Of no particular import, really—the battle isn’t mine, after all—but I thought I’d point this out anyway, if only because it touches on much of the drama we’ve experienced here over the last week or so. In a post titled “Platform Twelve,” Norm Geras—who no one with an ounce of intellectual integrity could mistake for an arch conservative bent on using linguistic premises as some sort of fascist tool to prevent the masses from taking control of “meaning” (certain linguistic progressives insist that authorial intent is irrelevant, and that resisting it is the only proper way to prevent the Man from assuming the role of “master” over his own text, and we can’t have that)—addresses a critic of the Euston Manifesto, Dave Clark, whose piece appears in the New Statesman. Writes Professor Geras:
A recent article critical of the Euston Manifesto is worth noticing for the principle of textual interpretation it makes use of: the principle, namely, that if the item before you— here, a document—doesn’t actually say what you need it to say for your critical purposes, never mind, invent something.
[my emphasis]
Now, Geras is cartooning Clark’s response for rhetorical purposes; which is to say, Clark’s article is itself an intentionalist one—though its premises, which rely on what Clark believes the Manifesto’s authors are trying to hide, whether consciously or unconsciously, either by omission or by tonal discrepencies within the text itself, are said by Geras to misconstrue the meaning of the Manifesto as signified by its authors. Which is just another way of arguing that Clark’s interpretation is a bad one that misreads intent—a different argument altogether than one that asserts Clark wasn’t interested in what the authors meant in the first place. None of which troubles intentionalism.
Still, the principle Geras is expressing, by way of chastising Clark, not only appeals to the rectitude of trying, for purposes of intepretation, to reconstruct intent (or, at the very least, looking at plain text with the assumption that some agency meant something by it), but it further responds to the central tenets of post-structural interpretive theories that argue, at various times and in various theoretical guises, that part of the text’s meaning includes the history of its previous “interpretations,” or that it “means something in excess” of its authors’ intent, or that, once it is released to the public at large, its meaning rests in signifiers rather than the signs—and one need not appeal to (or even posit) authorial intent in order to understand the text. Shades of the New Critics.
Which, if any of these situation obtain, would suggest Geras is wrong to chastise Clark. More than that, he is being arrogant for doing so: after all, the text is now public. So who is this “Norm Geras” (can he even be said to exist outside of the textual construct that indexes the historical personage, Norm Geras?), one of the text’s original authors, to tell the interpretive community (of which Dave Clark is certainly a member) what the text “means”? WHY IS HE TRYING TO ENSLAVE THEM WITH APPEALS TO THE AUTHORS’ INTENT?
But of course, Professor Geras is not trying to enslave anyone (because as everyone knows, that only happens when the author is conservative); instead, he is trying to correct a misinterpretation of what he meant by pointing out that, well, he didn’t mean what Dave Clark seems to think he and his co-authors meant.
Now, it’s possible the author is lying (though Professor Geras doesn’t strike me as the type)—and so we can of course be distrustful of what he says his intent was. Which is why there is nothing theoretically problematic about Clark’s reading, appealing, as it did, to what it claims Geras et al intended—even if it asserts that the intent was unconscious in some instances, and in other instances, deceptive (or, to be more forgiving, ironic).
But what we cannot say is that the authors of the Manifesto didn’t mean certain things, and that those things aren’t right there in the signs that make up the text. Because if their meaning is not there in the signs, then the meaning of the Manifesto becomes whatever someone can do with the signifiers. Which, if an interpreter (or some motivated “interpretive community”) doesn’t appeal to the intent of the original authors, is no longer the Manifesto written by those authors, but has instead become an entirely new text, one written by the interpreter(s), who can then chose to suggest that his/her/their own reading, while it may not be what the original authors meant, is nevertheless just as valid as any intended by the author.
And that is absurd. Because under such circumstance, it makes no sense to posit that we are still dealing with the same text.
