no ruinous feud (was GR Chipco Stomp)

MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu
Mon Feb 10 12:36:27 CST 1997


Andrew,

Yes, now here we are IMO much in agreement.  I was hinting at an excluded middle 
(always lurking, reaching up to bite) in your post.  What you reply here is eminently 
reasonable.  I agree that there are extremes. and much art and lit crit suffers from the kind 
of tunnel vision you describe.  I have no problem with criticisms of criticism.  My concern 
is that we not lose subtle but crucxial ways of making distinctions.  Now there's a 
thread--how do we tell good criticism from bad?  We presumably tell good science by its 
ability to make predictions.  What's the philosophical/literary equivalent?  I follow 
philosopher/critic Stanley Cavell (who amazes me w/ the way he draws on Wittgenstein 
in his criticism) who sez that all criticism is an attempt to get someone to *dig* the 
experience of the critic.  This is not to imply any superiority in the critic's perceptions or 
phenomenal experience of a work, but does value the attempt to communicate those 
experiences.  Yeah, I have been feeling a touch--hypersensitive--lately.  But Steely's 
apology sure has cleared all that up!

john m
(including the exchange just for the record, not to bug grip, who usefully points out how 
much clutter attaches to many of our posts (clutter as in excess stuff, not as in the content 
of our profound  and profoundly economical messages).

>
>MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu writes:
>
>> Provocative post, Andrew. Feeling our warmth across the pond?
>> Correct me if I am wrong, but as I kabbalistically twist and turn
>> the warp and woof of your gnostic comment, it appears that you are
>> going a long way around (to come in the back door?) to set up your
>> *cheap parting shot.* Your idea seems to me to boil down to a
>> dichotomy you are positing between (1) some sort of
>> reasoning/perceptual mode that recognizes the ultimate
>> sufficiency--in all human and natural phenomena apparently--of what
>> you somewhat gnostically call *well known and
>> perfectly-clear-thank-you-very-much meanings* and (2) on the other
>> hand, some pseudo-mystical self-obsessed and ultimately, perhaps,
>> evil, mode of reasoning that seeks meaning along many dimensions,
>> signified through form, implicit, multiple.  Of course you couldn't
>> be reducing it to such simplistic and obviously false dichotomies,
>> could you? You don't know what art is but you know what you like?
>> But if you are, could you please post me (privately if you don't
>> want to share it with the world) the *well known and perfectly clear
>> thank you very much* meaning of life?
>
>No, I am not reducing the matter to a simple two-dimensional problem.
>And I am not suggesting that formal analysis and abstraction are
>dead-end activities. There is much to be said (little of which really
>needs saying, never mind overstating) for looking at how something is
>stated rather than what it states - I'm assuming that you are riled by
>my criticism of criticism rather than that of scientists so the
>dichotomy is between the meaning of words and the way they are strung
>together rather than the significance of phenomena and the myriad ways
>those phenomena can be counted, recounted, ordered and reordered to
>yield some other sugnificance. Whatever, however much one considers
>matters of form, much of the time language *is* employed to
>communicate - a brute fact I will assume you require no philosophical
>complication to explain - and divorcing the formal analysis from
>considerations of meaning is utterly crass. Now I am not going to
>suggest that all lit crit does any such thing, nor am I going to
>suggest that `the meaning' of a piece of prose is i) a profoundly
>useful and ii) a totally coherent concept. Of course, meanings are not
>always clear and there are many meanings one could attach to a piece
>of prose and many aspects of it which transcend any question as to its
>`meaning' (or even the presence of such). But I would suggest that
>some lit-critters sometimes overemphasise the amount of ambiguity in
>prose and the significance of such ambiguity where it exists.
>
>> On a further puzzling note, Pointsman and the *art critics* in your
>> post seem to be on the same side!  How odd.  Do you really think the
>> kind of truth Pointsman is after is anything like the kind of truth
>> posited by either the existence or the study of art, of any medium?
>> (BTW,, who sez the kabbalists and gnostics were--wrong? (speaking of
>> paranoia!))
>
>I do indeed equate what Pointsman does with what some `art critics'
>do. And much as I acknowledge that his sin is the besetting sin of
>science I don't see that that implies any contradiction. Yes there are
>those whose criticism is a piece of kabbalistic juggling with the
>elements of a piece rather than an evaluation of the artist's act of
>synthesis. All of which might very well help one aboard a flight of
>fancy but is of little use to those who appreciate and wish to learn
>more about an author's writing.
>
>As to those kabbalists and gnostics I don't think I said they were
>wrong, merely that in many, if not most, cases their aproach was not
>as apropos the matter in hand as those who took an attempt to
>communicate at face value. If you were to reply to this note by
>building a theory on statistical distribution of Christian terminology
>in my postings, interesting as the subject might be, I don't think I
>would bother to reply in turn, suspecting as I do that I could spend
>the time more profitably. As with most matters involving metaphysical
>prejudices it's not a question of truth or even right and wrong
>(please note the implied divorce) rather one of what makes the wheels
>of my world (and those who are in it alongside me) spin faster.
>
>
>Andrew Dinn
>-----------
>And though Earthliness forget you,
>To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
>To the rushing water speak:  I am.
>




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