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I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it.
All of the ephemera that is far too trivial to be bothered with elsewhere on this site or, depending on your point of view, a meta-commentary on it. This ephemera includes, but is not limited to art, music and literature. Most of the content here will be discussed in terms that are as abstract as possible, reality being a singularly overrated concept.
Friday, November 01, 2002
Reading this article I feel rather inclined to ask Bernard Williams how he would describe any notion of truth that can be so without being both complete and correct, it being often ignored that Godel's theorem also applies to these questions of language. I am less than sure as to how sociological (or indeed Kantian, thinking of the universality and reverseability of his imperatives) debates as to the universality of accuracy and sincerity actually relate to any of the metaphysical issues. I am still not sure of any reason to regard language and logic as being anything other formal systems we utilise for coping with reality. The LRB also has some equally interesting essays from John Rawls and Slavoj Zizek. As always with Zizek, I am left with the disturbing impression that the language of liberation is being used to justify oppression (not to mention his interesting but superficial tendency to throw in anecdotes as if they amount to empirical evidence). The idea of identity as being post-modern, something to be enacted and staged, is certainly contingent to the notions of alienation and anomie, but would we actually wish our behaviour to become subject to much greater cultural prescription? And if so, through what mechanism? Ostracism? Peer pressure? What exactly is the alternative?
There is certainly much to this analysis, but as ever it would be nice if it didn't come with quite so much political baggage. Zizek wrote in The Ticklish Subject that no political agenda can be routed through identity and sexual politics. I'm inclined to agree, but I have difficulty seeing the problem with that.
There are occasionally, very occasionally, works of literary criticism that qualify as works of art in their own right. Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae is one such, as is Bloom's own Anxiety of Influence. Reading this I am guessing that we can expect more of the same.
posted by Richard 3:45 pm
