Whether written or oral memories, data are rare to recall, for example, cyclones, epidemics or earthquakes.
We often observe, in Haitian society, a long-term absence of memory concerning collective experiences: there remain few traces of the major events which marked collective life.
This is the case, in 2010, of the devastating earthquake, which seemed a new event to the majority of Haitians who had no memory of such a catastrophe in the environmental life of the country.
This is also the case of slavery, another catastrophe, this time human at the origin of Haitian society, which is recorded nowhere except in a “somatic” memory recounted in legends or the practices of zombification. (F. Degoul).
Whether written or oral memories, data are rare to recall, for example, cyclones, epidemics or earthquakes.
It was only following the 2010 earthquake that some of us realized the fragility of the “Haitian space” or the Caribbean space.
Likewise, popular productions do not provide information on dictatorships and their informal armed bodies. It is as if, it seems, Haitians had stopped telling stories to live in the present that their memories of the phenomena experienced are quickly shaken up by new presences of new phenomena. Urgency seems to constitute the subjective basis of this absence of memory. Urgency that must be linked to a certain experience of time, to a temporality marked by the imminence of death, of great uncertainty about the possibilities of the future.
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This first observation already forces us to assume that this lack of lasting memory linked to the temporality of the trauma leads to a weak experience of duration, which experience has consequences on the forms of symbolization and their level of generality. This observation presupposes in the background that the duration of memory, its more or less long inscription in time, is associated with the capacity to reach a certain level of generality and, consequently, to produce institutions in relation to this generality.
This temporality which originated in the context of slavery characterized by the chronic killing of the slave does not in itself constitute the anthropological basis of the problem of memory that I wish to outline here. Being attentive to the relationship of memory and the institution, of the institution to language, I propose in this reflection to first explore the relationship of orality and writing with the background that of memory, of the institution and of the level of generality.
On another occasion, I will endeavor to bring out the meaning of the temporality which took shape in the plantation experience of slavery, a temporality which I already designate as postsslavery, which seems to manifest an experience of imminent death in the propensity chronicle of killing, of the game of massacre.
It is as if, it seems, Haitians had stopped telling stories to live in the present that their memories of the phenomena experienced are quickly shaken up by new presences of new phenomena.
Thus formulated, my concern consists of thinking of a dissonance in Haitian society between orality and writing, which would be the basis of the difficult advent of a true experience of the common supported by the ideal of the general interest. It is, in other words, inspired by Jack Goody’s central thesis on the transition from orality to writing giving rise to the emergence of a whole set of “technologies of the intellect” , to point out that no transition has been made in Haitian society which goes from orality to writing.
These symbolic forms or these two ways of formalizing are found in a cohabitation which is far from taking the form of the transition from orality to writing, but that of the juxtaposition of two logics of thought or symbolization. The consequences of the juxtaposition which takes place of the passage, which would have caused changes in the ways of doing things, are important and deserve to be noted in order to better understand the meaning of this lack of memory or of the lability of memories which change at will. circumstances, the improvised dynamics of institutional practices which poorly create the social duration sufficient to maintain minimal stability, the difficulty in shaping highly scriptural practices, such as science, philosophy, literary criticism, literature, the university and the administrative document management system, etc.
My initial idea, which I will submit to the test of reflection and discussion, is that society suffers from a deficiency in a true institution of thought practices, of thought, understood as reflexivity or dialogue by means of arguments or abstract ideas. This idea includes two types of issues that I would like to explain from the outset. It leads to a theoretical issue, which concerns the very culture of thought. Here, thought is not the simple biological-psychological or phenomenological activity of consciousness which engages in the production of meaning.
Society suffers from a deficiency in a true institution of thought practices, of thought, understood as reflexivity or dialogue by means of arguments or abstract ideas.
This activity is only at the first moment of meaning production or symbolization. It has a fundamentally expressive aspect where affectivities play the preponderant role. Socially, it manifests itself in stories, poetic or literary productions, particularly made of an emotional or affective impulse where ideas are associated with images to produce meaning that is difficult to discuss.
It is almost incongruous or indecent to discuss the relevance of a poem, a poetic or aesthetic choice with the person who used it to express their point of view. The theoretical issue is that this persistence of the expressive in the institutional order of the university, in the breakdown of criticism as an institution, in the political order of debate by means of arguments, leads to uproar, vociferations where singularities are destroyed, neutralized while hindering the advent of an order of generality or consensus, even in its minimalist aspect in social, political groups allegedly having shared ideologies, common strategies.
The paradox is that it would be necessary to establish the culture of this generality through theoretical activity to bring about this order of generality which, taking shape in the political or public space, would be able to inspire a sense of the common and theoretical positions on the common.
Consequently, this leads to the practical issue, this culture of the general would have prepared for the implementation of projects which would have made theoretical productions concrete. In the absence of theories or theorization, practices become improvisations, amateurism. The repercussions of this theoretical failure on the quality of practice can be observed even in professions considered “manual”: “manual” Haitian technicians rarely demonstrate precision, rigor and measurement. A nonchalance, bordering on casualness, is observed in their works which often suffer from the aesthetics of the finish, a sign of work that is intended to be well done.
It is almost incongruous or indecent to discuss the relevance of a poem, a poetic or aesthetic choice with the person who used it to express their point of view.
The rigor of the theory which manifests itself in the scriptural practices of argumentation or the use of correct arguments, of reasoning which seeks to be flawless in order to anticipate the logical dissatisfactions of the interlocutor also calls for the rigor of the practical construction which places the other on the horizon of what we are called to achieve.
In this sense, politics (as art) cannot do without its science or sciences. She refrains from improvisations against what we observe in Haitian politics. It is no longer a question of a “political animal” which is defined by the cynicism inspired by petty personal interests and which always ends up tripping people up. But a matter of political virtues which take shape in the culture of the common while knowing that the common, like the community, cannot be improvised, has little recourse to emotion to establish itself, calls upon, on the contrary, to the ability to conceptualize. The concept, the general or the universal gesture towards higher faculties, which, cultivated, inseminate all social and political institutions with the requirements of taking into account human dignity, collective well-being (so many abstract ideas ).
To reflect on the relationship between orality and writing in a society where politics takes the form of the social pettiness of corruption is to follow the traces or flaws of an anthropological dynamic which struggles to bring about politics.
A colleague wonders whether we should not take what we experience in Haitian society as it is. For example, accepting politics as it is done as “the Haitian way of doing politics”. In a Creole situation, in the poetics of the relationship where everything meets or mixes, would there not be reason to allow all forms of being of politics to occur? Instead of complaining, shouldn’t we rejoice in this carnival of mixing, of promiscuity, of letting formalization come without form?
To reflect on the relationship between orality and writing in a society where politics takes the form of the social pettiness of corruption is to follow the traces or flaws of an anthropological dynamic which struggles to bring about politics.
Given my great interest in creolization which describes and theorizes a poetics of the relationship, I am sometimes inclined to let myself go in this direction which I call descriptive: to express our way of doing politics in a Creole context where normativities are not hierarchical. not, interpenetrate depending on the context, the issue, the person or the interest, etc. Creole politics is therefore a Haitian carnival, a place of enjoyment and deadly blows, a place where everyone feels free to do their dance steps without worrying about trampling on the one in front or next to them. It is the place of the multitude without common, of the crowd and not of the community.
