Читать книгу Society of Singularities - Andreas Reckwitz - Страница 18

In order to understand singularities, it is first necessary to draw a precise distinction between three different forms of the particular: the general-particular, the idiosyncratic, and the singular.

Here it is apt to begin with Kant’s epistemological distinction between the general and the particular.³ In relating to the world, one invariably deals with general concepts. Even before the rise of formal rationalization, a social logic of the general existed in the form of implicit types. At the same time, however, we always take notice of particularities: the individual person, the individual thing, the individual place. Seen in this way, the particular is nothing special, and indeed ubiquitous. This raises the question of the relation between the general and the particular, and it is easy to conclude that practices in the typifying mode classify the particular with the help of the general and categorize it as an example of a general concept. This chair is a chair, this person is a mailman, and so on. In this context, the particular is thus nothing more than a concrete example of something general. Or one could also say that it is the general-particular. As the general-particular, the particular implies concrete exemplars that exist within the social logic of the general; it implies variations and versions of what is essentially the same – things, that is, of the same type.

The general-particular is not only an object in the observed world (as it is according to Kant); it is also an object of social production, appropriation, and evaluation of the world. From a sociological perspective, the general-particular is especially interesting when complex social orders of the general are formed in which fixed or variable positions are created for particular cases and differences, so that the particular is made to fit into the general. As we have already seen, precisely such an approach is characteristic of the processes of formal rationalization. Examples include universal legal systems, which make it possible to subsume individual legal cases under predetermined categories, and the classification of achievement in the form of school grades. In this sense, a society dominated by formal rationalization also generates particularities to a considerable extent. Yet here it is always a matter of the general-particular, which is always created and understood within the framework of the processes of standardization, generalization, and formalization discussed above. The general-particular thus exists in unambiguous rankings of qualitative differences (school grades, for instance) and in scales of quantitative differences (quantitative measurements of various sorts).

The general-particular should not be confused with what I would like to call idiosyncrasies. Here one can begin again with the difference between the general and the particular and maintain that idiosyncrasies are aspects of entities that cannot be made to fit into the concepts or schemata of the general: residual, idiosyncratic characteristics. This could be a feature of a given chair that goes beyond the idea of chairs as a general type – for instance, the specific wear and tear that it has suffered in a particular household over the years, or the memory that one’s grandmother once used to sit in it. Viewed in this way, idiosyncrasies are peculiar features that not only do not fit into the general but also oppose the orders of the general-particular.

Such a defensive understanding of idiosyncrasies, which presumes the primacy of the general, can be converted into a bold understanding. In bolder terms, one could say that all of the world’s entities exist initially as idiosyncrasies.⁴ They are special; they are unique to the extent that, in principle, they remain incommensurable with other entities. Nothing is identical with anything else; no entity can be converted into another without losing some quality. In this sense, every person is idiosyncratic, as is every plant, animal, or element of inorganic nature, not to mention every house or tool, every image and text, every location, every memory, every collective, and every belief. Thus understood, peculiarities are not the result of intentional design or the object of conscious appreciation or rejection; rather, as multiplicities, they are simply there – either independent of the existence of human beings (stones, animals, the cosmos, etc.) or as unintended side-effects of human activity (that is, as side-effects of the social). Regardless of whether idiosyncrasies are interpreted defensively or boldly, what is crucial is that they are unique features existing outside of the orders of the general that are not perceived as anything special by the social sphere itself. As unique features “in themselves,” they are marginal cases both for the social world and for the (social) sciences. Though ubiquitous, they are nearly invisible.

What I mean by the social logic of singularities is neither the system of the general-particular nor idiosyncrasies. In a certain way, singularities exist between the two. Whereas, in the general-particular, the relatively particular reproduces the order of the general, and whereas idiosyncrasies operate beyond and before all forms of socio-cultural communicability, singularities function within the socio-cultural order and yet are not limited to reproducing the logic of the general. In the case of singularities, we are dealing with entities that are perceived, evaluated, fabricated, and treated as unique within social practices. Singularities are the result of socio-cultural processes of singularization. They come into their own within a social logic of the particular. In such a logic, objects, subjects, spaces, temporalities, and collectives are turned into singularities through practices of observation, evaluation, production, and appropriation. Singularity, in other words, is enacted.⁵

