The idea of Textuality

Toward the end of our conversation on Wednesday, you noted the tendency for students of theory to over exentuate the idea of textuality, to romanticize it: placing it in such a position where things, events, ideas, cultures as "just textual". This notion, though persuasive (probably because it explains things easily in complete negation).

You used the example of romantic love: noting that it is culturally informed, and yet you still know that you love. I think, in a close manner, this question is related to the question of what a person is supposed to do with theory, especially post-colonialism and deconstruction.

Through a brief example I hope to be able to bring light to what I'm really trying to say.

Last evening I went to a movie showing at Carleton College. The movie was titled "Papers", and it covered the topic of undocumented youth in the United States and their struggles with education and life after high school. Of the three youth profiled in the movie, all had come to the US when they were very young. Their illegal immigration into the US had nothing to do with their conscious decision making process. So their situation was created by decisions made completely by someone else, it was out of their hands. After covering each of the youths' story, the movie ended with a short montage on the DREAM Act, which is a bill that offers undocumented youth, in good legal standing, who have been in the US at least five years prior to the acceptance of the bill access the US residency for 6 years. This residency is based upon the understanding that the youth will then either graduate from college or join the military in this time.

The DREAM act has yet to be passed. Throughout the movie, there were multiple interviews with congressman and senators, explaining the how the governmental process has been going, what difficulties they are facing, and furthermore what the implications of such as act could have upon the state of things in the US. Phrases including "structural" or "systematic" change ranged as some of the most often quoted. It was noted that this bill has been presented before the Senate and Congress in some form or the other for the past ten years, and either hasn't actually been addressed or wasn't passed. Each year, youth from all over the country travel to Washington DC to support this bill and advocate for its passing.

During this entire movie I couldn't help wondering why the government has been neglecting this issue: "Why haven't these people been heard?" Because of a broken immigration system in the US families are being torn apart, people are living on unlivable wages, being treated as second rate citizens, or not even being acknowledged as citizens. It became obvious to me (probably because we just read Spivak and completely understood it all (right??)), although admittedly on a much smaller scale in comparision to the tribals in Pterodactyl, that there is a distinct repressive relationship between a dominant ideology and those living within the society of the dominant ideology. To call these undocumented youth citizens of the country would be a harsh criticism upon our own country: in its dramatic and gross failure of providing for its citizens; or classifying these undocumented youth as citizens would be just a plain lye. Either way, these undocumented youth occupy a marginal and liminal place within reality. I do not hope to convey that these undocument youth maintain any less value or need for education and basic human rights of health care and so on, only to point that the blatant fact that undocumented peoples, like the tribals in Pterodactyl occupy distinct positions within countries.

After the movie, there was a conversation concerning how the audience in the room could improve the situation. Now, understandably because we live in Northfield, Minnesota and because the movie was held at Carleton college, the audience was full of well-off white adults. The conversation included topics on updates on Minnesota's situation with this topic, to what exactly the DREAM act entailed. It seemed that the audience realized that something wasn't being done. There were specific reasons why the DREAM act hasn't been signed, and passed. And these reasons included racism, republican contrariness and prejudices that produce unwillingness in the general public.

All of these reasons are valid and true (though the republican stab is a little biased, I admit). However, I couldn't get over a feeling of stagnation within the room. This conversation was productive to an end: educating those already educated in the issues, and hoping that they will in the end go and help those undocumented youth who need this help. That previous sentence is fraught with difficulties, inequalities, and ideology.

I became convinced, through the movie and the conversation after that this is an issue that will not be correctly addressed: that the liminal situation of the undocumented within our country will note be solved, until the basic repressive, deaf ideology confronts a situation or environment where it is forced to accept and change its stance. In the end, I found I came to the thought that this will not be correctly addressed until the general dominant ideology which is inherently repressive and deaf to these second rate citizens, undocumented, liminal youth or adults changes its stance.

All of this, I think is distinctly related to the question of what can we do now that we have admitted that we are confronting a "subaltern" position, where the subaltern cannot speak nor can they be heard. Furthermore, one should be wary of this analysis, admitting that my thoughts, outlooks, and biases (see, the republican jab was biased) are textual as well.

