Eagleton talk on post-modernism
moggin
he was against it, needless to say, but to give credit where it's due,
he must be pomo's most affable critic. He began by demanding room to
criticize post-modernism from the left, which was fair enough, but the
criticism he went on to deliver was directed (strange as it may seem)
from the right. That's not how _he_ would see it, naturally, but the
substance of his talk was distinctly conservative.
Eagleton suggested that post-modernism, viewed a movement,
resulted from the historical failure of 'sixties radicalism, which,
defeated on a political front, retreated, or at any rate displaced
itself onto the plane of theory. That's similar to the right-wing
complaints about "tenured radicals" -- even though Eagleton places
a different evaluation on the outcome, his analysis is practically
identical.
He also objected that post-modernism is basically a skeptical,
pessimistic affair, most of all in regard to such invaluable concepts
as objectivity, self-determination, nature, and reality (to name only
a few). It emphasizes the marginal while ignoring the mainstream. It
takes a negative view of society and politics, which it combines with
mad ideas of self-liberation. It endlessly dissents, but never builds
consensus. Of course, Eagleton _was_ giving a socialist critique, and
he did say that he allies himself with post-modernism, or parts of it,
against the William Bennetts of the world; but Bennett wouldn't object
to most of his criticism -- in fact, he could have delivered it. (I'm
not referring to Eagleton's other comments. For example, I doubt that
Bennett shares his opinion of Marx or his feelings about capitalism.)
I left thinking, once again, that the debates surrounding
post-modernism almost perfectly recapitulate the controveries over
modernism: Eagleton is the Lukacs of our time. He didn't actually
call post-modernism "decadent," but then, he only gave a short talk.
A few other notes: Stanley Fish introduced Eagleton as "a man
who needs no introduction," then continued for half an hour (granted,
it may have only seemed that long). The talk was unadvertised, but it
drew a big crowd -- the room was filled to overflowing, and latecomers
had to stand outside in the hall. In an odd moment, Eagleton credited
Fred Jameson with authoring the phrase, "the prison-house of language."
(Jameson, sitting in the front row, seemed happy to accept.)
-- moggin
David Swanson
Affable he may be, but he didn't say anything I could take seriously,
except a few standard criticisms of Foucault's frustrated abandonment
of action.
DS
Glaubt es mir, das Geheimniss und die grŸsste Fruchtbarkeit und den
grŸssten Genuss vom Dasein einzuernten heisst: gefŠhrlich leben!
Omar Haneef '96
moggin (mog...@bessel.nando.net) wrote:
> Terry Eagleton gave a talk at Duke today about post-modernism:
> he was against it, needless to say, but to give credit where it's due,
> he must be pomo's most affable critic. He began by demanding room to
> criticize post-modernism from the left, which was fair enough, but the
> criticism he went on to deliver was directed (strange as it may seem)
> from the right. That's not how _he_ would see it, naturally, but the
> substance of his talk was distinctly conservative.
> Eagleton suggested that post-modernism, viewed a movement,
> resulted from the historical failure of 'sixties radicalism, which,
> defeated on a political front, retreated, or at any rate displaced
> itself onto the plane of theory. That's similar to the right-wing
> complaints about "tenured radicals" -- even though Eagleton places
> a different evaluation on the outcome, his analysis is practically
> identical.
Hey, I think this is a valid complaint. One aspect of Eagleton's
criticism might be the same as the conservative criticism - that these new
academics seem to talk and do nothing - but Eagleton would surely want them
to come down from the plane of theory and be more active; whereas the
conservatives don't.
Saying his "analysis is practically identical" to the conservatives,
I take it, is meant to be a criticism of the analysis but it isn't really.
Why are they both wrong on this count? And isn't the fact that you have to
offer two different answers evidence that this is two different criticism?
(I'm guessing you do - I haven't heard the talk).
> He also objected that post-modernism is basically a skeptical,
> pessimistic affair, most of all in regard to such invaluable concepts
> as objectivity, self-determination, nature, and reality (to name only
> a few). It emphasizes the marginal while ignoring the mainstream.
These seem to me to be important complaints; not that PoMo - again, whatever
THAT means? - is wrong to make these emphases. I am not sure what the
alternatives might be, but we shouldn't be blind to the costs.
But these are pretty extravagent charges, and pretty illiterate. Did he name
any of these PoMos? Or did he just use the term?
> It
> takes a negative view of society and politics, which it combines with
> mad ideas of self-liberation.
"Mad ideas"? In what way are which ideas mad?
> It endlessly dissents, but never builds
> consensus.
This might be a danger, too.
> Of course, Eagleton _was_ giving a socialist critique, and
> he did say that he allies himself with post-modernism, or parts of it,
> against the William Bennetts of the world; but Bennett wouldn't object
> to most of his criticism -- in fact, he could have delivered it. (I'm
> not referring to Eagleton's other comments. For example, I doubt that
> Bennett shares his opinion of Marx or his feelings about capitalism.)
> I left thinking, once again, that the debates surrounding
> post-modernism almost perfectly recapitulate the controveries over
> modernism: Eagleton is the Lukacs of our time. He didn't actually
> call post-modernism "decadent," but then, he only gave a short talk.
> A few other notes: Stanley Fish introduced Eagleton as "a man
> who needs no introduction," then continued for half an hour (granted,
> it may have only seemed that long). The talk was unadvertised, but it
> drew a big crowd -- the room was filled to overflowing, and latecomers
> had to stand outside in the hall. In an odd moment, Eagleton credited
> Fred Jameson with authoring the phrase, "the prison-house of language."
> (Jameson, sitting in the front row, seemed happy to accept.)
Jameson and Eagleton have a long standing love affair. Eagleton's books have
Jameson proclaiming him the foremost Marxist in England; Eagleton returns
the favour by proclaiming Jameson the foremost Marxist in America. They
might even be right.
Now, knowing that they love each other (not literally) and have very similar
views, its strange that Eagleton's criticisms sound as if they would make a
case against Jameson. I know Jameson criticizes PoMo as a cultural dominant
(thats very different from movement), but his criticism agains the critics
aren't entirely cohesive, and seem to include himself. For instance, he
makes that comparison between Van Gogh's Peasant Shoes and Warhol's Diamond
Dust Shows, and explains that PS retain a sense of history where DDS effaces
history with historicism. Fine, maybe, but then he just briefly mentions
that theories which excuse this effacement (effacism? effacing?) are also
vulnerable to his own criticism.
But who would? Aren't all these pomo theorists pretty critical?
Baudrillard's hysteria seems to me to be tinged with an unspoken sorrow at
the state of affairs (I realise I may be the only one).
I don't know who Jameson would disagree with?
And I think if I'd seen Eagleton's lecture, I'd wonder who he was
disagreeing with? How is Eagleton more active and more radical than the
tenured radicals? Isn't he one of them?
-Omar
David Swanson
han...@engin.swarthmore.edu (Omar Haneef '96) writes:
> For instance, he
> makes that comparison between Van Gogh's Peasant Shoes and Warhol's Diamond
> Dust Shows, and explains that PS retain a sense of history where DDS effaces
> history with historicism.
Can you explain that?
Brian Dell
: Terry Eagleton gave a talk at Duke today ...
: Stanley Fish introduced Eagleton ...
: Fred Jameson ... sitting in the front row ...
A few Names in literary criticism, I see.
It seems to me that Eagleton's grievance with postmodernism is that
it has "conspired to discredit the classical concept of ideology"
(_Ideology: An Introduction_. (London: Verso) 1991, xi) and its
"antirepresentationalist" energies are not utopian or directed
towards a consensus of representational norms. Eagleton seems to
believe that some Habermasian consensus re discourse is a condition
for both setting up the Marxist critical frame and for cultural
production. He differs from other anti-pomos not with respect to the
end of facilitating cultural production but with respect to the means;
he speaks of art's "material intervention" where others might
speak of the (immaterial) intervention of creative genius.
"there is a difference ... between the 'meaninglessness' fostered by
some postmodernism, and the 'meaningless' deliberately injected by
some trends of avantgarde culture into bourgeois normality"
- Eagleton, "Capitalism, Modernism and Postmodernism." _New Left
Review_, 152 (July - August) 1985. p. 70.
"postmodernism ... commits the apocalyptic error of believing that
the discrediting of this particular representational epistemology is
the death of truth itself"
- ibid.
"If modernism lives its history as peculiarly, insistently _present_,
it also experiences a sense that this present moment is somehow of
the _future_, to which the present is nothing more than an
orientation; so that the idea of the Now, of the present as full
presence eclipsing the past, is itself intermittently eclipsed by an
awareness of the present as deferment, as an empty excited openness
to a future which is in one sense already here, in another sense yet
to come."
- ibid. p. 66-67.
Jameson seems to share Eagleton's anxiety about the breakdown of
cultural production, as Jameson deplores the "linguistic fragmentation
of social life itself to the point where the norm itself is eclipsed
[or] reduced to a neutral and reifed media speech, ... a field of
stylistic and discursive heterogeneity without a norm" ("Post-
modernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism," _New Left
Review__ 146 (July - August), 1984. p. 66). Jameson characterizes
postmodernism's breakdown of the signifying chain as "schizophrenic."
"If ... the subject has lost its capacity actively to extend its
protensions [sic] and re-tensions across the temporal manifold, and
to organize its past and future into coherent experience, it becomes
difficult enough to see how the cultural productions of such a subject
could result in anything but 'heaps of fragments' and in a practice of
the randomly heterogeneous and fragmentary."
- ibid. p. 71.
The hostility of Marxist critics to postmodernism is quite understand-
able because they can scarcely afford to do without externality of
perspective, binary (thus dialectic) oppositions, totalizing narra-
tives, Utopian projections, etc.