Within a social logic of singularities, particularities cannot be reduced to a general schema; rather, they appear unique and are certified as such. Whereas the general-particular designates variations of the same and idiosyncrasy designates pre-social peculiarity, singularity denotes socio-culturally fabricated uniqueness. To begin with, it is possible to define these unique entities in negative terms: as non-generalizable, non-interchangeable, and incomparable. Singular objects, subjects, places, events, and collectives are not merely exemplars of a general order. Stanley Kubrick’s film A Clockwork Orange may admittedly belong to the genre of science fiction, but – in the complexity of its imagery and narration and in its unique tension between fascination and disgust – it cannot be reduced to this or any other type. Cineastes view and experience it as unique. Moreover, a singularity cannot be exchanged for or replaced by a different but functionally identical entity, as readily happens to functional objects and people within the framework of the logic of the general. For those who participated in it, the subculture of mods during the 1960s could not simply be exchanged for another subculture – the rockers, say – but rather developed a subcultural universe of its own with specific practices, symbols, affects, and identities. Finally, a singularity cannot be compared to other entities with any clear parameters, because no overarching standard exists along which it might be possible to measure their differences. To believers, for instance, it would make no sense to compare Shinto’s Ise Grand Shrine to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.

On what basis are objects, subjects, places, events, and collectives now fabricated as unique in the social world? The basis is that, over the course of their singularization, these social entities are understood as inherent complexities with inner density. In the logic of singularization – to put this another way – the singular object (be it a work of art or design), the singular subject (a person perceived as unique), the singular place, or the singular collective becomes a “world of its own.” Inherent complexity and inner density are nothing mystical. Complexity, as is well known, denotes a series of elements or nodal points between which there are relations, interconnections, and reciprocal effects. Whenever such a nexus of interrelations exists, one speaks of complexity, whose defining quality can be called density.⁶ Of course, the type of elements and relations that form a given complexity and determine its density depends on the social entity at hand. An object (such as a painting), a theory, a culinary meal, or a smartphone differs in its composition from a human subject (that entity composed of body and mind), while a physical place (a living-room, a landscape, or a city) consists of elements and relations quite different from those of a temporal entity (such as an event) or a collective (such as a scene, a project, or a nation). Nevertheless, this material variation does nothing to change what singularization means for every social entity: they are constituted as inherent complexities with inner density.

Complexity and density are characteristics of the internal structure of singularities, and this is why I have used the terms inherent complexity and inner density. Singular entities, however, also have a specific relation to the outside. Yet it would be insufficient to claim that there are simply certain differences between them (between the urban logic of Rome and San Francisco, for instance). Of course, difference theory has taught us that, in the socio-cultural realm, it would be impossible to identify any entities at all without the existence of differences, because every entity is constituted in the first place by being different from others.⁷ Despite its general appeal to cultural theorists, however, it would be a mistake to embrace difference theory fully, for it would bring two serious disadvantages to the analysis of singularities. First, the social relevance of the inherent complexity of entities would be marginalized in favor of the ostensibly ubiquitous “play of differences.” Second, it would raise the risk of losing the capacity to distinguish between the multiplicities of differences that exist in the social world.

It must be stressed that, in the social logic of singularities, differences are certainly identified, but the main issue involves the production and appropriation of inherent complexities. What this means can best be illustrated with an example, for instance American literature. In this case, there are countless ways to identify a difference between the novels of Edith Wharton, John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck, or F. Scott Fitzgerald. Now, if we take the novels of Thomas Pynchon, they are not only unlike the latter; they not only “differentiate themselves” ex negativo from all of them. Rather, in their semantics, syntax, plot structure, characterizations, etc., they develop their own irreducible inner density ex positivo. This inherent complexity stands at the center of singularization in the minds of readers, critics – and the author himself. In contrast to the difference-theoretical primacy of difference over identity, the logic of singularities favors the primacy of inherent complexity over the outward identification of differences.

Within the social logic of singularization, of course, entities also gain their uniqueness by way of their differences, but these have a special form. Whereas, according to difference theory, all cats (differences) are gray at night, the issue now is to distinguish between forms of difference, and to do so according to a social logic. In the social logic of the general, which also identifies differences between its socially relevant entities (objects, subjects, etc.), its focus is on gradual differences of a qualitative or quantitative sort, as I already described above. In an order of singularities, in contrast, differences are always absolutely and without exception qualitative. What prevails here is not rankings but rather a qualitative otherness, which has the character of incommensurability. Incommensurability means that the entities in question lack a common measure; they are not understood as two variants of the same, but rather appear to be incomparable in the strict sense of the word.⁸ Rome is incommensurable with San Francisco, as is Russia with China, or David Bowie with Van Morrison. The logic of singularization is thus concerned with identifying strong differences.

