THE ETERNAL MASQUERADE: CHANGE, CONFLICT, AND CONTINUITY

THE ETERNAL MASQUERADE: 17CHANGE, CONFLICT, AND CONTINUITY

Farouk Y. SeifAntioch University Seattle

Positioning: Why Semiotics

Semioticians often externalize their theories and praxis onto oth-ers, detaching themselves from the very purpose and meaning ofsemiotics. Beyond pedagogical efforts and published work, semi-oticians have barely embraced semiotics at all for self-examina-tion and self-reflection in order to seek deep understanding andto act meaningfully in the world. After all, semiotics is not only away of perceiving and modeling reality; it also requires thathuman beings reflect on their own ways of thinking and doingwhen facing the challenge of conflicting forces. Semiotics isessentially concerned with “signs as social forces” (Eco 1976: 65).

More specifically, semioticians seem to have not fully utilizedthe general idea of semiotics as a “theory of the lie” (Eco 1976) indealing with conflict that is triggered by the friction betweenchange and continuity, tradition and innovation, within commu-nities and organizations. It is obvious to me that there is a gapbetween semiotic professorial utterance and semiotic embodi-ment. I do not intend to preach to the choir, yet there is a greatneed not only to practice what we preach, but also to use ourknowledge and tools to take care of our own abode.

Therefore, this paper is an invitation to members of theSemiotic Society of America (SSA) for a contemplative self-reflec-tion on conflict triggered by the friction between their willing-ness to change and their wish to embrace continuity. The inten-tion of this paper, then, is to reveal the magical relation amongchange, conflict, and continuity by linking the theme “WhySemiotics” to an event that occurred the day before the official2013 annual meeting in Dayton, Ohio.

I had the privilege of designing an informal retreat precedingthe annual meeting, including a group of colleagues representing

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the leadership of the SSA.1 The group gathered to envision adesired future for the SSA by engaging in a forward-thinkingprocess that went beyond the friction between those who unre-lentingly want to maintain the SSA tradition and those who des-perately seek innovation. The irony is that both camps seem totalk convincingly about their own agenda, overlooking the factthat signs always refer to other signs, or that one sign interpretsanother in an infinite semiosis. Consequently, what seems to betrue or legitimate for one camp is perceived by the other to be alie or illegitimate. A notable tendency is that the SSA often seemsto be intolerant of the ambiguity associated with the process ofbetwixt-and-between. This is the social reality of “heteroglos-sia”—the presence of two forces of expression—which, MikhailBakhtin (1975) emphasizes, is not only heterogeneous but alsocontradictory.

As I reflect back on what transpired during this retreat, I amdumbfounded by how much of what we experienced falls with-in the core and context of this paper. At the conclusion of theretreat, a statement emerged: How do we cultivate semiotic aware-ness across and within disciplines to highlight integral foundations andencourage further development? While this statement reinforces thevalues of SSA, it triggers a few questions that are congruent withthe theme of “Why Semiotics”: What might semioticians do tocultivate semiotic awareness among themselves? Beyondmumbo-jumbo debates and political games, how do we, mem-bers of the SSA, capitalize on our understanding and tools to cre-atively further semiotic discourse? How do we gracefully dealwith conflict between tradition and innovation, between habitand originality? And what semiotic framework would allow usto uncover the hidden interrelations among change, conflict, andcontinuity?

By way of responding to these questions, I intend to establishconnections among the theme of the 2013 SSA, the retreat, andthe topic of this paper. In doing so, I would like to discuss threeinterwoven threads: first, the paradoxical phenomenon of changeand continuity; second, how we might reframe and interpret the

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Semiotics 2013 ❦ IV. Illusion

1 The SSA group consisted of current members of the Executive Board,the Editorial Board, and the 2013 Annual Meeting ProgramCommittee.

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notion of “conflict”; and third, unveiling the masked identitiesbehind change, conflict, and continuity.

The Paradoxical Phenomenon of Change and Continuity

We live in a time where cultures experience the paradox of whatJean Baudrillard (1992) calls “exponential instability” and “expo-nential stability”—a time with no end but only a cycle of para-doxes. The coexistence of these two opposite axes of change(exponential instability) and continuity (exponential stability)represents one of the most paradoxical phenomena of life. Drawnfrom our ideological biases and social constructs of reality, theforces behind discontinuity and continuity seem to have becomeso complex that they give change and continuity the appearanceof duality, which Jean Gebser (1949: 86) describes as “the mentalsplitting and tearing apart of polarity”.

