are located in the hierarchy of the semiotic regulatory system (Figure 1.15).

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If we look at the Level n sign, which can generate a superordinate (n+1) level of meta-sign, or relate to other level-n signs, aside from regulating the subordinate process, then we see that each sign can be involved in three relations of autoregulatory kind at the same time (downwards, upwards, and horizontally). These autoregulatory processes guarantee that any level of signs cannot be isomorphic with the lower processes (nor with one another). Psychologists have disputed the issue of “consistency between behavior and self report”, usually lamenting that such consistency is low. From the present viewpoint, low consistency is a necessary result from the role signs play in regulation of conduct. To expect full consistency here (i.e., that self-reports “fully and accurately” depict behavior) would deny both the heteroregulatory and autoregulatory functions of the signs. This feature of human psychological system has profound implications for the methodology (see chapter 8).

Constraining dynamics across the semiotic regulatory hierarchy. Study of human development has been struggling with how to take time into account in its methodology. In that struggle, the necessity to consider dynamic hierarchies of semiotic regulation have not been emphasized. Yet what follows from the present exposition is that it is precisely the work of such hierarchies (“on line”, or in real time, so to say). Two processes can be present in the regulatory hierarchies-- abstracting generalization and contextualizing specification. Abstracting generalization creates new levels of semiotic regulators, removing the re-co-pre-presentational role increasingly further towards higher complexity of abstraction. For example, human values are generalizations of abstracted kind. Extremely general terms like “love”, “justice”, “freedom” etc are meaningful in their hyper-generalized abstractness. As such, these can be brought to bear upon regulating very specific contexts (by process I call contextualizing specification), yet in their abstract form they are impossible to define in their entirety. Consider, for example, frequent exclamations in some concrete settings about something—“this is not fair!”—the use of the semiotic field fair is in principle undefinable—yet usable in relation to very specific issues. Regulation: enabling mutually linked opposites. It is the unity of flexibility and inflexibility that characterizes how human beings regulate themselves through the construction and use of signs. This unity of stability and flexibility is made possible by self-constructed hierarchical semiotic control systems (Valsiner, 1998, 1999). Such hierarchies of signs—be those of the kind of well-defined meanings or ill-definable fields of meaningful affect— are constantly constructed by the self. The crucial issue in such proliferating semiotic mediation of experience is the self-organizing capacity of the regulatory system to stop its own growth. Meaning-making is adaptive when it can flexibly lead to generalization of some of

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the experience, while avoiding similar generalization for others. Growing semiotic regulation system gives rise to generalized meanings (contextual fields) that either allow the system to grow (as long as the contextual field is “of kind X”) until its change takes place (“kind Y”). Note that “kind X” and “kind Y” (respectively) operate as examples of “non-A” in the meaning making system described elsewhere (Josephs, Valsiner & Surgan, 1999—see elaboration in Chapter 3). It is through the sub-dominant (generalized) context for C1 (non-C or “kid Y”) that the semiotic regulation system creates its own block. A metaregulatory “stop sign” (“here-and-now no more signs are needed”) leads the regulatory process to the breakdown of the hierarchy just created. Example 1.3.. Let us consider an empirical example—taken from a published autobiography of a schizophrenic girl Renee (Sechehaye, 1951). After childhood filled with hypersensitivity towards objects and persons in the environment, Renee became Marguerite Sechehaye’s (referred to as “Mama” by her) psychoanalysis patient as a teenager. The episode quoted below came after Renee had developed in her psyche a complex of Persecutor (“the System”) that was giving her commands for action. Renee was fighting against these commands—using the psychotherapy process as a venue. Before the episode quoted below, Renee noted the development of exaggerated animism 12. The following example gives us a glimpse of the intense struggle that Renee was undergoing in dealing with all the “voices” in her mind: …I was preparing to do some typing, suddenly, without any warning, a force which was not an impulse but rather resembled a command, ordered me to burn my right hand or the building in which I was. With all my strength I resisted the order. I telephoned Mama [the psychotherapist] to tell her about it. Her voice, urging me to listen to her and not to the System, reassured me. If the System became too demanding I was to run to her. This calmed me considerably, but unfortunately only for a moment. An indescribable anguish squeezed my heart, an anguish no resolve could allay. If I refused to obey, I felt guilty and cowardly for not daring, and the anguish mounted. Then the order became more insistent. If, finally to obey, I went to the fire and stretched out my hand, an intense feeling of guilt overcame me as though I were doing something wicked, and the anxiety waxed in proportion. I should say, however, that the latter alternative provoked the greater disturbance, for I felt that if I obeyed the order, I should commit an act irreparably damaging to my personality. And yet in both cases, 12

Inanimate objects suddenly seemed to Renee to exist as if alive: “ My eyes met a chair, then a table; they were alive… asserting their presence. I attempted to escape their hold by calling out their names. I said, “chair, jug, table, it is a chair.” But the word echoed hollowly, deprived of all meaning; it had left the object, was divorced from it, so much that on one hand it was living, mocking thing, on the other, a name, ribbed of sense, an envelope emptied of content.” (Sechehaye, 1951, p. 35)

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obedience or disobedience was something artificial, something theatrical. (Sechehaye, 1951, p. 36, added emphases) Here we see an account of the intra-self opposition of two “voices” both of which are attributed to social agents ("the System", Mama) outside of the self— yet have their role inside of Renee’s internal self. Renee’s own central “voice” becomes the counter-actor to the impending “voices” of the others—she resists them, in ways that lead to the affective overgeneralization of her self (into anguish, guilt), fortified by meanings used as semiotic controllers (“wicked”. “damaging to personality”). Finally, distancing through hyper-generalized meaning (“something theatrical”) was a result. Examples from psychopathological cases often demonstrate how the mind functions when the construction of the constraining of semiotic mediation is in some ways altered. If the “stop signs” are missing in the process of selfregulation (i.e., the decision at junction “new level, n+1?” in Figure 1.12. is always answered affirmatively), the self would not be able to function in the actual life environment. The absence (or elimination) of the meta-regulator production capacity leads to the over-proliferation of ever further abstract and hyper-generalized meanings without limits. The “free flow” of schizophrenic thought may be available not merely by the capacity for the thoughts “to fly” in all directions, but simply due to the absence of meta-regulators that would stop that flow in many directions, and constrain it towards conventional and situationappropriate ways of regulating the experience 13. Synthesis of regulators and meta-regulators. The dialogical self can be seen as self-regulating of the ongoing action process while creating general personal sense of the kind of “what is it that is going on”. That latter meaning-making is a by-product of the ongoing semiotic regulation process. Human beings go on living within their here-and-now life worlds, regulating their relationships with the world from the ego-centered basis. Their reflection upon these worlds emerges as a by-product of the regulation efforts—through over-generalized affective meanings that become maintained as feed-forward organizes of further construction of semiotic control systems. The co-emergence of semiotic regulators and generalized meanings guarantees the self-regulation of the semiotic hierarchy over time (and contexts). The crucial issue of semiotic regulation system is to grant its sufficiency for regulation of the immediate experience, blocking unnecessary proliferation of the evoking of signs in any here-and-now context. The semiotic mediation process allows us to overlook a myriad of possibilities that are unlikely at the given moment, and can be ignored for all 13

This perspective provides a slightly unusual look at the phenomena that are usually labeled "creativity". It is not the capacity to produce novel versions of whatever is the object domain of creativity, but to develop a system of meta-regulators that allows to guide the created versions in directions that are within the "zone of proximal development" of what the sets of current conventions allow to be treated as "creative". Here, again, the three-part field (A= "creative", nonA = "non-creative" but conventional; not-A = not conventional and not creative) is applicable (Bateson, 1971). For further coverage see chapter 3.

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practical purposes. For example, we do not expect the roof to collapse over our heads (even if that is a possible scenario), we do not expect to fall down at every step we take-- even as walking can be analyzed as a process of constant losing and re-gaining of upright balance, which takes quite a bit of time to establish in one’s second life-year). Thus, general psychological discounting blocks a number of scenarios from arriving at a dysfunctional synthesis. Without such semiotic blockers any action would be impossible—Pierre Janet (1921) has provided elegant evidence for that from psychiatric cases. A patient is caught in block of all movements—since every possible course of action may trigger a negative outcome 14. Example 1.4. The fear of action. Janet reports a case of a 49 year old man who blocks each of his action by a semiotic mediation device that he invents. The man is self-reflective of his inability to act. He describes it: I cannot… perform a single new activity without representing it to myself that it is going to entail diabolical consequences. If I buy new shirts it seems as if I were preparing for the assassination of my two children. If I rent an apartment it is only in order that I may place under the big entrance door the coffin of my wife where it will rest very nicely.; I have selected this apartment (it would seem) only because of the convenience which the entrance way presents for the coffin of my wife. If I open this book it is with the idea that I am preparing a cataclysm which will involve the whole city of Paris. All this frightens me so that I take back my recent purchase of shirts with the excuse that they do not fit: I give up the apartment, and I close the book. (Janet, 1921, pp, 153-154) For our present analysis this psychopathological example from the past constitutes an extension of the general sign-hierarchy of semiotic mediation. Its functional structure is:

META-FEELING FIELD Z (“it all frightens me”)

MEANING FIELD Y (reflecting upon X)

{ACTION X NON-ACTION} (buy shirts; rent an apartment; open a book) 14

or {REVERSAL OF X}

Janet’s general comment on patients who turn towards self-reflection is indicative of psychology: “The patients who are ill-satisfied with their action watch themselves, and by dint of observations, through anxiety about themselves, they fall into a sort of perpetual auto-analysis. They become psychologists; which is in its way a disease of the mind” (Janet, 1921, p. 152)

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In this functional structure, it is the affective field—field-like sign of generalized kind (“it frightens me”) that leads to the abandonment of the actions. Less dramatic examples may be found in ordinary daydreaming—a person thinks of a situation, makes connections of the particular acts within the situation with a larger meaning system, and then—based on an overwhelming feeling field—lets oneself to drop the imagined situation 15. It is in our imagination—in continuity with play-- where we build up our future development (Vygotsky, 1931, 1966, 1994). The process of disorganization of the semiotic self-regulatory system is further exemplified by a young anorexic woman (Isabella). She explained, I assure you… I am not at all possessed with the idea of not eating; it seems to me even that I should like to eat; but at the moment of beginning, the thought of it chokes me, disgusts me, and I cannot. Why? I don’t know; I assure you it is not that I wish to die; I begin even to be afraid that I may; but despite all my efforts to eat there is something that prevents me. (Janet, 1901,. Pp. 288-289, added emphases) Here we can observe the rivalry of a number of meta-feeling sign fields in a dialogue (see further on Dialogical Self in chapter 3). In Isabella’s dream material as well as in her delirium states, the inter-personal symbolic regulators become clarified: Her mother, who is dead, appears to her during the attacks, blames her for some fault she has committed, tells her that she is not worthy to live and that she ought to join her in heaven, and bids her for this reason not to eat. (Janet, 1901, p. 289) The proof that this semiotic organizer (an External I-Position—see Chapter 3) is indeed the major meta-level regulator of Isabella’s relating to herself via eating comes from hypnotic suggestion to her that undoes the mother’s image. When waking up, Isabella finds herself eating with ease—until the next episode of delirium occurs. These examples indicate what kinds of pathological trajectories of action may become constructed if the semiotic regulatory processes are out of order. In 15

Precisely similar process of sense-making can be observed in the Medieval Catholic Europe in the process of decision by a woman—and her inquisitor—about whether she has felt she had been in sexual relations with a demon. The search in the dream for specific features of the assumed demon (e.g., one of the feet being of the form of a bird’s foot; or too enjoyable pleasure in intercourse) would lead to the affectively flavored meta-meaning of the event—resulting in confession, followed by pardoning, or in persecution of the woman as a witch (see Stephens, 2002, chapter 4; also Behar, 1987)

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our ordinary ways of living, we can dismiss the morbid images linked with buying shirts, or renting an apartment, by way of immediate use of circumvention strategies (Josephs & Valsiner, 1998). Such morbid ideas just are not given an opportunity to grow—let along become dominant. In our ordinary lives, semiotic discounting mechanisms (SDM) make it possible for us to live with limited construction of fears of accidents. The power of the human mind is in the gross discounting of the myriad of possible accident scenarios. Our capacity to selectively suppress most of these scenarios – or merely pay no attention to them—is the basis for our mental health.

Example 1.5. How is it so that we are not paranoic? How is paranoia possible? Emergence of paranoia is an example of how the construction process entails the replacement of the general discounting regulator by its opposite. Thus, from the duality of meaning opposition (boldfaced part dominant) {“IT IS POSSIBLE, BUT NOT LIKELY”} ÅÆ “IT IS POSSIBLE, AND LIKELY” that operates as a regulator, the meaning-maker first arrives at the dominance reversal within the opposition (i.e. “IT IS POSSIBLE, AND LIKELY” becomes dominant). If from here follows de-coupling of the opposites (the possible-notlikely part gets dropped), and an escalatory pattern of the dominant de-coupled part {“IT IS POSSIBLE, AND LIKELY”} in relation to some specific experience becomes established, then we come to the doorstep of emergence of worries, and (eventually) of paranoia. That could entail the creation of the meaning of a danger, which, when fed back into the process, becomes escalated and hypergeneralized. In and by itself, being realistic about potential dangers one can encounter within environments is not sufficient for emergence of paranoia. For the latter, …when a paranoiac person falsely ascribes functions, attitudes, and intentions to other persons, he does far more than merely to put his thoughts into them. He sets up hypothetical interrelationships between other persons and himself, and he organizes them functionally into a pseudo-community, made up of objective persons with imaginary functions. These imaginary functions are built up out of fragments of the social behavior of social persons. The fragments of behavior are misunderstood by the paranoiac in the direction of his expanding system. The actual movements, remarks, and other actions of people around him become cues, signals, threats and warnings within a pseudocommunity of plotters. Out of these raw materials in his surroundings the paranoiac organizes a functionally interrelated

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environment, of which he is the focal point. Its pattern develops from his sensitivities and preoccupations, as well as from the more accidental character of the corroborative detail he finds about him. Eventually he reacts overtly to this whole structure. In most instances he begins to take protective or aggressive measures and counter-measures, until the whole thing finally erupts into the social field. (Cameron, 1943, p. 231) Ordinary misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the social world become escalated into delusions of persecution and rigidified. The constructed pseudo-community becomes a catalytic condition for synthesis of understanding of the actions of real people. In the paranoiac’s life-world—as well as everybody else’s—such imagined community is a semiotic vehicle for self-regulation. The dynamics of emergence of paranoia can be seen as similar—on the opposite end of contents—to the emergence of any positive identification of a person with a social entity. A paranoiac has constructed the stable expectation for the outside world to “be after” him or her. In a similar vein, the person with positive identification has constructed the unconditional positive value of the identification object in the world with which one is aligned. If one misinterprets the neutral inputs from the world as negative (and positive ones as suspect), the other accepts even negative inputs from the world in terms of their constructed benevolence 16. The latter is an interpretation similar to that of the paranoiac, only in the opposite direction. In this sense, the opposites of positive social identities and paranoiac pathological patterns are created by the same basic organizational system within the dialogical self. Summary: Culture as semiotic regulation system Culture is a part of the systemic organization of human psychological functions. It takes the form of constructing and using signs to transform the hereand-now setting of the human being. The human beings can distance themselves from any current setting through such cultural (semiotic) means. Yet they remain parts of the setting. Hence, human cultural relating to the world entails simultaneous closeness to, and distancing from, the actual situation the person is in. This dynamic and constructionist view on culture creates the bridge between cultural and developmental psychologies. The former investigates the process of sign construction, use, and its results. These results involve novelty-the emergence of psychological phenomena that did not exist prior to the creation of new understanding, here-and-now, by way of a sign. Cultural

16

On the basis of social, political, or religious identity formation individuals can view acts of limitations of their personal freedoms through the lens of positive affect. Thus, for a proud citizen of a country, the demand by a tax official to pay taxes is an act of proud identity, while a similar demand for a paranoiac is interpretable as an act of persecution.

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psychology looks at the micro-settings of construction of the new through the creation and use of signs. Umberto Eco has captured that focus: Perhaps we are, somewhere, the deep impulse which generates semiosis. And yet we recognize ourselves only as semiosis in progress, signifying systems and communicational processes. The map of semiosis, as defined at a given stage of historical development (with the debris carried over from previous semiosis), tells us who we are and what (or how) we think. (Eco, 1984, p.45) Persons thus make signs—utilizing their sign-construction history—under the guidance of other human beings who are collectively guided in this meaningmaking enterprise by different social institutions. Our focus in this book is on how the interface between these social units and active semiotic agents— persons living their lives—is structured.

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Chapter 2. Society and Community: Interdependence of Social Webs Our society is an institution which inhibits what it stimulates. It both tempers and excites aggressive, epistemic, and sexual tendencies, increases or reduces the chances of satisfying them according to class distinctions, and invents prohibitions together with the means of transgressing them. Its sole purpose, to date, is self-preservation, and it opposes change by means of laws and regulations. It functions on the basic assumption that it is unique, has nothing to learn, and cannot be improved. Hence its unambiguous dismissal of all that is foreign to it. Even its presumed artificiality, which might be considered a shortcoming, is taken, on the contrary, for a further sign of superiority, since it is an attribute of mankind. (Moscovici, 1976, p. 149, added emphasis).

This book is about how human beings live in a society—and hoe the society lives within the human beings. In our everyday talk we hear statements about society’s needs, prescriptions, states of crises, and so one. Such talk is authored by human beings—yet pertains to the abstraction “society”. We all seem to know what our society is and what it “wants”— but the society is actually an abstraction. It is a collectively created—and shared—myth story that functions as a sign. Yet there is the interesting feature of such myth stories— once told (and re-told), they create a social field that operates by constructed norms—which have very real guiding impact on real human beings. Society is a mythological web that creates very real conditions for the lives of human beings enmeshed in that web. In fact, these human beings are involved in constructing and reconstructing that web—they exercise their freedom to act to create the guiding constraints for their own living (Valsiner, 1997, 1998a). As this book is about semiotic foundations of cultural psychology, we can look at the notion of society as a sign. It is a word that denotes a myriad of phenomena. That nature of society sets it us as an example of a field-like sign (as contrasted with a point-like sign-- Chapter 1)—a hyper-generalized sign that permeates our thinking and feeling in their totality. Such signs are everywhere— and at the same time nowhere— in our culturally constituted minds. They form a semiosphere (Lotman, 1990, 1992), which is

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… the semiotic space necessary for the existence and functioning of languages, not the sum total of different languages; in a sense the semiosphere has a prior existence and is in constant interaction withy languages (Lotman, 1990, p. 123) The notion of semiosphere is borrowed by analogy from the biological world— its twin notion is that of biosphere. Both are holistic – field – concepts. The semiosphere is characterized by its heterogeneity—diversity of elements and their functions. The elements of the field exist in binary relations—which are viewed as asymmetric (center<>periphery, etc.) The general notion of society is one of the general terms within our semiosphere. We operate in our everyday lives through the use of the notion of society— by taking its “demands” into account, wanting to “belong to it”, or even dedicating our lives to it. The ever-present war memorials that can be found all over the World are a testimony for the human history of giving up one’s life at the patriotic duty call of the given society at the given time.

Society—a functional abstraction and a semiotic mediator As a conceptual abstraction, the society becomes put into everyday practices by different social institutions—governments, police, armies, manufacturers, sellers, etc. All these institutions are real and powerful agents in the social life—yet none of them individually equals the full extent to which the society refers. Even the most self-assured monarch—who may claim “I am the society”—or a political party that has established full control over the functioning of a government—are not telling us the truth. No person—or single institution— can be the society. Yet these political uses of the term indicate that efforts to show oneself as if one were the society are of some functional use. Different social actors—politicians, religious leaders, political parties, civil and uncivil (i.e., secret) services of a country—all attempt to appropriate the symbolic value of the sign—the society – for their particular purposes. The notion of the society is itself a relatively recent social construction—it came into use in the 19th century, allowing the emergence of areas of inquiry (called “social sciences”) to study it. Yet it was built upon the ambiguity of being between the social power of the state, and the domestic worlds of individual human beings: From the mid-eighteenth century onward, the term “society” came to be used in the moral and political sciences, in particular within French and Scottish debates, and it became the denomination for the key object of sociopolitical life there. Originally, in combination such as “political society” and “civil society”, it referred to nothing else but the state, but from a point of view of contract theory, namely as the aggregation of human beings that have come

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together for a purpose. But in some late eighteenth-century theories, “civil society” came to be seen as a phenomenon that was different from the state—but different from the individual households as well. (Wagner, 2000, p. 133, added emphases) The notion of the society is thus a meaning at the intersection of the private and the public domains of human existence. The well-established kinship groups—the family, the clan—bound together by blood (and inheritance) ties did not need a new designation. It would not be of any use to call the complex households of Turkish sultans – or French kings—as “Topikapi society” or “Versailles society.” Nor would the change of a name of a mediaeval guild of professional specialists in a Hansatown from “the goldsmiths’ guild” into “society of goldsmiths” be more than an inconsequential re-labeling act. The use of the term becomes functional when new social purposes for people “coming together” emerge—when the state organization of social roles becomes negotiated by the groups of individuals in relations to state power. The notion of the society acts as a semiotic mediator—a sign—in human communication processes—both between persons and institutions, and as an intra-psychological regulator. As a sign, the society is an example of a hypergeneralized field of signification. Such hyper-generalized signs are widely used by us as promoters of our ways of feeling and thinking as we transverse the myriad of real-life settings that we inhabit. They not only provide us with generalized, abstracted knowledge about our worlds, but also carry with them affective suggestions that we use in our everyday ways of living. Not only different assumed needs or duties-- “given to us” by the society—but also notions such as justice, love, success, profit, sin, etc—all are used by our individual selves to regulate our relations with others (and with ourselves) in these settings. Signs create fields. Moscovici’s point about the dual nature of the society, as it both tempers and excites different tendencies-- aggressive, epistemic, and sexual—and increases or reduces the chances of satisfying them—leads us to the ways in which hyper-generalized signs actually regulate human psyche. The important feature of such regulation is the unity of the opposites within the same whole—the notion of the society makes distinctions, and inserts into the differentiated field of such distinctions both prohibitions (boundaries) and the ways and conditions of transgressing those. The society operates in human discourse as a meta-sign that regulates other meanings used in everyday life, by attributing personified agency to an abstract socially constructed entity. Consider statements like “ the society needs X” or “the society wants Y”. By attributing the functions of “wanting” ,”needing”, deserving” and so on to the vague notion the society human beings create a secular deity for themselves that is created by their own minds (it is a person—an “I”—who says “the society wants me to do X”—and then follows, or resists, that “want” of the other—Valsiner, 1999, and above in Chapter 1— “cyclical sign hierarchy”).

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Figure 2.1. dynamics

An example of a unity of opposites and their relationship

X <> Y | Z

THE SOCIETY: “You MUST

THE SOCIET Y:“You SHOUL D

FIELD A Corresponding FIELD non-A BOUNDARY of A and non-A (with conditions of permeability X, Y, Z)

Consider the moral imperative of “you should not kill” that the society can be said to insert into the field of meanings of persons (Figure 2.1.). The generalized meaning field—of aggression towards another—is divided by the distinction made by the boundary. The boundary, however, is conditionally permeable (the X-Y-Z catalyst deciding under which conditions the opposite of “you should not kill” becomes turned into “you must kill” (see also Chapter 1 on catalytic causality). Obviously, the critical condition of the functioning of this field (“kill or not to kill”) as attributed to the society is in the conditional catalyzers (X-Y-Z) that maintain both the boundary as a limit and allow—under specifiable circumstances—it to be passed. This leads to the dominance of the previously sub-dominant (or even seemingly absent) part of the system. If X = “peace” and Y= “war”, and Z= “this time”, we see the semiotic complex of the society fitting to allow all meanings (and their implied action suggestions) to be under social control. Any social power—a kind, a president, a parliament, or a band of rebels— who uses the attributions to “society’s wishes” negotiates social control

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of persons within the given state. The society here becomes the functional ruler of the given social unit. Through covering all possible conditions of the {A<>non-A} field (see elaboration of theories of that kind in Chapter 3), the society (as the attributed agent of the meanings involved within the field) can assume control over all possible courses of action imaginable within the given content domain. Thus, in peacetime it may be self-evident not to kill your neighbor, while at the time of genocide it becomes more than acceptable to do so if the neighbor is of some specifiable characteristic (e.g., Hutu/Tutsi relationships— Mamdani, 2001; Semujangga, 2003, the historical roots of the Darfur conflict in Sudan—de Waal, 1997, 2005). At the same time the killing of bothersome insects—flies or mosquitoes—who are also considered “dangerous” may be unproblematic—until the notion of the “secret benevolent power” of these insects becomes generated by somebody, and proliferated by the society. Then the moral imperative of the society may prescribe the preservation of insects ahead of the human neighbors—an unlikely scenario, but one to illustrate the centrality of boundary maintenance as depicted in Figure 2.1. and to elaborate Moscovici’s idea. An important general axiom that will be followed all through this book is illustrated by Figure 2.1. – in case of social and psychological phenomena, as well as their relations, it is the process dynamics of the relations between opposites embedded within the same whole that generates the whole range of ways of being—of societies, communities, and persons. Thus, we are not interested in arriving at solutions to ontological questions, such as “what is Society X like?” or “what personality traits are there in person N?”. Sure, it is possible to describe any person, community, or country or ethnic group in its relatively stable state. Yet it is not that stable state—a steady state in terms of open systems theory—that embeds in itself some inherent essential “cause” to which one can attribute responsibility for a particular outcome. Rather, any stable state of an organism, or social unit, is a result of a dynamic process that maintains it. We here are interested in unraveling these dynamic processes— made possible by semiotic mediation (culture)—that generate the whole range of outcomes, under varied circumstances. Example 2.1. How psychologists think about individualism and collectivism. As an example of essentialist ways of thinking—the ones we this book is not using—consider the widespread discussion in cross-cultural psychology about “individualist” and “collectivist” societies. The practice of making such distinction (e.g., “Indians and Japanese are collectivistic” or “North Americans are individualistic”) may fare sufficiently well in everyday discourse— but fails when it is taken over to scientific explanations. Thus, to posit that a latent “cause”—“collectivism”—produces all Japanese, Indian, or any other society’s social and psychological phenomena, would be grossly inadequate. Likewise, claims that “American individualism” causes “individualistic conduct” is simply tautological. Such attribution would be similar to magic projection of the causal “powers of X” into the X itself (“water spirits” into water, “tree spirits” into trees, etc). While magical thinking helps everyday life (and is meant to be

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functional for common sense), its uses for scientific language constitute an impasse that would bring psychology close to alchemy 17. For scientific uses of these concepts, the unity of the opposites is adequate. Thus, all persons (and social units—groups, communities, institutions, countries, etc) are both “individualistic” and “collectivistic” at the same time. These two opposites are embedded within the same whole. When viewed as a dynamic whole, it is the relationship between the two opposites that generates all outcomes. These outcomes may be classified as “individualistic”, “ambiguous”, “collectivistic” or into whatever other categories—yet the system that produced all of those is one that includes the dynamically related opposites (Figure 2.2.). It is only rarely that the unity of these opposites has been recognized in contemporary social psychology (see Sinha and Tripathi, 2001). Why not focus on relationships? The impact of masked power. A reasonable question, then, is—why has psychology so adamantly denied the route of constructing theoretical concepts that unify the opposites and allow to explain the outcomes of varied kind through such opposites. Instead, the constant re-making of ever new entified explanatory concepts remains rampant in the social sciences. The making of “The Big Five” personality concepts, or of the separation of masculinity from femininity (and their use in explanatory efforts), invention of ever-new versions of “intelligence” (“social”, “emotional”, etc.)—are all examples of the monologizing mindset 18 of researchers. This monologizing mindset of researchers can be traced to the guidance of the social representing of where explanations for complex phenomena are to “be found”—or, more realistically, constructed. Psychology established itself as an independent discipline in the 19th century in the European context that was dominated by around 1500 years of impact of the ideology of Christianity in its multiple forms and transformations-- the Byzantine/Roman split in the 10th century, and the Protestant/Catholic split of the 16th century. History of the 18th century includes the focus on the Renaissance philosophy of enlightening of the soul by its individualist ethos. Hence it was socially guided towards constructing explanatory principles that would turn the mystical or religious explanations (in terms of “acts of God” or those of “the soul”) into acceptable secular terms (e.g., “the self”, “personality traits”, “individualism” etc.).

17

The concepts of alchemists were similar to present-day psychology: “…before the emergence of the science of chemistry many alchemists, for example, believed that names were absolute. Far from terms being arbitrary, as they were later regarded, they were treated in the extreme as if they were equivalent to things” (Crosland, 1995, p. 31). The entification tradition in psychology—considering “intelligence”. “personality traits” etc. as if these were real (and causal) entities “in the mind” is an epistemological move of similar kind 18 See chapter 3 on the dialogical orientation in theory construction. This orientation starts from the axiom of multiple causes creating singular outcome. Differently from the acceptance of unstructured set of such multiplicity, the dialogical perspectives assume a relationship between these posited parts of the causal system—of the kind of “dialogue”

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Figure 2.2. A functional model of individualistic collectivism (or collectivistic individualism)

AMBIGUOUS or AMBIVALENT

“collectivist domain ”

“individualist domain”

“individualist” OUTCOMES

“collectivist” OUTCOMES

AMBIGUOUS or AMBIVALENT

Added to this translation was the focus of European semiotic construction of supremacy—the “others” in newly discovered African, Asian, and American worlds were to “be civilized” (see chapter 3). It is therefore not surprising that even in our contemporary cross-cultural psychology the tension remains between the assumed values of “individualism” versus “collectivism” (rather than: “individualism” within “collectivism”, and vice versa). While accepting the equality of these two orientations, the researchers confront – and fight against—the historically set representation of “collectivism” as inferior to “individualism”. What they do not understand, however, that this fight for equality and justice of social representation is itself a cultural-historic blinder set forth by the masking of power in the history of Christian ideology. The collective agents—the unnamable multitude of ideologues of Christianity over centuries—have maintained the power of their ideology through insisting that the ideology has no power—all is delegated to the individuals. Yet the very individuals are in power because of the source—collective social institutions that use the ideology—has designated them to be in those (individual) roles. In the psychological wisdom of ruling ideologies—and every ruling ideology in World’s history has survived because of such wisdom—the individual is always necessarily “captured” in the domineering field of the social order. Thus,

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Christianity did not extend absolute moral freedom to the individual: it enfranchised the individual as a potentially self-sustaining moral agent under the condition that he or she ascribe to the life coextensive with God, Christ, and the church. Simply put, the core premise of individualism—the belief that the individual is the final arbiter of truth—requires a secularization that, while it may have for all intents and purposes existed for many in the Renaissance, cannot be said to have pervaded the moral landscape. The very superstitions to which the Renaissance was so attracted—not to mention the dependence on sacraments and ceremonies and the outbreaks of religious revivalism so common to the period—make it clear that the Renaissance was far from being the secular age that would be necessary to give rise to a true individualism. (Shanahan, 1992, p. 57) The situation is not different in the 21st century where a U.S. President may use a pledge of allegiance to the Bible to preach the freedom of choice needed for all individuals—no matter in what part of the World, and within which other historicreligious traditions—they may live. The unity of community-centeredness combined with focus on individual action has been the peculiarity of the U.S. social order (Mead, 1930/2001; Stearns, 2001). Psychology is a product of such guidance—the masking of dependence on collectivity of ideology through separation—exclusive—of the person from the social context, paired with search for explanations for the persons’ conduct within the posited psychological characteristics within thus separated person. In simple terms, the social order to psychologists is: “you search for explanations for all ills—social or others- in the person, and don’t dare to look at our ideological background that might have helped these ills to emerge!” The social sciences are set up to operate in the “next-door neighbor comfort zone”—topics that are too close for “comfort” of the social institutions that hold power are made into “no-study zones” (see below on Semiotic Demand Settings), while others—sufficiently far for not endangering the social power while keeping the socially constructed public interest-- are designated to be intensively studied (“hyper-study zones” 19). Of course such social guidance of research is likely to crumble under the new ideology of globalization—which at its inception is yet another symbolic act of social guidance by economically dominant institutions. Yet by transposing economic production capacities to be distributed all over the World (for maximum profits in only some parts of the World), the social system is opened for further transformation of the economic and social power within the World. Together with 19

A good example is the social construction of “AIDS scare” in the European and North American societies (see Preda, 2005) and the conspicuous absence of its equivalent “Ebola scare”. The link of AIDS with the moral topic of repression of unguided sexuality in the Christian world makes AIDS a cultural vehicle for social regulation of European and N-American societies—together with invention of new “moral superiority” stands against governments in Africa (where the HIV infections are by far more rampant that in Europe or the Americas) which may—for their own social institutional purposes—consider the issue of AIDS as part of “no talk”/”no study” domains.

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such transformation come opportunities for change in the ways in which social sciences construct their theoretical bases. Thus, psychology in the future is likely to abandon its overemphasized dependence on just one myth of Greek origin— that of Oedipus. Instead one may see the use of previously under-emphasized— yet historically well established—other myths. Maybe the future of psychology will be based on the images of Ganesa or Kali in theory construction—in that case, some aspects of everyday psychological realities may get more elaborate focus than psychology provides at our time. At the same time in such conceptual liberation its opposite—conceptual constriction-- is immediately embedded. After all—is any kind of myth—of any cultural-religious background—a reasonable starting point for a science? Maybe psychology needs to begin from the “myth of mythlessness”—or meaningful field of nothingness 20—to become sufficiently general in its understanding of concrete realities.

General implications: models of dynamic functioning of systems There is a general principle of theoretical construction inherent in the example of individualism <> collectivism—open systems of biological, psychological, and social kind can be conceptualized only through models that entail the unity of the parts of the system and the nature of that unity. Figure 2.2. shows how a dynamic mutuality system of constant movement between the opposites leads to all kinds of results of that system. The same system “behaves” in any of the different modes—as its “behavior” consists of by-products of the dynamic link between the two domains. It depends upon the catalytic conditions (see Figure 2.1.) when in the cycle 21 one or another outcome is being produced. The model in Figure 2.2 above is extremely simple. It operates with the common-sense meanings (individualism, collectivism), yet instead of treating those as causal “essences” it treats them as dynamically maintained “domains” in a system that is defined by their mutual relationship. The model is a kind of perpetum mobile—it is existing, maintaining itself, but is not developing further, nor breaking down. In this respect, the model is inadequate as given here—yet it is by far more sophisticated than is usual in the treatment of the individualism/collectivism issue in cross-cultural psychology.

Society as a Dynamic System

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And thus become a part of a Buddhist myth of meaningful everything that equals fulfilled feeling of emptiness. This may demonstrate the possibility of relative—not absolute—distancing of science from philosophies. 21 This cycle takes the form of reverberating Möbius strip—where the quality of one end pole turns into the other when the process reverberates between the two poles.

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Here we depart from the usual description of society in terms of its “snapshot” of what it is (ontology). Instead, we move to look at society as a dynamic system that constantly re-organizes itself in the course of maintenance of its “steady state” while also setting the stage for its own transformations into new states. All the social institutions that make up the structure of society are in constant interaction with one another, re-aligning their mutual roles and power. Furthermore—as all biological, psychological, and social phenomena— society is an open system. Its systemic organization is made possible by its constant exchange relationship with its environment. First of all, it is the resources of the natural environment that are the core for the functioning of society. These are turned into cultural products—which then become part of the society’s environment of symbolic resources (Zittoun, 2006). The dynamics of transformation of societies depends on the availability of both cultural and natural resources. Any economic progress—or collapse—of a society is a result of ways in which the resources are being utilized within the society. The society can move through a variety of intermediate organizational forms in the preservation of its “steady state”. Within such move is the beginning of its own transformation. All societies are, thus, simultaneously “open” (as necessary defining condition for them)—with the opposite tendency towards becoming “closed”. It may be adequate to view societies as involved in the act of balancing their state of affairs under the conditions of constant pressures towards the loss of balance. The ease with which a society moves from a state of peace to that of war indicates the systemic nature of any society. As pointed out by Georg Simmel, Distinctions of differences of value and of purpose are so much a part of the tendencies of the human mind that we cannot refrain from representing to ourselves the unbroken flow of alternating periods through such distinctions…The same relationship may be asserted of struggle and peace. Both in the serial and in the contemporary aspect of social life these conditions are so interwoven that in every peaceful situation the conditions for further conflict, and in every struggle the conditions for future peace, are developing (Simmel, 1904, p. 799, added emphasis). The very same social system that maintains—and reproduces—peace, builds up its potential to generate military conflicts. When conditions for the functioning of the society change—or such change is of use for some social institution—war can be started. The social system can rely upon the basic obedience of the persons to authority (Milgram, 1974) to accept—sometimes enthusiastically—the substation of the construction focus of peacetime by the destructive foci of war. While the transition from peace to war (or back) occurs, the cultural meanings of environment change (Lewin, 1917).

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The cultural nature of economic relations. All societies are dependent upon their economic relations—which are themselves products and means of history of the societies. The dominant economic systems of European kind …must be seen as an institution composed of systems of production, power, and signification. The three systems, which coalesced at the end of the eighteenth century, are inextricably linked to the development of capitalism and modernity. They should be seen as cultural forms through which human beings are made into producing subjects. The economy is not only, or even principally, a material entity. It is above all a cultural production, a way of producing human subjects and social orders of a certain kind (Escobar, 1995, p. 59, added emphases) The nature of society is precisely located in the feed-forward loop between the cultural values and activities system we label economy, and its material results in the form of construction and destruction of material sides of life. Production entails both—natural resources are being destructed for the sake of new constructions. For the purposes of production, the processes of labor need to be set up in a society. Labor has two facets. From the economic perspective it can be viewed as human goals-directed activity that is aimed at the satisfaction of human needs through relating with the selected features of the environment. The process of human cultural construction also entails the symbolic construction of ever novel needs. This is made possible by the semiotic generativity of the human species who can create new needs—and invent ways for their satisfaction. The fetishes of modern consumer society become understandable in their functional side— once the basic needs of human beings become satisfied, they proceed to construct new (non-basic) needs, fixate those symbolically as absolutely necessary through signs, and then—create an economic framework for their satisfaction. The guarantee of survival of humankind is thus provided by the capacities of fetish innovation. The second facet of labor is its role in setting up the framework for socialization. In the process of labor, the person …learns to receive and transfer information, react to external pressures and resolve conflict situations, fine tune one’s efforts and pretend to be actively involved, establish contacts and create the image of authority-- accumulate capital in all its variable forms. By becoming a worker, the person acquires more than only professional roles. He learns what it means to be “the boss” or “the subordinate” or “outsider” or “colleague”, “peredovik” 22, or “laggerbehind”. Labor is a school of socialization in which we live a 22

In literal translation from Russian—“the person ahead of others”. The term was used in the Soviet Union to signify the role of an especially productive worker (peredovik truda). It carried an implicit ideological positive valuation in the context of the Soviet society.

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substantial part of our lives. Aside from the making of products and services, labor plays the role of production and reproduction of the person oneself (Radaev, 2006, p. 117) The involvement in the process of labor involves semiotic linking of the domains of human activity on the landscape of social institutions with the abstracted meaning system that is socially suggested for the persons. Thus, a person from place A migrated to location B in order to work in a factory and earn money for one’s family back in A. This act of migration and labor is meaningful for the person who needs to “support one’s family.” An external observer of the person’s work in place B who comes from yet another place (C) may find the active work in B to be “sweat-shop exploitation.” Children who are involved in labor are viewed as “lacking childhood” (rather than “acquiring skills”)—while children who go to school are viewed as “becoming educated” (rather than “deprived from work experience”). The difference here is in which social institutional domain—that of production industry or educational establishment— provides meaning to the particular activities of the children. “Belonging” to society: a real effort at an impossible task All human beings are said to belong to society—or societies. Yet they do so in different ways—they are at different distances from the idealized core (“center”) of whatever is meant by a given society. In fact, by assuming there are such “centers” of any society (e.g., the core “center” of “the Japanese society”) we as researchers superimpose a homogenizing categorization device onto otherwise heterogeneous field of human beings relating with one another by a myriad of kinship, friendship, apprenticeship, or dominance ties that are established through blood or ownership relations, and differentiated mutually interdependent social roles. The reality of “society X” is that of heterogeneous multitude of human dramas of everyday lives. Yet our depiction of that reality presents it as if it could be categorized into crisp sets (e.g. a person is either a “member of society X” or not; or “society X is characterized by features P, Q, and S”—assuming each “member” is also characterized by these features). Heterogeneity also dominates the class of all societies. Looking all across the globe-- the whole World is filled with a great multitude of societies that are in constant flux—yet maintaining their own relative stability in the middle of that flux. It is possible to trace similarity of events in a society across its history—usually in the form of basic existential events (war/peace; birth/death, etc) as well as various cultural rituals (initiation rituals, weddings, funerals) and their encoding into fixed cultural spaces (architecture of temples, fortresses, monuments, and supermarkets). Persons play different roles in that stability<>instability processes of societies. They are differentially and dynamically peripheral members of a society. In fact, the idealized construct of a “core” of an idealized society guarantees that only one person (or his/her twin brother or sister) can be “the”

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personal accomplishment of the construct “A belongs to society X” in its fullest sense (see Figure 2.3.). If we posit a society as a space—a field—with a calculable center (given the defined boundaries of the field—Figure 2.3. A.) then it is only one point that would fit onto the idealized central place of that field. The story is even more complex if we add to our idealized picture of “the society” the conditions for illdefined boundaries (Figure 2.3.B. i.e., assumption that the frontiers of the field are constantly moving) and personal movement of all “members” of “the society” within this abstract field. It becomes clear that under such conditions no single person can occupy the central point of the field—but many may pass through it temporarily in the dynamics of their lives within the field. What follows from this depiction is the opposite of positing “membership in society” as a static state or essence of persons. Instead, belonging to a society is necessarily liminal in its personal core. This liminality is the result of viewing persons—even in their stable states of being— as entailing tension between “as-is” and “as-if” (or “as-couldbe”) states. A person is always operating at the boundary of these two domains—and being on boundary is the best—as well as the most ambiguous-place for acquiring knowledge. Paul Tillich has summarized that ambiguity in his autobiographical notes as the basic dialectic of existence: … each of life’s possibilities drives of its own accord to a boundary and beyond the boundary where it meets that which limits it. The man who stands on many boundaries experiences the unrest, insecurity, and perfection. This holds true in life as well as in thought… (Tillich, 1966, p. 97-98, added emphasis) Human living is thus boundaries-making, boundaries-crossing, and boundaries re-making activity. One of the primary mechanisms of creating meaningful uniqueness—or “semiotic individuation”—is the boundary, which …can be defined as the outer limit of a first-person form. This space is ‘ours’, ‘my own’, it is ‘cultured’, ‘safe’, ‘harmoniously organized’, and so on. By contrast ‘their space’ is ‘other’, ‘hostile’, ‘dangerous’, ‘chaotic’…. The boundary may separate the living from the dead, settled people from nomadic ones, the town from the plains; it may be a state frontier, or a social, national, confessional, or any other kind of frontier. (Lotman, 1990, p. 131) As constant movers across boundaries, we are all perpetual migrants— moving through self-created labyrinths of meanings, social rules, and—most importantly—ambiguity that is present as a normal state of affairs in that movement (Abbey, 2006). Human living has agentive directivity— the telos is the center of our movements.

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Figure 2.3. The abstract depiction of a society and persons “belonging to” it (a and b are persons “in” the given society field) A. a fixed-boundary field boundaries field

B. Ill-defined

a

a b b

“center point”

“center point”

C. movements within the fixed-boundary field (person “a” moved towards center in the past, now escapes it person “b” moved towards center in the past and continues in future)

a b

While operating constantly under such boundary conditions—in the context of all the uncertainties of liminal movement in some direction (and away from some other direction), persons create signs that stabilize their state of affairs as if they were in a stable, stationary position. Rituals and social roles can be seen as such guiding promoter signs—they are set up to be relatively stable (yet can be flexibly re-enacted in novel ways in terms of the ludic features in human living—Koepping, 1997). Yet in their set-up as reflected by the persons— as well as the socio-legal systems—the roles and rituals are presented as if stable. Sometimes—in maximum cases of symbolization-- they are presented as hyper-fixed—no actions violating their sanctity are allowed 23. Under ordinary circumstances, 23

Consider legal regulations of acting upon symbols of statehood (flags, emblems) or economic power (banknotes). The very image of a piece of cloth (flag) being burned, or a piece of paper (banknote) being torn into halves, is not just socially illegal or at least reproachable, and personally horrifying, or at least unpleasant.

Valsiner

…a social role involves continual interaction between the performer and other people. .. in a theatrical drama the role is created by the dramatist once and for all: Hamlet is the same role in each

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particular performance though different actors may play it differently. In social life each person enacts his own separate role; the roles of many particular physicians, merchants, or housewives are only similar because, and so far as, they follow the same cultural pattern recognized as binding in certain collectivities. (Znaniecki, 1939, p. 806, added emphasis) Thus, the social person— a subjective being within a social setting—is constantly acting within the range of possibilities of the social role, or norm—and testing its boundaries in efforts to re-organize the social roles themselves. The social web is constantly constructed by collective actions of individuals—who then proceed to destruct it in order to re-assemble it in ever new ways. The transitions in social order come by the goal-oriented and meaningful personal violations of the previous order which may be of dire consequences 24. Still, the bonds of social bindings are being changed—both in the social and personal realms (Lawrence, Benedikt & Valsiner, 1992). This understanding of centrality of liminality of belonging opens the door for analysis of direction of personal movement within the field of society. Liminality “may often symbolize a creative transcendence of the given categories of a system” (Das, 1976, p. 261). This creative transcendence is based on the bidirectionality in culture transfer (see chapter 1, esp. Figure 1.4.) and is made possible by the active role of persons in the construction of their own selves. Children transcend their here-and-now settings in play (Vygotsky, 1933/1966), adolescents—in their imagination (Vygotsky, 1994), and adults—in their daydreaming (Pereira and Diriwächter, 2007). Through all these means persons create discontinuities—adventures (Lightfoot, 1997)-- into their on-going ways of living. Construction of meaningful discontinuities—in counteraction to routines and boredom—is present even in case of performing seemingly fixed cultural rituals (Koepping, 1997). It could be stated in general that human beings are constantly and consistently making themselves liminal—or: being adventurous is deeply human. Yet its function—of striving for the unknown- has the function to modify the wellknown, rather than abandon it (Abbey & Davis, 2003). As Georg Simmel has noted, Something becomes an adventure only by virtue of two conditions: that it itself is a specific organization of some significant meaning with a beginning and an end; and that, despite its accidental nature, its extraterritoriality with respect to the continuity of life, it nevertheless connects with the character and identity of the bearer of that life—that it does so in the widest sense, transcending, by a

24

As we know, human social and political history is filled with imprisonment, torture, and execution of individuals who have violated a given social order.

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mysterious necessity, life’s more narrowly rational aspects (Simmel, 1959a, p. 246). Persons are not statically situated “in” a society—but their “belonging” entails the detection of their current position within the field, their trajectories of movements within the field in the past, and their direction of striving to move within the field between present and future. They are simutaneously striving towards the “foreign” and the “home” (Fernweh and Heimweh— Boesch, 1997see also chapters 1 and 3)—similarly to little children’s approach/avoidance routines in contacting a stranger (Valsiner and Hill, 1989). On the ontogenetic scale, the unity of past, present, and future directions amounts to a personal life histories approach to the issue of “belonging to a society”. Persons are on a constant and inevitable move from their pasts towards the future (see Figure 2.3.C.). By recording at this moment that they are all in a similar state (e.g., belong to “middle class”) we do not know if their past life courses are similar or not. Some may “belong to” the “middle class” over generations, other may be ascendants from the “lower classes” or descendants from the “upper classes”—in case of such simple three-part distinction with allowed crossings of class boundaries. Likewise, some of them aspire towards “upper class” status in their imagined future (i.e. the phenomenon of “upward mobility”) while others try to maintain their class status. Furthermore—persons can “belong” to different “societies” at the same time – as migrant workers, missionaries, or immigrants from society X residing in society Y; or as temporary residents – traders, tourists, peacekeepers or other invaders from “the outside” of society Y. Such multiple “memberships”—brought by through migration between the societies—further complicate the issue of “belonging to a society.” So—in sum—we can say that human beings “belong to” their own lives. This happens biologically (e.g., bodily capacities, biological role in reproduction, and illness histories), socially (roles in a social or kin group, community, etc.) and culturally (uses of semiotic mediation devices in regulating their own development and relations with others). From our person-centered angle the story of “belonging” is turned inside out—it is the different “societies” that “belong to” the person who migrates constructively through one’s own life. Societies and communities As we discover, society is a very convenient fiction. It is a fiction because it entails unity between persons, their life spaces and ways of living, as well as in the social organization of their conduct. It is convenient since reference to it can be used to make an indefinite general notion definite by its personification (“society needs X”, “society is open” etc.). Society is turned into a concept with inherent moral value—it is either good (and people are to serve it) or bad (and people should change it). Real people of course live in their immediate social environments— communities. Ferdinand Tönnies introduced in 1887 the distinction of community (Gemeinschaft) and society (Gesellschaft). Not surprisingly, his image of the

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community was based on that of German village. Beginning from the issue of how goals-oriented human beings relate to one another, he introduced the contrast person<>community<>society in dynamic terms: Every such relationship is a mutual action, inasmuch as one party is active, or gives, while the other party is passive, or receives. These actions are of such a nature that they tend either toward preservation or destruction of the other will or life; that is, they are either positive or negative. .. Every such relationship represents unity in plurality and plurality in unity. It consists of assistance, relief, services, which are transmitted back and forth from one party to another and are to be considered as expressions of wills and their forces… The relationship itself… is conceived of either as real and organic life—this is the essential characteristic of the Gemeinschaft (community); or as imaginary and mechanical structure—this is the concept of Gesellschaft (society) (Tönnies, 1957, p. 33) The community is an organically differentiating social unit—based on the person’s social immersion among other human beings. Gemeinschaft is the lasting form of social life of persons who are united together by different ties. Gesellschaft, in contrast, is transitory and superficial. Tönnies’ contrast was a product of Germany of his time—recently united (1870) country of course could not show any other form of society as that of a mechanical (political) aggregate, while the immediate communities had longevity beyond generations. Also—the delineation of communities was relatively easy by the mere fact of mostly sedentary lifestyle. Within the community, differentiation by way of authority (by age, by force, and by wisdom) could be delineated by Tönnies. Yet the Gemeinschaft was a growing, differentiating, and—eventually— hierarchically integrated social unit. A distanced, differentiated form of Gemeinschaft was the basis for Gesellschaft. That would be the developmental/historical interpretation of Tönnies’ idea. Yet as is usual in the social sciences, the historical view was easily replaced by treating community and society as two separate and mutually opposed categories—a typology. A comparison of the two gets rid of the transformation process of one into the other. The highly differentiated nature of the society can eliminate—or hide—its integrative ties. Thus, Tönnies himself led to the juxtaposition of the two at the level of their outcome states. In Gesellschaft, individuals …are essentially separated in spite of all uniting factors… we find no actions that can be derived from an a priori and necessarily existing unity; no actions, therefore, which manifest the will and spirit of the unity even if performed by the individual; no actions which, in so far as they are performed by the individual, take place on behalf of those united with him. (Tönnies, 1957, p. 65)

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Typologies are synchronic comparisons. The contrast between society and community was made by Tönnies between an organically functioning, mutually interdependent whole—community—and a mechanical externally organized conglomerate (society). The critical distinction between them is made on the basis of the role of individuals—while community is made possible and functions due to the interdependence of persons “in” the community, their role in society is circumscribed by the formal roles and role relationships. Thus, my uncle Thomas may be the policeman in my little village—and in that role he is simultaneously a member of the village community—as a person all know, revere or fear, but recognize as “our own”—and that of society—as a carrier of the social role “policeman” that is defined by some government far beyond my village. Yet that government provides uncle Tom the expected uniform that makes him marginal in the community—the uniform signifies a break with the local community, ascription of power role that represents social unity of the institutions of the society. Thus, by way of multiple ties with social organizations—local and national—my uncle Thomas becomes a liminal member of the local community (as seen in Figure 2.4.). Belonging to a community—and participating in a society—is a process of inevitable ambivalence. In Figure 2.4., the person A is “in between” the local Community X and the wider Society Y—where Y includes X. Yet there is inevitably a difference between the modes of functioning of X and Y (see Tönnies’ Gesellschaft/Gemeinschaft distinction above), and between the goals of the agents—personal and institutional—who constantly re-negotiate the community/society borderlands. Mohan—a person appointed to the role of a policeman on the Andaman Islands, reflects this sentiment: What good has happened to me! I had a uniform to wear and be in the world outside the forest. But can the world outside take me, as I am an Ongee [local ethnic group] policeman and not a policeman? For my people I am neither policeman nor an Ongee. I make enough money to get all my requirements from the nearby market, why should I bother with working in the forest? No wonder many Ongees resent me! (Pandya, 2005, p. 401)

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Figure 2.4. The ambivalence of “belonging” to two different social units— community and society-- simultaneously

SOCIETY A

Communi ty

This ambivalence is even more profound if we consider all persons-incommunity (who are simultaneously “members of a society”) to be constant migrants—either between socio-economic strata (some become richer, others— poorer), or between geographical locations for living and working. Thus, today’s …sub-Saharan Africa’s most prominent place is no longer the shade tree of the village but the central bus station, and time in Africa’s Muslim societies is no longer marked by the adhan, the call for prayers of the local mu’adhdhin, but by the daily programmes of a multitude of radio and TV stations. Also, the khutba, the Friday sermon, is rendered today, in many sub-Saharan Muslim societies, in the relevant vernacular language and transmitted in national radio and TV programmes. (Loimeier, 2005, p. 404) Societies that are undergoing change set up migratory patterns for communities. People migrate to cities, or other countries, in search for better economic life conditions. At the same time, our modern technology makes us migrants right in our homes—bringing socially pre-fabricated suggestive images, narratives, and events to us beyond the private/public space borders that exist in any community. At the same time, it also allows for quick and far-off migration of persons who may enter a far-off society by taking an airplane—or a barge that smuggles them to a dream society against the dangers of weather, smugglers’ greed, and the tough immigration laws of that country of one’s dreams.

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Social Structures and their Differentiation History of societies provides us with a picture of evolved and relatively stable differences, oppositions, and other forms of interdependencies between social categories by which human beings are considered united into homogeneous classes. Such classes—nations, social classes, gender groups, age cohorts, professional guilds, or castes—are all semiotic management devices of the process of regulating social orders. Classes are results of semiotic distinctions—partitions of the heterogeneous class of human beings into homogeneous groups. Thus, the traditional Marxist distinction of classes by the criterion of their relationship with the means of production (the bourgeoisie, the proletariat, the intelligentsia) treats all the classes as unified by that criterion. Likewise, the feminist distinction of human beings into males (or “oppressors”) and females (or “victims”) assumes a value-laden contrast of homogeneous classes. The usual distinction of classes in the social sciences— combining educational level, occupation, and income (Hollingshead SES index) creates the distinction of higher, middle, and lower classes along similar lines. However, the reality of human existence remains heterogeneous. As Pierre Bourdieu has remarked, The individuals grouped ion a class that is constructed in a particular respect… always bring with them, in addition to their pertinent properties by which they are classified, secondary properties… This means that a class or class fraction is defined not only by its position in the relations of production, as identified through indices such as occupation, income, or even educational level…by a whole set of subsidiary characteristics which may function, in the form of tacit requirements, as real principles of selection or exclusion without ever being formally stated (this is the case with ethnic origin and sex). A number of official criteria in fact serve as a mask for hidden criteria: for example, the requiring of a given diploma can be a way of demanding a particular social origin. (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 102) Thus—while the external (“official”) classification of persons into social classes serves different administrative (privileging, stigmatizing, eradicating) functions, the actual functioning of social class markers in the processes of interpersonal and social-institutional interaction allows the notion of social class to become a functional hyper-generalized sign that is used in particular contexts.

How to understand transformations: The differentiation principle

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When seen in movement, societies are conglomerates of social institutions that are constantly involved in a process of differentiation and dedifferentiation. The theoretical notion of differentiation and hierarchical integration is known through the work of Heinz Werner in developmental psychology (Valsiner, 2005b; Werner, 1957). Its roots go back to the natural philosophy of Johann Wolfgang Goethe. In its general form, the Orthogenetic Principle is usually given as: Developmental psychology postulates one regulative principle of development; it is an orthogenetic principle which states that wherever development occurs it proceeds from a state of relative globality and lack of differentiation to a state of increasing differentiation, articulation, and hierarchical integration. (Werner, 1957, p. 126) Here, a number of further features are important. First, it is important to emphasize Werner's focus on the emergence of the polarity (=differentiation) of the Subject (of action) and its Object: ...increasing subject-object differentiation involves the corollary that the organism becomes increasingly less dominated by the immediate concrete situation; the person is less stimulus-bound and less impelled by his own alternative states. A consequence of this freedom is the clearer understanding of goals, the possibility of employing substitutive means and alternative ends. There is hence a greater capacity for delay and planned action. The person is better able to exercise choice and willfully rearrange a situation. In short, he can manipulate the environment rather than passively respond to the environment. This freedom from the domination of the immediate situation also permits a more accurate assessment of others. (Werner, 1957, p. 127) At the level of human social institutions, such capacity for delay manifests itself in long-term planning and efforts to fixate symbolic distances between social classes or historical periods. The capacity for delayed action is made possible through semiotic mediation. Meanings are made to function in the given context—but in ways that transcend the realities of that context. They reflect the effort to guide the future history in directions that are invented currently. Thus, the notion of “building a society X” (where X can be “communism”, “market economy”, “happiness for all people”, etc.) is a semiotic direction that is given so as to guide the feelings and thoughts of the people in the given context. Much of the activities of the meaning maker belong to the realm of creating mediating devices that are not realistic here-and-now, but are expected to become real later (“there-and-then”). Carried over to the level of societies/communities as open systems, Werner’s principle

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entails the making of new social representations (and re-making previously constructed ones) to face the future. Differentiation includes its opposite-- de-differentiation-- as its complementary part. The process of hierarchical integration involves qualitative re-organization of the "lower" (i.e. previously established) levels of organization, when the higher levels emerge in their specificity: ...development...tends towards stabilization. Once a certain stable level of integration is reached, the possibility of further development must depend on whether or not the behavioral patterns have become so automatized that they cannot take part in reorganization... The individual, for instance, builds up sensorimotor schemata ... these are the goal of early learning at first, but later on become instruments or apparatuses for handling the environment. Since no two situations in which an organism finds itself are alike, the usefulness of these schemata in adaptive behavior will depend on their stability as well as on their pliability (a paradoxical "stable flexibility") ...if one assumes that the emergence of higher levels of operations involves hierarchic integration, it follows that lower-level operations will have to be reorganized in terms of their functional nature so that they become subservient to higher functioning. A clear example of this is the change of the functional nature of imagery from a stage where images serve only memory, fantasy, and concrete conceptualization, to a stage where images have been transformed to schematic symbols of abstract concepts and thought. (Werner, 1957, pp. 139-140) Werner's perspective on Subject-Object differentiation consistently led to the notion of psychological mediating devices emerging as human-made organizers of the mental and affective processes (see chapter 7). If we look at the history of human societies, we can see that the primary arena for social guidance efforts by institutions is the personal-affective domain of individuals, followed by its derivate- the “rational actions.” In other terms—the passionately claimed “rationality” of the decisions of rulers—be these kings, corporations, political parties, or “market forces”—proves the primacy of irrationality in human social life. We are rational through being irrational—and this version of dependent independence (see Valsiner, 1997) is set up through semiotic differentiation and de-differentiation processes in our collective organization of human lives. Differentiation and de-differentiation of social classes within a society. As seen above, all social systems are involved in constant differentiation/dedifferentiation processes (Simmel, 1890). The discourses about social stratification are marking—socially—the “stable states” of social being that have emerged through these processes. Thus, “being middle class” is an

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ontological statement (about being), while it is created and maintained by the myriad of everyday life actions and valuations of the persons who either consider themselves being “middle class” or aspire towards becoming such. The making of distinction between social strata is based on the symbolic marking of the environment—and of oneself. In the process of establishing social power hierarchies different social classes negotiate their power relations by way of physical (or military) force, ownership of economic resources, educational markers (licenses, diplomas, etc.) and by creating explicit or implicit boundaries for separation of the strata. Consider the notion of caste as a social category of separation of strata. A caste is …a functionally specialized unit that is (and is perceived as being) an interdependent part of a larger social system. The differentiation of and interdependence between castes has generally been economically, socially, and ritually institutionalized in a wide variety of ways. (Kurien, 1994, p. 389). The example of caste illustrates how the making of class distinctions can both separate and unite the distinguished social strata. In the context of history of castes we can observe the distinction-with-unification. Different castes are segregated and there are clear symbolic limits upon their possible contacts (e.g., no entry into one another’s territory, specific ritual markers of difference, prohibitions upon marriage between castes, etc.). Yet, at the same time, the castes—separated from one another—depend upon one another in the performing of specific tasks. This is an example of the abstract operation of inclusive separation (Valsiner, 1997)—parts of the system are distinguished, and separated, from one another—and their relationship becomes the basis for the functioning of the system that includes them (see Figure 2.1., above, for an example). In contrast, the abstract operation of exclusive separation entails the segregation of parts of a system from one another and disallowance of any links between the parts. That operation is the basis for classical-logical classifications of either/or variety. Exclusive separation eliminates systemic connections between the parts, thus eliminating the systemic nature of the phenomena from our consideration. Following that logic, if we say “Taylor is a man” it follows by the logic of exclusive separation that “Taylor is not a woman”. The possibility of androgyny—unity of both male and female components in the personalities of both men and women—is thus logically eliminated from consideration. Erich Fromm has noted about the history of “women’s liberation” the past two centuries of the development of European societies, … women’s equality meant that she, in her very essence, was the same as man in bourgeois society. Emancipation did not mean, therefore, that she was free to develop her specific, as yet unknown, traits and potentialities; on the contrary, she was being emancipated in order to become a bourgeois man. The “human”

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emancipation of woman really meant her emancipation to become a bourgeois male. (Fromm, 1997, p. 26). Equality here means not androgyny (a person is includes both male and female, mutually intertwined, features) but an exclusive separation (“male” versus “female”) with appropriation of the other category into the politically dominant one (“male” = “male males” + “females-- transformed into-- functionally males”). In contrast, inclusive separation would also recognize the contrast “man”<> “woman”, but would use that contrast to have a careful look at the boundary of the two categories. That boundary is by far more complex than Eurocentric cultural assumptions axiomatically prescribe (Njambi & O’Brien, 2005). Which of the two abstract operations is put to practice on different occasions of argumentations depends on the goal orientations of the meaning makers. If their goal is to create a social or psychological divide (of the wellknown “divide and govern” political strategy), exclusive separation tactics can be used. Thus, despite the fact that all military actions demand coordinated (hence—mutually inclusive) actions of the adversaries (e.g., “attack” requires “defense”, if there is no opponent there is no attack), the warring opponents present each other as totally dissimilar to themselves. The “enemy” is always stigmatized as sub-human, animal-like (“we” are different from “them”)—thus making the act of hunting applicable to the acts undertaken in respect to “the enemy”. Differentiation of the social structures: The abstract case. Here we apply the “orthogenetic principle” to the dynamics of societies. Society is an abstraction— conglomerate of many mutually overlapping communities. The first differentiation entails the emergence of {society} | | {community 1…community N} subordination structure (Figure 2.5.). The relationships that develop between the various communities through their regulation from above are crucial for the integration of the whole society. It is from the relationships between individual people with their family (clan) histories that the differentiation of communities (A,B) takes place. That differentiation can lead to hierarchical structure where the “society C” establishes its regulatory role over the emerged communities—setting the stage for their relationships of inequality and mutual non-penetration, or to equality and mutual permeability. Within the differentiation/de-differentiation processes we can chart out directions of transformation in relation between different parts of the differentiating structure. Thus, if the concurrent directions of two social institutions are oriented towards the same future goals we can speak of

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convergence of the differentiation processes of these institutions. If, instead, their goal orientations differ, we can consider the divergence of the differentiation processes. Figure 2.5. Differentiation of community/society structures

Society X

A A

B

B B

UNDIFFERENTIATED INTEGRATED

DIFFERENTIATED

HIERARCHICALLY

The process of social differentiation—as it entails the complex of public<>private domains—necessarily entails divergence, as Georg Simmel emphasized years ago as a process of cultural differentiation: …historical development brings out the deeper real significance: that which in its nature is public, which in its content concerns all, becomes also externally, in its sociological form, more and more public; while that which in its inmost nature refers to the self alone—that is, the centripetal affairs of the individual—must also gain in sociological position a more and more private character, a more decisive possibility of remaining secret. (Simmel, 1906, p. 469) Simmel’s idea is proven in the development of a high variety of secrecy techniques—paper shredders, passwords, electronic and other locks, etc—in the contemporary urbanizing “open societies” all over the World. The fight of the paparazzis for the public’s “right to know” (and their right to earn from making

A

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private moments public) is paralleled by increasing secrecy of the homes, travel schedules, and—last but not least—of the interiors of human selves. The function of secrecy. Secrecy develops in parallel with openness—it is a semiotic act of creating meaning by way of concealing, adding value to the given content—if one thinks of the following contrast:

THIS IS

THIS IS X and [only I know it] and [nobody else should know it]

Creating the boundary around the particular meaning (X) by way of metamarker (“nobody else should know it”) creates the feeling of meaning empowerment for the constructor (“only I know it”). In the inter-personal domain, it creates the efforts to overcome the boundary of the limit on the meaning. It motivates the others—persons or institutions—to “break the code” or secrecy. The limits of access to X create a motivating social force to gain access to X. Hence the invention of meta-semiotic marker “this is a secret” is a way to create extra value out of the mundane: Secrecy secures… the possibility of a second world alongside of the obvious world, and the latter is most strenuously affected by the former. Every relationship between two individuals or two groups will be characterized by the ratio of secrecy that is involved in it. (Simmel, 1906, p. 462) As with all meaning field boundaries, the SECRET<>NON-SECRET boundary is constantly being re-organized. Often the maker of the meaning adds further value to it by selectively letting “into the secret domain” another person (“I tell you a big secret ‘This is X’—do not tell this secret to anybody else!”). This technique of spreading messages around (i.e., telling the other not to tell anybody else—expecting that the other definitely tells it) is well-known and widely used in social practices. Its usefulness is built on the assumption that—by way of creating added value to the message by pointing out its secrecy—the recipient is tempted to make use of it in the communication networks for one’s particular purposes. Secrecy—by its act of positive and negative concealment—is indeed one of the greatest accomplishments of humanity.

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The making (and unmaking) of the private/public access boundary is not limited to the constructed meanings within the personal cultures. It is embedded within our social environments—fences, doors, social rules of requesting entrance rights or pretending not to see what is visible—are all examples of cultural regulation of the secrecy boundaries. The personal-cultural phenomena of dressing—most importantly, based on the example of dialogues in veiling— would be of interest in elaborating these boundaries. Here we can consider its society<>community dynamics counterpart—dealing with various forms of convergence/divergence in the actions of social institutions. Example 2.2. Community secrecy as its defense: “Never tell friendly strangers who your father is!” The history of the United States is rich in intercommunity strains—which nevertheless, by and large, have found a rather stable equilibrium state in the dynamics of that country which professes religious piety together with capitalist secularism. As such, the history of the United States is unique, and its social system an adaptation to the particular circumstances of its development: large territory (captured through conquest from the natives, wars with Spain, Britain, and France, and purchases from Russia and the Netherlands), combined with Æ focus on immigration (at different times legislated to exclude some racial groups), Æ enforced import of labor (participation in trans-Atlantic slave trade up to mid 19th century),and Æ distrust of centralized state power (which nevertheless insists on its centrality). Further peculiarities of the U.S. history is the movement of different internally homogeneous (usually on religious grounds) communities around in the vast territories (especially as the conquest of land moved from the East Coast towards the West). This led to the establishment of a parallel existence of many different communities at geographical or symbolic distance from one another. Yet all these different communities were expected to accept the dominant religious belief system—Christianity in its varied forms—and individuals were expected to internalize the basic Protestant belief in the inviability of the Scriptures and their extensions—the secular laws. Yet the latter could be constantly re-negotiated, yet in relation to the “outsiders” (beyond the borders of the United States) the façade presentation of “the America 25” was set to be that of exceptionalism. The United States were set to be the country of freedom and benevolence—with strong missionary zeal in case of exporting its religious and economic mores (cf. Rosenberg, 2003). The success of the economic mission

25

This appropriation of the equivalence “America”= the United States (rather than both North and South America, or at least Canada, U.S.,, and Mexico) prevails in our present day. Thus, the official sign at the door of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in December 2005 states “American Embassy”—yet its consular section would be hard pressed to issue visas to citizens of the Russian Federation to Mexico, or Canada.

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has surely been prominent—yet the transfer of U.S. kind of social organization (“American democracy”) has had controversial results 26. A local—North-American—test of the limits of the notion of freedom of religion happened in the years 1852-1890 in the U.S. Federal territory (later state) of Utah. It involved the emergence of a new religious movement on the North American soil (in New York State 27) – that of Latter Day Saints (commonly referred to as Mormons). The new religious calling moved—through a revelation recorded by its leader, Joseph Smith, in 1843—to accept and propagate the polygynic marriage form within its community as a way of guaranteeing reproductive success of its members. This innovation came with the social and economic security that kinship-based plural marriage forms grant their participants (see discussion of functioning of marriage forms in chapter 4). Of course the goal of introduction of the historically proven—but antithetical to basic forms of Christianity—a marriage form was not that of liberation of men and women from the ties of their social roles, but brining them into further loyalty relations to the new community. It was the Church that strictly regulated the marriages (and divorces) of the members of the community (Daynes, 2001). Still the effort by the newly established Mormon community was a direct challenge to the Protestant communities around them—violent frictions in New York State as well as Ohio and Illinois led Mormons to negotiate re-settlement to new territories not yet colonized by the U.S.—that of present-day Utah. It was there that in 1852 the polygynic marriage form was declared legitimate in Mormon society (which was dominant in the newly established—1850-- “Federal Territory” of Utah). Thus, the conflict between the local administration of Utah and the U.S. Federal Government was in the making. It was a power-struggle between two – different in marriage practices, but similar in their basic Christian religious orientation—social systems (see Figure 2.4 as a depiction of persons at the intersection of a society/community tensions). The central political power (U.S.) had one of its parts (Utah) that was deviating from the homogeneous norm (of patriarchal family organization of subdomination of women in marriages). The history of this conflict is described elsewhere (Daynes, 2001)—here it is sufficient to emphasize the basic core of its course: the 1862 Morill Anti-Bigamy Act provided penalties for persons living in polygynic unions, the Edmunds Act of 1882 designated polygyny as a crime— followed in 1887 by Edmunds-Tucker Act. Utah was under increasing political dominance of the U.S.— for most time after 1857 contingents of the U.S. army were stationed there, by 1880s the Federal government was intervening directly in Mormon community practices. Not surprisingly, the Mormon Church (in 1890) had to declare that it gives up its endorsement of polygyny as a socially approved practice. Starting from 1882 and over the following decade, communities and families in Utah had to live through “The Raid”—intervention by Federal officials—legal or military representatives, or spies—to find and arrest the 26

The only country where it has been attempted at earnest is Liberia. In Fayette, New York, on April, 6, 1830—six men of average age 24 led by Joseph Smith, started the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Daynes, 2001, p. 18) 27

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“criminals”—who were respected and deeply religious members of the Mormon community. This life task of survival created a number of complex situations for the families—and for the children growing up in the families. Wives were expected to testify against their husbands—and at their refusal could be imprisoned together with their small children (Bradley, 1983, p. 141). Federal marshals burst into private homes at night in their search of polygynists—with the understandable (and pre-planed) effects on the family’s affective atmospheres. As a Mormon woman remembers her childhood experience at age 5, It was Valentine night, 1889. Estella and I had been out with most of our valentines and were warming up by the fireplace ready to go one more place, when there was a knock on the door. We rushed to open the door, expecting more valentines, but instead there stood two strange men. They did not wait to be asked in, but came boldly into the room. They were the U.S. Deputy Marshals and informed mother that she and Estella, only nine years old, were subpoenaed to appear in court, at some future date, in Provo, to give testimony against father. Mother was very angry and told the men what she thought of them in no uncertain terms. Father was serving a sentence in the State Prison at the time— We were all so frightened we could not control ourselves. Estella was crying as hard as she could and jumping up and down saying over and over “I don’t want to go.” This frightened me more than ever and I was crying too… (Bradley, 1983, p. 144) Children who had been previously taught to tell the truth were to be re-oriented to not say anything to any unknown person who might ask them about who their parents were. They were carefully taught strategies of how to avoid being questioned—and if not avoidable—how to create confusion and misinform the askers. The Mormon community as a whole—including men, women, and children—created a boundary of silences and counter-active opposition strategies to face the powerful and malevolent “social other” of the Federal government representatives. Talkability about parenthood became socially silenced (see below), even within the Mormon community as a whole: President Woodruff, who was then President of the Church, noticed my attention to my little girl who was then playing on the floor. He asked if the little belonged to me. When I answered in the affirmative, he said, “And who is the happy father?” I hesitated a little and Brother Canon, who had married us, came to my rescue by saying “This is hardly a fair question, is it, Brother Woodruff?” (Tanner, 1969, p. 110-111, added emphases). The fight for social power in Utah in 1850-1890 could perhaps be— rhetorically at least—considered to be “the Second Civil War” in the history of the United States (with the North/South conflict being the “First Civil War”). While it is

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true that war had no physical casualties, it certainly produced numerous psychological interventions that stayed with children in the families of the time and all through their lives. The unofficial history of Utah – transferred through families over generations—might designate Utah as the community where the official and unofficial histories diverge. As Wertsch (1998) has demonstrated, such divergence creates a dialogical situation that makes the given society open to rapid development when the political regime changes. For example, Estonia moved rapidly into independence in 1920, and again in 1991, after getting rid of the Soviet rule and its corresponding “official history” of Estonia. The “unofficial history” was ready to guide that move. Likewise, the resistance of Latin American countries—of former Spanish colonial domination—to superimposition of the European “official history” of the role of Columbus’s “discovery of America 28” is a notable symbolic feature of social resilience (see Carretero, Jacott, & López-Manjón, 2002). Interestingly, the fight for power in Utah has parallels in a location – and historical period—far apart from the local affairs of the United States in the 19th century. The power struggle of all British colonial empire in the eradication of matrilineal power organization in Africa and Asia is a notable transformation process of oppositions, coalition formations, and of the relevance of history in the ways human beings live in their presents. Historical organizational forms: transitions between matriliny and patriliny A look at development of societies as differentiating and hierarchically self-organizing requires a historical look. The forms of organization of human life trajectories is given by the sanctioning of transitions between generations in economic terms (who inherits wealth from dead parents and how it is distributed), or in terms of locality of marriage. Matrilineality is the transfer of resources through the female line (mothers to daughters), while patrlineality constitutes the transfer along male lines (fatherÆ sons). Notably, the biological continuity of the species is always unambiguously granted through the female line (motherÆ her children). This biological fact had found its sociological elaboration by Johannes Bachofen in his “Mother’s right” philosophy of history—the transition in human history from matriarchal to patriarchal dominance in societies (Bachofen, 1861). Yet most important for cultural psychology is the contrast between the mother- and father-dominated social orders that has been formulated by Erich Fromm: …the patricentric individual—and society—is characterized by a complex of traits in which the following are predominant: a strict superego, guilt feelings, docile love for paternal authority, desire and pleasure at dominating weaker people, acceptance of suffering 28

In this case—discourse of Columbus’ voyages and its subsequent Spanish colonization—the label “America” applies to both South and North America, even though strictly speaking Columbus “discovered” the Caribbean.

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as a punishment for one’s guilt, and damaged capacity for happiness. The matricentric complex, by contrast, is characterized by a feeling of optimistic trust in mother’s unconditional love, far fewer guilt feelings, a far weaker superego, and a greater capacity for pleasure and happiness. Along with these traits there also develops the ideal of motherly compassion and love for the weak and others in need of help. (Fromm, 1997, p. 41) Fromm’s contrast of the two complexes creates an opposition of the exclusively separated kind—while it would be by far more functional for the study of dynamics of the phenomena to treat it in terms of inclusive separation and mutual integration (see Figure 2.2., above). As we see below, the history of Kerala (Example 2.2) demonstrates how the dominance of the matrilineality was reversed over three centuries to turn into patrlineally dominated—but not fully patriarchal—a form of co-existence of communities. The systemic organization of the mutuality of the matricentric<>patricentric unity became altered by concrete legal, prejudicial, and value transformations. Worldwide distribution. Matrilineal societies have existed in human history all over the World. They have been slowly diminished in their centrality by the reconstruction of the economic relationships within communities. We can find such societies in different states of India—mostly in Ghana (Akan) and in India (Assam, e.g. Khasi—Bareh, 1968, and Caro—Nakane, 1967; Bengal, Kerala— the Nayar—see Example 2.3 below). In Africa, matrilinear societies are widely spread from West- sub-Saharan regions down Southwards (see Figure 2.6) and are most prominent in current political units of Ghana, Tanzania, and Mozambique (Beidelman,1967)

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Figure 2.6. Distribution of matrilineal societies in Africa (from Parin, Morgenthaler and Parin-Matthèy, 1980, p.6)

Example 2.3. The functional structure of Nayar matriliny and its historical transformations History of Kerala provides an illustrative picture of how matrilineal communities existed in history, how they were symbiotically related with their surrounding (patrilineal) communities, and how the tension between matriliny and patriliny— together with colonial powers—has led to a state of affairs where patriliny is legally dominant over its counterpart. Yet traces of matrilineal organization stay. The unique history of Kerala – of early migration of Christians to Malabar coast, spice trade with the Middle East, and the waves of colonial influence (Portuguese from 1498 until 1663—Menon, 2000; the Dutch from 1663 to 1766—Poonen, 1978, and the British from 1795 until India’s independence in 1947—Arunima, 2003)—provides us with a case history of differentiation and de-differentiation of the whole of society through economic, legal, and social normative ways. Kerala is unique in its political history (Menon, 1994), and its achievement of high levels of literacy of the population (90.59 % in 1991—compared with 57% for India as a whole).

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The immigration history of the Malabar coast is old. The early Christians arrived in the 1st-4th century AD, followed by the insertion of Islam by Arab travelers in the 9th century. The spice trade with Arabia constituted the crucial economic feature of the transformation of the Malabar area over centuries. It created the political strain between European and Arabian economic interests, and led to centuries-long demise of matrilineal kinship system and the escalation of tensions between religious groups (Dale, 1980). Different social strata in Kerala were separated from one another with great symbolic strictness 29—yet at the same time they were symbiotically related within the whole of the society. The Nambudiri Brahmins were a social stratum that for a millennium dominated the social structure of Kerala. Closest to the local rulers (kings) they owned substantial economic resources in the 10-15th century (Menon, 2002, pp. 783-795). Being patrilineal and patrilocal, the Nambudiri Brahmins limited the marriageability of their sons (after the eldest) within the community. Yet they could enter into marriages of hypergamous kind with the Nayars—the social stratum one level below. These marriages—sambadham liaisons—constituted a marriage form that was well fitted to Nayar ways of living. The Nayar matrilineal and matrilocal living pattern made such liaisons logistically simple- as the woman continued to live in her tharavadu [matrilineal household] and the children from these liaisons were hers—classified as Nayar. Through the sambadham kind of liaisons, the same Nayar woman could be linked with more than one husband—thus turning monogamy into polyandry (see chapter 4). Centrality of the women in the tharavadu system made the role of men—husbands—secondary to the primary mother-children ties. Polyandry could develop easily: There are several reports to show that women entertained several husbands simultaneously, but on a sort of turn system, the sandals, or sword and shield in front of her closed door signifying that the ‘next’ husband must wait his turn. Serial polyandry was also practiced in the sense that divorce was easy, but a divorced husband could re-establish sambandham later on, though she might have, in the meantime, entered into sambandham with several others. This type of polyandry was not limited to the fraternal or adelphic type, but extended to all men, who, by subcaste status, were acceptable as husbands of a woman. (Menon, 2002, p. 802) It is obvious that the symbiotic relation of Nambudiri patriliny (with the goal of limiting reproductive success) and Nayar matriliny (with the goal of enhancing reproductive success by genetic input from the same or higher social prestige level) was dependent on the particular historical conditions of the two higher social strata. Nayars were historically warriors—serving in the armies of the local 29

While untouchability existed all over India, as Kurien (1994, p. 392) points out, in Kerala the symbolic separation reached the extreme level to include “atmospheric pollution”—pollution from a distance, in case of lowest castes—even by sight.

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rulers. Lower social strata in Kerala at the same time—Ezhava Hindus—or parallel religious and economic groups such as Christians and Muslims (Mappila)—were not involved in the sambadham kind of system. All of the spice trade was over centuries in the hands of the Mappila inhabiting the coastal regions—until the Portuguese invasion in the beginning of the 16th century led to their being driven inland and turning to agriculture. The Portuguese invasion also created a pressure to the traditional (Syrian) Christians to accept the Roman papal hegemony. That effort was resisted, but led to the proliferation of a variety of versions of Christian communities in Kerala (Dempsey, 2001). Relations between social groups—castes— in the Malabar region in the th 15 century were of inclusive separation kind—while the strata were clearly segregated from one another and their hierarchical relations fixed, they were involved in mutually beneficial and needed exchange of goods, services, and genetic material (NambudiriÆ Nayar sambadham relation). Efforts to establish control over the social texture of the region by each of the three European colonizers were operating with the mindset of exclusive separation. The Portuguese fought the Arabian merchants to take over the spice trade, and forced the local Muslim Mappila community out of their trading roles forcing them to become land cultivators. The matrilineal system of Nayars became a target of eradication by the Europeans—in coalition with Hindu legal system and collaboration by dissatisfied younger male members of theravadu (Arunima, 2003). As an intermediate step of appropriation of women’s centrality in the theravadu, in early 19th century the power of leadership in the matrilineal and matrilocal household was given over to the eldest male in the household (karanavan) —the elder brother of the female household head. The colonial Christian ideology considered both the Nayar marriage system and the economic power in the hands of women inappropriate—yet of course could not change it. With the inclusion of the Nayar theravadu system into the social discourse of Hindu joint family, and the exclusive separation of the Nayars themselves from their historical interdependence with the Nambudiri (Arunima, 2003, p. 142 ff) as an act of development of their “caste consciousness”, the British colonial regime used the effort of Indian society to become unified to eradicate the matrilineal system (and Nayar sambadham). This was codified by the new marriage and inheritance laws—of 1891, and 1933. What had happened? By cultivating new “caste consciousness” in the Indian society, the previous historical Gemeinschaft relations between the castes around the theravadu system became replaced by a focus on the distinction and counter-positioning of the castes: It is this emphasis on a homogeneity of caste interests that allowed the class, and often the sub-caste, differences between the tharavadu members and the tenants to merge. Matrilineal kinship within this discourse, as exemplified by the tharavadu, came to be seen increasingly as a relic of the barbaric past of the Nayars. Paradoxically, even as the emergent caste movement rejected the

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narrow-minded divisiveness of tharavadu identities, it did not attack the basis of caste inequality itself. (Arunima, 2003, pp. 157-158, added emphasis) What had happened was a social re-focusing of inter-group relations, without elimination of the hierarchical relations. Instead of the previous social hierarchy of local household dominance and inter-caste interdependencies a system of wider, abstracted from local interdependencies, a hierarchy emerged. In that hierarchy, the male line of property ownership and inheritance took over the power of matriliny. The powerful powerless: women in communities. Women’s role in any society is filled with ambiguities—being both the biologically central (reproductive) and economically important, they are nevertheless under constant negotiation by the social institutions to either diminish or (at times) increase their centrality in a society at the given time. In a matrilineal society, On the one hand they can be regarded as ‘public treasures’, to be protected and controlled by their matrilineal kin (usually senior male members). On the other hand, they can be regarded as the ‘others’ who have the power to endanger their matrilineage through miscarriage, infertility and unrestrained sexual activities. (Ishii, 2005, p. 272) Obviously, matrilineality does not mean “female power”—as “social power” is necessarily a relation between the power-ful and power-less-- but a different pattern (from patrilineal societies) of social regulation of the conduct of all kin group members (female and male alike) under the condition of inheritance of values along the female lines. The combination of transfer of economic resources through matriline with the location of family life within the same household (matrilocality) over generations created a unique women-centered dominance structure for the households. As Nur Yalman has cautioned how social sciences tend to think of the {“matri-” versus “patri-“} contrasts: …the matrilineal puzzle is not matrilineal at all, but rather a question of relative obligations of siblings toward one another and toward their in-laws—obligations that are variously handled in different social systems. (Yalman, 1971, p. 305) Even in cases of high-class patrilineal descent and patrilocal residence— such as the aristocratic higher classes—the women’s centrality in crucial moments of social life remains unquestioned 30. It becomes diminished in case of

30

Consider the 19th century equivalent of a “soap opera” in the court case of inheritance of the raja of Pittapore—where his co-wives’ testimonies (given to the courts from behind veils) about the sexual capacity-- or its absence-- of the all-powerful deceased husband, and the accounts of servants as only

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patrilocal residence linked with patrilineal inheritance patterns—here we see the migration of women in conjunction with marriage to a completely “foreign” (i.e., husband’s kin) household—and her subjugation to the power of another woman (her mother-in-law). What these life organization patterns specify are the structural conditions of regulation of differentiated power hierarchies within the kinship groups—rather than the simplified image of “male dominance over women” that permeates the communicative rhetoric of the mass media that has been historically built on European cultural-historical models.

Communication Processes-- Within society and community Human beings are talking animals. They create texts—oral and written ones—that both represent their purposeful view of what is—and presents the world in ways they desire it could—or should—be. Each person is literally “wrapped” into the manifold of social discourse that guide him/her in some—more or less specified—direction. An important feature of human talking is silence—the first decision for a talker-to-be is to decide if one has anything to say at all. Different ethnic groups differ by the role allotted to silences—being talkative can be viewed as matter of low intelligence, low class, or incapacity—while silence can be viewed as belonging to a dignified social status,. Human life proceeds through negotiation between the perception and action that unite the actor and context, and the suggestions for feeling, thinking and acting that are proliferated through communication. Semiotic Demand Settings (SDS) are human-made structures of everyday life settings where the social boundaries of talk are set (Valsiner, 2000, p. 125). Figure 2.7. depicts a case relation between the two opposing opinions within the field of promoted talking. By engaging persons within that sub-field— and encouraging opposing viewpoints—the SDS guarantees that through hypertalk in this domain the attention is not taken to “side stories” (the maybe-talk zone) and is prevented from touching upon the “taboo zone”. It is obvious that here the real differences between “open” and “closed” societies disappear—both kinds of societies disallow talking about “taboo zones”, but the “open” ones guide people to hyper-talk in some area of meaning construction (while the “closed” ones have no promoted talking zones). Any human life context—including that of school—becomes culturally guided by some socio-institutional focusing of the person’s attention to it in three ways. First, there is the realm of NO-TALK—the sub-field of personal experiences that are excluded. The rest of the field is the MAYBE-TALK. Experiences within that field can be talked about—but ordinarily are not, as long as there is no special goal that makes that talking necessary. Most of human experiences belong to MAYBE-TALK. The third domain of talking—the HYPERTALK—is the socially (and personally) highlighted part of MAYBE-TALK that is possible observers of pregnancy and childbirth-- were the core of legal dispute about (obviously substantial) inheritance—Price, 2004).

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turned from a state of “ordinary” talking to that of obsessive talking (see Kim, 2002, and Kim & Markus, 2002 on the functions of talking in North America and Asia). How is the HYPER-TALK domain created? It starts from the social marking of the highlighted zone. The suggested focus (see Figure 2.7., below) can operate in two ways. First, it guides the person to reflect upon the focused experience—the zone of “promoted talking”. Secondly, it provides the blueprint for talking in socially legitimized ways (Discourse ways marked by numbers 1 and 2, leading to Opinion A and Opinion non-A, respectively).

Figure 2.7. Semiotic Demand Setting (from Valsiner, 2000a, p.125)

The acceptability (or non-acceptability) of opposition is thus enabled. In our everyday life contexts, this is the key to multi-voiced discourses in the contexts we easily call “the civil society” (for further analysis, see Valsiner, 2005b). In the educational contexts—such as classrooms—the promotion of talking for the sake of self-expressions may create a basis for both thinking and talking for the sake of talking. Creative acts may emerge in such discourse—or be completely disallowed by the intense repetitive use of existing social representations.

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Dissociation of talking and acting. Each of the three discursive domains—NOTALK, MAYBE-TALK, and HYPER-TALK—are in parallel either connected or disconnected with the action domain. The NO-TALK domain is most likely to remain connected with action domain even if the MAYBE-TALK and HYPERTALK are disconnected. An example of that case may be a society where individuals “step in” to “correct”—by action—anybody’s violation of the NO-TALK zone boundaries. Some experienced events are purposefully left outside of talkability zone for the sake of preservation of social order 31. Talk in public domains is not the same as action—it is at a meta-level position in relation to acting. As such, it can promote, neutralize, or displace action. The state of disconnection from action makes these topics open for talk—as the reality of ordinary living is not threatened by it. Furthermore, the symbolic resources of the collective culture may guide persons to talk about one’s affective domains (Zittoun, 2006), or feel about the “taboo zones” as ruled out from the talking fields. The limitation on talking can be related to the social norms of self presentation. Thus, for example, Balinese expression of grief is collective-culturally limited as to its talkability (Wikan, 1990). In general, in situations involving grief finding words may be a difficult task—which is solved by providing a set script for expressing condolences to someone whose close person has passed away. The social regulation of talkability—a collective-cultural concept-- has its counterpart in the personal-cultural domain—in the form of tellability. A person may have a script for how to perform a socially appropriate and expected act of speaking—and yet struggle with the intra-personal affective limits set upon oneself. What may be collectively talkable need not be personally tellable—as anybody who refuses to tell “dirty stories” 32 in appropriate public contexts understands. On the other side—a speaking person is constantly negotiating the lower boundary of tellability of a particular message within the given context. The whole field of possible messages to be brought by a person to the public domain is culturally structured: …we need a two-sided notion of tellability: Some events bear too little significance (for this teller, this setting, these listeners) to reach the lower-bounding threshold of tellability, while others are so intimate (so frightening) that they lie outside the range of the tellable in the current context. Similarly, one narrative rendering of an event may fail to bring out its significance (humor, strangeness), and thus fail to reach the threshold of tellability, while another telling might render the event so frightening (intimate) that the story is no longer tellable. Hence, the more strange (salacious, frightening) an 31

As Arnfred (2004, p. 74) remarks based on her observations in Northern Mozambique: “… what actually goes on in terms of extra-marital sexual relations is one thing, but to talk about it is another. Discretion is important… As long as you do not talk about a extra-marital affair, nobody has to take action against it” 32 There is important ambiguity in the label dirty story—it is something within the talkability domain (as a legitimate story)—yet its communicative power is in its nearness to the boundary of NO TALK zone (Figure 2.7.)

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event (or narrative rendering of it) is, the more tellable the story becomes, seen from the lower-bounding side, but the less tellable it becomes, seen from the upper-bounding side, due to the potential transgressions of taboos. (Norrick, 2005, p. 327, added emphasis) The field of tellability can be described as a dynamic system with two attractor regions where each acts as a repeller for the other (Andersen, 2000). This combination generates the ambivalence of any decision about communication starting from the act of whether to say anything at all (cf. American Indian encoding of meaning of talkativeness--Basso, 1970). If the decision is affirmative, the question of how to encode the message under the present circumstances becomes important.

Why talk? Social control over primary social group Family -- as we will see later (chapter 4)-- is a poorly defined term. Yet it is a term we encounter very frequently in the processes of social communication-in chats at dinner parties, journalists’ discussions of “the fate of contemporary family” on TV-screens, and in preachers’ attacks on anybody who tries to undermine the purity of “family values” 33 Social talk about some target object (e.g., family) is not about what that object is actually like, but an effort to propagate some ideal of that object, as it could-- or should- be. Different social institutions attempt to orient the activities of the primary caregiving group-- the family-- in directions that are relevant for them, and only tangentially in the interests of the family. Thus, discussions about “modern family” in terms of its progress or decline, “problems” in it, etc. is discussion that utilizes family as the battleground for social fights of different ideologies of institutions. The family as the actually functioning primary social group functions anyway-- without any need to become involved in any discussion of its own functioning. Once such discussions surface in the social discourse field of a given society, their function is to organize the social world at large through the alteration (or preservation) of the family. In other terms-- declared “problems” of “the family” are actually problems of the given society exemplified on the basis of the discourse about family. Redirecting sexuality. The health-care discourse in the history of Europe was filled with myth stories claiming that masturbation leads to physical decline (in the 18th Century) or to insanity -- in the 19th Century. Here the focus of the communication effort was not to describe the actual functions of autoerotic practices, but to fight for repression of the notion of pleasure in sexual activities by stern messages about dangers to the healthy persons. The intense discourse was goal-directed canalization effort-- to eliminate the "solitary vice" (of masturbation) in favour of the "healthy and legitimate" goal of heterosexual child33

This phenomenon of preaching on the topic of “family values” is prominent in the contemporary United States, yet it is not unknown in most other countries

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bearing. Social construction of anxieties about masturbation included massive direction of parents to be on the lookout for early "tendencies" and to stop those in the beginning. It was presented publicly as act of "impurity", and even wax models were used to display the "dreadful consequences". The collective-cultural canalization of sexuality continues in the 21st century—where the 200+ years old discourse about the negative flavor of masturbation is imported into the talk about new narrative contexts—such as donor insemination (see Kirkman, 2004). Why such concern about a basic biological function? The goal of repression of personal sexuality was mandated by the desire to control the activities of human beings by social and religious institutions. Likewise, our 20th Century focus on the relevance of attachment formation in the first year of life, and our concern about the dangers of AIDS, are examples of social guidance of the conduct of these persons whose feelings of responsibility are targeted for intervention (Preda, 2005). Collective guidance of persons by talking: family values. Much of public talk is about the family. As a social unit, family is an ambiguous one (see chapter 4)—yet its generalized meaning allows it to be used in social discourse very efficiently. Consider, for instance, frequent discussions of child-rearing which often emphasize the centrality of the family in this role. This focus gives a fresh look at why people-- laypersons, journalists, politicians, psychologists-- talk about family. Frequent discussions of childrearing which often emphasize the centrality of the family in this role are a vehicle to regulate the personal lives within the closest social group—the family—in ways of interest to the varied social institutions (governments, NGOs, religious institutions). Issues of child-rearing bring into a topic of communication between the persons who actually do it (older siblings, parents, grandparents) and those who attempt to direct it. The latter are ideologically guided, their efforts to communicate about child-rearing are guided by specific set goals. The latter need not be oriented toward the manifest “target” of the messages (e.g., the wellbeing of the child in development), but rather use these “manifest objects” as means to attempt other kinds of social objectives. Talking about women. Perhaps the clearest example of the goal-orientedness of human communicative efforts is the talk about women. In different societies, social discourse about women can take place with different talk-goals. The simplest one is ontological-- simple reflection of the “true state of affairs”. In this case, the statement “women are inferior to men” does not carry any performative or evaluative role, there are no goal-orientations involved This is different if the same statement is made in another mode-- prescriptive. Here the ontological statement is supplemented by the hidden agenda of some prescription for action, for instance (Figure 2.8.)

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Figure 2.8. Various implications from an ontological claim

“Women are inferior to men” or “Men are inferior to women” or “Men and women are inferior to children” || ============================================== | | | | V V V V “that’s fine” “that’s awful” “they “they should should be kept as be libesuch” rated”

Very often, social sciences utilize the phenomena from across one’s own boundaries of societies, but having mind goals of changing one’s own. Much of anthropological or cross-cultural psychological research is of such kind. Margaret Mead’s descriptions of the “permissive sexual attitudes” of Samoa adolescents were a commentary upon the U.S. society at the time. In our present days, many efforts to demonstrate women’s “inferior status” in non-Western societies is linked with the missionary efforts of our times. Thus, women in non-Western societies are perceived to be “enslaved” by some exotic practice (e.g., such as wearing a veil, or restrictions on occupying public space, in Islamic societies—the hajib in general—see El-Guindi, 1999; Shirazi, 2001; Zuhur, 1992), and social calls for social change are made on that basis. Yet such interpretation may turn out to be nothing more than the researchers’ projection of their own cultural meanings onto the phenomena of another society. The different modes of interpretation-- ontological and prescriptive-- afford such act of meaning construction. For example, concerning female roles in Christian and Islamic contexts, Fatima Mernissi remarks: In Western culture, sexual inequality is based on the belief in women’s biological inferiority. This explains some aspects of Western women’s liberation movements, such that they are almost always led by women, that their effect is often very superficial, and that they have not yet succeeded in significantly changing the malefemale dynamics in that culture. In Islam there is no such belief in female inferiority. On the contrary, the whole system is based on the assumption that women are powerful and dangerous beings. All sexual institutions (polygamy, repudiation, sexual segregation, etc.) can be perceived as a strategy for containing their power. (Mernissi, 1987, 19)

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The limited view of Western scholarship on women is also revealed by African feminists who point out that in the view on women’s limited public roles in politics and “the society as a whole” is a result on the primary focus of the Western cultural history on repression (rather than regulation) of women’s sexuality. This is demonstrated in Euro-American researchers primary interest in female circumcision in Africa 34 (but not male circumcision in N-American hospitals), the “lack of freedom” in choosing marital partners, and negative “effects” of plural marriage forms. These phenomena—while undoubtedly having their place in the big puzzle of cultural ways of living—are secondary to issues of fertility as the central concern for women in Africa, at least up to now (Oyewumi, 1997). As long as fertility is the culturally significant semiotic marker of women’s lives in a given social unit, and is used in everyday interaction between women to negotiate their social power relations (see Hutchinson, 1996, chapter 1 on Nuer distinction of “girl”/”woman”) and issues of sexuality are accepted as givens (e.g., similarly to feeding in our Western world)—the Western feminist ideology misses its targets 35. Keeping women in the role of mothers: the moral implications of milk.. The primary function of the 18th and 19th Century European social discourse about "mother's milk" was to keep the women in their role as mothers. The discourse was specifically that of affluent social classes-- in which case the role of the woman included many other potential activities than being mother and worker (as it would be in case of lower-class women in rural areas of France, England, or of the U.S.). By suggesting to the women in affluent families that their breastfeeding their own infants-- rather than using milk of another lactating woman (a wet-nurse) or of an animal-- the women's concerns and activities would be constrained to the realm of children in the domestic sphere. The latter was presented in terms of its importance to the children, as well as fortified by its moral value (of good woman and mother image). The threat of the opposite-"bad" mother who is involved in social gatherings, gossiping with her female friends, dancing at parties, going to theaters, and having illicit affairs with male friends-- was the alternative social role for the woman which was made the target for social eradication 36. 34

An anthropologist’s account: “…the women I interviewed got tired of my questions concerning circumcision. “It is done so that the girl can pray and be initiated. That’s all! Surely it hurts, but then it heals up and is forgotten”, the women constantly repeated, unable to understand why on earth I was so interested in this simple act of cutting. In the end, I became truly embarrassed, as I could not help asking myself the same question: Why would I wish to talk about their genitals or lost genitals all the time? There are so many harmful practices and alarming situations in the world, situations that cause people suffering, why does just this one worry us and so get headline attention in our newspapers?” (Dellenborg, 2004, p. 79)

35

Of course, the rapid wave of religious conversion into Christianity all over Africa, as well as promotion of new economic activities of urbanized kind and formal education are working towards elimination of this centrality of fertility in the cultural definition of womanhood. 36 The use of alternative feeding sources-- wet nurses, or milk from animal sources-- was certainly socially legitimate in case of medical necessities, such as the mother not having sufficient milk.

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For example, an 18th Century English medical doctor was adamant about the moral downfall of the society: It is grievously to be lamented, that so many Mothers, not only of high rank, but even of the common Sort, can with so much Inhumanity, and more than brutish Cruelty, desert their tender Offspring, and expose them to so many Dangers of mercenary Nurses, who are greedy only of the profuse Rewards bestowed on them at the Christening, and flight the small weekly Income that follows; and so being weary of the present Employment, perform it negligently, while they are looking out for a new Prey. But let us take a Survey of the Advantages that prompt Mothers so commonly to sacrifice their beloved Offspring. They are the more free Enjoyment of Diversions; the greater Niceness of adorning their Persons; the Opportunity of receiving impertinent Visits, and returning those insipid Favours; the more frequent Attendance of the Theatre, or the spending of the greatest Part of the Night on their beloved cards. These are the important Reasons, for which Mothers frequently banish their newborn Infants from their Sight, and rashly deliver them up into very doubtful Hands, whithersoever Fortune or Fate, either good or bad, happens to lead them. But these nice Ladies afterwards suffer deserved Punishments, for the Love of their Children, if they happen to survive, is more cool towards them, but warm and affectionate towards the Nurse who took them up, and performed the Duties of a real Mother. (Harris, 1742, pp. 18-19) Texts like these were meant to create insecurity in the women, and guide them towards assuming the "duties of real mothers" themselves (instead of delegating those to servants). The cultural model of motherhood served as the semiotic organizer of women's socio-moral roles. It can be seen as a general rule-- at any time a social institution of any society sets itself a goal of modifying women's conduct, that effort becomes translated into social suggestions-promotions and prohibitions-- of issues of the women's everyday lives that are relevant for their selves, and their social roles as women and child-bearers. Efforts of social control take place in realms of personal-cultural importance. These realms are also filled with uncertainties-- be these about future, or present, or feelings about the past. In this respect, the European fight for affluent mothers' own care of their babies is functionally analogous to the creation of many pregnancy taboos. Like most of moral crusades, the efforts to keep affluent women confined to their full motherhood could only be partially successful. The use of feeding alternatives became widespread in Europe, as well as in North America. Aside from liberating the woman from the regular dependency on the baby's feeding, the use of a wet-nurse paved the way to the return of the mother to her role of the wife to her husband. It was suspected (as reflected in the American discourse

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about wet-nursing-- see Golden, 1996) that on many occasions the initiators of wet-nursing were the husbands of the new mothers, who desired to return to the regular cohabitation with their lawfully wedded wife 37. The belief in the benefit of human milk for babies-- in contrast to cow's milk-- created the special social role of the wet nurse. Ostensibly such discourse was about children’s health-- yet its social function was to attempt to regulate mothers’ conduct by letting them persuade themselves that they should breast-feed their babies. Generalized meaning fields: collective making of “the society” The myriad of social suggestions that exists in the discursive space of a society is organized by meta-level signs—field-like semiotic organizers of the general “tone” of the kinds of talk to be expected. Such “meaning atmosphere” flavors all the communication processes in the given collective-cultural domain. It gives the social discourses a general direction of what themes to emphasize, how to present these themes in their affective coloring, and what outcomes (if any) to expect from such discourses. This is accomplished by way of meta-signs (high-level social representations) that guide the affective flavor of the discourse. For instance, if the meta-sign complex we could call fatalism flavors the “meaning tone”, any aspect of reality people talk about becomes flavored by it. In contrast, the sign complex of boundless optimism would give us an opposite picture. Such general meaning tones change historically within the given social unit—group, community, or country. For example, changes in the British ways of talking—and feeling about oneself—are said to have undergone an interesting reversal: Even if the reality of the stoicism and understatement of the British people was overstated in the past, nowadays such characteristics are rarely claimed to be desirable. The culturally dominant version of personhood considers it usual for people to respond to adverse life events by becoming overwhelmed and engulfed by them, and desirable that they should admit being so. The expectation is not that people will be able to cope, but that they will find it difficult, perhaps impossible, to do so… In consequence, the idea of psychological fragility and vulnerability of the self has become the dominant cultural point of reference. (Lee, 2003, p. 74, added emphasis) If such shift from not talking (and coping oneself) to talking (and making oneself feel vulnerable) occurs, we get through social discourses to the phenomenon of “syndrome society”. It is a condition of discourse in a society where through consensus on how people talk about their lives leads to recurrent 37

In the British North America (later the United States and Canada), like in many other traditional societies, the post-partum period of breast-feeding was linked with abstinence from regular sexual relations until the mother breastfed the baby.

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labeling of different features of the strain of living as symbolically pathological (“syndromes”)—suggesting the turn to the pertinent social institutions (doctors, shamans, pharmacists, psychologists) to “treat” the “problems.” Our contemporary history indicates how effectively human societies set up the socially constructed notion of being-at-risk for something. Creating the feeling of vulnerability in different knowledge domains is part of differentiation of the social roles of EXPERT and its corresponding roles of CONSUMER OF EXPERTISE. The social representations utilized in the making of such domains of psychological vulnerability (DPV) both select the sub-field of life issues and insert a social prescription of how to deal with it It is easy to see how the construction of the vulnerability of the persons by way of a generalized meaning tone functions in the social world where consumption of high-volume mass produced goods and services is a goal of many social institutions. The potential customers of such consumer goods constitute a crowd—a mass audience—and the cultivation of the need for expert guidance for individuals in that crowd is the psychological key to success in the sales of such goods. Through moving the notion of “expert advice” to a central position in social talk, the recipients of the social suggestions are kept carefully under institutional control—by way of their own trust in the experts, and by the feeling that their individual decisions must involve expert advice.

Negotiation of asymmetries of power All power relations entail inequality—be it temporary or relatively stable. All social roles that human beings assume relate to others based on power. The history of humankind is filled with making of power asymmetries (boss > employee; master > slave etc.) and their reversals at times of revolutions. Transformation of role relations in terms of power depend upon the function of the person within a community. In the history of African slavery, Slaves had become so by being ejected or torn from their own communities, thus losing the protection that went with membership of their own kin group. It was the lack of the free person’s normal social resources which was the essential feature of the slave’s condition…. Yet there was a gradient from the extreme vulnerability of the newly taken slave through various degrees of social incorporation as the slave settled into his captor’s community. Despite this, slaves did bitterly resent their condition, which condemned them to a kind of perpetual juniority for their lifetimes if they did not get themselves out of it. (Peel, 2000, p.63) Slaves were indeed property—to be owned, sold, and inherited. It is not surporising that in the beginning of the 19th century United States the notion of life insurance was applicable to slaves (whose lives had monetary value for their owners), and not to the owners (whose lives had no re-sell value). Yet the case

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of trans-Atlantic slave trade—important as it is in the histories of Africa and both Americas—is not the quintessential example of the ways slavery as a social mode of relating with others works in general. Ancient Greek states were built on slave labor, and slavery was a widespread form of establishing dependence relations between the persons who became slaves and others (who became their owners). The social stratification of the slave owners carried its role in determining the role of slaves— being a slave in the royal household in Kano (nowadays located in Northern part of what is Nigeria) meant a high position of social power in the whole of the social system, albeit with limits (Stilwell, 2004). The whole story of “slavery” as a form of social subordination has been veiled in the European and North American discourse based on largely the images of slave ships sailing from Africa to the Americas with forcefully captured victims. Yet slavery existed in many forms—in Ancient Greece, in the Himalayas (Levine, 1980), etc—and was part of the social and economic texture of most social groupings over their histories (Kopytoff, 1982). This included various forms of slavery by African tribes in relation to individuals captured from other tribes.

Missionary activities: efforts at building the control over the Other The missionary spirit of some kind would exist in any social organization where membership in a social organization depends on a person’s choice, and is not given by blood or dependence ties. It is a universal cultural invention at the hight of a society’s self-directed intervention. It entails the dialogical separation of “what we are now” and “what we should be”, and a series of strategies for moving towards the latter. It is clear that any adult creates the socialization framework for one’s offspring at the intersection of that dialogicality. So—all child-rearing and education is inherently some kind of missionary effort. In the case of colonial education this contrast becomes expanded by the “We”<>”They” distinction that entails the tension of viewing of “the other”. Of course such contrast is reciprocal—Europeans felt the need of “civilizing” the “African cannibals” in ways similar to people from African tribes were worried about Europeans’ being involved in precisely the same activity (Jahoda, 1999, p. 109—see also chapter 3 on Maori co-construction of the “battlefield canibalism” images). In the course of Christian missionary efforts outside of Europe, the key to social control over the local communities has always been through re-negotiation of meanings of women’s lives. This is due to the key role of women in any society in reproduction and production of the environmental contexts (making of home, of social relations within home and in women’s social networks). In Africa, the missionary effort was to liberate women from the confines of their traditional social contexts, and offer them new roles that turn the focus of their lives from fertility to overcoming of sexuality—with chastity as the revered ideal (Arnfred, 2004, p, 72). Matrilineal social orders were targets for eradication in favor of the social dominance of the patriarchal worlds. As religious pamphlets in West Africa indicate,

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Christian discourse has given male authors a vocabulary, a logic and an ideology with which to assert control over women in the home. Vindicated by select quotations from the Bible, they insist repeatedly on women’s subordinate status in the nuclear family structure. They find masculine power to be supported by the Bible and produce a version of Christianity in which ‘ideal wives’ are utterly subservient creatures. Few ‘real’ West African wives will embody this behavioural ideal, which is divorced from the socioeconomic realities of a world in which women will work and control their own money as a matter of course. (Newell, 2005, p. 310). The efforts of social institutions to change the mores of “the others” can be viewed in the context of persons always being liminal members of a social group (Figure 2.3., above). Not only are persons themselves in movement—towards or away from the ideal “center”—but that movement is suggested by interested social powers in “the society”. The latter’s abstract form comes to real human beings through suggestions, orders, teasing, and persuasions of “the others”.

Summary: Socially guided subjectivity In this chapter, we could see how human beings- from birth to death (and ostensibly after that—in the beliefs of the lining in the “other lives” of the dead) are operating “under the influence”—of the highly heterogeneous and redundantly semiotically encoded field of social suggestions. However, they are not passive recipients of these suggestions, but active participants in the reconstruction of the social orders. By preserving the social orders, persons— assuming their different social roles—actually transform these orders. They make distinctions, attach value to the distinctions made—through their semiotic marking—and act on the basis of such added value as if it were not set up by themselves. How that happens is analyzed in chapter 3.

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Making Oppositions: Dialogical Self and Dualities in Meaning Making “…the present is half past and half to come” (Peirce, 1892/1923, p. 219).

The whole of our psychological system is set up to make distinctions within the field within which we are constantly moving. Our perceptual system operates in the pickup of the information flow of forms-in-movement—in all sense domains (visual, auditory, tactile, haptic, olfactory). Furthermore, our attention mechanisms further sieve the perceptual input, making it open for semiotic reconstruction and presentation. The latter sets up our facing for the future—by presentation of the past experience through signs we create the next moment of our experience. We experience the world—and create its meaningfulness by way of signs. We are simultaneously fully interdependent with our environment, and distancing ourselves from that here-and-now setting by way of creating meaning—through signs. All this selectivity operates on the edge— that of time. The irreversibility of time guarantees the uniqueness of experiences—while the making of distinctions and their semiotic organization works precisely towards the opposition of that uniqueness. Through our selective attention, and perceptual, and semiotic distinctions we create a subjective world that appears to us as relatively stable. It is, of course, an illusion—yet a highly functional one. It can be argued that the emergence of ever complex semiotic regulatory systems in phylogeny is a human adaptation to the lurking chaos (Boesch, 2002) of the uncertainties of expected future experiences. The future is uncertain—and the past is constantly being re-constructed as we face the uncertainty of the future. Here we encounter a new facet of being “on the border”--not only are human beings liminal in terms of their membership in social conglomerates— groups, communities, and societies (as was outlined in Chapter 2), they are also liminal in respect to their own developing life course. The present moment in one’s living is that border. We move from our personal pasts towards their personal futures—and the infinitely small moment “of the present” is the inevitable boundary that is being crossed—only to be re-made in a new form. Boundaries: created in space and irreversible time The PASTÆ PRESENT Æ FUTURE distinction is an example of Herbst’s (1995) co-genetic logical operation where the object is knowable by its boundary (Figure 3.1.) The figure/ground system emerges together through the emergence of boundary.

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Figure 3.1. The emergence of figure and ground, and their boundary (basis for David Herbst’s co-genetic logic) BOUNDARY that creates the FIGURE/GROUND distinction

NO PREEXISTING FORM

INSIDE of the FIGURE

NO POSTEXISTING FORM

OUTSIDE of the FIGURE = GROUND

In terms of co-genetic logic, the triplet—{figure, ground, boundary that separates figure from ground} emerge always together, are mutually co-definitive (define one another), and vanish together. What is the nature of the boundary? Charles S. Peirce arrived at the notion of the boundary through an example of the color of the boundary between different surfaces (see Figure 3.2.A.). Of course the spatial boundary of color is in itself nondynamic. As Peirce stated, Suppose a surface be part red and part blue; so that every point on it is either red or blue, and of course no part can be both red and blue. What, then, is the color of the boundary line between the red and the blue? The answer is that red or blue, to exist at all, must be spread over a surface; and the color of the surface is the color of the surface in the immediate neighborhood of the point… as the parts of the surface in the immediate neighborhood of any ordinary point upon a curved boundary are half of them red and half blue, it follows that the boundary is half red and half blue. In a like manner, we find it necessary to hold that consciousness essentially occupies time; and what is present to the mind at any ordinary instant, is what is present during a moment in which that instant occurs. (Peirce. 1892/1923, p. 219)

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Figure 3.2. An illustration of Peirce’s “Boundary Question” A. The spatial distribution case

IS THIS BOUNDARY RED OR BLUE?

B.

The “boundary question” within irreversible time

TIME

The question—phrased ontologically in Figure 3.2.A.—is impossible to answer. It becomes possible—yet with the addition of extra theoretical challenges— as it becomes a basic question for human life (see Figure 3.2.B.).. Yet the transposition of the physical question (color of the boundary of two surfaces) to the process of organic growth of consciousness by Peirce can be viewed only as an effort to indicate the role of the present as a boundary. The boundary within the visual stimulus as in Figure 3.2. does not show us anything about the way in which it becomes perceived—either directly (in the Gibsonian sense) or through particular constructive process of percept-making-- and meaning-making as that is

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intertwined with the latter. The notions “red” and “blue” are signs—of verbal kind— that are put into function by the meaning-making human being who tries to make sense of the boundary given in the stimulus field. It is through the construction of signs—iconic, indexical, and symbolic—that the perceiving/acting organism faces the future. Cultural psychology assumes the act of construction of novelty by the organism, based on the resources of the given setting and the experiences of the past transposed to the present (see chapter 8). Unity of time. Past and future are inseparable. When taken to the issues of time, the GROUND--|BOUNDARY|--FIGURE distinction (Figure 3.1.) becomes PASTÆ|PRESENT|ÆFUTURE distinction (Figure 3.2.B.). In all dynamic processes that take place within irreversible time the boundary of the PRESENT separates the not-yet-known “figure” of FUTURE from the already known (and selectively vanishing) “ground” of the PAST. As an infinitesimal boundary between the past and the future, the present is the birthplace of the next present. In Figure 3.2.B., the “blue of the future” is being turned into “the red of the past” through the processes of transformation at the boundary. It is the notion of transformation— creative synthesis—that moves from the past experiences towards making the future relations with the world that matters. Such transformation is necessarily ambivalent. Differently from the mere being of a physical boundary (e,g., the red & blue nature of the boundary of surfaces in Peirce’s example) the moving boundary of the present is not that of a co-presence of the past and the future (as some kinds of already existing “surfaces”), but a process of emergence.

Emergence as a conceptual problem. In all sciences, the treatment of the the emergence of something new from something known has been a basic conceptual problem. The possibility of the birth of new galaxies (and their demise), the creation of new social orders on the basis of previous ones (revolutions and counterrevolutions), synthesis of new chemical substances, the reproduction of biological organisms, and—finally—the construction and reconstruction of our personal meaning systems in our life course—are all processes of emergence. Something new—previously unknown—emerges from the basis of previously established. But how? Here we are interested in one side of that story—how we create new meanings and set those up to provide values to the distinctions that our perceptual and action systems have produced? Signification of perceptual distinctions. A particular perceptual feature triggers our first distinction in the making. That is followed—sometimes immediately—by the superimposition of meaning value over it. Usually it is through iconic nature of signs that such instant meaning making takes place—the concrete perceptual image of a representative of a class—a particular dog, lion, or person stands in as an iconic sign for the whole complex of feelings and thoughts about pets, dangerous animals, and friends or foes of one’s own species.

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Values become added to the depiction of “the other”—what THEY do, or think, loses neutrality when WE have vested interest in them. If the decision to move into valuation (by considering value addition fitting the setting), we may proceed to introduction of one or another kind of two opposite elaborations: WE are BETTER than THEY WE ARE X and THEY ARE Z Æ add value? Yes no WE are WORSE than THEY

Both of these value additions lead to evocation of action possibilities. So, one can refrain from action based on a circumvention strategy (“so what if we are worse—or better—than they”—Josephs & Valsiner, 1998), or eradicate the difference in either direction (we become like they, or they like we). Equally likely is the strategy of accentuating the detected difference—we are better (or worse) than they-- and we should make sure that we stay so. Why such action proneness stemming from simple value-meaning insertion? The reality of human relations takes place in a goal-oriented social field settings (see chapters 4 and 5) where the particular distinctions of valueadded kinds become bases for real power negotiations and various forms of social discrimination (Bourdieu, 1984). Social institutions orient individuals towards internalizing loyalties to them (the “we” group, even if it merely consists of one person—I), and the realities of social relations lead to the uses of the “they” group in various functions—those of enemy, celebity, social class, political party, religious group, etc. Distinctions we make about religious, political, or economic bases have added values that may make them dangerous to one’s health. Of course there are other options to handle the opposition—by neutralizing it (refusal to add value, or to consider the distinction itself of value), or integrate the two opposites into one scheme (see Figure 3.3.) How does the “birth of the next present” take place in the psychological domain? It is at the intersection of the tension of the selective insistence from the past and the uncertain events that might happen in the future that signification takes place. Signs are created to overcome that tension. Value-distinction within the sign: semiotically encoded imperatives. Each interpretation is value-laden—beginning from the value of the given distinction itself. This can be called value-laden (or value-added) difference. Furthermore, the value-laden nature of interpretations is action-prescriptive. Let us consider a simple example—making a distinction (A/B) and its interpretive value (see Figure 3.3.) It is here where the value of social relations enters into the making of the knowledge. From Figure 3.3. one can deduce three strategies of dealing with the negative evaluation of the distinctions.

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Figure 3.3. Suggested imperatives from distinctions made

DISTINCTION A/B “self” <> “other” is made

VALUATION: positive

ACTION SUGESTI ON

neutral

“accept” no need to (no need to consider to interfere) any action

(1) ELIMINATIVE INTOLERANCE (eradicate the unfavorable “other”— genocides, exclusions)

(2) ASSIMILATIVE INTOLERANCE (change the unfavorable “other” into favorable— education, acculturation)

negative

ACTION NEEDED =intervention

(3) TOLERANCE (eliminate the unfavorable contrast itself from the distinction “self”/“other”—the A/B distinction then becomes positive or neutral

The first strategy—eliminative intolerance—is widely used at times of conflict. The other is turned into a target of elimination, or segregation. This can happen from the perspective of the politically powerful towards the powerless, and leads to phenomena of ethnic or cultural “cleansing”. It can also happen from the position of a militant underdog who attempts to take over power—like the elimination of higher social classes in French and Russian revolutions, or the various genocides all over human history. Thus, the invention of the guillotine— or of the nuclear bomb—and their use-- is the quintessential example of cultural tools created for the service of this strategy.

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The second strategy—turning the unfavourable into the favourable in one’s terms—can entail a massive religious conversion effort. It can be also attempted by introducing formal education. This strategy is most visible in the notion of acculturation—the expectation that immigrants to another setting (country, urban area) “melt into” the social context as it is given to them by the power authorities. Both of these have occurred in the colonial history of humankind. However, the second strategy is also involved in the case of idealization of the other—the “noble savage” can become a set ideal (of purity, of closeness to religious ideals) towards which the carriers of A may strive. Here, the direction is towards abandonment of A to become B. “Going native” as a life-goal of Europeans migrating to the tender climates of the Pacific islands to escape one’s own background would be an example of this. This strategy can be seen as a kind of “reverse acculturation”— some representatives of one social group, dissatisfied by their own background, move away from it to adopt the ways of being of another group, thus eradicating one’s own personal history. Probably the most interesting of the action strategies listed is (3)— eliminating the contrast between the distinguished A and B. This is the escaping solution for much of cultural anthropology. Social groups are different (A is distinguished from B) but not better (or worse) than the others. They are simply different, incomparable. Of course cross-cultural comparisons of A and B are made all the time (see chapter 1, Figure 1.1., above), yet valuation of those comparisons is carefully avoided—at least in the manifest level. Tolerance comes from disconnecting valuation from detected distinctions. Interestingly, the avoidance of values in making cross-cultural comparisons is not at all similar to the positively valued acceptance of differences of A/B (see the scheme above). Instead, it is a case of overcompensation for the negative valuation, and can easily revert back to the other strategies. The possibility of construction of such accusations against people with whom one has lived at close distance—exemplified by witchcraft accusations-- indicates the dynamics between tolerance of the other (i.e., the other, while being different, has the right to be so) and intolerance. The latter is the dialogical opposite of tolerance. Figure 3.4. Ontological statements about WE/THEY: where the missionary world view begins

WE ARE X

WE SEE THAT THEY ARE Z

WE SHOULD BE Y

THEY SHOULD BE: Z? X? Y?

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A generic semiotic mediator—“their rights to be [X, Y, or Z]” The semiotic organizer of “the rights” maintains the tolerance, not letting it revert to either form of intolerance. When the focus on “the rights of the other” becomes dissociated from the given ingroup/outgroup relationship, the move from tolerance to intolerance is facilitated. The ideology of cultural relativism is a temporary solution to the inferiority/superiority tension in inter-cultural (and interpersonal) encounters. It does not represent the acceptance of “the others”, but merely blocks the latent intolerance from becoming manifested in conduct. Our general scheme becomes more complex. The generalized goal orientations—or moral imperatives (“should-value”) becomes added to the WE/THEY distinction (Figure 3.4.) This value-addition can be made explicit (and result in social action in relation to the differing “social other”). It can also be tolerated in the public domain (e.g., “you as person/group has your own rights, separate from mine”) while dismissing the other in the private domain (e.g., “the rights you may have, but I hate you anyway”). It is the coping with negative value-additions that can lead to examples of pseudo-acceptance—cases where behind the primary mask of public acceptance there exists underlying intolerance of the other’s ways of being. Such intolerance can take the form of seemingly altruistic intentions (“helping” the other—in the form of making them to become “what they SHOULD BE”, or “what WE THINK they SHOULD BE”).

Looking at “the others”: multiple ways Nowhere can one find better examples of the interplay of value-added comparisons than in the history of colonialism. Modern colonialism of the recent past has been definable as annexation of a territory by people with ties to a foreign state who perceive the conquered population as different from themselves (Steinmetz, 2003, p. 42). Historically that difference was geographic—the colonized territories were far away from the communities of origin of the colonizers. That made it easy to superimpose upon the geographical distance the cultural one—by considering the colonized peoples inherently inferior, beast- or child-like, and yet appealing in some ways (materialistically—in terms of captured resources, or idealistically—in terms of “innocence of souls”), the colonizers justified “their own presence to themselves as well as the broad limits on native policy” (Steinmetz, 2003, p. 43). The history of colonization can be viewed as a long-term social experiment in the cultural-psychological movement to the future through persistent encountering of “Otherness” in the process of conquest—both for the colonizers and for the colonized (see further in Chapter 5). All versions of the meanings of alterity as expressed in Figure 3.4, and the different action strategies (Figure 3.3.) can be found in a re-analysis of colonial histories.

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It becomes clear that the look into “the other” is an act that may change that “other”—but it certainly is part of the movement of the “looker-in” within the social field. Multiple trajectories of such look exist in parallel. As Amartya Sen has pointed out, describing outsiders’ look at India: Attempts from outside India to understand and interpret the country’s traditions can be put into at least three distinct categories, which I shall call exoticist approaches, magisterial approaches and curatorial approaches. The first (exoticist) category concentrates on the wondrous aspects of India. The focus here is on what is different, what is strange… The second (magisterial) category strongly relates to the exercise of imperial power and sees India as a subject territory from the point of view of its British governors. This outlook assimilates a sense of superiority and guardianhood needed to deal with a country that James Mill defined as ‘that great scene of British action.’… The third (curatorial) category is the most catholic of the three and includes various attempts at noting, classifying, and exhibiting diverse aspects of Indian culture. Unlike the exoticist approaches, a curatorial approach does not look only for the strange (even though the ‘different’ must have more ‘exhibit value’), and unlike the magisterial approaches, it is not weighed down by the impact of the ruler’s priorities. (Sen, 2005, p.p. 141-142) The goal orientations of the viewer are central to which of the three approaches prevails. Since the human social world is created and maintained by various relations between groups of people—who colonize (and de-colonize), enslave (and abolish slavery), provide new jobs (and take those to another location, creating joblessness), and use the life-ways of the other to address one’s own social problems—the look onto the “others” is never socio-morally neutral. Language use—ranging for the “cute and innocent native” to “savage” to “witch” “barbarian” or “devilish monster”—indicates the ideological value construction onto the act of looking. Example 3.1. Making of the savages. European colonial history is a good example of socio-political valuation entering into comparisons. The images of the non-European people were at first described by the colonizers in terms of childlikeness, bestiality, and curiosity, over the past three centuries. Differences are both threatening and appealing. The 14th Century account of the natives of the Canary Islands shows the ways in which the meanings of “the other” were being constructed. The inhabitants of the islands …aroused a great deal of speculative debate, with two groups adopting radically conflicting positions as a consequence of selectively emphasizing different aspects of reports on the

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islanders. Prominent humanistic scholars focused on the nakedness, lack of interest in gold and silver and generally simple and seemingly idyllic way of life of the islanders. This led them to the belief that theirs was the innocence of the mythical ‘Golden Age’. Others connected with the church and the temporal powers took a less rosy view. They were motivated to justify the conquest and subsequent conversion of the islanders. Accordingly, they stressed the seemingly repulsive aspects of the lives of the islanders… They were said to have flat faces like monkeys, to howl like dogs, to eat raw food and to observe bestial customs; among these was public sexual intercourse and the sharing of women who allegedly gave birth like animals. (Jahoda, 1999, p. 11) Jahoda’s analysis of the images of the savages speaks about inherent ambivalence within the ways in which distinctions made are culturally evaluated. It is through the projection of one’s own needs into the “social others”—and the “savages” were a good objects for that—that the colonizers’ own world view could develop in its complex way. Evaluative contrast-making in our contemporary socio-political discourse creates new savages. As the valuation of distinctions made are often of negative kind (e.g., the distinguished other is in some sense not just different, but either inferior, or "problematic”). The reasons for making the given distinction may already include an action agenda. Thus, efforts to distinguish some group of people “at risk for X” from those not “at risk” entails the social intention for preventive action (see Figure 3.4. above). Any prevention—even into one’s self— is an act of intervention—and can, as such, be valued in very different ways. Thus, fights against smoking or venereal disease (Brandt, 1985, 1997) are selective appropriations of scientific evidence for socio-moral discourses of the given social group. The fighters against the persons who espouse such habits or diseases are primarily involved in their own autodialogues within their selves—all nicely presentable as socially progressive acts of participation in the society. Descriptions of the other often have used themes not different from those used by Europeans in relation to the indigenous people of other races and far-off countries. There is a long history of downplay of women – by men in their power roles—in terms of women’s child-likeness, irrationality, etc. These are themes that one can observe in the feminist power struggles to come up with a reciprocal savage image projected upon men—who are childlike, wild, uncontrollable, etc. In reversing the previous value-laden opposition to its reverse the opposition is maintained in its nature—not overcome. Transcending it would entail the transformation of both of the parts of the oppositional relation, and the creation of a new opposition as a result.

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Figure 3.5. An Early European depiction of Ganesa—year 1615 A.D. (Lorenzo Pignoria’s addition to Vincenzo Cartari’s Images of the God; reproduced from Mitter, 1992, p. 29)

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Most of the oppositions in meaning lead to either reversals of the dominance polarities, or in mixed combinations of the opposites into hybrid complexes. Thus, for instance, the “purity” and “bestiality” projections into the others can exist side-by-side—the “innocent native” is also a “dangerous beast”. This is a result of the duality of meaning construction (see below—duality of A<>non-A in meaning construction). Such hybridization also occurs in visual images—for instance, the viewer creates a hybrid of the image of the “other” that presents relevant meaning bases of one’s own (see Figure 3.5.) Contemporary “savages”. The making of new savages continues in any society as there are social needs for such construction. It could be claimed that the basic mechanism involved—that of presenting the other as possessing characteristics that can be evaluated as inferior (be these “childish”, “senile”, “crazy”, “bitchy” etc.)—comes into action easily when a particular person (or group) pre-emptively defends itself against the surfacing of his or her (or its) inferiority. Parents have used such tools in respect to their teenage offspring, and the latter— towards their parents. The social action intention based on a distinction made can also be retributive. A distinction made between groups can be used as basis for provision of new opportunities for the distinguished outgroup. For example, the burgeoning feminist politics in Europe and North America supports the actions based on finding gender differences that would provide one of the two groups with new facilities (and the other—with blame for not having provided those). This is a reverse of the social action intentions from the historically older (male dominant) power perspective, where the difference of women in psychological characteristics could be considered the basis for not providing any opportunities because of the research indicating their lack of inherent capacities. When viewed from the perspective of collective-cultural systems where gender oppositions are not emphasized (Amadiume, 1987) and some other feature (e.g. seniority—see the Yoruba description by Oyewumi, 1997), plays a major role—the making of the “feminist world” of social relations makes no sense. Example 3.2. Legitimate symbolic violence—re-education. Pierre Bourdieu (1985) has outlined the role of social institutions in creating acts of “socially legitimate violence” in various forms. As such, education (and re-education) is an example of such violence—social powers of outside of the given community superimpose new ways of acting and thinking (as well as feeling) to members of the given community that break the latters’ connection with their collective pasts. Educational goals in a society are built within the existing stratification system, and help to maintain it in principle. Yet these are uniformly presented as efforts to “improve the society” (or some part of it). The existing social hierarchy—be it based on administrative power, financial prowess, knowledge, or age—sets the stage for education becoming a mission. The mission “moves” from the “higher” to the “lower” strata in the social hierarchy—so the “higher” classes attempt to educate the “lower” classes, rather

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than the other way around 38. It is only when the focus becomes de-centered to “the other”- “they”-- that we arrive at the doorstep of educational missions. If “they”—children—do not grow up on their own and “we”—adults—have to “help them” we have the beginning of a mission. The psychological function of making a distinction “we” ”they” sets the stage for projection of one’s own characteristics—positively or negatively valued—into “the other”, and then relating with that “other” accordingly. Hence educating others is actually based on the fulfillment of some role (or need) of the self—in other terms—education is an ego-centered exercise. It is meant for the Other—yet it is through that Other that it benefits the Self. The direction of the “help” to the Other is set by the Self, the limits of that direction fit the social class (Smollett, 1975), religious (Niezen, 1991), or economic needs of social institutions. Of course that centrality of the helper—educator—is not within the realm of discourse about education. Like in many other “helping professions”—doctors, nurses, policemen, military—their presentatiuons exclude multi-sided coverage of the “helpers” whose social roles are depicted in monologically positive terms. Very often, efforts to help others are functionally those of eliminating some aspects of the traditions of those others. Formal education has always been presented as bringing new knowledge to people. That it simultaneously creates a rupture with the past is rarely emphasized. An expression by an educationalist from the end of the 19th Century Oklahoma illustrates the ideology of educational intervention in a rather dramatic way. Talking of educating American Indian children, the administrator suggested: …let us educate them all. If we look to the schools as one of the chief factors of the great transformation, why not establish at once to embrace the entire body of available Indian youth? …If there could be gathered by the end of 1893… nearly all of the Indian children and they be kept there for ten years, the work would be substantially accomplished; for… there would grow up a generation of English speaking Indians, accustomed to the ways of civilized life. … Forever after this [they will be] the … dominant force among them. (Ellis, 1996, p. 15) Formal schooling is indeed a powerful weapon for social change. All development—of persons or communities—is based on ruptures that lead to subsequent re-organization of the semiotic order (Zittoun, 2006). Education is, thus, an example of the making of a monopoly of legitimate symbolic violence (Bourdieu, 1985, p. 205). It works through making the activities of the actors within the field subservient to the meanings introduced by the social power in 38

If the latter happens, it is usually a part of basic revolutionary rupture within a society—like Chinese “cultural revolution” calling for the inexperienced young to “re-educate” their parents’ generation (see Chan. 1985). It is a social strategy by a dominant power group to turn to the lower classes to act upon the middle strata—so in effect it is the same as simple top-down social control effort, only with a shift in dominance from the powerless to the newly powerful.

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control, together with promoting active co-construction of new semiotic devices by the ones who are “being educated”—albeit in the socially desired direction. Example 3.3. The “savages” fighting back: the narrative making of “battlefield cannibals”. However, culture transfer is a bi-directional enterprise (as seen in Chapter 1), and hence the “making of the savages” is a more complex interactive result than merely providing value-added exotic depictions of “the other”. The projections of the outsider’s description of the “natives” can be effectively counter-acted by the latter—through parody and ridicule attached to the outsiders’ lack of understanding. For example, a Maori story-teller would narrate a British visitor an oral history of a war trip: When we descended to the cultivations of Waikato… a girl was seen by some of our people.. [description of how she was killed]… When she was dead, Tarau… seized her legs and thighs, and taking her feet in his hands and using her legs as walking-sticks, proceeded thus to the ovens. None of our chiefs would cook during the expedition, nor would they go near, or sit on the leeward side of food in preparation, for fear their tapu should be interfered with. The ovens in which the bodies were cooked were left covered over night until morning, so that the food might be soft and pulpy. The body of the girl referred to was brought to our camp, and cooked for a long time (tamoe) that it might be nicely done. (Obeyesekere, 2005, pp. 9495) Commenting upon this story, Obeyesekere points out the surrealistic features of the story, combined with British paraphernalia (“walking sticks”, having meat “nicely done”). When the visitors ask for exaggerated stories to be told, the native storytellers are likely to satisfy their appetite. The listener may be satisfied by proving one’s expectations “by the data” from the informants. In some sense, the European re-tellers of the Maori exaggerated stories became “cultural cannibals”- they were consuming the cultural myths, re-told to them by their own expectation rules—for the benefit of actual subordination of the “colonized others.” Making the exaggerated story into a literal one—and believing in it— becomes emphasized by Obeyesekere’s mischievous question in the reverse--would the British be considered “cannibals” if Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal for solution of the Irish famine (i.e., that the Irish could eat their children!) were to be taken literally by outsiders who would look at the “native practices” of the British as recommended to the Irish as “help in a difficult situation”. As a result of the stories told to the European interlocutors—and reported by the latter without understanding of the parody and satire—we reach an example of symbolic reversal of the information flow. The expectations of the British of finding “battlefield cannibalism” among the Maori were met by the

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narrative exaggerations by the Maori whose ways of being were under study. As Obeyesekere notes, The Western discourse on cannibalism existed long before the discovery of Polynesia; it surfaces there from the late eighteenth century and reaches its efflorescence in early nineteenth-century missionary and scholarly thought. Maori discourse on cannibalismanthropophagy is for the most part hidden; it must be gleaned from the British ones. These “hidden discourses” take many forms, ranging from the parodic to the serious. By contrast, the British discourse on Maori cannibalism is much more uniform because they have successfully insulated Maori cannibalism from related discourses found in European culture in such things as fantasies, nursery tales, and the sacrificial symbolism of the Eucharist… …I stated that “cannibalism” is a misnomer for human sacrifice. Nowhere in the context of sacrifice is there a conspicuous or a mass consumption of corpses… Conspicuous consumption, both as discourse and embedded practice, emerged in the wake of the historical contact with the European who then constructed a European version of Maori cannibalism, including “battlefield cannibalism.” (Obeyesekere, 2005, p. 106-107) Thus, we have a cycle of mutual expectations of each other fulfilled—and escalated. The British wanted to find Maori “battlefield cannibalism” as a distinct (and deplorable) characteristic of “the other.” The actual “other”—a Maori storyteller—would fulfill the expectations of the interested outsider by providing exaggerated accounts—possibly parodies of the very narratives of the British— who then recognize themselves in the other, and accept the story as if it were true. These examples of creating value-laden differences and “proving” them by “the facts” could remain an obscure story in the history of anthropology, and declared to be an anachronism by our contemporary science where the questions of validity of evidence are by far more thoroughly asked than in the accounts of first European travelers. Yet in our times, we have an equivalent in the social role of active storytellers who build their importance on the appealing shock value of the stories. Contemporary journalism guarantees that we are always forced to attend to exotic details of the lives of celebrities, or to reported miseries of other human beings far away from our immediate doorsteps. Social sciences in the 21st century are under pressure to accommodate their knowledge base and functions of their messages to the journalistic predicament. Clearly that would result in the subordination of science to social fashions of the day. The main feature of all communication—its bi-directional and co-constructive nature— would be left out from our investigation. Abandonment of that basic feature of human meaning-making in the relating of sciences and their object phenomena would lead to the creation of new social myth stories, rather than new knowledge

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about the ever-new meaningful personal and social realities. Social sciences can operate in partnership with their objects of investigation.

Bi-directionality of cultural understanding: partnership In Chapter 1 the notion of bi-directionality of culture “transfer”—more properly labeled re-construction—was emphasized as the core idea for cultural psychology. Here we reach the junction where such bi-directionality is also the core of any research encounter between human beings. The researcher attempts to find out about the other person(s) who are being studied—and who must have for some unknown reason agreed to participate in the studies. The persons who assume the role of “the ones being studied” (who have, at different times and disciplines, been labeled subjects, observers, informants, hosts, and research participants—Bibace, Clegg & Valsiner, submitted) are involved in counterinvestigation of what the activities of “the one who came to study us” is trying to do. They may end up with another set of classificatory groupings for the “researchers”—such as spies 39, fools 40, preachers, donors 41, cannibals 42, etc. The persons who accept the “outsiders” to the given community need to distinguish the intentions of these new actors on the scene (see also Example 2.3. in Chapter 2). The arriving “outsiders” are inherently ambiguous—they may be enemies or friends, traders or robbers, journalists 43 , tourists, or fugitives, etc. The process of counter-investigation is a necessary complementary part of any investigation. Roger Bibace’s partnership model (Bibace, Dillon & Dowd, 1999, Bibace et al, 2005) provides a framework for overcoming the centrality of the researchers’ perspective in their efforts to study the phenomena of “the others.” Its basic axiom is the imperative for checking the system of perspectives of the research participants—the one who investigates some phenomenon, and “the other” who is being under investigation as to the particular phenomenon. In their ongoing relationship, questions that are asked by the investigator are not the ones that are being answered—but the ones that the respondent interprets the askers’ questions to be. Hence it is crucial for the researcher to have access to these interpretations. The partnership model provides the necessary correction 39

A frequent identity attributed to cultural or social anthropologists in the field—e.g. van Dijk & Pels, 1996, p.259 40 A designation given by an illiterate Kpelle farmer to a cross-cultural researcher who asked him “how would a fool classify [set of objects]?’—receiving back a full taxonomic classification that the farmer has “failed to give” under regular instructions (where a version of functional classification was produced) 41 of valuables (in exchange for research evidence) or medical, educational, or psychological services. 42 A very reasonable interpretation of physical anthropologists who would collect pieces of skeletons of deceased natives. 43 A very special category in present-day World is the kind of information gatherers is the role of “disaster tourist” (de Waal, 2005, p. 20)—people who travel to disaster areas for short period of time to survey the damages, and to be in a position of “experts” to explain to their “others” that “we have been there, therefore we know” (see also chapter 5)

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for the tendency to superimpose on the people under study the researcher’s ways of thinking. The centrality of the partnership model does not stop at the doorstep of research, or of the office of a medical doctor—its basic feature of the eternal effort of overcoming the egocentrism of one’s own Self in making sense of The Other is present in any human relations. This is the fundamental condition of the existence of our socially embedded selves—striving towards understanding of others, recognizing the limitations of such efforts, and trying again. Ernst Boesch’s (1997) emphasis on the dialectical opposition of the Fernweh and Heimweh is applicable to the partnership process (see chapter 5). Beyond the practical distinctions: dualities within the whole In the ideal case of science, its theoretical language is free from the confines of everyday language. Such freedom entails maintenance of the link with the empirical phenomena—while allowing for generalizing abstractions. The latter make it possible to devise general explanations of highly variable phenomena. Generality of explanations is in basic abstractions that go beyond the manifest observable phenomena. Most of psychology has yet to develop such separation of the abstract from the concrete—and the build-up of explicit explanations of the translation between the two. In other sciences—chemistry for instance—such construction of linkages of abstract models and concrete experimental and practical results has taken place in the 17th-19th century. The abstract meaning of “a salt” is not given by its perceptual quality (“salt is something that is salty” 44)— but by its chemical formulae that specify in the abstract into what kinds of chemical reactions that particular salt can in principle enter. In psychology, the prevailing epistemological ethos in the recent century has been precisely the opposite of that found in chemistry and other natural sciences—to find one-to-one correspondences between a projected causal entity (whether it is assumed to be “in” the person, or “in the environment”) and its manifest outcome. Thus, behind the variability in person’s personality manifestations is an assumed “personality trait”—or a number of mutually independent traits of the kind (as described by ANOVA “interaction effects”)— rather than a system of functioning mechanisms that result in the given unitary outcome. In most general terms—claims like “children’s psychological development is due to either nature or nurture”—are examples of searching for one-to-one correspondences. The same is true if that statement is re-phrased in terms of “interaction effects”Æ “children’s psychological development is due to interaction of nature and nurture”. The meaning complex “interaction” is a sign that stands in for the unknown complex mechanisms which are no longer studied once the causal attribution (to “interaction”) is made. Even if the attribution infers the presence of multiplicity of “factors”—the question of how these “factors” are 44

compare with psychologists’ claim “intelligence is something that intelligence tests measure”.

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related to one another to produce our manifest phenomena remains unasked— and unanswered. The issue at stake is not a matter of careful observation (and inductive generalization), but of the unity of deductive and inductive lines in scientific thinking (see Morgan, 2003; Valsiner, 2003). It is the distancing of signs—in this case theoretical concepts—from the reality that they present, and their abstraction beyond the perceivable characteristics—that provides a science its generalizing power (Vickers, 1984, pp. 124-125). The relevance of deductive breakthroughs in genetics is particularly interesting here—Mendel’s deductive insight about many-to-one kind of correspondences in genesÆ phenotype relation: Nobody, apart from Mendel, had been led to the deduction that inherited factors influencing the characteristics of an organism come in pairs—or at least that they usually do. No amount of clever mathematics could have led to the deduction that one is dominant to the other. (Galton understood that many ‘gemmules’, as Darwin had called them, capable of influencing the characteristics of an organism, must often lie latent, but that wasn’t a mathematical deduction—it was based on empirical observation.) No amount of clever mathematics could have led to the deduction that it is a matter of chance which part of each paired factors enters into the gamete that fuses with the gamete of the other parent. (Bateson, 2002, p. 52) Mendel’s insight was that of creating a relationship between double parts of the system (dominance/recessive relation within a pair of genes) that generates one specific outcome. Our contemporary protein genetics has taken that invention of multiplicity within the generative system (of portions of the DNA sequence, operating upon other parts of the sequence) to the level of many-toone relationships. As a result, the number of genes as it is increasingly being discovered surpasses the numbers of produced outcomes by a large factor (e.g., in case of the nematode C. elegans, around 19,000 genes encode all of the 302 neurons in the whole nervous system of that species-- where the adult male consists of 1031 cells. Surely the regulatory mechanisms of the outcomes are highly complex systems, filled with redundancy of control. The whole issue of genetic regulation is that of multiple systemic causality for protein synthesis. Lessons from astronomy. The issue of non-correspondence between the unitary observable phenomena and the actual systems that produce the phenomena is known from other sciences where empirical access to phenomena is limited. Astronomy is one of the examples where distances to celestial objects of investigation set up the need to invent numerous hypotheses where what is being observed (e.g. brightness of a star) is merely a sign of the system that produces it. Fluctuations in the brightness of a star are indicators of its being a

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binary (or multiple) star—rather than one uniform “object star” that miraculously alters its brightness. The existence of double stars is known in astronomy for a long time (since the time of Ptolemy), yet precise descriptions of their functioning are relatively recent (in 1651—the double—or binary-- star of Mizar-Alcor in Ursa Major). A binary star is a pair of stars in orbit around a common center of gravity that is generated by their mutual gravitational attraction. They are usually different in brightness—thus the fluctuation of perceivable brightness of one “target object” allows astronomers to reconstruct the mutual relations of two (or more 45) components of the non-unitary star systems. Thus, abstract thought models of multi-part systems with strictly specifiable relationships have been around in the physical and biological sciences over centuries. These models reach psychology through the fascination with Dynamic Systems Theories since 1990s (Lewis, 2005; Thelen & Smith, 1994, van Geert, 1994). Within that theoretical system, formal models are created that explain the history of changes of dynamic phenomena—be these development of hurricanes in meteorology, or of children’s vocabularies, or of emotions—towards some future states. The contrast of the present and the not-yet-specified future here is seen as actual in the present.

Duality in the social sciences: Dialogical models The notion of dialogical self starts from our usual imagery about dialogues between people, and becomes transposed into intra-psychological dialogue between “parts” of the self. Not only do different persons enter into dialogues, but we all have our own dialogues proceeding within the interior of our personal cultures. Any perspective that theoretically posits the presence of different parts of the whole and a relationship between them can be considered dialogical. In contrast, non-dialogical (monological) views on the world are free from the notion of systemic mutuality of the parts. Thus, instead of the structure assumed to be in the complex phenomenon (as the relation in Figure 3.6.A.), the monological perspective treats the complex reality as a homogeneous point, or field X (in Figure 3.6.B.). Monological construction of theoretical terms leads the social sciences to positing of entified concepts as if those were explanatory for the complex phenomena. Thus, the unitary “data” A in Figure 3.6.B. can be explained by “Xness” as its inherent underlying causal entity 46. In contrast, the same complex phenomenon in Figure 3.6.A. becomes described in terms of data that indicate a relationship between two opposites, and would be explained by some kind of systemic causality scheme. 45

There can be more than 2 components in the multiple star systems. Their functioning is similar to double stars—all multiple components move around their joint center of mass, due to their mutual gravitational interaction. Binary linkages of stars are considered the primary branch of star formation process—hence the presence of high variety of multiple stars in the celestial universe. 46 Refer back to Chapter 1 and the use of such entified explanatory concepts in cross-cultural psychology

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Figure 3.6. A schematic translation of complex phenomena into dialogical (A) and monological (B) representations

Complex phenomenon

B A

X X

relation

Non-X

Dialogical relations can entail any number of parts—from two (e.g., ego and alii) to small number (e.g., the "ME"-s of G.H. Mead), to a high variety of subcomponents (e.g., Mikhail Bakhtin’s emphasis on “multivoicedness”). These parts can be posited to co-exist simultaneously and provide for dynamic stability in the phenomena. The demonstration of the “blind spot” of such processes in the case of use of rating scales in psychology is an example of treating complex processes involving mutually opposite vector “forces” as if those were simple measurable point-kind phenomena (see chapter 9, also Valsiner, 2006c; Wagoner & Valsiner, 2005). The dialogical nature of the phenomena is eliminated at the first step—of superimposing a monological measurement scheme onto poly-logical reality. Furthermore, a dialogue can be found in a sequential of meanings—a question, followed by an answer, may create a tension that is followed by agreement/disagreement. Sequential dialogical relation can also exist between two consecutively uttered similar statements (e.g., “life is good” and “life is good” 47). The latter may occur both inter-personally and intra-personally. For making sense of the dialogical self, both the intra-psychological and interpsychological domains are equally important. 47

The reference here is to the difference between logical and dialogical treatments of the repetition of this statement. From the side of classical (2-valent) logic, these are the same statement. From a dialogical perspective, these are two sequential remarks following each other in time-- and constitute a specific dialogical relationship of agreement (Hermans, Kempen, & van Loon, 1992, p. 27)

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Two processes. A person operates on the basis of two dialogical processes— heterodialogue (with others, including imaginary others), and autodialogue (within oneself). In fact, those two dialogues are mutually intertwined. A person who tries to state something to a listener is simultaneously hearing (or reading) one's own statement, which becomes part of the autodialogic process, irrespective of any answer from the listener 48. Likewise, an episodic message the person overhears from somebody may lead into an autodialogue that transcends the meaning of the overheard message.

The Dialogical Self (DS) Theory The crucial feature of any dialogue is thus a relation between communicative messages— each message evokes some way of being in the other, and so on (Salgado & Hermans, 2005). Dialogicality is the property of systems to entail such relations as definitive for the system. The dialogical self is a theoretical entity (self) which is organized (exists) through a process of dialogical relations between its sub-parts: The dialogical self is conceived as social-- not in the sense that a self-contained individual enters into social interactions with other outside people, but in the sense that other people occupy positions in the multivoiced self. The self is not only "here" but also "there", and because of the power of imagination the person can act as if he or she were the other. [in contrast to G.H. Mead's position] … I construe another person or being as a position that I can occupy and a position that creates an alternative perspective on the world and myself. (Hermans, Kempen, & van Loon, 1992, p. 29) This look at the dialogical self retains the person as the center of the social-- imaginative-- construction of the possible positions of the ego based on experience in the social world. However, the reliance on as-if one were in the other’s position is never equal to the reality of being in that position. The latter is in principle impossible (Bühler, 1990). The DS creates a tension between being as-is and modeling one’s being as-if one were the other. That tension can be the birthplace of becoming – movement into a new state. As a tension in human personal-cultural life-worlds it can be empirically investigated. DS replaces the notion of “core self.” Usually, the notion of self is viewed as entailing a central “core”, and its manifold of context-dependent transformations. 48

this point was made already by George Herbert Mead ( Mead, 1912, p. 403)-- yet its simplicity seems to disappear in post-Meadian discussions of the social nature of the self. This loss is probably due to the implicit model of "forced choice" between parts of theoretical constructions, e.g., the person is considered either in dialogue with others or within oneself-- rather than simply viewing these two dialogues as mutually embedded processes.

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This is characteristic of the componential models of the self. Hermans and Kempen (1993) have rejected the notion of “core self”, and replaced the notion of such core by a dynamically moving, multiple, I-Positions. Such positions …are organized in an imaginal landscape. In this conception, the I has the possibility to move, as in space, from one position to the other in accordance with changes in situation and time. The I fluctuates among different, and even opposed, positions and has the capacity to imaginatively endow each position with a voice so that dialogical relations between characters in a story, involved in a process of question and answer, agreement and disagreement. Each character has a story to tell about its own experiences from its own stance. These characters exchange information about their respective ME-s, resulting in a complex, narratively structured self. In this multiplicity of positions, some positions may become more dominant than others, so that the voices of the less dominant positions may be subdued. (Hermans, 1996, pp. 10-11, added emphases) So, each I-position creates a “voice” which relates to other “voices” (of other I-positions) in a dynamic relation of dialogicality. The emerging whole is the narratively structured self, within which dominance relations are established. The dialogical self is a dynamic field (rather than a static point-kind “core”), which nevertheless is a general model for the self as such. The three zones in Figure 3.7. allow for differently located relations between I-positions: External positions refer to people and objects in the environment that are, in the eyes of the individual, relevant from the perspective of one or more internal positions… In reverse, internal positions receive their relevance from their relation with one or more external positions (e.g., I feel a mother because I have children). In other words, internal and external positions receive their significance as emerging from their mutual transactions over time. (Hermans, 2001a, p. 252, emphasis added) In Figure 3.7., an internal I-position A(int) is in a systemic mutual feedforward relation with an external I-position A(ext). Both of them—and their relationship— entails the internal/external boundary crossing.

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Figure 3.7. The structure of the Dialogical Self fields of loci of I-positions: internal, external, and outside (after Hermans, 2001a, p. 253)

Outside External

Internal

A(ex)

A(int)

Example 3.4. The pattern of I-positions map. The origin of the empirical analysis of I-positions comes from Hermans’ Self-Confrontation Method where the person explicates different I-positions as meaningful components of the self, and locates them on the map (e.g., Figure 3.8.). Ali is an Algerian man who is married to a Dutch woman, who generated 49 internal and 33 external Ipositions, of which the major ones are shown in Figure 3.8. The general Ipositions to be expected from a person who had migrated to another country (‘I as an Algerian’, ‘I as adapted to Dutch culture’, ‘I as integrated in Dutch culture’ ) were present in his structure of I-positions—but not prominent.

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Among the major I-positions, two groups of “ingroup” and “outgroup” were found (upper vs. lower part of Fig 3.8). Ali included in the “ingroup” both his own and his wife’s parents (while his wife created an “ingroup Dutch”—“outgroup Algerian” dichotomy). What emerges in this example is the negotiation of Ali’s self system with the multiplicity of demands that combine ethnic and kinship group backgrounds, and constitute a compromise within the family context: Organizing his repertoire in this way, Ali could maintain a double loyalty. As part of an Algerian family that required absolute loyalty with the own clan, he included his father and his mother as part of his in-group, although his wife was opposed to both of them. On the other hand, Ali could maintain the loyalty with his wife by including his sister as part of his out-group, in this way agreeing with his wife and supporting her in disapproving his sister’s manipulative behavior. As a result, his sister was attributed a place in his outgroup and was associated with such internal positions as ‘like to be alone’, ‘disillusioned’, and ‘vulnerable’. (Hermans, 2001, pp 359360).

Figure 3.8. I-positions repertoire of an Algerian man living in the Netherlands and married to a Dutch woman (from Hermans, 2001, p. 359)

Roots in psychotherapy process. It is no coincidence that Hermans has built his theoretical model of the dialogical self on the empirical evidence from the psychotherapy process on the one hand—and on a version of personal construction task, on the other. In such contexts, persons can ponder upon conflicting or mutually uneasy I-Positions over long time, therapists’ intervention

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efforts may be slow in their effects --and constitute further dialogical participation in the self of the client (Gonçalves & Guilfoyle, 2006). The centrality of the person <> “social others” partnership emerges in a self-inclusive way in therapy contexts. In such contexts, the dialogical self can be …effectuated by asking clients to describe different sides of their own personality and to invite them to formulate from each side a separate valuation system in their own terms. From a theoretical perspective, such personality sides are considered opposite I positions from which the client can tell different or even opposed stories about him- or herself and formulate different or opposed valuation systems. (Hermans, 1999, p. 492) It is important to emphasize that the field of I-positions not only involves the co-existence of different perspectives, but also construction of hierarchies. Dominance/subdominance relations between the “voices” (that represent the IPositions) are constantly being negotiated.

The ego-centered perspective of DS The axiomatic starting point of any dialogical process is the person. Without an obligatory reflexivity about one's own location in the life-space no definition of any other perspective is possible. In this sense, any dialogical relation is ego-centered. For example, the notion of I-Position entails a core “I” that is needed to assume an I-Position. In any activity, there is an agent whose active role makes the activity possible. No matter how extensively socially embedded is an activity, or discourse—the stage for that is set by the existence of the person(s). The person-- who constructs I-Positions-- does that from the starting point of some specific location within one's psychological field. There is a wider epistemological relevance embedded in the understanding of ego-centeredness of human worlds. The only psychological phenomena available to a person-- beginning from perception and ending with meaning-making-- are centered upon the person of the perceiver, actor, and meaning-maker.

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Figure 3.9. DS structure as a three-dimensional “self-scape” guided by hypergeneralized field-like sign

GENERALIZED DIALOGICAL OPPOSITION IN SIGNS e.g., “MORAL<>IMMORAL”

Outside External

Internal

A(ex)

A(int)

B(ex)

B(out)

Semiotic construction: abbreviation and abstraction. The obligatory personal beginning point of meaning-making is the subjective HERE-NOW-I-SYSTEM ("hier-jetzt-ich-System" --Bühler, 1965, p. 149; 1990, p. 169). It unites in an infinitely minimal fashion the unity of the space (here), time (now) and agent (I). No dialogical relation is possible without this basic semiotic reflexive construction. All three components of the point are co-present. For example, a claim "this is" in actuality entails the unity of the three foci of the point: "this"(not "that") exists in space; it is existing now; and I perceive and state that it is. In it elaborate form it can be of the kind "this door of my office is at this moment open and it is for some reason at this moment important for me to ascertain that". An important feature of the indexical signs in contrast to their iconic counterparts becomes obvious here—while the former are abbreviations of humans goalsoriented action, the latter are step-by-step abstractions from these actions, or their components. Abbreviation thus becomes a major vehicle for sign mediation of the making of the future. It can be viewed as a result of ontogenetic processes that

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move through extension of the action schemes to their subsequent shortening and partial disappearance (Lyra, 1999). Certainly the emergence of language use over childhood moves towards minimalization of the reflexivity of one's own personal positioning. Based on such abbreviated ego-centered starting point, human meaning-making takes place within a constantly extended (and constricted) sign-field where the person constructs meanings that expand from the "core ego" to include others ("you", "we") to a case of semiotic infinity ("I as all of us"). The location of “the other”. In the theoretical models of dialogical self, the role of “the other” is quite flexible. It can be filled by a real person (actual “social others” of the developing person, in interaction with him/her), personal constructions of the real (or imaginary) “social others” in one’s intra-psychological domain, and—finally—creation of the “voices” of “the others”. Furthermore, the person can use the same objective “other” in some subjective transformation in the self-dialogue. At one moment, “the other” is used in one’s concrete action roles (the man who smiles at the ego), the next moment—as an idealized personal image (John whom the ego has loved for long time), at third—as a social role (husband), at fourth—as a principle (“manlihood” in relation to ego’s purposeful fussing). The dynamics of dialogical self thus entails variational construction of “the other” at different levels of abstraction and generalization. This feature of dynamic self systems was already anticipated by George Herbert Mead in his tentative concept of the “generalized other” (see Dodds, Lawrence & Valsiner, 1997, for further analysis of that concept). Yet it is the dynamic hierarchization of such construction that has not been elaborated 49, prior to the discourse on dialogical self (and forms of dialogicality which differ from). Figure 3.9. shows how the structure of DS can be changed by guidance from signs. The hyper-generalized field (“Moral Å Æ Immoral” tension field) emerges from abstracting sign construction from the A(int) Å Æ A(ext) relations of I-positions. After its emergence at the level of meanings it starts to canalyze new I-positions B (ext) Å Æ B (out). Semiotic guidance of the extension of the Dialogical Self proceeds through generalization of the sign fields and their transposition to new contexts. Hermans’ DS theory overcomes the limits of the usual exclusive separation we see as regular tactic in psychology’s theory construction. The different locations of I-positions create relationships across structural boundaries posited to exist within the DS. This structure fits the notion of inclusive separating the two—the person is distinct from the social context while being a part of it. The 3-zones distribution of the I-positions allows the researcher to maintain the unity

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Probably this is a "side-effect" of the opposition by the thinkers who try to turn the notion of self into a dynamic and contextualized form to overlook the hierarchical nature of any flexible system. Instead of a hierarchy of static kind ("core" self > components of self) the notion of dialogical self leads to the conceptualization of self-processes that form hierarchies. Thus, when the notion of "dominance" between two I-Positions (A dominates over B) is being claimed, a hierarchy of the simplest kind is created.

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of person<> environment relations without collapsing the two sides conceptually into one another. General axiom: separating “with” (rather than “from”). This—separate-yetnon-separate—state of affairs allows for any Subject-Object distinction to be made, which in its turn can lead to reflection upon the relationship of the two. Thus, a person completely immersed in the social context—be it by trance, dance, or complete devotion—cannot reflect upon oneself in that context. Likewise, a person completely (exclusively) separated from the context has no basis for viewing one’s relationship with that context (e.g., consider the rather exotic topic such as “my life on the Moon”—or comparable in genre, yet real, travel stories of European explorers from the “newly discovered lands”)—other than through projecting imagined scenarios onto the issue, i.e., creating a relationship in order to reflect upon it (see Valsiner, 1999, on how such relations are created). Such distancing is possible in case of the researcher’s adoption of the tactic of inclusive separation—the person is separated with the social environment (in contrast to—“separated from”). The individual is autonomous precisely because s/he is fully interdependent with that social world. It is the European, classical logic mindset that researchers have superimposed onto human beings from other cultural contexts. The either<>or orientation (exclusive separation) eliminates the inherent dynamic linkages between the opposites— and hence turns the opposites from being a part of the system into segregated entified concepts. In contrast, keeping the phenomena in sight would show how fruitless such schemes are. Talking of the role of individual in South Asia, Parish emphasized …I do not accept the view that the South Asian tradition obliterates “the individual.” Rather, I believe the sharp contrast between individualism and holism is a Western discourse that obscures and distorts Newar cultural experience. Newars know the value of themselves as autonomous individuals and as social beings. They find meaning in both their individual actions and in relationships. (Parish, 1994, p. 187). The person is always autonomous in one’s actions—thanks to the interdependence of these actions withy their physical and meaningful context. In line with the dialectics of the dialogical self theory, the Newars can be viewed as a cultural dialectic—the dynamic unity of opposites that produces numerous states of being—both socially immersed and individual. In that process …men and women merge, blend, and unite in “relatedness”, emerging as “selves,” then merge again, and re-emerge, producing the subtle, powerful, cross-currents of moral consciousness. If Newars see themselves in terms of a union of being with significant others, embed themselves in social groups, and identify with moral

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traditions, they also value who they are, what they have done, and what they want to do. They know themselves in terms of their own identity and purposes, value their own existence and actions, and are often acutely, painfully, playfully, ironically, and self-reflectively conscious of the way “self” is entangled in living “net” of relationships. (Parish, 1994, p. 187, added emphasis) This description of the dynamic self is not just dialogical (and dialectic), it also serves as an example of inclusive separation of the Self from The Others (the social network). It also exemplifies the notion of the self as always in motion (chapter 2). This creativity of the cultural selves—moving between feeling autonomy and mutuality—is further corroborated by the creative and playful nature of rituals. While cultural anthropology has habitually described rituals as scripts to be performed in standard ways, recent new look at the actual performance of different rituals shows context-specific and ludic improvisation in their performance (Handelman & Lindquist, 2005; Koepping, 1997). In case of ruptures of the ritual its repairs have shown to take on both personal-cultural (increasing stigmatization of performers) and collective-cultural (re-making of the form) a role (Freeman, 1981). This dynamicity of the self—a personal-cultural phenomenon—is supported by the flexibility of meaning systems within the collective cultural worlds. This is guaranteed by the heterogeneity of meaning fields, as Umberto Eco (1976, p. 80) has posited: 1. in a given social unit-- at the given time there can exist contradictory semantic fields; 2. the same cultural tool—e.g. meaning used for classifying--can itself become party of complementary semantic fields within the social unit (e.g., the meaning “whale” can be used in different contexts which are mutually incompatible—as a class of mammals, or as a “big fish” to be caught in the ocean) 3. within the given social unit a semantic field can disintegrate and vanish with extreme rapidity and restructure itself into a new field. Such heterogeneity of meaning fields within the collective culture guarantees that persons constantly operate at the intersection of different parts of the semantic fields. New meanings emerge from the relations of previous ones, and the dialogical self is the agent of synthesis of new semiotic devices.

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Meanings emerge through oppositions The focus on the relevance of opposites is prominent in the holistic "Austrian tradition" of psychology which stems from the work of Franz Brentano. It is elaborated into the world of meanings by Alexius Meinong, who established the foundations of Gestalt thought in Graz (Austria) in the 1880s. Sciences re-write their histories from the viewpoint of social institutional power. Hence after the migration of psychology from its center of gravity in the German language room before World War II to that of North-American and English language dominance fields, the whole history of Continental European traditions in the discipline has become obscured. In reality, there are two bases in the psychological thinking of the 1870s that laid the foundation for psychology of the 20th century. One is well recognized—Wilhelm Wundt—even as the full range of his contributions is not (Diriwächter, 2004). The other—Franz Brentano—is recognized among philosophers, rather than by psychologists. While it is true that the Brentano tradition gave the World a wealth of philosophical (Edmund Husserl), logical (Kasimir Twardowski), and linguistic (Anton Marty), there were also major psychological continuities into the 20th century, such as Carl Stumpf, and especially—Alexius Meinong. Meinong’s Gegenstandstheorie is the basis for all of the efforts of the “Graz School” to develop empirically rooted psychology of phenomena of various levels of generality. In general terms, the “Austrian Gestalt tradition” (represented by the “Graz perspective” of Alexius Meinong, Stefan Witasek and Vittorio Benussi), experience is a two-level conception … according to which experienced objects are partitioned into objects of lower and higher order: the former are, for example, colors and tones (which are, it is held, given immediately in sensation), the latter are, for example, shapes and melodies, complex organized wholes which are “founded” on the former and require special, intellectual acts in order to be grasped by consciousness. (Smith, 1994, p. 137) The “founded” objects are higher-order objects (or, in Gestalt terminology— objects with “Gestalt qualities”) that build upon the distinctions between elementary objects. Meanings are of such kind. They are constructed on the basis of perceived or imagined realities. Meinong’s look at meaning construction Meinong’s philosophical interests led to central emphasis on the ways of constructing meanings. He claimed,

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…as I am apprehending an A, I also apprehend a non-A in some sense. So we have to do with a difference regarding what is apprehended… a difference regarding what stands opposite [gegenübersteht] each intellectual experience as its object [Gegenstand 50]…. In the non-A, then, there is a further objective factor, the "non," as it were, supervening on the A. (Meinong, 1902/1983, pp. 14-15) Meinong understood the basic asymmetry between the two components of representation: The non-A operates as negativum in relation to A. The negativum is always built on the basis of the positive concept (the inferiora). Thus, it is not possible to think of "non-red" without having a notion of "red" on the basis of which the negativum is built up. Furthermore, the negativum emerges not only on the basis of the inferiorum, but in-between that and a wide open field of possible objects which are clearly different from it. As Meinong explained, The idea of the negativum does not develop originally from the A alone; instead, there is also given an X, of which it may be or at least is asserted that it is not A, in quite the same way that the similarity must, to begin with, be established between A and some other, second object, Y. And just as abstraction then sets to work on the special complex AY formed by means of comparison--so that from the idea "Y similar to A" there is formed the idea "similarity to A" or "similar to A"--so too might an abstract representation "something that is not A" or simply non-A develop out of complex of another sort, AX, or out of the idea "X is not A." Along with the original duality of the fundamenta, the matter of the producing activity is also settled: What is accomplished by comparison in the other case is here accomplished by judgment--negative judgment, naturally. (Meinong, 1902/1983, p. 16) Every action we undertake in our life spaces entails making of the basic distinction-- of the acting agent (Subject), and the layout we act upon (Object). Such basic distinction introduces the duality of the Subject and the Object. No knowledge is possible without such duality-- even if the Subject and Object are confined within the same person (as in intra-mental self-knowing).

50

It is important to emphasize the meaning of Gegenstand here—it entails something that stands against (Gegen) something else.

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Figure 3.10. The general structure of the sign (A <> non-A)

A

The NON-A part of the sign—a semi-open field of possible new meanings

The context for the sign: “NOT-A”

Semiotic field theory of mutually generating opposites When a human constructs meaning to relate with their world, the field of opposites is automatically implied at every moment. This is guaranteed by both time (as described above) and the space of meanings—the tension between the personal culture (system of personal sense) and the social world within the person is embedded. Let us re-analyze the widely quoted statement taken from the literary scholarship of Mikhail Bakhtin:

The word of language-- is half alien [chuzoye-- not belonging to me and unknown-- in Russian] word. It becomes "one's own" when the speaker inhabits it with his intention, his accent, masters the word, brings it to bear upon his meaningful and expressive strivings. Until that moment of appropriation [prisvoenie in Russian] the word is not existing in neutral and faceless language (the speaker does not take the word from a dictionary!), but [it exists] on the lips of others, in alien contexts, in service of others' intentions: from here it has to be taken and made into one's own. (Bakhtin, 1934/35-- published in 1975, p. 106).

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Most of the rhetoric uses of this quote in contemporary social sciences emphasize the “word being not one’s own” theme—the social embeddedness of the words-using person. Yet this quote actually emphasizes the unity and mutual dynamic interdependence (see Figure 2.2. in Chapter 2, above) of the personal agency and its field of social environment—the word as it exists “on the lips of others” (rather than is taken from a dictionary). Bakhtin's explicit emphasis on the active role of the person-- who is the agent who makes the alien word to be one's own-- restores the focus on duality to the study of persons' relations with their languages. The latter are not uniform (not taken from a dictionary), but represent intentional, goal-oriented uses of language for their own personal purposes. The person is constantly on the border of what is known (e.g. my system of personal sense—subjective meanings based on my life experiences up to now) and what is not yet known personally, but socially suggested by others through their use of semiotic devices (e.g., my reception of the “word” from the “lips of strangers” who present to me a myriad of strange, “foreign”—not mine—personal worlds). In this respect, every person is a traveler in strange lands, some of which become his or her own through the colonization of their meaning. Following the ideas of Alexius Meinong, we have posited that meaning arises in the form of complexes of united opposites, (Josephs, Valsiner, & Surgan, 1999). It is that opposition between the meaning and its opposite that is the basis for further change. The meaning is a complex sign characterized by duality of the process of meaning-making and takes the form of a point (or a circumscribed field) united with a quasi-open field (see Figure 3.10). This theoretical depiction of the sign in Figure 3.10, is purely structural—it merely visually highlights the focus on asymmetry in the relationships of the two parts of the sign (A is “visible”, the semi-open corresponding field of “non-A” is indeterminate because of its open boundaries, and is always in a state of quasidifferentiation. Its function is to provide the ill-determined opposite for dialogical transformation of the A. Georg Simmel, writing about love, has captured the central theoretical issue involved here: To regard love and hate as exact polar antitheses, as if it were necessary only to transpose the one into the opposite key in order to have the other, is completely mistaken. This misconception results from the fact that some externally practical consequences of the one appear to be direct antithesis of the consequences of the other. But even this appearance is hardly exact. I wish one person good fortune and another sorrow. The presence of one person delights me, that of another is painful to me. But happiness and sorrow are not logical antitheses. Even the fact that love relatively often turns into hate proves nothing as regards their logical correlation. The opposite of love is not-love—in other words, indifference. If hate appears instead of indifference, this stems from completely new positive causes. It may be the case that these causes are secondarily connected with love: for example, the

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intimate relationship with the other person, the pain caused by the fact that one has deceived himself or allowed himself to be deceived, the grief due to lost opportunities for happiness, and so on. (Simmel, 1984, p. 164, added emphases) Simmel’s “not-love” maps onto non-A in Figure 3.10. Each sign is given by its manifest (A) and its field-like nebulous counterpart (non-A). The latter—in dialogic relationship with the former—is the locus for emergence of new meanings. New meanings grow in the A<>non-A field through oppositions between the known (A) and the “hidden other” (non-A). Such oppositions take the form of striving towards “the other”—the unknown, the disallowed-yet-desired, or to “away from” the already established (A). Example 3. 5. Transformations within the A<>non-A sign fields. In order to find sufficiently appropriate examples, we need to either enter the realm of poetry or fiction on the one hand—or introspectionist psychology of the beginning of the 20th century, on the other. The latter has been discounted by history writers of psychology—and masked under other labels in contemporary cognitive science (e.g., “thinking aloud protocols”). What has gone missing from psychology of the second half of the 20th century is the study of psychological processes (see chapter 9 as to ways for its restoration). Yet van analysis of transforming sign fields a process orientation is mandatory. The following example comes from the work of Robert Ogden (1917), whose procedure included purposive introspective scrutiny of the process of arrival at the meaning of a stimulus word (or phrase). The experimenter told the subject: Close your eyes and hold yourself as passive as possible, both mentally and physically. After saying "Ready," "Now," I shall pronounce a word. Give it your immediate, full attention with the definite purpose of understanding its meaning. As soon as you are satisfied that the meaning has been grasped, react with "Yes." Then recount by introspection your complete experience. Be in no hurry to react, and let your occupation with the word be as natural as possible. (Ogden, 1917, p. 79, italics added)

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Figure 3.11. The growth of new sign B from the field structure (A <> non-A)

NON-A New sign B emerging from non-A A

The context for the sign: “NOT-A”

B—a new sign

NON-B

As a result of Ogden's instruction (see above), the subject reported the following in response to the orally presented word "pair" : [after 5.6 seconds] 1. I was waiting for the word. When it came it associated almost immediately two meanings: pair, as a pair of something, boots or shoes, [{A=pair & non-A=non-pair}]

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2. and pear, briefly, not visualized. [constructive elaboration and dominance of B=pear => {B=pear & nonB=non-pear} in non-A] 3. I came back to pair which was probably present all the time. [immediate dominance reversal to {A & non-A}] 4. This experience was very active and pleasant. I resumed in a very brief thought a problem in Poincaré's book having to do with a certain theory of logic. [constructive elaboration of C--Poincaré's logic into non-A => {C & non-C}] 5. Lingered over the thought for a moment while some imagery developed, possibly a vague image of a printed page and the peculiar type of the French,-- not visualized, I think. There was something about the appearance of the numbers,--many numbers are scattered through the book. [growth of C] 6. With the reaction came a visual image of a pear. [re-emergence of B in non-C, dominance of {B & non-B}] 7. It seemed floating in the air. I could see part of the stem, like tobacco smoke, vibrating. (Ogden, 1917, p. 98) The immediate retrospection of the introspective stream was obviously reflexive of the ambiguous stimulus word (pair/pear). The move from "pair" to "pear" entailed change from {A=pair & non-A=non-pair} to the constructive elaboration of "pear" in the non-A part of the sign-field. This was followed by dominance of {B=pear & non-B=non-pear}). This dominance was reversed back to "pair" (A & non-A; note the notion of "pleasant"), only to be moved away by constructive elaboration of C which took over the thought movement. The imagery of printed page (filled with numbers) would amount to growth within C. Subsequently {B & non-B}, "pear," re-emerged in the non-C, and took over the dominance again. Within approximately five seconds, the person proceeded through four takeover events (including one reversal), and one example of the growth of a new meaning. This oppositional meaning construction process can entail also the use of multi-level semiotic regulators—promoter signs—to regulate the A<>non-A dynamics. In the following interview excerpt, a young female interviewee, who has emphasized her religious background before, made a claim that she dislikes tattoos in total. The interviewer (I) challenges the subject (IEE) further: I: You would never get a tattoo? IEE: Mmm-mm. Nooo.

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I: IEE: I: IEE:

Why not? I just don't like them. Why not? First of all, you know, it's something that I think--first of all, it's something that I just don't like. Other people it's fine. But I don't want to, anyway. And most importantly, I don't see how it would, in any way, glorify God. (…) I: Even if you put like a cross or something? IEE: Uh-huh. I know what you're saying. I mean, some Christians might choose to do that, and if they feel called and moved by God that that's what He wants them to do, that's fine, but I just wouldn't. Unless God wanted me to. I doubt He would want me to do something like that, but if He wanted me to, I would. I: (…) what if you were having some trouble or you felt like you were losing your faith, or whatever, and you were talking about it and somebody said, "Would you consider wearing a crucifix or you should get a little golden cross on your ankle or somewhere where you could easily see it." How would you react? IEE: Well, I would pray about it and if God told me that He wants me to do it, I would. I wouldn't just--they tell me that? OK. I would pray about it. "God, do you really want me to get the tattoo?" If He says yes, OK. Then I'll do it. I'd have a tattoo all over my body if that's what He wants me to do. (Josephs, Valsiner & Surgan, 1999, p. 276, added emphases) The interviewer brings a higher level semiotic organizer (God's will) into the dialogue. That move immediately challenges the interviewee's meaning complex. This challenge leads to circumvention—overcoming of the strong dislike when ordered by the deity (see also Valsiner, 1999), whose orders could get the person to swing to the opposite extreme—get tattoos all over her body. Here we can observe the establishment of circular, unchallengeable loops of semiotic organizers—similar to Figure 2.2. in chapter 2. This mutually integrated loop involves semiotically generated boundary regulators of dual kind (Figure 3.12.)

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Figure 3.12. A general scheme of blocking one’s possible actions until it becomes contextually warranted.

I WILL NOT DO X (A dominates non-A) but

I WILL DO X IF Y where Y = {B emerges from non-A} where A is set to dominate over non-A

BUT since B is set up so as to not to emerge from non-A

therefore Y DOES NOT HAPPEN

BUT IF Y WERE TO HAPPEN (i.e. A dominance over non-A is overcome into B) THEN I DO X

Here we see a critical self-canalization structure of one’s personal culture that simultaneously creates possibilities and means that make sure such possibilities cannot be actualized. The A<>non-A field is pre-structured from the beginning so that the dialogical opposite—the possible {non-A} that is ruled out of actuality—is functionally eliminated (even if recognized as in principle possible). The Dialogical Self here demonstrates its self-monologizing nature—through the creation of dual opposites in the sign fields and setting up the dominance of one part over the other it eliminates its own manifest dialogical nature 51. The contextual warranting of such change may be itself determined by the person oneself who evokes a signified authority that overcomes a previous semiotic regulator. A fitting example is that of a deeply religious Muslim woman in Sudan—Hiba (Nageeb, 2004, pp. 131-163) who persuaded her family at accept 51

This elimination is itself a version of a dialogical state—the monological versions of meanings where the growth of the non-A part of the field is disallowed are nevertheless special (extreme) cases of dialogical nature.

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her marriage to a foreigner (an Islamic man from Tanzania), as she describes her encounter with her mother’s uncle (the ultimate social power holder in the family): I told him that the Prophet advised Muslims to accept the one with a good level of religiosity, and he said all Muslims are equal. I also told him that I am not going to be insubordinate to Allah because you said it is not in the family tradition to marry a foreigner. If the family tradition does not want to be responsible for this marriage, no problem. I can do it alone; there is shara’iyya around the corner (Nageeb, 2004, p. 158, added emphases) This example parallels historical accounts of young Christian women in the Middle Ages who turned away from the regular expected life courses (marriage) to devote themselves to convent life (Weinstein & Bell, 1982). Likewise, we find similar acts of constructing a higher-level semiotic power source in the history of the bhakti devotional social role models in mediaeval Indian history (Ali, 2000). These acts of differentiation of subjective autonomy – which took the form of extensive devotion to another authority (i.e., loss of autonomy in relation to the latter) were socially disputable also at the peer level (e.g. Harlan, 1992, chapter 7 on Rajput women’s handling of the Mira Bai bhakti legend). The personally constructed semiotic hierarchies (Valsiner, 1999) are mapped into the publicly possible—acceptable, but not locally preferred— collective-cultural meaning systems, and negotiated through public acts. History of basic concepts: the opposition of ecstasy and enstasy. The A<>non-A perspective on meaning making is applicable in the historical side to basic concepts that are used widely in the social sciences. For instance, the usual separation of individualism from collectivism (and vice versa)- see Example 2.1. in chapter 2—can gain a different focus by considering individualism as a result of growth of the meaning from the field of non-collectivism (within the {collectivism <> non-collectivism field}) in human social history. Likewise, the central notion of economic and evolutionary discourses—that of competition— can be viewed as an outgrowth from the {cooperation<>non-cooperation} meaning fields. Taking the A<>non-A perspective gives a new structure to various efforts to consider the notion of dialectical synthesis in the social sciences—with the peculiarity of uneven differentiation of the two parts of the field structure (A seen as structured, non-A as potential for further growth of structure). Gananath Obeyesekere’s exposition (2002, pp. 162-173) of the unity of two opposite directions in human conduct—outward exuberant performance with loss of the self’s boundaries with the world (ecstasy, or trance) and inward equally extreme loss of self’s boundaries—contemplation and the arrival at meaningful “nothingness” (enstasy) may give us here a glimpse into potential historical usefulness of the A<non-A theoretical system. However, Obeyesekere brings to this scheme a third moment—that of spirit possession—the widespread

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belief of the body being vulnerable to “possession” by external immaterial 52 agents (“spirits”, demons, etc.). The belief in spirit possession—or its prevention-can be viewed as an external catalyzer of the actions undertaken in the A<>nonA fields. Here is where the ecstasy and enstasy may be two different culturalpsychological strategies to handle the basic threat to the socially interdependent autonomy of the self: Spirit possession … pertains to illness and its cure, whereas the monk’s quest is the overcoming of the ills of existence. The one is world involved; the other world rejecting. The monk’s rational alternative to spirit possession is meditation. The calm and serene expression of the meditator contrasts with the violence of the person possessed by spirits. The one involves silence; the other involves noise. It is very likely that spirit possession is the older form in South Asia. The contemplative trance of the monk exists in a schismogenic relationship with the possession trance of the spirit medium, the practice of the one form heightening the sense of contrast with the other… It must be remembered that meditation, in its fully developed form in Indian religions, meets the challenge of possession trance by producing its own form of trance, in which visions, states of contemplative bliss, or mystical union with the godhead is achieved. Unlike possession trances, which imply shaking and violent body movements, meditation attempts to achieve control and awareness, serenity and calm, all passion spent. (Obeyesekere, 2002, p. 168, added emphases) The growth out of the {passion<>non-passion} field is the new passion for non-passion of the meditative serenity and calmness of passionless being. The notion of disciplined passionless grows out from the non-passion part of the field (non-A) and establishes its own form (B). The new {B<>non-B} meaning field becomes hyper-passionately guarded against “relapses” to passion. The deeply passionate nature of people who insist upon “rational” moral norms or economic rationality in a world filled with ever-new forms of “genetic dramatisms” (see Cirillo & Kaplan, 1983) is a paradox of human existence only if we fail to understand its semiotic regulation structure. The act of meditation is thus an intra-psychological action domain aimed at the same outcome as the rituals that help the person to enter trance in the extra-psychological construction of the given psychological process of uniting one’s self with a non-self world—by acting or contemplation—to create a hyper-generalized semiotic field of affective kind (see chapter 7).

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It would be interesting to look at parallels between rituals of handling “spirit possession” (as powerful, yet immaterial external agents are involved) and strategies of resolving affect-laden frictions based on “possessiveness” of “the real other” in marital small group relations (see chapter 5).

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Summary: oppositions in the semiotic fields of the self The semiotic fields of Dialogical Self are set up to guide the affective bonding of human beings to their everyday life arrangements—marriage arrangements and acceptance of family life in its totality of work and relatedness. There is probably no other value-laden cultural notion that over-determines all human minds over the World as the notions of family and marriage. Persons enter into these social role relationships—which entail hard daily work and often recurrent needs for adaptation to very different social expectations than they are used to. Yet the value of these frameworks for social living is universally—albeit in different forms (as we see in the next chapter)—socially promoted and personally internalized. The power of such social frameworks and their overgeneralized meanings to guide human conduct and affective needs is a powerful testimony of the centrality of culture within human minds.

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Minimal Communities and Their Organization: Kinship groups, families, and marriage forms

The symbolic ambiguity of human meaning fields is corroborated in the landscape of their social relationships. Human beings are striving towards belonging to one or another social unit—group, community, nation, or even humankind (e.g., feeling to be the “citizens of the world”), and—consequently— they are in the process of moving away from the past social relationships. Thus the notion of “participation” itself is a semiotic marker of some process of ideal belonging and non-belonging. In other terms—the phenomena of “participation” in social units are personal ideations that are supported by concrete social interactions between persons. Thus, a multi-aged group of persons may tell all others that they are together in “family re-union”, but the notion of re-union is a sign that is made to symbolize the complex interaction event in ways similar to a pipe-thatis-not a pipe (see Chapter 3). Statements of identity 53 are signs that human beings construct-- and do not have-- one-to-one correspondence with reality. Quasi-stability of social identity environments A person is born into a social group setting, and is part of some version of such setting all over one’s life. Yet as we have seen above—the person is in constant movement within one’s field of social relationships, and is therefore necessarily a liminal member of the different social units one encounters in one’s lifetime. Some look permanent—such as the family group into which a person is born—but such permanence may be a case of temporary stability of a dynamic group system, rather than an inherent characteristic of that group. Depending upon the collective-cultural organization of the life course, even natal household group may become distant (e.g., daughters, or sons, moving out in conjunction with marriage, never to return into the same social role 54). The locality of marriage—neolocal 55—may set the formal blueprint for the transition of the person’s role in one’s natal family group over the life course. Surely the blood ties to the parents—particularly the mother—never vanish, the belonging to

53

This point would resolve the seeming paradox of the Bororo “identity”—known in anthropology through the fieldwork of von den Steinen (1894. P. 353 and 512) and Levy-Bruhl (1911, chapter 3). When the Bororo say “We are araras [red parrots]” it is interpretable as symbol—with support of indexical signs of arara feathers used in Bororo head-dresses. It is not an ontological revelation of the “truth of identity” in the sense of European-kind logical clasification, but in terms of “mystic abstraction”—see Levy-Bruhl, 1911, p, 117, also chapter 8 here). 54 E.g. when divorced daughters return to their natal households, their social roles are not the same as when they were there before marriage (the case of X in Nageeb, 2004) 55 neolocal— an anthropological term to depict the practice of establishing a new household by the persons who get married; virilocal—residence of married couple with of kin of the husband (e.g., viripatrilocal, vs. viri-avunulolocal—with husband’s maternal uncle); patrilocal or matrilocal—practice of residing either in the father’s or mother’s household (home compound) after marriage.

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social group established through blood ties is a symbolic social unit 56, rather than actual one. Furthermore, there exist major gender differences in the stability of the natal family group for the developing son or daughter—with the matrilocal residence pattern (paired with matrilineal inheritance of symbolic and real property) guaranteeing continuity of stable social group for daughters, but not for sons (see the Nayar case in Kerala, chapter 2 and in Arunima, 2003; Kurien, 1994, 2002). In contrast, sons who bring their new wives into their natal (patrilineal and patrilocal) residence gain their natal group’s relative stability, while completely changing that of their wives. Thus, even natal family groups—linked by unalterable blood ties in the symbolic realm—are not guaranteed to have continuity over one’s lifetime. Even less so are other social units within which the developing person participates over one’s lifetime. The only continuous social unit in which the person “participates” is the person’s own personal culture—possibly conceived as dialogical self (see above, chapter 3). That is the social unit centered on the person, and extended outwards from the person’s “I-point” 57. It vanishes with the demise of the person, in accordance with Herbst’s co-genetic logic. All other— external to the person—social units are transitory for the person. That constantly changing social group situation guarantees sufficient conditions for the development of all human beings who are involved in the social relations with one another. The family: ideologically presented unity of a part of the kin group One of the most central myths about human social life organization is that of the centrality of nuclear family. Despite many claims in different societies about the crucial role of the family as the cornerstone of society, it has proven impossible to define what family means. As we will see below, this definitional difficulty is due to the ideological social values that are involved when social discourse about family takes place. The word itself. The word family in the sense of residential and biological unit is a historically recent invention for the European cultural history. Before the 18th Century, there was no term in European languages to refer to a mother-fatherchildren groupings as social unit. The Latin familia was a term linked with the physical location (house) in which the social group (which in Roman times included servants, and slaves) lived (Gies & Gies, 1987, p. 4).

56

As is exemplified by many family feuds, jealousies, fights for inheritances, etc. in family groups all over the World. 57 I-point is a theoretical abstraction-- the imaginary, infinitely central point of the beginning of subjectivity—intraceable in the infinity of the intra-personal psychological field (see Stern, 1935, also Bühler, 1990). Also consider Ernst Boesch’s point about culture being created by persons acting at the border of home (Heim) of dual nature—one’s own (einige) and the foreign (fremde)—Boesch, 2002b, p. 70-71.

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Thus the difficulties to define family in the social sciences are antedated by the wide uses of the notion long before social sciences emerged themselves. The immediate reality of the primary social group may make it deceptively simple to view family as the social group-- based on marriage relation-- who lives together in a given household. The role of the lineage of ancestors in defining a family -- by the primary social group itself-- creates a major difference between functional (i.e., view from the inside of a family) and demographic efforts to define the family. Surely the ancestors are not included in any population counts of the living, yet their psychological role in the family may be substantial. It is clear that the multifaceted nature of life organization of the primary social groups is a basic challenge for the social scientists. An example of a definition of the family may help here to see both the confusion and set of parameters used in the definition effort: I will define family as a social arrangement based on the marriage and the marriage contract, including recognition of the rights and duties of parenthood, common residence for husband, wife, and children, and reciprocal economic obligations between husband and wife. (Stephens, 1963, p. 8, added emphases) This definition is a good example of the challenges that social scientists face. It is clearly ethnocentric-- fitting the European-type societies. It fits the contemporary European and North-American contexts where there is explicit focus on rights and duties of persons who enter into a contract (marriage contract), and where the patterns of life organization prescribe neolocal residence for a newly constituted family. Such development of the notion of family is a historical result of economic processes that have taken place with urbanization and industrialization. As a result, the mutual relationship entails economic obligations in the horizontal (wife <--> husband) axis, but not on the “vertical” one (e.g., children <--> parents axis). In the latter, the economic obligation -- if mentioned-- may entail parents’ obligation to provide for children’s life needs, but not for children (before adulthood) to provide for parents’ economic needs. This specific structure of economic obligations is an outgrowth from a field of kinship-group based economic obligations that concentrate precisely on the role of children as these grow up (marrying of the children is an inter-group economic and political relationship). Historically, children are integrated into productive economic activities of the whole family and kinship group from early age onwards, and much of their duty is the care of siblings and the elderly. The ideologies behind the word. All talk about family is at the level of semiotic mediation—such talk re-presents some form of actual co-living around reproductive successes (or accidental reproduction) and economic collaboration within kinship groups. Talk about family becomes collective-cultural set of texts— a heterogeneous set— that is constantly being co-constructed. Thus,

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Children making sense of others in their social environment are constructing a familial text, one which is likely to be different from whatever they might be able to say about it. They are themselves assigned a pre-existing meaning in the familial texts that confront them so coercively with impenetrable closure, texts whose meanings are potently reinforced by actions and behaviors of others essential to their survival. The familial texts are hinted at by innumerable, barely comprehensible other texts in other semiotic media. They present children with their greatest semiotic challenge before they have even begun to crack the phonological code; before they have entered the verbal language. (Hodges & Kress, 1988, p. 206, added emphasis) Familial texts are collective-cultural ideologies that guide the carving out of the developing persons’ social interaction realities all through their life course. As such, these texts operate as promoter signs (see chapter 3 above), providing overwhelming affective value to concrete limits that the family entails. The limits – constraints—are both “ruling out” some ways of acting, and “ruling in” and promoting others. Whether it is a newborn or infant about whom the mother says something derogatory 58 or expresses her fascination, an adolescent discouraged from the “immorality” of sexual experiences before marriage, or expected to have children after getting married (and still not enjoy the sexual acts that leads to procreation)—the collective-cultural constraint systems operate in the same direction. Through the communication networks of the persons these pre-set suggestions are put into their place through the use of all kinds of signs as their mediators—silences, affective field conditions (see chapter 8), iconic depictions of “improper” and “proper” action models, etc—in gossips, explicit confrontations, or journalistic media texts. Thus, if a new grandmother’s continuation of sexual relationships within her solid marriage is charted out as “improper at her age” by gossiping neighbors we can observe an act of collective-cultural canalization of human personal life course (see also example 4.4. --on younger co-wife’s agebased critique of her older rival)— in all cases the family texts operate as cultural constraint systems upon the life course construction. Family is an abstraction of ideological value.

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Cf. A practice widespread over the World to ward of the acts of malevolent spirits who might “steal the child”. So, in a Turkish after-birth ceremony “very little notice is taken of the baby, and even then only disparaging remarks are made about it, both by relatives and guests… If looked at it is immediately spat upon, and then left to slumber in innocent unconsciousness of the undeserved abuse it has received.” (McCartney, 1981, p. 12). In South India, mothers are reported sometimes to make the faces of their children grotesque by painting black marks on the cheeks, forehead or chin, so as to enable them to avoid the possible admiring gaze of an evil-eyed individual (Woodburne, 1981, p. 63)

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Efforts to specify types of family When human beings fail to define a concept, they switch to classifying the issues subsumed under it. Despite the difficulties of defining family as a key concept, social sciences have had no difficulty in inventing different ways to classify families (e.g., Nimkoff & Middleton, 1960). In parallel, multiple criteria can be used. No single criterion is sufficient. First, if the sharing of household were to be the single criterion for a family, then any students sharing the same house or apartment would be considered a family. Or if only recurrent sexual relationships were sufficient, many of the young people’s intimacies would become labeled family, despite their lack of common home territory. If marriage were to be the only criterion, then any marriage partner-- including cases of theogamy-- would result in a family. Thus, a devout mediaeval girl in an European convent may consider herself “married to Jesus”, yet this does not mean that her family now would include her and Jesus (who may be well unaware of his marital status!). No single criterion is thus used exclusively, and combining of different criteria gives us possibilities to create typologies of families. If family is such fuzzy concept then—why bother about defining it at all? Efforts to do so are by their nature linked to administrative concerns of developing government institutions of nation states 59, and their interest in establishing their control over the minimal communities. All forms of hierarchical social order depend upon its relationship with their subordinate social institutions, of which the family makes the most functional – and hence the most powerful— alternative social power that the higher-order social institutions need to get to cooperate with them. Along similar lines, talk about family (e.g., “family values” etc) – which is a collective vehicle for regulating social control—can well operate with that term poorly defined as long as it is pre-presenting the social agendas of the interested institutions. Combining shared household (and its locality) with marriage as a social bond. This combination of criteria provides the typology of families by way of their establishment of household. The fact of marriage is the basis for the use of the hosehold sharing criterion. In the neolocal family, the married group (couple, or polygamic group, see below) establishes a new household which becomes shared for all activities-- economic, reproductive, etc. In the patrilocal family, the married unit joins the household of the husband (or husbands-- as in the case of polyandry). In the matrilocal family, the married establish their household with the wife’s natal home. Obviously, the latter two forms overlap with the criterion of sharing household with kinship group members. The matri- and patrilocal families are also extended families-- families where members of different generations (parents of the married adults) share the household. The parents of the husband 59

see Arunima, 2002, on the role of British colonial administration in India attempting to eradicate Nayar matriliny partly for the sake of ease in tax collection. The success in that destruction was built on the gradual move of collective-cultural highlighting of the joint household (theravad) in the social worlds—by displacement of their symbolic roles to temples, separately from their economic roles (Moore, 1985, p. 538)

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(or wife) share the home territories of the patrilocal and matrilocal cases (respectively), and maintain a power role within these home territories. The young married persons enter their home territory and establish their lives there, guided by the parental generation. The extended family types are often linked with the kinds of subsistence activity patterns—prevailing in environments where continuous agricultural actions (agriculture, animal husbandry, hunting, fishing) are the core of subsistence, and less likely in the case of hunting and gathering without accumulation of property (Nimkof & Middleton, 1960, p. 217). This evidence is of meta-societal kind (based on the World’s Ethnographic Sample of Human Relations Area Files), and is not sensitive to social dynamics of urbanization and industrialization processes that have been taking place all over the World. For our purposes, however, we are not interested in any static typology of families, but want to look at the dynamic processes through which families as small groups based on kinship and marriage links adjust to new environmental demands. It is the social and psychological resiliency of ways of human living in groups of continuous kind that matters from a culturalpsychological perspective.

Family as an organized small group Efforts to define family -- of classify family types-- may have overlooked the functional side of any family-- that it is some version of functioning social group of different-aged members who are related to one another through some kinship and joint living relationship. In this respect, family operates as any prestructured social groups. Why contemporary social psychology does not matter. Contemporary social psychology has accumulated empirical evidence about the functioning of social groups which are mostly occasional, lack pre-structuring, and are not meant to work together for substantial goal attainment beyond the encounters with the researchers. Social psychology of small groups in has been completely ahistorical in its focus, and has rarely taken a developmental (microgenetic) perspective. The usual object of investigation in experimental social psychology of small groups is a haphazardly assembled conglomerate of few U.S. college students on no substantial joint history of relationships and superficial external motivation of participation (course credit). Instead, social groups that operate in real social worlds have their group history of the past and joint aspirations for the future (see Petrovski, 1984, for a critical analysis of social psychology in the realm of small group research). In contrast, most real-life small groups operate with specifiable goal orientations, and can be characterized by their history of internal social relationships. Family certainly belongs to the realm of such groups. Social psychology of small groups that is based largely on a-historical selection of college undergraduates into small group experiments on life-wise irrelevant tasks is not an adequate model for family.

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Thus, most of evidence in social psychology cannot be directly used for making sense of the family. The social-psychological processes that are involved in the coordination of a family are constrained by the history of the relations between persons within the family. All participants in the family system develop interdependently over their particular life courses: children become adolescents and adults while their parents move through their adult age into old age, and their grandparents from their old age to the realm of ancestors. The latter -- cultural construction by the presently living family members of the history of the family-can constrain present actions. For example, members of European royal families are restricted by their family histories in the choice of marriage partners. Similar restrictions do not apply in the families of middle or lower classes in the same societies. The latter families do not build their current identity upon specific exclusionary family history. Likewise, the restrictions upon family relations under conditions of slavery indicate the role of constraints-based organization of family groups (Kopytoff, 1982). Family as a “minimal community”. The central psychological issue in the functioning of a family is the coordination of goals-oriented actions of the family members. Given that this group is one with joint history, and be related with other similar groups, we can consider it to be the minimal community. This involves strategic action towards one’s goals, taking into account the goal-orientations of other family members. Thus, a 15-year-old girl may set herself the goal of becoming a school dropout in order to enter a glorious film career in Hollywood, only to find out that her parents have different goals for their accomplishment of bringing out their daughter. The latter might entail academic excellence at school, then at college, and then remarkable career in less fancy occupations like these of lawyer or medical doctor. The range of expected goal-orientations is pre-arranged by the social roles the family members assume. The very fact that parents construct their notion of responsibility (as parents) for giving their children “the best” narrows down their range of goal orientations-- both in respect of their children, and their own development as adults. Children-- merely because they are children of the parents-- are not expected to create similar goal-orientations relative to the parents. Grandparents-- again simply because of their kinship role-- can create goal-orientations in relation with their grandchildren that differ from these of the parents. Different family structures can provide varied social role relationship hierarchies as the starting point for the social group. The role of the father can be prominent in European Christianity-dominated families, while that of the mother-in-law can play a similar role in the context of joint/extended family. Basic social dynamics in families: coalition formation. Our focus on family as minimal community also includes processes of coalition formation between different members of that community. In order to reach some goals, children may make coalition with other siblings, or with grandparents, to re-organize the parents’ existing goal orientations. Parents may try to create coalitions with grandparents in order to have a “united front” facing the children. The mother and

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father may have different goal orientations for the child-- and the child can make coalition with one of the parents, attempting to neutralize or overcome the goalorientations of the other. Much of the intra-familial communication is strategic and future oriented. As an example, let us consider a description of a complex family context—a joint family. Psychological functioning of the joint family context. The joint family involves the sharing of the same household territory by the parallel kin and their offspring (brothers or sisters, their spouses, and their children). Even if the actual lodgings of the joint family groups—especially in urbanized and economically upwardly mobile cases—involves separate nuclear households, the unity of the family group is maintained through communication. This is yet another indicator how it is impossible to delineate a family by its residence pattern—even if the immediate nuclear families live in diferent dwellings, the location of these dwellings within the same community and the regular mutual visitation (or “staying with”) patterns unify these multiple nuclear units into one joint and extended family. Our contemporary communication technologies allow the functioning of such family networks over large geographical distances, thus increasing the options of individual family members to belong to such joint groups. In sum-- the issue is of the functional—rather than structural—nature of the joint family. The joint family can be viewed as …an ideology and code of conduct whereby the relations of husband and wife and parent and child are expected to be subordinated to a larger collective identity (Uberoi, 2003, p. 1077) Two lines of dominance-- male and female-- are mutually intertwined, both honoring the age of the participants. It also can involve extended nature of the family-- where the parents of the married adults are not only present in the household, but are in the symbolically established leaders of the household (given the relevance of age). Under the traditional pattern of authority, the eldest male member of the joint family was considered the head of the whole family. He had authority over others-- yet not unlimited authority. He could not use the power arbitrarily, without collectively coordinating his decisions. In the second generation the eldest son used to hold a superior position among the other male members of the family, yet had a position subordinate to the head and the elder women. Thus, decisions within a joint family relied on making of coalitions between less and more powerful members of the family. The age-respecting dominance system allowed the older members of the family-- particularly the older women-- remarkable power. Historical roots of the concept. As many other concepts in cultural/social anthropology (e.g., matriline) or psychology (e.g., individualism/collectivism), the notion of the joint family includes an outsider’s perspective on the world of the

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insiders (Derrett, 1962). In addition, a social intervention focus can be traced if we look at the history of the concept itself: Historically, the concept of the ‘Indian joint family’ was the product of the engagement of British colonial administration with indigenous systems of kinship and marriage, notably with respect to the determination of rights in property and responsibility of revenue payment. Seeking to understand the principles of Indian legal systems, the British turned to the Hindu sacred texts, the Dharmashastras…, or, parallely, for the Muslim population of the subcontinent, to the Shariat and the rulings of Muslim legalists… This approach, retrospectively termed ‘Indological’ approach to Indian family studies… , confirmed the ‘joint family’ as typical and traditional form of family organization in India, located it within the discursive domain of the law, and defined its special features. (Uberoi, 2003, pp. 1061-1062) As any administratively introduced concept, that of ‘joint family’ homogenizes the variability within the large population—in its present state, and over history. In some sense the British sanskritization of ‘the Indian family’ is based on the same logic as the example of Maori “battlefield cannibalism” was (Chapter 3), albeit with less dramatization. Yet as an abstract formal model of small group organization of close kin relatives the joint family can be a blueprint to examine different forms of interpersonal role relations. Social roles within the joint family. The Hindu “joint family” can be described by its unseparatedness (in contrast to “jointness”) of the different persons who act within the particular family roles. There is the ideology of …the fundamental sense of mutual belonging, even of the ideal mutual belonging, which exists respectively in the male lineal descendants of a common male ancestor and their wives and unmarried daughters. Mutual belonging, mutual responsibility, reinforced and expressed in terms of ancestral lands and privileges and ancestral religious rites and shrines, and the common unquestioning ideal obedience to the senior, most prestige-worthy representative of the lineage, still to this day make… the rule rather than the exception. (Derrett, 1962, p. 47) The joint family framework can be built on the basis of any of the 4 basic marriage forms, as well as equally for matrilineal or patrilineal descent systems. The public and private domains of the joint family differed in their genderdistribution of control spheres. Within the family, the mother-in-law was in full control over the life of the whole family, with the daughter-in-law doing most of the practical work (Raina, 1988). The mother-in-law would take care of the daughter-in-law’s basic needs, control and regulate her conduct, and protect her

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against any offenses from behalf of other family members. She would decide how frequently the daughter-in-law could visit her natal household. The daughterin-law had to be fully obedient and demonstrate that in everyday action: massage the mother-in-law’s body, show respect by ritualistic imitation of drinking the water in which the mother-in-law’s feet had been washed, and remain subservient generally. The latter particularly is the case of female members of the joint/extended family, where the crucial role in the running of the family is in the hands of the mother-in-law. The particular system of social relations within Hindu joint family created a collective-cultural meaning system of attributing high value to becoming mother-in-law (see Menon & Shweder, 1998). Becoming mother-in-law meant takeover of the running of the whole joint family system in the sphere of home life. The household is a secluded (from public) “small enterprise”—usually under the managerial order of the available network of women. The prospect of “becoming promoted”—by childbearing and getting young adult children married- created a “career path” in the social context of the joint family. This seems very similar to the social ascendancy patterns in corporations—the junior partners were given a scenario of becoming older and important members of the minimal community with age, and with toleration of their junior roles. Becoming mother-in-law obviously required passing through the phase of being daughter-in-law in the joint family of one’s husband. The heavy workload involved in that phase may work towards internalization of the role and its expectations for the future. Many women in the daughter-in-law phase of their lives internalize the value and positive expectations for their “promotion” to the upcoming role of mother-in-law which is the state of “mature adulthood” in Hindu life course. Agewise, this period could extend from around 30 years to about 50 (Menon & Shweder, 1998); and it follows the active role of daughters-in-law in bearing children --with preference for male children in case of patriliny; or female children in matrilineal cases, In the patrilineal form, the eldest son eventually brings in a daughter-in-law by marriage. For the mother-in-law, such life-course transition amounts to guaranteeing sufficient life conditions at the time of being old (when her daughter-in-law, in her turn, has become mother-in-law to her son’s new wife). In the matrilineal versions of minimal community organization— especially if combined with matrilocality of the daughter’s marriage—the centrality of social power of the daughter is guaranteed all over her continued residence in her mother’s home compound, and the role of the son-in-law remains marginal in the household. The basic function of family and kinship network: real social security. The joint family system is an organizational framework of a minimal community that guaranteed lifetime “social security” within the system of kinship network. Like in any other society in the history of humankind, it was (and is) the kinship network that acts as a “buffer” against possible economic and natural disasters. Modern governments’ social institutions that have attempted to take that function over have usually succeeded administratively at times of economic successes-- but failed at times of economic calamities. The reason is very simple-- political

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parties, governments, presidents, and political dictators come and go, but the specific position of a person in a kinship network remains. In this respect, the workload of daughter-in-law in the joint family is meaningfully overdetermined— by social expectations of different family members, and by the myth stories about how one lives as a daughter-in-law. There are also symbolic rituals, and social support for psychological needs if the relationships in the minimal community are built up in a positive way. In addition, it is work that just needs to be done, and the role of the daughter-in-law in getting it done is unquestioningly accepted by all members of the traditional joint family. Example 4.1. Daily life in a joint family. A young married Oriya woman (a daughter-in-law) described her daily routine: As soon as I get up, I sweep out the house and then I go to the bathroom. I clean my teeth, have a bath, and then I start the breakfast. Once the breakfast is done, people come in one by one to eat. I serve each of them breakfast. Once that is done, we have our breakfast together. Bou [husband’s mother] and I eat together. And then I start preparing lunch-- what we’ll be eating at two in the afternoon. Once that is done, again people come in one by one to eat. By three, we would also have been eaten and I would have washed up after lunch. Then, I come and sleep in the afternoon. I sleep for an hour. I get up at four. I again sweep out the house and go down to start making something to eat with tea. I knead the atta [wheat flour] and make parathas or rotis [different kinds of bread]. Again, people come one by one to eat. I serve them and then it would be sundown by now and I offer sandhya [evening worship] before I start cooking the night meal. I am usually cooking till nine in the night. Then I go and watch the serial on TV. After that, at about 9:30, everyone will come to eat and I serve them. And then we eat. After finishing eating, we go to bed. The dishes are left as they are till morning. I just keep them till the morning when I wash them. In the morning, the first thing I do is take out and wash the ointha [polluted by leftovers] dishes, then I leave them out in the sun to dry, while I sweep out the kitchen, wash it out, and then take the vessels back in again. (Menon & Shweder, 1998, p. 154) This self-description of the daughter-in-law’s daily activities is revealing as to how practical (cooking and cleaning) and symbolic (handling of “impure” substances) are coordinated. Furthermore, it indicates a special (but in dominance unequal) relationship with the mother-in-law. Both the actual household work and symbolic systems of actions (puja) support the cultural organization of the existing social roles within the joint family. One of the symbolic acts that has left outsiders baffled is the Hindu daily traditional ritual symbolism for the daughter-in-law to drink the water in which the mother-in-law’s feet have been washed. The daughter-in-law in the above

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example mentioned puja in a minimal way. When she was asked explicitly, she indicated that most of the symbolic rituals are performed by her mother-in-law, except for the feet-washing ceremony: All I do is wash the feet of our burhi ma [husband’s father’s mother] and drink the water after my bath and before I go to make breakfast. I used to do it for bou and nona [husband’s mother and father] in the beginning but they stopped me from doing it. They said it was enough to do it for burhi ma and get her blessings. (Menon & Shweder, 1998, pp. 154-155,) This explanation points to the symbolic role of the feet washing and water drinking ceremony in the family context. The importance of the act itself is twofold-- the daughter-in-law demonstrates her subservience in action, and gets the blessing of the older woman. Not surprisingly, it is the eldest woman in the family towards whom the ritual here was directed. This symbolic practice supports the social representation of monotonically increasing symbolic relevance with age (see chapter 6). The coordination of the symbolic age-value hierarchy with the mutual sharing of everyday household tasks can create a psychological atmosphere of mutual support and care. However, it can—under conditions of rivalries—to intense escalations of intra-group conflict. Both extremes—positive and negative atmosphere—can emerge from the same basic structure of the small group dynamics. Example 4.2. Tension in a joint family. Like in any kind of social unit, there are multiple ways of organizing the lives of individuals in them—each of which can lead to positive, neutral, ambivalent, or negative form of personal-cultural meaning constructions. In an example reported by Thapan (1997, pop. 186-188), a 45-year old upper caste Bengali woman, married for 15 years to a Scheduled Caste husband and living almost all her married life with in-laws, reports about her household context: In-laws always tried to play husband against me. Just to make me suffer, in-laws used to encourage him to drink, stay out late, etc. I was forced to cook for thirteen or fourteen people every evening, with separate menus for everyone. Whether I had food or not, no one was bothered. I stopped eating egg and fish so that my husband could eat more. But no one was bothered that I was not eating. That was mental torture. In-laws used to complain about me to husband and he used to believe them and start shouting or hitting me. My mother-in-law used to be very happy when he was shouting at me. And later on, I started complaining but he didn’t believe me as I had earlier not complained. I asked in-laws to tell one incident in which I actually misbehaved but this could never be stated.. My sister-in-law (husband’s older brother’s wife) abused me and said, “You have nowhere to go. We’ll kick you out”, and no one

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said anything. My mother-in-law was happy that she said it. This hurt me a lot. (Thapan, 1997, p. 187) The multi-aged female power structure in the family group here sets the stage for interpersonal friction. The son/husband plays the expected role in it. In the particular case, the wife managed to persuade the husband to move out of the joint family setting to that of a neolocal family. Yet in this situation, the family atmosphere continued along the lines set in the previous situation. Her husband now is suspicious of her relations with his colleagues and his sister’s husband. She finds that …very insulting. All the time he is checking on my movements. When we were living with in-laws, then his mother used to give him all the information. When he gets angry he hits out… .. I used to be fond of dressing and my friends used to love that. Now I don’t feel like doing anything or going in front of friends. I feel it does not suit me anymore. My husband is suspicious if I dress up too much or if I am underdressed. I want to keep an apparent balance but I don’t want to dress up now, for example, bindi I’ve stopped wearing as he always suspects if my bindi has got smudged or fell of. (ibid.) Social contexts that promote jealousies can lead to internalized suspiciousness (see chapter 8). The roots for such internalization are in the social micro-environments, such as the affective climate within the family. Examples 4.1. and 4.2. depict two different trajectories through which a historically formed social family group can operate. Given the historical transformations within the Indian society over the 20th Century, both the ways of organizing joint family patterns and deciding upon marriage choices have changed. The joint family system – in India and elsewhere--is itself an adaptation to the history of mostly rural ways of living, where multiple generations maintain joint agricultural production capacities. Contemporary industrialization and migration of young people to cities introduces substantial changes into the social organization of family. Nuclearization of the family is a result. It brings with it change in traditional social role relations in the family (Raina, 1988). The core of any kind of family is a form of marriage—and the basic question of the entrance into marriage of any form. How—and by whom—the marriages become arranged is the crucial point in understanding the life-course social dynamic of kinship groups.

Marriages as arranged frameworks Marriage can be considered

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... a socially approved relationship between one or more persons and one or more women, involving sexual union as well as rights and duties which vary from society to society; any children born within the relationship are recognized as legitimate offspring of the spouses (Raha, 1996, p. 2) All marriages are arranged marriages. This claim may look ridiculous, “outmoded”, or even “reactionary”—yet one is only to be reminded of the fact that the so-called “modern” (love-based and neolocal) marriages involve their arrangement by the marrying persons themselves. Thus the historical transition in how marriages are “made” is not that of move from “arranged” to “love” marriages, but from marriages arranged by others (external to the marrying persons) to those of being arranged by the actors themselves. When viewed from the standpoint of human cultural history, marrying is a part of intergenerational continuity of the family system, and not an act of personally constructed dyadic love relations. Personal pleasure of intimacy that may be emphasized in the marital relations established on the basis of love is definitely reduced in its role in the semiotic hierarchy in marriage. In this respect, the traditions of Christianity and Hinduism coincide: The classical or normative Hindu understanding of conjugality enumerates the goals of marriage as: dharma ([dharm], duty), praja (progeny) and rati (pleasure)—in that order of importance. Obviously, progeny are the outcome of sexual union, but carnality is not meant to be an independent end in itself (except, possibly, in the Tantric tradition); nor is sexual passion considered a proper and lasting basis for marriage 60. On the contrary, it is felt that the conjugal relation should be governed by the notion of duty; the duty of a husband to provide adequately for his wife according to his means, and to impregnate her in her proper ‘season’; and of a woman to make her body available for the purpose, and to serve her husband as her ‘god’ with loyalty and unquestioning devotion. (Uberoi, 1997, p. 153) Marriage was historically a social duty of persons towards the family and the community, rather than being primarily of personal interest (see Kapadia, 1958). That social duty to community becomes replaced by a social duty to the given marital relation (and the outgrowth of it—parental duty towards children emerging from such relation). Furthermore, it becomes internalized—the central feature of contemporary marriage is the construction of the social duty to oneself within the dialogical self framework—and the inter-personal coordination 61 of such personal-cultural duties between the marriage partners. 60

compare with the focus in Catholicism to rule out the focus on sexual pleasure within marriage, replacing it with conjugal duties. 61 phenomena of the failure of such coordination are abundantly available at the times of divorce arrangements.

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The social duty to oneself can take many forms—exaggeration of the duty to watch over children (and adolescents—as in European social conditions where children are turned into vehicles for consumption), or to integrating all family into a joint framework. In case of the Asante in Ghana, An Asante child needs reliable care from a competent person, not a mother’s care as such. Although a mother accepts the responsibility to provide for physical care of her child, her financial responsibility takes emotional precedence. As one mother explained, “Everyone likes children, so they would not let them stay hungry or hurt themselves, but no one would work for them the way I do.” In contrast to middle-class families in the United States, Asante do not seem to consider full-time interaction with the mother or another intelligent, devoted adult essential to normal intellectual and psychological growth. When I brought up the idea of staying home to give children continuous attention, they seemed to find it ridiculous for an adult who was not herself retarded. (Clark, 1994, p. 360) Economic changes bring along new tactics of marriage arrangements. Educated parents have started to delay marrying off their daughters as soon as possible (after puberty), but sending them to gain higher education. Under education, and mass communication bringing down barriers between societies, new generations of young people in India are reconstructing the previously normative family and marriage arrangements in new ways. Yet the historical gender-norm tendencies may leave behind shadows of implicit social representations that evoke feelings of “proper” gender and marital roles..

Marriage as a symbolic act. At the level of personal cultures, marriage can take many forms, which transcend the realm of human social relations. Such forms need some collective-cultural support, yet depend upon the personal-cultural construction of person him or herself. A person may develop a completely secret relationship—real or imaginary—towards another person (who might not even know of it!) and feels “married with” that person in the depth of one’s subjectivity. The feeling here is a hyper-generalized symbolic meaning that is relevant for the person’s autodialogue—rather than for actual living together 62 with the imaginary “marital partner(s)”.

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E.g. a young woman who considers herself married to a celebrity, e.g. John Lennon—would utulize the function of such relationship for her own subjective (secret) world. The possibility of actually living with thus designated “husband” (and doing mundane jobs, washing John Lennon’s socks and putting up with his snoring at night in the conjugal bed) would be horrifying and unacceptable (cf. also the function of rap music—Abbey & Davis, 2003).

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The symbolic nature of marriage becomes most dramatically evident in the case of theogamy-- marriage of a person to a deity. This entails collectivecultural acceptance (and promotion) of the adequacy of such marriage, and personal-cultural internalization of the marriage bond. At times this kind of symbolic marriage becomes established through real-world human substitutes (e.g., a woman marries a man she considers her deity-- symbolically she marries the deity, while in practice-- a man). Theogamy can take other forms, especially in religious communities (see moments of theogamy in the Oneida Community, described below). For example, the Gopastri religious community (in South Canara, India) included about 120 families grouped together in one quarter of the town (Prince Peter, 1963, p. 90). The women in this community considered themselves married to the god Krishna as polygynous spouses. Men were viewed as incarnations of Krishna-- and treated as husbands. Children born from these unions remain with the mother, and are considered offspring of Krishna. They (and their mothers) are maintained with livelihood produced by the temporary husbands. The community follows matrilineal descent (girls carry on the mothers’ position). Examples of such cases of theogamy are historically to be found in the social group of Hindu temple dancers (the devadasi-- see Valsiner, 1996, 1998). Theogamy is a good example of harmonization of the everyday reality with an appealing and unfalsifiable meaning system. By a marriage to a deity the person gains independence through dependence (Valsiner, 1999) that is not vulnerable to others’ intervention.

Social organization of marriage The existing social order provides the frame (roles, ritual of entrance, rituals of progression), persons internalize their own versions of such rituals, make the roles their own. Wedding festivities are common in all societies— whereas divorce celebrations are not. As such, these rituals operate to demand from all participants (bride, groom, relatives of both sides) the performance of a sequence of symbolic actions on a regular basis. Such actions are meant to guide the internalization of the value of the newly established roles (of husband and wife) and of the whole set of social role expectations that come with it. Economic background of marriage. In the history of human societies, establishment of marital relations has usually been related with some form of economic exchanges between the bride and groom sides of the newly established relation. The question of material wealth that the family clans would exchange when their children marry has been the central issue around marriage as a social form In the history of Africa, the phenomenon of “brideprice” has been a recurrent topic for discourse-- first among missionaries and colonial administrators, later among anthropologists and social scientists. The phenomenon of “brideprice” entails provision by the side of the groom specified

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economic value to the background family of the bride, as a condition for becoming married to the bride. The interpretive ambiguity of this practice (on behalf of European-- especially English) colonizers is obvious, as the language use here implies the activity of purchasing a wife (and paying for her). This interpretation was not that of African indigenous kind, where the institution of brideprice -- especially on behalf of the bride-- was seen as a kind of “marriage insurance” protecting the married woman against possible ill-treatment by the new marital context. For grooms, the brideprice was a way to symbolically mark the rights to access the genitorial rights for the children the wife would bear. The activities around paying the brideprice were parts of the lengthy getting-married rituals. The nature of the kind of brideprice that has been used in Africa has changed together with the history of the socio-economic context. Thus, in Gukuyuland (in Kenya) over the 20th Century, the brideprice has constantly become transformed to increase monetary liquidity. Fathers of educated girls would often include the schooling costs into the expected brideprice (Ferraro, 1976, p. 107), thus creating economic stress for the traditional system which has been crumbling under increasing migratory urbanization. If in the past, the Gikuyu father could distribute the brideprice paid in cattle between his own and other relatives’ households. This increased the agricultural productivity of the whole kinship system. Under the new tradition of payments in cash the liquidity of the monetary instrument leads to its investment outside of the kin network system. As a result, the brideprice can become dysfunctional in terms of consolidating social ties. The economic differentiation of costs covered by the sides of the bride and the groom are not absent in any society where marriages take place. The two sides of family clans take care of different aspects of contemporary wedding rituals. Marriage forms are the specific social organization framework that sets up the structure of the family. The importance of marriage forms for interested social institutions Psychological construction of the ambivalence of sexuality among young persons entering marriages have been utilized by social institutions to bond the persons with them. The symbolic meaning of blocking of pleasure—and displacing it to self-glorifying desire to refuse pleasure—is a major promoter of the social cohesion of many ideologically organized institutions (Behar, 1987). The traditions of Christianity have made female sexuality their major playground, where …the very mark and emblem of civilization is female chastity, and conversely, uncontrolled ‘free’ female sexuality is the root of evil, sin, and disease. (Arnfred, 2004, p. 67) The main sources of control over the society’s mores are the women who internalize the messages guiding them towards chastity and turn these

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messages into central moral credos within their personal cultures. The utmost extent of social control over human beings takes place through the personally reconstructed and fortified self-control by persons—women and men, old and young. The power of internalization/externalization mechanisms is well known for social institutions over human history, thus making the personal-cultural domain into the main target of all social control efforts. Such control is no longer “external” to the person—the person believes in one’s own “wanting to be” what the external suggestion source indicates—and through that co-construction— fortifies the power of the “external” source. The scheme is the same—only agents are reversed—as we say before (chapter 1 – “I create YOU”, see also chapter 8):

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Social Institution X to Person Y: “You are Z”

Person Y to oneself (intra-psychologically): “ I am Z”

Person Y to oneself (intra-psychologically): “ I am Z and I want to be Z!!!”

Person Y to the Social Institution (externalization): “ I want to be Z!!”

In the early days of Christianity, the social fight about chastity (avoidance of marriage, or re-marriage, or entering into “virgin marriages”) was a topic for the new religious system to appropriate resources through the personal-cultural belief systems of rich women who had converted into the new religion (Drijvers, 1987). Propagation of ascetism by St. Jerome to Roman women included the turn away from healthy, body-fulfilling everyday activities, to the physical and mental self-torture (including sexual abstinence). Social institutions insert their symbolic control over persons at times of critical—and hence ambivalent—periods of life-course transitions. All cultural rituals concerning childbirth, adolescence, marriage, and death are locations for such institutional intervention. Religious systems have captured the selves of young persons precisely during, or around, the issue of entering marriages. In the mediaeval context, the Catholic Church propagated virginity inside marriages, leading to the devotion by the married couple to the Church. For example, the saint Cecilia, who ...was forced to marry the youth Valerian, whom she proceeded to convert on their wedding night by telling him that there was an angel who would kill him if he made any sexual advances toward her. When Valerian asks how he too may see the angel, she sends him to Pope Urban, who baptizes him. On his return home, not only does he see the angel, but he and Cecilia are crowned with two wreaths in token of their commitment to chastity. (Elliott, 1993, p. 64) Christianity managed to re-direct the meanings of sexuality as signs of health into that of a procreational tool, which is ambivalent ideologically. A central notion in the Catholic Church has been the acceptance of the image of Virgin

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Mary with a focus on the dual themes of virginity and motherhood-- both positively valued, yet in inevitable tension between themselves. It created two life-course “career tracks” for women in the history of Christianity-guided social settings—to marry a man (and use sexuality in its constrained form for reproduction), or to “marry the God” (by entering a convent, and displacing sexuality by religious devotion for all-potent yet sexually uninterested “ideal husband”). This ambivalence gets further complexity in the personal-cultural domains of women in contexts where Christian and non-Christian traditions meet—such as in Kerala. Christian women in Kerala have been described refraining from attending Christian church services at the times of their menstruation (“polluted state” in Hindu belief system— a notion not shared by Christianity—Dempsey, 2001, pp. 71-73 63). Women as targets for social institutions. As key agents of reproductive success, women are the primary object of social control in any social system that accepts a religious belief complex as its ideology. Thus, Indian social reform efforts were largely concentrated on two issues: the removal of untouchability and the improvement of the social condition of women. A major emphasis of this latter project involved community and state interventions to regulate female sexuality inside and outside of marriage in line with upper-caste, Sanskritic norms and/or Victorian standards of propriety (Uberoi, 2003, p. 1081) As a general principle— institutional control operates with imperatives that work at the set symbolic boundaries of the human body (see also Tarlo, 2000-- on the uses of body in social sterilization campaigns). Such imperatives can outlaw basic biological functions for the sake of other symbolic value (sexual abstinence in case of persons in roles of religious devotion). Yet they can also set an imperative to the opposite— e.g. exaggerated sexual orientation in the context of Tantric religious beliefs. Furthermore, such norms can sub-specify the imperatives—limiting a particular bodily function (sexual intercourse) to be socially acceptable—but not expected to be enjoyable 64-- for pro-creation after the establishment of the marital bond, and before entering into the role of a grandmother. By setting up a system of semiotic boundaries and conditions for their overcoming, the social institutions capture individual human beings into a web 63

The specific personal reasons for doing so are interestingly not linked with religion directly—a woman may claim she is not “mentally prepared” during her period for church participation, or would not attend because of “respect for the liturgy and the rest of the congregation” (p. 72) 64 Procreation is the promoter sign that is used to guide female sexuality in marriages all over the World. In Mali, for example, “…a woman’s recurrent concern about sexual pleasure is often misinterpreted as her possible deviance from reproduction. Such a presumption has led some people to believe that the practice of excision… seeks to displace women’s libido from self-gratification to the social obligation of childbearing” (Diallo, 2004, p. 182)

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where their action possibilities are meaningfully organized. This includes semiotic blocking—or allowing—of transitions between different marriage forms. All of the existing marriage forms are of equal potential to be workable—or even ideal—solutions for individuals’ organization of their life courses and reproductive goals. Yet, in terms of interests of social institutions, they are made ideologically un-equal in ways of inserting value-based boundary conditions for their mutual transformations. Once these ideologically set social norms for “proper” ways of marriage are supported by internalized personal-cultural self-regulatory systems (which at times fortify the social expectations by escalating the “morality value” of the suggestions), a well-set redundant (personal and social) control system of the marriage practices is set into place. Coverage of the issue of marriage in the social sciences is itself a result of being a part of that control system—social scientists “just happen” to provide evidence for the preferences of their own social backgrounds, by arriving at value-laden descriptions of one marriage form over another. Or, if that proves to be impossible by the empirical evidence—they show their continuous inquiry in the direction of their highlighted hypotheses (e.g. Prince Peter, 1963—inquiries into jealousies in case of polyandrous “collective husbands”; also the Western excessive concerns about female “genital mutilation”—not shared by many women for whom it is a symbolically relevant practice—Dellenborg, 2004). Here we look at the issues of marriage forms first at the abstract level—as forms— which can be “filled in” by a whole range of semiotic contents. Each of the forms can function well (as these have survived in the case of human history)—as well as may produce dysfunctional specific adaptations. Marriage as transformation of relationship forms The above discussion of the complexity in defining a family seems to return consistently to the centrality of one core organizer of the family-- the social role relations of partners within a marriage. Family is based on the establishment of marriage ties. However, marriage is a relationship that takes many forms, if it is viewed cross-culturally and historically. Marriage as organizer of role relationships. At the level of human societies, marriage is a framework to organize economic and social role relationships between persons who assume marital roles. Depending upon its set-up, the children are considered either legitimate (in case they are “born in marriage”), or illegitimate (born “out of wedlock” or marriage). Ownership of property is regulated through marriage. Inheritance rights differ from society to society as to the inclusion or exclusion of offspring born outside of the marriage. There are many stories of persons trying to get married to gain access and control to the spouse’s wealth. Furthermore, economic arrangements around marriage (“bride price”) are one of the widely described topics in cultural anthropology. In sum-marriage provides locally socially legitimate form for economic and procreational activities of human beings. Different societies provide us with many different marriage forms (see below), each of which is adequate for the given society at

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the given historical time as it has been made socially legitimate and personally acceptable in the collective-cultural construction process. Aside from the acceptance of a particular marriage form in the given society, persons within that society would need to internalize their own understandings of the form to make it personally feasible to live in the given arrangement.

Forms of marriage There exist four major forms of marriage: 1. monogamy (marriage of one man-- husband-- with one woman-- wife). 2. polygyny (marriage of one man-- husband-- with more than one woman-- co-wives) 3. polyandry (marriage of more than one men-- co-husbands-- with one woman) 4. polygynandry or group marriage (marriage of more than one man with more than one woman) Of the four types, polygyny and monogamy have been the two more widespread marriage forms over the history of humankind. By one estimate (Stephens, 1963, p. 33), 80 % of the societies all over the World (and throughout recorded history) have allowed polygyny and practiced it, in one way or another. In contrast, polyandry and polygynandry have been historically rare-- yet viable in the conditions where these are practiced (Levine, 1988).

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Figure 4.1. Marriage forms as transformable structures

MONOGAMY Take away all but 1 wife

Take away all but 1 husband

Add 1 or more wife

Add 1 or more husband

POLYANDRY

POLYGYNY

Take away all but 1 hus band

Take away all but 1 wife

Add 1 or more husband

Add 1 or more wife

POLYGYNANDRY Each of the forms of marriage has emerged under socio-economic circumstances where it could be a viable option for fulfilling the basic functions of the marriage bond-- creating the core of the family, and the socially legitimate reproductive unit. Many of the forms have co-existed in the same society at the same time-- if ideologically accepted. Thus, monogamy exists in many societies in parallel with the other (plural) marital forms-- if the latter are legally allowed, accepted by cultural meaning systems, and economically feasible. If all the latter conditions are not concurrently present, plural marriage forms will not be observable in a society. Likewise, if plural forms of marriage are legally outlawed they may become replaced by hybrids that are allowed and (at least) tolerated—

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such as serial monogamy (see below), when that has been made possible by legalization of divorce and acceptance of re-marriages of divorcees. Marriage forms are mutually transformable. Marriage is a process of being in a marital relation. In this, the process involves its history-- marriages are established, develop, and end. The existing four major forms of marriage-monogamy, polygyny, polyandry, and polygynandry-- can be viewed as potentially transferable into one another, if the social rule system of the given society allows such transformation. Very often it does not. The general pattern of transformations is depicted in Figure 4.1. (from Valsiner, 2000, chapter 6) The picture in Figure 4.1. depicts an unrestricted case of transformations between the four marriage forms. What is involved is simple addition or loss of spouses to transform one form into another. Thus, by getting from monogamy to polygyny, a wife is added to the monogamic arrangement. To revert to monogamy, a wife is eliminated. In a similar vein, monogamy becomes polyandry by adding a husband to a monogamic state, and reverts to monogamy by eliminating a husband. In a similar way, both polygyny and polyandry can become polygynandry, and revert back either into themselves, or into monogamy (in case of the breakdown of the polygynandrous group). Adaptational and social values of the mariage forms. Leaving aside our usual mono-cultural preferences, the four different forms can be viewed as social blueprints for creation of minimal communities. Dependent upon the criteria of evaluation, their rank ordering may proceed in vastly different directions. Thus, in terms of social group as an adaptational buffer that guarantees human functioning and social support for all of its members, it is polygynandry that is the most versatile marriage form, followed by polygyny, polyandry, and-finally-- monogamy. In polygynandry, the chances for reproductive success of all co-husbands -- through the reproductive success of the co-wives-- is of enhanced flexibility. For instance, issues of male infertility, if these occur, are masked by the group-based treatment of the child-bearing and child-rearing issues. Such masking is not possible in monogamy or -- especially-- polygyny (where male infertility is publicly visible through absence of children from cowives). In balance, the intra-group social psychological processes in case of polygynandry may reduce some of this versatility in reality, and make it a fragile marriage form that may break down into any of the other three forms. If the criterion of adaptability is used to evaluate the marriage forms, then monogamy is the least versatile way of organizing marital relations. It is vulnerable to mishaps-- ranging from no reproduction (male or female infertility) to threats due to the premature deaths of either the wife or the husband, if there are children. Not surprisingly, then, societies that emphasize (or selectively sanction) monogamy build other “safety frameworks” either informally (through the monogamic marriages being parts of wider kinship networks that would compensate in case of need), or formally (e.g., different social programs for families “in trouble”, set up by religious or government institutions).

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The general scheme of transformations in Figure 4.1. is meant to have a look at the dynamics of the marriage forms in abstract sense. Different societies-due to specific cultural constructions that have emerged over their histories-have set up different restrictions upon the acceptable and promoted transitions between the marriage forms. As was emphasized above, different marriage forms-- as bases for family arrangements-- are human culturally constructed means for coping with all the needs of human lives. As forms that have existed—and continue to exist—in human history they are all viable organizational frameworks. Their transition from one state into another usually occurs with economic changes, paired with impact from religious ideologies.

The polygynic marriage The polygynic form of marriage is historically the most prominent form Worldwide (see Clignet, 1970). Such prominence has been based on the asymmetry between genders in their biological functions: women can bear children, men cannot. Thus, in socio-economic contexts where it was deemed necessary to enhance the reproductive success of men (via women’s reproductive functions) in contexts of economic value of children (as economic assets), polygyny could easily be set into practice (see below-- the case of Mormon polygyny in Example 4.5.). The economic basis. Polygyny has been described to exist all over the World, at different times and socio-economic circumstances. Different religious frameworks (at our time we usually think of Islam as an example, yet it has existed under other religious frameworks as easily) have made use of it. Ancient civilizations of India and China permitted polygyny, signs of it can be seen reflected in the Old Testament. The pre-Christian tribes in Europe practiced it. It was the emergence of Christianity in European contexts from 3rd Century A.D. that started to limit it as a viable marriage form. Slowly it succeeded-- aided by economic changes and through monopolization of the collective-cultural meaning system. Economically, polygyny provides increasing number of participants in both the household management and economic subsistence. The co-wives are simultaneously child-bearers and co-workers whose labor guarantees the livelihood of the whole marriage group and of the wider kinship network. Social organization. Polygyny can exist in a number of basic forms, each of which sets up different conditions for the social roles of the participants, and-consequently-- for the psychological mechanisms of its maintenance. The first distinction of the forms of polygyny is the contrast between sororal and nonsororal types.

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In the case of sororal polygyny, the co-wives are sisters (obviously of different ages). As sisters, they bring to the marriage their pre-established pattern of sibling relations. These include (a) age-based dominance hierarchy (elder sisters -- who probably are first to marry the husband-- have had roles of taking care of their younger sisters as they grew up together). The female side of the sororally polygynous marriage is thus based on the long history of relations between siblings who are turned into co-wives. Such social role basis makes sororal polygyny better protected against possible psychological problems (e.g., jealousies) than a non-sororal polygynic arrangement might be. It is estimated that about 50% of known polygynous societies practice sororal polygyny (Van den Berghe, 1979, p. 67). The second basis for distinguishing forms of polygyny is the residence pattern. The co-wives may either reside in the same home compound, or in locations removed geographically from one another. The social role relations in the case of these two types are necessarily different. In the case of a shared home compound, the co-wives are in constant contact with one another in household management matters. They may cooperate in agricultural work, and in child-rearing issues. In this framework, the power of running the household is in the hands of co-wives as a small social group-- with its own structure. The latter is determined by their seniority status (earlier wives dominating over later married-- or younger-- ones). The role of the husband is limited here-- to the final arbiter of co-wives possible relationships problems, and to the publicly presentable figurehead of the household. In contrast, when co-wives live in separate households, there is no (or minimal) mutuality of relations between them. They are united through the husband (who visits each household at some times), yet each co-wife fully controls her own household in ways similar to single women (of our contemporary society 65). Here is a case of no need to coordinate the actions in one’s household with any co-wife, and even not with husband (whose temporary presence equals also lack of control or relevance in the running of the household). Possible friction between co-wives here are likely on the basis of real or imagined dangers to the property sharing of the husband, but not on the basis of immediate, face-to-face, relationship issues (as in case of co-wives inhabiting the same home compound). Example 4.3. The dynamics of economic uncertainties in a polygynic mariage. A Gusii (a tribe in Kenya) woman named Jane (described in LeVine & Pfeifer, 1982, pp. 71-72) became married to her husband Ongaro at her age 18. Ongaro already had one wife, who was sick and herself requested that Ongaro marry a second wife so that there would be help with the farm and with the household. At first, Jane’s marriage entailed separate households. Ongaro moved with her from Kenya to Tanzania (where he was involved in some trade). 65

note that in wherever polygyny was practiced historically, the status of “independent single woman” would not exist. All women would be in some form of marital relation.

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However, when they returned from the stay in Tanzania, Jane had to share the home compound with the ailing senior co-wife. Because of the co-wife’s ill health, Jane had to take on the major share of household work. When the co-wife died, the marriage entered again into a monogamic phase. Jane had to continue with the full load of the household and farm work. Aside from her economic role, Jane had to be reproductively successful. Ongaro did not pay the brideprice for her before she had demonstrated such success (by bearing him two sons). She then had seven years without childbirths, followed by years when she gave birth to seven more children. In the 1970s Ongaro married a new wife-- and the marriage again entered into a polygynic state. The new co-wife lived in town where she took care of a bar that Ongaro owned there. The marriage here was again that of separate households. The friction that emerged on Jane’s side was based on economic uncertainty-- she was afraid that Ongaro might give half of his land to the co-wife. Yet the life-course of Jane eliminated such danger-- in 1974 her eldest son married and became employed. As the mother of an adult son who was both married and employed, Jane felt secure about her economic dominance in Ongaro’s family. Despite of tensions with Ongaro, she considered her home life very satisfactory, since she was economically safe and enjoyed rewarding relations with her children. The co-wife in town failed to bring children to Ongaro, and he divorced her. He then married another woman-- for whom he purchased land near town-with whom he had two children. This purchase was an addition to the whole family resources, and did not constitute a threat to Jane. Again, the polygynic marriage here was of separate households type. In this example, we can see how a polygynic marriage can move between the shared household and separate households conditions. The role of the cowives in these two is different, their economic concerns as well. Sexual functions did not enter into the decisions about marriage, or frictions in the marriage-sexuality was important for procreation (e.g., barrenness of a co-wife was sufficient for divorce), but did not constitute a basis for friction. In contrast, potential danger to Jane’s own property (within the marriage) was viewed as a serious challenge. Aside from economic and child-bearing functions, polygyny is to guarantee the continuity of the once established household. Since the major threat for a household has historically been that of the death of the wives (in childbirth, or from any health complication), polygyny functions as a social buffer against dramatic upsets in the organization of the household. The Sebei (in Kenya) saying-- “A man but with one wife is a friend to the bachelor” (Goldschmidt, 1976, p. 231)—is indicative of such adaptational function of polygyny. If a man has no second co-wife who could immediately compensate for the functions of the household care should the first co-wife become incapacitated, he would have to import a female relative from some other part of his kinship network. This new “import” might not enter the caregiver’s role as simply as an existing co-wife.

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Spouses’ ages in polygynic marriages. Polygynic marriages are not just of multiple wives—but also of multiple ages. As a rule, polygynic marriage begins as a monogamic one, and after some time may become extended to polygyny. Hence, structurally, the cases of underdeveloped polygyny are not separable from monogamy. This has led some analysts to point out that in societies where polygyny is practiced, it does not dominate in terms of demographic majority. This is understandable, since expansion from the monogamic to polygynic phase of marriage is a difficult and expensive step. Since marriages are usually economic exchange events (between clans), the man who wants to add a second wife to his marriage needs to be affluent enough to pay the brideprice for the second time. This is possible if the accumulation of wealth (largely through the work of the first wife) makes such expansion possible. Naturally, there is some time period (ranging from 4 to 10 or more years) between the first and subsequent marriages. As a rule, the husband is already older than the first wife at their marriage, adding every new wife is likely to increase such age difference. The husband-wife peer relation thus becomes supplemented by father-daughter and mother-daughter role relations (see Example 4.4. below). The junior co-wife can be taken into a polygynic marriage as a kind of daughter for the existing wife—while being a young wife for the husband. The psychological mechanisms that make polygynic relations possible include (a) maintenance of equality of the persons in their social roles through a differentiated structure of inequality; (b) ritualistic emphasis on unity, and deemphasis on personal possessiveness; (c) joint goals in subsistence. Maintenance of equality through inequality. This claim at first glance seems internally contradictory, as it unites two opposites (equality and inequality) which are usually viewed as mutually exclusive. Yet there exist no social group that involves equal participants in all possible senses. Rather, even when equality of members is claimed to be the case, the realities of existence of the group demonstrate inequalities. Thus, the presentation of a group (to outsiders, and to group members themselves) may emphasize the meaning of equality that sets the psychological basis for acceptance of inequalities in the ongoing life of the group. In the polygynic marriage system, the use of the meaning of equality is symbolically presented by the social norm that the husband must treat all cowives equally. This norm is particularly set into practice in the ritualistic functions within the life of the polygynic marriage group. The husband-- when making gifts to his wives-- must give each of them a gift equal in value. Deviations (by the husband) from that norm are carefully monitored (by the co-wives, first of all), and may lead to friction within the group. Yet, at the same time, the co-wives are -- already in their social roles-- not equal at all. They function in accordance with a prescribed dominance by seniority; they are of very different ages, physical capabilities, they are in different stages of their reproductive careers. Some have more children (which is a value marker for women) than others. If any of them is

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barren, this may be a basis for serious social stigmatization (within the group) and may lead to loss of the marital status for the woman (divorce). The reality of the relations between co-wives in a polygynic setting is filled with inequalities from the very moment of the women’s entrance into their social roles. Yet semiotically these inequalities are organized through the social norm of equality (through constructing an ingroup through “we”-feeling), which leads to the acceptance of intra-group differentiation. The example from the Oneida community (see description below—Example 4.7.) indicates this well-- the community members presented themselves to others and one another as parts of a “we”-feeling group, yet that semiotic unity was dependent upon John Noyes’ central personal role within the “we”-group. Once his role crumbled (as he aged), the “we”-community dissipated. Private and public visibility: from eating by way of sexuality to marriage. All basic physiological functions of human beings are semiotically encoded— beginning from their general talkability/tellability (see chapter 2) and ending with the ways in which the given biological functions are talked about. Thus, among Asante market women, “Cooking for” a man seems to take the place that “living with” a man occupies in contemporary United States society, as a trial or quasimarital relationship. For some relationships it will turn out to be a stage of courtship, formalized eventually through lineage, church, or legal rituals… Couples in a relationship including daily cooking accept some degree of public recognition of the relationship and also recognize mutual responsibilities similar to marital roles, although less binding… The sexual connotation of cooking is so strong that Asantes use it as a euphemism as well as a symbol for sex. As in many languages, Asante Twi uses the same verb (di) for eating and sex, a verb which has other meanings of possession, taking, inheriting, etc. It must be duplicated (didi) to unambiguously mean eating… (Clark, 1994, pp. 344-345) The Asante meaning system is not unique—similar linkages of sexuality and eating are present in other languages, and it may be most appropriate to look at the phenomena of sexuality as derivations from general meanings of feeding (cf. Sambia male semen-eating practices—Herdt, 1980). However, the symbolic function of food as a sign—presenting the sexual act—becomes extended to marital and extra-marital relations 66 if some duration. 66

All of these relations co-exist in collective culture (as well as may be present within personal cultures. Since the times of Ancient Greece, the European societies have had to accept—often by acts of social repression and stigmatization of marital relationships boundary—Demosthenes’ (384 B.C.—322 B.C.) saying that in Athena “we have hetaerai for the sake of pleasure, concubines (pallakai) for meeting our bodily needs day-to-day; but wives for having legitimate children and to be trustworthy custodians of our household” (Demosthenes, 2003, p. 191). Actually these words come from a dispute over the obeservation

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Thus, the question of who cooks food for whom becomes the marker of such relationships. In the case of the Asante—whose marital relation has been preferably duolocal (husbands live in separate household units from wives), the wives cook for the husbands and carry the food to the latter’s place of residence. Couples in a relationship that includes some cooking for the other on a daily basis build their intimacy of relationship (in which the sexual component is an important part after the feeding care of the other). Affective dramas are played out through cooking. On the positive side, Wives express their satisfaction with a warm relationship by extra care in cooking, just as husbands enjoy giving beloved wives extra gifts. One trader 67 described with gusto how a wife chooses her finest bowl, puts a beautiful fufu in it and arranges the fish to look big and plump. Then she bathes carefully, rubs herself with cream and puts on her good cloth to take the dinner to her husband. (Clark, 1989, p. 327) Thus, at dinnertime local Asante towns and villages have a publicly visible movement of women carrying large covered dishes to the houses of their preferred partners—husbands among them. On the other hand—deterioration of personal relations also becomes expressed in cooking. A woman who starts to cook carelessly—or refuse to cook at all—for a man is in the process of ending her relationship with him. The intricacies of marital relations are being outlined in chapter 4. Here we can treat the Asante market women’s example of “for whom am I cooking?” as an extension of a dual field-like meaning. The primary activity of eating (versus noneating) leads to the preparation of food as a skill to be mastered by girls over childhood (cooking <> non-cooking), which by sexual maturity transfers into {cooking for=sex with <> not cooking for anybody}, and finally into {cooking for=married with him<> non-married=not cooking for him}. Aside from the personal-cultural, subjectively hidden side of this meaning transition, there is collective-cultural externalization facet in this transition. The acts of eating, cooking, and carrying food from one household to another are publicly visible— while sexual acts are hidden from direct public access. Joint goals in subsistence. If the polygynic marriage is of the shared home compound kind, it is the coordination of everyday subsistence (farming, feeding children, etc.) tasks that unifies the group. The mechanism of creating group unity through shared tasks is a classic fact in social psychology (e.g., see the “Robbers’ Cave” experiment (Sherif et al, 1961). Joint actions by co-wives, on daily basis, particularly under conditions of economic uncertainties (e.g., loss of of the citizenship purity negotiatiations, and are considered to be authored by Apollodorus (Demosthenes’ father-in-law—ibid, p. 151) 67 Asante traders are predominantly women. The whole West African region is economically dominated by women’s work, inclusive that of market trading. As was shown in Chapter 2, matriliny has been historically present in what is presently Ghana.

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crop due to draught, etc.) and the need of maintaining the household, create the activity basis for the psychological well-being of the group. This joint activity basis can be enhanced by the history of co-wives’ relationship (as in the case of sororal polygyny). The usual (“Western”) problem of sexual jealousy is largely out of place in the case of non-monogamic marriage forms. Sexuality is a normal part of lives of all participants, male and female. Yet its meaning in terms of partners’ preferences may lead to jealousies on multiple grounds—those of self-esteem, inferiority feelings, control within the marriage, and economic features of the arrangement (see Example 4.4.). Like any close relations, that of co-wives (or co-husbands in the polyandric case) is a culturally guided setting for cooperation, within which exemplars of the opposite (non-cooperation) may emerge on any basis. Example 4.4. Polygynic marriage in Lebanon: a contrast of urban and rural cases. The contrast between urban and rural conditions for polygynic marriage tells us a story about the tension of unity and disunity of the minimal communities that are created through such marriages. The urban case is that of Wadad and Lama (Hamadeh, 1999, pp. 144147) who are married to Mounir, a university professor. Wadad married Mounir at her age 25, and at the time of the interview was in her late 40s, having given birth to 3 children. Lama was 15 years younger than Wadad. As a university student in Mounir’s courses had developed a love relationship with him, which led to a marriage, of which Wadad was informed after the fact. To than news she reacted …as though the walls of her house were closing in on her. She fell to the floor and for three days refused to eat. (She must have been exaggerating.) When her husband attempted to reason with her, she drove him out of the house with her hysterical shouting. Later, she thought that if she allowed her grief to overwhelm her, she would die, and that would please the couple whose happiness was built on her ruin. She thought that her death would hurt only her children. From then on, she decided to do whatever she could to hurt Mounir and Lama while fighting to keep Mounir as father for her children. Thus, when he proposed to divide his time equally between the two households, she accepted. She even accepted resuming sexual relations with him “although I hated him like the devil. But I wanted to do anything that would spite her,” Wadad said. (Hamadeh, 1999, p. 146) The arrangement of two separate households came to a halt during the Lebanese civil war when Lama’s house was damaged and she and her daughter ended up moving into Wahad’s house. The rivalry between the co-wives continued on small episodes of everyday life. It was there where the war caught her 5-year old daughter who was irreversibly debilitated by a shrapnel flying into

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their living room. Lama was transformed after the accident, becoming a devout Muslim . As Wadad commented, She quit her coquettish ways, started praying five times a day, and tried to be civil to me and to my children. But sometimes I feel that it was better the other way. When she visits me with my husband, I feel awkward and humiliated. When somebody refers to her as “Mrs. Mounir”, I feel that she is erasing my very existence. (Hamadeh, 1999, p. 147) Lama’s own story indicates that she married Mounir on the basis of the love relationship, expecting him to divorce his first wife. That did not happen, and she felt her love to ‘Be smothered.” Her daughter’s accident changed Lama, Seeing her with me only in body, without being able to reach her spirit, caused me to lose all attachment to life. I became certain that God was punishing me for having wronged Wadad and her children. I tried to evoke God’s forgiveness by becoming a good Muslim. I also tried to compensate Wadad by going to her house and doing her housework. But she understood this to be a comment on her cleanliness. (ibid, p. 147,emphases added) The new ways of being—recognized by Wadad—did not eliminate the friction, but transformed it. An act of help (cleaning the other’s house) became interpreted as a sign of un-cleanness of the latter. On Lama’s side, her new religious self did not stop her from criticizing Wadad for ways of acting “unbecoming to a mother and an elderly woman”. The newly acquired religiosity was a powerful basis for new scenarios of interpersonal critiques, while Lama made symbolic moves to act positively towards Wadad’s family. The rivalry was transformed into a new state, but not overcome. The rural Lebanese case comes from the background of nomadic Bedouins (Hamadeh, 1999, p. 148-151). Um Hussein (first wife, interviewed at age 35—married at 19) and Amira (17 at marriage—third daughter from a family of 6 boys and 8 girls) were co-wives in a three-tent home compound. That home compound also included their husband’s separated sister, and three living daughters of Um Hussein. The household moved in the steppes of the Syrian desert and summer times in the Bekaa’ Valley. Um Hussein’s only son had died in an accident at age 5. Yet even before, her husband expressed his desire to take another wife “in order that the daughters will have more than one brother to protect them when their father is no longer there for them” (Hamadeh, 1999, p. 149). A few months after the son’s accidental death, Um Hussein proposed that she herself find the second wife for her husband—and proceeded to get Amira (under the conditions set by Amira’s family that one of the daughters of Um Hussein be given as wife to one of Amira’s brothers).

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Amira – when asked …why she had agreed to marry Abu Hussein, she answered, “Because they liked me and chose me from among my sisters, I also liked them.” Because the choice referred to was made by Um Hussein and not by her husband, it was not clear whom the girl liked and whom she accepted. When I pressed her about why she had consented to marry a man old enough to be her father, she repeated that he was respectable and she felt that Um Hussein (Um Hussein again!) could make her a better person. She also said that she liked the company of Um Hussein’s daughters. (Hamadeh, 1999, p. 150, added emphasis)

Marriage here becomes presented as a course of continuing education. It was the head principal’s (husband’s) respectability and the main teacher’s (the first wife) knowledge that mattered. Note also the use by the researcher of the age stereotype (“consented to marry a man old enough to be her father”). Um Hussein’s own look at the addition to the marriage was that of ambivalence with socially respectful façade, where she granted her own centrality by taking the initiative in making the arrangements. This led her to gaining respect in the local community, and fortified her position in her own marriage. A year later, the marriage had undergone a transformation that indicates the role of marital bonds in inter-clan relations. As Hamadeh reports, When I revisited them in the summer of 1993, I found some change in the attitude of Um Hussein toward Amira. I was told that during the winter Abu Hussein had divorced Amira and that he had taken her back only after much pleading from Um Hussein. The older co-wife explained, “Respectable people like us do not take other people’s daughters, impregnate them, and send them back to their folks." When I asked Abu Hussein about the reason for the divorce, I was told that Amira’s mother had caused it by urging her daughter to demand that he divorce his first wife. This made Abu Hussein so angry that he divorced Amira instead. He added, “I respect all the family, but Um Hussein has in my esteem a special position, before everyone else, because she sacrificed for the sake of the family and because she is the mother of my daughters and bears the name of my late son.” (Hamadeh, 1999, p. 150-151, added emphases)

The “families’ feud” about resources shows its role—and defeat—in this example. The symbolic fortification of her role in the marriage by Um Hussein (“sacrificed for the sake of the family”; “she is the mother of my daughters”) wrought by her organizational role in making and maintaining this polygynic marriage (including the decision to bring Amira back, on the grounds of respectability)—all these features demonstrate how a marriage – of any form—is a symbolic construction. Of course it frames the everyday lives of the family members—specifying who does what, sleeps where, and together with whom, has sexual relations and their nature (procreation or pleasure). Here the notion of respect is used by both Um Hussein and Abu Hussein as a promoter sign to settle suddenly complicated marital relations.

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Example 4.5. Polygyny in the history of the U.S.. Polygyny is not a privilege, nor is it specific to one or another area (or religion) in the World. Under special socio-historical conditions, Christianity-dominated social units have re-structured the strict limits set upon the transformation of the marriage forms (i.e., the general picture of Figure 4.1 and Figure 4.3.—limits on transformation). The United States is a country of very specific history-- on a relatively large territory, different religious and political groups who escaped from Europe, could establish a relatively well-balanced system of co-existence. The denominational nature of religion in the United States, together with religious freedom, has allowed different small religious groups to establish their particular forms of communal living. Such forms at times have explicitly transcended the privileged nature of monogamy, in favor of polygynandry or polygyny. Notably, such transcendence has been related with efforts to build new forms of society, usually on the grounds of strong religious orientation. The history of adoption of the polygynic marriage form by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) on the basis of an interpretation of the Christian history is informative in two ways. First, it demonstrates how a new- previously completely alien-- form of social organization of everyday life can be put into practice if completely (redundantly) set up by a social institution. Secondly, the history of Mormon polygyny entails a story of socio-political power struggle between the Mormon-dominated State of Utah, and U.S. Federal Government, in the second half of the 19th Century (see also Chapter 2— Example 2.2.—above). That fight brings out the questions of freedom of belief, construction of images of social stigmatization, and socialization of children under conditions of constant dangers. The mundane nature of Mormon polygyny continues in its contemporary practices, which have survived and re-gained prominence -- at least in that side of social life arrangements that adheres to the religious calling in a most devoted way. The cultural-psychological intricacies of contemporary Mormon polygyny are studied in detail by Irwin Altman and Joseph Ginat (Altman & Ginat, 1996). While documenting a whole range of ways in which modern polygynous marriages in the Mormon lands function-- including successes and failures-- the pattern of coordination of dyadic and communal arrangements of everyday lives of the marriages becomes evident. The dyadic (husband-wife) psychological relations can be extended to include super-ordinate (social group) structure, in which all co-wives and the husband establish their roles in the midst of making sure that all everyday life arrangements (work, child-care, education, religious activities) are guaranteed. The success in the establishment of the social group framework depends upon the establishment of relations between co-wives, aided (or hindered) by their particular living arrangements. In the contemporary Mormon case, these arrangements are more complex than in the cases of African polygyny (e.g., the contrast between "shared home compound" and "separate homes for each cowife"). The fitting of multi-wife and many-children polygynic Mormon families into regular U.S. architectural practice of planning one-(monogamic)-family housing has been a creative effort. Furthermore, the collective memories of previous

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religious persecution have not disappeared, and the possibility of their resurfacing is a factor that is to be considered. On the other side, the internalization of the religious value of communal marriage-- in parallel with practical solutions such living affords (sharing of housing, co-wives helping one another with issues of child-care) maintain polygyny as a viable form of marriage in those areas of the United States where a collective-cultural religious framework provides background support for it. Altman and Ginat demonstrate how the set of everyday objects and activities mediates the social relations in-- and psychological construction of-- the persons' roles in polygynic marriages. The core of such marriage is complementay nature of the husband's patriarch-role (head of the family), and of the roles of the individual co-wives in their role as women-mothers. The latter role of women entails home-centered control over space, cultural marking of the space, and organization of activities (cooking, child-care, laundry). The co-wives jointly control communal space, and individually their own personal territories. The smoothness of the co-wife relations depends upon their individual control over their personal space, and objects within these spaces. The space/object domain is both the arena for establishing and maintaining co-wives' relations, as well as an indicator of their state. Thus, Sally, Harvey's first wife, said that the way she, Harvey, and Molly managed and decorated their homes mirrored the graduate deterioration of the marriage and their relationships. When Molly first joined the family she and Sally shared everything. They wore each other's clothes and cooperated in decorating the home. They discussed cooperatively how to furnish the living room, where to put furniture, what to hang on the walls, how to arrange objects. But over time things began to deteriorate, Sally claimed, because Molly became selfish and Harvey began to prefer Molly. In successive moves, Sally always kept her very personal things-- books, desk, cedar chest, photographs, silverware. But she shopped caring about other things in the home, to some extent because Harvey began giving Sally's furniture to Molly without discussing it with her… Sally finally divorced Harvey for many reasons, but his violation of her attachment to places and things mirrored other problems in the family. (Altman & Ginat, 1996, p. 234, emphases added) The closeness between persons is built (and indicated) by their unconditional sharing of personal objects (and activities). Wearing each other's clothing would indicate an effort at interpersonal closeness. The effort carries within it ambivalence-- as the previous state of the relation was not that of closeness. If the closeness is not established through the effort, the division of the objects (into personal versus communal) can indicate change in the relationship. Thus, the polygynic marriage form (of shared households) sets the stage for potential establishment of close inter-co-wife ties through the sharing of

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joint, similarly goal-oriented tasks. Whether this actually happens depends upon the specific persons involved, and the dynamics of their actual establishment of their relations. That latter process is not determinable by any social set-up of conditions-- the relations may work out to be good, but also to become negative. Precisely this uncertainty is taken into account by the redundant compensatory mechanism-- each of the co-wives establish their own personalized object environment (room, etc.) which serves for each of them as her own place. It may be shared with the visiting (common) husband, but not with other co-wives (except if the relations are indeed of the kind that makes such sharing possible). The co-wives have their individual places, and on the basis of those can establish close relations with one another. The making of the home place for the husband is a very different matter in contemporary Mormon households. Given the history of stigmatization (which resulted in the need to hide the polygynic lifestyle from public), and distribution of the homes of the husband's wives, the strict visiting schedule (which is described by anthropologists looking at polygyny in Africa) has been both impractical and undesirable. It has given rise to a flexible scheduling of the husband's movement patters between households. At times the husband himself (in his patriarch's role) decides where he goes for the given night; at other times this scheduling is completely in the collective hands of the co-wives; or is determined by particular needs of the given household. In any case, it is the husband who may lack one's personal territory in any of the homes 68. The Mormon polygynic system empowers women. In each household, the particular co-wife has full control over the organization of the home. This of course is the case in monogamic marriages as well—yet the huisband’s regular absences in the polygynic case create the diminished possibilities for immediate household tasks participation, which results in lesser control over the household. The principle here is mundane—the one who acts in the competent ways in an area X is in control of area X, others—by way of lesser competence—can assert their control only by some power assertion 69. The husband’s limited competence is linked also to simple organizational issues of everyday life. Since the husband regularly visits all of the homes, his own pertinent personal objects (clothing) are distributed between the homes (as an object-based marker of the husband's psychological presence in each, and in an equitable way). For example, Howard distributes his clothing among the homes of his four wives, Constance, Valerie, Barbara, and Rose, all of whom live in separate dwellings. He keeps some of his clothing in his own 68

In addition, the husband's role entails social overstimulation-- in his rotation between different households (each filled by a multitude of his own children), he has no possibility to be alone. However, being alone is a basic need for human mature personality. Contemporary Mormon husbands adjust their lives by creating privacy in their workplace, or even-- in some extreme cases-- by spending some nights alone in motels (Altman & Ginat, 1996, p. 258) 69 As is usual in socio-political systems, the agents who gain power by force are incompetent in the running of the social system (unless they quickly learn its systemic nature). Many military dictators fail by succeeding gaining political power that leads to their own demise.

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drawer in a bureau in each wife's bedroom. They, too, have adopted a system that emphasizes his communal relationship to homes and wives. They also told of the amusing confusion that arises in managing Howard's clothing. He sometimes ends up having to wear bizarre combinations of colors because he does not know where things are, sometimes all of his socks end up in one wife's home, or he is missing a key piece of clothing for a particular outfit, and so on. With great amusement, the wives said Howard bangs into walls and furniture in the middle of the night, not sure where he is, and is always looking in the wrong drawer for his clothing. (Altman & Ginat, 1996, pp. 266-267) The amusing telling of the story of their shared husband's confusions fortifies the indication that each of the co-wives is in control over their respective home grounds. They collectively appreciate the husband in the role of the head of the family, and (each personally) have their particular emotional relationship with him (which is dyadic-- irrespective whether the relations between co-wives are positive, ambivalent, or negative). They are symbolically united with the husband after death (see Figure 4.2.). Figure 4.2. Tombstone of Soren Christoffersen and his three wives in Manti cemetery, Utah (from Deynes, 2001)

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The full control over the home ground as the core role for the wives is encoded into the Mormon religious teaching, which separates the home as the unquestionable dominance domain for the women from the public domain as (equally unquestionable) domain of dominance of the men. This distinction is similar to gender role distinctions between public and private (family) domains in many other societies, especially those in which polygyny is a socially privileged form of marriage. In respect to all of these societies, it is not possible to make simple statements about one or the other gender being "dominant". The dominance is clearly specific to the particular kind of place (home versus work), and the polygynic marriage form guides women to be necessarily dominant in the home domains.

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In general, the experiences of children in polygynic marriages vary greatly-- as the particular forms of these marriages are variable. Kilbride & Kilbride (1990) have provided an elaborate account about the impressions of Ugandan children who have grown up under polygynic marriage conditions. As is expected, personal experiences cover the whole range of psychological conditions, from reporting high levels of group cohesion and cooperation, to cases of jealousy and stigmatization of children (by other children, and by co-wives). Example 4.6. Cooperation and competition in polygynic households. First, “Marjorie” (a daughter of a wealthy Ugandan agricultural official, who has twenty five children from four wives) narrated her memories of childhood: I remember seeing my father bringing a new wife. When she came my mother was taken by my father to my home district where my father built a shamba, and she stayed there while the new wife was staying with my father in the place where he was working. The place where my mother was now staying was near the school where my sisters were boarding, so they could come home during the weekends. They could come to see my mother. When I passed to Class 6, I went to study where my father was working. By then he had two more wives. All these women had children. We were all going to school together, staying in the same house. We were doing everything as sisters. I like my stepmothers; they were good. I never know who my father loves best, whether my mother or the others. But I knew he gave “respect” to my mother, being the first wife. This was according to the traditional way. The wives gave respect according to how one comes, first come, second come, and so on. These women gave so much respect to my mother. Myself and the stepsisters, we don’t say, “who is your mother?” We are all like sisters and brothers. My father’s wives had many gardens. They could plant six acres of cotton for the wives. There was no famine in my family. It was a large family. I used to go to the garden with my stepmother. I could tell them a lot of stories, and they laughed so much. I went back to my mother’s house for holidays where I stayed with my two sisters. My mother was so strict with me! It was my future. She had to teach me cooking, responsibilities like doing dishes, all as woman’s duties. My favorite relative was my mother’s elder sister. She gave us a lot to eat so we liked her so much. She had only one son, but mother had ten of us. (Kilbride & Kilbride, 1990, pp. 206-207, emphases added) This personal story includes a number of points that demonstrate how a polygynic marriage could work as a social system. The success of the childhood family environment depended upon the father’s treatment of the co-wives

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equitably-- both in the sense of respecting each of them, and respecting their seniority rank. The co-wives can be traced here to set up a unifying social context for all of the co-sibs (e.g., children would not ask the question of who is whose mother, as such question is rendered unimportant by the harmonious relationships in the family group). Different co-wives obviously differed in how they treated the children in different practical tasks. Marjorie here was not particularly complimentary about her own mother (mentioning that the mother “never liked us so much”-- Kilbride & Kilbride, 1990, p. 207). Of course, it need not be forgotten that the mother had 10 children, which necessarily means shortening of attention to each single one. The flexible environment of the household of the other co-wives was thus a contrastive (or reconstructive) for these needs of Marjorie that were not fully granted by her own mother. The role of female relatives (Marjorie’s mother’s elder sister) is important here. It is coordinated with the role of the father, and set the stage for non-problematic growth of the child, leading to this positive retrospect. In contrast, “Robert” tells us a different story of his experiences. His father was also married with four wives—located in separate home compounds-- his mother being the second in rank. Robert reported asking questions about his “real mother”-- and being stigmatized and mistreated by the children of the other co-wives at school. He was negatively treated by the fourth co-wife (while living on her home grounds, to attend school from there). Among his memories of childhood, the question of organization of eating on the shared home compound is of relevance: Some of the things that I have experienced basically on the side of eating are that when eating we do not assemble at one particular place, each mommy with her children. This results in jealousy because the wives cook different types of food. And also one may be eating only one type of food, such as Ugali, without changing. So it results in admiring the food of the other mommies. (Kilbride & Kilbride, 1990, p. 209) The specific social-psychological organization of food-related activities is of central importance for regulating social relations (see chapter 8). The possibility for open comparisons of foods made by other co-wives created the basis for inter-child competitiveness on the basis of inter-mother comparisons. Summarizing his growing-up experiences, “Robert” remarked: The advantages which I have experienced under polygyny are that with work like planting, cooperation works, and when one of the family is sick, contributions occur in great number. Biblically, that is a time for showing love, peace, and unity as the commandment says to love your neighbor. Another advantage is that barrenness cannot occur. African tribes, particularly the Bunyala, believe that immortality is recaptured in one’s issue (offspring). They believe

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that the more wives one gets, the more children he expects, and the more chances of purportedly capturing immortality. If robbers have appeared at the compound, the polygamous family can react seriously to defend whatever is to happen. Also, no money is wasted employing some people to defend the home. And some believe that polygyny is a sign of wealth. Some of the disadvantages that I have experienced in a polygynous family are so many. When my mother is given something by father such as money for buying new clothes that is the time when rough words come from the first, third, and fourth wives that their children also need clothes or whatever she has gotten. Who to educate becomes also a problem because of financial difficulties in obtaining school fees. Feeding the family becomes impossible, hence stealing other people’s properties results sometimes... Jealousy generates among such a family. For instance, maybe one of the sons of the second or third wife is employed somewhere. The rest of the wives complain that what he gets is only to feed his “really” mother... (Kilbride & Kilbride, 1990, pp. 208-209, emphases added) The psychological mechanisms of problematic functioning of Robert’s home context are obvious here. Once jealousy has appeared in the relations (through promoted competitiveness), it can become the basis for constant evaluation of what happens with economic provisions-- whether these come to the mothers from their husband, or from their sons. This example verifies once more that the crucial issue around which the polygynic family can go astray is the handling of economic resources, rather than issues of sexuality. Surely it is easier to maintain the polygynic household under conditions of affluence (Marjorie’s case) than when the whole family is under economic strain (Robert’s case). The polyandrous marriage In contrast to polygyny, polyandry is a rare form of marriage in terms of its presence around the World. It has been documented in mostly in the Himalayan mountain regions and in different parts of the Indian subcontinent. Like all other marriage forms it has been described in our contemporary times, its existence is closely tied to the economic conditions of the life in a given society. The economic basis of polyandry. Polyandry sets up cultural limits on the reproductive proliferation of the men, through limiting their child-bearing capacities to the role of the joint wife. This is necessary under strict economic demand conditions. For instance, Himalayan polyandry exists largely on the basis of the economic need for not partitioning the land between sons from generation to generation, as that would hinder agricultural productivity. Polyandry in the Himalayas is further supported by the combination of economic activities--

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working the fields (which requires male labor) and going on trading trips (also male activity) facilitates the economic well-being of the polyandrous household. Economic concerns can be related with collective-cultural norms. If (like was the case in the history of Southern India) there was the norm that a household must always include a male member while (at the same time) males were recruited into military campaigns for different times (and uncertainties of survival), then most clearly polyandrous arrangements are functional to maintain normal life conditions for the families. Yet when the conditions change, the marriage form can transform. Yet the marriage form is not an outcome, but a means to social ends, and it protects itself against its downfall. As Ayappan remarked (in 1937): Whenever modern European culture has penetrated and modified indigenous culture, polyandry is giving way to monandry, but on the other hand, in rural areas remote from foreign influences, polyandrous families are still numerous and are surprisingly free from jealousy and discord. The suppression, therefore, of sexual jealosy between the brothers who are the common husbands of a single wife is a function of their culture. The chief cultural forces that lead to the suppression of the emotion in the men are (1) the ritual of marriage... by which they are made joint husbands; (2) the economic motive to prevent the disintegration of the family property by limiting the number of heirs; (3) the influence of parents who, during the earlier years of marital partnership, supervise and regulate the sexual life of the co-husbands by assigning each of them a particular night to be with the wife; and (4) public opinion which applauds successful polyandry. Under conditions of culture change all these forces have weakened and in every family in which economic and other ties have been modified, bickerings are heard that have their root in sexual jealousy, growing individualism and rebellion against the authority of elders in sexual matters. (Aiyappan, 1937, No. 130) Social organization. Polyandry exists in different forms. First, there is the form of fraternal polyandry-- a set of brothers marrying the same woman (the Aiyappan quote above refers to this form). Here the marriage to the woman entails literally the younger co-husbands’ “growing into” the marriage with the same wife at the time of the marriage of the oldest of the brothers (at adolescence). So, for instance, if the oldest brother (of 4) is 17 at the time of the marriage (and perhaps the bride 15), then the other brothers could be 13, 10, and 7 at the time of their joint marriage (assuming 3-year birth interval between brothers). If the oldest brother may have become psycho-sexually ready to marry, then his younger brothers are still developing through their middle childhood and adolescence. This creates continuity from childhood relationships between brothers and their joint marriage. This continuity supports the creation of the “collective husband” status of the set of brothers. The co-husbands (brothers)

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function in a united way as a well-integrated social group-- persons become parts of the whole “collective husband.” Early marriage of brothers as a collective husband can also lead to later marital problems (see Levine, 1988, for description). The “coming into age” of the younger brothers at times leads to demands to add other wives to the marriage (thus turning it into polygynandry) or requiring separate wives for themselves (turning polyandry into monogamy—see Figure 4.1.). Like in the case of sororal polygyny, the arrangement of fraternal polyandry is primarily built on the history of sibling relationships. The joint family context leads to the dominance of brothers’ relations who marry a woman as a social unit—so, de facto, they involve themselves in a monogamic relation between the collective husband and a his wife. In case of the dissipation of the collective husband various other marriage forms can result from it. Examples of non-fraternal polyandry are therefore more important to understand the cultural construction of this plural marriage form. The question of male sexual jealousies has been haunting Western researchers who have failed to understand the ordinary role sexuality plays in human family lives (beyond the act of reproduction). In the case of Kerala’s Nayar polyandry (see description of the history of Nayar tharavad in Chapter 2), the relation between Nayar or Nambudiri husbands and their sambadham wife was regulated through simple mutuality rules: The husband would visit the wife at night, and be accommodated in a suitable room provided for the purpose. If he ceased to like her, divorce was simple; he discontinued his visits. Conversely, if she did not like him, she refused to open the door to him, or even more emphatically, threw a mat and pillow out for him. … The husband’s financial involvement was minimal; he presented a cloth and an upper cloth, at the time of marriage and during Onam, Vishu, Tiruvatira, and a certain quantity of toilet oil every month. He acknowledged the paternity of the issues by discharging the expenses incurred for the delivery. (Menon, 2002, p. 802) Polyandry as it occurs in the form of matriarchal polyandry (as the Kerala example specifies) is either matrilocal (i.e., different husbands come to share the wife’s household, either simultaneously or in succession—as in the Nayar case), or patrilocal (a husband and wife couple, inhabiting the husband’s home territory, invites another husband to join them in marriage). The reasons for adding a new husband to an existing marriage vary, but usually relate to the infertility or economic needs. An example of such transition comes from the description of Tibetan polyandry by Prince Peter (1963, p. 370) who has been one of the most notable Western researchers interested in polyandry. Ishe Palkid (a woman) was married to Rigzin at her age of 21, and almost immediately gave birth to a stillborn child. Efforts to become pregnant again during the following five years failed. Rigzin was alone cultivating the fields, and needed further help. He suggested to her to

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invite another man (Paldan) to join them in marriage, and she agreed. Paldan joined the household and shared the agricultural work, yet Ishe Palkid did not become pregnant during the following seven years. The need for a heir was high, so the polyandrous group decided to adopt a boy from another family. Psychological organization. The crucial point in polyandrous relationships is the reverse of that of polygyny. In polyandry, the wife has to treat all co-husbands (who also vary by age, and seniority) equally. The issue of specific paternity of children is de-emphasized at the level of public presentation, even if it may be recognized in private. In any case, the having of a child by the whole marriage group is valued positively, de-focussing from the question of concrete paternity. For most couples, the problem of sexual equity is handled by having the wife spend an entire night with one husband at a time and with all husbands in a more or less equal measure. Because men often are away on trading trips, a strict rotation is not feasible, and the scheduling tends to be flexible. A general rule is that a husband who has been away has the first rights to spend the night with the wife. Otherwise the goal is rough balance, and when all things are equal, the senior brother, the brother who took the principal role in bringing about the marriage, or the brother currently closest to the wife may take precedence (Levine, 1988, p. 164). Jealousy is a rare phenomenon-- everything in the everyday relationships is done so as to not let it emerge, or -- if it does emerge-to re-direct it: Jealousy and sexual rivalry between brothers are the exception. The problem more commonly is one of greater and lesser compatability between specific husbands and the wife. A wife may prefer one of the husbands and let her preference be known. Relationships change over time, so the neglected husband can hope for the future-- while complaining that women are fickle; and preferences are tolerated so long as no one is excluded. Most women initially like the eldest husband more, for the two often are close in age; and it is the eldest with whom most establish the first sexual relationship. In later years a woman is apt to turn to younger husbands with whom she may have a more equal relationship, whose upbringing she may have supervised, and who likely are seen as more sexually attractive. Temporarily neglected husbands are more free to pursue extramarital affairs, while women attempt to control the actions of their favorites (Levine, 1988, p. 165, added emphases) The phenomenon of supervising the growth of the husband is intricate in itself. Polyandry (in its fraternal form) provides the condition for the wife to have secure company of multi-aged small group of husbands. The youngest of the cohusbands may indeed assume a role of both a young husband and an adopted male child (i.e., whose childhood and adolescent growth was supervised by the wife). Such double role can fortify the psychological stability of the marriage on

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the side of the wife-- in case the older co-husbands do not create problems on the grounds of their being treated unequally (compare this also with UmHassan<>Amira relations in the Lebanese polygynic marriage, above).

The conjoint (polygynandrous) marriage This marriage form is rarest of all of the four forms. It entails marriage of more than one husband with more than one wife. The crucial distinction of this form from co-habitation of monogamic marriages within the same household is the absence of symbolic “ownership” of a particular partner (which is the case in monogamic marriages). Distribution, economic basis, and social organization. . Polygynandry is found usually in societies which practice polyandry. It can’t be found in strictly polygynous societies. Its economic basis is similar to that of polyandry. Polygynandry is in effect a combination of polygyny and polyandry. Social roles of the partners thus entail unity (of the marriage group) and differentiation (between different aged co-wives and co-husbands). Hence polygynandry occurs often in parallel with polyandry, and easily moves between different marriage forms. Thus, in the case of Jaunsar-Bawar (in Uttar Pradesh--practicing all forms of plural marriages, and studied consistently), under the conditions of hill economy, Several brothers must work together, and the wife or wives, share the responsibilities of running the house, with a group of husbands. Most wives prefer to have co-wives, to help them and sometimes a clever woman is found who is fond of one the husbands, and pleads for a co-wife, to release herself from the obligation of sharing the bed with other brothers. The new wife acts as a safety valve for domestic tension. Theoretically, the wife is the monopoly of the eldest brother, normally she caters to the sexual need of all the brothers, but she can time her intimacy, and show preference to any of the husbands, meeting the protests of the aggrieved husbands, by excuses and even demanding a co-wife. Sexual relations need not necessarily be confined within the household group, and under the prevailing conditions of hill economy and the double standard of morality that the society recognizes, sex is not an overpowering factor in the life of the people, neither is inhibition considered a virtue. Food and personal decoration cause more anxiety. (Majumdar. 1954/55, p. 92) It is important to emphasize here (as well as in other plural marriage form) that the role of sexuality in marriage can be culturally constructed in different ways. In the plural marriage forms, it is not highlighted as the basis for marriage. The basis is elsewhere-- for example in economic relations between family clans

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(exemplified by bride price). Sexuality is undoubtedly important-- but not the central issue in marriage. It leads to more important aspects of persons’ cultural movement through life-courses (such as having children, and grandchildren). In a day-to-day life context, other issues-- who cooks for whom? what? who gives whom presents?-- are by far more important. This may be combined with intolerance for the extra-marital sexual affairs of the spouses-- yet sexuality here is a cultural object for social treatment. Same principles for curbing potential jealousies (eliminating them before they emerge) apply here as those apply in polygynic and polyandrous marriages. The participants need to construct for themselves a superordinate unifying meaning-- religious or secular (e.g., based on "rights", "respect", "progress", "humanity" etc.)-- of general kind. It becomes translated -- by persons-- into their everyday life practices by guiding them away from emotional reactions to specific forms of the sexual, procreation-oriented, and resources distribution practices. Example 4.7. Complex mariage in the U.S.: The Oneida Community. The creation of the Oneida Community was the life-work of John Humphrey Noyes who grew up in Vermont, graduated from Dartmouth College at age 19 (in 1830), and became converted into the “free church” of Perfectionism. At the time, the social world of the U.S. North-East was filled with emergence of various kinds of “free churches” which opposed the orthodoxies of the established denominations. Perfectionism rejected the Calvinist doctrine of the depravity of human beings and their inability to do good except through God’s intervention. Instead, perfectionism was close to the Wesleyan doctrine that accepted the possibility that human beings could attain a state of perfect love between oneself and God. Noyes’s version of perfectionism was quite explicit (and extreme)-- as a 23-year old seminarian he declared that not only can a man be perfect, but that he himself actually was. For such clarity about himself, he was dismissed from Yale Divinity School. Yet he became to collect followers to his ideology, including his wife Harriet Holton (whom he married in 1838, emphasizing in his proposal that marriage should not monopolize or enslave “each other’s heart”, and expressing his wish that his wife would love all men and women-- Carden, 1971, p. 9). He conceptualized the abolition of monogamous marriage as an ideal heavenly condition. Moving back to Vermont, Noyes established (by 1846) his first polygynandrous marriage-based community, involving four monogamous couples. All that establishment was construed as “God’s will” for the participating persons to feel together not only in their religion, but also in their sexual relations. Noyes’s experiment was explicitly autocratic-- he was the dominant organizer of the marriage system, and (as he was perfect, by self-admission), was chosen for that role. His “theocratic governance” of the first experiment (which was put under stress by the local community accusing the Noyes’ household of adultery and immorality) carried over to the construction of the Oneida Community. Noyes selected his followers, and autocratically set up the social rules within the community. The Oneida Community of Noyes lasted for thirty years-- from 1849 (when Noyes became its leader) to the end of 1870s (when it broke down through an

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internal rift). In its high time, it was economically self-supporting. In its religiousness, it was an example of very strictly internalized religious beliefs which did not need many external rituals for support. There were no regular religious meetings or prayers, Christmas was scarcely recognized (but Noyes’s conversion date-- February, 20th-- was celebrated). Yet in evening meetings of the community, both work tasks and social relationship issues were discussed. Maximum care by Noyes was given to eradication of exclusive dyadic relations that tended to emerge from the sharing of co-spouses. At Oneida, due to the communal nature of life, “having wives” (or husbands) was ideologically reproachable-- as no human being should possess another in a perfect Christian community. Hence the move from either monogamy or polygynandry to polygyny or polyandry was strictly blocked. Given Noyes’ orientation, monogamy could (in case of joining the community) only be transformed into polygynandry (which was the case for him, his wife, and other followers), while the reverse movement was blocked. Individuals could join the community by-passing monogamy, but could not -- at least within the community- move further into a monogamous relation. Based on this organization of marriage, Noyes established a social organization that generated support for the form itself. The “tyrannican nature” of monogamy was overcome by way of a number of tools. First, the involvement of all community members in the economically productive activities (and active participation in decision making) created a moment of sharing. Secondly, the meaning of sexual relations was changed-- in accordance with perfectionism-from being sinful to being the way to attain perfection. The feelings of shame were targets of Noyes’ preaching: To be ashamed of the sexual organs, is to be ashamed of God’s workmanship... of the most perfect instruments of love and unity... of the agencies which gave us existence-... is to be ashamed of the image of the glory of God-- the physical symbol of life dwelling in life, which is the mystery of the gospel (cited via Carden, 1971, p. 56) If this message were to be taken literally, one could have imagined the Oneida Community to be a nudist colony. Nothing was further from reality-- in fact all who visited the community noticed their members perfect moral demenour. The message was really not for organization of public life, but input for internalization by individuals. That internalization succeeded--- by way of intertwining of the religious devotion and personal pleasure. In a diary of one of the female members of the community, the following description (which was published by the Community as an example for appropriate ways of feeling) entails clear fusion of the God and the particular partner: [The Lord] stirs up my heart from time to time to an appreciation of his mercies, which is as enlivening and satisfying as the reception of new mercies.

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In view of his goodness to me and of his desire that I should let him fill me with himself, I yield and offer myself, to be penetrated by his spirit, and desire that love and gratitude may inspire my heart so that I shall sympathize with his pleasure in the thing, before my personal pleasure begins; knowing that it will increase my capability for happiness. (Mary Cragin’s Journal, Carden, 1971, pp. 56-57) The propagation of the personal pleasure of sexual relations as indicator of pleasing the God was not unique in the Oneida Community as a religious group. Other religious movements in other parts of the World (such as devotional bhakti sects in Southern India (Hardy, 1983; Ramajunan, 1983) have reconstructed the pleasurable nature of sexual intercourse in ways that connect it with religious servitude. In Noyes’s context, however, it led to two practical problems. First, the birth rate of the Oneida complex family needed to be curtailed. In tribute to Noyes’ economic realism, Oneida Community was always oriented towards economic self-sufficiency, and sudden upsurge of reproductive success could have been detrimental. This problem was solved by social suggestion to male members of the Community to practice continence. Noyes instructed his followers to concentrate on the sexual expression of love (as it was that of “its most natural and beautiful form”) in the form of mutual enjoyment of the process of intercourse, without male ejaculation. Here we can observe an effort to make the male partner responsible for the birth control by way of regulating his sexual behavior. Judging by the actual childbirths in the Oneida Community, this method of birth control worked sufficiently well. The second problem entailed the regulation of choices of love partners that members could select, in ways that would enhance the religious ideology, rather than undermine it. Here Noyes developed the rule of ascending scale of perfectionism as characteristic measurement system for community members. By that rule, the community members must select sexual partners who are above them on the scale of perfectionism (with Noyes himself, of course, occupying the highest position in this perfectionism scale). By inventing such scale, Noyes created a system where any selection of a sexual partner was directly linked with evaluation of one’s own (and desired partner’s) perfectionism. Sexual relations in this way were both results and vehicles for local “upward mobility”-- where the criterion was person’s internalization and externalization of community values. The core of decisions about selection of partners was based on Noyes’ ideology, followed by similar link of the actual act of sexual intercourse. Noyes’s social experiment had completely appropriated human sexuality for the build-up and maintenance of his religious community, while reversing the notion of repression of sexuality by turning it into a centrally recognized positive human need. The Oneida Community had its own “life course” -- one which overlapped by its theocratic leader, John Noyes. As Noyes himself grew older, there was no person fitting to take over his pivotal role. Furthermore, the generation of young members of the community differed from their parents. Their parents had entered the communal lifestyle based on their religious conviction (and among the ones

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who claimed such conviction, Noyes carefully selected the most appropriate group members). In contrast, children born within the community were members of the community by virtue of kinship ties, not through conviction. Furthermore, the community emphasized children’s education, and critical orientation (in general, not in respect to the perfectionist belief system). About a third of children who grew up in Oneida Community got some education outside of the community. John Humphrey Noyes stayed as the leader of the Oneida Community until 1877, after which he created a committee (with his son Theodore as its head) to lead the community. Noyes’ son was himself a non-follower of perfectionism, and reluctant to lead the community. Internal dissent within the community grew-- but this dissent was first and foremost about power roles within the community (with Noyes’ departure from leadership, no heir to his throne was strong enough to take over). The complex marriage form started to break down as a result of the political infighting, resulting (by 1880) in a tendency to begin to establish monogamic relations (and issue monogamic marriage licenses). In 1881, Oneida Community was transformed into a joint stock company. Another of the many efforts of creating a communal living arrangement that would be harmonious had ended 70. What happened in Oneida? A closer analysis of the Oneida Community reveals its intricate internal structure. It was a community that set up polygynandry as its core marriage form. Yet within the polygynandrous system, one could see moments of theogamy (if one considers the ideological linkage of plural marriage relations to belong to all participants being bonded with the God through their plural relations). Theogamy here is monogamous (as only one God, rather than plurality of deities, is worshipped). Furthermore, Noyes’ “ascending scale” of perfectionism created a shade of polygyny (of Noyes as the “perfect” husband being the partner for many community women-- and for the women growing up in the community their very first partner 71). From the viewpoint of female community members (who could decide whom to select as their partners) the system included a shade of polyandry. While it is a definitional given for polygynandry that it includes moments from every other marriage form, Noyes managed to create a social system through his particular structuring of that form that fitted the socio-economic needs of the community (of his creation).

