permaculture

["S.K. Harrison" <skh23ca@yahoo.com>]

> From: "souscayrous" <souscayrous@wanadoo.fr>

> "The deconstructive denial of 'logocentrism'
<snip>
> Derrida is simply continuing a philosophical
<snip>
> That is the latest news from the 'ivory towers'
<snip>
> It sounds that we are speaking about the same
<snip>
> The process of hammering does not simply have
<snip>
> I would have my language deepen through doing,
<snip>

I didn't see anything that could be called a
summary in that rambling exposition. Care to
provide one? (A la Charles's original request as
well as the whole thread about pattern and
memory.)


> Derrida is simply continuing
> a philosophical insight that
> goes back explicitly to Nietzsche and
> implicitly in the poetry of Rimbaud
> and Mallarmé. It is the death of God, the end
> of the belief in progress, the
> fracture of the self, the end of meaning

This piece represents the kind of
self-congratulatory rhetoric which fails to
distinguish between a personal interior event and
that shared by many members of society. God,
progress, selfhood and meaning have yet to die in
the imaginings of most people on this earth. 

Here's my take on each of these points:

We should abolish from our institutions the
promotion of literal belief in the existence of
anthropomorphic gods. I have no problem, however,
with pantheism, legends, ritual identification
with an archetype, myth as pattern language, etc.

I see nothing wrong with progress, if defined as
"the continuous improvement of material and
social welfare, capabilities and environment of
humankind."

Philosophical or technical notions of self don't
play a role in the evaluations of the Udeghe, the
!Kung, the Pitjantjara, the Yezidis, the Inuit,
the Tuvans, not to mention the lay majority of
westerners and the vast numbers of Chinese,
Japanese, Arabs, etc. In other words, there's
nothing to fracture.

I've commented on "meaning" elsewhere. Suffice to
say that despite the pomos (the mofos?), we
continue with success to haggle over the price of
apples, fly to the moon, give people accurate
directions, run businesses, learn to read, dive
to the bottom of the ocean, perform heart
surgery, etc.--all with the help of symbols and
their ostensible "meaning." Sometimes I wonder if
Derrida and company can discern the meaning of
egg enough to notice that it's all over their
faces.


> I loathe the negativity of deconstruction, the
> act of taking apart, of de-construction. Far 
> rather the effort after creation.

How noble sounds your rhetoric! But to navigate
your way through a day, you have to make one
choice over others again and again. You engage
without end in these choices based on reasons for
valuing one thing over another--"creating" the
validity of some reasons and "destroying" the
validity of others. This happens at many
scales--from the care you take in brushing your
teeth to the lifestyle upheaval of choosing
farming over urbanism to evaluating
postmodernism. Many more examples can be
provided.


> Science treats the world as an array of Things 
> to be studied, and misses their whatness 
> (quiddity). 

You're reifying science. There is no such thing
as science, only the behaviour of scientists and
the results of their behaviour at a given date.
Choose what you're referring to and rephrase
please.


> Science treats the world as Things 
> and thus we have technology.  Now the world has

> become a vast array of material for humankind 
> to use as it needs

If you want to use a strawman argument, at least
take the time to build one that won't be
recognized so easily.

We had the rudiments of scientific behaviour when
the first humans observed the days getting longer
after winter solstice. We had technology when the
first humans used a rock to kill an animal. We
have been using the world as material for our
aims ever since we grew a cortex several hundred
millenia ago. Even apes do so--though without
passing that knowledge to future generations.


> There are more fundamental
> ways of understanding the world.  I do have a
> different understanding of
> saw, now it has a toe and a heel, a draw and a
> release, and it also has a
> rhythm that does not leave me breathless and
> sweating, but cuts through the
> largest timber, again and again, before I must
> pause.

If you believe that your acount of the saw
qualifies as a more fundamental way of
understanding the world, you have missed the
whole point of my comments earlier in this
thread. Scientific inquiry today--with its
supercollider, hubble telescope, mainframe
computers and mathematical models--has *evolved*
over millenia from instances like those I gave
above about the solstice and the rock.

In finding the rhythm of the saw, you have to
observe and ask questions, and this describes the
evolved activity of scientists as well. I am not
identifying the behaviours, I am taking a
comparative anthropological point of view in
regard to human problem-solving behaviour.


> There were other
> havens after academia but I think
> it is only in nature that we gain the
> profoundest knowledge, simply because
> only in nature do we come up against something
> which is other.

Scientific inquiry cannot deal with a great many
questions--usually the ones we will be arguing
about prolly ten thousand years from now:

* Why is there something rather than nothing?
* What is the point of life?
* What is the good life?
* What is beauty?

If you choose to find in nature your personal
answers to these questions, then power to ya--but
please don't go lambasting modern inquiry based
on poor observation and misinformation.

"Science" can't make choices and in fact
"science" can't do anything (ignoring for a
moment that no such thing exists). *People*, on
the other hand, do things; they do "science" and
they make choices when they find correct answers
via "science". If people destroy habitat or fail
to pay their workers a fair wage or remove
chickens beaks with hot wires, go talk to them,
'cuz your reified, equivocating Science hasn't
got ears to hear.


> What is your mania for contraction?

I don't know; I don't read the DSM-IV. Do you?.
*wry grin*

Incidentally, phrasing your statement as a
question makes a good smokescreen for your ad
hominem attack. I'll remember that when I'm
playing dirty.

In a sober mood now, I will say no more but to
simplify my previous comments; I wish for
intellectuals to quit using five words where one
will do.

As WVO Quine said, "It is a basic maxim for
serious thought that anything that can be said,
can, with perseverance, be said clearly."

Please note that the burden of proof remains on
you to prove the value of popping five-syllable
words like candy. 


> trying
> to find something intelligent to say about a
> subject he clearly has no
> knowledge of airily waves an arm and says "Too
> many... umm", when a courtier
> pipes up "notes" the Emperor exclaims "Yes, too
> many notes, take some out".

I welcome you to attempt a terse summary of the
premises of postmodernism, structuralism, etc.
I'd appreciate also examples of the application
of pomo to real life problems.


> Rather study their work, their reason for using
> this form of rhetoric and then criticise.

Souscayrous, neither my investigations nor your
defenses have convinced me to give them more
attention. I can name at least a couple dozen
pursuits that have more value, both personally
and globally, than do the abstruse expostulations
of dead frenchmen.

To those ends, please save me a few months of my
life and tell me their reason.

-------------------------------------------------
Sean

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