File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_1997/lyotard.9712, message 84


Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 10:05:55 -0700
From: alan.smith-AT-m.cc.utah.edu (Alan K. Smith)
Subject: Re: presentation, representation


>God Damn. . .being away from these posts for about two weeks at times I
>felt/had the illusion that I missed them. . . their banter serving at
>least as a form of entertainment which despite their sometimes affected
>tone of relevance and gravity, of importance as radiant flashes of
>superior intellects bantering and contesting over the surfaces of
>significant terrains and not merely just more of the same old tidbits
>characteristic of academic production (meant here in the most pejorative
>sense. . . for example as the endless trash offered by presses like
>Routledge under the label of cultural studies, theory or criticism),
>could really be no more than banal  diversions and distractions even and
>especially in the eyes of their probably bored, underpaid and overworked
>authors. . . but what do I find upon returning. . . a basically accurate
>but thoroughly didactic summary of some Kantian themes followed by
>replies such as these:
>
>> In other words the artist may have found visual
>> devices which express what needs, wants, to be expressed.
>
>Come on. . . it is not even funny. . .not even ridiculous. . .what the
>hell is this ?  Talk about differends. . . is this kind of claptrap
>supposed to evoke some kind of emotive reaction in its addresees ?  Am I
>supposed to feel hope in the face of such sickeningly naive, romantic,
>heroic dribble ?  The kind of reaction that its author hope will inspire
>me in the direction of the ethical ? towards being a better person and
>towards living a better life ?  Shit. . . I do shed a tear here, but I
>shed it because I cannot stop laughing at this and ridiculing it. . . no
>wonder academics have such bad reputations. . . get on with it people. .
>. wake up and smell the smell of dollars and blood. . . want to have
>some relevance ?  want to be serious ?  Stop writing this kind of thing
>and instead pick up a gun, bash in a skull or something. . .
>
>ARTURO

Dear Arturo:
Given your extreme antipathy for these discussions, one has to wonder why
you persist in participating, or, for that matter, in reading all those
pretentious books published by pretentious presses like Routledge. On the
one hand, the tone and rhetorical address of your remarks seem to indicate
that you want to have a voice that counts within an intellectual community,
if only to remind us how ridiculous we seem to you. Don't be surprised if
we don't find that very interesting. On the other hand, read in tandem with
the expletives and concluding exhortation to a violent if clichéd sort of
vita activa, your persistance bears the symptoms of some sort of
masochistic relationship or fantasy. There are no doubt professionals who
can help you with that. I'm afraid this discussion probably cannot.
-Alan Smith



   

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