In the previous essay I presented a list of excuses as to why I\u2019ve been unproductive but finally managed to be productive. Anyway, I didn\u2019t get far. The only thing I attended to was noting how perceptive Marwyn Samuels is in his essay \u2018The Biography of Landscape: Cause and Culpability\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The gist of that essay is that Samuels asks us to pay attention to the absence of humans in the landscape, be it how we come to observe the world, our surroundings, or in art. The central problem is that agency <\/em>or authorship<\/em>, the issue of who <\/em>did this, was, and arguably still is, largely explained by appealing to entities such as culture<\/em>, which is as useful as attributing its existence to the will of God. I also pointed out that, oddly enough, Samuels seems to end up doing the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m going to continue from my point of departure in the essay, which is before I got sidetracked and ended up explaining why attributing landscape <\/em>to not only no one in particular but to something as broad as culture <\/em>is such a problem. Relevant to that issue, Samuels (53) wonders how <\/em>it is, how it came to be so that we\u2019ve come to forget the who<\/em> when it comes to landscape. How is it that landscape is all about people, yet always in the absence of people? The short answer here is that objectivism<\/em>, what Valentin Volo\u0161inov might call abstract objectivism<\/em>, leaves no room for the subject<\/em>, the self<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Samuels (53) characterizes the intellectual heritage of the West as having two sources: Athens (the Ancients: the Greeks, the Romans) and Jerusalem (the Jews and the Christians). The former is marked by objectivism<\/em>, seeking explanations. The latter is marked by subjectivism<\/em>, engaging in lamentation, anguishing in passional guilt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, if you\u2019ve read my essays on \u2018A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia\u2019 by Gilles Deleuze and F\u00e9lix Guattari, you\u2019ll notice something familiar. On one hand you have the signifying regime of signs<\/em>. On the other hand you have the postsignifying regime of signs<\/em>. The former is marked by a thirst for meaning <\/em>or signifiance<\/em>, what <\/em>something is <\/em>or what it means<\/em>, that can be rather paranoid<\/em>, as one simply needs to know! Damn you Plato! The latter is marked by passionality<\/em>, the know it all type, and infinite postponement, existing under reprieve, going from one trial or anguishing experience to another, just when you thought you made it. Contemporarily these are mixed, hence people want to know what something really is<\/em>, say, the meaning of life, their raison d’\u00eatre<\/em>, or the like, and, yet, think they know it all, that they are the center of universe and everyone else is dumb. The irony is, of course, that their quest for the meaning of something is futile and they know nothing, you know, like Jon Snow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Samuels (53-54) the issue is that Athens has overrun Jerusalem, eradicating the self<\/em>, the ‘I’. Even though I don\u2019t fully agree with him, I\u2019ll ally myself with Samuels here for a moment because he is making a good point. Now while I try to write these essays, these glorified blog posts, in a way that would be approachable to just about anyone, this is not the case when I write articles that are published in journals. Why is that? Well, because, you are not supposed to be \u2018subjective\u2019. You are supposed to be \u2018objective\u2019. This extends to the way how<\/em> things are expressed, to the point that it\u2019s just absurd. Taken to the extreme, there shall be no \u2018I\u2019 in a \u2018scientific\u2019 article because that\u2019s a sign of \u2018subjectivism\u2019 and we, no, sorry, they, the priests<\/em>, simply cannot have that. The irony is, of course, that no matter how you abstain from expressing the \u2018I\u2019, it\u2019s always there. What do \u2018I\u2019 mean by this? Well, let\u2019s say there\u2019s this line (that \u2018I\u2019 just made up, on the spot):<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is a matter of fact.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n As you can see, there is no \u2018I\u2019 contained in that line. There\u2019s no who<\/em> to it, which is exactly what bothers Samuels (53). Of course that\u2019s just nonsense. How so? Let me rephrase that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI say that it is a matter of fact.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The objectivist <\/em>is either clearly misguided or simply dishonest. Perhaps even both. No matter how you try to justify it, there is no expression, be it spoken or written, or anyhow \u2026 expressed \u2026 say, gestured, without it having a source, someone who expresses it. There is no language without people. It\u2019s always the \u2018I\u2019 who expresses something, regardless of the mode of expression<\/em>. It\u2019s just delusional to think otherwise. Expressing \u2018I\u2019 is redundant, considering that it\u2019s always someone, an \u2018I\u2019, who expresses the \u2018I\u2019. This actually the issue you could take with such \u2018subjective\u2019 formulations. Why express it? It obvious that the expression always has an origin, no matter if that origin is a mere mouth piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That said, you can state that the latter formulation is still different from the former. Agreed. It\u2019s not that expressing the \u2018I\u2019 doesn\u2019t have its uses. For example, it can be handy when the origin of the expression is obscure or unclear. This would be the case if I said what\u2019s contained in the former example, only to be asked who said it, followed by me saying what\u2019s contained in the latter example, that I was the one who said that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then again, taking all that into consideration, the supposed objectivist <\/em>still cannot abstain from expressing the \u2018I\u2019 as an indicator of objectivism<\/em>. I reckon that, unless the \u2018I\u2019 is expressed for the sake of clarity, expressing it or not expressing it results in the same thing. It may indeed seem that the latter example concedes something and that it is thus subjective<\/em>, the former example is no more objective <\/em>than the latter example, considering that there\u2019s always an \u2018I\u2019, even if, on the surface, it doesn\u2019t appear to be the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To make this interesting, for you that is, try it out, properly, by eliciting a reaction from an objectivist<\/em>. I dare you! Don\u2019t be a frail coward! Push people a bit and you\u2019ll see how rewarding it can be! For example, try it out on some high and mighty publication, just so that you can experience how the editor(s) and\/or reviewers react to a supposedly subjective <\/em>formulation. The goal is to see how it works in actuality, how the objectivists snap at you when they fail to see the point, when they take the bait. Okay, it’s actually pointless to do that. It won\u2019t get you anywhere as they don\u2019t have to concede anything, because, as I have explained in the past, the thing with priests <\/em>is that they are always right because they are in a position to be right, by the grace of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To get back on track here, in the words used by Samuels (53-54) in reference to Lev Shestov, there is \u201can unrelenting \u2018struggle against the \u2018I,\u2019 against individual experience\u2019 which arises from the all too human endeavor to escape the particular and the consequences of selfhood.\u201d More concisely, the way he (54) puts it, the objectivist <\/em>hates nothing more than the \u2018I\u2019, the enemy number one is always \u201cthe ego, the self, and even the soul, all of which find their integrity simply as dependent variables.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I acknowledge that I\u2019m out of my league when it comes to medieval theology, so I can\u2019t vouch for everything that Samuels (54-55) goes on about pertaining to the problem of subjectivity <\/em>in Christianity and subsequently in the Enlightenment. There\u2019s that. So if I\u2019m off about something or if I fail to challenge him on something, it\u2019s simply because I haven\u2019t delved deep enough into medieval Christian theology to know any better. Know thy limitations and what not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyway, in summary, Samuels (54-55) argues that under Christianity will<\/em>, individuality <\/em>and the self <\/em>became associated with the doctrine of sin<\/em>. That said, he (54) also notes how the will of the self is an essential premise in the Judeo-Christian understanding of what it is to be human as that\u2019s what differentiates humans from animals. He (55) also connects monasticism and especially asceticism, seclusion from the hustle and bustle and the temptations of crowded cities, with the development of landscape <\/em>as a secluded activity, confronting the world alone, in the absence of others, \u201cdevoid of humanity-in-general\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This reminds me of how on the aesthetic lectures that I attended the lecturer stated how landscape <\/em>was conceived as operating this way, as one\u2019s solitary engagement with the world, in the early 1800s. Art was still very religious, even though, at the time, the influence of Christianity was far from what it was during medieval era. He indicated that back then it was held that it was possible to achieve metaphysical understanding of the world and your place in it by, for example, hiking to an elevated position, such as a steep hill or a mountain, and looking at the world from that position. This then ended up shifted from engagement with the world to engagement with the nation in the late 1800s. You no longer sought to understand the world and yourself through distanced visual engagement but to understand the nation and yourself as a national, as part of that nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back to Samuels (55) who notes that while there was this emphasis on the self <\/em>in ascetism and in the secluded life in the monasteries, the social order of monasticism still prevailed. In short, the world and the society were seen as in dire need of order <\/em>(logos<\/em>), whereas anything individual<\/em>, anything related to the self <\/em>and the will<\/em>, was deemed perverted<\/em>. He (55-56) continues, noting that this reached a whole new level in the Cartesian Cogito<\/em> which saw the self, the empirical<\/em> or particular self<\/em>, the individual, being substituted by the universal self<\/em>, the self of no one in particular. It resulted in a peculiar form of idealism<\/em>. He (56) elaborates it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe idealism of the new world was thus never subjective idealism. The paradox of that idealism, furthermore, was that in order to defend its own brand of humanism, the new sciences had to rid themselves of any anthropocentric taint. Thought became the center of being, but had nonetheless to rid itself of the familiar enemy: the potential assertion of