Existence and Subsistence: The Power of Concepts

The Weeping Woman. Pablo Picasso 1937.

By Christian Sötemann

Imagine a married couple, Laura and Audrey.  Both have regular work. Then, Laura loses her job, and Audrey’s mother dies.  The couple are now in a double predicament.  On the one hand, they will struggle to pay the rent.  On the other hand, they will have to work through Audrey’s mother’s death.

Now imagine an alternative situation, again involving Laura and Audrey.  Laura and Audrey now both lose their jobs.  This deepens their struggle with the rent.  Yet Audrey’s mother is still alive and well.

We would be somewhat justified in calling both situations ‘existential crises’, since both have to do with human existence.  Yet we might also apply two different terms to Laura and Audrey’s experiences – one being a problem of ‘existence’, the other a problem of ‘subsistence’.  It may not be an exact distinction, but it can point to two different – and at times overlapping – spheres.

In the first example, Audrey and Laura undergo problems of ‘existence’ (Audrey’s mother) as well as problems of ‘subsistence’ (Laura’s job).  In the second example, it can be construed as a problem of how to subsist at all.  Now, we might ask wherein the difference lies, more exactly.

Deepening our Meanings

Subsistence, here, concerns physiological survival, and the provision of basic material needs.  One does not have to subscribe to Marxism to agree with Marx when he pointed out that ‘life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things.’  The psychologist Abraham Maslow has suggested that basic needs such as these precede more complex ones such as appreciation by others or self-actualisation.

One might be tempted to state that their problems of subsistence are about material necessities, to continue their existence on biological and economic levels.  And yet – it would be fruitful to reserve the term ‘existence’ for certain phenomena inextricably interwoven with human life, which go beyond self-conservation and material safety.

‘Existence’ may further be differentiated from ‘being’.  One may discern this in a human death.  When we die, we do not turn into nothingness.  There is always still something there: ashes, or a lifeless body dissolving into dust.  To quote Sartre, there is not less – ‘there is something else.’  However, human life – a unique existence – is lost.

Being turns into different being. Something remains on one level – but on the existential level, a most drastic change occurs when a human being dies. And that is regardless of whether one takes an atheist stance or postulates an immortal soul, since the latter would still indicate an existential transformation.

Philosophers like Heidegger saw a difference here, and even though one can be critical of the ideas which led to this distinction, there is some merit to the idea of reserving the term ‘existence’ for human beings, in that it enables us to contemplate the existential dimension of human life.

In this understanding, ‘existence’ goes beyond the mere ‘being there’ of something, in spite of all changes, and instead points to the existential – to questions of death, one’s take on the meaning of the world, loneliness and freedom and responsibility.  These are the ‘ultimate concerns’ that the existential psychotherapist Irvin Yalom has identified.

Differentiating our Meanings

Whatever the case may be, there is something that shows us that the spheres of ‘existence’ and ‘subsistence’ cannot be identical.  Even if one has all that is needed for physiological and economic survival, one is still confronted with the inescapability of death and the task of committing to a meaning of one’s own life, among other things. No material protection can relieve existential issues, once they come under scrutiny.

Granted, with rare exceptions, one has to achieve a certain level of material security to ponder the questions of ‘existence’ at all. The philosopher who ponders the meaning of the world is unlikely to be able to do so without access to food and drinking water and a place for nightly recuperation. Even Diogenes resorted to his tub, after all.  The sphere of existence requires the opportunity to go beyond questions of daily survival.

Thus, if one accepts this distinction between ‘subsistence’ and ‘existence’, one could shine a light on economic struggles and perceived injustice on the one hand, and discuss issues of a human being’s general position in the world from a more contemplative point of view on the other.  By defining ‘subsistence’ and ‘existence’, one may now employ these terms to powerful effect in philosophical debate as well as psychotherapy and psychological counselling.

The Search For True History

 Posted by Thomas Scarborough

We are all familiar, on a personal level, with the problems of history.  In fact we continually revise the small histories which we ourselves create, with words such as ‘I misjudged him,’ ‘If only I had known,’ or ‘I can't remember it for the life of me.’ Our own practice of history, therefore, is contin-ually subject to review and correction.  

Much the same is true of history on a grander scale: revisionist history in the United States, postcolonial history in former colonies, the paradigm shift in Islamic Studies, and so on.  Everywhere, history is being reinterpreted and overturned.  Where then do we find true history?  A brief exploration of the problems of history promises to help us further.

There are various problems in the field of history which are fairly unique to itself.  History is unrepeatable.  We cannot retrieve the facts if we missed them the first time.  History, too, will always represent a loss of information—a reduction of the events themselves.  No written or oral history can truly encompass all that happened in the past.  Even if we should select a small and (seemingly) manageable part of history—say, regional history, period history, or military history—this is not isolated from the whole.  Any history, no matter how big or small, is ultimately an open system, and will always run up against the limits of completeness.

