Postmodernism
Eric Siegel
A propos the budding postmodernism flamewar...
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Feeling a little ironic today?
JENNY JONES: Boy, we have a show for you today! Recently,
the University of Virginia philosopher Richard Rorty made
the stunning declaration that nobody has "the foggiest idea"
what postmodernism means.
"It would be nice to get rid of it," he said. "It isn't
exactly an idea; it's a word that pretends to stand for an
idea."
This shocking admission that there is no such thing as
postmodernism has produced a firestorm of protest around the
country. Thousands of authors, critics and graduate
students who'd considered themselves postmodernists are
outraged at the betrayal. >>>
Today we have with us a writer--a recovering
postmodernist--who believes that his literary career and
personal life have been irreparably damaged by the theory,
and who feels defrauded by the academics who promulgated it.
He wishes to remain anonymous, so we'll call him "Alex."
Alex, as an adolescent, before you began experimenting with
postmodernism, you considered yourself -- what?
Close shot of ALEX.
An electronic blob obscures his face. Words appear at bottom
of screen: "Says he was traumatized by postmodernism and
blames academics."
ALEX (his voice electronically altered): A high modernist.
Y'know, Pound, Eliot, Georges Braque, Wallace Stevens,
Arnold Schoenberg, Mies van der Rohe. I had all of
Schoenberg's 78's.
JENNY JONES: And then you started reading people like
Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard--how did that
change your feelings about your modernist heroes?
ALEX: I suddenly felt that they were, like, stifling and
canonical.
JENNY JONES: Stifling and canonical? That is so sad, such a
waste. How old were you when you first read Fredric Jameson?
ALEX: Nine, I think.
The AUDIENCE gasps.
JENNY JONES: We have some pictures of young Alex. ...
We see snapshots of 14-year-old ALEX reading Gilles Deleuze
and Felix Guattari's "Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and
Schizophrenia." The AUDIENCE oohs and ahs.
ALEX: We used to go to a friend's house after
school--y'know, his parents were never home--and we'd read,
like, Paul Virilio and Julia Kristeva.
JENNY JONES: So you're only 14, and you're already skeptical
toward the "grand narratives" of modernity, you're
questioning any belief system that claims universality or
transcendence. Why?
ALEX: I guess--to be cool.
JENNY JONES: So, peer pressure?
ALEX: I guess.
JENNY JONES: And do you remember how you felt the very first
time you entertained the notion that you and your universe
are constituted by language--that reality is a cultural
construct, a "text" whose meaning is determined by infinite
associations with other"texts"?
ALEX: Uh, it felt, like, good. I wanted to do it again.
AUDIENCE groans.
JENNY JONES: You were arrested at about this time?
ALEX: For spray-painting "The Hermeneutics of Indeterminacy"
on an overpass.
JENNY JONES: You're the child of a mixed marriage -- is that
right?
ALEX: My father was a de Stijl Wittgensteinian and my mom
was a neo-pre-Raphaelite.
JENNY JONES: Do you think that growing up in a mixed
marriage made you more vulnerable to the siren song of
postmodernism?
ALEX: Absolutely. It's hard when you're a little kid not to
be able to just come right out and say (sniffles), y'know,
I'm an Imagist or I'm a phenomenologist or I'm a
post-painterly abstractionist. It's really hard--especially
around the holidays. (He cries.)
JENNY JONES: I hear you. Was your wife a postmodernist?
ALEX: Yes. She was raised avant-pop, which is a
fundamentalist offshoot of postmodernism.
JENNY JONES: How did she react to Rorty's admission that
postmodernism was essentially a hoax?
ALEX: She was devastated. I mean, she's got all the John
Zorn albums and the entire Semiotext(e) series. She was
crushed.
We see ALEX'S WIFE in the audience, weeping softly, her
hands covering her face.
JENNY JONES: And you were raising your daughter as a
postmodernist?
ALEX: Of course. That's what makes this particularly tragic.
I mean, how do you explain to a 5-year-old that
self-consciously recycling cultural detritus is suddenly no
longer a valid art form when, for her entire life, she's
been taught that it is?
JENNY JONES: Tell us how you think postmodernism affected
your career as a novelist.
ALEX: I disavowed writing that contained real ideas or any
real passion. My work became disjunctive, facetious and
nihilistic. It was all blank parody, irony enveloped in more
irony.
It merely recapitulated the pernicious banality of
television and advertising. I found myself indiscriminately
incorporating any and all kinds of pop kitsch and shlock.
(He begins to weep again.)
JENNY JONES: And this spilled over into your personal life?
ALEX: It was impossible for me to experience life with any
emotional intensity. I couldn't control the irony anymore. I
perceived my own feelings as if they were in quotes.
I italicized everything and everyone. It became impossible
for me to appraise the quality of anything. To me everything
was equivalent--the Brandenburg Concertos and the Lysol
jingle had the same value.... (He breaks down, sobbing.)
JENNY JONES: Now, you're involved in a lawsuit, aren't you?
ALEX: Yes. I'm suing the Modern Language Association.
JENNY JONES: How confident are you about winning?
ALEX: We need to prove that, while they were actively
propounding it, academics knew all along that postmodernism
was a specious theory. If we can unearth some
intradepartmental memos--y'know, a paper trail--any
corroboration that they knew postmodernism was worthless
cant at the same time they were teaching it, then I think we
have an excellent shot at establishing liability.
JENNY JONES wades into audience and proffers microphone to a
woman.
WOMAN (with lateral head-bobbing): It's ironic that Barry
Scheck is representing the M.L.A. in this litigation because
Scheck is the postmodern attorney par excellence. This is
the guy who's made a career of volatilizing truth in the
simulacrum of exculpation!
VOICE FROM AUDIENCE: You go, girl!
WOMAN: Scheck is the guy who came up with the
quintessentially postmodern re-bleed defense for O. J.,
which claims that O. J. merely vigorously shook Ron and
Nicole, thereby re-aggravating pre-existing knife wounds.
I'd just like to say to any client of Barry-- lose that zero
and get a hero!
The AUDIENCE cheers wildly.
WOMAN: Uh, I forgot my question.
Dissolve to message on screen: If you believe that
mathematician Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's last theorem
has caused you or a member of your family to dress too
provocatively, call (800) 555-9455.
Dissolve back to studio. In the audience,
JENNY JONES extends the microphone to a man in his mid-30's
with a scruffy beard and a bandana around his head.
MAN WITH BANDANA: I'd like to say that this "Alex" is the
single worst example of pointless irony in American
literature, and this whole heartfelt renunciation of
postmodernism is a ploy--it's just more irony.
The AUDIENCE whistles andhoots.
ALEX: You think this is a ploy?! (He tears futilely at the
electronic blob.) This is my face!
The AUDIENCE recoils in horror.
ALEX: This is what can happen to people who naively embrace
postmodernism, to people who believe that the
individual--the autonomous, individualist subject--is dead.
They become a palimpsest of media pastiche-- a mask of
metastatic irony..
JENNY JONES (biting lip and shaking her head): That is so
sad. Alex-- final words?
ALEX: I'd just like to say that self-consciousness and irony
seem like fun at first, but they can destroy your life. I
know. You gotta be earnest, be real. Real feelings are
important. Objective reality does exist.
AUDIENCE members whoop, stomp and pump fists in the air.
JENNY JONES: I'd like to thank Alex for having the courage
to come on today and share his experience with us.
Join us for tomorrow's show, "The End of Manichean, Bipolar
Geopolitics Turned My Boyfriend Into an Insatiable Sex Freak
(and I Love It!)."
_____________________________________________________________
Hope this "helps".
Eric Siegel ejsi...@ucdavis.edu |
Dept. of Political Science |
Univ. of California, Davis | If one takes no prisoners,
One Shields Avenue | there is no dilemma.
Davis CA 95616 |
(530) 752-7106 |
Nelson Minar
If you're going to post copyrighted material, at least provide a
citation! This fantastic piece was an editorial in the New York Times
around December 20 or so. It's written by Mark Leyner. I have the
accompanying picture: "Alex, Identity Destroyed by Postmodernism" on
my door.
The NYT editorial page has had some great graphics in the last year.
Eric Siegel
On 4 Feb 1998, Nelson Minar wrote:
> If you're going to post copyrighted material, at least provide a
> citation! This fantastic piece was an editorial in the New York Times
> around December 20 or so. It's written by Mark Leyner. I have the
> accompanying picture: "Alex, Identity Destroyed by Postmodernism" on
> my door.
Sorry; it was forwarded to me sans copyright info. My
humblest apologies to any and all.
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Eric Siegel wrote:
>
> A propos the budding postmodernism flamewar...
>
Jenny Jones show]
ROTFLOL!!!!!!!!!!!
Too bad there was no significant skewering of El Sphinctero Grande of
the postmodernist heap, Michel Foucault.
--the bean
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Arabian Mocha Sanani (san...@ibm.net) wrote:
: Eric Siegel wrote:
: [and goes on to quote the text of a New York Times piece parodying a
: Jenny Jones show]
:
: ROTFLOL!!!!!!!!!!!
:
: Too bad there was no significant skewering of El Sphinctero Grande of
: the postmodernist heap, Michel Foucault.
Funny. I read it as making fun of all those people who thought
they had post-modernism figured out by heaping lots of figures
from demonstrably very very different intellectual traditions
together and pretending they constituted a monolothic intellectual
movement so they could be facilely dismissed by someone like
Jenny Jones.
I thought it was hilarious.
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Nope.
I don't think any serious critic of postmodernism thinks its a
monolithic intellectual movement. A heap of shit with many different
variations of waste, yes; an intellectual movement, no.
--the bean
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Arabian Mocha Sanani (san...@ibm.net) wrote:
: I don't think any serious critic of postmodernism thinks its a
: monolithic intellectual movement. A heap of shit with many different
: variations of waste, yes; an intellectual movement, no.
What I find so amusing is that it's only the critics of post-modernism
who think the term has any real currency; most of the rest of us figured
out long ago that the term was fairly worthless, and started looking at
the different ideas that were once grouped under its rubric as being, well,
different ideas.
A heap of shit with many different variations of waste: now *that*
demonstrates a well-thought out criticism.
Mike Reaser
ded...@paladin.cc.emory.edu (Daniel Chase Edmonds) wrote:
>Arabian Mocha Sanani (san...@ibm.net) wrote:
>: I don't think any serious critic of postmodernism thinks its a
>: monolithic intellectual movement. A heap of shit with many different
>: variations of waste, yes; an intellectual movement, no.
