2.3. Section Two: Discourse - Narrative Construction of Preferred Realities 103 Narratology (the study of narrative), does not fit neatly into any particular
2.3.1. Linguistics
F. de Saussure argues for the meaning, not just the function, of linguistics. He gives descriptive depth to the system of linguistics by developing the notions of synchronic identity (how words form and define who we are), synchronic reality (how words are understood in the context from which they are spoken), and synchronic value (how words are given meaning within the relational transaction). Saussure emphasizes the importance of understanding language as defined by the values attached to it.
109 Fulford, R. 1999. The Triumph of Narrative – Storytelling in the Age of Mass Culture (Chapter 5). New York: Broadway Books.
110 Ibid: 130-135.
111 Wallace M. 1986. Recent Theories of Narrative. Ithica & London: Cornell University Press.
55 Linguistics is much more than the stringing together of specific letters and sounds; it only comes to life when units of value (meaning) are accredited to the different sounds and patterns of language.112
Language serves as the intermediary between two chaotic masses of thought (ideas) and sound (phonetics). Thoughts remain hidden until given sound, and sounds remain arbitrary until connected to thought. Sound alone does not relay value until it is associated with meaning. Saussure methodically differentiates between ‘signification’
(ideas, concepts and meaning), and ‘signal’ (sound and word utterance). When signification and signal are combined, the result is a ‘sign’ which encompasses the phonetics and the value of the words intertwined together. Sign is the basic unit of all meaningful communication and when multiple signs are linked together, complex narrative results.
For language to become a meaningful linguistic system, it requires the
introduction of social values which emanate from human community.113 Of interest here is how linguistic value is determined. Saussure suggests that the formation of values is governed by a two paradoxical principles. First, the value of an object is assigned according to its dissimilarity from other objects, (e.g. a coin is dissimilar to the items it can purchase). Second, value is also relegated to an object in comparison to other similar objects, (e.g. coins are compared amongst themselves within a given monetary system with each one given different value).114 Accordingly, Don Cuppitt writes on the power of story narrative as embedded in its use of metaphors (comparison and contrast of the similar and dissimilar), which is a basic form of intelligence.115
This ironic value comparison between that which is both dissimilar and that which is similar is at the core of ethno-cultural conflict theory that states that our social values and our identity formation are developed and refined in comparison to those who are different from us (often termed ‘the other’). This kind of identity competition is natural and need not be harmful. However, it can lay the necessary foundation for what has been termed ‘enemy formation’ in conflict theorisation.
112 De Saussure, F. 1954. Course in General Linguistics. Oxford, England: Ducksworth Publishers, 106- 109.
113 Saussure, 1954: 111-112.
114 Ibid: 113.
115 Cupitt, 1991: 14-15.
56 However, this comparative identity construction is not only reserved for people who are geographically and/or culturally far away from us (those who are dissimilar); this same process feeds the genocide violence between close-knit people groups who may have co-existed for many centuries. For various reasons (historical traumas, revenge cycles, power struggles or protracted structural oppression) these inter-connected groups are now determined to divide and separate from each other. This kind of violent social
‘divorce’ is peculiarly disturbing because many of these groups that are fighting for self- determination share the same genetic, cultural and language heritage. The psycho-social theory in this matter rests on the central theme of similarity, not dissimilarity.
Michael Ignatieff appropriately extrapolates on this notion in his writing on ‘the Narcissism of Minor Difference’ a term he borrows from Sigmond Freud.116 Igantieff substantiates that this kind of violent conflict can arise from a desperate attempt by two people groups to set themselves apart from each other. Division allows the antagonists a chance to dissociate from each other and the interdependencies that exist between them.
This violent effort to extricate one group from the other is driven by the need to prove their essentialist, unique identities; their extreme differences in protest to the
homogenization of their historical past. However, to do this ‘successfully’ they have to exaggerate and magnify their minor differences. In Matabeleland, the Gukurahundi violence exasperated the minor ethnic and political grievances that did exist between Ndebele/Shona and ZAPU/ZANU to such extremes that Ndebele extremists are now calling for secession from Zimbabwe and the ZANU-PF stronghold of Mashonaland.