So, am I screwed? Am I better to sit around and check out of the situation; yielding that no matter how I am to act, I will be operating out of some ideology against another ideology (assuming oppositional ideologies are possible)? If everything is "just textual" is there a concrete, experiential reality that I may point to as T/truth?

As you mentioned, though textuality may call into question Truths, is does not give up the fact of truths: certain authoritative statements concerning reality as I see it, understand it, internalize it (all of this accepting through various ideological lenses) have massive, and paramount impacts upon my life.

The question of what we do now is distinctly related to the question of how we are to approach ideologies, how we are to approach textualities and our own situations withing both of these. The DREAM act is not a futile attempt, it is an reaction to the general ideological deafness toward the undocumented people within out country. Textuality then, seams to go back upon itself, through biases that exist through cracks in ideologies that are shown when various truths come into contact with other truths. Action then, is not futile, yet inherently through textuality that does not negate truths, but strongly questions the notions of Truths and the nature of reality and humanity within it.

-Hopefully that last paragraph makes sense. I'd appreciate any comments you have to this.

Spivak: "Can the Subaltern Speak"

Okay, so after finishing the Spivak and looking over the articles I want to try and offer a brief synopsis of some of the important points I think Spivak is making.

Primarily, Spivak offers a sharp critique of Foucault (F) and Deleuze (D). This large, first portion of her text pivots around F and Ds focus on interest, desire, and power: specifically looking at the (S)ubject from the view of the western intellectual. She accurately brings out F and Ds oversight of not correctly acknowledging the role of ideology within social relations, and labor structures: "Because these philosophers seem obliged to reject all arguments naming the concept of ideology as only schematic rather than textual, they are equally obliged to produce a mechanically schematic opposition between interest and desire. Thus they align themselves with bourgeois sociologists who fill the place of ideology with a continuistic "unconscious" or a parasubjective 'culture'" And so, Spivak suggests, "Neither D nor F seems aware that the intellectual within socialized capital, brandishing concrete experience, can help consolidate the international division of labor"

Spivak fills out this point with a look at the difference and utility of "representation" (vertreten) and "re-presentation" (darstellen). The first sense of representation brings out the political and economical impacts of the western intellect. This invovles a complex understanding of the relationship of colonialism, ideology, and most importantly an actual subsitution of the subject. The act of representation inherently involves Marx's notion of class consciousness. Spivak questions the notion of class consciousness, steering away from any monolithic solid notion and suggesting that though heterogenitically made up, it might be possible to group peoples, yet inherently problematic: "The gravity of the problem is apparent if one agrees that the development of a transformative class "consciousness" from a descriptive class "position" is not in Marx a task engaging the ground level of consciousness. Class consciousness remains with the feeling of community that belongs to national links and political organizations, not to that other feeling of community whose structural model is the family"

Here, Spivak wishes to push the notion of class consciousness away from the patriarchal notion of the family, which is inherently influenced through representation and ideology. Again, she underscores her point on the notion of class consciousness as inherently influenced by ideology and textual. Furthermore, she asserts that the intellectuals position through this sort of representation is textual as well and has lead to a continuation of the patriarchal, ideological, notion of class consciousness: "The absence of the nonfamilian artificial collective proper name is supplied by the only proper name "historical tradition" can offer--the patronymic itself--the Name of the Father. ... It is the Law of the Father (the Napoleonic Code) that paradoxically prohibits the search for the natural father. Thus, it is according to a strict observance of the historical Law of the father that the formed yet unformed class's faith in the natural father is gainsaid."

Further, Spivak enters into the conversation concerning re-presentation, or the philosophical concept of representation. Here the idea of representation is inherently related to values, "as produced in necessary and surplus labor, [it] is computer as the representation sign of objectified labor. She focuses on the impacts of global capitalism, and the influence of ideology and finally she asserts that theorists who uphold Marxist accounts of capitalism and ideology cannot avoid looking at representation with a dual meaning, or impact. "They must not how the staging of the world in representation--its scene of writing, its Darstellung--dissimulates the choice of and need for 'heroes' paternal proxies and agents of power--Vertretung.

Constrasting his continuing critiques of F and D, Spivak continues to look at Derrida and intends to uphold his more tedious, yet nonetheless effective deconstruction. Continuing, she introduces the influences of ideology, power, interest, desire, upon the S/subject and object.