>
>demonstrates a well-thought out criticism.
Luke asked about the current status of all the vilification and
other mean-spiritedness going on here, apparently realized that
without him it had shrunk to near zero, and felt he needed to get
the vilification and other mean-spiritedness back on track.
HTH!
-- Mike Reaser, Atl., GA B2f+tw+cdvg+kvs++l+ aka HickBear on IRC
ICQ 3617758 mhr (at) photobooks.com or spdcc.com or mindspring.com
If at first you don't succeed, the bomb squad should
*not* be a career option
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Jeffrey William McKeough (san...@shore.net) wrote:
: I had a tie and shirt that only went together in a post-modern kinda
: way, but that was very 1995, so I guess it's possible that the term
: might not have any real currency.
I'd even say post-modernism is pretty 1993 myself, but it just
*might* stretch all the way to 95.
Dan, defining cultural trends and all that.
Joseph Canale
On Thu, 5 Feb 1998, Arabian Mocha Sanani wrote:
> Daniel Chase Edmonds wrote:
> > Arabian Mocha Sanani (san...@ibm.net) wrote:
> > : Eric Siegel wrote:
> > : [and goes on to quote the text of a New York Times piece parodying a
> > : Jenny Jones show]
> > : Too bad there was no significant skewering of El Sphinctero Grande of
> > : the postmodernist heap, Michel Foucault.
What's your problem with Foucault? The sexual freedom that you enjoy
today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
repression. You seem totally unaware that his unmasking of the
relationship between sexuality and the power structure, which exposes
attempts to control human sexuality as ultimately political, and,
thus, arbitary, has helped to legitimize queer sexual expression. He
imploded the very idea of sexual deviancy. His contribution is nothing
less than the intellectual equivalent of the Stonewall Riots.
As a PWA, I'd think you'd be more charitable towards Foucault
considering the circumstances of his death.
Joe
Ellen Evans
In article <Pine.GSO.3.95L.98020...@merhaba.cc.columbia.edu>,
Joseph Canale <jc...@columbia.edu> wrote:
[]
> What's your problem with Foucault? The sexual freedom that you enjoy
>today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
>repression.
Er, no.
On every possible level.
--
Ellen Evans 17 Across: The "her" of "Leave Her to Heaven"
je...@netcom.com New York Times, 7/14/96
Michael Thomas
Joseph Canale <jc...@columbia.edu> writes:
> What's your problem with Foucault? The sexual freedom that you enjoy
> today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
> repression.
You're joking. That "something" better be a
quantum level "something."
--
Michael Thomas (mi...@mtcc.com http://www.mtcc.com/~mike/)
"I dunno, that's an awful lot of money."
Beavis
Joseph Canale
On 6 Feb 1998, Michael Thomas wrote:
> Joseph Canale <jc...@columbia.edu> writes:
> > What's your problem with Foucault? The sexual freedom that you enjoy
> > today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
> > repression.
>
> You're joking. That "something" better be a
> quantum level "something."
> --
Huh? I don't understand.
Michael Thomas
That's the beauty of a postmodern world. Welcome
aboard.
David Stevenson
Michael Thomas <mi...@mtcc.com> writes:
>Joseph Canale <jc...@columbia.edu> writes:
>> What's your problem with Foucault? The sexual freedom that you enjoy
>> today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
>> repression.
>
> You're joking. That "something" better be a
>quantum level "something."
Would that be a Heisenberg (there unless you look
at it) something, or a Bohr (I'm so excited)
something?
Spencer Cox
Joseph Canale wrote:
> What's your problem with Foucault? The sexual freedom that you enjoy
> today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
> repression.
Foucault very specifically doesn't critique "sexual repression," but rather
what might be called "sexual induction," ie. the positive creation of
sexual identities. In other words, the "gay" sexual identity on which the
gay rights movement is predicated is as much a function of the existing
power structure as "the heterosexual imperative."
>You seem totally unaware that his unmasking of the
> relationship between sexuality and the power structure, which exposes
> attempts to control human sexuality as ultimately political, and,
> thus, arbitary, has helped to legitimize queer sexual expression.
I suspect Foucault would propose that any "legitimization" of "queer sexual
expression" would subject it to the same power rules as any other mode of
sexual expression. On the other hand, unlegitimated "queer sexual
expression," by virtue of its origin in the development of sexual identity
as a mechanism for social control, is also subject to those rules. And so,
since basically all modern sexual expression is subject to social control
of either a positive or negative sort, why not just be a good socially
constructed heterosexual -- the fringe benefits are enormous. The problem
is that some of us want to keep getting buggered, regardless of whether we
do so because of social control mechanisms or not.
>He
> imploded the very idea of sexual deviancy. His contribution is nothing
> less than the intellectual equivalent of the Stonewall Riots.
As someone who continues to believe that the Stonewall Riots represent
another over-romanticized historical event that has achieved the status of
nationalist myth (sort of like "the revolution" for communistis), I'd agree
with this comparison entirely.
> As a PWA, I'd think you'd be more charitable towards Foucault
> considering the circumstances of his death.
Why? As a PWA, I know plenty of PWAs who are at best stupid, and at worst
mean AND stupid. HIV infection does not a saint make.
Spencer Cox
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Mike Reaser wrote:
>
> ded...@paladin.cc.emory.edu (Daniel Chase Edmonds) wrote:
> >Arabian Mocha Sanani (san...@ibm.net) wrote:
> >: monolithic intellectual movement. A heap of shit with many different
> >: variations of waste, yes; an intellectual movement, no.
> >
> >A heap of shit with many different variations of waste: now *that*
> >demonstrates a well-thought out criticism.
Thanks.
>
> Luke asked about the current status of all the vilification and
> other mean-spiritedness going on here, apparently realized that
> without him it had shrunk to near zero, and felt he needed to get
> the vilification and other mean-spiritedness back on track.
It is important to do one's duty to keep the standards for which
soc.motss has become and wishes to remain famous at their noticeable
level.
--the bean
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Joseph Canale wrote:
>
> On Thu, 5 Feb 1998, Arabian Mocha Sanani wrote:
>
> > > : [and goes on to quote the text of a New York Times piece parodying a
> > > : Jenny Jones show]
> > > : Too bad there was no significant skewering of El Sphinctero Grande of
> > > : the postmodernist heap, Michel Foucault.
>
> today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
> repression.
The sexual freedom that I enjoy today owes absolutely nothing to
Foucault, and his muddle-headed conflations of critical posturing with
serious analytic criticism and proposition. It owes a very great deal
to Marx and Freud, to Jung and James, to de Beauvoir, to Emma Goldman,
to the great women who cleaned up the eugenics and racism from
Margaret Sanger's call to reproductive freedom, to the critical
discourses begun in the following of and reaction to Sade, to Magnus
Hirschfeld, Harry Hay, Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon, and Kate Bornstein.
Please do not denigrate these great minds by cerditing a charaltain
like Foucault with anything resembling their ushering in of paradigm
shifts of shuddering magnitude about human sexuality.
> You seem totally unaware that his unmasking of the
> relationship between sexuality and the power structure, which exposes
> attempts to control human sexuality as ultimately political, and,
> thus, arbitary, has helped to legitimize queer sexual expression. He
> imploded the very idea of sexual deviancy. His contribution is nothing
> less than the intellectual equivalent of the Stonewall Riots.
Bullshit. He was a poseur, a wannabe, and an academic only the trendy
French (who have since largely given up on him) and poorly schooled
Americans could love. He mimiced his great forbears, and badly, and
reduced crtical literacy to overly contorted and effette language word
games.
> As a PWA, I'd think you'd be more charitable towards Foucault
> considering the circumstances of his death.
I should be charitable to a lousy scholar about his scholarship just
because he died of AIDS and because I happen to have the same
disease? Now, that is exactly the kind of brain-dead thinking that
arises out of swallowing the anti-historical, post-modern,
post-structuralist "critical theory" of idiots like Foucault.
What has his death from AIDS got to do with his quality as a theorist?
--the bean
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Ellen Evans wrote:
>
> In article <Pine.GSO.3.95L.98020...@merhaba.cc.columbia.edu>,
> Joseph Canale <jc...@columbia.edu> wrote:
> []
> >today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
> >repression.
>
>
> On every possible level.
Thanks; but I wish you'd explicated.
--Luke
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Joseph Canale wrote:
>
> On 6 Feb 1998, Michael Thomas wrote:
>
> > Joseph Canale <jc...@columbia.edu> writes:
> > > today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
> > > repression.
> >
> > quantum level "something."
> > --
>
Doesn't that just say it all?
--the bean
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Michael Thomas wrote:
>
> Joseph Canale <jc...@columbia.edu> writes:
> > What's your problem with Foucault? The sexual freedom that you enjoy
> > today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
> > repression.
>
> You're joking. That "something" better be a
> quantum level "something."
I hope that is a reference to its miniscule quality, rather than to
some supposed quality of critical mass.
--the bean
Arabian Mocha Sanani
David Stevenson wrote:
>
> Michael Thomas <mi...@mtcc.com> writes:
> >Joseph Canale <jc...@columbia.edu> writes:
> >> What's your problem with Foucault? The sexual freedom that you enjoy
> >> today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
> >> repression.
> >
> > You're joking. That "something" better be a
> >quantum level "something."
> Would that be a Heisenberg (there unless you look
> at it) something, or a Bohr (I'm so excited)
> something?
I think, definitely, a Heisenberg something.
Who, by the way, one might consider a Great "post-modern" (in the
actual sense of those words, as opposed to the sense employed by
academics) Structuralist.
--the bean
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Spencer Cox wrote:
> Foucault very specifically doesn't critique "sexual repression," but rather
> what might be called "sexual induction," ie. the positive creation of
> sexual identities. In other words, the "gay" sexual identity on which the
> gay rights movement is predicated is as much a function of the existing
> power structure as "the heterosexual imperative."
>
> >You seem totally unaware that his unmasking of the
> > relationship between sexuality and the power structure, which exposes
> > attempts to control human sexuality as ultimately political, and,
> > thus, arbitary, has helped to legitimize queer sexual expression.
