Force & Truth (was Re: litcritter bashing...)

Rob Schaap rws at comserver.canberra.edu.au
Thu Nov 4 09:41:54 PST 1999


G'day Ken,

Sheesh! I need a break from this marking. Marking is that process during which a teacher discovers, generally around 4.33 in the bloody morning, and after much unpleasant labour, that he's not quite the teacher he thought he was. Sigh.


>Ergo, modern (rationalistic) subjectivity as
>radically paranoid. Which is the *exact* reason that
>theories of trangression for the sake of transgression
>don't work - the pervert, the transgressor, acts as though
>they *know* the law that they are transgressing. Hence,
>postmodernism / late capitalism is psychotic. It *knows*
>(in other words, it denies the existence of the imaginary
>foundation of reality).

Well, for a start the transgressor is not always an avowed transgressor - more generally s/he is an ascribed transgressor (there - a bit of Fouicault for ya) - so s/he ain't necessarily being a psychotic philosopher at all. Secondly, to ask questions without answers, in a world that demands them at every turn, is the sign of neurotic retreat from what's staring in at ya through the window.

In case people are missing my point, we all 'deny the existence of the imaginary foundation of reality' all the time. You have to have REAL power to get people to see figments of your imagination as their reality. And we can't all be economists and/or postmodernist 'philosophers'.

Cheers, Rob.



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