We had a chance to see, some time back, what happened here in
this forum when one or two voices stepped out of (some people's)
bounds for acceptable discourse, to index what was (to me)
intensity of commitment, some justifiable anger, and an act of
challenging norms they saw as exclusive, masculinist, and perhaps
overly domesticated. To others they were undermining the canons
of civility without which rational discourse was impossible (for
them), or challenging the privileges of a particular notion of
rationality itself. To me, this was all rather instructive, if
not altogether pleasant.
I recall the same debate in the early 70s over anti-war rhetoric
and anti-establishment challenges, in which, so far as many in
the universities were concerned, the deepest issue was whether
the norms of polite, civil, rational discourse were or were not
themselves inhibitors of fundamental social change, excluders of
differently dispositioned voices, disempowering and biased rather
than, as classically claimed, neutral and democratic. (I can't
help but wonder if the origins of Habermas' project on the
conditions of just discourse may not have come in part from
similar experiences.)
Many people I know remark on the calming tones in which radio and
television 'personalities' recite the news of horrors,
injustices, and atrocities. When they allow a little genuine
emotion to creep into their voices, it is considered an
understandable and pardonable lapse of professionalism.
But if neutrality _is_ a stance, if rational objectivity _is_ one
particular affective orientation to/in activity, and the product
of a particular socially positioned habitus in the community ...
then are not quite implausible claims being made for privileging
it and excluding other stances? Imagine the acceptability (to
whom?) rankings of other affective stances, from the high
prestige of ironic humor (characteristic of those with the power
to indulge in it?) to the anathematization of visible anger or
passionate commitments (more characteristic of the frustrations
of the oppressed?).
I doubt we can even understand what objectivity or rationality
means for people and for society if we cannot re-insert it
semiotically into some system of stances (so denying it special
privileged status), and also phenomenologically into some flow
and multiplicity of not-entirely-classifiable lived and situated
ways of being in activity.
We may think we understand anger and zeal well enough to dismiss
them as dangerous and out-of-control, but having done so, perhaps
we have lost the possibility of understanding rationality as
itself another species of passion, also perilous as other
passions are also helpful.
JAY.
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JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
BITNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM
INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU