The General Theory of Capital: Self-Reproduction of Humans Through Increasing Meanings - страница 14

● First, the environment is reflected in humans, their instincts, practices and intellects, thus forming the content of meanings. The plane of content embraces the significance of meanings. Meaning as such is often identified with the signification or signified. However, although the signified is in some ways closest to the human mind, meaning cannot be reduced to it.

● Second, humans, their motives, preferences and goals are reflected in the environment, shaping the expression of meanings. The expression plane contains signs as material aspects of meaning or signifiers. Man himself as a biocultural being, as a product of both biological and cultural evolution, is also to some extent an expression of meaning.

● Third, stable moments of interaction between humans and the environment are reflected in human activity and its results, forming its norms. The norms plane compiles the stable ways of functioning or principles and rules of meanings.

Three functions and three planes of meaning reveal the structure of culture. The following “table” demonstrates the nodal points at which functions and planes of meaning overlap. We do not give detailed explanations for the “table,” but invite the reader to look into it for himself. It should be noted that the actual structure of culture is of course much less ordered than shown in the “table,” which only serves to simplify and visually explain our theses.

Illustration 1. The structure of culture

* Programs and techniques are understood here in the broadest sense, like any program and any method of material action. W. B. Arthur uses the term “design” in this case (Arthur 2011, p. 91).

The initial stage of the evolution of meanings was characterized by a small variety of actions and their results. Stone and wooden tools, rules of nomadic life, knowledge and skills of hunting and gathering, simple oral language and fetishistic ideas made up the meager stock of Paleolithic meanings. The actions of Paleolithic man were limited to the appropriation and consumption of natural objects, and the means of his activity were reduced to consumer articles. He was just beginning to form a cultural niche, his home in the natural environment.