Abstract
What is the role of culture in generating new avenues for social action? What is the explanatory power of discourse? And how is it that we can account for the tension between the meanings crystallized and inscribed in texts and those actualized in practice?
In the ambitious Meaning in Action: Outline of an Integral Theory of Culture, cultural theorist Rein Raud combines cultural approaches in sociology with semiotics, anthropology, and cultural studies in order to provide an answer. His theory departs from the strong program in cultural sociology of Jeffrey Alexander, probably his closest interlocutor within sociology, by focusing less on the study of cultural pragmatics and more on the “langue” aspect of how meaning is put together, the conditions under which certain utterances and claims are made possible.
The book discusses the binary nature of cultural phenomena. Culture operates either in texts with which individuals enter into a dialogue as they become subjects; or in the signifying acts with which they engage to produce and renew not only the participants but the texts themselves. Chapter Two is of particular significance in this respect, as it presents a theory of signification anchored in the distinction between intra-linguistic concepts—those defined in relation to a conceptual network of preexisting meanings—and experiential ones, mostly inarticulate definitions that gain clarity, definition, and potency over time and can eventually be repeated, gain indexical character, and end up generating a more stable conceptual construction. By doing this, the author claims to move us from a triangle-like semantic structure (made of thought, symbol, and referent) to a trapezoidal one, in which concepts are derived both from the system of symbols and from pointing at the world. The latter become bids that have to be evaluated and sanctioned and, if they are positively endorsed, become claims that bring about cultural change.
Chapter Three deals with the textual aspect of culture, advancing two intertwined concepts to make sense of how cultural objects are hierarchically organized: base-texts, shared by a majority of the members of a community; and result-texts, which have just entered into circulation. By working in this distinction, the book interrogates the contradictory character of shared cultural memories and the multiple subgroups that produce meaning. In explaining how knowledge gets stored and organized, it distinguishes between encyclopaedic and thesauric kinds of knowledge: the former referring to its relationship to other concepts, and the latter changing quickly and always pointing toward “the world.”
Chapter Four moves from texts to practices. It proposes a homology between base and result texts and how they are enacted in conventional and productive practices. In order to explain the distinction, the author resorts to “weaker” versions of culture—Bourdieu and production of culture approaches. He proposes a model that looks at the function, carriers, status, materials, rules, and distribution channels as the key dimensions to look at when explaining how practices differ.
This chapter is probably the least novel of the book and is the place where the general theory loses steam. The theory becomes too encompassing and nuanced at the same time; it explains too many things and, because of that, too little. In its general character, it asks the reader for a semantic laxity when defining the actors that occupy in different cases the different roles within the theory. Also, the engagement with cultural studies as an important part of the puzzle seems a bit passé, given how much its research program has either been obliterated by incorporation—as textual analysis has become an integral part of the sociological analysis of culture—or rejected, even within the humanities. The book also purports to explain cultural texts and practices from high to low but engages mostly with elite culture exemplars to do its own bidding.
That does not mean this is not a very worthy and interesting book to read; I would be bold enough to say that its parts are better than the sum of them. The level of erudition displayed is fascinating: the text moves seamlessly between Hamlet, Japanese and Italian poetry, courtly manners in China, and the work of troubadours in France; and for U.S. sociologists interested in the process of signification, it also proposes an engagement with theories of semiosis beyond Peirce, in particular with the work of Juri Lotman and Umberto Eco, who have nary been engaged by cultural sociologists.
The book concludes by deploying the theory outlined through two case studies: the beginning of Italian vernacular poetry and the role of competing versions of what love is in it; and art and politics in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain. The scrutiny of these two cases is actually fascinating, and they are sophisticated pieces of cultural analysis themselves. If I had been the editor of the book, I probably would have reeled in readers interested in cultural historiography, anthropology, or even in comparative historical sociology by starting with those two instead.
This is a book that should be read by sociologists interested in how meaning is produced and enacted and that should be a nice complementary piece for courses on social theory and cultural sociology. It is also worth the time of scholars interested in producing a bridge between U.S. sociological theory and its European counterpart.