ndice

INTRODUCCIN

ENSAYO FUNDAMENTAL

Conflictos con la expresin relatador

Conflictos con la expresin linguocentrismo
Cuestiones Conceptuales

10
10
11

RELATO Y NARRACIN

15

LISTADO DE HERRAMIENTAS

16

LA MUERTE DE LA LENGUA

47

La "mitad ms valiosa"
La cuestin del envo
El soporte fetiche
La cuestin de la palabra
La cuestin multimedia
Superposicin de funciones
Fin de la era lingual

48
50
53
54
55
57
59

RELATADOR-PERSONA

61

Relatador-Persona
Sistema Perceptivo
rganos de Percepcin
rganos de actuacin
rganos de interaccin
Competencias
Mundo
LAPs: Licencias, Acuerdos, y Permisos
Moralejas

64
64
65
66
66
67
68
68
70

English version

75

INTRODUCTION

75

FUNDAMENTAL ESSAY

81

On the expression relator: some conflicting points

82
On the expression linguocentrism: some conflicting points 83
Some conceptual issues
83

RELATION AND NARRATION

87

LIST OF TOOLS

88

THE DEATH OF THE TONGUE

121

The most valuable half

The question of the sending
The fetish support
The word question
The multimedia question
Overlapping of functions
The end of the lingual era

122
124
127
128
129
131
133

RELATOR-PERSONA

135

Relator-persona
Perceptive system
Organs of perception
Performance organs
Organs of interaction
Competences
Genetic and knowledge codes
World
LAPs: Licenses, agreements and permissions
Moral

138
138
139
140
140
141
141
142
142
144

Ensayo Fundamental

Introduccin
Estos son algunos de los interrogantes que he intentado resolver con
lo que le ofrezco:
Una persona dice una frase cargada de irona a su suegra. Al mismo
tiempo, otra, en otra parte del globo, dice textualmente lo mismo.
Ambas suegras dan idnticas respuestas. Luego, ellas y otros millones ren viendo una comedia de televisin que pone al descubierto
su poca originalidad. Quin debe cobrar los derechos si todos crearon las lneas al decirlas? Cada vez que alguien sinti la necesidad
de expresar la frase, habl por s o fue posedo por alguien ms?
Acaso la cultura? La gentica? Las hormonas? La Warner
Brothers? Todos juntos? Ninguno de ellos?
Un candidato replica el mismo mensaje de texto a todos los electores. Algunos reciben una caricia y se disponen a votarlo, otros un
insulto que refuerza su decisin de no hacerlo. Podemos decir que
se replic un mismo mensaje solo porque todos portaron las mismas letras? Parte del contenido o del texto estaba fuera del mensaje? Qu clase de cosa es un mensaje? Y un texto?

Alejandro Guevara
Un mdico ciego ingresa a la habitacin de un paciente, transcurre
unos minutos en el ms absoluto silencio y, cuando se retira, hace
un diagnstico ms preciso que el de sus colegas videntes. Le preguntamos cmo lo hizo y nos explica que la familia narr con elocuencia. Pero quin lo hizo si no hubo palabras? Acaso los olores
narran? O las respiraciones? O tal vez hay "lenguaje" en las temperaturas del ambiente o de los cuerpos? Cmo pudo haber narracin sin palabras? Haba un "contenido" en esa habitacin? O estaba en la cabeza del mdico? O en ambos lados? Pudo haber un
relato? Entonces, qu clase de cosa es un relato?
Vemos la versin en espaol latinoamericano de Los Simpson y a
muchos nos parece an mejor que la original en ingls. Luego, los
mismos doblajistas nos ofrecen una deslucida versin de otra pelcula al punto que preferimos verla con subttulos. Acaso los actores perdieron su talento? Es responsabilidad de los directores? La
versin espaola europea nos resulta menos graciosa. Donde estn
las diferencias si el video es el mismo? Es la direccin? El etnocentrismo de alguna cultura? Son las reglamentaciones para audiovisuales? Son todos juntos? Un video, con diferente audio, sigue
siendo el mismo? Pero entonces, quin es el narrador? Qu clase
de cosa es? Son muchas personas en un mismo ente? Y la narracin visual? Responde tambin a un texto? Existe texto sin sintaxis?
Qu ha cambiado si, cuando volvemos a ver una pelcula, vemos
cosas que no vimos la primera vez? Acaso no es el mismo tape?
El mismo guin? Los mismos ojos? Diversas personas ven lo
mismo en un cuadro, en un afiche o en una pelcula? Una cancin,
diez aos despus, es la misma cancin? Y un libro cien aos despus?
Una minuciosa descripcin del rostro congelado de una persona
frente al pelotn de fusilamiento, es una historia? En la foto de un
rostro, hay una narracin? Cul es el papel del tiempo en una foto?
6

Ensayo Fundamental
Y en una historia? Es el que pas antes? Es el que pas despus?
Es el que transcurre a los que la ven? No hay tiempo? Es relevante la medicin del tiempo para definir qu clase de cosa sea un
relato? O solo discrimina tipos de contenido?
Alguien narra una situacin en la que otra persona tuvo miedo y lo
hace con voz trmula pero no quiere expresar su propio temor sino
el del aludido. La voz o la palabra, adems de decir, muestran? El
narrador habla ahora tal como lo hizo un personaje pero no cambia
su actitud inmediatamente sino que funde las voces de narrador y
personaje durante unos segundos, es por un momento dos personas
a la vez mientras hace una transicin similar al fundido entre tomas
de video? Ahora, la narradora parada frente a cientos de estudiantes
da a su discurso una cadencia identificable como canto escolar,
es ella la que habla o es el rol de la maestra que se aduea de su
aparato fonador? Un uniformado esdrujuliza y eso confiere un matiz
imperativo a su discurso, el matiz no lo expresa a l sino a la institucin a la que representa. Un locutor calvo habla en off de las bondades de un champ desenredante, es la voz de la experiencia pero
no de la suya sino la de los guionistas del departamento de marketing aun cuando tambin carezcan de cabello.
Dos personas leen el mismo libro. Una de ellas descubre en el texto
el verdadero sentido de la vida. La otra no recuerda lo que ley pero
s que le aburri. Ambos observaron la misma cosa? Si no contactaron con lo mismo por qu le llamamos igual? Al tiempo la primera de ellas descubre que fue engaada por el libro y la segunda al releerlo encuentra el verdadero sentido de la vida. Cules son las
propiedades del texto? Entre sus propiedades est cambiar las vidas de las personas? No tiene ninguna propiedad? Sus propiedades cambian con el tiempo? Puede decirse de un libro que jams
fue ledo, que es un libro? Y de unas palabras que jams fueron dichas? Puede un escrito a la vez ser una narracin y no serlo? Qu
clase de cosa es una narracin?

Alejandro Guevara
El libro contenedor del "verdadero sentido de la vida" se pierde. Su
nico adepto, antes de morir, compra un espacio en un medio de
comunicacin y difunde esa verdad al mundo. Pero lo pone al aire
fuera del prime time. Y, peor an, a esa misma hora el planeta est
viendo jugar al Barcelona. No logra un solo espectador, luego, se
pierde el verdadero sentido de la vida. De quin fue culpa? Del libro? De los medios de comunicacin? De la cultura de masas?
Del deporte? De Lio Messi? Cul es el verdadero sentido de la
vida?
Como ver, son muchas preguntas sin resolver.
Preguntas que la adolescencia global reedit, exponiendo la endeblez de las viejas creencias sobre la manera en que relatamos, que es
la manera en que seremos. La descarga de msica por internet crea
multimillonarias disputas sobre qu es un autor y cules sus derechos, que involucran cuestiones legislativas, filosficas, sociolgicas y polticas adems de econmicas. Por otro lado, la tecnologa
en los celulares coloc a la mano de millones, dispositivos de edicin y captura de audio, video y texto con recursos para organizar
(editar) la realidad, exponiendo la discrecionalidad que hemos tenido para disear nuestra propia existencia. Y el muro que supo haber
entre vida real y ficcin ha sido corrodo por los reality shows,
que expusieron la guerra fra entre instituciones que se proclamaban autorizadas a decidir quines somos o debemos ser.
Es el momento, entonces (como que es la llave de la libertad misma), de revisar los fenmenos que intervienen en la bsqueda, ofrecimiento y creacin de sentido.

Ensayo Fundamental

Ensayo Fundamental
El Ensayo Fundamental sobre el Relato est integrado por tres trabajos a modo de trada: La Muerte de la Lengua, Relato y Narracin y Relatador-Persona. Individualmente, son abordajes sobre
diferentes aspectos de la cuestin del relato y, en conjunto, una descripcin exhaustiva del fenmeno. Puede revisar slo el aspecto que
le resulte interesante y, si quiere ampliar, encontrar en los otros
alusiones a los mismos temas desde diferentes ngulos.
En La Muerte de la Lengua, ensayo una denuncia de lo que llamo
linguocentrismo, un modo de colocar el foco sobre el mundo (y
construirlo) auspiciado por el mismo complejo de inferioridad que
impulsa al sexismo o el racismo.
En Relato y Narracin, le ofrezco diez herramientas esenciales para ofrecedores de contenidos: narradores, escritores, actores, integrantes de producciones de medios audiovisuales, profesores, pintores, cantantes, arquitectos y, en diferentes circunstancias, todos
los humanos.

Alejandro Guevara

En Relatador-Persona, propongo un modelo del modo en que acopiamos experiencias y saberes celebrando relatos.

Conflictos con la expresin relatador

El uso de relatador, ha generado desconcierto por el cambio de
paradigma, que propone que quienes relatan no son quienes creamos hasta ahora (los que narran, por ejemplo) sino quienes, con las
ofertas de otras personas o de su propia curiosidad, celebran relatos
en ellos mismos.
No se trata de una eleccin equvoca sino de un conflicto buscado
para provocarle a desestructurar el viejo modo de relatar que llamo
linguocntrico.

Conflictos con la expresin linguocentrismo

Abogar por la abolicin de lo que llamo Linguocentrismo me ha
obligado a explicar reiteradamente que no busco sepultar el habla
ni cortar las lenguas de las personas, tal como ocurre con el feminismo cuando se lo ve una conspiracin contra el sexo opuesto, o
con la crtica al logocentrismo cuando se la considera antilogocentrismo. No es mi objetivo fundar un anti-sistema sino replantear la
cuestin del conocimiento y el pensamiento humanos sobre bases
ms endebles y honestas.

10

Ensayo Fundamental

Cuestiones Conceptuales
He buscado definir categoras que alcancen a la literatura, la escritura, el habla, la arquitectura y el resto de las manifestaciones del intercambio de sentido humanos.
Considere que he redefinido y adecuado terminologa y he creado
nuevas categoras, tenga por favor la paciencia de aguardar hasta
haber revisado exhaustivamente el sentido que doy a cada trmino
para analizarlos y cuestionarlos.
Por ejemplo, con las expresiones narracin y relato, designo a
fenmenos diferentes: narrar es exponer y relatar, proveerse de sentido. El origen de la palabra relato est en la latina relatus, donde latus es llevado o producido. Escojo ver al trmino relatar
como volver a producir o a presentar algo. Los humanos no podemos llevarnos los propios hechos sino una re-presentacin, una
imagen que les permita presentarse ante nosotros. Esa imagen de lo
acontecido incluye tambin nuestro punto de vista, nuestra habilidad para componer y nuestros intereses al respecto. Tomarse el trabajo de producir no se hace sin alguna finalidad del tipo: estudiar u
organizar lo que nos rodea, acopiar experiencias o contrastarlas con
otras ya registradas, ejercitar o reconocer al propio sistema, conocer
a los otros, hacer catarsis, disfrutar, sufrir, etc. De modo que los
hechos (de todos los acontecidos, solo los que escogimos) que
hayan de presentarse (la presentacin es producida en el humano) lo
harn con diversas intermediaciones.
Si bien la adquisicin de saberes y experiencias no se detendr en
tanto estemos viviendo, hay un momento en que consideramos suficiente a lo percibido como para sacar una conclusin que, aunque
no es definitiva, nos permite cerrar un ciclo y dedicar nuestra atencin a celebrar otros relatos, concluir unos que hayamos dejado
pendientes o revisar aquellos cuyas definiciones no estn dando

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Alejandro Guevara

buenos resultados en la aplicacin prctica. En funcin de esto, defino al relato como:

El evento que acontece entre la produccin de una presentacin y
la incorporacin de un aprendizaje 1.
Los seres humanos celebramos ese evento por nosotros mismos y
tambin con sugerencias de otros. Voy a proponerle prestar atencin
tanto al modo en que nos re-presentamos a nosotros como a la manera en que ofrecemos ayuda a otros para re-presentarse. He nombrado a esas funciones relatador 2 y persona 3 respectivamente.
Un mismo relato no acontece dos veces ya que slo el hecho de que
hayamos celebrado uno antes nos ha hecho diferentes relatadores y
personas. Luego, cada relato existe slo en tanto est celebrndose.
Como le propongo que el resultado de la celebracin de un relato es
el acopio de algn tipo de riqueza a la que, en algunos campos, solemos llamar saber, le ofrezco mi definicin:

La cuestin de la utilidad tal vez genere controversia, djeme ampliarle la oferta

en este punto. Por lo pronto, le adelanto que no slo considero aprendizaje a la
memorizacin de frmulas matemticas sino tambin a experimentaciones de todo
tipo, incluidas las que puedan considerarse banales cientficamente como la del placer.
1

Todos los humanos somos relatadores en tanto sondeamos, creamos y editamos

unas percepciones, las asociamos en una presentacin y evaluamos su resultado y
posibilidades para archivar lo aprendido. Ms en Relatador-Persona.
2

Del latn per sonare. Aprovecho la referencia a las mscaras del teatro griego
que caracterizaban a los personajes por su modo de sonar. De este aspecto humano
como generador y ofrecedor de contenidos me ocupo en Relato y Narracin

12

Ensayo Fundamental
Saber es hacer un alto en el camino del aprendizaje, solo necesario para actuar.
Saber es detener el crecimiento. Eso es til pero solamente cuando
debemos tomar determinaciones perentorias 4. Decir ya, definitivamente, s es decir no necesito aprender ms. Y eso, la mayor
parte del tiempo, no es cierto.

Le invito a salirse del lugar de confort que brindan los saberes incuestionables, para considerar un modo en que ms probablemente
acontezca el fenmeno del relato (que es la manera en que acopiamos conocimientos y experiencias). Si se atreve a revisarlo y aplica la perspectiva en su prctica cotidiana, notar importantes cambios en su rendimiento y la calidad de lo que produzca.
*

Un cirujano slo debe saber que es necesario amputar en el momento en que peligra la vida del paciente pero no debera dejar de investigar por considerar que ya
sabe a riesgo de mutilar personas intilmente en el futuro.

13

Alejandro Guevara

14

Relato y Narracin

Relato y Narracin
Herramientas fundamentales para ofrecer contenidos

Las herramientas que voy a ofrecerle aplican a todos los modos y

medios de oferta de contenidos, desde el oral o escrito hasta la cinematografa o la msica y desde la ms increble superproduccin
multimedia hasta la ms improvisada oferta de noviazgo. Al finalizar, podr usted responder ms satisfactoriamente las preguntas de
la introduccin.
Las ofertas de contenidos se hacen con el fin de que se celebren relatos, son guas para celebrar relatos pero no relatos en s mismas.
No podemos guardar los propios acontecimientos sino percepciones
de ellos, que resultan de comparaciones con otras percepciones o
saberes ya almacenados y organizados. El conocimiento nuevo, entonces, est tambin formado por conocimiento viejo. Ese saber
previo, que ayuda a dar sentido a lo que ocurre, suele provenir del
ser humano que relata su propia existencia (relatador) y de instructivos (contenidos) que le ofrecen otros. Si alguien lee un libro o ve
una pelcula puede, si quiere, celebrar un relato con ayuda de ese
instructivo. Desde la produccin de contenidos, nos toca trabajar
buscando ofrecer buenos contenidos y procurar que estn disponibles en el lugar y el momento indicados para que los relatadores que
estn dispuestos los puedan aprovechar.

15

Alejandro Guevara

Listado de herramientas
1. Produzca sabiendo que "ofrece" en lugar de pensar que "enva".
2. Es usted una persona-relatador aunque por momentos funcione ms como relatador o ms como persona.
3. Optimice las posibilidades de que los contenidos que ofrece se
parezcan a los que han de establecer sus relatadores.
4. Revise la coherencia entre los "departamentos" de su produccin oferente.
4.1 Autor - Autoridad
5. Clarifquese qu es lo que ofrecer y a qu relatadores.
6. No respete el texto sino el objetivo de la produccin.
7. Haga un anlisis concienzudo de las licencias, acuerdos y
permisos por defecto y de los que espere otorgar, acordar u obtener.
8. Defina qu protagonismo asigna a sus canales de expresin y
a los rganos de percepcin de sus relatadores.
9. Evale la calidad del material que ofrece y del que ofrecen
otros.
10. Esquema del circuito de ofrecimientos, solicitudes y establecimiento de contenidos (descripcin de algunas funciones).

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Relato y Narracin
1. Produzca sabiendo que ofrece en lugar de pensar
que "enva".
Usar esta herramienta implica desandar el prejuicio que llamo linguocentrismo (desarrollado en "La Muerte de la Lengua") que, en lo
que respecta a este punto, apoya la creencia de que los contenidos,
en lugar de ofertas de instructivos para generar percepciones (y luego, relatos) son "paquetes de percepciones" a ser "recibidas" por
"destinatarios". De acuerdo con este concepto errneo, los supuestos
destinatarios poco pueden hacer con los paquetes excepto desempacarlos correctamente.
De ninguna manera funciona as. Los seres humanos decidimos qu
ofertas han de interesarnos, buena parte de lo que hay dentro de
ellas y en qu medida sus instrucciones nos sern de utilidad. Esto
no quiere decir que acertemos todas las veces, probablemente en los
hechos ocurra casi lo contrario y dediquemos demasiado tiempo a
procesar contenidos irrelevantes y tengamos poca habilidad para detectar a los que nos seran ms tiles. Por eso mismo, para realizar
(relatar) una vida ms satisfactoria, siempre estamos buscando ajustar el modo de discriminarlos.
Estoy dicindole que sus probables relatadores no absorbern lo
que les enva sino que, eventualmente, decidirn prestar atencin a
lo que les propone. Y que sus propuestas consisten en unas recetas
para que re-laten: vuelvan a producir a su modo. Y as, cada relatador celebrar su propio relato. Cuando una persona describe a otra
un objeto desconocido, ofrece indicadores para que el relatador genere percepciones parecidas a las que experiment el ofrecedor. El
relatador no percibir lo mismo sino que, con ese instructivo y ayudado por percepciones de archivo, re-producir o re-crear percepciones de algo que con suerte tendr parecido con lo que han querido referirle.

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Alejandro Guevara

Este procedimiento es bien diferente al del envo de un paquete de

percepciones.
2. Es usted una persona-relatador aunque por momentos
funcione ms como relatador o ms como persona.
Funcionamos como relatadores cuando tomamos elementos del entorno (pueden ser hechos, materiales o conjeturas), los representamos, organizamos esas representaciones dndoles un sentido y lo
acopiamos en nuestro almacn de saberes; y como personas cuando
producimos y ofrecemos con sonidos, imgenes, olores, etc., material para guiar a relatadores en la generacin de percepciones y les
sugerimos el sentido que deberan darles organizndolo en ofertas
(contenidos).
Si en este momento siente algo de confusin, est en el camino correcto. Es que relatador no nombra a lo que hasta ahora conocamos como "relator", que es quien creamos que "enviaba un relato",
sino al responsable de un modo ms probable de funcionamiento del
relato (a quien antes llambamos lector o espectador). Relatador no
es, por ejemplo, quien emite palabras sino quien, ayudado por lo
que se ofrece invocando palabras, crea o recrea una experiencia.
Las funciones relatador y persona coexisten entre diferentes seres
humanos y tambin dentro del mismo, no obstante, parecen tener
"vidas separadas". Por ejemplo, la habilidad en un aspecto no implica habilidad en el otro: usted puede sacar grandes provechos de libros y pelculas o de conversaciones con amigos pero no ser bueno
ofreciendo instrucciones para que otros relaten o, por el contrario,
ser un buen productor de recetas para ofrecer a otros y no ser bueno
para llevarlas a cabo. Conocemos a muchos buenos consejeros cuya
vida es un desastre y a muchos humanos felices que no encuentran
el modo de ayudar a serlo tambin a su entorno.
En qu medida saber sobre relatadores es til para producir mejores contenidos?
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Relato y Narracin
Saber qu puede hacer nuestro ofrecido con nuestra oferta, en caso de aceptarla, es determinante para ayudarlo a disfrutarla o para
orientarle sobre la medida en que le ser de utilidad.
De modo resumido: los relatadores producimos y organizamos unas
percepciones de lo que entendemos que ha acontecido en el mundo,
tanto real como imaginario, relacionndolas con otras o con percepciones de archivo, de manera de encontrar algn tipo de explicacin
al acontecimiento (presentacin). Y si el material alcanza para considerar un aprendizaje total o parcial, lo archivamos como nuevo conocimiento para interactuar mejor con el mundo y con nosotros
mismos.
Saber cmo se funciona como relatador, adems, mejorar sus posibilidades de crear diferentes relatadores tipo. Para chequear o
hacer correcciones sobre su propio material, es preciso colocarse en
lugar de un relatador con competencias e intereses similares a los de
quienes se espera que acepten la oferta.
Las dos primeras herramientas descriptas hasta ahora son primordiales para la oferta de contenidos. Su utilizacin debera verse en los
hechos como una cuidadosa eleccin, produccin y exposicin de
indicadores 5, considerando los intereses y competencias de diferentes relatadores.
3. Procure que los contenidos que ofrece se parezcan a
los que han de establecer sus relatadores.
Cada relatador establecer, en la medida de sus competencias e intereses, cmo es el contenido de la oferta de la cual es objeto.

Definicin ms precisa de indicador en la herramienta 10, Esquema y descripcin...

5

19

Alejandro Guevara

En lo referente a las competencias, el background de cada relatador

discrimina las posibilidades de establecer. Por ejemplo, quienes
trabajan en medicina entendern de diferente modo ciertos indicadores de la serie Dr. House. En lo que respecta a intereses, son muchas
las variantes posibles y van desde nuestra consideracin sobre en
qu medida puede sernos til tal contenido hasta nuestros intereses
econmicos, emocionales o polticos. Por ejemplo, no relatamos del
mismo modo con un peridico con el que estamos de acuerdo polticamente que con uno con el que no lo estamos. Esto quiere decir
que ms all de que usted crea haber ofrecido un contenido
(Ocontenido), cada relatador establecer que se le ha ofrecido lo
que pueda y quiera (Econtenido).
Lo establecido incluso cambiar para un mismo relatador que decide relatar por segunda o tercera ocasin, como ocurre cuando vemos nuevamente una pelcula: no solo porque mismo y nuevamente no aplican ya que cada relatador se renueva con cada experiencia y una pelcula cambia al variar el entorno sino porque los relatadores tienen siempre conveniencias, obligaciones, razones o
emociones 6 diversas por las cuales consideraran llevar a cabo cada
celebracin.
Un contenido ofrecido debe tener la capacidad de guiar hacia unas
percepciones, proponer una organizacin y brindar una posibilidad
de conclusin (lgica, emocional, experiencial, etc.).
Los elementos que ayudan a producir percepciones son indicadores
que iremos ofreciendo a nuestro probable relatador para que complete el "rompecabezas" de su cuadro de situacin. De este modo, si
usted expone un indicador, como por ejemplo una escena de un film
donde se muestra una habitacin vaca y se hace un zoom sobre un

LAPs: Licencias, Acuerdos y Permisos, ver definicin en la herramienta 7.

20

Relato y Narracin
cenicero con una colilla manchada con labial, muchos relatadores
entendern que deben guardar esa informacin porque habr de serles til ms adelante. En cada relatador que lo advierta, el indicador
habr propiciado una percepcin y cada una tendr matices propios.
Algunos, por ejemplo, creern, uniendo esa percepcin con otras,
que ya conocen al asesino y otros pasarn de la certeza a la confusin. Algunos en lugar de lpiz labial vern sangre y quiz muchos
no advertirn indicador alguno, por lo que ser necesario redundar
en la oferta hasta asegurarse de que cada relatador cuente con material suficiente para completar su presentacin aun sin disponer de lo
que perder por distraccin o ruido.
Hay distintos tipos de indicadores, que solemos organizar en secuencias, captulos, partes de una zaga, etc. Lo que los aglutina en
un contenido es el enfoque hacia una propuesta de conclusin, a la
que los guiar una grilla o instructivo para el armado. La grilla es un
mapa que propone un modo de valorar y archivar: un aparentemente
mismo indicador indicar diferente si integra una grilla de suspenso, una sensorial, una historia de amor o una humorstica.
Las grillas proponen modos de organizar, que no necesariamente reconocen una lnea de tiempo y, si bien el modo cronolgico es uno
de los ms difundidos y efectivos, hay otros con diversa relevancia
temporal como algunos descriptivos. La incidencia del tiempo en un
contenido atae al gnero y de ningn modo a la estructura fundacional del relato. Los estudiosos que colocaron el tiempo como variable estructural del relato se enredaron con la visin linguocntrica
que prim hasta el siglo XX, que llamaba al relatador despectivamente destinatario.
Entonces, para que sus relatadores establezcan de su oferta lo ms
parecido a lo que cree ofrecer, debe escoger y producir cuidadosamente cada uno de sus indicadores para ponerlos a su alcance, disear cada grilla o escoger una preseteada (gnero), sintonizar con
sus conveniencias, obligaciones, razones o emociones y considerar
21

Alejandro Guevara

muchas variables como el momento histrico, cultural o econmico

en el que vaya a ser completado cada relato o la dispersin o los
ruidos del ambiente. Los relatadores suelen estar por momentos dispersos, no entender algo o simplemente han tenido que ir al sanitario.
4. Revise la coherencia entre los "departamentos" de su
produccin oferente.
Producir contenidos involucra a varias reas especializadas con diferentes objetivos complementarios, entre ellos: logstica, direccin,
captura, exposicin, grabacin, etc. Esas funciones recaen sobre diversos rganos en las personas, sobre diferentes funcionarios de una
compaa o departamentos en una gran organizacin.
El modo en que considere al resto de los actores de su produccin
oferente (PO) ser determinante de la calidad de su oferta. Si se ha
entendido y sintonizado con el resto, tendr ms posibilidades de
producir ofertas congruentes, sencillas de entender y efectivas. A
poco de andar ver que gran parte de los desajustes o errores en los
contenidos oferentes resultan de una mala coordinacin entre los actores o simplemente de ignorar su existencia. Los desajustes en la
oferta redundan en ms trabajo para el relatador, quien deber atar
cabos sueltos o resolver contradicciones (si decide tomarse ese trabajo, en la mayor parte de los casos no lo har y no habr relato).
Luego, cuando decida exponer un material, considere una ardua tarea de preproduccin y un estudio concienzudo de cada una de las
premisas. Puede usted trabajar sobre Romeo y Julieta y, si bien no
conseguir una entrevista personal con William Shakespeare, s
puede negociar con l a travs de sus ofertas.
Al narrar, por ejemplo, se reporta al resto de una estructura de oferta
de contenidos. Si hace su narracin apoyndose en el ofrecimiento
de un escritor, tambin l ser parte de su produccin oferente.
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Relato y Narracin
4.1 Autor - Autoridad
Lo que exterioriza cada humano no necesariamente es original. En
nuestras palabras o gestos, hablan otras personas de las que hemos
aprendido, grupos de personas organizadas en entidades a las que
llamamos culturas, y personas an ms lejanas y desconocidas que
(an no sabemos de qu modo) nos han dejado grabados sus aprendizajes en los genes. As de complejo es saber quin es quien ofrece.
La funcin de autoridad 7 suele ser ejercida por un colectivo de diversos actores con diverso tipo de participacin, intereses, LAPs, etc.
Los relatadores necesitamos establecer algn punto de vista desde
donde ha sido observado lo que se nos ofrece para sincronizar nuestra propia cosmovisin. Al establecer ese punto de vista, creamos
una imagen del responsable de la oferta (Eautoridad). Cuando, por
ejemplo, la autora proviene de nuestra propia persona, nuestro relatador termina de establecerla revisando las LAPs que podamos tener
acordadas con nosotros mismos y hasta nuestro estado de nimo:
tomamos menos seriamente algo que vemos triste si creemos estar
deprimidos.
Cuando la oferta proviene de una produccin oferente (otra persona,
grupo de personas o productora de contenidos), establecemos la
perspectiva y la responsabilidad del ofrecimiento considerando con
nuestros conocimientos e intereses la Oautoridad. Todos los integrantes de un equipo de produccin y en cierta medida hasta la
humanidad, pasada y futura, se postularn para integrar cada autoridad ofrecida.

7
Puede usted encontrar una definicin ms extendida al finalizar las herramientas.
Vea en La Muerte de la Lengua cmo solemos confundir esta funcin con la de
quien llamamos autor por prejuicio linguocntrico.

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Alejandro Guevara

Como productor y ofrecedor de contenidos deber tomar decisiones

precisas sobre su participacin en la entidad a la que se postular
como integrante. De acuerdo con su conformacin, podr aspirar a
diferentes licencias, acuerdos y permisos (LAPs) que sern determinantes de las probabilidades de xito de sus ofertas.
5. Clarifquese qu es lo que ofrecer y a qu relatadores
Nadie relata si no considera que con eso ha de obtener algo, desde
aprendizajes lgicos y racionales hasta vivencias de sensaciones, incluidas todo tipo de situaciones reales o imaginadas.
Para asegurarnos de que alguien pueda relatar con ayuda de lo que
le ofrecemos, es preciso que nuestro instructivo sea amigable y tenga algn tipo de coherencia interna dirigida hacia el objetivo que
nos proponemos que considere. No siempre esta experiencia o
aprendizaje propuestos estarn explcitos porque tal vez no sean explicables con palabras o ni siquiera sean del todo conscientes (un
ofrecedor, por caso el testigo de un delito, puede describir unos
hechos intentando ser objetivo, y sin embargo torcer la balanza inconscientemente hacia alguien de quien sospecha por su aspecto o
raza). Aun considerando que hay muchos imponderables, debe preguntarse qu provecho creern obtener sus relatadores y estudiar la
relacin entre sus promesas (manifiestas o encubiertas) y las expectativas que podra favorecer en ellos para estar a esa altura, honrar
sus compromisos y conservar sus licencias para futuros contenidos.
Usted tambin ha de tener motivaciones que le lleven a ofrecer contenidos. Son muy variadas y pueden ser altruistas o materialistas pero son diversas de las que tendrn los relatadores para aprovechar
sus Ocontenidos.
He escuchado muchas veces a creativos diciendo: "yo solamente
produzco para m mismo". Alguien pinta un cuadro y manifiesta que
no ha querido trascender con su pintura sino solo disfrutar del proceso de la creacin. Aun tratndose de un proceso auto-satisfactorio
24

Relato y Narracin
(con perdn de la expresin), estar habiendo relato cada vez que
una persona ofrezca algo con lo cual relate el relatador que la completa. De cualquier modo, buena parte de las manifestaciones de
desinters son slo frases de mercadeo destinadas a aumentar el valor "espiritual" del contenido ofrecido de modo que se pague ms.
Para aprovechar esta herramienta, cuando est produciendo, vea si
puede resumir en una frase (o sensacin) su oferta: le servir para
dar coherencia a los indicadores y al resto de los elementos de su
puesta en escena.
Tambin revise qu tipo de relatadores cree usted que podran interesarse en su oferta (por ms que muchas veces los relatadores terminen siendo los menos pensados). Tener una idea o perfil tipo del
relatador que toma como objetivo, mejora las posibilidades de ajustar la interpretacin. No se dirige uno del mismo modo a humanos
de diferentes edades, culturas, intereses, etctera aun cuando crea
ofrecer un mismo contenido. El ajuste es til, por ejemplo, para escoger la terminologa o las imgenes adecuadas o evitar largos pasajes explicando lo ya sabido. Aun as, considere que puede ofrecer a
diversos relatadores, con lo cual, si aguza su ingenio, podr entretejer material para todos. Muchas de las producciones geniales tienen
algo que ofrecer a diferentes tipos de relatadores como Los Simpson, que ofrecen contenidos simultneos para una gran variedad de
edades, culturas, etc.
El ofrecedor no hace rer al pblico sino que pone a su disposicin
una gua para que algunos integrantes celebren risas. Si lo ve de este
modo, entender por qu algunos relatadores reirn a carcajadas y
otros permanecern inclumes masticando sus palomitas de maz y
por qu hasta es posible que algunos se enojen o se sientan ofendidos.
Por lo tanto, no solo debe considerar a quienes se dirige y cerciorarse de que ellos estn en el radio de alcance de su oferta sino tambin
procurar que quienes puedan sentirse ofendidos o no considerados
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Alejandro Guevara

no sean ofrecidos involuntariamente, por ejemplo, explicitando

LAPs como contenido no apto para relatadores impresionables.
6. No respete el texto sino el objetivo de la produccin
Es probable que, para relatar en sintona con mi relato, deba revisar
los conceptos y definiciones de La muerte de la lengua, de lo contrario es probable que lo que sigue le resulte confuso o incoherente.
He escuchado a profesores bienintencionados cometer el pecado de
aconsejar a sus alumnos de locucin que se dirigan a un papel escrito: respeta el texto. Este ofrecimiento puede conllevar la confusin que llamo fetichismo del soporte del que hablo en "La
Muerte de la Lengua". Por otra parte, creer que las palabras son lo
que hay en el papel es tambin linguocntrico. Las palabras no salen
de las lenguas y penetran los odos, ni salen de los papeles y penetran los ojos, son entre y no desde o hacia. El texto de tinta en el libro no es la oferta sino un grabado aunque por fetichismo linguocntrico 8 nos cueste verlo de otro modo.
Luego, lo que debe respetar es el objetivo de la produccin oferente,
para lo cual deber decidir desde la perspectiva de la Oautoridad,
cul es la oferta - objetivo.
Lo que debera sugerir el profe, a mi entender, es que la manifestacin fsica del narrador debera sintonizar con el resto del equipo de
Oproduccin. O si por ejemplo van a trabajar con Romeo y Julieta,
acordar sobre lo que entiendan que ha querido ofrecer Shakespeare,
lo cual implicar necesarias negociaciones y actualizaciones.

El soporte fetiche Pgina 57.

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Relato y Narracin
No obstante, tal vez el profe pueda ofrecer que, en tanto narrador
(integrante del equipo de produccin), el estudiante debe ceirse a
la propuesta e intereses de la autoridad que emana del texto sin
agregarle ni quitarle. Pero esto no es posible porque la autoridad no
es una funcin que emane sino que se propone y establece para cada
oferta, con lo cual, si ha considerado que hay un unvoco referente u
origen universal, est pensando de modo linguocntrico (logocntrico). Debera el profe en primera instancia discutir con su alumno
sobre la autoridad a proponer ya que cualquier aporte a una produccin oferente re-crea la Oautoridad y desconocer un aporte o tratar
de hacerlo desaparecer es una actividad mproba y hasta puede ser
deshonesta.
Unos buenos aunque fallidos intentos de salirse del linguocentrismo
han sido, aprovechando la amplitud que favorece la etimologa de
texto como tejido, proponer que el "destinatario" tambin estaba
considerado en el texto o que el contexto era parte del texto. Pero
no han sido suficientes. Puede usted encontrar muchas ofertas donde
en la misma frase se propone "texto" como soporte, como contenido
ofrecido y como establecido y, por supuesto, nunca como rgano interactivo. Si puede ahora ver que se ha aludido a fenmenos diferentes sin advertirlo, entender por qu a menudo nos hemos enredado
con tan diverso tejido hasta ya no poder desanudar la madeja.
Llamar lectores a los humanos que relatan con libros proviene de la
misma confusin. La accin de leer debera considerarse similar a la
que hace la lectora de una PC, por ejemplo: tomar unos datos y ponerlos a disposicin de algo o alguien ms, incluso recodificarlos,
pero no interpretarlos ni mucho menos relatar. Compruebe que de
este modo actuamos los humanos: tenemos la opcin de leer prrafos enteros sin haber entendido o retenido una sola palabra. Eso manifiesta que la accin mecnica de la lectura es bien diferente de la
de hacer algo con palabras.

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Alejandro Guevara

7. Haga un anlisis concienzudo de las licencias, acuerdos

y permisos (LAPs) por defecto y de los que espere otorgar,
acordar u obtener.
Entre la produccin de ofertas, el establecimiento de contenidos y la
celebracin de relatos, existe lo que llamo LAPs: licencias, acuerdos y permisos, que usted debe considerar cuidadosamente al momento de ofrecer.
Desde el punto de vista de la persona (es decir de quien ofrece
contenidos a relatadores), las licencias se obtienen: al colocar su
oferta en un peridico, una sala de cine, una oficina, lo mismo que
al ofrecer desde un puesto jerrquico por ejemplo, podr invocar diferentes licencias. Esto siempre de acuerdo con cada relatador, un
mismo peridico puede ostentar una licencia de credibilidad para
ciertos relatadores y no lograrla con otros. Los permisos los otorga
usted a sus probables relatadores, por ejemplo cuando califica su
contenido como no apto para ciertas edades o personas impresionables, etc. Como ocurre con toda norma o acuerdo, pueden ser respetados o transgredidos y pueden incluso invocarse para generar expectativa, como cuando a los nios se les dice "no tomes la leche"
con la intencin de que la tomen. Los acuerdos suelen provenir de
negociaciones entre licencias y permisos y resultan, por ejemplo, en
licencias solo vigentes en tanto se cumpla con permisos o en permisos que regirn en tanto se obtengan licencias. Tambin se negocian
acuerdos sobre los usos o significados de ciertos trminos o los
mbitos de validez de los parmetros.
Las LAPs en ocasiones son explcitas y en otras no, pueden o no ser
conscientes y ser transparentes y honestas y tambin capciosas o
deshonestas. Tambin pueden ser expuestas, subyacentes, entendidas, sobreentendidas, malentendidas, etc.

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Relato y Narracin
Al momento de ofrecer su contenido debe considerar qu LAPs requiere, con cules cree contar y el modo de obtener las restantes, incluso durante la exposicin puede presuponer que ir ganando credibilidad y proponer desde ese momento tesis ms arriesgadas.
Errneamente puede pretenderse que no hay LAPs solo porque la
negociacin no ha quedado explcita para alguien. Sabr de ellas
cuando las incumpla, como acontecer si, por ejemplo, no respeta
los derechos a la intimidad o de la niez, consagrados en el pacto de
San Jos de Costa Rica para Occidente. Adems de observar las expresadas en leyes y reglamentos, preste especial atencin a las concretamente no escritas para ajustar sus ofertas: la razn del fracaso
de muchos Ocontenidos es el haber valorado LAPs de forma errnea o directamente no haberlas considerado.
Una LAP no escrita, por ejemplo, es la que surge de la promesa de
valor de una oferta. Si usted ofrece a un relatador su contenido con
la frase: ni te imaginas lo que encontr en la calle! y su relatador
circunstancial acepta con un dime!, usted se ha comprometido a
exponer un acontecimiento de gran valor para ese relatador de
acuerdo con el cual obtuvo licencia para extenderse. De este modo,
si es enormemente singular y valioso, podr tomarse ms tiempo y
retroceder en el prembulo hasta tal vez un cuando yo era nio,
y de no serlo tanto, deber ir ms rpido al punto. Pongmosle
nmeros: si va a referir que encontr 1$ tendr una licencia de
tiempo menor que si se tratara de 1000$ y mucho menor que si se
tratase de un tesoro perdido. Aqu mismo puede ver cmo las ofertas no pueden valorarse sin considerar a quin se le ofrezcan: el dinero (tanto como el amor o la ciencia) es de distinto inters para diferentes relatadores. Si equivocando su juicio sobre el relatador se
extiende, por ejemplo, de ms recibir una reprimenda aunque no
recuerde haber firmado ningn acuerdo.
Cuando se crea artsticamente, siempre se est en los bordes de los
acuerdos pero si se transgreden y no se ponen a disposicin los indi29

Alejandro Guevara

cadores necesarios para celebrarlo, pueden, por ejemplo, ofrecerse

involuntariamente contenidos ofensivos. No obstante, no toda reaccin adversa implica contenidos ofensivos, en ocasiones la reaccin,
incluso violenta, ha sido buscada: la oferta puede ser movilizadora.
Gneros como LAPs
En el punto tres he propuesto que los gneros parten de un acuerdo
(son grillas pre-acordadas) pero muchos tardan en ser acordados por
todos como el del videoclip, que fue criticado duramente por algunos relatadores hasta que comprendieron su lgica interna.
8. Defina qu protagonismo asigna a sus canales de expresin y a los rganos de percepcin de sus relatadores.
Sus medios y canales de expresin exponen sus indicadores a los relatadores. Por ejemplo, con un proyector de video puede exponer
contrastes de luz que sugieran un rostro. Pero usted no estar envindole uno a su relatador, en el sentido estricto de envo, porque
eso no puede hacerse de acuerdo con el punto de vista de este ensayo. Y si lo hiciese en el sentido estricto, no sera bien visto, como
no fue bien recibida la cabeza del caballo en El Padrino.
Que usted trabaje con cmaras y proyectores no significa que slo
ofrezca indicadores para percepcin de imgenes. Con esos mismos
indicadores puede tambin ayudar a percibir olores, sonidos, calor,
etc. Lo mismo si usa canales sonoros, adems de ayudar a percibir
sonidos, puede indicar cmo percibir imgenes, durezas, sabores y
terror o sosiego. Habitualmente son varios los canales que, a modo
de co-Onarradores, integran en conjunto un Onarrador.

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Relato y Narracin
Los rganos de percepcin de los relatadores suelen actuar simultneamente, coordinados por el sistema de percepcin 9. Debe considerar qu espera que est haciendo cada rgano de sus relatadores durante su exposicin y no dejar, en lo posible, ninguno librado al
azar. Procure apelar a todos no solo creando indicadores en su oferta
sino tambin cuidando detalles hasta del entorno de la exposicin.
Por ejemplo, una sala con excesiva temperatura ambiente no ayudar
a muchos de los indicadores de una pelcula sobre supervivencia en
el hielo.
Cada vez disponemos de ms dispositivos u rganos de exposicin
y percepcin gracias a las nuevas tecnologas. Las potencialidades y
caractersticas de cada oferta dependen del tipo de dispositivos de
captura o exposicin con que cuente, de la habilidad para la captura,
produccin, edicin y exposicin y tambin de las prestaciones y
habilidades de los rganos de percepcin de sus probables relatadores.
Tambin tenga en cuenta que diferentes relatadores dan mayor relevancia al foco que ofrecen diferentes dispositivos de entrada y, as
como hay relatadores que favorecen la ptica de los dispositivos de
imagen, los hay ms auditivos, tctiles, olfativos, racionales, emocionales, etc.
Con frecuencia se confunde el dispositivo de entrada con el rgano
de percepcin: se cree que son lo mismo el sentido de la vista y el
rgano de percepcin de imgenes. Tenga en cuenta que las imgenes se componen, como todas las percepciones, de lo que excita a
los dispositivos de entrada 10 (por ejemplo, los ojos), que luego ser

Ms sobre rganos de percepcin, incluidos los de razones o emociones, en Relatador-Persona.

No siempre una imagen nace en los ojos, puede sentirse por otro dispositivo de
contacto y hasta prescindir del contacto con el exterior (ser imaginada).

10

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Alejandro Guevara

procesado en el resto del rgano con imgenes de archivo, enmarcado por LAPs (lo que se debe o conviene ver o no, lo que se esperaba ver), etc. A su vez los rganos de percepcin participan en
rganos de interaccin donde se sirven de rganos y dispositivos
de salida o actuacin, como la mano que oprime para que las yemas
de los dedos perciban consistencia, etc.
La reduccin de los rganos de percepcin a dispositivos de entrada
a los que se confundi en el nombre sentidos, considerados como
receptores pasivos, sumado a la creencia de que los dispositivos de
actuacin envan y los de percepcin reciben, en lugar de todos
formar parte de un sistema de interaccin con el entorno, ha dado
lugar a lo que llamo linguocentrismo, que dictamin que los de
exposicin tenan mayor estatus que los de percepcin (simplificando, la lengua que el odo) por ser el origen 11.
El habla como resultado de un rgano especial
El sistema linguocntricamente llamado habla 12 constituye un
rgano de interaccin social. El habla organiza, reproduce y potencia el sistema de acumulacin y descarte de experiencias sensoriales
pero no es extrasensorial 13. Desde mi punto de vista, no se ha probado que la posibilidad de amar sea menos mgica que la de hablar,
pese a que esta ltima no sea, por el momento, compartida con el
resto de los seres vivos conocidos. Aseverar lo contrario es despre-

11

Logocentrismo en La Muerte de la Lengua.

12

Justificacin en La Muerte de la Lengua

La confusin sobre los sentidos llev tambin a creer que exista una lnea entre
fsica y metafsica. El bibliotecario Andrnico de Rodas coloc unos escritos de
Aristteles en estantes diversos, producto de su propio relato sobre qu contena
cada contenido (sugerido tal vez por Aristteles y sus antecesores). Esa, a mi juicio,
es la nica prueba de la existencia de tan temeraria divisin del universo.
13

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Relato y Narracin
ciar a otros modos de inteligencia, colocando lo racional por sobre
lo emocional, por ejemplo. Y despreciar es no poder apreciar, una
limitacin del observador, no de lo observado.
9. Evale la calidad del material que ofrece y del que
ofrecen otros.
Si desanda sus viejas creencias y prejuicios, ver que podr referirse
a la calidad de la oferta de contenidos con un criterio relativamente
objetivo. Las herramientas que le proporciono indican parmetros
para evaluar tanto la oferta de contenidos como la celebracin de relatos, pero esos calificativos solo servirn para establecer en qu
medida se cumplen los objetivos tanto de ofrecedores como de relatadores.
Si revisa el ejemplo de la herramienta siete, donde le describo
cmo, de acuerdo con el inters que tenga la oferta para el relatador,
podremos tomarnos ms de su tiempo en la exposicin, ver cmo
puede sustentarse la expresin: esta pelcula es muy larga, por
ejemplo. No hemos de discutir el criterio del relatador que manifieste descontento pero s estudiar si las razones del descontento pudieron zanjarse en la oferta y aprender. Si ha sido que la oferta no estaba dirigida a ese tipo de relatadores, la produccin oferente puede
revisar sus criterios publicitarios o el relatador, su modo de evaluar
los ofrecimientos. Pero si muchos relatadores-objetivo 14 manifesta-

Siempre hay un relatador-objetivo aun cuando muchos productores oferentes no

se lo confiesen. Puede ser ambiguo y pretencioso como toda la humanidad o preciso y pretencioso como algunos targets publicitarios. En todos los casos, el objetivo comienza a delinearse desde el momento en que se elige el soporte (las imgenes presuponen a quienes pueden ver, las palabras a quienes oyen y hablan, y hasta
discriminan por lengua, dialecto y registro, etc.) y contina con la eleccin del tema, el modo de abordarlo y hasta la circunstancia de exhibicin.
14

33

Alejandro Guevara

ran que es larga, estaramos ante un seguro error de clculo de la

produccin a resolver para la prxima.
Tambin es posible que muchos relatadores no considerados en el
objetivo, se manifiesten satisfechos y hasta fascinados por lo que
han relatado ayudados por ese contenido defectuoso. Si tenemos
en cuenta que cada relato se completa en cada relatador con sus
competencias e intereses, muchos de los cuales estn fuera del alcance de nuestra comprensin, eximiremos a la oferta de aciertos y
fracasos no relacionados directamente con nuestras intenciones 15. O
buscaremos en la incertidumbre elementos de inters para los relatadores, como en el caso de los programas de TV que se nutren del
minuto a minuto y prolongan los segmentos que miden bien aun
desconociendo las razones del xito. Busque en internet el genial
ejemplo del yo no fui de Bart Simpson.

El mismo criterio que para larga (como calificacin para una

pelcula), puede aplicarse para valuar otros parmetros. Esta herramienta no indica que juzgue en funcin de su gusto sino de la funcionalidad (de cualquier modo el gusto es en cierto modo funcional). Si la oferta ha funcionado aproximadamente como se lo propuso, entonces puede arriesgar que ofertas similares hayan de funcionar del mismo modo en circunstancias similares con relatadores
homlogos. Y una vez que se hayan agotado los relatadores o se
haya cansado de la rutina, deber poner a trabajar nuevamente su
creatividad para disear o producir nuevas ofertas.

No quita que disfrutemos de los rditos de nuestros errores y hasta que alguien
pueda decir a quienes aportan recursos a su produccin que las consecuencias fortuitas en realidad eran buscadas.

15

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Relato y Narracin
10. Esquema del circuito de ofrecimientos, solicitudes y
establecimiento de contenidos (descripcin de algunas
funciones).
Propongo que los seres humanos somos a la vez relatadores y personas. De modo que, cuando integramos producciones tanto unipersonales como grupales, somos personas-relatadores o grupos de
personas-relatadores.

Dentro de este esquema, funciona el viejo circuito de contacto descripto por Jakobson como emisor-mensaje-receptor (E-M-R) pero la
manera en que lo considero es substancialmente diferente. El modo
de ver linguocntrico del siglo XX ha intentado explicar la interaccin humana descomponiendo y complejizando la estructura E-M-C

35

Alejandro Guevara

que les mostrar como un simple auxiliar de contacto. Valo en este

dibujo:

Ejemplificar con telfonos celulares nos permite ver la calidad de

conectores de los actores nombrados en el esquema. E-M-R son
elementos tecnolgicos que permiten conectar pero que no son lo
que conectan aunque puedan incidir algo desde la calidad de la conexin, los ruidos y las LAPs asociadas al medio.
Si pensramos, como propuso McLuhan, que el medio es el mensaje, podramos ahora preguntarnos sobre el mensaje que es la telefona celular, la internet o las redes sociales pero, aun tomando como
valedera la premisa mensajera para saber algo sobre el intercambio
de sentido entre humanos, deberamos salirnos del concepto determinista del mensaje sobre la celebracin de relatos. Conocer un
mensaje (la manifestacin grabada de una o unas ofertas) nos dice
muy poco sobre qu se relatar con ello y hasta siquiera si ha de relatarse algo.

36

Relato y Narracin
Vea el caso de ponernos a analizar el posible mensaje del ejemplo,
Te estoy esperando.
Qu clase de conjeturas cientficas podemos hacer con solo esa
informacin, en relacin con la oferta de contenidos o la celebracin
de relatos si no contamos adems con datos sobre LAPs y circunstancias en que se haya celebrado algo?
Si, por ejemplo, desconocemos los acuerdos entre ambos que se
hacen tangibles hasta en el suministro del nmero o pin de los dispositivos, podemos decir que se negocia un encuentro, sin siquiera
saber si alguno de los usuarios est observado, como lo estara un
acosador, entonces el mensaje llega pero se deriva a la papelera?
El esquema E-M-R solo alude a tecnologa al servicio de la pausa y
de ninguna manera conforma un modelo completo de intercambio
de sentido. El emisor es solo el dispositivo que enva un mensaje y
el receptor el dispositivo que lo recibe pero no podemos considerar
que un telfono celular es el equivalente a una persona sino solo un
dispositivo al servicio de alguien para enviar un mensaje. Lo mismo
vale para el receptor. Suponiendo que el proceso de envo y recepcin del mensaje hubiese sido exitoso, lo mejor que podemos esperar es que el mismo texto que se coloc en el emisor est siendo
reproducido por el receptor. Esto es, sin distorsiones o problemas de
decodificacin. Pero, aun dada esa situacin, podemos estar seguros de que el propietario del receptor ha entendido el ofrecimiento
con claridad solo porque las letras estaban legibles en su dispositivo? Por supuesto que no, porque se trata de fenmenos diferentes.
El grabado, slo remite a unas instrucciones para relatar que funcionan como recetas para hacer pasteles: no son pasteles ni tampoco
las propias instrucciones.
Podemos incluso considerar que entre el dispositivo emisor y la persona que ofrece tambin se encuentran los dedos que digitan sobre
el teclado de modo que tambin podramos considerar que los dedos
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Alejandro Guevara

son emisores, en este caso de pulsos de presin que son recibidos

por el teclado del dispositivo emisor, que aqu funcionar como receptor de esas presiones. Varios sistemas de emisin y recepcin
suelen estar encadenados para ayudar a poner grabados a disposicin de relatadores pero ninguno de ellos cumple una funcin ni siquiera tangencialmente similar a la del ofrecimiento de contenidos o
la celebracin de relatos. Son solo auxiliares que permiten transportar y eventualmente pausar unos grabados.
El mensaje sigue siendo mensaje aunque nadie vaya a revisar jams
su dispositivo receptor, su compaa ha de cobrarle por el envo independientemente de que sea o no ledo o de cmo sea entendido.
Pero si por el contrario definimos que el mensaje se completa o es
en funcin de lo que el receptor haga con l y consideramos que
un receptor no es slo un dispositivo sino lo que en esta teora llamamos relatador, de modo que el supuesto mensaje ha de nacer
entre emisor y receptor, entonces jams nadie puede contactar con
un mensaje que no lo involucre, lo que slo puede acontecer en el
mismo momento de relatar. En ese caso, de ningn modo aludiramos con mensaje a lo que puede verse en la pantalla del dibujo.
En lo que respecta a la supuesta existencia de un sentido de circulacin, la enorme red de mensajes de las redes sociales nos exime
de mayores explicaciones sobre si es til establecer un sentido de
derecha a izquierda, de arriba hacia abajo, de emisor hacia receptor.
Del mismo modo que es ocioso saber si la Internet es un fenmeno
de bajada ms que de subida o viceversa, es ocioso determinar
si ha habido un primer mensaje que desat al resto o si fue una
bsqueda de contacto lo que dispar al sistema.
Sigue una breve descripcin de la organizacin del ofrecimiento de
contenidos por parte de personas-relatadores, que se complementa
con el modo en que nos sean de provecho a los relatadores-personas
que describo en la tercera parte del ensayo.

38

Relato y Narracin

Contenidos O y E
Los Ocontenidos son instructivos que una produccin ofrece a un
relatador, para que celebre un relato por s mismo. Se integran con
uno o varios indicadores que postulan un aprendizaje (o varios). Son
instrucciones de uso para relatadores. Sugerencias para usar instrumentos humanos, que estn delimitados o definidos por LAPs anteriores (negociados en cada relato) y posteriores.
Cuando un relatador se apropia de una oferta (lo que es capaz o le
interesa), para celebrar un relato establece un Econtenido. Cada vez
que lo haga establecer uno distinto, an si celebrase creyendo que
interacta con el mismo Ocontenido (no es estrictamente posible
porque el entorno es parte de cada Ocontenido): si alguien relata varias veces con una pelcula, dar forma a Econtenidos diferentes
cada vez.
Cualquier seccin o sub parte de un Ocontenido puede a la vez funcionar como Ocontenido: es habitual en un buen sit com, como
Modern Fmily, por ejemplo, encontrar ofertas para celebrar varios relatos.
Para desactivar el linguocentrismo propongo dejar de usar contenido
para referirse al soporte donde se graban ofertas y llamarlo: audio,
texto, CD, video, etc.
Curiosamente pasamos buena parte de la vida produciendo el gran
contenido que ofrecer de nosotros para relatar nuestra existencia, y
no obstante, cuanto ms sabio, menos recursos necesitar: una anciana reuni a su familia en su lecho de muerte y viendo a sus deudos a los ojos antes del ltimo suspiro dijo ha estado todo muy
bien. El humorista espaol Pedro Muoz Seca dijo ante el pelotn
de fusilamiento: Podris quitarme el dinero, las propiedades, incluso
la vida, pero el susto que tengo en este momento no me lo quitaris
jams.
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Alejandro Guevara

Grilla (Gnero)
La grilla es la estructura de una presentacin o un contenido (O y E):
Un juego de relaciones, un esquema de las probables relaciones entre percepciones, suficiente para arribar a una conclusin o saber
parcial o total sobre algo. Cohesiona el contenido al orientar los indicadores hacia una propuesta de conclusin o aprendizaje. Puede
apoyarse en razones o emociones, o en ambas. Relatadores y ofrecedores tendemos a archivar grillas que han funcionado satisfactoriamente a modo de plantillas, y antes de crear una nueva, vemos
si una pre seteada puede aplicar. Cuando una plantilla exitosa se generaliza, adquiere la categora de gnero. Los gneros permiten ahorrar tiempo y afinar el ajuste entre ofertas y establecimientos, informando sobre por ejemplo dnde colocar el foco, qu relevancia
tienen en la oferta las emociones o las razones, cunto tiempo insumir la exposicin, etc. Proponen parmetros de tiempo, de fantasa o realidad, de humor, irona, violencia, tipos de narrador, etc.
Muchas ofertas tienen por nico objetivo que relatemos cmo funciona un gnero. Algunos Ocontenidos llevan instructivos de su
propio gnero o de especificidades propias de ese uso en particular.
No obstante la variedad disponible, los ofrecedores siempre estamos
atentos a crear o recrear gneros, cuando no contamos con uno que
se ajuste a una nueva situacin o para sorprender o romper estereotipos ya no funcionales. Tambin mezclamos dando lugar a subgneros, como en medios masivos el informercial que deviene del
informativo y el documental; el docureality, de documental y reality
show, etc.
Una descripcin siempre tiene grilla: nadie describe sin un objetivo
o punto de vista, que incluso puede situarse en lo que no se describe. No hay oposicin entre narracin y descripcin en tanto no hay
descripcin sin narrador.

40

Relato y Narracin

Produccin oferente
Es la organizacin que se dedica a producir y ofrecer contenidos.
Puede tener varios integrantes o integrarse en una sola persona. Se
ocupa tanto de la bsqueda del objeto a proponer, como de la recoleccin de material, la produccin de indicadores, la organizacin
en una grilla, y la exposicin.
Cubren estas reas tanto la Warner Brothers como una persona que
justifica su llegada tarde a casa. Y en ambos casos la suerte para sus
ofrecimientos es difcil de prever.

Indicadores
Son las pistas o indicios que integran los Ocontenidos. Los producimos con rganos y dispositivos de captura, y su objeto es guiar
a los relatadores a construir percepciones. Pueden crearse tanto con
imgenes (de video, sonido, olores, texturas), como con dilogos,
secuencias, escenas, o captulos, y exponerse para uno o varios canales de contacto de los rganos de percepcin como el auditivo, el
visual, el textual, el emocional etc. Un Ocontenido puede funcionar
como indicador de otro Ocontenido, y tambin un solo indicador
puede ser suficiente para un Ocontenido.
Todos los indicadores de un mismo Ocontenido deberan estar al
servicio del objetivo propuesto, aunque muchos lo hagan de modo
tangencial, como aquellos que sugieren pistas falsas o los que
describen personajes o contextualizan. Uno de los trabajos ms difciles de un proceso de produccin es descartar indicadores muy logrados pero que desvan el foco del objetivo.
Los relatadores luego estableceremos indicadores, y con ellos generaremos percepciones (siempre de acuerdo con nuestras competencias e intereses). No suele haber Econtenidos idnticos ni tampoco
Eindicadores idnticos: es habitual a la salida del cine escuchar a re41

Alejandro Guevara

latadores discutiendo sobre si con tal o cual acontecimiento, elemento o mirada, el ofrecedor quera indicar tal o cual cosa.
Un ofrecimiento debe contar con indicadores redundantes para sortear las prdidas de atencin o la incompetencia de algn relatador
sobre algn tema.

Autor (autoridad)
La funcin de autora de un contenido (O y E) desprovista de linguocentrismo, descompone la vieja figura de autor en: la funcin
soporte (que propongo seguir llamando autor), la funcin de punto
de vista y responsabilidad por una oferta (Oautoridad), y la funcin
de punto de referencia establecido por cada relatador (Eautoridad).
Autor: propongo usar esta palabra para aludir a la manifestacin
fsica de la persona o asociacin que condujo la produccin de un
Ocontenido. Quien solemos corporizar en la persona con la que tal
vez dialogaremos tiempo despus, por ejemplo, de relatar con un libro 16, para pedirle un autgrafo. A quien, se asignarn legalmente
los derechos de autor. Pero esa persona ya no es la anterior, aunque
su aspecto pueda mantenerse relativamente similar (si pudisemos
considerar que la falta de cabello es similar a su abundancia, o que
la abundancia de abdomen es similar a su escasez).

El uso no linguocntrico de la frase relatar con un libro alude a lo mismo que

hice un pastel con una receta, no indica que se utiliz el papel donde se escribi
la receta para el preparado sino que se hizo con la ayuda del grabado de unas instrucciones.

16

42

Relato y Narracin
Oautoridad: La funcin de Oautoridad no indica propiedad de la
idea sino responsabilidad por el ofrecimiento. Puede colocarse en
una persona fsica o en una organizacin 17.
La Oautoridad promueve la oferta, dirige el proceso de produccin
para lo cual procura un guin, unos actores y unos dispositivos de
captura y publicacin, y los instruye dando coherencia al producto
(si un actor toma determinaciones propias y estas son incorporadas a
la oferta, ese actor forma parte tambin de la Oautoridad). Provee
los recursos: para el relatador esto puede ser relevante a la hora de
valorar la oferta ya que el origen de los recursos puede generar
compromisos que la modifiquen. Y propone LAPs: posiciones de
prestigio u objetividad, acuerdos sobre gnero y perspectivas, y
permisos como limitar por edad, pertenencia o afiliacin.
Eautoridad: cada relatador establece (siempre que relate) una Eautoridad para cada relato: determina quin le ofrece, desde dnde lo
hace. No hay ofrecimiento humano que no reconozca cuando menos
un foco: el de la humanidad. Siempre sabremos (podremos establecer) algo del oferente, por ejemplo, que es humano, que tiene cierto
conocimiento del uso de medios: si el soporte es una pintura, cierto

Y sus referentes: en cada una de nuestras expresiones, habitan incontables voces,

como las de la cultura, las del deber ser, las de nuestros padres, guas espirituales,
enemigos, las de nuestra descendencia, las de personajes de nuestros sueos, y
otras que ni siquiera imaginamos. Son tantos e intervienen con tanta vehemencia
que en ocasiones es difcil saber si hay algo original (creado ntegramente por esa
persona) en cualquier manifestacin humana. Con las debidas disculpas a Jorge
Luis Borges, relato con una de sus poesas que las piezas del ajedrez creen librar
sus propias batallas sin advertir que una mano las designa; que la mente humana
que gua la mano, no advierte que otra, sobre ella lo hace, y que esa otra mano cree
ser quien decide, sin advertirNo digo con esto que todos seamos irresponsables
de lo que hacemos sino que interactuamos e interdependemos mucho ms de lo que
creemos o advertimos.

17

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Alejandro Guevara

dominio de la tcnica, si es un escrito, del habla y hasta el idioma

que utiliza.
Entiendo que la muerte del autor ha sido un buen intento (aunque
insuficiente) para desactivar el linguocentrismo, pero desalojar la
figura todopoderosa no debera hacernos perder de vista la existencia de la funcin de autoridad. Muchos de los que se escudan con
la proclamada muerte del autor, slo buscan evadir responsabilidades
por sus ofertas.

Onarrador y Enarrador
Es cada realizador parcial de las E y O autoridades. El aspecto visible de una produccin oferente, su manifestacin fisica. Cada
vez que consideramos que cierta cantidad de material oferente conforma una oferta (un Contenido Oferente), hemos encontrado a
su narrador (O y E). En un audiovisual, no hay un Onarrador oral y
uno visual independientes, sino que el Onarrador resulta de la interaccin de ambos (puede sumar si es coherente o restar si no lo es).
Cada relatador establecer de acuerdo a sus competencias e intereses, quien le narra cada oferta (narradorE).
Las calificaciones de omnisciente, observador, protagonista, etc. indican diferentes puntos de observacin del Onarrador. Pero no necesariamente diferentes Onarradores. Si acepta la premisa de que por
cada Ocontenido hay un Onarrador, cuando propongamos que en
una oferta (una novela, una pelcula) habla el personaje, luego
el escritor etc., estaremos hablando de diferentes lugares donde se
coloca el narrador de un Ocontenido. An cuando en una pelcula
nos parezca ver claramente que hablan diferentes personas, al escuchar, por ejemplo que el personaje que encarna Diane keaton discute con el de Keanu Reeves, deberemos considerar que la voz
que narra no es la de ninguno de ellos sino la perspectiva desde la
cual se han recogido los testimonios.
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Relato y Narracin
Decir con determinacin que un Onarrador es omnisciente puede
ser linguocntrico: slo puede afirmar eso el relatador que le haya
otorgado esa licencia (lo haya establecido como narradorE omnisciente) 18: muchas personas ofrecen esto es lo que el pueblo quiere
pero pocas consiguen que se les otorgue licencia de perceptores
omniscientes del clamor popular.

Contacto para el ofrecimiento. Publicacin, pack,

medio.
El entorno en el cual un relatador hace contacto con el soporte, termina de conformar los Ocontenidos al asignar valores a variables
como el momento histrico, ciertas LAPs, etc. El modo en que se
publicite o se llame la atencin a los relatadores es parte de ese entorno.
El packaging tambin integra las ofertas y a veces hasta es la oferta, como en el caso de las golosinas del amor 19. La publicacin define licencias importantes: como ofrecedores debemos procurar que
un relatador entienda til para s mismo considerar nuestra propuesta. No tenemos derecho natural a invadir el espacio sensorial de
otros, lo adquirimos por solicitud, negociando.
Al entorno y al propio soporte por medio de los cuales un relatador se apropie de una oferta, es a lo que hemos estado intentando
aludir con medio de comunicacin, slo que, de verlo de modo no
linguocntrico, deberamos no considerar por ejemplo a los llamados medios, canales de inoculacin.

18
Para ser estrictos, deberamos decir desde tal novela se pide licencia de narradorE
omnisciente.

Algunas golosinas no ofrecen dulces sino manifestaciones de cario, avaladas por

dibujos de corazones visibles en el envase: comprubelo ofrecindolas a la persona
equivocada.
19

45

Alejandro Guevara

46

La Muerte de la Lengua

La muerte de la lengua

El ttulo de esta parte de la trada puede sonarle catstrofe. Acuerdo

con que lo sea en el sentido de las dimensiones de la oferta pero no
en el de desastre: no estoy pidindole que se corte la lengua, lo cual
no se vera bien si tratamos sobre herramientas para relatar u ofrecer
mejor.
Mucho de lo que le ofrecer no ha sido "originado" por m (ha sido
ms bien ofrecido profusamente), pero djenme contrselo a mi
modo, para evitar las lagunas en que considero que han cado algunos colegas (ya es suficiente con las mas).
"Matar a la lengua" titula lo que es ms bien una propuesta de desactivacin de lo que llamo "linguocentrismo": el modo en que
hemos credo crear e intercambiar sentido, "envindolo" desde un
dispositivo inoculador (ms prestigioso) a otro, receptor (menos
prestigioso). Abreva de lo que en el siglo pasado se llam logocen-

47

Alejandro Guevara
trismo 20, y ambos resultan de un enorme complejo de inferioridad de
la humanidad, que, para saberse valiosa ha necesitado encontrar algo o alguien que fuese "inferior". ste complejo que creo que ya es
hora de superar, ha dado lugar al sexismo, al racismo, al egosmo

La "mitad ms valiosa"

Para ayudarnos a echar luz, algunos de nuestros antecesores de occidente, tuvieron el atino de nombrar a un sistema en el cual intervienen dispositivos de contacto, distinguiendo un representante de
los que parecen penetrar, por sobre los que parecen recibir: la lengua. De esta forma pusieron nombre al prejuicio aunque no pudieron verlo, y nosotros todava no logramos hacerlo con claridad: seguimos llamando alegremente al sistema de interpelacin del mundo
humano, lenguaje. Y a su estudio, lingstica. Y por decirlo as, sobreentendemos que fueron las palabras al sonar las que ensearon al
odo a entenderlas.
Pero podemos decir seriamente que fue una palabra primigenia la
que tom la virginidad del odo para completarlo de saberes? Y si
la avidez por intervenir en el mundo impuls a los odos a disearlas? No habr sido el intercambio entre lenguas y odos lo que dio
lugar al fenmeno?

20
Varios filsofos se dedicaron al tema, por lo que si le interesa ahondar en logocentrismo, encontrar material y referencias de bibliografa en internet. Busque
tambin falogocentrismo.

48

La Muerte de la Lengua
El prejuicio fundacional del linguocentrismo est tan embebido en
nuestro pensamiento que nos parece a todas luces natural entender
que las palabras circulan desde las lenguas hacia los odos. En relacin con la lengua dimos al odo el lugar siniestro que damos a:
obscuridad, corto o hembra, entre otros. La orejeada, de llamarse
as, hubiese sido el lado obscuro de la lengua, un receptculo pasivo
de palabras. Por eso mismo, ni la nombramos.

