Re: The new, improved Sophie's Choice...

Robbie,

Ah, thanks for the citation. Since that's not what you were doing, we have
nothing to argue about. Although if you were doing that, it would indeed
demonstrate a "peculiar need," wouldn't it?

The rest of the stuff you cite in the next two paragraphs I see no problem
with. I'm happy to stand by it all.

As for what you hear as a "condescending tone," well, we've been down this
road before and I really have no interest in whether or not you are offended or
peeved or whatever.

It's not important to me whether you find me annoying or hypocritical or
"good" or "bad" or "better" or "worse" or any of that other stuff. I'm not
writing either to please or impress you or even convince you of my ideas. I'm just
responding, mostly for fun, and throwing my concerns about such language and
such judgments and such competitive ways of reading out there so that all might
see the accompanying dangers. And your response to me here once again
demonstrates those dangers nicely.

I'll step aside so that you no longer feel the need to hurl whatever it is
you think you are hurling. This part of this post of yours just made me sad.
But I guess it was inevitable.

As for the rest, to respond would be only to repeat myself. I like Kafka
more than I like Thompson. But I don't wish to claim any, what was your phrase,
"primary greater worth" for one over the other. I have already explained why.
 If you can't believe I would truly take such a position, perhaps it would
help matters if you read, for instance, *Contingencies of Value*, by Barbara
Herrnstein Smith, where you would find the appropriate, detailed, fully developed
philosophical argument concerning this position. That would be much more
useful at this point that continuing this goofy chatter in on-screen internet
posts.

And I have certainly not "disallowed" claims of "better" and "worse." I've
merely said that they are subjective and heterogeneous and vary from need to
need and context to context and act of reading to act of reading and therefore
such discussions in the vague and undefined and general terms they are being
played out here are mostly just a waste of time for me, have no compelling
interest for me, and quickly de-evolve into the silly sorts of competitions and
rankings and "primary greater worth" reductivisms that have become already all too
apparent.

You seem to think it is accusing me of something to say that I make
judgments. Nonsense. I make judgments all the time. I love doing it. I just think
those judgments are momentary, specific to very particular questions, not
general ones, and are made within and respecting an impossibly large field of the
other, radically heterogeneous judgments about the same texts that make up
cultural and historical and personal experiences. Lyotard's *Just Gaming* would
help you out here, if you are really interested.

And my claims long ago about rhetorics of power were made, again,
specifically in terms of certain moments of discourse (like this one, here, now) and not
in terms of my own personal relation to art (or love). Why you think I must
feel exactly the same way about everything because I feel that way about one
thing remains a mystery. It's an assumption you seem to share with Daniel, and
I find this demand for unwavering absolute consistency of position in all
things almost robotic. It's certainly, at the very least, a demand I want no part
of -- being, after all, a human. "A foolish consistency truly is the
hobgoblin...." Well, I won't write the rest, or you'll accuse me of being
condescending.

Once again, the rest of your post demonstrates my own concern about where
methodologies such as yours inevitably take these sorts of conversations. And I
think the unpleasantness I find in your last two or three paragraphs can serve
as yet another illustration of why I am so wary of the sorts of "primary
greater" aesthetic judgments you insist on making. (And for whom, besides
yourself?)

I knew things would end up precisely this way.

And they have.

I hope, as you say, "that really is all."

Thanks,

--John

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Received on Thu Dec 18 08:17:51 2003