Re: Faire rhizome (pause/non-pause)



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[] Erik Davis (oo) Cernunnos sez (cribbing the Fall): The only []
[] erikd@xxxxxxxxx __ thing real is waking and rubbing your eyes. []
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On Wed, 6 Apr 1994, CJ Stivale wrote:

> I take Erik's exhortation to heart, but thanks to the 'rhizome' discussion
> before Easter, I was able to get about half of the U of Warwick 'Virtual
> Futures' conference "talk" done, in some linear (wince) form for presentation.
> It's immodestly entitled "The Rhizomatics of Cyberspace," something to which
> several of us (Erik notably) have referred already. I wonder if it'd be useful
> to any of you (I *know* it would be for me) to post part of it here....

Please do. It would do you good, add some material to the list, and give
us chance to employ our rhizomatic "inter"standings on the very medium
we're immersed in.

At last year's Cyberconf, I was very intrigued to notice that there were
really two (more of course, but let's call 'em two) paradigms floating
about. Mark Taylor gave a toalk about "The Rhizomic Folds of
Interstanding." It was a tad Deleuzian--rhizomatics and all--but seemed
ultimatley more Derridean--on a conceptual level it was more linguistic
than productive, and on a level of tone it had that sense one frequently
finds in deconstructive writing of a perpetual hedging of bets, a kind of
suspension over the possiblities afforded just by <saying> something.
Anyway, in the opposite corner, was the sort of cyber-utopian unitarian
mode. Though frequently flakey, this mode--which is not at all
post-structuralist--nonetheless has some rigorous backup--Bateson, Fuller,
the best McLuhan, plus a sort of techno-logocentric faith in the pentacost
of the internet. For a schizzo gnostic like myself, just as appealing a
vision, if philosophically much more naive.

What was interesting was how HARSH Taylor was to these folks--who of
course couldnt follow him at all really. He said basically "Look if you
guys keep running around being closet Hegelians, than all us hardass pomos
arent gonna come to your party." He was really unforgiving, spouting on
about the "fascism" inherent in the "the net will bring us together" kinda
talk, and he really proved to me how much post-structuralism can become a
new dogmatism, a new "truth" that knows its enemies, and knows itself to
be superior.


Nonetheless he intuitively recognized the appropriateness of Deleuzain
lingo, though I think he didn't really run with the football, but rather
kept it suspended in mid-air, less it fall ona coherent point.

Where is the immanence of the net? Where is it produced? Is it only
achieved when we ourselves undergo a becoming-digital (scary thought)?
Sometimes it all seems so reflective to me, so much control over what I
say, who I communicate with , where I go, while all the time the net
itself is totally insane, absolute rhizome, a total "concept" that draws
up the conceptual plane of immanence into a nest of infinite speeds...Have
you considered how D's critique of communication would apply to the net?
In what way is the net NOT ABOUT COMMUNICATION AT ALL? Truly monstrous, that.

Thomas Vaughan's "Man"
....
...
Man hath still either toys or Care,
He hath no root, nor to one place is tied,
But ever restless and Irregular
About this Earth doth run and ride,
He knows he hath a home, but scarce knows where,
He says it is so far
That he hath quite forgot how to go there.

He knocks on all doors, strays and roams,
Nay hath so much wit as some stones have
Which in their darkest night point to their homes,
By some hid sense their Maker gave;
Man is the shuttle, to whose winding quest
And passage through these looms
God ordered motion, but ordained no rest.




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