I was going to post on Stephen Hicks’s critique of postmodernism — doing so seems apropos, given how language and its importance is finally gaining traction in conservative circles — but Dan has already done so, which saves me the trouble of having to go too into depth.
Still, be sure to read Hicks and David Thompson on the intersection of postmodernism’s ideas of language and their role in political realm. Then, consider that what I’ve been describing as the default interpretive paradigm we’ve accepted as a given — this idea of the death of the author and the ascendancy of the signifier, or “interpretation” as a “democratic” process (which, as we know, can lead to mob rule, and is in fact designed to do just that, “democratic” being the smiley-faced descriptor that covers the structural fascism) that can bracket authorial intent — is precisely the frame inside which conservatives and classical liberals are attempting to do battle. It has become institutionalized to the point where it appears that it just is.
This is not so. Over the last forty-years or so, academics steeped in the descriptive philosophy of postmodernism, have attempted to turn the descriptive into the prescriptive, and we have allowed them to do so by, piece by piece, allowing them to create the conditions for communication: PC language; ownership over narratives by the groups who can “authentically” lay claim to them; the idea that a text “means” more than it’s author intended, with that additional meaning either laid at the feet of the author (see “code words”), or presented as a function of the author’s inability to control textual meaning (response theory, wherein what a text does when acted upon by the agency of the reader is a meaning making that becomes conflated with interpretation).
This poststructural paradigm, through its very kernel assumptions, eschews the primacy of individual meaning and autonomy. The lone voice is throttled by the “consensus” of “interpretive communities,” often nothing more than identity groups in whose interests it is to gain control over a particular narrative, a particular “interpretation,” a particular truth.
Which is why it is essential that we not allow processes that, from a linguistic standpoint it is incorrect to call interpretation, come to count as interpretation in the first place.
As many of you probably have heard by now, I’m being accused, on another site, of making “death threats” — and there is a movement afoot to paint me as an angry man unwilling to engage in fair debate with those whose disagreements are being couches as mere opposing opinions, no better or worse than my own.
This attempt to demonize and discredit me on the one hand, and to pretend on the other that arguments are all relative, to the extent that they must each be respected simply on the basis of their having been made — is part and parcel of a move toward anti-intellectualism.
Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, naturally. But not all opinions are equal, and arguments over why one opinion is better than another are not useless exercises carried out by circular firing squads that somehow detract from the “common goals of conservatism”; rather, they are necessary to our understanding of how the goals of classical liberalism can be met and what we may be doing that sets them up for failure, often times in advance.
Now go, read. And please do forgive the nastiness of my argument — a condition born from my actually believing it to be both true and vital.
Jeff it would be fair to call you prickly and undiplomatic, even occasionally nasty and argumentative. Well, so fucking what, real men (and women who respect real men) are not put off by such traits–especially when the underlying message is the truth. Your arguments are not about humilating anyone or even winning for winning sake, but arguing out of conviction for what you believe is right. I thought you were being paranoid just a few days ago about certain individuals–but no longer. Not after last night. You were and are correct.
“As many of you probably have heard by now, I’m being accused, on another site, of making “death threats†— and there is a movement afoot to paint me as an angry man unwilling to engage in fair debate with those whose disagreements are being couches as mere opposing opinions, no better or worse than my own.”
Is there a Cliff Notes version of all of this?
Need further proof that Patterico and his clan haven’t understood the argument? I present these two comments, posted back to back:
Of course, this is nonsense. I made an argument, and I used evidence to back up my assertions. One of the things I weighed in making my interpretation was Patterico’s second-order claim that he didn’t intend a certain thing — a statement that, to my way of reading the entirety of the post, just didn’t jibe with the rest of the evidence. Which I laid out for people to see.
That is, I showed why I believed Patterico intended what he later claimed he didn’t intend. And given that he had gotten heat for the original statement, I thought that made what I saw to be his walking back of the original argument more likely.
I made an intentionalist argument. And I made my case as strongly as I could, given the space and time I wished to spend.
This is NOT the same as “Heck, it doesn’t matter what you say. They know. Even when they decry it when it is done to them.” Nothing I argued cited code words or sought to remove Patterico from context. Instead, I appealed to other things he’d said about Obama in the past, the context in which he uttered the “good man” remarks (which was specific, and the trope of calling a person a “good man” in such circumstance very conventional), and a host of other things to make my argument.
A counter argument could have likely disproved mine, or caused me to reconsider.
Which is why arguing this with Patterico and his crew over there has been rather frustrating. They keep claiming to know my argument but they show, at every instance, that they don’t. Which makes them either uninformed or disingenuous each time they make comments like the two I posted above.
Here, Techie.
At any rate, I don’t want to make this about Patterico. Except to point out the obvious: he has accused me of a death threat that, as a charge, is demonstrably silly on its face; he’s used it as a pretense to ban me; once I’ve been banned, he has seized control of the argument and tried to frame me in a way that is suitable to his rhetorical needs; and then he has allowed others to pile on, comfortable in the fact that I cannot defend myself, having been excluded.
Eric Blair misunderstands intentionalism and so suggests that I am doing what I claim to be fighting against — which is incorrect, in that I am making an intentionalist argument, which is something I’ve been fighting for.
They, on the other hand, have presumed to recontextualize my meaning, remove me from the debate, traffic in false allegations and lies, and deploy bad faith in order to demonize me and both diminish and confuse my argument.
They have performed the very thing that I have warned against. In so doing, they have found themselves at the juncture I’ve claimed a certain faulty view of language would eventually and inevitably take them.
That they miss both the irony and import of this speaks to their wishing to dismiss my argument for their own agendas, whatever those may be.
And that’s really all I have to say about Patterico and crew.
I really think all parties involved should take a breather and decide if this is really what they want to be devoting their energies towards.
I know it sounds trite, and it probably is, but this has really gone on enough in my moron opinion. All the ideas from both sides are/have been presented and to go any further would result in needless hurting. You and Pat are both passionate arguers, and I do think he overreacted, creating uncalled for “teh drama!1!”, but you both are better than this.
Not trying to play “white shining horse peacemaker kiss and make up”, but just putting my feelings out there, as a long time reader of both of you.
The lone voice is throttled by the “consensus†of “interpretive communities,†often nothing more than identity groups in whose interests it is to gain control over a particular narrative, a particular “interpretation,†a particular truth.
Witness the whole Anthropogenic Global Warming movement. Science by “consensus” — as if!
I disagree #5. This is not some pet issue/distraction. This is foundational. And maybe the problem is that a polished academic argument is wasted on someone like patterico who has a tin ear to its importance on even a gut level.
As far as I have ever seen, lawyers tend to strangle language to suit their own purposes.
I hope I have not made a death threat just now.
For the record, the new trope being aimed at me is that I’m “unemployed” and so can’t/shouldn’t be taken seriously. Some have said as much explicitly (the more clumsy, that is); others are relying on subtext.
Quitting your job to stay at home and raise a child is now a failing, according to conservatives like Patterico. All the bullshit they’ve sold you about family values? Just something they give mouth service to in order to assert their moral bona fides.
When it begins to sting them, they quickly try to squash it.
The lefty sites have launched this kind of attack on me for years. That I’m getting it now from Patterico and his friends is not only disconcerting, it’s frightening.
Perhaps Pat should have phrased his disdain for stay at home parents more carefully.
“Reasonable” — I don’t think that word means what Patterico claims to think it means.
In some ways, it’s both foundational and a pet issue. Patterico is, for all practical purposes, a fellow traveler. Yes, we could cock-slap (note to Pat: no actual threat is implied in this thread, hint hint) him around a bit with intentionalism, until he cried Uncle!, and for what? We’ve proved a “foundational point” at the price of alienating his readership and possibly having ourselves a good ol’ beclowning moment. It seems to me, from my perspective, to be a Pyrrhic victory at best sort of deal. I could, of course, be wrong. I’m just not seeing the practicality of it all. Are we going to make perfect the enemy of good?
Oh, and Pat? The observation in my previous comment is not to be construed as my intending that you suffer the same fate as Vizzini. The only person I want dead is the son of a bitch who killed Inigo’s father.
Which, since that’s already happened, never mind.
Someone could make up a boilerplate disclaimer to attach to posts. Maybe it could spare intention misreads in the future.
Or is it rather, not a question of the good vs the perfect, but to allow the false to triumph over the true, techie?
Could be, I don’t really know. I don’t claim to have the answers.
So, it’s bad, according to conservatives and to liberals, for anyone to stay home and take care of the kids? Oh, great. Let the little brats raise themselves, I say! I mean, how hard could it be for an infant to heat the goddamn milk by itself? And the toddler can drive its own self to the doctor’s for shots. Stupid worthless children…
“Perhaps Pat should have phrased his disdain for stay at home parents more carefully.”
If it’s a gaffe, it’s a Kinsley gaffe. He accidentally said what he meant.
A few years ago I was put in the circumstance that required taking complete care of my younger siblings. So, I had to take a job with far fewer hours. Did the laundry, helped with homework, cleaned, cooked meals and packed lunches, you know, child rearing.
I thought I was doing the right thing, being a man and helping my family. I guess some would simply say, “Bullshit, you turned into a chick.”
Wow.
This is a great link. I’ve bookmarked and will catch up with it later.
I’d like to recommend a book by Franz Rosenzweig: Understanding the Sick and the Healthy. It makes a good primer for these types of discussions, and is meant for lay people like me and probably other readers as well.
Spengler, over at Asia Times, recommended the book. Besides being good, it’s lovely.
Sure its a “pet issue” in the sense that Jeff is clearly the tip of the spear on this, but not in the sense that he’s some fey diletante getting his rocks off over minutiae as certain quarters seem to suggest.
They obviously think it’s better for both parents to work outside the home and pay for a stranger to care for their children, even it it’s a break-even proposition. That is what they are advocating. I sort of thought that we’re the people who realize that no one will care as much about a child as the child’s parents, and that if it is at all possible for one parent to stay home, then one of the parents should do that.
