Discussion on my post 'Zizek , psychoanalysis and Literary Theory'

 

I am having a discussion on my article  Zizek, Psychonalysis and Literary Theory' with Kamalakar Bhat. Below I have posted his  response. I broadly agree with him but would write a detailed reply to discuss in detail.

Chomsky on Zizek

I read your blog piece. You have raised many interesting issues. As for Chomsky's old quarrel with PoMos, it is never ending. In a system where it pays to write, and it becomes necessary to write in order to advance your career, there will be many pretenders. No doubt academics is full of such pretenders. PoMo had many such pretenders, esp in the US academy which has made it necessary to keep publishing.

 Writing Style and Popular Works

 The issue of complexity is always there. I remember a conversation with Spivak in which she was very very lucid. No jargon. No obscurity.

 I have read and seen interviews with Derrida and Foucault and such, where they enunciate themselves very lucidly.

 As Spivak told us, a group of students, the academic writing is a space addressing a certain audience. One calibrates one's language according to the audience. It is also important to make the argument in as accurate a manner as possible otherwise it can be misinterpreted.

 It is not as if the so called common people are going to read a Derrida piece! Who reads what and where determines how one writes.

 Even Dipankar Guha for example, wrote very accessible newspaper edits, and very complex academic books.

 I personally made my peace with this question, accepting the difficult style in its place and respecting accessible style in its place. I have also felt that writing only accessible stuff would lead to disaster. It is important not to yield to the pressure of a person less knowledgeable in a specific field.

 Difficult reading has its advantage in that I become a more careful reader. Accessible writing makes the reader lazy and prone to the devious designs of writing that can cheat. Whereas, if I am a careful reader it is likely that I see the falsehood more easily.

 Resisting reader

Because, without the reader being non-accessible to writing, we will have a situation like the language of advertising - people who don't resist Advt language fall for any fake news.

Sokal Affair, Postmodernism and Science Studies

 I don't agree with Alan Sokal argument at all. While no doubt there is a lot of no sense that goes under PoMo, as does under Physics too, or other Sciences, the constructivist argument has its value. And the constructivists were never claiming, as accused by Sokal, that reality is relative etc, but that our knowledge of the reality is. In fact Science studies have to some extent proved that the constructivist ideas are applicable to Scientific Method too.

I would rather go with the critique of PoMo kind of stuff that has emerged from someone like Bruno Latour, a once practitioner of constructivism who saw how it can be mis-used and turned to a certain pragmaticism. Even Richard Rorty is persuasive to me, as I also feel that merely demonstrating instability isn't enough. So, better work towards how to go beyond critique and facilitate changes required, including perhaps refusal to change in some respects.

 Psychoanalysis

 As for psychoanalysis, I am not familiar with some of the issues you point out. Yes, in litcrit psychoanalysis is used extensively. Positive psychology tends to reject Freud. I don't know much, but may be the point is not to allow only one path, this or that, as the right one. We will need Freud, though with the faults of his methods.