What is ' the past ' ? Everyone is sure that they
know what ' the past ' is, until the moment that
they have to try and give an exact and
comprehensive definition.
' Of bygone days '.' Events that occurred at a
previous time '.' Elapsed time '.
If that time, those past days, have vanished
forever, then how could we know anything
about them ? How could we even be absolutely
certain that there ever was a past ?
We cannot connect to the past directly, so we
have to use a kind of trick, a bit like using a
a mirror to see around a corner. The mirrors
in this case, are called archaeology and
history. The trouble is that they are very dirty,
poor quality mirrors, and the images which we
discern in them are blurred, distorted and
unclear. Through a glass darkly. The scrappy
information which we perceive, the text, is
fragmentary at best, and then subject to some
interpretation. And some.
In addition to historical documents, - text in
the traditional sense - the clothes people wore,
the food they ate, the houses they lived in, all
the physical traces bequeathed by any human
activity can be seen as text providing subtle
messages which can be interpreted in many
ways.
The problems lie not so much in coming up
with an interpretation, but rather in how to
choose between a host of rival interpretations
in a way which can be intellectually upheld.
There is one simple but crucial question to
be addressed, and it is this. Does the text
( or ' reality ' ) impose any limitations upon the
interpretations that may be supplied for it ?
If the basic answer is ' no ', then a text can
mean anything. Interpretation unlimited. No
interpretation, however fantastic, fabulous, or
dull or outrageous, is excluded.
A consequence is, that the original meaning
meant by the author is irrelevant. Only the
meaning attributed and supplied by the
reader is significant, or possible.
If I, the author, write of the Grail, what does
that mean to you ? Every story in which that
word occurs gives a different account of what
' it ' might be....so nobody can ever decide
what ' it ' is.
Except you ! You have now already got
something in your mind, some kind of an
impression, however numinous, which has
become linked to the marks, the signs, the
symbols g-r-a-i-l .... How is that possible, if
you don't know what ' it ' is ?
Somewhere, in the neurochemical pathways, a
little patch of brain has been labelled ' grail ',
a reserved plot, awaiting further development,
a node, a twittering anticipation of stimulation
by the flapping wings of that hermeneutic bird,
the peripatetic messenger of the gods which
sometimes alights with another beakfull of
' meaning '...
Whether some particular people, a thousand
years ago, were hungry, happy, humane or
whatever, you just designate them as peasants
and peons, according to your prejudices, and
leave it at that. That's the past, then.
But suddenly, some new evidence is dug up !
They all dressed in spun gold, wore rubies
and emeralds, built splendid pleasure gardens.
And, voila, a ' new past ' comes to pass...and
you overlay this one with prejudices and
preconceptions.
The world began four thousand years ago;
and then the world began four and a half
thousand millions of years ago....
The past keeps changing...
The text keeps changing...
But, surely, what happened, happened. There
was only one past, one text. What keeps on
changing is the interpretation. All that we can
ever know, is the interpretation. We call that
interpretation ' the past ', even though we know
it is NOT the real, actual past.
In a larger epistemological framework, this also
means that the world, the universe, - as the
ultimate text - has no meaning, no ' author ', no
significance, in its own right. Meaning is then
supplied solely by the interpretation of the
one experiencing the world.
This eliminates, in effect, the independent
existence of the world, as it eliminated the
independent existence of the author of the
ordinary documentary text.
Worse, if you are yourself text, does this mean
that you vanish into the gaps between the
interpretations ? That your own being is no
more than a relativism, something that hovers
about awaiting definition by the next sweep
of the hermeneutic spiral ?
Even more alarming, in fact, is the possibility,
taking the idea to its extreme, that the
nescessity, the requirement, for ANY text at
all, is eliminated !
( The book, the text, full of blank, pristine,
virginal pages, and you make up the story
yourself, as you turn them.... this is your life,
indeed, except that each page is a brand new
blank day, arrived out of nowhere.... Who is
writing your text, who is interpreting it ?)