I don’t get it. I have no idea why they are apparently advocating, through ridicule, their position.
However, I am starting to really understand “those guys.” I thought better of some of them. Oh well. Eventually everyone will disappoint you somehow, you just won’t know by how much until it happens.
I am going to go enjoy a beautiful Sunday afternoon with my family in the adjacent city park. I recommend y’all do likewise.
Techie, I can see why you would wonder if this argument hasn’t been a Pyrrhic victory. Driving a wedge between the PW and Patterico readership doesn’t seem like a good result. And it isn’t.
I am astounded that “one of ours,” nk, would re-imagine Jeff’s home life in such a derogatory way and that Patt would stand by it. It bespeaks pride over principle, hubris over humility. In other words, they couldn’t win their arguments on the merits, so they went for the jugular instead.
Jeff’s main posts and most of his comments have been devoid of any petulance or hostility, as far as I can see (not that I’m the best judge; my Aspie side doesn’t detect that stuff very well), but you’d have to show me how insisting that your arguments be accurately represented by your opponents is a form of hostility.
Calling an insistence on accuracy “mean” or “a threat” or whatever is very PoMo, very leftist academic.
Patt’s relentless insistence that Jeff address the hypos point-by-point instead of more generally (in that Jeff rejected the base premises of the hypos) was either a desperate attempt to get Jeff’s approval (flattering to Jeff in its own way) or it was a way to trap Jeff into admitting — however inadvertently — that Patt had “won” a round.
I cannot tell which one it is, because either the failure to win Jeff’s approval or the failure to win one against Jeff could result in Patt’s currently petulant behavior.
If Jeff’s pointed insistence on clarity and accuracy is dividing the starboard side into those who get it and those who don’t on this very fundamental issue, maybe it’s good we find this out sooner rather than later.
Speaking of red-on-red battles, Ace just disappeared a few of his own posts that he felt got too hot to handle. What was the topic, pray tell? I gather it wasn’t the topic of this thread over here.
Also, I understand that Ace and others really hate to see the red-on-red arguments, but I don’t. First of all, the reason we were united more or less under Bush was that we were all fighting the same beast. Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra and all that. Our sundry differences could be ignored.
Now that we are in a different role, it’s inevitable that the existent fissures should be made manifest, but what’s disturbing to me is not that there’s conflict, it’s how some people are fighting.
Fight all you want about ideas, folks, but don’t make it personal, and definitely don’t prevent yourself from being OK with someone who is on “the other side” of one of our disagreements.
False unity is a drag. We’re not brain-dead, lock-step conservatives, and these internecine struggles show it.
As long as it’s not personal, and as long as you don’t make it about who’s in charge, or whose position is going to be The Official Conservative Position, then we’ll be OK.
To do otherwise is patently immature. Knock it off.
Dicentra, Uncle Jimbo, coblogger, put up a post ripping on Greg Gutfield for some comment about the Canadian military.
Jack M., coblogger, then put up a post saying that it wasn’t cool to rip on Greg Gutfield because he was a friend of the blog.
The whole deal with banning JeffG for responding to a blatant insult to his honor. It has the stench of…pretext.
“Speaking of red-on-red battles, Ace just disappeared a few of his own posts that he felt got too hot to handle. What was the topic, pray tell? I gather it wasn’t the topic of this thread over here.”
Jack M. and Uncle Jimbo got into a tiff over Greg Gutfield and the Canadian Military. Or something, I was actually reading it when it got vaporized. They’ve made up in the comments section above explaining the disappearing.
(Ok, so I’m back for a few minutes, so sue me)
Red on Red is the new Black?
Red-on-Red is really hard to read.
Dicentra is, like usual, spot on. Her entire comment. And this:
I’ve been trying to make sense of all this, and I suppose this is as good an explanation as any. I found Patt’s hypo’s … lacking in usefulness.
And, I agree that I never saw Jeff cross any sort of line. Debating gets rough, but adults (and I thought conservatives) understand that debate – kept clean of crap – is always fruitful. I wonder how much this debate became about ego. Patt could have merely said he disagreed with Jeff, but feeling the need to prove he was “right” … well, that was a mistake.
Everyone is gay.
Happyfeet is really really gay.
Yeah, Gutfield made a crack about the Canadian military taking their down time to recuperate and rearm. Uncle Jimbo got pissed, because he respects the Canadian soldiers, having worked with them, wrote a piece about Gutfield being the Douche of the Week (which would have been something, given the competition). Jack M got angry about it because Gutfield is a fan of AoSHQ, I guess, and ranted about Uncle Jimbo being presumptuous to post that and how he has another place to post, so it doesn’t matter much to him whether he sullies Ace’s place, etc. So when Ace peeked in on his blog this afternoon, he was appalled at the vehemence of the invective and pulled the plug on both posts.
It comes down to whether we want to live in a world in which our statements — no matter how innocent, no matter what we truly meant — can be used to convict us. Patterico, bizarrely, has come out for such a world.
I don’t know if he’s even aware of it.
The red on red business could be a side effect of watching our country melt down all around us with not a damn thing anybody can think of to do about it, I guess, or maybe it’s just an overlong winter and a not-yet-arrived spring.
Also, every time I disagree with someone from now on, I’m gonna shout really loudly, “You’re no Jared Padalecki!” And then I’ll throw a cat at him/her.
The thrust of all this intentionalism crap is that we ought to recognize, graciously, arguments that are or appear to be walked back. Subsequent communications to the original provide the individuals the opportunity to refine and clarify original statements and are in my mind part of the process. Holding an individual to one statement, even after further modifying statements, is exactly what the progressives do; i.e. seize the/a meaning and refuse any further engagement on the issue of intent. While the exercise of picking apart particular statements may serve a purpose in particular academic instances, doing so with a PW/Pat sort of back-and-forth is obstinate in the least
He’s a prosecutor. I hope he’s aware of it.
Then again, I hope the next lottery ticket I buy will net me a hundred million dollars, after taxes.
“And then I’ll throw a cat at him/her”
It worked for Coraline Jones.
Dicentra is, like usual, spot on.
It is a mark of just how far we’ve gone that people like Dicentra are outside the academy, and people like Churchill and Whitmer are inside it.
IMO, the only point of debate is whether the academy can be revived, or whether it’s time to scrap it altogether.
When you’ve got Jack Dunphy posting at your site, you’re not going to understand OUTLAW, much less have an informed discussion, about anything.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/caught-on-tape-police-beating-teen-girl/
“Ugly stuff, to be sure. But I suspect I’m not the only cop who has watched that video and thought, “There but for the grace of God go I.†Let me be clear on this point: Neither do I condone what Deputy Schene appears to have done in the video nor have I committed such acts myself in my long career as a police officer. But I understand the impulse.”
I hope Jack understands how my impulse to beat him senseless is related to the fact he’s a beast whom should be slaughtered, were there justice.
Bulldoze the Grove, SBP? Heaven forfend. There are still little nooks and crannies in which the academic hides, like a tiny virus, waiting for an opportunity to strike, infecting all the lands.
oops, “would it were ‘their’ justice.”
Dicentra is, like usual, spot on
“Like usua”l is a new-fangled combination of as usual and like always. I suppose I couldn’t make up my mind and used a bit of both.
“Pragmatism as a school of thought thinks of knowledge, truth, and certainty as chimerical quests and suggests that we focus our efforts on what works.”
-SH from the link.
See, Goldberg, Jonah, Liberal Fascism.
The argument isn’t even original.
Cat throwing is an underrated sport, like catch wrestling. Also, both are really gay.
Being “in the academy” is way overrated. I had to, had to, have a Queer Theorist on my committee because he needed the experience of having a doctoral candidate, not because my stupid doctorate needed any queer theory. I at one point “had to” have the Women’s Studies chair for the same exact reason–not because I didn’t already know all that stuff, but because she “needed the experience.” (My late husband talked with her at a social gathering, and then told me he found it sweet that a box of rocks would get a tenure track position.) I “had to” have an anthropologist on my committee for the EXACT SAME REASON (I need a cat and a target about now) and she wanted me to incorporate pornography into my stupid doctorate because that was one of her interests and gave me a list of “texts” to research. I got them and I screamed/laughed/cried/threw up a little but got off the hook about that because she had to go live with her tribe in Thailand for a while, and monitored me long-distance, so no porn. And I followed the careers (now I’m laughing as if I were Jared Padalecki) of some of my fellows and oh my god what a sham and a travesty the drones of academe have created. dicentra is a lucky person.
people like Dicentra are outside the academy
And very happy to be there. Here. Where I make tons more money but have less free time.
But I’d MUCH rather engage in hand-to-hand combat with Windows IAS than with a Lefty Academic (a redundancy in terms). With computer stuff, it’s all logic, and once you get the logic right the thing works (unless it’s buggy).
Stephen Hicks is a dismissive dunce. His appeal would be to those who have never read Foucault, Lyotard or Derrida and are in need of cover to the convenience of intellectual laziness.
This is why an average dunce like Patterico and Jeff can’t argue in like terms on semiotics, and to be somewhat fair to Patterico though I passed a few written tests and wrote my little thesis papers I’m not positioned to argue extensively with Jeff. Simply put Jeff’s given semiotics more thought and study and committed himself to teaching theory.
To my original point, you can’t effectively argue Derrida if you don’t know Derrida, much less if you haven’t even read Derrida. To spout off that to one’s ear Derrida sounds mumbo-jumbo-ish and and that such a tenor causes one to hit the off-switch to that low-wattage bulb in one’s head all while attempting a long low bow to roaring applause of those similarly lazy proves you’re more an idiot than those you wish to accuse of theoretical idiocy, those transfixed emblematic figures of academia you never quite understood but, then again, who needs to when they all sound oh-so Leftisty. Simplified to the extreme, you’re so not worthy of the adulation you seek, Patterico, because you’re a fuckin’ Homer and nothing more.
Fuck off, Patterico and like ilk. You’re foul dicks, attractors of intellectual cowardice, persons hiding their ignorance via skeptical demeanor.
