Re: not playing so nice

I know I'm doing okay, if you're not hurling a pithy Blake quote at me. Please don't start.

Still, Jim, I think I make a fairly convincing case that the rejection of racist speech/language and an ethnocentrist perspective can be achieved in a logocentrist world. I was, perhaps subtly, asking you what <i>you</i> think, since in the deconstructionist world, the people must believe what the emperor spews from his porch.

But to examine <i>On Grammatology</i> more closely if you want, think about the way you construct your e-mails to the list:

1. Form ideas first, and then express through language
or
2. Express, and then interpret (???)

The latter seems to be what Derrida is suggesting, and yes, he's right about how <i>I an audience member read</i> your pre-formed ideas. But which should be supreme, the pre-formed ideas or my interpretations of them based on the historical and psychological meaning of your words, from my own single perspective? It seems crass and short-sighted to suggest that my perspective should triumph (or yours, or anyone's), and also, just think about what this means for your own pre-formed ideas: They are inconsequential. Indeed, if language is to be the precursor for thought and not the other way around, this would suggest that the speaker forms language out of <i>nothingness, sheer and utter nothingness</i>.

Ok, so I'm straying from the exergue a bit, and I'm getting ready to ramble a bit. But really, the very process of expressing ideas on bananafish demands that language exist independently of the way it's interpreted by readers. Maybe you would say it's all just an expression of your own perspective, but then, it must at least be a Truthful Representation of Your Perspective, since in your own constructed world, there can be no internal contradictions.

Do people even think about what is True, or what we think to be true, or a coherent vision of what is Truth and what is the way to live? Or do we just try to make their way The Way For Everyone, as we circulate ominously and size up arch-enemies? Or, what's worse, is there the indifference of people who are content to go through life without sorting out, or even thinking about, internal contradictions in their perspectives?

And what are the consequences of the world where everybody is trying to prevail, or isn't thinking about Truth at all? I ask it a second time, and I really don't know. What can the future be, if deconstructionism wins its converts, if we're all either the mediocre hearts or the hearts that terrify them? If a superlative horse can be defined by the internal? The Ideal is no longer present in the mediocre hearts; the assurance that we can stop moving our lips in desperation is not there:

"[The future] is that which breaks absolutely with constituted normality and can only be proclaimed, presented, as a sort of monstrosity. For that future world and for that within it which will have put into question the values of sign, word, and writing, for that which guides our future anterior, there is as yet no exergue."

luke

-------Original Message-------
From: "James J. Rovira" <jrovira@drew.edu>
Sent: 08/11/03 05:06 PM
To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
Subject: Re: Re: not playing so nice

>
> I think we need to distinguish between three things --

1. Derrida's actual argument (I had in mind the exergue to _Of
Grammatology_)
2. My little abbreviation here.
3. Your response to my abbreviation here.

>From your previous posts I think you've read Derrida, but I don't see you
making a response to his actual argument below. What I'd love to do is
type out the exergue and go from there, but I'm really busy with Blake right
now. Gah.

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Luke Smith <jlsmith3@earthlink.net>
To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 13:34:57 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: not playing so nice

"My understanding of Derrida (from my limited reading) is that these two
things are very closely related, in fact -- that logocentrism is the basis
of ethnocentrism so to undermine the latter you have to undermine the
former."

Jim -- A rejection of logocentrism leaves no basis by which one can
conclude that racism is wrong, absolutely. Denying the stability of language
means that racist speech is not racist, as its absolute meaning is lost.
Therefore, we have left only "heterogeneous" standards that are, of course,
"constantly evolving." By contrast, it is easy to arrive at such a simple
conclusion that racism is wrong -- for its rejection of humanity, that someone or
some people are judged to be less than human. This conclusion has as its
basis logocentrism; there is no visceral reaction that depends on the
contemporary fashionability of certain stereotypes. There is instead a general,
truthful principle applied to evaluate and condemn racism.

But you want logocentrism to be undermined? If that is the world in which
you would demand a racist be judged (Ashcroft is guilty, because everyone
knows it! Roar!), language be evaluated (anyone who disagrees with me is
intolerant, and a sanctimonious lizard at that! Roar!), and philosophies that
make distinctions between people (ethnocentrism as an example) be
considered, then I think it's time to find some revered temples and start building
your front porch.

That, and have lots of meaningless, loveless sex, too. Maybe even with
sheep.

luke

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Received on Mon Aug 11 20:28:50 2003