On Fri, 11 Feb 2000 18:24:35 -0500 kelley <oudies at flash.net> wrote:
> >But the psychology of these movements are very different. Feminists
> >and queers want not to be despised for who they are.
> Oh no, not on Ken's logic. Not the ways he's articulated it in the past.
He has suggested that anti-racists get a certain enjoyment out of calling
out racism -- on LBO he has suggested this.
*Some* anti-racists derive enjoyment from calling out racism - anti-racism "from on high" as it were. Take the difference between "body modification" as lifestyle (piercing the body in order to find the soul) and body modification as imitation (everyone else is doing it, so I'll follow). There is a qualitative difference in the relation to the body. It's really important to be able to distinguish what drives an ideological position.
> > Skinheads and Nazis like being despised by "respectable" people - it makes
them feel threatening and credible. Especially if you're a youth trying to
shock your jaded elders.
> that wasn't ken's argument though -- he suggested that the repressive Law
of the Father -- the NO--drove them into the arms of the loving Father.
Actually, I didn't develop an argument about this, I simply suggested it as an explanation. Something to think about.
> Now why isn't the repressive Law of the Father in the disgusting voice of
Dr. Laura and Rush, etc driven people to the ranks of the denunciated?
Why do people on the left listen to these people? (to laugh, and confirm their own identity) ("I'm not like that! - I'm better").
> [Zizek] His analysis of ideology [which ken insisted that I read] was
ridiculously old hat -- same was said with considerably more flair by cultural
studies/birmingham school types elsewhere.
Could we say a convergence bewteen different philosophical approaches, or is it just old hat? Foucault might seem old hat to those partial to the Frankfurt School, even though he hadn't read or heard of Horkheimer and Adorno (until much later).
> Furthermore, I think Katha P was right in her analysis: Butler has no voice,
no passion; there's no cadence or rhtym in her writing.
I just never understand this criticism.
In another post Kelley wrote:
> Here's the thing, if the logic of enjoyment is such that Haider gets fans
with all the publicity surrounding his denouncement, then tell me, why
doesn't it work the other way?
It does. It is likely that all of the organizations that "out" Haider will receive national and international support. During the U of T strike, the union *or* the admin received support. No one turned to the Faculty Association and said, "So, what are you doing these days?" It was either the admin or the union.
> Why don't feminists accrue more to their ranks when Rush calls them
feminazis? Why isn't the queer community seeing rising numbers of
supporters/identifiers as Dr. Laura denounces them repeteadly? eh?
Rush is playing with irony - he's popular because you can read his rightwingism as either excessive nonsense or bullshit. There is a plurality of responses, but, like the Matrix, what you see is largely based on what you want to see. In the case of Haider, the response has been so filled with condemnation, there is a social polemic set up - so people are encouraged to move in one of two directions (no third way).
> In my hometown,when a church was denounced as a cult [it was not, but that's
what happened] it didn't see a rise in membership despite the denunciations and
the huge forums that were held, including a free one featuring one of those
dudes who deprograms cult members. Nope. The church didn't see rising
numbers of membership. In fact, a couple of years later they were exposed
for fraud and other crap.
This is why the strategy is important. Different strategies for different places. There are some positions which have become relatively forbidden - and then these are "called out" they receive very little (if any) support. Most people don't overtly identify with serial killers (although there was another school shooting up here in the north).
> The logic that Zizek uses in this analysis is just wrong and that's why
psychoanalytic concpets ought not be applied to social phenom -- they don't
fucking translate because society doesn't operate like people and people
aren't societies.
Kell - the concepts in psychoanalysis have *never* been about individuals. Right from The Interpretation of Dreams - analysis has always been about "How did the Other get in there?!?" In short - clinical diagnosis has always been crtical social theory. It is unfortunate that people fail to notice this (basically, for reasons of private industry). Psychoanalytic concepts *are* sociological concepts. There is nothing in Lacan or Freud that argues for a rigid separation of individuals from society and society from individuals - there is an entwinement. Only the crassest psychoanalytic theory examines the individual as a psychotic island unto themself. Individuality is a symptom of social ideology.
ken