> Moreover, the problem of phrasing the invitation
> actually hides a lot of
> other problems: like having a mailing list for the
> invitations. People
> usually don't even open invitations unless the
> sender is someone they
> know and expect to provide the kind of satisfaction
> that they are
> already familiar with.
I thought of the following when I read your post on right-wing journals, and folks reading things they already know, or find familiar satisfactions in. What you say here inspires me to post it. I'm not sure if it suggests any directions to the problem you pose, or if it's (just) analytically useful. I also thought of Doug's traversing the fantasy comment, which the last sentence seems to oppose in a different direction(?). In any case, posting it certainly provides me with a certain satisfaction, probably familiar.
>From Lacan's _Television: a Challenge to the
Psychoanalytic Establishment_, J-A Miller's intro
chapter:
"To make oneself understood is not the same as teaching--it is the opposite. One only understands what one thinks one already knows. More precisely, one never understands anything but a meaning whose satisfaction or comfort one has already felt. I'll say it to you in a way you won't understand: one never understands anything but one's fantasies. And one is never taught by anything other than what one doesn't understand, i.e., by nonsense. If the psychoanalyst holds in abeyance his understanding of what you say, that gives you the chance to do the same, and it is from that you may learn something--to the extent to which you take a distance from your fantasies." (Sorry, no page number. I copied it down in my notepad at a bookstore.)
Given your antipathy to critical theory/psychoanalysis, Carrol,--and correct me if I'm mistaken--does the above relevant on any political frequencies?
Alec
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