Jonathan Mote's "response to Robin Neill's post of 12/7/95, particularly
paragraphs like
>You ask, in conjunction with a paraphrase from P.R. Saul,
>"can the signs we use, the instruments of discourse, become
>so disassociated from reality that they become
>disfunctional?" Because Saul's quote refers to a seeming
>disjunction between economic "reality" and economic
>discourse (disciplinary discourse, that is). Foucault's
>concept of episteme may be appropriate for how we think
>about our disciplinary discourse since we operate in a fairly
>closed system with fairly stable signifiers. His search for
>referential guides--epistemes--is not necessarily to provide
>structure (Foucault has vehemently denied being a
>structuralist, then this "structure" is shifting one). While
>episteme may be yet another epistemological novelty, it
>is not intended as a discursive anchor.
or
>To use Foucault to explain the situation Robin highlights
>would be to totalize his concept of episteme--as if there
>were only ONE episteme at work which could explain this
>disjunction. Yet, it is exactly the sort of referentiality
>that post-structuralists like Foucault critique.
reminded me of nothing so much as the "Postmodernism Server," a relatively
simple artificial intelligence prose-generating engine located at:
http://indy14.cs.monash.edu.au:8000/cgi-bin/postmodern
You can consult the Postmodernism Server for your amusement
and--perhaps--edification. However, it _is_ in Australia, and so the
connection may not be fast or broad.
A sample of its output is attached below:
===============
Reassessing Expressionism: Material posttextual theory, cultural theory and
objectivism
John Reicher
Department of Deconstruction, Oxford University
1. Subconceptualist discourse and the structural paradigm of context
In the works of Spelling, a predominant concept is the distinction between
opening and closing. In a sense, Foucault's critique of Batailleist
`powerful
communication' states that the State is part of the meaninglessness of
narrativity, but only if the premise of the structural paradigm of context
is
invalid; if that is not the case, the purpose of the participant is
deconstruction.
An abundance of semioticisms concerning the common ground between truth
and sexual identity exist.
"Language is unattainable," says Derrida; however, according to Dahmus1, it
is not so much language that is unattainable, but rather the economy, and
eventually the rubicon, of language. Therefore, von Ludwig suggests that we
have to choose between Batailleist `powerful communication' and the
structural paradigm of context. Lyotard promotes the use of capitalist
postcultural theory to modify and analyse class.
In a sense, the collapse of Batailleist `powerful communication' which is a
central theme of Ulysses is also evident in Finnegan's Wake, although in a
more capitalist sense. The premise of predialectic cultural theory states
that
language is a legal fiction, but only if reality is equal to narrativity.
Thus, the subject is contextualised into a the structural paradigm of
context
that includes narrativity as a totality. Foucault promotes the use of
material
posttextual theory to challenge and read class.
However, the primary theme of the works of Spelling is the role of the
observer as poet. The subject is interpolated into a Batailleist `powerful
communication' that includes language as a paradox.
Therefore, if the structural paradigm of context holds, we have to choose
between pretextual desublimation and Batailleist `powerful communication'.
Lacan uses the term 'the structural paradigm of context' to denote the
collapse, and some would say the stasis, of deconstructivist sexuality.
In a sense, material posttextual theory holds that class has significance.
The
main theme of Brophy's critique of Batailleist `powerful communication' is
not situationism, but presituationism.
References
==========
Dahmus, E. (1989) Batailleist `powerful communication' in the works of
Joyce. Schlangekraft
von Ludwig, A. W. T. ed. (1975) The Circular Key: Batailleist `powerful
communication' and material posttextual theory. Cambridge University Press
de Selby, U. S. (1980) material posttextual theory and Batailleist
`powerful communication'. University of Georgia Press
Drucker, U. Q. I. ed. (1976) The Dialectic of Concensus: Batailleist
`powerful communication' in the works of Spelling. O'Reilly & Associates
Brophy, K. (1980) objectivism, material posttextual theory and
subcapitalist dialectic theory. University of Oregon Press
===========
Brad De Long
"Now 'in the long run' this [way of summarizing
the quantity theory of money] is probably |
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true.... But this **long run** is a misleading | Brad De Long
guide to current affairs. **In the long run** | Dept. of Economics
we are all dead. Economists set themselves | U.C. Berkeley
too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous | Berkeley, CA 94720
seasons they can only tell us that when the | (510) 643-4027 376-1362
storm is long past the ocean is flat again." | (510) 642-6615 fax
--J.M. Keynes |
http://econ158.berkeley.edu/
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