> Paul wrote:
>
> >[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?
It's not ire, Maureen. It's exasperation.
Besides, I'm a self-admitted smartass. Surely I get points for self-awareness? I don't? WAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! (My best imitation of the baby on "Dinosaurs".)
> >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?
Basically, Yes.
> 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.
Yes, I have read a bit of Mouffe. Enough to approve of the general direciton. But what I read was so bound up in criticizing (mostly structuralist, I suppose, it's been awhile) positions I had never taken seriously in first place. I didn't see it converging very quickly with my own concerns.
But, more to the point, I don't see the influence of that critique in what I routinely encounter from PoMo-influenced people.
> >(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.)
I was saying that listing points of similarity functions as a form of advertising. Selling ideologies like SUVs.
> >(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)?
Certainly not just for using jargon. Even the use of "scientific" jargon is just a symptom of what I'm talking about. There are other ways in which PoMo strikes me as emulating science -- but science as PoMos misunderstand it, that is as positivist "science."
> Yes, their arguments are anti-positivist.
>
> Science on non-positivist grounds. That's what you want to do? Okay.
That's what science is. Positivist accounts of how science works have broken down again and again. It is true that some scientists are consciously guided by positivist beliefs. But, for example, William James in a variety of essays, Abraham Maslow in *The Psychology of Science* and a wide range of other critics (Whitehead, Bronowski, Polyani, Koyre, Kuhn, Keller etc.) have shown how inadequate and self-limiting such practice is.
> >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.
It's not "my brand" of pragmatism. Pragmatism says that one must evaluate meaning in terms of purpose. Purpose creates the epistemic context for meaning. Because there are an irreducible plurality of purposes, there are in irreducible plurality of meanings. Of course, there's also the purpose of reconciling such differences, but it's a purpose that must be carefully watched, so that it doesn't simply crush differences it can't honestly reconcile. James was very sensitive to existence of irreducible differences that can't be gotten rid of. But this doesn't mean we can't just set them aside for the moment if we need to. We just shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking we've gotten rid of them.
Science involves a particular ensemble of epistemic purposes, and can be understood in terms of them. For example, James made a particular point of showing how the broad scientific (meta-) purposes "seek truth" and "shun error", which many take to be one and the same are actually quite different from one another, and give rise to quite different kinds of practice. (BTW, one might say that positivists err by mistaking "shun error" for the whole of science.)
> >
> >(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?
I think it would be more useful to just respond to what I've written. Pragmatism need not be made too complicated. It's better that way.
> >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.
But, Maureen, please recall how this started. Too much clarification kills any joke.
> >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.
This could go in a zillion different directions. Basically, I think it's mistaken to perform a simple reductionism to bourgoise individualism. I believe that individualism is present as polarity throughout all of human culture (trickster figures are, among other things, signs of individuation and its discontents) and that it routinesly takes a variety of forms. (For example, critical consciousness is very much an example of such a form.)
As societies change, the ways in which individuals are embedded in them changes. But individuality and sociality always coexist, only in different forms. In the postmodern condition, individuals exists as multiple personalities that in various ways mirror the multiplicity around them. (This condition is not entirely new, of course. What IS new is its broad universality.) PoMo theory is aware of this, but, so far as I have seen, does a poor job of describing this condition and distinguishing it from other conditions.
An interesting book in this regard is Rober Keegan's *In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life*. Keegan maps out a schema of mental development where the context of every stage becomes the content of the next. Individuation is a process of growing metnal development, in which, among other things, the social context increasingly becomes an object one relates to as a distinct entity.
This doesn't mean one is no longer part of one's social context, of course. What changes is one's conscious relationship. This POV implies that individuation is ALWAYS and everywhere a part of human life, even as humans are always and everywhere social animals as well.
> >> [=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.
By all means. I had hoped you would respond at the time.
> 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.
