AKMA’s Random Thoughts

Vectors and Sources

I had fun the other day in my survey class on the Pauline Epistles, suggesting that one could best understand Galatians by applying vector analysis. Mark and Jane perked right up and focused sharply on what I was saying, and a whole mob of other seminarians got a glazed, “I thought I was through with that in 11th-grade physics class” expression. I always loved vectors, and taught the boys about vectors very early on (I harbor a probably-unjustifiable gut feeling that vectors and probability theory constitute the Greek and Latin of contemporary cultural literacy) — which reminds me that Pippa and I have to have a heart-to-heart about vectors one of these days.

Anyway, I was intrigued that three vectors connected me with the Christian Science Monitor’s recent pronunicamento that “theory is dead.” I saw the story first from Michael Bérubé’s blog; then Margaret noted that Tripp calls it to my attention; and this afternoon, I noticed it mentioned in Jon Udell’s blog.

Bérubé’s response takes down the condescending tone of the CSM article with his characteristic wit. (How much does the article’s author know about the topics on which he distributes snarky dismissals?) Of course, not all the scholars associated with “theory” have jumped ship, and among those who have, not all have repudiated the interests and commitments that marked them for “theory” in the first place. Stanley Fish has always argued that theory is irrelevant, but since a media source such as the Monitor can neither quote Fish with approval nor understand the subtleties of his position, they present his present [quite consistent] position as a shocking development (implicitly as a reversal). Terry Eagleton has made a vocation out of scolding others not doing their business as well as he does. Someone who reports these positions as “news” has perhaps not done all his homework.

And is there a more poignant sign of ignorance than that the columnist tries to contrast Marx with down-to-earth literary reading? It was Marx who provoked generations of critical readers to bring literary production and criticism down to earth from the mystified empyrean domain to which overblown “appreciation” had inflated it.

Think hard, for a moment: some scholars of theory have been wrong-headed, some have been poor readers, some have been poor readers, some all three. Is this the first critical movement of which this has been true? (If you think so, I can acquaint you with some of the controversies and denunciations that accompanied the ascendancy of the New Criticism.) The follies of some do not invalidate the insights of others, though. The work of theory has provoked a deep critical impulse, one that serves well both “literature” and “theory.” (I know, I just said “both. . . and. . . . So sue me.) And some of the denser jungles of theory should be explored patiently before they’re mocked. Condescension is not the same as rebuttal.

Tripp signals that the article might interest me, presumably because (somewhat to my weariness) I’ve become a house expert on postmodern theory for some constituencies of theological and biblical-critical readers. To them I say, theory matters because it helps explain some of the frustrations and incoherences that have afflicted efforts to associate the Bible with theological reflection under the cultural circumstances of modernity. Moreover, theory helps remind us that we never have and never will escape our entanglement in discourses whose terms conflict with the terms indigenous to theological discourse. That is — lest I be accused of postmodern obfuscation — not all the rules that govern various disciplines, industries, practices, and theories comport well with the rules that govern theological discourse. Once Truth enters human discourses, it’s never simply the truth; and the inflection that those secular endeavors impart to the truth, and the inflection that theological discourses impart to the truth, may simply not line up. They may wind up contradicting one another. Postmodern theory suggests that this shouldn’t surprise us in the least; without justifying theologians’ smug insulation from secular critique nor immunizing secular reason from theological interrogation, postmodern theory acknowledges that discourses interpenetrate, hybridize, conflict, concur, develop and change at different rates, in different ways, and that there’s no earthly basis for supposing that any one of them provides an indisputable key for interpreting or judging every other. We theologians often need a reminder that we don’t need permission to talk about supposedly “secular” topics, nor can we rely on our divine commission to protect us when secular critics excoriate us for insularity, for our incoherence, for our unreality, for our sublime irrelevance.

But Jon sums up the whole article quite simply by assigning it to an XML class he designates “Troll.”

DRMA: "Lost Cause," by Beck; "What Do You Love More Than Love?" by Dar Williams; "Too Close To Heaven," by the Five Blind Boys Of Alabama; "30 Pieces of Silver," by Hank Williams Sr.; "Dish It Out," by James Chance and the Contortions; "Foxy Lady," by Jimi Hendrix; "Love And Affection," by Joan Armatrading; "Guts," by John Cale; "Plastic Man," by the Kinks; "Heroin," by Lou Reed; "I'll Fly Away," by Mavis Staples; "Can't Take My Joy," by Michelle Shocked; "Back It Up," by Nils Lofgren; "Letter From America," by the Proclaimers; "Idioteque," by Radiohead; "Black Coffee in Bed," by Squeeze; "Just Won't Burn," by Susan Tedeschi; "The World is a Ghetto," by War; "Your Phone's Off The Hook, But You're Not," by X; "The Have Nots ," by X.

Posted by AKMA at January 31, 2004 03:33 PM | TrackBack