In my own (neo-conservative?) critique of postmodernism I share with
the pomos a rejection of Archmidean points and the _ding an sich_ but
I wish to _preserve the norms_ (in the name of preserving culture).
An endorsement of deviancy _does not_ follow from a rejection of
objectivity.
--
Brian Dell
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dellb/
Omar Haneef '96
> In article <4jkepd$7...@larch.cc.swarthmore.edu>
> han...@engin.swarthmore.edu (Omar Haneef '96) writes:
> > For instance, he
> > makes that comparison between Van Gogh's Peasant Shoes and Warhol's Diamond
> > Dust Shows, and explains that PS retain a sense of history where DDS effaces
> > history with historicism.
> Can you explain that?
Sure. But this is strictly from memory (where did I put the damn
article?):
Firstly, if you haven't seen the two pieces in question, allow me to
explain them to you:
Peasant Shoes: The topic of a series of famous articles by Heidegger,
Schapiro (sp?) and Derrida, these are a pair of ragged, dirty, peasant
shoes. Significant for the explanation that follows: Heidegger sees their
significance in how they implicate the shoes in a whole world of meaning,
and the Peasant's life.
Diamond Dust: One of these fancy pomo pieces with a bunch of shoes (high
heeled, comparatively sleek) reproduced all over a background. Gaudy
colours, reddish part of the spectrum. I don't know of any famous analyses
other than Jameson's comparison.
Jameson believes that the modernist work, such as Van Gogh's, allows
the user to interpret it, and situate it, in a historical framework which
enables criticism. The Peasant Shoes allow the viewer to talk about where
they came from, how they were used, who might have used them, who they might
belong to, what sort of life might have been lived in them etc. This is the
sort of analysis that Jameson likes because it allows historical thinking in
the Marxist sense, and hence historical criticism.
On the other hand, Warhol's Diamond Dust Shoes resists such meaning
making. Instead, the shoes seem ahistorical (I don't remember if he uses the
word reified, but the sentiment would be the same), handed down from some
metaphysical origin. Because such pieces often bring together a number of
styles from different time periods (although, I don't recognize any in
Diamond Dust and Jameson doesn't mention any), they do carry a certain sense
of history which Jameson calls Historicism, in constrast to historical.
This is all from his article "PoMo and the Cultural Logic of Late
Cap"; see the FAQs for citations.
-Omar
David M Hasen
moggin (mog...@bessel.nando.net) wrote:
: Eagleton suggested that post-modernism, viewed a movement,
: resulted from the historical failure of 'sixties radicalism, which,
: defeated on a political front, retreated, or at any rate displaced
: itself onto the plane of theory. That's similar to the right-wing
: complaints about "tenured radicals" -- even though Eagleton places
: a different evaluation on the outcome, his analysis is practically
: identical.
: He also objected that post-modernism is basically a skeptical,
: pessimistic affair, most of all in regard to such invaluable concepts
: as objectivity, self-determination, nature, and reality (to name only
: a few). It emphasizes the marginal while ignoring the mainstream. It
: takes a negative view of society and politics, which it combines with
: mad ideas of self-liberation. It endlessly dissents, but never builds
: consensus. Of course, Eagleton _was_ giving a socialist critique, and
: he did say that he allies himself with post-modernism, or parts of it,
: against the William Bennetts of the world; but Bennett wouldn't object
: to most of his criticism -- in fact, he could have delivered it.
Did it ever occur to you that the consensus between Bennett and Eagleton,
to the extent there is one, might be founded on more than blind prejudice,
or is your presentation of Eagleton's views "value neutral"?
--David
Omar Haneef '96
> Omar Haneef '96 (han...@engin.swarthmore.edu) wrote:
> : On the other hand, Warhol's Diamond Dust Shoes resists such meaning
> : making. Instead, the shoes seem ahistorical (I don't remember if he uses the
> : word reified, but the sentiment would be the same), handed down from some
> : metaphysical origin. Because such pieces often bring together a number of
> : styles from different time periods (although, I don't recognize any in
> : Diamond Dust and Jameson doesn't mention any), they do carry a certain sense
> : of history which Jameson calls Historicism, in constrast to historical.
> Which goes to show that Jameson doesn't know shit about shoes, either.
I don't want to take a stance here if I can manage, but one of my
friends thinks that Warhol's piece was also a piece of commentary and allows
for exactly the sort of historical analysis that Jameson does.
-Omar
p.s. I don't know much about shoes myseld so maybe I'm missing something.
Gordon Fitch
| : ... Of course, Eagleton _was_ giving a socialist critique, and
| : he did say that he allies himself with post-modernism, or parts of it,
| : against the William Bennetts of the world; but Bennett wouldn't object
| : to most of his criticism -- in fact, he could have delivered it.
David M Hasen <dha...@minerva.cis.yale.edu>:
| Did it ever occur to you that the consensus between Bennett and Eagleton,
| to the extent there is one, might be founded on more than blind prejudice,
| or is your presentation of Eagleton's views "value neutral"?
Nothing in moggin's treatment of this event suggested to me
that he was either pretending to value neutrality, or
regarded Eagleton's putative agreement with Bennett as
blind prejudice. Rather, he appears to be pointing out
that, as a socialist, Eagleton needs to believe that social
structures can be _fixed_, probably by the application of
some set of rules, a program. Now, this is certain
William Bennett's view; their disagreement would be on the
specifics.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Gordon Fitch
| ...
| On the other hand, Warhol's Diamond Dust Shoes resists such meaning
| making. Instead, the shoes seem ahistorical (I don't remember if he uses the
| word reified, but the sentiment would be the same), handed down from some
| metaphysical origin. Because such pieces often bring together a number of
| styles from different time periods (although, I don't recognize any in
| Diamond Dust and Jameson doesn't mention any), they do carry a certain sense
Andy Warhol said, emphatically, that there was _nothing_
behind his paintings. I think this would have to include
any sense of history, except, of course, as a sort of
fragmentary cultural jetsam floating around in the media.
I wonder, though, whether they will be able to continue
resist history as they drift back into it.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Andy Perry
han...@engin.swarthmore.edu (Omar Haneef '96) wrote:
>Duke! UVa! What about Swat! Terry, come to Swat!
Note: the following story may in fact be about Frederic Jameson. I don't
actually remember who the star was, but I'm positive it was either
Eagleton or Jameson.
A bit before my time, [TE or FJ] did speak at Swat. Afterwards, a group
of English majors wanted to hang out with him over dinner and chat. He
insisted on going to Le Bec Fin, and made the students pay for him.
[Note to non-Philly folks: that's a world class French restaurant, and
priced like one. The prix fixe menu (which is the only menu) was $89 per
person in 1991. Not including wine.]
--
Andy Perry We search before and after,
Brown University We pine for what is not.
English Department Our sincerest laughter
Andrew...@brown.edu OR With some pain is fraught.
st00...@brownvm.bitnet -- Shelley, d'apres Horace Rumpole
David Swanson
> On the other hand, Warhol's Diamond Dust Shoes resists such meaning
> making. Instead, the shoes seem ahistorical (I don't remember if he uses the
> word reified, but the sentiment would be the same), handed down from some
> metaphysical origin. Because such pieces often bring together a number of
> styles from different time periods (although, I don't recognize any in
> Diamond Dust and Jameson doesn't mention any), they do carry a certain sense
> of history which Jameson calls Historicism, in constrast to historical.
>
> This is all from his article "PoMo and the Cultural Logic of Late
> Cap"; see the FAQs for citations.
>
> -Omar
Thanks. I'm familiar with the Van Gogh and think I can pretty well
imagine the Warhol. I hesitate to accept the idea that the latter
cannot be criticised at all. No doubt it's a lesser work. I don't
rank pop art terribly high. But is pop art the same thing as
postmodern art? I mean, I agree that the VG is richer because of what
it allows one to imagine, but I wouldn't call that "historical" exactly
or the W "ahistorical". For an explanation why I'll post a paper on
the VG with the title "shoes".
I want to ask a question which I would probably only ask on internet
where I don't have to watch people get offended. Would I like pop-art
better if I were gay?
DS
Glaubt es mir, das Geheimniss um die gršsste Fruchtbarkeit und den
gršssten Genuss vom Dasein einzuernten heisst: gefŠhrlich leben!
Omar Haneef '96
> In article <4jmnj6$u...@larch.cc.swarthmore.edu>
> han...@engin.swarthmore.edu (Omar Haneef '96) writes:
> > David Swanson (dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu) wrote:
> > > In article <4jkepd$7...@larch.cc.swarthmore.edu>
> > > han...@engin.swarthmore.edu (Omar Haneef '96) writes:
> >
> Thanks. I'm familiar with the Van Gogh and think I can pretty well
> imagine the Warhol. I hesitate to accept the idea that the latter
> cannot be criticised at all.
My friend agrees with you; I think Jameson would say that it "resists" a
historical interpretation. I think Jameson would be satisfied if we let him
get away with relative historicism for Warhol.
> No doubt it's a lesser work. I don't
> rank pop art terribly high.
Attention, Fitch, aristocratic tastes in the ranks!
> But is pop art the same thing as
> postmodern art?
Depends.
> I mean, I agree that the VG is richer because of what
> it allows one to imagine, but I wouldn't call that "historical" exactly
> or the W "ahistorical". For an explanation why I'll post a paper on
> the VG with the title "shoes".
The imagination was my own attempt to bring out what I think Jameson mean't.
His article is not too long and well worth the read, even if its just
because of its sheer influence.
