Gestures

Appendix: Toward a General Theory of Gestures

161 Appendix toward a General theory of Gestures Motif A general theory of gestures would be a means of orienting ourselves in the circumstances in which we find ourselves with respect to things and people. It would be an “interface” theory, because it would draw diverse disciplines together, especially the various anthropologies, psychology, neurophysiology , and communication theory. So it would be a theory running across the branches of the tree of science and would above all bridge the gap between the natural and human sciences. This would be apparent not only from its methodology but also in its rejection of any claim to being “value-free.” That is, it would be aware of its instrumental character and would, even as it employed the methods of the so-called exact sciences, be engaged in effecting change in human beings. As an “interface” theory, it would break through the structures of the sciences as they have been elaborated and are currently institutionalized in universities and elsewhere. In this sense, it would have an antiacademic character. But it would also have an anti-ideological character, because although it would be interested in people and events, it would proceed with a minimum of assumptions. These aspects of the theory, namely, its interdisciplinary, antiacademic, and anti-ideological qualities, will presumably characterize a whole range of future theories. Accordingly, it would be a project pointing beyond the current crisis in the sciences. The impetus must come from communication theory, because the communicative aspect of a gesture overshadows all else. Yet it would not be a special area within communication theory. On the contrary, it would be a general theory, and communication theory would be concerned with one specialized aspect of gestures, namely, the communicative. So communication theory would not be concerned with 162 aPPendix the phenomenon of gesture among other phenomena. Rather, it would be subsumed under the general theory of gesture. Communication theory, which is currently wedged into the structure of the sciences like a foreign body, would then find its “organic” place in a restructured science. Defining Competencies Gesture can be seen as a kind of movement. For this purpose, movements can be classified as (1) those which can be adequately explained through an understanding of the effects of external forces on the moving bodies; (2) those which require an understanding of the effect of forces within the moving body to be adequately explained; and (3) those that can be explained as in class 2, but for which such an explanation is unsatisfying. An example of class 1 would be an object in free fall; of class 2, the swimming movements of an amoeba; of class 3, the movement of the hand in writing. A partial overlap in categories would not be important to such a classification. Because the criterion of classification is epistemological, it would depend only on the way the movement is recognized. Movements of class (3) would be called “gestures” and taken to form the field of competence for a general theory of gestures. What separates gestures defined in this way from other movements is their epistemological overdetermination. They can be explained too well, to put it paradoxically. When I lift my arm, I can explain the movement perfectly well as the result of a force vector affecting the arm from the outside. This thesis leaves nothing unexplained. But strangely, a mechanical explanation misses the core of the movement, leaving the observer dissatisfied (unless an eighteenth-century type of mechanical explanation is specifically being sought). Such dissatisfaction with this kind of “full explanation ” arises because many inner forces have taken part in the movement and have not been acknowledged. I can give a “better” explanation of the arm movement if I take such vectors into account. It will become clear in the process that these vectors come from diverse ontological fields. The arm movement involves physiological, psychological, cultural, economic, and other factors in equal measure, for example. The arm movement can then be explained as typically “human” or “neurotic,” or “Brazilian” or “bourgeois.” The arm movement can be fully explained at any of these aPPendix 163 levels. It is an entirely physiological, psychological, and so on, phenomenon. Yet any of these kinds of explanation leaves a residual dissatisfaction (unless one indulges in vitalism, psychologism, culturalism, economism, or similar ideologies) because they all bypass the heart of the phenomenon. Nor can the dissatisfaction be resolved through a combination of various...