In the book, Macherey identifies a number of fallacies and mistakes that he believes critics often make about literature, among them the normative fallacy ("criticism as judgment" or "criticism as 'this-could-be-better'") and the related attempt to compare two works despite their comprising two different domains and objects; the emprical fallacy (criticism as a means to the end of uncovering the "true meaning" of a given work); the denial of a work's complexity; the myth of the artist creating something out of nothing; the attempt to assimilate a work into something it isn't (i.e., rap into black culture/struggle/politics/life or rock 'n roll into rebellion/sex/peace); and the Marxist tendency to depict a work as a mirror to reality (and thus describe it as a shadow). The central idea is that much criticism falls prey to the desire to reduce (or "deny the irreducibility") or "explain away" a work in favor of something else (a nonexistent perfect work; a hidden truth; an ideology).
ANYWAY: I have some examples of these mistakes being made, but would love more. The longer the criticism the better. Can you think of any piece you've read recently that pissed you off because of its Platonist/Aristotelianist desire to dehistoricize and deny the materiality of a single or album?
― max (maxreax), Sunday, 10 December 2006 01:33 (seventeen years ago) link
― max (maxreax), Sunday, 10 December 2006 01:35 (seventeen years ago) link
And while it's obviously true that any one of those fallacies can take a critic farther and farther from truth, or a worthwhile estimation of the original text, every one of them can also act as the avenue to getting something wonderful. E.g., turning a text into a symbol of something within culture -- like you say about hip-hop and black culture -- can be revealing when done right, and the entire history of texts being meaningful outside of themselves relies entirely on people doing exactly that work. Similarly, the "comparative" fallacy there can be hugely interesting and revealing -- if not about the original texts, then about the choices we make in judging and receiving them (which can turn out, at some point, to be really huge and fascinating moral choices, or things that reveal our deepest visions of what the world should be like).
The funny thing here is that calling all those things "fallacies" of criticism actually falls into one of the fallacies listed -- the "Marxist tendency to depict a work as a mirror to reality (and thus describe it as a shadow)." I mean, the whole assumption here is that criticism is a shadow of the original text, and that it has some obligation to faithfully mirror the irreducible original! And I'm not sure that's the project of criticism, or that it's ever been the product of criticism. Criticism exists not as a shadow of the text, but as both an example and a discussion of how the text functions among its audience. It can be about not what the text "means" but what the text means in context, how it operates in the world.
― the pony-poop paradox (the pony-poop paradox), Monday, 11 December 2006 00:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― scott seward (121212), Monday, 11 December 2006 00:25 (seventeen years ago) link
― friday on the porch (lfam), Monday, 11 December 2006 00:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― scott seward (121212), Monday, 11 December 2006 00:29 (seventeen years ago) link
But "irreducible essence" is a contradiction in terms for Macherey (n.b. I sympathize with M but don't necessarily agree w/ him entirely); an essentialist line of thinking assumes that a given text only has a single meaning (or even a finite number of meanings). Macherey's take (as is my understanding) is that criticism shouldn't be concerned w/ searching out or finding the "hidden"/"true"/"essential" meaning of a given text but w/ producing new meanings--that is, we shouldn't be looking to reproduce a text's meaning (whether that meaning exists as the intentionality of the author or as a reflection of culture/society or in its relationship to a nonexistent perfect text) but to produce new meanings. What the work is saying is different from what can be said of the work.
I do think that you're right; that each or all of the so-called "fallacies" can be helpful and interesting, but I think it's important to do it right--to qualify your reading as merely one out of an infinite number; to acknowledge that a given work's existence can't be reduced to your single take. The fact is, (for me), Macherey is quite good at pointing out what we do wrong, but as I think you can guess, not great at suggesting new alternatives; he seems to want critics to embrace the complexities and inherent contradictions without specifying exactly how.
why is this macherey person so hung up on "mistakes"? isn't everything a mistake?
I guess the idea is that in order to elaborate a new productive theory of "reading" we have to show why the old reproductive theory was wrong.
― max (maxreax), Monday, 11 December 2006 00:33 (seventeen years ago) link
Actually I think is close to what Macherey means--"reading" and "writing" are not reversible operations; the text as written by the author is necessarily different from the text as read by the critic due to the machinations of history/ideology/context/what have you. Criticism is not a "search" for meaning but a "production" of it.
― max (maxreax), Monday, 11 December 2006 00:41 (seventeen years ago) link
See, I like to think this is implicit in the whole project of criticism, and doesn't exactly need to be disclaimed each time. I mean, I wish it were just remembered as a matter of course -- by critics, by their readers, by their detractors -- that creating meaning via one of those fallacies is just one avenue of thought, and not some kind of absolutist judgment on anyone's part. (It's kind of preposterous to imagine otherwise, really, and yet I suppose we all veer into that trap sometimes.)
