File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2002/bhaskar.0201, message 7


From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gis.net>
Subject: Re: BHA: DCR after 9/11
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 22:31:31 -0500


Hi Mervyn--

Many thanks for your thoughtful responses.

My own view of  9/11 at the "political analysis" level was very much along
the lines that you express -- that the West and the US in particular have
created their own monsters, that (so to speak) the chickens were coming home
to roost, and that yet more impoverished people would die as a result. While
terrorism is unacceptable whatever the reason, nevertheless Muslims and
Arabs (and many others) have legitimate reasons to be furious.  It's far
past time those grievances were addressed.  I would wager that most of this
list's members have a more or less similar view.

However, my questions, as you saw, try to get at another concern.  I noticed
the lack of any sort of personal "reaching out" on the list in large part
because I received dozens via my work email, addressed in effect from one
institution to another, even though extremely few individuals knew each
other personally; whereas, on this list a fair number of us have met once or
twice, and the list is on some level dedicated to addressing human
suffering.  But I'm not trying to criticize the moral fiber of this list,
just trying to understand these events and non-events.  I don't remember a
reaction of *any* sort on the Bourdieu list; yet I read a fair amount on my
main theater studies list.  Perhaps one reason for those silences is that
people on the left found the events deeply disspiriting and could hardly
communicate at all.  (No, I didn't think it was from lack of interest --
that comment concerned reductive media critiques.)

I chose the word "disspiriting" advisedly.  What *does* sustain people on
the left, in the humanities, in universities, or anyplace else?  Is there
anything in DCR that feeds the spirit?  In TDCR, perhaps yes -- it doesn't
hold together from my perspective, but for the issue I'm raising, it's more
important that Bhaskar made the attempt.  In other words, the wrong answers,
but at bottom, the right questions.

I think there are some issues here that specifically, or at least
especially, pertain to the humanities and the role critical theory has
played within it over the past 30 years, because (as Ruddick points out)
many of those who decided to enter that area of study did so because of the
pleasure and emotional sustenance that the material we study provides.  One
can love novels, poetry, plays, sculpture, etc.; and they can make you cry,
too.  It's much more than strictly intellectual excitement (though it's that
also).  (Obviously I have to speak as a partial observer; I won't pretend to
know what leads someone to make a lifetime study of, say, economics.)  But
perhaps "provides" is too strong -- should I say, "provided"?  For the
theories have made those joys vaguely shameful, if not outright impossible.

So while I agree that DCR needs to take apart the pomo bogeymen, if it is to
make any real inroads within the humanities, I think it will have to do much
more: find ways to validate the "food for the soul" that these things offer.
If DCR itself were to supply some such food, so much the better, but we
don't need to go so far as to proclaim DCR the science that makes you happy
(Nietzsche anyone?).  My point, however, is that if the events of 9/11 have
led humanities scholars (and others) to glimpse a human emptiness in their
work, and to wonder for even a moment if maybe there are better ways to do
it, the absence they feel won't be filled by DCR if it's just another
theory.  I don't think that in this moment people are just looking for a
newer, shinier critical fashion: I think they want to feel they're still
alive, and to know that what they do has value in some larger scheme of
things.

I'm saying, then, that we need not only the critical, "negative" moment of
DCR -- the side that founds our critiques of capitalist globalization,
poststructuralism, etc -- but also a "positive," supportive, even visionary
moment.  In that sense, as I suggested above, I agree with you about the
importance of TDCR even as I agree with barely five words of FEW.  Which mea
ns that FEW doesn't provide the supportive moment I'm looking for.  Maybe
*Re-enchanting Reality* will do a better job; I can only hope.

(Incidentally, I agree with Wendy that FEW is a big shift, and DPF is more
consistent with the earlier works.  My own impression in fact is that more
people feel continuity from RTS to DPF than not.  In any case DPF, or parts
of it at least, is vital to my own efforts.)

Thanks, T.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-mail.com
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce




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