File spoon-archives/avant-garde.archive/avant-garde_1994/avant-garde_1Apr.94, message 12


Date: Sun, 3 Apr 1994 07:30:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: Proskauer <prgm-AT-CLASS.ORG>
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Situationists/Hakim Bey


	I think this message pretty well encapsulates HB's attitude on this 
continent-speak mode.  Cut the crap, just give me the tools I need. I am 
reminded of Hegel's notion of trying to 
escape the "seriousness of the concept" (Mr Tussey's "naked result").  
	Surely this is part of the whole Calvinist trip: work for your reward! 
(Kant, I think, wrote in a similar vein, and or Hegel did, re Jacobi and 
others, seeking mystical intuition "shot from a gun").  Thus, highly 
un-emancipatory. 
	 It was pointed out, on the Delezue list, that the key 
to making any sense out of AntiOedipus is to read the last paragraphs of 
each chapter, where he tells you what he's talking about.  Thank, Giles.

Cordially,
James O'Meara
Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn	E-mail: prgm-AT-class.org	
1585 Broadway				Voice: 212-969-5021
New York, NY 10036			Fax: 212-969-2900	


On Sat, 2 Apr 1994, james tussey wrote:

> ok, i think i'll throw something in here:
> 
> i'm a philosophy major, and my main area of study is recent
> contiental philosophy.  which means i have to read a lot of derrida,
> foucault, irigaray, baudrillard, deleuze, and the whole merrie crewe.
> all of whom (to various degrees) are obscurist, all of whom seem to
> have an aversion to *just* saying what's on their mind.
> 
> but i don't think it's academic bad faith on their part, i don't
> think it's just a matter of them not wanting to be understood.
> first, bey is right when he says the desire to read something that
> makes its points straightforwardly is an american kind of desire
> (anglo-american, more broadly), and contemporary european
> intellectual writing (including situationism, which has serious links
> to nietzsche, heidegger, some of the more radical existentialists,
> et. al.), comes from a tradition--it's mostly hegel's fault--that
> would hold that the important thing in thought isn't the "naked
> result" of the thought you did, but the record of how you came to
> that point, process over result.  of course, i realize how baldly
> (and badly) i'm putting this, but the point being that the hard,
> difficult, obsfucating stuff is meant to do as much to provoke the
> reader to work at it as it is to really impart anything.  in fact,
> derrida has said that he doesn't really want to make any arguments.
> 
> my concern, however, is this: i think it points out a major
> inconsistency in this sort of writing.  if the point is to liberate
> us from a certain sort of thought, that evil, evil modernist project
> (which i by no means want to defend), then one could say that that
> sort of obsfucatory writing backfires, because it limits this project
> to an elite few (which is a hallmark of european sorts of writing, of
> course) that is educated enough to understand.  i mean, i don't see
> too many people who believe pat robertson when he rants on tv about
> how homos are destroying the american family reading foucault on the
> construction of sexuality, or derrida on phallocentrism, or segwick
> on homosexual panic, or irigaray on hom(m)osexuality.  and no one
> attempts to explain it to them.  but how do you explain these sorts
> of things without hopelessly watering them down?
> 
> oh well--i fear i'm about to launch into a rant and i don't have time
> for this, so i'm going to just drop this now and go lie down.
> 
> 
> yours,
> james tussey
> 

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