the linguistic left

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Mon Nov 1 14:10:15 PST 1999


kelley wrote:


> oh what a load of horsehockey. there is a relationship between forma and
> context no? or did you drop the dialectic at the door when it comes to
> that issue? furthermore, when someone resorts to cheap tactics in order to
> engage in arguement *that* matters.

My post operates within a somewhat narrow framework: I am addressing only those who more or less agree with my generalized characterization *not* of post-modernism but of "many of those often called pomo." So I am debating strategy and tactics, and arguing that it is bad strategy and tactics to focus on difficulty of style. The first debate over Judith Butler on this list was utterly wrecked by the silly concern over her writing style. And one of the moldiest cliches of the 20th century is this matter of "there is a relationship between forma and context." As a matter of fact, not necessarily. It has to be established in each specific case.

But I suspect this whole post of Kelley's is based on a simple misunderstanding of the antecedent of "this" in my opening sentence ("I object to this"), for if you understand what and who "this" refers to, then you know that nothing I said had anything to do with Yoshie or Kant or Habermas or, really, even post-modernism. It had to do with Steve's choice of weapons to use against post-modernism. The "this" referred to Steve's grounds (or what I assumed were his grounds) for attacking pomo. (In his post he claims that I misunderstodd him: perhaps. But in any case Kelley's whole post is irrelevant to my post.)

I happen to agree with most of Yoshie's posts -- but that wasn't what I was talking about in this post. I was, in fact, thinking mostly about my dissatisfaction with the posts attacking Judith Butler (about a year or so ago) on the basis of her style. I would really like attacks on Judith Butler to deal with the substance of her books, not her style.

Unless Kelley misinterpreted "this" in my post I really do not have the remotest idea of what set her off.

Carrol



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