In response to this attractive prospect, I propose to clarify what we are talking about when we say politics. The perspective suggested by my colleague insinuates that the Haitians have invented a new policy. A new collective praxis which would unfold through the erasure of the collective, which constantly puts in place the collapse of the common, of the political. Can politics be the process of destroying the common? Would this still be politics? These questions suggest the discomfort in accepting this style of praxis as political. A praxis of putting to death the common is a praxis of the paradoxical institution of stupidity. But stupidity, as we have known for a long time, Plato or Aristotle, is the reign of affectivity, of “animality”. It is the ambivalent institution of tyranny, of society or of the State, which cannot ensure any common well-being which requires discussion, recognition of equal dignity.
In reality, and this is another element of the answer, we feel very uncomfortable with this policy which only opens up happy prospects to the admirer of the policy. tyrannical. Aside from the arsonists of Haitian politics, who delight in the devastating effects of all forms of incendiary insecurity, the majority suffer or despair from this jungle shaped by this deadly practice which is improperly called politics.
Finally, we can guess, this communication which initially took an anthropological and sociological style formulation ultimately becomes a way of thinking about the political setbacks of Haitian society, grasping in detail the daily Haitian ways of doing things.
Creole politics is therefore a Haitian carnival, a place of enjoyment and deadly blows, a place where everyone feels free to do their dance steps without worrying about trampling on the one in front or next to them. It is the place of the multitude without common, of the crowd and not of the community.
- The absence of thought in Haitian society
The wording may be shocking. Maintaining that there is an absence of thought in Haitian society will lead more than a few to respond and cry out at the arrogance of the philosopher, who poses as judge or censor in a society where there are inevitably “people” who think.
In reality, whether it is my position which I recognize to be terse, or whether it is the critical reactions of my potential opponents, there is reason to highlight the misunderstanding as the basis of the debate. I start from a conceptual consideration that thought is an institution. As Bourdieu would have said, thought is a “field”. It is carried out within a structural and structural framework which makes it socially possible.
First of all, it is not a matter of the simple individual (psychological) or individualist initiative of a few who would have risked a word of which the individuals in question alone keep the secret. It is therefore difficult to produce a critical evaluation framework, even within the university, which framework would be a way of setting the criteria for a style of thinking (slogan versus argumentation) and consequently setting the rules of entry and appreciate through “symbolic forms” the value of what we produce.
Then it becomes clear that thinking is a collective or plural and institutional affair. It calls upon a set of specializations which range from proposals for correction to coronation rituals and rewards, symbolic or otherwise, moving through reports, contestations and the opening of debate.
Finally, the order of thought requires a sharing of waters. In the case of Haitian society, the great division to be undertaken consists of separating the form of thought from the form of magico-religion where everything occurs by the sole initiative of an overarching force or an omniscient intelligence which makes things happen. to individuals the economy of thought, where discussion as a condition of thought, an activity of plurality, is canceled in the presence of the omnipotence of an absolutely learned being, or of the authority of those who have benefited from his gifts of inspiration.
I start from a conceptual consideration that thought is an institution. As Bourdieu would have said, thought is a “field”. It is carried out within a structural and structural framework which makes it socially possible.
Contrary to the conception of thought as an act of consciousness, I propose to consider thought as a system of “social relations” in which power relations come into play (among others, that of writing confiscated by a small group at detriment to the orality of the majority), constitute “technologies of the intellect”.
In this sense, Jack Goody relates the formation of a group of clerics at the first moment of the invention of writing, a group which holds a new form of authority through the advent of writing and certain skills that arouse this advent. This context of confiscation of the power of writing giving rise to a form of “theocracy” was democratized particularly in Greece with the evolution of pictography into a phonetic alphabet favoring the manipulation of a considerable number of signs with very few sounds .
In Haitian society, writing which has become a magical reality is held by a small group of “literates” who enjoy the power that mastery of writing confers. Thought, therefore, as a result of the transition from orality to writing, is prevented. At the same time, it is forced to deploy within power through individual or individualistic performance, rendering its institutionalization as “social relations” governed by a set of rules and “technologies” null and void.
It is difficult to institute (critical) thought in such a context of rarefaction of writing which enjoys a magical aura thanks to which it is experienced as an instrument of mystification, domination and confinement in orality . To better understand the critical basis of my analysis, it is useful to follow the transition from orality to writing and the cultural, intellectual, technological and political transformations that this transition caused. This essential attention to the work of Jack Goody on the transition from orality to writing also allows us to better understand the meaning of thought as a social institution which calls upon symbolic preconditions in which writing primarily participates.
In Haitian society, writing which has become a magical reality is held by a small group of “literates” who enjoy the power that mastery of writing confers. Thought, therefore, as a result of the transition from orality to writing, is prevented.
- From orality to writing. The cultural and intellectual revolution
Jack Goody, English anthropologist, is the first to address the question of the transition from orality to writing and, from these considerations, criticizes the dualist typology proposed by Western anthropology locked since its training in Manichaeism, which founded coloniality. According to the general doxa of this anthropology, societies are divided into “European”, “Christian” and “white” societies and into non-European, “pagan” or “barbarian” societies. This division within the human community is taken up by anthropology which proposes two types of societies: “civilized”, modern, “historical”, “warm” societies and “primitive” or “archaic”, “without history” or “historical” societies. “cold”.
At first glance, one might hasten to wonder how the typology proposed by Jack Goody distances itself from this anthropology, since it is formulated from dualism or methodological Manichaeism which divides the facts of culture into two diametrically opposed groups, driven by opposing logics and worldviews.
Jack Goody apparently takes up this dichotomy to make it more complex while criticizing it. If we find in him a binary division thought in terms of orality and writing, of societies with orality and societies with writing, he does not lock them into an immutable nature which would have made the transition from the first to the second impossible. .
Certainly, he recognizes each of its own characteristics, which are in no way substances, but rather modes of relationship established in the dynamics of symbolization or formalization during which new social relationships impose themselves and contribute to the constitution of the world. As such, we are dealing more with a dynamic, a movement of passage which goes from orality to writing taking into account the transformations which occur from one regime of symbolization to another and the technologies which bring about this passage.
- Oral societies
Before even restoring the essence of Jack Goody’s theory, it is useful to recall that the transition from the order of nature to the order of culture is made by the human invention of a new reality: the language. This fundamental symbolic system is established as a system of representation, which consists of representing things through signs or symbols. This new process in man’s relationship to things in nature makes it possible to create a new reality made up of signs and meaning.
Furthermore, in this game of representation, we must take into account two moments which are so many levels of abstraction or generalization, so many ways of filtering or moving from a mode of expression particularly composed of emotions or ‘affective states to conceptual abstractions which are increasingly detached from emotional expressive states. Therefore, and Goody recognizes that the transition from orality to writing implies a change in the order of representations where emotions, affectivities are oriented towards a greater requirement for generalization.
In PhaedraPlato makes Socrates support a thesis which, by understanding the historical and anthropological context of his enunciation, reflects a nostalgia for periods when the “masters of truth” making use of an enunciation word showing the living and vivacious aspect of the word.
Socrates theorizes this liveliness of speech and links it to life. Speech as opposed to writing is alive and offers its own vitality which manifests itself in dialogue.
Indeed, in Plato’s dialogues, psychological memory plays a crucial role. It is present there in the form of reported words. A belief in the fidelity of memory is often felt when the person who must report the speech heard assures that he has memorized everything. So, speech is on the side of immediate “duration”, it takes the form of the creative impulses of life, renewing itself each time. Writing is dead, mute, incapable of responding for itself. It fossilizes the liveliness of speech. It loses its vitality and dries up in the absence of the living thing that produced it.
Socrates theorizes this liveliness of speech and links it to life. Speech as opposed to writing is alive and offers its own vitality which manifests itself in dialogue.
