Okay disabstraction is my new favorite word. Your definition... "To “disabstract” an account, a bit of history, a narrative or story, an image, idea or concept, an academic discipline or theory…, is to re-embed it in a world of history, concrete particulars, detailed situations, context, depth, richness, complexity, specificity, detail, situatedness, place… and so much more" is fantastic.
I think you could even add "person" so To disabstract a person (or the human species!) is to re-embed him or her in a world of history, concrete particulars, detailed situations, context, depth, richness, complexity, specificity, detail, situatedness, place... Yes.
For what we need most of all is to be human animals living well in a particular place again. To do that, we need depth and richness of understanding of the complexity of the natural world in that place, specifics about things like where to find food in this season, details about how to use what we need and give back to the environment so we down draw down our habitat's carrying capacity, situatedness because what works well over here doesn't work well over there, and a long history passed down through the generations of our local tribe with stories about how to continue to live well in that place as human animals.
If you want to feel even less lonely read David Abram's The Spell of the Sensuous. The whole book is about disabstraction.
"Prior to the spread of writing, ethical qualities like "virtue," "justice," and "temperance" were thoroughly entwined with the specific situations in which those qualities were exhibited. The terms for such qualities were oral utterances called forth by particular social situations; they had no apparent existence independent of those situations...
Yet as soon as such utterances were recorded in writing, they acquired an autonomy and a permanence hitherto unknown. Once written down, "virtue" was seen to have an unchanging, visible form independent of the speaker--and independent as well of the corporeal situations and individuals that exhibited it.
Socrates clearly aligned his method with this shift in the perceptual field. Whenever, in Plato's dialogues, Socrates asks his interlocutor to give an account of what "virtue," or "justice," or "courage" actually is, questioning them regarding the real meaning of the qualitative terms they unthinkingly employ in their speaking, they confidently reply by recounting particular instances of the quality under consideration, enumerating specific examples of "justice," yet never defining "justice" itself. ... Socrates, however, has little interest in these multiple embodiments of "virtue," except in so far as they all partake of some common, unchanging element, which he would like to abstract and ponder on its own. In every case Socrates attempts to induce a reflection upon the quality as it exists in itself, independent of particular circumstances. ...
Socrates, then, is clearly convinced that there is a fixed, unchanging essence of "justice" that unites all of the just instances, as there is an eternal essence of "virtue," of "beauty," of "goodness," "courage," and all the rest. Yet Socrates' conviction would not be possible without the alphabet. For only when a qualitative term is written down does it become ponderable as a fixed form independent of both the speakers and of situations."
Abram argues that it is the invention of the Greek phonetic alphabet that enables abstraction and separation from the sensuous--the material--world, and writing stories down to fix them in time and place, rather than relying on ever-changing oral storytelling that shifts with time and place and the people telling the story, that separates us from the material world that inspired the stories in the first place. Abstraction has caused separation and dissociation, as you write about in this essay. Disabstraction is perhaps one of the keys to get us back into ourselves and into the real world.
Purely by accident, Ivan Illich's image in the thumbnail at the opening page of The R-Word has poor Ivan depicted without a head. Abstracted, as it were. I could not have hoped for a happier coincidence or accident.
Ah Dougald. Glad he retains his ambivalent state of mind. Moderation in all things. Quite right. Of course, hard to pull off when looking down the barrel of a gun, or perhaps arguing with AI, we shall see. Whatever our wordsmithing abilities, or skills at making distinctions in abstraction, good to ground ourselves in sense. Tai chi, nice.
It's not so much the question, by who asks that matters.
Disabstractiion is better than Foucault's problematisation.
Is there a word that is not so complicated? Or are terms like being present, too simple, without enough instruction to fully appreciate the livingness of others, like Illich, and his time and place?
You are definitely loving it, James. The trick is what do we draw out attention to in the myriad objects of the world that is useful for us to move forwards together? I enjoyed your truffle hunt today, but I know our game is more illusive to bring to light.
Here's something Dougald Hine said to me about my notion of disabstraction.:
"If you travel carefully with this, you may find that the challenge is not to reject abstraction, but to bring it down to size and back into relation. A rhythm or a dance between the sensual and the abstract (in the terms you're using) might be part of what we humans bring to the table, but this need not conflict with your sense that abstraction has run destructively out of control. As I said in the conversation with Gordon, one of the basic Illichian moves - which I've been practicing like tai chi or aikido for twenty years - is to shift from good/bad evaluation to looking for the threshold of counterproductivity, and this would apply to abstraction too."
I agreed. The point of disabstraction -- its utility -- isn't in getting rid of abstraction, but disclosing and making conscious what is lost in the habit of abstraction so prevalent in the dominant culture of "modernity". Often we can only make choices, or have agency -- individually and collectively -- when we're conscious of what disabstraction reveals or unveils. Disabstraction is akin to a tool for revealing what lay hidden in the historical residue which abstracting has wrought. Like any tool, it has a specific usefulness.
My principle purpose for exploring disabstraction is political. I think we are living in a time in which it is crucial for us to *radically* re-imagine the art of politics. And this will require a certain depth of contact with aspects of history which are buried and hidden in the dominant culture.
