Hypomnesic Transindividuation Systems of Reference

= concept about the dominant collective meaning-making practices, technologies and institutions that determine the logic of social reproduction of a particular epoch, from the French: "Systèmes Hypomnésiques de Transindividuation de Référence" (SHTIR); in more simple terms, it refers to: <Dominant Systems of Shared Meaning-Making>.

Description

DeepSeek explains, based on a text by Simon Licelles:

"Hypomnesic / Hypomnesis (Hypomnésique): From Greek, hypo- (under, secondary) and -mnesis (memory). It refers to externalized, technical memory supports—everything that aids or replaces biological memory (writing, books, databases, digital media, algorithms). It is opposed to anamnesis (living, internal recollection).

Transindividuation (Transindividuation): A concept from Gilbert Simondon. It describes the process by which individuals together create and share a common psychic and collective reality. An individual's psyche is not self-contained; it is formed and transformed through shared experiences, language, and symbols. "Trans-individuation" is the co-becoming of the individual and the collective.

Systems of Reference (Systèmes de Référence): These are the foundational, background systems that provide the framework for this shared experience. They are the "reference" or "standard" for a society.

Put together: Reference Hypomnesic Transindividuation Systems (SHTIR) are the dominant technical systems of externalized memory that structure and enable the process of shared meaning-making and collective identity formation for a society.

In the document's context, the printing press, the audiovisual broadcast media of the 20th century, and now the digital algorithmic platforms are all examples of SHTIRs. They are the technical "stage" on which a society's shared drama is played out and its common understanding is formed.

...

The technically accurate translation is opaque to anyone not deeply familiar with Stiegler's work. For a much wider audience, the core idea can be conveyed with:

Dominant Systems of Shared Meaning-Making."

([1])

Discussion

This is also a commentary on the Table which we have reproduced under Media and Power.

This is a nearly complete translation of the Google Doc source listed below.

Simon Licelles:

"Human individuation indeed requires a system of techniques (we are beings far more technical than other animals), and the use of techniques or technologies is always social as well. Techniques are vectors of exchange and open the possibility of transmission; in Stiegler's work, this is what epiphylogenetic memory makes possible.

That being said, it is necessary to introduce the idea that, among all the techniques and technologies used, there are specific ones: mnemotechnics. These are techniques that allow for the preservation of memory. The question of why mnemotechnics are specific, what their exact power is, should be studied. To understand this without a lengthy analysis, one can begin by simply imagining the difference between an individual who can read and one who cannot. Their place in society is radically different.

And among these mnemotechnics, there are even more special ones that form a system and end up structuring society. These are called: Reference Hypomnesic Transindividuation Systems, or SHTIR.

An SHTIR is a mnemotechnic that has succeeded; its effectiveness in preserving and transmitting memory traces has made it an essential tool for a given society, to the point of becoming structuring. The institutions that organize the smooth functioning of society were constituted according to the uses of this mnemotechnic (schools, archives, publishing, accounting, etc.).

Among these techniques, one of the main ones is, for example: writing. However, we will see that it is possible to add subtleties and precision to a description of the different SHTIRs that have succeeded one another in the history of humanity.

Furthermore, before writing, it is considered that prehistoric arts, which we will call "clanic arts," were already SHTIRs—systems of transindividuation and transmission, notably for the preservation and transmission of myths. (Based on our current understanding, this has been proven by Carole Fritz and Jean-Loïc Le Quellec).

For each reference hypomnesis, there would be a corresponding societal structure, and ultimately, a specific epoch. This means that the major epochs of history are, in this theory of SHTIRs, synchronous with changes in the reference hypomnesis. It is the reference hypomnesis that defines the epoch.

The hypothesis here is that SHTIRs structure societies and, in particular, condition the political, state, or governmental structures of the societies that implement them.

Furthermore, we can observe that: the individuals or classes who hold power are also those who control, or at the very least have access to, the SHTIR.

Today, everything suggests that digital hypomneses are now competing with the reference hypomneses of printed writing—competing with them, or outright replacing them—and that we are thereby entering a phase of SHTIR transition.

This means we are moving from a society structured by the book-based hypomnesis to a society structured by digital hypomneses.

(This needs to be demonstrated, but it seems almost self-evident).

Such a change in the SHTIR leads to an epochal transition, which, historically, is never an easy process.

We can consider that we are entering a new epoch, whose SHTIR would be the digital.

We can therefore ask: "Who will hold power in this new epoch?"

Now, a specific characteristic of the digital is that while its operation is certainly governed by a few, it is used by everyone. This means that with the digital, everyone, or the vast majority, has access to the SHTIR.

