Making things visible: The dialogical and the monological within the human nature

Visibility and a notion of time

Our world is usually seen as a visual phenomenon – we are more likely to prefer to rely on our sight rather than on other senses. But vision as an ability par excellence has its limitations, varying from optical illusions and different distortions to total blindness, that inevitably force human beings to search another proper way to perceive and understand our world, and that is why need to communicate – to be understood by others, and to understand ourselves. The latter is especially important in our modern world, where the conflicts or misunderstandings between groups of different people (often being labelled as “minorities” and “majorities”) are widely discussed from different angles (see e.g. Prokopiou, Cline, & de Abreu, 2012). Understanding presupposes a dialogue as a specific way of functioning and acting. According to Bakhtin (1972, 1986) our world is dialogical, because “every speaking person is in the same an answerer; he is not a first who disrupted an eternal silence of the universe” (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 261). Yet what is a dialogical relation and why it is so important? Bakhtin (1972, p. 100) declared very radically but clearly that:

Human being never coincides with himself. It is impossible to apply a logical sameness rule to the human being, where A is A .… The real life of a person occurs exactly in a point of such non-coincidence [in Russian – nesovpadeniya] of human being with himself, in a point of his outputting (tochka vykhoda) from the borders of material existence [veshchnoye bytiye] .… The understanding of a real life of a person only possibly by a dialogical penetration into it … (Bakhtin, 1972, pp. 100–101)

How it is possible to understand that human life or human being is dialogical and “does not coincide with himself”? Dialogue exists in a way where simultaneously in human consciousness exist different positions or voices [Russian – “golosá”], the question or problem that such voices try to define or discuss is in-complete, such “flow of consciousness” is ended only after the death of a subject (Radzikhovski, 1986, pp. 59–60). For dialogism, every form of human relation or interaction is a part of a dialogue (Salgado & Conçalves, 2007, p. 609). There are no words, which would not belong to anyone (Radzikhovski, 1986, p. 60). Also, as it is shown in the above quote by Bakhtin, person does not coincide with himself, that is, in a different moment of time some changes (or even shifts) may occur, and things (relations, persons) which visibly tend to remain the same, actually are in a process of permanent change – dialogical relation presupposes an understanding of a mind and consciousness as something dynamic, not static and immovable.

Speaking as responding: The inevitable presence of the past

Each utterance is a response to something uttered before. Such a reference to the past needs to explain the relationship between the present, the past and the future in terms of time. Our subjective world is a process of permanent dynamical changes of subjective experiences. Henri Bergson (1907/1944) named such flowing subjectivity as duration (durée). Our duration is not a replacing of one moment by another – the present moment does not replace the past moment. Bergson argued that if such replacing occurred, “there would never be anything about the present – no prolonging of the past into the actual, no evolution” (1907/1944, p. 7), and then:

duration is the continuous progress of the past which gnaws into the future and which swells as it advanced. (Bergson, 1907/1944, p. 7)

La durée est le progrés continu du passé qui ronge l’avenir et qui gonfle en avaçant. (Bergson, 1908, p. 5)

Duration is a kind of moving forward where consciousness takes and incorporates something new to the previous experience:

Our personality, which is being built up each instant with its accumulated experience, changes without ceasing... our duration is irreversible. We could not live over again a single moment, for we should have to begin by effacing the memory of all that had followed. (Bergson, 1907/1944, p. 8)

Notre personnalité, qui se bâtit à chaque instant avec de l’expérience accumulée, change sans cesse... notre durée est irréversible. Nous ne saurions en revivre une parcelled, car il faudrait commencer par effacer le souvenir de tout ce qui a suivi. (Bergson, 1908, p. 6)

