Flower Power
: A Poststructuralist Approach
Geoffrey Hamilton
October 15, 1994
(2005) The Trick: the genetic way to create meaning.
The title of this essay, which is a radical slogan from the sixties era is meant to signify
that the meanings of objects, flowers in this case,
are not inherent in the object - in the way that gravity is a property of matter -
but that meaning is imposed on objects by humans, because that is inherent to us.
This post-structuralist approach differs from Roland Barthes structuralist approach.
In his "Mythologies" he equates his stand with Sartre's idea that meaning, 'true'
meaning - a universal, exclusive, absolute meaning - is an inherent 'natural
quality of things'. The reverse is the case. Meaning is not inherent
in flowers, to take flowers as an example, though humanity's ability to create
meanings for flowers is inherent.
First it is important to distinguish that the question of whether a flower creates
meaning for itself to use is not the issue. The only issue is whether by simple
observation can flowers state what they mean to humanity without the interference
of the thousands of languages that exist, without the intervention of prejudices,
without the input of humanity's creative aspect, or without confusing meaning with
genetic structures or these genetic structures' ability to allow the creation of
meaning. This leaves one problem to dissect: do flowers inherently mean something?
In regards to genetic structures and their part in the making of meaning: it is the
thesis of Noam Chomsky that languages' meanings may be relative to the user's and
arbitrarily created but that the creation and employment of those arbitrary
structures is the same throughout the human gene pool. Thus a common ability to
create meaning, arbitrary though the meaning itself is, has only one common element,
the genetic make-up of humans. His thesis has been tested in numerous ways and
survives at present as the best understanding of what human language is. By extension
it is possible to say that humans don't need to be accurate in the meaning that they
assign to objects, only that they do assign meaning.
What are flowers to humans? At the height of 'flower power' stickers went on sale
in Toronto stores which depicted a flower as a fluorescent, colour clashing, six
petal, two dimensional emblem of the age of Aquarius. In the orient the lotus
flower is today an erotic, sensuous decoration. Flowers of all sorts around the
world are used to cheer up costumes and rooms, to declare or reinstate a passion
for someone, and they serve the cause of 'high art' in the works of Van Gogh and
Monet.
When all human versions of what flowers are taken together and are considered
, what then is inherent to flowers within the concepts of humanity? In order
that an antithesis be given full latitude, a common definition will be said to
exist for humanity and it will be taken from Collin's Dictionary: "flower 1.a. - a
bloom or blossom on a plant. b. a plant that bears blooms or blossoms" (Collin's
Concise Dictionary Plus, 1989). This definition exists for humanity at the exclusion
of all other definitions and significations.
With this common definition of flowers agreed, it is possible to approach them to
discover if the definition represents an inherent meaning. If not,
what could be the inherent meaning of flowers to be discovered? Meaning, it
must be reminded at this point, is a communication, not a static structure. It
has already been noted that flowers mean many things to many eras and cultures,
though this essay accepts that there is a common definition of flowers for humans.
What do flowers communicate - mean - to a hummingbird, for example, and is
it the same as to humans?
Hummingbirds survive on the liquid produced by certain flowers. The kind of
flowers they need to find in order to drink this liquid are mimicked by manufactured
feeders, which hummingbirds do use. These feeders in effect mean the same thing
to the hummingbirds as the flowers: which is that the shape, colour and content
of the flower and the feeder mean a source of food. This evidence creates two
conclusions, one, that the meaning of flowers to hummingbirds is not 'inherent'
only to flowers. and two, that our definition, stated above, is not the only
definition 'inherent' in flowers. A source of food for hummingbirds is also one
definition for flowers. Granted, not all flowers are a source of food, but the
flowers used as food do fit the definition stated above and therefore, it must
be added, that flowers are sometimes a source of food. Thus the definition stated
above as a common human definition is not a flower's inherent meaning.
What then is the inherent meaning of flowers? Mimicry, the use of one object's
meaning by another (beyond the hummingbird feeder example cited above) indicates
general problems in identifying inherent meaning. When a meaning is claimed to be
inherent and it is not exclusive to the
object, or objects under discussion, the distincions which are claimed to exist
become meaningless. For example, the mimicing of flowers' blossoms and stems by
insects does occur: african tree hoppers gather together at the end of twigs to
mimic withering flowers in order to trap other insects. Another example involves a
flower mantis which has flat pink-ish appendages
that mimic flower petals so that other insects will land on it and be
trapped. If the meanings of flowers are so easily communicated by other forms
what then can be communicated by flowers which is exclusive, absolute, without r
elative definitions, and which is universal?
One is left, in the search for
inherent meaning, to discover if there can be some mechanism within an object, such as
a flower, which speaks directly to humans its
meaning without the interference of any human faculty. Telepathy could provide an
answer, to one so inclined, but there is no telepathy accepted as existing between
an object and a human, and which will communicate, for example, that flowers mean
anything. But more critically, what could flowers possibly say that could mean
anything to humans? - since our meanings exist only arbitrarily to begin with.
The only solution to the problem imposed by the idea of inherent meaning is the
rejection of that idea. Objects cannot have meanings that are exclusive to themselves,
and not all of an object's meanings need be used by all recipients of the meaning
all at once. Thus some flowers are food to hummingbirds and insects, to humans
they are romantic emblems. Every connotation is allowed when it is recognized
that flowers do not communicate or have inherent meaning.
Humanity, as well as other life forms, see meanings in flowers that do not come from
the flowers themselves. Instead, the meaning comes from within humanity and from
other life and is projected onto the flower. Why this is so, was
not the issue of this essay, the only issue was the question of whether it was
the case and it has been shown that it must be.
GRH
