Ashcroft's prayer circle

[Carrol Cox]

Doug claims that Lacan can  explain in detail why 6 billion people move
fiddle their hands in some way or other. I simply deny that the behavior
_of individuals_ can be explained in so simple minded a fsshion. The
finger twiddling of X must not contradict whatever is known about the
human organism in general, but no amount of knowledge about the human
organism (physiological, neurological, psychologial, what-have-you) can
even begin to answer the foolish questions Doug and Zizek ask. Those
questions are merely to distract attention from questions that can be
(very roughly and imperfectly) answered and provide playdough to pass
the idle time of intellectuals. The individual person simply does not
possess the transparency you assume people possess. See Hamlet, who was
a good deal wiser than Zizek -- and rather less arrogant about the scope
of human knowledge.

Carrol

Doug Henwood wrote:
> 
> Carrol Cox wrote:
> 
> >If you go back through the LBO archives you should be able to find a
> >number of replies from Yoshie and me to Zizek's silly question about how
> >to explain all the weird things people do.
> 
> Right. Humans are so transparent. You can tell exactly how they'll
> think from how they act, and how they act from...what was it Carrol?
> I forget now.
> 
> Doug