Verbatim quote · from the corpus

“The disciplines claim knowledge of the mind, the social, religion, customs, the state, beauty and so on, as things in themselves, while for the disciplinary space of originary thinking the practices given these names are all representations by those on the margins of the center. The study of this practice of representation is what I have been calling, on occasion, “anthropomorphics.” The originary sign inaugurates the human, but the most “human” figure there is the central object, the prey/God of the group. The central being is most fully intentional participant on the scene: he “understands” the desires animating the members of the group, along with the ruin to which they lead, while, finally, repelling the violent approach to itself. To the extent that the human participants grasp any of this, it is through the center as a kind of mirror of each other’s intentions. This relation to the center continues as the ritual repetition of the originary scene is explained mythologically, as stories in which the central object is, first, the only, and, then, the main, “character.” Only gradually are the participants on the margin attributed a kind of centrality and therefore agency of their own—still, though, only borrowed from the center. This remains the case today, and will remain the case for as long as there are humans, because this is what or who humans are: the modes of central being we now borrow from are now figures called “society,” “ideology,” “the unconscious,” “the media,” and so on.”

— Adam Katz, The Disciplines, the Imperative of the Center, the Generative Thought Experiment · Jul 2018 · GABlog