Derrida’s Performance

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Derrida’s Performance

Post by Philosophy Now »

Yonathan Listik puts in a linguistic performance to communicate Derrida’s linguistic performance.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/107/De ... erformance
d63
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Re: Derrida’s Performance

Post by d63 »

“The reason I made the response that I did is because I feel that Heidegger has many important things to offer to those engaged in philosophy and otherwise.

That Heidegger was revealed as anti-semitic doesn't really surprise me since he was engaged under the Nazi regime, and it doesn't bother me in terms of reading and contemplating his work. As someone engaged in philosophy, I consider it my role to contemplate whether what he said is true, not whether those things agree with my politics.

I do wish that Heidegger had made an effort to be more clear, and I can admit that when I read him I have even found myself for a long time on a single sentence trying to think of what he means — this is sometimes because he is using a term that he introduced and defined prior and which I was unable to remember and contextualize as I moved on. It remains to be seen (for me) whether his writing style was necessary for his project, and again whether his project led to the discovery or aided the pursuit of truth.

I personally find more value in Heidegger than Foucault. I have not read Deleuze, Lacan, or Foucault's lectures. This point of view might change in the future, maybe because I grasp something in their work I hadn't before.

So again, the reason I made the response I did was because I feel Heidegger has something to offer and reducing his work to his politics (or prejudging it on those grounds) will be a disservice to philosophical pursuit.

It might, in the future, be worthwhile to engage in something like a study of one of Heidegger's works going over each paragraph, but that is only as yet an idea.” -The Artful Pauper: http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopi ... 8#p2536528

First of all, I hope that I am reading in an apologetic tone to this since it would be completely unnecessary. And on second thought, I can’t help but feel that bringing Heidegger’s anti-Semitism into this may have been a bit of a red herring. Thank God (whatever it is (that I have the denial of nose-blindness in my corner. I only brought it up to point to the clearly anti-democratic disposition that he had and what was the issue for me and Rorty. But that is a different issue than the one you are bringing up and are doing an impressive job of arguing. I mean I haven’t seen a point I could disagree with. Still, what I was arguing (via Rorty (was that Heidegger appears to have used a good method to bad ends by rebelling against the classicist hierarchy only to establish the hierarchy of the poet/priest.

What might help us here is Rorty’s distinction, in Philosophy and Social Hope, between interpretation and use when it comes to reading text. And what seems most important to me here is that you are finding things you can use in Heidegger. And that is all that should really matter as long as you are aware of the risks involved as Heidegger demonstrated. I myself, found something I could use (and still can (in the first essay of Ayn Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness: the idea that accusations of selfishness can too often be expressions of the selfishness of the individual making the accusation. But then by the 3rd or 4th essay, I got so nauseous with the smug fascism of it that I had to put it down. I just couldn’t go any further. But I can still use the point about selfishness without being obliged to accept the rest of her nonsense. And the same goes for you and Heidegger.

Luckily, this offers me a smooth segway (for the purposes of this rhizome (into an article in Philosophy Now (issue 107): Yonathan Listik’s Derrida’s Performance:

“Derrida’s use of the performative aspects of language attempts precisely to take the road not taken. His argument is that proper and improper uses of language are not separate, but in fact dependent on one another, because language is built not on its successes, but on its failures.” -https://philosophynow.org/issues/107/De ... erformance

The term I want to focus on here is “uses”. If we focus on use, as compared to interpretation, how do we distinguish between “proper” and “improper”? A use is a use –proper or improper. The neo-classists may zero in on a gotcha moment and argue that this is exactly why we should focus on proper interpretation rather than use. But then doesn’t that constitute just another “use” (perhaps proper, perhaps improper (of language?
Yoni
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Re: Derrida’s Performance

Post by Yoni »

Hello,

I am Yonathan Listik the author of this article. Firstly I would like to thank you for your interest and question. I am not sure I followed all your arguments and their connection to my text. I have the feeling I entered in the middle of an on going discussion (which is a very interesting place to be and to analyze through Derrida's theory). I will try be succinct and keep to your question.

I think there is no separation between the proper and the improper use of language. I believe this is precisely Derrida's point. My article attempted to argue what would be the consequences of such statement to questions of truth and knowledge. In a sense what I am trying to say is that your question does not make sense within Derrida since there is no distinction between proper and improper so the question of "how to do it" is irrelevant to a great extent. So in that spirit, my question to you is why are we interested in making this distinction? What assumption and interests does your question demand?
d63
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Re: Derrida’s Performance

Post by d63 »

“I am Yonathan Listik the author of this article. Firstly I would like to thank you for your interest and question. I am not sure I followed all your arguments and their connection to my text. I have the feeling I entered in the middle of an on going discussion (which is a very interesting place to be and to analyze through Derrida's theory). I will try be succinct and keep to your question.

I think there is no separation between the proper and the improper use of language. I believe this is precisely Derrida's point. My article attempted to argue what would be the consequences of such statement to questions of truth and knowledge. In a sense what I am trying to say is that your question does not make sense within Derrida since there is no distinction between proper and improper so the question of "how to do it" is irrelevant to a great extent. So in that spirit, my question to you is why are we interested in making this distinction? What assumption and interests does your question demand?”

First of all, I am flattered that you would actually take the time to respond to this.

