[xmca] in-between

[Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>]

In a prior conversation that Martin and I were having regarding language
ideology, I was arguing that the trouble with dominant language ideologies
(including Saussure, Chomsky, Derrida, Searle, and perhaps Austin) is that
they split the world in two. Here is Bruno Latour's characterization of
this problem:

"If you turn round suddenly, as in the children’s game ‘Mother, may I?’,
[the moderns]
will freeze, looking innocent, as if they hadn’t budged: here, on the left,
are things
themselves; there, on the right, is the free society of speaking, thinking
subjects, values
and signs. Everything happens in the middle, everything passes between the
two,
everything happens by way of mediation, translation and networks, but this
space does
not exist, it has no place. It is the unthinkable, the unconscious of the
moderns." (Latour,
1993.:37)

I'd add that it points to the importance of the unthinkable "between" - and
I take "communication" to be the great between.

-greg

-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
833 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Department of Anthropology
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
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