15 Feb Verbalia [Figures] | Fragment. The figure of selection
The fragment is a speech waiting to be completed, writes Barthes. A statement as intuitive as it is challenging, because it describes a normal condition, common to all, but which remains open and full of possible perspectives. The fragment speaks of how language works when it encounters something too muchBecause—let's face it—we never tell the whole story. More often, we only tell what can potentially keep us whole.
It happens everywhere and to everyone. Even when we try to be objective. Even when we swear we're just reporting the facts. It happens when we recount an episode that happened at work, or report a conflict, a scene that left a lasting impression on us. We almost never retrace the complete sequence of events. Perhaps we're incapable of it. Let's choose, however, a point, a detail that has stuck in our memory. Whether it's a sentence badly said, a suspicious pause, a sideways gesture. And from that point, we reconstruct everything else. And with a handful of words, there you have it, the fragment becomes THE story.
Cut without paste
And the rest? The rest remains off-screen: context, nuances, ambiguities, the parts that would make the story more authentic, but less manageable. Cut without pasteIt is credible that we do not always do it for convenience. Often we do it because language, when it has to give shape to an intense experience, does not proceed by continuity: it proceeds by condensations. The fragment is born like this, more than a residual part, it is actually a self-consistent form.
LEGO Effect
But let's stop treating the fragment as a defect for a moment. Let's instead consider it a technique, a device, and sometimes, even a solution.
It might seem like the fragment is a piece chosen at random, but in reality, it's exactly the piece we need to start, to rebuild. It's like LEGO piece #1 of the Hogwarts Castle – and good luck!
Unlike the 'alibi, which works as a defense – the minimum distance between me and what exposes me – the fragment works as a montage. So, in fact, it does not invent an alternative version of reality, but selects a portion of it and makes it sayable. And the meaning of the entire narrative, paradoxically, arises precisely from the omission, from what does not enter and remains in a sort of waiting room. Returning to Barthes, who said it very precisely: the fragment is an incomplete speech that asks for participation. That is, it asks for someone to complete it, to enter into it and interpret it. The fragment has its own goal: to activate the other from itself.
The threshold
E if selecting is inevitable, it is never a neutral gestureWe don't randomly choose the fragment that becomes a story. We choose it because it resembles us, because it protects us, because it simplifies us, because it justifies us, because it makes something bearable for us. The question to ask, then, is not what happened?, but Why am I bringing this out of all that happened?
Why just that detail or that sentence? Why that scene, and not another? fragment works as an indicator of the threshold of what is sustainable for those who choose it.
Stay standing
Each fragment is the result of a cut that decides how we tell ourselves, and therefore, upstream, how we perceive me. Then comes the internal editing, which is not always conscious, but still generates effects on reality. In addition to narrating an event, in that moment, we choose which version of ourselves can go through it and what image of us can – despite everything – remain standing. Here because the fragment often recurs in work stories: because work is a place where relationships and judgments weigh heavily, not to mention reputation. The professional context is never neutral. It is, instead, a context of exposition, in which the fragment becomes the form that maintains a balance..
The fragment factory
In organizations the fragment goes beyond assembly and becomes an architecture. The culture of work is a factory of fragments: E., minutes, procedures, dashboard, two quick points, just for information, I'll update you by word of mouth. The fragment, in this comings and goings, It circulates freely and quickly. And here's a point that really interests me: organizational culture constructs meaning through systematic omissions. What doesn't fit in one E. Often it's what will never be brought to the table for discussion. What doesn't enter into a report is often what shouldn't officially exist. And what doesn't enter into a KPI is often what no one will bother to address. protect.
On the one hand, therefore, The fragment can be a form of organizational intelligence, as it reduces complexity. But the risk is that it becomes an elegant form of blindness..
Error as a fragment of truth
In many organizational cultures, for example, the error is a kind of noise to be eliminated, an imperfection to be corrected and archived, before it becomes a story. But An organization evolves and grows only when it admits errors in its language, legitimizing them as useful information. A fragment, yes, but a fragment of truth. And yet, the error is often considered an accident, a piece of reality that pierces the official narrative and makes visible what was neither contemplated nor foreseen. And above all, The error is omitted because it shows the gap between what is said and what happens, hence the inconsistency of the organization.
This time, the error is the fragment that is omitted, compromising the ability of an organization to learn, which will probably continue to make the same mistakes. When the error is named, however, the organizational culture can begin to breathe again, update itself and mature.
The digital fragment as an identity format
The in the digital context the fragment is a format. We know that il feed he doesn't like continuity, he prefers portions and quick assembly. And so what matters is no longer just what I select, but what is selected for me. What part of me, of my profile, is circulating? Which part becomes more visible and is rewarded by the algorithm? Here the The risk is confusing the fragment with the whole. And when it comes to digital identity, the threshold of reality is easily eluded.
Towards the Presence
Il fragment It is necessary because it makes the world sustainable for us, offering us a pocket-sized version of truth, convenient to carry in your pocket mini bag, or in the jacket pocket. But yet, If we stay too long in that little piece of reality, selection becomes habit and habit becomes identity. And at that point, the narrative becomes a permanent, tiring and unsustainable reduction.
Here the scene opens for the appearance of the third figure: the Presence. That It is not yet completeness, but the possibility of being in what happens without defending it and without cutting it. Presence is the gesture with which language becomes transparent, complex, and inhabited by the authentic.
