Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1999 12:21:47 -0500 (EST)
From: TMB <tblan-AT-telerama.lm.com>
Subject: Re: FW: dialogues




I see better now, I think, what is going on with unleesh. Partly he is
slightly naive about others, what they experience, of course, and further,
he may be projecting at times: the "academic" he sees in the other is the
one *he* would have to be were he more academic. That *may* be part of it.
But ok: here's the problem: he's also hitting something off, as well. He's
much too polemical, of course, and this all opens up the necessity of
anti-polemics and nonviolence, and is, through and through, testimony for
how violence breaks things down, doesn't really get too far at all, etc.
But, again, he is hitting something off. What is he hitting off? Somehow
the burden of "academicism" can't be reduced to *his* scholarship issues,
discipline, etc. The problem is that when the "standard" is raised (in the
form of perhaps fully accurate critiques of his misunderstanding), it may
well be that something else is brought in on the sly. This "something
else", which unleesh can't yet articulate well enough, is the baby being
thrown out with the bathwater of the academic (in the sense) wash. By the
time unleesh is done being told "wash behind your ears", he finds himself,
in a certain way, part of himself, part of something, something good, or
soemthing, tossed out. The quesation of "what can take place in a
seminar", for example, is a very, very good one. If one can pull out of
the polemics, it is very easy to see just how *many* things simply can not
fit in the usual "seminar" format at all. Various modes of
experimentation, enactment, engagement, etc. All of which resonate with
unleesh's best intentions and some of his good spirit. The price of
polemics is *too high* for it to be constantly addressed *only after
exhaustion*, which is why nonviolence, for me, must be taken up as a
burden *before* "someone gets an eye poked out". Here, instead, a certain
exhaustion, but more than that, whatever may be in what unleesh sees as
important, that is: perhaps, something important, where this "important"
has been commended to the care of *polemos*, a bad parent indeed. War is
the hubristic bastard who thinks he is the father of all things but is not
and who burns his or others' children will nilly and then throws his hands
up in frustration, exhaustion, and shuffles off. All are punished, as the
line goes.

TMB


On Fri, 8 Jan 1999, Widder,NE wrote:

> > Subject:	RE: dialogues
> > 
> > You are missing the point, yet again.  I have not asked you to adopt my
> > differentiations.  I have instead complained about the way in which you
> > have consistently imputed to me and differentiations and binary
> > oppositions I have not made, even after I have consistently explained that
> > such binarisms were not intended and explained differently.  Your empathy
> > and understanding here have been pathetic, even though you are the one on
> > a high horse about empathy.  You own reclassifications that you have
> > forced onto others have only amounted to dodging questions.
> > 
> > You have been asked a number of simple questions to which you have
> > responded with these sorts of claims.  Perhaps, the next time you are
> > asked, you will be honest and simply say that you haven't yet thought out
> > how to do some of these things.  However, simply imposing your own
> > distinctions on others (i.e., academic/non-academic,
> > stratified/deterritorialized) only makes you look like a fool who doesn't
> > even know what he is talking about.
> > 
> > Nathan
> > n.e.widder-AT-lse.ac.uk
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Unleesh-AT-aol.com
> > To: deleuze-guattari-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> > Sent: 1/7/99 2:46 PM
> > Subject: Re: dialogues
> > 
> > In a message dated 1/7/99 6:08:35 AM Pacific Standard Time,
> > N.E.Widder-AT-lse.ac.uk writes:
> > 
> > << coming from someone who has
> >  shown no ability to tell the difference between much of anything. >>
> > 
> > But it's accepting -- or even "understanding" -- which involves some
> > sort of
> > tacit acceptance or positing -- a taxonomy, a way of dividing the world,
> > that
> > allows for one to be controlled, to participate in one's controlling, in
> > the
> > first place. If I'm not distinguishing along your lines, and walk in a
> > blur,
> > I'm beginning to walk in the right shoes.
>