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Say What You Mean and Mean What You SayAuthor(s): Fionola MeredithSource: Fortnight, No. 417 (Sep., 2003), p. 13Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25560950 .

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Fortnigh-t SEPTEMBER 2003

ci. ilture Fiofola Mereditf 7

SAY WHAT YOU MEAN

Another day, another tediotus misappropriation of academic jargon. The comptilsive neophiliacs at the Guardian and the 0Observer have been flaunting their new favourite analytical term 'deconstrtuctivist' all over the place (it's the

new 'deconstrutction', apparently). So, wvriting (tiresomely) in the Observer, Emma Warren dubs 'art' band Fischerspooner

'harbingers of a newNN, brilliant, deconstructivist era in pop' wvlile over at the Guiardian, Fiachra Gibbons waxes lyrical about architect Franik Geehrv's outrageous 'deconstructivist' tower blocks planned for

Brighton seafront. Trouble is, those magpie Islington

journos never seemed to work otut what 'deconstruction' was in the first place. They

just snatched it from their dog-eared undergraduate 'ctiltuiral studies' lectture notes and slotted it in anytime they needed a fancy wvord for 'examining' or 'interpretinig' something. So Guardian hack

David Cohen cotuld r eport, 'Academics have spent mulclh of the past wveek deconstrtuctinig America's nightmarish events of September 11 for the international media'. Of course, the term 'deconstrtuctioni' occtupies an

extraordinarily ambivalent position in academic circles becauise by it's very nature it resists definitioni. According to the creator of this partictular neologism, arch postmodernist Jacqtues Derrida, deconstrtuctioni 'designates the crev ice through wvhich the yet ulnnlameable glimmer beyond the closture can be glimpsed'. Doh?

Deconstrullction isnl't somethinig you 'do' either. It jtst happens, whether you're

watching at the time or niot. It's not a method, a system, or a body of ideas. To be horribly redtuctionist, it's probably best to think of it as the process by which meaning constantly tunravels, so that we can never arrive at definite, objective trtuth. But why think of it at all, uinless youi're a dyed-in-the

wool post-Heideggerian hermenetitic theorist? Deconstrtuction certainly doesni't

warrant 763 references in the Gurardian Online vebsite.

ARTISTS The other candidates for the 'Theor-v-Lite' award have to be those artists and cuirators

who cherry-pick hutge chutnks of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory for- the purposes of adding gravitas to their work. I noticed a striking examnple of this piracy at an exhibition of feminist art, 'And thle One Doesn't Stir Withotit the Other', cturrenitly rtunning at the Ormeatu Baths Gallery in Belfast. Yotu cotuldn't move for references to 'femininle becoming', the 'phallocentric

symbolic order', the 'Law of the Father' and 'libidinal economies' and - of course - ouI

old pal, 'deconstruction'. 'Absence-in presence' and the 'fragmentation of identitv' get more than a look-in too. All these terms are common currencv in feminist philosophical circles, especially those of a po-mo bent. All of them have quite dense and specific meanings in the context of psychoanalytic theory. To someone outside the theory sphere - and I stuspect that includes many of the artists and curators who use these terms - a phrase like 'libidinal economies' is meaningless. So why use it? Simple - it's used to confer status on the artwork, to place it on an elevated conceptual plane, to lard it with philosophical resonance and significance, often far beyond its merits.

Take one element of the exhibition, Luicy Gtunning's video work, 'The Horse Impressionists'. Apparently, this exhibit 'explores alternative economies of desire

and the fragmentation of the human stubject'. We are talking abotut a film of five

womiieni whininying like a horse in various public places. Lucy may call this an evocation of the fragile disconniectedness of subjectivity. I call it self-indulgent bathos.

It's niot that I think that theory should be the sole preserve of academics. Even outside the academ, good theory can empower, invigorate and inform. But you don't empowver, invigorate or inform people by patronising them with obscurantist terminology.

There's a smutg knowingness at work here which implicitly claims a stuperior level of awareness in which only the select few participate. Ironically, given the proclivity of these theory-luwies to give themselves over to postmodern 'play', it's a very effective way of establishing rigid hierarchies. Us: sophisticated, transgressive, radical and sexy. Them: inarticulate, reactionary, doltish culchies. Which one are

you?

BOGUS Of course, in many instances, this

'theoretical awareness' is entirely bogus: it's very easy to bandy about high falutin jargoni about 'absence-in-presence and 'disembodied rationalism', much harder to

unlpack - in clear language - just exactly what vou're rabbiting on about. Peel back the layers of ornate prose and you're sure to find a preeninig, unclothed Emperor.

Intellectual posturinig is perhaps most coininion in academia. Back when I was a theorv-lutvvie MA student mnself, I once used the revolting phrase 'the vitrification of significationi' in a dissertation. 'Yuk!', Inm! sulpervisor wrote in the margin. At the

conclusion of the essay, he commented that 'style must be the mirror of truth'. A well remembered and necessary lesson for me, from a philosopher whose simple, elegant style can explain and critique the most complex ideas in a few well-chosen words.

A few years ago, NYU physicist Alan Sokal demonstrated just how bad things had got in certain high-theory circles when he managed to fool a prestigious US cultural studies journal - 'Social Text' - into publishing a spoof article. In order to 'test the prevailing intellectual standards',

he asked, 'Would a leading North American journal of cultural studies - whose editorial collective includes such luminaries as Fredric Jameson and Andrew Ross - publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions?' The answer - hilariously - was yes. Sokal's article, 'Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity' contains the declaration - without the slightest evidence or argument - that "physical reality' [note the scare quiotes] ... is at bottom a social and linguistic construct'. Not our theories of physical reality, you notice, but the reality itself. As Sokal remarks, 'Fair enough: anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the

windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor)'.

POINT Predictablyt Sokal was smeared as a reactionary for having dared to point out that this particular Emperor was buck naked. Accusations of conservative bourgeois bleating are common counter attacks against any attempt to diss the freewheeling play of the postmodernist juggernaut. Sokal - himself a leftist who taught maths in the Sandinistas' Nicaragua - valiantly countered, 'For most of the past two centuries, the Left has been identified

with science and against obscuranitism; we have believed that rational thought and the fearless analysis of objective reality (both natural and social) are incisive tools for combating the mystifications of the powerful - not to mention being desirable human ends in their owIn right'. Sadly, Sokal's ingenious and timely whoopee cushion under the complacent arse of the po-mo mafia has failed to prevent the proliferation of more and more tedious pseudo-radical twaddle, both within and outside the academv.

Yuk.

PAGE 13

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