Down these mean streets ...

[Terrance]

Paul Mackin wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 2003-06-03 at 22:33, David Morris wrote:
> >
> > If this is the Critical Theory take on Beckett I'd say you're right.
> >
> > But I'd like to say that PN is very defensive, thus his focus on my implying
> > that he is elitist in his use of jargon.  As I said, elitism is not the focus
> > of my question, despite my challenging tone.  The value of his language choice
> > was my question: JARGON.
> 
> It may well be that a new critical theory is needed to challenge the
> classical paradigms of the discussion list.

Unfortunately we are not hunting a Snark and so a totalizing absolute
blank map is of no use to us. 

Insert irony here. 

However, since we are not talking about real world objects, but
fictions, it is possible to construct them in lots of different ways.
That's why it wouldn't hurt if we could discriminate among
constructions. Doing so, we can begin to ask questions like, 

 What kind of fiction is P's Foreword? 

How is like and how is it unlike the Foreword in  _Pale Fire_?

Furthermore, we begin to see that not all constructions are equal. A
stiff wind blows, 
the Pigs get slaughtered while the bulls and bears hammer away like
Christs in Concrete. 

 The Temple, the House that Jack built, the House Divided,  London
Bridge, The Pre-Waste Land world, the World Trade Center ... come
tumbling down. 

Constructions that fail are interesting for lots of reasons and one
reason is that they 
get us picking up the pieces and re-constructing. How did they fall? Why
did they fall? How were they constructed? How can we re-construct? 

New insights that are not possible for prelapsarian Man, are now named. 

Reconstructing affords  new insights, new meaningful connections,
coherence of the  differences, degrees, kinds ....

And new construction, new design, new materials, new machines, new
tools, will require new terms. The architects will draw, the theorists
will theorize, and the workers, hammering away,  will make. And they
will, like Adam, name everything. Call it jargon if you it makes you
feel better. 

Now go get me that thing over there and slap this shit on that stuff
with that thingamajig (something difficult to classify or whose name has
been forgotten or is not known) ]]]]]]]]]========))))))))))

T