Revaluing Body Language
Have you ever watched a cat?’ [Peter Brook] asked me unexpectedly [...]
He told me that if you watch any cat, it isn’t just that his body is so relaxed and expressive. It’s something more important than that. A cat actually thinks visibly. If you watch him jump on a shelf, the wish to jump and the action of jumping are one and the same thing. There’s no division. A thought animates his whole body. It’s in exactly the same way that Brook’s exercises try to train the actor.
— John Heilpern from Conference of the Birds: The Story of Peter Brook in Africa
There are no thoughts and experiences that our bodies do not express to others. One cannot keep one's thoughts and experiences "inside"; one's body always betrays one's thoughts and experiences to the "outside" world. Changes to a body's features, gestures, and postures will always precede, exceed, and succeed each and every passing thought and feeling, and each and every one of us knows this to be a fact — and yet so many of us disavow our knowledge of this fact. Indeed, most of us have been taught from a young age to maintain the false pretense that there can be "private" thoughts and experiences, that there are thoughts and experiences that we can "keep to ourselves." We pretend as if we can keep our bodies from betraying our thoughts and experiences to others but, in truth, the most that we can do in this regard is muffle our features, gestures, and postures: we can make our features, gestures, and postures mumble, whisper, and articulate things poorly. Nevertheless, no matter how good we are at muffling our bodies, our bodies never cease to express our thoughts and experiences to some degree in some way, shape, or form.
Unless you are fortunate enough to make a living as a performing artist, you will very likely be shunned by civilized society if you cannot muffle your body and your body refuses to mumble and whisper "unmentionable" thoughts and experiences. Our early schooling in a civilized society demands that we learn two lessons above all. First, we must learn to muffle our bodies, to make our bodies mumble and whisper thoughts and experiences that we are told to "keep to ourselves": this allows others to pretend that thoughts and experiences that they'd rather not acknowledge have gone unexpressed. Second, we must learn to become unobservant: this allows us to overlook the "unmentionable" thoughts and experiences that other bodies mumble and whisper in our presence.
I aim to counter my civilization and my schooling. I aim to dispel the illusion that there can be private thoughts and experiences. I aim to make my body increasingly expressive so as to skillfully articulate my thoughts and experiences in and through my body language and, what's more, I aim to become increasingly more observant so that I may better discern the "unmentionable" thoughts and experiences that other bodies mumble and whisper in my presence.
To understand what it means to make a body expressive, consider first how a body keeps its balance.
A body maintains three entangled kinds of balance. Lose one for long enough and you will wind up losing all three.
Positional or "intra-corporeal" balance. One is positionally dis-abled when the different parts of one's body are organized in such a way that they obstruct each other's movements and cause one to lose one's balance. One is positionally en-abled when the different parts of one's body are organized in such a way that they facilitate each other's movements. You are positionally dis-abled when you seat yourself in such an awkward position that you can't stand up again without stumbling; you are positionally en-abled when you seat yourself in a position from which you can easily shift to standing.
Situational or "inter-corporeal" balance. One is situationally dis-abled when other bodies are organized relative to one's own in such a way that they obstruct the movements of one's body and cause one to lose one's balance. One is situationally en-abled when other bodies are organized in such a way that they facilitate the movements of one's body. You are situationally dis-abled when you find yourself in a space so crowded that you run into someone or something whenever you move; you are situationally en-abled when you find yourself in a space you can move through with ease.
Constitutional or "trans-corporeal" balance. One is constitutionally dis-abled when the flow of bodies into and through one's own body obstructs one's movements and causes one to lose one's balance. One is constitutionally en-abled when the flow of bodies into and through one's own body facilitates one's movements. You are constitutionally dis-abled when you consume food that gives you stomach ache and makes you double over; you are constitutionally en-abled when you consume food that energizes and invigorates your body.
To make a body expressive is to en-able a body; to make a body repressive is to dis-able a body. To be en-abled is to be supported by one's milieu. To be dis-abled is to find fault with one's milieu. We do individuals a disservice when we say that individuals "have dis-abilities": individuals are dis-abled by their milieu. Making one's body more expressive means transforming one's milieu, making one's milieu more en-abling.
A body is dis-abled when it must fight external forces in order to find its balance, when it has to use its internal forces to struggle against external forces. A body is en-abled when it affects external forces in order to adjust its balance, when it uses its internal forces to adjust and otherwise relies on external forces for support.
