Hi Alan, D/G are admittedly asserting an ontological cosmology -- "A Thousand Plateaus" is a lot more structuralist than post-scructuralist, regardless of what some of its adopters have claimed. But I don't care because it has been pragmatically useful to me, which I infer is their point. Derrida is like the tar baby. There's no way out. So rather than engage deconstruction on its own terms, the better performative "argument" is to go ahead and attempt to cosmologically out-meta deconstruction by situating its particular tactics (and the semiotic field upon which they operate) within a larger surrounding framework. D/G framing Derrida gives me a lot more room to move than Derrida framing D/G. Or at least the quality of the room in which I have to move is a lot less hermetic. It spirals outward rather than inward. Both cosmologies (cosmology as praxis of becoming [D/G] and cosmology as linguistically performed a-cosmology [Derrida]) initially require a kind of willing suspension of disbelief (faith).
I think language is always doing a lot more than simply transmitting and encoding "information." Within the binary system of the machine, yes, that's what it is doing. But human language and C++ are analagous only by an artificial bracketing of all sorts of immanent analog forces acting on human language which aren't acting on C++. It's not a trivial difference. We have streaming netflix at my house, so I'm able to watch all sorts of stupid documentaries on philosophers. A documentary on a philosopher is like dramatizing the life of a legal clerk (although "Bartleby the Scrivener" actually makes a good movie). I think it was Deleuze who said that biographies of philosophers were bound to be mind-numbingly boring. There is an almost unwatchable documentary on Derrida, kind of a "day in the life." The most exciting philosopher documentaries are on Zizek (which doesn't really say anything one way or another about his philosophy). Rather than tap Derrida on the shoulder, I always wanted to punch him hard in the nose. I reckon it would mean more to him than simply a signifier without a verifiable signified. All that to say, your poem fascinates me. Derrida seems a philosopher whose work functions best without its being attached to a biographical/historical/biological body, and now it is free from those bodies (although according to its own claims, it was always-already free). And yet you still want to touch his body (however abstractly). Best, Curt >I agree about the enmeshing; the ontology is something different of >course. Re: D/G - I've always found their work problematic, but that's >neither here nor there. Certainly 'regime' though implies some sort of >classification system, and these categories, as in Borges, seem >heterogeneous. Also 'inordinately' of course is your opinion - not mine. >In fact language in relation to concepts of coding, seems fundamental to >understanding the universe itself - hence the emphasis on information and >information-entropy in cosmology. > >It depends re: below on what you mean by 'analyze language' as well - in >terms of materiality, my initial question was _fundamentally_ tied to the >body of Derrida, as the description of trying to 'catch him on the shoul- >der' indicates. > >- Alan > >On Sat, 12 Dec 2009, Curt Cloninger wrote: > >> Hi Alan, >> >> My phrase below is obviously an oversimplification of Bakhtin's >> position. Along with J.L. Austin and Lakoff/Johnson, Bakhtin provides >> an alternative to the idea that language somehow stands outside of >> the world and re-presents it (or wholly constitutes it, or plays a >> game regardless of it), as if language is a system that can be >> analyzed and uderstood apart from historical instances of embodied >> utterance. It's not to say that matter equals language and >> vice-versa. There are obviously radical differences. It is to say >> that language and matter are perpetually enmeshed and refracting. > > Language alters "culture" which alters matter. Material contingency >> (vocal inflection, bodily gesticulation, historical context, a >> recently intense bowel movement, the light in my eyes) alter uttered >> instances of language which collectively alter consensually agreed >> upon nuances of linguistic meaning. Language as performed, embodied, >> historically contingent event/force. >> >> Deleuze/Guattari talk about the regime of language as one among many >> regimes (regime of geology, regime of the human face, regime of >> movement through space, etc.). Language received an inordinately >> important amount of attention at the end of the last century, mostly >> by sedentary humans who write a lot of language. But language is one >> of many refracting forces at play. Words get the last word (amongst >> humans who value words), while the world modulates forward with[in] >> and without words. >> >> Or so my words assert. >> >> Best, >> Curt >> >> >>> >>> >>>>>> Bakhtin might disagree -- matter flows into language and >>>>>> language >>>>>> flows into matter (whatever matter and language may be). >>>>>> >>> >>> Just want to say I don't agree with the assertion above, if it does (or >>> doesn't) represent B's position. If you look at Soviet diamat philosophy, >>> information formed a permanent problematic within (dialectical) material- >>> ism; the way out turned on medieval ideas of reflection. The 'whatever' >>> above unpacks similarly, since there are ontic issues at work. Language >>> also doesn't possess the genidentity that matter does, which might be the >>> heart of it. Finally, cosmology tends to unpack matter itself, as well as >>> information, albeit differently (vis-a-vis the holographic universe). >>> >>> - Alan >>> _______________________________________________ >>> NetBehaviour mailing list >>> NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org >>> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour >> >> _______________________________________________ >> NetBehaviour mailing list >> NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org >> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour >> >> > > >== >email archive: http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/ >webpage http://www.alansondheim.org sondheimat gmail.com, panix.com >== >_______________________________________________ >NetBehaviour mailing list >NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org >http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