The verdict is in: I’ve been found a liar.
See ya’ all. Life’s too short to spend your days in internet show trials.
Bold yet unsupported claims are pretty much a signature of Žižek’s output – and of postmodernist writing more generally – and this is tolerated, indeed championed, by his more cultish admirers. What seems to matter is a “provocative†conclusion, at least of a certain kind, not how that conclusion was arrived at or whether it can be justified.
How to be thor in two easy sentences.
But Jeff, the commoners of the Right still aren’t very capable at reading English, have yet to absorb Jung, consider Beckett a fag, and merely tout basic cliches of the processing of language and all the other fancy-pants stuff.
They still prefer bundled self-promotion and language theory to the fuckin’ real thing.
Without you then what? They’ll have no one whispering in their ear the answers to the test questions. The herd will be robbed of their talismans!
Don’t make them think on their own, please no. Isn’t Patterico proof enough of the crushing truth that they’re entirely incapable. Foucault will never be read, his tome will be used to crush a spider and then left unattended on the shelf. The endless striving r-wingered hordes will strive no more; you are their only hope.
1. Shut up thor.
2. that seems to have covered it.
Thompson allows comments, invites them actually. He even linked to a challenge he issued on Derrida in this post. If someone who has read and understood Derrida were to take him up on that challenge and give Thompson the right good drubbing he asks for, well, let’s say that would be fun to watch, wouldn’t it?
Thompson would be picking pieces of thor out of his shit for weeks after that.
Poor little thor.
I’ve never seen any evidence that thor has read…well…anything.
He’s good at parroting names. Ideas, not so much.
The flaw,, the error of first sight is to see, and not to notice the invisible. If one does not give oneself up to this invisibility, then the table-commodity, immediately perceived, remains what it is not, a simple thing deemed to be trivial and too obvious. This trivial thing seems to comprehend itself (ein selbst verständliches, triviales Ding): the thing itself in the phenomenality, of its phenomenon, a quite simple wooden table. So as to prepare us to see this invisibility, to see without seeing, thus to think the body without body of this invisible visibility — the ghost is already taking shape — Marx declares that the thing in question, namely, the commodity, is not so simple (a warning that will elicit snickers from all the imbeciles, until the end of time, who never believe anything, of course, because they are so sure that they see what is seen, everything that is seen, only what is seen).
You guys remember your first joint?
I was told I didn’t have to read Foucault ever. They got a little pushy with the Derrida and I gave it a try but it was stupid. I gave it 30 pages, and Mr. Derrida squandered the opportunity by spending every damn page trying to explain the meaning of one single stupid apparently not very precise French word. Thanks for playing, Mr. Derrida, and that was that.
But I knew the cat example. Haha.
More than you can say, Mr. 911, Mr. Life Beat Me Hard And Won’t Stop.
At least nishi was quirky and irksome, you’re just a whacked out dick, sPies.
Tables only turn when tables learn, B Moe. I think it’s opposed to be a metaphor. Europeans and their metaphoric tables. I tell you what.
It’s shamanism masquerading as science, is what it is.
Shhhsh-up or I’ll quote Celine just to make Dicentra cry.
The comment about Jack Dunphy at #40: If you read the entirety of the man’s congtributions at National Review and his postings on Patterico’s blog, it seems pretty evident that Dunphy’s engaged in fighting the good fight, and he’s one of the most articulate and effective exponents of the policeman’s lot that this reader has ever encountered. Hardly a “beast” who should be “slaughtered” – though in an LAPD career spanning several decades, he’s helped to put away his share of murderous beasts, and attended enough funerals of his brothers-in-arms who gave their lives in the defense of those who were targeted by the bestial and the depraved. He doesn’t deserve to be traduced in that way.
Derrida, I mean, not ‘feets link. I don’t know what exactly to make of that.
“My heart will go onnnnnnnnnnnnnn.”
Huh. I don’t know how that would make dicentra cry. Although it was pretty sappy.
Jeff,
Don’t let the buggers get you down. Long live the logos. Most of us have gotten on well enough with a little freedom and a little (in the Medieval interpretation) common sense.
Keep your hand on your wallet and your knife. The dirty bastards have no shame.
Keep punching.
glenn beck’s wife is a woman
Happyfeet is really really gay.
Here are gay facts about happyfeet: My best friend here in LA is a former gay porn star. It’s true. He got the turtles but then he didn’t want them anymore. I have two turtles. From a former gay porn star. Also I used to see Mr. Padalecki at Starbucks all the time and one time he let me pet his dog. This was right after his Gilmore Girls gig finished. Then he went to Australia to film something and I never saw him at Starbucks after that. We were never close. Except for the dog thing. Also I wear a leather bracelet with stainless steel thingies on it what are sort of held in place with knots. That’s new. Mom gave it to me right before she died but it’s not as gay as the one she gave my little brother. Also I like trashy eurodisco and eighties music. I think it sort of goes with how I love B Movies. I’ve seen every Olivier Gruner movie ever made unless he’s done new ones cause I haven’t seen one in awhile. I know who Olivier Gruner is. I say I like anime but I’ve only ever actually watched one all the way through. I think it’s just cause I liked the opening credits. I really really like opening credits. Also I drink manhattans sometimes, mostly when I go to Manhattan, and I don’t always remember to tell them what kind of glass to use.
happyfeet,
I’ve always thought that there was a chance that you were my little brother, but my little brother doesn’t have a little brother, so mystery solved.