I liked the framework you were constructing. But instead of placing Buffy within it, you were placing a generic abstraction of elements Buffy plays with within it. (Once again folks, I'm NOT saying that Buffy is flawless just because I'm saying that generic readings are mistaken.)
> 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.
All of which made you someone I was interested in conversing with. I wasn't trying to criticze you personally. I thought that your strengths and weaknesses reflected those of the different kinds of practice you were drawing on. I think that PoMo practice encourages us into too-quick generalizations that smother the particular, despite much protestations to the contrary (BTW, this is another trait PoMo shares with positivism.)
> My generalizations were based on a large dose of "tacit knowledge"
One of my favorite books. A real kick that Popper & Co. never realized how profoundly it contradicted their dogma.
> (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.
Yes, we all rely on tacit knowledge. The problem is that certain types of practice grease the skids so that we get carried away, and overconfident in the assumed universality of tacit knowledge. I see this over and over again with PoMo analysis, and I saw it in this case as well.
> 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.
You're right. If I had been primarily concerned with your response sui generis. And, given the degree of thoughtfulness you've shown, I probably should have done that. Instead, I responded to it more as part of a longer continuing sting of examples of how PoMo theory occludes understanding. My philosophy in doing so has been: If folks can respond by proving me wrong, then great. I'll learn something. But so far this hasn't happened.
So, while I had quite a bit of evidence about PoMo theory obscuring rather than clarifying ("Buffy" in particular, but other subjects as well), I had much less about you. But recall: I did know that you had very little direct knowledge of the show. And this stood in stark contrast with your evident familiarity with 18th C. Freemasonry. I also knew that what you assumed about "Buffy" was in important respects mistaken, and that these mistakes reflected features in common with other examples of flat-footed PoMo theorizing.
Thus, I had good reason to make the comment that I did. It would have been better to respond to you more individualistically, that's especially clear in hindsight. But it wasn't the factual foundation that was wanting. (Which isn't to say I was 100% right, only that I had a good foundation.)
> >[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.
Ah, I bet you say that to all the boys!
> 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.
Perhaps we could debate that. But it certainly doesn't banish pagan religion to the outer darkness, as you assumed. That much is straightforward, and serves to counter your assumption that Buffy's "Note to Self. Religion: Creepy." served to banish pagan religion to the nether realms.
> 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.
Well, I've already put something into this post, so let's take it from there, ok?
> >[=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.
There was no significant point on which we parted ways.
That was my point. I was trying to focus on where we disagreed, in order to clarify -- or at least highlight -- those points.
It's not the insights you presented that I'm criticizing. There's no necessary relationship between them and PoMo theory. It's a HUGE mistake to think you need all that theoretical apparatus. That's what I was trying to say in response. I'm sorry it wasn't clear.
> You've basically responded by informing me that of
> course media representation is important; of course
> "animism" is bad but we all do it (?);
Not exactly. Rather, since it's virtually ubiquitous we ought to try to understand it better.
> 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 hope the above has cleared this up for you. If not, I'll try again.
> >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.
I see I was unclear.
I'm not saying that, since I don't draw a sharp distinction between the mercantilist roots and the later heights of the slave trade.
When I said:
> >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
I simply meant that the images played a role throughout.
As you may know, China had a brief overseas quasi-imperialist episode in mid-millenium, but then withdrew. What I was trying to say was that if such a reversal had happened in the course of European development, then those images would not have had much in the way of deep significance, and would almost certainly be no more than historical oddities today. Hence, the "one-hit wonder" reference.
> 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.
No, that's not what I mean. I'm not so determinstic as that. If the China example doesn't help, I'll be glad to say more.
> >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.
Well, at the most mundane level, almost everyone talks to the machines in their life. The best mechanics often seem to be the ones who do this the most intensively. And computer programmers routinely talk about parts of programs as actors who do different things.
Gibson's vision of cyberspace is that it's inhabited by the Loa. It's been a long time since I read him, so someone else should probably provide the details.
> 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
Successfully procastenated beyond my wildest expectations,
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"