On Sun, 13 Apr 1997, Doug Henwood wrote:
> John Ransom wrote:
>
> >(A) Limit: Women are (ideally) perfectly proportioned sexual objects who
> >nevertheless find their sexuality constrained and shaped by the fashion
> >industry.
> >
> >Transgression: Burning bras at the Miss America pageant
> >
> >(B) Limit: Students are to be neatly dressed. In addition, certain
> >hairstyles are allowed for women but not men, and vice versa.
> >
> >Transgression: Students walk around shabbily dressed, refuse to bathe, and
> >men wear their hair long.
> >
> >(C) Limit: Workers are incapable of running factories and must rely on the
> >expertise of owners of capital to organize production and distribution.
> >
> >Transgression: Workers take over factories in 1917 under the banner of
> >"All Power to the Soviets" and do a pretty good job of running things on
> >their own.
> >
> >(D) Limit: Societal laws against murder and canibbalism
> >
> >Transgression: Jeffrey Dahmer eats lunch.
>
> So aren't you applying a single set of terms (limit-transgression) to 4
> very different phenomena, each of which has a perfectly fine name in itself
> (civil disobedience and/or protest, revolution, appalling crime)? Isn't
> this a step away from the particular and towards the obscuring and abstract
> Universal?
>
> Doug
>
>
No, the obscuring abstract universal is "revolution" or "civil
disobedience." These terms don't describe what's going on, they evaluate
what's going on. They color the phenomena.
--John
> John Ransom wrote:
>
> >(A) Limit: Women are (ideally) perfectly proportioned sexual objects who
> >nevertheless find their sexuality constrained and shaped by the fashion
> >industry.
> >
> >Transgression: Burning bras at the Miss America pageant
> >
> >(B) Limit: Students are to be neatly dressed. In addition, certain
> >hairstyles are allowed for women but not men, and vice versa.
> >
> >Transgression: Students walk around shabbily dressed, refuse to bathe, and
> >men wear their hair long.
> >
> >(C) Limit: Workers are incapable of running factories and must rely on the
> >expertise of owners of capital to organize production and distribution.
> >
> >Transgression: Workers take over factories in 1917 under the banner of
> >"All Power to the Soviets" and do a pretty good job of running things on
> >their own.
> >
> >(D) Limit: Societal laws against murder and canibbalism
> >
> >Transgression: Jeffrey Dahmer eats lunch.
>
> So aren't you applying a single set of terms (limit-transgression) to 4
> very different phenomena, each of which has a perfectly fine name in itself
> (civil disobedience and/or protest, revolution, appalling crime)? Isn't
> this a step away from the particular and towards the obscuring and abstract
> Universal?
>
> Doug
>
>
No, the obscuring abstract universal is "revolution" or "civil
disobedience." These terms don't describe what's going on, they evaluate
what's going on. They color the phenomena.
--John