Even worse though, such interpretive maneuvers, as I’ve pointed out before, allow opportunistic and cynical interpreters to point to “hidden racism” (to give but one example recent example) that they graciously allow the author probably didn’t “mean,” but which nevertheless is “there” in the text (see, for example, Think Progress’ direct statement of this principle, or Armando’s suggestion that George Will revealed his “unconscious” racism), and so the author had better be careful in the future. And to say that is to say that the author is responsible for whatever we, as the interpretive community, can do with his or her signifiers, once we’ve decided that his or her signs, insofar as they are the resting place for what s/he means, are not worth the trouble of decoding. This theoretical allowance, then, creates the ground for PC speech and turns language into an enemy minefield that keeps us always mindful of our steps—a shame, really, as language is our creation, no matter how much some theorists will argue that it is “we” who are “created” by language.
If we believe tht the author is hereafter responsible for whatever we can make of his or her signifiers, we have embraced a public, consensus view of meaning, which is ungrounded by anything other than whether the consensus view is to believe it or not. Or in other words, pure will. Which, it isn’t difficult to see, has a political analogue: pure will = the tyranny of the majority.
And that is why it is so important to individual rights (and classical liberalism) that we have a Constitution that can be said to “ground” the foundational structure of our governance in certain principles that are held to be inviolate. Which, not to stretch the analogy too far, is to sugget that the Constitution can be said to hold in its signs the originary intent of the “text” of the United States as intended first by Constitution’s authors, and then later the intent of the ratifiers to codify the founders’ intent as they themselves interpreted it.
Geras’ Manifesto, like the Constitution, is an intentionally produced document. And so in order to interpret it fairly, we must appeal the the intent of its authors as understood by those who have agreed to sign it. If we don’t, we simply aren’t appealing to that text at all.
But enough. I’m just waiting for Lindsay Beyerstein, Jane Hamsher, Nate Charlow, Atrios, and the artists formerly known as “Thersites” and “NYMary,” et al., to call Professor Geras a paste-eating moron bent on trying to bend them to his nefarious will by asserting a control over “his” text, which now properly belongs to them, the “real” progressives, who are perfectly able to decide what something means without the help or guidance of the person(s) who produced it.
Or, to put it another way, WHY IS NORM GERAS TRYING TO CRUSH INTEPRETIVE DISSENT WITH HIS IRRELEVANT “INTENT”? WE SHALL NOT BE ENSLAVED!
Who knows. Maybe he’s on drugs.
****
related: “I AM NOT AN ANIMAL”
”…the text is now pubic”.
I think you might maybe want to change that.
Unless you actually meant it.
Jeff, Don’t ever quit.
Nice way to shove the news about the KARL ROVE INDICTMENT waaaay down the page.
FASCIST!!!
I like Norm Geras. Not only for the Euston Manifesto, but because the guy blogs cricket better than anyone.
“Loggorhea Outbreak Continues: Film at 11:00”
Sheesh, now Ace has it too!
SB: final
word on the subject
I just want to know who has the most power. Is it Karl Rove who constantly outs the left with his triple turning super duper secret maneauvers or Jeff Goldstein who can summon up a scholarly paper to reinforce his views, almost as if by will?
I’m voting for Jeff.
Jeff~
I’d like to ask a serious question about this linguistic debate, one that I’ve been thinking about as I’ve followed the various thrusts and parries. Granting that the author’s intent is an important interpretive tool in understanding meaning, isn’t an important component of an author’s intent the expected effect that the words will have on the intended audience? After all, an author is generally directing words at an audience, intending those words to have a meaning to the audience. So while the audience isn’t free to disregard the author’s intent and impose its own meaning, neither is the author free to say that the meaning understood by the audience isn’t part of his intent.
If I’m completely offbase, please be gentle. Literary criticism is unfamiliar terrain.
All of which has made me wonder.
If, say, an English instructor is asked by one of his students in the midst of a lecture, “What do you mean by that Prof?”
Can a Dr. Andrew Haggerty actually answer such a question?
Because of the hypocrisy.
Steven —
You write:
First, it is always smart to try to anticipate what an audience is likely to do with your signifiers beyond what you meant by them—and this is particularly true for public speakers who don’t wish to make waves.
But it is simply not the case to say that the author’s failure to anticipate how his words may be misunderstood is, in fact, part of his meaning.
What makes this clear is to step back a bit from obvious examples (like Snow’s tar-baby invocation) and look at examples wherein a small group of people (say, UFO worshippers) find in a given utterance certain things they believe can be construed, by people who share their beliefs, to mean something that the author never anticipated.
