Page 20 - Critical and Cultural Theory

INTRODUCTION

Nothing means simply by virtue of existing. People, animals and
objects obviously exist as material forms subject, in various
degrees, to change. However, it is not their sheer physical existence
that endows them with meaning. In order to carry certain
meanings, people, animals and objects have to be invested with
symbolic significance. Societies and cultures only ever make sense
of the world (albeit tentatively and provisionally) by translating
both their animate and their inanimate inhabitants into symbolic
entities. The symbols employed are diverse and their import varies
from one society to another, one culture to another. Such symbols
include words, visual images and the codes and conventions that
shape the value systems and patterns of behaviour of particular
communities. It is at the point where people, animals and objects
are related to the symbols which a community has been trained to
recognize that they become meaningful, or significant.
Concomitantly, no physical form holds a final or stable
meaning. In fact, its significance will inevitably alter according to
the changes undergone by the cultural or social formation of
which it is part. If this applies to concrete entities, it is no less
relevant to abstract concepts. Indeed, the extent to which meaning
depends on symbolic transactions and is, as a result, variable is
clearly demonstrated by the shifting nature of the words used to
designate abstract ideas - such as 'culture', 'society', 'value' and
'community', for example. Such ideas do not point to universal
categories. Rather, they embody context-specific meanings, deter-
mined by the symbols employed to define them.
The sum total, most probably incalculable, of the symbols used
to give meaning to a world constitutes language. The means by

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