[lbo-talk] Butler on Derrida

[Lance Murdoch]

On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 17:05:34 -0400, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> [ok all you anti-theoryheads, here's some rich material for you to mine]
> 
> <http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=04/10/25/1241241&mode=nested&tid=9>
> 
> "On Jacques Derrida"
>   Judith Butler
> 
> "How do you finally respond to your life and your name?"
> 
> Derrida raised this question in his final
> interview with Le Monde, published in August 18th
> of this year. If he could apprehend his life, he
> remarks, he would also be obliged to apprehend
> his death as singular and absolute, without
> resurrection and without redemption.

I read this whole post until about half-way through that last sentence.

The Postmodern Generator ( http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern ) says:

The characteristic theme of the works of Madonna is the economy, and
some would say the genre, of submodernist culture. It could be said
that an abundance of narratives concerning not discourse, but
prediscourse may be discovered. Marx uses the term 'postdialectic
capitalism' to denote the collapse, and subsequent failure, of
deconstructive sexual identity.

If one examines Lyotardist narrative, one is faced with a choice:
either reject neopatriarchialist materialism or conclude that the
State is capable of significance, but only if art is equal to truth;
otherwise, Lyotard's model of Lyotardist narrative is one of "textual
postconceptual theory", and therefore part of the dialectic of
narrativity. Therefore, in Erotica, Madonna deconstructs textual
theory; in Material Girl she affirms cultural discourse. Sartre uses
the term 'Lyotardist narrative' to denote the common ground between
society and sexuality.

.
.
.

Maybe I should submit one of the Postmodern Generator's to Social
Text.  That would be very...postmodern.

Fraternally yours,
Lance