Do we want to say that if I publicly note that “The sky is the limit” in the context of how much we are willing to spend on healthcare, say, that UFO adepts are free to interpret this as an allusion to receiving help from the alien race who has been helping us for years behind the scenes with our technological advances? And, if they do interpret it in such a way, is it further fair to say that “the meaning understood by the audience” is “part of his intent”?
I would say no—that such a reading was never part of my intent, even if, under the right circumstances and with respect to a particular interpretive community, they can argue that it was, and use my “words” to suggest as much.
Instead, they have simply taken my signifiers and attached to them their own meaning, which they then turn around and attribute to me.
Which is why it is so dangerous to conclude that what interpreters can do with a text is part of the text’s meaning with respect to its original intent of the utterer.
I am not surprised the usual suspects have turned on Norm. The heretic is always more hated than the infidel. The perceived (or real) enemy within always generates the strongest and most passionate response.
Norm and the Euston Manifesto signers have offered a ratinal, humane document listing some principles that have obviously earned the ire of those seeking to cleanse the Faith of it’s Heretikal Phanatiques. I don’t agree with everything in the Euston Manifesto – but I sure respect the authors and signers of it. They are the type of opposition left we need to have – serious and civil. I wish the True Believers would stop the nonsense you have described above.
And sane. I’d sign on to a lot of what they’re offering, and I’d love to partake in a substantive debate of the points I don’t agree with. This is very refreshing, and it may prove very instructive to those not invested in a claim to “the left”.
I tip my hat to the signatories.
Well I suppose this could be construed as proof of why I could never find the seven levels of meaning in Finnegans Wake. Not that I could get past the first three pages anyhow.
Wow, JG, that’s some serious, intellectual (for the most part), nonsexual (for the most part) love coming from the Place of Ace. Much better than a Stuart Smalley daily affirmation…
On another note, how does it feel to be a Jewish man who supports a baseball team that is being outed by USA Today as a Christian ballclub?
Rocks’ CEO Monfort:
The Jews don’t know from suffering!
Which is brilliant in and of itself, Jeff. Any polyglot can read a text in a foreign tongue and be able to translate it into their own native tongue.
BUT there are analogies that are different, the literary history and allusions are different (Russian authors cite Russian history and all), words which mean one thing or another, but are being used by the author in wordplay that is tone-deaf to a non-native or non-intellectual (of the same language).
At some level, this understanding (of interpretation) seems to pitch against intentionalism–as it appeals to the ‘social’ fabric that the author is part of–but this is chimerical. It is precisely because of the specificity of an author’s moves through his social environment (not the existence of such an environment which should be taken as a given), i.e. the author’s intent, that absolutely destroys the recievership’s imprimatur of authority over a text: Between grammar and language (the–and all plausible–meaning[s] of specific words), between culture and circumstance, the author eliminates wide swaths of potential meaning just by action of selecting and sequencing words, thoughts, passages, and chapters. Truly, the anti-intentionalist stance only applies to vague or even rhetorical flourishes (asking a question and thereby eliciting reader/listener/viewer responses); the anti-intentionalist states the painfully obvious and is a lover of excruciatingly poor literature.
Truly a masterwork, Jeff; your most readable and delightful passage yet in the Moonbat Chronicles.
Back to lurking
There’s lots more of this stuff, which is simultaneously inspiring and depressing.
rls:
Has anyone ever seen Jeff and Karl together?
Just sayin’
Two questions:
1. How do our intentions gain their meaning? Surely we can’t intend for our intentions to mean something–that would be an infinite regress.
2. If we mean what we intend to mean, then how to account for Freudian slips? This may just be a quibble.
Sorry if you’ve already covered either/both of these, Jeff–I followed the debate as best my time allowed.
It should now be plain to everyone that this whole “interpretation as the locus of meaning” gambit is nothing more than an attempt by the left to subvert the arguments of their political opponents without having to actually, you know, argue. Which is very important I guess when one is flat out of arguments as the left is. But which arguments? Arguments against capitalism, better known these days by the term “economics.” From Clark’s piece:
Without the Marxian idea of surplus value or other zero-sum mercantilistic economic theory enabling them to describe everything in simplistic terms of power, and thus animate their theories of “hegemony,” the entire leftist worldview disolves into inchoherency from top to bottom, revealed for all to see as the string of non-sequiturs it has always been.
yours/
peter.
