Moggin's post-modernism FAQ
Vance Maverick
In article <4snbmr$5...@news-old.tiac.net> c...@tiac.net (Richard Harter) writes:
> The terms, enlightenment, Victorian progress, modernism, and post-
> modernism refer to major periods in western intellectual history.
It's worth pointing out, if only to illustrate the difficulties
facing someone writing a FAQ, that PM is often defined in terms of a
"modernity" encompassing all three of Richard's first categories and
more. Example: Lyotard, in "What is Postmodernism?" (the appendix to
_The Postmodern Condition_).
Vance
Richard Harter
The good moggin (not to be confused with his evil twin, Bruce)
mailed me his post-modern FAQ and I offered to review it in return.
Thus are good deeds rewarded in this sinful world.
A SHORT NOTE ON THE ART OF REVIEWING
There are sundry schools of reviewing. I belong to that school which
holds that the purpose of the review is to examine and illuminate the
work in question for the reader as distinct from expository essays in
which the work is an excuse for the reviewer to display his brilliance
in topics of his own choosing or to serve as a literary consumers
guide or yet to display the reviewers skill at verbal pyrotechnics as
he savages the work in question. I also belong to that school of
writing that does not shrink from writing long sentences. Thus this
review is meant neither to rate nor berate but simply to view anew.
There may, however, be diversions here and there as we follow Alice
down rabbit holes.
OPENING THE PACKAGE
The work in question is labelled as an FAQ, nominally answering the
question "What is Post Modernism". It is composed of three parts,
the assembly, a bibliography, and a conversation. An innocent might
well ask upon reading it, "What the fuck is this?". As it happens
"this" is a reasonable answer in a particular mode. Before examining
the FAQ let us take a slight diversion to consider questions and
answers.
WHAT IS CHICAGO?
Suppose I ask "What is Chicago?". This is a question with many
answers. Chicago is a large American city. Chicago is where the
Bulls play. Chicago is noted for its stockyards. Chicago is where
the O'Hare airport is. Chicago is a spot on a road map. Chicago is
also the home of people, each person having their own Chicago. So,
when I ask "What is Chicago", there is the question: "What sort of
answer do I want?". Do I want to locate it as a spot on a mental road
map or do I want an understanding?
This is the point of moggin's formulation. He means to give you
more than a spot on a road map. He means to show you some of the
city, both some of the local dives and a broad view, that you might
own this Chicago, not as a mark on a mental map, but as the beginnings
of an experience.
This is an ancient and venerable expository device. When confronted
with the task of presenting something complex, supply a body of
experience first from which the student acquires the background
necessary to understand the subject. Think of the movie, "The Karate
Kid", in which the kid paints fences and polishes cars thereby
learning that which he did not know he had learned.
BUT WHAT IS POST-MODERNISM?
Exposition is all right in its place but sometimes we want to locate
spots on road maps, to locate movements in the intellectual landscape.
Moggin does not do this. He offers an experience but not an
encapsulating definition. Perhaps he means to make a statement
thereby, that no such denition is possible. This may be a statement
that post-modernism is irreducible or, more subtly, that
post-modernism denies reducibility. No matter, people want road
maps even if they omit what others regard as essential reality.
For those who want maps I can commend this site:
http://gnn-e2a.gnn.com/gnn/wic/wics/philos.22.html
and VanPiercy's FAQ. For a quick summary I offer the following:
The terms, enlightenment, Victorian progress, modernism, and post-
modernism refer to major periods in western intellectual history.
Here are some quick descriptions, labels with a bit of printing on
them.
The Enlightenment, 1700-1820, was a period of dethroning the medieval
world view and enthroning reason. Think of Diderot and Voltaire,
Newton, Fourier, the Federalist papers, and the Encyclopediasts.
Victorian progress, 1820-1900, added progress to the Enlightenment
but did not alter the formula of simple rationalism. Think of
Social Darwinism, manifest destiny, Karl Marx, Kant, Kipling,
Tennyson, Ruskin, the linear novel, Steinitz and Lasker, and
classical Newtonian physics.
Modernism, 1900-1945, was a revolution of sorts which (a) reacted
to the simple schematic formulas of rationalism and (b) reacted to the
social disasters of the times. Think of Joyce, Kafka, Faulkner, Reti,
relativity, quantum mechanics, Frank Lloyd Wright, modern art, and
fascism.
