>
> This is the way to criticize _any_ writer. Whether Zizek writes clearly
> or obscurely, he can be attacked for the accuracy of what he writes. Or
> a theory may be met with another theory. And note, it is not possible
> to correct the accuracy of a _category_ of writers, or even of "the
> books" of a given writer. One has to focus on a specific text.
>
> Carrol
This, I don't think, is quite true. It is possible to criticize and/or analyze a "methodology", "a school of thought", a political or philosophical "tendency", an attempt to make a theoretical model, a "world view" or a "way of thinking" or a theoretical model. (Examples of this last are current criticism of "string theory" in _Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory & the Continuing Challenge to Unify the Laws of Physics_ by Peter Woit and _The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next_ by Lee Smolin_.) It is also possible to criticize or analyze the working of an institution, such as a corporation or a scholarly journal, or a system of institutions such as corporate media (see Chomsky's _Manufacturing Consent_, or his great essay from 1973 "Indochina and the Fourth Estate"). Another such possible criticism of an institutional system would be, say, the system of peer review journals in physics or student run law journals at law schools. It is also possible to criticize and/or analyze a "class" or "social grouping", if it operates as part of a "social system." (See, for example, the essay "The American Business Elite: A Collective Portrait" by C. Wright Mills (1945), or "Intellectuals and the State" (1977) and "Foreign Policy and the Intelligentsia" (1978) both by Noam Chomsky.) It is even possible to criticize a "system of jargon" in such a way as to reveal something not quite right with a particular social group, (see for example one of my favorite law review essay, Felix S. Cohen, "Transcendental Nonsense and the Functional Approach", 35 Colum. L. Rev. 809 (1935), but also see a more recent reply Jeremy Waldron, ""Transendental Nonsense" and System in The Law", 100 Colum. L. Rev. 16 (2000), both of these essays are available on JSTOR and they are right on point for the current debate on "jargon" and obscurantism. In fact Felix Cohen is one of the educators of my skepticism in the matter of "jargon". I would recommend them for clarifying the debate, to both Carrol and Miles.)
But I also think that Carrol is correct in saying that you must be specific when making such criticism. Such criticism must not assume "guilt" by label or mere "intellectual" association. I don't think any of the specific books or essays I have mentioned, and I could mention many more, do this. They are models of modest and fair criticism of "schools of thought" and intellectual social groups. I do not always live up to the _ethics of rhetoric_ that these models illustrate, though I wish I did and I endeavor to try.
It must be kept in mind that such general criticism is helpful because it helps readers, thinkers and actors to keep an eye out for consistent misleads, problems or mistakes in ways of thinking. For example in these threads I analyzed a specific paragraph on Shelley. It is my claim that writing such as this often appears in intellectual journals in the post-modern mode _and_ that this way of writing serves as a cover for mangling a subject in specific ways, which I tried to illustrate. My bet is that I could find similar "uses" and "abuses" in any journal that features this kind of writing, in the same way that Felix Cohen criticized the "transcendental nonsense" of legal writers back in 1935. And I do find such abuses almost when ever I know a subject closely and intimately enough that I can "catch" the writer. The problem is I am only able to detect such abuses on those few occasions when I do know the subject. My knowledge is limited to a few areas. (I could list them but only at the risk of Chris Doss laughing out loud.) But when I come across these areas of my knowledge, discussed by writers in the postmodern mode, I am at pains to figure out what they are saying, and when I do figure it out I am usually a bit angry at the mangling of the subject. Maybe I expect too much.
Some of the problem is one of "trust". If you take the time to read someone, whether Aristotle or Zizek, you hope to be able to "trust" the author to a small extent.
As a final example I quoted in this thread Zizek:
"Rossellini was perfectly aware of the crucial role of the performative dimension in structuring the intersubjetive space: an entire series of his films is centered on the dialectic of "playing a role," of assuming performatively a symbolic mandate." (_Enjoy Your Symptoms_ p. 33.)
I criticized this as a (not too) harmful example of "reading backwards" one's own philosophy into the "text" of analysis. This kind of thing happens all the time and knowing that it happens means that a reader is forewarned to "look"* out for such things. If a certain school of thought makes a certain kind of "mistake" consistently then the specific example serves as a warning to readers of that school of thought.
So, yes, Carrol, specific concrete examples are necessary, and it is also necessary to not over generalize one's criticism, but general criticism of a category of writers is possible.
(* The word "look" is in scare quotes, so Dennis won't accuse me of falling into the sin of "primacy of vision", a sin I apparently can't avoid because of some "theory" of which I am not aware, though I am aware of the cultural tendency.)
Jerry Monaco