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Mimesis, Imitation Or Appellation to the Memory

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Mimesis, Imitation Or Appellation to the Memory Mimesis, imitation or appellation to the memory Prof. Davit Hovhannisyan Center for Civilization and Cultural Studies, YSU Depository of Absolute Experience DAE For a moment let’s imagine an abstract library that contains all sign systems that ever existed: systems of signs that in one way or another have been transmitting information regarding all the experience of mankind accumulated in time. Let’s call it a depository of Absolute Experience. Virtually every second of our lives we make use of this depository but each time we translate the knowledge that we need into a new sign system, however more often we interpret it and assign new meanings and sense to the signs under the influence of three ever-changing factors: • nature and climate, • the cultural code, • civilizational institutions and rules. DAE Nature and Climate NC CC CIR Cultural Code Civilizational Institutions and Rules In case of dramatic changes of one of the factors the other two also undergo major changes while the actualization of the knowledge from the depository also acquires new, revolutionary dimensions. DAE NC CC CIR AE Actualized Experience NSV New System of Values The actualized experience (in its new forms and senses) is expressed through the formation of a new system of values, which is meant to adapt the given community to new realties in the most effective way. Obviously in critical moments of history when a given group only enters the phase of the process of adaptation, the efforts of all the members of the group are joint together, which drastically limits the possibility of the existence of different value systems. DAE NC CC CIR AE NSV MS Mythological System of the Given Society (or Cultural Code) The system of values is realized or expressed through the cultural code, which in its turn is fixed in the mythologems which shape the mythological system of the given society allowing to create a consistent, harmonious and efficient world picture. As I understand it the mythological system is the school bag of a pupil with all the textbooks, a text without a plot, beginning, end and culmination, but with chapters and sections The mythological system (or – cultural code) is expressed through sign systems, which are synchronized and combined with rituals that introduce the myths into everyday routine of the society. DAE NC CC CIR AE NSV MS SS Sign System (Rituals) The rituals in their turn shape the environment/ habitat of the society, itemize the codes, which leads to the generation of new meanings and senses within adapted sign systems. DAE NC CC CIR AE NSV MS SS HS Environment /Habitat of the Society The environment - habitat shapes the person, and sometimes the personality. In its permanent development it absorbs civilizational streams of other communities, however it recognizes only those elements that it capable of identifying based on the sign systems that are well known to it. A person has to adopt to an altered environment, which presupposes a painful process of revisiting the system of values (what is good and what is bad), perceiving new mythologems, observing new rituals, while he himself is still in the process of re-conceptualizing the very changes of the environment translating them into a habitual cultural code. This is why the mythologeme of the revival of nature is different everywhere and is realized through local mythemes. The same applies to the mythologeme of democracy. The impact of the elements of the civilizational flow (very rarely of a whole system) on the environment –habitat leads to contradictions in the picture of world. To resolve these contradictions the Man steps out who invents or does something that affects one of the factors of influence, and through that one it alters also the other two. The wheel turns faster… DAE NC CC CIR AE NSV MS SS HS NP 1. The internet, satellite television, globalization processes in the economy etc. lead to the crisis of the USSR. Perestroyka, Glasnost, Gorbachov etc. 2. Armenia. 1988. The day is breaking. The streets of Yerevan are crowded with hundreds of thousands of people who in a single impulse are demanding the reunion of Armenia and Karabakh. This demand is a reaction to the call of Karabakhians. Many of the people that were in the streets had never had any interest in politics, some of them have never heard that an issue like that ever existed. At this stage leaders emerge that upstage the immediate, first hand carriers of the ideas -iconic figures such as Igor Muradyan, Zori Balayan. 3. The new leaders represent a wide spector and are rather differently marked, but all of them are representatives of the intelligentsia, i.e. people who are paid exclusively by the state for the intellectual service that they provided to meet the needs of the state. They establish APM which unites nationalists, revanchists, liberals, democrats, communists, Christian socialists, Turkophobes, Russophobes etc. 4. The first slogans of those days were: “Reunion” (national discourse), “Lenin, Party, Gorbachov” (democratic discourse). Naturally the constituents of the second slogan should be interpreted in the meanings that were assigned within the framework of a concrete historical-cultural situation. Spitak Earthquake is another event- illustration – however this is not the mythologeme of the “Bitter destiny of Armenians” as it used to be always but rather a test of strength and firmness”. 