David, I'm with you when you speak of the self entitatively, as well as
>something to do with knowing who to blame afterwards. That is to say, a
>matter of owning up and responsibility.
to which Kent replies
> Hmm. In fact, isn't this notion of blame and responsibility at the heart of
> Foucault's Author Function: "Blame," "responsibility," understood as
> ideological effects bearing the felt force of ethical imperative-- and an
> essential part of Power's feedback loop?
and Alison, you value something tangible in the practitioner, that does not melt away so
easily
> Oral poetry in an oral society depended on literal presence - someone
> couldn't say something to you unless they were there. That is, the
> commitment - the physical commitment - of performance. The text may have
> been anonymous, but its presentation was anything but.
whereas Kent envisions a far more fluid literary practice
> Where readers were ready and willing to abide within a kind of negative
> capability vis vis the authorship of a text? In this kind of milieu, I
> think, "responsibility" would move beyond being just the burden of
> authority, or "authenticity" the trademark of the Author's Name. The
> situation would (I suspect it would, anyway) be much more fluid and
> interesting.
The self as entity is the one that is resistant to the invitation or the possibility of
change, or it may have constraints against change imposed by Power; I think it's helpful
to acknowledge a range of causes or reasons for resisting change.
As David has suggested, we may do so in order to maintain a trust, be responsible to a set
of values or rules of behaviour -- I would add that we may do so simply in order to keep a
promise, and that's no simple matter. And I'm seeing Alison's reference to commitment in a
wider social context, where the performance is of life, and the physical presence of the
"player" entails a refusal to fade away but to be there for as long as it takes to fulfill
a commitment -- regardless of the temptation to do otherwise.
Nevertheless, as Kent suggests, the self is often *prevented* from freedom of movement and
play by (among other things) the imposition of a sense of guilt or responsibility as part
of "Power's feedback loop". So, sometimes the constraint placed upon the incandescent
flux of selves that Kent is suggesting is imposed, and sometimes it is a *feature* of the
flux, in the sense that one of the many ways the fluidity can choose to express itself is
through a virtually primal staying the same for a long enough duration to get *something*
done. What it means to be someone rather than everyone else.
In my view there's something ordinarily noble in this primal resistance which has as an
apparently mundane effect the maintenance of a familiar face and familiar reliable
behaviours. For a time this is resistance to powerful entropic and social forces that
would undermine it. The ordinary ("pre-postmodern"?) self is resistance first and
foremost, resistance to dissolution in and among all the potential selves it (at some
stage at least) *refuses* to become in order to be the one it is. And it's this that is
the ground of any further political resistance, and (because what Kent is talking about is
legitimately attractive) it's "where" (?some sort of psychic locus if you get my drift)
volitional inventions of selves or authoring positions can be enjoyed.
Nicholas
