Re: AUT: cognitive mapping

["cwright" <cwright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lowe, I am not sure what to say on this anymore than you are, but here's a
thought.

I do not think that a mapping in the sense you (or Chris H.) pose it would
be very helpful only because I know so many different kinds of Marxist and
anarchists.  There is no way to 'map' this without really engaging with the
ideas in each case and is not simply philosophical but political and
pertains not only to our ideas but to our actions as well.  What an
infinite, and therefore infinitely boring, project because it gets us no
closer to engaging with non-revolutionaries.  It seems, therefore, an
internal dialogue in the worst sense.

However, there is certainly a problem in the inability of many people to say
what our politics are in a way that are accesible to non-scholars.  The
first problem, IMO, is that it is simply not possible to use 'common' or
'received' language.  Class struggle involves struggle over language as well
and the struggle against certain kinds of language and for others.  This
does not mean that adopting a certain language is our goal, but that we have
limited lee-way in our use of language.  Not every word or conept is as good
as another and language is most definitely a class phenomenon.

At the same time, we have to be able to discuss aspects of our politics in
'common' or 'received' language or it has lost any relation to people's
lives.  Where do we draw the line?  This is for me more interesting, but
also absolutely fluid and unmappable too.  It requires our engagement with
other human beings and a demand to make the effort of mutually recognitive
action.  I would rather err on the side of accuracy than popularization.  if
one considers the effects of Marx's work versus Engels' popularizations, one
might get a sense of the relative dangers.  It is no accident that the
Second and Third Internationals read more Engels than Marx and read Marx
largely only through Engels.

None of that is meant to be said carefully, so I am sure that it is
imprecise and filled with problems.  All the better. The best part of e-mail
is that we say what really comes first to mind, and therefore we have a
certain nakedness to each other if we do not prune our thoughts too much.

Cheers,
Chris
"In a world which really is topsy-turvy, the true is a moment of the
false." - Debord
>
> I would think that this concept of cognitive-mapping (is this not from
> Jameson? I think I remember reading it first through him) differs from a
> workers inquiry project insofar as it should designate a cartography of
the
> known for an subject or object group. Which is to say... for every person
> who speaks there are certain ways of thinking and of relating to the world
> which could be considered territorial.. For example... if I'm a Marxist
but
> I don't tell anyone... the moment I try to explain something to someone
else
> and I use certain concepts like class struggle, labor-time etc... that
would
> tell the person familiar with this type of cognitive territory where my
> thought "comes from" so to speak... its territoriality.
>
> So a workers inquiry into the thought of a bourgeois intellectual would
> confront this persons cognitive map no? It'd notice certain acts of
> avoidance of discussing certain issues, a focusing upon others... the
> utilization of concepts that presuppose capitalist valorization etc. This
> map is this persons known.
>
> One does not map concepts to objects because objects and objectification
may
> presuppose concepts but concepts themselves are far too broad... far too
> intertwining with themselves (think how we rarely learn about something in
> isolation of other things). I would say that its only philosophically
errant
> if it were to prove useless in helping us think about ourselves and our
> relations with knowledge and the world. I'm not sure I would say that its
> useless. I actually find it quite close to the Marxian idea that you spoke
> of.
>
>
> just a thought,
>
> Lowe
>
>
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