>[The poke at PoMo] was NOT to say PoMo was the cause of all this. It was
>a jab at PoMo pretensions to clear our heads and revitalize the revolution
>--- JUST AS
>I SAID!
>
>You see, Maureen, I'm DREADFULLY old school. I say what I mean.
>ESPECIALLY when I'm poking fun at people.
I'm glad you try to say what you mean (though I'm not exactly following those points yet). I do that too, and my current impression is that everyone on the list tries.
And expressively-speaking, have you considered that saying exactly what you mean isn't always the soundest pragmatist strategy? that containing some of your ire, wrapping it in some tact, might be more persuasive in the long-run than poking fun?
>A few points to clear up my position:
>
>(1) Saying that you've inherited bad ideas from someone else doesn't get
>you off the hook. (I'm not saying it IS a bad idea, mind you.
>Remember, I say what I mean. I'm laying down a general principle, so
>you'll understand my thinking. It's also a rhetorical device, the
>effect of which is utterly ruined by having to explain everything like
>this. How's THAT for self-referrentiality, huh?)
>
>(2) Inheriting sensible ideas, and distorting them out of all
>proportion, turning them into fetishes, is far worse. And this what PoMo
>seems to do with incredible ferocity.
>
>(3) I don't deny for a minute that oppositional pairs bear scrutiny. I
>just think that PoMo approaches have a strong tendency to be rigid,
>schematic, static, ahistorical and decontextual. Let's see, the
>oppositional pair position would be flexible, fully-realized, dynamic,
>historical and contextual.
>
>(4) For example, PoMo attacks on "reason" don't do very much at all to
>advance our understanding of what reason actually is. On the other
>hand, cognitive science is making a good deal of headway in
>deconstructing the old reason/emotion dichotomy.
So you're saying, I think, that thinking with "oppositional pairs" can be useful. However, pomo theory distorts this sensible rubric, by using it in ahistorical and decontextaulized ways. Pomo attacks on "reason" is an example of the ahistorical and distorted way of using this otherwise useful rubric. Is this right?
I agree with you that these pairs can be used in static, ahistorical ways, and that this is not a good thing. But of course the static/ahistorical criticism was one of post-structuralism's main criticisms of structuralism. For instnace, Laclau and Mouffe (whom I think you said you'd read). Isn't their gripe with structuralism precisely that it takes certain oppositions as static and ahistorical? I'm not, repeat not, asking you to like them, but in light of that fact that your complaints overlap with theirs, it would be useful if you could state your differences rather than branding them.
>(1) All the above COULD be sufficient reason to HATE Pomo without any
>further ado. There's no poison worse than that of close relations.
>
>(2) I want to understand where Marxism has gone wrong, using its
>profoundest success to help understand its failure, rather than finding
>new, more superficial ways to fail. Hence I find the mere listing of
>similarities you offer as entirely besides the point -- except of course
>as advertising.
Fine. (Except for the advertising point. What was being advertised? Your criticisms have confused me and I'm on a sincere quest for clarity.)
>
>(3) One way in which Marxism went wrong was by assuming a sort of
>positivist scientism, which was amittedly altogether rampant at the
>time.
>
>PoMo, with its (non-exclusive) binary obsessions construes itself both
>as positivist and anti-positivist: positivist in its emulation of
>science (the jargon is the evidence of this, not its essence) and
>anti-positivist in its arguments, which totally overlook the posibility
>of construing science on non-positivist grounds.
Are you saying that pomo is positivist because it use "scientific" jargon (jargon specifically associated with "science"), or in the mere fact of using "jargon" (very specialized, complicated insider language)?
Yes, their arguments are anti-positivist.
Science on non-positivist grounds. That's what you want to do? Okay.
>
>The real way out of this is through pragmatism, which does a FAR
>superior job of demystifying the nature of science, and (underlying it)
>common sense.
I realize I'm coming into ongoing conversations in mid-stream. Have you
posted previously on how your brand of pragmatism achieves this? If so, I
will happily read any earlier posts-manifestos that you forward.
>
>(4) As an extra added bouns, William James was already deconstructing
>the reason/emotion dichotomy 100 years ago in his exploration of "The
>Sentiment of Rationality."
I'm afraid I'm not up on my William James. For an outsider's purposes, would it be useful for me to associate you with Rorty's views?
>
>But there's no reason in the world I have to complain about everyone at
>once, is there? Is there? I mean, that would be EXHAUSTING!
Pragmatically speaking, you ought to distinguish your complaints if they are confusing to reasonable people who reside outside of your head.
If you say, "I dislike pomo because they do X" and others who are not pomo and dislike pomo also do X, then clarify. If you say you dislike pomo because it does Y, and yet pomos are known for being anti-Y themselves, then you ought to clarify. ...Based on your response I'm starting to get a bit of your drift, but I'm not there yet.
>
>Needless to say, my problem with this whole gestalt gets down to the
>very way that individualism is conceived, so your attempts at
>clarifications & disavowels here is pretty much beside the point for me.
I have a problem with how individualism is conceived, too. What's yours? Maybe if you explain it, I'll understand why my clarifications and disavowals are beside the point.
>> [=snip= Maureen re Buffy post]
>
>[Paul:] You'll recall I wrote a rather long clarification in response when you
>first raised this objection. I never got a response to that, so I had
>hoped this cleared things up for you. Apparently it did not. The
>cookie-cutter comment was in another part of the post. You tried to
>hang a great deal on a single scene (which you hadn't even seen):
>>
>> [=snip= Maureen re Buffy]
>
>And this is emblamatic of my whole problem with PoMo -- it DESTROYS the
>specific in its infatuation with its own holy meta-narrative.
>
>Unlike you, I actually SAW that episode [...]
