Ornamented Worlds and Textures of Feeling: The Power of Abundance

Abstract

Human development takes place in an ornamented –

redundantly patterned and highly repetitive – world.

The emergence of knowledge takes the form of episodic

unpredictable synthetic events at the intersection

of the fields of internal and external cultural meaning

systems – through the mutually linked processes of

constructive internalization and externalization. Patterns of

decorations – ornaments – are relevant as redundant “inputs”

into the internalization/externalization processes.

Ornaments can be viewed not merely as "aesthetic

accessories" to human activity contexts but as holistic

devices of cultural guidance of human conduct that

acts through the subjectivity of personal feelings. This

guidance is peripheral in its nature – surrounding the

ordinary life activities with affectively oriented textures

of cultural meanings.