In Between Communication Theories Through One Hundred Questions (Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress, 14) 3030411052, 9783030411053

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Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress 14

Tomas Kačerauskas Algis Mickūnas

In Between Communication Theories Through One Hundred Questions

Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress Volume 14

Series Editor Dario Martinelli, Kaunas University of Technology, Kaunas, Lithuania

The series originates from the need to create a more proactive platform in the form of monographs and edited volumes in thematic collections, to discuss the current crisis of the humanities and its possible solutions, in a spirit that should be both critical and self-critical. “Numanities” (New Humanities) aim to unify the various approaches and potentials of the humanities in the context, dynamics and problems of current societies, and in the attempt to overcome the crisis. The series is intended to target an academic audience interested in the following areas: – Traditional fields of humanities whose research paths are focused on issues of current concern; – New fields of humanities emerged to meet the demands of societal changes; – Multi/Inter/Cross/Transdisciplinary dialogues between humanities and social and/or natural sciences; – Humanities “in disguise”, that is, those fields (currently belonging to other spheres), that remain rooted in a humanistic vision of the world; – Forms of investigations and reflections, in which the humanities monitor and critically assess their scientific status and social condition; – Forms of research animated by creative and innovative humanities-based approaches; – Applied humanities.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14105

Tomas Kačerauskas Algis Mickūnas •

In Between Communication Theories Through One Hundred Questions

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Tomas Kačerauskas Philosophy and Cultural Studies Vilnius Gediminas Technical University Vilnius, Lithuania

Algis Mickūnas Philosophy and Cultural Studies Vilnius Gediminas Technical University Vilnius, Lithuania

ISSN 2510-442X ISSN 2510-4438 (electronic) Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress ISBN 978-3-030-41105-3 ISBN 978-3-030-41106-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41106-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

This book is a dialogical explication of topics in communication, including theoretical positions and matters of various media, by two philosophers, both of whom live on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, each asking 50 questions of the other person. Two times 50 makes 100, an exact figure that captures the exchange of views about communication between two people with very different experiences and perspectives on scientific research and the political environment. The use of the word, “about”, is of special significance, since we talk of communication in order to explore the space between various communication theories, rather than develop a theory of our own. So, when we use the number, “100”, we mean the inexhaustible ways in which we can talk about communication by engaging other theorists, methods, and topics in our dialogical explorations—with a constant adherence to the fact that communication is “about something”. The book’s genesis lies in the shared experience of teaching a Masters programme, “Communication of creative society”. It was in an auditorium some years ago at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU), when Algis and I first met and engaged in a dialogue. Algis had been invited to teach in an intensive study programme on communication, and it was one sunny day in late autumn 2015 in VGTU’s Laboratory of Creative Industries that Tomas challenged Algis’s ideas on communication, and in front of a student body that was being less than cooperative. Shortly before Algis returned to the USA, we agreed to continue the discussions online by posing and answering a series of questions, laying the foundation for the dialogue recorded in this book. We would like to thank the following people who have helped bring this book to fruition. Among them are VGTU’s rector, Alfonsas Daniūnas, who has always been an enthusiastic supporter of the Faculty of Creative Industries (FCI) and its activities. Likewise, Vice-Rector Antanas Čenys is a keen patron of the social sciences and humanities. Dean of FCI, Živilė Sederevičiūtė-Pačiauskienė, has always been a tireless supporter and was instrumental in bringing Algis into our Masters study programme. Algis’s visits were made possible by the generosity of the Lithuanian Ministry of Education, Science and Sport. We also wish to thank the editor in chief

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of the Springer book series “Numanities” Dario Martinelli for organizing the reviewing process of this book. Finally, we would like to thank Ron Ringer for his careful editing of this monograph. Vilnius, Lithuania

Tomas Kačerauskas Algis Mickūnas

Introduction

There are theoretical ventures which, while significant, were and are challenged and either discarded or become partial treasury of a tradition. Given this setting, we shall not offer one more theory or metatheory, but resume the dialogical tradition which forms a “theory of communication” reaching to the very writings of the dialogues of Plato, and numerous subsequent writings, including such significant medieval figures as St. Thomas. Thus, by now, the debates, analyses, and descriptions of dialogue and its variations cover one of the major theoretical trends of this century. At times, these trends are confused—intertwined with various systems of dialectics. Martin Buber, Michail Bakhtin, and more recently various schools of phenomenology, articulated by Waldenfels (1971), Renate von Heydebrand and Günther (1969), ending with postmoderns such as Arneson (2007), Dascal (1985), Waller and Marcos (2005), point to dialogue as an essential ground of all other ventures. Indeed, there are writers who attempt to posit dialogue as a fundamental theoretical–methodological problematic. Given this plethora engagements with dialogue, our venture is one theoretical mode of dialogical thinking, without reducing it to some specific interpretation, such as may be offered by “lingualisms”, inclusive of hermeneutics, semiotics, and even postmodern notions of discursive practices, or to sociological theses that posit the primacy of society over the individual, or even to the claims that individuals possess some inherent drive to form communication with other individuals. These are notable theoretical constructions that founded numerous, even antagonistic ideological, economic, and even militaristic confrontations. In other words, they have created various theoretical and ideological “others” who, supposedly, were innocent of the truth of their lives. Yet what could not, and indeed in principle cannot be excluded even by ideologies and theories, is the presence of the dialogical other as a condition for reflection upon one’s own positionality. This means that the limits of understanding and awareness, regardless of whatever theoretical and ideological ilk these may possess, are not offered within a given position. They require reflection from a different, an alternate domain that, even if not completely understood, indeed, even if rejected, compels its recognition. This suggests that dialogical thinking is granted even in cases of transcultural, transnational, trans-ideological, and even vii

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trans-disciplinary engagements. Radically speaking, “the other” is affirmed even in its negation. Thus, the very efforts to deal with dialogue as a theory, in contrast to other types of theories, are already dialogical by virtue of the recognition of other theories. Dialogical awareness, it seems, cannot be limited to other theories and their presumed grounds, such as social, cultural, material, historical, biological, and even mythical. It comprises a domain that articulates itself in its practice. Any discussion of a given topic, including that of communication, compels us to recognize the essential and inevitable affirmation of the other as a dialogical partner at whatever level the other is encountered. Indeed, the very encounter already grants our recognition of the “sense of the other” that is not absolutely alien, that is different and yet not radically transcendent from some sense of ourselves, regardless of how this “ourselves” is culturally designated. In the light of the various methodologies in currency, ranging from qualitative to quantitative, from neo-positivistic, to culturally relativistic, we maintain (despite the postmodern claims that anything essential is dead) that any subject matter requires an articulation of its own access. This is to say, it would be not only inadvertent, but also arbitrary to “apply” our favourite method, dogma, or theory on all phenomena. Since this procedure would be another variant of negation and thus affirmation of the presence of other methods and dogmas, it would be already within the domain of dialogue. Hence, to access the dialogical requires its own “way”. The latter could only be reached through the steps of testing the limits of various methods and theories regardless of how much these may be established and promoted. One of the most prevalent views of communicative dialogue is composed of the triad of sender-message-receiver, with a variant inherent in the term “message”. The latter may be regarded as a channel, and the channel, as is the case with Marshall McLuhan, may be the message. The empirical study of this triad must be quantitative, regardless at what level the study may be undertaken. One may count the frequency of specific sounds; one may measure the decibels and the reactions they evoke; one may measure the physiological channels transmitting light waves emitted by a sequence of marks on a page; one may measure the waves emitted by satellite technology, etc. The utility of such studies is obvious. Yet, this model and the empirical method leave some aspects of communication untouched. First, the message is more complex and can be at variance with the channel. Messages are understandable to the extent that they efface themselves in order to signify, point to, delimit some “object”. Second, the latter may be cultural, physical, psychological, mythical, science-fictional, etc.; yet in all cases, it is required as a dialogical focus. In the case of this essay, the focus is dialogue and the other, and specifically the other as different, either racially, ethnically, or culturally. Third, despite the disagreements that may occur concerning the delimitation of the subject matter, the latter is a required condition for the continuity of communicative dialogical engagement. If the common subject matter is lost, the question will arise: are we talking about the same thing? In this sense, our text is a dialogical procedure focused on questions which allow us to maintain a specific topic within its recognizable limits—whether such topic is a theory, medium, death, a myth, or a body in action.

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The other theoretical side, the rational-logical, with its a priori structures, has been shown to be limited to the extent that the connection between such structures and the world of experience is not implied by them. The rational structures, such as logic or mathematics, must be applied from some situated and dialogical position. The latter may be articulated as a point of interest, a hermeneutical setting, or available on the basis of tacit prejudgments. In all the cases, the reason is mediated and hence cannot take priority as the sole arbiter of human encounters. Especially, in such cases as race or the culture of others, there are no a priori structures which would be obvious to all concerned parties. Moreover, cultural others may have a different logic that could reveal our culture’s limits of rationality. Even within one’s own culture’s rationality, there arise ambivalences whenever human action is introduced: the latter constantly defies strict rules and indeed reveals its own and the contingency of presumed fixed logics. These considerations suggest that the requirements to understand dialogue and the other are more complex and can only be unfolded dialogically. While this may appear to be circular, theoretically speaking some principles that delimit a region cannot be denied without denying the very region through which such principles appear. This is to say, the dialogical understanding is a principle which is involved in the very explication of dialogue, and, as mentioned above, involved in the acceptance–rejection of the other. In this sense, any method, any theoretical controversy, any question of the racial or cultural other, are dialogical. What is required, then, is to delimit the dialogical morphology and to show what types of dialogue attempt to negate the other, even though the other never leaves the dialogical setting, and what are the dialogical modalities that in principle affirm the other. It is important to note that even the modes of denial are revelatory of the elevation of the other’s importance, and, in cases of race, even an over importance of the dialogical other. At the outset, it must be emphasized that dialogical world is intersubjective and is one major way of resolving the protracted controversy between the proponents of the priority of individual over society and those who claim the supremacy of society. In the first instance, society is regarded as a sum of separate and indeed solipsistic individuals having solely antagonistic relationships, while in the second, the individual is a conjunction of social events wherein society (at times interpreted in the form of institutions) is the defining dimension. Meanwhile, the composition of dialogue has to be understood as prior to and foundation of both individualism and collectivism. First, in dialogue, the other is not present as an object, a given entity, a mind inhabiting a body, but as a co-presence engaged in a common venture. One speaks with someone about something, some topic, concern, subject matter, prior to regarding the other as a subject or an object. The commonality, here, is a subject matter in which we are engaged, which we confront, dispute, or agree upon. There is granted an orientation towards something with an orientation of a Self to the Other. Second, the notion of sender-message-receiver must be modified away from a sequence of activity–passivity, where the sender acts, while the receiver accepts the message. Rather, it is a complex process of the establishment of both sender and

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receiver in a way that they both are contemporaneously active–passive as a mutual articulation and interrogation of a subject matter. Each partner founds the dialogue and in turn is founded by it. There is neither the priority of the individual, as the ultimate foundation, nor of the dialogical WE as the more encompassing. They are mutual and can be compared to a melody: each note is an individual and without it there would be no melody, but the melody also allows a note to have it’s say as position in the melody. Change in either one is mutually change in the other. It is a founded–founding relationship. Third, the dialogical partner is not merely the currently co-present other, but the others whose orientations towards the world, their perceptions of a topic, a subject matter, are equally co-present. The books I read, the conversations I had with others —perhaps long forgotten—comprise an extension of my perceptions and constitute a poly-centric and poly-logical field. I perceive with the perceptions of the others, perceptions that contest, extend, and modify my own regard of a given subject matter. The same is true of my current dialogical partner; he too is founding of and founded by a poly-centric field, and in our dialogue, we mutually involve our poly-centric awareness and hence extend our poly-centric participation. This also constitutes the basis for transcendence of one’s own limitations and resultantly for openness and freedom. Without the other, and without our being co-present in a poly-centric field, we would lack the transcending movement. Indeed, we would be placed in a narrow position while thinking that such a position is all-encompassing and universal. Fourth, poly-centric poly-logue defies the traditional notions of temporal history; poly-logue constitutes a field of temporal depth wherein the “past” partners are not passive, but participate equally in articulating, challenging, and interrogating a specific issue, topic, or subject matter. Thus, it is quite normal to say, for example, that for the Egyptians humans were not categorized in terms of some presumed racial features, but in accordance with hierarchies of social positions and tasks. Of course, the focus of our poly-logue is the human, including the others, the Egyptians, who open and extend our perception by showing our own limitations and positions. Here, their perceptions contest actively our own perceptions of ourselves, our prejudices, and our limitations. At the poly-logical level, we are constantly decentred from our limitations even when we would reject the others perceptions of a given subject matter. Indeed, the very preoccupation with rejection, the efforts to demonstrate the inadequacy, the mistaken understanding, and downright error, shows the extraordinary credence and co-presence of the other. Fifth, the poly-logical compresence of the other not only decenters mutually absolute positions, but also constitutes the initial awareness of human situatedness as well as a reflective self-identification each through the other. It could be argued that poly-logical field comprises the domain of inter-positional reflexivity such that one recognizes oneself only due to the difference from the other in modes of awareness of a subject matter. This is the transparency principle: I know myself to the extent that I reflect from the other, from the how she articulates a specific theme. I see myself through the different perceptions offered by the other that connect us by way of a common theme, task, subject matter, and allows us our recognition of our

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own positions. Another aspect of this morphology must be mentioned in order to avoid misunderstandings inherent in the efforts to objectify the other. Even if we engage in a dialogue about the other, we shall find that she cannot be understood apart from her perceptions of something, of some concerns inherent in her world. We shall understand her only to the extent that she is engaged in some task or concern, and thus is an aspect of our own poly-centric field. After all, to discuss Virginia Wolf is to discuss her views about something and thus introduce her as our poly-logical partner. Even if we were so crude as to intrude into her “private feelings”, we would still understand them as “feelings about something”. She, as well as we, are comprehensible only with respect to the world we address, contest, and share in our different ways. An all-encompassing, undifferentiated, homogeneous thesis would not be recognizable, would not possess an identity, and would cease to be poly-logical; it would be a divine speaking without any co-presence of the other. It would be a denial of the other’s existence as co-presence through difference. That such divine positions are assumed is obvious from numerous examples across cultures and even within specific cultural institutions. It behoves us, therefore, to point to such positions which, while dramatically paradoxical due to their emphasis on the other, attempt to abolish the other’s existence. We know that there are numerous institutions in cultures whose members know not only themselves, but can account for all others, including their way of life, thinking and even feeling. There are also grand proposals, such as scientific theories, theocratic or ideological prejudgments which purport to “explain” everything and specifically the other. Not all such theories need be explored; we must disclose their common principles that will inhere in such explanations. In turn, we shall not rank such theories with respect to their “higher” status in a given culture, not because we wish to insult the adherents of such theories, but due to the comparative nature that seeks essential commonalities. To speak in principle, all theories which posit inevitable causes for and outcomes of human actions and engage in homogenization deny human presence as a diversity. In the final analysis, there are the mechanical, universal laws, forces clashing in the cosmic night, childhood violations, historical market forces, and divine shamans that speak. Here one cannot claim a situated, responsible, poly-logical, contesting, limited but open human presence. In principle, this is an abolition of the subject in favour of an object as a product of causes, an engagement in mono-logical and all-encompassing claim which subsumes and silences the other. If the other speaks about something, her voice is already explained by the mono-logical position. More precisely speaking, there is no such a position, since it cannot be recognized due to its all-encompassing presumption. After all, any position will be encompassed by monologue which is “non-positional”. The situated, poly-logical individual, is replaced by an abstract set of factors: the human is subject to the force of institutions, such as mass media, that are deemed to be in a position to posit and manipulate the individual as an object and to determine her course. In brief, the other does not exist as a poly-logical other, but is an object without any situational perception and identity by virtue of poly-logical differentiation. What is of note is that speakers proclaim these theses—even if for a

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moment—ex-cathedra, from a homogeneous position, without a reflective moment that such a position is an aspect of their own poly-logical differentiation from other positions. They claim to be unsituated, apart from, and untainted by the very institutions or factors which they posit as grounds for all explanations. This is their dramatic paradox: peoples are dominated by institutions, by causes, but our proclamations are from a position of unaffected privilege. We are the subject, and our discourse is homogeneously absolute. The other, here, does not exist as a speaking, dialogical subject. One specific result of this homogeneity is the tacit assumption that the other cannot be held responsible; she is innocent. Indeed, in some discourses, she may be defined as a victim, and even an innocent victim. Yet an unavoidable reflexivity comes into play, and in principle. The very claim to innocence and victimization is a position, differentiated from other positions in a poly-logical field of claims and counterclaims, accusations, and excuses. The first moment of such a poly-logical interplay is the pointing out that those who posit the other as an object of explanation must either belong to the same explanation and hence cannot claim to be responsible subjects, or they are cynical. The second moment appears in all cases when the victimized proclaim their innocence and accuse the other as the victimizer. The victimized joyfully–sorrowfully exhibits the scars of being “crucified” and oppressed and, therefore, of having a universal moral authority by dint of their suffering, to judge all others. What is characteristic of these claims, as a third moment, is equally an abstract universal posture: the Germans did this to us, the Soviets have crucified us, the Japanese owe us an apology, Eurocentrism is a neo-colonial privileged invasion. The fourth, moment shows that the other, the colonizer, the oppressor, is not another at all, not a poly-logical partner, but a monstrous object, an anonymous blind force bereft of human features. At any rate, the denial of the poly-logical other, in the other’s very forceful presence, takes on a dual abstraction. The oppressor sees the other as a lesser being, and if this view is pushed to the limit, the other is denied human existence. The other belongs to a race that cannot be characterized as human; she is on a lower level of evolution and perforce is best suited for subservient tasks. Here, the oppressor, the colonizer, the racist denies his own positionality and poly-logical situatedness and regards the other from totalized position. The other may offer her deeds, achievements, trajectory of her life, but the racist, the colonizer, the possessor of a monologue has presumed the sole and true standards such that the other can never offer adequate evidence that she has a right to human existence. If her deeds, history, achievements, as correlations to the world are excluded, then she is left as a pure body, an entity that does not resemble anything human. But the ethnically or racially oppressed are equally exposed to the same logic. They must regard the oppressor in terms of decontextualized abstraction. The oppressor, the racist or the colonizer, is equally lacking in human characteristics. He lacks conscience, is a brutish barbarian and, as all lower creatures, a predator. Moreover, he is incapable of providing for his own needs; all his possessions stem from theft. All his deeds, his life’s achievements, do not belong to him but to those he oppresses and exploits. He is a body bereft of significance, a greedy biochemical mechanism.

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This too constitutes a non-poly-logical attitude and establishes an unsituated gaze towards the other. On both sides, the poly-logical transcendence and hence human situated and yet decentred freedom is abandoned. Our text is an example of dialogical engagement with each other and with the “others” whose presence is equally respected and whose “voice” is taken into account while discussing the various topics and issues. The reader will notice that while answering each other’s questions, we do not offer a “final explanation”, but remain open to continuous dialogue with the honoured readers of this text. They too will find an opportunity to contest not only our answers, but even out questions— since neither of them are from some absolute “non-position” accessible only to us. It is in this spirit that our text has something to say to communication scholars, students and—most likely—to persons who are interested in our complex life-world and, indeed, numerous life-worlds. We have organized the material in this book into two sections, which reflect our formula of 2  50 questions. Each section comprises seven chapters, some of which are guided by the logic imposed by the questions. Thus, the “talker” emerges in a horizontal sense, i.e. the answer to a question, but also at the vertical level, i.e. by chapters. Both questions and chapters articulate the interests and priorities of the question being posed. In this way, the respondent is provoked into reflecting on matters raised by the questioner with their deeper understanding of their own subject matter. However, this deeper understanding comes from the dialogues that include experiences of other thinkers focused on a similar topic, leading to a poly-logue and historical depth. Questions and answers were written in the respective native tongue (either English or Lithuanian) and translated by the native speaker. Hence, questions were posed in one language and answers were given in another. We might regard this as a double hermeneutic move, and one which should be considered as a good practice in communication. In general, hermeneutics is inseparable from dialogue, as well as from communication. In our book, the aim to understand emerges at different levels: by speaking about incommensurable communication theories, by discussing the possibility of metacommunication and intercommunication, by interpreting different experiences and environments, by seeking to exhaust a question with an answer, and by translating our respective answers to the questions. Here, we ask: is dialogical process away of understanding “better”? Translation serves a number of purposes: it conveys a different language, different experiences, and attitudes and seeks to communicate with another culture and another time. Even if two parts of the book have been written (and translated) synchronically, a certain diachrony remains due to differences in age, viewpoint, and ways of speaking. It is important to note here that diachrony is necessary in order to disturb and to provoke each others response to questions during the dialogue. Philosophy, to be precise, phenomenology, is that which connects the book’s authors, despite our different interpretations of communication, and it is this phenomenology, in its inter-subjective-dialogical mode which allows us to explore different theories, as well as to search for the diverse accesses to the “thingness” of worldly phenomena. Both of us agree that “in between” means the approach

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between communication theories as well as the space between communication and dialogical phenomenology. This opens up two avenues to explore, the first being the school of phenomenology. The second engages in a conversation about different questions in communication and media, such as phenomenological methods and topics, e.g. thingness (a “return to the things”), communicative bodies, interaction between an individual and the environment, as well as attitudes towards death. The book, however, is not strictly a work on the phenomenology of communication, but rather an extended consideration of the branch of phenomenology, whose ideas are framed within a collection of conversations that took place in the post-phenomenological (as well as postmodern and post-industrial) times in which we find ourselves. Our intention is therefore to conduct a dialogue that disturbs and interrupts assumed positions, something that Plato would have approved of, because for this Greek philosopher dialogue was integral to his own dialectics. Provocative questions around the chosen topic open up ever more and ingenious levels of challenge and response. In our earlier work, we moved towards this dialogue and in a different circle through collaboration (Mickunas and Stewart 1990; Mickūnas and Šliogeris 2009) and discussions (Kačerauskas and Vėželis 2016) with other authors on numerous occasions. Thus, we regard communication as the very dialogue into which both of us enter and explore possibilities first imagined at our first meeting on that autumnal day. The question remains: what do we mean by “in-between communication theories?” First, the phrase reflects the relationship between communication theories, including their contradictions and conjunctions. Next, it adopts a critical approach towards the phenomena of communication and media, as well as theorizing about them. Third, it is a philosophical search for the theoretic precedents of communication that can be found in the history of philosophy. Fourth, it is a phenomenological method wherein the phenomena have been “seen”, disclosed, and described. Fifth, it moves from ground in that communication theories and media tendencies have been reviewed first. Sixth, it is also sceptical towards tendencies within communication and media to construct general theoretic schemes, resulting in a change from monologue to dialogue. All of this allows us to speak about intercommunicativity—moving in-between communication theories. As previously mentioned, the poli-text is composed of two separate, but mutually intertwined narratives to explicate the many indefinite issues that comprise the complexity of communication. The latter is a modern notion, has postmodern variants and also the basic assumption that everything is communication—including the claim that there are “incommunicable” areas of human relationships. In this sense, the various major philosophies of Western tradition are interpreted in terms of this modern framework, warning us that the latter might not belong to other contexts or other traditions. The reader will notice one basic difference between the styles of the authors. Tomas tends to present numerous positions which adhere to their own distinct rhetorical styles, while Algis tends to make a specific case by argument. Although both stem from phenomenological philosophy, they emphasize its two distinct features: one, a description of the variety of phenomena that comprise communication (including a variety of theoretical constructs), and the

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other, an articulation through variations of a specific invariant of an awareness, which provides for an identifiable principle. Hopefully, the difference in styles does not clash but complements each other. Throughout our mutual, interrogative dialogue, we avoided the daunting issue not only of metacommunication, but also of the “transcendental” problematic of accessing the numerous theoretical, thematic, historical aspects of communication. The explication of such a thematic belongs to philosophy, and in this text, we agreed not to burden the reader with such issues. In brief, philosophers should not look for some definitive position, which the authors feel obliged to defend as a point of honour. If we do mention the names of philosophers and references to their texts, then we make no claim that such references state a principled position of a given philosopher. Rather, the quotations and references constitute the heuristic means to shift specific statements towards their interpretation as communication. This means that we do not explore any ontological or metaphysical principles of a given philosophy and then argue for or against them, but play with their language at the conversational level. In this context, we do not face an issue of misinterpretation, because at the outset we admit that what we say about historical figures is read out of our own modern context, premised on a new discipline’s self-interpretation. It should also be clear that such self-interpretation is diverse to the point that even the scholars within find it difficult to reach a common ground of communication. Clearly, this is a situation in which the modern Western creation of multi-discoursivity and diversity of academic disciplines finds itself. Accordingly, modern philosophy is not able to find a universal language so that every “universal” language fails to hold, ultimately dividing into “sub-discourses” and further “sub-discourses”, leading to a cacophony of discourses. The same can be said of scientific disciplines: there is no one physics. Long ago, the latter fractured into “macro” and “micro” branches, just as chemistry or biology fractured into “bio-chemistry”, “genetic biology”, “organic evolution”, “evolutionary chemistry” and so on. No exception can be granted to communication —it, too, belongs to our modern Western world. This is one compelling reason why we neither offered nor sought to articulate a single “unifying” theory. Neither do we claim to have explored our entire Western civilization under the guise of communication, or any other civilization for that matter. Members of other civilizations might have no such concerns about communication, perhaps regarding our interpretation of their texts as disguised neo-colonialism. We mean no disrespect by omitting from our discourse any other civilization, but rather the opposite —respect for their right to decide how to understand any topic in terms of their own context. For the sake of argument, feminist “theory” as understood in Western civilization would appear to be totally irrelevant throughout the Middle East, as well as our understanding of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Such a theory does not “communicate” anything, just as political democracy is meaningless in their context. Indeed, all we can say is that for us the door for dialogue and poli-logue remains wide open. We would like to discuss briefly the relationship between metacommunication, the philosophy of communication, and the practice of communication,

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intercommunication, and creative communication. It seems that all of these notions are contradictory, yet all of them play an important role because they circumnavigate the topics of communication and of media. Metacommunication is not only thinking and speaking about communication as defined by Craig and Muller (2007), but is also the practice that transforms and moves communication, i.e. contrary to the speculative metaphysical discourse. Furthermore, thinking about communication can be transferred into a higher level of thinking, or thinking about thinking which infers no end to the process. Metacommunication, like intercommunication, deals with interactions and coverings of different communication discourses, as well with the borders in-between. Metacommunication is revealing of everyday practices of communication and can be compared with the existential everydayness articulated by Heidegger (1996), such as idle talk, “the they”, ambiguity that play a special role in the ontology of Dasein. Discussion in the margins is a case both of metacommunication and of intercommunication, since the loudness evinced by a thought is transferred between the lines. Here, the philosophy of communication is important, but not because communication science separated from philosophy less than a century ago (Peters 1999). We face many germs of communication and media discourses in the history of philosophy, such as Platonic discussions on advantages (remedy) and lack (poison) of writing (Plato 1997). Lastly, the precedents of the philosophical life are also important in discussions on communication. An example is Diogenes the Cynic who “forged” what we know as social values, which have been further shaped on the anvil of public communication by the hammer of the media. On the other hand, creative outstandingness disturbs the established (“coined”) social attitudes. In general, disturbance of communication or silence (being intermediate) play a special role by transferring the knowledge, values, and traditions. Both of them are marginal (in-between): the creativity phenomena hazard that is not transferable while they have not been recognized as outstanding and the transfer of creative message hazards to “distort” the very message. On the other hand, creative practice does not only disturb the tradition of communication but also guarantees it while ensuring its dynamic development. As a result, metacommunication, intercommunication, the philosophy of communication, the practice of communication and creative communication flow in and out of each other, and in a paradoxical sense remain inseparable. Here as elsewhere (Kačerauskas and Vėželis 2016), we explore questions on the genre of this book. Although the sources and usage practice of the notional “monograph” refers to integral (but not one) topic characteristic of this book, there are some doubts. Is a book consisting of dialogue a monograph? Does dialogue-ness spoil monograph-ness? Does the “mono” of monograph level the folds and delete the in-betweens. So, let it be “monograph”, an ironic inscription in an unserious book that hopefully will find its place between many serious monographs on communication. A note here on sources is instructive. We formed our sources into discreet groups, the first of which includes literature about the origin, notion, and understandings of communication (Peters 1999; Fiske 2010; Craig and Muller 2007; Baran and Davis 2012; DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach 1975; Flusser 2007; Faules and Alexander 1978;

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Hovland 1948; Jansen 2002; Lozano 2013; Manovich 2001; Matterlart 1996; Park and Pooley 2008; Pilotta and Mickunas 2012; Schramm 1954). Literature in this group underpins discussions that emerge later in the book. The group comprises literature about philosophical (including phenomenological) perspectives towards communication (Heidegger 1959, 1989, 1996; Mickūnas and Stewart 1990; Buber 2000; Dewey 1927; Dilthey 1985; Feyerabend 1993; Derrida 1981, 1997; Kant 1999; Kuhn 1996; Levinas 1979; Locke 1964; Plato 1888, 1980, 1990, 1997; Popper 1971; Ricœur 1984; Rousseau 1987; Sartre 1984; Schopenhauer 1969; Wittgenstein 1990a, b). This group is important not only because of the authors’ interests and education background, but also because of the attempt to explore areas that lie between the communication theories. It is impossible to ignore the classical philosophical texts that mention communication by any other name, such as (Aristotle 1959, 1996, 2011; Augustine 2013; Berkeley 1982; Epicurus 1994; Gadamer 1989; Habermas 2001; Hume 2000; Husserl 1970; James 1975; Nietzsche 1974; Plato 1997). This third group is our attempt to find the precedents of communication and how it is reflected in the history of thinking at various stages in the development of Western society. The fourth group brings together those authors who criticize contemporary mediated society (Horkheimer and Adorno 1972; Marcuse 1991; Berger and Luckmann 1966; McLuhan 1964; Baudrillard 1989, 2016; Bauman 2007; Benjamin 1969; Bourdieu 1986; Debord 1994; Foucault 1971, 1972; Marx 1977). These writers are important because of their critical attitudes and attempts to reflect the role of the media. Our fifth group includes authors who develop ideas germane to creativity (Caves 2002; Florida 2002; Howkins 2009, 2013). This area of enquiry is important in terms of the creative aspects of communication and the deficit of creativity in contemporary mediated culture. The sixth major grouping consists of literature in cultural studies and in aesthetics (Anderson 1991; Bakhtin 1984a, b; Berger 2008; Carey 1989; Danto 1997; Grossberg et al. 1992; Huizinga 1970; Mitchell 1994; Müller 2004; Winckelmann 2006). Their work attests to the belief that the phenomena of communication cannot be separated from the cultural (aesthetic) environment. The seventh group consists of certain aspects of art, including media art (cinema, photography, and fiction) such as Antonioni 1970; Defoe 2008; Greenaway 1996; Trier 2013; Lachapelle 2009; Saint-Exupery 1943; Thoreau 1960, which demonstrate an eclectic mix of sources that reach far beyond scientific literature and the literature itself. Other important, though not directly related sources, are worth mentioning. These include feminist (Butler 1990; Foss et al. 1999; Goffman 1979; Irigaray 1985), semiotic (Barthes 1977; Greimas 1987a, b) discourse, political studies including political communication (Huntington 1997; McChesney 1997, 2004; Mickūnas 2007; Mills 1957), advertising studies (Fowles 1996; Goffman 1979; Wernick 1991), and utopian (Campanella 2011; Huxley 2007; More 1972) discourses. Feminist discourses are important as an alternative way of thinking and as a communication school in feminist correspondence. Semiotic discourse has played an important role in the development of communication science and is one of two fundamental sources that helped to determine the embranchment of schools of

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communication. It also seems inevitable that political studies influenced the rise and development of political communication. Moreover, from the very beginning, politics facilitated the emergence of communication as public speaking. It seems that comparing new literature on advertising orient towards one aspect of communication. However, the “laws” and tendencies of (self) advertising are valid not only in advertising, and not only in the media. Utopian ideas witness that communicative society, if we may call it so, is also utopian. On the other hand, its utopian character does not mean that it is less real. On the contrary, the utopias force the society to move towards certain directions and in this way make it real. All of these and other sources form the theoretical and practical environment in which we develop our ideas in-between communication, and not only theories. It should be stressed that this book is neither a review of mentioned (and unmentioned) literature, nor its interpretation. In many cases, these authors and their works remained in the margins of our dialogues. In the first part of Algis’ answers they are not named but rather implied. It bears witness to contrary aims. On the one hand, we have aimed to develop an intensive communication discourse by engaging ourselves in the discussions and dialogues with other authors. On the other hand, we have tried not to let the ideas of other authors shade our conversation.

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McChesney, Robert W. 2004. The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21st Century. New York: Monthly Review Press. McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill. Mickūnas, Algis. 2007. Demokratija šiandien: straipsniai ir esė [Democracy Today: Articles and Essays], ed. A. Sverdiolas. Vilnius: Versus aureus. Mickūnas, Algis, and Arvydas Šliogeris. 2009. Filosofijos likimas [Destiny of Philosophy]. Vilnius: Baltos lankos. Mickunas, Algis, and David Stewart. 1990. Exploring Phenomenology. Athens: Ohio University Press. Mills, Wright C. 1957. The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press. Mitchell, William J.T. 1994. Picture Theory. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. More, Thomas. 1972. Utopia. Baltimore: Penguin Books. Müller, Beate (ed.). 2004. Censorship & Cultural Regulation in the Modern Age. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1974. The Gay Science. Trans. W. Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books. Park, David W., and Jefferson Pooley. 2008. The History of Media and Communication Research: Contested Memories. New York: Peter Lang. Peters, John D. 1999. Speaking into the Air: A history of the Idea of Communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pilotta, Joseph J., and Algis Mickunas, A. 2012. Communication Despite Postmodernism. New York: Nova Science Publishers. Plato. 1888. The Republic. Trans. B. Jowett. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Plato. 1980. The Laws. Trans. T.L. Pangle. New York: Basic Books. Plato. 1990. Sophist. Trans. W.S. Cobb. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Plato. 1997. Phaedrus. Trans. A. Nehamas, and P. Woodruff. In ed. J.M. Cooper, Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis: Hacket Publishing. Popper, Karl R. 1971. The Open Society and Its Enemies. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ricœur, Paul. 1984. Time and Narrative. Trans. K. McLaughlin, and D. Pellauer, vol. 1. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1987. Basic Political Writings. Trans. D.A. Cress. Indianapolis: Hacket Publishing. Saint-Exupery, Antoine de. 1943. The Little Prince. Trans. K. Woods. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Schopenhauer, Arthur. 1969. The World as Will and Representation. Trans. R.B. Haldane, and J. Kemp. New York: Dover Pub. Schramm, Wilbur. 1954. The Process and Effects of Mass Communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Thoreau, Henry D. 1960. Walden, or, Life in the Woods. London: J. M. Dent. Waldenfels, Bernhard. 1971. Das Zwischenreich des Dialogs. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. Waller, Marguerite R., and Sylvia Marcos. 2005. Dialogue and Difference: Feminisms Challenge Globalization. New York: Palgrive Macmillan. Wernick, Andrew. 1991. Promotional Culture: Advertising, Ideology and Symbolic Expression. London: Sage. Winckelmann, Johann J. 2006. Essays on the Philosophy and History of Art. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1990a. Philosophische Untersuchungen. In: Wittgenstein’s Werkausgabe. Bd. 1. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1990b. Tractatus logico-philosophicus. In: Wittgenstein’s Werkausgabe. Bd. 1. Frankfurt am Mein: Suhrkamp.

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Movies Antonioni, Michelangelo. 1970. Zabriskie Point. Greenaway, Peter. 1996. Pillow Book. Trier, Lars von. 2013. Nymphomaniac.

Photographs Lachapelle, David. 2009. The Beatification.

Introduction

Contents

Part I

Immediate and Mediated Communication

1

Is Everything Communication? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3

2

The Polilogical Base of Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

19

3

The Formal and Informal Logic of Communication . . . . . . . . . . . .

51

4

Communication and Technologies: Are All Modern Discourses Technical? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

73

5

Levels of Awareness in Communication and Existence . . . . . . . . . .

81

6

Identities and Differences, Permanences and Changes in Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

95

7

The Borders and Limits of Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Part II

Between Communication and Metacommunication

8

Language, Metalanguage, and Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

9

Perspectiveness and Discoursiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

10 Medium, Media in Mass Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 11 Scientific Approach and Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 12 Bodyness in the Environment of Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 13 Ethics of Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 14 Interconnections Between the Public and the Private in Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Postscript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

xxiii

Abbreviations

A. M. CEO EU FCI HCI IGO INGO OECD Q T. K. TV UNESCO U.S.A. VGTU Vol.

Algis Mickūnas Chief Executive Officer European Union Faculty of Creative Industries Human-Computer Interconnection Intergovernmental Organizations International Non-governmental Organizations Organization for Economic Development Question Tomas Kačerauskas Television United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization United States of America Vilnius Gediminas Technical University Volume

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Part I

Immediate and Mediated Communication

Chapter 1

Is Everything Communication?

Question 1 T. K. In Latin communicare means to share or to turn into a common thing. How much does the etymology of notion allow an understanding of communication phenomenon, which does not mean the sharing of thoughts? How, then, do we define the notion and understanding of communication? A. M. This question opens a broad field of discussion, belonging not only to communication but also to other disciplines, such as sociology, culture, and inter-disciplinary issues. But first, let us look at the term communicare, as sharing something in common, which requires us to understand the commonality. We do not share our thoughts since thoughts are about something, which is expressed simply in the question “what are you thinking about”? We can think about anything; a theme, a cucumber, a theory, galaxy, friend, love, inner feelings, ideal society, Platonic forms, and numerous other givens accessible to thinking, feeling, bodily gestures, all of them indicating the required “common something.” It must also be obvious that such aspects as inner feelings cannot be deciphered without becoming a means by which we communicate. If one encounters a person who is sad, one will normally ask “why are you so sad?” with the expected answer: “because my friend is angry with me”, or “I failed my chemistry course.” Even these answers can become a means of communicating about something. One might ask “and why is your friend angry with you?” and receive the answer: “because I forgot to meet him in a bar last night.” This means that communication, including feelings, is an indication of something or, as semiotic jargon has it, signifying something in such a way that the indicated or signified must have a general composition accessible to anyone. This also means that despite the modern metaphysical psychology of subjective or inner states, we also access such states by the very fact that they indicate something, and thus reveal themselves on the basis of what they indicate or signify, i.e. mean. At this level we should exercise care to not © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 T. Kaˇcerauskas and A. Mick¯unas, In Between Communication Theories Through One Hundred Questions, Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41106-0_1

3

4

1 Is Everything Communication?

introduce factors that do not belong to a specific shared presence on which communication centres. For example, if we discuss mathematics and suddenly demand that to understand mathematics we must first discover where numbers are, such as in the brain, in the genes, in the unconscious, we inadvertently change the subject matter of discussion—from mathematics to biology, to genetics and other matter, and thus fail our communication about mathematics. Of course, it would be appropriate to point out that we have changed the subject matter of communication and have a different general theme requiring very different communicative access. Communication must accept the directly given theme on which the dialogical parties are focused. The question also raises an issue of commonality or a requirement to make something common as a condition for communication. Indeed, the majority of theories and methods from Plato to empiricists have addressed this issue without offering a resolution. At the outset, in all theories and methods, the communicative event is possible. Plato argued for the presence of changeless forms, which allow for common features. Yet, as was noted his search for such forms, not found among changing phenomena was assumed before all and any argument; after all, to say that we are searching for something, which we do not yet know, is to assume that we already know. And this “already” is not accounted for. At the other end, the empiricists wanted to find the commonality, I, generalizing from particular phenomena to form general propositions, yet they failed to note that to generalize is to assume that there are present common features on the basis of which any generalization depends. And finally, Immanuel Kant proposed that the communicating commonality depends on a priori concepts present in all thinking subjects—although at the transcendental level. But if all phenomena are organized by the general a priori concepts, on which depend all communication, by what means do we address the topic of the a priori concepts? Question 2 T. K. How can we understand communication? Is it to be understood as a comparatively new science separated from philosophy less than a century ago, and still unable to reflect on itself? And is it possible to understand communication only from the outside? A. M. In a contemporary setting communication is regarded as an allencompassing discipline. Whether we speak of globalization, politics, new technologies, economy or personality cults, we speak of systems of communication. For example, globalization is equivalent to information, regardless of the topic that might be involved. The Arab Spring was a revolution initiated by and expanded through informational technology—the internet and its various systems, mobile phones of every design, and contacts with the rest of the world by means of media outlets, communicating a request to pressure the governments involved for change. It is possible to include in communicative systems just about anything produced by the Western world today. But before entering this discussion it is advisable to point out that the pre-outstanding shift in communication toward the notion that any factor, inserted

1 Is Everything Communication?

5

into a system, communicates its message across the entire system. Of course, this view came from the study of languages. In this area, the major impact arose from research in the field of linguistics. The simple observation of speaking and listening is sufficient to point out that a word spoken in a sentence does not gain its sense from the relationship of the words within the sentence. The sentence is not the only aspect from which the dead, individual word receives its life; a more important aspect plays a dominant role, namely the system of the total given linguistic field carried by a tradition and present to the speaker and hearer. The total linguistic field is the condition for understanding. On the other hand, this means that any changes in individual components of the field will change the entire field. A famous example that resonated through the modern West was Friedrich Nietzsche’s proclamation that, God is dead. This means that if we delete the word “God” nothing will remain the same, which transforms the meaning of terms such as moral, value, political, ritualistic. Simple pronouncements such as, “if there is no God everything is permitted”, tell the story. The same holds for all modern factors, above all technology. Much has been said about technological transfer from the West to other parts of the world, such that an introduction of a specific technological means will change an entire communicative process of a given life world. Whether it is a tractor, cell phone or a computer, once introduced into a given life world the world can never be the same again. In the remote mountain villages of Peru or Guatemala, the people now possess seemingly innocent objects such as cell phones, but they no longer gather in traditional meeting places. Instead, they meet on cell phones and the old places are abandoned. In brief, even the social structures of space and time are transfigured. The issues arise with communication science specifically when science assumes the modern prejudgment that all explanations must be “empirical.” Hence, there is no need to engage in the old controversy that empiricism as a theory cannot be verified. While in principle this observation is correct, for communication science more important issues arise. First, the scientific method as evidenced in mathematics (especially statistics), tells us nothing about communication. Let us consider, “God is dead” and ask how it can illustrate the issue. Communication scientists ask a group to respond to a questionnaire, “is God dead or not” and then correlate the answers statistically, i.e. 83% say, no, 7% say, yes, and 10% say, no opinion. However, what do I know about the question and what does it communicate? To be precise, nothing at all. Another simple case might be where wave frequencies are monitored by studying communication between satellites and TV stations. The result is a statistical distribution of such frequencies rather than discussion of what messages these frequencies carry. This would be analogous to the statistical analysis of the distribution of alphabetical letters on a newspaper page: how many a, b, c…, u, v, y, z without telling what words and sentences are formed and what they say. Briefly stated, the fundamental dimension of communication is completely excluded, leading to the conclusion that for any daily and even scientific communication about something, such studies are irrelevant. Consider this: an understanding of certain pages of a journal article is not the sum of the letters on each page, but something more—it is an understanding of the meaning as a whole. So, the poor scientist would have to count how many a’s, b’s etc. are on each page and then pronounce, “I understand.”

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No ordinary person and no scientist would be so irrational as to make such a pronouncement. Thus, a philosophical argument must enter and demonstrate that there is a difference between the carrier of a message, and the message itself, such that the latter must mean something, signify states of affairs, disclose a theme, point to acts, and so on. In brief, to study the messenger is inadequate; one must also study the message. Enter philosophical arguments, used since the classical philosophical tradition and continued by phenomenology: it is possible to change the carrier without changing the message, such as using entirely different languages and yet offering the same message: “It is raining”, “Lyja,” “Es regnet,” and so on. To count the letters and their distributions would not tell us anything about the message. Hence, there appears a communicative dimension that “means” something, which intends some objective presence as a referent of the message. Any argument against the message as meaning, introduces a meaningful message. This is a philosophical principle we call self-inclusion. Question 3 T. K. John Fiske (2010) mentions two schools of communications, including process and the semiotic. However, we can and will, speak about hermeneutic, existential, phenomenological and other aspects. As a result, we face a multiplicity of understandings in what we mean by communication. Is this diversity a result of sciences’ differentiation, or does it tell us about different sources united by our understanding of communication? A. M. That there are various communication theories suggests that no single theory is adequate, since none asks a basic question: given two communication theories each proposing an inclusive explanation, what is the communicative process on the basis, of which there is a debate between two theories? Let us assume that each theory claims to be a metalanguage that encompasses and explains any and all communicative events, and that the proponents of each metalanguage propose to show that one of them is all-inclusive. The question is not answered—and philosophy must raise such a question, what language is used to articulate either metalanguage and is taken for granted as a condition for communication about the two metalanguages? If it is another metalanguage, then we confront an infinite regress. Concerning the possibility of hermeneutical theory the question arises how to solve the hermeneutical debate among the proponents of various hermeneutical positions: there is historical hermeneutics, philosophical hermeneutics, methodological hermeneutics, etc., each arguing for the primacy of its own position. Yet, all of them face a common issue since everything is linguistic interpretation and thus there are no extra-linguistic criteria to judge which theory of interpretation is true. This begs another question regarding necessity and contingency. If a given tradition comprises the necessary conditions for all understanding, then, given that there are other traditions with the same claim, the result is that all traditions are contingent. With respect to phenomenology it is essential to point out that for communication it is not another theory, but rather a way

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to access phenomena required to explicate any objectivity, subjectivity, or a subject matter precisely the way that the three mentioned topics appear in themselves. Moreover, explication of one level of a subject matter might disclose other levels, requiring the phenomena capable of disclosing such levels. Phenomena are not features or characteristics of things but the ways that things are experienced and precisely the ways that a specific domain demands. Thus, physical objects will appear from different perspectives and various sides, wherein perspectives are not features of a physical thing but phenomena required to disclose a physical thing. One must walk around in order to form other perspectives of the “same thing.” Meanwhile if one is concerned with the topic of mathematics, then one will have to form very different phenomena to access mathematics. One will have to learn addition, subtraction, formation of number sequence, but one will not be required to form perspectives to disclose mathematics. In short, one need not and, indeed, cannot walk around 2 + 2 = 4, for example. In this sense phenomenology at the level of methodology, communicates the subject matter and the phenomena needed to make the subject matter available to anyone, despite differences in cultural frameworks and languages. People in India, China or Japan, do walk around tables and trees, see them from different sides and perspectives and thus demonstrate that they, too, are confronted with a subject matter that requires a formation of phenomena which disclose a given subject matter. If we turn to theoretical or philosophical phenomenology, then we must present arguments showing that there are various regions of objectivity, irreducible one to the other requiring a constitution of different phenomena for access to such regions. Thus, logic as an objective region is neither identical to nor accessible through physics, just as logic or mathematics are not identical to or can be derived from psychology. The latter might be one region of investigation, but accessing psychology is not psychological. If a person claims, “she is confused,” her “looking at” her psychological state of confusion, is not confused. Of course, communicating the meaning of phenomenological theory requires a transcendental constitution of phenomena that would disclose such a theory. The term constitution does not mean construction, which is usually associated with such claims as the “social construction of reality” (Berger and Luckmann 1966). Rather, there is no doubt at all that reality is present; what we do is constitute the phenomena—such as perspectives—that allow us to access reality without any obfuscations. In this sense, transcendental constitution of phenomena is a way of disclosing the very principles of reality—in many cases by engaging in philosophical arguments to show what some theories of reality assume, but cannot explain. Thus, if one level of contemporary communication research claims to be empirical, then phenomenology wants to know how communication is at all possible. Empirical experiences are dramatically individual; no one can have the same empirical experience as someone else. The recourse to the formation of general empirical propositions is impossible on empirical grounds, since the propositions, formed of marks on paper, or sounds, as empirical, have nothing general about them. If one has recourse to “concepts” that remain identical through the variations among marks on paper or vocal sounds, then one has introduced a factor that empiricism cannot account for. This means that empirical reality in the form offered by empirical theory is inadequate. We refer to this simple argument as transcendental. Whenever

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there is debate between two theoretical positions, the communicative level of the discourse does not belong to either theory because the debate is transcendental. Question 4 T. K. “Communication” means the exchange of roles, participating in a social community, a sexual relationship, trade exchange, the forms of delivering ideas, technological channels of connection, and delivering during war. Does this disturb or help such ambiguity to understand communication? Let us not forget Heidegger, for whom ambiguity is non-existential. What are the interconnections between communication and existence? A. M. The question centres on the means of communication, the message and their existential nexus. To begin with, there is a great variety of means of communication, including the contemporary global superhighway which includes visual, audial, even tactile media, and these media are indifferent as to the messages they carry—from commerce, through personal “selfie” images, all the way to military, political and clandestine. In short, such media can be used to send images of some child showing what she has for lunch, to spying on government figures of a foreign nation. While being a means to an end they are also a message, signifying various levels have Western-modern and postmodern civilization. First, there is the ontology that states that the world is material and matter can be reshaped in accordance with human needs. Secondly, reshaping requires a method, which is modern metaphysics in the form of mathematics or formal systems—they are instruments of calculation of material possibilities. Third, every reconstruction of the material environment by modern ontology and metaphysics signifies progress, upon which is based various utopian aims and historical directions. This suggests that every means of communication signifies progress and new communicative possibilities, specifically designated as more convenient, more efficient and more inclusive. We had print media, then audio media (radio), then audio-visual, television, audio media via telephones, typewriters and photography—each area progressing at its own pace and in its own way. But then computers came along, replacing typewriters, and postal mail with e-mail. The news on television and internet has led to four, integrated media, so that mobile phones gave way to I-pads that can be a computer, photo-shop, television, phone, calculator, library, news medium, chat room, text messaging, traffic directions, and Skype. Endless progress and progressions! Of course, the result would appear to be panopticon where everyone is being seen, both for protection and for control. Another result is exposure of everyone to mass information and the “citizen as journalist”, starting in the United States in what has become known as “me-journalism” and which is now almost universal. The latter means that given the overwhelming ocean of information the individual selects what they find to be a confirmation of an acceptable ideology. A great many conservatives and liberal progressives alike do not consider different ideological views on many important issues, but tend to access their own

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media which they regard as a true representation of world events. The result is no dialogue. In this sense, we get to the question, what is the content of these progressive highways of communication available to everyone? The sheer amount of content is overwhelming, ranging from personal gossip posted on the internet, popular programs, exotic advertisements, diverse news, promotions of ideologies, personality cults, to contradictory scientific claims and research propaganda. The recipient is obliged to digest this enormous flood without any criterion to gauge whether the content is true or not. Of course, the stock answer is that the individual must use their own judgement to decide, yet as we have already mentioned our decisions tend to rely on our ideological or mythological predispositions, including in many cases, racial, and ethnic prejudices. The latter constitute sharp divisions and social antagonisms, which are often exploited by ideologues, moralists, and advertisers. Paradoxically, democracy is seen to flourish where each individual is infallible and can accuse all others of being false and evil. This answers our question concerning existence to the extent that the latter is identical to a prejudice assumed by the individual. “I am a Christian” or “I am a capitalist”, perhaps a patriot or cosmopolitan. At issue is a hermeneutical question: does content, i.e. news, popular show, specific philosophy (since in analytic and postmodern “philosophies” anything one says is philosophy), scientific data translate other contents into its own framework? If society is composed of diverse contents—discourses—then each distinct discourse is true in its own right and must understand others in terms of its own structure. Juridical discourse will translate all others in terms of laws, while economic discourse will read everything through the prism of economics, whereas some moral discourse will interpret all others morally. Each will claim that their interpretation is foundational. Some postmodern philosopher can claim that there is an infinite being and at the same time the universe is one infinite substance, and the analyst will claim that ethics is actually genetics. There is no communication at the dialogical level where a mutual discussion of a given topic at the level of the requirements of the topic is precluded. The case with reference to Heidegger’s existentials as having dual meaning is telling. When asked if Heidegger could be translated into other languages, Heinrich Böll replied, “Heidegger could not even be translated into German.” Thus, followers of Heidegger regard their existentials as having dual meaning, and Derridians will have “difference older than being.” Michel Foucault offers his cultural unconscious, Emmanuel Lévinas will offer his infinite God showing up in the face of the other, and Daniel Dennett will find the all-encompassing scientific theory in a brain cell with no discussion permitted in the multi-monological world. Of course, there are ways out of such a world and in subsequent discussions we shall find them specifically with respect to more direct and basic levels of intercultural communication that involves unfamiliar life worlds.

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Question 5 T. K. The disturbances of communication are miscommunication, silence, onedirectional communication, and limitation, present. Should we evaluate these anomalies of communication as obstacles to be eliminated? Should we seek for pure (sterile) communication? What is—pure or ideal communication? What of surplus, and should we regard it as a disturbance of communication? A. M. There is no doubt that miscommunication is common and the most significant cause of misunderstanding. It is also the case that miscommunication can be a deliberate act and is prevalent in propaganda and advertisements. Clearly, the purpose is to mislead and obscure the subject matter central to any communication. Such misleading need not be a deliberate lie; it can rest on a genuine commitment to some unshakable belief that must be maintained and supported as the ultimate truth, requiring us to regard what others claim as false. This is prevalent in personality cults where the (proclamations) utterances of prophets, inscriptions in sacred texts, and direct calling from the highest authority must never be questioned. This form of communication is monological and absorbs all other modes either by rejecting them or by explaining them in their own terms. Such monological absorptions of the propositions that challenge the one and ultimate position appear not only in personality cults, but also in scientific positions, be they political economy, psychiatry or astronomy. For example, Marxian dialectical materialism cannot be contested without the Marxist pointing out that given your social position you must, of necessity, contest such dialectics, and by contesting you prove the correctness of materialistic dialectics. In psychiatry, if you disagree with the psychiatrist’s claims, then you are resisting your father’s authority, which is precisely what the psychiatric theory predicts—the psychiatrist is an image of your authoritarian father. Thus, there is a prevalent and hardly noticed shift away from dialogical communication toward a monological position and failure of communication. Another form of communicative disruption is proclamations of radical difference between the other and us that is inaccessible, and hence any effort to communicate would be misleading since that would constitute our unwarranted imposition of interpretation. Most personality cults postulate the “ultimate other” that cannot be understood in its own right, but only through a medium capable of sending a message in our terms. This, in fact, extends even into philosophy, such as that of Kant, wherein the thing in itself is unknowable—even if we know that it is there. Meanwhile, the medium we use to communicate this totally other, is in principle inadequate, even false, as was stated by Søren Kierkegaard, or at best misleading. This is one of the major communication issues in contemporary confrontations between the West and the members of various personality cults stemming from the Near East. Each sect, and each sub-sect appeal to the “word of the absolute” but each one has a different version of what the absolute wants. There is no way to adjudicate which of the sects are correct, since a priori it is impossible to have direct access to the Absolute. Thus

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each sect claims to have the true version and will treat such a version monologically, claiming that others are false—above all Western secularism that permits all, but adheres to none. The only communication is violence—an unmediated body of communication inscribed in flesh. There are other roadblocks to communication, and these are prescribed by deconstructive rhetoric wherein any statement cannot have any meaning since the latter must be immediately differentiated from it and its univocal sense forever deferred. There is no identity and thus no specific content with repeatable identity is possible. In this sense, there are no texts and no authors of texts, and in principle no truth or falsehood. Whatever I say is no longer what I say and no longer myself as a speaker. If this is the case, one wonders why there are so many texts and their writers to say that there are no texts and no writers. End of conversation. This is to say, philosophy, as well as the sciences, human or otherwise are impossible, because the presumed logo-centrism, containing a thesis of identity, which dominated western thought, is abolished. Of course, this claim rests on a complete lack of understanding of Western philosophy; Socrates, Plato and even Aristotle would wonder of which West might deconstruction be speaking? No doubt, there are ambiguities in any terminology, not to speak of problems of intercultural communication where translation is at best trans-creation, but even in these cases there are levels that are universal and understandable. One may speak of cultures possessing terminologies, which are unique to the members of such a culture, but even they will not walk through granite walls or fail to go around trees. Being spiritual will not help in these situations. No one walks on water or meditates sitting in flames—except, of course, in spiritual fairy tales. There might be bodily gestures, which are unique to a culture and must be learned in order to avoid serious misunderstanding. To be acceptable, in Japan one must learn how and to whom to bow, and in Islam when to live on one’s knees. But we all know how to bow and to kneel as body postures. Indeed, body communication is primordial and universal, including our oriented space with six dimensions, and oriented time. Question 6 T. K. What means of communication could be presentational, representational, mechanical or another? A. M. The means depend on the ontological and epistemological assumptions. The classical understanding regarding any means included language, art, and theory, as a direct presentational function of the perceived world. Thus, the means were not a hindrance to disclose what the world is in itself. One basic condition for such a presentational disclosure was free and unconcerned regard which excluded all human interests and the treatment of communicative means as an instrument for the sake of human needs. Such instrumentality to the modern West moved from the very beginning of philosophy and science as a means of changing the world. Presentational media are phenomena which efface themselves—become anonymous—and thus are

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transparent with what appears directly through them. They have no force to obstruct the subject matter. There are the battles of giants such as Plato and Aristotle, which would point to different media leading to different interpretations and thus revealing the force of the medium, the presence of which would deflect the direct presence of the subject matter. Hence, in an open forum Plato demonstrates the presence of forms which are present, even if doubted. Aristotle contests such Platonic presence, although the contestation is not whether they are ontologically necessary, but what is their topos, their place. For Plato they belong to the topos noitos, the place accessible by the mind, for Aristotle they are given in topos oritos, the place of things. Thus, the different places do not affect the subject matter present through the media. The transparency of communication as presentational also demands a good linguistic style that, for classical tradition emerges as a close affinity between the spoken and the written language. On the other hand this relationship require intense practice in the art of public speaking. The classical Greeks provide an excellent example of this relationship. Their literature is written in their spoken style, which calls for precision, form, and clarity, and this was perfected in the public forum. Words read aloud retained the spoken melody and it was through reading that the Greeks were attuned to the spoken word. Achieving fluency in reading aloud and writing requires effort, which is fundamentally an extension of public education. The gracefulness to be found in Greek writing did not occur naturally, but followed from their wellformed and mastered skill in speaking. And this required adherence to the laws of grammar, but also the artistically mastered laws of tonality. Good prose resounds musically. One must write to a listener with artful and musical care so that communication occurs in a spoken style. The Greeks understood the importance of stylistic punctuation, tone and tempo, and very much enjoyed such qualities. Poor style results from a disconnection between the concrete spoken word and the written prose. This disconnection can emerge in a tradition in which there is no place to practice public speaking and open dialogue. After all, classical communicative style is a republican art, i.e., an art that is concerned with the res publicum, matters of the public. The development of a good style is prevented by an absence of public requirements for oratory. Thus, what remains is a writing without any acceptable norms—basically a monological style. While the relationship between the well mastered spoken word and writing is a condition of a good style, classics also stresses the unity between clarity, beauty and light grace. Strictness of thought and an ear for the rhythm of language must be incorporated to yield the unity between rational instruction and graceful expression. One must be able to use words freely, and yet be logical and have grace in style. Hegesias of Cyrene is credited with revealing the danger of poor style since it was he who stressed the effect of pure forms and the exercise of the virtuosity of formal manipulation. Like a robber, one imperceptibly attacks the feelings of the audience by selecting effective materials. This is the “corrupted eloquence”, which stems from antiquity and continues to dominate what can be termed the Baroque style. This is to say, there is an affectivity in the pleasure of abstract forms combined through verbal floritude at the expense of appropriateness in relation to the subject matter. Baroque style also abandons judgement in favour of ingenuity. This characterization is valid

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for all Baroque and non-classical rhetoric. Using this rhetorical style, the authors attempt to motivate through form and effect. For example, Richard Wagner and the French Romantics are fanatics of expression, and grand inventors of effect who seek virtuosity at any price. The isolation of the effective aspect leads to responses, which neglect both the content and the logic of good style. It is quite clear that postmodern writers are excellent masters of corrupt eloquence. The contrast between the two styles could be illuminated by a brief discussion of the essential analysis of classicism offered by Quintilian in his lnstitutio Oratoria (Goth 1970). In this work, he formulates the basic principles of classical rhetoric. According to Quintilian, there are three main “objects” that have a direct correlation to three main functions: things relate to demonstration and instruction, ethics relates to conciliation, and pathology belongs with inflection and effectivity. These on the other hand are correlated to three styles: subtle division of genera, moderation and violence. Pejorative rhetoric requires a subtle isolation of effectivity, leading to the extrication of the violent factors. Such an isolation reveals that this rhetorical style omits a fundamental condition of speech: the appropriate relationship between things and terms. It is inappropriate to focus only on terms and their effects. If there is to be a verbal virtuosity, then it must respect the coherence of things. Quintilian emphasizes things (res) and advises the rhetor to follow the solicitation of things. The “corrupt” rhetor does not address the others about things but is concerned with the effect of beautiful words. Any description, any adornment (ornamenta) must be contingent upon res if it is not to become a means of excitation leading to verbal license (licentia verborum). Such speaking would not be found upon judgement but upon ingenuity. The genius that dominates the Baroque style need not follow rules or adhere to any judgement. It is ingenious in arbitrariness and naturalness. For Quintilian such genius shows up in Ovid’s ingenious rhetorical floritude. Thus Quintilian distinguishes strictly the sober and factual judgement from an arbitrary ingenuity. The latter belongs to the modern age, specifically in its variant of lacking beauty and at the same time being remote from any judgement. One is not led by an insight into the world, but is rather enamoured by one’s own ingenuity (ingroium). The antithetical relationships of classicism and modern style, sometimes depicted as mannerism, are all inclusive. Political attitudes and understanding are equally involved. Thus, the classical rhetoric is aristocratic, requiring good taste, refinement, dedication and strength. The modem rhetorical mannerism is democratic, with confused and chaotic-democratic-tastes and unformed subject matter. All discourses and their appreciations are equal. This leads to a production of grandiose theatrical illusions where everyman’s diverse tastes are addressed and immediately satisfied. Classicism stems from genuine strength of commitment and dedication to refinement, while mannerism stems from weakness and lack of effort. The difficult path of self-mastery and submission to form and standard leads to rhetorical lightness, fluidity, and playfulness, while the easy way to effectiveness and impact leads to heaviness and dissolution. At the discursive level the extended discussion is necessary to not only show the ways of speaking, but, above all, their underlying ontologies. The classical way of speaking is presentational since it demands that the subject matter discussed is

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present. The modern mannerist style is based on ontology that is inaccessible to direct awareness and thus it must be representational. What we experience directly— since René Descartes and the empiricists, is subjective, and what is objective is inaccessible to direct experience: it must be represented. Resultantly, there is no accessible-objective domain that could offer a criterion which discourse discloses the real world or things in themselves. Since discourses are equally subjective, then they have no presentational value—they represent whatever is in the world in terms of our constructs, such that the latter can say just about anything without fear of being wrong. We end up in multi discoursivity, multi perspectivity and multi culturalism— ending up with representational thinking as simulacra—but without the original: mechanical reproduction of representations that simply point one to the other as a sequence. Question 7 T. K. What is the origin of the history of communication? Which intentions should be connected with communication? Is it possible to trace the continuity of these intentions? What approaches, schools and models of communication are possible? A. M. It is a tautology to ask when the history of communication began without involving communication. When we read any text of any period we are communicating just as much they are communicating. Perhaps the question could be focused on various interests in the ways and means of communication, explicated in various theoretical questions. As was noted in discussing this last question, there is an investigation by the Greeks as to the propriety of speaking, one with respect to matters themselves, another as a mode of creating effect. The latter is not designed for communication but for the creation of imagery, which do not present any subject matter, but rather “represent” the way that a subject matter should appear in order to effect a desired response. Contemporary advertisements are full of such rhetorical imagery, which “represent” but do not disclose the subject matter. Hence, representational rhetoric does not constitute communication but communicates influence. One of the shining examples of dialogical communication that constantly addresses a given subject matter is the Socratic way of engaging any person in the face of a topic of public significance, and which articulates the topic in terms of diverse opinions in order to test whether such opinions are adequate to disclose the essence of the topic, whether the latter is poetry, substance, law or reality. Of course, Socrates did not ask, “what is communication?” since that would involve a dialogue in circular arguments. It could be argued that the issue of communication started with the appearance of a major problem in philosophy posed by Kant. For Kant, experience requires a priori categories and structures, and empirical content. He faced a problem concerning the way that categories can be deduced to be appropriate to the empirical content. He solved this problem by employing transcendental imagination as a medium, which was adequate to show the connection between the a priori and the empirical. The

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Kantian solution was forgotten when Georg W. F. Hegel opted for pure deduction, ending up with a priori accounts of all experience, and positivism declared that empirical induction is adequate to explain our understanding of the world. Both left a gap, which neither could fill. Since philosophy was being discarded in favour of the positive sciences the only domain left was language that could fill the gap left by the two mentioned sides. Regardless of the type, philosophies became linguistic. The latter is also divided into a variety of schools, from field linguistics, through language games, to semiotics, hermeneutics, and even to deconstruction. Despite their differences, a common claim is made that all sense, all concepts, all rules of understanding inhere in language, and more recently in culture. In this sense, the transcendental problematic seems to be surpassed, since there is no need for a subject that gives meaning to events. Hence, to understand communication one must study language. We find the sense of events in historical tradition and cultural contexts—all of them framed in a language. This is the major impetus from which to begin communication studies that need no scientific confirmation, since sciences are also engaged in forming their views on the basis of specific language. For sciences, positivism investigates the logic of sciences, while for humanities are engaged in all other forms of language analyses, and indeed to do scientific research in all the above-mentioned theories of language. Officially, communication study programs emerged with the training of debating teams, leading to programs of rhetorical studies, interpersonal communication, all the way to scientific research using the methods of quantification and statistics— without any content. Thus, communication scientists are not concerned as to what somebody said, or what does that mean, but with how many people said yes and how many said no to some question. These communication researchers want to make their field into objective science. As we know, this method is totally dependent on modern ontology and hence cannot be universal; cross-cultural communication would not be possible on such a “scientific” basis. On the other hand, some programs extended the rhetorical studies to include other theories of language—hermeneutics, semiotics, structuralism, ending up in cross cultural communication and even journalism. In the United States, every major university has these features, in many cases forming interdisciplinary programs, including computer sciences, video production, and even political communication. Moreover, each program allows faculty members from other disciplines to participate in forming other avenues of communication—disciplines such as philosophy offering logic and other mentioned theories of language and experience. For a while, Jürgen Habermas left an impact by showing that in late capitalism there is a need for communicative competence, whether in the areas of bargaining for wages or engaging in new technologies, and the latter might include all forms of relationships under communication. Question 8 T. K. According to Peters (1999), the intention to communicate with the other side has formed the major part of communication science despite the changed

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subject. What role did the attempt play in helping us to get in touch with entities from the other side (God, angels, spirits, aliens) in the process of the development of communication understanding? A. M. “The other side” is prevalent across most civilizations and is premised on a hermeneutical context either poles or dualities. In the Middle Eastern tradition, there is the hierarchy of beings, with a paternal figure above all others, and the demonic figure below. The difference between the two contexts is this: the first— polar—allows the images of the poles to shift positions: the high can become the low, and the low—high, while in the dual, there is a strict separation and one cannot become the other. Thus, in the polar context, light changes to dark and dark to light, divinities fall and become demonic, and demons rise and become divine. There are various ways that communication takes place between the poles or dualities as a common and everywhere present history of aesthetics: music, rituals, fables, fairy tales, paintings and messengers. Let us take some examples. In the Andes Mountains of Peru at a place called a place of apparition, eight blinding figures sent by Intl showed up. Intl was the solar divinity that pronounced that the people are promised a land at the centre of which they must build a capital, Cusco, for the Inca Empire. What is significant is that those eight figures could not be seen, although the edicts and the stories that flowed from them must be obeyed and rituals performed as a means of communication with the other world from which these figures descended. The grand temples, the rituals, the shamans, prayers, visions in a state of trance, sacrifices are the ways through which communication takes place. Meanwhile, in the Middle East a story is told of a man named Abraham who hears a voice telling him to establish a tribe, which will be protected by the source of the voice on condition that the tribe worship and glorify that source, calling itself Lord, Master, Yahweh. All the stories, rituals, supplications, sacrifice, shamanic and prophetic pronouncements, the daily routines, are ways of communicating with the images invented in the story of Abraham. Here, Abraham has a direct communication with his Lord, to such an extent that they are in contact with each other, although quite often mediated by some winged figure. After all, no one of the tribe has ever seen or met Abraham, but the story, or fable, opens communicative variations with “The Lord” who is deemed to be on the other side. Of course, there are figures which can communicate the messages from the other side to “the people;” such figures are prophets—Moses, Jesus, Mohammed—who are sent or selected by the other side to give us “the message.” But even these figures require mediation, so that winged beings, birds, bushes, Greeks had their Hermes, were empowered to translate the messages from the other side in human terms. It is possible to push the other side to such an extreme that it becomes inaccessible to humans, although allowing communication through blind faith. The other side is absolute transcendence, at times a mystery or veiled in Maya. Here we encounter Kierkegaard’s biblical father, absolute and infinite, but who remains totally inaccessible to finite humans. There is also Brahman of India, behind Maya, as well as the other, the Hebrew Jahveh of Lévinas, each completely incomprehensible, but

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also the necessary source of everything. Even the personages of media, the shamans, various holy texts written by humans, are of no help. Some unique modes of communication with the other side are offered by numerous Protestant sects, where each person is his own priest and can talk directly with the Lord or with Jesus. In brief, each can tell what a specific conversation was, the direct answer from above, such as being forgiven, or being instructed what to do. For members of such sects the Biblical texts are neither interpretations nor to be interpreted: they are unmediated words of the Lord. Yet another mode is “becoming one with” the being of the other side. In some Christian sects one takes communion, which means that the person becomes one with the figure of the other side, i.e. the body of Jesus, thereby assuming his very powers. A different variant of such being one with the other side is in Indi, where the individual, called Atman can merge with Brahman, a kind of mystical union, and thus become Brahman. “As a bracelet melts into gold, as a wave melts into the ocean, so Atman melts into Brahman.” Most cultures are replete with communication experiences that involve those who “have crossed over to the other world” Friends, family members, perhaps great heroes, can be called upon for advice, help, and consolation that he or she is “watching over us.” Such departed may also appear as spirits or ghosts who need help to be completely released from “this side”. They have to finish some business before they can depart completely into the other world. These forms of popular communication fill volumes of fairy tales and are minor variations of the major fairy tales. Yet these minor forms in the main require some sort of medium—a person who is receptive and can allow the spirit to enter his or her body and speak to gathered friends and relatives. Of course, there must be created another medium, the entire atmosphere, the darkness illuminated by flickering candle light, the holding of hands, the medium’s transformed ghostly voice, as if the entire room was “another world.” The basis for communication with the other side is disclosed by modern theories of language. According to most of these theories, human experience is structured, composed and articulated by a given language, such that, as Heidegger stated, “The world is not made of atoms but of stories.” In this sense, humans read, study and live in their literatures, and most of such literatures include fabulous images of beings other than ourselves, and draw us to participate in the imagery of the stories. We live those stories and communicate within their contexts with whatever images are depicted. If language is coextensive with experience, then we are “inside the stories”, containing both this and the other side. A few examples serve to illustrate the point. The world of Islam is depicted in the outstanding text, Koran, which is where we find the prophet receiving instructions from the other side communicated by a winged being—Gabriel. The prophet finds himself being taken to the other world to meet other prophets—Moses, Jesus, etc., all of whom belong to the fairy tale of Abraham. Yet, why does not Mohamed meet Krishna, the avatar of Brahman? The reason is that Mohamed lived in the Abrahamic fairy tale and communicated within its context, living those images. Why is it that in Mahabharata Krishna and not Gabriel instructs Arjuna, and why Mary appears to Catholics but not to Protestants? The answer is because Protestants excluded Mary from being a significant image. She does not

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belong to the Protestant story; just as neither Brahman nor Krishna appear in the Abrahamic story. No messages from Brahman can instruct Westerners about the other world, and no Mary appeared in traditional India.

References Berger, Peter L., and Thomas Luckmann. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books. Fiske, John. 2010. Introduction to Communication Studies. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Goth, Joachim. 1970. Nietzsche und die Rhetoric. Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. Peters, John D. 1999. Speaking Into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Question 9 T. K. What are the ethical aspects of communication and their ethical limits? Does the notion of dialogue cover the broad spectrum of morality? What ethical dangers are there in the culture of media and in our attempt to communicate effectively? A. M. There are many ethical theories. Some philosophy departments have broad programs called professional ethics that include medicine, business, politics, communication and journalism. Let us start with journalism and broaden the scope to end with the question of dialogue and its possible hindrances. Journalistic ethics is possible only in political societies having an open public sphere where a journalist can and must discover specific states of affairs, which they are called upon to report. The state of affairs can be anything from scientific discoveries to some claim or promise by a public servant. Such reporting is required in all cases that have public content. Thus, any private event or subject matter that does not enter the public sphere does not belong to journalism, but to gossip news media. This means that a journalist has a duty to exclude their own ideological, moral, social, economic, religious positions in order to make certain that the state of affairs is presented to the public as it is. This responsibility is valid in dialogical correlation. Given that the public domain is the basic institution, other institutions flowing from such an arena may well vary: presidential, prime ministerial, judiciary, and parliamentary versions may be established. All of these are a question of convenience, size of population, and efficiency. Nonetheless, even political society must maintain public dialogue, although this is not a necessary consequence of the freedom of expression of each member of the political community. This freedom can be exercised without political dialogue; individuals may say whatever they please.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 T. Kaˇcerauskas and A. Mick¯unas, In Between Communication Theories Through One Hundred Questions, Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41106-0_2

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Furthermore, political dialogue is not designed to function as free self-expression, but as a basic political institution. Some of the following considerations ought to clarify this concept. Let us assume that one form of political society deals with its public affairs by establishing an institution of representative government. To be democratic, this government must meet certain conditions. First, any person appointed by the public is allowed to perform only what the public requests. All other activities purported to be for the sake of the public good are illegitimate. This stems from the view that the sole source of legitimation is public agreement. Public officials do not lead but serve. Second, an election is a dialogical process. Persons, offering to serve the public, present their solutions to what they believe are important questions. If a person is appointed to office, such proposals become a covenant. This means that since the public agreed with the proposals and placed a candidate in office, that person is duty bound to carry out the proposals. Any failure to do so is equivalent to breaking a binding agreement. These officials are derelict in their duty and have no legitimate claim to remain in office, and must be dismissed from or leave immediately. Depending on public agreement, they might be prosecuted for criminal activities, i.e. for breaking the agreement with the public. Third, persons who appear to serve the public should not only submit their proposals, but in light of public debates and input should modify them. Dogmas of all types, whether ideological or moralistic, should not be treated as universal truths, but rather as one person’s proposals, open to possible modifications once they are exposed to public debate. In a political society, a candidate’s duty is not to expound on future hope and grand visions, such as “my dream of a better life,” or “don’t worry, be happy,” but should articulate and communicate their concerns in public to reach an acceptable platform. This means that political dialogue is responsible for all the statements that are made. Yet, in this sense private interests motivated by causes and irrational drives conceal, if not abolish, rational, logical, and the free discussion of issues. Discussions need not be simplistic or without controversies, yet public discussion requires that political dialogue must be understood. This dialogue is triadic: someone speaks to someone about something. The something is the subject matter of concern, which is addressed by a speaker and the public, although not as a passive listener but as an active partner. The dialogical process avoids the surface view and is often paraded as fair and objective, so that if two opposing opinions are presented then the public has an understanding of an issue. A competent dialogue requires a thorough exposition of the subject matter prior to its obfuscation by so-called “different viewpoints” (Scudder and Mickunas 1985). A simple exposition of positions does not constitute objective information; the subject matter of each position is the essential component. On the other hand, direct participation in the public sphere demands that the public recognize the subject matter being discussed. Full rationality requires nothing less. It would be nonsense to debate public policy on nuclear energy without a thorough articulation of its effects, benefits, and risks as a form of energy. Clearly, the duty of everyone, and above all a candidate for office who claims to possess an ability to serve the public, is to be well versed in the important issues and be able to present these topics for public consideration.

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We must understand that political dialogue as public dialogue is not simply about politics. As was argued above, the political is the public domain of autonomous and equal persons. Hence, political dialogue pertains to concerns that are significant to the public. Such an understanding excludes all informal arguments and the psychologization of issues (Hurley 1988). The term psychologization covers emotional appeals as well as rhetorical exhortations related to the use of images, rituals, and slogans. This modus operandi is not intended to treat the individual as autonomous and rational, but as subject to manipulations and irrational outbursts. In effect, public issues are obfuscated. Soliciting such reactions is a mode of modern, though not classical, rhetoric (Silverman 1988). In the latter one finds a detached reasonableness and a clear discursive practice founded on rules, while in the former disconnected and psychologically overladen speech that is designed to make a direct impact is dominant, and thus the autonomous political process is subverted. Publicly appointed figures, or those running for public office who engage in this level of rhetorical obfuscation, should disqualify themselves from public service. This claim carries no moralistic undertones, but follows from the principle that the political is primarily public, and relates to proposals for open discussions about public matters. No such justification as state secrets (known only to the leaders) can be used either to prevent public debate or to avoid addressing important public concerns. The latter practice assumes that it is only officialdom that can decide what is in everyone’s interest. Such paternalism is modelled on the mistaken view of the political state as a family. Certainly, the temptation is to reject involvement in politics and leave these activities to government, in which case the citizen has duties but relinquishes their rights. This tendency may appear even in a representative democracy, especially if representatives assume that leaders exercising their wisdom can resolve public problems. This ideology is dangerous when a charismatic representative appeals to the public, for the simple reason that it allows them to pursue undebated a personal dogma, which often ends badly if we consider examples of popular leadership in recent decades. In a political society, the press is not free to print or show anything at random. Instead, various events are supposed to be reported as they occur. It is important to note that there are various epistemological arguments concerning the possibility of reporting events without interpretive mediation, and this should encourage the public to remain critical. Yet, the principle remains specifically in the domain of public affairs: in order to participate in the public domain, every person ought to be informed about publicly relevant affairs. This knowledge, and its transmission by mass media, is a fundamental public institution of democracy. Indeed, one could plausibly contend that the transmission of information is coextensive with the continuous establishment and maintenance of the autonomous source of all laws and legitimation. An uninformed citizen is hardly in a position to comprehend public issues and to form a rational judgment. Moreover, this very knowledge is a condition for public dialogue, debate, and adjudication. The public domain and its participants as a process of constant self maintenance includes, at its core, the necessity for information that is available to everyone, not simply for the sake of extraneous purposes,

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but as part of the ethos of democratic activity. This may be a difficult point to convey in an age that assumes the legitimacy of interest-laden, technical, and purposive rationality. Yet, to speak in terms of mass media, the argument could be made that irrespective of the type of information, knowledge is offered for its own sake as an exercise of universal freedom to bring into the public domain the voices that create and maintain the polity. As was noted with respect to the dialogical domain, press freedom does not originate with the right to free expression, but from the necessity in a political society to establish the public domain as a place for free and mutual understanding and the adjudication of issues. Thus, what is called the free press should be the facilitator of dialogue and, as an institution, play a leading role in keeping this discourse open and public. The activity of a free press is coextensive with political ethos. If the press has the freedom to report and to inform then members of the press have an obligation and duty to defend the public arena wherein open and uncompelled debates take place. In a political society the institution of a free press is one of the basic modes of communication. There is no such thing as apolitical reporting. That is to say, at this level the free press is basically political communication before any question of ideology or any other agenda. As a major avenue of political communication, a free press is not restricted to reporting what occurs at public gatherings or what office holders may say. In a political society, any activity or proposal that enters the public domain must become a public concern to be adjudicated openly. Even so-called private enterprise is an aspect of political agreement, where the latter delimits what areas shall be deemed private or public. No doubt, the common wisdom that claims free enterprise leads to universal freedom must be questioned; the very designation of private is a political activity. Moreover, the idea that the interest laden social domain will lead to an autonomous political society is a contradiction. The continuous origination of a political society defies all social functions based on instrumental rationality. Yet, within a political society various technical processes are a matter for public discussion. As indicated earlier any interest that enters the public arena becomes subject to the citizenry and, by extension, to the free press. In democracy, the public must be informed and the ethos of free press requires the reporting of events that interest the public. Crucial to the coextension between democracy as its own purpose and the free press as an institution, is the principle that whenever members of the press publish information, they become part of developing and maintaining the autonomous public domain. The public’s right to information is not natural, but political. Personally, it might be more convenient and beneficial to a member of the press to serve the interests of the public officials and their friends by publishing the “right” stories. Yet such a subjection becomes instrumental, purposive, and interest laden, and thus social and not political. A press that is subjected to these conditions is no longer a part of the political domain, but merely markets specific commodities owned by a seller. This type of newspaper falls into the realm of advertisement that sells designer news or, put simply, technical knowledge to public officials, which is counter to public interests. Thus, a free press is not saying whatever one wills, but serving the public domain and its dialogical autonomy.

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While we must report the news, we need not stop at this level. A truly free press is also responsible for informing the public what officials are hiding behind the obfuscations, theatrics, and equivocations. At the same time, what is relevant to the public must be exposed to ensure that public figures explain their rhetoric or the introduction of myths, moralities, or ideologies into the public arena (Schrey 1970). Clearly, the institution of the free press is one of the key institutions of political society, and is linked inextricably to the continuous maintenance of such a polity. There can be no doubt that autonomy, responsibility and rights co-exist with knowledge. Ignorant people cannot make judgments in public dialogue without running the risk of being misled by all manner of rhetorical ploys and manipulation of interests. Education is a process that extends from authority to autonomy—the rational and free adjudication of issues based on knowledge. One must move through authority by those who know a subject matter and are capable of articulating its intricacies, whether in sciences, literatures, social affairs, and even public institutions. But one must also depart from being subjected to authority by mastering issues and complexities in principle of different fields of knowledge so as to make rational, and thus autonomous decisions. Without such a process a person cannot be responsible for their decisions, since the latter is blind and irrational. In this sense education is another institution that is coextensive with the public domain of dialogue, and ultimately autonomy and responsibility. This extends into the very domain of universal human rights to education as a continuation of all other rights to be autonomous, equal, and a responsible member of the human public community. This is important in an age where such public domain and universal rights to autonomy and equality are under assault from technocracy and the materialistic reductionism of all functions of human life to merely cause and effect, and thence irresponsibility. Question 10 T. K. While contradicting Heidegger’s ontological priorities, Lévinas raises the matter of Other and stresses the priority of ethics. Is ethics a necessary condition of communication? How can Other be said to communicate? A. M. Dialogue is possible only in democratic societies that were born from the creation of a radically different human self-understanding of what are society and all human relationships—a unique eidos. The eidos of the democratic revolution is equality through freedom. Yet, the equalities established by freedom endanger freedom. One wants to be free in order to be equal, however once equality takes root freedoms begin to shrink. The French Revolution showed that at one stroke the people acquired freedom, but having established equality they abolished freedom. But what is more troublesome and unintended is the tendency of equality toward the median, the average, and a distrust of any outstanding, or at least publicly unglorified personalities. This does not lead to a blatant tyranny, does not abolish public institutions, but applies peaceful pressure against

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freedom. Of course, freedom can never vanish in a political society that maintains hard-won equality, otherwise equality could not long survive without the former. Thus, democracy is criss-crossed by two trends: on the one hand, the trend calling for the centralization of political power and the direction from such a power in order to maintain equality, and a tendency to demand freedom. One usually thinks that these different trends could be mediated by the election of the occupants of political power positions, leading to a seeming combination between central power and freedom. But what does it mean for a citizen to enter the public arena for one moment to elect the officials and then to disappear back into social life and its numerous interests? Periodic elections do not necessarily guarantee that the central power will act democratically, but may give the citizen the pretence of participation while at the same time weakening his political will. The latter is always exposed to dissolution with a simple refusal to vote. This is to say; the citizen enters into the public arena because of the pressure from mass opinion propagandized by mass media—the vote. But these momentary excursions do not demand that the citizen be aware as a participant in the public domain by exercising their political thinking and activities. Lacking this, the citizen begins to mix the political with the social, which leads to them believing that the political is a panacea for social issues, or perhaps something controlled by the others who have higher social positions and a controlling influence in the public domain. The latter view leads the citizen to believe that they cannot win against the socially powerful and it is best that they leave the political alone. Having been told that the issues are vast and complex—almost cosmic in scope—citizens come to believe that they are accessible only to experts and not to persons whose political concerns should be focused on “local budget.” At the same time “the man on the street” is asked their opinion on every subject matter and this opinion becomes the standard of truth for the day. Having asked the central government to exclude the citizen from participation, except on election day, we are asking non-participating citizens to offer an opinion on all public matters. Moreover, the centralized powers would find it difficult to deal with a public that is both politically and judgmentally incapacitated, or politically and judgmentally sophisticated. In the case of the former, the appointed officials would have to attempt to constantly guess what is the public whim of the momentum, and at the same time reduce the operations of the public arena in order to make them appear as if they were responses to, for example, “this is what the people want.” In the second instance, the centralized power would be on constant notice regarding its operations; the appointed officials would be compelled to adhere to the public duties for which they were appointed. Are these states of affairs in a democratic polis a permanent condition, or can they be so constituted as to avoid the pitfalls suggested above? The democratic revolution takes for granted that there is no rigid or fixed form that democracy should assume; instead it remains open and variable. Usually, there is a concern with the well being of the public, but not an overly great concern with grand purposes. The individual is independent, although the social enterprises tend to subsume and exercise power over them. While customs are established and maintained they do not have the force of law or inevitability. Even the laws have become humane, guaranteeing not only rights but also many other amenities such

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as protections against social powers and their incursion into private lives, or the possibility of public education without ideological impositions and manipulations. Of course, life lacks the magnificence that was once the province of the rulers, at the expense of the ruled. Whatever remains of ceremonial differences is simply a residuum of previous undemocratic times. Equality, in short, is abolishing such differentiations. The abolition is no longer the task of a few dedicated individuals, but an effort of civic duty performed by many, such as educators, the latter regarded as a way of increasing equalization through educational advances. Indeed, while social classes still exist, politically one should note an increasing necessity for crosssocial work and cooperation. The call for increasing knowledge in order to be able to participate more fully in the polis is universal; what remains is its full implementation. This can no longer be avoided. Of course, in this situation neither an individual nor a group can make any claims as to whither we are tending or what is our destiny. These notions are decided provisionally with constant shifts in aims and means. Novelty itself seems to be the main outline of the democratic life. The eidos of freedom and equality is constantly split and hence their unity and balance is the responsibility of free press, not only as a continuation of public education, but also as a guarantee that freedom should not dominate equality or vice-versa. For example, the Soviet Union was one society among many that claimed to be one of equals excluding the revolutionary elite, although without public freedom, while American capitalism promoted freedom and allows equality of suffering. The free press is required to note which side is usurping the political fabric and showing what the government is doing could restore ways the balance. Thus, is it favouring one over the other and what must the public do to bring society back into equilibrium? Within a political society various technical processes are open to public discussion. As indicated earlier, any interest that enters the public arena inevitably becomes subject to the citizenry and, by extension, to the free press. In a democracy the public must be informed and the ethos of a free press requires the reporting of events that interest and affect the public. Obviously, most citizens are not versed in diverse scientific and technical fields, and are discouraged from participation in the decision-making process, and to which only scientific experts have access. All is well, however scientific experts are a part of society and their creations must be evaluated by different criteria: evaluation as to the positive or negative effects of such inventions on the public in general. To evaluate means to understand such inventions in terms of “hermeneutical journalism” that is capable of translating the meaning of the “mysterious words” of scientific divinities for our humble understanding. It is not enough to let these divinities run our public affairs, because most are not qualified to do so—as the Cold War demonstrated. Crucial to the coextension between democracy as its own purpose and the free press as an institution, is the principle that whenever members of the press publish information, they become part of developing and maintaining the autonomous public domain. The public’s right to information is not natural, but political. Personally, it might be more convenient and beneficial to a member of the press to serve the interests of the public officials and their friends by publishing the “right” stories. Yet such a subjection becomes instrumental, purposive, and interest laden, and thus social

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and not political. A press that is subjected to these conditions is no longer a part of the political domain, but merely markets specific commodities owned by a seller. This type of newspaper falls into the realm of advertisement that sells designer news or, put simply, technical knowledge to public officials, which is counter to public interests. Thus, a free press is not saying whatever one wills, but serving the public domain and its dialogical autonomy. While we must report the news, we need not stop at this level. A truly free press is also responsible for informing the public what officials are hiding behind the obfuscations, theatrics, and equivocations. At the same time, what is relevant to the public must be exposed to ensure that public figures explain their rhetoric or the introduction of myths, moralities, or ideologies into the public arena (Schrey 1970). Clearly, the institution of the free press is one of the key institutions of political society, and is linked inextricably to the continuous maintenance of such a polity. It will not do to argue that currently the main mass media is dominated by huge, interest-laden enterprises, which present prejudicial views to serve such interests. Alternative media must have an equal voice to present other viewpoints. No doubt, it is important to note that the very institution of the public domain allows alternative media to have a say and maintain a plural public. Yet, it must also be clear that while the mainstream media might be dominated by interests, it cannot be counted as journalistic mass media intended to maintain the public domain of autonomy and equality, but simply as a social and private institution engaged in advertising private ideologies, moralities and other designer wares. If the alternative media are to serve the public domain, it cannot fall into the same trap of presenting their own private and social interests, but must counter mainstream media by filling the gap where the mainstream has failed. Question 11 T. K. Is communication a prophylaxis of the deficit of sociality and of social alienation? What role does the social environment play in communication? Are social conventions directed against entropy and chaos? A. M. The theory of natural individualism where a human being lives alone, struggling for survival, and who subsequently forms a society by agreeing on conventional norms, is a modern Western fable. More precisely, it is a modern atomistic ontology where the world is a sum of unrelated individual atoms. It assumes that an individual lives alone and, in a strange way, already has a language required to form agreements with others and thus establish a society. In brief, we know how to communicate with others prior to being with them. But if others are required to understand communication, then it is a priori granted that communication and social interaction are coextensive. Even to “speak with yourself” is to assume that you are speaking with the other, different from yourself. In this sense, the recognition of oneself is always correlated to the recognition of the other. Here atomistic individualism

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is a priori impossible. One need not invent a theory of society, and then a theory of communication, and finally a theory how a society and communication can be joined. Self and other are found in all social phenomena present in things. To speak as Heidegger might: while picking up a hammer, I find the craftsman who made the hammer handy; when I travel in the Alps during a storm, I find a hut with a stack of fire wood left by the other for a traveller, and when I leave the hut, I shall make more firewood for the other who will need a shelter and a warm fire. This is sociality and communication, and no human lives without such a social-communicative world. Moreover, communication moves through the world such that an implement points to the tasks and the tasks are understood even prior to language. To hunt an animal, one must “read the language” of the world and communicate it by silent gestures to other hunters, indicating the direction of the wind, the location of water, and hiding places. This is equivalent to raising a question concerning the origin of language. As Eugen Fink has noted, to explain language is to assume, and to use language. In this sense, communication is not an added cover of community, but community itself. The social environment does not play an external role as some sort of added influence, which might change communication. Any social environment is already understood and extends possibilities of communication, but does not add something totally foreign. If we invent new medicine and introduce it as something novel, it already belongs to our understanding as a variant of medicine and health, which belongs to our social environment. Thus, an extension of social environment by new technologies, inventions, new scientific hypotheses, will extend our social horizons and intrude into our communicative practice and allow such a practice to open possible communicative horizons, which might even transgress the present social environment. In this sense, social conventions may play a stabilizing role, but they are understood as one level of communication in correlation to other levels, wherein their inevitable intertwining will transform both without ending in chaos, or becoming totally stagnant. Some examples will help to articulate such social-communicative symbiosis. Almost all societies have communicative media, such as categories deemed to be derived from natural things: trees, animals, humans, birds, stones, bodies of water, people, and even some imagined combination of natural things. We have winged horses, and angelic people, many headed serpents, and flying carpets. Another level can be called “technical” where inventions are given names stemming from our actions or borrowed from language no longer used. Thus, we have telescope, telephone, TV combining distance with a specific sensory activity which, by itself, cannot have such distance. Yet, these terms enter other fields and transform their horizons. Telephone, distance hearing, television, distance seeing, become means of communication, extending to the economy, markets, such as telecommunication, or telemarketing, teleromance. Or a term borrowed from the past and inserted into a modern technical invention: Lithuanian gintaras (amber) was named by the Greeks bright, radiant with the word Elektra. When the specific source was harnessed to result in bright illumination, the source was designated to be electricity. Since the classical Greek term Energeia was already taken to mean energy, one simply took another ancient term Elektra to designate a source of something bright or luminescent. And these terms are part of various fields of communication, such as “the person is very energetic,” or “the performance

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was electrifying.” It is usual that a name given to a technical invention in one part of the world becomes used for that invention universally. Whether we have electricity, energy, computer, toilet, auto, aspirin, penicillin, or even scientifically discovered entities invisible to direct perception, they, too, obtain terms borrowed from earlier languages. Thus, we have atoms, bacteria, galaxy, amoeba, chemistry, physics, and matter. All such terms depended on novel social environment (basically instrumental extensions) that became coextensive with our everyday communication. In this sense, we have an understanding of social communication, which is neither rigidified nor chaotic. Meanwhile, not even natural languages are static; terms from one group of categorically named entities are extended and varied in statements referring to other entities. Some such designations may be derogatory or laudatory. We hear statements such as “Be careful, she is a real snake”, or “He is a lion.” Real ambiguities and misunderstandings usually appear in the domain of cultural meanings that contain layers of terms in literature, poetry, religions, specifically since such terms create their own content requiring imagination, paintings, fillings from different environments not found in other parts of the world. Roman Ingarden has pointed out that terms in literature or poetry convey a general sense, but the filling of it depends on the reader’s experience. One can say, “The forest is lush” and from his environment fill the meaning with birch trees. While another might have an image of jungle, and a Californian would have an image of Redwood trees. In religions content is also created and thus no agreement can be had at this level. One may say that “God is good” and yet for each religion the content might be radically different. One may think of Vishnu, Krishna, Jahweh, Allah, Lord, Master, King of Kings, being near or far. The last pope, Benedict XVI, speaking of the difference between the Catholic and Muslim God, announced that the Muslim God is very remote, while the Catholic God is close to us. If we extend cultural creations that cannot have any content, then communication is possible only in speculative terms. To say this even in scientific terms, we know that there is non-Euclidean geometry, but it is a given that we shall never enter into or have an image of how we could walk, relate, see or make sense of natural things in our Euclidean world. Question 12 T. K. What social problems do propaganda and new media solve? What is the link between communication, information and power? Is politics a form of communication? Why is there no longer a rhetoric concerning prosperous democracy? A. M. Before discussing propaganda and new media and the way they solve social problems, we must distinguish between society and political society. Most life worlds are social, composed of power relations and governed by whatever variant and/or rule. This could be autocracy, theocracy, plutocracy whereby a single person or a minority group decide all social matters, disregarding the advice or viewpoint of

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others. In these societies there is no need for rulers to justify what they say or if they engage in propaganda. Whilst they may tell lies about their activities or the state affairs of a country or empire, the general population has no way of knowing since it cannot possibly check or verify the ruler’s statements. Adolf Hitler and Josif Stalin, as well as many others, had their images and statements posted everywhere, which was intended to convey the message that the interests of the great leader were perfectly aligned with the interests of people and nation. The cinematographer, Leni Riefenstahl, made this point in her landmark propaganda documentary, Triumph of the Will (1935), which concluded by declaring that “Hitler is Germany and Germany is Hitler.” As with any other type of ‘advertisement’, this was a subtle and stylised attempt to persuade the buyer to identify with the image of the product. Thus, Hitler and Stalin are presented as being synonymous with the people and indeed, with the very movement—and moment—of history. Whatever the image or characterisation, it was carefully aligned with what the silent population wanted it to be. In today’s Russia, Vladimir Putin has no need of propaganda because the message is that he is Russia, and Russians are cheering and shouting their identity as proud Russians. With Putin it should come as no surprise that surveys show that most Russians would like to return to the Soviet system, an empire ruled by a few self-appointed autocrats and, by extension, a return to something resembling the empire of the Tsars. These concerns are modern and belong to the context of the Enlightenment of the late eighteenth century, which established a distinction between public and private domains. The Enlightenment introduced the notion of public adjudication of all issues pertaining to the rationality and plausibility of statements and public pronouncements. If we look outside this context, there is a deeper problem of propaganda to consider, specifically with regard to other historical periods and other civilizations, which leads us to the matter of cross-cultural communication. The entire medieval period of Western Europe was informed by what might be described as a fairy tale discourse of divinities, their sons, devils, prophets, heavens and hells, witches, and a hierarchy of personalities. An entire life world, no less. Could one call these discourses and images propaganda intentional and designed to mislead the population? By the same token, consider Indian history and its many civilizations replete with fabulous stories of cosmic beings whose days were numbered in hundreds of millions of years, and chains of rebirths. All of the aforementioned lived as realities. Can we really dismiss all that this civilization lived by as propaganda? If so, how would we communicate with them if we believe their statements, outstanding texts, social arrangements based on a hierarchy of fabulous beings, to be propaganda? And how would we tell them that their life world is nothing more than base propaganda? To claim that their life world rests on propaganda alone is to claim that (a) there are people and person(s) who exploit stories of their tradition in an attempt to mislead the population, while they, on the other hand, know the “truth.” Moreover, that (b) no one in a specific tradition can know the truth, but only have privileged access to reality, so that we tell people from other traditions that their thinking and ways of life have been blinded by their own propaganda. We must come to the conclusion, albeit reluctantly, that propaganda is possible only in political society with open public institutions wherein the educated public,

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mass media, and indeed every citizen, has access to information and can readily point out what is or is not propaganda and who is engaged in spreading it. In the context of political society that disallows an imposition of some discourse by force, propaganda appears in various guises. One major trend is historical, originating with personality cults that appeared in the Middle East—Judaism, Christianity and Islam. At first these were imposed by force as the only truth, and later, after The Enlightenment, were deemed to be “missionary” as a way of convincing the pagans and heretics to buy into these cults. Some examples from history illustrate the point. At some point during early mediaeval times, the cultic reformist and mystical dervish movement entered Spain, quickly dominating cultural life. As a consequence, the literary tradition of that region (falsafa, the philosophers) was suppressed as false, godless, evil, marking the beginning of the end. However, the literature of the philosophers survived and was influential only in Latin translation in Europe and later expressed in Algazzali’s outstanding text, The Destruction of the Philosophers (Lasswitz 1963). The texts in Arabic are still there, packed away, but until very recently only Western scholars had a philological interest in them. In fact, during the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century Arabic Arabists disregarded any systematic edition of the Falsafa. The seeming reason might be that the contemporary Islamic world is against Western education, which is dialogical, interrogative and philosophical—a danger to any doctrine that deems itself to be infallible. Thus, even today, the basis for its revival is still missing, and supposing it does occur the intersection of modern philosophical literature will frame the questions of that tradition in different wholes, containing such terms as autonomy, democracy, equality. While the imposed Islamic discourses on philosophical discourses were, for a moment, propaganda, to be challenged in open forum, with the destruction of the philosophical texts, imposition became the only reality. A more complex case of propaganda where a given tradition retains power against an entering propaganda is present in the confrontation of cultures that possess literary traditions. Of particular significance for the Western world is Christianity. Through the breakdown and conquest of Rome by Middle-eastern cultures, followed by Rome’s rejection of its own literary tradition (including its Hellenic tradition), Christianity rejected and suppressed paganism, or rather the literary traditions of Hellenism that were more than pagan. That this literary tradition was subsumed under the title paganism shows the virulence of this suppression. We surmise that large amount of texts, of which we know only the titles, were lost forever. The suppression was well documented by the apologists, the early Church Fathers and the early councils before Christianity achieved secular power. The acts of destruction followed—most significant among which was the burning of the library of Alexandria, so that it was not enough to destroy the temples in order to root out Hellenism. The literary tradition had to be destroyed with the result that the burning of libraries, books, and the extinction of the producers of books became an enduring tradition. The end of this destruction was marked by Emperor Justinian’s forced expulsion of philosophers and Hellenistic scholars from Athens and other capitals. Having fled to Persia, the exodus comprising the cultural heritage of Hellas had its renaissance

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in medieval scholasticism and later in the European Renaissance. Plato was back on the scene. The suppression of other literary traditions—at times called heretical— is characteristic of Christian and Islamic attitudes toward other literary traditions. Having become a tradition, such an attitude can be adopted and extended by cultural influences. Thus, in the twentieth century the Russian Revolution engaged in the destruction of texts as well as their authors. Nazi Germany did exactly the same, and Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution repeated this Christian tradition. Indeed, the twentieth century has borne witness to some of the most barbarous methods to deal with literary traditions perceived to be worthy of condemnation. Thus, an initial propaganda becomes the sole truth by force and pervades the entire life world. Let us look closer at a confrontation of two traditions that are literary, both incapable of complete destruction. This was the case when Christian efforts to destroy the Greco-Roman tradition was obliged to internalize some of the latter. How does the supervening tradition “store” for further use those suppressed texts or what is suppressed in texts? This is possible due to the fact that in a given literary tradition there is a split into rivals among texts. In the West the initial rivalry is between cultic texts and philosophy/science, which Plato called the hermeneus of the gods and the raphsode the hermeneus of the poet. In Epinomis, Plato (1980) speaks of the hermeneutical art as necessary to interpret signs as portents of the future, and also to interpret the laws of the first lawgivers. Since the poet as a producer of myths among Greeks is also a prophet there is a claim that hermeneus combines literary and legal traditions. This articulation is given by a philosopher and immediately followed by partial, yet basic suppression. The hermeneus does not know the word and the truth, which is revealed to him; the lawgiver might be deceitful or hermeneus might be inadequate to the task of revealing the true meaning of law or divine edicts. But who knows the truth: the philosopher? The critique of mythology assumed its radical finality by Stoics and Epicureans who believed not only that myths have no place in philosophy, but that they are false and immoral. This was the Hellenic culture that also dominated the Roman Empire. Here, (1) political and legal tradition and power separated themselves from other literary traditions, so that one could follow any literary tradition as long as one recognized that the political and juridical tradition existed separately, and needed no justification from any other tradition. (2) The literary tradition of philosophy internalized mutual rejection, although not the suppression of other truths. We love Plato and Aristotle, but we love wisdom more, and hence can argue against either or both. (3) A new morphology emerged: uncommitted reports of all kinds of facts, events, and opinions. The Hellenistic tradition, and through it the Roman Empire, internalized diverse literary traditions which became the topic of histories. What these histories required was a new art to manage them and in order to form a unified literary tradition the latter emerged as philology. The modern renaissance as universal wisdom originates with the ancient art of grammar—philological hermeneutics. Here, the ideal of humanity and empire became identical, and it was Marcus Tullius Claudius who wanted the destruction of the Celts that became its exemplary expression. Having become mid-eastern the church fathers of Rome rejected the Hellenistic tradition, although they were educated in it. By winning they had to use the technique

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of the conquered, the technique being the art of grammar applied to a study of the scriptures. The second move was determined by the principle of heresies, yet to identify heresy one needs to apply logic to show the difference between true and false. Classical philosophy in the form of modified Aristotelian categories pointed the way forward, the result being a rigid system of dogmas. In this context, most of the philosophical heritage that found its way into the Christian heritage appears in disguise. What happens to this heritage is exemplified in Slavic literature; there, no sources were available to make comparisons, and hence all traces of the Hellenistic tradition were regarded as authentic ideas of the church fathers. Yet these very ideas had the power to initiate the Renaissance. Here, a new system of written texts developed by highly educated persons became a tradition. These texts were also designed to eliminate heresies and also to determine rigid standards for all aspects of life. Compared to Hellas this was archaic, since its centre had one outstanding text, purportedly reporting an outstanding event, namely the New Testament. Outstanding text is constantly appealed to as the final arbiter of all other claims, which means that the text becomes dominating and exclusive. As mentioned it already incorporated the logic of philosophers both as a rigorous means of thinking and as heresy. And this arrangement lends power to the suppressed tradition, leading the oppressive tradition into a crisis. From our discussion so far, a communicative system is identical with power if it is a sole means of information. As long as it remains in place, and no other discourse intervenes, the system is the information. Thus, what initially was propaganda or a message from a god offered by prophets, becomes reality and power, and the notion of it being propaganda vanishes. Yet, as soon as there is a discord in the monological system of propaganda, then it appears for what it is—one among many contesting discourses wherein none can speak for the states of affairs. In brief, the power is broken and its once claimed validity becomes transparent—empty. We can therefore say that postmodern writers, each claiming that no discourse represents anything, and thus every discourse is equivalent to any other, constitutes transparent systems of propaganda. Subtended by power, i.e. each vying to overpower the others and, at least for a moment, become dominant. This is similar to advertising, the most sophisticated form of propaganda, which does not sell products but images, both visual and audial and, by extension, ritualistic. Every product is encompassed by an aura of music, important and even supposedly normal people, shouting, contorting and acting foolishly dramatic. The excess of images and noises at times drowns the message and one is at a loss to understand what is being advertised. Question 13 T. K. Is communication a problem of removed bodies? What role does eros play in communication? Is pain a necessary condition of communication? Does communication kill the body and the individual? Do we seek to pass over into a bodiless world through communication? What role do the senses play in communication?

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A. M. At the outset we must acknowledge that the various senses in communication play a secondary role. Senses are pervaded and subtended by the engaged and kinaesthetically active body, which is a condition necessary for the organization and integration of the sensory fields. One does not merely see, but one looks for something, one moves to better see something, go around to see the other side, and one tilts one’s head to better hear what others are saying. Thus, our answer must focus on the body in a state of constant activity. The development of the body in communicative practice demands the analyses of various levels of structural and active corporeity and the constitution of the phenomenal field wherein such structures and activities intertwine. These analyses are required to disclose active generalities prior to the plain facts and generalized structures. Such generalities prepare the groundwork for an understanding of the meaning of situation, intersubjectivity and individuality as inseparable correlates, and the institutions of practical, communicative technologies. Whilst numerous thinkers have extolled the theoretical need to consider the primacy of corporeity and even of instrumental interconnections of implements as functions in a system of significations, we must demonstrate how such interconnections are founded on corporeal interaction with the world of phenomena, and inter-corporeal communication of such phenomena. Communication in the world cannot be extricated from corporeal activity or the primacy of engaged bodily perception that is always oriented toward, and intertwined with, the phenomenal field. The latter consists of various levels, the first of which is its diacritical, or differentiated character. Every aspect of the experienced field, such as a specific colour signifies other colours in the field and thus has a meaning in a mutually signifying interconnection. Bright yellow is bright because it is in contrast to dull green, which is dull due to the shadow cast by the tree. In this sense, the phenomena mean in a field of meanings, while our engagement with the field in perceptual bodily activity is a process of communication with the communicating phenomena. If meaning is the very basis of communication, then we find that the phenomena with which we are engaged are equally meaningful, signifying, involving our gestures that, too, are meaningful insofar as they trace the phenomena in the field. The notion that there could be a pure phenomenon having no lateral signification such as the colour blue, is equally impossible; the blue has a depth differentiation and is never homogeneous, but is hazy, deep, brilliant, cold, light, and thus defies the assumption of purity. Or, this grey is the grey of an old carpet, a shabby sort of grey that moves closer to the colour black in the evening light. The nonsensical claim that if we remove the evening light, the old carpet and the shabby look, then we would get to the real grey, which would elude us. Bodily engagement with phenomena is a continuous and overlapping perceptual explication of what the phenomena imply, suggest, and require in lateral and depth significations. The engaged and communicative body, the “I can,” plays out its role beneath the objective and subjective bodies, since both can be articulated and located only on the already established field of bodily activities. From the outset, body situated-ness is not identical with being in a homogeneous space-time location

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as a physiologically inert object. A purely objective analysis of the body’s physiology cannot decipher what is up-down, left-right, front-back without introducing the asymmetrical process of orientations as phenomena lived by bodies engaged in the field. The homogeneous world and physiological analysis of a body cannot account for orientations, directions, places, leeways, and open horizons; it consists of an indifferent system of points wherein any body in such a world must be reduced to occupying an indifferent point that communicates no directions, coordinations, or awareness of one thing being behind or above another thing. The moment we say that the distance from here to there is 50 m, we have introduced an oriented body which communicates an entire dynamic system in constant transition that is asymmetrical, capable of signifying phenomena in terms of at least six orientational directions. The lived, experiencing body signifies the very structure of the practical world of directions, vectors, locations and relationships. This asymmetry defies homogeneity and communicates one major background awareness on whose structure phenomena assume locations, distances, and orientations. These are not “subjective” impositions but are directly perceivable as practical communication by others. It must be noted that the oriented, practical body functions in a way that the directions are not completely exchangeable. What is up front and reachable by a forward movement is distinct from what is in the back, and the latter is present as a virtual continuation of the forward movement, best reached in directional reversal. The same can be said of left-right orientations, which in many cases can overlap when reaching for something that requires both hands. The up-down is equally a coordinate movement which anyone can read as their own movement. The oriented space is communicated from a centre, from a “here” that is not a spatial point but a leeway of adjustments to a mobile and shifting “there”. That is why one “there” can be exchanged for another “there,” but neither can be exchanged for a “here.” The “here” is always a kinaesthetic figure in the field of orientations. It must be pointed out that orientation is prior to any stimulus-reaction syndrome, since the latter does not reveal directional movement, although directional movement is assumed in any discourse about stimulation such as coming from the left, slightly from above or from the rear. This background bodily orientation is the very architectonic of our social environment. Buildings have their fronts and backs, upstairs and downstairs, their sides and even their hierarchal social allocations: the top floor is for the top executive, with lower floors for lesser beings on the upward ladder of success. Our vehicles have front and rear seats, and bus drivers ask us to move to the back of the bus, communicating the very meaning of our oriented bodies. We move forward to face the future and leave the past behind, favouring the frontal movement not only as spatial, but also as temporal orientation. We not only move from here to there, but from now to then and open new frontiers. This forward activity is circumspective, planning taking into account, leaving behind, and forward looking. In the prevalence of frontal orientation, the language of history and goals is situated. The human looks ahead to better days, participates in the forward movement of history, of progress, faces the tasks of today and tomorrow and leaves the troubled past behind. The communicative point is that our direct engagement with the world of phenomena does not depend on some linguistic interpretation, giving us rules of action, directions, and manuals

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how to perform tasks, but primarily on body signification as it moves and interacts with phenomena. Indeed, the body significations are inescapable in any discourse as the very fabric of communication. The factual states of affairs correlated to our activities, are equally prior to essentiality and brute factuality. Rather, they have an open explorability and generality, specifically with respect to their practical functions. History is not thought, but rather it is built—made—in practical engagements. Such engagements reveal another aspect of activities that could be called dimensional, leading to corporeal analogization of the field of praxis. The active handling of objects does not exhibit a one-to-one correlation between activities and the objects. Each activity can range over various and typologically distinct objects and tasks. The hand can pick up a stone, a hammer, and a stick and use any of them to pound a stick into the ground. And this constitutes a primal analogization in two senses. First, one can perform similar activities and recognize them directly anywhere and anyplace prior to historical temporalization, and second, the activities perform a passive analogization of objects by using them as interchangeable in the face of a task. The hammer, the stone and the stick are analogates by virtue of the generality of our abilities. In this sense the “I can” is a factual generality that cannot be reduced either to a closed essence or a brute fact. One can then claim that the historical field is recognized by the interchanging functions as analogous to one another, capable of filling in one another, and equally by the facts as systems, not revealing essentialities, as was shown at the outset, but various analogical interconnections that are recognizable corporeally. This allows an archaeologist, a historian, and an anthropologist to reconstruct the so-called past on the basis of some handy find. This is to say, these scholars and researchers do not have to date the find in a preconceived temporal sequence—this comes as an occupational tandem subsequently—but to encounter it as an analogate of what they could do with this object and imply that we too already recognize that we could equally do similar things. The understanding of laws, linguistic rules, prescripts and prejudgments, make sense in a situation because the situation itself is not a brute fact but traces a corporeal generality which is not quite in accord with the purity of conceptual constructs, but which is not idiosyncratically singular. The place of something practical depends on the sedimented body habits of the acting subject. Something is placed “there” and is accessible to required activities. An object of practical use is not located at a point of a homogeneous space, but in a place with a slack that allows shifts without the object leaving its place. It is on the table, in the shop, next to the bridge, to the right of the forest and can be reached by an arm, taking a walk, using a vehicle and narrowing of the place. This sort of practical world orientation is the communicative ground of any life world. If one says that he is going to the shop, one cannot give a geometric grid with precise points, but must resort to communicating a generality of the situation that is accessible to others but never in precisely the same way. Such communication involves the identity of the “I can” by others insofar as they too can do similar activities of going to the same or different places.

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While moving with the phenomenal field, we communicate our focus on something and allow the rest of the field to form a background that also is focused upon what we have selected as a figure. The background is thus not passive but communicative. While I position myself on this side of a table and the chair on the other, the potted plant on the left, the book shelf on the right, the floor beneath and the ceiling above signify this table from all perspectives. My focusing movement on this table would not be possible if the background did not equally signify by focusing on the table from different perspectives. On the other hand, while positioning myself toward the table, I am also positioned by the background as being on this side. In brief, the thing in the field I focus upon and the forming background equally signifies me as an aspect of the field that provides another perspective. While situating something in the field, I am also being situated. Thus, while communicating my orientation toward the foregrounded phenomenon, the entire environment and I communicate the phenomenon from all sides and communicate my position. The experiencer is not an abstract entity but is always situating and situated by the field context in lateral and depth signification. Pre-reflective, corporeal movements constitute their own self-reflexivity and selfreference. In a failed attempt to reach something, the attempt is immediately repeated. The missing comprises an instance of movement, which reflects back upon itself and calls for a variation of itself in a second attempt. There is a direct kinaesthetic question: can I do this revealing at the outset an already articulated field of abilities and tasks with possible variations that never offer a final, factual limitation? Here one builds recognition of oneself in terms of what one can do. This self-recognition is coextensive with the recognition of the abilities as mine, not because the abilities are mirrored in a psychological interiority or in a mirror, but because they are kinaesthetically reflexive and at the same time coextensive with and differentiated from those of others. I cannot do this means not only that I have tried and failed, but also that I have seen others perform it. The correlation of abilities and inabilities is an intercorporeal experience present in the handling of tasks and undertakings. Corporeal abilities comprise an understanding of commonalities and individuating differences. The commonality has two components: first, the common task in which we are engaged, and second, the continuity of activities that differentiate themselves into variations. We lift something, but you do it from that side and I do it from this. While the end you are lifting is heavier, you can, and I cannot lift that end, yet “I can” lift this end, and thus discover a common activity and its corporeal differentiation. This constitutes a polycentric field of activities and includes others who are not present at the task. “If only Joe were here to lend us a hand,” includes the abilities of Joe as coextensive with, and differentiated from, our capacities. Or, “Lucky that Mike is not here; he certainly likes to lend a hand, but tends to be more of a hindrance than help.” It is quite a common notion; we do fill in for someone at the job, by taking over a function, or by putting our shoulder to the task from another side. All these functions suggest a commonality and a variation. This is corporeal individuation and an inter-corporeal field that is neither a simple fact, nor an essence; it subtends both. Concurrently, there is a level of reflexivity, of direct apperception of the self and the other on the basis of activities that both undertake. Her ability to reach

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something, and my lack of such ability, despite my efforts, reflects directly our corporeal commonality of reaching, and our differences. Thus, the “I can” is prior to the pure “I,” since the former is individuated and differentiated from others, and yet is directly aware of them as well as of itself. Those social requirements comprise a field of intercorporeal activities where what “I can” do is read directly what the others are doing. Let us take a soccer game where each player reads the body directions and movements in correlation to the entire field of the game. This is to say where are my teammates and in what directions they are moving and where are the opponents, and how they are positioning themselves will also constitute my kinaesthetic requirements. How do I move toward my teammates and opponents comprising the entire spatio-temporal and kinaesthetic field? In this sense, what Foucault claims about the discursive practices as confrontation of powers, requires the most basic awareness of where, when, and how one must act in order to practice the discursive strategies. What we are suggesting is the passive constitution of spatio-temporal corporeal engagements prior to any understanding of what the discursive strategy means. Question 14 T. K. What common and different problems are found in communication and hermeneutics? Can we subordinate communication to hermeneutics? A. M. This question needs a brief introduction: there is no one hermeneutical position, and indeed the “hermeneutical controversy” continues, and so it is best to name some major hermeneutical positions and their specific features. 1. The most common understanding is the function of language known by some figure, such as, Hermes who translates the elevated speaking of the higher regions into daily terms. Theological proclamations belong here, but also scientific journalism is part of this hermeneutics; legal codes which are constantly translated into specific applications appear in every court room. 2. Methodical hermeneutics, wherein every text must be understood from its own context and the part must be understood through the whole, while the whole must be understood through the parts. This rule is articulated into four different wholepart relationships and can be ordered hierarchically. The first whole, of which the text and parts of the text is a part, is the LANGUAGE in which the text is written (deconstructive hermeneutics belongs here). The second whole, to which the text and parts of the text belong is the historical context of the text. We have to understand the events to which the text refers, other texts, their terminologies etc., in the framework of this context. The third whole is the totality of the works written by an author, the Oeuvre, in its temporal and historical unfolding. This whole is represented first by a style (the specific use of language, characteristic of an individual or a school of individuals), and changes in the style in the texts belonging to the same author or school. Fourth, is the whole as the text itself, and the parts are the parts of the text. The first level is called the grammatical

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level, the second is the historical level, the third is the individual level, and the fourth is called the generic level. Wilhelm Dilthey called the first two levels, the technical preparation that guides the way to the context of the text. In a way, this includes historical-philological methods. Philosophical hermeneutics whose focus is the way Being is understood indirectly, i.e. the pre-understanding we assume in order to speak of all other things. Thus Western philosophical hermeneutics identified Being whose presence could be accessed from a limit (peras), leading to numerous texts that were framed within this interpretation, e.g. Platonic forms, Aristotelian substances, space and time, not to speak of stability and reiteration. This hermeneutic reached its completion and dissolution—in the West—with Hegel’s identification of Being and Nothing (for classicism Nothing was the limit of Being). Propositional hermeneutics that depends on, but is not identical with, philosophical hermeneutics. A propositional reading of the world is framed by a specific selection of grammar and syntax that allow one to formulate everything into essentializing propositions—the specific “what-ness” of all events, leading to definitory answers. The very notion of definition is definis giving finality and hence presuming that the defined can be safely tucked away as known forever: what is human, what is an atom, what is science, what is myth, etc., each requiring definitory answers in terms of characteristics, presented in the propositional structure S is P. Transitional hermeneutics is one that emerges when a text from one tradition is transmitted to another tradition—when Roman legal codes (jus gentium) was transmitted to Judeo-Christian codes of jus patriam, and when the latter was obliged to accommodate the Roman legal code. This hermeneutical issue involves, above all today, the more frequent encounters between civilizations, leading not only to the problems of translation, but to holy wars. This also includes numerous literary figures that play a role between two historical periods: Don Quixote is both, a knight that attempts to recoup the past, and a man of the modern age. Perspectival hermeneutics, claiming that every understanding is positional and hence cannot be granted universality. This includes multiculturalisms, multivocalisms, in part modern Western postmodernities, and multi-disciplinary understanding—world-views provided by each discipline that differ from other disciplines. Here we could say that each text must subsume under its language other texts. Claims of this kind of incorporation of other texts into one’s own text extend to social life worlds. Each society has numerous discourses and even disciplines, and each discourse, such as a juridical, will interpret other discourses including those of economics or ideological in juridical terminology, or economics will interpret juridical discourse in economic terms.

It is possible to claim that despite the variation of hermeneutical types, there is a general principle that everything and all experience is framed and understood in language. In brief, language is the unmediated medium. To state this issue in terms of a general hermeneutical principle, any theory, any method, any meaning of anything,

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including the subject, emerges as an aspect of its historical tradition and on the other hand points back to it, thus forming a hermeneutical circle. Any theory that offers an explanation of everything converges into the historical horizon of that tradition; the latter is vaster than the explanatory theory. But such a circle also intimates that all awareness is a result of a language, culture, customs, and even prejudgments of a historical tradition within whose horizons the human dwells. All is interpretation; even the most admired strict sciences do not offer an access to the way things are; after all, if one looks at scientific language one notes that its logic and structure is not derived from experienced phenomena. In brief, it is different from such phenomena and thus when applied becomes an interpretation. Of course, we must make a note here: if one claims that a given language is distinct from the experienced phenomena, then one must also admit that they have an awareness of things that are not bound by language; otherwise the distinction between language and things could not be made. Let us leave this issue aside for a moment and point out that the hermeneutical circle interpreted as language, culture, or tradition, claiming to be the last interpreter, cannot be cognizant of itself. If language is the medium in which all events, theories, methods are understood, in which selectivity and designation of what is real, unreal, objective and subjective appears, then language cannot be a subject matter of any philosophy or theory since the latter would be one aspect within the vast linguistic tradition. If culture were the last vestige to be posited as the condition for all interpretations, then such could not become an object of any theory, philosophy, or method. If a tradition and its horizons comprise the dimension in which we dwell, then such a tradition could not be grasped by any theory about a tradition, since such a theory again would be a minor aspect of it. It could be said that even the very notion of a hermeneutical circle and convergence of horizons of a tradition and of an interpreter would have to be one claim within a given tradition. By virtue of their self-destruction, all of these claims become necessarily contingent, and left to their own devices seem to be an epitome of necessity. In this sense, all communication is hermeneutical, i.e. interpretation. It is now possible to focus on the issue of understanding and misunderstanding, specifically in the mentioned context of increasing encounters of diverse civilizations and their cultures. It can be said at the outset that any communication between civilizations, where each has its own language requiring translation, is not only interpretation, but also a trans-creation. There is no one-to-one translation, i.e. exact rendering of what the person of the other civilization is saying, if they are speaking in our language, and if we attempt to understand that person in our language. At best, it is partial understanding and partial misunderstanding. If we extend this issue to what we described as methodological hermeneutics, the misunderstanding might increase, since we are not aware of the context of the other speaker. This applies even to a tradition in which we live and claim to understand what has been transmitted through such a tradition. We have translations of classical Greek texts into various languages, from Latin through modern European, to Japanese, Chinese, and Mayan. With regard to European languages there is a constant struggle to improve the translations, revealing a problem of the impossibility to offer a final version, specifically since the reading of those texts is done in terms of our own context.

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Greater misunderstanding occurs in communication involving outstanding texts, such as the Middle Eastern, supposedly the recorded messages of persons called prophets. The language of these texts is based on allegories, metaphors, analogies, inspirational rhetoric, and contradictory edicts, leading to countless and most diverse claims by followers to be the possessors of any final truth. Using such texts as the basis of social life, Middle Eastern and Western history is a “cradle of blood,” where each sect accuses the other of being false, un-godly and thus evil, to be forbidden, and its texts to be destroyed or at least banned. One extreme claim that is made by adherents to such an outstanding text is that anyone who would challenge such a text has no understanding of the only truth and hence the challenge is absolutely wrong—such a person has no understanding whatsoever and should be forbidden to speak or, if a civilization tolerates that speech, the true believers should not listen. One could argue that this hermeneutic belongs to all monotheistic texts. Question 15 T. K. What is the function of art in communication? What constitutes content in creative communication? What does communication mean in the case of metaphor? A. M. The conjunction of art and communication has many layers and we must begin with a brief delimitation of such layers or, as was noted in the answer to previous question, of interpretation of art. That art communicates is nowhere contested, in fact the opposite is the case and apparent in various social systems using art to maintain themselves or forbidding some arts as unacceptable and even dangerous. Metaphysical theories of art and aesthetic value are apt to maintain a specific conception of inherence of truth in the work of art. Metaphysics in general is a tendency to posit some form of reality with two derivatives—absolute and relative. In either case, such realities should be manifested in art. In this sense, the aesthetic value of art must be coextensive with truth. Accordingly, the metaphysically oriented theories of aesthetic value tend to claim that aesthetic experience is a form of knowledge. Even if inadequately, art must offer an access to reality. Such experience might assume various forms ranging from intuition of metaphysical absolutes all the way to immanent and vague psychological feelings which, when clarified and interpreted, would offer explicit knowledge of the meaning of a specific artwork. In brief, artworks are valuable because they contain an inherent truth. One well-known variant of this view would be the Aristotelian conception of art as a copy of reality. Being a depiction of nature, art is a form of knowledge, i.e., its value is its referent. Aristotle’s claim that tragedy is more philosophical than history confirms this claim. Thus, the principles of logic which are necessary for the theoretical conception and judgment of nature are equally valid for aesthetic judgment. Other variants of the conception of “inherent truth” would be theological claims that aesthetic values depend upon and indeed reflect the composition of some ultimate being. Plato would belong here on

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two counts: there is no adequate artistic depiction of the pure forms, and resultantly art must be controlled by the wise to guard the public against misleading images. Currently, there is much ado about judgments concerning the aesthetic value of an artwork, although the judgments are divided between explanatory and justificatory. Yet, in either case one seeks to discover or employ properties inherent in the artwork that communicate the value of art. All sorts of proposals are offered, such as utility, complexity, and intensity, in order to claim that a specific artwork possessing such properties, is valuable. It is interesting to note that the term valuable is not accounted for and thus it is imposed upon the properties that, in their direct presence, do not imply concepts such as values. No doubt, contemporary speculative metaphysicians are satisfied to beat the bushes for new properties and new values inherent in such properties. Moreover, the arbitrary selection of properties is equally telling: why complexity and not simplicity—such as Robert Rauschenberg’s black, or empty as in Zen instead of useful? Such metaphysical speculations fail to address the aesthetic or the aesthetic values of other civilizations, and do not raise the question if values are there at all relevant and if the aesthetic requires properties? We will discuss these questions when dealing with arts and aesthetics of other civilizations. Reflections on the presumption that aesthetic value is coextensive with the “inherence of truth” in the artwork reveal some fundamental issues that cannot be resolved by metaphysics without serious infringements on aesthetics. Given the historical and cultural case, and the case that there are various histories and various cultures, there are a great variety of arts with vastly different compositions, media of expression, and content and form. Some arts would be excluded since they would fail to correspond to some metaphysical concept. Either an artwork embodies the conception, or it does not. If it does not, then it lacks aesthetic value. But which conception of “reality” should the artist follow? Metaphysics had offered so many arguments for numerous realities. Moreover, history shows that there are no necessary symmetries between the metaphysics of a given period and the various art forms. And yet, art historians and critics have no problems in ascribing to such arts some, even if negative, aesthetic value. While in this context the phrase “aesthetic value” is used to address all artworks, the use is restricted to the notion of arts as having characteristics contained within the “frame” of a given art, whether it is a painting, a poem, a tragic play, or an epic story. In the face of such difficulties the metaphysical mode of thinking takes numerous byways to avoid its predicament. One of them would be prescriptive: an artwork has value if it is socially beneficial. This presumes knowledge of a specific social fabric and the preconceptions of what is beneficial. Another turn might be ethical. An artwork is valuable if it corresponds to and instils norms of behaviour. Plato tended to delimit aesthetic values along socio-political and normative utility in accordance with a preconceived metaphysics of an idea of a just state. The metaphysician becomes the guardian of aesthetic values. Such conceptions call for adherence to criteria that need not be aesthetic. As we shall see, the notion of adherence is highly relevant to the evaluations of artworks of other cultures, where the ethical norms of some group, such as the colonial rulers of an empire, decree what arts are to be permitted and which are to be rejected, or which arts of the colonized are to be denied the venerable title

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of aesthetic value. Given this context, one would be at a loss to distinguish between aesthetic and non-aesthetic values. One would then have to say that since a person’s actions follow a prescribed rule of social utility, then the person is aesthetically valuable. No doubt, socio-political and even moral values might enter an artwork, but the converse need not be true. If an artwork fails to adhere to some metaphysical or socio-political and normative parameters, it does not mean then that it is devoid of aesthetic value. Not only does an artwork possess aesthetic value, but also such value is taken for granted by the metaphysical and socio-political arguments attempting to come to terms as to which of the values found in the artwork should be regarded as true and beneficial. We can add further weight to this line of argument by suggesting that historical changes in the concept of “reality” would lead to disquieting attitudes towards aesthetic values. Let us assume that the only aesthetic value is given to representation of reality. With changes in the conception of reality, the artworks would have to adhere to such changes in order to possess aesthetic value. But does this mean that the previous artworks have been discredited in their aesthetic value and no longer communicate to us, because they are not in accord with the new conceptions of reality? If, as art historians and critics tell us, such artworks continue to be part of an aesthetic tradition, then we should not hesitate to assert that they continue to maintain their aesthetic value despite differences in conceptions of reality. We can argue for a more radical conclusion that would follow from the metaphysical views of aesthetic value. Let us assume that the modern conception of reality has neither colours nor sounds as its properties, but only frequencies of sound waves and light waves. In this view of “reality” all the paintings, plastic works and musical compositions would have no aesthetic value at all. Presume, now, that the aesthetic value increases with its increasing approximation to the truth-value of a metaphysical conception, and note the conclusion: the greatest aesthetic value should be accorded to scientific propositions and mathematical equations. One would go to concerts to observe graphs of airwaves, and to art galleries to read statistical distributions of light wave frequencies. The preconceptions of reality do not seem to offer a criterion for aesthetic values. We do not judge the value of a musical piece by the arrangement of sound quanta, but by the musical values of a composition, i.e., the phenomenon of music. If the metaphysical conceptions of “inherence” of truth or of aesthetic “adherence” to some non-aesthetic standard fail, we are left with another concept of adherence. The latter means that aesthetic values are added to the artwork. This is the Kantian turn that shifts aesthetics to a different level of concern. Not having any metaphysical underpinnings that would lend art a referent of epistemic validation, the source of aesthetic value must be sought elsewhere—in the aesthetic judgment. The aesthetic judgment is not about the artwork but fundamentally about our concepts of appreciation. The aesthetic judgment is reflective and must identify aesthetic value with subjective tastes. Various contemporary speculations maintain this position by pointing to the question of satisfaction” or even pleasure that an artwork causes in the viewer, listener, or reader. In short, artwork must communicate human subjective states. Of course, this moves us to some sort of psychological construct of a subject.

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In opposition to metaphysical efforts to offer a truth criterion for aesthetic values, Kant distinguishes between logical and aesthetic judgements. He was not interested in an analysis of numerous and sundry artworks in order to support one metaphysical conception of aesthetic value over another. Rather, he analysed the aesthetic judgment in its own right and discovered that it is reflective, i.e. its objects are tastes and appreciation. Beauty is therefore not a characteristic of an object, but appears in a judgment, which communicates subjective experience. If an object is beautiful, then it constitutes an object of appreciation and delight. Although unintended by Kant, the aesthetic judgment founded upon appreciation, delight and taste, open the door to the view that aesthetic values are fundamentally expressions of psychological inner states. Kantians, no doubt, would argue that an aesthetic judgment is transcendental, comprising the condition for everyone who is engaged in aesthetic awareness, but this claim does not abolish the notion that the value of art depends on the subject. Since each subject is different each can have very different judgments of aesthetic value. In the cross-cultural context of communication, what art communicates to people of a given culture might well communicate a very different meaning to persons of another culture. The arts of India, such as statues of Khajuraho, were regarded by the British to be completely immoral and pornographic. They represented poses of nude people, intertwined in countless erotic combinations, seemingly engaged in sex, and all in explosive, energetic, dancing shapes. Moreover, the human figures were also intertwined with a great variety of other creatures, equally showing erotic passion and hence humans having sex with different species. From these images Freud devised his libido theory as “polymorphous perverse”. Meanwhile, the same statues and their postures and shapes for India had nothing to do with sexuality, but were an effort to disclose the passionate interconnection of all events in the universe in constant play and dynamic explosions. A British reading of Indian art pointed to a metaphoric presence of sexuality and immorality, whereas for Indians it was a metaphor of the constant play of cosmic energies. This suggests that the same figures communicate differently to persons of different cultures. Question 16 T. K. What place does visual communication have in communication, and how can it be defined? A. M. Evidently, visual communication is a bodily phenomenon requiring an articulation of the primacy of engaged bodily perception that is always oriented toward, and intertwined with, the phenomenal field. To conceive such a field we must disclose the absolute dimension of awareness prior to any positing of some all encompassing consciousness which subsumes and explains all our actions: we seek the concrete individual as an actor in the world. The problematic could be restated in other terms. The basis for which Edmund Husserl seeks is to be absolute, and yet the question of the individual is not answered purely on the transcendental arguments

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for an ego. Individuality is to be sought elsewhere. It is precisely such a search that leads to the absoluteness of the factual individual and inter-individual relationships— contingent absoluteness. How can we understand this contingency? Neither empirical facticity nor a piori essentiality will do, specifically if experienced facticity of self in activity does not yield any substantiality and predicative characterizations. The factual, acting bodily process is not experienced as a brute and dumb fact to be subsumed as an exemplar of an eidos, but as a system of dynamic abilities, deployed from a here and a now not in a sense of being inserted in a pre-given space-time, but from which the world is opened in action. The null-point is the corporeity from which all actions unfold, but in such a way that the null-point itself is apperceptive and located in a process of shifting and intersecting activities comprising a field and not a position. The field and its field nature are pre-delineated in any factual life as a constant activity and a structuration of the perceptual world. The ego is an achievement of factual enablements that are field data. In this sense the ego is absolute fact. Its necessity is neither essential nor contingent. Both are subtended by the acting corporeity and its systematic engagements with practical affairs. What follows from such an absolute fact is that any essential and contingent determinations of it are inadequate. It is without ground. One could claim that bodily activities are constitutive of, while being unconstituted by the phenomenal field. Given this, it is now possible to take the last step toward the tracing of the question of individuality and inter-subjectivity as inter-corporeity. Bodily activities constitute an ineradicable facticity that is not dumb, but an articulated process that does not emerge into the foreground—specifically since it is not entitative but constitutive of spacio-temporalization as a field of shifting patterns. The latter are neither interior nor exterior, hence reflective awareness is inadequate if it is to be grasped. Rather it is a taken for granted point of departure for any investigation of the lived world and even a field of history. Each gesture and movement is accomplished spontaneously and recognized in correlation to, and distinction from, others. From childhood onwards there is a vital-kinaesthetic exploration of the world and the constitution of corporeal abilities. The latter are neither inner nor outer, but are primarily effective. One can reach something, move something, pull, push, lift and throw. This effectivity has its own domain of cognition. Pre-reflective, corporeal movements constitute their own self-reflexivity and self-reference. In a missed attempt to reach something, the attempt is immediately repeated. The missing comprises an instance of movement that reflects back upon itself and calls for a variation of itself in a second attempt. As mentioned previously, the commonality has two components including the common task in which we are engaged, and the continuity that differentiate themselves into variations performed by others. The investigations reveal possible variations, such that what “I can do” can be taken over by another and thus fill my position. This notion is quite common; we fill in for someone at the job by taking over a function, or by putting our shoulder to the task from another side. All of these functions suggest a commonality and a variation. This is corporeal individuation and inter-corporeal field that is neither a simple fact, nor an essence; it subtends both.

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Concurrently, there is a level of reflexivity, of direct apperception of the self and the other on the basis of activities that both undertake. Her ability to reach something, and my lack of such ability, despite my efforts, reflects directly our corporeal commonality of reaching, and our differences. Here the “I can” is prior to the pure I, since the former is individuated and differentiated from others, and yet is directly aware of them as well as of itself. This reveals that our relationship to the field is such that our activities and the field phenomena mutually signify one another as differences. Thus at the outset visual communication is a corporeal field of signitive interconnections of differences. The importance of field perception is the abolition of the prejudgment of discrete empirical components whose meaning must be derived from a subject by all sorts of tricks, such as an assumed dualism wherein the phenomena are meaningless data, and the mind’s operations add meaning to such data. The depiction of the primacy of the communicative field phenomena also involves an active body whose basic rule is “I can,” as kinaesthetic, and interactive with the field without having any need for a postulated ego. Moreover, bodily engagement with phenomena is a continuous and overlapping perceptual explication of what the phenomena imply, suggest, and require in lateral and depth significations. The engaged and communicative body, the “I can,” plays out its role beneath the objective and subjective bodies, since both can be articulated and located only on the already established field of bodily activities. Visual communication is not a function of a particular organ such as the eyes, but at the outset, body situated-ness, and this is not identical with being in homogeneous space-time location as a physiologically inert object. The body is at the outset a system of orientations. The traditionally conceived structure of practical activity concerned with an ends-means relationship would be impossible without the assumption that we communicate such ends-means on the background of the oriented body as a mobile field of functions with six orientations: front-back, up-down, left-right, such that these orientations extend or transcend a specific geometric position. The very language of overcoming, surpassing, transcending, is a frontal language. This suggests that the conception of history, interpretation, situation and context require a functional lived body with its asymmetrical activities. It is equally important to note that even the so-called theoretical discourses cannot escape the perceptual bodily field. We speak of higher forms of discourse only to discover a variant of vertical bodily orientation. We have beings that are “above” the mere plane of human life, or those who are “beneath” us, and thus take our bodily orientations with us. The communicative point is that our direct engagement with the world of phenomena is not dependent on linguistic interpretation, giving us rules of action, directions, and manuals how to perform tasks, but primarily on body signification as it moves and interacts with phenomena. Indeed, body significations are inescapable in any discourse as the very fabric of communication. The practical world, intertwined with the communicative body is not identical with the immediacy of the perceived world. It opens the perceptual world and yet the “I can” reveals a general process that comprise a body background for practical communication across diverse perceptual regions. It opens an oriented structure in correlation to other places and regions of the world. Whether we leave behind our home to go to work, or we leave behind

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the North American continent to travel to Africa, we have a direct awareness of this bodily background that anyone can read and understand, as we can read and understand their activities. This also implies the immediate awareness of looser and tighter spaces and times, of time distances, such as “how long to Nairobi,” and its open horizons. This means that any situation, as body in communication, is already aware of the perceptual world as oriented with many other places, and our ability to be there and communicate at this direct level. In this sense, visuality is at the outset inter-corporeal and coextensive with the phenomenal field toward which we move and in which we interact. The bodily-perceptual engagement in a field does not imply that the field is pregiven in a spread of an abstract objective space and time continuum requiring only a detached and indifferent surveyance and recording. It is rather an active interrogation of, and being interrogated by, the intersecting and overlapping phenomena. Each movement shifts the field as the field shifts each movement, requiring constant answer to the field implications of what is next to something, behind something, around and in front. This very interactive process with the phenomena involves selectivity and focus wherein emerges a diacritical relationship between background and figure, each signifying one another in their difference. The positioned body is not to be understood physiologically and above all statically. Pervading sensory fields and the orientational system is the “I can” as kinaesthetic process that allows one to orient all sensory fields. The very visual focusing on something is a forward movement without which the visual (and other sensory fields for that matter) could not be oriented. The kinaesthetic process comprises a background field from which specific signifying gestures emerge as foreground in a way that both, the signifying gesture that focuses on some field phenomenon, and the kinaesthetic background, mutually communicate their difference. This means that the continuous orientation toward the field and the selectivity of specific phenomena as foreground requires a focusing of a gesture on the background of bodily movement. The latter positions the gesture for maximum access to the phenomenon that is being foregrounded. It is interesting to note that the backgrounding movement, the “I can,” is what correlates to the background field phenomena such that while the chair behind the table communicates the other side, my movements inhabit that chair in such a way that “I can” be in that location from which my gestures could focus on this table from the other side. While my bodily gesture is positioned and situated, the background body transcends the positionality toward more, toward the background field and inhabits it by communicating what it can do. And what it can do is to assume the position of any other thing either actually or virtually and thus articulate the thing of focus in other ways. It may introduce a wonder to explore the other side and hence redeploy the focus of gestures, which trace the implications of what is focused upon. This means that a simple wondering solicits the composition of gestures that will meet and articulate phenomena by bringing them into focus in the foreground. The reason that the encountered phenomena will be continuously articulated by our bodily communicative gestures is that the phenomenal field is never a discrete sum of data; rather it is ambiguous with lateral differentiations, overlappings, and depth

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solicitations. Hence, the “I can” as movement constitutes some gestures as selective of some aspects of the field and delimits them as the focus of current interest. The term overlapping has various senses, among which the most pronounced are as follows. First, that the phenomena in the field not only signify other phenomena, but also spread perceptual meaning one over the others. This red is a bright red of revolutionary flags, the red of violence and passion, the shadowy red of spilled blood and budding roses. The glittering green of a field overlaps with the solar flood and the protruding shadows between the blades. Second, the body gestures take over each other’s functions by extending and varying one another, by bracing and supporting one another, and by forming a background for each other. Third, the overlapping of sensory fields, comprising synesthetic communication among them, defies the localization of perception in a homogeneous space and time wherein each sense would have its location. The loud colours, the colourful sounds, the shocking storm, the cold blue, the irritating touch, all reveal that each sensory field overlaps with other fields in mutual communication. We should not conclude that such perceptions are determined and thus explainable by linguistic metaphors. In communicative practice language is equally an open field that intertwines with, overlaps, varies and extends our bodily gestures, expressions and positions. If she is asked how to get to a certain place in a town, she will begin to point in a specific direction, gesture that after a block one must turn left, while the attendant words, selected from a linguistic field, will extend the gestures in more complex ways, without leaving the situation to become some sort of supervening structure imposed from outside. Language is not an abstract set of defined terms, but an extension that overlaps with bodily gestures and comprises lateral and depth horizons. The linguistic variation and extension of bodily gestures is also an extension of the phenomenal field, not in some arbitrary fashion, but by the very field significations that interrogate our perceptual engagement, and thus open more in linguistic meaning than was initially suspected. Moreover, our perceptual abilities are extended through things and others. The blind person is not incapacitated because they can see the surface, the bumps, and the contours of a path at the end of a walking stick. For Maurice Merleau-Ponty this overlapping of touch over vision is not located in some immanent brain function, but takes place in the activity of the body that translates one sensory field into another without mediation. Question 17 T. K. Does communication have limits? If so what are the possible limits, and are they (or the consciousness they represent) one aspect of communication? A. M. The notion of limit is one of the fundamental notions of Western philosophical and scientific traditions. It is well established that the entire classical tradition was premised on this notion. In fact, it is possible to say that the birth of Western civilization in classical thinking was premised on the discovery of the foundations of communication as possible only with the understanding of the limits of anything. But, such a first understanding was established when humans recognized themselves

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as limited both in power and knowledge, i.e. an understanding that to be human is to be fallible. Here, all mythical and poetic pronouncements by sages and divinities had to be discarded, since humans realized that what divinities speak in their total knowledge and power are not comprehensible to fallible beings. This recognition is communicated to humans by a mythological figure—Athena—who instructs people to set up a boundary between the wildness of nature and what is to be a human community in order to live securely among them. In essence, this is a concept of peras—limit that demarcates the wild, unlimited and chaotic forces that clash and rule over the irrational passions of humans, and what must be the essence of the human, the limits within which they must live. By the very setting of limits of what is human, the human is also placed in a position to recognize all other things in their natural limits. Humans cannot become angels, and horses cannot fly. We shall see the vast philosophical implications of the birth of this “Athenian” episteme. The notion of limit is the terrain of Western philosophical tradition that demands that all knowledge must discover the essence of things, and to discover the essence of something is equivalent to the discovery of the very limit of that something. For example, to speak of the colour, size, weight, birthplace and time of a human being does not tell us what a human being is. After all, to get a suntan, to be overweight, to move to another country, does not change our status as being human. Only by discovering the limits, which cannot be transgressed that we discover the essence of being human. This is valid for all discourses: when we speak to someone about something, some topic, some issue, we ask of ourselves and others to “stick to the topic” and not introduce other topics and thus change the object of our dialogical focus. If we speak of mathematics we cannot suddenly introduce psychology and declare that mathematics is psychological. The two topics are radically distinct and speaking about feelings, wishes, dreams, images of demons, libido, being abused in childhood, will not tell us anything about mathematics. The reverse also holds, for each topic and each domain of subject matters in our communication requires that we bracket or exclude other subject matters or topics and focus on the topic in question. The question of limit leads us to the issue of responsibility. The latter is possible only in the context of human essence as fallible. Infallible beings need not raise the question of responsibility since what they know and do is absolutely inevitable and cannot be changed. This also holds for some theories, such as the claim that the universe is ruled by mechanical laws of causality, and whatever happens is determined by inevitable laws. In this sense, there is no crime, no responsibility, since the deeds were a result of causes. Indeed, in this setting there are no mistakes, because to say “I made a mistake” can be explained by some cause. Meanwhile, our essential limitation in wisdom and power exposes us to mistakes for which we are responsible and which we must correct. Thus, while discussing something in communication such as a topic or theme we can make a mistake and be corrected or, by realizing what others are saying about the same thing or subject matter, one can note one’s own limitations and mistakes. It is obvious that, based on the essence of what is meant to be a human being, communication requires an open public domain wherein any specific claim must be interrogated, tested and dialogically adjudicated. This means that such a domain is, in principle, political and philosophical. After all, political

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means a public arena in which everyone can and must participate in order to discuss public issues, and philosophical in the sense that philosophy questions and debates all claims in open dialogue—including claims by persons appealing to “infallible” texts. The latter are usually theocratic and, left to rule by themselves, do not allow any challenges. Thus, any theocratic and even autocratic mode of rule presumes to be infallible and resultantly not responsible. In such a society there is no dialogical engagement and communication ceases. Every pronouncement issued by a theocrat is absolute. Meanwhile, the ethos of public life and philosophy is open domain where everyone has a right and a duty to speak reasonably and impartially on any subject matter, fully understanding that such rights and duties are not arbitrary. Any issue to be addressed in public must respect the subject matter. At the outset this excludes the notion that man is the measure of all things and by extension that the divinities are the measure of all things. The measure is the very nature of things and specific topics; the very essence of the way the world is present. The latter has been a debate within and among major Greek philosophers, yet despite some variations all of them understood natural events from their limits (peras). Every being is determined to be a specific kind of being by the limit, which cannot be transgressed. Whether the limit is located in topos noitos (the place of ideas), or is the morphe (the inherent form of a thing) in each case they are the very essence of a given thing. On the other hand, the essence of a being is what comprises its very purpose, its Alpha and Omega, its intelligibility such that from the very inception of a given being, the form, the essence, is what determines the way the given being will unfold its dynamis, kinesis, its dynamics, the shape of its movement. The dynamics is therefore intelligible at the outset because it manifests its own form and limit of its unfolding. Already, Parmenides saw that being itself could only be understood from its limit, i.e. nothing. But to understand things as they are in themselves knowledge must be unimpeded, free from instrumental, pragmatic, power and other concerns if it is to attain the status of theoria. The latter is devised to make present the very essence of what anything is. No doubt, the task is difficult and many arguments were presented to challenge whether a given theoria truly made present the essence of something. Such challenges revealed both human fallibility and the ability and responsibility to correct mistakes. Then again, mistakes are corrected not by some wilful invention or trick but by going back to the presence of things of this world. It is not the human or some of his divinities that are judges of the world, but the worldly things that judge human understanding. After all, the rule is: “not me but the logos follow” demanding that knowledge will be worthy of theory if it follows the way the reason of the world comprises the order of all things revealed by the place and limit of each. This answers the question that a limit of communication is revealed by the limits of things and any topic, theme or subject matter that can be a focus of dialogue.

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References Literature Hurley, Patrick. 1988. Concise Introduction to Logic. Belmont: Wodsworth Publication. Lasswitz, Kurd. 1963. Geschichte der Atomistik. Bd. II. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliches Buchgesellschaft. Plato. 1980. The Laws. Trans. T. L. Pangle. New York: Basic Books. Schrey, Heinz H. 1970. Dialogisches Denken. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliches Buchgeselschaft. Scudder, John R., and Algis Mickunas. 1985. Meaning, Dialogue, and Enculturation: Phenomenological Philosophy of Education. Washington: Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology. Silverman, Hugh J. (ed.). 1988. The Horizons of Continental Philosophy. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Movies Riefenstahl, L. 1935. Triumph des Willens.

Chapter 3

The Formal and Informal Logic of Communication

Question 18 T. K. What is the relationship between communication science and media studies? Does media serve communication? A. M. The study of media is as old as writing itself—in all its various forms including letters, words, sentences, texts, through images, marks, arts, followed by technical inventions from telephones, telegraph, printing, to radio, TV, computers, satellites, and mass personal devices. To be regarded as scientific, most media studies are quantitative, regardless of what media are being studied. Thus, studies of mass communication in the departments of communication require the purchase of data such as social statistics in certain areas—wage distributions in different occupations—and such data are then put through statistical models to play with variables. No question can be raised concerning what these data signify, since such questions on the bases of modern ontology and scientific metaphysics (mathematics) are subjective. Numerous variants can be suggested for such media studies: the composition—the frequencies and lengths—of the satellite waves reaching TVs, computers and contemporary mobile implements, the distribution of various TV programs around the globe and the numbers of viewers. This is the well known “medium is the message” claim, reduced to statistical models. With this in mind, we can advance the proposition that any change in media is equivalent to a change in communication, resulting in the prevalent language wherein the media is identical with the events. The media do not mediate, do not signify, but are the events without a distance. Thus we take an image as reality and unavoidably end up with the proposition of Jean Baudrillard (2016) that there is no other reality, that there is no perceived original but only proliferation of simulacra. This is followed by everyday language, where you may be asked: “Did you see the Olympic opening ceremonies?” or “Have you watched the tornadoes in Kansas?” The images are © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 T. Kaˇcerauskas and A. Mick¯unas, In Between Communication Theories Through One Hundred Questions, Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41106-0_3

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“the thing in itself”. The context for such a state of affairs is based on a modern philosophical shift toward episteme which is “representational, such that the only thing we can have is either empirical impressions which do not reveal a thing, but are images of things, or rational ideas in the mind, used to organize or synthesize the empirical, and thus represent something that is unknown. In the final analysis the representations such as media cannot stand for, or point to, reality and hence the very notion of representation becomes redundant. If there is no representation, then there cannot be misrepresentation. If we accept this to be true, then media studies would be equivalent to communication studies, and yet the media scientists speak freely of messages—and in a very inconsistent way. Let us be precise: if media are the message then each distinct medium would have to be a distinct message. Radio is radio and television is television, while writing is its own message, but yet there is a strange phenomenon—the message—communicated by various media. Three people meet and talk about some event; one states that “I saw on the news that India elected a new prime minister,” another adds “You are right, I heard the same thing on my car radio,” while the third remarks, “It is interesting, I saw the same thing in the newspaper.” This represents three distinct media, albeit “the same message.” It would seem that communication is not the medium, but the message “carried” by the media. The message is intentional in the sense that it effaces itself and signifies, points to something, some theme, event, and it appears only if we fail to understand what it is about. The variation between media and messages is such that one medium can carry most diverse messages, and diverse media can carry the same message. While media are necessary they become effaced (unnoticed) in communication in order to allow the message to manifest itself. If one were to analyse the TV set, its colour, weight, size, material composition, one would miss the program. To study the program or the content requires the bracketing of the medium. Question 19 T. K. According to McLuhan (1964) the content of media is other media. Are these interconnections at war with each other, or do they help to form alliances. For example, the Internet killed the telegraph and the radio and the TV invoked the Internet in order to survive. Is communication therefore a secondary effect of the media wars and of the battle for the state of being? A. M. If there is a media war it is premised on the modern Western invention of progress. The latter cannot be understood without reference to the modern philosophical, ontological and metaphysical background. Modern ontology acknowledges the reality that homogeneous matter composed of parts is not accessible to perception. Hence, such reality is transcendent and demands that we apply a mathematical method (or formal systems) to construct such a reality that accords with our calculations. Both the formally designed systems and the transcendent material nature

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represent detachment from the lived world, although they allow an arbitrary correlation between the two of them. One can treat everything from a vantage point of detached formalism and regard qualitative and essential distinctions with indifference. The formal indifferent and disconnected systems lend themselves to increased formal differentiations of formal systems themselves. Hence, the material world can be increasingly differentiated and reconstructed along more complex and yet more distinct technical masteries and controls of the transcendent reality. In short, increasing formal complexities and differences is coextensive with an increase in the contingency of the material domain, leading to more possible rearrangements of the indifferent material nature. Every refined and produced material process offers possibilities for further formal refinements and material rearrangements. The differentiation of formal systems and their correlative application to material-technical manipulation provide a basis for disciplinary differentiations, each having its own formal approaches, and each capable of possible construction of material reality in terms of specific formal constructs. Here, we need to point out why the delimited constitution is the condition for the possibility of discursive power. The very languages and formal systems and their differentiations can access the transcendent world only by remaking it, by subjecting the material to formal and technical transformations. Thus, the more one subdivides the formal domain into increasingly refined concepts, the more one is able to impose such concepts on material nature by technical procedures. In this sense, the very language of the disciplines is coextensive with the power of shaping the indifferent material nature. Furthermore, one could argue that this continuous division and formalization of discourse is coextensive with the militarization of language and society. Each increasing refinement is correlatively a restriction of signs to signals, followed by an attendant restriction of human functions to being a reaction to precise and efficient codes. The discursive power takes us in two directions: the making of the environment, and control over humans. In general, this process of militarization is one of the bases for the emergent language of war. We are at war with each other, with the environment, with poverty, with affluence, and with our own divided selves. This process requires the adherence to its principles of formal and material detachments, however it progresses toward a differentiated inclusion of all events, both natural and cultural. In so doing, it constitutes a formally differentiated world where semi-independent spheres call for semi-independent functions and work. What is relevant in human life depends and is contingent upon the manner in which the formal constructs divide the human material: the human is an economic, social, chemical, physiological, psychological, biological, etc. set of differentiated behaviours, each semi-independent of the others. To analyse the obvious would be pointless: the power of these differentiations comprises also the separations of social functions and tasks, leading to a society of semi-independent groupings of expertise. What each expertise produces within its own sphere has no necessary connection with other spheres. Hence, the results of research in a specific domain can be picked up by the military and/or by art. For the experts of each domain there is no recourse to any external criterion concerning the intentionalities, which would correlate the results as possibilities in another domain. This is to say, the material, i.e. technically produced

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forces, can be selected at will, arbitrarily by other social domain such as politics for possible application. The lateral differentiation decentralizes responsibility, thereby increasing contingency and arbitrariness, the latter being increasingly unchained from any constraints. Every formal rule, and every material result made to fulfil the formal design become totally arbitrary, offering possibilizing formal and material combinations without end. Each domain is released from the concrete lived world implications, each an expert in its own sphere, and need not relate to any other sphere. Each can claim that there is no such thing as conclusive evidence, precisely because the formal systems and their fulfilled material arrangements are arbitrary designs and carry no necessity. Insofar as they make, and by making they produce their own reality and increase their power, they are able to prove their momentary statistical value. Given the key intentionality, which oscillates between the theoretical, methodological and the transcendent homogeneous domains, there emerges the attendant factor, i.e. permanent progress. Without regression and without death all formal systems and all transformations of the lived world are enhancements of progress. What is peculiar about progress is that it has no subject that would progress. For modern philosophy, despite claims concerning human nature, the sole objective reality is the sum of material parts, humans being no exception because they cannot claim to be different from all other material events. In this sense, humans are also a function to be calculated within the context of various formal systems and their ability to design a new man. All formal systems are instrumental where a positing of a specific aim requires the calculation of material means to attain such an aim. The aim once attained becomes the material means for other aims, while the latter also become the means for further aims, although without any final aim. In terms of instrumental rationality, progress cannot have a final aim and hence it cannot have a direction. Its aim and its subject is itself and thus it is self-referential. Progress is its own destiny. It constitutes its own increasing formal refinements, efficiencies and perfectibilities without attaining perfection. No attained construction is left without possibilizing and hence improvement. One could say, semiotically, and from the Husserlian perspective, that the signifier and signified are one. It should be obvious that the media war is not one system competing with another but, one in which each new step taken in progress subsumes and incorporates previous steps. Thus, the sound medium—radio—is incorporated into the sound and image system of TV, the latter being incorporated into a computer where one can view TV programs and movies, news, and also communicate with the rest of the world. With the addition of Skype, telephone becomes redundant. Indeed, print journalism and book publishing is incorporated into computer systems, where one can read books, newspapers, scientific research papers—“publishing on line.” In this context the “war” is not to attack and win against another, but to create novelties and incorporate the “opposition” into the novel invention. Of course, a computer might be incorporated into hand-held devices, which offer more than a computer. Such devices have all that computers offer, and more—global positioning, texting, driving instructions and almost anything that one can imagine. Of course, such devices are not the final end, but only another step in self-proliferating progress. Competition is

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not in terms of what is already given as a fact inserted into our life world, but opens the way to possible formal constructs which can use what is available, i.e. what has been achieved as a purpose, as the instrumental means for possible purposes—and once achieved, such purposes will themselves become means. The logic of progress and its constant transcendence of present achievements are not only instrumental reason, but also time reflex. Two major aspects constitute time reflex, however their structures are similar; we shall deal with one and refer to the other when necessary. The limits of what is technically possible constitute a temporal horizon for a particular technical field, and this reflects the process of currently available technical achievements. These are temporal and their orientation, selectivity and significance are reflected from future and past horizons. Since events are temporal, the time reflex is also temporal with constantly shifting possibilities at the limit of what is possible at the present moment. Since the process of technical selectivity requires temporal horizons of the technically possible, then the temporal field constitutes a prerequisite for understanding the selectivity processes. Hence, the temporal field is fundamental both for technical transformation and for the relationship between formal systems development and their application. This relationship can now be described as time-reflex. A horizon of the temporal field reflects the limits of what has been achieved and its possibilities, and constitutes a time reflex in time. In brief, the temporal field horizon has an indefinite depth of temporal possibilities, which reflect the temporal horizons of technical possibilities and their limits. Let us assume that the future horizon selects not only the current factors and their temporal orientation and limits, but also the relevant past horizon. On the other hand, an investigation of past technical achievements and their possibilities may constitute an opening to the future horizon. Thus, the influence of the past on the present and future is not causal but selective and significant. While moving toward the future, technical progress also selects and establishes the orientation and interrelationships of past-present-future events. Since activity is correlative to the time reflex, then the time reflex is the basis of our understanding of all temporal interrelationships comprising the temporal movement of technical progress. It accounts for the distinction and interconnection between the present of the past, present of the present, and the present of the future. Each such present is given with its temporal horizons, which intersect and are co-continuous with those of other presents. During a technical construction of what is possible, the present shifts from one possibility to another that includes shifts, not only in the horizons of the present, but also in those of the present of the past and the present of the future. Shifts in the present of the present include shifts in its horizons, and correlatively call for the shifts in the horizons of the presents of past and future. The present temporal field, due to its time reflex, extends and overlaps with past and future temporal fields. In all cases, the time reflex allows progress and the “war” among technical media to remain open indefinitely. What we have sketched with regard to time reflex is the way we communicate by using all technical media. In brief, time reflex in time is the basic medium in a technological world.

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Question 20 T. K. The media offers wide possibilities to communicate, yet once the image of an actor (a politician, a showman, a musician, a designer, a journalist etc.) has been formed it excludes reference to any other actor. What if media-generated publicity acts as a barrier to communication? A. M. To speak of the open domain of communication requires us to distinguish between society, and open or political society. Societies have a life world in which one—the minority—segment exercises power over the majority population. It matters very little if the ruling segment is an autocracy, theocracy, monarchy, plutocracy, simply because all ruling segments communicate their narrow interests and their narrow justifications for their being in a ruling position. Examples of this are numerous: theocrats often claim a divinely sanctioned right to rule for the good, as well as to save the world from itself. Autocrats lay claim to what is good for society because they gained power through their superior cunning and power—with the added claim that only those in power can offer benefits to their followers. Plutocrats claim that the market decides everything, and since they follow the market they are victorious and must rule simply because they obey the market. In political society common issues are discussed in the open and everyone must participate or, at least be aware of the issues. If the public withdraws from participation and any attempt to understand all sides of an issue, then political (civil) society will vanish and each group will hear only what it believes, but without any critical reflection. In short, the public fragments itself into opposing and rigid postures, the opposing positions being reduced to war not as a civil Socratic debate in search of truth, but uttering a stream of personal insults or, as “baby logic” teaches, to “ad hominem arguments.” This media issue need not be troublesome in cases of groups having no general public importance. For example, in the United States there are numerous “mega churches” where a charismatic preacher has a committed following and also a vast media network. The followers belong to the preacher’s economic empire, buying his recordings, investing money in his bank, paying for their children’s education in his schools, and attending the mega-church in order to shop—since mega-churches are also shopping centres. Such churches are commercial enterprises that use outstanding texts (various bibles) to attract customers, and have little impact on public issues since the preacher speaks only to his group of believers and shoppers. The same can be said of various other media that have their stars and attract a following, such as hip-hop, country music, Madonna, Lady Gaga, and many others. They all communicate to their followers without stealing the audience of other media stars. Serious media issues arise in political society when ideological positions come to be regarded as the sole truth. The followers of the ideology listen only to the media which propagate such ideology and accuse others of being stupid, crazy, having no sense of “real” human nature or the foundations of social life. This has been called

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“me journalism”, where from the flood of media reports each person selects their medium as the source of truth. Even a conservative journal, The Economist (25 June 25, 2016, p. 48), pointed out, “…warring antagonists stake out opposing positions and complex political debates are reduced to a stream of insults and vitriol.” While in Europe for a long time multiparty systems have “mitigated against polarization… But here too, the air has begun to grow foul”. The temptation by ideologues in Hungary, Austria, even France either to ban or take over opposition media is a sign of the foul air. Brexit provides another example of such polarization; specifically dividing generations wherein the better educated and young are for globalization and open society, while the older citizens are for a closed world. There is another perhaps more fundamental dimension cutting across mass media, and this is the scientific-technical fragmentation of the very ontological fabric of what it is to be human. As our previous question and discussed revealed, formal indifferent and disconnected scientific discourses lend themselves to horizontal divisions and increased formalizations of language in such a way that there emerges increased formal differentiations of formal systems themselves. Correlatively, the material world can be increasingly differentiated and reconstructed along more complex, and yet more distinct technical masteries and controls. In short, an incrementation of formal complexities and differences is coextensive with an increase in the contingency of the material domain, leading to more possible rearrangements of the indifferent material nature. Every refined and produced material process offers possibilities for further formal refinements and material rearrangements. The lateral differentiation of formal systems and their correlative material structuration provide a basis for disciplinary differentiations, each having its own formal approaches and each capable of possible construction of material realizations. The ontological issue is this: objectively speaking humans are also material beings and each scientific discipline explains its object in its own way. For example, biology has its technical discourse, genetics has its own, biochemistry another, physiology still another, economy explains everything in its own framework, psychology is not far behind—and each reduces all others to its own formal requirements. What is relevant in human life depends and is contingent upon the manner in which the formal constructs divide the human material, and the division shows that each discipline is semi-independent of the others. What is left of a human being is therefore “an intersection” of diverse scientific-technical discourses. Such discourses are presented in mass media with a common introductory phrase, “the latest scientific research has shown…”. Each increasing refinement is correlatively a restriction of signs to signals, followed by an attendant restriction of human functions to being a reaction to precise and efficient codes. While this process requires the adherence to its principles of formal and material detachments, it progresses toward a differentiated inclusion of all events, both “natural” and cultural, and thus constitutes a formally differentiated world where semi-independent spheres call for semi-independent functions and work. It would be redundant to analyse the obvious: the power of these differentiations comprises also the separations of social functions and tasks, leading to a society of semi-independent groupings of expertise.

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Yet, what each expertise produces within its own sphere has no necessary connection with other spheres. Hence, the results of research in a specific domain can be picked up by military or by art. For the experts of each domain there is no recourse to any external criterion concerning the intentionalities, which would correlate the results as possibilities in another domain. This is to say, the material, i.e. technically produced forces can be selected at will, arbitrarily by other social domains, such as politics for possible application. The lateral differentiation decentralizes responsibility, thus increasing the contingency and arbitrariness, and the latter is increasingly unchained from any constraints. Every formal rule, and every material result made to fulfil the formal design become totally arbitrary, offering an indefinite variety of formal and material combinations. At this level each scientific-technical invention is not just another object, but the very medium, which directs who we are, and what we do. What is needed for open communication is to understand the limits of each discipline, and its discourse and the way it functions to incorporate and interpret other disciplines and discourses. Such interpretation must be understood either as analogical or metaphoric. This means that to speak of parts of human physiology, such as parts of brains, as locations of certain human abilities, such as thinking or empathy, is to speak metaphorically, since such locations are equally metaphors for the functions we have always performed—thinking and empathizing. As phenomenology has pointed out, brain physiology takes what we know and has acted upon and assigned this knowledge to brain parts. Question 21 T. K. How do we define code and its characteristics? Is code necessary for communication? Is it a necessary aspect of culture and is it to be understood only by reference to cultural meanings? A. M. “Code” has many meanings, including coded messages in military and secret communication, which prompts opposing groups, be they enemies or competitors in some venture, to break the code. Moreover, there are levels of codes such that one level might be coded in a different way by another level. All communication, if it deals with any message, must have codes for its comprehension. Not only that, every kind of communication assumes repeated and thus identifiable components. The latter could be of indefinite variety. In stories one has repeated characters, in theories there are repeated forms and principles, in mythologies there are recognizable divinities and heroes, and in philosophies one encounters repeated themes. In brief, any discourse that communicates would fail if there were notable and recognizable components. This requirement shows up in any language theory, and is emphasized by semiotics. While hermeneutics might contend that every identifiable component depends on a context, it assumes both, an identifiable component and identifiable context. Here we encounter a specific code: identity and difference, since no identity would be recognizable without it being different from others.

