Hi Stephen,

Thanks for your interesting responses, and I can see
that in my fuzzy  thinking, I was more interested in
following certain murky patterns than in making the
various distinctions that had been previously
established in the thread. For instance,

> 1. I see your take on Crusoe - but the Robinson,
> unless I am getting him
> confused - is also a "cast out" personae/character
> in Weldon Kees' work.

yes, that's true, Crusoe 'the castaway' and  Robinson
in Kees' work as 'cast out' are distinct.  I was
saying "Robinson" as a sort of marker of reference
that included Crusoe, the Robinson of Kee's work, as
well as other personae/characters that  that might
fall into this description.


> I
> think I am talking about
> someone who remains "other" - in fact may be, for
> example, black, or for all
> social purposes, invisible - such as Ralph Ellison's
> Invisible Man.

Yes, I did gather this and this was the direction of
my interest too, but still I find various problematics
in saying this.  

For instance, the connection of the 'someone who
remains 'other'' with someone who is black or  'black'
and 'for all social purposes, invisible'  posited 
within the same category.  I think the opposite could
just as truthfully be said, that one of the issues
with race identification is that  being black, or of
any minority appearance makes one too visible and
therefore made subject to social purposes, even if
while being 'invisible' in terms of social
responsibility or accountability. 

> 2.  In terms of "reality" I don't believe I
> mentioned any assumption of a
> 'fixed point'! Communities, utopian or pragmatically
> defined are, by
> definition, not going to be ever 'fixed' into some
> permanently stable site.

No, you didn't assume a fixed point and apologies if I
suggested so. I was thinking not of the communities,
whether utopian or pragmatic, as fixed points, but
rather of the sense in which communal utopias are
posited against, in reply to, as an alternative to the
prevailing society outside the utopia. The  prevailing
society operates as a fixed point , however it's
defined, which the utopian impulse moves away from,
and toward the fixed point of the utopia's own
idea/ideal of the alternative way of life. The process
of utopias are mutable and variable, and I think the
utopia often fails because its architecture--away from
prevailing society as a fixed point toward the fixed
point of the utopia's ideal--is at variance with the
actual process to the degree of where the architecture
collapses, the ideal ruined by the processes it
brought into being and those it never contained.

 > In terms of women and utopia, I think recent
history
> is full of examples of
> various women's collectives with utopian
> aspirations. They must have missed
> your awareness. 

Maybe so, but I was thinking of what you originally
said about  communal utopias, not collectives, or
communities which I think have more partial or limited
aspirations.  

> The notion that women are more likely than men to
> experience the
> contemporary (reality) as more fragmented and
> provisional slides into gender
> assumptions and separatisms that I don't find
> productive or true of my own
> life, as well as many of the lives I see around me,
> men and women. This is
> not to discount the 'big boys run the school' world
> - so obviously true with
> the current administration of the USA (but what a
> band of hysterics and
> rookie and dangerous fuckups).

Well, I don't know as I said that women experience
reality as more fragmented and provisional, but,
thinking about it, perhaps I should have. I'm not sure
why you allow for the differences that race bring to
the aspects of being other and not for differences of
gender. Also if the 'big boys run the school' world,
then it seems to me that invariably that would mean
the experience of women in such a world would be more
fragmented and provisional, and even more so, if it's
rookies and  dangerous fuckups whose gender has given
them an inside track. Nor is it just the big boys who
run the school, but most governments are thus, most
religious organizations, most corporations, most
academic departments, etc, and during the war, these
big boys giving themselves the go ahead, it seems to
me  that the invisibility of women, not a probably
chosen invisibility, has increased exponentially. I
admit it's risky to argue sensibility or the
perception of fragmentation and provisionality and
perhaps also to argue that women might have 'more'
access to anything experentially, even on a list where
it might be possible to say that men have more
experience in government or more experience in
strategizing and planning and carrying out war. But
still. . . just as I think it's obvious that being
black brings with it certain experiences and risks of
sensibility, I think gender does too, not out of
essential differences but cultural and experential
ones, and which may be perhaps why in terms of
writing, there's a discussion of Lisa Robertson's work
or the unsexed Yaqzan as particularly viable examples
of other 'others'. 

Anyway, just thinking, not arguing, and thanks for
your post,

best,

Rebecca



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