methodological dualism & hidden injuries of class

ken kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca
Fri Jul 23 19:22:40 PDT 1999


On Fri, 23 Jul 1999 18:16:48 -0400 Barbie wrote:


> excuse our Neurosis.

This is precisely where forms of resistance are to be found. In contrast to the pervert and the psychotic, Zizek identifies, in the hysteric, the moment of critical and cynical doubt. Maybe we don't have the answers? Maybe Coke isn't it!


> > The aim to transcend this is a political project, in the
Castoriadisian sense, not a theoretical project.


> explain....? but if i'm gettin' ya: NO SHIT

Theory can't tell you want to do. The truth may in fact be true, hell, it might even be objective, but this does not exclude it from ideology. If the ideology is true, so much the better. So in terms of transcending racism, nationalism, and class struggle - these are the aims of phronesis, not theory. Theory, in the Slovene Lacanian School, outlines failure, and criticizes that which claims to be successful.


> if the subject is an historical production, if it is contingent, if
it is broadly conventional then it has not always been this way and, theoretically, it won't always be this way. WHAT ACCOUNTS FOR CHANGE?

Quantum physics, evolutionary biology, chaoplexity, neuroscience, the Big Bang... maybe even superstring. What are you looking for? The origins of contingency can be explained by Einstein's theory of relativity, which actually coincides with the second draft of Schelling's "Ages of the World." Take your pick.


> aporetics honey bunch.

Isn't that what I said?


> the Real=that which cannot be articulated in language, that
which can't be symbolized into abstract utterances and identified. did i get it right teach?

I'm stepping into a trap here so I'll sidestep it like this: the Real is that which *hasn't* been articulated into language. Every act of symbolization is a bringing into language something of the Real... but there is a remainder. Got it?


> noper. you've made a big leap here from the Real is where
'isms' are located and the Real can't be articulated.....so how can you say they're located in the Real. ideologies are sure as hell articulated. but i suspect you mean something else.

See above. If the Real couldn't be symbolized, in fragments, then consciousness couldn't exist.


> If class struggle exists, if we live within it, then it cannot be
explored with a scientific objectivating procedure.


> uh yeah. this is NOT a new claim. marx? where do you
think the sociology of knowledge and science came from? and quickly thereafter, the sociology of sociology? and quickly thereafter the recognition that we're fucked!?

Wouldn't Marx have maintained that class struggle can be theorized adequately? (in the sense Hegelian sublation).


> > Now if you want to say that this denies the social
character of class struggle, then you have to admit that science *can* grasp it completely, or you are forced into the position of denying that class struggle exists at all!


> kantian ken, you'll have to explain this philosophical
maneuver for me.

Class struggle exists. We live in it. Thought cannot reflect itself outside of historical contingency. The unconscious is not transparent. If these statements are correct, then class struggle is Real and not merely imagined. If class struggle is not Real, then (obviously) you either have to deny that it exists or maintain that all human beings are identical.


> > So these kind of Lacanian investigations are highly
sensitive to change... and well away that history isn't a baseball bat that you hit people as a form of correctional social conditioning. Lacanian analysis resists this.


> so do a lot of other theories ken. marxist and feminist
scholarship in particular vigorously resist this as well.

Yes. But how do you explain their failure as political projects?


> and just what exactly is zizek doing if not engaging in
procedures of interrogation?

There is a difference between theoretical interrogation and actually sitting in a room with other people for infinity yelling at each other and making accusations of performative contradictions and normative defeceits. Habermas seeks (in theory) to reduce (unintentionally I believe) democracy to a procedure and not an ongoing praxis.


> ahem: "the Slovene Lacanian School, in general, is
attempting to provide a detailed map of ideological structures within culture. " [At 04:38 PM 7/23/99 PDT dream date ken wrote this]

Yeah, I noticed that too. Strange isn't it.


> everyone has to locate themselves in a methodology
chapter and demonstrate that they understand the methodological debates and locate their research within that context.

Yes... theory = confession. It's good for the soul. Some might even say that this is postmodern!


> so, it seem to me that this is where there's a difference. not
simply in the recognition that theorists/researchers are part of the world they study and translate that world into the symbolic imaginary of theory and social research, but that lacan insists that the project of self-reflexive understanding is a logical and empirical impossibility.

What is the symbolic imaginary?

I'd say that transcendent self-reflexive understanding is a logical and empirical impossibility...

Know thyself?

I can because I must.

But I'm just not sure.

Welcome to modernity.

ken



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