Re: Meaning, intentionality, and responsibility...

Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Sun, 13 Sep 1998 22:41:10 -0400 

In response to John's post:

A few notes:  as I present modified and synthesized versions of
arguments I call "poststructural," I hope it can be recognized 1) that I
do not at all necessarily endorse them and 2) they are in spansule form,
and they are altered as I have recast them in order to make them useful
for me.  (Perhaps this point can also support the idea that texts,
especially theory texts, do not always communicate intended ideas with
100% efficiency.) 

My representation of various theorists in this discussion thus
constitutes high hooliganism, and nothing short of it.  But I see no
better alternative.  It should stand, I think, as a premise, that people
seeking firsthand knowledge of the critical texts we discuss here ought
to resort to the primary texts themselves.

>From my brief encounters with Derrida, I gather that he is more
frequently abused then he is used by other voices in the field.  One of
the first arguments I ever heard against "deconstruction" was aimed at
Derrida, nobody else of so certain an association with the evil-doing
school of thought being immediately available.  And the argument was
mostly off the mark.  Its primary objection was that "deconstruction"
pressed merrily on with its business while conspicuously failing to
account for the implications of its central tenets on the very texts in
which it put forth those tenets.  That is, the arguer smartly noted that
the principals of deconstruction required the delegitimation of all
narratives, including the deconstructive narrative.  But Derrida appears
to me always to be careful about not making this poststructural slip.  A
piece of Derrida comes to mind:  "one always inhabits [a structure], and
all the more when one does not suspect it" ("Of Grammatology").  He is
mindful of the sort of errors poststructuralist narratives might make: 
"The movements of deconstruction do not destroy structures from the
outside.  They are not possible and effective, nor can they take
accurate aim, except by inhabiting those structures" (idid).  

And this, from "Structure, sign and play":  "There is no sense in doing
without the concepts of metaphysics in order to shake metaphysics.  We
have no language--no syntax and no lexicon--which is foreign to this
history; we can pronounce not a single destructive proposition which has
not already had to slip into the form, the logic, and the implicit
postulations of precisely what it seeks to contest." 

Finally, a clip from John's post (re "death" of the author):  

> (indeed Derrida has argued
> repeatedly that such an apocalyptic tone or choice of methaphors about such
> things is highly suspicious and often participates in the very either/or
> logic it pretends to critique) 
 
The original argument agains p-structuralism I outlined above doesn't
really make sense in the presence of any of these excerpts.  The
situation suggests that the popular perception/representation of
poststructuralism doesn't mesh very will with the work of one of its
seminal figures (note the unapologetic use of the rhetoric of structure,
here).  Symptomatic of this are the punctuative tweezers people often
use to handle the word "deconstruction."  Without going so far as to say
that the orignial stock of decon has been polluted, I note that the
critique of structure, after so noble a beginning, and through no fault
of its many honest practitioners, has slipped into a horrible
complacency.

I offer all this talking by way of answering John's post.  First, I want
to agree, emphatically, that in discussing the death of the author and
other things that involve the split between structuralism and
poststructuralism, we should avoid the idea that we can get outside of
structure.  Indeed, we should not speak of "after the subject" in easy
ways.  Gestures toward something outside of structure are generally
useless.  The best place--the only place--to critique a structure is
from within.  

Secondly, I explain why I include Derrida in my vision of
poststructuralism.  The above quotations supply me with the motive. 
Each quotation acknowleges a move of recognizing one's own complicity
with what one is critiquing, and I see this as the defining
poststructural move.  According, I think, to Derrida, this is how
"deconstruction" separates itself from plain-old "destruction."  

Now, when I note that Barthes eventually gives way to Foucault and the
poststructuralists, I have in mind the Foucault who himself is very
attentive to the problems inherent in trying to escape structure.  I
take "What is an Author" in part as a response to author-killers
everywhere; not only do people generally fail to kill author functions,
doing so isn't necessarily a good idea.  It would involve transcending
structure, which can only be done with smoke and mirrors, ultimately
only by way of illusion.  I characterize Derrida and Foucault as
poststructuralists who don't want to replace structure with astructural
alternatives because 1) they are chimerical, anyway), and 2) doing so
would be as bad as inverting a binary.  The gem poststructuralism has to
offer is a way of recognizing one's structurality, and being open to
alternatives that hitherto have been dismissed as inferior or marginal
and therefor useless.  One doesn't do away with structure; one critiques
it.  

Perhaps, trying to represent the voice of poststructuralism, I suggested
that Foucault and people like him were given to flippant treatments of
the questions of structure, talking roguishly about postrationality in a
very rational way.  My mistake.  
 
Finally:  John wrote: 
 
>I also suspect I am trying the list's patience (and I feel guilty for
>leaving out the other JD -- such a strange thing to find intention
>arguments on a list that is on the one hand about and structured around the
>notion of a "single author" and "his" works and on the other hand about an
>author who is often defined explicitly by his silence on such matters....).
>I will stop now and will continue the theory discussion privately if
>anyone still wishes me to go further into such things (which I cannot
>imagine).

I move to keep it public, for the benefit of lurkers, onlookers, and
other interested parties.  These posts are easily deleted.  And judging
by the editing habits of posters here, nobody has any problem with disk
space.

-There is no harm in the allowed fool.    

ObSalinger:  Lane Coutell.
-- 
Matt Kozusko    mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu