phil,
a few things to clear up! -
Firstly, I was not dismissing Total Recall as " 'trivial' in the name
of some 'higher goal' " and I am sorry if my tone has appeared
dismissive and irritated you! It's just one of those subjective things
- the film turns me of, it turns you on. I'm certainly not trying to
tell you that in some weird moral sense you "shouldn't" find it useful
or that it is not appropriate or any kind of crap like that - no idea of
higher goals or even "objective" criteria are coming into my
criticisms. I have a tendency to overstate, perhaps, and writing always
makes attitudes seem more polarised than they are. but in this way
ideas appear that are more than "i" intended, sometimes with good
results!
Secondly - and not unrelatedly - I did not intend by using the phrase "
right-wing reactionary nonsense" to position myself as left-wing in
whichever way you would like to define that term. I might just as
easily (in another context) have called something left-wing reactionary
nonsense, and equally that would not have meant that I held a right-wing
viewpoint. You seem to imply i have some kind of
"program"/"position"/"goal" or idea of progressiveness that in fact are
absolutely lacking in me, precisely because, as you rightly say - things
are "more difficult and complex" than this. I find the entire spectrum
of left to right wing "views" to be locked into a perspective on life
that I try to avoid!
relating to rhizomes in particular you commented -
> I am somewhat confounded
> by the notion of 'rhizomes' as unproblematically 'drawing trajectories
> opening out onto the unknown' being found only in approved 'left wing'
> narratives.. as if rhizomes are somehow contained in the narrative and not
> developped in the difficult relationship(s) with the viewer.. who knows
> where we might encounter rhizomes? Where 'trajectories' might start? Why
> does there have to be a goal?
- to which I can only respond that I see rhizomes as in some sense
anti-narratives and therefore the difference between left or right-wing
narratives is irrelevant in this context; it is certainly not a
question of linking up an idea of 'the left' with rhizomes. And i have
no disagreement with you when you say that we don't know where rhizomes
will occur - that is definitional, surely? - nor where trajectories will
start or head... and who said anything about a goal? If I have appeared
to say anything about rhizomes having goals then I didn't mean to! As i
understand it, rhizomes are precisely that which has no goal, the
outcome of which cannot be determined in advance - the intensive
multiplicity or event that does not change in number without changing in
organisation also.
Hope this makes things clearer -
cheers,
dan h.
--
http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/chupacabras/48/
http://www.tw2.com/staff/daniel/
Ware ware Karate-do o shugyo surumonowa,
Tsuneni bushido seishin o wasurezu,
Wa to nin o motte nashi,
Soshite tsutomereba kanarazu tasu.
We who study Karate-do,
Should never forget the spirit of the samurai,
With peace, perseverance and hard work,
We will reach our goal without failure.
