File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_1999/lyotard.9907, message 166


Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 10:44:26 -0700
From: Lois Shawver <rathbone-AT-california.com>
Subject: Re: the reality check is in the mail



Thank you for checking back with Searles on his meaning of denegation. 
Perhaps what was confusing was that I used a noun (This is a promise) as
a performative rather than the traditional verb form, "I 
promise you."  I would argue, however, that "this is a promise" is just
another way to say "I promise you."  
   
You asked me to explain how I feel the sincerity/insincerity is just one
distinction among others when thinking about ruses.  Good question. I
hope you might join with me in this exercise, even.  Will you?  For 
starters, I think one ruse might be to use flattery and another might be
to use insults to have an effect.  

So, we have the flattery/insult distinction  An important distinction
might be the "inventive/reactionary" distinction. Then we have the
subtle/obvious distinction. We might have the simple/complex
distinction.  

Then we might distinguish ruses according to their purpose: One ruse
might be for the purpose of winning someone over. Another might be for
the purpose of shutting someone up.  Another might be for the 
purpose of teaching something (think of a resistant child that you are
trying to teach how to tie a knot, but who thinks he already knows).  I
have a feeling this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The important thing, as far as Iam concerned, is that these distinctions
not accumulate as so many pigeon holes that we are going to multiply. 
They are distinctions we can each make, that are legitimate to make, 
but we cannot keep them all in mind.  And to try to keep them all in
mind would be to constrain the game to a particular game.  

You said:
<As you know, I have a diffuse and rather overarching view of ruse and
rhetoric, one that recasts sincerity as a particular modality of
rhetoric. Nonetheless, ruse in the negative sense is always already
dependent upon this modality of sincerity.>

It seems to me that it strains language a bit to speak of ruse in a
non-negative sense, in a sense of being not-deceptive.  However, my
purpose is the same as yours here. I want to be able to speak of a 
non-negative sense of "ruse."  I don't want to define away the
possibility of speaking of a non-negative sense of ruse.  To my ear, at
the moment, this is best done by replacing the word "ruse" with "tack." 
One could say that one kind of "tack" was the "ruse" I suppose where a
"ruse" was a deceptive tack.
     
Thanks for your comments on "tacks".  You and Hugh seem much more
familiar with the origin of this word than I am.  It was just recently,
I'm afraid, that I learned it was a nautical term.

I'm glad you're intersted in this Wittgensteinian concept of
assimilation, Colin.  I see it as the basis of metanarrative
construction.  Wasn't it Leibniz that had the theory that everything
happens for the good?  And then this theory was paralayed into Candide's
funny tale?  The idea was that no matter what happened 
to Candide, it was all for the good. Someone chopped off his leg, but
somehow this was for the good.  I think this ability to find some way to
make something true, no matter how much you strain the language, 
is what Wittgenstein has in mind by assimilitating a case.

People can be very creating in assimilating cases, and often it works. 
If one presents a generalized thesis, say, "it is always better to be
honest" then, with a little creativity, one can assimilate every case to
such a thesis, don't you think?  Suppose someone, in being honest, gave
away the secrets to the enemy.  You might say, "But it is better that we
don't keep secrets."  "Ah, but I say, many people were killed."  And you 
might say, "But many more people would have been killed if the secrets
had not gotten out."  We could go on this way, creatively, with every
situation imaginable.  Then, we could switch tacks (tacks not ruses) 
and try to assimilate to the general statement "It is always better to
distort the truth" and I think a creative person could assimilate to
such a statement just as well, don't you?

I think this assimilation of cases to a generalization is the tool most
used in constructing metanarratives, and that we are most often not very
conscious of the process.  If, we are going to fight metanarratives, it 
might be worth our while to investigate the working of this tool.

..Lois Shawver

   

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