Secondly, you did basically walk into the middle of an ongoing conversation that happened to connect to your article even if the segway was a little heavy handed and forced (or gerrymandered as Rorty liked to describe it. I tend to look at the boards as a form of workshopping that, inspired by Gilles Deleuze, utilizes the rhizomatic approach of playing off the connections between one thing and the other.

Lastly, one of the things I have been playing with is the connection between Rorty and Deleuze in not only their anti-platonism, but their common desire to facilitate our cultural evolution through letting mind and language just do what it does without the interference of transcendent criteria such as “objectivity”, “reason”, or “the scientific method”: their pragmatic connection.

(Now, at this point I should digress and quote T. S. Eliot: mediocre poets imitate while great poets steal. And in that spirit, I have always looked at the work of others in terms of what I can use and therefore must steal. I can use your Derridadian concept of “performance”. So sorry, brother, I’m going to have to take it(

Rorty referred to this aspect (that is as opposed to interpretation of a given text (as use. And I think it equally applies to the interpreter as well. In this sense, I cannot help but see your concept of performance (what I like to call resonance and seduction (as a form of use. And I was actually being ironic when I asked that question. Once again: a use is a use –proper or improper. Beyond that there is no point in talking about whether it is proper or not. The only question is (the pragmatic one (is does it achieve the desired effect.

The discourse you walked into was between me and a Heidegger fan based on criticisms I had relayed from Rorty in Essays on Heidegger and Others. I was pointing to how Heidegger, as Rorty described him, championed the idea of a more poetic approach to philosophy (poessis (yet failed to abandon the platonic hierarchy. But instead of the philosopher king, Heidegger turned to the esoteric priest. The person I was discoursing with naturally turned to an apologetic approach which seemed unnecessary to me since they had clearly found something in Heidegger they could use. They had basically resonated with and been seduced by Heidegger’s PERFORMANCE.

Now here’s the thing, Yonathon: the main argument most neo-classicists will have against approaches like ours (arguments that will appeal to Heidegger’s association with Nazism (is that people like Hitler used resonance and seduction (performance (as well. But that is just the Bad Faith of thinking we will find some all purpose system that will make it all work like some fine-tuned machine. The main advantage that the non-classicists have (that which is expressed in Philosophy Now (is that they know better. We have to put enough faith in ourselves to just say things and let it all come out in the wash.

Also: isn’t the idea of performance rooted in Ayers who recognized that language never actually gets outside of its performative function? I think Rorty was heavily influenced by that given his faith in discourse –what you refer to as performance and Wittgenstein as language games.
Yoni
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Re: Derrida’s Performance

Post by Yoni »

Feel free to steal as much as you want. I wouldn't be a good follower of Derrida if I said anything different.

I must say I am not a big fan of pragmatism but I see where you are coming from. As I see it pragmatism has a certain conservative/reactionary aspect to it. If you stick to what works you will never ask the question of the power of such structure and even less the question of changing it (I am aware I might be misrepresenting the theory but I think there is something to my description even if it is simplistic). I like to talk of a more aesthetic use of language. Language as fiction, as an attempt to create a narrative and therefore as a performance of a profession. Every use of language is an "as if..." but not in a sense of being untrue, rather in the sense of being a an action in the world so as to not have any truth value (or at least this value not playing a central role). So Rorty's question of pragmatic interpretation is relevant but it does not cope with what I am trying to argue about language. Perhaps your example of seduction helps me explain myself. In seducing someone you are not only pragmatically using language and therefore playing with the code and its interpretation. You are acting (in all senses of the word) since you are pretending to be interesting ("as if..."), you are professing your qualities and values and you are asking to be taken seriously as a candidate. Or in other words, you are creating a fiction where you are the hero and asking the other person to believe you.

I must confess I am not that acquainted with Ayer's work but from the limited range of contact I had I did not find the performative there. In fact I think he represents the exact opposite perspective on language (but I might be wrong). As to Wittgenstein I think he is a big influence and he does call our attention to some performative aspects of language but I wouldn't go as far as to say that all there is not the performative is language-games or the other way around. I think the obvious source of the performative is Austin's theory. There I think we have a serious challenge of the purely descriptive aspect of language and the argument that we actually "do things with words".
d63
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Re: Derrida’s Performance

Post by d63 »

First of all, Yoni (or should I be prefixing that with Prof. or Dr.? (I’m finding myself energized by this exchange (or what I like call a jam: an American term (perhaps even western (referring to what musicians do when they improvise and bounce off of each other. And it is good thing since I came to today’s task feeling a little tired. I am grateful for and flattered by the opportunity you have offered me.

That said, one of aspects of my rhizomatic approach is that I work these posts out on Word by posting your point then breaking it down point by point. So I apologize for the repetition. The other aspect of it is that I like to cross-pollinate by re-posting what I’ve done on one board in the hope of provoking discourse elsewhere. That has the added benefit of letting other people know what is out there –in this case, Philosophy Now. That said:

“Feel free to steal as much as you want. I wouldn't be a good follower of Derrida if I said anything different.

