Was Reading and discussing Pynchon's texts

[jbor]

on 10/6/03 5:40 AM, Michael Joseph wrote:

> the question of
> whether someone who believes that everything is a matter of interpretation
> has the right to criticize an interpretive position with which they do not
> agree--even a position that holds some things are not subject to
> interpretation.

If this is the question then I would answer that, yes, everyone has the
"right" to express an alternative opinion. Everyone living in a liberal
democracy, that is.

> once one accepted the relativism of all
> positions, one was no longer free to claim access to objective criteria,
> that he/she relinquished the right to appeal to rationalist authorities.

The response to this - one that I'm not 100% sold on but which is the
standard fend to this kind of sophistry - is "intersubjectivity". (I don't
like the quasi-Jungian overtones of the term, but I think it's certainly
applicable in a political/ideological sense.) Anyway, my own response would
be that I haven't appealed to "objective critieria" or "rationalist
authorities" at all, I've just said what I think.

> (I'd previously brought in the tu quoque argument, the standard
> affirmation of the equality of irrational arguments, as a means of
> illustrating on what (relativistic) grounds one could dismiss ostensibly
> less irrational beliefs. I then pointed out that, whereas you were bound
> by it to accept V.'s position, he was not bound to accept yours, but even
> his rejection of your position did not free to you reject his.)

I'm not "bound" - by your sophistry or by the imposed terms of anyone else's
POV - to accept anything. Unlike Oceania, where "from the moment he opens
his illegal blank book and begins to write, [Winston] carries his doom with
him, consciously guilty of *crimethink* and only waiting for the authorities
to catch up" (1984 Foreword, xxiii), I live in a society (and am
participating in a forum) where I have the freedom to think whatever I
believe and to write whatever I want.

> We are alluding here to a precritical, intuitive,
> apprehension of coherence. It's like an experience of beauty, which has
> nothing to do with interpretation.

Yes, these are the contentions I disagree with.

> While repeating that POV is always
> provisional, you feel entitled to make provincial statements about what is
> impossible. 

Yes, because the political freedom to express my opinions is available to
me. (Of course, the statement I made, that "non-interpretive analysis is
impossible" is not only a provincial one, but also a statement of my POV.
Nonetheless, the same general conditions apply.) According to my POV,
"beauty" is in the eye of the beholder, and textual analysis is an
interpretive act. According to your POV, "beauty" exists independently and
as an objective "truth", as does "analysis". The middle ground of my
approach (to "provincial" statements as to epistemologies) is that, OK,
you're as entitled to your opinions and beliefs as I am. There is, however,
no such tolerance of alternative POVs and opinions in your approach (not
that I can see anyway). Everyone who disagrees with you is "wrong".

Once we've got to the point where I'm saying "I believe x" and you're saying
"I don't believe x", or vice versa (and this is whether we're speaking
"provincially" or epistemologically), we've reached an impasse. I can live
with that. Can you?

best