From the comments (some time ago) at Le Colonel Chabert. I'd like to return to this later:
Lcc: I like something I read by Ranciere about the relations bteween generals and spontaneity on the battlefield, but I'm not ready to call it 'Ranciere's idea' because the first time I encountered it described in detail was in Tolstoy, who, with the novelist's humility did not pretend to invent it, only to observe it: no commons enclosing! i don't want to have to obey ranciere's implications. qlip, qlip, qlip! we can begin qlipping in this our favourite hobby. after all that was already our gold the King stuck his profile on.
M: Agreed. Many of the distinctions made by a Ranciere or Lacan can of course be made in another language, and one can make and use these distinctions without tagging them with Names, and simply use them in so far as they help you to think. But what’s interesting is that if you do this – if you leave off the tags and the names – your ideas are much less likely to be noticed or discussed within the academic marketplace. In fact, they will often be invisible. People are reluctant to risk floating or discussing untagged ideas. Do not speak only of friendship, 'employ' or read instead X's notion thereof - unmediated access to concepts is forbidden.
This exchange came to mind recently, reading a book by Renata Salecl. She offers a brief and lucid paraphrase of Judith Butler.How easy, I thought, to articulate Butler’s ideas without ‘tagging’ them, without saying ‘Ranciere’s this’ and ‘Althusser’s that’, or ‘deploying’ Agamben’s notion in conjunction with Marx’s.. And it would be perfectly possible, perhaps, for Butler herself to do this, to present her ideas unadorned and untagged, as if she just wanting to talk about power or the Self, and reach certain conclusions about these things. But again, in certain quarters of academia the presentations of untagged ideas is inadvisible. You must show yourself to be using an existing currency, a currency of proper names. I wonder about the origins of this tendency. My sense is that it’s to be understood as an institutional demand and not finally indigeneous or essential to the thinking itself, although it may then enter and corrupt the thinking. [joke/] In fact, it would be useful to deploy Bourdieu’s notion of taste culture here [/joke].
20 comments:
how does the phrase go..?
"just deconstruct; don't advertise it"
yes, that was always good advice. only throw in a few obligatory swipes and barbs at "deconstruction" for good measure, eh?
As so often, Matt, I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about. As far as I can tell the above exchange has nothing directly to do with deconstruction.
Sorry, not to be glib (in turn?) but I thought it was obvious.
"Deconstruction", or really "the Deconstruction Industry" simply occured to me as one of the most convenient and familiar names (the example par excellence) usually cited in this conversation.
Following your link just now, I notice that I was not the only one.
Regardless, it strikes me that there are also perfectly good reasons for using (and reclaiming in broader intellectual context) The Name as well.
And the "deconstruct but don't advertise" approach is often something of a reactive, defensive strategy for practicing philosophy as if on the sly in lit. departments really, no? And so - one might argue - potentially evasive of a larger responsibility, to some extent. More careful biography, for instance.
Anyway, duly sorry for cluttering your perfectly clear post with all this mumbo-jumbo.
if by 'tagging' one were to mean something more like blogging/meming on the other hand..would of course be yet another matter.
“the Deconstruction Industry" simply occured to me as one of the most convenient and familiar names (the example par excellence) "usually cited in this conversation.”
here’s where you’ve gone wrong, see. You’ve taken the exchange quoted in the post to be a replay of some generic conversation you’ve seen elsewhere, a conversation that you’re a little jaded with. It isn’t, but I’d be interested to know what you think “this conversation” is. The post concerns, rather, the academic tendency to hallmark one’s concepts with a canoncial proper name. I wanted to suggest that this tendency might have more to do with the pressures of the academic instition in the era of capitalism rather than being simply indigenous to thought. Something like that. Nothing specifically to do with deconstruction. At all.
sorry for cluttering your perfectly clear post with all this mumbo-jumbo. Au contraire, the post must have been really opaque to produce such an egregious misprision.
Should be "the era of late capitalism", btw - a slightly tongue-in-cheek expression.
Oh, but now you're just toying with me. I daresay I understood your point.
Is there any more commonly-cited example of so "hallmarking" one's thoughts than wrt the so-called "Derrida Industry?" Not remarking on the justice or injustice of this, particularly, either way. And of course the general point holds, regardless.
You seem to take rather personally what you assume to be disdain on my part for such citation, and thus for your observation, when in fact I was just stating the obvious, remarking on the most commonly-cited example of the tendency you describe (hardly a very original insight, after all).
I'm still curious whether you think this citing can ever be a good thing, as in, other than canonical, or merely a form of institutional currency (which may be true enough, but still strikes me as at least potentially rather lazy and cynical).