I must say I am not a big fan of pragmatism but I see where you are coming from. As I see it pragmatism has a certain conservative/reactionary aspect to it. If you stick to what works you will never ask the question of the power of such structure and even less the question of changing it (I am aware I might be misrepresenting the theory but I think there is something to my description even if it is simplistic). I like to talk of a more aesthetic use of language. Language as fiction, as an attempt to create a narrative and therefore as a performance of a profession. Every use of language is an "as if..." but not in a sense of being untrue, rather in the sense of being a an action in the world so as to not have any truth value (or at least this value not playing a central role). So Rorty's question of pragmatic interpretation is relevant but it does not cope with what I am trying to argue about language. Perhaps your example of seduction helps me explain myself. In seducing someone you are not only pragmatically using language and therefore playing with the code and its interpretation. You are acting (in all senses of the word) since you are pretending to be interesting ("as if..."), you are professing your qualities and values and you are asking to be taken seriously as a candidate. Or in other words, you are creating a fiction where you are the hero and asking the other person to believe you.

I must confess I am not that acquainted with Ayer's work but from the limited range of contact I had I did not find the performative there. In fact I think he represents the exact opposite perspective on language (but I might be wrong). As to Wittgenstein I think he is a big influence and he does call our attention to some performative aspects of language but I wouldn't go as far as to say that all there is not the performative is language-games or the other way around. I think the obvious source of the performative is Austin's theory. There I think we have a serious challenge of the purely descriptive aspect of language and the argument that we actually "do things with words". –Yoni (A.K.A Yonathon Listik: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=15253

“I must say I am not a big fan of pragmatism but I see where you are coming from. As I see it pragmatism has a certain conservative/reactionary aspect to it. If you stick to what works you will never ask the question of the power of such structure and even less the question of changing it (I am aware I might be misrepresenting the theory but I think there is something to my description even if it is simplistic).”

One might get that impression, especially based on Rorty who liked to joke that he was basically a bourgeoisie liberal. And reading him, you get the feeling of some upper middle class intellectual from the New England area. As Deleuze and Guattarri said in a sly aside in What is Philosophy: “dinner and conversation at the Rorty’s.” And were one to stop at the criteria of “what works”, they would be treading dangerous ethical territory since we can assume that the criteria by which Neo-Nazi’s prop up their ideologies is that it works for them. So there is something to your theory.

However, it gets a little more complex when it comes to what we mean in terms of something working. We also have to ask other questions like how it is working, for whom it is working, and why it is working for them. This also requires the reverse issue of who it is not working for and why. This is illustrated in the issue of Global Capitalism and the 1% it is working for and the other 99% it is not. And I would also note that the cornerstone of Pragmatism is the pragmatic truth test which served as a synthesis of the inductive and deductive truth tests and then some. What it recognizes is that both are only useful because they work while recognizing that there are ,yet, other ways of working that don’t fit neatly into either category. A good example of that is religion which works for the individual that is practicing it while not not working for the individual that doesn’t. If it works for people to believe in ghosts, it should equally work for people who don’t since such a belief has no real effect on their life.

But then that is the uptake. The downside lies in a point made by Rorty in Philosophy and Social Hope that even if someone like Heidegger could be or was pragmatic in disposition, that would be no guarantee against the kind of moral folly that he wandered into. But then what ideology is? The pragmatist, if they are a pragmatist, must recognize the futility of thinking any ideology will, by necessity, change human activity. Ideology, along with the language we use to express it, is a tool by which we deal with a given environment. And ideology presupposes language. Hence Rorty’s emphasis on discourse over transcendent epistemological systems that could underwrite any assertion we might make as true and Deleuze’s (w/ Guattarri (emphasis on social production: the network of machines rooted in his transcendental empiricism. And your point concerning Derrida’s Performance fits easily into this –at least for me. This is because I believe that, in evolutionary terms, the advancement of our culture must be a process of brainstorming (simple discourse between a lot of different people using a lot of different methods (without the constraints of transcendental criteria, of throwing it all on the table and picking through it to find what works and, ultimately, what keeps working: the gift that keeps on giving –a little like evolution.

Anyway, ran out my window on one point. And I am exhausted. Will have to take this up again tomorrow: Same Bat time; Same Bat place……
d63
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Re: Derrida’s Performance

Post by d63 »

"This will be my next letter for Philosophy Now and I’m hoping to get some input before I start working on it my next workweek:

But I’m starting to note an aspect of the neo-classicist approach that turns on itself. And while it may not be a paradox, it may be every bit as detrimental to it as the skeptic’s paradox thrown at non-classicist positions -pragmatism, Post modern and structuralist approaches like that of Deleuze’s –or, at least, to the extent that the neo-classicists seem to think they are undermining the non-classicists with it.

It comes down to a conflict between neo classicism’s agenda’s of finding some kind of absolute truth about the nature of reality while seeking an objective basis for ethical claims. On the ethical side, it attempts to undermine the non-classicist/anti-platonic with the sweeping generalization of relativism and an application of the skeptic’s paradox (that which I hope I have undermined in previous posts (by arguing that the progressive position cannot be supported by a sensibility that sees no solid foundation for any ethical or moral assertion they might make. According to them, their way must be better since they are in a position to establish a solid and objective foundation to their moral and ethical assertions in such a way that no one can deny them. They see their way as the only real way, the only real solution to all the problems in the world. As long as there are those nasty relativists in the world (those nihilists (we cannot possibly hope for people to behave as they should.