Worse, we find such limits to completeness within our very selves.  As we step back to survey the world as a whole, we observe that the facts in this world are infinite—yet we ourselves are finite.  And not only are the facts infinite, but they criss-cross each other in infinite ways. There is a mismatch, therefore—between the number of facts we find in this world, and the number of facts we can combine in our minds.  It is certainly impossible to combine an infinity of facts in the mind.  Our combination of facts is always incomplete and partial—and full of holes which need to be patched with hopeful, and believing, guesses.

An infinity of facts, then, leads us to another realisation.  While we cannot obtain a complete combination of facts, we do have a kind of completeness—a finite completeness—in every one of us.  We call it our world-view—and it is within such world-views that histories exist as a kind of sub-set, being knitted into their fabric. In short, history is as subjective as we are.  We may not recognise this in our present, but we see it in our past:

Historical perspectives which in the past were highly rated may now be so unfashionable as to raise eyebrows if one merely mentions them: that history serves the purposes of the state, for instance, that it is about great men, or that it has a goal. We also see the past reflect on the present.  In our common life, we have been plagued by massive oversight.  Among other things, we have championed ideologies without foreseeing their ruin, and announced progress without recognising its devastation. In the same way, history may be written with or without crucial considerations, and no one may notice at all.

This should not be misunderstood.  The historical record deals with crucial events: the discovery of new continents, for instance, crimes against humanity, or international treaties.  All are able to teach us.  Facts do exist—and facts should not be fabricated where they do not exist.  Yet wherever we combine facts, we are selective, and in the process de-selective.  The facts, wrote the historian Charles Beard, ‘do not select themselves, or force themselves automatically into any fixed scheme of arrangement in the mind of the historian.’  We need to combine the facts in our minds, by acts of choice, conviction, and interpretation regarding values. 

For all of its problems, history will be written, and history will be read.  The question then remains: on what basis may the truth of our histories be assessed?  Did Caesar cross the Rubicon?  Was Jesus Christ crucified?  Did Marie-Antoinette really tell them to eat cake?  What shall we write about colonialism?  Has racism been on the rise?  That is, when we have done our best to appreciate the ‘facts’, how shall we judge their adequacy as history?

We know it from the movies—and from books.  We say, ‘That didn't ring true,’ or ‘That was far-fetched’—or, on the other hand, ‘That was true to life.’  Similarly we may judge history on its truth claims—namely, whether we think it represents a credible and faithful interpretation of our world, or whether it does not.  That is, history needs to be credible not merely from the point of view of its factual content, but from the point of view of what is credible in itself.  In fact there is no other basis on which we may judge history, unless the facts should definitely show us otherwise.

At first glance, this might seem to be a negative finding—a defeat in our quest for a valid or objective history.  But far rather, it suggests to us positively that every history must be a questioning, a discerning, a reading between the lines, which at its best sets us free from presuppositions.  History cannot properly be taught.  History is intelligent judgement, and truth requires independent, impartial, robust thinking to discern those arrangements of facts which are sound and those which are less than satisfactory, which press in on us every day. 

Do We Speak Different Realities?

By Lina Ufimtseva

I have a vague feeling or concept in my head, yet I simply cannot put it into words—not even to those who are closest to me.  It certainly creates a barrier between me and whomever the message is intended for. 

Now imagine quite the opposite. I speak multiple languages in which I am fluent, and know the phrases which express the subtleties and layers of the meaning of each word.  Yet composing the same thought in different languages yields different meanings.  I feel that I am just as impeded as before.

Here is an example. In Russian we say, ‘We with our friends are going to dinner,’ not ‘My friends and I are going to dinner.’  If a Russian were to use the latter phrasing, the underlying meaning would convey that he or she does not want to associate with the group of friends, and dislikes the group. Saying ‘We with our friends or family or class’ reinforces the idea that you share the same values, and find identity in that group. In this case, therefore, we have an easy translation, but it is just not the same as that which is translated.

Many have attempted to explain the relationship between language and thought. My interest here is the question: do words create meanings, or do meanings create words—or is it both?

If we were to remove various words from a language, and thereby simplify it (think of Doublespeak in the novel 1984), our ability to express thoughts would surely diminish, and thus the breadth of our worldview would perish. Dictators have effectively done this when using language as propaganda to control masses of people. It would make sense to say that yes, language does create thoughts, and words create meanings. If you don’t have the words, you can’t describe it. Here, meaning is created linguistically, from without.

Yet when we come across a word which describes a very specific situation, there is a click, an a-ha! moment that is universal—whether your language includes the word in question or not. For instance, many have experienced what the Scots call ‘tartle’—the panic-like hesitation just before you have to introduce someone whose name you can't quite remember. Would this not indicate that actually, meaning is created cognitively, from within?

Then again, one word can signify different shades of meaning, even separate concepts. Let’s take the concept of time. Compare how the English in Britain speak about time—how precise and punctual they are about it—and the casualness of South African English. Terms like ‘now’, not to speak of ‘now now’ and ‘just now’, are much more than simply a label for ‘coming another 20, perhaps 25 minutes later’. Such ‘Englishes’ comprise an entirely different mind-set, and thus also, a different worldview to that of the English speaker in Britain or other English-speaking places.

