Re: do we need to speak clearly?

Widder,NE wrote:

> >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?

i have never said that anything was "transgressive schizophrenic
experimentation" and would not string these words together. i do not
use the category of "transgressive" or the medical classification
"schizophrenic" in the way your are implying.

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).

so you keep telling me... everything i say is a non-sequiter... or
possibly i am not contstructing proper sentences or writing down all my
thoughts? a question or suggestion does not have to follow linearly from
the statements it questions.

> >>The point Michael made -- quite effectively, even if the apparent
> >>hostility was a put off to some -- was that

i love the way you keep trying to write this official history of the
event, as if we didn't all read the mails ourselves...

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.

yet again you fail to notice that i have not once defended the statement
made by unleash. in this whole thread i've only questioned M's manner
and the substanc eof his objections.

> And before you ask what is the "objective definition of stupid" I'm
> using, well, I'm not using any.

what's an objective definition?

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.


i've never read either of these writers. ironic as it may seem, i find
nearly all writing on d&g to be pompous, jargon-ridden academic
nonsense, far removed from d&g's own graceful style and humour, and
endlessly distracted by philosophic niceties from the pragmatics of
life...
>
> >>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.

i haven't suggested anything. you wrote "If modern/postmodern/whatever
art is supposed to have an effect that breaks with representation" this,
tentative though it is, suggests art has particular
specified/specifiable objectives at particular times. an idea i think
results only from the distortions of art-historical narrative, and
adheres to pre-defined ideas of artistic practice when looking at thngs.

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?

firstly i have some problems with WIP. secondly, deleuze's idea of
concepts here is about open concepts that are transversal and have many
uses.


> >>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.

i just said it seemed a bit pointlessly hostile, actually.

You then defended his use of the
> word "trope"

i haven't mentioned tropes at all.

(i.e., tried to suggest it was not an unreasonable use? -- you
> were the one who brought in Nietzsche and metaphor, no?

no.

Or am I confusing
> you with someone else)

yes, you are.

, while suggesting that his attacks were unreasonable
> (if he "hated the list so much", why was he subscribed?).

that was me. it was only a question, one he hasn't really answered.

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.

no one said it was brilliant - you're trying to polarise this to
extremes.

> When unleesh responded by explaining what his statement meant, Michael
> yawned and said it was a puny and insignificant point.

is that a quote or are you exagerating for effect?

All I'm saying here
> is that it is insignificant

i thought 'irrelevant' was M's qualifier.

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.

i wouldn't even go that far. M annoyed me a little. you were far ruder
on monday, and that pissed me off.

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.

now that really is a non sequiter! an a misjudged appeal to authority
from out "masters" too.

> >>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".

and? is that relevant?

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

you have this backwards - opposition that "remains inside" is "bound to
fail" because it is merely transgressive. it plays out one side of a
dichotomy that is set up by power and which the state always wins.

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.

--
http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/chupacabras/48/
http://www.tw2.com/staff/daniel/

Ware ware Karate-do o shugyo surumonowa,
Tsuneni bushido seishin o wasurezu,
Wa to nin o motte nashi,
Soshite tsutomereba kanarazu tasu.

We who study Karate-do,
Should never forget the spirit of the samurai,
With peace, perseverance and hard work,
We will reach our goal without failure.

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