To consider objects or “things” as autonomous and possessing individuality outside humanity ( a “thing-power,” a “strange ability” of ordinary objects to have vitality, to have life, and energy) seems a demented, drug-induced idea. How can a rock have feelings? A personality? Is a rock a man or female? Does it matter? Does a rock have a life, like with a mama rock and baby rocks? Energy or a spirit? Aren’t these notions human concepts, and some farfetched when placed on a rock? For Jane Bennett, in Vibrant Matter, the human element starts the problem: thinking of objects in terms of the human gaze. We live in a human-centered world; everything directly connects to our humanness. Or else, to the storm drain! 

Jane Bennet begins to solve the material-based problem of the subject (human) and object (thing) dilemma facing things, to divert the human gaze from ego to universal, thus reshaping how humans interact and perceive the purpose, function, and life of an object. Bennett and other “cultural theorists and philosophers” believed in an “object-oriented ontology,” aiming towards a “flat ontology,” what they call “new materialism.” The ideas concerning all these nonce words are similar: one, to untether objects from human practices or discourse, and two, to view objects against no structural or hierarchal judgments. In considering objects under new materialism, the object seems to have a new life and vitality. In a Saussurean sense, the objects are no longer tied to signs and signifiers enfolded within an unspoken “social contract.” 

However, Nietzsche can help us understand new materialism better. Like Saussurean, he writes about a “social contract,” a “peace treaty,” an unspoken contract amongst people that systemizes and categorizes social communication and measures one’s intelligence and sociability. It is this implicit contract that gives arbitrary meanings to things. In Friedrich Nietzsche’s essay, On Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense, Nietzsche emphasizes the weight of words; they are not what they seem to mean at first sight and should not be superficial. Nietzsche uses the example of a stone and how it’s customary to say, “A stone is hard,” worthless, and with no purpose. It’s just there. It’s a rock, not a Benz. It’s a rock, not a Gibson guitar. However, Nietzsche questions how one can know the nature of hard “as if “hard” were something familiar to us (754.).” 

In other words, who or what deems that hard and worthless are what stones are? Who or what deems a stone is what one thinks of as gray, solid, and immovable? Now, Nietzsche’s not saying that a stone is a sponge is a can of soda. No, like Bennette, Nietzsche wants the reader to consider the truth of who they are and their communication. They want people to stop hiding behind the “peace treaty” and to be like a Buddhist, see that the stone is the caterpillar that climbs it and is the air that blows upon them. Nietzsche and Bennette want the reader to think “beyond the bounds of human existence (752.).” They want sedition against the “peace treaty.” 

Yes, screw the peace treaty! That rock (stone) ain’t worthless! It has thing-power! The big old rock in the middle of the forest has a history: it’s been in the forest for five hundred years; storms and glacial melting has moved it due west. It was once the only rock, but the abrasive wind made smaller out it. It’s gray, white, and black and shimmers under the sun. From afar, it’s small; up close, it towers over a human. Indeed, it’s a rock, but it’s a chair for the writer every Saturday, a check-point for the runner every day, a reminder of Colorado for the home-sick woman, a hide-out for the kids playing tag, and a shelter for the squirrel and snake during storms. But it’s so much more: it can be a place of peace and tranquility, it can be a tool, it can be a Dada-like art piece in a gallery, its pebble-children are pendants on necklaces — this list is endless for this one rock. As all humans know, the rock speaks to other rocks in a frequency only rocks can hear. In essence, and to repeat, the rock is not worthless, and to agree with Bennett, it has a vitality (seen and unseen.)

In many ways, Bennett, Nietzsche, Saussure, and the minds behind new materialism want us to see that the worthless is full of worth, find meaning in nothing, and reshape our world by thinking and rethinking how we participate in it. But most important, at least to this writer, is that by suggesting to separate humanness from objects, these thinkers force us to think about our humanness and its ramifications, such as the case with the Anthropocene. 

Dreams are tricky to pin down; they’re not like butterflies to a lepidopterist. A dream’s interpretation depends on many factors and contexts, all not knowing if what the dream is trying to tell you is actually what the dream is trying to tell you — and who knows if the dream’s trying to tell you something? Dreams are bewildering— and who can you blame? Dreams are there, we made them, and we are there within them, somehow and in all-hows. However, all this obscurity does not stop psychiatrists and thinkers from attempting to become the lepidopterists of dreams, pining them down with meanings, interpretations, and signs.