Despite the intellectual familiarity, however, the interrelationof change and continuity remains an enigmatic dilemma. Thedynamics between change and continuity, between inventionand convention, triggers intractable conflict and overwhelminguncertainty. Change and continuity are seen as two oppositepoles that trigger all kinds of conflict. In a conventional percep-tion of absolute reality, instability and stability are viewed as acontradictory relation that must be fixed, favoring one over theother in a tensional pair. Stirred up by this erroneous splitbetween change and continuity, individuals and societies windup in a recursive cycle of schizophrenia and fragmentation.However, as I shall explain, the way out of this dilemma is cer-tainly to accept and tolerate the paradoxical phenomenon ofchange and continuity.

The words “change” and “continuity” are binary opposites,while their meaning is socially constructed as negative or posi-tive. Their contradictions provoke more meaning than the wordsthemselves do. Surprisingly, however, change is not the oppositeof continuity. Change and continuity are the two interdependentstates of the paradoxical phenomenon of life; they are essentiallyan inseparable composition. For change does not dismiss thepast; nor does continuity ignore the future (Seif 2005).

All life rests essentially on the integration (or composition) oftwo opposite states, stability and change, security and adven-

17. “The Eternal Masquerade” ❦ Farouk Y. Seif

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ture, necessity and freedom; for without regularity and conti-nuity there would not be enough constancy in any process toenable one to recognize change itself. (Mumford 1951: 181)

The dilemma is that there is no change without continuity; bothrepresent the paradoxical phenomenon of life, of which conflictitself is at the very core. Why do change and continuity, instabil-ity and stability, constitute a paradox? What is the relationshipbetween these opposites in the context of each other?

Countless works of literature explicitly or implicitly containparadoxes inherent in the human condition. Ever since Zeno’sparadox until the present time, philosophers have been toying withthe nature of paradoxes. In examining any paradoxical situation,we can identify three elements: 1) an awareness of the presence ofcontradictory forces; 2) an acknowledgement that these forces arenatural and inevitably rooted in individual and collective life; and3) a tacit assertion that these contradictory forces are in some waylinked together (Smith & Berg 1987). These contradictory forces arederived from a common source that connects them and givesmeaning to their coexisting opposites. The third element is mostimportant for our perception of change and continuity.

Often, when societies face crises, there is a tendency to con-fuse paradoxical situations with problems. Yet whenever para-doxes are perceived as problems, they can never be dissolved;consequently, the mind is trapped in a mirage of solutionsshrouded by ever-increasing confusion. Sooner or later, eachapparent solution is discovered to be an illusion, leading to moretangled problems. It is, then, important to be aware of the differ-ence between what we perceive as problems and what we expe-rience as paradoxes (Bohm 1996).

Contradictions in life are not fortuitous, nor do they resultfrom incompetent living. “They are inherent in human natureand in the circumstances that surround our lives” (Palmer 1980:4). Contradictions are the natural forces in cultural systems andare unavoidable for social resilience in experiencing the chrysalisprocess (Seif 2013). Since a cultural system is a self-generatingand autopoietic network (Maturana & Varela 1980), change andcontinuity must be viewed as integral elements of the whole sys-tem. Surprisingly, the process of change ultimately leads to sta-bility, “homeostasis”.


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Unfortunately, more often than not, the paradox of changeand continuity is viewed as a problem that must be fixed orresolved before leading to cultural destruction. This view can cer-tainly be observed in the SSA struggle for self-preservation andmaintenance of tradition in the face of innovation and progress.Cultures seem to approach their end “only in an asymptoticcurve” (Baudrillard 1992: 105). In any case, experiencing theparadox of change and continuity does not lead communitiesand organizations to their disappearance; rather, it is the insis-tence on a dualistic view that leads to the finality of their end.

Clearly, every community and organization experiences theongoing struggle of preserving self-identity in the face of univer-sality. This self-preservation is important for us to consider sincethe struggle between change and continuity, flux and stasis, tem-porality and permanence, progress and stagnation marks thevery nature of culture (Hall 1976). Within this paradoxical andsimultaneous struggle resides conflict. This is true through theages in both microcosmic and macrocosmic systems, individualsand societies.