One thing that surely cannot be misinterpreted:
Two dudes come to your door wearing Obama Brigade t-shirts and they say, “You have too much. We need to take most of your stuff and give it to our people.” And here’s the part that can’t be misinterpreted – when you ball up your fist and punch them both in the chops. Simple. Sweet.
I just got a not from a friend complaining about Obama’s SO crack because of their bad motives. She say’s people are picking on him because he is like Jesus. Jesus didn’t believe in capitalism. He wants your stuff by the way. Are you going to hit Jesus?
“Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, naturally.”
“His or her” is itself postmodernist; it is the claim, invented out of thin air in the 1970s, that (suddenly, after everyone had done this successfully for centuries), if you say, “He who hesitates is lost,” you will NOW be misinterpreted to mean MALES who hesitate are lost; that if you say “man-eating shark,” you will NOW be misinterpreted to mean MALE-eating shark; and of course, that if you say, “all men are created equal,” NOW you will be heard as saying that all MALES are created equal. For centuries, people read the ‘his’ in “Everyone is entitled to his opinion” perfectly readily to refer to “generic human being.” But NOW, we are inflicted with “his or her,” this tic, this politesse, this impoverishment, this claim that NOW we are too stupid (too aware?) to do what every normal English speaker had done, comfortably, for centuries.
NOW we are awake.
That made not enough sense.
I guess it would be hard for that to make sense to anyone even if I put all the words where they go.
Just keep Jesus away from my ceramic collies.
I will not hit Jesis.
link
not even if he asked you to really nicely?
Nope, no hitting. Sing about and drink wine all day, ok, but no hitting.
You can’t punch Michael J. Fox if he comes and asks for your stuff either. He had the Jesusness thrust upon him.
I kept my eye out for that Obama sleestak brigade thing today but I think they take this neighborhood for granted. It’s going to be chilling to see that for real when it starts in earnest. The creepiest so far has been the synchronized Pepsi ad campaign.
oh. I do have older brothers somewhere from that lady my mom adopted me from I think. Half ones, anyway. She had two kids already the lawyer said, before she had the affair with the married engineer at work. My little brother was kind of an accident what my mom had after she had already adopted two kids. A happy one. She had had a benign breast cancer thing really really young and I *think* back then they thought having kids when that happened would raise the risk of a relapse. Or something. That’s as close to an explanation of why she didn’t want to have kids that I ever got, and I’m not sure it’s true. No one tells me anything.
hmmmmm, what if he was all, “Sdferr! I’ve been possessed by aliens and the only way to get rid of them is for you to punch me out or everyone will die!”?
Rumpunch?
Hawaiian.
I too would feel awkward smacking Jesus. He’s very forgiving though.
Yes, johnclubvec. I’m a postmodernist.
Here’s the thing.
Though “postmodern” (or whatever) theories don’t support prescriptive versions of themselves, such theorists always and only do. So there’s nothing to argue about. To point to a foundational text and say to some acolyte, “No, actually, your man here doesn’t agree with you, see?” signals only that you’re “untutored.”
I once went to see Zizek yack about the Staliny literary stuff he does, and he decided just past the middle of his yack that what the audience needed wasn’t the rest of the advertised yack, but a coke-stuttery anti-Jew rant with sweat flying off him, like…James Brown…or somebody. He was almost 100% right. That’s when I stopped going to those kinds of things.
And that illustrates “the thing,” somehow.
Coincidentally, “the turtles” is a rare but awesome term for the funniest symptom of trauma-induced sphincter inelasticity.
I’m scared to google.
If one examines the textual paradigm of expression, one is faced with a choice: either accept subpatriarchial socialism or conclude that culture is used to entrench hierarchy. Thus, the subject is interpolated into a textual paradigm of expression that includes reality as a paradox. Several narratives concerning the defining characteristic, and subsequent fatal flaw, of structuralist class may be revealed.
Now bring me the still-beating heart of Jeff Gordon. Quickly, or you will loose my vote forever.
I know that, psycho. And most theorists are wrong for doing so.
One problem I have with Jeff’s intentionalism is that he at times couples it too firmly to conservative political ideals.
I’ve argued for intentionalism and proffered that Rosetti’s Goblin Market was a children’s poem and not a poem of lesbianism. This I based on the author directly stating such and that any reading of it as sexually laced, as queer theorists argue, was not the author’s intent, nor was a lesbian narrative purposefully suppressed because of its stigma in that era as some new historicists argue. My arguing intentionalism does not make me a political conservative nor are new historicists liberal per se, as in with a different text I might argue in favor of aspects of new historicism’s interpretation.
