portfolio : laurentharrington
Individuation|Individualism (2019)
To examine the concept of Individualism it is first necessary to make clear the semantic distinction between individuation and individualism. The former describes a process and the latter describes a principle. Individuation refers to the division of some whole into distinguishable parts. Morphologizing “individuation” through the suffix ‘-ism’ into “individualism” turns a natural, or given, process into a social edifice. Individualism, while a singular noun, is also pluralistic: it is a general principle in constant reference to a notion of multiplicity and contains multitudinous forms of itself, much like a set. It describes patterning of differentiation among parts that comprise identified wholes. One ‘whole’ is also a differentiated part comprising other wholes. The borders of a whole and its parts become fuzzier upon closer examination.
Causality is the primary question of genealogy. It refers to the investigation of a subject’s evolutionary descent. It renders the concept of origin as null. The present subject is a single wave formed by the intersection of other waves; these waves which intersect the subject are not necessarily in the past but are in constant transformation, such as the present one observed. We cannot possibly capture the total array of waves encountered by the present subject being observed. The phenomenon is hallucinatory: metamorphosing the deeper we look.
Genealogy is like rewinding or reversing Zeno's arrow paradox, which argues that an arrow must travel half the distance between its initial release (“origin point”) to the target (present subject), then half the remaining distance repeatedly over this finite time interval—but this requires infinite division, which means the arrow can never reach the target. Of course, arrows do reach targets because targets are constructed. Let us designate one “target” as the contemporary conception of individualism. The arrow in this target is analogous to the present definition of the term; although definitions may vary, they communicate the same general belief—just as the variation in a person’s disposition to the physical target will not affect their ability to see the arrow: different angles of the same picture. If we were to imagine rewinding the arrow (definition; meaning) from the target (individualism), it becomes difficult to infer the point of execution and path of arrival. An infinite amount of ‘instances’, angles, trajectories, velocities may have defined the present “point of arrival.” One could even conjecture that the target (concept, i.e ‘individualism’) is in motion while the arrow (definition; meaning) is stationary. Or that they’re both in motion. To actually work within a semi-stable and conceivable analytical framework of the subject at hand one must consider the coalescence of certain features in social or physical movement. Thus the emergence of the subject’s present ethos is marked as the convergence of a particular set of qualities over time.
The basis of sourcelessness in genealogy admits that individualism’s genealogy is dependent on our present definition of “Individualism” provided in the first paragraph. Mauss showed that personhood preceded selfhood his essay A category of the human mind: the notion of person; the notion of self. Although the question is not of individuation, the paper outlines a transformative process of social-individuation into what we can identify as the individualism construct. He shows us that personhood was socially recognized through different ritual practices that involved masks, in which people embodied the ‘personhood’ of ancestors or deified characters. These characters or roles, which undertaken by people within the group, constituted the totality of the clan (whole): the clan’s ‘essence’ a fragmentary composition. Here individualism refers to unique cultural figures or social roles that are transtemporal and incorporeal (in that they are transitively embodied).
Mauss then describes notable movements toward a contemporary conceptualization of individualism arising from ancient Rome. There are at least three developments which suggest this. First, during this time, a person’s birthname became legally bound for the purpose of tax accordance. Second, 'possessing' a legal name authorized/granted citizenship and legal rights. Third, Roman law prohibited people from wearing masks which could conceal one’s identity or allow them to assume another person’s. Instating laws relative to identification inaugurated identity as a morality. It was an ideological imposition: the state introducing an ethics and politics of identity onto the masses.
The mass, too, is conceptualized as a body and whole. But unlike the clan—whose whole moves directionally, possessing internal coordination and transformative identities—the mass is inert and its identity is maintained by static structural hierarchy. In a society constituted by the masses, settlement not only freezes the roles through institutional indoctrination, but also makes its own history salient and traceable by producing “massive” artifacts such as monuments, written documents (which create and maintain dominant epistemologies), and institutions. This is what Deleuze and Guattari refer to in One or Several Wolves, wherein the “pack” or clans, while whole, display brownian motion: a stochastic process like that of waves.
Individualism as a principle of self-identity and differentiation coming from discourse produced by societies which follow the model of the mass (i.e Rome, and others outside this scope which have produced dominant historical narratives) still leaves one to wonder what the mechanism of production is. Principles are passed down through language. We understand meaning, such as that of “individualism” through verbal and written communication. Language can be referenced as the source of anything, so why is it specific to individualism? By semantically stipulating individuation from individualism in the beginning of the paper, I highlighted that difference is meaningful. On a fundamental level, language expresses thought; it is a device of meaning-making. This device operates as an informatic binary circuit interfacing ‘inside’ and ‘outside,’ producing a dichotomization of experience. It simultaneously expresses and constructs internality because self-other differentiation is structurally embedded.
The specific logic of language is self-reference. Self: The notion of person, the notion of self. Communication is social and mostly nonverbal. It is nongenerative. Language, which is innovative, is not social. One can make up an entire language that means nothing to anyone except the person who created it. Language programs cognition and is functionally recursive, which means it operates and expands through self-referential logic. The structural and functional rule of recursion used to express a sense of meaning orients us more and more inward. Internal depth is sensed with greater awareness, along with the ability to invent self-narrative(s). Individualism relating to meaningful personal identity can be understood as emerging from the recursive process of language. The essence (and evolution) of individualism mirrors the function and development of language, which produces meaning, is self-referential, and is structurally contained (body).
