CRIPPLED

CREATIVITY
AN INQUIERY INTO
LANGUAGE, PSYCHE &
SOCIETY
"suffering comes from three
quarters: from our own body......
from the outer world, which can rage
against us with the most powerful
and pitiless forces of destruction;
and finally from our own relations
with other men."
--Freud (1930:28)
Two male-speaker-hearer as represented in Saussure
(1915)
 Chomskian Interpretation

Two male speaking/hearing subjects are

creating/comprehending infinite sets of
sentences out of finite sets of words.
WHERE IS THE LOCUS OF
THESE TWO SPEAKING-
HEARING SUBJECTS?
Where they are standing
really?
•Is there any relationship between my “empty
linguistic organism” and “human
malleability”?
•What are the effects of linguistic externality
to linguistic internality?
•Do we “really” have human-object in such a
raw state without being constrained or
manipulated by the outside sociality?
Chomsky justifiably negated and refuted
Behaviorisms but that does not entail
that in the real world there is no such
behavioral manipulation. Then, the
question is if behavioral manipulation
continues, what happens to the physical
organ like LAD and linguistic creativity in
general?
Skinner himself captivated in his Black Box

A drawing by Alan E. Cober. Cf. Atkinson et al. 1953:200)

Diagram shows the creator of Skinnerian
black box is himself within the black box
full of uneasiness and discomfort. This is
not a “normal" position with enough space
to stretch or be in an in an erect position.
The spinal cord has bent more than can be
tolerated. This abnormality of positioning
in a space of stimulus-response shows the
defeat of the physique. This delimiting of
physique bars the subject from
participating in an intersubjective
discourse, free from manipulation.
 EXTERNALIZED
LANGUAGE-PROBLEM?
INTERNALIZED
LANGUAGE PROBLEM?
 EXTERNALIZED LANGUAGE
INTERNALIZED LANGUAGE

EXTERNALIZED LANGUAGE INTERNALIZED LANGUAGE

______________________ _______________________
► Rule-governed formal
► Substantive, arbitrary, system of human cognitive
provisional, shifting, domain
heterogeneous signs ► Innate capacity (as it is
► Social fact based on found in Cartesian
Rationalism),
conventional pact ► Psycho-physiological or
Particular neuro-biological fact,
signifiersPerformance genetic endowment
Parole ► Universal feature endowed
with definite inbuilt
algorithms, that constitutes
the notion of Universal
Grammar (UG)
► Competence Langue
 INTERNAL CRITIQUE OF
CHOMSKY

DWELLING WITHIN ENLIGHTENMENT

?
“the accepted hypothesis that the acceleration of a body
dropped in a vacuum is constant g (about 32 feet per
second per second on earth), implying that the distance
(s) traveled after t seconds is given by the formula s=1/2
gt2. When the formula is applied to various objects
dropped from various heights in the earth atmosphere, it
is found to hold, more or less, in usefully many but not
all cases.
It can therefore be stated: under a wide range of
circumstances, bodies that fall in the actual atmosphere
behave as if they are falling in a vacuum. In the language
so common in Economics this would be rapidly
translated into: the formula assumes a vacuum. Yet it
clearly does no such thing…. the formula is accepted
because it works, not because we live in approximate
vacuum—whatever that means.” (Rouget,1953:18)
► Chomsky’s creativity hypothesis also
presumes “approximate vacuum”.
► Speaking/Hearing subjects have no locus,
► as if they are in “approximate vacuum”.
“quite contrary to folklore, only a small
number of executives develop peptic ulcers; in
fact blue-collar workers who are dissatisfied
with their jobs are more likely to develop
ulcers than successful business executives
who are moving up on the occupational ladder.
And while black people in our society show a
higher incidence of hypertension than white
people, this finding is confounded by different
dietary habits, including the excessive use of
salt by many black citizens.” (Carson et al
1989: 273).
 MY AMERICAN UNCLE
ALAIN RESNAIS(1980)
Let us hear the clippings of lecture (from the
movie) given by Henri Laborit, an evolutionary
psychologist.
He is talking about:
“We are others”
The film depicts the society-human body
relationship within the ambit of “science”.
Rene and Jean were suffering from ulcers and
kidney failure. Are they simply “Occupational
hazards”?
► Please note the superimposition of rats
and competing human beings in this film.
► This film by Alain Resnais criticizes
behaviorism as well as cognitive
psychology from the perspective of
evolutionary psychology.
“[l]inguistics becomes a social science when we face
the fact that speaker S of a language L has in S’s brain-
constructed-as-a-mind not only I, an internal
representation of L that enables S to use L, but also
something amounting to E, an external representation
which embodies S’s awareness of the community’s
joint possession of L as represented in I. My 1988
paper proposes that for formal reasons S cannot
construct or store a viable ‘society function’ capable of
mapping I onto an imagined set of parallel I-
representations, and that instead S allows a non-formal
image of L, an external representation of discourse
embodying L, to serve E. Thus E is the site where a
psycho-socially real image of L is posited and
imagined.” (Dasgupta, 1993:51)
• Problems of learning Theory (LT)
for the organism O in the Cognitive domain (D)
is LT(O,D) (Chomsky, 1976:18).