Before Freud — indeed, before Freud — a dream’s interpretations were not so much brimming with sexual urges, and not everything was a phallus. Psychiatrists merely interpreted the superficial layer of the dream, not looking deeper — screw the abyss, signs, all that jazz. Psychiatrists interpreted the manifest content “as it’s presented in our memories.” You dreamed of walking through a supermarket with Walt Whitman, catching Garcia Lorca fondling some watermelons (Allen Ginsberg, Supermarket in California). The psychiatrist said you wanted to go to the supermarket or needed to go to the supermarket and were probably reading too much Whitman and Lorca (ain’t nothing wrong with that, in my humble opinion.) But as with Ginsberg’s poem, dreams were brimming with meaning.

After Freud — don’t dream about bananas, recorders (they mean — you know what they mean,) or purses or peaches (you, too, know these meanings) — don’t dream about anything because you wished (dreams are wish fulfillment, now) to kill your father and shack up with your mother. No, in all seriousness, as outlandish and outdated — and misogynistic — some of Freud’s ideas are in The Interpretation of Dreams, it’s these ideas (not so much about the Oedipal complex and high libido, in my opinion) that help alter psychoanalytic (think Jung,) but also presents psychiatrists with a different way to analyze the human psyche.

In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud presents his “new task which had no previous existence: the task, that is, of investigating the relations between the manifest content of dreams and the latent dream-thoughts, and of tracing out the processes by which the latter have been changed into the former.” Freud is saying that the former psychiatrists are wrong in their approach of psychoanalytic. There is no longer just the manifest content, but “a manifest content of dreams and the latent dream-thoughts, (let us call this latent content.) And Freud’s task and the new psychoanalytic approach is to see how the latent has transformed into (or effects) the manifest (and, in my opinion, vice versa.)

The manifest content is the remembered narrative that plays out in the dream. As I mentioned, itself is superficial, only surface deep. On this level, dream language is often from memories. The manifest content is jumbled, jumpy, and all over the place. The latent content (or dream-thought) is the underlying meaning of the dream; it’s usually parts of the dream we do not remember after waking. The latent content is like the unseen details on a page when a teacher says to read between the lines. Freud’s interest lies in the relationship between the two, and he believes the answers to dreams (as well as the self) sit between the manifest and latent content.

Through Freud’s task of investigating the relationship between manifest and latent content, to this writer, he becomes part of an over-arching theory of psychological two-ness, and thus, socially two-ness, that spans generations and multiple disciplines.

Can one look at what Frantz Fanon calls “national consciousness” — a collective social consciousness that identifies with a national identity, often swayed by rules written by figureheads — which for Fanon are the colonialist — to mend the divisions within — what W.E.B Du Bois calls “double-consciousness” — bisected by ingrained ideologies (both state & civil or as Louis Althusser calls respectively repressive state apparatus & ideological state apparatus) to lead towards self-healing, propagating national healing, and opening “up the struggle of freedom?”

How one thinks, acts, and lives are determined by ideologies implemented by those with authorial power, those figureheads; national consciousness constitutes these same compounds of ideologies to exist. For Althusser, our national consciousness comprises two ideological apparatuses, the repressive state apparatus & ideological state apparatus. And it’s here that consciousness and the self are demarcated — although not initially, for as Gabor Mate theorizes in his book, “When The Body Says No,” one’s two-ness is genetic, starting before one is born and with one’s parents. The RSA is a system employed by the ruling class “in order to achieve their tasks” (Norton, 1366) through violence and repression by utilizing institutions, such as courts, police, armed forces, and more, to conduct their biding; their biding to keep status quo, to keep their ideologies in place. The RSA is an apparatus that uses fear to keep citizens in line, and in the Marxian sense, as objects to be used and re-used for “their tasks.” The ISA is a civil system that uses soft power. This non-violent approach utilizes education, media, churches, sports clubs, and even family to conceal and mask the ruling class’s ideology behind the “liberating qualities” of education, media, etc., so that the hidden agendas of the ruling class are inconspicuous.