Am I correct to assume that the utterer (author) can have the intent to have different meanings to different audiences? A couple of examples come to mind: that of the double entendre, carefully assembled to appeal to two different audiences and according to Thiering (Jesus the Man) the “peshers” of the Gospel, written in a “sorta” code, to have a different meaning to followers than the surface reading to be read by the potential “enemies of Christianity”.
If authorial intent was not of the primacy, would we ever have a phrase such as, Freudian slip?
We’ll be in a better position to answer that one once Thirsty tracks down that
one-armed manWhitehouse.gov IP address.If authorial intent was not of the primacy, would we ever have a phrase such as Freudian slip?
The concept behind “Freudian slip” is that the subconscious can assert itself quite beyond our ability to consciously control it. So in a moment of inattention, we allow the unconscious to slip past our controls and create a sign. A “true” sign, if I’m not mistaken. A sign that signifies what we “really” think rather than what we want people to think that we think.
In this case, there is indeed an instance of intention, just not intention from the conscious self.
That is, if Freud’s concept of human consciousness is actually accurate. I tend to think that these types of slip-ups are the result of the fact that we often think ahead of our speech, or we might be thinking about one thing while talking about another, or even that the brain occasionally goes to the wrong brain cell to retrieve a word.
So if a word comes out that I didn’t “mean” to say? Those who interpret that accidental speech might find it amusing, but if I say “flower pot” when what I really mean to say is “ham sammich,” what I’ve done is produced nonsense, not meaning.
Which brings up an interesting point about the utterer’s responsibility toward the potential audience: What if I decide to use my own personal definitions of words? What if I decide to say “baseball bat” when I refer to feather dusters and “kill” when I refer to the act of tickling.
So I go and say “I’m going to kill you with a baseball bat” when I mean “I’m going to tickle you with a feather duster.”
What have I just done? Have I issued a threat of violence? I can always claim that I didn’t “mean” to threaten violence because of my own personal code, but is that honest? Is it valid? How does my intention serve as the locus for meaning in that case?
Damn straight. Because who could be less The Man than an almost wholly governmental parasite class of Wealthy White Westerners who would conceal literature, open to all since Gutenberg, in a language one must pay dearly (and show an awful lot of Whitey’s “future time orientation”) to understand, and constantly swear class loyalty to be allowed to speak? Who, I ask.
Believing the latter part of that (I do; it changes nothing re: intentionalism) doesn’t entail enforcing the former, but raises a choice: What kind of “we” should be created? The ethical answer is none. (See Star Trek. Or Foucault. Whatever.)
There’s no necessity that, because language changes its users, “we” be
interpellated(sorry) browbeaten into fearful obedience to an invented Other, its will embodied and enacted by The not-Man above. But if you’re a fascist anyway, the prospect must seem irresistible. Especially as it allows you to denounce so many fascists.…
I have to go strangle my wife now.
I’m still confused. Are you saying that the message I got from Helter Skelter was not part of The Beatle’s authorial intent?
Boy, do I have egg on my face now :(
Shoulda listend to yer dog, Charlie.
Wimps. You had to have someone ELSE tell you what to do?
Enough of all this literary blater. Let’s get some dinner!
“First, it is always smart to try to anticipate what an audience is likely to do with your signifiers beyond what you meant by themâ€â€and this is particularly true for public speakers who don’t wish to make waves.”
Yep, and public speakers who specialize in speech designed to anticipate audience response end up saying virtually nothing. I’m not learned enough to run with the big dogs here, but it seems to me that politicians and diplomats spend waaayyyy too much time trying to “dis-intentionalize” their speech/texts just so’s we unwashed masses can have transcendental interpretive experiences. Or maybe I meant to say “interpretive transcendental experiences”? Nevermind.
But I think I’m learning something.
There is an art to writing speeches that appear to be on a particular subject but end up saying nothing of substance. Those writers are in demand among the pols.
That way the politician can have deniability. They can say that they never said “x” about subject “y”.
