Re: deprogramming language
Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Fri, 22 Oct 1999 21:50:49 -0500
> "Sean Draine (Exchange)" wrote:
> I don't think Foucalt, Derrida, etc. have taught anybody much of
> anything, except perhaps how to come off as pat and pretentious.
Are you unable to see anything beyond pretension here?
> This thread only confirms my belief. I propose two explanations for
> their appalling failure. Either their work is so dense that it has
> collapsed into a black hole from which no information could possibly
> escape, or it is simply void of any information.
Medical texts are dense. They're full of difficult words and
concepts. If you don't spend a great long time with them and have a
good background in the general subject matter, they won't make much
sense to you. The more you read them, the more the words and concepts
start to look familiar. Eventually, things start coming together.
Physics is dense. Biology is dense. Theory is dense. None of them
is an appalling failure for plenty of people who study them.
> Whence the assumption that I haven't tried it? Because I'm knocking
> it?
In part, yes. Because you're knocking it in a sweeping, dismissive
(and pretentious) way. Saying that literary theory hasn't taught
anybody much of anything and then providing two names of theorists and
reiterating that literary theory hasn't taught anyone much of anything
is just plain silly. Even saying that you *think* that's the case is
silly. Why would your smattering of experience with literary theory
(naming Derrida and Foucault doesn't mean you've exhausted the field
or even sufficiently sampled it, if that's what it's supposed to
imply) be any sort of a model for other people's experience with
literary theory? I don't object to your thinking literary theory
didn't teach *you* much, but why suggest it didn't teach anyone much?
Do you really think people who study the stuff just want to be pat and
pretentious? No possiblity of genuine interest?
In your first post, you mentioned that literary theory was vague,
ambiguous and meaningless. Unless you qualify that statement somehow,
I simply don't believe you've read any good portion of it. Perhaps
I'm not equipped to establish what a "good portion of it" is, but
you've adopted a stance characteristic of people who've heard of
theory, heard that it's for pretentious wankers, sampled some portion
of the usual essays, found it difficult and frustrating, and decided
it's all intellectual posturing and name-droppping. Don't you think
there's any more to it? If you spend enough time with, say,
Foucault's "What is an Author" or Derrida's "Structure Sign and
Play..." (both standard anthology texts), you'll eventually see that
there is a "meaning" available and that the difficulty of the language
has a purpose other than sounding fancy.
To suppose that the writing of people like Derrida and Foucault is
good mostly just for teaching people "how to come off as pat and
pretentious" is absurd. What do you suppose literary theorists like
Derrida and Foucault think about their life's work? How nice it'll be
that pretentious undergraduates will talk about them in coffee shops?
It's all a big scam? Come on. There are scam artists all over the
place, but you're dismissing an entire field of serious study that's
as old and as long as the west itself.
The implicit right-ness and implicit aesthetic integrity of condemning
literary theory as a bunch of over-written nonsense is just not
useful, as far as I'm concerned. It's hardly any different from
loudly discussing Foucault at a coffee shop. Righteousness,
pretense...what's the difference? There are plenty of people whose
interest in literary theory is genuine--plenty of people who have
learned lots about language and life & c.
> Look, if you think repeated, careful readings of Saussure, Derrida,
> or Freud combined with a bit of high-minded introspection is going
> to tell you the exact nature of language, or whether thought
> precedes emotion, or whether the Whorfian hypothesis is true, or
> what are the capabilities of the unconscious mind,
...then I'm wrong?
> that's an
> unmistakable sign that it's time to put the sacred books down, slip
> out of the Academic compound when your thesis advisor has turned his
> back, and run like hell to the nearest investment bank or insurance
> company to plead for a job.
Clearly, those kinds of jobs arent' for everyone. But I'm not going
to stand here and say bankers never taught anyone much of anything or
that insurance companies are meaningless on account of my not having a
personal interest in banks and insurance. Even if you start to talk
about banks and insurance on the list. I'm not even going to chime in
with the "bankers have no souls and are boring people" stuff. Not
when someone's seriously discussing banking.
I don't think you're rude, really. But I did wonder whether some
imposter hadn't started sending email to the list under your name.
--
Matt Kozusko mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu