I will perform to malcolm's script of what my position on "this" might be :)
-- the putative idealism of ours... and concur to the point of derrida with
a supplement.
I like to read derrida as suggesting the inverse of there is nothing outside
the text (perhaps i am making him lacanian): everything is always already
withIN text. one of my favorite teachers James Boon has a phrase which i
think is relevant (although he may not appreciate my appropriation):
entexted. [see his AFFINITIES AND EXTREMES] {does this duplicity count as a
double gesture you were asking for malcolm?}
for example, to get away from "actual pasts" and move "on" to "actual
reality" consider quarks. these are not pure idealist abstractions; and to
say that it is the theory that makes the reality of quarks real is not
idealism. why? because it is a complex apparatus of practices,
institutions, discourses, performances that is what actually makes quarks
actual. speaking from houston, this staging of this performance to
transform quarks from theoretical abstraction into reality had an 8 billion
price tag. what was this going to buy? reality! how? by building an 8 mile
race track around which white males in white coats and black ties and 6
digit salaries and expense accounts (assisted by a handful of females and
perhaps a male of color to hold the clipboards) could "drag race" their
favorite quark at greater than the speed of sound or light or trillion
dollar deficits i cannot remember how they werre to measure the speed;) ---
you know also that the scientists called them such things as "heavier
brother" "cousin" -- the whole lingo of a nuclear family kinship system --
the reality of quarks was precisely to be created in the "speech acts" and
performativity of language/discourse. and the correct question, as malcolm,
poses, is not do quarks really exist? but at whose and what cost is it to
come into existence? WHO PAID/PAYS THE BILL (literal and physical) FOR THE
ONGOING CONSTRUCTION OF THE so called ACTUAL PAST and of the so called
REALITY OF THE PRESENT?
quetzil.
At 12:19 PM 5/1/96 -0700, you wrote:
>One more thing before I extricate myself from this thread. Vis-a-vis the
>supposed linguistic idealism of my posts and quetzil's posts, I think the
>notion of construction articulated by Judith Butler in _Bodies that
>Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex"_ is pertinent. What I am
>suggesting (and what I think quetzil is arguing) is not linguistic
>idealism - rather, it is a poststructuralist speech-act theory (of sorts
>- I'm reducing things here of course). As Butler says:
>
>"To claim that the materiality of sex is constructed through a ritualized
>repetition of norms is hardly a self-evident claim. Indeed, our customary
>notions of "construction" seem to get in the way of understanding such a
>claim. For surely bodies live and die; eat and sleep; feel pain,
>pleasure; endure illness and violence; and these "facts," one might
>skeptically claim, cannot be dismissed as mere construction. Surely there
>must be some kind of necessity that accompanies these primary and
>irrefutable experiences. And surely there is. But there irrefutability in
>no way implies what it might mean to affirm them and through what
>discursive means. Moreover, why is it that what is constructed is
>understood as an artificial and dispensible character?"
>
>Thus, to postulate an actual past is a discursive act articulated towards
>and within the present set of discursive regularities - and thus acquires
>whatever meaning it acquires not from its nominal object (the past) but
>from its function within a discursive regime. When one wants to
>understand the function and tactical efficacy of a given history, the
>reality or unreality of its object is totally irrelevant. Now, this is
>not to deny the reality of an actual past. It is only to state that,
>within a Foucauldian project (analysing the function and tactical
>efficacy of discourses), such an object is beside the point. Under what
>conditions, and in whose interests, can a specific history be produced?
>How does it circulate? What criteria of evidence and truth does it rely
>on and construct anew?
>
>Also, Derrida knows (why don't his disciples, or at least his quoters?)
>that his project is always already doomed to failure, in that every
>attempt to reach beyond language only circumscribes the other within it.
>But, of course, it is doomed to failure and not doomed to failure at the
>same time. Double-gesture, anyone?
>
>Linguistic idealism or lingusitic monism is a silly charge to level at
>quetzil and myself. Try actually *reading* our posts.
>
>bye bye. my next post will be regarding the question of race in the
>context of a Foucauldian analysis of pornography, that chloe brought up.
>Excellent question - hopefully it'll generate more productive discussion
>than the "actual past". I'm sorry I brought it up.
>
>fight the power.
