>Widder,NE wrote:
>>
>> Maybe there has been so much focus on vocabulary that people
>>have come to think that "correct use of words" or "clarity" is the main
>>concern here. I don't really think that's what Michael had in mind in
>>any event, though he can speak for himself here. It's ok to be hard or
>>challenging to read, and it's ok to be "dense" in some sense -- i.e.,
>>Nietzsche's claim that he always sought to say in one sentence what >>it
took others 10 sentences to say.
>but if a statement doesn't meet this definition it's "not okay"?
No, of course not. Do you really think this was what this argument
has been about?? But do you think that if the statement "doesn't meat the
definition" it therefore qualifies as transgressive schizophrenic
experimentation? Micheal's point was that the statement was irrelavent
because it didn't say anything interesting. It then tried to cover this up
by "playing with the meaning of words".
In any event, with Nietzsche I was providing an example of "dense"
language. I wasn't putting it as a definition to which all must adhere.
(Your suggestion that I was doing this is, by the way, an example of a non
sequiter, or simply of not reading carefully).
>>The point Michael made -- quite effectively, even if the apparent
>>hostility was a put off to some -- was that underneath Unleash's
>>purportedly artistic language was a simple claim that we should >>discard
repressive psychological categories, which didn't even answer >>the question
put to him. This is precisely why it shouldn't be >>excused as art or
poetry or experimentation.
>excused?
Well, excused, defended, whatever. What have you, unleesh and the
others been doing for the past week? Michael says the statement is stpuid,
and others have responded by saying that there's nothing wrong with
experimenting with words, changing their definitions and so forth. Michael
never said this was wrong. He said it was being done in a stupid way.
And before you ask what is the "objective definition of stupid" I'm
using, well, I'm not using any. But lack of an objective standard which
makes qualitative distinctions doesn't mean that no distinctions exist --
that's an either/or logic which says that either differences are understood
through the standard or there are differences at all. That's why, even
though there is no such thing as a universal standard, it's still better to
read Dan Smith on Deleuze than Sokal on Deleuze -- though you may have a
different opinion on these things.
>>If modern/postmodern/whatever art is supposed to have an effect
that >>breaks with representation,
>if art only meets a pre-defined objective/idea of art, then what
is
>it's "art"?
I didn't put forward a pre-defined objective/idea of art, at least
not in the way you suggest. It hardly makes sense if this "objective" is to
break with "objectification" and "representation". But, ok, since this is
the D&G list: In What Is Philosophy they tell us that the
purpose/goal/function of philosophy is to create concepts. Do you think
that they are saying therefore that there is no "artistry" in philosophy
because it is following a pre-defined objective/idea?
>>then surely -- like Michael said about philosophy -- it should be
>>playing for "higher"stakes than this too.
>
>> Given what this "poetry" ended up saying, it's not very
unreasonable,
>do we have to be reasonable?
We don't HAVE to be reasonable, but what is your point here? Oh
yes, it's that some people are demanding strict adherence to rules, which is
your take on what's been happening on the list.
You and others have been suggesting that Michael had no business
treating unleesh's statement so harshly. You then defended his use of the
word "trope" (i.e., tried to suggest it was not an unreasonable use? -- you
were the one who brought in Nietzsche and metaphor, no? Or am I confusing
you with someone else), while suggesting that his attacks were unreasonable
(if he "hated the list so much", why was he subscribed?). I wasn't using
the idea of reasonability in any grand sense here.
>>even if a bit mean, to say that it makes a useless point. Who the
>>hell would want to keep repressive categories (assuming they saw ??>>them
as repressive)? This is not entirely unlike a politician who runs >>around
saying he wants a strong economy and a healthy >>environment. Well, who
doesn't want these things???
>of course, "we all want that".
Unleesh's made a supposedly brilliant point that was so brilliant it
needed to be artistically phrased in terms of "depassing
socioepistemological tropes" because otherwise it would lose its meaning.
When unleesh responded by explaining what his statement meant, Michael
yawned and said it was a puny and insignificant point. All I'm saying here
is that it is insignificant precisely because it doesn't get beyond the
average statement of "common sense" (you know, what Deleuze criticizes as
not really being thinking in Nietzsche and Philosophy and DiffRep). All
Unleesh's statement was was dressed up common sense. Hence, not really very
thoughtful at all.
>>What's unfortunately ended up happening is that saying that "in
fact" >>or "in truth" this is not much of a point has been taken as
policing.
>in what way is it not policing/ an attempt to police?
In what way is it policing? You haven't been repressed or policed,
you have been teased and insulted. There's not much more Michael could do
to you from a computer terminal somewhere on the other side of the world.
Not all clashes of force are policings, as Deleuze says with regards to
Focuault's theory of power as well as in his Nietzsche book.
>>It's ironic that this claim has occured on this list, where
presumably >>enough people have read Foucault (or Deleuze's book on
Foucault) to >>know that such policing can't really occur in the real world,
yet alone >>the virtual one.
>but 1. attempts at policing can and do exist, and 2. what exactly
is the
>basis for your distinction here between real and virtual? how is
this
>list not co-extensive with and occupying a flat dimension with
anything
>else?
Well, 1. Of course, no one said otherwise, but interventions on an
open list hardly make for much policing. 2. You know, outside of the world
of D&G, the internet is often referred to as "virtual". That's all I meant
here. Exactly how would you propose "policing" the internet? The US and UK
governments are desparate to know themselves.
>>This doesn't mean that people can't be harassed; it means, as
>>Foucault pointed out, that the real effect of such discipline is not a
>>reduction and normalization of society but rather a multiplication of
>>"deviations" to this constructed norm -- hence power presupposes >>and
indeed produces its own resistence.
>but resistance of this kind is in danger of being purely
oppositional
>and therefore futile because it's "transgression" has nowhere to
go,
>it's folded back onto itself. it is a negative action, reactive.
Well, no more than any other resistance has a danger of being purely
oppositional. But Foucault's theory of power is precisely that power and
resistance are not oppositional in this way. In any event, you seem to be
relying on a rather strange (though common) idea that somehow there's
opposition bound to fail because it "remains inside" and transgression which
might not (because it goes outside?). Since this very distinction only
reinvokes the very dialectical notion of spacing that I would think trying
to transgress, you might want to rethink here.
>dan h.
Nathan
n.e.widder@xxxxxxxxx
>>
>> Maybe there has been so much focus on vocabulary that people
>>have come to think that "correct use of words" or "clarity" is the main
>>concern here. I don't really think that's what Michael had in mind in
>>any event, though he can speak for himself here. It's ok to be hard or
>>challenging to read, and it's ok to be "dense" in some sense -- i.e.,
>>Nietzsche's claim that he always sought to say in one sentence what >>it
took others 10 sentences to say.
>but if a statement doesn't meet this definition it's "not okay"?
No, of course not. Do you really think this was what this argument
has been about?? But do you think that if the statement "doesn't meat the
definition" it therefore qualifies as transgressive schizophrenic
experimentation? Micheal's point was that the statement was irrelavent
because it didn't say anything interesting. It then tried to cover this up
by "playing with the meaning of words".
In any event, with Nietzsche I was providing an example of "dense"
language. I wasn't putting it as a definition to which all must adhere.
(Your suggestion that I was doing this is, by the way, an example of a non
sequiter, or simply of not reading carefully).
>>The point Michael made -- quite effectively, even if the apparent
>>hostility was a put off to some -- was that underneath Unleash's
>>purportedly artistic language was a simple claim that we should >>discard
repressive psychological categories, which didn't even answer >>the question
put to him. This is precisely why it shouldn't be >>excused as art or
poetry or experimentation.
>excused?
Well, excused, defended, whatever. What have you, unleesh and the
others been doing for the past week? Michael says the statement is stpuid,
and others have responded by saying that there's nothing wrong with
experimenting with words, changing their definitions and so forth. Michael
never said this was wrong. He said it was being done in a stupid way.
And before you ask what is the "objective definition of stupid" I'm
using, well, I'm not using any. But lack of an objective standard which
makes qualitative distinctions doesn't mean that no distinctions exist --
that's an either/or logic which says that either differences are understood
through the standard or there are differences at all. That's why, even
though there is no such thing as a universal standard, it's still better to
read Dan Smith on Deleuze than Sokal on Deleuze -- though you may have a
different opinion on these things.
