I Said Something That Wasn't...: On Identity

The title of the film The Invention of Lying is a spoiler in itself, in that the film is about the way in which lying was invented, and the world before and after that act. The film is funny in parts, though one could quibble that not lying and stating at every moment exactly that which is on your mind, are two different things, a distinction that is not made in the film. Here is the trailer of the film.

It is a sophisticated conceit, this world where no one lies. The film does not go the somewhat predictable way and show a dreary world where there is no fiction, no cinema, no advertising. Instead, all the modern familiars are there, but oddly inverted because the 'lying' that sustains them is missing. Thus, there are 'truthful' ads and there is cinema, but only in the form of documentaries and historicals. While the film does not explore it, I can't help thinking: what kind of history it would be, without its debates and its interpretations? The same event was called 'the Mutiny' by the British and the 'First War of Independence' by the Indian freedom fighters - which history would be more 'truthful'? Once you start thinking about it, it becomes clear that the divide between 'fiction' and 'news, reportage, history, politics, religion, culture' becomes unsustainable.

The film does not take this possibility on. Instead, it focuses on specific moments in this truthful world: In such a world, how do doctors interact with patients? What do people tell each other about where they go once they die? However, in this blog post I want to focus on one particular moment. Ricky Gervais' character has just spoken the first lie in the world, and he then attempts to explain to his friend what he has done. He tells him "I just said something that wasn't." And the friend says "Wasn't what?", to which he replies "Just wasn't". This is very clever writing, as naturally you cannot have a word for truth until and unless you have a word for lying, and vice versa.

This brings me to Saussure and the question of identity (and you thought this blog post was only about the movie!) In a previous post, I had summarised Saussure's breakdown of words and concepts into signifiers and signified, which make possible the argument that concepts are constructions rather than essentials. Saussure also argued that each letter (and word-concept) derives its meaning from its position in a particular sequence. What is B? It is the letter that comes after A and before C. Meaning depends on context and contingency rather than on any essential characteristic within itself. What is an apartment? It is a type of house that is not a bungalow, not a palace and not a hut. Within the context 'type of dwelling', it occupies a place that is relational (in relation to other types of houses, an apartment is one) and negative (it is not all these things, therefore it is this). Having grown up in India, the image that comes to my mind when I use the word 'apartment' (and I am more likely to use the word 'flat' rather than 'apartment') is different, presumably, from someone who has grown up in Paris or New York. When we accept that identity is relational and negative, then the characteristics with which we imbue identities are webs of our own spinning. When I assume that a ramshackle apartment in Paris is more 'romantic' than a ramshackle apartment in Mumbai, this idea is sustained by the discursive intertwining of the ideas of romance and Paris, which includes elements of Orientalism. After Wake Up Sid, though, Mumbai's romantic quotient should never be in doubt!

Amol Gaitonde, View from Mumbai Marol Hillview Apt.1, 2003, image courtesy wikipedia commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:View_from_Mumbai_Marol_Hilllview_Apt_1.JPG

The idea of identity as relational and negative frees up the notion of identity and releases it from its thrall to essential characteristics. In the absence of a relational notion of identity, an Indian is someone who loves cricket, Bollywood, is fanatic about caste and religion, works in a call centre, is argumentative, is intelligent, is not intelligent, knows English, does not know English, is underdeveloped because does not question social norms, is creative precisely because of ability to re-work social norms and so on. This list is filled with both positive and negative characteristics, can be populated indefinitely and volumes written on each characteristic. For example, I would love to write one on the 'unargumentative' Indian, as the idea of making an argument about 'unargumentative-ness' is whimsically appealing. All this activity, this definition of characteristics makes us feel comfortable, as there are bounds to be grains and pearls of truth in all this wisdom, all this information. The relational notion of identity frees us from all this noise, as it were. In this understanding of the world, to be Indian is simply to be not American, not British, not Australian, not Russian and so on. Saussure used the example of the Geneva-to-Paris train to make this point, wherein the train that goes at 8:25 is distinguished in terms of its position in a system where it is distinguished from the 8:20 and the 8:40 trains, rather than understood in terms of its engine or its number of carriages. Relationality allows us to understand identities in relation to each other, enabling us to see descriptions of identities as the fabrications they are.

Of Signifiers and Signifieds

At the turn of the previous century, the Swiss linguist Ferdinand Saussure worked out certain theories about his field of work, i.e. linguistics. Should linguists study ancient languages and their changes over time or contemporary spoken language, as a living, changing entity? Is it possible to derive certain rules that would then apply to the study of all languages or should linguistic rules change as the language changes, for example, are the rules for studying the Romance languages different from those of studying Sino-Tibetian?

Saussure evolved certain ideas that would have far-reaching consequences. In this blog, I would like to discuss the concepts of signifiers and signifieds. A tree, ped (Hindi), jhaad (Gujarati), l'arbre (French) are all signifiers, that refer to the same signified: "the concept of a tree". Saussure pointed out that there is no essential relationship linking a signifier to a signified, i.e. there is nothing in the sounds ped, jhaad or tree that tie them to a tree. Saussure argued that this gave language both variability and invariability: words could change over time because there was no essential relationship, while at the same time being invariable as there is little reason to change them. I could pass an edict to the effect that what is now called a tree in English should be called remanu from tomorrow. If I become dictator of the world I could also enforce that edict by law. Over time, depending on various circumstances, it may become common to use remanu instead of tree, or it may not. In either case, neither tree nor remanu have any a priori relationship with the concept of treeness, and neither option is 'better' or 'more natural' than the other, but is made natural through custom and usage. Through generations, if it is accepted by a large majority of people that the following is an image of a remanu, this word would become naturalised, and invisible in that sense. In such a scenario, someone who referred to this as 'tree' would be seen as old-fashioned, and perhaps a bit eccentric.

All of this sounds interesting, but a bit theoretical and esoteric. After all, not too many people want to go around the world changing the words for things like tree and house. The implications of Saussure's argument, however, opened up 'the whole wide world' and the ways in which we think about it. The signified(s) that we attach to signifiers come into being historically, and are not inherently attached to them. When a large number of people unquestioningly accept and attach a particular signified to a particular signifier, it becomes naturalised, part of our 'common sense'. It is this which makes most people think that almost everyone else means the same thing by things that they do, whereas even cursory conversations reveal that what we think of as 'decency', 'honesty', 'good acting', 'responsibility' and so forth need to be attached to precisely similar signifiers, and could differ in specific situations. Our popular opinions as a whole are similarly shaped as much by historical contingency as by anything else. It is common sense now to believe that people should be punished through imprisonment, just as at one historical point of time it was common sense that they should be hanged publicly and spectacularly. This argument, of course, is Foucault's opening gambit in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.

I am not arguing for a non-politicized "you have your opinion, I have mine and we are all entitled to our opinion" position. That is a simplistic escape from reasoned debate. Concepts like truth and justice are constructed, and we give them meaning by attaching specific signifieds and not others to them. At the same time, this does not mean that every construction of truth is equal. All concepts are equal to the extent that all are constructed, but the contents of their constructions are open to debate, rejection and assimilation. For instance, development and progress are commonly understood as a visibly high standard of living, demonstrated in grand buildings, availability of a wide variety of consumer goods, and so on and so forth. By this logic, America is a developed country. If development were to be understood as the absence of poverty, or the availability of equal opportunities, America may not come across as a very developed country. A lot of political struggles are struggles around signifiers. A particular set of population has been variously referred to as 'Black', 'Coloured' and as 'African-American'. This fight is not a fight for political correctness but for dignity. The fight for a different signifier is the fight to bring into being a new relationship between oneself and the world.