It is not easy to immediately realize the pervasiveness of mediation and its effects on human activity and self-constitution. People introduce all the intermediaries they need in order to maintain efficiency. Because we notice only the immediate layer with which we come into contact-the tool we use or the object we act upon-we have difficulty in recognizing the pervasiveness of mediation. The multitude of intermediaries involved in fabricating one finished product is far beyond our direct involvement.
Division, in the context of labor, means to break a task into smaller parts that are easier to rationalize, understand, and execute. Division engenders the specialization of each mediating element. To specialize means to be involved in practical experiences through which skills and knowledge pertinent to activity segmented through labor division are acquired. Whether division of physical work or of intellectual activity, at the end of the process there is a large number of components which have to be assembled. Even more important, the quantity of pieces, the order in which various pieces come together, and the intermediary sequences of checks and balances (if something does not work, it is better to find out before the entire product is assembled) are essential. All these constitute the integration aspect, which requires the element of coordination through tools and methods.
The segmentation of work in order to reach higher efficiency is not arbitrary. The goal is to arrive at coherent units of simpler work, which in some ways are like the letters of an alphabet. In this model, production resembles writing different words by combining available letters. Segmentation of work takes place concomitant with the effort to conceive of tools appropriate to each segment in order to ensure the desired efficiency. In effect, to specialize means to be aware of and to master tools that correspond to a step in the sequence leading to the desired result-the final word, in keeping with our example. Conversely, what sometimes looks like excessive specialization in our day-e.g., in medicine, physics, mathematics, electronics, computer science, transportation-is the result of the propensity of each mediating element to engender a need for further mediations, which reflect expectations for efficiency. Simultaneously with the differentiation of work, language changed, becoming itself more differentiated.
The efficiency reached in specialization is higher than that of direct action and of low levels of labor division. With each new specialization of a mediating element, humans constitute a body of practical knowledge, in the form of experience, that can be used again and again. This body of knowledge reflects the complexity of the task and the scale in which it is exercised. For instance, stones (the Latin calcula) were used to represent quantities (just as the early English used stone as a measure of weight). Over the centuries, this practice led to the body of knowledge known as calculus and to coherent applications in various human endeavors. The physical presence of stones gave way to easier methods of calculation: the abacus, as well as to marks recorded on bone, shell, leather, and paper, to a number system, and to symbols for numbers. The vector of change starts at the materiality and heads towards the abstract-that is, from objects to signs.
Computers were invented as a tool for calculation, as well as for other activities. They are the result of the labor of philosophers, logicians, mathematicians, and finally technologists, who changed calculation from a physical to a cognitive practical experience. Boolean logic, binary numbers, and electronic gates are mediating elements that enhance the effectiveness of calculation by high orders of magnitude. As things stand today, computer technology has led to myriad specialties: design and production of chips; information processing at various levels; manufacture of components and their integration as machines; networking; visualization techniques; the creation of machine languages for rendering the illiterate input, and on and on. This development exemplifies the active character of each mediation, especially the open- endedness of the mediation process.
As an insertion, mediation proves powerful also in terms of the cognitive awareness it stimulates. Through mediating elements, such as signs, language, tools, and even ideas, the individual gets a different perspective on the practical experience. The distance introduced through mediation, between actions and results, is one of space-the lever, not the hand, touches the stone to be moved-and duration-the time it takes to execute an action. With each inserted third, i.e., with each mediation, seeds are planted for what will eventually result in a totally new category of practical experiences: the conception of plans. The power of insertion is actually that of acquiring a sense and a direction for the future.
Myth as mediating pre-text
Among the mediating elements mentioned so far, language performs its role in a particular way. Tools (such as pulleys, levers, gears, etc.) extend the arms or the legs, that is, the human body; language extends the coordinating capability of humans. Words, no matter how well articulated, will not turn the stone or lift the trunk of the fallen tree. They can be used to describe the problem, to enlist help, to discuss how the task can be accomplished, to render intelligible the sequence of accomplishing it. Once writing was developed, coordination was extended to apply from those physically present to people who could read, or to whom a text could be read if one did not have reading skills.
Language is in extension and succession of the pragmatic phase of immediate and direct appropriation of objects. As Leonard Bloomfield-probably a bit hasty in his generalization-observed, "…the division of labor (…) is due to language." Although different in nature from physical tools, language is instrumental: It is applied on something and embodies characteristics of human beings constituted in a practical experience that made language possible and necessary.
The mediating nature of early words and early articulated thoughts derived from their practical condition: medium for self-constitution (the voice externalizes the anatomy pertinent to producing and hearing sounds), and medium of exchange of experience (pertinent to nature or to others in the group). Early words are a record of the self-awareness of the human, denoting body parts and elementary actions. They also reflect the relational nature of the practical experience of those constituting viable groups. Researchers infer this from words, identified in proto-languages, that point to an other, or to coalitions, or to danger. What distinguished words from animal sounds was their coherence in extending the practical experience of appropriating a uniform survival strategy.