Postmodernism & Philosophy

[Engleberton Crabferry]

I know this is not specifically to do with Assia Djebar, but Spivak is someone whose criticism pervades the cultural realm of the "postcolonial"; her ideas on the "subaltern" pivotal to understanding the significance of the problems of the type of identity I've tried to write about here... She has written directly on Assia Djebar, as well as Coetzee, and others, and has translated Derrida's Of Grammatology (apparently with an amazingly self-reflexive, lengthy preface to the book, for which she is also widely renown)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZHH4ALRFHw

[Liam]

Spivak is very out of touch with reality, just like Judith Butler (in Queer Theory) is out of touch with everyday gay issues pervading, ahem, normal human lives. I think if you ask some of these "subaltern" if they identify with what Spivak says they'll just scratch their heads and ask you to take a giant step back.

Personally I like these theorists very much--but only as theorists. But it also must be owned, I think, that they've never quite climbed down from their ivory towers, rolled up their sleeves and, gasp, helped somebody live better in the fullest sense. They're more content to simply play with concepts and words. Oh well, their choice. Fortunately they haven't made much headway in my chosen field, so I won't have to deal with them very often.

PS. Oftentimes, I find Spivak completely unreadable.

[Engleberton Crabferry]

In the spirit of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, I take issue with you sir! Haha. NO, but, seriously, I understand your concern here. Although I think perhaps I picture the concept of theory slightly differently...

Put simply, does not the image of the “ivory tower” imply an impossible hermeticism? I think perhaps the phrase is bandied about too frequently these days, inasmuch as we have come to naturalize the unnatural polarity of the “theorist” and the “normal human”. I think rather to conceive of them as inseparable... Afterall (at the risk of sounding like Jean-Jacques Liverot!); what is a “normal human” anyway?

What I mean by this is that, without doubt, all people are host to uniquely structured (ever-morphing) ideologies; those on a “ground-level”, as it were, also productive of a type of “theory”; usually a more conflictual, ideological theory, but a theory nonetheless. And often “ground-level” theories are not conducive to “progress”, in the enlightenment sense of the term (think of Nationalisms, blind patriotisms, sexisms, even), whilst on the “ivory tower” level (if we are willing to concede or imagine that it exists separately for a moment) we often find a theoretical engagement with the “truth” (or “la verite” as old Jacquey boy might call it!). Quite often I too find high theory untenable as a daily prescription of thought for “common men” (as well as for myself, a “common man”! haha). As who could seriously live there life without ideological bias from time to time? I think this almost goes without saying. We are locked in ideological whirlwinds, cannot speak deconstructively in everyday speech…

But such as we might “leave politics to the politicians” (to an extent); and such as we might entrust an expert shoemaker with our shoes, or a captain to steer a ship, (think of Plato’s – admittedly proto-despotic – philosopher king), so to I think it conceivable that “theorists” (if we are still intent on separating them from “Real men”) occupy a position of detached learnedness; not concerned immediately with practical realities perhaps, but with philosophical truisms and deconstructive rigour. After all, theorists are only people who have chosen to theorise as their vocation, as professionals in the field. The way I see it, these theories in turn filter into the mainstream and become a part of a regular person’s thinking anyway. Otherwise, I believe, we would not have a secular, post-modern, progressively un-sexist society in most of Britain/Europe/The United States today…

One might argue then the economic case (i.e. Jameson’s “Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”), but I believe it is centuries of philosophy and recent decades of so-called “high-theory” that have enabled Western Democracies to develop liberal, secular, inclusive modes of political discourse (often against the grain, as it were; contrary to mainstream public opinion or the “real men and women”). Think of John Locke’s social contract theories and theories on fundamental rights; the influence this has had on the United States Constitution (not something the everyday man might have been capable of conceiving himself). A limited example, perhaps, since Locke’s theories are not deconstructive, but rather typically metaphysical.