5. Thus the sign systems that are taken from the depository re those that are associated with two man value systems- national and democratic . the basic slogans of the time are : “Independence”, “Liberty, equality brotherhood” , “”Freedom and Independence” and others that reiterated the same meanings in various senses. However there were also new ones, such as “Armenian nation- your strength is in your unity”, “Justice” in terms of restoring historical justice, as well as a number of newly actualized concepts connected with the latter (mythologemes of Lost Paradise,the downfall of the great kingdom, the return to the promised land) connected with two main value systems are actualized from the Depository. However it should be taken into account that while as any other nation applying adaptation mechanisms the Armenian society in the process of adapting key values has always been in the process of mimesis. We have crucified our own Christ (Gregory the Illuminator) to become Christian/ to turn to Christianity, we have created our own mimes that created an identical copy of the value system that aspired to become the dominating one. 6. All of these mythologemes are realized through rituals and symbols that on the one hand are connected with ethno-religious mythologemes such as the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholocos, the Memorial to the victims of the Genocide, Noah’s Ark) and the national liberation struggle against the Ottoman Empire and Turkey (symbols and attributes of Armenian statehood, imitating the rituals of the beginning of the century, the images of Fidai/ solders of the liberation army). On the other hand they are connected with the struggle against USSR, which later grew into Russophobia in certain groups, and the liberal-democratic world outlook, (Law, Constitution, Parliament, Free Market, Referendum elections etc.). 7.The environment changes: national colours, the portraits of PolitBuro Members are substituted by pictures of the leaders of Panarmenian National Movement and heroes of the national liberation struggle, the book store is substituted by a casino, the Lenin Square by the Republic Square (it is interesting that after taking down the Lenin monument after long discussion and debates a decision was made to leave the place empty). It becomes fashionable to wear a typical Fedai mustache and military clothing. Permanent meetings, rallies, demonstrations, election campaigns pictures of candidates, the return of traditional parties. It should be mentioned that the depicted picture can be made much more detailed without the risk of becoming wordy, because the destruction and ruin of a mythological system the signs of which are preserved not only in the minds of people but also for instance in such manifestations as the stiff opposition to the attempts to finally bury Lenin, have released the creative potential of people who were re-conceptualizing and interpreting their actualized experience on daily basis. 8. Romantic crowds, frightened militia, pragmatic new democrats (including the runaway communists), the struggle within Panarmenian Movement between two value systems on the one hand and the cynicism of those who have enjoyed the power and the romanticism and fierce opposition of Puritans. The Fidais of Asphalt, the criminals on the one hand and the volunteers who fought in the front. And all this happened on the background of the aftermaths of the earthquake, the blockade and destruction of connection within the USSR. The opening of borders, immigration, shutting down factories, unemployment war, but at the same time an unprecedented sense of union among those who remained in the country. 8. Romantic crowds, frightened militia, pragmatic new democrats (including the runaway communists), the struggle within Panarmenian Movement between two value systems on the one hand and the cynicism of those who have enjoyed the power and the romanticism and fierce opposition of Puritans. The Fidais of Asphalt, the criminals on the one hand and the volunteers who fought in the front. And all this happened on the background of the aftermaths of the earthquake, the blockade and destruction of connection within the USSR. The opening of borders, immigration, shutting down factories, unemployment war, but at the same time an unprecedented sense of union among those who remained in the country. 9. The last constituent of the model is the new man, that is already shaped in the circle of concepts of the new value system. This is where the problems really begin, because the new man who inherited the traditions of the Ottoman Empire and the Soviet Union, who has long ago lost the skills of social cooperation and statehood building, has a vague idea about the rule of Law, independence of the three branches of power, human rights, that are guaranteed by the law etc.
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