Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 14:11:55 -0800 (PST)
From: Michael Rooney <rooney-AT-tiger.cc.oxy.edu>
Subject: RE: dialectic (can clumsy pragmatists read?)




On Tue, 26 Jan 1999, michelle phil lewis-king wrote:

> > > 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 don't get it do you? While Deleuze's approach to writing in a very
> narrow sense is representational,

I didn't say anything about representation.


> in an incredibly broader sense it explores
> the operation of a 'writing' well beyond the "closed vessel" you'd like to
> keep him in. The political-historical is a "local assemblage" in which
> you'd obviously like to contain

Say what?  You're letting your image of me
cloud your ability to read.  All I'm saying
is that, for Deleuze, writing is not a means
to go "beyond" philosophy, at least not in
the Derridean sense.  Let me fetishize again
(uhhh...the voice!): "overcoming metaphysics
never interested us".  Deleuze wants pragmata,
deeds, not an evanescent laughter or differential
will-o-the-wisp.


> > > > 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).
> >
> So you think that your activity of reducing writing to its justification in
> speech, in one language : English, of stabilizing the world to the one
> ground of this reductive and reactive activity has nothing to do with the
> ammount of logistical power the United States commands? You're just used to
> it.

Who's being reductive and reactive here,
with this petty chauvinism?  When did I
reduce writing to English?  When I quoted
Derrida in the French??  

And yes, ho logos/ratio/raison/Vernunft
has nothing to do with U.S. power.  To
say otherwise is bigotry of the highest
order.


> >
> > That's not what I said.
> 
>  I think it is what you wrote. You reduce reading to a simple doubling of
> what is there into speech. You read out loud and pretend you are the text.
> Replace it with your voice. In debate with you there is a demand to read out
> tloud to you texts that prove you wrong without going further than that.

You are demonstrating the shortcomings
of your technique of sovereign reading:
by dispensing with what I actually said,
you make up a straw man of your own
convenience.  And thus you are ensuring
that there is only pointless debate
rather than rational discussion.


>  well, I'll take your word on that. So how come you think Nietzsche can
> still speak for himself ?

His books are still there; his words
waiting patiently.


> > > > 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?
> >
> No. Because I have absolutely no control over their texts. I can make all
> the claims I want. Some work some don't, that one works for me, for now.

Suppose Elisabeth said the same thing.  
Nazism works for her (and some other Volk),
"for now".  They (encouraged by certain
things Nietzsche said) had little use for
arguments, too.


> > > I don't know what a sovereign reading would be.
> >
> > Q.v. my previous question about "beyond philosophy".
> >
> I don't understand not knowing as a problem but as a motor. What was your
> previous question?

If you don't know what it is, how can
you tell the difference?  Or how can you
tell *that* it is a sovereign reading?


> > > You know the answer why ask the question?
> >
> > Like, to dialogue.
> >
> Like, in a safety zone in which you feel you have total power.

I have no power here.  Exemplar gratis,
you can ignore my question altogether,
as you did.  So, should we write about
Hegel without having read him?


Cordially,

M.