On 13 Nov 2000, at 9:21, Marshall Grossman wrote:
> What a bore! Not to speak for Miller, the name-calling I
> recall was a reference to Derrida's stature in the form of
> a junior high school analogy. The point about you Willett
> is that you assume that you always know the difference
> between truth and fiction and you are contemptuous of every
> one is still undecided. I happen to like fiction because I
> think it is the form in which truth is likely to reside.
This is so typical of those who feel their sacred cow has been
gored. Every Classical point I've taken, and probably wasted, time
to refute is unproblematical. There is nothing to decide about them.
Prof. Grossman apparently didn't recognize the errors for what they
were or he would surely have demurred and corrected them. The
notion that factual truth resides in fiction makes no sense if it's
supposed to imply that truth is completely malleable. The findings
which scholarship has, after long years of acute study, validated
cannot be ignored willy-nilly because they conflict with some current
philosophical fad or critical approach. Private communication
shows others on the list feel the same way.
> I've read your long posts denouncing Lacan and
> post-structuralism but somehow remained unconvinced.
> Perhaps because I am ignorant, but in that case you have
> failed to enlighten me. Your little disquisition about
> Saussure's failings for example, was a)nothing new or
> interesting, b) dependent on a characture of recent
> intellectual history--more specifically, an inability or
> unwillingness to contextualize post-structuralism with any
> sympathy so as to see what matters in Lacan's thought and
> what doesn't.
Prof. Grossman hasn't raised the ghost of an argument here, just
restated his opposition to my fairly detailed analysis of Lacan's roots
in the typically dismissive language Derrida likes to use. I didn't
"denounce," I offered a reasoned analysis designed to refute.
Postmodernists never can see the difference. One doesn't
"contextualize" the false, however it may "matter," to make it true. If
Prof. Grossman thinks Saussure is important in modern linguistics,
he's certainly free to think so by whatever rationale, but Saussure
remains a specious, though quaint, anachronism.
> But really, that's beside the point, which,
> for me,now, is your attitude. What your posts communicate
> to me is that you are very angry something and that you
> think you have some positive knowledge of Greek and Latin
> literature that the rest of us don't, disrespect, and
> won't compensate for, not that you care to share
> information about Spenser or renaissance literature. I'm
> sure you know more Greek than I. I'm not, however, inclined
> to depend on you when I have a question. There are others
> on this list, I'd trust first, and I'm tired of your
> invective. Bye.
1. Ah, it was inevitable: ad hominem psychologizing. I write with
some incisive wit, which I've never noticed from the Lacanites, and
without the slightest anger. That's the same old ouija board
mentalism that has so often been applied to my friend, and
Classicist, Victor Davis Hanson. I would just note that the personal
attacks came first from the Lacanites because they were infuriated
at my chutzpah in critiquing him. Inside many English departments
a similar critique would result in violent personal attacks and
attempts at de facto censorship. Well, there are many who have
done the same, including John Searle, John Ellis, Dennis Dutton
and Raymond Tallis. The list is actually much longer, but those four
should be sufficient to raise blood pressures. I always address
issues, not list members.
2. I have no idea what Prof. Grossman knows, and he certainly
doesn't know what I know, though apparently his psycho-ouija board
does.
3. The post that raised these personal animadversions--frequent
confusion of fiction with philosophy, boredom, bad attitude, anger,
doubtful knowledge, disrespect for list members--had quite a bit to
say about Classics and the Renaissance, but almost nothing about
Lacan or Derrida.
4. I note, finally, that in apparent righteous indignation Prof.
Grossman has lost track of English syntax in the paragraph above.
==============================================
Steven J. Willett
University of Shizuoka, Hamamatsu Campus
2-3 Nunohashi 3-chome, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan 432-8012
Voice and Fax: (053) 457-4514
Japan email: [log in to unmask]
US email: [log in to unmask]
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