File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_1999/lyotard.9909, message 12


Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 23:41:42 -0700
From: Judy <jaw-AT-earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: methodology and the differend


Hi Lois,
you commented on my statement here:
>
>"The question isn't "how do we eliminate or resolve a differend,"
>because if it's resolved then by definition it isn't a differend..."

you said
>Perhaps you have a different picture of things.  To my ear this is as
>specious as arguing that by definition we can't put out fires because by
>definition they would no longer be fires.  May I ask you more questions
>about how you see this?  Lyotard, to the extent he is Wittgensteinian,
>and to the extent that his work is consonant with postmodern authors
>such as Kennth Gergen, John Shotter, Rom Harre, does not impute hidden
>motives that the observer innocently discerns without infusing the
>motive with her own flavor, her own interpretation.  Or am I presuming
>you are going in a different direction in your study of differends than
>I imagine?  What do you think about the ontological status of
>"motives"?  Do you see them as existing apart from their social
>construction in language?  What about the rest of you?

Well, first, about differends and methodology, for me, the differend is an
analytical tool that gives a way of talking about conflicts occuring
between different descriptions of the world that focuses on what is
unresolved, what is unresolvable, and what happens to what becomes
invisible--and it's a political tool for making the invisable visible, for
empowering the disempowered. There are lots of theories, lots of analytical
tools, it seems to me, for allowing me to talk about conflict resolution,
and talking about conflicts as resolved has a hypnotic effect so that
exceptions to the veneer of resolution are deferred from awareness.

Now, about motives, I don't know what it was in what I said that caused you
to think of beliefs in hidden motives discernable to objective observers.
Would you show me the connection?  As for the ontological status of
motives, talk of other peoples' motives seems generally to be a kind of voo
doo hocus pocus mindreading that doesn't hold water. But it may be an
effective kind of talk if the purpose is served by obfuscation. I'm not
sure I see much of anything existing apart from its social construction in
language, in a sense.
Judy








   

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