Trauma & the Twin Towers (lies lies lies)

Oh well crouched between stacks of books the world has once again caught up with me. Tania Head, one of the survivors of the 9/11 attacks, has spent the last years giving testimony and telling touching stories about what happened. And now it turns out that along the way, among the dozens of stories she told, must have been a few untruths ’cause things don’t add up.
This will bring out indignance by people who have been ‘moved’ by Head’s stories and it will play into the hands of all the conspiracy nuts who believe that 9/11 has been orchestrated and testimonies have been bought. Lies, lies, lies, all of them will shout. I heard someone exclaim angrily: “she was not telling the facts straight!” But this kind of testimony is not about facts, as we’ve come to acknowledge in respect to traumatizing events such as the Holocaust. Wiesel, Primo, Semprún,they’ve all cast doubts upon the accuracy of their own testimony. Critics of Head might be asked to remember Edwards’ & Potter’s theory of a “discursive psychology of remembering” or, really, anything on Holocaust testimony (gotta stack of it right here). Semprun wrote “la réalité a souvent besoin d’invention, pour devenir vraie. C’est-à-dire vraisemblable” (in L’écriture ou la vie, page 271: reality needs to contain some invention in order to become truth.).
Yet maybe “untruths” weren’t Head’s problem. It was the inconsistency. Telling a story that has rather loose ties to reality is a rather neglegible offense (because “the Real World” is a show on MTV), telling it creatively, fleshing it out differently in conversations with different people is maybe what got her into this pickle.
There’s trauma again for you. Could be that strange stories have to be told in different ways, with different details, in order to maybe be able to catch the strangeness of the story within the folds of story all those variants have helped create. Perusing all these books here, my guess is that Head really might be vindicated, as long as she’s no second Wilkomirski.

Nicole

Thea Dorn

Bei Menschen, die in einer Sache etwas Richtiges sagen, bin ich immer maßlos enttäuscht, wenn sie dann ärgerliche Sachen auf anderen Gebieten erzählen. Und selten kommen gut und schlecht so oft im Doppelpack wie beim Feminismus. Thea Dorn ist eine der wenigen Menschen in Deutschland, die ein großes Publikum hat und trotzdem quasi reihenweise sinnvolle Dinge über den Feminismus zu sagen hat. Ob sie über Eva Hermann oder über den Feminismus allgemein spricht, es ist immer ziemlich genau und zutreffend, was sie zu sagen hat, aber wenn man sie nur ein bißchen läßt, sagt sie im Anschluß immer noch etwas über den Islam. Der scheint ja ohnehin heute in jedes Diskussionseckchen zu passen, neuerdings auch in die Anti-Pauli-Hetze der Welt . Bei Thea Dorn fängt das dann bei wohlfeilem Muslim-Bashing an und hört damit auf, daß man in der Bücherfernsehsendung die man ganz anständig moderiert, dem unsäglichen Herrn Broder Zeit, Raum und Lob für seine wirklich übelriechende Dummheit gibt. Diese Menschen, die Schwierigkeiten mit komplexen Sachverhalten haben und dann gerne den anderen die Beschränktheit vorwerfen, die sie selbst zur Schau tragen. Beim Herrn Broder ist da schon nichts mehr zu hoffen. Aber Thea Dorn? Womit wir beim Ausgangsärger wären. Wieso können Menschen, die sich bei einem wichtigen und schwierigen Sachverhalt vernünftig aufführen, das nicht auch bei anderen tun?
Furchtbar, das.

Vevey (deutsch)

also fahre ich hinauf nach vevey
dort gibt es den besten wein sagt maria
ich komme dann später vielleicht wieder

wir haben ein paar bücher
vor unser tür gestapelt bis an die klinke hoch
damit die nachbarn nichts mitkriegen

das blut muss ja ablaufen
mit dem eimer schöpfen wir es nicht aus
(am ende vermutet frau kreyer noch

rituelle schlachtungen) und ich möchte es gern trocken haben
wenn ich aus vevey komme
immer nur über blut

und tod schreiben und pelztiere
da muss man doch ganz irre werden
oder alkoholiker

später wenn ruhe eingekehrt ist
werden wir einen neuen namen annehmen
das ist einfacher, später

wenn ich zurück bin aus vevey,
wo es den besten wein gibt, sagt maria.

Zitat des Tages (1)

Natürlich läßt sich nicht alles auf die Dummheit schieben, wovon ein so vollmenschliches Anliegen, wie es die Kunst ist, verunstaltet wird; es muß, wie besonders die Erfahrungen der letzten Jahre gelehrt haben, auch für die verschiedenen Arten der Charakterlosigkeit Platz bleiben.

Robert Musil (Aus dem Vortrag “Über die Dummheit”.)

Alcoholic (1)

Schrift und Vorurteil

Die Schrift, oder anders: die Schriftlichkeit, hat ihre Bedeutung sowohl für Gadamers hermeneutisches Konzept, wie es in „Wahrheit und Methode“ dargestellt ist, als auch für Derridas dekonstruktivistischen Ansatz der différance. In ihrer Bewertung der Schrift unterscheiden sich die beiden Heideggerschüler (wobei jedoch nur Gadamer ein Heideggerschüler im engeren Sinn ist) jedoch fundamental.

Bei Gadamer ist die Schrift dem verstehenden Bewusstsein hierarchisch klar untergeordnet, schließlich ist die Schrift nur der geronnene, der festgeschriebene Sinn, der vom verstehenden Bewusstsein erst wieder in Sprache, in „die Sphäre des Sinns“ (S. 268) zurückverwandelt werden muss. Denn die Schrift ist auch, und das ist noch wichtiger, dem Sinn nachgeordnet, sie ist ein Aufschreiben des Sinns, ein Hilfsmittel, das den Sinn, die Mitteilung, den Text über die Jahrhunderte zu dem Leser, dem verstehenden Bewusstsein also, bringt. In dem anschließenden Prozess des Verstehens verschwindet der Text, denn eigentlich ist gar nicht er der Träger der Mitteilung, sondern die „Kontinuität des Gedächtnisses“.

Gadamers Konzeption der Schrift folgt der christlichen Trennung von Geist und Buchstabe, wobei, wie wir gesehen haben, eine klare Bevorzugung des Geistes vorliegt. Man hat den Eindruck, es werde von Seiten Gadamers bedauert, dass man den Umweg über die Schriftlichkeit überhaupt nehmen müsse: am liebsten wäre es ihm, wenn man eine direkte Sinnübertragung erreichen könnte. Da dies aber nicht möglich ist, nimmt man die Unannehmlichkeiten der Schrift hin und entwickelt eine Hermeneutik, um den Geist wieder aus dem Gefängnis des Buchstabens, oder um das Wort Gottes vom genauen Wortlaut (wobei sich nicht auf das gesprochene sondern auf das geschriebene Wort bezieht, der Wortteil ist also etwas irreführend) zu befreien.

Es ist also anzunehmen, dass Gadamers Einstellung zu Schrift Auswirkungen hat auf seine Hermeneutik. Zunächst einmal ist festzustellen, dass durch ein Verständnis der Schrift als geronnenem Sinn der Gegenstandsbereich der Gadamerschen Hermeneutik, also ein Verstehen des Sinns oder der Mitteilung, die sich in den Klauen der Schrift befinden, bestimmt wird.

Wenn das Verständnis des Textes aus dem erfolgt, was verstanden wurde, was folglich im Bewusstsein, das hierarchisch dem Text, also der Schrift übergeordnet ist, wieder hergestellt wurde, nachdem es in der Schrift eingefroren war, sind Vorurteile legitim, da man sich innerhalb der erwähnten „Kontinuität des Gedächtnisses“ bewegt.

Gadamers Hermeneutik ist also der Versuch, den in Büchern und anderen Schriftstücken verschütteten, geradezu verloren scheinenden (aber dennoch stets präsenten!) Sinn wieder auszugraben, wie ein Artefakt aus dem Eis aufzutauen und ihn wieder in die Welt zu bringen, in die Welt des Sinns, des Verstehens, der vergeistigten Welt, dorthin, wo das verstehende Bewusstsein anzutreffen ist, das in seine höchste Souveränität der Schriftlichkeit gegenüber tritt, da es so am meisten Distanz hat zum Objekt des Verstehens, hier ist der Prozess des Entzifferns und Verstehens am ungestörtesten. Bei Nichtschriftlichem handelt es sich um eine viel weniger klare Beziehung, die eher bestimmt ist von einem Deutungsvorgang als von dem klar bezeichneten Verstehen, mit dem das Bewusstsein der Schrift gegenüber in sein Recht tritt.

Ist für Gadamers Theorie ein christliches Verständnis von Schrift und dem Buchstaben entscheidend, ist es entsprechend bei Derrida ein jüdisches, das Wert auf das geschriebene Wort legt und in der Dichotomie Geist vs. Buchstabe tendenziell dem Buchstaben Vorrang einräumt gegenüber dem Sinn, verständlich also, dass Derridas erster Satz seines Aufsatzes „Die différance“ lautet: „Ich werde also von einem Buchstaben sprechen.“ (31)

Nicht nur von einem Buchstaben spricht er im daraufhin folgenden Text, sondern eigentlich von der Schriftlichkeit als solcher. Glaubt Gadamer noch, dass ein Text in gesprochene Sprache zurückgeführt werden muss vom verstehenden Bewusstsein und damit, dass die gesprochene Sprache, die nur noch gedeutet werden muss, dem Sinn näher ist, bzw. dem Geist, da sie ja nicht mehr vom Buchstaben gefesselt wird, fordert Derrida eine Abschaffung der Trennung von Lautbild und Schrift und der damit einhergehenden Bevorzugung des Lautbildes.

Bei Derrida „überwacht“ (33) der Text die Rede: die différance, für die sinnbildlich die Änderung im Schriftbild steht (aus dem des französischen Wortes wird ein , das u.A. den aktiven Aspekt des Vorgangs der différance darstellt, die ja kein Zustand ist sondern ein beweglicher Prozeß), bleibt stumm. Sie kann nicht gesprochen werden.

Diesen Unterschied allerdings sieht auch Gadamer, deshalb ist es ja in seiner Theorie eine „Deutung“, die der Zuhörer vornehmen muss und kein einfaches Verstehen, das ihm einfach zufällt. Der Gegenstand hermeneutischen Verstehens ist und bleibt die Schrift, einer Hermeneutik Gadamerscher Prägung wäre diese Änderung also nicht entgangen.

Nun liegt aber der gravierende Unterschied darin, dass die différance auch „die Ebene des Verstandes übersteigt“ (32). Nicht nur lässt sie sich vom Gehör nicht vernehmen, auch Gadamers „verstehendes Bewusstsein“ vernimmt die différance nicht, denn die différance ist dem Unbewußten (nicht: Unterbewusstsein!) insofern ähnlich, als dass sie nicht erscheint, sondern nur als nicht vorhandene Spur das Verstehen sozusagen „lenkt“, ohne dass dem Leser dieser Vorgang bewusst ist.

Derrida bestreitet die Existenz eines letzten Signifikats bzw. einer letzten Wahrheit, oder einer, um es mit Gadamer zu sagen, Kontinuität des Gedächtnisses, die von der Schrift losgelöst wäre, es gibt nichts außerhalb der Schrift, was die Schrift bestimmt. Die différance kommt von innerhalb der Schrift und sie verbleibt darin, sie ist eine Dynamik, die die Begriffsbildung bestimmt, aber sie ist eine Dynamik ohne telos, also ohne Ziel, auf das sie hinarbeiten würde, ein Aspekt, der leicht einzusehen ist, akzeptiert man, dass es keine letzte Wahrheit gibt, sondern dass alles von einem ziellosen Spiel innersprachlicher Differenzen bestimmt ist, die Bedeutung nicht trotz, sondern wegen der ihnen innewohnenden Widersprüche zustande bringen.

Unter diesem Blickwinkel kann man wieder die Frage nach Gadamers Vorurteilen aufwerfen. In Gadamers System sind sie, wie wir gesehen haben, legitim, ja unverzichtbar für das Verstehen. Nach der Derridalektüre müssen wir allerdings die Frage stellen, ob nicht die Grundlage der Verteidigung der Vorurteile bereits ein erstes Vorurteil ist, der Sündenfall sozusagen, nämlich die Privilegierung des Geistes gegenüber dem Buchstaben.

Wenn man diese Hierarchie nun aber ablehnt, so zeigt sich, dass Vorurteile trotz aller Rehabilitierungsbemühungen von Seiten Gadamers doch nur Vorurteile im negativ konnotierten Sinn der Aufklärung sind. Sie entstammen nämlich einem fälschlicherweise angenommenen Konzept der „Wahrheit“, die über dem Text steht und zu deren Verständnis man Verstehensentwürfe macht. Aber wenn das Verstehen nur aus einem Spiel der Differenzen erwächst, das wiederum beschränkt ist auf die zu lesende Textpassage und nicht „exponiert“ (32) werden kann, sondern im Text verbleibt, gibt es nichts, worauf man einen Entwurf aufbauen könnte, der nicht, einmal mit dem Text selbst konfrontiert, kläglich zusammenbräche. Alles was von dem Entwurf bliebe, wären Vorurteile.

Was aber ist denn nun die Schrift genau? Schrift bei Derrida ist eine Art scheinbarer Ersatz für das Gegenwärtige, den Sinn oder die Mitteilung, die aber nie gegenwärtig ist, die nicht existiert als Entität, der eine Illusion ist, deren Wahrer und Träger und Spurenleger eben diese Schrift ist, die immer dann bemüht wird, wenn wir diesen Sinn, diese Mitteilung nicht erfassen können, also in einem Gadamerschen Verständnis nicht verstehen können, wir, die Leser, bekommen den Sinn nicht in die Finger, statt dessen verwenden wir einen Ersatz, die Schrift nämlich und sie ist alles was uns bleibt, denn sie ist ein falscher Ersatz, es ist nichts an Wahrheit einzutauschen gegen sie.

Man könnte einwenden, es sei doch nicht alles geschrieben, man rede doch auch. Entgeht man durch das Reden dem Zwang, Schrift als Scheinersatz verwenden zu müssen? Kommt man so direkt an den Sinn? Auch dieser Versuch wird misslingen, denn da die différance, als Grundprinzip der angewandten Sprache sozusagen das Sprechen und die Schrift vereinigt in sich, setzt sie eine nicht-ursprüngliche -vergessen wir nicht, es gibt keinen Ursprung und keine letzte Wahrheit, nur ein zirkuläres Spiel der Differenzen- Urschrift voraus. Urschrift statt Urrede deshalb, weil die Regeln der différance, das vielgenannte Spiel der Differenzen, stumm bleibt, ihre Regeln also die der Schrift und nicht die des Sprechens sind.

Die Auffassung der Schrift als eines Ersatzes für eine Gegenwart, derer man nicht habhaft werden kann, widerspricht fundamental der Vorstellung eines Sinns, wie sie von Gadamer vertreten wird, eines Sinns, der in der Schrift eingefroren ist, dessen Gegenwart also ständig vorausgesetzt wird, wobei der Hermeneutik nur die Aufgabe zukommt, den Sinn zu befreien.

Folgt man Derrida, ist die ganze Hermeneutik einem Vorurteil aufgesessen, auf dem sie sich gründet, dem der Präsenz nämlich, der Illusion eines anwesenden Sinns. Ganz grundlegende, ja scheinbar banale Bestimmungen wie der Gegenstandsbereich der Hermeneutik zerrinnen unter den wachsamen Augen Derridas zu bloßen Kulissen: man sucht an der richtigen Stelle, aber das, was man sucht, ist dort nicht mehr oder noch nicht zu finden.

Dass die Hermeneutik aber dennoch an der richtigen Stelle nachsieht ist eine interessante Parallele zwischen den beiden Theoretikern, die doch so entgegengesetzt scheinen. Beide kaprizieren sich auf die Schrift und das Moment des aufgeschobenen Sinns, das der Derridaschen Schrift eignet, ist dem zu Schrift geronnenen Sinn Gadamers nicht unähnlich, der auch nicht ohne weiteres zugänglich ist, sondern erst aus der Schrift gelöst werden muss durch hermeneutisches Verstehen.

Bei genauer Betrachtung ist es tatsächlich eben dieses Vorurteil, das Vorurteil der Präsenz, das die Methode Gadamers in eine andere Richtung leitet: indem er annimmt, dass er den Sinn einfach herauslösen kann, übersieht er die Kette der Verweise, die die Schrift darstellt, welche er untersucht, und übersieht ferner, dass es kein Ziel gibt, worauf sie verweisen, sondern dass es ein unendliches Spiel mit Verweisen und Spuren ist, die zu einer unendlichen Zahl von Verstehensmöglichkeiten gelegt werden, die man aber nie erfassen kann.

Eng verbunden mit dem Vorurteil der Präsenz ist die zweite Schwäche der Hermeneutik, dass sie nämlich ein „verstehendes Bewusstsein“ voraussetzt. Begriffe sie die Gegenwart als nicht präsent, müsste sie auch das Bewusstsein neu überdenken, das doch „lebendige Gegenwart ist“ (45), oder, in Gadamers Idiom, sich auf der Ebene der vergeistigten Welt, des Sinns befindet. Es ist nun leicht einzusehen, dass im gleichen Moment, in dem der Sinn als unerfassbar, ja als abwesend, fällt, fällt das Bewusstsein, in seiner Eigenschaft als das den Sinn begreifende, mit ihm.

Es gibt eine letzte frappierende Parallele zwischen den beiden Schrift- und Verstehens-Konzeptionen: die des Verschwindens. In Gadamers Hermeneutik verschwindet der Text, da er nur ein Mittel ist, den Sinn „an den Mann zu bringen“. Sobald der Sinn verstanden wird, verliert der Text seine Bedeutung, die ohnehin nur eine marginale war, im Prinzip verschwindet er im Prozess des Verstehens.

Auch bei Derrida verschwindet etwas, jedoch ist es nicht der Text, sondern die Spur, die die Struktur der différance ist, die der Kette der Verweise grundlegend ist, diese Spur also verschwindet, sobald sie erscheint, das heißt, sobald die Kette der Verweise gelegt ist, in die eine oder andere Richtung. Im gleichen Moment, da die Spur ihre Aufgabe erfüllt hat, verschwindet sie. Es ist also im Prinzip das Verschwinden bei Gadamer genau entgegengesetzt dem Verschwinden bei Derrida, denn wo bei dem einen der Sinn übrigbleibt, bleibt bei dem anderen der Text übrig als Struktur von Verweisen und Sinnersatz. Worauf dieser Unterschied zurückzuführen ist, ist bereits erörtert und klar: das Vorurteil Gadamers der Schrift gegenüber.

Die Mitteilung, der Sinn, die Gegenwart, bei Gadamer sind sie quasi die Existenzberechtigung der Schrift, die eine Hilfe bei der Überlieferung der Mitteilung ist, sie ist nicht einmal der eigentliche Träger dieser Mitteilung. Die Schrift ist demnach eine Funktion des Sinns, die Überlieferungsfunktion gewissermaßen. Diese Entsprechung ist bei Derrida eine genau umgekehrte: bei ihm wird die Anwesenheit, die Präsenz, der Sinn zu einer Funktion, die den Leser dazu bringt, der Verweiskette zu folgen.

Was ist es, dem der Leser zu begegnen sucht am Ende der Schrift, denn so weit muss er schon suchen, da die Verweiskette unendlich ist. Der Sinn. Die Mitteilung. Aber er findet nur die Spur, eine weitere Spur, die unnennbar bleibt. Das Wesen der Schrift ist nicht nennbar.

Gadamer versuchte es, er nannte das Wesen: Sinnüberlieferung. Der Versuch, den sich entziehenden Sinn in der Schrift zu lokalisieren, die Schrift aufzubrechen um das Wesentliche ihr zu entlocken und dann zu behaupten, man könne es wirklich finden, das ist das ultimative Vorurteil der Konzeption Gadamers. Und woher kommt es?

Vielleicht aus der der abendländisch-christlichen Kultur inhärenten Hoffnung heraus, Gottes Intention sei da, im Wort der Bibel. Man müsse sie nur aufmerksam lesen. Vorurteil.

Understanding Language in Babel-17

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Kingsley Amis wrote in his treatise on Science Fiction that the motto „‘Idea as Hero‘ is the basis“ (137) for SF. In Babel-17, Samuel R. Delany’s sixth novel, the importance of language and linguistics is emphasized. It does both to an extent that is very unusual in a SF novel (cf. Aldiss and Wingrove 292) and its interest in language runs deeper than in the ordinary SF novel, where strange words abound or some new language or dialect is invented, as in Burgess‘ A Clockwork Orange. Evidently, language is this novel’s hero.

Babel-17’s interest in language and how it portrays the mechanisms behind language is the subject of this paper. It has the goal of mapping out the political and the epistemological consequences of the text’s treatment of language, which, as will be made clear, works in several ways. Some of the examiniation is done out in the open by Rydra Wong, a famous poet who is commissioned to decipher Babel-17, a code allegedly used by terrorists to coordinate their acts of sabotage, which soon turns out to be a language. In other parts, the examinition is provided by the character’s actions and emotions and by the events. Finally it will be pointed out, that the interest in language even informs the structure of the novel down to the generic markers it employs. It will be seen that SF is a kind of language itself which has to be understood by the reader of SF, because „knowing a genre is also knowing how to take it up“ (Broderick 39).

This is also the way most criticism has been reading the novel, but none of that criticism has noted, that it’s not just ‘about’ language, it is about understanding language as one of the basic givens of humanity. Its influence reaches deeply, into communication and thought. That is what the first two parts are trying to show. The last part amply demonstrates, that even when something in not language, is may be language-like, such as the genre SF.

SF is „What If Literature“ (Landon 6) and, as remains to be shown, Babel-17 poses some of the more powerful what if questions, trying to help people to recognize science’s „potentialities for social change“ (Asimov 162). This paper’s thesis is, that at the end of the trail that this reading of Babel-17 provides, one can see some possibilities of a brighter, more humane future, or a darker future. Babel-17 indicates the potentialities of communication and language that humanity has squandered for thousands of years and it poses some potent questions about free will and about the truth we take for granted. What questions these are, this paper will attempt to demonstrate.

Babel-17 is written in English and the characters that shape events, or are shaped by them, are speakers of English. One might be tempted to think that this impression only derives from the fact that the novel is written in English, just as an English novel about France would feature no, or not very much, French dialogue, even if all the characters were French. It becomes clear, though, that the first impression is correct once we note that comparisons to other languages always are comparisons of English to other languages (cf. Delany, Babel-17, 111). Also, the English-speaking characters never have to translate anything, everybody who takes part in this novel’s events speaks English and should be able to communicate perfectly with anybody else.

Although English is the predominant language, it is not the only one. The political background to the story is a war between the Alliance, part of which forms the earth , and the Invaders. Both probably consist of several nations, having several languages each (cf. 24). Of the Invader’s languages we encounter none. Eight earth languages are mentioned, other than English: Finnish, Sioux (as an example for North American Indian languages in general), French, Hungarian, Spanish (all five: cf. 111), Basque (cf. 77), Old Moorish (cf. 115) and an unnamed african language that is spoken in the „N’gonda province in Pan Africa“ (54, cf. 51f.). Sample words are not provided from Basque, Finnish, Hungarian or Sioux, only one word from Spanish and Old Moorish each, about five French words and generous eight sentences of the African language. These languages are not important to the story, they only demonstrate certain linguistic points, such as the grammatical differences between Sioux and and Finnish noun cases.

Thus, the main focus, of course, is on the mysterious language, Babel-17. Babel-17 is described as „the most analytically exact language imaginable“ (210). It does not know the words ‚you‘, ‚I‘ nor the words derived from them, such as ‚your‘ and ‚mine‘ (cf. 139) so speakers of it cannot even conceive of the principle of the subject. Also, Babel-17 „contains a preset program […] to become a criminal and saboteur“ (215). This means it curtails the range of options the speaker of Babel-17 has so severely, it even imposes a „schizoid personality into the mind of whoever learns it“ (215), which means that a second personality is programmed into the person that can even grab hold of all the willpower of this person. The speaker of Babel-17, who thinks only analytically and cannot talk or think in categories of subjectivity, is massively hindered in the choices his mind allows him to make, for example „thinking in Babel-17 [you might] try and destroy your own ship and then blot out the fact with self-hypnosis“ (215).

In trying to crack the structure, the grammar and vocabulary of Babel-17, Rydra Wong, the poet that turned linguist by virtue of her „total verbal recall“ (9), finds that it „scares“ (22) her. For a language that one does not understand, this, introduced at an early point in the narrative, is a novel idea. Everybody would agree that it is possible to be afraid from something said and understood or even by a menacing way of delivery that a language can have, but being afraid of the language itself must seem strange to the reader.

As we have seen, there are passages in Babel-17 that compare different languages to each other. This process, however, is never focused on. The comparisons are drawn to make points about the nature and the properties of language itself. The vocabulary that is often used to make these points is scientific vocabulary, stemming from linguistics, but the person doing the scientific work is not a scientist. Rydra Wong, as mentioned above, is an artist, a poet, whose linguistic explorations are more of a hobby or a vocation. There are many weighty passages treating issues of linguistics but they are counterbalanced by the epigraphs introducing the five chapters, taken from Marilyn Hacker‘s poetry.

The differences sketched here between science and art run deeper. The first thing that is learned about language is that it is not a code and that the two should not be confused. A code can simply be deciphered, but a language has to be understood in a more organic way (cf. 6ff.). Suddenly voices, circumstances, contexts become important. An artist‘s intuition becomes useful, her „knack“ (10). This intuitive approach is contrasted with the government scientists, who, „although they know a hell of a lot about codes, […] know nothing of the nature of language“ (8). This kind of disparagement has lead some to claim that, in this novel, language is part of the arts and not of science (cf. Weedman 136). This approach mistakens the pervasiveness of science. If in this text art is valued more highly, it is only because „today a person who learns the rules of art well is a little rarer than the person who learns the rules of science“ (48).

So, even if Rydra’s advantage might be her intuition, her art still has to confer to rules. More often than not, she uses linguistic terms to talk about these rules, in a word, she uses science. As Walter E. Meyers points out though, she misuses these terms often enough: „The uninformed reader of Babel-17 receives misinformation“, and the novel „is inaccurate at almost every turn“ (both: Aliens and Linguists 180). It seems as if all the linguistic terms that are heaped up (cf. Delany, Babel-17, 111) are nothing but words, or names. Outside the text the rules spread out in the pages with linguistic rambling might be scientific nonsense or inaccurate, but in this text, her rules lead Rydra Wong to an understanding of Babel-17.

The critic who tries to establish a rift between science and art in Babel-17‘s treatment of languages is mistaken because he does not understand that the novel’s discourse is concerned with language itself. Language is its own „ordering principle“ (Fox 97), not art or science. The two ways to approach the nature of language, art and science, do not preclude one another. It is important to note, that each takes part in solving the mystery of Babel-17. So cannot be about linguistics or poetry, it is about their object, language.

The most important fact is the all-pervasiveness of language. Early in the novel, a customs officer has some kind of sexual encounter and, trying to cope with the ensuing depression, he turns to the means of language. He tries to describe his loneliness in a way that perfectly describes one of the limits language imposes on its speakers, the emptiness of language (cf. 47). In the dense phrasing of structuralism: you „cannot ‚mean‘ and ‚be‘ simultaneously.“ (Eagleton 170), the thing you talk about is absent in the language, language is empty. Later Rydra, awakening from sleep, is caught between English and Babel-17 and thereby experiencing a kind of double consciousness (cf. Littlefield 223). She is not able to gather her thoughts, reflecting on the nature of language: „If there’s no word for it, how do you think about it?“ (Delany, Babel-17, 111). The nature of language, one learns from Babel-17, evidently is defined by the limits it imposes on us.

During a voyage through space we learn of ghost-like beings, called ‚Eye‘, ‚Ear‘ and ‚Nose‘, who are part of a space ship‘s crew, and who are responsible for sensual reconnaissance. They report how an approaching space port looks like to the captain of the ship who has no windows or anything to „see“ for herself (72f.). Through a helmet she can partake of the three sensory impartations, each of which can explain the whole situation as is witnessed by the simultaneous answers to the captain’s question of where to dock in the space port and for the verbal description of each the words seem deficient.

„In the sound of the E-minor triad.“
„In the hot oil you can smell bubbling to your left.“
„Home in on that white circle.“ (73)

This passage amply illustrates the point, that language is not enough, but everything recurs to language, in the end, you have to listen and make the best of it. Aristotle said man is a social being and society consequently depends on communication, or, to phrase it differently, on language.

Limited as we might be because of language, we might think, that we might possibly cope completely without language. The one area, though, where everybody might agree that language is essential, is communication. And it is communication that turns out to be one of the three most important aspects of language in Babel-17, the other two being the diversity of languages and language itself.

This novel is shock full of characters who try to communicate with others and fail or who don’t even try. The latter case is evident in the interplanetary war between the Invaders and the Alliance. In the whole novel there is not a single instance where the two parties communicate in any way. Until the last chapter, the Invaders are only twice encountered in person and then from a considerable distance, only as a red light on a radar screen (cf.124ff.). The unspoken question lingers in the text whether the war could have been evaded or, once under way, stopped by both parties communicating their differences. There are indications of both possibilities in the text. For one thing, both parties refer to the other party as the „one-who-has-invaded“ (215), which implies a misunderstanding . For another, as Rydra Wong sets out to put an stop to the war at the end, one of the first measures she takes, is to talk to the Invader’s Commander (cf. 218).

More interesting than the political misapprehensions are the numerous implications that aberrations in communication might be part of the conditio humana. The thought of the General: “Sequestered, how could this city exist?” (3) might well be applied to humans in general, as this same General, becoming infatuated with Rydra, mentally despairs of not being able to tell her his feelings, thinking: “My god […] all that inside of me and she doesn’t know! I didn’t communicate a thing!” (14), even though Rydra understands him perfectly through his non-verbal language, the “[b]reathing pattern, curls of hands in lap, carriage of shoulders” (197), also called “[m]eaningful motion [or] kinesics” (Meyers, Aliens and Linguistics, 59) in linguistics. This communication comes so naturally to humans that its total absence can cause “horrifying” (Delany, Babel-17, 197) shocks. The Butcher, as a speaker of Babel-17 loses the concept of ‚I‘, he is badly handicapped when it comes to communicating with others, but as he does not have the verbal means to efficiently communicate subjectivity the Butcher subconsciously resorts to non-verbal language (cf. 151), such as thumping his breast to express something that would be filled by speakers of English with the word ‚I‘ or ‚me‘ . Obviously, even if we do not talk we always use language or language-supplements such as a gesture to communicate.

Sometimes in Babel-17, communication takes place neither through speech nor through non-verbal language. Sometimes it takes place through telepathy, which is interesting, considering the interpretation of the General’s statement stated above: sequestered from other people, how can man exist? Telepathy is often seen as a way out of the solitariness of modern man (cf. Milner 298) and a way to cut the distance to others and to short-circuit communication if problems arise (cf. Bogdanoff 247). It is consequently of high importance that the person who solves the communication problems surrounding Babel-17, Rydra Wong , is telepathic (cf. Delany, Babel-17, 198).
Reading the thoughts of animals she comes up with pictures (cf. 205), but with humans the mind-reading always results in grammatically correct sentences. The difference between man and animal must clearly be language . Humans being „creatures whose choices are limited to killing or talking“ (Meyers, The Language and Languages of Science Fiction, 211), the emphasis on good communication in Babel-17 indicates a strong inclination to the latter, moreover it demonstrates a way to circumvent the former, if we bear in mind the political misapprehensions we talked about.

As we have seen, language has many uses in Babel-17, reaching from a comparison of different languages to an examination of the nature of language and, further still, to the necessity of communication. Communication has been the bottom line of all these implications of language. There is one other use of language, though, which concerns the practice of ‚naming‘ things.

The first kind of naming, using names as intertextual devices in a way that Bakhtin labeled „discourse“ (Eagleton 146), enables communication, not between the characters but between the reader and the text, as well as between this text and others. It is obvious at first glance that names are eminent for the construction of the text, as the five parts of Babel-17 are each named for one character, thereby signifying his or her importance for that particular part. Names, apparently, carry meaning in this text.

Most names in the text are invented, they seem like anagrams but there is no way to determine from the text itself where they point to, they might as well be part of the strange names of SF . The first of the three which are indeed decipherable is the name of the battleship on which Rydra encounters the Butcher, the only person really speaking Babel-17, though not uttering a single word of it in the text, and learns that language: Jebel Tarik. We are informed, that this means ‚Tarik’s mountain‘ in Old Moorish (cf. Delany, Babel-17, 115). It also is the Old Moorish name for the small peninsula called Gibraltar, one of the pillars of Herakles. What exactly this reference means we can only speculate upon. One way this can be construed is that it is indeed Herakles, the hero of greek myth, who is meant. This is indicated by the only openly mythical reference in the text (cf. 126), which also refers to greek myth and Herakles‘ quest , two parts of which took place on Gibraltar. As Babel-17‘s events ressemble a series of quests (cf. Barbour 26), calling the battle ship ‚Jebel Tarik‘ might be a move of the text placing the novel’s events square in ancient quest traditions.

The second name is the name of the novel as well as of the mysterious language: Babel-17, which is obviously a biblical reference to Babel, also known as Babylon. There are two significant biblical passages pertaining to Babel-17. The first is situated in and is concerned with God punishing Babylon for its arrogance. The punishment consists of „confound[ing] their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.“ (Pinker 231) This passage may well be read as a mythical explanation for the diversity of languages, the origin of many misunderstandings that arise in human communication. The second one is found in , where the downfall of the Great Whore Babylon is described in detail. At first glance, this passage might seem a little weird, having nothing to do with language or communication at all. Maybe, on second glance, it describes the consequences of mis-using language, of failed communication, of using words for war-mongering. In this reading of Babel-17, could the accusation that „die auf Erden wohnen, sind betrunken geworden von dem Wein ihrer Hurerei“ () not be talking about humanity whose mind was clogged by misleading words? In short, clogged by the limitations of language, just as, in a more obvious way, the Butcher’s mind is clogged by Babel-17.

The last name is less complicated than the first two. It is the protagonist’s name: Rydra Wong, which, spoken aloud, sounds like „right or wrong“ and may be a play both on critical processes within a language and on sublime messages in otherwise inconspicuous speech. The first reference might have something to do with the fact that within Babel-17‘s structure everything that can be said seems logically correct and intrinsically right, including the criminal actions programmed into it. It takes Rydra Wong to detect the manipulation inherent in the language. SF-editor Hartwell claims that „the dream of SF is to control reality by creating it“ (95) and Babel-17 tries to do just that. It creates a world where all possible propositions are true, it pretends that that each and every possibility is exhausted. As Wittgenstein said: „Man kann [einen Satz] verstehen, ohne zu wissen, ob er wahr ist.“ (33). Babel-17 pretends that every proposition that can be understood is true. This pretension is questioned by Rydra, introducing external criterias for evaluating truth into the language.

Names are of a great value to the structure of Babel-17. This holds true, as we have seen, for some particular names. Also, as we have seen, the process of naming things, for instance naming chapters or naming the novel, is an important part of the process of developing Babel-17‘s themes. We get an idea of exactly how important the process of naming actually is if we read that „[w]ords are names for things.[…] But were words names for things, or was that just a bit of semantic confusion? Words were symbols for whole categories of things“ (Delany, Babel-17, 112; italics his).

What I mean by „process of naming“ is the process whereby someone or something gets assigned a name and, through the name, the person or thing suddenly can be categorized, be used as a thing one can finally be sure of. Naming is trying to rid yourself of issues of undecidabilities, trying to rid yourself from ambiguities inherent in the person, thing or idea. Naming is a continuous series of „attempts at ‚image control‘“ (Tucker 13). That process is nicely illustrated early in the text, when a customs officer sees something he has never seen before, he is intimidated accordingly, so he tries to name the thing. He starts by calling it „the Silver Dragon“ (35), a name, that is more like a title than a name. Its gender or sex is not specified yet, that happens in the next sentence, starting off with „[s]he“ (35). The naming is complete, relieved that he could assess the creature, the customs officer can now allow himself to be astounded and exclaims: „It‘s a woman!“ (35). The same reasoning leads him shortly afterwards to tag someone a „Pervert[]!“ (43). This quick tagging seems to be the easy way of handling complicated situations.

There are two more ways that naming is employed in the text. One is the use of euphemisms and codes. A euphemism occurs, for example, when the General talks about the terroristic sabotage as „accidents“ (12). Codes are used far more often and in these codes names are used as simple placeholders for the encoded words, for example in radio contact in a space fight (cf. 129) or, more simply in assigning a code name to the language which the terrorists use to communicate with each other, Babel-17.

The last crucial act of naming concerns the naming of one’s self. According to Jacques Lacan, we are least ourselves while we talk about ourselves (cf. Eagleton 170), yet the attempts to define one‘s self by talking or thinking about it crowd the text. Be it the elusive desire that one wants to seize by naming it (cf. Delany, Babel-17, 14) or one’s vague feelings that seem less vague once they are named: „I am amazed, surprised, bewildered.“ (5). This process is reflected in the text itself in a most interesting way: when Rydra is trying to teach the Butcher the concept of ‚I‘ and ‚you‘, he turns that same concept nearly on its head by turning ‚I‘ and ‚you‘ respectively into proper names.

The main concern of naming is finding the „real name“ (69) of things, and thereby their irrefutable meaning. Later Rydra asks herself „[i]f there‘s no word for it, how do you think about it?“ (111), how do you assess it? This question echoes the questions that arise from the posthumously published works of American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf, his central claim being the following:

We are thus introduced to a new principle of relativity, which holds, that all observers are not
lead by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic
backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated. (Whorf 214)

The so-called principle of linguistic relativity states that fundamental differences in grammatical categories or in categories of words correspond to fundamental differences in thought. We cannot think independently of the language system we are part of, because „we cannot but ‚see and hear and otherwise experience‘ in terms of the categories and distinctions encoded in language“ (Lyons 304). This is the strong formulation of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which is highly controversial.

The weak formulation ‚merely‘ states that „the structure of one’s language influences perception and recall“ (307), meaning that memory is selective and depending on the language systems it will recall different things in different language systems. Some hold, that, although Whorf might have been wrong in his strong hypothesis, the weak version ist too weak and they formulated their theory between these two versions, taking into account the culture as a whole of the society in question (cf. Gipper 225).

In respect to two different language systems, the last issue to be discussed is the difference between translation and understanding. Even if it were true that translation is impossible, because metaphors and connotations are seldom translatable and never without losing some of the connotation, this would not mean that understanding is impossible (cf. Lakoff 311). It is crucial to differentiate between two languages having a different „conceptual system“ (311), which is what makes translation difficult (cf. 311f.), and the „conceptualizing capacity“ (310), of which Lakoff assumes that it is shared in general by people. This capacity allows for understanding even in cases when the conceptual systems are radically different (cf. 311f.).

One need not go very far in looking for an example of the difficulties implied by the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in Babel-17. The two most significant languages in the text, English and Babel-17, are not very similar to each other, their conceptual systems are fundamentally different. Babel-17 is “an exact analytical language” (Delany, Babel-17, 215), while English is claimed to be “analytically clumsy” (210). Speakers of Babel-17 seem to have an “angular brutality” as well as an “animal grace” (both: 131). The English language, by contrast, lends itself well to poetry, it is beautiful when it is polished, it is a very subjective language, expressing peoples thought and opinions (cf. 17f.), whereas in Babel-17’s conceptual system the grammatical category of subjectivity and self-reflexiveness is missing (cf. 139).

These conceptual differences make translation difficult, certainly. That is why the Butcher, the original speaker of Babel-17, who does not speak a single word of it within the text, has trouble communicating properly in English, he sounds harsh and brutal (cf. 146ff.). These difficulties do not, however, prevent him from learning in English the concepts of ‘I’ and ‘you’ that are missing in the conceptual system he operates with. His being able to understand Rydra’s teaching is the proof that the text offers for the validity of Lakoff’s distinction between understanding and translation.

