Capital, Volume 1 (1867)
The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)
The General Theory of Relativity (1915)
Course in General Linguistics (1916) - Lectures 1906-1911
Quantum Uncertainty (Heisenberg) (1927)
Showing posts with label Marx. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marx. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
A Quick Look at (McKeon's) Structuralism
Walter Benjamin (in “The Storyteller”) laments the loss of reminiscence represented by Modernity. He relates this form of memory to the storyteller, who has his roots in oral tradition. These days, he argues, we are attracted by the verifiability of information, its capacity to give us a coherent story. This is reason at it’s best, Nietzsche’s Apolline, which claims that it can fit each piece into the puzzle. Thus, Benjamin argues, rememberence is “dedicated to one hero, one odyssey, one battle” (Theory of the Novel, Micheal McKeon ed., p. 86).
Modernity’s information-driven consciousness lends itself to a linear (i.e., ultimate) conception of historical understanding, which Levi-Strauss juxtaposes with the repetitive nature of myths (which, like Freud’s dream-content, employ layers of overdetermined meaning). He positions an initial break from myth-mindedness at the moment man adopted writing (“From Tristes Tropique”, in NATC, 2nd Edition, p. 1282). As a contrast to Modernity, Levi-Strauss points to all ancient civilization and a few contemporary societies (dwindling in number) which continue to live outside of history, relying instead on repeated cycles (e.g., seasons, lifetimes) to pattern an existence which resists the idea of permanent and irrevocable change (“The Savage Mind”, in Theory of the Novel, Micheal McKeon ed., p. 98-99).
Frye attempts to mark our descent into historical time onto the development of fiction. He sees modern literary development as a displacement away from myths--which like Freud’s dream-wish, represent “the imitation of actions near or at the conceivable limits of desire”--and toward the “verisimilitude” represented in realist and naturalist fiction (126). However, what Frye takes for realism, for the “plausibility” realized in modern fiction, is nothing more than that same ‘historical’ conception of our surroundings which Modernity has helped to develop in us. (Frye's definition of "real" is precisely opposite to Nietzsche's.) In an attempt to follow his analysis to its dialectical end, Frye usefully suggests that the most recent, ironic, mode of fiction might represent the beginning of a move backward along the axis.
Indeed, Marxist dialectic adopts the cyclical understanding of the myth-mind and applies it to swaths of time and space (i.e., to societal dream-content) which are possible only in their historical relationship to the linear, text- and information-driven history represented by Modernity. Marxism represents a post-historical, post-Enlightenment understanding which is also evident in post-modernism.
Modernity’s information-driven consciousness lends itself to a linear (i.e., ultimate) conception of historical understanding, which Levi-Strauss juxtaposes with the repetitive nature of myths (which, like Freud’s dream-content, employ layers of overdetermined meaning). He positions an initial break from myth-mindedness at the moment man adopted writing (“From Tristes Tropique”, in NATC, 2nd Edition, p. 1282). As a contrast to Modernity, Levi-Strauss points to all ancient civilization and a few contemporary societies (dwindling in number) which continue to live outside of history, relying instead on repeated cycles (e.g., seasons, lifetimes) to pattern an existence which resists the idea of permanent and irrevocable change (“The Savage Mind”, in Theory of the Novel, Micheal McKeon ed., p. 98-99).
Frye attempts to mark our descent into historical time onto the development of fiction. He sees modern literary development as a displacement away from myths--which like Freud’s dream-wish, represent “the imitation of actions near or at the conceivable limits of desire”--and toward the “verisimilitude” represented in realist and naturalist fiction (126). However, what Frye takes for realism, for the “plausibility” realized in modern fiction, is nothing more than that same ‘historical’ conception of our surroundings which Modernity has helped to develop in us. (Frye's definition of "real" is precisely opposite to Nietzsche's.) In an attempt to follow his analysis to its dialectical end, Frye usefully suggests that the most recent, ironic, mode of fiction might represent the beginning of a move backward along the axis.
Indeed, Marxist dialectic adopts the cyclical understanding of the myth-mind and applies it to swaths of time and space (i.e., to societal dream-content) which are possible only in their historical relationship to the linear, text- and information-driven history represented by Modernity. Marxism represents a post-historical, post-Enlightenment understanding which is also evident in post-modernism.
Nietzsche's Not-logic
How much of life is a battle between logic and not-logic. Whatever is the opposite of logic is what Nietzsche hopes to represent in the Dionysiac: logic’s dialectical antithesis. It is the same not-logic that dominates Freud’s conception of our unconscious. It is what ever is not-logical that compels people to believe in gods. Hegel praised the ascendancy of logic. Marx tended to lament it. How does capitalism (as we understand it) represent logical tendencies taken to extremes? In what way does Marxism or postmodernism, advocate a return to not-logic?
Every (major or minor) social revolution seems to begin in Dionysiac frenzy, a sudden, brief, but extreme restructuring of social and psychological ideas around not-logic, followed by a slow rehabilitation into a state of Apolline logic. This is easiest to see in war (especially simplified in revolutionary civil war, a physical changing of the guard). It is equally true for revolutions in thought. Nietzsche, Freud, Einstein, all those theoretical arguments that align themselves with not-logic, whose theoretical implications rock our human understanding to its core, insodoing tend to stir up the Dionysiac embers embedded in each (and all) of us. However, all of these revolutionary ideas also end up incorporated into logical patterns of thought, given logical applications.
As Hegel and Marx seem unable (unwilling?) to do, Benjamin conceives of this cycle not as progress toward some final synthesis, but as an ongoing and continuous process of dialectical potentiality. The dialectic compels us to consider where we stand within this cycle.
But how does our hope that things get better drive us to act, and what is the consequence of a position which denies the concept of progress?
Every (major or minor) social revolution seems to begin in Dionysiac frenzy, a sudden, brief, but extreme restructuring of social and psychological ideas around not-logic, followed by a slow rehabilitation into a state of Apolline logic. This is easiest to see in war (especially simplified in revolutionary civil war, a physical changing of the guard). It is equally true for revolutions in thought. Nietzsche, Freud, Einstein, all those theoretical arguments that align themselves with not-logic, whose theoretical implications rock our human understanding to its core, insodoing tend to stir up the Dionysiac embers embedded in each (and all) of us. However, all of these revolutionary ideas also end up incorporated into logical patterns of thought, given logical applications.
As Hegel and Marx seem unable (unwilling?) to do, Benjamin conceives of this cycle not as progress toward some final synthesis, but as an ongoing and continuous process of dialectical potentiality. The dialectic compels us to consider where we stand within this cycle.
But how does our hope that things get better drive us to act, and what is the consequence of a position which denies the concept of progress?
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