>
> I suspect Foucault would propose that any "legitimization" of "queer sexual
> expression" would subject it to the same power rules as any other mode of
> sexual expression. On the other hand, unlegitimated "queer sexual
> expression," by virtue of its origin in the development of sexual identity
> as a mechanism for social control, is also subject to those rules. And so,
> since basically all modern sexual expression is subject to social control
> of either a positive or negative sort, why not just be a good socially
> constructed heterosexual -- the fringe benefits are enormous. The problem
> is that some of us want to keep getting buggered, regardless of whether we
> do so because of social control mechanisms or not.
A balloon very nicely punctured, Spencer. Thank you. Of course,
Foucault would argue that our relatively bening desires (and
apparently, *his* particularly onerous desire, as noted by a
biographer, for picking up young "vache" tricks in the streets of
Paris and taking tham home to fuck them (unprotected) without
revealing that he had AIDS) are merely contructed by the discourse of
sexuality, criminality, dysfunction, and power that envelopes us in
our post-inductrial, overdeveloped, urban location. Which takes no
account at all (and, in fact, opposes the idea), let alone to give
more credence than worth to, of cross-cultural and trans-historical
modes, locations, and ways of fulfilling what are apparently, in a
qualified way, universally manfested sets of desires.
In other words, the Jenny Jones paraofy summed up this postmodern
allegedly critical theory correctly in this statement from the NYT
piece:
JENNY JONES: And do you remember how you felt the very first
time you entertained the notion that you and your universe
are constituted by language--that reality is a cultural
construct, a "text" whose meaning is determined by infinite
associations with other"texts"?
Silly, sissyfied French language games.
Call me old fashioned, maybe, but I believe in history. Clearly,
history is written by the victors, and must be dissected, critiqued,
and reconstituted often, but threre are scientific ways of looking at
history that are applicable cross-culturally. Dialectical materialism
joined with the study of archetypes and their meaning is one way.
Yes, that offends historical materialists and grand narrative
spiritualists alike, but its effective. In other words,
theoretically, we need more India and less France.
One cannot operate in a truly free marketplace of ideas, let alone
continue to build effective democratic structures, by merely
questioning authority or, more solipsitically and more characteristic
of the "postmodernists," by merely questioning questions. In
addition, one -- and, preferably, all (competing or concuring) -- must
be equiped and prepared to *act* to both demand and *make* and
answer. That's the essence of true critical literacy. You can't just
tear the establishment down and groove on the rubble. You have to
know why, and what to do next to move on to something arguably better.
Of course, the typical "postmodernist" retort to that is "Why is
action any better than inaction?" Which simply underscores why this
strain of philosophical neurasthenia is so intellectually bankrupt.
>
> >He
> > imploded the very idea of sexual deviancy. His contribution is nothing
> > less than the intellectual equivalent of the Stonewall Riots.
>
> As someone who continues to believe that the Stonewall Riots represent
> another over-romanticized historical event that has achieved the status of
> nationalist myth (sort of like "the revolution" for communistis), I'd agree
> with this comparison entirely.
Your point is well taken, but it is a double edged sword. Never
underestimate the import of over-romanticized nationalist myths in
providing the security necessary for a movement to go beyond
navel-gazing, self-absorbed nationalism.
--the bean
Michael Thomas
Arabian Mocha Sanani <san...@ibm.net> writes:
> Michael Thomas wrote:
> > You're joking. That "something" better be a
> > quantum level "something."
>
> some supposed quality of critical mass.
Miniscule. I do have to say that there will be a
special section of hell for Critical Mass though.
Andrew D. Simchik
On Sat, 7 Feb 1998, Arabian Mocha Sanani wrote:
> David Stevenson wrote:
> >
> > Michael Thomas <mi...@mtcc.com> writes:
> > >Joseph Canale <jc...@columbia.edu> writes:
> > >> What's your problem with Foucault? The sexual freedom that you enjoy
> > >> today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
> > >> repression.
> > >
> > > You're joking. That "something" better be a
> > >quantum level "something."
> > >--
> > Would that be a Heisenberg (there unless you look
> > at it) something, or a Bohr (I'm so excited)
> > something?
>
> I think, definitely, a Heisenberg something.
Really? You don't find Foucault a Bohr?
That was not a pun, by the way. I don't make puns,
and if you think you saw one, you must be mistaken.
--
Andrew D. Simchik: wy...@bi.org
http://www.bi.org/~wyrd/
Mike McManus
Arabian Mocha Sanani wrote:
> I don't think any serious critic of postmodernism thinks its a monolithic
> intellectual movement. A heap of shit with many different variations of
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> waste, yes; an intellectual movement, no.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You mean like when I take a crap just after I've walked my dog[1] and flush
both down the loo at the same time? ;-)
[1] ObMotss: she's a cairn terrier, just like Toto.
--
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
_/Mike McManus _/ home: mmcm...@frontiernet.net/
_/Rochester, NY _/ work: mmcm...@kodak.com /
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Ned Deily
Michael Thomas:
> Miniscule. I do have to say that there will be a
>special section of hell for Critical Mass though.
Are you planning to roast another Agnus Dei?
--
Ned Deily,
n...@visi.com -- []
Arne Adolfsen
In article <Pine.GSO.3.95L.98020...@merhaba.cc.columbia.edu>,
Joseph Canale <jc...@columbia.edu> wrote:
>today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
>repression.
Tee-hee! You haven't a single fuckin' clue about anything having to
do with sexuality, dorkwad.
>You seem totally unaware that his unmasking of the
>relationship between sexuality and the power structure, which exposes
>attempts to control human sexuality as ultimately political, and,
>thus, arbitary, has helped to legitimize queer sexual expression.
Hey, anus-face, ever read any Catullus or Martial or Petronius?
Relate what you read -- if you did -- with Foucault's Puritanical
masturbatory S/M fantasies.
Thank you.
>He
>imploded the very idea of sexual deviancy.
Give me a fuckin' break. He reveled in the fact that in his last
years, in the SF-area, he was a big ole S/M versatile type but
basically bottom guy.
> His contribution is nothing
>less than the intellectual equivalent of the Stonewall Riots.
I'd love to take a dump on your sentiments here.
> As a PWA, I'd think you'd be more charitable towards Foucault
>considering the circumstances of his death.
And as an HIV-negative person, I think you'd do well to be more
careful about praising someone who consciously spread HIV in the
baths and sex clubs of San Francisco circa 1981-2.
--
-- Arne Adolfsen ------------------------------------------- ar...@mtcc.com --
"No matter what happens in the kitchen, never apologize." -- Julia Child
Arne Adolfsen
In article <01bd33e4$4ff41c00$b5002399@scdell>,
Spencer Cox <TAG...@MSN.COM> wrote:
>Joseph Canale wrote:
>> What's your problem with Foucault? The sexual freedom that you enjoy
>> today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
>> repression.
>Foucault very specifically doesn't critique "sexual repression," but rather
>what might be called "sexual induction," ie. the positive creation of
>sexual identities. In other words, the "gay" sexual identity on which the
>gay rights movement is predicated is as much a function of the existing
>power structure as "the heterosexual imperative."
This is shown to be a total misrepresentation of Western cultural
history when the Latin-speaking Romans -- remember them? -- are
taken into account. Even limiting ourselves to the Greeks, by studying
the histoical record we will almost immediately see Foucki's
misrepresentations and the poverty of his analysis and analytic style.
>>You seem totally unaware that his unmasking of the
>> relationship between sexuality and the power structure, which exposes
>> attempts to control human sexuality as ultimately political, and,
>> thus, arbitary, has helped to legitimize queer sexual expression.
Barf. You simply don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
Read Martial or Petronius, idiot.
>I suspect Foucault would propose that any "legitimization" of "queer sexual
>expression" would subject it to the same power rules as any other mode of
>sexual expression.
Michel Foucault had *no* understanding of power relationships. For
him, power was power. So, like, my asking my secretary to make some
photocopies is *exactly* equal to our culture's strict emphasis on
compulsory heterosexuality.
Yeah, right.
I've come to the conclusion that anyone who cites Foucault can be
dismissed out of hand because he or she just doesn't have a clue.
(And recent studies of Bedlem vs Foucault's ridiculous "Madness
and the Clinic", or whatever, back me up 1000%.)
> On the other hand, unlegitimated "queer sexual
>expression," by virtue of its origin in the development of sexual identity
>as a mechanism for social control, is also subject to those rules.
I don't speak Martian. Can you translate this into an Earth language?
Thanks.
>And so,
>since basically all modern sexual expression is subject to social control
>of either a positive or negative sort, why not just be a good socially
>constructed heterosexual -- the fringe benefits are enormous. The problem
>is that some of us want to keep getting buggered, regardless of whether we
>do so because of social control mechanisms or not.
Yeah, yeah. This is an excuse, not an explanation.
>>He
>> imploded the very idea of sexual deviancy. His contribution is nothing
>> less than the intellectual equivalent of the Stonewall Riots.
Tee-hee!
>As someone who continues to believe that the Stonewall Riots represent
>another over-romanticized historical event that has achieved the status of
>nationalist myth (sort of like "the revolution" for communistis), I'd agree
>with this comparison entirely.
Huh?
>> As a PWA, I'd think you'd be more charitable towards Foucault
>> considering the circumstances of his death.
>Why? As a PWA, I know plenty of PWAs who are at best stupid [...]
Because Foucault was a god -- an incarnation of Vishnu, perhaps.
Me, I'll go along happily thinking that Foucault simply didn't know
what he was talking about.
Brad Macdonald
On 8 Feb 1998, Arne Adolfsen wrote:
> And as an HIV-negative person, I think you'd do well to be more
> careful about praising someone who consciously spread HIV in the
> baths and sex clubs of San Francisco circa 1981-2.
Huh?
Brad
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Arne Adolfsen (ar...@mtcc.com) wrote:
: Michel Foucault had *no* understanding of power relationships. For
: him, power was power. So, like, my asking my secretary to make some
: photocopies is *exactly* equal to our culture's strict emphasis on
: compulsory heterosexuality.
Um, care to support that reading of Foucault with something he,
like, actually wrote or said?
Good luck.
: I've come to the conclusion that anyone who cites Foucault can be
: dismissed out of hand because he or she just doesn't have a clue.
Of course they can, Arne.
: (And recent studies of Bedlem vs Foucault's ridiculous "Madness
: and the Clinic", or whatever, back me up 1000%.)
Foucault's research wasn't perfect. Big fuckin' deal. That
doesn't mean his ideas, all of them, are completely off-base,
uninteresting and uninspiring.