The closest the text gets to simply restating Whorfian theory is when Rydra claims that “language is thought” (23, italics his) and the closest it gets to refuting the same theory is by saying that although “the original words were lost, the translation remained” (77). What may seem simply like a contradictory statement turns out to be, another one of the textual tactics of Babel-17, namely intrducing a contardiction to shake the readers grip on the meaning of the text and to leave him with questions. Similarly, the explanation of Babel-17’s function as programming its speaker “to become a criminal and a saboteur” (215) is so blatantly unscientific and implausible that it should quickly be realized that the text is not concerned with simple endeavors such as fictionally exploring Whorfian theory. On the contrary, it uses Whorf’s theory to make its own points.

Sometimes the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is also called Sapir-Whorf-Korzybski Hypothesis, named after the founder of General Semantics, whose Motto is ‘The Map is not the Territory’ (cf. Eco 124f.), something we already encountered in Lacan’s thesis. Interestingly, this corresponds nicely with Broderick’s assertion that SF “maps utopia” (107). This connection should encourage us not to look for literalizations of utopias in works of SF, but to look instead for hints, absences, the “naturwissenschaftliche Wunderbare” (Todorov 54). Also, we should remember Moylan, who claimed, that we should not expect utopias in modern literature but only expressions of utopia (cf. Moylan 36). A cursory glance at Babel-17 reveals that there is no utopia in the narrow sense of the word. Still, there is a map of a certain, utopian change, as closer scrutiny will show. Babel-17 traces the contours of that change in the murky waters of language.

Naming things and using manipulated speech have been part of everyday language for several years now. The text shows just how manipulative everyday language can be by using the extreme example of the schizophrenia-inducing Babel-17 in several subtle ways. For instance it is pointed out that Babel-17 manipulates its speakers by using manipulative vocabulary: “the word for Alliance in Babel-17 translates literally into English as: one who has invaded.[…] It has all sorts of little diabolisms programmed into it.” (Delany, Babel-17, 215). This particular diabolism it shares with English, as we never get to know the word for the Invader’s home planets, they are just that: Invaders, meaning, those-who-have-invaded.

It is not easy to blame Babel-17 on the Invaders, as they used Babel-17 as a tool which only worked because it turned a weapon which was the Alliance’s all along, against the Alliance (see footnote 6). Babel-17 encourages us to look at language as an object, not as a given. “[T]he tool is not the weapon; rather the knowledge of how to use it” (213). This is where linguistic relativism comes into play. Some, among them Robert Anton Wilson, have claimed, that English is a highly manipulative language, with lots of possibilities to shroud the speaker’s intentions. That’s why they invented E-Prime, which appears to be sort of a new and improved English, wherin one is not allowed to use the verb ‘(to) be’ or any of its compound varieties (cf. Wilson 97-107). Changing the conceptual system changes minds, they claim. Exactly the same claim is made by Rydra Wong. After having uncovered every secret of Babel-17 and having stopped the sabotage she corrected Babel-17 “to build it towards truth” (Delany, Babel-17, 218).

Turning around what I said in the previous paragraph, I may also claim that its easy to blame Babel-17 on the Invaders, because the names suggest that. It is an „alien language“ (7) and the nameless Invaders wrought havoc with it (cf. 214f.). Sure, the Butcher was the Alliance’s tool, but it took the Invader’s cunning , the „knowledge how to use it“ (213) to make him a weapon. If it is that easy to change truths, how can Rydra believe herself to be able to make Babel-17 truthful?

Wittgenstein famously wrote: „Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen“ (Wittgenstein 111). Not to talk about something equals in this case not being able to say anything about that something that can have any claim to truth. Babel-17‘s status as a work of fiction and the loads of contradictions of which we have encountered several already, almost represent that Wittgensteinian silence. At the end of the day, what, really, has been said? What has been named? If „[a]ny given fiction reveals what it excludes“ (Broderick 133) the possibilities of what is revealed in Babel-17 are great, as it nearly never mentions the government, society, anything that borders on the issues of language is excluded from the text but not from the text’s discourse. Some kind of utopia is discernible in the text, but it’s precise shape is never named, which makes it all the more pervasive.

In Babel-17, we have earned, language is present in many ways, as language, linguistics, poetry and in the process of naming. There is one last aspect left, the one about the language-like qualities of SF. Samuel R. Delany encourages the reader of SF to think of it „as a language that must be learned or as a mode of writing as distinctive as poetry.“ (Landon 7). Each SF text is embedded in a „generic [SF] megatext“ (Broderick 59), which consists of all the other SF works that have been written and all the works that will be written. This means that every SF text has numerous references to numerous other SF texts which must be „not so much understood as simply recognized as proper names.“ (Broderick 57). Most importantly among those references figure certain stock terms that keep cropping up and the individual SF text is characterised by the way he takes up these stock terms and uses them in his own narrative.

This, of course, is nothing else but the notion of intertextuality that we already discussed. It is only now, however, that all the necessary elements for a sensible discussion of the dialogical functions of the SF megatext have been gathered. Babel-17 „showcas[es] the possibilities of SF’s invented languages“ (Malmgren 9) and a comparison with the SF megatext shows that Sfspeak is just another language in the bulk of the many already presented, but it is the process of naming that will become most important for the discussion of SF vocabulary.

Many SF texts play on the so-called „quest formula“ (Aldiss and Wingrove 393). These texts constitute a whole subgenre of SF: the space opera, which first appeared in the 1920s in pulp magazines such as Amazing and Astounding. (cf. Landon 72 ff.). Kingsley Amis remarks that what space operas resemble most are „horse operas“ (44) and Susan Sontag noticed, apropos of SF films, that their predictability remind her of Westerns (cf. 209). Space opera’s plots involve all the magic ingredients, space ships, black holes, hideous aliens, big guns and in a focal position: the heroic men who conquer the unknown universe (cf. Bogdanoff 82 f.). Space operas not only reinforce certain stereotypes, they also have social relevance in their advocacy of capitalism and colonialism (cf. Bogdanoff 85f.) They are propelled by a „missionary fervor and a sense of purpose“ (Landon 81). This crusade leads to frequent encounters with aliens. These encounters can be subsumed under the so-called first contact theme.

First Contacts are not restrained in their appearance nor are they more likely to appear in a space opera than in any other SF subgenre. They are first contacts with that which is alien, that which is the other. This theme is so pervasive that it has lead Broderick to say that SF both „writes the narrative of the other“ and „the narrative of the same, as other“ (51, italics his), which is a major insight, as C.G. Jung points out: „the alien is that which exists within humanity but which civilized humanity believes to have conquered“ (Golden 73). Also, according to C.G. Jung, the quest of the hero is a new myth (cf. 31) and corresponds with „the perennial human quest for meaning and wholeness“ (29). Fighting a war against an alien perceived as hideous would mean what the hero really fights is that within himself which he perceives as hideous. He finds himself a substitute enemy.
Turning to SF it soon is noticeable that the main problem in first contact scenarios is a failing of all kinds of communication, verbal as well as non-verbal (cf. Bogdanoff 244). In SF films the appearance of the alien usually is accompanied by silence (cf. Seeßlen 435), which in written SF texts is impossible to realize. As in the movies, however, the appearance of the alien has its importance. According to Bogdanoff communication works better the more human the alien appears. (cf. 230). This raises the question of what is really human: the humans, their shadow counterparts or both? What makes someone human ? It might well be language.

When talking about mythical references in the novel we already noticed the quest motive in Babel-17. Indeed, the novel has been derisively called a space opera often both by members of the academia (cf. Schulz 151) as well as by members of the SF ‚scene‘ (cf. Keim 503). It has been claimed that space opera’s underlying world view prevents any criticism of society or language (cf. Keim 514). In contrast, I would claim that the text „shows the need to understand codes and conventions“ (Samuelson 168) in order to work with them.

The stereotypes of space opera are conspicuously absent. The hero is a woman, who has weak moments (Delany, Babel-17, 15f.). She is a poet, not a warrior and although fights take place they have nothing to do with what turns out to be the hero’s victory. There’s none of the stereotypical male cocksureness in the events. It is poetry, science and Rydra and the Butcher‘s love that wins the day, not the big guns. The crew on Rydra‘s ship which is all the society the text permits us to see works in ways together that seem more like kibbutzim, working together as equals, work and love closely related. There is no trace of capitalism; colonialism, however, is hinted at, the headquarters of the Invaders are in a city called „Nueva-nueva York“ (218), a clear reference to New York and American colonial history. The missionary fervor, too, has its place in Babel-17, but it is a different fervor, a different purpose. In the end, Babel-17 is accorded no cultural value that could result in a cultural colonisation, it is assigned to other tools, it works as a go-between.

Speaking ‘SF’ means understanding the stereotypes and using them. Moylan wrote that he believed the productive powers of phantasy were situated in art (cf. Moylan 33). Using one’s phantasy to speak to the reader with the intent of swaying him to the cause, that aspect of Moylan’s belief are well taken care of by SF.

The key to the space opera motive in Babel-17 is found in Jung‘s observation as stated above: „the alien is that which exists within humanity but which civilized humanity believes to have conquered“ (Golden 73), a dark force within humanity. And language is exactly that, a manipulative force that we believe to have conquered through writings, through codes, through the disambiguation that we believe to occur in the process of naming. By transposing the palpable figure of the alien with something as vague as language, Babel-17 demonstrates what we should be afraid of: ourselves. „Who is this animal man“ is asked early on (Delany, Babel-17, 3). If we as human beings dump our fears of our shadowy side on the character of the Alien, this process assures that in the figure of that Alien can we ourselves be traced (cf. Golden 161). In language we can also be traced with all our arrogance in full display, all our weaknesses.

Language in space operas, we have found, mirrors the capitalist society from when they originated. Language mirrors our selves, but, as we learned, those same selves are absent in the language. Compared to other utopias, the traces of utopia visible in Babel-17 are not to do with enshrining a particular language or culture, as utopias generally have the tendency to do (Gordon 205). Languages, we learn, are deficient. English as well as the mysterious Babel-17. Communication also is deficient, personal as well as global, we have learned that, too. Maybe society, and we, too, who are mirrored in it are also deficient.

Language is mended as the events turn to a close (218f.). Another thing that is on the way to being mended is the political situation, meaning the interplanetary war, as Rydra and the Butcher are resolved to stop it. About earth society we receive nearly no information, we only encounter two earth people from the government, the General and a customs officer. Both are unhappy. The General, because he thinks that he cannot communicate with others. The customs officer seems to be unhappy with his whole life situation. He changes because he communicates with others, he changes his language system in parts: the process of naming is recognized as bad. This, actually is not portrayed in the novel, but when Rydra returns to earth the customs officer’s lifestyle resembles a lifestyle he claimed was perverted (cf. 191f.). Rydra’s quest, one might assume, mirrors the officer’s journey through his language in an allegorical way.

In his foreword to Delany’s seventh novel The Einstein Intersection, Neil Gaiman reviews some of the ways that particular novel has been read by all kinds of readers and interpreters. He closes that section of the foreword without passing judgement on the validity of these readings but instead he comments: „if that were all the book was, it would be a poor type of tale, with little resonance for now. Instead, it continues to resonate.“ (Gaiman ix). That holds equally true for Babel-17, which has been read as a black novel (cf. Weedman), as a gay novel and as an arrogant and trashy novel (cf. Keim)

SF, Delany says, is „a tool to help you think about the present […] in a way that allows you to question them as you read along in an interesting, moving and exciting story“ (Landon 35). This statement perfectly captures the effect of Babel-17, an exiting story about language and its mechanisms, questioning our sense of ourselves. Notions of free will and truth are under fire in this novel. That its narrative is open-ended is fitting. It leaves us with questions, not with answers. Questions that are about language, not about codes.

Languages have to be understood. When Rydra sits down with her tapes and transcriptions and works out all the grammar and vocabulary before passing judgment on Babel-17, maybe that is the text’s way of telling us to sit down likewise and consider the implications.Rydra’s understanding of herself and her understanding of the language happen at the same time. Babel-17 suggests, that it is always that way as understanding ourselves means understanding language first.

SF „shows human kind groaning in chains of its own construction, but nearly always with the qualification that those chains can be broken if people try hard enough“ (Amis 77) In Babel-17 these chains are language. Changing your life means changing your language. This is where mainstream criticism errs, which assumes that Babel-17 is about language and problems of language. They cannot see that it is about change. Trying hard enough not to succumb to the manipulations of language or to reflect the manipulation. These consequences are political as well as epistemological. Changing society also means changing yourself and your language, which is the lesson Wilson implemented when he started to advocate E-Prime.
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6. Bibliography

Aldiss, Brian W., David Wingrove. Trillion Year Spree: the History of Science Fiction. London:
Victor Gollancz, 1986.
Amis, Kingsley. New Maps of Hell: A Survey of Science Fiction. New York: Harcourt, 1960.
Asimov, Isaac. „Social Science Fiction“ Modern Science Fiction: its Meaning and its Future. Ed.
Reginald Bretnor. 2nd Ed. Chicago: Advent, 1979. 157-196.
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and his World. Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press, 1968.
Barbour, Douglas. Worlds out of Words: the Science Fiction Novels of Samuel R. Delany. Frome:
Bran’s Head, 1979.
Baudrillard, Jean. Transparenz des Bösen: ein Essay über extreme Phänomene. Berlin: Merve, 1992.
Bogdanoff, Igor, Grichka Bogdanoff. La Science-fiction. Paris: Seghers, 1976.
Broderick, Damien. Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Science Fiction. London, New York:
Routledge, 1995.
Bozzetto, Roger. „Fantastique, Science-Fiction et Archéologie“ Les Ailleurs Imaginaires: les Rapports
entre le Fantastique et la Science Fiction. Ed. Aurélien Boivin et al.. Québec: Nuit Blanche,
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Delany, Samuel R. Trouble on Triton. Hanover: Wesleyan UP, 1996.
—. The Einstein Intersection. Hanover: Wesleyan UP, 1998.
—. Shorter Views: Queer Thoughts & The Politics of the Paraliterary. Hanover: Wesleyan UP, 1999.
—. Babel-17. New York: Vintage, 2001.
Die Bibel: nach der Übersetzung Martin Luthers. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1985.
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: an Introduction. Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota P., 1983.
Eco, Umberto. Zeichen: Einführung in einen Begriff und seine Geschichte. Frankfurt a. M.:
Suhrkamp, 1977.
Fox, Robert E. Conscientious Sorcerers: the black postmodernist fictions of LeRoi Jones/Amiri
Baraka, Ishmael Reed and Samuel R. Delany. New York, Westport, London: Greenwood
Press, 1987.
Gaiman, Neil. Foreword. The Einstein Intersection. By Samuel R. Delany. Hanover: Wesleyan UP,
1998. vii-xi.
Gipper, Helmut. „Is there a linguistic relativity principle?“ Universalism versus Relativism in
Language and Thought: Proceedings of a Colloquium on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. Ed. Rik Pinxton. The Hague: Mouton, 1976. 217-228.
Golden, Kenneth L.. Science Fiction, Myth and Jungian Psychology. Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter:
The Edwin Mellen Press, 1995.
Gordon, Joan. „Utopia, Genocide, and the Other“ Edging into the Future: Science Fiction and
Contemporary cultural transformation. Ed. Veronica Hollinger and Joan Gordon. Philadelpia:
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Hacker, Marilyn. Selected Poems: 1965-1990. New York: Norton, 1994.
Hartwell, David G. Age of Wonders: Exploring the World of Science Fiction. New York: Tom
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Keim, Heinrich. „New Wave“: die Avantgarde der modernen Angloamerikanischen Science Fiction?
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Koch, Markus. Alien-Invasionsfilme: die Renaissance eines Science-Fiction-Motivs nach dem Ende
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Lakoff, George. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: what Categories reveal about the Mind.
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Landon, Brooks. Science Fiction after 1900: from the Steam Man to the Stars. New York: Routledge,
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Littlefield, Ralph E. Character and Language in eight Novels by Ursula K. LeGuin and Samuel R.
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As always, if you feel like supporting this blog, there is a “Donate” button on the right. I really need it 🙂 . My other posts may not be *as* thorough as this one, but maybe still worth supporting? If you liked this, tell me. If you hated it, even better. Send me comments, requests or suggestions either below or via email (cf. my About page) or to my twitter.)

Poetology, à la Veronica Mars

Way to go to. Made me scrap this night’s fresh poem. Tough when you recognize your own schlock through the lens of a cable tV show. Meh. ;(

“The attributes and style of crap teen poetry: must be written in a funky colour of ink, must include dominant themes of alienation, sexual ambivalence, self-loathing, death, etcetera.” (Veronica Mars, First Season, 9th Episode)

Hell, this is a great show. Watching the 1st season for the 2nd time. Great fun.

I love Kim Deal

MAO (Deutsch)

er sei bitter geworden beim mitansehen
der scheitenden weltrevolution
des erstickenden kinds
mit den fremden grünen augen

er sei grausam geworden
das gras noch müsse man ausreißen
damit es grün bleibt sagt müller
den verrat aus den köpfen schlagen

er sei talentiert gewesen als sänger
aber schreiben zum teufel wie
auf einem sack gäriger äpfel
schlief er seine nächte aus.

Getting geeky tonight

You scored as Willow, Willow. Smart. Resourceful. Understanding. Full of Self-Doubt. Shy. Unstable. Your live has mostly been about relying on your smarts. You parents mostly ignored you, so you had to learn to be resourceful. Magic came along as a boundless frontier that had a unique set of chalanges and rewards. The mystical is one of most compelling things for you. Only love can surmount that. You emotions are a whirlwind of either strength or destruction. The combination of Brains, Magic & Overwhelming Emotions makes you a dangerous, but very interesting person.

Willow		80%
Giles		75%
Cordelia		73%
Angel		60%
Spike		58%
Wesley		55%
Doyle		53%
Harmony		50%
Lorne		50%
Faith		48%
Xander		48%
Oz		43%
Anya		35%
Buffy		30%

What Buffyverse (Angel & Buffy) Character are you most like?
created with QuizFarm.com

Robert Jordan dies at age 58. Why do I care?

It’s truly astonishing the amount of sexism one is prepared to stomach sometimes when you want to be entertained. There’s Ally McBeal of course, which isn’t all that clear cut a case but I suspect she will come up again on this blog. And there’s the pain in the ass of High Fantasy. The lesser the writer the ranker his sexism. The Peakes, Miévilles, Delanys or LeGuins are few and far between. Most of the High Fantasy novelists write fiction like boys who don’t talk to girls or rarely. This includes (and why shouldn’t it) women writers. The best of this group of writers rise above the mediocre rest by mastering the art of crafting powerfully escapist novels. For example, in Robin Hobb’s oeuvre you won’t find complex structures, great ideas or multi-layered characters. But inevitably, by the second volume of her small cycles, you will be hooked. This Sunday, Robert Jordan died. Why do I care? Robert Jordan is the best bad writer of his genre. Stylistically, he’s clearly worse than many of his collegues, he only narrowly escapes being worse than Raymond Feist, stylistically. His storytelling has become increasingly tedious and increasingly sexist. However, the world he created was large, populated by an innumerable host of characters. It was, I’ll grant him that, addictive. Addictive enough for me to have read every single novel of the twelve (including that damn prequel) that he’s written. He was only one novel away from finishing. And then he died, that cheeky bastard. Looking at the long and colorful row of Jordan novels behind my shelves (no place for him ON them) I marvel at my boyish anger. And even more, I marvel at the fact that I have been reading his novels for over ten years now, and they have become more and more sexist at a steady rate and I have not destroyed them or given them away, I haven’t even stopped buying them, reading them, for Christ’s sake. Maybe this was an accomplishment of his, to make his novels -if not entertaining- addictive enough to keep me, hell, US, reading, for so many years, through so many bad books, up to the end, which -poof- suddenly disappeared. It feels as if he’d done it on purpose, inspired by the Sopranos maybe. Twelve books of teaser and then – blackout.
Maybe that’s genius.

Travel

Writing about Travel Studies, James M. Buzard directed his reader’s attention to the multiple ways in which default assumptions about travel often guide discourse and cripple serious thought. His call for a treatment of travel that is both wider and narrower than the common treatment (cf. Buzard 43f.) seems to stem from strong misgivings as to the acceptability of bad yet commonly accepted definitions. However, as we will see in the course of the present paper, ‘travel’ is not the only concept in need of clarification. The other central concept is ‘theory’.

Edward W. Said’s essay “Traveling Theory” is firm on what theory is and under which constraints it works . Theory, in Said’s reading of philosophical history, cannot be separated from its author and its author cannot escape the circumstances of his or her time. Thus, theory is firmly anchored to a time and place, because its author is. This means that, being a reader of theory in a different set of circumstances, one is prone to misread the theory, as “[n]o reading is neutral or innocent” (Said, WTC , 241), because the reader, too, is bound to his own set of circumstances.

However, later generations of writers can take this theory and put it to use in their own set of circumstances, different as it is from the original set. The theory, as it resurfaces in the works of these second-generation writers, has, in a way, travelled through time and space. As we will see later on, Said keeps silent about the actual traveling. His sole interest is in the point of departure and the point of arrival.

The present paper will provide a critical reading of Said’s essay and the concepts it is based on, but at the same time, it will provide a defense of the essay, an apologia, in a way. It will be shown that the first step in an analysis of traveling theories must be a clarification of the status of theories before the travels can be considered. Subsequently, it will be shown, what, once the meaning of ‘theory’ has been ascertained, this means for the possibilities of travel and traveling theories and “Traveling Theory”.

The major example in Said’s essay for the theory he is proposing, is centered around Lukács’ theory of reification and the way that theory has been taken up by Lucien Goldmann in his magisterial study of Pascal and Racine Le Dieu Caché. We will now briefly sketch, without going into the theoretical details, how Said’s example is structured.
He begins with the writings if the then young and ardent revolutionary Lukács, who, according to Said, wrote an “astonishingly brilliant” (231) analysis of his time. Lukács’ major achievement appears to be an analysis which Said considers “an act of political insurgency” (232). Lucien Goldmann, who took up Lukács’ theory and applied it to an analysis of Jansenist thought and writing has diluted that theory by having textualized the parts of the theory that were directed at the external world. This is not to be called a misreading, as both writers are determined by their historical and social situation.
This must suffice as a summary of Said’s central example. In the next part we will turn to Said’s concept of theory.

“Traveling Theory” is based on the idea that theory, arises from and responds to a historical situation (for the Marxist background, see Schleifstein 39). This claim is buttressed by Said with a lengthy explanation of a theory by Lukacs and the changes which this theory underwent at the hands of subsequent critics. These changes are claimed to be inevitable and they can be counted on to either dull the fervor of the theory, so that it becomes “a dogmatic reduction” (208) or to implode by activating aporias within itself, that were already there. Travel, in other words, is necessarily negative, as “[l]ater versions of the theory cannot replicate its original power” (Said, Reflexions on Exile and Other Essays, 436).

In a recent essay called “Traveling Theory Reconsidered” (cf Said, Reflexions on Exile and Other Essays, 436ff.), Edward Said rethinks his approach to the problem of traveling theories and admits that his analysis was marred by a “common enough bias” (436). To the possibilities of change he adds a way that travel might affect a positive change in the theory, something he claims will happen only if a “traveling theory [becomes] tougher, harder, more recalcitant” (440).

Even though he does not discuss the process of travel, he leaves no doubt as to how that change is effected and what he is focusing on: the mind of the theorist, be it Lukács, Adorno, Fanon or somebody else. Saying ‘mind’ in this case entails talking about their personal, emotional involvement with the situations they write their theory in, more than any rational aspect. Thus, Said spends quite some time investigating Fanon’s development as a writer and reader (cf. Said 446ff.). Except for the quotes Said provides, the theoretical text never makes an appearance. Dismissing formalism out of hand, Said concentrates solely on content. What the theory means is not up to the textual aspect of the theory, but up to the author’s intention, which is shaped in turn by the time and place this author lived in. According to Said, theory is an object crafted by an individual mind and the emphasis of Said’s reading is always on the maker. It is not primarily Lukács’ theory but Lukács’ intentions which are revolutionary and it is primarily Lucien Goldmann’s scholarly intentions which dull the sharp edges of the original theory, not Le Dieu Caché.

If we keep the two elements of our previous explication of ‘theory’ there is a second possibility as to the nature of theory. Until now we distinguished text and a reader willing to read the text with regard to practice but located the actual theory in the reader’s mind. In doing so, we might have fallen prey to the commonsensical idea of needing to allocate a well-defined place and shape to theory.
However, if we are prepared to jettison this figurative concept, if we are wiling to take “the parallax view” (Žižek), a different possibility opens up. Parallax is a concept in use for instance in astronomy to describe “the apparent displacement of an object […] caused by a change in observational position that provides a new line of sight” (Žižek 17).
Transposing this concept on our discussion of theory results in a re-objectification of theory. Theory, in this concept, is external to the reader’s mind, even though the reader’s practical reading is pivotal here, too, since it is the reader’s reading which constitutes him as the observer in the parallax concept. A reader who reads the same text purely as a work of literature does not belong to the class of observers who are crucial to our understanding of theory in this variation . Thus formulated, however, we seem to have lost the element of travel altogether, as we are left with a single, unmoving object.

Then again, the apparent displacement is anything but objective. Žižek claims that “a ‘epistemological’ shift in the subject’s point of view always reflects an ‘ontological’ shift in the object itself” (Žižek 17). This does not refer to ‘real’ changes, because this is not the debate Žižek is leading here . Instead, the statement reflects the impossibility of ascertaining the reality of the object. All we have, in a way, are the observer’s accounts. So, as in the previous case, a comparison of theories will involve a comparison of theorists. Although, this time, it is the theory which moves (with the text remaining a stable force or minor importance behind it), it is impossible to compare the two readings directly, as there “is no rapport between the two levels, no shared space – although they are closely connected (4).
We find in both of our reworkings of what constitutes theory one common element: in both cases the text gets short shrift, as it does in Said’s essay. While the text is important, a close reading will not resolve any of the methodological difficulties of such a comparison. It is the readers who will have to be read and the tentative ideas on a future anthropology which James Clifford puts forward in the first chapter of Routes and the concept of traveling culture(s) offer fascinating tools for this kind of project.

The possibility of positive change, as explained earlier, is not the only new element in “Traveling Theory Reconsidered”. The other major development is the inclusion of a theoretical writer of postcolonial studies such as Fanon. Whereas the first essay charted lines of influence within Western Europe’s academia, Said now turns his attention to fields connected to postcolonial studies, a development anticipated by Clifford’s critique of “Traveling Theory” as too focused on travels within Europe, “within an unmarked ‘Western’ place and history” (Clifford, “Notes on Travel and Theory”, 4).

Once the element of non-western culture enters the discussion, the mapping of travels become less easy, as the mapper “runs the risk of distorting the new object” (Shen 218).There is a difficulty inherent in this kind of discussion, giving rise to “non-linear complexities” (Clifford 8), that Said sidesteps elegantly by not once referring explicitly to culture. However, moving away from the simple revolutionary/bourgeois dichotomy which dominated the earlier essay, and moving towards other cultures and other academic fields, he opens up his own theory to a discussion of culture, which calls for a reformulation of the basic tenet of his essay: “Reconsidering Traveling Theory” is based on the idea that theory, like any other text, arises from and responds to culture.

As James Clifford has shown, culture is not a monolithic entity, nor does it make sense equating it with a location. Cultures travel, too, and the circumstances of the reader/writer of theory, do not only consist of his local situation, the cultures he belongs to must be considered as at least as decisive a force in shaping his subjectivity and consequently his reading, writing and understanding of texts. Arguably all of this takes place under the Überbau of Marxist theory, we did not stray too far from that path, but the circumstances of Said’s theory cannot be simply equated with Marxist terms, thus the inclusion of culture(s) can by all means be called an extension of Said’s circumstances.

Cultures can travel without the members of the culture moving corporally, for instance through receiving visitors or through being subjected to medial influences, such as television or literature (cf. Clifford, Routes, 27f.). On the other hand, cultures can maintain their integrity even while travelling and being integrated into the local culture (cf. 25f.).

As a member of such a culture, our projected reader/writer cannot be regarded simply as a local, or, to use the anthropological expression, as a native, as the culture(s) he belongs to are constantly shifting and changing, travelling, in a multitude of ways. Whereas one could say that Said claimed to be able to reduce his own reader/writer to the village he lives in, to use a trope of Clifford’s, we cannot do such a thing.

On the contrary, we have to recognize that the inbetween of the process of travel is filled by the shifts in cultures. Books may travel to the reader’s culture or the reader may travel to the country where the books are printed, the reader may or may not have read books on a similar topic, he or she may or may not have in-depth knowledge of that particular text’s field of expertise etc. A similar amount of factors can be found at the writer’s end of the process as well. It appears that it is a plentiful wellspring of possibilities that surrounds the process of traveling theories.

Althusser, Louis. Lire le Capital: Tome I. Paris: Maspero, 1966.
Buzard, James M. “What isn’t Travel?” Unravelling Civilization: European Travel and Travel Writing. Ed. Hagen Schulz-Forberg.
Brussels: Lang, 2005. 43-62.
Clifford, James. “Notes on Travel and Theory” Inscriptions 5 (1989): 177-188.
Clifford, James. Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1997.
De Man, Paul. The Rhetoric of Romanticism. New York: Columbia UP, 1984.
Forsdick, Charles. “Travelling Theory, Exile Theorists” Travel and Exile: Postcolonial Perspectives. Ed. Charles Forsdick.
Liverpool: A.S.C.A.L.F., 2001.
Gregory, Horace; Marya Zaturenska. A History of American Poetry: 1900-1940. New York: Gordian, 1969.
Said, Edward W. The World, the Text and the Critic. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1983.
Said, Edward W. Reflexions on Exile and Other Essays. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2000.
Shen, Dan. “Traveling Theory: A Twisting Movement” The Search for a New Alphabet: Literary Studies in a Changing World. Ed.
Harald Hendrix et al.Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1996. 213-219.
Žižek, Slavoj. The Parallax View. Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press, 2006.

