Urizen and Eros

[rojan josh]

kenneth.mackendrick wrote:
> 
> Ken writes:
> >
> > << What I wonder about all this is whether all criticism is implicitly a form of mysticism...
> >
> > I think the tendency to subsume all forms of critique to one model > > of dogmatic external critique that over-generalises from its own    > > prejudices, is
> > itself dangerous.
> 
> > Michael. S
> 
> I came in the back door in order to demonstrate that Adorno is right.
> Deconstruction, currently in vogue all over the place, misses this point - since it
> relies upon some degree of externality - defying any kind of interior logic to things
> and hoping to set criticism free.  In this way the postmodern project, if it can be
> characterized as such - is a theological project (not to mention positivism,
> pragmatism, hermeneutics, etc. as well).
> 
> ken

dear ken et micheal et al., i hope you don't mind if I come in through
the bathroom window... 
de-con is actually hardly in vogue everywhere any more. the seventies
and early eighties (the yale school, deman, etc...) were it's heyday.
what seems to be very 'in' these days is "desire" (lacan, del. and
guat., zizek etc)
but hard to measure this sort of thing. and i must admit to be confused
by some of the things ken says about decon. (ie: it solves things with a
"leap of faith"...into where?) of course, decon is a vury vury vague
term. in derrida, in any case, the possibility of a pure externality is
never assumed to be possible (for ex, tympan intro to margins of philo). 
it is a matter of the "double gesture" (in positions among other places)
wherein the metaphysical terms are marked in their limitations from
within, thus opening the possibility of de/re-differentiating these dead
terms or ossified metaphors other-wise in relation to the "outside" or
"other" of metaphysics
in relation--that is, to (speaking somewhat uncritically for a moment)
libidinal drives "liberated" from their despotic over-coding by social
apparatuses (as in dialectic of enlightment and the lukacs essay in
notes to lit. I). the drives as a 'promise of happiness' "beyond" the
second nature the socially sedimented unc. has become   

habermas' critique that deridda gets tied in an immanent double bind
misses the mark since what d. is about is opening the immanent to its
outside, so the outside comes to re-configure the immanent from within
(where else could it do this from). there are obviously praxis problems
involved here but this is the theory and not any salto mortale
derrida continually demarcates "critique" as a limited practice trapped
in its own terms

onto-theological, no not at all

more generally, it seems to me that the problems besetting the social
field have more to do with desire than reason (as you suggested a while
ago regarding phil. of desire as a relevant "line of escape"). the
question A and H try to answer in the anti-semitism chapter of D of E
--ie: why did the populace desire something that went against their
class interests is what anti-oedipus also attacked. why does desire
desire its own repression. habermas' attraction to a rational discursive
arena would also be subject to such a questioning: why does he so
blindly desire everything to be accountable to a rational argumentative
communicative network (obviously this would have something to do with
germany's WWII experience). and what about the desiring relation to
science? a displacement which allows the subject to forget the
irrational bordello of his own desiring relationships?

if rational communication is going to be productive it must first get
rid of the "irrational" attachments of its participants ie: their
pathological desire-fixations which are immune to discussion. mis-placed
desire must, it seems to this casual observer, be addressed first if
reason is to get anywhere. hence the 'value' of de-con and the
philosophemes of desir 
certain films for example de-con social fixations (for example, what
"crash" did to the consumer obsession with speed, sex and death that
sub-structures the car industry or what pasolini's extremely intense
"salo" did to the sado-masochism underlying fascism and everyday
life...thus ordinary folks leave the theatre in a hurry as if not able
to confront the ugly face of their desire face to face...thus pasolini
was untimely ripped into shreds by the tires of his alfa romeo)

problem being is that socialized desire or normalized pathology flees
its own decon and thus luxuriates in the prejudical logic that hinders
the free discursive/dialectic social process of which Mill dreamed

"how to make 'people' confront their own desire-structures in so far as
these infrastructures incarcerate them in "pulverized" systems contrary
to what they might really desire or more simply to their interests?"

			a relevant question ?
    
these reflections are not all they should be but perhaps you get the
idea
    cordially,
	      rojan