Claro est, la cuestin no es determinar qu rgano fue ms valioso:

sera como estudiar si en la gnesis de la internet ha sido ms relevante la posibilidad de subir que la de descargar. Mal hubiramos
hecho entonces en llamar (linguocntricamente) a la internet, subida, o up.
Y ni que hablar de down!.
La lengua aislada es completamente intil. Necesita de los sabores,
o de los odos para ser. Podemos aseverar que el dulzor del azcar fue anterior al sentido que lo degusta? Y todo lo contrario? Es
pertinente postular que los Adanes buscaron a las manzanas antes
que las manzanas los previesen a ellos 21?
Por qu entonces llamamos slo lengua a la interaccin con palabras? Y por qu siguiendo esa lgica consideramos que hay textos - portadores y lectores - receptores?
La creencia de que el habla proviene de una lengua es la misma
que sustenta que somos personas (del lat. per sonare). Pero estas vi-

Dado que los frutos prevn que sern alimento de quienes los transportarn para
que sus semillas puedan germinar en mejores tierras.
21

49

Alejandro Guevara
siones son parciales del mismo modo que lo es otorgar a lo general
un sexo (medio sexo?). Si incorpora a su paradigma la otra mitad,
lograr una cosmovisin completa y le permitir comprender mejor
a su propio entorno y a los otros. El faltante de la persona es el relatador 22. Una nueva figura que espero que reconozca en usted
mism@, para completarse y comprenderse como persona-relatador
y como integrante de grupos de relatadores-personas.
La muerte de la lengua es slo nominal, ese nombre debe dejar lugar a uno (mejor que orejo-lenguaje, o interoidolenguacin) que
haga honor al fenmeno.

La cuestin del envo

La creencia de que las palabras se dirigen a los odos, dio lugar a
un paradigma que le propongo revisar, es la concepcin que rigi
hasta hoy (2013), aunque creamos pensar lo contrario, de que los
humanos somos receptores, tal como los de radio o tv, que reproducen imgenes idnticas estn donde estn, a partir de objetos sembrados mediante Brodcasting, un mtodo que consiste en esparcir
por doquier semillas en la tierra. De acuerdo con este concepto, en
las mentes (recipientes) de los receptores podrn crecer mejores o
peores plantas de esas semillas y algunas no germinar, no obstante
todo lo que surja ser dependiente genticamente del "origen".
Pero si observa detenidamente, notar que los humanos buscamos
sentido revisando entre la oferta de contenidos disponible y si no lo
encontramos all, lo creamos. Luego, con lo que se nos ofrece
hacemos tanto un rbol como una flor, una casa, y hasta algo que a
los sembradores jams se les hubiese ocurrido. No puede haber
enunciados como semillas, porque no puede esperarse que germine

22

Definicin ms completa en Relatador_Persona, pgina 65.

50

La Muerte de la Lengua
el mismo tipo de planta, ni siquiera con deformaciones, sino cualquier cosa, de cualquier naturaleza. O nada. El contenido Incluso
puede ser slo disparador o la excusa para concluir algo que ya
habitaba en la mente del relatador (a quien hasta ahora consideramos errneamente receptor).
Los contenidos son instructivos ofrecidos, no hechos o elementos
dados: las instrucciones para hacer un origami no son un pjaro
de papel, ni tampoco transportan el pjaro de un humano a otro (si
se emociona relatando con una pelcula, no es porque se le haya
enviado una emocin). Y a diferencia del instructivo para el origami, los contenidos ofrecidos ni siquiera pueden aspirar a que
quien aplique la receta encuentre idnticos materiales, ya que no
hay dos humanos idnticos y ni siquiera un mismo humano es el
mismo en diferente momento.
Intento ofrecerle que relatar no se trata de traficar pjaros sino de intercambiar instrucciones para volar.
La filosofa del envo es responsable de muchos contrasentidos. A
modo de ejemplo, vea que, de acuerdo con como miramos hasta
ahora, suele darse esta situacin:
- Has ledo el libro sagrado?
- S, es excelente,
- Yo tambin lo veo as.

Luego se dedican, el uno a amar a unos y a otros, y el otro a asesinar

a quienes ahora considera impuros. Y ambos creyendo responder
a lo mismo.

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Alejandro Guevara
Cambiar de paradigma coloca menos responsabilidad en los contenidos y ms en los humanos.
No digo que el dilogo no pueda darse en el futuro, sino que ahora
mismo, cuando decimos leer libros hablamos de celebrar relatos. La accin de leer libros debe definirse como la de reproducir
DVDs: propiciar la exposicin a un instructivo sin considerar qu se
haga con eso. Puede haberse estado todo el tiempo frente a un libro
como frente a una pantalla y no obstante, no haber celebrado nada.
Podremos entonces decir que dos personas leen un mismo libro,
pero no que celebran un mismo relato.
Si por el contrario, se define a la accin de leer como el acto en el
que interviene cada lector de modo que acontecer un nuevo texto con cada lectura, se excluye la posibilidad de decir que dos
personas leyeron el mismo texto.
Creer que se est enviando algo hecho para ser aprehendido es
llevar el narcisismo al extremo. Es diferente pensar que ofrecemos
algo que no podemos asir completamente, y que las habilidades de
otros les permitirn celebrar relatos mejores an que los propuestos,
despejando paja de trigo, y descubriendo habilidades y debilidades
ocultas hasta para nosotros mismos.
Por supuesto, esto vale para esta misma oferta.
No obstante, verlo as no indica que todo sea catico o aleatorio.
Existen negociaciones entre ofrecedores y relatadores que permiten establecer cierto tipo de acuerdos para lograr unas certezas.

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La Muerte de la Lengua
Las agrupo en lo que llamo LAPs 23 y son las responsables de que
haya algn orden y tambin algn desorden.
No somos dueos, ni controlamos todo el sentido que podemos
ayudar a crear. No pocos artistas han credo perder su don cuando
el pblico les dio la espalda, sin darse cuenta de que mucho hubieran podido hacer si hubiesen sabido qu encontraba el pblico en
ellos, incluso a pesar de sus esfuerzos por ocultarlo.

El soporte fetiche
Una de las herramientas que posibilit la expansin del pensamiento
humano fue la capacidad de pausar ofertas. Para ello diseamos
modos de suspender relatos entre el momento de la oferta y el de
su consideracin: en soportes de grabados. Lo que vemos o escuchamos no son las palabras sino grabados de ellas. Los sonidos
que se guarden en un mp3, o la tinta de unas letras en un papel, no
son las palabras o las letras, sino grabados de ellas.
El primer sistema complejo para soportar grabados fue la rima, que
permiti memorizar no slo conceptos, sino las mismas palabras
que verti quien los ofreca. Esto hizo posible que los grabados de
unas oraciones religiosas o unos versos o canciones, pudiesen ser
copiados por humanos que estaban a muchos kilmetros, y tambin a varias generaciones de distancia. Luego, la tecnologa hizo
posible soportar grabados en arcilla, papel, cintas magnticas y discos rgidos (permitiendo pausar tambin sonidos e imgenes). El paso por el papel y en particular el encuadernado en libros, dio una
aparente tangibilidad a la pausa, y perdimos de vista su naturaleza
para adjudicarle propiedades del objeto que la portaba. La pausa

LAPs: Licencias Acuerdos y Permisos, vea ms en Relato y Narracin, pgina 19

y en Relatador_Persona, pgina 65.
23

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Alejandro Guevara
no puede verse, ni escucharse, ni entenderse, sino en el contexto en
el que acontece. En s misma es nada. Sus propiedades se entienden
cuando se conocen tanto sus antecedentes como sus precedentes.
Luego, para entender una pausa hay que verla en funcionamiento, es
decir despausada 24. Y cuando la retiras no contactas con lo que
haba en el soporte, sino con lo que se te ha ofrecido desde el comienzo mismo de la produccin del contenido y ms exactamente
con lo que t seas capaz de establecer que se te ha ofrecido.
Lo que sostienes en tus manos cuando no relatas, es slo lo tangible
de un soporte (libro, pintura, dvd) y no un contenido, y aunque tal
vez haya sido una metfora en el inicio, la alusin a la oferta con el
nombre del soporte, finalmente se confundi en el objeto portador.
Y de ah a creer que podamos enviar contenidos hubo slo un paso.
Luego, para evitar confusiones, ya no deberamos (refirindonos a
contenidos), decir el texto de Derrida, sino el ofrecimiento que
grab sobre texto, y en otros casos, el ofrecimiento sobre film, sobre habla, etc. lo cual da una idea de que hay una incidencia del soporte en la oferta, del mismo modo que la hay en todos los elementos de una produccin, pero ninguno de ellos por separado puede
considerarse el todo.

La cuestin de la palabra
De acuerdo con lo ofrecido hasta aqu, cree usted que la palabra es
un objeto que se enva?, que hay un origen y un destino?, que
hablar es inocular y escuchar ser preado?, que la escucha es por
defecto pasiva, por lo que es necesario aclarar escucha activa?

24
No es posible ver una pausa: el cuadro que puede verse al pausar un video, no
muestra una pausa sino una foto que se ha memorizado y se reproduce constantemente (loopeado).

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La Muerte de la Lengua
Las palabras tanto solicitadas, como ofrecidas, o establecidas, son
herramientas de un sistema de interaccin e intercambio de sentido
linguocntricamente llamado habla (por falta de alusin a escucha, no porque no exista quien hable y quien escuche sino por el uso
del trmino para el modo genrico, como se ha usado hombres para referirse a humanos).

La cuestin multimedia
Logocntrico es tambin colocar el supuesto centro del sentido nicamente en la palabra enviada y de este modo adjudicar preeminencia al rgano de interaccin hablador por sobre otros. Propongo
aqu que no slo relatamos usando sentidos sino rganos de interaccin.
Distribuir responsabilidades es otro modo de salirse del linguocentrismo: los rganos de interaccin, de los que el habla es parte, resultan de la asociacin de unos dispositivos anatmicos, un sistema
de anlisis y comparacin, unos mandatos y unas LAPs, que completan la naturaleza de lo que observamos o creemos observar (y
lo que proponemos a otros).
No relatamos slo con, imgenes, sonidos, afectos, etc, sino con varios de ellos interactuando incluso simultneamente, aunque, habitualmente, con prevalencia de alguno. Esta interaccin posibilit
que unos rganos aprendiesen de otros: con el ejercicio, la percepcin visual aprendi del sonido, el tacto de los afectos, la lgica de
las emociones, las emociones de las razones o de los olores, ... el resultado es que hoy no es sencillo saber si tal o cual recurso de los
gestos o el habla, tuvieron origen en la comunicacin gestual o en la
lgica de los afectos o en cualquier otro sistema, y no parece definitorio saberlo para entender el proceso del relato.
Es muy poco lo que sabemos de las mal llamadas meras sensaciones o percepciones. Los antiguos griegos no pudieron interactuar
55

Alejandro Guevara
con los dispositivos con los que hoy podemos enlatar sonidos,
imgenes, palabras, etc. si los hubiesen conocido, luego del asombro inicial, entenderan que una cmara no puede percibir, que un
micrfono no oye y un parlante no habla. Los llamados meros
sentidos, no son tales sino dispositivos que integran rganos cuya
complejidad estamos lejos de conocer exhaustivamente. Hemos estado confundiendo el lente con la cmara, la cmara con la vista, la
vista con el rgano de percepcin visual, e ignorando la comunidad
de rganos de percepcin y actuacin que forman nuestro sistema
de interaccin.
Podemos por ahora crear y asociar sonidos que ofrezcan, pero no
sabemos mucho acerca de la naturaleza de lo que llamamos msica.
Podemos ofrecer y celebrar con palabras, y proponer emociones, pero estamos tan lejos como los filsofos griegos de saber algo sobre
la naturaleza de las emociones (en realidad slo sabemos ahora
que Scrates saba menos que lo que crea saber). Hemos sido muy
arrogantes aplicando la expresin mero a fenmenos que, en profundidad, desconocamos (y desconocemos).
Lo que creemos ver, es lo que nos presentamos 25, no todo lo
que hay. El color, por ejemplo es resultado de ciertas caractersticas
en un elemento que al ser chequeadas por el ojo, se traducen en la
imagen que llamamos color (bajo ciertas condiciones del entorno,
en este caso, una fuente luminosa). No podemos decir que el color
es en el objeto ni tampoco en la mente sino, entre ambos. Lo
que ha pasado es que la buena prensa que tuvieron en la antigedad ciertos dispositivos como los sensores de tacto, deriv en que se
considerase a las percepciones ms verdaderas, cuanto ms tangibles. Eso contribuy a crear una ilusoria frontera entre percep-

25

En sintona con la etimologa de re lato como re presentar.

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La Muerte de la Lengua
ciones fsicas y metafsicas, como si fuese obvio que ver es
un fenmeno de diferente naturaleza que imaginar.
El linguocentrismo entonces, asociado a logos como palabra alude a
la creencia de que todo lo que se piensa implica slo palabras inoculadoras fundacionales. Si concedemos que relatamos con varios
rganos entrelazados y simultneos donde intervienen varios canales y cdigos y decimos que la capacidad de relatar es la de pensar,
y que pensar no es recibir pensamientos, tendremos una visin no
linguocntrica y por eso mismo ms amplia, de pensamiento.

Superposicin de funciones
Los entes matados en el siglo pasado (dios, el autor, o la obra), fueron muertos por la misma razn que aqu matamos a la lengua, al
texto, al lector, etc.: por no cumplir con las responsabilidades que
el pensamiento linguocntrico les impuso al concentrar diferentes
funciones en un solo trmino: las de soporte, ofrecimiento y establecimiento.
Cuando por ejemplo decimos:
Te dej en la repisa un libro que cambia vidas.
Colocamos funciones incompatibles en una misma expresin: Considerar que algo que cambia vidas tiene la propiedad de posarse sobre repisas, es otorgarle propiedades de objeto tangible. No parece
posible que un objeto pueda ser tan determinante (ahora que lo
pienso habr sido esa la razn por la que mi madre nunca me dej
ver en el cajn de su tocador?). Como sea, hay una superposicin de
funciones cuando se alude a la vez a un elemento que porta unos
grabados que pausan un ofrecimiento, al propio ofrecimiento y a lo
que vaya a hacer alguien que decida ponerlo en marcha.
Cuando ofrecemos contenidos a otros, ellos establecen en la medida
de sus competencias e intereses lo que creen que les ofrecemos y
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Alejandro Guevara
como cada relatador tiene diferentes competencias e intereses, cada
vez que alguien relate ayudado por nuestra oferta, establecer lo que
est en condiciones de saber sobre nuestro ofrecimiento (no lo que
le enviamos). Usted dir que exagero, y que se puede alegar que
se ha usado libro en sentido metafrico pero ese uso no es inocente del mismo modo que no lo es utilizar seor para referirse a
seor y seora indistintamente. Hemos estado profiriendo expresiones sexistas o racistas por siglos, no por fuerza de la costumbre
sino porque an no desactivbamos el prejuicio.
Propongo seguir usando palabras como autor para aludir a soportes, una similar pero con O inicial para funciones ofrecidas y con E
inicial para establecidas. Confo que la creatividad del conjunto nos
ayudar a encontrar mejores alternativas.
Ejemplos:
Narrador: la persona que vemos que habla (cuando la hay).
Onarrador: la entidad creada por una produccin oferente, para exponer una oferta, que incluye por ejemplo, la msica y efectos y las
imgenes.
NarradorE: la entidad que cada relatador entiende que le narra.
Autor: la persona que usa el cuerpo de quien, antes, encarn la autoridad de una produccin. Y ahora percibe sus regalas.
Oautoridad: la autoridad que se adjudica la responsabilidad de una
oferta.
Eautoridad: la autoridad a quien cada relatador hace responsable de
una oferta.
Contenedor de contenidos (cd, film, audio, texto): por ejemplo, la
lata de un programa de TV.
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La Muerte de la Lengua
Ocontenido: lo que se propone que se ofrece.
Econtenido: lo que cada relatador entiende que se le ofrece.
Usar por ejemplo slo narrador para oferta y establecimiento y no
distinguir, por ejemplo, entre un Onarrador omnisciente y un Enarrador omnisciente, puede favorecer la creencia de que las LAPs son
automticas, cuando muchos contenidos fracasan por no alcanzar
la altura para la licencia que reclaman (como el caso que ya refer
de proclamarse intrpretes (Onarradores) de la voz del pueblo y
las dificultades para conseguir voluntarios que lo establezcan).
Y como ya propuse, en lugar de decir el texto de tal, decir lo que
tal ofreci sobre texto escrito, excepto que nos refiramos por
ejemplo a unas impresiones de textos de tal. No obstante, consciente del trabajo de re semantizacin que se avecina, dejo estas decisiones (como si hiciese falta aclararlo) a la creatividad popular y
acadmica.

Fin de la era lingual

Mis colegas investigadores y yo mismo en publicaciones anteriores,
no obstante anunciar que no era posible que hubiese relato sin quien
lo celebrase, hemos, en la prctica, desconsiderado a ese actor. Lo
llamamos despectivamente, destinatario y otros eufemismos. Y
por esta causa, hemos estado observando al objeto de estudio desenfocados creyendo que al diseccionar la oferta, considerbamos,
adems de, al destinatario tipo (que imagina la Oproduccin), a
un lector o espectador reales. Y por supuesto desconociendo
la existencia del relatador.
Y al aislar una parte la convertimos en un todo en s misma, a pesar de que creamos slo estar desplazndonos inocentemente de
objeto de estudio, y que nos pona a salvo el movimiento de ajedrez
de aclarar que considerbamos nuestra desconsideracin de
otros factores. Y no porque desconocisemos que en cada parte de
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Alejandro Guevara
un todo podemos saber del todo, sino porque teniendo a la vista el
todo, nos empecinamos en observar slo una parte. Los especialistas
ya no deberamos diseccionar soportes y hacer listados de indicadores, sin especificar si hablamos de lo ofrecido (en cuyo caso deberemos especificar a quin) o de lo establecido (deberemos especificar por quin). Debemos una disculpa por nuestros ofrecimientos
con exceso de soberbia y abuso de LAPs dominantes. Aqu mismo
ofrezco las mas.

Con La muerte de la lengua propongo desmontar su cono Stone

slo para regresarlo a su lugar de integrante de un sistema. Del
mismo modo que si hubiramos credo que dentro de nuestro grupo,
Pedro era dios, y ante la comprobacin de que no lo era, proclamamos que Pedro ha muerto. Lo que ha muerto es la pedrimona, la
hegemona de Pedro, pero no Pedro. No deberamos matar a Pedro
sino mutar nuestra creencia. Pero en lugar de hacerlo buscando un
nuevo dios para entronar una anti - pedrimona, revisar el presupuesto de que necesariamente hay un origen o hegemona, sin cuyo consentimiento, nada puede explicarse o funcionar: lo que otros
ofrecedores han considerado un falo o logo inicial o iniciador.
No propongo entonces cortarse la lengua, o dejar de usarla al hablar,
sino, por re nombrarla (des nombrarla), destronarla del pedestal de
originadora, y regresarla a los otros lugares donde til y placenteramente ha estado funcionando.

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Relatador - Persona

Relatador-Persona
Relato y relatador

En contraposicin con el modelo de sentido como direccin, que

postula la circulacin de mensajes desde y hacia, le presentar
un modelo que postula que somos relatadores-persona.
Relatador y persona integran al ser humano, ya me he ocupado de la
persona-relatador en las ofertas de contenidos y he de ocuparme
ahora del relatador-persona para la celebracin de relatos.
Los seres humanos conocemos al tiempo que creamos el mundo que
nos rodea. Para "intervenir" en ese mundo lo "relatamos": sondeamos, creamos y editamos unas percepciones, las asociamos en una
presentacin, y evaluamos su resultado y posibilidades para incorporar lo aprendido (y aprehenderlo). Podemos hacer eso por nuestros propios medios o con ayuda de otros (productores de contenidos o nuestra propia persona). He definido al relato como:
El evento que acontece entre la produccin de una presentacin y
la incorporacin de un aprendizaje.
De acuerdo con lo que le he propuesto hasta aqu, relatador y relato
no son funciones de envo o recepcin sino de procesamiento y
creacin de sentido. Pero no sentido como que va en una direccin,
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Alejandro Guevara
sino como la asignacin de la propiedad de "conocido", que nos
permite actuar en relacin con el objeto, con mayores posibilidades
de xito (si entendemos por xito, acercarnos a unos objetivos).
Vuelvo sobre el linguocentrismo para desactivar toda intencin de
entronar al relatador por sobre la persona. Seguramente ha sido la
interaccin de ambos con sus tejidos de LAPs lo que ha dado lugar
al fenmeno. No su origen, slo un lugar sin tiempo para que viva, en tanto nosotros lo hagamos.
Sigue una lista de actores y funciones que presentan algunas especificidades en relacin con relatadores y relatos.

Percibir
Los humanos tenemos "rganos de percepcin", sistemas mucho
ms complejos que los llamados "sentidos", y que nuestros "dispositivos de contacto" como ojos, odos, aparato fonador, manos, etc..
Por ejemplo nuestro rgano de percepcin visual, no "ve lo que
hay", sino lo que somos capaces de ver y nos interesa: quienes tenemos la suerte de tener en buen estado los ojos, nos servimos de
ellos para componer parte de las imgenes que "vemos", pero lo que
percibimos es mucho ms que eso. Podemos adems percibir imgenes estimulados por olores o por emociones, o por ninguno de
ellos y construirlos con la imaginacin. Los rganos adems, realizan comparaciones con otras imgenes y otras percepciones de archivo. Todo esto en el marco de nuestras "competencias" pero todava queda algo que completa nuestras percepciones que son nuestros intereses englobados en lo que llamo LAPs. Las personas podemos no ver algo que est all, slo porque no nos conviene, o no
"debemos" verlo. Caer usted en la cuenta de que el proceso es bastante ms complejo que "ingresar" una imagen de lo que "es".

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Relatador - Persona

Presentar
Para convertir unas percepciones en unos saberes, les damos el
"formato" que las pondr en condiciones de archivarse junto con
otros saberes adquiridos, para que mediante lo que llamamos "experiencia" pueda proveernos de unos mandatos a los que llamamos
"cultura". La cultura es el modo en que "cultivamos" no slo las
plantas en el jardn sino en que hacemos todo (los humanos, y tambin los grupos de humanos). Pero esos saberes no slo debern integrarse a nuestra cultura personal y social, sino que tambin debern discutir su lugar con otros que traemos en los genes, que podemos llamar "mandatos genticos". Estos mandatos forman un
enorme "cdigo" con edictos sobre cmo habremos de desempearnos en muchsimos aspectos, desde sexuales y sociales, hasta capilares.
De comprobarse su viabilidad, lo relatado pasar a ser un saber
que formar parte de la red de nuestra identidad individual y social.

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Alejandro Guevara
Figura 2: El concepto de relato que le ofrezco es social, an dentro del
mismo humano. En este dibujo le muestro LAPs y relatos que crean una
cohesin interdependiente en la red, de modo que un pequeo movimiento
cambia las posiciones relativas de todos. Conocer ms exhaustivamente
cmo funcionan es un trabajo pendiente para disear herramientas que mejoren nuestro funcionamiento como sociedad y nos hagan la vida ms
amable.

