Into to Semiotics Question / CSP
Kevin 3296
Can anyone reccomend any recent articles or books that could be considered
representative of current semiotics ?
Also, what was Peirce's purpose in creating sign designations like index, icon,
symbol ? What was he trying to achieve ?
Thanks.
David Rolfe Graeber
Kevin 3296 (kevi...@aol.com) wrote:
> Can anyone reccomend any recent articles or books that could be considered
> representative of current semiotics ?
There's a journal called "Semiotica". At least
I think it's still around. That might be a place to
start.
> Also, what was Peirce's purpose in creating sign designations like index, icon,
> symbol ? What was he trying to achieve ?
Um, trying to understand the way meaning
works? Or are you looking for something more
specific?
David
Dan Clore
Kevin 3296 wrote:
>
> Can anyone reccomend any recent articles or books that could be considered
> representative of current semiotics ?
How recent is recent? I'm well-read on the subject, but most of the
stuff is a bit old by now. You might try writers like Eco, Genette, and
Riffaterre.
> Also, what was Peirce's purpose in creating sign designations like index, icon,
> symbol ? What was he trying to achieve ?
Trying to distinguish between different sorts of signs based on their
relationship between the signifiers and the signifieds (note for you
smarty-pants out there: I say signifieds instead of referents because
these could all be purely fictional -- a picture of something that
doesn't exist is still an example of an iconic sign, e.g.).
--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore
The Website of Lord We˙rdgliffe:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/index.html
Welcome to the Waughters....
The Dan Clore Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm
Because the true mysteries cannot be profaned....
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"
Dan Clore
David Rolfe Graeber wrote:
> Kevin 3296 (kevi...@aol.com) wrote:
> > Can anyone reccomend any recent articles or books that could be considered
> > representative of current semiotics ?
> There's a journal called "Semiotica". At least
> I think it's still around. That might be a place to
> start.
The Website for Applied Semiotics has a big list of links, though most
of them are either very basic stuff or on related topics, but not
specifically semiotic in treatment:
http://www.epas.utoronto.ca:8080/french/as-sa/index.html
And by the way, David, what the hell are you doing here?
David Rolfe Graeber
Dan Clore (cl...@columbia-center.org) wrote:
> David Rolfe Graeber wrote:
>
> > There's a journal called "Semiotica". At least
> > I think it's still around. That might be a place to
> > start.
>
> The Website for Applied Semiotics has a big list of links, though most
> of them are either very basic stuff or on related topics, but not
> specifically semiotic in treatment:
> http://www.epas.utoronto.ca:8080/french/as-sa/index.html
>
> And by the way, David, what the hell are you doing here?
I could ask the same, Dan. Well... writing
structural analyses and semiotics is sort of my
business, y'know. (Did I ever tell you about my
necktie analysis?) Not that I'm at all PoMo; I
more go for a Roy Bhaskar-Critical Realist sort
of position, but it seems like nobody in the US
is really cued into Bhaskar yet. I tried to raise
the issue a couple times in the past but got no
response. Oh well.
(Oh, and now that I think of it, I'm
going to be in Yale, which used to be the epicenter
of deconstruction, but I sort of gather isn't
any more. Anyone know what's going on there now?)
DG
Dan Clore
David Rolfe Graeber wrote:
> Dan Clore (cl...@columbia-center.org) wrote:
> > David Rolfe Graeber wrote:
> > And by the way, David, what the hell are you doing here?
> I could ask the same, Dan.
You *could*, but obviously you wouldn't dare.
> Well... writing
> structural analyses and semiotics is sort of my
> business, y'know.
Well, mine too, being a litcritter.
> (Did I ever tell you about my
> necktie analysis?) Not that I'm at all PoMo; I
> more go for a Roy Bhaskar-Critical Realist sort
> of position, but it seems like nobody in the US
> is really cued into Bhaskar yet. I tried to raise
> the issue a couple times in the past but got no
> response. Oh well.
Well, I ain't heard of him that I remember. Tell us, O wise one....
> (Oh, and now that I think of it, I'm
> going to be in Yale, which used to be the epicenter
> of deconstruction, but I sort of gather isn't
> any more. Anyone know what's going on there now?)
Lots of mourning for deceased deconstuctionists.
David Rolfe Graeber
Dan Clore (cl...@columbia-center.org) wrote:
> > Not that I'm at all PoMo; I
> > more go for a Roy Bhaskar-Critical Realist sort
> > of position, but it seems like nobody in the US
> > is really cued into Bhaskar yet. I tried to raise
> > the issue a couple times in the past but got no
> > response. Oh well.
>
> Well, I ain't heard of him that I remember. Tell us, O wise one....
Oh, sorry. I only know about him because
one of my old profs went on a Bhaskar kick; otherwise
everyone seems to think of him as a philosophy of
science guy or something. But it seems Critical
Realism is all the rage in England, it just hasn't
reached anyone else yet. Basically it argues that
PoMos and Positivists have more in common than
they like to admit, because like most Western
philosophy they confuse epistemology and ontology,
not realizing that 'does X exist?' and 'how can
I know X exists?' are not the same question. Thus
positivists think perfect knowledge is possible
and PoMos say it doesn't, and therefore you can't
talk about reality at all. CR people say this
is silly: why not just conclude, as most normal
people do, that it is part of the nature of
reality that you can never know everything about
it. There's more to it than that obviously but
I have to run take my bath now because someone
wants to use the shower...
DG
G*rd*n
I did a web search on Critical Realism a few months ago.
The stuff I came up with seemed like yet another attempt
to banish the little postmodernist man upon the stair.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Note: This mailbox generally cannot be reached from
sites which permit origination or relaying of junk mail.
David Rolfe Graeber
G*rd*n (g...@panix.com) wrote:
> I did a web search on Critical Realism a few months ago.
> The stuff I came up with seemed like yet another attempt
> to banish the little postmodernist man upon the stair.
Um, what exactly does that mean, Gordon?
That they were arguing against someone who isn't
there? It's kind of an ambiguous statement. (In fact,
I notice that while you are remarkably lucid and
able to frame extraordinarily elegant and logical
arguments when defending, say, libertarian socialism,
you almost always abandon this style and fall
back on sarcasm, mockery, and various other forms
of what seem like contemptuous dismissal. It kind
of makes one wonder...)
Well, for what it's worth, CR is not
really an attack on postmodernism; actually, it's
a systematic criticism of the Western tradition
since at least Parmenides, who seems to be the
first to obviously fall into what Bhaskar calls
the "epistemic fallacy" (confusing the problem
of knowledge with that of reality.) They see
the PoMo guys as pretty small potatoes compared
with, say, Plato or Hume, and think they
did fairly useful work in attacking Positivism;
it's just they didn't really break with
Positivism's basic assumptions, and thus
ended up tumbling over the edge into nihilism.
Like any form of nihilism it's not really
especially tenable over the long term (having
no particular way to grapple with such obvious
questions as "if you and I don't exist then
why are you bothering to tell me this?") Most
people in academics are counting the days
before the very word will become nothing but
the kind of word you accuse others of and
they indignantly deny; it's already starting
to happen in a lot of forums. Anyway, the
CR people have much bigger fish to fry -
though admittedly, Bhaskar has written one
whole book which was 2/3 a critique of
Rorty, which I thought was giving him more
credit than he probably deserves.
Do you have any specific points
of disagreement with them, or do you just
assume anyone who says something negative about
postmodernism must be a pathetic retro whiner?
DG
David Rolfe Graeber
David Rolfe Graeber (dr...@is4.nyu.edu) wrote:
> Um, what exactly does that mean, Gordon?
> That they were arguing against someone who isn't
> there? It's kind of an ambiguous statement. (In fact,
> I notice that while you are remarkably lucid and
> able to frame extraordinarily elegant and logical
> arguments when defending, say, libertarian socialism,
> you almost always abandon this style and fall
> back on sarcasm, mockery, and various other forms
> of what seem like contemptuous dismissal...
Sorry, I left out "when it comes to
defending postmodernism". I was in a hurry to
run out and get noodles for the lo mein.
DG
Jonah Thomas
In article <6got42$1ak$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber) wrote:
> Well, for what it's worth, CR is not
>really an attack on postmodernism; actually, it's
>a systematic criticism of the Western tradition
>since at least Parmenides, who seems to be the
>first to obviously fall into what Bhaskar calls
>the "epistemic fallacy" (confusing the problem
>of knowledge with that of reality.) They see
>the PoMo guys as pretty small potatoes compared
>with, say, Plato or Hume, and think they
>did fairly useful work in attacking Positivism;
>it's just they didn't really break with
>Positivism's basic assumptions, and thus
>ended up tumbling over the edge into nihilism.
That sounds like an extreme attack on postmodernism
to me. "We know you guys have had a lot of fun telling
everybody else they're wrong about everything, and we
appreciate that -- it looks like it was fun. But the
truth is, *we* understand *why* everybody else is wrong
about everything, and you're wrong too. Toodles!"
Anyway, what sort of solution does it get you to separate
the problem of knowledge from that of reality?
Like, if it were to turn out that you can't know anything
about reality, where would that leave you when you're
dealing with the problem of reality?
G*rd*n
G*rd*n (g...@panix.com) wrote:
| > I did a web search on Critical Realism a few months ago.
| > The stuff I came up with seemed like yet another attempt
| > to banish the little postmodernist man upon the stair.
dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber):
| Um, what exactly does that mean, Gordon?
| That they were arguing against someone who isn't
| there? It's kind of an ambiguous statement. (In fact,
| I notice that while you are remarkably lucid and
| able to frame extraordinarily elegant and logical
| arguments when defending, say, libertarian socialism,
| you almost always abandon this style and fall
| back on sarcasm, mockery, and various other forms
| of what seem like contemptuous dismissal. It kind
| of makes one wonder...)
| ...
It is in other newsgroups that I frame elegant and logical
arguments -- in this one, I am among the least and the last,
and must use the methods of a guerrillero. Everyone else
has read more books in more languages -- and what's more,
they can remember them. Amid powerful artillery, I fire my
..22 and run away.
Nevertheless, you had no trouble decoding my remark.
"Postmodernism" is a kind of chimera which no one can
define, but a lot of people are against. Some of those who
have visited this newsgroup specifically to denounce
"postmodernism" have explained that the spectrous nature of
their target is precisely one of its devilish attributes.
It happens that those texts I came across in regard to
Critical Realism implied sighs of relief that here, at last,
was the long-sought postmodernicide.... but I make no claim
that they represent the mainstream of Critical Realism, only
that they happen to be what I came across. (A very
postmodernistic-perspectivist evasion, I believe.)
David Rolfe Graeber
Jonah Thomas (jeth...@ix.netcom.com@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
> In article <6got42$1ak$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
> dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber) wrote:
>
> > Well, for what it's worth, CR is not
> >really an attack on postmodernism; actually, it's
> >a systematic criticism of the Western tradition
> >since at least Parmenides, who seems to be the
> >first to obviously fall into what Bhaskar calls
> >the "epistemic fallacy" (confusing the problem
> >of knowledge with that of reality.) They see
> >the PoMo guys as pretty small potatoes compared
> >with, say, Plato or Hume, and think they
> >did fairly useful work in attacking Positivism;
> >it's just they didn't really break with
> >Positivism's basic assumptions, and thus
> >ended up tumbling over the edge into nihilism.
>
> That sounds like an extreme attack on postmodernism
> to me. "We know you guys have had a lot of fun telling
> everybody else they're wrong about everything, and we
> appreciate that -- it looks like it was fun. But the
> truth is, *we* understand *why* everybody else is wrong
> about everything, and you're wrong too. Toodles!"
Well, that would be true if the PoMo
people were the _only_ ones attacking positivism
or the western philosophical tradition. But in
fact, most of the Western philosophical tradition
has been composed of critiques of itself; and
anyone with any sense has critiqued positivism.
So I think they're just thinking as of most
PoMo types as minor players, who did some good
critical work along the way. Who knows, maybe
a hundred years from now the CR people will look
even more minor, but myself, I hope not because
I find their positions sensible.
>
> Anyway, what sort of solution does it get you to separate
> the problem of knowledge from that of reality?
>
> Like, if it were to turn out that you can't know anything
> about reality, where would that leave you when you're
> dealing with the problem of reality?
But that's a pretty extreme scenario, isn't
it? If you really examine the arguments philosophers
make, it's usually more like, if you can't know
_everything_ about reality, that calls its very
existence into question. Bhaskar is just saying why
can't we just face up to the fact that our
knowledge is always going to be imperfect and
limited, and stop whining about it and threatening
to kick everything over because we can't have
everything we wanted. Grow up, guys. Most non-
philosophers and non-scientists do.
More technically: the CR approach is
actually 'transcendental' realism because it starts
from a 'what would have to exist in order for X to
be possible' sort of argument. In this case it's
two questions: (a) what would have to be true
in order for scientific experiments to be possible
(ie, if you put enough work into arranging the
scenario, you can produce predictable results)
and (b) why are scientific experiments necessary?
(A) means there are certain real 'mechanisms' as
they call them by which objects have certain
powers and tendencies (no time to give the whole
rap), but (b) shows that in the real world, any
observable phenomena is going to involve lots
of different mechanisms at once, and even more,
mechanisms derived from different _levels_ of
reality. Bhaskar emphasizes that reality is
stratified in the sense that you can't explain
chemical phenomena just through physics, even
less reduce biology to chemistry, or social
and psychological phenomena to biology... They
all involve different sorts of mechanisms, and
thus each higher level is somewhat autonomous
from the former (when it hits the human level we
call this autonomy "freedom")... Anyway, any
real event is going to involve a mix of mechanisms
from lots of autonomous levels and thus you can
never predict exactly what's going to happen.
That's why scientists have to do experiments.
Many philosophers (Hume for example) ignore this
and treat science as if it generalizes from non-
experimental reality, or act as if ideally we
should be able to predict real-world events as
accurately as we can experimental ones, but Bhaskar
says this is nonsense, and we wouldn't want to
live in that kind of world anyway because it
would make nonsense of the idea of human freedom.
But that's probably enough for now.
DG
Dan Clore
David Rolfe Graeber wrote:
[snippage]
> Like any form of nihilism it's not really
> especially tenable over the long term (having
> no particular way to grapple with such obvious
> questions as "if you and I don't exist then
> why are you bothering to tell me this?")
[snippage]
Well then, what about Aleister Crowley's form of nihilism? --
(+1) + (-1) = 0
--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore
The Website of Lord Weÿrdgliffe:
Gerry Quinn
> But that's a pretty extreme scenario, isn't
>it? If you really examine the arguments philosophers
>make, it's usually more like, if you can't know
>_everything_ about reality, that calls its very
>existence into question. Bhaskar is just saying why
>can't we just face up to the fact that our
>knowledge is always going to be imperfect and
>limited, and stop whining about it and threatening
>to kick everything over because we can't have
>everything we wanted. Grow up, guys. Most non-
>philosophers and non-scientists do.
What you attribute to Bhaskar in what follows would not be disputed by
most scientists. In fact, it would not be news to (at least) a
substantial minority. (There are some who adopt a posture of
reductionist maximalism.)
