26 Symbolic Coexistence: Holding Incommensurable Construals

Series: Construal and the Collective – Part 26

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Introduction: Beyond Dialogue

Modern pluralism often invokes dialogue as the mode of navigating difference. But what happens when the differences are incommensurable—not merely disagreements within a shared frame, but conflicting construals of reality itself?

This post explores how collectives can hold symbolic coexistence without demanding convergence or resolution. The challenge is not to reconcile meaning, but to sustain the space of reflexive difference.

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1. What Is Incommensurability?

Two construals are incommensurable when:

• They operate on different symbolic assumptions

• Their framing of 'reality' does not overlap

• Translation between them alters what is meant

• No shared meta-framework exists to resolve them

Examples include:

• Sacred vs. secular construals of land

• Scientific vs. Indigenous construals of nature

• Legal vs. ancestral construals of obligation

These are not failures of communication. They are different cuts in the symbolic field.

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2. The Myth of Resolution

Conventional responses include:

• Reduction: Translate one into the terms of another

• Synthesis: Find a higher-order meta-frame

• Exclusion: Deny one construal legitimacy

• Toleration: Allow difference but marginalise it

Each approach assumes a singular symbolic horizon. But a reflexive collective must inhabit multiple symbolic horizons at once—without forcing collapse into one.

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3. Toward Symbolic Coexistence

Symbolic coexistence is not just pluralism. It is:

The collective capacity to hold open incommensurable construals within a shared field of symbolic life.

This requires:

• Reflexive attunement to one's own construal

• Symbolic humility: not all realities are yours to construe

• Structural generosity: institutions that allow divergent meaning-making

• Metastable phasing: patterns that accommodate tension without forcing resolution

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4. Phasing Without Synthesis

Incommensurable construals can coexist through:

• Alternating phasal dominance (e.g. ritual time vs. bureaucratic time)

• Localised alignment (situated bridges without systemic integration)

• Meta-symbolic gestures (art, myth, ceremony as holding forms)

• Silence and opacity (recognising what should not be spoken across cuts)

These are not compromises. They are modes of coexistence.

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5. The Collective as Holding Form

A collective that sustains incommensurability becomes a symbolic ecology—a field of alignment, misalignment, and phasal interplay.

It does not resolve tension, but phases with it. It does not erase conflict, but grounds it symbolically.

Such a collective is not unified in belief. It is aligned in co-becoming.

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Conclusion: Toward a Reflexive Commons

Symbolic coexistence is fragile. It must be:

• Cultivated through practice

• Held through institutions

• Renewed through symbolic labour

To hold incommensurability is to hold reality open. And in doing so, a collective becomes not just a social formation, but a reflexive commons of meaning.

Next, we explore the risks and powers of symbolic boundary-work: how meaning is policed, protected, and remade.