Relatador-Persona
Relatador es el ser humano que celebra relatos (todos los humanos). No quien cuenta una historia, como puede inducir a pensar
el trmino, sino quien experimenta con una (unas percepciones o un
Ocontenido): quien hasta ahora llambamos errneamente lector o
espectador. Persona es el ser humano en el aspecto que se muestra
a otros. Persona proviene del nombre que se daba a las mscaras
en el antiguo teatro griego, identificables por su modo de sonar (del
lat. Per sonare).
Funcionan adems como si estuvisemos "divididos" en ms actores, por ejemplo, los que posibilitan cierta tensin, entre lo que
percibimos y lo que celebramos (los relatadores podemos negarnos que vimos algo) o entre cmo producimos y cmo ofrecemos
(las personas podemos, por ejemplo, crear buenas canciones y no
ser tan buenos intrpretes).

Sistema Perceptivo
En la pgina 15 propongo que el origen de la palabra Relato est en
la latina relatus, donde re es volver a y latus, participio del
verbo fero, llevar, es decir, volver a llevar, a presentar. El sistema perceptivo es el lugar donde se produce esa re presentacin.
En ocasiones una sola percepcin ser suficiente para crear una presentacin, y en otras, sern muchas (incluso de archivo), las necesarias.

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Relatador - Persona
Las percepciones pueden contrastarse con el entorno directamente
o a sugerencia de Ocontenidos totales o parciales.
El sistema perceptivo no es penetrado sino que crea imgenes de
acontecimientos o contenidos ofrecidos y puede generar ms percepciones si lo cree necesario para organizar el material en una grilla y crear una presentacin. Un ofrecimiento muy vehemente, como
el calor de una llama sobre la mano, puede llevarnos a pensar que
ella es la que nos introduce la orden de quitarla, pero an grabada
genticamente en lo que llamamos reflejos, la orden es sugerida
por el relatador, que puede hasta desconocerla (hay humanos que
deciden caminar sobre brasas).

rganos de Percepcin
Algunos son ms tangibles como los que permiten percibir gustos, olores, colores, sonidos, por supuesto tacto, y otros menos como los que se ocupan de intuiciones y emociones (reales e imaginadas 26). Son dispositivos complejos que pueden crear, interpretar,
editar y aprender.
No son los llamados sentidos ni tampoco dispositivos de in o out,
aunque pueda confundirse al rgano de percepcin de imgenes con
los ojos, pero las percepciones involucran a varios dispositivos de
entrada (un olor puede construir una imagen visual), y tambin a
dispositivos de actuacin: por ejemplo, usamos una linterna para
poder ver, luego, un dispositivo de actuacin se asocia para dar lugar al rgano de percepcin.

A mi juicio la humanidad desconoce en profundidad tanto la naturaleza de lo

real como de lo imaginado.

26

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Alejandro Guevara
Pueden aislar lo que buscan percibir: esa selectividad, por ejemplo,
permite reconocer un rington con ms nitidez, una vez que se ha escuchado varias veces. Tenga en cuenta entonces que no escucha todo lo que hay sino lo que escoge o ha aprendido a escuchar (es
capaz). Eso explica tambin porqu en ocasiones percibimos como
novedoso algo que estuvo todo el tiempo a nuestro alcance, pero
que slo descubrimos cuando estbamos preparados para hacerlo.

rganos de actuacin
Se integran con dispositivos que actan sobre el medio material o
social, realizndole ofertas, modificndolo o intentando hacerlo.
Esos dispositivos pueden incluir elementos anatmicos y tecnolgicos y tienen la capacidad de aprender mediante el uso o el ejercicio,
afinando su sensibilidad. Algunos usan el aparato fonador, las manos, todo el cuerpo, y sus extensiones como las microondas o brazos remotos (desde micrfonos hasta satlites). Las ofertas de contenidos se exteriorizan mediante rganos de actuacin (de publicacin).

rganos de interaccin
Funcionan integrando dispositivos de actuacin y percepcin 27.
Cuando la mano moldea la arcilla, realiza una accin sobre ella al
tiempo que percibe visual y tctilmente lo que acontece, lo que a su
vez guiar los prximos movimientos (con intervencin de todo el
sistema de interaccin individual y social).
El habla tal vez sea un rgano de interaccin. Si lo fuese sera el
ms rico con que contamos. Nuestra identidad no es concebible sin

[aparato fonador odo], [msculos de los dedos sensores de tacto], [secreciones olfato], [aparato fonador y rostro odo y vista], etc.
27

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Relatador - Persona
ella, porque nos ha permitido esculpirnos con arte, aunque tambin ha ayudado a potenciar algunas de nuestras imperfecciones.

Competencias
Llamo as a los conocimientos y habilidades de relatadores y personas para relatar y ofrecer respectivamente. Involucran sus habilidades para el uso del habla, la comunicacin llamada no verbal,
afectiva, intuitiva, potica, etc. Las posibilidades y limitaciones de
sus rganos de percepcin, sus medios, rganos o canales de difusin y su disponibilidad y habilidad para el uso de dispositivos externos (lentes, instrumentos musicales, telecomunicaciones, internet,
etc). Y en general de todo su sistema de interaccin.
Cdigos Gentico y de saberes
La frontera entre lo gentico y lo adquirido parece algo difusa y con
abundante interaccin. Del mismo modo que acuerdo con la teora
de que en los genes hay cierta estructura que aguarda por el aprendizaje del habla, creo que est prevista la conformacin del cdigo
de saberes (o cultural) y la interaccin entre ambos. La coordinacin
no parece sencilla, y suele haber conflictos como los que propician
enfermedades como la bulimia (el mandato gentico de alimentarse
puede ir contra el mandato cultural s delgada). No obstante, la
posibilidad de corregir o reparar mandatos genticos que ya no aplican,
est ms a nuestro alcance cuanto mejor aprendemos a relatar 28.

Muchos MG ya no son necesarios como la asignacin obligatoria de roles por

sexo (comn en muchas especies) o la distribucin mediante la fuerza de los territorios productivos, ya que hoy producimos cantidad suficiente de alimentos en el
mundo como para que no haya hambre. Por qu an lo hay? Es hora de revisar lo
que estamos relatando.

28

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Alejandro Guevara

Mundo
El mundo que podemos conocer no es todo lo que hay sino lo que
somos capaces de relatar (o queremos). Escapa del alcance de mundo todo lo dems (lo que, ahora mismo, no podemos ver o
imaginar), como muchos microorganismos lo hacan antes de la
creacin del microscopio (el mundo anterior a los antibiticos estaba habitado por otros seres, y no sabemos quines habitarn el posterior al dominio de lo que conocemos como fsica cuntica, por
ejemplo).
Lo percibimos (relatamos, creamos) con el pensamiento y la imaginacin, con nuestros sistemas biolgicos y las herramientas o extensiones que creamos, cuyos alcances son las fronteras. Nombro mundos
materiales y sociales, entendiendo que en ellos actan la fantasa,
las sensaciones de felicidad o tristeza y las que llamamos espirituales, cuya naturaleza no puedo explicar satisfactoriamente.

LAPs: Licencias, Acuerdos, y Permisos

Son reglas de juego para la celebracin de relatos. Resultan de la
negociacin entre relatadores y ofrecedores (y dentro mismo de cada R-P). Algunas son negociadas para cada relato en particular y
otras vienen desde tal vez el inicio de los tiempos, grabadas en los
genes y en las culturas. De algunas se tiene conciencia y de otras
no, pero en todos los casos, cada relatador al momento de celebrar
cada relato establece las LAPs con las que lo llevar a cabo. Desde
el punto de vista del relatador 29, las Licencias son otorgadas por
ejemplo para asignar umbrales de credibilidad (a un experto suelen otorgrsele licencias ms amplias que a un novato). Los Acuerdos suelen celebrarse negociando licencias a cambio de permisos, u

29

Desde el punto de vista de la persona en Relato y Narracin.

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Relatador - Persona
obteniendo permisos al otorgar licencias y tambin mediante otros
medios de cambio como el dinero (vender adhesin o comprar
libros por ej.). Los Permisos son obtenidos mediante acuerdos
(por ejemplo comprando tickets), o cumpliendo requisitos de filiacin o pertenencia.
Como toda regla tambin pueden transgredirse (como ocurre por
ejemplo, si alguien accede a un contenido ofrecido como prohibido
para su edad).
Funcionan como axones neuronales de la integridad humana permitiendo previsibilidad en las identidades individuales y grupales 30.
Pueden ser canceladas o ampliadas durante la celebracin de un relato. Tambin adjudicarse en forma engaosa, por ejemplo alguien
come un dulce rompiendo la dieta e invoca: "en la televisin dijeron
que podemos darnos un permitido". Cuando se dice lo ha dicho el
diario, o lo dice la ciencia, se invocan diferentes LAPs, stas no son
universales sino propias de cada relatador (o grupo de relatadores).
Si bien las LAPs forman redes que parecen contenernos a la vez que
atraparnos, algunas situaciones, como por ejemplo que an cuando
los grupos extremos exigen licencias amplias, se aseguran de explicitar castigos para los impos, parecen indicar que cada relatador
es dueo de la decisin final.

Ninguna persona es la misma de un da para el otro, ni ninguna sociedad, pero

para sostener alguna certeza, aceptamos parecernos a quien hemos sido, mantener
algunos de sus gustos e intereses y cumplir los compromisos que quienes fuimos
antes contrajeron en nuestro nombre. Los problemas aumentan cuando debemos
cumplir los que tom quien nos habit 10 aos atrs, o 20, o 10.000 (como los que
vienen de mandatos genticos). El derecho a revisar LAPs debera considerarse entre los derechos humanos.
30

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Alejandro Guevara

Moralejas
Me gusta este nombre para designar a muchos de los provechos o
saberes resultantes de un relato. Ms que nada por provocador. La
palabra me remite a un saber particular de dudosa legitimidad y con
exageradas pretensiones de universalidad 31: a una regla moral eja 32.
Los beneficios resultantes de relatar no son verdades, o en todo
caso lo son transitoriamente. Puede admitirse una moraleja tanto
cuando se aprende una frmula matemtica, como cuando se disfruta un amanecer (si es que se celebra un relato con eso: amanece todos los das, y no siempre celebramos relatos de amaneceres).
Una crtica al utilitarismo que parece invocar "moraleja", puede
surgir cuando el objetivo de relatar sea el de vivir sensaciones, como sentirse enamorados con una historia de amor, de modo que se
puede alegar que: slo haber pasado un momento agradable no es
un aprendizaje. Pero la experimentacin de placer, dolor, temor,
etc. tambin son usados para direccionar y controlar la supervivencia, por lo que su ejercitacin o experimentacin, puede tener el
mismo valor que hacerlo con el sentido del gusto o la musculatura
en un gimnasio, por ejemplo.

Qu no es un relato? (de modo no linguocntrico)

De acuerdo con mi oferta todo lo susceptible de ser experimentado
por un humano puede ser parte de un relato, pero no lo ser hasta
tanto ste no lo haya celebrado. Podemos decir que una oferta de
contenido es parte de un relato, solo si algn relatador la ha utilizado para relatar. Un ofrecimiento (un programa de radio) ha de vagar

31

Como todo lo que creemos saber los humanos

32

Sufijo diminutivo

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Relatador - Persona
por el universo hasta que alguna vez alguien relate con l. Slo si
ese momento se produjese, podremos retroceder y decir que ha sido
parte de un relato en suspenso.
Una narracin puede ser un relato? La narracin es la exposicin
de una oferta, con lo que siempre es parte de un relato (si aceptamos
que acontece o ha acontecido una narracin, es porque hemos aceptado que se ha celebrado un relato), pero no es un relato, sino parte de l.

Si todo se define en el relatador la llamada manipulacin, no existe?

Si, el abuso es posible, pero no mediante el grabado sobre mentes
receptoras sino, por ejemplo eliminando opciones de acceso a ofertas, por impedir el acceso a la educacin o a la informacin, o abusando de LAPs: proponiendo contratos deshonestos que lesionen las
libertades de eleccin como suelen intentar algunas sectas o dictaduras.

Cul es el verdadero sentido de la vida?

Desafortunadamente no tengo la respuesta. Si insiste en buscarlo,
intente en Google. Si lo encuentra, por favor envelo con copia al
resto de la humanidad.
Si es de su gusto, le invito a su participar en los foros de la web de
este ensayo: www.relatador.com.ar.
Muchas gracias!
Alejandro Guevara

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Alejandro Guevara

72

Fundamental Essay on the Relation

The Death of the Tongue
Relation and Narration
Relator-Persona

Iberoamericana - Comunicacin

Alejandro Guevara

Fundamental Essay

English version

Introduction
These are some of the questions I have tried to solve with my
proposal, to wit:

A person throws an ironic phrase to his or her mother-in-law. At the

same time, another person, in another part of the world, says exactly
the same thing. Both mothers-in-law react in the same way. Later,
these mothers-in-law and some other millions of people as well,
watch a TV comedy and laugh when their lack of originality is
exposed. Who is the one who should collect the copyright revenues?
After all, everybody created such lines when saying them. Did each
person speak for him or herself or was possessed by someone else
each time he or she wanted to utter that phrase? Was it the culture?
Was it the hormones? Maybe the Warner Brothers? All of them
together, or none of them?
A political candidate sends the same text message to all voters.
Some are flattered and will gladly vote for him; other feel insulted
and will confirm their intention not to vote for him. Could we say
that a same message was sent, only because all of them had the
same words? Was part of the content or of the text outside the
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Alejandro Guevara
message? What kind of thing is a message? What kind of thing is a
text?
A blind physician enters a patients room. He spends some minutes
in the utmost silence, and upon leaving he gives a diagnosis that is
even more accurate than that of his fellows, non-blind physicians.
When asked how he has come to such diagnosis, the physician says
that the patients family narrated with eloquency. But, who
narrated? There were no words at all! Do smells narrate? Do
breathings narrate? Could there be a language in corporal or
environmental temperatures? How could there have been narration
without words? Was there content in that room? Was it in the
physicians mind? Was it in both places? Could there have been a
relation? If so, what kind of thing is a relation?
We watch The Simpsons dubbed in the Spanish variant spoken in
Latin America. Many of us consider it to be even better than the
original English version. The same dubbing actors can later be heard
in a poor version of another movie, so much so that wed rather see
the subtitled version of the same movie. Have the actors lost their
talent? Was it the directors fault? The version in the European
Spanish variant is even duller. If the video is the same, where then
do the differences lie? Is it a matter of direction? Is it because of the
ethnocentric character of culture? Is it because of the audiovisual
media regulations? All of these together? Is a video with a different
audio the same as the original one? There is even more: Who is the
narrator? What kind of thing is a narrator? Is it several persons in
one? What about visual narration? Is it a consequence of following a
text? Is there a text without syntax?
When we see a movie we have seen before, we see things that we
didnt see the first time. What has, then, changed? Isnt it the same
tape? And the same script? The same eyes? Do different people see
the same thing in a painting, a billboard, or a movie? Does a song
feel the same ten years after we have listened to it for the first time?
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What about a book a century later after we have read it for the first
time?
Lets take, for instance, a detailed description of the frozen face of a
person in front of the firing squad. Is it a story? Consider the
photograph of a face. Is there a narration? What is the role of time in
a photograph? What is the role of time in a story? Is it the time that
elapsed before or that elapsed afterwards? Is it the time that goes by
for those who watch that story? Is there no time at all? Is time
measurement of any consequence to define what kind of thing is a
relation? Or does it only differentiate among types of content?
A person narrates a situation in which another person was really
scared and, in doing so, his or her voice trembles; in any case, that
person does not want to express his or her own fears but those of the
alluded person. Do either voice or word say and, at the same time,
show? The narrator speaks now just like a character did, but he does
not change his attitude at once; the voices of both character and
narrator melt for a few seconds. Is he two people at the same time
while transitioning, as occurs when two video footages fade? The
narrator stands before hundreds of students and gives her speech a
certain cadence, as if in a school rhyme. Is she the one who speaks
or is it the role of the teacher who seizes her voice tract? A soldier
stresses his words, thus giving his speech a certain imperative
nuance. Such nuance is not an expression of him but of the
institution he represents. A bald announcer praises offstage the
qualities of a hair conditioner. It is the voice of experience: not the
announcers, but that of the scriptwriters of the marketing
department, even if they are also bald.
Two people read the same book. One of them discovers the real
meaning of life in the text. The other does not even remember what
he or she has read, only that the book was boring. Did both people
notice the same thing? Why do we call it the same if both people did
not have the same kind of connection? At the same time, the former
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Alejandro Guevara
discovers that he or she has been tricked by the book, and the latter,
upon re-reading the book, finds the real meaning of life. What are
the properties of the text? Is life changing one of its properties?
Does it lack properties? Do its properties change over time? Can we
say that a book that has never been read is indeed a book? What
about some words, which have never been uttered? Can a written
piece be a narration and not be a narration at the same time? What
kind of thing is a narration?
A book that contains the real meaning of life gets lost. Before he
dies, its only adept buys some media space and spreads the news to
the world. But he does so outside prime time hour and, which is
worse, at the same the whole world is watching a live game of
Barcelona. Nobody whatsoever gets to see that piece of news. Thus,
the real meaning of life is lost. Whose fault was it? Was the book to
blame? Were the media to blame? Was if the fault of mass
culture? Was it sports fault? Or Lio Messis fault? What is the
real meaning of life?
As you can see, there are several unresolved questions.

These are questions which global adolescence has issued once

again, thus exposing the futility of old beliefs which state that the
way in which we relate is the way in which we will be. Internet
music downloads generate billion-dollar arguments over what an
author is and what his or her rights should be; this involves legal,
philosophical, sociological and political questions, not to mention
financial ones. On the other hand, cell phone technology has made
available to everyone gadgets for editing and capturing audio, video
and text, along with resources for organizing (editing) reality,
which show how free we have been to design our own existence.
The division between real life and fiction has been undermined
by reality shows, thus exposing the cold war waged between
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institutions which claim to have a say in determining who we are or
who we should be.
It is high time we revised all the phenomena involved in searching,
offering and creating meaning. Which is, by the way, the key to
freedom itself.

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Alejandro Guevara

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Fundamental Essay

Fundamental essay
This Fundamental Essay on the Relation is made up of a triad of
three works: The Death of the Tongue 33, Relation and Narration
and Relator-Person. On an individual level, these works approach
different aspects of relation; together, they are a thorough
description of this phenomenon. You can check only the aspect that
you may find interesting, if enlargement on the topic is rendered
necessary, all the other aspects contain allusions to the same topics
but from different perspectives.

In The Death of the Tongue (language) I denounce that which

goes by the name of linguocentrism, i.e. a way of placing our focus
on the world (and thus construct it) under the sponsorship of that
same inferiority complex which drags us to either sexism or racism.

33
The Spanish word for language is lengua, which literally means tongue, hence
the association. In English, both language and tongue are used (e.g. The Spanish
language is my mother tongue).

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Alejandro Guevara
Relation and Narration offers ten essential tools for those who offer contents, whether narrators, writers, actors, people who are involved in the production of audiovisual media, teachers, painters,
singers, musicians, architectsand, in varied circumstances, every
human being.

In Relator-Person, I propose a model of the way in which we gather experiences and knowledge by performing relations.

On the expression relator: some conflicting points

The use of the word relator is a perplexing one due to that change
of paradigm, which proposes that those who relate are not the ones
that were usually believed to do so (e.g. those who narrate) but
those who, with other persons offers or of their own curiosity,
perform relations 34 "in" them themselves.

The choice of such a word is by no means coincidental and is meant

to deconstruct that old method of relating which I call linguocentric.

The use of the word relation as used in his text does not exist in Spanish either. It
alludes to the way in which we organize our knowledge in our minds.
34

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Fundamental Essay

On the expression linguocentrism: some conflicting

points

Time and again, my being in favor of banning that which I call

linguocentrism has made me explain that I do not seek to bury
speech or constrict the language of people, which does happen in the
case of feminism when seen as a conspiracy against the opposite
sexor inthe case of the critique of logocentrism when seen as
antilogocentrism. My goal is not to build an anti-system, but to
rethink the question of human knowledge and thought on the basis
of more unstable and honest foundations.

Some conceptual issues

I have sought to define categories that comprise literature, writing,

speech, architecture and any remaining manifestation of exchange
of human meaning.
You should bear in mind that I have redefined and adapted some
terminology and created new categories. I beg you to be patient until
you have thoroughly revised the meaning I give to each term in
order to analyze and question them.
For example, with the words narration and relation I refer to
different phenomena: to narrate means to expound and to relate is to
acquire meaning. The word relation is of Latin origin, relatus,
where latus is brought or produced. I choose to consider to
relate as tore-produce or re-present. We human beings cannot
bring the events themselves but a re-presentation, an image which
is able to present them to us. The image of what has happened also
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Alejandro Guevara
includes our point of view, our ability to compose and our interests
in that sense. When it comes to producing, all our efforts are not
void of a purpose: study or organize all what surrounds us, gather
experiences or compare them with those already recorded, exercise
or recognize the system, get know the others, go through catharsis,
enjoy, suffer, etc. So that the events (among all events, those which
we choose) that are to be presented (such presentation occurs in
human beings) shall do so with different mediations.
Even though the acquisition of knowledge and experiences will go
on for as long as we live, there is a moment when we think that all
what we have perceived is enough and that we are able to reach a
conclusion which, though not final, may enable us to complete a
cycle and pay attention to perform other relations or conclude
pending ones or revise those whose definitions may not render
profitable when applying them in real life. Thus, my definition of
relation goes as follows:

Relation is the event that occurs between the production of a

presentation and the acquisition of learning 35.

We human beings perform that event on our own and also with
suggestions from others. My proposal is to pay attention both to the
way in which we re-present ourselves and to the way in which we

Even though this may seem controversial, please allow me to enlarge on the
subject. For the time being, let me say that, to me, learning does not include merely
the memorization of mathematical formulas: learning includes all kinds of
experiences, even those which may be scientifically regarded as trivial, such as
those derived from pleasure.

35

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Fundamental Essay
help other in re-presenting themselves. I have defined such
functions as relator 36 and person 37, respectively.
The same relation never happens twice because, once we have
performed it before, we are made different relators and persons.
Each relation exists only while it is being performed.
The result of performing a relation implies gathering some kind of
richness, which in certain contexts is known as knowledge.
Hence, this is my definition:
To know is to stop along the way of learning; such a stop is a
necessary one for acting.
To know is to stop growing. It is a useful step, to be taken only
when we need to make decisions on the spur of the moment 38. When
we say I know it all, we are saying that I do not need to learn
anything else. Most of the times, this is not quite so.

All human beings are relators in that we explore, create and edit some
perceptions, we make associations with it in a presentation and we assess their
outcome and possibilities so as to store what we have learned. For further reading,
please refer to the Relator-Person chapter.
36

Person is a word of Latin origin, per sonare. The reference is to the masks that
Greek theater performers wore and with which characters were impersonated
because of the way the voices of the actors sounded with their masks on. I will refer
to that aspect of humans in generating and offering contents in the Relation and
Narration chapter.

37

38
Surgeons have to know they have to amputate as long as the life of the patient is
in great danger. However, they should never stop researching only because they
feel they know, thus exposing others to being amputated to no avail.

