Mead sobre el gesto como símbolo
lunes, 23 de febrero de 2015
Mead sobre el gesto como símbolo
Muchos temas de interés toca George Herbert Mead en su libro Mind, Self, and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist—que viene a ser el fundamento teórico del interaccionismo simbólico. Aquí puede leerse algo más sobre los principios del interaccionismo simbólico.
Una de las cuestiones teóricas centrales es relativa a la naturaleza simbólica del lenguaje humano, diferenciándolo de la comunicación animal, pues el lenguaje es por su propia naturaleza ya simbólico e interaccional. El lenguaje surge en un proceso de interacción social dialéctica, en el que una acción social, vocalización, gesto, etc., responde a otro de modo no automático, y da lugar a una respuesta diferente, que se retroalimenta de la reacción observada y de la respuesta obtenida. De esta manera, no sólo las palabras, sino tambien los gestos humanos, tienen un sentido y estructura muy diferente a los gestos y sonidos de los animales. Y aquí reproduzco este pasaje donde comienza Mead a exponer su noción con una crítica al darwinismo. Pero mi intención es relacionar esta cuestión con otra teoría del gesto, no precisamente darwinista, a la que volvemos luego. El texto viene de la introducción de Mead al libro Mind, Self, and Society, "The point of view of social behaviorism".
One of the important documents in the history of modern psychology, particularly for the psychology of language, is Darwin's Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Here Darwin carried over his theory of evolution into the field of what we call "conscious experience." What Darwin did was to show that there sas a whole series of acts or beginnings of acts which called out certain responses that do express emotions. If one animal attacks another, or is on the point of attacking, or of taking the bone of another dog, that action calls out violent responses whjich express the anger of a second dog. There we have a set of attitudes which express the emotional attitude of dogs; and we can carry this analysis into the human expression of emotion.
The part of our organism that most vividly and readily expresses the emotions is the face, and Darwin studied the face from this point of view. He took, naturally, the actor, the man whose business it is to express the emotions by the movements of the countenance, and studied the muscles themselves; and in studying them he undertook to show what the value of these changes of the face might be in the actual act. We speak of such expressions as those of anger, and note the way in which the blood may suffuse the face at one stage and then leave it at another. Darwin studied the blood flow in fear and in terror. In these emotions one can find changes taking place in the blood flow itself. These changes have their value. They represent, of course, changes in the circulation of blood in the acts. These actions are generally actions which are rapid and can only take place if the blood is flowing rapidly. There must be a change in the rhythm of circulation and this generally registers itself in the countenance.
Many of our acts of hostility exhibit themselves in attitudes of the face similar to animals who attack with their teeth. The attitude, or in a more generalized term, the gesture, has been preserved after the value of the act has disappeared. The title of Darwin's work indicates his point of approach. He was dealing with these gestures, these attitudes, as expressive of emotions and assuming at the time that the gesture has this furnction of expressing the emotions. That attitude has been preserved, on this view, after the value of the act has disappeared. This gesture seems to remain for the purpose of expressing emotions. One naturally assumed there an attitude in the experience of animals which answers in some sense to those of the human animal. One could apply the doctrine of the survival of the fittest here also. The implication in this particular case was that these gestures or attitudes had lost the value which they had in the original acts, and yet had survived. The indication was that they had survived because they served certain valuable functions, and the suggestion was that this was the expression of the emotions. That attitude on Darwin's part is reflected in the work of other psychologists, men who were interested, as Darwin was, in the study of the act, in the information that is conveyed by one individual to another by his attitude. They assume that these acts had a reason for existence because they expressed something in the mind of the individual. It is an approach like that of the philologist. They assume that language existed for the purpose of conveying certain ideas, certain feelings.
If one considers, he realizes that this is a false approach. It is quite impossible to assume that animals do undertake to express their emotions. They certainly do not undertake to express them for the benefit of other animals. The most that can be said is that the "expressions" did set free a certain emotion in the individual, an escape valve, so to speak, an emotional attitude which the animal needed, in some sense, to get rid of. They certainly could not exist in these lower animals as means of expressing emotions; we cannot approach them from the point of view of expressing a content in the mind of the individual. We can, of course, see how, for the actor, they may become definitely a language. An actor, for example, may undertake to express his rage, and he may do it by an expression of the countenance, and so convey to the audience the emotion he intended. However, he is not expressing his own emotion but simply conveying to the audience the evidence of anger, and if he is conveying to the audience the evidence of anger, and if he is successful he may doe it more effectively, as far as the audience is concerned, than a person who is in reality angered. There we have these gestures serving the purpose of expression of the emotions, but we cannot conceive that they arose as such a language in order to express emotion. Language, then, has to be studied from the point of view of the gestural type of conduct whithin which it existed without being as such a definite language. And we have to see how the communicative function could have arisen out of that prior sort of conduct.