• This theory can be regarded as function that

has certain output (a cognitive structure of some
sort) (ibid:14).

• One may specifically reformulate LT (O, D) by

considering O as Humans (H) and D as
Language(L).

• Thus one may investigate LT(H,L) as L is

strikingly different from non-humans.
•But LT shows certain discrepancies as there is
no place for outside sociality in LT

•Therefore we need to reformulate LT by putting

Social Constraints S within this theory.

•Thus, “natural” organism H is to be

reinterpreted as SH, which is a H bound by
social constraints.

•This reformulation, thus, is now represented as

LT (SH,L).
CHOMSKY’S OWN COMMENTS

"Of course one can design a

restricted environment in which such
control and such patterns…can be
demonstrated, but there is no reason
to suppose that any more is learned
about the range of human
potentialities by such methods than
would be learned by observing
humans in prison or an army- or in
many a schoolroom." (Chomsky,
1972:114)
“It is reasonable to suppose that just as intrinsic
structures of mind underlie the development of
cognitive structures, so a “species character”
provides the framework for the growth of moral
consciousness, cultural achievement, and even
participation in a free and just community human
needs and capacities will find their fullest
expression in a society of free and creative
producers...” (Chomsky: l976:133-34)

SED CONTRA: On the contrary, in case of NON-

“free and just community”, what happens to the
species character of human being? Or following
Foucault, one may ask, “How has the concept of
human nature functioned in our society?”
“Suppose that the social and material
conditions that prevent free intellectual
development were relieved....”
(Chomsky: l976: 124)

SED CONTRA: What happens to

“creativity”, if these social and material
conditions that prevent free intellectual
development are reigning in its full form
by subjugating human nature?
“.... there must be continual struggle
against authoritarian social forms that
impose restrictions beyond those set by
‘the laws of nature’” (Chomsky:
1976:133).

SED CONTRA: What happens to the

victims of authoritarian oppression?
What happen to their creativity?
CHOMSKY ANSWERED
THESE QUESTIONS

( Regarding “Crippled
Creativity” hypothesis)
Chomsky accepted my
hypothesis
Does Chomsky
consider
1. BODY AS A
COMPUTATION
MACHINE???
2. LEXICON
I)"UG must provide means to present an array of
items from the lexicon in a form accessible to
the computational system" (Chomsky, 1992:8)

2)".... it may be possible to move toward the

minimalist design: a theory of language that
takes a linguistic expression to be nothing other
than formal object that satisfies the interface
conditions in the optimal way." (Chomsky,
1992:7)
Technocratic metaphors used by Chomsky may
exemplify how he is perceiving human body as a
machine. The terms like “Computation’, “array”
“interface” etc. (e.g., Chomsky and Lasnik,1991:4 used
a term like “parser” in a statement like “ .. .one
component of mind/brain is a parser.”) or in the
operations like “COMMAND”, “SATISFY”, “SPELL OUT”
reflect the metonymic transformation of creative
speaking subject as all these functions in uppercase
letter make me remember Schank’s (1975) language-
free representation (PROPEL, MOVE, INGEST or
CONTROL, PART etc.) which combines primitive
conceptual roles and conceptual categories employed
to process Natural Language.
 CONCLUSION???

