Dear Diary Moments:

Dear Diary Moment 11/19/2021:

Reading Fredric Jameson’s foreword to Layotard’s The Postmodern Condition, something crystallized for me today as concerns the continental tradition that centers around its Marxist roots: that it has been haunted by a dialectic between French based radical self creation (think Deleuze and Guatarri’s schizo-process (and Hegelian totality: Žižek’s ‘the truth is out there’. Radical self-creation succumbs to the apparent futility of trying to beat the Capitalistic system from the outside (while trying attack it from the inside (while Hegelian totality attempts to beat it from the outside through transcendent de-ontic assertions that seem to be right, even to the point of seeming perfectly founded.

Then you have a pragmatic like Rorty who recognizes the potential for radical self-creation in a writer like Derrida while recognizing a seemingly transcendent/founded criterion for truth: the question of if it works to further social justice. In a sense, even though Rorty is part of the Anglo-American tradition, he does seem to work as a kind of synthesis in the dialectic of the continental tradition.

hello d63:

We talked briefly a few years ago, so I may not need to introduce myself.

You bring on an interesting concept.
If I may indulge you for a moment, a few related questions:

Through deintological perspectives or, the de-ontic.
'Self created one(french) versus the Heglelian-dialectically transcend ones, does Derrida through Forty imply some sort of synthesis, which could effect Anglo-American -French-German agreements through some kind of 'continental divide?

It would befit a diplomatic tour-de-force, if such transcendence were deminstrateable.

Yet, the variability of shifting alliances world wide, has demonstrated more of the effectance through broken agreements.

Does the political rivers transcend that of ideologically provoked disagreements, or, are we heading to more understanding through progressive media and diplomatic communication?

Thanks …for any feedback even better a series of comments on a continuum of associations.

It could augment the pre WW 2 view held that the scepter of potential conflict has not been solved
by WWI, .
This is Mr Hitler talking , in his famous opus 'Me in Kampf.

This observation is to denote the much larger conflict between two widely divergent views between pragmatic and idealistic/ ideologies, namely those that would rest on dialectical foundations.

So Dewey’s pragmatism can forge an ideologycal synthesis with conti dental nationalistic ideology, in postmodern thought, meaning, the wars, harboring conflicts that never were substantiated , but by misrepresented ideological strategic thinking, prove only that the hystory of ideology was really based on rationalized revisions, which philosophy used as adaptive, defensive tools, and such nominal misuse can only result in a repetition of lessons that could not be learned.

Let me get back to you, Meno.

I apologize for my negligence.

Dear Diary Moment 11/25/2021:

On this particular broach of Deleuze’s Difference & Repetition (original text I mean), I came across something that I hadn’t noticed before that I thought might have been a conscientious aesthetic move. I could be reading myself into this. But then hopefully some of my fellow and more advanced Deleuzians might either confirm me or break my heart –especially those who write books about this kind of thing with extensive bibliographies: Ian? Claire?

What I had noticed was that Deleuze had titled his introduction ‘Repetition and Difference’, the mirror opposite of Difference and Repetition. And the effect this had while reading the intro was to be able to look to the top of the page (of both pages (and see both phrases mirroring each other like some ongoing repetition. And to me, it seemed to suggest the intertwined nature difference and repetition in the way Deleuze seemed to understand them.

Now once again: I may be reading myself into this. First of all, I have always argued that the creative act never seems that far from Deleuze’s mind. But then, as I have also pointed out before, this is coming from a guy who worked his way to Deleuze from a young man who thought it his manifest destiny to be rock star. Secondly, it looks exactly like the kind of clever avant garde move I would try to make, especially if I were working w/ my personal editor Mary Jane.

And of course, I have no way of knowing how the original French version was formatted. Still……

Dear Diary Moment 12/4/2021:

I’ve recently come to realize that a real world example of Deleuze’s “image of thought” in Difference and Repetition are the trolls we tend to encounter on these boards. This particular conceptual model was meant to confront various false presuppositions we tend to accept without really thinking about them. The main one was this assumption that philosophy is, by obligation, committed only to the pursuit of the true. But that is not what philosophy is made to do. What philosophy is about (as Deleuze would later articulate w/ Guatarri in What is Philosophy (is conceptual play for the sake of creating yet more concepts. It’s a kind of brainstorming activity: a creative act. Beyond that, it is a matter of of playing those concepts and conceptual models against reality until we are either forced to drop them, revise them, or accept them as a workable description of how reality works. And we see, once again, the pragmatic overlap between Deleuze and Rorty on this matter.

The troll is a slave to the Image of Thought. This is why they hide in the shadows and wait for any one of us to make one statement that we haven’t fully backed so that they can pounce on us with their gotcha moments in order to stroke their own egos: their guru complexes. This is because their mediocrity prohibits them from participating in the creative process philosophy is actually about. And they always rationalize it through a false criteria based on the standards of science, not philosophy.

understood, …no worries

Dear Diary Moment 1/23/2022:

Went, in my study point (yet again), through Joe Hughes’ section on Deleuze’s embrace of the univocity of Being. (Just can’t seem to back away from the hope of breaking through this particular creative hymen.) And while it didn’t give me quite the brain strain it did yesterday, I remain, for the most part, aloof. However, I did come to a couple of realizations.

