Noam Chomsky on Post-Modernism This text has circulated quite a number of times on Usenet, and so far as I know is authentic. This version (less, of course, the HTML airs and graces) was posted by one jenm289@aol.com to rec.arts.books, 13 Nov 1995 03:21:23 -0500, message-id 486v63$9an@newsbf02.news.aol.com. Jenm289 wrote: "The following was written several months ago by Noam Chomsky in a discussion about po-mo and its contribution to activism et al. The discussion took place on LBBS, Z-Magazine's Left On-Line Bulletin Board (contact sysop@lbbs.org to join)." I've returned from travel-speaking, where I spend most of my life, and found a collection of messages extending the discussion about "theory" and "philosophy," a debate that I find rather curious. A few reactions --- though I concede, from the start, that I may simply not understand what is going on. The latter fact has been noticed. The proponents of "theory" and "philosophy" have a very easy task if they want to make their case. Specific comment.
SCHOPENHAUERS 38 STRATAGEMS, OR 38 WAYS TO WIN AN ARGUMENT - StumbleUpon Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), was a brilliant German philosopher. These 38 Stratagems are excerpts from "The Art of Controversy", first translated into English and published in 1896. Carry your opponent's proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it. The more general your opponent's statement becomes, the more objections you can find against it. (abstracted from the book:Numerical Lists You Never Knew or Once Knew and Probably Forget, by: John Boswell and Dan Starer) deconstruction and law Deconstructive Practice and Legal Theory-- Part II Copyright 1998 Jack M. Balkin. All Rights Reserved. Go to Part I Go to Part II Go to Part III Return to Writings Online C. Deconstructive reversals show that the reasons given for privileging one side of an opposition over the other often turn out to be reasons for privileging the other side. The most famous example of this "ungrounding" is Derrida's treatment of speech and writing in Of Grammatology.(33) Derrida finds in the texts of several writers, including Rousseau, Saussure, and Levi-Strauss, a consistent valuing of speech over writing as a form of communication.(34) Derrida argues that this preference is not accidental; it relates to the general "logocentric" bias of Western thought.(35) By "logocentric," Derrida means centered on the concept of logos, which he often equates with the idea of presence. Second, speech is connected more closely to the immediate thoughts of the communicator than is writing. D. E. F.
Freedom Vaults : Guidelines for Saying No to Police Searches - StumbleUpon One of the main powers that law enforcement officers carry is the power to intimidate citizens into voluntarily giving up their rights. Police are trained to believe in their authority and trained to perform their interactions with private citizens with confidence. It is their job to deal with problems and they learn to manage uncomfortable situations through strength. A common situation is that of the traffic stop. The Federal Supreme Court has ruled that as long as the police do not force an individual to do something, the individual is acting voluntarily, even if a normal person would feel very intimidated and would not reasonably feel they could say no. Unfortunately police will often try to push citizens to accept a search, to the point of ignoring when you say "no". Until you say "No, I don't think I'd like to do that." you are cooperating as a peer with the law enforcement officer who is trying to make the world safer. The Terry v. In a recent decision (Wyoming v. Stay Calm.
The poverty of literary theory The poverty of literary theory ALMOST 34 YEARS AGO, in May 1962, the Times Literary Supplement published a front-page article, ‘The Myth of Clarity’ which contained a savage attack on the quality of French intellectual life. The article caused a considerable stir in England, while from accross the Channel there were even murmurs that the Entente Cordiale had been infringed. According to the article’s anonymous author a new passion for obscurity was in the process of rendering obsolete the traditional virtue of French language and thought – la clarté. ‘Everywhere,’ he wrote, ‘private symbols and half formulated intuitions pose as proofs and profundities. Everywhere the functions of prose and poetry are confused in maelstroms of ambiguity . . . Looking back on that Times Literary Supplement article from the vantage-point of the present, it is difficult not to credit its author with a certain prophetic insight. I believe that this is to approach the problem in the wrong way.
An Essay by Einstein -- The World As I See It - StumbleUpon "How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving... "I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. "My political ideal is democracy.
Politics and the English Language Horizon, April 1946. Recorded as completed in Orwell’s Payments Book on 11 December 1945. Samuel Johnson’s “Dictionary of the English Language” was published on 15 April 1755. Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent, and our language — so the argument runs — must inevitably share in the general collapse. Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. These five passages have not been picked out because they are especially bad — I could have quoted far worse if I had chosen — but because they illustrate various of the mental vices from which we now suffer. Professor Harold Laski (Essay in Freedom of Expression) Professor Lancelot Hogben (Interglossa) Communist pamphlet Letter in Tribune
Rationality/Science, by Noam Chomsky THIS DISCUSSION involves people with a large range of shared aspirations and commitments; in some cases at least, friends who have worked and struggled together for many years. I hope, then, that I can be quite frank. And personal, since to be honest, I don't see much of independent substance to discuss. I don't want to mislead, and therefore should say, at once, that I am not all sure that I am taking part in the discussion. I think I understand some of what is said in the six papers, and agree with much of it. What I don't understand is the topic: the legitimacy of "rationality," "science," and "logic" (perhaps modified by "Western")--call the amalgam "rational inquiry," for brevity. Many interesting questions have been raised about rational inquiry. First, to take part in a discussion, one must understand the ground rules. A second problem has to do with the allusions to "science," "rationality," etc., throughout these papers. First category.
How to Build a Universe That Doesnt Fall Apart Two Days Later First, before I begin to bore you with the usual sort of things science fiction writers say in speeches, let me bring you official greetings from Disneyland. I consider myself a spokesperson for Disneyland because I live just a few miles from it — and, as if that were not enough, I once had the honour of being interviewed there by Paris TV. For several weeks after the interview, I was really ill and confined to bed. Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. It reminds me of a headline that appeared in a California newspaper just before I flew here. Well, I will tell you what interests me, what I consider important. In 1951, when I sold my first story, I had no idea that such fundamental issues could be pursued in the science fiction field. Finally, in the story, the dog begins to imagine that someday the garbagemen will eat the people in the house, as well as stealing their food. I once wrote a story about a man who was injured and taken to a hospital.