>malcolm
>
>
-- the putative idealism of ours... and concur to the point of derrida with
a supplement.
I like to read derrida as suggesting the inverse of there is nothing outside
the text (perhaps i am making him lacanian): everything is always already
withIN text. one of my favorite teachers James Boon has a phrase which i
think is relevant (although he may not appreciate my appropriation):
entexted. [see his AFFINITIES AND EXTREMES] {does this duplicity count as a
double gesture you were asking for malcolm?}
for example, to get away from "actual pasts" and move "on" to "actual
reality" consider quarks. these are not pure idealist abstractions; and to
say that it is the theory that makes the reality of quarks real is not
idealism. why? because it is a complex apparatus of practices,
institutions, discourses, performances that is what actually makes quarks
actual. speaking from houston, this staging of this performance to
transform quarks from theoretical abstraction into reality had an 8 billion
price tag. what was this going to buy? reality! how? by building an 8 mile
race track around which white males in white coats and black ties and 6
digit salaries and expense accounts (assisted by a handful of females and
perhaps a male of color to hold the clipboards) could "drag race" their
favorite quark at greater than the speed of sound or light or trillion
dollar deficits i cannot remember how they werre to measure the speed;) ---
you know also that the scientists called them such things as "heavier
brother" "cousin" -- the whole lingo of a nuclear family kinship system --
the reality of quarks was precisely to be created in the "speech acts" and
performativity of language/discourse. and the correct question, as malcolm,
poses, is not do quarks really exist? but at whose and what cost is it to
come into existence? WHO PAID/PAYS THE BILL (literal and physical) FOR THE
ONGOING CONSTRUCTION OF THE so called ACTUAL PAST and of the so called
REALITY OF THE PRESENT?
quetzil.
At 12:19 PM 5/1/96 -0700, you wrote:
>One more thing before I extricate myself from this thread. Vis-a-vis the
>supposed linguistic idealism of my posts and quetzil's posts, I think the
>notion of construction articulated by Judith Butler in _Bodies that
>Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex"_ is pertinent. What I am
>suggesting (and what I think quetzil is arguing) is not linguistic
>idealism - rather, it is a poststructuralist speech-act theory (of sorts
>- I'm reducing things here of course). As Butler says:
>
>"To claim that the materiality of sex is constructed through a ritualized
>repetition of norms is hardly a self-evident claim. Indeed, our customary
>notions of "construction" seem to get in the way of understanding such a
>claim. For surely bodies live and die; eat and sleep; feel pain,
>pleasure; endure illness and violence; and these "facts," one might
>skeptically claim, cannot be dismissed as mere construction. Surely there
>must be some kind of necessity that accompanies these primary and
>irrefutable experiences. And surely there is. But there irrefutability in
>no way implies what it might mean to affirm them and through what
>discursive means. Moreover, why is it that what is constructed is
>understood as an artificial and dispensible character?"
>
>Thus, to postulate an actual past is a discursive act articulated towards
>and within the present set of discursive regularities - and thus acquires
>whatever meaning it acquires not from its nominal object (the past) but
>from its function within a discursive regime. When one wants to
>understand the function and tactical efficacy of a given history, the
>reality or unreality of its object is totally irrelevant. Now, this is
>not to deny the reality of an actual past. It is only to state that,
>within a Foucauldian project (analysing the function and tactical
>efficacy of discourses), such an object is beside the point. Under what
>conditions, and in whose interests, can a specific history be produced?
>How does it circulate? What criteria of evidence and truth does it rely
>on and construct anew?
>
>Also, Derrida knows (why don't his disciples, or at least his quoters?)
>that his project is always already doomed to failure, in that every
>attempt to reach beyond language only circumscribes the other within it.
>But, of course, it is doomed to failure and not doomed to failure at the
>same time. Double-gesture, anyone?
>
>Linguistic idealism or lingusitic monism is a silly charge to level at
>quetzil and myself. Try actually *reading* our posts.
>
>bye bye. my next post will be regarding the question of race in the
>context of a Foucauldian analysis of pornography, that chloe brought up.
>Excellent question - hopefully it'll generate more productive discussion
>than the "actual past". I'm sorry I brought it up.
>
>fight the power.
>malcolm
>
>