The scene

Abstract

The article explores the relationship between what we take to be objective or paramount reality and, roughly, its subjectification: a shadowy world, edging on the imaginative, which I call the scene. I suggest that the two ‘realities’ are mutually implicated; that their interplay affects understanding and consequent behavior; and that our present take on the ‘empirical’ has led us to ignore this dimension of experience. I argue that insofar as we respond to (as we create) these scenes that color our experiences of objective reality, they demand anthropological consideration. I stress the intersubjective nature of subjectivity itself and offer a preliminary attempt at understanding the complex interlocutory-the indexical-dramas occurring in ritual, for example, psychoanalysis and anthropological research, that constitute the scene.