Subject: Re: Happy New Year
From: Angela E. Lauria (Angela@estudentloan.com)
Date: Thu Jan 13 2000 - 19:35:38 CST
Hi Fred and everyone else!
Well, I thought I was going to have to be the one to break the ice in
this little chat room, but alas you did it for me Fred ... and did it
well I might add. Thank you!
I just finished reading The War of Desire and Technology.. what a treat!
Of course it will take a few days for the ideas to congeal a bit in my
head and work their magic, but interestingly I too was struck by Stone's
work with names on pg. 46. Currently I am working a piece on about
names looking Althusser's ideas of interpellation and being "hailed" by
authority with the Lacanian Schema in the framework of Deaf Name Signs.
I should explain briefly that I find Deaf culture makes a great
semiological test bed.
Native ASL speakers do have English names but they use those names from
their birth certificates primarily when they are interacting with the
hearing world. Since ASL does not have a written form, for Deaf people
English names are secondary. It is their native name, known as a "name
sign," which provides the space for their interpellation. Stone talks
about our commitment to names and the power of names in placing us in a
community (consider Julie the cross-dressing psychiatrist of Chapter
3). Interestingly in Deaf culture -- while Name Signs are more
important than English names, or perhaps BECAUSE they are more important
than English names -- Deaf people usually have several Name Signs for
different times in their life and different social groups.
Deaf Children of Deaf Parents (known as Deaf of Deaf) receive from their
parents a formal Name Sign which is arbitrary (ANS) which incorporates
the handshape corresponding with the first letter of the English name
with an arbitrary placement and/or movement. Within the family, when
the subject is absent the family refers to him or her by their ANS.
However, siblings often invent their own Descriptive Name Signs (DNS)
which call out a particular, often physical, characteristic about a
person for each other. The Deaf are notoriously blunt and often one's
DNS refers to height, weight, or even, buck teeth or glasses -- all
conditions prone to change and as such, DNSs are prone to change as
well.
Lovers bestow each other with special Name Signs with which they refer
to their beloved when talking to friends -- the semiotic equivalent of
"snoockums." School systems and other organizations often assign name
signs, which, while untraditional from a Deaf culture/ ASL perspective,
still offer a symbolic sense of fluidity in personae that (despite
nicknaming) is not as common in hearing culture.
Perhaps the most extreme example of how packed with symbolic cultural
and structural meaning a name sign can be comes from the Lexington
School for the Deaf in New York City, where Deaf pupils' name signs used
to be their locker numbers. From outside the system, one might see this
as revealing a depersonalization of Deaf children. Alumni of the school,
however, see it differently, and still use their locker-number name
signs. Even though these name signs were "assigned" and students had no
choice in whether or not to use this name while at school, the alumni
find the name signs nostalgic, especially when talking among other
alumni. Clearly there was a desire on the part of the Lexington School
students to be named, and despite the crudeness, those locker number/
name signs fulfilled that desire. Rather than seeing themselves, like a
prisoner, as 'subjected' to this number-name, they find comfort and
identification.
Arbitrary then, is not without power. Much as Fred has called out the
power of an arbitrary (or worse, WRONG!) interpretation of the
calendar. Fact is, there is POWER in the fact that MOST of the world
chose 12/31/99 as the change of the millennium. Whatever symbol
strength the event of a millennium rollover holds, it was caught up in
that night a couple weeks ago. Perhaps some will try to recreate it
next year (count me among them) but globally speaking all we could hope
for the energy of that moment has happened -- arbitrary or not. So
then, naming is a way of capturing the symbolic identity of the moment.
The hyper speed of new media technology allows for a greater fluidity
for all our meaning-making -- clearly there is a danger there and one
which we should continue to explore. But Stone has also drawn out some
of the benefits of the fluidity -- if we can flow with it that is. And
that means dropping some of the hard and fast rules about the physical
world. In order, however, to do this we must be more aware, more
PRESENT, in each moment -- deciding where fluidity is appropriate and
where our boundaries (physical, emotional and otherwise) are doing more
to help than hinder.
What this calls for -- psychoanalytically speaking -- is an engagement
with the world that most in the West seem to turn the backs to.
Perhaps, however, the cyborg has no choice but to work through these
issues in order to survive. Perhaps it is through seeing the fragility
of humanity that we can embrace the strengths of humanity.
In that regard, maybe it is God, and not a Ghost, in the machine.
Thoughts?
-- Angela E. Lauria cmunik8@aol.com
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