From: gvcarter-AT-purdue.edu
Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 14:14:57 -0500
Subject: Re: objects and facts and achieving stasis




> But you did not begin to address the following - rather by the absence 
> of response appear to be confirming the irrelvance of Derrida in the 
> current socio-political climate: 'It has been something that I've been 
> thinking about for some time - that just as the range of discourses that 
> relate to the prefix 'post' seem to be increasingly irrelevant, perhaps 
> because so many of the texts produced failed to address precisely what 
> the counter-reformation was attempting to  achieve, using terms that 
> often fail to adequately represent actions and  events, so the "come 
> into being and pass away..." seemed appropriate....' Or can you for 
> example - actually use Derrida (chosen because of the entertainment 
> below) (or Lyotard) to generate a political truth from a contemporary 
> event - i.e. the anti-war/anti-imperialist events of the past four 
> months...
>  
> regards
> steve

Steve,

In an earlier post--that was getting much too long--I suggested that (via 
Derrida) that prefix "post" is actually a "pretext" for a "failure to address 
precisely," or the necessary failure of a postcard to find its specific 
addressee.  I postulated that there are no "dead letter piles," and even if 
there are, even if these letters are consumed in flames: then, cinders there 
are (see Derrida's "il y a la cendre").  

In this post, I too will fail to address precisely "what the counter-
reformation was attempting to achieve."  What I want question, though--
"precisely" as possible--is the call for precision itself.  

As I see it, what you are calling for (and why the prefix "post" fails in the 
face of) is the inability by someone (like Derrida?) to achieve stasis on what 
the essential issues are.  If I can get at your political issues precisely--
even if I disagree with them--then we can at least "agree to disagree."  We can 
engage in dialectic as we have agreed provisionally, maybe precisely, on what 
the matter is.  

Where the prefix "Post" breaks down, where it has become "increasingly 
irrelevant" is, perhaps, in its increasingly IRREVERENCE at the notion of 
achieving such stasis at all.  "What the hell is Derrida talking 
about?!"  "What do you mean a letter never reaches its destination--I send them 
all time!"  "Of course there's an alternative to GWBush's handling of Iraq--
there's just got to be!"

What is at stake here in "solving" this irrelevant/irreverent dilemma is the 
positive and negative conceptions of Invention. 

As Victor Vitanza says, "...what especially characterizes 'invention' 
is that it is conceptually closed.  In other words, the category systems, the 
topoi, the conceptual starting-places, DETERMINE THE PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED OR 
QUESTION TO BE ANSWERED, and, in turn, the problems or questions are 
all "leading" problems or questions, determining what are acceptable solutions 
or answers" (Visions of Rhetoric 136).  Such an approach is 'teleo-logical as 
well as as tautological."  That which results is not a listening or affirmative 
invention as it is "deceptively self-referential and self-binding" (VR, 137).

What I purpose--and I think Vitanza and Derrida and M. Duchamp purpose (tho' 
one can't be sure! =)--is an approach to invention/politics/ethics based on 
serendipity rather than continuous agonistic structures will have been a return 
to the Same structure of discourse, if not the same end.  

To do so--without launching a kind of manifesto--is to introduces a Nietzschean 
Comic mode into discourse, that enables someone like, say, Avital Ronell, to 
engage theory humorous (Seducitively) and seriously at the same time.  (Her 
take on G.Bush Sr. in "Support Our Tropes" (1992) is a good example.)  

Listening to language, engaging in what I call "sound reasoning," (re)
introduces serious serendipity.   

To be sure, not all forums permit serendipity as a mode of discourse.  
(Lyotard's Libidinal Economy did not win him many friends, even among his 
friends.)  But we might question this call to have the discourse continually 
take the place on the grounds--the precise grounds--the agonistic model.  

Some would suggest that the agonistic model cannot be escaped.  (Scott 
Consigny's recent work on Gorgias looks at agonistic communities in great 
detail, and there is much that could be said about the efficacy of such a 
position.  It does, for example, take audience into account to a large degree, 
and sometimes its good to "play to the crowd" rather than attempting to 
improvise on stage....however, I might suggest that even in one's attempt to 
cater to the crowd, that language escapes us, that one still improvised, or IS 
improvised, by the props, by the heckler, by one's own body....)

What I am suggesting, though, is that there is room for failure; in fact, it 
may be something of an ethical necessity.  (Remember, the negative approach to 
invention, one that eschews aleatory processes, is one that is "deceptively"--
and perhaps dangerously!--self-binding, self-centered, egoic.)  

But can one talk about a necessary "failure"--the prat falls of some 
theoretical comedian--when there is suffering in the world, though?  What role 
does laughter play, for example, for the refugee?  

If we can't agree on any terms, what is to be done?

I purpose--having not addressed this issues sufficiently (if anyone is so 
inclined)--in a discussion that might be entitled "taking comedy seriously" to 
ask again:  What role does laughter play in theory?  How is comedy/laughter 
alike or different from the issue of "silence" addressed a month or so ago?

Does anyone find Derrida funny?    

On this, i'll even play the straight man (for once =),

Geof