Dyske Suematsu
Since the beginning
dyske@dyske.com
Works in United States of America

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BIO
I think, theorize, and write about highly irrelevant matters.
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DISCUSSION

Re: Re: Deconstruct the Narrative = Protocolian positioning


Hi Are,

> The closest "meaning" of "deconstruction" is "analysis." See Derrida's
Letter to a Japanese Friend, in Between the Blinds, among other places.

I've heard him say this too, but I would not say this is the "closest"
meaning; it is the broadest meaning, or that it is the closest word among
commonly used words. I think "decenter" would be more precise, however,
anyone who has not studied postmodern philosophy would not know what that
means. To deconstruct is to analyze text in a very specific fashion. It
would be silly to use the word "deconstruct" if you simply mean "analyze" in
an ordinary sense of the word.

On this list, I'm starting to sound like I am a big Derrida-head, but I'm
not. I started reading his books only a few years ago, mainly because his
way of using language to express what he is expressing is fascinating. It
borders on accomplishing something that Zen has always claimed impossible.
It still is impossible, and Derrida knows it too, but it is fascinating to
see him push that limit. I must respect him for being able to articulate
something that I personally could not. And, he has established a certain
vocabulary in our culture that I can now take and use to express what I want
to express. If I know that the person that I'm speaking with is not familiar
with his vocabulary, then I would find some other ways of expressing them,
but on this list everyone seems to be familiar with his ideas. So, I do not
see the need to avoid using it.

> The problem with bypassing language is usually that someone has done it
before and that there is little left to say.

What do you mean by "bypassing language"?
I'm not too concerned about whether something that I am doing has been done
before. I'm sure it has been. It is a sad phenomenon that we see, in the
last 100 years or so, artists and writers became alienated by history. They
are not capable of doing something for their sheer passion, because they are
haunted by the idea of history. They live in fear of repeating history, or
doing something redundant. Mainly because it is the recognition that they
are after. If you put your priority on your own love, not on your desire to
be recognized in history, then history in fact becomes an enjoyable aspect
of art and philosophy; otherwise it is your enemy that you are constantly
trying to beat.

> Wittgenstein, of course, gave up on philosophy entirely and took up a
position as a hospital orderly...

Though this is not important, it is not true that he gave up philosophy to
work at a hospital. From 1941, for a few years, he worked as a drug
dispensary porter, but this was not to give up philosophy. He was never too
fond of academic life and he wanted a real job. He died in 1951 and his last
book "On Certainty" was written in the last year and a half of his life. The
last entry into this book was written 2 days before his death.

Dyske

DISCUSSION

Re: Deconstruct the Narrative = Protocolian positioning.


Hi Marc,

What I tried to do in my last post was simply to pose a series of questions,
within your own logic and arguments. The only reason why I brought up
Derrida in my last post was because the title of your essay was "Deconstruct
the Narrative..." I think it would be unreasonable to expect your readers to
entirely dismiss the possibility that you might be referring to Derrida's
deconstruction. Now, if I substitute it with "destruct" or "negate", your
title makes sense with what you are saying in your essay. If your use of
"deconstruct" is none of these, then tell me what it is.

In my writings, I do try to keep references to a minimum, however, this is
not so that they all sound like my original ideas that came straight from my
own "heart". That would be unreasonable. There is no discourse, especially
in the West, that is independent of the history of thoughts. In fact, that
is what discourse is; to participate in history. No matter how original you
might think your thoughts are, they are built on the entire history of the
Western thoughts. Refraining from making ostensive references does not make
any ideas original, nor does it make them sincere. I sometimes feel
obligated to make references (or give credits) in order to respect the
authorship of others. To claim that my ideas come from my own heart and
nowhere else would be delusional and arrogant.

If you use any word in English language, you are making a reference to the
entire history of that word. The word "art" you use, is not the same word it
was a hundred years ago. "Narrative" is a loaded word as well. So are
"modernist", "abstraction", "dialogue", "poetics", "figurative",
"conceptual", "exformation", "divisionist", "isolationist", etc., etc.. In
fact, the only thing that you do not do is to give credits to the thinkers
of the past who established these concepts in our culture. There is no
avoiding this, nor should you avoid it. I enjoy the Western discourse of art
and philosophy, and I make no pretense about or claim to the originality of
my ideas.

Whether my writings are sincere or not, is not a discussion that I want to
get into. (The last time I discussed my "willingness" with Joseph, it went
nowhere.) My own sincerity is not something that I can logically prove (and
neither can you of your own sincerity), and it will not amount to anything
constructive. If you feel my writings are insincere, then be that as it may.