Chomsky: Context free ideal creative

speaking subject with zero History
Sed contra: Context-sensitive
creative speaking corporeal with
History
EXTERNAL CRITIQUE
OF CHOMSKY:
FROM CARTESIAN
MIND TO PSYCHE
“…all instincts that do not discharge
themselves outwardly turn inward- this is
what I call internalization of man first
developed what was later called his
‘soul’” (Nietzsche, 1956:220, emphasis
added)
 “When I myself was a public square, a sook; Through
me passed words, tiny syntagms, bits of formulae, and
no sentence formed, as though at were the law of such
a language. This language at once very cultural and
very savage, was above all lexical, sporadic; ....This
non-sentence was in no way something that could not
have acceded to the sentence, that might have been
before the sentence; it was; what is eternally,
splendidly outside the sentence. Then potentially all
linguistics fell, linguistics which believes only in the
sentence and always attributed an exorbitant dignity to
predicative syntax (as the for of logic, of a rationality); I
recalled this scientific scandal...”
contd…
“Theory (Chomsky) says that the sentence is
potentially infinite (infinitely catalyzable), but
practice always obliges the sentence to end.
Theory did not consider like science, subjects
body as a historical subject; for it is at end of a
very complex process combining biographical,
historical, sociological and neurotic elements
(education, social class, childhood
configuration, etc.)" (Barthes,1975: 49-50)
“All the official institutions of language are
recapturing mechanism: school, sports,
advertising, pulp novels pop songs, news,
always repeat the same structure, the same
sense, often the same words. Stereotypes are
a political fact, the principal aspects of
ideology.” (Barthes,1975: 40)
 Lacan
► Symbolic ► Real Order Lacan’s
OrderLacan’s Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis ___________________
__________________ ► Human subject cannot
► Subject’s body as experience the “real”
reflected in the mirror. except as it is
The reflection leads to constructed in and by
symbolization. This symbolization or
presupposed order is signification. Here
given by the other to Mirror and the body of
the subject. Subject’s the subject stand face
EL is formed by this to face.
primary repression.
 LACAN
► Imaginary order REAL, SYMBOLIC &
Lacan’s
Psychoanalysis IMAGINARY
______________________ ORDERS—THEY
Identity of signifier “I” or ARE
subject’s I-ness as UNDICIDABLES.
(miss)recognized in the THE ORDER
mirror. The S/HS have got LEADS TO
the “Identity”, meaning
and presence for itself
APORIA.
from the signifiers
ascribed by the other.
 Kristeva’s semiology
Symbolic Order
__________________________
Law under which Language
(L) operates, L obeys the
rule, grammar, social
codes, structure,
meaningfulness,
acceptability, significance
etc.
Real Order
__________________________
Real cannot be felt without
being symbolized.
_______________________
→Phenotext is the part of
“the signifying system as it
presents itself to
phenomenological intuition
as a phenotext;
describable in terms of
structure, or of
competence/performance”
 Kristeva’s semiology
► Imaginary order →Genotext: deviations,
Disruptive elements which form a relative and
present within the shifting trajectory not
signifying process. restricted to two poles of
Repressed non-linguistic intersubjectivity of S/HS.
sounds, moments of “Within this signifying
meaninglessness, silence process one might see the
etc. release and subsequent
articulation of the drives as
constrained by the social
code yet not reducible to
the L system as a
genotext.”
"Within this process one might see the
release and subsequent articulation of
the drives as constrained by the social
code yet not reducible to the language
system as a genotext and as the
signifying system as it presents itself to
phenomenological intuition as a
phenotext; describable in terms of
structure, or of competence /
performance..The presence of genotext
within the phenotext is indicated by… a
semiotic disposition." Kristeva
(1973:1250)
Genotext is within
phenotext and vise versa
—inside is outside and
outside in. It is a paradox
—an aporia. Psi-
properties are operating
here. Unconscious is
(un)structured like
language.
PSI-PROPERTIES
The Internalized Language (I) in speaking subject (S) is, as Barthes
pointed out, thus devoid of his/her history, childhood configuration
and neurotic element. But if anyone tries to find the locus standi of
such ideal speaker-hearer in the behavioral manipulative world,
s/he may find that the subjectification and subjection of S’s body
is under the control of dispotif. I or LAD, a physical organ cannot
be imagined without accommodating a social interpretation of
psyche, and that is missing in the formalization of watertight
essence of I as such. According to this proposed interpretation I of
S, being contaminated by the outside sociality or unweilt, is not
something transcendental or something outside social Externalized
Language and it is equally viable to psycho-social properties,
which I abbreviated as (psi)-P. These -P reasserts that the being
is always in the being-in-the-(social) world as well as being-for-
others.
INTER-PRETING/-RUPTING
FACTS AND FICTIONS
Then how could we distinguish
between

