Re: [xmca] Against Narrativity!?!

From: Andy Blunden <ablunden who-is-at mira.net>
Date: Fri May 11 2007 - 19:50:18 PDT

I was discussing with a friend of mine, a female, a writer, and a
contemporary, why was it that we (peaceniks, communists-to-be,
feminists-to-be and so on) got interested in folk music in the 1960s, while
all our right-wing or non-political friends were into rock-and-roll or
pop-music. She said: "Well, folk music had stories, and pop music was all
just 'You're my gal' and 'I love you' and 'My blue suede shoes' and so on."
In other words, there is something ethical about narrative thinking, and
there may be plenty of non-narrative thinking and art and **of course** it
is legitimate, but it's also legitimate to make getting rich your main
interest and so is voting for George Bush, ...
Andy
At 01:16 PM 11/05/2007 -0700, you wrote:
>Andy,
>
> Do you know George Orwell's essay about Henry Miller:
>
> http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/essays/inside-the-whale3.htm
>
> If there ever was an episodic, I think Miller would qualify.
>
> Orwell, on the other hand, was totally involved with the parameters of
> narrativity. Nevertheless, he made the curious statement that all of the
> goals towards which his commitment (ethical responsibility?) aspired,
> especially in this period when folks were still fighting Franco and
> hadn't quite kicked the euphoria of the Bolshevik revolution, were
> actually being lived by Miller. Miller's freedom (episodic and
> narrative free) being the goal to which all the movement aspired. Even
> Marx said that the point was to end history.
>
> Paul
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>
>Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> Well it's an interesting read, Mike, and certainly flies in the face of
>everything I think about the topic. - which can't be bad. In fact, my
>suspicion is that the article is consciously intended as a challenge.
>I was permanently affected by Alasdair MacIntyre's material about
>narrative, I think it was in "Beyond Virtue", but what I notice is absent
>from this article which clearly intends itself to be a comprehensive
>overview of positions on this topic, is any sense that the narrative in
>question is *larger than the individual, personal, biography*, that begins
>somewhere about your date of birth. The point about MacIntyre's version is
>that one may gradually come to discover oneself as a player in a much
>larger narrative, which perhaps began before human history began - and it's
>this, IMHO, which is particularly important to Ethical Narrativism.
>Also, I am not convinced that GS is arguing *against* fashion. When I
>formed my view on this topic, in favour of ethical narrativism, I was aware
>that I was flying in the face of "postmodern" fashion, which has a
>narrative about narratives being oppressive, exclusionary and so on, and GS
>refers to this view in his own argument.
>Although it is a clever and challenging article, I think it is very
>undialectical in its conceptions. It is not just A and not-A, but it is
>difficult to argue against this kind of black-and-white argument. He says a
>lot of true things, but he hasn't changed my belief that grasping one's own
>narrative is important to leading a good life.
>Andy
>At 08:41 PM 10/05/2007 -0700, you wrote:
> >Check out the following paper at
> >http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/reviews/against_narrativity.pdf
> >
> >So many xmca-o-philes and many others are convinced of the centrality of
> >narrative
> >in human life that this critique ought to provide some food for thought. Or
> >anger. Or.......
> >
> >We have a big backlog of MCA issues coming along, but in the meantime, this
> >seems worth
> >checking out.
> >
> >mike
> >_______________________________________________
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>
>Andy Blunden. The Subject - http://home.mira.net/~andy/works/the-subject.htm
>
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>
>
>---------------------------------
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Andy Blunden. The Subject - http://home.mira.net/~andy/works/the-subject.htm

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Received on Fri May 11 20:50 PDT 2007

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