Anyway, the whole issue of meaning and sense (theme) is that
meaning exists as a thing in the world. It is, as Volosinov puts
it, reproducible and self-identical. Yet meaning, by itself, has
no abstract qualities that enable it exist as a part of consciousness.
It is sense (or theme) which comes from the social historical
situatedness of those things in the world that have meaning. Thus,
in the mature individual what appears in consciousness is a sense of
those things that have meaning in the world. We recognize that
things must have meaning, but there is no way to capture that
meaning outside of our sense of the thing. Leontiev makes the point
that to some degree we all have a personal history, so it is best
to view meaning as it is portrayed in mature consciousnes, as a
personal sense. So, in a way, Jay I do agree with you in that there
is no pure shared sense. Yet we know we share histories with
people, and these histories allow us to recognize that certain
meanings have become identical and self-repetitive for us, in
terms of our shared history. This enables us to realize that
our sense of a particular meaning must, in some way be close
to the person with whom we share the history. This enables
us to work collectively.
But let me get to fantasy and firewalls. I am thinking that perhaps
fantasy is simply an agreement among some defined group of individuals
of how they want meaning to be identical and repetitive in a certain
situation to meet a certain need. Three children are playing together
with a large box. One child says the box is a castle. The other
children agree to have the meaning of the box repeat as a castle
for a certain period of time. Now I would guess all the children
have a different sense of how the castle actually looks, how it
appears in their consciousness, but they are able to get enough
agreement to create a fantasy game between them, that will continue
until one or more of the children does not repeat this particular meaning.
We do build up a firewall between this more localized fantasy play
and the cooperative activity in which more individuals are needed,
because sooner or later the students need to come back to the class.
It is, I think, my contention that adults do the same thing, in a
more complex way. Jay asked for an example, and I'm going to take
the easy way out and give an obvious one (and one that is fresh on
my mind after this weekend) football. I love to watch football...
always have and I guess I always will. While I am watching the
game I am steeped in the fantasy of the game. That these players
are heros, the essence of primal conflict, noble warriors. That those
who stay the course are men of character and substance. Now I know
that this is only a fantasy that has any right to exist while I am
watching a game, listening to announcers, or talking to friends only
about football. It is meaning that has been repeated over and over
again since I was a young boy. Yet if I think about football
outside of the context of the game itself I know that it is a
brutal sport, run by brutal, viscious, win at any cost men, and
a sport that emphasizes violence, anger and a certain viscousness
towards all those who might be weaker. To put it bluntly, the more
brutal you are, the better a player you are, the more character and
substance you have within the fantasy. What has happened is this
fantasy has seeped out into our society. We see great football
players in the normal course of events, and many men treat them
like heroes in every day life. This is why football players
get away with so much violence towards women and others. I am
sure the police who responded to the wife beating call for
O.J. Simpson saw him as a hero. Thus I see the essential firewall
between the fantasy of football and the reality (or maybe larger)
fantasy) of a cooperative society as breaking down. Even though
I still indulge in my football fantasy, I now understand as
dangerous to a cooperative society as a whole. The football
example was kind of easy. I think political examples are much
more complex, but much more important.
Michael Glassman
University of Houston