The problem is that the neo-classist ethicist is inherently, in its claims to an objective criterion of the ethical and moral, beholden to the scientific method which, via neuroscience, is showing that our actual participation in our choices are, at best, minimal. Beyond that, all they really have is a Kantian de-ontic appeal to duty which is an assumption that clearly floats on thin air: that which the nihilistic perspective thrives on. In other words, they’re making their ethical claims as if they were scientific assertions. At the same time, they’re arguing that their way is the only way we can counter bad behavior based on a scientific method (objectivity (that shows that no matter what objective basis they might actually find, no one is somehow certain to follow their principles just because they know of them. This would require that the neo-classicist ethicist accept the old ghost in the machine which is about as counter to their scientific peers as could be. And they can’t just pick and choose since the so-called objective world they are claiming to exist can only be of one nature that all of them (at least the neo-classicists (must share.

At the same time, those on the scientific side of the neo-classicist equation are equally beholden to their ethical/moral peers since they are arguing as if our duty to the scientific method and objectivity is a moral and ethical one. Why else would they put so much effort into dismissing thinkers like Rorty or Derrida? That is rather than take a live and let live position?

To sum it up: you have to ask what is it that would be changed if we arbitrarily (and it would be arbitrary (accepted the neo-classicist position and it’s claims to objectivity and the authority of the scientific method; you have to ask if the so-called objective argument for an ethical claim would be so powerful and undeniable that it would over-ride the wiring that neuroscience describes. You have to ask what it is they expect to gain by winning the debate and the fascism of somehow undermining all other approaches to understanding."
d63
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Re: Derrida’s Performance

Post by d63 »

"Also: isn’t the idea of performance rooted in Ayers who recognized that language never actually gets outside of its performative function? I think Rorty was heavily influenced by that given his faith in discourse –what you refer to as performance and Wittgenstein as language games." -me:viewtopic.php?f=23&t=15253


"I must confess I am not that acquainted with Ayer's work but from the limited range of contact I had I did not find the performative there. In fact I think he represents the exact opposite perspective on language (but I might be wrong). As to Wittgenstein I think he is a big influence and he does call our attention to some performative aspects of language but I wouldn't go as far as to say that all there is not the performative is language-games or the other way around. I think the obvious source of the performative is Austin's theory. There I think we have a serious challenge of the purely descriptive aspect of language and the argument that we actually "do things with words"." -Yoni: Ibid....


Actually, Yoni, mine was a throwaway sentence that sometimes occur in the on the fly manner in which we work on the boards. I would put my money on Austin. But I'm not altogether sure we can separate the performative aspect of language from the language game. But I'll have to think about that and reserve it for another rhizome.


“I like to talk of a more aesthetic use of language. Language as fiction, as an attempt to create a narrative and therefore as a performance of a profession. Every use of language is an "as if..." but not in a sense of being untrue, rather in the sense of being a an action in the world so as to not have any truth value (or at least this value not playing a central role). So Rorty's question of pragmatic interpretation is relevant but it does not cope with what I am trying to argue about language.”

Actually, you’re talking to someone who started out as a musician then moved on through poetry, fiction, and art to my present fixation on philosophy. In fact, my first encounter with philosophy was Will Durrant’s The Story of Philosophy which I picked up in a second hand store in order see how Aristotle’s Categorical Imperative would affect my music –which goes to show how much I knew about it back then. At that time, I thought it my manifest destiny to be a rock star. And I’m not sure I ever got over that. Like everything else I have gotten in to, I have pretty much approached philosophy with the purpose of making it rock and roll. So your point concerning performance and Derrida has always been waiting for me to arrive. Which brings me to zero in on a particular point:

“Language as fiction, as an attempt to create a narrative and therefore as a performance of a profession.”

Until I caught this, I had thought that the difference between my sense of performance and yours was that you (via Derrida (had generalized it into discourse in general. And that makes perfect sense to me given that discourse is ultimately a creative act. One person strings a sentence together based on previous sentences they have strung together. Then the other responds with a sentence built off of other sentences they have previously strung together. The above sentence, however, makes it seem like it is strictly a matter of how we talk about philosophy or any other discipline, like it’s strictly a matter of nomenclature or technical jargon.

?

That said, I had previously arrived at a conclusion or conceptional construction that might roughly correlate to yours. When it comes to writing, there are two pole in a spectrum of approaches: the functional (roughly correlating to Austin’s performative function you attribute to Derrida (and the aesthetic (roughly correlating to the performance aspect of your point. The functional is that which merely attempts to get a point across and can be as simple as a grocery list. The aesthetic is that which attempts to resonate and seduce as well as impress. And when it comes to writing, the functional is that which me must turn to when we’re working on-the-fly until the momentum of it pushes us into the aesthetic. The two are intimately entwined and I’m not sure that either can exist in any pure state anymore than craft and art can.

Once again: it’s like your article and Derrida was waiting for me to arrive. But then I’m always several steps behind the wave in front of me.

