postmodern approaches [Was: More on substituting]

Sat Aug 6 23:18:55 UTC 2011

Allow me to play Derrida's Advocate. (God, how I hate this....)

I believe his point is that the events of, leading up to, following, and
comprehensively connected with the September 11 attacks are, when you get
right down to it, of practically infinite diversity and complexity.  In
fact, no two people would or could give you the same summary, because the
topic is, on the one hand,  unknowable in its factual totality and, on the
other, utterly subjective in its meaning (Bush says bad, Bin Laden says
good. Who knows for sure? And why should I believe you if you try to answer
the question?)

Thus, when you refer to the entire _gestalt_, or even part of it, as "Nine-
Eleven" or some other short hand that makes communication possible, you
don't know what you're talking about because you don't know all the details,
and you couldn't make final sense out of them if you did.

So it all boils down to (yawn) just another game (or perhaps "narrative") in
the endless play of signs.

I believe that D would say that *any* reaction or response is pathetically
irrational because none of us has the knowledge or ability to know the
"truth," assuming that there even is a "truth" to be known.

There could be, but maybe not; and if there is, we can't establish it
anyway; and if "we" could - depending on who you mean by "we," kimosabe -
there's really no reason for the non-we "Other" - say at the Bin Laden
Compound or somewhere on Mars in the 39th century - to believe a word we
say. How can they trust "our" judgment?)

So admit your ignorance and, assuming that any action at all can have a
truly rational basis, you can't really can't do any better than buying
more books by Derrida.)

J.-F. Baudrillard observed something similar about what was absurdly called
the "1991 Gulf War."  Something presumably happened, but its totality had
only a minimal resemblance to the reporting and thinking about it. So,
strictly speaking, "the Gulf War (or 'Gulf War' if you're picky) did not
take place."

What took place, if anything, was unknowable.  What's more, anything you
believe about it has been filtered and mediated repeatedly by those in or
with power, along with their lackeys and proxies.  So wise up and don't
believe a word of it.  Buy books by Baudrillard instead.

I believe that similar postmodern solutions may be profitably applied to
issues of national security, defense policy, military strategy, nuclear
proliferation, and the like.

They might work on the crummy economy too.  But whether they do or not may
have more to do with the inevitable consequences of the (alleged) Big Bang
than with anything anybody actually thinks up on their own.

So let the good times roll!

JL

On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 10:12 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: postmodern approaches [Was: More on substituting]
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 8/5/2011 05:21 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >But Hirschbein seems to
> >believe that his use own of "no substitute for" is perfectly lucid. His
> >research over the years "focused on postmodern approaches to nuclear
> >crises." (Think about *that* one!)
>
> I am thinking.  And I imagine Hirschbein saying about Hiroshima what
> Derrida wrote about 9/11, as noted by Edward Rothstein in an
> appraisal shortly after he died.  I find I did not ever send this to ADS-L.
>
> The New York Times, Monday October 11, 2004, "An Appraisal: The Man
> Who Showed Us How to Take the World Apart", by Edward Rothstein, page
> B1 -- its last few paragraphs.  Transcribed by me, at a time when I
> did not have access to the NYTimes archives, with apologies for any
> typos:  It's still at
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/arts/music/11derr.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=rothtein%20man%20showed%20apart&st=cse
>
> But of course, one reason for the extraordinary success of Derrida's
> ideas is that they also followed an orthodoxy in which rebellion is
> privileged over tradition and iconoclasm over authority. Independence
> is declared; obeisance is dismissed. This devotion to autonomy,
> accompanied by a spirit of play, is partly what gave Derrida a
> following in America far more enduring than that in France. His
> radical anti-authoritarianism and counter-Western ideas also gave him
> an empathetic reception on the international political left.
>         But this orthodoxy, too, can be as ruthless and demanding as
> any other. This may have been why Derrida could often become mannered
> and puerile, endlessly turning rebellion on itself. And late in his
> life, Derrida, bristling at charges that he was a relativist, tried
> to find some sort of firm, unshakeable ground upon which to stand a
> notion of political activity and justice that might justify his
> triumphant orthodoxy. To no avail. In the recent book, "Philosophy in
> a Time of Terror," here is what he said about 9/11:
>         "We do not in fact know what we are saying or naming in this
> way: September 11, le 11 septembre, September11. The brevity of the
> appellation (September 11, 9/11) stems not only from an economic or
> rhetorical necessity. The telegram of this metonymy -- a name, a
> number -- points out the unqualifiable by recognizing that we do not
> recognize or even cognize that we do not yet know how to qualify,
> that we do not know what we are talking about."
>         The rest is silence.
>
> [The last sentence above is not mine; it is the last in Rothstein's
> article.]
>
> Joel
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org