Thus, our personality (and our consciousness) grows up and changes continuously. We may assume on a very single level that we have experienced some events before, but actually, these events only externally look similar or equal. In actuality, they have changed, because our consciousness and personality has changed. That is why our future is unpredictable, because every event that we consider as future must consist of a moment that has not yet been experienced:

it [our state] is simple, and it cannot been already perceived, since it concentrates in its indivisibility all that has been perceived and what the present is adding to it besides. (Bergson, 1907/1944, p. 9, emphasis added)

il est simple, et il ne peut pas avoir été déjà perçu, piusqu’il concentre dans son indivisibilité tout le perçu avec, en plus, ce que le present y ajoute. (Bergson, 1908, p. 7)

It is important to emphasize that when we are talking about human consciousness that “does not coincide” with itself, we are not allowed to mix the content of dialogue and its mechanisms. Radzikhovski (1986, p. 63) precisely pointed out that inner mechanisms of a human consciousness are opened towards outer “dialogues with outer voices, in what idea appears inter-subjective – the subject of a consciousness is relational”. Inner mechanisms are opened for dialogue with outer voices that are in the process of becoming inner voices. Even in this case the general notion of a border (between inner and outer, closed and opened, etc.) needs to be introduced.

The importance of borders

In order to communicate, a person needs to establish relations with someone else, because “to existence means to communicate dialogically” (Bakhtin, 1972, p. 434). This does not mean that dialogue as a way to communicate starts only in a “damaged” condition, when person loses his sight or any other ability, this only shows that a phenomenon itself may be better understood in a case of shifting borders between what is considered to be a norm and deviation. In case of borders and shifting such borders between something, the definition of what a border is seems to be introduced. In our everyday activity, we freely operate by different meanings and conceptions without (or sometimes with) any deep understanding of what these conceptions mean. A border usually functions as a specific separator between different (really or allegedly) fields or areas. In this case, a window is a perfect example of such a simple thing with a deep and covered meaning. The window is considered as an architectural element for regulating light and air circulation in a building, but in the same time it is a border between inner and outer space. And because of it having this “in-between” function, the window is a very interesting cultural tool. Let us imagine a house where the window is covered by a firm wooden panel (Figure 1). OPEN IN VIEWER

What does the window separate here? Being very fragile (made of glass or plastic), a window usually demarks inner space (room/private space) and public space (a street), where the importance of visibility and its regulation is a priority. But such a window also may be destroyed (broken or even completely removed or replaced) or even covered and hidden (as in Figure 1). What might be behind such a coverage? Most likely an abandoned premises, or even empty rooms without any signs of life. Thus – a firm and tough border does not separate fields (“inner–outer”) but, on the opposite, unites them, makes them similar (the space around the house wall also looks abandoned). Hence, a simple shifting of some element made the space (or field) in front of and behind the window similar. The shift of boundaries between something inevitably reflects upon the understanding of the shape or size of what is surrounded by these borders. Thus, the curios value of a space is appeared here – space in this case cannot be imagined as something cut or separated from another. The border, on the opposite, provides the communication between different fields or parts of the whole, whatever we named it (see also Marsico, 2011; Maslov & Kharlamov, 2011; Rayner, 2011).

“Dialogue” – “two speaking”: Importance of the other

For a dialogue, it is inescapable not to take into account both parts of a dialogue – a person who is speaking (and listening in the same time) and a person (audience on the whole) to whom such an utterance is forwarded. We mentioned that inner mechanisms of our dialogical consciousness are opened toward outer dialogues and voices which inevitably become a part of our inner dialogue:

the word is two-sided act. It is determined equally by whose word it is and for whom it is meant. As word, it is precisely the product of reciprocal relationship between speaker and listener. (Voloshinov, 1929/1986, p. 86)

Thus, the importance of the other is a crucial here. ¹ Dialogism may be opposed to monologism, where “all significant and valuable is concentrated near the one centre” (Bakhtin, 1972, p. 136). Such things as “the spirit of a nation, of a history” are deeply monological, Bakhtin (1972) particularly emphasized that in a case of a monologism (“the spirit of a time”), anything that is important creates a united consciousness and might be reduced to an one accent or point – “things that are not important are being considered as non-sense” (p. 136). In modern (mainstream) psychology,

individual human being experiences and understands the world – objects as well as other persons – entirely from the vantage point of his or her own “ego”.… (Linell, 2009, p. 13)

