The role of the transcendent addresser in events

Abstract

Throughout this paper, we propose a more accurate reflection on the Addresser function, extending it from the narrative universe to recent studies of unexpected events. Our starting point is the fact that the same phenomenon can be considered impactful for some and indifferent, or even non-existent, for others. Just as the narrative subject recognizes their object of pursuit by the values that accentuate and set it apart from other objects in the world, this “valuation” being the result of the persuasive actions of a trustworthy addresser, the subject struck by the so-called unexpected event can only distinguish it as such if they are able to glimpse in its core individual values, or parts of them, that have already been transmitted to them by one of their addressers sometime in their lives. In fact, the entire event presents itself as an unprecedented arrangement of these values apprehended in isolation by the subject, an arrangement that tends to be deciphered later on, in the transition from the affective impact to its intellectual resolution. It is within this interval that the subject shows astonishment. In the absence of an addresser capable of preparing them to identify these pertinent values and even to equip them with unknown (or transcendent) values, we would not have any event at all.