Concept
Firstness
The originary priority of the one who signs first — and the resentment that priority arouses
Ask AI about Firstness“It is to the freedom that made the sign possible in the first place, and that permits its use to transcend the symmetry of the communal sharing of meaning that makes human existence possible, that I have given the name of firstness , in order to emphasize the impossibility of avoiding priority even in the most utopian vision of the human community. It is essential to point out that the exchange of signs, and similar cultural acts, are the only ones that permit the seamless adoption of an individual’s innovation by the entire community, and that it is precisely this possibility of firstness that makes it the foundation of the human community.”
From the Archive
“What I would like to develop here is the problematic that the originary role of firstness introduces into the human community, defined from the outset by its symmetry in relation to a central sacred object of desire, the relation to which provides the fundamental model of both transcendence and resentment.”
“But the destiny of the firstness of the originary sign is to dissolve itself in the collective reciprocity of its exchange, the “moral model” that is the universal, as opposed to the particular, realization of originary humanity. Not everyone can be, or must be, first; but everyone has to participate in reciprocity, everyone must be “moral.” A firstness that fails to lead to this universal exchange is not firstness at all, but an aberration that risks provoking, in Girardian terms, “emissary” violence.”
“For in more advanced modes of social organization, firstness will become a major force, and this could not be the case were it not present in latent form from the beginning, in the egalitarian societies we presume existed at the origin of humanity in contrast with the pecking-order hierarchies of apes.”
“The moral reciprocity of humans depends on the firstness of gods, and minimally, of the One God who still rules the West; human firstness is a reflection of divine firstness.”
“Firstness, then, in these later rememberings, would always involve a willingness to risk scapegoating and its success would be world-historical precisely because that possibility was transcended.”
“A sign can only be meaningful insofar as it has previously generated meaning, but it can also only be meaningful if it represents a new beginning.”
AI Overview
— AI-generated synthesis. The archive passages above are the primary source.Firstness is Adam Katz's amendment to the originary scene, adopted by Gans as a neologism rather than a borrowing. The scene is fundamentally symmetrical — all participants converge on the central sacred object in identical relation to it — yet someone must have emitted the aborted gesture of appropriation first, before it could be imitated as a sign. This introduces "an element of asymmetry" at the outset, "the problematic that the originary role of firstness introduces into the human community, defined from the outset by its symmetry in relation to a central sacred object of desire." In the event itself firstness has no salience: once the others imitate the first sign-user, no trace of priority survives. But precisely because signs are the one thing an individual can create and give away to everyone's gain, this "possibility of firstness" becomes "the foundation of the human community" and, in later social organization, "a major force."
Firstness is distinct from succession, which governs the orderly transmission of a center across time; firstness concerns the sheer priority of being first and the danger that priority incurs. Its destiny is self-cancelling — "the destiny of the firstness of the originary sign is to dissolve itself in the collective reciprocity of its exchange," and "a firstness that fails to lead to this universal exchange is not firstness at all, but an aberration" that provokes emissary violence. Firstness thus stands in permanent tension with the moral model of reciprocity: not everyone can be first, but everyone must be moral. Because human firstness is figured as "a reflection of divine firstness," it is bound up with the sacred and the deferral of appropriation, and because it is inseparable from the resentment it arouses, it always carries, per the seed, "a willingness to risk scapegoating."
Across the Corpus
How this idea is developed elsewhere in the archive, earliest to latest.
“There is surely an opportunity here for an heuristic with the flexibility and precision of GA to contribute significantly to our culture’s self-understanding, and part of the purpose of this initial exploration is to suggest some of the potential lines of inquiry. The GA definition of firstness, to remind ourselves, does not require an action, even if on…”
“The notion of firstness was first introduced into GA by Adam Katz as an “amendment” to my original conception of the originary event in his article “Remembering Amalek: 9/11 and Generative Thinking” ( Anthropoetics X, 2; Fall 2004/Winter 2005). The term itself comes from Charles S. Peirce, where it refers to a pure qualitative experience. Adam identifies…”
“Let me begin by recalling the GA definition of firstness: priority as a mimetic model that in the overall context of moral reciprocity is a form of deferred equality: the temporarily exclusive possession of what will in principle benefit everyone. The originary example of firstness, as Adam Katz first pointed out, is the conversion of the “aborted gesture…”
“for Adam Katz In a response to Chronicle 705 (“The Jews”), Adam suggested that the uniqueness of the Jews should be “thought in terms of some particular, ongoing, historical relationship between the Jews and mimesis.” This particularity is, in a word, what I have been calling firstness . My use of the term is something of a neologism. In C. S. Peirce’s…”
“It is to the freedom that made the sign possible in the first place, and that permits its use to transcend the symmetry of the communal sharing of meaning that makes human existence possible, that I have given the name of firstness , in order to emphasize the impossibility of avoiding priority even in the most utopian vision of the human community. It is…”
“The first sign could only have operated successfully if the proto-mimetic-desire of these proto-humans made them capable of imitating (rather than turning against) the one or more individuals who first thought to abort their appropriative gestures and conceive them as “meaningful” in themselves, as possessing a form . I will always be grateful to Adam Katz…”
“Once the others have imitated the first sign-user to become sign-users themselves, they would have no reason to recall the first’s priority. The event is presumably generated, we recall, by the breakdown of animal hierarchy, where the Alpha animal’s “going first” was the very principle of order. But unlike taking the first piece of meat, producing the first…”
“One wants to “become God” precisely to the extent that one knows this to be impossible; it is the archetype of paradoxical desire. For to “want to be first” implies that firstness exists as an object of desire, and such cannot be the case in the absence of the specifically human mode of firstness, which alone truly deserves the name (in contrast with…”
“As readers of these Chronicles know, the idea of “firstness” was introduced into the originary event by Adam Katz in his article “ Remembering Amalek: 9/11 and Generative Thinking ” in Anthropoetics X, 2 (Spring 2005). This involved a significant modification of the symmetry of the originary scene, the implications of which have been a source of…”
“But the originary manifestation of firstness reminds us that human culture does not create a “collective consciousness,” that each individual adheres to it on his own terms, and that although our potential for mimetic rivalry is deferred in the originary scene, it cannot be permanently squelched. I would propose that in our desire to understand the cultural…”
Key Texts
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