- Gerry
----------------------------------------------------------
ger...@indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
----------------------------------------------------------
David Rolfe Graeber
>:
Distribution:
Gerry Quinn (ger...@indigo.ie) wrote:
> In article <6gpmpq$e4c$1...@news.nyu.edu>, dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber) wrote:
>
> > But that's a pretty extreme scenario, isn't
> >it? If you really examine the arguments philosophers
> >make, it's usually more like, if you can't know
> >_everything_ about reality, that calls its very
> >existence into question. Bhaskar is just saying why
> >can't we just face up to the fact that our
> >knowledge is always going to be imperfect and
> >limited, and stop whining about it and threatening
> >to kick everything over because we can't have
> >everything we wanted. Grow up, guys. Most non-
> >philosophers and non-scientists do.
>
> What you attribute to Bhaskar in what follows would not be disputed by
> most scientists. In fact, it would not be news to (at least) a
> substantial minority. (There are some who adopt a posture of
> reductionist maximalism.)
>
> - Gerry
I think so too. What Bhaskar
is really concerned with is not scientists
so much as philosophers and especially
social thinkers who have a very naive idea
of what science is actually about, and
use it to come up with flawed theories about
the nature of knowledge, truth, society,
etc. Even accepting the relatively
inocuous-sounding proposition that there
is such a thing as truth, even if human
beings will never be able to do better
than approximate it, has enormous
consequences for all these other disciplines.
For physical science, it's not likely
to change anyone's practice very much, but
in the social sciences it probably would
(for one thing, CR people are very
suspicious of economics and other social
sciences that claim to make exact predictions
using statistics..)
Dg
David Rolfe Graeber
Dan Clore (cl...@columbia-center.org) wrote:
> David Rolfe Graeber wrote:
>
> [snippage]
> > Like any form of nihilism it's not really
> > especially tenable over the long term (having
> > no particular way to grapple with such obvious
> > questions as "if you and I don't exist then
> > why are you bothering to tell me this?")
> [snippage]
>
> Well then, what about Aleister Crowley's form of nihilism? --
> (+1) + (-1) = 0
You know, since receiving a highly
marked-up copy of Magick in Theory and Practice
as an undergrad, which I read a bit of, and
maybe 777 (I remember how pleased I was when
I first actually saw a piece of Dittany of Crete)
I have kind of fallen off on my Crowley. Do
please expand...
DG
Paul D. Lanier
On 12 Apr 1998, David Rolfe Graeber wrote:
Well, that would be true if the PoMo
people were the _only_ ones attacking positivism
or the western philosophical tradition. But in
fact, most of the Western philosophical tradition
has been composed of critiques of itself; and
anyone with any sense has critiqued positivism.
So I think they're just thinking as of most
PoMo types as minor players, who did some good
critical work along the way. Who knows, maybe
a hundred years from now the CR people will look
even more minor, but myself, I hope not because
I find their positions sensible.
Unkown:
Anyway, what sort of solution does it get you to separate
the problem of knowledge from that of reality?
Like, if it were to turn out that you can't know anything
about reality, where would that leave you when you're
dealing with the problem of reality?
Graeber:
But that's a pretty extreme scenario, isn't
it? If you really examine the arguments philosophers
make, it's usually more like, if you can't know
_everything_ about reality, that calls its very
existence into question. Bhaskar is just saying why
can't we just face up to the fact that our
knowledge is always going to be imperfect and
limited, and stop whining about it and threatening
to kick everything over because we can't have
everything we wanted. Grow up, guys. Most non-
philosophers and non-scientists do.
Paul:
I'm sorry but that's not what I got from reading the Enquiry Concerning
Human Understanding by Hume. I thought Hume said one has to have
experiments because reason wouldn't deduce the events for us without the
data of perception. Instinct was stronger than reason by the habit
of connecting cause and effect, as in the sun rises and sheds light on the
earth, but the connexion was not really there and it was probable the sun
could rise and fail to shine on the earth.
Let me quote you a passage:
"IN a word , then every effect is a distinct event from its cause. It
could not, therefore, be discovered in the cause, and the first invention
or conceptions of it, apiori, must be entirely arbitrary. And even after
it is suggested, the conjunction of it with the cause must appear equally
arbitrary; since there are always many other efects, which , to reason ,
must seem fully as consistent and natural. In vain, therefore, should we
pretend to determine any sinble event, or infer any cause or effect,
without the assistance of observation and experience.
Hence we may discover the reson , why no philsopher, who is rational and
modest, has ever pretended to assign the ultimate cause of any natural
operation , or to sho distinctly the action of that power, which produces
any single effect in the universe. It is confessedd, that the utmost
effort of human reason is, to reduce the principles, productive of natural
phenomena, to a greater simplicity, and to resolve the many particualr
effects into a few general causes, by means of resonings from analogy,
experince, and observation. But as to the causes of these general causes,
we should in vain attempt their discovery; nor shall we ever be albe to
satisfy ourselves, by any paricular explication of them. These ultimate
springs and principles are totally shut up from human curiousity and
enquiry. Elasticidty, gravity, cohesion of parts, communication of motion
by impluse; thse are probably the ultimate causes and principles which we
shall ever discover in nature; and we may esteem ourselves sufficently
happy, if, by accurate enquiry and reasoning, we can trace up the
particualr phenomena to , or near to, these general principles."
Enquiry Concering Human Understanding IV Sceptical Doubts p19
published by Hacket Publishing Company (1977) edited by Eric Steinburg
Seems to me the difference tween Hume and Bhakar and Hume is Hume is
pessimistic while Bhaskar is optomistic, but that's merely my impression.
However, I can say with some assurance that Hume was apprized of the
limitations of reason. And that he did not think he was doomed to some
sort of nihilism of thinking. "The great subverter of Pyrrhonism or the
excessive principles of scpticism , is action, and employment, and the
occupations of common life." (Section XII of Enquiry Concern. Human
Underst., p 109). I tend to agree with Hume's assessment of scepticism,
useful but not to be a god. I disagree with other aspects of Hume's
philosophy but do not wiah to make this the time or place to call him
into dispute. I merely wished to raise Hume from the infamy your summary
of his work from Bhaskar has thrust him.
Regards,
Paul Lanier
Puss in Boots
dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber):
>Bhaskar is just saying why
>can't we just face up to the fact that our
>knowledge is always going to be imperfect and
>limited, and stop whining about it and threatening
>to kick everything over because we can't have
>everything we wanted. Grow up, guys. Most non-
>philosophers and non-scientists do.
Argument-from-because-I'm-the-Mommy.
-- Moggin
David Rolfe Graeber
18473B...@email.uah.edu>:
Distribution:
Paul D. Lanier (lan...@email.uah.edu) wrote:
(or actually, first I wrote:)
I'm glad you did. Mea culpa, probably. I
was writing in a hurry, and I knew Bhaskar had
Hume pegged as an empiricist, but on returning to
the original sources (I haven't read Hume in
years, and then not all the way through, and
wasn't actually consulting Bhaskar when I wrote
that) I think I overstated how naive an
empiricist he's putting Hume down for. Actually,
what Bhaskar really objects to in Hume is his
definition of causality in terms of "constant
conjunctions" in the first place. For example,
"Now as constant conjunctions must in general
be artificially produced" (ie in experiments), "if
we identify causal laws with them, we are logically
committed to the absurdities that scientists, in
their experimental activity, cause and even change
the laws of nature! Thus the objects of scientific
inquiry in an experiment cannot be events and
their conjunctions, but as (I suggest) structures,
generative mechanisms and the like (forming the
real basis of causal laws), which are normally
out of phase with them. And it can now be seen
that the Humean account depends upon a misidentification
of causal laws with their empirical grounds."
(Reclaiming Reality, Verso 1989:15-16.)
He then goes on to say the fact that we can apply
experimental knowledge in the real world shows that
causal laws are really just tendencies, that things
have powers that exist even if they are not
exercized, etc etc. Anyway this should give you
a taste of what sort of direction he takes. My
apologies to Hume if I brought unfair calumnies
upon him.
David
alo...@email.gc.cuny.edu
In article <6got42$1ak$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber) wrote:
> G*rd*n (g...@panix.com) wrote:
> > I did a web search on Critical Realism a few months ago.
> > The stuff I came up with seemed like yet another attempt
> > to banish the little postmodernist man upon the stair.
>
> Um, what exactly does that mean, Gordon?
[vituperation follows; then,]
> Well, for what it's worth, CR is not
> really an attack on postmodernism; actually, it's
> a systematic criticism of the Western tradition
> since at least Parmenides, who seems to be the
> first to obviously fall into what Bhaskar calls
> the "epistemic fallacy" (confusing the problem
> of knowledge with that of reality.)
[Be it noted that my Greek-reading girlfriend finds this kind
of "reading" of Parmenides hopelessly vexed, but we'll take this
as an appeal to the canonical misreading;]
> They see
> the PoMo guys as pretty small potatoes compared
> with, say, Plato or Hume, and think they
> did fairly useful work in attacking Positivism;
> it's just they didn't really break with
> Positivism's basic assumptions, and thus
> ended up tumbling over the edge into nihilism.
> Like any form of nihilism it's not really
> especially tenable over the long term (having
> no particular way to grapple with such obvious
> questions as "if you and I don't exist then
> why are you bothering to tell me this?")
Now, why was it so hard to understand the little postmodern man upon
the stair? Because this is a fine example. Will somebody please remind
me just who the "postmoderns" are who argue that "we don't exist"?
Postmodernism as I've encountered it seems a bit closer to Bhaskar, but
with a sense of boredom; fine, sure, It Is Possible To Perform Meaningful
Scientific Experiments ... but what does that get you, besides better
radial tires and rising health costs? The description of Bhaskar sounds
rather Kantian, so the question arises whether he did any better than the
K-man when it comes to God/Freedom/Immortality--the really interesting
questions!
--Andy Lowry
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Paul D. Lanier
I am sure Hume would catuiously accept the apology if he
were alive. :)
Personally, I have problems with Hume's explanation and
scepticism of cause and effect. I just was sure he was not
entirely dismissive of data of experience whether by observation
or experiment.
Bhaskar then, sees the scientific laws as structures of reality
which are tendencies? this still sounds like a version of Humes'
account of things. I guess the only difference is that Bhaskar is
accepting a notion of substanitality or structure or (necessary)
connexion that Hume rejected. That's my impression here.
Regards,
Paul Lanier
Paul D. Lanier
OH I don't know. Sometimes I think the argument of the parent
has some value. Life is easier if we sometimes just let things be.
'Course there are times when one has to fight.
Paul Lanier
G*rd*n
alo...@email.gc.cuny.edu:
| [vituperation follows; then,]
Where? I don't want to miss any vituperation. It's so rare
on the Net....
| ...
dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber) wrote:
| > They see
| > the PoMo guys as pretty small potatoes compared
| > with, say, Plato or Hume, and think they
| > did fairly useful work in attacking Positivism;
| > it's just they didn't really break with
| > Positivism's basic assumptions, and thus
| > ended up tumbling over the edge into nihilism.
| > Like any form of nihilism it's not really
| > especially tenable over the long term (having
| > no particular way to grapple with such obvious
| > questions as "if you and I don't exist then
| > why are you bothering to tell me this?")
| Now, why was it so hard to understand the little postmodern man upon
| the stair? Because this is a fine example. Will somebody please remind
| me just who the "postmoderns" are who argue that "we don't exist"?
On occasion I've noted that there didn't seem to be anything,
a body of thought, a school, a set of books, a culture,
etc., definable as "postmodernism" in the same way one says
"Platonism" or "Marxism." Wherefore others called me a
typical postmodernist and explained that my confession of
ignorance was simply a duplicitous stunt covering my deep
intention to destroy Western Civilization -- or something
like that. Perhaps they too were figments of my
misunderstanding.
| Postmodernism as I've encountered it seems a bit closer to Bhaskar, but
| with a sense of boredom; fine, sure, It Is Possible To Perform Meaningful
| Scientific Experiments ... but what does that get you, besides better
| radial tires and rising health costs? The description of Bhaskar sounds
| rather Kantian, so the question arises whether he did any better than the
| K-man when it comes to God/Freedom/Immortality--the really interesting
| questions!
The anti-postmodernists are hot for _reality_. There must
be a shortage of it somewhere.
David Rolfe Graeber
alo...@email.gc.cuny.edu wrote:
(first citing me saying:)
>
> > They see
> > the PoMo guys as pretty small potatoes compared
> > with, say, Plato or Hume, and think they
> > did fairly useful work in attacking Positivism;
> > it's just they didn't really break with
> > Positivism's basic assumptions, and thus
> > ended up tumbling over the edge into nihilism.
> > Like any form of nihilism it's not really
> > especially tenable over the long term (having
> > no particular way to grapple with such obvious
> > questions as "if you and I don't exist then
> > why are you bothering to tell me this?")
>
> the stair? Because this is a fine example. Will somebody please remind
> me just who the "postmoderns" are who argue that "we don't exist"?
In the sense of unitary subjects, most poststructuralists.
Foucault I suppose was the most insistent in breaking down the
idea of the author, the subject, etc etc. It all started as a
perfectly legitimate critique of the transcendental subject
of traditional Western philosophy, a ridiculous creature that
was presumed to be prior to any cultural or social ties,
then went so far overboard that by the early '80s it was
a common experience of scholars at, say, academic conferences
that if one referred to Shakespeare, or Sartre, or such
in a paper, one would often be met with someone who would
rise in very condescending tones and demand to know if you
were claiming a "Sartre" actually existed. If you said yes,
they would dismiss you with much sneerage as a hopeless
reactionary, 'nuf said. Most were too taken aback to
make the obvious response: if it is reactionary to think
of any statement as reflecting the views or purposes of
an individual speaker or author, why should I assume that
what you just said represents your view, and why did you
ask me what I think since my answer must similarly be
of no significance?
More generally: my experience in academics (which
I've been involved in for about a dozen years) has been
that most afficionados of Poststructural theory are not
blithering idiots, and therefore know better than to
state an overtly nihilist position. Rather, they just
fashion deconstructive tools which, if applied consistently,
would undermine the basis of anything and lead to a
nihilist conclusion, but apply them fairly arbitrarily
and selectively, often remaining decidedly coy, or
if not, whimsical, about what they feel should be
preserved from it. Also, they have a tendency to be
much more careful in written texts than they are in
person, where people often do make overtly nihilist
arguments where they think they can get away with it.
I'm not saying they have a secret agenda; it's more
like, if you really are a nihilist, and especially if
you take a Nietzschoid position that truth/reality is largely
what you have the power to convince others of (or
inflict on them), then that's pretty much how you would
act, isn't it? What always annoys me is the air of
superiority and the incredible smugness with one's own
cleverness that almost always seems to accompany such
posturing. Obviously this doesn't go for everyone
who's ever been interested in a poststructuralist
idea (I myself have quoted Baudrillard, Lacan,
Bourdieu, Foucault, and many others in my published
work) but I have noted a remarkable tendency for these
ideas to be especially attractive to smug, over-
priviledged, selfish, snide, careerist assholes -
the very sort of people who are basically nihilist
anyway. Perhaps I overstate. Perhaps they are merely
a very prominent minority. But they tend to color
everyone's perception of the whole.
> Postmodernism as I've encountered it seems a bit closer to Bhaskar, but
> with a sense of boredom; fine, sure, It Is Possible To Perform Meaningful
> Scientific Experiments ... but what does that get you, besides better
> radial tires and rising health costs? The description of Bhaskar sounds
> rather Kantian, so the question arises whether he did any better than the
> K-man when it comes to God/Freedom/Immortality--the really interesting
> questions!
