Dear Quetzil
Thanks very much for taking so much time to answer my comments. I now
have a much clearer understanding of your position, though I'm not
entirely in agreement. Just a couple of points - and then I'm not
sure it will be especially fruitful to continue this thread (though
response will, of course, be welcomed)
You:
" i imagine F. to say there was indeed an actual past, but that we
have no access to its true meaning or true actuality except
through the discusrive conttestations and practices available to
"us" at the moment of trying to access that past. and thus, also
our debate is irreducibleyy framed by the history of those
practices/discursive regulations and contestations."
and, re. Butler:
" thus, that reality has lets call it a "range" of meaning/values and
exists because of that range. but it is within that "range" of
meanings that we contest the particularites such that we can debate
what really was the really actual of actual real."
Perhaps this is just a quibble over our use of words - but I'd say
that both these passages support the distinction between the 'real'
and its 'meaning'. I do accept your point that those meanings are so
solidly inescapable that they constitute the only world we can know,
but I still think it's useful to distinguish between a prior
'reality' and this post hoc framework of imposed interpretations
which we just loosely call reality - which could be called our
'actuality' (forgive my loose employment of terms which probably have
established philosophical meanings, but of which I'm ignorant -
consider this my tutorial). Thus our epistemological access to
'reality' is precluded by those 'discursive practices/regulations' -
and that gives us grounds for contestation - but that does not deny
an ontological 'real'. And that 'real', though ultimately unknowable
- because even 'quarks' are conceptualisations linguistically
constructed within our web of theory - is important to assert,
because it has profound impact on the 'actual' world we CAN know -
i.e. bombs explode. It therefore provides the ultimate vindication of
our knowledge - perhaps we can never be right about 'reality', but we
can be shown to be wrong. And it is THIS assertion of a 'real'
constraining possible knowledges that for me provides the
justification of political action - contestations among often
incommensurable knowledges - yes - but some of which are *wrong* and
can be shown to be. If we relinquish any notion of the prior 'real',
then we slip from what I see as epistemological relativism (and
surely in order to say there is a plurality of perspectives, one
must assume the existence of one object?), which is healthy in so
far as it promotes tolerance of others, to what I called
epistemological nihilism (if there is no 'reality' to condition our
knowledges, then we cannot claim there is anything outside ourselves
at all - is this not solipsism?), and this renders political
debate purposeless (not meaningless) because there can never be
grounds to refute anything and therefore no grounds for ANY justified
belief. Isn't this what Baudrillard is on about when he analyses
'simulacra' and claims 'there was no Gulf War' - and if the Gulf War
existed only in a web of media representation, then there can be no
reasons to protest against it (which, presumably, is the point of
controlled media, i.e. epistemological access to 'reality',
creation of an 'actuality')?
You:
"everything about the world we live in is the result of human agencies
in conflicts and unharmonious complicities"
Please, not *everything* about it, not its physical existence, only
our knowledges of it - i.e. its 'meanings'.
You:
"well, the foucaultian argument is that ontology is not a valid
ground to which to appeal for truth. its is in fact, the argument
goes, caught, undergirded, constituted by power/knowledge relations."
I agree, the appeal to 'truth' is impossible - but not because
'ontology' is constituted - only our feasible knowledge of it (am I
repeating myself?). To my mind, anyway, appeals to ultimate truth(s)
are pretty dangerous. But I like the possibility of refuting
falsehoods. [We can never say all swans are absolutely definitely all
white - but it is possible, if we see one black swan, to say that it
is NOT TRUE that all swans .... [does this example have implications
I'm not going to be happy with? I've a feeling it might]).
You:
"the issue was less the actuallity of the death of the body called
bamaca, but the MEANING of torture, death, cia involvement,
anglo-white women involvement with Maya males and wtih guatemlana
govt., etc etc. is the actuality of the past simply a dead body with
X quantity of certain types of torture? no. its other than that."
Thanks for the fascinating story of Jennifer Harbury and Bamaca. It's
always good to think about theory in terms of 'reality' (let that
pass). But surely, again, it supports my assertion that there is one
'fact' that the man was/wasn't dead (and, callous as it amy sound, I
do believe that the 'reality' of the past IS "simply a dead body with
X quantity of certain types of torture") - this was not KNOWN - and
another thing that is its 'meaning', its 'actuality', the 'issue'. I
entirely agree with you that *meaning* is what must concern us for
the sake of political action, it's all we have access to, anyway. And
that the problem of meaning can arise in this case without any
*epistemological* certainty as to the occurrence of the death just
goes to prove that knowledges and ontology are two separate things.
Nevertheless, the issues of meaning would not have arisen if it
hadn't been for a so far unrefuted contextual knowledge of political
violence, racism, CIA involvement - and though the the nature of that
knowledge itself ('actuality') may be inextricably entwined in
discourse, surely it would be nonsensical to suggest that the prior
reality played no part in forming that knowledge. Surely 'Moi, Pierre
Riviere' assumes that deaths DID occur, and is just concerned to
dissect the versions of what they *meant* - which is more important
and interesting, but dependent on the initial happening.
Knowledge, in that case, means that so far, nothing has happened to
convince me that the means of acquiring that knowledge of 'reality' -
for example, my sight of a dead body - is NOT a viable
epistemological mechanism, and therefore, for the time being, I can
assume that my knowledge (my 'actuality') is congruent with
'reality'. Other mechanisms, such as memory, sound, hearsay, and
sight too, sometimes, have in the past proven to be mistaken, so I am
more aware of a dislocation between 'actuality' and 'reality'. Thus I
establish (well, I'm sure that I don't, but someone does) a pragmatic
epistemology giving what I believe to be justifiable grounds for
minimum belief (as I said previously, this constirutes a non-logical
foundationalist grounds, or a form of coherentist system). Some
foundations of belief are more deeply flawed than other. I certainly
do NOT believe everything I read in the press, for example, nor do I
take as anything more than *highly* provisional the 'reality'
described in the documents I read on Stalin's Russia - but
that does not mean I deny that I can ever have by any means - for all
intents and purposes - knowledge of the subject that does approximate
to the 'reality' of the past.
Thanks for your patience - that's all from me on this topic - I
think I've exhausted my understanding. I'm off to read the 'Beano'
and learn how to write more concisely.
yours
Nick