But what is important for the dialogical consciousness? The answer may lay in a field of understanding that “other” perceives myself in his consciousness entirely – “that is why the perception of the ‘other’ as ‘completed’… who in the same time is able to ‘complete’ myself in his consciousness is distorted” (Radzikhovski, 1986, p. 66). To consider “other” as myself means “to have an inner dialogue with the ‘other’, dialogue between myself (my voice, ‘me-for-myself’ [‘ya-dlya-sebya’]) and other (the other’s voice, ‘other-for-me’ [‘drugoy-dlya-menya’]” (Radzikhovski, 1986, p. 67). Such dialogue is a “dialogue between human and human” in Bakhtinian terms (see Bakhtin, 1994, pp. 177–178), where the perception of the “other” as “yourself” presupposes that all kind of social and cultural (and, thus, any other socially and culturally constructed) differences are eliminated or reduced – “human like feels himself in this world without any intermediate parts” (Bakhtin, 1994, p. 178). In order to make the notion of the “other” more clear, we have to introduce a new level of understanding of such a problem, which was actually elaborated by Bakhtin (1986, 1990) in his works about the role of the author and a hero in novel, and about the art of Rabelais and his poetics – the importance of human body as a specific category for understanding human being itself. Bakhtin (1986) pointed out that the human body is an “inner” body and another's body is an outer body (p. 48). It may be explained in a physiological way – we, as human beings, organisms, have a whole set of emotions and biological functions that influence our body, but at the same time, the outer body, we are able to perceive it fully where “me-for myself” has fused in “me-for-other” [“ya-dlya-drugogo”] (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 53) – this was the meaning of a body in Ancient times. Let ask ourselves, how we know our own body? We even are unable to see or observe our own body in its entirety (for example, in order to look at our own back we need several mirrors, but they will give a reflected image of us). Looking at the mirror or seeing ourselves in it does not give the direct perception of ourselves – “we are able to see only the reflection of our appearance, but not ourselves in our appearance” (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 34). But let us ask ourselves – do we know the names of all our body parts? In the case of a mirror, it is a nice example of how for perception, the most important part of our body, the face, the reflection is needed. This reflection will and do distort our own perceivable reality:

Indeed, position of our body in front of the mirror is a slightly false; we do not have an access to ourselves from inside – thus, in this case we have to take a position of some undefined other, by help of whom we are trying to find an evaluative position toward ourselves, from the other we are trying to animate and frame ourselves. (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 34)

The only possible way to know our own body is through investigating another body (for instance, we can simultaneously observe another person’s body, or some parts of it, whereas our own body will retain uncovered for us in many senses):

Me and others are moving in a different ways... and, in order to put us to an equal ground, I have to become a value outside my own life and have to perceive myself as other amongst others... but it presupposes an authoritative evaluative outside me. Only in this mode of perception, in the category of other my body may become an aesthetically important, but neither in the context of my life nor in the context of my self-consciousness. (Bakhtin, 1986, pp. 58–59)

But if such an authoritative position that gives a reason to see myself as other is absent, in this case, a person’s reflection becomes a counterpart or twin of such a person:

Person, who specifically used to dream about himself trying to imagine his own appearance... but is not sure in this imagination, loses the right and purely inner attitude towards his own body... his context of self-consciousness is mixed with the other’ conscious context about himself. (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 59)

