Oh would some power the gift give us, To see ourselves as others see us.
Charles Brown
>>> <curtiss_leung at ibi.com> 08/05/99 05:48PM >>>
> To drawn this into capitalism - how do you know that we aren't
> just workers in a huge factory system. Well, we are. I know
> this because I'm able to take a self-reflective postion outside
> of myself that sees you and me in this factory. But this
> position doesn't exist! I am in the factory. You are in the
> factory. But how do we know this? We imagine it. We create
> a vantage point outside of ourselves and look in through the
> windows. And having this vantage point is precisely what
> permits the critique of ideology - which really means - the
> critique of ideology is a perspective issuing straight from the
> Other.
But that "imaginary," "exterior," "Other" position is only a
transitory phase (maybe aspect is a better word) of one's awareness
and self-awareness -- if what one posits in that phase/aspect is
consistent with other phases/aspects of self and self-awareness, then
it becomes reasonable to relax one's doubts about the reality of the
"imaginary-ness," "Other-ness" of that position outside the factory.
In this case, I'd say the ideology critique has to be dialectical, in
the sense that it must take into account both the certain, interior
perspective and the hypothetical, exterior perspective.
I'll stop now before I put my foot too far down my throat.
--
Curtiss