Goody’s position is not to dispute Socrates’ thesis. On the other hand, it allows by inversion of certain arguments to understand that orality, oral speech is linked to the momentum of life, of social life marked by spontaneity, by present social necessities and memorization. A revolution is already underway. It translates the institution of a symbolic order which calls on man to develop skills, memorization technologies, genealogical institutions or stories which distance man from the order of nature by informing as he goes along. its symbolic order.
If orality opens up to expressions, externalizes emotions, it already leads man towards distancing himself and nature by making absent things present. However, oral experience still retains the fluctuating, changing, unstable and unpredictable aspect of affective states. Social dynamics take on a set of appearances that Goody presents by taking as an example the “procedures by which cultural heritage is transmitted. »
In reality, the specific characteristic of the established social and cultural order concerns its duration. She responds to this order not to plunge into the natural state to which man has turned his back. Goody notes that when one generation passes its cultural heritage to the next generation three fairly clearly separated elements are involved.
First, society transmits its production apparatus at the same time as the available natural resources. Then, it presents standardized modes of action. These types of behaviors that are customary are not transmitted is only partially verbal. It is possible, for example, that the ways of cooking, cultivating the land, raising children are transmitted by direct imitation. Finally, there are the most significant elements of any human culture which, without doubt, pass through the channel of words and are part of ranges of meanings and attitudes that members of all societies associate with the verbal symbols they use.
If orality opens up to expressions, externalizes emotions, it already leads man towards distancing himself and nature by making absent things present.
These elements include not only what we generally consider to be normal behavior, but also notions of time and space, aspirations and general goals, in short the worldview of any social group.
In other words, transmission in oral societies takes place through the body and through “face-to-face” relationships, through imitated gestures and through memorization. Whether it is the arts of cooking, those of childbirth and care or conceptions of the world, everything comes from verbalization or memorization, “transmission from one generation to another is ensured first and foremost by language “. In this work of transmission, a “chain of intersecting and overlapping conversations between members of the same group emerges. » Transmission therefore takes place through “face to face” and memory.
That which is carried out by memory includes “the direct character of the relationship between symbol and referent”. Thus, the meaning of each word is validated by a succession of concrete situations, reinforced by the inflection of the voice and a certain gesture. Ultimately, the “relation between symbol and referent” is much more immediate. There is a lack of distancing from things in nature and confusion sets in between symbol and referent.
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Another characteristic of oral cultures is the relationship between the lexicon and the interest or needs of daily life. For example, “people on the island of Lesu in the Pacific do not have a word for pigs, based on their sex, color and origin.” Goody comments on this fact by the “multiplication of terms” or by “the importance that pigs can have in a domestic economy”. More precisely, the relationship between the symbol and the referent manifests itself more generally or at least is a reflection of the overlap between “collective representations and the social morphology of a given society”.
The transmission of this fleeting relationship between symbol and referent is done by means of memory. But this memory is also part of the global economy of social memory: “the individual remembers what is of crucial importance in his experience of social relations. Consequently, in each generation individual memory will serve as a relay for cultural heritage.” An individual memory which is an interweaving of the psychology of the remembering individual and the dynamics of social relations. A fortiori, it is modeled on the specific needs of society which generate the things to be remembered.
The individual does not decide on his own initiative what to remember. The company offers the materials he needs to remember. Goody calls this social procedure of memory maintenance, “the homeostatic organization of cultural tradition in societies without writing.” » “Language is developed in close association with the lived experience of the community and it is learned by the individual in face-to-face contact with other members of that community. What remains socially relevant is stored in memory, while the rest is generally forgotten. » This also applies to memory. Language, memory and forms of transmission embrace the same homeostatic movement of society, which proceeds by “assimilation” and “elimination”. We can “characterize the transmission of cultural tradition in oral societies as a homeostatic phenomenon. »Oral societies are marked by the lability linked to the specific change of social life whose institutions, particularly language and memory, take a moving, homeostatic form. A revolution takes place with the advent of writing, “technologies of the intellect” are established and bring about new forms of representation that are more abstract, more autonomous from social homeostasis, and new forms of relationships. social, artifacts, such as books, libraries, editions, etc.
The individual does not decide on his own initiative what to remember. The company offers the materials he needs to remember. Goody calls this social procedure of memory maintenance, “the homeostatic organization of cultural tradition in societies without writing.” »
- Companies with writing
The transition from orality to writing was not immediate, spontaneous or mechanical. From pictogram systems to the invention of the alphabet and the logographic system, there have been several hesitations or stages in the institutionalization of writing as a new way of thinking about the world. However, Goody observes that from orality to writing a structural transformation is undertaken in all societies that have known writing. Éric Dagiral and Olivier Martin, presenting Goody’s work on “graphic reason”, identified with the arrival of writing “four institutional orders”, which “distribute power and capacities for action. » These four institutional orders are “religious systems”, “economic systems”, “political systems” and “legal systems”.
The invention of writing brings greater stabilization of memory which is reinforced by the existence of material supports, stone, paper or papyrus. The stabilization by which written things become available consequently develops a new body of trade or professionals. These are the scribes.
In reality, the first institution to benefit from this new invention is the religious institution. Writing gives it greater fixity and at the same time makes the texts available for reading. At this first moment in the birth of writing, where the spread was linked to a small group, religious clerics developed a type of power linked to the ability to read sacred texts. This revolution also allowed religious authorities to draw boundaries between what is religious and what is not. It also created the conditions for a new form of diffusion (giving rise to “proselytism”) or “circulation of religious elements”. Diffusion, emergence of an authority linked to the capacity to decipher the magic of pictograms or alphabetical signs, writing gives birth to an activity of another kind, the training of priests. “The training of priests becomes a major issue of control: it excludes individuals and social groups” while creating new groups linked to scriptural skills.
The invention of writing brings greater stabilization of memory which is reinforced by the existence of material supports, stone, paper or papyrus.
The invention of writing was able to allow the fixation of “religious precepts” beyond time and space and brought to the fore the universalist claim and the decontextualization of religious experience.
Ultimately, the introduction of writing into the religious institution leads to “rationalization” (sic). It produces a new type of “mind control, and the compilation of a list of followers.” We are witnessing a real form of census” (sic). The invention of writing was able to allow the fixation of “religious precepts” beyond time and space and brought to the fore the universalist claim and the decontextualization of religious experience. It brings a significant level of institutionalization of religions.
This same work of rationalization and institutionalization that writing provides for religion is present in economic, legal and political systems.
In Goody’s opinion, anthropologists have often recognized the production system as having a fundamental importance in the structuring of societies. Without rejecting this position, Goody maintains that the invention of writing should not be neglected in the complexity of the structuring during which a set of new realities or experiences participate in a great evolution of the social order. Goody notes that “social institutions are affected by the limitations of the oral channel. »
For example, “religions tend to have a more local scope, to be mixed with daily life. » More generally, “legal procedures are governed less by general laws, by formal procedures”[1].
Furthermore, “the introduction of writing was of crucial importance for the operations of formal logic…[2]» In reality, it is not only about “formal logic” which is only a discipline identifying the forms of thought in the context of writing. The most important is the rise in conceptual generality witnessed by the advent of writing. The economy or economic activities are traversed by this process of abstract formalization and impersonalization of social activities.
The invention of writing was able to allow the fixation of “religious precepts” beyond time and space and brought to the fore the universalist claim and the decontextualization of religious experience.
In The logic of writing, in chapter 2 devoted to the transformations that economic activities have undergone through writing, Goody only varies this thesis according to which writing brings a dimension of “abstraction and generalization” in social relations. The economy is rightly marked by abstraction and the impersonalization of exchanges, production and distribution practices. This is the case of “bookkeeping and list keeping [qui] allows the development of evidence and a memory for exchanges and transfers. The storage of information, and the possibility of extending transactions over a long time — beyond limits — help to guarantee the entire economic process. As with religion, the influence of the written word is not limited to circulation and transactions[3]. » A process of abstraction and generalization is “also at work on the side of economic activities and merchant exchanges. Administrative writing is inseparable here: to control weights and measures, collect taxes, or even to carry out censuses.[4]»
Writing and the training of major administrative activities are linked. It represents “one of the instruments that make the formation of States possible. » “Writing organizes society by making large political communities possible. Writing increases the efficiency of organizations and institutions and allows communications between States (…) The authority and power of States would be reinforced by the precision of written orders, by the existence of and support for constitutions and contracts. In Goody’s Perspective , where orality and oral communication allow human groups of certainly substantial sizes to live according to collective modalities, administrative, accounting and political writing (more than religious writing) move away from orality to point of allowing forms of communication of another order, and in particular between the institutions and the scriptural infrastructures that it helps to make possible. » The boundary between private and public affairs is also reinforced through writing which assigns responsibilities, explains roles and clarifies a set of boundaries (…). More generally, indirect and distance communication, via media writing, reconfigures communication and possible forms of social organization, announcing the growing role of so-called mass media like large organizations.[5]»
Writing organizes society by making large political communities possible. Writing increases the efficiency of organizations and institutions and enables communications between states
Administrative activities are also transformed by the “logic of writing”. I have already underlined the force of “decontextualization” of written knowledge, Goody notes that this decontextualization has consequences on “bureaucratic organizations”.
For example, “depersonalized methods of recruiting civil servants [impliquant] often the use of “objective” tests, that is to say written examinations, makes it possible to test the candidates’ ability to handle the essential material of all administrative communication: letters, notes, files, reports.
In his valuable commentary, Weber Bendix notes that in the first administrative systems “public affairs are handled orally during personal interviews.”
In other words, writing not only modifies recruitment methods and required professional skills, but also the very nature of roles in bureaucratic practices. Relations with superiors, as with inferiors, become more impersonal; There is greater recourse to abstract “rules” recorded in a written code, which leads to a clear separation between official and private tasks.[6]» Goody specifies, in order to avoid any misunderstanding or misinterpretation, that he in no way supports the idea that “societies without writing” are marked by a total absence of separation between the “private” and the “public”.
He recognizes, however, that “the adoption of written forms of communication was an intrinsic condition for the development of larger states, more impersonal and more abstract systems of government and, at the same time, as soon as we depart from a relationship of simple verbal exchange, less importance is given to the face-to-face presence of partners.[7]» This aspect is of extreme importance. As a counterpoint, he sets out the obstacles of the Haitian administration, too caught up in face-to-face contact, in presence and “verbal exchange” to impersonalize and open up to the demands of the common “interest”.
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Alongside the aspect of formalization that writing produces in fields of activity such as religion, economics, politics and law, Goody addresses the reflective dimension of writing in a more diffuse way. This is the most important aspect in the constitution of the “reign of criticism[8]“, of “public space[9]» of “public opinion” or reflective thought. Goody specifies that it is “important to insist on a major property of writing, namely the possibility it offers of communicating not with other people, but with oneself.[10] »
The possibility offered by writing to return to the written text not only makes it possible to produce new meaning and correct that already developed, this return to the text is also to be understood as a return to oneself. The work of reading reveals a form of temporality, which carries reflexivity, self-assignment as a condition of self-testing. Subjectivity is linked to this scriptural form, at least it is consolidated by the experience of writing having favored the development of the “novel” or autobiographical or confessional forms.
The availability of writing does not only concern the institution of the experience of the self, or the institution of the self as author, but through the possibility of returning at will to the written text, it also makes classification possible, comparison and generalization at the level of knowledge: “a lasting recording allows you to reread as well as record your thoughts and annotations. In this way, you can review and reorganize your own work, reclassify what you have already classified, correct the order of words, sentences and paragraphs. »
The possibility offered by writing to return to the written text not only makes it possible to produce new meaning and correct that already developed, this return to the text is also to be understood as a return to oneself.
This work of organization, reorganization, classification and reclassification underlies that of formalization and indicates the experimental activities of the formalization of thought, which from time to time evacuates contradictions, inconsistencies and develops the sense of relevance . This relationship of writing, of the invention of the self, of critical thinking and the development of formal thought, agrees with my concern, which seeks to show the weak culture of formalization, of generalization, of thought (criticism) in Haitian society.
From social life in a society to “orals»
I must provide some details relating to the transition from orality to writing, the specificity of the theoretical concerns initiated by Jack Goody and of which I have outlined in broad strokes the various aspects explored. However, in the case of Haitian society, the phenomenon observed does not relate to the observation of two regimes of symbolization and the cultural effects that occur when it comes to following the transition from orality to writing.
Goody showed all the “technologies of the intellect” that written culture generated: abstraction, generalization, formalization and accumulation of memory, etc. Wanting to move the question from the societies studied by Goody to Haitian society, a fundamental rearrangement is necessary, that of the co-existence or juxtaposition of the two types of linguistic symbolization within the same society in the same temporal or sociological range . Until then, with Goody, it was a question of knowing what writing brings as new artifacts to social structuring.
Now the question that arises is how a society that experiences the juxtaposition of orality and writing functions. This juxtaposition that the Haitian literary critic, Maximilien Laroche, conceptualized through the terms of “oraliture”, in this confrontation of orality and writing, calls for an anthropology or sociology of its own, different from anthropology. of the transition from orality to writing.
Now the question that arises is how a society that experiences the juxtaposition of orality and writing functions.
Orality, as I understand it, will therefore be more anthropological or sociological than literary. Maximilien Laroche, using Ernst Mirville’s expression, devoted himself to studying oral literature. Certainly, he must have noticed at some point in the construction of his theoretical work the embarrassment of talking about “oral literature” and wanted to grasp or maintain together the tension between literature and orality.
Indeed, literature fundamentally calls for a relationship with language which places it above all on the side of writing. Which leads us to think of literature as an oxymoron, a sort of tense encounter of contradictory, complementary signs implementing generalizing abstraction and singularizing emotionality. I am interested in another aspect, more scientific, in following this tension of orality and writing within political institutions and in the institution of thought, understood as a modality of generality, abstraction and of formal logic, highlighting the principle of non-contradiction.
The challenge of such questioning, which is more akin to anthropology than political science, consists of knowing what could explain the Haitian difficulty in establishing a political community. Thinking about the relationship of politics and the common and the entirely conceptual aspect of the common, I propose to discuss the hypothesis that the difficult institution of the Haitian political community is in the entanglement of orality and writing, in orality. I present in a hasty manner, due to lack of established fields and available research, some descriptive features to better understand the meaning of the problem in its anthropological-political side.
- Sociology of orality or the tensional dynamics of Haitian institutions
In my perspective, orality is the juxtaposition of orality and writing. This definition is present in Maximilien Laroche, who places orality on the side of “voice” (os, oris, oratura) and literature on the side of “writing”[11]. Without restricting oraliture to the simple tension of orality and literature, I retain the broader sense of the tension between the living, spontaneous, homeostatic “voice” and the serene, cold, abstract and reflexive writing within institutional practices. This tension that the sociology of orality is called upon to describe gives an often baroque, kaleidoscopic logic to the functioning of Haitian socio-political institutions. By baroque functioning, I understand the absence of regular procedures organized by institutional experiences that are labile, unpredictable and driven most often by the affects of civil servants. The predominance of affects in the execution of public services offered to citizens taints these services with discrimination, unjustified refusals, and open contempt that “ordinary” Haitian citizens often face.
