File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_1998/lyotard.9811, message 22


Date: Mon, 09 Nov 1998 12:55:04 -0800
From: hugh bone <hughbone-AT-worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: PMC: What is Postmodernism? A Demand


Lois Shawver wrote:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
REPLY"

To Lois et.al.

"Le Differend" abounds with examples of Lyotard's concern with 
meanings.  

This is a long post, but full of meaning so I'll leave the text intact.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
> To me, the challenge is not merely to discover the
> intended meaning of Lyotard when he used a term like
> "paralogy."  The challenge is to find a reading of his
> text that makes the most interesting sense of it.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

PEPLY:
"interesting text" seems to be an aesthetic concept, but would be 
supportive of the "social bond".
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

> I believe you will make the most sense of his text if you
> understand paralogy to be an engaging conversation in
> which the contributors do not strive for consensus, but
> rather the growth of a culture, or social bond, in which
> there can be the cultivation of new ideas, new ways of
> thinking, through a reorganization of the old.  Such a
> conversation, I believe he tells us,  will not refer to
> metanarratives in order to legitimate itself.  It
> legitimates itself by its own worth.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
REPLY:  I think "its own worth" means it fits and furthers the social
bond, otherwise it would disappear. Of course aesthetic experiences
of a group disappear, but usually remain in memory, and may contribute
to the next aesthetic occasion.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 Any rules that guide
> paralogy negotiated in a local context to assist the local
> purpose.  This engaging  paralogy will flourish most in a
> context in which information (computer databanks) are
> freely available and the moves in the language game are
> not controlled by the treat of removal from the game
> (i.e., "terror").
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
REPLY:

The new thing about databanks is the speed of access to and transmission
of knowledge.  Stores of knowledge have kept academia employed for 
centuries.

Terror is surely one of the oldest things.

Appeal to local sovereignty is one of the oldest, and there are usually
20 to 40 wars around the globe plus numerous acts of terror.

Two decades after Lyotard wrote PMC, the "local" is being destroyed by
the global, the world has changed; the destruction of the local has been
accelerated.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> I think, for Lyotard, "This is what the postmodern world
> is all about.  Most people have lost the nostalgia for the
> lost narrative.  It in no way follows that they are
> reduced to barbarity.  What saves them from it is their
> knowledge that legitimation can only spring from their own
> linguistic practice and communicational interction." (PC,
> p.41)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

REPLY:  This would be a local freedom.  There must be hundreds of local
languages around the globe, and about six billion individuals indulging
in the major religious metanarratives.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^6
Paralogy is, for example, what we do here in this
> forum when it generates new ideas for us.
> 
> Whereas research"that takes place under the aegis of a
> paradigm tends to stabilize" in order to have new ideas we
> must posit a force that destabilizes our beliefs and our
> frameworks.  I believe that is paralogy, that paralogy is
> the "power that destabilizes the capacity for explanation"
> and results in the proposals for new rules that are
> locally determined (PC, p.61).  Paralogy defers consensus
> (61).  It is the ongoing reorganization of old ideas in
> ways that inspire us to think things through in new ways.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

REPLY:  It would be interesting to have a group discussion of the
difference between the meaning of "consensus" and the "social bond".

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
> "The function of ...paralogical activity...is to point out
> these metaprescriptives...and to petition the players to
> accept different ones.  The only legitimation that can
> make this kind of request admissible is that it will
> generate ideas..." (65).

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
REPLY: New ideas backed by consensus, social bonding, terror, gave us
the 
horrors of this 20th Century.

Hopefully new ideas, local freedoms, and social bonds will not be
destroyed by global control of knowledge, power, and terror in the 21st
Century.  

Hugh Bone
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

> Paralogy is a quest for the postmodern, what we desire.
> It always involves the operation of destabilized
> conclusions with a variety of perspectives agonistically
> expressed (in argument). It is not that paralogy, however,
> serves some performative end (such as helping us reach
> consensus).  Paralogy is a quest because it is an end in
> itself.  Whereas "consensus is only a particular state of
> discussion, not its end. It's end, on the contrary, is
> paralogy."
 
> See also footnote 207 (postmodern condition) referenced on
> p.60 for more on the notion or reorganizing old knowledge.
> 
> ..Lois Shawver


   

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