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There were many efforts in the U.S. society of the 19th century to build small communes that would follow teachings of different forms of social equality, some secular, others deeply religious. The U.S. has been a continuous testing ground for experiments in creating small-scale socially harmonious communities- all of which have failed after shorter or longer times. 71 until 1870s, when Noyes grew old, it was consensually accepted that he would be the first to initiate girls in the community who were coming of age, into adulthood.

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The monogamous marriage In the history of biological species, monogamy has been rare in the animal world (see Kleiman, 1984). As was observed above, its presence in humans is a result of cultural restrictions upon transitions in the system of marriage forms. Yet, in the context of modern industrialized world, it has become a normative and sufficiently well-functioning marriage form. It fits the needs of limiting the inheritance of property (across generation) and constitutes a mutual relationship based on the notion of property ownership (exemplified by language: “my wife”, “my husband”). Monogamy has been canonized in these societies that have taken up different forms of Christianity as their religious belief system (i.e., from the 3rd and 4th Century A.D. onwards). Since most of the science of psychology has emerged in occidental societies that share the Judeo-Christian religious history, let us look at the restrictions that the religious system of Christianity-- since its raise to relevance in the 4th Century A.D.-- has set upon the general scheme. This strictly restricted scheme is presented in Figure 4.3. As is the case with most moral norms, its boundaries are over-determined by meaning. All basic meanings are tied to affective realms—at what the socialization efforts aim. Only with the personal construction of a hypergeneralized affective field sign (Valsiner, 2005, and chapter 8 here) will the particular domain of interobjectivity become redundantly guarded through personal-cultural corresponding canalizers. Thus, the message of “marital fidelity” surrounds the young children growing up in a myriad of ways—and is to be accepted unquestioningly and affectively. Human socialization consists of canalization of human affect through simple mechanisms of “obedience to authority” (Milgram, 1974)—assertions that something must be done simply because “it must be done”, or something else can’t be done because “it is not allowed”. Such acts of asserted power are particularly powerful because of their absence of argumentation—the power asserter re-instates one’s control of the given setting, rather than bargains for it. As can be seen from Figure 4.3., social systems that have been built on the basis of Christianity have strictly restricted any transformation of marriage out of the prescribed monogamic form. Adding husbands (or wives) to an existing monogamic marriage is strictly blocked, and all other three marriage forms are made to be not only illegal but also immoral. This redundant control-- blocking transformation and stigmatizing the other possible forms-- guarantees that all marriage related issues are immediately viewed as necessarily those of monogamy.

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Figure 4.3. Constraining marriage forms to serial monogamy

MONOGAMY MONOGAMY

Take away all but 1 wife

bo un da ry

MONOGAMY

bo un da ry

Take away all but 1 husband

MONOGAMY boundary Add 1 or more husband

Add 1 or more wife

POLY-

POLYANDRY

GYNY Take away all but 1 hus band Add 1 or more husband

Add 1 or more wife

Take away all but 1 wife

POLYGYNANDRY

Women: to marry a man or a god? Once upon a time that was the question. Christianity created a two-trajectory social role expectations for women-- either marry, or remain chaste and dedicate oneself to religious service. As a developing religious cult in Roman Empire (where it moved into a majority position by around 350 A.D.), it emphasized body-related symbolic marking of the religious commitment. Thus, sexuality became appropriated as a basis for religious commitment (remaining chaste for religion, or faithful to husband). Christianity was viewed as particularly successful among women (Stark, 1996,

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pp. 99-100). Similarly, it is the women who have been designated the role of “socio-moral guardianship” of the monogamic marriage. Last (but not least), the monogamic practice divides the resources (husband candidates) in ways that give the given husband-bearer full role in the marital system. This fullness of the role may be constrained by external rules upon women’s conduct. A Fulani (in Mali) perspective (from a standpoint of polygyny) upon European monogamy is revealing in this sense. When the researcher-- Paul Riesman-- explained that in Europe bigamy is outlawed, ...the women would say with a dreamy and envious air, “What a good law you have!” Every woman, if she does not yet have a cowife, lives under the constant threat of the arrival of one, and it is a threat against which she can offer no legal resistance. Thus the man may attenuate his wife’s hold not only over her own children and her cattle but also over himself, the husband, in sharing himself between two, three, or four wives... A wife may ask for a divorce in such a case, but since the husband’s action is not considered to be wrong, the wife must return the husband [all the valuables] which he had brought about the marriage... since it is the husband who keeps the children in any case of separation, to ask for a divorce would be, for the wife, to abandon her children (Riesman, 1977, p. 92) Again, we can see the centrality of control over resources (including here issue of “ownership” of children at divorce), above other concerns. Probably the Fulani fascination with European monogamy would look different if the husband in monogamy were to keep the children. In the spirit of missionary efforts, political dominance gained by European countries at times of colonial expansion (16th to 20th centuries) resulted in superimposing upon other societies the monogamy-privileging marriage forms. Other forms of marriage of the “natives” were to be transformed to strict monogamy. Such colonial efforts resulted in superficial masking of the accepted marriage forms by superficial acceptance of monogamy 72. Social organization. The social roles of the wife and the husband are defined in monogamy by strict prescriptions and boundary maintenance against move to any other form of marriage. Over the last 17 centuries, the organization of monogamic marriages has moved from social role basis to that of internalization of exclusive interpersonal relations (in terms of use of the meaning of “love” as the basis for establishment and maintenance of the relation). This historical development has been linked with the development of capitalist economic system out of its feudal predecessors. It has differentially proliferated through different strata of Western societies, especially among its middle range (e.g., 72

For example, British enforcement of monogamy in (what is now) Ghana led to superficial declaration (by polgynously married persons) of the first (senior) co-wife as the monogamic spouse, while retaining other co-wives as if these were “mistresses” in the sense of the colonialist powers.

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European aristocracy in the 20th century, like in previous ones, cannot build marital relations on the basis of love, but have to consider the social history of the potential marriage partners). Psychological organization. In contrast to other marriage forms (which function to eradicate feelings of jealousy), monogamy is largely built upon the personal-cultural construction of jealousies (see chapter 7 on hyper-geheralized affective field signs). Often jealousy is equated with the organizing concept of love. Love is a basically ill-defined concept, which nevertheless governs the feelings of human beings in their personal cultures in very powerful ways. As love may be linked with the notion of belonging (of one marital partner to the other), the linkage to monogamic relation as "mutual ownership" of the other is easily made. The basis for building such affective limits on the borders of monogamy is the symbolic “ownership” of the other (by the husband of the wife, and by the wife of the husband). Such ownership is cultivated through the collective-cultural myth systems of a society (e.g, a belief that if the spouse is not jealous, the spouse “does not really love” the partner). In dyadic marital relations, testing of the fullness of the "ownership" of the other can occur constantly from the beginning (as well as from times before) the marriage. For example, the bride or wife may indulge in genetic dramatisms of jealousy over the husband's real or imaginary female friends, thus both testing the "love tie" of the relationship and trying to channel the husband's interests (see Brusco, 1995, pp. 115-116 for a description of marital relations in Colombian marriages). The needs of the traditionally economically more insecure partners-- the women -- are guaranteed by their implicit power control over the marital tie through the inevitable embeddedness of the husband in the wife-controlled negotiations of the family with needs of everyday life. Further restrictions upon monogamy can be seen in different conditions of possible ending of a monogamous relation. These range from the absolute impossibility of legal divorce, to the case (practiced in contemporary societies) of allowing divorces at relatively relaxed conditions. The former extreme ruled out change of marriage partners (i.e., the only possibility of new marriage partnership was re-marriage after a spouse had died); the latter transformed the monogamic marriage form into a case of serial monogamy. Serial monogamy. Serial monogamy can be seen as a version of polygyny without polygyny-- that is, a way of marrying many partners without plurality of these partners at the same time (Clignet, 1970). It is monogamic because at any time only one husband and one wife are involved in it. Yet its development into full polygyny is arrested by legal and moral boundaries. As such, it constitutes a solution to human life-course organization which entails multiple partners without allowing such multiplicity to occur at the same time. Serial monogamy can be found in the sequence where partners separate, and re-marry. The crucial-- and critical-- condition is the abandonment of the previous spouse in favour of a new one. This condition differentiates serial

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monogamy from either polygyny or polyandry. In the case of both polyandry and polygyny, new spouses are added to the marriage, without the abandonment of the previous ones. Psychologically, this difference is of opposite nature of cultural construction. In one case, the reasons for abandonment have to be constructed in the personal-cultural domain. Serial monogamy is necessarily linked with conflicts of denigration of the previous marital partner for any collective-culturally appropriate reason (be it witchcraft accusation or “he does not love me any more”). Furthermore, the form of serial monogamy creates multiple households for children born in different phases of the serial monogamic relations of particular parents. Summary: Minimal communities in action The question of marriage forms is central for cultural-psychological understanding of the contexts in which the bi-directional cultural transfer over generations takes place. Each of the basic forms of marriage creates a different meaning for the notion of family. Each of the forms of marriage (and family) are cultural means for organization of human lives. None of the forms has higher inherent value than any other, despite the fact that participants in each find way to give privilege to their own preference. That is done either by accentuating their existing conditions in contrast (and opposition) to others' ways. Thus, statements of horror by monogamists about the possibility of life in plural unions-- or similar horror of polygynists at the idea of living under the “impoverished” conditions of monogamy-- are semiotic ways to create boundaries between the "ingroup" and "outgroup". As was shown abovechapters 2 and 3—this value-based distinction ("WE are right, THEY are wrong")—creates conflicts far beyond the boundaries of family groups. Similarly, by creating wild imaginations about the other ways of living (e.g., fascination by bored monogamists with the assumed pleasures of polygynic or polyandrous marriages), that boundary becomes maintained ("WE are insufficient, THEY really are better"). Such personal externalized valuations are parts of the personal cultures of their authors, rather than definitive statements about the psychological, social, or economic conditions of the described marriage forms. Each of the marriage forms constitutes the temporal structure for marriage. Each of them requires different ways of handling the social role relationships between the participants. The flexibility of the cultural-psychological system of creating meanings helps here. In cases where jealousies are imminent dangers for the functioning of a marriage form, specific set of cultural means is used so as the emergence of jealousies is either made impossible, or at least highly improbable. The very same personal feeling (jealousy) can be collectiveculturally promoted to maintain the boundaries of another marriage form (monogamy). In both cases-- of attenuation and amplification-- of jealousies as psychological, internalized boundary control mechanisms-- we can see the personal-cultural system as functioning in service of the given life space organization.

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Aside from the personal-cultural constructions of human life course within the matrix of marriage forms, these forms play also an important role in cultural mediating of persons’ relations with social groups in which they are parts. The cultural forms of marriage and family guarantee sufficient maintenance of the whole texture of social life. It is therefore not surprising that the issues of family and marriage are recurrent targets for different social institutions in their power relations and goal-oriented actions within a society. As our example of the Mormon re-organization of married lives, as well as that of the Oneida Community indicated, it was the religious institutions which made use of reformulation of marriage forms (and their collective cultural valuation) to bond persons in these marriages further to their specific goals. This does not differ from the use of chastity demands in Christian or Muslim dominated social worlds. The married life is the playground for extra-marital institutional interests—yet these are sufficiently buffered by the creation of minimal community atmospheres within the functioning social units—the families.

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Chapter 5. Cultural Wholes on the Move: Maintenance and

Crossing of Boundaries in the Semiotic Universes In every social stratum that area of conduct which is functionally of most vital importance to its members us the most carefully and intensively molded. Elias, 1982, p. 305

We have seen in the previous chapters how human beings are cultural beings through the creation and use of signs. The use of signs allows us to both make distinctions and overcome them—by creating fields of meaning that extend over space and time. That personal-cultural side of the human psyche is guided by the meanings encoded into the persons’ life environments by different social institutions that are in need for participation by persons in their goals-directed activities. The whole cultural set-up of our environments is suggesting one or another kind of acting—using the combinations of various signs, starting from iconic and indexical ones (see chapter 1). Human environments are socially suggestive environments. Within these environments, social-institutional guidance takes the form of setting up dramatized activity settings—public situations within which human beings participate to greater or lesser extents— and experience the social suggestions for socially expected feeling, thinking, and acting. At times such public dramas entail the loss of life by some of the participants—as in public executions, duels, and hunting trips. Such loss of life is presented through the particular meanings attached to the role performances 73 of the participants. Example 5.1. The functions of public punishments. In the course of history, people labeled as “criminals” have been punished-- from their execution to whipping-- in public places all through the European history. In New England, from the 17th Century onwards, public punishments were turned into deeply theatrical events: In many ways the whole drama resembled a sort of moral theater. Sedate at first, punishments, in particular executions, took on a carnival atmosphere from the 1670s onward. Advertised well in advance, they attracted large crowds: drums played, the participants marched in procession, and ministers gave long 73

A good example of such role performance orientation is the care for prisoners left waiting execution for not to die before they are killed—the result (the prisoner dead) is the same, but in the case of non-scripted death (e.g., suicide) it lacks the socially set theatrical performance in the role of the ones to be “legitimately” killed.

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sermons replete with details and graphic language. The criminals about to be punished for "black-mouthed oaths," "filthy drunkennesses," "vilest debauchery," and so forth were asked to play their part. Confessions provided the penultimate excitement before the final act took place. Executions often became the most talked-about event of the year and drew immense crowds… For James Morgan's execution in 1686, crowds began to gather in Boston a week ahead of the event. Some came at least fifty miles. On the Sunday before the hanging, two distinguished ministers preached sermons on the crime; and on the Thursday of the execution, Increase Mather preached a sermon to a crowd of five thousand, the largest theretofore gathered in New England. Vendors sold written broadsides, which, like theater programs, summarized the details of Morgan's crimes. (Daniels, 1995, p., 101) The theatrical nature of public punishments involved coordination of mutually related social roles. Similar functions can be found in other rituals-military parades, weddings, court cases, college graduation ceremonies. Many theatrical ritualized acts entail the use of socially created life events of individuals—criminals, celebrities, etc.—for the sake of the guidance of others. These others are taken out of their ordinary home environments to some public setting, kept within the field, and provided with dramatic (and traumatic) experiences for the sake of the guidance of their internalization system (see chapter 7). The public settings are set up by a structure of social roles assigned to particular people (the criminal, the executioner, the vendors of popcorn and theatre programs, TV cameramen focusing on the events, anchorperson for the local TV channel, and police to keep public order). All these persons are actors in the public theatrical setting, where the rest of the spectators are liminal coplayers. They are spectators—watching the event “from outside”—and yet, at the same time, they are “insiders”—as part of the event. The liminality of social group and crowd membership is set up by public events where necessarily the differentiation of the “center stage” and “quasi-spectatorship” 74 is present.

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I use this awkward term to emphasize the inclusive separation of the “stage” and “audience” in any theatrical performance. Contrary to the usual opposition (based on the model of exclusive separation) that the “actors on stage” are unlinked with the audience, here we see various forms of peripheral participation in the theatre play—or public ritual—from different positions. Of course our contemporary mass media are a technological device that allows such forms of participation to become central at the maximum distance from the location of the event. Hence the “movement” of images from far-away areas of wars, famines, royal weddings, etc. right into the comforts of our living rooms, and the dominance of the peripheralized participation in private of events in public. The visible social crowds (viewed on TV screens) meet the real minimal communities at the loci of message reception.

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Meanings and Movements To create social guidance dramas, people move around—and force others to do the same. Such movement begins from the beginning— the first “move away” can be found in the child’s exit from the womb at birth—with no real chance of return. All through the life the person creates novelty and encounters that altered state of one’s surroundings. The latter reality of irreversibility of development has of course given rise to various psychological theories that posit the basic desire to return to the locus of origin. The alternative ideology—that of positing incurable tendencies for exploration—exists in parallel. Different types of movements away from the home ground are shown in Figure 5.1. The typology of various forms of movement entails a look backwards— reconstruction of the cultural history by way of re-telling and re-constructing one’s collective myth stories, narratives of the past historical events, and one’s own life stories. In parallel, the movement towards the future entails temporary movements into the geographically near “other places”—schools, bars, markets, zoos, brothels, tanning studies, theatres, cafes, restaurants, cinemas, art exhibits, concerts, and more generally—public places of the local village, town, or megapolis. Such movements are temporary—daily, weekly, or at irregular times—and are based on the home place, and are places of negotiation of the personal and collective cultures. The act of “moving out” of the ordinary home routine is itself an act of minimal adventure. It entails the psychological creation of the meaning triplet HOME--|THRESHOLD|--non-HOME, followed by setting up one’s action goals beyond the border of the threshold. We create such thresholds both in the architectural space. Our houses, stores, churches, temples, etc—all have thresholds that the person who steps in, or out, needs to trespass. Furthermore, we create semiotic markers of the border crossing actions—in the form of locks and keys, passwords, visas, etc. Special social roles for people overseeing the borders are created-- doormen at bars, security guards, etc. Our intra-psychological (personal-cultural) worlds are similarly layered. We also create these thresholds in the depths of our internalized worlds of feelings and meanings—the semiotic space. Widely known and revered meanings such as incest, holiness, and ownership are meaning thresholds—promoter signs— that regulate our intentions in our action by inhibiting the latter. Others—like trash, enemy, help—are to trigger us into appropriate action in crossing the thresholds. While creating the boundaries—both internally and externally—we set up the stage for our crossing them.

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Figure 5.1. A typology of possible culturally organized movement trajectories

CULTURAL IDENTITY: Æ PILGRIMAGE Æ CRUSADE Æ MISSION

Cultural reconstruction of past events: life history myth

ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES: THE PRESENT PLACE AT THIS

school bars, market

Æ TRADE Æ EXPLORATION Æ G t b it WAR CONQUE LOCALITY ALTERATIO N: Æ marrying o t

PAST far

| PRESENT |

near FUTURE

The temporary movement outside of home is socially regulated both by objective set-up of environment (geographic locations, accessibility to “outside”, etc) as well as symbolically. The latter entails regulation of meanings of access to different gender or age categories to different public locations—all together, or with a chaperone, or under conditions of hijab (El-Guindi, 1999; Shirazi, 2001). Some of the movements are made mandatory—compulsory formal schooling requires daily movement through the environment between home and school territories. Specific transport vehicles—symbolically marked—may be institutionally made available for such regular trips (see Figure 5.2.).

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Figure 5.2. A cultural tool for boundary transition: a school bus in the U.S.

The U.S. yellow school bus in Figure 5.2. is more than just a car (which has special privileges in traffic, in relation to other cars). It is a symbol of transition between the two separated life-worlds—those of the home (and its extensions—the community), and the place for formal education (school). It is a specifically marked boundary device—a way to cross the symbolic (aside from geographic) distance between the two. In a similar vein, the day-and-night cycle creates a basis for such cultural migration between home and non-home. In a Maasai homestead,

During the day, when the cattle are out and the gates are open, the boundary between the cultural domain of the homestead and the natural domain of the bush is removed. The homestead is invaded by nature, it becomes natural space. Women occupy the centre of the homestead, men and cattle stay outside. Conversely, during the night, when men and cattle are inside the homestead along with the women, and the gates are closed, the boundary between culture and nature is reaffirmed. (Arnhem, 1991, p. 65) The opening and closing of doors and gates—be those of one’s bedroom, or bathroom, or house, or of the gates of a (mediaeval) city, or of the political borders of countries-- are all cultural acts of regulating the possibilities of movement of the cultural agents. The whole invention of cultural tools to guarantee the selective permeability of these boundaries—invention of keys, visas, passwords, etc.—indicates the need to regulate the dynamics of interchange between “this side” and “the other” in a spatio-temporal living arrangement. Likewise, introduction of daily trips between home and school have impacts on the ways the participants in these regular symbolic movement patterns are dressed. The adoption of school uniforms would entail institutionalization of not merely the homogeneity of schoolchildren’s being at school, but also of their movement in and out of school. Likewise, the introduction

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of regular school trips could lead to modification of the whole community’s dress codes 75. By introducing a new form of activity, the movement patterns of access to (and from) that activity setting can lead to transformation of the whole social order. Cultural psychology of being on the move. Temporary movement of children out of their natal households—to those of their relatives, or to boarding schools and (later) colleges entails the tension between moving away from the familiar (and resisting it—Heimweh in Ernst Boesch’s terms—see below), and moving towards the not-yet-familiar but somehow desired (Fernweh, a la Boesch; adventure—see Simmel, 1959a). Moving around is a spatio-temporal enterprise. It occurs with its posited goals, and on landscapes that are culturally pre-structured. In most general sense-- people’s movement is meaningfully purposeful. They go from place A to place B for some reason—yet the place “out there” is beyond their horizon, both perceptually and culturally. While doing that, they put their own previously established personal-cultural and collective-cultural systems under new tensions for adaptation. Even the conqueror has to adjust to the realities of the lives of the conquered—as the history of colonial conquests amply demonstrate (Steinmetz, 2003). Likewise, a religious pilgrim expects to find new meanings—and cures for ills—in new places one has decided to visit. In that expectation, the pilgrim not only endures the hardship of the pilgrimage but also accepts the social role allotted to him/her at the destination. Trajectories of social movement Human beings are on the move. They go from their home compounds to places of relevant life cycle rituals—temples, churches, birthing huts, schools, military barracks or cemeteries, theatres, cinemas, restaurants or parks—to places other than their regular home environments. They may go to crusades, wars, or football games—as well as to bring images of those to one’s home. As was described in Figure 5.1., the making of longer-term future states entails a variety of movements. First, the human history is mostly that of conquests of resources—through wars, colonial annexations, intermarriages, property purchases and trade. Many social moves entail a combination of various kinds—a religious missionary effort may be linked with a trade journey, or war expedition is linked with the efforts to convert the “captured natives” into the faith of the conquerors. A version of this unity is “slave trade” (Kopytoff, 1982)— expeditions and trade of human beings to be transported to economic production 75

Describing changes in the public life in Fez, Morocco, in the 1950s, Fatima Mernissi recollects: “When the nationalists first started sending their daughters to school, they also started letting them wear the djellaba [male clothing- a closely fitted robe with trimmed sleeves and slits on the side to allow walking] because it was much more practical than the haik [traditional women’s veil]. Going back and forth to school four times a day was not like going to visit a saint’s tomb once a year. So the daughters started wearing the men’s djellba, and soon thereafter, their mothers followed suit.” (Mernissi, 1994, p. 119)

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place under compulsion. Generations of such exposure led to religious conversion and were at times re-directed into re-immigration to places of origin with new missionary and economic interests (Falola & Childs, 2004;Johnson,1999; Sanneh, 1999; Weiner, 1998). The establishment of exslave colonies in West Africa was a social experiment of the population movement started by the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Likewise, a religious pilgrimage combined with military conquest amounts to a crusade. Many of the first sea faring explorations of the world—from Vasco da Gama to James Cook —were to set the stage for conquest by force, combined by different forms of direct or indirect administrative rule-- followed by missionary efforts by the new rulers.

Cultural psychology of pilgrimage There exists a deeply historical tradition all over the World and in its various religions—that of special journeys to specifically rich and powerful symbolic places. The tradition of pilgrimage is an act of personal-cultural devotion within a social framework that is set up by the constraint system of the collective culture (Delaney, 1990)—expectation that a believer in X undertakes a weekly, monthly, yearly, or once in a lifetime—a journey to that “another place” of special collectively shared meaning for the believers 76. The history of inventing the rituals of pilgrimages is linked with the sedentary lifestyle and agricultural subsistence activities. It is absent in nomadic lifestyles—hence it constitutes an activity of temporary change of the {LIVING HERE > LIVING non-HERE} duality (see chapter 3), where from the sub-dominant field {Living non-HERE} emerges the notion of {JOURNEY TO THERE} which begins to act as the promoter sign for the person undertaking the pilgrimage. As Victor Turner has pointed out, A pilgrimage center, from the standpoint of the believing actor, also represents a “threshold,” a place and moment “in and out of time,” and such an actor—as the evidence of many pilgrims of many religions attests—hopes to have there direct experience of the sacred, invisible, or supernatural order, either in the material aspect of miraculous healing or in the material aspect of inward transformation of spirit or personality. (Turner, 1973, p. 214) The pilgrim undertakes physical hardship that is meaningful for the personal-cultural construction of the “journey away” from the regular place and ways of living. Thus, the three-week barefoot journey of raj jat (Royal Pilgrimage) of 164 miles in Northern India, passing elevations of over 4000 meters gets successfully completed on rare years when the conditions are favourable (Sax, 1990). Yet its construction as a luring challenge for the test of devotional piety is 76

Contemporary activity of tourism can be viewed as a secularized historical outgrowth from the social practices of pilgrimage. The functions of tourism for the tourists are centered upon one’s own self through the act of travel elsewhere (see Gillespie, 2007)

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an idea for which many people prepare themselves. Already such preparation can have an intra-psychological function of a pilgrimage—in one’s mind. Once the pilgrim actually gets started on the road to the pilgrimage goal place, …the route becomes increasingly sacralized as he progresses: at first it is his subjective mood of penitence that is important while the many long miles are mainly secular, everyday miles; then the sacred symbols begin to invest the route; while in the final stages, the route itself becomes a sacred, sometimes mythical journey until almost every landmark and ultimately every step is a condensed, multivocal symbol capable of arousing much affect and desire. (Turner, 1973, p. 214, added emphases) The historical invention of pilgrimage is thus an act of sign construction through one’s own effort—first in the form of indexical sign (the pilgrim’s own step by step movement on the pilgrimage trail). It is this full impact of the actual journey on its meaning, followed by symbolic generalization from the efforts over time into a hyper-generalized symbol of transformed self that is the result of pilgrimage (see further chapter 1 on sign complexes). The trail of pilgrimage can

Figure 5.3. Pilgrims and tourists waiting in line to see the image of the saint in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Spain (author’s photo, 2004)

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be long or short, entail the use of modern airplanes or traditional horse or camel power, or just walking—yet the full immersion in the meaningful totality of “the other place.” This is supported by social relations and social crowd phenomena-the pilgrim moves into a temporary community of similar actors—who collectively transform the place of the pilgrimage, and carry back home the symbolic images of the “special place” which for the un-initiated can look very mundane. There are very many occasions for people waiting in line (see Figure 5.3.). Equally important is the set of specific activities the pilgrims become engaged in once they arrive at the goal of their pilgrimage. This may entail touching the sculpted image of the deity (e.g., people in line in Figure 5.3. are on their way to embrace the sculpture of St. John’s from behind in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela), or bathing in a holy place (e.g., “when a pilgrim dives into the sacred waters of the Ganga, he feels the thrill of plunging into the waters of all rivers of India”—Eck, 1982, p. 168). Richly overgeneralized symbols grow out of the indexical sign of letting the water of a river flow over one’s body, and the iconic sign of observing all other bathers doing the same. It is supported by the myth stories of the origins and special symbolic meanings of rivers, sacred mountains, and forests (e.g., Feldhaus, 1995—an analysis of the symbolic meanings of rivers in India). Crusades: unity of war and pilgrimage However, the ways of being human are not only those of peaceful pilgrimages. History of humankind is filled with wars—and many of those are fought under the auspices of religious systems of conviction. The preponderance of the latter creates a situation where a religious journey—a pilgrimage— becomes simultaneously a war path. In year 1095 A.D., the Pope Urban II proclaimed the holy war against the “infidels”. While making this proclamation in Clermont, he made it clear that the conquering of the Holy Land of Jerusalem was to be an “armed pilgrimage” (Savage, 1977, p. 36). The crusades that occupied the religious minds of the Europeans over the following four centuries followed suit. This included examples of religious fervent of adolescents who in year 1212 A.D. moved through European countryside in a deep belief that proliferated large crowds of youngsters that they have the mission to “liberate the Holy Land.” This episode of collective unity of action 77 has been mentioned as a curious part of the Fourth Crusade—the so-called “Children’s Crusade” (Pallenberg, 1983). 77

Historical records of that event of children’s leaving home to “liberate the Holy Land” are scanty. The notion of “children’s crusade” covered the crowd activities of youngsters who left their homes to follow the particular young boys of religious calling—a young boy Nicholas in Rheinland and Stephanus (Etienne in French) from Cloyes (Vendome)—who led their accumulating crowds of followers through the Alps to Rome, and to Marseille, respectively. The roots for such crowd phenomena are built on the meaningseeking nature of adolescent psychology, guided by the ideology of the ever-present religious belief system. At the core of the children’s actions was “…the long-held medieval belief in holy poverty—that the

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The introduction of crusades as a form of war with a religious flavor led to the establishment of new cultural codes of warfare. Like all aspects of human life, destruction is as much culturally organized as is any feature of cultural development. The notion of the “just war” was known since the times of Cicero in Ancient Rome (Cowdrey, 2003). The crusades appropriated that notion by way of saturating the meaning of war with symbolic meaning—for the Christian warrior, being in the holy war could be an act of imitation of the Christ in his victory upon the cross. Winning (by way of killing the opponents) as well as being killed oneself became positively valued, meaningful acts. The ideologies of joining war efforts for the sake of a generalized field-like promoter sign (“defending homeland”, “liberating the others for the sake of democracy”, “controlling the World” etc.) have been used widely in human history, and are re-invented whenever needed. Figure 5.4. An image of the enemy in Christian/Muslim conflict in Spain, 8th century A.D. (from Hunt, 2005, p. 14)

The general cultural-psychological principles were present in the turn to war (chapter 2). In order for making killing legitimate, the “enemy” was dehumanized (see Figure 5.4.—Charlemagne’s fight with Arabs—dressed as devils—in Spain in the 8th century A.D.). The crusades were a kind of war where the constructive moment—“liberation” of what the crusaders considered their “holy land” (and of course what has been of the same status by their opponents)—existed as an integral part of destruction.

poor of Christ could achieve things by their pious righteousness that church prelates and secular lords could not” (Madden, 1999, p. 138).

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The impacts of movement Movement leads to transformation of the environment— and of one’s own self. The minimal act of movement is that of taking a step—what is just one step for a person may be a huge step for his or her personal culture: One step after the other, and each, potentially, carries a meaning. I may not notice it, yet I walk differently in a cheerful mood, in sorrow, or in deep thoughts. Might we say that my mood somehow ‘commands’ my style of walking? Of course, but the opposite is no less true: My walking commands my mood. Look at it more closely: each step, whether I am consciously aware of it or not, sends me a message—‘feedback’ in the more sober terminology of science: it tells me that I walk easily or with effort, lightly or laboriously. This contains both, the basic information that I am able to move, and the more circumstantial one about the actual quality of my moving. This feedback immediately translates itself into a mood, a feeling of ease or strain, and it extends and generalizes: it makes me confident or doubting about reaching my aim, not only the present one I am going to, but also others, possible ones. (Boesch, 2006, p. 75) Movement is goals-oriented—and goals can be multiple. Persons move in order to put themselves into another environment— for sake of devotion, social roles (e.g. at marriage, or – or both-- spouses move to the other’s, or a newly established, household), profit (nomadic tribes moving with cattle to feed it in new pastures, or traders moving in a caravan), or to capture new resources. The movement of the world explorers—from Vasco da Gama and Columbus to our contemporary oil drillers— is an act of getting to know the unknown with a goal of material gains. In contrast, the movement of mountain climbers towards the top of Mount Everest is for self-accomplishment purposes— no goldmines await the climbers on the top. Crowds of military move around territories to capture those (and resources linked with those) and eradicate the owners of these resources; while the latter move as refugees having lost the resources. Human cultural movement is not for the sake of movement itself, but is organized by the basic unity of construction and destruction.

The CONSTRUCTION<> DESTRUCTION dialectics Human beings construct—while destructing. The building of any architectural novel structure entails the destruction of the natural environment—both in terms of the place for the structure, and in terms of the materials for the structure.

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Wars are a cultural invention—an act of movement with destructive purposes. Wars have been fought by the same national powers in different locations differently. All wars are administrative symbolic acts of destructive touring (see Gillespie, 2007) which involve atrocities. The latter may be limited to the direct enemy (“soldiers in uniforms”), or cover the wide ground of all representatives of “the enemy”, whether directly involved in combat or not. From war to genocide. The closeness of phenomena of genocide to this widening of the meaning of war is an indicator of the perverse persevering of the destructive side of the human condition (Kiernan, 2003). All colonial powers committed acts of atrocities against the conquered peoples as part of the administrative standard operating procedures. Genocides—“final solutions” in eradicating “the other”-- are destruction utopias (Hull, 2003, p. 143)—that recur in human history filled with creation of a variety of utopias. All human activity can be characterized as a constant dialectical tension between the opposing poles of the unified duality CONSTRUCTION <> DESCTRUCTION. Each of the opposites prepares the ground for the other—our utilization of our environment (i.e., its modification, that entails the destruction of some of its previous state of affairs) is a vehicle for our construction of something new. Likewise, that something new can be the invention of weapons of individual destruction— the human species is notable for its construction of destruction devices—from stone choppers and axes to nuclear bombs—and their use. Georg Simmel’s (1906, see also chapter 2) on the mutuality of peace and war plays itself out most dramatically in the human construction of destructive acts (and the destruction—constructively—of those acts). The transformation of dual meaning field. When the pilgrimage is an act of personal construction of the self through the special journey to a honored divine location and subservience to the local social (and sacred) orders, then a war is of opposite kind. Human warring orientation is built on the emergence of {CONSTRUCTION <> non-CONSTRUCTION} meaning duality. Out of the subdominant {non-CONSTRUCTION} field—where many other options could grow as well (e.g., ignoring, utilizing, etc.—it is the {DESTRUCTION <> nonDESTRUCTION} new meaning field that acts as the promoter sign for human beings. Under its constraints, people who had been carefully constructing their environments—building towns, roads, bridges, cultivating crops and livestock— turn to the opposite course of action. They start to destroy objects created by fellow human beings-- as well as torture, imprison, and kill the other human beings designated as “enemies”, “infidels”, or in any other ways belonging to a category of sub-humans (see chapters 2 and 3). The whole meaning of the landscape changes for persons who come to the war zone—where the same object could have been carefully used for constructive or ordinary life purposes, it becomes a participating tool in the act of destruction (Lewin, 1917)—yet in the back of the primacy of the destructive acts remains the meaning field on nondestruction. It takes the form of saving some of the objects on the warpath from being destroyed (e.g. some buildings, monuments, sacred places; or civilians of

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the “enemy” kind). As a result—as Georg Simmel has emphasized—during the war a preparation for peace is going on. Movement together with symbols Not all pilgrimages are to the objects—some entail human movement with the objects. An image of a deity may be taken around in the village and its environs. These are examples of “minimal pilgrimages”—of a day or of a part of the day (e.g., “chariot journeys” of Hindu temple deities—Sax, 1990; Catholic rituals of carrying images of saints through the communities; Merina carrying of the remnants of the ancestors around in the community as important process of identity for the living—Bloch, 1968). All these events are occasions of a “symbolic walk”—the persons accompany the symbolic figures 78. Together with moving around, human beings transport various objects from other places to their home place—purchased, looted, or stolen goods—and transfer some objects from home into publicly available and exchangeable ones—gifts and commodities, as well as discarded objects after use (“waste” or “garbage”).

Crossing borders: within personal cultures, and between In all of these movements, the actors cross borders—set by themselves, or by others, for them. The borders range from public and political (border crossing, with visas or without, of national borders) to those of personal environments (entering another person’s home as an invited guest, or as a burglar), and to the innermost spheres of the psyche. In the latter, collectivecultural regulation of boundaries of closeness sets up both the internal feelings towards others (being “acquaintances”, “friends”, “lovers”) as well as serves as basis for expectations for inter-personal interaction. Comparison between persons from different collective-cultural backgrounds illustrate the contrasts of intra-psychological borders by the contrasts in the communication domain. People from different backgrounds become acquainted with, fall in love with, marry, and establish multi-cultural families—all of which requires the coordination of the personal-cultural structures of self borders between the persons involved. Or, likewise, a navigator (and later—conqueror) cannot understand the “behavior of the natives” who may show a friendly face before a fatal attack. Kurt Lewin’s life course took him to the United States in 1933— after Hitler’s takeover in Germany. As an immigrant and as a psychologist, he could not fail to notice the contrasts in interpersonal relationship-making as a process of boundary crossings (Figure 5.5.) 78

It may be interesting to consider our contemporary practices of “walking for health” as outgrowths from the movement around with significant symbolic figures. In this case the one who walks and the significant symbol are the same—the mystique of “health” in the walking body.

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Figure 5.5. Structure of closeness boundaries between Germany and the United States in the 1930s, as viewed by Kurt Lewin (Lewin, 1936, p. 283)

In the diagram drawn by Lewin after two years in the United States, the resistance against communication from outside is represented by heavier lines (versus lighter ones) within the concentric layers of closeness that designate the person. Layer 5 is the utmost subjective, deeply intra-personal layer. In the “UType” (United States) that layer is protected by very strong resistance boundary for outsiders’ penetration, while the other layers (1…4) can be crossed in the interpersonal domain with relative ease. In contrast, the “G-Type” (Germany) allows only the outermost layer (1) to be easily accessible. The major boundary here is between layers 1 and 2, with minor resistances at later boundaries. A number of contrastive predictions emerge from Lewin’s scheme. In a traditional cross-cultural perspective, he claimed The American is much less likely to respond with anger, or at least with open anger, to the hundred small misfortunes of everyday life… The American reacts generally to such accidents more from the point of action (he considers what has to be done to remedy the situation), the German more from a moral point of view (he considers whose fault it was).. Furthermore, such incidents are less likely to touch central regions of the person. In other words, the range of events which correspond to the peripheral, non-private regions, seems to be comparatively greater for the American… As the private field includes more layers of the G-type, he is likely to act more emotionally. (Lewin, 1936, p. 285) Lewin’s depiction is structural here—yet all living is dynamic. Each person creates one’s own personal-cultural structure of one’s self’s boundaries, and rules (set up by signs) for entry into varied layers of one’s self for different carriers of social roles in one’s immediate environment. This pertains in parallel to the domains of actions by others, and to personal acceptance of tellability (see chapter 2) – information sharing in being told something about the self. The particular “other”—mother, father, sister, brother, friend, lover, housemaid, slave,

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milkman, hooker, policeman, journalist, priest, medicine specialist, psychologist, etc.—is provided differential accesses into the person’s subjective self 79. Likewise, the move of the person into the self-domains of different “social others” involves bringing one’s personal-cultural boundary structure of the self into those set up by these other persons within their social roles. The latter may demand from their carrier direct intervention into others’ personal-cultural domains— policemen, nurses, spies, detectives, etc. are constantly involved in such endeavours. Example 5.3. Semiotic crossing of personal culture boundaries in gynecological examination. While all medicine is definable as a social act of such boundary crossings, the specific branch of medicine—obstetrics and gynecology—that deals with female reproductive processes is at the extreme of such boundary crossing. Therefore it constitutes a good example of how such inevitable boundary crossings are set up. First and foremost, the history of medical care of women has been operating under the gender-knowledge base power conditions. Reproduction and all aspects of the bodily function related with that have been “women’s world” to which males have penetrated only historically very recently (after 17th century in Europe). The confluence of medical expert roles with those of common life gender presuppositions continue to our present day where even official acceptance of male gynecologists in that role is viewed with suspicion and met by social control. For example, a female nurse may accompany the male doctor in the process of gynecological examination. The situation becomes semiotically re-defined— the given context of encounter of a male (doctor) and woman (patient) part of the social definition of life outside of something labeled “medical setting” (such as a party, sexual assault, psychological experiment, etc), but it is in such setting where it is prescribed that “no one is embarrassed” and where it is inappropriate to even think—not to speak of talking 80—in sexual terms. In the interpersonal communication within that setting, speech registers clearly guide the ways of expression. This is guided by the promoter sign of medical care that legitimizes various kinds of actions which otherwise would be socially impossible. It legitimizes the entrance into the personal cultural domain by counter-acting the operations of the usual promoter sign (personal dignity) that usually governs the boundaries of privacy: The medical definition grants the staff the right to carry out their task. If not for the medical definition the staff’s routine activities could be defined as unconscionable assaults on the dignity of individuals. The topics of talk, particularly inquiries about bodily functioning, sexual experience, and death of relatives might be taken as offenses against propriety. As for exposure and manipulation of the patient’s body, it would be shocking and 79

This is an extension of the coverage of “I-positions” within the Dialogical Self framework—see chapter

3. 80

This social prescription is an internalized version of Semiotic Demand Setting—see chapter 2

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degrading invasion of privacy were the patient not defined as a technical object. The infliction of pain would be mere cruelty. The medical definition justifies the request that a presumably competent adult give up most of his autonomy to persons often subordinate in age, sex, or social class. The patient needs the medical definition to minimize the threat to his dignity; the staff need it in order to inveigle the patient into cooperating. (Emerson, 1970, added emphases). The emphasized parts in this quote are promoter signs that are used in organizing the medical encounter. Their structure that generates the meaning of “medical setting” might be characterized as a chain of meaning growth processes (Figure 5.5.). Figure 5.5. Semiotic construction of a setting

ALLOWÅÆnon-

SOMEBO DY does SOMETHI NG to ANOTHE R’S BODY

ASSAUL T

NONASSAUL T

CRUE L

NONCRUE L

CAR E NONCARE

DIGNIF IED NONDIGNIFIE D

Some event—for instance, another human being reaching out a hand to touch 81 “body part X” of the person- becomes the object of instant meaning construction that grows towards either letting the act to proceed (or not). A further consideration is the perceived social role—possibly marked by a recognized uniform 82—of the initiating agent. Social regulation of boundaries: censorship Censorship, in its objective social functions, exists in any social unit. Parents censor children’s conduct—as well as their own expression in front of children. Neighbors censor one another’s conduct—by half-silences, sarcastic 81

Consider filling in the role of X by various body parts: genitals, hair, knee, nose, hand, etc. Compare two possible images of medical doctors: one in a medical coat (uniform), cleanly shaved, the other in jeans, and unshaved—in the context of gynecological examination. 82

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comments, or reporting one’s activities to local authorities. Censorship carries a role in creating and maintaining social and interpersonal distinctions. In terms of Pierre Bourdieu, Cultural products owe their most specific properties to the social conditions of their production and more precisely to the position of the producer in the field of production, which dictates, albeit through divergent mediatory processes, not only the expressive drive, and the form and force of the censorship which affects it, but also the competence which enables this drive to be satisfied within the framework of these constraints. The dialectical relation which is established between the expressive drive and the structural censorship of the field prevents us from distinguishing in the opus operatum the form from the content, what is being said from the manner of saying it or even the manner of hearing it. By imposing form, the censorship exercised by the structure of the field determines its discursive form. (Bourdieu, 1991, pp.71-72, added emphases) The prescriptions of how to express oneself (and prohibitions against how not to) are on the basis for creating the fields of feeling, thinking, and communicating (see chapter 7). Parents censor each other, their children. Children censor the expressions of other children, and sometimes of parents. Teachers censor the expressions of students, but not school principals. Social norms for “political correctness” lead to self-censorship in people’s minds and interaction. Governments censor political discourse, etc.

Rhetorical guiding of human movement Human beings create themselves by unity of acting, feeling, and thinking. This unity is organized by putting oneself (and others) into scripted dramatic everyday life situations, which require the assuming of corresponding roles. The enactment of these roles creates the dramas that guide personal development of all of its participants. The dramas are built on stories that circulate among the actors. Their enactment creates the basis for their reconstruction from generation to generation. Myth stories that circulate in the social world create the rhetoric framing for role-enactment dramas. Human development is thoroughly embedded within these framings-- through both internalization of the meanings in these stories, and role enactment guided by the stories, the robustness of human cultural development is guaranteed. Example 5.4. Visiting the village of one’s parents. Pilgrimages are not necessarily framed by a religious narrative. Personal-cultural construction of “one’s roots” can lead to similar movement for the search of the past of one’s

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family, childhood home, etc. Such nostalgic journeys (see chapter 7 for coverage of feelings) are personally important mini-pilgrimages. By definition of the uniqueness of personal life history the “pilgrimage sites” here are not visited by hordes of seekers, nor is there likely to be a crusade to liberate one’s own “place of birth” from the infidels who are now dwelling there—paying their rent or keeping their by now owned place from decay. The history of labor force movement in contemporary Europe has generated a new hybrid social group—Turkish Gastarbeiter in Germany (as well as in other European Union countries—Delaney, 1990) 83. The young of the immigrant Turks—the second generation-- constitute a new cultural hybrid based on both Turkish and German collective-cultural input. The family contexts maintain the narratives of the “home land” that one could visit briefly (summer holidays—izin) or even repatriate to, eventually. The summer holiday trips are idealized as visits to the home villages and networks of relatives. If these trips are made by car, it entails long drive from Germany to Turkey via the Balkans. The transit phase in the going to summer holiday is of particular interest: The marked difference can be discerned once the Turks leave German-speaking lands behind them and expressed in terms of a burden having been lifted—in their words “nihayet, Alemanya’dan kurtulduk!” (at last, we’re rid of, freed from, Germany!). Sometimes “Gavuristan” is substituted for Almanya, Germany becoming the “land of the infidels.” (Mandel, 1990, p. 158) The making of the psychological distance through the movement away in geographical distance here indicates the ambivalence of the construction of the meaning of one’s self (see Gillespie, 2007, on the construction of the selves by tourists to Ladakh). However, moving away from one place entails moving towards another. The Turkish-German travelers on their home-going pilgrimages are faced with a new set of ambivalences when they arrive: Once the initial excitement of homecoming begins to wane, the iznili returnees find that the privileged treatment which they have received—as esteemed, long-lost relatives—evolves into something quite different: they have become, willy-nilly, Alamancar—German-ish, or German-like. Implicitly derogatory in its markedness, in its explicit differentiation from a non-emigrant Turk, the label bears witness to a combination of difference, lack of acceptance, and rejection. It is a distancing mechanism, expressing the ambivalence contained in the same outstretched arms which greet the returning vacationers, and accept the prestigious gifts, but 83

The pattern of families moving to other countries—or parts of the families moving for work in locations other than their native place, is the trend in all of our contemporary World. For example, migration from Kerala to the Middle East has brought with it transformation in the social hierarchy of castes in Kerala, as well as new symbolic markers of that in ways of dressing (Kurien, 2002, p. 101-102)

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which also keep them at a socially safe distance. (Mandel, 1990, pp. 158-159) The boundaries of “the home place” are regulated by persons who inhabit it. The travelling iznili visitor is “returning home”—but “the home” is actually another place inhabited by other people who create meanings of the iznili in ways that partially close the psychological doors of “the home". Of course, the iznili themselves may be involved is their self-presentation that feeds into the making of their “other” status by “the home people”. Thus, the latter can get no idea from the symbolic self-presentations by the iznili (e.g., driving to Turkey in a new car every summer, giving expensive gifts) of the efforts back in Germany to assemble the economic resources to be able to put on this show of “European affluence”. So—the iznili drive long distance to “be home” in order not to be there (but to be in a “double non-home”—making the symbolic distance of the “Turkish home” as well as from the “German home”). This “double non-home” state leads to the search for a “home within non-home”. The iznili, Feeling misunderstood and less than appreciated by their compatriots in Turkey, they seek others like themselves. On quite a few occasions in Turkey, I saw individuals and families travel considerable distances to visit friends whom they had made in Germany. With each other they were able to relax, tell jokes in German, and compare experiences. They could relate to one another without the constraints of material and social expectations and obligations demanded by an uncomfortable hierarchy. (Mandel, 1990, p. 160) Yet that “uncomfortable hierarchy” of the “home in Turkey” is partly coconstructed by the iznili themselves, presenting their “rich relative” side to the people in their home village. By assuming such social roles of higher status themselves—by symbolic acts fitting the persons in such status—they create the distance co-constructed by the local audience—which is also marked by the iznili unease with local conduct rules 84. Thus the iznili “home-going” tactics begin at times to take on German-like holiday-making forms: they may travel to tourists resorts in Turkey (but not to “home villages”) where they find—in a place at distance from the “Gavuristan”—all the services usual in Alemanya. The surrounding is uniting both homes—without the embedding in the social role hierarchies of the “home village”. This example illustrates the ambivalence in the act of being in a liminal status between groups (chapter 2). The movement “towards the center” here entails travel at long geographical distances—and creation of symbolic psychological distances. In a similar vein, we can look at the symbolic distancing 84

For instance, young Turkish-German girls find it awkward to be chaperoned by male relatives in public places—and the local people find it awkward if these girls go around without such chaperones. Social norms of body coverage would also differ for the iznili and the home people.

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(and un-distancing) of life events through myth stories and their corresponding public signs. The use of children in warfare is usually presented in public discourse of the European and North American worlds—currently in state of peace-- as a deplorable practice of the “corrupt” governments and guerilla groups in the “Third World”—and then we may find that very same practice positively honored when it happened in the context of a “just” war (see Figure 5.6.). Instead of being viewed as “unjustly exploited”, the child soldiers who died in the uprising are presented as national heroes.

Figure 5.6. Creation of a myth story about a child soldier (in commemoration of the Warsaw uprising, 1944)

Human cultural environment is polymorphously meaningful. The very same general meaning—a value—would be brought into the person’s developmental field simultaneously in different forms, and are carried by different members of the social network. Thus, for example, respect for authority figures

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(a desired objective for any social institution) may be encoded explicitly ("you must honor your parents") carried by different persons in the child's environment (parents themselves, aunts and uncles, teachers) as well as implicitly (other persons showing ritualized respect for the child's parents). It can be extended to political leaders ("you should honor [specific leader] as your father") or religious figures (treat [religious figure] as if the father). These messages can come from priests, journalists, political campaigners, television and radio messages. They can be paralleled by active explicit counter-messages (e.g., by the actual father of the child who is an atheist and/or political opponent to the present government). In a similar vein, the same basic message can be encoded into silences, and in ritualistic prescribed actions. For example, children are raising from their seats in classroom when the teacher arrives, waving flags and portraits of the country's leader passing by in a motorcade, or singing songs glorifying the religious or political leader in a kindergarten. Symbolic objects can be used in lieu of such authority figures (see chapter 7). Such redundant canalization of human development is the only reasonable adaptation to the uncertainties involved in open systems. Since open systems are not controllable, their functioning can only be regulated by way of entering constraints into as many locations of the system’s transactions with the environment as possible. The ideal of such control efforts-- which in practice can't be realized-- is full control of the field within which the person is located. If the outer boundaries of the field are firmly controlled, the specific actions of the person within those boundaries can be left to one's own devices. Any option of conduct that the person devises is acceptable, except one-- leaving the field. This is guaranteed by saturating the field with narratives that maintain the boundaries of Semiotic Demand Settings (see chapter 2, Figure 2.7). The narrative environment of developing persons is filled with a myriad of stories—some directed towards the person directly, others meant to be overheard when told by others to others. Likewise, there are stories meant not to be told to others—secret narratives of symbolically important issues for the given social institution, or group (e.g., women’s secret knowledge not to be known by men, and men’s secret know-how which could be spoilt if women were to know it). Ernst Boesch’s symbolic action theory. Ernst E. Boesch’s Symbolic Action Theory is the most established (since 1960s) and most sophisticated theoretical systems of such substantive kind (Boesch, 1983, 1991, 2000, 2002a, 2002b, 2005, 2006). Boesch's theoretical thinking is elegant, as it is perfected in his analyses of the history and cultural construction of skilled action. Boesch views the individuals' "action field" to be organized by cultural meanings, which suggest the range of potential uses of objects by humans, as well as their symbolic value. The action field entails both objective and subjective domains, as well as polyvalence of goals. As an illustration, Boesch refers to an Alpine skier moving skillfully down a slope:

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We might say that his goal of sliding down the slope has two aspects: the one is the objective motion in space, the other are all the subjective sensations related to it, the feeling of harmonious interplay of muscles, the sensation of speed, the impression of mastery. The skier might enjoy both "objective-instrumental" aspect of the action, i.e. mastering his skis, as well as the "subjective-functional" one, i.e., the proprioceptive experience related to it.; at any rate, both are always simultaneously present: the action, by necessity, is "polyvalent" (Boesch, 1989, p. 42) The developed introspective feeling at different levels (e.g., "bare" sensory experience not analyzable in a semiotic code, explicit reflection in speech, or generic discussion through language) guarantees the polyvalence of any human action. Culture regulates action both in terms of limits on the physical execution of actions—social rules-- and by personal meanings. It opens some possibilities for acting, thinking and feeling, while simultaneously closing others. Furthermore, cultural rules have a hierarchy of organization: The quality of a specific rule, such as prohibition to steal, derives from two sources. The first is the occurrence of specific events, such as jealousy, greed, and resulting thefts. The second source for a specific rule are general rules, such as... the right to private property. The rules of greeting derive from general rules of politeness, and those again from the ones of respect, social mutuality and social hierarchy. (Boesch, 1989, p. 45) General cultural rules are partly coded in a variety of forms in the social environment-- none of the environmental objects or social practices singularly represents a particular general rule, yet many of those allude to it in some partial form. Myths are constantly created in a society, while persons' private general idea frameworks (which are ill-defined, yet omnipresent-- "fantasms" in Boesch's terminology—Boesch, 1991) are the personal counterparts of the general rule systems in the self. The person is constantly in the process of structuring (and restructuring) of one's fantasms. Cultural tools for action. Boesch emphasizes the embeddedness of any ontogenesis of action in its cultural-historical confines. Action tools have cultural history—the violin, piano, or the organ-- are all results of musicians’ experimentation with how to create pure sounds and melodies. The history of music provides a complex example of uniting the cultural history with personal self-motivation of the music-maker to try the making of new musical melodies-at the tension of experiencing beauty and being anxious to lose it (Boesch, 1993, p. 79). Painters' decisions to create extraordinary paintings—such as Picasso's Guernica (Boesch, 1991, pp. 279-294)—operate for the human psyche as being at the boundary of the, or constant everyday modifications of our mundane

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actions, which we legitimate by boredom or adventure, indicate this locus of synthesis. The personal field of a structure of valences is guided by the cultural field, yet it is the tension in the personal field that can lead to innovation in the cultural one. The emergence of sacrifice, prayer, magic, and carnival are ways of human beings coping with the uncertainties of the possible “lurking chaos” of the future (Boesch, 2000, 2002a). All these social actions are embedded within meanings—circulated between persons in the form of myth stories. Aside from myth stories well known from their preservation by folklorists, human beings constantly create new myths—such as the myth of dangers (exemplified in our contemporary “panic society”—Beck, 1992), and counter-myths: The myth of lurking chaos seems, in modern Western Europe, to be displaced by a different myth—that of feasibility. Dangers can be avoided, problems researched and solved, the harmful can be fought, obstacles removed. Even the catastrophes threatening the climate and the environment that many are warning about, the nuclear threat or the atomic ‘time bomb’, all these are only temporary indispositions that we will eventually master. But, although usually below the surface, the myth of lurking chaos remains and can be activated. The Hong Kong chicken flu, the Ebola or AIDS virus at first set off scenarios of catastrophe revealing the latent virulence of the myth, even though the belief in the science soon concealed it. The ‘myth of feasibility’, or ‘mastery’, of course, strongly enhances our action confidence and thus efficiently counteracts fears of calamity. (Boesch, 2002a, pp. 127128) The theoretical construction of opposition of myths in function (myth of “lurking chaos” <> counter-myth of “feasibility”) allows for explanation of the dynamic dialogical processes of the self (see chapter 3) and transformations in social orders (see chapter 2-- persons<>community<>”society” relations). At the level of personal culture, the tension between desire to move towards the unknown (Fernweh—“road to far”) and its opposite—desire to move towards the known, and secure “home” (Heimweh—“home road” Boesch, 1997, pp. 79-109) create the ambivalence that modulates person’s feeling, acting, and thinking (see further in chapter 2 on the liminality of human cultural being). Myths and fantasms Myths, fairy tales, and – in our modern societies, wide popular consumption movies and “trash literature”—are all semiotic complexes which are guiding the internalization and externalization of basic values in the course of development. The social suggestions encoded in such holistic semiotic complexes are expected to work through the person's active relating to the

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complex, and establishment of intra-psychological counterpart models within one's personal sense systems. The myth can be viewed as a ...collectively accepted means of explanation, justification, and exhortation, which might be expressed in the form of myth-stories, but also mythemes... isolated themes relating to the underlying myth... a myth-story specifies ...pattern of imaginary situations, while a mytheme corresponds to specific themes related to the myth or the myth story (Boesch, 1991, p. 124) What must be addressed is the question of the connection between myths, individuals, and society. Myth-stories are narrated texts that tell the story about a past event. Yet one of the functions of telling the story is to direct the recipient's personal reconstruction of that story in a form that would position the recipient in a desired relation to the societal world. It is meant to create a personal relation with a religious, national, or other identity source in the process of movement from the present to the future. Myth-stories are usually simple stories about events, yet some of the events are of the kind that transcend the everyday life practices. For example, there is often a quick and unusual transformations of characters in the myth-- a person becomes an animal, or vice versa. This contrast might be important by itself-- fairy tales and myths create some domains of actively promoted imagination, while bypassing other possible domains of thought. Rapid and varied changes in the image content are exaggerated in fairy tales, whereas simultaneous combination of ideas belongs to the domain of ignored possibilities. A fairy tale or a myth-story avoids all thinking that is in any way complicated, and replaces complications by exaggerations of temporal transformations of unexplained nature. Example 5.4. Regulating rape in a myth story. Consider the following Yanomamö (Amazonian Indian) myth story on the topic of rape: One day the brothers Tohorá and Kanikavö from the Surára tribe went fishing. After catching a lot of fish, especially piranhas, with their bows and arrows they suddenly heard a voice telling them not to kill any more piranhas. Tohorá obeyed, but Kanikawö just laughed and kept shooting at the piranhas with his arrows. As he was busy doing this a pretty young girl, Kayaromú , came to fetch water. The sight of her aroused Kanikawö sexually so strongly that he wanted to have intercourse with her at once. When he tried to grab her she ran off, jumped into the water, and stayed submerged for a long time. Finally she came to the surface again. But when she swam to shore and climbed up, Kanikawö seized her, threw her to the ground, and raped her. Tohorá wanted to defend her against his brother, but it was already too late. However, at the very moment

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howls of pain were heard from Kanikawö He felt as if his penis were trapped in a mouth with sharp teeth, and it burned like fire. Trying to pull it out he failed, for the penis had been bitten off inside the vagina. From the girl’s vagina thick stream of blood poured, together with a piranha which still held the severed penis between its sharp teeth. The girl picked up the piranha and threw it into the water. It turned bright red at once, attracting innumerable other piranhas, which quickly ate the penis. While Tohorá took care of his badly wounded brother, the girl disappeared without a trace. (Wilbert & Simoneau, 1990, pp. 395-396) In this myth, the favourite theme of psychoanalysis (castration anxiety) is played out in an ecological context. The tension between fisherman’s catch and the desire to catch more fish is linked with a suggestion to stop. The appearance of the girl leads to sexual tension in one of the brothers, while the other is mentioned to attempt to keep the first one from his actions. The result of the rape—played out through the theme of vagina dentata created by the fish (piranha-an aggressive fish-- is a frequent theme in South American Indian stories, cf. Wagley, 1977, p. 179) which were hunted leads to a number of suggestions—not overdo the fish hunting (or sexuality), beware of women, and consider advice of your close persons. These suggestions are all embedded in the myth story text in an intertwined “bundle”. The piranhas “fight back” on their hunters by joining forces with other hunted agent (girl) and succeeding despite the brother’s efforts to keep Kanikawö out of danger. Personal-cultural counterparts of myths: fantasms. According to Boesch, myths have the personal counterpart in the role of fantasms. A fantasm ...concerns the nature of the anticipated ego-world relationship of the individual... The personal contents the individual gives to a term like "happiness" would constitute a fantasm, as would subjective meaning given to the term "self-realization" or "order" (Boesch, 1991, p. 124) Myths thus constitute complex social inputs for the establishment and functioning of fantasms. Yet the latter are not direct images of the former, but their personal transformations. Myths belong to the realm of collective culture, while fantasms are in the personal culture. Fantasms are similar to social representations—meaning complexes that guide human subjectivity in its multiple functions. Personal values and beliefs are internalized reconstructions of ideas promoted through myths and other collectively distributed communicative messages. Externalizing fantasms. As persons are involved in the re-telling of myth stories, they make their contribution to the variation of the story from one version to another. The constructive nature of human story telling from memory has been

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analyzed by Frederick Bartlett (1932). The person re-telling the myth story externalizes one’s internalized (=re-constructed) notion, and provides further novelty for the others who listen. Myths-stories retold on the basis of personal fantasms become new stories—variability between different versions of such stories is enhanced. It is only through folklorists’ efforts at finding “the canonical” version of a given story that the myths seem to be organized in a standard way. By the re-telling the story, the person is put into a situation where specific features of the story are repeated for oneself—while telling the story for others. Thus, the activity of story-telling is a way to enhance the internalization of particular values inherent in the myth story. Thus, consider a myth story of the Shanti Nagar (in India) concerning the history of the pain at childbirth: It was first believed that all women were created out of water. Then God created a small child and put him at a well. Nobody paid any attention to him, but just passed by. So God said that he wouldn’t create anybody without pain. Now when men and women get together, children are born with pain. In this way, too, the child is born of one’s own blood, and people are more interested in the child and pay attention to him. When a child is born, the midwife places it on the earth because it is the earth that has the burden of supporting the child, and God is all powerful. (Freed & Freed, 1980, p. 356) A woman telling such story to others—on multiple occasions—is guiding herself towards the acceptance – and even positive evaluation—of the childbirth pain. Of course she probably has heard others telling a story like that to her in her girlhood. Thus, by beginning to re-tell the story, the woman keeps up her internalized version of the story. Parents who are telling stories (or reading books) to children are simultaneously guiding their own personal system of fantasms. Basic duality: Myths and counter-myths Myths may be seen as a means to explore an ephemeral reality--in which plausible and concrete human experiences occur, yet the plot of the story may be outside of the realm of everyday world. The imagery is worked out on materials that are projected into the past, and captures the attention of the persons telling and listening to these stories by unrealistic images of the personages, and their transformations. Yet behind the exotic events of the myth unfolding can be mundane values of everyday life, promoted to the listeners in exaggerated form. The purpose of construction of myths is ...to provide a logical model capable of overcoming a contradiction (an impossible achievement if... the contradiction is real), a theoretically infinite number of states will be generated, each one slightly different from the others. Thus, myth grows spiral-wise until

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the intellectual impulse which has produced it is exhausted. Its growth is a continuous process, whereas its structure remains discontinuous. If this is the case, we should assume that it closely corresponds, in the realm of spoken word, to a crystal in the realm of physical matter... Myth is an intermediary entity between a statistical aggregate of molecules and the molecular structure itself. (Lévi-Strauss, 1963, p. 229, added emphasis) The myth is thus quasi-differentiated (but not fully integrated) text that— due to its “loose ends”—allows something for everybody, while promoting specific generalized values. The functionality of the story is in the repeated insertion of semiotic material that "gives man...the illusion that he can understand the universe and that he does understand the universe" (Lévi-Strauss, 1978, p. 17). This is made possible through the “bundle”-kind nature of the message: The true constituent units of a myth are not the isolated relations but bundles of such relations, and it is only as bundles that these relations can be put to use and combined so as to produce a meaning. Relations pertaining to the same bundle may appear diachronically at remote intervals, but when we have succeeded in grouping them together we have recognized our myth according to a time referent of a new nature. (Lévi-Strauss, 1963, pp. 211-212) The constructive act of human imagination is built on the "as-if" kind of thinking and feeling. Narratives evoke scenarios of different kind-- which in principle could happen with real or imaginary personages in real or unreal situations. Such construction charts out the field of possibilities for acting, thinking, and feeling—often on material far removed from the everyday context. Such removal allows for a "free play" of scenarios for conduct, as the everyday realities do not enter their immediate corrective force upon those. Variability in myth construction. Myth stories are a heterogeneous set. Different persons create their personal meanings on the basis of their individual constructions This "dialogical tension" can occur both between persons and within a person. Thus, Hamlet's dialogue within himself (about the crucial issues of being and non-being) were linked with the complex object of the human skull that the actor skillfully holds in his hand. For another person-- a phrenologist for instance-- there would be no existential dialogue while holding the skull. Instead, the skull is a diagnostic device for mental faculties. The reality of the binary oppositions entailed within messages can be viewed on the example of the complex of tobacco in South-American Indian mythology, analyzed by Levi-Strauss (see Figure 5.7.). Despite the public discourse in North America and Europe in recent decade, attempting to prove the horrors of tobacco to lay populace, the meaning of tobacco in the history of South America has been that of a tension between FOOD (wholesome) and NON-

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FOOD. The latter field includes, among other substances, a sub-class of poisonous objects. This basic distinction is behind all human relating to any object that we can swallow—from different kinds of liquids and minerals to the question of “freshness” of the objects designated as “food” in supermarkets. With organic decay, many “foods” become non-foods (and may have lethal effects at intake). All medically approved drugs can be both curing and killing (depending upon dosage, and usually unknown side-effects). Thus, the WHOLESOME <> POISONOUS tension exists at the human encounter with potentially edible substances in any society. It can lead to reversal of dominance relations—a given substance becomes transformed from being WHOLESOME to being POISONOUS (e.g., a chemical is first considered as a curing drug—but then, after revealing its lethal side-effects, becomes considered as a poison), or vice versa. Figure 5.7. The role of tobacco in South American indigenous mythologies (after Lévi-Strauss)

TOBACC

WHOLESOME

WEAK and and

BAD

POISONOUS

STRONG

GOOD

Thus, our contemporary health education campaigns against smoking would look odd to Tapirapé Indians, for whom tobacco was a sacred plant necessary for curing illnesses: Each night, after a long day’s work, or while traveling or hunting, Tapirape’ men blew smoke over their legs, arms, and backs, and sometimes men could be seen fumigating their tired wives or companions. They accompanied the fumigation of their bodies with massage, rubbing their arms and legs toward the extremities. Tiredness and soreness were considered extraneous substances acquired during the day through exercise and it was believed that they could be fumigated and massaged from the body. (Wagley, 1977, p. 192)

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Tobacco played a wholesome medical role in Indian medicine, as well as life in general. Its multiple uses included (aside smoking) snuffing, chewing, licking, drinking, and enemas (Wilbert, 1987, p. 125-131). It was not just inhaling the smoke, but also exhaling it upon specific persons (or body parts) was crucial for restoration of bodily powers. For that, the desirable state of the opposition WEAKÅÆSTRONG is the latter dominating over the former—strong tobacco is healthy. As we can see, the human meaning-making system is simultaneously operating with multiple binary oppositions, which operate as bipolar anchor points to create the tension underlying human thinking, feeling, and acting. These multiple bipolar oppositions make dialogical psychological processes possible in the person’s subjective world. The heterogeneity of the “mythscape”. Similarly to the notion of landscape, one can think of the different narratives surrounding the developing person as a multifaceted surface—a “mythscape”. The “mythscape” of a given social unit—community, country, or geographical region (e.g. “European” or “Asian” —and person-- is always inherently ambiguous. Different myths can suggest the mutually opposite values within the same society. This is not surprising, given the unity of opposites within the myth story (as described above). Simply in some myth stories, the meaningvalue A is highlighted as socially suggested, while in another set of myth stories its opposite (non-A) becomes socially suggested. In a society where these two kinds co-exist, dialogical nature of social discourse is likely to be observable. The second kind of stories-- "counter-myths" (Ramanujan, 1991)—serves an important function in keeping the society’s pool of possible meanings. The public discourse including such myths and counter-myths is filled with dialogical tensions. If in standard myths a particular set of meanings (e.g., honesty, etc.) is emphasized and wins after a battle with the opponents, then there may exist different counter-myths in the given mythscape which promote the opposite meaning (e.g., cheating) being victorious in the mythical battles. “Official” and “non-official” history narratives. Myth and counter-myth are roughly equivalent to the opposition of different kinds of histories of countries— official and unofficial—that operate along the lines of dialogism (Wertsch, 1998). The “official history” of a given country is an equivalent for a myth, its opposite— “unofficial history”—functions as counter-myth. In case of political changes in the country the two myths can change their places (the “unofficial” history is the basis for constructing a new “official” history, while the losing previous version becomes a “counter-myth”). History narratives are created—and censored—in accordance with the goal orientations of social institutions. The colonizers usually create myth stories of the glory of “discovery” of the lands of the colonized—while the latter are ready to tell the story of being conquered, rather than “discovered” (e.g., the

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perspectives upon Columbus’ “discovery” of America—from Spanish or Mexican perspectives—Carretero et al, 2002). The fate of smaller ethnic and linguistic communities within the historic artifact of political borders (e.g., Basques and Catalans between Spain and France; or the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947) are critical. The tensions generated by borders leads to the creation of a large variety of history stories that operate as myths in the regulation of current inter-communities relations, and modifying the borders. The establishment of European Union sets up a different social demand for myth stories to enter into a dialogue with those of Catalan, French, or Spanish identities (Llobera, 2004). Dialogical processes in myth stories How does a myth-story “work” when the listener creates its morale and makes it work for one’s personal culture? We have shown (Gupta & Valsiner, 2000) that dialogical processes are operating both within a myth (as reflected in different tensions implied in a given myth-story, with its foreground/background distinctions), as well as between different myths. In the latter case, a "main myth" may have its opposite "counter-myth" within the same society. Thus, if in the "main myth" a particular characteristic (e.g., women being subservient to men) might be consistently promoted, then its "counter-myth" may entail the promotion of the opposite idea (men subservient to women). When both myth and counter-myth occur in the narrative field of a society, persons can internalize the opposition between those in unique novel ways. The psychological relevance of the stories in the cases of both mythstories and horror films may be in the experiencing of the underlying binary tensions, rather than in the manifest content of the story (which may be easily forgotten, disbelieved, etc.,) while the story's tension as a story is maintained through the binary contrasts. The contrast is created between the communicative message and the recipient’s intra-psychological system. It is a contrast of tension. The message is a holistic complex precisely as such complex guarantees redundancy in the creation of expected tensions. Different individuals—who relate to the message in their own terms—highlight different parts of the semiotic complex and relate to it. The person can carry a particular monological meaning (i.e., one in which the inherent opposite is suppressed: A and {suppressed non-A}—which looks monological). The message (in a myth story, a movie, or a message from a moralist) can emphasize its opposite (non-A) in the act of communication. The person now enters into a tension between internal A and external non-A (which is {B<>non-B}). The tension can be observable in the actions the person undertakes in relation to the message. The tension can lead to escalation—which either leads to the synthesis of a new meaning (i.e., new opposition—{C<>nonC}), or reverts back to the continuing tension.