> I want to ask a question which I would probably only ask on internet
> where I don't have to watch people get offended. Would I like pop-art
> better if I were gay?
This isn't offensive at all just yet, but it seems to me that you have to
first tell us why you think you might like pop-art better if you were gay.
What would it be about being gay that would incline one to prefer pop-art?
-Omar
Gordon Fitch
| ...
| the pomos a rejection of Archmidean points and the _ding an sich_ but
| I wish to _preserve the norms_ (in the name of preserving culture).
| An endorsement of deviancy _does not_ follow from a rejection of
| objectivity.
But a definition of deviancy requires some kind of
objectivity to locate that which the deviant is to deviate
from. I would think this would be obvious. If the deviation-
definers do not hold their definition to have a special,
unique existence and power, (that is, to be the objective
truth) then those who could otherwise be construed as
degenerates become mere eccentrics or originals.
By the way, I don't see where you get postmodernism (which
doesn't exist, but never mind) as rejecting the _Ding_an_sich_.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
David Swanson
han...@engin.swarthmore.edu (Omar Haneef '96) writes:
>
> The imagination was my own attempt to bring out what I think Jameson mean't.
> His article is not too long and well worth the read, even if its just
> because of its sheer influence.
I'll try to get to it. But don't underestimate my laziness.
>
> > I want to ask a question which I would probably only ask on internet
> > where I don't have to watch people get offended. Would I like pop-art
> > better if I were gay?
>
> This isn't offensive at all just yet, but it seems to me that you have to
> first tell us why you think you might like pop-art better if you were gay.
> What would it be about being gay that would incline one to prefer pop-art?
I don't know exactly. The question is based mainly on observations of
who likes pop-art, including who made pop-art, without pretending that
I understand the WHY of it. Of course, I haven't taken any formal
survey, and it may be that no greater percentage of homosexuals like
the stuff than heterosexuals do. And if they DO, it may be a function
of a particular New York culture, more so than any characteristic
inherent in gayness. I don't know. I was hoping somebody could tell
me.
I heard a lecture the other week by a gay art critic who showed slides
of (literally) piles of shit. There was supposedly something
delightfully scandalous in, say, a heap of shit with a blond barbie
doll stuck in it. In this case, I'd be surprised if even homosexuals
are impressed (though, I guess, they are meant to be).
DS
>
> -Omar
moggin
>I want to ask a question which I would probably only ask on internet
>where I don't have to watch people get offended. Would I like pop-art
>better if I were gay?
Have you read Sontag's "Notes on Camp"? Fabulous piece, and
it would go a ways toward answering your question.
-- moggin
moggin
>: moggin (mog...@bessel.nando.net)
>: [...] Of course, Eagleton _was_ giving a socialist critique, and
>: he did say that he allies himself with post-modernism, or parts of it,
>: against the William Bennetts of the world; but Bennett wouldn't object
>: to most of his criticism -- in fact, he could have delivered it.
>Did it ever occur to you that the consensus between Bennett and Eagleton,
>to the extent there is one, might be founded on more than blind prejudice,
>or is your presentation of Eagleton's views "value neutral"?
Of course it's not founded on blind prejudice -- I don't think
anything like that at all. But if you're asking whether it's occurred
to me to agree with them, then generally speaking, I'd have to say no.
And of course it's not clear exactly what their agreement consists of:
Eagleton and Bennet have a consensus on, for example, the existence of
universal values and truths -- but they possess very different values,
and very different ideas of the truth. Eagleton's own view is that if
he and Bennett _do_ believe the same things, that makes Bennett into a
socialist.
-- moggin
Brian Dell
Brian Dell:
:: In my own (neo-conservative?) critique of postmodernism I share
:: with the pomos a rejection of Archmidean points and the _ding an
:: sich_ [that is, the possibility of knowing "the thing-in-itself"
:: as opposed to one's perception of the thing] but I wish to
:: _preserve the norms_ (in the name of preserving culture). An
:: endorsement of deviancy _does not_ follow from a rejection of
:: objectivity.
Gordon Fitch:
: But a definition of deviancy requires some kind of
: objectivity to locate that which the deviant is to deviate
: from. I would think this would be obvious. If the deviation-
: definers do not hold their definition to have a special,
: unique existence and power, (that is, to be the objective
: truth) then those who could otherwise be construed as
: degenerates become mere eccentrics or originals.
The theory I wish to take issue with is something like this:
1) The cause of political emancipation is advanced by weakening
the coercive power of normalizing influences.
2) Norm creators and enforcers maintain their power by claiming to
be the prophets or mouth-pieces of God or Reason. They secure
a consensus to conform by appealing to the Authority of abstractions
such as Truth, Justice, Holiness, etc. or by preaching the gospel of
"objectivity," which holds that any man led by the light of Reason
or Revelation will inevitably come to a determinate perspective from
whence he can and must acknowledge that the creation and enforcement
of the norms is necessitated by metaphysical fact.
3) An emancipatory effect therefore follows from a subversion or
"deconstruction" of the metaphysical reasoning (or appeal to
"trancendent" considerations) that is offered in justification of
the demand for fidelity to the norms.
Whether this indeed characterizes the "postmodern" project or not, it
is in any case quite mistaken, because norms may be justified by appeals
to *immanent* considerations, specifically cultural integrity and memory.
Apologists for norms may, for example, neglect or even disdain univerals
and invoke instead particulars such as the icons of a specific community's
race, traditions, customs, etc., thereby ascribing a given norm with "a
special, unique existence and power." Norms are not discovered in the
Platonic element but are created out of the volk's _Blut und Boden_.
To the extent to which the postmodern project is parasitic upon a
disabling and deracinating cognitivism, I identify with it, but at issue
is what, if anything, ought to replace the scientific myths of objectivity
and material progress. I humbly suggest a return to an earlier, more
spiritual mode of apprehending the world, one that is conditioned by
considerations of cultural history. To be quite specific, I call for a
return to the ancient Teutonic forests.
Certainly a point must be fixed; if deviance is to be identified (and
pressure brought to bear against it) it must be reliefed by its contrast or
departure from the non-deviant. This is, however, only an argument for
the existence of norms, it does not at all determine the content of those
norms. The least deviant point is determined by inquiry into *social fact*
not metaphysical fact. A comprehensive account, for example, might inquire
into the nature of the social contract that became institutionalized into a
community's laws over the course of its political history or the nature of
the overlapping consensus that developed into a community's mores over the
passage of generations.
Gordon Fitch
| ...
| disabling and deracinating cognitivism, I identify with it, but at issue
| is what, if anything, ought to replace the scientific myths of objectivity
| and material progress. I humbly suggest a return to an earlier, more
| spiritual mode of apprehending the world, one that is conditioned by
| considerations of cultural history. To be quite specific, I call for a
| return to the ancient Teutonic forests.
But they've been cut down, spiritually if not physically.
If a tree grows, it is because it is permitted to grow;
if the sky is blue, it is because "we" have not elected
to color it orange. Part of the predicament of post-
modernity is the death of Nature. This Nature could be
resurrected, but now it would be a pet, not a god. Just
so, "norms" are pets. You may find an earlier, more
spiritual mode of apprehending the world at your local
ashram. Man has defeated Nature, and victory is death;
you can at most stuff the body of your defeated
adversary, but not get him to talk without ventriloquism.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
moggin
[Some great quotes from Eagleton and Jameson deleted.]
>The hostility of Marxist critics to postmodernism is quite understand-
>able because they can scarcely afford to do without externality of
>perspective, binary (thus dialectic) oppositions, totalizing narra-
>tives, Utopian projections, etc.
Agreed that it's understandable; the question is, is it always
necessary? Not all Marxist critics are hostile to post-modernism.
What about Adorno and Benjamin, for example? Lukacs was hostile to
them precisely because they _were_ post-modernists. Or modernists,
which means the same thing. And I'm not sure that either Utopia or
dialectics is incompatible with post-modernism -- it probably comes
down to cases.
If you're interested, Eagleton's position was that pomos who
call concepts like truth, nature, and tradition "extra baggage" are
"people you can work with," even though they're dead wrong. So what
I want to know is, who are the post-modernists he _can't_ work with?
Brian:
>In my own (neo-conservative?) critique of postmodernism I share with
>the pomos a rejection of Archmidean points and the _ding an sich_ but
>I wish to _preserve the norms_ (in the name of preserving culture).
What about just making preserves?
-- moggin
steve vivian
>> Eagleton suggested that post-modernism, viewed a movement,
> resulted from the historical failure of 'sixties radicalism, which,
> defeated on a political front, retreated, or at any rate displaced
> itself onto the plane of theory. That's similar to the right-wing
> complaints about "tenured radicals" -- even though Eagleton places
> a different evaluation on the outcome, his analysis is practically
> identical.
>
> He also objected that post-modernism is basically a skeptical,
> pessimistic affair, most of all in regard to such invaluable concepts
> as objectivity, self-determination, nature, and reality (to name only
> a few). It emphasizes the marginal while ignoring the mainstream.
Very interesting post..thanks, moggin!
I agree with Eagleton. In the hands of the radicals of academe,
post-structuralism is, for the most part, merely careerist dressed up in
"radical" clothing. The leftist projects of the so-called leftists of
academe, many of whom appropriate post-structuralist jargon to critique
various "isms", are typically empty, far removed from the day to day
lives of most people. The academic leftist tries to advance his
career/gain tenure/gain a more glamorous position by publishing "radical
critiques" of post-colonialism, the "oppressive" canon of literature,
etc. (How very *radical, huh? Advancing one's career while a grad.
assistant, laboring at sweatshop wages, grades your students' essays or
does the leg work for your research?) Meanwhile, as the radical of
academ have been fretting about, say, phallocentrism in Dante, the wage
of most Americans has been going into the toilet. Then again, it's hard
to gain that full professorship in cultural studies if you spend your
free time not writing for College English but helping organize a union or
working at the grassroots level for whatever popular cause you might
choose.