Post-modernism is what happened afterwards. Unlike its predecessors
it is not a general phenomenon; the term "post-modernism" applies to
a restricted arena of academia, literary analysis and political
activism. Having marked a few spots on the map let us look at
moggin's FAQ.
ASSEMBLY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
The section labelled assembly comprises 21 quotations drawn from
Heraclitus to Derrida. The usual suspects, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein,
Schopenhauer, Pascal, Beckett, Joyce, Marx and Lenin are represented,
along with Adorno, Barthes, and Derrida. The function of this section
is to present quotations exemplifying viewpoints that enter into the
post-modernist view. They should be read. Briefly, though, they
include "all is flux", "history is oppressive", "the formal is not
the reality", "the revolution is always subverted", and some god-awful
translations from the French.
The bibliography is introduced with the following paragraph:
"This is a highly selective reading-list. It's designed to
spotlight some of the works associated with post-modernism and to
offer a way in for someone unfamiliar with the field. Qualifications:
it includes only works of theory, criticism, and philosophy, and makes
no effort to be comprehensive, even in those areas. I haven't even
attempted to address post-modernism in literature, not to mention
painting and architecture, or feminism, or sociology and anthropology,
or the many other fields where post-modernism has come into play."
The authors cited are Blake, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud,
Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Kafka, Beckett, Woolf, Eliot, Pound,
Laurence, Luxemburg, Lenin, Benjamin, Adorno, Marcuse, Arendt,
Steiner, Althusser, Lacan, Derrida, de Man, Barthes, Foucalt, Deleuze,
Borges, Cioran, Sonntag, and a few more.
This is an interesting collection of authors. It is noteworthy not
only for who is present but for those who are not and for the topics
that are not present. The revolutions in physics, relativity, quantum
mechanics, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, are not represented.
Goedel and Church, who defined the limits of Mathematics are not
represented. Molecular biochemistry, the great adventure in searching
out the inner secrets of life, is not represented. Computers are not
represented; the venture into space is not represented. In short
science is not part of this vision. Nor is much of modern political
theory, of modern literature, or, indeed, much of anything. This is
true, even if we were to extend the list to include fields mentioned
but not covered.
This, then, is a restricted vision. The writers and thinkers of the
enlightenment had a global view; they brought everything under the
rubric of reason and the encyclopedia. Arguably one can say the same
of modernism. Not, to be sure, of the modernism of the
post-modernists -- that is a carefully chosen selected sub set of all
that modernism comprised. But one can point to the equivalent of
modern art in many fields and point to common threads, e.g. the
breaking out from premature perfection.
The modernism pointed to here is the modernism of 20th century
irrationalism. Post-modernism, as portrayed here, is a continuation
of that modernism.
A CONVERSATION
The last part of this FAQ is the transcript of a net conversation
on what post-modernism is. It would be easy enough to ridicule this
conversation which reeks of the aromas of the hot-house intellectual.
However one should not; the conversation is carefully chosen to
capture the ambiguities of what is meant by post-modernism. The
following quote is worth noting (slighly edited):
Pm is, at least in part, the claim that all of the alleged "facts"
from which reasoned opinions are supposed to flow are in fact
only premises from which power claims (you should, must,
believe/act such-and-such way) arise. The result, as you rightly
observe, is a kind of re-worked relativism.
This can be taken as a representative post-modern viewpoint at least
as it appears in net discussions. Whether or not one agrees with this
viewpoint is beside the point. The object of this section is to catch
the tone of the post-modernist viewpoint.
CLOSING THE PACKAGE
We have opened the package and looked inside; it is time to wrap it up
and look at from the outside. Is this an adequate FAQ? Does it
answer the question? How well does it answer the question?
The answer is, I think, not well but it is a worthwhile failure. The
essential difficulty with answering the question (what is PM) in a
meaningful way is that how you answer the question depends very much
on the background of the questioner. This is not just a matter of
reading - one can have read most of the authors in the bibliography
and yet not catch what the FAQ's author is trying to convey. One has
to go beyond exposition by immersion and explicitly inform.
The FAQ fails because it fails to consider the audience. As the
saying goes, it preaches to the choir.