self, its suspect will, unreliable senses, and fearsome accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In other words, the subject<\/em>, the self <\/em>became universal<\/em>. This also explains the point he (57) makes about how in science the observer, the one doing the experiment is always taken as no one in particular. There is also no room \u201cfor the idiosyncrasy, willfulness, and irrationality of men\u201d, as he (57) puts it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At about this point in the essay I find myself no longer in agreement with Samuels. He (58) is very adamant about the willful self<\/em>, the autonomous individual subject<\/em>, to the point that, to me, he, himself, ends up conceptualizing humans as no one in particular, as having built-in universal autonomy and exhibiting perfect individuality distinct from everyone else. For example, he (58) castigates David Harvey for ignoring those who live and work in the landscape<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAt least, we might expect an interpretation of the meanings people give<\/em> their landscapes. In fact, however, what we are given instead is a panoply of qualifications. First, the landscape symbols themselves are deemed meaningful only in the light of their most general concatenations. What is more, only the \u2018messages people receive from their constructed environments\u2019 acquire significance here, for only they can be measure with any accuracy as regards behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In other words, he (58) isn\u2019t happy with how Harvey considers people passive <\/em>recipients in the landscape<\/em>, having no agency<\/em>. He (58) finishes his argument against Harvey:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs for anyone in particular, any one individual that might have constructed the landscape, Harvey is quick to add that he \u2018doubt[s] very much whether we will ever truly understand the intuitions which lead a creative artist to mold space to convey message.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n He (58) takes issue with what to him seems like Harvey\u2019s unwillingness to understand the author<\/em>, the artist, the will of the individual<\/em>. He (58) calls this a rationalist belief, that holds that it is impossible to understand someone\u2019s intuitions. I\u2019m sorry but I have to side with Harvey on this one. I just don\u2019t buy it that there is any ill will to it. That said, I think Samuels is correct when he (59) states that no matter what, the self <\/em>lurks in the background. Even the researcher is always an \u2018I\u2019, no matter how much attention you pay to formulation sentences so that it doesn\u2019t appear to be subjective<\/em>, as I pointed out earlier. However, I don\u2019t agree with him (59) on that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[T]he failure to understand the intent and responsibility of the individual in no sense here mitigates the \u2018fact\u2019 of \u2018intuitions which lead (some individual) to mold space to convey a message.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Which, according to him (59), apparently:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt merely admits to a failure of method. Indeed, by his doubt, Harvey proclaims the individual (i.e., the \u2018creative artist\u2019) as the source of landscape meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The way I read Harvey, I just don\u2019t see him admitting to any failure of method. Sure he (31-33) isn\u2019t crystal clear about the issue in \u2018Social Justice and the City\u2019, the book that Samuels is referring to here, but I can\u2019t find a passage where it would be evident that this is the case. I also fail to find a passage where he asserts that the individual is the source of landscape meaning. His (31-32) examples actually consist of churches, chapels, skyscrapers and villages. Sure, an artist, in this case an architect, may have something in mind, but an architect is rarely the person who commissions buildings. The artist may have a vision, but those who commission the projects are the ones whose interests the artists further. Harvey (32) actually notes how the layout of an 18th century English village actually reflects social order, how the nobility and church are in privileged positions in the society. Simply put, it is of little consequence who came up with the actual layout or engaged in masonry when those who fund the projects have the final say anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, for the sake of argument, let\u2019s imagine that the artist, be it, say, an architect or a sculptor, funds the project on one’s own and puts it on display in a place owned and controlled by the artist. This way we eliminate the third parties. However, that still gets us nowhere when it comes to explaining the artist\u2019s intent<\/em>. It still remains ineffable. How so?