Cheers,
steve
David Swanson
mog...@bessel.nando.net (moggin) writes:
> Have you read Sontag's "Notes on Camp"? Fabulous piece, and
> it would go a ways toward answering your question.
>
> -- moggin
Thanks. I'll look for it.
DS
Michael Betancourt
> Andy Warhol said, emphatically, that there was _nothing_
> behind his paintings. I think this would have to include
> any sense of history, except, of course, as a sort of
> fragmentary cultural jetsam floating around in the media.
Looking at his work, I have to suspect that this was at least partially
a tactic to defy/deflect criticism of the works at the time. The result
is that his early paintings have become much more synomous with pop art
than that of his contemporaries who continiued working into the
seventies.
> I wonder, though, whether they will be able to continue
> resist history as they drift back into it.
As to this, I would be inclined to say that no, they won't. If for no
other reason than the work has exerted an influence on artists who came
after him: they will historicize him, even if his work tries to resist
it.
-- Michael Betancourt (artist / videofilm maker)
E-mail: mw...@mosquito.com
Web Site: http://www.mosquito.com/~mwb2
http://www.art.net/Studios/Visual/Betan/index.html
Jeff Johnson
>The theory I wish to take issue with is something like this:
> 1) The cause of political emancipation is advanced by weakening
> the coercive power of normalizing influences.
> 2) Norm creators and enforcers maintain their power by claiming to
> be the prophets or mouth-pieces of God or Reason. They secure
> a consensus to conform by appealing to the Authority of abstractions
> such as Truth, Justice, Holiness, etc. or by preaching the gospel of
> "objectivity," which holds that any man led by the light of Reason
> or Revelation will inevitably come to a determinate perspective from
> whence he can and must acknowledge that the creation and enforcement
> of the norms is necessitated by metaphysical fact.
> 3) An emancipatory effect therefore follows from a subversion or
> "deconstruction" of the metaphysical reasoning (or appeal to
> "trancendent" considerations) that is offered in justification of
> the demand for fidelity to the norms.
>Whether this indeed characterizes the "postmodern" project or not, it
>is in any case quite mistaken, because norms may be justified by appeals
>to *immanent* considerations, specifically cultural integrity and memory.
>Apologists for norms may, for example, neglect or even disdain univerals
>and invoke instead particulars such as the icons of a specific community's
>race, traditions, customs, etc., thereby ascribing a given norm with "a
>special, unique existence and power." Norms are not discovered in the
>Platonic element but are created out of the volk's _Blut und Boden_.
>To the extent to which the postmodern project is parasitic upon a
>disabling and deracinating cognitivism, I identify with it, but at issue
>is what, if anything, ought to replace the scientific myths of objectivity
>and material progress. I humbly suggest a return to an earlier, more
>spiritual mode of apprehending the world, one that is conditioned by
>considerations of cultural history. To be quite specific, I call for a
>return to the ancient Teutonic forests.
>Certainly a point must be fixed; if deviance is to be identified (and
>pressure brought to bear against it) it must be reliefed by its contrast or
>departure from the non-deviant. This is, however, only an argument for
>the existence of norms, it does not at all determine the content of those
>norms. The least deviant point is determined by inquiry into *social fact*
>not metaphysical fact. A comprehensive account, for example, might inquire
>into the nature of the social contract that became institutionalized into a
>community's laws over the course of its political history or the nature of
>the overlapping consensus that developed into a community's mores over the
>passage of generations.
Social contract? Overlapping consensus? Do you realize that you are
beginning to sound like John Rawls? (Cp. _Political Liberalism_)
There is no social fact. Culture is an abstraction that can be
deconstructed as easily as can Truth and Justice. A nation, as
Benedict Anderson says, is an imagined political community:
"It is _imagined_ because the members of even the smallest nation will
never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of
them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion. . .
. In fact, all communities larger than primordial villages of
face-to-face contact (and perhaps even these) are imageined." (p. 6,
_Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of
Nationalism_)
Deviancy is more difficult to identify than you suggest, for there are
competing interpretations of the "community" even among its members.
Appeal to social fact, therefore, is inevitably an appeal to
authority, to those who control the resources. Any student of Bosnia
knows that cultural integrity and memory often are the products of
political entrepreneurship. Bosnia is merely a notable and violent
example of a simultaneous rewriting and interpretation of history that
is practiced everywhere, North America being no exception. You are on
the wrong track: the strongest community is one that has _forgotten_
its history.
Norms need no justification, because adherence to norms is an
_emotional_ rather than an intellectual phenomenon. For those who
have been acculturated, justification is superfluous, and for those
who have not, justification is inadequate. It is unlikely that any
amount of reasoning would preserve or destroy a commitment to norms.
Brian Dell
: You may find an earlier, more spiritual mode of apprehending
: the world at your local ashram.
The ashram won't do, because Eastern religions are, in a word,
foreign. We must embrace a more manly, active religion that
celebrates our identity in terms of the dynamic Western tradition.
We should follow the advice of Ralph Waldo Emerson and "enter into
the state of war and wake Thor and Woden, courage and constancy,
in our Saxon breasts."
Brian Dell:
:: I call for a return to the ancient Teutonic forests.
Fitch:
: But they've been cut down, spiritually if not physically.
: ... Part of the predicament of post-modernity is the death of
: Nature. This Nature could be resurrected, but now it would be
: a pet, not a god. Just so, "norms" are pets.
Derrida's proclamation, "Nature has never existed," was a greater
sacrilege than Nietzsche's proclamation, "God is dead." I can
only hope that it's of as little consequence:
"_New Struggles_ - After Buddha was dead, his shadow was for
centuries still pointed out in a cave - an immense, frightful
shadow . God is dead: but, men being what they are, perhaps
there will for millenia still be caves in which his shadow is
pointed out. - And we - we still have to conquer his shadow too!"
- Friedrich Nietzsche, _The Gay Science_
Nature couldn't be dead in any case, because it has talked to
Nietzsche:
"And life itself told me this secret: 'Behold,' it said, 'I am
that _which must overcome itself again and again_."
- _Thus Spake Zarathustra_
Would Gordon Fitch accuse Friedrich Nietzsche of "ventriloquism"?
If Nature has died then I preach the good news of its glorious and
triumphant resurrection. Bend the knee, ye heathen!
: If a tree grows, it is because it is permitted to grow;
: if the sky is blue, it is because "we" have not elected
: to color it orange.
Defile not the canvas with unnatural paint. That's the problem
with modern man: he goes about with hammer and paint constructing
stuff until the din of all his construction drowns out the call
of the wild which calls man back to himself. What better evidence
that he doesn't know who he is anymore than when he pours concrete
over the ashes of his forefathers. Oh, impious and irreverent man!
Tear down your Babel and meet the spirit that dwells within the land,
under its sky, in its air, in its valleys, and on its rises, in its
fields, in its waters and its trees - a mute friend, judge, and
inspirer. Understand its severity, its saving power, the grace of
its secular right to our fidelity, to our obedience. Each blade of
grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength;
and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith
together with his life.
David Swanson
de...@gpu1.srv.ualberta.ca (Brian Dell) writes:
> To the extent to which the postmodern project is parasitic upon a
> disabling and deracinating cognitivism, I identify with it, but at issue
> is what, if anything, ought to replace the scientific myths of objectivity
> and material progress. I humbly suggest a return to an earlier, more
> spiritual mode of apprehending the world, one that is conditioned by
> considerations of cultural history. To be quite specific, I call for a
> return to the ancient Teutonic forests.
Material progress a myth???!!!
I'm all for considering cultural history, and I live in a forest by
choice (even if it's not very Teutonic), but why "spiritual"? Why
regression? Do you have a convincing case for these brief suggestions?
David Swanson
g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
> But they've been cut down, spiritually if not physically.
> If a tree grows, it is because it is permitted to grow;
> if the sky is blue, it is because "we" have not elected
> to color it orange. Part of the predicament of post-
> modernity is the death of Nature. This Nature could be
> resurrected, but now it would be a pet, not a god. Just
> so, "norms" are pets. You may find an earlier, more
> spiritual mode of apprehending the world at your local
> ashram. Man has defeated Nature, and victory is death;
> you can at most stuff the body of your defeated
> adversary, but not get him to talk without ventriloquism.
Well put!
David Swanson
jgjo...@students.wisc.edu (Jeff Johnson) writes:
> Norms need no justification, because adherence to norms is an
> _emotional_ rather than an intellectual phenomenon. For those who
> have been acculturated, justification is superfluous, and for those
> who have not, justification is inadequate. It is unlikely that any
> amount of reasoning would preserve or destroy a commitment to norms.
Oh, I doubt that. What sorts of norms do you have in mind? Certainly
for some this is right, but then one can be given reasons for holding
on to the norms one happens to possess. Nothing is purely "emotional"
or "intellectual".
David Swanson
steve vivian <svi...@niia.net> writes:
> Then again, it's hard
> to gain that full professorship in cultural studies if you spend your
> free time not writing for College English but helping organize a union or
> working at the grassroots level for whatever popular cause you might
> choose.
>
> Cheers,
> steve
Then again, you CAN make a living organizing grass roots movements; you
just won't be a professor.
David Swanson
Michael Betancourt <mw...@mosquito.com> writes:
> As to this, I would be inclined to say that no, they won't. If for no
> other reason than the work has exerted an influence on artists who came
> after him: they will historicize him, even if his work tries to resist
> it.