"Forget about looking at language, look at ways around problems. That
creates change..."

Many problems can be solved and clarified if we carefully look at our use of
language. And, that in turn can create change. Language tends to cloud our
visions. It distorts our experience. It gets in a way of understanding
something for real. I'm not saying that all problems are because of our
language, but many of them are. To simply ignore it by saying "forget about
looking at language", would be a narrow minded approach.

Also, there are different kinds of change as well. There are changes that
are dramatic but only on the surface or temporary, and there are changes
that are not so obvious but fundamental. Rousseau, for instance, did not
work as a social worker to literally save starving people (unless I'm not
aware of his second job), but did disseminate his concept called "social
contract" which had a significant influence on the generations after him.
Just because Derrida or Wittgenstein, who focused on the use of language all
their lives, did not address the issues of starving people directly, does
not mean that their efforts made no contributions to create change in the
world. In fact, the multiplicity of truth that Derrida professes does much
to counter the violence of absolutism and "conviction" that Tony Blair and
George Bush are so fond of wielding. What Derrida's philosophy does is to
deconstruct such violent claims.

Regards,
Dyske

DISCUSSION

Re: Deconstruct the Narrative = Protocolian positioning.


Hi Marc,

It is an interesting essay in many ways. Let me start a discussion here.

I must assume that your use of the term "deconstruct" is not Derridean. You
are using it to mean "destruct," "undermine", or "subvert." You are not
using it to mean "decenter," for otherwise it would not make sense. So
assuming this is what you mean. I continue.

The central criticism of your essay is towards the structure of the art
world; institutions such as museums, galleries, artistic funds, and online
venues (such as turbulence.org) as structural centers and artists as their
elements. Here you are proposing to decenter (or deconstruct) this structure
(though you do not use the term "deconstruct" in this context.). My first
question is that in our past discussion, you have stated:

"Deconstruction is such a bad doctor, as a tool it slices through the body
to reveal guts and then cannot put the body back together again, leaving it
to fall apart, like an old car body part."

But in your latest essay, you are suggesting to deconstruct the structure of
the art world (in Derridean sense of the term).

However, a deeper reading of your essay reveals that what you are suggesting
may not be deconstruction of the art world at all. What you are suggesting
towards the end of your essay is not to deconstruct, but simply to use the
same structure, but in what you perceive to be a better (or fairer) way of
using the structure. What you criticize is not the structure of the center,
say "A", determining the worth of the artist, "B", but "A" deciding the
worth of "B" to be more than "C". In this sense, you are not deconstructing
at all. You are simply frustrated that certain works of art you deem to be
better are being ignored by the structure. And, your criteria for making any
piece of art better is the existence of "narrative", or discourse with the
audience. (Correct me if I'm wrong here.)

I liked Cory's work very much. I do not think it is groundbreaking, but it
is fun to watch. Conceptually speaking there is nothing new here. Many
artists of the past have done the same thing. One of the most prominent
artists to repurpose medium is John Cage. His "William Mix" is almost
identical in concept. To use any medium outside of its intended purpose is a
concept that has been done to death. Combine that with aleatory twist of
I-Ching, what you get is the school of John Cage. Cory's work certainly
belongs in this category. Conceptually, I'm not impressed at all with his
work, but I do not believe that he himself meant it to have any historical
significance. It appears that he was just having fun. I myself have done a
project of this spirit.

The issue that you seem to have is why something that was simply done for
fun gets a funding. I'd say, why not? If someone likes it enough to give
money. I'm sure if you were in a position to give funds to artists, many
people would probably have issues with your choice of artists too. (In fact,
aren't you already in that position with furtherfield.org ?)

If your criticism is towards the very structure of the art world, it would
be more constructive, but since you are just as much dependent on the very
structure you criticize (in order to support your own idealized vision), it
turns into an expression of your frustration on which we cannot build
anything constructive. In other words, you are yourself complicit in this
structure that you criticize. As long as there are forces and desires to
rank and measure the worth of art, there will be a central structure such as
museums. Assuming that there is no mathematical formula to determine the
absolute worth of art, there will always be those who are dissatisfied with
the evaluations of others. And, critical theories to substantiate or
unsubstantiate art are not particularly useful or productive (though I must
admit that I'm guilty of it myself.).

Dyske

--
Dyske Suematsu
http://www.dyske.com
Where Nothing Is Everything

DISCUSSION

Re: Implication of online voting in the future


> i think your point about online voting "weeding" out
> the uninterested/uninformed seems to make sense. but
> then, how does that change anything?

