That is, cultural value and interpretation (including one's construction of themselves and the people that they "know" or think they "know") is not a free-for-all of signifiers bouncing around in some atomic blizzard of meaning/lessness. Sorry, it's just not.
But neither is fiction! I mean, neither If on a winter's night a traveler.... or Foucault's Pendulum or Finnegan's Wake or whatever one wants to use as an examplar of postmodernist fiction could possibly be described as that! All fiction--including (perhaps especially?) my own fanfiction--is contingent and contextualized. So I don't see the distinction you're making here.
Along the way, I hope we can forge (doubled meaning intentional; gods, I feel like it's 1991 again, and I'm writing a "clever" bit of pomo textual analysis for my grad seminar) relationships that matter to us, and that, in those relationships, we can accept contingent, inauthentic yet deeply meaningful connections to an always-already (de)constructed "real," rather than see everything as merely "text."
Well, yes. But I've forged a relationship (broadly defined) with Summer Glau that matters to me, and I've forged a relationship (in a more traditional sense) with ladyphoenixmage that matters to me. Now, there are differences between the relationships: I've actually met the latter woman but not the former, and the latter relationship means more to me than the former--but is the underlying process by which that relationship which matters to me is forged any different?
I guess what I'm getting at is that if it's all fiction and signifiers anyway, then WTF does anything matter?
Would nonfictional signifieds be able to provide an answer to that question?
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Date: 2008-01-31 03:53 am (UTC)But neither is fiction! I mean, neither If on a winter's night a traveler.... or Foucault's Pendulum or Finnegan's Wake or whatever one wants to use as an examplar of postmodernist fiction could possibly be described as that! All fiction--including (perhaps especially?) my own fanfiction--is contingent and contextualized. So I don't see the distinction you're making here.
Along the way, I hope we can forge (doubled meaning intentional; gods, I feel like it's 1991 again, and I'm writing a "clever" bit of pomo textual analysis for my grad seminar) relationships that matter to us, and that, in those relationships, we can accept contingent, inauthentic yet deeply meaningful connections to an always-already (de)constructed "real," rather than see everything as merely "text."
Well, yes. But I've forged a relationship (broadly defined) with Summer Glau that matters to me, and I've forged a relationship (in a more traditional sense) with
I guess what I'm getting at is that if it's all fiction and signifiers anyway, then WTF does anything matter?
Would nonfictional signifieds be able to provide an answer to that question?