Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 20:14:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: the uses of theory
To: film-theory-AT-world.std.com
Cc: film-theory-AT-world.std.com




On Wed, 22 Jun 1994, Judith Frederika Rodenbeck wrote:

> In the comparison between science and film theory, it occurs to me that 
> there are several assumptions, cultural ones, that haven't been raised. 
> I'm going to phrase them as semi-rhetorical questions:
> 
> 1) Is (the consumption of) narrative naturalized?

I don't understand "naturalized" here - are you asking whether narratives 
are consumed cross-culturally? Narrative itself is somewhat "naturalized" 
and somewhat not - check out the Franz Boas Kwakiutl transcriptions for 
narrative strategies without foreclosure, etc.


> 
> 2) Is apprehension of the visual field naturalized? (I will be sending a 
> short post on Ernie Gehr's Serene Velocity which may give this a poke.)
>
Well, in that post you said a "nanosecond" which translates several 
magnitudes up to a minim of 1/24 -AT-soundamerican. Beyond this, David Marr 
makes a good cae in Vision (which is accepted I believe as the class 
current account of vision processing) that there are hierarchial layers 
to perception, most of which are automated (the 2 1/2 d level, blurs and 
bars, etc.) and all of which imply _active_ processing from the arrival 
of quanta/waves onward. But again perhaps this isn't what you mean.


> 3) To what degree do we live in a culture where the language of science 
> has become acculturated? In the US in particular, it seems to me, 
> specifically medical language has proliferated fantastically.
> 
Languages intermingle and mix to such an extent it's hard to isolate 
words in this fashion: is "gout" or "chilblains" part of this language or 
not? On the other hand, words such as "dyadic" in structuralism 
definitely carry the weight of scientism with them, no matter what the 
origin. The real argument, it seems to me, centers around issues such as 
well-definition (from logic), tolerance, and bandwidth; within the 
potential well of an experiment, the last two are defined exactly within 
fuzzy limits, and the first is a construct within the Kristevan "clean 
and proper body" of axiomatics. But the _idea_ of well-definition then 
extends into, say, deconstruction, where Derrida takes pains to obviate 
it in relation to differance, deconstruction, etc. - while Baudrillard 
(on the probably third hand at this point) uses "simulacrum" as if its 
ontologically/epistemologically apparent. All of this loss within the 
humanities (tailgaiting at times onto specificities) while IBM arranges 
32 or so atoms on a matrix to spell, guess what, "IBM". Now that's 
poetry! (Now that's poetry?)


> 4) Are the "humanities" trying to replicate the cultural success of such 
> language? To denaturalize, as it were? (Or are these two incompatible 
> notions?)
> 
Yes - that way lies power/academic success/messy but promising erotic 
relationships with students and other faculty members - in short, the 
unravelling of desire.


> 5) To what degree is a putatively positivist language of science either 
> synchronic with or complementary to modernist discourse or the discourse 
> of capital?
> 
About 70-90%.


> -fido, less cranky after flexing...
> 
Alan Cranky as can be cause _no one_ seems to like his kitty-cat message 
on the answering machine - -