RE: RE: RE: Re: Re: Re: postmodernism?

["Brownson, Jamil" <JBrownson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sabri, sorry, its late in a day of too many classes with students who do not
want to know these things, so i may be a bit tired, hence less critically
coherent.

what I mean is: 1. most things are usually complex & systems always are
such. 2. most modernist thought desires simplicity, packaging complexity in
black boxes, easily labeled hence consumed whole and uncritically. 3.
chomsky talks about acceptable limits to dissent beyond which nothing
registers, even he is never invited to mainstream talknews infopropaganda
shows that mascarade as experts commenting on news. 4. whether heraclitis'
"all things are in motion at all times," or marx's "matter & emergy
undergoing constant dialectical transformations," everything is change, no
matter how desperately a modernist mentality wants to hold on to fixed
objects.

hopefully clearer, but welcome others to reinterpret & clarify those ideas.

jb

-----Original Message-----
From: Sabri Oncu [mailto:soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 3:12 PM
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [PEN-L:20112] RE: RE: Re: Re: Re: postmodernism?


Let me play Alan Sokal here:

Dear Jamil, I enjoyed many a posts from you and hopefully we will get
together one of these days and I am sure we have a lot to share but let me
tell you this:

I don't have a clue about what you say below.

By the way Carrol,

What is wrong with Eucledian senses? I used to love Eucledian spaces a lot.
They have many nice properties. Not that I don't like non-Eucledian spaces.
They have many nice many nice properties too.

Have you ever heard about covariant derivatives of cotravariant components?
They are closely associated with non-Eucledean senses!

Best
Sabri Oncu

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Brownson, Jamil
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 2:56 PM
To: 'pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
>Subject: [PEN-L:20106] RE: Re: Re: Re: postmodernism?


very interesting post, of course it is obvious, but at the same time
invisible. Like Chomsky's concept about the frame of reference to contain
acceptable dissent, beyond which all thought is rejected, hence invisible.
We live among the most binary thinking imaginable, us - them, etc., without
thinking to deconstruct either us or them into an ecosystemic like
multiplicity and polyvalent parts. That was my initial point about
afghanistan or taliban as objects, which they are not, rather a multiplicity
of totally fluid, polyvalent segments.

jb

-----Original Message-----
From: Carrol Cox [mailto:cbcox@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 7:08 AM
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [PEN-L:20066] Re: Re: Re: postmodernism?




Rob Schaap wrote:
>
>
>
> centre = middle point - of which one entity may have a maximum of but one.
>

Some metaphors are _really_ dead and can't be wrenched back to life like
this. In all but the narrowly (euclidean) sense of the word there can
clearly be many centers. Whether that is such an astounding or
paradigm-changing discovery or not is anothe question. The main
difference between "polycentric" and "many-centered" is that the former
conceals implied analytic assumptios that may not hold or even be
formulable. Any group existence (even of a totalitarian state or
"party") is clearly many-sided -- e.g., some analyses of Germany in the
1930s could be profoundly true and interesting even though they
abstracted wholly from Nazism as party or state.

Carrol