>>If modern/postmodern/whatever art is supposed to have an effect
that >>breaks with representation,
>if art only meets a pre-defined objective/idea of art, then what
is
>it's "art"?
I didn't put forward a pre-defined objective/idea of art, at least
not in the way you suggest. It hardly makes sense if this "objective" is to
break with "objectification" and "representation". But, ok, since this is
the D&G list: In What Is Philosophy they tell us that the
purpose/goal/function of philosophy is to create concepts. Do you think
that they are saying therefore that there is no "artistry" in philosophy
because it is following a pre-defined objective/idea?
>>then surely -- like Michael said about philosophy -- it should be
>>playing for "higher"stakes than this too.
>
>> Given what this "poetry" ended up saying, it's not very
unreasonable,
>do we have to be reasonable?
We don't HAVE to be reasonable, but what is your point here? Oh
yes, it's that some people are demanding strict adherence to rules, which is
your take on what's been happening on the list.
You and others have been suggesting that Michael had no business
treating unleesh's statement so harshly. You then defended his use of the
word "trope" (i.e., tried to suggest it was not an unreasonable use? -- you
were the one who brought in Nietzsche and metaphor, no? Or am I confusing
you with someone else), while suggesting that his attacks were unreasonable
(if he "hated the list so much", why was he subscribed?). I wasn't using
the idea of reasonability in any grand sense here.
>>even if a bit mean, to say that it makes a useless point. Who the
>>hell would want to keep repressive categories (assuming they saw ??>>them
as repressive)? This is not entirely unlike a politician who runs >>around
saying he wants a strong economy and a healthy >>environment. Well, who
doesn't want these things???
>of course, "we all want that".
Unleesh's made a supposedly brilliant point that was so brilliant it
needed to be artistically phrased in terms of "depassing
socioepistemological tropes" because otherwise it would lose its meaning.
When unleesh responded by explaining what his statement meant, Michael
yawned and said it was a puny and insignificant point. All I'm saying here
is that it is insignificant precisely because it doesn't get beyond the
average statement of "common sense" (you know, what Deleuze criticizes as
not really being thinking in Nietzsche and Philosophy and DiffRep). All
Unleesh's statement was was dressed up common sense. Hence, not really very
thoughtful at all.
>>What's unfortunately ended up happening is that saying that "in
fact" >>or "in truth" this is not much of a point has been taken as
policing.
>in what way is it not policing/ an attempt to police?
In what way is it policing? You haven't been repressed or policed,
you have been teased and insulted. There's not much more Michael could do
to you from a computer terminal somewhere on the other side of the world.
Not all clashes of force are policings, as Deleuze says with regards to
Focuault's theory of power as well as in his Nietzsche book.
>>It's ironic that this claim has occured on this list, where
presumably >>enough people have read Foucault (or Deleuze's book on
Foucault) to >>know that such policing can't really occur in the real world,
yet alone >>the virtual one.
>but 1. attempts at policing can and do exist, and 2. what exactly
is the
>basis for your distinction here between real and virtual? how is
this
>list not co-extensive with and occupying a flat dimension with
anything
>else?
Well, 1. Of course, no one said otherwise, but interventions on an
open list hardly make for much policing. 2. You know, outside of the world
of D&G, the internet is often referred to as "virtual". That's all I meant
here. Exactly how would you propose "policing" the internet? The US and UK
governments are desparate to know themselves.
>>This doesn't mean that people can't be harassed; it means, as
>>Foucault pointed out, that the real effect of such discipline is not a
>>reduction and normalization of society but rather a multiplication of
>>"deviations" to this constructed norm -- hence power presupposes >>and
indeed produces its own resistence.
>but resistance of this kind is in danger of being purely
oppositional
>and therefore futile because it's "transgression" has nowhere to
go,
>it's folded back onto itself. it is a negative action, reactive.
Well, no more than any other resistance has a danger of being purely
oppositional. But Foucault's theory of power is precisely that power and
resistance are not oppositional in this way. In any event, you seem to be
relying on a rather strange (though common) idea that somehow there's
opposition bound to fail because it "remains inside" and transgression which
might not (because it goes outside?). Since this very distinction only
reinvokes the very dialectical notion of spacing that I would think trying
to transgress, you might want to rethink here.
>dan h.
Nathan
n.e.widder@xxxxxxxxx