This one size fits all defining and easy partitioning and over politicizing cheapens intentionalism in my opinion. I’ll go as far to say that reading some of Darleen’s pro-intentionalism comments, for example, gives me pause because I think they reveal she has no idea as to what she’s truly arguing against, much like Patterico did with Derrida. In other words some simply parrot on cue so as to fit or in topical fashion versus taking the time to understand the breadth of Lit theory and why one theory doesn’t play well with all texts at all times.
Clang-clang, my two cents hit the tin cup.
Jesus .. thor doesn’t get it, either.
I don’t think there’s an unpolitical way to desequester intentionalism from literary theory and give it broad application. This is because dirty socialists lie and lie.
I know for sure I’m not going to google. There might be pictures.
If you’re going to hit Jesus, be sure to punch both cheeks at the same time. That’s how you get a speechless Jesus.
If Jesis needs hitting he can hit his own self, I think. As my friend used to say, “Not my yob man, it’s not my yob”.
On the other hand, I don’t for a minute believe that Jesis didn’t believe in capitalism. He was accused of being a carpenter: carpenters pay their freight, knock together something useful, walk away cash in hand, go to the blacksmith and buy that new planeiron they’ve been eying lo these many months, back to the shop to sharpen it up and ’round it goes, only better this time.
Also, he said if the town didn’t like the schtick, kick the dirt off the sketchers and move onto the next burgh. Supply and demand.
oh well at this point:
what is the difference between Jesus and O!?
Jesus knew how to build a cabinet.
sounds o!ish
They’re right, thor. You are missing the beef.
this is post something:
?
I always liked the way noriega called his thugs “dignity battalions”.
That way after a half dozen or so beat the crap out of you with rebar you feel somehow elevated to a position of, well, dignity. Blessed.
You and I have already gone over this. Not all postmodern is liberal politically, Tom Stoppard, Golding, etc…
There’s certain value in many theories is what I’m arguing, and that for Christ sakes people should read theory with an open mind. You don’t know what intentionalism is until you know what it’s not, if I may borrow from Strauss.
Alright thor, I’ll bite.
Where should one start if one wants to know what intentionalism is all about?
yay! Interviews with Barack Obama are always fascinating and I learn so much. He’s smart and funny! Did you see him on Leno? I like how he’s just a regular guy. You don’t have to be nothing special to be president at all! That’s a lot inclusive I think. Let’s drink a Pepsi!
How’s that vasectomy working out for you, thor? They nick a little low?
your mom.
sorry, that one always makes me chuckle.
The bashing of Jeff continues apace. And Jeff, being banned, can’t defend himself.
It’s the proper conservative way.
The ones that are left are kind of just phoning it in though. I’m gunning for “equally unhinged defender status” but so far no merit badge I don’t think.
Jeff, you should do what I do.
Avoid Patterico.
Actually not all socialists lie, just those that have accepted 20th century versions of socialism *as* socialism lie. What all socialism has as its basis, however, is a non-approachable end-state concept that no one, not even Marx, wanted to clearly define. I get that from having grown up in a household of the strange breed of socialists known as ‘scientific socialists’, and believe me when I say the science is non-existant, but the methodology is absolute. Thus when you combine a non-defined end state with a methodology of examination, you tend to get stuck in a rut and apply non-examined bases of what you think society is to society as it actually is and come up with non-agreement between theory and practice. Unfortunately even the scientific socialists do not apply the scientific methodology to their own belief system, and only to their argument system with an acceptance that their beliefs are right and have some correlation with actual society and individuals. When the non-correlation shows up they do *not* then examine the underlying principles which are at odds with perception, but just try a different argumentative approach.
That is not lying, but the ability to deceive oneself that methodology only partially applied is fully applied.
The civil law has very much the same coterie of individuals who perform meticulous methodology, but when that methodology comes up to a hard non-agreement between what the law should be, as given, and actually is as performed, it is assumed that the performance is the part in question, and the law, itself, only questioned if it is at variance with an underlying social compact principle. Thus, like socialists, you hear the dissecting of language and verbiage to the nth degree when you are trying to point out a fundamental flaw in the law, itself. By being so familiar with a topic, one grows to believe that they know it so well that they need never question underlying principles of it.
Indeed, I do point out that, to my perception, the arguments many give for governmental expansion of power are ill directed and based, due to not examining the structure of the actual social compact document itself. Thus there are frequent calls for government to do something based on a part that society has kept solely to itself and implements that via government but to far more limited ends as seen elsewhere in the document, so that government cannot call upon those areas reserved to society by the compact’s design. Society lays out the objective and then uses organs created to limited design framework to achieve limited ends within the much broader scope that society has kept to itself to do. When laws are made that call upon the societal reserved area to justify government expansion of power, lawyers immediately go for the language and interpretation of the law, while I look at the scope of it and see if it is keeping to the limited framework that society has demarcated for government.
