Sat 16 Mar 2002 01:57
can interaction be made self-reflexive
Dee Hock appears to have been familiar with Derrida.
p458
In other words, Derrida wants to see us all be free to be writers. the deconstruction of logocentrism. deconstruction involves the decomposition of unities in order to uncover hidden differences (Smith, 1996:208).
over-use of awesome (my)
The object of Derrida's hostility is the logocentrism (th search for a
universal system of thought that reveals what is true, right,
beautiful, and so on) that has dominated Western social thought. This
approach has contributed to what Derrida describes as the "historical
repression and suppression of writing since Plato" (1978:196).
Derrida's theatre of cruelty appears to be an improvement over the more
typical theatre, which he sees as dominated by a system of thought he
calls representational logic. This "representationalism" is the
theatre's god, and it renders the traditional theater theological. A
theological theater is an enslaved, dead theater.
The state is theological for as long as its
structure, following the entirety of tradition, comports the following
elements: an author-creator who, absent and from afar, is armed with a
text and keeps watch over, assembles, regulates the time or the meaning
of representation.... He lets representation represent him throgh
representatives, directors or actors, enslaved interpreters ... who ...
more or less directly represent the thought of the "creator."
Interpretive slaves who faithfully execute the providential designs of
the "master." ... Finally, the theological stage comports a passive,
seated public, a public of spectators, of consumers, of enjoyers.
(Derrida, 1978:235)
p459
Decentering. Derrida associates the center with the answer and
therefore ultimately with death. Theoter or society without play and
difference--that is, static theater or society--can be seen as being
dead. His point is that we are not going to find the future int he
past, nor should we passively await out fate. Rather, the future is to
be found, is being made, is being written, in what we are doing.
Derrida leaves us ithout an answer; in fact, there is no single answer
(Cadieux, 1995). The search for the answer, the search for Logos, as
been destructive and enslaving, All we are left with is the process of
writing, of acting, with play and with difference.
Logotherapy
I have to thank you for commenting that my mindless repitition of my
disclaimer that this is interesting, well, interesting to me at least,
but not necessarily to others, is not necessary.
book as network
why is what I'm doing here valuable, possibly, like I what I did with
books and website in 95-98 (reconstructed but not yet re-released)
p455
The concern for structure has been extended beyond language tothe study
of all sign systems. This focus on the structure of sign systems has
been labeled "semiotics." Semiotics is broader than structural
linguistics, because it encompasses not only language but also other
sign and symbol systems, such as facial expressions, body language,
literary texts, indeed all forms of communication.
Roland Barthes is often seen as the true founder of semiotics. Barthes
extended (Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Sassure (1857-1913))'s ideas to
all areas of social life. Not only language but also social behaviors
are representations, or signs: "Not just language, but wrestling
matches are also signifying practices, as are TV shows, fashions,
cooking and just about everything else in everyday life" (Lash,
1991:xi). The "linguistic turn" came to encompass all social phenomena
which, in turn, came to be reinterpreted as signs.
The focus of a good many social scientists shifted from social
structure to language (Habermas's work on communication, or the
conversational analyses of some ethnomethodologists) or more generally
to signs of various sorts.
Sassure's differentation between langue and parole.
Langue, then, can be viewed as a system of signs--a structure--and the
meaning of each sign is produced by the relationship among signs within
the system. Especially important here are relations of difference,
including binary oppositions. Thus, for example, the meaning of the
word "hot" comes from the word's relationship with, its binary
opposition to, the word "cold." ...instead of an existential world of
people shaping their surroundings, we have here a world in which
people, as well as other aspects of the social world, are being shaped
by the structure of language.
o look up wittengenstein
she's probably sleeping right now.
p456 Anthropological structuralism: Claude LÈvi-Strauss
His major innovation was to reconceptualize a wide array of social
phenomena (for instance, kinship systems) as systems of communication,
thereby making them amenable to structural analyses. (1967): First,
terms used to describe kinship, like phonemes in language, are basic
units of analysis to the structural anthropologist. Second, neither the
kinship terms nor the phonemes have meaning in themselves. Instead,
both acquire meaning only when they are integral parts of a larger
system.
o don't turn off light in kitchen at night
Structural Marxism
Although we have presented the case that modern structuralism began
with Sassure's work in linguistics, there are those who argue that it
started with the work of Karl Marx: "When Marx assumes that structure
is not to be confused with visible relations and explains their hidden
logic, he inaugurates the modern structuralist tradition" (Godelier,
1972b:336). Although structural Marxism and strucutralism in general
are moth interested in "structures," each field conceptualizes
structure differently.
At least some structural Marxists share with structuralists an interest
in the study of structure as a prerequisite to the study of history.
"The study of the internal functioning of a structure must precede and
illuminate the study of its genesis and evolution" (Godelier,
1972b:343).
Both schools see structures as real (albeit invisible), although they
differ markedly on the nature of the structure that they consider real.
For LÈvi-Strauss the focus is on the structure of the mind, whereas for
structural Marxists it is on the underlying structure of society.
For Marx as for LÈvi-Strauss a structure is not a
reality that is directly visible, and so[therefore] directly
observable, but a level of reality that exists beyond the visible
relations between men, and the functioning of which constitues the
underlying logic of the system, the subjacent order by which the
apparent order is to be explained. (Godelier,
1972a:xix)
"What is visible is a reality concealing another, deeper reality, which
is hidden and the discovery of which is the very purpose of scientific
cognition" (1972a:xxiv).
p457 poststructuralism
In contrast to the structuralists, especially those who followed the
linguistic turn and who saw people constrained by the structure of
language, Derrida reduced language to "writing" which does not
constrain its subjects. Derrida also saw social instutions as writing
and therefore unable to constrain people.
While the structuralists saw order and stability in the language
system, Derrida sees language as disorderly and unstable. Different
contexts give words different meanings. As a result, the language
system cannot have the constraining power over people that the
structuralists think it does. It is impossible for scientists to search
for the underlying laws of language.
see above for more on derrida.
The ideas of Michel Foucault
.