[109394] in Cypherpunks
Re: [Fwd: [RRE]Archival Spaces]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Mon Mar 22 17:22:10 1999
In-Reply-To: <199903222050.MAA06508@alpha.oac.ucla.edu>
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 16:59:10 -0500
To: Phil Agre <pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu>, lethin@reservoir.com
From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Cc: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Reply-To: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Phil, you ignorant slut :-),
At 3:50 PM -0500 on 3/22/99, Phil Agre called me out on my calling names:
> "relativist
In their own typography, Phil: "Someone" "who" "thinks" "words" "have" "no"
"meaning". :-)
i.e., People who, to quote this week's New Yorker, of all places,
"...concentrated on attacking the authority of language, interpreting its
power over us as a form of political power. To subvert that authority -- to
'delegitimize' or 'destabilze' the text by questioning our capacity to
ascribe a single meaning to it -- was to subvert the established order at
its source. The universal was dead."
If that ain't relativism, nothing is, Phil. The problem is, if nothing
"means" anything, nothing *means* anything. Or something like that.
Whatever that means. You know what I mean? ;-).
> authoritarian
Just so. Don't tell me that the repression found on the modern university
isn't authoritarian, Phil. Inside quote marks or not.
> statist"?
Again, just so. Almost every one of those "Critical Theory", or blabla
"Studies" people (present company excepted, of course ;-)), especially
those in the American academy, believe in the primacy of the nation-state.
They believe that the only problem with the nation state is that it's in
the wrong hands: not theirs, in other words. They make up for their lack of
power by creating a kind of repression not found in the academy since the
Inquisition, all, paradoxically, in the name of academic freedom.
Fortunately, last presidency is the closest they'll ever get to ascendancy,
and it's going to be all over in the next election, if we're lucky.
> Isn't it funny how people who declare
> themselves opposed to relativism can just make things up, issue internally
> inconsistent accusations, etc.
Just more "silly logicism", eh, Phil? :-)
Anything *I* say is made up, anything *you* say is well-thought and
logical? So reflexive, but I have to admit, you *do* have great reaction
time...
> Foucault, for example, is the most hard-core
> anti-authoritarian enemy of the state that you could possibly imagine.
Except that he was a state employee, eh, Phil? :-).
As to the *results* of his writing, see above, re inquisitions and
relativism. This guy's thought is probably the worst thing to come out of
French philosophy since Rousseau, and he's almost as logical. The irony
that most French philosophy since Rousseau, including their gloss on Marx,
have been used as the underpinning for the worst of the world's tyrranies,
from 1789 to 1917 to 1949, is not lost on me here. Too bad the analytic
philosophers ran out of gas, I suppose.
> Deleuze is a hard-core realist and enemy of relativism, etc.
Sheesh. One name in a whole page full of, yes, relativist authoritarian
statists, dare I say, continental, statists. So, what? Pardon my lack of
pointellism? Or, sophistry, for that matter?... :-).
> I'm sorry,
> Bob, but you should reserve your name-calling for bankers.
What? We got *turf*, now, Phil? Like *you* haven't called capitalists a
name or two? Give me a break.
By the way, it's not bankers I have problems with. It's banking
*regulators*. The guys with the guns and the jail cells. The nation-state,
in other words. You know, the guys that every French Socialist, including
your folks above, wishes they could play with, but can't seem to figure out
when they get a chance? (Could it be that the very act of, um,
"controlling" things screws things up? Nawwww...)
It's remarkable how the thought of people who put "names" on "things", the
ones who get busted in relativist (and statist and authoritarian) academe
for supposedly "oppressing" others, are the very world views used not only
the most powerful people in the world, but, paradoxically, the freest ones,
as well.
Put that in your nomenclature and smoke it, Phil.
:-).
Cheers,
RAH
-----------------
Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com>
Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