Where your article took me a step further was in the imperative presented by the double meaning of Performance in Derrida: performance itself and the performative function. What I saw was a sturdy response to a common neo-classicist dismissal (as well as a lot of other continental approaches which they group together in the erroneous category of relativism –that is along with Rorty and Pragmatism: this fantasy they seem to entertain that anyone who follows Derrida’s lead is just sitting around and reading texts only to come up with any interpretation that suits their fancy. As I understand it, Derrida encourages us to analyze text which is a lot different than just reading them. The idea, as you describe, is to follow the aesthetic through, respond as you will, then play that response against the reality of Derrida’s text. As you point out, Derrida is not just being pretty for the sake of being pretty, he is doing it to mean something. I would suggest that we have to approach it a little like the last lines of Donald Finkle’s poem Hands:

Lean back and let its [the poem] hands play freely on you:
there comes a moment, lifted and aroused,
when the two of you are equally beautiful.
Yoni
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Re: Derrida’s Performance

Post by Yoni »

I like your question about "work" because I feel it is deeply connected to to point I am trying to make. You are right, for me the performative is part of something much bigger. It is impossible to talk about profession and knowledge production without transiting into this central topic. So the question of what works is central here and Derrida is aware of this, when he talks about the "University without condition" he is talking about the university that is free of capitalism at the same time that it has no condition of ever existing in our current social structure. In a sense what I trying to say is that I disagree with you when you say that capitalism is not "working". In fact it is working perfectly because that is how it works, there is no capitalism that is not the 1% over the 99%. I believe that is precisely the problem in front of us, how to break with what works in the name of that which lacks any conditions of existing. In simple words, how can we perform the impossible and still get away with it? That is, to think that which is absurd in our current division of the world and therefore unpragmatic/unreal. So to some extent the criticism towards Derrida you mentioned does make sense, he is talking about something unreal but exactly for that reason we should listen to him. He is proposing that knowledge function differently. The question for me is not pragmatically coping with the situation but breaking it. Your proposal of an infinite discourse creating evolution is not enough for me because it would be just the infinite return of the same discourse, the same order appearing in different angles (Derrida's iterability in a sense). To perform must be to propose something different. It must demands a new reality "as if" it was possible/real (I believe current philosopher such as Ranciere and Nancy formulate this question).

I would like to add that function and aesthetics are not separate (I know you never said they were but I just want to reinforce a point). The function of something is its aesthetic function. Aesthetic in the sense of being the organization of the sensible, the determination of the visible at the same time as the meaning associated to it. To talk about aesthetics is to talk about the functional organization of knowledge/power.

PS: I am also enjoying our jam and specially the reference to batman.
d63
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Re: Derrida’s Performance

Post by d63 »

"I like your question about "work" because I feel it is deeply connected to to point I am trying to make. You are right, for me the performative is part of something much bigger. It is impossible to talk about profession and knowledge production without transiting into this central topic. So the question of what works is central here and Derrida is aware of this, when he talks about the "University without condition" he is talking about the university that is free of capitalism at the same time that it has no condition of ever existing in our current social structure. In a sense what I trying to say is that I disagree with you when you say that capitalism is not "working". In fact it is working perfectly because that is how it works, there is no capitalism that is not the 1% over the 99%. I believe that is precisely the problem in front of us, how to break with what works in the name of that which lacks any conditions of existing. In simple words, how can we perform the impossible and still get away with it? That is, to think that which is absurd in our current division of the world and therefore unpragmatic/unreal. So to some extent the criticism towards Derrida you mentioned does make sense, he is talking about something unreal but exactly for that reason we should listen to him. He is proposing that knowledge function differently. The question for me is not pragmatically coping with the situation but breaking it. Your proposal of an infinite discourse creating evolution is not enough for me because it would be just the infinite return of the same discourse, the same order appearing in different angles (Derrida's iterability in a sense). To perform must be to propose something different. It must demands a new reality "as if" it was possible/real (I believe current philosophers such as Ranciere and Nancy formulate this question).


I would like to add that function and aesthetics are not separate (I know you never said they were but I just want to reinforce a point). The function of something is its aesthetic function. Aesthetic in the sense of being the organization of the sensible, the determination of the visible at the same time as the meaning associated to it. To talk about aesthetics is to talk about the functional organization of knowledge/power." Yonathon Listik (A.K.A Yoni: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=15253


Once again, I apologize for posting what you already know -that is since you wrote it. But as I said before, as I am writing this, I am always prepping it for cross-polination. Plus that, I think some of my other jam-mates might be interested in what you have to say. It's certainly interesting to me. That said:


"So the question of what works is central here and Derrida is aware of this, when he talks about the "University without condition" he is talking about the university that is free of capitalism at the same time that it has no condition of ever existing in our current social structure. In a sense what I am trying to say is that I disagree with you when you say that capitalism is not "working". In fact it is working perfectly because that is how it works, there is no capitalism that is not the 1% over the 99%. I believe that is precisely the problem in front of us, how to break with what works in the name of that which lacks any conditions of existing. In simple words, how can we perform the impossible and still get away with it? That is, to think that which is absurd in our current division of the world and therefore unpragmatic/unreal."