Well, I could go on, but on the last point: Bhaskar
couldn't care less about God or Immortality, but he is very
interested in coming up with a real philosophical grounding
for the idea of freedom. (Thus such titles as his "Dialectic:
the Pulse of Freedom"). It's just that he feels that
for freedom to be real (as it were) it has to be based
on an understanding of how not only nature but society
and culture really works; his stuff about science is thus
the starting point of a much more elaborate argument about
how very different sorts of tools of analysis have to
be developed to talk about human realities. (I have no
time to go into it, but Critical Realists are pretty
hostile to most attempts to apply natural science techniques,
especially involving statistics and equations, to social
life... but they do think you can talk about 'truth'
there.)
David Graeber
David Rolfe Graeber
G*rd*n (g...@panix.com) wrote:
>
> On occasion I've noted that there didn't seem to be anything,
> a body of thought, a school, a set of books, a culture,
> etc., definable as "postmodernism" in the same way one says
> "Platonism" or "Marxism." Wherefore others called me a
> typical postmodernist and explained that my confession of
> ignorance was simply a duplicitous stunt covering my deep
> intention to destroy Western Civilization -- or something
> like that. Perhaps they too were figments of my
> misunderstanding.
Frankly, I think your first point has a lot
to it, but suspect you kind of miss the point. Sure,
there is no school of people who say "let's go and
be Postmodern; to be Postmodern, we have to follow
the following three axioms..." There is not even
an organized movement as with say, Dada or Surrealism.
But on the other hand, Postmodernism is not a term
invented by critics (in either sense of the term)
in order to characterize an artistic or intellectual
style invented by others, like, say, Expressionism
or Romanticism. Rather, the people who first promoted
the term, and kept it going, argued that the whole
world had effectively changed, all of its own accord
or anyway as a result of structural forces way
beyond anyone's control, and that this new reality
could be described as 'postmodern', and had
various traits. True enough, they tended to disagree
about the traits a lot, and many that they most played
up (break-up of monolithic points of view,
fragmentation, irony, crisis of authority...)
were almost exactly the same as the ones critics
20-40 years before had labelled "modernism", but
so what? Surely you don't mean to deny the existence
of such people? And if what you are saying is that
in suggesting there had been some great change in
the world they were full of shit, then I couldn't
agree with you more. But if you are saying one
should not call them postmodernists at all, then
that seems odd. Many say things like "I consider
myself a Postmodernist." Are you saying they don't
have the right to define themselves? Others resist
it by instead insisting that everyone and everything
is postmodern now, they just recognize it... but
why is it unreasonable to extend the term to them
as well? After all, if someone writes a book entitled,
say, "Towards a Postmodern Sociology" (or any of
a million similar titles), is it unreasonable to
call this person a Postmodernist? What's more,
there are certain basic principles that tend to
show up in almost all of the works of those who
use the term 'Postmodern' in a non-pejorative
way, which may not be entirely consistent but are
certainly as consistent as say, those which
dominate the works of those we are used to
calling "Romantics", for example. Why not look
at these principles as saying something about the
sort of people who used them, and the sort of
time in which they emerged? I just don't understand
what's suppose to be such a problem.
Dg
Gerry Quinn
>
>The anti-postmodernists are hot for _reality_. There must
>be a shortage of it somewhere.
Don't anorexics think everyone else is hot for food?
- Gerry
Paul D. Lanier
Well, now you've got me interested. Why wouldn't CR be interested
in God and Immortality? Why must they ban mathematics from social
life?
I sense the lib. arts has far too much distrust towards math
and conversely engineering and technical subjects far too much distrust
towards the concepts of liberal arts. Why must mathematics be either
considered the whole of the universe or unpenetrating to the actions
and social world of the humans? Either position seems overblown to me.
Why must God be ignored and immortality turned a blind eye towards?
It looks to me that the fullness of reality is being driven from the
table of discussion.
As to the epistemic question of Parmenides, I'd agree it looks like
Parmenides is saying to be known means something is being. I suppose
I'd need to find a text of his thoughts. The way I remember his
radical claims work is this:
The fundamental paths to knowing are Being and Not-Being. Reality
can only be of these two. However, Not-Being is not. Therefore, you
cannot even follow Not-Being. It cannot be. You cannot even say
that which is not existent, logically. Therefore there is only one path
you can follow without contradiction and that is Being.
The basic hole in the program of Parmenides is that he is talking
about Not-Being. He even goes on to characterize what Being is by saying
what it could not be, because it is the opposite of Not-Being.
Plato takes this full force of this reasoning on in the dialogue
of the aptly named _Parmenides_ and pits Socrates against P. For once
in his life, Socrates looks to be the one who is confuted. The theory
of Ideas falls befor P. as Socrates and he look at what would be the
meaning of the One, the Many, and the Other. A fullscale argument
against the theory of the Ideas is carried on within the Sophist that
succeeds the _Parmenides_ .
I really don't understand why Bhaskar and the others would not be
interested in God and Immortality. Emerson writes an essay (Plato, Or
the Philsopher) about the basis of scientific categories and bounding is
given by Plato as the One, the whole, the unlimited,
whose analogue is the Eastern mysticism.
The logic of Parmenides and counter arguments and theories that contest
his logic as flawed would appear to either be driven by or drive ideas,
and revelations of God and Immortality. I think it highly unwise to be
so reductive in the pursuit of knowing and building metaphysics to
obliquely ignore these grounds of being and fates/destinies of beings.
What think you, DB?
Regards,
Paul Lanier
G*rd*n
G*rd*n (g...@panix.com) wrote:
| > On occasion I've noted that there didn't seem to be anything,
| > a body of thought, a school, a set of books, a culture,
| > etc., definable as "postmodernism" in the same way one says
| > "Platonism" or "Marxism." Wherefore others called me a
| > typical postmodernist and explained that my confession of
| > ignorance was simply a duplicitous stunt covering my deep
| > intention to destroy Western Civilization -- or something
| > like that. Perhaps they too were figments of my
| > misunderstanding.
dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber):
| Frankly, I think your first point has a lot
| to it, but suspect you kind of miss the point. Sure,
| there is no school of people who say "let's go and
| be Postmodern; to be Postmodern, we have to follow
| the following three axioms..." There is not even
| an organized movement as with say, Dada or Surrealism.
| But on the other hand, Postmodernism is not a term
| invented by critics (in either sense of the term)
| in order to characterize an artistic or intellectual
| style invented by others, like, say, Expressionism
| or Romanticism. Rather, the people who first promoted
| the term, and kept it going, argued that the whole
| world had effectively changed, all of its own accord
| or anyway as a result of structural forces way
| beyond anyone's control, and that this new reality
| could be described as 'postmodern', and had
| various traits. True enough, they tended to disagree
| about the traits a lot, and many that they most played
| up (break-up of monolithic points of view,
| fragmentation, irony, crisis of authority...)
| were almost exactly the same as the ones critics
| 20-40 years before had labelled "modernism", but
| so what? Surely you don't mean to deny the existence
| of such people?
Not at all. I'm sure there are such people, especially if
in some venues the term has become fashionable -- many will
want to assume it, along with Kool cigarettes. The problem
arises when other people want to be _against_ postmodernism.
There's no there there -- at least not one of sufficient
definition to oppose. About the most one can say of
"postmodern(ist)" besides that it indicates a set of styles
and attitudes, is that it promotes generalized skepticism or
intellectual anarchy -- the "regnant texts" that tell people
what and how to think having been challenged, like the
various gods of old, and frightened into the shadows. This
isn't really much of a philosophy or a movement. It is the
anti-postmodernists who appear to me to be the definers.
Certainly people can call themselves or their works
postmodern(ist) all they like -- it's a free country.
Whether they can make it mean much of anything is another
question, involving for starters the self-contradiction of
proposing a metanarrative that abjures all metanarratives.
It's a nice idea -- a philosophy that destroys all other
philosophies and then destroys itself, leaving the mind
clear at last -- but I haven't been able to find one thus
far. Most likely what we're seeing is a species of ismism,
the practice of institutionalizing fashions and styles for
the purposes of professional advancement. It is not all
that different from institutionalizing more rigid
rhetorics for the same purpose.
(One caveat to all I've written above: I'm going by how
people use certain words in print and on the Net. I don't
spend any time in academia, and things may be different
there. If so this hasn't been explained.)
At this point I'd like to recall an exchange from last
January:
annmari...@tinet.ie:
| In a world where the apostasy of the meta-narrative is its own religion,
| I believe it is time to assess the legitimacy of the postmodern counter
| culture. Can one honestly advocate postmodernism as a tenable
| meta-discourse in light of present sociological trends? Is it
| conceivable merely as a reaction to traditional overarching beliefs? Or
| do its tenets lend themselves to any sustainable epistemological
| structure in themselves? Are we simply post, and if so, what comes next?
| Consider this if you will. Annmarie
If history is our guide, any period of skepticism and
liberalism that goes on for any length of time will lead to
a succeeding period of faith and discipline even more awful
than the one that the skeptics and liberals thought they
had liberated mankind from. Not everyone will regret this
passage. The light is a brief and ambiguous guest, and as
the saying goes, "Guests are always a pleasure; if not the
coming, then the going."
Dan Clore
G*rd*n wrote:
> Certainly people can call themselves or their works
> postmodern(ist) all they like -- it's a free country.
> Whether they can make it mean much of anything is another
> question, involving for starters the self-contradiction of
> proposing a metanarrative that abjures all metanarratives.
No problem: a narrative that applies to metanarratives is not a
metanarrative, but a metametanarrative. (And by trying to make a
narrative about postmodernism, you are of course indulging in a
metametametanarrative. Etc.)
--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore
The Website of Lord We˙rdgliffe:
Lee Goddard Collective
G*rd*n (g...@panix.com) wrote:
| > On occasion I've noted that there didn't seem to be anything,
| > a body of thought, a school, a set of books, a culture,
| > etc., definable as "postmodernism" in the same way one says
| > "Platonism" or "Marxism." Wherefore others called me a
- for that matter how many folk define Marxism as the beliefs of Marx rather
than his followers? -
Surely if you accept the existance of the Kool-cigarette-and-pmo bunch, you
accept that one can be against the THING they label postmodernism? That is,
against their philosophical perception of the world, and its products? Against
irony and pastiche and parody as the sole means of expression, for example?
"postmodern(ist)" besides that it indicates a set of styles
and attitudes, is that it promotes generalized skepticism or
intellectual anarchy -- the "regnant texts" that tell people
what and how to think having been challenged, like the
various gods of old, and frightened into the shadows. This
isn't really much of a philosophy or a movement. It is the
anti-postmodernists who appear to me to be the definers.
As the anti-Impressionists coined the term Impressionism. But does that make the
works of Monet, Manet and Pissaro any less Impressionist? Sure, the definition
of Impressionism is pretty sketchy, but it does indicate the radical differences
between Impressionist art and that of, say, the Pre-Raphs.
But there *you* have defined postmodernism as a rejection of metanarratives! Why
can't they do so and call themselves postmodernist?
It's a nice idea -- a philosophy that destroys all other
philosophies and then destroys itself, leaving the mind
clear at last -- but I haven't been able to find one thus
far. Most likely what we're seeing is a species of ismism,
the practice of institutionalizing fashions and styles for
the purposes of professional advancement. It is not all
that different from institutionalizing more rigid
rhetorics for the same purpose.
That sounds more like it, at least in regard to those who define themselves as
postmodernists. Still, that they have done so allows us to nominate them as
schmucks.
(One caveat to all I've written above: I'm going by how
people use certain words in print and on the Net. I don't
spend any time in academia, and things may be different
there. If so this hasn't been explained.)
Academia, yuck. But Collinicos' AGAINST POSTMODERNISM is a fine strand-by-strand
deconstruction of some of those who have claimed to be pm.
lee
Paul D. Lanier
On Thu, 16 Apr 1998, Dan Clore wrote:
>
> G*rd*n wrote:
>
> > Certainly people can call themselves or their works
> > postmodern(ist) all they like -- it's a free country.
> > Whether they can make it mean much of anything is another
> > question, involving for starters the self-contradiction of
> > proposing a metanarrative that abjures all metanarratives.
>
> No problem: a narrative that applies to metanarratives is not a
> metanarrative, but a metametanarrative. (And by trying to make a
> narrative about postmodernism, you are of course indulging in a
> metametametanarrative. Etc.)
A jest at the contradiction of a metanarrative that abjures all
metanarratives?
Paul Lanier
Dan Clore
Paul D. Lanier wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Apr 1998, Dan Clore wrote:
> > G*rd*n wrote:
> > > Certainly people can call themselves or their works
> > > postmodern(ist) all they like -- it's a free country.
> > > Whether they can make it mean much of anything is another
> > > question, involving for starters the self-contradiction of
> > > proposing a metanarrative that abjures all metanarratives.
> > No problem: a narrative that applies to metanarratives is not a
> > metanarrative, but a metametanarrative. (And by trying to make a
> > narrative about postmodernism, you are of course indulging in a
> > metametametanarrative. Etc.)
> A jest at the contradiction of a metanarrative that abjures all
> metanarratives?
I'm both joking *and* serious. It's not a contradiction at all, because
it's on a higher order of abstraction (indicated by adding another
"meta" to the name).
Paul D. Lanier
The anti-postmodernists to be the definers, hmmm. Sounds on the mark to
me. Just curious, who would be the anti-postmodernists? And what are
they defining to be the actual case(s)?
(Also can there be a group of thinkers who see both the unlimited and
the bounded sides of reality?)
What passions of faith and discipline do you see coming for us?
One caveat: I do tend to see ideas as always potentially available to
every generation of individuals. So, the next era cannot entirely condemn
the thinker from his actions.
If I understand you though, the period of faith and discipline coming will
itself lead into a period of skepticism and liberality much more pervading
than the one previously left behind.
Paul Lanier
G*rd*n
| ...
fb...@central.susx.ac.uk (Lee Goddard Collective):
| Surely if you accept the existance of the Kool-cigarette-and-pmo bunch, you
| accept that one can be against the THING they label postmodernism? That is,
| against their philosophical perception of the world, and its products? Against
| irony and pastiche and parody as the sole means of expression, for example?
It would be awfully uncool to _specify_ irony and pastiche
and parody as the sole means of expression. (Same problem
as the metanarrative dismissing all metanaratives.) And
if we're talking about the plastic arts, music, and
literature, these aren't the only things that are going on.
| ...
| As the anti-Impressionists coined the term Impressionism. But does that make the
| works of Monet, Manet and Pissaro any less Impressionist? Sure, the definition
| of Impressionism is pretty sketchy, but it does indicate the radical differences
| between Impressionist art and that of, say, the Pre-Raphs.
I guess I'd have to say Impressionism happened to amount to
something, and, thus far, "Postmodernism" doesn't. Anyway,
what most of the anti-postmodernists are huffing about is
not "postmodern" art -- this is condemned in exactly the
same terms that _all_ new styles of art have been condemned
since any innovation in the arts was first thought of -- but
a supposed philosophical school.
| ...
| But there *you* have defined postmodernism as a rejection of metanarratives! Why
| can't they do so and call themselves postmodernist?
They can. It's not much of an accomplishment, though.
There's a song by George Gershwin that runs "It ain't
necessarily so." Is this all ye know on Earth, and all ye
need to know? Then the game was over quite awhile ago.
Who would have known Gershwin would sew it up?
| ...
| Academia, yuck. But Collinicos' AGAINST POSTMODERNISM is a fine strand-by-strand
| deconstruction of some of those who have claimed to be pm.
Why bother, exactly?
G*rd*n
"Paul D. Lanier" <lan...@email.uah.edu>:
| ...
| itself lead into a period of skepticism and liberality much more pervading
| than the one previously left behind.
Assuming the planet survives the next dose of faith and
discipline.
Lee Goddard Collective
On 17 Apr 1998 07:46:16 -0400 g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) posted article
<6h7fe8$g...@panix2.panix.com> to alt.postmodern:
> | ...
> fb...@central.susx.ac.uk (Lee Goddard Collective):
> | Surely if you accept the existance of the Kool-cigarette-and-pmo bunch, you
> | accept that one can be against the THING they label postmodernism? That is,
> | against their philosophical perception of the world, and its products? Against
> | irony and pastiche and parody as the sole means of expression, for example?
> It would be awfully uncool to _specify_ irony and pastiche
> and parody as the sole means of expression. (Same problem
> as the metanarrative dismissing all metanaratives.) And
> if we're talking about the plastic arts, music, and
> literature, these aren't the only things that are going on.
I didn't mean that to be an exclusive definition of pomo - godforbid - but just
an example. Who says these pmoponces we're picking on are cool? Sorry, Kool?
> | ...
> | As the anti-Impressionists coined the term Impressionism. But does that make the
> | works of Monet, Manet and Pissaro any less Impressionist? Sure, the definition
> | of Impressionism is pretty sketchy, but it does indicate the radical differences
> | between Impressionist art and that of, say, the Pre-Raphs.
> I guess I'd have to say Impressionism happened to amount to
> something, and, thus far, "Postmodernism" doesn't. Anyway,
> what most of the anti-postmodernists are huffing about is
> not "postmodern" art -- this is condemned in exactly the
> same terms that _all_ new styles of art have been condemned
> since any innovation in the arts was first thought of -- but
> a supposed philosophical school.
And we've agreed that postmodernism is not a school. But, as Paul said, do they
who profess to belong to the school know that? Best not encourage them with
ackowledgements, I guess: though at a Uni that teaches a BA course in
'Postmodernism', it's not easy to refrain.
> | ...
> | But there *you* have defined postmodernism as a rejection of metanarratives! Why
> | can't they do so and call themselves postmodernist?
> They can. It's not much of an accomplishment, though.
> There's a song by George Gershwin that runs "It ain't
> necessarily so." Is this all ye know on Earth, and all ye
> need to know? Then the game was over quite awhile ago.
> Who would have known Gershwin would sew it up?
All us jazz fans.
> | Academia, yuck. But Collinicos' AGAINST POSTMODERNISM is a fine strand-by-strand
> | deconstruction of some of those who have claimed to be pm.
> Why bother, exactly?
Oh, Gordon: I'm disappointed! That sounded more like bourgeois nonchalance than
a Davis/Evans standard - or even Generation-X apathy.
If more folk had followed the lead of the German Expressionists before 1933...
These things need to be nipped in the bud.
Lee:
Andy Warhol Was Not A Postmodernist. He was Post-Modernist.
Gerry Quinn
>
>If history is our guide, any period of skepticism and
>liberalism that goes on for any length of time will lead to
>a succeeding period of faith and discipline even more awful
>than the one that the skeptics and liberals thought they
>had liberated mankind from. Not everyone will regret this
>passage. The light is a brief and ambiguous guest, and as
>the saying goes, "Guests are always a pleasure; if not the
>coming, then the going."
>--
It does seem that the skepticism and liberalism that has characterised
scientific progress from the Industrial Revolution to the present is
coming under increasing pressure from the lunatic tendency.
Paul D. Lanier
> > A jest at the contradiction of a metanarrative that abjures all
> > metanarratives?
>
> I'm both joking *and* serious. It's not a contradiction at all, because
> it's on a higher order of abstraction (indicated by adding another
> "meta" to the name).
>
Unfortunately, I really do think the 'paradox' of a metanarrative that
abjures all metanarrative _is_ the Absence of the higher order of
abstraction, thus if it is able to be posited as a attitude or idea or
school, it is a conceptual view that is inconsistent with itself.
Therefore, postmodernism philosophically speaking has lost the war in its
presumably most victorious moment. A terrible Pyhrric victory. To be
even comptemplated or just felt and then noticed as a sense of reality
gives up so much that the cost is too high for the philsophical movement
to be valid. If there were only feelings and no comtemplation, if we were
never able to think, not ever going through modernism, having no Platonism
to refute, then postmodernism might have a valid philosophical point
If Hume were right that our understanding was nothing more than
impressions without a structure behind it, a necessary connexion,
postmodernism might stand a chance; but for Hume to be right, then logic
would have to hold and instincts must have a causal connection to the
sense impressions and then probablity be as measurable in equations- all
of which point to a necessary connexion structure holding things together
even if reason could not adequately get a hold of it, an implication at
which the whole theory of Hume's therefore becomes suspect. IN other
words, postmodernism stands no chance execept to be suggested to us,
perhaps by our cultural indecisions or the proliferation of competing
worldviews, or maybe by negating what one takes to be the notion of Truth
and reality as holding together. To come at it another way, what good is
rejecting Metanarritive if narrative has no sense, no narrator exists, and
the notion of Meta is but a word to describe a universal or transcendent
that could not really exist? If you answer much good, you have accepted
as a positive value that which denied there can be a good. If you answer
no good at all, then you have accepted postmodernism in its full, and gone
to the entire length of its measuring of the world, and you accept the
value of having a good and truth that is transcendent. In doing so, you
inadvertantly (and inevitably) acknowledge that there is reality to
goodness and truth, and _there_ is a metanarrative. The question
remaining is whether you will accept the logic and value of truth and
good, or you will reject good for evil and thus condemn yourself. This is
why Nietzche proposed that myth will come back in full glory. (Although I
have by this argument rejected N.'s basic premise of atheism and mere will
to power).
Regards,
Paul Lanier
Paul D. Lanier
On Fri, 17 Apr 1998, Gerry Quinn wrote:
>
> In article <6h4qo1$j...@panix2.panix.com>, g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
>
> >
> >If history is our guide, any period of skepticism and
> >liberalism that goes on for any length of time will lead to
> >a succeeding period of faith and discipline even more awful
> >than the one that the skeptics and liberals thought they
> >had liberated mankind from. Not everyone will regret this
> >passage. The light is a brief and ambiguous guest, and as
> >the saying goes, "Guests are always a pleasure; if not the
> >coming, then the going."
> >--
>
> It does seem that the skepticism and liberalism that has characterised
> scientific progress from the Industrial Revolution to the present is
> coming under increasing pressure from the lunatic tendency.
>
> - Gerry
I am just wondering why skepticism has to be conjoined with liberalism in
such statements. Why does one find it imperative to talk about the
good of liberation? I do not question that liberation is good. I
question the the idea faith and discipline is necessarily bad. In my
experience, to be good at skepticism one must be disciplined in his
questioning of things. And in my experience, if there is doubt about
absolutely everthing, nothing can be accomplished because one is
paralyzingly hesitant about all. I do not say that one should not have
skepticism nor that one should not act for freedom. I say that faith also
is needed, else scepticism is a failure and discipline is needed else no
impulse could be consistenly followed. I am not arguing for lunacy but
rather- sanity.
Regards,
Paul Lanier
Paul D. Lanier
>
> And we've agreed that postmodernism is not a school. But, as Paul said, do they
> who profess to belong to the school know that? Best not encourage them with
> ackowledgements, I guess: though at a Uni that teaches a BA course in
> 'Postmodernism', it's not easy to refrain.
I'd love to take credit for this bit of wisdom, but I am failing to
remember where I said this. I think I said postmodernism is considered
attitude and feelings, and I saw that these attitude and feelings drove
the ideas of postmodernism... ie postmodernism must theorize though it
hates to relate each thing to the other because that is the
acknowledgement of what it is trying to reject. Not in so many words, but
I think that's what I've said in effect.
Regards,
Paul Lanier
David Rolfe Graeber
existence of people who call themselves
postmodernists...]
>
> Not at all. I'm sure there are such people, especially if
> in some venues the term has become fashionable -- many will
> want to assume it, along with Kool cigarettes. The problem
> arises when other people want to be _against_ postmodernism.
> There's no there there -- at least not one of sufficient
> definition to oppose. About the most one can say of
> "postmodern(ist)" besides that it indicates a set of styles
> and attitudes, is that it promotes generalized skepticism or
> intellectual anarchy -- the "regnant texts" that tell people
> what and how to think having been challenged, like the
> various gods of old, and frightened into the shadows. This
> isn't really much of a philosophy or a movement. It is the
> anti-postmodernists who appear to me to be the definers.
I am beginning to understand why you
take the position you do. You seem to be
treating "postmodernism" as a term largely
made up by opponents, most of whom are
conservatives who dislike recent trends which
are sceptical of authority, and thus healthy.
The problem is that this is simply not the
way it happened.
First a little history (this is sketchy,
but others can fill in the blanks or correct
errors):
"Postmodernism" began as a term for
an architectural style, starting I guess in the
late '70s and certainly by the early '80s (a
key text was "Learning from Las Vegas"), which
meant to move away from the bleak purity of the
Modernist International style towards a playful
and/or ironic combination of elements drawn
from different periods, renewed stress on
decoration, etc etc. The next stage was when
it was picked up by cultural critics - the
earliest was Frederick Jameson who used it
characterize what he thought was a new stage
of capitalism (most of these early critics
were Marxists), charcterized by a kind of
abandonment of depth, a pure and rather schizoid
(or if not that, cynical) play of surfaces
as ends in themselves. An attitude that nothing
new remained to be said so all that was left
was to make pastiches of the old. This line
of thought has been best developed by Marxist
geographer David Harvey, who has argued that
"postmodernity" is, ultimately, a new stage
in the history of capitalism, marked by a new
regime of "flexible accumulation" (the basic idea
is that capitalism is now drawing its profits
mainly from exploiting differences in labor
and capital regimes in different parts of the
world, so now it's in the interest of capital to
maintain heterogeneity and difference where
once it was trying to create uniform national
markets). What we call "postmodernism" is simply
its cultural face. But this is jumping ahead
slightly.
Very quickly, though, the term was
taken up by a group of scholars working in the
Poststructural tradition (coming out of Foucault,
Baudrillard, Lacan and the rest...) who instead
of treating it as a term of criticism, took the
same basic argument and claimed the change was
in fact healthy, and introduced a new way of
thinking about the world that - this was the
inevitable conclusion - made Marxist analyses
themselves utterly irrelevent. Lyotard's "What is
Postmodernism" was of course the key text. But
the basic argument: "the world has changed now,
suddenly everything became different, therefore
established modes of radical political thought
and analyses are irrelevent" was quite uniform.
Now, these are the people who it is perfectly
legitimate to call "Postmodernists". People who
make this argument: that we are living in
postmodern times, the world is totally different,
to speak of class or revolution for example is
ridiculous now, that's all Modernist stuff, its
time has passed. It's that simple.
This argument was taken up almost
exclusively by young, ambitious academics who
liked to write in pretentious jargon borrowed
from French poststructuralists. Within academic
life, it was always very clear who was "PoMo"
and who wasn't: basically, it referred to people
who posed as political radicals but rejected
almost every tenet of traditional radicalism
(ie, challenging capitalism or class as a
basic problem, belief in the possibility or
desirability of political organization to
change society, anti-elitism...) Many were
ex-Marxists who as the saying went "went PoMo",
meaning, gave up on any belief that it was
possible to challenge the system. They did not
have a consistent body of doctrines, but that's
not too surprising, considering they were
mostly cynics or nihilists. Rather, they tried to
fashion deconstructive weapons which could be
used to annhilate anything but then apply them
selectively, wherever they saw fit, without
ever making it clear what their own position was,
so no one would be able to reply in kind.
This is incidentally why I find your
argument that you can't criticize Postmodernists
because they're not a definable group so
distasteful, Gordon. It's obvious you don't
realize it, but people like you who make it
are being used as a dupe by a bunch of cynical
careerists. The whole position was developed as
a tool of stupid, petty, academic warfare and
self-promotion, along the lines of "let's make
up a position that we can use to attack anyone
but which no one can possibly attack." Having
known a lot of these people, and remembering
how uniformly privileged, conceited, egocentric,
and snobbish they tended to be, it really
bothers me to see well-meaning people like you
doing their dirty work for them. Especially
now that most of them have achieved all they
really wanted - tenure, money, positions of
academic power - and hardly even bother to
pose as radicals any more.
While I'm at it, there are really three
interlinked positions that almost always
show up among these people:
1) the world has changed; no one
is responsible, it just happened; now we all
have to accept it even if it means giving
up some of our most cherished values,
dreams or principles
2) especially, that means any belief
in attempts to change the world by collective
action or political means, which will just
make things worse
3) but that's okay, because we've
discovered that, conveniently enough, radical
political action _can_ be pursued by subversive
personal practices involving the body,
creative consumption, or the like...
Note how these are almost precisely
the same as the premises put forward by
free-market Neoliberals:
1) the world has changed, no one
is responsible, it just happened, now we'll
have to accept it and abandon some of our
most cherished principles and aspirations
(except now it's the "global market", and
its job security, living wages, the welfare
state, etc we'll have to give up).
2) any attempt to change society
through political means will just make things
worse
3) that's okay, because individual
purchasing decisions is all the democracy
we ever need anyhow
Basically it's the same schtick. It's a terrible
irony, but the basic tenets of Neoliberalism were
being propagated as a new, more genuine form of
radicalism already in the early '80s, long before
it had achieved anything like hegemony in world
politics. This is I think the only plausible
explanation for what would otherwise seem a
bizarre anomaly: that despite the fact that
Neoliberalism is the great political issue of
the day, it's veritably impossible to find a self-
declared Postmodernist (or again, using my definition,
anyone who claims we are living in a postmodern
age) who has denounced or attacked it. I mean,
these people claim to be radicals, right? Most
still do. Isn't it a little odd that none of them
seem particularly concerned with a right-wing
ideology that's currently sweeping the entire
world?
Now, I know there has been a trend
on the Right to attack the genuinely radical
or populist elements that do remain in academics
as "Postmodernism", but the proper Left response
to that is not to defend whatever the Right
attacks. It's our willingness to allow them to
define the issues in this way that's our real
weakness right now. There are very good reasons
why people are getting sick of the term
"Postmodernism" now and the sort of people who
used to endorse it (and many of whom still do)
and maybe just this once we should be out there
trying to help channel the current in positive
direction rather than blindly splashing against
it.
Finally, let me put in a word of
agreement with something Paul Lanier said. If
you are skeptical towards everything equally,
you're not being radical, you're just being
a cynic. This does not further the cause of
radical politics in any way. Cynicism at the
moment is the left's greatest enemy. Too many
people believe in nothing. The last thing we
should be doing right now is encouraging this.
