What is writing?

[william kent]

What's it for? What can it do?

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

To show friend and enemy alike that words are your bitches

 

[Corpsey.]

I think reading and listening to music share a similar feeling of casting a spell on yourself when you do them.

 

[Clinamenic]

To show friend and enemy alike that words are your bitches

Pretty rough translation of Foucault, in my opinion.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

There are great inequalities in both the production and reception of text; I think writing should be banned outright (pun very much intended).

You'll think this is unrealistic, but just remember the Greeks and the Romans did pretty much everything by mouth and look how they turned out.

 

[sus]

I think reading and listening to music share a similar feeling of casting a spell on yourself when you do them.

That's exactly it, this is the kind of factoring I really like lately. Music and words as magic. You look at all the etymological histories, "enchant" and "glamour" etc, that's what you find. Music and langauge.

 

[sus]

Prospero's Island

 

[sus]

Everyone is casting spells, mustering up their meme magic, trying to influence the discourse with esoteric glyphs and strategic framings

 

[sufi]

There are great inequalities in both the production and reception of text; I think writing should be banned outright (pun very much intended).

You'll think this is unrealistic, but just remember the Greeks and the Romans did pretty much everything by mouth and look how they turned out.

also star wars

 

[...]

What do you guys think of Derrida's view that writing is more basic than speech? How about that arche-writing, our pre-linguistic ability to express representations?

 

[Clinamenic]

What do you guys think of Derrida's view that writing is more basic than speech? How about that arche-writing, our pre-linguistic ability to express representations?

Not familiar with this concept of arche-writing, but I totally buy it, IE language proper is a bit superstructural relative to this more primordial sense of abstraction and signifying.

 

[william kent]

It was something in Baudrillard that prompted the thread. The other day I said I sometimes struggle to see the point in writing if you're never really sure you're correct, whereas he said writing should generate illusion.

 

[Clinamenic]

It was something in Baudrillard that prompted the thread. The other day I said I sometimes struggle to see the point in writing if you're never really sure you're correct, whereas he said writing should generate illusion.

I kinda think of this notion of absolute correctness as what was dispensed with via postmodernism philosophically, and postructuralism semiotically. Here, writing (or purveying some kind of ideas/discourse) is more about just being informed and considerate enough to achieve what one is trying to achieve, rather than achieving some kind of absolute or infallible truth.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

also star wars

R2D2's hologram device was originally intended to be a fax machine but the dwarf inside the costume complained about the noise.

Lucas' original script also referred to the wookie as a 'bookish type' but the Millennium Falcon's extensive library was destroyed in one of its evasive 720 degree rolls.

Note that there was no written material in the trash compactor, suggesting that either the Empire had a recycling scheme or that the idea of destroying the written word was anathema - see, not all bad.

 

[IdleRich]

Maybe they used a kindle

 

[william kent]

I kinda think of this notion of absolute correctness as what was dispensed with via postmodernism philosophically, and postructuralism semiotically. Here, writing (or purveying some kind of ideas/discourse) is more about just being informed and considerate enough to achieve what one is trying to achieve, rather than achieving some kind of absolute or infallible truth.

What makes you think postmodernism and post structuralism were correct though? How can you be informed if you're never really sure you're correctly informed?

 

[Clinamenic]

What makes you think postmodernism and post structuralism were correct though? How can you be informed if you're never really sure you're correctly informed?

Just a matter of belief - I believe subjectivity is fallible, and that my belief as such is fallible.

 

[Corpsey.]

That's exactly it, this is the kind of factoring I really like lately. Music and words as magic. You look at all the etymological histories, "enchant" and "glamour" etc, that's what you find. Music and langauge.

Ya its the visceral connection to language that does it. All your signs and signifieds getting unplugged and rewired. All art does that but the immateriality of these two feels like magic

 

[sus]

The other day I said I sometimes struggle to see the point in writing if you're never really sure you're correct

Why wouldn't this apply to all language including speech, or casual chit chat on the board?

 

[Clinamenic]

Why wouldn't this apply to all language including speech, or casual chit chat on the board?

I also think this reluctance to posit solutions is characteristic of some of the larger trends Versh has pointed out, EG Do We Really Want Out?, where people are willing to critique and diagnose but aren't willing to suggest alternatives or working solutions.