Re: Cynical view of Decon!

Responding to msg by lauzzana@xxxxxxxxxx (Raymond Lauzzana) on


>It seems to me that those that oppose Deconstruction
>are also opposed to Post-Modernism, and they are
>opposed to Modernism as well. Maybe what they don't
>like is "isms". But, then to be opposed to isms is to
>be Deconstructivist. That can't be what they are up
>to. I would like to ask the Anti-Deconstructivists
>what it is that they are in favor of. I like to hear
>something positive out of them instead of all this
>whining.


Sure.

The current exchange here on radiant heating beats hands down,
say, the current Assemblage. Here's the reading list for my
claim.

Richard Rorty, Donald Davidson, Paul Feyerbend, Cornell West,
Mary Hesse, and a host of excellent philosophers on truly
useful language and constructive human behavior and the
futility of over-wrought intellectualism and
self-congratulatory debate.

For an introduction try Rorty's trilogy of "Contingency, Irony
and Solidarity", "Objectivity, Relativism and Truth", and
"Essays on Heidegger and Others". Then Cornell West's recent
books on race, religion, philosophy and the American dream.
These are the easy ones and maybe the best.

For the terrible worlds of torture and pain see Elaine Scarry's
"The Body in Pain".

For astonishing sexual arousals read Luce Irigaray, Eve
Sedgwick, Diane Fuss and others on the deliciously believable.

For mind-bending and extraordinarily deceptive use of language
see David Kahn's "The Codebreakers" and Bruce Schneier's
"Applied Cryptography". Also subscribe to mailing list
Cypherpunks at <majordom0@xxxxxxxx>. (And get Tim May's
400+-page Cypherpunk FAQ for what's in store for the Net via
cryptography by FTP at ftp.netcom.com/pub/tcmay/Cyphernomicom.)

For dentral flaxure on computers and architecture grind molars
on "Introduction to Parallel Algorithms and Architectures:
Arrays, Trees, Hypercubes", by F. Thomson Leighton.

For he-manly-cruel national security technology and abuse of
intelligence(?) see Manual De Landa's "War in the Age of
Intelligent Machines" and Jeffrey T. Richelson's "The U.S.
Intelligence Community".

With such provocative works to jolt out of complacency and
professional isolation it is easier to imagine and believe that
architecture and design are something more beneficial than
self-promotion.

This continuing re-education (no NCARB credits), begun 26 years
ago, is an avid search for unknown works to re-invigor and
re-inform architectural practice and theory and responsible
behavior and ward off susceptibility to lurid advertainment,
tenured literary conceits, and juried exculpatory aestheticism
(yah, yah, yah).

Don't yet have a Catchy Name for marketing, although exchanges
on this list (and at least one sig, David) look tasty for
snitching.


John
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