Outline · [ Standard ] · Linear+ Chew On This., Yikes.

[Ruggiero]

Post-criticism challenges the human sciences by undermining the epistemological assumptions which make scientific knowledge such as that produced by psychology, sociology, or economics possible. The post-critic, in fine Derridean fashion, discredits any type of metalanguage because the use of collage/montage produces such an excess of meaning that it is impossible for the subject to be known by her writing. However, post-criticism does not guarantee the inviolateness of the subject (a state in which capitalism could still function, though perhaps not as "efficiently"). Instead, as we've discussed earlier, the subject must enter into a symbiotic relationship with the object (intertextual) world where the writer and the text reproduce themselves in the form of the simulacrum. Thus our knowledge of other subjects, and ourselves, can only be a simulacrum. It can never be the original. Much of this is not new to post-criticism, but rather a part of postmodernism in general. Certainly the fear of contamination is as old as the fear of the unknown, something seemingly endemic to human society. What seems to me to be unusual about post-criticism is its interpretation of this symbiotic subject-object world as empowering. The post-critic uses the concepts of grammatology, the simulacrum, and the saprophyte to create a new state of subjectivity, one which is contingent, ephemeral, and unknowable. Subjects like this cannot be effectively placed within a hierarchy; they cannot be determined. Additionally, the object world enters a similar state of flux. The apolitical nature of grammatology (and hence post-criticism) seems to me a valid point of criticism from the stand point of more socially pro-active theoretical positions, but it is not a very useful tool for culturally conservative goals as it creates an entirely new way of knowing independent of traditional categories of knowledge.

[JayBaen]

Holy jeez.

[DaRkSiDe]

...wha?

[*HAMSTAR*]

ahhahahah! chew on this... sorta sounds like CHEWIE on this... umm and the other stuff well. I don't get it rodian I bet you copy and pasted it from somewhere!

[InfiniteWarrior]

Uh, yeah. Only in the hallowed halls of Academia is one expected to actually talk like that.

However, while it is true that there is, in fact, nothing one can write about that has not been written about before, it is the point of view on any subject that makes what one has written unique.

Thus our knowledge of other subjects, and ourselves, can only be a simulacrum. It can never be the original.

BS. And to expand in the same vein.... original thought, just as intrinsic knowledge, is not only possible but encouraged - at least, by this little gray duck. In fact, it should be a required course in public schools across this great nation.

But.... that would undermine the plans of "New World Order", now, wouldn't it?

[Hellsing***************]

Que !?

[JayBaen]

NEW WORLD ORDER!!! NOW you're speaking my language Infi! mmmm .... I smell a new thread coming on (even if it does get our little clan board shut down .. )

JB

[Ruggiero]

Heh!

What the above means is that the "post critical" thinkers think they are oh so much smarter than anyone else and that (basically) the sheer number of systems of knowledge and linguistics that have had been put forth have rendered any absolute meaning of anything impossible.... so that "meaning" becomes an act similar to that of "faith" (like: I believe in god, but he never shows me his face.... or that I belive that x means y though there is no authority saying so, etc.). In this situation, the way one develops insight is not as much through reason, as through a "hunch". These hunches are only available to those who have "practiced" a discipline long enough.

For example: Ask JayBaen what it is like to play the piano. He will say "I can't answer the question."

If you, instead, ask JayBaen HOW to play the piano, he will say, well, you learn your scales, etc. etc. and then PRACTICE for 10 years straight, and then maybe you will know what it is like to play the piano.

That is the 'hunch.'

Or.... like liz with a saber: no rhyme or reason, then BAM.

Anyway, thought you would like an answer.

Ruggiero

[Ruggiero]

And.....

For my next selection:

"There may be found, within the malodorous Grotto of the Selves, a conscious Denial of all that Reason holds true. Something that knows, unarguably as it knows Fleash is sooner or later Meat, that there are Beings who are not wise, or spiritually advanced, or indeed capable of Human kindness, but ever and implacably cruel, hiding , haunting, waiting,---known only to the blood -scented deserts of the Night,--and any who see them out of Disguise are instantly pursued,--and none escape, however long and fruitful be the years till the Shadow creeps 'cross the Sill-plate, its Advent how mute. Speheres of Darkness, Darkness impure,--Plexities of Honor and Sin we may never clearly sight, for when we venture near they fall silent, Murdering must be silent, by Potions and Spells, by summonings from beyond the Horizons, of Spirits who dwell a little over the Line between Day and its annihilation, between the number'd and the unimagin'd,--between common safety and Ruin ever solitary...."

A silver Rodian dollar to s/he who can name this author.

[JayBaen]

ahh .. Mr. Pynchon ... ... a little Mason & Dixon, no?

[Ruggiero]

If you did that without Google, you get the dollar. The whole book was worth reading for that paragraph.

R

[[Dragon]PyRo]

crazy rodian... make... head... hurt...

[LPDarkJedi583]

What is that rodian talking about. He just makes no sence sometimes.