If it does not stand alone, how does it fare when read in conjunction
with other works? Much better. Moggin's FAQ is much like having a
local resident showing you around. You will get much more out of it
if you have read a guide book and looked at a city map first.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net, The Concord Research Institute
URL = http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, phone = 1-508-369-3911
If you don't know who Nancy Johnson was
-- you aren't a real feminist.
moggin
c...@tiac.net (Richard Harter):
>> The terms, enlightenment, Victorian progress, modernism, and post-
>> modernism refer to major periods in western intellectual history.
Vance Maverick <mave...@cs.berkeley.edu>:
>It's worth pointing out, if only to illustrate the difficulties
>facing someone writing a FAQ, that PM is often defined in terms of a
>"modernity" encompassing all three of Richard's first categories and
>more. Example: Lyotard, in "What is Postmodernism?" (the appendix to
>_The Postmodern Condition_).
Margaret Rose points out that the meaning of "post-modern"
depends on what sense you give to "modern," "post," and "-". In this
case we have two meanings of "modern" at work. One of them marks it
off from "ancient" or "medieval" -- for example, "modern philosophy"
refers to Descartes and Kant in distinction from Plato or Aquinas.
"Post-modern," then, describes the era which follows after _theirs_.
The other sense of "modern" in play here refers to modernism,
the well-known movement, and produces a "post-modernism" defined by
its successors: modernism means Joyce, for instance, so "post-modern"
applies to Beckett or Barth. Confusion arises because these various
meanings aren't separate from each other -- they make a huge knot.
-- moggin
David Swanson
> Post-modernism is what happened afterwards. Unlike its predecessors
> it is not a general phenomenon; the term "post-modernism" applies to
> a restricted arena of academia, literary analysis and political
> activism.
So what have we got for a general phenomenon since 1945, or are we
general-phenomenon-less?
David
"Heideggerian hope comes into question." J.D.
Richard Harter
Vance Maverick <mave...@cs.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>In article <4snbmr$5...@news-old.tiac.net> c...@tiac.net (Richard Harter) writes:
>> The terms, enlightenment, Victorian progress, modernism, and post-
>> modernism refer to major periods in western intellectual history.
>It's worth pointing out, if only to illustrate the difficulties
>facing someone writing a FAQ, that PM is often defined in terms of a
>"modernity" encompassing all three of Richard's first categories and
>more. Example: Lyotard, in "What is Postmodernism?" (the appendix to
>_The Postmodern Condition_).
Point well taken. And if you think it is hard to write an FAQ on PM,
consider the difficulties of writing a review of an FAQ on PM.
:-)
Richard Jones
On 22 Jul 1996 15:27:41 GMT, wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria
Weineck) wrote:
>Joseph M Green (gree...@gold.tc.umn.edu) wrote:
>: Postmodernism has been defined (in a recent Atlntic Monthly) as
>: the middle class shocking the avant garde. Not bad.
>
>Lovely in fact!
>
>S.
How about this definition of pomo given by a visiting anthropology
prof. at UCSC: "Postmodernism is an ivory tower cult built around the
ideas of Michel Foucault."
Joseph M Green
moggin
Richard --
Thanks for your comments. I think we basically agree -- I
wasn't trying to draw a map, and you correctly note that in fact no
map resulted. We only differ about whether a map would have been a
good idea. Yes, it might be helpful in getting around Chicago, but
post-modernism is more like Gertrude Stein's description of L.A. --
there's no there there. Of course you're right to say that "people
want road maps," regardless.
One or two other points. About the bibliography, you write:
>In short science is not part of this vision. Nor is much of modern
>political theory, of modern literature, or, indeed, much of anything.
>This is true, even if we were to extend the list to include fields
>mentioned but not covered. This, then, is a restricted vision.
To say it contains not "much of anything" and still wouldn't,
even if it contained other things, is a trifle odd, and to say that it
doesn't contain any political theory is mistaken. You're right that I
didn't include literature -- but it doesn't follow that literature is
"not part of this vision," especially since I said that I wasn't even
attempting to address post-modernism in literature in my bibliography.
This is the thing about road maps: in effect, the bibliography was the
map you were asking for -- even though I explained its purpose and its
limitations, you still confused it with the territory.
>The last part of this FAQ is the transcript of a net conversation
>on what post-modernism is. It would be easy enough to ridicule this
>conversation which reeks of the aromas of the hot-house intellectual.
