From: "Widder,NE" <N.E.Widder-AT-lse.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: New Year, Same Old Crap
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 14:17:35 -0000 


>In a message dated 1/7/99 4:02:58 AM Pacific Standard Time,
>N.E.Widder-AT-lse.ac.uk writes:
>
><<  And quite a number
> of "academics" have been central in opening up these terms to
>multiplicity
> -- as well as other "isms" such as feminism, other political movements
>such
> as gay and lesbian movements, and the like.  >>

>And quite a number of Nonacademic thinkers have invented quite a lot
>more ...
>namely, people involved in social movements [this doesn't necessarily
>disclude
>those involved in academia mind you, but it includes a whole hell of a
>lot
>more] ...

You are once again making silly distinctions, once again in a futile attempt
to divert attention away from the issue away from your ridiculous
statements.  I used the term "Marxism" and you called me an academic who is
reducing everything to monolithic conceptual terms.  I told you only an
idiot would assume that such a word was necessarily being used in that
fashion.  As for your claims about how much more "non-academic thinkers"
have invented, you are again invoking a stupid distinction, as usual.  And
since you have yet to be able to explain how you tell the difference between
anything, and since you have rejected the ideas of rank and measure as
"Platonic", I find little use for your claims as to who invented what and
what is greater in quantity or worth.

>"Your top down theory of
>power " ... well, I'm not sure this is entirely  my position ...
>although the
>state Is a hierarchical machine ... i'm not leaving out complicity due
>to all
>sorts of factors ; i did mention the way tendencies are manipulated and
>misfortunes of difference turned into divisions ... obviously the state
>has to
>play upon real tendencies in order to build itself ... there's all sorts
>of
>complexities when you look with a microscope ... but you'd still have to
>be
>totally blind not to see large power structures that rule the society in
>quite
>hierarchical manners ...

Again you are avoiding the issue.  I didn't suggest there were not large
power structures in society.  I said you had to be fucking half historically
ignorant to make claims like the one you made regarding racism being
something merely propogated by "the state", no matter how complex you make
such an entity.  You have only repeated that the state is a complex entity
and there are many factors involved.  I assume you that means you are
sticking to the idea that there is something called folk-lore which is
innocent of such things, and a state apparatus which propogates various
hatreds.  I say that your understanding is theoretically lacking and reveals
a paultry understanding of power and ideology in Deleuze and D&G (and
Foucault for that matter).  Care to answer the point I am making?

Nathan
n.e.widder-AT-lse.ac.uk