The Germans have a special word: Weltansicht, which refers to ‘the general attitude towards life and reality that an individual or character demonstrates’.  Weltansicht is closely allied with the words which we speak, so that it is difficult to escape their pull. Thought is not objective, and some accidental difference in which language or linguistic dialect you were raised in can indeed shape the way you think and perceive things.   

I would suggest that language is ultimately not only culture bound. An entire cultural identity exists within it and is perpetuated by it. Even the same language spoken in different parts of the world evokes modified meanings.

Photo credit: Russian Report, with the caption ‘Everyone stands for the entire liturgy’.

Identity Politics: Whose Identity?

By Sifiso Mkhonto

Identity is concerned with the facts of ‘who I am’, or ‘what it is’. Identity politics reveals itself in the tend-ency of a people of a particular religion, race, social background, and so on, to form exclusive political alliances. Yet which ‘people’ are these? Are they ordinary citizens, or active citizens in politics? It is both—and identity politics is at its most dangerous when it does not favour ordinary citizens.

When we bring our identity into politics, we awaken the dragon within: the excessive admiration of oneself. It is bad enough when this happens to the citizen. It is worse when it reaches the top, and infiltrates the state itself—and the acceptance of identity politics at one level may cause it to blur into the next. Another way of putting it is that identity politics is too often the doctrine of prejudices, and in politics, such prejudices control discrimination.

Our identity is what belongs to us. My identity is who I am. This is revealed by what I believe, how I act, and how I think the future should be. This provides the evidence of my identity. In other words, people identify me (largely) on the basis of what they see. Of course, identity changes. In different stages of our lives, both our conscious and sub-conscious being changes. This leads to changes in our identity.

Paradoxically, our obsession with our identity has hijacked our moral strength. One may call it our‘moral consciousness’. Race, religion, gender, and other factors which many people identify with, are the pride of their obsession. Too often, exclusive political alliances too are a form of narcissism, and seem to be its driver. In modern psychoanalytic theory, narcissistic pathologies are related to the fragility of selfhood and impoverished object relations. With this in mind, identity politics is frequently biased, limiting, and based on who is victimised extremely. This, then, is defined and introduced as a new concept.

Many heads-of-states’ (ostensible) power is their identity. Why do powerful leaders suppress the truth of reality in order to remain in power? Because they are not really powerful. Are they fearing the real power, which is the will of the people? Why are they insecure about security? Why do they impart fear into their organisations, comrades, and colleagues? Because they abuse the artificial power—which is the identity—granted to them.

In Europe, identity politics is threatening to tear apart the United Kingdom through its ‘Brexit’ from the cosmopolitan, post-national structures of the European Union, and to rekindle civil war in Spain, where Catalan nationalism splinters not only Spain but Catalonia itself.  North Korea serves as another example—not being a monarchy, but a dictatorship, as a result of its lack of a formalised law of succession and its  militarisation (missile tests included), through its current leader Kim Jong-un.  It has proven that fear is a great servant but a terrible master.  It suffocates a leader’s integrity, confirms the obsession of power, and is the pathway to a narcissistic state.

In my own nation of South Africa, a clear and present danger is that one fights identity politics with identity politics in a racially polarised society, so that the values of a non-racial, non-sexist society (and more) remain lost in the ‘rainbow nation’.

A critical ‘truth’ for a post-truth society is reasoning honestly about identity politics: reason which in itself makes one’s identity irrelevant. The validity of the dialogue will not depend on our identity.

Picture Post #29 Stripping Down the Tailor's Dummy

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'Because things don’t appear to be the known thing; they aren’t what they seemed to be neither will they become what they might appear to become.'


Posted by Tessa den Uyl and Martin Cohen

A Shop Window in Florence, Italy, September 2017. Picture credit: Antonio Borrani

      

We can all wonder what we will do next. What to invent to keep on going while deadlines mark pressure on time schedules. And even when we have no idea what to talk about or to show, surely with something we have to come up. This is a crazy world, more bound to production than quality, and even when we have nothing to tell, we will fill the page, when we have nothing to sell, we fill the shop window. With (non)sense?

The image above shows a ‘flying’ woman in a, perhaps, rather dubious position. Her legs are revealed, which assuredly does exalt her shoes that anew lead up to her legs and higher up to her bottom without underpants. Of-course the woman is a tailor’s dummy, not a real woman. Still, the shoes and her dress are made for real, living woman. In short: what does this puppet represent?

The female figure seems to shape a larger social imagery than we are used to seeing explored for the male. Erotically the female body seems much more consumed for commercial purposes. Imagery is a driving force in many plays, to start with the daily role-play we dress up when we wake.

Something must attract the consumer.

One purse and one shoe exposed for sale, two glass frames containing sand that can be turned around. Like the image of a woman? Or is this a representation of sand dunes? The time? A woman suspended or, perhaps better to say,  a woman pending, in the air.

This, is the fashion to follow.

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