GRGR 1,7 - St V / Semiotics - entities, my friend George, nihilism v liberalism

[Michael Bailey]

1,7 -- Thanks! for British architecture links (may also revisit
Silence of the Lambs)
(looks like they are planning to tear down the Battersea chimneys, btw)

"shrugging leather forests of drive belts" - (v 46,38)

industrial revolution, plants with big machines, and the drive belts
strung around pulleys often in the shape of a tree? the slack, moving,
making the appearance of a shrug? this being one of the things
Victorian architecture was trying to make a retreat from - uncaring
(shrugging) dynamism?

----------------------------------------------------
Sean clarified:
>
> First of all, let's not complicate things by introducing a pictorial form -
> words will do. I think the main problem is again the way that you're
> characterising language. By viewing the author's range and the receiver's
> range as seperate orders that *might* overlap, you're missing the point that
> they already overlap by the use of a common language that has some form of
> consensus meaning (whether overt or covert) and conventions for use. This is
> a first order prequisite for any kind of meaning to be debated in the first
> place.
>

Though I like language, I think pictorially a lot of the time. 
Usually it's easy enough to describe in words, though.

Thus I now picture a 3rd entity: the means of communication (the sign)
in addition to the communicator and the communicand (?)

The transmitter (T) is embedded in a tradition of transmission (many
speakers, artists, etc over time) and the receiver (R) likewise an
instantiation of a tradition of perception. The sign, too, is embedded
in a process (P) of palaver down through the ages.

I was thinking specifically of my late friend George, back in high
school, telling me about "Nozz-Moe King" and my thoughts at the time
(the spacing is different, there's a capital S, and who's to say this
Nozz-Moe king would approve of smoking here either?) -- but I think
there are also schools of criticism, say for instance Marxist,
feminist, or Christian critics whose criteria are shaped by an
influence outside a given text.
This doesn't prevent their criticism from being interesting and
valuable, though their loyalty isn't completely to the author's
intentions

I wrote
>
> "I do not know all the conventions, and sometimes do not agree with them
> (that being a small subset in Pynchon for me, unless I am very wrong about
> my interpretation)"
>

(to which I now add - as Pynchon's books have been influential in
shaping my taste, the area of disagreement is a very small subset.  I
can think of one difference right away: there's a character in
Vineland who makes a popping sound with his finger in his mouth
differently than I would)

> It's not a matter of whether or not you agree with a convention -- if you
> recognise it's presence then you have to recognise that it's there with good
> reason; it has a function to perform,

okay

>
>> "Expending the time and energy to read a book is indicative of a desire to
> >participate in that manner, no? Nihilist, rather than liberalistic, is what
> >I would call the rejection of all such control.  Yet, the ability to reject
> >control is important - otherwise, who would dare to read "Mein Kampf"?"
>
> Firstly, It's not a desire, it's a demand, and the necessity of being able
> to read demonstrates this.

You lost me.  "Expending the time and energy to read a book" is
indicative of a demand, rather than a desire?
How so?  On whom? (or what)  (and, is demand not an extension of desire?)

> these implications -- narrowly, that we have no
> meaningful criteria of correct interpretation and correspondent
> misinterpretation available to us, and widely, that a text can have no clear
> meaning imposed on it by it's creator -- that are unacceptable. It would
> only be Nihilistic if we could actually reject what it claims we could
> reject. And we can't.
>
>

My distinction is that liberalistic (to me) would mean, that having
lawfully acquired the book, the reader is free to use it in any way
they wish
Nihilist (to me) would be rejecting helpful ordering schemes in favor of nothing

>"It would
> only be Nihilistic if we could actually reject what it claims we could
> reject. And we can't.

I do not get your meaning.  It may be dependent on a different (more
nuanced or better researched, I'll even concede more correct
perhaps...) definition of liberalism and nihilism


> Boo Hiss! ;-)
>
> Cheers,
> Sean
>

there is but one god, he is the sun god - ra ra ra !


Pointsman stuck in the toilet bowl, I wanna get a map of London for my
wall, still haven't run Glenn's Zipf program (after work tomorrow for
sure), and what a great Christmas season!

Now to mix up a Gwenhidwy special and sing some hymns

mike
--
"Acceptance, forgiveness, love - now that's a philosophy of life!"
-Woody Allen, as Broadway Danny Rose