Paging Mr. Derrida
I finished up the reading for tonight's class on the train this morning - writhings (as Lester Bangs would put it) by John Durham Peters, Ferdinand de Saussure, and Vilem Flusser.
Each attempted to address the philosophy of communication - Peters through a postmodern lense masquerading as modernism, de Saussure through linguistics, and Flusser with his outline of discourse/ideological vs. dialogue/episteme.
Once I got over the bad writing (Are these academics deliberately obtuse, or just poor communicators? The former is offensive. The latter is ironic, given their area of expertise.), I had a good time with this stuff.
Peters seems like a pretty smart dude with a good grounding in philosophy from at least the Enlightenment forward. I'm not sure why he can't pull the trigger on the whole postmodern thing, though. It's all there in his work - communication as ontology rather than epistemology, the push to cheerfully reconcile ourselves to the notion that we can never truly reconcile communication issues, and so on. Maybe, he doesn't want to throw in with such a politically charged (and probably passe, by now) group. Maybe, he's just repressed - After all, he IS from Utah.
As for Flusser, I always find it ironic when academics engage in a discourse on the need for dialogue to replace discourse. You'd think they'd at least acknowledge the oxy-moron. Alas, those that cannot see the two are inextricably linked all take themselves too damn seriously to do that.
And de Saussure... What can we say that Stephin Merrit (Magnetic Fields) hasn't already sung? Try slogging through 77 pages of 19th century linguistic theory with that song in your head.
I finished up the reading for tonight's class on the train this morning - writhings (as Lester Bangs would put it) by John Durham Peters, Ferdinand de Saussure, and Vilem Flusser.
Each attempted to address the philosophy of communication - Peters through a postmodern lense masquerading as modernism, de Saussure through linguistics, and Flusser with his outline of discourse/ideological vs. dialogue/episteme.
Once I got over the bad writing (Are these academics deliberately obtuse, or just poor communicators? The former is offensive. The latter is ironic, given their area of expertise.), I had a good time with this stuff.
Peters seems like a pretty smart dude with a good grounding in philosophy from at least the Enlightenment forward. I'm not sure why he can't pull the trigger on the whole postmodern thing, though. It's all there in his work - communication as ontology rather than epistemology, the push to cheerfully reconcile ourselves to the notion that we can never truly reconcile communication issues, and so on. Maybe, he doesn't want to throw in with such a politically charged (and probably passe, by now) group. Maybe, he's just repressed - After all, he IS from Utah.
As for Flusser, I always find it ironic when academics engage in a discourse on the need for dialogue to replace discourse. You'd think they'd at least acknowledge the oxy-moron. Alas, those that cannot see the two are inextricably linked all take themselves too damn seriously to do that.
And de Saussure... What can we say that Stephin Merrit (Magnetic Fields) hasn't already sung? Try slogging through 77 pages of 19th century linguistic theory with that song in your head.
posted by isaacjosephson at 10:23 AM
2 Comments:
My head hurts just reading your post. The most I can stomach on two kids and little sleep is a mystery novel. Derrida? No thankya!
I came across your blog while searching Google for "Saussure and Flusser," precisely in search of some outside commentary to justify my frustration with the EXACT things you say (more eloquently than I would have). Thank you!
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