Re: [xmca] belatedly on Wells' article

>An interesting point, certainly, that we _do_ reify these things, in
>many ways, and it is through those reifications, and not as
>abstractions, that rules, norms, divisions of labor, etc. have their
>material mediations for us.
>
>We write down laws, we mouth aphorisms, we have indeed got road
>signs, and markers of class divisions and gender divisions, and
>media advertising and photos to show which toys go with boys and
>which with girls, etc. etc.
>
>How then do these mediations differ from those at the top center of
>the triangle? all mediations are surely both material and semiotic,
>but those that run vertically are frequently repeated, they become
>typical of communities, and not just ad hoc improvisations of a
>moment. As such, their dynamics, the timescales on which they change
>(and don't change), are quite different. In Latour's terms, their
>networks are "longer", or materially speaking, there is a lot more
>"mass" at stake, more people, more tool-making engines, more fat and
>thin wallets, more prisons and uniforms and weapons. More badges of
>rank, more paper flowing through chains of command, more social
>geography of big and small houses built near and far to one another,
>with more or less garbage in their streets.
>
>Those social realities down at the bottom represent a lot more "weight".

Yes. That's why I put genres on the bottom level.

Gordon

-- 
Gordon Wells
Department of Education
University of California, Santa Cruz		http://people.ucsc.edu/~gwells
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