It has been suggested that while culture depends on home-ostasis, it is not an autonomous entity. In this sense, however, cul-ture doesn’t depend on homeostasis; it relies on “homeodynam-ics”2 (Keeney 1983: 69), which is initiated by human agents—afunction to which semioticians ought to pay more attention.Culture is, then, an emergent product of both forces: creativefreedom and consistent tradition. Humans are not only the orig-inators of culture but also its movers and shakers (Deely & Nogar1973). These forces of genesis and transformation, what Wagner(1975) calls “the invention of culture”, depend on creative com-munication within communities and organizations.

Cultures emerge from a complex nonlinear dynamic socialnetwork through multiple feedback loops that are not only con-tinually modifying, but also maintaining their ethos. This processof simultaneously modifying and maintaining cultures is,


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2 The concept of homeodynamics is a combination of “homeo” and“dynamics”, which provides a double description of stability andchange (see Keeney 1983: 69). While homeodynamics is initially abasic in medicine and family therapy, it seems applicable for the con-text of change and continuity in social systems.


indeed, a challenging quandary. And while cultural systems inany community or organization maintain coherence, they mustrely on both positive and negative feedback loops not only tomaintain their coherence but also to adapt to new learning andrenewal.

Through positive feedback loops as a force of affirmation, a cul-tural system must maintain and defend its balance against unfa-miliar and ambiguous disturbances. Simultaneously, however,that cultural system must rely on negative feedback loops as aforce of deviation for its own growth and renewal. Either action isequally challenging. Gregory Bateson labeled this paradoxical sit-uation “double binding”. Experiencing the paradoxical phenome-non of change and continuity, cultures will not remain the same.Through this paradoxical chrysalis process, communities andorganizations will become different entities. Bateson writes:

From its own point of view, the culture faces either externalextermination or internal disruption, and the dilemma is soconstructed as to be a dilemma of self-preservation in the mostliteral sense. Under no circumstances can the preexisting “self”survive. Every move seems to propose either extermination bythe larger environment or the pains of inner disruption. Even ifthe culture elects for external adaptation and by some featachieves the necessary inner metamorphosis, that which sur-vives will be a different “self”. (i1942-1980: 113)

Explicit in Bateson’s statement is the phenomenologicalnecessity for cultures to experience the polarity of innovativechange on the one hand and an uninterrupted sense of continu-ity on the other. When the conditions for social reality in com-munities and organizations are created, so also are the conditionsfor its regeneration (Bakhtin 1968). On a daily basis, individualsand groups of any community or organization generally experi-ence the tension between the two forces of the novel and thefamiliar. There is an unexplainable need within each individual’slife cycle, and equally within communities and organizations, totranscend the categories of knowing that are provided by exist-ing cultural systems. Changing existing cultural systems, whichconsist of sets of interdependent and interacting parts, leadscumulatively to either cultural evolution (Danesi 2007) or cultur-al regression, depending on the moment of interpretation.


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Change and continuity are intimately interrelated sign sys-tems susceptible to what Susan Petrilli and Augusto Ponzio(2005: 39) call “flight of interpretants”. As sign systems, changeand continuity are endowed with the capacity for metamorpho-sis within which a specific function at a given moment also car-ries out another function at another moment of semiosis. That isto say, since “the events of tomorrow are always latently presenttoday” (Gebser 1949: 277); what was unfamiliar yesterday isbecoming familiar today. Another way of saying the same thingis, what we consider to be an event of change in the present timeis experienced as providing a sense of continuity in the future.Communities and organizations can do well by suspending theirtemporal and spatial biases, engaging in “liminality” or the stateof “being-on-a-threshold” (Turner 1979: 465), between conven-tional perceptions of space and time and the creative interpreta-tion of liminal space-time.

By perceiving reality as a fixed point in space and time,human beings run into the bewilderment of observing only theduality of change and continuity. As a consequence of this duali-ty, no community or organization can make innovative changepainless or free of the threat of conflict. Yet again, unfortunately,the dynamic forces of social stability and cultural innovation arecommonly seen as a problematic duality, rather than a paradoxi-cal polarity. Ironically, the repetitively self-imposed duality ofchange and continuity has become overwhelming, and by exten-sion, the social concept of conflict appears negatively distorted.

