Maps becoming Territory: a fragment
That we shall never map the totality of things should be cause for consolation rather than abjection.
Even in the minutiae of the earth, the provincial backwater that is human civilisation, the map tends towards infinity – something is always left out. In such a seemingly finite space, such a container should eventually become full, right? And yet, with each passing second, each passing glance, things appear differently – mutating, merging, crumbling, absorbing, becoming, always, something else. How could the maps ever keep up to date? And, each perceiver of such topographical features and suchlike things that make up the map, what of the transformative power of their perceptions? What of the weight and influence of their fluctuating emotions, their prejudices, their language, what they had for breakfast that morning? Such features are mapped by the mind in a continual process of self-re-creation, filtering the chaos of the world into something like a comprehensible, yet open-ended, order.
The business of mapping such a shifting totality of things appears futile. And it is only problematised further as it must be accomplished through a fleshy, moody, organic assemblage which itself is geared more towards stubbornly securing its own continuity than it is finding the fundamental truths of this shifting totality. We are embodied and are faced by the problem of extinction and thus the immediate matter at hand is remaining alive and, so, we must maximise our best interests. Perhaps this is why we hang on so selfishly to the past at the expense of truly understanding it. The apparent solidity of things is (somewhat paradoxically) a novelty (“All that in intransitory – that is but an image!”) – and this is why we are enchanted by old things. They have fared relatively well in the onslaught of time, against all odds. Perhaps it is looking at such old things that imbues us with a sense of our own continuity - the spectacle of our persistence as a species on this planet.
Yet, even in holding onto these old things, we cannot hold onto them in the same way. Every new turn of history forces us to re-evaluate the past, to see the story again with different eyes. And with those changes come changes in the present - to exist, history itself must be an agent of change. And, along the way, we are continually mapping and re-mapping. Civilisation becomes barbarism and barbarism civilisation. Heroes become villains and villains heroes. And the stories come and go with the shifting totality of things. And yet we remain faced with our extinction, wondering what is really the point of it all. The maps are continually re-drawn but are always already several steps behind the territory. Where is the meaning in any of it?
Why should we even draw maps in the first place? We do so because of their utility, whether instrumental or expressive, the intentions of the map-maker are analogous to our collective and individual desires for continuity. Returning to the idea that our species is geared towards securing its own continuity, rather than seeking fundamental truths, we find that the truths presented by the map are constructed truths, produced for the utility of the map-reader. Maps are communication - dependent on mutual understanding. In their process of selection and representation, their uses of space and form, they suggest a way of being in the world. They present a grammar of existence - “language is the house of being”.
However, despite the maker's best intentions, despite the key at the side, each map-reader sees the map differently. From the old map, the reader begins to make a new map in their head through their creative powers of interpretation. This interpretive power finds its genesis not solely in the mind of the individual interpreter, but the interpreter's historical and environmental circumstances; their temperament, prejudice, culture, their own vocabulary of topographic possibility. They bring their whole being to the matter of interpretation, even if they do not intend to. As such, the existing maps cannot entirely dictate our ways of existence, otherwise what would be the use of new maps? The interpreter finds contradiction between the existing map and the shifting totality. The multiplicity of their existence will always find fault with this papery image.
And yet, the papery images can be beautiful and deeply meaningful things. “Concentration is the natural piety of the soul”. We need space and stillness to dwell within the shifting totality. And are these papery images not themselves part of the shifting totality? To dwell is to think is to build. The papery images are themselves still (despite fraying at the edges), but in us they inspire movement. When we find some sort of affinity between the papery image and the rest of the shifting totality we experience joy.
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