2.3.2. Mythology
As the nervous system plays an intermediary role between the human mind and experience, so myth according to Claude Levi-Strauss117 plays an analogous role in mediating between the human realities of reason and intuition. “This whole problem of experience versus mind seems to have solution in the structure of the nervous system, not in the structure of the mind or in experience, but somewhere between mind and
116 Ignatieff, M. 1998. The Warrior’s Honour – Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience. New York:
Viking Publishers, 48.
117 Levi-Strauss, C. 1979. Myth and Meaning. New York: Schocken, 3.
57 experience in the way our nervous system is built and in the way it mediates between mind and experience.”118
Levi-Strauss maintains that science has only two paths to follow in its efforts to gain knowledge of the world, reductionist or structuralist. To Levi-Strauss, reductionism occurs when very complex phenomena on one level can be reduced to simpler
phenomena on other levels. Structuralism occurs when phenomena are too complex to be reduced to a lower order and can only be approached by looking to their relationships, that is, by trying to understand what kind of original system they make-up.119 In sum, the
‘structuralists’ are “…trying to find an order behind what is given to us as a disorder120”.
What mesmerized Levi-Strauss and catapulted his work into the centre of rigorous debate was his notion of the universal themes and patterns (“mythemes” as Levi-Strauss termed them)121 arising from his comparative research of myths among many people groups across the world. Levi-Strauss justified the existence of these universal myths as follows: “So, if the same absurdity was found to reappear over and over again, and another kind of absurdity also to reappear, then this was something which was not
absolutely absurd; otherwise it would not appear122”. Levi-Strauss came to the conclusion that there was an overarching structure to human myth, a kind of systemization that provided the centrifugal pull to hold the great diversity of myths together: “The common denominator is always to introduce some kind of order. If this represents a basic need for order in the human mind and since, after all, the human mind is only part of the universe, the need probably exists because there is some order in the universe and the universe is not a chaos”123.
The ‘structuralist’ framework remains a definitive means by which to understand the culture of human violence. Major influence in this regards came from works by
118 Ibid: 8.
119 Ibid: 9-10.
120 Ibid: 11.
121 Ibid.
122 Ibid.
123 Ibid: 12-13. For related cross-disciplinary work on ‘chaos management theory’ see: Wheatley, M. 1994.
Leadership and the New Science – Learning about Organisation from an Orderly Universe. San Francisco:
Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc., and Stacey, R. 1992. Managing the Unknowable – Strategic Boundaries between Order and Chaos in Organisations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Borrowing from natural sciences, these theories have confirmed that behind all natural chaos are highly intricate systems and patterns of order. This principle has been successfully translated into the human sciences to shed new light on the processes of managing organizational (collective or group) conflicts.
58 French structuralist, Rene Girard124. In his study of human sacrificial systems, Girard builds a strong and complex case for the centrality of sacrifice through violence (often referred to as ‘scape-goating’) as foundational for the very existence of human cultures.
Not only is this sacrificial violence privileged in the formational scripts of human organization but it is the under-girding script that sustains collective identity and unity among people groups or nations.125
Another example of trying to code the universal myth of human violence comes in the more contemporary writing of feminist journalist and biologist, Barbara
Ehrenreich126. Carefully weaving together the past with the present, the profane with the sacred, and the roots of predation with modern day war, Ehrenreich skilfully unravels the mythical script of violence that has become core to human civilization. This acting out of the violence myth manifests most obviously in forms of domestic violence, gangsters or organized war, but it is also appears in more subtle ways that are reinforced in the collective psyche of society through religious dogma, media, national sports and gender role socialization.
These matters are also the central thrust of renowned feminist author and anthropologist, Riane Eisler127. Contrary to the dominant myths of instinctual human violence, Eisler argues that humankind at its origins is a peace-loving species. She
documents ancient configurations of social existence and concludes that they consisted of apparently peaceful groupings of vegetarian “gatherers” (as opposed to carnivorous
“hunters”) living in harmony with the environment, the two genders, and among differing tribes. The contemporary dominance of violence is a result of eons of human
socialization. Eisler maintains that we are now at an evolutionary crossroads of two alternatives;128 we can act out the present myth of increasing chaos and violence or forge a new one of transformation toward a “partnership future”.129 Likewise, pioneer peace
124 Girard, R. 1972. Violence and the Sacred, (Translated by Patrick Gregory). Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press. See related work by Bailie, G. 1997. Violence Unveiled: Humanity at a Crossroads. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company.