Yes you wrote a clarification regarding the post. I'm sorry, I meant to acknowledge and respond but was swamped at the time, then next I checked into the list the Buffy moment had passed. It was only after subsequently seeing a half-dozen more pomo-brandings that I decided better late than never.
Your response, as I remember, was that while you had sympathy for the historical points I was making, when I applied it to Buffy I reverted to automatic pomo speak. Yes, you did say in passing something like, "the Freemason stuff was good, and it could somehow relate to Buffy." But your unwavering confidence that the whole Buffy part of my post did in fact reflect the fatal flaws of pomo theory made me infer that you were not in the main sympathetic to the substance of my arguments.
And now, yet again: your "this is emblematic of the whole problem with pomo..." does the same thing you're objecting to. You're making dismissive generalizations based on little evidence. My interpretation of Buffy was based on: my direct exposure to the show (two full episodes, plus pieces of others); on finding resemblance between what I saw in that limited exposure, and my vaster knowledge of both mainstream popular culture and progressive politics; on my solid respect for the judgment of an exceedingly bright friend of mine, an ardent Buffy fan who felt confident enough in his generalizations to publish them; and finally, on what I inferred by reading many descriptions about the show from other intelligent-sounding lbo posters.
My generalizations were based on a large dose of "tacit knowledge" (as opposed to direct, empirical knowledge). Many respectable, non-pomo scientists believe this kind of knowledge is pivotal to peoples' understandings, not just in everyday life but in laboratory settings as well. In short my interpretations were the result of acting like a socialized person, not a pomo person.
If you had presumed me to be acting as a reasonable person, you might have written in the tone of, "Well, I can see how it might seem to you that Buffy was playing into (whatever), but in fact it gets more complicated because...", and then suggested something that I wasn't in the best position to know. Instead, based on only _one_ post (*One!* I had *loads* more evidence about Buffy than you had about me!), you were certain that my interpretation was a symptom of a "theory-drivenness" you see as unique to pomo theory. Doctor heal thyself.
>[Paul:] Furthermore, as I pointed out elsewhere in the "cookie-cutter" post:
>
>> Put it this way (in cartoon form): PoMo accepts the after-the-fact
>> positivist reconstruction of the Enlightenment as a TRUE PICTURE, and
>> fashions it's opposition on that grounds. I reject both positivism AND
>> the positivism reconconstruction of the Enlightenment. I take a
>> pragmatist stand (which, BTW, Willow and Ms. Callander both did in
>> treating magic as another form of technology, rather than a dichotomous
>> other to rational science).
>
>Thus, contrary to your theory-dominated, fact-starved interpretation (a
>kind of imperial invasion of the text, I might call it) Buffy does the
>exact opposite of reinforcing the strict dichotomy (Enlightenment West
>Good/Everything Else Bad) you propose.
>
>To repeat : This is emblamatic of my whole problem with PoMo -- it
>DESTROYS the specific in its infatuation with its own holy
>meta-narrative.
You do know how to rant.
I didn't understand, and still don't, your TRUE PICTURE, anti/positivist analysis. Nor do I agree that Willow's treating magic as "another form of technology" serves to breaks down Enlightenment dichotomies. But maybe before trying to explain it again, it might be more useful if you'd be willing to send (via an old post or something, as suggested above) something that gives a better idea of your pragmatism.
>[=snip= Maureen's looooong Africa example; a couple replies by Paul]
>
>[Paul:] The fallacy here is that you're using the subject matter to legitimate
>the theoretical practice. This is the kind of confusion that Charles
>Murray thrives on. It's not one that we should duplicate.
I tried to break down a complex scenario into various steps so that I might see where we part ways. You've basically responded by informing me that of course media representation is important; of course "animism" is bad but we all do it (?); and that my whole example/query plays into some kind of theoretical duplicity along the lines of Charles Murray. Thanks for setting me straight.
>
>I don't for the life of me see how a PoMo critic of Kaplan gets to the
>heart of the matter faster than a good historical survey of the role of
>the African slave trade in the European imperialist conquest of the
>world. It was the slave trade that gave us the images, not the other
>way around.
>
>This is not to say that images weren't important in getting the slave
>trade started. It's just the old truth that it's dialectical
>MATERIALISM we're talking about. Without the slave trade, those early
>images would have faded like one-hit wonders.
Now let's see if I've got this one: You're saying that Europe's mutually defined understandings of Africans/Europeans/commodity-value, forged within mercantilist trade encounters before the trans-atlantic slave trade actually took off, would have become irrelevent if this unfathomably momentous historical event which did in fact happen didn't happen??? I'm not sure who would find this analysis more bizarre, the most materialist Marxist, or the most "discursive" of colonial discourse-types.
Best I can figure (but I'm reaching), you're saying that according to your brand of dialectical materialism, European society "needed" forced plantation labor at that point in history, was thus destined to dehumanize "others" in one form or other anyway (to justify their necessary enslaving), and thus the content/context of these earlier encounters were irrelevent. If you clarify nothing else in this post, please clear up this last point.
>Instead, it needs to be set into some kind of REAL WORLD framework that
>changes over time, as well as remaining strikingly similar. And then
>there must be explanations of both the changes and the similarities.
No argument there.
>BTW, on this whole modernist/animist theme, I wonder what you have to
>say about William Gibson's animist vision of cyberspace? To my mind
>it's entirely of a piece with a consist aspect of modernism -- those who
>work closely with technology have ALWAYS invested it with animist
>spirits.
I'm not familiar at all with this. It sounds interesting.
BTW, "animism" isn't an analytical term that's been used by anthropologists since, oh I don't know, probably since the days of Tyler or Levy-Bruhl or Frazer or something. Except as a "folk category" of Westerners.
drained, Maureen