An artist on "Charlie Rose" on PBS last night called Warhol the most
influential artist of the past 35 years. The fact that this doesn't
seem entirely absurd is pretty depressing.
moggin
>> mog...@bessel.nando.net (moggin):
>> Have you read Sontag's "Notes on Camp"? Fabulous piece, and it
>> would go a ways toward answering your question.
>Thanks. I'll look for it.
It's in _Against Interpretation_. (Lots of other good stuff
there, too.)
-- moggin
Brian Dell
: Culture is an abstraction that can be deconstructed as easily as
: imagined political community:
I take it that you don't subscribe to the glorious doctrine of the
Organic State. It is the _liberals_ who are guilty of chasing after
the phantoms of their brains because they construe the State in terms
of (bureaucratic) institutions. When, instead, State = Race (for
example) there is nothing imaginary about it: you can actually feel it
in the texture of the hair and see it in the color of the skin. Men
cannot identify with the liberal State (or feel in the blood sympathy
for its projects) because it is an _abstraction_; they must (hypotheti-
cally) jump outside their skins and describe their (defining) homo-
geneity in terms of some disembodied property 'N," which is possessed
by each and to the same degree - N, for example, may signify the "right"
to the greatest possible "freedom." From the (supposedly) _given_
political theory follows the account of identity, when the political
theory ought to follow from the _given_ identity.
: Appeal to social fact ... is inevitably an appeal to authority, to
: those who control the resources.
To those who control _cultural_ resources, perhaps; who controls the
_material_ resources is an issue of much less consequence. Judicious
husbanding of the cultural treasury is more important than admini-
stration of the purely fiscal one.
: Bosnia is merely a notable and violent example of a simultaneous
: rewriting and interpretation of history that is practiced
: everywhere, North America being no exception.
Bosnia is an example of a state whose integrity was compromised
beyond repair by ethnic and religious heterogeneity. Right now the
region's only hope for peace is re-segregation. The lesson of Bosnia
is not some platitude about tolerance but a warning of the dangers of
heterogenization and of the instability of political institutions
when they are founded upon Utopian projections or false abstractions
of mass culture instead of authentic experience of local culture.
: Norms need no justification, because adherence to norms is an
: _emotional_ rather than an intellectual phenomenon. For those who
: have been acculturated, justification is superfluous, and for those
: who have not, justification is inadequate.
This is true, no specific norm needs justification, but a _raison
d'etre_for norms may be necessary; that is to say, "why acculturate
this way?" is not a question to be decided at the meta (federal? ;>)
level but "why acculturate?" is rightfully put to the political
philosopher.
: It is unlikely that any amount of reasoning would preserve or
: destroy a commitment to norms.
Although no amount of reasoning will guarantee a commitment to a norm,
an overevaluation of cognitivist modes of awareness may undermine
commitment by, as I have suggested, quixotically attempting to divert
commitments to abstractions (which cannot properly hold or inspire
one's ardor).
Jeff Johnson
Jeff:
> : Culture is an abstraction that can be deconstructed as easily as
> : can Truth and Justice. A nation, as Benedict Anderson says, is an
> : imagined political community:
Brian:
>I take it that you don't subscribe to the glorious doctrine of the
>Organic State. It is the _liberals_ who are guilty of chasing after
>the phantoms of their brains because they construe the State in terms
>of (bureaucratic) institutions. When, instead, State = Race (for
>example) there is nothing imaginary about it: you can actually feel it
>in the texture of the hair and see it in the color of the skin. Men
>cannot identify with the liberal State (or feel in the blood sympathy
>for its projects) because it is an _abstraction_; they must (hypotheti-
>cally) jump outside their skins and describe their (defining) homo-
>geneity in terms of some disembodied property 'N," which is possessed
>by each and to the same degree - N, for example, may signify the "right"
>to the greatest possible "freedom." From the (supposedly) _given_
>political theory follows the account of identity, when the political
>theory ought to follow from the _given_ identity.
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the terminology. A nation is not a
state, for nationalism is the principle that every nation ought to
have its own state. Nations are quite often racial in character.
In any case, race is another abstraction easily deconstructed (it
certainly has no scientific basis). It is a rather silly idea, not
immediately obvious in the absence of indoctrination, to make pigment
the foundation for shared political rights. Why not use height
instead? Or belly-button configuration ("innie" vs. "outie")? You
believe you can escape ideology, but all categories, I'm sorry to say,
are constructed.
Jeff:
> : Appeal to social fact ... is inevitably an appeal to authority, to
> : those who control the resources.
Brian:
>To those who control _cultural_ resources, perhaps; who controls the
>_material_ resources is an issue of much less consequence. Judicious
>husbanding of the cultural treasury is more important than admini-
>stration of the purely fiscal one.
They are always one and the same.
Jeff:
> : Bosnia is merely a notable and violent example of a simultaneous
> : rewriting and interpretation of history that is practiced
> : everywhere, North America being no exception.
Brian:
>Bosnia is an example of a state whose integrity was compromised
>beyond repair by ethnic and religious heterogeneity. Right now the
>region's only hope for peace is re-segregation. The lesson of Bosnia
>is not some platitude about tolerance but a warning of the dangers of
>heterogenization and of the instability of political institutions
>when they are founded upon Utopian projections or false abstractions
>of mass culture instead of authentic experience of local culture.
"Authentic" experience constructed out of ignorance by means of the
Party-controlled media apparatus, that is. What is interesting about
the Bosnian situation is that the only group that still had a shred of
credibility, the professorship, cooperated in the promulgation of
ethnic propaganda directed by political entrepreneurs such as
Milosevic.
Jeff:
> : Norms need no justification, because adherence to norms is an
> : _emotional_ rather than an intellectual phenomenon. For those who
> : have been acculturated, justification is superfluous, and for those
> : who have not, justification is inadequate.
Brian:
>This is true, no specific norm needs justification, but a _raison
>d'etre_for norms may be necessary; that is to say, "why acculturate
>this way?" is not a question to be decided at the meta (federal? ;>)
>level but "why acculturate?" is rightfully put to the political
>philosopher.
Why grow old? It cannot be avoided.
Jeff:
> : It is unlikely that any amount of reasoning would preserve or
> : destroy a commitment to norms.
Brian:
>Although no amount of reasoning will guarantee a commitment to a norm,
>an overevaluation of cognitivist modes of awareness may undermine
>commitment by, as I have suggested, quixotically attempting to divert
>commitments to abstractions (which cannot properly hold or inspire
>one's ardor).
Any commitment so shallow deserves to be undermined.
Stephen Schwartz
wrote:
> Not all Marxist critics are hostile to post-modernism.
> What about Adorno and Benjamin, for example?
Interesting notion of chronology you have there. Funny thing is, if you
had been around to mention the word "postmodernism" to either Adorno or
Benjamin, they wouldn't have had the slightest idea what you were talking
about. So I guess, in a manner of speaking, it's (vacuously) true to say
that neither of them were "hostile to post-modernism." But, then, neither
was my grandmother.
Steve
Stephen Schwartz
(Silke-Maria Weineck) wrote:
> Stephen Schwartz (tra...@club-internet.fr) wrote:
> : In article <4jrvqh$4...@bessel.nando.net>, mog...@bessel.nando.net (moggin)
> The term postmodernism has been in use since the late 19th century, even
> though not with the kind of prominence you require.
Care to give me a reference? I don't believe you.
> Moggin clearly was referring to what can be thought of as those elements
> in postmodernism that are critiques of modernity when he said that B and
> A weren't hostile to them. Which is even an understatement.
Oh, so you mean that it isn't the *word* postmodernism that they wouldn't
be hostile to, but rather the thing to which the word refers? How very .
Omar Haneef '96
I read her as saying the opposite: that they may not recognize the word, but
they would not be hostile to the idea. Reread and see if you don't agree.
-Omar
Gordon Fitch
| > : > The term postmodernism has been in use since the late 19th century, even
Stephen Schwartz (tra...@club-internet.fr) wrote:
| > : Care to give me a reference? I don't believe you.
(Silke-Maria Weineck) wrote:
| > Boohoo.
|
tra...@club-internet.fr (Stephen Schwartz):
| I notice that you did not provide a reference. Is it safe to assume you
| were talking out of your ass?
I think it's safe to assume that no one wants to provide
you with something you could easily look up, if you were
really interested in it. Do you know where to look?
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Stephen Schwartz
(Silke-Maria Weineck) wrote:
> Stephen Schwartz (tra...@club-internet.fr) wrote:
> : In article <4kavke$3...@netnews.upenn.edu>, wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu
> : > The term postmodernism has been in use since the late 19th century, even
> : > though not with the kind of prominence you require.
>
> : Care to give me a reference? I don't believe you.
>
> Boohoo.
I notice that you did not provide a reference. Is it safe to assume you
were talking out of your ass?
> : > Moggin clearly was referring to what can be thought of as those elements
> : > in postmodernism that are critiques of modernity when he said that B and
> : > A weren't hostile to them. Which is even an understatement.
>
> : Oh, so you mean that it isn't the *word* postmodernism that they wouldn't
> : be hostile to, but rather the thing to which the word refers? How very .
>
> Yeah?
Well, it was supposed to say "How very postmodern." But I kind of like
"How very."
Steve
moggin
>We got the same talk more or less, a few days before you, at UVA.
>Affable he may be, but he didn't say anything I could take seriously,
>except a few standard criticisms of Foucault's frustrated abandonment
>of action.