I've seen a great many students eyes opened to problems of
power after reading _Discipline and Punish_. I've seen
attitudes change in ways I, at least, think good (a greater
awareness of socially enforced discrimination and marginalization)
as a result of students reading Foucault. I don't really
give a damn whether his work is completely historically
accurate.
: Me, I'll go along happily thinking that Foucault simply didn't know
: what he was talking about.
And by citing a few factual inaccuracies, you think you can
prove it. Wow.
Lee Rudolph
ar...@mtcc.com (Arne Adolfsen) writes:
>Even limiting ourselves to the Greeks, by studying
>the histoical record
That would be, like, the story of the Spartan boy and the fox?
Lee Rudolph
Arne Adolfsen
In article <Pine.GSO.3.95L.98020...@merhaba.cc.columbia.edu>,
Brad Macdonald <br...@columbia.edu> wrote:
>Huh?
I don't know what your question is here. Foucault knew he was sick,
suspected it was because of a sexually-transmitted virus, and still
frequented SF leather bars, sex clubs, and baths. Are you questioning
the years themselves? Then let me amend them to "1980-83". Does that
help?
Ken Rudolph
Anthony J. Rzepela wrote:
>
> Uh-oh. Did HIV exist in 1982?
I know this is a rhetorical question. I read recently that HIV has been
found in a blood sample from 1946. And that it has pretty well been
established from DNA analysis that this was a migrating simian
retrovirus which, unlike most animal viruses which move over to man,
mutated to become transmissable from person to person.
However, I know that the acronym 'HIV' didn't exist in 1982; and maybe
that means that since the word didn't exist, that the social construct
which is HIV disease didn't exist either.
--Ken Rudolph (whose earliest personal knowledge of AIDS occurred when a
friend died in early 1983 after a short bout of "pneumonia.")
Brad Macdonald
On 8 Feb 1998, Arne Adolfsen wrote:
> In article <Pine.GSO.3.95L.98020...@merhaba.cc.columbia.edu>,
> Brad Macdonald <br...@columbia.edu> wrote:
>
> >On 8 Feb 1998, Arne Adolfsen wrote:
> >> And as an HIV-negative person, I think you'd do well to be more
> >> careful about praising someone who consciously spread HIV in the
> >> baths and sex clubs of San Francisco circa 1981-2.
> > ^^^^^^
>
> >Huh?
>
> I don't know what your question is here. Foucault knew he was sick,
> suspected it was because of a sexually-transmitted virus, and still
> frequented SF leather bars, sex clubs, and baths. Are you questioning
> the years themselves? Then let me amend them to "1980-83". Does that
> help?
I'm questioning the years. How could anyone during that term "consciously
spread HIV"? I thought you made a typo. tee hee hee on me.
Brad
Brad Macdonald
On 8 Feb 1998, Arne Adolfsen wrote: [omitting Spencer]
> >> What's your problem with Foucault? The sexual freedom that you enjoy
> >> today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
> >> repression.
>
> >> relationship between sexuality and the power structure, which exposes
> >> attempts to control human sexuality as ultimately political, and,
> >> thus, arbitary, has helped to legitimize queer sexual expression.
>
> Barf. You simply don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
> Read Martial or Petronius, idiot.
Speaking of barf, Arne, didn't you display this same rumination for us
just a couple of days ago?
ditto:
> >>He
> >> imploded the very idea of sexual deviancy. His contribution is nothing
> >> less than the intellectual equivalent of the Stonewall Riots.
>
> Tee-hee!
No particular fan of Foucault, but I took notes from your earlier post,
and just hate reruns...
Brad
Arne Adolfsen
In article <6blp63$m...@netaxs.com>,
Anthony J. Rzepela <rzep...@netaxs.com> wrote:
>Arne Adolfsen (ar...@mtcc.com) wrote:
>> And as an HIV-negative person, I think you'd do well to be more
>> careful about praising someone who consciously spread HIV in the
>> baths and sex clubs of San Francisco circa 1981-2.
>Uh-oh. Did HIV exist in 1982?
Uh-oh. If I steal a Lexus and kidnap Kristin and shove her
into the trunk and then drive the car into a forest and set
fire to it, does the car actually burn and does Kristin die
if'n no one sees/hears the burn up?
Arne, like no one in 1980 thought an unidentified virus had to
behind the deaths of our friends and acquaintances
Arne Adolfsen
In article <6blr8i$gt5$1...@ambach.macc.wisc.edu>,
Jess Anderson <ande...@facstaff.wisc.edu> wrote:
>Anthony J. Rzepela <rzep...@netaxs.com> wrote:
>>Uh-oh. Did HIV exist in 1982?
>It has existed since at least 1959, hasn't it?
The British sailor you're thinking about turned out
not to have died from HIV. That said, the earliest
confirmed infection with HIV that we know of dates
to around 1947 or 1948.
David W. Fenton
Michael Thomas (mi...@mtcc.com) wrote:: > > You're joking. That "something" better be a
: > > quantum level "something."
: >
: > I hope that is a reference to its miniscule quality, rather than to
: > some supposed quality of critical mass.
: Miniscule. I do have to say that there will be a
: special section of hell for Critical Mass though.
I'm too lazy to check the dictionary, but isn't it "minuscule?"
David W. Fenton dfenton at bway dot net
New York University http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
Roger B.A. Klorese
On 8 Feb 1998 18:04:27 -0800, ar...@mtcc.com (Arne Adolfsen) wrote:
>I don't know what your question is here. Foucault knew he was sick,
>suspected it was because of a sexually-transmitted virus, and still
>frequented SF leather bars, sex clubs, and baths.
What do leather bars have to do with transmitting HIV?
Éamonn McManus
Really, Arne. It's "Fouqui".
,
Eamonn http://www.mtcc.com/~eamonn/
"Then I realized I was in France and, in fact, the gibberish was French"
-- R Johnson
Gary Phillips
> Arne, like no one in 1980 thought an unidentified virus had to
> behind the deaths of our friends and acquaintances
Just admit that you went off the deep end in making the libelous claim
about Foucault "consciously" went around spreading HIV in 81-82, or even
80-83. People were still thinking of it as the "gay cancer" until
late-83/early-84. Few people knew that anything was happening in the
first place; most of the gay community was in denial that anything like
this *could* happen; and even those that knew some new disease was
spreading in the gay community had no concrete ideas about how it was
happening during that time frame. Moreover, nobody in the gay community
*wanted* to know anything about it. They were all too busy frying their
brains on poppers and booze and bad music to give a shit.
I'm no fan of Foucault, but your representation of him and, by proxy,
the gay community, at the time is just ignorant drivel.
XAOS
Andrew D. Simchik wrote in message ...
>Really? You don't find Foucault a Bohr?
>
>That was not a pun, by the way. I don't make puns,
>and if you think you saw one, you must be mistaken.
I am *so* proud; first a little action, now a pun...
*sniffle*
My little Drewcified One is growing up...
- Steve
Robert S. Coren
In article <6blp01$nop$4...@news.nyu.edu>,
David W. Fenton <dwf...@is2.nyu.edu> wrote:
>Michael Thomas (mi...@mtcc.com) wrote:
>:
>: Miniscule. I do have to say that there will be a
>: special section of hell for Critical Mass though.
>
>I'm too lazy to check the dictionary, but isn't it "minuscule?"
Yes.
--
-------Robert Coren (co...@spdcc.com)-------------------------
"If you're efficient, you can do an entire room in two minutes."
--Leith Chu
Spencer Cox
Just wanted to note that most of what Arne was responding to in my post was
quoted from someone else's.
Spencer "No Major Fan of Foucault" Cox
Robert S. Coren
In article <6bn4tl$o...@camel21.mindspring.com>,
XAOS <xa...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>I am *so* proud; first a little action,...
Speaking of which, how'd your date with the waiter go?
--
-------Robert Coren (co...@spdcc.com)-------------------------
"...and in the Eighth Square we shall be Queens together, and it's all
feasting and fun!" --Lewis Carroll, _Through the Looking Glass_
XAOS
Robert S. Coren wrote in message
<6bnbad$r5t$1...@ndnws01.ne.highway1.com>...
>In article <6bn4tl$o...@camel21.mindspring.com>,
>XAOS <xa...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>
>>I am *so* proud; first a little action,...
>
>Speaking of which, how'd your date with the waiter go?
*grumble*
*mutter*
stand me up... I'll %^&ing smack ya
*mutter*
- Steve, receiving complaints from Mr. Happy
Joseph Canale
On Sat, 7 Feb 1998, Arabian Mocha Sanani wrote:
> The sexual freedom that I enjoy today owes absolutely nothing to
> Foucault, and his muddle-headed conflations of critical posturing with
> serious analytic criticism and proposition. It owes a very great deal
> to Marx and Freud, to Jung and James, to de Beauvoir, to Emma Goldman,
> to the great women who cleaned up the eugenics and racism from
> Margaret Sanger's call to reproductive freedom, to the critical
> discourses begun in the following of and reaction to Sade, to Magnus
> Hirschfeld, Harry Hay, Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon, and Kate Bornstein.
> Please do not denigrate these great minds by cerditing a charaltain
> like Foucault with anything resembling their ushering in of paradigm
> shifts of shuddering magnitude about human sexuality.
Freud? Marx? Goldman? Jung? It certainly isn't apparent that they have
contributed to glb lib. Infact, you'd be on firmer ground arguing the
reverse. There is some suggestion that they would be less than supportive
of queer sexual freedom and rights.
> I should be charitable to a lousy scholar about his scholarship just
> because he died of AIDS and because I happen to have the same
> disease? Now, that is exactly the kind of brain-dead thinking that
> arises out of swallowing the anti-historical, post-modern,
> post-structuralist "critical theory" of idiots like Foucault.
>
> What has his death from AIDS got to do with his quality as a theorist?
>
Nothing, I suppose. But you haven't exactly engaged any of his ideas,
just penned some alliterative denunciations. Your attack is so vitriolic
that it seems almost personal. So on a purely personal level I thought you
might be able to muster a modicum of compassion for this other human
being, an accidental causalty of the epidemic like yourself.
Joseph Canale
On 8 Feb 1998, Arne Adolfsen wrote:
> In article <Pine.GSO.3.95L.98020...@merhaba.cc.columbia.edu>,
> Joseph Canale <jc...@columbia.edu> wrote:
> > What's your problem with Foucault? The sexual freedom that you enjoy
> >today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
> >repression.
>
> Tee-hee! You haven't a single fuckin' clue about anything having to
> do with sexuality, dorkwad.