In their attitude toward self-centered interest, favoring eitherthe pole of change or the pole of continuity, contemporary soci-eties have assumed erroneously that compromise and resolution,or perhaps dominance and hegemony, are the ways to deal withconflict (Chomsky 2003; Follett 1930; Seif 2005). The fact thatchange and continuity constitute a paradoxical polarity suggeststhat the interconnectedness between them is homomorphic and,again, that sundering them is impossible. As Arthur Koestler(1964: 658) suggests, whenever “two frames of reference havebecome integrated into one it becomes difficult to imagine thatpreviously they existed separately”. Fascinatingly, what makesthis separation impossible is precisely conflict itself.


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Reframing and Reinterpreting the Notion of “Conflict”

Human beings have engaged in conflict throughout history, butthe unintended consequences of the polarization of change andcontinuity and the mishandling of conflict in our time are enor-mous. On a global level, it is evident that contemporary societieshave developed unprecedented technological power for destruc-tiveness on an unimaginable scale that far exceeds that of any ofprevious century. Certainly, insistence on polarizing change andcontinuity seems to trigger all conflicts, leading to organization-al decay, cultural repression, economic scarcity, and worse yet,war and genocide. Optimistically, nevertheless, as Jean Gebser(1949: 531) tells us, “Epochs of great confusion and general uncer-tainty in a given world contain the slumbering, not-yet-manifestseeds of clarity and certainty”.

Collision between the coexisting, opposite forces of changeand continuity is the quintessence of conflict. But it is not thepresence of contradictions or differences between these oppositeforces that is problematic, as Friedrich Glasl (1999) insinuates;rather, it is the absence of understanding the paradoxical natureof change and continuity and their resulting conflicts. It is alsothe lack of imaginative ability to transform apparent contradic-tions into paradoxes. Although the spark that results from thecolliding forces embodies both destruction and creation, it is upto humans’ wise judgment to make the ethical choice possible.

Most likely, conflicts escalate, whether downward throughfighting into the deepest region of the abyss—where even self-destruction can qualify as a victory—or upward into a higherlevel of creative encounter, breaking new ground and connectingto a higher self for cultural transformation. Cultures slide downthe path of regression that can lead through escalation into thedepths of human nature, or offer the opportunity for a journey touncharted frontiers by breaking new ground (Glasl 1999). In thissense, conflicts have two sides: dangers and opportunities. Thatis why the idea of reframing and reinterpreting conflict is essen-tial for the survival of communities and organizations and,specifically, indispensable for the vitality of the SSA.

Now, the nagging questions are: How do we deal with con-flicts that are stirred up by the “deceptive” friction between cre-ating change and maintaining continuity? What conceptualiza-


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tion enables us to formulate a fresh semiotic interpretation ofconflict that allows for constructive interactions with diversepoints of view? And how do we use conflict to animate mean-ingful change while maintaining a sense of continuity?

There is a large body of literature that proposes and definesmany strategies, tactics, and skills for approaching conflict. Butthese strategies are only reactionary habits. Problem-solvingstrategies, conflict resolution strategies, and interventionapproaches to dealing with conflict are ineffectual and derivedfrom a mechanistic fallacy that is blind to the nature of creation(Follett 1930; cf. Hall 1976). Looking for a solution to conflict willnot eradicate conflict itself (Krishnamurti 1979). The tendency tosearch for a solution as a means of resolving conflict is a desper-ate attempt to superimpose a substitute for conflict, manipulateits nature, and ultimately run away from it. More often, conflictis simply being camouflaged or “pushed under the rug”. In orderto avoid the challenge of confrontation, many groups and orga-nizations tend to silence conflict (Perlow 2003). The unintendedconsequences of this tendency are evident in almost all strategiesto resolve social and cultural problems.

Although a problem-solving strategy to social challenges fre-quently arrives at provisional solutions to conflicts, it substitutesdifferent and short-lived conditions that will sooner or later trig-ger a new set of intractable conflicts and even violence. This strat-egy is an indicator of nonsystemic thinking that lacks a creativereframing of conflict.

Attempts to resolve differences between conflicting forces ofvalues and interests are not the answer. Despite massive evi-dence of the inadequacy of conflict-resolution approaches andmediation, communities and organizations seem to continuelaboring under the limitations of linear rational thinking and aconventional perception of absolute reality (Chomsky 2003;Follett 1930; Glasl 1999; Krishnamurti 1979). By compartmental-izing lives or leveling differences, most conflict-resolution strate-gies aim at fixing problems temporarily; consequently, thesestrategies diminish the creative potential for a breakthrough andmiss the opportunity for renewal.

