From: "Matthew Thrond" <mthrond-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: commentary is a minstral show
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 15:57:21 PST


If rationality is your enemy, you really ought to consider Duke's 
self-contradictory discourses.  Duke is most dangerous because, not 
despite, the rejection of reason implicit in contemporary right-wing 
politics.  I guess we can only hope that the silent majority recognizes 
the guy as a deviant, huh.








>From owner-foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Mon Jan 11 15:42:42 1999
>Received: (from domo-AT-localhost) by lists.village.virginia.edu 
(8.8.5/8.6.6) id SAA33949 for foucault-outgoing; Mon, 11 Jan 1999 
18:04:22 -0500
>X-Authentication-Warning: lists.village.virginia.edu: domo set sender 
to owner-foucault-AT-localhost using -f
>Received: from web303.yahoomail.com (web303.yahoomail.com 
[205.180.60.185]) by lists.village.virginia.edu (8.8.5/8.6.6) with SMTP 
id SAA23960 for <foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>; Mon, 11 Jan 1999 
18:04:11 -0500
>Message-ID: <19990111230445.24651.rocketmail-AT-web303.yahoomail.com>
>Received: from [209.94.226.16] by web303.yahoomail.com; Mon, 11 Jan 
1999 15:04:45 PST
>Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 15:04:45 -0800 (PST)
>From: Tony Roberts <fdrtikol-AT-yahoo.com>
>Subject: Re: commentary is a minstral show
>To: foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>Sender: owner-foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>Precedence: bulk
>Reply-To: foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>
>Duke has announced for the seat Bob Livingston just resigned. A model
>based on the exit polls from Dukes' last two state-wide runs says he
>can and will win in this district. Dukes' audience changes if he goes
>into the house. To use Foucault's terms, Dukes' commentary moves
>closer to being knowledge and the commentary used to marginalize Duke
>becomes less plausible if Duke is elected by the same "decent people"
>who voted for the man the republicans wanted as their speaker.
>Remember, Livingston was pitched as a moderate who was reasonable and
>would compromise. What happens when the same folks that elected
>Livingston elect Duke? Does a person still have to be an extremist nut
>to vote for Duke? The minstral show was once a popular form. Dixie was
>written by a couple of guys from Ohio to be used in a minstral show.
>Duke is one possible future. I am remembering those discriptions of
>the folks from Kansas who came to California for the sunshine and the
>oranges given by Nathaniel West in "day of the locusts". They quickly
>got tired to death of sunshine and oranges. "He would paint their fury
>with respect, knowing that they had it in them to bring down a world."
>I think the real culture war may just be starting. I think the
>manufactured consent Chomsky likes to talk about may be close to
>breaking down. This could easilly have the same effect as the break-up
>of Yugoslavia. I think we live in interesting times.
>                        Sincerely,
>                           Tony Michael Roberts
>
>
>
>
>---Matthew Thrond <mthrond-AT-hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> One more thing:  
>> 
>> Tony,
>> 
>> How does it affect your model when, for instance, only racists will
>be 
>> watching the minstrel anyway?  If in fact Duke's website constitutes
>a 
>> subversive discourse to begin with, isn't its power to subvert
>limited 
>> to its ability to mold undecided opinion in the direction of white 
>> supremacy--powerful in this sense, given how many out there really
>don't 
>> know what they think about human rights when the question is framed 
>> differently, but not as much so to someone who found the site after 
>> typing "White Pride. com" into the search engine?  How is your
>theory to 
>> control for the preexistent ideology of the viewer?
>> 
>> I hope my comments are in some fashion helpful.
>> 
>> Matt 
>> 
>> 
>> >From owner-foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Mon Jan 11 08:33:44
>1999
>> >Received: from [128.143.200.198] by hotmail.com (1.0) with SMTP id 
>> MHotMail3093525219917393506532475215690669427500; Mon Jan 11 08:33:44 
>> 1999
>> >Received: (from domo-AT-localhost) by lists.village.virginia.edu 
>> (8.8.5/8.6.6) id KAA25461 for foucault-outgoing; Mon, 11 Jan 1999 
>> 10:38:44 -0500
>> >X-Authentication-Warning: lists.village.virginia.edu: domo set
>sender 
>> to owner-foucault-AT-localhost using -f
>> >Received: from web306.yahoomail.com (web306.yahoomail.com 
>> [205.180.60.188]) by lists.village.virginia.edu (8.8.5/8.6.6) with
>SMTP 
>> id KAA51057 for <foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>; Mon, 11 Jan
>1999 
>> 10:38:38 -0500
>> >Message-ID: <19990111153854.17309.rocketmail-AT-web306.yahoomail.com>
>> >Received: from [209.94.227.27] by web306.yahoomail.com; Mon, 11 Jan 
>> 1999 07:38:54 PST
>> >Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 07:38:54 -0800 (PST)
>> >From: Tony Roberts <fdrtikol-AT-yahoo.com>
>> >Subject: commentary is a minstral show
>> >To: Michel Foucault <foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
>> >MIME-Version: 1.0
>> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>> >Sender: owner-foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>> >Precedence: bulk
>> >Reply-To: foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>> >
>> >Commentary works to drain the shared life of some community of
>meaning
>> >and reality. This community is defined by shared beliefs which are
>> >deeper than assumptions in that they "go without saying" for 
everyone
>> >in the community. To doubt this belief is precisely to become
>> >alienated from this community, is to stop constructing ones 
immediate
>> >lived experience exclusivly within the limits of this communitys
>> >perspective. Alienation from a community is finally an ability to 
see
>> >the limits of that communitys' perspective. These beliefs which go
>> >without saying are grammar rules which structure a shared space of
>> >experience where many important meanings are fixed and stabilized.
>> >Commentary works to unfix and destabilize this common sense or
>> >conventional wisdom which "everybody knows" in the community by
>> >bringing these contexting beliefs into question ,by telling an
>> >alternative story about what's going on. This story claims to be the
>> >"real truth" behind the delusion the poor benighted souls of the
>> >community live, in their ignorance, as truth. Imagine a modern day
>> >minstral show put on by David Duke and Company. Imagine it filmed 
and
>> >distributed through Dukes' website. This minstral show would bring
>> >into question everything that must go without saying if being black
>> >means what most black people feel the need to think it means in 
order
>> >to feel comfortable in their skins. To the extent that it succeeded
>in
>> >doing so, it would drain the black experience of all meaning and
>> >reality. It would define the point of view of the black community as
>> >delusion. Part of the neccessary ideological arsenal of any
>community,
>> >Jesse Jackson's or David Duke's, consists in commentaries which
>> >convincingly define the perspective of the other as pathological
>> >delusion. Power is finally the power to make ones' commentaries true
>> >for the people they are about. Resistence is finally resistence to
>the
>> >commentary of the other. 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 
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >=>> >"I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no
>face. Do 
>> not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to 
>> our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order." 
>> Michel Foucault
>> >
>> >_________________________________________________________
>> >DO YOU YAHOO!?
>> >Get your free -AT-yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
>> >
>> 
>> 
>> ______________________________________________________
>> Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>> 
>
>=>"I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face. Do 
not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to 
our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order." 
Michel Foucault
>
>_________________________________________________________
>DO YOU YAHOO!?
>Get your free -AT-yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
>
>


______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com