The psychology of Darwin assumed that emotion was a psychological state, a state of consciousness, and that this state could not itself be formulated in terms of the attitude or the behavior of the form. It was assumed that the emotion is there and that certain movements might give evidence of it. The evidence would be received and acted upon by other forms that were fashioned like itself. That is, it presupposed the conscious state over against the biological organism. The conscious state was that which was to be expressed in the gesture or the attitude. It was to be expressed in behavior and to be recognized in some fashion as existent in the consciousness of the other form through this medium of expression. Such was the general psychological attitude whicvh Darwin accepted.
Contrary to Darwin, however, we find no evidence for the prior existence of consciousness as something which brings about behavior on the part of one organism that is of such a sort as to call forth an adjustive response on the part of another organism, without itself being dependent on such behavior. We are rather forced to conclude that consciousness is an emergent from such behavior; that so far from being a precondition of the social act, the social act is the precondition of it. The mechanism in the social act can be traced out without introducing into it the conception of consciousness as a separable element within the act; hence the social act, in its more elementary stages or forms, is possible without, or apart from some form of consciousness. (Mind, Self, & Society 15-18).
The part of our organism that most vividly and readily expresses the emotions is the face, and Darwin studied the face from this point of view. He took, naturally, the actor, the man whose business it is to express the emotions by the movements of the countenance, and studied the muscles themselves; and in studying them he undertook to show what the value of these changes of the face might be in the actual act. We speak of such expressions as those of anger, and note the way in which the blood may suffuse the face at one stage and then leave it at another. Darwin studied the blood flow in fear and in terror. In these emotions one can find changes taking place in the blood flow itself. These changes have their value. They represent, of course, changes in the circulation of blood in the acts. These actions are generally actions which are rapid and can only take place if the blood is flowing rapidly. There must be a change in the rhythm of circulation and this generally registers itself in the countenance.
Many of our acts of hostility exhibit themselves in attitudes of the face similar to animals who attack with their teeth. The attitude, or in a more generalized term, the gesture, has been preserved after the value of the act has disappeared. The title of Darwin's work indicates his point of approach. He was dealing with these gestures, these attitudes, as expressive of emotions and assuming at the time that the gesture has this furnction of expressing the emotions. That attitude has been preserved, on this view, after the value of the act has disappeared. This gesture seems to remain for the purpose of expressing emotions. One naturally assumed there an attitude in the experience of animals which answers in some sense to those of the human animal. One could apply the doctrine of the survival of the fittest here also. The implication in this particular case was that these gestures or attitudes had lost the value which they had in the original acts, and yet had survived. The indication was that they had survived because they served certain valuable functions, and the suggestion was that this was the expression of the emotions. That attitude on Darwin's part is reflected in the work of other psychologists, men who were interested, as Darwin was, in the study of the act, in the information that is conveyed by one individual to another by his attitude. They assume that these acts had a reason for existence because they expressed something in the mind of the individual. It is an approach like that of the philologist. They assume that language existed for the purpose of conveying certain ideas, certain feelings.
If one considers, he realizes that this is a false approach. It is quite impossible to assume that animals do undertake to express their emotions. They certainly do not undertake to express them for the benefit of other animals. The most that can be said is that the "expressions" did set free a certain emotion in the individual, an escape valve, so to speak, an emotional attitude which the animal needed, in some sense, to get rid of. They certainly could not exist in these lower animals as means of expressing emotions; we cannot approach them from the point of view of expressing a content in the mind of the individual. We can, of course, see how, for the actor, they may become definitely a language. An actor, for example, may undertake to express his rage, and he may do it by an expression of the countenance, and so convey to the audience the emotion he intended. However, he is not expressing his own emotion but simply conveying to the audience the evidence of anger, and if he is conveying to the audience the evidence of anger, and if he is successful he may doe it more effectively, as far as the audience is concerned, than a person who is in reality angered. There we have these gestures serving the purpose of expression of the emotions, but we cannot conceive that they arose as such a language in order to express emotion. Language, then, has to be studied from the point of view of the gestural type of conduct whithin which it existed without being as such a definite language. And we have to see how the communicative function could have arisen out of that prior sort of conduct.