Social reality is the never-ending, diaphanous process ofchange and continuity where conflict resides. Rather than per-ceiving conflict that results from the tension between stability


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and instability as anomalous characteristic of social systems, itshould be viewed as an inevitable outcome of ongoing humaninteraction. As a creative tension, conflicts should neither besolved nor resolved. Only a handful of semioticians have writtenabout this creative potential of conflict (e.g. Bakhtin 1968, 1975).To be able to hold the creative tension of conflict between changeand continuity and their paradoxical characteristics, one needs todevelop patience for perseverance. Holding creative tensionbrings out our capacity for perseverance and, in turn, leads us toa fundamental shift in our perception of social reality.

Yet, holding this creative tension requires strength, not power.Strength is necessary for dialoguing and persevering throughconflict. Strength cannot be taken away, for its nature relies onperseverance in spite of all odds. On the other hand, power ischaracterized by rhetoric and debate that hang on resistance, andit always attracts persistence. This means that resistance and per-sistence are desperate forces of power that ultimately lead to theescalation of conflicts and even self-destruction. Power cannottolerate the ambiguity of paradoxes intrinsic to conflict, whereasstrength thrives on the creative tension of paradoxes. Developingthis strength is fundamental to reframing and interpreting con-flicts. By holding the creative tension of conflict without backingout or getting caught by our mental models, human beings canacquire a profound understanding coupled with good judgmentand foresight that will augment the purposeful pursuit of cultur-al transformation.

Indeed, understanding conflict is imperative, but reframingand interpreting it is vital to the very nature of culture. This iswhere semiotics can offer the appropriate framework to reframeand reinterpret conflict. Not only has semiotics the potential toreframe and reinterpret the nature of conflict but it also offers theappropriate framework for persevering through the paradoxicalrelation of change and continuity.

Conflict can lead to the fall or rise of cultures and civilizations.Arnold J. Toynbee (1948) wrote a comprehensive description of thedifferent strategies that civilizations adapt to deal with their riseand fall. Based on Toynbee’s work, cultures make strategic choicesabout whether to return to the good old days, hold on to the statusquo, or reach for a utopian ideal. But cultures can only experiencerenewal by what Joseph Campbell (1949: 16) calls “palingenesia, a

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continuous recurrence of birth” through understanding of theigniting quality intrinsic to all conflicts.

Another important issue about reframing conflict has to dowith the assumption that conflict occupies a static point in spaceand time, or to borrow a phrase from Whitehead (1929), “presenta-tional immediacy”. This assumption certainly encourages linearthought and mechanistic action. I wonder what would happen toour view of conflict if we placed it within a space-free and time-freereality. Why is this relevant? In contrast to the linear perception,change and continuity represent a particular configuration ofspace-time free energy—where the past, the present, and the futurebecome whole—as a multi-dimensional expression of dance.

As mentioned earlier, the two observational frames of refer-ence, change and continuity, interact in such a manner that onecannot exist without the other. That is, sundering them is impos-sible. Inseparability is a characteristic intrinsic to all paradoxicalpolarities. At a fixed point in space and time, the interactionbetween these two frames of reference triggers conflict that stim-ulates friction. And yet, this friction caused by conflict is neces-sary to generate aesthetic experience (Dewey 1934). By creativeholding of the tension between change and continuity, and per-severing through their paradoxes, conflict can be viewed as anopportunity for a beautiful composition.

So when dealing with conflict, spatial and temporal percep-tions must be reconceived. In this view, the potential at the coreof the change-continuity polarity is inherently creative. Thispotentiality of conflict goes back to the time of the Greek philoso-pher Heraclitus (500 BCE), who maintained that conflict does notinterfere with life but is a precondition of life.3

Conflict is that spark from rubbing rocks together that ignitesfire;4 it is also the flicker out of friction between human beingsthat ignites the fire of love. For love is the only way to grasp the

3 It was Heraclitus’ contribution to focus Western thought on the con-cept of change and continuity that triggers conflict (Deely and Nogar1973). See also the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,http://www.iep.utm.edu/heraclit/#H3.