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Figure 5.8. creation

233

Tension between the meaning maker and the message in

PERSON creates Meaning A (contra

ESCALATION OF THE TENSION IN

MESSAGE IN THE SURROUNDING CONTEXT:

{B <>

NO

B}

NEW SYNTHETIC MEANING IN THE MAKING? YE

NEW OPPOSITION IN THE MAKING {C <>

Example 5.5. Movement through reality and unreality in myths. Myth-stories can include complex turns between reality and imagination, setting those up as mutually complementary social regulators. Consider the following Tamil story: A housewife knew a story. She also knew a song. But she kept them to herself, never told anyone the story nor sang the song. Imprisoned within her, the story and the song wanted release, wanted to run away. One day, when she was sleeping with her mouth open, the story escaped, fell out of her, took the shape of a pair of shoes and sat outside the house. The song also escaped, took the shape of something like a man’s coat and hung on a peg. The woman’s husband came home, looked at the coat and shoes, and asked her, "“Who is visiting?” “No one,” she said. “But whose coat and shoes are these?” “I don’t know,“ she replied. He wasn’t satisfied with her answer. He was suspicious. Their conversation was unpleasant. The unpleasantness led to a quarrel. The husband flew into a rage, picked up his blanket, and went to the Monkey God’s temple to sleep.

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The woman did not understand what was happening. She lay down alone that night. She asked the same question over and over “Whose coat and shoes are these?” Baffled and unhappy, she put out the lamp and went to sleep. All the flames of the town, once they were put out, used to come to the Monkey God’s temple and spend the night there, gossiping. On this night, all the lamps of all the houses were represented there—all except one, which came late. The others asked the latecomer, “Why are you so late tonight?” “At our house, the couple quarreled late into the night,” said the flame. “Why did they quarrel?” “When the husband wasn’t home, a pair of shoes came into the veranda, and a coat somehow got on to a peg. The husband asked her whose they were. The wife said she didn’t know. So they quarreled.” “Where did the coat and shoes come from?” “The lady of the house knows a story and a song. She never tells the story, and has never sung the song to anyone. The story and the song got suffocated inside; so they got out and have turned into a coat and a pair of shoes. They took revenge. The woman doesn’t even know.” The husband, lying under his blanket in the temple, heard the lamp’s explanation. His suspicions were cleared. When he went home it was dawn. He asked his wife about her story and her song. But she had forgotten both of them. “What story, what song?” She said. (Linganna, 1972—quoted via Ramanujan, 1991, pp. 44-45) The story gives us mutually intertwining oppositional tensions. The “hidden” song and story grow in tension to escape—remaining hidden (now from the woman) in the form suggesting infidelity to the husband. While the husband finds the resolution of the tension (through overhearing gossip), the wife has lost the song and the story already, and is ignorant of the whole happening. Example 5.6. Mythical guidance for family role powers The basic topics on which myth stories are set up to provide their guiding suggestions are those of basic social and psychological values-—adherence to social role expectations, avoidance of dangers, relevance of social group cohesion, and so on. The developing person is provided redundant exposure to structured ways of social being—through observing others’ real ways of being, and through hearing the myth-stories that activate one’s imagination about such roles. The latter are playgrounds for narratively given transgressions that are possible—but evaluated culturally. Thus, myth-stories may carry the function of creating both imaginary play-out of possibilities for actions (which have not occurred, and which may be

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undesired), and for semiotic ways to block these possible actions from becoming actualized. Consider the following story (from the Samo—a Mende group in Burkina Faso): One day, a man, who already had a first wife, decided to marry again. However, she ran away immediately. Some time later, he once more decided to take a second wife. While the first and second wives were spinning cotton together, the first said to the second, “I am very happy that you have come to join us, but I must warn you about our husband’s peculiarities. “ “What might that be?” asked the second wife. “He has two penises,” the first wife answered. “Consequently,” she continued, “when he comes to make love to you, be sure to grab hold of one of them, for if both enter at the same time, it is very painful.” The second wife listened to what the first wife told her. When, that night, the husband came to make love to the second wife, the latter grabbed hold of his penis. The man jumped back in surprise. He approached her again, the same thing happened. This went on until dawn, at which time the second wife ran away to return to her home. Upon arriving, she learned that her mother had just died. Soon after, her husband arrived looking for her. Seeing him, she decided to take a bath. As she is bathing, her husband comes up to her with a knife in his hand saying “Now we will get to the bottom of this affair. If you do not explain everything to me, it is not only your mother who will be buried today, but you as well, and in the same tomb.” The second wife was afraid and recounted everything that the first wife had told her. When the husband heard this he said, “I understand,” for the first wife had told him that the second wife was a penis snatcher, the reason for which he jumped away whenever she grabbed his penis. “Come and wash my back,” he then says to his second wife. She begins to do so. Suddenly the husband interrupts his bath and leads his second wife indoors where they make love satisfactorily. The next day, the husband dances at his mother-in-law’s funeral and the couple returns to the husband’s home. There they find the first wife waiting. “My husband,” she says, “I am so glad you are back so soon, I missed you so much.” “How can that be?” answers the man. “ I have, as you well know,” he continues, “two penises, one in each of my wives’ backsides. When I left I took one with me, but the other one remained here with you. And that is the only one you will have from now on.” (Houseman, 1988, pp. 665-666) The role of the first co-wife in a plural marriage is here the target of the moralistic guidance. The difference of narrative domains of men and women (which is overcome only under extreme conditions—threat) sets a stage where

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women’s intrigues can succeed. Yet they can also fail—and the failure has grave consequences. Mythological transitions of A ÅÆ non-A kind Myth stories frequently include transformations of the identity of the characters—human beings become animals, or plants, and are subseqyently turned again into human beings. Such ideational transformation of images is deeply rooted in the perceptual and ideational processes of human minds. Their reflection in collective-cultural texts is a form of guidance of the ways in which the minds operate. In the flexible world of transformations within myth stories we can trace the growth of meanings of the {A<>non-A} kind (see chapter 3). In Kali myth stories (Kinsley, 1996) we can observe the transitions between destructive (Kali) and non-destructive versions of the major goddess (Durga, Parvati). The goddess undergoes transformation between the non-destructive and destructive forms, involving her husband (Siva) in these movements: In the Linga Purana Parvati is requested by Siva to slay the demon Daruka, who has been granted the boon that he can be killed only by a woman. Parvati is then described as entering Siva’s body and remaking herself from the poison in his throat. She reemerges as Kali, of terrible appearance, and with the help of beings who include pisakas, flesh-eating spirits, she begins to attack Daruka and his hosts. However, owing to her frenzy the universe itself is threatened with destruction and is saved only by Siva’s intervention. (Kinsley, 1996, pp. 78-79, emphases added). The destructive goddess emerges from her non-desctructive, peaceful ordinary form—with the necessary key role being played by Siva—and enters into an escalatory cycle of destruction—only to be reversed again by Siva. The guaranteed husband/wife complementarity roles are encoded in the story, with mutual transitions of control over the events. How is such myth story understood by ordinary people? The work of Usha Menon and Richard Shweder (Menon & Shweder, 1994) on the interpentration of the Kali myth in the context of Orissa in India provides an elaborate illustration of the cultural canalization of feelings. Example 5.7. Interpreting the Kali myth. Menon and Shweder (1994) described as the myth of Kali interpenetrates the feelings of the Oryia—at interindividually varied levels of understanding of the myth. Those inter-individually varied versions of making sense of the Kali myth indicate different internalization patterns. The role of the particular emotion (linked with the protruded tongue— see below—Figure 5.9.) is central for such internalization.

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Figure 5.9. Kali stepping on Siva

The crucial cultural marker of the Kali myth is the visual image— distributed as postcards in Orissa—of the Kali with her tongue protruded, while being about to step on Siva (her husband). That image of tongue protrusion – linked with “biting one’s tongue” – is representing the feeling of lajya— approximately translated as shame, embarrassment, modesty, or shyness. The component of shame is central here—the act of stepping upon one’s own husband is considered to instantly evoke such shame. The Kali myth in its elaborated form has been given in the following version: Mahisasura [a demon] became so powerful that he tortured everyone on nearth and heaven… He had obtained a boon from the gods according to which no male could kill him. All the gods then went to Narayana and they pondered on ways to destroy Mahisasura… each contributed the strength and energy of his consciousness—his bindu—and from that Durga was created. But when Durga was told that she had to kill Mahisasura, she said that she needed weapons to do so and all the gods gave her their weapons. Armed thus, Durga went into battle. She fought bravely, but she found it impossible to kill the demon. .. he was too strong and clever. You see, the gods had forgotten to tell her that the boon

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Mahisasura had obtained from Brahma was that he would only die at the hands of a naked woman. Durga finally became desparate and she appealed to Mangala to suggest some way to kill Mahisasura. Mangala told her that the only way was to take off her clothes, that the demon would only lose strength when confronted with a naked woman. So Durga did as she was advised to, she stripped, and within seconds of seeing her, Mahisasura’s strength waned and he died under her heavy sword. After killing him, a terrible rage entered into Durga’s mind, as she asked herself, “What kinds of gods are these that they do not have the honesty to tell me the truth before sending me into battle?” She decided that such a world with such gods did not deserve to survive, so she took on the form of Kali and went on a mad rampage, devouring every living creature that came her way. Now, the gods were in a terrible quandary. They had given her all their weapons. They were helpless without any weapons, while she had a weapon in each of her 10 arms. How could Kali be checked and who would check her in her mad dance of desctruction? Again the gods gathered and Narayana decided that only Mahadev (Siva) could check Kali, and so he advised the gods to appeal to him. Now, Siva is an ascetic, a yogi who has no interest in what happens in this world; but when all the gods begged him to intervene, he agreed to do his best. He went and lay on her path. Kali, absorbed in her dance of destruction, was unaware that Siva lay in her path, so she stepped on him all unknowing... When she put her foot on Siva's chest, she bit her tongue saying "“Oh! My husband!” (Menon & Shweder, 1994, pp. 246-247) Here the power of counterattack (killing the demon) becomes power for revenge (for being tricked into action), which could only be stopped through evoking culturally inhibiting emotion (lajya). The power of evoking such inhibitive effect is given by marital tie—husband (and no one else) can stop the killing spree through evoking the feeling. The structure of meaningful events within this myth can be viewed as fortifying the conjugal power relations (husband > wife), yet with simultaneous emphasis of female power (of destruction, in this case). Yet different recipients can construct vastly different personal-cultural understanding of the same myth. Menon & Shweder (1994) demonstrated a wide spread of different understandings of the myth, all based on the prevalence for one (lajya) or another (anger) core emotion viewed as being present in Kali’s case. Anger is seen as antidote of lajya, and thus indicates the unity of opposites. One strategy for dealing with inherent tensions in the myth story is to emphasize one of the opposites while denying the other. Thus, an informant- emphasizing the Tantric interpretation of the story-- insisted:

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Q: How would you describe Kali’s expression here [on the postcard with protruded tongue]? A: She is the image of the fury. Q: You mean she’s angry? She is in a rage? A: Yes,.. yes. You must understand that this is how she appears to her devotee. He has to have the strength of mind to withstand her fierceness. She is not mild or tender, but cruel and demanding and frightening. Q: Do you think that she has put out her tongue in anger? A: Yes, she has put out her tongue in anger. Kali is always angry, she is always creating and, at the same time, destroying life. Here you see her standing with her foot placed squarely on Siva’s chest. When the time comes for the universe to be destroyed entirely, no one will be spared, not even the gods—whether Vishnu or Siva—everyone will be destroyed. Q: Some people say that she is feeling deeply ashamed at having stepped on her husband and that is why she has bitten her tongue. You don’t agree? A: People have different views. People believe whatever makes them feel comfortable and if they like to think that Kali is ashamed, then let them. What I have told you is what the special devotees of Kali believe. They believe that Mother is supreme. Even Brahma, Visnu, and Siva are her servants. Q: Have you seen this expression, that is, Kali’s here, in daily life? A: No, if one was to see this expression on an ordinary human being’s face, he would have to be mad, to have lost all his senses. Kali, in fact, is mad with rage, but her rage has nothing that is remotely human about it, it is a divine rage that only a human being who has completely lost his mind can duplicate. Q: Can you tell me why Siva is lying on the ground? A: Kali has thrown him down on the ground and she puts her foot on him to make clear that she is supreme. Q: So you don’t think that he’s lying on the ground to subdue Kali? A: No, that’s beyond Siva’s capacity. If Kali becomes calm, it is because she wishes to, not because she is persuaded to be so. Even to her most faithful devotee, Kali’s actions sometimes don’t make sense, but life itself often doesn’t make sense, so what can one say? (Menon & Shweder, 1994, pp. 272-273)

This (Tantric) version of understanding Kali’s role provides us with an interesting elaboration of the notion of hierarchical integration. While the “canonic” version of the myth (centered on lajya) makes use of the form of intransitive hierarchy (Valsiner, 1998b, p. 217; Poddiakov & Valsiner, in press), then the Tantric version is built on the premises of transitive hierarchy:

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Kali

Kali

Siva

Gods

Gods

Siva

The canonical version

The Tantric version

If in the intransitive hierarchy we can see the establishment of a power circle (A is more powerful than B, B more powerful than C, and C more powerful than A: Kali>Gods>Siva>Kali), then in the transitive hierarchy there exists clear linear subordination (Kali > Gods > Siva). These two versions of the hierarchy are made possible in the Oriya context by combining or un-combining two criteria -- power and purity 85. The intransitive hierarchy is the result of application of two criteria -- that of power (in which Kali > Gods > Siva in a transitive way), and that of purity (as in the state of impurity, Kali < Siva). Thus, the combination of the two criteria creates the intransitivity of the hierarchy. The Tantric version of the hierarchy makes use of only one of the criteria (power), and the hierarchy becomes transitive. Transitivity provides for linear hierarchies. The notion of social control within an institution is established through superimposing linear hierarchies upon human relations, and attempting to fix those over time. In contrast, phenomena open to development occur in intransitive feedback loops that under some conditions lead to the breaking of the relationship cycle (lajya in Kali leads her to shift from rage to embarrassment) Conclusions: Textured dramas All human life takes place in the middle of various forms of stories told, rituals constructed, and values exchanged—by trade, conquest, appropriation, or other forms of social transfer. Parents may read books to the children, priests may read sermons to the parents, politicians may manage to utter one-liners on TV, interspersed with advertising for computers, beer, and travel opportunities. TV channels fight for the attention of the viewers to tell them stories about how to live right and buy all the things they do not need. Priests only tell stories about the former. Dieticians tell mothers how to feed their babies, or how to eat “properly” themselves. Teachers tell stories about the world outside of the immediate reach of the children. Policemen tell stories about immediate 85

I am grateful to Usha Menon to pointing this aspect of hierarchy construction out to me (Personal communication, November, 1, 1999)

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conduct—by their actions, words, or even mere presence as complex signs in the public environments. All in all, human beings- young or old—are surrounded by a great variety of goals-directed efforts to tell stories. They do it themselves, and are listeners to others’ stories. The developing person—and that is a person from beginning to the end of one’s life course-- is faced with an excessively explained and meaningfully overdetermined environment. All that myriad of meanings pretends to operate as if it were rational. Human rationality is perhaps one of the major myth stories invented by human beings in their desperation about their own facing of the never-ending uncertainties of the future. In chapter 6 we will cover the principles of human construction of this irrational rationality.

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Chapter 6. Thinking as a cultural process

All human thinking is culturally organized. It takes place through mediating devices— signs, general heuristics, etc.—and makes use of value-embedded beliefs and superstitions for guiding the mental processes. The social surroundings for human thinking are purposefully suggestive-- guiding the person towards some ways of feeling and thinking, and away from others. Myths and counter-myths, fairy tales, supported by different social representations all set up the social texture for human thinking. However-- human beings think as individuals. The primacy of personal subjective worlds in the thinking is clear and unambiguous. Human thought processes are usually hidden from others, thinking is a private sand hidden affair. Yet the ways in which persons think, and the psychological tools they use in it are results of cultural construction. Thinking processes are historically based on the social relations with others and with the environment. In their established form, these processes are internalized and unique to the persons who do the thinking. It is in the human thinking that the social and the personal are united within a cultural (semiotic) process of making sense of one's world, and of oneself. An excursion into history of psychology of thinking. The study of thinking in psychology got its impetus from the experimental introspective studies of Karl Bühler, Otto Selz, Robert Ogden, Oswald Külpe and Narziss Ach in the beginning of the 20th Century. The intellectual traditions of the "Würzburg School" in psychology of the beginning of this Century have largely been forgotten-- largely due to the stigmatization of the introspective methodology that characterized the experimental work of Bühler and others. The introspective study of thinking by "the Würzburgers" was followed by the work of Karl Duncker and Max Wertheimer on processes of productive problem solving (Simon, 1999). Most of contemporary cognitive psychology originates in the work of Wertheimer and Duncker, and thus it can be claimed that the "Würzburg school" has been the forerunner of all cognitive science. Yet that is not the end of the story we can find out from the history of cognitive science. Psychology has re-written its history in a pars pro toto manner—tracing its recent roots to the experimental psychology of Wilhelm Wundt and his laboratory (opened in Leipzig in 1879). Wundt’s own focus on cultural psychology (Völkerpsychologie) has usually been de-emphasized (quite incorrectly) as the ruminations of an experimentalist in his old age. A more important parallel tendency for the history of cognitive science is the contribution of the Austrian

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philosopher Franz Brentano. It is from the work of Brentano that different trajectories in further development in psychology and philosophy have acquired the focus on the inherent potentials for further change in psychological phenomena. A phenomenon like thought entails both an abstraction from the experience the person has up to now, and a potential for further thinking. Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy built on the notion of inherent intentionality grows out from the Brentano line of thinking. Likewise, the work of Alexius Meinong on presentation (vorstellung—see Haller, 1996; also chapter 3), and the language philosophy of Anton Marty (Mulligan, 1990), as well as the Polish school of logic of Kasimir Twardowski grew out of the Brentano tradition. It can be argued that the recent history of psychology as science builds upon two trajectories—those of Wundt’s experimental tradition and Brentano’s philosophical orientation. Sometimes these trajectories have merged, at other times (and countries)—kept anxiously separate by psychologists fearful of the implications of subjective philosophy for their science. An example of the merging of the two trajectories in the history of the study on human reasoning is Fritz Heider. Heider migrated between different Continental European schools of thinking about thinking-- Alexius Meinong's in Graz, Karl Bühler's in Vienna, and Heinz Werner's in Hamburg. After his emigration to the United States, Heider established himself in Kansas, where he created his fundamental synthetic work on human reasoning processes-- The psychology of interpersonal relations (Heider, 1958). The study of social attributions grows out of that classic contribution. Yet its main focus was different—to understand how language structures the activities of the human mind. All of the directions of thought that emanated from the legacy of Franz Brentano shared the focus on language as the mediator in human thinking processes. They also built their theories on the premise that logic is the formal basis for human mentality.

Three logical processes in human reasoning Logic was the "gold standard" of human intellectual enterprise at the turn of the 20th Century, and continued in that role until the time after World War II. Logic had the halo of providing human beings with rules for "correct thinking"-yet there could not be any single set of such rules. As a result, the present century faced a variety of claims for such normative role, while no clear definition of logic exists. After considering a multitude of existing views on logic, Boris Bogoslovsky managed to create one: Logic is a complex of relative and limited (as contrasted with absolute and universal) generalizations on interrelationships of statements helpful for the most efficient, productive, and excellent use of the statements. (Bogoslovsky, 1928, p. 42)

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Figure 6.1. Inductive, deductive, and abductive reasoning processes

The criteria for "efficient", "productive", and "excellent" uses can of course be only socially constructed. Hence any logical system-- formalized as it may be- is surrounded by the culturally set conditions of use of the strict logical forms in a particular setting.

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Human reasoning is a process of mental construction made available through human semiotic capabilities. In this respect, all rules of logic are necessarily semiotic phenomena, and thus—cultural-historical constructions. There are three basic forms of reasoning within the realm of logical inference (see Figure 6.1.). First, there is the deductive process (which involves the construction of specific novel ideas on the basis of general believed premises and conventional derivation rules). It is best known through examples of syllogistic reasoning tasks, in which the reasoner arrives at the conclusions through moving from general premises towards concrete situations. This is often referred to as “rulebased reasoning”. The scheme of deductive reasoning (Figure 6.1. B.) constitutes a basically closed scheme of moving from general stated rule to interpretational activity of category formation. That activity is the only open moment in the scheme—a moment that is not pre-determined by the fixed rule. If a particular specimen is found to belong to the class (X), the deduction that it is Y follows immediately (e,g, in case of a, b, c, d). If the specimen is not detected to belong to the specified category, it escapes the deductive conclusion otherwise pre-given by the rule. Second, there is the inductive process --which entails generalization of ideas based on specific lived-through experiences of the person. In psychology’s research methodology this process is exemplified by efforts to arrive at generalized knowledge through accumulation of data. This process can be found in modern cognitive psychology under the labels of "instance-based" reasoning. The process of inductive generalization operates with observations of the specific phenomena—collection of specimens of a class that can be observed. The set of actually observable specimens is smaller than the set of all of the members of the class. It is known since Aristotle that the ideal case of inductive inference depends upon full enumeration of the set of specimens. Obviously, that ideal is not reachable in practice. In most cases, the full set of specimens in a class is either indeterminate, or impossible to get access to. Third, there is the process that synthesizes the two— the abductive process. It involves a structure of a reasoning process where the deductive and inductive sides mutually interpenetrate, and give birth to novel ideas (Santaella, 2005). The novelty construction in reasoning takes place both in the realm of symbolic content, (i.e. reasoning rules are not "empty" processes), and in the domain of symbolic constraints (i.e., following certain rules or guidelines, which guide the form of reasoning). The scheme of abductive reasoning (Figure. 6.1.C.) is based on the bi-directional relation between the general (rule) and a concrete case. Their mutual mismatch – contradiction—leads to a generalizing leap that reconstructs the general rule in a new version. That new rule then enters into relation with another concrete case, and becomes again reconstructed.

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Social power of deduction The development of cognitive (mental) functions has two facets-- that of knowledge creation (epistemological function) and that of mediating specific functions of social control. Example 6.1. Insertion of deductive reasoning patterns through schooling. The main finding from comparisons of formally schooled and not-schooled persons in the realm of solving reasoning tasks is the mastery of automatization of the reliance to the form of the task and assuming the deductive reasoning scheme at an instant. (Luria, 1976). For example, the following syllogism is given to a person: MAJOR PREMISS: In the Far North, where there is snow, all bears are white. MINOR PREMISS: Novaya Zemlya is in the Far North and there is always snow there. QUESTION: What color are the bears there? The benefit of formal education makes it possible to recognize this task immediately as a deductive reasoning task that has to be solved by simple application of rules. By following the rule—if ALL X are P and A IS X, it follows that A is P. Yet the unschooled subjects found it impossible to accept the scheme trained in school. In Luria’s expedition to Central Asia in the early 1930s, a 37-year old illiterate Abdulrakhim from a remote Kashgar village responded to the presentation by assuming a strictly inductive orientation towards the task: Abdulrakhim: There are different sorts of bears. [the syllogism is repeated] Abdulrakhim: I don’t know; I have seen a black bear, I have never seen any others… Each locality has its own animals; if it’s white, they’ll be white; if it is yellow, they will be yellow. Experimenter: But what kinds of bears are there in Novaya Zemlya? Abdulrakhim: We always speak only of what we see; we don’t talk about what we haven’t seen. Experimenter: But what do my words imply? [the syllogism is repeated] Abdulrakhim: Well, it’s like this: our tsar isn’t like yours, and yours isn’t like ours. Your words can be answered by someone who was there, and if a person wasn’t there he can’t say anything on the basis of your words. Experimenter: But on the basis of my words—In the North, where there is always snow, the bears are white, can you gather what kind of bears there are in Novaya Zemlya? Abdulrakhim: If a man was sixty or eighty and had seen a white bear and had told about it, he could be believed, but I’ve never seen one and hence I can’t say. That’s my last word. Those who

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saw can tell, and those who didn’t see can’t say anything. (Luria, 1976, pp. 108-109) The issue of refusal to assume a deductive reasoning scheme here indicates the major domain where the “effects of formal schooling” can be found—in the getting of the schooled subjects to automatically recognize and assume a particular position in relation to a given task.

Social control through deductive reasoning Strictly speaking this "formal schooling effect" is not an effect of schooling per se, but of the internalization of the social position of assuming the correctness of the suggested position. The schooled person who immediately recognizes the task as a syllogism and uses the deductive line of reasoning to solve it necessarily accepts the assertion of the person who gives the task without questioning whether deductive logic is applicable to the given content material. Consider, for instance, a syllogistic task which could have been set in the context of mediaeval Europe (or Europe’s North American colonies) MAJOR PREMISS: All witches should be burnt at stake MINOR PREMISS: Tituba 86 is a witch CONCLUSION: ??? In this example we can observe the insertion of a social value-based action command as content into a deductive reasoning scheme. A social power source who sets up the deductive scheme can expect to have high source credibility (in terms of communication). When the scheme is automatically accepted (e.g., "this is a syllogistic task" which "is given as such by a trustable source") it can lead to social action desired by the power source. It is due to this social power function that formal schooling has high renomé for social institutions. Every social power that captures another ethnic group or subgroup in a colonial or missionary effort is likely to introduce a schooling context where psychological tools that are beneficial for social control efforts are promoted to the young developing persons. Example 6.2. Application of the deductive reasoning process in extermination. Deductive reasoning is widely applied in acts of social violence as its rationale. Here we look at the psychological system of a mass murderer— an extermination camp commander Stangl who (at his early thirties during World War II) was the chief of police of an euthenasia clinic and then the commander of a concentration camps in Sobibor and Treblinka (Welzer, 2004). What surprises 86

For full coverage of how concrete persons were set up to belong to this scheme as filling in the minor premise, see The tryal of Tituba Indian: Transcripts of the Salem Witchcraft trials of 1692. Salem, Ma.: The New England and Virginia Company, n.d.

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the readers of his account about his deeds-- explicated in an interview 25 years later—is the absence of moral qualms within Stangl’s self-expression about his leadership role in the massive killing of the prisoners. Instead, Stangl dwells upon different accusations against him as inadequate from the viewpoint of his moral integrity. What bothered him was little things which he specifically had done, anf not his role of what he was: Stangl had scarcely any or no problems at all with his ‘work’, which in his view he was obliged to carry out, and this was particularly the case when he could regard himself as a ‘ggod guy’, just, objective, free of partiality, and sometimes helpful and friendly above and beyond the call of duty. It will have been the maintenance of this self-image of the exterminator camp commander which ensured that Stangl, despite his actual function, which consisted in leading mases of people to their deaths, was nevertheless not tortured by any moral qualms. On the one hand, a task which fits into a universe of causes to be justified one way or the other; on the other, an individual, from case to case distanced from his role, who is ready at all times to fulfil his duties as required, but who at the same time also wants ‘to remain a human being.’ (Welzer, 2004, pp. 26-27, added emphases)

Stangl’s case is not extraordinary—research in social psychology (Milgram, 1974, 1992) shows that such distancing of oneself from the social role of obedient reaction is universal. The difference is merely in the extent and kind of destructiveness that such role-distancing mechanism is set up to guarantee. Social role distancing and acceptance of deductive reasoning patterns. As Welzer very perceptively points out—“mass murder could not have been carried out with amoral perpetrators” (ibid., p. 30). The mechanisms that make personal participation in acts of mass destruction possible are precisely the promotion of the “higher moral calling” (with the denigration of some designated outgroup) and, based on such internalized sign field—uncritical acceptance of suggested major premises of syllogistic reasoning tasks. As is known from multiple genocides, even the fortification of the group differences by uniform is not necessary—the atrocities are easily committed against close neighbors. Deductive reasoning processes can be cognitive bases for social destruction.

The value of inductive knowledge construction The example of Abdulrakhim (Example 6.1.) indicates the social resistance value of the personal insistence upon relying only upon one's immediately available and personally accumulated knowledge. The person is in full control over what one knows, and nothing follows -- from an inductive standpoint-- from the words that some suspicious outsider (such as the researcher) is suggesting in the syllogistic reasoning task. The framing of a thinking task in either an inductively- or deductively-solvable problem is a result of social relationships.

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Not only unschooled and illiterate peasants insist upon the primacy of the inductive reasoning schemes-- so do scientists. Experimenters in any area of science would distrust data that have not carefully obtained by inductive ways. Deductive reasoning would not allow the empirical reality to provide the researchers with needed correction for their general thinking. Without such corrections science cannot proceed. Of course, the full process of human understanding of the world entails both inductive and deductive components. How can they be united?

Unity of induction and deduction. Inductive and deductive reasoning processes cannot be separated from each other, but function together. Efforts to use "purely" inductive processes will necessarily remain inconsequential, as George Miller has pointed out: The impossibility of proving a general statement on the basis of a finite number of positive instances had long been recognized... That is to say, the "inductive leap" from a finite set of examples to a universal generalization can land almost anywhere. It should not have been surprising, therefore, when cognitive scientists realized that different people can draw very different conclusions after observing the same set of instances-that the consequences of experience are as much constructed by as imposed on the learner. (Miller, 1990, p. 11, emphasis added) Example 6.3. includes an example that represents exactly such an indeterminate nature of a "purely" inductive "leap": Example 6.3. Parents and children. Consider a case where the inductive reasoning processes of both parents in this invented dialogue dominates over the deductive ones: PARENT 1: You know, last week John played with a vase, let it fall on the floor, and it broke into pieces. PARENT 2: I know, what you mean-- Mary has done that many times with our coffee mugs-- thank goodness those do not break-- those children are such innocent playful creatures. PARENT 1: Well,... you know... it is not so simple. The other day John took a paper napkin from the dinner table and brought it to the burning candle, proceeding to make a small fire on his plate... We had to put out the fire!

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PARENT 2: How explorative! Mary has not done anything like that... but she explores her world, indeed, very actively. Children are adventurous, and come up with new and surprising actions. PARENT 1: Adventurous... hmm... yeah-- just yesterday we caught John in the bathroom-- he was about to throw our Minnie-- our dear little family cat-- into the toilet! Those children can be cruel to animals, and they are such little devils who come up with nasty ideas. Parents must always control them. In reality, no "purely" inductive generalization exists-- if we see generalization based on induction, it resorts to the use of some (usually implicit) general meanings (or cultural models). We have underlined the moments in Example 6.3. where such general notions are brought into the dialogue. As can be seen, the deductive line of reasoning enters into the ongoing dialogue in the form of implied general statements about children. Aside from describing specific actions by children, parents revert to narrating upon what children in general "are like", or what they "can" do (or be). Parents chatting about their particular children (John and Mary) and comparing specific instances of their conduct move to import a general meaning (or belief) into the discourse. Once it is imported, it can become to guide further discourse in accordance with the whole complex implied by the general meaning or belief (e.g., general belief that "children are innocent" can guide further interpretations by parents, differently from a belief that assumes that "children are little devils"). All generalizations of the described (i.e., inductively-based but generically framed) kind go beyond the given particulars-- and are constructed exactly for that purpose. Parental reasoning is oriented towards future encounters with children's novel conduct, hence present-time generalizations are functional for preparation of the adults for the (highly unpredictable) future. Such generalizations are not "correct" in any sense-- since in the case of dynamic constructive processes which take place in irreversible time, criteria for "correctness" (or "falseness") of any generalization are in principle indeterminable. Any novelty that emerges in development is in a way “wrong” or “incorrect” in relation to its predecessors. Once it becomes established as the next developmental state it becomes “correct” in that role. Generalization and indeterminacy. The indeterminacy of generalization leads culture construction in several ways. First, there is a resulting variability of reception, understanding, and application of cultural knowledge. Secondly, there may come to exist conflicting meanings within the same corpus of knowledge. A good example are conflicting opinions expressed by proverbs within the same language, such as "A spanking comes straight from heaven" vs. "A good houselord doesn't beat his animals"

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(implicitly - "let alone his children"; but also possibly - "this doesn't apply to children”). Sayings like those have come to existence as shared expressions of experience. They do not necessarily reflect upon uniformly shared meanings, and may have gained sustained circulation thanks to the nature of reality, which is not always singularly patterned. They also rely on the inclusion of valuepositions into the reasoning process, which is clearly illustrated in both the above expressions. The value-positions are included arbitrarily and feed into the deductive support of the reasoning process at times when such statements are generated. Furthermore, in every situation where such pearls of wisdom are pronounced as a confirmatory seal on reality, they are made applicable to the concrete situation by an "inductive leap", which is aided by the offering of patterns toward which the leap may be made. A third result of the indeterminacy of generalization in culture-construction is that the implicit categorization of reality which is established is not necessarily clear. This speaks to the assumption that culture is comprised of something like schemas or patterns which are handed down in "tidy packages" (successfully or unsuccessfully). In fact, the packaging is nothing like tidy, although the labels might appear to be so. What could a deductively-driven process in parental reasoning look like?. Example 6.4. can be viewed as continuation of Example 6.4., only now both parents complement each other's narrative by supporting the deriving of concrete conclusions from previously constructed major premises. Example 6.4. Deductively driven reasoning processes in a dialogue PARENT 1: There is so much cruelty in children. I see John often chasing our cat, and worry what could be done to make him behave gently towards Minnie. PARENT 2: Of, don't worry-- he is just a little boy, and little boys are adventurous, they like new experiences. If I were you, I would not worry, boys need to capture the world, and chasing animals and experimenting with objects is their natural way, and a need for all males. But what should I do with Mary-- she is my dear little girl, but she becomes interested in boyish ways of playing with toys. I try to buy her nice dolls, but she gets into rough play with trucks... is that what being in day-care is producing? Again, we have underlined the general statements (about "cruelty" being a characteristic of children, hence applicable to John; etc.). In this example, the "figure <--> ground" relationship of the two processes is reversed-- the deductive process is in the foreground (and leads the talk about specifics in the parental discourse), while the inductive process remains implicitly in the background-- yet interfering with the foreground.

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Unity of reasoning through abduction The overlap, or intermingling of the processes, is a place where the construction of new forms of reasoning takes place in the abductive scheme.. However, a more important point brought to us by both of our examples, is the illustration of the proactivity of real-life reasoning. The purpose of the if... then statement is not to ascertain a universally true law but to plan and monitor one's action. The syllogistic form - a logically correct one, too - is a necessary tool in the organization of our everyday thinking, but the deductive inference is never its pure result, nor a result in itself. It cannot be a pure result, because with the moment of its emergence it becomes contextualized, and gains meaning from the particular context in the given situation (situation in the mind, so to speak). Although it is a product of syllogism, it is also meaningfully divorced form it by the meaning it has gained from the context into which it has emerged (Magariños de Morentin, 2005). Furthermore-- it is not a result in itself, because it feeds into a futureoriented process of regulation of conduct. The re-contextualized result is not simply produced to stand out without use-- it is produced for and immediately picked up by other ongoing thought processes. Everyday reasoning, therefore, is driven by purpose, and although it involves forms of both syllogistic deduction and inductive inclusion, it takes place within the frame of an irreversible real-time contextualized process. In that process the two "types" of reasoning are not just intermingled but continuously interact in indeterministic ways, potentially creating new forms. Abductive reasoning in practice. The reasoning process proceeds in irreversible time in its microgenesis, hence it is its constant immediate future orientation that makes it possible for moves between inductive and deductive orientations to take place. In case of both inductive and deductive orientations, novelty can be created within the given micro-constructive process. It takes the form of either construction (or importation) of an encoded general meaning (if the person operates in the deductive orientation), or reconstruction of some personal experience of the past in the present (if in the inductive mode). In the ongoing flow of reasoning, the two orientations flexibly switch between each other, and become coordinated in ways that allow for novel sense to be generated. It involves hypothesis generation, followed by subsequent testing.

Peirce (1955, p. 151) provided a general formula for abductive process:

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The surprising fact (C) is observed If A were true, C would be a matter of course Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true The “leap” in reasoning here entails the positing of A as an explanation of C. There is no reason embedded in the fact (C) that leads the thinker to make that leap. The leap may be based upon some previous knowledge or inclination state (and thus would qualify as a deductive moment in the abductive scheme), but that origin is not visible in the immediate abductive process. Novelty emerges in the abductive process, by the active “leap in reasoning” that the thinker undertakes. There can be two basic forms in this leap—recombinatorial and synthetic. The general process of reasoning in the recombinatorial form entails the unfolding of a train of reasoning that is constructed on the basis of closed sets of general beliefs (or meanings) {A, B, C, D}, specific events {a, b, c, d}, and of relationships between the two sets {conjunction, implication}. By way of previously established constraints, for instance, implications "if a & b ==> A"; "if A ==> c", and "if c & d ==> D" have been established. Hence the reasoning process can proceed along familiar path, as in Example 6.6:

Example 6.6. A recombinatorial form of reasoning Event Implication Explanation ----------------------------------------------------------------a toddler looks at the cat b the child pulls cat's tail a & b ==> A the child is cruel A ==> c child may hit the cat c child does hit the cat d cat screams at attacks child c & d ==> D children learn lessons from life b again pulls the tail b continues if that cat allows tail being b & b ==> C pulled, the cats must be masochistic ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This artificial example shows how parent's reasoning can lead to a new recombinatorial form by lifting a previously (experientially) established constraint on the kinds of implications expected in this situation. However, the sets of beliefs, events, and relationships were not modified; their relationship merely came to include a recombined version (b & b ==> C).

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The synthetic form entails the emergence of qualitatively new mental/affective phenomena in the process of coordination of the inductive and deductive processes. To follow along the lines of the formalistic example-- here any one (or more) of the sets (of beliefs, events, connectors) are suddenly made open, and re-organized. Novel forms can emerge in any of those. The coordination process here loses its simple "computable" nature, and moves into the realm of emerging novelty of Gestalt kind. This may entail periods in the course of mental functioning at which the relationships between the deductive and inductive processes for a time enter into a state of confusion (or-- a state that from the perspective of an external viewer look like "confusion"), from which totally new solutions (innovations) emerge. Given these three forms of thought, it becomes clear that human reasoning always proceeds at some intermediate level of abstractness/ concreteness, with possibilities both for further generalization and context-bound specification constantly available. Every element in the reasoning process depends on prior knowledge and, this knowledge being often self-contradicting and not employed in a consistent manner, the outcome of the process is therefore not deducible from what we might in principle know about the momentary knowledge-base of the thinker (since that knowledge base exists in a heterogeneous and hierarchically organized form). Overcoming uncertainties: probability as logic Charles Sanders Peirce indicated the unity of probabilistic thinking and logic: The theory of probabilities is simply the science of logic quantitatively treated. There are two conceivable certainties with reference to any hypothesis, the certainty of its truth and the certainty of its falsity. The numbers one and zero are appropriated, in this calculus, to marking these extremes of knowledge; while fractions having values intermediate between them indicate, as we may vaguely say, the degrees in which the evidence leans towards one or the other. (Peirce, 1955, p. 157) When human thinking is faced with uncertainty, the thinker attempts to overcome it. Of course any effort of overcoming it is a psychological construction—of a semiotic reflection of uncertainty in terms of signs that seem to entail certainty. Consider the following statements: (1) “I do not know if it may rain tomorrow—maybe it will, maybe it will not” (2) “There is a 50% chance of rain tomorrow”

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From the perspective of reality (=weather tomorrow), both of these statements are equally indeterminate. Yet (1) reflects the full indeterminacy of the situation (in verbal form), while (2) allows for projection of other comparison conditions (e.g., “50% chance is higher than 30% chance”) into the field of reasoning. The latter is an example of semiotic reconstruction of the uncertainty field with the help of signs—quantified probability values—which create an illusion of certainty where there is actually none (i.e., even if the claim that 50% chance is higher than 30% chance, its relevance for the reality of rain tomorrow is only illusory). Do we toss a coin to live? The standard starting point of making sense of probability is the ordinary act of betting-- tossing a coin. It is usually on the basis of such coin-tossing that the meaning of probability is set forth. A coin is a thin round piece of metal which-- when thrown up and let to land on a hard surface-- lands either on one ("heads") or the other ("tails") side. Assuming the hardness of the landing surface, there are only 2 possible options for the landing 87. Thus, by accepted probability calculus, each of the sides ("heads" and "tails") has the same chance (0.5 or 1 in 2) to occur. Note the basic attribution trick in this statement-- in the coin, both sides are an inseparable part of the same coin. Yet the attribution is made to each of the parts as if those could be separated. In reality, neither "heads" nor "tails" sides of the coin "have" the chance (separately from each other) to land on its side. It is the coin that-- when tossed-- lands, not one (or the other) side of the coin. Thus, the coin (as a whole) lands either on one, or another side-- but the sides do not land in any state without the coin as the whole. Three meanings of probability From the same event of tossing a coin, one can proceed to outline the three kinds of probabilities that Western thought has operated with in the past three centuries. First, there is the propensity notion of probability. This probability is based on the set of structural possibilities inherent in the structure of the object and its situation. Thus, the coin-- at least a thin one, thrown on hard surface-- entails two possible landing options. The probability described above-- (p "heads" = p "tails"=0.5) is an example of propensity notion of probability. The thinker only needs to know the structure of the coin (and its tossing environment) so as to estimate the probabilities. The estimation can change, if the structure of the object changes. Imagine that a coin is made to "grow" in its thickness and reach the same diameter in the third dimension that it has in the other two. The 87

Under conditions of different surface-- soft and embracing-- the coin may also land and stay on its edge. This example proves that the probability of the coin's landing depends upon the environment within which the coin-tossing occurs.

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propensity kind of probability is immediately changing from a 1/2 to 1/2 split to a 1/3 ("heads") to 1/3 ("tails") to 1/3 ("on edge") estimate. Note that propensity as the basis of probability estimate is independent of any previous experience with tossing coins, and can be fully deductively calculated prior to the first tossing of the coin. Secondly, probabilities can be frequentist. The frequentist probability estimation entails full dependence upon the past history-- summatively accumulated over time-- of the experienced events. Thus, one needs a large number of coin tossings for estimation of the frequentist probability of the "heads" or "tails". In the case of a coin, it is likely that the summarized frequencies of "heads" and "tails" over time coincide with propensity based probability estimates. After all;-- the coin remaining 2-sided-- a very large number of tossings should distribute approximately similarly to what the equal opitions are. Thirdly, there exists the notion of subjective probability. The subjective probability is a subjectively quantified degree of belief about the outcome of an event. Under conditions where all the information about the properties f the event are known (a coin is a good example), the subjective probability may concur with the propensity version of the probability estimation. Thus, if I know the structure of the coin and its landing surface, I can believe that the chances of "heads" and "tails" on any tossing are equal (0.5), and if I were to try it out on a large number of occasions, my belief may indeed be proven by empirical evidence. Yet not always are the features of the system known (no or limited access to the propensity conditions), nor is the history of the object known (no frequentistic information). Under such circumstances, the degree of belief can provide the thinker with complicated projective possibilities. Mixing of probability notions in psychological research. There is a basic issue at stake in psychology's methodology-- the applicability of different notions of probabilistic thinking in its theoretical discourse. In the current practice, there exists constant confusion between the three notions, Of the three models of probability-- frequentistic, subjective, and propensity-- only the first two are amply utilized by psychologists. It is especially the case with the first-frequentistic probability notion is used widely (as it allows for the use of inductively accumulated knowledge of frequencies of events), and often translated into the probability notion. Yet such translation need not be applicable-- especially when the researcher moves from a populational data base (for frequentistic probability estimation) into a degree of belief (subjective probability) concerning an individual case (O’Doherty, 2006). An example of such translation was criticized by Allport in the context of prediction of personality: A fatal non sequitur occurs in the reasoning that if 80 per cent of the delinquents who come from broken homes are recidivists, then this delinquent from a broken home has an 80 per cent chance of

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becoming a recidivist. The truth of the matter seems to be that this delinquent has either 100 per cent certainty of becoming a repeater or 100 per cent certainty of going straight. (Allport, 1942, p. 156) The strict logic of Allport's argument can be followed if we look at his arguments from a strictly defined developmental perspective-- of irreversibility of time in the lives of organisms. "Becoming a delinquent" is not an event similar to tossing coins. It is a process of becoming-- taking place within a complex system (such as a particular adolescent). The repetition of the "delinquent act" by a particular adolescent is worked out between the developing person and his/her environment. Hence the history of similar previous cases (e.g., a sample of adolescents who have been found delinquent) has no bearing upon this particular young person. Allport's point is important-- habitual transfer of frequentistic probability notions from populations to individuals creates an illusion of knowledge, and stops actual inquiry. A probability estimate carried over to an individual has no explanatory value. In the case of set of multi-linear possible life-course trajectories, the knowledge of any N previous cases cannot provide the researchers with adequate information about the actual construction of the N+1st case. The actual construction of the person's life experience takes place in irreversible time and concrete life contexts as those emerge during that time period. Each possible next step in this course is predictively equifinal from the vantage point of the present (e.g., a person who has committed a delinquent act either does it again-- i.e. has "100 % certainty" for that-- or does not). Cognitive heuristics as cultural mediation complexes Contemporary cognitive psychology has oftentimes demonstrated its normative bias-- the thinking by ordinary persons has been evaluated from the standpoint of norms of one or another kind of formal logic, rather than studied for the discovery of its own inherent logic. Thus, "errors" of thinking-- viewed from the standpoint of either classical two-valent logic, or statistical rules of inference-have been documented and paraded in front of the ever-new cohorts of psychology students. Those students may listen to the stories with awe, and proceed to make the very same "errors" in their own reasoning. Thus, it is the research on reasoning that needs to adjust its scope-- not the reality of human mental processes that have served us well since we managed to kill our first predator. Example 6.6. Heuristics in thinking. Consider, for example, the following scenario that has been the basis for subjective probability estimation task Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983, p. 297)

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In a forced choice selection-- ranking-- of interpretations (from a list of 8 options), three have made their way into the data base of modern cognitive psychology. The interpreters of the scenario compared judgments that were assumed to be unrepresentative of Linda ("Linda is a bank teller"), another that was considered to be representative of her ("Linda is active in the feminist movement"), and their unified version (conjunction: "Linda is a bank teller who is active in the feminist movement"). The originators of the "heuristics and biases" research in cognitive psychology-- Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman-- have made this judgment task pivotal for demonstration that ordinary (as well as "sophisticated"-- those who have taken statistics courses at Stanford) persons all commit the so-called "conjunction fallacy". That "fallacy" consists of systematic believing that the conjunction of the two ("Linda is a bank teller who is active in the feminist movement") is more probable than either of its components taken separately). If the persons-- ordinary or sophisticated-- had utilized the laws of probability calculus, the conjunction of the two parts should have been viewed as less probable than its components. As Tversky and Kahneman demonstrated that use of probability calculations was not the case-- respondents used some other, non-logical and non-probabilistic -- ways of deciding about the present status of Linda. The prominence of the "conjunction fallacy" in human reasoning indicates that applicability of probabilistic reasoning in everyday life reasoning is itself a decision (which is not made by persons probabilistically or logically). Calculation is a lengthy process, and is not simply applicable under conditions of limited information and time pressure on the decision maker (see Gigerenzer's claim for alternatives-- "fast and frugal heuristics", below). Probability-- in each of its three meanings-- is applicable to real-life reasoning only in narrowly circumscribed conditions. That narrow applicability applies to psychological decisions. The cognitive "heuristics and biases" tradition in cognitive psychology has emerged from the discovery that ordinary human beings do not follow the canons of frequentistic probability thinking-- the base rates of the events thought about. Tversky and Kahneman labeled such base-rate dismissing moves in thinking "heuristics", and used a set of such heuristics to explain human reasoning. Thus, for example, the representativeness heuristic entails …an assessment of the degree of correspondence between a sample and a population, an instance and a category, an act and an actor or, more generally, between an outcome and a model. (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983, p. 295, added emphasis) The notion of “degree of correspondence” is a subjective phenomenon that is completely delegated to the intra-psychological subjective realm. Tversky and Kahneman—whether consciously or not—have brought modern cognitive

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science back to the study of introspection. Yet they assume that human reasoning might, in its subjectivity, be probabilistic. The mixing of different perspectives described above (populational frequencies with psychological salience of an instance, or model) is evident in the case of the representativeness heuristic. "Heuristic" is a blanket term for a cognitive complex that a person uses to solve a problem under the present conditions. The availability heuristic. Tversky and Kahneman formulated a whole set of “heuristics” which they labeled in terms of assumed intra-psychological introspective processes. Thus, that of availability is another “shortcut” around the need to become involved in probability calculations: A person is said to employ the availability heuristic whenever he estimates frequency or probability by the ease with which instances or associations could be brought to mind. To assess availability it is not necessary to perform the actual operations of retrieval or construction. It suffices to assess the ease with which these operations could be performed, much as the difficulty of a puzzle or mathematical problem can be assessed without considering specific solutions. (Tversky & Kahneman, 1982, p. 164, added emphases) Again, the frequency of events is assumed to be parallel to subjective probability. The notion of “ease” is a characteristic of the human mental system that is based on the basic processes of associations. The simulation heuristic. This construct was the last ultimate step in the “heuristics and biases” research program to return to the study of processes of introspection. Whereas in the case of representativeness and availability heuristics the processes behind the invented labels remained unemphasized, then in the case of the simulation heuristic there is a clear effort to bring those processes out to the arena of investigation. The starting point for the simulation heuristic … is a common introspection. There appear to be many situations in which questions about events are answered by an operation that resembles the running of a simulation model… we construe the output of simulation as an assessment of the ease with which the model could produce different outcomes, given its initial conditions and operating parameters.… mental simulation yields a measure of the propensity of one’s model of the situation to generate various outcomes. (Kahneman & Tversky, 1992, p. 201)

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Simulation of events occurring within assumed (constructed) scenarios is the process of problem-solving. The “heuristics and biases” program has reinvented the mental problem solving processes (under the name of simulation) that were effectively studied in introspection experiments of the “Würzburg School” as well as by its corollary researchers—Otto Selz and Karl Duncker (Simon, 1999). The critical (re)invention is the return to the need to study the processes of decision making as those are taking place in the real time—rather than make inferences about those processes from their outcomes. The study of such processes qua processes entails the need to consider time limits that exist in various problem-solving tasks. How can human thinking proceed at its regular speed? Most of the phenomena captured by the "cognitive heuristics" are based on laboratory tasks (such as the ones described above). The actual decision making in real life takes place as the person detects a problem, and in accordance with the time demands of the solution. There is often a time pressure upon the decision making. The need to act under uncertainty (of the future) and time pressure (of the given problem definition) leads to the need for sturdy mechanisms of human reflection. Such cognitive mechanisms have been labeled by Gerd Gigerenzer fast and frugal heuristics (FFH). These are essentially psychological tools for overlooking some parts of existing information for the sake of efficiency of the decision. Thus, Fast and frugal heuristics employ a minimum of time, knowledge, and computation to make adaptive choices in real environments. They can be used to solve problems of sequential search through objects or options, as in satisficing. They can also be used to make choices between simultaneously available objects, where the search for information (in the form of cues, features, consequences, etc.) about the possible options must be limited, rather than the search for the options themselves. Fast and frugal heuristics limit their search of objects or information using easily computable stopping rules, and they may make their choices with easily computable decision rules. (Gigerenzer, Todd, & ABC, 1999, p. 14) In contrast to Tversky and Kahneman assumption of cognitive forming of the solutions (via heuristics), Gigerenzer advocates a model of thinking that operates upon regulation of the search process for answers. The mental system- facing with an ill-defined problem (e.g., "Which city has bigger population, Munich or Antananarive?")-- utilizes the approximate information based on familiarity of the names, and stops the decision process before it enters into long calculations. Most of human reasoning is based on ignorance-- yet it works sufficiently well in our life environments.

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From FFH to semiotic mediation Human reflected-upon world is inherently ambiguous-- despite its present seemingly clear state, this can change at any moment. It is here where Gigerenzer's "fast and frugal heuristics" share grounds with semiotic mediation The latter reflects the conditionality of the states of the world. Thus, cultural heroes, mothers, tricksters are employed in myth stories and discourse in general to reflect the possible (conditional) changes of their conduct from one extreme to another. In this respect, semiotically mediated world is a "personally cautious world"-- different possible scenarios for what might happen with a person under different conditions. The decisions about how to solve different kinds of problems—ranging from trivial decisions to those on which human lives may depend (as in medicine) would lead to the use of one or another kind of heuristic process.

Strategic uses of reasoning Semiotic mediation reflects the desired (i.e., goals-oriented) reflection upon the world. This may make it possible to ignore the ambiguity of the conditional world, and represent the world in terms of unipolarity of a desired sign. Here is where ideologies narrow down human complexity of reflection-- with clear purpose. "Dialogue" in the case of ideological crusade is not a desired form of interaction, if it is claimed to be of value it is a framework of superimposition of the ideologist's missionary claim to gain control over "the other". Political "dialogues", as well as advertisements in mass media that manifestly use the notion of "dialogue" are aimed at disambiguating "the other's" field of conduct. The process is simple-- a domain of human actions that previously had not been highlighted, becomes now singled out as an "area of concern". The concern then becomes reflected upon in ambiguous terms (guiding the persons towards constructing their personal worries about this), Finally it becomes disambiguated again, but now through making the disambiguating agent to be in control of relieving the worries. A domain X becomes made into a "problem", and the solutions to that "problem" become available as "services" by an exclusive set of "professionals" who are "well-trained" to solve precisely these "problems." The professional services of child psychology and education specialists need not differ much from advice that grandmothers could give, yet its value is produced by the professional construction of the "problem" and its "cure." Freedom for making "the right" choice The disambiguating strategies surely rely upon semiotically constructed values that would make the external control of the issue acceptable. In many societies of our time, the generalized complex of "freedom of choice" is utilized in this process. Some years ago, when U.S. telephone companies were "demonopolized" (and many new companies could compete for the same customers), TV commercials of the text like "now you have the CHOICE for your

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provider of telephone services... we hope you to make the RIGHT choice" began to appear. The new ambiguous situation for the clients-- who had not had to bother about the "right" to "make choices" about telephone companies prior to that time-- was immediately made into a domain of discursive activity, by goaloriented agents who controlled fully their version of provision of the given knowhow. The "right do decide" (between telephone companies) was culturally created within an existing set of possibilities, each of which (if chosen) would gain full control over the given relation with the client who had decided in their favour. The ambiguity of deciding (among options not revealed in full to the prospective "clients") was generated socially, and immediately this set the stage for various goal-oriented efforts of disambiguating the situation. The latter operates with signs that exclude their opposites-- thus creating certainty and eliminating doubts. The crucial test of the advertising efforts would be to look for any signs of doubt about the advertised product itself, communicated in the advertisement text. This is particularly interesting in the case of products that are necessarily inherently ambiguous-- all medical "drugs" carry inherent ambiguity with them (not different from any other substance usable in human existence, tobacco and alcohol included). Medicines can both cure and kill, which of the two scenarios works in a given case is in principle indeterminate. Thus, particular "side effects" of a medical drug for a particular person cannot be predicted, and long-term "safety" of a drug is not testable in principle (e.g., which pharmaceutical company would wait for 20 years to test the lack of long-term negative effects of a drug that needs to capture the market now?). These are inevitable, inherent ambiguities of human life in the "modern world", which are ideologically turned into semiotic unambiguity (.e.g., "drug X is SAFE"). Thalidomide was "safe" as a drug administered to pregnant women until cases of congenital bodily malformation were discovered-- in low frequencies, compared to the wide use of the drug. Yet it was sufficient to lead to banning of the drug. Asbestos in the architectural environment was once viewed as "safe"-- and in our present time examples of quick abandonment of asbestos-infested buildings can be reported. Conclusions: abduction as process of innovation Human thinking is simultaneously intra-mental and inter-mental process. In its basic flow it belongs to the intra-mental domain. Yet most of its objects are in the domains outside of the human individual psyche. Furthermore, the forms for thinking are actively suggested by other people-- through different forms of communication. Communication is not a flowery, utopian process of "sharing" or "communion" of kindred souls. Instead it carries in it all of the human goals orientations, tactical action plans, and -- most importantly-- ever-open possibilities for modification of the communicative messages. It is in the context of such openness of communicative messages that the intra-mental process of thinking constitutes the force that creates relative stability of the mind in the middle of the myriad of social suggestions. Yet there is always

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the tension with the frameworks in the social world that attempt to guide the thinking process. Thinking is guided both internally (through externalization of the person’s understanding of how to frame the here-and-now setting) and externally -- some external social agent suggesting and demanding how the person might, should, or just must—think. Abduction here takes precedence over induction and deduction. The highly valued “freedom of thought” is a negotiated settlement, rather than a philosophical given.

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Chapter 7. Semiotic fields in action: Affective guiding of the internalization/externalization process … the airport official who asked cactus-pointed questions wore no shirt, nor did the porters, so that Lillian decided to be polite to the smoothest torso and show respect only to the strongest muscle. The absence of uniforms restored the dignity and importance of the body. They all looked untamed and free in their bare feet, as if they had assumed the duties of receiving the travelers only temporarily and would soon return to their hammocks, to swimming and singing. Work was one of the absurdities of existence. Don’t you think so, Señorita? Said their laughing eyes while they appraised her from head to toe. They looked at her openly, intently, as children and animals do, with a physical vision, measuring only physical attributes, charm, aliveness, and not titles, possessions, or occupations. Their full, complete smile was not always answered by foreigners, who blinked at such warmth of smile as they did at the dazzling sun. Against the sun they wore dark glasses, but against these smiles and open naked glances they could only defend their privacy with a half-smile. (Nin, 1987, pp. 466-467)

This sensual feeling of the encounter between an occasional traveler and another human being—playing the role of an “official”-- leads us to the center of the role of subjectively emerging affect in the middle of the most mundane everyday life events. Somehow our subjective worlds register some of the details of our ambience-- a building we happen to pass by looks beautiful (or ugly), our boss has either too big (or small) a nose which we evaluate in the middle of a business meeting, or children make too much noise (or are suspiciously quiet), the TV or radio is too loud or desirably inaudibly quiet (as a background for our actions), and so on. We construct meaning for many small, seemingly inconsequential, events in our lives. Yet it is these inconsequential events that have enormous consequence—we live through these episodic subjective constructions. We create ever new ones as we are on the move—and let them guide our further movement. It is a form of subjective curiosity about the Fernweh (see Boesch, chapter 5) that is in our nearest next step of encounters with our environments. All these episodic constructions involve feeling—and possible reflection upon feeling through the use of signs. These feelings emerge through our constant process of experiencing within the environments through which we pass

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as temporary participants in the events that are taking place. Furthermore—we actively participate in the making of such experiences—by creating dramas, tragedies, adventures, and social norms. The central thesis of the semiotic perspective in cultural psychology as put forth in this book is straightforward-- human psychological life in its sign-mediated forms is affective in its nature. We make sense of our relations with the world— and of the world itself—through our feelings that are themselves culturally organized through the creation and use of signs. The realm of feelings is central for the construction of personal cultures. The mental—reflexive (or “cognitive”) side is an emergent semiotic tool to organize the affective relating with the world. Human development: microgenesis, mesogenesis, and ontogenesis The centrality of affective experiencing is a whole that is created in time-never to recur in the specific ways it took place, yet illuminating our further potential encounters. It is regulated socially—through social suggestions that are encoded into signs at different levels of generalization and in three mutually embedded domains of continuous experiencing—microgenetic, mesogenetic, and ontogenetic (see Figure 7.1.) Human immediate living experience is primarily microgenetic—occurring as the person faces the ever-new next time moment in the infinite sequence of irreversible time. In order to create stability of psychological kind, the person creates semiotic devices—meaning fields—that temporarily stabilize that “lurking chaos” (Boesch, 2005) of experiencing ever-new moments. Such semiotic construction is constant and overabundant—the creativity of human psyche in generating new meanings while living one’s life is hyper-productive. Most of the semiotic devices created are abandoned—some before their use (intermediate gestalts of the process of Aktualgenese—Valsiner & van der Veer, 2000, chapter 7), others after their use and under the conditions of no need for further use. Of course there are many semiotic devices—meanings—that are retained over ontogenesis, and some—over the course of human cultural history 88. Thus, personal cultures are tools fort creating subjective stability on the background of inevitable uncertainties of experiencing. They are assisted by the collective cultural canalization of these experiences—into culturally structured activity settings. Such settings operate as a mesogenetic organizational level of human cultural ways of being (Saada-Robert, 1994). The mesogenetic level consists of relatively repetitive situated activity frames, or settings. Thus, a situated activity context such as praying, or going to school, or to a bar, or taking a shower or bath, are all recurrent frames for human action that canalize the subjective experiencing by setting up range of possible forms for such experiencing.

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Architectural encoding of cultural values—through temples, mosques, churches, military fortifications, and markets are an example of maintenance of ontogenetic new formations across generations.

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Figure 7.1. Relations between ontogenesis, mesogenesis, and microgenesis (Aktualgenese).

ONTOGENETIC MAINTENANCE

MESOGENETIC PROCESS (activity contexts)

MICROGENETIC PROCESS (Aktualgenese) Finally—the most enduring aspect of human cultural life is the ontogenesis of the person—the development of the person through the whole life course. Here some selected experiences—some directly from the microgenetic domain, others—through the recurrent mesogenetic events—become transformed into relatively stable meaning structures that guide the person within one’s life course (see Valsiner, 1998 on the semiotic look at personality). Relations between levels of organization of experience. Figure 7.1. indicates that there is no isomorphism—one-to-one correspondence—between the three organizational levels of human living. Some microgenetic events-- one time, unexpected, events in one’s life that are not guided by the mesogenetic collective-cultural framing—may make a major impact for the ontogenetic level. Thus, the person’s surviving a near-accident scenario, or a special feeling of unity with a particular partner in the act full mutuality (see Example 7.1. below)— may become relevant for the construction of one’s ontogenetic life trajectory. Other one-time deeply affective moments within personal lives—such as the death of a mother, father, friend, etc.—may be collective-culturally assisted by mesogenetic events that become integrated into the ontogenetic structure of developing subjectivity. Collective-culturally the microgenetic experience is

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supported and guided through mesogenetic forms (e.g., collective-cultural funeral and mourning rituals) to buffer their potential impact for the ontogenetic organizational level. It is obvious that lack of one-to-one correspondences between these levels is adaptive for the successful survival of the person within his or her life course. The encounter (at the microgenetic level) with dramatic— and traumatic—life events is inevitable in the course of living. The people who live encounter death of others around them, personal losses, changes between peace- and war-times, and so on. Yet it is important that such highly affective experiences not hinder their basic progression through their life courses. In Figure 7.2. a set of some theoretically possible relations between the levels of life-course organization are presented. Figure 7.2.A. shows theoretically possible relations between the levels of microgenesis and ontogenesis if there were no central organizer of the mesogenetic level. Here we can observe three (out of the many) possibilities that can be recognized as existing social representations of the developmental transitions in the thinking of social scientists. Thus, trajectory A entails a belief that the frequency of microgenetically similar recurrent events accumulates over time linearly to impact ontogenesis. If that model were true, the concerns of educationalists about the teaching/learning processes of human beings should be easy to satisfy—merely providing an increase in similar educational experiences should by mere recurrence guarantee ontogenetic progression. No assumption of action by the teachers, nor counter-action by the learner, has a place in trajectory A. Trajectory B provides us with a social representation of how a single but affectively traumatic life event might “decay” in its ontogenetic relevance if it enters into a phase of recurrence of similar events. People become habituated to similar “traumatic events” and their impact on ontogeny is reduced. The reverse is true for trajectory C—where recurrence of similar events leads to some gradual “explosion” of the transfer from the microgenetic to the ontogenetic domain. This would substantiate an educational philosophy of providing the learner with recurrent and wide immediate experiences (e.g., such as surrounding the child’s environment with books, artwork, music, etc) in the expectation that at some moment of quantitative increase of the exposure there is a qualitative translation of the experiences into the ontogenetic life-trajectory. If we introduce the notion of mesogenetic constraining into this relationship of microgenesis and ontogenesis (Figure 7.2.B.), the monotonicity of the theoretical relations becomes very different. For instance, the “trauma focus” (trajectory B) constrained by X leads to the use of the one-time “trauma” for its maintenance—without the relevance of its recurrence. The one-time event – by its symbolic memories—“buffers” the person against impacts of further similar events. Thus, the initiation of adolescents into adulthood, or of the military recruits into military actions, are expected to symbolically “buffer” their psychological systems against the impacts of similar events.

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Figure 7.2. Different theoretically possible forms of relations between microgenesis, mesogenesis, and ontogenesis A. Possible forms of microgeneticÆ ontogenetic translation A O N T O G E N E T I C

B= ”trauma” focus M A I N T E N A N C E

C = learning focus

MICROGENETIC B. How the mesogenetic level organizes the microgenesis Æ ontogenesis translation A O N T O G E N E T I C

B= ”trauma” focus M A I N T E N A N C E

Y

X

C = learning focus

Z

MICROGENETIC MESOGENETIC CONSTRAINTS (X, Y, Z)

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However, more interesting is the mesogenetic constraining of the “learning focus” (C) where some intermediate level of microgenetic recurrent events is set up to be the focus for intense translation to the ontogenetic level. Constraints Z and Y canalize that transition—yet after that transition has already happened there is no further relevance for the maintenance of the translated experience. Once established ontogenetically—under mesogenetic guidance—further microgenetic experiencing is no longer necessary, even if it actually occurs. Children may be guided to learn to read and write after some accumulation of encounters with the printed materials in some educational settings. Once they master such skills—under educational guidance—further encounters need not translate into any further ontogenetic relevance of such skills. If left uninstructed at relevant times (by mesogenetic constraining) they may still eventually reach some level of the skill by mere unconstrained accumulation (trajectory A). The focus on the mesogenetic level becomes thus crucial for an analysis of cultural-psychological phenomena (see chapter 8). Particularly important is the analysis of processes that proceed between the different levels (as indicated in Figure 7.1. by arrows). Mesogenetic events—due to their relative stability—are most easily detectable for observation and analysis. Yet in and by themselves they are not relevant—it is their in-between role (linking the never-ending uniqueness of the microgenetic flow and the relatively conservative progression of ontogeny) that makes it into a methodological “entrance point” into the study of cultural-psychological processes. It is the affective creation of signs operating between the levels that guarantees both human cultural development of novel forms of being and the blocking of the myriad of immediate experiences.

Affect—feeling fields and emotion categories In cultural psychology, the question of primary affect (at its physiological level) is a precursor for the meaningful construction of feelings and emotions. The physiological processes of nerve excitation and inhibition constitute the basis of all feelings and emotions. Yet these phenomena cannot be reduced to these physiological processes. They entail subjective reflexive characteristics that are prominent in the person's self-reflection. These characteristics are made available through semiotic mediation. Yet the nature of affective phenomena sets the stage for conceptual difficulties for psychologists and linguists to make sense of them. Consider the following imaginary dialogue between a Linguist (L) and Psychologist (P) on the role of language in dealing with affect: P: Sadness and anger are universal human conditions. L: Sadness and anger are English words, which do not have equivalents in all other languages. Why should these English words-- rather than some words from language X, for which English has no equivalents-- capture correctly some emotional universals?

