Monday, May 3

This transformation would be of a philosophised, a priori, transhistorical subjectivity - which is constitutive of a representative modality of knowledge creation that is contingent on the alienating and hierarchical rift between the subject and the object - into an autonomous expression of the concrete where subjectivity is nothing but the organic expression of the singular, synthetic, processual concrete

I came across this article on Academics, Politics and Class Struggle by Pothik Ghosh on a mailing list. This was heroic. The first sentence itself is bloody good.

"The Owl of Minerva flies only at dusk" is a Hegelian maxim that permeates our reflection on the everydayness of our modern living.

Eh? everydayness? what?

The first paragraph is a masterpiece of obfuscation. Here’s the last sentence.

The flapping of the Owl of Minerva's wings in flight should, in fact, be envisaged not merely as the thought on an event that has occurred thereby anticipating its return, but as the re-enactment of the event - which occurred in the moment of so-called political action - and its singular, synthetic, critical processuality in the moment or condition of human thought itself.

I was left gasping for breath, and just in the first paragraph itself. This is not a compound sentence, it is a masterpiece of throwing words together. Look at it, dear reader, just look at it. Wonder at the sheer mind which put this together. I can see your jaw dropping. There are gems like this scattered all over the essay (if that is what could be termed as such). I had visual examples of a big howitzer loaded with exploding word shells being aimed at a collection of dictionaries. Then the explosion happens and then a giant shredder in the sky pulls up all the words and syllables and based upon a totally demented algorithm and gears, puts them together in this collection of words.

I am in awe of a mind which can produce this

This transformation would be of a philosophised, a priori, transhistorical subjectivity - which is constitutive of a representative modality of knowledge creation that is contingent on the alienating and hierarchical rift between the subject and the object - into an autonomous expression of the concrete where subjectivity is nothing but the organic expression of the singular, synthetic, processual concrete.

Here is another brilliant sentence:

This imposed transmission of the conceptualised form through which the revolutionary logic manifest itself determinately in the moment of theory destroyed the singularity of universality, for real universality is possible only when there is no alienated duality that implies a struggle between competing particulars intrinsic to the horizon of alienated duality

My duality is shrinking into a tiny whimpering walnut. Mommy. But his true genius comes up when these sentences are strung together into a paragraph. It is like the difference between a single firecracker and a MIRV (Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicle Intercontinental Ballistic Thermonuclear missile) Here is the best one.

The working-class struggle is, not surprisingly, caught today between the rock of chronic quietism, as far as the relation as it unfolds from the moment of theory to the moment of pragmatics goes; and the hard-place of dogmatism, as far as the unfolding of the essential relation from the moment of pragmatics to that of theory is concerned. The result, for the project of reconstituting a revolutionary theory, has, as a consequence, been dismal. Theory, in the specificity of its moment of theoretical practice, has become a deconstructionist game of constantly proliferating pluralities, which certainly talks of power but means nothing as it refuses to ground that power in the relations among its various configurations of materiality. On the other hand, pragmatics, in the specificity of its moment of various practices and thus also positing the theories of those various practices, has fallen prey to the tyranny of pragmatism, which has repressed all possibility of constructing a revolutionary theory.

And when one puts it together, it is like a supernova. Wonderful. I just love it. This was presented apparently at a workshop entitled: Dismantling Democracy in the University". I wouldnt be surprised if the University closed down and democracy ran away whimpering :D

btw, he is a professional journalist. Love it :)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Deepak Chopra works in mysterious ways