Re: commentary is a minstral show

If rationality is your enemy, you really ought to consider Duke's
self-contradictory discourses. Duke is most dangerous because, not
despite, the rejection of reason implicit in contemporary right-wing
politics. I guess we can only hope that the silent majority recognizes
the guy as a deviant, huh.








>From owner-foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Mon Jan 11 15:42:42 1999
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>Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 15:04:45 -0800 (PST)
>From: Tony Roberts <fdrtikol@xxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: commentary is a minstral show
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>Duke has announced for the seat Bob Livingston just resigned. A model
>based on the exit polls from Dukes' last two state-wide runs says he
>can and will win in this district. Dukes' audience changes if he goes
>into the house. To use Foucault's terms, Dukes' commentary moves
>closer to being knowledge and the commentary used to marginalize Duke
>becomes less plausible if Duke is elected by the same "decent people"
>who voted for the man the republicans wanted as their speaker.
>Remember, Livingston was pitched as a moderate who was reasonable and
>would compromise. What happens when the same folks that elected
>Livingston elect Duke? Does a person still have to be an extremist nut
>to vote for Duke? The minstral show was once a popular form. Dixie was
>written by a couple of guys from Ohio to be used in a minstral show.
>Duke is one possible future. I am remembering those discriptions of
>the folks from Kansas who came to California for the sunshine and the
>oranges given by Nathaniel West in "day of the locusts". They quickly
>got tired to death of sunshine and oranges. "He would paint their fury
>with respect, knowing that they had it in them to bring down a world."
>I think the real culture war may just be starting. I think the
>manufactured consent Chomsky likes to talk about may be close to
>breaking down. This could easilly have the same effect as the break-up
>of Yugoslavia. I think we live in interesting times.
> Sincerely,
> Tony Michael Roberts
>
>
>
>
>---Matthew Thrond <mthrond@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> One more thing:
>>
>> Tony,
>>
>> How does it affect your model when, for instance, only racists will
>be
>> watching the minstrel anyway? If in fact Duke's website constitutes
>a
>> subversive discourse to begin with, isn't its power to subvert
>limited
>> to its ability to mold undecided opinion in the direction of white
>> supremacy--powerful in this sense, given how many out there really
>don't
>> know what they think about human rights when the question is framed
>> differently, but not as much so to someone who found the site after
>> typing "White Pride. com" into the search engine? How is your
>theory to
>> control for the preexistent ideology of the viewer?
>>
>> I hope my comments are in some fashion helpful.
>>
>> Matt
>>
>>
>> >From owner-foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Mon Jan 11 08:33:44
>1999
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>> >Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 07:38:54 -0800 (PST)
>> >From: Tony Roberts <fdrtikol@xxxxxxxxx>
>> >Subject: commentary is a minstral show
>> >To: Michel Foucault <foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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>> >
>> >Commentary works to drain the shared life of some community of
>meaning
>> >and reality. This community is defined by shared beliefs which are
>> >deeper than assumptions in that they "go without saying" for
everyone
>> >in the community. To doubt this belief is precisely to become
>> >alienated from this community, is to stop constructing ones
immediate
>> >lived experience exclusivly within the limits of this communitys
>> >perspective. Alienation from a community is finally an ability to
see
>> >the limits of that communitys' perspective. These beliefs which go
>> >without saying are grammar rules which structure a shared space of
>> >experience where many important meanings are fixed and stabilized.
>> >Commentary works to unfix and destabilize this common sense or
>> >conventional wisdom which "everybody knows" in the community by
>> >bringing these contexting beliefs into question ,by telling an
>> >alternative story about what's going on. This story claims to be the
>> >"real truth" behind the delusion the poor benighted souls of the
>> >community live, in their ignorance, as truth. Imagine a modern day
>> >minstral show put on by David Duke and Company. Imagine it filmed
and
>> >distributed through Dukes' website. This minstral show would bring
>> >into question everything that must go without saying if being black
>> >means what most black people feel the need to think it means in
order
>> >to feel comfortable in their skins. To the extent that it succeeded
>in
>> >doing so, it would drain the black experience of all meaning and
>> >reality. It would define the point of view of the black community as
>> >delusion. Part of the neccessary ideological arsenal of any
>community,
>> >Jesse Jackson's or David Duke's, consists in commentaries which
>> >convincingly define the perspective of the other as pathological
>> >delusion. Power is finally the power to make ones' commentaries true
>> >for the people they are about. Resistence is finally resistence to
>the
>> >commentary of the other. In the animal kingdom, the rule is eat or
be
>> >eaten. In the human world, the rule is define or be defined. Power
is
>> >the power to define, to make knowledge a dispersion of what goes
>> >without saying from ones' own perspective and, at the same time, a
>> >commentary defining the alterity of the other as delusion and
>deviance.
>> > Any Comments,
>> > Tony Michael Roberts
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >==
>> >"I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no
>face. Do
>> not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to
>> our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order."
>> Michel Foucault
>> >
>> >_________________________________________________________
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>>
>>
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>
>==
>"I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face. Do
not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to
our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order."
Michel Foucault
>
>_________________________________________________________
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>Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
>
>


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