Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.1002101025480.17486@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: The Curious movement of philosophies;
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:26:10 -0500 (EST)
The Curious movement of philosophies; while existentialism is the philosophy of abject substance, deconstruction is the thought of the virtual/cyber frame. The former disappeared as an extractive industry with faltering natural resources; the latter expanded as a software of the text. I used to love existentialism when I was a kid, but now my references are limited to the following, across the broken trajectory of writing for the past couple of decades (culling 'existentialism' from the Internet Text): "of Godard or the avant-garde has given way to a now empty existentialism [... 8 lines removed ...} Introduction to Heideggerian Existentialism/Exoteric Teaching/The Dialog" There were a meager ten lines out of the entire Internet Text (which func- tions as a psychoanalytical trope in this instance) - even though one of the major strands of the work is that of abjection/annihilation; even the vocabulary of the 'hole' is analyzed in detail. On the other hand, references to deconstruction are too numerous to list or analyze; it appears everywhere in the work. It's as if there's a replacement philosophy for every philosophy, a replacement philosopher for every philosopher. Deconstruction appears, ends up appearing as a radical (non)-methodology for inhabiting often contrary subtexts - and this occurs popularly in one of two ways: deconstruction proper, involving extremely close readings and erudition; and a form of skittering deconstruction, within which the (Web or) frame scratches against the boundaries of genre or canon. It's this latter which appeals: a text need not be read, but situated, and the situating carries the tags and http of analysis. In this sense, deconstruction presences the virtual text. This isn't the decon of Derrida, but the word and technology has escaped the proper name. So there is a decon of Chaucer, a decon of Obama, a decon of global warming. We inhabit this era. We participate in it. The Internet Text participates in it and perhaps an unfortunate result is a glibness of depth which itself is subtextual, always already present and deeply unaccounted for. In any case, with existentialism, with decon, there's no advance proper; at best there are veerings haunted by media, world pictures, language games, and romantic aspirations. Science, as if it were elsewise, proceeds apace, however, a form of circumlocution, as if always already present as well, and deeply accounted for. The results of culling 'deconstruction' from the Internet Text: " deconstruction, [... 200 lines removed ...] ||f|r|a|m|e|-|s|h|u(etc.)ffling|| :: matrix-deconstruction" - framed, as one might expect, by _a diacritical paragon._