What happens, however, when the entities of social singularization are compared to one another? As a social practice, the act of comparison did not simply cease with the advent of singularities, and later we will see how, to a considerable extent, the expansion of the social logic of the singular in late modernity led to the creation of new technologies of comparison.⁹ Comparisons between singularities, which are always inherent complexities, now do exactly what might be expected: they reduce the complexity at hand. In practices of comparison, general parameters are used in order to classify the singularities themselves according to a qualitative or even quantitative standpoint. This means seeing in them only that which fits into the given set of comparative parameters, whereas everything else falls out of view. Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris and the Doge’s Palace in Venice are thus two examples of Gothic architecture; Christianity and Islam are two monotheistic religions; the album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band sold more copies than the album Blonde on Blonde; and so on. The schemata of the general therefore reduce the complexities of singularities to a few chosen characteristics that make it possible to draw a comparison between them. Thus, comparisons made within the framework of the social logic of the general differ in a fundamental way from those made within the framework of the social logic of the particular, even if they resemble one another on the surface. A comparison made between entities in the social logic of the general (with various quantifiers or school grades, for instance) serves to represent these entities exhaustively, whereas comparisons made in the social logic of the particular reduce complexity, which does not then disappear but rather – and this is decisive – goes on to function in a structurally formative way (by affecting its recipients, for instance).¹⁰

What should we think about the relation between the three aforementioned configurations of the particular – again, the general-particular, idiosyncrasies, and singularities? It can be maintained first of all that the distinction between them should lead to more than just a classification – it can also help to analyze their interrelations. In all three cases, at any rate, we are dealing with real configurations in the social world. The social logic of singularities exists, as does the social logic of the general (with its production of the general-particular) as well as the population of idiosyncrasies, which may not be part of any social logic but exist nevertheless (in the manner of “things in themselves”). What is interesting is that these three spheres are not closed off from one another but rather share a dynamic relationship of translation and exchange, especially in late modernity.¹¹

Idiosyncrasies can thus transform into singularities when previously unrecognized unique features are socially recognized for their uniqueness – when, for instance, a computer specialist with all his quirkiness is elevated to a nerd, or a formerly unacknowledged and seemingly worthless object is suddenly regarded as a work of art. Every idiosyncrasy has the potential to become a singularity. Conversely, as already mentioned, singularities can (if only temporarily) become part of the register of the general-particular at the moment when someone attempts to make their presumably incomparable qualities comparable or even gradable (for instance, in analyses of art or religion, in the quality rankings of films, etc.). Beyond that, it is possible for previously merely functional goods from the register of the general to be singularized (the mass-produced plastic chair, for example, advanced to become the singular Eames design) if a degree of inherent complexity is discovered in something that otherwise bears general features, as a result, for instance, of heightened cultural sensitivity or the development of more discerning tastes. Finally, singularities can lose their character as valuable entities, become de-singularized, and sink to the status of unnoticed idiosyncrasies (as when religions cease to be practiced or works of art cease to be recognized as such). As we will see more clearly later on, the rising significance of the social logic of singularities in late modernity owes a great deal to the fact that idiosyncrasies – but also examples of the general-particular – can transform into singularities. At the same time, the transformation of general-particular parameters into singularities has also gained significance, with the result that a broad spectrum of singularities has been cultivated by society and allowed to flourish.

It should have become clear from the foregoing discussion that a sociological analysis of singularities requires a sophisticated heuristic. Although I have already pointed out that the familar semantic complex of individualism, the individual, individualization, and individuality – to which sociology used to refer – is not especially helpful to this sort of analysis, I should at least explain why this is so.¹² One central problem is the widely variable meaning of these concepts and thus their unclear reference to the sphere of phenomena associated with the particular. Depending on who is using them, the terms individualism and individuality can designate extra-social idiosyncrasies or socially certified uniqueness or the particular within the framework of a general order. Sometimes the concept of individuality is used to denote idiosyncrasies. In other cases, these concepts refer to various facets of the individualism of equality, which was characteristic of classical modernity: to the equal rights that people have, to the equal worth that each person is ascribed, to the self-responsible and self-interested nature of certain activity – to every particular thing in the same way. Georg Simmel thus spoke of a modern and rationalistic individualism of the equal and general and juxtaposed it to the Romantic tradition’s individualism of the particular.¹³ Because we are concerned with the distinction between the social logic of singularities and that of the general, any concept that can unabashedly refer to both is, of course, out of the question.

That was the first problem with the concept of individualism: it is too broad and ambiguous. The second problem is that in other respects it is too narrow, and this is because it typically refers to human subjects alone. As I have already stressed on several occasions, however, it is paramount to keep in mind that the social fabrication of singularities is not restricted to subjects but rather encompasses all the other entities of the social named above: objects, spaces, temporalities, and collectives. A society of singularities cannot be understood if one remains fixated on the subject.¹⁴