― the pony-poop paradox (the pony-poop paradox), Monday, 11 December 2006 06:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― Fat Lady Wrestler (Modal Fugue), Monday, 11 December 2006 11:06 (seventeen years ago) link
I almost feel that what he is talking about is not criticism here, but the critical self-reflexivity of criticism - these "mistakes" aren't necessarily mistakes when they are practicised, but they are when they are considered to be what criticism is for.
― Tim F (Tim F), Monday, 11 December 2006 15:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― horseshoe (horseshoe), Monday, 11 December 2006 16:24 (seventeen years ago) link
― max (maxreax), Monday, 11 December 2006 17:47 (seventeen years ago) link
In any case, I'd be interested in seeing some examples of text explications where the reductions are somehow problematic.
― Tim Ellison is number one proponent of Beatle!!!Mania!!! on nu-ILX (tim ellison), Monday, 11 December 2006 18:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― Tim Ellison is number one proponent of Beatle!!!Mania!!! on nu-ILX (tim ellison), Monday, 11 December 2006 18:11 (seventeen years ago) link
All critics should write imho at the beginning of each piece of criticism.
― Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Monday, 11 December 2006 18:51 (seventeen years ago) link
I'm still not 100% on this, in any event. It's informed a lot by Althusser & Spinoza, neither of whom I am particularly familiar with.
― max (maxreax), Monday, 11 December 2006 18:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― Fat Lady Wrestler (Modal Fugue), Monday, 11 December 2006 19:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― max (maxreax), Monday, 11 December 2006 19:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 11 December 2006 20:01 (seventeen years ago) link
― Fat Lady Wrestler (Modal Fugue), Monday, 11 December 2006 20:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― max (maxreax), Monday, 11 December 2006 20:28 (seventeen years ago) link
Why the assumption that it IS working against itself, though? Is all human activity ideologically inconsistent, with every action carrying with it an element of the individual working against his/herself?
― Tim Ellison is number one proponent of Beatle!!!Mania!!! on nu-ILX (tim ellison), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 03:24 (seventeen years ago) link
― max (maxreax), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 06:53 (seventeen years ago) link
― sterl clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 07:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― max (maxreax), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 07:19 (seventeen years ago) link
Also, offering interpretations of theme does not imply that the critic is assuming the text was created entirely of the author! (Or even that the critic was attempting to "enforce a unity on the text" unless, I would think, the critic was explicitly absolute about it in his/her language.)
― Tim Ellison is number one proponent of Beatle!!!Mania!!! on nu-ILX (tim ellison), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 07:59 (seventeen years ago) link
Is all human activity ideologically inconsistent, with every action carrying with it an element of the individual working against his/herself?
--which implied that the ideological inconsistencies of Newsom's (or whoever's) work would arise out of her own inconsistencies; I think (and this is getting into the Althusserian territory w/ which I'm not particularly familiar) the idea is that the inconsistencies arise out of the multiplicity of producing agents (history, ideology, author, etc.) w/ any given text.
― max (maxreax), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 08:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― Tim Ellison is number one proponent of Beatle!!!Mania!!! on nu-ILX (tim ellison), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 08:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― Tim Ellison is number one proponent of Beatle!!!Mania!!! on nu-ILX (tim ellison), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 08:20 (seventeen years ago) link
I think the main way we can talk about the artist/text working aginst herself/itself is in the sense that the most obvious interpretation of a piece of art (or the artist's favoured interpretation) is undermined by some component or aspect of the artwork in question. To the extent to which any work appears - or is presented as being - a coherent whole, inconsistencies are almost by definition "problems", but if the art of artist makes no such claims then we don't have the same issues with inconsistencies (we might not even term them such).
As with Althusser I get a very strong psuedo-deconstructionist vibe from Machery.
― Tim F (Tim F), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 12:25 (seventeen years ago) link
― Tim Ellison is number one proponent of Beatle!!!Mania!!! on nu-ILX (tim ellison), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 06:29 (seventeen years ago) link
Do I think artists would claim this to be the case? I think some would admit the inability of any text to be unified--but I'd venture that that's a result of 100+ years of anti-Aristotelian criticism that's moved the author out of its literally God-like place of prominence.
Tim F--Macherey (whether or not Derrida would admit it) seems to have presaged "Structure Sign and Play" by a few years--esp. in its discussion of "difference," which anticipates "differance" in important ways that I probably couldn't articulate.
― max (maxreax), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 06:50 (seventeen years ago) link
― Tim F (Tim F), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 08:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― max (maxreax), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 17:33 (seventeen years ago) link
― Tim F (Tim F), Thursday, 14 December 2006 11:25 (seventeen years ago) link