That kind of elevation of texts beyond their sociocultural context
Hmm, I'm sympathetic to that sort of elevation, I suppose; I think it's the mystic inside me. But also culture is itself a type of text, so to say "stories are my culture" shouldn't be all that controversial, should it? Il n'y a pas de hors-texte and all that.
But you are certainly right about formalist criticism being a priveleged opportunity.
Do readers have an obligation to accept those universes? Not at all.
If they do accept them, then, does that mean it is their fault?
Texts create, represent, refer, and invert, but can they actually disempower?
If not, I have to ask, then what can? The only other answer I can be that as readers, of literal texts but more importantly of culture, we disempower ourselves. And I accept that on some level; after all, it seems intuitive to say that I can empower you. To imagine our (dis)empowerment as some sort of external force is itself disempowering.
But there is also a level on which I can't accept it, both because the very conclusion seems disempowering in some ways (in that it ignores the ways in which we can extend to others aids in empowering themselves), but also because there are people who, either because of injustice in our society (those mentally or physically fatigued because of work, those who have inadequate education) or natural causes (children, the mentally disabled) don't have the opportunity to react to texts critically).
Indeed, it seems to me the entire premise of my process of cultural critique assumes that texts can disempower (and empower, which is at least as important). The pledge of allegiance (and the cultural practice of reciting it in schools) disempowers atheists; non-gendered language disempowers women (and/or men, depending on the context); etc. To say that texts can't disempower seems to me to me to be a rejection of the very idea of systemic injustice, for what is such injustice if not textual? We're left with the conclusion that oppression is not the fault of the (in most cases well-intentioned and clueless) oppressors, but of the oprressed for allowing themselves to be oppressed.
Our personhood stems from our relations within a language and a culture, that is from texts, so that these texts have the power to disempower doesn't strike me as a radical statement.
(I have the feeling that one or both of us isn't understanding what the other is saying. I look forward to seeing where this goes.)
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Date: 2006-06-08 05:05 pm (UTC)Hmm, I'm sympathetic to that sort of elevation, I suppose; I think it's the mystic inside me. But also culture is itself a type of text, so to say "stories are my culture" shouldn't be all that controversial, should it? Il n'y a pas de hors-texte and all that.
But you are certainly right about formalist criticism being a priveleged opportunity.
Do readers have an obligation to accept those universes? Not at all.
If they do accept them, then, does that mean it is their fault?
Texts create, represent, refer, and invert, but can they actually disempower?
If not, I have to ask, then what can? The only other answer I can be that as readers, of literal texts but more importantly of culture, we disempower ourselves. And I accept that on some level; after all, it seems intuitive to say that I can empower you. To imagine our (dis)empowerment as some sort of external force is itself disempowering.
But there is also a level on which I can't accept it, both because the very conclusion seems disempowering in some ways (in that it ignores the ways in which we can extend to others aids in empowering themselves), but also because there are people who, either because of injustice in our society (those mentally or physically fatigued because of work, those who have inadequate education) or natural causes (children, the mentally disabled) don't have the opportunity to react to texts critically).
Indeed, it seems to me the entire premise of my process of cultural critique assumes that texts can disempower (and empower, which is at least as important). The pledge of allegiance (and the cultural practice of reciting it in schools) disempowers atheists; non-gendered language disempowers women (and/or men, depending on the context); etc. To say that texts can't disempower seems to me to me to be a rejection of the very idea of systemic injustice, for what is such injustice if not textual? We're left with the conclusion that oppression is not the fault of the (in most cases well-intentioned and clueless) oppressors, but of the oprressed for allowing themselves to be oppressed.
Our personhood stems from our relations within a language and a culture, that is from texts, so that these texts have the power to disempower doesn't strike me as a radical statement.
(I have the feeling that one or both of us isn't understanding what the other is saying. I look forward to seeing where this goes.)