Play: Re: power (long)

virtanen (hvirtane who-is-at cc.jyu.fi)
Fri, 1 Mar 1996 19:10:16 +0200 (EET)

(long time ago...)

On Thu, 4 May 1995, Mike Hayes wrote:

> Y also derides the emotional quality of Z's message. To
> challenge dominant practices one must challenge the very foundation
> of those practices and I think Z, in her emotionally charged
> message, targeted the cold rationality of academic discourse as as
> an underlying and foundational culprit in the maintainance and
> reproduction of oppressive power relations. Y on the other hand is
> able to hide behind the detached rationality of polite academic
> discourses which serve to hide power relations and exclude challenges
> to its authority by constructing such challenges as the irrational
> Other.
>
> Challenging power relations on the list or else where is risky
> business, but I like to think that challenging discousres should be
> as central to the list as defining discourses.

(I changed the names of the people, maybe they cannot be remembered any
more?)

I started to write something like this as an answer, but I forgot to send
it. I found it in my computer now. I think that the matter is timeless:

...

It reminds me of another discussion. I once listened my friends' talk
about a happening in the parlament of Russia. The parlament members once
started fighting with their fists, after a long discussion, which they
couldn't end otherways.

My friends said that it was uncivilized and irrational way to settle the
issue. I'm not sure about that at all. It was also really rational.

Politicians of Russia are maybe the best educated orators of the world, (;
have you ever read any speech of mr. Gorbatschev?) there is often no way
to settle an issue by talking, the talk is endless... even rational talk.
It must be ended by some other means than by talking!

What IS the good way to end it? Is it better, if someone uses his power
*to say* that this is the end of the discussion and (for example) the last
said opinion was the best one?

I mean with this example, that also *the rationality* of some discussion
is defined *inside* that discussion. There isn't any superior rationality
outside, which could be used?

...

Does this mean that *all* rationality is *only* rationality defined inside
some discourse? Does it mean that there *cannot* be universal rationality?

By which 'means could we decide', if there is or isn't some kind of
universal rationality? How would the criterions 'look like'?

In the history of philosohy there have been attempts to create 'universal
rationality' using mathematics as a model. Maybe the best remembered
examples are those by Descartes and Leibniz.

>From the logical point of view I would like to say that there cannot be
'universal rationality', of course. All rationality is defined inside
some discourse, only. But what is reason, we are not *happy* with this
situation? Why do we want something more?

Is it because the rationality defined inside 'the scientific discourse'
is defined that way, that there should be 'universal rationality'?

What about 'play'? What is the *rationality* defined inside a play?

I cannot accept an answer that 'play is not rational'. Play is rational,
it goes according to some kind of rules. Without rules there is no play.

?

Hannu Virtanen
hvirtane who-is-at tukki.jyu.fi