Re: Fw: Salinger and Buddhism as promised
Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Mon, 29 Jun 1998 18:29:14 -0400
Curtis Maxwell Perrin wrote:
[referring to my comments on language]
> Aha! Very funny. I think this is the point where the Zen master is
> supposed to hit me with a stick or something because I've been enlightened
> by your broad concept of language.
This is related to the problem with JDS and eastern thought we were
addressing when this thread began. There is nothing in
structural/poststructual semiotics--especially not in my concept of
language--that really resembles a moment in a Zen enlightenment or
epiphany. Some of the implications of poststructuralism and, uh, Zen
are similar (unlearning differences), but their paths are not similar.
The one is the culmination of western logic, and the other--well, I'm
not qualified to speak for it, but I doubt much western logic is
involved.
I can see that. I tend to use the word
> in a more restrictive, commonsense,
> strictly-language-as-we-define-it-in-third-grade sense. ll
The word "language," you mean? What good would a simplified definition
of language do (were a stable one available) here? "Commonsense"
definitions are never up to any good.
> Because as you noted in your definition of language, everything contains its
> own contradiction!
A concept commonly found in summary accounts of "deconstruction"--but I
don't remember mentioning anywhere that everything contains its own
contradiction.
> Very funny again! But if lanugage-played-by-the-rules
> (common sense definition of language here) contains its own contradiction
> why resort to *tricks* (which the rabbit noted long ago are "for kids").
> It
> is far more difficult and subtle to work *within* those structures rather
> than childishly tearing them down.
I'm having a hard time following you here. Camille and I were
discussing whether Salinger ever works in spaces outside language. I
suggested that while there are moments during which he does to a degree
(the parentheses, to which Camille added the blank sheet of paper, by
way of explanation), they are not abundant in the published work. I
noted that Salinger usually plays "by the rules"--his stories are built
around very stable, noncomplex narrative techniques. He doesn't do much
*in writing* to challenge the boundaries of language. No other specific
examples have been invoked. What are you thinking of here?
> The Zen state is one of "living fully," releasing oneself to the moment
> without asserting one's Self against it; the mind is to mirror the world
> because they are one and the same. This means *not* looking for the meaning
> of things, because the more we look for it the more we assert it is
> something outside ourselves, and the more we look for it the quicker it
> flees. However, just accepting things as they are is not merely to accept a
> lawlessness;
And this is where poststructuralism, working with the same ideas as Zen,
changes direction. Barthes (for you purists, a poststructuralist in
theory, even though he often looks more like a structuralist in
practice) argues against Reason, Science and Law--God and his
hypostases--as confining, play-stopping centers. Pure deconstruction
dissolves differences, but it isn't supposed to find a supreme *good*
being behind it all. Paradoxically, the transcendental signified is
banished from poststructuralism (though I would never suggest that all
poststructuralists are Godless beings), while central to Zen.
> But really we are arguing the same point!
Yes, perhaps so. But the point has gotten out of hand. That would be
appropriate if we were performing this conversation, but we're not.
Anyway, whether they were part of the discussion or not, I found your
paragraphs on Zen informative.
--
Matt Kozusko mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu