Tuesday, April 05, 2005
(4:46 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Concluding Unscientific Postscript to "How much do you forgive?"
The post "How do you forgive?" has inspired a veritable blorgy of blogospheric response. Beyond Angela and Brad's local responses, there is a discussion at Unfogged, which pointed me to a response by Brad DeLong. Zizka has written up something good, and Agricolae has written up something that is perhaps not as good, and Maternal & Child Health takes a break from discussing its tititular topic in order to quote me. [UPDATE: Also, Michael of Reading A1 has a post that, among other things, berates Brad DeLong's post for "its somewhat stale rehashing of Areopagitica."]I do not link those things to show off, or not merely to show off. Taken together, they represent this strange phenomenon that happens whenever something I write makes it into the general circulation of the blogosphere, beyond people who know me personally -- the words really start to mean different things. I'm not saying that people are necessarily misreading me or are being uncharitable or lazy -- it's just interesting to learn that I "should quit" my job as an academic, for instance. My comment on being from "Nowhere Theological Seminary" also seems to have gone unnoticed in many people's minds, rendering me a philosopher. Those are only the most obvious features of Adam Kotsko as received by the wider blogosphere that I do not recognize in Adam Kotsko who is sitting here typing right now.
I think that I am susceptible to this "problem" in a way that many other bloggers are not, especially since my best and most noteworthy writing tends to start with the personal (usually when I am depressed about personal problems that are not disclosed in the post itself) and only then move toward more "universal" ideas -- it feels equally like I am tied very closely to the piece of writing and like I can actually just let it go, as a piece of writing. That is, the use of deeply personal raw materials does not render the piece of writing my property, to dispose of as I please.
This ties in well with the Derrida piece I translated for my thesis, "Literature in Secret: An Impossible Filiation." The filiation in question is Derrida's attempt to prove that the condition of possibility of literature as a modern institution is found in the story of Abraham and Isaac. The "meaning" of the story is always kept secret, existing only (presumably) in the mind of God. That is, the meaning is not coincidental with the text itself, but for all that, the presumption of a meaning is necessary for any kind of reading to take place. Some people might be able to guess at the personal problem that initially prompted my post, but formally, the structure is there -- according to Derrida, my piece qualifies as "literature," a piece of writing that someone could find on the ground one day and read (as opposed to, say, interpret).
Still, for the sake of form and order, I hereby acknowledge, something that really can scarcely be of interest to anyone to know, that I am, as is said, the author of "How much do you forgive?"