If we take into account the central aspects of orality, affective or emotional states; of writing, withdrawal from oneself, reflexivity, passion for rules, we can see that the predominance of orality is manifested by the highlighting of emotional states, of relationships without mediation, naked. This sociopolitical dynamic of orality constantly hinders the application of formal, impersonal and general procedures. It leads to differential treatment of citizens, treating them according to the emotional states or moods of officials. By acting according to their moods, officials subvert the formal universalism of law, which requires that all citizens must be taken care of regardless of their family, ethnohistorical, and gender affiliations.
If we take into account the central aspects of orality, affective or emotional states; of writing, withdrawal from oneself, reflexivity, passion for rules, we can see that the predominance of orality is manifested by the highlighting of emotional states, of relationships without mediation, naked.
It is a common phenomenon in Haitian institutional life that the citizen is judged p ar his clothing or physiological appearance before being received by an official of the private or public administration. His appearance, often testifying to his social belonging, his socio-racial lineage, becomes a negative or positive marker which determines the quality of the service to be provided to him: depending on whether he addresses the civil servant in French or in Creole, whether he is “black » or “mulatto”, “foreigner” or Haitian, he will enjoy preferential treatment or indifference.
In such cases, the citizen is captured in his physiological-social singularity as a “specific” subject (in Creole, we speak of species to designate a “specimen”, a negatively rare and unique being). The rule producing him as a citizen, a subject of law, is relegated to the background to be obscured by affective, emotional perspectives. Socio-political institutions supported by the principle of generality are diverted by personal concerns and continue to produce specific cases. This deviation makes Haitian public institutions particularly places of tension between the propensity to deal on a case-by-case basis with the requests of citizens following their social, family trajectory, while the institutions being composed of general rules of formal and impersonal procedures, are in essence without qualms.
Goody drew attention to the capacity of writing, through the availability of texts that it facilitates, to make possible “care of the self”, the invention of interiority, of restraint. The influence of orality in its homeostatic psychological dynamics undermines the proper functioning of institutions which take on discordant, unpredictable or irregular rhythms. The procedures change according to the moods of the official. Yesterday, he had required a number of documents to provide a service; today, and often depending on the person who presents himself, he demands new documents without any explanation, without there being any prior warning. In a society of distrust linked to the racialist anthropological constitution and the violence of slavery, institutional relations are particularly undermined by a susceptibility which constitutes the main obstacle to the regular or rational functioning of the institution.
It is a common phenomenon in Haitian institutional life that the citizen is judged by his clothing or physiological appearance before being received by an official of the private or public administration.
The most sociologically obvious aspect of this orality remains the management of the memory of institutions. Goody made it possible to understand that with the invention of writing, memory ceases to undergo the homeostatic movement of society which determines the experiences to be remembered or forgotten. Memory ceases to be only psychological, manifesting itself verbatim or through recitation. It is recorded in durable material supports, papers, clays, etc. It then resists time and the drastic movement of social homeostasis.
Haitian institutions show great carelessness in the management of documents which are rarely kept, stored as needed for possible complaints from users or research into the way the institutions operate. The archives section is often non-existent or rudimentary in public institutions. This absence clearly explains the lack of interest of institutions in the documents, in the critical perspective which aims to improve services. It is also difficult to establish the historicity of institutions, given that the traces likely to give to the writing of history are often incomplete or non-existent.
The paradoxical meaning of writing is observed in these two paradigmatic institutions which make privileged use of writing: the National Archives and the University in Haitian society. The first collects the documents which must bear witness to the various aspects of social life in a written society. The second deals, by means of writing, with the social life of writing. If teaching is done “orally”, it no longer takes place in a structural context of orality.
However, the “Haitian university”, private or public, is crossed by orality. As proof, we can take the absence of a real documentation policy. In addition, we must be attentive to the way in which certain Haitian academics appropriate academic titles from foreign academic institutions. This appropriation shows on the one hand the ease of using administrative titles which have no legal meaning in the Haitian administrative system. Thus, one is designated “doctor”, “PhD” outside of any juridico-legal effectiveness justifying such grades or titles in the Haitian academic world. Very recently, a defense notice presented a jury composed of two “lecturers”, two teachers from the State University of Haiti (UEH) who take on a non-existent status within the University of Haiti. State of Haiti.
Thus, one is designated “doctor”, “PhD” outside of any juridico-legal effectiveness justifying such grades or titles in the Haitian academic world.
For several years, I have been interested in what the sociologist Lkinson Jean calls, without having really conceptualized it, Haitian “nominalism” to designate this tendency of Haitians to simply name things in the belief that they give them a force of force. existence or effectiveness. For them the act of nomination, performative, effectively creates the thing named independently of all the procedures of reflective institution or concrete realization. In order to understand the meaning of this nominalism, I assumed that the magico-religious structure of Haitian society plays an important role in the insistence of this disposition to link saying (the speech act) and doing (the effectiveness of this speech act). We must therefore add to this first attempt at understanding the force of orality in this academic syncretism, which consists of adorning oneself with titles which have no administrative meaning in Haitian society.
In the National Archives, what seems very troubling is the management of the registers where birth, death, marriage, etc. certificates are recorded. Often records are not kept. Even within the National Archives, there is a perceptible neglect of the patient, rigorous, scriptural treatment of (written) documents. Such negligence cannot be attributed solely to the low cost of state benefits. We must see the relationship with the written word as it manifests itself in orality: we often tend to hide the written word as if it were these books of magical rituals, these books of power which confer of the “spirit” to those who are its depositaries, the spirit guy[12].
In reality, Goody, once again, provides the key to this magical relationship with writing. The institution that first enjoyed the privileges of the invention of writing is religion. She benefited from writing to record the words of the gods. This has given rise to a new group of individuals who enjoy undeniable power. This power that writing grants extends to all literate people who seem capable of penetrating, in the eyes of the illiterate, a mysterious world of power.
In Haitian society, writing becomes the preserve of scholars who do nothing to extend scriptural skills to all citizens while a divide is created in the name of writing. Several aspects of this question deserve to be explored: the secret management of the written word, the production of documents in the French language considered as a “written” language, the confinement of the majority of the Haitian population to Creole, formerly thought as an oral language.
For them the act of nomination, performative, effectively creates the thing named independently of all the procedures of reflective institution or concrete realization.
More than three thirds of the Haitian population cannot read or write. This situation of illiteracy takes the form of a device for excluding large numbers of people from a significant part of social reality. The written word being inaccessible to them, this led to the emergence of a group of “translators”, the only ones capable of speaking both the language of the written word and the language of the “people”; these translators stand at the interface between the world of orality and that of writing. They alone are capable of moving from one world to another, transporting the secrets of one to the other.
Orality thus understood takes the form of a business guaranteed by the “literate”—translators. The emphasis on the French language, the language of colonial mystification, renews the bestializing colonial system. It is indeed a device of bestialization in that those who do not speak French, who do not “express themselves”, do not speak. In the imagination of Haitian scholars – the teacher is the typical figure – speaking Creole is simply shouting. However, the paradox is great among “literates” who speak French in an oral context.
On this point, I return once again to the University to suppose that the real problem of university teaching or learning lies in this juxtaposition of a type of symbolization mobilizing the registers of the story and a type of symbolization requiring abstraction of the concept. Many professors or students are unaware of this tension and find it difficult to respond to the logical requirements of academic discourse. The difficulty is not due to a failure of the intellectual faculties, but rather to the lack of awareness of this tension, which causes an intermingling of the “narrative” and the “argumentative”.
In the public space of discussion or argument, this tension manifests itself more perceptibly by the way of speaking, of structuring arguments caught between the life story and conceptual abstraction using syllogisms, rigorous deductions. It is the importance in the “voice” which seems to show with greater clarity where for many Haitian scholars the force of the argument lies: the louder it is, the more convincing it seems.
The written word being inaccessible to them, this led to the emergence of a group of “translators”, the only ones capable of speaking both the language of the written word and the language of the “people”; these translators stand at the interface between the world of orality and that of writing.
The mythical story is linked to orality. After the invention of language, myth constitutes the first important form of symbolization. It organizes human experiences and invents the world around ordering myths. His style of distancing things calls upon perceptible or concrete referents, images, which are the pictorial, sensitive representation of things. With the invention of writing, particularly alphabetical writing, myths are organized into mythologies where a first work of generalization and abstraction is carried out.
Despite all this work, abstraction does not completely separate itself from more or less perceptible referents. Mythologies always contain realities which, if they are types, do not reach the claim of generality of the argumentative discourse of philosophy. It is these two types of formalization which are in tension in the debates of Haitian scholars where types or examples serve as arguments. The difficulty of finding consensus in hated public debates like is due to this propensity to speak out and to clash emotions against each other. We get lost in the enumeration of the facts of life which, in no way constituting arguments, collide with self-esteem.
When the rise in generality of the argument is short-circuited by examples of these lived experiences, the interlocutors tend to pit experiences against experiences. In return, the order of generality and the common remains difficult to constitute. A factor less psychological than phenomenological is at the basis of this difficulty in achieving a general and common order in the Haitian “dialogues” and in the difficult “concertations”. Goody showed the relationship between writing and the constitution of the “self”, it must be added that this self which cares about itself becomes a condition of the critical mind, of the disposition to establish itself within the limits of the presence of the other.
- The “culture of self” and Institution of thought
“Self-culture” is a set of ways of taking care of oneself, of “taking care of oneself”. It originates in the Greek tradition where the question of self-government as a condition for the government of others was raised and the need to know to what extent it is possible to be governed.
It is interesting to encounter writing in the implementation of this problem. Foucault, who particularly devoted himself to this approach, shows that writing had an important role in the practices of “care of the self”. This writing was a technique of memorizing a set of rules of conduct that should lead to oneself, to self-mastery or self-knowledge. At first glance, we can quickly notice that memory remains central. But it is no longer the living memory of orality, but memorization which consists of learning things by heart. How does “self-cultivation” [13]» is it essential to bring about institutional life and particularly to give birth to thought?
Two concepts prove fundamental, “sincerity” and “courage”. Alongside the “soul” which is central in the problem of the “self”, these two concepts translate the internal life of the self into the “care of the self”. They signal the dynamic of the “self” in terms of constancy, concern for truth, and transparency to oneself. “Self-cultivation” is therefore a set of techniques that aim to take care of oneself. It implicitly contains the concern for an interior life and an ethical concern.
Consequently, writing as a condition for the advent of “care of the self” allows for the deliberate and sustained experience of the inner life in terms of well-being. Without ignoring the existence of concern about the good life in oral societies, writing through the reflexivity it generates and the exchanges to which it leads implements a more patient, more dialogical and reflective form beyond and between the generations. It would be interesting to follow the relationship between this “care of the self”, the invention of “private life” and its relationship to the psychological constitution of intimacy[14].
I will not be able to mobilize all this historical research and follow their sociological and philosophical formulation within the framework of this reflection. It is, moreover, useful to emphasize that a philosophical thought of intimacy understood as a conceptualization of interior life will benefit from not only being interested in literary formulations independently of concrete social experiences such as private life, anthropological constitution of the intimate and subjectivity as an attribute of an autonomous citizenship, capable of thinking for itself due to its courage to think, its own self-test.
“Self-culture” is a set of ways of taking care of oneself, of “taking care of oneself”.
However, implicitly, we can assume that the absence of this socio-historico-anthropological complex in the establishment of the “intimate” in slave societies explains the failure of the constitution of a private sphere responsible for the ” civil society “. Reinhart Koselleck, commenting on Locke’s book on the “reformation of the understanding”, shows how the experience of “salons” in European societies facilitated the construction of “public space” and the formation of “public opinion “.
Therefore, the civil society from which the question of limiting the process of “governmentalization” is formulated, to gesture in part to Foucault, historical-philosophical constituted by “care of the self”, the criticism of “Scripture” giving rise to the spirit of truth in the debate, the constitution of civil legality opposing the authority of the State. This entire theoretical-practical complex presupposes writing as an experience of the institution of the ethical self, of the experience of abstract or formal generality, of the construction of meaning among others, of the institution of the common and of the political community. based on proof or argumentation, on the invention of ideas, such as the common, the general interest, citizenship as theoretical fiction, etc.
More clearly, it is a question of understanding that the political order differing from the social or cultural order comes about through the emergence of these abstract realities placed on the ethical foundation of Good, Justice, Freedom and ‘Equality. At the bottom of all this establishment of the political world, of the complex symbolic world where social, economic, historical and cultural realities intersect, the experience of the self, the culture of the self presents itself as the ethical node of all political life .
However, and this is where the problem can be formulated from Haitian society, this “culture of self” has found neither a theoretical formulation nor an experiential basis in Haitian social structures of experimentation. Several reasons can explain this absence. First, theologically, no fundamental intellectual or religious condition allows Haitian society in its formation to release a thought of the “self” or the “soul” as an incommensurable reality. The soul as an immaterial principle or “imago dei” calls for a concern for the self, a need for self-care, an attention to oneself that slavery hindered among Haitians.
At the bottom of all this establishment of the political world, of the complex symbolic world where social, economic, historical and cultural realities intersect, the experience of the self, the culture of the self presents itself as the ethical node of all political life .
Man’s vision of Vodou as “chwal”, stemming in part from the stigmatizing experience of slavery, did not make it possible to derive an individuality comparable to modern individuality, which could be grafted onto God or Reason, to confront the power of the sovereign and consequently inaugurate the emergence of a self, of an ethics and to promote the advent of a “civil society”, capable of establishing itself as a guarantor of social life against possible government excesses. Ultimately, the impossible historical constitution of a true public opinion is linked, in historically constituted Haitian society, to this orality where writing is foreclosed and has difficulty imposing its own rationality essential to the experience of the live together.
This device where the self is swallowed up for the benefit of capitalist exploitation, the ability to care about one’s self becomes the business of a minority who appropriate all the advantages of social and political life: visibility, distinction , economic enjoyments, the adornment of highly symbolic goods. At the bottom of society, this same system places the majority of individuals in “carelessness”.
The sociologist Géraldo Saint-Armand was right, but only partly. Certainly, a global dynamic of “carelessness” affects Haitian society, but it disappears in another sphere of society. What we call without precision in Haitian society the “elite” nourishes a concern for the self, a culture of the self, which only reinforces the bestializing dynamic. This takes the form of a concern for the self being that this self is reflected in the self of the colonist. It is a derived self, which does not have full interiority. It is forged in the specular to which the concern for recognition in colonial grammar leads. It is a false consciousness that seeks to establish itself by aping the colonist’s way of caring for oneself. If an ethic is established, it is a false ethic since it takes shape from a misunderstanding: the “elite”, losing itself in the colonial imagination, imagines itself as a colonist while at the same time being a servant of the colonist. The ethics that could have given rise to public opinion are constantly erased by the desire to be like the colonist: mystifier, executioner, brutal, superior, etc.
What we call without precision in Haitian society the “elite” nourishes a concern for the self, a culture of the self, which only reinforces the bestializing dynamic.