Between state and civil ideologies, between fear of violence and the sublimity of soft power, where does a person stand? When always in a battle of two-ness between ideologies, how can a person know oneself honestly, understand one’s world, and feel whole enough to heal oneself and assist in healing the nation? And most importantly, how can one know their thoughts are their thoughts, not those foisted by the figureheads, the ruling class?

One way many people deal with these questions is quite Saussurian; they tend to compare themselves to others to ensure they follow society’s unspoken rules and comment no embarrassing faux pas. However, this only causes resentment for the other, anger, stress, and bemusement within, and most detrimental, indolence and insouciance for anything concerning life.

Another way people may deal with these questions is to look at history. Indeed world history is essential, but here, one’s personal and cultural history gives one more understanding of self and society and can help elevate culture outside the ideologies of the ruling classes. Fanon, in his book, “Black Skin, White Masks,” does just this, and what he discovers is that his heritage is rich in culture: “The white man was wrong. I was not primitive, not even a half man; I belonged to a race that had already been working with gold and silver two thousand years ago (Norton, 1354.)” But in surveying history, another problem surfaces, that of the gatekeepers, who often are the ruling class, that, on the one hand, rebuke those who venture outside of the hegemonic circumference and, on the other, hold close to the chest any ways to expand the circumference.

“I wanted to be white— that was a joke. And, when I tried, on the level of ideas and intellectual activity, to reclaim my negritude, it was snatched away from me. (Norton, 1355.)” Through his survey of history and the rebuke from the man, Fanon faces a duality, a double-consciousness, a two-ness in his search for one-ness in a society that saw him not as a person, but an object to keep the ideological tasks in motion, a cog in the industrial machine. This is the national consciousness — an identity that is separate and steeped in ideological confusion, to have no choice but to follow what lies before them — and with the RSA, fear of walking the paths less traveled (thus, missing opportunities) is predominant in the mind. People stay in place, hiding behind “the veil,” never acknowledging their two-ness, which is a gift that leads to “second sight,” and thus, may “open up the struggle of freedom?”

But how do we acknowledge and accept our double consciousness to be whole and part of society on one’s own terms? Indeed, watching others and surveying history have their benefits, but it’s through expression that one can merge the two sides within and without. In “Black Mask, White Face,” Fanon gives the example of Algeria from 1952 to 1955. Before colonialism, “the storytellers, who were before that time stereotyped and tedious to listen to, completely overturned their traditional methods of storytelling and the contents of their tales (Norton, 1363.)” Although colonialism arrested these storytellers, it’s through music, writing, dancing, singing, and any form of creation, that there’s a place to see oneself and society. This opens up oneself and society to “the struggle for freedom.” And thus, begin the healing process. The healing of the soul, body, mind, society, nation, etc. By doing this, one can alter and reshape the national consciousness to include them, their ideas, and culture, thus, expanding — no, changing — the hegemonic circumference. And maybe then, as a society, we can focus on more egalitarian approaches to unite people.

The title “The Eiffel Tower is a Tree” for readers may produce a similar reaction in the vein of Arnold Jackson from Diff’rent Strokes, “Watcha talkin’ about, Willis?” However, to support this theoretical claim the title proposes, one must put on semiological spectacles and commence to view the objects beyond what Saussure calls the “social contract” and what Nietzsche calls the “peace treaty” to view these objects (or any object) “beyond the bounds of human existence (Norton Anthology, 752.).” One theory Saussure posits in his student-compiled essays, “Course in General Linguistics,” is that the social contract makes linguistic signs — and therefore meaning — arbitrary and leads to what Saussure designates as one of the faults within language, “name-giving.” Treating language as a “name-giving system” prohibits “any research into its true nature,” or how one interprets its true nature and varying meanings in different societies.

Semiology, “a science that studies the life of signs within society, (Norton Anthology 825 )” allows the reader to consider the Tower and Tree as signs. For Saussure, a sign “designates the whole” and is a combination of two psychological components: a signified (concept) and a signifier (sound-images, or what Saussure calls “auditory images (Norton Anthology 824).” The signifier is sensory. Saussure writes that it is “the impression” of “our senses (Norton Anthology 826-27).” It is concrete, something one can interact with through sight, touch, etc. A signified, which Saussure also notes as the “signification,” is abstract and immaterial. It is what the signifier refers to and has no significance without a relationship to other values. For example, if one denotes the word Tower as a signifier in this essay, one knows it refers to The Eiffel Tower, but out of this context, it differs. If a man walks up to a woman and yells, “tower!” in New York City, the woman is likely to think he is crazy and probably hit him, but in Paris, the Parisian woman is likely to give him directions and assume he’s a tourist. These relationships, these signifiers, give the signified its meaning.