Okay disabstraction is my new favorite word. Your definition... "To “disabstract” an account, a bit of history, a narrative or story, an image, idea or concept, an academic discipline or theory…, is to re-embed it in a world of history, concrete particulars, detailed situations, context, depth, richness, complexity, specificity, detail, situatedness, place… and so much more" is fantastic.
I think you could even add "person" so To disabstract a person (or the human species!) is to re-embed him or her in a world of history, concrete particulars, detailed situations, context, depth, richness, complexity, specificity, detail, situatedness, place... Yes.
For what we need most of all is to be human animals living well in a particular place again. To do that, we need depth and richness of understanding of the complexity of the natural world in that place, specifics about things like where to find food in this season, details about how to use what we need and give back to the environment so we down draw down our habitat's carrying capacity, situatedness because what works well over here doesn't work well over there, and a long history passed down through the generations of our local tribe with stories about how to continue to live well in that place as human animals.
Thanks Elisabeth! Thanks for helping me feel just a little less lonely! Hugs and kisses.
If you want to feel even less lonely read David Abram's The Spell of the Sensuous. The whole book is about disabstraction.
"Prior to the spread of writing, ethical qualities like "virtue," "justice," and "temperance" were thoroughly entwined with the specific situations in which those qualities were exhibited. The terms for such qualities were oral utterances called forth by particular social situations; they had no apparent existence independent of those situations...
Yet as soon as such utterances were recorded in writing, they acquired an autonomy and a permanence hitherto unknown. Once written down, "virtue" was seen to have an unchanging, visible form independent of the speaker--and independent as well of the corporeal situations and individuals that exhibited it.
Socrates clearly aligned his method with this shift in the perceptual field. Whenever, in Plato's dialogues, Socrates asks his interlocutor to give an account of what "virtue," or "justice," or "courage" actually is, questioning them regarding the real meaning of the qualitative terms they unthinkingly employ in their speaking, they confidently reply by recounting particular instances of the quality under consideration, enumerating specific examples of "justice," yet never defining "justice" itself. ... Socrates, however, has little interest in these multiple embodiments of "virtue," except in so far as they all partake of some common, unchanging element, which he would like to abstract and ponder on its own. In every case Socrates attempts to induce a reflection upon the quality as it exists in itself, independent of particular circumstances. ...
Socrates, then, is clearly convinced that there is a fixed, unchanging essence of "justice" that unites all of the just instances, as there is an eternal essence of "virtue," of "beauty," of "goodness," "courage," and all the rest. Yet Socrates' conviction would not be possible without the alphabet. For only when a qualitative term is written down does it become ponderable as a fixed form independent of both the speakers and of situations."
Abram argues that it is the invention of the Greek phonetic alphabet that enables abstraction and separation from the sensuous--the material--world, and writing stories down to fix them in time and place, rather than relying on ever-changing oral storytelling that shifts with time and place and the people telling the story, that separates us from the material world that inspired the stories in the first place. Abstraction has caused separation and dissociation, as you write about in this essay. Disabstraction is perhaps one of the keys to get us back into ourselves and into the real world.
initial comment: questions: as Joan Halifax wrote many years ago: are we asking the right questions? I wonder if we ever have.
Purely by accident, Ivan Illich's image in the thumbnail at the opening page of The R-Word has poor Ivan depicted without a head. Abstracted, as it were. I could not have hoped for a happier coincidence or accident.
Ah Dougald. Glad he retains his ambivalent state of mind. Moderation in all things. Quite right. Of course, hard to pull off when looking down the barrel of a gun, or perhaps arguing with AI, we shall see. Whatever our wordsmithing abilities, or skills at making distinctions in abstraction, good to ground ourselves in sense. Tai chi, nice.
It's not so much the question, by who asks that matters.
Disabstractiion is better than Foucault's problematisation.
Is there a word that is not so complicated? Or are terms like being present, too simple, without enough instruction to fully appreciate the livingness of others, like Illich, and his time and place?
You are definitely loving it, James. The trick is what do we draw out attention to in the myriad objects of the world that is useful for us to move forwards together? I enjoyed your truffle hunt today, but I know our game is more illusive to bring to light.
Hi David -
Here's something Dougald Hine said to me about my notion of disabstraction.:
"If you travel carefully with this, you may find that the challenge is not to reject abstraction, but to bring it down to size and back into relation. A rhythm or a dance between the sensual and the abstract (in the terms you're using) might be part of what we humans bring to the table, but this need not conflict with your sense that abstraction has run destructively out of control. As I said in the conversation with Gordon, one of the basic Illichian moves - which I've been practicing like tai chi or aikido for twenty years - is to shift from good/bad evaluation to looking for the threshold of counterproductivity, and this would apply to abstraction too."
from - https://dougald.substack.com/p/learning-to-love-the-deep/comments
I agreed. The point of disabstraction -- its utility -- isn't in getting rid of abstraction, but disclosing and making conscious what is lost in the habit of abstraction so prevalent in the dominant culture of "modernity". Often we can only make choices, or have agency -- individually and collectively -- when we're conscious of what disabstraction reveals or unveils. Disabstraction is akin to a tool for revealing what lay hidden in the historical residue which abstracting has wrought. Like any tool, it has a specific usefulness.
My principle purpose for exploring disabstraction is political. I think we are living in a time in which it is crucial for us to *radically* re-imagine the art of politics. And this will require a certain depth of contact with aspects of history which are buried and hidden in the dominant culture.