Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 21:38:41 -0330 (NST)
From: Walter Okshevsky <wokshevs-AT-morgan.ucs.mun.ca>
Subject: Re: PLC: A theory about theory [was Anyone get Gass?]


Pat --
I really don't think Howard and his suits are being all that accurately
characterized here. Howard's analyses are typically erudite, closely
reasoned and his patience with some interlocutors is humbling. Whatever
errors he may make I don't think he's been engaged in  stereotyping.
Identifying the tradition(s) out of which a text or person speaks isn't an
activity that necessarily results in the over-generalization and hence
falsity characteristic of stereotyping. Meaning is a very complex kind of
thing, and, as an artist I'm sure you understand this in some ways better
than I do. Getting to the/a meaning of a text is very difficult without
some sense of the disciplinary tradition(s) out of which and to which a
text must always address itself. (This makes meaning relative to a
tradition / frame of reference - not truth, I hasten to add.) This is a
very fundamental hermeneutic principle and I think this is what Howard is
articulating through the notions of traditions and institutions. 

Bestest,
W

Walter C. Okshevsky
Faculty of Education
Memorial University
====================================On Thu, 22 Jan 1998, Patsloane wrote:

> > Also, When I do argue, I do not describe people's behavior in terms of
> >  mental and moral flaws.  I offer no hypothesis of anyone's beliefs or
> >  arguments in which concepts of "stupidity" or "pride" or "envy" play an
> >  explanatory role.
> >  
> Agreed, and most people today, including yourself, use far more imaginative
> buzzwords.  Does cutting edge versus old fashioned really mean anything
> different from cool versus stupid?  Or take that slogan of the 1960s: "Never
> trust anyone over 30." Isn't it a fairly transparent way of attributing
> stupidity to people without actually using the word "stupid?"
> 
> What I'm questioning is the propensity for labeling people, whether the labels
> are obvious or recondite.  You indicate, for example, that you "tend to
> situate individual arguments with respect to traditions and institutions in
> which they operate."  I'm wondering why everyone has to be conformed to a
> stereotype,  and whether it might not be better to just get rid of all these
> stereotypes.  
> 
> I'm assuming that just about any person has two aspects. That person is
> original and unique in some ways--there are no walking talking clones of him
> or her.  In other ways, that person is just one of the crowd, however you
> choose to label the crowds.  I'm also assuming that when we attempt to
> communicate with one another, we're often trying to express the part of
> ourselves we believe is  unique--that can't be brushed aside as just the
> repetitious party line anyone would expect from any run of the mill liberal,
> Maoist, pharmacist, or [name your crowd].  
> 
> If people or at least some of them <are> seriously trying to think and to
> communicate the results of their thinking, I'm wondering about your response,
> which is by no means a common response. You stride right in to hang a label on
> everyone, to stereotype them before they get started. Or, in your words,  to
> situate whatever the person says "with respect to traditions and institutions
> in which they operate."  As you claim to know all the "traditions and
> institutions," I gather nothing is ever new to you. Once the person is
> properly stereotyped, you know what they're going to say and it will conform
> to that stereotype.
> 
> I'll accept for the sake of argument what I believe to be your hypothesis.
> We're all a bunch of walking talking stereotypes who never rise above the
> "traditions and institutions" within which we operate.  So nail down the
> stereotype, get the person labeled, and you know all about him or her, with
> his or her  poor delusion that he or she might be more than just another
> walking talking stereotype.  
> 
> What I'm not understanding is how you got to be the person who hangs the
> labels on the rest of us, and tells us what stereotype we fit.  Just
> wondering.  
> 
> pat
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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