The Roots of Reality

V.N. Volosinov’s Marxism and the Philosophy of Language exists as a bridge between multiple disciplines.  Reading the first chapter especially interested me since I’m also enrolled in a Linguistics course this semester (ENGL 604), and many of the concepts Volosinov discusses reverberate beyond the boundaries of our 651 course.  Human language (especially spoken language) seems to be, for Marx-via-Volosinov, the primary core of existence; indeed, without the powers of communication bestowed upon mankind by language, no dialectical (social) progress would be possible between and among groups of humans.  Volosinov beautifully summarizes language’s impact on ideology, arguing:

[Ideology’s] real place in existence is in the special social material of signs created by man.  Its specificity consists precisely in its being located between organized individuals, in its being the medium of their communication.  Signs can arise only on interindividual territory. […] It is essential that the two individuals be organized socially, that they compose a group (a social unit); only then can the medium of signs take shape between them.  (Volosinov 12)

Volosinov’s underlying idea here is, ostensibly, that the term “ideology” can roughly be defined as “the special social material of signs created by man.”  This conclusion might seem obvious, but most groundbreaking discoveries (e.g., that the Earth is round and not the center of the universe) usually appear this way in hindsight.  Furthermore, Volosinov seemingly elevates communication to the highest level of significance in terms of the development of any ideology; indeed, Volosinov argues that:

Every ideological sign is not only a reflection, a shadow, of reality, but is also itself a material segment of that very reality.  Every phenomenon functioning as an ideological sign has some kind of material embodiment, whether in sound, physical mass, color, movements of body, or the like.  In this sense, the reality of the sign is fully objective […] (11)

I’m reminded here of John 1:1 from the Bible, which states, “In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God.”  When Volosinov argues that words/signs are “fully objective,” he simultaneously presents words as physical objects while defending signs as verifiable, unquestionable entities (as opposed to something speculative or opinion-based).  Through the use of signs, humans not only “reflect” reality (a la Plato’s cave-like “world of appearances”), but we create and revise reality through ideology over time.  Spoken words, then, act more like Derrida’s notion of the “transcendental signified” (i.e., universal truth) than shadow-like distortions and reductions of Absolute truth.

            In terms of rhetoric, Marx-via-Volosinov’s perspective on the value of mankind’s capacity for meaning-making offers an intriguing conclusion: if socio-cultural ideologies (and their changes over time) are based on signs, and rhetoric depends on the use of signs for persuasion, then rhetoric, through Aristotelian syllogistic logic, is capable of both creating and revising ideologies.  Rhetoric’s value, therefore, is validated.  Moreover, Marx’s assertions should serve as inspirations in times of great anxiety and precautions in times of great joy because signs, as we’ve seen, are malleable, and to reinscribe a sign is to redefine its ideological (and/or political) value.