The problem of our own image about ourselves is deeply important here. How often do we – on the level of everyday life – feel something “disgusting” about our own body, when we imagined the disasters with our own body (and with ourselves) in a time of suffering from diseases (for instance, the flu or cutting a finger with a knife while cooking)? When we cook or peel food using a knife or other sharp devices, we may cut our finger. This event immediately produces a set of different possible scenarios that we are immediately to go about – we have to put an antiseptic or bandage on our finger, or even show it to a doctor. This specific moment (“being wounded” by some device doing a very common activity) shows – of course as an example – that we start dealing with ourselves through dealing with our body. It also shows that understanding of our self is possible through understanding the modifications of our body. Such a regulative mechanism may be named as a body voice, that is absolutely subjective experience when we deal with our personality (identity) through the process of dealing with the body (on the whole) as well as with some parts of it (Maslov, 2011). The importance of “the Other” in the sense of corporeal reality, the reality of one’s body, may be illustrated using the example from deaf-mute psychology that has a long and dramatic history (e.g. Maslov, 2010). Congenitally blind, deaf and mute children are absolutely helpless in every-day life without external support from a teacher. After a long period of time (even years), the child is able to function normally in his or her every-day activity – washing, eating using a spoon, dressing themselves etc. The education of the deaf-blind starts with the inclusion of a child into an everyday activity through the dealing with such things, the role of collective action is important here. Such education is using the body (the sense of touch) as a channel which unites the formation of the deaf-blind child’s mind with the external reality – which, on the first stage of education, is a teacher’s reality (very tough contact with the body) (e.g. Kondratov, 1982; Meshscheriakov, 1974). The deaf-blind child who is surrounded by careful relatives “is not able to become a subject [a person] only due to been treated as an object of relatives’ care” (Kondratov, 1982, p. 47). Thus, the main motion toward a development, in this extreme case, is possible when a person is treated as an active or functioning subject, practical activity is a dialogue between developing mind of a unique child and a teacher.

The “body voice” in action

Cases that describe the functioning of the dialogical regulation vary from every-day sports activities (or other types of every-day life actions, e.g. cooking or even simple running) to very radical transformations of our body or its parts (e.g. when a person becomes totally blind). Prokopiu and colleagues (2012) showed how the colour of the skin of a youngster of Pakistani background (the case of Fahim) provokes a whole set of meanings about himself (“different colour of skin” – “religion” – “terrorist”). Thus, a specific marker (appearance) provokes a set of possible explanations and finds a reflection in the person himself – “I probably feel like I’ve got a different colour of skin” (Prokopiu et al., 2012, p. 500). Even in the second case (Azra) the importance of difference such as colour of skin in marked:

Most of them [people in England] are racist I think toward Pakistani people and some of them are really nice... when people are racist against any religion or colour or faith it’s just gets on my nerves because “why they’re saying that?” (Prokopiu et al., 2012, p. 501)

Here, we may see the collision of positions against the body and its parts (colour as a part of our bodily system). Bakhtin (1986, p. 48) proposed that our body (as we know it) it is fully an inner body [vnutrennoye telo] that may be perceived only through the whole complex of inner feelings and emotions; it is impossible to perceive our own body directly without the notion of such feelings. Dialogue presupposes incompleteness – in this case the colour of skin may be considered also as a border between inner and outer bodies (in dialogical terms):

Another person’s body – is an outer body, and its valuation is going in a intuitive-visible way and is given to me directly... only inner body – a heavy flesh – is given to a person himself, another outer body is predetermined: he needs to actively create it. (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 51)

Active creation or construction is possible only in dialogical way, when inner and outer body are thinkable as different in sense of changes and reflection, and participation in a dialogue. Even the opposite – the concentration upon one characteristic or even taking it out and emphasizing it (e.g. “I hate you because you have X and do not have Y”) may be considered as a monological relation, where “all significant and valuable is concentrated near the one centre” (Bakhtin, 1972, p. 136). And such stressing of visible border between external and inner, such as colour of the skin (or even religion, where person sometimes has to wear some sort of special clothes or act in a specific way), is a monologization of one’s consciousness – such rough, constructed borders do not even separate or distinguish persons, but rather dissolves inner and outer in one monological space. The case of Azra shows clearly that a person is able to cross such a border (colour of the skin) as something that is not coming from herself (or caused by shifting from inside to outside). This case clearly shows that all sort of externall-imposed characteristics or labels may be diminished on a personal level.