>
> >You seem totally unaware that his unmasking of the
> >relationship between sexuality and the power structure, which exposes
> >attempts to control human sexuality as ultimately political, and,
> >thus, arbitary, has helped to legitimize queer sexual expression.
>
> Hey, anus-face, ever read any Catullus or Martial or Petronius?
> Relate what you read -- if you did -- with Foucault's Puritanical
> masturbatory S/M fantasies.
>
> Thank you.
>
> >He
> >imploded the very idea of sexual deviancy.
>
> Give me a fuckin' break. He reveled in the fact that in his last
> years, in the SF-area, he was a big ole S/M versatile type but
> basically bottom guy.
>
> > His contribution is nothing
> >less than the intellectual equivalent of the Stonewall Riots.
>
> I'd love to take a dump on your sentiments here.
>
> > As a PWA, I'd think you'd be more charitable towards Foucault
> >considering the circumstances of his death.
>
> And as an HIV-negative person, I think you'd do well to be more
> careful about praising someone who consciously spread HIV in the
> baths and sex clubs of San Francisco circa 1981-2.
I think you'd do well to sober up. Driving while intoxicated again?
And don't presume to know my HIV status.
Joe
Joseph Canale
On 8 Feb 1998, Arne Adolfsen wrote:
> In article <Pine.GSO.3.95L.98020...@merhaba.cc.columbia.edu>,
> > ^^^^^^
>
> >Huh?
>
> I don't know what your question is here. Foucault knew he was sick,
> suspected it was because of a sexually-transmitted virus, and still
> frequented SF leather bars, sex clubs, and baths. Are you questioning
> the years themselves? Then let me amend them to "1980-83". Does that
> help?
>
And what does that have to do with his scholarship or any of his
ideas?
Joseph Canale
On Sat, 7 Feb 1998, Arabian Mocha Sanani wrote:
> A balloon very nicely punctured, Spencer. Thank you. Of course,
> Foucault would argue that our relatively bening desires (and
> apparently, *his* particularly onerous desire, as noted by a
> biographer, for picking up young "vache" tricks in the streets of
> Paris and taking tham home to fuck them (unprotected) without
> revealing that he had AIDS) are merely contructed by the discourse of
> sexuality, criminality, dysfunction, and power that envelopes us in
> our post-inductrial, overdeveloped, urban location. Which takes no
> account at all (and, in fact, opposes the idea), let alone to give
> more credence than worth to, of cross-cultural and trans-historical
> modes, locations, and ways of fulfilling what are apparently, in a
> qualified way, universally manfested sets of desires.
What the fuck? Cogent? "Er, no." Besides, what the hell do the details
of his sex life have to do with the implications of his scholarship? You
need to separate the two.
Ken Rudolph
For what it's worth, I sort of agree with this historical overview
of the late '70s and early '80s. If anything, it doesn't go far
enough (though by 1983 the epidemic use of speed, ludes, sherms,
green and whatever was on the wane.) But I do believe that by 1982
many people (including myself) were aware that something was amiss
and that our friends were getting sick and dying. The rumor that
poppers caused gay cancer was being spread by 1981 at the latest.
--Ken Rudolph
Robert S. Coren
In article <6bnbur$j...@camel19.mindspring.com>,
>
>
>*grumble*
>*mutter*
>stand me up... I'll %^&ing smack ya
>*mutter*
Oh, dear. Sorry I asked. My condolences.
--
-------Robert Coren (co...@spdcc.com)-------------------------
"Never try to outstubborn a cat." -- R. A. Heinlein
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Joseph Canale (jc...@columbia.edu) wrote:
: Freud? Marx? Goldman? Jung? It certainly isn't apparent that they have
: contributed to glb lib. Infact, you'd be on firmer ground arguing the
: reverse. There is some suggestion that they would be less than supportive
: of queer sexual freedom and rights.
Whether Freud directly contributed-- a problematic issue at best--
psychoanalytic discourse certainly has. Same with Marx and marxist
discourse.
But, of course, same with Foucault and foucauldian discourse.
One thing all these thinkers have in common is that they had
lots of half-baked ideas that, after a closer look, it turns
out don't hold water. That doesn't mean everything they said
was half-baked, however. Not that anyone has said that's the
case, of course, of anyone save Foucault.
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Ned Deily wrote:
>
> Michael Thomas:
> > Miniscule. I do have to say that there will be a
> >special section of hell for Critical Mass though.
>
Yum! With some herbum Dominum?
--the bean
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Ned Deily wrote:
>
> Are you planning to roast another Agnus Dei?
or, to agree more, herbum Domini?
--the bean
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Joseph Canale wrote:
>
> On Sat, 7 Feb 1998, Arabian Mocha Sanani wrote:
>
> > A balloon very nicely punctured, Spencer. Thank you. Of course,
> > Foucault would argue that our relatively bening desires (and
> > apparently, *his* particularly onerous desire, as noted by a
> > biographer, for picking up young "vache" tricks in the streets of
> > Paris and taking tham home to fuck them (unprotected) without
> > revealing that he had AIDS) are merely contructed by the discourse of
> > sexuality, criminality, dysfunction, and power that envelopes us in
> > our post-inductrial, overdeveloped, urban location. Which takes no
> > account at all (and, in fact, opposes the idea), let alone to give
> > more credence than worth to, of cross-cultural and trans-historical
> > modes, locations, and ways of fulfilling what are apparently, in a
> > qualified way, universally manfested sets of desires.
>
> What the fuck? Cogent? "Er, no."
Of course it isn't cogent. That's my point. I was describing what
the Foucauldian response to Spencer's very effective critique would
be. That is to say, the response would be gibberish.
And, I added, that such gibberish does not take obvious generalized
essentials into account. As I noted, this is because such gibberish
diametrically opposes any kind of universality, preaching that
essentials never exist(ed). The source of the gibbersih brands all
theories that account for them (in any deferential way) as being
completely *essentialist,* which is false.
> Besides, what the hell do the details
> of his sex life have to do with the implications of his scholarship? You
> need to separate the two.
I do not. I'm showing you how ridiculous Foucault's own procedures
are. Foucault would not have separated them (for anyone other than
himself). His argument would have been that they are indicitive of
the dominant culture's colonization in the marginalized of the
disconnection between theory and practice and, thus, that one would
first have to deconstruct his personal life to find the beginnings of
his theory.
Sound stupid?
That's cuz it is.
--the bean
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Arne Adolfsen wrote:
[quoting, and quoting quotations]
> > On the other hand, unlegitimated "queer sexual
> >expression," by virtue of its origin in the development of sexual identity
> >as a mechanism for social control, is also subject to those rules.
>
> I don't speak Martian. Can you translate this into an Earth language?
> Thanks.
It means that buttfucking and sucking cock among the queer guys is
just an acting out of society's repression of us. Which is both
really dumb and typical of the glop that accrues under the rubric of
post-modern post-structuralist critical theory.
> >> As a PWA, I'd think you'd be more charitable towards Foucault
> >> considering the circumstances of his death.
>
> >Why? As a PWA, I know plenty of PWAs who are at best stupid [...]
>
> Because Foucault was a god -- an incarnation of Vishnu, perhaps.
Poor Vishnu. Tsk. That was really undeserved, Arne. What'd Vishnu
ever do to you?
Anyway, if Foucault can be compared to anyone in the Hindu Trinity, it
would be Shiva, although I think that's even off the mark. Shiva,
after all, represents re-creation and evolution as well as destruction
and conviction. All I think you could muster for comparison with
Foucault is the "destruction" part.
--the bean
Ellen Evans
In article <6bl8rn$a...@fasolt.mtcc.com>, Arne Adolfsen <ar...@mtcc.com> wrote:
[]
>Relate what you read -- if you did -- with Foucault's Puritanical
>masturbatory S/M fantasies.
Someone's having recurrent somethings here.
--
Ellen Evans 17 Across: The "her" of "Leave Her to Heaven"
je...@netcom.com New York Times, 7/14/96
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Brad Macdonald wrote:
>
> On 8 Feb 1998, Arne Adolfsen wrote:
> > And as an HIV-negative person, I think you'd do well to be more
> > careful about praising someone who consciously spread HIV in the
> > baths and sex clubs of San Francisco circa 1981-2.
> ^^^^^^
>
> Huh?
Foucault was a regular visitor to San Francisco well through 1983. I
am sad to say that my alma mater, UCSC, once entertained the thought
of having him come in 1984 as a Visiting Lecturer in the History of
Consciousness. Thankfully, circumstances did not allow that to
happen.
--the bean
Gene Ward Smith
Joseph Canale (jc...@columbia.edu) wrote:
: On 6 Feb 1998, Michael Thomas wrote:
: > Joseph Canale <jc...@columbia.edu> writes:
: > > What's your problem with Foucault? The sexual freedom that you enjoy
: > > today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
: > > repression.
: > You're joking. That "something" better be a
: > quantum level "something."
: Huh? I don't understand.
Don't let it worry your sweet little head.
Gene Ward Smith
Joseph Canale (jc...@columbia.edu) wrote:
: What's your problem with Foucault? The sexual freedom that you enjoy
: today owes something to Foucault's effective critique of sexual
: repression.
But to whom goes the credit for the sexual freedom which Foucault
enjoyed?
: You seem totally unaware that his unmasking of the
: relationship between sexuality and the power structure, which exposes
: attempts to control human sexuality as ultimately political, and,
: thus, arbitary, has helped to legitimize queer sexual expression.
So that'w what this Monicagate business is all about. I've been
wondering.
: He imploded the very idea of sexual deviancy.
Did he have a permit?
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Joseph Canale wrote:
> Freud? Marx? Goldman? Jung? It certainly isn't apparent that they have
> contributed to glb lib. Infact, you'd be on firmer ground arguing the
> reverse. There is some suggestion that they would be less than supportive
> of queer sexual freedom and rights.
This is the kind of misreading of historical reality that is
paralyzing the minds of the best and brightest in American
universities who are being spoon-fed postmodernist claptrap by
psuedo-intellectual activist poseur faculty.
Without arguing forefully for understanding reality and history in the
light of dialectical materialism, the stage would never have been set
for making sound scholarly and medical inquiry based on material
relations rather than on edicts from God as proposed by the Church or
edicts from nature as proposed by philosophers.
Without analytical theory, understanding the phenomenon that came to
hold the name "homosexuality" or "bisexuality" would not have been
posible as a study of mind and body as apart from some "intrisic
propensity to moral evil."