The surest way to lose your balance is to endeavor to keep a given state of balance. The surest way to achieve balance is to keep adjusting, continuously shifting from one state of balance to another. Making one's body expressive means shifting amongst different states of balance and achieving maximal dynamism. Achieving balance means being able to adjust one's position, being able to adjust one's situation, and being able to adjust one's constitution.
Most bodies tend to shift amongst a minimally dispersed and non-uniform distribution of balanced states. Most bodies adjust their balance in a few predictable ways. When I speak of "making a body expressive," I am speaking of adjusting one's balance in many unpredictable ways without losing one's balance: to make a body expressive is to maximize the entropy and dispersal that characterizes the distribution of balanced states a body shifts amongst.
One cannot practice adjusting one's balance in unpredictable ways without risking one's balance, without taking chances that might result in a loss of balance. To practice, one must affirm the risk. The practice is the continuous adjustment. One risks discomfort: uncomfortable positions, unfamiliar situations, constitutional disturbances. The risk belongs to the practice of variation itself.
The balance of a body's breathing is the most telling species of constitutional balance. The more balanced a body's breathing, the more expressive the body. Whenever we muffle our bodies so that they become less expressive, whenever we make our bodies mumble and whisper, we throw our breathing off balance. Whenever we succeed in making our bodies more expressive, we balance our breathing.
There is a Zen saying that is instructive: "Not Two, Not One."
"Two" or Dualistic Breathing means attending to breathing as two discrete operations: inspiration on the one hand, expiration on the other.
"One (and Not Two)" or Holistic Breathing means attending to breathing as one continuous operation, respiration, that encompasses inspiration and expiration.
"Not Two, Not One" or Differential Breathing means attending to breathing as a spectrum of differing operations, a spectrum of respiratory patterns.
To balance one's breathing is to be able to traverse this spectrum, shifting from one respiratory pattern to another, becoming aware of how each pattern strikes a different balance between inspirations and expirations. What is true for respiratory balance is equally true for constitutional balance generally, and it is also true for the entire family of balances: the positional and the situational in addition to the constitutional. Balance is differential. One can find balance in and through continuous variation.
This principle, "Not Two, Not One," illuminates the expressive character of body language as a whole.
Our thoughts and experiences are always betrayed by our body language, yes, but it would be a mistake to assume that our body language represents our thoughts and experiences synecdochally, as if making a statement of fact. Our bodies can express our thoughts and experiences synecdochally, yes, but our bodies can also express them in other ways: metaphorically, metonymically, and ironically. These four modes of expression form a spectrum, and where a body falls along it determines how expressive it is.
A metonymic expression is a reductive, indexical expression. The metonym reduces a complex whole to its simpler aspects or parts. "What's the headcount?" reduces a group of persons-to-be-counted to their heads.
A metaphorical expression is a perspectival, iconic expression. The metaphor sees something in terms of something else. It brings out the thisness of that, or the thatness of this. If we employ the word "character" as a general term for whatever can be thought of as distinct, we could say that metaphor considers one character from the point of view of another. "The light of reason": here we find light characterizing reason and reason characterizing light; we regard light from the perspective of reason, and we regard reason from the perspective of light.
A synecdochal expression is a representative, symbolic expression. The synecdoche establishes a relationship of convertibility between two terms, a relationship in which the two terms are treated as guises of one and the same identity. Metaphor deals with two different characters and reveals one from the perspective of the other. Synecdoche deals with only one character and reveals how that character can appear in different guises, converting one guise into another under a shared identity. Consider the Christian discourse regarding the Holy Trinity in which one character, God, comes to be known in three guises: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
An ironic expression is a gestural, dramatic expression. One character makes for a synecdoche; two characters makes for a metaphor; more than two characters makes for an irony. Ironic expressions involve more than two different characters and give their differing perspectives with one another. Through irony one gains a meta-perspective that relates at least three different characters and their differing perspectives on one another. From the standpoint of this meta-perspective, this "perspective on perspectives," none of the participating "partial perspectives" can be treated as all-encompassing: there is no "master perspective," only ways of relating "partial perspectives." The meta-perspective we gain from irony is a transversal perspective that enables us to play different perspectives with and against one another and to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky's masterpiece, is a work of profound irony that does exactly this with its title characters.