125 Girard, 1972: 299-300.
126 Ehrenreich, B. 1997. Blood Rites – Origins and History of the Passions of War. New York:
Metropolitan Books – Henry Holt and Company.
127 Eisler, R. 1987. The Chalice and the Blade – Out History, Our Future. New York, New York:
HarperCollins Publishers.
128 Ibid: xiii.
129 Ibid: 185-205.
59 activist and academic Elise Boulding130 claimed that the most significant current research in the peace-building field was “the recognition that negotiation and conflict resolution are ubiquitous processes, going on all the time in daily life. This is the peace that already exists: the peace of the negotiated social order”131. Ehrenreich, Eisler, and Boulding’s findings highlight the power of dominating myths (in this case the myth of violence) and how these can permeate the narratives by which whole societies may end up living.132 However, all three of these authors substantively agree this it is not only plausible but necessary to embrace the construction of alternative mythical-realities of peaceful co- existence.
Coming to the function of myth, Levi-Strauss argues that myth does not give humankind a material power over the environment. However, it does give humankind the illusion that they can, and do understand the universe.133 Mary Midgley purports that “far from being the opposite of science, myth is a central part of it. Myth is neither lies nor mere stories but a network of powerful symbols that suggest particular ways of
interpreting the world.”134 Jayne Docherty, in her fascinating study on the violent stand- off between the US government forces and the Branch Davidians religious cult in Waco, Texas, coins the term “world-making stories” to describe the ordering myths that govern the narratives of communities.135 In conflict, their stories become the central organising script that assists disputing parties to name the conflict, ascribe blame for the conflict- causing breach and frame appropriate or inappropriate responses.136 World-making discourse becomes sacred as it stakes claims about ultimate truth and authority. When worldviews collide, Docherty suggests that the solution does not lie in engaging in ‘issue-
130 Boulding, E.1987. Learning Peace in Vayrynen, R. (Ed) The Quest for Peace – Transcending Collective Violence and War among Societies, Cultures, and States, International Social Science Council, Beverly Hills-Newbury Park-New Delhi: Sage Publications, 317-325.
131 Ibid: 333.
132 Other interesting pieces of research that challenges the essentialist view of human aggression are: De Waal, F. 1989. Peacemaking among Primates. Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press; and Grossman, D. Lt. Col. 1995. On Killing – The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society.
Boston & New York: Back Bay Books.
133 Levi-Strauss, 1979: 17.
134 Higham, D. 2005. David Higham Associates. Retrieved from the web 14/07/2005.
http://www.davidhigham.co.uk/html/Titles/The myths we live by
135 Docherty, J. 2001. Learning Lessons from Waco – When the Parties bring God to the Negotiation Table.
New York: Syracuse University Press, 62.
136 Ibid: 58-61.
60 specific’ negotiations but in actually negotiating reality, truth and authority.137 The
dilemma is not how to reconcile parties to one real world, but instead, how to “manage, negotiate, or navigate through multiple worlds”138.
In explaining the bridge between narrative discourse and its translation into social reality, Levi-Strauss139 draws a clear line between the ‘preconscious’ and the
‘unconscious’ states of being. The preconscious is “as a reservoir of recollections and images amassed in the course of a lifetime”140. This is where the patterns and pathways of universal human myth reside. The unconscious is merely the container or framing that
“imposes structural laws upon inarticulated elements which originate elsewhere –
impulses, emotions, representations and memories”141. He then describes the relationship between pre and unconscious states as such: “We might say, therefore, that the
preconscious is the individual lexicon where each of us accumulates the vocabulary of his personal history, but that this vocabulary becomes significant, for us and others, only to the extent that the unconscious structures it according to its laws and thus transforms it into language”142. The unconscious once it emerges as the conscious becomes the conduit for the myth to become an articulated and acted upon reality. The Matabeleland
massacres were the result of ZANU-PF embracing certain chosen myths and then consciously embarking on a campaign to conspicuously articulate and act upon these chosen myths, despite their devastating reality.