So does it follow that the reality of your own
precious being is annihilated ?
Why be concerned with a material, or physical
or posited text of any nature or description
whatsoever, be it the works of Aristotle or the
archaeological record of Egypt, if that text can
never contribute anything ?
We might just as well stay home in bed, and
dream up whatever fantasy we can, for what
would be the point of 'going to have a look
to see what it's like ?'
What would be the point of reading Moliere
or Proust, Cervantes, Hemingway, Dostoevski,
Virginia Woolf or Oscar Wilde, if they can
contribute nothing to the transaction ?
Very clearly, they do bring something. The
problem is, the impossibility of establishing
any final agreement as to exactly what that
something is...
A hundred readers = a hundred versions ?
If there is no text and, so in effect, no world,
what determines any interpretation beyond
the wild unconstrained whims and wishes of
the interpreter ?
And, furthermore, leaping into the abyss,
you can interpret yourself, as anything you
wish. As Napoleon Bonaparte, if you please....
unrestrained by the text of your own existence,
because interpretation is limitless. The text
has no meaning, other than that which you
bring to it and the meaning which you
say it has....
But I am troubled by your accent....
Doesn't sound at all French, somehow....
or even Corsican.
Pardonnez moi, Monsieur ?
As I understand it, the project of Western
culture, from Socrates and Plato up until quite
recent times, has been to observe ' the Whole ',
- or ' Reality ', or ' The World ', - and then to
transform that vision into a system, a kind of
abstracted structure, called ' knowledge ', which
is identical with, or proximate to, that Whole.
As I see it, that project is now collapsed. Kaput.
A very obscure subject called hermeneutics,
has moved from the shadows of academe, out
into centre stage, and now looms above all
human knowledge and learning.
Nothing can ever again be as it seems.
All that we have, and are, is interpretation
and interpretation and re-interpretation....
There is no ' fixed ' or final meaning. Meanings
are a process of negotiation, of relatedness.
Tentative, diffuse, flowing. Merely observing
something, thinking about something, brings
change to its meaning.
This is analogous to the project to build a
central repository of cultural artefacts, a
museum of anthropology, as a fixed, static
ground from which to study the peculiarities
of the world's cultures. The folks engaged in
that endeavour considered themselves as
being ' neutral ', or 'objective ', or 'scientific ', as
taking a dispassionate overview.
What has changed, is the vantage point. From
a meta-level, it is apparent that the said project
is itself a cultural peculiarity, and can itself be
analysed and observed, and from this stance,
the presumptions of ' objectivity ' are no longer
credible.
The rituals and rigmarole of the scholarly
bureaucracy, the intricate super and sub-
structures of ' science ', the presumptions of
academics, are all as bizarre, and as amenable
to critical interpretation as were once the
mating rituals and seasonal festivities of the
Other, the exotic, the distant in time and space,
' the savage and primitive natives of the
Imperial Dominions ' and of prehistory.
But then, we must observe the meta-level, from
a meta-meta-level, and so on, ad infinitum, and
realise that there is no possibility of our being
able to find a stance outside existence from
which to observe existence. The closest that we
can get towards such a position is zen-mind,
no-mind, unconditioned-mind.
The rigid monolith, one truth stacked upon
another, to patiently build the great tower of
civilised understanding, with its assumption of
a fixed, objective, and universal reality, has
crashed to the ground...
Is that bad ? Instead, we have an ever-changing
firework display, a carnival of sparks and
patterns....there is 'something ', but it is not
what we thought it was...and it never can
be what we think it is....
It means that the human race has to grow up.
There is no Father Christmas....
We are interpretation....
" This is the world: the lying likeness of
Our strips of stuff that tatter as we move
Loving and being loth;
The dream that kicks the buried from
their sack
And lets their trash be honoured as the quick.
This is the world. Have faith. "
Dylan Thomas.
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