The psychology of Darwin assumed that emotion was a psychological state, a state of consciousness, and that this state could not itself be formulated in terms of the attitude or the behavior of the form. It was assumed that the emotion is there and that certain movements might give evidence of it. The evidence would be received and acted upon by other forms that were fashioned like itself. That is, it presupposed the conscious state over against the biological organism. The conscious state was that which was to be expressed in the gesture or the attitude. It was to be expressed in behavior and to be recognized in some fashion as existent in the consciousness of the other form through this medium of expression. Such was the general psychological attitude whicvh Darwin accepted.
Contrary to Darwin, however, we find no evidence for the prior existence of consciousness as something which brings about behavior on the part of one organism that is of such a sort as to call forth an adjustive response on the part of another organism, without itself being dependent on such behavior. We are rather forced to conclude that consciousness is an emergent from such behavior; that so far from being a precondition of the social act, the social act is the precondition of it. The mechanism in the social act can be traced out without introducing into it the conception of consciousness as a separable element within the act; hence the social act, in its more elementary stages or forms, is possible without, or apart from some form of consciousness. (Mind, Self, & Society 15-18).
La emergencia de la consciencia compleja se dará, para Mead, unida a las self-indications que se dirige el organismo a sí mismo, dividiéndose en varios roles interaccionales (interiorizados) y constituyendo así lo que es propiamente una mente humana.
Se trata de un continuo, ciertamente, pues si Mead arguye contra Darwin es precisamente para enfatizar la necesidad de una concepción todavía más evolucionista de la mente, una que la conciba realmente como fenómeno emergente a partir de la interacción social y no cometa la falacia retrospectivizante (hindsight bias, aunque Mead no utiliza el término) que comete Darwin al hablar de la "expresión" de los animales. Cabe incluso, aun manteniendo la corrección de Mead en sus líneas generales, que Darwin tenga razón y que las mentes animales sean, en los animales más complejos y gesticulantes, más simbólicas de lo que se ha venido considerando, con un cierto despego ya entre el gesto como producto de los movimientos no reflexivos del animal, y el gesto como una modalidad de interacción comunicativa ya parcialmente simbolizada. Ciertamente no sólo las llamadas de los monos, y sus gestos faciales, sino los rugidos de los leones o los juegos de los perros tienen un valor simbólico complejo que parece claro, y que no vamos a comentar más (se lo dejamos a algún etólogo). Y es que no sólo el hombre, sino todos estos animales son producto de la ecología de su interacción social tanto en sus cuerpos como en sus mentes. Es revelador el siguiente pasaje de Mead en tanto que revela una limitación de su perspectiva sobre la complejidad evolutiva que subyace a la mente humana, y animal. Habla de las limitaciones que podemos ascribir al concepto de imitación en el comportamiento humano y animal:
We argued that there is no evidence of any general tendency on the part of forms to imitate each other. If one attempts to state such a tendency it breaks down mechanically. It would mean that we have a tendency to do the same thing that other people are doing, and also that these tendencies are not only in our nature, but also that they are attached to certain specific stimuli which mean what the other people are doing. The sight of one person doing something would be a stimulus to another person to do the same thing. We should have to assume that what the person is doing is alreay a reaction that is in the nature of the imitating individual. It would mean that we have in our nature already all of these various activities, and that they are called out by the sight of other people doing the same thing. It is a perfectly impossible assumption. (Mind, Self, & Society 58)
Bueno, está acreditado que bostezamos cuando alguien bosteza a nuestro lado—es más, que esto sucede en distintas especies de animales, pues parece ser un reflejo de cierta respetable antigüedad evolutiva. Más evolucionado quizá sea otro fenómeno que contradice palmariamente a Mead cuando cree que es ésta una "impossible assumption": las neuronas espejo, circuitos mentales que se activan en la mente de un espectador, asociados a una acción gestual o manipulativa, cuando ven esa acción realizada por otro sujeto. Se dan abundantemente en los monos y desde luego también en los seres humanos, y parecen ser una parte importante de nuestra cognición y de nuestra sociabilidad. La base neurológica de la intersubjetividad, me gusta a mí llamarlas. Estas neuronas muestran que está incorporada en nuestra percepción la sociabilidad, la respuesta a las acciones de los demás. Una respuesta que por cierto ayuda a procesar la acción del otro con los mismos circuitos cerebrales que realizarían la nuestra, haciéndola así más comprensible, más comprendida "des dentro"—pero es una respuesta que tiene que ir acompañada de su inhibición, porque en efecto (si exceptuamos casos patológicos) tiene razón Mead cuando dice que no tendemos a hacer lo que vemos hacer a los demás, al menos no automáticamente.... aunque, como vemos, en cierto modo sí tendemos, y a veces hasta lo hacemos.
