Document this

The foundation for sovereign-state-governmentality lies at the juncture between text and document. A text consists of transferable assemblages of words and letters which form a message while a document is a specific, historical and authoritative text codified into a meaning carrying object. The meaning of a document cannot be reduced to the text, but also meaning carried by the relationship people, other texts and governments have to the physical object itself.

The difference between the two is rhetorical, whereby a series of ceremonies and physical arrangements transform particular texts into documents, and not others. Government in the state form works because it removes from consideration competing allegiances towards the administration of basic life functions; states must be univocal to efficiently administer populations of the size and scale of nationalities. Uniformity garners efficiency, and textual codes allow for mutual intelligibility and fungibility, promoting some degree of uniformity. However, the possibility of arbitrary amendment or transformation of a text undermines whatever efficiency garnered by the usefulness of texts. Thus, state administration requires a unique space of authority for a sense of univocality and unidirectional reference to create efficient administration. IN order for only one voice to be heard, one text must maintain authority, that text transforms into a document (a bill, a declaration, a constitution).

Government concerning documents allows for the administration of a particular sphere of human existence, which other forms of media cannot. Stability is needed for the administration of foodstuffs (planting requires planning, and planning implies the ability to predict into the future), or of capital projects (transportation systems, other capital investments make sense in an environment that allows for prediction of future needs). Other media forms may be poorly suited for achieving the goals of a nation state in these areas – imagine ‘open source’ contracting for road building that allowed for editing by anyone anywhere, or filmed constitution. The internet, digital media remain only texts because verification of origins and source is impossible, reduced only to manipulable bits and bytes. Film as a media form lacks the fungibility of texts. Textual symbols move between contexts and retain meaning in a way film does not. Film has a unique, singular referent, which is a subject filmed at a particular time in a particular place. The connection of events from one frame to another seems wholly impossible to recreate – intervening variables make perfect transference impossible. Film, or rather video may have genres which allow for transferable meaning, but generally remains a media concerned with one place at one time. A document must refer to one event/situation as the exclusive source of authority, but must also be able to refer to other events and situations in the application of the document’s meaning.

So, what does it take to make a text a document? There must be a performance that codifies originality and the uniqueness of the text. One form of mooting challenges to textual authority comes by distinguishing one text from another by affixing it with a seal, a code, a signature – something that distinguishes it from another. This distinguishing mark, then is co-productive with other narratives of authority established through argument, rhetoric or force. The signature of the President gives particular texts weight because of the nature of the presidency, but the President also must sign texts to be considered a president. Generally this also coincides with a physical locating of the text in particular halls of power, making all other texts that copy a document ‘reproductions of’ rather than documents with any intrinsic authority themselves. The publication of documents creates value around an original text, as a quality unique only to one copy of a text, an exclusivity that confers authority.

I originally thought of this in terms of foundational texts of the US Government, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Evidence of a process of documentation in the Declaration is everywhere. The agency of people in relation to their government appears as the ability to “alter or to abolish,” “institute,” or “laying foundations.” This transformation of government into a concrete forms parallels the transformation of texts into concrete documents: authority for government is conferred by physical and specific texts, which can be changed or destroyed, but authority moves from one central, particular text to other organizing principles of governance. The whole layout of the document confers a sense of legitimacy onto the text, giving it power as a governmental document, rather than a political text. The listing of grievances, reference to representation and natural rights, appeals to inalienable human nature: all these do the work of documentizing the text. The signers must distinguish themselves from joint publishers of a political tract as governmental authorities, and the bulk of the text does this work.

Ramble ramble ramble…

Duncan