Christopher Norris "Postmodernising History: Right Wing Revisionism and the Uses of Theory"

In an essay that comes timely after conversations concerning Spivak's can the subaltern speak, and the question of what an issue means when it is "purely" or "just" textual, Norris addresses the issue of the use of theory, and the dangers of getting caught up within textuality and deconstructive thinking.

Beginning, Norris speaks specifically to Stanely Fish, Paul de Man and the use of theory in the fields of Law, Social sciences and history. He notes de Man's notion that theory itself tends to turn in upon itself at points if pushed far enough. Importantly, he traces the connection between literary theory and philosophy. Admitting the usefulness of multi-disciplinary studies, Norris brings to light the lack of boundaries that this creates for literary theory. This conflation of recognizable limits of fields can lead to the oversight that certain methods of thoughts have solid history processes of thought, and have, in their own sort of development, gone through specific thought processes:

So, Derrida is far from endorsing Richard Rorty's proposal that we should drop the idea of "philosophy" as a discipline with its own particular interests, modes of argument, conceptual prehistory and so on, and henceforth treat it as just one "kind of writing" among others, on a level with poetry, literary criticism and the human sciences at large. In fact his recent essay have laid increasing stress on this need to conserve what is specific to philosophy, namely its engagement with ethical, political and epistemological issues that cannot be reduced tout court to the level of an undifferentiated textual "freeplay"

Further, Norris speaks to Fish's claim that the extension of Literary theory in other fields in essence ends only extending its sort of hegemonic claim over modern day thought. Fish claims against the sort of way of thinking that upholds a sort of consensus concerning a specific way to approach fields such as Law, Philosophy, social sciences, and even history. Interestingly, Fish upholds that all ways of thinking are intimately involved with "interpretative communities". Additionally, Fish notes that, should theorists claim that their way of thinking is anti-hegemonic, there must be a sort of delusion occurring. Purportedly, these theorists who claim this anti-hegemony way of thinking must extend their ways of thinking in order to provide for this sort of consensus.

I want to jump to the most interesting part of the article to me; keeping in mind the time Norris spends on outline Britain political history and its relationship to the Critical Legal Theorists.

Claiming this sort of conflation and oversight of literary theory boundaries and individual theoretical development respectively, Norris then turns to an actual application of theory in Britain law. What remains important and pertinent to our conversation is his example of this conflation and oversight by Clark in a Right-wing revisionism. This use of literary theory to re-present history in an advantageous manner is an exaggeration of what Norris speaks to in the beginning of his essay. Clark presents British history through a right-wing lens. Understanding specific political events such as the Industrial Revolution, a political change in 1869 that lessened the power of the monarchy to, in actually, be falsified through liberal metafiction he upholds that these events drastically differently.

First, he sees the Industrial revolution, not as a period in time at all, and secondly he sees the word revolution as problematic: pointing to notions of turning away from specific failing political systems and embracing new, sometimes drastically different ones. This is false, Clark claims, seeing the the industrial revolution as merely a notion in liberal re-writing of history, and denies that the Industrial revolution was a valid developmental period in time at all. Further the political change in 1869 did not serve to lessen the power of the monarchy at all; rather it merely altered the role of the monarchy in the government, but not lessening the power of the monarchy in any way.

These drastic representations, Norris, asserts cannot be addressed through a mutually falsified liberal notion of literary theory that conflates both boundaries, and worth of manners of thinking such as Law. He asserts that Law, as a way of thinking, has developed primarily through rigorous arguments and is not founded upon purely cover metaphorical language.

In the end, Norris upholds that the only way to battle Clark's way of thinking is to maintain a certain notion of historical theory, or theory in general that upholds and claims certain kantian truths, such as Kantain truth in communication. He asserts, rightfully:

My point is that "critical theory" in the current poststructuralist mode cannot engage with such issues because it has effectively renounced any claim of distinguishing between reason and rhetoric, knowledge and power, judgments arrived at through a process of uncoerced, rational debate, and judgments resting on prejudice, dogmas or the exercise of unchecked authority. What is needed is an openness to other kinds of theory that have held out against this relativising drift on account of its conservative implications.

Balancing nicely, the issue of theory and practice Norris outline a possibility for a supposed "real world" application of theory that may be applied in Law, social sciences with confidence of acknowledging certain truths that have gone through reasonable progressions and theoretical processes.