Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 21:13:54 -0800 (PST)
From: Michael Rooney <rooney-AT-tiger.cc.oxy.edu>
Subject: RE: dialectic (can clumsy pragmatists read?)




On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, michelle phil lewis-king wrote:

> > > I'm an artist we talk a lot about subjective facts.
> >
> > If your claims here are subjective, then it
> > makes no sense to argue for them, nor to
> > interject them into a discussion of the merits
> > of Deleuze's interpretation of Hegel.  You
> > can say, "well, that's how it strikes me"
> > but no one else need give it the time of day
> > -- since by the same light I can just say
> > "well, it doesn't strike me that way at all".
> > Sorry if I presumed you were saying something.
> >
> At last! a genuine apology! There's humility in the reactive old dog yet!
> 
> And I thought I was asking a relevant question about the nature of sharing
> that underlies classical (Hegelian?) philosophical pedagological 
> discourse and Nietzsches problematic relationship with that reciprocity
> because he was first and foremost (for me) a writer. And I thought I was
> floating the possibility that Deleuze might follow that direction rather
> than that of classical philosophical discourse. 

Yes, and I disagree.  The emphasis on writing
as an escape hatch from philosophy is a rather
Derridean topos.  Deleuze's approach to writing
is by contrast political-historical.  (And 
Nietzsche's is quite distinct from both.)


> > You may not like my style, but asking for
> > reasons and evidence is by no means "my"
> > discourse alone.
> >
> 
> I like your style. .. it's the discourse that's grim. Strength though
> numbers is servile. Are you an American by any chance?

(Numerical) strength has nothing to do with
reason (and neither does nationality).


> > > >>> Please explain how elevating (written) spoken
> > > >>> discourse as a fetish object to which your words are
> > > >>> obsessively attatched is better than
> > > >>> the sovereign action of associately linking
> > > >>> passages of writing with a sense of direction.
> > > >>
> > > >> Sure thing, kemosabe.  Working with what someone
> > > >> has actually said is far superior than selectively
> > > >> arranging quotes because it is honest.  E.g.:
> > > >> working from Nietzsche's works is superior to
> > > >> associatively linking passages in the direction
> > > >> of fulfilling one's anti-Semitic impressions.
> > > >>
> > > So reducing a writers thought and writing to a mere verbal debate  is
> > > superior to the ongoing and difficult impression the operation of his
> > > writing ennacts in different contexts throught the work of succesive
> > > writers and thinkers?
> >
> > Yes, reading is better than reader response.
> >
> so, it's best not to 'share' reading?

That's not what I said.


> > > so narrowing Nietszches thought to a series of disconnected discursive
> > > points about various issues in the name of real standards of
> > honesty and
> > > justice is superior to understanding its role as a kind of deeply
> > > rigorous and challenging artifice that provokes thought in all kinds of
> > > contexts. Not all of them 'good' or 'fair'?
> >
> > In order to understand how Nieztsche provokes,
> > you have to be able to let him speak in the first
> > place.
> 
>  He's dead as well Micheal.

Ah, but aren't we all, as soon as we write?
Isn't that how Derrida puts it in La Voix et
le phenomene?


> ( Sorry, I just have to share this Robert Crumb vision of you jerking off to
> 'Ecce Homo'.. uh.. the.. voice.. uhh .. uhh')

How sweet.  


> > But you are dodging the issue: isn't Elisabeth
> > Forster-Nietzsche's reading a sovereign reading
> > by your definition?
> 
> 
> No. Because she narrowed his writing down to particular arguments. 

And your use of Bataille/Deleuze isn't making
claims in a similar way?


> Using his
> writing simply to refute those arguments is as slavish.

So there's no telling whether Nietzsche is an
proto-Nazi or not?


> I don't know what a sovereign reading would be. 

Q.v. my previous question about "beyond philosophy".


> > You miss the point entirely.  Let me simplify:
> > should we write about Hegel without having read
> > Hegel?
> 
> When did you of all people start trying to make points, Micheal?
> You know the answer why ask the question?

Like, to dialogue.


> Additional question: Should we write about Hegel without having read him in
> German?

No -- at least, not on a serious level.  


> You equate writing with verbal argument I don't. I think writing is better
> than verbal argument as it is radically inclusive. ( It includes verbal
> argument for example).  Writing for me is not necessarily about anything. It
> provides a basis in movement.

That's fine.  But such claims, of course, are
always already arguments, and as such no escape
"beyond" philosophy.  That's a big part of 
Derrida's Problematik.  And I don't see any
parallel for these (rather martyr-like) moves 
in d+g.


Cordially,

M.