For one, Deleuze’s embrace of univocal being (that which sees being as being said in the same way of all things (makes perfect sense given that he is treating difference and repetition as actually existing things –that is as compared to thinking of them as mere abstractions: the relationships that emerge between the “actual” things that can be empirically observed as hard objects.

(And note the overlap here with Rorty’s disdain for any talk about “ontological status”.)

For another, I’m starting to better appreciate Deleuze’s concern with Aristotle’s breakdown from a given genus to a given species: that any given difference that emerges is always the product of a pre-determined form.

It’s not much. But it could be a stepping stone towards shifting my mind through the chaos of lines and shapes on the poster to the 3D seascape within.

Dear Diary Moment 3/17/2022:

One of the things I got from my immersion in Buchanan’s book on Jameson is the distinction between philosophy and theory –that is even though theory can be considered an extension of philosophy. While philosophy tends to focus on the basic issues concerning human existence (free will vs. determinism, subjectivity vs. objectivity, ethical relativity vs. ethical absolutism, etc., etc.), theory tends more towards the political in its advancement and its (or not so much) embrace of Marxism.

My having recognized that my primary embrace has been theory (I’m not as read in more classical philosophers such as Plato or Aristotle or Descartes as I am the continentals), I now see why I have always felt a kind of disconnect to what I read in magazines like Philosophy Now and New Philosopher. They always feel kind of Philosophy 101 to me with writers that have a better understanding of it than I do. This is why more and more I find myself reading articles and finding nothing to respond to.

And don’t get me wrong: I respect what both magazines are doing and will continue to support both. Still, I’m haunted by that disconnect that I feel as concerns their more topical approaches. I sometimes feel like I’ve outgrown it. Although, other times I feel like I’m just burnt out.

Dear Diary Moment 4/7/2022:

I recently subscribed (via Philosophy Now (to The New Humanist. And one of the extras I got out of it was Roy Speckhardt’s book Creating Change Through Humanism. And reading it, it clearly feels like a manifesto –most of which (if not all of which (I agree with. At the same time, I can see why many rightwing Christians might have read secular humanism as just another religion, as they tried to argue to the Supreme Court back in about the 80’s or 90’s, that is as it applies to what was and is taught in public schools.

But as secular humanists (most of which are either committed Democratic progressives or who feel the Bern of Social Democratic principles), we know better. Our mission (should we choose to accept it (is to keep articulating the distinction between secular humanism and religion proper until everyone is clear that they are two completely different things; until everyone is clear that while religion proper is based on intuitions, secular humanism is based on things as they actually are. And we have to do it without succumbing to the Libertarian claim that the market (given its resources (has exclusive claim to the reality we all share.

Dear Diary Moment 4/14/2022:

As I immerse myself in my graphic guide Introducing Fractals (the kind of thing I read when I have a lot of stuff that needs to be done around the house since it doesn’t require the kind of commitment that hardcore theory does), I’m finding a lot of my initial impulses about it confirmed, that is even though there are a lot of influences that are out of my pay grade: most notably things like Cantor sets or the Mandelbrot whatever or anything that remotely resembles calculus. Grade school algebra is as far as I got. Still I’m getting a blue-collarized sense of it and its connection to chaotics. In other words, I’m getting it at a metaphorical level which seems appropriate given my background and influences. Here I would put forth the kind of fractal causality at work in the computer models that weathermen tend to work from –models, BTW, that have greatly improved their ability to predict weather patterns.

But the main thing I want to point to here is how much fractal mathematics and geometry and the resulting chaotics must have influenced Deleuze. His folds within folds outside of folds are clearly an expression of fractal causality. And we see this same influence at work in other continental thinkers such as Layotard’s model of us like ball bearings engaging in exchanges of communication that results in acts and complex systems of displacement. What is interesting here is that neither Deleuze nor Layotard nor any other continental thinker (as far as I know (ever even mentions fractals or chaotics. It’s like it was always working in the background.

Hello d63

I alluded to your fractionalism in the 'double edged sword ’ under the Meta forum. Hope to not impinge without your authority. Thanks. Will withdraw if otherwise directed.

Thanks

I wouldn’t worry too much about impinging on my “authority”, Meno. I’m just flattered that I had something that you could use.

Thank you as well.

Dear Diary Moment 4/16/2022:

In the words of Kyle from South Park: I learned something today. I learned that, according to fractal geometry, many systems that are immediately accessible to us are the composite effect of subsystems that follow patterns very similar to the composite effect of what we immediately perceive. The way limbs break out from branches on a tree is similar to the way branches break out from the trunk. The turbulence we see in an ocean is the composite effect of individual instances of turbulence within the flow and ebb of water that, in turn, are the composite effect of instances of turbulence. It’s basically about the economy of nature in that it creates complexity by repeating patterns that seem to work (and think Deleuze and Difference and Repetition here). And we see a similar dynamic at work in the brain.

And given the last point, you have to wonder to what extent fractal geometry plays a part in the psychedelic experience since a lot of what you see tends to consist of tiled images that create a composite effect. And here we need to consider Dennett’s point in Consciousness Explained that the psychedelic experience tends to work in terms of patterns and geometry because the way we normally engage with reality starts with recognizing the basic shape of things then goes on to fill in the details.

Thanks just wanted to make sure

Dear Diary Moment 5/14/2022:

Reading Jameson, I’m starting to think that we might achieve a little more clarity if we (as Voltaire advises: define our terms and make a distinction between critique as theory practices it and criticism as it is generally practiced. Critique, it seems to me, is about bouncing off of a given text (in the fullest postmodern sense of anything that can be interpreted: enter hermeneutics (while adding a touch of one’s own. And here we’re in line with Deleuze’s understanding of critique as being both negative (that which seeks flaws in the text (and positive in that it adds something to the jam. (See his preface to Difference and Repetition: philosophy as detective/sci-fy utopian novel.)

Criticism, on the other hand, is always a value statement. It is always about whether a given text is of value or not. Compare, for instance, Roger Ebert’s site and Anthony Lane’s movie critiques in The New Yorker. Ebert’s site is clearly criticism in that it that it gives you clear sense of what movies or TV series you should watch and what to avoid –that is with some really good writing. Lane (who borders on critique in the context of theory), in comparison, seems to focus mainly on the writing. He writes all these interesting points about a given movie (bounces off of it), but always leaves you thinking:

Yeah! Yeah! Right! But did he like the movie or not?

Jameson, of course, refers to what he is doing as “dialectical criticism” when I would argue the better description would be “dialectical critique”. But the dialectic has always been one of those terms or conceptual models that the more I learn about, the less I seem to understand or know: the less clear my definition. My understanding has always felt visceral and oblique. So it may well be that Jameson’s dialectical criticism is the very definition of critique.

Meno: my intent is not to ignore you. I tend to use this board as a perfect place to edit my posts for facebook -that is given the preview function, that is even though I would really like to come back here as a kind of vacation in old haunts. I sometimes miss this board. But if you really want to continue your discourse with these posts you should find me on Open Mic in the Rhizome Cafe on Facebook under D E Tarkington.

Dear Diary Moment 5/20/2022:

Buchanan points out, in Fredric James: Live Theory, that Jameson’s primary method of operation was dialectical criticism (or what I would call dialectical critique). This is further described as something that, in order to be authentic, that must administer a shock or feel like having the ground drop out from beneath your feet. That, for me, pretty much broaches what I embrace as the nihilistic perspective or that sense of being tapped in to the underlying nothingness of things. My experience of the nihilistic perspective, that of not really knowing if your feet are touching solid ground, has been a lot like what Jameson describes as a “shock”: the disorientation that comes from that dropping out. And because of this, I couldn’t help but interpret Jameson’s dialectical criticism as a kind of Derridadian deconstruction (what I think should be spelled “d.construction” (that can be defined as a Hegelian dialectic on krank in that it always assumes that the synthesis arrived at is always a momentary stay against confusion, that which must, by necessity, land in the nihilistic perspective.

And my study point in Jameson’s Marxism and Form today seems to confirm my take on it. In his critique of Adorno, Jameson points to Adorno’s embrace of a “negative dialectic” which, as I understand it now, mainly focuses on undermining a given thesis or status quo with less emphasis on what is to replace it. This is because as it sees the antithesis or any compromise that might result between it and the thesis will by necessity fail as well.

“Never again” only removes something … leaves a hole.

It is meant to be filled with love by the person who is bothered by the hole.

But he says he is not preaching love. But … in a way … he is … but it’s more like “reminding”. It’s already IN THERE.

He’s pulling a Socrates.

It’s like we’re oysters that need a little sand to make pearls.

Thanks again.

Dear Diary Moment 5/27/2022:

Having followed Buchanan’s lead and dived into Fredric Jameson’s Marxism and Form, I find myself frustrated to the extent that I’m not that familiar with the thinkers and books he is critiquing: Adorno, Lukacs, Benjamin, Bloch, and Marcuse (although I’m acquainted w/ One Dimensional Man). And I am getting a little relief with his chapter on Sartre as I have actually read Being and Nothingness. Unfortunately, I have yet to read Critique of Dialectics. It just feels like the book would mean a lot more to me if I were more familiar with what Jameson was referring to. I had a similar experience with Stanley Fish’s Is There a Text in This Class.

So I guess this is a general catch when it comes to literary critics –by which I mean those of an academic kind who engage in critique (that which bounces off of a given text and finds its own thoughts (as compared to criticism which tells you whether you should read a given book or not.

At the same time, when I’m reading more closely, there are times when I can extract from Jameson’s book overlaps with a lot of the continental thought I am familiar with. Every once in a while his continental sensibility does bleed through. So I’m guessing I might be better off starting with some of his later books (this one was published about 1970) such as his study of postmodernism and leave this one alone until I can do immersions in the books he is referring to.