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III. The Weak Form of a Distinction amongst Species of
Writing
As I suggested above, many of these claims are neither new nor particularly
interesting. The strong form of a distinction between poetry and philosophy
that pervades Plato's condemnation of the former in his Republic is not
upheld by many contemporary critics, theorists, or the political public. In
fact, Plato himself seems to have recognized that a retreat to a weaker form of
a distinction amongst species of writing may be preferential. Curiously,
however, the strong political claims seemingly justified by the strong
distinction are not abandoned alongside the retreat to the weak form.
Certainly, few contemporary critics express a disdain for poetry as intense as
Plato's. However, there is in contemporary Western culture an obvious derision
of fiction in favor of nonfiction in circumstances of 'importance'. This
importance might be political, such as our procedures for and the basis of
legislation; psychological, manifest in our scientific disdain for Freud and
similar nonrigorous psychologies; legal, in which we rely on strong theories of
evidence; or scientific, as evidenced by our rhetorical fidelity to an
objective reality that really exists independent of what we humans do. In cases
like these, fictional and poetic texts are generally not considered to be on a
par with texts that represent reality or mirror 'the way things really are," to
borrow one of Rorty's favorite phrases.[6]
While we do not express distaste for fictional works, we generally do require
something of a higher informational standard if something more significant than
mere subjective experience, entertainment, or artistic impulse is on the line.
For instance, consider how readily we Westerners today accept fact-reflecting
newspaper articles and television newscasts as more appropriate sources of
information than creative fictions and poetic autobiographies. Similarly,
consider the near-total exile of fictional works from today's philosophical
canons and the more influential social sciences, such as economics and legal
theory.
The abandonment of the rigid taxonomy that gives rise to a conception of a
strong distinction between species of writing implies, it would appear, the
revision of those political institutions that might employ this taxonomy in
their functioning. It is, then, a matter of curiosity that fictional writing is
generally given a backseat to nonfictional writing in so many aspects of our
lives today. That fiction takes the backseat to nonfiction in many ethical and
political contexts is not only curious, it is also a dangerous background
against which extant institutions of power can be invisibly sustained. Implicit
in prioritizing nonfiction over fiction is a conservative tendency that favors
recognized factual realities over imagined realities.
Many of those who retreat to a weak form of the distinction between certain
species of writing still hold that, although the distinction is not rigid and
politically useful it is nonetheless valuable in forming textual topographies
and interpretive strategies. The distinction between "nonfiction" and "fiction"
is not one of kind, they argue, but of degree. However, this certainly does not
end the discussion. Rather, it is the beginning of the practical matter of
determining the borders, of the actual work of examining texts and forming a
conception of their place in relation to other texts. It opens the practical
question as to whether or not we should believe Luisa Valenzuela or the
Associated Press when we want to form an idea about what has been going on in
Latin America for the last fifty years.[7]
If the distinction amongst species of writing is topological rather than
typological, we still have to plot the topography. I do not see how political
questions could be avoided in producing such a topography. What this entails is
that the retreat from the strong form of a distinction and the strong politics
it engenders still appears problematic insofar as determining the appropriate
extent of the retreat relies on a further distinction between apolitical interpretation
and political interpretation. In this respect, a weaker form of the distinction
between philosophy and poetry only appears to reproduce the same distinction on
a different level.
Thus, relying on even a weak form of a distinction between species of
writing in the formation of textual topographies engenders all kinds of
political problems that many critics might naively gloss over. The
consideration of texts from the point of view of species can certainly be
useful as an aid to classification and interpretation. However, we overstep the
usefulness of the species metaphor at the moment we allow our distinctions to
become sufficiently entrenched so as to justify a political maneuver based upon
their employment. Of course, the exact point at which the utility of the
metaphor expires in the face of political inequity is not always easy to
determine. In fact, this is the essence of the problem: when should we abandon
our normally-useful methods of distinguishing texts and textual genres? At what
point do political concerns take over? The problem as I see it is practical and
not theoretical, so I shall not here attempt any general and totalizing
solution. Rather, I will offer a clarification of what is usually at stake in
textual criticism. This clarification will highlight the importance of the
political and so underscore the potential problems inherent in even a weak form
of a distinction between poetry and philosophy. What I here suggest is that we
should always approach these distinctions and the metaphors that inform them
with a suspicious irony.
Though I recommend that we employ this distinction with irony, others take
it quite seriously. They argue that we should be most cautious in granting
allowances to texts that might subvert extant bases of information and
practices of knowledge. Texts that demoralize, according to current moral
standards, should always be approached with a suspicious eye. Rather than
treating distinctions in genre as ironic heuristic devices, some critics treat
them as invaluable rules that will ultimately settle our textual debates,
political or not.
