Subject: Re: interpretation and praxis
To: baudrillard-AT-world.std.com
Date: Mon, 23 May 94 17:30:11 PDT
Cc: triley-AT-weber.ucsd.edu (me)


Boreas writes:
>
>I would like to respond to  Beth Baldwin's post by supporting her 
>contention that we are all engaging in hyperplay concerning the origins 
>of certain words such as "emancipation" and "resistance", without 
>acknowledging the fluid nature of language. The meanings of words change 
>over time and within various contexts. Our over-interpretation of words 
>is beginning to prevent us with obstacles on the way to discourses on 
>Baudrillard and ________.

But Boreas is it then the task of language to *remove* "obstacles" from our
path so that we can make our "way" to some preordained locations?
I for one fail to see what the purported "over-interpretation of
words" is "prevent[ing]" (I use the apparent typo in its 'incorrect'
form) here--this list has recently been quite a lot more active than
ever before, "hyper overinterpretation" and all.  Of course if there is 
a goal having to do with "emancipation" or "praxis" or some such, that 
is, if the Baudrillard list is supposed to clock in with its proportional 
share of the revolutionary project of radically changing society on
the path to a better world, perhaps you are right that we are stumbling--
I thought though that this goal was under contestation even as we speak.
 
>I would however like to differ with Ms. Baldwin on her distinction 
>between theory and practice. Is it not possible for the writing or 
>speaking of theory-theorizing-to be an action, for example in the 
>Nietzschean sense, where philosophy becomes philosophizing- a dance on 
>the edge of our postmodern abysses, filled with laughter (ecstasy?)?
>Is it not possible to live language rather than treating it as an object 
>for further study?- Philosophy as an aesthetic activity.

Well who knows?  This doesn't seem to sit well though with your
paragraph above.  Not that I will attempt to hold anyone to
consistency (save perhaps those agents of "praxis" who make
something of an industry of demanding it of their enemies the
"nihilists", and so why shouldn't we return the favor?)

Tristan