First of all, I am perfectly in sympathy with the political aspect implied in the first part. The increasing influence of corporate financing in universities that corresponds with decreasing state financing is clearly a concern: that which is the reason for Marx’s exile out of the economic departments into the Humanities and the dominance of analytic approaches (that in which clear expression is assumed to be a sign of clear thought (in philosophy departments. And outside of the fact (and may the wrath of Strunk rest in its grave (that universities were created to be a bastion of democratic enlightenment, while that may seem a superficial issue, in terms of what we’re getting at here, it still seems like a worthy segway when you consider that what seems to dominate a lot of the training (especially when you look at its products like Searle, Dennett, and Pinker (is the idea of being able to sell books. You suggest (at least to me (this concern in:

“I believe that is precisely the problem in front of us, how to break with what works in the name of that which lacks any conditions of existing. In simple words, how can we perform the impossible and still get away with it? That is, to think that which is absurd in our current division of the world and therefore unpragmatic/unreal. So to some extent the criticism towards Derrida you mentioned does make sense, he is talking about something unreal but exactly for that reason we should listen to him. He is proposing that knowledge function differently.”

If I am anywhere in the ballpark with you, I see a loose connection to a point made by Layotard in the Appendix to The Postmodern Connection in which he points to the terroristic aspect of the accessible and easily communicable and offers, as an antidote, the Avant Garde. This resonates with and seduces me in that I see the fascistic pockets that are emerging everywhere in America (that is thanks to producer/consumer Capitalism and the adolescent phallogocentrism that drives it (and propping themselves up through the accessible and easily communicable. To give you an example, I once watched a debate on C-Span between Cal Thomas (a hardcore conservative (and Lewis Lapham (the progressive editor of The Harper’s Review. Cal Thomas went through this smooth exposition that ended with that smack of the lips I too often sense in conservative editorials as if to say: that’s just the way it is. Lewis Lapham, on the other hand, kind of fumbled around and struggled to make his point which, of course, did not come off as nearly as impressive (in the sense of common doxa (as Thomas did –even though Lewis has shown himself to be highly intelligent in his writings.

Now the lean towards the accessible and the easily communicable would see this as a victory for Thomas. But all it really reflected was the stunted intellectual process of Thomas and the endless process of self deconstruction (the this, but that (that Lapham (as a true progressive (worked from. Thomas worked from the finite position of common Capitalist doxa. Lapham, on the other hand, was struggling to define the infinite much as I believe Derrida and Deleuze (and to a limited extent: Rorty and Pragmatism (was .

Anyway, like Lapham, I am always dealing with an infinite network of connections that come up with your points. It’s a little like an expanding universe with various big bangs creating their own expanding universes. It’s just too much to capture in any one sitting. Got to rest my head before I go on. And I didn’t even get to the points I started out with!!!!!

But then it is all about seeing what the mind can do, isn't it? The way I see it, Yoni, we believe in things like afterlives, higher powers, and higher principles; but our point A to point B is a given. And what better thing can we do with that than see what the mind can do and do some good in the process?
Yoni
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Re: Derrida’s Performance

Post by Yoni »

I think your avant-garde proposal is very interesting but at the same time limited. I suggest you read Ranciere's "The paradoxes of political art" in Dissensus. There he opposes Lyotard's and suggests that avant-garde too is problematic since it demands an absolute anesthetization of life which is impossible since art and life are always separate. Life cannot be art and art cannot be life without creating a problematic situation (for example hype and artsy commodities that just perpetuate the world configuration). This is basically (and superficially) his argument but this does not mean that avant-garde is completely useless. As I mentioned earlier the project is still an aesthetic project in the sense of thinking the (re)organization of the world. That is, of thinking the knowledge the world IS in the sense of how we sense it, i.e, how we are present in the world and always "touching it".

On this note I would to problematize your usage of the world "antidote". I don't think we should be looking for an antidote, i.e., a pharmakon that is absolutely good. I don't think this is the question Lyotard was proposing but more importantly this is not the question of politics. When you demand the antidote you demand the absolute, you demands the infinite as you mentioned towards the end of your post. I agree with you we are seeing a conservative turn in world as a result impossibility to cope with the question of politics in the way it is being proposed today but in my opinion this fascist turn is precisely the infinite answer to the question that demands the infinite. In that sense everything is working out perfectly as I mentioned in my previous post. Politics in thought in absolute terms of either infinite justice or infinite love or infinite anything else and therefore always terrorist even if in a limited sense. I just believe the moment you propose the infinite/absolute answer you are just replacing one master by another (as Lacan warns the students in the "Analyticon").

And I also agree that Derrida, Deleuze and Rorty (and many others) think the infinite but I still think it is possible to extract something different from their theories.To be more precise a "finite thinking" (as in Nancy's book). A thinking of our limitedness and togetherness that is not whole. This is exactly your final question. I don't like to talk in concepts of mind, I prefer the notions of Being or presence/existence but spirit is the same I think: our reality is always limited/finite in a sense, so the meaning/truth of the world is always already despite barely being it. I think once we shift the question towards this finitude, we might be able to cope with the political issue of being-together since politics is nothing more that being this "togertheness" (am I clear or have I transited into ontological gibberish?)
d63
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Re: Derrida’s Performance

Post by d63 »

First of all, Yoni, I just finished Joe Hughes' reader guide to Deleuze's Difference and Repetition and did not get a chance to comment on it -mainly because my daily rhizomes have been focused on responding to you. This tells me that you're presenting a flow that, while distracting me from other things I should be doing, faces me with an itch that must be scratched. And, sometimes, the only way out is through. The only way I can hope to get past the jam we have been engaged in is to focus on it for a couple of weeks.

