Verbatim quote · from the corpus

“In GA’s originary hypothesis, the behavioral context for the emergence of language and human consciousness is the scene of representation , which emerged as a means for countering the breakdown of the old Alpha-Beta serial distribution system. According to the old system, the hominids would be assembled in a quasi-ritualized configuration centered on an appetitive object—for example, a large animal scavenged or hunted—but this activity would become a scene only once the serial appropriation of the object came to be deferred by what we may call after Jacques Derrida the différance of appropriative activity toward the object (see his “Différance”; Margins of Philosophy , trans. Alan Bass [Chicago & London: Chicago University Press, 1982]). The participants, no longer guided by the serial distribution mechanism, would first, like our partygoers before the canapé, seek tentatively to appropriate the object without daring to terminate their gesture, and this aborted gesture of appropriation would gradually come to be interpreted as a sign referring to the object as one that could not be immediately appropriated. Through the mutual communication of this gesture, the group could then come to the point where they would share the object equally among themselves, as in tribal ceremonies that exist to this day.”

— Eric Gans, The scene of culture and consciousness I · Saturday, December 2nd, 2023 · Chronicles of Love & Resentment