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FURTHER EXAMINATION OF THE BONDIAN ÁPPROACH
and social world, and it turns into the need for the world to be a just place, so
that it can be at home in it according to Bond. This need is what Bond sees as
the base of the self and calls radical innocence.
In his study on Bondian theory the psychologist Bill Roper defines radical
innocence as the ‘Pre-self’ and describes it as a
basic orientation of the newborn human towards the world, and of the world
towards it. That intrinsic to this new centre of awareness is its right to be; this is
gradually articulated into its right to be at home, to make the world its home and
for the world to be its home, which in time is further articulated into the right of
itself and others to be at home in the world. This is the positive site on which self,
understanding and character will come to be constructed.*”
Roper also explains that this pre-self cannot be defined as a psychological self
yet, and the transition to the next stage of formation is driven by the emerging
consciousness. Bond links the opening of the neonate consciousness of itself
as a separate entity to the recognition of the pattern in sensations of pleasure
and pain. He argues that perceiving pattern is the first ‘mind event’, it is
an act of consciousness that is the beginning of the formation of the self as it
turns the sensations into concepts, and the concepts form a reality parallel to
the experienced material reality in the mind. This is the beginning point of
creating a map of itself and the material reality in the mind. The mapping of the
world is also the creation of the self according to Bond." A crude translation
would be that the meaning attributed to the world is actually the self itself.
The reference point in this process of understanding is the neonate’s need to
be at home in the world, its radical innocence."
Asthe neonate becomes aware ofits surrounding a gap opens up betweenthe
rest of the world anditself. Imagination is central in making meaning and also
giving value according to Bond,*"© Amoiropoulos explains that imagination
312 Bill Roper: Imagination and Self in Edward Bond’s work, in David Davis (ed.): Edward Bond
and the Dramatic Child, Stoke on Trent, Trentham Books, 135.
313 Bond: Freedom and Drama, 207.
314 Bond: The Cap, xxiv.
315 A number of studies have pointed at concepts similar to Bond’s radical innocence in other
bodies of thought. Sahni (Sahni Urvashi: Keynote: Drama in Education: Finding self, finding
home. Caribbean Quarterly, vol. 53, 2007/2, 44.) links radical innocence with Atman¬
Brahman in Vedanta philosophy. Katafiasz (2008) argues that Bond’s theory can be better
understood through a Lacanian framework and compares radical innocence to ‘spectres’,
a part of the human psyche that resists symbolisation and are »not influenced by ideology«
(245). Amoiropoulos (2013) argues with Katafiasz about the usefulness of Lacanian terms
in understanding Bond’s work and points to Castoriadis’s theory that »overlaps largely with
Bond’s« (99). He also points out the differences between concepts used by them. I presented
these examples because they help to highlight that Bond’s concept is connected to a large
body of thought.
316 Ibid.
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