not such much a reply to david surman as a sidebar
to the musings of which he is currently at the center
david writes
I want to use Sophia Coppola's THE VIRGIN SUICIDES
as a source text that asserts the absence of fixed
meaning--connected to the literary intention of author
and i want to point out that a text CANNOT assert
the absence of fixed meaning -- at least not without
contradicting itself . . . assertions are of necessity
moves toward fixed meaning
yes, of course, OF COURSE, all meanings are context
dependent . . . but ultimately this isn't [ar at least need
not be] any more troublesome than the fact that the
letters M-A-R mean one thing if you're speaking english
and quite another if you're speaking italian . . . that
fixed meanings are fixed only for a given set of discursive
circumstances doesn't make their meaning any less fixed . . .
so let's not waste time lamenting the loss of a stable
absolute that we never had from the get go
m
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