That's how it is -- Derrida may have more to say, but Eagleton is
alot more fun to listen to. I don't know how he was up your way, but
down here he adopted a Daniel-in-the-lion's-den attitude. He was out
to epater les postmodernists -- I couldn't tell if he succeeded, but
it made for a good show. I mean, how often do you hear somebody come
out in defense of teleology, these days?
-- moggin
moggin
>> Eagleton suggested that post-modernism, viewed a movement,
>> resulted from the historical failure of 'sixties radicalism, which,
>> defeated on a political front, retreated, or at any rate displaced
>> itself onto the plane of theory. That's similar to the right-wing
>> complaints about "tenured radicals" -- even though Eagleton places
>> a different evaluation on the outcome, his analysis is practically
>> identical.
Omar:
> Hey, I think this is a valid complaint. One aspect of Eagleton's
>criticism might be the same as the conservative criticism - that these new
>academics seem to talk and do nothing - but Eagleton would surely want them
>to come down from the plane of theory and be more active; whereas the
>conservatives don't.
> Saying his "analysis is practically identical" to the conservatives,
>I take it, is meant to be a criticism of the analysis but it isn't really.
>Why are they both wrong on this count? And isn't the fact that you have to
>offer two different answers evidence that this is two different criticism?
>(I'm guessing you do - I haven't heard the talk).
You're right that I didn't refute Eagleton's point -- all I did
was to point out what struck me as an interesting congruency. But I
think Eagleton is wrong in two big ways. For one thing, he relies on
the opposition between theory and practice: unless theory is distinct
from practice and beneath it, he has no reason to look at theory as a
retreat. For another, his sense of history seems odd -- why say that
post-modernism begins with the end of the 'sixties? He never defined
it (can you blame him?), but he mentioned Foucualt, Derrida, and also
Lacan, who all did important work before the 'seventies ever arrived.
Naturally he wants to see academics out on the streets, doing
something more practical for the cause, while conservatives want them
out, period. Paglia gave the best answer to the right-wing criticism
when she said that "tenured radical" is a contradiction in terms. And
as she's also observed, 'sixties radicals were unlikely to get tenured
positions -- they wound up dead, or in prison, or in the loony-bin, or
scrabbling to hold together some kind of marginal existence -- anybody
who was prepared to move into a comfortable academic slot as soon as
the political climate shifted must have spent the previous decade in a
study-carrel -- not dropping acid or raising barricades.
moggin:
>> He also objected that post-modernism is basically a skeptical,
>> pessimistic affair, most of all in regard to such invaluable concepts
>> as objectivity, self-determination, nature, and reality (to name only
>> a few). It emphasizes the marginal while ignoring the mainstream.
Omar:
>These seem to me to be important complaints; not that PoMo - again,
>whatever THAT means? - is wrong to make these emphases. I am not sure
>what the alternatives might be, but we shouldn't be blind to the
>costs. But these are pretty extravagent charges, and pretty
>illiterate. Did he name any of these PoMos? Or did he just use the
>term?
He was very short on specifics, but in fairness to Eagleton, he
didn't pretend to be delivering a fine-grained analysis -- he came out
swinging, and he only goal was to land a few blows. I hope he adds a
few details, though, before he's done -- he was reading from his draft
for a book on post-modernism, which is supposed to be out in the fall.
moggin:
>> It
>> takes a negative view of society and politics, which it combines with
>> mad ideas of self-liberation.
Omar:
>"Mad ideas"? In what way are which ideas mad?
He wasn't specific, but he was alluding to the notion of a self
liberated from subjectivity, free to dive and swim in the currents of
desire -- that sort of thing.
>> It endlessly dissents, but never builds consensus.
>This might be a danger, too.
To...?
>[...] And I think if I'd seen Eagleton's lecture, I'd wonder who he was
>disagreeing with? How is Eagleton more active and more radical than the
>tenured radicals? Isn't he one of them?
I assumed from the way he was talking that Eagleton is involved
in hands-on political work of some kind, in addition to the stuff he
does as an academic and an intellectual.
-- moggin
moggin
>> Not all Marxist critics are hostile to post-modernism. What about
>> Adorno and Benjamin, for example?
tra...@club-internet.fr (Stephen Schwartz):
>Interesting notion of chronology you have there. Funny thing is, if you
>had been around to mention the word "postmodernism" to either Adorno or
>Benjamin, they wouldn't have had the slightest idea what you were talking
>about. So I guess, in a manner of speaking, it's (vacuously) true to say
>that neither of them were "hostile to post-modernism." But, then, neither
>was my grandmother.
Glad to hear your grannie was such an open-minded gal. We could
talk about what counts as an anachronism, or whether anachronisms are
really such a crime, or what your relatives think on various topics,
but this is really a much simpler question. If you had read only one
or two sentences further, the mystery would've cleared up for you. I
went on, "Lukacs was hostile to them precisely because they were post-
modernists. Or modernists, which means the same thing." A common use
of "post-modern" subsumes modernism -- that's why Eagleton's critique
of pomo bears such a strong resemblence to Lukacs' attack on modernism
-- generally speaking, they're talking about the same thing. In one
sense of the term, post-modernism _is_ modernism, _mutatis mutandis_.
Incidentally, I've heard that the term "post-modern" dates back
at least to Toynbee, which means that Adorno and Benjamin could very
well have come across it.
-- moggin
Stephen Schwartz
> (Silke-Maria Weineck) wrote:
> | > : > The term postmodernism has been in use since the late 19th
century, even
> | > : > though not with the kind of prominence you require.
>
> Stephen Schwartz (tra...@club-internet.fr) wrote:
> | > : Care to give me a reference? I don't believe you.
>
> (Silke-Maria Weineck) wrote:
> | > Boohoo.
> |
> tra...@club-internet.fr (Stephen Schwartz):
> | I notice that you did not provide a reference. Is it safe to assume you
> | were talking out of your ass?
>
> I think it's safe to assume that no one wants to provide
> you with something you could easily look up, if you were
> really interested in it. Do you know where to look?
Well, given that I'm at the Bibliothèque Nationale on most days, I suppose
I could look there. But perhaps you smug assholes would like to give me
just a little hint on where I should direct my attention within their vast
holdings. I suppose I ought to check the OED, but my guess is that I'm
not going to find any 19th-century uses of the word "post-modernism."
Wanna bet?
Steve
Gordon Fitch
| > I think it's safe to assume that no one wants to provide
| > you with something you could easily look up, if you were
| > really interested in it. Do you know where to look?
tra...@club-internet.fr (Stephen Schwartz):
| Well, given that I'm at the Bibliothèque Nationale on most days, I suppose
| I could look there. But perhaps you smug assholes would like to give me
| just a little hint on where I should direct my attention within their vast
| holdings. I suppose I ought to check the OED, but my guess is that I'm
| not going to find any 19th-century uses of the word "post-modernism."
| Wanna bet?
I was going to suggest checking the OED, but my vague
recollection of the first usage of a term like "postmodern"
was that it was German. I wasn't interested in it, so I
don't recall it very well. I wouldn't be surprised to find
it in the 17th century, much less the 19th; as soon as
people start to talk about modernity as something special,
one would guess they would start to think about what would
come after it.
The only thing I'm willing to bet on is that no matter what
you find, you'll continue to be rude, foul-mouthed, and
truculent, qualities you doubtless admire in yourself, and
virtually unique on the Net, eh?
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Brian Dell
:: I suppose I ought to check the OED, but my guess is that I'm
:: not going to find any 19th-century uses of the word "post-
For what it's worth, the OED quotes a 1949 use, in addition to Toynbee.
Gordon Fitch:
: The only thing I'm willing to bet on is that no matter what
: you find, you'll continue to be rude, foul-mouthed, and
: truculent, qualities you doubtless admire in yourself, and
: virtually unique on the Net, eh?
We ought to be nice to Dr Schwartz, because, after all, apart from a
few exceptions (such as MJ Devaney) any other denizen of alt.postmodern
(aka "alt.vapid.pretension," to quote S. Schwartz, PhD) is a mere Mr
or Ms. Dr Schwartz didn't just get acquire his qualification by
disserting on some low-brow, bourgeois cultural phenomenon like Madonna,
either; he did real, hairy-chested research and is accordingly entitled
to all the socio-economic privilege due a PhD. Who else among us can
boast about his C.V.? This is a serious problem, as it may well be
responsible for the defiency of boasting around here.
Moreover, the sands of time will often wear the rougher edges off a
character. I do believe that moggin has mellowed out considerably
since his acerbic debut, for example.
Gordon Fitch
| We ought to be nice to Dr Schwartz, because, after all, apart from a
| few exceptions (such as MJ Devaney) any other denizen of alt.postmodern
| (aka "alt.vapid.pretension," to quote S. Schwartz, PhD) is a mere Mr
| or Ms. Dr Schwartz didn't just get acquire his qualification by
| disserting on some low-brow, bourgeois cultural phenomenon like Madonna,
| either; he did real, hairy-chested research and is accordingly entitled
| to all the socio-economic privilege due a PhD. Who else among us can
| boast about his C.V.? This is a serious problem, as it may well be
| responsible for the defiency of boasting around here.
We used to have Doctor Handelman. But that proves your point.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
David Swanson
mog...@bessel.nando.net (moggin) writes:
> That's how it is -- Derrida may have more to say, but Eagleton is
> alot more fun to listen to. I don't know how he was up your way, but
> down here he adopted a Daniel-in-the-lion's-den attitude. He was out
> to epater les postmodernists -- I couldn't tell if he succeeded, but
> it made for a good show. I mean, how often do you hear somebody come
> out in defense of teleology, these days?
Every time I turn around. Maybe I'm really in the wrong place.
DS
>
> -- moggin
Glaubt es mir, das Geheimniss, um die groesste Fruchtbarkeit und den
groessten Genuss vom Dasein einzuernten heisst: gefaehrlich leben!
Stephen Schwartz
wrote:
> tra...@club-internet.fr (Stephen Schwartz):
>
> >Interesting notion of chronology you have there. Funny thing is, if you
> >had been around to mention the word "postmodernism" to either Adorno or
> >Benjamin, they wouldn't have had the slightest idea what you were talking
> >about. So I guess, in a manner of speaking, it's (vacuously) true to say
> >that neither of them were "hostile to post-modernism." But, then, neither
> >was my grandmother.
>
> Glad to hear your grannie was such an open-minded gal. We could
> talk about what counts as an anachronism, or whether anachronisms are
> really such a crime, or what your relatives think on various topics,
> but this is really a much simpler question. If you had read only one
> or two sentences further, the mystery would've cleared up for you. I
> went on, "Lukacs was hostile to them precisely because they were post-
> modernists. Or modernists, which means the same thing." A common use
> of "post-modern" subsumes modernism -- that's why Eagleton's critique
> of pomo bears such a strong resemblence to Lukacs' attack on modernism
> -- generally speaking, they're talking about the same thing.
I'll have to let you explain this particular piece of delirium to those
who are still interested.
>In one
> sense of the term, post-modernism _is_ modernism, _mutatis mutandis_.
Yeah, and _mutatis mutandis_, my grandmother is a trolley car and I'm
you. What's your point?
> Incidentally, I've heard that the term "post-modern" dates back
> at least to Toynbee, which means that Adorno and Benjamin could very
> well have come across it.
Adorno, yes; Benjamin, no. But just the term, not the concept.
Steve
moggin
>> >If you
>> >had been around to mention the word "postmodernism" to either Adorno or
>> >Benjamin, they wouldn't have had the slightest idea what you were talking
>> >about. So I guess, in a manner of speaking, it's (vacuously) true to say
>> >that neither of them were "hostile to post-modernism." But, then, neither
>> >was my grandmother.
mog...@bessel.nando.net (moggin):
>> A common use
>> of "post-modern" subsumes modernism -- that's why Eagleton's critique
>> of pomo bears such a strong resemblence to Lukacs' attack on modernism
>> -- generally speaking, they're talking about the same thing.
Steve:
>I'll have to let you explain this particular piece of delirium to those
>who are still interested.
It's simple: the term "post-modernism" covers alot of the same
ground as the term "modernism." This confuses many people, including
you.
moggin:
>>In one
>> sense of the term, post-modernism _is_ modernism, _mutatis mutandis_.
Steve:
>Yeah, and _mutatis mutandis_, my grandmother is a trolley car and I'm
>you. What's your point?
So you installed the trolley kit! That's great -- how much
track does she have? Oh, my point -- see above.
moggin:
>> Incidentally, I've heard that the term "post-modern" dates back
>> at least to Toynbee, which means that Adorno and Benjamin could very
>> well have come across it.
Steve:
>Adorno, yes; Benjamin, no. But just the term, not the concept.
Why one and not the other? I don't know that either of them
_did_ read Toynbee, but both of them could have. And are you saying
he used the word without attaching any meaning to it?
-- moggin
moggin
of Post-Modernism_ -- if anybody has some more, or more details about
any of these, pass them along.
John Watkins Chapman, British painter, 1876. (Disputed cite.)
Rudolph Pannwitz, German philosopher, 1917. In reference to
Nietzsche's nihilism.
Federico de Onis, Spanish literary critic, 1934. Discussing
the backlash against literary modernism.
Bernard Iddings Bell, English theologian, 1939. Talking about
religious renewal and the failure of secular modernism.
Toynbee, 1939 and 1953. Referring to the rise of mass society
following WWI.
-- moggin
Stephen Schwartz
(Brian Dell) wrote:
> Stephen Schwartz:
> :: I suppose I ought to check the OED, but my guess is that I'm
> :: not going to find any 19th-century uses of the word "post-
> :: modernism." Wanna bet?
>
> For what it's worth, the OED quotes a 1949 use, in addition to Toynbee.
Not much. See my latest hairy-chested response.
> Gordon Fitch:
> : The only thing I'm willing to bet on is that no matter what
> : you find, you'll continue to be rude, foul-mouthed, and
> : truculent, qualities you doubtless admire in yourself, and
> : virtually unique on the Net, eh?
>
> We ought to be nice to Dr Schwartz, because, after all, apart from a
> few exceptions (such as MJ Devaney) any other denizen of alt.postmodern
> (aka "alt.vapid.pretension," to quote S. Schwartz, PhD) is a mere Mr
> or Ms.
I'm deeply flattered to learn that you've kept a little scrapbook. You
let me know if you want any info to complete your biography.
With regard to Fitch's charges that I'm rude and foul-mouthed: I have been
known to have a foul mouth but I thought you cutting-edge types were above
such puritanism. As for the charge of rudeness: at the risk of stooping
to the infantile level of Ms. Weineke, well, she started it.
>Dr Schwartz didn't just get acquire his qualification by
> disserting on some low-brow, bourgeois cultural phenomenon like Madonna,
> either; he did real, hairy-chested research and is accordingly entitled
> to all the socio-economic privilege due a PhD.
You've got that exactly right. Good to see that at least some people here
aren't averse to doing their homework.
Steve
moggin
>: Brian Dell (de...@gpu5.srv.ualberta.ca):
>: Moreover, the sands of time will often wear the rougher edges off a
>: character. I do believe that moggin has mellowed out considerably
>: since his acerbic debut, for example.
>I urgently await moggin's denial.
Not to worry -- I'm the same bilious-goat as always. But I
think I know what Brian means. When I showed up here, I found Cris
with his stories about Able and Baker, Lois posting poems about post-
modern pink poodles, and Pandit praising Best and Kellner's _Post-
Modern Theory_ as a good, clear, objective account. Before too long
the preposterous Mr. Anonymous appeared. So I got into some tussles.
Since then alt.pomo has changed tremendously, and if you ask me, for
the better.
-- moggin
Andy Perry
>
>We ought to be nice to Dr Schwartz, because, after all, apart from a
>few exceptions (such as MJ Devaney) any other denizen of alt.postmodern
>(aka "alt.vapid.pretension," to quote S. Schwartz, PhD) is a mere Mr
>or Ms.
Ahem; personally, I prefer "Hey, you!"
--
Andy Perry We search before and after,
Brown University We pine for what is not.
English Department Our sincerest laughter
Andrew...@brown.edu OR With some pain is fraught.
st00...@brownvm.bitnet -- Shelley, d'apres Horace Rumpole
Andy Perry
wrote:
> Toynbee, 1939 and 1953. Referring to the rise of mass society
>following WWI.
What is mass society, such that it only arose after WWI?
moggin
>>mog...@bessel.nando.net (moggin)
[re: "post-modernism"]
>> Toynbee, 1939 and 1953. Referring to the rise of mass society
>>following WWI.
>What is mass society, such that it only arose after WWI?
Good question. I've never read Toynbee -- I was quoting some
notes that I found while I was browsing. Does anybody know what the
guy meant? Also, who _were_ those other people (Chapman, Pannwitz, de
Onis, and Iddings Bell), and just what did they mean by "post-modern"?
-- moggin
Gordon Fitch
| ...
| known to have a foul mouth but I thought you cutting-edge types were above
It's not a matter of puritanism, it's a matter of style.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
David M Hasen
: tra...@club-internet.fr (Stephen Schwartz):
: | ...
: | With regard to Fitch's charges that I'm rude and foul-mouthed: I have been
: | known to have a foul mouth but I thought you cutting-edge types were above
: | such puritanism. ...
: It's not a matter of puritanism, it's a matter of style.
Bullshit. If it were style, I would have expected a similar complaint about Silke-Maria.
But for some reason that rudeness didn't rain on your parade. Or has the term "style"
become malleable enough to embrace moral indignation? I suspect a still closer definition
would be: something that makes you uncomfortable.
--David
Gordon Fitch
| : | ...
| : | With regard to Fitch's charges that I'm rude and foul-mouthed: I have been
| : | known to have a foul mouth but I thought you cutting-edge types were above
| : | such puritanism. ...
Gordon Fitch (g...@panix.com) wrote:
| : It's not a matter of puritanism, it's a matter of style.
dha...@minerva.cis.yale.edu (David M Hasen):
| Bullshit. If it were style, I would have expected a similar complaint about Silke-Maria.
| But for some reason that rudeness didn't rain on your parade. Or has the term "style"
| become malleable enough to embrace moral indignation? I suspect a still closer definition
| would be: something that makes you uncomfortable.
Silke's lapses, if any, are more than compensated for by
the fact that she says interesting things now and then.
For the most part the Net is full of people exchanging
cliche's accompanied by thuggy epithets, but for some
reason we've generally escaped these geniuses here and I'd
like to keep it that way. My supposed discomfort might
better be known as boredom.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
David M Hasen
: | Bullshit. If it were style, I would have expected a similar complaint about Silke-Maria.
: | But for some reason that rudeness didn't rain on your parade. Or has the term "style"
: | become malleable enough to embrace moral indignation? I suspect a still closer definition
: | would be: something that makes you uncomfortable.
Gordon Fitch:
: Silke's lapses, if any, are more than compensated for by
: the fact that she says interesting things now and then.
: For the most part the Net is full of people exchanging
: cliche's accompanied by thuggy epithets, but for some
: reason we've generally escaped these geniuses here and I'd
: like to keep it that way. My supposed discomfort might
: better be known as boredom.