DG
Andy Lowry
On 17 Apr 1998, G*rd*n wrote:
> It would be awfully uncool to _specify_ irony and pastiche
> and parody as the sole means of expression. (Same problem
> as the metanarrative dismissing all metanaratives.) And
> if we're talking about the plastic arts, music, and
> literature, these aren't the only things that are going on.
G*rd*n right as usual. I liked the uberhyped David Foster Wallace's essay
on the perils of perpetual irony (in "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do
Again"). Wallace's predecessor Pynchon is supposedly an avatar of
postmodernism, but somehow the second part has dropped out from his "keep
cool, but care" slogan.
--Andy Lowry
Lee Goddard Collective
On Mon, 20 Apr 1998 10:07:56 -0500 Andy Lowry <a...@Ra.MsState.Edu> posted
article <Pine.SOL.3.96.980420...@Ra.MsState.Edu> to
alt.postmodern:
> On 17 Apr 1998, G*rd*n wrote:
> > It would be awfully uncool to _specify_ irony and pastiche
> > and parody as the sole means of expression. (Same problem
> > as the metanarrative dismissing all metanaratives.) And
> > if we're talking about the plastic arts, music, and
> > literature, these aren't the only things that are going on.
> G*rd*n right as usual.
But not addressing the point... and he says he's not an academic!
Lee
Paul MacDonald
On 19 Apr 1998, David Rolfe Graeber wrote:
>snip through the history towards the provocative stuff<
> careerists. The whole position was developed as
> a tool of stupid, petty, academic warfare and
> self-promotion, along the lines of "let's make
> up a position that we can use to attack anyone
> but which no one can possibly attack." Having
A few points / mild criticisms. "Whole position" seems a little
simplicitic here given that in your history you point to the largely
european origins of the philosophical side of postmodernism (which
explains the largely obligatory nietzsche/foucault quote in any
self-proclaimed "post-something" piece). Without a doubt, academic
careering does account to a certain degree for the enthusiasm the
'academy' showed for postmodernism. However, one could
also identify less conspiratorial motives such as mis-translation of a
complex body of mainly european work, the general requirment of academia
to involve a certain element of patricide i.e. killing off the older
generation of scholars with some "new" theory, or even a genuine sense of
dislocation and change. To a certain extnet, anyone in academia is
involving themselves in certain amount of jockeying, politicing, and
ego-boosting, both the post-whatevers and the "genuine" radicals you seem
to identify with. Don't reduce a complex intellectual
(and cultural) phenomenon to a "whole position" type of dismissal.
> Finally, let me put in a word of
> agreement with something Paul Lanier said. If
> you are skeptical towards everything equally,
> you're not being radical, you're just being
> a cynic. This does not further the cause of
> radical politics in any way. Cynicism at the
> moment is the left's greatest enemy. Too many
> people believe in nothing. The last thing we
> should be doing right now is encouraging this.
A related point. Just as the origins of postmodernism should not be
encapsulated in pure-egoism stories, nor should the content of the
position itself. You seem to equate "cynicism" with "postmodernism" or
"nihilism" with "postmodernism", these are very interesting and effective
ways of ending a discussion of the actual content of particular postmodern
authors. Lump terms tend to inhibit detailed or even honest conversation
i.e. invoking "fascist" as a conversation killer).
finally, I would give a mild endorsement of a little skepticism, leaving
"being radical" aside. Somehow the notion of "being radical" has caught on
as equated with "being right" or "being pure". Skepticism seems to be one
of the main ways to understand what to be radical against, who to resist,
who to accept, etc. But radicality for radicality's sake, I'm definitely
skeptical of such easy solutions.
Cheers,
Paul
David Rolfe Graeber
Paul MacDonald (paul...@ocf.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
>
> On 19 Apr 1998, David Rolfe Graeber wrote:
>
> >snip through the history towards the provocative stuff<
>
> > a tool of stupid, petty, academic warfare and
> > self-promotion, along the lines of "let's make
> > up a position that we can use to attack anyone
> > but which no one can possibly attack." Having
>
> simplicitic here given that in your history you point to the largely
> european origins of the philosophical side of postmodernism (which
> explains the largely obligatory nietzsche/foucault quote in any
> self-proclaimed "post-something" piece). Without a doubt, academic
> careering does account to a certain degree for the enthusiasm the
> 'academy' showed for postmodernism. However, one could
> also identify less conspiratorial motives such as mis-translation of a
> complex body of mainly european work, the general requirment of academia
> to involve a certain element of patricide i.e. killing off the older
> generation of scholars with some "new" theory, or even a genuine sense of
> dislocation and change. To a certain extnet, anyone in academia is
> involving themselves in certain amount of jockeying, politicing, and
> ego-boosting, both the post-whatevers and the "genuine" radicals you seem
> to identify with. Don't reduce a complex intellectual
> (and cultural) phenomenon to a "whole position" type of dismissal.
Oh, sure, absolutely. I didn't mean to imply
a bunch of American scholars said "what cynical weapon can
I find to advance my career?" and then discovered Nietzsche
and Foucault. The stuff was already around, it was perfectly
suited for people who wanted to sound like radicals without
actually acting like one, and it was all great fun.
My essay was, admittedly, a bit too harsh on
them. One could also argue that with the breakdown of
what seemed to be a potential radical convergence in
society - which had seemed quite possible in the late
'60s and '70s with campus radicalism, feminism,
identity politics, etc - a lot of sincere radicals
suddenly noticed they were living elite consumer-
oriented lifestyles and not engaged in any real
larger political action, all the while claiming to
be great radicals. Poststructural theory was just
the thing to make them feel better about themselves.
>
> A related point. Just as the origins of postmodernism should not be
> encapsulated in pure-egoism stories, nor should the content of the
> position itself. You seem to equate "cynicism" with "postmodernism" or
> "nihilism" with "postmodernism", these are very interesting and effective
> ways of ending a discussion of the actual content of particular postmodern
> authors. Lump terms tend to inhibit detailed or even honest conversation
> i.e. invoking "fascist" as a conversation killer).
>
> finally, I would give a mild endorsement of a little skepticism, leaving
> "being radical" aside. Somehow the notion of "being radical" has caught on
> as equated with "being right" or "being pure". Skepticism seems to be one
> of the main ways to understand what to be radical against, who to resist,
> who to accept, etc. But radicality for radicality's sake, I'm definitely
> skeptical of such easy solutions.
Well, the discussion began between two
anarchists, me and Gordon. I take radical in the
etymological sense of "getting to the root of
the problem". You can hardly do that without
some skepticism; actually, without a lot of it.
My point was that if one is uniformly skeptical
towards everything, then one has nothing to
be radical about, because you can't even say
there's a problem to get to the roots of. Which
is precisely what tends to happen in a lot of
PoMo debates about politics that I have seen:
they tend to take any notion of liberation,
emancipation, freedom (or alternately oppression,
exploitation...) and deconstruct them away, so
you have no basis left from which to say the
existing social order, or any social order, is
especially wrong, or that there's anything that
could really be done about it. Granted, most
arbitrarily preserve something from the
deconstructive guns but it's always pretty
clearly their whimsical choice which they could
never systematically defend against another
deconstructionist desirous of shooting it down
the same way.
In terms of the "egocentric" thing: bear
in mind I am thinking mainly here of individuals
I've known personally. A lot of these people
really are cynical careerists. Believe me, I
know. I don't think using a term like "cynical"
is a slur - it has a very specific meaning
which has to do just with this kind of shooting
down of all idealistic principles and resulting
attitude that people are driven only by
base motives - but I have no time to develop
this thought because my girlfriend needs to
use the phone. Gotta go now.
David
Paul D. Lanier
On Mon, 20 Apr 1998, Lee Goddard Collective wrote:
>
> On Mon, 20 Apr 1998 10:07:56 -0500 Andy Lowry <a...@Ra.MsState.Edu> posted
> article <Pine.SOL.3.96.980420...@Ra.MsState.Edu> to
> alt.postmodern:
>
> > On 17 Apr 1998, G*rd*n wrote:
>
> > > It would be awfully uncool to _specify_ irony and pastiche
> > > and parody as the sole means of expression. (Same problem
> > > as the metanarrative dismissing all metanaratives.) And
> > > if we're talking about the plastic arts, music, and
> > > literature, these aren't the only things that are going on.
>
> > G*rd*n right as usual.
>
> But not addressing the point... and he says he's not an academic!
>
> Lee
>
Well, I call myself an academic. And I'm confused now as what the
point was. 'Course I don't see why 'coolness' has to be the guide
and _specification_ the unwritten anarchist's way. If such is the case,
then, I am an anarchist who prefers courage of truth and love.
Regards,
Paul Lanier
Paul D. Lanier
Actually, I implied being skeptical towards everything leaves you unable
to act. Thus, at some point, skepticism fails since humans do have
actions, nay must have actions. There is a "root" or axiom or position
that any human must accept as a reasonable given. His faith in this
propels him to act on his knowledge and according to his value system.
I am _not_ a Cartesian, partly because Descartes gets the question of the
non-being all tangled up, and partly because his view leads to a complete
break between mind and body. But his reasonings aren't all bad, because
there is a distinction between perceiver and perceived. My decisive break
with postmodernism is that I assert there to be a Truth, a structure to
reality. I made my split with the Critical Realists by the rejection its
reducing the real to a mere question of relations, forgetting what the
relations are between. My dean of philosophy at UAH was Dr. Brian John
Martine. I don't know if he's stood with the CR but his taking things
back to the epistemic question of Parmenides strikes me quite close to the
position of the CR that you've outlined. My argument is that
substantiality cannot be wiped away even if you take a softer position
that there are structures to reality as event or relations. I argue
against the logical positivists because they make all reality to be merely
math and logic; and though I agree that math and logic permeate reality,
there are spatial-time and intelligence and value and direction
dimensions. I do _not_ assert the universal to be more real or
fundamental than the particular. I disagree with the pragmatics that
whatever works must be accepted as the test of truth, especially since
the view of theory pragmatists hold effectively end the quest for truth
and leaves them forever skeptical since truth can never be found with
absolute certainty. Whatever works is fine, but is that working for good
or for evil, and how accurate is the theory" I should ask. I
deeply like the view of Alfred North Whitehead but even he goes too far
and calls out change to be fundamental and God to be never the same
(always changing) and rejects substantiality.
If I were to look at your position as you put it, I might have to
also say my departure from CR to be I was never a Marxist, even that
I self-consciously defended capitalism as a bringer of good, and that I
aligned myself with those styled as "conservatives". But I have also
aligned myself against those who would pervert justice, love, and truth-
whether they called themselves conservatives or liberals. Strange thing,
my religious realism and reliance on truth, love, justice and life have
led me to accept ideas have consequences. Faith brings the outcome of
works. :)
Regards,
Paul Lanier
PS I assert both change and stability is real.
Paul D. Lanier
On Tue, 21 Apr 1998, Paul D. Lanier wrote:
1.Some corrections to my previous reply:
2.Some outlines of what I hold:
(I consider the grouping of philosopher's of themselves into various
schools usually, though not always, intellectually slavish and given to
lazy thinking. I would prefer to look at what has been said and think
through it for myself. Yes, I claim to be a Christian and thus I have
committed myself to reliance on certain revelations of G-d, the Bible as
written revelation and the Nature as unwritten revelation. Yet, I find
the following after wisdom even nowadays a task to be diligent in and one
of paying attention to changes and novelties as well as to stabilities.
Nature has not undone the structures of reality and still the charcter of
each plays out novel tunes.)
David Graeber,
Actually, I implied being skeptical towards everything leaves you unable
to act. Thus, at some point, skepticism fails since humans do have
actions, nay must have actions. There is a "root" or axiom or position
that any human must accept as a reasonable given. His faith in this
propels him to act on his knowledge and according to his value system.
I am _not_ a Cartesian, partly because Descartes gets the question of the
non-being all tangled up, and partly because his view leads to a complete
break between mind and body. But his reasonings aren't all bad, because
there is a distinction between perceiver and perceived.
My decisive break with postmodernism is that I assert there to be a
Truth, a structure to reality. I made my split with the Critical Realists
by the rejection its reducing the real to a mere question of relations,
forgetting what the relations are between. My dean of philosophy at UAH
was Dr. Brian John Martine. I don't know if he's stood with the CR but
his taking things back to the epistemic question of Parmenides strikes me
quite close to the position of the CR that you've outlined. My argument
is that substantiality cannot be wiped away even if you take a softer position
that there are structures to reality as event or relations. I argue
against the logical positivists because they make all reality to be merely
math and logic; and though I agree that math and logic permeate reality,
there are spatial-time and intelligence and value (and morality)
and mythos dimensions. I do _not_ assert the universal to be more real
or fundamental than the particular. I disagree with the pragmatics that
whatever works must be accepted as the test of truth, especially since
the view of theory pragmatists hold effectively end the quest for truth
and leaves them forever skeptical since truth can never be found with
absolute certainty."Whatever works is fine, but is that working for good
or for evil, and how accurate is the theory" I should ask. I
deeply like the view of Alfred North Whitehead but even he goes too far
and calls out change to be fundamental and God to be never the same
(always changing) and rejects substantiality.
If I were to look at your position as you put it, I might have to
also say my departure from CR to be I was never a Marxist, even that
I self-consciously defended capitalism as a bringer of good, and that I
aligned myself with those styled as "conservatives". But I have also
aligned myself against those who would pervert justice, love, and truth-
whether they called themselves conservatives or liberals. Strange thing,
my religious realism and reliance on truth, love, justice and life have
led me to accept ideas have consequences. Faith brings the outcome of
works. :)
Regards,
Paul Lanier
PS I assert both change and stability is real. Thus the claim that
nothing ever changes makes no sense to me, nor the claim that all is the
same evermore. I have also regarded the free market should also be a
honest market.
G*rd*n
"Paul D. Lanier" <lan...@email.uah.edu>:
| Actually, I implied being skeptical towards everything leaves you unable
| to act. Thus, at some point, skepticism fails since humans do have
Only skepticism _doesn't_ leave you unable to act. If you
follow Nietzsche, it's _knowledge_ which leaves you unable
to act. But even if you disagree with Nietzsche, there's
nothing in skepticism to inhibit action. Or if there is,
you'll have to explain what it is.
Lee Rudolph
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) writes:
>"Paul D. Lanier" <lan...@email.uah.edu>:
>| Actually, I implied being skeptical towards everything leaves you unable
>| to act. Thus, at some point, skepticism fails since humans do have
>| actions, nay must have actions. ...
>
>Only skepticism _doesn't_ leave you unable to act. If you
>follow Nietzsche, it's _knowledge_ which leaves you unable
>to act. But even if you disagree with Nietzsche, there's
>nothing in skepticism to inhibit action. Or if there is,
>you'll have to explain what it is.
I doubt he can.
Lee Rudolph
G*rd*n
"Paul D. Lanier" <lan...@email.uah.edu>:
| >| Actually, I implied being skeptical towards everything leaves you unable
| >| to act. Thus, at some point, skepticism fails since humans do have
| >| actions, nay must have actions. ...
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) writes:
| >Only skepticism _doesn't_ leave you unable to act. If you
| >follow Nietzsche, it's _knowledge_ which leaves you unable
| >to act. But even if you disagree with Nietzsche, there's
| >nothing in skepticism to inhibit action. Or if there is,
| >you'll have to explain what it is.
lrud...@panix.com (Lee Rudolph):
| I doubt he can.