The Eiffel Tower is teeming with signification. Roland Barthes comments that the primary shape of the Tower “confers upon it the vocation of an infinite cipher,” but this is the nature of signs and symbols. They are prone to multiple interpretations and significations. Roland Barthes presents his readers with a hand full of examples: it is the symbol of Paris, a symbol of a scientific revolution, a belvedere overlooking the “essence of Paris,” a way of feeling part of Paris, in the case of Mythologies, an analogy for understanding structuralism, and myriad more symbolic meanings. In these few examples from Barthes, one can see the fickleness and arbitrariness of linguistic units, signs, symbols, and ideas. 

The Eiffel Tower is a tree in that a tree, too, has a myriad of symbolic meanings, some that are arbitrary and specific to the beholder. To some, a tree may symbolize peace, love, unity, mother nature, or community. It may be an iconography for a religion, like in the case of Yggdrasil in Norse cosmology, or a symbol of a place, like Redwood National Park. It can be a home for animals or a shade for a picnic. To this writer, it’s now The Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel-tower tree is a signifier that conjures to mind semiotics, structuralism, and, most of all, now The Eiffel Tower. Like Genette notes in his book on paratexts, one has to look at things on a case-by-case basis. There aren’t any hard or fast rules here. 

“I’m the best minimalist.” If I told you this with a smile, would you believe me? Friedrich Nietzsche would probably consider me a liar and say that I dissimulate my true nature to abide by society’s “peace treaty (753,)” an unspoken contract amongst people that systemizes and categorizes social communication and measures one’s intelligence and sociability. Nietzsche would also think I’m probably from “cloud-cuckooland (755)” for not understanding the implications and unfurled truths when using words, for example, calling myself the best minimalist.

In Friedrich Nietzsche’s essay, On Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense, Nietzsche emphasizes the weight of words; they are not what they seem to mean at first sight and should not be treated superficially. Nietzsche uses the example of a stone and how it’s customary to say, “A stone is hard.” However, he questions how one can know the nature of hard, “as if “hard” were something familiar to us (754.)” In other words, who or what deems that hard is what stones are? Who or what deems a stone is what one thinks of as gray, solid, and immovable? Now, Nietzsche’s not saying that a stone is a sponge is a can of soda. No, Nietzsche wants the reader to consider the truth of who they are and their communication. He wants people to stop hiding behind the “peace treaty” and to be like a Buddhist, see that the stone is the caterpillar that climbs it and is the air that blows upon them. Nietzsche wants the reader to think “beyond the bounds of human existence (752.)” He wants sedition against the “peace treaty.” 

To Nietzsche, society speaks in concepts, the natural progression of words that “..is produced by overlooking what is individual and real… (755.)” For example, stones are gray and immovable. People, then, assign these conceptual truths of gray and immovable stones to all stones-like objects. But to Nietzsche, each stone has individuality: one may be gray or have speckles; another may be the size and weight of a soccer ball; that one over there may be the size of a horse and glistens in the sun. That big-horse stone might even be centuries old, history in a rock. Nietzsche uses the example of a leaf and writes, “…no leaf is ever exactly the same as any other leaf…(755.)” 

If no leaf is like the other, then nothing is like the other; everything is individual and different. Isn’t that quite freeing? NO! Because then I’m not the best minimalist. Using Nietzsche’s thinking, how does one define minimalism on a quantitative level? Who or what determines how much is too much or too little? That social contract? Mom? Partner? What determines minimalism, being austere, a robe and some slippers, or just a few necessary amenities (and a tv, books, iPhone, sneakers)? And aren’t their different types of a minimalist? Are some unfastidious? What about the persnickety neat freak minimalist? Or the one that is a minimalist because she hates to cook. But furthermore, what about these people beyond their obsession with “less is more?” The unfastidious minimalist listens to classical music when he attempts to Spring clean. Another jumps ropes with kids after she finishes work. We are more than the sum of our parts; we are those parts. As Nietzsche writes like a Buddhist in meditation, “the leaf is the cause of the leaves (755).”