>However one should not; the conversation is carefully chosen to
>capture the ambiguities of what is meant by post-modernism. The
>following quote is worth noting (slighly edited):
> Pm is, at least in part, the claim that all of the alleged "facts"
> from which reasoned opinions are supposed to flow are in fact
> only premises from which power claims (you should, must,
> believe/act such-and-such way) arise. The result, as you rightly
> observe, is a kind of re-worked relativism.
>This can be taken as a representative post-modern viewpoint at least
>as it appears in net discussions. Whether or not one agrees with this
>viewpoint is beside the point. The object of this section is to catch
>the tone of the post-modernist viewpoint.
Same deal here as with the business about maps: you understand
why I offered a conversation about post-modernism, rather than giving
an explosition or attempting a definition, but you still choose _one_
comment from the discussion, separate it from the rest, and forward it
as a supposedly "representative" view. Exactly the error I was trying
(successfully, I think) to avoid.
>One has to go beyond exposition by immersion and explicitly inform.
>The FAQ fails because it fails to consider the audience. As the
>saying goes, it preaches to the choir.
Since I'm not giving an exposition, I can't be preaching, to
the choir or anyone else. But you raise a question -- is preaching
the best way to address post-modernism? As you could guess, I think
the answer is no. My feeling is that it makes more sense to provide
examples, suggest readings, and present a discussion on the subject
among people with several different points-of-view -- so that's what
I did.
>If it does not stand alone, how does it fare when read in conjunction
>with other works? Much better. Moggin's FAQ is much like having a
>local resident showing you around. You will get much more out of it
>if you have read a guide book and looked at a city map first.
A fair analogy -- but really, how much do you learn about the
city by looking at a map and discovering that the Ryan Expressway is a
north-south route? Better to read the paper, eat a slice of deep-dish
pizza, listen to some Muddy Waters, or watch a Cubs game -- that would
give you a notion of what the place is like and a sense of its flavor.
Anyway, I wouldn't claim that my FAQ offers a comprehensive statement
about post-modernism -- I insist it doesn't.
-- moggin
David Swanson
In article <4t0kre$4...@netnews.upenn.edu>
wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
> How about this definition of pomo given by a visiting anthropology
> : prof. at UCSC: "Postmodernism is an ivory tower cult built around the
> : ideas of Michel Foucault."
Rather limiting, but certainly something worthy of a name. Why not
"Foucaultism"?
Chris Loar
A very nice review, near as I can tell. Thanks.
One comment. You wrote,
> Post-modernism is what happened afterwards. Unlike its predecessors
> it is not a general phenomenon; the term "post-modernism" applies to
> a restricted arena of academia, literary analysis and political
> activism.
Though I'm no expert, I'm not sure this is entirely true. My understanding
is that the term "postmodern" originates in architecture, and I've heard it
used with some frequency -- and, sometimes, appropriately -- in relation to
the arts, literature, and culture in general. It's true that some have
tried to restrict the meaning of the term as you do above, but I'm not sure
it's useful -- it would seem more fitting as a description for general
phenomena, rather than as a specific branch of academic inquiry.
Just a thought.
--
| One bath
Chris Loar | after another --
cl...@cgsadmpc.cgs.edu | how stupid.
| --Issa
Gordon Fitch
Richard Jones <pey...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote:
| >How about this definition of pomo given by a visiting anthropology
| >prof. at UCSC: "Postmodernism is an ivory tower cult built around the
| >ideas of Michel Foucault."
vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Van Piercy):
| Thin stuff. Not even the obligatory mention of architecture, Lyotard,
| Borges or Las Vegas or Warhol or Cage.
There's not much of those in this newsgroup, either,
unfortunately. Agreed, I share the blame....
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Lee Rudolph
Richard Jones <pey...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote:
| >How about this definition of pomo given by a visiting anthropology
| >prof. at UCSC: "Postmodernism is an ivory tower cult built around the
| >ideas of Michel Foucault."
vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Van Piercy):
| Thin stuff. Not even the obligatory mention of architecture, Lyotard,
| Borges or Las Vegas or Warhol or Cage.
As if "ivory tower" and "built around" aren't enough of a mention of
(respectively) "architecture" and a "Cage" to be getting on with.
Pah.
Lee Rudolph
Van Piercy
When "architecture" includes Golden Arches, shopping malls, casinos
("Learning from Las Vegas"), amusement parks and other "mass" forms of
designed space, then to call every study of such things "ivory tower" is
dipsomaniacal. These are the forms in our lives.