In structural terms, irony is a differential relation and metaphors are its relata. The dramatic and structural descriptions say the same thing from different angles. When multiple characters give their differing perspectives on one another, what holds them together is the differential relation among them, and that relation is the very condition that gives each character its distinctness. The differential relation is prior: perspectives emerge as its relata.
Body language spans the full spectrum of these expressive modes, from ironic down through metaphorical and proto-verbal metonymic expression. Its tendency, however, is toward the ironical and the metaphorical. Verbal language tends toward the synecdochal and the metonymic. Body language tends to be (meta-)perspectival. Verbal language tends to be reductive and representational. Verbal language must reduce and represent our thoughts and experiences before it can give us a (meta-)perspective on them. Body language gives us a (meta-)perspective on our thoughts and experiences without reducing and representing them.
Here is the connection to the principle of balance. The differential character of irony and the differential character of balance are one and the same principle: "Not Two, Not One." A body that achieves balance through continuous variation is a body whose expressivity is, first and foremost, ironic. It holds multiple states, multiple perspectives, in differential relation without collapsing them into one and without splitting them into separate pieces.
To make one's body more expressive is, first and foremost, to heighten one's body's ironic and metaphoric expressivity: its capacity to give one a (meta-)perspective on one's thoughts and experiences without reducing and representing them. To become more observant of others' bodies is to recognize that their body language communicates a (meta-)perspective on their thoughts and experiences without reducing and representing them.
Civilized society teaches us to communicate with others and to interpret communication from others in reductive and representative ways. Countering civilization and making one's body expressive means learning to eschew reductions and representations whenever possible, and learning to communicate with others and to interpret communication from others in (meta-)perspectival ways.
Body language is, first and foremost, ironical. Ironic expressions precede, exceed, and succeed metaphorical expressions because differential relations precede, exceed, and succeed their relata: an irony is a differential relation and metaphors are the relata of an irony.
Verbal language is, first and foremost, metonymic. The relationship between the metonymic and synecdochal is the obverse of the relationship between metaphor and irony. Where differential relations precede their relata, the relata of identity relations precede the identity relations themselves: a synecdoche is an identity relation and metonyms are the relata of a synecdoche. Metonymic reductions come first; synecdochal identifications gather them after the fact.
Here is the progression that relates body language to verbal language:
Ironies (embodied meta-perspectives) are differential relations that precede, exceed, and succeed their relata.
Metaphors (embodied perspectives) are the relata of ironies.
Primary metonyms (proto-verbal reductions) index the different metaphors that are the relata of ironies.
Primary synecdoches (concrete verbal representations) relate primary metonyms to one another, identifying those that index the same metaphor.
Secondary metonyms (concrete verbal reductions) index the different primary metonyms that are the relata of a primary synecdoche.
Secondary synecdoches (abstract verbal representations) relate secondary metonyms to one another, identifying those that index the same primary metonym.
Tertiary metonyms (abstract verbal reductions) index the different secondary metonyms that are the relata of a secondary synecdoche.
The progression terminates in metonymic reduction without a corresponding synecdochal closure. Each layer of abstraction reduces further, and the further one moves from the body, the less any identity relation can gather what has been reduced. Abstraction frays. The most abstract verbal language is the least capable of achieving representational closure.
Ironic body language interprets the world. Metaphorical body language and proto-verbal body language interpret ironic body language. Concrete verbal language interprets metaphorical body language and proto-verbal body language. Abstract verbal language interprets concrete verbal language. A maximally expressive body is able to express itself clearly with ironic body language alone. A less expressive body has to use metaphorical body language and proto-verbal language to clarify its ironic body language. An even less expressive body has to use concrete verbal language to clarify things further. The least expressive body has to employ abstract verbal language to clarify things even further.
In order to make my body maximally expressive, I must progressively eschew abstract verbal language in favor of concrete verbal language, eschew concrete verbal language in favor of metaphorical body language and proto-verbal body language, and eschew proto-verbal body language and metaphorical body language in favor of ironic body language.
The cat does not translate. The wish to jump and the act of jumping are the same thing. This sameness is differential: each leap is distinct, each adjustment unrepeatable, and thought and body move together because the differential relation between them is so immediate that no gap opens. The cat is "Not Two, Not One." To revalue body language is to practice returning there, shedding abstraction as one goes, until thought and body move as one differential movement again.