"Reality" of "betwixt and between"

Living as an Imaginal Bridge between Worlds (Part #7)

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Existence: It could readily be argued that "betwixt and between" is merely used as a literary device -- a structural descriptor, even a newly fashionable code -- especially given the inability of translations to carry the cognitive challenges and mythical subtleties emphasized here. As indicated by the burgeoning literature on liminality (and irrespective of the more extreme imaginings of physicists), it is however possible to give a degree of credence to such potential forms of "existence". These are increasingly acknowledged as being of relevance to governance. The problematic nature of such "existence" was explored in a separate comparison of the US Tea Party movement and Al-Qaida (see Reality and existence in Cultivating Global Strategic Fantasies of Choice, 2010).

However of primary interest is the use of "betwixt and between" to emphasize the challenging cognitive subtlety and confusion -- especially for the marginalized with little strategic traction -- irrespective of any conventional academic descriptive framing through "liminality". The latter may be suspected of seeking thereby to "appropriate" and define that space -- marking out the boundaries of a new discipline according to academic convention. The experiential subtlety may also be explored more speculatively (Existential challenge of "The Other": climbing elven stairways, 2007; Archetypal otherness -- "DNA vs. I Ching": climbing elven stairways, 2007; Climbing Elven Stairways: DNA as a macroscopic metaphor of polarized psychodynamics, 2007).

The quality of the existence of "betwixt and between" may also be "re-cognized" through expressions such as the Vedic Neti Neti (Not this, Not that). Its translation into other languages may serve as translations of "betwixt and between". "Betwixt and between" can then be understood as being as much a tautology as Neti Neti which is variously translated as:

• German; Nicht dieses, nicht jenes; Nicht dies, nicht dies; Nicht dies, nicht das
• French: Pas ça, pas ça; Pas cela, pas cela; Ni ceci, ni ceci; Ni ceci, ni cela
• Spanish: Ni esto, ni aquello; Yo no soy eso, yo no soy eso; Esto no, esto no; No es esto, no es esto; Ni esto, ni lo otro

Such efforts are consistent with those of apophatic discourse and "unsaying", as discussed separately (Being What You Want: problematic kataphatic identity vs. potential of apophatic identity? 2008).

Psychosocial construction of reality: Whereas crossing a bridge may imply adventures into new territory where other conventions are upheld, here the adventure potentially involves enraging with other kinds of reality -- one that is between conventional realities -- calling into question the very nature of cognitive "convention" (Navigating Alternative Conceptual Realities: clues to the dynamics of enacting new paradigms through movement, 2002). How "viable" might imaginal constructs of this "between worlds" condition prove to be? Are they a neglected key to sustainability -- the space from which it might emerge? Is their viability simply a matter of faith for those who choose to dwell within them?

Multidimensional spacetime: It is of course the case that physicists have given themselves the freedom and legitimacy to explore multi-dimensional spacetime -- far beyond ordinary comprehension -- some of whose dimensions are described metaphorically as best understood as "curled up" into minuscule form. Analogous explorations by the psychosocial sciences are condemned as lacking and credibility whatsoever.

Virtual reality: Many have commented on the transitional spaces created by the virtual realities and virtual worlds of electronic media. For example, Gheorghe Dan (Living in Limnos, Betwixt and Between: a trans-reality Balkan Odyssey, 2006) discusses Netochka Nezvanova (NN), a seven year:

.... Glass Bead Experiment grown within the global-mindscape, dispersed and dissipated within the panoply of actions and interactions, mutualism, parasitism, mimicry and errors which form the basis of the Internet, a global network that spans the planet, a live membrane consisting of more than 10000 networks and more than one million computers.... In our modern epoch of game playing, NN may be a phantasmagorical Internet experiment, manifesting herself in forms utterly alien to reason and reflexivity, a pataphysical black hole that consumes the bodies falling prey to its seductively intoxicating and euphoric 'love theory', in the process experiencing a melange of singularities.

Twixters: Curiously, and of some relevance, is the recognition accorded to "twixters" by Time (January 2005) as being a new generation (of Americans) trapped, in a sense, betwixt (between) adolescence and adulthood. Parallels have been recognized in other developed societies, notably Italy and Japan. This focus tends however to obscure the many other modes in which "betwixt and between" is experienced by other segments of the population with more than a mild degree of anguish. For example, in relation to Northern Ireland, the point is made by Stephen Kelly (The Island that is Nowhere: or, cultural translation -- a utopian project)

Living and working in Northern Ireland, one is more accustomed than is perhaps typical in a developed Western society of the extent to which place, and placedness, determines one's sense of identity.... And yet, for a considerable, and arguably growing, number of people in Northern Ireland, identity has become a case of thinking of oneself as 'neither/nor' or 'and/both' -- as, in other words, betwixt and between.... And there has hardly been a more urgent need to imagine 'new modes of life.' At a moment when identities threaten to ossify into the dangerous polarities of West and East, of secularity and religion, of freedom and submission, we are desperately in need of new languages, new narratives, new critical practices. What I want to suggest is that translation, and reflection upon the conditions and dynamics of translation, is a pre-eminent means of investigating the possibility of new forms of politics expressive of the pluralities of place, of identity, of history.

Of similar relevance, using "betwixt" as an acronym, a major European project focused on family precarity (Daniel Bertaux, et al., BETWIXT -- Between Integration and Exclusion: a comparative study in local dynamics of precarity and resistance to exclusion in urban contexts. 2002).

Dwellers in interstices: Given the recognition of "twixters", it is useful to identify others with acknowledged skills in dwelling "between worlds" however these worlds are understood. Those living to some degree in some such "twilight zone" might variously include:

• "intermediaries", including negotiators and mediators
• people of faith believing in a transcendental reality, including priests, shamans, mediums
• people living and working in "alternative" or intentional communities
• innovators drawing on diverse sources of inspiration, typically (if not of necessity) indifferent to convention
• pragmatists, opportunists, "survivors", resourceful "scroungers"
• levels of secrecy: the partially informed, confidence tricksters, spin doctors and public relations specialists, double agents of espionage
• levels of corruption: operators in the black economy, criminals (successful or otherwise)
• users of psychoactive drugs and substances
• variously deluded: superstitious, neurotic
• the elderly in their bewildered exposure to the inhabitual
• life at a nexus of various partially incompatible technologies, especially evident in the case of information technology
• the chronically or terminally ill -- conscious of living between life and death

Also of relevance are those who perform functions unrecognized by the formal classifications of the ILO International Standard Classification of Occupations (or its national counterparts) or the UN International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities. Absence from either of these systems tends to imply an existential experience which is "betwixt and between".

Another approach to those who dwell in interstices (or are forced to do so, knowingly or otherwise) is through the use of language known only to the few, as surveyed by Barry J. Blake (Secret Language: codes, tricks, spies, thieves, and symbols, 2010). He notes the use of language to marginalize all but the initiated -- but who themselves thereby dwell in interstices they have made their own.

Cognitive space of higher order? In the quest here for a more fruitful understanding of "betwixt and between", it is appropriate to note Kelly's quote of Hugh of St Victor (1096-1141):

The man who finds his country sweet is only a raw beginner; the man for whom each country is his own is already strong; but only the man for whom the whole of the world is like a foreign country is perfect.

Also of relevance is the much-cited reference of the poet John Keats to "negative capability" as the poetic state in which we are "capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. [...Being] content with half knowledge" where one trusts in the heart's perceptions.

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