As for Cage and music: it must have escaped your attention that the stuff
is MASS PRODUCED. You don't have to go to Cabrillo to hear a Cage piece
performed on a prepared piano by Keith Jarrett, you know. Go to Tower
Records like Everywoman and get a mass reproduction (digital no less) of a
Cage album (or Riley, or Glass, or Bowie, or Reich, or Anderson, or Eno,
or Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet--if that coupling isn't messing
with the High/Low genre divide I don't know what is). Heck, you can
probably get a ditital audio file of a most any kind of music on-line for
little or no cost. Any concern with the production, reproduction and
reception of such things is not divorced from the world.
Do you think there's some special social distinction or cache to be had by
listening to Mozart or Cage rather than Skinny Puppy or Switched on Bach?
Van
--
"The scientist has no unique right to ignore the likely consequences of
what he does." --Noam Chomsky. _The Chomsky Reader_. Ed. James Peck. New
York: Pantheon, 1987. 201.
Van Piercy
In article <4t5oi2$e...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>,
Van Piercy <vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:
>Do you think there's some special social distinction or cache to be had by
>listening to Mozart or Cage rather than Skinny Puppy or Switched on Bach?
"Cachet" that is and not a hiding place.
Van Piercy
In article <4t5csv$j...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>Richard Jones <pey...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote:
>| >How about this definition of pomo given by a visiting anthropology
>| >prof. at UCSC: "Postmodernism is an ivory tower cult built around the
>| >ideas of Michel Foucault."
>
>vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Van Piercy):
>| Thin stuff. Not even the obligatory mention of architecture, Lyotard,
>| Borges or Las Vegas or Warhol or Cage.
>
>unfortunately. Agreed, I share the blame....
By name or emblem? In a sense you are right. Beyond that cordon of name
dropping though these emblems I mentioned and others like them (one thinks
of the current large thread on the emblematic Derrida and deconstruction)
positively haunt this newsgroup in the wide range of germane matters or
issues they suggest.
I'd even aver that since Cage was famously Buddhist and based his
aesthetics on Zen, and since the existence of a Buddhist philosophy has
been explicitly questioned in posts mostly still available on this
newsgroup, that therefore, again, the emblems and the substance they
suggest mingle through this newsgroup like perhaps one Gordon Fitch: a
proper name, an emblem, but also a bundle of issues (one thinks of the
unlikely combination of fine art and heroin), a series of more or less
discrete intervenings with a history on the newsgroup, an object of
loathing for some and a basso continuo of the postmodern for some others,
and these two groups, for significant reasons, are not always separable.
Lee Rudolph
vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Van Piercy):
>>| Thin stuff. Not even the obligatory mention of architecture, Lyotard,
>>| Borges or Las Vegas or Warhol or Cage.
Me:
>>As if "ivory tower" and "built around" aren't enough of a mention of
>>(respectively) "architecture" and a "Cage" to be getting on with.
>>Pah.
Van Piercy:
>When "architecture" includes Golden Arches, shopping malls, casinos
>("Learning from Las Vegas"), amusement parks and other "mass" forms of
>designed space, then to call every study of such things "ivory tower" is
>dipsomaniacal. These are the forms in our lives.
Hey, Gordon, over here! The taste for abuse is spreading (I think;
no one's ever called me "dipsomaniacal" before, and I may like it).
>As for Cage and music: it must have escaped your attention that the stuff
>is MASS PRODUCED. You don't have to go to Cabrillo to hear a Cage piece
>performed on a prepared piano by Keith Jarrett, you know. Go to Tower
>Records like Everywoman and get a mass reproduction (digital no less) of a
>Cage album (or Riley, or Glass, or Bowie, or Reich, or Anderson, or Eno,
>or Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet--if that coupling isn't messing
>with the High/Low genre divide I don't know what is). Heck, you can
>probably get a ditital audio file of a most any kind of music on-line for
>little or no cost. Any concern with the production, reproduction and
>reception of such things is not divorced from the world.
>
>Do you think there's some special social distinction or cache to be had by
>listening to Mozart or Cage rather than Skinny Puppy or Switched on Bach?
Who, me? Where in the world did that question come from? Sheesh.
Sometimes a pair of quotation marks is just a pair of quotation marks.
Lee Rudolph
Van Piercy
And sometimes a "Pah" just indicates trollish boredom.
Andy Perry
In article <31f4ffc9...@darkstar.ucsc.edu>, pey...@cats.ucsc.edu
(Richard Jones) wrote:
>On 22 Jul 1996 19:29:50 GMT, wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria
>Weineck) wrote:
>
>>: How about this definition of pomo given by a visiting anthropology
>>: prof. at UCSC: "Postmodernism is an ivory tower cult built around the
>>: ideas of Michel Foucault."
>>
>>Bad.
>>
>>S.
>Why is it bad, please explain yourself. While that definition of pomo
>was not mine, and I don't really totally agree with it . . . however,
>if you wanna 'dis Foucault, back yourself up. Offer me something
>better. From where I sit, Foucault is the boss of pomo, yes I realize
>that he has been dead since 1984, it's just that if it weren't for F,
>then no Derrida, etc. Also, since no doubt that anyone worthwhile in
>this newsgroup has read him, the polyvalence of Foucault and his ideas
>are readily apparent in pomo thought. Peace, Rich.
Don't look now, but the quote itself was dis'ing Foucault. (Assuming you
meant dis' and not 'dis. I have no idea what 'dis might mean...).
--
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
Lee Rudolph
Andrew...@Brown.edu (Andy Perry) writes, apparently of me and
Van Piercy respectively:
>You know you're in trouble when the hostile trolls in alt.postmodern are
>engaging in clever (?) word play, and the proponents of productive
>discussion are reduced to the role of clueless straight men...
I think I liked "dipsomaniacal" better than "hostile troll" (or
"clueless straight m[a]n" if I have the parallelism messed up).
Young fellow, I've been positively weltering in postmodernity
since before you were born, and any trolling I might do is just
for your own good.
Lee Rudolph
Andy Perry
In article <4t5oi2$e...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>,
vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Van Piercy) wrote:
>In article <4t5d7e$1...@panix.com>, Lee Rudolph <lrud...@panix.com> wrote:
>>Richard Jones <pey...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote:
>>| >How about this definition of pomo given by a visiting anthropology
>>| >prof. at UCSC: "Postmodernism is an ivory tower cult built around the
>>| >ideas of Michel Foucault."
>>
>>vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Van Piercy):
>>| Thin stuff. Not even the obligatory mention of architecture, Lyotard,
>>| Borges or Las Vegas or Warhol or Cage.
>>
>>As if "ivory tower" and "built around" aren't enough of a mention of
>>(respectively) "architecture" and a "Cage" to be getting on with.
>>Pah.
>>
>>Lee Rudolph
>
>When "architecture" includes Golden Arches, shopping malls, casinos
>("Learning from Las Vegas"), amusement parks and other "mass" forms of
>designed space, then to call every study of such things "ivory tower" is
>dipsomaniacal. These are the forms in our lives.
>
>As for Cage and music: it must have escaped your attention that the stuff
>is MASS PRODUCED. You don't have to go to Cabrillo to hear a Cage piece
>performed on a prepared piano by Keith Jarrett, you know. Go to Tower
>Records like Everywoman and get a mass reproduction (digital no less) of a
>Cage album (or Riley, or Glass, or Bowie, or Reich, or Anderson, or Eno,
>or Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet--if that coupling isn't messing
>with the High/Low genre divide I don't know what is). Heck, you can
>probably get a ditital audio file of a most any kind of music on-line for
>little or no cost. Any concern with the production, reproduction and
>reception of such things is not divorced from the world.
>
>Do you think there's some special social distinction or cache to be had by
>listening to Mozart or Cage rather than Skinny Puppy or Switched on Bach?
You know you're in trouble when the hostile trolls in alt.postmodern are
engaging in clever (?) word play, and the proponents of productive
discussion are reduced to the role of clueless straight men...
Andy Perry
>Andrew...@Brown.edu (Andy Perry) writes, apparently of me and
>Van Piercy respectively:
>
>>You know you're in trouble when the hostile trolls in alt.postmodern are
>>engaging in clever (?) word play, and the proponents of productive
>>discussion are reduced to the role of clueless straight men...
>
>I think I liked "dipsomaniacal" better than "hostile troll" (or
>"clueless straight m[a]n" if I have the parallelism messed up).
>
>Young fellow, I've been positively weltering in postmodernity
>since before you were born, and any trolling I might do is just
>for your own good.
