Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> At 6:01 AM -0500 3/24/97, D. Diane Davis wrote:
>
> >Epistemic or epistemological violence: dragging the discourse/language
> >game/phrase universe of the Other across another one that it should not
> >be held responsible for in order to clobber it. Example: when an
> >Enlightenment spokesperson calls a post-structuralist a RELATIVIST in
> >order to dismiss her, this is epistemic violence. Because the
> >post-structuralist does not recognize the distinction between the
> >'absolute' and the 'relative.' For her, there is nothing BUT the
> >relative, and the question is about how to go about negotiating it
> >ethically.
>
> Doesn't this characterization do "epistemic violence" to the
> "Enlightenment"? Don't all those post-structuralists create a myth of a
> unitary Enlightenment discourse when in fact Western writers of the 18th,
> 19th, and early 20th century have spent a lot of time controversializing
> over the nature of the subject, our understanding of the world, etc. etc.?
>
> Doug
You're kidding, right? This example has nada to do with what I think of
the "Enlightenment." It has even less to do with who's 'right'--pomo-ers
or enlightenment-ers. It has to do with the notion that some discourse
arenas are not commensurable. Epistemic violence: judging one genre of
discourse across the rules of another. It's probably inevitable. Maybe
not, but Lyotard decides it is. At any rate--your example is as good as
mine. In both instances, someone got clobbered 'unjustly,' got clobbered
because the rules of cognition by which the 'case' was judged were not
ones that the clobbered party recognized or validated.
ddd
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D D
D D. Diane Davis D
D Rhetoric and Composition D
D Old Dominion University D
D dddavis@xxxxxxxx D
D http://www.odu.edu/gnusers/davis/ddd.htm D
D D
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>
> At 6:01 AM -0500 3/24/97, D. Diane Davis wrote:
>
> >Epistemic or epistemological violence: dragging the discourse/language
> >game/phrase universe of the Other across another one that it should not
> >be held responsible for in order to clobber it. Example: when an
> >Enlightenment spokesperson calls a post-structuralist a RELATIVIST in
> >order to dismiss her, this is epistemic violence. Because the
> >post-structuralist does not recognize the distinction between the
> >'absolute' and the 'relative.' For her, there is nothing BUT the
> >relative, and the question is about how to go about negotiating it
> >ethically.
>
> Doesn't this characterization do "epistemic violence" to the
> "Enlightenment"? Don't all those post-structuralists create a myth of a
> unitary Enlightenment discourse when in fact Western writers of the 18th,
> 19th, and early 20th century have spent a lot of time controversializing
> over the nature of the subject, our understanding of the world, etc. etc.?
>
> Doug
You're kidding, right? This example has nada to do with what I think of
the "Enlightenment." It has even less to do with who's 'right'--pomo-ers
or enlightenment-ers. It has to do with the notion that some discourse
arenas are not commensurable. Epistemic violence: judging one genre of
discourse across the rules of another. It's probably inevitable. Maybe
not, but Lyotard decides it is. At any rate--your example is as good as
mine. In both instances, someone got clobbered 'unjustly,' got clobbered
because the rules of cognition by which the 'case' was judged were not
ones that the clobbered party recognized or validated.
ddd
--
DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
D D
D D. Diane Davis D
D Rhetoric and Composition D
D Old Dominion University D
D dddavis@xxxxxxxx D
D http://www.odu.edu/gnusers/davis/ddd.htm D
D D
DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD