Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 16:31:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: Howard Hastings <hhasting-AT-osf1.gmu.edu>
Subject: Re: VS: PLC: Marxist Propaganda



I fear this is too long and boring, but here goes anyway . . . 

On Sat, 15 Jul 2000, Ben B. Day wrote:

> Surely, surely the ad hominem/substantive argument binarism can be ranked
> right up there amongst those faiths of metaphysicians: literal/metaphoric,
> constative/performative, scientific/ideological, dialogical/rhetorical,
> prosaic/poetic, understanding/prejudice? Surely, we all spit when we
> speak?

The above I pretty much agree with.

 Surely, as good Nietzscheans and Derridians - one and all - it's
> our duty to show the former terms as subspecies of the latter, thus
> undermining the attempt to cleanse the former through the vilification of
> and opposition to the latter? Surely, surely! substantive argument is just
> ad homimen by other (and frequently less effective) means?

This I don't all agree with.  I don't think that a deconstruction
of the ad hominem/susbstantive argument binary would simply show all
substantive argument is really just ad hominem.  It would show how the
distinction is operated in specific discourses, primarily by focusing on
the exclusions which construct the definition of "substantive argument",
and it would place us in the hermeneutic circle, with all its attendent
problems, but which, as Heidegger reminds us, is not necessarily a
vicious circle.

More on the issue of Ad Hominem--I met many of my philitcrit pals on the
Phil-Lit list which is famous for its sponsorship of the annual "Bad
Writing" contest in conjunction with the journal Philsophy and Literature
(I think that's the title, but I am not sure).

As many of you know, the contest amounts to little more than a few
conservative academics who, unfamiliar with continental philosophy, comb
pages of literary theory and cultural studies to find passages they cannot
understand.  These are then published as "bad writing," often to applause
of journalists and the general public, who wonder why these theorists do
not speak plain English and come to common sense conclusions about the
nature of our present social order.  

And why do these theorists use unfamiliar words, convoluted sentences, and
come to plainly false conclusions about the exercise of power in the
existing order?  ACcording to the cons who run the list, it is mainly
because 1) their analyses are guided by apriori theories which scorn
empirical verification, and 2) because they want
to hide their lack of knowledge while appearing superior to the rest of
us. The good writers rely on clear logic plain writing and observation and
reasoned arguments to persuade, the bad writers on mystification and
rhetorical power. They want to avoid the hard work of reasoning. They
pre-judge and are not open to correction, etc.  

At the base of this, of course, is an assumption that the difference
between prejudiced theory and unprejudiced observation is very clear for
those who decide to look for it.  And from this follow distinctions
between clear and unclear, healthy and diseased writing, which need not be
explicated beyond assertion and the pointing to examples.

Some here may remember that when I questioned this procedure, pointing out
that standards of clarity are historical and cultural and everchanging,
and one might conclude from this that direct observation is never quite so
separate from theory as all that, it set off considerable disagreement.

My main point, as I remember it, was that this funny theory stuff the
cons were complaining about could be understood in terms of a history of
problems which traditional theory could not really address. E.g. one could
better understand deconstruction as a response, within the
phenomenological tradition, to a set of already clearly posed problems
within that tradition, as opposed just seeing it as a product of diseased
French minds out to undermine Anglo common sense.  I also noted that
exponents of plain good writing ought to explain why so many writers now
considered great were considered bad writers in their own time by people
relying on clear and natural distinctions between good and bad writing.

 And the disagreement thereafter followed what is for me a familiar
pattern. I questioned the distinction between theory and observation as
operated on empiricist/positivist premises, a few stepped forward to
refute me by  pointing to examples of obviously good writing (usually
by asking me if I would disagree and call them "bad"). I pointed
out that this seemed to beg the question, whether I agreed or not.  I was
told that people who are properly trained or have "good sense" or whatever
can obviously see the distinction, implying that those who can't just see
the distinction between good and bad writing as those gentlemen saw it
were in error and could not be reasoned with.  