More bullshit. The "debate" here concerns the genesis of the term "postmodern." That
seems to be a topic of interest to you, and Schwartz has been kind enough (poor "style"
notwithstanding) to supply actual data that would suggest your chronology is wrong. Now
you're telling us, in the face of that data, that you're bored. I guess the inference is
that "boredom" is expanding in your lexicon at about the rate I suggested "style" was. In
the meantime, you're still evading the issue.
--David
moggin
>The "debate" here concerns the genesis of the term "postmodern." That
>seems to be a topic of interest to you, and Schwartz has been kind
>enough (poor "style" notwithstanding) to supply actual data that would
>suggest your chronology is wro ng. Now you're telling us, in the face
>of that data, that you're bored. I guess the inf erence is that
>"boredom" is expanding in your lexicon at about the rate I suggested
>"style " was. In the meantime, you're still evading the issue.
No, you and Stephen are, by turning it into a debate about
chronology. The question is whether Adorno and Benjamin are hostile
to what's variously termed "modernism" or "post-modernism." Answer:
no, of course they're not.
The origin of the word "post-modern" is another issue -- I
already posted a list of early references ("actual data"), and I'm
planning to revise it as soon as I find some time.
-- moggin
Andy Perry
(David M Hasen) wrote:
>: dha...@minerva.cis.yale.edu (David M Hasen):
>: | Bullshit. If it were style, I would have expected a similar
complaint about Silke-Maria.
>: | But for some reason that rudeness didn't rain on your parade. Or has
the term "style"
>: | become malleable enough to embrace moral indignation? I suspect a
still closer definition
>: | would be: something that makes you uncomfortable.
>
>Gordon Fitch:
>: Silke's lapses, if any, are more than compensated for by
>: the fact that she says interesting things now and then.
>: For the most part the Net is full of people exchanging
>: cliche's accompanied by thuggy epithets, but for some
>: reason we've generally escaped these geniuses here and I'd
>: like to keep it that way. My supposed discomfort might
>: better be known as boredom.
>
>More bullshit. The "debate" here concerns the genesis of the term
"postmodern." That
>seems to be a topic of interest to you, and Schwartz has been kind enough
(poor "style"
>notwithstanding) to supply actual data that would suggest your chronology
is wrong.
Um, "actual data?" Schwartz hasn't supplied us with anything that would
fit that description. Of course, moggin posted the following list of
people who used the term:
> John Watkins Chapman, British painter, 1876. (Disputed cite.)
>
> Rudolph Pannwitz, German philosopher, 1917. In reference to
>Nietzsche's nihilism.
>
> Federico de Onis, Spanish literary critic, 1934. Discussing
>the backlash against literary modernism.
>
> Bernard Iddings Bell, English theologian, 1939. Talking about
>religious renewal and the failure of secular modernism.
>
> Toynbee, 1939 and 1953. Referring to the rise of mass society
>following WWI.
but Schwartz has yet to reply to that. One might assume that has to do
with the vagaries and vicissitudes of USENET posts, but I'm more inclined
to think that Schwartz has no interest in discussion, merely
pontification.
>Now
>you're telling us, in the face of that data, that you're bored. I guess
the inference is
>that "boredom" is expanding in your lexicon at about the rate I suggested
"style" was. In
>the meantime, you're still evading the issue.
You are evading the issue, by saying that we're talking about the history
of the term postmodern. The ORIGINAL issue, the thing that Schwartz took
so much offense to, was the question of whether or not it is useful or
accurate to say that Adorno and Benjamin had the same attitude towards
modernity as some strands of postmodern theory. Or rather, whether it is
appropriate to restate that proposition thusly: "Adorno and Benjamin are
not hostile to postmodernism."
Gordon Fitch
| : | Bullshit. If it were style, I would have expected a similar complaint about Silke-Maria.
| : | But for some reason that rudeness didn't rain on your parade. Or has the term "style"
| : | become malleable enough to embrace moral indignation? I suspect a still closer definition
| : | would be: something that makes you uncomfortable.
Gordon Fitch:
| : Silke's lapses, if any, are more than compensated for by
| : the fact that she says interesting things now and then.
| : For the most part the Net is full of people exchanging
| : cliche's accompanied by thuggy epithets, but for some
| : reason we've generally escaped these geniuses here and I'd
| : like to keep it that way. My supposed discomfort might
| : better be known as boredom.
dha...@minerva.cis.yale.edu (David M Hasen):
| More bullshit. The "debate" here concerns the genesis of the term "postmodern." That
| seems to be a topic of interest to you, and Schwartz has been kind enough (poor "style"
| notwithstanding) to supply actual data that would suggest your chronology is wrong. Now
| you're telling us, in the face of that data, that you're bored. I guess the inference is
| that "boredom" is expanding in your lexicon at about the rate I suggested "style" was. In
| the meantime, you're still evading the issue.
What issue? I took exception to language, not to facts. I don't
care when _postmodern, -ity, -ism, ist_ were first used. I'm not
into verbal stamp collecting. Why is what I said (look above)
so awfully unbelievable?
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
David M Hasen
David M Hasen
: | : Silke's lapses, if any, are more than compensated for by
: | : the fact that she says interesting things now and then.
: | : For the most part the Net is full of people exchanging
: | : cliche's accompanied by thuggy epithets, but for some
: | : reason we've generally escaped these geniuses here and I'd
: | : like to keep it that way. My supposed discomfort might
: | : better be known as boredom.
: dha...@minerva.cis.yale.edu (David M Hasen):
: | More bullshit. The "debate" here concerns the genesis of the term "postmodern." That
: | seems to be a topic of interest to you, and Schwartz has been kind enough (poor "style"
: | notwithstanding) to supply actual data that would suggest your chronology is wrong. Now
: | you're telling us, in the face of that data, that you're bored. I guess the inference is
: | that "boredom" is expanding in your lexicon at about the rate I suggested "style" was. In
: | the meantime, you're still evading the issue.
: What issue? I took exception to language, not to facts. I don't
: care when _postmodern, -ity, -ism, ist_ were first used. I'm not
: into verbal stamp collecting. Why is what I said (look above)
: so awfully unbelievable?
: --
: }"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
[My previous comments in the previous reply to this post were,
apparently, not saved to the buffer. Sorry.]
Because the notion that offense to your sense of "style" or that boredom
(apparently masquerading as discomfort) motivate your refusal to engage
Schwartz rings hollow. Reading your objection to Schwartz's language, it
seems clear that it was motivate by indignation. Nor would that
necessarily be inappropriate, but it's not a reply to the substance of
what he's said.
--David
David Swanson
After reading this thread...
DS
Omar Haneef '96
> I generally think only of anal-ytic philosophy as pointless bickering.
> After reading this thread...
>
> DS
>
If we sink to their level Dave, we're as bad as they are!
Analytic philosophy is a wonderful thing; if only it weren't so damn
different(ly taught) from the continental stuff. Before and after Kant, it
just exploded.
-Omar
Gordon Fitch
| Because the notion that offense to your sense of "style" or that boredom
| (apparently masquerading as discomfort) motivate your refusal to engage
| Schwartz rings hollow. Reading your objection to Schwartz's language, it
| seems clear that it was motivate by indignation. Nor would that
| necessarily be inappropriate, but it's not a reply to the substance of
| what he's said.
You think there is something _behind_ what I said, but if I may
lift a good line from Andy Warhol's assistant Fred Hughes, I am
deeply superficial. And, as I said, I was not replying to the
"substance" of what he said; I regard _substance_ as a
dubious Medieval concept. I was responding to its surface
-- its (to me) boring style. Again, I find it hard to
believe that you find this hard to believe.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
moggin
>...your refusal to engage Schwartz rings hollow. Reading your
>objection to Schwartz's language, it seems clear that it was motivate
>by indignation. Nor would that necessarily be inappropriate, but it's
>not a reply to the substance of what he's said.
You're kidding, right? There must have been at least a half-
dozen posts by now replying to the substance of Steve's argument, and
probably more -- I've made three or four, and I'm not the only one in
this discussion. Have you read them? Would you like to answer them?
-- moggin
roger day
"post-modernisim". What confuses me is that one part of this thread is
directed at "stamp-collecting" mentions of the phrase "post-modernism".
I'm interested in the purpose of doing so. If you collect every mention
of this phrase back to the year dot, are you going to say that
"post-modernism" dates from it's first mention?
If this is so - and I'm willing to be proved wrong - then I would say
that this is not a helpful approach - unless you're happy to be a
lexicographer.
What is more fruitful is establishing the lineage of ideas, rather than
the terms denoting the ideas.
Confused,
Roger.
--
====================================================================
Yumm. LOVE those burgers....
http://www.McSpotlight.org/ ...you be the judge
http://www.ssynth.co.uk/~rday/poet_mag.html..for the discerning
reader.
David Swanson
g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
> You think there is something _behind_ what I said, but if I may
> lift a good line from Andy Warhol's assistant Fred Hughes, I am
> deeply superficial. And, as I said, I was not replying to the
> "substance" of what he said; I regard _substance_ as a
> dubious Medieval concept. I was responding to its surface
> -- its (to me) boring style. Again, I find it hard to
> believe that you find this hard to believe.
With all due respect to Fred Hughes, might I suggest that this is pure
Oscar Wilde?
DS
"Congress finds that popcorn is an important part of the human diet;
the production and processing of popcorn plays a significant role in
the economy of the United States." Freedom to Farm bill, section 572,
March 1996.
Gordon Fitch
|
| > You think there is something _behind_ what I said, but if I may
| > lift a good line from Andy Warhol's assistant Fred Hughes, I am
dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson):
| With all due respect to Fred Hughes, might I suggest that this is pure
| Oscar Wilde?
I'm just reporting who _I_ stole it from.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{