“Sometimes a cigar is just a cli— er, um, I mean, a cigar.”
Thank you, rls.
But is their deniability plausible to a paste-eater?
TW: lost
in virtual space
Oh, the deniability is plausible. Since they never said anything or made any committment to any policy.
The ones that applaud and nod their heads in agreement are the problem. If they would just stand up and say, “Hey, you’re naked”, the pols would cover their shriveled little members – we would all then profit.
McGehee – Did you take care of that fuzz on your frog legs….Because you know….if not, he’s going to <disembowel> you with a <chainsaw>…..(feel free to interpret the “intent” of the foregoing with whichever actions/implements you feel comfortable with)
Some possibilities: <Liberace>/, <Kerry>/<granade launcher>, <abort>/<mother Sheehan>, <conehead>/<Akroid>….. ect
Jeff~
I understand the danger on the extreme cases. I also understand the trap of allowing the listener to impose his own meaning on text regardless of context and the author’s intent. I am generally sympathetic to your argument, but there is something about it that bothers me. Perhaps I can tease it out a bit.
Speaking and writing are generally interactive mediums, where the author is attempting to communicate meaning to another person. And as many have pointed out, words have consequences. If the author uses signifiers that can have multiple meanings or are ambiguous, at what point in time does the author get to define what he meant? For example, in the Trent Lott- Strom Thurmond dustup, Lott’s actual remark was somewhat ambiguous in that he didn’t specifically identify what “problems” Thurmond’s presidency would have prevented. I take it that you would say that Lott is the only one who gets to define what he really meant and if he says it wasn’t a racially directed remark, then at least as to meaning, that should end the discussion. If so, I find that troubling. It seems to me that context should matter. At what point is the listener entitled to say, “I don’t care what you say you meant. In context, what you said can only reasonably mean X.”
Steven, the intent is still Lott’s, and only he truly knows what it was.
Your question refers to a different problem, which is what to do if you don’t believe the author when he explains his intent. In the case of Lott, politics trumps intentionalism as it’s a game not of what is, but of how it can be spun out and sold in 10 second sound bites. Lying is part of the game on and as consumers we need to factor that into appraising the author’s social context for purposes of determining intent. Sometimes, the author intends to bullshit you, and you may glean that from an examination of the author’s place in the world.
LAYMAN POV INCOMING
LAYMAN POV INCOMING
Well, why get mad at him if he misspoke?
rls,
Sorta like voting for something before they vote against it. Right? I get that part. I’m just saying there must be something in paste that gives paste-eaters x-ray vision or something.
Unless I’ve totally misinterpreted the term “paste-eater”. I’m still fairly new, but I figured if Thirsty et al were hurling the term at JG fans, I should wear it as a badge of honor. Sometimes context clues just aren’t enough so I see where I could into trouble. Like if Thirsty said PW had a plethora of clowns and I decoded that to mean a “dearth” of clowns.
TW: top
off my drink
Steven —
I see Pablo answered, so I’ll just add a bit more to what he’s already said, because I think it is a common misunderstanding of intentionalism as it applies to interpretation.
First, you are right: I proceed from the idea of the speech act, so I accept that speaking and writing are generally interactive mediums (though one can of course write for oneself and talk to oneself without violating what we think of a either speaking or writing).
You write:
You are again correct here, though I’d phrase it a bit differently. Lott doesn’t get to define what he meant so much as he meant what he meant at the time he produced the signs.
It is up, then, to the interpreter to decide what Lott meant on the other end of the communication chain.
Context matters insofar as it provides clues to what Lott meant when he signified—which is the moment his utterance became language.
The listener is ALWAYS entitled to say that Lott meant something different from what he meant—just so long as he ascribes the intentions to Lott.
In this case, either the interpreter has gotten Lott’s meaning right (and Lott denies it); or s/he has gotten Lott’s meaning wrong (as Lott claims).
Interpretation is not an exact science. It is difficult at times, which is what makes it so important (from my perspective) that we understand what it is and how it works. Because the inexactitude of it can be used as a weapon either for or against the utterer.