I don’t know much about “Queer Theory”, I have to say; but I assume its advancements are also reliant on radical, theoretical thinking(?); most of which seemed/seems rather strange to regular people living in a time before it’s “truths” or rigours were/are realised on a “ground-level”? Perhaps you disagree on this. I’m not an expert at all, obviously. Would like to know what you think? …
I think deconstructive thought in particular is challenging to the mainstream as, at base, we seem to end up without essential truths; on the one hand subverting oppressive colonial, or heteronormative, ideologies that are thwarting “progress”; and on the other hand simply providing no possible alternative… It’s “fruits” are yet to manifest (will always be “to come”), I think. But there is no doubt it has been essential so far in subversion…

I think it is right to say that the likes of Butler and Spivak are “distanced” from “reality” (as we know or conceive it), but certainly not (I would think) “out of touch” (I’m speaking of them on an abstract level, as examples of theorists – I haven’t read Butler at all, I know her only by reputation!). For the “reality” of our social circumstance is undoubtedly veiled by the ideological bias inherent to the symbolic of everyday life. If anything, I would say it is everyday life that is convoluted and strange to reality, not theory.

I haven’t read enough Spivak either to know if this is a fair assumption, but if she is as much indebted to Derrida as I believe she is, deconstructive, semantically conscious “postcolonial” thinking does not seek to privilege any mode of ideological construct. Nationalities, communities, sexualities are all subject to radical re-thinking. People on a ground-level may not want to relinquish notions of national identity, for example; may even think themselves endowed with a “natural” English-ness, or Indian-ness, or Palestinian-ness, French-ness, American-ness, etc., but when analysed considerately these identities are simply legislative, cultural, linguistic constructs; not inherent qualities or “true” to life at all. In my opinion, they are divisive structures and paradigms; if anything, limiting of “progress”, for without radical philosophy or “high theory” I believe we do not “progress” at all, but merely languishes in a fixed, seemingly immovable, ideological past.

To return briefly to my point about the imagined hermeticism of the theorists “ivory tower”; I think perhaps the label also presupposes a lack of abstract theoretical thinking on behalf of the un-reading public???

By the sounds of it you are much more familiar with Butler (and maybe Spivak?) than I am. Perhaps they are very particular examples of the type of theorist you are talking about(?); I don’t know. As I say, I’m speaking on quite an abstract level about the way I think “theory” or “high-theory” or “philosophy” features in both the “Ivory tower” and the “everyday”. Because I do think it imperative that we have both obscure, deconstructive thinkers, as well as pragmatist, “ground-level” thinkers; at worst framing them in a kind of dialectic that is productive of human “progress”; at best seeing the two as inevitable psychological attributes of ALL human beings…

Under closer analysis I can never seem to separate the two. What do you think?

[Engleberton Crabferry]

I was thinking also of something a friend of mine said to me recently. He lives in China at the moment, somewhere in the North East, but has lived in various other regions in the past 3 years or so. He works as an educator now, in a foreign language school. And I remember being struck by something he told me, re: the "regular" Chinese person's reaction to the question: "Do you feel oppressed? Do you want democracy, instead?" - Besides the obvious, imperialistic connotations of such a line of questioning (i.e. "I am from the West and we have a discovered a mode of political life superior to you own. Why on Earth would you not like to adopt it?"), the frequency of answers in the dumbfounded negative would suggest (to him) that the Chinese people are approximately content with the system of government currently in place. Of course, this is highly subjective, and of course there are various dissidents and artists who oppose ...

But don't you think this speaks volumes on the discussion of the encounter between abstract, political philosophy and the day-to-day opinion of the "common man"? Of course, I think it would be a travesty to impose upon the Chinese (or any other people) a system of government that is unwanted by "them", but that is not to forbid that the theory of "Democracy", or indeed the theories of "Postmodernity", might at one stage occupy a more prominent role in the minds of the Chinese public. I don't know really. And I suppose it is impossible to know, but I generally imagine theory in this manner, as something coming-into-being, perhaps initially occupying the "ivory tower",but then disseminating, taking root in the "lower" rungs of the political hierarchy, with the voters and "marginals"...

I am probably missing the point here actually. The more I think about it, there appears to be something specific with Butler and Spivak that you take issue? I think, generally, if Butler is a deconstructive theorist, I can imagine the type of criticism she produces. It is always a little difficult to swallow deconstructive theory; to accept that there are no "naturally" discernible limits to human behaviour; perhaps also that there are arguably no "natural" qualities to "men", "women", "heterosexuals", and "homosexuals"... afterall, one's experience seems natural enough... But I guess the thing I like about deconstructive thinking is that it prohibits totality, prevents people from deciding one way or the other (nature/nurture), and leaves open the questions of sexual, ethnic, cultural identity as one ever-morphing, subject to radical re-thinking...

I'd love to know of any specific Butler theories you find unpalatable though?

[Liam]

The thing about Butler is that her philosophy has very little to do with how gay men and women live their everyday lives, yet she tries to present it as universal to the queer experience. That doesn't make it any more or less legitimate, of course, philosophy is philosophy and not everyone is concerned with the "eternal" questions and truths every day of their lives, that's understandable, but one thing you have to understand about both queer and postcolonial theories is that they are immensely invested in everyday identity-politics; indeed, they could not exist without them.

This is not an instance in which Plato is looking at shadows on the wall and is invited to muse on the true meaning of human existence; the two theories in question operate "in the real," so to speak, and cannot be divorced from it. Plato's philosophy is universal in that (hypothetically) it applies to all and sundry, always did and always will, but postcolonial theory cannot be applied to countries that have never been colonized, and queer theory cannot be applied to people and/or situations that aren't even slightly queer--hence the inherent limitations.

They are also SO divorced from reality and genuine human needs they might as well be living in cuckoo-land. Most queer theorists are vociferous opponents of gay marriage, for instance. The reason? They don't believe in the concept of state-sanctioned marriage, they don't believe that the government has the right to either approve or disapprove the gender or even the number of your partners, etc, etc.

This is, of course, all quite peachy, but go ask the vast majority of gay men and women what they want NOW, and what they think will make their lives better NOW, and how they will be less discriminated against NOW, and queer theory will be exposed for the dangerous nonsense it really is.

I am less familiar with postcolonial theory (other than finding Spivak, Bhabha, etc) absolutely unreadable, but I doubt it is any different.

[Engleberton Crabferry]

Yeah, I take your point entirely. It is a really difficult one for me, though. I'm not religious - agnostic, perhaps - and consciously veer away from structurally oppressive systems of thought, which arguably the institution of marriage is (given the patriarchal leanings of the Abrahamic faiths), and so to seek marriage and religious ceremony in an age such as ours seems to me quite absurd anyway. And yet I understand its commodity value in either bolstering partiarch or leveraging homosexual union to one of equal cultural status. I suppose I don't believe in marriage at all, but if marriage exists (which inevitably it always will in some form or other) then it ought to be available to all and sundry. But then, I don't know really... wouldn't it just be sensible to discredit the church and say fuck marriage all together? If the church is a patriarchal force, God a patriarchal figurehead, why not forget religion altogether and move on, homosexual people in union for the sake of union itself? I don't know, I guess this is the same argument as Butler and the PoFems... it is ALL absurd to me. It seems that to advocate Butlers theory is a maneouvre at the expense people wishing to indulge in ideological constructs. One cannot prescribe such things and claim to think post-structurally. I suppose I believe there is nothing intrinsic to any doctrine or "faith", as it were, anyway, and therefore also believe its cultural evolution (to include homosexuality) ought to be perfectly possible. If people want ideology, let them have it. haha. Why not?!

[Liam]

Civil marriage has nothing to do with religious ceremony though. You can have a religious ceremony and still not be protected by civil law, like in the case of Mormons and Muslims with several wives: the law only recognizes one of the women as a legal spouse, but not the others.

And I think you are under-estimating the strength and number of sincere believers out there--Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. Atheists are actually a minority, and don't you forget it, .

[Engleberton Crabferry]

Fair enough. Well, like I say, I am agnostic (or something similar - do not have any particular inclination one way or the other!), and I think if one is to think post-structurally, it is silly (indeed illogical) to begin prescribing any sort of behaviour for anyone. I'm afraid I do believe religion is a bit silly (not to the Hitchen's extent, but, you know, silly as a firm metaphysical belief; certainly not something I would feel comfortable saying I "know", or indeed even could be "known" by anyone, epistemologically). But that is not to discredit or dismiss other people's beliefs as things I think ought to be overcome. Each to their own, I say! And yes, I suppose you're correct in saying that Civil marriage is not necessarily religious. I was thinking rather of the debate raging in the British and USA media at the moment, Re: religious marriage for homosexual couples? I think when it IS religious it is slightly more problematic, for religion (atleast the Abrahamic faiths) are historical patriarchal; the evolution/adaption of which relinquishes the profundity of a core to the faith in the first place. That is to say that once adapted to incorporate homosexuality, does not Christianity (Judaism or Islam) immediately become something other than itself? Unless of course, there is some ethereal core that cannot be named (which I suppose many believe, so whatever...). I don't know. It is too difficult to debate people who are religious, I think. And that's why you get polemicists like Hitchens taking the reigns, because there is something immutably obstinate in the assertion that "I just know", or "I speak to God and He to me". How does one debate things that are not self-evident to both parties? If there is a religious "core" to religious experience, as many claim, then doctrine and fashions are superfluous (if not down right insulting). And yet, the core is the only thing preserving religion for the adaption to include homosexuality. Afterall, why would a homosexual want to be a part of any sort of existing religious/doctrinal experience?

Are you religious Liam (out of interest)? Like I say, I have absolutely nothing against sincere religious people. I just think it is a leap too far from logic for me. Unless self-evident, it cannot be debated and taken seriously philosophically...

[Liam]

Oh god, dude, too bad you didn't join this forum earlier when me and Mirabell had lovely discussions about the extent of my religion. I am something of an anomaly, being a gay Catholic, but it's not as weird as it sounds: you have NO idea how many gay Catholics there are in NYC (I'm talking about gay people who never left the Faith, as well as those who willingly converted, from Judaism, Protestantism, and other faiths). I don't know what it is about Catholicism that draws so many people to itself...

Well, I think when you say that you think all religious belief is inherently silly you are already insulting some people out there, so don't be wishy-washy about it, be honest and be yourself. You can't be like, I think religion is total BS, but dude, I respect your right to an opinion and I respect you, and blah blah blah. NO.

There have been many historical studies devoted to the subject of medieval homosexuality in Judaism, Christianity and Islam demonstrating that these faiths were not always as hostile to it as they first appear, but yes, you're right, there is explicit scriptural prohibition against it in the holy books of all three religions.

Sorry, I babble. It was my last day at work and my manager took me out to an Irish bar and we got slightly drunk, . I won't be surprised if this doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever tomorrow morning.

[Liam]

I just think it is a leap too far from logic for me. Unless self-evident, it cannot be debated and taken seriously philosophically...

"...faith… ceases to be faith if it rests on any grounds of reason, and so is essentially committed to the seas of doubt..." ~ Tim Robinson, Stones of Aran

[Engleberton Crabferry]

haha. Well, yes, again I see your point. It is quite strange to hear me say that I don't believe, couldn't believe, and don't think it is logical to believe AND still respect your decision to believe. But then, as a believer yourself, can you honestly turn your back on God and respect my right not to believe? (haha. back at ya!)...

If we're not beating around the bush, I suppose (and perhaps this is a large supposition, you can probably clear this up for me immediately) that as a religious believer (if your belief is consummate or total), you cannot possibly respect my agnosticism either? You must think I am doomed! lol. I am being provocative of course. But I DO respect your right to believe, I just say it is impossible to communicate faith, impossible to justify it logically. It is not here, in front of us, discernible, self-evident (to all), and therefore not debatable or philosophically coherent or even compelling (to me). If you have faith, so be it. And I don't mean to be insulting at all. Many religious people would likewise tell me that I am not "seeing" what is there, which, were I more sensitive, I might find insulting, too (in fact I do sometimes... quite a sensitive young man!)... But is it not impossible to remain uninsulting when religion is concerned? Is it not an insult to your faith that people worship other Gods and that some do not believe in your God at all? It seems to me that we're all constantly "insulting" one another by having different beliefs by that token? But that can't be right. Surely I can say I find it silly if it is my belief (grounded in a philosophy of my own)? Just as you can say that Allah and the Sun God Ra do not exist and are fabrications/false idols?! Remember Bernadin de Saint-Pierre dear sir! lol. "dispute without anger", or the like. I really don't mean to insult anyone. I just have a unique view of my own...

Also, out of interest then, how do you find your Catholicism to compliment your homosexuality (I am not being facetious; I am really interested?)... it seems to me that "Catholicism" (as it is known in its Abrahamic, monotheistic convention) CANNOT incorporate homosexuality? Surely it is not Catholicism proper, unless you are damming of yourself and your sexuality? Which I hope "to God" you're not?!?! lol

[Liam]

Oh, I'm not angry in the least, just tipsy: two different things, .

I actually think that "belief" is the wrong word for what so many people happen to feel; my own definition of the metaphysical experience boils down, rather, to the verb "intuit." Like, I believe you when you say that your name is S--- and that you're 28 years of age (although why should I?), but I don't necessarily intuit it (which would be creepy); conversely, I don't really "believe" in God's presence (how can I; what I cannot see I cannot believe; although ipso facto this should go for black holes as well, etc), but rather I intuit Him, and that's something impossible to explain.

To ask a believer to justify himself is just as illogical as to demand a nonbeliever to "explain" himself: you either have the grace of intuition or you don't.

On the question of Catholicism and homosexuality I would recommend two books, in particular, both by John Boswell: Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality and Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe; you can also check out The Boswell Thesis to see how other scholars respond to his line of argument twenty years later. Boswell was a gay Catholic who went to Mass every Sunday, and he saw nothing opposing between being both a Christian and a gay man (ironically, he died of AIDS complications in 1994 (or 1995, I forget), many people said that God struck him down, <--this doesn't exactly explain why some gay men live long and happy and fulfilling lives and die peacefully in their beds).

[Engleberton Crabferry]

27 just now, thanks! haha. Yes, I understand the "intuit" argument. It is approximately the same as Kant's synthetic a priori, I think. I suppose that the distinction between that which is intuited and that which is known empirically, accounts for my banishing of religion to a realm other than serious philosophy. If it is intuited by some and not others, and if some are endowed with grace and not others, it is rather a callous, selective process enacted by the higher power. But could I not also find it quite insulting the suggestion that I'm not endowed with the grace of intuition? A "lesser creature" or something than you? I would love to talk to you more about this face to face. I feel like this type of discussion quite calls for a more responsive, empirical, emotional engagement... I am not closed to possibility at all. I never have been. And I have previously held "beliefs" of my own. However, nothing remains for me (*boo hoo!), and the universe merely appears silent (*profound! hmmm...)...

Forgive me if I don't write back this evening. I am falling asleep. But thank you for your recommendation of the books there. I would love to dip into that at some point... Still waiting for my Cid Corman to arrive from the States, will let you know!

[Liam]

I would love to talk to you more about this face to face.

OK, but beware. I might "turn" you Catholic. Or gay. Or both, .

[Engleberton Crabferry]

haha! No chance! Sleep well my friend!

