Date: Mon, 04 Aug 1997 10:19:55 -0700
Subject: communication/exchange of posts/inventive misreadings


Edward, was some of that intentional allusions to Wittengstein on
"understanding"? I still don't have a lot of time but here is a couple
of quotes from what seems a worthwhile read. These are from
_Deconstructing Communication_ Braindle G. Chang --

Intro xi: "... whenever the concept of communication comes into play -
the emphasis is always on the common sharing of material or symbolic
wealth, on social intercourse, mutual exchangte, or the imparting of
feelings and thoughts to one another . In each instance, the
correspondence between a sender and receiver of messages stands
unwaveringly at the center of the concept. And the built-in goal, the
telos, of communicative events is always - at least for those who are
involved - to arrive at abetter mutual understanding or greater feeling
of certainty and security toward one another, in short, the achievement
of _common_wealth that reflects the triumph of sociality over individual
difference."

"I argue that this implicit subjectivist thesis causes communication
theorists to view communicative events as moments within a teleological
process, a foreclosing dialectic, eventually leading them to their
unquestioned valorization of identity over difference, of the selfsame
over alterity, of dialogue over polylogue, and most important, of
undersatnding over _mis_understanding and undecidability."

Ariosto