All of her critique on past authors works well in the fact that, she is addressing an issue (when she finally gets to it, about 20 pages in) that deals with class consciousness. The very idea of the subaltern calls into question relational issues with other class, societies, cultures, (colonialism) and power issues as well (colonial issues again).

Her account of the subaltern as a woman is a calculated step: meaning that she accurately brings out the distinct otherness of a woman in Indian hindu society. She spends time delving into Hindu mythology and the societal structures that result because of this. The proposes the question of can the subaltern speak while concomitantly proposing a sentence that can be problematized and scrutinized to support her answer. The idea that white men and saving brown women from brown men; furthermore she introduces the flip side of the issue by the native, indian response/question of what if the brown woman wants to die.

She begins by introducing the history of British colonialism in India through education (and she includes a passage from an essay we read). Next she explicates the act that she plans to address: the suicide of women upon their husbands funeral pyres. She explains how the british government, opposed the act through constitutional law. She addresses the various names that a woman may be called, and finally she uses a personal example to elucidate the point taht the subaltern cannot speak, and is not heard.

-Alright, this is where I'll just talk and try to sound as intelligent as I can. One of the difficulties was the differentiation between subject and object. I felt that she was long winded at times, spending time covering her explaining things that are extra and only applicable to those who operate in the high minded intellectual world.

If I have more thoughts on what needs clarification, I'll add them soon. See you tomorrow in the cage at 11

Here are some passages with brief comments from Benjamin's "These on the Philosophy of History"

A historical materialist cannot do without the notion of a present which is not a transition, but in which time stands still and has come to a stop. For this notion defines the present in which he himself is writing history. Historicism gives the "eternal" image of the past; historical materialism supplies a unique experience with the past. The historical materialist leaves it to others to be drained by the whore called "Once upon a time" in historicism's bordello. He remains in control of his powers, man enough to blast open the continuum of history.

This passage notes many important aspects of historical materialism. Primarily it notes the use and control that history is commonly subjected to. Benjamin, here, claims the power behind historical materialism: specifically in its ability to uncover the process that is history and historicism.

The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the "state of emergency" in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the struggle against Fascism. One reason why Fascism has a chance is that in the name of progress its opponents treat it as a historical norm. The current amazement that the things we are experiencing are "still" possible in the twentieth century is not philosophical. This amazement is not the beginning of knowledge--unless it is the knowledge that the view of history which gives rise to it is untenable.

One thing that is important to note is the inherent political bent of Historical materialism. Looking toward oppression and marginalization of populations necessitates a look at their history which is given by the hegemonic ideologies. This "state of emergency" requires a re-presentation, it requires another look at the the present as it is influenced by the past.

The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again. "The truth will not run away from us": in the historical outlook of historicism these words of Gottfriend Keller mark the exact point where historical materialism cuts through historicism. For every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably. (The good tiding which the historian of the past brings with throbbing heart may be lot in the void the very moment he opens his mouth.)

In a simple sense, what is interesting and important to remember concerning the relationship between the present and the past (history) is the control and use and manipulation of images and memories. These brief flashes of memory serve to cement our political, economic, and cultural ideology. Much of this can be aligned with N.'s three theories concerning the interpretation of history: monumental, antiquarian, and critical.

Nietzsche "The Use and Abuse of History"; Benjamin "Theses on the Philosophy of History"

I'd like to start with a brief overview of what I understood Nietzsche to mean in his essay

Nietzsche's essay begins with an analogy, stating that humans are memory ridden beings, and that humans would be most happy, or at least would be best fit for happiness if they could quit this, creating a being (much like his cow) that approaches each moment afresh, without any record of this moment or event ever taking place before. It seems that humanity is obsessed with memory and history, and because of this the present and the future are undeniably influenced by a way of constructing history. He continues noting that each individual conception (of a community's or a personal identity conception) is deeply influence by history; persons, cities, nations, humanity to a certain extent molds and forms its identity. The use of history becomes more broad as the scale increases in population. It seems, however, that Nietzsche sees this not as a theory, but a law.

This is a universal law: a living thing can only be healthy, strong, and productive within a certain horizon; if it be incapable of drawing one round itself, or too selfish to lose its own view in another's, it will come to an untimely end. cheerfulness, a good conscience, belief in the future, the joyful deed, all depend in the individual as well as the nation, on there being a line that divides the visible and clear from the vague and shadowy; ... This is the point that the reader is asked to consider; that the unhistorical and the historical and equally necessary to the health of an individual, a community, and a system of culture.

Thus he presents his case: humanity is intimately connected with history, so how has it been used and abused; how does it form and influence the health of cultures, individuals, communities? After hovering over a possible "superhistorical" being: an individual who for either an unending hope in the present redeemed in the future or due to a depression that deems that history has nothing to teach, that history has no salvation to bring, "how could the next ten years teach what the past ten were not able to teach?"

Then, N. brings three general uses of history: Monumental, Antiquarian, Critical. Quickly, Monumental looks to the past and finds greatness. An eternal redemption by the past of the present. She (the monumental historian) seeks redemption through a sort of imitation in character of the past: "his goal is happiness, not perhaps his own, but often the nation's, or humanity's at large; he avoids quietism, and uses history as a weapon against it. For the most part he has no hope of reward except fame, which means the expectation of a niche in the temple of history, where he in his turn may be the consoler and counselor of posterity." Monumental historians seek to concretize certain historical moments and uphold them as great, true, authoritative.

Secondly, antiquarian historian sees history only and profoundly within her ancestral or cultural line. This is a historian who tightens the strings on her "horizon" and upholds all of it as great: The antiquarian sense of a man, a city or a nation has always a very limited field. ... There is no measure: equal importance is given to everything, and therefore too much to anything. For the things of the past are never viewed in their true perspective or receive their just values, but values and perspective change the with the individual or the nation that is looking back on its past." This line of thought plays into culture hegemony and domination more so than the monumental historian. And to a certain extent can explain the logic behind the "great books" tradition. It does not see a sort of regenerative notion concerning the present (the monumental sees the possibility of redemption of the present through certain, specific great moment of the past). Antiquarian understands the past only as great. And thus remains only in the past.

The final way that N. gives is the "critical" historian. Simply, this is a historian who sees all history as contemptible, unjust, destroyed (to a certain extent, though not erased). "Every past is worth condemning: this is the rule in mortal affairs, which always contain a large measure of human power and human weakness." In place of this first history is a new way of life, a second way. It seeks a redemption of the present and future through the destruction and judgment of the past. However, this is dangerous, N. notes, due to the fact that in attempting to destroy all of history, she is destroying her own identity's foundation.

N. then goes into a commentary concerning the current cultural historical situation in Germany. Noting the fact that much of the education system concentrates on a "knowledge of the past" as opposed to actual incorporation.

This, however, is where I am a bit confused on what N. is asking for. he does not seem to uphold either monumental, antiquarian or critical, so what does he call for? My initial thoughts tell me that he seems to be asserting that there is some sort of German identity grounded in the past, though in constant pursuit of regeneration of the present and future through upholding good things in the past, denying others, while concentrating on a german way of doing things. In other words he wants to take good things from all three methods and assert them as the true way of education. "the people that can be called cultured, must be in a real sense living a unity , and not be miserably cleft asunder into form and substance." (Which is his criticism of the education system only providing the idea that if one "knows" of history, cultures, then one is aware of them. (I'm not sure about "aware" maybe a bad choice of wording.)

Pterodactyl, Puran Sahay, and Pirtha

All in all, this was an interesting, compelling and powerful work. I do, however, feel that I could have approached this work with a stronger background, allowing them then to understand and catch more of the analogies, political commentaries, and so on. Much of the naming in the book, became slightly confusing to me, and in the end I found myself singly paying attention to Bikhia, and Puran. Each other person unintentionally became a single character who interactions were meant to contrast Puran and Bikhia's action.

Before jumping into my thoughts concerning Devi's work, I want to comment on the usefulness of Spivak's afterword concerning the novella.

There are several quotes I want to note and comment on:

The pterodactyl is not only the ungraspable other but also the ghost of the ancestors that haunts our present and our future. We must learn "love" (a simple name for ethical responsibility-in-singularity), as Puran does in"Pterodactyl," in view of the impossibility of communication. No individual transcendence theology, being just in this world in view of the next,--however the next is underplayed--can bring us to this.

