Many people who read BB sympathetically would probably agree that the
earlier versions of his model were a bit too 'structuralist', in keeping
with what were the latest insights of that day (structuralism is a very
powerful method that no one is about to abandon; post-structuralism just
defines its limits and legitimates some complementary paradigms). And the
later versions seem to be a good bit more flexibly articulated.
As Kevin points out, the new subtlety has its drawbacks. It points up how
theories are not mechanical algorithms for solving problems; they are fine
instruments we must learn to play in creative concert. A good Bernsteinian
could probably improvise a concerto for most needs with his ensemble. A
passer-by might wonder how one ever learns to play these things. Most good
theories are like this: powerful resources in the hands of those who have
mastered them and practiced using them creatively time and again, clumsy
oversimplifications to those who have not. A lot of humility is called for
in the critique of theory as tool, as opposed to the easier criticism of
theory as truth.
I do think that the basic logic distinguishing, and relating,
classification vs. framing holds up, though I might agree with Kevin that
when the one is related to control and the other to power, their
interpenetrations may be more significant than their distinctions.
Classification is about difference; framing is about contextualization.
What constitutes a difference is that it makes a difference, to someone,
for something, in some activity and culture. There is no classification
apart from some context within which its distinctions are the relevant
ones. But that does not mean that HOW x is to be distinguished from y is
the same question as WHEN or WHY it is to be so distinguished.
Classification and framing are most useful as distinct analytical processes.
Contexts of course can also be classified, and two contexts are taken to be
alike and different in some particular respects rather than others
depending on some further, or meta-context. The logic here is hierarchical:
contexts of classification of contexts of classification ... down to some
bottom or focus level where we choose to start or stop (and the same in
terms of how many levels we go 'up'). If we flatten this logic out, as it's
very tempting to do since the brain and our discoure resources balk at
handling more than a few levels simultaneously, then classification and
framing start to look like two different words for the same thing ... but
that is only because we have commited an error of logical typing. At each
level of the logic, there is a clear and essential distinction; and from
level to level there are recursions of this distinction. I learned this
principle from close reading of Bateson, but one can find it in Whitehead &
Russell, in Hjelmslev, in Barthes, and in many places in cybernetic theory,
structuralism, etc.
I have a discussion of the principles as they relate to semiotics in the
Postscript chapter of _Textual Politics_.
This 'meta-contextualization' hierarchy (or
classification/contextualization hierarchy, or class/framing h., or
meta-redundancy h.) is not the same at all as the scale hierarchy we have
been discussing, though it has interesting relationships to it. It is built
on the class/member relationship (or type/token rel.), while the scale
hierarchy of micro-meso-macro is built on the whole/part relationship (and
its variants). There is some discussion of this in _Textual Politics_ and
more in Salthe's work on hierarchies in biology.
Kevin's intuition is surely correct that as we go up the meta-hierarchy,
the connections to the scale-hierarchy, and so of classification and
framing to power and control on different social scales (say from discourse
events to local-regional-global social and economic systems) gets a lot
more complicated than they looked in BB's early CCC volumes. I doubt anyone
has got very far in working these through, but at least Bernstein is
pointing to the importance of doing so.
JAY.
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JAY L. LEMKE
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
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