FIRE! FIRE!

In my experience as a Marriage and Family Therapist, I have come to realize the interesting and intriguing ways in which words shape my client's "realities". When I read how much language means to postmodern thinking I become curious about the connection between the two.


For postmodernists reality is "created" by words in particular and language in general. Language "creates" realities. And a word or words or an entire language do not have a single meaning. There are multiple meanings attached to words. Factors such as tonality, social mores, context of the conversations, etc. shape meaning with so many variants as to make each utterance unique to the circumstances at hand. For example, if I yell "Fire. Fire.", whether there is a fire or not, there are multiple possible meanings to these words.


It is only in the confines of a particular situation can we know what is going on. This is why we call this phenomena the social construction of reality. It takes a social situation to know something about the meaning of "Fire. Fire." Society will provide social clues and cues based on experience and agreed upon meanings as to the dominant meanings of "Fire. Fire."


This is a subjective story which make sense in North American society. The two words evoke "panic" and "warning". They also provoke actions of panic to the warning. It is a warning that is immanent and happening in the present time. The warning is not like a warning that, "Something might happen, so be careful. You have been warned." No, this is "real". And there is more. Usually when we hear "Fire. Fire. we think in terms of a warning being issued in panic in a theater with people. Yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater is so emotionally charged is that everyone panics and rushes for the exits. This happens in movies, at musical concerts and in sports stadiums, etc. The "Fire. Fire." story is almost predictable. The only caveat is how many make it out and how many die inside.


This is not the only story that can be told about a fire. Suppose the theater manager came out and asked the audience to "leave by the side or front exits as a precaution". She would not have to say a precaution for what. The message becomes different because now the verbal context is different. She increases the chances people will leave in "an orderly fashion" complete with ushers leading the way "calmly". In fact things would be calmer if the manager did not use the code word "calm" as in "everyone stay calm" or " leave in an orderly fashion". These expressions are euphemisms for "Fire. Fire."


What I have presented to you is what social constuctivists call "deconstruction" of a story. The pieces are examined, the context analyzed, questions are asked, assumptions become curiosities, etc. This is an "easy" story to deconstruct because it is a predominant story; one with which most of us can identify.


Suppose the words "I love you" are spoken. There can be endless stories told using these three words. Everyone of them has a social context and a subjective meaning for both hearer and speaker. So varied and so complex and so numerous are the possibilities for different meanings attached to "I love you" as to become meaningless. We arrive at a point where certain assumptions are attached to different social situations in order to make sense of them. "I love you" spoken by a person to their spouse may have a different meaning that a rock star telling her audience "I love you". Even then we don't know what assumptions or meanings the words have in these two contexts.


It is "who says" that establishes what love means. And the "who says" isn't just one person. It is multiple voices of multiple cultures with multiple personal and social histories. Who knows who the who knows are? Again, this is why postmodernists say reality is subjective. Another way of saying this is "it depends" what "I love you" means. It depends on the many to decide "what does that mean?" One person's "I love you" might weigh more and mean more than an other's.


Postmodernists want there to be as many differences and as much diversity in as many cultures as possible so many will have "room" to participate in the societies they live in. From different stories about "Fire Fire" to "I love you".