Aha! A sceptique-provocateur!
Lee Goddard Collective
On Tue, 21 Apr 1998 15:02:41 -0500 "Paul D. Lanier" <lan...@email.uah.edu>
posted article <Pine.OSF.3.95.980421...@email.uah.edu> to
alt.postmodern:
Still think you're a socialist, Paul, but - Well...here's the main points:
> fb...@central.susx.ac.uk (Lee Goddard Collective):
> | Surely if you accept the existance of the Kool-cigarette-and-pmo bunch, you
> | accept that one can be against the THING they label postmodernism? That is,
> | against their philosophical perception of the world, and its products? Against
> | irony and pastiche and parody as the sole means of expression, for example?
> Gordon:
> It would be awfully uncool to _specify_ irony and pastiche
> and parody as the sole means of expression. ...these
> aren't the only things that are going on.
>Lee:
>I didn't mean that to be an exclusive definition of pomo - godforbid - but just
>an example. Who says these pmoponces we're picking on are cool? Sorry, Kool?
Lee:
> | As the anti-Impressionists coined the term Impressionism. But does that make the
> | works of Monet, Manet and Pissaro any less Impressionist? Sure, the definition
> | of Impressionism is pretty sketchy, but it does indicate the radical differences
> | between Impressionist art and that of, say, the Pre-Raphs.
Gordon:
> I guess I'd have to say Impressionism happened to amount to
> something, and, thus far, "Postmodernism" doesn't. Anyway,
> what most of the anti-postmodernists are huffing about is
> not "postmodern" art -- this is condemned in exactly the
> same terms that _all_ new styles of art have been condemned
> since any innovation in the arts was first thought of -- but
> a supposed philosophical school.
Lee:
And we've agreed that postmodernism is not a school. But ... do [those]
who profess to belong to the school know that?
And besides that, objections to postmodernism are wide ranging My personal
objection is that theory and practice which *I* nominate pomo precludes
self-expression through attempts at 'original expression.'
Okay, I'm using a loose definition of pmo, mainly from Barthes (Myth Today,
Death of...) and Derrida (Signature, Event, Context) and Postmodern Condition --
but these seem to be influential. (I'd play these off against Lyotard's
Differend, the work of Berger and ... the rest of the Mods.)
But as I see it, pomo is usually lazy and temporal - when it should be no more
than a technique.
Lee:
> | Academia, yuck. But Collinicos' AGAINST POSTMODERNISM is a fine strand-by-strand
> | deconstruction of some of those who have claimed to be pm.
Gordon:
> Why bother, exactly?
Lee:
Gerry Quinn
In article <6hjbhk$n...@panix2.panix.com>, g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
>"Paul D. Lanier" <lan...@email.uah.edu>:
>| Actually, I implied being skeptical towards everything leaves you unable
>| to act. Thus, at some point, skepticism fails since humans do have
>| actions, nay must have actions. ...
>
>follow Nietzsche, it's _knowledge_ which leaves you unable
>to act. But even if you disagree with Nietzsche, there's
>nothing in skepticism to inhibit action. Or if there is,
>you'll have to explain what it is.
Didn't you claim that scientific realism led seamlessly to Naziism by
causing people to believe that they knew the Truth, and thus to act on
those beliefs? This is consistent with a belief that skepticism
permits careful or indecisive actions, but not consistent with the
belief that there is nothing in skepticism to inhibit action.
G*rd*n
"Paul D. Lanier" <lan...@email.uah.edu>:
| >| Actually, I implied being skeptical towards everything leaves you unable
| >| to act. Thus, at some point, skepticism fails since humans do have
| >| actions, nay must have actions. ...
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| >Only skepticism _doesn't_ leave you unable to act. If you
| >follow Nietzsche, it's _knowledge_ which leaves you unable
| >to act. But even if you disagree with Nietzsche, there's
| >nothing in skepticism to inhibit action. Or if there is,
| >you'll have to explain what it is.
ger...@indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn):
| Didn't you claim that scientific realism led seamlessly to Naziism by
| causing people to believe that they knew the Truth, and thus to act on
| those beliefs? This is consistent with a belief that skepticism
| permits careful or indecisive actions, but not consistent with the
| belief that there is nothing in skepticism to inhibit action.
You're probably referring to the following passage:
: One difference between the two is that strong OR can be used
: as the support for very large ideological claims. For
: instance, in the 19th century some people started out with
: Darwinian evolution and a notion of universal progress as
: _real_ -- almost like God's will -- and came up with
: scientific racism and eugenics. This ideology first
: justified colonialism and then flowed seamlessly into
: Naziism. It's more difficult to support such grandiose
: ideologies starting from "Waaaal, that's the way things
: appear to me, I think", although I suppose anything is
: possible.
To restate this passage as
| scientific realism led seamlessly to Naziism by
| causing people to believe that they knew the Truth, and thus to act on
| those beliefs?
causes me a profound skepticism about your ability to read
or, having read, to think, at least in the case of what _I_
write, to the extent that it refutes my theory by
inhibiting my desire to explain yet again... but maybe
this profound skepticism is a kind of knowledge.
Paul D. Lanier
On 23 Apr 1998, G*rd*n wrote:
"Paul D. Lanier" <lan...@email.uah.edu>:
Actually, I implied being skeptical towards everything leaves you unable
to act. Thus, at some point, skepticism fails since humans do have
actions, nay must have actions. ...
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
Only skepticism _doesn't_ leave you unable to act. If you
follow Nietzsche, it's _knowledge_ which leaves you unable
to act. But even if you disagree with Nietzsche, there's
nothing in skepticism to inhibit action. Or if there is,
you'll have to explain what it is.
ger...@indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn):
Didn't you claim that scientific realism led seamlessly to Naziism by
causing people to believe that they knew the Truth, and thus to act on
those beliefs? This is consistent with a belief that skepticism
permits careful or indecisive actions, but not consistent with the
belief that there is nothing in skepticism to inhibit action.
Gordon:
You're probably referring to the following passage:
"One difference between the two is that strong OR can be used
as the support for very large ideological claims. For
instance, in the 19th century some people started out with
Darwinian evolution and a notion of universal progress as
_real_ -- almost like God's will -- and came up with
scientific racism and eugenics. This ideology first
justified colonialism and then flowed seamlessly into
Naziism. It's more difficult to support such grandiose
ideologies starting from "Waaaal, that's the way things
appear to me, I think", although I suppose anything is
possible."
Gordon:
To restate this passage as
(Gerry Quinn:)
" scientific realism led seamlessly to Naziism by
causing people to believe that they knew the Truth, and thus to act on
those beliefs?"
Gordon:
causes me a profound skepticism about your ability to read
or, having read, to think, at least in the case of what _I_
write, to the extent that it refutes my theory by
inhibiting my desire to explain yet again... but maybe
this profound skepticism is a kind of knowledge.
Paul's reply:
I can see what Lee Goddard means by you sidestep the point, Gordon.
The skepticism which produces a carefulness does indeed inhibit seom
action; but I was not trying to imply one should not have this
carefulness, only that universal and absolute doubt would if consistently
followed would prevent any action. After all, maybe opposing the
Nazis is perhaps the wrong thing to do. You don't see the whole truth,
after all. So your knowledge of what you don't know keeps you hesistant
and not interfering with might after all be the order of nature, even if
that were looking to be an evil making people suffer by mass destruction.
Some acceptance of the reality of things, that this suffering is an evil,
in truth something to resist (whether passively or actively)- that is the
faith which leads one to act. I don't mean this faith is without proofs,
of course; but that it is something that accepts what is before you, the
givens.
Regards,
Paul Lanier
Paul D. Lanier
On 21 Apr 1998, Lee Rudolph wrote:
>
> g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) writes:
>
> >"Paul D. Lanier" <lan...@email.uah.edu>:
> >| Actually, I implied being skeptical towards everything leaves you unable
> >| to act. Thus, at some point, skepticism fails since humans do have
> >| actions, nay must have actions. ...
> >
> >Only skepticism _doesn't_ leave you unable to act. If you
> >follow Nietzsche, it's _knowledge_ which leaves you unable
> >to act. But even if you disagree with Nietzsche, there's
> >nothing in skepticism to inhibit action. Or if there is,
> >you'll have to explain what it is.
>
> I doubt he can.
>
> Lee Rudolph
>
>
Careful, my friend. What do you believe about skepticism and the need to
talk about somebody's ability to explain (not necessarily mine)? You
don't have universal doubt in that you think you can communicate your
doubts to Gordon.
REgards,
Paul Lanier
Paul D. Lanier
On Thu, 23 Apr 1998, Paul D. Lanier wrote:
On 17 Apr 1998, G*rd*n wrote:
It would be awfully uncool to _specify_ irony and pastiche
and parody as the sole means of expression. (Same problem
as the metanarrative dismissing all metanaratives.) And
if we're talking about the plastic arts, music, and
literature, these aren't the only things that are going on.
------------------------
Here, I agree with Gordon that irony and pastiche and parody aren't the
only things going on. What I find a problem with is the arrogant way
_specification_ is discounted and _coolness_ is transformed into a virtue,
though the content of _coolness_ is intentionally left vague. Is coolness
the same as being _in with it_? Or is it _objectivity_? Or what? Coming
from Gordon, I'd rule out the relating _coolness_ to _objectivity_. So,
the skeptic G. wants us to think its against the in group's rules to
say that irony and pastiche and parody are the sole means of expression.
That's how I read him.
If that be the case, I'm immediately going to be
outside the group, because I'm going to specify whether the group is using
merely irony, pastiche, parody or whether they are speaking in other ways
and directness. I'm going to be bluntly not sarcastic, unless perchance
sarcasm furthers my means. After all, I've learned long ago, sarcasm is
the worst form of communication. It may be daunting to do this, but I'm
willing to give open rebuke as a friend, and well spoken words of blessing
as against words of flattery. I will allow myself to be corrected, even
as I correct others because I see that there is a truth to adhere to and
from which one does not wish to depart. For life is in wisdom. And he
who hates life hates instruction and understanding.
I'm not really an anarchist, because I have a conscience and I see it
fit to obey morality, even if the legal institutions do not accord with
it, and follow the law of love- pursuing G-d my creator and acting as
best I can with care towards His creation and fighting evil within that
creation, being as peaceable as possible in this fallen world.
-------------------------------------
Paul:
Well, I call myself an academic. And I'm confused now as what the
point was. 'Course I don't see why 'coolness' has to be the guide
and _specification_ the unwritten anarchist's way. If such is the case,
then, I am an anarchist who prefers courage of truth and love.
Lee:
Still think you're a socialist, Paul, but - Well...here's the main points:
------
I deeply appreciate the compliment, but I must humbly decline it.
After all, I do accept money for my factory job, and would accept
money to teach philosophy and English had I the required certificate
Alabama, USA gives. (Not that if I were not planning for seminary I
would not work towards getting that certificate). I look for the day I
can be in a better job than at a factory. Wouldn't mind being a manager.
I don't even consider computers and technology the devil's handiwork,
but something God gave us humans the ability to make and use for good or
evil, but as machines practically nuetral morally. (We may suffer at the
machine's "hands" but only because we are not putting the right safeguards
on the machine or are not using it for good and restoration of
the creation.)
I could only be a socialist by the virtue of the fact I do not consider
money to be of any intrinsic value but as a symbol of those objects and
actions which are intrinsically valuable. Money stands in for the good
that life should be offering. There is no wrong to acquiring money, no
wrong to having property. Neither is there wrong to giving money. Nor
living in the society of friends, family, nor wrong to be hospitable to
strangers. Giving and sharing money and time is a good as well. I do not
think the government should be compelling people to do these goods, for
that takes the hand of chosen love out of the equation, legally. (It is
impossible to take away the choice of love or hate or indifference
entirely). I prefer to choose the consequences of caring rather than to
be compelled to be kind. Indeed, I think one could only be kind to those
who one actually, individually meets. Organizations have a way of taking
their operating and luxury costs out of the gift- and government is no
different. Therefore I do not consider myself an advocate of socialism.
I do not however think survival-of-the-fittest ideology can make good a
person's life nor the community's way.
Perhaps I am a socialist in a similar way as capitalist Andrew
Undershaft of playwright Shaw's _Major Barabara_ is socialist. Only, he
was atheist and I am not. Making an analogy of myself with
this character I do uneasily, for I may be unwittingly committing myself
to positions I do not hold. :)
(Lee Goddard Collective):
Surely if you accept the existance of the Kool-cigarette-and-pmo
bunch, you accept that one can be against the THING they label
postmodernism? That is,against their philosophical perception of
the world, and its products? Against irony and pastiche and parody as the
sole means of expression, for example?
Gordon:
It would be awfully uncool to _specify_ irony and pastiche
and parody as the sole means of expression. ...these
aren't the only things that are going on.
Lee:
I didn't mean that to be an exclusive definition of pomo - godforbid -
but just an example. Who says these pmoponces we're picking on are cool?
Sorry, Kool?
Lee:
As the anti-Impressionists coined the term Impressionism. But does
that works of Monet, Manet and Pissaro any less Impressionist? Sure,
the def of Impressionism is pretty sketchy, but it does indicate the
radical dif between Impressionist art and that of, say, the Pre-Raphs.
Gordon:
I guess I'd have to say Impressionism happened to amount to
something, and, thus far, "Postmodernism" doesn't. Anyway,
what most of the anti-postmodernists are huffing about is
not "postmodern" art -- this is condemned in exactly the
same terms that _all_ new styles of art have been condemned
since any innovation in the arts was first thought of -- but
a supposed philosophical school.
---------------------------
I can't tell if Gordon is arguing for Postmodernism or against.
The lack of a school, in my opinion, is more than made up for by
thinkers who style themselves Postmodernists, and for the group of
writers and thinkers who follow the attitudes ascribed to the Pomos.
If the non-school is preached or argued against, there is something to be
looking for that the phenomenon depicts or is put forth as against.
As you most aptly say... "do those who profess to belong to the postmodern
school know that pomo is not a school?"
--------------------
Lee:
And we've agreed that postmodernism is not a school. But ... do [those]
who profess to belong to the school know that?
And besides that, objections to postmodernism are wide ranging My personal
objection is that theory and practice which *I* nominate pomo precludes
self-expression through attempts at 'original expression.'
Okay, I'm using a loose definition of pmo, mainly from Barthes (Myth
Today, Death of...) and Derrida (Signature, Event, Context) and
Postmodern Condition -- but these seem to be influential. (I'd play
these off against Lyotard's Differend, the work of Berger and ... the
rest of the Mods.)
But as I see it, pomo is usually lazy and temporal - when it should
be no more than a technique.
------------------------
Which technique are you describing... Do you mean specifically
_deconstruction_ and _post-structuralism_? Or do you mean using the
lenses of postmodern attitude to critique art works and culture?
-------------------------
Lee:
Academia, yuck. But Collinicos' AGAINST POSTMODERNISM is a fine
strand-by-strand deconstruction of some of those who have claimed to be
pm.
--------------
I guess I ought to look this book up and read it. Been reading up
on Emerson and Thoreau. Still don't agree with all their ideas.
Leastwise though, I'm better informed.
--------------
Gordon:
Why bother, exactly?
Lee:
Oh, Gordon: I'm disappointed! That sounded more like bourgeois
nonchalance than a Davis/Evans standard - or even Generation-X apathy.