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, for me, following Volo\u0161inov (36) in \u2018Marxism and the Philosophy of Language\u2019, one\u2019s expression <\/em>of one\u2019s experience<\/em>, is never the same thing as experience itself and experience itself is never individual <\/em>as it is always conditioned by language<\/em>, which certainly does not emerge from the individual but from engagement with other individuals. That\u2019s why Harvey (32) calls them intuitions<\/em>. You can try to explain intuitions, something intuitive, say, how it is that I know my hand is my hand and that I can do all kinds of things with it, for example wave it. However, at least I keep failing to explain how that is. Just stating that I do something with<\/em> my hand is off. It\u2019s, as if, my hand was separate from me, my body, which it is not<\/em>. I just do. Explaining how I do that is ineffable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I\u2019m just some random graduate student, perhaps it\u2019s better to have someone smarter explain this, someone like Henri Bergson. In \u2018The Creative Mind\u2019, he (187-188) makes a distinction between two kinds of knowing, relative<\/em> and absolute<\/em>. The former is perspectival and symbolic (involves translation). The latter is non-perspectival and non-symbolic (no translation necessary). So, to go back to my hand example (Bergson actually uses moving an arm as an example), I sure can wave it around, in front of my eyes and see it from many perspectives, as if it was outside me, my body, dangling in front of me. I can also just have it be in front my eyes and move myself, my head and my eyes instead. I can also translate <\/em>all that, put it into words, for me and others to know but the knowledge <\/em>of that will <\/em>always remain relative. I will have to keep analyzing my hand forever. Alternatively, and, at least to me, making way more sense, I can intuitively <\/em>understand what the heck is going on. No words, nor thoughts are needed for me to operate my hand. I don\u2019t have to command my hand, to articulate it in inner speech<\/em> or outer speech<\/em>. I don\u2019t need any of that because I\u2019m, quite literally, inside my own hand. If you feel like doubting my take on his view on this, just have a look at the original wording by Bergson (187):<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTake, for example, the movement of an object in space. I perceive it differently according to the point of view from which I look at it, whether from that of mobility or of immobility. I express it differently, furthermore as I relate it to the system of axes or reference points, that is to say, according to the symbols by which I translate it. \u2026 [I]n either case, I place myself outside the object itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n That is the relative<\/em> way of knowing something, be it mobile or immobile. He (188) reiterates the key points in a shorter form:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSymbols and points of view \u2026 place me outside it; they give me only what it has in common with others and what does not belong properly to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The key thing here is the point of view, how there is this and\/or that point of view. He (187-188) then explains the absolute<\/em> way of knowing something:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[T]he movement will not be grasped from without and, as it were, from where I am, but from within, inside it, in what it is in itself. I shall have hold of an absolute.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Only to be reiterated by him (189):<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[W]hat is properly itself, what constitutes its essence, cannot be perceived from without, being internal by definition, nor be expressed by symbols, being incommensurable with everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n So, you are no longer in this and\/or that position, looking at the world froma certain point of view. According to him (189), the problem with the relative <\/em>is that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDescription \u2026 and analysis \u2026 leave me in the relative. Only by coinciding with the [object] itself would I possess the absolute.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n That’s his take on analysis <\/em>for you, but that’s not all there is to life. To get to point, he (190) indicates that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt follows that an absolute can only be given in an intuition<\/em>, while all the rest has to do with analysis<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n He (190) further clarifies that intuition<\/em> is always unique and inexpressible. Conversely, as added by him (190), analysis<\/em> always involves reduction, reducing an \u201cobject to elements already known, that is, common to that object and to others\u201d, and expressing something \u201cin terms of what is not it.\u201d I like the way Brian Massumi expresses what happens here in his book \u2018A User\u2019s Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia\u2019 when he (16) reminds the reader that \u201c[t]ranslation is repetition with a difference.\u201d I reckon that\u2019s as simply as you can put it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s worth reiterating and emphasizing that, for Bergson (190), the central problem with analysis<\/em> is that it will always result in a representation<\/em>. For him (189-190), the central problem with representation is that it is never match to the original and it will always remain imperfect, no matter how much you attempt to add more data or further elaborate what\u2019s at stake in other words. He (189) uses the example of attempting to photograph a whole city, a project that can only fail because no matter how much effort you put into it, you can never be sure that you covered it all. He (189) also explains this by comparing a poem with its translations, noting that while the translations may get close to the original, especially if they are reworked side by side, they always remain imperfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is why Deleuze and Guattari (21) explain that we shouldn\u2019t confuse multiplicity <\/em>with multiple<\/em>. With regards to the former, in practice, we always deal with subtractions <\/em>of it, hence the formula they (21) use: n – 1. With regards to the latter, as they (21) explain, no matter how you pile up ones, you only end up with a multiple and therefore the formula is not: n + 1. The trick is that you can never piece together a multiplicity by piling up ones, by listing them all together because the ones are themselves subtractions of a multiplicity that \u201cis not composed of units but of dimensions, or rather directions in motion\u201d, as they (21) explain it. I like to think of it as trying to piece together a puzzle, only to never really know if you\u2019ve managed to complete it because you don\u2019t know if you have all the pieces because you don\u2019t know the dimensions of the puzzle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To explain this the other way around, for Bergson (189-190), only the absolute<\/em>, only that what can be given in an intuition<\/em>, reaches perfection. The analysis<\/em> is forever condemned to going around in circles in its attempts to embrace objects <\/em>from the outside, as explained by him (190-191).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Getting back on track here, back to the essay written by Samuels, I have to state it again, that I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s even possible to understand someone else\u2019s intuitions <\/em>as they cannot be put into words. The absolute <\/em>can never be explained as something that is explained always becomes relative<\/em>. It\u2019s pointless for me to go on and on about my hand, how it is that I know that it\u2019s my hand and what I can do with it. I just know <\/em>and so do you. I can\u2019t explain it and neither can you, yet I know and so you do. Strange, isn\u2019t it? I must investigate this more, but I\u2019ll leave that for another day (as I don’t really agree on the relative being representational<\/em>, as opposed to discursive<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyway, Samuels (84) actually further clarifies his stance vis-\u00e0-vis<\/em> Harvey in the notes section of the essay. There he acknowledges that he is, in fact, largely in agreement with Harvey. For him, the key difference between him and Harvey is in their views on how meaning <\/em>or sense <\/em>emerges. Samuels is adamant about how one must start with the individual <\/em>and then work one’s way up from there. Harvey (34) acknowledges that meaning is never separate from the individuals, yet, for him, like for me, and also for Volo\u0161inov, not to mention for Deleuze and Guattari, experience <\/em>is, pretty much, always collective<\/em>. Therefore, as hypothesized by Harvey (34), people are remarkably alike, largely because one\u2019s experience is always colored by language<\/em>, which one simply isn\u2019t born with, nor are others, those from whom you acquire language, for that matter. That said, this does not result in herd mentality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think Volo\u0161inov (88) explains this issue particularly well when he distinguishes between the I-experience<\/em> and the we-experience<\/em>. The former has to do physiological reactions, animal like behavior, if you will. For me, getting hit hard in the face or the like might just do it. The latter has to do with all those experiences that aren\u2019t merely direct physiological reactions. It\u2019s also worth emphasizing, as he (88) does, the we-experience is never \u201cnebulous herd experience\u201d. Instead, for him (88), as it is for me as well, the physiological reactions aside, experience <\/em>is always collective<\/em>, yet differentiated<\/em>. In his (88) words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[D]ifferentiation, the growth of consciousness, is in direct proportion to the firmness and reliability of the social orientation. The stronger, the more organized, the more differentiated the collective in which an individual orients [one]self, the more vivid and complex [one’s] inner world will be.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n To make more sense of this, he (88-89) exemplifies this with how one comes to experience <\/em>hunger. Hunger is a specific experience, very intuitive <\/em>really, yet, as he (88) points out, being part of a collective <\/em>always colors it, somehow. For example, it may be associated with various feelings, such as humility, shame and enviousness. It\u2019s festive season right now and most people sure won\u2019t end up experiencing hunger during Christmas. There are, however, always people who spend the holidays queuing to a soup kitchen or standing in a bread line. If it were only about the food, getting a fix to a physical reaction, those people wouldn\u2019t feel any shame about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He (89) also warns not to confuse individualistic self-experience<\/em> nor solitary self-experience<\/em> with the I-experience<\/em> as both are actually forms of we-experience<\/em>. The former does not emerge from the individual<\/em>, but from the socioeconomic situation<\/em> outside the individual. He notes that it may well appear to be I-experience but it is not. It is the we-experience of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. In his (89) words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe individualistic type of experience derives from a steadfast and confident social orientation. \u2026 It is the \u2026 interpretation of one’s social recognizance and tenability by rights, and of the objective security and tenability provided by the whole social order, of one\u2019s individual livelihood. The structure of the conscious, individual personality is just as social a structure as is the collective type of experience. It is a particular kind of interpretation, projected into the individual soul, of a complex and