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P: It doesn't matter whether other languages have words for sadness and anger or not. Let's not deify words! I am talking about emotions, not about words. L: Yes, but in talking about these emotions you are using culturespecific English words, and thus you are introducing an Anglo perspective on emotions into your discussion. P: I don't think so. I am sure that people in those other cultures also experience sadness and anger, even if they don't have words for them. L: Maybe they do experience sadness and anger, but their categorization of emotions is different from that reflected in the English lexicon. Why should the English taxonomy of emotions be a better guide to emotional universals than that embodied in some other language? P: Let's not exaggerate the importance of language. (Wierzbicka, 1997, p. 9) Where verbal language fails. The difficulty of using language to denote something felt (but not immediately language-encoded) has been a problem for psychology ever since the disputes about William James' ideas about feelings (James, 1890, Dewey, 1896). The affective phenomena are dynamically complex, often defying even elaborate description in terms of ordinary language. It is my claim in this book that such verbal inaccessibility to affective phenomena is part of the psychological centrality of affect in human functioning. In other terms—it is the issue of feelings – in contrast to categories of emotion (which are discretely describable in language)—that is the core of human condition. One of the pioneers in the study of affective phenomena, Felix Krueger, emphasized the distinction of phenomena of feeling: … the experience of a normal individual (and also all social experience) consists in its main bulk of indistinctly bounded, diffused, slightly or not at all organized complexes in whose genesis all organs and functional systems take part. It is significant and not at all obvious that, at least in adult human beings and higher animals, the total state of their experience often unfolds into a multitude of relatively closed part-complexes. But even in the highest stages of development, this is not always the case, e.g., in states of the highest, permanent excitement, great fatigue, most complete self-subservience. Even when we observe experience in relief, its organization, as a rule, does not correspond at all and may never correspond exactly to the limitations of objects created by intellect, or to objective "situations" … Never are the differentiable parts or sides of real experience as isolated from one another as the parts of physical substance, i.e. its molecules and atoms. (Krueger, 1928, p. 67)

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The subjective world of a human being is constantly in the state of a complex whole of the immediate experience which is dynamically changing. Henri Bergson (1907) labeled that flowing subjectivity duration (dureé). All semiotic processes that the person brings into one's life are oriented towards regulating and directing that flow into some selected future direction. Human beings are acting and feeling towards the future. John Dewey expressed this sentiment Anticipation is… more primary than recollection; projection than summoning of the past; the prospective than the retrospective. Given a world like that in which we live, a world in which environing changes are partly favorable and partly callously indifferent, and experience is bound to be prospective in import; for any control attainable by the living creature depends upon what is done to alter the state of things… Imaginative forecast of the future is the forerunning quality of behavior rendered available for guidance in the present. Day-dreaming and castle-building and esthetic realization of what is not practically achieved are offshoots of this practical trait, or else practical intelligence is a chastened fantasy. (Dewey. 1917, p. 13) We feel forward—but how can this be conceptualized? Cultural psychology is interested in basic principles of human affective life as it is semiotically organized—and thus organizes itself. Universal semantic primitives and the duality of meaning fields What different possibilities exist for conceptualizing the complexity of the affective fields? The differentiated field notion (of above) can be complemented by general abstract depiction of emotions through the simplest possible linguistic terms ("semantic primitives"-- Wierzbicka, 1992). These "minimal concepts" (such as: I, you, someone, something, this, want, don't want, think, say, imagine, feel , part, world, become) are used to set up structures for different emotions in different languages. Anna Wierzbicka has analyzed a key concepts used in different languages to refer to affective phenomena (Wierzbicka, 1997). As an example of the use of her depicting the terms, consider the analysis of depressed: X feels something Sometimes a person thinks something like that: I can think: something bad will happen to me I can't think: something good will happen to me I can't think: I will do something good Because of this, this person feels something bad X feels like this (Wierzbicka, 1992, p. 565)

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This minimalist example reiterates the assumed mental operations (distinction of the NO GOOD versus SOMETHING BAD happening to person), and the incapacity to think of one's activity. In terms of the theory of duality of meaning (chapter 3), Wierzbicka’s semantic primitives can be viewed as dynamic field structures (Figure 7.3.). Figure 7.3. The duality field of depressed

FEELING “something”

FEELING “NON-something”

“SOMETHING BAD WILL HAPPEN TO ME”

BLO “BAD

“Can’t think: SOMETHING GOOD WILL HAPPEN TO ME”

Non-“BAD” = “something good” WILL HAPPEN

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Semiotics of the domain of feelings. The subjective world is the world of feelings (German Gefühl, French sentiment, Hindi rasa, Italian sentimento, Russian chuvstva), on the basis of which different circumscribed emotions (German Affekt, French émotion, Italian emozione, Russian emotsii) are differentiated through semiotically based reflexivity. Such reflexivity entails generalization based on recurrent unique experiences that lead to the establishment of the use of one or another concrete term (e.g., [fuzzy field of “I feel something” Î “fear is that what I feel”) The boundaries between different areas of feelings-- as well as those between feelings and emotions-- have been traditionally unclear in psychology. Emotions have been usually viewed as categories (in English: happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, disgust, anger are considered as "basic emotions" and even acclaimed to be pan-human-- Ekman, Friesen & Ellsworth, 1972). In contrast, feelings are irreducible to emotions. They are intra-psychological (accessible to their bearer through introspection, and to others only if expressed in some action), they pre-suppose an object, and include evaluation as part of their being. As human experience is constantly directed towards the future-- in pre-adaptation to the uncertainty of that future-- the evaluation in the feeling is diffuse, yet directed. Human affective processes are of the kind of complexity that has been a problem for straightforward efforts to describe and explain those. Cultural mediating devices—meanings—are closely intertwined with that complexity. They emerge from amidst of that complexity. Human experiencing of every hereand-now setting is embedded within a field of self-generated affect, which can be depicted as fields. Furthermore, such fields grow—become wider (and end up allencompassing hyper-generalized fields—something labeled “depression”), or narrow down to the point-like state of specific emotion categories (statement “I am surprised”). Example 7.1. Affective pilgrimages by the self onto the Other. Of course that cruelty is mutual between genders, and fits the present perspective of interpersonal closeness as an act of personal pilgrimage. The pilgrims here undertake a journey into the unknown but idealized intimate worlds of the Other. The utmost crossing of boundaries of the self and the other happens in selected moments of unity of the self and the world, as in devotional acts or religious or sensual moments of ecstasy. For instance, introspective accounts of orgasm—a theme of much interest that is usually outside of the public talkability or private tellability domain-- reveals the structure of opposites—unity and non-unity—even in the highest moments of affective experience: A male report: Before orgasm there is a tendency to the manifestation of contradictory impulses, as for instance to destroy, and at the same time to embrace; to separate, and at the same time to fuse…

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At the moment of orgasm I felt something like an identification with space. When studying this primitive explanation more carefully I now see it very clearly; for instance the following image occurs very frequently: it is astronomical space with its constellations of stars, each one of which is my own self, but not as identical beings and in an abstract manner, but as desperate effort to give a biological value to an abstraction. A female report: As far as space feelings are concerned, intercourse presents a paradox: a feeling of expansion into infinity, a blending into the universe about one, a melting and fusing—yet also a feeling of infinite contraction, of an intense focusing to a minute part of space and even into a small part of one’s physical self as it ordinarily is. There is another paradox in the identification’s loss with one’s partner, and yet a realization that I am myself, unalterable. (Matte Blanco, 1998, p. 441-442) It may well be the case that access to the concentrated feeling of the present moment is available rarely—and the post-factum introspections of orgasm may be one of these rare reports. The meanings of stars—presenting the self—constitute substantive analog to the notion of Dialogical Self (chapter 3). Internalized notions of celestial configurations, as well as the unity of fusion and un-fusion (being together and simultaneously being alone) indicate the basic dual unity of the opposites (chapter 2). From personal pilgrimages to personal-cultural appropriation. On the basis of our coverage of Dialogical Self (chapter 3) and Lewin’s look at the layers of bounded self-fields ranging from infinite personal-subjective center to the conduct in the public universe (chapter 5), we can consider all establishment of interpersonal relations as an act of subjective pilgrimage into the valued and charming center of the other’s personal unknown. That core of personal culture is the “inner infinity” as conceptualized by William Stern (1935, p. XXX). The Kerala author Kamala Das—writer of many recognized short stories in Malayalam—has commented in one of her short stories: A woman in love is never satisfied if her lover remembers with only one part of his body. She wishes to grow like cancer within him, to fill him with awareness and pain. This is the special cruelty of love.(Das, 1993, p. 79) The patterns of family and marriage (chapter 4) provide collective-cultural frameworks for such acts of personal-cultural colonizing of the Other. It is an ontogenetic parallel to the Bakhtinian notion of a “voice” expressing itself through another “voice” within the dialogical self. Members of a multi-generational family create their personal-cultural objectives through feeling with the other— grandparents feel with their children and grandchildren in life activities that are no longer available to them (or never were). Teenagers feel with their favorite popstars without ever entering into intercourse with them. The reality of personal-

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cultural worlds entails constant extension of that world to the immediate environment, including the case of affective Miterleben (German: “experiencing with”, or feeling into-- Einfühlung) with others. The Hindi notion of rasa-- an aesthetic feeling that is created in the process of experiencing art or in the middle of sensual passion (srngara rasa) in dance and intimacy organizes the person’s future in relating with the world. Rasa is created by the process of becoming (bhava) that involves active agency of the person. Affect in boundary crossing The appeal of crossing boundaries is set up by the boundary of irreversible time—human striving for the unknown is an inevitable aspect of being—creating novelty—which in itself is an act of boundary crossing. The social worlds that the human beings inhabit are set up to canalize that intrinsic striving for the unknown in the direction of interests of different social power units. It is not surprising that adolescents, post-adolescents, or children are recruited as warriors all over human history, and that the striving for unspecified union with “the other” becomes a powerful basis for religious conversion. Personal movement towards the lures of the unknown is guided by the social expectations web of interested collective power units. Phenomena of human affectivity are organized at different levels, from those closest to immediate physiological processes, to hyper-abstracted and over-generalized higher level total feelings. A hypothetical depiction of these levels is given in Figure 7.4. The hierarchy of levels of semiotic mediation of affective processes that is depicted in Figure 7.4. sets up within the same scheme emotions and feelings of different generality. Level 0 is the universal-- for all animal kingdom-physiological anticipation about the immediate next future event in life. Based on that level, the organisms can develop generalized, non-mediated "feeling tone" (or anticipatory affective state, kind of undifferentiated awareness of something-positive, negative, or ambivalent-- that is about to happen). These Level 1 phenomena do not require semiotic mediation-- they are pre-verbal generalizations. One can grant the reality of dog-lovers' reports about their favorite pets "feeling with" them at times of the owners' sadness or happiness-these phenomena (on the dogs' side) can belong to Level 1. Pre-verbal generalization allows for the organism to maintain previous experiences for further use, but does not require their encoding through signs. Semiotically mediated (i.e., cultural) organization of the affective field begins at the move from Level 0 to Level 1. The person's primary affective field is already oriented by the person's previous experience. It becomes articulated at Level 2-- where specific naming of emotions present "in" the experiencing person, by the person oneself, is taking place. The undifferentiated field of a particular directional quality (e.g., positive, negative, or ambivalent) becomes reflected upon through assigning the present state of the field a specifying name for the emotion felt. So, the person can say "I am sad", "I am disgusted", "I am happy" or talk about emotions like HAPPINESS, SADNESS, ANGER,

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SURPRISE, etc. as if those are permanent properties of human affective life.

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Figure 7.4. Processes of generalization and hyper-generalization in affective regulation of the flow of experience

“I FEEL something overwhelming… cannot describe it clearly… but it “ makes me to feel like

Level 4 (hyper-generalized affective semiotic field—creates

X [access at Level 3]”

subjective Gefühston) Level 4Æ1

Level 3 (generalized categories of feeling)

Level 2 (specific emotion terms)

“I feel BAD (or GOOD, or [general labelrasa]”

Level 3Æ1

Level 2Æ1 “SAD”

“HAPPY”

Level 1 (general immediate pre-semiotic feeling subjective experience and its “natural” Gefühston)

Level 0 PHYSIOLOGICAL LEVEL (excitation and inhibition)

Differentiating feeling based on physiological arousal

New (constrained) feeling

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Sign mediation creates the psychological distance of the thinker/talker from the differentiating affective field-- discussing issues of human happiness does not mean that the discussing person oneself is happy. All the cognitive activity of persons that concentrates upon the decontextualizing emotions-- in terms of their specific categories or general prototypes-- takes place at Level 2. That is the level of maximum articulation of the semiotic encoding of the affective field (in terms of Werner's and Kaplan's "orthogenetic principle" (Werner & Kaplan, 1956). Still it does not amount to maximal hierarchical integration. The latter-- as will be shown later-- can entail the development of a higher level dedifferentiated field. The mediational processes of Level 2 can become further generalized in ways that lead to higher-level (in terms of abstraction) de-differentiation of the affective field. Level 3 in Figure 7.4. depicts a situation where a person-- after excessive use of emotion categories in one's internal self-dialogue-- arrives at a new generalized-- yet ill-defined-- self-reflection. Thus, a statement "I feel bad" can result from generalization higher in abstractness than specification of emotion categories (sad, disgusted). The escalation of abstraction of feeling: hypergeneralization. Finally, the generalization of the sign-mediated field of feelings can reach the highest level of overgeneralization-- that of a semiotically mediated state which is at the same time de-differentiated (Level 4). This entails emergence of feeling fields that overtake the person’s psyche in its totality—yet these are not immediate (level 0Æ1) diffuse phenomena. The person "just feels" something— but cannot put that feeling into words. Examples of aesthetic feelings-- catharsis experienced during a theatre performance, reading deeply moving poems or prose, or in an interpersonal situation of extreme beauty indicate that human affective field can become undifferentiated as a result of extensive abstraction of the emotions involved, and their overgeneralization to the person's general feelings about oneself or about the world. Theoretically, that process entails internalization and abbreviation . It becomes important to emphasize that-- contrary to Werner's and Kaplan's "orthogenetic principle" or Lev Vygotsky’s emphasis on use of concepts- the highest levels of hierarchical integration do not entail increased articulation of the parts of the affective system, but just to the contrary-- the highest level of hierarchical integration is that of an hyper-generalized ("nebulous") semiotically mediated feeling ("higher feeling") subordinating all rational (Level 2) discourse about emotions to its ever-present (inarticulate) guidance. The example of the difficulty that psychology has had with the treatment of some higher-order affective phenomena-- such as values (see Valsiner, Branco, & Melo Dantas, 1997)-- is indicative of this process. Even as values can be posited-- and traced-- to be present in human conduct, bringing them out into the domain of explicit reflection by the carriers of values has been difficult. Values are basic human affective guidance means that are ontogenetically internalized, but their externalization can be observed in any aspect of human conduct. Yet as

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they have reached such hyper-generalized way of being, they are no longer easily accessible through verbally mediated processes. We can decisively act as directed by our values—but are ill at ease telling others what these values are. If we succeed, we have performed the Level 4Æ3 translation of a hypergeneralized semiotic field into general verbal statements (e.g., “I feel totally dedicated to science”) that may refer to the direction of the values but cannot capture them in their entirety. Values are not entities—but dynamic semiotic fields—while superimposition of language onto such nebulus-but-real fields makes them into an entity (see chapter 8 on the perils of entification for methodology) From hyper-generalized feeling fields to the semiotic mediation of affect. In human life, affective fields of higher kind-- as depicted in Figure 7.4.-regulate experience in its totality. Affective fields can be hyper-generalized meanings that have left their original context of emergence and flavour new experiences. Thus, a person may develop the notion "life is unfair” from a series of life events of being mistreated. Once hyper-generalized, the field sign of affective tone begins to colour many—sometimes each and every—new experience. The person can look at the rising (or setting) sun and consider this to carry the flavour of “unfairness of life”. A person’s depressive feelings can give colouring to each and every encounter with the world, even if it is impossible for her or him to describe those verbally. A flow of a general feeling just takes over the intra-personal world of the person, begins to control one’s concrete actions, and debilitate any efforts to counteract it. A person covered with a flow of depressive feelings cannot do anything to overcome those; a person overcome by a field of maniacal desires cannot stop oneself from hyper-action. Verbal encoding as guided by affective semiotic fields. The feed-forward from Level 4 organizers to Level 2 (explicit discourse about emotions) entails the pre-organization of the vocabulary for reflecting the feeling. This preorganization entails a range of possibilities ranging from blocking the mentioning of a given feeling, to exaggeration of the use of a particular general verbal term beyond a feeling implied. The issue of secrecy within any society (or in personal culture) creates the basis for de-emphasizing talking about culturally constructed feelings-- when such feelings relate with the fear of spirits (e.g., George, 1993). The other extreme in the cultural setup by Level 4 of how to talk about feelings in terms of emotions (Level 2) can be found in over-expansion of the semantic field of the sign. Thus, in English it is possible to talk about love in relation to (obviously) feelings towards someone that a person tries to describe (to oneself or to others), together with the use of the same term in relation to mundane objects (ice-cream, broccoli, etc.). As a result, talking about the feeling of love becomes both socially acceptable (habitual) and distanced from the actual feeling (of Level 4). If a person, after eloquently telling others how much she loves broccoli, diet pills, sports cars, Fendi perfume, etc. subsequently talks about her love for her boyfriend the meaning of the expression "love" is very

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different than in the case where a person can barely utter the word to the other person towards whom the feeling is directed. In contrast, for the Dhulo (in Kenya), the approximate equivalent of English "love"-- hera -- is not a meaning concentrating on feeling, but rather on social relation 89. For the Dhulo it is impossible to denote the sentiments of feeling deeply for somebody as "falling in love". Likewise, the American English "have crush on X" cannot be translated into other languages. Example 7.2. The “Christmas spirit”. The relations between Level 3 and Level 4 in Figure 7.4. are bi-directional. On the one hand, the generalizing semiotically encoded feeling keeps open the general direction of feeling. On the other hand, that feeling becomes constructed as a de-differentiated field, and thus "vanishes" from the direct and crisp linguistic depiction, and becomes a "feeling-at-large". Consider the following depiction of the "Christmas spirit": A major festival like Christmas among English-speaking North Americans is accompanied by a stereotypical set of emotions. Certainly, we do not all actually feel these emotions: for many, Christmas is primarily lived, according to self-reports and actions, in a mode of disgust at overindulgence or in a heightened sense of loneliness. But this does not mean that Christmas evokes feelings at random… [factors evoking feeling] depend… on personal elements that to a large degree are common to those who share common experiences and a common exposure to stories, songs, images, and ritual practices-- all features that reinforce a message of comfort and joy, homeyness, and familial good cheer. For most English-speaking North Americans... such evocation of "Christmas cheer" or "Christmas spirit" extends beyond the words or images used to provoke it to involve in what we commonly call feelings. The exact nature of one's feelings will depend on background and circumstances but include a range of positive and negative emotions that are themselves reactions to the central stereotypical emotion of familal and universal love and coziness. (Leavitt, 1996, p. 527, added emphases) The "Christmas spirit" is an over-generalized field which-- being labeled as such (Level 3)-- entails feelings which guide lower levels of dealing with bodily experiences and categories of emotion. Any encounter by a person with an environment filled with Christmas paraphernalia (e.g., pervasive Christmas songs) can lead to primary feelings (Level 1) which become framed by the 89

As is evident from the following examples: Onyango ohero chiege = Onoyango loves his wife Oloo gi Aloo oherore = Oloo and Aloo love each other Atieno ema chuny Onyango ohero = Atieno is the one whose heart Onyango loves Atieno ema chuny Onyango oyiego = Atieno is the one who the heart of Onyango agrees with Onyango rembe owinjore gi Atieno= Onyango his blood agrees with Atieno (Omondi, 1997, pp. 107-108)

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highest (Level 4) affective field. The person may feel in the bliss of "Christmas spirit"-- or in the middle of unspeakable alienation (dependent upon the semiotic organization of the Level 4 field). Both of these extreme ways of structuring the feelings can be accomplished without direct verbal mediation-- the persons need not talk about their feelings in the setting, neither to one another, nor within themselves.

Highest semiotic fields: personal “life philosophies” An appropriate example of such abstracted and hyper-generalized field of regulating affect is the ways in which different religious systems have dealt with the complex of life phenomena labeled suffering. Suffering is a label potentially usable at many different levels of generality (e.g. "I suffer from the snoring of my husband" to "I suffer because of all the injustice in the world"). It is a term that refers to the person's generalized feeling (Level 4 in Figure 7.4.), and it colors the ways in which people conduct their daily lives. Psychology has been a discipline that developed within the European, Christianity-dominated social context. Hence it has been guided by the prevailing life philosophies of Christianity as those have transformed all European social life since the 4th Century AD. In respect to the meaning complex of suffering, Christianity has acknowledged it, and turned it into a vehicle to attain its social goals in regulating human lives. Max Scheler has described it in the following way: In Christianity, there is… mellowing of the soul in totally enduring suffering either alone or with others. However, an entirely new source of power emerges that sustains suffering, a power that flows of a blessedly intuited higher order of things as revealed through love, insight, and action. The endurance of suffering has a new meaning-- it is a purification by God's compassionate love, which has sent suffering as a friend of the soul. Only through these two thoughts together did Christianity, without reinterpretation, apparently succeed in integrating the full gravity and misery of suffering as an essential factor with the order of the world and its redemption. In spite of its torment, Christianity succeeded in making suffering a welcome friend of the soul, not an enemy to be resisted. Suffering is purification, not punishment or correction. (Scheler, 1992, pp. 110-111) Cultural construction of SUFFERING as PURIFICATION is a way to maintain the focus on that complex feeling, and to get it to function for specific social goals. By maintaining the suffering by the social suggestion that it is purifying, Christianity guides its followers to accept its teaching through their regular being within their lives. An alternative treatment of suffering in human cultural history is its elimination by persons' active work of psychological distancing of the generalized

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feeling from the rest of experiences. In terms of the contents of Figure 7.4., that entails turning the two-sided relation Level 3 Å Æ Level 4 into a single-direction relation (Level 4 Æ Level 3). As a result, the over-generalized feeling becomes unmentionable in terms of verbal encoding (or it becomes "empty"-- see the Taoist notion of mu-- in Ohnuki-Tierney, 1994). The highest level of semiotic regulation of the affective fields is that of being "beyond the ordinary" life experiences-- as oriental ascetics create their highest goals in living. In the Buddhist world, the suffering is to be eliminated by distancing: "Elimination of suffering" in Buddhist thought means no more than to unmask, by means of spontaneously obtained knowledge, the chimera of objects existing independently of us. This means locating the void of "nothing"-- in the sense that things no longer resist us-- at exactly the point where the things previously appeared in their separate existence with all their prominence, freshness, and splendor. As seen with complete knowledge, the world and nothing, nirvana, are strictly parallel correlates. For Buddha, knowledge is not "participation," "image," "order," or "form," but an emptying of the contents of the world from our apprehension by severing the chain of desire that binds us to these contents and makes their existence possible. Knowledge is thus a stopping of the conflict as to whether our worlds contents exist or do not exist in our immediate present; in this respect, knowledge is primarily an abolishing of all affirmations or denials of existence. (Scheler,1992, p. 105) The elimination of suffering through distanced emptiness as knowledge functionally accomplishes the same social goals that the emphasis on suffering as purification does for the Christians-- it guides the persons towards acting (either in suffering-in-the field, or in distancing in-relation-with the field), and through such acting-- to the acceptance of the given life philosophy. That philosophy becomes personal-- through internalization/externalization (as described below). Individuals need not become followers of the given religion-- in fact they may be active opponents of the organizer religions-- yet their life philosophies are framed by the orientation towards suffering within which they develop (see Figure 7.5.)

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Figure 7.5. How collective-cultural social suggestions are processed by the personal-cultural hyper-generalization of affective fields.

SOCIALLY SUGGESTED GENERAL VALUE (“suffering =

RECONSTITUTED GENERAL VALUE (“suffering = purification”= “ascetism”)

THE EXTRAPERSONA L SOCIAL WORLD

CONSTRUCTION OF AFFECTIVE FIELDS

THE INTRAPERSONA L PERSONAL

PERSONAL LIFE EXPERIENCING IN IRREVERSIBLE TIME

Any person encounters in the social world some general suggestion for a particular direction of how to feel; (e.g., "feeling of suffering is important for becoming pure"). Such general suggestion is embedded in the person's surroundings in many different versions. Such encodings include visual signs in the environments, explicit or implicit comments by other human beings, texts of literature, films and TV programs, etc. etc. The person cannot ignore the input of these suggestions, and in one way or another (see chapter 9 on internalization/externalization) relates to them. As a result, the general suggested value becomes relevant in the person's own organization of the development. This leads to two kinds of "side effects" over ontogeny-- the person externalizes a personally modified model of the value (GENERAL RECONSTRUCTED

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VALUE) to the social realm, where it becomes as part of the "input" to some others (e.g., parents' reconstructed values become part of the social suggestion system for the offspring). The second "side effect" of the process entails the development and consolidation of one's own personal life philosophy. Human beings may become contemplative analysts of their life wisdom over their life courses. Example 7.3. Semiotic structure of jealousy. Algirdas Greimas’ (Greimas and Fontaneille, 1993, chapter 3) analysis of the creation of the feeling of jealousy through intra-personal semiotic activity would illustrate the personal being-in-the world (possession of objects) and constructing the hyper-generalized feeling fields that guide (and at times completely overtake) the conduct of a person. At the level of immediate relating with the world, a person guided by jealousy is obsessed with details all linked together through the indeterminate worry of the loss of an object—usually a person—who is being considered “one’s own”—to a rival. Here the connection of the feeling field of jealousy to the social meanings of personal (rather than communal sharing) nature of objects, and the notion of ownership, come into play. Thus, The jealous lover is in the first instance a worried person. If we can trust the definitions of worry, the jealous one is going to know “agitation,” “perpetual lack of satisfaction,” and “concern.” This absence of repose, this trouble that is an obstacle to the peaceful enjoyment of the desired object, is in essence based on an oscillation between euphoria and dysphoria, so that the jealous person is neither truly euphoric nor truly dysphoric. (Greimas and Fontaneille, 1993, p. 136)

Jealousy is thus a hyper-generalized field of “flip-flopping” between the A and non-A states, rather than a field of integration of the opposites. It is a case of non-integrated ambivalence (Giordano, 1989) where the opposites (valued positively and negatively) dominate each other temporarily(Figure 7.5.A.)— instead of integrating them through a generalized promoter sign (Figure 7.5.B.). The latter can happen through a hypergeneralized meaning (e.g., “god’s will” or “fate”) or through introduction of iconic or indexical signs (see the function of the “wooden spouses” in West Africa—Figure 7. 10. and Example 7.7. below), In Figure 7.5.C. provides a Greimasian example of the semiotic square of opposites (TRUST<>non-TRUST) where the latter can take three different forms PRE-TRUST (= initial positive expectation for the other), DIS-TRUST (suspicion about the other) and MIS-TRUST (proven—or declared “proven”—non-trustability of the other.

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Figure 7.5. The psychological and semiotic structures of jealousy A. A closed cycle of recurrent dominance reversal between positively and negatively valenced opposites (non-integrated ambivalence)

DISPHORIC STATE:

EUPHORIC STATE:

X is worried about the autonomous actions, feelings, and thoughts of Y—and shows suspicion about any feature of Y’ i

X declares that s/he has eternal love for Y that has no boundaries or conditions

B.

Integration of ambivalent opposites

PROMOTER SIGN-- symbols: “trust”; “fate”; “commitment” etc

POSITIVE VALENCE:

NEGATIVE VALENCE:

X declares that s/he has eternal love for Y that has no

X does not like the autonomous actions, feelings and

C. The process of emergence of jealousy (after Greimas and Fontaneille, 1993, p. 142)

TRU

MISTR Signs as INDICATORS

PRO

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As Greimas indicated, The jealous person’s trajectory thus includes two fiduciary transformations, one involving the move from trust to distrust, the other the move from distrust to mistrust. The first, because of the conflictual situation that has been in place from the beginning, even before the crisis of jealousy, is enacted on the slightest pretext. The slightest fact, the slightest sign can compromise the unstable equilibrium of exclusive attachment, thus giving preeminence to the negative side of the internal contradiction. At this stage, the jealous person is a pure receiver of indexes and signs. Next the suspension of trust sets of a cognitive quest that is made possible by a metaknowledge. (Greimas & Fontanille, 1993, p. 141) The utilization of promoter signs can block the emergence of jealousy in two ways—by circumventing the interpretation of indicators in terms of distrust, or by blocking the generalization of the proof in the move from distrust to mistrust. In a similar vein, promoter signs can enable the DISTRUSTÆ MISTRUST escalation. In any case the semiotic structure in Figure 7.5.C. depends on the constriction of the field of conceptualization of the object of jealousy to the notion of exclusive possession and intensive attachment to the object. The presence of the rival claim to the “possessed object” requires not only the restriction of access to these possessions (an objective guaranteed symbolically by locks, passwords, and security guards), but particularly the recognition of the impossibility to control the goals-oriented and strategic conduct of the “possessed object” him or herself. The construction of the MISTRUST in the field of {TRUST<>non-TRUSTÆ MISTRUST} meaning field feeds further into the interpretation of the indicators of DISTRUST and creates an escalatory loop of affective hyper-generalization. Such loop can be exited from—through the action of elimination of the jealously guarded highly valuable object (i.e., the “Othello strategy”), or by way of bringing into the loop a meta-level promoter sign (e.g. Figure 7.5.B.) that creates affective distance from the interpretation of the particular conduct signs.

Cultural-historical promotion of affective field construction As all semiotic tools used in the creation of affective fields are cultural constructions, it can be said that all personal affective fields are cultural in their nature. Furthermore, they are historical—they can be constructed under the historical conditions of one generation, and transcend it in the next. Human ontogeny involves constant meaning-making around the issue "what is it how I feel" in a here-and-now setting, with a comparison to "how should I feel here". The latter comparison base entails the introduction of socially suggested generic values which are intertwined with the higher affective field.

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Example 7.3. A “revolutionary function” of rape. Undoubtedly there is wide variability in the ways in which specific events are linked with hypergeneralized values. What for one age/social activity cohort is construed as psychotrauma can for others take on the role of dedication to some overgeneralized ideology. An example for such transitions comes from the discussion of rape in the early times of the Soviet society in Russia, where -- in the context of war-- enduring of rape by women was viewed (by communist psychiatrists) as an act of revolutionary heroism, rather than trauma. Furthermore, the way how a woman dealt with rape was viewed as a diagnostic device. Thus, in the words of Aaron Zalkind-- one of the hyper-communist psychiatrists in the USSR in the early 1920s, the description of the following case is of interest: ...F., 26 years, female, from intelligentsia, in RCP [Russian Communist Party] since 1919. Severe nervous excitability, shivers, trembles, excited at smallest of noises, strong neuralgic pains that were considered psychoalgic (i.e., of no organic basis, selfsuggestive) by doctors; constant anguish, gross alienation, strong heartbeats, disturbed sleep; the critical analytic capability is not disturbed; energetically takes care of her appearances, despite the depressed mood. It turns out that she went with the revolution "for pure romanticism": heroically, with heightened and bright feelings. Was a low-level political commander,-- during the events on the front line had to experience much. While retreating with her unit, was captured by a group of kazaks [anti-communist cavalry in the Civil War], and raped. After that-- sharp change: desperation, from which she could not recover; feeling of emptiness in herself and around, step-by-step separation from all her surrounding and growth of the above-mentioned nervous symptoms. The college to which she entered in order to get distracted also gave her no solution, the studies did not affect the mind. During our only medical session with F. she was already excluded from RCP as useless element, and was about to leave for her home place. In this case the characteristic fact-- which is beyond F's coping capability-- is that of rape. The author [Zalkind] has met minimum ten party comrades who were raped in the process of bloody struggle with the enemy, and only F., and one other reacted to that as incurable disaster (by the way, F. did not get either veneric disease or pregnancy from the rapists). The others, in general rather sexually normal, possessors of healthy femininity, comrades related to that in a revolutionary way, recognizing that bloody struggle entails all kinds of cruel trials and that one has to be capable of living through all of those; they did not live through any ideological crises after it. This is the best proof that in case of correct, strongly social and class-conscious orientation-- mere sexuality, even the most difficult, does not create psychoneurosis

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and plays only a secondary role, in service to the relationship with the social. (Zalkind, 1925, pp. 44-45) The linking of the suffering (of rape) with the purification through "class struggle" in the "revolutionary way" is here continuous with the use of suffering in the service of Christianity (discussed above). The notion of "revolution" is an example of a totem-- a general idea that permeates the whole sphere of life activities of a society. The notion of "revolution" is not merely a label, but an hyper-generalized feeling (Level 4 in Figure 7.4.). Totems permeate human social lives as they operate via the highest semiotic regulation level.

Rituals as promoters of hyper-generalized feeling fields Totems can be found in any society or established social group. All notions of patriotism or group identity are based on ideas that play totemic roles, often in conjunction with supportive symbolic objects. For instance, the notion of liberty in the U.S., supported by the national flag-- see Marvin & Ingle, 1999). The totems -- supported by corresponding environment-encoded symbols and myths-create the basis for social rituals. These rituals involve persons' participation-and through that-- modulation of their affective field system. Affective fields become re-organized by ritualistic action patterns. These patterns can be viewed as externalized imagery. Thus, the acts of prayer, or of abbreviated moments of it in everyday situations (e.g., a person crossing oneself in an uncertain situation). In human development, different social institutions— religious, educational, medical—promote the establishment of such action patterns as affective field regulators. Social suggestion embedded in coordinated action. In the organization of children’s group activities, it is the rhythmic and multi-sensory features of activity that are utilized to canalize the affective field development of the children. Getting children to sing, dance, and to perform in children’s theatre guides primarily the development of feelings. Ritualistic repetitions of acts are the dynamic affective embodiment of the content of activity. For example, rote learning of religious texts (or learning and reciting poetry) can carry the function of affective field establishment: A Muslim should be able to read the Qua’ran [Koran] even without being able to understand the words, because the ability to read the Qua’ran itself has been to evoke in people a response to the teachings of Islam which sociologically has been very valuable. Beyond this most of these people will hardly go, but provided they learn in their childhood to respond to the music of Arabic consonants and vowels, and to the rhythms of the Qua’ran, they will continue throughout their lives to have an emotional attachment to it. (Husain & Ashraf, quoted in Wagner, 1983, pp. 185-186, added emphasis)

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The focus on future (life-long) emotional attachment to the religious text is an explicit goal here. It guides the children—through participation in an activity structure (be it Koran study, or prayer, or fasting, in any religion)—towards internalization of the generalized meaning fields that operate as values regulating all concrete conduct (Seesemann, 1999, p.51). Modern Arabic “alphabet songs” used in Indonesia to get children to master literacy are infused with the affective ideas of Qur’anic motivation (Gade, 2004). The situation is not different in case of political identity-building rituals. The saying of prayers at regular intervals, or reciting the “Pledge of Allegiance” in U.S. schools in the morning, are similar in function to the example of rote learning. Likewise, joint mass activities such as marching with a band, choir singing, and listening to music provide similar rhythmic unification of the person and the activity. Suggestions for fusion. For different social goals, moments of complete affective fusion with the immediate setting can be suggested. These can entail phenomena of trance, or can be built on the notion of over-generalized feelings that guide action and feeling. Thus, in words of one remarkable woman, her love relationship to another person has received the following description: After that he came himself to me, took me entirely in his arms and pressed me to him; and all my members felt his in full felicity, in accordance with the desire of my heart and my humanity. So I was outwardly satisfied and fully transported. Also then, for a short while, I had the strength to bear this; but soon, after a short time, I lost that manly beauty outwardly in the sight of his form. I saw him completely come to naught and so fade and all at once dissolve that I could no longer distinguish him within me. Then it was to me as if we were one without difference. (Bynum, 1989, p.168) This description is given by a 13th Century female mystic Hadewijch. It indicates the affective fusion of the person with a social other. In this case, the role played by the latter was Jesus Christ, who probably was quite unaware of this event ever happening. Poems and letters by Hadewich-- who was an independent practitioner of devotional Christianity (a Beguine rather than a nun) were circulated widely in medieval Europe and guided the religious feelings of many women (Hart, 1980). Uniting of the sensual feelings with devotion to a deity is a Worldwide phenomenon. Similarly to Hadewijch's feelings, those of the Hindu temple dancers (devadasi) displayed religious devotion through their sensuality (Valsiner, 1996, 1998, chapter 9). Suggestions for distancing. Quite oppositely from the example of medieval European beguines and Hindu temple dancers, the social world of the 20th Century United States is imbued with the orientation towards a-hedonistic relating to one's own body and self (Stearns & Lewis, 1998). In the U.S. middle

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class social world, it has become accepted that the emotional stance in interaction with others is mild -- yet positive ("impersonal but friendly"). Intense emotions are targets for control-- those should be neither seen nor heard (and if those occur-- these are considered infantile and embarrassing). The focus on self-control of feelings-- in accordance with social norm following-- is the ideal for the self (Planalp, 1999). Guidance of organization of feelings is particularly set up as relevant in professional contexts where the person-in-social role needs to distance oneself from the everyday social roles assumed. For example, in the medical profession different actions in relation to another person's body -- especially in societies (such as the U.S.) where collective tactile phobia and over-sexualization of human body has been collectively set up as a norm. Medical students in the U.S. undergo their professional distancing of their feelings in their training under general suppression of interpersonal sharing of their experiences. Thus, a second-year male medical student describes his experience in examining a woman patient, When you listen to the heart you have to work around the breast, and move it to listen to one spot. I tried to do it with minimum contact, without staring at her tit… breast…. The different words (pause) shows I was feeling both things at once. (Smith & Kleinman, 1989, p. 59) The medical students are guided towards distancing their feelings from sexual relation towards purely professional ones, through forcing them to act and find intra-psychological solutions for the distancing task by themselves 90. Intramentally, they may re-arrange their vocabulary with the help of which they think during the medical procedure. Thus, thinking of oneself as "palpating the abdomen" entails distancing, which "feeling the belly" does not. That the distancing is personally practiced is evident from the following report about experiences of a first-year female student at a dissection: When we were dissecting the pelvis, the wrong words kept coming to mind, and it was uncomfortable. I tried to be sure to use the right words, penis and testicles (pause) not cock and balls. Even just thinking. Would have been embarrassing to make that mistake that day. School language, it made it into a science project. (Smith & Kleinman, 1989, p. 61, added emphases) The general genre of "school language" (or "science") is itself a cultural vehicle for personal distancing. Yet, at the same time in the same (U.S. or other) society the very same people can be guided towards fusion of their identities with a social unit. Religious or national symbols-- such as the national flag-- indicate 90

still, as Kleinman and Smith (1989) demonstrate, American medical students are not forced into active practicing of procedures that constitute psychological sensitivity area for them-- gynecological and rectal examinations.

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in parallel the guidance towards sacrificing oneself for the social role (of a medical doctor, or citizen). The public symbolic object can be taken and turned into a personal symbolic object, as in a case of a top-level athlete: Jenny Thompson wraps herself in the American flag every night when she goes to bed. Her comforter is all stars and stripes and quilted padding. Her pillow, her lampshade, are both decorated in red, white, and blue. She tried to hang an oversized flag on the ceiling of her dorm room at Stanford so she could go to sleep dreaming the American dream about medal stands and national anthems. The flag wouldn't stick. It went on the wall, instead… (Marvin & Ingle, 199, p. 221). In each social context, guidance towards feeling-full unification (with some social roles, or values) is coordinated with guidance for affective distancing from some aspects of those roles in specific domains. A U.S. medical student may be distancing him- or herself from aspects of the bodies of the patients (or cadavers) while at the same time aligning one's affective field completely with the general role of the medical doctor. A soldier who kills others distances one's affective domain from that act through the fusion of oneself with the ideology that not only legitimizes the killing, but socially prescribes it. The system of feelings (and their development) that was outlined above gains further support from cultural anthropologists' work on the meanings of emotion terms in different languages. Demonstrations of the difficulties of translation of the semantic nuances of the same basic emotion term from one language to another is evidence for the local (society- and language-based) construction of the particular emotion category. Undoubtedly the semantic fields of the category in different languages has some core overlap (at least for the "basic emotions", yet it is the margins of the semantic fields that demonstrate the role of emotion terms as phenomena which are in between the primary and higher affective fields. The inductively emerged -- labeled-- emotion in one society need not include some domain of meaning nuances as its counterpart in another language. Yet in both they function as relevant articulated semiotic devices, resolving the tension between the primary and higher affective fields.

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Example 7.4. Getting angry at being helped. Cross-societal comparisons by anthropologists and descriptions by historians of everyday life provide evidence of many feeling organization patterns. Consider the following episode of interaction—in a rainy day, a mother is waiting for her son back from school with an umbrella for him at a bus stop. When the bus arrives the son sees the mother and gets angry—saying—“You shouldn’t have come out here with the umbrella for me.” The mother replies, “My baby, I am sorry about that.” This episode can be explained in different ways, beginning from the egocentered manifest content interpretation of the son’s independence of the self. The maximum depth of this manifest level interpretation is 3 [Level 1Æ Level 2 (anger)Æ Level 3 (feeling of independence crushed)Æ Level 0/1 (new action)]. Yet in the case of non-manifest interpretation—taking into account the cultural hyper-generalized semiotic field of Korean Shimcheong provides an alternative interpretation: The son must be grateful for the considerate behavior of his mother. Nonetheless the son hides his real Shimcheong of gratitude by getting angry with his mother. The mother also conceals her true Shimcheong of being disappointed by her son just by apologizing to him. Oftentimes, the strength of Shimcheong in close relationships is reinforced by expressed emotions that are opposite to the real and hidden emotions. The parent-child relationship and in particular, the mother-son relationship is based on in-depth Shimcheong (Choi & Kim, 2001, p. 8). The particular hyper-generalized feeling (Shimcheong, empathy, etc.) sets the stage for complex hypergames in close interpersonal relations. Hypergames are games where the partners do not know the list of strategies of the other players (as those lists may change), nor their goal orientations (and ther changes) in the course of the game. As described above, the seemingly irrational (for a Westerner) positive feelings expressed at the loss of a close person by people on Bali (Wikan, 1990) are easily explainable through the use of affective self-organizing mechanisms. Yet within the manifest – behavioral outcomes—domain different societies seem fundamentally different in their emotional expression.

Promotion of different levels of affective sign fields in different societies The cultural constraining perspective on human life-course development (Valsiner & Lawrence, 1997; for a similar developmental take cf. Fischer, Yan & Stewart, 2003) leads to locating the value of evidence about differences between social units. The “cross-cultural differences” as referred to in cross-cultural psychology in the detection of various versions of how different levels of semiotic mediation reveal the basic structure of constraining the affective expression under different circumstances.

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Figure 7.6. Levels of affective semiotic mediation and their selective social amplification, attenuation, and blocking by “barriers for affect”

LEVELS OF GENERALIZATION

“SOCIETY A”

“SOCIETY B”

LEVEL 4: HYPERGENERALIZED FEELING FIELD

UNDEREMPHASIZED

MAXIMALLY EMPHASIZED

STRICT BARRIER

LEVEL 3: GENERALIZED AFFECTIVE REFERENCING

MINIMALLY EMPHASIZED

MEDIUM EMPHASIZED

PERMEABLE LEVEL 2: EMOTION CATEGORIES

LEVEL 1: DIFFERENTIATING FEELINGS LEVEL 0: PHYSIOLOGICAL

MAXIMALLY EMPHASIZED

MEDIUM EMPHASIZED

MINIMALLY EMPHASIZED

UNDEREMPHASIZED

USUALLY NOT CONTROLLABLE SOCIALLY BUT IN SOME SOCIETIES MAY BECOME TARGETS FOR SUCH CONTROL EFFORTS

Cross-societies’ comparisons can provide psychology the basic structure of the ways in which the generic model of society functions (chapter 1). Recorded cross-societal contrasts are merely “snapshots” of the different ways in which that generic model of society works.

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At the level of personal affective self-regulation, all levels (and their feed-forward connections) can be in operation. Yet the social suggestions that surround the developing person during ontogeny may differentially highlight (or diminish) some levels in contrast with others. Some societies may emphasize the use of the higher levels of semiotic mediation, while others may de-emphasize it. Figure 7.6. describes one such (hypothetical) contrast between two societies in terms of differential highlighting of different levels of semiotic mediation. The two societies—“A” and “B”—differ in the ways in which verbal accessibility to affective phenomena is emphasized. In Society A, the maximally highlighted state of affairs is Level 2. People in that society are expected to focus on the categorical description of their emotions (and similar categorical recognition of feeling states of others). Generalization beyond Level 2 is accepted (but not emphasized), and deep intra-psychological affective “feeling through” (Level 4) is socially blocked (by “strict constraint”). Surely it happens – as individual do not follow the social constraining, and transcend it, but in the given society this would be considered an unmentionable, socially unnecessary, aberration. In contrast, the capability to classify any feeling into a clearly defined emotion category (Level 2) is given the highest positive social value. Surely Society A is one where the rationality of bureaucrats, business executives, and tax collectors is the ideal for affective grasping of the human life-worlds, and transcendental meditators, philosophers, poets, artists, and naïve youngsters of the kind of Young Werther (Goethe, 1973) would be considered as barely tolerable weir-dos. In contrast, Society B is one where the exploration of the highest levels of semiotic mediation of affective processes is supported. The naming of experienced (or recognized) emotion categories (Level 2) is recognized, but not given a high goal value in the process of socialization. Instead, the persons are encouraged to contemplate on the general meanings of their lived-through experiences (Level 3), and to reach the highest levels of affective understanding of the World (Level 4) that would guide their personal life philosophies. It is here that the social value of the precious few who reach that level—gurus, yogis, poets, writers, and philosophers—are given the highest social value within the given society. Interestingly indeed, the contrast between these two hypothetical societies seems to overlap—at least in general terms—with the often used contrast between “Western industrialized” (or “individualistic”) and “Eastern societies” (or “collectivistic” cultures). These contrasts are not ontological, but constitute different states of the general state of affairs of affect regulation in a universal model of society as a whole. Not surprisingly the history of both Eastern and Western societies gives us evidence about changes from one state into the other. Developing business relations in the Oriental World may bring the people involved in these areas closer to the emphasis on the rational and verbalized

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treatment of affect (Level 2). In a similar vein, the relevance of poets in the cultural history of the Occident remains a fact. Affective fields—Level 4 phenomena-- are constantly a major target for social canalization efforts. Specific activity contexts are used for the promotion of generalization of feeling beyond the given here-and-now context. The “social others” of the developing person suggest how the present situation can—or should—relate to the ways of being in general. Solving the problem of the development of feelings can take different forms. The most usual one is descriptive— outlining of the ontogenetic changes as those can be observed at different age levels. Thus, in the second and third years of life children begin to make reference to their internal psychological states. At around the same time they begin to describe other persons’ experiences. By the fourth year of life there is a differentiation in children’s use of emotion categories (Stein & Levine, 1989). However, mere description of a sequence of similarity classes does not explain their development. Cultural framing of affective development One needs to uncover the underlying processes by which the social world surrounding the developing person is gradually directed to feel in ways that are mutually comprehensible and personally meaningful. In the history of a society such canalization devices – collectively called emotionology—(Stearns & Stearns, 1986) undergo transformations, accentuating the expected ways of letting the personal-cultural affect regulation system to operate. The social organization of anger in the history of North America is a good case. Over the last 300 years, what is now the U.S. society has been embarked on the historical trajectory of regulating anger. It has led to the segregation of anger expressable against animals (pre-18th Century) to the unexpressability of anger towards some animals (emergence of regulations against “cruelty to animals”), other adults, and—finally—to children: Concern about anger in child rearing was surely born out of the same eighteenth-century emotional transition that produced the new desire to reduce anger between husband and wife. Explicit anger advice in the eighteenth century focused more directly on adults than on children, to be sure. Thus the neologism tantrum was originally applied to adult behavior and only gradually, during the nineteenth century, evolved in its present meaning, which describes a new level of anguish about a certain kind of childish behavior. (Stearns & Stearns, 1986, p. 50)

While anger had been allowed—yet regulated—in the U.S. over centuries, envy has not (Foster, 1972). Fear in America has been removed historically from a major social control mechanism to one of the emotions of “no positive function” (Kelly & Kelly, 1998). In the course of history, different political

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events set up concentrated periods of change in the feeling canalization in a society. Thus, the terrors of the French Revolution drastically changed the sentimentalist ethos of most of the 18th century France, and led into an upsurge of romanticism (Reddy, 2001). Similarly, the Second World War adjusted the promotion of the ways feelings were handled in American movies (Lyman, 1992). Of course there were other sides of everyday realities—such as epidemics, childhood accidents, and famines—that were part and parcel of children’s affective worlds. The external situational structures for feeling entailed different demands at different historical periods, which were encoded into the cultural contexts of the times—public rituals, novels, theatre performances, movies, TV shows, etc. The social demands of major activities guided the development of these structures. Yet that is not a homogeneous story. Quite the contrary—within the same society at the same historical period, one can see attenuation (or suppression) of the same affect in one situation, and exaggeration of it in another. Among the Toraja in Indonesia, crying by adults is permitted and expected (lamenting) in connection with the death and funeral of relatives, but strictly prohibited in other settings (Wellenkamp, 1992). Crying is a Level 0 phenomenon—emerging at the intersection of immediate activation fluctuation and meaningful semiotically encoded images. An example of fluctuations following a significant persona loss illustrates that well: My wife of 50 years had died. I cried a lot. There were plenty of opportunities to engage in silent microanalysis of crying. Friends would come by the house to offer condolences. I could carry on a normal flow of conversation except when a visitor would refer to one or more of my wife’s talents and graces. At these moments, my ability to engage in sequential talk was inhibited. Normally integrated movements of respiration and vocalization were no longer in synchrony… … Repeatedly, I noticed that the synchrony of speech was disrupted when the speech partner called upon the image of my deceased wife. I would begin a sentence with normal control of volume and content and midway would have difficulty in coordinating respiratory movements with talk. (Sarbin, 2000, p. 4) Under similar circumstances of personal loss, different social Semiotic Demand Settings (see chapter 2, Figure 2.7.) can be set up either to facilitate or block crying. A middle-age Balinese man described his way of dealing with loss of his younger brother in an earthquake in similar—yet in one way different— terms:

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When someone dies, it is because God calls him, his karma is finished. The day of death is written at birth… If you cry, the soul will not be so happy because [it is] still in contact with you. You will impede its progress to God. Instead you must be happy and pray to help the soul to go to God. Just like with you, if you are unhappy, you cannot work so well, cannot concentrate, so also with [the souls of] the dead [leluhur]. (Wikan, 1990, p. 156) The concepts of karma (as well as its many equivalents in other religious systems) operate as Level-4 canalizers of the way in which the person deals with death. Most generalized terms of ethical kind in any society are of such hypergeneralized semiotic fields that are worked out over long periods of time in ontogeny. That entails regular participation in activity settings (Rogoff, 2003), some of which exercise precisely the relations between different levels of affective regulation—like pointed move to bring oneself to tears. In Southern India, Weeping is an important part of the Tamil bhakti tradition. Only when a worshipper melts into tears, thus revealing the unbearable intensity of his desire for union with the god, will the god come to him. Hence the weeping of devotees singing their hearts out before idols in temples is not an uncommon sight. (Egnor, 1991, p. 20) The persons enter into settings (idols in religious places) that are organized in ways that would enhance their active hyper-generalization of feeling (of communion with the deity) that would manifest in the weeping, which further fortifies the hyper-generalized feeling. Repeated – even if not too frequent— participation in rituals sets the person up in the direction of arriving at hypergeneralizations—not just of the kinds promoted by the given setting. The process of social canalization of affect may be slow, and consist of a myriad of mutually disconnected, happenstance, personal life events. Out of these particular events, the developing person weaves together the texture of one's psychological world. The bi-directional culture re-construction model implies the active role the recipients of communicative messages play in reconstructing cultures. Human psychological development is created by developing persons through inventing signs of different kinds to make sense of different settings of subjective uncertainty. Dynamics of affective fields: coordination of person al and collective cultures Affective fields are constantly a major target for social canalization efforts. Specific activity contexts are used for the promotion of generalization of feeling beyond the given here-and-now context. The “social others” of the developing person suggest how the present situation can—or should—relate to the ways of being in general.

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Direct and indirect social suggestions. A particular experience can be channeled socially in a particular feeling orientation in explicit, implicit, or environmentally encoded ways. In all of these, the structure of the encounter of the suggestor and the target person is the same: Suggestor: Do X (and feel Y) Expectation for the person: does X and feels Y where X and Y are sets of similar action/feeling forms The communication implied here is that of similar direction. The suggestor gives the direction, and the person is expected to accept and follow the direction- not necessarily acting in the specific way (X) that was suggested, and not necessarily feeling (Y) the same way the suggestor charts it out-- but in ways similar to those. An example of the explicit social suggestion is from a mother-child interaction: MOTHER: Bring me that beautiful doll from over there. CHILD: (Brings the doll and gives it to mother) MOTHER: Isn't it beautiful! CHILD: (smiles, and looks at mother and doll) The values added to the action object (doll) as being "beautiful" are constraints upon how the child is expected to feel while acting. It is not a requirement for action (the child cannot be forced to feel that the doll is beautiful), but a suggestion of direction. An example of implicit suggestion for feeling can be somewhat different:

MOTHER: Look, who is coming! CHILD (in fussing tone): Dad! MOTHER: Hmmm, really? CHILD (changing tone to happy welcome): Hello, dad! Through minimal communicational means, the mother guides the child into an appropriate affective tone for the context of greeting the returning father. Again, it is not assumed that the child will shift from the "fussing mode" into a feeling of great happiness seeing the father, but such direction is suggested, and demonstrated in the child's actions. Social direction of affect through suggestion to the opposite. Social canalization of the development of affective fields can also take the form of suggestion for the opposite of the expected. In general, it takes the form of Suggestor: Do X (and feel Y) Expected result: the person does non-X and feels non-Y

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(where X, non-X, Y, and non-Y are sets of similar action/feeling forms)

This form is simultaneously an act of promotion and test of the opposite (desired) feeling (and action) than the one indicated in the manifest contents of the communicative message. Jean Briggs (1979, see also Briggs, 1970) observed how an Inuit mother dealt with a food-sharing issue in case of her 3-year old daughter. Another child-a 4-year old older daughter-- was outside of the tent, while the mother created a setting where the 3-year old’s establishment of values was both tested and promoted: MOTHER (hands a candy to the 3-year-old daughter and says in exaggeratedly happy-excited-secret-persuasive voice): “Eat it quickly and don’t tell your sister, because it is the last one!” THREE-YEAR-OLD (breaks the candy into two pieces, eats one and takes the other outdoors to her sister) MOTHER (says to the audience, with a pleased, and perhaps amused, smile): “She never keeps things to herself; she always shares” (Briggs, 1979, p. 396) In another example, Briggs described a middle-aged aunt talking to a 4year old niece who had just returned to the camp after a visit to her mother: AUNT: What a beautiful new shirt you have (voice of intense, excited delight) NIECE (smiles happily). AUNT (in persuasive tone): Why don't you die so I can have it? NIECE (looks at aunt with blank face) AUNT: Don't you want to die? NIECE (raises eyebrows in affirmative gesture (meaning that she does not want to die) AUNT: Don't you want to die? Do die (persuasive voice). Then I can have the shirt (reaches out towards the shirt with exaggerated clutching gesture, fingers clawed and tensed) NIECE (looks at aunt with blank face) AUNT (changing the subject): Did you see your new baby brother? NIECE (beams happily and raises eyebrows affirmatively) AUNT: Do you love him? NIECE (raises brows, smiling) AUNT: Did you carry him on your back? NIECE: (raises brows and smiles happily) AUNT: Do you love him? NIECE (raises brows, smiling)

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AUNT (in exaggeratedly disgusted voice): You love him?! Why don't you tip him out of your parka and kill him? (confidential, persuasive voice; jerks her own shoulders forward to demonstrate the appropriate technique). NIECE (looks at aunt with blank face) (Briggs, 1979, p. 394) The second example is basically an adult's dramatic construction of suggestions that are beyond the realm of desired actions in the collective-cultural belief system. The child is participating in this routine in a predominantly nonverbal way, yet is the target of the dramatized suggestions. Suggestions for how to feel in acting can also be encoded into the built environment. The constructors of churches, temples, and other symbolic architectural creations have set up places which -- by being interpreted as such-entail implicit suggestions for how to act and feel. Even culturally designated areas of the natural environment-- such as burial grounds, or places for the ritualistic activities-- suggest by themselves interpretable directions for acting and feeling. Thus, on the Karelian (Finnish) village, the cemetery is a holy place: You may not go there in a scornful or defiant mood, and you may not do there the least mischief, not even take a twig, nor cut leaves, nor tear the grass, nor take anything from there with you… You may not go to the cemetery in the afternoon, you must give peace to the deceased after noontime. When you pass the cemetery, you must always make the sign of the cross, and ask for forgiveness (a recording from a Karelian woman in 1915, cited via Järvinen, 1999, p. 121, added emphases) This example shows how explicit instructions for feeling are circulated in the folklore of the society to be evoked whenever the person encounters the environmentally encoded place. This certainly depends upon the perceptual recognition of the given place as cemetery, church, etc. The consensual forms of architectural construction in a given society provide the environmental encoding for the suggested higher-level feelings. It tells a story of constant social renegotiation of the verbalization thresholds within the collective culture (Figure 7.7.)

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Figure 7.7. Levels of semiotic regulation and their accessibility to verbal inquiry

Level of Generali-

VERBALIZATION THRESHOLD (negotiated) pro-verb anti-verb

zation HYPER (Level 4)

THE DOMAIN OF HYPERCONSCIOUSNESS (higher non-verbal)

HIGH (Level 3)

RANGE OF VERBALLY ACCESSIBLE PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENA (intra- and inter-personal)

MEDIUM (Level 2)

EMERGING (Level 1)

THE DOMAIN OF SUB-CONSCIOUS (pre-verbalized) PHENOMENA

NONE (Level 0)

LEVEL OF VERBALIZABILITY

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Social use of affective fields: the ambiguous powers of Mekeo dreaming Aside from verbalized meanings organizing the affective fields, nonverbal imagery carries the same function. The person who is overtaken psychologically by an affective field may experience images emerging within it, which begin to give the field further structure. Under some circumstances, such imagery may provide a basis for restoration (or emergence) of semiotic self-regulation mechanisms.

As the affective fields are structured wholes, they function in conjunction with dramatisms accepted in the cultural belief system. The Mekeo (in the Central Province of Papua New Guinea-- Stephen, 1982, 1995) use dreaming for the construction of meanings of life events. Dreams are interpreted as experiences of the dreamer's soul that wonders around at night. The Mekeo have two kinds of souls-- the "bodily soul" (imauga) that is believed to stay within the body all the lifetime, and the "bodiless soul" (lalauga) that is believed to wander around in the night, enter into relations with different spirits, and guide sleeping people's dreams (Stephen, 1995, p. 134). The construction of such two souls in their complementarity makes the human usual activity of the nighttime-- sleeping- into a psychological phenomenon of substantial cultural power. It is through the activities of the "wandering soul" (lalauga) that the negotiations of the daily life issues of the living are negotiated with the powers of the spirit world. The Mekeo have constructed a supremely functional dualistic system of conceptualizing themselves, making the most of the mind/body separation which is so much dreaded in our contemporary tribe of socio-cultural psychologists. The separation of imauga and lalauga allows for simultaneous "contact" of the same person with both the real (everyday) and supernatural (spirits) world. The reservation of the night-time activities of the lalauga for the important interactions with the spirit powers turns the activity of dreaming into affectively ambivalent event. On the one hand, it is through dreaming that the spirit-world can be consulted as to everyday life decisions. Yet-- as lalauga can also act dangerously in the nighttime-- its uncontrollable action can bring misfortunes as well. Thus, the power of dreaming is both honored and feared by the Mekeo. The uncontrollable side of lalauga can take on a regulatory role in the organization of the affective fields. Thus, if a Mekeo woman … dreams of a particular lover, then it is said, she will no longer resist his advances in waking reality. That is to say, once her dream-self has been won, her bodily self will soon be overcome by desire. A woman's only defence is to say nothing, for to admit to dreaming of a particular man would be tantamount to accepting him. (Stephen, 1995, p. 128, added emphases) The role of the lalauga here sets up the tone of regulation by the higher affective field of the immediate feeling (primary feeling) of the woman. The woman can attempt to hide the potential future relation from others-- but not from herself ("her bodily self will soon be overcome by desire").

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The interpretation of the messages from the soul-world of the Mekeo does not proceed in an automatic fashion. Instead, the dreams can be interpreted in accordance with a flexible set of possibilities. First, the manifest content of a dream may either indicate what it is, its opposite, or a displaced generalization. Thus, a man dreaming about seducing a particular woman may move on to succeed in that, or in some other valued action (such as hunting down a female pig). Dreams of seeing dancing relatives may indicate their death. Sharing the content of dreams with others is itself a dangerous matter-- yet possible under some circumstances 91. Since the power of dreaming is of basic cultural relevance for the Mekeo, they attempt to gain access to it through purposeful action. The magician who tries to gain access to the soul of a dead relative …performs the following ritual. Before retiring for the night he must take some relic of the dead relative (usually a finger bone, nail parings, or hair removed from the corpse before burial and kept for this purpose) and burn a piece of bark cloth (specially treated with potent substances) near the relics, while reciting a spell to invoke the spirit (Stephen, 1982, p. 110). The person prepares oneself for dreaming through ritualistic actions. Yet other persons among the Mekeo can dread the potential dangers of the dreaming powers (as described above). Dreaming-- like any powerful cultural tool-- is simultaneously potentially useful and potentially dangerous. The dynamics of the relations between the affective fields allows for constant modulation of the affective distancing between the person and the immediate environment. The person can quickly move from immersion in the primary affective field (minimum distance) to talking about one's emotions, and further to over-generalized life-philosophical claims (maximum distance), and from there back to the -- by now meaningfully transformed-- primary field. Such modulation can occur at high speed-- as our meaning-making in everyday life contexts needs speedy decisions. This is achieved through the work of the internalization/externalization process, which constructs the history of the person.

Internalization and externalization The buffer against excessive complexity of social messages is the individual's active internalization/externalization system. Human beings are involved in constant reconstruction of their intra-psychological worlds through constant exchange of perceptual and semiotic materials with the environment. The perceptual basis – capacity of the human physiological

91

Which may take the form of the researcher-- a foreigner and outsider to the Mekeo society-- acquiring a special status as a "re-born spirit" of a dead relative -- Michele Stephen discovered herself in that role (Stephen, 1995, p. 167).

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body—is necessary for any build-up of higher psychological (semiotic) functions. Internalization is the process of analysis of externally existing semiotic materials and their synthesis in the novel form in the intra-psychological domain. The latter is structured by its depth (see the laminal model, below). Internalization is always a constructive process, turning the external material into an internally different form. Even in the rare case of direct and unchanged transposition of the external material into an internal form (i.e., the case of synthesis = mere takeover), the general principle of constructivity is maintained (in this case, it is merely a case of zero modifiability of the material) The parallel and complementary process to internalization is that of externalization. Externalization is the process of analysis of intra-psychologically existing (subjective) personal-cultural materials during their transposition from inside to outside of the person, and the modification of the external environment as a form of new synthesis of these materials. The results of externalization immediately enter into the perceptual domain of the person and feed further into the internalization process (see Figure 7.7.). Like internalization, externalization is a constructive process—the synthesis produced in the person’s actions within the environment are novel in relation to previous states of the environment, and different from the intra-psychological materials.

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Figure 7.8. Internalization and externalization as mutually interdependent constructive processes

In Figure 7.8., the ongoing relationship between person’s psychological system and the social world is depicted as a cross section of the ongoing process. The processes of constructive externalization and constructive internalization are constantly in action. They transpose the semiotic material (value-based and affectively colored meaning structures, that exist in the person’s intra-psychological fields) into the domain of external action. The latter produce results that are interpersonally perceivable—whether in speaking (interaction), moving around in the situation, or material reconstruction of the environment. The act of externalization feeds forward into the ongoing internalization process (arrow A), thus contributing to the constructive nature of the internalization. In a similar vein, the ongoing process of internalization feeds forward to the externalization process (arrow B). The field structures inside and outside of the person are constantly changing through this active relating with the environment (this is not depicted in the cross section in Figure 7.8.) In terms of psychological reality, the feed-forward loops depicted in Figure 7.8.. entail the inevitable fact that the very first listener of a speaker who is about to produce an utterance is the speaker oneself , as the speaker gets immediate feedback while speaking. Likewise, the act of listening to another person feeds into the planning of one’s own next communicative action. Both the

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internalization and externalization processes are forward-oriented in their focus on the immediate next moment in time. Controversy about theoretical constructions: feasibility of “inside” and “outside?. The theoretical construction of the notions of internalization and externalization is built upon the assumption of inclusive separation of the person and the environment. The person is viewed as relating constantly with the environment precisely as he/she is separated analytically from the environment. Such separation allows the researchers to define the directions of the transposition of cultural materials (from OUTSIDE to INWARDS in case of internalization, and from INSIDE to OUTWARDS in case of externalization). These premises have been rejected by an alternative theoretical orientation in cultural developmental psychology which has emphasized the inseparability of the person and the social environment and the analytic absence of boundaries between person and environment, as well as of the inside/outside distinction (e.g., Matusov, 1998; Rogoff, 1990, 1998). Yet, that direction would lead to elimination of psychological phenomena—of relative autonomy of human subjectivity that exists within any situated activity context. In terms of methodological access to the process- internalization can be observed only via some form of externalization, and externalization results feed into further internalization process. Thus the study of internalization/ externalization poses a substantial access problem, which can partly be overcome by the use of combination of action and introspection tasks. Internalization/ externalization and psychological distancing The notion of psychological distancing has been used in psychology at different times of its history (eg., Bullough, 1912; Sigel, 1970, 1993). It is mostly viewed as mental distancing. However, in cultural developmental psychology distancing becomes a result of personal positioning within the field of a situated activity. Furthermore, constructive internalization and externalization necessarily leads to some form of psychological distancing. The internalized field develops in ways that can gradually become different from the external field. Furthermore, the person is free to move between different situated activity contexts, as well as modulate one’s participation within any context as to the central or peripheral position in such participation. While being an active participant in an activity setting, the person may reflect upon the events going on in the given setting in ways that are not immersed in the actions by which the participation takes place. Any reflections upon one's action (e.g., any intra-psychological question "what am I doing here and now?") constitutes a form of psychological distancing that allows the person to transcend the present setting while remaining its participating actor. A person is usually a peripheral participant in the myriad of activity settings, which allows him or her to be buffered against purposeful social invasions into personal privacy by various distancing mechanisms. Flexible

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personal distancing is a neutralization tactic for counteracting intervention efforts from social others. Distancing can also take more permanent forms. In ontogeny, one can observe the differentiation of the child's intra-psychological world that is kept hidden from the efforts of the adults to "peep into" it. All persons (as well as social institutions) develop different forms of knowledge that are kept "confidential" or "secret" in various forms-- hence not immediately available to others in activity contexts. The development of phenomena of secrecy has relevance for human development (Simmel, 1906), as it serves as the basis from which social participation can be contemplated. In general-- any case of personal decision not to disclose one's private thoughts or feelings in an activity setting indicates the functioning of distancing mechanisms. Modulation within psychological distancing. The dynamic side of psychological distancing as a semiotic self-regulation device entails constant modulation of the person's relation with the given context- moving between various forms of im-mediacy and inter-mediacy. The internalization and externalization processes make it possible to set up intrapsychological semiotic means that change the whole subjective understanding of some ongoing action. Thus, when a mother proceeds feeding her child during a mealtime, then her construction of the meaning of how much food "is enough" for her child guides her actions, by constraining them. Yet, at any moment, she can distance herself from the immediate feeding process by constructing the notion that "the child actively resists me", and then proceeding either in the direction of intensification of action ("I must get him to stop resisting") or de-intensifying it ("I don't want to fight with my child, let him eat as much as he wants"). The intrapsychological self-regulation by the mother thus can move her -- in the same setting of a mealtime-- to be even more actively involved in her actions, or distanced from the given setting. Furthermore, most of the thoughts or feelings that proceed in the mother's intra-psychological field while performing the routine actions of feeding, and which unconnected with the action task, indicates the power of semiotic means in distancing. Human beings are capable of taking their wandering minds out of the here-and-now situations by intra-psychological construction. Creating as-if structures through internalization/ externalization From very minimal externally given signs, human beings can construct elaborate intra-psychological scenarios via the internalization process. These scenarios may stand as possible desired contexts for future action. They entail abstraction of the specific meanings from the given context. Continuing with the example of a mother feeding her child (and arriving at the notion of "the child actively resists me"), the abstraction process can bring out a generalization about the child's character in general. For example, the mother

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may arrive at the idea that "my child knows how to stand out for himself" or "my child has difficult character". Such leaps in inference then become semiotic organizers of future actions relative to the child, well outside of the given context (of mealtimes). Furthermore, in the given context these generalizations constitute cases of as-if structures of meaningful organization of the given setting. Thus, via abstraction the mother creates for her a meaning structure as if her child "had" that "difficult character", and may then act in ways different from her primary (immediate) goal orientation (i.e., get the child fed). The latter changes in the sphere of actions are products of externalization of the constructed as-if meaning structure. All abstract concepts that cannot be defined-- yet are applied constantly to concrete settings-- such as "love", "friendship", "fairness", "justice" etc. are semiotic vehicles for flavoring the given concrete situation by the overriding generic meaning. The re-contextualization of these abstracted meanings constitutes a creation of as-if structure of the situation. The same phenomenon-- for example, an effort by the mother, in the end of mealtime, to get "one more spoonful" of food into the child's digestive system can be viewed extremely differently by outside observers who re-contextualize their abstracted meanings to the given specific context. Thus, some of these observers would view that episode as if it reflects the "great love" of the mother to her child, others-- as a case of mother's "dominance", third-- as "good feeding tactics", and so on. The as-if nature of any interpretation of a setting is made possible by the role of the observers who constantly modify their position relative to the observed phenomenon (the process of attunement, see Rommetveit, 1992). All meaning structures are therefore relative to the objects they attempt to make sense of, on the one hand, and to the meaning-makers' goal orientations and positions, on the other. Communication becomes a process of coordinating these different positions through the semiotic messages. Hence the crucial feature of communication is that of discrepancy between different positions of the inter-communicating persons, rather than the "shared" basis for mutual sensemaking.

Structure of the internalization/ externalization process If we were to follow Kurt Lewin's concentric boundaries depiction for setting the stage for viewing internalization/externalization processes, we are creating a laminal model of the intra-psychological world. The internalization process needs to pass through two layers (laminae) -- I and II in Figure 7.9. .-before reaching the "inner" sphere (III). The externalization process needs to proceed correspondingly, in the reverse direction. In the process, three boundaries-- a, b, and c-- are to be penetrated by the internalization process. Since the process is constructive, the "inner core" of the person regulates each of the boundary crossings by specific social (semiotic) regulating device. First, the boundary-- a --can be selectively open for some communicative messages from the external social world, while remaining closed

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for others. The specific "boundary regulator" -- k -- recognizes those messages that the person is ready to internalize, and ignores or blocks others.

