Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 22:53:10 -0800 (PST)
From: Michael Rooney <rooney-AT-tiger.cc.oxy.edu>
Subject: RE: dialectic (can clumsy pragmatists read?)




On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, michelle phil lewis-king wrote:

> >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. 

"Specifically indicated"?  You quoted a list
of definitions from a dictionary and specified
none of them.  I've asked you what the difference
is between philosophy and "beyond philosophy"
and you haven't answered.  Apparently it means
the contrary of whatever I think it means.


> I deliberately chose 'beyond' because it indicated transgression
> without going that far. Because it indicates a movement. 

I.e., an equivocation.  More sophistry.


> 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.

"Obsessively pragmatic"?  We're talking about
a bunch of French academics, fer chrissakes.
You say d+g are "beyond", I'm asking you what
that means.  Seems pretty freakin' theoretical
to moi.


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

Mmmmm.


> 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.

Somehow I suspect that neither Deleuze nor Guattari
would see writing as the primary fulfillment of their
pragmatism.


> 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?

And you say I ask "predefined" questions. 
Let me unload the above briefly:

(1)  I'm not privileging "trading points", I
     acknowledge that reading can do other
     things.

(2)  But in this case, you started everything
     off with "points": that Deleuze's writing
     is like Bataille-Derrida's writing.  You
     may say that you weren't making "points",
     but were offering your "impressions", but
     in that case, there's no point in defending
     or discussing what you say, since my 
     "impression" is to the contrary.

(3)  How can you tell what is a "hasty" reading
     and what is a "sovereign" one, except by
     recourse to [shudder!] reasons?  Because it
     is my strong "impression" that it is your
     interpretation which is the hasty one.


> >> 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... 

I never implied such a thing.  You obstinately
misread my preference for reading what someone
wrote, somehow interpreting it as a phonocentric 
fetishism for an author's Voice (as opposed to 
writing).  On this point, see our other exchange.


> >> > > > But you are dodging the issue: isn't Elisabeth
> >> > > > Forster-Nietzsche's reading a sovereign reading
> >> > > > by your definition?
> >> >
> >> 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.

So sovereign readings must not matter?
Or must not have "control" of the texts?
Her readings have no control today, and
don't really "matter": so are her readings
sovereign now?


> 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.

Don't tell anyone, but I agree with TMB here
(though not in his terms): our deeds do have
moral gravity.


> >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.

This is a straw man on the scale of the
Colossus of Rhodes!  Screw the students,
how do *you* tell the difference?


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

Because it is preferable to ignorance, which
you are effectively advocating.


> 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.

Derrida's charge of a phonocentric tradition
has always been one of his most questionable
(or, at best, "metaphorical") readings.  Hegel
quite honestly does not make a big deal out of
the "Voice" in contradistinction to writing.
But then, you'd never know that, since you are
happy to ignore what Hegel actually wrote.


> >> > > 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.

A far cry from the "total power" you paint me
as craving.  I can ask you an honest question
("should we write about Hegel without having 
read Hegel?"); I have no power to make you reply,
as you indeed did not.


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

And Clinton doesn't lie, he simply hasn't been
completely forthcoming.


Cordially,

M.