AbsurdBeats

I something is everything then it’s also nothing.

This is a problem when trying to sort out something basic: it’s basic because it’s a part of so much, and because it’s basic, it’s easy to find evidence of it everywhere.

Thus with naming-power: it’s basic, and it’s everywhere—which means it’s hard to get my analytical mitts around it.

I guess I could get into a discussion of the different dimensions and levels of power—hell, I once taught an entire course on this—but given that I see naming as a manifestation of power, that whole thing would just collapse in on itself.

(As an aside: it’s pretty clear I think of power as some kind of manifestation or expression, that is, that it exists in relation to or through something else; on its own, well, I guess it doesn’t exist, does it? Power has no being, no ontology; it is not a thing-in-itself. Okay.)

Anyway, one way to find naming-power’s edges is to put it in a particular context. Since I am—surprise!—interested in the cultural and political aspects, specifically, in the sharpening of the concept of “identity”, then that’s my mud-pit.

~~~

You can get some sense of how I learn to sort things: I have an idea, I run it out a few paces, see if it holds up, then decide to stretch it further. Of course, in the stretching I see the thin spots and irregularities and tears and Oh, look at this line, let’s see where it goes. . . .

And then at some point I stop and go, Wait, what was the question? And I have to retrace my steps or maybe I just find another way back and sometimes the point is still there and sometimes it’s. . . not.

That’s fine. I mean, that can be frustrating as all hell, but how can I know if an idea can fly unless I toss it out there?

(Oh, and welcome to the mixed-up metaphors of Ms. Messypants NewYorker. Whatever. It’s late.)

So that’s what I do: I fling ideas hither and yon and see which ones hold up enough to stitch into a thought-line, and, maybe, just maybe, to make some sense.