Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Economy of Signification and the Ghost of FNB
In New Testament class today, AKMA was talking about what he termed an "economy of signification". (Maybe someone else termed it that, but he at least used it.) The discussion that followed focused on why things mean what they mean to the people they mean them to. As an example, he used that portion of the greater constellation of Orion called Orion's Belt. Why is that when some people look up and see three stars aligned with each other in a row, that they attach to it the notion of "belt"? What is "belty" about those three stars? And to whom? If I had never heard the legends about the great hunter, could I look up at the night sky (in the Northern Hemisphere, of course), see those stars, and conclude that they represent Orion? No. I can do that now though, because I have been told by others, to whom I ascribe authority in these matters, that those stars signify Orion, the hunter, and that if I could only imagine lines drawn in a certain way, connecting those stars, then the picture would become clearer. So, which stars matter then? Well, only those that are said to matter, of course. What about those stars that fall within the perimeter of the shape we now call the constellation of Orion, but do not make up part of the intended picture? No, they don't matter because they are said not to matter. So, my signification of those stars is informed by what others have said. And not just any other person, but only those that believe they "know" this thing. So, then, the question is, does this ever change, and how so? Will Orion ever become something new? What if the middle star in his belt supernovas? Maybe it already has, and we're still waiting for it to be made apparent to us.
By way of illustration, I thought of the Ghost of FNB. None of you have any idea what that is, so allow me to explain. During my college years, I returned home to Florida every summer and winter to work at First National Bank as a teller. I discovered, over time, that there is a great rate of turnover among the lower echelons of employment in a bank. Well, during my first summer, I went to work with one other person on a Saturday. Only two tellers worked on Saturdays and then it was drive-thru only. The lobby of the bank was locked up, and presumably, no one else was there. (The potential security risks of this are apparent to me, but I guess never were to the management.) Anyway, while we were working, we heard some clunking noises and the shifting of heavy objects coming from upstairs. I decided to go investigate, again, given to the security concerns. My circuit of the upstairs compete, I returned to the drive-thru unable to report any findings. There was no one up there. Then we heard the noises again. A little concerned now, I went up again and still found nothing. I came back down. A little while after this, the noises happened again. Now we were really worried. So, I went up a third time only to find one of the loan officers shifting some file boxes and picking them up to take them to his car. He was using the back staircase and every time we heard the noises, by the time I got up there, he was down in his car. We kept missing one another. So, we laughed about it and on Monday morning told the tale, joking that it surely must have been the ghost of FNB, before revealing the actual culprit. Over the next few weeks, we developed a whole goofy story about how someone was murdered up there and now they haunt the file room and all that good stuff. Well, the years came and went and after a long time, I was one of two employees left there who knew the original story. New employees heard the story and several believed it to actually be the work of a revenant. When we informed them that it was actually just a joke, that there was no ghost, and did they want to hear the real story, we were reprimanded sharply for not believing in ghosts and told that we just didn't know the truth. All attempts to convince them that I was actually there when the "truth" happened were a failure. So, economies of signification, like all economies I guess, can and do change. If supernatural beings can be created simply by strong belief in them, as Neil Gaiman postulates in his silly book that I wrote about last Saturday, then there is a mighty supernatural force to contend with in the upstairs file room of the Fort Myers branch of FNB right now. I maintain that the mighty force is still just a loan officer, but nonetheless, one with which many have to contend!
-R
[It needs to be stated that the above should be read in the context of the class' discussion, which was focused on the Gospel of Mark. What does this idea of an 'economy of signification' have to say about the Gospels and how they are read, taught, preached, and lived?]
In New Testament class today, AKMA was talking about what he termed an "economy of signification". (Maybe someone else termed it that, but he at least used it.) The discussion that followed focused on why things mean what they mean to the people they mean them to. As an example, he used that portion of the greater constellation of Orion called Orion's Belt. Why is that when some people look up and see three stars aligned with each other in a row, that they attach to it the notion of "belt"? What is "belty" about those three stars? And to whom? If I had never heard the legends about the great hunter, could I look up at the night sky (in the Northern Hemisphere, of course), see those stars, and conclude that they represent Orion? No. I can do that now though, because I have been told by others, to whom I ascribe authority in these matters, that those stars signify Orion, the hunter, and that if I could only imagine lines drawn in a certain way, connecting those stars, then the picture would become clearer. So, which stars matter then? Well, only those that are said to matter, of course. What about those stars that fall within the perimeter of the shape we now call the constellation of Orion, but do not make up part of the intended picture? No, they don't matter because they are said not to matter. So, my signification of those stars is informed by what others have said. And not just any other person, but only those that believe they "know" this thing. So, then, the question is, does this ever change, and how so? Will Orion ever become something new? What if the middle star in his belt supernovas? Maybe it already has, and we're still waiting for it to be made apparent to us.
By way of illustration, I thought of the Ghost of FNB. None of you have any idea what that is, so allow me to explain. During my college years, I returned home to Florida every summer and winter to work at First National Bank as a teller. I discovered, over time, that there is a great rate of turnover among the lower echelons of employment in a bank. Well, during my first summer, I went to work with one other person on a Saturday. Only two tellers worked on Saturdays and then it was drive-thru only. The lobby of the bank was locked up, and presumably, no one else was there. (The potential security risks of this are apparent to me, but I guess never were to the management.) Anyway, while we were working, we heard some clunking noises and the shifting of heavy objects coming from upstairs. I decided to go investigate, again, given to the security concerns. My circuit of the upstairs compete, I returned to the drive-thru unable to report any findings. There was no one up there. Then we heard the noises again. A little concerned now, I went up again and still found nothing. I came back down. A little while after this, the noises happened again. Now we were really worried. So, I went up a third time only to find one of the loan officers shifting some file boxes and picking them up to take them to his car. He was using the back staircase and every time we heard the noises, by the time I got up there, he was down in his car. We kept missing one another. So, we laughed about it and on Monday morning told the tale, joking that it surely must have been the ghost of FNB, before revealing the actual culprit. Over the next few weeks, we developed a whole goofy story about how someone was murdered up there and now they haunt the file room and all that good stuff. Well, the years came and went and after a long time, I was one of two employees left there who knew the original story. New employees heard the story and several believed it to actually be the work of a revenant. When we informed them that it was actually just a joke, that there was no ghost, and did they want to hear the real story, we were reprimanded sharply for not believing in ghosts and told that we just didn't know the truth. All attempts to convince them that I was actually there when the "truth" happened were a failure. So, economies of signification, like all economies I guess, can and do change. If supernatural beings can be created simply by strong belief in them, as Neil Gaiman postulates in his silly book that I wrote about last Saturday, then there is a mighty supernatural force to contend with in the upstairs file room of the Fort Myers branch of FNB right now. I maintain that the mighty force is still just a loan officer, but nonetheless, one with which many have to contend!
-R
[It needs to be stated that the above should be read in the context of the class' discussion, which was focused on the Gospel of Mark. What does this idea of an 'economy of signification' have to say about the Gospels and how they are read, taught, preached, and lived?]
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