Ver sobre esta cuestión un par de posts anteriores sobre las neuronas espejo y la intersubjetividad:
García Landa, José Ángel. "Neuronas espejo y visión… de la visión." In García Landa, Vanity Fea 14 April 2010.*
http://vanityfea.blogspot.com/2010/04/neuronas-espejo-y-vision-de-la-vision.html
2010
_____. "Redes de mentes conectadas." In García Landa, Vanity Fea 28 April 2010.* (Mirror neurons).
http://vanityfea.blogspot.com/2010/04/redes-de-mentes-conectadas.html
2010
_____. "Embodied Intersubjectivity." In García Landa, Vanity Fea 12 Jan. 2012.* (Vittorio Gallese, I. A. Richards, mirror neurons).
http://vanityfea.blogspot.com/2012/01/embodied-intersubjectivity.html
2012
O estos vídeos:
Punset, Eduard, et al. "Redes 56: Mentes conectadas sin brujería." Redes para la ciencia / Blip TV (Mirror neurons).
http://www.redesparalaciencia.com/2644/redes/2010/redes-56-mentes-conectadas-sin-brujeria
2010
Ramachandran, V. S. "The Neurons that Shaped Civilization." Videotalk at TED (Jan 2010).*
http://www.ted.com/talks/vs_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_shaped_civilization.html
2010
Pero pasando a otra cuestión, más allá del grado de evolución y simbolismo de las mentes animales, me interesa relacionar la discusión de Mead con un debate más antiguo sobre la naturaleza del teatro—aquél que formuló Diderot en su Paradoxe sur le Comédien y que venía a oponer la actuación "vivida" a la meramente "vívida", o los gestos auténticos y surgidos desde dentro frente al lenguaje convencionalizado y las pasiones expresivamente significadas—Stanislavsky contra Garrick, por así decirlo. Esta polémica la formuló William Archer en la época victoriana como la oposición entre rostros y máscaras.
Tal como lo presenta Mead, el actor metódico del Actor's Studio se animaliza a sí mismo, y produce expresiones no simbólicas, mientras que un actor experimentado que domina su oficio sin vivir su personaje produce gestos simbólicos, quizá indistinguibles desde fuera y aparentemente expresión de una interioridad—pero más posiblemente bien discernibles como convención a una distancia determinada.
Queda la sospecha terrible, a la que invita también la psicología de Mead, de que la expresión humana auténtica esté tan filtrada por la convención y la significación que no tenga sentido realmente esta distinción. Que cuando Garrick expresa una pasión convencionalmente, no está tan lejano de un actor del Method que se convence a sí mismo (actuando incluso ante sí mismo, por así decirlo) de que está viviendo realmente ese personaje y esa emoción... aunque el espectador interno asiste en su asiento a ese drama interno, no decimos que no hasta cierto punto conmovido por la actuación.
En fin, quería presentar este debate en torno a Mead y a la emergencia de la consciencia como continuación del artículo que dediqué a la teoría dramática de Diderot en "Garrick, Shakespeare, y la paradoja del comediante." Y quizá también ya puestos, quien quiera puede leer sobre la teoría dramatística de la conciencia en mi artículo sobre "Goffman: El teatro de la interioridad", y en "Interacción internalizada: El desarrollo especular del lenguaje y del orden simbólico."
Para más sobre actuación y neuronas espejo podemos oír este debate del Philoctetes Center:
Brown, Blair, Vittorio Gallese, et al. "Acting and Mirror Neurons." Round table discussion at the Philoctetes Center. YouTube (philoctetesctr) 29 Nov. 2007.*
http://youtu.be/loB-Lg0X1qo
2013
