Savvy 4.19.09

In class on Tuesday we talked about Logocentrism. We discussed logos "words". As human beings we are completely locked into words. Words ultimately control us. Words have everything to do with what we do. They are at the bottom of how we create and define ourselves as individuals. Dr.Casey talked about how knowing somethings name gives us power over that thing. He talked about the public name v the private name. In relation to this topic Dr.Casey asked the class if we knew what the most powerful thing in our country is. I had no idea what he was referring to when he asked out class this question. When he responded with "our signature" I was surprised. I had never really given my signature a thought before. When I was younger and I needed to sign something, my parents would always tell me to just "sign my name". I never once thought twice about it. i don't know if it was because it was my parents telling me to do it, or if because I figured signing my name really was not a big deal. Now that I am older, I am constantly signing my signature. I would say that I probably sign my name at least once a day without ever really thinking of it. It was not until Dr.Casey brought this point up that I began to think about the power of my signature. Now every time I sign a receipt after using my credit card I think about our class and what Dr.Casey said.

We also discussed in Tuesdays class the idea that language is something that has been made up by humans o give us a sense of presence and meaning in the here and now. I liked when we discussed the concept of language being composed of differences. We are constantly defining something by what it is not. We do this in our everyday lives. We re constantly referring to somethings opposites.