Ahem. I may have called you a hostile troll, but I certainly NEVER meant
to imply that you were a *useless* one. Besides, you did get the better
end of the stick in my statement.
Van Piercy
In article <Dv8CI...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
David Swanson <dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu> wrote:
>In article <4t5oi2$e...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
>vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Van Piercy) writes:
>
>> When "architecture" includes Golden Arches, shopping malls, casinos
>> ("Learning from Las Vegas"), amusement parks and other "mass" forms of
>> designed space, then to call every study of such things "ivory tower" is
>> dipsomaniacal. These are the forms in our lives.
>
>about architecture in general. I hope so. I'm mostly interested in
>architecture, and only hang out over here because the architecture
>group (believe it or not) is less interesting. Care to start a thread
>or something?
I dunno. It seems my not noting someone's puns is much more worth
talking about.
David Swanson
In article <4titqu$p...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Van Piercy) writes:
> I dunno. It seems my not noting someone's puns is much more worth
> talking about.
If use ace oh.
David
"To appreciate his powers and his past, the enormous force of this
many-sided and yet perfectly integrated personality, and to see him
listening patiently to some inexperienced comrade putting forward his
inexperienced ideas, to read letters in which he took up some
apparently minor point and elaborated it meeting all possible
objections one by one, was to have a great lesson in the difference
between the superficial arrogance which often characterizes essentially
sensitive men, and the ocean of strength, patience, and resiliency
which can come from complete devotion to a cause." C. L. R. James on
Trotsky
Andy Perry
In article <4titqu$p...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>,
vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Van Piercy) wrote:
>In article <Dv8CI...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
>David Swanson <dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu> wrote:
>>In article <4t5oi2$e...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
>>vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Van Piercy) writes:
>>
>>> When "architecture" includes Golden Arches, shopping malls, casinos
>>> ("Learning from Las Vegas"), amusement parks and other "mass" forms of
>>> designed space, then to call every study of such things "ivory tower" is
>>> dipsomaniacal. These are the forms in our lives.
>>
>>It sounds like you have something you're dying to say about Venturi or
>>about architecture in general. I hope so. I'm mostly interested in
>>architecture, and only hang out over here because the architecture
>>group (believe it or not) is less interesting. Care to start a thread
>>or something?
>
>I dunno. It seems my not noting someone's puns is much more worth
>talking about.
Well, I think so. Or at least *as* worth talking about. Look, this is a
pretty serious issue: deconstruction in particular and post-structuralism
in general valorize "serious play," about just about anything else. To
put it unplayfully, these are discourses which suggest forcefully that one
should have a particular type of relationship to language. And that's a
BIG deal, because they are also discourses which generally shy away from
EVER saying that one "should" do *anything*. And yet, incredibly few p-s
folks actually have or even attempt to have the relationship to language
which is valorized. Derrida certainly does. Kristeva, the great champion
of the semiotic, certainly gives it the old college try, but only
intermittently, and with varying degrees of success. Contemporary
Shakespeare scholars love to lace their articles with riffs on the Bard's
most famous lines, but that has far more to do with the status of
Shakespeare and his words than it does with larger issues of admirable
practice.
So, to summarize: I was serious when I said I was dismayed at the repeated
inability to recognize puns in this group. Van may have been the impetus
for the post, but he is far from the only person who has completely missed
a joke that someone who took seriously the ideals of p-s shouldn't miss.
Several people have stumbled badly over Russell's attempts at playfulness,
for example. Do we walk the walk around here, or do we just talk the
talk?
David Swanson
In article <Andrew_Perry-3...@cis-ts2-slip9.cis.brown.edu>
Andrew...@Brown.edu (Andy Perry) writes:
> Do we walk the walk around here, or do we just talk the
> talk?
Maybe if everybody spelled correctly, and there weren't so much
unintentional humor.
David
I got friends in low places
where the whiskey drowns and the beer chases
my blues away
I'm not much on social graces
Think I'll head on down to the oasis
I got friends in low places
Andy Perry
In article <DvE37...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) wrote:
>In article <Andrew_Perry-3...@cis-ts2-slip9.cis.brown.edu>
>Andrew...@Brown.edu (Andy Perry) writes:
>
>> Do we walk the walk around here, or do we just talk the
>> talk?