In order to clarify the differences between the position I am suggesting and
those adopted by the opposing camp, consider those texts that attempt to
undermine and confuse our distinctions between the various classes of poetry
and philosophy. Examples of such texts include texts with a strong moral or
political message, texts that are purposefully or accidentally misattributed,
texts that are not wholly historically but also are not avowedly fictional,
texts that use or abuse historical events or figures for the sake of something
other than a faithful representation of the available documentary evidence,
texts that foreground their paratextual features, and texts that employ
altering rhetorical forms or a rhetorical form not generally germane to its
subject matter. These borderline cases of miscellaneous, marginal, and
parasitic texts highlight the immense difficulties of determining how serious
or ironic we should be about a distinction amongst species of writing. I will
briefly consider the general political employment of the distinction amongst
species in the case of texts lumped together under the heading 'apocrypha.' I
shall offer a speculative rhetorical analysis of apocrypha so as to situate the
political choices that are at stake in classifying and interpreting apocryphal
texts.
Censorship of apocryphal texts is another aspect of the debate for which
Plato set the tone:
Again, truth should be highly valued; if, as we were
saying, a lie is useless to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to men,
then the use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians; private
individuals have no business with them. Then if any one at all is to have the
privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons.[8]
Apocrypha is not always a case of lying, but we can
imagine that Plato, like many contemporary critics, would have a similar
estimation of any liberal and creative representation of a historical figure or
event. Of course, which rhetorical position one adopts regarding apocrypha will
largely depend on the text under question. In the case of Borges' reviews of
imaginary authors such as Herbert Quain and Pierre Menard, it is not the
content that is a lie (or is false) but rather the style of writing that is
perhaps an abuse, the fact that Borges uses normally-academic tropes and
figures in consideration of texts that do not in fact exist.[9]
Of course, this is an example of apocrypha that most people accept, and
applaud. In the case of the apocryphal work My Sister and I which was
attributed to Nietzsche's own hand though he probably did not write it, we have
a text that is philosophical, and so at least not false in the traditional
sense, but still falsely attributed, and so a form of lie and falsehood in a
different sense.[10] We could
also imagine a review of an imaginary book that is written as apocrypha and
falsely attributed to Nietzsche, who is in fact a real historical figure (i.e.,
who is also represented elsewhere in the historical archive). This is a case of
parasitism to which many critics would certainly object on the grounds that it
clouds the historical record, that it is useless information, that it does not
contribute to the acquisition of knowledge, or that it is a downright case of
deceit.[11]
According to the Platonic approach, there are concerns of a didactic and
moral nature that take precedence in our judgment of borderline texts. We
should err on the side of safety and discipline any text that contributes to
the defilement of our moral or epistemic sensibilities. A text that serves to
undermine the orderliness of an extant database of moral knowledge or network
of scientific information is subversive and therefore politically dangerous-the
review that Nietzsche never wrote threatens to infect our understanding with
untruth and impede our unproblematic access to the facts about Nietzsche and
the historical archive that faithfully represents these facts. Plato writes
that, "All poetical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of the hearers,
and the knowledge of their true nature is the only antidote to them."[12] Apocrypha has at least this serious fault:
it contaminates reality with untruth, of which factual texts are free owing to
their unproblematic access to reality.
A negative estimation of apocrypha appears, then, to hang on a high
estimation of a family of concepts that sees texts as primarily an
informational and scientific phenomenon. A text that tells a lie will obscure
the facts, it will not be useful, it could not be accurate, and it cannot be
knowledge, that is, a textual commodification of truth that we can gain and
acquire. Opponents to my argument may think that epistemology and metaphysics
are the golden philosophical activities and that reality exists independent of
human activity. Or they may just think of inquiry as the promise of liberalism,
and an intact network of knowledge as the infrastructure securing that promise.
Just about anybody who would object to my thesis would probably want to claim
that facts are rarely derivative of political institutions.
Exaltation of apocrypha will probably hang on a high estimation of a family
of concepts that sees texts as primarily a creative and political phenomenon. A
text that willingly tells a lie will subvert an existing order and undermine an
institution. It will push the borders of writing and encourage the textual
invasion of cemented areas of human knowledge that are, perhaps, deserving of
displacement and revision. This position seriously questions the efficacy of
concepts like accuracy, knowledge, factuality, and various rhetorical
presentations of 'the way things really are.' Apocrypha has at least the
following advantage: it is not an instance of entrenched knowledge, the textual
commodification of truth that we can gain and acquire. Those who agree with me
probably think that practical activity is philosophically prior to theory, that
reality is always conditioned by human practice, and that the extant facts are
almost always in the service of some institution of power.
IV. A Politics of Creativity >>
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