If more folk had followed the lead of the German Expressionists before 1933... >
These things need to be nipped in the bud.
-----
Nonchalant Andrew Undershaft. :)
G*rd*n
G*rd*n wrote:
| It would be awfully uncool to _specify_ irony and pastiche
| and parody as the sole means of expression. (Same problem
| as the metanarrative dismissing all metanaratives.) And
| if we're talking about the plastic arts, music, and
| literature, these aren't the only things that are going on.
"Paul D. Lanier" <lan...@email.uah.edu>:
| Here, I agree with Gordon that irony and pastiche and parody aren't the
| only things going on. What I find a problem with is the arrogant way
| _specification_ is discounted and _coolness_ is transformed into a virtue,
| though the content of _coolness_ is intentionally left vague. Is coolness
| the same as being _in with it_? Or is it _objectivity_? Or what? Coming
| from Gordon, I'd rule out the relating _coolness_ to _objectivity_. So,
| the skeptic G. wants us to think its against the in group's rules to
| say that irony and pastiche and parody are the sole means of expression.
I think this is reasonably correct. Another way to put it
would be that if one were doing all the scepticism, irony,
pastiche, parody, neo-baroque sorts of things, it would be
against the same fashion to do something as gross as laying
a specification on the floor. Unless, of course, one had a
_very_ ironic fashion, and the specification was laid out
only to be transgressed, or something. Or transgressed by
_not_ being transgressed, if you know what I mean. The
possibilities are endless, although they get boring after
awhile.
| That's how I read him.
| If that be the case, I'm immediately going to be
| outside the group, because I'm going to specify whether the group is using
| merely irony, pastiche, parody or whether they are speaking in other ways
| and directness. I'm going to be bluntly not sarcastic, unless perchance
| sarcasm furthers my means. After all, I've learned long ago, sarcasm is
| the worst form of communication. It may be daunting to do this, but I'm
| willing to give open rebuke as a friend, and well spoken words of blessing
| as against words of flattery. I will allow myself to be corrected, even
| as I correct others because I see that there is a truth to adhere to and
| from which one does not wish to depart. For life is in wisdom. And he
| who hates life hates instruction and understanding.
Hey, cool. Do your own thing, man. But let me point out
that sarcasm is a very crude form of irony. There are
higher forms, developing out of the discontinuities between
language and the world. We laugh so that we will not
weep, when our cool toy fails to work as specified.
| I'm not really an anarchist, because I have a conscience and I see it
| fit to obey morality, even if the legal institutions do not accord with
| it,
That's practically a definition of being an anarchist. Or
as the Catholic Worker's Ammon Hennacy put it, being an
anarchist means not needing someone to tell you what to do.
But we digress.
| and follow the law of love- pursuing G-d my creator and acting as
| best I can with care towards His creation and fighting evil within that
| creation, being as peaceable as possible in this fallen world.
G*rd*n
"Paul D. Lanier" <lan...@email.uah.edu>:
| I can see what Lee Goddard means by you sidestep the point, Gordon.
| The skepticism which produces a carefulness does indeed inhibit seom
| action; but I was not trying to imply one should not have this
| carefulness, only that universal and absolute doubt would if consistently
| followed would prevent any action. After all, maybe opposing the
| Nazis is perhaps the wrong thing to do. You don't see the whole truth,
| after all. So your knowledge of what you don't know keeps you hesistant
| and not interfering with might after all be the order of nature, even if
| that were looking to be an evil making people suffer by mass destruction.
| Some acceptance of the reality of things, that this suffering is an evil,
| in truth something to resist (whether passively or actively)- that is the
| faith which leads one to act. I don't mean this faith is without proofs,
| of course; but that it is something that accepts what is before you, the
| givens.
On the other hand, if you're an inveterate skeptic, you're
used to being skeptical and acting without belief in your
complete knowledge and sometimes without much belief at
all. One might even act recklessly. I find it possible to
fight the Nazis without knowing the full truth about them.
The full truth might, in fact, be a paralyzing burden, an
endless hall of mirrors of reconsiderations. Being ignorant
and a skeptic, I can plunge ahead and fight the Nazis
because _I_don't_like_them_, instead of waiting for God's
word on the issue.
Gerry Quinn
>ger...@indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn):
>| Didn't you claim that scientific realism led seamlessly to Naziism by
>| causing people to believe that they knew the Truth, and thus to act on
>| those beliefs? This is consistent with a belief that skepticism
>| permits careful or indecisive actions, but not consistent with the
>| belief that there is nothing in skepticism to inhibit action.
>
>You're probably referring to the following passage:
>
>: One difference between the two is that strong OR can be used
>: as the support for very large ideological claims. For
>: instance, in the 19th century some people started out with
>: Darwinian evolution and a notion of universal progress as
>: _real_ -- almost like God's will -- and came up with
>: scientific racism and eugenics. This ideology first
>: justified colonialism and then flowed seamlessly into
>: Naziism. It's more difficult to support such grandiose
>: ideologies starting from "Waaaal, that's the way things
>: appear to me, I think", although I suppose anything is
>: possible.
>
>To restate this passage as
>
>| scientific realism led seamlessly to Naziism by
>| causing people to believe that they knew the Truth, and thus to act on
>| those beliefs?
>
Okay, that is not a good restatement of your passage. Nevertheless,
the passage clearly implies that 'grandiose ideologies' such as
eugenics (a) lead to active behaviours such as Naziism, and (b) are
undermined by skepticism. Thus skepticism undermines Naziism, an
active expression of a certain ideology. Not that I base my quarrel
with skepticism on this positive consequence. I pointed out at the
time that those who fought Naziism also took decisive action based on
their beliefs. It was not only Hitler who invaded France.
Gerry Quinn
>On the other hand, if you're an inveterate skeptic, you're
>used to being skeptical and acting without belief in your
>complete knowledge and sometimes without much belief at
>all. One might even act recklessly. I find it possible to
>fight the Nazis without knowing the full truth about them.
>The full truth might, in fact, be a paralyzing burden, an
>endless hall of mirrors of reconsiderations. Being ignorant
>and a skeptic, I can plunge ahead and fight the Nazis
>because _I_don't_like_them_, instead of waiting for God's
>word on the issue.
But a Nazi could, and probably would, say the same. The virtue of
honest action, as opposed to the paralyzing burden of
(Judaeo-Christian) truth, is a *very* Nazi-like thought...
David Rolfe Graeber
G*rd*n (g...@panix.com) wrote:
> "Paul D. Lanier" <lan...@email.uah.edu>:
> | I can see what Lee Goddard means by you sidestep the point, Gordon.
> | The skepticism which produces a carefulness does indeed inhibit seom
> | action; but I was not trying to imply one should not have this
> | carefulness, only that universal and absolute doubt would if consistently
> | followed would prevent any action. After all, maybe opposing the
> | Nazis is perhaps the wrong thing to do. You don't see the whole truth,
> | after all. So your knowledge of what you don't know keeps you hesistant
> | and not interfering with might after all be the order of nature, even if
> | that were looking to be an evil making people suffer by mass destruction.
> | Some acceptance of the reality of things, that this suffering is an evil,
> | in truth something to resist (whether passively or actively)- that is the
> | faith which leads one to act. I don't mean this faith is without proofs,
> | of course; but that it is something that accepts what is before you, the
> | givens.
>
> used to being skeptical and acting without belief in your
> complete knowledge and sometimes without much belief at
> all. One might even act recklessly. I find it possible to
> fight the Nazis without knowing the full truth about them.
> The full truth might, in fact, be a paralyzing burden, an
> endless hall of mirrors of reconsiderations. Being ignorant
> and a skeptic, I can plunge ahead and fight the Nazis
> because _I_don't_like_them_, instead of waiting for God's
> word on the issue.
Don't you guys think this discussion is
pivoting between ridiculous polarized extremes? No
one is saying "skepticism" leads to inaction, they
were, to my understanding of the matter, talking
about complete, systematic skepticism about everything.
A person with no commitments to anything whatever
would presumably not oppose the Nazis because
they would have no reason to. This point might
seem bit academic, because such absolute skeptics
(like absolute anythings) don't really exist.
Still, it's nice to have a bottom line to agree
with. So can't we just accept as a starting
point that people who are either utterly certain
about everything would be horrible monsters,
people who were utterly skeptical about everything
would be completely ineffective, and that neither
exist, and then try to figure out what, if
anything, we're _really_ arguing about?
Clearly the most dangerous political
movements around today (fascisms, fundamentalisms
and the like) are not dangerous because they're
too skeptical but because they're too certain.
Here Gordon's Nazi example is very well taken.
But there are usually two dimensions: most
really scary movements rely on a combination
of certainty and extreme cynicism. Hitler did
admit in private occasionally that there was
no scientific basis to race, you know, he just
needed to use something. Hence incidentally
the fascist love of Nietzsche: Mussolini claimed
to be an utter relativist in the Nietzchean
tradition, who believed that since there were
no moral absolutes, those strong enough to
impose their vision of reality were necessarily
right. Probably, say, the Taliban in Afghanistan
fall more on the certainty end of the scale
and less on the cynicism end but there always
seems to be some mix. And I do insist that accepting
a Nietzchean brand of skepticism as a way of
opposing such people is ultimately not going
to help.
My objection anyway was not to
skepticism per se but to cynicism, because
it strikes me that in our cultural tradition,
that's what it almost always leads to. Has
to do with the Christian tradition, the
belief that human desires and drives are
ultimately wicked, something like that I
imagine. But as soon as people produce
programs of systematic skepticism, what they
tend to end up doing is knocking down ideals,
and never challenging much more deeply
culturally embedded ideas that everyone is
ultimately motivated by ambition, selfishness,
greed, competitiveness, spite, and so on.
This is certainly what happened with
the lion's share of poststructural
theory where the same basic assumptions
about human nature already immanent in
Neoclassical economics seemed to pour out
spontaneously the moment people felt
liberated to say anything they want: thus
Bourdieu's maximizing individualism,
Foucault's strategies, Derrida arguing
that gifts are by definition impossible,
etc etc . My own comments were ultimately
motivated by a feeling that if we are going
to fight the Nazis of the world, it's going
to have to be in the name of some kind of
ideal (at the very least, that one should
not behave like Nazis); you can't do it
by accepting their basic vision of
the world.
DG
G*rd*n
ger...@indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn):
| >| Didn't you claim that scientific realism led seamlessly to Naziism by
| >| causing people to believe that they knew the Truth, and thus to act on
| >| those beliefs? This is consistent with a belief that skepticism
| >| permits careful or indecisive actions, but not consistent with the
| >| belief that there is nothing in skepticism to inhibit action.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| >You're probably referring to the following passage:
| >
| >: One difference between the two is that strong OR can be used
| >: as the support for very large ideological claims. For
| >: instance, in the 19th century some people started out with
| >: Darwinian evolution and a notion of universal progress as
| >: _real_ -- almost like God's will -- and came up with
| >: scientific racism and eugenics. This ideology first
| >: justified colonialism and then flowed seamlessly into
| >: Naziism. It's more difficult to support such grandiose
| >: ideologies starting from "Waaaal, that's the way things
| >: appear to me, I think", although I suppose anything is
| >: possible.
ger...@indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn):
| >To restate this passage as
| >
| >| scientific realism led seamlessly to Naziism by
| >| causing people to believe that they knew the Truth, and thus to act on
| >| those beliefs?
| ... [ snarling ] ....
| Okay, that is not a good restatement of your passage. Nevertheless,
| the passage clearly implies that 'grandiose ideologies' such as
| eugenics (a) lead to active behaviours such as Naziism, and (b) are
| undermined by skepticism. Thus skepticism undermines Naziism, an
| active expression of a certain ideology. Not that I base my quarrel
| with skepticism on this positive consequence. I pointed out at the
| time that those who fought Naziism also took decisive action based on
| their beliefs. It was not only Hitler who invaded France.
I imagine there were skeptics and believers on all sides,
don't you? Actually, I've become skeptical of the notion
that philosophical beliefs lead to much of anything, so
I'll contradict myself and say that strong OR is of no
account outside of the little arena of philosophy. It's
poetry that makes people do things, be it the poetry of the
Gospels, the Declaration of Independence, the _Communist
Manifesto_, or _Mein Kampf_. The Nazis wanted to kill
people and take stuff, so they went around and found a
species of rhetoric that would agree with their desires.
Naturally, complete and absolute knowledge of what's really
real is proclaimed along with every other passion, but it's
just more of the poetry, not a considered philosophical
position.
Happier now? Probably not.
Gerry Quinn
>I imagine there were skeptics and believers on all sides,
>don't you? Actually, I've become skeptical of the notion
>that philosophical beliefs lead to much of anything, so
>I'll contradict myself and say that strong OR is of no
>account outside of the little arena of philosophy. It's
>poetry that makes people do things, be it the poetry of the
>Gospels, the Declaration of Independence, the _Communist
>Manifesto_, or _Mein Kampf_. The Nazis wanted to kill
>people and take stuff, so they went around and found a
>species of rhetoric that would agree with their desires.
>Naturally, complete and absolute knowledge of what's really
>real is proclaimed along with every other passion, but it's
>just more of the poetry, not a considered philosophical
>position.
>
What a shame. Just when we might have been homing in on the true
philosophical sources of Nazism, it turns out that philosophy was not
after all to blame...
G*rd*n
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| >On the other hand, if you're an inveterate skeptic, you're
| >used to being skeptical and acting without belief in your
| >complete knowledge and sometimes without much belief at
| >all. One might even act recklessly. I find it possible to
| >fight the Nazis without knowing the full truth about them.
| >The full truth might, in fact, be a paralyzing burden, an
| >endless hall of mirrors of reconsiderations. Being ignorant
| >and a skeptic, I can plunge ahead and fight the Nazis
| >because _I_don't_like_them_, instead of waiting for God's
| >word on the issue.
ger...@indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn):
| But a Nazi could, and probably would, say the same. The virtue of
| honest action, as opposed to the paralyzing burden of
| (Judaeo-Christian) truth, is a *very* Nazi-like thought...
The world is a morally risky place, made not less so by
pretending that some rhetoric can make it safe.
G*rd*n
| ...
dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber):
| Don't you guys think this discussion is
| pivoting between ridiculous polarized extremes? No
| one is saying "skepticism" leads to inaction, they
| were, to my understanding of the matter, talking
| about complete, systematic skepticism about everything.
| A person with no commitments to anything whatever
| would presumably not oppose the Nazis because
| they would have no reason to. This point might
| seem bit academic, because such absolute skeptics
| (like absolute anythings) don't really exist.
In any case, if they were totally skeptical, they'd be
skeptical of skepticism, and permit themselves to entertain
a belief or two, perhaps.
| Still, it's nice to have a bottom line to agree
| with. So can't we just accept as a starting
| point that people who are either utterly certain
| about everything would be horrible monsters,
| people who were utterly skeptical about everything
| would be completely ineffective, and that neither
| exist, and then try to figure out what, if
| anything, we're _really_ arguing about?
