From: "michelle phil lewis king" <kinglewis-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: dialectic (can non-philosophers read?)
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 14:39:52 PST





>
>
>On Tue, 26 Jan 1999, michelle phil lewis-king wrote:
>
>> > > > You're avoiding the issue.  D&G (especially G.)
>> > > > are critical of Derrida's notion of writing and
>> > > > do not base their postulates of linguistics on it.
>> > >
>> > > I'd be very interested in examples of this critisism.
>> >
>> > Again, I would refer you to the beginning of
>> > Guattari's "The Place of the Signifier in the
>> > Institution".  N.b. the remarks about archi-
>> > ecriture being a "retrospective illusion" (or
>> > somesuch -- again, I don't have it with me).
>> >
>> You're wrong. That was the example I sent in where Guattari 
criticises the
>> Imperialism of a single signifying substance an arche-writing, 
arche-writing
>> "but not in Derrida's sense".MRpp75. 
>
>And this passage strikes me as plainly critical
>of Derrida -- that JD's archi-ecriture is too
>textual, not concrete and historical.  Perhaps
>we can look at this passage explicitly.  But as
>I don't have a copy of MR handy, I'll concede
>the issue.
>
You are so wrong. Guattari critises an arche-writing that is signifying 
and seperates it very clearly from Derrida's notion. I'm sorry to keep 
hammering away pedantically but your 'concession' is too reserved for me 
to accept. I'll post the passage in a later post. Why?
not because this 'writing' offers a kind of superstructure that links 
and explains everything but because it puts us in motion. Please read 
the beautiful Marguerite Duras quote at the beginning of Chaosmosis for 
what I'm getting at.


>> Rather than a poly-centred substance, writing simply becomes
>> fetishized as the expression of a single authentic voice (letting
>> Deleuze, Nietszche speak for themselves, listening to Hegel as the 
>> only authority on Hegel.)
>
>Reading Hegel seems to me the best route to
>understanding Hegel.  This does not amount to
>"fetishizing" the Voice of the Author.  Let 
>me put it this way: would you rather someone
>read your posts to understand (or appreciate)
>you, or read my posts about you? 
>
You are not getting my point. Reading a writer specifically as one voice 
is to fixate and priviledge that voice above what they have written. 
Hegel subordinates his writing to his voice. So we don't have a lot of 
choice in his regard. To read him is to hear him. Writing has to submit 
to his voice. He evidently would not accept a writing which was not 
directly phonetic. I gather (good word) that much of his thought comes 
to us through his students slavishly copying down his words at his 
lectures. (Contrast this with Deleuze who welcomed his 'students' 
inattention.) Much of Saussure's thought evidently comes down to us 
though the notes made by his students. It is utterly necessary to get as 
close to 'His Master's Voice' as we possibly can in order to understand 
what he actually said. But whether this understanding can help us think, 
write, speak  and act creatively is another question. Is understanding 
or creation better? 
>> The writer Nietzsche's 'ignorance' of Hegel is vital because it
>> places his scratchings beyond,below,ect the State signifier 
'Philosophy'.
It is vital in the same way as a glitch or mistake in Francis Bacon's 
painting practice enabled him to take unknown figural turnings that 
indicate a beyond to painting without leaving its experience.
>This cedes too much to Hegel.  And how would
>anybody know if we're all busy being studiously
>ignorant?  
You are drawing general pedagological conclusions from what I wrote. 
That kind of exaggeration reverses specific indications into generally 
known figures. As if ignorance could be the basis for anything or that 
we could choose it. 
In the context of the 'post war french intellectuals' that Nathan 
mentioned it seems Hegel's image was an oppressive and all encompassing 
one.. perhaps then Nietszche offered a way out of philosophy as did 
Marx. Klossowski's insights were vital at that time.
You're assuming that I'm in the business of characterising the state of 
philosophy now. 
Suppose we inadvertently say the
>same thing as Hegel? 

?

>> Writing, thinking becomes another kind of operation. Sovereign 
because it is
>> not subjected to spoken discourse, to reciprocity. To stupid q+a 
sessions.
>
>It doesn't seem very sovereign -- it's following
>Derrida's heavy philosophical machinery.
>
I don't think Nietzsche followed Derrida's machinery as you choose to 
call it. I simply can't imagine him submitting to a q+a session. (Though 
there is a nice photo of him being whipped by Lou Salome.)

>> Now as I discussed with Nathan there may well be another Hegel.. we 
agreed
>> that this might be in the Hegel learning as he develops the 
'phenemology'..
>> A Hegel in movement. Nathan generously indicated that work was being 
done in
>> this area by Andrew Benjamin and others.
>
>At this level, such a reading is hopelessly
>crude.  It's very easy to say, oh, yes, let's
>find "another Hegel" or "another Heidegger"
>or "let's read Aristotle differentially" --
>such is the rot on which academic conferences
>thrive.  Frankly, most people proposing such
>things haven't read Hegel, Heidegger, or any-
>body in the first place.  At any rate, to do
>so, you must, at some point, actually read
>x, y, or z.  Not just sample what other people
>have said about them.
>
I never claimed sophistication for this proposal. I simply note that it 
is interesting and that I might enjoy reading (with close reference
to Hegel's texts) work being done in that direction. It seems 'fair 
enough' to assume from a d+g perspective that a Hegel becoming Hegel is 
more interesting than the 'Master of Philosophy' Hegel of later 
'Encyclopedia' years. 

What 'level' are you talking about?

>> I'm only specifically interested in the liasson
>> between Derrida's general characterisation of a  'writing' (in 'On
>> Grammatology' and 'From Restricted to General Economy.") I'd say on 
the
>> evidence of the passages that I quoted you from 'anti-oedipus' that 
this
>> characterisation is at the root D+G's theory of a 'nonsignifying 
language'
>> a language of 'decoded flows'.
>[...]
>> D+G accept Derrida's notion of 'writing' in the largest sense and 
follow
>> Lyotard in conceiving of it as a thick substance. 
>
>I agree with your general point of comparison
>(as I said before): both Derrida and d+g point
>to an extra-textual field working through 
>language.  But I disagree about your specific
>renderings of this (very general) similarity:
>that d+g's notion of writing owes much to Derrida's
>archi-ecriture; or that either notion enables
>us to ignore Hegel in writing about him, much less
>to go "beyond philosophy".
>
I haven't done that much rendering beyond quoting you passages from a.o 
where D+g clearly work with Derrida's notion of a general writing (not 
at that point even formalised as an arche-ecriture). Of course it is 
general.. what is being described is a writing, on which language is 
based, beyond language. It, for me, is perfectly described in the 
afformentioned Duras quote at the beginning of chaosmosis.

There is an abscence of solid ground in this script, just shifting 
movement. This structureless operation (not a notion as such) is a 
production/product which would be foreclosed by Absolute Knowledge. Its 
animation Sentenced.
 Hegel seems to represent (and I'll have to read him some more as I'm 
feeling oddly haunted by a 'world spirit' right at this moment)  the 
Theological State which would foreclose or restrict this force, enslave 
it to the concrete nature of a voice. D=G use the example of Hegel's 
attitude to Kleist. 

>> I'd say the danger of your line of crude pragmatism is that
>> it has a 'Passion for abolition." and a fixation on Clarity and 
Power.I'd
>> say  that you've lost sight of the fact that lines are not 
necessarily or by
>> nature bad or good. You've become a 'new knight' with a mission 
terrorising
>> with one line 'mots d'ordre' and too hastily drawn conclusions. You 
think
>> you have understood everything. Micheal the self appointed judge, 
dispenser
>> of justice. Your fixation on power is manifest in your love of the 
closed
>> system of the 'q+a' session and your futile desire to 'dismiss' 
others from
>> what you'd implicitly like to be a closed list, an artificial 
debating
>> chamber. I have the impression that you've gone too far, but instead 
of
>> connecting you've to turned to abolishing. The only power you have is 
the
>> force of your words and this is no power at all. 
>
>Like, duh.  If I were your power-drunk bogeyman, 
>I wouldn't waste my time replying to your clumsy
>assumption of the psychiatrist's chair.  I leave 
>the completion of this example of modus tollens
>as an exercise for the reader.
>
I was not attempting a psychology of a Micheal simply reading your 
actions as manifested in this exchange through d+g's description of a 
'dangerous character'.From what I 'know' of you the mask seems to fit.
Like. If you act like a bogeyman you'll be perceived as one.

phil.


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