Now. she says there is nothing io common among the writers I list as poststructuralist and postmodern beyond the fact that I don't like them and their being marketed by educational entrepreneurs. This isn't true. They don't agree on everything, but neither do the analytical Marxists or the liberals or the pragmatis, What the pomos share, like these other tendencies, is common preoccupations and themes. In the pomo case, these include:
1) antifoundationalism, the idea that all knowledge is theoretiucal and none is basic or given; it all depends on your subject position;
2) antirealism, that there is no extralinguistic reality apart from the way we talk about it;
3) antiessentialism, the idea that all natures are wholoy constructed, there are no real property that all members of a group objectivelly share apart from the way theya re conceived; the denial of objective interests
4) rejection of historical metanarratives of progress such as Marxism or ltraditional iberalism
5) multiculturalism, a proclivity to emphasize social analysis in terms of constrictedrace and gender identities
There are others. Various pomos have different things to say using these themes. Some of them are quite good. I have expressed admiration for Iris Yoing, Nancy Fraser, and Marta Minow. I like middle period Foucault.
But, and this is key, I think that most of the pomo literature i have read is grossly defective in making coherent arguments for whatever it may be seemingly urging. Virtually all of the preoccupations I have mentioned are valid subjects for discussion and analysis, but I this boring belief that people engaged in philosophical or social analysis have a responsibility to try to state interesting claims in language that can be understood, present arguments for them that respect logical norms using terms that can be defined clearly enough to be followed, and to reply to plausible objections. Call thsi discursive writing. The bulk of pomo literature does not do this.
Angela admits as much when she says:
If so, then does writing always have to consist of "making an argument", or
making an argument in this way? Might there not be a difference between 'a
mode of exposition' and 'making an argument' such that certain tasks or
matters are considered amenable to the former but not the latter? All
questions which go to the core of theoretical practice I would think, and
not at all to be presupposed as a universal criterion of whether "making an
argument" in a certain way is always to be expected whenever you read or
whenever it comes to deciding whether something might be worth reading.
Now obviously not all writing worth reading and discussing is discursive in the way that I define the term. Literrary writing, for example, is judged by quite different norms. You don't read Dante or Cervantes for argument. But you do read philosophy, social analysis, and literary criticism for argument. I am open to to the idea that there may be nondiscursive tasks we might try to accomplish with philosophy and social analysis, but I would like to have these clearly explained in discursive terms. Besides, there is simply no excuse for the uggly, clotted prose of most of the pomo lit.
Rorty, who writes clean. literate prose, at least explains why he abandoned traditional argument, and tries to make clear that he thinks the task of philosophy as a kind of writing is to be edifying, to offer attractive perspectives that might encourage people to look at things differently. But he can't seem to get away from argument himself; he keeps lapsing back into it. Besides, to be able to edify you have to have a different perspective worth having, and you have to have a basis in ability to argue from which you can depart, the way free jazz musicians have to develop traditional chops to depart from them. The educational effect of pomo is that people exposed to it too early never develop these.
I do not believe in any case that most pomo lit is some sort of nondiscursive prose. I think it mostly bad discursive prose. Take Laclau and Mouffe's Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. They make any number of claims about Marxism, that it is economistc, class reductive, and essentialist, for example, and therefore defective, that call out for defense in conventional ways. Geras has utterly and thoroughly demolsihed the book. They replied with more bad incomprensible argument, not with an argument or explanation that they were not trying to present rationally acceptable arguments against Marxism.
Or to take some good pomo. Iris Young has a postmodernist discussion of justice. She presents arguments in terms that even I can follow that we should not think of many goods that philosophers have traditionally analysed in terms of distribution as goods to be distributed. Agree or disagree, you can follow what she is saying and why.
--jks
In a message dated 00-01-28 02:05:21 EST, you write:
<
Justin wrote:
> Oh, knock it off, guys. I have read too much pomo and
> postructuralism.