Foucault allows us to follow this tension within the European world. He showed this by linking concern for oneself to the double question of “government of oneself” and “government of the other”. This diptych of self-care produces a fracture line in social unity without destroying it. Two orders of question or political interest are formed: one concerns governmentalization, the other the limitation of “governmentality”. One thinks of the modalities of the government of the other which calls for the government of oneself. The other sets up forms of resistance to this governmentality which aims to lock others into disciplinary systems.
This general framework is taken up in the relations of Europe with its colonies, and in the colonies of European heirs with non-Europeans where it is possible to observe the tension between writing-reason-generality and orality-passion -singularity. The useful nuance to take into account in the case of Haitian society, a former colony of European slave powers, what was constituted as a duality between Europe and other peoples, takes the form of juxtaposition or tension where no one does not exclusively hold orality or writing, but finds itself tangled between writing and orality.
Orality then constitutes the experience of this irreducible tension where self-culture is undermined by the spontaneity of affectivity, ethics is pushed into the background by fleeting life, by the urgency of improvisation, which I I have elsewhere called the “politics of disarray[15] “. More fundamentally, it is the technologies of the intellect that writing provides which are absent and whose absence explains the difficult advent of a civil society, of a true experience of politics.
This experience of politics cannot entirely do without the experience of writing which, through the “technologies” it creates, brings a set of artifacts into politics, particularly into public administration through formalization, impersonalization of procedures.
More fundamentally, it is the technologies of the intellect that writing provides which are absent and whose absence explains the difficult advent of a civil society, of a true experience of politics.
Writing strengthens memory by providing material supports which complicate the reality of communication in time and space. Over time, writing allows us to return to speech activities and process them at any moment in historical time. The resumption, the malleability of texts give rise to a literature, to bodies us linked to generations, “epochs” or periods. These established corpora have generated a whole new hermeneutic problem, that of the “hermeneutics of reception”, which shows how classic texts were renewed through various appropriations from one generation to another and how memories are established. to form collective imaginations, “epistemes” or “paradigms”.
The sequence of interpretations from one generation to the next gradually weaves a web of meanings that can be considered as the cultural or social “habitus”. A background of tradition to which we constantly return in the construction of meaning and which constitutes the “common place” of the interlocutors. All social activities are structured around this dialogic rationality between individuals from the same “era” or from different eras.
We find this same logic in the formation of institutions, which must constantly constitute reflections that feed on previous reflections. To institute does not only consist of installing, but also of justifying from time to time the act of institution by making repeated attempts at elucidation. This means that an institution calls upon reflexivity, a concern for problematization and justification (of foundation). To establish is to justify at every moment the existence of an institution whose temporality is fragility, the risk of collapse. Reflexivity implies dialogue, the possibility of consensus and the development of neutral or general rules.
All these considerations are valid with regard to the institution of politics, which includes an order of plurality, conflict and discussion. Here, “care of the self” proves to be important in the construction of “generalization,” the withdrawal of particulars, the dissipation of emotional states, abstractions, the elaboration of a symbolic world of meaning.
Writing strengthens memory by providing material supports which complicate the reality of communication in time and space.
In the case of Haitian society, taking into account its anthropological-historical constitution, the problem is expressed in the sense of the absence of a real experience of writing and its virtue of self-invention.
Haitian society was born in a context of domination, exploitation and inferiorization, which was constituted as a moment of weariness of the human, of the erasure of the human, a fundamental ethical condition without which the question of limiting the system of power as “governmentality” is impossible to be effective and the institution of a civil society convinced of its ethical role of counter-power is undermined by the “temptation to tyranny”.
Haitian society is made up of a double dependence, that of the metropolis and that of the colonial authorities, which was transformed during the national period into domination of the State, occupied by groups with “family” ties. This double submission to two types of power with often divergent interests overwhelms social desires for resistance. Double dependence, double superposition of relationships of submission which become entangled, reinforce each other to the detriment of the emergence of the “reign of criticism” which, being a consequence of the invention of printing, is in an unwavering relationship to writing .
We must therefore follow the questions of literacy, education policy, culture policy and the university to better understand this indifference to the question of political subjectivity, of experience of “dialogue” between political actors, and the development of academic thought, which necessarily requires peer testing and concern for truth.
Haitian society is made up of a double dependence, that of the metropolis and that of the colonial authorities, which was transformed during the national period into domination of the State, occupied by groups with “family” ties.
Haitian policy is a device of zombification and bestialization. Its essential technique is to reduce or diminish capacities or capabilities, which are reinforced by means of self-esteem, the relationship of test with oneself, reciprocal appreciations which nourish them, consolidate them. Caught in the colonial imagination of the reification of bodies which have no link to “power”, of the impossibilisation of self-experience through self-care, Haitian policy deploys the machine to produce bodies- zombies, living dead, beings without interiority.
Frankétienne, in The Pangs of a Challenge, clearly describes the figure of this device by metaphorically highlighting the fields of exploitation of Saintil. This is the figure of the leader, the all-powerful leader. The Saintil plantation symbolizes the territory where all Haitian citizens find themselves zombified. The food, without salt, that we provide to the zombies represents the condition of life without this fundamental faculty of action, of initiative or rupture which is will or freedom, understood as the disposition to begin, to institute something new in the political-social order. THE Pangs of a challenge is therefore a poetics of politics as a mechanism for reducing the capacities to take part in political life, in the life of plurality and of the test of oneself as a capacity to care about oneself and others.
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In view of this interpretation, Frankétienne can be considered as the one which allows us to see the reason why education as a system is absent from the political agenda and is rarely demanded by citizens as an essential condition for participating in political life.
Certainly, a rare case has been recorded in Haitian political and social history; Alix Rene[16] mentioned it when he analyzes the themes of the demands of the “revolution” of 1843. The non-systematicity of the demands for the benefit of a coherent educational system in the face of the miserabilist policy shows the weak social conviction of education as a means of release. On the other hand, another form of education is highlighted in its capacity to mobilize “local knowledge”.
The same tension arises between formal education inaccessible to the majority of citizens and informal education obtained through routine and “traditional knowledge”. The Haitian State which should have created the social and economic conditions for the emergence of an education system based on general access to writing and the scripturalization of oral practices, inhabited by the colonial imagination of scholars , sediments the negligible part of writing by reserving it for a small group, which becomes guardian of the secret of writing and holder of power and symbolic, cultural and social privileges. Thus Haitian political power is not only adorned with the mystical halo with which all power is invested, but also with the magical force of writing in an oral context.
However, the bet is not won. If writing imposes itself as an instrument of domination, concealment, invisibility, orality hinders its true institutionalization in practices of improvisation, non-conservation of documents, absence of hierarchical and impersonalized relationships. The orality, ultimately, of relationships that should have been argued relationships in conflict to mana sort of joust in which man’s strength serves as arguments.
Establish thought and political community
What is instituting? How is the institution and the political community contemporary? First, to institute is to escape from an order of affectivities which has given a relationship of immediacy to the things of nature. To institute at this level is not yet to found, but to create an order of representation, a symbolic order through which the affectivities pass in man’s relationships, which cease to be immediate, to become mediate. The institution is a mediation device. The first institution that man put in place is language, thanks to which the natural environment becomes properly human world.
The complexity of institutions as symbolic forms occurs at the same time as the reflexivity which allows them to divide. Thus, mythology derives from myths. It has multiplied by the repeated return to myths. Mythology itself gives rise to interpretations that require a posture of justification or argument. If we take Greek society as a paradigm of this diagram, we can see that mythology is interpreted in tragedy which already opens the way to philosophy, to the concern to justify, to found and to appeal to reason in order to to make his point of view correct. Generally speaking, scriptural thinking generates a set of writing postures which are symbolic forms of production of meaning or the world.
