Re: The role of the teacher

I was thinking that for the most part people would really rather take
pot shots at John O. for not providing a succinct defnition of
deconstruction than working through the summary and asking specific
questions. I didn't think it was Sanskrit either, but I don't expect it
to be easily understandable apart from some background in the authors
referenced. When I looked at it sentence by sentence I found I could
pull out several sentences that would be almost unintelligible to
someone unfamiliar with the ideas presented.

So far, my expectations have been validated. Two people seem to have
read the whole thing, no one's asked questions about what didn't make
sense (certainly not anyone who previously asked for a succinct
definition of deconstruction -- not a single one). I take it you're too
busy right now (you've said this repeatedly -- honestly, I'm surprised
you're giving the list the time you are) and Scottie found the whole
thing so unintelligible he didn't even know where to start asking
questions (which I completely believe and don't blame him for). I
suspect that in some cases, though, the pot shots were the real point of
the inquiry -- not knowledge of the subject.

Jim

L. Manning Vines wrote:

>Jim wrote:
><< [. . .] [P]eople [. . .] wanting a definition of deconstruction should
>read [Diego's encyclopedia excerpt] and then ask questions about specific
>ideas.
>
>Still not holding my breath :). >>
>
>I don't understand the last sentence. Are you suggesting that the curious
>won't read the link? That they will start but give up? (Your posted excerpt
>of a brief passage might suggest that you expect this last.) That they will
>read and not understand?
>
>I read it and didn't find quite so much difficulty as Scottie describes (I
>expect that knowledge of Sanskrit was not especially helpful, but that
>having read the major text(s) of most of the pertinent philosophers was),
>though reading the summaries and descriptions, of course, won't suffice for
>seeing actual arguments (and is thus informative, but not persuasive), which
>I expect will require finally getting to the man himself. I will not,
>however, be asking questions about specific ideas, but not for any of the
>reasons above. Perhaps others read it and decided that the next step is
>Derrida himself? Perhaps they read it and decided that the ideas weren't so
>interesting or compelling (or offensive?) to them as they had previously
>thought? Perhaps they read it and decided that whatever is next, a long
>discussion on the list -- for whatever reasons -- isn't it?
>
>-robbie
>
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Received on Thu Mar 13 10:19:59 2003