Or better yet, maybe you had a specific example of your own in mind?
Cheers.
the academic tendency to hallmark one’s concepts with a canoncial proper name. I wanted to suggest that this tendency might have more to do with the pressures of the academic instition in the era of capitalism rather than being simply indigenous to thought.
Only such "tendencies" become easier to talk about (that is, with more clarity and precision) when they are attached to names, I find. The tendency to generalise without naming names is just a sort of pet peeve of mine, maybe (though wouldn't dare call it "indigenous or essential to thinking itself," necessarily - whatever this means).
Then there might be the question of style, as well. To say then, that this or that person writes like such and such, or their ideas seem to resonate with so-and-so. Or in the case of art, perhaps, where a work can take on the appearance of other artworks done by "who's-his-face?" or "what's-her-name?".
Certainly citing can be a tool, can't it? Say, if an author is using another author's ideas as a tool, or in an attempt to take some author's ideas further than that author may have themselves? This can't be entirely subtracted from power relations or the machinations of capitalism, but that does not immediately make citation indicative of a negative tendency. Citation can even work against the canon.
There is also always the possibility that someone comes to similar conclusions without having been aware of whoever else may have "gotten there first" - hopefully without issues of 'originality' having to neccessarily come into play. But to continue one's practice without bothering to be aware - or acknowledge one's awareness - of others using those 'same' ideas is of course, just simply irresponsible. But then, invisibility isn't always a bad thing.
Matt,
I’m surprised you use deconstruction and ‘The Derrida Industry” interchangeably. They’re clearly not the same thing (assuming the ‘Industry’ exists).
Just because “The Derrida Industry” is most often charged with x, doesn’t of course mean that a post about x is in fact about the “Derrida Industry”. (See Elementary Logic Fallacies, p. 1).
The suggestion that I’ve taken anything ‘personally’ really is strange. What you’re in fact doing here is to suggest that I wasn’t making a reasoned point but being touchy/ oversensitive – it’s a familiar rhetorical trick.
You say you were ‘just stating the obvious’. I think this is disingenuous - If it was so obvious, why bother posting it. (Of course, the flipside of ‘I was just stating the obvious’ is ‘I’m surprised you overlooked the obvious”, which is the real content of your remark)
Let me give you some free advice. Assume that the meanings of my posts are roughly synonymous with their actual content and not ‘really about’ some chosen hobby-horse of Matt Christie. I have zero interest in sly and disguised ‘barbs’ at deconstruction, believe me.
Now, the actual issue at hand relates, I think, to the so-called ‘eclecticism’ of theory, but is bigger than that too. My suggestion is that the hallmarking of ideas, and the appearance of ‘eclecticism’ that sometimes results from this, is largely to do with the institution of academia. I think academics are often insufficiently reflective about how their practices are not simply the result of ‘pure thought’ but all kinds of bureaucratic and market pressures and logics. These enter into the very form and substance of thinking. This subject is touched on in Bourdieu’s excellent Pascalian Mediations. So I can’t really agree with your suggestion that the hallmarking thing is just about improving clarity. Btw, was reading Gramsci last night. Does he say ‘I’m going to employ Marx’s notion of class, drawing on some aspects of Croce” – no, he just thinks!
I think academics are often insufficiently reflective about how their practices are not simply the result of ‘pure thought’ but all kinds of bureaucratic and market pressures and logics.
Gee, that's great Mark...again, no disagreement there. Only it is, still, very general. Why the resistance to examples?
To be perfectly clear, I mean this in a friendly way, not a merely knee-jerk or confrontational way. Perhaps, as with my first comment, you misread my tone. (Funny, that you didn't have this problem with whoever it was made the exact same reference on the thread you point to, but whatever.)
Consequently, you feel free to attribute to me all sorts of megalomanias, when in fact I was just speaking casually, and popularly (the references to a 'Derrida Industry' being in "scare quotes" if you notice and ironic, and so on).
As regards your perfectly reasonable point, that not everything you write here is about me...well, gee man. You don't say!
Again, Mark, while happy to concede your general point, I remain wishing to defend citation, that is, at least in a specific sense or two, but anyway...maybe best to think twice before commenting here again.
So I can’t really agree with your suggestion that the hallmarking thing is just about improving clarity.
That's not what I said.
If I may offer you some advice: avoid the opera, and maybe read a tad more carefully.
Let me give you some free advice...I have zero interest in sly and disguised ‘barbs’ at deconstruction, believe me.
Just to be very clear: I believe you, and such implication was never my intent.
Fucking hell, Matt, you are creepy>. I've seen you do this before: post a bit of snidery and then come over all innocence and pleasantry about it. I can't help but be reminded of Oliver Kamm.
If I may offer you some advice: avoid the opera, and maybe read a tad more carefully
“avoid the opera” – excellent!. Let’s read this ‘a tad more carefully’, eh? What could it mean? Is it straightforward advice to steer clear of a particular form of high culture? Why would it be – there’s not one word about opera at Charlotte St. No, what this beautifully exemplary little remark means is this: ‘opera’ = Le Colonel Chabert, a wel-known opera fan. Matt implies (always ‘implies’) that my opinions have been adversely influenced by LCC. Or, what amounts to the same thing, that I’m not entirely capable of thinking by myself. That this insultingly patronising ‘advice’ is written in code is Matt’s cue to back-peddle furiously when prodded.
maybe best to think twice before commenting here again
No, you don’t have to ‘think twice’ before commenting here. You don’t even have to think; but don’t expect the slippery little jibes to go unchallenged or unskewered.
No, not your opinions, Mark.
But otherwise, bloody fair enough.
And, genuinely sorry (you'll just have to take my word for it, 'lenin') for sinking what might have been an interesting conversation.
hi Mark,
I lost a rather long comment due to incompetence on my part. My loss is your comment box's gain in conciseness. In short, this is a great post, as is this comment:
"academics are often insufficiently reflective about how their practices are not simply the result of ‘pure thought’ but all kinds of bureaucratic and market pressures and logics."
A good friend of mine just made a remark about this the other day in two senses, first (off topic) that the primary differences between analytic and continental philosophy are institutional/cultural, not of the substance (or necessity) of thought, and second that many folk - he named Brandom and McDowell as examples, I don't know them but he says their conceptual arguments are brilliant and their readings of the history of philosophy are really poor - use caricatures or just namedropping from the history of philosophy in order to rhetorically show the importance of what their doing: making a mark, as opposed to sorting through an idea. Seems right to me.
There's a related thing I'd like to comment on, I think bound up with the same pressures, occurring in a different moment of the circuits of academic capital. Its happened in the classroom a lot during my just begun return to higher ed, I call it "the structurally absent third." It's really just a form of appeal to authority, but I gave it a name (appropriately puffed up) because it occurs in this form so often. It works like this: "One can't understand X text without a thorough grasp of Y text." X is always a text everyone in the room has in common. Y is always one that only the speaker knows. (If a proposed Y turns out to be known by some in the room other than the speaker then it's often turned into an X in relation to another Y in a repetition of the same operation.) And given that only the speaker has read Y, the speaker is presumed the sole authority on having a grasp of Y. It's a power play which says "I merit being heard, you merit merely being quiet and hearing me." It also says "tell me you deserve it when I tell you to shut up!" (All this stuff is why Ranciere's book The Ignorant Schoolmaster was huge for me.)
In any case, great post and I'd really love to read more on this from you. A maybe ironic (but I swear, sincere!) question: is this reflection of yours informed by Bourdieu? You mention him in passing. Le Colonel has mentioned him as well and I'm intrigued. Any recommended starting point on him?
Best wishes,
Nate
Thanks Nate. The Two books by Bourdieu on 'academic reason' are Pascallian Meditations and Homo Academicus. The former is really excellent, the other I've not read. The idea of a 'taste culture' - which is all about cultural capital and investment strategies - is definitely something one could talk about in relation to academia and its various sub-cultures. The various bits of capital have to have names - the names of philosophers and theorists in this case.
I recognise the 'strucurally absent third' thing, for sure. I think it's often a pre-emptive move made by an academic to introduce some new 'capital' into the market. So someone says you can't understand Benjamin without Schmidt or whatever, they're making a pre-emptive move to introduce a new commodity into the market, with themselves as its primary pusher.
Agreed. Or their trying to pre-empt an upstart possible rival firm, one that might peddle either the same commodity or a competing one. If I had the time and the know-how, it'd be fun to compare this stuff with trends in any other cultural industry.
A lovely post. Related: the requirement that not-yet-famous scholars wreck the flow of their arguments and prose by inserting nods toward all the faintly relevant authorities they're supposed to have read, no matter how pointless such mentions are, as if every essay had to contain within itself a comprehensive oral exam. These mandated displays of servility must be a leading cause of acid build-up in the profession.
Homo Academicus is emphatically of its time and place, being an attempt to empirically analyze the position of the humanities in French higher education. Not being of that time or place, I still enjoyed it; I'll have to look up Pascallian Meditations.
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