1. Blood is a symbol of laceration. But where laceration practically takes place and the guts fall loose, just at the frightful and painful moment when the warm blood and the deadly burn of the deep and severe wound is felt, blood would no more be a symbol but an explicit sign that refers to laceration as an actual event. The laceration of one’s flesh, that makes the understanding of the self possible, is something without a cultural crust or shield. This kind of laceration and bleeding implies laceration of the cultural skin that makes the understanding of reality possible. Outside the symbolic system of cultural forms, we do not have any understanding of “the pure reality” or have any “direct contact” with it. But the lightning-like, fleeing moment of laceration and the climax of pain followed by the eyes closing tightly and the gnashing of teeth, always excite a primitive feelings. Severe pain refers to a time before culture. The continuation of severe physical pain is the continuation of primitiveness. The rest of the pains are cultural.

Thus, the craving for laceration, in the sense of craving for the laceration of the cultural mediations required to communicate with someone else, is a primitive and dreadful wish. A desire that cannot be fulfilled in the field of culture i.e., the surface, would be fulfilled by penetrating into the depth, i.e., by the sheding of blood, laceration and destruction – laceration of the body and the destruction of things, which are all manifestations of the symbolic forms of culture.

2. Communication with others is only possible with the mediation of language as the greatest symbol of culture, even when the communication is based on violence and tends towards altercation and rejection of the other. The history of culture is the history of the material development of these mediations, which also define the style of communication of human beings. The wider the field of such mediations, the more diverse and tolerant the relations. The diversity of relations might include altercations and quarrels. From quarrels in the streets to the jibes of angry young people, to the challenges of politicians, to the cold war ­ all are based on these mediations and use the resources of the symbolic field. But, for example, the explosion of the twin towers in New York represents the laceration of all these mediations, as does the slaughter of the Chinese students in Tiananmen Square.

Civilization, from its early days, has always been interwoven with the concept of exchange. Exchange is a cultural reciprocation. It is an understanding of the general and the specific and hence an acquaintance with the concept of abstraction, while at the same time it indicates recognition of the other party and the enactment of rules for communicating with it and living beside it as a community. This exchange can also take place in the symbolic field, a field that is not free from quarrel and altercation and power-oriented will. To have culture also means to know the rules of the game. Culture is essentially a kind of game. The complexity of the Olympic games of the ancient Greeks was indicative of the complexity and richness of the Greek culture. The leaner and poorer the culture, the more rigid and foolish the rules of the game and the narrower and more malodorous its symbolic field. Such a culture would basically lack tolerance (the cause of what happened to the Chinese students in Tiananmen Square).

3. Street Demonstrations in metropolises, apparently full of rage and protest, is a kind of game played in the symbolic field: students chanting slogans, throwing stones, the police warding off the stones with their shields, rushing forward, pushing the students away. Despite the dominant rage there is a kind of symbolic exchange between the two sides. No side intends to kill the other. The skin is preserved. In societies with an extensive and flexible symbolic field, the game is played fairly. The two sides observe the rules and the demands are usually fulfilled.

The society can react flexibly to the protests as acts towards the mediation of culture. But in a closed society with primitive tendencies where the symbolic field is very narrow, the skins will quickly be lacerated. The opposing sides will quickly be stimulated to go beyond cultural mediation and penetrate the depths and fulfil the desire to lacerate. The shells are “practically” shot by the tanks. The batons are no more symbols of authority but actual elements of authority in a society that is as raw in symbolic exchange as in other forms of exchange. Transformation of the baton to the club is indicative of the desire to lacerate the symbolic skin, the need for warm blood. Their deep misunderstanding of the culture causes them to see the baton as a club.

Omid Mehregan is a writer and columnist, living and working in Tehran.