Hi Ryan,

I'm not seeing this as something that would fundamentally change our
political system. Rather, it is a supplemental system to make the system
work more accurately and efficiently.

I'm also thinking that as this voting system evolves, we could have a
mini-site for each issue where various politicians can publish their
opinions, data, and facts, as well as discussion boards where anyone can
voice their opinions. This will help us learn about the issues, if we decide
to be involved.

Although I too joined the peace demonstration in NYC, I personally see such
demonstrations to be manifestations of the inefficiency of our political
system. In the end, mass protests are publicity stunts (or "propaganda
game") to psychologically pressure politicians and those with opposing
views. And, they too rely on mass media for their activities to be
effective, the very institutions many activists criticize for being biased,
sensational, or manipulative.

I'm trying to think of a way, not to solve these problems, but to move in
the right direction towards where less of these publicity stunts would be
necessary. If this system existed, I would not have joined the protest,
because I'm not interested in persuading others to change their minds, but
rather for my voice to be taken into consideration in the decision making.
For those who are interested in persuading others, this system will not take
care of their problems; they will still need to generate some amount of
publicity. But for people like myself whose concern is for their votes to be
taken into consideration, this system will be a big help.

-Dyske

DISCUSSION

Re: Implication of online voting in the future


Thank you, Vijay and Ryan, for your interesting analysis.

I found an interesting tidbit in my encyclopedia that I was not aware of
before.
(For those of you who weren't sleeping in your history and civics classes in
high school like I was, these tidbits are probably common knowledge.)

"Although often used interchangeably, the terms democracy and republic are
not synonymous. Both systems delegate the power to govern to their elected
representatives. In a republic, however, these officials are expected to act
on their own best judgment of the needs and interests of the country. The
officials in a democracy more generally and directly reflect the known or
ascertained views of their constituents, sometimes subordinating their own
judgment."

According to this, Tony Blair is going by the definition of republic, not
democracy, since he obviously is going against the majority consensus.

Another historical tidbit:

"The democracies of the city-states of classical Greece and of Rome during
the early years of the Republic were unlike the democracies of today. They
were direct democracies, in which all citizens could speak and vote in
assemblies that resembled New England town meetings. Representative
government was unknown and unnecessary because of the small size of the
city-states (almost never more than 10,000 citizens)."

I agree with the dangers of the direct (or "pure") democracy, but they exist
even now. I'm sure many people who are deeply involved in politics would
consider the majority of the registered voters to be too ignorant to be
qualified to vote. And, though it is subjective, I'm sure there is a truth
to that. The vast majority of the American voters base their decisions on
what they see on TV. In this sense, the current situation is already nothing
short of a "propaganda game."

There are good reasons to protect the government from ill-informed voters,
especially when it comes to specific issues. I feel that the online voting
system that I'm suggesting already has a natural protection from this. If
you set a minimum required votes relatively high (like 50% of the entire
voting population), for the vast majority of issues, it would never reach
that number. (Just to be clear: By 50%, I mean the percentage of the people
who voted among the entire population, not the percentage of any particular
side of the issue.) For any specific issues like dividend tax, most people
will not bother voting, and if you do vote, chances are, you are relatively
well-informed about the issue.

The advantage of this system is that:
1. If more than half of the population is concerned about any particular
issue, they can make decisions themselves, rather than having a small number
of politicians decide for them. If England had this system currently, there
will be no need to have peace demonstrations to put pressures on Blair. The
people can simply veto his decisions by voting on the issue.

2. Even for those issues that did not make the minimum percentage
requirement, it is still helpful for the politicians to know the opinions of
those who are concerned about the issues.

3. The citizens have freedom of choice in terms of what issues they want to
be involved in. Unlike a referendum system where the issues to be decided by
referendum is not a choice made by the citizens, this online voting system
will let the citizens dynamically decide on any issues.

4. Your political involvement does not have to be compromised by voting for
a politician whose views you only partially agree with. Say politician A is
pro-choice and anti-immigration. You are pro-choice also, but you believe in
a liberal immigration policy. If you felt strongly about both issues, and if
you voted for politician A, your total accomplishment would be nothing.

I still feel that this voting system would be an effective supplemental
tool.

Any thoughts?