In the case of Lott, if we for the moment take him seriously that he meant nothing more by his comments than he claims he meant, then the worst we should do is excoriate him for being loose with his language, which—in a highly charged partisan atmosphere of gotcha, is dangerous; if, on the other hand, he was signifying in such a way that what he said really meant to praise the Dixiecrat movement, than that’s what he meant.
But simply because there is no ironclad way of knowing one way or the other (Lott might lie, for instance, about what he meant) doesn’t change what is essentially a descriptive point: that his meaning was created at that moment he signified.
Which doesn’t mean he can’t be punished for not choosing his words wisely (he was, in fact); simply that regardless of our reaction to his words, they were (and are) what they were (and are).
As Pablo notes, deciding what he meant is different than saying that what he meant exists in those signs he created.
Your last line captures this. You write, “At what point is the listener entitled to say, ‘I don’t care what you say you meant. In context, what you said can only reasonably mean X.’”
There, you are simply arguing with what the speaker after the fact says his intentions were. But you are saying that, despite his protestations, he intended something other than he is letting on—and that the context of the utterance suggests as much.
In short, your interpretation of what he intended is different than his own. But you are still appealing to his intent.
Now, had you said, like Think Progress did, that “we know you didn’t mean anything racist by your use of tar-baby, but that doesn’t matter, because we know of racist instances of tar-baby, and so your use of the phrase is tainted by that racism,” then what you are saying is, in effect, we are each responsible, everytime we use a signifier, for how someone somewhere might have used it in the past.
StevenD: I think the easiest answer regarding Lott’s intent was that it was to flater Strom Thumond at Thurmond’s 100th birthday party. The reason I can make that interpretive claim is that is also the context in which Lott made his remarks.
Now obviously, all kinds of claims have been made as to what Lott must have meant when referring, as Lott did, to the prospective outcome of a Thurmond presidency. If Lott intended anything more than to make a 100 year old man feel some cheer on the occasion of a birthday celebrating a long life, well then Lott would’ve elaborated and been more specific.
That such ambiguous comments can be “spun” or even “interpreted” by such folks that spend their time analyzing authorial intent (bogus mind reading by other means), is what brings us to Deep Trope complaint about politicians that don’t say anything aside from general platitutdes–and even that didn’t work for Lott.
But what do I know, other than how to read and write. (Apparently, I don’t even know that according to such geniuses that claim the right to interpretation.)
Jeff:
In other words, the creator of the text is the primary arbiter as to his intentions at the time of its creation – but, as in Trent L’s case, the creator may be lying about his intent, and it is reasonable to suspect this when the context suggests that something is wrong.
You can certainly make that interpretive claim, sure. Just so long as you are arguing that he intended as much. Which would mean that, in essence, you are calling him a liar.
Intentionalists have no problem with that.
But as Forbes points out above, there are other interpreters who will disagree with your reading, and make their case. In the end, one description of what Lott meant will hold more sway than the other, but none of this changes Lott’s original meaning, which was what it was.
And a quick follow-up, I do think Lott was loose with his language, and should’ve understood to be more careful, and perhaps more specific, rather than less specific when speaking about a colleague who’d been an advocate of segregation, even if it was a long time ago.
I mean, we all do remeber the heap o’ trouble Senator Robert Byrd landed in when he used the phrase “white nigga,” don’t we?
Jeff, I appreciate the response. One question about this part:
I would agree that we should not be responsible for how someone somewhere might have used it. But language is cultural and language is contextual. If the speaker is aware of the connotation of a particular word–let’s use tar-baby–that speaker should be responsible for the likely connotations that will be known by his audience. If what you are saying is that, as to an argument over meaning, is all that matters is the speaker’s intention, I can accept that but then have to question its relevance. If that is the case, is not the real argument (particularly in the political realm) over the appropriateness of the statement and the wisdom of the speaker in making a statement that is subject to differing reasonable interpretations.
I really do appreciate the dialogue. You’ve given me a lot to think about. I’m off to Napa Valley this weekend to celebrate my birthday and drink some wine. I’ll definitely hoist a glass in your direction.
Language is used in context and can be specific to a given culture, but that doesn’t mean we need either convention or culture to mean. In fact, we mean every time we intend to signify, and (if you remember my salad / clicking heels example) we can mean unconventionally. It’s just that convention, context, etc. make it more likely that those we are trying to communicate with will understand us.
