Was thinking that
one always needs to question the use of language.
For instance. How has it come to be
that the dominant mode of academic writing in the humanities
is 'the argument'? As such, its process is a race to prove
one's point in a game of logical assertion in order to uphold
already-accepted ideas from within an arsenal of evidence.
It is oftentimes a self-serving race, like the nonsensical one
in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass.
This is not a cynical statement, but a mere suggestion that if
form affects content, the juridicial format of discourse in the
academic arena potentially distances us from our authentic ideas
and from our idiosyncratic sense of things. What alternative
experiences of thought are lost to us in this particular mode of
expression? Academia espouses the language of the courts, the
judicial language of judgement found in the guilty-or-not-guilty
question, the superiority of yes or no answers, and in the
restrictive theories of either-or discourse. The myth of academia
is that the form of academic writing is subordinate to its content.
If we admitto the presence of an academic language,
aware that its texture and style befits the authority and control
of an academic institution, perhaps we can recycle it, as Deleuze
suggests, by making it shudder,
stutteringits way into new forms of expression.
For example. When Deleuze
poet i cizesand restructures
his philosophical writings rhizomatically,
he is playing with the use of language,
language as
a rhizometo express realms of experience not found in the logic of
argumentative writing, not found in the form of the academic thesis.
For him, "to write is not to impose a form of expression on the matter
of lived experience" : writing is not an imitation of this process,
but a process of our own becoming, a
becoming
withthe world.
If writing is
a question ofbecoming, it is always incomplete, always inthemiddle of being formed.
It is always a question of
listeningto
the whispers of one's internal voice,
to find authentic meaning that then rises beyond the personal.
The goal is to carry writing to a state of non-personal power,
by establishing relations between variables that construct new
possibilitiesfor life...
"...by beginning with the multiplicities that have invented us as a formed subject in an actualized world, with an organic body in a given political order, having learned a certain language...at its highest point, writing as an activity follows the abstract movement of a line of flight that extracts or produces differential elements from these multiplicities of lived experience and makes them function as variables on an immanent plane of composition" (Deleuze, 1997).
posted by name of the rose at 10:56 a.m.
4 Comments:
Interesting. I'm not certain if this is a question you're posing to yourself, or to the world at large, but a few ideas struck me.
Specifically, the follwing:
[the juridicial format of discourse in the academic arena potentially distances us from our authentic ideas and from our idiosyncratic sense of things.]
This may be true. And, one could argue, may be a necessary component of academic discourse and writing, the ultimate goal of which is to further the truth by posing a question and attempting to answer it, [from within an arsenal of evidence.]
Additionally, suggesting that form 'potentially' affects content, and that requiring a specific, uniformal form in which to express oneself can [distance us from our authentic ideas etc], you assume that language necessarily inhibits us from expressing our ideas within that form. I hold rather that the form - logic and reasoning, that is - is as important as the content, as flawed logic can discredit the entirety of the content, and unwieldy - though compelling - content may not lead to conclusion. The writer of the acadmemic paper is limited only by his command of language, arsenal of ideas and creativity as he reasons through a given position on a topic.
[Deleuze poeticizes and restructures his philosophical writings rhizomatically ... playing with the use of language to express realms of experience not found in the logic of argumentative writing, not found in the form of the academic thesis.]
Though compelling on various levels, this is counter to the foundation of Western philosophical thought, based on deductions and logic to lead to truth, whatever form that may take.
By providing arguments and evidence supporting a position, one can further validate one's position - or invalidate another's - on a given stance.
Certainly there are 'realms of experience not found in logic', just as there are feelings not readily identifed through language. But those experiences, like the feelings, are biased and subjective. Greek-inspried Western thought attempts to eliminate these subjective aspects, by accepting and building on elemets widely held
to be true.
The nature of acadaemia is to search for the truth, to some extent, or to explore avenues or expound on ideas of interest.
The determining factor is logic, and the logical
deductions based on 'known knowns' and 'known unknowns' in an attempt to approach as closely as possible the truth, infinite and complex as it may be. Hence, we may continue to approach the truth, as we gather evidence to support our position, but never reach it.
Curiously, the logic you question in academic writing is the same that you use, that Deleuze employs, to support the theory of what writing is ... using the 'if/then' structure. [If writing is a question of becoming, (then) it is always incomplete ...] Assume for a moment that writing is not a question of becoming, that this assumption is flawed? What then? Assume rather that writing is a static state, or a an evolving state that moves so slowly that we can't perceive it, a snap-shot of th world as we saw it in that moment in which what we wrote was written ... what then?
It would mean that the thought is complete, after the moment has passed, after the writing is done.
Writers, one could argue, Faulkner included, write to be remembered. Writers write to leave a trace of themselves and their lives, in the moments that they lived. Like passing soldiers are keen carve out their names to prove that they'd been there, or write 'Kilroy was here' on
battle scarred walls of towns they pass though, so too does the writer write to be remembered, in the moment in which he wrote, for those who'll read what he has written, long after he has passed.
The goals of academic writing and philosophic reasoning are diffent and not necessarily complementary or compatible. Though not a student of Deleuze, this may be true of his writings, and of those of the same shcool of thought.
Or, I may have completely missed the point.
Truth is a transcendent notion and what I am suggesting is an immanent one. A lived approach to writing-as-connectedness. The form becomes the process and the practice, the praxis. Pragmaxis. The machine of expression itself becomes an openness to writing-as-unfolding-into-communitiesofconnectedness.
A communion. Between writer and reader. Like wearing words by holding them authentically close to who one is, living them by sharing them, as opposed to shedding them like skin onto a bookmind page.
You wrote,
[Writers write to leave a trace of themselves and their lives, in the moments that they lived. Like passing soldiers are keen carve out their names to prove that they'd been there, or write 'Kilroy was here' on
battle scarred walls of towns they pass though, so too does the writer write to be remembered, in the moment in which he wrote, for those who'll read what he has written, long after he has passed.]
I like this! But I would suggest that it is the specific moment of who they are that demands it to be played out. The infinitive glance-into-word. It happens in the writing of it, not in the afterwords, not in the written trace of its expression. The object of the word, the remainder of its thought is what survives but being remembered is an afterthought, not a motivation, best glanced in the rear view mirror.
You wrote,
[I hold rather that the form - logic and reasoning, that is - is as important as the content, as flawed logic can discredit the entirety of the content, and unwieldy - though compelling - content may not lead to conclusion.]
Words live and breath differently with each new glance. So meaning is never static. Meanwhile, all logic proves is logic. Yes, hypothesis, antithesis, synthesis. And always the form of linear progression upholding logocentric isms measuring 2500 years of transcendent truths that still hold us up. Hold up academe. Not to negate it and even being willing to concede that its place is (p/re/)set, but all the while asking...are there not also other ways to think within the academic frame? A branch of thought that slides along a rhizomatic flow, not like a treed hierarchy of ideas that exclusively ascend to higher orders of abstraction. But more like roots that shoot in all directions, inclusively building networks from the inbetweens of serendipitous connections, new habitsofmind not afraid to embrace the difference found within the constellation of a(ny) jump-cut unexpectedly arising from the dysjunct. Not losing anything but only adding. A philosophy-of-and that uncovers disparate agglomerates to constitute what no logic ever can.
You wrote,
[Certainly there are 'realms of experience not found in logic', just as there are feelings not readily identifed through language. But those experiences, like the feelings, are biased and subjective.]
But isn't subjectivity all we have and all we 'know'?
A stoic perspective, as opposed to a Platonic one. Truth-the-unobtainable is an abstract ideal that is never achieved.
You asked,
[Assume for a moment that writing is not a question of becoming, that this assumption is flawed? What then? Assume rather that writing is a static state, or a an evolving state that moves so slowly that we can't perceive it, a snap-shot of th world as we saw it in that moment in which what we wrote was written ... what then? It would mean that the thought is complete, after the moment has passed, after the writing is done.]
I like this comment. Then it lives and breathes with each new glance, changes along a flow of understanding from a lived perspective and time is an aion folded back onto itself. It means this is not a getting life, but a giving one that depends upon what we bring to it. A writer throws words out like gifts and they take on a life of their own once the reader layers their specific time and place on top of them. Rhizoanalysis is term Guattri uses.
Like hyper textual writing, an alinear flow-through-thought is an ethericity more akin to how we think and how we talk. Linkages that show no fear of new assemblages, carry no baggage from the past and proceed with unconditional acceptance, even hospitality towards a Levinasian other, towards difference. Guattari calls it 'a departure from binary power relations'. Saying is existing, is the promotion of a new kind of gentleness, a new kind of domestic relationship with the world. A progressive becoming-letters.
Deleuze wrote from within academe, trying to reverse Platonism by the form of his expression, trying to suggest new habits of mind by playing them out along the rhizome of his constellate cowritings with Felix Guattari from within the established order...change happens from within as Derrida would say.
"Michel Foucault insisted on that to some extent, in a rather humorous way, saying that this century would be Deleuzian, and I hope so.That doesn't mean that the century will be connected to the thought of Gilles Deleuze, but will comprise a certain re-assemblage of theoretical activity vis-a-vis university institutions and power institutions of all kinds. " (Felix Guattari, 1985)
...catalytic change happens from within the hybrid form.
Rhizomic hybridity.
"So, in this case, we are no longer only on the
theoretical plane, but on the plane of experimentation, of new forms of interactions, of movement construction that respects the diversity, the sensitivities, the particularities of interventions, and that is nonetheless capable of constituting antagonistic machines of struggle to intervene in power relations." (Fe'lix Guattari, 1985)
Thankyou for these thoughtful ideas.
it occured to me in a sudden moment as I was in transit that I copied your thoughts and mine on this onto my page withour asking your permission; your ideas are copywrited. I was engrossed in the moment - to the exclusion of almost all else - as I thinking of what you'd written and as I composed my response to it and posted it online, that I didn't think to ask before I did it. and this is the first chance I've had to get online, so I'll take it off until I hear from you ... and will chew on these new ideas for a bit.
...it is an interesting idea to unfold this conversation on two fronts...the rhizome grows...
Thank you for considering to ask.
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