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Apart from identity and difference, Greek philosophers from Plato onwards recognized other codes of equal significance. We cannot think of Being without Nothing, permanence without change, one without many, leading to the ontological and even metaphysical recognition that these codes are present in all thinking, language, scientific theories and even theologies and mythologies. As noted, however, one level of codes can disclose codes that compose them. It is immediately obvious that the mentioned pairs are dependent on a binary code. This code is much more inclusive, since it enters all areas of human life. Thus, when positivistic philosophers analyse propositions, they fail to recognize that propositions by themselves are incomplete, since each requires missing terms. If one states that “water is cold,” one forgets to note that the term cold makes sense if we know its binary term—warm. If one states, “the tree is tall” one must assume the binary term short. It is also the case that the binary involves the code of identity and difference. The myth of “The Fall” is not only found in Hebrew stories, but also in Egypt, Bambaras, Ewes, Tuti-Nameh, Kalevala, and many others, where the initial unity is split. This allows for binary differentiation of everything in the universe, including differentiation of the cosmos itself. Euripides once remarked it was from his mother that he heard a story in which sky and earth were together, but were separated, which brought all things. This is the movement of differentiation, since it is impossible to speak of an all-encompassing unity without its differentiation into regions such as sky and earth. The Indo European root “da-di” comprises a dental sound. Leading to terminologies expressing division including such terms as the Sanskrit dantas, Latin dens, Greek odous, German Zahn, English tooth, Lithuanian dantis, implying moreover terms such as daio, daiomai, diazo meaning to divide, separate, tear up and dato, datram, dayate, meaning to part, partition, divide. Division leads to polar binary and also to dual binary. To make our case, we can study any text, mythological fables being one example and note their binary codification. First division: deivo—sky region, which is “up”. Theos, Zeus, devas, deus, divine and masculine; a unitary root “da:di” yields first division: deva—earth region, which is “down”, daimo, dieu, teufel, devil and feminine. While the code of the first division is binary, the second division specifies the binary as polar, manifesting a specific relationship between the “up” and “down.” They are not totally separated, but can change places and indeed exhibit characteristics of each other. Here, masculine or feminine characteristics can be assigned to either side, forming constant polar instability. This instability is most clearly stated in mythological polar binaries: mythos—mythenomai, voicing—speaking. The unitary root “mu:mu” splits into mukas—mutus, silence—mute, myein, verbalize, mouth and music, mysterion, mystery, mystic and muse; hell-heil, luminescent—light, up; holy, healthy, wholesome, whole. The unitary root “kel:kel” splits into caligo, kali, dark, darkness, down; occultum, occult, cellare, cellar. In principle, these are polar binary codes that express the world in rhythmic transformations where the divine can become demonic and, conversely, light shifts to dark and dark moves to light, love moves to hate and hate to attraction, silence into sound and sound pervaded by silence. These are indications of the way one codification composes a particular world or, in many cases, one level of a complex life world.

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This polar binary can and has become purely dual, required by the philosophical logic of either/or. This code composes a strict world where something is light or dark, divine or demonic, sound or silence, mind or matter, past or future, male or female, high or low, left and right, and none of these binary opposites can become the other. This is known as the rational world codification, and is taken for granted as natural and a reflection of the way things really are. There is no need to expound on the way this strict binary code emerged, but it is significant that it has become global, supervening the mythological polar code, prevailing in India, China, and the residual Mesoamerican cultures. The arrangement of the signs in the context of this code is a hierarchy of positions, with high–low composition, such that the high is man and the low is woman, high is god, good, right, true, rational, and low is demon, left, evil, false, irrational. It becomes obvious that speaking semiotically there is a metonymic association of signs. Thus man, god, right, good, rational belong together, just as woman, demon, evil, left, irrational, also belong together. This ordering of signs by a binary code has been the main reason for feminist demands of equality and the abolition of the patriarchal social order. The arrangement of signs in accordance with a code does not have any natural referents. Thus, the signs can be rearranged and form very different designations of social members. We have male-female who must follow a marital code and become husband-wife, whilst conversely they can become mother-father with children sondaughter who, in their truth, can adhere to a marital code and marry outside of family. All this is normal for one tradition. But let us change the marital code allowing a different social arrangement. Thus, a son can marry his mother and they have a boy and a girl—their children. We can arrive at a specific condensation of a binary code by showing that a son begets children with his mother, and by marrying his daughter to his son, and by having his sexual relationship with his daughter he is also having his sister, his daughter and his sister-in-law. Here, what seems to have been dispersed in various sequences of relationships suddenly becomes meaningful, and precisely because of the sentences. It is obvious that codes matter and their restriction to a specific cultural composition of terms is a matter of convention. Question 22 T. K. What do we mean by personal communication? What are the characteristics of mass-communication? Is mass-communication the result of, or reason for, cultural uniformity? What are the ideological aspects of mass-communication? A. M. The difference between personal and mass communication can be expressed by Heidegger’s distinction between authentic and inauthentic modes of being in the world. To understand this distinction it is necessary to indicate briefly the way that the modern, Western question of human existence has been conceived. After Kant the term “existence” is no longer relevant as an attribute to things or to humans. Hence, the only way that existence can have a meaning relates not to what humans are as

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entities, but as modes of being in the world, as temporal projects of possibilities. What makes a person exist is the choice of possibilities that is authentic and unique, while the possibilities that everyone lives do not constitute any distinction among persons. Such persons belong to the mode of being which is “they” (das Man), the mass which repeats the same clichés that are repeated by everyone. “They say that God exists”— basta. “They say that science will cure all disease.” They read the same news, listen to the same music, hate those troublemakers, and look for a lucrative career. There is no distinction as to who they are and hence it is impossible to say how to recognize them apart, so that existence has no meaning since there is nothing that is authentic about any of them. In short, they belong to and are the mass communication. And the mass media proliferates this anonymous mass of messages—sending “them” to the same films, television programs, the latest music and fashions and imitations of each other. Authenticity is a way of disclosing the world, which provides a unique insight and a different mode of being in the world that has not been, and will not be again. This is what existence means—standing out toward the unique possibility of being. In being authentic one must care for oneself, which also requires a care for the world. In the mass scientific world, “they” are careless insofar as they also form mass in all that they do. They make wine by means of enhanced chemistry, synthetic colours and flavour, and thus never taste authentic wine. The latter requires tending the grape and the soil, ensuring adequate moisture levels and a sloping terrain facing the sun. All of this takes time; so let the grape take its time. In such a wine one will taste the soil, the sunshine, the morning dew, and the strength of the breeze. One will taste the world. A winemaker such as this is authentic because they disclose the possibility of caring for themselves and others. Culture is correlative of mass media to the extent that it has very little to do with the original meaning of the term “cultivation”. It means to patiently bring out the best of qualities in any venture, whether in a field of crops, or in a musical, literary or garden composition. This includes the cultivation of human sensitivity in taste, discernment in the proper and creative use of language, attire and manners. Contemporary culture has discarded such requirements and has become a mass product or, to speak in global terms, McDonalized. The cultural logic is simple: there is no time to develop a subtle musical style because tomorrow will bring the latest and so will the day after tomorrow. There is no time to cultivate, and the tomorrow novelty is equally nothing new, and yet the code word will be used for everything, i.e. progress. Today’s culture must be pop-culture and appeal to the people for whom Mozart or Melville, Shakespeare or Debussy require a cultivated understanding. For this we have no time. Perhaps this is a failure of philosophy, and for various reasons. First, this may be the refusal of philosophical minds to engage in philosophical debates at the level of principles. The discussions are about empty formal systems, since all “serious” questions are relegated to sciences. Second, by the middle of the last century, questions of principles and standards were discarded as irrelevant, belonging to logocentric essentialism of the thinking of “dead white males”, and their nostalgic efforts to maintain their rigid phallic postures. This led to claims that there is nothing to appeal to, no standards or principles to be accepted, and where everyone has their philosophy, whether

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based on gender, race, ethnicity, ideological dogma, social control, power interests, and endless other philosophies. Third, the all-pervasive notion that languages and discourses determine all thinking and finally, interpretation of the world, leading to the result that each discourse, each language, is the way the world is for someone or some group. Since discourses are our constructs they do not represent any reality and hence cannot be judged as having any claim to truth or superior position; they are all equivalent. Fourth, the result is a contradictory conclusion. Since languages are constructs that do not represent anything, they cannot misrepresent anything. In my language there are gypsies, but since they do not represent any reality, then I cannot be accused of political incorrectness. After all, I am not misrepresenting anything and, one cannot say that in another language they are called Roma—so what. Since that language does not represent anything, then it is simply different from mine and both are equal. Fifth, mass communication as such has no ideology, because the multi discursive nature of media may possess all sorts of ideologies, whether they are economic, religious, power, racism, narcissism—and whatever one can invent have a cause for which to fight. Question 23 T. K. Does propaganda express the essence of communication or distort it? Does liberal democracy eliminate propaganda? A. M. One way of understanding propaganda in communication is to show in what contexts it can make sense. In the modern world, the context is a postulation of utopia as one variant of traditional paradise, appearing in fairy tales such as the Holy Bible, the Koran, the Promised Land, the grand illusions of Karl Marx and his followers, or even claims, such as Fukuyama’s (1992) rhetoric of the end of history, and thus an arrival at a complete system that ought to be accepted as universal. This would possess impeccable rules of the global market—the market as God—the unstoppable progress of democratization. Yet, it is quite clear that the world is fragmenting into various anarchistic movements, which does not imply chaos or arbitrariness. On the contrary, arbitrariness and chaos appear only at an intersection and collision of absolutist, utopian movements that in themselves have not a shred of arbitrariness. They are strict and without deviations and their very implementation demands continuous disruption of all supposed inadequate social order, and hence the promotion of anarchistic violence. This is, for contemporary understanding, most important to the extent that the seeming rejection of utopia and appearance of dystopia, as a claim to the impossibility of the practical maintenance of utopia, does not mean the death of absolutist and utopian views. The only difference is that currently there are many and mutually exclusive utopian views. In this answer, a brief outline will be offered as to what comprises utopias, specifically in reference to a number of current trends, and the clear function of propaganda in its context. Again, indications will focus on current events and the way utopian rhetoric functions

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as propaganda, but with a cynical turn insofar as the critique of utopian images is apparent in social and concrete phenomena. There is no need to specifically articulate someone’s use of the term, such as the designation and imagery of utopian societies (if not states) by Thomas More, Marx, Muslims, or Christians. All such designations have one common feature. To quote Paul Ricœur, they fill the gap of incredibility. This means that a group, whether majority or marginal, regards that a given society is not living up to its incredible claims and promises, and hence creates an imagery that fills the gaps in such claims. It is deemed that the current society with its idealized structure, is in place, but somehow fails to live up to its own standards and ideals. Thus, social ideologies such as capitalist notions of the market as an expression of the very nature of what humans are, dismisses most of humanity as somehow unworthy and thus doomed to fail. Those who fail, or those who speak in their stead, constitute the imagery that failure is not a fault of ideologically conceived humanity, but of the gap between society and its ideology, i.e. a gap that has to be filled with the imagery of propaganda where humanity is shown to be fulfilled. Here, we discover an example in the so-called utopia of communism with all of its claims to have established the conditions that resulted in “the new man.” The revolution against capitalism and feudalism was complete. However, it became immediately obvious that once a post-revolutionary society was established it began to impose its ideology from above, insisting in frequent pronouncements that the utopian state had been reached— except that it cannot be yet allowed its complete manifestation due to a constant presence of historically discarded capitalist ideological residua. Once the latter is swept away such as individualism and the desire for possessions, the manifestation and realization of the utopian state will be inevitable. Meanwhile, the citizens of such a society perceive a widening gap between their daily life and the utopian vision. Soviet propaganda consisted of rhetoric that Soviet society was the best in the world, that its standard of living, its social services, its productivity, its education, art, sports, were beyond the reach of any other society. For the normal citizens the gap appeared in empty store shelves, long lines for any available commodity, and inferior health and educational services to the people in contrast to the ruling elites. Hence, the utopian dream reappeared in the guise of emerging capitalist images: everyone is well to do, independent, free from governmental regulations, and can develop talents that are unhindered by bureaucracies. At this point, there enters the shock treatment imposed on a collapsing Soviet Union by Harvard University’s market missionaries in a bid to build the free market as a utopian provider of all the tinsel, which was seen only in Hollywood productions and mass media advertisements—the paradise of Fukuyama, which he later regarded as extremely boring. Nothing less than a transformation of the whole of Russian society. Be that as it may, the new utopia was a radical failure, including the attempt to introduce democracy in post-Soviet society. We should remind ourselves that during this period of tumult and transformation our most articulate and respected journalists were champions of the market economy and its role in building the new Utopia. In wave after wave of interviews, Western journalists asked the strangest of questions, chiefly: “now that you have a free market, what do you think of democracy?” The

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assumption that a free market is democracy (or at least a basis for democracy) was never challenged and as such is nothing less than propaganda. Indeed, the response of the more audacious Soviet citizens was that since money is everything, and there are no rules as to how you make money, the mafia is the best vehicle to achieve your end goal—getting rich. Yet, we are faced with other utopias, specifically the type promoted by various personality cults parading as utopia, which regard secular institutions as the work of the devil and open to be transformed, which consistent with some stories stemming from the ancient Middle East—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This religiosity relies on utopian images of some texts and is called upon to bring to existence in social life what the texts have depicted in metaphorical and allegorical stories. The intention is to save the world from its fallen state. If those truly committed are called to action, then any unbeliever, infidel, deviant, or anyone who offers another paradise, demands to follow their saviour or prophet, is to be condemned and eradicated. Holy wars are part of the essence of such heaven on earth utopias. Conflict will vanish once all oppositions are vanquished and heavenly peace rules. It must be pointed out that in these types of utopias the human person is not the one who runs society: it is the pronouncements in the texts to which the person appeals and which are regarded as pronouncements of unconditional truth. One term used to designate this sort of utopian society is theocracy. The propaganda employed by theocracy is promoted by threats and promises, which fail because the paradise promised on earth must be constantly postponed and, ultimately, delayed till one reaches the other world. A common feature of propaganda in these cults is that the greatest evil is secularism and its lack of morality. Since secularism is in principle the same as political democracy, then democracy is equally evil. In democracy, every personality cult and its propaganda are made transparent, since every claim and pronouncement by any member of any cult can be questioned and contested in the open. As was noted in answers to question twelve, democracy is plural and every effort at propaganda is immediately disclosed for what it is. In principle, any utopian imagery and its proponents must denounce democracy as the most dangerous form of social organization—whether it was in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, or any theocracy. Meanwhile, in a world dominated by commodities, advertisements become a form of mild propaganda. They do not actually focus on the product, but on the imagery and sounds surrounding the product, to such an extent that in some cases one can ask, “what are they advertising”? Yet, the impact of this kind of propaganda is easily avoided. One can listen to the rhetoric how great the cookie tastes and how pleasing it is, and how popular it is with a specific age group. But this does not imply that someone will be obliged to try it. And if one tries it, one might not like it and never buy it again. This is the same with the advertisements for political figures. They, too, hire all sorts of agencies to make the figure into a popular image for public appeal. Of course, in a principled democracy such advertisements should be abolished and only the positions on public issues considered, i.e. rational dialogue. The fact that this is not the case is an issue for education.

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Question 24 T. K. Often, the news media release so-called fluke, i.e. fake news. Notwithstanding, intense discussions surrounding such news shows that this communication is actually “real” even in the case of “fluke” news. A. M. By definition, news is about something, some event, some topic or issue, and hence tied to content. The introduction of a deliberate “fluke” is an invitation to investigate if it is an empty signification or if it has content—no subject matter that is addressed. To say, “Peter went to Spain” when we find Peter sitting in a bar in Helsinki is to point out that the statement is either a fabrication or a mistake, and to ask the publisher of such news to correct the statement. The very request to correct is also a disclosure of the truth of the fact that Peter did not go to Madrid. This clear example does not account for many other cases, which might be extremely ambiguous without a final resolution. In a juridical domain the question of guilt and responsibility offers many examples where numerous factors are introduced which involve a particular act in ambiguous accounts. Was a particular case a simple murder, or a crime of passion, or self-defence, or momentary insanity, leading to media reports which conflict with each other? Add to this context ideological, religious, ethnic, constitutional controversies, and we find it difficult to decide which news report about the case is true. The above issue is based on modern and postmodern notions of hermeneutics with a variant of multi-discoursivity. Regardless of the variety of hermeneutical positions, ranging from philosophical, through methodological to historical, all have a common claim: all understanding is an interpretation and the latter depends on a given language. If we add to this claim the postmodern notion that there is no “master discourse” leading to the notion that there are many discourses and each interprets things and events in its own way, then there are no external criteria as to which discourse is correct. Thus, ethical discourse interprets a particular case in terms of its specific ethical discourse, while aesthetic discourse has its own view, and a religious discourse speaks its own language. Global warming is a good example of such multi-discoursivity. Chemists and botanists point to an increase in temperature due to fossil fuels, requiring us to limit their use. Economists interpret the problem of production, trade and jobs, whereas jurists interpret the same issue in terms of national jurisdiction. Fundamentalist Christians speak of God’s will, while geologists point to different ages having higher temperatures in pre-human times. Thus, if someone states that there is no global warming, shall we take this position as a deliberate ploy to test whether mass media reports are promoting something that has no content, or do mass media report a particular discourse among other discourses on the topic of global warming? In such cases the resolution must raise a question of consequences: if fossil fuels add one degree to global warming, what are the consequences for populations, which might be affected? If one degree is a change from 0 to 1 °C, then ice will melt in Arctic

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regions, oceans will rise, and floods will inundate low lying regions of the planet, forcing mass migration, but where? In short, the issue is to be resolved globally and no multi-discursive theory will be of help. No flooding of human habitat on Fiji islands will be alleviated by statements that this is God’s will, or that the Fiji islands have appeared only in the current geological age. The point is that the discursive interpretations are subtended by experience—purely a phenomenological answer to the primacy of discoursivity. In the final analysis, it is not discoursivity, which can adjudicate what is real but experience. Question 25 T. K. In speaking about informal communication we have in mind, gossips. How do gossips represent communication? What is the relationship between formal and informal communication? A. M. In speaking of rumour and gossip as informal communication we must distinguish between fields of communication and what each field requires. If we speak of rumours or gossip, we are in the domain of oral communication. Here, we rely on what someone has heard and even raise oral questions such as “Have you heard?” or “I heard that Jane had an accident.” Such mode of communication has a speed, which surpasses even the speed of light. “I heard that in America the streets are paved with gold.” While there are great traditions without the written word and where all communication is oral, the issue is that orality has no stability and that rumour can and does change from one person to another. In short, one cannot go back and listen again what was said, and hence cannot check the accuracy of the present speaker. In written communication one can reread the text with the assurance that it is the same statement, whereas in oral rumour the sound is more than noises and more than “speaking about something”. It is expressive, pervaded by moods and images of recognition. After all, even Heidegger spoke of Stimmungsraum, pointing out that fame (Ruhm) from which we get rumour is also oral. Let us look more closely at this mode of communication, since it enters all fields of contemporary life, including music, advertisements (hired stars “sing” the product advertised). Indeed, we would not have philosophy if it were only oral—it had to be written—and the confrontation between logos and mythos is the confrontation between orality and visuality. Preliminary hermeneutic that appears in texts, sayings, stories, and even philological erudition suggests strongly that mythos stems from a concrete action of speaking: mythenomai. This leads to the distinction between mythos and logos, with the former being a voiced, oral language and not deconstructable in the exercises of logocentric prejudgments, as the voicing-speaking is never present without the dimension of sound that is constantly pervaded by mukas, mutus, silent, mute. In this sense we encounter a domain that is composed of sound-silence. Husserl has articulated this domain in various ways, ranging from his consideration of parts-wholes of inherence, to the constitution of time. What is offered here is a hermeneutical expression

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of the limit of this field. A further refinement of this field is offered by other terms related to the first two: myein, to verbalize, mouth and music, and their shading by mystes, mysterion, mystery and muse. The connections can be made between music and muse, and indeed between them and the mother of all muses, as the memory of a tradition and its inspiration. The latter is the very soul, the psyche of orality. It connects us with spirare, to breathe, the inspiring-expiring, the Russian dusha, dyshat’, or soul, breath, the Indian brahman-atman, ending in German atmen, the cosmic breath and the singular exchange, the individuated breath, the anemos-wind as the animating principle of the Greeks, and even the Newtonian cosmic psyche. Let us note that sound is voiced breath, and thus sounding is identical with psyche. The way we voice our words is identical with the ways of oral expressivity and imagery. The voice is sad, indifferent, cold, distant, soft, warm, aggressive, bombastic, uncertain, hesitating, etc. This leads phenomenology to direct evidence of the psyche not as something interior, but as the imagery of the voiced breath, the spoken word. In other words, psyche is identical with oral expressivity, and the latter is identical with musical imagery and poesis. Thus the oral musicality is inspirational, literally, breathing in the psyche in direct oral presence. This is obvious in Lithuanian with the term ˛ikv˙epimas, directly connected with kv˙epuoti or to breathe. Thus the oral speaking with its poesis and musicality, its thinking as musing, is so different from the calculative rhetoric. Any kind of translation of psyche into some sort of inner states, bio-chemical sludge, emotions, and cosmic divinities, grants this oral awareness and, we may add, the resonances of the expressive corporeity. The latter suggests that there is no reduction of corporeity either to a hydraulic system, or to various layerings such as living, psychological, and mental. Corporeal expressivity, its resonances, must be traced across orality, the sonorities of the passively lived field. If we bracket visual metaphors such as orientation or direction, composing a visual space of things one next to the other, capable of being seen if we turn to them, then we discover that orality has its own space without orientation. Sound and silence surround and pervade us. To hear a sound we need not turn to its source, although its expressivity—threatening, whispering, irritating, disturbing, etc.—comprises a mood space. In this space rumours can spread and continue expressive variations. We speak in whispers when telling a secret or in a trembling and fearful voice when recounting the awful temptations of beautiful witches. Within the space of rumours it is possible to extricate formal features, which are constructed visually—written or deployed in oriented space. The latter has the following dimensions: up-down, left-right, forward-backward. In this context, the oral world is arranged in a sequential interpretation: one after the other, and one next to the other. This is obvious in musical composition that relies on a sequence of notes. In this sense we give form to the flood of intersecting and mutually pervading sounds and silences, and presume that oral communication is equally formed by a sequence of phonemes. Formal communication in this space also requires that we know where things are and can go there to check whether what is said is true or not. The rumour that “The streets of America are paved in gold” can be checked if we go “from here to there” and see for ourselves. Philosophies and sciences are completely tied to this

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oriented space and time, given clearly in the so-called formal arguments: “If this, then that; it is this, therefore that.” Whether we speak of induction or deduction, we are in the world of orientation with repeatable locations to which we can appeal by empirical (visual) evidence. The relationship between the oral-informal and the visual-formal is complex, but for communicative understanding it is a taking of the oral dimensions and their expressivity, and placing them in an oriented space and time which allows for the exclusion of the expressive imagery, the moods of oral space, and locating them “somewhere”. It is also a difference between a sentence and a proposition. If one says, “I have wandered far and wide and occasionally met interesting people” one has a sentence. But for formal communication this sentence must be translated, if not into one, then into various propositions. “I went from Vilnius to Tallinn, and on June of 2015, at 1600 h, met with three students.” Now, this formal proposition can be “verified” by checking records, speaking to the named students and checking transportation schedules. The sentence might be regarded as poetic but the proposition is seen as formal, visual things having forms and space-time locations. Question 26 T. K. What possibilities does virtual reality provide for communication? In what sense is communication real and virtual? A. M. The understanding of virtual is commonly associated with something that does not exist. Trees, stars, other humans, animals, vegetation, planets, mountains and rivers, are natural, and we live with them, depend on them, share the same space and time with them. Anything outside of this domain of reality does not seem to warrant the designation real or existent. This suggests that it is human contrivance, our own invention that is not physical but phenomenal. Today’s Western world is premised on the creation of virtual phenomena in the sense of taking what is real and transforming it into the imaginary. The latter is a result of the shift from natural ontology to ontologies of the possible. The possible depends on modern instrumental reason in terms of which everything in our environment is a construct for our purposes. In this sense, postmodern claims that there is no original, that everything is a simulacrum, is nothing new. All means of modern communication, specifically the latest inventions, are virtual. We can even push the argument and point out that writing is equally virtual. After all, the great varieties of writing forms suggest that they are invented and can be modified to fit changing needs for communication. Virtuality, with such means of communication consists of the function of what such means communicate. Once we shift to this level, then the means, such as letters or technical devices become “real” and the meaning they bear is revealed as virtual. If we describe a computer, a telephone, a newspaper, television, in terms of their empirical components, such as marks on paper, colours and images on the screen, the size and weight of a telephone, we are talking about reality. But if we are talking about information communicated by such reality, then we enter the world of virtual vectors

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which point to something, “mean” or signify something, but have no real anything, such as colours, size, weight, temporal or spatial position. Thus, meaning cannot be found under any microscope or brain physiology or psychological aspects, assumed by modern Western metaphysics, under the guise of “internal states of the subject” having images. Let us consider the latter since many explanations of communication assume all sorts of “internal” feelings, images, and emphatic attunements with others. Now, let us describe one “inner” image such as my friend. The trouble is that the image is not your friend and thus it must cease to be just an internal state and signify— point to the friend. The pointing is not my friend and thus it does not coincide with any reality, whether the image or the thing signified. No doubt, there are meanings that point to the empty possibility that can be filled by various means. We speak of angels and even of communicating with them by means of prayers, and we speak of divinities, saying that they are all powerful, angry or benevolent, and even of demons who want to corrupt us. At one level, these sayings are filled by paintings, statues, composed of parts of different things, such as human bodies with wings, or human heads with horns and snouts. Then we point to such visible constructs and say “that is an angel”, or “this is a devil” or point to a Renaissance painting and say, “that is Jesus”. On the other hand, such constructs are shaped to disclose our daily awareness of moods and expressions: we see an “angry” divinity, or “happy” nymph, “mild Artemis”, and many others. At this level of communication we see virtual constructs—the paintings, statues—, which concentrate and disclose expressive phenomena. It can be said without fear of contradiction that all myths and religions communicate virtual reality are enveloped in the space of moods and expressions. This means that myths and religions are the same as the history of aesthetics. Consider how religious virtual reality is composed in an example written by Ignatius Loyola, called Exercises. These prescribe precise activities; hence human gestures, postures, all behaviour is paradigmatic. An invention of a language is the object of the Exercises, but what is significant is the setting: isolation, at times designated in other domains as detachment. There must be special lighting, postures, such as kneeling, prostrating, standing, looking down and up at prescribed intervals, dispositions of the room, and unaccustomed regime. These paradigmatic behaviours are parts of many religions and can be compared. The specific constitution of signs in Ignatius can be called a “field of exclusion”. For example, the tight organization of time compels the day to be completely covered, i.e. excludes any interstices through which the “outside world” might seep in. This covering is complete, i.e. Exercises include modal terms so that the exercised would begin the future tense before the present tense, in order to cover the field and exclude future intrusions. In going to sleep one might think already of awakening, of praying, getting dressed, performing meditations, etc. This continuum already marks the exercisers of time, assuring sign plenitude, which excludes them from all other signs. The same is offered for gestures. Thus, it is the prescription itself and not its content that isolates and separates the exerciser from all anterior gestures and signs, from the indolent words. This creates a kind of linguistic vacuum to be filled and elaborated by the new language, a new semiophony.

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Another level is that of imagery. One must clear away the acquired imagery and reconstitute the images in accordance with the “new praxis.” The images of hell, Lucifer, tortures, tears, multiple sufferings shaded by disfigured, grotesque, terrifying figures and creatures. The images of heaven; the coded practices for achieving such images, e.g. “as soon as you wake up, recall to mind, I deprive myself of light and arrange my images.” This is similar to the rhetorical theatre insofar as it is given in its immediacy and can constitute an impact. The rhetoric, the deliberately coded imagery also functions in advertisements, politics, and psychiatric praxis. Of course, the composed images are designed to deflect the images, which are excluded and unbefitting. This forms a specific ars obligatoria, which, while not capable of composing all the details of the images, at least suggests some parameters that can be filled. Hence, the devil is horrible does not tell us how this horror looks, although it is a sign that can be filled with expressivity found in daily life. At the same time it offers a sign frame for exclusion. Hence, meditative practices prescribed for precise times, are constituted by exclusion through depictions of how and what must be emptied out and what must be introduced. The resultant requirement is prayers with closed eyes. Other forms of practice can be composed to exclude the unwanted, if not to constitute the wanted images. One is told to perform series of repeated signs, such as a rosary, or beads. This practice then circumscribes and forces out the evil thoughts and images but does not produce any positive images. In the Exercises everything is divided, subdivided, and annotated. One must follow the codices of creation: separation of day/night, male/female, elements, species/subspecies, good/evil, and high/low. Articulation is termed discernment and discretio, designating the founding function of difference. The images circulating along these distinctions are ordered topographically; they assume a place and significance in the coded distinctions of the above-mentioned articulations. Yet, the codification is binary prescribing point for point opposites: a binary of antitheses, two standards, two camps, Jesus/Lucifer whose attributes counter one another; divine wisdom/human folly or ignorance; omnipotence/weakness; justice/inequity, good/evil. This is subdivided into topics, capable of evoking the images. The topics are the Ten Commandments, the Seven Deadly Sins, the three powers of the soul (memory, understanding, will), the five senses which allow the imagination of hell to be circled five times: the vision of incandescent bodies, hearing the screams of the damned, smelling the stench of the abyss, tasting the bitterness of tears, touching the fire. The sins of Adam, Angels and Man, must be traversed along the topics of memory, understanding and will. Here, the law of “totalized economy” is present where everything is covered over, blanketed, exhausted. What has been articulated must be reassembled: Exercises contains two assemblages—repetition and narrative. There are various coded repetitions: first, a literal repetition, redoing the exercises in their complete progression and details, and second, recapitulation, e.g. every seventh day. In a more relaxed form, such exercises become daily rituals encompassing all activities, allowing religious cults to live completely in a virtual world.

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Question 27 T. K. Vilém Flusser (2007) mentions the law of communication: the delivery of information implies no loss or reduction. In other words, the one who sends a message suffers no loss by delivering the message. Does the sending of a message change the status and circumstance of its sender? A. M. To speak of the “law of communication” might be too extreme. A softer version could be “rules” which could be softer or harder, looser or tighter. Most philosophers speak of laws which are discovered in logic or even mathematics, expressed as “law of excluded middle” or “law of non-contradiction”, but such laws become rules if we add conceptions of other logics, such as Buddhist, where we can say as a rule, “yes but also”, or “neither/nor,” “both and more.” There being other modes of communication apart from logic and mathematics (Husserl was educated as a mathematician), a more accepted term would be rule. Thus we have grammatical rules, legal conventions, and binding agreements. In addition, some terms in a proposition might have ambiguous meanings and thus the receiver of the message might select one meaning over others, while the sender might intend another. Further, innocent sounding propositions in one culture might be charged with negative implications, requiring an understanding of theoretical components of such cultures. In many parts of Europe the proposition, “the ruling class is exploiting the working class,” would be understood because Europeans are more attuned to Marxian rhetoric than Americans. For the latter a prolonged explanation is needed, since the relationship between owners and workers is one of free contract. And this does not include all sorts of culturally understood metaphors, allegories and sayings. There are many issues concerning the influence on a listener by a message, given that the message is understood. The various social theories designed to change the world—basically all modern scientific disciplines and their discourses—are technical, and thus promise to make what the discourses propose. Some, however, are more inclusive and promote public revolution against the oppressors, changing the way we understand the world and ourselves. This position belongs to historical hermeneutics insofar as any theory or explanation is part of history, and thus its theoretical explanation cannot be neutral—external—to the history, which changes with every change within it. If one explains everything in terms of economics, then the very explanation will change what it explains. In short, change one discourse within a history and all others will change: the rule of hermeneutical circle. Take the well-known example of Marx and his followers. His explanation of history was not an external view, but part of history and changed that history. In communication, we can have one rule to start with: when a message is sent, whether by a speaker in a daily conversation, or mass media, then one should note how the message will change the receiver. This should hold in all cases, as has been shown even in physics. An observer is part of the experiment and changes the observed phenomenon. Another rule should now be clear. A message will reveal aspects of the receiver of which he was not aware, or did not think of them in a

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way that the message is now disclosing. For example, in the United States there is no definition of persons as being alienated. In fact, to make a statement that “people working for a minimum wage are alienated” would require a great deal of explanation. After an explanation is forthcoming, the receiver of the message might say, “I did not know, but you are right, I am alienated.” A third rule is present in a dialogical setting, such as talking to someone about some topic. The process is prior to sender-receiver ontology, where one actively sends a message and then passively receives it. In direct dialogue the active sender means the given topic and in a passive sense expects a reply, while the receiver is passively accepting the message and at the same time is actively composing a reply. Thus, there is a mutual process of active/passive and passive/active. One could even suggest that this rule applies to all mass media. Reading a newspaper, one receives a message but at the same time one also formulates all sorts of questions, selects relevant meanings, and transforms what is being read. This suggests that there is never a pure message and a pure receiver. We are in the world and the topic of the message will always modify both the sender’s and receiver’s understanding. In communicating with members of other cultures we must attend to the context of the other. This could be the fourth rule of communication. Everything we say does not depend only on the statements, but also on the contexts in which statements are made. There are extreme exceptions to this rule such as in the activities of Western journalists who travel to a country. They ask questions of people on the street, and then report what the people have said. For one, if a country is dictatorial, the people will answer exactly as the dictator requires. In addition, there is also a context-laden meaning to what people say, to the extent that a translation is required. By now we are aware that a translation is at least a trans-creation, and thus interpretation. It is impossible to have a direct, one-to-one translation. In this sense, even people of one culture will “read the same thing” very differently.

References Baudrillard, Jean. 2016. Symbolic Exchange and Death. Trans. I. H. Grant. London: Sage. Flusser, Vilém. 2007. „Vorlesungen zur Kommunikologie.“ In: Kommunikologie, 233–235. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. Fukuyama, Francis. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press. McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Chapter 4

Communication and Technologies: Are All Modern Discourses Technical?

Question 28 T. K. The Internet offers unlimited possibilities for communication, yet as a portal to the Internet the computer screen limits our view. What we see is also limited by databases and menu structures that sit behind the interface. Sources of data and choice are constantly expanding. How can we harmonize the limitedness and limitlessness offered by this form of communication? A. M. Here, the issue is not the unlimited Internet and the limited computer. Since more or less everything on the Internet is available via the computer, all one has to do is login and access the information. The same is true for TV screens and programs. If you wish you can even sign up to every program on the globe by adjusting your TV settings to download hundreds of programs for later enjoyment. All is well, but the questions that we must ask are framed through the lens of the phenomenological mode of awareness with reference to Heidegger’s (1996) ontology. How so? The awareness of anything opens many possibilities that cannot be encompassed by one or many humans. Thus, we select some and see them as our future. This is the same as being in a room (a small horizon) then moving out of the room, and out of the house toward more open horizon, and then going to the street, the town, the region, such that in our movement we open future horizons. However, by going on the street in our town we exclude most possibilities. In visiting a museum we pass by restaurants and shops, which fade away, into a horizon of the past. Heidegger regards this as an existential issue. While we are a project toward future possibilities, selecting some and rejecting others, we are temporal, and hence cannot live them all. The ones we reject have disappeared and cannot be brought back; the ones we selected in our temporal existence in favour of others will take time to actualize. If one chooses to become a librarian and trains to become one, then time has been spent to achieve the objective. We cannot now say, “I choose to become an astronaut—you are too old.” © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 T. Kaˇcerauskas and A. Mick¯unas, In Between Communication Theories Through One Hundred Questions, Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41106-0_4

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The same holds for limited computer access, despite the fact that there is an almost unlimited choice of options within programs. When selecting one we may check what it has to offer, but this takes time and we cannot select others that were also available. Indeed, more programs are being introduced on the Internet of which we will never be aware because of our temporal nature. If we record 500 TV programs a day when we are at work, we can only watch one program at a time. The rest will have to wait, fully knowing that tomorrow one will record 500 more programs but will have time to watch only one. Very soon, we have almost 1000-recorded programs as future viewing possibilities. Then again, the constraints or limitations are not due to the computer, but to our temporal existence. I would like to read all the major newspapers available on the Internet, and I can get them on my small computer screen, but in selecting The New York Times, or La Monde, or Frankfurt Allgemeiner, or Lietuvos Rytas, I must exclude the rest—maybe The Los Angeles Times, and The London Times, or New Delhi Times, and Chicago Tribune… The excess of information is both to my advantage, but also potentially dangerous. It is good in that we can be informed about everything, but dangerous because we select what we regard as important for us or what confirms our prejudices, but it must exclude, no matter what is available on my small screen. As Heidegger would say, being is disclosed temporally by a finite and thus limited, being. The nature of the computer also limits what is available on the Internet, yet we also form part of the narrowing of the computer screen by our very finite and temporal existence. Here, we might offer a note of advice. Do not select what confirms your views or what only interests you, but explore other views, which might reveal your limitations, and thereby offer other ways to think and live. Be daring and explore the unknown. As some programs suggest, seek out new cultures and new ways before you vanish, because there is nothing to lose. Question 29 T. K. Social networks enable us to create a global network of friends. What is the impact of this vast increase in potential communication among the participants? Does it disrupt or help us to communicate? A. M. Social networks are expanding at a phenomenal rate, both horizontally and vertically, and create a perception of expanding relationships, under the guise of new friends. This seeming good fortune is encouraged by numerous programs, so that one receives an email from perfect strangers soliciting friendship. Who are they, why did they pick my name at random, and are these new friends real? After all, we can create any identity we want and solicit friends for any number of reasons. The word friend becomes shallow and cheap with no authenticity, although this trend might follow the postmodern tradition of simulacrum. Everyone is a friend but there is no one under the countless everyone. We might regard such a network as a gossip medium that cannot be controlled, since any of these friends is able to broadcast whatever

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you say in confidence. In a court of law a young lady complains to the judge that her new friend, to whom she sent a private and somewhat compromising photo, has placed the photo on his vast network of friends. The usual answer the judge gives is: once you place something on this network, it becomes accessible to anyone. This type of medium is not information. What information there is, is private and becomes public by becoming open to anyone for any purposes whatsoever, such as personal threats, spying, gossip, and blackmail. This came to prominence in the United States some years ago when conservatives—racists, evangelicals, anti-Semitic groups—began to send messages designed to threaten, intimidate and silence. “We know where you live, you have a twelve year old daughter and we will rape both of you,” or “You are a Jew and we will finish the job that Hitler started.” The point is that while this is not information, it goes under the US provisions of freedom of speech. By joining this web of friends and revealing our identity and information about ourselves, we enter a public arena where our self-description becomes part of free speech and can be dealt with by anyone as they please. This follows from the answers to the previous question, where the Internet is open to anything and makes available as public information everything that is present on any electronic media. Question 30 T. K. Information multiplies every year in geometric progression. Does it help or disrupt communication? A. M. Let us recall that information is about something and while there is unlimited information most of it could be empty chatter. For example, Wikipedia attracts both praise and criticism, especially from writers, essayists, and scientists. Wikipedia offers information on just about everything, and its header in the top margin advises that their staffs screen submissions for inclusion. Be that as it may, much of what is written (which should be information, referring to the same subject matter) is replete with contradictions, empty conjectures, and speculations, which leads the public to pick any opinion on a given topic as the “correct” one. Such an “encyclopaedia” is inadequate as a source of information, and cannot discriminate between the genuine or the fake article concerning a specific subject matter. This becomes even more problematic in the case of the empirical sciences researching the fields of biology, medicine, drugs, and psychology. Here, researchers must produce results with increasing speed and are tempted to skew their data in favour of positive outcomes. So, if we download information from Wikipedia who does the screening and how can decisions be made when even scientific experts complain about untrustworthy research. The exponential increase in information is democratic, such that anyone has the right to place their opinion or knowledge for public consumption. Mass media might even do surveys and report the results as information, but these say very little about the subject matter. It is commonplace for those working in the mass media to report

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what a specific public figure said, and what another figure said, and inform us of both sayings. At the same time, the media does not ask if what they said about a subject matter is actually true. Again, the usual answer is that there are many other sources of information that one can consult, avoiding the essential question: do all other sources inform us any better? For example, I had the privilege to present a talk to members of Lithuanian Supreme Court, including a large group of lawyers. Following my talk another speaker presented a research paper on “Trust of Supreme Court Members by the Public.” We were shown statistical graphs, distributions by age, occupation, education, and correlations of such groups in different clusters. Yet, none of the information contained any analyses of whether all the surveyed persons had any idea of constitutional law, the role and prerogatives of a judge when discussing a specific case, or their qualifications. In short, the very essence of the subject matter involving the function of such a court was nowhere to be seen. When the researcher was asked about this issue his reply was that he was doing science. Thus, some persons in the survey might have said “the Supreme Court is corrupt, because they did not like the dress standards of a particular judge.” In brief, we received lots of “information” which told us nothing about the subject matter, apart from some vague feelings of the persons interviewed. For the most part, the explosion of information contains sayings or images that are important or interesting, but only to a narrow audience. The daily news often carries stories about people who made a photo-video of their kitten licking a baby’s nose, or a girl who jumped higher than a boy in the schoolyard. Imagine the explosion of information available from “selfies?” One can witness this in a restaurant or on an airplane, noting that with every dish served, the selfies take a picture and send it to “friends” across the globe. “Look at the pizza I am eating”, and now “Look at the Scandinavian beer can”… and so on without end. This is information. Some mass media scholars have pointed out that there is a loss of understanding as to about what we are informed. Several years ago the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in New York called a protest against what they claimed was the corrupt practices of bankers. Thousands gathered, including reporters, and the mass media was flooded by an explosion of information. There were images of young people, each with their videophone, sending messages to friends about having found new friends, and showing the pictures of the street sign, WALL STREET. All of this was next to images of tents, in which friends and new friends were sharing pizza—sending images of such pizza, images of stray dogs getting free pizza. They were also sending voice conversations of how cool it is to have met cool people, with hardly any mention of the subject matter of the protest. Thus, we see an overabundance of information about the selfie, rather than the important content which was hardly present. This was quite different from the Arab Spring where some Middle Eastern governments were swept aside in the wake of social networking, allowing the almost instantaneous spread of information. The revolution succeeded in Tunisia, but other places revealed the dark side: networking was accessible to anyone, including autocratic governments intent on monitoring and even manipulating their own populations. And this leads us back to the notion, which information is relevant to whom, and on what basis does one select such information? The question simply extends the

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epistemological domain, wherein what we normally know through our awareness of the world is highly selective. As we go about our daily lives we select and perceive what is relevant for us and push most of the “irrelevant” aspects to the background, from which we might select other things in case they may become interesting or relevant. In this sense, the explosion of information can never be accessed and will remain as a background for occasional selectivity, but never completely. Indeed, even the producers of this excess are in no position other than to be selective. Question 31 T. K. It seems that the function of technologies is to improve communication, yet technologies often replace communication. Communication loses its own sense in a world of machines. Do technologies enable or disrupt our ability to communicate? A. M. The advantages of ever-sophisticated technologies in communication are decreasing and vanishing in space and time. It was once the case that a telegraph conveyed a typed message that was then hand delivered. This was later developed into computer punch cards to be handled, or delivered by messenger personnel, or a paper or book to be set in print. Today, these are sent instantaneously, set into print, or sent directly through e-mail to anyone, anywhere. Time was when major newspapers were printed in a print factory, and then delivered by truck or train to other centres. Again, in today’s world they are printed anywhere we find customers. The same is true for academic, business or personal communication. One can receive a message, a conference paper, or an invitation and reply within a minute. The convenience and advantages are obvious and we cannot return to some mythical, natural era. In fact, we can communicate with the universe in a sense that one can be anywhere and locate herself (it is impossible to get lost in the woods), or one can drive a car without a map, because the technology will tell me where to turn, who is behind or next to me, and take one directly to the exact location. Indeed, on a cloudy day one can see the stars on one’s smartphone. In cases of emergency, one can reach help instantaneously, and in case of getting some product, one can shop online or on a smartphone. All activities and ways of conducting business are being transformed. There are, of course, limiting aspects insofar as personal relationships may be involved. One cannot have cyber sex unless the near future allows 3D printing of a desired lover. Interpersonal communication, once a major component of communication studies, is becoming obsolete. One can have a conversation face-to-face on Skype, under the impression that it was personal, yet forgetting that the sensuous presence of another person is multi-dimensional. This means that one cannot be in touch on Skype, one cannot move around the two dimensional presence on screen, invite someone for a coffee or beer, hug, dance, greet or console, or watch a radiant sunset. As we saw previously, the technological media has become the reality shaping our linguistic practices: “did you see the basketball game last night?” What one saw were images on the screen, as if one would say, “I have talked to my friend last

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night on Skype.” Yes, there was an image on my screen, lively, smiling, curious, but I was in the presence of an image, and a medium generated by digital components and composed of signals and energy waves. As convenient as such media are I could not ask my friend on Skype to visit a bar with me and have a beer. The access to communication technology includes satellites used to transmit messages globally. That is most advantageous but also dangerous, since they can be jammed or knocked out, leaving all communication systems blind. If this were to happen, then global business such as banking, transportation, and many others would stop. More to the point: military forces rely on monitoring the activities of each nation on such satellites. If they are disrupted, no one knows what the enemy might do and, in the case of nuclear-armed states, launch missiles as the excuse for self-defence. It is precisely because of such security concerns that constant improvements to guard against hackers are being made who also constantly improve their sophistication to a point that no security is achievable. Philosophically speaking, the increase in machine power is premised on the modern notion of progress. With the ever-greater submission of events under human control, we must further increase control, which is perhaps what comprises the initial modern notion of progress. Progress does not mean the acquisition of ever greater knowledge or wisdom, but the incrementation of the technological-material means to yield projected material results. The latter can also become the technological means or a quantity of material force to yield further results, etc. The modern human is convinced that every technological application leads to an endless progression of new technological discoveries and applications. Every transformation, i.e. quantitatively arranged material process, and every shaping of the material stuff through technology, offer more possibilities and power to shape even more matter for the desired ends. On the other hand, the shaping of matter into new technologies opens a demand for other technologies and discoveries. If a technological means makes material discoveries possible, the new discoveries will call for their technological implementation to suit our needs, ad infinitum. No higher stage of technical achievement can ever be adequate, since every stage calls for new and improved technologies to yield new intrusions into the material domain in order to yield new results. But this is the process which increments the human power to control events and shape them in accordance with human wants. The end result is to liberate the human from natural disasters, which from there is a residua of inner infirmities, the very notion of progress. This leads to the incrementation of human self-liberation from the natural environment, and at the same time remakes a human in accordance with what a human should be. Progress must be without regression, without death, and all formal systems. All transformations of the lived world into a remade world either maintain or enhance this permanent structure. What is peculiar about progress is that it has no subject that can progress. So that when we build something such as a house we recognise progress when the building is complete. In brief, if we live in terms of purposes we can understand progress in its limitation by reaching the purpose. But if we raise the question concerning the purpose of the modern notion of progress, we find ourselves in a quandary. We set possible future results as an empty purpose to be fulfilled

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by material constructs. Once this purpose is achieved it becomes a means for other possible purposes and once they are achieved they become the means for other, seemingly endless purposes. All that is left is progress for the sake of progress—the purpose of progress is progress. Purpose and its continuous achievement are not distinct. We could say that it is a sui generis wherein the human evolves. Without the background construct of progress there could have been no notion of evolution. We invent a formal construct, which by its very metaphysical essence is technical, and therefore what this construct means is identical to the material product. Once more we encounter the magic of words, because by creating the appropriate discourse and the rhetoric of the discourse we make things appear. The scientific-technocratic shamans perform an incantation and an improved world appears. Of course, by now we also know that any improvements made cause the environment to disappear as if by magic.

Reference Heidegger, Martin. 1996. Being and Time. Translated by J. Stambough. New York: State University of New York.

Chapter 5

Levels of Awareness in Communication and Existence

Question 32 T. K. In Being and Time, Heidegger states “it is possible for every phenomenological concept and proposition drawn from genuine origins to degenerate when communicated as a statement” [Heidegger 1996: 32 (36)]. Is degeneration inseparable from communication? A. M. It is important to address two modes of communication, specifically with respect to linguistic media. The first one is classical, which in many ways is indistinct from events or things. This can be called presentational language. Modern thinking is not concerned with having the presence of events and things, but relies on representation. The first requires an immediate “being with…” while the second is “distant” from things. Let us consider the first and its founding requirements. The Greeks disclosed the essence of philosophy as a way of having the presence of the world, which at times was reached by argument, and also by insight. Such a presence requires freedom, which is not interested in what things are there for me, or what I can do with them, but what they are in themselves. This implies that unconcerned activity allows the philosopher to be open to the presence of the world. It is the ground of theoria as presentational thinking. To think is to think the presence of the very Being, given its immediacy is untainted by any hint of utility. Wisdom is the effort to capture the world for its own sake in a carelessness that overlooks any interest in knowledge as a useful weapon, as power, which is a means to preserve oneself in the face of a threatening tomorrow. In brief, it has nothing to do with the modern episteme of representing, which can become completely detached from things and regarded as an instrument. Wisdom for the disinterested gaze is capable of knowing the richness of the teeming world and Being. The revealed world and acquired wisdom lend themselves to joy and fulfilment, yet what is peculiar about this wisdom consists of the total freedom to debate, although © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 T. Kaˇcerauskas and A. Mick¯unas, In Between Communication Theories Through One Hundred Questions, Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41106-0_5

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this spontaneous freedom plays within strict rules. This might suggest a paradox, however for classical philosophy it follows our understanding of democracy and respect for the presence of the variety of forms of beings. Freedom can therefore be maintained by following freely established laws and rules, and wisdom must respect the parameters of beings. The same is manifest in art; doing whatever one likes is neither freedom nor creativity. Such freedom is very different from representational thinking which embodies the very means of controlling, manipulating and making things, i.e. the technical. In this sense, freedom is arbitrary, monadic, unrooted, and potentially violence. We know well that power and violence are premised on, and manifested in, arbitrariness. Arbitrariness inclines to the will over rational wisdom and such a will is the base of modernity. For classicism, freedom meant something different: free spontaneity is enhanced by well-ordered rules of debate that allow creativity to flourish, with no attendant restrictions. By its nature, Greek philosophy was light and dancing, appearing effortless because it had mastered form and rules, which in turn gave Greek philosophy a certain easiness. Its knowledge was playful and contentious, challenging, daring, and all the while mastered by good form that was present in things. Yet, knowledge can look only toward itself and become enamoured with its own play of constructs, and may also restrict itself to pragmatic purposes. Both are evident in modernity because such knowledge loses sight of the source from which it stems. That is, the freedom to dare, to challenge, and uphold the duty to present any theory in the polis for open scrutiny. Knowledge can only be fruitful as long as it reminds itself of the source from which it originated. To the extent that free knowledge is cognizant of its essential source, the striving for knowledge requires little reminder of its political duty. Such knowledge becomes a motive for preservation of freedom and its defence in case of threat if it is to maintain the freedom to acquire knowledge. Philosophical knowledge has a precise relationship to freedom. Knowledge of the world is free since this knowledge is equally active in the polis. Without the freedom of the latter, there is no knowledge. We should remember that when Socrates defended his right to philosophize, he was not making a choice between philosophy and Athens, but rather he was claiming that to outlaw the practise of philosophizing would be tantamount to destroying Athens itself. The allegiance to the Athenian polis cannot be separated from free philosophizing in the public arena. For those of us who claim to be latecomers to this classicism the burden of such thinking is almost too difficult to bear. In this context, the entire modern world, including communication systems, is representational and volitional, where no presence of being can be encountered. We live in a world of standardized, das Man (the they), where thinking is hurried either to conform to the latest theory or to score points at conferences in an attempt to show that all other theories are false. Consider that the classical understanding of presentational thinking is quite different from Heidegger’s to the extent that he was closed to free debate. Instead, he thought of being as being mediated by the modern conception of time and its horizon of possibilities. We are not asked to see some entity or event, but as disclosing their possibilities. Even while turning toward

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Eastern thought, Heidegger returned to medieval metaphysics, which he identified with theology. Given the latter, communication about anything is forever mediated by the totally other. Question 33 T. K. In translating Heidegger’s term Mitteilung as “communication” (both in English and in Lithuanian), do we not diminish the term? What interconnections does Mitteilung exhibit, and what does it lose in translation? A. M. It is now accepted that any translation is merely interpretation. To translate Mitteilung as communication is already an interpretation. However, a more existential understanding of this term is possible if we consider how we communicate in this life. For example, we come together with family or friends to share: perhaps a meal, a room, a book, a seat on a train, and in so doing disclose a way of being together, of gathering our being in the world. In other words, we come together and—together—understand the ways we belong. This understanding is present in our everyday being with others. In English, we speak of sharing our feelings, our thoughts, and in statements such as “shared joy is doubled, shared sorrow is halved”. Thus, if we are joyful, sharing it with others will make us twice as joyful, and if we are sad sharing sadness with others will be only half as painful. The Lithuanian experience is identical through use of the term, pasidalinimas.1 We understand one another when we say pasidalinome mintimis2 or pasidalinome džiaugsmu,3 or even pasidalinome r¯upesˇciais ir vargais.4 This is communication before sender and receiver. For Heidegger, the notion of belonging is the most basic and immediate way for us to understand the true meaning of communication. The German gehören is audial5 and requires that we hear one another directly when we congregate. We speak to one another and share our stories about our encounters with others and thus expand our togetherness to include them. Partake is another term that might extend this sort of “communication”, i.e. we take part in some action or some ceremony. Everything we encounter in our being in the world “communicates” the other, even if we have never met the other. There is a storm in the mountains and I need shelter. I come upon an empty log cabin with a fireplace, and wood stacked outside. I build a fire, enjoy the comforts of the cabin, partake of the wood which is shared by the other with me, then before leaving I collect more wood for the stack so that I can share with the other, and thus gather that person as I have been gathered. Most of the things we

1 Sharing

(T. K.). shared the thoughts (T. K.). 3 We shared joy (T. K.). 4 We shared concers and troubles (T. K.). 5 Hören means to “listen” (T. K.). 2 We

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encounter belong to our understanding of being with or Mitsein. The other is in the bread I buy, the hammer I use, or the breakfast being prepared in a restaurant. Since communicate by way of media, which may be a pile of wood by the cabin in the mountains, or the “handy—in hand” hammer, we therefore communicate with the other. This is far broader than the implement, because its handiness includes an opening into a world of building a home, repairing a broken fence, crumbling a rock, and even sharing it with a neighbour. No doubt, there is a background that is tacitly assumed and lived, which Heidegger does not investigate—the kinaesthetic system of orientations—but it is sufficient to say that being with… is ever present. Perhaps the most significant feature of sharing is its disclosure of our belonging together, of our hearing one another directly. Heidegger’s treatment of the earth is designed to open the hearing dimension, the call of the world and earth—Zuruff der Erde—a way of communicating that our being in the world depends on our care for the earth, our only home. In brief, our joy in being masters, equipped to reshape the earth for our purposes is destroying our earth with our careless actions. Question 34 T. K. Can we evaluate silence as an aspect of communication? What does silence tell us about itself? Is it possible to have communication that is silent and mute? A. M. In a world where the pace is frenetic and relentless, where we are overloaded with noise, flashing images, demanding advertisements, and the rush to advance in a career, silence and even emptiness are discarded. Witness TV and cinema productions and the continuous barrage of noise (music?) and action. Much of the time it is almost impossible to follow a dialogue because of noise that drowns out silence where words might have once sufficed. Noisy restaurants offer patrons a seemingly friendly atmosphere, which is facilitated by loud music, making conversation virtually impossible. Silence is uncomfortable and must be dispelled. Recently, I organized a conference in the mountains of Colorado. The conference building was separate from a long building used for sleeping. The first night we all sat outside with clear stars overhead, when most of the scholars who were from big cities, decided to go to sleep—around 11 pm. A friend and I decided to stay out and enjoy the stars. After half an hour, the scholars started coming out: they could not sleep, because it was too silent. Perhaps for the first time they heard silence. There is phenomenological evidence for levels of silence. We do not pay attention to most noses in our background, even if they are there. As Gottfried Leibniz noted, the flowing water in a stream next to the house is silent when we are engaged in our domestic chores, although we can turn to the stream and listen to its sounds in such a way that other sounds we paid attention to become “silent”. Indeed, even in our noisy environment, meeting a friend on the street and speaking to them, we silence the street noises. Hence, the communicative focus becomes loud and the rest of the world becomes silent. Of course, there are times when it is impossible to silence the

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background; instead we must find a place where there is less noise than our present location. To speak at the most fundamental level, silence is present with sound and both sound and silence comprise a very different world. One cannot turn away from silence/sound, as one might from a visual object. The audial world has its own space and time constitution, which Heidegger and Otto F. Bollnow (and many others, such as Ludwig Klages) called this constitution as attunement—Stimmung. This domain may be the most appropriate methodological access to the much-touted nondualism of phenomenological philosophy, i.e. the overcoming of the psychosomatic bifurcation at the level of sound/silence. We may even suggest with Erwin Straus (1966) that sound need not be a phenomenon, a “sound of something”. Rather, the sound as an unmediated medium suggests a passively present field that is all pervasive. What is intimated here, moreover, is the way a particular field comprises an access to the world, and how this access determines the very way that a world will be understood and indeed lived in concreto. In the case of sound/silence, the actions and sense of humans and events will have to be regarded very differently from the usual phenomenological language of perception and/or reflection. They will have to be regarded in resonances, in attunements, expressivities, dimensions, and thus in musical ways. This ought to suggest that musicality will no longer be regarded as a sequence of notations. Preliminary hermeneutic that appears in texts, sayings, stories, and even philological erudition strongly suggests a distinction between mythos and logos, with the former being a world of oral speaking and not deconstructible in the exercises of logocentric prejudgments. Mythos, contains mukas-mutus, silent-mute, as polar aspects of myein, mythenomai, sounding, speaking. In this sense, we encounter a domain that is pervaded by sound-silence. A further refinement of this field is offered by other terms related to the first two: mouth, music, and their shading by mystes, mysterion, muse. The connections can be made between music and muse, and indeed between them and the mother of all muses, mnemosyne, as the memory of a tradition and its inspiration. The latter is the very soul or psyche of orality. It connects us with spirare (the breath or the inspiring-expiring), the Indian Brahman-Atman (ending in German atmen), the cosmic breath and the singular exchange (the individuated breath or the anemos-wind), as the animating principle of the Greeks, and even the Newtonian cosmic psyche. Sound is voiced breath, and thus sounding is identical with psyche. The way we voice our words is identical to the ways of oral expressivity and imagery. The voice is sad, indifferent, cold, distant, soft, warm, aggressive, bombastic, uncertain, hesitating, etc., leading phenomenology to direct evidence of psyche, not as something interior but as the imagery of the voiced breath, the spoken word. In other words, psyche is identical with oral expressivity, and the latter is identical with musical imagery. Thus, the oral musicality is inspirational, literally breathing in the psyche in direct oral presence. This is evident in Lithuanian with the term ˛ikv˙epimas6 directly connected with kv˙epuoti or to breathe. Thus, oral speaking has its musicality, its thinking 6 Inspiration

(Lith.) (T. K.).

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as musing, which is so different from the calculative rhetoric. Any kind of translation of psyche into some sort of inner states (bio-chemical sludge, emotions, and cosmic divinities), grants this silence-sound awareness and, we may add, the resonances of the expressive corporeity. The latter suggests there is no reduction of corporeity, either to a hydraulic system, nor to various layerings such as living, psychological, and mental. Body expressivity, its resonances, must be traced across the orality, the sonorities of the passively lived field. Orality, in contrast to visuality, is polar in that that sound/silence are not given as either sound or silence, but constantly fluctuate one into the other. Sound moves into silence, and silence moves into sound. For oral communication, an effective speaker can modulate this fluctuation, creating silent pauses which become tensed with expectations which can be shaded, for example, by joyful, cold, kind, indifferent, expressivities, pervading the speech. This is to say, the speaker convinces the audience not by the content of their statements, which could be debated logically, but by the combination of silences and sounds, which fill the entire space with “psyche” that has no barriers. In addition, the silence/sound space transforms our self awareness from egological-visual self, positioned between the eyes, apparent in the request “look at me”, meaning a visual position of the eyes, to a dancing body with the centre at the navel, the S shape as a symbol of all musical-dancing space and rhythmic time. Oral traditions live in a world of silence/sound as musical, rhythmic, and dancing. Question 35 T. K. Heidegger distinguishes language and talk. What is the relationship of language and talk when regarded as the existentials of communication (Mitteilung)? Can we speak of communication as an existential, and if so in what sense? A. M. The distinction that Heidegger makes is between authentic and inauthentic speaking, without implying that those who engage in inauthentic speaking are somewhat deficient in their own authenticity. Rather, they engage in everyday conversation about what everyone says, what they say. Talk is merely average, adding nothing new, without disclosure of uniqueness or difference from the common acceptance of the way things are. The existential aspect is precisely that in such talk we appear to be normal. Such existence is comfortable because it is consistent and orderly—even if it is ruled by a dictator or, as someone noted, what is the difference if I am oppressed by one hand or a million hands—a silent oppression? The philosophical issue is quite obvious. Hitherto, thinkers communicate by debating the same questions and offering the same answers. Today, we debate whether the material world causes consciousness as epi-phenomenon and whether we can correlate our morality to genetic codes. We ask questions as to whether we are free or determined, and give answers picked from what they say or have said. Such talk is hardly different from daily gossip—have you heard that Rasa has a secret lover? For Heidegger talk such as this fails to communicate, since it is monological and one sided, presenting no challenge.

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One might object; after all, there are debates and disagreements among philosophers, yet such debates repeat and repeat the same “normal” issues—monological to such a degree that challenges to this normal are completely excluded. Heidegger believed that such a talkative existence can never be avoided, although it can be shown in its limits and thus open other options of speaking that are not only challenging, but authentic. These options would be obvious if we were to change from talk of “what something is….” to a speaking how we exist as “poetic” in our direct presence to the world—without the media of “what they say.” Such speaking would be authentic and demand an existential commitment to a very different engagement with the world and others—without leaving the everyday world of what they say. If a person decides to be a doctor, they commit to an existence of treating all who require medical assistance. Upon finishing medical studies, they open a practice and begin to treat those who come for services. Being a doctor is economically a good profession. In fact, “they say” that the doctor can become wealthy, have a “very nice life”, and gain public respect. One day a person comes for treatment, but has no money or insurance and cannot pay. They are sent away. The question of authenticity is there for everyone to see, and Heidegger adds another existential aspect to our being in the world—mortality. We all are confronted with our non-being. So now the question arises that the doctor will have to raise during their final hours: “I made a commitment to be a doctor, and when long ago that person, who came for help and could not pay, asked for my medical assistance, it was refused. Was I an authentic doctor, or did I listen to those that said that doctors should engage in practice to make money.” At that moment, they will have to answer the question: have I been there authentically, or have I fallen into the inauthentic world of what they say? It is clear that existence for that singular, poor individual was inauthentic, and had the doctor reflected on that person’s predicament then they, too, would have to admit the same. In brief, they communicated to the pauper their inauthenticity instead of their existential, authentic being there. The issue is ontological: the they by which we live does not provide us with anything distinctive. Our existence is not what we are—all of the same essence—but depends on our commitment to be, and such a commitment is our unique being in the world. Heidegger would ask the following question: If you are a believer in the after life, and faced a question at the gates of heaven: who are you, and you answered “I did everything they said, the gate keeper would answer by pointing out that you are not distinct from anyone else, and hence we cannot make a judgment concerning you, your difference from they.” In short, neither heaven nor hell would want you, because neither would be able to judge you for your actions. Question 36 T. K. Heidegger (1996) refers to the silent call of conscience. Should we treat this voice of conscience as communication with ourselves or with the environment?

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A. M. A few remarks must provide an adequate answer to this question. It is the case that various languages, including German and English, especially in modern philosophies, distinguish between consciousness and conscience. Latin, in contrast does not. For it, the term consciencia covers both. On the one hand, the distinction seems warranted: philosophical, and even political systems separate practical from theoretical domains. On the other hand, closer analyses of such systems, shows an inseparable correlation between these domains. Certain ontological modes of awareness are usually correlated to specific norms of action, and vice versa. We can, then, suggest that a specific philosophical system contains both, and thus can be regarded as consciencia. What may be analytically separated in philosophy is certainly connected in the daily realms of awareness, such as religion, politics, sciences, and even the arts. Structures of awareness (inclusive of theories), i.e. the modes of accessing the world of objects, subjects, and situations, are immediately linked with structures of selectivity and valuation, such as good and evil, right and wrong, abnormal and normal. In this context, Heidegger’s understanding of conscience is intertwined with consciousness, not at the epistemological level of theory of knowledge, but at the existential level related to the quest for the presence of being. Our way of being in the world is also being there, a place—there—where the temporal horizon of being is disclosed. The horizon is open to possibilities of such a disclosure, yet these are limited, because they are pervaded with the ever present, closest possibility of nothing, i.e. our non-being. Reflecting from this possibility we recognize the call of being to disclose being in authentic ways, and thus disclose ourselves in authentic ways. Such disclosure is ontological, and the call of being is precisely the call of conscience to be. In other words, the call of being to disclose an authentic possibility of being is at the same time a call of conscience for us to be a place where being, and we have a unique presence in the world. Indeed, due to our temporality, such a presence never was before, and never will be repeated because it escapes the monologue of they. We should note here that such conscience has nothing to do with some subjective, psychological feeling, to be analysed by a psychiatrist and cured from its intrusion into “normal” life. As existential, the call of being as the call of conscience means that we are only to the extent that we answer the call by disclosing the very presence of being—only then we exist. After all, the very term exist means being there as the place we ex-ist, exit to the “ist-being” and thus become responsible. In this sense, communication with others is the same as self-disclosure of being and ourselves to the other. Any other communication is closure and hence irresponsible. To speak with Heidegger disclosure is also closure, but the irresponsible communication does not disclose, but only closes and thus it does not embody conscience or responsibility. Question 37 T. K. Flusser (2007) says that communication is a strategy of immortality. Conversely, for Heidegger (1996), communication is inseparable from being

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towards death. Does communication make us forget our mortality or, conversely does it remind us of it? Can we forget what we have not experienced, i.e. our death? A. M. The possibility of our non-being, discussed briefly in my previous answer is one related to our temporal being, our being toward the horizon of merely temporal possibilities which we can never fulfil—precisely because we are temporal. Many traditional metaphysics and theologies have claimed that despite our mortal body, our soul, mind, or spirit are immortal and will continue in another world. Assuming that such a view is correct, then we need not be concerned with communicating because we have eternity. This sits with all other aspects of our existence, such as the necessity to work in order to preserve our “mortal shell” if we hope to continue forever. There is no need for Sorge,7 which includes the care for our being or our world. As Nietzsche suggested, if a person desires to be in the eternal world, then they need to do nothing. Please leave now! To avoid this advice those who propose another world must invent all manner of restrictions and moral laws which limit our communication and flatten it to what the laws, what they say (guardians of the gates to heaven and hell) and, in the final stage, what the will of the Supreme Deity wants. This means that communication is mediated by set limits, and anyone who deviates must be immediately silenced. In fact, the limits are imposed by threats of all sorts of eternal punishments, which demand the exclusion not only of immoral language, but also immoral thoughts. We observe this in the Ignatius’ Exercises, which prevents any communication apart from the one prescribed by a text. This means that the overcoming of our temporality expressed in the image of death is a dramatic hindrance to communication. We can say that a variant of this limitation is present in all autocratic systems whose leaders demand obedience to strict rules of communication—what is allowed and what is forbidden—and who promise some future paradise at the end of history. All must sacrifice themselves for a future that they will never see. Meanwhile, our non-being opens communication beyond eternity, because one cannot postpone anything until tomorrow, because tomorrow might never arrive. At the same time, in the face of non-being a person need not live a shallow life of they. Nietzsche explored the awareness of human temporality, the possibility of non-being, in Greek tragedy. The latter seems to communicate a very pessimistic sense of life, yet such communication reminded the audience that living, as identical with creation and self-creation, cannot be postponed. Thus, the classical creativity, the released freedom in the face of the tragedy of life, resulted in the creation of philosophy, arts, and the curiosity to know the way others live and think. It even granted the courage to thwart the autocrat who would have limited this sense of being unique. Instead, it disclosed being in luxurious ways, of allowing Socrates to become a teacher of western civilization, even in face of his imminent death. Our temporality is precisely 7 Concern

(German) (T. K.).

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the motive to be there in full, and to share this being there with others to enrich both themselves and ourselves. The theologian, Paul Tillich, pointed out that if we disclose a meaning of being in our own way, such a disclosure is worth more that the eternal repetition of the same. At this level we forget the silent call of our non-being and our eternity and show that more can be lived and understood in what Heidegger would call our Gelassenheit (being unburdened), which is a proposal for a fuller existence. When Socrates stated that the unexamined life is not worth living, we may add that the unlived life is not worth examining. Question 38 T. K. On the one hand, the history of a nation provides us with an environment for certain communication, however every historical narrative is based on such national communication. Is it possible to communicate with the heroes of our past? Is it one-sided, or by appealing to the heroes of our past do we give voice to their active role in history? And what about communication with our future, considering that our expectations cannot provide a heroic historical figure for one actor or another? A. M. If one claims that there IS history, then what are the grounds for such a claim? Daily life does not post signs suggesting that the encountered phenomena, including daily discourse, are historical. The latter is a complex, reflective constitution and requires critical access to its own undertaking, such access demanding an awareness of others who are no longer present in any perceptual sense, except as images on canvas or in vivid descriptions. Even they do not suggest their being historical. Such a claim cannot be affirmed, which is why we must approach the subject matter of history (if one accepts there is subject matter), systematically, paying constant attention to the phenomena involved, if we are to communicate with our historical heroes or exchange ideas about their deeds. Historical awareness requires a reflective distance and objectivation. Living in our life world, we speak of our grandparents, remembering what they said, or what others said about them and their friends, yet we do not speak of such awareness as historical. At first, history appears as a reflective study of specific events or persons, available in records, archives, and chosen witness accounts. Moreover, while speaking of our family or clan, we refer to them in a network of relations to which we also belong. Meanwhile, we access others who were significant in broad domains, historical actors who shaped the state, empire, and contributed to great ventures affecting events which are now completely out of our reach. How, then, do we access the others: through records, monuments and images? To address this issue we must consider time awareness and its historical variant. This means that the philosophical encounter with others remote from us, requires a very specific engagement in dialogue. We cannot speak of dialogue here in terms of memories of the past, of projections toward the future as bases for conceiving them in another time. The problem is: we cannot access the memories of anyone else, and of

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events and persons whom we have never met and hence no dialogue is possible with them. On the other hand, the claim that we communicate linguistically and language offers temporal terms such as past-present-future and hence our communication is guaranteed by linguistic mediation. But what does language offer, if not sounds or marks on some surface, none of which disclose time. They all are present, as are present the trees, the stars and the rest of things—there is nothing that would indicate temporal orientations. Of course, sciences might offer a ploy that we understand the past or the future because we can measure the length of the past or the extension to come. Indeed, we can measure by numbers, as clocks do by seconds—objectively. This is a fascinating explanation except for the fact that numbers are not temporal, have no extension and cannot be used to grasp duration. Moreover, numbers are indifferent to such requirements of time awareness as direction, as past or future. Those aspects are understood a priori. All this suggests that time awareness has nothing to do with memories or expectations, with counting or with language. Given this quandary, it is necessary to come to terms with such awareness at another level if we wish to speak of historical encounters, which are always temporal. If I leave one place and travel to another, not only do I go from here to there, but from now to then, and speak to the others, let us say the Japanese, about my philosophical awareness. I do not speak only of the present, but of an entire field of philosophies, their issues, as do they. They too recount the ways the Japanese people came to philosophy, how they transformed their traditions and my tradition by bringing in a different context that is different from mine. How is this encounter possible without involving time awareness and, more fundamentally, what is transparent through such awareness? To access the very basic issue of philosophical time awareness and our encounter of others, we must show the most basic presumptions of what is closest to us as Westerners, i.e. our ontological (what is nature) and metaphysical (what is ultimate reality) tradition. What appears at first sight within the Western ontological and metaphysical theses are varieties of intentional activities and multi-layered claims to objectivity, to what is given. The givens cannot be taken simply as present. Their presence requires most careful and penetrating analyses manifesting through them a more fundamental and taken for granted set of phenomena. It is well established that the phenomenological observer does not discover the pure life of awareness as if it were an intertwining of elements into total formations or, conversely, they do not discover formations to be analysed into simple coexisting, and successive elements unified with others in an abstractively perceivable unitary form. Moreover, regardless of which intentionalities we may consider, it becomes evident that by a deeper penetration into their structures each concrete intention is possible through an interpenetration of intentional and interdependent activities, and a hidden interpenetration of intended objectivities. The pre-outstanding meaning suggested here is that phenomena are not one after another, not one next to the other, but are intertwined, interpenetrating, one through another in depth. It seems, then, that the task is to decipher what is in depth and appears through the intertwining of surface phenomena. In order to accomplish this decipherment, a variety of precautions ought to be taken. First, we should not confuse the mode of sequential exposition as if it were also the mode of the presence of the phenomena. Second, we cannot begin analyzing what and how we experience

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events at present in relationship to the question of time. Third, we cannot grant at the outset the horizontal structure of experience, leading to the controversies of the life world, without first articulating the way in which our life world reveals ontological and metaphysical phenomena. Despite their variations, these phenomena have a common feature: they are stable and can be repeated as if possessing an identity. Fourth, the opening up of a specific functioning of transcendental subjectivity with respect to the world problematic, i.e. pertaining to time awareness, will have to be traced from the basic aspects of what shows up in the living present, appearing with and through ontological and metaphysical prejudgments. Hermeneutics is concerned with these prejudgments and their historical meaning. Modern hermeneutics arose as a basic trend of humanities in distinction to the scientific or mechanistic explanation of nature. At the very outset, hermeneutics assumes its own position by reflecting from the position of mechanical sciences. When hermeneutical understanding deals with scientific explanation and contrasts the latter with a broader linguistic process within which explanation is understandable, it assumes a comparative position, which belongs neither to hermeneutics nor to scientific explanation. Although hermeneutics assumed that the linguistically transmitted historically effective consciousness is the final mediation of all awareness, in showing this final mediation as distinct from scientific claims, it must grant an interreflective awareness between hermeneutics and science, and be able to see the limits of each, even if one or the other claims to encompass everything. Such an in-between awareness is a condition for hermeneutical understanding of itself as historical, and for the scientific awareness as explanatory. Moreover, hermeneutical understanding with its linguistic primacy in whose fluidum we live, have no signs disclosing that they are transmissions of a historical tradition. They become historical when they are mediated by inter-reflection, which designates them as historical and, in addition, as temporally contingent. What is also to be noticed is the return of both hermeneutics and explanatory sciences to the rational world: the inter-reflection constitutes them both as something as essentially different one from the other wherein they fall into the apophantic logic of rationality. Yet the appearance of this inter-reflexivity is both linguistic and yet transgresses the given parameters of language; thus it is both language and explanation and also… to phrase this otherwise, it is neither one nor the other, but is aware of both. The inter-reflexivity, or the in-between awareness can be disclosed in other various ways, using for this task what is already understood: hermeneutically understood language is the ultimate mediation of all experience and nature. By itself, this claim cannot be maintained for the following reasons. First, direct living in language does not reveal language but the world. Language functions anonymously and exhausts itself in opening the world in specific ways. In this sense, to speak of language as the medium for the manifestation of nature and even history, is to implicitly disclose an inter-reflexivity between language and nature, to recognize both for their difference, and hence to be neither one nor the other. Second, to say that the historically effective consciousness has horizons that are more extensive than our individual horizons, and at the same time to show how they are related and converge, is to live between them in order to show their difference and fusion. Hence, this in-between domain is a

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lived awareness that resists being reduced to either/or mental exclusion, and opens neither/nor, and yes/but/more. It is the most concrete awareness whose mediation cannot be accomplished by any other positional mode. It is significant that it cannot be located as an ego, psyche, or even magic, because any structuring would reveal this awareness as already in play. It is equally significant to note that its appearance is not caused by any historical or explanatory hypotheses; it appears as if it were spontaneous, unintentional, and thus having no intentional orientation. Having reached this originary awareness in modern historical thought, it is now possible to disclose the reflective region that would comprise integral historical awareness. First, cautious consideration requires an emphatic avoidance of dualistic exposition, as would be found in terminology such as “consciousness of history,” wherein consciousness transcends history, or for that matter introduces any other transcendent entity that would immediately comprise duality. Obviously, this intimates intentional orientation toward a subject matter as history. Second, in a world without opposite, it is necessary to think history without leaving it. Hence, any speculation that we have now discovered, with Lévinas, the infinity of the other, whether divine or human, would mean in contrast to the finite. This is to say, infinity is a ground of modern rationality and perspectivity, wherein the latter is the very finite structure of space-time. Third, to think history without leaving it precludes an introduction of memory as a tandem that gives us the past that is no longer. We must be cognizant that memory arose with the mechanistic ontology and the emergence of a purposive subject. Once the orientational/spatial and temporal metaphor is recognized for its limitations, any thought of purposiveness also becomes redundant, as well as the mechanistic, blind purposeless universe becomes irrelevant. Fourth, and most important, the various structures of awareness are neither successive in mechanicaltheoretical time, nor in a historical, developmental, evolutionary and progressive time. In this sense, at the outset any purposive understanding of awareness is not to be attributed to history. Question 39 T. K. Heidegger (1996) devotes much time to considering das Man, which is translated by J. Stambough as “they”. It has connections with our habits and norms in certain social environments. It has also been regarded as existential and an aspect of world-ness. What is the relationship between communication and they? A. M. This question was partially answered earlier, but let us extend the answer to include what was not available to Heidegger—despite the fact that he was an enthusiastic TV fan. They fit very much the standard means of global communication where everyone makes friends at the most mundane of levels, with mundane talk about the weather and shopping, styles and trends, the latest movies and TV stars. Das Man has become truly global. In a civilization as unique as Japan or India, or even China, there are normal images of attire, the look, the manners, bar scenes and

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academic conferences. On the street, younger generations wear jeans and sunglasses, pose next to motorcycles and look cool. This is quite evident in India in the matrimonial ad. column where those looking for a bride write, “Wanted: a traditional, fair skinned woman, (the fairest of all) who has traditional Indian values, customs, for a green card Indian boy, Vaisnava community residing in US with a five figure salary. Must be well settled in US and adapted to western lifestyle of living and Western social values.” Here, one can see the normal and average global image. The male can accommodate to the West, become a Westerner and thus global, but the female is obliged to continue her subjection to her traditional role as one less significant (the weaker gender), though having a global look in her complexion, hair style, and education. Indeed, at times she is depicted as emancipated, so it is permissible for her to wear jeans, T-shirts, look powdered with a Rachel Welch hairstyle, and leaning against a motorcycle. To be standardized is to be global and fit anywhere. The mass media means of communication allows the common man and woman to travel anywhere and take photos of everything (Kodak tourism). Returning home, they show the images to friends, proudly proclaiming, “I was there.” Not only that but also claiming that, “I had pizza in Vilnius, Lithuania, and sushi in Helsinki.” The question of being there must be answered. Has that person been in Vilnius, understood its life world, saw the ways of Lithuania, and tasted Samogitian cabbage with roput˙es? This leads us to Heidegger’s quest for being there in a specific world, disclosed by its arts which gather that world. Only being in such a world would comprise communication that is rich, revealing and authentic.

References Flusser, Vilém. 2007. Vorlesungen zur Kommunikologie. In Kommunikologie. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 233–235. Heidegger, Martin. 1996. Being and Time. Translated by J. Stambough. New York: State University of New York. Straus, Erwin. 1966. Phenomenological Psychology. New York: Basic Books.

