From: Unleesh-AT-aol.com
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 15:10:27 EST
Subject: Re: New Year, Same Old Crap


In a message dated 1/5/99 1:26:29 AM Pacific Standard Time,
rooney-AT-tiger.cc.oxy.edu writes:

<< But since you're 
 the Grand Relativist Poobah, you shouldn't be
 bothered by my posts -- they're just another
 worldview, and you should pass on in peace, eh,
 bra? >>

Once again, I am by no means a relativist. In fact, oppressive, ridiculing
judgements coming from resentment I am very much against. I have very much a
critique of archical power wherever I find it. Just be honest --- people
saying they don't use filters just isn't your style, it isn't your way of
talking. But don't show yourself to be a buffoon by thereby declaring that
anyone not within your genre just doesn't "make sense". All it does is expose
how parochial you are. 

It's just like the positivists saying that anyone who doesn't use words in the
way they specify isn't meaning anything. How fascistic! And please don't say
that fascism is just another relative value, because it isn't, it doesn't
leave other styles be. I don't notice a lot of native americans disrupting
logical positivist meetings. But somehow they have put it upon themselves to
be the correctors of the world. I don't care if you don't fit into that camp
exactly, you're behaving in a similar manner and invoking the same gods. 

"I demand that people speak in such a way that makes sense according to the
way my speech and debate teacher / my father / my logic instructor / my
philosophy teacher / my own cultural absorption in the church of reason taught
me."

No. Sorry. All sorts of styles are going to proliferate. That's what
Guattari's talking about with "molecular revolution".  Well how do we
distinguish revolutionary styles from establishment or even fascist styles?
Well, for starters, how about someone who lies in wait for other people to say
things in a style s/he doesn't approve of because it violates some sacred
aesthetic, and then attacks, appointing hirself policeman of a forum? Say for
starters, someone who's always in a completely reactive rather than proactive
stance. You must be a ball at parties! I can just see you, walking from room
to room, saying nothing until you find a group of people engaging in a set of
exchanges they find creative and enjoyable, so that you then have the
opportunity to walk in and say "Awwwww, everything you're sayin' is a bunch of
garbage." If you don't like one of my posts, seriously, why don't you just
leave it alone, or you could actually try to come in and participate and say,
well, y'know, you could look at it this other way, and contribute your
viewpoint. Just because something's not your cup of tea, you don't have to go
in and splatter the plates everywhere. There are lots of posts that aren't
really my style ; for example, semiotics and the relationship of Deleuze and
Peirce isn't really interesting me right now ; I don't therefore feel the need
to go in and point out that this isn't a part of my "mystic" agenda or however
it is you place me.

Now why do I bother? Because, your kind of behavior can have a silencing
effect. People lurking on the list who might want to venture something a
little explorative rather than conforming to some divine code of reason might
be discouraged from speaking up and playing. Bifurcations might be suppressed.

Maybe to your sensibility some of the posts seem a little crazy ... make room
for the crazy ... i will reiterate again and again that deleuze and guattari
have much to do with inviting the mad and performing schizo-operations on
ourselves. If you're not into performing schizo-operations on yourself, if you
aren't into a diversity of madness styles (which could include the madness of
reason, but not one that is merely interested in cutting down), WHY ARE YOU ON
THIS LIST???? Are you hoping to "correct" Deleuze and Guattari? Maybe to
convince us that when they talk about a schizorevolution that's not what they
"really" meant? I would love to see a conversation between you and Artaud. If
you were Artaud's only way of getting his words out to the world, we'd never
know about him, because you'd never allow anything of his which didn't "make
sense" according to your notion of "reason". And I suspect some sort of
entrenched hierarchy as well.

Weeeellll, it's OK for Artaud and these other people to be crazy and mad, but
we're philosophers, and We study them, and We correct them, and it's our job
to be a little  more reasoned. What if They are studying you? What happens
when you become their object rather than the other way around?

You call me "pseudo-literate." Oh, boy, points for rooney. Wow, you've just
exposed someone! Oh me oh my! Perhaps I should react in shame because I don't
stand up to your criteria of literacy, as if that meant anything anyway. But
i'm not interested in scoring points. I'm interested in pushing a bully away
from my game and saying, hey there's plenty of room on this playground for all
sorts of games so why don't you go play your own. I don't need you to "dispel
my illusions" ; who bothers going to theatres merely to stand up in the middle
of the play and scream "I refuse to suspend my disbelief!"? That just seems
like naivete to those who are trying to create mystery in their lives. Were
you just really disappointed when you found out that Santa Claus wasn't real
and so vowed (like a superhero's origin story) to debunk Santa Claus and any
"mystic elf" story like that for the rest of your life? Or were you someone
who just loved to spoil other kid's fun by telling them that Santa Claus
wasn't really real? That sort of tactic wouldn't work for the Hopi ; when
their children find out that "their parents are the kachinas", they are also
told that the kachinas are very experientially real, just on another level.
Maybe a trip to that perspective would help cure your ressentiment.

(un)leash