The unloved field of Lacanian mathematics postulates that 1 + 1 = 3. The third element that is added to the 2 here represents the common ground that 1 and 1 need to enter into a relationship with each other.
When I talk to another person, there are never just two subjects involved. To communicate, we need a third thing to be present. Most obviously, this third thing can be said to be a shared language. But we need more. I need to know what to do when he sticks out his hand as he introduces himself. I need to know who Donald Trump is in case we should talk about current events. I need to know how to react when he lets out a soft whistle as he nods his head towards a woman sitting at the bar wearing a red dress and high heels.
So how do I come to know all these things? I never followed a course on human interaction, taught by some superhuman. I learned everything I know just by interacting with other humans.
In my previous post I described the mysterious Third Thing as a disembodied knowledge, a knowledge that lives in the minds of everybody but at the same time independent of any person or group of persons. This knowledge isn’t taught, it spreads through assuming.
How do you feel when someone assumes you know something but you don’t? You feel like you should have known it. After all, why would the other person assume this knowledge if it wasn’t apparently commonly held knowledge? So why would someone assume a knowledge in another person? Probably because someone else assumed this knowledge in them.
In this way we can imagine the birth of language by way of a stupid caveman and a smart but insecure caveman. One day the stupid caveman returns to the cave with a dead rabbit. He sees the smart but insecure caveman and tells him “Groomph”. The stupid caveman is too stupid to realise that the smart but insecure caveman has no way of knowing that by “Groomph” he really means “Gather wood to make a fire while I skin this rabbit”. An awkward silence ensues as the smart but insecure caveman wonders how to say “I don’t know what you’re trying to say”. The stupid caveman repeats his “Groomph” more threateningly, shaking his dead rabbit. The smart but insecure caveman panics, and guesses correctly the meaning of “Groomph” by gathering the wood necessary to make the fire. Now, because the smart but insecure caveman doesn’t want to seem like he didn’t know something the stupid caveman did know, he starts using the word “Groomph” as if he knew its meaning all along. If the other cavemen and women were as smart and insecure as he is, they too will have guessed its meaning and pretended like they too knew its meaning all along.
“Groomph” isn’t a very pretty word to express “Gather wood to make a fire while I skin my dead rabbit”, but now the cave people are stuck with it. They can’t simply change the word without returning to the old situation of incomprehensible grunts and awkward silences. Instead, every time a caveman utters the word “Groomph”, its meaning is solidified.
The Third Thing isn’t language, or even culture, but it attaches itself to it. It lives and reproduces itself by the same mechanisms. It’s a kind of cultural unconscious. You can learn a language and you can be taught to shake someone’s hand, but you are never taught that fat women are unattractive, or that it’s better to be white than black. Such knowledge sneaks in through the back door as we learn to be a normal, functional member of society.
Maarten Schumacher 