We must conclude that: everyone, or the vast majority, should be able to share power, and we would thereby be advancing towards a system of direct democracy.

We could then call the coming epoch: the Popular Epoch.

Our hypothesis here is that we are in the process of changing our Reference Transindividuation System, moving from the system of printed writing to that of the digital.

Thus, to use Bernard's terms now, we would be in the in-between of the epochal redoubling.

For Stiegler, thinking with Bertrand Gille, an epochal change happens in two stages:

The first stage of the epochal redoubling: suspension. The technology evolves, and this technical evolution disrupts the institutions of a given society.

The second stage of the epochal redoubling. The affected institutions will either reform or disappear, and others will appear to adopt the new technical system.

We would currently be in the in-between, meaning we are experiencing the disruptions that the digital introduces into society. Our institutions were born and structured to form a system with printed writing, and we do not yet have the institutions that would allow us to build a society with the digital.

This is a primary result of the SHTIR theory: We are in an epochal transition.

For the row of the education function, we can then observe that in every epoch, the educational system has the goal of training new entrants into the dominant class (training of priests, training of nobles, training of the bourgeoisie). Through this, the ruling class maintains its control over the SHTIR and its political power.

But if we apply this same logic to the Popular Epoch (EP) column, it then appears that the future educational system, which must train the users of the SHTIR, will in fact have to train: "everyone", since "everyone" participates in the Digital SHTIR and in the decision-making power.

Therefore, the educational system of the Popular Epoch could be—and this is logical—a vast system of popular education: The university to educate everyone."

( [2] )

Table

Evolution of Societal Functions Across Historical Epochs

Function / Institution	Clanic Epoch (CE)	Royal Empire Epoch (REE)	Feudal Epoch (FE)	Bourgeois Epoch (BE)	Popular Epoch (PE)
Education	? Learning for all ?	Initiation of priests, Training of Scribes	Training of priests, monks, and children of the nobility for the transmission of heritage and feudal power.	Training of the bourgeoisie, for the maintenance of the bourgeois domination system.	Training for everyone (practitioners of the SHTIR)
Manufacturing Production	Collective or family production?	Family-based artisanal production on one hand (tinkering) + Production linked to the royal will and the needs of the empire (?)	Family-based artisanal production on one hand (tinkering), under the financial dependence of the upper classes (?), warlike and commercial production for the most part (?)	Exploitation, by the owners of capital and means of production, of individuals from the lower classes and terrestrial resources, for productivist purposes and to increase and strengthen capital and its power.
Agricultural Production		Enslavement of a large part of the population for the exploitation of the king's lands?	Exploitation of the land by the majority of the population (90%?) serfs, who feed themselves from the production and give a "large?" part of it as taxes, for the noble and the defense of the territory.	Productivist exploitation of the land by a handful of few farmers dependent on heavy machinery investments and chemical inputs. Mechanized and low-yield agriculture per hectare (?) - Dependence of agriculture on investment - financialization?)
Information - Journalism	? Tales - oral storytelling - evening gatherings ?	Can we find journalism? - "Songs of deeds (?) Manuscript accounts relating the great deeds of illustrious people - nobles, priests, heroes (?) (Do popular publications exist? Theoretically no, because the people do not have access to the SHTIR)		Propaganda developed by press organs and audiovisual systems, dependent on private powers financially and therefore oriented by commercial performance and the interest of the bourgeois class. Watchdogs for the bourgeois class.
Religion
Stating what is (e.g., Truth)	The shaman, the druid, interpretation/reading of the signs of the world and the spirits.	The priest	The philosopher	The scientist (Einstein)	? The G.O. ? (Stating what will be?)
Army	?	The noble is equipped - knighthood - to defend his lands and the population there. Enlistment of henchmen?	Conflicts between neighbors for the seizure of wealth. Beginning of colonizations - crusades?	Enlistment of individuals from the lower classes for the defense of the territories and the production infrastructure of the bourgeoisie. (Maintenance of an economic production activity - stimulation of the national economy - arms export)	Colonization of overseas or neighboring territories for the control of resources and the profit of the bourgeoisie's production companies.
The Police
Health - Medicine
Government
Art	(Representation of superior principles) Tool ornamentation. Cave representations of beings related to the founding myth.	Art of the king? Representation of deities and the figure of the king in relation to these deities (same as pharaoh)	Representation of superior beings or principles - gods, saints, Nobles + Popular representations?	Representation of "individual" principles - landscapes, objects - the human individual becomes the subject of artistic research - the human individual as a "superior function".	Towards an art of living related to the new superior function - the cosmo-biological complex.
Women
Men
Life
Terrestrial Resources

No