Postmodern Theory and Maxwell Street
by Dom Benson assisted by Vicky Kontou <Dominic.Benson@brunel.ac.uk>
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999
The thrust of Derrida and Foucault's philosophy was that the everything
can work together even if they seem to be contradictory. While
nothing can be definite, everyday things such as politics, performing
arts, social constructs, class, culture, etc., all have positive
and negative interactions. Consequently there is no single, unifying
bond between all the strands of our social fabric.
The basis of their philosophy was that there is no such thing
as a priori knowledge. Our existence depends not on prior knowledge
but on a structure consisting of different signs. These signs
do not necessarily bear any positive relation to each other -
in fact it is their contradictions that makes knowledge possible.
History is made up of names, dates and facts. Therefore to argue
that conservation "retards time" is fatuous and glib.
It does not bear scrutiny! It is the exact opposite of the Universities
stated mission.
Is the conservation of Maxwell Street to be a place for blues
fans only or will it serve the community. If the buildings in
Maxwell Street are replaced by a place of study for the elite,
how does that serve the community? Of course it will create some
jobs but something of unique symbolism will be destroyed in so
doing.
Here are some quotes pertinent to the discussion (although being
merely a political debate that shows no attempt to address concrete
issues, postmodern literary theory may be argued in opposing ways
without providing any solutions whatsoever - i.e. no sense makes):
- The essence of a sign has been its own disappearance in favour
of what it signifies. Paradoxically, the sign can be saved only
by destroying it as understood in our obfuscating tradition. Instead
we must insist that the organization of thought is its very condition;
and that sign-system is a formal play not of similarities but
of differences.
- "Differentiation" or "differing", which
may also and simultaneously be understood as "defer-ment"
or postponement (difference) is the authentic condition of an
on-going structural process.
-----by John Griffiths, "Deconstruction Deconstructed"
p.96 in Deconstruction: Omnibus Edition, edited by Andreas
Papadakis, Catherine Cooke and Andrew Benjamin, London: Academy
Editions, 1989. ISBN 0-856709964.
- [A]s far as the cultural context in which we are discussing
these issues is concerned, given the Internet, given globalisation,
it goes without saying that thinking beyond frontiers is in our
interest. Clearly, we are more and more likely to become strangers,
living in a different context than the one in which we were born.
It is this blending of origins which interests me. However, let
us be clear: national cultures and entities are having to co-habitate
in this same space, however global. An uprooting could not create
anything more remote than a neutral universal code...
- ...In other words, the point is not to construct some kind
of Esperanto, or some kind of abstract language originating from
nowhere, but on the contrary, in order to give life to new signs
(whether one is dealing with natural language, colours or spatial
forms), it is necessary to establish a bridge from one's origins
to the arrival and appropriation of a whole new set of signs.
What I am referring to here is thus the existence of an inter-semiotic
in the making, as opposed to a neutral code. I think that it is
important to name this process because often, when you hear about
cross-culturalism or seductive terms such as 'exiled art', there
tends to be an assumption that an abstract code is already in
place to frame the oncoming signs.
- I think we can say that in the current period it is the interface
between cultures which is most visible, the emergence of fractions
and not their obliteration through an abstract system of signs.
Thus with regard to your question on the nature of work produced
in exile, the hardest aspect of all is to find a way to remain
in contact with the culture of origins, and yet to appropriate
this new culture, so that a cross-breeding of the two can occur.
-----by Julia Kristeva (interviewed by Alexia Defert), The Question
of Exile, p.16 in De-, Dis-, Ex-. Vol. 2, The Anxiety of Interdisciplinarity,
edited by Alex Coles and Alexia Defert, London: BACKless Books
in association with Black Dog Publishing, 1998. ISBN 1-901033-75-9.
- For Derrida, once the concept of sign was dislocated and its
logic destroyed, the sign reflected no definitive meaning. It
was always doubling, redoubling, and dedoubling what it reflected.
-----by Louis Martin, Writing and Post-structuralism, p. 67 in
De-, Dis-, Ex-. Vol. 2 (ibid).
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