From: "Michael Smith" <mich98ael-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: commentary is a minstral show
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 13:51:26 PST



>In the animal kingdom, the rule is eat or be
>eaten. In the human world, the rule is define or be defined. Power is
>the power to define, to make knowledge a dispersion of what goes
>without saying from ones' own perspective and, at the same time, a
>commentary defining the alterity of the other as delusion and deviance.
>                       Any Comments,
>                          Tony Michael Roberts 

"Define or be defined" is true enough, but isn't it more a question of 
"define and be defined"?  Of course, in defining the "other" we define 
"ourselves", but can we really define "ourselves" without defining an 
"other"?  Can we live by "our" own "self-definition" with out it 
implying statements about others which may or may not be true? Can any 
"we" statement escape this implication?  Are "I think" statements 
entirely free of "other-defining" implications?  
 
I'd have to say that the last is possible, that we can all talk about 
our own immediate perceptions without imposing, impinging, or defining 
others, but I'm interested in the implications of what you are saying.

It's precisely that "eat or be eaten, define or be defined" that 
interests me.  There is a religion in India (is it the Jains?) that 
takes extreme caution lest microbes inadvertently be destroyed by being 
eaten, inhaled or trodden upon.  As with "eat or be eaten", I have to 
wonder how radically we are to take "define or be defined".  So I have 
to ask if we can truly define ourselves with out defining others.

One thing that interests me about your post (I know nothing about 
Foucault, but I'm trying to stay intellectually active), is the 
possibility (and impossibility) of a "metalanguage" of overarching 
statements.  To say, "I dislike X, because I view it against the 
background of W, Y and Z," leaving open the possibility that you may 
love X, because in your experience it is juxtaposed with or seen against 
the horizon of A, B, and C, may be a way of making sense of the world 
and minimizing disagreements (assuming that we think it important to do 
so).  But if life is a struggle of "eat or be eaten, define or be 
defined" does one want to achieve such an "overarching
metaperspective" 

                                      Michael Smith

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