At 10:45 AM 7/22/96 +0000, you wrote:
>
>Karl: Er...diane, I was wondering whether there is any point
>responding to the following "trash". However I eventually decided to
>reply, despite being like yourself a very busy bee, in the hope that
>someone on the List may realise how loquacious and empty some
>pomo stuff is.
>
>Diane: Err...karl, whoever you are, please don't be personally
>offended by the fact that I've been trashin foucault/french
>fem/d&g/baudrillard/and ACW-L messages for the last few weeks and that
>one of yours happened to be one of them. I did mention that I'm busy
>as hell right now, no? And yes, of course I know there are archives.
>But ya know, I've got to admit that nothing in your post made me want
>to hop over there and sift through them. I did indeed scroll down and
>see my message attached to yours, though. Your message doesn't really
>click for me...even with the context. Here's what you said:
>
>Karl: It is not possible to conceive or experience the human body
>independently of human reality. All reality is human.
>
>Diane: Bit terminology problem here. What do you mean "independent of
>human reality"? And what do you mean "all reality is human"? How does
>this relate to my comments about butler? I can't tell if we're
>agreeing or disagreeing or talkinga bout something else all together.
>
>Even if "all reality is human" (and who knows? The X-files makes
>me wonder), that doesn't mean all humans call the same fantasy
>"reality." Dig? The body is fantasmatically constructed across
>our own interpretive/ideological grids and then made iterable.
>Butler is suggesting that if there is something we can call the
>"matter" of the body, it is always already mediated by language
>and/or interpretation.
>
>Karl: So you are saying that if a person is knocked down by an
>automobile and severely injured that this is a fantasy of some "human"
>and that it does not necessarily mean that other "humans" would
>entertain this fantasy. The conclusion then is that the person in
>question has not been necessarily knocked down by the automobile and
>severely injured. Instead it is just mere fantasy. It never really
>happened. It is a purely subjective matter: the fantasy created by an
>individual.
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
No! In the case where a human is hit by an automobile and severely injured,
the language "mediating" this situation does not employ verbal definition,
rather, ostensible definition describes the event. Human, automobile,
injury, body--these are "things" we can point at in order to define them.
The signified exists in space and time. The signifiers relate to
substantives. These "things" are NOT purely subjective.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
>Err... Diane what unadulterated nonsense. Dig?
>
>Incidentally you ask: What do you mean "all reality is human" and
>then proceed to discuss this very description. If you do not know
>what my description means then how can you proceed to discuss it as
>if you do know? Perhaps of course this is just one more fantasy.
>
>Furthermore there is nothing in my message to suggest that I have been
>personally offended, by above all, your mail. Perhaps you were
>"fantastamically" constructing my "message" across your own
>"interpretative/ideological grid." hehhe.
>
>Diane: We can't know anything called "pure"
>matter. Just as there is no "reality" that is not the fantasy of
>a certain system or systems of thought, understanding. Reality,
>as well as the body, is always mediated by our own cognitive
>grids...by what is iterable, thinkable, knowable. Butler never
>suggests that we might access the "body" as it's "natural" self.
>She's saying quite the opposite.
>
>Karl: Then the "body" is a fantasamical construct. In other words as
>fantasy or image or whatever kind of weird yuppie language you want
>to use bodies don't objectively exist. It is all in the head. When I
>catch a cold I am fantasising. I don't really have a "cold" at all.
>The " cold" is just a word. Indeed the doctor only concludes that I
>have a "cold" as medium through which power asserts itself. The "cold" as a
>word is a fantasmatical construct (this yuppie language is an
>amusement). The "cold" is the medical doctor and I fantastamically
>constructing the "cold" across our own interpretative/ideological
>grid. But even then maybe the doctor is a fantasy of mine too.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
Same point here--the "cold" is not a "verbal" construct. It exists in space
and time. The word "cold" signifies a condition that is
ostensible--sneezes, fever, stuffiness. The interpretive grid for the term
"cold" relies on just a few other words to get at the meaning ("sneeze"
"fever" "stuffiness"). Interpreting "cold" leads us directly to a handful
of substantives that effectively define the term.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
>When people were tortured and killed in the German death camps by the
>Nazis during the second worl war we only think that this is what happened.
>It is merely our subjective way of experiencing "reality". It is not
>objective. Indeed there are reactionary historians who claim that there
>never were concentration camps: "an ideological construct" developed by
>certain interests.Ya know!