>
>Maybe if everybody spelled correctly, and there weren't so much
>unintentional humor.
But, but...oh, nevermind.
Van Piercy
[Andy wrote:]
>Well, I think so. Or at least *as* worth talking about. Look, this is a
>pretty serious issue: deconstruction in particular and post-structuralism
>in general valorize "serious play," about just about anything else. To
>put it unplayfully, these are discourses which suggest forcefully that one
>should have a particular type of relationship to language. And that's a
>BIG deal, because they are also discourses which generally shy away from
>EVER saying that one "should" do *anything*.
[Van:]
This is interesting b/c it seems to hit on the problem of coercion and
violence in discourse, one that Derrida says is impossible to escape. Do
we say we adopt a "particular type of relationship to language"--where the
particularity is in the style or sensibility or a redoubtably
anti-representational attitude toward language, and that that relationship
in itself shields us from ethical missteps, normative prescriptions and
misrecognitions--or from our objectifying transactions in language we'd
rather not see objectified; or is there a practice of both a *showing*
(style) and a *saying* (meaning) that is inevitable and really no worse in
its codifying or repressing or socially instituting powers because it
takes the prescriptive side of language on board too?
[Andy:]
>And yet, incredibly few p-s folks actually have or even attempt to have
>the relationship to language which is valorized. Derrida certainly does.
>Kristeva, the great champion of the semiotic, certainly gives it the old
>college try, but only intermittently, and with varying degrees of success.
>Contemporary Shakespeare scholars love to lace their articles with riffs
>on the Bard's most famous lines, but that has far more to do with the
>status of Shakespeare and his words than it does with larger issues of
>admirable practice.
[Van:]
Attempting to work critically among some of the Derridean registers,
problems, sites, lessons, and cautions about one's responsibility to one's
discourse, and always having success, always pulling off the "admirable
practice," are two different things. One can embrace large parts of the
practice and still fall on one's ass occasionally. The doctor doesn't
promise to cure you; after all, she's only said to be *practicing*
medicine (on you). In fact, one could argue that Jacques himself doesn't
always meet the rigors of his own standards of "marking" and bending his
text's relation to metaphysics.
One could also argue--in a very "p-s" spirit--that error is constitutive,
that blindness makes the insight possible. To cite my own example from
this thread: in haste or in bumbling ecstacy (depending on your sympathies
in the case) I passed the puns by and anchored my response on the
hostility I sensed in the Cage punning post. Whatever insight or useful
content my response possessed may well have been stifled if I'd caught the
laugh first and (then probably) brushed off the punning post. As it
turned out, the joker got a rush and David invited me to a conversation
about architecture anyway. I wasn't sure how immediately to proceed with
David's suggestion but still my initial response--on music and
architecture--had at least a certain productivity for me.
I mean, to address your broader point about playfulness, a.p. isn't always
a easy going, "shoot the shit" sort of place. Trolls and unfriendlies
with chips on their shoulders roll in constantly on this or that
epistemological jihad (the Sokal threads and the t.o. folks recently
heightened one's impression of that). And when the regulars aren't in
uneasy discussions amongst themselves it's often b/c, again recently,
they're too busy responding to sci.skeptic and talk.origins type "campers"
and positivist religionists. Anyone adopting a defensive posture in such
a general climate of hostile posts, rightly or not, is not doing anything
too surprising.
So, in answer to your dismay, I'd say that the often bitter tone of
threads on this ng is one reason why people miss nuance or humor, or
mistake curiosity and awkward questions for hostility and venom. The
frequently remarked nature of USENET culture's high degree of flamage and
the rapid nature of electronic posting seems to help create that climate
of misimpressions too.
[Andy:]
>So, to summarize: I was serious when I said I was dismayed at the repeated
>inability to recognize puns in this group. Van may have been the impetus
>for the post, but he is far from the only person who has completely missed
>a joke that someone who took seriously the ideals of p-s shouldn't miss.
>Several people have stumbled badly over Russell's attempts at playfulness,
>for example. Do we walk the walk around here, or do we just talk the
>talk?
[Van:]
My only objection to this Andy is that I don't think I "repeatedly" miss
the playful side of things around here. Sometimes, sure. I don't always
walk the version of the walk that I'm intent to walk, or especially run it
or perform for great distances. Often I just stand around and watch the
personalities swarm the threads in their twitchy dander, and leave to work
on my chapters instead.