>>CB: In other words, the fact that the signifier is _not_ the "thing" or processes that it signified is the characteristic that allows it to get across the death barrier that the body of the ancestor faces.<<
So that which crosses the death barrier is not actually a thing? So what is it? Isn't there a danger here of the usual structuralist idealism? That somehow the social-symbolic defies our material world, subsisting in a 'third realm' that is crystalline and godless but still immaterial? Also, I think you have to separate that (1) language life and development transcends the 'death barrier' and (2) that language, in part, and only in part, conveys the information and knowledge we use to learn and to work with others to create, produce, change our world. Still, languages change over time, given enough time, because every act of decoding and encoding in the real world of social being brings about change, such that we would have a hard time communicating in 'English' with Geoffrey Chaucer (even if he didn't speak the way he wrote). And all it takes is one failed generation of knowledge transfer and transformation and cultures can break down, fail to reproduce into future generations. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