Dyske

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-list@rhizome.org [mailto:owner-list@rhizome.org]On Behalf Of
> Vijay Pattisapu
> Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 11:06 PM
> To: list@rhizome.org
> Subject: RE: RHIZOME_RAW: Implication of online voting in the future
>
>
> Let us ignore the 'hackability' of the system as a counter-reason
> for now, assuming that perfect security of online voting is
> indeed possible.
>
> Like Ryan said, this idea has the potential to bleed into "pure"
> democracy, which is rather dangerous...i.e., demagogues and their
> opponents can spend so much effort arousing the masses that it
> becomes a whole media game...perhaps ultimately, a propaganda game.
>
> Even without the contemporary media phenomenon, however, pure
> democracies have invariably failed throughout history (Ancient
> Greece, Italy circa 1848, etc.); they lack the stability of
> republics/representative democracies. This could point to
> demagoguery as even more fundamental than the media/mass
> communication level itself.
>
> The "letting go" point in time after the election is crucial. The
> slippery slope of online voting is that we'd have to vote on
> everything, and, despite the convenience/accessibility of
> computers, it would still take a tremendous amount of time to
> make "informed decisions" --crucial to the survival of any brand
> of democracy. I mean, how much am I, Joe Citizen, going to read
> up on the history of the problem of this one kind of tax, or this
> particular allotment of funds for this-and-that public works, or
> the composition of such-and-such department, and, on top of that,
> have a stand on it, one sufficient to vote on it?
>
> The types of decisions that would be subsumed under the
> politician's duties alone would gradually reduce more and more
> until he becomes a figurehead, and we have replaced our leaders
> with demagogues.
>
> In some ways, that isn't a bad thing, really, because, let's face
> it, who wouldn't like to vote over issues over platforms, or,
> worse yet, people? Let's make a hypothetical man A. A likes ALL
> life. So he is pro-life, vegetarian, environmentalist, against
> the death penalty, and so on. There's no party that would support
> him! But A would survive, do well even, in a system where he
> could pick and choose his issues...ethically, even, it is better
> to have a body of TRULY "ELECTED" officials doing specific
> things, elected in that popular mandate put every last
> micromanaged thing into motion and somehow organized it into a
> functional state.
>
> Sadly, the average voter is a far cry from "A." The majority of
> citizens, not to mention people, by -default- doesn't care about
> these issues. This is why you often see the phenomenon (which
> always irritates the press / gives them their job) of the voter
> that wants everything. The moment a politician commits to one
> thing, he has alienated the people in a certain way, even though
> he may have the best reasons for going the way he did. The voter
> sees it negatively, at what ISN'T happening or what ISN'T being
> done--what goes WRONG.
>
> This online voting system that extends to all issues places an
> enormous burden upon the population, for it presumes a level of
> competence, education, maturity, and ethical-pragmatic
> intelligence that the most human beings simply don't have.
>
>
> Vijay
>
>
> > "Dyske Suematsu" <dyske@dyske.com> <list@rhizome.org>
> RHIZOME_RAW: Implication of online voting in the futureDate: Mon,
> 17 Feb 2003 17:01:27 -0500
> >Reply-To: "Dyske Suematsu" <dyske@dyske.com>
> >
> >Hi all,
> >
> >When it comes to civics, or American political system, I'm not
> by any means
> >an expert. However, I am working on an essay where it explores the
> >possibility of partially eliminating the concept of political
> representation
> >by using the Internet. I ask those of you who are better versed in this
> >subject, if my concept is sheer naivete.
> >
> >The concept of political representation seems to have arose for
> two reasons.
> >1. Most of us cannot, or should not, be involved in politics at
> all times.
> >Politics is a specialty which requires immense knowledge, experience, and
> >wisdom. Beyond a certain point, it makes sense to delegate our political
> >responsibilities to specialists who represent our political ideals.
> >
> >2. It is not practically possible to have the people vote on every issue
> >that needs to be decided. Thus by political representation, we can reduce
> >the number of votes to a practically manageable size.
> >
> >In the near future, the second reason will no longer hold true.
> Once we have
> >a reliable online system where each voter can easily cast a vote on any
> >pending issues, some of the needs to have political
> representation would be
> >eliminated. This would give the people the power to veto. For
> instance, we
> >can decide the number of votes required to be effective, say, 50% of the
> >population. If this requirement is met, then the outcome of the
> votes rule
> >over everything else, even the decisions of the president.
> >
> >For a situation like the current one with Iraq, where in most
> countries the
> >majority of the citizens are opposed to the war, the people can
> decide for
> >themselves what the appropriate action should be. It prevents,
> to a certain
> >degree, politicians from abusing their power. Even after they
> are elected,
> >they would still have to report to the people who would hold the
> final say
> >on any issue.
> >
> >What do you think?
> >
> >-Dyske
> >
> >
> >
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