John Locke and
Jacques Derrida establish in their respective essays that the way in which we
communicate and even the way in which we think is arbitrary. For Locke, words
serve the purpose of recording our thoughts and communicating those thoughts,
but this means that words naturally have no signification and are thus
arbitrary. Language is therefore a system of arbitrary words and ideas. Derrida
takes this a step further, saying that our ideas are also arbitrary, and that
the only way ideas take substance is through their differences with other
ideas. Derrida gives the term “differance” to define this system of
differences.
Essentially, our
daily lives are defined by “differance”, in our communication, knowledge,
experiences, so on and so forth. What then does this say about agency and
agents? Any time human beings engage in rhetoric about a subject, they engage
in an exchange filled with “differance”. To have or share agency then is to be
an active participant in mediating through differance, as agents try to
interpret the communication and rhetoric of others.
Using the story
of Sojourner Truth as an example, all agents involved in the interpretation of
Truth’s speech are limited by the arbitrariness of language and ideas,
according to Locke and Derrida. But, each participant in the agency of her
speech is working to come to a closer understanding of Sojourner Truth’s
meaning and her own ideas behind her speech. While it may be impossible to come
to a complete understanding of Truth’s ideas because of “differance”, our
attempt to do so makes us agents and gives us agency.
Differance
therefore implies a limitation in our understanding, but it also implies that
we constantly try to limit the differences between our understandings. Language,
though it is flawed because words are only symbols, is our tool for doing so. This
also gives a new perspective to agency. To have agency or share agency means to
play a part in the attempt to synthesize complex ideas and come to a better
understanding of other’s perception of the world around us.
I think it's interesting that you call the way and which we communicate and think arbitrary. I agree with you, Locker and Derrida that words are arbitrary in the sense that they are applied to ideas in a non natural way. However, I don't think that makes the way we communicate necessarily arbitrary. I think it makes it complicated and convoluted but I also believe the way humans communicate is full of meaning. As we spoke about last unit, words themselves can be agents that prompt agency. This is a power that are arbitrary signifiers hold.
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