Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 15:23:22 +0800 (CST)
From: Liano Sharon <lsharon-AT-ms2.hinet.net>
Subject: Re: Orpheus and Re.to.Th.




On Sat, 21 Dec 1996, Vadim Linetski wrote:

> Brian C. Bromwell wrote:
> > 
> > I understand the whole resistance to theory idea.  What seems interesting to me is
> > the possibility that the poetry of Orpheus has sprung FROM the D-G theory.  This
> > often occurs when artists are theoretically informed.  Their art is built around theory
> > rather than vice-versa.  This being the case, does the writer then build in a
> > sort of self-reflexive resistance to his/her work, rendering it impervious to
> > the very theory on which it is built?  Is this possible?  Is it necessary?  Sometimes,
> > Orpheus' writing lends itself quite easily to a D-G analysis.  This obvious pinning of
> > theory onto art does not seem to be in the spirit of D-G.
> >      I think that passages in _A-O_ and _MP_  are poetry in their own right.  Does
> > theory in this case, if considered as art, have a resistance to theory?  Does any of
> > this make sense to anyone?  Is the simultaneous production of art (poetry in this
> > case) and theory the only way forward?
> >      Someone set me straight please.
> > 
> > Brian
> > University of Exeter
> 14 MAY 97
> Dear Brian and Liano,
> albeit my last post (an answer to Andrwew's letter ) might be considered
> as an answer to your messages allow me to make another go and try to
> spell out the ideas re:res.to th. stuff. But first, i must ask Liano to
> accept my apologies that i prefeer to respond to his post indirectly:
> the main reason is technical: Brian's questions are directly related to
> Liano's argument, and although it'd have been proper to include quotes
> from  Liano's letter this 'd have involved too much (cross)cuttings and
> pastings.

	Apology accepted, and I understand the technical difficulties, 
but I don't see a clear and direct connection between what I wrote and 
Brian's message.  After reading your message reproduced here, I still 
really don't see it.  Please Clearify.


> what i find dsiturbing in Liano's argument is his attempt to blur the
> difference between saying "this is shit" and "stop shitting".

	You have completely misunderstood me if you interpret what I've 
written to suggest a blurring of these two statements.  They are clearly 
different and should not be confused.  If they are blurred at all in my 
argument it is only because when either is uttered *_but not taken up as a 
pattern_* of the society in question, then both have exactly the same 
social existance, that is to say, they each have no social existance, and 
as such may be fodder for intellectual debate, but unless they are 
actually acted upon they do not have the effect on society that such a 
debate may fear.  Unfortunately, this fear may create for itself its own 
social pattern, for example, a reluctance (of greater or lesser strength) 
to state one's thoughts.


	Rather than blurring the distinction between these two 
statements, my argument is that we must understand clearly the 
distinction between theory that moves in the mind only and theory (or 
whatever you'd like to call it) that moves a society and is moved by a 
society.


> My own
> argument was based on this distinction which i find fundamental and
> would like to thematize now. By blurring the distinction Liano de facto
> propounds exactly the very continuum between poetry and theoryy which
> Brian is quite correct to question. Forsooth it's not the only way
> forward: moreover, in my view , it's the very thing which hinders any
> worthwhile advance! The trouble with D/G (one of the many) is that on
> the one hand they seem to support this continuum (a natural one, so to
> say) whereas on the other, and again  Brian is correct in stressing this
> point, they would not have supported the production of
> literature-out-of-theory (an artificial continuum). Which means that
> there are two ways in which evaluation and "procrustination" can be
> related. What sort of continuum does Liano opt for? Obviously for the
> first, "natural" one. Note that he conceives of his own intervention
> which he is posting just as it came out (his apologetic preface) as
> "shit" of sorts and in so doing = it with Orpheus' stuff. 

	First, my apology was not an apology over content, but over 
politeness.  I was not at all saying that what I had written was "shit", 
but rather that I had not written as politely as others and wanted to 
assure them that I intended no offence.  Whether or not what I wrote was 
or was not shit is up to anyone who cares to read it, including myself, 
but I have not taken up such an evaluation. 
	Second, please define preciesly what you mean by "theory" as it 
seems we may not use the word to refer to the same concept.



> For his part,
> Brian seems certain that the latter would lend itself easily to D/Garian
> reading as an illustration of their theory, i.e. pertains to the
> artificial continuum, and by the same token, as artificiality in
> general, cannot be = with any natural product, shit incl. THIS allows us
> to make an important remark re: status of literary text in D/G theory,
> and, i venture to say, in Pomo in general (to my knowledge the issue
> remains thus far unaddressed): curiously enough , on its own terms, PoMo
> theory can use only texts which antedate it, whereas those produced
> "post" are by definition beyond the PoMo's reach, by definition
> subversive of it's theoretical claims.

	This assumess that Pomo theory (again, I'm not exactly clear 
about what you are refering to by "PoMo"--D&G, Foucault, Lyotard, etc, 
but more preciesly, what concepts do you see PoMo theory as presenting.  
I didn't find this to be clear in your Bakhtin peice either). . umm . . . 
. oh,
	This assumes that PoMo theory is somehow stuck in its moment of 
creation and is unable to change itself or be changed.  If this is true 
it is only because people are caught up by it to such an extent that 
they are unable to escape (resist) it.  That is, it has been archized, 
institutionalized, it no longer creates, it only reflects.  Ceation is a 
prosses of escaping (resisting) the weight of what is in order to arrive 
at what might be.  Possibly one of the problems (as I mentioned before) 
between Vadim and myself is that for this to really work, it must give up 
the language of escape and resistance, and proceed in the language of 
being.  Escaping may have a specific object or group thereof from which 
it flees--its purpose is not centered on creation, but on escape, thus 
its creation is archized by its aim before it begins, similarly for 
resistance.  Nontheless, I use the word "resistance" (as I tried, and 
perhaps failed to explain well earlier) to refer to creation which does 
not concern itself with escaping or resisting, but with creating--an 
obvious linguistic failing on my part, which I justified at the time by 
a now irrelevent argument.  The 
whole problem with inescapable guilt which Vadim brought up before, is 
that this guilt is an attmept to insist that all creation is infact 
archized by resistance.  The arrgument that creation is always archized 
in this way begins by picking out something of the previously accepted 
that the new creation leaves behind and claiming that leaving this object 
behind was infact the purpose of the creation in the fiirst place.  This 
shows the importance of understanding one another's intentions.  If we 
allow ourselves to decide eachother's intentions by inspecting the 
outcome, then we are each enforcing the other's entrapment by logocentric 
forces--we are the enforcers.  Thus if John's intent was merely to 
express his exasperation with his need to continually use the delete key, 
then the only way for logocentrism to step in and insure its controll 
over us was for it to claim that his intent was such that it escaped from 
some 
accepted norm--Vadim obligingly steped up to claim that John's 
statment about Orpheous' 
writting was strange for a "true" D&G'er, that is, John had escaped 
"true" d&g'erism.  This argument is only 
strengthened by the fact that regardless of John's intentions, he has and 
is (unless I misunderstand the nature of this list) incapable of getting the 
power to institutionalize his 
evaluation and censorship choices.  In this case Vadim is the enforcer of 
logocentrism, largely due to his use of some standard by which to measure 
"true" D&G'erism.  John, by comparison, made no claim of standards, no 
call for archized enforcement of his evaluation.  Would I be calling up 
"patriarchal anal eroticism" if I asked one of my students to put the banana 
she brought for me in the trash and not on my desk because it looked 
rotten to me ("Thanks, but please don't put that banana on my desk, put 
it in the trash 
Sarah, its rotten")?  I hardly think so, even if in her culture very 
brown (by whaterver standard of brown anyone in her culture cares to 
use in a given situation) bananas are considered a delicasy (sp?), because 
regardless 
of any culture, *I* can't stand overly brown bananas--and I'll decide 
for myself what overly brown means to me thank you very much!  Now, If 
after I rejected her banana, several students spoke up and said 
they wanted it and I refused to let them have it because overly 
brown bananas are terrible (according to me of course), 
___*then*____ I would be manifesting "patriarchal anal eroticism,"  but 
not before, though I might surely have been seen as quite rude since she is 
offering me what to her is the best of the best and I'm calling it 
rotten.  If, as a result of their teacher calling a brown banana rotten, 
they began to change their eating habbits because they see me as having 
higher status and want to emulate that, this is a manifestation of 
patriarchal anal eroticism __IN THE STUDENT'S_ and not on my part--it is 
a result of the student's perceptions of themselves and their 
surroundings and not a result any enforcement of norms on my part.  
However, being aware of the potential for the student's to manifest 
logocentrism in this way, I am always carefull to help them learn to 
avoid this kind of thinking.

Please explain what is different in the case of John calling Orpheous' 
stuff "shit," while not even suggesting that Orpheous be barred from 
posting it or that others be barred from reading it.  As I point out 
again below John said " . . . please stop shitting on *___my___* 
desktop!"  He didn't say anything about anyone else's.


> Which explains why by baring the
> mechanism of tradition transmission PoMo ensures its functioning , is
> doomed to institutionalization, i.e. is the mechanism of appropriation
> of narratives by dominant cultural forces. And that is why -
> structurally - Liano does perpetuate this mechanism (logocentric,
> patriarchal - whatever the label) all his well-minded denials and
> obvious good-will to do the contrary notwithstanding. 

	I don't follow this arrgument at all.  Please explain 
specifically where you see me doing this.


> It follows that if
> we are to conceive of theory vs. lit. relation actually subversive of
> our Western tradition, of interpretive strategy really and truly
> anti-oedipal, we have to thematize discontinuum, the radical break
> between text and theory. The worthwhile res.to th. is the textual
> resistance: my research aims at outlining an approach that would
> conceive of a text as never lending itself to theory, serving only as an
> object which thwarts theoretical efforts without allowing to produce
> theory out of it.

	As I believe my above argument demonstrates, any object designed 
to "thwart," combat, or confront archical edifices is already part of an 
archized edifice.  By concieving of a text interms of its effects on 
theory, you are founding it in that theory, and if that theory is 
archized, the concept of a text thus created will also be archized.  
Forget theory, create a concept of a text, then create a text, and see 
what you've got--yes, innocence is very powerful, bbut only if it is not 
innocent _of_ anything.  Consider the Uncarved Block for example.


> The definition of a text would be : an object that
> does not allow for use.

	Under certain definitins of "use" I may agree with you, but I'm 
still not sure what exactly you mean by "theory".


> This is neo-Kantianism to be sure, a
> rectification of a theory of useless technology (the authors pungently
> fail to draw all thee implications reverting to well-troden paths).

	Which authors, what three implications, which paths, what is 
reverting to what?  This is very unclear to me.

> To
> reiterate, PoMo in general, D/G in particular go in opposite direction
> theorizing exactly the USE. 

	The use of what?  Or do you mean the concept of "use" and or 
"usefullness" itself?

> Whence, among many ironies, the
> metamorphosis of the PoMo sublime into the conventional BEAUTIFUL (see
> my "THE NATURAL BEAUTY OF DECONSTRUCTION"). Might it 

	What, specifically, does "it" refer to? . . . . . 

> not be the reason
> that, as Liano astutely remarks, there would have been no noise if
> Orpheus' poetry was evaluated as "beautiful"?

 . . . .and how, exactly, does it connect with my remark.  please clearify.


> To return to the distinction between "shit" and "stop shitting".

	It is important to note that no one said "stop shitting".  John 
said "plaese stop shitting on ___my___ desktop".  He was not 
institutionalizing this, though you have been insisting that he was, and 
thus you have been insisting that he be institutionalized. (JOKE)


> The
> continuum the latter implies and Liano defends

	I am not defendiing any such continuum, rather, I am pointing 
out that no such continuum was manifested in John's remark.


> IS the core of the
> patriarchal paradigm: it is a version of ristotle's definition of the
> man as a speaking animal, i.e. the one for which action is informed by
> speech. The discontinuum i propound obviously prompts us to re-conceive
> of the relation between these two fundamental activities otherwise
> (again, D/G's desiring production, call it shitting, fucking, or what
> not, structurally, is an instance of A's continuous definition)

	This sounds interesting, how do you concieve of the relation 
between action and speech?  A lot of what I've written above has to do 
with the fact that you seem to equate John's speech with social action 
guided by his speech, that is, you seem to believe that by speeking he 
can manifest a version of his speech codified in society as some form of 
law.  I happen to believe that this is not infact the case, and so we do 
indeed seem to disagree on some point having to do with the relationship 
between action and speech.  Please comment.


> thank you
> vadim
> 
> 
> 

You're Welcome


Your Friend,

	Liano