> Yours etc.,
> Karl Carlile
>
>
>
>Karl: Er...diane, I was wondering whether there is any point
>responding to the following "trash". However I eventually decided to
>reply, despite being like yourself a very busy bee, in the hope that
>someone on the List may realise how loquacious and empty some
>pomo stuff is.
>
>Diane: Err...karl, whoever you are, please don't be personally
>offended by the fact that I've been trashin foucault/french
>fem/d&g/baudrillard/and ACW-L messages for the last few weeks and that
>one of yours happened to be one of them. I did mention that I'm busy
>as hell right now, no? And yes, of course I know there are archives.
>But ya know, I've got to admit that nothing in your post made me want
>to hop over there and sift through them. I did indeed scroll down and
>see my message attached to yours, though. Your message doesn't really
>click for me...even with the context. Here's what you said:
>
>Karl: It is not possible to conceive or experience the human body
>independently of human reality. All reality is human.
>
>Diane: Bit terminology problem here. What do you mean "independent of
>human reality"? And what do you mean "all reality is human"? How does
>this relate to my comments about butler? I can't tell if we're
>agreeing or disagreeing or talkinga bout something else all together.
>
>Even if "all reality is human" (and who knows? The X-files makes
>me wonder), that doesn't mean all humans call the same fantasy
>"reality." Dig? The body is fantasmatically constructed across
>our own interpretive/ideological grids and then made iterable.
>Butler is suggesting that if there is something we can call the
>"matter" of the body, it is always already mediated by language
>and/or interpretation.
>
>Karl: So you are saying that if a person is knocked down by an
>automobile and severely injured that this is a fantasy of some "human"
>and that it does not necessarily mean that other "humans" would
>entertain this fantasy. The conclusion then is that the person in
>question has not been necessarily knocked down by the automobile and
>severely injured. Instead it is just mere fantasy. It never really
>happened. It is a purely subjective matter: the fantasy created by an
>individual.
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
No! In the case where a human is hit by an automobile and severely injured,
the language "mediating" this situation does not employ verbal definition,
rather, ostensible definition describes the event. Human, automobile,
injury, body--these are "things" we can point at in order to define them.
The signified exists in space and time. The signifiers relate to
substantives. These "things" are NOT purely subjective.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
>Err... Diane what unadulterated nonsense. Dig?
>
>Incidentally you ask: What do you mean "all reality is human" and
>then proceed to discuss this very description. If you do not know
>what my description means then how can you proceed to discuss it as
>if you do know? Perhaps of course this is just one more fantasy.
>
>Furthermore there is nothing in my message to suggest that I have been
>personally offended, by above all, your mail. Perhaps you were
>"fantastamically" constructing my "message" across your own
>"interpretative/ideological grid." hehhe.
>
>Diane: We can't know anything called "pure"
>matter. Just as there is no "reality" that is not the fantasy of
>a certain system or systems of thought, understanding. Reality,
>as well as the body, is always mediated by our own cognitive
>grids...by what is iterable, thinkable, knowable. Butler never
>suggests that we might access the "body" as it's "natural" self.
>She's saying quite the opposite.
>
>Karl: Then the "body" is a fantasamical construct. In other words as
>fantasy or image or whatever kind of weird yuppie language you want
>to use bodies don't objectively exist. It is all in the head. When I
>catch a cold I am fantasising. I don't really have a "cold" at all.
>The " cold" is just a word. Indeed the doctor only concludes that I
>have a "cold" as medium through which power asserts itself. The "cold" as a
>word is a fantasmatical construct (this yuppie language is an
>amusement). The "cold" is the medical doctor and I fantastamically
>constructing the "cold" across our own interpretative/ideological
>grid. But even then maybe the doctor is a fantasy of mine too.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
Same point here--the "cold" is not a "verbal" construct. It exists in space
and time. The word "cold" signifies a condition that is
ostensible--sneezes, fever, stuffiness. The interpretive grid for the term
"cold" relies on just a few other words to get at the meaning ("sneeze"
"fever" "stuffiness"). Interpreting "cold" leads us directly to a handful
of substantives that effectively define the term.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
>When people were tortured and killed in the German death camps by the
>Nazis during the second worl war we only think that this is what happened.
>It is merely our subjective way of experiencing "reality". It is not
>objective. Indeed there are reactionary historians who claim that there
>never were concentration camps: "an ideological construct" developed by
>certain interests.Ya know!
> Yours etc.,
> Karl Carlile
>
>