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Alejandro Guevara
*

I invite you to leave the comfort zone created by the

unquestionable knowledge. The aim is to consider a way which
may possibly foster the phenomenom of relation (i.e., the way in
which we gather knowledge and experiences). Should you dare to
revise it and apply this perspective to your daily life, you will notice
great changes in your performance and in the quality of your
production.
*

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Fundamental Essay

Relation and narration

Some essential tools to offer content

The tools I am about to offer apply to all modes and ways of

offering content, whether oral or written, whether through movies or
music, whether the most wondrous, incredible multimedia
production or the most improvised marriage proposal. At the end of
this chapter, you will be able to answer the questions posed in the
introduction in a more satisfactory way.
The offering of content has the purpose of performing relations.
They are guides to performing relations, but they are not relations in
themselves.
It is not possible to store events in themselves; we do keep
perceptions of such events, which result from comparing them with
other perceptions or already stored and organized pieces of
knowledge. The newly acquired knowledge is, thus, also made up of
old knowledge. Such previous knowledge gives meaning to that
which happens and has its source in the human being, who relates
his or her own existence (relator), and in instructions (contents)
supplied by others. Whenever a person reads a book or sees a
movie, he or she can, if desired, perform a relation with the help of
such instructions. Those who work in the production of contents
must offer good contents and see to it that such contents are
available whenever and wherever suitable so that the relators who
wish to do so can profit from them.

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Alejandro Guevara

List of tools
1. You should produce and be aware of the fact that you are
offering instead of think that you are sending.
2. You are a persona-relator, even though, at times, you are
more a relator than a persona and viceversa.
3. You should make the best of those possibilities by which the
offered contents look like those that your relators will
establish.
4. You should check the consistency between
departments of your offering production (OP):

the

4.1. Author Authority

5. You should make clear what you will offer and to which
relators you will make such offer.
6. Follow the goal of the production, not the text.
7. You should thoroughly and consciously analyze those
licenses, agreements and permissions granted by default and
those that you expect to grant, agree on or obtain.
8. Define the degree of protagonism you wish to assign your
channels of expression and to the organs of perception of
your relators.
9. Assess the quality of the material to be offered and of that
which is offered by others.
10. Diagram of the system of offers, requests for and
establishment of contents (some functions described).

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Fundamental Essay
1. You should produce and be aware of the fact that you
are offering instead of think that you are sending.
This tool is concerned with undoing that prejudice which I call
linguocentrism (on this subject I will develop further in the chapter
The Death of the Tongue). In this sense, linguocentrism supports
the belief that contents, rather than being offers of instructions for
the purpose of generating perceptions (and thus relations), are
packs of perceptions; such perceptions must be received by
recipients. According to this erroneous conception, little can the
alleged recipients do with such packsexcept, of course, unpack
them properly.
This is not quite so. We human beings decide which offers are to be
of our interest and to what extent such instructions shall render
useful to us. This does not mean that we will always make the right
decision: maybe things will be very different in real life. Maybe we
will devote too much time to process contents of no consequence;
maybe we are not too deft at detecting those contents that would
prove more useful to us. Consequently, in order to live (to relate) a
more satisfactory life, we are always trying to adjust our means of
differentiating such contents.
What I am trying to say is that your potential relators will not absorb
that which is being sent, but they will choose to concentrate on
that which is proposed to them. I am also saying that your proposals
shall be like recipes for re-lating: the relators will re-produce them
in their own fashion. And so, each relator will perform their own
relation. Whenever a person describes an unknown object to another
person, he or she will give indicators so that the relator can generate
perceptions similar to those of the offerer. The relator will not
perceive the same thing: with these instructions and with the help of
stored perceptions, he or she will re-produce or re-create
perceptions of something which, hopefully, will resemble that
which has been proposed.
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Alejandro Guevara
This procedure has little to do with the sending of a pack of
perceptions.
2. You are a persona-relator, even though, at times, you
are more a relator than a persona or viceversa.
We function as relators whenever we take elements from the
environment (facts, materials, conjectures), we represent them, we
organize such representations by giving them a meaning, and we
store them in our knowledge warehouse. We function as persons
whenever we offer and produce material with sound, images,
smells, etc. to guide relators in their generating perceptions, and
whenever we suggest what meaning they should give such
perceptions by organizing them in offers (contents).
If you are somewhat baffled, you are on the right track. The word
relator does not refer to our previous notions of the word, i.e. he
or she who sends a relation, but to who is responsible for another
possibility in which relation works. A relator is not, so to speak, he
or she who sends forth words, but he or she who, by invoking
words, creates or re-creates an experience.
The functions of relator and person are simultaneously present in
human beings. More often than not, these functions coexist in a
same human being but seem to have separate lives. That is to say,
being deft at something does not imply dexterity in another. We can
greatly profit from books, movies or from chats with friends, but
this does not imply that we are good at offering instructions for
others to relate. On the other hand, we can be excellent makers of
recipes to offer others, but we are not usually good enough to carry
them out. We all have known people who will gladly give us some
good piece of advice, but nonetheless their lives are disgraceful, and
we all have known happy people who cannot find the appropriate
words to help others to be as happy as they are.

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To what extent is our knowledge about relators beneficial for
producing better contents?
Knowing what the receiver of the offer can do with it (if he or she
accepts it) will be crucial to help him or her to enjoy it, or to guide
him or her on how much it will prove useful.
In other words: we relators produce and organize some perceptions
of what we understand has happened, in both the real and the
imaginary world, by associating such perceptions with others or
with stored perceptions, so as to find a suitable explanation for the
event (presentation). If the material is enough to consider some
learning as total or partial, we store it as new knowledge so as to
better interact with the world and with ourselves.
Knoing how we function as relators will also improve our
possibilities of creating different type relators. In order to check
or correct our own material we must put ourselves in the place of a
relator with interests and competences similar to those expected to
accept our offer.
The first and second tools, which we have analyzed, are essential
when it comes to the offering of contents. The use of such tools
should be in the most careful choice, production and exhibition of
indicators 39, taking into account the interests and competences of
different relators.

A better definition of this word will be provided in tool number 10, Diagram and
description.

39

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Alejandro Guevara
3. You should make the best of those possibilities by
which the offered contents look like those that your
relators will establish.
Each relator will, according to his or her interests and competences,
establish what the content of the offer will be like.
As far as competences are concerned, each relators background will
discriminate among different possibilities to establish. Those
connected with the realm of medicine will understand the indicators
from Dr. House in a different way, for example. In the case of
interests, variants are several and they range from how we consider
the extent to which such content will render useful to our financial,
emotional or political interests. We do not relate with a newspaper
that fits our political views in the same way as we would do with a
newspaper that we do not agree with. In other words, even if you
think you have offered a content (Ocontent), each relator will
establish that he or she has been offered what he or she can and
wants (Econtent).
That which has been established will even vary to a same relator
who decides to relate for the second or third time, in the same way
as when we see a movie again. Not only because the words
same and again wont apply, since each relator is made anew
with each experience, and a movie will change as the environment
changes, but also because relators always have different obligations,
reasons or emotions 40 which they would consider in each
performance in each performance.
An offered content must be able to lead us towards certain
perceptions, propose some kind of organization and offer a chance

LAPS (Licenses, agreements and permissions), look for definition in tool number 7.

40

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Fundamental Essay
of concluding (in, among others, logical, emotional or experiential
terms).
The elements that help us produce perceptions are indicators that
we will offer our potential relator so that he or she may be able to
finish the jigsaw puzzle of his or her situation. Thus, if an
indicator is exposed, e.g., a movie scene where there is an empty
room and the camera zooms in on an ashtray with a cigarette stub
stained with red lipstick: in such a case, most relators will choose to
store such information because it will prove useful later on. The
indicator will generate a perception in every relator who notices it.
Each relator will have different nuances; some will believe by
joining that perception with others, that they already know who the
murderer is. Others will go from certainty to perplexity. Some will
see blood instead of lipstick; many others may not notice any
indicator, and consequently the offer must be repeated once and
again until each relator has material enough to complete his or her
presentation, even if he or she does not count on that which shall be
lost because of distraction or noise.
There are different types of indicator, which we often organize in
sequences, chapters, saga sections, etc. The focus on a conclusion
offer is what brings them all together in one content: to that end, a
set of instructions (or grid) shall be a sort of map by which to assess
and store. An apparently same indicator will indicate something
different if it is part of a mystery, sensorial, love story or comedy
grid.
Grids propose ways of organizing. They do not necessarily follow a
time line, and even though the chronological method is one of the
most effective and popular, there are other methods with different
temporal consequence, e.g. descriptive methods. The incidence of
time in content has to do with genre and not with the foundational
structure of relation. Those scholars for whom time is a structural
variable of relation got stuck with the linguocentrical view that was
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in vogue until the twentieth century, by which the relator was
derogatorily called recipient.
To conclude: you must carefully choose and produce each one of
your indicators for your relators and make them available to them,
so that they can establish what most resembles that which you think
are offering. You must design each grid or pick a preset one (genre),
tune in to their conveniences, obligations, reasons or emotions
and consider different variables such as the historical, cultural or
economic moment in which each relation will be completed, or the
noise or distraction arising from the environment. Sometimes
relators may be distracted, or they may not understand certain
things, or they may simply have to gone to the toilet.

4. You should check the consistency between the

departments of your offering production (OP):

The production of contents involves several specialized areas with

different but supplementary goals: logistics, direction, capture,
exhibition, recording, etc. These functions will affect people in their
different organs or different company members or departments of a
big enterprise.
The way in which you consider the rest of those involved in your
offering production (OP) will determine the quality of your offer. If
you have understood and tuned in to the rest, chances of producing
coherent, simple to understand and effective offers will increase. In
time you will notice that most of the mistakes or lack of balance in
the offering contents will be the result of a faulty coordination of
performers or of ignoring their existence. Such imbalance will result
in greater effort on the part of the relator, who will have to connect
loose ends or solve contradictions (whenever he or she chooses to
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take the trouble; more often than not this will not happen and there
will be no relation).
Consequently, whenever you wish to exhibit certain material, you
should consider great preproduction efforts, which does not
necessarily imply direct dialog but a painstaking analysis of each
premise. If you choose to work on Romeo and Juliet, you may not
get to talk in person with William Shakespeare, but you may be able
to do so through his offers.
When narrating, one reports to the rest of the structure of offering of
content as would, for instance, the manager to the rest of the
company where he or she works. If you narrate relying on what a
writer has to offer, such writer will be part of your offering
production.
4.1. Author Authority

What every human being exteriorizes is not necessarily original:

other people speak in our own words or gestures, people from
which we have learned something, groups of people organized in
entities which we call cultures, and people even more remote and
unknown who (still we do not know how) have left us their recorded
teachings in our genes. Knowing who it is who offers is really
complex.
The function of authority 41 is usually exercised by an aggregate of
different actions with different kinds of involvement, LAPs, etc.

You shall find an enlarged definition of this term at the end of the tools section.
In The Death of the Tongue it will be shown that we usually mistake this
function for that which we tend to call author due to our linguocentrical bias.

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But relators need to establish some point of view from which that
which has been offered has been observed, so as to tune in to our
own worldview. In establishing this point of view we create an
image of the person responsible for the offer (Eauthority). When the
author is us, our relator establishes the authority by checking the
LAPs we may have agreed upon with ourselvesand even our
mood: we tend to take something we consider sad less seriously if
we think we are down.
When the offer comes from an offering production (another person,
group of persons or contents producer), we establish the perspective
and responsibility of the offering by taking together with our
knowledge and interests into account the Oauthority. All the
members of a production team and, to some extent, both past and
future humanity will be candidates for being part of each offered
authority.
We, as people who produce and offer contents, shall have to take the
appropriate decisions about our involvement in the entity we will try
to join as members. We may wish to enter different licenses,
agreements and permissions (LAPs) which will determine the
chances for success of our offers.

5.
You should make clear what you will offer and to
which relators you will make such offer.
Nobody relates if he or she expects to obtain something, from
logical and rational pieces of knowledge to experiencing sensations,
as well as all kinds of real or imaginary situations.
In order to ensure that someone can relate with the help of that
which we offer, our instructions will have to be friendly and will
have to have some internal consistency that aims at the expected
goal. The proposed experience or learning will, at times, not be
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exactly explicit, maybe because they cannot be explained in words
or because one may not be fully aware (an offeror, for instance the
witness to a crime, may describe some facts and try to be objective;
however, he or she may unconsciously accuse someone for
reasons of race or appearance). Even if we take into account the
many unexpected circumstances, you must ask yourself what profit
your relators will probably obtain and analyze the relationship
between your promises (whether open or concealed) and the
expectations which they may have so as to measure up and be able
to meet your commitments and keep your licenses for future
contents.
You may also have motivations that drive him or her to offer
contents. Such motivations may be varied and may be for altruist
purposes or not. But they will differ from those the relators will
have in order to profit from the Ocontents.
Many times I have heard certain creatives say: I only produce for
myself. Somebody makes a painting and says that, far from
transcending with his or her work of art, the purpose was only to
enjoy the creation process. Even though it may be a process for our
own satisfaction, there will be a relation every time somebody offers
something with which the relator who completes it relates. Anyway,
a good part of such detached statements are only for marketing
purposes with the goal of increasing the spiritual value of the
offered content so that the money paid for such will be more.
In order to profit from this tool, upon producing, it will be a good
idea to sum up the offer in a single phrase (or sensation): this shall
be useful to give some consistency to our indicators and the rest of
the elements of our staging.
It may be useful to revise the kind of relators you think may be
interested in your offer (even though, more often than not, the most
unexpected people end up becoming relators). Having some idea or
profile of the targeted relator will improve the chances of adjusting
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the interpretation. We do not address people of different ages,
cultures, interests, etc. in the same way, even if we think we are
offering a same content. Adjustments are useful, e.g. for choosing
the appropriate terminology or images or for avoiding long passages
which explain that which is already known. Even so, we may notice
what we may offer to different relators; if we are clever enough, we
may be able to intertwine material for everybody. Many of the
extraordinary productions have something to offer to different
relators, e.g. The Simpsons, which offer simultaneous contents for a
great variety of ages, cultures, etc.
The offerer does not amuse the audience; he or she makes available
a guide so that some members of the audience may perform
laughter. If we are able to see it in this way, it will be easy to
understand why some relators will laugh their heads off while some
others will remain unmoved, chewing at their popcorn and even
why some may be annoyed or offended. Consequently, we should
not only take into account those whom we address and make sure
that these are in the scope of our offer, but also seek that those who
might feel offended or overlooked will not be unwillingly receiving
the offer, e.g. by explaining LAPs in terms of the following content
is unfit for susceptible relators.

5. Follow the goal of the production, not the text.

You may probably have to revise concepts and definitions from
The Death of the Tongue in order to relate in line with my
relation. Otherwise, what follows may seem confusing or
inconsistent.
I have heard many well-meaning teachers make the terrible mistake
of telling their broadcasting students to follow the text when
reading a piece of writing. This may, on the one hand, cause the
confusion which, in the chapter The Death of the Tongue, I have
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chosen to call support fetishism. On the other hand, the belief that
words are only those written on paper is utterly linguocentrical.
Words do not emerge from tongues to penetrate our ears; words do
not emerge from paper to penetrate our eyes. They go between, not
from or to. The text printed in a book is not the offer; it is a printing,
even though our linguocentrical fetishism42 makes us see it as such.
Hence, what must be respected is the goal of the offering
production. To this end, one must decide what the goal-offer will be
from the point of view of Oauthority.
In my opinion, the teacher should say that the physical
manifestation of the narrator is to tune in to the rest of the
Oproduction team. Or if, for example, they are going to work with
Romeo and Juliet, they should agree on understanding what
Shakespeare wanted to offer. This will require some necessary
negotiations and updatings.
Maybe the teacher can offer the student, as long as he or she is a
narrator (i.e. a member of the production team), that he or she must
adjust to the proposal and interests of the authority which flows
from the text without adding or subtracting anything. This is,
however, impossible, because authority is not a function that flows,
but one that proposes and establishes something for any offer.
Therefore, if he or she has considered that there is an unambiguous
model or universal source, he or she is thinking in a linguocentrical
(logocentrical) fashion. The teacher must, first of all, discuss with
the student what authority shall be put forth because any
contribution to an offering production will re-create the Oauthority.
Ignoring any kind of contribution or trying to make it vanish is a
thoroughly dishonest action.

Support fetichism, page 131.

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There have been some good though failed attempts to forget
about linguocentrism. For example, considering the wide range of
possibilities offered by the etymology of the word text as weave
(Latin textus, i.e. pattern of weaving), it was proposed that the
recipient should also be considered within the text, or that the
context is part of the text. It has not been enough. There exist plenty
of offers where a same phrase proposes text as support, as offered
content and established content, but, needless to say, not as
interactive organ. If you can now see that different phenomena have
been alluded to without his or her noticing it, then he or she may
understand why we sometimes get tangled up with such varied
text (understood as weaving) without being able to undo the yarn.
The fact that human beings who relate with books are called readers
arises from this same confusion. Reading must be regarded as
similar to what a device which reads CDs does: it retrieves data
and makes them available to somebody or something else; it even
recodes the data but cannot interpret, not to mention relate, them. It
shall be noticed that this is the way in which we human beings
operate: we can read whole paragraphs without understanding or
retaining a single word. This proves that the act of mechanically
reading a text is quite different from doing something with words.

7. You should thoroughly and consciously analyze those

licenses, agreements and permissions (LAPs) granted by
default and those which you expect to grant, agree on or
obtain.
Somewhere along the production of offers, the establishment of
contents and the performing of relations there exists what I have
called LAPs (licenses, agreements and permissions) which should
be carefully taken into account when offering.

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From the point of view of the person (i.e. he or she who offers
contents to relators), licenses are obtained: when publishing your
offer in a newspaper, a movie theater, an office, in the same way as
from a hierarchical position, you may invoke different licenses.
According to each relator, a same newspaper may show a credibility
license for certain relators but not for others. Permissions are
granted to your potential relators when, for example, you rate them
as unsuitable for certain ages or for impressionable people, etc. As it
always happens with every standard or agreement, they may be
observed or trespassed; they may even be quoted to generate
expectations, as is the case of children when we tell them not to
drink milk so that they end up drinking it. Agreements may arise
from negotiations between licenses and permissions and they result,
for example, in licenses that are valid as long as permissions are
fulfilled; or they result in permissions that will be valid as long as
licenses are obtained. Agreements are also negotiated on the usage
or meaning of given terms or on the validity of the parameters.
LAPs are, at times, explicit; some other times they are not. They
may be conscious, or transparent, or honest, or they may be tricky or
dishonest. They may also be exposed, underlying, understood,
implied, misinterpreted, etc.
When beginning to offer content, you must consider which LAPs
will be required, which you think you may count on and how to
obtain the remaining ones. During exposition, you will even think
that you may gain credibility and that you will be able to put forth
some riskier theses.
It may mistakenly be thought that there are no LAPs only because
the negotiation is not clear for somebody: anyway, LAPs will be
evident when they are not fulfilled. This may also happen, for
example, when someone breaches the rights to privacy or childrens
rights granted to the western hemisphere by the American
Convention on Human Rights. Apart from observing those LAPs
written down in laws and regulations, special attention should be
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paid to implied ones to adjust your offers. Many Ocontents fail
because LAPs have been erroneously assessed or may have even
been overlooked.
An implied LAP is that which, for instance, arises from the value
that an offer may promise. That is to say, if you offer a relator your
content by telling him or her: Fancy what Ive seen on the street!
and your relator asks you to tell him or her more about it, you have
committed yourself to show an event of great value to that relator
while you got license to expand on it. Thus, if the event is unique
and valuable, you may even take more time and go back in time:
When I was a child. If it is not so unique and valuable, you
should quickly get to the point. Lets talk about figures: if you are
going to tell somebody that you found $1, the time license will be
shorter than that which will be used if the amount found were
$1,000 and even shorter than if it comes to a hidden treasure. It can
be noticed that offers cannot be assessed without taking into account
who they will be offered to: money (as well as love or science) will
be interesting to certain relators and, maybe, not so interesting to
others. If you have a mistaken conception of the relator and enlarge
on the event to excess, you will be reprimanded, even though you
may not remember having signed an agreement.
Artistic creation is always on the borderline of agreements, but if
agreements are breached and there are no available indicators,
offensive content may unwillingly be offered. However, not every
adverse reaction implies offensive contents. More often than not,
such reactionseven violent oneshad been intended: the offer
may show a driving force behind.
Genre as LAPs
In (3) I have suggested that genres arise from an agreement (prearranged grids). Nevertheless, many of them take longer to be
agreed upon by everyone, as is the case of the videoclip, harshly
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criticized by some relators until they were able to understand its
internal logic.

8. Define the degree of protagonism you wish to grant

your channels of expression and to the organs of
perception of your relators.
Your means and ways of expressions show your indicators to your
relators. For instance, a video projector may show light contrasts
suggesting a face. You will not be sending a face to relators because
it may be a very shocking thing, as was the case of the horses head
in The Godfather.
The fact that you work with cameras and projectors does not mean
that you only send indicators for the perception of images: with
those same indicators you can also help perceive smells, sounds,
warmth, etc. If you use auditory channels you may, apart from
helping others to perceive sounds, suggest how to perceive images,
hardness, flavors and terror or quiet. There are several means, which
together, as co-Onarrators, jointly constitute an Onarrator.

The organs of perception of narrators usually work simultaneously,

under the coordination of their perception system 43. You must
consider what you expect each of your relators organ is doing
during your exposition; none should be left to chance. You should
not only try to resort to all of them by creating indicators for your
offer; you should even pay attention to the environment of your

More on the organs of perception (including those of reason or emotion) in Relator-Person.

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exposition. For instance, an excessively heated movies theater will
not contribute to the indicators of a movie about survival in, say, the
Arctic.
As time passes and thanks to technological progress, we can resort
to more and more exposition and perception devices or organs. The
possibilities and characteristics of each offer will depend on the
kind of capture or exposition devices you have, your skills at
capturing, producing, editing and exposing, and the skills and
features of the perception organs of your potential relators.
You should also bear in mind that different relators will emphasize
the focus offered by different input devices. In the same way as
there are relators who favor the optical aspect of images, there are
others who emphasize the auditory, tactile, olfactory, rational,
emotional ones.
People usually mistake the input device for the organ of perception.
They tend to think that sight is the same thing as the organ of
perception of images. You should bear in mind that images, as well
as all perceptions, are made up of that which stimulates the input
devices 44 (e.g. the eyes) and which will later be processed in the
remaining part of the device with stored images, framed by LAPs
(whether that should be or must not be seen, what was expected to
be seen), etc. At the same time, the organs of perception collaborate
with interaction organs by using output or performance organs
and devices, such as fingers pressing against each other so that the
fingertips may perceive consistency, etc.

An image does not always emerge from the eyes. Images may be felt through
another contact device and may even do without outer contact (it may be
imagined).

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Confining the organs of perception to input devices which were
mistakenly referred to as sense, considered as passive recipients,
together with the belief that performance devices send and
perception ones receive, instead of considering that all of them are
part of a system that interacts with the environment, is what has
generated that which I call linguocentrism. This system of belief
decided that exposition devices were more important in status than
perception ones (e.g. the tongue over the ear) because they are the
origin 45.
Speech as the result of a special organ
The system that, from the linguocentrical point of view 46, has been
called speech constitutes an organ of social interaction. Speech
organizes, reproduces and reinforces the system of accumulation
and disposal of sensorial experiences. Even so, it is not extrasensorial 47. I believe that the possibilities for loving are not less
magical than those for speaking, even if the latter may not, for the
time being, be shared with the rest of the known human beings. To
state otherwise would be to underestimate other modes of
intelligence, thus placing the rational over the emotional. Despising
is not being able to appreciate, a limitation on the part of the
observer, not on the part of the observed.

