> Paul,
>
> Pragmatism not as content but as approach, as commitment
> to context and purpose. Intelligeable communication and
> unpacking complex issues as examples of this.
>
> ...If that's pragmatism, most everyone on the list comes
> off as pretty pragmatist to me.
Superficially, MAYBE, at best. But my Gremlin attacks are specifically aimed at getting underneath the surface, at exposing the rigid, doctrinaire ideologies of those who posture in strident denunciation of rigid, doctrinaire ideologies.
> Why do you think my posts often end up as minor tomes?
> It's not _just_ procrastination you know.
> It reflects a similar commitment to providing
> descriptive content when I make points, rather than throwing
> off coded concepts which I know are of limited currency.
Why do you think I'm having this colloquy with YOU? As Pooh would say, you're "Not Like Some."
> Nor do I see others going around talking in priestly
> tongues whose translations they jealously guard.
But that's not *MY* critique of PoMo, you know? Much less my criticism of folks on the list.
(Oh, I don't mind poking a little fun in such terms, but the proper response to such joking is another joke, don't you think?)
My criticism is of the basic PoMo program, which I continue to see as a reflective reaction to positivism. They're binary opposites, ya dig? I'm out to destabilize that binarism, deploying all manner of linguistic disruptions....
> I do see I shouldn't have framed my questions as "What does
> your Pragmatism edify about..." but rather, "What do you, Paul,
> holder of some substantive understandings, think about..."
>
> My mistake results from the fact that you seem to wiggle
> between "mere approach not content" and some "content" which
> on many issues isn't clear to me. Due to this slipperiness,
> Pragmatism, the thing in whose name you tend to criticize the
> substantive content of others, comes off looking like
> substantive content itself.
As I said in my previous post, "Pragmatism is about my contextual approach to things, it's not part of the content -- though of course it does have consequences that affect matters of content." This is true of just about ANY philosophy.
I was trying to shake you loose from a mistaken view of pragmatism as narrowly dictating certain kinds of results. First I wanted to disabure you have of that narrow view, and furnish a sense of its broad systemic nature. But of course, it does have consequences for discuissions of specific content, no question about it.
HOWEVER, pragmatism generally has the effect of vastly reducing the range of apriori assumptions and prohibitions, and vastly increasing the range of empirically determinable (or at least explorable!) matters. Thus, far LESS of a gross percentage of things are determined by it than by positivism, for example, or by analytic philosophy.
> Put differently: for someone committed to discerning plural
> purposes in life's complex project, you're kind of an
> impatient listener. Maybe if you'd listen harder in the
> posts you're so quick to nip at, you'd see that they aren't
> putting the cart before the horse, as you say, but that their
> horse is pulling a purpose different than the ones you already
> know all about.
>
> My impression is that the posts you find most "fact-starved"
> raise questions about deeply entrenched structures whose
> effects may feel like common sense to you but not to the
> posters. It seems to come up alot for instance around gender
> and Lacanian-influenced analyses, concerned as they are with
> how social forces take root on the most unconscious levels.
For all the density of language, I find such accounts of the unconconscious to be cartoonish at best.
Thus, it's not just that the posts ignore the specific facts of the latters they address, they do so in favor of a theoretical perspective that itself derives from a fact-starved foundation.
I don't doubt for a minute that all manner of factors from the cognitive unconscious effect everything we think and see, or that social/economic/political factors play a significant part in shaping the cognitive unconscious. I simply think that (1) this can be explained much more lucidly than PoMo theory allows and (2) it is far more rich and complicated than PoMo theory realizes. The clearer one makes the basic foundation, the more one is able to support a richly diverse understanding of the content.
> The "facts" involved in drawing out these more deeply
> entrenched forces don't take a parallel form to, say,
> statistics on the workings of the American justice or
> welfare system. So it might require a more patient
> listening on your part.
Aw, c'mon! We're not talking _Ecce Homo_ here.
> Or from another vat: you still don't know what concerned me
> about Buffy, as you continue to assert that we were talking
> about "the program, not Western modernity." The program's
> a subset of that modernity, isn't it? The day Arianna H.
> comes to you to talk all about her model charity, I hope
> you don't let her likewise limit the terms of discussion.
> "Paul, you've only read _two_ reports on this charity, and
> anyway we're not _talking_ about the socioeconomic system!"
But, of course, Arianna *IS* talking about the socioeconomic system, so the parallel fails.
I don't mind in the least that folks like you (and you especially) want to bring in these larger persepctives in talking about "Buffy". Quite the opposite, I was hoping for much MORE of it. I am particularly keen on examining whatever factual information you had to provide.
But what I do mind is the wholesale importation of sweeping theoretical constructs, which rudely shove aside the basic facts about what's happening in "Buffy." The imperial privileging of PoMo theory over the "mere facts" of what's actually going on in the program is an exemplary contradiction in practice of PoMo's anti-hierarchical rhetoric.
> Of course of course I'm not suggesting you shouldn't question
> posts that don't sit right with you. I mean hell, aspects of
> the Lacanian stuff don't sit right with me either. But dios
> mio, why not start by giving people the benefit of the doubt,
> and ask your questions constructively? Not to sound too
> utopian but maybe we'd all learn something.
Sometimes I do. Mostly I don't. Why?
Well, for one thing, PoMoManiacs are supposedly all in favor of subversion, disruption, destabilization, etc., right? So that's what I give them. And look at the response!
> >Rather than slog through the rest of Maureen’s post, I
> >think it’s best to end here, not because I find what she
> >says uninteresting or unimportant, but because she has
> >mis-attributed a position to me, which most of the rest
> >of her post is dedicated to attacking.
>
> "Maureen" remains persuaded that you do universalize certain
> local understandings. Given her finite exposure to your
> framework, she acknowledges that further communication might
> result in adjustment of that view.
Localize your reference, here Maureen, and we'll be glad to check it out! (See your third person singular, and raise to first person plural!)
> She further points out that "dedicated to attacking" is a
> strong characterization of a post which, some ribbing aside,
> posed attentive questions befitting a respected interlocutor;
> provided non-jargony context when expressing doubts; drew
> out the value she saw in your approach as she understood it,
> and constructively suggested where she thought those
> insights were best extended.
A bit of miscommunication here. I was merely trying to say that for the most part I agreed with the points you were making. BUT, that the whole purpose of your exposition, in the context of our previous discussion, was premised on attacking a position I do not hold. I didn't mean to deny or dismiss anything else that was contained therein.
In another context I'd be quite happy to plunge right in and discuss it line by line. But in THIS context, with core (mis)understandings of purpose on the table, that is a pleasure I felt I must forego. After all, until we get much clearer about where we both are coming from, such a discussion would be bound to be less rewarding than it really ought to be.
> If this is dedication to attack, Maureen beseeches like
> attacks, rather than quick dismissals of her Procustean
> knee-jerk theories.
All in good time. All in good time.
> >Maureen goes on to talk about "your individualistic pragmatism".
> >But James himself was highly skeptical about individualism.
> >[...]
>
> Maureen is grateful for this background information, and is
> delighted to hear of James' skepticism towards individualism.
> However, as you pointedly advised, her assessment was based
> solely on what she saw reflected in your LBO comments. She
> is in no position to surmise the source of those tendancies
> she found ill-advised.
We are willing to revert to first person singular if Maureen is willing to do likewise. It's not that we harbor a blind allegiance to a fictive individualism, it's just that we can only go on so long like this before we begin to be haunted by the spectre of Queen Vicotria.
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"