4 This is in the original meaning of conflict. The word “conflict” has itsroot in the Latin verb confligere—con, “together” + fligere, “to strike”(Webster’s 1996).


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essence of differences. A few scholars have hinted at the connec-tion between conflict and love (e.g. Eliot 1943; Koestler 1964;Maturana & Varela 1980). It is really uncommon for semioticexplorations of conflict to speak of love; however, it seems ratherobvious that conflict and love share a common denominator, thespark that ignites both of them. T. S. Eliot (1943; 57-59) poeticallyreminds us:

The only hope, or else despairLies in the choice of pyre or pyre To be redeemed from fire by fire.Who then devised the torment? Love. Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flameWhich human power cannot remove.We only live, only suspireConsumed by either fire or fire. ...

And all shall be well and All manner of things shall be wellWhen the tongues of flame are in-foldedInto the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one.

It is then reasonable to conjure that through love, we can cre-atively reframe conflict and deeply understand the interconnec-tion between the two opposite frames of reference: change andcontinuity. And, based on the Peircean idea, since we can achievethe highest level of reality through signs, it is useful to expresssemiotically the subtle and complex conceptualization of life-giv-ing conflict. As a precondition of life, the role of conflict is to triggerthe spark that ignites the continuous recurrence of birth, palingenesia.

The Magical Dance of Eternal Masquerade

From the time of Greek theater through contemporary theories,notably “carnivalesque” (Bakhtin 1968) and “safety valve”(Turner 1969, 1979), it has been known that the masked dancechallenges the social order and conventional habits. In fact, dur-ing the Middle Ages, people participated in two lives: the officiallife and the carnival life, where masquerade was conceived as


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moments of death and revisal (Bakhtin 1968: 9). But, how doesmasquerade relate to the phenomenon of change and continuity?While it is obviously common for human beings to participate inmasquerade or masked dance, it is not clear how change andcontinuity are conceived of as masked dancers!

“We live in two worlds, a world of fact and a world of fancy”(Peirce c.1910: CP 1.321). And if we accept the Peircean idea thatthe universe is perfused with signs, then we must agree thatsigns provide the interconnection among different things andobjects. And since signs represent things or objects, whether theyare real or imaginary, change and continuity are represented andinterconnected through signs. Signs are indifferent to actual orimaginary things and objects (Deely 2009). Take for instance,images of the unicorn, Don Quixote, and Hamlet: they are facti-tious figures (not real), but nevertheless they are signs. As well,the concept of “simulacrum” challenges the difference betweenthe “real” and the “false”, between the “real” and the “imagi-nary” (Baudrillard 1981: 3). Signs can also make lying and decep-tion possible (Eco 1979). Lies and deception are the most fasci-nating and peculiar characteristics of signs that make possible formasquerade to convey the existent of the nonexistent, or thenonexistence of the existent.

In masquerade, where there is no stage to abolish the distancebetween performers and spectators, people can be emotionallymoved and carried away by performers.5 And the alternationbetween illusion and reality creates a cathartic effect of mystery thatis derived from the unique ability of human beings to believe anddisbelieve in the blink of an eye (Koestler 1964). Although mas-querade is central to the life of society, it refuses to submit to soci-ety’s structures, pointing toward cultural transformation. AsBakhtin (1968) Koestler (1964), and Turner (1979) have shown, whilecarnivalesque triggers laughter through humor and comedy, it com-municates the shortcoming and tragic absurdities of the humancondition. Masquerade as magic transcends semiotic fallacy.

5 It should be noted that I am not literally suggesting that we must puton masks and perform in masquerade! Rather, what I am calling for isto remove the masks we often wear in dealing with change, conflict,and continuity, and therefore imagine and experience a different andliberating reality.


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Viewing magic as a semiotic fallacy, however, is inadequatewithout taking the complementary perspective of magic as apotentially effective form of communication, according towhich it may be seen as a semiotic therapy. (Nöth 1990: 188)

Beyond a mere metaphorical interpretation and semiotic fal-lacy—whether in ancient civilizations or contemporary soci-eties—the magical and masked dance, or carnivalesque, is rootedin the art of illusion. And as a form of semiosis, the magical char-acteristic of masquerade is a semiotic therapy with the purposeof “bridging the gaps in the pursuit of practical activities in life”(Nöth 1990: 191)—i.e. change and continuity, instability and sta-bility, innovation and convention. Certainly, this purpose ofmagic is different from that of ritual. Whereas the primary func-tion of ritual is social “confirmation”, the aim of magic is cultur-al “transformation” (ibid. 398).