Logocentrism in The Death of the Tongue.

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A justification in The Death of the Tongue

The erroneous conception of the senses has even caused to believe that there
existed a division between physics and metaphysics. Andronicus of Rhodes,
philosopher and librarian, stored some writings by Aristotle in different shelves,
because of his own relation about which each content contained (probably
suggested by Aristotle and his predecessors). In my opinion, this is the only
evidence of such a rash division of the universe.

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9. Assess the quality of the material to be offered and of

that which is offered by others.
If you retrace your old beliefs and biases, you will notice that you
will be able to refer to the quality of the contents offer with a
relatively objective criterion. The tools I offer indicate certain
parameters to assess the contents offer as well as performing
relations. However, they will only be useful to establish the degree
to which the objectives of both offerers and relators are fulfilled.
If you check the example in Tool Number 7, where I explain how,
according to how much the offer may interest the relator we may
expand more in the exposition, you will see the grounds for the
expression: this movie is too long. We will not carry out a debate
over the criterion of the relator who, for instance, may feel
dissatisfied, but we may analyze whether the reasons of such
dissatisfaction could have been solved in the offer and learn
something new from it. If the offer was not suited for that type of
relators, the offering production may revise the advertising criteria,
or the relator may revise his or her way of assessing the offers. But
if many target-relators 48 said it was long, there would surely be an
error of calculus that must be solved next time.

48
Target - relators always exist, even if many offering producers do not admit to it.
The relator may be ambiguous and pretentious, like all human beings, or they
may be accurate and pretentious like some advertising targets. In any case, the
target becomes distinct from the very moment in which the support is chosen
(images anticipate those who can see, words anticipate those who can hear and
speak and even distinguish according to language, dialect or register) and goes on
to choose the topic, the way to approach it and the circumstance in which it will be
exhibited.

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It may also happen that many relators not considered in the target
are satisfied and even fascinated by that which they have related
with the help of such faulty content. If we take into account that
each relation is completed in each relator with his or her
competences or interests (many of which are beyond the scope of
our comprehension), we will discard the offer of successes or
failures that are not directly related with our intentions 49. Or we will
blindly look for elements of interest for our relators, as is the case of
TV programs that nurture themselves from the spur of the moment
and make longer those segments with good rating even if the
reasons are unknown. Check on the web that great example of I
didnt do it by Bart Simpson.
The same criterion may be used to assess other parameters. This
tool does not necessarily imply that you assess according to your
personal taste but according to its functionality (anyway, taste is, to
some extent, functional). If the offer has somehow worked as
proposed, then you may risk what similar offers may work in
similar circumstances with homologous relators. Once you have
used up all your relators, or you have got tired of routine, you will
have to put your creativity in action in order to design or produce
new offers.
10. Diagram of the system of offers, requests for and
establishment of contents (some functions described).
I suggest that human beings are both relators and persons. In this
way, whenever we take part in productions, whether single-member

This does not take away the pleasure of enjoying the profit derived from our errors and of some people telling those who contribute with resources to your production that all hazardous consequences had, after all, been sought for.

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or group productions, we are persons-relators or groups of personrelators.

Within this diagram is the old contact circuit that Jakobson

described as sender-message-receiver(S-M-R). However, I regard it
substantially different. The linguocentrical view of the XX century
has sought to explain the human interaction by breaking down and
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enabling a more complex view of the S-M-R structure which I will
show as a mere helper for making contact. See this illustration:

An example with cell phones will help us consider the quality of

connectors of the integral parts of this illustration. S M - R
constitute technological elements which allow us to connect;
nonetheless, they are not, by any means, that which connect, though
they may influence the connection quality, noise disturbances and
LAPs related to the medium.
If we were to believe that, as McLuhan suggested, that the medium
is the message, we could ponder upon the message about which
mobile telephony, Internet or a social network is. Even if we held
the message premise as valid, we should (in case we wanted to
know anything about the exchange of meaning between humans) do
away with the determinist concept of the message about performing
relations. Little does knowing a message (the recording of one or
some offerings) tell us about what will be related with it, or if
anything will be related.

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Consider, e.g., the analysis of the possible message rendered by the
phrase, Im waiting for you.
What kind of scientifical conjectures may we expect with only that
piece of information regarding the offering of contents or the
performance of relations if we do not have information about LAPs
and circumstances in which something may have been performed?
If we, for instance, ignore the agreements existing between both
(agreements which are made tangible even when giving an
identification code of a device), can we say that a meeting is
negotiated without even knowing whether one of the users has been
blocked in the same way as one would block a harasser? Then the
message arrives to the mailbox but is derived to the recycle bin.
The S-M-R diagram only alludes to technology at the service of
pauses. It does not make up a complete model of exchange of
meaning. The sender is just the device that sends a message and the
receiver, the device that receives it. But we must not believe that a
cell phone equates a person; it is merely a device at the service of
someone to send a message. The same holds true for the receiver.
Supposing that the process of sending and receiving a message has
been successful, we should be very happy to expect that the same
text which was placed with the sender is being reproduced by the
receiver, as long as there are no distortions or decoding problems.
Even under those circumstances, can we rest assured that the owner
of the receiver has clearly understood the offering only because the
letters in his or her device were perfectly readable? Of course not,
we are talking about different phenomena. The recording takes us to
some instructions to relate; such instructions only serve as recipes
for pies; but they are not pies, nor are they the instructions
themselves.
We may even consider that between the sending device and the
person who offers are the fingers which type on the keyboard. We
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may even consider that fingers are sendersin this case, senders of
pulses which are received by the keyboard of the sending device
which, here, will serve as receiver of such pressure exercised upon
the keys. There are often several sending/reception systems that are
linked one to the other to help make recordings available to relators.
However, none of them has a remotely similar function of that of
the offering of contents or the performing of relations. They are
only helpers that allow to transport (and sometimes pause) some
recordings.
The message remains a message even if nobody will ever check the
receiving device, the telephone company will charge you for the
sending, no matter if the message was read or not or how it was
understood. If we say, however, that the message is fulfilled or is by
virtue of what the receiver does with it, and if we consider that a
receiver is that which, in this theoretical framework, we call
relator, in such a way that the relation is to emerge between
sender and receiver, then nobody will ever contact with a message
which does not involve him or herand this at the very moment of
relating. In this case, we would not call message that which can be
seen in the illustration.
As far as the alleged existence of a direction of circulation is
concerned, the enormous amount of messages of the social networks
renders needless any further explanation of the usefulness of
establishing
a
direction,
right/left,
upwards/downwards,
sender/receiver. It is likewise unnecessary to know if the Internet is
a downloading rather than uploading phenomenon or viceversa.
It is also unnecessary to determine if there was a first message that
triggered the rest of the messages or if it was just a matter of
looking for contact that which triggered off the whole system.
What follows is a brief description of how to organize the offering
of contents by the persons-relators. This combines with the way in

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which such contents benefit the relator-person, on which I dwell in
the third part of this work.
O and E contents
Ocontents consist of the instructions that a production offers a
relator so that he or she may perform a relation by him or herself.
They are made up of one or several indicators that point to one type
or several types of learning. Suggestions for using human
instruments, defined or limited by previous or latter LAPs
(negotiated in each relation).
Whenever a relator seizes an offer (according to his possibilities or
his interests) for performing a relation, he or she establishes an
Econtent. Each time he or she does so, a different one will be
established, even if he or she performs while believing that there is
an interaction with the same Ocontent. This is not always possible
because the environment is part of each Ocontent. If anyone relates
several times with one movie, he or she will shape different
Econtents each time.
Any section or subsection of an Ocontent may, at the same time,
work as Ocontent. For instance, it is common to find in sitcoms, e.g.
Modern Family, certain offers for performing several relations.
In order to deactivate linguocentrism, I suggest that the word
content should not be used to refer to the support where offers are
recorded and call them audio, text, CD, video, etc.
Strangely enough, we spend a good part of our lives producing the
content to offer of ourselves to relate our own existence.
Nevertheless, the wiser one is, the fewer resources will be needed.
An old lady gathered her family at her deathbed. Upon looking at
her relatives in the eyes before going the way of all flesh, she said,
Everythings come out really well. At the firing squad, Spanish
humorist Pedro Muoz Seca said: You may take my money, my
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belongings, even my life from me, but you will never take away the
fright I have at this moment.
Grid (genre)
The grid is the structure of a presentation or of a content (O and E);
a set of relationships, a scheme of the probable relationships among
perceptions, enough to reach a conclusion or partial or total
knowledge of something. It unites the content by directing the
indicators towards a proposal of conclusion or learning. The grid
may be based on emotions or reasons, or both. Relators and offerers
tend to store grids that have worked satisfactorily as templates, and
before creating a new one we check whether a pre-set one may
apply. When a successful template is generalized it is categorized as
genre. Genres allow us to save time and adjust between offers and
establishments, giving information on, for instance, where to focus
on, the consequence of emotions and reasons in the offers, how long
expositions will take, etc. They propose time, fantasy/reality,
humor, irony, violence parameters, types of narrator, etc.
Many offers have the sole objective of having us relate how a genre
works. Some Ocontents carry instructions of their own genre or of
specific features of that particular use.
Nonetheless the available variety, offerers will always be ready to
create or recreate genres in case we do not have one which fits a
new situation or which can break with stereotypes that are no longer
functional. We also mix them and generate sub-genres, as is the case
of infomercials, which originate in documentaries and news reports,
and of docureality, which originate in documentaries and reality
shows, etc.
Every description has a grid. Nobody describes having no objective
or point of view, which may also base itself on that which is not
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described. There is no clash between narration and description as
long as there is no description without narrator.
Offering production
It is the organization that devotes itself to producing and offering
contents. It may have one or several members. It is involved in
finding the object to be proposed as well as gathering the material,
producing the indicators, organizing everything in a grid and in
carrying out the exposition.
These areas are covered by, for instance, Warner Brothers, but also
by someone who makes excuses for his or her being late home. In
both cases, the success for their offerings is difficult to anticipate.
Indicators
They are hints that make up Ocontents. We produce them with
capture organs and devices, and their goal is to guide relators to
construct perceptions. They may be created both with fixed images
(from videos, sounds, smells, textures) and with dialogs, sequences,
scenes or chapters, and they may be exhibited for one or several
contact channels of the organs of perception, such as the auditory,
visual, textual, or emotional channels, among others. An Ocontent
may work as indicator of another type of content, and a single
content may be enough for only one Ocontent.
All the indicators of a same Ocontent must serve the needs of a
proposed goal, even though many of them do so in a superficial
way. Such is the case of those that suggest false hints or those which
describe characters or make contextualizations. One of the hardest
efforts in a production process is to dispose of worked-out
indicators but which divert the focus of the goal.
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Then, relators will establish indicators and will use them to generate
perceptions, according, as usual, to our competences and interests.
There are no identical Econtents, as there are no identical
Eindicators. This is why we can hear some relators discuss, upon
leaving a movies theater, what the offerer wanted to indicate with
this or that event, element or insight.
An offering should have indicators which lead to overcoming
distractions or the incompetence of a certain relator about a given
topic.
Author (authority)
The function of authorship of a content (both O and E) with no
linguocentrism at all break downs the old author figure into: the
support function (which I insist on still calling author), the
function of point of view and responsibility for an offer (Oauthority)
and the function of point of view established by each relator
(Eauthority).
Author: I suggest using it to refer to the physical manifestation of
the person or association which lead us to the production of an
Ocontent.
Maybe he or she who we give shape in the person with whom we
probably will talk some time after, for instance, relating with a
book 50 to ask for perhaps, an autograph. Maybe he or she who, for

The non-linguocentrical use of the phrase relating with a book refers to the
same thing as the phrase I baked a cake with a recipe does. We did not use the

50

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instance, will be legally assigned author rights. This person is no
longer the one who he or she used to be, even though his or her
appearance may remain quite similar (only if we could consider that
lack of hair is similar to abundance thereof, or that the bigness of
his or her belly is similar to its smallness).
AuthorityO: This function does not indicate ownership of the idea
but merely responsibility for the offering. It may lie on a physical
person or organization 51.
Oauthority promotes the offer, directs the production process for
which it seeks a script, some performers and some capture and
publishing devices and gives them some coherence to the product. If
a performer takes his or her own decisions and such are
incorporated to the offer, this performer is also part of Oauthority. It
provides resources: this may be of consequence to the relator when
it comes to assessing the offer, since the origin of the resources may
generate commitments that tend to modify it. And it also proposes
LAPs: prestige or objectivity positions, agreements on genre and
perspectives, and permissions such as age, belonging or affiliation
limits.

sheet of paper on which the recipe had been written to prepare the cake; it was
prepared with the help of the instructions printed on paper.
And on its referents: all our expressions are inhabited by numberless voices,
such as those of culture, the must be, our parents, spiritual guides, enemies,
descendants, dream characters, and others which we would never imagine. They are
so many and act so vehemently that at times it is hard to tell if there is something
original (i.e. wholly created by that person) in such human manifestation. Mindful
of Jorge Luis Borges, I relate with one of his poems that chess pieces seem to wage
their own wars without noticing that a hand controls them; that the human mind
which controls the hand does not notice that another controls it and that this other
hand believes that it makes decisions without noticing that I am not saying that
we are not answerable for what we do, but that we interact and interdepend to a
greater extent than what we think or notice.

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Eauthority: Each relator establishes (as long as he or she relates) an
Eauthority for each relation. Theres no human offering that does
not recognize at least a focus: that of humanity. We will always
know (i.e. we will always be able to establish) something about the
offerer, e.g. that he or she is a human being and has some
knowledge of the use of media. If the support is a painting, some
grasp of technique; if it is a piece of writing, some grasp of speech
and even of the language used.
The death of the author has been, in my opinion, a good but poor
attempt to deactivate linguocentrism. However, getting rid of the
almighty figure should not make us lose sight of the existence of
the function of authority. Even though many shelter under the shield
of the proclaimed death of the author, they are only dodging the
responsibilities for their offers.
Onarrator and Enarrator
It is each partial realization of the E and Oauthorities. The visible
aspect of an offering production, its physical manifestation. Every
time we consider that a certain amount of offering material makes
up one offer (a CO), we have found a narrator (both O and E). When
we watch audiovisual material, we will notice that there is not an
oral Onarrator and a visual one, which are independent of each
other, but that the Onarrator is the result of the interaction of both
and may add if theres consistency or may subtract if there is none
at all.
Each relator will establish according to his or her competences and
interests who shall narrate each offer (Enarrator).
The labels of omniscient, observer, protagonist, etc. indicate
different observation points of Onarrator but they do not necessarily
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indicate different Onarrators. If we are to accept the premise that
there is one Onarrator per each Ocontent, we will, upon suggesting
that in one offer (one novel, one movie) the character speaks first,
then the writer, we are talking from different positions where the
narrator of an Ocontent places him or herself. Even if in a movie
we seem to clearly see that different personae speak, upon hearing,
for instance, that the character that Diane Keaton is playing has an
argument with that of Keanu Reeves, we should consider that the
voice that narrates is not that of either Keaton or Reeves, but the
perspective from which witnesses have been collected.
In strongly stating that an Onarrator is omniscient, we are probably
being linguocentric. The only one entitled to affirm this is the
relator who has granted that license and has established it as
omniscient Enarrator 52. Many people offer that which the people
want, but few manage to be granted a representation license of
omniscient preceptors of the peoples voice.
Contact for the offering. Publishing, pack, media
The environment in which a relator contacts the support will end up
forming the Ocontents when assigning value to variables such as the
historical moment, certain LAPs, etc. The way in which it is
published or in which the attention of relators is drawn is part of
such environment.

Strictly speaking, we should say that a license for omniscient Enarrator is

requested from such and such novel.
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Packaging is also part of the offers; sometimes it is the offer. Such
is the case of sweets for, lets say, St. Valentines 53. Publishing
defines some important licenses. We, as offerers, must see to it that
a relator thinks it will prove useful for him or her to consider our
offer. We do not have a natural right to invade the sensorial space
of others. We acquire it by requesting and negotiating it.
It is the environment and the support through which a relator may
seize an offer what we have been trying to refer to as
communication media. Only that, when we see it from a nonlinguocentrical point of view, we should avoid referring to the socalled media as inoculation channels.

Certain sweets are merely tokens of love with heart shapes on the package. Try to
prove this by giving the sweet to the wrong person.
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The Death of the Tongue

The title of the third part of this trilogy may sound catastrophic. I
agree it is, as far as the size of the offering is concerned. However, I
do not quite agree with the disaster part. I am not asking you to cut
your tongue off, which, in the case of tools for relating or offering
more adequately, will be of no good. A good part of what I will
offer is not of my own creation; it has been abundantly offered. But
please allow me to tell you about it in my own words, just to avoid
certain loopholes in which some colleagues have incurred; my own
ones will suffice.
Killing the tongue refers to a proposal for deactivating that which
I have called linguocentrism, i.e. the way in which we believe to
have created and exchanged sense by sending it from an
inoculating (and more prestigious) device to another, receptive (less
prestigious) device. This belief nurtures itself from that which, in
the last century, used to be called logocentrism 54. Both derive from a
huge inferiority complex of humanity which, in order to find some
value in itself, has rendered it necessary to find something or
someone that was inferior. Such complex (which I believe its

Several philosophers have devoted themselves to the subject. If you wish to

enlarge on logocentrism, plenty of material and bibliographical references can be
found on the Internet. See also phallogocentrism.

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high time we overcame) has given way to sexism, racism,
selfishness

The most valuable half

In order to throw some light on this, some of our Western ancestors
didnt have a better idea than name a system in which different
contact devices take part, distinguishing thus a representative of
those who seem to penetrate over those who seem to receive: the
tongue 55. In this way, they put a name to the bias, though they were
not able to see it and neither can we: we still call the system of
questioning the human world, language (see footnote). The study
of such is called linguistics. So to speak, it is understood that the
human ear learned how to understand words when they sounded.
But, can we assure that it was a primeval word which reached the
virgin ear to load it with knowledge? Can we say that eagerness for
getting involved in the world caused the ear to design words?
Maybe it was the exchange between tongues and ears that which
gave way to the phenomenon.
The foundational bias of linguocentrism is so rooted in our mindset
that it is for us utterly natural to understand that words go from
the tongue to the ears. As far as the tongue is concerned, we have
given the ear the sinister place we give to words such as darkness,
short, female, among others. The act of hearing, if we could name

55
The Spanish word for language is lengua (lit., tongue). In the same way, the
English language uses the expression mother tongue to refer to the language which
is acquired at home.

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it this way, would have been the obscure side of the tongue, a
passive receptacle of words. This is why we do not even mention it.
Clearly, the question is not to determine which organ has been more
valuable. It would be something like studying whether uploading
was more important than downloading for the creation of the
Internet. It would have been a serious mistake to call the Internet
(linguocentrically) upload or simply up, not to mention
down!
The tongue in isolation is wholly useless. The tongue needs flavors
or ears in order to exist as such. Can we affirm that the sweetness of
sugar precedes the sense of him or her who tastes it? Or could we
say the opposite? Is it appropriate to say that all the Adams looked
for the apples before the apples were able to foresee the Adams 56?
Why, then, do we call only language (see footnote on tongue) to
the interaction with words? Why, following this line of thought, do
we consider that there are texts/bearers and readers/receivers?
The belief that speech originates in a tongue is the same as that
which supports the idea that we are persons (Latin per sonare).
These points of view are biased, as is assigning gender (half
gender?) to the generality. If the remaining half is added to your
paradigm, you will gain a more comprehensive world view and you
will be able to better understand your own environment and the
others. The remaining part of the person is the relator 57. A new
figure I expect you to see in yourself for your fulfillment and for

I should mention that fruits foresee that they will feed those who carry them so
that their seed can grow in more favorable land.
56

57

For a more thorough definition, check on the Relator-Person chapter, page 139.

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your self comprehension in the role as person-relator and as a
member of groups of relators-persons.
The death of the tongue is only nominal. Such denomination should
give way to another one (even better than audio-language or
intereartonguing 58) to better define the phenomenon.

The question of the sending

The belief that words go toward ears gave way to a paradigm
which I suggest you should revise. Such conception has prevailed
up to the present time (2013) even though we used to believe
otherwise: that human beings are receivers, as those of radio or TV,
that reproduce identical images wherever they are, from objects
sown via broadcasting, a method which consists in sowing seeds
wherever possible. Following this concept, the minds (recipients) of
the receivers will produce better or worse plants from these seeds;
some of these may not even germinate. However, whatever that
sprouts may depend from its origin from the genetical aspect.
Upon careful looking, it will be noticed that human beings search
for meaning by checking the offer of available contents. If meaning
is not found there, it will be created. We will then make a tree or a
house with that which has been offered to us; we may even make
something which sowers have never thought about. There cannot
be statements like seeds; we cannot expect the same kind of plant to
germinate, not even with defects, but we can expect any kind of
thing. Or nothing. Content may even function as a trigger or as an

T.N.: The Spanish word (interorejolinguacin) is the authors original (and humorous)
creation to illustrate the nonsense.
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excuse for concluding something that was already in the mind of the
relator (which, up to now, we have erroneously considered as
receiver).
Contents are instructions which are offered; they are not facts or
given elements. The instructions for making origami are not the
same as a bird made of paper, nor do they carry the bird from one
human being to the other. If someone is touched when retelling a
movie, it is not because emotion has been sent. Unlike the
instructions for origami, the offered contents cannot even make the
person who follows the recipe find identical materials, because there
are no two identical human beings, and not even a same human
being is the same at different times.
I am trying to suggest that relating has nothing to do with bird
trafficking but with exchanging instructions for flying.
The philosophy that underlies the sending can generate multiple
contradictions. An example follows; it should be noted that,
according to our mindset, the following situation may come up:
-

Have you read the sacred book?

Yes, I have. I think its excellent.
So do I.

Perhaps one of them will devote him or herself to loving their

neighbors, and the other to murder the impure ones. And both will
believe they are responding to the same thing.
Changing paradigms will make contents less answerable and
give humans more responsibility.
I am not saying that this same dialog may not occur in the future. I
am saying that right now, when we say read books we talk about
performing relations. The act of reading a book should be paralleled
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to that of playing DVDs, i.e. exposing instructions without taking
into account what to do with them. We may have spent a long time
in front of a book as we do in front of a TV screen, but we have not
performed anything.
We might, thus, believe that two people read the same book, but
that they do not perform a same relation.
On the contrary, if the act of reading is defined as the act in which
each reader participates, in such a way that a new text will occur
with each reading, there will be no chance of saying that two people
have read the same text.
The belief that something done is being sent in order to be
apprehended is narcissism to the point of exaggeration. Something
different is to think that we offer something we cannot totally grasp
and that the skills of others will allow us perform relations even
better than the proposed ones. We will then be able to separate the
wheat from chaff and discover skills and weaknesses that have been
hidden even to our own eyes. The same is valid for this same offer.
However, this view does not indicate that everything is chaotic or
fortuitous. There are negotiations between offerers and relators who
allow the establishment of certain kinds of agreements to reach
certainty. I label them as LAPs 59; they are responsible for a certain
type of orderor disorder.
We do not possess or control all the meaning we can help create.
Quite a few performers believe to have lost their gift whenever
audiences ignore them; they do not, however, realize that they could

LAPs: Licenses, Agreements and Permissions. More in Relation and Narration,

page 91, and in Relator-Person, page 139.
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have done much more provided that they had known what the
audience saw in themdespite their efforts to conceal it.

