From: hhasting-AT-gmu.edu
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 11:12:01 -0400
Subject: Re: PLC: Re: PSYCHOSIS AND POLITICS




----- Original Message -----
From: Kelly Thompson <krystalkel-AT-eee.org>
Date: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 1:39 pm
Subject: Re: PLC: Re: PSYCHOSIS AND POLITICS

> Yes!  One has to understood that the linguistic signifiers are not
> reality...and that there are many possibilities of expressing
> linguistically...to grasp metaphoric and symbolic meaning...to see 
> history,politics, and ideology as attempts to express, explain, 
> create meaning
> within the mystery...rather than become trapped within the linguistic
> symbols, mistaking them for reality...language is but a tool, like a
> paintbrush...we use it to create...one can transcend language and 
> try to
> express that experience linguistically...language is determined by 
> history,politics and ideology...or vice versa!  Therein lies the 
> trap...that is not
> to deny the significance of history, politics, and ideology...it 
> is like the
> experimenter whose observation changes the results of the 
> experiment...webring to "reality" ourselves; we exist in 
> relationship to it...but we do not
> have to be limited to that anymore than we have to be limited to 
> speakingone language.
> 
> I probably fail to express what I intuit...

If I understand you correctly, or at least the implications of what you are saying, you seem to be positing a self or subject of knowledge and/or experience which is formed and/or operates outside language, which it uses as an instrument.   We have "ourselves" already, outside language, which we bring to "reality." 

The other side of this separation of language from the subject is the separation of language from "reality", which it only appears to denote.  

In other words, the view of language undewriting your views seems to line up pretty well with that of traditional positivism, though you are affirming something usually thought at odds with positivism, namely "the mystery."    



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