Chapter 6

Identities and Differences, Permanences and Changes in Communication

Question 40 T. K. How do tendencies towards globalization change communication? Do these tendencies make similar our social environments. e.g. cities, and by so doing remove local differences? A. M. The process of globalization promises to improve our lives and free people from want and oppression, and is premised on the claim to universality of what is an active, and technical intervention in the world. The requirement is that everyone must engage in a continuous process of liberation—reducing our environments to the material resources necessary for technical transformation and exploitation. One substitute for the term liberation could be humanization in the sense that as natural beings in a natural environment we are subjected to forces (alien and inhuman) outside our control. Hence, only when the environment ends our own lives and we are subjected to science and their transformation of the environment, it is only then that we will reach a human stage liberating us from all natural necessities. This universal claim provides a rationale for teleology and progress, such that teleology proposes a stage in which human beings will have total mastery over both the environment and themselves. This provides a standard on the basis that those who have not yet joined the human race (others) will have to judge their positions and lives as inferior. This logic is offered by numerous organizations caught in theories of development. Joining the universal claim to such a construct in the logic of globalization are various theories of power. At the outset, the very instrumentalization of method and theory, applied through the mediation of body activity on the material homogenized world, has an implicit premise. In short, the increasing application of our methods and the transformation of the environment in terms of our own controls, lead to an increasing ability to master and control domains of the environment and, therefore, to acquire greater power over the environment and ourselves. Note here that the methods © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 T. Kaˇcerauskas and A. Mick¯unas, In Between Communication Theories Through One Hundred Questions, Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41106-0_6

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and theories are not given objectively, but constructed as instruments to reshape the environment, and as instruments they serve the autonomous will. The latter sets its own criteria for increased mastery and therefore the increase in power needed to achieve such mastery. This is why Nietzsche and his followers give precedence of the will to power. In fact, the intentions of modern scientific methods and theories are premised on mastery, control and power. Science itself is the will to power. What Nietzsche and his followers did is to highlight the intentionality of modern scientific life. Perhaps this is why postmodern globalization is obliged to regard the articulation of all discourses as being power laden. Is not postmodern thinking the refined modern conception that everything is power, including, as Barthes (1973) claimed, all discourses are fascistic? Homogenization leads to universal standards such that any system must be compatible with any other system, whether they are implements, autos, shoes, food, or computer systems. Communication is therefore enhanced because we can use the same means no matter where we are, or where we go. Indeed, if one travels merely to relax, then the information we are sent will be stored for us to access later. How can we argue against the convenience offered by modern travel? Yet, there are prevalent concerns that such media imposes its requirements on all cultures, leading to numerous quests for national and cultural identities. Is it possible to maintain any sense of Lithuanian culture when surrounded by pizza, Chinese, French, Indian restaurants? And can our own national music traditions survive in the flood of rock, hard rock, rap, country, jazz, which are global rhythms? It is regrettable that Lithuania’s youth hardly know their traditional music and dance, yet they form part of the family together with Afro-American styles. There is no shortage of ways and means to communicate our native culture globally, but since we have little more than a skin-deep understanding of our culture we are hardly in a position to tell the world. No doubt, we can assist the spread of our language by a variety of ways, such as translating signs into Lithuanian, which serve local discourses, although, the usual topics are global. What needs to be done is to establish/re-establish Lithuanian identity in its own context, at the same time bracketing other styles, yet without negating them. We would then note what such an identity has to contribute to the richness of humanity. Question 41 T. K. A global world would appear to help the erasure of differences, which allows us to communicate more easily. Does either helping or disrupting communicate promote the convergence in our different lifestyles and the homogenization of cities? A. M. Globalization leading to a global world is coextensive with urbanization and the homogenization of the environment. Is it not the case that communicative means are being increasingly concentrated through global technologies and standardized images in our city/urban environments? Typically, the latter would include shopping malls, dress styles, entertainment, work habits, interpersonal relations and

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connection to global information, most of it being of rhetorical and entertainment in focus. The term, globalization, is also known through its rhetorical code—the information age, in which information is often seen linguistically as the transmission of knowledge. We are led back to globalizing logic through the question, “why is it that European postmodern writers give language a dominating power”? Such dominance is announced in claims that all discourse is fascistic, although if we take this to be a universal rule, then it is only comprehensible mainly within the context of Western modernity. In general, postmodern writers are concerned with discourse and the way it structures human socio-political and ideological life. This is a variant of a much broader concept where the claim is made that they who control language (and, above all, mass media) determine popular consciousness and behaviour. This is rhetorical power, which is common to autocratic and theocratic systems where a symbolic design has been constructed in order to maintain power. It also serves to invent reality, including historical reality, which suits temporary purpose that forms part of autocratic rule. Rhetorical designs may appear to be information, but it is more about the perception of anything than anything itself. If this claim were true, then we have learned little about how modern discourses assume such pervasive, global power. If the discursive domain is coequal to the productive-technical domain, then discursive knowledge and its praxis implications increase in their significance. It is not difficult to see how any discourse will have to be translated into quantities of information, and anything that does not lend itself to such a translation will be discarded. This is the discursive power that holds sway over our modern understanding that all expert speaking is the power of making. Producers and consumers of knowledge must perform this translation in order to continue producing and using, however this demands the total exteriorization of knowledge, and its reduction to the system of signals—its militarization. Since productive processes are already militarized, knowledge, too, will become highly sought after as a product, used in new combinations and sold just like any other commodity. This is coextensive with the search for new talents and the global competition for experts. Thus, we cannot escape the obvious conclusion that the battle for control over information has emerged as the major stake in the global competition for power. This battle is vast, and is comparable to those that continue to rage over territories, raw materials and cheap labour. With information, industry, wealth, military, health and leisure converge. However, the invention of modern technical systems (genetics, computers, smart phones, etc.) is more than just a simple technological fact, but they embody information systems. The logic used to design technologies is carried by them and can be read as any other signitive text. In this sense, an exchange or proliferation of all sorts of technologies is equivalent to the exchange of information. The latter is both material and intellectual, resulting in global controversies about intellectual property. The global circulation of technology is the circulation of information, which can be accessed and received just about anywhere, then enhanced and transformed to become even more valuable as information. Currently, Lithuania is in the process of transforming its education sector on the premise that technical knowledge is information. Since what has come to be known as the age of information is co-extensive with technological systems, it

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follows that it now pervades the pedagogical process. Historically, Lithuania’s academic institutions were modelled on the German university system, which stressed science for the sake of science. We are now experiencing a radical shift to discursive signals that demand training in performative information, i.e. the acquisition of knowledge that empowers one to subject oneself to a function. Instead of education being universal, critical, and emancipatory, it has shifted toward the applied, the professional, technical, and basically functional. The so-called humanities still form part of the curriculum and are. Tolerated as important to the academic tradition, and occasionally either paraded under the banner of values and opinions, or denounced as disruptions to the serious scientific acquisition of information. For the post-Soviet, newly independent nations of Central Europe, there is wide debate about education reform and the development of an authentic pedagogy. This has become acute due to the establishment of new universities and the desire of young people born since 1991 to aspire to a university degree, in order to acquire marketable skills and compete in a globalized economy. It is here that we see the convergence of local and global in the starkest of terms. There is no shortage of claims that producing ever more specialists is needed to service the expanding global economy, which, of course, inspires educational institutions to orient their course offerings toward the acquisition of practical skills. Whilst there is no single global system of education, the trend is clear, with, for example, UNESCO and its agenda of education for all. This organization is joined by other global entities such as the World Bank, and even the Organization for Economic Development (OECD), both promoting the notion that education should develop the pool of diverse professionals needed to service the global economy. Local/global means that while local economies may require specific professions, the latter must also adhere to the demands of global technological innovations if they are to remain abreast of, or catch up to, the new requirements. In the absence of a global system of education, there are global tests, which emphasise the sciences and mathematics, placing Lithuania in the average range. This might soon become significant in view of the EU’s intention for the implementation by 2020 of a common standard of professional training across EU countries. If we believe that the power of humanities is merely rhetorical and has little bearing on issues considered to be real, then the university in the true sense of the word disappears. Instead, it merely contributes to the technical performance of a social system, with funds tied to its ability to produce educated functionaries. With the slow death of emancipatory education in favour of subject training, critical discourse is no longer possible, since the latter is soft and offers no tangible rewards. The student is no longer concerned with the political domain, of human rights, dignity, meaning, and the general wellbeing of the world, but is focused on narrow, technical expertise, private enrichment, and self-enhancement. With the abandonment of the public domain civic responsibilities and cultural identity take a back seat, and everywhere secondary to the onward march of globalization. Again, the latter is the very reason why those with expert technical training are able to live anywhere, and without the need to participate in local affairs. It is being claimed that autocratic powers such as

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China are achieving global technical reach and will render Western democracies and their traditions irrelevant in world affairs. In this context the communication is universal at two levels. Firstly, there is the technical level of experts who show no interest in, and have no proper education for, public issues such as rights, autonomy, racial or ethnic issues. They simply mind their business and mind their own business. Secondly, the rest of the communication is for entertainment, whether the latter is concerned with sports, film, mass movements to dislodge a tyrant, or interesting news, which is usually focused on violence and dramatic events—but without any depth. In brief, information made easy specifically when serious events are immediately diluted by other, more “fun” news. At one moment, there are the Islamic beheadings in Iraq, and the next moment a sensational goal in a soccer game. Question 42 T. K. It seems that gender communication presupposes the differences of genders, i.e. heterosexuality. In other words, it is a case when communication demands maintaining differences between the participants. Should we link homosexuality with gender communication or, conversely, does it deny the law of differences? A. M. The prevalent post-feminist and post-homosexual rule is that difference should not make any difference. In private life, however, gender designations can make a difference in who does the shopping or taking out the garbage, whilst in the public domain including work, the standard of communication should be the difference in qualification. A degree in mathematics has no gender requirement, just as much as being a student in physics or literature. The same must be valid for any public officeholder. At academic conferences no one can say that this person cannot speak on the subject matter of logic because of the persons gender or sexual preferences. The real issue is not gender difference, but moralizing about sexual relationships, which may rely on some ancient texts purporting to communicate edicts stemming from some entity residing in another world. The texts are produced by persons, often sitting under a hot sun in a desert, who proclaim to be the media through which the “otherworldly” entity communicates, and insert either their sexual preferences or their will to control others, and ascribe punishments in cases the others do not adhere to such preferences and will. There is no need to go into the debates about the psychological factors involved. We need say only that such persons, subjected to a blazing sun, usually tend to hallucinate and pronounce such hallucinations to be messages from above. In most cases, the messages are from “the father”. In this context, the communication between genders becomes monological, such that there are only two genders. Male and female, the male being “the son” of the father, having a higher position, and inheriting the right to rule over the female who is in a lower position. Any other designation—homosexual—is regarded as radically deviant from the will of “the father”, and therefore evil. We know the many variants of such evil.

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The globalization of the Western dialogical mode of communication between genders and otherwise genderized persons, challenges the father rule, which prevails in many parts of the world, especially in Near Eastern tradition. Here, girls can be murdered for wanting an education or for dishonouring the family. The woman cannot be a dialogical partner; she is subject to a monologue and must repeat the monologue without question. There is no communication between genders, because she is denied a voice. This is the place where we encounter the issue, equally of Western postmodern making, of the universal cultural rights of others. This issue belongs to cultural anthropology, the latter having to contend with questions. These might include questions whose answers require methodological access to the cultural phenomena and their multiplicity, and the presumed objectivity required as a guarantee to truth claims by theorists of culture. First, there is a claim that any member of a given group belongs to and understands itself within and in terms of its own culture. This would mean that no privileged persons could escape their own cultural understanding in order to see it from the outside. How does one alienate oneself from one’s culture if the very culture regards itself as alienating? One is already trapped in a cultural position and hence cannot claim to have any culturally impartial attitude. Indeed, the very comprehension of impartiality is an aspect of a given culture. Second, comparative theories may offer a solution to this issue. These theories argue that it is possible to understand one’s own culture from the vantage point of comparison with another culture. This suggests that one knows another culture by being immersed in it, and hence having obtained a similar comprehension as the natives. Thus, from this position one may claim that it is possible to see one’s own culture in terms of the limits offered by the other culture, which is radically different. Do we now understand ourselves and the other in terms of difference? Given this claim, which is complex, there is no methodology that can adequately explain our own culture, since, seen from the culture of the other, our culture is already incorporated and interpreted in terms of the other culture. Either we pic up another culture as a limit of our own and interpret it in terms of our own cultural grammar (and fail to escape the problem of seeing the limitations of our own culture), or we adopt the other culture and translate our own in terms of the grammar of the other. In neither case have we gained any methodological access to our own, and indeed to another’s culture. To speak pedagogically, if I am going to lecture on another culture, and claim that it is radically different from my own, I must do so in terms of language that is comprehensible to the audience to which I am communicating. Both the audience and I understand the other culture by giving it our own cultural context and grammar of interpretation. The reverse applies when talking in terms of the other culture about our culture. The outcome would be that we would see the other’s incorporation of our culture into their context and grammar, and hence without offering anything more than their cultural frame—comprehensible only to those who are part of, or have been immersed in, the culture of the other. Third, we face what could be called the hysteria of objectivity. By hysteria, we mean the shock that, objectively speaking, other cultures have to be treated as equivalent to our own, leading to the efforts that deny other cultures their due and right to speak. Thus, the scientific modern Western pronouncement that everything has to be treated with

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objective impartiality requires the positing of our own culture as one among others, having no value claim to be privileged in its various pronouncements. This is the hysterical point: the claim to scientific objectivity is one aspect of Western modern culture and belongs to the interpretive context of this culture. Hence, the very claim to Western scientific superiority as having methods able to access all phenomena objectively is a culture bound position that cannot be universal. After all, other cultures as equal, understand the world differently, which does not include such tandems as objectivity or matter subjectivity. Culturally, we cannot deny them their different reading of cultural, and indeed all other, phenomena. To say that others are wrong would be tantamount to saying that our criterion for a culture are right— which would be wrong to assert. Viewed in this light, we dismiss the treatment of other cultures as given objectively and equivalently and thereby insist that our own culture is universal, requiring all others to interpret themselves in terms of our own requirements. By claiming that we treat all other cultures objectively and without prejudice, we have offered a position that requires (1) the treatment of other cultures not as they are, but as they are interpreted in terms of one culture’s requirements, or (2) of surrendering our cultural prejudice of objectivity, and allowing other cultures to have a voice that does not regard them as inferior. Given this setting, we revert back to the problem stated above, i.e. how can one claim to know the other objectively when one has imposed one’s own cultural component of objectivity on others? Hence, not only did we fail to understand the other culture, we also failed to escape our own culture. The very claim to be able to treat one’s own culture objectively is to accept this very culture without any objectivity, since one already lives and accepts the terms of our own. This discussion is directly connected with gender communication. While Western culture, in principle, has established dialogical equivalence between genders, and promotes equality in all domains of education, public participation, employment, and legal unions, it does so by disregarding the rights of other cultures to hold women under monological requirements as inferior, requiring male supervision, and deemed guilty in rape cases, and homosexuals as deserving the death penalty. But if such cultures are given equivalent rights to live by their cultural norms, then Westerners should tolerate the views and practices of the others. This is the global issue of gender communication. Because the means of communication are global, others are keenly aware of Western secularism and its tolerance of gender equality, and are obliged to reflect upon their own practices, creating a dual consciousness. The latter becomes a part of global gender communication. Women, everywhere, recognize that they could demand dialogical equivalence with men in all areas, but at the same time they have a reflective recognition of their own cultural identity, and take pride in being different from the West. Women in the West assert the rights of women everywhere, but at the same time they argue for the equal rights of the other cultures, meaning a monological status of women in such cultures. The same applies to men in both Western and non-Western cultures. Tolerance of, and respect for, women as equals is important, yet when encountering women from other cultures, this requirement shifts toward treating them as lesser beings if such men want to respect the cultures of others. One thing is certain: it is impossible for people of

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any culture to return to some pure life world without the presence of reflection and difference from the other. Such reflection is the norm for the complexities of gender communication.

Reference Barthes, Rolland. 1973. Mythologies. Translated by A. Lavers. London: Paladin.

Chapter 7

The Borders and Limits of Communication

Question 43 T. K. Does the consumer society improve communication, or does the mania that surrounds it make things worse, or better? A. M. There are many different levels of “consumerism,” ranging from choosing from a variety of potatoes, clothing styles, personal looks, scholarly publications, how the image of a politician is shaped and sold, to buying mansions, corporations, and consuming sports events. Each “product” is promoted not only as having a “use value” but above all a “brand” status. As a means of communicating status, the brand appears across diverse commodities and is ubiquitous. This presence is sometimes referred to as “McDonaldization,” constituting “brand empires.” Some brands are designed to communicate distinctive social and political position and power. The most “important” persons ride in Mercedes, a Cadillac, and Rolls Royce autos and are “immune” to human laws. Of course, there is competition among important persons, since each wants to outdo the other by signalling their presence on the Internet reflecting their significant status. While complex, the communication in terms of commodities is very obvious and transparent. “If you want to be popular this is what you must wear, how you must look, what you must buy, where you must live.” And you can do all of this on borrowed money. While communication through the media of commodities—including humans— seems to be standardized and accessible to anyone, a closer look reveals confusion. Take the food products as an example, and it is clear that the client has to be a chemist, a biologist, and a geneticist to understand a simple piece of bread, judging by the information on the packet. To read the list of ingredients, the calories, the daily requirements for carbohydrates, the fat content, etc. is a daunting experience. And advertised medicines for any ailment verge on the comical. I shall invent a name

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 T. Kaˇcerauskas and A. Mick¯unas, In Between Communication Theories Through One Hundred Questions, Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41106-0_7

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to use as an example: “For your kidney stone try VAZU; it relieves pain for 12 h; side effects might include dizziness, coronary, and death. In case of death, call your doctor.” The communication is clear, but at the same time the buyer is at a total loss as to what the product does. These concerns do not yet include international rules of commerce, e.g. where the product (e.g. fish, vegetables) is made and what pollutants and how much is in the product. Added to these concerns is “progress” which allows a constant “improvement” of the product, with added notions of “scientific studies” showing the benefits of this invention. One is left to pick at random which may incline us to ignore constantly “improving communication”. There is no need to go into fake products using the “favourite” brand names that are capable of fooling experts and consumers. A so-called global morality surrounds the consumer of every kind of product, from apples through sports, films, pornography, religion, and media violence. “Morality” is based on “utility”, coupled with “pleasure” as the purpose and fulfilment of life. The promises are of direct material fulfilment in a multi-levelled modern sense. The first principle ruling this fulfilment is the final “ideal” of modernity: man is the maker of himself. The second principle is that humans are on the way toward fulfilling this state of affairs. Thus, incantations of symbolic designs and theatre constantly stress human self-realization, fulfilment, and material security in an everyday language. The ideal self is already taken for granted by modern man; material power is there to enhance oneself and to make of oneself what one wills. And the “ideals” of the symbolic designs become structures of consciousness pointing to directly perceptual, sensuous, bodily fulfilment, offering everyone the means to achieve those ideals in any corner drug store, beauty parlour, grocery outlet, and gym. Moreover, there is a skin-deep equalization in numerous domains lending the appearance of increasing material equality. Everyone can have similar foods, spices, and drinks, even similar looking clothing—despite differences in quality—and hence the promises seem to be approximated. While there might remain vast differences in distinctions of social class, and inequities in economic and political power, at the surface level there seems to be an apparent equitable fulfilment. Everyone is “enjoying” an apparent equality in terms of the socially proliferated images and looks. “She looks like a million dollars”, and this despite the fact that she is working on an assembly line and is not the manager of production or an owner of the means of production. This seems to be the rhetoric of a symbolic design inscribed in the commodities for consumption by the subservient classes, giving the appearance that the working class is fully participating in the “style of life” of the ruling class. The saturation of all domains with the images, tastes, sounds, conceptualities of the good life, the working class submits completely to the power of a given symbolic design in “flesh.” Semiotically speaking this constitutes the trick of codification of the lower classes with signs of the power of the upper, ruling class. Countless images of the ideal body, whether female or male are offered to the “consumer.” Thus, a symbolic design is no longer a matter of consciousness reflecting the material-economic or technical conditions, but is an inscription in the body, in the images, the passions and desires appearing through the images and on the body. The logic of globalization is having a profound impact on the so-called idealities of the ideologies of the capitalist symbolic design of the nineteenth century. In the

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late capitalist and state-corporate systems these have become coextensive with the daily discourse, daily imagery, mass-media, sounds and tastes, architecture, popular arts carried by vast systems of circulation, thus making any art form accessible and “popular”, and mimetic activities of the subjects who have become “subject” to the codes. There is a question of “credibility” of political incantations, verbal depictions of the good life, and material fulfilment and equality. Political promises, which are little more than the conscious ideals reflecting the position of the ruling class should have very little impact on the population. Yet, the power of modern language has the ability to transform words directly into deeds, such that words become deeds and material facts. There is, perhaps, a questionable credibility of speech in all “educated” domains. Political speak not only concerns itself with the high and noble principles of autonomy, rights, dignity, liberality of the human, but uses the language of materiality, interest, incomes, shoes, cars, washing machines, crops, and “decent” incomes. And it is precisely this sort of discourse that is taken for granted by public opinion as capable of “producing.” While progress is its own purpose, there is a tacit “promise” of extending life, if not eternally, at least at the beginning and indefinitely. We want to live as long as we can and must do everything to postpone our entrance into Paradise. Whether a beggar or a high priest one avoids the inevitable at any price, although there are those who jump at the chance to enter “the other world,” especially when convinced by the shaman’s promises. Sacrifice will ensure that they will be met in the next world by eager virgins and wine in abundance, although here we may add the rider that the shaman is not quite ready himself to abandon this life. Their justification is equally devious: they cannot perform acts of suicide because the ultimate Lord forbids it. So be it, but at any rate, there is no end of literature—magazines, books, brochures— and institutions advising what the latest technology can do to guarantee a prolonged life, all the way to “turning back the clock”. This is the egological subject, clinging to self-identity and its indefinite continuity, yet this identity is also fragmented by global logic insofar as one is dependent for its existence on subjection to a specific function, and thus dependent on it for continuation. No matter what, the “pleasure” of living is accepted. While continuation is important, living in the present is equally important, and with the vanished subject that was a source of meaning, what remains of the present is a dispersed sensuality of “pleasures,” or immediate gratification. Unsurprisingly, the global logic has another motive, i.e. the production of gratifications on a truly massive scale. We must recall that the qualitative awareness for the modern West has been reduced to the subjective region. Given the arguments of empiricism, our awareness is identical with qualitative sense impressions, including the impressions of pleasure and pain. Why, then, is empiricism important for globalization? The answer can be obtained from our previous discussion on the logic of globalization, which leads us to understand that progress serves everyone’s needs and their desire for fulfilment. Most needs are the invention of globalization, which reminds us that we are lacking in some product or item or experience, which are nonetheless “qualitative” insofar as they depend on sense experience. “This new telephone is better” and

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“that genetically enhanced tomato tastes much better”, and “this tablet relieves pain, anxiety, and increases my sexual satisfaction.” Hence, the vast network of old and new inventions has another level of meaning, i.e. that of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. There is no specific definition for pleasure or pain since they are purely subjective as far as modern ontology is concerned. “Objectively” speaking, however, in whatever domain global novelties present choices to satisfy the most exotic tastes. The things we lack, and which are provided by globalization may be novelties, but they are “pleasant” and conform to utilitarian ethics in that humans seek pleasure and avoid pain. Globalization simply offers the possibility of maximizing pleasure—purely empirically. Perhaps the most successful products of globalization are “entertainment” and “tourism,” both of which are designed for pleasure. Both do not require identity apart from one’s correlation to a specifically created environment that has “pleasant nodes” to which one could attach. For example, there are movie stars who are deemed to be “sexy” and/or “great” and must be emulated in their attire, look, and walk. There was the “Madonna” look in Lithuania, creating an entire “industry” of cosmetics, underwear and miniskirts. There are clubs where one can “enjoy” imported drinks and loud, discordant “music” until dawn, and there are shopping malls full of the latest styles, sexy images, and fast food. There we have the pleasant life, which is something to talk about with “instant” friends we meet on the Internet, and with whom we share mutually agreeable feelings and opinions. The latter, after all, cannot be contested since there are no criteria as to what is true, good or just. Question 44 T. K. Is money the means of communication? If so, how does this work, and does it help or disrupt communication in the pursuit of economic well-being? A. M. Popular “capitalist wisdom” holds that “time is money”, implying that time not devoted to making money is wasted, unproductive, and must be avoided. The meaning of life is to make money, and to make money is how we make even more money, an infinite task. For the feudal aristocracy money was regarded as being beneath one’s honour and pride, and the pursuit of economic tasks the provenance of hired servants. Perhaps the most telling difference between the aristocratic and capitalist economic thinking manifested itself in body style and internal architecture. For the aristocrat, body style meant “posing”, or assuming a posture of “nobility” with all its studied mannerisms. The mansion had various functions, but there was no need for an office where one had ledgers of money recording expenditures or incomes. If a library existed, then it was a sign of one’s intellectual status. The body style of the capitalist—even if dressed in aristocratic attire—was and continues to be of portraiture, effecting a stern look, and with it came a “business office” as part of the internal configuration of the mansion. In addition, for capitalists, money had a religious significance and continues to be a form of religion, albeit in secular guise.

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Initially, money wealth meant being blessed by a god and a sign of divine salvation. For Adam Smith, the economic market became known as the “invisible hand” which knew everything and had the power to do everything, provided the capitalist understood how to adapt to the “will of the market”. Making money becomes a sign of one’s elevated status as being “smart” (a winner) and in the opinion of Thorstein Veblen, capable of exhibiting one’s “pecuniary prowess”. All this and more constitutes the view of money as some sort of “substance” that anyone can possess, accumulate and count, expressed in popular idioms such as, “he is worth $5 million”. In short, to be is to have. In a modern economy, money communicates an exchange value of products based on the time required to produce them in relationship to the time it takes to produce other commodities, the cost of raw materials and labour. Money is therefore not a thing, its value fluctuating from points of time within each day, as well as the speed of new production technologies, the demand for products and transportation costs. There are other variants, all having a common thread—money communicates all of the aforementioned factors as the means of their exchange. Even the accepted notion of putting money in a bank to earn interest does not change their essence, because interest depends on production and exchange rates. There is no stable amount that one can keep in a bank, so that if interest rates fall, the same amount in the bank will possibly shrink in value upon redemption of the principal. Economic forecasts are temporary statistical numbers that are subject to market fluctuations. At the cultural level the story is somewhat different. Here, money signifies prestige and power, which must be displayed either by social and political influence or by consumption. The latter can be described as “conspicuous and sumptuous consumption,” i.e. waste, which signals the fact that “he has money to burn”. From a psychological standpoint such persons usually like to be the objects of envy, because after all they are better than everyone else. Indeed, they are winners in the evolutionary struggle for survival, claiming the right and duty to propagate their genes through as many females as possible—and perhaps taking sadistic pleasure in the suffering of the “less fortunate.” The figure of Juliette in the de Sade’s (1968) novel by the same name counts excessive gold coins not because she needs them, but because she revels in the fact that the more she has, the less others will have. Of course, those who have less might retort, “money can’t buy happiness.” If money communicates success, superior genes, race, or divine favours, then the lack of it was also a way of communicating the status of the majority—society’s poor. Economists and even philosophers have long debated their concerns for the poor, economists considering how to reduce poverty without harming the economy; anything else was deemed to be irrelevant. The economy, however, had assumed a specific direction in that it had to grow rather than remain at the primitive stage of satisfying basic needs. In Europe from the sixteenth century onward, the poor were seen as the by-product of a healthy economy. One contemporary economist, the Dutchman, Bernard de Mandeville, believed that the economic wealth of a nation could only be sustained by vast numbers of working poor. This also implied that for the good of economic development there was no need to lift the living standards of the masses. Whatever measures were offered they were certainly not intended to relieve poverty, but to help the poor only in dire circumstances. There were some who

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believed that the poor were to blame for their predicament due to their lazy ways, even their ungodliness and a life spent indulging their lusts. Propagating this view was the preacher, Thomas R. Malthus, who argued that economic progress depended on technology that might even help the poor. It was, however, their sexual incontinence that led them to produce an overabundance of children, thereby entrenching their poverty. Malthus’ views prompted new laws, which banned any relief, forcing the poor to rely solely on their workplace. Smith proposed a somewhat vague solution in relationship to the level of taxes the rich must pay; unsurprisingly nothing flowed from his “vision.” Marx (1977) had his own theory that he expounded in Capital, i.e. the abolition of private ownership of the means of production, thereby allowing the masses to seize such means and become owners/workers. Vladimir I. Lenin adapted Marx’s views (Marxist-Leninism) in the Soviet state after 1918, which in the early years of Bolshevik rule achieved little more than a life above the poverty line for the majority. Meanwhile, the Party and revolutionary elite assumed de facto ownership of property on behalf of the people and rewarded themselves with a life of luxury. The Yugoslav intellectual, Milovan Djilas, referred to this manifestation of the Bolshevik project as “state capitalism.” In the twentieth century, other explanations were explored, which went something along the lines of, “since the rich saved more than the poor, then the reduction in poverty would reduce economic growth.” The British economist, John M. Keynes, objected by pointing out that what is important for economic growth is consumption, so that a reduction in poverty would increase consumption. Keynes’ ideas prompted an explosion of evidence that showed that any increase in poverty was directly related to falling investment and innovation. Later in the century, sophisticated computer technology enabled the construction of economic models, which consistently demonstrate that the inability to obtain credit by the poor leads to their inability to educate their children and/or establish small businesses. The result is diminished growth for the economy as a whole. These views, coupled with the Great Depression, destroyed the myth that poor people are poor because they are lazy, alcoholic, or stupid. More recent statistical models proved to those charged with the making of public policy that poor opportunities in education, healthcare, and nutrition perpetuated poverty. Hence, funding education, healthcare, nutrition for children was not only the right thing to do, but also good for the economy. One outcome of such thinking was the state of Brazil’s, Bolsa Familia plan, giving poor families money as long as their children attended school. European philosophy should not ignore radical ideas such as this; education and good health are good in themselves, and money should not communicate the only reason for life. Question 45 T. K. Is non-verbal communication possible? How does it manifest itself? Does it contradict Gadamer’s (1989) theory that “understanding is verbal”?

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A. M. Earlier, we discussed the communication of the functioning body and its various orientations as non-verbal, the latter able to be extended by articulating corporeal “expressivity”, i.e. no body gesture is “indifferent”. Sadness is not an “internal” subjective state, but is present directly as a bodily expression. We observe a sad person who walks in a tired or depressed way, and then we observe a joyful person, or a person who is proud, or subservient. These states of mind are expressions of the active body and its gestures. The immediacy of the experienced expression and its inseparability from the active body negates the “inner-outer” metaphysics, where the claim is made that we have some sort of “internal feelings,” and project them onto an anatomical-mechanical or purely physiological body. This goes beyond the notion of corporeity, which is physiology distinct from expressivity. To be corporeal is to be expressive, and to be expressive is to be corporeal. If the characterization of expressive meaning once belonged to the mind, we can now say that the very meaningful expressions of corporeity abolish dualism. Even if the expressive aspects of active body may be understood in terms of their intentionality (joy is joy about something), to capture the essence of expression we must bracket the direction of expression and articulate the corporeal process itself as expressive. A sigh, expressing the weight of our burdens or a relief communicates the burden or a relief. It is a spontaneous corporeal event presenting its own sense. As Walter Otto suggests, expressive body activity is self-presentation and is paralleled by equally spontaneous communicative comprehension. It is a spontaneous manifestation, a play of bodily powers that communicate without mediation. This is to say, it is impossible to undercut body expressivity by a borrowed mediation and interpretation. Although expression is a self-presentation of corporeity, the expression is not locked within the limits of the physiological body. Every corporeal gesture, every movement, form a continuity, producing a variant of itself and prolonging itself into a schema. An adjustment to one expressive configuration is an adjustment to a series of like configurations, where expressed desire can be desire expressed by anyone and in anything. If my expressed desire is a variant among other possible expressions of desire, then it is equivalent to and interchangeable with them. The particular expressions pass, but in passing they create a schema for continuation, proliferation and repetition. While inhering in individual gesture (a display of active corporeity), expression transcends the boundaries of anatomical individuality and captures others in its mood. This being captured by, being moved by, expression is well depicted in such phenomena as desire, eroticism, where one is transfigured, elevated, ennobled and, at times, degraded. One way that the social communicative power of expression is depicted in enlarged images can be gleaned from myths. While all humans engage in rituals that appeal to all sorts of unseen powers, the latter are ineffective if they are merely ideological constructs. Rather, they are the intensive concentration of expressive characteristics: they love, they hate, threaten with horrible punishments, demand our passionate commitments, and our bodily gestures of self-effacement and subjection. Mythological figures are depictions of expressive communication that go beyond the location of such figures. Expressivity in myths pervades the universe. There is no dry, geometric space in bodily experience and communication, this aspect being seen

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in the pagan depiction of mythical figures. When one is confronted by the expressive characterizations describing, for example, Aphrodite, one finds a description of bodily moods across all events and things. It is the tenderness of everything calling to enchantment, to embrace and to the sweet and breath-taking flow of all into all. It is an expression manifest across all things as attractive and harmonious. And she is contrasted to Artemis, the feminine. This goddess is the soul, the expression of wildness with its heights and depths, with her animals and tormenting beauty, with her rejecting look and maternal care, and her blood lusting hunt—lust, playfulness, tenderness, bright glory, inaccessibility and horror—all of them expressive characteristics. What the mythical figures suggest is the generality and at the same times the individuality of expressive body. Its generality proliferates and can inhabit anything, can be manifest across the face of all events without being reducible to such events. Hence, the mythical figures are depicted as transcending the characterization of things in their anatomical properties; yet as manifestations of expressivity the figures are inner-worldly. In this sense, they are a way of capturing the expressive corporeal process without any reduction to anatomy or physiology. Such a process can appear everywhere: in the faces of statues, where the great utopian dreams of days to come are inscribed in the uplifted postures of the “revolutionary” classes; the victories shine from the canvasses, tensed with fierce steeds and proud warriors, while the defeats are spread across the canvas in prostrate bodies—all of them corporeal expressions. The expressive power of corporeity is communicated not only across the gestures of other bodies, but also provides a locus of transformation from one expressive modality to another. In other words, from direct vision, audial styles and rhythms, to institutionalized records of writing, where the same proud posture, the haughty gaze, the same sorrow of defeat, pervades the volumes of poetry, literature and even cultic rituals. It is the same expressive power which was manifest in the Greek movement toward theocentrism, the pagan “enthusiasm” with arms spread and open toward the sky, and the Christian surrendering of space and slavish submission in kneeling and prostration. From the donning of the mask (angry or benevolent), to the solemn magic of transforming wine into blood and bread into flesh, expressive characteristics are manifest directly and move the experiencer—prior to intellectualization—by communicating a mood which spreads without respect to the otherwise indifferent “reality.” In this sense, corporeal expressivity is the condition for social communication. Corporeal expressivity, in brief, can assume any “embodiment,” since it is not something called “interior” or subjective, but rather directly present, inner-worldly and yet transcendent of materiality. This transcendence is precisely what is capable of affecting us, although the expressive dimension is primarily the direct dynamics of an active, corporeal being. The affectivity is not an intentional act stemming from an interiority of a subject, but a movement of expressivity, which comprises the very sense of gestures and is transmitted through gestures, postures, and mobile face and limbs. This means that the immediacy of expression is not so much faced or confronted as participated in and lived through. It is like the “lively” tune, which sends our limbs into frenzy, or the Dionysian tragedy sending horror across the

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faces of the audience. The horror is a spontaneous expression of being moved, being gripped by a presence where what does the gripping and the being gripped are one. This concept of expressivity abandons not only the inner-outer dualism, but also the distinction between our corporeal expressivity and the expressivity manifest among the experienced phenomena. Hence, the fearsome storm and the fear forming across the face participate in one expressive movement; the lonely night and the lonely heart, the bright morning and the sparkling eye converge in the medium of expressivity that does not lend itself into separations. It could be said in terms of Merleau-Ponty’s notion of meaning, that meaning is no longer an anthropocentric projection of the human; we find more meaning than we can project. The same can be maintained of expressivity: we find more expressions than we can project by any constructed theoretical explanation. While attempting to radiate an expressive joy across the morning sun and the shimmering treetops, we are drawn into the morning glory and find ourselves moved with its expressive presence. This suggests that we are in constant communication with each other and with the world through direct participation in the excessive sensuality of worldly events and ourselves. These considerations prepared the ground for a fuller understanding of erotic expressivity in social communication. Question 46 T. K. How can we explain the rise of novelty? After all, novelty appeals to the communication of what is in the future, and in so doing obliterates the old. A. M. We can safely say that creative novelties in communication do not spring from an innocent thinking of some creative genius. Many thinkers in various disciplines have made mention of something that is entirely appropriate: “we stand on the shoulders of giants.” When speaking of the emergence of novelties in communication it is essential to separate the two domains. First, the domain of media or means of communication, and, second, the subject matter that is communicated through the media. Let us look at the first domain and specifically its constant creation of novelties. In principle, they are intended to send a message that is quite distinct from the means of sending. The means are coextensive with the human species, and of course other species, since any human community is “communicative.” Thus, body gestures, drums, smoke signals, language, telegraph, telephone, radio, TV, computers, satellites are the media, requiring creative ingenuity for their progress. So what prompts their continuous novel creations? The most basic catalyst is space and time. How far and how fast can our media reach with a message? A drum has a limited range, but a smoke signal can be seen for many kilometres. Sending a letter by a sailing ship from Europe to America might take weeks, but sending the same message by telegraph takes minutes. Innovation is coextensive with the need to shrink space and time distances. Today, the media means allow messages to be instantaneous; satellites, computer email messages, smart phones, and a plethora of other media

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shrink space and time to almost zero distance. It is now quite possible to speak to a friend on Skype across oceans face to face. Creativity referred to in the second domain—the message—offers two variants. First, regardless of the media, the message can remain the same, e.g. the smoke signal warning of the coming enemy, a message transmitted by a letter, messenger, telegraph, telephone, satellite, and so on. Second, with the increasing complexity of the media, there can be an increasing complexity of messages. In the blink of an eye, smart phones send a message about an approaching enemy, but also a map, the landscape, the terrain, the weather and the temperature. The carrier can send a layered message such that the latter is tracked in its movements and changes, allowing for creative variation of any given message. Such media can include messages from other times—historical information about similar military events, opening up creative responses. Here, time and space are also involved: the speed in time and changes of locations in space, are incorporated in the message. This suggests that creativity is not a novelty emerging from nothing, but the possibility of increasing variation of given means and messages that lead to novel and even unexpected avenues. Equally significant for the modern West and its globalization is the philosophical invention of a mechanical universe, allowing, in principle, to make anything into anything. It is the modern “materialism” ruled by instrumental reason in the form of mathematics. Here, the logic is one of reversals and intermixtures. While at the dawn of the modern West, philosophers and scientists regarded mathematics as a descriptive method of dealing with the “material” environment composed of homogeneous parts. It turned out that such a method was “instrumental”. At first one could regard mathematics as any other medium used to carry a message “about” sizes, speeds, locations of material things composed of material parts—just like any other language that “speaks about” something. A Newtonian mathematical formula speaks about gravity; yet the realization that mathematics not only speaks about something, but can also “produce” what it says, leads to the notion that mathematics not only carries a message but also “makes” it. If one knows how to define a circle mathematically, one knows how to make it. Unbeknown to the inventor of the claim that the “medium is the message”, modern philosophy has long since accepted the quantitative methodology and its ability to be the medium and the maker of the message. On the other hand, the made message, say a smart phone created by mathematical medium, becomes also a medium for creating novel mathematical messages, which on the other hand become a medium for “improved” other phones as messages, etc. The theoretical factors in this process are completely dependent on modern Western metaphysics and ontology. The mathematical method belongs to the mental structure of awareness with a prejudgment that what is beyond doubt is a constitution of a precise reflective metaphysics capable of “universal, impartial, and objective” access to a specifically constituted “reality.” It is presumed that the latter consists equally of a universal, impartial and homogeneous materiality correlative to the precise structure of subjective, mathematical metaphysics. There is a need to show the ways in which both, the mathematical metaphysics and the material “reality,” are constituted, correlated, and assumed to be isomorphic. For modernity, mathematical or quantitative procedures are not only methodological,

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but the basis for all theoretical thought. The specific composition of such procedures suggests that no intuitive (perceptual content) can be correlated to them. They contain structures and rules, which can be formulated without any relation to perceptual qualities. Moreover, any concrete function such structures acquire, is not dictated by perceptual structures. In other words, the function is a matter of will, but in such a way that the will is not compelled either by perceptual or mathematical structures, i.e. they have no causal force. This is the basis for many communication scholars to discard any qualitative experience in their research and concentrate purely on quantitative data. In brief, such scholars need not communicate with their research subjects. Let us be clear about such communication research. In order for quantitative or, more precisely, statistical procedures and structures to acquire any validity, the “objective” world must be constituted in accordance with these procedures. First, the procedures are indifferent with respect to perceptual intuition, because they treat all events as if they were essentially homogeneous. Second, the perceptual domain of intuition, directly present to live awareness, is transcended in favour of quantitative propositions and the posited homogeneous materiality. The transcendence, in this context, is required by scientific consciousness which regards the qualitative spheres essentially subjective and thus to be “overlooked”. Yet, in this case, awareness, even that of the researcher, has no access to the material reality apart from the one posited by the requirements of the quantitative method. This is the source of the conception of mathematically idealized nature such that nature becomes a homogeneous mathematical manifold. We ought not be misled by the concept of homogeneity. The latter might seem to have geometric associations, and hence capable of being given in perceptual intuition. The problem revolves around the practice of substituting geometric formations, the translation of the forms into a mathematical set of signs that do not offer any semblance or intuitive comparison to the geometric domain. Thus, both mathematics and geometry become mutually creative, and in this sense constitutive of the very world in which a modern person lives and communicates. Question 47 T. K. What is educational communication, and what are its aims? Why do we partition subjects into separate discourses and thereby deprive them of any sense of being connected? Is this a good thing for educational communication? A. M. Animals have no need for education because they have a fixed and inherent nature, whereas divinities know everything. It is only humans who are born completely helpless and who must spend years being educated how to manage to live in a world. As Fink points out, the very essence of what makes a human being is education. Formal education is only a part of a more general and pervasive learning. Children learn to speak, to walk, to eat, and to relate, before going to any school. According to modern dialectics, including Hegel, an individual child is an abstract

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and limited being. Through the process of learning it begins to relate and hence broaden its horizons, becoming more concrete and on the other hand more universal. A fully grown person, understanding their broad relationship to the world, is at their most concrete and most universal. This is consistent with Aristotle’s claim that a human being is political, and the so-called “individual” is either a god or an animal. Thus, the classical understanding Paidea (Education) is the very foundation for society and indeed philosophy. Education is, according to Habermas, a condition for “communicative competence.” In principle, communication requires education. It should be clear that the presumed “empirical person” couldn’t be posted as a standard by which to decide the human question. What was noted with regard to the self and ego, leading to the poli-centric field and history, the self is always more than an ego. This “more” is a constantly lived and assumed set of phenomena pertaining to the subject matter, i.e. the human is more than what is given at present. Various terms have been used to express this “more” ranging from potential to possibility, impossibility and even infinity. This suggests a common recognition that this “more” has to be disclosed, revealed, actualized or realized. It can be claimed that even philosophical anthropologies belong in this framework when they proclaim the human as an “unfinished” being, or when the globalizers on various continents demand for all sorts of technologies, assistances, and expertise to help “develop” the indigenous populations. All such notions suggest that there is a human dimension that has to be brought out, educed, educated and thus fully actualized. Perhaps even all the furious revolutions to abolish alienation rest on this phenomenon of “more”. To begin with, the unfolding of the more is also related to the phenomenon of radical diversity of human occupations, interests and above all abilities. It would be impossible to prescribe an education policy that would treat everyone as “equal.” Yet, as was noted originary equivalence is a condition, but it will have to be treated in its unfolding through differences. What is significant is that among the interests and capacities of each individual there can emerge the “highest capacity”, and do so through the process of education. The bringing out of such capacities and their exercise in society leads to the fulfilment of a person’s life and even to happiness. This means that to be able to exercise one’s highest capacities is to be satisfied with one’s life, while to be placed below such capacities could be deemed unsatisfactory. On the other hand, to reach beyond one’s capacities is also dissatisfying both to a person and to society. To insist on becoming a doctor when one cannot endure the sight of blood or pain will not lead to being a good doctor, and thus will be a disservice to society. Yet, to be able to become a doctor and be allowed to reach the capacity of an inadequate mathematician is also a disservice to the person and to society. We could even say that it would be unjust to both. By now it should be obvious how education achieves relevance in our lives. At the outset we do not know our own capacities, or those of others. They are a potential to be unfolded through the process of education, i.e. they are discovered by allowing each individual, each youngster, to be instructed and tested in all available disciplines in order to discover, very slowly, what a youngster can do best. Here, a distinction should be emphasized between what one likes and what one can do best. A youngster might not like algebra, but they might be better in this discipline than in another

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one that they like but can hardly master. We cannot confuse satisfaction or even happiness in doing something well with some sort of invented psychological feelings. Psychological education is not an appropriate way of treating youngsters. Once again, the educational system must allow equal access and the imperative that all youngsters be introduced to every subject matter in order to discover what they are best suited for. There cannot be a priori decisions either on the basis of “aptitude” tests as if to discover what someone is good for, or on the basis of preferences for a subject matter by a youngster or by their guardians. Tests usually rate individuals statistically but cannot predict individual cases. Only a protracted engagement with a task or a discipline can reveal the level of capacities. The beauty of human life lies in the variety of human abilities, each, in its difference forms others, reveals the richness of life, its open horizons, and one through the others. Richness has a basic outline, so that in order to actualize our potential we need others to the extent that the actualized capacities are inadequate to fulfil all of our needs. For this we need others with different actualized capacities. Thus, the fulfilment of our life is coextensive with the unfolding of the capacities of others, and resultantly the correlate fulfilment of their lives. Actualization of one is an actualization of others, but in such a way that each is aware of the importance of the capacities of others for mutual fulfilment of our many needs, from daily necessities to cultural creations. Such awareness is needed to avoid being lulled into the false sense of security of being a “self-made man”, completely independent of others and perhaps even most significant in relationship to them. We should remember that there was no mention or decision as to which capacities are more important over others. At this level of unfolding the “more” all capacities are equivalent to the extent that they comprise mutual contributions to one and all. Also, there is the matter of priority of the individual over society, or society over the individual; both are mutually founded-founding. Correlative to educational process is the movement from situated limitation and a narrow mode of being to openness, and the expansion of freedom through the contribution of others present in a given tradition. What a person can achieve by virtue of their inherence in a tradition is something they could not achieve on their own. Being with others, even with those with whom we share a dialogue through texts and stories, opens and enriches us, offers us options and thus extends our freedom. In this sense, human freedom is limited and conditioned, but not closed and determined, since it is education that allows a transgression of the limits toward the more, but never toward a full and unconditioned autonomy, even if the latter might be deemed a final goal of human emancipation. There is, therefore, a constant tension between a person and the conditions in the form of limitations and their transgression, of being conditioned and at the same time subsuming those conditions in one’s own life through education. The latter mediates a person through a tradition, and shows how the tradition functions and what options it offers. Thus, education adds to the individual and society a dimension of freedom and openness, orientation and a greater range of options. Creativity itself rests on this foundation. Lacking a formative orientation, the best of abilities may remain diffused or assume a detrimental function for the individual and society. The implication for

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such channelling is valuative. One may have the greatest talent in nuclear physics and any government is capable of building weapons of mass destruction, yet the question of valuating such a capacity demands that it be employed for the benefit, and not the destruction of others. As the physicist Richard Taylor once quipped, “we cannot allow the development of barbaric expert geniuses under the guise of pure science.” One’s own abilities carry a partial formation of the others and conversely. Limitation and openness are mutual notions. The question is: can one perform an action that violates others without violating oneself, and could one violate oneself without violating others? By “violation” we mean the diminishment, thwarting, or destruction of human self-actualization in the social world. By violating another in this way one is diminishing the possibility to actualize their potential, and at the same time diminishing one’s own actualization, insofar as one diminishes the capacity of the other to reveal a way of being human, which has never (and perhaps never will) occur to one. An educator who takes the capacities of a youngster either in terms of a statistical group, or in terms of tests, without first exposing the youngster to various fields and disciplines, is closing the possibility of that youngster to discover what they can actualize as their best ability, and thus closes contributions they might make. Instead of becoming an actualized person, they are wasted potential, lacking an opening to increased freedom and concrete participation in a concrete social life. Education is the basic form of communication in all areas of social life, building the human life world and human fulfilment. The most important aspect of the conjunction of education with communication is political. An educated person is capable of participating in public affairs and making intelligent decisions in public matters. Having a well-rounded education, we can understand when someone is engaged in rhetoric or focusing on a given subject matter. Political communication is coextensive with dialogue about any subject matter, which is relevant to the public. The uneducated person has a narrow horizon and is not free to understand public issues, but can be swayed by all manner of images and psychological obfuscations. Without the presence of a full and rounded education, democracy can fail and fall prey to demagogy and tyranny. The examples are too numerous to be explicated here; all one need do is watch a cinema classic, Triumph of the Will (Riefenstahl 1935), used by the Nazis to strengthen and extend their appeal. Without education, and its basis in philosophy—that is dialogical engagement—the door is left open to the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Putin, and Trump. Question 48 T. K. Scientific communication seems to have contradictory tendencies. On the one hand, the development of science is impossible without an exchange of scientific ideas. Yet, every science aims to distance itself from a neighbouring science by erecting specific problematics and jargon. This can often turn into “war” between scientists and “paradigms” (Thomas S. Kuhn) that destroys

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any possibility of communication. What, then, are the aims and peculiarities of scientific communication? A. M. In any science the problem of the beginning is perhaps the most crucial of all, and to be investigated first. It presents itself in two ways. First, the neophyte is introduced to the vocabulary and the practices now in force in the science which they wish to help further. Secondly, researchers already familiar with and proficient in the sciences reflect upon the basic assumptions, which have brought that science to its present state, with a view to test these and its options for the future. These reflections upon the foundations of the science concerned address themselves to other researchers familiar with the field and their results find their way into basic texts only when they cause a major re-shuffling of basic premises and practices. A case in point is twentieth century work in the logical foundations of mathematics and in set theory. Children in elementary school are learning to deal with seemingly abstract notions as a matter of course, simply because it has been discovered that only a mistaken tradition stood in the way of a proper classification of the notions involved. Theories unavoidably have a deforming effect. On the basis of the assumptions they make, educated guesses are made as to the most plausible direction research should take, and only very destructive counter-evidence causes a re-examination of these assumptions. Even then, as testified to by the epic battles around the question of the Copernican system, or that of the phlogiston theory, or spontaneous generation, the physics underpinning relativity or the quantum theory, scientists will go to any length to preserve what they deem established. After all, the established ways have a common language, which is shared by scientists of a given field. Thus, it was only after a protracted struggle with Newtonian language that a paradigm shift was required to make sense of certain phenomena. The latter were deemed to be facts outside Newtonian parameters. This is not put here as a rejection, but merely as a statement of fact. Perhaps one of the reasons scientists cling to what they think of as established is that it provides the frame within which they map their work and their contribution to the sum of human knowledge. Moreover, no genuinely scientific procedure has up until recently been provided for the kind of critical review that concerns itself solely with basic assumptions. Some philosophers such as René Descartes, John Locke, David Hume, Immanuel Kant to name just a few, have given the results of their critical review, although they have felt called to do so in the form of alternative systems. Others, positivists of all hue, have deemed it easier to peg their philosophy to the contemporary state of some sciences in order to keep abreast of these developments. In so doing they abandoned the role of critic that philosophers should play by dint of their own avocation. The only attempt at a description of a genuinely scientific procedure for the testing of assumptions in any field was phenomenology, which picked up the challenge to deal with phenomena as they are in themselves. And one basic area of what that something in itself contains is called by sciences, fact. Let us turn to this phenomenon.

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Scientists, and more broadly all areas of “proof,” including social and even historical sciences, speak of facts. While conservative ideology might have a unique claim: “facts do not matter when you already have the truth,” the rest of us would still prefer some warrant by facts. Thus, we must ask, what is a “fact”? A fact is a state of affairs the public description of which is not solely dependent upon the unique circumstances of a single individual. The occurrence of this description may be so dependent, the subject matter of the description may be so dependent, and the description itself as an act performed may be dependent on an individual. However, the description as an object must be public and, as intending the described, must focus primarily if not exclusively on these aspects of the described regarded as exemplary, i.e. independent from the historical and psychological uniqueness of the circumstances described. This independence may seem ambiguous in that it involves not only: (1) the independence of the description itself as a new public “object,” but also: (2) the independence and communicability of some of the features described. Any “description” may be public in the way mentioned, by virtue of: (i) even when what is described is, itself, not amenable to independence in that sense; and (ii) to establish a matter of fact, however, we would maintain that independence. Thus (1) and (2) have to be achieved in one and the same description. The case mentioned above, where (i) is achieved but not (ii) is the case characterized as that of “proper sense” (as against “common” sense). It resembles the “private language” thesis, but differs from it in that no “private” language is developed here; common words are used in their usual way, only their combination is unusual. Under this heading, “duplicity drinks procrastination” would find a place. Further, the peculiar “sense” its use had for Bertrand Russell at the time would be an example of the lack of independence for this expression. One might call it a poetic usage, and with it list paradox, metaphor, analogy, allegory and self-contradiction as the methods of such expression. The problem of bringing independence (1) and (2), both, “events” usually achieve only independence (1). When an individual wishes to transform a private occurrence into a “matter of fact”, they must resort to a description that can be concretized with the appropriate private experience occurring in any other individual’s private awareness. Only when such a description has been obtained will a “matter of fact” be established and communicated. Despite the paradigms and paradigmatic shifts, physics and astronomy have a “common” language, which is formalized mathematics. This language respects our two criteria concerning the nature of fact. In this sense, scientists assume that despite their private or social circumstances, they are not at all involved personally. There is the “abstractive generality” accessible to all in the scientific community. For sciences, such generality is totally indifferent to any perceptual components; the latter are totally disregarded. A brief analysis of this disregard will clarify the constructive intentionality necessary for the understanding of the composition of technological ontology in the modern age at the level of discourses. To note, while the conception of homogeneity of the material reality can be described by geometrical structures corresponding to the morphological and perceptually intuited world, the shift from the geometrical signification to the mathematical and formal abandons any kind of intuitive correspondence between the shapes of geometry and the morphological

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compositions of the lived world. Hence, any theory of representative correspondence, a copy of the world in the mind substance, has to be abandoned. The signitive symbolism of quantitative and formal compositions do not offer any intuitive counterpart in the perceptual world apart from the sounds or marks, selected arbitrarily. Yet, while part of the morphological world, these marks do not resemble the theoretical and methodological composition; they simply provide the arbitrary means for perceptual expression. There are many complexities in the constitution of the quantitative and formal modes of theoretical and methodological thought. In principle, however, this thought offers no possibility of correspondence between theoretical and methodological compositions and the perceptual world of shapes and structures. And yet anyone dealing with the scientific issues of observation assumes a transition from the signitive to the morphological modes of signification. This transitional domain is an unannounced background that provides a silent nexus between otherwise disconnected domains. The transitional domain according to hermeneutics is traditional language, having sufficient creative flexibility to translate the cryptic sayings of gods (today’s scientists), into a life world context. Gadamer called this “scientific journalism” to the extent that specially educated journalists have a sufficient understanding of scientific images to make them meaningful for the rest of the population. This is akin to the many disciplines in any social fabric, where one domain is translated into another domain with a minimal loss in understanding. Even in life sciences such as biology we know that geneticists can clone animals. Despite the fact that we are not educated geneticists, there are many moralists who object to human cloning. What we know is understandable from images: take a part of a creature, place it in a constructed lab environment and—voila—here comes a sheep. In short, we can understand without knowing much of a specific science, what the science communicates. It is equivalent to the position of two logicians, each claiming that their “metalanguage” is the basis of all languages. Both have radically different metalanguages, but both equally engaged in a debate about their distinct metalanguages, without raising a question about the mutual language they are using to communicate about their metalanguages. Question 49 T. K. It seems that a city provides unlimited possibilities for communication, yet the urban environment impels individuals towards anonymity and alienation. Does the city open additional communication possibilities or block it? A. M. To be a global citizen means ego-hypertrophy, to claim the entire world as one’s territory, one’s place of repose and the presumption that everyone is entitled to everything. Freedom is to be able to move without resistance among all that is made familiar. In fiction and fact, cinema and construction, everyone wants to live in a global city, to be a cosmopolitan dwelling among the latest technology, from jets to elevators, microwaves to computers, and where reaching higher and faster is the urge.

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To leave one’s home village to see the world is essential to be able to return a hero— adventurer, and probably economically richer for it, too. Increasingly, however, the village and hamlet are so demeaned that people never consider returning. And so we have the angst of those “left behind”, which is experienced by millions and has even been depicted in mythological-religious imagery. We are in the midst of the greatest migration of humans in history, an exodus from rural to urban spaces. It is not just a movement in space, since all modern cities share essential qualities. It is a migration to a new cultural form, a new style of living, which impacts all major social institutions from the family to the economy, from education to religion. With this change in culture come fundamental changes in values, beliefs, expectations, and motivations. The city is the place in which there dwells a type of modern human, the imperial citizen. Here, the masses live in a sort of anonymity offering freedom from place, freedom from obligation, from clan allegiances and duties. The city as the pinnacle of culture, which is the opposite of nature. The city as freedom and progress, although freedom from what, and progress away from what? This is the modern dream of freedom from blood obligations and oaths, old collective identities that served humans for the vast majority of our existence, and progress from original limitations as well as capacities and a very different sense of being one with all. Curiously, privacy (anonymity) leads to being “obscure”. Just as modernity thins the universe and bring things (objects) into focus, what is obscured are all things not objective including emotion, because in a city one must be an engineer, the engine and electric motor, all of which form the city’s beating heart. Only great empires are able to spawn engineering on a massive scale. The city is an environment that is totally controlled and created by humans who must adapt to their creation. In other words, the complete self-domestication of self perhaps, most fully realized in the control of the genetic make-up of the species via genetic self-engineering according to the values of the dominant culture. Individuation and specialization have made each of us less versatile and therefore less viable, and at the same time more dependent on complex systems that presume unlimited, exogenous resources. And this is the basic problem. It may stimulate, but the city cannot feed itself for it is essentially imperialistic, so that food, water, power, and ideas (today’s “brain drain”) must course to it from all corners of the globe. Here, then, is the birth of globalism, the process of the city reaching out to find and retrieve the resources it needs to stay alive. And the city, the centrum of central importance is the citadel, the imperial capital. Logo centrism extends to understanding that the ancient capitals were threedimensional mandalas. While all roads led to Rome, the Chinese saw China as the Middle Kingdom, and in the middle of the Middle Kingdom was the capital city, and in the middle of that was the Forbidden City, and in the middle of that was the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the largest existing wooden structure in China and the place of enthronement ceremonies. And, last of all, in the middle of that was the throne of god—the master of the universe. The emperor sat at the centre of all things, as the axis mundi around which all moves while the emperor remains permanent. At the core of each city node or hub is the centrum, the financial and commercial dynamo. There in the inner city one finds both the great clock tower and the banks, typically

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sharing the same structure. Later, the great rail stations fused with the other two purposes. The three most quantified phenomena, or the phenomena that are actually and virtually conceived as quanta in the modern world, time, space, and money became synonymous in the United States, a construct that has swept the world. The chiming of bells to broadcast across space or “tell” the time is the first mass medium. The centrums of the hubs are the most valued real estate on Earth. More people desire to be in those places than any other places. On New Year’s Eve, the world tunes into watch (and participate in) the ringing in on Times Square, New York city, a ceremony now copied around the globe. Thus, the world is witnessing a massive migration of humans to urban areas. The rural exodus in Japan has led to the Kanto Major Metropolitan area growing to over 50 million, and the Pearl River Delta region from Shanghai to Hong Kong swelling to 100 million, with virtually no naturally occurring potable water in the region. Fittingly, the materialism and consumerism driving this trend is conjoined in the name of a chain of Wal-Mart-like megastores in India called “Hypercity” and a Japanese toy gas station called Tomica Hypercity. In 2007 for the first time in world history, more than half of all humans found themselves living in urban environments. A vicious circle has emerged, such that the growth of cities means economic growth, which on the other hand drives urbanization. The world has become one vast market, a single agglomeration of ethnicities, languages, and cultures. The scale of human living has changed in the blink of a historical and evolutionary eye. The planet has come to share one dream leading to it becoming citified. Practically the treasures promised by the city’s centrum—“downtown” mesmerize everyone. At present, the world is going through the most massive extinction ever of cultures and languages, and the most massive extinction of natural life forms in millions of years in favour of a common monoculture that humanity is adopting and sharing at a fundamental level. We have a global communication equally at this level—flat, impersonal, and as mentioned, anonymous, just as are the cultures that are excluded in favour of monoculture and its “common language.” Decades ago, sociologists dealing with inhabitants of cities called such inhabitants by a common phrase: “The Lonely Crowd.” The city life offers many advantages: work, entertainment, access to schools, libraries, even parks—open to everyone. Urbanization is a global trend and vertical architecture looking like beehives—called apartments—designed to encase individuals, couples or families. If one is an outsider to city life it would seem that such architecture is designed to form vast communities of neighbours, friends, coming and going from their apartments, but? A closer look shows that despite spatial proximity, each apartment is isolated and, if someone happens to encounter another—nameless. On the stairway or in an elevator there is hardly an exchange of words apart from “Hello” or “Good Morning.” The same occurs at work places where masses of strangers flood in and take elevators only to disperse into small workspaces, to be watched by anonymous guards for “security” purposes. To escape anonymity, the suburbia surrounding the megalopolis has city dwellers that attempt to live after the workday. Yet, this mode of escape demands that people “commute” in cars or in mass transportation—all tired and equally anonymous— trying to rest during the two-hour trip home. If one happens to live in a city, most

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likely the work place will be some place across town, requiring an hour to get to work. The point is, there is communication only in closed groups, such as professional gatherings, or coffee breaks at work, and, if one is not too tired, at home and during occasional gatherings with colleagues. There is no sharing of anything significant such as one’s unique cultural or ethnic background, despite the fact that most urbanites come from a great variety of cultures. Yes, cities and above all megalopolis, are vast places of communication possibilities, but only with one level language of monoculture and mainly with anonymous others. Question 50 T. K. What part does entertainment play in communication? Do games, sport and tourism help or disturb communication? Does entertainment reflect group consciousness and does it presuppose communication? Or, perhaps does entertainment side-track communication? A. M. Basketball, soccer, football, hockey, Olympics, all have one common code: “We won,” and one common mass orgasm. Huge stadia filled with screaming, shouting, and joyous and angry fans, ready to attack and kill the fans of the opponents, and throw bottles at players. The sports and the teams engaged in them communicate the pride, honour and value of a city, country, empire, more than all the scientific achievements, cultural traditions and creations and even religions. If a traveller from a distant planet could circle the earth on some weekend, they would observe the masses pour into huge places of “worship” which seat the tens of thousands of emotionally charged worshippers of heroic figures. For the space traveller such mass gatherings would seem like an important religious ritual. News media have sports sections alone that equal the rest of reporting on local, national and international events. There are TV programs staffed by “experts” who know every player and have every sport statistic at their fingertips, as to how many meters such and such a star averages per distance kick of a ball, or how many baskets a given player averages per game, per season, or how high they jumped, or how they moved their left foot first, and thus went around their opponent’s right foot. The clothes and caps we wear are adorned with signs of sports stars. Corporations pay outlandish amounts for the privilege of using a star’s name to signify the superiority of shoes, underwear, romance, and greatness. It is difficult to find a normal shoe, shirt or cap without a logo. If there are gods (and at times goddesses) they are the sports stars. Every star would be paid more in a single year than a scientist who won a Nobel Prize for a lifetime of research. This communicates to young people that kicking a ball is more important than high education. Then there is an entire space of media entertainment and popular performances attended by other, no less numerous fans. TV, cinema, “music” festivals with rock stars, theatre, mixed in with classical concerts, political circus, and erotic nightclubs and bars. Commentators on television programs and cinema pointed out that TV programs had a story line, which had to be interesting in order to retain the audience.

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Some programs were based on serial episodes, and these are usually “soap operas” designed to go on forever, communicating a boring sequence of who is having sex with whom—without showing sex. Then there are the half-hour “comedies” devoid of any story apart from constant sayings and actions, which make for constant and mindless “laughter” by viewers coached to laugh at the appropriate time by means of studio prompts—a sort of miniature Wagnerism. In brief, dull programs, appealing to dull people. Cinema, being lengthier, provides a story that might be considered in terms of its quality, even if the stars and starlets are polished and buffed so as to appeal to middle-class hopes and aspirations. Imagine all the starlets who never had a single hair out of place, used to attract women to beauty parlours to look like Doris or Marilyn? According to commentators, a significant change appeared with the introduction of sophisticated high technology. The storyline was replaced and defined by computer generated “exciting” and even “terrifying” scenes, events, and styles. Here, we have monstrous robots battling among city skyscrapers, knocking down tall buildings, hurling buses at each other, and trampling horrified people under their feet. We have exploding cars, buildings, stars, flying space ships defending entire quadrants of galactic space, without a moment of rest—and where rest is just a pause to prepare for more explosive events. If there are films in which humans play a major role, they too are armed from head to foot. Characters played by the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger invade an island full of soldiers. The hero emerges from the ocean armed with an array of weapons, five heavy machineguns, fifty kilos of explosives, a dozen swords and pockets stuffed with laser flashlights. Everyone on the island is eliminated, buildings are blown up, and good triumphs over evil. There are no survivors and a complete absence of compassion. Audiences cheer the great hero. Then there are films depicting what serious feminists call “the liberated woman.” She wears short leather panties, a tightly fitting leather vest, which allow her breasts to just about fall out, high heels on long leather boots containing side pockets for pistols and knives, whilst on her back she carries a rocket launcher, a machinegun and a pair of samurai swords. She also happens to be a kung fu expert and immediately joins battle with anyone she meets, jumping over them, cutting their heads off, and with her pistols sending bullets in all directions. Twenty bodies—even more—are left behind. Then we encounter a never-ending stream of “enemies” and, of course, exploding buildings, which send, bodies flying—and all to loud cheers from the audience. There is no end of films where everyone is fighting everyone else for absolutely no reason except for the necessary filmic device of flying karate heroes, one against one hundred, one against the aliens, and all communicating increasing levels of violence. This leads to a question of why communicate this incrementation? The answer might be in other areas of social communication; the term can be the “normalization of violence.” Take the economic domain of exploitation as an example. The exploiter creates a situation in which a small amount is bad and objectionable. After a while it becomes a common event accepted as normal, leading to a higher level that also becomes normal and tolerable—until finally there is a vast gap between fewer and fewer wealthy and more and more poor. By now, this is a global phenomenon that

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is out of control and yet seemingly normal. The same happens with entertainment violence: at first the one head lopped off during a two-hour film seems horrible, although after a while it is accepted as normal and consequently very boring. The director of the film must raise the level of “excitement,” two, three heads, more explosions which also become normal, until finally not only more heads, but novel sadistic tortures, blood streams, exploding buildings and planets become normal, calling for more “exciting” creations, for no other reason than to increase audience attraction. And the audience, having been normalized, want something that is not yet normal. What is interesting is that entertainment has become cross-cultural; every hero and heroine, regardless of nationality is using the means and actions borrowed from different cultures. Every white hero or heroine is a master of Eastern fighting styles, whether it is karate or kung fu. King Arthur, the great knight of England, is not only karate master, but his sword is strapped to his back instead of worn on a belt on the left side of the body. In the Count of Monte Cristo, while in prison, Edmund Dantes is being instructed by a priest who is none other than a Zen master. While sitting in the lotus position, the yoga master is able to send laser bolts across continents from their eyes. The downside of such entertainment is that audiences have no idea of the cultures from which these masteries come. They are simply sensational.

References de Sade, Marquis. 1968. Juliette. Translated by A. Wainhouse. New York: Grove Press. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1989. Truth and Method. Translated by W. Glen-Doepel. London: Sheed and Ward. Marx, Karl. 1977. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol. 1. Translated by B. Fowkes. New York: Vintage Books.

Movies Riefenstahl, L. 1935. Triumph des Willens.

Part II

Between Communication and Metacommunication

Chapter 8

Language, Metalanguage, and Communication

Question 51 A. M. What would form a limit to the widely held myth that language evolved as a means of communication? T. K. Your question contains a number of important aspects relevant to our subsequent discussion. At first, the concern is with limit and most likely with a discourse about limits—a topic to which we shall return a number of times. In truth, the notion of limits (in this case the limit of communicative discourse) is important when delimiting one or another discourse, i.e. establishing its domain, and which has to be distinguished from other discourses. Yet, such delimitation is not a simple mater. Moreover, as we shall see, the intersections with other discourses can play an essential role in (communicative) discursive practice. Second, the question raises doubt about language being essential to communication, for which it is both a means of communication and the very idea of communication itself. Hence, the Latinised “to communicate” which we understand in Lithuanian as “to socialize” or “to speak”. This reminds us of Gadamer (1989), an outstanding thinker who explored our understanding of the expression, “to speak.” This Gadamerian and hermeneutical interpretation is superficial not only because language can be delimited very broadly as one might with the sounds of bugles and drums during historic battles (just as an imperative language averse to opposition), but also because central to the notion of understanding is misunderstanding. Likewise, one aspect of communication is non-communication. Just as we can understand something better without understanding (art, for example), so we can communicate better without communicating. Let us not get ahead of ourselves because we shall discuss this later. For the time being, it is fair to say that noncommunication communicates the limit of communication. In speaking of mythology and the unity of mythos we won’t enter into a detailed analyses of mythos and © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 T. Kaˇcerauskas and A. Mick¯unas, In Between Communication Theories Through One Hundred Questions, Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41106-0_8

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logos etymology.1 Rather, we can better appreciate the meaning of mythos in Aristotle’s Poetics (Aristotle 1996), as story telling. Thus, communication can be regarded as story telling—the transmission of message, indeed the living transmission of message. In this sense, a precise literary meaning of transmission is not important. Rather, our story telling flourishes with the growth of new colorations. Aristotle’s sense of myth is related to Barthe’s (1973) usage, for whom myth is equally a transmitted story telling which is represented by a specific community. It is therefore possible to speak about a scientific myth not as “false” beliefs based on a tradition of faith, but as a specific recounting, transmitted by persons called scientists through their channels of communication. Moreover, a tradition is marked by infallibility, or more precisely it is not submitted to scientific verification; it is either followed or not. In the latter case there are threats of various sanctions including exclusion from the scientific community. So, before answering2 your question, it is helpful to survey the mainly accepted communication traditions. It is most interesting that their discourses are incommensurable, in that not only do they not address each other, but also they keenly defend the limits of their domains.3 In answering the question I am turning toward those traditions (more to some, less to others) whose strengths do not show clear boundaries or are open to others with closer associated communicative discourses. Nonetheless, our aim is not to classify traditions as if observing animals in a forest. Further, our purpose is not to present different communication researchers; they are already known to those who investigate problems of communication. It seems that your question has two purposes. First, it is an attempt to relate communicative discourses, i.e. to traverse their peripheries, and not to integrate them into some metadiscourse. Second, the question will show the limits of our discussion. Here, we can express a priori our empathy to the phenomenological tradition that also is not univocal. The intersection of problems in phenomenology and communication is one way to expand the limits of both mutually open discourses. Peters (1999) points to two factors: an affinity between communication and philosophy; and the recency of communication discourses ever since they broke from philosophy a century ago. Whilst we have no doubt about the affinity philosophy has with communication science, we must acknowledge that communication science has distanced itself from philosophy no less than any other social science in terms of its research methods, content and aims. There appears another parallel with philosophy: just as communication science, so did philosophy fragment into many branches and sub-branches, influenced by other sciences. Examples abound, including the philosophy of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and many more. We demonstrate the fragmentation of communication in Tables 8.1, 8.2 and 8.3, showing its different traditions. This is a surprising phenomenon in philosophy, and is taking place as the 1 We should recall Heidegger’s exhaustive analyses of phaino and logos in his work, Being and Time

(Heidegger 1996: 25–34). shall not answer your questions literally, but shall discuss them by raising new questions. 3 For a broader understanding of the amazing divergence of communicative discourses, see Craig and Muller (2007). 2I

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Table 8.1 Classification of communication schools by Fiske (2010) Schools of communication

Most significant representatives

Semiotic

Barthes (1977)

Process

Wiener (1954)

Table 8.2 Classification of communication schools by Craig and Muller (2007) Schools of communication

Sources

Rhetoric

Aristotle (1959), Burke (1969), Foss and Griffin (1995), Goffman (1981), Petty and Cacioppo (1981)

Semiotic

Blumer (1969), Barthes (1977), Hall (1980), Greimas (1987a, b)

Cybernetic

Wiener (1954, 1961), Watzlawick et al. (1967), Lang (2000), Luhman (1992)

Social-cultural

Cameron (2000), Mead (1934), Poster (1990), Taylor et al. (2000), Giddens (1991), Carey (1989), Grossberg et al. (1992)

Social-psychological

Bandura (1971), Bandura (2001), Berger and Luckmann (1966), Hovland (1948), Hovland et al. (1953), Bryant et al. (2003), Faules and Alexander (1978), Merton (1949), Meyrowitz (1985), Putnam (2000)

Phenomenological

Heidegger (1972), Pilotta and Mickunas (2012), Chang (1996)

Critical

Horkheimer and Adorno (1972), Marcuse (1991), Habermas (2001), Deetz (1992), Jansen (2002), Lazarsfeld (1972), Murdock (1989), Benjamin (1969)

domain continues to shrink and surrender parts of itself to other sciences, including communication. Communication, however, is quite different, in that it is a relatively new discipline, although it is not univocal like other sciences. This occurred due to its “fertilization” and also various influences among which philosophy is not alone. This “fertility” of communication is to its advantage as well as disadvantage. The latter constitutes a threat to commensurability, i.e. non-communication among diverse proponents of communication discourses. The advantage is such that the variety of discourses and sources offers many possibilities for them to correlate and delimit novel boundaries for inter-disciplinary research. In short, communication science is an umbrella for us to transition between a variety of inter-disciplinary segments into new and fruitful domains of discourse. Let us return to communication discourses. Fiske (2010) divides them into two schools—process and semiotics (see Table 8.1). Here, two factors are at work. First, this classification is rather crude since it ignores a number of significant traditions, e.g. socio-cultural or phenomenological. Second, the division overstates the semiotic as well as the importance of process, elevating them to encompassing schools. The semiotic school subsumes phenomenological, critical, socio-cultural and sociopsychological traditions, while the process school includes the cybernetic tradition. Nonetheless, this division does not solve the problem of incommensurability even within the same school.

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Table 8.3 Alternative schools of communication I Schools of communication

Sources

Postmodern (poststructural)

Poster (1990)

Feminist (gender)

Kramarae (1989), Foss et al. (1999), Goffman (1979)

Biological

Matterlart (1996)

Pragmatic

Dewey (1927), Russil (2005), Craig (2007)

Narrative (myth)

Barthes (1973), Ricœur (1984)

Media

McLuhan (1964), Park and Pooley (2008), Manovich (2001)

Mass communication

Blumler and Katz (1974), Peters (1999), Baran and Davis (2012), DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach (1975), Klapper (1960), Schramm (1954), Sproule (1994), Wright (1959)

Entertainment

Bryant and Vorderer (2006), Mendelsohn (1966)

Journalistic (news)

Cohen (1963), Gans (2003), Hachten (1992)

Non-western

Miike (2006)

Political

Gans (2003), Habermas (1989), Mickunas (2007), Innis (2017), Kean (1991), McChesney (1997), McChesney (2004)

Public

Lippmann (1922), Rice and Atkin (1989)

Pedagogic

Miller and Dollard (1941)

Visual communication

Juzefoviˇc (2013, 2014); Mutanen (2015)

Creative communication

Augustinaitis (2010), Valatka (2015), Juzefoviˇc (2011)

Linguistic

Emezue (2015), Alekseeva (2014)

Border communication

Kaˇcerauskas (2011, 2013)

Analytic

Frege (1980), Wittgenstein (1990a, b)

Craig and Muller (2007) go further, dividing schools of communication very precisely into seven schools: rhetoric, semiotic, cybernetic, sociocultural, sociopsychological, phenomenological and critical (see Table 8.2). The oldest of these schools is rhetoric which dates back to the time of Aristotle and has been overlooked and largely forgotten. In antiquity, rhetorical communication was inseparable from democracy, and political praxis was used to persuade the public. It is likely that rhetoric originated with sophistic (to convince) and not with philosophy (search for truth), so that from the outset there is tension between praxis and theory, appearance and reality, image and vision. Meanwhile, semiotic tradition is oriented toward signs, their systems and codes in cultural texts and is quite clearly historical. In other words, a cultural text is one that contains signs. Thus signifying, encompassing the coding and decoding of signs is historical communication, making any cultural text (not only linguistic) instantly recognizable. Semiotic communication encompasses social and institutional aspects and is much more than the association of individuals, each of whom is an agent of the sign system of their social environment. The limit of a sign system is therefore

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individual creativity by which the habitual sign system is disrupted (denoted). Semiotic tradition teaches two things: first, that only language,4 and not only written text, is a system of signs; and second, the limit of signifying, i.e. individual transgressions. Here, the individual is the one subjected to the system of signifying, which they express as a historical being, incessantly disrupts the system and offering novel meaning to signs. Let us consider the cybernetic tradition which appeals to a system as well as a flood of information. According to McLuhan, various human inventions such as the telephone or telegraph increase the flood of such transmission, yet they also create a new problem—one that requires communication between humans and machines. The rapid pace of technological development exacerbates the problem, which is, by now, the determinant of some of the disruptions in human communication. Cybernetics, the etymology of what is oriented toward management, is now closer than ever to unmanageable human-machine interaction. This danger stems from cybernetics which has opened the possibility of communication being used for social control. However, communication with a machine and mechanical mediation (mechanical communication) suggests that society is a controllable mechanism of communicating individuals, which tends toward equilibrium. This creates the further issue of metacommunication: the machine, and the individual regarded as a machine, both require data, but to manage data we need data at another level. What seems at face value like a technical issue is not technical, but yet another limit to communication, and not just what we see in cybernetics. Of this we shall speak in other contexts. In the sociocultural tradition, which for our purposes we will call cultural, a number of questions can be asked. Can there be communication outside of the cultural domain? Are varied forms of communication indeed a culture, and can communication spread without culture? Again we encounter the problem of limits, this time between culture and communication. Nonetheless, we speak of limit as an unstable domain, as a shifting line or region affecting both sides. Thus, a limit here and elsewhere is a dynamic, regional activity. In the tradition of socio-psychology our attention is directed to the behaviour of groups and inter-group communication. On the one hand, communication itself is regarded as social interaction, and on the other sociality is deemed to be the enhancement of communication. Here, the greatest tension is not between communication and sociology, or communication and psychology, but between sociology and psychology. This tension results from different methods used in sociology and psychology. Although both aim at the empirical method, the former relies on the so-called distant methods (analysis of surveys and statistics), the second on the experimental which restricts environmental influences in a laboratory. Communication here is what accommodates strategies that defy comparison. Communication as a landmark of social psychology becomes the umbrella or super-science of these sciences. I presume there will be occasions to speak about the super-science and its various modes. It is worth recalling Plato’s (1888) analysis of justice—an individual feature—in the

4 Here

we are drawing close to one aspect of your question.

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context of social environment. In other words, methods (social and psychological) impoverish the phenomena of investigation—empiricism is such a case. Algis, is it not true that we are closely aligned to the phenomenological tradition? The latter is well known, being an investigation of what appears or shows itself before us,5 and related to dialogical philosophy and hermeneutics, just as the understanding of dialogue6 comprises aspects of communication. Thus, the openness of phenomenology lays at the heart of communicating, making phenomenology par excellence the science of communication. Nonetheless, we can talk about smaller problems of communication that we encounter on the road to phenomenology. There is another aspect of phenomenology which nudges it closer to the social sciences, including communication, i.e. its descriptive method. Hence, the boundary between phenomenology and communication is not only that intermittent line between sociology and phenomenology, but also a region encompassing their respective principles. Communication is a descriptive phenomenon for phenomenology, because communication phenomenology is a practice of open dialogue even if it is a theoretical discourse. Indeed, theory as such (theoros) is not detachable from visibility, and falls within the phenomenological as well as communication horizon. For one, communication is needed if we are to theorize (Craig and Muller 2007). Theory itself is a means of communication. It is interesting that phenomenology as a science of description turns out to be a metatheory of communication. Of metatheories we shall speak on another occasion. The critical tradition seems to be in opposition to phenomenology. In place of dialogue, it seeks unmasking, delimitation and irony. Its beginning appears with Marx and his unmasking of the ideology of the bourgeoisie. Later, this position is inherited by members of the Frankfurt School who left unique imprints in communication and related (e.g. in cultural industry) discourses. For Marcuse (1991) the rise of a “cultural industry” is an environment, promoting “one dimensional man” such that critique and self-critique is the latter’s prophylaxis. Communication is hindered not only by differences in positions and views, but above all by uniformity and one dimensionality. Thus, (self) critique or even conflict is the beginning not only of philosophy but also of communication. Conflict and scandal7 forces the change of views, while a change is necessary for the relationships of the multileveled cultural environment. All of these traditions are discourses that disagree and are even critical toward each other8 but, nonetheless, they are interrelated schools. For example, the relativity of truth appears as much in rhetorical as well as in semiotic schools. Both systems speak of semiotics as well as cybernetics. As they themselves hold, sociocultural 5 Heidegger

(1996) paid a great deal of attention to the etymological concept of “phenomenology” with its most important features—bringing into the open, enlightenment in a clearing, and coming into vision. 6 Our dialogue is no exception. 7 Let us recall the theoretician of scandal, Bakhtin (1984). According to him, Dostoevski demonstrates that scandal and multi-dimensionality are inseparable. 8 Craig and Muller (2007) even have a table for war of all against all.

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and socio-psychological schools are oriented toward the social environment. All philosophical discourse has given rise to phenomenological and critical traditions. If the notion of critique is a central feature of scientific practice, in varying degrees it is also characteristic of the discourses we consider. There are as many problems as there are questions. Is communication science the result of a plurality of traditions? Is the fragmentation of traditions and the branching out of the sciences a characteristic only of communication? What is the trend in communication science: a relationship or incommensurability? Is the science of communication with its incommensurable traditions a model for any science? Perhaps branching out is a necessary stage in our efforts to “conquer” ever more research areas? Can some other stage of science be a relationship and convergence of such areas? Have we reached the limit of schools of communication? What other schools of communication can there be? Does the designation “critical schools” imply that other schools are not critical or less critical? Having delimited the seven traditions Craig and Muller (2007) discuss the traditions that are currently in the process of forming: postmodern, feminist, biological and pragmatic (see Table 8.3). I also offer other schools of communication which were left out by Craig and Muller, although my list is not exhaustive. Schools might include narrative (myth), media, mass communication, entertainment, journalistic (news), non-western, political, public, pedagogical, visual communication, creative, linguistic, and boundary communication. Clearly, there appears to be a continuous branching out whereby traditions multiply. The table list also delineates new communication regions. In fact, some latter traditions refer to changes of view, not only toward communication problems but also toward cultural phenomena in general. This applies to the postmodern tradition. The table illustrates the circle of communication science and of other sciences, as well as of a broader worldview attitude, while an element of it has been formed under the influence of others. Postmodern attitudes form a similar tendency also in communication science, however the proliferation of communication domains, their drift and intertwining, illustrate postmodern tendencies. In general, this pluralism of schools indicates both communication and non-communication of it among different schools. Non-communication has been illustrated not only by the incommensurability9 of discourses, but also by their plenitude which creates a certain “roominess”. This would not appear in a unified, as a result, shallow scientific narrative. In other words, non-communication is the reverse of roominess and possibility10 without which communication is impossible. Feminist communication is based on the principle of difference, i.e. communication is possible only if there are inherent, positional and worldview differences. Gender difference is here a point of reference, and most likely reflects postmodern tendencies. Nonetheless, gender studies appeal to sex transformations, i.e. transvestisms,

9 Incommensurability

can be delimited as a situation where one discourse can do without others. In science, in general, is valid the principle of ignoring (non-communication). It means, if it is possible to function by ignoring something, then ignoring is more acceptable. 10 Let us recall Heidegger’s notion of possibility and nihilation as an important aspect of our being.

