The postmodernists often take this analysis one step further by proposing that language is itself the primary reality in our daily life experiences. Language begins to assume its own reality, much as money (and now credit cards, electronic transfers, options, and so forth) are perceived as real. Language, like money, ceases to be an abstract sign that substitutes for the “real” things of value. Money used to be a substitute for gold or property, now it is itself important. Similarly, language used to substitute for that which it denotated. Now it is important in and of itself. In the large and complex postmodern world, we are often distant from many of the most important events that impact on our lives: war, the death of significant others, the use of our money by the government (taxation). Living in a global community, we no longer have direct experience of, nor influence over, many of the things that were accessible when we lived in much smaller and more directly experienced communities. As a result, we often talk about things rather than actually experiencing them. We listen to a lecture on Asian art rather than actually seeing the art. Language itself becomes the shared experience. Conversation itself becomes the reality.
This may have always been the case, to some extent. We may only now be returning to a sense of reality that was inherent in the premodern world. Language and conversation may have always played a central role in our society. Who we are—our sense of self—may have always been conveyed by the stories that we tell about ourselves? Perhaps our stories about self themselves constitute our sense of self. Perhaps our stories about self are themselves what we mean by self. This would suggest that our stories about childhood, about major adult accomplishments, and about difficult lifelong disappointments may be the basic building blocks of self-image—whether or not they are accurate. Thus, we are not only influenced by a broad-based social construction of reality—which is conveyed through the stories of the society in which we find ourselves. We are also influenced by a more narrowly based personal construction of reality that is conveyed through stories we tell about ourselves (and perhaps stories that we inherit about our family and immediate community.)