The fetish support

One of the tools that enabled human thought to expand was the
ability to put a pause to offers. To this end we design ways of
suspending relations between the moment of the offering and the
moment of considering it: the support of recordings. What we see or
listen to are not words but recordings of them. The sounds stored in
an mp3 or the ink of some letters on a sheet of paper is not words or
letters, but recordings of them.
The first complex system designed for the support of recordings was
rhyme, by which it became possible to memorize concepts as well
as the same words uttered by he or she who offered them. This
enabled human beings to copy the recordings of certain religious
prayers or poems or songs; human beings who were far from each
other and in different generations. Technology then made possible
to support engravings on clay, paper, magnetic tape and rigid disks
(thus making it possible to pause sounds and images). Paper and,
specially, book binding, has given pauses an apparent tangibility.
We have forgotten about its nature and awarded the properties of the
object that carried it. Pauses cannot be seen or heard or understood
but in the context in which they take place. Pauses, in themselves,
are nothing. Their properties can be understood as long as their
antecedents and precedents are known. In order to understand a

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pause we must see it at work, i.e. unpaused 60. Once the pause is
removed, you do not connect with what was there in the support but
with that which was offered from the very onset of the production of
the content; more exactly, with that which you are able to establish
with that which was offered.
What you hold in your hands when you are not relating is the
tangible part of the support (a book, a painting, a DVD); it is not
content. Even though it may have first been a metaphor, the allusion
to the offering labeled support was mixed up with the carrier object.
It did not take long to believe that from there onwards we could
send content.
In order to avoid confusions, we should not (talking about content)
say: Derridas text. We should say the offering that is recorded
on a text instead. And, in some other cases, the offering about film,
speech, etc. which suggest the possibility of the support influencing
the offer, as is the case of all the elements of a production; however,
none of them in isolation should be considered as a whole.

The word question

Taking into account what has been offered so far, do you believe
that the word is an object which is sent? Do you think there is a
source and a destination? Does speaking mean to inoculate and
listening to be inseminated? Is listening a passive action by default,
thus making it necessary to clarify the term active listening?

60
It is not possible to see a pause: the image we can see when pausing a video
does not show a pause but a picture which has been memorized and is constantly
reproduced (looping).

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Words, whether asked for, offered or established, are tools of an
interaction and a system of meaning exchange which is, from the
linguocentrical perspective, known as speech. The term
listening is not applicable, not because of the lack of one who
speaks and who listens, but because of the use of the term in a
generic fashion, in the same way as man has been used to refer to
the entire humankind.

The multimedia question

It is also logocentrical to focus the alleged core of meaning only on
the sent word and privilege the speaking interaction organ over
others. I suggest that we relate not only by using the senses, but also
by using interaction organs.
To assign responsibilities is another way of diverting from
linguocentrism: the interaction organs, of which speech is part,
derive from the association of certain anatomic devices, a system of
analysis and comparison, certain commands and LAPs, which
complete the nature of that which we observe or think we observe
(and which we propose others).
We do perform relations only with images, sounds, affections, etc.,
but with some of them interacting (sometimes simultaneously),
though only one of them prevails. This interaction made it possible
that some organs learned from others: with practice, visual
perception learned from the sound, tact from affections, logic from
emotions, emotions from reasons or smells the result is that it is
not now easy to know whether this or that speech or gesture
resource originated in gestural communication or in the logic of
affections or in any other system; however, it does not seem at all
conclusive to know about it to understand the process of relation.

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Little do we know about the erroneously called mere sensations or
perceptions. The ancient Greeks were not able to interact with the
devices with which we can today offer canned sounds, images or
words. Had they known them, they would have, once they had
recovered from their bewilderment, understood that a camera cannot
perceive, that a microphone cannot hear and that a speaker cannot
speak. The so-called mere senses are not such: they are devices
which are part of organs, the complexity of which cannot be known
to the last detail. We have been mixing up lens with camera, camera
with sight, sight with the organ of visual perception; we have been
ignoring the community of organs of perception and performance
which make up our interaction system.
For the time being, we can create and associate sound which offer
but we do not know much about the nature of that which we call
music. We can offer and perform with words and suggest emotions.
However, we, like the Greek philosophers, are far from knowing
anything about the nature of emotions. In fact, we only know now
that Socrates did not know as much as he believed. We have been
too pretentious to label as mere those phenomena of which we
knew (or know) nothing.
What we believe we are seeing is that which we present
ourselves 61, not everything that exists. Color, for instance, is the
result of certain features of an object which, when checked by the
eye, become the image which we call color (given certain
environmental conditions; in this case, a source of light). We cannot
say that color is in the object or in the mind, but between. What has
happened is that the good publicity that certain devices such as tact
sensors had in old times resulted in people considering perceptions
as more real or even more tangible. An illusionary borderline

61

This agrees with the etymology of re-lation and re-present

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between physical and metaphysical perceptions have been
created, as if it were evident that seeing is a phenomenon of a
different nature than imagining.
Linguocentrism, thus, associated to logos as word refers to the
belief that everything that is reflected about implies only
foundational inoculating words. If we agree that we relate with
several simultaneous, intertwined organs where several channels
and codes intervene, and if we say that the ability to relate equates
to the ability to think, and that thinking does not mean to receive
thoughts, we will have a non-linguocentrical and thus wider vision
of thought.

Overlapping of functions
The entities which humanity has murdered in the previous century
(God, author, work) were killed for the same reason by which we
kill the tongue, the text, the reader, etc.: because we do not comply
with the responsibilities that linguocentrical thought imposed when
gathering different functions in one term: support, offering and
establishing.
When we say, for instance:
I have put a life-changing book on the shelf.
We are placing incompatible functions in a same expression. To
think that something that changes lives can perch on a shelf is to
grant such object the properties of a tangible object. It does not
seem possible that an object can be so influential (now that I reflect
on the matter, I wonder if that would have been the reason why my
mother never allowed me to see the drawer of her dressing table).
Whichever the case, there is an overlapping of functions when we
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refer at the sametime to an object that carries certain recordings that
pause an offering, to the offering itself and to what a person is going
to do when he or she decides to get it started.
When we offer contents to others, they establish, according to their
competences and interests, what they think we are offering. As each
relator has different competences and interests, each time that
someone relates with the help of our offer, he or she will establish
what he or she is in a position to know about our offering, and not
that which we send. You may say that I am exaggerating and that
we can assure that the term book has been used in a metaphorical
sense. But it is not an innocuous use, as is the case of using Mr
when referring to both a man and a woman. We have been issuing
sexist or racist expressions for centuries, not out of custom but
because we failed to deactivate the bias.
I suggest that we should go on using words such as author to refer
to supports; a similar one but with final O to refer to offered
functions and with final E to refer to established functions. I hope
that collective creation will help us find better alternatives.
Examples:
Narrator is the person that we see talking (as long as there is one).
Onarrator is the entity created by an offering production to exhibit
an offer, which includes, for instance, music, effects and images.
Enarrator is the entity that each relator understands as narrating to
him or her.
Author is the person who uses the body of that who has embodied
the authority of a production and now receives royalties.
Oauthority is the authority that takes the responsibility of an offer.
Eauthority is the authority which is made responsible of an offer by
each relator.

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Contents container (CD, film, audio, text) is for instance, the can
of a TV program.
Ocontent is that which is supposed to be offered.
Econtent is that which each relator understands is being offered
Using only the term narrator for offering and establishing and
not distinguishing, for example, between an omniscient Onarrator
and an omniscient Enarrator may favor the belief that LAPs are by
no means automatic, when many contents fail because they do not
measure up to the license they claim. This is the case I had spoken
before of proclaiming to be interpreters, i.e. Onarrators, of the
peoples voice and the difficulties to obtain volunteers who so
establish.
As I have previously suggested, instead of talking about
somebodys text, we should talk about what somebody has
offered on the basis of a written textexcept that we are referring,
for example, to the impressions of somebodys texts. However,
bearing in mind the forthcoming re-semantization task, I leave such
decisions to popular and academic creativity (though I do not need
to make this clear).

The end of the lingual era

In previous publications, my fellow researchers and myself
have, despite affirming that relation is not possible without someone
who performs it, underestimated such performer. We have
derogatorily called him or her receiver, or some other euphemism.
Consequently, we have been observing the object of study but in an
out-of-focus fashion; we have believed that, by dissecting the offer,
we were considering not only the type receiver (who the
Oproduction imagines), but also a real spectator or a real
reader. Of course, we knew nothing of the existence of a relator.
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When isolating one part, we convert it into a whole in itself, even if
we thought we were innocently moving from one object of study to
another and that we believed to be safe by the chess-move of
clarifying that we were considering our inconsideration of other
factors. Not because we did not know that we can know about the
whole from each part of the whole but because we insisted on
observing only one part. We specialists should no longer dissect
supports and make a list of indicators without stating whether we
are talking about what has been offered (in which case we must
specify who) or what has been established (we must specify by
whom). We must apologize for offering with an excess of arrogance
and overuse of prevailing LAPs; here are my own apologies.
*

In The Death of the Tongue I intend to dissemble its icon only to

return it to its position as part of a system. In the same way as if we
had believed that, in our own group, Peter was God and, upon
verifying that he was not, we announce that Peter has died. What
has died is the Peter-mony, i.e. Peters hegemony, but not Peter
himself. We should not murder Peter, but we should change our
belief. Instead of doing so by looking for a new God to enthrone an
anti-Peter-mony, we should revise the premise by which there
necessarily exists an origin or hegemony, without whose consent
nothing can function or be explained, i.e. what other offerers have
regarded as a phallus or initial or initiating logo.
I am not saying that we should cut our tongue off or stop using it
when talking, but we should, when re-naming it (or un-naming it)
overthrow it from its position as originator and put it away in the
other places where it has, usefully and placidly, been functioning.

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Relator-Persona
As opposed to the model that conceives the model of meaning as
direction, which expounds the circulation of messages from and
towards, I will introduce a model that expounds that we are
relators-persons.
Relator and person are both part of the human being. We have
already dwelt upon the person-relator in the offering of contents.
Now we are going to dwell on the relator-person for performing
relations.
We, human beings, know and, at the same time, create the world
around us. To take part in this world we relate it: we probe, create
and edit some perceptions; we associate them in a presentation and
assess the outcome and the possibilities of incorporating that which
we have learnt (and thus grasp it). We can do this by our own
means or with the help of other content producers. I have thus
defined relation as:
The event that occurs between the production of a presentation
and the acquisition of learning.
According to what has so far been proposed, relator and relation are
not send or reception functions, but functions of processing and
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creation of meaning. Meaning, not in the sense of being
unidirectional, but understood as assigning the property of being
known and which allows us to act in relation with the object, with
more chances for successprovided that we understand this as
approaching a certain objective.
I go back to the subject of linguocentrism to deactivate any intention
of enthroning the relator over the person. Probably it was the
interaction of both and their interweaving of LAPs that gave way to
this phenomenon: not the origin, but a place without time so that
it may live as long as we perform it.
The following is a list of actors and functions with certain specific
features in connection with relators and relations:
Perceiving
Human beings have perception organs, i.e. systems with a higher
level of complexity than those which we call senses and our
contact devices, such as eyes, ears, voice tract, hands, etc.
Here is an example: our organ of visual perception does not see
what there is, but what we are capable of seeing and which is of our
interest. Those whose sight is in good condition use their eyes to
figure out a part of the images which they see. However, what we
perceive is much more than this. We can also perceive images with
the stimuli of smells, emotions or with neither of them and construct
such images with our imagination. Besides, organs make parallels
with other images and stored perceptions. All this occurs in the
frame of our competences. However, there is something that
completes our perceptions: our interests, which are comprised in
that which I have called LAPs. People may not be able to see
something which is there, only because it is not convenient or
because we mustnt see it. You will realize that the process is much
more complex than just the input of an image of that which is.
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Presenting
For perceptions to become knowledge, we have given them the
format which will enable them to be stored together with other
instances of acquired knowledge. In this way, that which we call
experience may provide us with certain mandates which we call
culture. Culture is the way in which we, e.g., cultivate plants in a
garden and also everything we, human beings and groups of human
beings, do. Those instances of knowledge must not only be
integrated to our personal and social culture; they must also decide
their place together with others which we carry in our genes, i.e.
what we can call genetical mandates. Such mandates make up a
huge code with certain commands on how to go about a great
number of aspects, whether sexual, social or when it comes to a
hair-do.
Should all this render possible, that which has been related will
become something known, something which will be a part of the
network of our own individual and social identity.

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Alejandro Guevara
The concept of relation hereunto offered is a social one, even within the human being. In this illustration I show certain LAPs and relations that create an interdependent cohesion. The smallest variation shall change the relative positions of all of
them. A pending task is to know with more detail how they work; knowing this will
enable us to design tools that will help improve our performance as a community
and that will make life easier.

Relator-persona
Relator is that human being who performs relations, i.e. all human
beings. It is not he or she who tells a story, as one may be tempted
to think. It is one who experiences with one (i.e. perception or
Ocontent). It is he or she who we have mistakenly called reader
or spectator. Person is the human being inasmuch as he or she
shows him or herself to others. Person is the name by which the
masks in Greek drama were known, because of the sound they sent
forth (Latin per sonare).
Both terms function as if we were split into two or more actors, i.e.
those who enable certain tensions between that which we perceive
and that which we perform (we, relators, can deny having seen
something) or between how we produce and how we offer (people
can, for instance, create good songs and at the same time, be terrible
singers).

Perceptive system
On page 87 I wrote that the word relation comes from Latin
relatus", where latus is the participle of the verb fero, i.e. to
bring. In other words, re-late, re-present. The perceptive system is
the site where this re-presentation takes place.
Sometimes, only one perception will suffice to create a presentation.
At other times, more than one (even the stored ones) will be
necessary. Perceptions can be contrasted with the environment,
either directly or suggested by total or partial Ocontents.
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The perceptive system is not penetrated: it creates images of
events or offered contents and can generate more perceptions if
needed in order to organize the material into a grid and create a
presentation. A blunt offering, as is heat sent forth by flames and
felt on the hand, may make us think that the flame is that which
sends the command for removing the hand. However, even if the
command were recorded in that which we call reflex, the
command is suggested by the relator, who may even ignore the
command (consider, for instance, those who decide to walk on
embers).

Organs of perception
Some of them are more tangible, e.g. those with which we perceive
flavors, smells, colors, sound and tact, of course. Some others are
not so tangible, e.g. those which have to do with emotions and
intuitions whether real or imaginary62. They are complex devices
that can create, interpret, edit and learn.
As a matter of fact, they are not the so-called senses or in/out
devices, even though we may mistake the organ of perception of
images with the eyes. However, perceptions involve several indevices (smells can construct a visual image), as well as
performance devices. For instance, we use a lantern to see; a
performance device is then associated to the organ of perception.
They can isolate that which they seek to perceive. Such selectivity
makes it possible to recognize a ringtone more clearly once it has
been heard more than once. It should be noted that one does not
hear everything that there is, but that which he or she has chosen or

In my opinion, humanity is wholly unaware of both the nature of what is real and
of what is imaginary.

62

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has the ability or has learned to hear. This also explains why on
some occasions we perceive something new which has been within
easy reach all the time but which we discovered only when we
were ready to do so.

Performance organs
They are made up of devices that act upon the material or social
environment and provide offers and modify (or try to modify) it.
Such devices may include both anatomic and technological
elements and can learn through use or practice, thus tuning up their
sensibility. Some use the voice tract, the hands, the whole body and
certain extensions such as microwaves or remote limbs, ranging
from microphones to satellites. The content offers are displayed
through performance organs (publishing).

Organs of interaction
They function by integrating performance and perception devices 63.
When a hand models clay, it is acting upon it and, at the same time,
it perceives what is going on with the sight and tact. This will in
turn lead the following movements with the help of the entirety of
the individual and social interaction system.
Speech is, perhaps, an organ of interaction. In that case, it would be
the most complete organ we have. Our identity cannot be conceived
without it, because it has given us the ability to carve ourselves
through art. It has also helped us highlight some of our flaws.

[voice tract - ear], [finger muscles tact sensors], [secretions sense of smell],
[voice tract and face ear and sight], etc.

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Competences
This is how I call the knowledge and abilities of relators and
persons to relate and offer, respectively. They use their abilities for
speech as well as for so called non-verbal, affective, intuitive, and
poetic communication, among others; possibilities and limitations of
their organs of perception, their means, organs or channels of
broadcasting and their availability and capacity of using external
devices (lenses, musical instruments, telecommunication, internet,
etc.) and, in general, its entire interaction system.

Genetic and knowledge codes

The boundary between what is genetic and what has been acquired
seems a little blurred and with a good deal of interaction. I agree
with the theory that expounds that genes carry certain structure that
waits for the learning of speech, and I also believe that the
configuration of the knowledge or cultural code and the interaction
between both is already foreseen. The coordination seems difficult
and there may be some conflict, such as those that promote diseases
such as bulimia (the genetic mandate of nurturing oneself may go
against the cultural mandate of being slender). However, the
chance of correcting or fixing genetic mandates that are no longer
applicable will be more readily available as we learn to relate
better 64.

Many genetic mandates are no longer necessary, such as the obligatory

distribution of roles in terms of gender (common in a great deal of species), or the
forced distribution of productive land: today we produce enough food to feed the
whole world. Why, then, are there still famines? It is high time we revised what we
are relating.
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World
The world which we are able to know is not everything that there is,
but that which we are able or want to relate. Everything that we, for
example, are now unable to see or imagine, is out of the scope of the
world. The same was true for microorganisms that we were not able
to see before the invention of the microscope. What existed before
the emergence of antibiotics was inhabited by other beings; we do
not know what will inhabit the world to come once we have
mastered, e.g., quantum physics.
We perceive it (relate, create it) with our thought and imagination,
with our biological systems and the tools and extensions that we
create, the scope of which are the boundaries. I mention material
and social worlds and understand that fantasy, sensations of
happiness or sadness or spiritual sensations, the nature of which I
am unable to fully explain, act on them.

LAPs: Licenses, agreements and permissions

These are rules for performing relations. They arise from the
negotiation between relators and offerers and from within a relatorperson. Some are negotiated for each particular relation; others were
probably originated at the beginning of history, recorded in genes
and in cultures. We are conscious of some of them and not of others.
In any case, each relator, at the moment of performing a relation,
will establish the LAPs with which he or she will carry them out.
From the perspective of the relator 65, Licenses are granted, e.g., to
assign some extent of credibility (an expert is usually granted wider
licenses than those granted to an apprentice). Agreements are
carried out by negotiating licenses in exchange of permissions or by

65

From the point of view of the person, see Relation and Narration.

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obtaining permissions when granting licenses, as well as with other
exchange means such as money (by selling acceptance or buying
books). Permissions are obtained through agreements (e.g. by
buying tickets) or complying with affiliation or membership
requisites.
As it usually happens, rules may be breached, e.g. when someone
has access to content which is not suitable for his or her age.
They function as axons of human integrity and allow certain degree
of predictability in both group and individual identities 66.
They may be cancelled or enlarged while performing relations. They
may also be mischievously used, e.g. when someone eats sweets,
thus breaking his or her diet and says that television says that we
can, from time to time, indulge ourselves. When we say the
newspaper says or science says, different LAPs are
invoked; these are not universal, but belong to each relator or group
of relators.
Although LAPs make up networks which seem to contain us and, at
the same time, seize us, some situations, e.g. even when extremist
groups demand wider licenses, they clearly define punishment for
the infidels, seem to indicate that each relator is the owner of the
final decision.

No person or society is the same from one day to the next. However, we accept
that we look like that which we used to be; we also accept to keep some of our
preferences and likes and to comply with commitments that those who we used to
be had undertaken on our behalf. Problems increase when we must comply with
those undertaken by he or she who lived 10, 20 or 10,000 years before (as those
that arise from genetic mandates). The right to revise LAPs should be included in
every Declaration of Human Rights.

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Moral
I prefer this name to designate many of the benefits or items of
knowledge that arise from a relation. I do this because I am a downto-the-core trouble maker. The word is reminiscent of a particular
knowledge whose legitimacy is to be doubted and whose
pretensions for universality are exaggerated 67: a mere moral rule 68.
The resulting benefits of relating are no truths; in any case, they
are, but for a short time. We may admit one as we learn a
mathematical formula, or when we are admiring the dawn if we can
perform a relation with this: dawn occurs every single day, but we
do not perform relations about dawns every single day, though.
A critique of utilitarianism that invokes morals may come up with
the goal of relating e.g. sensations that we live, the feeling of being
in love with a love story, so that we may say that having spent a
nice time is no learning at all. But experiencing pleasure, pain or
fear are also used to guide and control survival; thus, exercising or
experiencing them may have the same value as doing it with, e.g.,
the sense of taste or body building at a gym.

What a relation isnt about? (in a non-linguocentrical

sense)
According to what I have offered, everything susceptible of being
experienced by human beings may be part of a relation. However, it
will not be such as long as he or she has not performed it. We can
say that a content offer is part of a relation only if a given relator has

67

The same is true with all that we, human beings, wish to know.

T.N.: The Spanish version reflects a pun on words with the word moraleja
(moral) -eja being a diminutive.

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used it for relating. An offering (e.g. a radio program) will wander
aimlessly until someone relates with it. Only when that occurs will
we be in a position to go back and say that it has been part of a
suspended relation.
Can a narration be a relation? Narration is the exhibition of an offer
and is always part of a relation. If we accept that a narration happens
or has happened, it will be because we have accepted a relation to
have been performed. However, narration is not a relation itself, but
part of it.

If everything is defined within the relatordoes the

so-called manipulation exist at all?
Yes. Overuse is possible, but not by means of the engraving on
receiving minds, but by doing away with options of access to
different offers so as to block access to education or information, or
overusing LAPs: by proposing dishonest contracts that harm our
freedom of choice, as is the case with certain sects or dictatorships.

What is the real meaning of life?

Unfortunately I dont have the answer. If you insist on looking for
it, try to google it. Should you come across the real meaning of life,
please send it with copy to the rest of humankind.

Thank you!

Alejandro Guevara

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Consult
Adorno Theodor
Austin John L.
Bajtn Mijal.
Barrena, Sara
Benjamin Walter
Deleuze Gilles
Derrida Jacques
Dilthey Wilhelm
Foucault Michel
Frege Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob
Gadamer Hans Georg
Gadamer Hans-Georg
Heidegger Martin
Humboldt Wilhelm von
Husserl Edmund
Kristeva Julia
Leech Geoffrey
Marcuse Herbert
Morris Charles William
Peirce Charles Sanders
Russell Bertrand
Saussure Ferdinand de
Whitehead Alfred North
Wittgenstein Ludwig

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