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which are possible in an adequately homogenized cultural environment.11 Uniformity, the other side of which is globalism, is another extreme, which becomes the most pronounced barrier to communication. Thus, not only difference, but also the lack of differences, while the identities are flapping in the global mists and are exchanging in common currency, hinders communication. Biological communication appeals to natural events where the communication among organisms is the basis of their social and vital life. While it is obvious that communication and sociality are not separable, there is also a question—which of them is a condition for the other. For the members of a community, it is essential their continuing cooperation maintains that community. Nonetheless, communication between humans and other living forms is different. This is not to speak of complexity and a degree of levels, but also of irony, derision, sarcasm, comprising specific features of human communication, and not characteristic of other living beings. The biological base is incapable of answering a question about warfare communication: being different from living species, the history of human kind is not separable from internal confrontations and conflicts. In truth, the content of history is war even among members of the same language. This provides one explanation as to why other species have no history which is associated with war, and in a double sense war communication—the creation of history and narration of it. The school of pragmatism is associated with its attitudes (James 1975; Dewey 1927). Nonetheless, there is truth in the claim of Marx that theories must be realized in order to change life. Similarly, communication must also change life. In this sense, the criterion of effectivity is its applicability. It seems that communication here serves an auxiliary function by transmitting ideas. Nonetheless, it is in the pragmatic field that communication becomes something more in the efforts to realize an idea, which becomes unrecognizable in the process of communication. In addition, the realization of an idea does not mean that a better way opens up for communication. To the contrary, revolutionary examples show that coercion not only supresses the idea, but also limits communication by forcing it into an ideological framework. In a certain sense, ideology is the victory of communication over its content (idea) which ceases to be significant in a simulated discourse. Thus, as the paradox is oriented toward effective communication, pragmatism loses the criterion of its effectiveness. Narrative communication appeals to stories and their subject matter lived not only by individuals but those communities they represent. In this case, myth is an axis of collective stories which is not separable from a transmitted tradition. Finally, we draw nearer to answering your question. In narrative communication mythology is the basis of community, which is not an exception, because scientific discourse is the basis of scientific community. Beside this, scientific discourse contains also narrative structures. On the other hand, myth12 or more precisely its bearer is an operator of communication. The researcher of media, McLuhan (1964) is the initiator of what came to be known as the media school. McLuhan regarded media as an extension of human capacities to 11 According 12 The

to Marcuse, one-dimensional. concept of “myth” is used in terms of the mentioned Barthes context of narrative.

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enhance and quicken communication. He directed attention to its problems regarding the mediated environment as the attenuation of media content (media content—media themselves) or the narrowing of media region (mediated city—village). With the appearance of the Internet and social networks problems in communication increased. It is actually possible to speak of media collision between traditional and new media and their communicative consequences. The school of mass communication directs attention to the impact of media (radio, TV, internet) on the public which it regards as an influential, though passive contingent. On the other hand, it is inseparable from propaganda which assumes the manipulation of the public. Despite some “obvious” historical examples, empirical research, mostly in the USA, has shown that the influence on the so-called masses is limited and certainly not homogeneous. Here, one speaks of reverse influence or at least of resistance to such media forms as advertisements. Researchers of entertainment look at the entertainments offered by media which take an increasingly more outstanding role in the conjunction of work and leisure time. Entertainment and, to speak more broadly, the discourse on happiness, take us back to antiquity, obliging us to recall thinkers such as Aristotle (2011) and Epicurus (1994). At the outset, the question arises, what is entertainment and its relation to happiness? The likes of Aristotle and Epicurus elevate the importance of intellectual activity which is so necessary for happiness. It is possible to speak of a collision between entertainment and happiness in light of mediated changes and promises of happiness. In the previous table the school of journalism is placed alongside the transmission of news school, however, journalism is not limited to transmission of news because it is considered to be committed to providing unbiased information. Even so, journalism is much more. To speak of news and its transmission is significant for society. The aim to accumulate increasing amounts of news reflects a mechanistic or encyclopaedic view,13 although for the individual and community it’s not so much about the volume of news, but the novel combination. This has nothing to do with so-called objective information; every novelty is a unique result worthy of original creativity and a specific imagination. This, I believe, is where genuine journalism begins. Moreover, the principle of news lends an increasing space to the principle of the absence of news, thus transforming the information society into the creative society. Hence, we do not know what novelty will arise, and what journalistic activity will be effective. The school of journalism is just as narrow and just as broad as the school of news transmission. The concept of a non-western school of communication can appear only to theoreticians well versed in the Western tradition. Whilst it imitates Western efforts to disclose similar “rules” and tendencies, it tends to show its difference from the West. In a certain sense, the Western tradition is in dire need of a non-western tradition in terms of which the West’s uniqueness would become apparent. Yet the problem is that no such tradition is given. What became clear is that instead of this option we

13 Both

are attributes of the Enlightenment.

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have a conglomerate of discourses which becomes a unified tradition when viewed from outside. Political communication, as the designation states, is oriented toward the delivery of political news. In this sense, it is co-extensive with news communication and the rhetorical tradition. The inseparability of political rhetoric from democracy is present in classical Greek political societies. The ethnology of the word “politic” implies states—units of autonomous self-ruling with similar culture, language and traditions, the most important of which is democratic governance. Thus, political communication encounters similarities and differences. Analogously, it can be said of communication discourses as being similar (kin) and as different (autonomic). It is possible to speak of communication politics (the reverse of political communication) as being both narrower and broader with respect to the latter. It is narrower because it is oriented toward one aspect of public life (communication), and broader because it borders on questions of metacommunication regarding the aforementioned autonomous discourses. Political communication, just as much as communication politics is bounded by public communication whose domain resides between the first two. Public communication supposes an open domain without comparing it to the agora of Greek city-states. At any rate, public domain is not so much a contrast with the private, but with elitist secret decisions.14 Public and private enhance one another, although not in a sense of agora in which private property (accordingly private interests) plays a role, but as a separation of these two domains. Nonetheless, the public is measured by the private, or more precisely by its deficit. This does not mean that there is no private life. To the contrary, if there were no private life, the public would be deprived of any criteria. This dialectic is reflected in a contradictory composition, “liberal democracy.” Pedagogical communication is oriented toward education. It is possible to speak of an individual as well as social education. The individual is educated in a specific community, tested and educated by outstanding individuals. Here, we encounter a communication between a teacher and a pupil, which is by no means one-sided. As mentioned, the factor of communication is the exchange roles between the individual and community, teacher and pupil. Visual communication points to the contemporary cultural context and concretely to the visual aspects of new media. In the contest among the media the more imaginative succeed.15 Here we find specific, though not necessarily positive, relationships with feminine communication. On the one hand, visuality has masculine connotations and is generally regarded to be a specific characteristic of man, distinct from

14 We must recall Heidegger’s notion of truth as disclosure. Phenomenality is an appearance in the open, public space. But phenomenon is also associated with public sensationalism. What is important is not just being in the open public, but bringing something secret into the open. 15 The best example is telegraph, displaced by the Internet, and capable of showing distant images. Although radio has not, and will not disappear, inserted into the time of drivers and office workers, it lost its position to TV and the Internet. The marriage of radio with the Internet will preserve radio.

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“feminine” audiality.16 It is not by chance that the critique of visual culture is intertwined with a critique of male culture. Nonetheless, just as criticism, whatever can provoke critique are aspects of communication. Total clarity, comprehension, and even classicism are aspects of non-communication. The features of communication are therefore critique, scandal, and ambiguity. Creative communication emerges when we recognise social conjunction as creative society and its creative class. The paradox is this: no social capital is added to creative communication (Florida 2002), since the first suppresses by punishing creative upstarts. Instead, one speaks of creative capital which promotes competition for new ideas and their realization. At any rate, individual creativity is a romantic illusion; creative impulses appear in the social environment in which a creator matures ideas, realizes them and receives a social reply. Even individual creation, e.g. the novelist, requires communication with writers of the world—dead or alive.17 Moreover, in creative industries, a greater role is given to collective creations such as film, computer games, architecture and the arts of staging. In such case, we encounter a direct creative communication including the exchange of ideas and brainstorming. Thus, we draw closer to linguistic communication about which we can speak in two ways. First, communication in certain areas where language plays a basic role, for example in creative writing. Language is important in the cultural-oral region, whereas in visuality it is pushed aside. On the other hand, linguistic communication pretends to be metacommunication in all linguistic relationships and linguistic understanding. Thus, linguistic communication swings from opposition to the dominance of masculine discourse to become dominant and suppressive of all other communication regions. Yet, there is border communication that arises from your question. Border communication is metacommunication in the sense that it is concerned with a variety of discourses, with interactions, coverings and borders among them. Nonetheless, its intention is more horizontal than vertical. The latter regards hierarchies of discourses and their subordination one to the others, the first has to do with regional morphologies in their confrontations and accommodations. Instead of adhering to static rules, there is a dynamic—probable or even chance relationship. It is also possible to speak of borders in a narrower sense, paying attention to regions with borders, for example media and mass communications, entertainment and news communication, political and public communication, creative and linguistic communication, and so on. This assumes a principle of puzzle, and appropriate strategy of communication research, regarding various regions and their horizontal levels. Border communication deals with marginal cases and disturbs relationships and understanding, nonetheless they fertilize new regions of communication. This is the anatomy of borders-ness. Border 16 It

is said that men love with their eyes, women with their ears.

17 It seems that reading and writing is not a direct, but one-sided communication. Yet in certain cases,

such as mutual authors, we encounter both sided communication. Perhaps the best co-authors of novels are Ilya A. F. Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov. Mutual authorship is a common practice in scientific texts, although most frequently in the natural and technological, or at least sociological sciences, but less likely in the humanities.

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communication has nothing to say about the relationships between the 17 mentioned discourses. Finally, analytic communication appeals to the analysis of compositions of communication with an appropriate view of communication units. On the other hand it is the connection of the linguistic approach to logical positivism. Furthermore, digital culture is far from being only linguistic, but also imaginative. The analytic tradition shares a common border with the process and cybernetic traditions—but this is another school with its own representatives, research methods and operational concepts. After this somewhat circuitous introduction to communication discourses, let us return to your question. First, linguistic communication is one among the seven or twenty-four aforementioned discourses. Second, myth, in its narrower sense (as the antipode to science18 ) and in a broader sense (as narrative) is maintained as a means, or even strategy, of communication. Third, the notion of border allows us to speak of a variety of communication discourses as well their singularity. I shall return to the question later. Question 52 A. M. What “metalanguage” is necessary for us to communicate between two metalanguages? T. K. I mentioned metadiscourse, metatheories and metacommunication in answer to the first question, which asked if metadiscourse (metatheory) was necessary to understand varieties of the communicative discourse. In other words, can metadiscoursivity be an antidote against incommensurability? This “good” intention to increase communication among diverse participants engaged in communication hides a view that such discourses must be subordinated to each other according to, for example, commonality, significance and even goodness. Hidden behind this is Platonism where ideas are based on other ideas (hypothesis). Hence, a question concerning the criteria for commonality, significance and goodness emerges. Why would we insist on investigating phenomena from above from the heights of metatheory? It seems that phenomenology offers an opposite view; a phenomenon appears before our eyes when it is disclosed in the space of our life world. Also, with regard to any phenomenon we must bracket all possible related theories. However, bracketing does not mean their total rejection, but keeping them at the fringes of awareness. Indeed, it was Flusser who spoke of different media models: (1) pyramidic (church), (2) branching (baumartigen) (scientific institutions), (3) theatrical (school, film), (4) amphitheatrical (circus, TV) (2007: 274–275). We can speak of communication discourse relationships in the same way, which exposes the interesting idea that communication discourses, just as media, require organizing. This apart, let 18 Philosophy, as a precursor of science, separated itself from myth in the seventh century B.C., yet up to the present a serious question appears to what extent does science contain a myth in order to be called science (Feyerabend 1993).

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us recall Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concept of family resemblance that was widely applied in aesthetics (Danto 1997), cultural studies (Müller 2004) and elsewhere. Thus, it is possible to speak of (5) family media, or family (covering) communication among diverse communication discourses. Covering is present in (6) mapping, having unique features, such as symbolism, measure and totality. Measure can be detached from physical reality and yet can we see totality, which is possible with symbolic mediation? Without irony, (and in this I differ from you, Algis) Craig calls metacommunication the “way we think and talk about communication” (Craig 2007: XI). In other words, it is philosophy and the phenomenology of communication, which is the bringing of communication as phenomenon into the open. Barge (2001) speaks of access to metatheory through: (1) mapping, (2) involving reflection, and (3) transformative practice. Interestingly, metacommunication shows up in an unexpected place, not in some unreachable height, but directly here, at the bottom, in praxis, even if it is transformative. This dynamism, or the destabilizing flux, might be the most significant feature of metacommunication in contrast to metaphysical stasis. In other words, metacommunication appears where metaphysics disappears. Craig (1999) rebounds from general theory to which all others appeal, since there are no common goals or common content.19 This is why they cannot communicate. The metacommunication aspect is also the incommensurability of communicative discourses. After all, the result of their differences is possible only when viewed from outside, if not from above. Incommensurability assumes an absence of conflicts, since without communication there can be no conflicts. On the other hand, practice implies strife, conflict and aggression, and finally shifts in the map of communication. Praxis cannot be detached from daily forms, cultural mediation and social environment. Still, we are left feeling unclear about what praxis means. Is a praxis the effort to engage in dialogue between representatives of different discourses? Is metacommunication a praxis? Is an expansion of discursive borders traversing at their limits a praxis? Is silence—praxis? Is an aim to relate to those who might not be20 —a praxis? Is the regard of communication as a criterion of reality a praxis? Is an effort to escape one’s “being toward death” (Heidegger 1972), leaving any communicative trace, a praxis? Is being silent among the noise of idle talk21 a praxis? Is philosophy (phenomenology, hermeneutics) communicative praxis? Is our dialogue a praxis? Is a misunderstanding a praxis of understanding? Let us return to your question. In this and subsequent questions I shall not digress as I did in my answer to your first question. Let’s call this my praxis. Nonetheless, 19 “There is no canon of general theory to which they all refer. There are no common goals that unite them, no contentious issues that divide them. For the most part they simply ignore each other” (Craig 1999; 119–120). 20 Let us recall Peters who points out the significance of communication with the “other world” (spirits) and with extra-terrestrial beings (aliens). 21 I am not discounting idle talk (Gerede, Heidegger 1996) or the media. To the contrary, mediated idle talk is a wonderful environment in which to build resistance against both of them (a case of practice?).

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we needed to review discourses in order to delimit the borders of our discussion, just as tracing the context to which we shall appeal, and which we shall unravel. In one respect, your question is quite disturbing: we speak of metadiscourse in a Platonic sense, appealing to the ground (hypothesis) of idea (the flag of discourse), which leads to a more universal idea, and this one to the most universal, unifying good, beauty and truth as being the ground (Grundsein, Heidegger 1972). Yet my claim is something else: in senses that are named and unnamed and where communication praxis is its metacommunication. I hope to return to this question. Nonetheless, this Heideggerian term was used not to deconstruct Plato, but to appeal to his philosophy, or at least to some of his levels. Behind every communication there lurks good, beauty and truth—just as praxis. Question 53 A. M. Is the segmentation of a language into its components a way to achieve its unity? T. K. Your question appeals to another school of communication—the analytic.22 The postulates of this tradition arose in the first part of the twentieth century with the ideas of logical positivism, which explore notions of the cybernetic school. We know that the logical positivists attempted to purify scientific (philosophical) language of its ambiguities,23 and the burden of scientific communication. Representatives of this school talked about atomic propositions into which all statements of communication can be divided, to the point at which they become “clear”. Yet, analysing statements or the semas of communication, we come up with deficits. Thus, when we transform a metaphor into a “clearer” comparison, a statement loses the value of surprise and its poetic wonder.24 Another side affect of such analysis leads to banality in scientific communication. The deliberations of the so-called analysts are replete with the same examples of cat on a carpet and the bald king of France. The paradox is that idle talk in scientific language adds nothing to scientific communication, but rather to the opposite. In fact, Wittgenstein, the most outstanding representative in the period before logical positivism emerged, never mixed in any “circles”.25 He strenuously avoided schematization and his earliest tractate (Wittgenstein 1990a) had a number of significant layers, including musical,26 whereas his later reflections 22 The analytic school of communication cannot be mixed with M. Heidegger’s existential analytic. 23 Logical

analysts also derided Heidegger for his “nonsense” (Carnap 1932).

24 What would remain of Maironis’ phrases, “Only the eyes of the night sky, do not die”, if they were

made understandable in this way: “Only stars as the silver eyes of the sky, do not die.” After all, this is not a question of rhyme, but of specific style of a poet. Stating the phrases with “understanding” we would lose poetry. 25 Here I mean the Wiena circle of positivism. 26 Seven parts, not equating notes. The last sentence (and part) of the Tractatus: “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence” (Wittgenstein 1990a: 7), offers an impossible riddle

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(Wittgenstein 1990b) are concerned about confused language, such as “town” with its new town and old town. Let us return to the cybernetic school which, in some sense, is similar to the analytic. This school is “theorized as information processing and explains how all kinds of complex systems, whether living or non-living, macro or micro, are able to function and why they often malfunction” (Craig and Muller 2007: 81). In other words, the functional view as a lineal scheme of sender-message-receiver,27 the relationship of human and machine, with a management intention, inevitably lead to the fragmentation and simplification of communication and its coded elements. Cybernetics appeals to consciousness (including artificial intellect), although consciousness and communication can oppose one another: “[w]en communication occurs, a consciousness is forced to accept or reject the communication” (Craig and Muller 2007: 264). This is the paradox: since a system frequently fails to function due to this simplification, it adds to entropy.28 Nonetheless, a “great practical lesson of cybernetics is that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts” (Craig and Muller 2007: 82). This holistic (systemic) orientation, distances the cybernetic school from the analytic. In a wondrous way, comes to fore the problem of metacommunication (Bateson 1972): while speaking of a system and its management, attention must be directed to its functioning in order to avoid entropy. In terms of world parameters this implies cosmic arguments as grounds for God’s existence. Thus, cybernetics covers theology, whose source reaches not only to Thomas Aquinas but also to Plato’s thinking. Moreover, Plato was concerned (Plato 1888) with the management of a society, or to be more precise, the ideal state. This can be called Platonic praxis, leading to the theory of ideas. In the context of your question we find an opposition between rhetorical and analytic (cybernetic) schools. The aim of the latter is to divide the sense of the whole of the sender into transmittable parts, which are collected into a whole by the receiver. In other words, the task of technology is to make sure that the receiver would send the entire sent, despite intermediary transformations. This includes not only dividing, but also compression (coding) and a repeated unfolding and decoding.29 There is no doubt that the transmitted information is not identical—responsibility rests with technologies.30 Later, we will consider how technologies constitute a distance from the content of information. Another aspect, ignored by this view, is the impact of

for analysts over many generations. This sentence seems to indicate silence as a possibility of communication. We will return to this topic. 27 Wiener 1961 (1948). 28 “Entropy” just as “systems,” “information,” “news,” “senders,” “receivers,” “trustworthiness,” “self-organizing,” “recurring relationship,” and, in a strange way, “auto poetry,” are operative concepts of the cybernetic tradition (Craig and Muller 2007). 29 It seems that coding, expanding possibilities of interpretation is an opposite procedure to dividing which limits possibilities. Yet, coding supposes the only mode for decoding which is a key for unlocking. 30 This is the principle of identity A = A of Leibnitz. Yet, coding and decoding introduces a correction: A = B = A. The time affect compels us to speak of this relationship: A = B = A .

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time on information. It is not only because we age awaiting news31 but also that news ages too. What would the message about the victory at Marathon have been worth if the runner had not been able to warn the Athenians to regroup, where the land-based threat was no longer relevant? The aging of the news, which had to be overcome, cost the runner his life. Nonetheless, the threat of death is what empowers communication—it can be regarded as equivalent to eternity32 : we shall not be but our information and information about us will spread. As a result, we have an interaction between ageing (temporality) and eternity (timelessness), their mutual limitation lending each other their content. Our ageing during communication toward death allows us to claim the eternity of good, beautiful and truthful messages, even if our conception of it changes (ages). Your question about totality is a sign of eternity. This supposes that temporary news oriented toward a broader horizon cannot have an identity. Thus, we return to the notion that what communication needs above all else is the “ageing” of the news, while we the receivers are ageing, which we might characterize as maturation toward totality. The act of ageing destroys the message by coding and decoding it in our expanding life world. In terms of such expansion of totality there is not and cannot be a decoded message that is identical to one that is coded. At this level a difference between the analytic [Fiske (2010) calls it process]33 and cybernetic traditions is revealed. These traditions are concerned with the management of the whole; the parts are not a problem—only the whole, which in its rhythm threatens to escape the field of vision. In other words, cybernetics assumes a whole, which is ageing and maturing, and hence not identical with it. Nonetheless, the parts make the whole unstable compelling the whole to spread and cannot be “taken” away from the whole, even temporarily.34 The whole cannot be divided not because it will not return, but because the parts might not come back. The deconstructive school can be regarded as a version of the analytic school since it seeks to unravel any communicative tradition. Yet, the very school of deconstruction, just as any other, became a tradition. Its origin is associated with destruction (Heidegger 1972). Here, deconstructive tradition encounters a contradiction which we shall probably investigate later. Let us return to the rhetorical school the intention of which is opposed to the analytic school. In much the same way as cybernetics, rhetoric has little interest in the symmetric transmission of message. Yet, distinct from the cybernetic and analytic schools, rhetoric does not presuppose a linear, but theatrical and amphi-theatrical model. The question is: does the relationship between the sender and the receiver of

31 Are

we not too old to “decode” historical cultural codes such as Egyptian hieroglyphs or Babylonian dentals? 32 Flusser’s view: we codify in the name of communication, i.e. of outtalking of a meaningless world and life—the silencing of death (2007: 259–260). 33 The sense of coding and decoding. 34 Again, let us recall Plato (1888); while investigating the question of justice in the case of an individual (part), he encounters contradictions, suggesting the primacy of the whole.

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Table 8.4 Alternative schools of communication II Schools of communication

Sources

Poetic

Dilthey (1985), Gadamer (1993), Heidegger (1959), Ricœur (2004)

Deconstructive

Derrida (1997)

Hermeneutic

Gadamer (1989)

Dialogical

Buber (2000)

Ontological

Heidegger (1972)

Existential

Heidegger (1972)

Names

Benjamin (1969)

Silence

Wittgenstein (1990a), Heidegger (1972)

Aesthetic

Monginaite (2010), Juzefoviˇc (2011, 2012)

the message threaten the “precision” (“truthfulness35 ”) of the transmitted message. Incidentally, the very dividing of message, just as the never returning whole, is a rhetorical trick. I hope we shall return to these questions. Finally, let us speak of the poetic school which was not yet mentioned as a separate tradition of communication, although it can be traced back to Aristotle (2017) who was primarily concerned with the impact on the audience of the presented message. The representatives of hermeneutics (Dilthey 1985; Gadamer 1993; Heidegger 1972; Ricœur 2004) were interested in certain aspects of understanding of poetical language. In this regard (poetics), hermeneutics turns itself upside down: the importance is not understanding but not, not-understanding, i.e. how to escape the shell of understanding in the face of poetry. Poetic communication testifies that the linguistic—poetic—unit is not divisible. If we ask students to recite audial rhythmic words, for example a piece of poetry, we will get as many results as there are students. It is not relevant that all “disarrayed” lines will be worse—some will even be better. Surprisingly, while speaking of wholes and their parts we encountered in educational phenomenon we should ask, is the teacher without the presence of students, an inadequate whole? And what about the students who wish to better the teacher at any price? Are they the selected parts, too? Table 8.4 shows other alternative schools of communication including the poetic. Later, I shall return to the hermeneutic, dialogical, ontologic, and existential traditions and also discuss the aesthetic, name and silence of communication. What is striking is that all of them, (including the poetic), are similar, i.e. they are communicative with

35 Plato

(1888) already disclosed the incompatibility between rhetoric (pretended rights) and philosophy (search for truth).

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respect to each other, in distinction from the ones mentioned earlier.36 For ontological and existential we even have the same reference.37 Let us return to your question from a different angle. What about those schools of communication we have already mentioned? On the one hand, each has its teachers and students who change their roles, however are such schools themselves parts of a whole? This seems like a threat to Platonism; after Heidegger all philosophers sought to destroy or deconstruct Plato. Thus, an opposite question arises: shall we not lose something if we attempt to bind together distinct traditions of communication? This question is significant, even if different schools branched out from the same trunk. Even etymology (Heidegger’s favorite pastime), never returns, but to the contrary does not show the travelled path but a path to be travelled. Question 54 A. M. There are various scientific disciplines with their own language. Can they be translated into “daily” languages and their content fully understood? T. K. What a convoluted question. What does it mean to fully understand? Is daily language fully understood? Do scientists understand their discourses completely? Next to a daily language, does there sit another “daily” language? Your quotation marks suggest a suspicion both with respect to scientific as well as daily discourses.38 Nonetheless, the daily environment is a condition for understanding scientific discourse and vice versa. The most interesting case is a scientific discourse of everydayness; metacommunication everydayness or communication’s super-dailiness.39 Just as a “translation” of a discourse (such as communication) into a daily language is the same as a “discursiving” of daily language are related with hermeneutical deficits, this remains analogous with our earlier question. In reflecting or theorizing about dailiness we depart from it because it is no longer a daily behaviour. Similarly, while “translating” a discourse into a daily language, we “betray” such a discourse with its entire theoretical context. Such a “betrayal” can easily cost a scientist their status in the scientific community. At any rate, what is necessary for both talk and theory is detachment from daily language (talk), as with the vulgarization of communicative discourse (theory). This is being detached from talk and theory or their bracketing for their inspection. Rather than survey their totality we should “bring them into openness”. In this case, the openness of theory is talk and the openness of talk is theory. Their possibility is disclosed in these open spaces. In other words, possibility is an aspect of openness. 36 Yet, in a wondrous way the communication of silence relates two very different traditions: the analytic (Wittgenstein (1990a) and hermeneutic (Heidegger 1996). 37 It is worth mentioning that Heidegger is using the terms of fundamental ontology and existential analysis, while existentiality (ontological) is different from existentiality (ontic). 38 I am thinking not only about Martin Heidegger (1996), but also about Debord (1994), and our colleague, Milerius (2000). 39 It seems that the Greek prefix “meta” is to be translated as “over”, “über”, or “super”.

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Secondly, their being only in talk or only in theory is crucial for their communication. Belonging to the mentioned and not mentioned schools of communication does not mean that a discourse is communicative. Earlier, we reflected that schools and traditions are strictly contained within themselves; and movement or communication among these theoretical regions is almost impossible. Similarly, talk does not mean communication. It is often the case that when we talk we talk about everything and about nothing. In talk there are no signs of limits, or if there are they are quickly dissolved. Talk is what allows scientists, phenomenologists, Lithuanians, Americans to relate and communicate, yet the fact is that content here plays its part. Small talk about the weather may signal an uncomfortable pause between strangers, is not about weather, and not because of it. Another example is talk among married couples about their children, which might be an effort to avert the unwanted prospect of divorce. Suddenly, we encounter the meta-communication of talk and where it could be least expected—talking about this or that. Thus, we should abandon the seeming banality of talk in order to reach communicative “reality.” Perhaps the opposite is the case: approaching it means also to border on it. Another question, is there such a thing as “real” communication? Here, I appeal to Heidegger (1972) and his Eigentlichkeit, however I am not prepared to translate it into our discursive language—at least not explicitly, while implicitly it is also impossible to avoid. Here we have scientific concepts of discourse that need to be translated. Question 55 A. M. “Humans live in accordance with the rules of language.” What are the contradictions in this claim? T. K. In earlier questions it became clear that we couldn’t ignore the ideas of Ludwig Wittgenstein and specifically his later works (1990b). First, he is important with regard to the play rules that govern language, but there are contradictions. The first is that his linguistic games are not only linguistic, i.e. not just what we read, translate, understand, but also how we behave, admire, or imagine, depends on our language games.40 Wittgenstein held that we play with life and death, but is that a language game? The answer is both yes and no. This is not child’s play41 because there is nothing more serious or even more tragic42 than the game of language. This 40 Even

pain is manageable if we play with it (Wittgenstein 1990b: 236–234). shall speak of children’s matters later. 42 In the context of the poetic school (Aristotle 1996) it can be said that tragedy is also a language game. Of course, there is a significant difference between aesthetic experience of tragedy, allowing purifying (catharsis) of psyche, and a tragedy in life. Nonetheless, the latter can become apparent and, obviously, purified by the former. This is not to say that the nexus (Kaˇcerauskas 2008) is a method of solving the opposition between life and language. To the contrary, the principle impossibility of the nexus leads to a third opposition, to wit, between aesthetic experience and “living experience.” This can be called a logical opposition between different conceptual extensions (“experience” and “life”), provided that no attention is directed toward a region beyond logic and thinking. 41 I

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can be explained as a remnant of Wittgenstein’s (1990a) earlier view that the structure of language and world are analogous. On the other hand, Wittgenstein in his later work speaks of language layers that return, so that to die and to return is possible for those who live. The second contradiction in your question is this: language lives with the life of humans. In other words, what lives is not the human but language. It is not a question of what comes first—the human or language. What lives, the speaking person or a living language? Perhaps a speaking human is a footnote to a living language? The fact that I have pointed to the third question in a footnote shows the (in) significance of the footnote, which is where we encounter metacommunication once more. Is a footnote as lesser talk (in its form, i.e. lesser in writing as well as content, i.e. in efforts to translate the basic text) not a metacommunication of the basic text? Is life, as a lesser with respect to text, not the meta-text of language? This is the fourth contradiction. When speaking about language games Wittgenstein emphasized that there is nothing more serious than games.43 We can speak about some of the aspects, including the inevitability and tragedy of games.44 Just because games are associated with the activities of children, does not mean that they are not serious. Children embody games more than adults so that everything is serious and real. The adult spoils the game dismissing it as frivolous, which brings to mind the story regarding the elephant, swallowed by a python as a hat (Saint-Exupéry 1943). In much the same way as a game, without this embodiment and empathy, the outcome can only be a lack of understanding. Thus, we can speak of a fifth contradiction between childish games and adult language games. We can also call this a contradiction of the python and a hat. Nonetheless, the contradiction is not between generations as much as between gaming practices. A hat is to cover a head; a python is to open the head, precisely, to open imagination. This question includes a double praxis: play and language. To recall Johan Huizinga (1970) who drew attention to the fact that a human is not only a thinking being but also a playing being. In short, it is not enough to think—it is also necessary to play.45 Thus, the question must be whether speaking is associated with thinking or playing—thinking or playing? This is a sixth contradiction—the confrontation of thinking and playing, both in life and in speaking. Of course, it is possible to speak of the play of thinking (and not only speaking), nonetheless the neglect of a difference between reflection and play usually leads to a deficit of communication.46 43 Seriousness and tragedy are mentioned by Wittgenstein’s reference to Adelaide and the bishop’s chess game without beginning. We are brought up to perform “specific actions”, use “certain words, and in this way, to react” (Wittgenstein (1990b). 44 Here, it seems appropriate to speak of Schopenhauer’s (1969) concept of the inescapable will. It is also possible to mention Heidegger’s (1996) notion of “being thrown” into the game we are playing. 45 Here, it is possible to speak about playing (that covers imagination) as a criterion of intellect. On the other hand, play is an important means of education. 46 Com. Marcuse 1991. This representative of the Frankfurt School was interested in manipulation and indoctrination, which find an appropriate position in cultures with different ideologies. These become alike in the absence of oppositions not only within them, but also even among them, despite

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Question 56 A. M. What would be a limit to the claim that all communication belongs to a framework of “interpretation”? T.K. This question contains various and partially discussed themes: limits, language and interpretation. We discussed limits in a variety of divisions. First, the aforementioned discourse of limits belongs to a specific school of communication, claiming to be metacommunication. Second, every school speaks of problems concerning limits by delimiting its scientific domain and separating it from adjacent territories. Limiting not only presupposes defence against an incursion from other schools, but also a transposition of the centre to the periphery. We can speak of limitations in an ethical sense: ethics sets the limits to a scientific discourse. Yet, ethics is oriented toward the dimension which, with regard to the region of instrumental sciences, borders on “fundamental”47 philosophical questions. We noted that communication discourse does not lack foundations, even if we did not speak of communication ethics. The question requires an answer concerning the entire domain of communication, including its foundation. Thus, it is again a question of metacommunication which we have addressed in various ways. It is interesting that in this case “interpretation” (your quotation marks), is regarded as metacommunication. The quotation marks betray your irony and critique with respect to this thesis—is it not so? Irony is another strategy of meta-discoursivity and metacommunication worthy of separate attention. With his pretended ignorance, Socrates is provoking Trasymachus to articulate the concept of truth, and by criticising his concept Socrates searches for an answer to truth that is completely intertwined with goodness and beauty (Plato 1888). Yet the theory of the truth of power and its images of Trasymachus in contemporary mediated and ideologized society is what provokes the critical school as to its “scientific” communication. On the other hand, the critical school is not lacking in irony. Let us return to your irony with respect to linguistic interpretation. First, interpretation as such is not outside of ideology—such externality is impossible. Paraphrasing Gadamer,48 the conviction that in contemporary liberal democracy has no ideology is equally an ideology. Moreover, extending your theme in previous questions, we can speak of the contradictions between democracy (demos, majority government) a demonstrated political confrontation. In other words, the result is “universal communication” as one-dimensional behaviour in a common environment (Marcuse 1991: 108). Bourdieu (2011) thinks in a similar way while speaking similarity of competing media channels. This can be regarded as the self-protection of the gaming (entertainment) environment, rejecting everything that can disrupt the system – to recall the law of entropy, discussed by cybernetic discourse. In this case, it is not we who play, but the language (communication) game that plays with us by manipulating our desire to play. This is one more contradiction (the seventh), which I offer in the footnotes as a result of the critical school. 47 Again, I appeal to Heidegger (1996). 48 Com. Gadamer’s claim (1989) that the greatest prejudgment is the view that there are no prejudgments.

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and liberalism (the freedoms of minorities). Liberalism is equally contradictory as a freedom of the majority and minority. Neither here nor anywhere else do I make the claim that differences and contradictions should be avoided. The greater danger is the levelling of social differences and inequalities. The mediated culture as well as culture industry comprise this threat and is criticised by other members of the Frankfurt School (Horkheimer and Adorno 1972). The same threat arises from interpretation or, more precisely “interpretation.” It is worth recalling Ricœur’s (2004) analyses of conflicts of interpretation. Conflict is marked through communication between interpretations. One dominant “interpretation” abolishes communication with all the conflicts, i.e. throws the baby out with the water. In other words, the uniformity, univocity and lack of conflict of interpretations reveal an ideological context. The statement that “all communication belongs to the framework of linguistic ‘interpretation’” implicates what we have previously discussed. The characteristic term here is “all.” The problem is that ruminations about “all” and “everything” do not imply any limits; everything is not limited by nothing. Nonetheless, the main paradox is that such “allness” does not suppose anything metaphysical, too. We can neither leave nor rise above such “everything” in order to bring it into the open without ending up in nothing. Thus, ruminations about all communication is neither phenomenological nor metacommunicative and, in principle, is an ideological claim. It is interesting that this claim attempts to narrow down the region of communication merely to linguistic interpretation. Moreover, language and linguistic interpretation appeals to different contents; the first is concerned with pronounced (written) language or talk interpretation, the second claims that interpretation is inevitably linguistic. Thus, even this surface (logical) overview prevents any claims about entire communication containing different plans, resisting homogeneous interpretation. Finally, let us consider the content of the claim that communication does not transgress language (or linguistic) interpretation. This claim would be true under one condition—if we were to conceive communication solely as linguistic. This claim supposes the adequacy of resources of one (linguistic) school of communication, i.e. the narrowness of a communicative view, ignoring other traditions. Even such traditions as rhetoric, semiotic, narrativistic, or poetic, which border on the linguistic are not limited by linguistic communication; rhetoric appeals to political relations, semiotics points to extra linguistic meanings, the narrative discloses events of life, and poetics articulates world images.49 Other traditions—cybernetic, sociocultural, socio-psychological, critical, feminist, biological, imagistic, postmodern, pragmatic, etc.—disclose regions even more distant from language. Of course, the linguistic aspect inheres almost in every tradition, yet in this case there is an effort to elevate one tradition above others. But this has nothing in common with metacommunication; rather it suggests the self-delimitation of a tradition from others and the narrowness of its perspective.

49 Just

to recall Ricœur’s (2004) poetic “seeing how.”.

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Elsewhere, linguistic communication has allies, for example in hermeneutics and dialogical philosophy.50 Gadamer claims that understanding is linguistic. Nonetheless, the price is an expanded conception of linguistic and narrowed down conception of understanding.51 A similar situation can be found with dialogue, which is not merely linguistic (e.g. the deaf), including gestural signs and facial expressions, but can be regarded as language. Nonetheless, if we view an image or silence as language, this not so much explains or discards communication, as much as “dissolve” its limits. Communication is therefore made “fuzzy”, although a communicative approach as solely linguistic becomes immeasurably narrowed. There can be no boundary, even in the domain of audiality, regarding any sound as communication and its appropriate “interpretation.” In a certain sense language “returns,” even if we turn away from it—a case of being silent. Heidegger points to the silence of conscience which is associated not so much with Dasein’s justice, but with a disassociation from the world’s possibilities and even from one’s own project (Entwurf ), which quite often leads to collisions and conflicts with worldly intentions of others. And conversely, the call of conscience testifies to confrontations in the world into which we are thrown. Thus, being thrown and being called are aspects of communication. Nevertheless, according to Ricœur such antagonism is not only linguistic “interpretation,” but points to our worldly and temporal being toward death (according to Heidegger). Yet, if deliberations about communication were based more on Heidegger (or others) and not on Ricœur (and others), then it would be an “interpretive” view. It is worth emphasising that the source of communication is not in language but in being in the world. In this way, another tradition comes to the fore—ontological communication, which until now has been unnamed and always in the background. The latter only looks to be metacommunication or “fundamental” according to Heidegger. Its fundament inheres in its thing like character, its instrumentality and handiness. We are worldly, and in this sense communicative to the extent that we use the same things that witness our relationships and possibilities. Instruments indicate a microcosmos52 and our appropriateness in it, while handiness (of things, of instruments and of environment) indicates our world nearness. And yet the aspect of communicative nearness is its distance. If we project ourselves into a distance, then environment and things and implements are also near only as much as they allow us to be transported into distances. Paradoxically, we can say that things are near only insofar as they distance us from ourselves while bringing the world nearer. Is not this handy nearing and distancing dialectic a “fundament” of communication? 50 It is possible to speak of one more tradition of communication—hermeneutic. Our focus is on understanding as the ground of communication; yet, as mentioned the ground of communication can itself be misunderstanding. 51 Yet, next to understanding, Heidegger introduces its twin—attunement (Befindlichkeit), related with mood or fear and their variants—shock or uncanny. The mood resists linguistic and hermeneutical scrutiny. Just as mood expands the possibilities of understanding, so the forms of non-linguistic communication can expand linguistic understanding. 52 The case of the microcosmos—the school of communication with all of its closed (incommensurable) and openness (communicative) tendencies.

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Question 57 A. M. Linguistic communication discloses worldly events, or is it simply valid only within the context of a system of sign relationships? T. K. This is yet another fundamental question. The issue is about a message that is communicated and which has a linguistic composition. Also, the message is about events in the world. Thus, we encounter a communicative dualism. My point is this, that communication is possible only due to such dualism, providing a migration between language and world. The history of philosophy speaks of a protracted debate concerning reality, i.e. the status and composition of the world. The inception of philosophy was marked by controversies surrounding the foundation of the world: water (Thales), air (Anaximenes), apeiron (Anaximander), atomos (Democritus), number (Pythagoras), the quaternial of fire, water, air and earth (Empedocles), homoimeria (Anaxagoras), constant flow (Heraclites), the immutable thinking and being unity (Parmenides), hierarchy of ideas (Plato), conjunction of matter and form (Aristotle). The riddle of the world is the beginning and dynamics of philosophy and science. On the one hand the regions of thought (as well of language) and world are symbiotic: deliberation and articulation of the world is the beginning of science. On the other, the fusion of these regions lead to aporiae and to blind alleys of thinking (communication).53 George Berkeley’s (1982) drastic decision that the world is a divine thought communicated to us. This argument is related to St. Augustine’s claim about the acts of the soul (inclusive of thinking), and the communication of divine thought concerning their common domain. Somewhat more refined reflections of Leibniz and Wittgenstein (1990a) claiming that logic (for the former) and language (for the latter) have an analogical structure with the world. It seems that communication is possible only in the context of one level in which it is not disrupted by higher barriers. Nonetheless, the highest barrier is between world and language, each having a different origin. The efforts to overcome this barrier bear witness to its height and the incompatibility of these regions. One more practical recipe to overcome this barrier is offered by cultural industry expounded by Horkheimer and Adorno (1972). In the environment of mediated cultural industries we encounter a totally unobstructed channel which is equivalent to the homogeneity of the media world. But the aspect of such homogeneity is the “one dimensionality” (Marcuse 1991) between thinking and action. Besides, the mediated world does not bring us closer to, but removes us from, the world, i.e. it means a deficit of handiness in communicative environment of one-dimensional context. Ultimately, one dimensionality impoverishes communication itself. In other words, aiming at perfect communication without obstructions destroys that very communication. This would be the greatest obstruction concerning 53 Perhaps the most famous aporiae is Zeno’s, where the paradoxical regard of movement (Achilles will never surpass a turtle, since by chasing it, he will go half the distance, just as will the turtle, and again half the distance, ad infinitum), informs us concerning the contradictions in communication of the message about the world.

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the barrier between language and world. Perhaps the diet of language and linguistic understanding is what led Heidegger to ponder attunement (Befindlichkeit) which is both the counter to understanding and its partner? Attunement is a certain channel to the world, yet the price (or prize) for what it discloses is fear and its project of our being toward death.54 In other words, communication must be disrupted to disclose the world. What disrupts it the most are our worldly barriers or anchors, no matter what you call them. We then considered one more school—existential communication with its notions of handiness, care, and fear. Communality is an aspect of worldliness: we live and communicate in a social world, although communality is being falsified by individuality. Nonetheless, the communicative world allows an individual to flourish without suppressing the individual’s “silent call of conscience” or taking over their anxiety and care. I would like to consider one more aspect of worldliness, that of creativity. An individual not only creates things (art works), not only himself (his life), but also a world (social environment). Are we returning to “interrelated linguistic sign structure” subordinating our created world? The creative relationship is not only linguistic, which is obvious not only from visual arts. In poetry we encounter “attunement” (Heidegger 1972), and “seeing how” (Ricœur 2004). One and the other reaches beyond language by appealing to world sensibility and to its look. While we do not and cannot see the entire world, creative vision appeals to totality. Similarly, attunement witnesses not only one or another feeling in our being in the world, but a sensible totality. Creative communication is concerned precisely with this slippage from sense and visual aspects toward totality of the world, which is projected (created) again and again. The paradox in the case of poetry, this totality acquires a linguistic expression. Yet poetry is poetic (creative) to the extent that it is not only linguistic. Poetic relationship establishes communication, which is not contained in a linguistic structure. A question arises as to whether poetic and creative communication is the same under a different name. First, any naming or designation is already a certain type of communication. Appealing to Benjamin (1969, 2002) it is possible to speak of name communication. Nonetheless, in this case Benjamin is laconic, i.e. “nothing links the human being more closely to language than does his name” (2002: 305). This seems to support a linguistic view, yet it more likely concerns the limits of the linguistic view. This utterance can be equated with Wittgenstein’s silence. It seems that naming is in contrast to silencing: in naming we address by breaking silence. Yet name communication is what tends not only beyond language, but also beyond the world: we encounter ninety-nine names of God. Yet this transcendence is Heideggerian, i.e. worldly. Ninety-nine desperate attempts to name what cannot be named suggests that it is better to remain silent. On the other hand, this world also requires attunement and circumspection, i.e. projecting totality for which the naming 54 The environment of the mediated cultural industry is equivalent to the promise of eternity whose requirement is our dissolution into this environment. The refusal of the individual horizon, as a disruption of a communication channel, is attended by the elimination of responsibility and conscience. We are innocent—the environment is responsible. Total communication is just as destructive as a total sociality—both trample the individual and their creativity. Florida (2002) claims that social capital is incompatible with creative capital.

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of God is of service. In short, other worldliness is required for the worldliness of this world. Without the first, the second could not be named and overviewed. Thus, the naming of God is a strategy for this worldliness in seeking its circumspection. The inception of poetic communication is naming and the inception of the creative one, total envisioning. Both are in concert and complement each other even in their controversies. Just as poetic communication is not just a matter of poetry and language, so creative communication is not limited by human creation,55 but aims to name participants of the other side. Creative communication appeals to what is beyond creativity and communication, and beyond creativity in particular because it marks a slippage toward totality that requires no communicative addition.56 The appeal beyond communication means that since creativity is always novel, it cannot in principle be communicated. The metexis of creative communication refers not only to the interaction between the participants to creativity and communication, but also an authorship of a silent and inexistent participant whose presence we attempt to decipher. Thus, transcendence throws us back toward speaking which is inevitably worldly. Creative communication discloses speaking and silence, other worldliness and this worldliness, world and language, totality and nothing dialectic. So, let us return to the matters of structure (your question): the structural participants of this dialectic shows that structure is always disrupted.

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55 In

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Movies Riefenstahl, L. 1935. Triumph des Willens.

Chapter 9

Perspectiveness and Discoursiveness

Question 58 A. M. Is communication possible on the basis of empirical “principles”? T. K. In answer to your question we can make a distinction between two levels: communication and the science of communication. Originating with the Greeks, the word “empirical” implies observation and experience. The second suggests senses, the first—observing. It seems that this is related to a phenomenological approach which earlier we explained in terms of various, including limiting, aspects. Observation is inseparable from bringing something into the open in the field, leading also to the question what are the limits of the field? The question concerns buildings given at different sides of a field on the background of which emerges every appearance. In other words, the question is about the “lived world” (Husserl 1970), about our aims, visions, which are no less real,1 and in whose context emerges every communicated message. The depicted totality shows that every communicated part arises in the context of a specific totality. The paradox is this: totality is, in principle, not overseen, but only envisaged. Nonetheless, envisagement is an inevitable aspect of observation. Broadly, the empirical and phenomenological attitude is a withholding of prejudgments, or their bracketing.2 In empirical researches this means a withholding of judgment before a sufficient quantity of empirical data is assembled. Of course, this raises the question as to what constitutes an adequate quantity of cases that must be accumulated in order to guarantee a convincing judgment, i.e. what is the point at which empirical data becomes saturated? Different sciences and different 1 See

Kaˇcerauskas (2008) for an extensive discussion. name (Greek) for this procedure is epoché.

2 Another

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 T. Kaˇcerauskas and A. Mick¯unas, In Between Communication Theories Through One Hundred Questions, Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41106-0_9

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researches require different grades of saturation. One answer is that saturation is reached when data begins to repeat themselves. Yet, one negative datum can negate a specific judgment.3 In phenomenology, bracketing does not mean a rejection of given data. Rather, it means a review that is conducted in light of new data, i.e. with the appearance of new phenomena in the field of our knowledge, a project of the new compass of totality to be understood. The empiricism of communication appeals to information whose transmission has empirical reliability, i.e. the possibility to confirm it by experience. Here, we encounter at least two paradoxes toward which we are pushed by empirical (experiential, sensory) attitudes. First, experience and reliability are often incompatible. Second, in the case of communication we encounter not so much the veracity of information content, but the “fact” of transmission. We shall return to this issue in the context of “media”. After all, the appeal of a message to the experienced and observed reality is one thing,4 while its “truthful” transmission is another. Empiricism of communication is about the latter case. Here, the question is not only how to measure this transmission empirically, but also how do we separate transmission from its message content? It seems that the process school5 is oriented to the “fact” of transmission by distancing itself from the content of the message and its possible interpretations. Yet, this distancing effectively incapacitates the process school to become un-insightful; it refuses to observe what is not observable. As a counter example, I shall not appeal to our previous deliberations about a view of totality,6 but to aesthetic communication, disclosing one more school of communication, intertwined, but not identical with poetic or rhetoric schools. Aesthetic communication points to something that cannot be empirically measured: the smile of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa cannot be measured in centimetres. Even a survey of people (Heidegger’s “the they”) and their reaction is not an indicator, since aesthetic communication is confronted by the existing individual’s (and not “the they’s”) bracketing and shock when they view her face in the art work. Of course, the environment of “the they” in its passive and active modes plays an 3 For

example, a claim that “information is transmitted only by means of language” is negated by showing that information can be transmitted by a gesture or facial expression. Yet, since gestures and expressions are a part of language we encounter empirical limits. 4 Its truth does not necessarily correspond to reality. Depending on which theory of truth we maintain, there can be other criteria of truth—utility, evidence, coherence, and praxis. 5 Which, in part, corresponds to the cybernetic school. 6 This might be called a ‘super-view’ as an aspect of metacommunication, although as a survey of totality a super-view is impossible. Rather, it is necessary as an appearance of any phenomenon or even environment, which brings to mind the dialectic of activity and passivity. Active is not only phenomenon, emerging in a passive environment, but the latter is also active, “ejecting” or “exiling” from itself a passive phenomenon. Such passive-active dialectic makes sense of intolerance and even the repression of outstanding creators. The history of art as well as the sciences speaks loudly with examples of such repressions, which, in their mildest form, is non-acceptance, the most famous case being Vincent van Gogh. The repressive activity of the environment is a strategic part of selfpreservation (passive one?). Conversely, the passivity of a creator in case of the rejection of their work (purportedly, the work must defend itself without the aid of the author) is an active aspect of such creativity.

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important role. As a result, the empirical approach is more akin to mass (average) investigation of “the they’s” environment and not to (aesthetic) communication with flashes of attunement and of catches. Without any diminishment of empiricism, and recognizing its necessity to claim that empirical approach, it is therefore vital that we investigate the communicative environment, because not to do so would be inadequate to explain expressive communication. Just as the communicative environment and expression change their passive and active roles, empiricism and phenomenology complement each other by changing scientific perspectives. The basis of such changes is the dual origin of empiricism: for one, it appeals to experience which can only be individual,7 and it also purports to adhere to science which operates with generalities. At first glance it would seem that the analytic position is characteristic of empiricism, oriented toward elementary claims to experience. Even the proponents of empiricism such as Locke (1964) and Hume (2000) pointed out that only elementary (primary) propositions are based on experience, while science operates with complex (secondary) propositions. This means that even empiricism as a scientific approach must bracket or suspend its empiricism8 in order to be scientific. Here, one can speak of something else, albeit in a narrower sense, and that is communication between experience and scientific knowledge. This does not completely coincide with communication in broader society and the scientific community, or between knowledge of “the they” and a scientific “eureka”. Nonetheless, in the broadest sense your question concerns the empirical factors of communication (science), the very communication that could be seen as experience, which is the aim of scientific knowledge. If this is so, then everything is turned upside down: the practice of communication (experience) emerges as the superstructure (meta-position) of what we understand as communication science. This paradox is similar to the empiricism of Lazarsfeld (1972) who is usually referred to in the narrow context of theoretical impact: his empirical researches destroyed the conviction concerning the impact of media propaganda. Although Lazarsfeld’s initial project was theoretically modest, i.e. he investigated the impact of advertising, his reflections about the diverse influence of an agent acting in different social environments (including the influencers of public opinion) and about the agent’s insertion with respect to the influence of advertising, (and propaganda), became the basis of his theory. This appears to be a shift toward Aristotle’s empirical consequences, yet for Lazarsfeld communication about communication is not sufficiently scientific. Thus, he rejects the question as to whether this a priori doctrine concerning the primacy of data fails to note the limits of its research, i.e. a speculative

7 However,

there are discussions about a common, communal archetypical experience, inherent in the “collective unconscious” (Jung 1991), and with which empiricism has nothing in common, and would not tolerate such a claim. 8 Kant (1999) was concerned with the incompatibility between empiricism and scientific, universal necessity, which resulted in the thesis of synthetic a priori judgments.

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(metaphysical) position.9 After all, a scientist who notes the relativity of data (in his case the answers to questions) which belongs to the formation of questions, sees somewhat further. In brief, an insight into one’s own limits of investigation (which is not and cannot be empirical) allows a survey of the research itself. The philosophical (and scientific) controversy between empiricism and rationalism has a long history, accompanied by paradoxes. First, while not being an empiricist, Aristotle gave empiricism its beginning. Second, from the Middle Ages onwards empiricism became intertwined with alchemy and astrology.10 Third, rationalism blossomed in modern times,11 which is deemed to be the age of empiricism.12 Fourth, beginning with the nineteenth century, empiricism came to rely on mathematics—the weapon of rationalism—to manage data. Fifth, the twentieth century can be regarded as the renaissance of rationalism. Thus, in astro-physics the greatest discoveries have been possible through a rational (theoretical) approach.13 Empiricism and rationalism expanded through their controversies, i.e. communicating one with the other. To say the least, no empiricism negates rational deliberations, and no rationalism can avoid experience. No empiricism can survive without rationalism and vice versa.14 The important question here is the relationship between them in one or another scientific approach. Empiricism suffers the most not because of rationalism’s superfluity, but its elimination or empirical diet as Lazarsfeld demonstrates. The same can be said of rationalism seeking to dispense with empiricism. The fundamental philosophical questions are not an excuse: such questions must always be tested within the changing social environment. In truth, they are fundamental to the extent that they are communicated in everydayness. Question 59 A. M. While there is much talk about history, no questions are raised about how communication is possible with historical “partners”. How can we understand such communication?

9 The

primacy, even the metaphysics of empiricism, did not persuade Lazarsfeld’s students to remain his followers. Thus, the question of empirical communication returns us to the issue of communication between teacher and student. 10 Here, we should recall Roger Bacon. 11 Famous thinkers such as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, and even Kant, are considered to be rationalists. 12 This reputation was due mainly to the British and Scottish philosophers, Francis Bacon, John Locke and David Hume. 13 The mental experiment of Einstein could be regarded as a rational imitation of experiment. This does not mean that to support a theory there is no need to discover empirical data, however theories are created as logical and economic standards. 14 Let us recall the doctrine of recollection (anamnesis) of Plato, the father of rationalism. Upon seeing (confirming by senses) a friend, we recall the idea of friendship. An opposite example comes from the founder of empiricism, Aristotle, who claims that any individual (primary substance) is understood in a context of common features (secondary substance).

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T. K. I was concerned with matters historical, because without them we cannot address the question of the relationship between the individual and society (Kaˇcerauskas 2011). Your question is fundamental, because the voices of contemporary community resonate in their respective historical chambers. It would seem that historical communication shifts our glance toward the past and thus is uni-directional. Most of what we hear in these chambers is our own voice, yet the situation is actually this: the historical participants in communication are dead to the extent that we bury them. Generally, the paradox is that the “eternalizing” of our historical participants in monuments, manuscripts, textbooks, means their killing by assigning to them changeless historical roles. My view is that one-sided communication is impossible, i.e. it is contrary to the idea of communication as mutual talk and action in a community (communis). This is not present in one-sided communication. Of course, it is necessary to speak here about the role of an individual15 in their communication with other individuals in their communal context. Communication is nourished by individual transgressions and even conflicts with the community. In truth, this is not the only possibility for an individual to become historical. Nonetheless, what can we make of communication with a “dead” historical person? Is there no communication between two regions, one the present with the “living”, the other—the past—with the “dead” individuals? Actors of the past are participants in our communication to the extent that they are alive, i.e. they appear in different manners in our shifting present. Surprisingly, we have returned to interpretation as an inextricable aspect of communication. Every communication with the past is contemporary, and even future interpretation. We can say that we communicate with the past to the extent that it looks toward the future. In other words, communicated images of the past are not contained in the past, and appear in the present, signifying the ways of the future. Historical actors are alive as witnesses of our own future. But it is not as if some historical actors are alive (witnessing), while others are dead (mute). The dead and mute simply have no role in our world, even if (and specifically if) the public spaces are surrounded by their monuments. Thus, the question of communicative history returns to the addressed world, which is realized to the extent that it is communicated. In the historical context there is a question of private and of public spheres, which have consequences for discussions about communication. It seems that communication as such is a public matter. Yet, aesthetic, poetic, hermeneutic, dialogical and existential communication requires an individual moment,16 which is intertwined with the identification of the individual in their environment. One the one hand, history elevates an individual to the extent of their appearance in public, i.e. participates in the community and obtains individuality. On the other hand, the historical individual is recognized by becoming significant in our own individuation. Thus, they appear in the arena of our life, such that while communicating with them we recognize them as an agent in our own lives.

15 This 16 In

reminds us of Buber’s (2000) “I-You” relationship. Heidegger’s words, Dasein.

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Let us recall Heidegger’s differentiation of historicity (das Geschichtliche) and historiography (das Historische). The former is related to our being here as being toward death, and the second to “mute” in the sense of being existential science. Nonetheless, historicity does not address only individual, or historiography only public communication. This relationship is more complicated because they cannot be separated from one another: the individual communicates with their contemporaries or predecessors by habitual public means. Hence, public communication is such only to the extent that it can distance itself from individual participation. Further, there is no such thing as individual communication. Communication makes the subject matter more or less public, and this can be said even about secret communication. Indeed, if communication is secret it tells about its public interest that seeks to discover it at any price. Existential (let us call it such) and public communication constitutes a necessary background for its expansion. In short, each is a metacommunication for the other. Note that the daily, public communication appears as an environment for the “real”, lending it a focus. Existential communication is real only to the extent that it becomes clear when observed against the background of its opposite. Finally, the real is, in no way, what proliferates through individual relationships, and neither is it what would be the lack of public communication. In other words, public does not take away the real communication. Were this the case then a poem read publicly (e.g. on TV) would cease to be poetic. The real is often associated with poiesis as a result of construction. Accordingly, the existential and public sphere constitute a communicative field or chamber (sphairos) for each other. It is interesting that the science of communication, as distinct from communication, is almost without a history. A small number of scientists have deliberated on the consequences of communication science (Peters 1999), and show that it separated from philosophy barely one hundred years ago. Peters attempts to reconstruct this history by appealing to some philosophical themes, mainly hermeneutics. It is also interesting that the beginning of the history of communication—real or unreal cooperation with historical figures—received its impetus when it sought to cooperate with extra-terrestrial beings.17 At any rate, communication does not allow us to cooperate with something extra-terrestrial, and even were it possible such cooperation would lead to timeliness and worldliness. In short, communication itself secures this world for our contemporary historical participants, and emerges as a counter weight or a superhero in two senses: it guarantees an environment for cooperation, and invites historical participants from a region—the past—from which they cannot be invited. Question 60 A. M. To speak of “multi-perspectivity” is to invite a question whether such speaking is one more perspective, or an all-encompassing “aperspectivity”?

17 Both

aspects of the history of communication are clarified by Peters (1999).

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T. K. This is another question about metacommunication which is closely related to the previous question concerning historical communication, and this opens a new, ethical region. It seems that perspectivism is a theme of Nietzsche: In his text Beyond Good and Evil, (2002) he claims, “there are no facts, only interpretations” and elsewhere (Nietzsche 1998) speaks of different moralities as different perspectives, based on genealogy, i.e. history (or its specific perspective). Numerous researchers mention the word “perspectivism,” first of all referring to Nietzsche. In this context, and specifically with respect to ethics, the following are also mentioned. Kant (Kossler 1995), Hegel (Kossler 1995), even Thomas Aquinas (Thomson 1994), and phenomenologists (Schenck 1985) referring to Merleau-Ponty have their reasons for why they deliberate about perspectivism. As for Merleau-Ponty and his phenomenological investigations I recognize your more sophisticated contributions in this area. Merleau-Ponty is important for us in two ways: he is a phenomenologist of corporeity (Merleau-Ponty 1962) and a thinker about perception (Merleau-Ponty 1964). Hence, the body with its senses (especially vision), seeing (visuality), phenomenology (focusing on phenomena in the field) and perspectivism (variety of visions and their fusion in the horizon) cannot be separated. We shall return to this topic in the investigations of the etymology of perspective. As one might expect perspectivism has many features. There are discussions about perspectivism in rhetoric (Carrilho 1996), in poetics (Görner 1995), in education (Pearce 2015) or politics (Ramos 2015). Stated otherwise, the practice (communication) of rhetoric, poetics, education and politics assume perspectivism. We can speak of two perspectivisms—inner and outer. The inner is marked by different rhetorical strategies, poetic views, educational rules, and political views; the outer shows the differences of such practices. Does this mean that communication itself assumes a variety of perspectives and their incommensurability? Is communication itself tending toward non-communication in communication practice, branching out into many views as perspectives? Let us leave open these questions. Table 9.1 outlines the different types of perspectivism. Rhetorical perspectivism presumes two things. For one, there are different rhetorical tactics: let us say that Jesus applied a parabolic, while Pericles, a patriotic tactic.18 Besides, a specific rhetoric can hide a different aim (often political) or strategic. This makes clear the second domain of rhetorical perspectivism: plurality of truths. Truth is what corresponds to the aims of a public speaker, i.e. they select what is useful for the client. This rhetorical trend was the greatest adversary of Socrates and Plato (1990) who posited philosophy as the antidote to sophistic “spinelessness.” Rhetorical perspectivism pushed Plato in the opposite direction toward the theory of ideas with its doctrines of being, participation, recollection and incarnation. Although Plato is the ultimate enemy of extreme perspectivism,19 we can regard different aspects of his theory as equivalent to perspectivism.

18 Let

us recall his funeral eulogy. were realized by the teachings of the sophists.

19 They

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Table 9.1 Regions of perspectivism Types of perspectivism

Sources

Characteristics

Rhetorical

Carrilho (1996)

Diverse rhetorical tactics; pluralism of truths

Poetic

Görner (1995)

Variety of interpretations; imagination

Pedagogical

Pearce (2015)

Different grounds of education

Political

Ramos (2015)

Multi-party (two party) system, liberal democracy

Poetic perspectivism assumes a variety of interpretations. Therefore, poetry (and art) could not be “translated” into a clear language.20 This means that poetry (and art in general) is not only a language to which linguistic means can be applied. Poetry appropriates images that touch upon (communicates) our worldview. While the inception of philosophy strove to separate itself from poetic mythology by changing poetic images into concepts, neither philosophy nor sciences could completely shake the function of poetic images. Because of their presence and the amount of world images inherent in them, the program of positivistic reductionism was demolished.21 The variety of interpretive perspectives22 in poetics appeals to the linguistic view and equally reveals its poverty and inadequacy. Political perspectivism, in part, covers rhetoric. We have seen that behind different rhetorical aims there is political connivance. Are not political perspectivisms and the multi party (two party) system two ends of the same stick? Yet, supposed party differences often hide their likeness in much the same way as competing media channels driven by the need to achieve ratings.23 We see this when political parties discard their previous manifestoes as expedient when they enter into coalition governments. Another example is the social democrat’s party representation of the main capitalist organizations.24 In this sense, in democracies we encounter not so much perspectivism, as its lack thereof. Indeed, by definition democracy is rule by the majority which usually means the dumbing down of different political perspectives. Liberal democracy must defer to political perspectivism in order to guarantee the freedoms of minorities, just as government by the majority must also defer. Educational perspectivism points to different pedagogical premises: positivistic, pragmatic, phenomenological, existential, etc. (Ozmon and Craver 2008). The

20 We mentioned in another context that metaphor cannot be translated without creating a semantic deficit. 21 Let us recall the late Wittgenstein’s (1990) question whether a diffused image is something that we do not need? 22 Another way to consider this is that it could be an imaginative variety or even a variety of worldviews. 23 For more about rating mind set and media similarity, see Bourdieu (2011). 24 This is the case in Lithuanian politics where social democrats destroyed small business by disproportionally taxing it before joining the EU.

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problem is that these pedagogical premises hardly coexist. One or another dominates in a specific political system,25 a specific country,26 or at least within a specific pedagogical institution.27 Different views of pedagogy generate conflicts and oppositions and do not sit in harmony with each other. Is conflict or opposition an aspect of perspectivism? It also begs the question, can opposition and even confrontation be aspects of creativity, while peace and harmony are aspects of imposed one-perspective totalization? Let us return to phenomenology and its relation to perspectivism. From the perspective of the etymological, a glance at the concept of “perspective” leads to a Latin adjective perspectus as “clearly conceived” and a verb perspicere meaning “to see through,” or “to see close.” In brief, it is intertwined with glance, vision and seeing. For one, perspective is rather like bringing phenomenon into the open where any phenomenon can be clearly seen. Second, it is seeing through the phenomenon to what is behind. Any phenomenon emerges only in a certain environment (space) bringing the phenomenon to clarity. On the other hand, phenomenon shows what lies behind. Apart from that, we should not overlook phenomenon, bracketed, if we are to note its environment and also to expand our vision. A thing is useful not so much in that it reveals itself, but as a way of opening up a wider vision, i.e. allowing to be overlooked. In short, it is a transformation of nearness and distance, seeing and not seeing, perspectives.28 Overlooking is related to another phenomenological procedure—transcendental reduction or epoché. Perspectivism is well illustrated by the variety of communicative discourses, i.e. incommensurable discourses and theories. Nourished by different traditions and influences, seeing problems of communication differently, they demonstrate scientific perspectivism. Generally, otherness (Lévinas 1979) is an aspect of perspectivism. A paradox appears when we attempt to survey these perspectives, e.g. phenomenologically, or interpret them from just one perspective. The surveyor labours under the assumption of being able to form a very wide perspective from which all others are visible, whereas the interpreter elevates one discourse above others. Thus, the complaints about discursive incommensurability can hide a totalitarian pretext abolishing communicative perspectives and even communication as such among different perspectives. A question arises concerning the nature of communication among different discursive perspectives, without calling it metacommunication. Thus, by repeatedly circling around the question of metacommunication we also illustrate perspectivism. We can speak about perspectivism in science. Kuhn (1996) pointed to different scientific theories that have coexisted for centuries.29 Feyerabend (1993) sharpened this question: if there are different explanatory perspectives of the world, why do we 25 The

rules of education in North Korea and South Korea. rules in Netherlands and Germany. 27 Educational rules in state and private institutions. 28 Merleau-Ponty (1968). 29 After Copernicus “recalled” Aristarchus’s heliocentric system, most astronomers continued to use the geocentric system for a further 150 years. This has less to do with a lack of open communication, as much as with some visible details of the world—the returning movements of the planets, which until Kepler was better explained by the geocentric view of the followers of Ptolemy. In other words, 26 Education

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have some perspectives in the various schools, some but not others, e.g. astrology or alchemy? Perspectivism has been trampled also by the ahistorical perspective of the strict sciences: the latest, dominant theory is offered by ignoring all predecessors, thereby assuming an “eternal” and imperious scientific view. The aforementioned is least compatible with scientific perspectivism, the defender of which is Popper (1989) who embraced the idea of falsification of a scientific truth. For Popper, scientific truths are distinct from religions or worldviews to the extent they can and must be negated by other scientific theories. In other words, a scientific approach cannot be separated from the understanding that one theory will be defeated by other theories. In this context, we find the historicism and perspectivism discussed in Q. 59. To the extent that we encounter the “life” of “mortal” theories, we come face to face with historicity and not historiography. “Mortality” cannot be divorced from perspectivism which can be regarded as a feature of science. Thus, while discussing the question of science we returned to the existential perspective that intimates more than a scientist, an individual and their scientific judgments, for they belong to the environment of their life. Nonetheless, given that there are various scientific perspectives, your question could be formulated within another perspective. Hence, if we acknowledge different (scientific) perspectives of communication, does this recognition suggest metaperspective, allowing us to survey and equate incompatible perspectives? In other words, we encounter a paradox of perspectivism that goes something like this: ignoring other perspectives embodies perspectivism and conversely, the possibility to survey different perspectives implies their abolition in terms of a meta-perspective, which makes all others equivalent. With respect to multi-perspectivism, another paradox presents itself, upon which your question is focused. In general, multi-perspectivism is intertwined with colonialism.30 Having invaded a foreign country, colonisers encounter another cultural perspective. By demonstrating tolerance—whose subtext is its own cultural significance—the colonisers preserve local cultural details in order to assimilate them. In this sense, we can speak of multi-perspectivism. At the very least, Western tolerance hides the expansion of Western culture, so that ‘tolerance’ becomes a way of subjugating and assimilating a non-Western perspective, even if this changes the introduced Western culture.31 A different version of this expansionism is the imposition of Western democracy, despite the fact that there is no consensus about a model an encounter with things determined by a perspective. We return to the phenomenological view as a channel for various perspectives. 30 The somewhat unique question is whether or not the Sovietization of the Baltic states was colonialism. In this regard Epp Annus (2012) explores several problems. First, colonialism is a Western phenomenon and Russia hardly represents Western culture. Second, colonialism is inseparable from capitalism, while the Soviet system rejected the latter. Third, colonialism encounters “primitive” cultures which can be easily assimilated, while in the case of so-called Soviet colonization local culture was resistant, and even attractive (one aspect of such attraction—its being Western). 31 The first impetus to change Western culture in the face of another culture appeared after the Crusades of the medieval period. It is paradoxical that during the Crusades (which were completely intolerant, even with respect to culturally similar cultures, such as Byzantium) reclaimed not only lands, but also some of the essential components of Western culture, e.g. the scientific heritage

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of Western democracy.32 Even here we encounter the paradox of perspectivism. Multi-perspectivity presupposes many perspectives, requiring some sort of metaperspective, levelling different perspectives, and calling for a “major” perspective or ideology. One side effect of multi-perspectivism is the shallowness of perspectives and the absence of criterion for their selectivity. To have many perspectives means not to have any. In brief, it marks no communication among different perspectives. Question 61 A. M. The savants of inter cultural communication find themselves in a labyrinth, since such communication is identical with the translation of a text (language) of one culture into the language of another. Is it possible to find a literal translation? If not, is inter cultural communication possible? T. K. Inter cultural communication is one more communicative paradox, which remind us of similar questions: how is it possible to exist between cultures if one is raised in one of them? Does being “between” suggest an independence from any culture, and does culture suffer from the efforts of its agents to mix different cultures? Although language and culture are distinct, we can apply your linguistic analogy. Culture can be regarded as language in its broadest sense, which is learned from early days. It is comprehensible (or not) and it is either a native culture or foreign culture that may later be appropriated. Consider a bi-lingual family when mother and father speak different languages, however both parents could also be bicultural individuals for whom two cultures are innate. The theme of cultural assimilation discussed in previous question cannot be separated from cultural expansion. The obvious point to make here is that larger and smaller nations that share a common border result in people from the smaller country who are able to speak the language of the larger ones. The reverse does not apply. Does this not also hold true of the relationship between larger and smaller cultures? Being a translator I am comfortable with the example of literal translation,33 and we should investigate this issue more closely. Subsequently, we shall attempt to generalize this issue and apply the results to inter-cultural communication. The best case of literal translation is Friedrich Hölderlin’s translation of Sophocles,34 of Aristotle, including his rhetorical and metaphysical works. Yet, in this case, Flusser’s rule of communication is valid: Aristotle is reclaimed not by taking him away from Arabic culture, but by sharing his work. 32 It is possible to speak of varied types of democracy in ancient Greece (democracy with slavery), in Russia (democracy of leaders), in Central and East Europe (pendulum democracy) and more. In this case we have a minor multi-perspectivism in multi-layered Western culture. 33 In being a translator I will add a translation of your part of this work—and not only that of Heidegger’s work, Being and Time. 34 This is how Benjamin reflects on Hölderlin’s literal translation: “it is self-evident how greatly fidelity in reproducing the form impedes the rendering of the sense. Thus, no case for literalness can be based on a desire to retain the meaning. translation must in large measure refrain from

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which is so precise that it cannot be read. For me this has been a familiar dilemma ever since I commenced translating the work of Heidegger,35 who proclaimed that language is the house of Being as an environment of individuals and nations. If this be true then translation must grow both out of it and into it. Given different linguistic morphologies, a literal translation distorts by perverting the recipient native language. I am not talking so much about the composition of a language such as the relationship between words and declension of ancient nouns, prefixes, suffixes, and diminutives, but more about the presupposed worldview of a language. Of course, a distortion36 of a specific linguistic order is characteristic of every creative novelty which is the case in translation. But even here the guarantee of communication is the conception of the world. In literary translation linguistic communicative relations are fractured by the importation of an alien order. As I mentioned on another occasion (Kaˇcerauskas and V˙eželis 2016), literary translation does not take us closer to the author’s intent, but drives us away. How can we translate classical Sophocles if the lived world, explicated in the language of his works, is no longer available to us? Of course, in belonging to historical communication, Sophocles and ancient Greece continues to impact our understanding in various ways. As in the case of Hölderlin’s translation literalness is a disruption. Let us now expand the question toward literal translation in inter-cultural communication. The question is whether a “literal translation” makes it possible to speak of inter-cultural communication. First, we must consider a specific asymmetry of two cultures—those which are being “translated” and those into which something is “translated.” If translation is ageing while the original remains constant, the culture being translated has the privilege of remaining stable. With this privilege the latter culture is, more or less, passive or “immobile.” The effect of such passive grandeur is its immobility; there is no counter to an individual, and it is served by other, smaller and more dynamic cultures. One aspect of immobility is its lack of curiosity toward

wanting to communicate something, from rendering the sense, and in this the original is important to it only insofar as it has already relieved the translator and his translation of the effort of assembling and expressing what is to be conveyed. On the other hand, as regards the meaning, the language of a translation can-in fact, must-let itself go, so that it gives voice to the intentio of the original not as reproduction but as harmony, as a supplement to the language in which it expresses itself, as its own kind of intentio” (1969: 78–79). Thus, translation must be a dimension to expand the original sense and not to be limited by it. Literal translation leads to limitation. The difficulties of literal translation are the lack of communicative channel, neither between different languages nor cultures. To the contrary, communication possibility between them is enhanced by their disappearance and disproportion. 35 Yet, Hölderlin is the favourite poet of Heidegger who is responsible for enhancing the reputation of the poet (and not a translator). In this case, a philosopher served as a publicist of a poet. First, this suggests the commonality between poetry and philosophy. Second, philosophy and poetry are mutually founding: poetry signifies being which is deliberated by philosophy. This is not to say that between them there is a communication channel. To the contrary, any communication between them rests on a common existential region. 36 Let us recall Heidegger’s student, Arendt’s (1958) “un-ease” (Un-ruhe, nec-otium, a-scholia).

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other cultures.37 Ultimately, this resonates negatively concerning its changes and composition. Is the assumed stability simply the flipside of eternity? Perhaps it is its equivalent or parody? Let us consider Flusser (2007) who defines codification (a version of communication) as a strategy against mortality.38 Peters (1999) speaks similarly of communication with other worldly beings capable of assuring the significance of communication. Nonetheless, such an appeal to eternity and meaning reveals a weak spot in communication. Having no resonance in this world, communication is directed elsewhere. Yet, this “exit” from the region of being towards death does not signify communication because it is also an exit from the region of communication. On the other hand, the theme of eternity is worldly since eternity is thinkable only in terms of temporality. The permanence of a cultural creation is not so much its feature, as a property of its relationship (communicative) within its environment. What makes a creation permanent is its changing environment, maintaining the same relationship with the creation. This suggests “frozen” relations and even the lack of attention (curiosity) toward the creation, deemed to be “self evident”.39 Here, we do not encounter intense communication but the very opposite—its absence. No living communication is selfevident but must be maintained by curiosity and dynamics, possessed more by a “small” and not a “large” culture. What of globalization and its impact on inter cultural communication? It seems that the global standard is a presupposition by any inter cultural communication. Just Jeans, Levi Jeans, McDonalds, IPhones, Facebook allow communication among members of different cultures who live in the “same world” populated by these things and their implements. In other words, the global world abolishes cultural differences by enabling communication. My thesis is the opposite: erasing inter-cultural differences does not help but is the oppressor of communication. First, inter cultural disruptions promote curiosity, attention and ultimately communication. In a global, homogeneous world we would be neither curious nor attentive, nor communicative. Second, the content of factuality and implementality is quite different from cultural. Factuality is not what equalizes or homogenizes, but what discloses a unique cultural mode, i.e. what individuates a culture. Question 62 A. M. Theses explaining communication rely on various metaphors that encompass specific regions of awareness—visuality, audiality, and tactility. This leads

37 For

example, the representatives of larger nations (or cultures) invariably know less languages, and as a result are less communicative. 38 According to Flusser, codification is done in the name of communication, i.e. in the name of a meaningless world and life to be persuaded, as well as to silence death (2007: 259–260). 39 This is attested by places in encyclopaedia or sacred writings where the creation is most likely to become closed and not open to communication.

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to the question: how do such metaphors relate to and appear in each other’s frameworks? T. K. We spoke of metaphors with respect to poetic communication. Among other things it was said that metaphors indicate that which has no reality, break linguistic codes, or initiate a collision of worldviews. Such unreality and indeed the impossibility of reality is the basis for metaphoric language. In brief, by suggesting non-existent things (silver eyes in the sky), metaphor becomes provocative and dramatic with respect to perceived “reality,” and thus in this sense “real.” Metaphor is a conjunction of language and is real by giving reality its dynamic, even if it signifies what is not real. It is, perhaps, the unreal realizer.40 Metaphor is a key when we speak of the relationship between language and reality. Language is a world within a world. For one, linguistic understanding is not the only mode by which we comprehend the world. Second, conjunctions of language such as metaphor help to expand world limits. In other words, language is too narrow and too broad with respect to the world. World is not just what is disclosed by experience, since metaphor extends it beyond empirical perception. But this is possible by virtue of imaginatory awareness which is not limited by linguistic understanding. While being real within language, it is also beyond language which cannot be contained. Thus, metaphor is a channel of language and image, of audiality and visuality. This is why metaphor can be called a model of culture.41 With this in mind, I am not sure whether your mentioned visuality, audiality and tactility are metaphors. Nonetheless, there is a relationship to metaphor in the sense that metaphor is about imagery, hearing and tactility. Besides, being a figure of language it appeals and relates in a surprising way to these perceptual regions of the world. The visuality of metaphor appears not only because it depicts existing or non-existent things. Regarding the latter, imagination plays a significant role—we cannot see a sky with silver eyes. Thus, the unreality of metaphor is the “fuel” for our imagination. If we exist while imagining, this non-being is “fuel” for our being. On the other hand, every metaphor is composed of completely real, material and daily things which begin to radiate when conjoined in one linguistic unit. Metaphor equates what cannot be equated in reality: the sky has no eyes. Metaphor announces in a dual way, i.e. to grant imagined things the privilege of being in each other place, and to expand the limits of the world of things. Nonetheless, the imagination of metaphor points not so much to the imaginatory space of incompatible things, but to the spatiality of the world with “strange” things in it. Thus, if sky, eyes and silver

40 This is an analogy with Aristotle’s unmoved mover. Yet, metaphor is a minor mover or concretizer, by not being beyond, but in the heart of this world—language. Aristotle was concerned with metaphor in the context of rhetoric, which is the more convincing. The more sensational is the figure of language. Metaphor can be interpreted as Aristotle’s poetics of cleansing of the soul in tragic context. 41 For more on this see Kaˇ cerauskas (2006).

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are conjoined in a surprising way in one narration, the world composed of the three aspects becomes a home for this narrative. Visuality, audiality and tactility are intertwined. One could add taste, olfactory and sexuality to this list. First, they occupy their own individual environments. Second, their deemed incommensurability and otherness with respect to each other makes the world spacious. It seems strange that the spaciousness of the world is “measured” by otherness and even contrasts of our senses. Yet, the aspect of their otherness makes for their exchangeability: when one fails, others take over its role, if not its function. A blind man hears, touches, tastes, smells, desires more “vitally”, and not because such senses take over the power of vision, but because they are “responsible” for a lost partner and competitor. In truth, it is the increased receptivity of other senses than vitality due to the loss of one of the senses. Receptivity of the world becomes even broader with the disappearance of one sense. What does this all mean for communication? How do metaphor, sense perception and communication relate? What is the relationship between communication and mentioned unreality? What are the connections between metaphor and communication? We have seen that language does not exhaust communication; more likely we confront covered regions. On the other hand, language does not exhaust metaphor, even if metaphor is a figure of language. Metaphor is effective because it is more than language. The essence of metaphor is its direction to what is beyond language, i.e. the world, or more precisely world image and world conception. To say the least, metaphor is a visual, different from audial language, i.e. talk. Metaphor purports to address beyond linguistic totality and thus can be a model for culture. However, the paradox is that it can achieve this model by being “lesser” than language—it is a figure in language. Its being lesser points to its unreality, i.e. its appeal to unreal things. In fact, it is more than reality and thus capable of expanding our vision since the latter is not only seeing, but also imagining. On the other hand, language is an aspect of reality which always intimates (communicates) something. There is no reality in itself: it is real only to the extent that it is addressed, which is not separate from utility, fact, and imagination. We address what is handy in our visualized world whose guarantee of reality is the thingness of our existence,42 even if those things have no reality. We return to communication whose true capacity is to address. While speaking of unreality of metaphor and the transposition of senses we continue with our theme of communication. For one, we share a metaphor in a linguistic community. Yet, we do not share a metaphor as much as the world view that it reveals. Besides, the unreality of metaphor is intertwined with imagery and thus essential for communication. Metaphor discloses a communicated image and sensory background. Second, the transposition of senses presupposes their communication, having a ground in their receptivity in the context of a capacious (spacious) world. A feature of this capacity is a specific unreality, guaranteed by an “impossible” flux of things (ideas, thoughts, 42 Let us recall Husserl’s return to the idea of things themselves, which you, Algis, in your work with David Stewart, Exploring Phenomenology (Mickunas and Stewart 1990), have articulated. Heidegger (1996) also adheres to this position, regarding things as world signs of our existence.

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positions), and imagined by us as existential road signs. The place of communication is the spacious world, which is able to contain “impossible” metaphor evidenced in unreal things, handy on our road to death. Communication is what remains after our shaking of the air prior to our non-being. The transposition of senses shows their pliability as an aspect of when we draw closer to non-being. Senses guarantee realism or closeness to the world.43 The question is whether communication is possible only due to our sensory being in this world. Peters (1999) notes that an inception in communication coincides with an effort to establish a relationship with another world—spirits and aliens. Does this mean that the intention of communication is to leave this world? If this is the case, then this view runs counter to phenomenology which limits itself to communication in this world. To say the least, any tendency to leave our world, seeking communication with those on the other side, flows from this world. The longing for aliens and spirits and the addressing of them is exceptionally worldly. That spirits have no senses, and the aliens possess supernatural senses is a compensation for the imperfection of our senses. This aim for compensation also feeds the insatiable popular hunger for alien stories expressed so readily in the media. According to McLuhan (1964), media are a simple extension of our senses. On the other hand, the imperfection of senses44 is needed for us and for communication. If we were perfect then we would lack nothing, including communication. The imperfection of senses is what impels communication. Besides, senses and perfection are not equitable because senses are not general; they offer individual attunement that goes besides understanding. Senses make perfect communication impossible. Nonetheless, the possibility of communication appears only because it is not and cannot be perfect. Attempts to communicate are attended by breaks and misunderstandings, whose surpassing is the intention of communication. Imperfection in communication follows our sensory individualism and finitude. Question 63 A. M. Deconstruction is embraced and extolled, which raises the question: does deconstruction communicate anything, and if so, does it contradict itself? T. K. Before searching for an answer to your question, we must first look at the “deconstruction” conception of Jacques Derrida and the “destruction” view of Heidegger, his predecessor. Derrida (1997) views writing as a forced inscription into a system whose specifics are law and reflection. Government and enslavement the result of the invention of writing, and logo-centrism, are inseparable. Yet, deconstruction is not just the derangement of these relationships, but a constant shaking up of the

43 Heidegger

calls this inbeing. We are not only, and not somewhat close to the world, as much as we are in it. Senses are what make us unworldly. 44 Let us recall Greimas (1987a, b) who is also important as a proliferator of semiotics.

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differences and postures of a system “from within the structure”. Ontic and ontological divisions maintain the edifice of a system. Instead, Derrida speaks of intangible difference (différAnce) and trace. The latter emerges as a principle “not more ideal than real, not more intelligible than sensible, not more a transparent signification than an opaque energy and no concept of metaphysics can describe it” (1997: 65). Besides, trace45 also means non-being.46 Elsewhere, dealing with the Judaic writing tradition, Derrida (1992) speaks of shibboleth as unmasking47 in accordance with the identity of speech, but also as the river’s ‘flow,’ verbal permission, secret words, or crossing a guarded boundary, etc. Surprisingly, bodily feature has a presence, e.g. shibboleth indicates circumcision, not only bodily, but also verbally and nominally. Thus, deconstruction marks not so much the unmasking48 of a metaphysical system, but the derangement, nonexistence and death of order. It is an aim, which, in a surprising manner becomes a source of communication. I shall return to this topic after discussing my dismissal of Heidegger. If Derrida’s tendency is the dissemination of meaning by separating the regions of thought and language, Heidegger’s view is one of integrating, even if it is critical regarding the tradition that is to be destroyed. Heidegger aims to reclaim the pre-Platonic sense and remove that which overlays the thought of antiquity, by reinterpreting or destroying such thought within his existential-ontological horizon. In this context, it can be seen as an uprooting of some ideas (s.a. Aristotle or Kant). Another aim of destruction is to return to being, so impoverished by scholastic tradition, its worldly and temporal mode. In general, the term destruction shows mobility and dynamics, i.e. communicativity of his philosophy through freeing of the concept destructed traditions. Hence, Heidegger’s movement always returns to the pre-Socratic philosophical thinking, which becomes reinterpreted in the context of his Dasein, and constitutes communicativeness to be regarded as mobile and even regional thinking. Destruction is not so much wanton disruption, but movement in circles (projection) as an effort to bracket encrusted traditions. One example of destruction is seen in the concepts of “logos” and “transcendence” as a phenomenological unravelling, or the extrication of what is visible in light. This brings us back to the question of the senses. Seeing, as an aspect of appearing phenomenon, points to a region of being-there (Dasein)—a place where our temporal and the worldly existence of things at hand present themselves and point to a communicative (logos is primarily speech), transcending (self-projection) our being toward death. This implies that destruction does not ‘do away’ with certain conceptual relationships (e.g. logos or transcendence), but interbreeds with them, whilst opening new ones. If not communication, what else could it be? Destruction (and communication) is inseparable from projection while constantly moving in a circle, interrogating basic issues through a different lens. 45 Trace is another theme in L´ evinas philosophy (1979) where it is predominantly ethical. It can be said that shibboleth is a trace of L´evinas’ ethics in the region of Derrida’s deconstructed morality. 46 The absence of a trace is analogous to the non-being of metaphor. 47 Unmasking can be investigated in analogy to deconstruction. 48 After Nietzsche, who has mortified metaphysics (Heidegger 1972), it means superfluous activity.

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Destruction is not just a peeling away of sediments from the question of being, but also a renewal of our existential home. Heidegger accomplishes a double destruction: of scientific communication which is brought back to metaphysical sources, and of metaphysical deliberations which are turned toward the region of being-there (temporal and worldly). The side effect of all this is the destruction of ethical tradition, i.e. of global (Kantian) ethics and the reorientation toward ethical regions, such as professional and individual. Just as destruction, deconstruction (turned against a tradition), presupposes historical changes in the life world. Tradition is overrated from the perspective of posttradition (destruction and deconstruction). Yet, this is often accompanied by a longing for a pre-traditional period, which is a case of destruction. Nonetheless, both destruction and deconstruction depend on a tradition which they attempt to subvert, unravel or destroy. On the other hand, they join the development of a tradition, specifically in the efforts to negate it, revealing the significance and vitality of a tradition. Thus, a tradition communicates in the very efforts it makes for its destruction and deconstruction. I would say that the joy of deconstruction belongs more to a communicative tradition than any sense of ‘anger’ whereby a tradition is destroyed. Indeed, destruction points to the amply discussed silence, and nothing. Here, I do not talk about the impossibility of the suppression of communication. In truth, it is nowhere so lacking as in the deconstructive chatter that is dependent upon the tradition to be silenced. On the one hand, deconstruction communicates a tradition, whereas while silencing the tradition, deconstruction abolishes communication. Your question suggests a paradox within deconstructive communication, which we encountered in Q. 55. Hence, if the deconstructive school of communication is directed at deranging any tradition, is not this school itself to be deconstructed? Put another way, if deconstruction is a communication strategy to disseminate accumulated meaning, is not deconstruction itself an accumulation to be dispersed? If we cannot communicate message, which on its way loses its positions of meaning, is not deconstruction such a message? Deconstruction can be seen as the derangement of its predecessor—destruction— and the dispersal of its meanings, including liberation for the primacy of being there in what is the vast region of postmodern culture. Nonetheless, hiding in all of this is your paradox. The issue is not the abolition of Heidegger’s ontological primacy of being-there in terms of a cultural (such as postmodern) view, but the silencing of being-there leads to a region which deconstruction is trying to leave—metaphysical thinking. After all that has been said, I have the uneasy feeling that our deconstruction (or destruction) of deconstruction is rather inadequate. The fact of the matter is not that we did not sufficiently unravel the texts of Derrida and his followers or critics, for that was not the aim for our deliberation on communication. The real issue is that our deliberations, including those about deconstruction, were overly abstract. Derrida himself attempts to solve this issue “gramatologically”, i.e. without distancing himself from Platonic and other creators of traditional texts, which must be deconstructed. Of course, in this case he falls into the trap of hermeneutics. How does he know that this is the Plato who has to be deconstructed? After all, before

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criticizing or deconstructing we interpret Plato as knots of certain meanings we wish to disseminate.49 In every case of interpretation and communication, meanings are disseminated not only due to the intentions of different interpreters, but also due to a change in a life world. In deliberating, abstraction is as much a strategy to resist the dispersal of meaning, as a way of conjoining meanings in another (perhaps a higher, or poorer or lesser) level. Yet, the lack of abstractness suggests an inadequate spaciousness, and thus inadequate communicativity. Is this not the reason why all the various discourses that constitute communication cannot be detached from the concepts manipulated by their schools (traditions) and thus are not commensurable, non-communicative with respect to each other? Is this not why you and I pay so much attention to metacommunication to which, even if criticized, interpreted, deconstructed, we are compelled to return? Let us be more modest about the claims of the deconstructivists who got rid of metadiscourses once and for all. Question 64 A. M. Assuming cultural differences, can the current “scientific” explanations explain communication on the basis of physiological data? T. K. Your question is more or less related to a previous biological school of communication. If we limit ourselves to physiological data, we would look at a human being as we do an animal, relating to others of its kind. This view does not necessarily imply a simplification of communication. Despite extensive research, mystery surrounds how primitive beings such as ants or bees communicate? The success of their communication is premised on three factors (1) strict hierarchy (2) clear division of labour and (3) simple imperatives. Animals obey their leaders unconditionally, adhere to clear roles of workers, warriors, and servants, and respond to simple commands.50 This is not primitivism, but a way of reacting differently to a changing environment. A specific primitivism, however, is what is lacking in human relationships, leading to frequent changes in situations to which it is not possible to adapt and from which no communication can save us. I think your question is different. Can we explain communication by physiological matters? We know that communication has specific physiological factors. First, cooperation or grouping (communis), is important for survival. Only by being an ant is an individual secure. This is an unavoidable relationship with social capital which 49 The

same can be said of Heidegger’s (1996) applied destruction. Primarily, Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes are brought into a specific space wherein illuminated by existential ontology, they are destroyed. 50 One version concerning orders is the Russian use of swearwords in communicating orders— which was a factor in the Russian victory in the Second World War. It would seem that the limit of swear words is equivalent to the signals of other creatures. Of course, communication by the use of swear words does not mean clarity—even if they are simple and unambiguous. The same historical swear words can be used in different situations and understood differently.

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is accumulated through communication in a specific society. Second, communication is established by specific physiological implements such as tongue, ears, eyes, hands, etc. Their incapacity effects communication, even although not necessarily in the negative. As we have seen, a deficiency in one implement, represented by a sense, obliges others to condense into others. It is evident that senses are not only a matter of physiology. In general, communication begins when we detach ourselves from physiology. Nonetheless, one or another communication could be determined by the characteristics of the species and genera. This illustrates a different relationship between physiology and communication, delimited by needs and possibilities. The paradox is this: we should not ascribe better communication to higher species. On the contrary, in the case of humans the variety of communicative forms (including non-cooperation) often disrupts cooperation, although non-cooperation is also a form of communication.51 All this indicates that physiological orientation to the structure of an organism and its characteristics is inadequate to explain communication. Generally speaking, there is no qualitative leap in terms of physiology between human and other organisms. Yet, in terms of communication there is such a leap because we speak not only about media as an extension of senses, but also about metacommunication. The question must be: does physiology help us to understand communication, and if so, how? Since physiology regards us alongside organisms, it can aid in understanding communication, without which most organisms would not survive. But this is only the beginning of our understanding of communication. Let us analyse the word “physiology” physiologically, i.e. its structure. In Greek, the first meaning of this word is physis, the second is logos. Thus, its structure is similar to “phenomenology”, analysed in detail by Heidegger (1996). What he says about logos as a couplet of phaino fits in this context. Meanwhile, the determination that logos is “reason, judgment, concept, definition, ground, relation” (1996: 28 (32)) is maintained by the tradition which Heidegger attempts to destruct. He relates logos with speech (Rede), disclosure and seeing. The latter is useful (handy) while speaking of senses and physiology. In the array of senses, seeing assumes pre-eminence and is deemed to be the leader of senses, pointing the way for the others.52 In this way, Heidegger takes aim at two rabbits, so to speak: to bring logos closer to phenomena, showing up in the field of being-there, and to broaden the functions of mind (physiology?) which includes vision and seeing. Physis includes two things: nature and natal. Thus an appeal to the natality of communication of creatures is one aspect of physis. Another aspect it that from birth onwards we are as much communicating as seeing.53 What is seen belongs to the environment which includes what is being heard. The etymology of physiology brings us to this concept. In addition, the innate human tendency toward communication 51 For example, the absence of diplomatic ties between Poland and Lithuania between the two world wars was a clear message: Return Vilnius. 52 More recently there is a discussion about the cultural turn toward visuality (Mitchell 1994), or about the surge of visual culture (Manovich 2001). 53 More seeing than hearing, smelling, touching or tasting.

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and seeing is what distinguishes humans from other creatures. Thus, physiology leads further—toward specific human communication, which includes the capacity to survey most varied (including other creatures) modes of socializing. Surprisingly, physiology leads to metacommunication, which can now be conceived as a vision of a broad front of communication, including the socializing of other creatures. Your question encompasses another theme: a relationship between culture and physiology. What kind of role can be assigned to inborn features in a cultural environment? This question was articulated in various contexts, including feminist (gender) communication. In the latter (Irigaray 1985; Butler 1990) it is argued that gender differences are not so much inborn as a result of cultural roles and upbringing. Yet, in terms of communication there is a question: is difference a most necessary feature for sociality of different genders? In other words, is polarity and difference (primarily inborn), a condition for any communication?54 If this is the case, then this research shows that for communication it is inadequate to have cultural similarity; it requires also differences even within one cultural environment, otherwise we are faced with one-dimensionality (Marcuse 1991) and as a result, communicative deficit. Paradoxically, the inborn difference becomes a source of cultural variety. Thus, the inborn factor becomes a moment in communicative spaciousness. Another context is creative communication with regard to the gay community. Florida (2002) claims that the Gay Index, otherwise known as the Diversity Index, is a significant player, not about the pronounced creativity of gays, but about our tolerant environment for differences, including creative ones. A number of questions must be raised. First, is homosexuality inborn? If gender is not so much inborn as cultural, which is claimed by gender communication, then so is homosexuality. Second, is creativity and tolerance compatible? After all, being novel, creative activities disrupt habitual order (tradition), which resists revolutionary novelties. This is one of the motives for the necessity of intolerant deconstruction and destruction.55 Third, is homosexuality, specifically if it is inborn, harmful to nature, i.e. is it not a natural error? Fourth, if and how homosexuality (inborn or cultural) illustrates variety? Homosexuality, after all, is an orientation to members of one gender at the expense of the other gender. Of course, the ignoring is only in a sexual sense. This leads to another question: perhaps this specific ignoring does not hinder, but enhances communication with members of different (“not interesting”) gender?56 In other words, is ignoring, in one or numerous ways, an act of communication? The paradox is that homosexual otherness is told by another gender toward which the gay remain “deaf.” Hence, the gay “do not see” the other gender and limit themselves to separatist (local) differences, imitating different genders as inborn. Yet, this “not being inborn” becomes mixed by bi-sexuality. Such a non-inborn stance requires a specific 54 Semantic

communication equally exploits sense difference. The mentioned difference of J. Derrida is related etymologically to difference. 55 Let us look at the paradox of toleration: do we have to be tolerant of non-tolerance, and if nontolerance for non-tolerance abolishes tolerance? Put another way, does the murder of murderers justify murder? 56 It is said that the gays are best conversants with women.

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hyper-communicativity57 with respect to both genders. On the other hand, this is completely fluid homosexuality, not defined by any indexes or statistics. The covered homosexual and heterosexual regions intimate a gap without any differences or limits. Thus, the question is whether such a fluid medium without disruptions and barriers is an advantage with respect to communication? We shall return to this. As a result, the physiological factor not so much simplifies communication as discloses its surprising intersections. It also becomes clearer that what is inborn and culture, individuality and sociality, exclusion and communication, exchange their roles. Such exchanges can be regarded as an aspect of communication. Question 65 A. M. How are we to understand propositions that all discourses are equivalent to power, stated by Barthes as “all discourses are fascistic”? T. K. So far, we have spoken about one or another discourse of communication. Discourse is used in a regular sense as equivalent, if not synonymous, with “school” or “tradition”. Your question concerns discourse as such, inviting us to discuss the essence, origin and manner of discourse. This is possible only by regarding discourse from the outside, i.e. applying a specific meta-discourse, which can be regarded as a version of metacommunication. Let us start from beginning, i.e. from Foucault (1971) who criticized discourse as a desired instance of power. The anatomy or physiology of discourse based on Foucault might assist us to understand the incommensurability of communication traditions. On the other hand, discoursivity as such is an aspect of communication despite the fact that it is related to procedures, which seemingly block communication: demarcation, limitation, and exclusion. Yet, we shall see that these are also communicative practices. Demarcation or exclusion is possible by the presence of discursive limits whose transgression threatens the identity of a discourse and that of the transgressing actor. In other words, there is a specific discursive region legitimating communication. Although Foucault speaks about the discontinuity in the confrontation and contact of discourses and their ignoring and rejecting of one another, its limits must remain clear to all communicating agents in such a region. Lacking any boundaries this region is thin, amorphic, and “weak” discourse and an easy prey to “strong” and competing discourses. Communication in a discourse must be sufficiently resonant and compelling in order to mobilise its actors identifying themselves with a discursive environment. Disobedient or inadequate actors (i.e. madmen)58 with their 57 Recall

Baudrillard’s (2016) hyper-reality. phenomenon of insanity and the demarcation of madness from specific institutions without medical aid is another theme discussed elsewhere by Foucault (1972). The theme of madness is intertwined with that of creativity (Schopenhauer 1969), not only because mad persons and creative workers are primarily categorised as disturbers of the normal order. Every creative worker is mad since they aim at the unknown and novel, and in doing so blaze new trails for the community. 58 The

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mini-discourses must be demarcated and exiled beyond the limits of the discursive region as a defensive strategy for a region’s discourse.59 On the other hand, a discourse must be sufficiently pliable and mobile in order to remain vital. This is necessary due to the pressure at the limit from other discourses constituting compromises and diplomacy. Such a compromising case for communicative and more broadly cultural assimilation allows a discourse to endure under changes. Besides, a completely stable environment frustrates the agents of communication and, finally the very communication, which turns into a servant of ideology. As mentioned, it must be sufficiently spacious—novel—in order to transmit a tradition. The procedure of limiting is related to that of demarcation. This would seem to run counter to the discourse’ creative openness. The latter is exhibited by the fruitfulness of authors, plenitude of commentaries and development of disciplines. Yet, the fruitfulness of authors in science is often suspect,60 since most commentaries are negative,61 while the development of disciplines, including communication, is being limited.62 Thus, limitation can be regarded as the exclusion of creativity. Limiting is a necessary procedure in order to maintain a discursive capital in a scientific domain, which includes accumulated ideas, matured vocabulary, nurtured tradition and the league of authorities. It is completely irrelevant that this capital does not count in another discourse, empowered by another capital. It is important that a discursive capital is a purview of identity. In addition, its and the security of its members, depends on what has been accumulated. In such a system communication takes place through application, limited allocation and controls. Since they are very limited, they do not involve unnecessary communicative excesses, capable of ruining the order of this discourse. The limited function of discourse, what Foucault mentions as “the public worship of a discourse” or logophilia, illustrates a secure identity with the environment of the discourse and joining the container of discursive capital. Yet, discourses need mostly destruction and deconstruction in order for their limits to become apparent. This is possible only from the perspective of another discourse.63 In this way, we return to meta-discoursivity which is disclosed also 59 The expulsion of the most creative and talented members of society in democratic states has an old tradition. In the case of Anaxagoras his thinking “went too far” and threatened to disrupt the stability of the Athenian order. 60 Whether true or not, scientists are often accused of appropriating their student’s (doctoral) research and texts. 61 This is illustrated by interactive media with the possibility for readers’ commentaries. Yet, the amount of commentaries (even if negative) indicate the importance of a topic. Such communication also demonstrates provocations that are required for creativity. 62 This illustrates that such instruments as classification used to control the sciences prevent interdisciplinary studies, despite pronouncements to the contrary. 63 For example, Heidegger destroys Aristotelianism by involving the resources of existential ontology. J. Derrida acts similarly with respect to Platonism, even if he claims to be neutral with respect to any discourse. This pretended neutralism hides meta-discoursivity: it is possible to deconstruct by a suspicious rejection of any discourse. In this case suspicion appeals to another—Marxist or Frankfurt school—discourse; but these traditions also must be destructed and deconstructed. Is this not an infinite regress criticised by Aristotle?

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by the phenomenological procedure of bracketing. We call this procedural metadiscoursivity in order to insure the vitality of a discourse by “seeing” it beyond itself. Although this bracketing might appear as an erasure or suppression of a discourse, it is the very assumption of bracketing. Nothing is so dangerous for a discourse as its freezing without seeing its past and future status. This is one more metacommunication as an interplay between past and future; we see the past as summation of the future, while future arises as expectations of the past. Let us discuss the exclusion and prohibition of discourses which are intertwined in demarcation and limitation. Paraphrasing Nietzsche, Foucault speaks about “will to truth” as a system of exclusion. A discourse must be true with respect to what it signifies. Different truths from classical, coherent, perceptual, pragmatic, creative, show different perspectives with respect to truth. Thus, the perspectivity of truth suggests its political content. In this resides not only a will to truth. The truth of a discourse is not so much imposed on its participants, as establishing the functions of disciplining and demarcation. What is not “true” must be excluded, forbidden and silenced. This is the politics of truth which cannot be excluded from the policy of communication. Let us turn to fascism which is characteristic to any discourse according to Barthes. First, let us look at the sources, i.e. at the etymology of the word “fascism.” It stems from Latin fascis (pl. fasces), meaning a binding. Fasces—a bundle of reeds with a hatchet, which were carried by lighters leading the magistrates and consuls (high officials, representing both the establishment of laws and their implementation). The leading lighters not only guarded the high officials, but also opened for them the way and punished the disobedient. Fasces, whose reeds were for a body, and the hatchet— for a head, could be used for punishment and thus signified discipline. Moreover, fasces—bundles—embodied a unified government, concentrated in the hands of magistrates and consuls. The so-called abduction of this bundle (fasces corripere) meant the usurpation of the consul’s authority. It is possible to abduct or to usurp only that which is bound, i.e. a bundle. Is not a discourse a communicative fasces (bundle)? We mentioned previously that a discourse has its own authorities (consuls), tradition, vocabulary, resources (capital), and the policy of bundling and of disciplining. Such bundling is characteristic of various discourses including communication. One the one hand, it gathers scientists into a school where ideas can be shared. On the other hand it serves to deny ideas to other—near or distant—schools, even if they spread similar themes. The best example is closed communication discourses serving as counter-communication.

References Annus, Epp. 2012. The problem of Soviet colonialism in the Baltics. Journal of Baltic Studies 43 (1): 21–45. Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Baudrillard, Jean. 2016. Symbolic Exchange and Death. Translated by I.H. Grant. London: Sage.

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Benjamin, Walter. 1969. Illuminations. Translated by H. Zohn. New York: Schocken Books. Bourdieu, Pierre. 2011. Sur la Television. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcc6AEpjdcY. Buber, Martin. 2000. I and Thou. Translated by R.G. Smith. New York: Simon & Schuster. Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble. Routledge: Chapman and Hall. Carrilho, Manuel M. 1996. Rhetoric and perspectivism. Revue Internationale de Philosophy 28 (3): 59–75. Derrida, Jacques. 1992. From Shibboleth: For Paul Celan. Acts of Literature, 370–413. London: Routledge. Derrida, Jacques. 1997. Of Grammatology. Translated by G.Ch. Spivak. Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Feyerabend, Paul. 1993. Against Method. London, New York: Verso. Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books. Flusser, Vilém. 2007. „Vorlesungen zur Kommunikologie.“ In Kommunikologie, 233–235. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. Foucault, Michel. 1971. L’ordre du discours. Paris: Gallimard. Foucault, Michel. 1972. Madness and Civilization; a History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New York: Pantheon Books. Görner, Rüdiger. 1995. The poetics of historical perspectivism. Modern Language Review 90: 234–235. Greimas, Algirdas J. 1987a. De l’imperfection. Périgueux: Fanlac. Greimas, Algirdas J. 1987b. On Meaning: Selected Writings in Semiotic Theory. Translated by P.J. Perron and F.H. Collins. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Heidegger, Martin. 1972. Nietzsche’s Wort “Gott ist tot.” In M. Heidegger. Holzwege, 193–247. Frankfurt am Main. Heidegger, Martin. 1996. Being and Time. Translated by J. Stambough. New York: State University of New York. Hume, David. 2000. A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Husserl, Edmund. 1970. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy. Translated by D. Carr. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Irigaray, Luce. 1985. This Sex Which Is not One. New York: Cornell University Press. Jung, Carl G. 1991. The archetypes and the collective unconscious. In Collected Works of C. G. Jung. London: Routledge. Kaˇcerauskas, Tomas. 2006. Filosofin˙e poetika [Philosophical Poetics]. Vilnius: Versus aureus. Kaˇcerauskas, Tomas. 2008. Tikrov˙e ir k¯uryba: kult¯uros fenomenologijos metmenys [Reality and Creation: Sketches of Cultural Phenomenology]. Vilnius: Technika. Kaˇcerauskas, Tomas. 2011. Individas istorin˙eje bendrijoje: kult¯urin˙es regionalistikos apmatai [An Individual in Historical Community: Sketches of Cultural Regionalistics]. Vilnius: Technika. Kaˇcerauskas, Tomas, and Tautvydas V˙eželis. 2016. Šiapusyb˙es regionai: 50 Heideggerio filosofijos klausim˛u [Regions of Dasein: 50 Questions About Heidegger’s Philosophy]. Vilnius: Technika. Kant, Immanuel. 1999. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by P. Guyer and A.W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kossler, Matthias. 1995. Philosophy of perspectivism: Truth and perspective in Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche. Kant-Studien 86 (4): 467–470. Kuhn, Thomas S. 1996. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lazarsfeld, Paul F. 1972. Qualitative Analysis: Historical and Critical Essays. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Lévinas, Emmanuel. 1979. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Translated by A. Lingis. Hague/Boston/London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Locke, John. 1964. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. London: Collins. Manovich, Lev. 2001. The Language of New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press.

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Marcuse, Herbert. 1991. One-dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Boston: Beacon Press. McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1962. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by C. Smith. London: Routledge. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1964. Eye and Mind. Translated by C. Dallery. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1968. The Visible and the Invisible. Translated by A. Lingis. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Mickunas, Algis, and David Stewart. 1990. Exploring Phenomenology. Athens: Ohio University Press. Mitchell, William J.T. 1994. Picture Theory. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1998. On the Genealogy of Morality. Translated by C. Diethe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich. 2002. Beyond Good and Evil. Translated by J. Norman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ozmon, Howard A., and Samuel M. Craver. 2008. Philosophical Foundations of Education. New York: Pearson. Pearce, Jacob V. 2015. The potential of perspectivism for science education. Educational Philosophy and Theory 45 (5): 531–545. Peters, John D. 1999. Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Plato. 1990. Sophist. Translated by W.S. Cobb. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Popper, K.R. 1989. Logik der Forschung. Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Ramos, Alcida R. 2015. The politics of perspectivism. Annual Review of Anthropology 41: 481–494. Schenck, David. 1985. Merleau-Ponty on perspectivism, with references to Nietzsche. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 46 (2): 307–314. Schopenhauer, Arthur. 1969. The World as Will and Representation. Translated by R.B. Haldane and J. Kemp. New York: Dover Pub. Thomson, Walter J. 1994. Perspectivism—Aquinas and Nietzsche on intellect and will. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 68 (4): 451–473. Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1990. Tractatus logico-philosophicus. In Wittgenstein’s Werkausgabe. Bd. 1. Frankfurt am Mein: Suhrkamp.

Chapter 10

Medium, Media in Mass Communication

Question 66 A. M. There is much talk about mass media being the manipulator of public opinion. Is there a limit to such manipulation, and if so, what are these limits? T. K. Your question opens one of the most important problems in mass communication, reaching back to the seventeenth century when the term “propaganda” and its phenomenon first appeared.1 As we know, the Catholic Church was the first to use propaganda in its fight against Protestantism during the Counter-Reformation and also the spread of the Catholic religion into non-Catholic countries. The strategy was successful, but left a rather unpleasant aftertaste, mainly due to the means it used to achieve success. The propaganda efforts of both Germany and the Soviet Union were highly successful in helping to shape public opinion and consciousness. Yet, this supposed success, supported by limiting communication channels and political control, provoked strong reactions. Not only was there resistance to official propaganda,2 but also an informal communication in the form of political humour (anecdotes). Invariably, the struggle against propaganda becomes one more propaganda.3 1 The

term “propaganda”, a follower of Latin propagare, means to “spread,” and became a subdivision. The Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Congregatio de propaganda fide) was established by the Roman Catholic Church in 1622. Thus, etymologically and historically it is a phenomenon of communication. 2 Until the fall of the Soviet Union, as a Lithuanian citizen nobody I knew took any notice of official propaganda, which was regarded as lies. 3 This took place in U.S.A. at the beginning of the so-called McCarthy witch-hunts of progressive and left wing inclined journalists, writers and actors during the 1950s Joseph McCarthy was merely the lightning rod of Cold War fears of a possible war with Russia, and that country’s extensive use of spies and ‘moles’ who worked from within to undermine Western democracies. The attempt was to control media and to encase public opinion in one bundle (fascis). This was just one step towards © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 T. Kaˇcerauskas and A. Mick¯unas, In Between Communication Theories Through One Hundred Questions, Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41106-0_10

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The empirical researches of Lazarsfeld (1972) demonstrated the theory of limited effect which flowed directly from attempts to propagandise. At a later point in this chapter we shall discuss the empirical approach to communication. Here, it is sufficient to note that Lazarsfeld the empiricist demolished the myth of a direct relationship between the sender and the receiver of political propaganda.4 Of course, any simplification is a weakness of empiricism.5 The so-called “meat” of propaganda is an agent, providing an intersection of communication, who is active and educated in diverse contexts, including “tributaries” of propaganda. Besides, propaganda “inspires” unofficial leaders of opinion who emerge on the wave of counter propaganda. The use of propaganda harks back over four centuries, possibly longer,6 yet it has only acquired impetus with the appearance of media such as newspapers, movies, radio, TV and, finally, the internet in the twentieth century. Some researchers (Anderson 1991) speak about the birth of nations under media influence. Propaganda and media7 are intertwined and comprise each other’s content. After the Second World War it became obvious8 that the channels of propaganda sit alongside anti and counter propaganda. Within mainstream media the role played by informal rumours and anecdotes increased, confirming the view of McLuhan (1964) that the world is a global village. Informal communication as counter propaganda was overlooked by a vibrant media, attempting to pervade everyone and everything. Facebook is a result of such an oversight, and of itself became a formal medium. Propaganda in the media can be examined in the context of media content. Does propaganda form the significant content of the media, or is it another medium? Moreover, is it really propaganda, and if so in what sense? Media points at each other, stimulating reality, and in this sense propaganda is concerned with reality, simply because it has nothing in common with it. In speaking about the users of propaganda, i.e. those who form opinion, we need to know who they are. For example, they may be corrupt politicians, greedy CEO’s, gutter press journalists, and propagandists who regard themselves as leaders of opinion. We might ask, how do they know what opinion is to be formed? Thus, is their a form of totalitarianism and potential fascism. It was for this reason that Marcuse (1991) spoke of similar thinking on both sides of the Iron Curtain. 4 The same can be said of the influence of advertising, which is limited by social influences and associations. 5 The representatives of the Frankfurt School also tripped on simplification. First, they (Marcuse 1991) criticize the established one-dimensional environment, and second the (Horkheimer and Adorno 1972) interpretation of the communicative environment is simplistic. 6 With regard to propaganda during Roman and Greek antiquity, the Olympic Games, gladiatorial battles, and dramas presented in public amphitheatres were used to elevate the popularity of the rulers and disseminate specific political ideas. 7 Prior to these media, the pulpit of the church, or barrel in the market, were used as the stage from which to speak. Most influential propaganda, however, remained “eye to eye”; the case in point being Jesuit influence on King Louis XIV and his decisions concerning the state. Another example is Lithuania where Radziwill the Orphan accepted Catholicism under Jesuit influence. 8 Lazarsfeld and his students were not the final role.

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opinion about the opinion to be formed, not already formed? This raises the question of the relationship between media and its users. Who is the product of what: does the media “use” the users, or vice versa? The question as to who forms opinion cannot be answered, not so much due to the dispersal9 of power in post democratic society,10 but due to changing roles. Thus, the formation (manipulation?) of public opinion by the media leads to the paradox that media tries to impose an opinion that was imposed by media on the opinion formers, working in accordance with the laws of supply and demand. If it is impossible to localize power, then it just as impossible to localize media, which is ubiquitous. This is not only because we spend more time in front of our screens at work and at home, but also that we are drawn towards rumour and anecdote. Increasingly, the competing media begin to resemble themselves in a self-referential way by reporting on each other. In competing to be heard in a crowded place, and conscious of its mortality, media such as film, theatre, TV, Internet must cooperate11 because of the one-dimensional post-mediated domain, rather than any sense of pervasive post-democratic tolerance.12 The limit of media manipulation is not the limitation of media encompassment, and not even the limitation of manipulation in the face of the resistance of media participants, and the counter manipulation of localized opinion leaders. The most radical limit is the absence of manipulative “meat” in the context of similar media channels, and the mediocrity of opinion evinced by media users. Such similarities and mediocrity are aspects of each other in the formation of media in response to popular taste which, in itself, is formed by the media.13 The point here is that 9 The spreading of power and sense are parallel, and conversely, the confluences (bundles) of power

and sense are the same; powerful is the one who conjoins sense. Question: do the development of media add to the dispersal or conjoining of power and sense? It seems that in the “free” market there is not only an increase in new media (such as social networks), but also competing media channels. Yet, under the most severe conditions of competition there appear media confluence and similarity by seeking not to create, but to appropriate popular ideas. In a surprising way, the tendency toward assimilation and similarity is accompanied by increasing competition. Thus, the conjoining of sense (and power) leads to its diminishment. Is it not the case that the conditions for conjoining of power are equivalent to a sense of diminishment? 10 Is it not the case that due to media conditions there is a formation of the majority and the disappearance of the idea of democracy? Although as a rule by majority, democracy had contradictions, e.g. in relation to minorities. Now, we encounter the disappearance of the democratic subject which is being formed by media and media is formed by the demands of the majority. Similarly, in the environment of media, democracy “fades” itself and thus we speak of post-democracy in a society of media. 11 Having been destroyed by the Internet, the telegraph is a small victim. 12 Tolerance could result from having a non-creative, one-dimensional view. We only tolerate those with similar thinking and awareness. It is not clear what is worse: to tolerate this mediocrity or to think that everyone thinks in the same mediocratic way as we do. As mentioned previously, creativity (anti-mediocrity, and anti-discoursivity) and tolerance are incompatible. Threatening our mediocrity, as an aspect of discoursivity, creativity must be rejected and expelled beyond the limits of their influence, otherwise this will be a threat not for our discursive, but also our social order. 13 This was first noted, not by Bourdieu (2011), but by Plato (1980) who remarked that the committee for theatre production surrenders to the pressure of the public. According to Benjamin, this is the

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similarity and mediocrity as a background are the necessary condition for the creative phenomena, which would not be visible in an overwhelmingly crowded environment. Thus, they should not be degraded to nothingness just for this reason.14 Besides, creative resistance to this destructed and deconstructed “politics”15 is one more thing, which must be valued.16 Question 67 A. M. What role does political rhetoric play in surpassing and determining public dialogue about “real” issues? T. K. Your question about rhetoric, politics and reality suggests a dialogue that covers rhetoric, and the public which is political. Earlier, we touched upon the political so now we can expound upon it. It is also the right moment to talk about political communication. Rhetorical communication is the oldest tradition, as far back as the time of Aristotle who investigated reality in the context of metaphor and poetics (Q. 62), to which I shall return. Dialogue is another school of communication and is completely intertwined with hermeneutics and phenomenology. Yet another angle of politics is the notion of public which we discussed in another context (Q. 59). For the time being we must return to the aforementioned political rhetoric in its proper context, i.e. the earliest Western text including Aristotle’s Rhetoric (1959), and Politics (2013). Rhetoric is not limited to giving advice to its users, such as politicians.17 For Aristotle, rhetoric seeks three things: imagery (metaphoras), opposition (antithese¯os) and reality (energeias) (Aristotle 1959: 1410b). Here, we encounter the ethimology of metaphor, which points to imagery. The latter is a common intersection between the minor (metaphor) and its major figure (rhetoric). Elsewhere it is stated, “the shorter and oppositional, the more influential” (Aristotle 1959: 1412b). In accommodation of reality to the masses and they’re to reality (1969). Again, the question of reality appears in the media environment. Platonic idea is real as the “authority” of things; media authority are the masses, and theirs, the media. If authority is an aspect of reality it flows from the mentioned tautology. What is real – what is on this or on the other side of the screen? 14 Let us not confuse nihilation with nothing. The latter belongs to the discourse about the growing mediocracy and similarity. 15 It seems that democracies are inseparably tied to at least two different political parties. Nonetheless, what shows up here is the tendency toward mediocracy and assimilation. In Lithuania, no one is surprised that the prime minister, a social democrat, represents big business, whilst the Liberal Party mayor of Vilnius hinders business. Both illustrate the shifting roles. More later on politics. 16 Values are another result of mediocrity and assimilation. Here, it is worth recalling Nietzsche (1998) who spoke about the genealogy of morality. In this case, “genealogy” of values would mean “de-layering” (destructing, deconstructing) of them as of those what is spread in the homogenized media. 17 How was rhetoric revised under post-democratic conditions? Is it not because media lends the speaker its rhetorical sense?

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other words, communication is more successful to the extent that its figures are more oppositional: and this is the case of metaphor. In this sense, the intolerance of figures and even their antagonism with respect to each other contributes to communication. The thought about examples (paradeigmat¯on) is equally worthy of attention; they are of two kinds: some talk about events (pragmata progenomena), whereas others are created (poiein) (Aristotle 1959: 1393a). This might appear to be classification based on observation (a kind of empiricism?), yet it contains not only an extension of reality by creation, but to speak more broadly also opens rhetoric and communicative possibilities. The examples become paradigms competing for one or another position. One or another classification shows a competition between paradigms.18 At any rate, opposition and competition are necessary for rhetoric and for communication. Back to metaphor, which unites clarity (saphes), pleasure (hedu), and novelty (ksenikon) (Aristotle 1959: 1405a). More important than commonality (katolou), using is the separation (hekasta) of things (t¯on pragmat¯on) (Aristotle 1959: 1393a). This is a pregnant thought because it is here that we find what has attracted empiricists throughout history—the primacy of separation over commonality. Second, this thought is akin to Heidegger’s phenomenology of things. Third, we can find here some facets of pragmatism (pragmata), and finally it raises the question of the use of media: coming closer or moving away from things? Convincing is a kind of proof (Aristotle 1959: 1355a), and this is a deference not so much toward sophistics as with respect to politics. We also inherited our understanding of politics from antiquity. It is a paradox that Plato who matured and participated in Athenian democracy was one of the main critics of democracy. His politics (1888) is a combination of an élitist rulership and Spartan education.19 Moreover, in this political context Plato articulates his basic theory of ideas.20 Yet, his critique of democracy is relevant today. Besides, our discussion about mediated democracy or post-democracy can be found in this critique. Aristotle is the one thinker deemed to be the basis of the empirical tradition. His Politics (2013) is an excellent example and can explain this affinity. First of all, Aristotle surveys all of the orders known to him from his time. Then he attempts to answer the question, which—among them—is the best. Analysing such a variety he points to different people in different environments. On the other hand, he keeps in mind that a state as a political whole, is prior to family and the separate individual, i.e. of its part. Thus, while interpreting empirical phenomena he appeals to generality, which is prior to them. Elsewhere (Aristotle 1924) calls this generality secondary substance, which is the essence of the primary one.21 In truth, this feature of Aristotelianism 18 Kuhn’s scientific paradigms become diverse strategies and politics: is reality discovered or invented? 19 According to Popper (1971), it is the shortest path to totalitarianism. 20 This confirms the thought that the environment of fundamental philosophical ideas is worldly and temporal in just the same way as politics. 21 To rephrase Aristotle’s example, the essence of Socrates is not that he had a broad nose or walked barefoot, but that he is a man. Each observed difference is delimited by the generality, to which it belongs prior to difference, whether physical or logical.

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troubles the representatives of empiricism who are inclined to reject it. In our context, it would be a delimitation against meta-discoursivity and metacommunication. Yet, such rejection does not diminish, but opens the problems of empiricism, discussed partially in Q. 58. Most important, is how we think of communication as a family (the state) of discourses without abandoning each of them? Aristotle’s answer is that the state is first and thereafter its parts, which for our purposes means that parts are seen in terms of their belonging to the whole. In a way this is a cybernetic view attending to functional inherence in a system, in some, even if limited, sense, returning to Aristotelianism. Let us consider Aristotle’s Politics in which he expressed his political ideas, namely: (1) it is inborn that humans tend toward community and the first who established it is of great good (1253a). (2) The state is the totality of citizens, a guarantor of their lives, (1329a) and this wholeness is also an act of the citizen’s happiness (1329a). As a result, the good state orders (politeiai) are directed toward the common good (1279a). (3) The state is a constantly changing and living organism, or in terms of Aristotle, “that and no longer that” (aut¯en all heteran) (1276a). (4) The state is a community of free people (1279a). (5) The state must promote virtues (1280b) and the happiness of life is in the thriving of virtues (1329a), the best is an order and community which, having sufficient affluence is concerned with virtues (1323b). (6) The state is a community seeking perfect and self-sufficient existence (1280b). (7) The purpose of a state is well being (1280b). (8) Governing requires proper measure (1286b). (9) It is important to play a part both in governing and governed relationships (1332b), while to be concerned and participate is promoted by what is one’s own and beloved (1262b). (10) A specialist22 is a creator (d¯emourgos), leader (architektonikos) and educated savant (1282a) who plays an important role in the state with Aristotle offering a physician as an example. I suspect that we shall return to these Aristotelian political characteristics if not in this, then in other questions. Regarding your question about the relationship between political rhetoric, public dialogue and “reality” (“real” matters). Turning to the theme of reality we can ask whether what is real is what appears in public rhetoric which is unavoidably political. Thus, real is what appears as a matter of state (res publicum). Being public, however, reality is contradictory. This not only means what, and to what extent something appears in public as matters for confrontation between social groups. If they clash, it means that these are matters of one plan, while the dramatics is an aspect of imagination and of narrativity. Metaphor, embodying both plans, adheres, firstly, to the commensurability of rhetorical discourses, and second, deepens imagination at another level. Real is what is dramatic. It seems that this thesis fits the media that feeds on sensations. However, an orientation toward sensations23 intimates subservience to the public’s demands, which, ultimately, homogenizes and flattens contesting media. The result is that nothing is happening in the media and nothing is real. Confrontation 22 Plato (1888) states that a division of labour (specialization) is a matter for the state, the state being

an invention of specialists. “yellow press”—(also referred to as “gutter press”) is often defined in accordance with sensationalism. 23 The

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or conflict therefore means different positions, just as the need for rhetoric, whose version is diplomacy. It follows that principled confrontation abolishes the possibility of rhetoric.24 Question 68 A. M. What “rhetorical” images and music are used to “convince” the public? T. K. Thank you, Algis, for the question, which will continue our discussion of rhetoric. From the time of Plato (1990) onwards rhetoric is intertwined with convincing, yet the new media suggest that there is no longer a convincing agent. There are strategies but no strategist. Indeed, it is doubtful whether the homogenizing and flattening tendencies could be called strategies, at least at the political and not economic level. Of course, it is always possible to speak of “convincing”, yet this very economic minuteness suggests homogenization. Convincing assumes an asymmetry between rhetor and the public: the former is active, the latter passive, subjected to or resisting the former’s influence. The rhetor always stands “above” the public. Historically, it was a barrel either in a public square or in a park.25 Yet being “above” does not mean a physical height. For example, in the anatomy auditorium,26 the public is physically above the rhetor and what they demonstrate in their activities. Thinking of rhetorical imagery and sensationalism, it can be called anatomy. The rhetor must depict a shocking situation; otherwise they will not convince the need to change it and will not attract the public’s attention. TV and radio can be regarded as amphitheatre27 even if unusual not only because the stage of radio and TV is neither higher nor lower in the physical sense, but also because there is a different relationship to the public. There is a lack of relationship with the public, which at times is compensated by telephone or by messages. The rhetor is safer in the radio or TV studio where they will not be showered by tomatoes or eggs. What is said or shown in the studio can explode after a period of years. Thus, talking and imaging in a studio is more risky—one can cut oneself with a scalpel. The studio is both closed and open space, closed not only because what happens in reality in rehearsals remains inaccessible to the public. It is a space for experiments where distilled “reality” is separated from undesired events. These factors influence the rhetor whose function is to convince the public. It is open because the rhetor is heard and seen publicly. Being seen is an important aspect of public communication. 24 Burke

(1969) points to different aspects of rhetoric: first, a conflict and war dispenses with the possibility of cooperation and with it the possibility of rhetoric. Second, rhetoric is inseparable from the market place, from pressure, from counter pressure, from ownership, from the war of nerves, and finally from war itself. In other words, rhetoric often leads to war. 25 London’s well-known Hyde Park. 26 The famous auditorium of anatomy at Uppsala University, Sweden. 27 Flusser divides media into pyramid (church), branching (scientific institutions), theatric (movies, schools), amphitheatric (circus, TV) (2007: 274–275). The question is: to what kind of media do social networks belong?

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According to Foss and Griffin (1995), the changes initiated by a rhetor are often accompanied by the public’s feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, pain, humiliation, guilt and embarrassment. But this can also be said about the rhetor who is being experimented with in the studio and must overcome such feelings. These authors also point to the superiority of the rhetor’s figure in the public’s view. As mentioned, this superiority is not so much physical as an image of the “studio” or amphitheatre. Besides, superiority is an embodiment of visuality—the narrower and the larger. We speak about the narrower in the imagery of metaphors28 related to confrontation, while the large one relates to the domination of visuality in contemporary culture.29 This brings us back to your question, which, I think, is more than just detailed tendencies of imagery and musicality in advertisements that influence the public, but which is limited (just as the intentions of its “strategy”) is limited.30 Here, “strategy” is not only a tactic, since it is oriented beyond the effort to sell one or another product, but also it forms needs and worldviews. Thus, rhetoric seems to be a confrontation of two visualities. This does not mean that visuality in advertising and utility is mundane, whereas macro-visuality is something floating, i.e. metaphysical, to be destructed or deconstructed. The latter is equally handy and mundane, since in selecting one or another imagery (way), we are in its context. The aforementioned is a “strategy”, yet not strategy since it is also formed within the same channels it seeks to control. In short, it has no “meta” status, which is attested by the devolution of the word in its superfluous use. As mentioned in other contexts, “strategy”, while circulating in the same channels loses the strategists who have been “convinced” by the same images and music. Of music we should speak separately. Our concern is, what are its possibilities for convincing and its general role in visual culture? In the feminist tradition (Butler 1990; Irigaray 1985), visuality is often associated with male power and the imposition of opinion or, rephrasing Nietzsche, communication imposed by the sledgehammer.

28 This is also indicated by the etymology of “metaphor” which we encountered in our discussion of Aristotle’s (1959) text. 29 A question: since when is “our contemporary” culture contemporary? Is it with the rise of new visual media or earlier, even with the theatre of antiquity? Even Plato extols visuality, not only in his famous allegory of the cave, but also in his theory of recollection (anamnesis)—we “recall” ideas upon seeing things. Habermas (1987) claims that trends of modernity showed up in late antiquity in the formation of “modern” Christian culture. Moreover, contemporary philosophy is often dated from the post-Hegelian period with the rise of non-classical philosophy espoused by Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche et al. Its “unclassicism” is associated not only with its meagreness with respect to classical tradition, but also with its imagination. Notwithstanding, we delimit contemporary culture and its beginning, so that visuality and the present day are intertwined. 30 Although advertising makes a local impact in daily choices, its impact as a meta-visuality must compete with many other influences, including family values, the position of teachers and the views of informal leaders. The limited influence of visuality on meta-visuality (the vision of the world) and on the mode of life (attitudes) is based on numerous empirical studies (Fowles 1996). This can be compared with the empirical researches of Lazarsfeld. arguing for the limited impact of propaganda. We contended that confrontation or sensation is a necessary component of rhetoric. On the other hand, sensationalism has a clear aspect of visuality.

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Audiality, including musicality, appears as if it were an alternative to visual continuity, a counter to our subtle culture. Although music is also applied in propaganda its testimony is never quite clear. Thus, music is “untrustworthy” offering as its twin, speaking (the words in political songs) as another meaning of audiality. As noted previously even the results of propaganda are never clear. The greater the effort made by propaganda, the greater is the belief there will be opposing results than those envisaged by the strategist. In this sense, we could regard propaganda as “musical.” Since it abhors chaos and is its antidote,31 music is related not only to unclarity. One or another music has a defined tonality regardless of the “postmodern” tendency toward dislocation—being everywhere. It is not by chance that music is equated with mathematics. It seems then that music appeals to the opposing principles of subtle ambiguity and strict delimitation. Besides, one of its characteristics is narrative, the motif from which one moves, and to which one returns. Ambiguity is related to the creative principle of public ignorance32 and thus can be a “trick”33 for propaganda (convincing), if not two “but.” Ambiguity can lead toward an unclear somewhere, i.e. in the opposite direction from the one that was indicated by the strategist.34 Ambiguity35 also counters the media tendency toward homogenization and mediocrity. I am not sure if this has answered your question, although it motivated me to revisit the relationship between visuality and musicality in discussing not only rhetoric, intertwined with convincing and propaganda, but also mediated culture. Question 69 A. M. Can political communication accommodate “popular culture” through political manipulation? T. K. This question leads us back to the politics of Aristotle, and will also expand the concept of communication. Political communication can be regarded in two senses. First, any communication, except rare cases of “secret” communication,36 is public and therefore political. Second, the exercise of politics needs as much to 31 See

Adorno’s (1958) discussion of music. is unknown what impact a piece of art will have, and it is also unknown which art work will be considered to be outstanding. 33 Trickiness can be regarded as a second feminine characteristic next to the notion that she “loves” with her ears. Question: does love need ambiguous musicality or subtle trickiness? 34 The term “to strategy” expresses the flow of strategy toward the convincers and those to be convinced, wallowing in the same media channels. 35 Obscurity can be associated with the double meaning of idle talk (Gerede) in media. Yet, Heidegger (1996) associates idle talk with the existential because idle talk is a daily accompaniment, and also obliges us to turn our being toward death. 36 Even in secret political communication (e.g. the Nazi-Soviet pact agreed upon by Molotov and Ribbentrop concerning the spheres of influence), to speak about the participants, even if limited and their impact, is public. 32 It

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convince as to publicise and cannot be separate from communication. Here, another question is significant: to what extent is politics popular under democratic conditions? More precisely, is it possible for democratic politics to be popular? After all, if one government makes unpopular decisions, is it not the case that ultimately a government will be elected that is more—or less—popular? If so, does not the popularity of decisions lead to the death of wellbeing? This tendency is described by Plato (1888), i.e. when the democratic order elevates scoundrels (populists) and promotes chaos that can only be managed by tyranny (totalitarian rule). Another case would be when extravagant promises of well being lead to the bankruptcy of the state and the impoverishment of its people. Your question is concerned not so much with populist (popular) politics as with the relationship of popular culture, political communication and the public’s manipulation. In Q. 67–68 we discussed the questions of political manipulation, and we can now return to this theme and view it from another angle. From the perspective of Plato,37 we can ask whether popular culture and popular politics are two sides of the same coin. Could it be that populist politics is an aspect of the all-pervading popular culture? If so, then the use of popular music (to continue previous our discussion) in political campaigns is natural, considering their common source. On the other hand, popularizing politics, or one part of it as political campaign, can be a clever ruse, and just as much a cover to achieve other purposes, e.g. conviction. Of course, this trend can express the convictions of those who attempt to convince others as to their actions. In other words, using popular means shows that the speaker is also caught up in such means. So, who manipulates what: does the politician manipulate the public, or the public manipulate the politician? Do their promised decisions and their realization coincide with popular culture? Thus, to manipulate and to be manipulated is a relationship that is essentially mutual. This can be generalized in that while manipulating something, we ourselves become manipulated. The change of passive and active, ignoring the negative or defective factors in manipulation is characteristic in other ways with respect to mediated culture that is popular or otherwise. Thus, we return to the previous discussion and ask whether being the subject of strategy38 is the same as being the object of strategy? Keeping in mind the “populistic” context of communication, let us return to the politics of Aristotle. Is it not the case that humans tend inherently toward popular culture as a way of fulfilling their common needs? This would mean that the environment of popular culture supposes a certain commonality, other aspects of which are social capital as the basis for producing happiness.39 Does the vibrant and varied popular culture stimulate the vitality of a state, despite such vitality being absent in 37 Plato inquired into the good: what is common among the different good things? Yet. it would not do to speak of evil, since Plato saw it as defective—lack of the good. If popular mass politics and culture is conceived as defective, or a lack of political “serious” or élite culture, we would hardly find its inborn commonality. 38 Perhaps the strategist and strategy maker are distinct insofar as the latter is also “strategied” by the mediated environment. 39 Horkheimer and Adorno (1972).

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a homogenized, popular domain? And does popular culture imitate freedom under conditions of its absence when we use, including politics, what the majority uses? Perhaps popular culture leads to an avoidance (one more defective-ness) of the question of virtues? The popular culture seems to be a self-satisfied and self-glorifying domain, a compensation for wellbeing.40 It could be a catalyst which abolishes the work ethic and allows everyone, governing and the governed, to participate at the same level despite growing social differences. Popular culture might be a compensation for disappointments where “nothing will change” regardless of how we vote. The popular culture in politics changes the latter into one more amusing entertainment where the showman becomes the healer of the community or, more likely an anaesthesiologist, suppressing the pain of irreconcilable traumas of the public. The showman might be the basic specialist in a mediated community, allowing everyone to assume their likeness. This is not a rejection of specialization explored by Plato (1888), but rather a tendency away from special skills (e.g. Elvis Presley started out as a truck driver) toward something common, i.e. the public entertainer. On the other hand, the public entertainer must hone their extraordinary skills over many years, which certainly resonates with public expectations. Is this, however, anything else but being manipulated? It is possible to speak of the confluence of democratic politics and popular culture and the construction of a post-democratic mediated domain. Politics is always forming in response to expectations of the masses who are raised in this political context. What is this if not democratic popular politics? The term “democracy” resonates with a novel meaning: the will of the majority to entertainment. This leads to conflict between the entertainment of the élite (minority) and mass (majority); what is accepted by élite entertainment is not acceptable for the masses. Yet another variant is possible: élites enjoy using irony to depict mass programs. One criterion of this separation is the popularity of programs. Nonetheless, the separation of masses and élites is problematic in post-democratic society because it is where cultural forms collide.41 Besides, élitism as a resistance to homogenization and mediocrity, itself tends toward homogenization and mediocrity. In social networks we are prone to be ironic and mocking42 in a way that is done by the majority43 of a specific social level with which individuals identify. Perhaps the ambiguous boundary between mocking and (self)irony signifies the boundary between massification and élitism. We shall return later to the topic of the separation between élitism and massification. 40 For

example, self-glorification at the Olympic Games. is clear not only from rock groups with the musical backing of a symphony orchestra, but the participation of classical musicians in their TV projects. 42 In general, for us as the users of social networks, it is difficult (if at all possible) to resist mocking or even sniggering. Perhaps most sniggering would come from demands not to snigger. It is an example of how the environment shapes its participants. 43 When such a “majority” cannot dominate in statistical society, then more or less distanced subcultures are formed in which it has more weight. In a sub-culture the individual conforms to its average standards, despite leaders of sub-culture resisting the dominant opinion. Such resistance becomes the unifying (a kind of majority) force of a sub-culture. In other words, contr-popculture is a version of popculture while élite culture—of mass-culture. 41 This

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Question 70 A. M. To what extent is the mythology of the “media is the message” still valid, and how could such a claim be offered to the public without contradictions? T. K. Here, I assume we are referring to McLuhan. He, like Plato, Aristotle and Heidegger remain relevant in our deliberations on various domains of communication. In Q. 51, we discussed myth and myths which is the most inert position of a tradition. Without myth and the mythologization of ideas it is hard to imagine scientific development. Myth is both the anchor to any theory in the storm of changing data, and the main container of scientific capital. Back to McLuhan and his conception of media. Half a century ago he challenged the public44 with a number of claims. First, the content of a medium is another medium, i.e. a medium is effective because its content is offered by another medium (1964: 36). In this respect it is said that in being “content” of each other they hide their efficacy. Second, the “[f]or the “content” of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind” (1964: 31). Third, the interaction between media is a civil war in the world of art and of entertainment. The first point suggests a specific media tautology. Besides, its power of convincing (rhetoric) is nourished by this tautology when one medium points to another, and conversely. Their content is thus simulated. It could be said that the less content, the easier it is to realize this mirroring effect. Thus, the homogenization and flattening is not some technical defect of communication but a structural component of media in whose channels communication circulates. The second feature indicates that even the content left over after homogenization and flattening is only a façade, dedicated to deflect the attention of “keen” watchers. But who are the monitors in the mediated society? The characteristic of visual culture is such that no longer can anyone see the absence of content. We are overly keen to see something. Does not the effortless media exchange of each other’s content comprise the major contradiction? After all, the differences, oppositions and even incommensurability in media content should be the greatest hindrance of such exchanges. Instead, we have a situation in which everything is changeable into everything. This devalues and denominates content in attempts to discard diminished currency where the content of media is lacking. Algis, we can answer your question as to whether McLuhan’s paradigm is still valid in terms of new media, which is completely meshed with computerized technology. Whatever the case might be, “electronics”45 which was “mythologized” 44 Was

it convincing? According to Baran and Davis (2012), McLuhan convinced some of the empiricists concerning the irrelevance of their work. Thus, did he convince because of his talent at rhetoric (as we saw the metaphorical phrases in their onrush—are important rhetorical means), or was it because he was right, which cannot be measured empirically? 45 McLuhan speaks of electric overturn when “the instant speed of electricity confers the mythic dimension on ordinary industrial and social action today” (1964: 39). Yet, to call something myth is most likely demythologization (com. Bultman 1989) an d not mythologization. Myth can also be regarded as a channel for transmitting a tradition. This channel did not diminish with the appearance

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by McLuhan, became overlaid by elements of the new media (content?), when first appeared the computerized internet46 and its attendant collection of data (data bases), interactivity and digitality. Digitality is one of the new media trends, prefaced by the epithet “new.” The threshold transitions, characteristic of digitality, are opposed to analogization with continuous shifts. Digitality as such does not signify a higher quality of data transmission, a clearer picture. On the contrary, there arises the problem of “inadequate resolution” when our eye is caught by image thresholds. And yet, digitality offers added possibilities in transmitting—communicating—data that become “condensed” before transmitting. Incidentally, this elicits a phenomenon which made redundant earlier laws of communication such as those of Flusser who claimed that the sharing of information does not lead to its diminution. The case is opposite with digitality, since the transmission and preservation of information is accompanied by losses due to its condensation and repeated dispersal It now becomes clear that information is not only limited, but the means of its preservation and transmission are also limited. If digitality opens access to novel data47 then creativity vanishes, since all that is needed is the mixing of available data. Second, digitality shows the limits of communication when the transmitted information reveals deficits in the Platonic world of numbers. Deficits are intertwined with deviations, loss of data, diminishment of quality and the “noises” of images (Manovich 2001: 129). Paradoxically, all of these disruptions are manifest with the effort to impose an ideal world of numbers. This could be called a schematized revenge against the sensuous world. On the other hand, noises and disruptions are not only features of communication, but also the very aspects of communication. Maybe, in communication we need nothing more than noise and disruption? Interactivity is completely tied to digitality and its links. It is also tied to manipulation in the ways discussed above. Another problem appears with respect to making public and to the regulation of private-individual rights (Manowich 2001: 135). Art requires our involvement and is ultimately transformative. It is related to Aristotelian catharsis as well as phenomenological bracketing, yet things look different in the case of interactivity. First, we encounter not a single work of art, but a product for masses. Second, when we interact with a computer we are not in control as much as being controlled. Similarly, we do not so much manage the available materials, as

of new media, which do not seem to have a tradition. In fact, new media are not that new, since they appropriate the “forms and conventions” (Manovich 2001) of the old. 46 Computers did not escape the attention of McLuhan who made the ironical quip that consciousness is transferable to the computer world and computer, as an atrophy of language, is a “condition of universal understanding and unity” (1964: 84). It offers “[t]he condition of “weightlessness”, that biologists claim to promise physical immortality, and which may be paralleled by the condition of speechlessness that could confer a perpetuity of collective harmony and peace” (ibid.). 47 In recent years we have seen the rise of a quantification mania which seeks to quantify all levels of culture and history. Rather than minimize this activity increases the need for hermeneutics. Those who understand the age of quantification, and the quantified cultural heritage, are different.

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are exposed to manipulation. For this reason Lev Manovich speaks of the humancomputer interconnection,48 i.e. of a system of the human and the machine. In the context of interaction, the problem of cybernetics becomes relevant. Here we can speak not only of mechanical artificial intellect, but also of the human mechanical mind. In this sense, we can speak of our openness (interactivity) and identity relationship. Of course, we cannot grant that identify evaporates in face of computers, mechanisms and media. First, computer, mechanisms and media can appear as useful things in our creative path toward death. Second, they are unavoidable environments and the background of our existence within which appear our creations, which may be artistic and technical. Third, the threat to our identity raises our resistance to the agents of the mentioned homogenization and mediocracy. Thus, the common view is reflected by the position that our identity depends on the content of media. As noted previously, there is either no content or it is simulated in “exchange” of media. Also, we discussed that the impact of media is not confirmed by facts (Lazarsfeld 1972; Fowles 1996). Even if we do not overly depend on them, this does not mean that our conclusions are different. Later we shall speak about empirical research. Manovich speaks of aspects of psychological interaction to which he assigns the creation of hypotheses, recollection and the process of identification. Yet, it would be best to distance ourselves from psychology, not because Heidegger49 does so in discussions of being there, but because in the context of media we encounter sociopsychology with an appropriate school of communication and not psychology. In other words, in the face of media we do not behave as individuals, more or less under their sway (or resisting them), but as their agents. Nonetheless, this would be beneficial if we consider Heidegger’s thought about the background of our existence, the idle talk, comprising a dimension of media environment. In view of this, it is useful to discuss McLuhan’s notion of the big city as a village. What is the celebrity industry with journals, radio and TV channels, the attachments in social networks, if not making public the gossip of a “village”? Usually, the main object of gossip is the celebrity who floats on a cloud of “talk”. Celebrity belongs to a specific village of a discourse, although a discourse, or its village, is characteristic of a city possessing sufficient resources. The characteristic of a city is its mode of being a village. Only in a city can diverse discourses with their celebrities appear. The fact that some celebrities are more prominent (more universal), as is the case 48 According

to Manovich (2001), the human-computer interconnection (HCI) changes cultural tradition in general, and cultural language in particular. In its own way, it offers to represent human memory and awareness. Two questions: first, how is tradition transmitted following the emergence of a new media (HCI), and, second, how does new media change the content of our memory? Hence, a third question: does our cultural memory become another medium whose content is simulated by other media? Manovich calls HCI a medium that functions in “corrective principle” while it constantly borrows the content from other media, but on the other hand transforms such media. 49 According to Heidegger, “the existential analytic of Da-sein is prior to any psychology” [1996: 42 (45)]. Heidegger’s primacy of existential analytic with respect to such sciences as psychology is based paradoxically on the praxis of being there (Da-sein) and even daily life world (thing-ness). This is associated with the idle talk of the daily media.

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with Hollywood stars,50 indicates the wide compass of such media (film, and even more—TV), with the flip side—short lived (butterfly-ness). But, let us return to the question of contradiction. Celebrity is offered to the public without any opposition. Without opposition, celebrity is offered as eternal whereas the case is the opposite. Is it not the case that what is offered without opposition is the main contradiction? Question 71 A. M. How would communication be possible if attention was directed solely the medium? T. K. Before answering your question, we must clarify what is a medium and how it differs from media. How do you conceive this difference? A. M. “Medium” means a pure phenomenon such as language, grammar, syntax, vocabulary, or such means as TV, radio, computer, telephone. They are what they are without any other presumptions. Radically speaking, “medium” would be a person relating to “another world”, and would be studied as to their composition. They would be studied as to feelings, conceptions, social standing, education, imagination. “Media” are different since their basic function is the transmission of information. T. K. It follows that medium is the communicative domain (both linguistic and instrumental), and a medium which is also investigated as a phenomenon of communication.51 Thus, your suggested concept of “medium” splits into two: domain and medium.52 The first concerns the linguistic and material communicative environment, the second—a person initiating relationships. This is a good example of semantic polarisation: domain, medium, media and, to add, press.53 Each of these concepts has its own circumspection which only partially covers the range of related concepts. On the other hand, they form the bouquet of communicative concepts reflecting the variety of the aspects. With these explications, let us return to your question, starting from where we ended when discussing the earlier question of psychology. Manovich points to “personal mental processes” which are objectivated and comparable to forms of mass manipulation, publicizing and regulating privacy and individuality (2001: 135). It 50 In

this sense, Howkins (2013) wonders whether there are global and local celebrities. Which contains a greater “butterfly effect”—the global or the local eminences? 51 This phenomenon received much attention from Peters (1999). Besides, the person as a medium, communicating with spirits not only opens a problem of communication, but also shows its relationship to hermeneutics (Hermes, the messenger of gods and vice versa). Moreover, media investigations show the significance of historical access to communication. 52 For example, Bandura (2001) speaks of symbolic medium, allowing people to give meaning, form their experiences and constitute their continuity. It seems that without such linguistic medium we would be separated from our own experiences. On the other hand, an open question remains whether our experiences flow from ourselves? 53 Due to this semantic polarization the concept “media” and above all “medium” are not to be translated into “press.” They all have different fields of meaning even if they are mutually related.

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seems that in the diminishment of the private sphere there is also a disappearance of socio-psychological contradictions54 between the aims and impulses of an individual and the mediated requirements of society. Is not a public person, i.e. a celebrity (famous politician, artist, actor) a medium who “transmits news” both to individuals and society? Nonetheless, even if they make up simple news, e.g. a “beautiful life,” they push individuals as well as society toward contradictions. For one, standards for a beautiful and creative life are not repeatable, because what is repeated and proliferated loses its dimensions of creativity and beauty. Second, a “beautiful life” encompasses deviations from the accepted standard; while it is private it also functions as publicly “invisible” longing. Here, there is not only the conflicts with “paparazzi” or journalists (i.e. no longer a beautiful life) emerge, but a more fundamental gap between private and public regions. Thus, it becomes clear that even in the case of medium, public and the private domains are in conflict. Above all there appears a need for communication between these contradictory regions of our lives. Celebrity as a medium requires us to follow usual, “secured” paths leading precisely to a conflict with society and with oneself. This confluence with a social domain55 marks communicative deficit between the mentioned regions, just as much as their contradictions. The paradox of fashion56 is that we chase the image of our identity where it cannot be found—in the public domain. On the other hand, it is not found in a solipsistic “ego” closed to all public events. Thus, identity is nourished by communication between private and public domains. This communication is not enhanced by any “renowned” medium—rather it is our own way, replete with trials, obstacles and contrasts. The source of such contrasts and the source of required communication is both principle separation and the covering of private and public, new and old regions.

54 According

to Craig and Muller (2007), socio-psychological access directs toward “a process of expression, interaction, and influence” (2007: 82). Communication in this case is to be understood as “a process by which individuals interact and influence each other” (ibid.). The individual whose influence is unique can be called a medium, just as a leader or outstanding. They are a medium not so much as a domain in the private and the public regions, but as a creator of a novel communicative medium. One or the other is intertwined with a conflict between public and private, new and old regions. The conflicting is also the phenomenon of outstanding-ness while a medium attempts to remove themself from their domain position, while the opened gap is filled by content, which is most likely another medium. Quite often, the role of journalism is to assure justification for the exchanged (manipulated) content. 55 According to L. Manovich, we are asked to follow programmed, objectivated associations and accept the mental structure of others as our own (2001). 56 Manovich extends the critical tradition of Horkheimer and Adorno (1972); cultural industrial technologies—film and fashion—ask to identify ourselves with images of other bodies, and interactive media, with the mental structure of others (2009: 136).

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Question 72 A. M. If language as an all-pervasive medium determines human life, conceptions, awareness, and even self-interpretation, is it possible to say that someone has made a false claim? T. K. Wonderful! We come back to the problematic of language, investigated in Chap. 8. Nonetheless, it is another communicative domain, which we must address. We also return to the matter of truth, which is so important at the very outset of philosophy.57 This question should be unrevealed. Truth in the communicative domain, the truth of media, truth of a medium, and truth of journalism. Most often the talk is of the latter ignoring the first ones which, especially the first two, can be called meta-truth. Before deliberating about truth, let us recall its different conceptions, already mentioned in Q. 65. Just as is the case with conceptions of communication, truth is characterized by incommensurability. It is also possible to speak of various conceptual combinations. The respective truths of Plato and Aristotle may be regarded as correspondence between thought (logic) and thing (reality).58 There is a serious question as to how such distinct domains as mind and thing can be compared (Nekrašas 2012). Although a thing (Sache) is more than a tangible thing (Ding), according to phenomenology it can be an aim, idea and condition (Mickunas and Stewart 1990). The aforementioned cannot be extricated from the medium of language, including thought. It would seem that even the sense of a tangible thing appears in a linguistic domain: our sensations depend on the way they are expressed in language. It could be surmised that media comprises the domain in which our sensations are simulated. Does this mean that we distance ourselves from our previous claim that next to a linguistic understanding there is a corporal sensibility? Not at all—my thesis is the opposite: communication guarantees the autonomy of these two poles, corporeity and linguisticality. It would seem that language as a universal domain, diminishes and even abolishes the possibility of communication in the corporeal domain. We shall return to corporeity as a counter to the pre-eminence of language. To be sure, corporeity it is not only a counter to language, but also an event of communicative space-ness. Let us be clear about this. The concept of evidence (Descartes) appeals to what is evident, even if this conception was accused of circularity. In terms, for example of the sun, in some sense it is evident that the earth is the centre of our world. Evidence is also related to the phenomenological, of bringing something into view. This is at its most obvious when something emerges as a shock into our daily state of affairs. Corporeity is evident in two ways: for one, the body is seen and sees, second, corporeity is a shocking alternative to language.

57 Let 58 In

us recall Plato. the case of Plato, the correspondence between thing and idea as its source.

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Like classical, the theory of coherence (Leibniz), envisages the correspondence between thinking (language) and world, but at another (meta) level. This conception is held by representatives of the analytic school, including Wittgenstein (1990) and Carnap (1967). Coherence analogy seems to solve the problem of incompatibility appearing in classical understanding. Yet, the basis of this analogy is a logic imposed on the world order. Similarly, we can speak of the media world in which the law of non-contradictory rules, including the tautology of supply and demand, when media satisfies the public demand, while forming its needs. Does this imply communication? To the contrary, communicative significance appears in the face of illogic, incompatibility, and oppositions. All these factors accompany any communication. Various incompatibilities are characteristic in a discussion of language and corporeity, and language itself contains poetics with its illogical base. None of this detracts from, but adds to, communication which cannot be equated with uniformity and mediocrity. Pragmatic truth (William James, Karl Marx) appeals to its application and utility. The criticism of pragmatic truth is well known: the effectiveness of ideas (e.g. Marxist) that establish revolutions and transformations, do not imply that they are true. This does not even mean that they are useful: their realization not only failed to improve, but damaged the lives of individuals, societies and nations (com. Nekrašas 2012). In this context, the role of rhetoric is incontrovertible.59 At any rate, let us turn our attention to other aspects relevant to the questions of our concern. We return to the topic of rhetoric also by treating language as the medium of utility. Does an effective speech designed to convince means truthfulness? This question is specifically relevant when speaking of media and its strategies of convincing, with or without a strategist. A good example is the way advertisements attempt to convince a customer. Does this mean that the advertisement states a truth? In a certain sense an advertisement is true—insofar as we address the aim to convince a buyer. It is possible to speak of the aesthetic value of an advertisement as an enticement to realize its purpose? Finally, the realization is an aspect of truth: true is what is real, and what is real is convincing. In Q. 65, the truth of creativity was mentioned, although this does not mean a correspondence, but rather shifts, changes and novelties. Moreover, the elements of creativity can be traced within the mentioned conceptions of truth. In addition, creativity is necessary for the development of media. It is hardly equivalent to uniformity and mediocrity. If so, could creative truths be equated with meta-concepts? If this is to be maintained it is not because its elements are scattered throughout different concepts (Derrida 1981). Creativity allows the transgression of the linguistic domain and appeals to sensibility and corporeity. Perhaps we can speak of the creative domain as a creative class (Florida 2002) or creative society.60 Thus, the role of the creative environment is dual with respect to an individual. Firstly, it enhances

59 Recall

L. Trotsky, who captured by revolutionary zeal in the course of a fiery speech in some unnamed Russian town, demanded a change in power relationships. 60 More extensively see Kaˇ cerauskas (2014).

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both the individual and communal creativity. Second, it must constitute a grey background for the emergence of creative individuals or creative communities.61 In short, the environment must be encouraging and provoking, as well as normal and uniform. Besides, normality and uniformity also provoke creativity as an attempt to rise within them. Truth in this case is related to talent and the encouragement of creativity. Besides, the theme of creativity assumes one more media and medium,62 not completely covered by some domain, such as a rigid context, i.e. environment. All four seem to be different names (again language) of the same communicative aspect, but they all testify to the containment and spaciousness of communication—a state of affairs that could not be defined by any linguistic domain. As we have discussed on more than one occasion, communication as such is possible only by assuring a variety of participants in, and the differences in their environments, domains, media, and medium. All of these aspects I call the spaciousness of communication.

References Adorno, Theodor W. 1958. Philosophie der neuen Musik. Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt. Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Aristotelis. 1959. Ars rhetorica. In ed. W.D. Ross. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Aristotle. 1924. Metaphysics. In ed. W.D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Aristotle. 2013. Politics. Translated by C. Lord. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bandura, Albert. 2001. Social cognitive theory of mass communication. In Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research, ed. J. Bryant and D. Zillman, 121–153. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum. Baran, Stanley J., and Dennis K. Davis. 2012. Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning. Benjamin, Walter. 1969. Illuminations. Translated by H. Zohn. New York: Schocken Books. Bourdieu, Pierre. 2011: Sur la Television. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcc6AEpjdcY. Bultmann, Rudolf. 1989. New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings. Translated by S.M. Ogden. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Burke, Kenneth. 1969. A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press. Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble. Routledge: Chapman and Hall. Carnap, Rudolf. 1967. The Logical Structure of the World. Trans. R. A. George. California: University of California Press. Craig, Robert T., and Heidi L. Muller (eds.). 2007. Theorizing Communication: Readings Across Traditions. London: Sage. Derrida, Jacques. 1981. Dissemination. Translated by B. Johnson. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class: and How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books. 61 They are various artistic trends, often with regional contexts: the romantics of Jena, the modernists of Montmartre, or Silicon information giants. Regional contexts suggest their importance in forming creative trends. 62 An artist, in a narrower sense, or a creator, in a broader sense, can be seen as a medium of creative truth.

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Flusser, Vilém. 2007. Vorlesungen zur Kommunikologie. In Kommunikologie. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 233–235. Foss, Sonja K., and Cindy L. Griffin. 1995. beyond persuasion: a proposal for an invitational rhetoric. Communication Monographs 62: 2–18. Fowles, Jib. 1996. Advertising and Popular Culture. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications. Habermas, Jürgen. 1987. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Translated by F. Lawrence. Cambridge: MIT Press. Heidegger, Martin. 1996. Being and Time. Translated by J. Stambough. New York: State University of New York. Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. 1972. The culture industry: enlightenment as mass deception. In Dialectics of Enlightenment. Translated by J. Cumming. New York: Herder and Herder. Howkins, John. 2013. The Creative Economy. London: Penguin. Irigaray, Luce. 1985. This Sex Which is Not One. New York: Cornell University Press. Kaˇcerauskas, Tomas. 2014. K¯urybos visuomen˙e [Creative Society]. Vilnius: Technika. Lazarsfeld, Paul F. 1972. Qualitative Analysis: Historical and Critical Essays. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Manovich, Lev. 2001. The Language of New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press. Marcuse, Herbert. 1991. One-dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Boston: Beacon Press. McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill. Mickunas, Algis, and David Stewart. 1990. Exploring Phenomenology. Athens: Ohio University Press. Nekrašas, Evaldas. 2012. Filosofijos ˛ivadas [Introduction to Philosophy]. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedij˛u leidybos centras. Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1998. On the Genealogy of Morality. Translated by C. Diethe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Peters, John D. 1999. Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Plato. 1888. The Republic. Translated by B. Jowett. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Plato. 1980. The Laws. Translated by T.L. Pangle. New York: Basic Books. Plato. 1990. Sophist. Translated by W.S. Cobb. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Popper, Karl R. 1971. The Open Society and Its Enemies. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1990. Philosophische Untersuchungen. In Wittgenstein’s Werkausgabe. Bd. 1. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Chapter 11

Scientific Approach and Representation

Question 73 A. M. Contemporary communication “scientists” are inclined to “analyse” statistical data. Do such analyses say anything about communication? T. K. Despite the novelty of communication science, empirical access to communication, including statistical analyses, has a solid tradition. We spoke of this in the context of Lazarsfeld and research by his students that was carried out during and after the Second World War. Their case is significant, since their empirical researches upset the dominant theoretical position concerning the direct impact of media (propaganda) on their subjects. Paradoxically, the result of these researches was a new theory of limited effect, which looked at different sources of influence, such as environment (family, class, town), domain (language, culture), media (radio, TV, print), medium (opinions, leaders). Such empirical studies led to a more pluralistic understanding which is unavoidable if we are to understand communication and its expansion. Lazarsfeld did not actually reflect on this “metacommunication,” although his student, Mills (1957), made the attempt but distanced his thinking from the empiricism of his own teacher. The final outcome was that the teacher distanced himself from his student, which is telling because it illustrates communication between teacher and student. The student, communicating the ideas of his teacher (medium) must upset them, otherwise he will be an inadequate communicator and unworthy of his teacher. Nothing betrays a teacher more than the mere, uncreative transmission of

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his thinking.1 Conversely, the ideas of a teacher are best transmitted in their creative variation and proliferation.2 Returning to the question of statistics, one characteristic example is the statistics of gays compiled by Florida who believed that homosexuality is related to creativity insofar as it reveals a tolerant environment for the “abnormal”, including the creative persons. Let us set aside the theme of (ab)normality, because for us it is important that Florida so easily “counts” gays—after all, this “statistic” is based on the aforementioned correlation. However, gays allow themselves to be counted only in a specific environment where being gay is not only tolerated, but also fashionable. Thus, everything is quite the opposite, i.e. not the numbers of gays revealed in their environment, but the latter which “captures” varieties of their numbers. Being gay also does not lend itself to statistics on account of its ambiguity, which flows from the homosexual and heterosexual domains and between which produces a bisexual domain. In terms of statistics, normal means both gay persons and not gay persons, the abnormal being bisexual persons who cannot be counted within this dichotomy. Finally, gay cannot be counted because it is primarily a cultural (e.g. fashionable) category. Often, the “users” of cultural categories cannot be enumerated because they proliferate in somewhat hazy circumstances. In terms of our images and aims, utopia is the “fog” which nourishes the cultural dynamic. Moreover, cultural categories are not singular but live by opposition. Élite culture needs pop-culture and vice versa since one without the other cannot be defined, and are inseparable. It would seem that only statistics manages to separate them. On the other hand, this reveals the impotence of statistics—its inability to see the cultural “fog”—i.e. totality with its foggy parameters. Nonetheless, the strategist of consumerism, or more precisely, marketing “specialists”, although they can hardly be called strategists, do not want to capture consumers with one or another product. This is the foundation of their idea of big data. From the regularity (or passivities) of certain activities we must learn more about the individual in order to trap them into the madness of consumption. Of course, big data is only possible in an environment of mass consumption. The measure of its “bigness” is the size of consumption, wherein we have a statistical paradox. Thus, big data are large because they are sufficiently small as sole formations of consumer norms. The latter is the statistical “big” size. It would seem that statistics is neutral for it requires interpretation, which is a type of specific communication. If so, then as a medium it gives voice to statistical numbers. Moreover, statistics is a matter of medium, and one that discloses something about its own use—and not only about the number of consumers and consumption. This is its passivity and activity or, according to McLuhan, “cool” and “hot” media. 1 The

retranslation of ideas can be regarded as a case of reproduction in the environment of the cultural industry. Again, let us recall Benjamin who spoke of the deviation of the authority of a subject matter in reproduction (1969). In our case, we can speak of the deviation of the authority of an idea in its reproduction. As noted above, the idea can be regarded as a subject matter, and the latter is apparent in its handiness. 2 Just as Heidegger (1996) or Lévinas (1979), expanded the ideas of Husserl, and Sartre (1984) expanded Heidegger’s ideas.

