> i specifically pointed to the "cartographers are on the map"
defense and pointed out that the strategy here was rortian in a
few ways..... but, you still didn't answer my question nor did
you try to find out what i was asking for if you didn't quite
understand. this strategy of argumentation is a problem and i
will continue to wonder how much of it is related to zizek's
own methodology butwill reserve judgment. but that both you
and ange did it does make me wonder. so mebbe later baby
and i'll turn my biting criticism to the ole boy.
It is solved this way: reality as we experience it is contradictory. The view from nowhere requires the elimination of the subject, and the view from somewhere requires an intentional self-inflicted blindness. Rorty would say that we can't pull ourselves up into the sky from our bootstraps. Sure, this makes sense. But the position here is different than Rorty's because it acknowledges the gap in the context of clarification rather than simply tossing one's hands up in the air and saying, "That's life!"
> otherwise, i cut you a lot of slack because i know you very
well, we're old buds. so i know when you're being a shit for
the hell of it and when you're not --most of the time. but i must
say that quite a bit of evasion does go on in these exchanges.
but i don't mind the play..... so.
Thanks for playing along. As you well know, sometimes (most of the time) I miss the point. I think my narcissims stems from receiving a good education.
> as for bernstein, well gosh-a-golly i was unaware that
quoting one quote from a text automatically meant that i
bought in to everything the guy has written. say ken, i have
an idea: read the man on pluralism and then tell me about
communitarianism. read him on derrida, levinas, heidegger,
foucault etc and then tell me about how he supports some
ideal of transparent face-to-face communicative action. i mean
seriously read and show me exactly how he support this
instead of just asserting it. oh yeah, and then maybe read
what he has to say about rorty and pragmatism and tell
me that pragmatism can be reduced to the ridiculous slogan,
"whatever works" pragmatism does NOT support an
instrumentalist epistemology, though rorty may support a
'whatever works' theory of action.
"In the modern world... unity and harmony has been fragmented...."
"But this 'unhappy consciousness' also contains within itself the promise, the possibility and the *necessity* [emphasis in text] of reconciliation."
"We can relate the thematics of diremption and reconciliation to the metaphorics of homelessness and homecoming."
"Reconciliation / rupture are themselves irreducible elements of this new constellation... we *must* [emphasis mine] seek to do justice to both elements, without succumbing to the illusion that they can finally be integrated."
"How are we to avoid lapsing into a 'performative contradiction' ?"
"One of the primary lessons of the new constellation is that we engage in critique as second person participants and not as third person neutral observers. As participants our critiques and affirmations are always tentative, fallible, open to further questioning."
Bernstein hypostatizes reconciliation and rupture in his model of the new love (sometimes we are together, sometimes we are apart). He's still relying on a Habermasian conception of language (performative contradictions are baaaad). The problem is, we aren't all participants in the 'new constellation.'
This is precisely how power works - a process of elimination!
Subjectivity can be destroyed, meaningful language can be dissolved... in effect, there are only a few participants - those with enough power to "reconcile" things (which is why I think the Frankfurt School is so important, they resist notions of reconciliation precisely because they recognize that such unifications occur at the expense of the particular). The Hegelian challenge to Bernstein is this: what if reconciliation involves a subordination. Then what?
ken