 |
 |
Chris I've read all your discussions but can't say I've always comprehended them. Nevertheless, yesterday, while reading Christian Bök's 'Pataphysics: The Poetics of an Imaginary Science, the following struck me as connecting in some way to some things you said: Whereas poetry has always offered an egalitarian regime, destabilizing the _signifier_ within a generalized economy of polysemic enunciation, science has only offered a totalitarian regime, stabilizing the _signified_ within a restricted economy of monosemic enunciation. For Barthes, science must begin to acknowledge its ideological investments, radicalizing itself by poeticizing itself. If ideology is the unreal conciliation of a real contradiction, is it not fair to say that ideology is itself an imaginary solution -- and therefore 'pataphysical? If metaphysics must study the ontology of truth, must not 'pataphysics study the ideology of power? (16). There's much more, but that struck me as juxtaposing with some of your comments... Doug Douglas Barbour 11655 - 72 Avenue NW Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9 (780) 436 3320 http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/ Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy) http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664 Some speak of a return to nature -- I wonder where they could have been? Frederick Sommer