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Nonetheless, it is different from other mediums that are cool or hot; statistics is both cool and hot with the changes of medium roles. With this in mind, we might ask, does statistics impede or help? What impedes is not statistics, but the neglect of its dual role. Question 74 A. M. What would communication mean in the context of the postmodern common claim that discourses “do not represent” reality, but “create” it? T. K. Your question contains several components: communication, sand representation and creation. Postmodernism presupposes not only post-realism, but also post-representationalism, post-creativity and post-communication. Post-realism does not deny, but extends the question of what is real. Real is what is accessible not only to senses and to thinking, but also to imagination. Of course, this is nothing new; phenomenology uses the term Sache (states of affairs), which includes all of the factors, mentioned.3 Postmodernism shows up after the regions of “reality” start to migrate and lose their location. In any discussion of the notion of reality, we cannot avoid Heidegger’s ideas. It is a pity that in both English translations4 Eigentlichkeit became authenticity. This shows, for one, a migration from a native word to global communication. Second, it leans toward the Greek outcome of European culture, i.e. toward the same (autos) culture. It would seem that such a translation would accord with Heidegger’s intentions. Nonetheless, while speaking of the culture of antiquity, we are communicating a specific interpretation. Thus, the question concerning turning toward oneself cannot be separated from a glance that is cast at a distance. Heidegger’s reality has another aspect, if not a paradox, i.e. the agents of reality—to speak existentially—that idle talk of the media. To extend this view, we are as real as the agents of media. This goes beyond the ironical view taken by the Frankfurt School where our reality is coined by the media environment, and we are as real as media ghosts. Heideggerian reality with its existentials also indicates something else—we must live in the daily if we are to be real. In other words, we must be thrown into our own time and space (including mediated) in order to be able to see. It is not so much a question of resistance to mediated culture as a matter of belonging to it. However, belonging (or throw-ness) to the media also opens what is beyond the media. Hence, we can speak of postmediation or post-communication which do not coincide with metacommunication. Post-communication is rather a horizontal dissemination (dissémination), spoken of by Derrida, and whose results can be traced back to Heidegger’s phenomenology of everyday-ness. Yet, the horizon also contains a vertical axis. Communication is their intersection, the point of “illumination” (Benjamin) or discovered trace (Lévinas). The more the field is daily, the easier it is to poke around for traces. But is this 3 “The

objects of nature, mathematical beings, values, artefacts, acts of will, melodies, moods, desires, feelings—all are objects of awareness (Sachen)” (Mickunas and Stewart 1990). 4 Both in a dual sense: in English and in Lithuanian, as well in both English translations.

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something other than postmodernism with its flicker of localisms? Perhaps it is post-postmodernism—the real thing after reality? Let us return to the other features of postmodernism: post-representation and postcreativity—and this in conjunction with your theme from which I deviated.5 A few questions arise—first, what do we represent: reality or the real thing after reality? Second, how do we represent mediated reality? Third, is not mediated reality postrepresentation? Before anything else we must explicate the sense of representation and post-representation. The Latin etymology of “representation” refers to a recreation of the presence (praesens is being in front, at hand). Handiness (Zuhandenheit) is another term coined by Heidegger. The question is how to recreate what is handy, i.e. the mentioned images, the sensorial and conceptual objects, which for us are real and make us real in the orientation of our lives in one or another direction. Are the mediated images that seem to haunt us directly as representations of reality at all handy? The point here is that handiness requires some distance, while representation demands recreation. In a subsequent question we shall investigate if, and to what extent, it is misrepresentation. In staying too close to a thing we cannot see; instead we notice some kind of flickering without shape or limit.6 For the Frankfurt School this is characteristic of mediated culture. In order to be handy, a thing has to have a sufficient distance, i.e. capable of disclosing the horizons of our activity. Here, we face the question of the thing’s representational handiness. First, it is the factor and arrow of our creative activity, second, it is our creation pervaded by our intentions. There is not, and cannot be, precise representational handiness since its most precise representation is imprecise, i.e. recreated and loaded in a way that it would fulfil and expand our aims. The same can be said about a mediated narration, e.g. a “good” film. Here, we may not understand everything, but we gain a sense that it is not understood, i.e. incommunicative. A film, especially a “good” one, is not representative in two senses: for one, the images selected in it create a narration illuminated by other colours than those in chaotic “reality”.7 Their narrative significations are their communicative aspect. On the other hand, they reveal the narration of our lives. If this is postmodernism, I disagree and prefer to refer to it as post-postmodernism. While a “good” film is only an example (handy object?), it opens the aesthetic question of communication. Although the communicative aesthetic appears only in examples and peripheries, having (no) compatibility with the narrative of our lives, it aims at the very heart of communication. (In)compatibility here is as much compatible and incompatible, compelling us to recreate the narrative of our lives. At this lowest aesthetic level appears a moment of post-creativity, sliding into metacommunication.

5 It

is slippery to speak of postmodernism. Q. 6, and partially Q. 10 and Q. 13, we investigated questions of ethics, arising in the context of the lack of limits. We shall return to communicative ethics later. 7 Surprisingly, in an aesthetic domain we come to cybernetic communication in which one concept is entropy. 6 In

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Question 75 A. M. If we reject “representation”, is it possible to speak of “misrepresentation”? How does this question involve the issue of “political correctness”? T. K. We touched lightly on the question of different conceptions of truth and truthfulness in Q. 65 and Q. 72. The question of error is related to truthfulness. Fallacy is reverse truthfulness or at least its absence. The very variety of conceptions calls for reflection: if the assumptions of truthfulness like the axioms of different geometries8 are so varied (incommensurable), how can we speak of a priori truthfulness9 or a fallacy, which deviates from or lacks truthfulness? If there is no one “true” representation by which one could determine the errors of other representations, i.e. their greater or lesser deviation from it, how is it possible to speak of misrepresentation? In an earlier question we argued that our reality is made up of various migrated and covered “reals” and “handiness” which finally create us, constantly emerging out of some “true” harmony toward an amorphous domain of identity. In view of this conception of creative truth, misrepresentation is one that emerges in an established, changeless “traditional” environment, i.e. a generally accepted opinion of “wisdom”. It seems that truth and falsehood reverse themselves. This is one more argument for the relativity of truthfulness and its negative—falseness. Notwithstanding, granting the approach to differences of truthfulness, we cannot eliminate the question of falsehood. On the contrary, it becomes more and more acute in the political domain. In other words, truthfulness becomes a matter for politicians who wish to create a new society. Truthfulness does not so much reside under the mantles of judges, as much as it is proliferated somewhere on a political horizon. Truthfulness is not possessed, but created. The paradox is that historically speaking the exposers of the possessors of truth operated mainly with the conception of “false consciousness.” In accordance with Marxists, false representation presupposes false consciousness. It is only possible to establish true representation through overtly political means—revolutionary or evolutionary.10 Yet, political means are violent, not only toward a minority but also toward the less combative majority. The examples of various nations (not only the former Soviet Union) show that the correction of “false” representation results in extreme distortion of the mirrors of “reality.” What transforms this representation? We suspect that it is its relocation into the political area or the use of force to establish “true” representation. Thus, the three moments are inseparable and grow out of each other. Influenced by the Marxian view the critical school speaks of “hyperreality” (Baudrillard 2016) being more real than reality, without proposing its violent political purification.

8 The

different geometries of Euclid, Lobochevsky, Rieman. with Kant’s synthetic a priori judgments designed to save the sciences from the scepticism of Hume. 10 To recall the forerunner of Marx, Hegel: if facts do not correspond to reality, too bad for the facts. 9 Compared

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Although a criticism of representation assumes a variety of realities of vision and thinking, reality is most distorted by efforts to impose on it one or another political view. Paradoxically, the truthfulness of the representation of reality is the plethora of views and even opposing realities. A pre-eminence of one representation is most detrimental to reality itself which, incapable of withstanding such politicizing, scatters as the bones of the witch in a Lithuanian story.11 This is the revenge against the violators of the bewitched reality. The shining reality, scattered here and there, no longer has a place or time, and this is attested by the fairy tale, totalitarian reality, appearing both everywhere and nowhere. Let us return to political correctness, which can have a dual interpretation. First, there is the notion of various, even opposed, views of reality. Second, it presupposes the identity of minorities, different from the majority. In general, the concept of “correctness” originates with the Latin adjective correctus, and the latter from the active verb, corrigere, to straighten. The question is whether it is possible to straighten an opinion, position or a view. What is the basis for a wish to straighten—if not a conviction that there can be one representation of reality? Does the notion of one reality and one representation lead to a totalitarian position? Here, the concept of political correctness of the closing decades of the twentieth century appears to be quite contradictory. Of course, the question of political correctness and (true) representation are inseparable. We should therefore speak of political correctness as political—it is only possible to straighten a view and thus to straighten different views into one.

References Baudrillard, Jean. 2016. Symbolic Exchange and Death. Trans. I. H. Grant. London: Sage. Benjamin, Walter. 1969. Illuminations. Trans. H. Zohn. New York: Schocken Books. Heidegger, Martin. 1996. Being and Time. Trans. J. Stambough. New York: State University of New York. Lévinas, Emmanuel. 1979. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Trans. A. Lingis. Hague/Boston/London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Mickunas, Algis, and David Stewart. 1990. Exploring Phenomenology. Athens: Ohio University Press. Mills, Wright C. 1957. The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press. Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1984. Being and Nothingness. Trans. H. E. Barnes. New York: Washington Square Press.

11 In

this fairy tale, a brother returns from war and scatters the bones of a witch who tortured his sister and dog, across the entire winter; here and there they shine on the snow.

Chapter 12

Bodyness in the Environment of Media

Question 76 A. M. Although phenomenology has explicated all dimensions of corporeity, much has been written in communication about the communicating body. How, then, do contemporary theorists speak about the communicating body? T. K. To answer your question I shall return to the communication schools we discussed in Q. 51 and their understanding of the role of the communicative body. Quite clearly, different schools regard “body” in ways that are different to how it is understood by reference to phenomenology, since each of these schools has different aims, views and methods. Of course, in phenomenology all such views converge. After what has been said about the incommensurability of different schools of communication we need not be surprised that they regard body very differently and at times from radically opposed perspectives. I shall offer only an overview reflecting not so much a view of one or another representative, but a general position of a school and its aims. In the rhetorical school, body and bodily gestures affirm the transmitted message, however, that body often reveals the opposite to the intended message. In other words, body becomes the means of rhetorical message or even its falsification. The greatest enemy of the Sophists is not Socrates, but their own body, which speaks in opposition to their message. This can be said of contemporary politicians. Thus, it is surprising that many of the representatives of the rhetorical school, beginning with Aristotle, devote so little to corporeity and what it has to say during a rhetorical presentation. On the other hand, this can be regarded as the naïve reservation of rhetoricians concerning their “falsity” in attempts to sway the crowd and conceal some “truth” about matters in question Clearly, body language could be said to be an island of truth in a hypocritical “dialogue” with the crowd.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 T. Kaˇcerauskas and A. Mick¯unas, In Between Communication Theories Through One Hundred Questions, Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41106-0_12

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The semiotic school appeals as much to bodily sense as to bodies of senses. Layered meanings inevitably comprise knots or bodies that cover (or to the contrary, signify) the horizon of understanding. Meaningful bodies must manage the knots. Really, there are no other bodies apart from meaningful ones—women and men, youth and aged, white, black, aggressive and passive, rich and poor, moral and sinful, the good and the scoundrel. All of them, of necessity arranged in contrasts, have a meaning. The cybernetic school is concerned not only with organic, but also artificial bodies. It is also concerned with the interface between natural and artificial bodies. On the other hand, it regards the interface between human and machine as one system, endangered by entropy. Corporeity is a synonym for a system as well as a perspective of “mortality” of any system. The paradox appears in that the weakest link of the dual body man-machine is the former, while the second is created as a replacement and extension of the first. The tragedy of the cyborg is not that he is already a machine, but that he is still a man with a body. The sociocultural school addresses our body in terms of the social as well as cultural environment. A naked body without a sociocultural attire may shock and lead to misunderstanding, which is why it must be adorned with graffiti and pierced by earrings. The latter must not only pierce the ears, nose or tongue, but also the female labia, in order not to leave the body naked even at the most intimate moment. Adorned with inscriptions and piercings, the body testifies not only about its bearer, but also about social and cultural background. Such inscriptions and piercings mark the return to a ritualistic culture, signifying the cyclical nature of society. It is possible to speak of the urban body, which abhors nakedness and is constantly adorned, to paraphrase Baudrillard (1989), with graffiti. In general, eroticism is a significant dimension of corporeity. I shall speak about it once again in the context of the feminine school. The least erotic body is completely naked, and unclothed by any cultural attire. In short, the least erotic is pornography. In contrast, covering by cultural attire creates erotic tension, which increases with contact between different and distant societies and their representatives. Bodies must be sufficiently different and even contrasting to increase erotic tension. This is why war is so erotic. But since you, Algis, wrote a book on this subject, you could say much more (Mickunas 2010). The socio-psychological school encounters a contrast that stems from different premises and methods applied to sociology and psychology. At the technical level the nature of its research is both open (field) and closed (laboratory). In communication this means the relationship of both individuals in a community and its impact on individuals. With respect to corporeity, this contrast increases. In psychology it finds expression in the individual psyche despite being open to others, including the collective consciousness (Jung 1991). In sociology, body is the inter-personal, besides which there is a social body, with a variant as a political body. Yet, this contrast and tension is necessary and a condition for corporeal communication with its dual basis. In other words, the question of corporeity in social psychology not only clarifies communicative dualism, but also points to metacommunication. Let us consider the phenomenological view of corporeity. Here, I would prefer not to speak because in both cases (in phenomenological researches, and in questions

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of corporeity) you are an authority. For Heidegger, body means a knot of worldliness and temporality. On the other hand, the regions of temporal being in the world are thing-ness and idle-talk-ness. Thus, worldliness, corporeity, thing-ness and speaking comprise a communicative “body” in being. Since autonomy of its parts is a condition for our communicative environment with its spaciousness and our openness, the communicative environment is not confined to the linguistic. The same can be said about understanding that requires another [referred to as attunement (Befindlichkeit)] as a dimension of corporeity. The critical tradition has consequences within the Frankfurt School—critical with respect to body fetishism as well as with the social dominance of bodies. While the youthful body cult has consequences in antiquity (to recall Greek kouros), in contemporary mediated culture it acquired a dominant status. This is most evident in the Western ageing and corpulent (in various senses, com. Baudrillard 2016) societies where the “beautiful” body of a youth becomes a negative rather than a positive. Here, we can direct criticism against the standard of beauty, just as much as its disattachment from reality for which efforts to approximate utopia become more difficult with ever-increasing dis-attachment. It seems that in contemporary mediated culture two opposing tendencies become clear: the glorification of the body in the form of a lean youth, and the rejection of such a body in reality when it becomes an unreachable ideal. On the other hand, plastic surgeons assume responsibility for creating an ideal (utopian) body in ways that would not have been possible a short while ago. Is this nothing less than the return of industrial standards in a post-industrial community, signifying post-creativity? What we cannot create, let us manufacture, bringing to life convertible and imitational tendencies so that walking our city streets we have zombies created by surgeons in conveyor belt fashion. They are overly beautiful and overly proper to be real. Thus, investigating the theme of body we arrive at the question of representation and reality. The theme of corporeity is also significant to some of the peripheral schools, such as biological, feminist, and entertainment, etc. For example, the biological school pays attention to the “natural” communication of which one aspect is bodily language. Nonetheless, the testimony and explanation of body is inseparable from a cultural and social environment. The feminist school derives from the inequality of sexes and in exploring sexual differences exhibits a plethora of the communicative, including for example the erotic, and the nuanced. Entertainment communication is about more than just bodily entertainment. In contrast, from Epicurean (1994) times joyous entertainment is not physical, but mental. Obviously, different schools regard the role of the communicative body in different ways. Yet, in all of them, including the critical, the emphasis is on the role of the body. In many cases, there is a discussion about a separate type of communication—bodily language, which is more innate and “truthful” than linguistic. Besides, the attention to the body and its role changes or supplements the conception of truthfulness as well as of communication. Corporeity indicates the primary level of our being, which “never lies.” If this is the case, then it is possible to speak of the deficiency of truthfulness, which cannot be separated when corporeity is ignored. One open question concerning the relationship of corporeity with thing-ness (states of affairs), is that the latter

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testifies “without lying.” Yet, things acquire meaning through our notions of aims and memories. Things are appropriate insofar as they change our aims and lead us to act otherwise, which means that corporeity and thing-ness are aspects of our creativity. Here, “truthfulness” is far removed from the correspondence of thought with things. And this is not because they are incomparable, i.e. not communicative each with respect to the other. To the contrary, things themselves “betray” their reality as things by becoming handy for us, speaking about our creative aims. Question 77 A. M. What problems emerge in the face of a dual language, having “body” and “interiority”? This theme has numerous variants, including the difference of “subject/object” and body/soul. T. K. The division of subject/object, and body/soul are not only psychological, and attempts to manage this difference are present in philosophy, e.g. in epistemology and phenomenology. To speak historically, philosophy is the mother of sciences, including communication, to lesser and greater degree, has launched all other sciences. The same can be said of the first treatise on psychology written by Aristotle (2017). In this treatise the discussion concerns the triple structure of the soul. Being beyond body, this triple composition is an inheritance from Plato. In the philosophies of both, the soul is a principle of movement. It is interesting that a body exists only insofar as it can move. This means that the soul is a meta-function of a moving body. In other words, the soul is not thinkable without a body and conversely, confirming the Platonic view not only do plants have a soul, but also the cosmos. Moreover, all three aspects of the soul (the vegetative, animal and human) are totally intertwined, the higher soul encompassing the lower. Thus, it is hardly possible to speak of the dualism of soul and body, living and human. Such a division appears later with the emergence of Christianity, although with such a division there appears a question of communication between them. Let us reverse the Platonic position held by Aristotle and his followers and suppose that the soul (or so called psyche) is not so much a source of movement as of communication. In Q. 76 we claimed that the body speaks in its own way and often more authentically than language, and is most likely impacted by cultural and political positions and the media of communication. This brings us to the question concerning the relationship between bodily and linguistic communication. We speak of cultural and political bodies that “betray” themselves and require interpretation (communication). On the one hand, meta-corporeity is coextensive with communication, whereas metacommunication folds into corporeity. Hence, the idea of communication appears with the separation between bodies as well as between body and soul. In phenomenology, including phenomenological communication, there are specific changes. First, there is an avoidance of the division between subject and object. The subject is intentional and its object (or a world as a whole of them) is open.

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The subject is not only thrown into the world (Heidegger), from which it cannot be separated, but frequently speaks to it and its objects. Thus, its worldliness is equally its linguistic being. Second, according to Heidegger, objects, i.e. bodies or things, are factors of the subject or, more precisely, of the existing being (Seiende). That is why in existential phenomenology they are referred to as ‘handy’. Things are handy also in a communicative sense because they provoke us to speak of them as the environment of our existence, including mediated environment. The fact that such speaking is usually idle talk (Gerede) does not diminish its communication. To the contrary, idle talk is an important aspect of communication; it does not diminish communication in a specific environment, but allows us to emerge in such an environment. In this sense, idle-talk-ness and thing-ness correspond to each other, even if they are phenomena at different levels. Here, we encounter a division in a very different way: an individual rises above its environment both, as being formed by it, and as a negation of it. Thus, the division between an individual (as subject?) and its environment (as object?) does not disappear in phenomenology, although it is necessary to articulate their interaction, one level of which is language. Our environment is also linguistic and our speaking lifts us out of that environment. Is this a problem of language, as you claim? We can reply in the affirmative and negative. Language only “represents” a reality, including division into subject and object, yet representation is already a realization as we discussed in Q. 74 and Q. 75. One more thing, the need for representation arises when there is a division between the represented and representing. Together, this is an interaction between the active and the passive,1 and without this separation there is no longer any need for representation or communication. Besides, activity and passivity in communication is another theme, suggesting the passivity of the recipient, and the activity of the transmitter, which suggests something further—passion and suffering in communication. This can result due to a lack of communication and/or an overabundance, which is prevalent in our communicative (mediated) community. Very often we become mute (passive), overwhelmed by the activity of the communicative environment, and encounter the reversal of roles: the environment is active, while its heroes are passive. Given this, we are speaking of contra-communication with its silence and passivity. This silent speaking is characteristic of conscience which is deemed to be “inside”. Thus, our “interiority” is quietly speaking by reacting to the noisy encounter of the body with the environment and its bodies. This silent communication proceeds in contrary direction of the noisy one and despite it. Horror is another example of silent communication, one aspect of which is the fear of death. In what seems like a physiological instinct, horror imprisons the tools of our language.2 Yet, the fear of death is also a fear of the impossibility of communication. Silent communication is no less influential in revealing the limits of communication. It is equally important to point out that when speaking of limits the question of body is never absent. To the contrary, the limited body compels us to concentrate against both, the coming break in communication and its infinity beyond us. The 1 Other 2 Let

names for “subject” and “object”. us recall our discussion about physiology in Q. 64.

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limited body is also a condition that compels us to create its extensions in our futile efforts to extricate ourselves from an uncomfortable situation.3 The communication with other-worldly beings investigated by Peters (1999) is an effort to overcome the horror of our limits. Once again, we encounter metacommunication, although this is not a communication with other-worldly beings, but a conversation about the worldly consequences of communication and its impact on ourselves and our surroundings. In other words, there is no greater need to communicate with bodiless beings than our corporeity. This type of communication stems from the body and the body limitations of community. On the other hand, any other-worldly answer is designed for our bodies which see, hear, smell, touch and taste in order to discover signals. Question 78 A. M. Corporeal communication raises the question: does a body communicate “naturally” or does it act in response to cultural requirements? In Lithuania, we talk a great deal about the ways men and women “wear” their bodies. T. K. We continue our discussion about body and bodily communication. In Q. 76, we saw that the body does not lie, but through communication “betrays” itself. We have seen that another bodily behaviour is culturally determined; hence the gestures and reactions of a body are due to our cultural environment in which we learn how to control our body. This begs the question: is controlling the body a denaturalization, or enculturation? Or perhaps corporeal communication does not flow from a body but from the cultural environment in which it is formed? Wider still is the question whether and how a body speaks about our nature? The most general question of all is what is the relationship between nature and culture? Frankly, I have no answer to any of these questions. I think that our purpose is to discuss various questions of communication as the best way to communicate about the issues and not to offer definite, and possibly limiting, answers. Let us start with the last question, the most general, which at first glance might not appear to be about communication. Nonetheless, we drew closer to it while investigating one of the most natural and thus minimal forms of communication, bodily communication. In other words, the practice of bodily communication opens a meta-problem which far exceeds all questions of communication. Having said that, the phenomenon of communication is not separate, and must be studied in the broader context of cultural studies rather than from the standpoint of just one sociocultural tradition. Let us return to the most general question. First, we cannot speak of culture without nature. Culture is delimited in opposition to nature. In this sense, culture cannot get away without nature. Second, the tendency to enculturate reveals a kind of racism with respect to nature. The matter is that the body is an island in the ocean of culture and arises as a holder of culture. Communication is one aspect of being 3 Com.

McLuhan (1964)—media as extension of our bodies.

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a holder. In this sense, body reveals not so much nature as culture in which it is thrown. Despite the fact that animals and even plants “commune”, nature in itself is mute. Thus, communication belongs to the holders and transmitters of culture and is nothing other than the transmission of culture. In the case of the opposite where we encounter the lack and disruption of communication, a deficit is an important aspect of (non)communication. The relationship between communication and noncommunication is analogous to the relationship between culture and non-culture (nature). Necessary for communication and culture is their bracketing, which allows them to speak anew and differently. In this way, there is a confrontation between phenomenology and sociocultural traditions. Hence, does this mean that bodies do not speak about our nature? We can answer in the positive and the negative. Communication is the transmission of culture, not only of messages—more precisely, the exchange of news in a common culture, a type of hermeneutical circle. A common culture allows the spread of news, which serves to make common its environment. If cultural differences are too great, then news is blocked which then begins to flow in less than positive channels, creating grounds for sub-cultures and alternative cultures with their protective and promoted “programs”. Finally, this creates new groups of bodily identities, which inevitably are cultural. Any speaking about something innate is to be regarded not as much as communication, which cannot be delimited from cultural environment, as its disruption. Yet, disruption is an important aspect of communication, grounding various branchings and deviations of news channels. Bodily speaking can be regarded as counter-communication, which irritates the protagonists of “straight” culture. Earlier we mentioned “straight” politics which does not mean that the intentions of its perpetrators are “straight.” To the contrary, it is rather a political effort to standardize and homogenize, which is being disrupted by the “betrayal” of corporeal otherness’ communication. The more a body is culturally engaged, the more it speaks in a cultural language and becomes more “loyal”, less disruptive, and less empowered to redirect the “straight” communication. Perhaps what we need most is a “deviant” communication? The paradox shows up with the efforts at deculturation (nudist movements, anti-vax, home birthing or boycotting the sale of furs), is a specific cultural fashion. Many would agree that the feminist movement is a rebellion by women (or as you, Algis, would say wearers of women’s bodies) against male dominated (phallic) culture. Yet, in feminist discourse (Butler 1990; Irigaray 1985) the view was presented that femininity and masculinity are not so much bodily, as cultural categories. If this is the case, then there is only a clash of different cultures with an attendant battle of communication. In other words, the second and third generation feminist discourse moves to a cultural “underground” in confrontation with gender (bodily) differences. It is interesting that here the so-called masculine culture is passive, needing to be “impregnated” by the active (attacking) feminist front. This shows an exchange of roles. Besides, the roles are changed even at a corporeal level: transvestism as a cultural affront against bodies and their differences. This also reflects a relentless effort to conquer natural separations in a culture, leading to equalization and assimilation.

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There emerges a longing for undisrupted communication which is stronger in the face of the proliferation of divergent and deviant channels of communication. Nonetheless, “nature” takes its revenge for being ignored or enculturated with all kinds of physical incapacities or dysfunctions. The body is nature’s micro-plan. In the macro-plan (not to be confused with meta-plan) hurricanes and storms resist cultural invasions. In both micro and macro plans ecology emerges as a limit to culturation, although ecology is also a cultural trend. Ecology testifies to the common home (oikos) of culture and nature. There is no question as to who is the master of this home. Speaking of ecological communication, it would be well if its content was the limits of communication and not a question of master, entwined in the media world. Question 79 A. M. What images in mass media programs (e.g. on TV) reveal the latest body styles? T. K. Of screens, and not only TV screens, and their reality we shall speak in the main text or in footnotes. Your question is not about such media, but about the relationship between an image, corporeity, style and fashion. We have already spoken about images in Q. 51 and Q. 60, about style in Q. 69 and Q. 74, and about fashion in Q. 71, Q. 73 and Q. 78. We spoke about body in the latter questions and—I hope—we shall continue in the following questions. Algis, I must say that your question is more encompassing, even if it touches upon the corporeal. It seems that further discussion must expand the thought that mass media contains images, satisfying the expectations of the “masses,” and that the latter are formed by such images. This looks like one more argument for uniformity and equalization. This example questions this model which is embraced by Bourdieu (2011) as well as thinkers before him (including Plato 1980). Additional themes include body, style and even fashion. Until now we have not mentioned the paradox of fashion which encompasses two opposing tendencies. On the one hand, fashion invites the masses to follow and make uniform what is different in their individual bodies. On the other hand, fashion compels society to change, even at an artificial corporeal level. As you said, to have or be the “latest” is of great concern. To be the “latest” includes setting oneself on the path to identity although being the “latest” does not assure a unique identity. As mentioned, fashion modes enhance social cohesion in conjunction with social capital. Yet, creative (individual) identity and social adherence are two different and even separate things—even if they interact. Let us go back to the “latest” bodily styles. Just like any other concept “style” has a history of its use (communication). Let us consider the following. First, in antiquity, it was an implement used to inscribe words in wax on tablets, and these can be called the media of antiquity, which served the transmission of news and

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means of cultivation. Second, “style” became a paradigm of the new aesthetics4 which changed the image of traditional, sensory (aisthesis) interpretation. Third, “style” is often used as a synonym for change and impermanence. Style is what can and must be changed. While speaking of a life style, it is the opposite of a stable way of life. On the other hand, to accommodate to a constantly shifting, postmodern reality, it is necessary to keep changing styles. Thus, fourth, style is a strategy for survival (survival of a body?). So far so good, but keeping in mind the etymology of style as a means of writing, let us inquire how the body is inscribed in the mediated environment. Is the body (but not clothes) also a matter of fashion and style; are media the new clothing of the body, requiring a constant change; how is inscription and imaging related? These questions are provocative and I shall not attempt to answer them apart from reflecting about them in a circuitous way. Besides, there remains a question, how a body inscribing itself into a mediated environment, disrupts the rating complex described by Plato/Bourdieu, which presupposes a communicative circle: media exploits the most pervasive styles which it itself formulates. Here, we must rely on examples which we could describe phenomenologically, or in some other way (rhetorically, cybernetically, culturally, socially, psychologically, critically, feministically). Perhaps such description allows an inscription into the mentioned circle—which most likely will expand (meta-level?) due to our descriptive practice. At any rate, I would still like to speak not so much about TV but about film examples. Of course, TV production seems to illustrate the transience of style, the examples should be more or less impressive.5 Besides, TV is “broader” than the cinematic medium. Any film can be shown of television, although not the opposite. Of course, very few films are attractive for TV. Is the disability of this “can” that what constitutes the separation between “hot” TV and “cool” cinema, as seen by McLuhan6 (1964). What comes to the fore first while reflecting on corporeal inscription is Greenaway’s (1996) film Pillow Book. I have already discussed this film (Kaˇcerauskas 2008) in another context and it is already a faded example. Thus, let us appeal to a more recent film7 by Lars von Trier, Nymphomaniac. This film contains numerous corporeal inscriptions. First, a woman with specific (nymphomaniac) tendencies 4 This transformation was established in the middle decades of the eighteenth century by a theoreti-

cian of style, Winckelman (2006). In his aesthetic treatise Kant (1951) used the concept of aesthetics in a traditional sense. His revolution, associated with the transformation of epistemological canon, also impacted on aesthetics. Nonetheless, Kant’s a priori synthetic judgments mark an opposite tendency with respect to the concept of style. The former seeks a secure and stable anchor in pure reason, while the latter appeals to plurality and relativity. 5 Is impression a case of inscription, or does the opposite apply, i.e. inscription is a way of forgetting? See Plato’s Phaedrus (1997), where we find mention of the damage to memory by writing—one of the first media. The paradox is that inscription in media is the deletion of memory. 6 “Hotness” and “coolness” signify not only the degree of involvement (inscription) but also of transient-ness (forget-ness). Despite this apparent kinship of the media, the different degrees (we might call them the degrees of mediated-ness) make them inconsistent or contradict. Once again, consider Plato and his different degrees of being and his reference to sensual reality and ideas. 7 Degrees of newer or older are important when we speak of media phenomena, but are unimportant when we speak about philosophical ideas or artistic creations. Film is as much a creation of media

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attempts to fit in with a socially constituted environment in which her body was formed—but to no avail. Second, men inscribe in her body her history, hopelessly attempting to play in her a major role. Third, it is a man who enters woman’s history, i.e. forms (inscribes) it, and yet he falls inevitably into a formless (bodily) darkness, and remains in the margins of this history. Fourth, corporeal withholding (rejection of inscription) reaches a limit at the greatest bodily satisfaction, and with a total (not only corporeal) pain. Fifth, the style of the woman’s life is intertwined with the changes of male inscriptions. Sixth, expecting bodyness is what lifts this body toward ecstasy in the intertwining of three temporal dimensions. Seventh, individual recounting inscribes itself into the cultural history of humanity, which is also the erotic history. Eighth, the pistol either shoots or fails, as if it were a manly “style” impacted by the story’s whims. Ninth, action is “inscribed” in narration. Tenth, it is necessary to shake off all traces of story, including man as an inscriber, and return to darkness. All the senses of inscription open up the theme of corporeity. Nymphomaniac is the study of inscribing and the inscribed woman’s body—a product of media and a popular film available in movie theatres, Internet and on TV. After what was said briefly about this example, can we claim that media production is merely an inscription into an average and uniform environment? Perhaps it is more a film about a banal effort for a body to inscribe itself into a mediated environment, which does not accept it as different and disruptive. Style is as much an inscription as a means of its impossibility. We shall return to this topic later. Question 80 A. M. How can we speak of inter-corporeity; specifically if women’s and men’s “worn” bodies are different in a culture? T. K. The difference is not only between men and women, but also between the bodies of children and grownups, the capable and incapable, “normal” and “abnormal.” In truth, there are no same bodies as there are no same oak leaves. Thus, a corporeal communication is of different kind and in a different bodily world. I submit that there is nothing more important in communication as bodily differences and this is best illustrated by the differences between male and female bodies. What is important in this context is not only the erotic tension (attraction and repulsion) between different sexual bodies, but even their very difference. This would direct us to Lévinas who raised the question both of otherness and eroticism. The latter is important not as much as association between women and men, as about an exceptional communication. An erotic relationship, appearing as one out of a thousand cases in relationship between women and men is rather an exception than the rule. Besides, erotic tension shows up not only between women and men but also between members of the same sex. as is art. This domain and the syncretic position of film (totality of art), make it multi faceted, and is yet another reason to speak of film, and not TV.

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Nonetheless, the most important aspect is otherness. Exception-ness and otherness seem to oppose one more inter-corporeal feature, the home, which is also oppositional. Home is another “face” (Lévinas) of exception; in love, we think of only one individual with whom we desire to live in one home, despite, or perhaps because of otherness which is not only corporeal. In fact, home is built on oppositions, the majority of which is a domain between exception and routine. Home with only one desired individual is exceptional, but also daily and routine. The question is whether routine is not a characteristic of eroticism (in a common sense of communication). Hence, the discussion here is not so much and not only about physical home (“bodies”), but about what compels one to come back. Exception-ness is correlative with outstanding-ness, of which we spoke on other occasions (Q. 51, Q. 59, Q. 71), yet they are different phenomena. Despite corporeal differences there is a tendency in our mediated culture toward uniformity. Responsibility rests not only with fashion; the latter is possible because uniformity and being average is a social requirement. Similar look, similar thinking and language are marks of social commonality and are warrantors of security. Yet, to speak historically, fashion served to emphasize the separation and outstanding-ness of certain classes which was only possible with the background of equal bodies. On the one hand, the colourful élite—as a subject of fashion—was in opposition to the homogenized masses, whereas the élite aspired to achieve a look with the most outstanding members as the media of fashion. In this way we can approach another phenomenon—stardom—which is nothing new in today’s culture. A “star” seeks to appeal to the masses, whereas the masses want to look like the “star”, at least artificially (bodily8 ). We see a dual medium at work which becomes a part of entertainment industry—just to recall festivals after the death of Elvis Presley in which young men dressed themselves as Elvis lookalikes. It is fair to say that the entertainment industry with its function of amassing social capital is oriented toward the homogenized users of entertainment. As a result entertainment disregards differences between the sexes, but there is also a clear tendency where sexual differences are exploited. Up to a point bodily differences do not usually interfere, but rather enhance communication. The homogenized environment and its identical agents (a common currency), add to the speed of information exchange, however homogenization and similarity are threats to communication. The price of such a system is its closure: the protection of communication calls for the introduction of levels of differences. I am speaking not only of the entropy of a closed system exploited by the cybernetic school. In one sense this system is global and thus open to the “world” of communication. Even more, its levels of differences are determined by its global reach. Global brands serve as a good example of how they play a levelling role to assimilate culture and subordinate it to meet their commercial interest. Thus, the cultural environment is homogenized as it becomes exclusively economical. In other words, the master of oikos becomes economy, which expelled its twin, ecology. The latter is rather like the 8 Of

course, for the most part bodies are not similar, whereas individuals are similar not because of their different bodies (their natures), but despite them. Thus, the external similarities are cultural.

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mad twin who competes and disrupts the economy. If the containment of globalism is a strategy of enclosure and demarcation the opposite is true: it disrupts similarity and uniformity. Local “non-communicative” phenomena disrupt globalism and the “overloading” of communication systems. Let us return to the question of corporeity which we never left in our previous discussion of the global and local communicative body. It is possible to speak of a global—feminine—communicative body, which is impregnated by a local9 male.10 The development of communication is the result of this relationship. The paradox is that the discourse about communication (metacommunication) is led by the question of corporeity. In other words, daily experience discloses a meta-discourse. Question 81 Merleau-Ponty claimed that bodies, as political, disclose class differences. Can we separate bodies “worn” by classes and culturally stylized bodies? T. K. We spoke of classes in the context of fashion (Q. 80). We cannot assume that classes in our everyday world have disappeared. Examples abound, including business or the “first” class in planes and trains, the renaissance of aristocratic clubs in certain countries, and the cults of royal families untouched by revolutions. It is also evident in the gap between the tiny faction of rich people and the mass of people who constitute the impoverished. The rich need to be pampered with “exceptional” products and exclusive outlets, the use of such products being a clear sign of belonging to a privileged class. Let us suppose that the so-called “American dream” (the ability to become rich though not necessarily in USA) could be achieved regardless of class. Of itself, it destroyed class so that today riches have become concentrated in a narrow 9 It is possible to add creative communication to the local communicative body. In a narrower sense

an artist, and in a broader sense a creator, proliferate novel, unique knowledge that constantly disrupts and mocks global knowledge that, in this way, becomes “overloaded.” We can say this not only about most famous artworks, but also of scientific and technical inventions and theories of management. This is why we speak not only of social news, but also of the ignorant population. By transmitting creative news we disturb the entire communicative body, which must construct a different knowledge. For example, a novel scientific theory that not only incorporates new data about “reality”, but also regards them in a different light. New communication is a transformation of seeing as well as of thinking. 10 Yet, this image also presupposes the exchange of roles: feminine is the expansive, pervasive, formless, and can become an easy target for the fast, little and purposive male. This image fits the microscopical impregnation of an ovary by a sperm. The question arises concerning the optical instrumentality by which we see a body domain, which is hidden from us: thus, what sees this dimension—us or our implements? Here, we discover relationships, firstly with the cave of Plato and “reality” on its wall, second, with various screens (TV, computer, telephone) by which we get acquainted with our “reality”. What does it mean to see reality? Is the latter only what is seen, i.e. bodily? It is not by chance that our questions as to where small, fast, and not expansive and pervasive bodies appear, inform these footnotes. Nonetheless, ontological questions encountered by “chance” are important for communication. We also “see” them, whether large or small as a basic text and conclusions.

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social segment and are sign of a new class. Thus, the “American dream” is a rather hazy memory of the “good old days”; as it recedes into the past the more difficult it is to recall, such that the riches and the rights that attach to them became privatized by the class of the “most shifty”.11 Disrupting this tendency is some Johnny-come-lately who offers a new product eagerly awaited by everyone. Even if they have never heard of it this allows Johnny to attach himself to the body of “shifties”. Clearly, we are speaking of the creative class (Florida 2002) primarily because like never before social groups compete for influence, wealth and government, although social groups mix and thus lose their limits. For example, the creative class includes a diversity of people from artists through engineers, to business12 and is so amorphous that there is doubt about its “reality”. Its criterion could be political with its militaristic and perspectival aspect. In this way, we return to the theme discussed in Q. 60 and Q. 65 from the other side. As for your question, we should turn to the texts of Merleau-Ponty (1962, 1969) which cleave to Marxism in two ways in that they continue the critical line of Marxism, but also criticize Marxism. This position can be called post-Marxian, related to post-modernism and with the other “posts” (e.g. there are discussions of postindustrial and even on post-communicative society). Although these concepts adhere to the critical school, Merleau-Ponty, as any other outstanding thinker, cannot easily be identified with one or another tradition. In general, outstanding thinkers create their own schools. In this case, it is possible to speak of one more tradition of corporeal communication, which relates to the school of corporeal phenomenology, proliferated by you and Merleau-Ponty. Let us consider one more case of perspectivism: the conjunction of the critical and phenomenological schools of communication which open a new direction for corporeal communication. Merleau-Ponty speaks ironically and critically about perspectivism. According to him, the accord between governments is possible only in case of war (1969), while revolution is based on a judgment of what is not there as true reality. The proletarian revolution’s purpose is not humanism, value, accord, morality, but the possibilities of the proletariat, i.e. its perspective. On the other hand, the perspective of the proletariat is very limited because it can only choose dictatorship, force and terror. These are unavoidable because it is the only rational way of

11 See

Kaˇcerauskas (2014) regarding whether there is a law of sustainability of richness? If so, then it is a strong argument for revolutionaries who insist that we divide everything equally. Yet, the economic development of society reveals something else, i.e. once profitable areas lose their market in a community that has acquired new needs, which are “created”. Conversely, the proliferation of technologies and the demand they create become new “gold mines” for creators of new products (Microsoft, Facebook). Thus, a paradox: seeking by revolution for “social justice”, the road to social and economic development is closed, leading to the impoverishment of society. In other words, the distribution “equally to everyone”, takes away from some, but does not add to others, apart from making all “equally” impoverished. We could say there is no greater injustice than to “distribute to everyone equally”. In general, distribution is a quantitative, “mathematical” category, which hardly fits the quality belonging to society. 12 In accordance with Florida (2002).

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overcoming the contingent historical development.13 If this is the case, then a Marxian (proletarian) perspective narrows the social perspective. In truth, the proletariat is “common style, fact and value” (1969). With this in mind, we come to the question of body in its various forms. First, there is the political body and its extreme form—the “revolutionary” or proletarian body. Second, the international proletariat, like no other class, is the mass, the levelling or homogenizing body. This extends into the ideological and economic, forbidding their inclusion of other corporeal styles in a social environment. Besides, a body, on the way to communism, is merely a bearer of ideology. Paradoxically, in a materialistic and atheistic society, the body is devalued. Perhaps with the disappearance of the Marxian utopia this criticism is no longer relevant. Nonetheless, Marxian criticism and suspicion—what remain from this utopia—is applicable with respect to various societies. In reality, in so-called socialistic14 societies worshipping Marx was the least tolerant of Marxian criticism. Moreover, such criticism (Marxian or Frankfurt) is almost devoid of enthusiastic reflections including the economic15 discourse we encourage in the so-called creative industries. Let us consider the last part of your question and return to culturally and politically stylized bodies. Nothing homogenizes bodies as much as political fever. A style that is apolitical as with a life that is apolitical, is inconceivable. We politicize culture when we appeal to governmental “supported” and managed culture, and not our outstanding (singular) creativity. Given this position, the concept of style became reversed: it no longer marks an inscribed, noble phenomenon, but one of homogenization and uniformity. To this we can add politics and its twin, political economy, as well as culture and its twin, cultural politics. Finally, can the bodies “worn” by class be separated from culturally stylized bodies? You have noted very precisely that bodies are not the wearers of apparel, reflecting one or another class, but that classes wear bodies. In short, bodies testify to one or another class when their “possessors” cannot be neutral. Apparel may have become democratic, but this does not mean that it abolished classes. On the contrary, for example bland jeans highlight the existence of significant details such as the Swiss watch, diamond ring, and expensive brand shoes. The other extreme is the class of homeless, which increases with the increasing wealth of society, or the wealth of the élite. This class exhibits details that are so characteristic of its (unwelcome) style—a unique, unpleasant smell that cannot be separated from its “uncultivated” body.16 Thus, a style takes its revenge by restoring class boundaries which are both erased and empowered by politics, and this applies to the dominant politics of class homogenization, both proletarian and Nazi, despite the hidden or open (under the pretended 13 Merleau-Ponty

(1969) holds that choice is a different form of terror. more appropriate designation would be totalitarian. 15 Perhaps this is the only sense akin to Marxian discourse. This is the economic discourse, since our attention is directed toward the economic domain in the creative industries (Howkins 2013; Caves 2002). 16 The “class” of homeless people can be associated with the movement of the cynics of antiquity who lived in barrels and made love in the yards of temples. Of course, the élite class, including the political élite, requires as much the class of homeless-cynics, and conversely. 14 A

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openness, there are hidden agendas) intentions and characteristic of these politics which served to create new classes. Just as there cannot be an individual outside of politics, there is no such thing as a neutral being outside of class disclosed by stylized bodies. Neutrality is one more political concept. In the words of the Bolsheviks, “who is not with us, is against us”, reveals a class. Question 82 What role do images of the environment such as advertisements play in the formation of corporeal styles, and what affects such styles? T. K. You oblige me to speak of unfamiliar things. No matter, I shall do my best to keep to the narrow path followed by different schools of communication. I hope that this will allow us to develop the theme of metacommunication discussed at length in previous questions. We had an extensive discussion on the subject of advertisements in Q. 51, Q. 58, Q. 68 and Q. 72. Basically, we agreed that advertisement, which can be called democratic and (or) economic propaganda, has a limited influence, since our choices (and styles) are influenced by many other factors, including belonging to a new class. As mentioned in the previous question, it is classes and their stylistic agents that select us and not we who select them. The same applies to an advertisement, and specifically those capable of using (or cultivating) the style formed by a class. Nonetheless, capability is an extension, or to paraphrase McLuhan every medium is a technical extension. We came full circle, returning to the question of media and to an earlier question—are the ranks of class extended by a mediated society? At the same time, the question is about reality and its extension with the help of media (advertisement). Perhaps it is the opposite: media do not extend, but narrow reality? For example, a thousand friends in a social network (also medium), narrows down the domain of friendship to a few real friends with whom we tend to meet. Credit is the extension of our financial capacity, such that it enables the seemingly impossible—joining a dream class. However, credit does not so much extend, but rather limits individual possibility by “enslaving” that person to repay the loan. Our financial capacity is constricted, by channelling it to a narrow path for us to indulge in the purchase of commodities and/or experiences. This is one more (and not only economic) aspect of narrowing. Besides, credit involves one more class—debtors with a particular aroma which spreads from the body cultivated (i.e. stylized) by a new form of slavery. Quite often the class of well-to-do and that of the indebted coincide, so that an attempt to escape the latter through bankruptcy removes one from the former. At any rate, no one is left without a class, and the class of homeless beckons with open arms. Try as I might I cannot avoid presenting an alternative response to Q. 81 concerning the relationship between style and advertisement. If in selecting a lifestyle the influence of advertisement is limited, then what is its influence on style, and what is the influence of style on advertisement? Finally, what is the influence of style on

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our way of life? We ask these questions without defining what we mean by lifestyle, even if we discussed it earlier. I won’t attempt to delimit such concepts as “style” or even a concept of “communication”, but I think that either concept will make itself known if it is immersed in a given context. On the other hand, they must also appear beyond any context or in a meta-context, which they all signify. This does not imply that we are obliged to speak of some meta-style which is common to all styles. On the contrary, style is a daily and temporary product of media which might allow us to speak of metacommunication (dialogue about communication?). Thus, what is daily, temporary, mediated and produced is what allows a style to appear here and there without taking root in any soil. The influence of advertising on style is not limited because it is “immobile”, but because it is quite mobile, i.e. impacted by various factors, including the rules of life. If this is granted, then way of life and a lifestyle do not find themselves in opposition: the one is an aspect of the other and conversely. The immobile way of life, just as with “one-dimensional” (Marcuse 1991) communication,17 is related to a ghetto of seeing, thinking and existence. It can be said that it is without a style, and yet a lack of style could be the “cool” style, allowing us to speak of the influence on style by our very being. We should also discuss your question about groups and their styles. The latter is an attribute of groups as well as of individuals. Besides, a style is one sign that we belong to a group, and indeed, it is possible to speak of a stylized group as an “individual”. A style separates an individual from a group, or inscribes in the group an individual sign, whereas a style incorporates or inscribes an individual into a specific group. Moreover, a style is sanctioned only within a group. What comes to mind in discussing stylized bodies of groups is the existence of naked bodies in the work of the photographer, Tunick (2011), having a precedent in the film, Zabriskie Point, by Antonioni (1970). It seems that naked bodies have no style, and are merely raw material. It is interesting to note that neither in Tunick’s photography nor Antonioni’s movie, naked bodies are depicted as being completely naked. Rather, they are “dressed” by the surrounding background, by the storyline, or an artistic (cultural) idea.18 Similarly, in Nymphomaniac we find that the genitalia are “dressed” in three ways. There is so much “attire” i.e. cultural covers so that no room is left for pornography, which too can be regarded as an inscription (graphis19 ) although naked and lost, without a background. If we accept this to be the case, then the difference between the erotic and pornographic has parallels with nakedness and bareness. The latter is “ex-scribed” from artistic (broadly—creative) context. Thus, pornography ex-scribes whereas eros inscribes. To speak in McLuhan’s terms, pornography is cool but eros is hot. In other words, it incorporates in mentioned and excluded contexts. It is surprising that we returned to the erotic theme, which is not at all that surprising

17 An

example of this communication is propaganda. example, Antonioni’s film (1970) makes reference to rocks, car journeys and the hippie movement. A rock is a material resisting any inscription, however it is an inscription of a style of enduring age, which is why stone remains so attractive to artists of various periods. 19 Graphis is one more term for an implement of writing. 18 For

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since eros discloses what is beyond a group. Two persons in erotic tension are more than a group, while pornography can be related to the group. Thus, in a certain sense an advertisement is pornography since it makes us “bare” in the face of our desire to have a style without any context. Of course, there is no such style since we are inscribed in a group, even if such an inscription points beyond the group. The paradox of a group’s style is that it is no longer stylish since all members are uniformly stylish. A group can be stylish only as an individual, i.e. a unit in the context of a greater group. Let us not confuse stylishness with outstandingness. Question 83 A. M. What influence do mass media—TV programs, personalities, “stars” have in forming body styles, including an “appropriate look”? T. K. This is a very good question that concerns “appropriateness”, but is there appropriateness without quotation marks? “Appropriateness” is a way of designating a belonging to a group, which tends to exclude (“ex-scribe”) those who are not appropriate. Here, we encounter one more paradox: stylishness indicates a style, “the star,” which has alone achieved a right to an “inappropriate” style. For one, a style lends an individual their uniqueness, second, they are imitated as the most stylish member of a group whose style is regarded as “appropriate.” Thus, with a style we not only approximate ourselves to a group’s leader, but also inscribe ourselves into a group. In other words, (self-)styling enacts a social role which transgresses class barriers. This also relates to another meaning of appropriateness: although the most “inappropriate” disregards class barriers, they are conquered by the equalization of societies mediating style. On the other hand, it is the solely “appropriate” (selfstylizing). Stylizing should not be confused with outstandingness, because the former is a practice of being social, while the second is asocial. As mentioned, (self-)stylizing is an inscription into the ranks of media style, while exceptional action is self-exclusion from such a style by not recognizing its authority. Nonetheless, the exceptional, asocial and rejected20 can be acknowledged as social media, at present or after death, by which we stylize (ourselves). At times rejection and “ex-cription” becomes a cover

20 Florida (2002) speaks of the paradox of the marginalization when those who were marginal (from

“the garage”) appear in the midst of social development, dictating its tendencies or styles—such marginals, for example as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Besides, Florida points out the changes in look: those who wear spectacles (previously excluded) now find themselves stylish and ripe for imitation, even if one has no need for spectacles. Here, we have a case of visuality in various senses. First, glasses are an implement to extend vision. Second, inadequate physical sight (requiring glasses), means an insight into significant matters (paradigmatic blind philosophers figure). Third, the very stylizing is visual in two ways: we put on glasses not only to see, but also be seen as insightful. Surprisingly, stylizing intertwines with philosophical action. Of course, they were never separate, just as there was no separation between seeing and thinking. Besides, we claimed that the practice of communication and seeing surprisingly opens metacommunication.

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for revenge against the outstanding persons, transforming them only into criteria of (self)stylization and thus returning them “appropriately” to society. Stylishness is not just a reference to quotation marks, i.e. toward unreal being such as a “star.” First, the very being of a “star” can be unreal. A “star” can live in an immense bubble of illusion and pretence inflated by producers, directors and impresarios, and capable of exploding at any moment.21 Even in this case imitation of a “star” can be real, i.e. imitation as a way of life is no less real. Enamoured by the “stardom” of A. Schopenhauer, Nietzsche proselytized his concept of the will, leading to a unique postulation of will to power. In another example taken from pop culture, members of The Beatles started by imitating Presley22 until they developed their own way which others then imitated. Pop culture itself is an “image” in the sense that its products must be accessible, transmitted and imitated as much as possible. Pop culture creates a style by forming the image of the bodies of its consumers, but it is also an object of style. Herein we find a vicious circle where a style and pop culture form and interact with each other. Although a look is constantly imitated and easily formed it cannot be discarded, and neither should it be discarded. First, a look is not detachable from identity. Similarly, pop culture is inseparable from culture.23 Second, a look is what expresses identity just as culture expresses itself through pop culture. The latter is an element of cultural transformation without which stagnation would result. Yet, can we say that pop culture is an appropriate look for culture? We can speak of look (as well as appropriateness) by using quotation marks. “Look” is a demonstrated pose which aims to express a belonging to a social group, even if it is marginal, critical or even vanishing. The paradox is: the smaller the group (more “élite”) the more the pose is emphasized, and thus the more it becomes “quotational”.24 In this case a “look” is not just a physical shape or a corporeal direction toward a “star”,25 but a position to be vitally different from the masses. On the other hand, an effort (even of a group) to separate itself from the surroundings has a clear aspect of corporeity—it is an effort to impose on one’s own or on a group’s corporeity, unique contours. In short, it is an effort to inscribe, most clearly, into the environment. Thus, we return to style which shows a desperate opposition to the spatial and temporal “looks” of our existence. Style is a temporal and spatial effort to overcome our spatio-temporal body.

21 Nonetheless,

ballooning is a substitute for a specific reality. did not create his music for his songs, although his looks (and not so much his music) found many imitators. 23 The transition of pop culture into mass culture cannot be extricated from so-called élite culture. Thus a question: is it élite because its consumers are exceptional, or because there are so few of them? Another question: is the exceptionalism of cultural consumers based on a specific “look”, a model pose? Finally, is cultural élitism a class revenge, a class that has become deleted also by massifying? 24 Quotational adds to reference-ness, which was not avoidable also in this question. 25 Just as mass culture, élitist culture has its own “stars” to be imitated. 22 Presley

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Question 84 A. M. Some experts in communication (Lozano 2013) claim that there is continuity between persons in advertisement and media, and that they constitute an environment, which communicates without a break who we are and who we want to be. What do you think? T. K. In your question as well as in Elizabeth Lozano’s reflections we need to consider a number of important themes. First, environment is communicating, either with or without a break. Second, communication, either ours or that of the environment, and our identity are inseparable. Third, our aims are a feature of our reality. Fourth, personalities that we see in advertisements and the media are no less, and even more real than the people we meet. Fifth, mediated environment is an aspect of identity and reality. Identity is a significant aspect in the context of media and their environment and it is surprising that we have not discussed it. The question of identity hardly arises in the environment of the26 media to which most of us are exposed. In order to become identical, what is important for the individual is the act of identifying with a mediated environment or its personalities, although as we mentioned this identifying can be a half way step towards finding one’s own unique identity. Besides, stardom in media is an indication that media relief is not a flat landscape. Finally, identifying with the environment in which we are raised does not mean that we do not want to explode it and ourselves within it. I presume that we shall speak of this again. In both the film and music industry there exists the phenomenon of remixing, which shows that even in the West27 the environments are so diverse that creations must be adapted to suit them. Furthermore, the phenomenon of remixing suggests that the media environment must be sufficiently homogeneous in that every new creation must conform to it. Similarly, we too must conform with the environment of media of which we are the product. Hence, do we explain and explore ourselves in the media, or does the media environment in which we grew up define us? This is another way of saying that we were raised to maintain the system which homogenizes us for the purposes of clear communication. To a point, perhaps and with at least two “buts.” First, such an “ideal” system is doomed to fail due to the threat of entropy to borrow a term from cybernetics. To avoid this threat the system must be constantly “nourished” from the outside, and must constantly grow beyond itself. It is here at its very core that we encounter its non-identity.28 Thus, non-identity is an aspect of identity, so that in the case of an 26 Even if not homogeneous. Similarly, there are different media in order for all of them to be average. The definition of media as average cannot be regarded as demeaning. As mentioned earlier (in Q. 71 and later), average is a necessary aspect from which an individual can emerge. 27 Here we are talking not only about media, but also about a life world. Thus, a question, to what extent do we live in and are due to media? 28 As Leibniz would have said, A = A, while a system growing beyond itself shows a different situation A = A.

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individual we encounter not only their (non)identity in their environment (system). At first, what is striking is that while identifying with a system an individual is not identical with themself, i.e. they no longer have individuality, and conversely uncompromising individualism dislocates a system, compelling it to seek a new identity. A good example is the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century artistic movements such as the Modernists including the Impressionists, Expressionists, Futurists, Cubists, and Dadaists, etc.) who challenged prevailing norms of what were considered to be aesthetic—and acceptable. The individual serves as a disruption of a system (auto)communication, and shows the possibilities of the composition of a system. However, the system begins to change including the freezing of the individual. The “isms” attached to the aforementioned schools of art signify this context which encases individual identity. The “isms” open new possibilities for an individual and their surroundings, and they also equally freeze them as if in children’s game. For example, when someone shouts “freeze!” in a playground game, children stand still in comical poses, which they must finally abandon because they collapse in laughter. Is not our identifying with “isms” and their appropriate discourses similar to this comical pose and which surprises us? This is why those who disrupt discourse, play such an important role in the formation of the identity of the individual as well as the system. The discourse-breaker is one who sees our auto-communicative environment differently and disrupts it with a shout “freeze!” forcing us to laugh at ourselves. Given this, non-communication (including silence, disruptions and laughter) is an unavoidable aspect of communication and liable to provoke a collision between media environment, life world and the creative environment. Despite the presence of homogenizing mechanisms this collision does not allow the media environment to be viewed as a cave of individual identification. Besides, the determining influence of media on individual (at least some of them) identities is doubtful on the grounds of empirical researches commencing with Lazarsfeld (1972), and ending with Fowles (1996). This is also contested by the theory of limited influence. I would claim that the war waged by environments is what forms the identity of an individual. In other words, our identity is formed by being double or triple agents of diverse environments. To the benefit of both ourselves and a system we “explode”29 it constantly with our living creativity. In other words, we encounter something that is not communicated, which is to the advantage of communication. Question 85 A. M. Through exhortations to exercise and diet fads, medical science “offers prescriptions” which become “inscribed into a body”, thereby turning

29 The

factor of “exploding” is the destruction of a discourse and “ism”. All the eminent artists and scientists were exploders of this kind, even if they were not recognized. Yet, not being recognized is a recognition if other artists and scientists are attracted by these marginals, forming together a new rock of identity, discourse and “ism”.

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our bodies into advertisements. What are the criteria separating a person as advertisement from a body that is not “advertised”? T. K. You speak of body advertisement as if it were a specific stigma. Of course, it is a stigma if we accept all the “sins” of mediated (mass) culture. What first comes to mind is the photographs of Lachapelle (2009) which viewed it in a contrasting way.30 In these photographs, Michael Jackson becomes a martyr, nailed to the cross by his own “stardom”, and inflated by the media environment. There is nothing new about this; many “stars” succumb to intense media exploitation and die early. A Marxian discourse would speak of a new media form of exploitation and slavery, although we should remember that “stars” do not organize protests, demonstrations and revolutions—they simply let themselves be crucified by the media to give hope to their millions of followers. The images of “stars” as an explanation through imitation is peddled as a message of hope that cannot be excluded from major media events. In truth, media do not proliferate events or their heroes, but their images. Accordingly, “stars” dosed up on alcohol, drugs, sex, or relaxants use them as a hopeless panacea in an effort to lighten the burden of carrying their cross of media glory. With every extension of media, the “star” finds themself increasingly dizzy and having to pay a high price, so that alcohol, drugs, sex become a technique of death. Moreover, there is no limit since the media itself, and being in them, are without limit. Such is intensity and entrapment of this mania that it becomes a strategy for being unlimited (eternal). Paradoxically speaking, the techniques of being unlimited are, correlatively, our factors of our finitude. Does this mean that temporality is an aspect of eternity? Let us give further consideration to your question of advertised and unadvertised bodies. The advertised body is eternally young, i.e. untouched by the wrinkles of time. It is a class appropriate to the eternal media. It is also our ideal position to which we return while aging individually and socially.31 If old bodies slip in “by chance” they serve as a background to accentuate the young and beautiful body in the centre of media. All this corresponds with the constantly rejuvenated “youth” of the media. On the other hand, this “technical” rejuvenation takes place in a general and homogeneous background. The very changeless youthful body with its appealingly taut skin (as if it were a drum to avoid wrinkles as signs of aging), indicates nothing other than homogeneity of a frozen time which otherwise would age our bodies. Yet, for this “youth” who has a double life there comes an uninvited death, both in reality and in media. In fact, the greatest injustice happens when we do not deserve death, which comes too early before our face has not yet been furrowed by worry and pain. It can be said that being worthy of one’s death is the criterion which separates the 30 They

cannot be regarded in any other way, since they disclose a limiting aesthetic between popculture and élitist culture, between being “stars” and being of myths, between decorative “baroque” and between the lost heroes, between mass kitsch and élitist signs. 31 The more we age the more our youth becomes significant. The more our Western society ages, the more we return to the youth of our culture—classical Greece and its cult of youth—kouros.

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real from the unreal body. The problem of suicide is not that a person does not value their life, but that they do not value death. By this criterion being in media is not, by far, an unreal being. To the contrary, being in the media and public can provide a real identity and a real image. This can be said not only of the newest, but also about the traditional (older) media such as print. After all, we recognize Žemait˙e not as a farmer but as a writer whose creations appeared one after the other only when they began to be published in newspapers ¯ (“Ukininkas”, “Varpas”, “Vienyb˙e lietuvinink˛u” etc.). Print not only “extracted” the writings from a writer, it also formed her as a writer. In short, a medium commands our identity. This is more so with the newest media such as social networks wherein each seems to form their own public, as well as the content of their being in the public. Perhaps the media public forms us, including our body, and not conversely. Resistance to media and their tendency toward uniformity is another criterion to distinguish a real body from the unreal, or more precisely “real”. Yet, a resistance to media is gained not by avoidance but to the contrary by immersion in them. For one, avoidance of media, just as of politics, is impossible; second, avoidance is recognition that we—not just our body—are susceptible to media. In general, body is not as bodily as it looks. In analysing body style we claimed that it is a cultural category, just as exercises and diet are ways of cultivating a body—cultura. Moreover, there are a variety of exercises and diets with their “philosophies,” from heavy lifting to no lifting, from raw meat to a vegan diet. This is one more example of our investigated perspectivism. Just like the diverse discourses of communication the diverse views of body cultivation can be hardly integrated. What would be common among the positions to flex muscles in a garage,32 to sit with crossed legs for an hour under a pine tree, or among positions to eat early man’s diet of meat and to avoid eating anything that has a face? Perhaps the criterion is not to give into be eaten by an opposite “philosophy,” i.e. to remain uncompromising or stay in your own “garage.” A similar perspectival situation belongs to the medical sciences which you used in a plural sense. Apart from Western medicine with its enormous pharmaceutical production there are traditional (ecological?), Eastern (Chinese) and other medicines with their own unique healing techniques. In each of them it is possible to discover distinct healing schools, practices and methods. It is not enough to say that some are scientific and others not. First, scientific claims are often based on myth (Feyerabend 1993), i.e. prejudgments by worldviews which cannot be verified. The variety of worldviews, despite the trend to uniformity in the media, is one reason why there are incommensurable (including communication science) discourses. Second, scientific truths are not dogmas; they change not only because of the collected data, but also because of changes in the views of scientists—their perspectives. A dogmatic view is a major brake on scientific progress and can only be justified in religions, and not in science. This is related to Popper’s (1989) principle of falsification as scientific criterion. Third, human activity or inaction determines the destruction of a body in a 32 Other garage men next to marginalized engineers. Is an image of a world as a garage helpful or detrimental?

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chaotic environment calling for its management by ever more “precise” methods. In other words a vengeful nature requires cultural discipline. Thus, science in general and medicine in particular encounter meta-questions: what is a normal body, what body needs healing, what medical means are justifiable, and what are the limits of body cultivation? Once again, we encounter a case where meta-discoursivity is intertwined with life. We now face two intertwined criteria of the reality of a body: meta-discoursivity and practical living (way of life). If we do not choose the way of our lives, but we are chosen, and if we do not raise the mentioned or not mentioned meta-questions, then our body is unreal. Once again, we note that the question of corporeity is not only bodily. Question 86 A. M. Can we say that advertisements extended through television personalities, create corporeal “idealism” in a way that the average person forever reaches the unreachable image? T. K. Thank you, Algis, for your question, which advocates Platonism in advertisement and TV. Put another way; is television (and other media) rather like the cave, on the wall of which we see the world? First, we see ideal, unreachable images and personalities (after all, we are chained). Second, personalities become ideal through media. The intolerance of public (mediated) personalities to publicity is related to the fear that the exposure of their messy, dysfunctional lives would spoil the ideal, playing a significant social role. One or another kind of censorship33 is not alien to Plato’s utopia (1888) which could also be called anti-utopia.34 A major censorship is disassociation from an ideal in media. For one, we are invited to look like media personalities. Second, we are jealously watched lest we come too close to the ideal. Both moves play an important social role. The look alike and homogenization is necessary for the thriving of a mediated community. It is not only the continuity of channels by increasing their access, but also the accumulation of social capital for the security of their participants. On the other hand, too great affinity to a mediated ideal threatens to deflower it and thus to disrupt social order. We are chained so that we would not rattle too much our media cave. Yet the greatest chains are (self-)orientation solely 33 The expulsion of poets from the ideal state is symptomatic: the poets in a narrow sense, and creative workers in a broader sense threaten to wreck a stable order and waste social capital. 34 Plato’s utopia is also anti-utopia not only due to censorship; every social utopia is always antiutopia. It would seem that the condition for individual wellbeing is sustainable society, but utopia ignores individual needs and suppresses individual creative breakthroughs. We see this not only in Plato’s but also in the naïve utopias of More (1972) and Campanella (2011), and in the ironic of Huxley (2007). Utopia is without a place not only because it is nowhere to be found, but because it has no place for individual happiness. Nonetheless, every utopia is also anti-utopian not only due to the advanced examples which could be different. Every assumption of utopia is the primacy of society over individual. Such primacy always leads to totalitarian society (com. Popper’s (1971) critique of Plato’s ideal state.).

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to the images of bodily ideals. It is possible to speak of the censorship of an ideal by mimicking the image of a mediated personality. In this context we might recall the critique of culture industry by Horkheimer and Adorno (1972) and Bauman (2007). To rephrase the latter we consume everything including the images of mediated persons. This aspect of consumption is the rapid change of commodities while the old thrown into the trash bin. The image of a “star” becomes used up and a new one is invented. In addition, the “star” itself is used up and discarded in a consumer society. It would seem that the consumer is an active player, ordering commodities and forming consumer politics. Yet, the most used is the consumer, unable to choose another non-consumer’s role. In brief, in consuming the “star” image they are also consumed by this image (not “star”). The critical discourse of Horkheimer and Adorno is somewhat different. While criticizing the culture industry and mediated pop-culture they presume that mass culture is an image of “real” culture. Mass culture is an image detached from what is really being communicated. Even museums containing originals become collections of images when tourists rush past them taking pictures with their smart phones. Is this not the case where communication loses what it attempts to communicate? In this context, perhaps communication itself becomes utopia. At any rate, utopia and ideality are unavoidable aspects of community. Although in some cases one can speak of individual utopia where an individual selects a place outside of society in a direct sense of the word (Defoe 2008; Toreau 1960; Rousseau 1987), even such a choice is based on social relationships, and even if negative. Utopia can be called a social ideal, or one of society’s road signs. If a society does not have utopia, then it is insufficiently dynamic and is dying. Thus, the movement toward a place, which does not exist but is always being established, is a vital matter for every society. We can speak here about a utopian communication in two senses: sharing an idea of utopia within a community, which integrates its members and relates to members who are not “present”. The quotations mean their being and nonbeing. They are not by being from another (historical) time or from another place (another planet or another world). Peters (1999) devotes considerable attention to communication specifically with the latter actors, i.e. aliens and spirits. They are important for our being otherwise we would not try to communicate with them. It seems that your question was about ideals in media and not about social metaideals. Yet again, it seems that communicative practice and metacommunication are together and the former discloses the latter. In your mentioned case, the desire for media images make us as much social as asocial. Mimicry immerses us in community whose leader (medium) demonstrates the latest style. At the same time we are distanced from the leader who is lost in the mists of utopian imagery. The mediated leader is an alien and spirit in one person. The mediated utopia both attracts and distances and this can be said of any utopia, which welcomes and then casts aside.

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Question 87 A. M. Does “idealism” communicate social hierarchy in a way that those whose “look” is closer to the ideal, and have a higher status (probation time) than the others? Is this more pronounced among the younger generations? T. K. Algis, I know that you served in the U.S. Army, but allow me to share my experience in the Soviet Army. In the “Lithuanian” language the phenomenon you name is called diedovshchina in military terms. In essence, this means a relationship between the young recruits (salagas), and older veterans (dembels) in the Soviet army. Here, the recruits are subordinated to what is in reality a primitive community. We find a complex and varied communication of vertical and horizontal, formal and informal relationships. Despite their seeming brutality, relationships between salagas and dembels are not primitive. Rather, they have a symbiotic relationship. For the latter, the former are the transmitters of good news in that they signal an impending departure beyond the limits of a military zone. For the salagas, dembels are masters within the military zone and have acquired experience that is priceless. To be degraded and slapped around by the veterans is a kind of survival technique for the recruits. Moreover, those arriving into the zone must exchange roles with those who are departing. Only by handing over the flag of the master of the zone, the dembels can acquire a ticket to leave. Finally, the good news must be beaten out; otherwise, it will not be spread too far. The salagas must holler it out, if need be by beatings and curses. Besides, the salagas bring news from outside the zone forbidden within, such as relationships with women. Who else but the salagas will accept responsibility for the two-year diet of the dembels? On the other hand, the salagas gladly accept this responsibility and in this way send the dembels out of the zone. It is the salagas and not the Minister of Defence who sanction the transformation of the existence of the dembels. The salagas must endure everything so that they would become the good dembels, and transmit the experiential news to the new salagas. In this model of communication (message transfer), an important role is played by time period in the zone. For one, the information transferred from both, the salagas and the dembels concerning the remaining time is different for each group. Second, communication itself takes place only due to time periods that determine the rejuvenation of the system and the relationships between the salagas and the dembels. The best technique to master the vanishing time is its periodization. We already know this from Pythagoras who spoke of a cyclical world order. This coincides with the technique of survival of system (just to recall the cybernetic discourse). Two years in the zone is the repetition of the eternal (repeated) cosmos after which everything begins anew. Thus, it is not only a model for communication, but also for the world. There is another surprise: while investigating the communication between the recruits and veterans in the Soviet army, we encounter questions of metacommunication. Here are two aspects of the universality of the communication model in a cultural system. First, it is irrelevant whether it is the Red, White, American, ancient or contemporary army. Second, this model of communication is not only of army

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and not only of communication. The entire period (probation time as you said) of all of us extends from birth to death. Besides, we can speak of the zones or regions of our existence. Can we ever leave our zone (region)? Do media enable us to leave our zone or moves us back into their zones as salagas and dembels? Is the mediated zone a system, aiming to maintain an eternal status quo by using our, lost salagas who imitate the dembels of media, periods of communication? Do dembels desire nothing less than to leave the mediated zone by handing its flag over to the salagas?35 Is the training of salagas by dembels, sparing no time (once again time) and effort, a noble sacrifice for the sake of the eternity of the system?36 The question of one’s status or probation time (the period served in the system) in the media (service in the zone) is bound up with ideality. It seems that the longer the probation time in the media, the closer the personality (dembel) is to the ideal, and the further they are removed from the young (salaga). Yet, the model of salaga-dembel, applied to interpret the media system implies something else. Although relatively, most important is a greater status, i.e. the time of service in a given span of time. If the dembel does not serve two but four years it is a sign of anomaly. The system protects itself against in two ways: it either absorbs the dembel by giving them the status of sergeant or another status as the system’s guardian, or pushes them aside (perhaps to the disciplinary battalion).37 In both cases they are no longer dembel, but a technical worker in a system or its marginalized detriment. In either way, their relationship with the salagas is essentially changed. The aspect of ideality is eternity, which, as mentioned, is the flip side to periodicity. This is why a system reacts so sensitively to periodic changes, which it must sanction. In light of the dembels-salagas model let us return to the question of “star” in media. Like a dembel, the “star” is locked in the media zone for a certain period whose transgression signals its marginalization or technologization. In both cases it is no longer a “star” and no longer a medium. Thus, the existence of a “star” near the ideal also means that its media time will soon end and will be demobilized in order to secure the periodicity of media as the reservation of eternity. As was mentioned, demobilization can be triple: first, leaving the zone by handing the flag over to the recruits; second, remaining in it by becoming a technical operator in the system (media sergeant); and third, leaving for alternative channels. The period of staying in the media (time of service) is varied, and hardly foreseen—the worse for a “star” who cannot count the days left in the zone. Fortunately, for the absolute majority of “stars”, authors of one song or of one appearance, the departure time is very early. It is similar to a course of one month or longer, after which they leave to 35 This

is attested by the way the “stars-dembels” avoid publicity (paparazzi). we are not eternal we make the system eternal! If news about our being is scattered by the winds then let us speak aloud of the system! 37 By the way, this is related to the mechanism of disciplining outstanding authors in scientific schools (see Q. 65). They are pushed to the margins of the schools for a certain “prison” term or, to the contrary, they become “stars” for an indeterminate (eternal) time. In the latter case they grow into their schools and become their technical appendages. Yet, nothing ages as fast as technology that, if not renewed, begins to rust, i.e. it signifies the school (system) ageing and the inevitable death. 36 If

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become reservists with little chance of returning. Thus, the changing of roles where the recruits and veterans remain constant is characteristic of the eternity of media. Question 88 A. M. With such a diversity of media types, is it possible to speak of communication in a univocal sense? T. K. We spoke of this in Q. 51 while discussing diverse classifications and schools of communication, two (Table 8.1), seven (Table 8.2), eighteen (Table 8.3), twenty seven (Tables 8.3 and 8.4) or thirty four (Tables 8.2, 8.3 and 8.4),38 as well the incommensurable discourses. Your question refers to metacommunication of which we spoke in Q. 2, based on Craig and Muller’s (2007) delimitation of speaking about communication. Yet, to speak of these matters you are directing us toward diverse media types and not distinct discourses. Let us return to metacommunication not from a theoretical but from a practical perspective. Recall that in Q. 52 we reached a paradoxical conclusion, to wit: only daily practice opens a metacommunicative perspective. The question is: to what extent does the media in its everyday use disclose metacommunication? Diverse media can include different activities such as the habits of consuming, life styles and scientific approaches such as research and analyses. Nonetheless, such plurality or perspectivity has limits. Despite their differences, they constitute families or familiarities, allowing us to speak of “family resemblance” (Wittgenstein 1990a). In addition, media possess species generalities in the Aristotelian sense. Thus, McLuhan (1964) speaks of media as an extension of man, and Manovich (2001) discusses media as they who have a screen. Incidentally, these concepts are quite different since not all of McLuhan’s media correspond with those of Manovich. For example, neither telegraph, record player nor radio have a screen, however, there are media families where a struggle for survival takes place such that one suppresses another or, in contrast, they form symbioses. Here I appeal to the biological school of communication. It is the case that all species in nature are related either directly or indirectly. This can be said even about the most distant kinds of plants and animals. Relations are formed not only because they all have a common front of survival under the most severe conditions, but also because they consume one another. In the case of the latter this is an immediate relationship; eating is direct communication. Our example of the Internet devouring the telegraph shows that they communicated immediately. Cannibalism is not based on diminishing hunger, but on taking over the powers of the competitor, so that in devouring the telegraph the Internet became extremely powerful. Perhaps in nature there is one redundant kind—the human. If humans were to disappear many species would flourish, and this could not be said of any other species. If bugs were to vanish, after a certain lapse of time—say fifty years—humans would 38 We

can add many more.

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also vanish, but not conversely.39 In fact, all nature including bugs would flourish. Are humans a superfluous element for the media family, which also would flourish? Must one be a superfluous element in order to speak in the name of all? Back to your question; it would seem that to speak of media in a univocal voice is possible because media are familial. Yet, the media family is without a head, since none of the media is exceptional. To speak in the name of other media in their name would reveal supremacy. Is this the metacommunication which we attempt to trap? Perhaps such speaking is possible on the basis of ethics if the latter is common to all media kinds? Perhaps media ethics is a key to metacommunication? We shall return to these questions. Question 89 A. M. Is it possible to find a means of communication between radically distinct civilizations, such as the West and the Middle East? The latter has a single direction while some regard the former as a secular evil. T. K. To be honest I was afraid you would ask this question. You know more about it than I do specifically since the question is most sensitive in the contemporary world of disseminated terrorism. What constitutes “radicalization” when an individual (a child of a system) becomes the enemy, seeking to destroy both themself and the system? After all, most suicidal terrorists were raised in Western society. In your question lurks an interesting thought concerning the main gap in communication between the West and the Middle East, instead of one between the West and the Far East. In short, one must be sufficiently close to become oppositional. Distance does not offer a privilege for opposition.40 Another obvious aspect is that opposition or even war is a mode of communication. Thus, one more argument suggests that a lack of communication or its disruption is not only more useful, but even more useful than communication. Most people acknowledge that the oppositional relationships between the West and the Middle East has a long tradition, from the time of the Crusades to the Reconquista. Nevertheless, historically speaking this opposition occasionally turned to war, nourished by cultural similarities and the competition for domination. Westerners regarded the Middle East as the cradle of their own civilization (Christianity), whilst the cultural and philosophical heritage of Aristotle41 lost to the West was returned by 39 This

view comes from the biologist, J. E. Salk. opposition of Far East Asian countries such as North Korea to the West is an exception, and is based on an affinity with an imported Western ideology (Marxism) or, more precisely, its critical position, rather than any difference in civilization, religion(s), or even non-religions. 41 Aristotle was the flag that was passed from hand to hand in Western and Middle Eastern cultures. Primarily, the Metaphysics of Aristotle (and not his logic, since it had never “departed”) returned, accompanied by the commentaries of Arab thinkers (primarily Avicenna), i.e. his worldview. Was this worldview so closed due to it being “imported” from the West or was it due to Arabic commentaries on his work? 40 The

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the Arab world. Thus, the Crusades not only represent a surge in warfare, but also in the economic and cultural life of the West. This testifies to the presence not only of similarities (monotheism, parallel heroes in the Bible and Koran, and social hierarchy), but signifies cultural exchanges that were easy. Was it the case that exchanges were relatively easy due to such determined opposition? Is it the case that opposition results from proximity (similarity) with an attempt to take over metacommunication? Are war and competition for a meta-region also a case of communication? I am not sure about Western secularism: the decline in religious belief has given rise to other forms of belief such as science, art, medicine and horoscopes, although the West may be currently experiencing a religious rebirth. Increased terroristic activity is not related to secularism but to a religious resurgence in the West. The secularism of the competitor would mean that it is leaving the field for the sake of “true” religion and raises a white flag. If this is the case, why prepare to attack the defeated competitor? My presumption is that even if we regard ourselves as secular, something in the West suggests a religious rebirth which is not to be tolerated in the Middle Eastern region of the “true” religion, purporting to become a meta-region. What if media is the religion which elicits such worry for the related, competitive culture? If we spend more of our time accessing the media and its variant, the screen42 this implies that we believe in it. Historically, it was the church, with its colourful nourishment of the senses (hearing, vision, smell, taste, and touch), the media of religion and of Church, i.e. a maid, and such was also philosophy. What if there is a change in roles such that media becomes religion in the context of empty churches in the West? Besides, this new religion becomes an all-encompassing system which evokes jealous hysteria in a competing system seeking to melt everything, including state and religion. Let us return to the child of a system that is intent on blowing themselves up—both themself within that system. Is this not a result of the convergence of two contesting systems? The “radicalized” citizens, born, raised and educated in Western nations, become double agents of both systems. In other words, they serve as a uniting chain of different systems which are unable to maintain this short circuit, explodes and threatens to destroy both systems, taking with it to the grave countless, innocent lives. Perhaps terror attacks in various Western cities are the symptom of a short circuit which attempts to unite what cannot be united? If we speak about the uniting of systems (systematizing) in the context of metacommunication, then we show that we lend inappropriate and unsafe relationships to metacommunication. The reduction of communication into one “metacommunication” signifies its condemnation to entropy, i.e. its self-exploring. Perhaps it should be the opposite: we should promote differences among views and discourses in order to preserve the possibility of metacommunication. In this sense metacommunication is not an effort to reduce diverse communications to one, but to promote their flourishing.

42 Consi

stent with various surveys this time is expanding without measure. Most likely, this expansion will stop only at the time limit needed for vital rest.

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References Aristotle. 2017. On the Soul. Translated by J.A. Smith. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. Baudrillard, Jean. 1989. America. Translated by Ch. Turner. London: Verso. Baudrillard, Jean. 2016. Symbolic Exchange and Death. Translated by I.H. Grant. London: Sage. Bauman, Zygmunt. 2007. Consuming Life. Cambridge: Polity. Bourdieu, Pierre. 2011: Sur la television. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcc6AEpjdcY. Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble. Routledge: Chapman and Hall. Campanella, Tommaso. 2011. The City of the Sun. Translated by H. Morley. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Caves, Richard E. 2002. Creative Industries: Contracts Between Arts and Commerce. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Craig, Robert T., and Heidi L. Muller (eds.). 2007. Theorizing Communication: Readings across Traditions. London: Sage. Defoe, Daniel. 2008. Robinson Crusoe. London: Oneworld. Feyerabend, Paul. 1993. Against Method. London, New York: Verso. Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books. Fowles, Jib. 1996. Advertising and Popular Culture. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage. Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. 1972. The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass deception. In Dialectics of Enlightenment. Translated by J. Cumming. New York: Herder and Herder. Howkins, John. 2013. The Creative Economy. London: Penguin. Huxley, Aldous L. 2007. Brave New World. Toronto: Vintage Canada. Irigaray, Luce. 1985. This Sex Which is Not One. New York: Cornell University Press. Jung, Carl G. 1991. The archetypes and the collective unconscious. In: Collected Works of C. G. Jung. London: Routledge. Kaˇcerauskas, Tomas. 2008. Tikrov˙e ir k¯uryba: kult¯uros fenomenologijos metmenys [Reality and Creation: Sketches of Cultural Phenomenology]. Vilnius: Technika. Kaˇcerauskas, Tomas. 2014. K¯urybos visuomen˙e [Creative Society]. Vilnius: Technika. Kant, Immanuel. 1951. Critique of Judgment. Translated by J.H. Bernard. New York: Hafner Publishing. Lazarsfeld, Paul F. 1972. Qualitative Analysis: Historical and Critical Essays. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Lozano, Elizabeth. 2013. Hispanic Tele-visions in the United States: Eleven Essays on Television, Discourse, and the Cultural Construction of Identity. New York: Hampton Press. Manovich, Lev. 2001. The Language of New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press. Marcuse, Herbert. 1991. One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Boston: Beacon Press. McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1962. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by C. Smith. London: Routledge. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1969. Humanism and Terror. Translated by J. O’Neill. Boston: Beacon Press. Mick¯unas, Algis. 2010. Summa erotica. Vilnius: Apostrofa. More, Thomas. 1972. Utopia. Baltimore: Penguin Books. Peters, John D. 1999. Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Plato. 1980. The laws. Translated by T.L. Pangle. New York: Basic Books. Popper, Karl R. 1971. The Open Society and Its Enemies. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Popper, K.R. 1989. Logik der Forschung. Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1987. Basic Political Writings. Translated by D.A. Cress. Indianapolis: Hacket Publishing.

