Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 18:56:58 -0800
From: hugh bone <hughbone-AT-worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Reason & Metanarratives


Matt wrote:

I think this conflict between power that is constructive and power that
normalizes is a conflict Foucault never resolved.  It is in some sense
the
conflict between Nietzsche and Marx, between an emphasis on the body
and
its embeddedness in a world of practises and language, and the body as
a
social and economic being historically informed.  Nietzsche never had a
viable or desirable political philosophy--it didn't interest him--while
in
Marx the individual vanishes into the totalitarianism of State.

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Matt, Jon et.al.

I find the above comparison very interesting.  Never encountered it 
before.  On Marx's concept of the role of the State, I thought he
envisioned its disappearance into communal bliss at some point after
the workers escaped their chains and united to win the Revolution.

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I can't see how an appeal, however, to the Enlightenment--via Lyotard
or 
         
anyone else--would be a solution to this problem of the metanarrative.

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Maybe we can discuss in depth the problem of the metanarrative, for I
am not sure I understand it.

I think of systems of thought, of specific religions, and specific
systems of philosophy, and systems of politics, as metanarratives.

Before learning the word, I called such systems ideologies.
I believe Foucault, at one point, described his work as writing
histories
of systems of thought.

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It could be argued that the Enlightenment was in part responsible for
this
problem, in its privileging of reason over other forms of discourse,
its
emphasis on Man as a rational animal that constructs a social contract
when he begins to live in agreement with others. 

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Lyotard looked at language in a fresh and different way, and found that 
the rationality of the sapient animal, the basis of social agreement,
disagreement, rights and wrongs, grew out of phrases which are a 
heritage imposed on newborns.  Some of them grow up to be theologians,
philosophers, scientists.

Scientists of the Enlightenment and today's physicists, astronomers,
biologists employ similar techniques of reasoning, consensus, belief.

Both religions and Marxism have known successes and failures.  Science
survives by constantly re-writing its narratives.

How can there be a "self" without experience?  How can there be a
"society" of rational animals unless there are narratives, as
Cashinahua,
French Republic, etc. which serve as a basis for their description of 
past and present, their vision of the future, and thus create
the unity of theologians, philosophers, scientists, or the nation-state
itself? 

Regards,
Hugh