Erik wrote:
> Hmm, although I usually agree with you, Malgosia, I think that this is
> precisely where poststructuralism gets itself in "trouble." Yes, it
> undermines many (but not all) of the basic tenets of liberal Western
> democracy, but it remains in the negative mode, unable to come up with a
> new vision (and I'm glad about this) that is strctured according to
> values other than autonomy, self-determination, and equality (however
> much these terms may be problematized). As a result, poststructuralism
> is reformist by default.
Well, now that this discussion is moving away from reductive gesticulating,
I am somewhat hesitant to continue talking in terms of "poststructuralism".
But suspending this hesitation for the moment, I think it is misleading
to call this mode of operation "negative", in the same way in which it would
be misleading to say that the Surrealist program of "derangement of the senses"
was "negative". Now I am not trying to draw a parallel between the Surrealist
program and the modes of thought we glob under the term "poststruct". But
the Surrealists were trying, through the systematic unhinging of certain
habits, to make way for new kinds of creative energy. Similarly, I believe
that the "poststructuralist" unhinging is aimed at releasing -- I don't
know if this is a good term -- new forms of political thinking, ones not
necesarily -- or perhaps one necessarily _not_ -- productive of "visions"
as we historically understand the term. I am not trying to suggest
a teleology, and I want to avoid dreaded considerations of "optimism", but
I do think that there is, inherent in this unhinging, a joyousness which
is not "simply" a joyousness of destruction, but of opening oneself
to the new, and thus of creation. I think this "thus" is always present,
but where does it come from? Is it axiomatic, as it were?
Ah, on this note I will end...
-malgosia
------------------
> Hmm, although I usually agree with you, Malgosia, I think that this is
> precisely where poststructuralism gets itself in "trouble." Yes, it
> undermines many (but not all) of the basic tenets of liberal Western
> democracy, but it remains in the negative mode, unable to come up with a
> new vision (and I'm glad about this) that is strctured according to
> values other than autonomy, self-determination, and equality (however
> much these terms may be problematized). As a result, poststructuralism
> is reformist by default.
Well, now that this discussion is moving away from reductive gesticulating,
I am somewhat hesitant to continue talking in terms of "poststructuralism".
But suspending this hesitation for the moment, I think it is misleading
to call this mode of operation "negative", in the same way in which it would
be misleading to say that the Surrealist program of "derangement of the senses"
was "negative". Now I am not trying to draw a parallel between the Surrealist
program and the modes of thought we glob under the term "poststruct". But
the Surrealists were trying, through the systematic unhinging of certain
habits, to make way for new kinds of creative energy. Similarly, I believe
that the "poststructuralist" unhinging is aimed at releasing -- I don't
know if this is a good term -- new forms of political thinking, ones not
necesarily -- or perhaps one necessarily _not_ -- productive of "visions"
as we historically understand the term. I am not trying to suggest
a teleology, and I want to avoid dreaded considerations of "optimism", but
I do think that there is, inherent in this unhinging, a joyousness which
is not "simply" a joyousness of destruction, but of opening oneself
to the new, and thus of creation. I think this "thus" is always present,
but where does it come from? Is it axiomatic, as it were?
Ah, on this note I will end...
-malgosia
------------------