That said, let’s take a look at your conditional:
I’d like to begin with the relevance of intentionally-determined meaning, because that is a point I hear quite a bit. If everyone took for granted that meaning was determined by intent, then you are right, the observation doesn’t carry much weight. In fact, to me, all it is is a simple statement of fact.
But not everyone believes that, and as I’ve said before, when meaning is allowed to be determined by something other than intent and then attributed to the author, you allow for something (in the tar-baby example) like “Tony Snow’s words were racist, and so whether he knows it or not, Tony Snow is racist” (in fact, I had this very discussion over a post by Armando that accused George Will of being an “unconscious racist”).
But that aside, your larger question has to do with the conditional that if the speaker knows that part of his audience is likely to be offended when they misconstrue his meaning, the speaker should be held responsible for a forseeable offense.
I disagree. In fact, I think that if we are ever to take back control of language, we have to insist that, just because we can foresee that some people are likely to misconstrue our words, doesn’t mean that we have to apologize for what they want to do with them.
In Snow’s case, he made it clear, via context, e that there was nothing “racial” at all about what he was saying. And it was possible (though he later noted he was referencing Joel Chandler Harris), that he had in fact never known of history of the phrase, but had rather picked it up from Robert Anton Wilson and the “tar baby principle.”
So there are certainly reasons why I believe, on a personal level, it is a mistake to try too hard to consider every possible way your words can be construed before you utter them—most notably that they lend credence to the idea that those who are offended by things we didn’t mean are entitled not just to be offended, but to attribute that offense to us and demand and apology / that person be fired / cultural sensitivity courses, etc.
It is my belief that we find ourself in this predicament to begin with—where we are forced to worry over the “appropriateness of the statement and the wisdom of the speaker in making a statement that is subject to differing reasonable interpretations”—because we haven’t done enough to establish that a speaker shouldn’t have to worry about how someone might potentially take something wrong each and every time he speaks.
As someone noted above, this condition, however, has become the default of many politicians, which is why they end up expending a lot of energy saying a whole lot of nothing. They fear being misunderstood.
My position is that interpreters should learn that they don’t have the right to privilege their own interpretations if what they are doing is, in fact, trying to suss the speaker’s meaning.
Which should be really, really obvious to anyone who reads much Protein Wisdom.
This has been a very enlightning dismantling, Jeff. And as it turned out, the machine took apart the tool instead of the other way around.
I suppose we should thank Thirsty for being so inspirational.
BBH, your interest in the fuzz on my legs is both flattering and a little creepy.
I don’t mind you staring, but please put down the knife and fork.
‘Cause, y’know, they signify an intention that makes me uncomfortable…
I’ve been waiting eagerly for the (non-)results of that little exercise in cyber-mime, as well. I’m predicting either a Rather-ian “fake but accurate” defense, once it becomes starkly self-evident to any- and everyone this side of Helen Keller that (insofar as Thirsty’s accusations are conderned) there’s no “there” there… although the equally intriguing possibility of a complete and total Jason Leopold/Will Pitt-style online nervous breakdown shouldn’t be discounted out of hand, either.
“conderned” = concerned, obviously.
HEH!
– Its a pretty good bet we’ve seen the last of the Dr. for awhile. Taking down the site, was probably the first step in going to cover for reasons we’ve disscussed elsewhere, although some of his lap dogs are still carrying his water.
That was a whole lot of words (signs, signifiers, whatever?) to say RTFM(anifesto)!
It’s ironic that this stuff is called intentionalism and is then wielded to produce what the analyzer intends rather than what the author intends…
TW: any, Does ANY of this make sense to us non-English majors?
The absolutely best comment on the whole ‘intentionalism’ deal and faculty was in Back to School.
Mellon has Kurt Vonnegut write his paper on one of his, Kurt’s, books. Mellon’s teacher says something like, “I don’t know who wrote this, but they surely don’t understand Kurt Vonnegut.”
That made me laugh long and hard as I have had a number of professors who would probably feel the same way. “Just because he’s the author doesn’t mean he has a monopoly on the meaning of what he wrote.”
The funniest part for me is there are people reading that last sentence and can’t understand why it makes me laugh as it’s so self-evidently true.