► Facts
&
► Fiction?
Fact-I: In one advertisement, I found
that the protagonist offers a
prescription to “housewives” (rather
than “homemakers”! Serious reader
may notice the sexist bias) to use a
brand of washing powder. As the
advertisement is in Hindi, the subject-
verb- gender agreement can be
noticed:
 apbhi istemal kOr sOkti Hay.
you-(+hon.) use do can-feminine
gender be-present

“sOkti” is used rather than that of “sOkta” to maintain

the role played by a specific gender.
Fact-II: In one Bangla agit-prop song by
Suman Chattopadhyay showed the
coming of the leader in helicopter with
tight security. At the midst of that songs,
there are three dictums, which may be
served as corpus for our purpose:
 2. a)(tuy) bhoT diechis
vote give
Have you cast your vote?
2.b)(tumi) bhoT diecho
vote give
Have you cast your vote?
2.c) (apni)bhoT diechen
vote give
Have you cast your vote?
The bracketed elements are not in the song, but
they are easily recoverable from the nominal
person- verb agreement. The point is that the song
depicts the “democratic" relationship between
general public and the leader. Though democracy
is claimed to be the order of equals, the song
depicts the hierarchical order within the supposed
“democracy” by deploying three honorific-suffixes
in verbs and deleting the nominal. It is also
important to note in the song that the leader is
always referred by + honorific suffix in the verb:
4. /neta aSchen/
leader come present cont. +hon.
“The leader is coming”
Fact-III: In one situation of popular Bangla mono-
drama (also played in Hindi), “nathoboti
OnathobOt” (Woman with husband and without
husband), based on Draupadi’s (from
Mahabharata) own story, the kathaka
(commentator/narrator) describes the dresses of
pandavas, when they are in guise of Brahmans in
their exile instigated by the kauravas. The
kathaka says that when people clad this type of
dress, other use /tumi/ “second person singular+-
honrific” instead of /apni/“second person
singular+ honorific”. Thus the kathaka (narrator)
establishes distinct relationship between social
code of dressing and linguistic code.
Fact-IV: In one situation of Tarashankar
Bandyopadhyay’s famous novel Ganadevata:
(“Demos-god”, the novel depicts the situation of
ordinary people in the context of changing scenario
in the late colonial period under the British Raj),
Debu Ghosh, a literate farmer, who is often referred
to as /ponDit/ “scholar” by the villagers, was called
as /tuy/“second person singular -honrific” by the
government land-surveyer, Kanungo. Debu in his
return-address, also used /tuy/ to refer
Kanungo.The villagers as well as Debu were not
happy with the land-survey and Debu expressed
his discontent at the time of the survey. Mingling
with this fact and the incidence of referring
Kanungo as /tuy/ lead to the arrest of Debu.
The incidence of imprisonment due to referring back in
-honorific and to resist survey make us remember the
“power over life”-hypothesis of Foucault. As Foucault
showed that, in the 18th C., the proliferation of
demographic techniques, taking cue from the classical
period, to “know the body” lead to the administration and
subjection of the docile body. The procedures of power
here get a chance to know and penetrate the body
through, what Foucault called as “anatomo-politics”. On
the other hand, the procedures of power also penetrate
the human species by deploying universal mechanics
(1978/90:139-40). These attempts to intervene with
regulatory control over the species, according to Foucault,
are the “bio-politics”. In case of Debu Ghosh, the
anatomo-political intervention in the domain of land leads
the imprisonment of Debu’s docile body.