Some people have a concept of _reality_ which may be
defined as _that_which_all_must_think_. They don't like
pomo, skepticism, multiculti, and so on, whereas those who
like these things don't like being told what they must
think much. This is not to suggest that these two groups
are coherent. Among reality fans are Marxists, Roman
Catholics, science campers, and fundamentalists, and
there's even less cohesion on the other side. You can't
tell the players without a program. Some of them play
on both sides, others both ends against the middle....
| Clearly the most dangerous political
| movements around today (fascisms, fundamentalisms
| and the like) are not dangerous because they're
| too skeptical but because they're too certain.
| Here Gordon's Nazi example is very well taken.
| But there are usually two dimensions: most
| really scary movements rely on a combination
| of certainty and extreme cynicism. Hitler did
| admit in private occasionally that there was
| no scientific basis to race, you know, he just
| needed to use something. Hence incidentally
| the fascist love of Nietzsche: Mussolini claimed
| to be an utter relativist in the Nietzchean
| tradition, who believed that since there were
| no moral absolutes, those strong enough to
| impose their vision of reality were necessarily
| right. Probably, say, the Taliban in Afghanistan
| fall more on the certainty end of the scale
| and less on the cynicism end but there always
| seems to be some mix. And I do insist that accepting
| a Nietzchean brand of skepticism as a way of
| opposing such people is ultimately not going
| to help.
Are you suggesting that one should adopt a view
of truth based on instrumentalism? Most reality
fans, and many pomo-skeptic-multicultis, believe
that to some extent truth is outside our will and
comes at us unbidden. That being the case, if
Nietzsche appeared to be a truth-bearer, then we
would have to listen even if his gifts were
inconvenient in our battle against Mussolini.
I'm confused here (as where not? one might well
ask) in that you have cynicism emanating from a
bunch of reality fans (Christianity) and sticking
on the skeptics. To whom does it belong?
David Rolfe Graeber
> | Still, it's nice to have a bottom line to agree
> | with. So can't we just accept as a starting
> | point that people who are either utterly certain
> | about everything would be horrible monsters,
> | people who were utterly skeptical about everything
> | would be completely ineffective, and that neither
> | exist, and then try to figure out what, if
> | anything, we're _really_ arguing about?
>
> Some people have a concept of _reality_ which may be
> defined as _that_which_all_must_think_. They don't like
> pomo, skepticism, multiculti, and so on, whereas those who
> like these things don't like being told what they must
> think much. This is not to suggest that these two groups
> are coherent. Among reality fans are Marxists, Roman
> Catholics, science campers, and fundamentalists, and
> there's even less cohesion on the other side. You can't
> tell the players without a program. Some of them play
> on both sides, others both ends against the middle....
It's been obvious we're fighting different
battles here. Maybe it has to do with the fact I've
spent less time arguing with stupid right-wingers
on the net, and less with stupid pretentious pomo
types in academic settings. Just because right-wingers
attack something _they_ call "postmodernism" as
a way of attacking multiculturalism or skepticism
does not meant you have to accept their definition
of the situation. There are three fronts here, not
two (well, obviously there are a lot more than
that but at the very least there are two.) It's
not a battle between the fun-loving skeptical
revolutionaries and the stick-up-the-ass authoritarians.
Because while authoritarians denounce "pomo" as
a way of challenging their verities, in the
academic world, "pomo" has become the word for
those who have abandoned any hope of revolution
or radical transformation of society whatever.
This puts you in the weird position of arguing
against anarcho-capitalists on one ng, and,
somewhat unwittingly, arguing _for_ them in
another. Since insofar as you have such people
in academia, that's what they'll be calling
themselves.
No, my point is that Nietzche himself
insisted that truth is _not_ outside our will
and does not come at us unbidden. Therefore to
treat his philosophy as if it were true in this
sense would itself be to say it is wrong.
My other point is also quite simple:
in order to be against oppression, you have
to come up with a reason why it's bad. Total
relativists can't and don't. Believe me, I'm in
anthropology, so I've seen it happen: total
relativism always ends up coming down to defending
other people's structures of authority and
even obvious extreme abuse of power (gang
rape of uppity women, torture...) on the
grounds that it's "their" way of doing things.
This is obviously in the interests of the
Mussolinis of the world and they tend to
recognize it.
Well, I'm not sure you could exactly
describe St. Augustine as a "reality fan", but
it doesn't much matter, because cynicism doesn't
belong to anyone. Rather, I'm suggesting that
because our cultural tradition carries with it
such a very individualistic, selfish, and nasty
set of assumptions about human nature (perhaps
most clearly set forth in Augustine, or intro
economics textbooks), these tend to be the
hardest things to uproot. Thus, "let's
deconstruct everything" campaigns tend to
deconstruct everything _but_ them, which produces
cynicism. Maybe you could argue this means
they should be more thorough in their
deconstruction, but that would still leave
you with no basis to say anything is good or
bad and thus no justification for political
action. I'd rather see a skepticism that
specifically attacks those cynical assumptions
about human nature _first_, and is most
reluctant to destroy its own moral compass.
So far, I haven't seen much of that. Certainly
not in the poststructural camp. I suspect
this is because since so much of pomo
thought was created in the course of
individual self-aggrandizing strategies,
such strategies became the one thing whose reality
its creators were least likely to challenge. If
it had emerged as part of a larger social movement,
it would probably have been an entirely
different animal. But that's just speculation.
DG
Jonah Thomas
dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber) wrote:
> My other point is also quite simple:
>in order to be against oppression, you have
>to come up with a reason why it's bad. Total
>relativists can't and don't. Believe me, I'm in
>anthropology, so I've seen it happen: total
>relativism always ends up coming down to defending
>other people's structures of authority and
>even obvious extreme abuse of power (gang
>rape of uppity women, torture...) on the
>grounds that it's "their" way of doing things.
But it *is* their way of doing things. I'd think
that while somebody is wearing their anthropologist
hat they'd want to recognise precisely that. Find
out their way of doing things, see how the pieces
of it fit together, notice what it gets the
participants.
Once you understand it, you're in a better position
to change it if that's what you want to do. You
can see the things that could work better, and the
approaches that might lead to them.
The obvious alternative is to try to smash them
without understanding them. Never mind whether
they're left with anything that works. They can
do it your way -- that works.
Even if that's the choice, though, it's easier to
smash them if you understand how they're put
together.
Moral relativism looks to me like a useful tool.
It's like a microscope, it lets you see things
without your own distortions getting too much in
the way. If there's a fault, it's not in the
tool, but in the end-use. "Oh, I see it so clearly,
the way I see it must be perfect as it is so we
have to be careful not to interfere in any way."
That *isn't* moral relativism, but something else.
Moral relativism would say it's perfectly OK to
interfere however you like with someone else's
culture, societies that do that are as moral as
societies that don't.
David Rolfe Graeber
Jonah Thomas (jeth...@ix.netcom.com@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
> dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber) wrote:
>
> >in order to be against oppression, you have
> >to come up with a reason why it's bad. Total
> >relativists can't and don't. Believe me, I'm in
> >anthropology, so I've seen it happen: total
> >relativism always ends up coming down to defending
> >other people's structures of authority and
> >even obvious extreme abuse of power (gang
> >rape of uppity women, torture...) on the
> >grounds that it's "their" way of doing things.
>
> that while somebody is wearing their anthropologist
> hat they'd want to recognise precisely that. Find
> out their way of doing things, see how the pieces
> of it fit together, notice what it gets the
> participants.
>
> Once you understand it, you're in a better position
> to change it if that's what you want to do. You
> can see the things that could work better, and the
> approaches that might lead to them.
>
> The obvious alternative is to try to smash them
> without understanding them. Never mind whether
> they're left with anything that works. They can
> do it your way -- that works.
Um, well, you know actually anthropologists
don't want to smash anybody's social order. Even
ones who are political radicals aren't about to
walk into some village in Borneo or Zambia and
try to change everything. You can't force a
revolution on anyone. People have to liberate
themselves. What you can do is provide some
insight into how things work and alternative
perspectives on it, which might help people
who actually are trying to change things from
within. But you can't even do that if you just
parrot whatever propaganda is put forth by
the people in charge, which is what relativists
tend to do.
>
> Even if that's the choice, though, it's easier to
> smash them if you understand how they're put
> together.
>
> Moral relativism looks to me like a useful tool.
> It's like a microscope, it lets you see things
> without your own distortions getting too much in
> the way. If there's a fault, it's not in the
> tool, but in the end-use. "Oh, I see it so clearly,
> the way I see it must be perfect as it is so we
> have to be careful not to interfere in any way."
>
> That *isn't* moral relativism, but something else.
> Moral relativism would say it's perfectly OK to
> interfere however you like with someone else's
> culture, societies that do that are as moral as
> societies that don't.
You can define moral relativism as a
form of analysis if you like, but you know that's
not what I (or other anthropologists) mean by
the term. You seem to mean "comparative analysis
of morals" or something like that.
Just about all anthropologists (myself
included) could be called analytical relativists:
this meaning we accept that you cannot understand
the meaning of an action without first understanding
its cultural context. Moral relativism though is
used to mean that one feels one cannot make _any_ moral
judgments about the actions of those with a
fundamentally different culture/world view. There
are a lot of problems with such a position. First
of all, there's the question of how different other
people have to be before you can no longer judge
them? The position after all does assume there are
things called cultures, that are all basically the
same sorts of things, and that one can identify
the borders between them, and that all this is
_not_ a mere matter of cultural perception but an
absolute. Second, it tends to homogenize people
of different cultures: this is why it's silly to
say "our culture" says its okay to interfere, so
that's fine. In fact, moral relativism _itself_
was developed by "our culture", even at the same
time as other members of said culture were off
conquering the world in the name of civilizing
the natives. If you actually live in a different
society and you are not in a state of total denial
on the subject you will quickly notice there's next
to nothing _everybody_ agrees on, just like
here. However, to be a moral relativist you
have to identify what "they" think in order to
be able to say you cannot sit in judgement on
it, and this always tends to end up meaning
you accept whatever is the official party line
put forward by whoever happens to be in political
authority. That was my original point.
DG
Jonah Thomas
dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber) wrote:
> Just about all anthropologists (myself
>included) could be called analytical relativists:
>this meaning we accept that you cannot understand
>the meaning of an action without first understanding
>its cultural context. Moral relativism though is
>used to mean that one feels one cannot make _any_ moral
>judgments about the actions of those with a
>fundamentally different culture/world view. There
>are a lot of problems with such a position.
I agree. Although, it might not be necesdsary to make
moral judgements to choose how you'd like to change
things and do it.
>First
>of all, there's the question of how different other
>people have to be before you can no longer judge
>them?
What if instead of judging people at all, you just
look at how you'd like to help them? Some people
might be best improved by hearing some of your ideas,
while others might get the greatest improvement by
a shot between the eyes.
>The position after all does assume there are
>things called cultures, that are all basically the
>same sorts of things, and that one can identify
>the borders between them, and that all this is
>_not_ a mere matter of cultural perception but an
>absolute. Second, it tends to homogenize people
>of different cultures: this is why it's silly to
>say "our culture" says its okay to interfere, so
>that's fine.
It might make sense to extend the principle, to
figure that moral relativism should apply to each
individual member of each culture. But as you
point out, the term really has the meaning that
people actually use rather than other meanings
that might make better sense.
My point was that we can be required not to judge
other cultures, and that doesn't prevent us from
interacting strongly with them. Forbidding
ourselves to do that only comes if we judge ourselves.
>In fact, moral relativism _itself_
>was developed by "our culture", even at the same
>time as other members of said culture were off
>conquering the world in the name of civilizing
>the natives. If you actually live in a different
>society and you are not in a state of total denial
>on the subject you will quickly notice there's next
>to nothing _everybody_ agrees on, just like
>here. However, to be a moral relativist you
>have to identify what "they" think in order to
>be able to say you cannot sit in judgement on
>it, and this always tends to end up meaning
>you accept whatever is the official party line
>put forward by whoever happens to be in political
>authority. That was my original point.
I can't disagree; if this is what the people who
in practice get the name moral relativists do,
then that's what they do, and they abdicate any
chance to make a positive difference except by
accident. Too bad. I can't particularly judge
them, but I wouldn't want to follow their example.
David O'Bedlam
On 25 Apr 1998, David Rolfe Graeber wrote:
> [...] my point is that Nietzche himself
> insisted that truth is _not_ outside our will
> and does not come at us unbidden.
Right, if I remember Freddy all that well. And I'll
agree, though I'd state it as this: we have to "WILL
the Truth", i.e. we have to _actively_ make sense of
'the world' and be strong enough to face our conclusions.
TheDavid
--
"L-l-l-look look death be wet!"
Ade Oshineye
'David O'Bedlam' wrote:
>
> On 25 Apr 1998, David Rolfe Graeber wrote:
>
> > insisted that truth is _not_ outside our will
> > and does not come at us unbidden.
>
> agree, though I'd state it as this: we have to "WILL
> the Truth", i.e. we have to _actively_ make sense of
> 'the world' and be strong enough to face our conclusions.
as well. When _we_ will 'the Truth' we prevent others from willing their
own truths. As a result we end up in an imperialist imposition of our
'Truth' on those who were not strong enough to resist.
In making sense of the world we have to suppress some aspects of it
which don't fit in with our understanding/Truth. So in effect we're not
excavating a Truth that is 'out there' but creating a truth which is
little more than a fiction that serves our purposes.
Paul D. Lanier
On Tue, 28 Apr 1998, Ade Oshineye wrote:
>
> 'David O'Bedlam' wrote:
> >
> > On 25 Apr 1998, David Rolfe Graeber wrote:
> >
> > > [...] my point is that Nietzche himself
> > > insisted that truth is _not_ outside our will
> > > and does not come at us unbidden.
> >
> > Right, if I remember Freddy all that well. And I'll
> > agree, though I'd state it as this: we have to "WILL
> > the Truth", i.e. we have to _actively_ make sense of
> > 'the world' and be strong enough to face our conclusions.
> But whilst we're willing the truth we're also exerting or willing power
> as well. When _we_ will 'the Truth' we prevent others from willing their
> own truths. As a result we end up in an imperialist imposition of our
> 'Truth' on those who were not strong enough to resist.
> In making sense of the world we have to suppress some aspects of it
> which don't fit in with our understanding/Truth. So in effect we're not
> excavating a Truth that is 'out there' but creating a truth which is
> little more than a fiction that serves our purposes.
>
>
What purpose of your own does your "truth" of the imperialistic
imposition work? Who are you suppressing?
Regards,
Doremus Jessup
G*rd*n
David Rolfe Graeber wrote:
| > [...] my point is that Nietzche himself
| > insisted that truth is _not_ outside our will
| > and does not come at us unbidden.
'David O'Bedlam' <thed...@frottage.org>:
| Right, if I remember Freddy all that well. And I'll
| agree, though I'd state it as this: we have to "WILL
| the Truth", i.e. we have to _actively_ make sense of
| 'the world' and be strong enough to face our conclusions.
Although it matters little, please note that I did not
attribute views to Nietzsche in the text referred to.
What I said was
Are you suggesting that one should adopt a view
of truth based on instrumentalism? Most reality
fans, and many pomo-skeptic-multicultis, believe
that to some extent truth is outside our will and
comes at us unbidden. That being the case, if
Nietzsche appeared to be a truth-bearer, then we
would have to listen even if his gifts were
inconvenient in our battle against Mussolini.
I should not have mentioned The Neetch; he has been waiting
to get back at me since the last time I mugged him, and
being introduced into a paragraph, made good his chance by
sabotaging it. But we shall meet again, Fred!