I had planned to move on to Deleuze and Guattari's What is Philosophy. And I tend to plan my process out in terms of my workweek. But given your clear influence by Derrida (I could see it in your Telos article -and BTW: you look like Seth Rogan (I decided to spend the next week on Derrida: a very short introduction -that is since I can easily finish it in a week between the e-book and the audio-book. Then I want to follow that with a week of just going through your work and posts and responding to them.

But before I engage in this experiment, I need you to understand a few things. First of all, I am not obsessed with or stalking you. This is purely about my process and what I can use in yours. You, for my purposes (and I don’t mean to sound mean –especially given that this comes out of respect (are a wave that I have to ride through so I can move onto other waves. Secondly, just because I am focusing on you does not mean that you need to focus on me. Once again, this discourse has been, in a metaphorical sense, a personal big bang that has set off an expanding universe of rhizomatic networks. All I need you to do is what you have been: commenting as you feel compelled to do. Even if you don’t, I still have a backlog of points you’ve made that I can easily bounce off of. Also, if and when the second part of this experiment happens, you may find yourself bombarded with a lot of writing that you may not have time to go through. Don’t sweat it. Just skim through it and cherrypick what you can respond to if you have to.

The main point is that you do not feel any pressure to do anything outside of what you normally do. This is my process. What you do outside of that is just embellishment which I can only welcome.

And since I know a little about you (via Google (you should know a little about me. First of all, I am not a philosopher. That would require a reading list I may not have time for in my lifetime. Being self taught, as far as philosophy’s concerned, I just like the idea of taking in a lot of different influences and seeing what I can produce because of them. I like to consider myself more of a writer who tends to write about what they experience, which for the time being is mainly philosophy.

(I should also point out that my primary experience with Derrida has been secondary text: what I have read about him. I have read through A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds (but didn’t get much from it. I do have in my library his Specter of Marx. But that has thus far been one of those books I keep hoping to get to if I can ever get past that other damn Frenchman: Deleuze. And I mean it: damn the French and their weird obscure philosophies anyway!!!!

Okay! Let the jam begin:

“I think your avant-garde proposal is very interesting but at the same time limited. I suggest you read Ranciere's "The paradoxes of political art" in Dissensus. There he opposes Lyotard's and suggests that avant-garde too is problematic since it demands an absolute anesthetization of life which is impossible since art and life are always separate. Life cannot be art and art cannot be life without creating a problematic situation (for example hype and artsy commodities that just perpetuate the world configuration). This is basically (and superficially) his argument but this does not mean that avant-garde is completely useless. As I mentioned earlier the project is still an aesthetic project in the sense of thinking the (re)organization of the world. That is, of thinking the knowledge the world IS in the sense of how we sense it, i.e, how we are present in the world and always "touching it".

On this note I would to problematize your usage of the world "antidote". I don't think we should be looking for an antidote, i.e., a pharmakon that is absolutely good. I don't think this is the question Lyotard was proposing but more importantly this is not the question of politics. When you demand the antidote you demand the absolute, you demands the infinite as you mentioned towards the end of your post. I agree with you we are seeing a conservative turn in world as a result impossibility to cope with the question of politics in the way it is being proposed today but in my opinion this fascist turn is precisely the infinite answer to the question that demands the infinite. In that sense everything is working out perfectly as I mentioned in my previous post. Politics in thought in absolute terms of either infinite justice or infinite love or infinite anything else and therefore always terrorist even if in a limited sense. I just believe the moment you propose the infinite/absolute answer you are just replacing one master by another (as Lacan warns the students in the "Analyticon").

And I also agree that Derrida, Deleuze and Rorty (and many others) think the infinite but I still think it is possible to extract something different from their theories.To be more precise a "finite thinking" (as in Nancy's book). A thinking of our limitedness and togetherness that is not whole. This is exactly your final question. I don't like to talk in concepts of mind, I prefer the notions of Being or presence/existence but spirit is the same I think: our reality is always limited/finite in a sense, so the meaning/truth of the world is always already despite barely being it. I think once we shift the question towards this finitude, we might be able to cope with the political issue of being-together since politics is nothing more that being this "togertheness" (am I clear or have I transited into ontological gibberish?)”

Okay, focusing on:

“I think your avant-garde proposal is very interesting but at the same time limited. I suggest you read Ranciere's "The paradoxes of political art" in Dissensus. There he opposes Lyotard's and suggests that avant-garde too is problematic since it demands an absolute anesthetization of life which is impossible since art and life are always separate. Life cannot be art and art cannot be life without creating a problematic situation (for example hype and artsy commodities that just perpetuate the world configuration). This is basically (and superficially) his argument but this does not mean that avant-garde is completely useless. As I mentioned earlier the project is still an aesthetic project in the sense of thinking the (re)organization of the world. That is, of thinking the knowledge the world IS in the sense of how we sense it, i.e, how we are present in the world and always "touching it".

On this note I would to problematize your usage of the world "antidote". I don't think we should be looking for an antidote, i.e., a pharmakon that is absolutely good.”