Before this quote, Spivak comments on Liberation Theology's ability to raise and uphold an indigenous, native culture. She elucidates that the pterodactyl is inconcievable for the "modern" indian and a symbol of the ancestor's soul for the indigenous. Puran's position within this spectrum is unique in that he is "modern" through education, culture, yet has grown to appreciate and "love" the indigenous way of life. What is notable about Spivak's comments concerning her expication of Puran's role is the fact that this is a situation that can and may be taken out of Indian culture: placed within any indigenous setting which is relating to and within a post-colonial environment.

the bitter humor with which [Devi] treats the government's family planning posters shows us that the entire initiative is cruelly unmindful of the robbing of the women and men of Pirtha of the dignity of their reproductive responsibility. All collective struggle for the right to sexual preference and pleasure, the right to equitable work outside and in the home, the right to quality in education, must be supplemented by the memory that to be human is to be always and already inserted into a structure of responsibility.

This was a point that I thought was extremely poignant and helpful. It is interesting to note Devi's use of materials (posters, trucks, block offices) to demonstrate cultural and worldview understandings. There was a point in the novella where an exchanged occured between another character and Puran, where the other character noted that sexual pleasure was one of the few remaining pleasures that the people of Pirtha have left. Without jobs, food, boredom sets in and becomes as strangling as hunger.

What follows is not a romanticization of the tribal. Indeed "Pterodactyl" is a critique of any such effort. The following paragraphs outline a dream based on the conviction that large-scale mind change is hardly ever possible on grounds of reason alone. In order to mobilize for nonviolence, for example, one relies, however remotely, on building up a conviction of the "sacredness" of human life. "Sacred" here need not have a religious sanction, but simply a sanction that cannot be contained within the principle of reason alone.

This, I think is an important theme for "Pterodactyl", in its purported relationship between the people of Pirtha and their land. The pterodactyl, for Bikhia, demonstrated the innate connection between the land and the people of Pirtha. A distinct, unique history is found within this land, and to move, to be displaced due to man-made famine and starvation is to distinctly lose a large sense of their identity. The people of Pirtha are instinctually connected to the land.

Puran becomes part of the tribes ongoing historical record. He sees the pterodactyl. If the exchange between the nameless Monster (without history) and Victor Frankenstein is a finally futile refusal of withheld specularity, the situation of the gaze between pterodactyl (before history) and a "national" history that holds tribal and nontribal together, is somewhat different.

This is a convenient quote to lead us into a discussion directly with the text: for the text operates at an multi-analogous level, and much of it has to do with indigenous idenity, post-colonial relations within a post-colonial state; all of these points innately deal with history, and the debate of a single or plural history. For the people of Pirtha, their history is distinctly connected to the land, and their ancestors. Geography, and movement within the land helps create and sustain formative myths, and stories for indigenous cultures in Ecuador (I'm studying this for my distinction religion project, I find it difficult to presume a drastic difference for the indigenous of India as well.) The role of history, and the manner in which the government understands the indigenous history, post-independence India and Pre-independence India all plays a large role within "Pterodactyl".

This last quote by Spivak focuses' on an anaology that I didn't at first glance catch: the pterodactyl's role as the understanding of the indigenous peoples' starvation in Pirtha. For the "modern" Indian does not believe in the scientific possibility of an extinct animal living. Their understanding of the indigenous is similar to this notion of historical reality. Through government sliddings, and corrupt officials, the sufferings of Pirtha never quite reach the classification of famine. And so, in the government's eyes, Pirtha maintains a status of simply poor natives undergoing a "drought". Furthermore, the corruption of the officials cements this notion, because the officials are "allocating" or "spending" government money on these areas.

For the indigenous of Pirtha, the pterodactyl stands as a symbol of the ancestral history, giving them a self-determined legitimacy and right to their land, and the sufferings that are taking place within it and upon it through fertilization (poisioning of the wells) and the green revolution (which only led to a high stratification between the rich and poor within India).

In the end, Devi's work is appropriate in presenting an image/situation of a certain indigenous people within India. As noted above, this is and should not be a romanticized notion of all the indigenous, but instead, the reader might be wise to take a lesson from Puran, in simply "loving" or accepting an indigenous situation as one where the indigenous do have control, and decision. Not ultimately, but to take away any amount of self-determination that they do have would be the subjugate them further.