Scriptural thought, in its argumentative form, deploys a dialectic within speech, a dialectical contest arbitrated by the sole power of reason, which is discovered and reinforced by the use of writing. Goody insists that oral societies developed logic. But it was the Greeks, according to him, who developed the syllogistic logic shaped by Aristotle. The discovery of these laws of thought reflects the attention paid to thought, which becomes reflection, and at the same time discovers the laws which govern rational human thought.
The first institution that man put in place is language, thanks to which the natural environment becomes properly human world.
These laws must be the prerequisites for discussion and agreement. Rigor does not only extend to the simple activity of thought. They govern all activities involving the production of meaning among others where only the logic of reasoning or proof must triumph. Of course, it is not just a question of convincing, it is necessary to persuade. Logic alone is not enough.
Rhetoric must come to the aid of recalling man’s roots in affectivity. However, this decorative function enjoyed by rhetoric does not reduce the function of logic to the sole production of generalities and the possibility of discussion as a moment of construction of several of the ideals of the community. Writing meets politics through the practice of a new form of thought, dialogical or dialectical, highly abstract, which multiplies in debate around the “will to know” and the “concern for the truth”, controlled by an authority control or evaluation, the reason. This dialogic function of writing favors the meeting of the formal abstraction of logic and the affective liveliness of rhetoric.
In this large framework which structures politically, methodologically and epistemologically, the written word takes shape various scriptural practices, for example, science, art, philosophy, religion, etc., which are established in so many “fields” with rules that govern the internal economy of each. Bourdieu brings important elements in his theory of the “field” to understand the “symbolic economy” which makes scriptural practices work. It is not just a matter of thinking about entry fees which show how the integration procedures of a field are mobilized, within it, we must be attentive to the social relationships. which understand the internal relations between users and the external relations between the various modalities of the field.
In view of these considerations, I would like to take, in addition to what I said about the university and its relationship to writing, the example of the absence in Haitian society of literature as an institution. This absence clearly illustrates what I have already alluded to, the absence of thought in Haitian society.
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Literature is a good example of the manifestation of thought. In principle, literature as an institution is made up of a set of practices ranging from the writing activities of the writer to the practices of sanction by literary critics and the reward or recognition bodies, the prize institutions through the publishing houses which, themselves, are composed of numerous activities of appreciation, sanction and social, commercial promotions, etc.
Literature therefore does not establish itself because a few individuals proclaim themselves “writers” or write. This is so true that the large number of Haitian “writers” are those who write in other social and editorial settings or are appreciated by foreign critics. Understanding the shortcomings of the “profession” of literary criticism in Haitian society also means being attentive to the weak deployment of literature as an institution which is governed by a set of rules in said society. In Haitian society, anyone can declare themselves a “writer” without any institutional sanction.
The field, if it exists, is only the preserve of a few individuals proclaiming themselves, for having had the approval of a few foreign critics, popes of literary consecrations. Kingmakers without kingdoms. This concern to be what consecrates in Haiti inspires the frantic quest for consecration in a social and cultural framework of existence of a true literary “field”. Consecration in a foreign magazine, particularly French or French-speaking, allows one to judge what is done in Haiti as literature or non-literature. Who is this contentment often displayed for, in a society where literature does not exist, when the foreign critic praises a Haitian “writer”?
This concern to be what consecrates in Haiti inspires the frantic quest for consecration in a social and cultural framework of existence of a true literary “field”.
In reality, the contentment displayed bears the name of this absence and the pleasure of sharing a Haitian-French or French-speaking community. We must take the full meaning of this inter-self in the idea of asking why these confirmed “writers” do not see fit to institute literature in Haitian social life? Why are they happy to settle for prices from elsewhere? Can the inter-self in question, the figure of a community of individuals whose only common interest is to rejoice in being consecrated in the “intellectual motherland”, establish literature in a plural game of impersonal procedures, talent or genius, without taking into account family origins, etc. ?
In a society nourished by the “passion for equality”, would the institution, a hierarchical framework, not be impossible? Between oneself is the condition for the survival of oral experience based on affectivities in the practices of literature, politics, and economics, making it difficult for the advent of real institutions of impersonal rules of literary and political life and economical. The emotionalism that lies in these practices, the atavism of orality, hinders the authentic experience of thought and action, both of which call for “graphic reason”, the politics of writing and not mystification. through writing. We must break, within ourselves, with the logic of social relations of promiscuity, the source of all the unhealthy complicity between literate people.
Ultimately, it is politics that blames this in-betweenness. What is often called, without conceptual precision, the “political class” in Haitian society is the form of manifestation of the self in politics. In this state of mind, politics is far from being an institution marked by real impersonal rules of the game to which political actors must subscribe regardless of their moods or current interests. On the contrary, based on self-esteem where the most fundamentally political questions, those of citizenship, the common good, justice, etc., are neglected in favor of body-to-body, “face to face” promiscuity, it takes the form of the game of friends of old dates.
All these remarks on literature, the university and politics consist in saying that orality, as the basis of promiscuity and the refusal to establish an order of generality, must be re-defined with the objective of establishing a true experience of a social order marked by general rules which require impersonal procedures. The categories of inter-self and promiscuity which seem to express the predominance of orality must be described and deconstructed in the project of an overhaul of politics from the perspective of the universality of rights.
Par Dr. Edelyn Dorismond
Professor of Philosophy at the Henry Christophe de Limonade Campus — UEH | Director of the CAEC scientific committee Deputy Director of LADIREP
[1] Jack Goody, Powers and knowledge of writing, p. 49, Paris, La Dispute, 2007, p. 49.
[2] On. cit, p. 24.
[3] “Logic of Jack Goody: writing, abstraction and communication in social life” preface by Éric Dagiral and Olivier Martin by Jack Goody, The logic of writing. Writing and the organization of society, Paris, Armand colin, 2018, p.15.
[4] Olivier Martin de Jack Goody, art. cit, p. 15.
[5] Olivier Martin de Jack Goody, art. cit, p. 16.
[6] Jack Goody, The graphic reason, Paris, Éditions Minuit, 1977, p. 56-57.
[7] Jack Goody, The graphic reason, ibid.
[8] Reinhart Koselleck, The reign of criticism, Paris, Éditions Minuit, 1979.
[9] Jürgen Habermas, Public space, Paris, Payot, 1988.
[10] Jack Goody, The logic of writingp. 129.
[11] See, Sara Del Rossi, “Between Hai and Quebec. The conceptualization of orality and the American man in the exotopic position of Maximilien Laroche”, Dalhousie French Studies (116), 127–137, 2020.
[12] See Laënnec Hurbon, To understand Haiti, online Uqac.
[13] See Michel Foucault, Speech and truth preceded by The parrêsia, Paris, Vrin, 2016; The origin of self-hermeneuticsParis, Vrin, 2013.
[14] The ideas that I discuss here do not allow me to follow this network of relations between “private life” and the institution of intimacy in the constitution of the political or philosophical subject. This work which would have required that I mobilize the history of mentalities, the political experiences linked to this history and their way of generating an experience of subjectivity and an idea of a subject possessing an interiority, an emotional depth own would have distanced me from what constitutes the central theme of the present reflection, even if its presence in the background proves essential.
[15] See Edelyn Dorismond, The Haitian problem, Port-au-Prince, Éditons Etoile Polaire, 2020.
[16] Alix René, Haiti after slavery, Port-au-Prince, SHGG, 2019.