sustained socioeconomic situation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Here, in particular, I would make note of how he calls it a projection <\/em>and how he (89) adds to this that it is in contradiction with itself. I reckon the contradiction is rather obvious, considering that it is not actual I-experience<\/em> but we-experience<\/em> projected on to oneself. In \u2018A Thousand Plateaus\u2019, Deleuze and Guattari (129-130) calls this relation or recoiling, the invention of the doubled subject<\/em>, being slave to pure reason, the Cogito<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With regards to the solitary self-experience<\/em>, Volo\u0161inov\u2019s latter example of peculiar we-experience<\/em>, he (89-90) characterizes it as \u201ccharacteristic of the modern-day West European intelligentsia\u201d, involving an illusory split between thinking \u2018for oneself\u2019, for the inside, and \u2018for the public\u2019, for the outside. He (89-90) explains that it is illusory because both are one and the same. Taking all this into account, he (90) summarizes how experience <\/em>works:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThus the personality of the speaker, taken from within, so to speak, turns out to be wholly a product of social interrelations. Not only its outward expression but also its inner experience are social territory. Consequently, the whole route between inner experience (the \u2018expressible\u2019) and its outward objectification (the \u2018utterance\u2019) lies entirely across social territory. When an experience reaches the stage of actualization in a full-fledged utterance, its social orientation acquires added complexity by focusing on the immediate social circumstances of discourse and, above all, upon actual addressees.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In other words, the individual <\/em>is always the product <\/em>of the social<\/em>, never the other way around. Who you are <\/em>is who you\u2019ve become <\/em>and who you\u2019ve become is always the product of the outside. All your experiences are collective<\/em>, albeit differentiated<\/em>. All that you can say or do is always conditioned <\/em>by what has been said or done before you say or do. Anyway, I think he expresses this better than I do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, right, I find myself more in agreement with Harvey than Samuels when it comes to the interpretation of landscapes and\/or the elements present in landscapes. I don\u2019t agree with Samuels (84) when he states in the notes section that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFrom the perspective of this paper, group consensus, as such, makes little or no sense unless and until its individual components are determined.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n It just doesn\u2019t work for me when I take into account what Volo\u0161inov has to say about language <\/em>and experience<\/em>. Anyway, this doesn\u2019t mean that Samuels doesn\u2019t have good points in the essay. Another good point is when he (59) notes that the issue he takes with objectivism<\/em>, in its many forms, be it \u201cobjective idealism, materialism \u2026 logical positivism, modern nominalism, and the manifold forms of determinism\u201d, is in how it results in \u201cthe loss of freedom<\/em>.\u201d I agree with him, that objectivism leads to the loss freedom, individuality and the self, but so does subjectivism <\/em>as it fails to take account how experience takes place in social <\/em>territory. It ends up resorting to an asylum of ignorance when it gives primacy to the subject<\/em>, by asserting the autonomy of the individual, the willing self, as a given and as a starting point for everything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s also worth acknowledging that Samuels (61) makes note of certain limitations to the position he holds, that \u201c[w]e understand now better than ever before that human and individual choice, freedom, will, and responsibility are undeniably constrained\u201d and that we are \u201cobject[s] in nature, \u2026 function[s] of bio-chemical drives, \u2026 victim[s] of the DNA molecule[.]\u201d On top of acknowledging the built in constraints or should I say, rather, features, he (61) acknowledges that \u201c[n]either can we deny that human beings as such and as individuals live out their lives in close accordance with hereditary, physical, psychological, social, education, and broadly environmental conditioning\u201d, as well as \u201cthat virtually all our thought, feeling[s] and actions are subject to a mode of classification and analysis that renders ourselves merely latent in the environment. He (61-62) goes as far as to point out that if wasn\u2019t the case, we\u2019d have to consider, for example, insanity, sickness and poverty as mere choices, as lifestyles, if you will. He (64) also indicates that he is well aware that language <\/em>cannot be subjective<\/em>, up to the individual, as otherwise people wouldn\u2019t understand one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That all said, Samuels (62-65) firmly holds his ground, arguing in favor of the primacy of the authorial intent<\/em>. To be more specific, he (64) argues that landscapes are not unlike other products human creativity. For him, the limitations or constraints are contextual<\/em>. He likens the contextual limitations to the materials needed in visual art such as paper, canvas or rock, the colors, the brushes, the pens, the knives and the chisels. Same applies to written self-expression, namely literature. Nonetheless, it seems that he considers the limitations or constraints more like obstacles or inconveniences that the artist not only must but also can confront and overcome than something that conditions <\/em>and sets limits of human action and thinking, as one acts and\/or thinks. For him, what matters in a work of art is the author\u2019s intention. In his (65) words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe images, symbols, metaphors, and most of all the meanings, whether visual or literary, are always references to something on the part of someone<\/em> \u2013 the author. If that \u2018upsurge\u2019 is always \u2018engaged in\u2019 some context, the product itself is equally the function of some author\u2019s intentions, perspectives, aspirations, inclinations, or broad partialities.