Thus I apply ‘strict constructionism’ to the entire document, all parts therein, and recognize the societal reserve area to do far more than mere government and utilize government in limited means for limited ends. The Constitution seen that way is a design framework, not a ‘living document’, but made by a living society having a social compact and agreement within society to use the framework to achieve a very limited set of ends. I really do question conservatives who only apply the methodology to the SCOTUS as the entire document has a layout, logic and construction to it that is obvious on examination and requires that the logic of it be implemented so as to work the will of society in the ways given, but excludes government from calling upon those higher social goals as those are reserved by society to itself. Government is a means to an end, not the end in and of itself. That is also true of the law as instancing of those individual means to very limited goals and ends. The whole culmination of all of government does not even cover a small fraction of what society reserves for itself. You would think that conservatives, trying to conserve the ideals of upholding society via individual liberty would understand this, but such is not the case.
But then I am no conservative. I appear to speak a different language…
My husband said he wanted to watch Baracky tonight. It wasn’t even worthy of a response.
@108
I’ve been burned. :-(
but excludes government from calling upon those higher social goals as those are reserved by society to itself.
I felt a little pride that I understood that. It’s almost lost, this idea.
Shouldn’t thor be making more cracks about someone’s “slant eyed wife” on Jeff’s blog?
Read the interpretive communities and read Jeff’s intentionlism arguments, which is what I think Jeff’s intentionalism most directly argues against.
And follow the assumption that most of the theorists are sound academics. I seldom read a person of standing that is truly a total flake or outright stupid. Maybe I’m too impressed by stupefying rhetoric but if you ask me even Freud argues a few dandy propositions and certainly presents his theories well. To be dismissive without reason is just as bad as the poorly reasoned in my book.
Maybe Jeff will link his syllabus again so I can refresh myself on his exhaustive thoughts. Honestly, if I get him all wrong then it’s half because I don’t remember all of what he argues.
The bashing of Jeff continues apace. And Jeff, being banned, can’t defend himself.
It’s the proper conservative way.
Reasonable Conservatism (TM)
Comment by thor on 3/22 @ 6:10 pm #
You could use a hobby. Why don’t you go cultivate flesh-eating bacteria?
IOW FOAD, whore.
“… He was accused of being a carpenter: carpenters pay their freight, knock together something useful, walk away cash in hand…”
Jesus, unlike Barak Obama, could put together a cabinet.
Darn you router, darn you to heck!
Hey Jeff. Welcome back!
Did you have a nice rest?
Patterico snapped when most the readers, across the blogs, started to realize he’s a soft-headed sophist. And they started saying as much in the comments.
His actions since represent the frantic flailing of a man drowning in his failure to persuade those more reasonable than himself.
Btw, I’ll be happy to stop making true comments like this, just as soon as Patterico stops indulging himself and his other commenters with extremely personal attacks on Jeff at his blog.
It continues though.
blowhard, you’re a long time reader/commenter here, am I right?
Yes, sdferr, I am.
I’ve been wondering whether you can pinpoint the animus daleyrocks has against Goldstein? Point me to the year/month vicinity in the pw archives maybe and I’ll search out the dialog myself, if you’ld like or can?
I’m sorry, I can’t. For the first couple years here, I was in all the comment threads. Then my life became much more busy and I only read the posts themselves. I’ve only been reading the comment threads again the last few months. Sorry.
Maybe someone else could give sdferr a hand?
Thanks blowhard (it’s wierd, but for some reason my brain always wants to hear your nic as blowhard, apropos of nothing at all btw). I’d appreciate any help anyone wants to give. I’m just trying to get a handle on it.
The nickname comes from my long dead blog where I used it to both make fun of myself and to mockingly agree with other blowhards on the internet. And I often used it to imply that that I blowed… hard.
Sdferr – I will not presume to speak for daleyrocks, but knowing him, it is my understanding that he does not harbor any animus against Jeff, he just disagrees with him on this specific interaction. I could be wrong, but that was my impression.
My use of the term animus derives from what I read as mean-spirited interchanges, JD, nothing else really. I assume that there is at bottom some long running disagreement on principle, I just don’t know what that dispute is, which is why I had hoped to look back and find it.
Yes, there have been a few of those, Sdferr. No doubt.
“In other words some simply parrot on cue so as to fit or in topical fashion versus taking the time to understand the breadth of Lit theory and why one theory doesn’t play well with all texts at all times.”
Thor said that. Really. Now stop laughing–he did. Yes, with a straight face.
#124 blowhard
When Patrick and some of his readers start careening along the edges of Mad Doctor F. territory, it becomes obvious that even he realizes he’s losing the debate.
daleyrocks has been far more than merely interested in this exchange.
I don’t care that he dislikes me. I don’t know the genesis of it, but again, I’m not much interested, either.
YOU! STEP AWAY FROM THE ARMADILLO!
No, at most nishi was quirksome.
Thor said that. Really. Now stop laughing…
I can’t.
To be dismissive without reason is just as bad as the poorly reasoned in my book.
I gave you a reason I am dismissive of Derrida in the quote above. 57. I should follow him as he teaches me to see the unseen? Hear the unsaid, also? How about read the unwritten? Can he also divine the future from freshly butchered goat entrails?
That is shamanism, not intellectualism. Fucking bullshit.