From: "michelle phil lewis-king" <king.lewis-AT-easynet.co.uk>
Subject: RE: dialectic (can clumsy pragmatists read?)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 02:38:37 -0000




>
>
m. bounced back,
>

>

>> 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.
>

overcoming and moving beyond aren't the same thing, why have you
persistently read them as if they were? I specifically indicated how I
was using the word, now you are again mixing it with an assumed  Derrida use
of it. I deliberately chose 'beyond' because it indicated transgression
without going that far. Because it indicates a movement. Your obsessively
pragmatic reading continually draws innapropriate practical consequences
from mere indications. These 'practical consequences' appear as fixed points
for you to demand answers of. You drew the consequences.

(enjoy your voice fix? was it unique for you?)

Yes, Deleuze wants deeds, deeds that provoke movement against the state
with whom he identifies Hegel (for example). Writing is the movement in
which (and against which) he enacts those deeds. Breaking itself down.
You seem to imagine that the deeds and 'pragmata' that Deleuze wants are
based on the same old firm foundations. Rather than on a situation where
those foundations are in question. Questionable.

<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.



>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.
>
O.K. I'll ask you another question about your priviledging reading as
debate, as a search for 'points' to trade, as opposed to a act of
vulnerable pragmatism geared towards keeping  hasty interpretations at
bay so that the movement of the writing can operate as an impressive and
challenging encounter in time. Why is it better?


>>  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.
>
well, yes and..words on a page are more than just transcription of a dead
speech... more than  knights waiting in the darkness for a call to action.

>> > > > 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.
>
The example of Elizabeth is utterly telling because she had control of
the texts so what she said unfortunately mattered. I have no authority. I
have no
students to master. My reading is thus an irresponsible one, a light
reading on the move. I have been finding this argument very useful. My every
indication is read as having a concrete political-historical meaning, a
moral gravity when I considered them to be a-significant.


>> > > 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?
>
Well, that's a very good question... and presumes that I should take
responsibility for setting up a course in 'sovereign reading' and a
'beyond philosophy' in which I will corrupt a whole generation of
innocent students with my 'worse' readings. That's really not what I do.

Why do so many of your questions and comments have the word 'know' in them?

To tell, speak about, signify, the difference between a hegelian
philosophy based on the primacy of the voice and a philosophy based on
the operation of an unsubjugated writing that signifies nothing in
particular but works flush with reality without being reactive.

To put this difference into words is an operation that I'm going to have
to take time over. In fact, time will tell.

>> > > 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.

you have the power to ask limited questions whose consequences are
predefined.

 Exemplar gratis,

>you can ignore my question altogether,
>as you did.

I didn't ignore your demand, I simply haven't  answered  it yet.

>

phil.


____
>