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n I disagree with this. For example, what does a word mean<\/em>? Look up the word in a dictionary and you\u2019ll notice that it refers to another word, explained in other words, which are also explained in other words if you happen to look up those words. Words are always in an infinite regress. This gets us nowhere, especially if we take into consideration that, following Bergson, once we put something into words, we can no longer know something absolutely<\/em>, only relatively<\/em>. So no, going back to his objection to Harvey\u2019s remarks, while it may be the case that we manage to intuitively <\/em>understand someone else\u2019s intuitions <\/em>or intentions<\/em>, we always fail once we put something into words. It\u2019s the same thing with any mode of expression<\/em>, not only language<\/em>, be it spoken or written.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words, explaining this through my own research, it\u2019s not that I cannot grasp the intentions <\/em>of others, to truly know why <\/em>something is the way it is, as manifested <\/em>in the landscape<\/em>, even if that may not necessarily be the case. I don\u2019t think that I can ever be fully certain that I know it all, for sure, albeit, I reckon I do, but only intuitively<\/em>. That\u2019s actually the problem. Once I attempt to put those intuitions into words, they are rendered into partial <\/em>accounts. Piling them doesn\u2019t do much good either as there can only be partial accounts, no matter how many accounts you take into consideration. In other words, there’s little value added by adding more and more views as the view is never complete. On top of that, it is likely that the views of individuals are remarkably alike, considering that, if we disregard physiological reactions, experience is always collective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have written essays on this already so I won\u2019t go into detail about my objections to the primacy of authorial intent<\/em>. In short, for me, it matters not what the author intended to mean<\/em>. Once a work is done, it starts to live a life of its own. Often we couldn\u2019t even rely on the creator as people do tend to have a limited life span. Oddly enough, as exemplified by the cases where those who have created the works have already died, we don\u2019t need the author to tell us what was meant by it, what the intention <\/em>is. Just imagine it, reading a text, enjoying it, getting, and then, all the sudden, like a flash of lightning you no longer can make sense of it, because the author happened to die a moment ago. Now obviously that\u2019s not the case. You can make sense <\/em>of just about anything, regardless of the intentions of the author.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lecturer explained this issue well during the aesthetics course. He told the audience a story how a student came to him after an exam, to point out that he or she (in Finnish it\u2019s unclear whether it was a he or she as the pronouns are not sexed) deserves a better grade because the examiner just has not understood what he or she meant by this and\/or that in his or her answers. He told us how he reacted to the student, telling the student that it matters not what you say you intended <\/em>when what is conveyed to the reader is something else. Simply put, he sought to make the audience aware that the only thing that matters for the reader is what is contained in the text<\/em>. In a sense, what is written is always exactly what is intended, as read by whoever it happens that comes across the text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I reckon it\u2019s necessary to ponder a bit here. What counts as art? Are landscapes art, can space <\/em>itself be art? Why does Samuels seem to think it\u2019s necessary to liken the two, art <\/em>and landscape<\/em>? The first question is tricky and I guess it depends on what is the basis for an answer to that. From a legal perspective just about anything is art or can be a work of art. A work of art always has a creator, regardless of whether the whoever it was that created it is known or not. We could call the creator an author <\/em>but, as discussed in my previous essays, the author is not the actual person who created the work. The author is always the figment of our imagination. For example, I don\u2019t know Samuels, Harvey, Volo\u0161inov, Deleuze or Guattari, yet I behave as if I\u2019m having a conversation with them. Of course I\u2019m not doing that. I don\u2019t know them, nor would it even be possible with some of them, considering that some of them are dead already. I think Henri Lefebvre (73) has something useful to say on this in \u2018The Production of Space\u2019:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cConsider the case of a city \u2013 a space which is fashioned, shaped and invested by social activities during a finite historical period. Is this city a work<\/em> or a \n
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