[Liam]

But could I not also find it quite insulting the suggestion that I'm not endowed with the grace of intuition? A "lesser creature" or something than you?

Not necessarily. I could compare it to a case of three people where one is born colorblind, another with a more-or-less "normal" color perception, and the third with a slightly abnormal (that is, outside of the normal experience) and sharply defined sensitivity to color.

Perhaps we could add two more people into the mix: a man who is completely blind from birth and another who could "see" but became blind due to illness or accident later on in life.

Is any one of these people "superior" or "inferior" to his fellows? I would say neither one nor the other, but facts are facts, some of them can see and some of them can't, and among those that can, some can see color and some cannot, and of the two that can "see" color, only one is endowed with an incredible, mind-bending sensitivity to it.

None of this, of course, is to their merit or detriment. Facts are facts, you cannot argue against them. You can control your behavior but not your belief or unbelief.

Seeing yourself or others as lesser or bigger creatures necessarily casts judgment upon both yourself and those others, and that is something I am trying to avoid.

So yeah, let's just put it this way: if you can't "see" God, you are colorblind, and it's a fact. You're neither better nor worse off for it, but it remains a solid fact, does it not?

[Liam]

^OK, I have now split our discussion from the Assia Djebar thread and put it here because it has very little to do with Assia Djebar. I have given the thread a new name and hopefully more people will be able to say what they think about postmodern philosophy (and not necessarily just Postcolonial- and Queer theories).

[Engleberton Crabferry]

Well, it is only a "fact" that I am colour blind if God indeed exists. I cannot be colour blind to the (potentially) illusory hues of the metaphysic. And whilst I understand your distinction (neatly allegorized in terms of a physical blindness; a frailty) I still see the implicit "fact" that God's creatures are therefore designed by him either privileged or less. A rather fickle, capricious or wicked deity who allows some his grace, and some the burden of empirical limitation (that is, allegory withstanding, since some are deprived the knowledge or the intuitable bliss of God's affections from birth). One IS indeed either at "merit" or "detriment" if God's affections and visibility are in the slightest desirable, enlightening, or praise-worthy (which, according to Catholicism they are, I presume?). And yet I suppose the converse is the work of Satan(?) (those forbidden the intuited "contact" with God past-life sinners or something?); but this is where I feel religious narratives and texts provide the most embarrassing, fairy tale "evidence"; the figurations of either "evil" or "good" incarnate (the devil/snake and Jesus, and the like)... To concede that they are merely metaphorical is still not enough, for me. They are fantasized, recorded, callously adopted protocols of the supposed metaphysic, propagated throughout centuries as a means of inaugurating a moral standard to economic-sociality; solidified (almost) in the symbolic of the Biblical press, disseminated thus...

I do not believe I am either worse or better off not having "seen" God, you're right. But that is only because I do not claim to know anything at all. And I am willing to confront not knowing, not unequivocally intuiting. I find it (you might think paradoxically) liberating, as well as insightful not knowing what follows after death. Possibility does not mean God, for me. It means infinity or nothing, and it means nothing most of all here in linguistically formulated discussion of it...

I don't know. I can only say that I am happy enough for other people to believe, but if asked what I think of it, I will certainly dispute its plausibility and likelihood. I think perhaps if a person's affections for, and belief in, God are true, they needn't be insulted or affected by my claims to the contrary. If anything, I imagine them to pray for and pity me (which, for me, might be a sickening thought in itself if I cared one way or the other! ... Sorry to be so amoral, but I guess that is how I feel about it...)...

[Eric]

Count the number of times you wrote "I" in your latest posting, Englebert Humpercrab. Solipsism is an interesting sport.

[Engleberton Crabferry]

Thanks Eric. If you follow the posts, we are having quite a personal discussion, so I think it is quite fitting to speak of my own opinion and experience. But nice to see you're reading my work! haha. Anything conducive to add on the discussion or just more quips about style?