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Figure 7.9. The laminal model of internalization/externalization

Once a message is brought into layer I, it becomes potentially internalizable. It is noticed as a message by the intra-psychological system, but not integrated into it. The latter requires opening of boundary b for the message-by way of the social regulator l. The latter's action upon the message transforms it into a new form, as in layer II the message becomes generalized. This generalization in and by itself is not yet part of the structured intra-psychological world (layer III), but creates the basis for its potential integration, if it is let through the boundary c under the action of social regulator m. If that happens, the generalized and reconstructed message becomes integrated into the structure of the intra-psychological phenomena (in layer III). This model of internalization (and externalization) is a sequentially structured parallel to Piaget's assimilation/ accommodation model. The boundary

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between "inside" and "outside" is here re-constructed into a sequence of three boundaries -- a, b, and c --- that need to be passed for external communicative messages becoming integrated into the internal structure. Layers I and II are a description of the realm of contact between the person and the external social world. Directionality in the processes is strictly assumed-- internalization entails co-constructive (incoming message being acted upon by the social regulators) passing of boundary a--> layer I --> boundary b --> layer II --> boundary c, in that order. Externalization entails the opposite order. The final result of internalization is the process of hierarchical integration-of the transformed incoming message into the structure of intra-psychological phenomena. This puts into its place Heinz Werner's focus on differentiation. The higher affective fields can operate in their semiotically created overgeneralized form. These higher affective fields can be theoretically located in layer III. Phenomena in layer I: retention of "brought-in" material. Once some message has passed boundary a, and has been transported into layer I, it is maintained in the attention sphere of the intra-psychological system, yet its fate in layer I may be variable. First, it can be maintained and slowly attenuated. Alternatively, it can be maintained in its steady state, or even escalated. Yet none of these developments would guarantee that the message is taken further into layer II. That transformation depends upon the action of the social regulation device (l). Phenomena that can be viewed as located in layer I are most widespread in our introspective worlds. For example, a tune (or phrase) from a TV commercial may keep reverberating in my mind for a long time. Any effort to suppress the silly reverberation may be ineffective, I do not bring that material to any form of generalization (which would indicate its layer II state), nor do I ever integrate it in my intra-psychological personal sense structure. After some time, the tune or phrase "dies out", yet the memory of my suffering from the futile efforts to suppress it can be re-activated later. Thus, the message was clearly noticed, maintained, and limited to the outermost layer of the internalization/ externalization system. Phenomena in layer II: generalization without personal integration. If a message from layer I is brought to layer II, it is observable by the act of generalization in the introspective sphere. Yet that generalization remains just that-- it is not integrated into the personal sense system. It remains an abstract generalization, without adding to it the person's feeling tone. It amounts to rational concept formation (a la Vygotsky), which is not linked with the person's core of intrasubjectivity. For instance, a concrete story of how my next-door neighbour was mugged by a gang of youngsters that I have attended to (which was brought into layer I) keeps being present in my internal sphere after I heard the story, and I let it turn into layer II by my intra-personal generalization "young people these days are very inconsiderate and aggressive." I can externalize this generalization in many different versions-- as a generalization, or as a summary of re-telling my

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neighbour's story, or as an ironic comment watching some youngsters in the street (who may be actually hanging out there in a perfectly peaceful manner). Thus, I have constructed a generalization, yet it is not integrated into my personal sense system, it is not yet "populated" with my personal feelings, which would be the case if the generalization were to reach the integration layer (III). Nevertheless, I may become involved in many rational discussions-- in myself or with others-- about the downfall of the mores of the youngsters in our time. Most of ordinary human interactions on issues of politics, business, and psychology may be of such layer-II type. Discussions of abstract problems that are sufficiently far from one's own core self may be an activity that seems to create an image of the person's participation in social issues. Yet that participation remains at the level of abstract discourse. Thus, discussions of persons who are located very far from the dangers of some lethal virus (Ebola, or HIV) can in abstract terms look like efforts of participation in the solution of a "problem" (=another abstraction), yet it is through that discourse that the issue involved is not let to become integrated with the personal sense system (layer III). In contrast, if any of the eager talkers oneself encounters "the problem", it may become taken into the layer III realm, and the person may find it too difficult to externalize any (or some) of the personally senseful aspects of the newly integrated phenomenon. Likewise, many of psychology's research methods tap into the layer II phenomena. Consider a standard item from a personality questionnaire, such as In general, I try to help other people I like it when I am surrounded by many people I like to read books on philosophy If a research participant is expected to respond TRUE or FALSE to such statements, the method calls for externalization from layer II of the internalization/externalization process. The statements given are marginal in their status-- they are public (as these can be uttered easily in any public setting), yet they are assumed to pertain to the inherent characteristics of the respondent (whose "personality" is being studied via them) Relativity of person's participation in external activity contexts (i.e., moving between central and peripheral roles in a joint action setting) has its counterpart in the intra-psychological sphere. Here it is organized by way of maintaining different kinds of internalized materials in different layers, and selectively (and episodically) letting them to become integrated into the personal sense system. The person is a relative-- sometimes peripheral, sometimes central-- participant in one's own life, thanks to the differentiated system of internalization/ externalization. Phenomena in layer III: another look at Bakhtin's ideas. In layer III, the personal sense structure transforms the permeating message with the help of person's subjectivity, and the integrated incoming message acquires a clearly

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affective flavour. From the perspective of the laminal model, the oft-quoted key idea of Mikhail Bakhtin may acquire a new role. The quote from Bakhtin that is often used to emphasize the unity of the social and the personal in the appropriation process is as follows: The word of language [slovo iazyka-- in Russian]-- is half alien [chuzoye-- not belonging to me and unknown-- in Russian] word. It becomes "one's own" when the speaker inhabits [naselit, in Russian] it with his intention, with his accent, masters [ovladeet, in Russian] the word, brings it to bear upon his meaningful and expressive strivings. Until that moment of appropriation [prisvoenie in Russian] the word is not existing in neutral and faceless language (as the speaker does not take the word from a dictionary!), but [it exists] on the lips of others, in alien contexts, in service of others' intentions: from here it has to be taken and made into one's own. (Bakhtin, 1934/35-- published in 1975, p. 106). The word "exists on the lips of others", it constitutes an externalized version of the words by these others. As -- for the given person-- the word is always "half-alien", it is simultaneously also constructed to be one's own, in that "other half". It is the speaker who "inhabits" it with his "intention", and through that inhabiting masters or takes control over the word. The double-directedness of prisvoenie works well within the present laminal model of internalization/ externalization. The person is involved in prisvoenie exactly by way of internalization/ externalization (see Figure 7.7.) . The "populating of the word" can be seen as the subjective integration of the incoming message into the personal sense system in layer III. It is the higher affective fields that would accomplish that task-- by populating the given word with one's basic personal feeling of semiotically organized kind. Complementarity of internalization and externalization The externalization process proceeds in direct complementarity with the internalization process. Different layers can enter into a dialogue through that-some material that is by now "populated with intention" (a la Bakhtin) is taken from layer III outwards to layer II. If, after talking much about the sad fate of my neighbour being mugged, and blaming modern-day youngsters for being aggressive, I myself become mugged by some adolescents, I might integrate the generic talk of before (layer II) with my lived-through experience, and my talk about youngsters' aggressivity becomes "populated by my personal sense", highly affective in its tone. That may become translated into my vehement general talk about youngsters (layer II), but now there exists a dialogue between layer II and layer III phenomena in my intra-psychological system. Example 7.5. A case from Sudan: abortions within abortion-outlawing contexts. One of the basic changes in human societies that leads to

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complicated internalization/ externalization processes of persons is the change in the value of children. In most societies, child-bearing has always been emphasized with ideological zeal and redundant guidance in the positive direction. Yet the realities of modern lives in many countries-- military conflicts that endure over decades, famine, economic downfall-- all undermine the traditional orientation towards having children as the ideal goal. The following example of a woman from Southern Sudan (Dinka) who had undergone abortion indicates the underlying ambivalence: The only problem with abortion is that it could kill you. If you survive physically, it kills you inside. A slow and painful death, that you feel eating away your energy every day. Ever since I have asked myself if the decision was absolutely necessary. I have got to grips with life pretty much on the surface, I can laugh and joke around with everyone, but most people don't know about the fire burning inside me… I always have nightmares about being punished by God so that I can't have more children when I need/want to. My biggest nightmare is when bad thoughts come into my head… like what if I lose my older children and then realise that I've been punished and I can't have any more. I usually feel the spirits coming to me when I'm walking alone, asking me what am I worth as a woman if I can take into my own hands something that is supposed to be their responsibility: to bear or not to bear children… I can't stop feeling this way, because I find my friends with similar experiences talking about having the same sentiments. (Jok, 1999, p. 208, added emphases) The crucial notion of internalized kind is the admission of the internal dialogue with the spirits about power and responsibility. The role of the spirit world for persons' internalization/ externalization processes is the creation of a "social other" who is being a partner in an ongoing dialogue about life-central issues. In the context of Christian (Catholic) devotionalism, such "social others" may be images of saints. Example 7.6. Taking a saint to bed. In the context of American Catholic devotionalism to St. Jude, the internal dialogues are mediated through the placement of symbolic objects in personally relevant locations: Many women told me that they reserved their favorite images of the saint for their bedrooms; some said they took statues or holy cards of Jude into bed with them at night so they could touch him while they talked with him. Ï usually talk to him in the quiet of the evening," one woman explained, "laying awake at night before falling asleep." (Orsi, 1996, p. 111)

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The images of the saint-- St. Jude is considered the saint for hopeless causes-support the internalization/ externalization processes. The imagery of the "social other" that the person has constructed can be maintained in the intrapsychological domain-- or brought out in the form of a symbolic object (e.g., cards with depictions of the saint) or iconic replica. The object acts as a semiotic mediator of the person's self-organization. Example 7.7. "Spirit spouses" of the Baoule. A phenomenon parallel to the example from devotional Catholicism is the Baoule (central Ivory Coast) historical tradition of creating "sprit spouses" for the person. Among the many sculptures that the Baoule create (and which have become classified under the label of "African art" for the naïve Europeans and Americans), there are sculpted images of the "spirit husband" or "spirit wife" that are present in the household. These sculptures are of special significance for the person whose "spirit" is "brought down" by the sculpture. Others are not supposed to look at those sculptures (even if these can be glimpsed during visits to the household). The "spirit spouses" are believed to bring luck in any aspect of life to their main consorts and the whole household. The "spirit spouses" are located in private areas -bedrooms of their consorts-- and often covered from visual access by outsiders. Their location is turned into a shrine (see Figure 7.10.) The figures-- referred to as "persons of wood"-- are treated functionally as real spouses. This includes the needs to give them presents-- offerings to their shrines; as well as they are slept with as required (once a week). The psychological effects reported by the consorts of the "persons of wood" follow the lead of the belief of their spiritual powers. For example, a Baole woman claimed: I have a spirit husband. Mondays I do not sleep with my husband… We consulted [a diviner] and they told me that I had to have blolo bian [spirit husband] carved. If I didn't, I would never get along with my husband… After they carved it, my husband gave me something that I gave to my blolo bian. Nevertheless the two are rivals. My blolo bian has his day when I sleep with him, and that day I do not sleep with my husband from here [on earth]. After that day, I come back to sleep with my husband. [Before it was carved], we quarreled every day. We really quarreled! My spirit husband made me like that, so I was always fighting with my husband. When I had it carved, calm returned to the house (Vogel, 1997, p. 248)

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Figure 7.10. The image (A) and the shrine (B) for the Baoule “wooden husband” A.

B.

The use of invented personages to control one's self has been reported in European cases of psychotherapy (see the invention of "the Thumper" in the case described by Miltenburg and Singer, 1999). The Baoule accomplish in a socially systematic manner the externalization of the "social other" into iconic forms. The "social other" in case of the Baoule "persons of wood" is of the opposite gender, thus creating an androgynous semiotic structure of the Baoule selves. The spirit spouse figures … express an opposite or inverted self. They are other-worldly, the opposite sex, and often behave antisocially. However imperfect their human partner, they are physically idealized. They are always installed on the day before the weekday on which their human partner was born, and the weekly night that partner must spend

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with them is the night before his or her day of birth. In some sense the spirit spouse is an alter ego, a sort of opposite-sex twin of its human partner… Spirit spouses seem to suggest the disorienting idea (found in other Baoule artworks and in other parts of Africa) that humans might harbor in themselves elements of the other sex. The figures both express and remedy this contradiction by externalizing and isolating the male side of a woman and the female side of a man (Vogel, 1997, p. 267) Yet the Baoule externalization of the spirit spouses into iconic symbols go beyond accentuation of basic human androgyny. The "people of wood" are spouses in the boundary zone between the this-worldly and other-worldly realms. As wooden sculptures-- objects-- they belong to the world which is inhabited by their partners and their real spouses, children, elders, etc. This belonging makes it necessary to treat them as if they were real. Thus, social rules of privacy are applied to the wooden spouses similarly to the real ones. Yet, at the same time, the psychological functions of the "people of wood" are defined by their belonging to the spiritual realm. This "double citizenship" of the "people of wood" sets them up as mediators between the two worlds-- and of the self-system of their human partner. The phenomena of creating external objects that carry cultural meanings at the intersection of personal and collective cultures permeate human lives. The Yoruba marking of the death of one or another of the honored twins by creating his or her iconic sign out of wood (Chemeche, 2003) is a cultural tool for maintenance of the symbolic role of the person who has ceased to be present in the everyday world. The figures (see Figure 7.11) —ere ibeji—are commissioned by the parents of the dead child(ren) from a special ritual carver whose making of the figurines is a sequential ritual act (described by Fakeye, 2003). The whole process of getting a figurine carved out of special wood (which becomes sacred as a result) is embedded in a sequence of ritual acts. The carver is being fed by the person who orders the figurine, a ritual of the selection of wood from which carving would happen is performed, and the carver has to consecrate the finished image by ritual washing of the figure, and ritual transfer of the figure to the parents. A shrine is set up at home where the figurine is treated with daily activities: They will be placed lying down at night and standing upright during the day. The mother may wish to prepare a cloth dress for the ere ibeji. If one of twins is alive, then the carved figure and the living child will wear similar garments Every five days a small ceremony consisting of the presentation of food and the singing of oriki, praise songs, for ibeji will be performed. (Fakeye, 2003, p. 29)

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Figure 7. 11. Yoruba ibeji figurine (Chemeche, 2003, p. 187)

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In the history of the Yoruba, the ibeji figurines are the result of the historical reversal of the twin infanticide practices of the Yoruba (dated back to the 18th century). In our present context here, the ibeji figures are exsamples of hybrid signs—uniting iconic and symbolic features—that suggest the emergence and maintenance of a hyper-generalized affective field. The rituals performed around the figurines are mesogenetic events that guide the ontogenetic development (of the co-twin, and any other persons in the social environment). The hybrid nature of the signs simultaneously presents the memory of the real child (deceased twin) by the iconic side, while presenting the link of connection of the lives of the living and the dead—an act of generalizing psychological distancing. It is through the use of objects—which are especially open to the iconic and symbolic hybridization of signs—that value is generated both in the personal-cultural and collective-cultural worlds.

Conclusion: Functions of the multi-level affective self-regulation In chapter 7 we have covered two major domains of cultural psychology— how language is limited (yet important) semiotic regulator of the personal-cultural domains, and how the multi-layered internalization/externalization process guarantees relative autonomy of the person in any state of his or her relationship with the social environment. Similarly, the non-isomorphic relation between ontogenesis, mesogenesis and microgenesis guarantees relative buffering of each level against excessive events at the adjacent ones. The person as subjective agent—the maker of one’s own personal world through relating to its social guidance (canalization)- is enabled through the socially constructed systems of semiotic mediation. I claim that it is thanks to the affective semiotic fields which are not open to direct verbal access—hence also to direct social scrutiny—are the mechanism through which the person is personally unique and socially constituted. There is no contradiction between these two notions when a dynamic, multi-level model of relations of person and the social world is being viewed as a way for being personal and social at the same time. In contrast, in theoretical models of structural kind where the classical logic excluding the middle term (either A or not-A) is applied, my statement would be nonsensical. It is precisely by replacing the “law of the excluded middle” (used axiomatically by classical logic and psychology) by the opposite-—“law of included, or emphasized, in-between processes”—that viable theoretical models of cultural psychology can be built. What is being built in this book is just only one version of the multitude of possible theoretical models of this kind. However, whatever models we may build theoretically, their ultimate adequacy is tested through their contact with the ever-changing and unique cultural psychological realities. That makes issues of methodology crucial for any successful cultural psychology. Chapter 8 will outline how cultural psychology

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can re-conceptualize psychology’s methodology—by way of restoring in it the unity of the general and the particular, and by including the researcher in the cycle of cultural-psychological processes themselves.

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Chapter. 8. Methodology

for Cultural Psychology: Systemic, Qualitative, and Idiographic

…in order to apprehend a melody, it is not sufficient to have in one’s consciousness at each stage the impression of the note that is then sounding. Rather—leaving aside the initial tone—the impression of at least some of the preceding tones must also be given in memory. Otherwise the concluding impression of all melodies having an identical final note would be the same. (Ehrenfels, 1988a, p. 84) The ... quantitative method, brought over into psychology from the exact sciences, physics and chemistry, must be discarded; for its ideal consisted in reducing the more complex to the more simple, the whole into its parts, the later-evolved to the earlier-existent, thus denying or eliminating just the factor which constituted or revealed what was truly genetic. Newer modes of manifestation cannot be stated in atomic terms without doing violence to the more synthetic modes which observation reveals. (Baldwin, 1930, p. 7)

There are two problems with methodology in psychology at large— the habit of treating methodology as if it were limited to any particular kind of method, and the inability to study complex dynamic processes of human lives. The first of these problems belongs to the area of social politics in the given area of science. The second is a genuinely epistemological obstacle that stems from the emphasis in the social sciences upon quanti-fictional 92 analyses strategies, rather than on models of creative synthesis and development (Valsiner, 2006c). Cultural psychological investigation requires a focus on synthesis—as semiotic mediation of human life processes is precisely of the kind of making new forms for maintaining existing functions.

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This term indicates the creation of fictions through quantification.

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Reliance on impossible axioms When the axiomatic basis of a science becomes worn out by the misfit of its basic assumptions with the nature of the phenomena under study, a major overhaul in the methodological domain of that science is in order. Psychology in the 21st century is in this state—and the peculiar focus of cultural psychology leads its way. From independence to non-independence. Traditionally, psychology has built its methodology on the axiomatic assumptions of independence of the phenomena from one another, their static ontological status (e.g., X is X), and reduction of hierarchies of organizational levels into a one. The axiom of independence entails denial of historical continuity—if phenomena A, B, C that unfold in time, in that order, are considered to be mutually independent, then their history of transitions AÆBÆC will be left out of investigation. Assuming that phenomena (A,B,C) have static ontology—they exist as representing the “essences” of “A-ness”, “B-ness, and “C-ness” guarantees that the researchers not focus on the changes within each of the categories of the “X-ness” phenomena. Thus, a sequence of variation in form (e.g., A’Æ A’’ Æ A’’’) where the “repetition” of A comes with slight modifications (yet not enough to re-classify them from A to a non-A category) remains out of focus for the researchers, who instead would work on making these variations perceivable as members of the homogeneous set {A}. This axiomatic operation rules out the consideration of change and development from the outset (Valsiner & Conolly, 2003). From uniform to multi-level models of organization. Traditional psychology has done its best to be blind to the hierarchical order within its phenomena. This is exemplified by the difficulty of treating the question of part <> whole relationships. The issue of part <> whole relations has haunted psychology’s methodology ever since its autonomous status was gained as a separate science 93. This conceptual issue remains unsolved up to the present day, and is particularly crucial in cultural psychology. As we have observed all through this book, cultural-psychological processes are primarily those of creating semiotic control hierarchies—ranging from minimal; (sign XÆ conduct Y) to potentially infinite ({sign X Æ sign X+n} Æ conduct Y) orders of hierarchical kind. Furthermore, these are transitory hierarchical orders (Poddiakov & Valsiner, 2007) of intransitive kind. They form causal cycles (see below) where the dominance of each part of the cycle can be dynamically altered, and where the outcomes are by-products of the self-maintaining cyclical system.

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I would date that at year 1874—the apperance of Franz Brentano’s Psychology from the Empitical Standpoint and Wilhelm Wundt’s first edition of Foundations of Physiological Psychology. Of course administratively cultural psychology—under the name Völkerpsychologie—existed since 1860 as the such named professorship was established at the University of Berne in Switzerland.

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Methodological objectives of cultural psychology The issue of how to investigate the emergence, maintenance, and demise of hierarchical order is central for cultural psychology. Traditional psychology’s methodology solves this problem—as it does the other two, above—by axiomatic ignoring of those issues. Meta-theoretical “blind spots” are widespread in any science—yet their impact on these sciences is that of creating dead-end streets for empirical investigation that may last for decades. The history of psychology since the 1870s is filled with such dead-end streets of active empirical (or “pseudo-empirical”, see below) investigation traditions. In this chapter, I will chart out some pathways towards a solution of this methodological problem that continues to limit the work of cultural psychologists. The important starting point is to restore the basic understanding—well-known in European Continental psychologies of early 20th century, that methodology is not equal to a method, or a class of methods (from which the researcher selects some). Furthermore, methodology is not an arena for a “fight” between different kinds of methods—such as “quantitative” and “qualitative” (Valsiner, 2006c). Instead, methodology is a process through which scientific knowledge gets created. However, in all sciences—and particularly in the social sciences—there exists the underlying socio-political set of meta-level constraints upon how, what kind, and for what purposes knowledge is being created. The imperatives of viewing quantified data as “objective”, preferring group comparisons to studies of persons-within-social structures (as was shown in chapter 1), and the rhetoric of “social applicability” of the knowledge created are all socially constructed norms in our contemporary social sciences. Their value for producing general as well as empirically precise knowledge is in question. Certainly the rhetoric of narration of the stories that emanate from empirical work in the social sciences demonstrates such social organization of knowledge construction.

Where democracy fails: in “contributions to the literature” Science is not a democratic enterprise, but a cautious, somewhat masochistic, intellectual search for general knowledge. The ways in which knowledge has been viewed in psychology has failed to recognize this complexity of intellectual synthesis, and replaced it with the notion of gradual accumulation of “facts”. In contemporary psychology one can often find that "contribution to the literature"—rather than solving a particular problem-- is in itself an example of a social expectation for researchers. This perspective on knowledge creation operates based on the social representation of democracy. It assumes that by majority opinion about issues, researchers arrive at new breakthroughs. This orientation-- when applied to scientific writing-- can be labeled "democracy of the literature" (Valsiner, 2000b). It entails the need to specify the prevailing research orientations, or fashionable explanations "in the field" through wide referencing, rather than depth of analysis.

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What is “contributing to the literature”? Different ways in which researchers construct knowledge are visible in the ways they write about the phenomena of their interest, as well as present their conceptual schemes to their colleagues. The "contribution to the literature" direction is characterized by ample referencing of other authors who have worked on similar issues, or who are being followed-yet without elaboration of their specific ideas. In contrast, the model of knowledge that emphasizes theoretical breakthroughs-- based on empirical evidence but not limited by it-- would call for depth in the analysis of the ideas of fellow researchers, at the expense of the need to acknowledge each and every "player in the field." Rather, a publication without a single reference to “the literature” might solve a basic problem in the field—and maybe lead to the start-up of a new concentration of “the literature”. However, the democratic model of “the literature” has other perils than mere wastefulness of the researcher’s writing capabilities 94—it also turns the publicly available texts towards modeling lack of precision of ideas and reliance on majority viewpoints. How imprecision becomes encoded? The prominence of the rhetoric functions of referencing can be detected by the growing imprecision of intra-text references. The specific idea of another researcher is not mentioned. Instead, reference is made to the general work, or research direction, of the selected author (e.g., “We follow the lead of Konnapea (1999) in taking the X perspective on Y”). Here there is no precision of idea linkages between the referenced source and the referencing author. Instead there is a declaration of allegiance in general terms. The statement is scientifically empty, but rhetorically explicit. Since “democracy of the literature” works on the basis of majority dominating any minorities,-- as well as the need to demonstrate a wide constituency-- the reference style in texts often entails concatenating different pledges of allegiance within (always limited) space of publication. Hence, we may encounter statements of the following kind: “In our study, we take the perspective X upon Y. That perspective has been used widely in the literature (Angst, 1998, Bicho, 1997, Coco, 1995, Doof, 1997, Ebausklik, 1989, Jones, 1992, Konnapea,1999, Queer, 1995, Rott, 1999, Vabamõtleja, in press)” It is clear that the concatenation of many—in this case 10—imprecise references into one sentence of the text is far from any precise linkage with any specific ideas or research practices of any of the mentioned authors. It only indicates the referencer’s claim of connection with some, ill-defined, part of “the literature”. It is a rhetoric moment in the message—the text of an article—rather than a vehicle for providing substantive information. 94

This is mandated by the contemporary perspective of science administration to evaluate the “productivity” or “impact” of some published article through its citation frequencies. As a result, social capital for others—or even for oneself, in case of self citations-- is generated through such wastefulnes of imprecise referencing.

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Maintaining and making ingroup/outgroup distinctions In contemporary psychology, rhetoric moments of persuasion of the public are intermingled with tentative efforts to express ideas. As a result, most of psychology’s communicative messages are complex-like (pseudoconcepts in Vygotsky’s sense), rather than conceptual. In the complexes of ideas—often viewed as if those were scientific concepts—both the socio-political positions and scientific knowledge can be seen as mixed between particular labels. Thus, notions of attachment, genetic determinacy (in psychology, not in genetics), zone of proximal development (to mention a few) are complexes, rather than scientific concepts. These complexes may have a potential for becoming concepts—yet that potential needs to be brought into actuality. “Democracy of the literature” thrives on imprecise referencing and rhetoric group formation (and ingroup/ outgroup distinction). Its excess limits the potential for innovation in the given discipline. The “construction zones” of psychological ideas follow the majority opinions (once these have become established), rather than precede them. Cultural developmental psychology as a “revolutionary science”. The coverage of issues of cultural developmental psychology in this book has been anything but "democratic" (in the rhetoric sense). The issues of comparison in the domain of scientific knowledge that unites culture and human development-let it be called "cultural developmental psychology"-- are too old (which in terms of contemporary psychology equals new!) to be simply let be consumed by the marketplace of the international politics of psychological research. Instead, the issues involved in cultural developmental psychology require careful reorganization of the most sacred realm of any science-- that of its methodology. Borrowing from Thomas Kuhn the distinction between "normal" and "revolutionary" science, it can be said that the phenomena of cultural organization of the human psyche, and of its development, are too fundamental for human life (and death) to be left to the activities of psychology in its "normal science" methodological orthodoxy. Instead, to cope with the needs to make sense of cultural variability in persons (as well as between persons from different societies), psychology needs to re-adjust its methodological repertoire in its conceptual side. Surely the classical methods of science remain in place, but on what (and how) they work may be open for "revolutionary" phase in the development of psychology as science. Methodology as knowledge construction process The construction of basic knowledge in the social sciences depends not upon the sophistication of the analytic techniques in the treatment of the phenomena, but on the general strategies for where to look, which comparisons to make, and what to assume about the phenomena before the actual analytic techniques are put into use. It is an illusion in psychology to think that – due to researchers being similar to the persons they study—the phenomena are

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immediately accessible to the psychologist. In reality, the inquiry into the minds and feelings of the person next to oneself may be as inaccessible as the realities of far-away galaxies are for astrophysicists.

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Figure 8. 1. The methodology cycle (after Branco & Valsiner, 1997)

BASIC AXIOMATIC UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD

T H E O R I E S

INTUITIVE EXPERIENCING

P H E N O M E N

METHODS DATA (transformed and abstracted

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An epistemic cycle A look at methodology as a process cycle is given in Figure 8.1. The components in the process are depicted as existing at different levels of generality-- the axiomatic views of the world (general assumptions) are more general than theories or intuitive reflections about phenomena; and the latter more general than the methods that generate data. In this scheme of scientific epistemology, an explicit and centrally located emphasis is reserved for the subjectivity of the researcher-- who intuitively experiences phenomena in connection with his or her axioms, and constructs theories from one's personal standpoint. Scientists are not rational automata, but subjective, personally involved human beings who have their subjective preferences, and positions from which they look at the targets of their research. In many ways, science is a form of art—where the aesthetic features of explanatory ideas, and the deep desires for knowing about something nobody else have (so far) understood, dominates over the social role of being a wise source of the knowledge that has already been accumulated. Scientific inquiry is a form of adventure (Simmel, 1959a) where the pleasure of finding out something new creates the intrinsic motivation that keeps human beings involved in practices rather distant from the so-called “real life.” The methods and the data are constructed by the researcher on the basis of the specific structure of the process cycle. Methodology here is equal to the cyclical process of general knowledge construction, where different parts of the cycle feed differentially into other parts. The axiomatic look at the phenomena is based on the experience of the phenomena together with abstracted general ideas about them. Theories gain input from the axiomatic ideas and serve as a translation point of those ideas into methods—which, as those are made to relate with the phenomena, produce data as a “side effect” of the methodology process. The data are selective, theory-and-method based representations of some selected aspects of the phenomena—that feed forward to the further construction of theoretical kind. It would be adequate to depict Figure 8.1. not merely as a cycle, but as a helix—there is never a full return to the previously generated knowledge, even if there may be outward resemblance between what is new and what is old. Such helical development of scientific knowledge allows us to benefit from the history of ideas—detecting a need at our present time to make sense of a basic issue (such as development) leads us to look back into the history of our disciplines for times when similar needs were detected.

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Figure 8.2. . C. L. Morgan’s scheme of two inductions: the integrating role of the subjective (from Morgan, 1894, p. 48)

Objectivity through subjectivity Objectivity in science emerges on the basis of a deeply subjective process of generalization. The basic scientific creativity takes place in the subjective world of the knowledge maker—scientist or artist. In terms of C. Lloyd Morgan, that amounts to “subjective induction” (see Figure 8.2.) The psychologist’s observing of the others—other organisms, other human beings, etc—is based on the subjective synthesis of life experience together with the objective-- perceived or elicited – “behavior” of “the others” (c-d relating to a-b in Figure 8.2.). On the basis of the synthesis emerging from these two processes—tat takes the form of an interpretation of the other (a-b) in terms of (c-d)—new hypotheses are set forth for continuing investigation. The scientist—psychologist-- is constantly operating on the basis of one’s intra-mental understanding ("first induction" or “subjective induction”) of what it is that is being studied, how to study it, and what to expect. Here the role of a philosopher and psychologist converge—both rely upon their powers of thinking to make sense of some phenomenon. However, differently from philosophers-- the scientist moves from such intra-psychological reflection into an effort to gain knowledge about the object of investigation through observing the others (through extrospection). The results of such observation lead to the "second induction” or “objective induction”). The "second induction" is the process of relying on the empirical evidence that is constantly emphasized in psychology. Here the scientist resembles a writer,

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composer or painter—all of whom, in their own ways, rely upon the experiences with the outside world to create a new form of understanding. Measurement as semiotic process: data are signs. Measurement is a construction of new sign value from selected aspects of complex phenomena by linking these selections with measurement standards (signs). In this respect, all psychological measurement is a form of semiotic activity—constructing signs of varied kinds for further inquiry into the phenomena that they represent (as described in chapter 1). It is obvious that such treatment of measurement as sign construction sets up the stage for making this process the most central for all scientific understanding. The adequacy of the constructed signs as representations of the selected phenomena is the crucial feature of all data-as-signs, and needs to be under careful scrutiny (see Knorr-Cetina, 1999, for examples of how such scrutiny happens in different natural sciences). It is sufficient to undertake one unwarranted step in the transformation of phenomena into signs (data) that the value of the latter is wiped out in full. Hypotheses testing: theory-driven versus pseudo-empirical. What follows from Figure 8.1. is that the propositions to be tested empirically—otherwise called hypotheses—are set up within the whole of the methodology cycle. An empirical proof of a hypothesis is productive only if it leads to a new idea—rather than confirms an existing one. The latter is expressed in the practices of pseudoempiricism in psychology: ...psychological research tends to be pseudoempirical, that is, it tends to involve empirical studies of relationships which follow logically from the meanings of the concepts involved. An example would be studying whether all bachelors are really male and unmarried. (Smedslund, 1995, p. 196) Pseudo-empiricism can be countered by careful elucidation of theoretical assumptions and their linkages with those research questions that can provide the investigator new knowledge that cannot be derived from the meanings of the terms in use. In contrast, deductively generated (that is—theories’-based) hypotheses would highlight the role of empirical investigation for science. When a hypothesis is set—within any of the four reference frames (intra-individual, inter-individual, individual-ecological, and individual-socioecological—Valsiner, 2000-a)—the empirical efforts acquire vertically consistent meaning. Hypotheses are used to

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test particular parts of the theoretical construct for its reality fit—rather than previously stated empirical distinctions 95.

Looking at culturally directed psychological phenomena We pre-set our research efforts within the framework of wide general perspectives—frames of reference (Valsiner, 2000c, chapter 5). Frames of reference are general conceptual positioning devices within the minds of researchers, who set up their research questions and construct methods in ways that unify different levels of the methodology cycle. The same phenomenon can be studied very differently-- from the different perspectives specified by the different reference frames. Frames of reference narrow down the focus of empirical research efforts. These frames are like the selection of magnification levels in a microscope—while some details become observable better in selecting a particular frame, others vanish from the view. The reference frames are necessary and needed “blinders”—theoretical general orientation tools that make focusing on our desired object possible, while eliminating the “noise”. Four frames can be discerned as in use in psychology (Valsiner, 2000a, chapter 5) — and one of those—the individualsocioecological—is fitting for cultural psychology.

The individual-socioecological reference frame The individual-socioecological reference frame is an extension of the individual-ecological one. While the individual-ecological frame focused on the links between the acting organism and the environment, its socio-ecological extension includes both the focus on system <---> environment and the role of others' social regulation of that relationship. The person faces one's environment, acts upon it, and transforms oneself. However, the environment is largely pre-prepared by “social others”-- another person (e.g., parents set up "appropriate environments" for children), and the person's acting within an environment is socially guided in explicit and implicit ways by various social institutions, signs of various kinds present in the environment, etc. The individual-socioecological reference frame thus includes (a) an active person, (b) environment, (c) person's acting towards the environment.

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For example, a hypothesis positing finding an inter-genders difference in some empirical “measure” is of no theoretical relevance unless there is theoretical basis for such difference telling us a story about something else that a theory posits in its translation into empirical tasks.

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(d) the guiding role of the acting by somebody else (be it a person, social institution, or a symbolic object within the environment), and (e) the transformation of the person as a result of this socially guided action by the person oneself. In the case of the individual-socioecological frame, the researcher needs to analyze the structure of social suggestions that exists in the particular episode of encounter between the person and the environment. Some of these suggestions are encoded into the environment itself, others are produced by the other persons who are active in the same environment, regulating the person's conduct in it. The Method of Double Stimulation (MeDoSt, see below) that was created by Lev Vygotsky in the 1920s (van der Veer & Valsiner, 1991) is an example of the ways in which the general scheme of individual-sociocultural reference frame can be put into practice. Lev Vygotsky’s contributions as the background to the individual-socioecological reference frame. There are three core ideas in Vygotsky's work that are crucial for developmental and cultural psychology of our present time: „ the emphasis on the mediation if the higher psychological functions by signs (semiotic mediation); „ consistently developmental orientation to the study of all psychological phenomena; „ focus on the synthesis of novel psychological forms. The distinction of lower (involuntary) and higher (voluntary) psychological functions is of crucial importance for developmental psychology. The central issue of human intentionality (volition, will) was a universally recognized target for psychological analysis in the first decades of the 20th Century. Vygotsky added to the issue the developmental focus-- how do human beings develop from a state of organization where intentionality clearly does not exist, to a state where it is the core of human psychological functioning. His solution to the problem was to see the emergence of semiotic mediation-- self-regulation by meanings-- as leading to the establishment of intentionality. Vygotsky's distinction of meaning ("znachenie") and sense ("smysl") was expressed with an emphasis on the dynamic nature of psychological processes: A word's sense is the aggregate of all the psychological facts that arise in our consciousness as a result of the word. Sense is dynamic, fluid, and complex formation which has several zones that vary in their stability. Meaning is only one of these zones of the sense that the word acquires in the context of speech. It is the most stable, unified, and precise of these zones. In different contexts, a word's sense changes. In contrast, meaning is a comparatively

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fixed and stable point, one that remains constant with all the changes of the word's sense that are associated with its use in various contexts. Change in the word's sense is a basic factor in the semantic analysis of speech. The actual meaning of the word is inconstant. . In one operation, the word emerges with one meaning; in another, another is acquired... Isolated in the lexicon, the word has only one meaning. However, this meaning is nothing more than a potential that can only be realized in living speech, and in living speech meaning is only a cornerstone in the edifice of sense. (Vygotsky, 1987, pp. 275-276; emphasis added; original Vygotsky, 1934, p. 305) Vygotsky viewed the meaning <==> sense relationship in dynamic terms-both are changing entities, but their change is different in the time frame. The relatively slower rate of changing the meaning is obtained by inserting the previous meaning into a novel speech context (realizing the potential of the meaning by turning it into the "actual meaning"-- the unity of sense and meaning in the given context). The dynamic, fluid personal sense makes use of potential meanings encoded in language, and constructs ever-imprecise semiotic devices (actual meanings) which nevertheless fit the task of reduction of experiential uncertainty the person faces in the given situation. It can be said that the great power of human language in guiding human meaning-making is in the vagueness of the actual meanings that are constructed by persons in uncertain situations. The Method of Double Stimulation (MeDoSt). The "method of double stimulation" entails a number of radical ideas in reconstructing psychology's experimental method. First, it is explicitly structuralist-- as the subject is viewed as encountering the whole field of the experimental setting --and not merely the elements of it that are purposefully varied-- "independent variables". The world of living is not made up of “variables”—that can be “independently varied” by a researcher—but of dynamic structures of ecological and cultural niches (Odling-Smee, Laland & Feldman, 2003). These niches are multi-level hierarchical orders—rather than one-level set of “variables” manipulable by the researcher and changing independently of one another. Mixing of the levels of such hierarchical orders into an interplay of “independent” and “dependent” “variables” introduces representations of causality into psychological analyses that are fictional (see Anandalakshmy, 1974, p. 81). The MeDoSt overcomes that problem by assuming a personcentered (rather than “variables”-centered) position.

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Figure 8.3. The structure of Vygotsky’s Method of Double Stimulation

b

PERSO N

FULL QUASISTRUCT URED FIELD= STUDY SETTIN

STIMULUSOBJECTS (GOALS) ACTION

TOOL SIMULU S-

RESEARCHE R SUGGESTS

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a SIGNS

BACKGROUND RESERVE OF MEANINGS/MEMORIES

Secondly, the subject—the actor 96 in the research context who is being studied-- is considered as an active agent who reconstructs that field-- by introducing into it the goal sub-fields ("stimulus-objects", in Vygotsky's terminology), and means to reach those goals ("stimulus-means"—see Figure 8.3.). This functional differentiation of the experimental structured stimulus field into two kinds of relevant parts (goals and means), while leaving the rest of the field to constitute the background, is guided by the experimenter, but cannot be determined by him or her. The experimenter gives the subject a task embedded within the field, but the subject can refuse to perform that task, and turn it into another one. In other terms-- the psychological experiment is only partially controllable by the experimenter. The notion of "double stimulation" entails two distinctions-- first, that of "stimulus-object" (the task and its goals) and "stimulus-means" (means to the end of reaching the goal). This is the basic Agent (Subject) / Object differentiation that 96

I prefer to bring in the theatrical and activity-focused notion of the actor here—to overcome the fruitless language game of labeling the person who is being studied either a subject or a research participant—all human beings who are involved in the stage act of research encounter—the one who investigates and the one who is being investigated—are research participants.

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is necessary for any problem-solving setting to emerge (Simon, 1999). This component is shared between Homo sapiens and other primates or even species further away from humans on the evolutionary ladder (see Sarris, 1931 on dogs mental capacities). There is a secondary differentiation of “double stimuli”—between the two kinds of means that can be used to organize the subject's conduct in the experimental field. The action tools are created in the situation, and constitute a synthesis of new functional uses of previously available objects—without, or with, modifications. There exist different qualitative levels of such synthesis, some of which do not require the presence of the human mind. Thus, the Japanese monkeys who invented the technique of potato washing (Hirata, Watanabe & Kawai, 2001) merely re-grouped their available environmental and bodily resources to invent a completely novel way of solving the problem of access to food. Vygotsky borrowed the focus on means/ends distinction from Köhler’s observations of chimpanzees. Köhler’s chimpanzees at Tenerife, as well as many generations of primate problem-solvers in laboratories, zoos, and the wild, have creatively combined existing resources in new ways (Matsuzawa et al, 2001). A crucial qualitative breakthrough occurs in phylogeny when existing forms of the action resources are modified by the actor to fit the task, and the modification know-how retained in the collective memory of the troop of the species. The making of action tools makes a difference here. The MeDoSt as a semiotic method. MeDoSt entails the investigation of the uses of signs-- semiotic means by the actor—signs of varied kinds. Like action tools, signs can be constructed in the here-and-now setting, for specific task demands, or imported to the present setting from a previous setting. It is through these semiotic mediating devices that link the present situation becomes tied in with the subject's past experiences, and extrapolated to the anticipated futures. Human subjects, through the use of language—in the act of thinking and speaking constantly make their own meaning in any situation they experience. The construction and use of semiotic means includes the context of a psychological experiment. The subject (participant-to-be-studied 97) makes sense of the flow of events that is happening to him or her after agreeing to take part in a study. The signs a human being uses in any study entail three parallel functions—they allow the person to give meaning to the act of instrument construction or selection (a in Figure 8.3.), they provide meaning for the act of striving towards reaching the goal (b), and they maintain the persistence of the effort of using the tools to reach the goal (c). Human intrinsic motivation is semiotically constructed—the meaning of “trying, and trying again” (persistent 97

The labels used to denote people who participate in psychological research are interesting case of meaning-making of their own. Having originally been called observers (in the introspectionist paradigm—people who observed their inner psychological processes) they became subjects (e.g., the widely used slang “running the subjects”—a remnant of the time when the white rat took the place of the introspecting person), in our time they become research participants, which denigrates the role of the researchers since they also are participants in the encounter with persons they want to study.

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imitation a la Baldwin) is based on the personal culture (Valsiner, 2000a) and fortified through affectively hyper-generalized semiotic means (Valsiner, 2005a). This interpretational activity of the subject is not controllable by the experimenter, and the subjects’ emerging meanings of the research situation cannot be eliminated. Human psychological research is necessarily personological and historical in its nature. Vygotsky's methodological ingenuity was in his decision to turn that inevitably uncontrollable moment of human interpretation around—and make up virtue of something that would usually be considered a vice (Toomela, 2003). The meaning-making process in a study context was made into the target of investigation-- the equivalent of the "dependent variable" in the case of his method is the microgenetic process by which the subject attempts to reach the goal, and the corresponding construction of meanings.

Systemic Causality It is obvious that the MeDoSt experimental scheme is very different from the view on experimentation where the researcher’s willful manipulation of “the independent variable” leads to the changes in the “dependent variable”—a scheme fit for the notion of linear causality (A Æ B. A causes B). The inaplicability of such simplified scheme to everyday cultural-psychological phenomena has been clearly demonstrated (Anandalakshmy, 1974; Thorngate, 1986, Valsiner, 1997). Instead, the MeDoSt scheme leads us to consider different forms of systemic causality. A general scheme of systemic causality is presented in Figure 8.4. The process of synthesizing two separate substrates (a, b) into a new compound (ab) is made possible through a catalyst (c) which temporarily binds to the input substrates—first to a (arriving at intermediate compound ca), then to b (arriving at intermediate compound cab—binding a and be into one whole). The catalyst then releases the newly synthesized compound ab and recreates itself (c). Without the binding role of the catalyst the synthesis need not be possible-- the direct, unmediated synthesis {a + b Æ ab} cannot proceed. Psychological catalyzing can be said to make human lives livable. Since every action by an organism is potentially dangerous as to its outcome, a fearful reflexive stance towards what one is doing would be realistic. Yet it is relatively rare. In most of human activities we are remarkably unreflective about the potential dangers involved. This example of catalysis-based synthesis needs to be translated into a psychological realm. Perhaps the most solid fact in psychology concerning the introduction of European-style formal schooling in “traditional” societies has been the change in the reasoning patterns (see chapter 6). After a few years in school, persons begin to use deductive reasoning strategies by unquestionably assuming the scheme for such strategies (syllogistic reasoning schemes) even if those are filled with contents that is part of their everyday life. If there is a particular value orientation—unconditional acceptance of the authority figure’s

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utterance—the syllogistic task to proceed. Once it proceeds, it re-creates the value orientation itself.

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Figure 8.4. An example of catalytic process that produces synthesis A. The basic scheme A

A—B

C—A

B

C-A-B C—A—

B. The causal cycle between levels of organization

LEVEL X+1

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Multi-level causal systems. Figure 8.4.A. shows the general organizational scheme of systemic causality, yet it overlooks a crucial feature of such systems—different parts of the cycle of causality can be located at different levels of generality, and the causal cycle can work between adjacent levels (Figure 8.4.B.). This feature of systemic causality introduces into the explanatory system the notion of hierarchical systems of intransitive kind (Poddiakov & Valsiner, 2007). The causal cycle that works in-between levels (X and X+1) leads to the emergence of new form of the higher level. Through such multi-level catalytic processes of causal kind it becomes possible to explain both maintenance of the hierarchical orders of cultural-psychological phenomena as well as emergence of new – higher—levels of hierarchical regulation. The central notion of development of higher psychological functions that permeates psychology from Wilhelm Wundt’s Völkerpsychologie (Diriwächter, 2004) to Lev Vygotsky’s and Alexander Luria’s cultural-historical psychology (van der Veer & Valsiner, 1991) requires that formal causal systems in the science of cultural psychology include the notion of multi-level causal systems. Downward causality. Together with the emergence of multi-level causal hierarchies of cyclical kind we can conceptualize the directionality of causality. While in the case of history of the sciences the main focus has been in discovery of upward causality (i.e., looking for lower-level causal entities that can be viewed to explain complex phenomena), then our new look at hierarchical systemic causality entails the focus on downward causality (Andersen, Emmeche, Finnemann & Christiansen, 2000). This is particularly appropriate in case of the semiotic perspective in cultural psychology where the emergence of higher levels of generalized signs becomes causative in relation to lower levels. Cultural psychology is built on the basic notion of downward causality. Systemic transformational causality. There is a general principle observable here—that conditional temporary causal systems (see Figure 8.5.) Causal systems can be temporarily assembled—hence we can talk of systemic transformational causality. When the parts of a causal system are prepared separately, but their synthesis left to the time of need for its full function, we get the picture not only of systemic causality in operation, but of the contextually assembled causal system. When not needed, none of its differentiated parts is effective separately.

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Figure 8.5. Systemic Transformational Causality

Example 8.1. How systemic temporal causality explains collective-cultural guidance for violence. Young people may play video games or watch violent movies-- but no direct outcome of that to their acting violently is empirically demonstrable. Likewise, people may develop prejudices against some outgroup—but, again, these prejudices by themselves do not lead to violence against the group. Guns may be available in a society, together with internalized social norms against aiming them at fellow human beings and pulling the trigger. Unless these norms break down in some individual cases the guns remain unused. At the same time—again in a separate vein-- hunting is an accepted, socially legitimate pastime for some of the population, some of the time. Yet hunting is directed to animals of the kind that are socially accepted as “huntable”—and not towards one’s next-door neighbour. As long as all these elements co-exist in a society in parallel, there will be no empirically demonstrable “effects” of each of those on the potential or actual violent actions of the people involved in all of them. Thus, playing video games, watching horror or action movies, going hunting, keeping a gun at home, or gossiping maliciously about neighbours or – publicly—about some foreigners, at the usual – peacetime—circumstances and viewed separately are not immediately causal for enabling acts of violence (Capezza & Valsiner, 2007). Yet when brought

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together under the conditions of friction between social groups, these features may lead to genocidal events. Then the video-game player, as well as hunters, and gossipers, may all line up to join an army, rebel force, or an “ethnic cleansing” squad, and genocide is in the making. The move from ordinary life to violence is prepared by most ordinary everyday ways of living—and takes place in concrete everyday life settings. Yet its microgenesis entails the semiotic setup of the arena for violent actions. What is experiment in the realm of cultural psychology? The experimental method is crucial for most sciences—yet in each of them it has its own specific features. The MeDoSt described above sets the stage for reconceptualizing that method in its generic form, taking into account the assumptions coming from the semiotic creativity of human conduct. Figure 8.6. provides its generic overview. Putting subjects into a complicated situation is necessary, but not sufficient for the study of semiotic regulatory processes. The researcher then needs to find a way to register—to bring out into the open—the subject’s “on-line” treatment of the dialogue (through recording action hesitance sequences, or getting verbal self-report). The sequential nature of the evidence is crucial— semiotic regulation can be studied as a microgenetic problem-solving sequence. The innovative moment here is to link this mental process registration tradition with experimental manipulation of semiotic kind—it is through the insertion of some meaning change (“meaning block” in Figure 8.6.) while the Subject is moving towards a previously set meaningful goal that the access to the phenomena is created. The person’s action plan is expected to be interrupted, and s/he begins to use new—created or imported – meanings for dealing with the meaning disturbance. The “rupture” is created by way of counter-suggestive signs (see also chapter 1). All methods in psychology are derivations from the basic human encounter with the world—in terms of perception and attention. Scientists are guided in their professional identity development to assume different positions in relation to the phenomena they study—to look at them from a distance (observe and contemplate), or study them through direct impact (experiment, interview, taking the “native’s perspective” by immersion in the cultural worlds of “the others” in anthropology). Some of the methods used in psychology are hybrids of these distant versus close positioning of the researcher—for instance, a paper-and-pencil method (test, questionnaire, rating scale) may be brought to the actors to be studied by the researcher in direct contact. For instance--the researcher administers one’s questionnaires to a group of participants-- yet the method entails providing distant answers the format of which is pre-set by the method constructor. The marks the person makes on the piece of paper provided—or on a computer screen—refer to intra-psychologically complex phenomena that lose their reality after the answer is given.

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Figure 8.6. The generic structure of the experimental method in cultural psychology

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It is possible to re-think such traditionally distant methods and make them to work towards the explication of the processes that underlie the giving of answers. Both traditional rating scales (Wagoner & Valsiner, 2005) and personality inventory items (Diriwächter, Valsiner & Sauck, 2004; Valsiner, Bibace, and Lapushin, 2005) can work as micro-tasks that fit as elucidating stimuli for revealing the cultural-psychological processes they trigger.

Modulation of researcher<> phenomena distance. The crucial issue for methodology is the dynamic modulation of distancing between the researcher and his or her phenomena. It follows from our focus on methodology as a cycle that all the versions of encounter—ranging from the most distant and abstract contemplation about the phenomena (upper part of Figure 8.1.) to the most “hands-on” immersion of oneself with the phenomena (psychologist’s intuitive relation with the phenomena), including the construction of theory and method in between. The contrast between U.S. and Japanese traditions in the study of the behavior of primates illustrates the different trajectories of negotiating the work along the lines of the “methodology cycle”. If it was (and is) the standard practice in the behavioral sciences as practiced in the U.S. to segregate method and theory from each other, the starting point of a researcher’s contact with the behavioral phenomena is a pre-set behavioral categorization scheme. It is a protocol into which the observed reality has to be fitted. The protocol may be amended and updated if some of the categories are questionable (as not applicable to the fuzzy phenomena), yet the general strategy remains the same—fitting the fluidity of the observed phenomena to strict (classical-logical) categorization scheme that is checked by similarity of different users’ habits of coding (i.e., establishing consensually set standards of inter-observer agreement). This tactic prioritizes method in relation to the phenomena, and guarantees the validity of the method by social-institutional symbolic acts 98 (rather than critical links with a theory). The Japanese tradition in primatology—at least the one built on the holistic theoretical premises of Kenji Imanishi in Kyoto—sets the researchers up in a very different task setting: A great many students who were embarking on their first field research were told by the pioneering mentors to simply “go and look” and to “get an impression of the animals and their lives.” Many wrote everything down. One informant noted that many first98

For example, the widespread practice in psychology to trust “standardized methods” is a symbolic marking of the validity of the given technique. A method may be “standardized”—yet fail to capture the crucial features of the phenomena it is assumed to produce data from (e.g., intelligence tests— standardized—fail to capture the intricacies of the cognitive processes involved in whatever is “intelligent action” in humanb life—while their symbolic value is generated by their “standardized” status)

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generation primatologists felt that writing impressions was important and that long descriptions often resulted in monographs. Yet the “gaining of impressions” about the animals’ lives was also seen by informants to be an important and powerful tool to identify what may be important (to test), one which enabled the observer to take many factors into account in forming hypotheses, and to remain free of prevailing opinions and views about animal behavior. (Asquith, 2000, p. 170) Here the intuitive relating of the researcher with the phenomena (see right side of Figure 8.1) is prioritized. The work done is as empirically focused as that of the U.S. primatologists—yet the method is subdominant to the VIEW-OF-THEWORLD <> PHENOMENA relation that—synthesized by the intuition of the researcher—leads to theory and method construction. Deriving data. As is emphasized in this book, psychologists’ data are constructed signs that represent selected aspects of the phenomena. Data are quasi-abstractions—signs that abstract some selected features from the complex flux of the phenomena by way of some general guidelines. Such guidelines may be institutional (as in the case of reliance on inter-observer agreement and standardization of methods), or theoretical (e.g., Albert Einstein’s demand for crucial experiments—rather than mere accumulation of data—to test his theory of relativity—see Hentschel, 1992). In Figure 8.7. a theoretical construction of “a measure”—a “data point” – is provided. It is a demonstration of how one particular numerical sign (attributed number at point CP) may equally represent a number of dualities of various direction vectors and their (quantitative) “strength”. It indicates how the data point—a numerical sign—represents qualitative phenomena (oppositional procesess) which themselves entail both quality (direction) and quantity (“strength”). In Figure 8.7., each of the two sub-fields is delimited by an outer boundary and filled with two sub-sets of vectors {A,B,C.D.E,...n} and {non-A, non-B, nonC, non-D, .... non-n}. Each of the pair of oppositely directed vectors (i.e. {A and non-A}... {n and non-n}) creates an equal phenomena of ambivalence. The only condition where no ambivalence is present is the CP with no vectors (or 0vectors of opposite directionality). It should be obvious that the application of real numbers to perform measurements in this field is applicable only to the left side vector field {A,B,C.D.E,...n}. We can superimpose the number line from Figure 8.7. onto each of the n vectors on that left-side field—thus exclusively separating 99 each of these vectors from their relational counterparts in the right-hand field {non-A, non-B, non-C, non-D, .... non-n}.

99

Exclusive separation (Valsiner, 1997, pp. 23-24) entails: “The phenomena are separated from their contexts, and the contexts, being irrelevant, are eliminated from any further consideration.” Here the context is the right hand side of the field that guarantees ambivalence.

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We can subsequently apply any measurement unit onto any of the linear vectors with the hope that measuring them provides us with a representation of the “underlying properties” (the {A,B,C.D.E,...n} set – from which the vector nature is eliminated and only the lengths of the extent to the external border remains. The resulting measures may allow us to make comparisons within the left-hand field (e.g. “A is two times longer than E”), but would be fully conceptually “blind” to the limiting conditions that define the lengths (boundary of the field) as well as to the fact of the different locations within the field (e.g., of the same A and E). It is only in case of the CP depiction where a point-like representational strategy might work adequately. Figure 8.7. The sign called “a measure”: multiplicity in unity

time

D

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non-E non-C

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All measurement—qualitative and quantitative alike—is a form of interpretation—through sign construction. As is seen from Figure 8.7, quality pertains to the inherent character of the phenomenon. As such, it may be hidden from the investigator due to access limitations. Consider the example of two celestial objects—the sun and the moon—which are observable by all persons on the Earth. For the observers, both can be viewed as “providing light”—the sun during the day, the moon at night. That perceived quality may accurately represent the quality of the sun, but not that of the moon (which “provides” only that light that it reflects to the Earth from the Sun). Yet the fact of sunrise and sunset is a basic and predictable experience for human beings who inhabit the Earth.

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The conditional-genetic analysis The methodological construction in this chapter can be recognized as being quite old—while promising something new for contemporary cultural psychology. The root of this approach is in Kurt Lewin’s (1927) general strategy of conditional-genetic analysis. This kind of analysis operates in terms of hypothetical conditions—if CONDITION X is present, one can expect event A to emerge, but not if CONDITION Y is present. This fits the semiotic focus in cultural psychology—different signs created by the person (equivalents of X or Y) would guide him or her in different action directions. This new use of the conditional-genetic orientation to methodology is an extension of classical experimental thought to the realm of open systems where cultural means— signs—mediate the persons’ relations with their environments. Our return to the Lewinian focus leads to a new look at prediction as a cornerstone of scientific knowledge construction. The notion of prediction applies to all of scientific thinking. In its general form, it is a consideration of the realm of possible outcomes, given some set-up condition (if condition X then we predict result Y; if result Y does not occur then we can’t claim our construction to be proven). All scientific thinking necessarily operates with some kind of predictions. We know how a particular system functions when we can expect it to produce those outcomes that follow from our knowledge of the system—based on the methodology cycle (Figure 8.1.). However, the notion of prediction acquires a specific focus in cultural psychology. As human beings actively construct signs—and counter-signs to socially suggested signs—we can expect the empirical evidence to provide us with a variety of directed outcomes as a result of the conditional-genetic process (see Figure 8.8.). As was obvious from our coverage in the previous chapters, the personal-cultural worlds are constantly subjected to the input of heterogeneous—often contradictory (e,g,. myths and counter-myths) or ambivalent (“do X but do not dare to do X”) social suggestions. These suggestions can be characterized by their direction—these are vectors that may be convergent, or divergent (e.g., as X and non-X in Figure 8.8.). The process of personal-cultural synthesis provides a range of different outcomes—action courses and personal meanings linked with the action courses—all of which are generally of the same direction within that range. In contrast, the internal self-constraint that either develops in the course of the synthesis, or is already present before (in life history) rules out a whole other range (of possible-- but not observed) action courses. The concrete example in Figure 8.8. presents a case where the suggested direction X is not followed by the person, yet its input participates in the synthesis of the range of directions mostly aligned with that of non-X. If we were to characterize this example in some qualitative terms, we could perhaps say that the person who provides the evidence of synthesized outcomes a-b-c-d-e is “mildly resistant” to both the opposite social suggestions (X and non-X).

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Figure 8.8. Prediction of directions under conditions of personal-cultural construction of synthesis

SOCIALLY SUGGEST ED

SOCIALLY SUGGEST ED

C O N S T R A I N T

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b c d

THE RANGE OF POSSIBLE BUT NOT OBSERVE D COURSES OF ACTION EMERGIN G FROM X <> non-X OPPOSITI

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FULL RANGE OF DIFFERENT ACTION COURSES OF THE PERSON, UNDER DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES, AS A RESULT OF THE PERSONAL-CULTURAL

Figure 8.8. provides us with a hint about a methodological issue that was already introduced in Figure 8.7.—the empirically observable aspects of the phenomena are only an outcome of potentially highly complex causal processes, the important feature of which may be that part of the range of the possible phenomena that is absent from the empirically demonstrable range of phenomena. Thus the personal-cultural “constraint” in Figure 8.8. rules out— based on the X <> non-X “dialogue” that leads to the wide range of observables

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(a…e)—a whole range of potentially observable phenomena. If this is so, then the relevant empirical contrasts would be those of what is observed with that what is not only not observed but cannot be brought into existence even if all conditions are experimentally set up for that. This orientation would be a far cry from the habitual “group comparisons” between the observables—in terms of Figure 8.8. surely the sub-group of observables {a,b} is located differently from those of {d,e}—but that comparison is completely irrelevant as our crucial focus is upon the “constraint” that blocks a different range of possible observables from actualizing. Example 8.2. The constraint on stealing. Moral reasoning is the domain where constraints like generally formulated in Figure 8.8. appear in their full personal realities. In a detailed case described by Shweder and Much (1987, pp. 235244), a number of meanings-based regulations of Babaji- moral reasoning become evident. Babaji is trying to explain his viewpoint to the Western interviewer (Rick Shweder). Babaji-- in his 30s-- is a member of a high-status caste, of primary-school education, and earning his living by car repairing. In the dialogue about the "Heinz" Dillemma (adjusted to the context as "Ashok Dilemma")—a man’s wife is ill, she needs medicine, but the pharmacist refuses to give it because the man has no money. The critical question in the method is—under what conditions the respondent would be ready to cross the moral boundary “you should not steal” and get the medicine without pay. Babaji jointly constructed (with Shweder) a dialogue that indicates his alternative construction of the personal constraint: Interviewer: Why doesn't Hindu dharma permit stealing? Babaji: If he steals, it is a sin-- so what virtue is there in saving a life. Hindu dharma keeps man from sinning. Interviewer: Why would it be a sin? Isn't there a saying "One must jump into fire for others"? Babaji: That is there in our dharma-- sacrifice, but not stealing. Interviewer: But if he doesn't provide the medicine for his wife, she will die. Wouldn't it be a sin to let her die? Babaji: That's why, according to the capacities and powers which God has given him, he should try to give her shamanistic instructions and advice. Then she can be cured. Interviewer: But, that particular medicine is the only way out. Babaji: There is no reason to necessarily think that that particular drug will save her life. Interviewer: Let's suppose she can only be saved by that drug, or else she will die. Won't he face lots of difficulties if his wife dies? Babaji: No. Interviewer: But his family will break up Babaji: He can marry other women. Interviewer: But he has no money. How can he remarry?

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Babaji: Do you think he should steal? If he steals, he will be sent to jail. Then what's the use of saving her life to keep the family together. She has enjoyed the days destined for her. But stealing is bad. Our sacred scriptures tell that sometimes stealing is an act of dharma. If by stealing for you I can save your life, then it is an act of dharma. But one cannot steal for his wife or his offspring or for himself. If he does that, it is simply stealing. Interviewer: If I steal for myself, then it's a sin? Babaji: Yes. Interviewer: But in this case I am stealing for my wife, not for me. Babaji: But your wife is yours. Interviewer: Doesn't Ashok have a duty or obligation to steal the drug? Babaji: He may not get the medicine by stealing. He may sell himself. He may sell himself to someone for say 500 rupees for 6 months or 1 year. Interviewer: Does it make a difference whether or not he loves his wife? Babaji: So what if he loves his wife? When the husband dies, the wife does not die with him or vice versa. We have come into this world alone and we will leave it alone. Nobody will accompany us when we leave this world. It may be a son or it may be a wife. Nobody will go with us. (from Shweder & Much, 1987, p. 236; emphases added) If we were to analyze this dialogue from the viewpoint of semiotic constraining of the efforts to construct joint understanding of the issue (given by the Heinz/Ashok Dilemma), we can observe the use of meanings of various generality (ranging from "sin", "duty", "obligation", "love", "dharma" to concrete "difficulties", "selling oneself" etc.). However, the world views of the two interlocutors maintain their respective positions. The Interviewer was doing everything possible to persuade Babaji to accept the occidental framing of the dilemma (as a tension produced by equivalence of two opposite tendencies-- to steal for moral cause versus the immorality of stealing). This included effort to narrow down the realm of possible actions to the question of stealing, which was rejected by Babaji. For Babaji, the "Heinz/Ashok Dilemma" failed to become a dilemma – which it was supposed to become as a “standardized method” of Euro-American psychology of moral reasoning. Rather, the instrumental act of “selling oneself” to get the money rendered the situation problem-free for Babaji—thus demonstrating the impossibility of creating standardized methods in cultural psychology.

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Generality expressed within specificity The Babaji interview above may be habitually dismissed in the evaluative talk of social scientists as “anecdotal”—yet if that is so, so is all human life a grand anecdote of no substance. Situations of self-sacrifice are by definition singular cases—not repetitions of a generic script. The axiomatically given uniqueness—singularity—of any culturalpsychological phenomena that in this book I have emphasized to be the case is paralleled with the need to construct universal—hence general and (in their own nature) non-dynamic—theoretical accounts. This singularity and generality come to their tension point in the practices of creating methodology (Hamel, 1992; Molenaar, 2004; Molenaar & Valsiner, 2005). The non-ergodic character of psychological phenomena (Molenaar, 2004) sets up very clear directions for the construction of methodology. What is habitually—and imprecisely—called “individual differences” in psychological research constitutes two mutually non-isomorphic domains of variability—that of synchronic difference between individuals in a selection (sample, population— inter-individual variability), and that of diachronic difference of each individual with oneself over time and circumstances (intra-individual variability). It is the latter that is the focus for psychology, while the former may be of use for the study of social aggregates (crowds)—if these are presented as self-organizing systems. The discovery of non-ergodicity of psychological phenomena (Molenaar et al, 2003) rules out the possibility of treating one of those two—interindividual variability--- as a sign representing the other (intra-individual variability). The two kinds of variabilities are not isomorphic—and that discovery rules out any applicability of samples (or populations) –based empirical findings in psychology as applicable to single cases (Valsiner, 1986). The revolutionary implication of this finding is obvious—the overwhelming majority of empirical investigations have used sample-based data to make inferences to individuals. Conventions of psychological research that have been established since mid-20th century have led psychology’s methodology into a dead-end street. The value of single case is precisely in its expression—in its unique details—of the processes of generating a pre-adaptation for the expected—but not guaranteed—circumstances.

Conclusion: systemic methodology within cultural psychology We reach the doorstep of a crucial synthesis of ideas in this book. First, there is the basic locus of culture-- within minds and other social organisms. Culture is a functional unit in the system of its general organization that guarantees its existence. To match that localization of the work of culture we need orientation towards its study that makes it possible to reveal its general principles. Methodology—seen as an epistemic cycle, a helix of ever-new knowledge construction—is that matching counterpart.

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Methodology of cultural psychology is a strategy for understanding the generality within the ever-unique particulars. As we have emphasized in this book, the semiotic generativity of human beings is always oriented towards new construction of cultural tools—meanings and action patterns—to face the everindeterminate future. Adequate methodology to fit this principal openness of the cultural generative system needs to treat such openness as a generalized feature of the working of the culture, and discover different ways in which this general and universal principle is translated into unique contexts of human living. This general orientation to methodology is idiographic science (Molenaar, 2004; Molenaar & Valsiner, 2005). Idiographic science generalizes on the basis of evidence of individual systemic cases, and applies its generalized knowledge to new—and always unique—individual cases. It puts into practice the philosophical idea that the general exists within the particular—and vice versa. Finally—the central issue of methodology of cultural psychology is that of explaining the functioning of hierarchical dynamic structures. Qualitatively different parts are mutually regulated across the hierarchy of the system. It amounts to the synthesis of the historical and the structural perspectives— through the organizing power of semiotic mediation. As Algirdas Greimas has indicated, The task of integrating history into the methodology of the social sciences will take place only when the historical sciences adopt the concept of structure as one of their fundamental concepts (Greimas, 1990, p. 101). Similarly, psychology can become history-inclusive if it stops segregating complex phenomena into supposedly independent “variables” and looks for functioning structures. The functioning of these structures within irreversible time is the place of emergence of novelties. Cultural psychology adds to this focus on functioning structures the study of their organizing vehicles—signs—that guarantee massive explosions as well as constrictions of meaningfulness in social and personal lives. Methodology of cultural psychology is therefore systemic, idiographic, and qualitative. Instead of the use of statistics, cultural psychology needs methodological hybridization with different branches of qualitative mathematics (Rudolph, 2006a, b, c,; Joyce & Kennison, 2006). Without such innovation any generality claims of cultural psychology may remain superficial.

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Culture in minds and societies Symbols… are essentially involved in multiple variability, the variability of the essentially living, conscious, emotional, and volitional creatures who employ them not only to give order to the universe they inhabit, but creatively to make use of also disorder, both by overcoming and reducing it in particular cases and by its means questioning former axiomatic principles that have become a letter on the understanding and manipulation of contemporary things. Turner, 1982, p. 23

Signs create the unity of ever new forms of order and disorder that— through their mutuality—abductively face the immediate uncertainty of the next moment of living in the irreversible passage of time. Cultural psychology is the universal knowledge system—Wissenschaft—that reveals the general principles of semiotic self-regulation of the active organisms within their life-worlds. The focus on generality—universality of our knowing— has been a prominent objective all through this book. It is time for the social sciences to overcome the stigma brought to it first by the separation (and segregation) of the so-called “hard” and “soft” (or—universal versus historical) sciences. This ideology—a distinction that has led to discrimination-- was further fortified by the post-modernist proud counter-claim that all knowledge is “local” because each historical particular case is context-bound. Finding the social identity of the social sciences precisely in the feature that would be considered a scientifically “soft spot” was a rhetoric stroke of a genius. However, there is irony in this solution— the claim of “local nature of knowledge” followed the lead of the empiricist credo that by the 1950s dominated the social and behavioral sciences. Small empirical studies in cross-cultural psychology, or ethnography of situated activity settings, undoubtedly brought into the knowledge base of the social sciences of today a rich overview of empirical particulars. However-- no rich description of any phenomena stand on its own without some generalizing interpretation. If the road to such generalizations in terms of universal cultural-psychological principles is closed—as it was due to the impact of the post-modernist ideology—interpretations are generated within other rhetoric frameworks. Science becomes replaced by socio-political agendas—if not overtly, then covertly (see Amadiume, 1997; Danziger, 1990, 1997; Kuklick,

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1991). The result of such transition in the history of the social sciences is their gradual loss of autonomy. Relative as such autonomy always has been—no science operates in a social vacuum, and the social sciences are particularly intertwined with their social contexts—the loss of such autonomy leads to the appropriation of scientific knowledge by political interests of different social institutions. We find scenarios where knowledge obtained by the social sciences in a particular locality (“local knowledge”) becomes generalized by a social institution that has political interests in using it on a wider scale. In such “applied” practices we can observe generalization of “local knowledge” to happen—only outside of the domain of its original science, and it is accomplished by social rules very different from the ideal of science of constant evaluation of its own presuppositions and methods. The avalanche of journalistic—popularizing—mindset onto the social sciences might be compared to that of locust attack on the fields of carefully cultivated crops in many parts of the World. Popularizing select findings from the social sciences within the proliferating TV-entertainment discourses or through tabloid press leaves the wide public of consumers of such knowledge increasingly ignorant of the complex social realities of “the other”. Perhaps it leads to new kind of colonial dependence—no longer to the missionary or administrative offices and their ritual or bureaucratic orders. These old times are replaced by the ever-luring charms of the television screens where display of war tragedies becomes yet another form of entertainment for people here-and-now to appreciate their luck of not being “there” (and “then”). This book is an effort to decisively break with the post-modernist theoretical framework and to restore the goal of construction of general knowledge in the social sciences. The newly developed hybrid of psychology, sociology, anthropology, and history—cultural psychology—is a fitting ground for such restoration efforts. In the substantively inter-disciplinary framework of cultural psychology the focus on the phenomena is restored in its centrality for investigation. That would be impossible if the discipline boundaries were honored—each discipline would defend those. Thus—if one were to look at the contents of this book from any particular disciplinary (that is—ideological) position, the result will be negative. What I have done in this book is certainly “poor psychology” (as nowhere can one find the use of the standard “scientific method” of statistical inference—instead, one finds here substantive claims why that inference is not fitting for science of psychology). Likewise, it is “poor history” (as it does not delve into the richness of archives), and “poor anthropology” (as it is not based on a rich descriptive fieldwork of any one cultural context). Note that all these counter-claims are evaluations based on the ideology of the inductive model of scientific inquiry—moving from “the data” towards some interpretation. I have built here a scheme that begins from generalized ideas and moves downwards (deductively and abductively) towards generalizations through constant linking of the general schemes and rich cultural realities. The present book has been rich in theoretical elaborations and presentation of selected phenomena. The latter were to serve the interests of the former, rather than the reverse. It is through the tension between theory

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construction and the phenomena that methodological innovation can come by. Without such innovation, the different efforts of the late 20th Century to build cultural psychology would pass without basic breakthroughs-- similarly to their predecessors about a century before. Yet it would be a pity to have another miscarriage in this promise of psychology's procreation. A number of basic themes have been present in this book. First, the old notion of unitas multiplex (used by William Stern)-- through the comparison of cases (of persons, or of societies) we look for whatever is universal for all of these cases. The study of "individual differences" has no value for the revelation of these differences just to document those. Differences are important as variations generated by the same general mechanisms. In fact, it is the intrasystemic (temporal) differences that matter in psychology (Molenaar, 2004)— rather than inter-systemic (“inter-individual”) ones. The latter may be of use for making sense of social; units—groups, communities, political entities—as parts of their particular individual systems. Thus, the historical transitions of countries between times of war and peace, economic and natural disasters and states of prosperity require differences between persons who are parts of the social transformation procesess. The latter remain unique—there can be no more than one French Revolution of 1789, or of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The differential actions of persons in different group and crowd membership roles can be crucial for the transformation of the given social unit at the given historical time (see Hunt, 2004 on the male and female symbolic role differences in the French Revolution). It is under these conditions where functional group differences—between gender groups, age cohorts, and between semiotically marked social roles (e.g., groups of persons in uniforms-- the military, the police, the medical nurses and doctors, etc.)—actually matter. These differences are inconsequential when they are discovered outside of a context of social function of some kind. Thus, a comparison of a sample of persons from a social unit X with a similar one from Y without functional connection between the two has no function. Thus, cross-sectional comparisons of samples of persons from Kerala with those from the Middle East become functional only if a temporary migration—for work, trading, or marrying—starts between these (or other) regions. Such social process of migration results in the transformation of the social systems through the transformation of individuals (Kurien, 2002). In cultural psychology, that general mechanism is found in the functioning of signs (semiotic mediation). Signs operate in the development of individual psyche's within a given society. They also operate within the developing social units of human organization. In the structural domain this entails making and remaking of different social groups, and of the generalized sign to designate them—the society. In the functional side of human collective living it entails the establishment of ever new forms of signification— sign arenas. This is obvious in the case of emergence of jargons, professional genres, and silences (rules of tellability/talkability) in the verbal domain. Yet it is ever-present in the non-verbal domain of sign construction—the development of the special communicational

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domain of cartoons creates a separate domain of sign system for the films with cartoon characters (Lotman, 2002c). Such differentiated domain has never existed before in human history and that requires the establishment of new nonverbal cognitive codes to understand and communicate within that domain (Puche-Navarro, 2004). Cultural psychology is developmental in its core—it studies the person of any age level as a developing system within a developing social context. All development is a redundantly controlled process—it operates through overabundance (rather than economy) of the guidance and resources for turning the here-and-now personal culture into a new form. The meaning-making person operates in a semiosphere filled with signs of varied complexity, hybridity, and historical extension. All the meaning-making at the persona-cultural level happens through the bodily immersion within the social world. Similarly to the ritual bath in the Ganga, we all daily immerse ourselves in the invisible—yet functional—ocean of signs that surround us in our everyday worlds. Furthermore—we re-construct our everyday worlds so that these worlds guide us in the direction of our own desires. The life is indeed a stage—and we are actors on that stage—while constantly attempting to be spectators. Once we temporarily succeed in becoming spectators we are overtaken by the desire to become actors again. This tension of being on the boundary of the stage and the audience leads us to try to re-design both—with consequences for our own development. Cultural psychology is the science of constant re-creation of ourselves—and of our science. This makes it infinitely fascinating—and incredibly complicated. But that is precisely the lure of new understanding that cultural psychology might help us to create.

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