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Thoreau, Henry D. 1960. Walden, or, Life in the Woods. London: J. M. Dent. Winckelmann, Johann J. 2006. Essays on the Philosophy and History of Art. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1990. Philosophische Untersuchungen. In Wittgenstein’s Werkausgabe. Bd. 1. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Movies Antonioni, Michelangelo. 1970. Zabriskie point. Greenaway, Peter. 1996. Pillow Book.

Photographs Lachapelle, David. 2009. The Beatification. Tunick, Spencer. 2011. Dead Sea.

Chapter 13

Ethics of Communication

Question 90 A. M. Can we develop a code of communication ethics, which would need to be national and global. If so, then what form would this code of ethics take? T. K. In general, the question of communication ethics is intertwined with the problem of the limits of communication. Your question concerning global ethics is related to metacommunication. If there is an encompassing metacommunication, then it exists in a global sense. Notwithstanding the questions posed in Q. 52–56, Q. 60, Q. 65, et al., we have projected metacommunication quite differently. If second level communications exist which encompass a number of communication schools, the question arises of a third level metacommunication, leading to what Aristotle called regressus ad infinitum—infinite regress. We also mentioned that a global communication would be oppressive for diverse discourses, forcing them into straightjackets of homogeneity and uniformity. From the seventeenth century onward, this has come to be regarded as propaganda.1 Metacommunication understood in this way is, in principle, unethical, and if this is the case (and if global ethics serves metacommunication irrespective at what level), such an ethics is not, and cannot, be ethical. We should consider the following matters. In our earlier questions we viewed metacommunication quite differently in that we claimed it bore no relationship to a divine view from above toward distinct traditions of communication, but rather to practical activity, including dialogue as practical engagement. In terms of diverse communication discourses and activities, we assumed the existence of different environments, schools and societies, which might adhere to different ethical principles.

1 See

Q. 66.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 T. Kaˇcerauskas and A. Mick¯unas, In Between Communication Theories Through One Hundred Questions, Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41106-0_13

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On the other hand, different ethics can be classified along types of communication. Thus, we can speak of the “dembel’s” ethics (with respect for his period), or an ethics of “devouring”, i.e. the appropriation of power, in media ethics. Flusser’s (2007) classification speaks of a pyramidic (adherence to subordination), amphitheatric (adherence to the direction of communication), and similar ethics. If this is the case, how can there be a general, global ethics among the diverse activities to be found in communication? Besides, ethics is the function that appears in practical activity. Let us recall Kant (2015) who referred to the aforementioned as “practical reason”. It was Kant who formulated the general rule of action as: “to act in a way that your action could become a general rule.” This maxim is possible to formulate with respect to communication characteristics, i.e., “communicate in such a way that your communication would become a general rule.” Yet, this ethical maxim of communication would be unethical for us to communicate uniformly, despite the variety of ways and standards of communication. One of the ways of alternative communication is non-communication, whilst another is distorted communication. Both of these play an important role in practical activity. Accordingly, a first maxim of communicative ethics should be, “do not aim for a global communication that is uniform.” The second maxim flowing from the first would be, “do not seek communication at any price.” Both of these maxims are negative in that they are expressed negatively, indicating what one should not do. Instead, the maxim of communication ethics should be formulated in the positive, such as “know the limits of your communication,” which could define the ethical content of global communication. Since every communication is limited in a global sense, there can be no such thing as global communication. In other words, the basic rule of communication ethics, “do not claim to global communication,” implies that transgression of this rule leads to propaganda, which is also an obstacle to communication. The recent experience of totalitarian society across Europe and the former Soviet Union shows that propaganda becomes pseudo-communication, which permeates everything, everywhere. The people neither believed this rhetoric nor did they trust government’s attempts to usurp the private sphere.2 It follows that propaganda (global communication) is totalitarian oppression fully realized. An opposite “causal” relationship can also be assumed, i.e. the claim to global communication gives birth to totalitarian oppression. Ethics in global communication is only possible to the extent to which it protects from global communication, and enhances local (social, individual) ethics, and, put simply, remains anti-imperialistic. Of course, common human ethical principles must not to be discarded, i.e., do not kill, and tell the truth.3 Communicative ethics seem to be local and regional in that they reside in some layered regions wherein the 2 The

theory of limited effect is related to this limitation—the effect of propaganda is very limited. imperative “do not kill” just as “do not lie” has many deviations. For example, during a war both sides aim to kill as many as possible and to mislead each other as much as possible. The Kantian orientation toward aims and not means clarifies the problems of communicative ethics. The bombing of Hiroshima where tens of thousands suffered and died, including children, had a noble aim: to end the war. In this case we can speak of global ethical imperatives’ spread with an unethical means, which compelled us to kill.

3 The

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individual, society and humanity intersect. Primarily, it is a defence against their subordination, one over the other, insisting that the voice of an individual must be heard. Universal communication ethics finds itself in opposition to a system’s ethics as a way of incorporating the individual into the standards of a system, including its ethical standard.4 The word “universal” signifies that universally the individual’s voice must be taken into account, which blends to form what can be thought of as a form of social choir. In this case, so-called systematisers are least concerned with global ethics, but merely want to enhance a global communication system.5 Put this way: if it were even possible to speak of universal ethics, it would be an ethics of individual footnotes in a text of a system. Surprisingly we are back to the question of language, with which we initiated this dialogue. We do not say that we must speak in one language, but must be compelled to learn other languages. From these footnotes—asides—let us move to our basic text. Media ethics is the counterpart of communication ethics. An examination of global communication ethics discloses the question of relationships among the media. Do the confluence and symbioses of the media mean that they incorporate one another while developing into one global medium? Does this mean that the days of the family of the media are numbered? If so, there will be nothing left that resembles what most people understand by the term, family. Does one medium mean that all of us disappear into the system as parts? Question 91 A. M. What kind of duty and responsibility does a journalist have in the context of political society? (Do non-political societies have any need for journalism?) T. K. I shall begin with your second question concerning non-political societies. You know my weakness for brackets, margins, and footnotes, i.e. for “lesser” thought and its proliferation. Is there such a thing as a non-political society? Previously, we mentioned that it is hardly possible to speak of a non-political individual. Even if they claim to be non-political, their claim is political. This is valid for societies and communities, which are unavoidable social and political environments for the upbringing

4 As

we saw, incorporation and subordination were the aims of many utopias, which enhanced the welfare of a system and not of an individual within it. 5 Yet, the critique of this cybernetic school (just as the position of the school itself) is full of paradoxes. One the hand one we are criticizing a global system of communication ethics. On the other hand, we are creating it even if it is based on an anti-system position. The paradox of the cybernetic school is this: its local means (the concept “system”) is proliferated as global communication. From the perspective of the cannibal, we could ask who is eating what? Is it: the system—the individual, or individual—the system; the consuming system—the consumer, or them—the consuming system; the media system—the mediated individual, or them—the mediating system. Let us not forget the very essence of cannibalistic relationships, i.e. we eat in order to incorporate the (communicative) power. Is not global communication ethics with its rules oriented toward the incorporation of the individual, i.e. is it not a cannibalistic ethic?

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of an individual. They are political in two ways: being a polis, and providing a political education. In this context it is possible to speak of the role of journalism. First, we can say that while engaged in political education, journalism itself cannot be political, i.e. partial to any political direction (party) competing for government. In other words, a narrow political stance or party loyalty does not accord with a broader notion of politics and of citizenship. Even if we agree that such journalism and press is no longer desirable—in the context of the segmentation of the press among the political and economic rulers—our claim becomes more and not less pre-outstanding. Thus, we need to be totally clear, because at this point the problems do not end, but are only just beginning. Is being political in the broadest sense (coinciding with a meta-political position), to be avoided as speculative chimera? Is it possible to be a “free and independent” journalist or channel, as some would claim? Would this mean having a capacity to be a witness to truth? We spoke of truth and its conceptions in Q. 65 and Q. 72. It is worth recalling that journalistic “truth” mostly aims at the classical theory of correspondence, which is inevitably political. At times, news media appeal to evidential theory, which is somewhat naive. Does such naiveté mean understanding the responsibilities of civil citizenship or taking an ethical position? It was mentioned previously that no less significant are other aspects of truth, including the logical, pragmatic and creative. Moreover, various misnomers, oppositions, and conflicts are unavoidable aspects of our social reality, containing our convictions, expectations and utopias. Quite often, provocative and ironic (“misleading”) public discussions are more influential than the “true” depictions of “reality” as it appears to a journalist. If social reality is constructible (Berger and Luckmann 1966) or created, how can it be depicted “truly”? Perhaps an opposite relationship is more appropriate: we imagine reality and strive to realize it? One more turn: while criticizing a reality we should ask how such reality is to be avoided? This is valid even in the case of criticism of ad hominem arguments; we should ask about how this person was brought up in our political environment? In general, ad hominem arguments always imply partiality, party loyalty, and a narrow political position, unless they reveal a broader political context wherein we, the journalists, have been nurtured. How could we be journalistic witnesses when criticizing “reality” and its heroes? We would laugh at ourselves as equal participants in the surrealistic surroundings. We will return to this question of self-irony in subsequent questions. The latest forms of news, such as social networks, can both conceal and disclose the possibilities of our self-irony. Duty and responsibility are ethical categories. In Q. 90 we spoke of ethical maxims—negative and positive—of communication. We can paraphrase the maxim, “do not seek univocal, global communication” to mean “do not depict reality as if it were established everywhere in the same way”. If social and political reality is not so much depicted as created, journalists should seek a different reality. Differences or alternatives encompass a broader spectrum of the given and the future reality. This is the most important aspect of political life, allowing us not only to see another reality in our daily life, but also to think differently. In truth, alternative vision is a source of another reality and not the other way around. The second negative maxim, “do not seek communication at any price” can be restated, “do not seek to depict reality

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at any price”. In other words, consider what would be the price of such depiction and how it will change reality. This can be expressed as the positive maxim, “know the limits of communication”, and further restated, “know the limits of the creative depiction of reality”. We arrive at another—pragmatic—conception of truth, which, paradoxically, relates to events that do not exist, but can be invented. Such a step ends in created truth. It is necessary to emphasize that different conceptions of truth are not opposed one to the other, but complement each other. In other words, it is a practice of otherness that is the content of meta-politics. It would seem that otherness is not compatible with a logical conception of truth and with discoursivity in general. Journalistic reporting, just as any report in the press, can be regarded as a discursive case, analysed by us on numerous occasions, e.g. Q. 51, Q. 52, Q. 54, Q. 56, Q. 63, Q. 65, Q. 67, Q. 70, Q. 84, Q. 85, Q. 89. Journalistic otherness can be understood in two senses: first, it is respect for another opinion or a way of life, and second, the promotion of a view that is different from the dominant position. If this is the case then a journalist interrupts—breaks—discourses. This practice is complicated not only because a journalist provides media reports such as print, radio, and TV that represent someone or adheres to some interests, but because they must change the multi-layered nature of society. Thus, they can break discourses in two ways: in the narrower media, as well as in the broader political circle. A journalist should not describe social reality as it is6 but in order to reveal its surrealism.7 A journalist should probe the space between discourses, dominating social (political) groups. This is their duty and responsibility. How, then is this possible if a journalist “works” for one or another medium, and their views are equally acquired in one or another social (political) environment? The answer might be found in journalistic activity that is self-reflective and ironic. In other words, the key to meta-discoursivity is not an escape into “floating above” discourses claiming to seek universal truth, but “flowing among” discourses and leaving open for interpretation those slippery slopes of uncertainty. Journalistic practice is a prophylactic of truth and a model for metacommunication. It is both an artistic and creative way. Journalists must be sufficiently artistic if they are not to be misunderstood as selfstyled bearers of a particular truth, as well as sufficiently creative to open a novel vision of society. The plurality of conceptions of truth is analogous to the variety of communicative discourses. It is impossible to encompass all communicative discourses or to rise to a meta-discursive level without falling into contradictions. Yet, it is possible to float among discourses, even if at times they fall apart due to our interventions and form 6 Description

is already a realization of social (political) reality. example of post-Soviet surrealistic reality is the removal of sculptures from the Green Bridge in Vilnius. The city mayor was denouncing the sculptures for their “mendacity” when the Liberal Party was being investigated for deceiving the public. The conscience of liberals is pure, not like the Green Bridge, which has to be purified from its ideology, and in general, from all art, which is deceptive. Perhaps the pursuit of truth is the most brutal kind of mendacity seeking to purify the political life from its aesthetic surplus. Using this example, we can claim that a journalistic report should be sufficiently artistic not to be understood literally. Literalism and brutality are two sides of the same coin, attended by discoursivity.

7 An

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new avenues for interpretation. In other words, the logic of metacommunication is its own disruption to form new logical constellations. As suggested earlier the practice of journalism serves as metacommunication, or a model for inter-communication. Question 92 A. M. What is meant by the “free press” and its attendant “ethos”? T. K. We spoke of the so-called free press in our earlier Q. 91. It seems that those who declare independence from political, financial or discursive support are most dependent on them in one or all of those senses. Equally, those who shout about the disclosure of mendacity are mostly interested in parading their “clean” conscience. Ethics (etymologically ethos) is not related to freedom from political attachments, but to their dynamics. Indeed, release from these attachments also means a loss of the concept of ethics. The question of ethics shows up in the context of an excess, ambiguity and the knots forming these attachments, which include the various discourses. Hence, journalistic ethics is rather like “poking” between discourses and reality, and for the most part is a risky practice that attempts to disrupt or to break something. In fact, it can be called—and is called—unethical activity. Does this mean that journalistic ethics is unethical? Yes and no. Any consideration of the press and its long history will reveal a variety of ethical paradoxes. In order to encourage journalists to operate between discourses, various funds are established which award prizes. Some of the best include the Pulitzer Prize and the Hearst Foundation, both of which were established by representatives of the “yellow” press in the 1930s. This is the first paradox. The second paradox is that it was during this period that the call was for the media industry to adhere to ethical standards, which made it the watchdog of social reality (Baran and Davies 2012: 129). The third paradox was in 1980 when Janet Cooke won the Pulitzer Prize for her fabricated interview with ghetto children. A fourth was in the case of the Thomas A. McCarthy years during the early 1950s and the witch-hunt against socialists, a period noted for uncritical journalism. A similar, more extreme case is Soviet journalism which glorified the government, and especially the Party and political framework of the Soviet state. Fifth, some researchers in the Chicago School claimed that the “unregulated mass media serve, inevitably, large or socially dominating interests and tastes” (Baran and Davies 2012: 135). This is akin to the ratings complex studied by Bourdieu (2011). What is produced by media is exposed only when it is capable (more precisely, when the managers think that it is capable) of raising the ratings of a particular medium and thereby increases profits. It is worth reflecting on all the aforementioned cases before returning to our discussion on the ethical code. First, the “yellow” press is interested only in the depiction of “stars”, its writings chiefly focussed on the landscape occupied by elites. In other words, the sign of reality is “stardom” and style. It is being in the media that becomes reality and truth. Thus, the “yellow” press reveals a cyclical movement (or its role) in society, namely, become a star—become in media—and therefore become

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real. This is the discourse: if you do not become a star, you will not be in the press, and in being absent from the press you will not be real. Those journalists writing for the “yellow” press are least concerned with a break in discourse and social levels. Despite this, the founders of the Pulitzer Prize and the Hearst Foundation, decided to initiate a break in discourses. Second, these founders speak of ethical standards for media to which they had no intention of accepting in their “yellow” press journalism. We shall speak of ethical standards shortly, and thus it is paradoxical to treat media as a social watchdog. The language they employed was not one that oversaw the creation of common rules, or even of representing social reality, but of their control and management. Is a free press to be called to abolish free movement in society? Our third observation is that a prestigious prize was awarded to interviews that were clearly invented, i.e. representation of non-existing reality—fictitious. Despite the subsequent uproar, we are left with questions concerning reality. Is it a fiction that makes us more sensitive and thereby changes our standards? At least the subsequent denial of the prize showed that the limits of the journalistic domain had been transgressed. Is this a recognition of journalistic limits, suggesting ethical norms, or is it a limitation of journalistic description, which makes such activity unwarranted? Fourth, the hunt for reds that followed from Senator McCarthy’s accusations of communist infiltration presumed uncritical journalism, which to all intents and purpose was similar to the sort of journalism that glorified the totalitarian Soviet state. The paradox is that totalitarianism and the political appropriation of the press leads inevitably to the constriction of the press. According to Marcuse (1991), this takes a one-dimensional view and is characteristic of different and even opposing political systems. Fifth, the notion that the mass media serves large or leading group interests or tastes, reveals one more paradox. This suggests a need for journalistic regulation. If we ask who can provide controls and for whose benefit, the answer is always the same—large or socially dominating organizations. Other organizations do not have sufficient resources or influences for such a task, so that criticism of the “self-contained” drift toward control of the press leads to ever-increasing restrictions being imposed on it. The call to “restrict the press so it would not be restricted” comprises an impetus toward the more or less “self-contained” drift. On the other hand, it leads to reflections about the free press as well as about the freedom of society in democratic countries, which are “self-” oriented toward economic and entertainment priorities. Perhaps the duty of journalists should focus on disclosing and deconstructing such self-evident features, stemming from the rule of the majority. Such evidence establishes uniformity and equality oriented toward one (majority) truth. Yet, the development of democracy and society show that disclosure and deconstruction are associated with the risk of destroying the remnants of democracy and a free press. Nonetheless, the major paradox is associated not so much with the five cases (there can be more of them), but with the very conception of a free press. An unlimited press threatens democracy which sanctions a free press. This aspect is reflected in the delimited ethical principles below. Here again, we encounter the theme of limits and the question, who can manage the limits of free press? Is it the press itself or

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a political regime, say, representing the legislative body, and if is the latter we can therefore speak of restriction of a free press. Besides, lawful restrictions abolish ethics by shifting certain questions to the juridical domain. Returning to a theory of social responsibility mentioned in Q. 91 we can call its basic principles the code of ethics. These principles have been defined as follows: 1. [The] media should accept and fulfil certain obligations to society. 2. These obligations are to be met by setting high or professional standards of informativeness, truth, accuracy, objectivity and balance. 3. [The] media should be self-regulating within the framework of law and established institutions. 4. The media should avoid whatever might lead to crime, violence or civil disorder. 5. The media should be pluralist and reflect the diversity of the society in which it operates. 6. Society and the public have a right to expect high standards of performance, and intervention can be justified to secure the, or a, public good. 7. Journalists should be accountable to society as well as to employers and the market (Baran and Davies 2012: 137). Each of these principles raise questions8 which suggest that ethics is unable to resolve the problems of the free press, but makes them obvious. Besides, principles are not and cannot be answers or prescriptions, because their range (meta-region) is too broad. In other words, we begin and end with practice (in our case, journalistic) and the cases that define it. We spoke in part about the first principle in the context of media ethics, whereby the media must not only reflect social “reality,” but also explicate the development of society. How should the media, and not their various representatives including, for example, businessmen, politicians, journalists, accept their obligations? In speaking of such media representatives, a colourful crowd indeed, it is difficult to find common obligations. Besides, commonality, even in the case of obligation, is not what a thriving press seeks in the context of democratic uniformity. The second principle posits high (professional) standards; however there cannot be firm standards for journalism, because even if such standards were available they would hinder the expansion of journalistic thought. Regardless of how high standards are set, they are always going to be broken in the context of social progress. Moreover, there is the assumption that to inform is the sole purpose of journalism, and with it talk of truth, as if there were one conception of truth. And what of accuracy (as if poetic description would be less effective), objectivity (as if without a pretence to a total perception), and of balance, as if that were possible in pluralistic societies. The third principle is self-regulation in the context of law and institutions. This implies a narrowing of press freedom by laws, while the institutional environment suggests a bureaucratic intervention, all of which hinder the emergence of journalistic creativity. Who could doubt the fourth principle, although even it can be contested? For example, we encounter terroristic acts which are not individual, but a chain of 8I

shall mention only some of them.

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occurrences. Media reports would seem to add to this unbroken chain. The same could be said regarding suicides. As for public disorder, could we not ask, are there times when a society needs disorder for its self-rejuvenation? The most famous recent example is Kiev’s Maidan, a protracted disorder in the centre of Ukraine’s capital which opposed the decisions of the government and was angry at social stagnation. Ultimately, this led to violence, disturbances, and the partial loss of territory in the fighting that followed in the east of the country. Perhaps this was too big a price to pay for the formation of national identity? The fifth principle is difficult to achieve due to competing priorities and the complexity of ratings in a democratic society. It is inevitable that media are diverse, i.e. not only “cool” or “hot” per McLuhan (1964) in that they represent different social groups such as left, right, confessional, cultural, housewives, etc. Such fragmentation is unavoidable when media seeks an audience which offers support, although here we encounter another danger—social ghettos whose representatives cannot communicate. The symptom of this phenomenon is the separation of communicative discourses one from another. Just like the second principle, the sixth appeals to undefined, and indefinable, “high standards”. Besides, there is a protection against an intrusion into the work of the media, yet there may be a concern about the reservations, which sanction such intrusions. For one, this may be regarded as media limits, the transgression of which is not tolerated by society, second, security and public good are the flags, which are carried in transformations to bury democracy and restrict media. The seventh principle also deals with the boundaries of journalism, because being accountable, means that journalists must accept limits on what they can do. On the other hand, accountability to the public is hardly possible due to the varied and amorphous nature of the subject matter. Accountability to the employer forces one to be an obedient servant, while accountability to the market leads to subservience to the public. Again, accountability to different masters leads to internal conflicts, even if a journalist is known to belong to different groups. The journalist as double or triple agent! As to their ethical status, all of the previously mentioned media principles are contestable. They are detached from media content and journalistic practice, and in the case of the latter this leads to uniformity and not creative activity. This is yet another example of floating metacommunication, which is why we have considered the issue of the un-ethics of ethics and communicative practice. The concept of “intercommunication” is not a tautology in light of the floating “incommunicability” of communicative discourses. Question 93 A. M. What problems arise in the free press and mass media concerning “anonymous” public comments? Should we require each commentator to speak in their own name?

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T. K. Your question about public comments reminds me of competing Internet portals in Lithuania. Appealing to “high” ethical standards, the representatives of one of them declared they would no longer include anonymous comments. In Q. 92 we spoke of the “height” of ethical standards. In the above example, the representatives “privatized” ethics in order to assure their competitive superiority. There is a paradox which is that, like no other, representatives of the portal spend a great deal of attention to ad hominem gossip, which is not anonymous. In a democratic society anonymity shows itself in various ways. Voting is a basic democratic institution and must remain anonymous for it to hold the people’s trust. When we elect a congress or a president we vote anonymously: the election campaign erases the names of voters. Anonymity is an important principle in democracy when electing persons to parliaments or committees. Anonymity is the norm in the valuation of scientific works such as papers, articles and projects. Whenever possible, there is even a double anonymity: the author should not know the reviewers, and the latter should not know the identity of the author.9 This is regarded as the “highest” possible ethical standard. Different features of anonymity can be found in the period of the Middle Ages and the building of some of the most outstanding and noble cultural creations—cathedrals. The names of the “authors” (architects and builders) are unknown, because it was deemed that God was the actual creator, and it was God who chose to manifest through the author. The many different Gothic cathedrals in different European cities leave one to speculate about such a variety of divine, creative manifestations. Despite similar subject matter we are unable to find a single similar artefact, whether it be a tower, painting, or a sacred dish. The function of craftsmanship was communal, but not only as a belonging to a gild of builders, painters, or goldsmiths, but also a participation10 in divine designs, announced by various crafts. Authorship vanished in a divine whirlpool, intended to transform society. This communication was subsequently repeated among many totalitarian (not only fascistic) societies, whose leaders (not anonymous) brought their fasces (Q. 65), with the help of such media as radio and later, TV. The greatest anonyms are we ourselves, marching in the crowd. This can be said not only about compulsory demonstrations, hardly removed from medieval masquerades, but also about fashion, styles, signs of commodities and in general, the crowd ruled by consuming. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to find anywhere such a great abyss of anonymity as in democratic, consumer society, with its urge towards averageness and uniformity. Wearing the same attire, listening to the same music, seeing the same films, following the same “stars” are aspects of anonymity in a democratic society, comparable to medieval anonymity. It is an act of mastery to participate in the pop-cultural masquerade. 9 Of course, this is not the only form of evaluation, which is accepted by editorial boards of journals

or administrators of projects. idea reaches the Platonic methexis, as a participation in divine design. As is known, St. Augustine added a lot to Christianise Platonic theory of ideas. For Thomas Aquinas participation as part taking of divine creation, is one of the most important theological tenants, assigned to change society. 10 This

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It is the Internet, the new or wide screen media, that has given this (unnoticed) impetus to anonymity. Paraphrasing Manovich (2001), individual creativity in general was changed by the mixture of data, or cultural “DJ activity”. The paradox is that the less individual creativity there is, the louder we speak of the rights of authors. Thus, the illusion is maintained that something original, requiring protection from copying is being created, although any creation is based on copying and mixing. Indeed, the interest in author’s rights is not pursued by the authors themselves who usually profit very little profit from their work, but by managers and administrators who remain “humble” anonyms in art history, if such is still possible. As an aside, we can talk of anonymity in the sciences, including investigations in communication. Even here it has achieved an astounding magnitude. For example, scientists including representatives of humanities and social sciences increasingly form teams for scientific research. This text is no exception. The solitary scientist and even the lone philosopher become an exception, not only due to the increasing complexity of undertakings, but also due to the work of organizing a “project” in order to obtain financial support and the necessary assistance from authoritative researchers. Scientific teamwork therefore requires anonymity and is the result of commercialism and consumerism in the sciences. Despite the many useless and inapplicable research results of projects, scientific projects are “appropriated” as if they were commodities. It takes on the appearance of a feast in which a team devours the national fare of support for science. The political feature of this support is the guaranteed loyalty of scientists (above all philosophers), who otherwise tend to be critical of authority. Scientists, and in general intellectuals, became a mob, squabbling over a bone thrown in their midst. On the other hand, the financing of “projects” helps to split scientific communities into inner conflicts, the “proposers” and “evaluators.” Out of this chaos the winners emerge, usually the administrators and clerks who go through the motions of trying to pacify those anonymous rams that call themselves scientists. In their own jargon, part of the administrator’s task is “to assure the orderly development of the scientific community” or “to optimize the network of higher education.” Anonymity even shows up in the publication of scientific results. Long gone are the times of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, whereas today dozens of names in “close” cooperation jostle for recognition as authors of a small article in a prestigious journal. Such a large group does not mean that scientists are collective by nature; most leading scientists are individuals. What it does mean, however, is that so-called joint authorships represent a survival strategy for financial support for a party or a fraction. Thus, anonymity is also political—two sides of the same coin. Anonymity is a result of the management of science. Management advantages during these times of vanishing authorship are attested by the prestigious global databases Clarivative Analytics (previously Thomson Reuters), which have a gigantic market value and sales in the billions of dollars. Before publishing their scientific research results every author (or a collective), signs an agreement, declining any profit from the publication and promises not to publish the work elsewhere. An author is deemed to be successful if they are not paid for their publication. More often than not, the author must pay a great deal of money, which cements their

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indebtedness to national bodies providing scientific support and to its distributors. Under these conditions, the struggle for author’s rights is nothing more than the increasing market value of such database monopolies as Clarivative Analytics. In other words, we, the scientists, are the embodiment of the medieval ideal to build “eternal” cathedrals (databases) for the glory of God, which in our times we recognise as the market. With this grand gesture the words of a single author is just idle talk, and the indication of authorship is a pale suggestion, rather like an architectural embellishment in a hidden corner of the cathedral’s minor nave. The anonymity in science is one reflection of contemporary anonymous society and its communication. We have already spoken of “stardom” in Q. 80 and Q. 83– 87, and Q. 92. We can add to this by saying that not only the followers of a “star” become anonymous, seeking to look like their leader, but also the star, who seeks to be popular. Just as was the case in the science example, anonymity is presumed in the managerial-economic, as well as by political tendencies. We live in an anonymous mass, in which communication is not separate from domination. Yet the dominating segment is no less dominated by ratings. This is the anonymous communication without communicators, media and mediums tautological domain. Can it be that our reflections on communicative anonymity constitute metacommunication? This is not only a discussion about communication as it was defined by Craig and Muller (2007). Anonymity is not just one of the features of communication. In communication, anonymity manifests our society, which, while being postmodern and post-industrial, is also post-communicative. The term “anonymous” stems from the Greek anonymos, meaning “nameless”. Is our society also nameless if its cyclical communication moves with changing economical, national, political values in public life? Perhaps communication, as an addition to the cyclical social development, is post-communication? Finally, let us return to your question regarding the anonymity of interactive media. Perhaps, anonymous comments are symptoms of all the processes discussed above? Anonymous comments point to two things: extreme, uncensored positions beyond the systemic power and the voice of the system, which are accepted by the commentator. It seems like two opposing and incompatible factors. But this is not the case. Although the first point would seem as if there is an escape from the political, juridical, ethical and other constrictions, the second point reveals the displeasure of the system, for disruption of the communicative domain by the user. In other words, coursings, often unaccompanied by any thought, show the displeasure of the system for intrusions into the tautology of communication. If that is so, then forbidding anonymous comments (as was done by the aforementioned internet portal), we shall, for one, reveal how fragile our communicative system really is, ready to fall apart from coursings without a series of arguments. Second, we shall stifle those signs that lead us down the right path. Here I am speaking not only about the overcoming of linguistic clichés, but also about the breakdown of the standards of thought. Of course, linguistic clichés speak about anonymous thinking, the transgression of which provokes the displeasure of the anonymous system. In this sense, the anonymous comments can be called an authentic voice of the anonymous system. To ban this voice would be to reject t6he

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sign that we truly break language and thinking in clichés. In a strange way, we find a reality, which is not so much, what surrounds us but whither we are moving. Indeed, those who promote the forbidding of anonymous comments, lack an anthropological view. After all, coursing belongs to folklore, which reveal the fauna of urban communication. Although the arsenal of such communication seems limited, we cannot yield to snobbishness, i.e. that our communication is subtle and thin. Coursings, just as the noise of birds, often hide what we cannot perceive—the reaction and tendencies of a communicative system, of which we, too, are parts.

References Baran, Stanley J., and Dennis K. Davis. 2012. Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning. Berger, Peter L., and Thomas Luckmann. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books. Bourdieu, Pierre. 2011: Sur la television. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcc6AEpjdcY. Craig, Robert T., and Heidi L. Muller (eds.). 2007. Theorizing Communication: Readings Across Traditions. London: Sage. Flusser, Vilém. 2007. „Vorlesungen zur Kommunikologie.“ In Kommunikologie, 233–235. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. Kant, Immanuel. 2015. Critique of Practical Reason. Translated by M. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Manovich, Lev. 2001. The Language of New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press. Marcuse, Herbert. 1991. One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Boston: Beacon Press. McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Chapter 14

Interconnections Between the Public and the Private in Communication

Question 94 A. M. In recent years there has been a proliferation of new communication technologies and the weakening of personal relationships. What issues arise? T. K. In the previous question we discussed how personal relationships were being eroded when communication is mostly conducted in a state of anonymity. Our need to be involved in social networks is mirrored by the imposition of political controls over the means of mass communication. Our need to make friends and conduct friendships has vastly increased our circle of “friends” to numbers never before imagined—hundred, five hundred, thousand. When Flusser (2007) classified mass communication he did not anticipate this dense, honeycomb-like phenomenon. Hence, we find ourselves on a very public “stage” with our friends, rather like in a Greek theatre where every movement is seen and every sound is heard. Movement on this vast stage is fluid and can be handed over to other friends and friends of friends who exist on “stages” in other “cities.” We are seen and heard not only by our friends, but also in the circles of their friends. The danger here is that not only our “gestures betray” us, but the real “traitor” is the body and its gestures which disclose something other than our words.1 On the other hand, as observers of the scenes we are actors, hearing the comments of our own actions, which are no less mocking and no less anonymous. The greatest danger is not that our friends (and friends of friends) are ready to mock us, competing for the crown of irony using their real names, but2 the anonymous 1 We

discussed corporeal communication in Q. 58 and Q. 76.

2 Mocking as a degrading and demeaning form of teasing plays a very important social role and adds

to social capital. The mockers form themselves into a unified front and its modus operandi is not so much by way of attack as defending itself against threats from strangers. These people must be excluded, excised, removed as far as possible from the body politic, in order to avoid a gangrenous infection or cancer due to their antics. In this sense, the social body without mockery is an oxymoron. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 T. Kaˇcerauskas and A. Mick¯unas, In Between Communication Theories Through One Hundred Questions, Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41106-0_14

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comments that are, in reality, the voice of the masses. This stiffens our resolve to strike out in our own direction, on our own path. The greatest danger posed by social networks is that I, too, may become one of the anonymous mockers. Social networks are a school of socialization wherein we learn to relate but also to escape relationships. When we escape from relationships we accept silence (a pause), and that domain needed to nurture personal relationships. The spread of mockery in social networks is not the main problem; it would be worse to accumulate network capital and fail to freeze it to provide an outlet for our voice. The social network can also be seen as a body whose gestures can be disrupted by the individual behaving like a circus clown. The orderly development of society needs nothing less than disorder. There is nothing more relevant for the “we” than the “I” who tears up nets so that we can weave new ones. In Q. 51 we spoke about creative capital which is the opposite of social capital according to Florida (2002). The individual maximizes their creative capital through individual (personal) relationships,3 whereas social capital (thriving in a “one-dimensional” environment) dampens the creative. Of course, the situation is not that simple because apart from social capital there are other types of capital such as cultural4 or “human resources”. Departing from social capital also means detachment from the cultural domain and creative movements, indeed from creative stimulation. Furthermore, if it is accumulated individually and is not exchangeable, then creative capital cannot be considered as capital per se. In other words, capital is only capital when it is socially viable, and if creative work is not socially recognized, it is not outstanding. Algis, as you remarked previously, the absence of personal interaction is accompanied by a very public hyper-communication that is amplified by the proliferation of technology. Private and public associations cannot be regarded as two distinct currencies that can be exchanged one for the other in a specific environment (at work or at home). Most often this mixture is revealed by our anger, directed at our employer or relatives at home, telephone gossip with friends and spouses, and posting reports through social networks in the privacy of our study or bedroom. Personal and social

Any effort to instil a culture of cooperation without mockery forces the latter underground. Least dangerous are childish mockeries since they are easily recognized and confronted, and allow us to form an image of a peaceful and tolerant social body. Yet, this image hides a “serious” attitude, which is not to cave into provocations by these mischievously inventive individuals; they must be exposed on the social stage of the Internet for their mockery. Resistance to childish mockery hides another notion, i.e. “you juvenile nitwits cannot yet drink beer, make love or mock—this privilege belongs to the adults!” The more Western societies age, the more this prejudice (“racism”?) toward children becomes obvious, although there is no indication that mocking in its various forms (e.g. in social networks) is on the decline. 3 An example of such a relationship is a book reading by an outstanding author who says that it is impossible to write a better book but rather a different one. 4 See Bourdieu and his discussion of capital in several of his own publications (1986) and with co-authors (Bourdieu and Passeron 1977, 1979). We can understand this discussion by reference to Marxism and how its “one-dimensionality” was ultimately rejected (2009). One and the other belongs to an “in-between” sphere and can be regarded as meta-discoursivity.

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associations are hardly distinguishable. To draw a parallel, following the introduction of the Euro each of the national currencies was part of a wider mix, the national currency being nothing more than a romantic memory invoked by the national symbol on the reverse side of the banknote. Few people appreciated this when they were hit by the tsunami of one type of global currency, the Euro. Similarly, our personal associations remain the preserve of social associations, evoking recollections of the old time when children played in the yard and did not sit in front of screens, immersed in the media, while grown ups sat and stared through the window, gawping at their computer screens or mobile phones. And yet, media and technologies are not the issue because they existed prior to social networks such as church sermons, print, radio, and more recently TV, etc. Indeed, earlier media (excluding some, such as telegraph) did not wither away and die, but learned to coexist with the new. Perhaps this rapidly expanding “choir” of media, tempting us to enter public life, is responsible for the lack of personal associations. In many ways we remain passive observers of the public, that’s if we do not become the “faces” of the screen. Rather than make us more public, it excludes us from it. Media are “cool” or “hot”, although by classifying them in this way McLuhan (1964) had in mind, among other things, the extent to which they could draw us into the public realm. In general, media (including social networks being the “hottest” case) provide the excuse for us to avoid personal association or to expect nothing from it. The falling value in the currency of our personal associations is not the fault of media or their technologies for which we the consumer must bear the burden of responsibility. They provide what we need, one of which is the replacement of personal associations. And yet we cannot avoid the use of media including the latest, such as social networks, although in this respect we should not regard ourselves as being the inhabitants of caves satisfied with drawings (also medium) on cave walls. It is a paradox that by rejecting social networks we demonstrate misanthropy which entails the loss of our personal associations. And what of the personal relationships that exist in the world of crooks, cynics and the foul mouthed? This is an old problem investigated by Plato (1888) for whom the relationship among friends was a sharing5 of ideas of good, beauty and truth,6 and so it is possible to say that crooks cannot enjoy personal relationships among each other. Yet, from the point of view of the system that seeks to “scan” the remnants of privacy, any personal relationship might be regarded as a plot. Of this, later.

5 This

is the origin of the concept of participation (methexis). (2011), Epicurus (1994), and others (and not only the thinkers of antiquity) developed this idea. Since ideas play a role in media, a question is whether the sharing of them constitutes a personal association. In terms of this question it is irrelevant whether ideas are innate (according to Plato and Descartes), or not (according to Hume and Locke). Perhaps personal association is beyond or between words, such as feelings? We returned to the theme of linguistic understanding and its surrounding sensitivity. Perhaps metacommunication and metalanguage is this “between” public appearance, lines of a text, between the results of our existence. Is our body between a mode and style?

6 Aristotle

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Question 95 A. M. Strictly speaking, there are two directions in the space of global communication: first, any event can become available everywhere (the Arab Spring), and second, governments have the ability to obtain any information about the individual. Comments please. T. K. It is impossible to avoid these two tendencies and their dialectic. One feature of mediated democracy7 is related to various contradictions, one of which is public and personal association. The Arab Spring is an excellent example of a symbiosis between democracy and media. Similar examples include the Kiev Maidan and, recently, the cities of Poland where media (and especially social media) prompted crowds to rise up and defend democracy against their own elected government. One more contradiction? Subsequent images depicted in the media “inspire” new crowds in new movements that are uncompromising, demanding that their government transform in the belief that everything can begin anew. We saw this in the Arab Spring which commenced in Egypt before sweeping through a number of countries in the Middle East. This is a good illustration of the global power of media, such globalism being possible due to the shared Arabic culture and language and, of course, the role of the media.8 Indeed, media “short circuits” democracy by running ahead of the “natural”9 cycles of elections, disrupting democracy which must undergo transformation and change. Actually, it is possible to say that media protects democracy from itself. Of course, we know that during the Arab Spring the media dislodged inert, undemocratic governments that had allowed no previous history of participatory democracy. The relationship between freedom and security is another theme where media play a significant role. The absence of democracy was initiated by media which motivated millions of demonstrators who demanded change in the political order. But change can be violent and the Arab Spring was no exception, sometimes leading to the near collapse of the state through civil war and ongoing terrorism. The same was evident in Maidan, such that the separatist movement in the east of the country remains violent and attracts violence from the Ukrainian authorities intent on preventing the dismemberment of the state. The point to note here is that the deficit of democracy is not so large if the media is able to galvanise crowds to destroy the established order. The other point is that media incites the collapse of order under which is buried the remnants of democracy, even if that democracy is fragile and limited. 7 Bestow

calls this contemporary and not liberal democracy. Actually, liberal democracy is a contradictory phrase since majority means restricting minority rights. Further, mediated democracy is our “reality” with all the contradictions (unrealities), however reality must be sufficiently unreal (mediated) in order for it to become our reality. 8 Let us recall Benedict Anderson (1991), who discussed communities (nations) formed by media. 9 We shall return to the theme of naturalness and environment.

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There is no imminent threat facing Western mediated democracies. Terrorism spread through media channels, causes death, injury and panic, and in the ensuing emergencies security services are hard-pressed to keep the peace. There is a gradual shift toward a police state which attempts to monitor individuals through surveillance devices and, of course, media. Thus, the threat to democratic order leads to the restriction of freedoms and rights, one such being the sale of personal information. In the mind of the state personal information and the right to a “private life” raises many suspicions; both are monitored through sanctioned (and controlled) media channels. Thus, media is as much a guarantee of freedom as well as its restriction. Media erase the boundary between public and private spheres, so that public figures such as politicians and pop-cultural “stars” desperately try to draw the line between the two. The more “public” the person the more they try to protect their personal privacy. Thus, media tests the boundary between public and private spheres, and equally the endurance of democracy.10 We shall address this matter separately. Question 96 M. How can we establish a boundary between public and private domains? Are technologies changing so fast that attempts to put in place appropriate laws are falling behind? T. K. Indeed, boundaries between private and public spheres are increasingly difficult to establish in view of rapidly changing communication and its technologies, although this does not mean that boundaries have vanished. If the boundary or concerns about it vanish, then so, too, will liberal democracy. Perhaps mediated democracy is the undertaker of liberal democracy? As you pointed out, concerns about such boundaries is a matter for public debate and also a legal issue. If the boundary between the private and the public is in the hands of the public, does this situation pose a threat to this boundary? Technologies intrude into this boundary through their ability to make our personal communication accessible to specific agencies, thereby making it public, and also we ourselves publicizing our personal communication through social networks. What such agencies cannot decipher, we ourselves disclose. Is it not a paradox that as the public domain expands private, democratic institutions lose their significance? Their functions are delegated to specialists and technocrats who remain invisible. The more the public expands, the more the political decisions fall into the hands of specialists and special agencies. We might call this an expanding public anonymity. Thus, we surrender to the public and its media impose the rules of discourse and behaviour. Furthermore, anonymous agents (experts) of the system eliminate any possibility of private (non-public) “deviations”. It is significant that for the most part specialists, experts and agents are not in the public space but operate anonymously. Similarly, 10 On the other hand, democracy can only be sustained if it is tested by the media, even when it threatens to destroy the existing order. The limiting cases, disclosed by media, not only show, but also establish the balances of democracy, one of which is between public and private domains.

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there is the anonymous crowd, which is compelled to speak and behave uniformly due to the influence of public media: to use the same things, see the same programs and elect the same politicians, etc. In short, the aspect of the public domain’s branchings is anonymity or un-publicity. The public without the private boundary becomes its own opposition. And then there is this open question about boundaries between the public and the private, i.e. the boundary should be a subject for public debate. Public debates about the public boundary is one more aspect of metacommunication: the public discourse about the public domain. Maintaining this boundary in a democratic society concerns every generation, yet to establish it for all times is impossible due to changing technology and our own changing views. In other words, the establishment of boundaries is a struggle by the community and its outstanding members against the default—the constant slide toward uniformity and mediocrity. The greatest enemy of democracy is democracy itself or, more precisely its tendencies that are intermingled with majority rule. In this instance, technologies and techniques are innocent and the absolute majority of technical inventions does not apply. Basic physics and philosophy do not apply because they propose one or another worldview. We will address the applicability of philosophy in a mediated society later in this section. What we can apply, however, are those creative ideas that resonate with social utility. Technologies only offer the means to realize social purposes. The Internet is there to fulfil our need to acquire and use information, whilst social networks expand our friendships. In addition, the tracking and “scanning” of individuals is about the need to publicize the private realm. Constantly expanding technologies is characteristic of a creative society, yet innovative technologies serve the anti-creative tendencies of uniformity and mediocrity. The technology of cloning is a good example, expressing the need for uniformity, predictability and in a society that is controllable. Nonetheless, the real technology of cloning are media which homogenizes our thinking and perception. By realizing this homogeneous social “utopia” we can do away with the boundary between private and public domains since everyone has access to “stars” and their styles. These tendencies should make us wary about this boundary. In a mediated society, the concern with this boundary is interlinked with the creativity, both individual and social, despite the technological promise to replace creativity with innovations. Question 97 A. M. To what extent is the abundance of media technologies disrupting human relationships with the natural environment? T. K. This is an important question addressing our innate nature, our belonging to nature and our relationship to the natural environment. We touched upon issues of nature in previous questions. In Q. 51, we mentioned biological communication, extending the explication of its model in Q. 88. In Q. 64, we explored the physiological theme, leading us to the components of physis as nature and inherent nature. In

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Q. 74, we saw that the objects of nature, next to values, ways of being, acts of will, moods, desires (and, let me add conditions) are to be regarded as “things”. I believe this is what you said in your book on phenomenology (Mickunas and Stewart 1990). How should we regard this reduction of nature to a “thing”? It is worth recalling the difference between Sache and Ding in phenomenology, discussed in Q. 72, and the features of Sache deciphered in Q. 74. In the context of the use of things (Dinge) we encounter the absence of a handy thing (Sache). What does a handy thing, and in this case handy nature, mean? Handy things signify the direction of our temporary being comprising a creative environment. In this sense, if, and in what way, is nature handy? Does technological media prevent our access to media? Is the intrusion into nature an aspect of its use? On the other hand, is not the intense concern for protecting nature11 merely our proprietary view of nature? Is it simply a case of mimicry where economy pretends to be ecology, or is it the other way around, i.e. an exchange among different kinds of capital suggests an absence of communication thresholds and the possible ecologization of the economy? We also discussed the theme of creative ecology, which seeks to shake out the “garbage” related to thinking and consciousness (Howkins 2009). This is consistent with phenomenological bracketing which allows us to look at a phenomenon with an open and “clean” consciousness. This is also a principle of communication insofar as we regard the ideas of our interlocutor to be handy for our purposes. For one, it is a bracketing of disruption of communication; second, it is the subordination of communicating ideas for our purposes, which also change in terms of such ideas. Yet, for the sake of communication certain “garbage” thinking such as disruptions or thresholds is unavoidable and necessary.12 Without them we would be threatened by homogeneity and mediocrity, resulting in the catastrophe of creative ecology. 11 It was only in the twentieth century that protecting the natural environment became a major public concern. This is evidenced by the increase in national parks, international non-governmental organizations (INGO) and intergovernmental organizations (IGO), and the rise in “green” laws. Thus, the number of national parks from the beginning of the twentieth century to 1990, increased from 40 to 7000 and similar increases appeared with INGO and IGO organizations. “Green” rules increased from 1 to 50 during the period 1969–1990, while the number of environmental ministries increased from 1 to 109, during the period 1971–1995 (Hironaka and Schofer 2000). This almost obsessive concern for nature is exemplified in Lithuania: Neringa (protected by UNESCO as unique nature) is not only off limits to construction, but the demolition of buildings is required. All things considered, it appears that the annexation of nature threatens human existence. On the other hand, this seems like an effort to enculturate or control nature. Besides, the abovementioned statistics is our alibi to further exploit nature, which fights back with storms, tornadoes and global warming. This becomes an instrument for political power when countries such as the U.S.A. leave the Paris Agreement. Environmental protection becomes hostage to democracy—after all, during the 2016 U.S.A. presidential campaign one candidate promised to sacrifice environmental protection for jobs. 12 We can relate this to Heidegger’s (1996) handiness of the existentials such as “they” (das Man) or idle talk. Yet, if this trend leads to homogeneity and averageness then it must provoke opposition. Existentials are part of daily life, which is associated with metacommunication. Is access to the world through daily life equivalent to the ecological view? On the other hand, does being antiecological reduce the variety of rules and communication to one (systemic) anti-standard? Should we be sufficiently “polluted” so that we “clean up”, but also stand out as different in our environment? Is pollution not a sign of alterity and variety, i.e. what is most needed in a homogeneous and “clean”

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All such procedures of creative ecology suggest a meta-ecology as a version of metacommunication. The polluters, raggedy, homeless, bums, and beggars—whatever their names— are phenomena of Western civilization that have been with it from its very inception, despite all efforts by affluent society to exclude them. The homeless are part of the “thriving” urban panorama. For one, they embody an ecological principle by surrendering themselves to nature and collecting the refuse of the civilized society. Indeed, they are regarded as the refuse of civilization—the secondary product of its development. Any assortment or collection of refuse is alien to them because it is not characteristic of natural beings. For the latter, just as for the homeless (more precisely those for whom home is nature), nature is everything and everywhere, and without any refuse. The collection of refuse only concerns those who have separated society from nature. In classical Greece the secondary products of civilization were the cynics. Their way of life revealed the limits of well-being, ecology and ethics. Diogenes lived in a clay wine barrel13 and was dissatisfied with his tiny dwelling, then “returned” to nature through his love-making in the temple yard. This reveals the limits of our concept of the sacred, and his rejection of Alexander the Great’s authority, with the (questionable) claim that the king was blocking the sun.14 Cynics lived a nomadic existence, eating and sleeping where they liked, adopting a cosmopolitan attitude.15 Their “free” love was a statement of their naturalness and their way of satisfying their natural needs, yet not be tied to them. Here, vitality seems to coincide with animals whose dynamics is part of the natural cycles, including the cycles of birth and death. However, it also represents a movement away from society that moves forwards and backwards. This is the mobility of the cynics who reject all social attachments and hope to return to the “natural” being toward death. It was not by chance that Diogenes “bequeathed” his post-mortem body to the animals so that they could feast peacefully without fear of being beaten. Of course, what remain of his many scripts have been bequeathed16 to our civilized animals, upon which they feast. The denigration of family, society, property, and reputation is a return to the natural state, yet it is also a paradox because natural beings are not concerned with

society and which must be in constant flux? Are the technologies of communication exclusively the means of “cleaning” and “purifying”, intent on levelling society and communication? 13 In a similar way, Diogenes upended social values. 14 The answer given by Alexander the Great was: “If I were not Alexander, I would like to be Diogenes,” tells us that Diogenes was different from his rich and powerful contemporaries and was the lord of his nature who received no favours from the king. 15 The cosmopolitan attitude is associated with another figure from the past, Diogenes. When asked where he was from he answered that he was a citizen of the world. On the other hand, Diogenes placed himself beyond citizenship that is characterised by being in communication. Is this not a metacommunication? 16 Sadly, from the ten books he wrote, only anecdotes about his life remain, although his “practice” is sufficient for numerous interpretations and communications.

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demeaning, a practice which is the “surplus”17 of civilization. The priority for Diogenes was simplicity and practice (in place of theory), which characterised his life. His answer to Plato’s statement that “man is a featherless, two-legged creature”, was rather like the plucked chicken thrown over the fence into the Academy. The simplicity of Diogenes is both natural and social and he is neither the deliberate loner (Thoreau’s description of Walden, 1960), nor the accidental loner (Robinson Crusoe imagined by Defoe 2008). Instead, he needs society for support and also as an object of criticism. His relationship to society is not simplistic for he lives in the turmoil of events (the market square), but his dwelling (the barrel) is hidden. This relationship is dual: he can be viewed from the side while being in the centre.18 It is also true that Diogenes creates turmoil in society by his shocking and confronting behaviour. Consider his exile from Sinope for counterfeiting local currency, during which time he becomes cosmopolitan, capable of regarding urban society from the outside. Meanwhile, he continues to counterfeit social “currency” by toying with social values and habits. Of course, there are various versions that we deem to be “capital” (social, cultural, human resources, and even creative), which change without disruption in the mediated society. The production of social “currency” may be needed to disrupt this exchange cycle and thus lead to its renewal. We might regard Diogenes as the fellow carrying a lamp in search of an honest man, the predecessor to Nietzsche’s (1974) madman who shouts that “God is dead”. Perhaps honesty became as much a deficit as money in the Biblical world of the Pharisees, whose currency is mostly “counterfeit” honesty. It is impossible to find an honest man not because individuals break social norms, but because they are usually very observant of the letter of the law (“do not eat at the market”), which is the same as being a conformist. Influenced by Diogenes, Nietzsche writes that the easiest way to “kill God” is to substitute living faith with the slavish adherence to the letter of the law. Both Diogenes and Nietzsche’s madman show that a living faith is risking a return to one’s nativity19 despite the pressure of the homogenized and mediocre society. Diogenes emphasizes the difference between what is innate and what is a custom. The latter suppresses the former, i.e. what imposes certain requirements and what makes one subservient and obedient. The free philosopher has the privilege of criticizing them in the market of the exchange of “currencies”, which is why Alexander the Great admired Diogenes. Anecdotes about Diogenes are a form of communication

17 The irony about the stick used to chase away animals from the body of a dead person, is that it is the same stick used to beat both the mocker and the person who makes ironic statements. 18 Diogenes was alone in living (sleeping and eating) in the market square of Athens, eating in public being culturally unacceptable to Athenians. He responded to their complaints by stating that he would get hungry only when he came to the market square. Thus, being in the very centre of society awakens a hunger to engage in its criticism from the sidelines. Similarly, one must be at the centre of media in order to offer a criticism from the sidelines. Again, we encounter metacommunication, although here it is in the image of meta-media (media criticism). 19 Return to nativity is equivalent to return to the things, which appear in the project of our existence.

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and demonstrate how democratic society transmits the past and its contradictions.20 Then again, it is an attestation to (self) ironic witness of an exceptional person’s place in society. Such a person who finds no welcome or acceptance for their ideas is homeless and separates themselves from society. Being an exile in their birthplace, as well as moving to the “periphery of the market”, shows an exceptional person’s homelessness and their status as a citizen of the world. Diogenes draws from the heritage of Socrates, the philosopher of the market place, and his student Antisthenes.21 He ignores Platonic theorizing, musing to what extent (meta)communication must be theoretical, i.e. to what extent is (self)education a theoretical transmission of information? And to what extent can we offer information about events in the changing environment and social composition? Perhaps information emerges during a communication between two sides, e.g. teacher and student. Captured by sea pirates and sold into slavery,22 Diogenes finds himself teaching the children of Xeniades in their home in Corinth.23 To be at home means to pass on information to the inhabitants. Is our home, the world, in need of communication? There is some irony that the home of Diogenes is associated with his position as a slave,24 yet sharing information is a form of free slavery. While a teacher must be sufficiently outstanding, their knowledge grows in the presence of a student who develops in their own way. Without this dynamism information cannot be communicated, but becomes lodged in the crevices of theoretical constructs. This is one more aspect of dynamic metacommunication associated with the transmission of information. The audacity shown by Diogenes in Plato’s academy (educational academy) with his plucked chicken provocation is one more test of philosophy as a theoretical venture, which ignores life. Moreover, this is not only a mocking of philosophical pronouncements (such as “man is a featherless biped”), but also an exhibition of human nature, which, in many cases is more noble than (mediated) society provides. This is the point of Diogenes’ snubbing public opinion, which also might well be

20 At the same time, it demonstrates the cyclical repetition of social type in a mediated environment. Is this simply another event? Is a repetition not a creation of such repetition? Is an event a novelty, disrupting the rhythm of repetition? 21 One anecdote tells of Diogenes appealing to be a student of Antisthenes, who strikes him with a stick, which is a sign of exclusion. Diogenes shot back: “Beat me, but your cane is not hard enough to chase me away as long as you have something to say”. 22 This can be compared to Plato being sold into slavery, associated with his upcoming educational activity. Bought out by Anniceris, a student of Socrates, with money, which later Anniceris refuses, and this allows Plato to found his academy. 23 Associated with this is another anecdote. In the slave market, Diogenes is asked by Xeniades what is his profession. Diogenes replied that it was to transmit knowledge to others, i.e. to communicate. The answer was sufficiently convincing for Xeniades to buy him as a teacher of his children. 24 This is associated with one more anecdote. Exiled from Sinope, Diogenes arrives at Athens with the slave, Manes, who then runs away. Diogenes comments on this state of affairs: “If Manes can live without Diogenes, why not Diogenes without Manes?” The later life of Diogenes shows the changes from a free citizen to a slave in Corinth. Yet, slavery does not constrict his freedom to express his thoughts. To the contrary, as teacher of Xeniades’ children, this allows him to enjoy the space of the freedom associated with the transmission of knowledge and education.

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the snubbing of styles and fashion.25 The etymology of style signifies the inscription and transmission of knowledge, while fashion has its sources in antiquity—demonstration of a cultural repetition associated with cyclical nature. For Diogenes it is stupidity, pretence, emptiness, self-delusion, and artifice, in short, “stardom.” All this reveals the split from our nature, i.e. from dog-ness. Dog-ness is lost with the spread of civilization. Man is artificial and hypocritical and therefore must follow the example of a dog. According to Diogenes a dog sleeps and mates quite openly, is beyond shame, is a good guard (including of his philosophy), and distinguishes friend from foe. The dog regards the former as a relative of cynical philosophy, but chases away the foe with angry barking (Dudley 1937). Diogenes was chased away by Antisthenes which is a real, authentic, and inherent communication between the two of them. So, we must be chased away from society, be homeless or garbage men if we are to free ourselves from its artificiality and view it from the outside. We must doubt the reality of its currency in order to escape its deceptive values. We must be suspicious of the equivalence of its exchange value if we are to espy the praxis of metacommunication. We must see the limits of theories of communication in order to speak of what shows up between them. Moreover, the very etymology of a dog’s nature is related to cynicism.26 Etymology is a backward glance toward the primary sources, although as a “real” return (just as understanding27 ), this is not possible due to changes in cultural and environmental conditions. Indeed, this backward glance implies not only the significance of historical events, but also the cyclical composition of society. This being the case, the reflections of Diogenes are more important today than during his time. Could it be that contemporary society’s love affair for dogs is an effort to compensate for the deficit of “natural” and “real” communication? Yet, the fake, fictitious, pretending and mediated society is similar to the community of beasts for which we can offer our dead body, i.e. ideas so that they can be scattered in pieces. Does this communication look like a forward or backward step for civilization? In view of the cyclical composition of society, progress and regress are linked, exchanging one for the other in the circling of the same (un-fabricated) currency of communication.

25 The temporality of fashion is evident not by its passing, but by its return, which is also its repetition, if not eternity. This duality of fashion is also its attraction. 26 In Greek, kynikos is dog-like, from kyon, dog. It is not clear what came first: the reflections of Diogenes concerning the dog’s nature or the cynicism with which he identified himself. It is known that Antisthenes taught (again a pedagogical motive) at the Cinosargos (white dog) school in Athens. 27 Let us look at Dilthey’s retrospective discussion with Friedrich Schleiermacher, who claimed that we understand a historical author better than his contemporaries—we see the totality of his life and the influence of his ideas. In addition, the author’s ideas, for us are “more real” than for him or for his society. This is not a naïve view in light of the changing contexts. It seems that the basic thing for communicating ideas is not only the constantly changing environment, but because such change moves in a circle or a spiral. It is ideas, which stimulate social change, which, in turn, makes society receptive for these or other ideas. The reality of ideas is their ability to change society. It is not an exception that ideas about the relationship between culture and nature become more acute the more society is distanced from nature (that is chased away).

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The case of Diogenes shows that anecdotes depicting the uniqueness of an individual in a routine environment mock rigid society rather than the “upstart” individual. While depicting an individual, anecdotes speak about the social reaction to an individual upstart and its tendencies. In other words, we must regard them as a form of metacommunication. Perhaps the “uncensored” comments are a version of anecdotes. Can we say that nature remains stable despite culture being in a constant state of flux? Is the theory of evolution about the mutation of species of animals a projection of our cultural changes on nature?28 How is it possible to have communication between distinctly specific regions, between what is permanent and what is changing? Of course, nature is characterized by its constant motility, including the seasonal migrations of animals and the changes of seasons. In this sense, the stability of nature is a mere appearance. Animals are mobile creatures and adapt themselves to a changing natural environment or to escape unexpected and sudden changes such as storms. On the other hand, radical changes in culture might also seem as mere appearance. For one, stability is guaranteed by a tradition, stretching from antiquity. One of the cultural traditions is democracy even if it has gone through changes. Second, social cycles or spirals assure stability even through the storms of “cultural revolutions;” such cycles are the natural principle in society. Such things as fashion or what is a la mode could be regarded as the ontogenesis of repeated social development. Finally, a routine domain of communication demands that the individual adapt in order to survive. Thus, the characteristics of nature and society are the dialectic of permanence and change which entails instability which is ever-present in society and nature. This is not only a concern for biological communication, which, in this case, is metacommunication. It seems that we have deviated from your question about the ways communication is delimited against nature, although hopefully not that much if we recall our discussion of the history of philosophy and one of its heroes, Diogenes. Delimitation was not because Greek civilization was closer to nature, but rather cynicism emerged as a reaction to civilization, i.e. as a deficit of nature. If this was a burden in ancient Greece, then in today’s urban environment it has become a problem. The lesson of Diogenes is not for us to naively return to nature (to a dog’s life) as did the thinkers of two thousand years later (Rousseau 1987; Thoreau 1960). The deficit of naturalness appears not so much, and not only with, the diminution of the natural domain, but with our hypocrisy, artifice and emptiness. All of this is a region of communication, i.e. a phenomenon of communication in a “civilized” society. Thanks to new technologies the birth of “new” media makes this region all the more apparent. The ratings of authenticity, insight and honesty, for example in TV, are lower than at any time in the “old” media. Besides, artistry, irony and even anecdotes are equally less desired.

28 More

so, because there are no findings of transitional chains from one species to another.

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Question 98 A. M. Does the transference of human communication into mass media put an to end mediated communication? T. K. This is one more question about balance in public and private communication, the disruption of which is dangerous to the public and private domains. If my understanding is correct, the publicizing of private communication not only depersonalizes29 private life but also explodes, so to speak, public mediated communication. Later, we shall address communication as technology and how it can destroy communication. Our conversation has not yet ended. However, let us turn to the concept of mediated communication which Stanley J. Baran and Dennis K. Davis define as “communication between a few or many people who apply media technology” (Baran and Davis 2012: 7). This delimitation is more than brief, and contains many different concepts that need to be explained. What is medium technology, and what is a medium? The latter takes us back to Q. 71 where we discussed a dual medium—the communicative domain and personal domain. In both cases we can speak of technologies such as immersion in the media domain, or the technology of the pursuit of “stardom”. Here, we encounter the reduction of personal communication technologies. But your question is different: how does human communication put an end to mediated communication? First of all, any communication is a social phenomenon, i.e. it assumes a narrower (friends) and broader (social) community as a context for an individual. This is really about the relationship between the individual and society. Having discussed this issue we suggested that in order to enhance communication we restrict it to the extent that the individual’s voice disappears. Yet, a profound creativity distorts the mediated system and compels it to renew itself. The fact is that outstanding creativity30 ceases to be a personal matter and its proliferation is no longer a personal communication. If an author does not oversteps himself when looking at his own and social utopian future, his creation is not worthy of outstandingness. The latter disrupts systemic relationships including ethical domains, obliging the system to “defend” itself against such creativity. The latter might be ignored, not recognized, or “praise” given to the upstart author, but this is deceptive, because the author is made to “belong” by being honoured, decorated, and supported. Finally, the author becomes part of the system and can no longer disrupt its mechanism—in other words, the author becomes mediated. Would a creative society in which the systemically mediated social relationships are disrupted, be a utopia? The answer is yes because it would threaten the order of a system, however the utopian dream is needed for a mediated society if it is to remain vital and fertile. For order to prevail in a mediated society, then it needs to accept the creativity of disruptive individuals. 29 Depersonalizing

can be compared to demythologizing—according to Bultmann (1989).

30 I am not speaking about artistic, but about existential creativity. Are we lesser artists if we realize

the utopia of our lives? It is worth mentioning political creativity in the effort to realize social utopia.

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Question 99 A. M. If education continues to narrow down all programs to technical sciences, thereby rejecting philosophy, open dialogue, polilogue, then perhaps communication and public debates will vanish, since no one will be qualified to participate in public affairs. Your comments, please. T. K. I think we are revisiting the question of metacommunication, although from a slightly different perspective. Public communication is undergoing processes that are similar to those in scientific communication, i.e. the splintering into “technical” and “specialized” communications. Important public questions can only be answered by specialists and experts who are anonymous in two senses. As specialists in a narrow discipline they remain hidden from the general public. Also, the ethics of expertise requires them to remain anonymous,31 so that no one is responsible for important questions; worse still is that responsibility belongs to the Great Anonym! Specialists have decided that the bike-paths in Vilnius cannot be funded because they require viaducts which are too expensive to build. Specialists decided the sculptures on the city’s Green Bridge should be removed because they were rusted and a danger to pedestrians. Specialists also decided that Vilnius does not need a metro, because this will bankrupt the state’s transport department. Specialists permitted the construction of a restaurant in Nida to service the expanding tourist numbers, whereas other specialists decided to demolish an existing restaurant for ecological reasons, despite it being perfectly functional. Two tendencies become clear: public communication splinters into numerous specialties, although no one is responsible for anything— apart from the Great Anonym. Your question also involves pedagogy, the education of society which concerns all utopians including Plato (1888), Tommaso Campanella (2011), More (1972), and even Huxley (2007) which we discussed in Q. 86. How to educate to create the “best” society, and what kind of role does communication play? The question of what is the best society and what communication means in education are involved, are interrelated. It would seem that the latter question is technical or methodological. Yet, methodos is a path, which either leads or misleads. Perhaps private communication resists any technologization? To what extent society can be non-technical? In other words, how much space can be devoted to private matters in the domain of public communication, which leads us away from common (utopian) aims? No wonder many utopian theoreticians would like to restrict, if not abolish, the domain of private communication. Is it the case that an exclusive communication and exclusive public matters are the greatest utopia? Public technical communication is a claim to be metacommunication by subjecting all individuals to the public domain.

31 The

question is how ethics can demand the “draining” of responsibility? The principle of anonymity is such a “draining”.

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I have a different thesis, i.e. having a private (personal) communication indicates a certain degree of saturation of social metacommunication. Being exclusively technical—having exclusive public communication—society is irrational. Soviet society was irrational and not only because it sought an exclusive technical public domain in the quest for its own utopia, but also because it drifted toward dissolution. The abolition of the private domain in all areas32 is an act of social self-destruction. With the disappearance of the private domain, propaganda loses its purpose and thus it begins to form an empty circle.33 This empty “convulsion” fuels a hunger for privacy and evokes a contra-communication, which, finally, destroys the social order. The problem with utopian society is not that it “looks” too far at what it cannot realize, because many presumed unrealizable ideas were realized. The problem of all utopian societies (including Soviet), is that it stagnates by concentrating survival techniques. Ultimately, socialism in its mature stage realised (unhappily) that its belief in the triumph of technology had been misplaced, and that its goal of creating a utopia had been destroyed. In other words, the technology for eliminating the private domain and personal communication is a technology for burying public utopia and the public domain. In its place it is worth promoting communicative dialectic between the private and the public. Metacommunication should be sought between them, even if not as a peaceful relationship. Let us return to your question regarding the necessity for philosophy and other “non-technical” disciplines in public debate. The last thing public debates need is “non-technical”, utopian or even insane ideas. If we do not have the freedom to create utopia then communicative technology destroys itself. Here, political order is of no use: communism was born in capitalist society at a time of increasing disillusionment with the capitalist project. To the contrary, nowhere was capitalism and its “consumer life” (Bauman 2007) so idealized than in the so-called socialist societies, despite propaganda to the opposite. It matters very little that this occurred at the personal level of communication, which shows just how powerful informal communication can be.34 Indeed, we can understand and evaluate political orders through the relationship between personal (non-technical) and public (technical) communication, rather than by the status of private property, elections, and even freedom of speech. In democratic nations free speech is tilted toward the limit of morality and immorality, legality and illegality to the extent they tolerate manipulation and fakery during the election process. Finally, there are techniques by which private property

32 The

taboo of private property is followed by the stifling of private opinion in the public domain. can offer a hypothesis: the disruption of the relationship between private and public communication results in the inefficiency of propaganda. With his empirical researches Lazarsfeld (1972) posited the incapacity of propaganda but did not attempt to explain it. In addition, this also implies the incapacity of pubic communication as a technique for creating utopia. Of course, it can be an indication of the power of a technique which can bury the very utopia. 34 We could ask whether informal communication is a version of personal communication? Is the technology of propaganda’s intrusion the very technology for the creation of counter-communication (which is informal)? 33 We

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can be appropriated35 which reveals the political nature of communication, and the necessity of such “non-technical” disciplines as philosophy. Whilst it might appear to some as being unpractical, philosophy is actually a very practical way of nurturing the dialectics of communication between personal and social domains, and delimiting one from the other. Furthermore, philosophy is concerned with utopia which stagnant (technical) society needs. By offering an impractical counter-technique in social development, philosophy is a practical metacommunication “between” the personal and the public. Question 100 A. M. What advice might we offer to communication scholars about future problems and their solutions? T. K. Most likely, the tendencies discussed herein will intensify and we will encounter increasingly problematic contradictions, although there are signs that resolutions may emerge with homogenization in society and its demands. This may lead to opposition and even more conflict. We can speak of tendencies at two interlinked levels of communication: science and society. On the one hand, there is an increase in communication schools and traditions (seven, 18 or 28), which reflects the differentiation of cultures and worldviews. Schools also show singular discoursivities which lead to a separation of scientific traditions, one from the other and to closeness and “party-ness”. A school such as the cybernetic appeals to totality and a system, however its dogma excludes it from other schools of communication due to its particular vocabulary and methods. Then, there is the obvious deconstruction of metacommunication as an unnecessary “hat” of schools, at the same time as the increasing need for metacommunication in the political domain where it loses its scientific limits. Communication is regarded solely as linguistic, and also appeals to various senses, contesting the priority of language. Public discourse is oriented to a future global utopia and the emergence of historical communication, which announces the nation’s “glorious” past. This is an act of delimitation against other nations—even within the tight political structures of the European Union. There is a perspectivity of views that has led to an undeclared war, although global communication homogenizes views, positions and demands. Cross-cultural communication is emphasised, inter-cultural understanding is acknowledged at the highest level, but there is also a level of inter-cultural antagonism as never before. Those who dominate propaganda become more and more dissolved while political power interflows with the economic. Expert visual

35 Beginning with illegal laws of wealth acquisition, and ending with the activities of public persons

who manage competition.

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and audial means dominate propaganda but without propagandists. Techniques of persuasion exhorting us to consume are being constantly refined, yet we are increasingly resistant to persuasion, possibly becoming immune to attempts at persuasion. On the one hand, politicians declare “serious” changes. On the other, politics interflows more and more with pop culture while becoming absolutely “unserious”. On the one hand, the role of medium (both as domain and as mediated person) increases in order to adapt to the environment and to imitate the “stars”. On the other, distrust and disappointment increases in any medium including the “stars”. On the one hand, the concepts of truth diverge more and more while the techniques of reality creation are refined. On the other, we pursue one truth more and more and the latter moves also to the political level while individuals desire an enforced equal way of life and “united” attitudes. On the one hand, there is an increased dissatisfaction with the present and disappointment with the past. On the other, we entangle more and more with risky future plans which throw us back into the past. On the one hand, we refer to statistics, pernickety empirics and the conclusions of “specialists”. On the other, the politicians appeal to an uncertain future and offer us mere platitudes. On the one hand, society democratizes while individuals begin to look the same from the outside. On the other, new classes emerge and the gap between them increases by the consumption of luxury items and lifestyle. On the one hand, the media creates mediocrity and banal uniformity. On the other, such an environment needs “stars” who also are the products of this environment, and for us to follow. On the one hand, media differentiates more and more while different media channels compete aggressively or attack each other. On the other, media channels speak with one voice and form a uniformly equal environment. On the one hand, the inter-civilizational domain becomes more and more similar. On the other, civilizational hostility deepens and is locked in a state of war, whether declared or not. On the one hand, ethics differentiates more and more to those held by communities, professional or even individual, the tendency of freedom from total ethics is on the rise. On the other, there are ever more claims to global ethics that interact more and more with politics. On the one hand, there is more anonymity at all levels of publicity. On the other, anonymous comments are ever more hurtful. On the one hand, we refuse more personal communication and exchange “real” friends for virtual friends. On the other, we perceive the deficit of personal communication more and more dramatically. On the one hand, the limit between public and personal domains vanishes more and more while we refuse the private domain in the name of image. On the other, the issue of the private domain becomes more and more sensitive while the publicity occupies and dominates the private region. On the one hand, it becomes more difficult to control individuals. On the other, any designs of any government become more and more transparent. On the one hand, specialists in our technological societies are “liked” more and more and their individuated competencies and knowledge grow more and more. On the other, the deficit of total knowing reveals itself more and more, i.e. the principle of ignorance establishes itself more and more. On the one hand, more and more we lament the loss of nature in artificial mediated environments. On the other, nature has been incorporated into the new reserves, national parks and zoos, faster and faster. In this way they have been nationalized. Here, nature—like mediated society—has been

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supervised, controlled and nourished. Similarly, the individual in mediated society has been watched and “nourished” by the paradigms of behaviour and of thinking. On the one hand, the total background for the more effective transition of a message has been pursued. On the other, communicative noise, disturbance and coverness emerge in this way. On the one hand, we seek to maximise precision while transmitting a message. On the other, there is more and more communicative ambiguity. On the one hand, communication has been invested with “practical” aims in order to improve the life of the masses. On the other, we pay no less attention to the other side while we “communicate” with aliens and angels. In this sense, the sources of communication are as much unpractical and “blind” as those of chemistry with its origins in alchemy. On the one hand, democracy prospers and spreads as never before following the “surrender” of communist Eastern Europe. On the other, the need for rhetoric disappears because the “noise” of the media has made irrelevant the political individual. On the one hand, communication seeks to overcome the distance between bodies and serves as their extension. On the other, it ignores bodies by turning them into phantoms of the media. On the one hand, communication means making a piece of art accessible for everyone and creativity as well as its consumption have been democratized. On the other, the demand in elite art and the “expense” of consuming it is high as never before. The unfading popularity of opera and the rise of art auctions “free” from the ghettos attest to it. On the one hand, communication promises limitlessness and eternity. On the other, the need of the limits and of end-ness emerges. Finally, the meaning of communication as speaking, while death is close, becomes clearer. On the one hand, the media serves communication. On the other, it replaces any personal communication that becomes unnecessary and even impossible. On the one hand, publicity is for better communication. On the other, publicity, while an image has been exploited, blocks communication. On the one hand, a message has been encoded due to the better spread of it. On the other, a code becomes the mean of demarcation, ipso facto of communication blocks. The same could be said about the scientific schools that investigate communication. On the one hand, communication in mass media dwarfs any alternatives to it. On the other, we trust in rumours while the big city turns into a village. On the one hand, the flood of information is free. On the other, there is locked information which runs the risk of being stolen and a huge ransom demanded. In the age of free information, the act of stealing it becomes more profitable than traditional mafia business as drug dealing or prostitution. In general, the mafia with its strong authoritarian structure prospered in democratic countries, which is an expression of the “hard hand” under conditions of diffused democracy. On the one hand, more and more the screen replaces the reality and mix of data—creativity. On the other, novelties become much sought after commodities and the return to “real” nature in different forms becomes a lucrative business. On the one hand, information multiplies unceasingly and any barriers and obstacles are broken. On the other, the flood of information becomes the biggest obstacle to the selection and assimilation of knowledge. Beside, it becomes more and more difficult to train the correspondent skills. On the one hand, the conscience of an individual becomes “clear” after the responsibility for their behaviour has been delegated to the media. On the other, we have a constantly bad conscience due to our—mediated

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creatures—“innate” sin under the conditions of total irresponsibility. On the one hand, global culture moves dramatically toward similarities, on the other, there is a hunger for cultural outstandingness, which would be interesting globally. On the one hand, homosexuality and trans sexuality reveal a homogenized communication domain, in which anyone relating to anyone can change into anyone,36 whereas on the other there is a greater need for gender differentiation. On the one hand, consumerism covers such spheres as love and relationships and witnesses about the undisturbed communicative domain. On the other, we feel painfully the deficit of that what is not consumed. On the one hand, we face concerns about our economic welfare encouraged by the offer of consumer goods offer and by political promises. On the other, more and more we lack love. The number of suicides increased tenfold compared with “poor” society one hundred years ago. Death has been consumed as much as love by changing our wives and husbands. On the one hand, creative novelty is blocked in the homogenized domain. On the other, the demand for the original word is at its highest yet. On the one hand, a big city with many individuals and communities opens unlimited possibilities of communication. On the other, the urbanistic environment is anonymous as no other. On the one hand, entertainments produce new forms of communication. On the other, they function as an “exit” beyond communication. On the one hand, buyers of propaganda “spill over” into the economy and the exercise of political power, on the other, uncontrolled propaganda reaches unseen heights through the masterful use of visual and audial imagery. Most likely this turmoil in communication will increase and to slow the process is really not possible: any attempt to “manage” it is also directed against democracy. The restrictions on democracy, or at least attempts to impose them, will continue. Such tendencies are part and parcel of democracy (rule by the majority) which seeks to maintain itself at any price, and thus produce from the clutter of communication an admixture that has a taste of the authoritarian. Supposed anti-global tendencies such as Brexit push societies toward more and more dead ends. Regaining its political autonomy to act (restriction of movements, e.g. people, capital, communication) can only end in a closed system and a disoriented population. Finally, let us look at one more feature, to wit, communication with the future. We always communicate with the future, and it is not only our relationship with our utopia. Augustine (2013) was astounded that the past is no more, the future is not yet, and the present, a moment which, turning into the past, is inaccessible. For Heidegger (1996) the ex-stasis of past, present and future is unitary, since temporal modes are not separated one from the other, and not separate from our existential project. With our being toward the future, communication makes it real and makes us real, moving us toward a utopia. My advice—always aspire to utopia.

36 Similarly, in the not too distant future I could go to a clinic and demand: “Doctor, I feel as if I was

born a pig—I identify with the porcine community. I behave in all sorts of piggish ways. I demand that you perform an operation so that I can realise my potential as the real pig that I am, and was born as.”

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References Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Aristotle. 2011. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by R.C. Bartlett and S.D. Collins. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Augustine. 2013. Confessions. Translated by F.B. O’Rourke. London: DLT Books. Baran, Stanley J., and Dennis K. Davis. 2012. Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning. Bauman, Zygmunt. 2007. Consuming Life. Cambridge: Polity. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. The forms of capital. In Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, ed. J.G. Richardson, 241–258. New York: Greenwood Press. Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron. 1977. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. London: Sage. Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron. 1979. The Inheritors. French Students and Their Relation to Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bultmann, Rudolf. 1989. New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings. Translated by S.M. Ogden. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Campanella, Tommaso. 2011. The City of the Sun. Translated by H. Morley. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Defoe, Daniel. 2008. Robinson Crusoe. London: Oneworld. Dudley, Donald R. 1937. A History of Cynicism from Diogenes to the 6th Century A.D. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Epicurus. 1994. The Epicurus Reader. Selected Writings and Testimonia. Indianapolis: Hackett. Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books. Flusser, Vilém. 2007. „Vorlesungen zur Kommunikologie.“ In Kommunikologie, 233–235. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. Heidegger, Martin. 1996. Being and Time. Translated by J. Stambough. New York: State University of New York. Hironaka, Ann, and Evan Schofer. 2000. The nation-state and the natural environment over the twentieth century. American Sociological Review 65: 96–116. Howkins, John. 2009. Creative Ecologies: Where Thinking is a Proper Job. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers. Huxley, Aldous L. 2007. Brave New World. Toronto: Vintage Canada. Lazarsfeld, Paul F. 1972. Qualitative Analysis: Historical and Critical Essays. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill. Mickunas, Algis, and David Stewart. 1990. Exploring Phenomenology. Athens: Ohio University Press. More, Thomas. 1972. Utopia. Baltimore: Penguin Books. Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1974. The Gay Science. Translated by W. Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books. Plato. 1888. The Republic. Translated by B. Jowett. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1987. Basic Political Writings. Translated by D.A. Cress. Indianapolis: Hacket Publishing. Thoreau, Henry D. 1960. Walden, or, Life in the Woods. London: J. M. Dent.

Postscript

To conclude, some general remarks. There is no single theory of communication, but rather a number of schools of communication and traditions, from rhetoric, through phenomenology, cybernetic, to feminist, and others, showing a variety of views and perspectives. For the most part, representatives of one school never mention other schools and may not even believe that other schools can—or should—exist. In other words, they are incommensurable discourses, which, nonetheless, proliferate on a global scale. One side effect of globalization is the specialization of sciences and activities, such that rhetoric has become detached from politics, communication, and ethics. Today, journalists and journalism are separated from critique in a communication environment that is increasingly confused, noisy and discordant. Is it possible to speak of distinct traditions of communication without trying to rise above them, i.e. without granting a metacommunication, which would subordinate diverse discourses under one perspective? We have tried to avoid this temptation by appealing to the practice of language and activity, which are indisputably (self-)critical and ironic. (Self)criticism and (self-)irony, disclose paths between different traditions and theories of communication. Moreover, our activity among handy things (the version of which is theory), allows an emergence of communicative phenomena, which unify our view so that the latter would again be seen in light of new things. Opposition to the increasingly tumultuous communication is not one just another ‘metatheory’, but rather the living among, and sharing with, people of what we acquire at those moments of emergent phenomena—the appearance of things on our way toward death. Of course, we must admit that our passage toward death is just a rhetorical ploy by a modern Westerner who is unable to speak for a Hindu, or a Tibetan, or even some from the Middle East. Death for the likes of us is a modern Western ontology and metaphysics, a minor perspective in the human drama. We accept that our text is an interpretation of communication in the context of the modern Western tradition. In brief, there was no pretence to a presentation of Western historical figures in their © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 T. Kaˇcerauskas and A. Mick¯unas, In Between Communication Theories Through One Hundred Questions, Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41106-0

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own contexts or understanding, and no assumption that the West in the early twenty first century can account for communication “systems” in other traditions. The main reason for this limitation is that other traditions have not been overly concerned to interpret everything in terms of communication, whether this is biology or the divinities. Our preoccupation with this topic stems from the notion that humans tend to define themselves and their world in terms of their own inventions. When classical Greeks “discovered” logic, they defined the human as “rational”, with mind as the highest defining human characteristic. When the modernising West “created” a mechanical universe, humans themselves became mechanical and, through their labour were obliged to give value to a meaningless universe and, conversely, became homo laborans. When they invented a system of wires, they became a structure of nerve connections, so that now we have “hard wired” brains which can manage various “software” programs. Finally, let us end with an anecdote. Recently, Russian archaeologists announced that they had discovered 500-year old copper wires in the course of their excavations. Not to be outdone, French archaeologists went on their own dig and found 1000year old fibre cables. On the island of Okinawa, Japanese archaeologists dug their trenches back to the geological age of 5000 years ago but found nothing. Everywhere throughout the world, mass media reported the astonishing fact that 5000 years ago the Japanese already had wireless means of communication.