Deep Grammars: The Network

In our times, it is important to understand the concept of a network. The need for this understanding flows out of the reality of actual networks and their importance to our world. By actual networks, I mean any of those things we commonly refer to as such: computer networks, professional networks, criminal networks. The question arises, however, as to whether all of these networks—and many more, besides—actually have something in common. It’s not impossible that we are using the same word to describe incomparable things. In a sense, we haven’t proven otherwise until we can define the network as a concept that accounts for all of the things we call networks. And if we are able to come up with such a definition, it won’t be because of our rhetorical dexterity. No, such a definition can only be provided by history itself.

The concept of a network has much to do with the concept of a net. A net is composed of strands arranged in a grid. A net cannot be defined merely in terms of its perpendicular and parallel lines, however. At every place where two strands meet, the point of intersection is a point of resistance—not just a geometrically incidental overlap, but the place where a net is proven to be an object. When the body of a fish is captured by the net, it is the points of intersection that hold it back. Without the points of intersection, the net cannot exert force upon the world, and has no ontological reality.

And yet a net is not just the sum of its points, or even its ontological reality. To catch a fish in a net, what is not there and does not exist is at least as important as what does exist. It is absence that allows the water to flow through the net; it is the fact that most of a net cannot exist in order for it to be a net at all. As far as water is concerned, there is no such thing as a net. Fish, however, find nets to be their most voracious predators.

A network, like a net, is created through the coordination of objects and absence in order to achieve a purpose that objects alone could not achieve. Imagine you have a hundred pennies and you throw them on the table. One dollar. Scoop them up and put them in a cup. One dollar. Exchange them for ten dimes. One dollar. There is no way to arrange or exchange the pennies in order to make them worth more than a dollar. This is a poor metaphor for a network, but a good way of proving that we do recognize certain objects as having intrinsic value which cannot be increased or decreased by organizing the objects in relation to each other. A network can do this, however, and does so by definition.

In our times, it is important to know if you are dealing with objects that are part of a network. Perhaps, like pennies on a table, you are working with objects that merely happen to have landed side by side. But if you are involved in a network, you better know that there’s a lot more going on than what you see.