Without applying dialectical materialism and psychoanalysis to the
study of historical archetypes and personae, the discovery of streams
of evidence (and consdierable classical writing) of social structuring
among those acting in varied ways with homosexual impulse in many
cultures throughout history would not have been possible in a
scientifically reputable way and would not have been able to serve as
bases for the eradication of homosexuality from lists of moral and
mental disorders.
Without the calls for reproductive freedom, sexual freedom, and the
abolition of sexual rights and responsibilities tied to property
rights, the climate could never have been fostered that would make the
presentation of the scientific evidence noted above politically
acceptible enough for key elites.
Your assessment of Foucault, a fifth-rate word-wrangler at best, as
the messiah of my sexual freeedom, is indicative of your completely
ahistorical and ill-schooled narrative and poor understanding of the
dynamics of psychosocial and political economy in the West since the
Romantic Period.
> Nothing, I suppose. But you haven't exactly engaged any of his ideas,
> just penned some alliterative denunciations.
I have engaged his central theses, and his various books are merely
grandiose applications of his essential theses of the decentered
subject. Spencer was even more direct in skewring some of Foucault's
more outlandish pronouncements. I have also used some of Foucault's
own wordings to present how he might respond to other issues raised
here.
I think maybe you didn't notice cuz its hard to keep all that jargon
in your head and think critically at the same time.
>So on a purely personal level I thought you
> might be able to muster a modicum of compassion for this other human
> being, an accidental causalty of the epidemic like yourself.
Accidental?
The virus knew what it was doing.
And, if I'd been a good boy and kept my pants zipped, I'd have been
very sexually frustrated, but still HIV-negative. Yes, I was in a way
"innocent," because I didn't go out and knowingly contract a fatal
disease just to spite God or Jerry Falwell, or Reagan or something.
But I, and my forbears in the '70s, certainly DID kow that we were on
the cutting edge of a sexual revolution, and that our promiscuity was
making the known STDs pop up with ever-greater frequency.
We knew there were big potential risks -- there always are when you
stand on the edge. When I was infected it had got to the point where
the epidemiology was such that the chances of one sexual encounter
leaving you with at least one STD were enormous. And, in my case, I
knew AIDS existed, even if I did not know (even though the goverment
did, and had not released all the info) its primary causative agent
(HIV) and that HIV could be transmitted through blood and cum.
Foucault knew all this, too.
Maybe the law of averages, that I'd never got a STD in years of sex,
meant that it was my turn when I did get infected all those years
ago. In those days, AIDS organizations were telling us to "know our
partners and our partners' sexual history" before deciding to have sex
(nothin about condoms). It was a recipe for disaster, but it was
hardly an accident on my part. I knew if I had sex I might wind up
with AIDS. And even though the lovely Norweigian boy seemed like he
had a good sexual pedigree, I did wind up with it.
It isn't the same as if, in my case, I'd known about safer sex and
went out and had high risk sex anyway, but I am not without
responsibility. If I'd known how to protect myself, i would have.
But even with reduced risk, I'd still be taking a risk. That's no
accident.
And it was no accident that, even after Foucault knew all about safer
sex, he acted in an ethically reprehensible way anyway. So, my
distaste for him is a mix: his lousy scholarship, the influence of his
writings helping to turn young American minds to mush, and the fact
that, as a human being, he did morrally disgusting things.
Gerard Koskovitch may have thought Foucault deserved a quilt panel
filled with glowing praise. I think he deserved one catalogueing his
crimes.
--the bean
wy...@bi.org
> >Really? You don't find Foucault a Bohr?
> >
> >That was not a pun, by the way. I don't make puns,
> >and if you think you saw one, you must be mistaken.
>
"Little," my ass. I was sore for the rest of the day.
> now a pun...
Hey, Colin, Splat -- can I sew him for this?
Drewcifer, who discovered the other night that there
are at least two "Drewcifers" on IRC besides him
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Arabian Mocha Sanani
> >suspected it was because of a sexually-transmitted virus, and still
> >frequented SF leather bars, sex clubs, and baths.
>
Nothing. It is what people did in them. Back then, as I recall,
leather bars in SF were basically sex clubs with alcohol and
entertainment. Again, sex clubs have nothing to do with
transmission. It is if people engage in high risk behaviors in them.
--the bean
Gene Ward Smith
: > Arne, like no one in 1980 thought an unidentified virus had to
: > behind the deaths of our friends and acquaintances
: Just admit that you went off the deep end in making the libelous claim
: about Foucault "consciously" went around spreading HIV in 81-82, or even
: 80-83. People were still thinking of it as the "gay cancer" until
: late-83/early-84.
Not me. I told people very early on that I thought it was probably a
virus and that distasteful as the idea was, care needed to be taken.
I had the same medical training as Foucault, namely, none. This was a
reasonable inference from what was being said about it, even before
the medical powers that be were willing to put that notion out. I
suspect that Foucault and many others would have come to the same
conclusion if only they did not find it so distasteful; I think this
is a good example to keep in mind when next you are tempted to
confuses wishes with facts, or ideology with logical analysis.
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Joseph Canale wrote:
> And what does that have to do with his scholarship or any of his
> ideas?
Only that he is convicted by his own style of scholarship, in addition
to the general crap detection anyone should have for a theorist who
tells the world to do as he says and not as he does.
--the bean
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Jess Anderson wrote:
>
> >>On 8 Feb 1998, Arne Adolfsen wrote:
>
> >>>And as an HIV-negative person, I think you'd do well to be
> >>>more careful about praising someone who consciously spread
> >>>HIV in the baths and sex clubs of San Francisco circa 1981-2.
> >> ^^^^^^
> >>Huh?
>
> >I don't know what your question is here. Foucault knew he was
> >sick, suspected it was because of a sexually-transmitted
> >virus, and still frequented SF leather bars, sex clubs, and
> >baths. Are you questioning the years themselves? Then let me
> >amend them to "1980-83". Does that help?
>
> I thought Brad was questioning whether anyone knew it was HIV
> as early as 1982.
>
> I've forgotten when the virus was identified, however. Wasn't
> it in 1983?
Remember, only certain circles knew in late '83 and early '84. And it
was not confirmed that it was this newly discovered retrovirus, and
not another pathogen, until 1985. And the government did not inform
the public directly until 1986.
For quite some time, serious clinicians were convinced that a mutated
form of the cytomegalovirus (CMV) a herpesvirus, which normally causes
mononucleosis, might be the cause. Others thought that it might be
Epstein-Barr virus, or yet another herpesvirus. There are still
plenty of folks who believe various herpesviruses (especially HHV-6
and HHV-8) have a role in disease progression. Nevertheless, by '83,
in scientific circles and in Foucault's circles, researchers believed
it was a viral disease spread by blood and semen (an maybe by other
avenues), and that bacteria and mycoplasmas were at best co-factors,
since antibiotics seemed so useless on the syndrome.
Foucault knew he had AIDS, and his researcher friends told him their
best guess of how it was spread.
The *really* criminal aspects of this were not just Foucault's
behavior, given his inside knowledge, but the negligence of the French
and U.S. governments in keeping the info from being confirmed and
widely disseminated so that effective safer sex campaigns could be
developed and implemented, and Bob Gallo's megalomaniacal quest to
keep everything quiet until he could steal credit for discovering the
retrovirus. Thousands upon thousands of infections could have been
avoided.
>
> I'm wondering two other things about your first statement,
> Arne. "Consciously spread HIV" isn't exactly the same as
> "consciously spread <some other STD>"; it's probably not good,
> but it's not the same.
>
> Then there's the "consciously" part; I don't contest that,
> but what attests it?
Well, Foucault knew Luc Montagnier professionally, and Montagnier was
convinced as early as 1983 that his Lymphadenopathy Associated Virus
(HIV) was a necessary, if not sufficient, piece of the puzzle, and
that LAV was spread through blood and semen. Foucault was having
discussions with friends of mine in SF and Paris in 1983 that quite
possibly it was caused by this virus, yet he went about business as
usual.
I don't think I could have done that if I'd had such information.
And, if I'd had such information, I'd have given a lot more credence
to what the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were saying as early as
1984 about how we should all wear condoms to fuck.
--the bean
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Ken Rudolph wrote:
>
> Anthony J. Rzepela wrote:
> >
> > Uh-oh. Did HIV exist in 1982?
>
> I know this is a rhetorical question. I read recently that HIV has been
> found in a blood sample from 1946. And that it has pretty well been
> established from DNA analysis that this was a migrating simian
> retrovirus which, unlike most animal viruses which move over to man,
> mutated to become transmissable from person to person.
>
> However, I know that the acronym 'HIV' didn't exist in 1982; and maybe
> that means that since the word didn't exist, that the social construct
> which is HIV disease didn't exist either.
LOL.
And here we see the violence inherent in the system, as the Pythons
would say.
Actually, the little nasty retrovirus known as HIV-1 (which is
distinct from HIV-2) is distinct from its simean antecedent, wich is
why a simean was able to transmit it to a human. The mutation in the
simean was so extreme that it could be classified as a whole new
entity -- evidence of evolution.
Also, remember, HIV-1 had two names before becomming HIV-1. It was
known alternately as Lymphodenopathy Associated Virus and Human
T-Lymphotropic Virus Type III, and it is a known retroviral variant of
the viruses associated with leukemia.
But, as postmodernists go, we might have to say that any HIV-related
disease or syndrome prior to the naming of HIV (or LAV or HTLV-III)
has to be called and understood as Leukemia (if a little quirky), even
though its very much different.
Sort of like "homosexuality" and classical Roman pedophilia.
Which is one more way to say that Foucault was an idiot.
--the bean
K. Paul Johnson
Robert S. Coren (co...@ursolaris.spdcc.com) wrote:
: >Michael Thomas (mi...@mtcc.com) wrote:
: >: Miniscule. I do have to say that there will be a
: >
: >I'm too lazy to check the dictionary, but isn't it "minuscule?"
:
: Yes.
NO!
K. Paul Johnson
Gary Phillips (orp...@kaiwan.com) wrote:
:
: about Foucault "consciously" went around spreading HIV in 81-82, or even
: 80-83. People were still thinking of it as the "gay cancer" until
: late-83/early-84.
