Dividing Intuition, Organizing Attention
Picking up from the discussion of credentials and intuition, we look more closely at the divisions and collusions of phatic and communicative labor that structure bureaucratic forms of encounter. These structures render specific moments that seem to isolate pairs of communicants as if a given contact pair were the natural configuration, the only one upon which to model all communication. In fact, most communication involves multiple parties, is multiply embedded, crosses multiple circles of attention, and sends out chains of multiple interpretants (like the cover of this book). The trick to the dyadic illusion is to distract from all the other, ongoing communications or channels, as well as from the work that has made such a moment of contact possible or necessary. The dyad who makes contact across a border or a frame. Such dyad/frame configurations, infused with repetitions of signs and qualia that signal not only paranoia but also the virtues of scientific transcendence or artistic spiritualty, still rules as a metaphor for all communication.