[Sigia-l] Evangelism -or to- Hold Up a Mirror to Catch Stars

[Saffer, Dan]

For fun, I am going to respond to this like Ziya would.
	 	 	 
> I am aware that you operate within the norms of your interpretive
community -- that you are shaped by the reading strategies and
interpretive conventions of your (apparently fixed) social and cultural
context.

True. But who doesn't?

>But *you must be made to be aware* of your preconceived notions, and to
understand -- that is -- to be culturally and psychologically prepared
(open) to uncover.

Why?

> Therefore, although my knowledge of this matter may be more advanced
than my ability to communicate it, I am, nonetheless, communicating it

One could (and I'm sure George Orwell would) argue that if you cannot
communicate an idea clearly, that you don't really know it.

> ***This matter embodies a commitment to the process of knowing, rather
than to a single or determinate end.***

Knowing...what? Knowing knowing?

> Within it, meaning is continually deferred so that the enterprise
becomes a 'site' of production, and not one of (fixed) consumption.
"Insight moves sight to the site" -->
http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/0202/0035.html 

I've read this sentence about 5 times and its "meaning" still alludes
me.

>With that said -->

>I believe your difficultly is caused by having been told, or suggesting
to yourself, that the subject is going to prove difficult, so that, once
confronted, you throw yourself into a state of consternation very
unfavorable to receptivity.

No, my difficulty was cause by bothering to try to understand what you
are talking about. I have read and digested French postmodern theorists
in the past, so comprehending an email normally doesn't cause me too
much trouble.

> Instead of beginning, as you should, in a state of sensitivity, you
confuse your good sense with the desire to be clever and to look hard
for something (you don't know what) -- or else by the desire not to be
taken in . . .

I did have a desire to understand what you were saying. My bad.

> And finally, there is the difficulty caused by the author having left
something out which you are used to finding, so that, you, bewildered,
grope about for what is absent, and puzzle-in-your-head for a kind of
meaning which is not there, and is not meant to be there.

I agree. The author did leave something out: sentences that make sense
in the English language. I groped about for grammar, syntax, and
meaning, and only found the absence of all of them.
	 
	 
Best,

Dan