Masquerade transfers our attention from “here and now” to“there and then” and vice versa. In this sense, the illusion of themasked dance engages our mind simultaneously in two realms:the real and the imaginary, through hypnotic trance. By mockingorder and morality, flattening differences, and crossing bound-aries, the magic of the illusory dance enables us to transcend thenarrow confines of our identities and limitations by participatingin other forms of existence (cf. Bakhtin 1968; Koestler 1964). Inthis way, not only does masquerade dance allow societies toexperience humor and playfulness, but it also provides the con-text for human revelation and cultural transformation. It pro-vides the context within which human beings can navigatethrough what I called elsewhere diaphanous space and polychronictime (Seif 2013).

Although the original idea of the masked dance was anexpression of magical egolessness, it has generally been replacedin contemporary societies by the depersonalization and obscuri-ty of the ego (Gebser 1949). Paradoxically, then, this multivalentillusionary dance conceals as much as it reveals the eternal mas-querade of the opposite forces of change and continuity. By dis-guising and displaying representations, the masquerade eludesthe familiar reality and, at the same time, represents an unfamil-iar reality. After all, what we perceive is not reality itself but realityexposed to our way of perceiving (Seif 2013). The masquerade asmagical dance is indeed a semiotic therapy.


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In masquerade, reality is turned upside down and images arereversed. This topsy-turvy mutation is helpful in understandingthe dance between the two separate masked frames of reference:change and continuity. And yet, not only does this topsy-turvyquality reverse images, it also allows for the interchangeabilityand representation of the dance between two masked frames ofreference. In this dance, change and continuity interchange theirmasks (or signs), so to speak, to conceal or mock their paradoxi-cal identities, which have been narrowly perceived as two oppo-sites of duality because of social conventions. For in the processof reality, the opposites are basics in the nature of things, andincorrigibly fact—that which cannot be, yet is (Whitehead 1929).

However, because in the masquerade dance change and con-tinuity mischievously alter their positions through space andtime, the perception of what is change and what is continuity canbe deceiving. The dramatic irony of mischief and disguise play asignificant role in experiencing change and continuity, and per-ceiving the progeny of this interaction—i.e., conflict. Behind themask there lies an identity other than what really is. Semioticallyspeaking, the masquerade highlights the paradoxical phenome-non of appearance and reality, lie and truth, communication andsignification. In fact, as Umberto Eco puts it

semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which canbe used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie,conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth: it cannot in fact beused ‘to tell’ at all. (Eco 1976: 7, emphasis in the original)

And,

Every time there is a lie there is signification. Every time thereis signification there is the possibility of using it in order to lie...semiotics has found a new threshold: between conditions of sig-nification and conditions of truth[.] (Eco 1976: 59)

Not only are change and continuity signs of deception butalso, as Marcel Danesi (1999: 19) puts it, “culture is itself a biglie”. Traditional cultures and aboriginal peoples have long beencrossing this boundary of signification and truth, where the mas-querade dance is perceived to be the spirit of the ancestors whoseblessings are necessary for balancing change with continuity andfor the survival of the tribal kinship. This dance, animated by


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conflict, is certainly an age-old masquerade in cultural systemsbetween change and continuity.

Yet no dance can occur without attraction, desire, and love—or abduction and agapasm—bearing in mind that the very natureof Peircean abduction is falling in love. According to Peirce, semi-osis is regulated neither by chance nor by blind necessity; rather,it is regulated by “immediate attraction” (Petrilli and Ponzio2005: 68), the fiery spark of love. Love is essential not only in per-severing through the paradox of change and continuity, but alsoin dialoguing over differences. As David Bohm (1996) states, wecannot approach such a dialogue without love. Communities andorganizations can approach the paradoxical phenomenon ofchange and continuity with intimate dialogue. Moreover,

This dialogue is the only hope of correcting our myopic visions,our illusions, and the essential untidiness of our thought.Speaking with others and not always to others, breaking out ofa perpetual monologue, is the safety-valve against madnessand dogmaticism, the pathology of playing endlessly the samebroken record. (Deely & Nogar 1973: 403)

Such dialogue is innate to the quality of complementarity andcomplexity. In this dialogical intimacy, change and continuity canbe conceived as the complementarities between yin and yang,and as the complexities inherent in Shiva’s eternal dance. Conflictis the mutual causality that dynamically creates the unity and comple-mentarity of the polarity of change and continuity. What we need is amajor shift in the way we perceive conflict itself, into a holo-graphic and integrative perception of the pluralistic qualities ofchange and continuity, which is the source of beautiful and sus-tainable ecological and social reality.

