Re: Revelations

Jim Rovira (jrovira@juno.com)
Tue, 06 Jul 1999 15:22:19 -0400

>   Unfortunately, interpreters can't be trusted -- the text can't be
>trusted.  Deconstructionist theory of the 20th century has shown that 
>a
>text can be interpreted to mean anything we want it to mean. 

Have you ever read Derrida or Paul de Man?  Or anyone? :)

 I'm not
>talking about reader-response, I'm talking about verifying the
>interpretation internally.  There is a famous case where a nursery 
>rhyme
>was taken, something like Mary and her lamb, and shown to be 
>apocolyptic
>and perverted.
>

The judgments "apocalyptic and perverted" are themselves subject to
deconstruction.  Once we say that "perversion" is possible, we've set up
a hierarchy and a value system and there's no sense talking about
deconstruction anymore.

Derrida himself has a lot of respect for traditional readings of texts,
and his own philosophy (as he admits himself in Of Grammatology) is
itself based upon pretty straightforward readings of Nieztche, Plato,
Rousseau, Saussere, the phenomenologists, and on and on. . .in Of
Grammatology he says his own philosophy needs to be deconstructed for the
goals of his philosophy to be served, simply because it is based upon a
logocentric language and modes of thought.

What deconstruction attempts to do is undermine what Derrida calls
"logocentrism."  It's the belief that truth, or meaning in a text, comes
from a set point of origin.  He believes this is the basis of
ethnocentrism in our thinking, and that's his real enemy.  I think he has
a point and made it well in Grammatology.  And  I think he has
demonstrated that once you separate "text" from the idea of "presence"
you do find it hard to nail a text down to one final meaning.

But all writing and thinking (or most, anyways), prior to Derrida didn't
do that.  When we read and when we write, we take some things for
granted.  Those things we take for granted serves as the basis of stable
meaning in all texts.  

Decontructive theory is a nice place to visit, but every time you write a
post expecting it to be understood you admit yourself that you wouldn't
want to live there :)  

>   The thing about the escallation of poverty, famine, etc, is that 
>each
>generation always percieves that there is more than the last 
>generation.
>"When I was growing up, kids repected their parents."  Whatever.  
>

You do have a point there.  The examples of war and poverty given in the
book of Revelation, however, are pretty extreme.  We're talking a third
of the entire population of the earth in some cases.  This would clearly
be far beyond the scope of anything humanity has ever experienced in the
past.

>   I always look for the signs and find it humors to point them out.
>For example for a while I thought that the Budwiser campaign with the
>frogs, "Bud-wise-er."  Was the "Plague of Frogs."  The damn billboards
>where everywhere.  
>
>   As for the reestabilishment of the temple of Jeruslam.  One of the
>requirements is a red heffer.  There is a few guys in either Scotland, 
>or
>the US that have a line of heffers and were selling it to a few Jews 
>in
>Jeruslam.  This was all reported on NPR about a year ago.  The strange
>thing was that there was a miscomminication about the price though the
>translation.  The Americans had a chance to gouge the Jews.  But 
>instead
>they gave the money back to them.  I've forgotten where, but this 
>exact
>thing happened elsewhere in the Tora.  The two parties were pretty 
>happy
>about the whole thing.  I don't know if the heffer was delivered yet 
>or
>not.
>
>-j
>

I'm not sure what all this was supposed to mean :)

Jim

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