Gee, Justin, if you care to recall, the poster who initially claimed that
you hadn't read much 'pomo' was, wait for it ... you! ...unless someone
else got a hold of your email account and has been regaling us with
Baudrillard citations and the like -- simultaneous with posting on
'responsibility'. So, perhaps you (or you) can knock it off.
Ok, so now you say you've read "too much". But, and here's the thing: what
I fail to see is how you can read Irigaray, Derrida, Fraser, Lacan, Rorty,
Deleuze, Guattari, Butler, Laclau et Mouffe, Kristeva, Spivak, et al and
possibly arrive at any kind of statement which might include 'those pomos
do X', or even include all of these people in something called
'postmodernism'. All that brings them together is your reaction to them;
though no small amount of credit should go to the translatlantic
translation/publishing machinery which seems to have constructed a
'postmodernist canon', largely as a creation of US marketting and
disciplinary preoccupations, into which various books and writers were
inserted. From over here, none of that seems self-evident to me in the
least.
> Now, have _you_ worked through _my_ canon with anything like the effort I
gave to yours?<
Let's talk about responsibility, canons, and effort some more:
If I was preoccupied with posting endlessly about 'those dastardly
neopragmatists'; then some effort would in fact be required to show not
only that I've read them, but understand them. If I don't understand them;
how can I know 'they're dastardly'? Why is asking ruled out? If I do
understand them; then I would have to both show that I do and show why they
are so dastardly as to warrant such a preoccupation. Anything that might
be commensurate with the gigabytes and publishing mills churned in the name
of fighting the good fight against 'them'?
Of course, neopragmatists, for all that we might distinguish one writer
from another, or one book from another, would still confine themselves to a
basic set of premises to be explored even if they don't give the same
answer. That's not at all evident amongst the list of writers you cite as
'postmodernist and poststructuralist'. Which, in case Bill F has missed
it, means that it's not quite possible to read a little in order to
determine whether or not "they can make an argument" since few writers
could stand up as illustrative of something to be abbreviated as the 'pomo
canon', as "they".
Second, in order to make an argument about whether or not someone else is
"making an argument", this might also include some discussion or
reference-point to what "making an argument" might mean, and whether or not
one might "make an argument" at all times for all occassions. Does "making
an argument" consist of the summation of positions leading to conclusions?
If so, then does writing always have to consist of "making an argument", or
making an argument in this way? Might there not be a difference between 'a
mode of exposition' and 'making an argument' such that certain tasks or
matters are considered amenable to the former but not the latter? All
questions which go to the core of theoretical practice I would think, and
not at all to be presupposed as a universal criterion of whether "making an
argument" in a certain way is always to be expected whenever you read or
whenever it comes to deciding whether something might be worth reading.
Canons: I never engage in top-10 book lists; nor do I insist that people
read A or B unless they're already arguing or hinting that they already
know (usually by smelling their own armpits) what A or B says. And
there's no reason to presuppose that because I do the latter I even like or
would defend those writers or books in anything that might resemble a more
thorough possibility for discussion -- that is, the kind of discussion that
would move beyond the rhetorical use of 'those pomos' as the favoured and
hidden means to build and/or protect existing, apparently self-evident
canons into something that might resemble, oh, I don't know, thought. I've
no canon to speak of, though I obviously make an effort with some writers
and not with others, not always determined by whether or not I agree with
them; but I do take exception to the implicit and ongoing canonical
exercise that begins with 'those pomos', as well as the institutional
context and political boundary-constructions which make it seem obvious to
think in terms of canons in the first place.
Finally, I don't care if you read any of those writers you cited; nor do I
care whether you understand them. I don't assume there's a universal
language (idiom, etc) that might be universally comprehended, and anyone
who doesn't is perforce a drongo. Note to Rob: How many times I gotta say
this until you stop with the 'i must be such an idiot' thing which always
seems to accompany your derisions of 'pomo', Rob? Doesn't your
incomprehension suggest to you anything other than a derision of your
intellect that might require that kind of reflexive strike? Or, is it
because you assume that language is a universal human attribute and
therefore incomprehension would be synonymous with a slight against one's
'humanity'?
>>