Verbatim quote · defining passage

“Signification is not a mechanism ; its functioning depends on the fact that each use of a “symbolic” sign reactivates, with vastly diminished affect, the originary sacred context. This context is, however little we are conscious of it, a collective one; the sign is a mode of communication whose reduction to a solipsistic recording of thought distorts its function beyond repair. In the originary event, the movement of appropriative intent toward the object becomes a signifying gesture representing the object.”

— Eric Gans, Return of the Sacred I – The Sacred and the Significant · Saturday, December 17th, 2005 · Chronicles of Love & Resentment