From: alanturner-AT-australia.edu
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 14:59:36 GMT
Subject: Re: Intellectual Specificity and Inner Fascism


Firstly, hello, i have read from the Foucault list, and 
the ones with stuff about Guattari, and Neitzsche and 
Deleuze, from time to time, but never participated, in 
writing. 

So, hello. I hope that this maiden posting will be 
accepted as lengthy because it's 'beginners' length'... 
Mhmm yes, well,

I really am interested in answers to the piece of fun 
posted by Doug Stokes.

Isn't this all a piece of fun, your message, Doug?

Sorry, okay... firstly,
May I claim that I am also unfamiliar with either piece 
of thread mentioned by Mr Stokes. 

That said, may I know lauch a polemic of my own? In the 
form of some questions. (Can a series of questions be 
considered a polemic? - please, by anyone?) 

These questions, for Doug, if you would supply answers,
or answers, from anyone?

Q.1/ Who the hell did it?

What, no. No, I'll have non of that. No more excuses. 
Now! I want to know who is responsible. 
...
Yes, right now! No. I said Now! OK. Who is going to own 
up to being responsible? 
...
Yes. Right, yes...for failing to ground themselves or 
their writings within a coherent 'politico-ethical 
framework'? 
...
Come on. I know there's a few out there. No 
skivving...yes, you, the poststructuralists, I see you. 
Yes. Over in the smoking section. Yes you. Disgusting, 
the lot of you.
...
Lucky we're here today in Tokyo, you'd not be allowed 
to drape yourselves in those (smoky) clouds up the back 
there.
...
No, like you are now. No you wouldn't be doing that 
where i come from... No. No thought for others. 
Smokers! Damn postctructuralists!
...
Sorry. What?! A modernist? No. You're lying... No, you 
are not. No, well she's definitely not a... 
...
No. She's not, I can see well enough, yes even from 
here... it's a stage, I'm on, yes it's higher than... 
oh, look. It's not the point. As I was saying... 
...
No, an obvious crypto-feminist... oh, really, I'm 
sorry, okay then, a marxist. Better?
...

Yes, well, that was not all that I'd expected to 
hear... Let's see if Q.2 is easier...

So. Q.2/
Where comes from, the assumption that 
poststructuralists choose to navel-gaze? Who are this 
obvious, guilty mob of nihlists anyway, these 
poststructuralists? 

Line them up now, all who choose to watch from 
armchairs, the global juggernaut of capitalism as it 
goes gliding by their windows, again? 

ANSWER:
Why don't you try putting up a 'stop' sign then, Doug. 
Or articulating a note and pass it on, next time the 
captain sails the juggernaut of capitalism along.

Then we can stop the jutggernaut at the sign, and tell 
the captain to stop universalising oppression... Yes, 
maybe the Cap'n's just not aware yet...

Go On... No you tell him: 
Okay...
No more universalising now Captain Smears. Yes, the ol' 
jugger' is a big old vessel Cap'n, but you'll have to 
pull her in i'm afraid... 
...
Well, no, it's... well, while you were away Cap'n, you 
and the crew, yes, her, and the ship, well, there was a 
vote you see.
...
No, yes, it was in all the papers. Oh, yes, yeah, the 
one's you told me not to send you. Oh, sorry, I forgot, 
yes, and it was also in all the news you asked the 
entire crew not to talk about after the last 'bad 
news'... yes, invariably Cap'n. Yes, bad. No, of course 
you're right...
...
Yes, i'm sorry, I know, yes, depressing. But that's why 
you told us not to tell you, but...
...
Continue, oh, sorry, well, Cap'n, yes there was a vote.
...
Yes, a vote. Oh no sorry cap'n a 'popular vote'. No, 
not just us, no, well, yes, your mum did vote too. 
Yes... How many? Well, how can I put it...
...
No, more. Okay, well, the whole world. 
...
No. I mean voted. No I mean the whole world.
...
I'm not making faces. No I'm gesturing to indicate 
magnitude. Yes, a lot... No, I'm not being abtruse 
again.
...
I'm sorry I'm not being nasty...No. OK.
...
Yes, that's right. Yes, every human being in the world 
voted. And yes. No, Ohh, I don't know how... It's not 
the point.
...
No, Yes...They decided that the Juggernaut had to stop. 
No, the... No, of Capitalism. Yes, that's right. This 
Old Juggy here.
...
I'm sorry Cap, but everyone agreed. Too many 
inefficiencies, inequities, yes, but the repairers 
always replicate... No, it's not progress. No it's more 
like 'more of the same, but with even more'...
...
Yeah, like excess. Yes, as you suggest Cap'n [waxing 
wise in the politico-economical]...yes, Cap'n, you are 
very astute.
...
Yes, only 'economic progress' is valued across the 
board as a measure of success. Or, I mean 'progress'...
Isn't that the definition? Of 'progress'... an increase 
in economic success. 
... Blah, blah, script keeps going, so?...

So, history has seen as 'progress', somehow, doing the 
same sorts of things differently... or in different 
levels, in different ways, using different modes, of 
expression, consumption, blah blah... isn't this 
'progress':
doing the same things more excessively, rather than 
really wondering, first, what progress means at all. 

???QQQ

How do we progress?

Firstly, how do we measure 'value'? 

What is the source of your certainty, Doug, that 
'global oppression', even exists? 
Do you mean that I feel a bit oppressed this morning 
because I had to get up early. For Work!!! Damn work. 
Damn getting up early, damn losing my wife, my kids.
...That 50 bucks... damn, 50... means I'll have to work 
again tomorrow... get that 50 bucks back... after all, 
i'll have nothing to blow on the horses, and getting 
drunk this weekend. if i don't make back the money i 
lost this morning...

damn capitalism... i'm chained to the yoke of the 
juggernaut of opression. Capitalism. 

Really, Doug, what are you talking about? Or are you 
having us on back there, in your last mail?

>>>???
Please tell me how, in your own life, you reach 
decisions about what is good and what is bad? 

<<<???
What is on the 'nice' side of the line that divides off 
what is 'oppressive' about the world?

And, again, how do you decide?
??       ??
???<><>???
  ?  ?  ?
   ? W ?
   <<>>
    ><
     >>>>>>>> ??????? .
Please tell me if you have some answers. Because I'd 
like to know how anyone can be said to be 'shirking 
responsibility' for anything, just because they fail to 
articulate or provide coherent theoretical bases for 
their lives. 

Please bear this in mind, Doug. That failing to say 
exactly 'why' (in what way it can be said, in so many 
words) the way people live their lives now is 'bad', or 
'wrong', or 'encouraging', or 'unproductive', 'too 
academic', too hard-headedly 'materialistic', etc.. 
Failing to say things and failing to do are very 
importantly different things.

It need not be pointed out, I'm sure, I hope...
that many 'theorists' who are currently failing their 
responsibilities, right now, as we speak. 
...Yes, skivving, shirking their calls to arms, are, 
despite this... specific, (thoughtful, if not 
intellectual) members of their own communities. 

We should do what we feel we should do to live as we 
feel we should be living... But, if this sounds like 
'commonsense', right, or 'wrong', as a description of 
'how to live life', Doug, what does it mean... why, 
anyway, is this monster of capitalism the central 
organising feature of your current perception of 'the 
wrong about the world'?

and if capitalism structurates your world, should it be 
the pivotal focus of the lives of others.. all 
others... then, who? how? why?

-----------    ================  --------------
I would really appreciate any responses to anything 
that was able to be read, and/or found coherent, or 
not, by anyone. Yes... Take Care, and, of course, extra 
points for certain answers... Yes, certain ones, of 
which you are absolutely certain.

regards,
al

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