Re: Response to Robbie

John,

I would ask of you the same thing you asked of Scottie. You have
consistently paraphrased and misrepresented what I've said (especially in,
but by no means limited to, this conversation) to a much greater difference
than Scottie's much more subtle misrepresentation of you.

You've taken a liking to decrying "one sentence" and "single sentence"
explanations. The suggested insistence for one (on my part or anyone
else's) is a misleading fiction.

You tell me that by asking "What is deconstruction," one is asking what
Derrida wrote during a certain part of his career (and you add, "as I have
already explained"). Of course nobody would ask for such an explanation of
what Salinger wrote. Yet we put up with a fair amount of haughty refusal
and derision before you ever bothered to tell us that asking "What is
deconstruction" is asking what Derrida wrote during a certain part of his
career (I expect that few of us knew that deconstruction is a set of texts
and not an action or a method). And the analogy with Salinger doesn't hold.
If there were a widely known (but quite mysterious) word associated with
literary criticism and some period of Salinger's writing, we would quite
certainly get questions concerning what that word refers to. The people who
have asked what deconstruction is surely have not known that it refers to a
series of heterogeneous texts, and it took some time before you bothered to
tell them even that.

You say:
<< And yet I have [provided such definitions/descriptions/explanations].
Several times now. But apparently that is not good enough. Because the
page, the paragraph, and even the sentence were not clear enough. >>

If you answered the initial question (it was asked by various people in
various ways many times before I ever mentioned it, as a correction to Jim
that, no, it has NOT been explained in the archives) with the disclaimer
that it's very complicated and we really ought to read the books, but that
something to the effect of it is suggested in the following, then to include
the paragraph and the sentence you refer to, along with the paragraph in
your last email, this conversation would have taken a very different tone.

I (or someone else) might have asked some questions about what you had said,
and you might have been thought of as a helpful and friendly man. We might
have dispelled some people of the idea that the whole topic is empty
posturing, or suggested to the more dogmatically opposed that just MAYBE
there's something more there. Hell, it is entirely within the realm of
reason that someone who otherwise would never have read Derrida would do so.

As it is, though, you seemed to make a point of being unfriendly and
unhelpful, you insisted that you were unilaterally opposed to providing such
paragraphs or sentences, and you effectively insulted me and everyone else
who asked. Then, of course, you provided the paragraphs and sentences
anyway.

You said:
<< In another post, you asked me why I spoke of my evaluation of readings
that use the text for support as "almost arbitrary" and not "correct." In
the paragraph in which the phrase originally appears, you will recall [. . .
.] >>

That isn't quite true. I asked why you spoke of your readings as
possibilities rather than as correct, and you gave me an answer. Your
"possibilities" were contrasting John G.'s one correct reading, but it
seemed to me more intuitive that you would not have possibilities (John G.
ought to have possibilities) but many correct readings. I thought there
might be interesting implications which were worth sorting out. Your answer
didn't really speak to this at all (you're not sure how you'd defend the
title "correct" and aren't interested in speaking in terms of correctness,
anyway -- both of which I thought missed the point). I didn't push it,
though, because I haven't had much success with conversations that involve
ever questioning anything you say, however uncritically.

My other question was why the standard of textual support, upon which you
can rank interpretations that implement more or less of the text, should be
at all arbitrary. Further, why would it be "almost" but not quite
arbitrary. And if it has any degree of arbitrariness at all, why not
occasionally suspend or change that standard to, say, how well the
interpretation accords with a political agenda, or how well it complements
current events or American foreign policy, or how much it pertains to
speedboats?

This question was not answered, and I think your answer here misunderstands
the question.

I would have you know also that, contrary to what you say, I have not been
"complaining" about long and difficult books. I in fact work with long and
difficult books most every day, and I take them seriously and treat them
with respect. Derrida is on the list, but he'll have to wait in line. I
don't care for you to explain him to me: this mess began because several
people asked a question, Jim suggested that the question had been answered,
and I said that it had not. You spoke in defense of not answering the
question, and I -- contrary to what I have learned about you -- pushed and
questioned. I will try to remember to stop doing that.

All the best,

Robbie

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Received on Sun Mar 9 22:52:55 2003