Nope. The acronym AIDS was coined in 1981 and was quite
widespread by 1982, as was the knowledge that it entailed far more
immune disorder complications than Kaposi's. I vividly recall
breaking up with someone in November 1982 after he said he wanted
to sleep around; my response was "AIDS is out there, and I won't
risk being in an open relationship."
Few people knew that anything was happening in the
: first place;
I was in the not-particularly-au-courant Portsmouth, VA at the
time, and every gay person I knew was quite aware that something
was happening, that it was called AIDS, and that it appeared
highly likely due to sexually transmitted infection.
most of the gay community was in denial that anything like
: this *could* happen;
Not my recollection at all.
and even those that knew some new disease was
: spreading in the gay community had no concrete ideas about how it was
: happening during that time frame.
No concrete ideas? It was obviously sexually transmitted, and
that was the assumption of everyone I knew. Arne's completely
right on this one. Statistics on the number of lifetime sex partners of AIDS
patients were pretty persuasive from the start.
Moreover, nobody in the gay community
: *wanted* to know anything about it. They were all too busy frying their
: brains on poppers and booze and bad music to give a shit.
What a preposterous assertion! None of my gay friends were into
poppers or booze or bad music at the time; they're all alive,
HIV-, and in LTRs today.
:
: I'm no fan of Foucault, but your representation of him and, by proxy,
: the gay community, at the time is just ignorant drivel.
There's a fine line between deliberately ignoring potential fatal
consequences and passive suicide/homicide. In 1982 I started
regarding anyone who was promiscuous despite the obvious and
widely publicized threat of AIDS as playing Russian roulette.
After the identification of HIV, the introduction of testing, and
the recognition of safe/unsafe practices, life could return to
some semblance of normality. But as I recall 1982-86, it was a
time of sexphobic terror for anyone who kept up with the news.
My guess: Arne was there at the time and you weren't.
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Joseph Canale wrote:
> > And as an HIV-negative person, I think you'd do well to be more
> > careful about praising someone who consciously spread HIV in the
> > baths and sex clubs of San Francisco circa 1981-2.
>
> I think you'd do well to sober up. Driving while intoxicated again?
> And don't presume to know my HIV status.
>
He might have been referring to his own.
--the bean
Ellen Evans
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Arabian Mocha Sanani (san...@ibm.net) wrote:
: Arne Adolfsen wrote:
: [quoting, and quoting quotations]
:
: > > On the other hand, unlegitimated "queer sexual
: > >expression," by virtue of its origin in the development of sexual
: > >identity as a mechanism for social control, is also
: > >subject to those rules.
: >
: > I don't speak Martian. Can you translate this into an Earth language?
: > Thanks.
:
: It means that buttfucking and sucking cock among the queer guys is
: just an acting out of society's repression of us. Which is both
: really dumb and typical of the glop that accrues under the rubric of
: post-modern post-structuralist critical theory.
Er, no. Thanks for playing.
It actually has more to do with an acting out against social
control, though that's a terrible over-simplification.
Not that that should bother you.
: Anyway, if Foucault can be compared to anyone in the Hindu Trinity, it
: would be Shiva, although I think that's even off the mark. Shiva,
: after all, represents re-creation and evolution as well as destruction
: and conviction. All I think you could muster for comparison with
: Foucault is the "destruction" part.
Yeah. _The Order of Things_ and _The Archaeology of Knowledge_ are
*all* *about* destruction.
Daniel Chase Edmonds
:
: > Freud? Marx? Goldman? Jung? It certainly isn't apparent that they have
: > contributed to glb lib. Infact, you'd be on firmer ground arguing the
: > reverse. There is some suggestion that they would be less than supportive
: > of queer sexual freedom and rights.
:
: This is the kind of misreading of historical reality that is
: paralyzing the minds of the best and brightest in American
: universities who are being spoon-fed postmodernist claptrap by
: psuedo-intellectual activist poseur faculty.
Bullshit. Marx and Freud are alive and well in American academia.
Do you actually read academic journals? You must have done, about
ten years ago, because the state of academia you keep commenting
on hasn't existed for at least that long. Post-structuralism no
longer enjoys the position of privilege you seem to imagine-- how
could it maintain such a position for long, since maintaining
such a position is antithetical to its very discourse-- but rather
is one of numerous discourses that abound. Psychoanalysis and
Marxism are alive and well and kicking, along with semiotics and
formalism and structuralism and cultural studies and so on.
Any discourse used as *the* meta-discourse through which reality
is interpreted is inevitably short-sighted and a failure (something
we were most recently reminded of by another of those icky post-
structuralists, Lyotard), but that doesn't make it worthy of
wholesale dismissal.
Michael Thomas
Webster's says that Miniscule is a valid
alternative, so Robert is wrong.
--
Michael Thomas (mi...@mtcc.com http://www.mtcc.com/~mike/)
"I dunno, that's an awful lot of money."
Beavis
Arne Adolfsen
In article <34e8b56e...@queernet.org>,
Roger B.A. Klorese <rog...@queernet.org> wrote:
>On 8 Feb 1998 18:04:27 -0800, ar...@mtcc.com (Arne Adolfsen) wrote:
>>I don't know what your question is here. Foucault knew he was sick,
>>suspected it was because of a sexually-transmitted virus, and still
>>frequented SF leather bars, sex clubs, and baths.
>What do leather bars have to do with transmitting HIV?
Oh, please. "Frequented leather bars where he nightly exchanged
body fluids."
Does that make you happy?
--
-- Arne Adolfsen ------------------------------------------- ar...@mtcc.com --
"No matter what happens in the kitchen, never apologize." -- Julia Child
Arne Adolfsen
In article <34DEF966...@kaiwan.com>,
Gary Phillips <orp...@kaiwan.com> wrote:
>Arne Adolfsen wrote:
>> Arne, like no one in 1980 thought an unidentified virus had to
>> behind the deaths of our friends and acquaintances
>Just admit that you went off the deep end in making the libelous claim
>about Foucault "consciously" went around spreading HIV in 81-82, or even
>80-83. People were still thinking of it as the "gay cancer" until
>late-83/early-84.
Give me a break. A virus was suspected from *very* early on -- Fall 1990
at the very latest in my experience. If Foucault didn't hear these claims
at Berkeley, he was just being an asshole.
>Few people knew that anything was happening in the
>first place; most of the gay community was in denial that anything like
>this *could* happen; and even those that knew some new disease was
>spreading in the gay community had no concrete ideas about how it was
>happening during that time frame.
Puh-leeeze. I was living in West Hollywood and neighbors were dying left
and right.
>Moreover, nobody in the gay community
>*wanted* to know anything about it. They were all too busy frying their
>brains on poppers and booze and bad music to give a shit.
Hmmm.
>I'm no fan of Foucault, but your representation of him and, by proxy,
>the gay community, at the time is just ignorant drivel.
Yarite.
David W. Fenton
Roger B.A. Klorese (rog...@queernet.org) wrote:
: On 8 Feb 1998 18:04:27 -0800, ar...@mtcc.com (Arne Adolfsen) wrote:
: >I don't know what your question is here. Foucault knew he was sick,
: >suspected it was because of a sexually-transmitted virus, and still
: >frequented SF leather bars, sex clubs, and baths.
:
: What do leather bars have to do with transmitting HIV?
There are gay men there.
And they have sex.
Of necessity, this means they are transmitting HIV.
HTH.
David W. Fenton dfenton at bway dot net
New York University http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Stevenson
Arabian Mocha Sanani <san...@ibm.net> writes:
>
> Back then, as I recall,
>leather bars in SF were basically sex clubs with alcohol and
>entertainment.
As I recall, leather bars in SF back then were basically
bars. A few (like Folsom Prison) had a back room, but it
was small. There were plenty of sex clubs, bathhouses, and
alleys in the area, and people would cruise and drink
at the bars until 2am and then either head home or to one
of the sex venues. Sex did go on in the bars, but the bars
were nowhere like a sex club.
David W. Fenton
Daniel Chase Edmonds (ded...@paladin.cc.emory.edu) wrote:
: One thing all these thinkers have in common is that they had
: lots of half-baked ideas that, after a closer look, it turns
: out don't hold water. That doesn't mean everything they said
: was half-baked, however. Not that anyone has said that's the
: case, of course, of anyone save Foucault.
Wow!
How long did it take you to construct a self-justifying paragraph (in the
sense of margins -- I haven't even read the paragraph yet)?
Michael Thomas
dwf...@is2.nyu.edu (David W. Fenton) writes:
> Daniel Chase Edmonds (ded...@paladin.cc.emory.edu) wrote:
> : One thing all these thinkers have in common is that they had
> : lots of half-baked ideas that, after a closer look, it turns
> : out don't hold water. That doesn't mean everything they said
> : was half-baked, however. Not that anyone has said that's the
> : case, of course, of anyone save Foucault.
>
> Wow!
>
> How long did it take you to construct a self-justifying paragraph (in the
> sense of margins -- I haven't even read the paragraph yet)?
In academia, function always follows form.
Éamonn McManus
Michael Thomas <mi...@mtcc.com> writes:
> pjoh...@vlinsvr.vsla.edu (K. Paul Johnson) writes:
> > Robert S. Coren (co...@ursolaris.spdcc.com) wrote:
> > : >Michael Thomas (mi...@mtcc.com) wrote:
> > : >: Miniscule. I do have to say that there will be a
> > : >I'm too lazy to check the dictionary, but isn't it "minuscule?"
> > : Yes.
> > NO!
> Webster's says that Miniscule is a valid
> alternative, so Robert is wrong.
Descriptivist namby-pambies. Here's what Chambers has to say:
*miniscule*. A wrong spelling of minuscule.
,
Eamonn http://www.mtcc.com/~eamonn/
"Then I realized I was in France and, in fact, the gibberish was French"
-- R Johnson
Spencer Cox
Joseph Canale wrote
> Freud? Marx? Goldman? Jung? It certainly isn't apparent that they have
> contributed to glb lib. Infact, you'd be on firmer ground arguing the
> reverse. There is some suggestion that they would be less than supportive
> of queer sexual freedom and rights.
Can't necessarily speak to Marx, Goldman or Jung, but I'd suggest that you
learn something about Freud before you begin to parrot his tedious and
poorly-read critics.
Spencer Cox
XAOS
wy...@bi.org wrote in message <887057763....@dejanews.com>...
>In article <6bn4tl$o...@camel21.mindspring.com>,
> "XAOS" <xa...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>> I am *so* proud; first a little action,
>
>"Little," my ass. I was sore for the rest of the day.
God, so many chestnuts to be pulled from the fire...
>> now a pun...
>
>Hey, Colin, Splat -- can I sew him for this?
Sew what?
- Steve
XAOS
that bitch wrote in message ...
>Damn. Is this supposed to make me feel guilty for abusing
>Xaos 'cause he has no sex life?
Yeah, right... like you feel guilty :P
- Steve, ubervictim (WAAAAAH!)
Robert S. Coren
In article <v7oh0gj...@fasolt.mtcc.com>,
Michael Thomas <mi...@mtcc.com> wrote:
>pjoh...@vlinsvr.vsla.edu (K. Paul Johnson) writes:
>> Robert S. Coren (co...@ursolaris.spdcc.com) wrote:
>> : >Michael Thomas (mi...@mtcc.com) wrote:
>>
>> : >: Miniscule. I do have to say that there will be a
>> : >
>> : >I'm too lazy to check the dictionary, but isn't it "minuscule?"
>> :
>> : Yes.
>>
>> NO!
>
> Webster's says that Miniscule is a valid
>alternative, so Robert is wrong.
"Webster's" is a terribly imprecise way to specify a dictionary.
(Hint: Noah Webster has been dead a long time, and his name is in the
public domain.) Anyway, I'll try to remember to look it up in my AHD
and my Funk & Wagnalls when I get home; I'm betting they won't have
it. I can fully believe that some damfool descriptivist (Hi Jeffrey!
Hi Arnold!) has decided that enough people were misspelling
"minuscule" that the misspelling had become an "alternative".
Merriam-Webster, as I recall, was in the vanguard of this kind of
damfoolery back in the early 60s.
Anyway, since I didn't say that it *wasn't* "miniscule", but only
confirmed that it *is* "minuscule", I'm not "wrong". :-P
--Robert, having one of his "decline-of-standards" moods
--
-------Robert Coren (co...@spdcc.com)-------------------------
"Similar economies might be effected in nature if lions could be
converted to vegetarianism." -- Donald Tovey [on the possibility of
peace between the followers of Brahms and Wagner/Liszt]
Joseph Canale
On Mon, 9 Feb 1998, Arabian Mocha Sanani wrote:
I wondered about that. But its sounds better if I get to be
outraged.
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Michael Thomas (mi...@mtcc.com) wrote:
: dwf...@is2.nyu.edu (David W. Fenton) writes:
: > Daniel Chase Edmonds (ded...@paladin.cc.emory.edu) wrote:
: > : One thing all these thinkers have in common is that they had
: > : lots of half-baked ideas that, after a closer look, it turns
: > : out don't hold water. That doesn't mean everything they said
: > : was half-baked, however. Not that anyone has said that's the
: > : case, of course, of anyone save Foucault.
: >
: > Wow!
: >
: > How long did it take you to construct a self-justifying paragraph (in the
: > sense of margins -- I haven't even read the paragraph yet)?
Jus' lucky, I guess.
: In academia, function always follows form.
Yeah, that's a *really* self-justifying and controversial
paragraph.
Or do you just mean to be taking a jab at academia in
general?
Joseph Canale
psychoanalysis has taken a rather dim view of homosexuality, which isn't
to say there isn't something useful in the psychoanalytic tradition.
I do have an appreciation of Freud as an immensely influential cultural
figure who helped to subvert Victorian morality. It's just that by the
bean's parochial standards nuanced interpretations aren't allowed. He
thinks there is this huge insuperable wall dividing intellectuals into
"good" and "evil" -an intellectual Maginot Line, since he has indicated
that he thinks the line runs along the German/French frontier.
Has he ever heard of Althusser or Lacan? Foucault's Marxist and
psychoanalytic structuralist buddies? He (Luke) seems on such an
antiquated ideological trip that he can't see how various traditions might
actually complement one another.
And Jung? If I were a silly purist I might upbraid him for
promoting the ideas of a Nazi apologist.
Joe
Gwendolyn Alden Dean
On Mon, 9 Feb 1998, XAOS wrote:
> *grumble*
> *mutter*
> stand me up... I'll %^&ing smack ya
> *mutter*
> - Steve, receiving complaints from Mr. Happy
Oh no, Schnookums, the cutie-pie stood you up. I'm so sorry and do convey
my condolences to Mr. Happy.
Tho' it's no help, since we're dykes, Peaches thought you were cute,
especially liked the blue hair.
Oh and I'm sorry for being dull at dinner, y'all. I had a nasty cold
hitting me pretty hard. And I was tired in Boston -- my social prowess at
soc.motss events just sucks.
Gwendolyn
Joseph Canale
On Mon, 9 Feb 1998, Arabian Mocha Sanani wrote:
> Of course it isn't cogent. That's my point. I was describing what
> the Foucauldian response to Spencer's very effective critique would
> be. That is to say, the response would be gibberish.
>
> And, I added, that such gibberish does not take obvious generalized
> essentials into account. As I noted, this is because such gibberish
> diametrically opposes any kind of universality, preaching that
> essentials never exist(ed). The source of the gibbersih brands all
> theories that account for them (in any deferential way) as being
> completely *essentialist,* which is false.
I'm forgetting your pioneering "work" in critical illiteracy. (I
don't think Foucault's work contains as many typos. Bah bump!)
> I do not. I'm showing you how ridiculous Foucault's own procedures
> are. Foucault would not have separated them (for anyone other than
> himself). His argument would have been that they are indicitive of
> the dominant culture's colonization in the marginalized of the
> disconnection between theory and practice and, thus, that one would
> first have to deconstruct his personal life to find the beginnings of
> his theory.
Thanks for the tutorial but incorporating personal
observation/anecdote/experience into one's ideas is different, I think,
than what you are describing here. This peculiarly French mode is alien
to Anglo-American scholarship, or so I am led to believe. Besides, how
does his private conduct invalidate his ideas?
Oversimplifying your critique, you don't seem to get how liberating
amorality can be. I don't know. View it instrumentally. Do you also
vigorously oppose the ideas of Nietzsche?
Essentials? As in essential oils? Or do you mean universal absolutes?
Joe
Gwendolyn Alden Dean
On Mon, 9 Feb 1998, Joseph Canale wrote:
> Freud? Marx? Goldman? Jung? It certainly isn't apparent that they have
> contributed to glb lib. Infact, you'd be on firmer ground arguing the
> reverse. There is some suggestion that they would be less than supportive
> of queer sexual freedom and rights.
Freud wasn't particularly negative, given the period he could be
considered downright supportive (see Henry Abelove's essay in _The Lesbian
& Gay Studies Reader_). He didn't support Magnus Hirschfeld's political
activities but that had more to do with his rejection of the "third sex"
theories than of anti-gay sentiment. He sucked in regards to lesbians but
then he kinda sucked in regard to women in general -- tho' I do think that
he set the ground work for the notion that gender, "femininity" in
particular is constructed.
Gwendolyn
Gwendolyn Alden Dean
On Mon, 9 Feb 1998, Arabian Mocha Sanani wrote:
> It means that buttfucking and sucking cock among the queer guys is
> just an acting out of society's repression of us. Which is both
> really dumb and typical of the glop that accrues under the rubric of
> post-modern post-structuralist critical theory.
I think it would also have to be called a misreading, since if I remember
correctly (not impossible, given how massively disaffected a grad student
I am), Fouqui explicitly rejects "repression."
Gwendolyn
who really, really wishes
that she'd never started
graduate school
Gwendolyn Alden Dean
On Mon, 9 Feb 1998, Arabian Mocha Sanani wrote:
> the messiah of my sexual freeedom, is indicative of your completely
> ahistorical and ill-schooled narrative and poor understanding of the
> dynamics of psychosocial and political economy in the West since the
> Romantic Period.
Don't think Foucault believed that "freedom" was any more genuine than
oppression, so it is bit a silly to think of him as a liberator.
Gwendolyn
Joseph Canale
On 10 Feb 1998, Michael Thomas wrote:
> dwf...@is2.nyu.edu (David W. Fenton) writes:
> > Daniel Chase Edmonds (ded...@paladin.cc.emory.edu) wrote:
> > : One thing all these thinkers have in common is that they had
> > : lots of half-baked ideas that, after a closer look, it turns
> > : out don't hold water. That doesn't mean everything they said
> > : was half-baked, however. Not that anyone has said that's the
> > : case, of course, of anyone save Foucault.
> >
> > Wow!
> >
> > How long did it take you to construct a self-justifying paragraph (in the
> > sense of margins -- I haven't even read the paragraph yet)?
>
> In academia, function always follows form.
> --
For structuralists it's the other way round, actually.
Andrew D. Simchik
On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, XAOS wrote:
> wy...@bi.org wrote in message <887057763....@dejanews.com>...
> >In article <6bn4tl$o...@camel21.mindspring.com>,
> > "XAOS" <xa...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> >> I am *so* proud; first a little action,
> >
> >"Little," my ass. I was sore for the rest of the day.
>
> God, so many chestnuts to be pulled from the fire...
...all placed there by me. In other words: yes, yes, and yes.
> >> now a pun...
> >
> >Hey, Colin, Splat -- can I sew him for this?
>
> Sew what?
^^
Can I suggest just one fix?
--
Andrew D. Simchik: wy...@bi.org
http://www.bi.org/~wyrd/
Mike Reaser
bi...@mtcc.com (that bitch) wrote:
>Gwendolyn Alden Dean <gd...@emory.edu> wrote:
>>Gwendolyn
>>who really, really wishes
>>that she'd never started
>>graduate school
>
>Ilona, ABD
Or be kicked out.
-- Mike Reaser, Atl., GA B2f+tw+cdvg+kvs++l+ aka HickBear on IRC
ICQ 3617758 mhr (at) photobooks.com or spdcc.com or mindspring.com
If at first you don't succeed, the bomb squad should
*not* be a career option
Gwendolyn Alden Dean
On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Gwendolyn Alden Dean wrote:
> Don't think Foucault believed that "freedom" was any more genuine than
> oppression, so it is bit a silly to think of him as a liberator.
REpression!
Woops!
Time to be quiet.
Gwendolyn Alden Dean
On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, that bitch wrote:
> Gwendolyn Alden Dean <gd...@emory.edu> wrote:
> >Gwendolyn
> >who really, really wishes
> >that she'd never started
> >graduate school
> One can always quit.
> Ilona, ABD
This is the current Big-Life_Question. Unfortunately, I've already stayed
*way* too long.
Gwendolyn