“We live mythologically, and our myths shape the very fabric of reality we inhabit.”
Having charted the symbolic cosmos, we now examine how symbolic reflexivity enables the collective production and continual remaking of reality itself.
The Collective as Reflexive Construal
In relational ontology, reality is not given but constructed through collective construal — a shared symbolic process that phases alignment among diverse perspectives, practices, and materialities.
Symbolic reflexivity is the engine of this process, allowing collectives to:
Observe and interpret their symbolic systems,
Reconfigure alignments of meaning,
Navigate tensions between continuity and change.
Reflexivity as Reality-Making
Symbolic reflexivity does not merely reflect reality; it produces it by:
Establishing which symbolic alignments count as “real”,
Enabling coordinated action based on shared meanings,
Phasing collective identities and possibilities into being.
Reality emerges through recursive symbolic operations: cuts, alignments, stabilisations, and transformations that constitute the social fabric.
Power and Reflexive Production
The collective production of reality is always entangled with power:
Those who control symbolic infrastructures influence which realities are enacted,
Marginalised groups contest dominant realities through alternative construals,
Symbolic reflexivity is a terrain of struggle over meaning and being.
Reflexive Loops and Feedback
Symbolic reflexivity creates feedback loops that:
Stabilise symbolic systems through repetition and ritual,
Open systems to innovation and adaptation,
Allow social formations to learn, self-correct, or transform.
These loops are essential to the dynamic maintenance of social reality.
Towards a Symbolic Cosmos of Possibility
By reflexively producing reality, collectives also open or close spaces of possibility:
Some symbolic configurations enable openness, creativity, and pluralism,
Others impose closure, dogmatism, or exclusion.
Understanding symbolic reflexivity highlights the contingent, emergent nature of reality, and the role of collective agency in shaping it.
Conclusion
Symbolic reflexivity is the heart of collective reality production — the ongoing, dynamic process by which shared worlds are made, unmade, and remade.
In the next post, we will explore how these ideas can inform a new mythos for meaning and being — a symbolic horizon that embraces relational ontology.
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