Post-Structuralists

[woodnymph_O]

I love the sound of incoherant, madman ramblings in the morning.
anyone bring breakfast?

 

[cataleptik]

(edited for the stupid)










(back to the pro shop)

 

[SummerMorning]

I think it's cute.

A bit Joycean. With more periods.

 

[CharleyH]

there is no post surrealism -- surrealism goes on and on becoming more and more fractallized...infinite, mise-en-scenes witin mise-en-scenes.

But structure can change -- and cease to be the dictator of form- and become a toy...

In so many words, we call it post-modernism or camp.

 

[cataleptik]

For You

you're really weird.

are you on crack?

what's it like for you on crack?

i like it when "i didn't get it" is replaced by "incoherent".

it creates a sweeping sense of infallible judgment among the blase and unsophisticated.

i'm mentally alive. so the corpses tell me.

then they dig in
ripping and tearing.
i usually scream and run away.


are you on LUDES?




since it took me six months to reply to your insult it would be proper nettiquette for you to "flame" me now...isn't that what You People do?






and that is for your butt!

 

[neonlyte]

You show admirable restraint

I remember this piece, I enjoyed part of it then.

 

[cataleptik]

I like this so much it's going into my sigline. That's a highly accurate and very wise statement.

it occurred to me right after i used the ignore list that

i was not brilliant or incoherent, but readable.


incoherent? no...the person who said that

didn't understand.

there is a whole mentality and i am sure there is a word that describes people
who say that what THEY don't understand is "incoherent".


JKL; QWER IOPU[QWRI IOHEF

THAT is incoherent.

but for me to deal with a possibly envious detractor by saying "you didn't really take time to get the message in my story" -- well, that's pretty understandable isn't it?

maybe i should log on with the computer i use to communicate with STUPID people. but that one is broken.


and a Mac!

 

[CharleyH]

There’s no past; there’s no future. There has only ever always been the ever expanding now. Do you know what illusions are?

There’s no past! there’s no future.

Funny little play on a well known quote from Beckett and regarding 'Waiting for Godot.' I imagine there are many more like this throughout, but I try to only read a post with less than one sentance, which is why I love Absy so much!

Simply put (for others), post-structuralism is based on a rebellion against structuralism - theoretical based to be sure and is often associated with de-construction. Nihilism is an essentil concern of certain existentialists, and Beckett (Theatre of the Absurd and in my above choice to set apart from the rest that I read) was greatly concerned with nihilism in Godot, and made this part quote "There is no future, there is no past..." in direct reference to the play, although the same could be said of his drama "Happy Days", and no not the Richie, Fonzie and Potzy version, although it was nihilistic in memory. Afterall, Fonzie got married, Joanie and Chachi were cut from their spin off due to bastardly poor ratings and Richie still looked like Howdie Doodie after the end of it all - in fact he still does, just balder. . lol

I wish my attention wasn't so sporadic today as most days, otherwise I'd read more.

Edit to add, sorry, I forgot to talk of the irony and contradiction of what I quoted. I thought it smart, but can't comment on the rest of the piece and how it plays into the whole, as I have not read the whole.

 

[cataleptik]

You show admirable restraint

I remember this piece, I enjoyed part of it then.

thank you. i am attempting to edit and fix it.

n'stuff...

it's a reaction...to a situation i noticed...

about erotica that has no sex acts depicted. for personal reasons...

erotica about the mind of the erotic. part of it may be my gemini nature --
and part of it is definitely that i consider sex WAY more fun to do than to read about.

 

[cataleptik]

It's okay if you don't read more now...

and the idea of there being No past, no future...

is sort of a counter to intellectual nihilism...

it's more about seeing an all expanding now. maybe i need to look that part of this fledgling attempt over, and over.

 

[neonlyte]

Post it when it's fixed - or not quite fixed.
I'd be interested.

 

[cataleptik]

but i had to tell a tale describing my disgust with the American Government. it's patterns of deception and the way that the lies precede MASS SLAUGHTER.

mass murder, little different from what took place in the concentration camps of Germany -- now taking place in Iraq. I wanted to write a story that Bush would want to burn and that Bush supporters would either take a disliking to or get a wake up call from. MAYBE it has to do with a dead girl who MIGHT have been my friend, had not my taxes paid for weird, exciting new BOMBS to KILL her.

i had to make a statement about love, monogamy and issues involving human stupidity and human property. i didn't have to do it here but i realised that in so doing i was exposing myself to -- well the sneering, judgmental lack of willingness to understand what i was saying.


and maybe it has to do with the two-pump dump mentality of today's general men. Viagra is not a substitute or a cure for the psychological aberrations and sicknesses that accompany male impotence -- and yet the bombs fall, the Republicans continue lying about their agenda and the world remains full of suffering. I am the three eyed man in the land of the blind, so I see the rocks coming.


and I have a feeling that people who failed to understand what was said in the tale of post structuralists, wildly fictional and meant to convey a philosophical idea -- will also want to step RIGHT up and express their closed minded failure to understand as meaning that my statement is incoherent.


it took a dumbed down america to allow the son of George Herbert to sleaze his way into office -- and that dumbed down america is composed of many individuals who are proud to substitute general prejudices for actual CORRECT POLITICAL understanding.

i have great HOPE that the nation can be turned around and made to serve its citizens -- rather than the opposite which we have now. my bitterness may be traditional -- a traditional bitterness that comes from YEARS of dealing with the unintellectual -- the mentally 'turned off' who sheeplike - delight in LITTLE and spend a great deal of time swallowing the feed the Government puts out -- including the prejudices which enable minds to close -- and therefore in a logical pattern allow the nightmare of the sort of diplomacy via mass murder that passes for a righteous war in the iraq-afghanistan region.

it's not considered fashionable to be effectively angry at the system currently -- a sure sign that the conspiracy theory of technological mind control is far more fact that theory. but save that for another tale perhaps.

 

[CharleyH]

is sort of a counter to intellectual nihilism...

it's more about seeing an all expanding now. maybe i need to look that part of this fledgling attempt over, and over.

Actually, it fits in quite nicely in my opinion and not as a counter to it, which is why I have used Beckett to reference both the partial reference you made (I will get the full quote tomorrow, although I assumed you had it) and the rest of the statement and also some, of what little I quoted, is very contradictory. Afterall, now cannot truly expand, now can it? However, as an aside, I completely get what you are trying to say and if you wish to talk more about certain parts of your piece, then I think many on Lit could accomodate that if you direct us to certain parts.

Or is this one up on the SDC, Cataleptic?

 

[Guest]

From Wikipedia

Post-structuralist narrative theory basically attempts to focus on the essential 'incompleteness' of narratives. This approach endorses the possibility of having indetermined, forever continued reader-centred narratives. Having roots in Jacques Derrida's Structure, Sign, Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences, this reading of narrative gets strengthened through the writings of Roland Barthes, Mikhail Bakhtin and Wolfgang Iser's theoretical interpretation of narratives.

 

[neonlyte]

Actually, it fits in quite nicely in my opinion and not as a counter to it, which is why I have used Beckett to reference both the partial reference you made (I will get the full quote tomorrow, although I assumed you had it) and the rest of the statement and also some, of what little I quoted, is very contradictory. Afterall, now cannot truly expand, now can it? However, as an aside, I completely get what you are trying to say and if you wish to talk more about certain parts of your piece, then I think many on Lit could accomodate that if you direct us to certain parts.

Or is this one up on the SDC, Cataleptic?

I focused on the exact same lines, though without your scholarly take. The idea of 'visiting over and over' fits comfortably with my approach.

it's not considered fashionable to be effectively angry at the system currently -- a sure sign that the conspiracy theory of technological mind control is far more fact that theory. but save that for another tale perhaps.

No... but the equally suppressing anger, by design, or simply lulling the masses into an opiate state, has always been counter-productive... a larger ofbject is infintely harder to move than several small objects, and equally harder to stop. It's the momentum that's lacking.

 

[CharleyH]

From Wikipedia

Post-structuralist narrative theory basically attempts to focus on the essential 'incompleteness' of narratives. This approach endorses the possibility of having indetermined, forever continued reader-centred narratives. Having roots in Jacques Derrida's Structure, Sign, Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences, this reading of narrative gets strengthened through the writings of Roland Barthes, Mikhail Bakhtin and Wolfgang Iser's theoretical interpretation of narratives.

Wikipedia is never quite thoroughly accurate . There was a long standing argument about whether post-structuralism was a form of rebellion or against one. They, as memory goes, seemed to believe that language was incomplete because we could not measure the implications of language (signs: indexes, metaphors etc. and in effect - meanings) . Derrida was one of many semioticians, as was Barthes who especially took a special interest in 'meanings'. I am not familiar with the other two in the above quote, but my study is limited to film, communication and art and "some" literature, but Ferdinand De Saussure and Christian Metz are lookers in this theory and should be in any such discussion about it. In laymans terms, and to further the discussion, post-structuralism actually comes from a philosophical background and not a language based one - it does in part rest on the whole idea of deconstrution, as associated with post-S (good God, I was accused of being a post-structualist my whole way thru Uni - what an offence - lol), but it is ultimately about interpretation. Argue as you like, and I certainly like - I will pull quotes and references when I need them.

Again, and as a complaint, I wish Wikipedia would get its act together. I love going there, but damn, I always have to double check the facts (not on this, though - it's too ingrained in my brain) and also, EDIT TO ADD I first comments on this thread and my very first reaction was to comment about post-modernism, but as I said, thats what the story read like, and from what I have read so far, there is a part-influence of post-modernism even though, afterall, can we escape our own post-modern and post-post-modern NOW, as the author writes? I have not read the whole story, though and afterall, so can only comment deconstructively, in parts.l

 

[CharleyH]

I focused on the exact same lines, though without your scholarly take. The idea of 'visiting over and over' fits comfortably with my approach.


No... but the equally suppressing anger, by design, or simply lulling the masses into an opiate state, has always been counter-productive... a larger ofbject is infintely harder to move than several small objects, and equally harder to stop. It's the momentum that's lacking.

The discussion gets even more interesting when you are around, Neon. I did miss your take on this particular line, so I will go back and find it.

 

[rgraham666]

Dreadfully sorry, Charley. But I'm going to have to challenge you on this one.

Nihilism and existentialism are, in my opinion, diametrically opposed philosophies.

Existentialism, as I understand it, is based on the idea that we are judged by our actions against a set of generally agreed upon ethics. It is who is hurt or harmed by our actions that is important.

Nihilism, as I understand it, concentrates on pure action. The bar against which a person is judged is the extremity of the action, not by what it accomplishes.

As to the original post, to me it merely demonstrates the weakness of too much education unconnected to the rest of the world. A person can become lost in the intricacies and techniques of an art form. At that point, the person so inflicted cannot speak to anyone save those similarly lost.

At that point, language becomes dialect. A method of hiding knowledge behind a impenetrable wall and a ritual which must be mastered in order to be allowed to the inner secrets of the profession.

But any artist's goal should be to communicate their ideas, their imagination, their feelings to as many people as possible. If they fail to do this, locked inside technique and only making reference to obscure genres of specialised knowledge, they've failed as artists.

 

[neonlyte]

... As to the original post, to me it merely demonstrates the weakness of too much education unconnected to the rest of the world. A person can become lost in the intricacies and techniques of an art form. At that point, the person so inflicted cannot speak to anyone save those similarly lost.

At that point, language becomes dialect. A method of hiding knowledge behind a impenetrable wall and a ritual which must be mastered in order to be allowed to the inner secrets of the profession.

But any artist's goal should be to communicate their ideas, their imagination, their feelings to as many people as possible. If they fail to do this, locked inside technique and only making reference to obscure genres of specialised knowledge, they've failed as artists.

Can't agree here Rob. An artist (as opposed to an author seeking a publisher suitable audience) is almost obliged to push at the boundaries. Only by testing the limits can an artist begin to substantiate a body of work. All artists do this, we are prehaps less used to 'art' manifested through the written word, particularly in a form also testing philosophical constructs.

I admit, it is not an easy piece to read, and I can imagine it was not an easy work to write. It has less value in its current form when compared with the conventional body of writing, but I have to admire Cataleptic for stepping upto the plate and putting it where it can be seen. We don't have to admire it, we don't even have to understand it, and it doesn't need to have the broad base appeal that you cite in your last paragraph. The point is to stretch at the boundaries, see how far you can distort them and discover where the journey takes you. Plenty of conventional written expression exists, we shouldn't be too tough on someone for testing a different approach. because I'm sure that's all this piece is - a test. Cataleptic got scalded when this was presented this last year - and displays guts just to show up again.

 

[rgraham666]

If you insist neon.

But the fact is that what cataleptic did was so far outside the boundaries as to be incomprehensible to me.

It speaks to you because you're 'in the know'. You understand the background, the references, the grid he's setting himself against.

I have none of that, none at all. So it says nothing, absolutely nothing to me. And from the posts here, to most people. So it has no effect on us.

And if a piece of art affects no more than those who 'understand' it's a failure. It communicated little, changed few perspectives, illuminated few minds, caused little emotion.

It was as I stated a while ago, not a work of genius, but incoherency. To me at least.

 

[CharleyH]

Dreadfully sorry, Charley. But I'm going to have to challenge you on this one.

Nihilism and existentialism are, in my opinion, diametrically opposed philosophies.

I don't mind the opposition, RG, I think its great. Existentialism is a weird thing, and it really depends on the philosopher that you have in mind and in which period, though. I am much a Sartre fan, so I can't disagree or agree with you at this point or with anything too much prior to the 20th century. Otherwise nihilism and existentialism go hand in hand, what other reason for anguish? Until I know which avenue of theory you come from, I can't argue, I can only state my view and where it comes from.

Nihilism is not pessimism, and I think thats a huge error in popular thought about existentialists.

Perhaps you can enlighten me as to your direction/ position a bit? It will help in my posts to you.

NEON: I did not find your post in this thread and regarding the similarly quoted line. Did you post it in SDC or was it a more private post? I am interested, and would like to read what you said about the same passage.

 

[rgraham666]

I've only attached existentialism as a label to my personal philosophy recently, Charely. It's closest to what I'm trying to do. My understanding is incomplete and always will be.

If you want proper philosophical routes, it's Socrates.

If I say that it would be disobedience to God to "mind my own business" you will not believe I am serious. If on the other hand I tell you to let no day pass without discussing goodness and all the other subjects about which you hear me talking, and that examining myself and others is really the very best thing that a person can do, and that life without this sort of examination is not worth living, you will be even less inclined to believe me. Nevertheless, that is how it is.

The Apologia

Socrates is also a good example of communication. Twenty five hundred years later and we still remember his words. His meaning was never lost.

 

[CharleyH]

If you insist neon.

But the fact is that what cataleptic did was so far outside the boundaries as to be incomprehensible to me.

It speaks to you because you're 'in the know'. You understand the background, the references, the grid he's setting himself against.

I have none of that, none at all. So it says nothing, absolutely nothing to me.

I have not read anything but the start, but perhaps, and I would expect and hope, that there is this element in the story .... the story does begin ex nihilo, after all, from nothingness after all, and yet in a very explicit statement the author knows not everyone is going to get it.

Not referencing the story, but your above statement, perhaps it's meant to ultimately be a story outside the boundaries of the conventional since all theories and philosophies, structural, post-structural, existentialism, christianity, judaism, islam, Americanism - theoretical, linguistic, religious or political etc. are so boundary oriented? Perhaps, in a theoretical way, the story has its own authorial structure and form in opposition to the standard, and perhaps in that way, particularly considering some of the content I have breezed over, that's the ultimate point? After all, I have never quite known the avant-garde to fall into a space of the common denominator without being immediately replaced by the avant-garde - something of the "NOW" I think is spoken to by Cat in my interpretation.

 

[CharleyH]

I've only attached existentialism as a label to my personal philosophy recently, Charely. It's closest to what I'm trying to do. My understanding is incomplete and always will be.

If you want proper philosophical routes, it's Socrates.

Socrates is also a good example of communication. Twenty five hundred years later and we still remember his words. His meaning was never lost.

Socrates was not really real, though? Plato wrote about him, and through the character of Socrates comes Plato's ideals and ideas, no? Socrates is an ancient character much like Lara Croft is today, only Socrates character had more to say than Lara Croft.

 

[neonlyte]

Tomorrow folks I'm afraid. Been sat here pretty much for eighteen hours.

The central section of the piece is worth a glance, more than a glance. You'll find a nearly conventional dialogue that goes some way toward the writers intent with this piece.

I got 'blown' on another site today for the 'pretentious' style of my writing -- Lordy, what would they have made of this.