I do not know exactly whether these facts
taken from Bangla fictions and Hindi
advertisement are to be considered as EL
evidences or not. I think, these examples of
f-features are not external evidences. The
pronominal-verb agreement in Bangla and
gender-verb agreement in Hindi shows a
crucial fact of powerful social code that
controls internalized linguistic code and
those are Psi-Properties, a “formal” formula
without any “truth”-claim.
 Now we may answer our initial
question:
► What, then, is the relationship
between social malleability and empty
linguistic organism?
 PLURIMETHOD
(The method I have
deployed in this work)
Compare different “theories with other theories
rather than with ‘experience’, ‘data’, ‘fact:’ and I will
try to improve rather than discard the views that
appear to lose into competition”. (Feyerabend, 1987:
33)
Chomskian Theory T’ “successfully describes the
situations inside domain D’. T’ agrees with a finite
numbers of observations (let their class be F) and it
agrees with these observations inside a margin M of
error. “Any alternative that contradicts T’ outside F
and inside M is supported by exactly the same
observations and is therefore acceptable if T’ was
acceptable.” (Feyerabend, 1988: 25)
In Chomskian Theory T’, the M is the omission of social
constraints. The class F confines itself to well organized
set of sentences ignoring the social-context or
Chomskian Theory T' " successfully describes the
situations inside domain D'. T' agrees with a finite
numbers of observations (let their class be F ) and it
agrees with these observations inside a margin M of
error. Any alternative that contradicts T' outside F and
inside M is supported by exactly the same observations
and is therefore acceptable if T' was acceptable."
(Feyerabend,1988:25). In the Chomskian Theory T', the M
is the omission of social constraints. The class F
confines itself to well-organized set of sentences
ignoring the actual performance of the sentences.
T' also ignores the failure of IL or competence which
leads to performance error as competence and
performance are two distinct and discrete phenomena in
T'. Therefore, the proposed LT(SH, L) not only contradicts
T’ (= LT (H, L) I inside M, but also inside F as F (linguistic
data or sentences in this case) is (a) selected by partial
observation led by predetermined architecture or Syntax;
(b) constructed as natural. How do we know what is
natural and what is cultural phenomena? The essential
construction of “nature” cannot escape the problems of
essentialism. Thus T’ creates a metanarratlve of
transcendental speaking subject by observing the
subject globally, not locally.
END OF DIALOGUE?
 Socrates was murdered!!!
When Socrates was murdered, the power of
dialogue revealed. The forced death of
Socrates does not entail the forced death of
dialogue but proves the celebration of
dialogue. From the perspective of authority,
dialogue is something poisonous and the
initiator of dialogue can be terminated by the
remedy of poison only. Here comes
pharmacon—poison as well as nectar…..
There is creation of infinite sets of sentences
as well as there is no creation of infinite sets
of sentences. You know, this statement
violates “law of excluded middle”.
•In an inter-subjective position, if the dialogue
is controlled by the Dominant "other", the
dialogue ends.

•If the inter-subjectivity is controlled by the

dominant, repressive or coercive or
ideological institutions, (the another 'other')
the dialogue ends.
 OR/AND
WE MAY BYPASS THE EXTERNAL
COERCION
BY…….

THIS IS A SILENT ZONE. KEEP MUM!

LET US SEE THE MOVIE “THE PIANIST”
BY ROMAN POLANASKI TO
UNDERSTAND THE METHODS OF
BYPASSING THE EXTERNAL
COERCION…..