RE: Adorno on TV

[Matthew Levy <mlevy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 5 Jun 1999, Ralph Dumain wrote:

> Thanks for you efforts in all these posts, Matt.  I don't mean to be
> supercilious all the time.

Oh, no problem.  I don't mind your writing style at all, and am glad that
you can deal with my retorts in kind ... I prefer this kind of discussion
over ... well you know perfectly well what we have to compare it to.

 >
> At 10:46 PM 6/4/99 -0700, Matthew Levy wrote:
> >do you still think this?  REALLY????  you remind me here in some
> >ways of my roommate, who told me as a child he had a fantasy of
> >floating in a bubble, alone, high over Pluto, staring into the
> >depths of space.  This
> >may be a kind of psychology that I will never really understand.
>
> That dream reminds me of a very bizarre dream I had while still in the
> crib.  I dreamt I was up in the clouds with God(?), looking down on the
> earth below.  Awaiting my next reincarnation, perhaps?

Memories from the crib, eh?  I guess that sort of dream isn't all that
incomprehensible ... it's just that I've never experienced such feelings.
The moments where I have felt most distant from the rest of humanity were
always still in relation to others ... you could say I have a very social
anti-social self.  for instance when I was a *really* alienated teenager I
would have fantasies of controlling nuclear bombs, etc. ... but it was
always a violent separation-desire born out of frustration with my
immediate social circumstances (can we just stop to thank the heavens I
didn't end up a Trenchcoat Mafia type?), not a radical isolation like you
discuss.  Also I have a strong early memory of asking my mother why people
had to wear clothes ... so I guess what I'm saying is that my feelings of
alienation have always been directed towards wanting other people to
behave differently than they do so that I can put more of myself into the
social web, not towards the idea of being completely apart from it.

 > > >i find this fascinating as a document of your
psychology,
but > >totally baffling as an attempt at communication.  And don't tell
> >me that this is due to my limited life experience ... sounds to me
> >like you're just plain weird.
>
> If only you knew ... but this question of thought viz. social
> relations--it's a big question, and I came to some drastic conclusions
> about it in the summer of 1997, but this is a long story.  But be assured
> I'm working on a more coherent account of these ideas.
>

I guess I will have to wait ... I suppose what surprises me is not your
disdain for "unthought" social relationships, but the idea that you (or
anyone) could ever exist completely beyond them.  Reminds me of
Nietzsche's critique of guilt ... I understand what he's saying but can't
imagine being able to or even wanting totally to purge myself of such
things ... I am and always will be mired in my social world, even as I
take steps to change it, and I like that, it's part of what makes my life
meaningful.

 > >seems to cast
everything else we've been discussing into "radical
> >doubt" ... you believe in lone wolf autodidacticism, yet you were
> >just talking
> >about raising children.  in what reality can you reconcile these?
>
> Tell you what.  You need to see a children's movie called HARRIET THE SPY.
> It is magnificent and embodies my philosophy.
>

I've heard good things about that one.  Maybe I'll rent it this weekend.

> >Chomsky wants to restore the Cartesian faith that
> >reason transcends culture
>
> I think Chomsky overextended himself in the extrapolation of his
> philosophical views from his linguistic theory, but this sentence of yours
> gives me such a hard-on.  You can't be against Descartes without being for
> fascism.  Too bad Chomsky has no concept of social science and is utterly
> clueless about Marx.

This is the second time now our conversation has taken a turn towards the
phallic ... wonder what this means.  I wouldn't agree that Chomsky has no
concept of social science or Marx ... instead i would say that he lives
his own philosophy; because he is a rational individual living in this
society, his method of social critique is simply to think through the
immediate contradictions with which he is faced (especially regarding
institutionalized violence, both foreign and domestic) ... I think Chomsky
believes that overt violence (killing by the state) is the most offensive
facet of our political institutions and so he aims to change that first,
focusing on those places where the most killing has happened (for instance
East Timor), and so he doesn't spend much time on thinking through more
subtle forms of oppression ... but it is certainly possible for us to use
his theory as a weapon in epistemological battles against
post-structuralists, and then to move on to more Marxian or social
scientific projects.  Apparently this is what Roy Bhaskar does with
Chomsky, but that's really outside of my expertise ...

matt