The idea of holographic understanding of the change–conti-nuity paradox echoes the idea of “aperspective consciousness”initiated by Jean Gebser. This idea allows cultures to perseverethrough the paradox of desiring future change in the face ofhanging on the security of the present. And to do so, Gebser(1949: 412) reminds us, “is to overcome rationality in favor of ara-tionality, and to break forth from mentality into diaphaneity”.This idea is particularly significant, since Gebser’s notion ofaperspectival consciousness is concerned with diaphanous per-ception of the whole. As a whole, the three elements of change,


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conflict, and continuity represent an inseparable triad. According to the Peircean trichotomics, the three elements of

the triadic sign—representamen, object, and interpretant (c.1897:CP 2.228)—are engaging in ongoing processes of shifting roleand position. Like all semiotic signs, the triad of change, conflict,and continuity is never static, nor fixed:

...nor are they trapped in a determinate role or function carriedout in a given instance of semiosis. Quite the contrary, they areendowed with the potential to be transformed into somethingelse, to be deferred to something else—something else that isalways ready to destabilize the sign “totality” and throw it intocrisis. (Petrilli & Ponzio 2005: 39)

In other words, signs of change and continuity exchange theirpositions in an infinite semiotic process or semiosis at differentmoments of the masquerade dance. And by doing so, change andcontinuity mischievously throw signs into what seems to be asign of crisis or conflict. Paradoxically, this is the function ofsigns: while being deceptive and mischievous, they are the trig-ger for further meaning and significance. It is reasonable, then, toconjure that the indivisible triad of change-conflict-continuity is theeverlasting dance of the meaning-making process.

Concluding Remarks

To conclude, I would like to go back to the present theme: “WhySemiotics”. The Semiotic Society of America can experience acontinuous recurrence of birth (palingenesia) by engaging in self-reflection on the paradoxical phenomenon of change and conti-nuity, and reframing and interpreting the notion of conflict. Asmembers of the SSA we need to be aware of the presence of con-tradictory forces of change and continuity, acknowledge thatthese forces are inevitably rooted in life, and understand thatthese forces are intimately interrelated. Perhaps when we reckonwith and persevere through the paradox of change and continu-ity, we might arrive at a turning point of receiving the gift of con-flict and fully participating in the eternal dance of life.

Grappling with the paradoxical phenomenon of change andcontinuity, innovation and convention, instability and stability,may lead to limitless discoveries about how we might cultivate


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semiotic awareness across and within disciplines. One can onlyhope that the next SSA annual meeting in Seattle will explore theidea of paradoxes of life and the path to their intimate connec-tions to challenge, determination, and resilience.

Change, conflict, and continuity as everlasting phenomenabring to mind the experience of my ancestors. Ancient Egyptianshave provided us with an inspiring representation of theirawareness of the essence of conflict as the principle of two cross-ing axes. The hieroglyphic sign of Ankh, as “the key of eternallife”, represents an imaginative interpretation of the striking axesor frames of reference in which the path of the sun from east towest crosses the Nile, while the loop on the top represents theNile Delta. And since by knowing a sign that stands for some-thing, we know something more (Peirce and Welby i1903-1908),not only does such a beautiful representation signify the para-doxical phenomenon of the opposites, but it also leaves us with aserene sense of hope that conflict is the key to our understanding ofthe paradoxical phenomena of life.

I mentioned at the beginning that contemplative self-reflec-tion is significant for the SSA. This self-reflection can reveal thatthe indivisible, magical, triadic dance of change-conflict-continuityis an everlasting phenomenon of life, where the paradox ofchange and continuity bears resemblance to the well-known“rabbit –duck” illusionary perception, and where conflict is onlya mirage through the desert of our life. Abracadabra—now you seeit, now you don’t...!

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