:I don’t think Layotard’s point was to exchange one absolute for another. He did, after all, point to postmodernism being about the undermining of all grand narratives. My blue-collarized (perhaps even vulgarized (take on it is that it primarily about pre-empting fixed semiotic systems of meaning. Hence his argument for the avant garde as an antidote. And I respectfully question your point:

“On this note I would to problematize your usage of the world "antidote". I don't think we should be looking for an antidote, i.e., a pharmakon that is absolutely good. I don't think this is the question Lyotard was proposing but more importantly this is not the question of politics. When you demand the antidote you demand the absolute, you demands the infinite as you mentioned towards the end of your post.”

Now that we have wandered into the analytic study of meanings: I would argue that the word “antidote” does not describe an absolute solution, but rather a fix for a given situation or problem. I, personally, see traces of that same temporary fix in the thought of Derrida. I see Frost’s point concerning poetry: that it is a temporary stay against confusion.

As I see it, Derrida is an expression of a movement that started in Saussure’s recognition that the words we use to refer to things are arbitrarily chosen (via a human agreement (and moved on to recognize that since language can never truly reflect reality, there is no reason we shouldn’t just Play with it: Performance.

P.S., brother: the main goal is for us to get through this without ending up at each other’s throat. There can be no discourse so volatile as that which works in the second person perspective of speaking in terms of “you” which implies an “I”. As I have every reason to believe based on what I have seen of you: the point isn’t to win. It is to push our individual processes further than they have ever gone before.
Last edited by d63 on Sat Apr 25, 2015 8:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
d63
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Re: Derrida’s Performance

Post by d63 »

And between me and you, brother (and it will strictly be between you and me (one of the coolest things I got from my studies on Deleuze was that the French word for experience is the same as the word for experiment. I want the next 2 weeks to be an experiment that will lead to many experiences for both of us -but most importantly for me.
d63
Posts: 755
Joined: Sat Apr 05, 2014 4:55 pm

Re: Derrida’s Performance

Post by d63 »

I hope to talk in your language for the next week.
Yoni
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Apr 20, 2015 1:53 pm

Re: Derrida’s Performance

Post by Yoni »

First for me it is essential/vital that you don't feel in any way offended. I get the feeling you understand me but I just want to reinforce to avoid any trouble/misunderstanding, I am not teaching or correcting you. This is an open discussion and I am also trying to argue something that I am not fully sure makes sense. When I refer to "you" I was not attacking you. The "you" has basically two meanings/usages for me. First the fact that our arguments are not thrown into the air, there is someone who is saying and arguing something. To talk is to perform and to perform is to take a stance as I said in my text. The other sense (perhaps in contradiction to the first one) is a neutral "you" as in the voice of the rationality that argues a specific argument. For example: once "you" (the person who demands an infinite answer and not necessarily you [reader] of this text or you [d63]) demands/argues X, "you" must also cope with the consequences implicit (or at least that I see as implicit) in that argument (even, and perhaps more importantly, if you did not want to argue such things yourself).

By the way this is more or less my response to our point about Lyotard, I am perfectly aware that he does not want an antidote, but that does not mean that his theory does not present/demand/propose one. The end of all grand narratives is itself a grand apocalyptic narrative. It is an absolute law saying "all meaning/sense is canceled, now everything is possible". Avant-garde for him is the reminder of the impossibility of the law, of the coping with the other, i.e., its irepresentability in thought and art. This is exactly the argument in the poem, this absolute "let it be", the "free play", the non-law that is itself as repressive as the total law. A law that says that everything is allowed is as absolute as the law that says nothing is. They are both total laws. In that sense despite not wanting to argue something absolute, I think Lyotard does. We fail (more often than we like to admit) when we argue something and philosophers are people too. For example: in my previous post I failed to communicate my argument respectfully and also failed in proposing an argument about Lyotard's philosophy. As to Derrida and contingency I think there is something to what you are saying but I would like (as always) to disagree a little. Language is not pure contingency and human agreement since this would means that language does not do anything, it is just a code pragmatically defined to describe things. Even if you perform, you would just perform within the functioning code/structure/organization/regime, you would not challenge it or propose anything else. I think there is something deeper in the performance, it is not just play (the "everything is possible" as in my criticism of Lyotard), there is an attempt at (re)organization. Again, you point at a very serious problem that is the relation between language and world. I don't want to say that there is a world and language simply describes it, I don't want to say that the world is just the creation of language (as an image or a construct) and I don't want to preserve a pragmatic relation where the two never touch and language is just a contingent form of organization that "works". Therefore I think Derrida is not just saying something about language, he is proposing a new model of truth, that is, a new ontology as I tried to very shortly propose in my previous post.

On that note I would just like to say I am honored by your interest (and to some extent by what you said about Seth Rogen and me looking similar). I just want to warn you that you might be disappointed by what you find since to put nicely "my bark is still stronger than my bite". I feel I am on a very initial stage and don't really have much to show. Those Telos articles were nice but they too are very initial. That said, I would never refuse a good philosophical discussion so feel free to buzz around and bother me as much as you want. If you want to invite other people into the discussion that is perfect is also perfect. If they too want to drown me in question, that is just what I want (again this does not mean that I will be able to answer everything, I reserve myself the right to fail) This article (as everything I write) is an invitation to a discussion.
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