Then came the interesting part. When I pointed out that this sort of
defense of reason and clarity seems to illustrate exactly the apriorism
and mystification and scorn for rational argument of which the
bad writers stood accused, I was accused by two people of degenerating to
the level of personal attack.   And this was followed by a discussion
somewhat like the present one, in which people  wondered
why some turn to ad hominem and what ad hominem really is. (Walter and
George T, at least, should remember this. Auch der westphalsiche
Analphabete, wenn er immer noch dabei ist!) 

What interested me about this phil-lit dust up was how the judges of "bad
writing" took it for granted that just holding up others' work for
ridicule was ok, while a fairly close logical analysis of their own work,
which operated mainly by demonstration and mainly a plea for evidence and
conformance to their own stated standards, could be taken as personal
attack, even pretentious.

One simple way to explain this conflict was to assume that the cons were
in fact identifying "Good Writing" and "Reason" with particular learned
standards which were not perceived to be learned at all, but
natural.  They had learned a theory which influenced what they saw and how
they valued it, but because they had learned it over a long period of time
and in the guise of transcendent humanist pronouncements about common
human nature and universal reason, they remained unaware of how it
pre-defined the terrain of discussion for them. It was not "available" for
analysis, even as it formed a basis of perception and judgment.

So long as the standards appear universal and impartially applied, then
the distinction between open and closed minds, rational and irrational
arguments, ad hominem and substantive arguments, can be operated with a
minimum of friction.  The encounter with unfamiliar standards can be
managed either by validating them as versions of one's own, or denigrating
them as the "other" of one's own standards--apriorism, bad writing, lack
of discipline, bad taste, ad hominem etc.  The issue of the particularity
and historicity of one's own standards need not arise.

But as soon as these standards become subject to a line of questioning
which raises the issue of their particularity and historicity, then their
defenders are constrained 1) to defend their standards in aprioristic and
ad hominem fashion, 2) while at the same time projecting these "errors" on
their opponents. ( Because that is how one erects and maintains
standards, by identifying and excluding what is non-standard. Were their
discourse grounded in something other than Anglo-American empiricism, the
errors projected on others might be of an altogether different nature
than this asserted apriorism and ad hominem.) 

I also think that everyone operating in whatever discourse is subject
to this kind of discurusive bind when assumed standards which formerly
regulated discourse from "out of sight," so to speak,  are suddenly on the
agenda for discussion. 

The ad hominem issue appeared a regular intervals on that list. One
famous example, a month or so before George T's second expulsion, inolved
Edward Said's discussion of Jane Austin in the context of English
colonialism, which one list moderator found simply character
assassination, though many of the rest of is found it scholarly and
critical in tone and substance. Another moderator was constantly
disrupting the list by summarily unsubbing people for "personal
attacks," especially in matters related to religion.  But you could say
pretty much anything you wanted to about feminism and feminists, with
whatever heights of scorn and disinformation you could manage.   

Discussions which tend to insert literay works into their historical,
cultural, and political context often generate conflicts which fall into
the ad hominem pretty quickly, because of the manner in which the ad
homimen/substantive argument distinction is linked to the distinction
between literary and non literary analysis. 

Those who were on this list during its opening weeks may recall there was
also a discussion of cultural studies which went this way--i.e., with
someone first accusing practitioners of CS with apriorism and dismissal
of rational argument and then, as the discussion went forward, himself
proving to have pre-judged CS without knowing much about it, and inclined
to offer appeals to the obvious rather than supported arguments in favor
of those pre-judgments.

In fact, Ben, I would say that all I am saying here accords well with one
of your earlier posts on the different rhetorical and cultural situation
of Marxist and Non-Marxists,  though I would prefer to steer clear of
that for the moment, as I am just trying to point out something that
happens commonly in disagreements, and to explain it on grounds other than
pride or stupidity. (Not that those can't be reasons for name-calling,
just that they are not interesting ones from the "discourse
analysis" point of view.)

  And who does
> this list-serve anyway? Not those lacking a sense of irony, and a touch of
> englightened false consciousness, I hope.

I hope it serves even those, Ben, though if it does then we must be
prepared for these occasional dust ups and ad hominem.  


hh
.....................................................................





     --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---