Wollstonecraft’s Vision

Mary Wollstonecraft’s 1792 treatise on the “Vindication of the Rights of Women” has held up remarkably well, considering the advances that feminists have made in the decades since. She emphasizes the rationality of women and their ability to be able to be strong enough to “rise in the world” without having to marry first. The fact that ground gained in the 1970s and 1980s in terms of feminist insights has been lost in the past decade has lent her arguments new power and demonstrates the longevity of gender stereotypes.

The text insists on destroying myths about women, the most damaging of which is the idea of feminity as being inherently “pretty” and of all women being a “frivolous sex”, not to be taken seriously. Wollstonecraft naturally realizes that she herself will be judged by that standard, which explains the vehemence of her attack against these stereotypes. In order to offset herself better against that myth she eschews a polished style so as not to make an impression of prettiness. Wollstonecraft wants to be seriously considered, as a “rational creature[]”, someone to be reckoned with as an adult, i.e. a person who can adequately discuss serious matters.

Thus she refutes the myth of women being unable to shine in any area of expertise apart from childish hobbies. However, she never denies that women are doing useless and childish things: “they dress; they paint and nickname God’s creatures.” Yet even though her disapproval is tangible, she does not berate women for adhering to these gender roles. Instead she chooses “to persuade women” to behave in a different fashion and condemns society for binding women to certain gender roles. It is a veiled attack, part of it directed against “writers”, part of it against an education system which teaches women to be caricatures of women. She doesn’t yet have the critical vocabulary developed in the 1970’s and 1980’s to describe the problem in a more exact way.

This is not to say, however, that she isn’t astonishingly modern in her criticism. Her recognition of the fact that women are made ‘women’ by their education is heavily reminiscent of modern ideas of sex and gender. Meanwhile, the most baffling connection between Wollstonecraft’s text and current attitudes towards women is not a theoretical one.

Rather, it becomes uncomfortably clear how far back the recent rollback in feminist matters has taken modern Western society. Since the mid-1990’s a new generation of women celebrate what they call their ‘womanhood’, emphasizing their ‘feminity’ and their differenece from men. The entertainment and advertising industry has catered to that impulse, providing TV Shows, hundreds of women’s magazines and books about women being from Venus and men being from Mars.

An American feminist was attacked in the NYTimes recently for decrying this harmful development in a style that was to the reviewer woefully indicative of a 1970’s frame of mind, replete with 1970’s vocabulary and concerned with 1970’s battles. The feminist complained that ‘choice’ these days has been perverted to also mean ‘choice to be feminine’, ‘choice to not work and be ‘married” and such things. It has been fashionable again to refute women’s rationality in favor of their ‘intuition’ and “libertine notions of beauty.”

As early as 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft recognized the trap which ‘feminity’ has become for women and she has decribed its contours in a precise way. Even though she is vague as to the construction mechanism of that trap and even though she continues to make problematic assumptions about the role of women in society, her text is still, 214 years after publication, remarkably forceful. This is not due to a stagnation in society and ideas about women but to the massive rollback which feminism has suffered in the last decade. Wollstonecraft’s attempt to “point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists” deserve to be read anew and to be read seriously.

Die Kulturindustrie als Retter der Kunst

In der „Kulturindustrie“ von Adorno und Horkheimer wird dargestellt, wie durch die Industrialisierung der Kultur die Herrschaft der Konzerne jeden Bereich kultureller Bildung und Ausbildung erfasst. Dies geschieht durch eine Art Rationalisierung, die zum einen die „irrationale Gesellschaft“ (146) zur Ursache hat, die durch die rationalen Klassifikationen und Schematismen erst kontrollierbar wird, und zum anderen die „Rationalität der Herrschaft selbst“ (142), durch die der Schematismus als Methode zur Kontrolle der Gesellschaft erst plausibel wird. Es scheint, als ob die Kulturindustrie an einem Verfall der Kultur und der Kunst beteiligt sei und als ob der „Kulturindustrie“ -Text diesen Verfall darstellt. Ich meine jedoch in diesem Text auch ein Moment der Hoffnung zu finden, der durch die Kultur-Industrie herbeigeführten Rettung. Kann das überhaupt sein? Kann die Kulturindustrie die Kunst retten?

Die Kulturindustrie scheint nach Adorno und Horkheimer ein im Vergleich zur traditionellen Kultur erhöhtes Maß an Stilbewusstsein zu besitzen, das sich äußert in Form einer stereotypen Übertragung der vorkommenden, aufkommenden, ja, der „noch gar nicht gedachten“ (148) Kulturbestandteile und Ideen in ein Schema, das der mechanisierten Darreichungsform von Kultur gerecht wird und den Schematismen, denen die Konsumenten, also das Publikum, ausgesetzt sind. Diese Anpassung ist, anders als man erwarten könnte, nicht unbedingt eine Vereinfachung, sondern tatsächlich eine Anpassung an einen Stil, eine Anpassung, deren Ausführung unwillkürlich erfolgt, was zeigt, wie tief das Bewusstsein des Stils schon eingegangen ist in die Köpfe der Kulturschaffenden.

Dieser Stil, das Idiom der Kulturindustrie, wird durchgesetzt durch eine scharfe Selbstzensur, die in den wenigsten Fällen bewusst ist, in allen Fällen aber das Konzept einer technisch und mechanisch produzierten und dargebotenen Kultur voraussetzt und der durch sich, durch seine idiomatische Perfektion den Versuch unternimmt, eine Natur herzustellen, die nah genug an der gesellschaftlichen Wahrheit ist, um vom Publikum widerstandslos akzeptiert zu werden und sich andererseits klar genug auf Distanz halten muss, um dem Konsumenten die dahinter stehenden Machtmechanismen zu verbergen und zu verhindern, dass diesem seine ihm von der Kulturindustrie angefertigte Klassifikationen bewusst werden.

Dieser Stil wird nicht von einer äußerlichen Gewalt einem System aufgezwungen, sondern er geht aus von einem Idiom, das durch die Allgegenwart des Einflusses des Kapitals, das des gesellschaftlichen Systems ist. Der Stil ist der Gesellschaft, auf die er trifft, natürlich. Der Stil muss sich von nichts absetzen, nicht gegen etwas arbeiten, er wird ohne Gegenwehr angenommen als eigener.

Die beiden Autoren widersprechen der landläufigen Auffassung, dass im Abendland, wohl durch eben die erwähnte Industrialisierung und Mechanisierung, die „stilbildende Kraft“ im Erlöschen begriffen sei (148), ebenso bestreiten sie die Relevanz einer Konzeption von „Stil“ als Aspekt der „guten alten Zeit“ vor der Mechanisierung als auch die positiven Konnotationen des Stils, den dieser in Zusammenhang mit diesen irrigen Auffassungen annehme. Stil habe schon immer „die je verschiedene Struktur der sozialen Gewalt“ (151) ausgedrückt, also eher die Struktur der Herrschaft als eine wie auch immer geartete Erfahrungswelt der Beherrschten wiedergegeben. Große Kunst sei stets daran erkennbar gewesen, dass sie den Stil nicht verkörperte, sondern ihn beherrschte, ihn verwendete und mit ihm brach, wenn es ihr notwendig war, denn großer Kunst sei es primär darum gegangen, eigene Erfahrung und eigenes Leiden deutlich und lesbar zu machen und Kunst als Vermittlung zu verwenden.

Große Kunst ist also persönlich. Der Stil aber stellt in jedem Kunstwerk die Verbindung her zum Allgemeinen, zur sozialen Struktur, zur Wahrheit, die bei Adorno/Horkheimer immer gesellschaftliche Wahrheit ist. Stil hat damit stets auch ideologische Funktion. Im Stil ist der Versuch des Kunstwerks verortet, eine Einheit von Individuum und Gesellschaft herzustellen.

Der Stil der Kulturindustrie muss eine solche Einheit nicht erst versuchen, denn der Unterschied hat längst eine Nivellierung von Seiten des gesellschaftlichen Idioms erfahren, diesen Unterschied, so verkündet es laut, gibt es nicht. Die Kulturindustrie ist „nur noch Stil“ (152), nur noch gesellschaftliche Wahrheit und damit entlarvt sie den Stil als gehorsam „gegen die gesellschaftliche Hierarchie“ (152). In der Kulturindustrie wird der Stil, der durch keine Abweichungen und Veränderungen und Brüche mehr seine Natur verbergen kann, zum Instrument der gesellschaftlichen Analyse und öffnet auch einen neuen Blick auf das Verhältnis von Kunst zur Gesellschaft und zur Herrschaft und zeigt, dass in ihr durch den Stil immer eine Verbindung innewohnte, das Individuum mit der Herrschaft zu versöhnen.
Den gleichen Effekt, das Entlarven einer altbekannten Erscheinung durch die von der technischen Reproduzierbarkeit angetriebenen Veränderungen dieser Erscheinung, also im Fall des Stils durch die Entwicklung eines „totalen Stils“, zeichnen die Autoren ein weiteres Mal nach, diesmal anhand der Katharsis.

Der Begriff der Katharsis beschreibt bekanntlich eine seelische Läuterung und Reinigung von den Affekten durch ein intensives Ausleben eben dieser Affekte und ist, besonders auch in Diskussionen der Tragödie, durchaus positiv, wenigstens aber neutral besetzt. Das durch die Kulturindustrie enthüllte Wesen der Katharsis besteht darin, dass sie den „äußeren Herren“ (166) Gewalt einräumt über die Innerlichkeit der Beherrschten.

Das Ausleben von Affekten, von „wilden“ Gefühlen und Wünschen, von Trauer, Liebe und Zorn „reinigt“ die Individuen so, dass sie anschließend einem geregelten Leben nachgehen können, in dessen ordnungsgemäßem Verlauf sie abweichende, extreme, unerwünschte oder einfach nur aufwühlende Gefühle gut genug unter Kontrolle haben, um funktionieren zu können. Von wem nämlich ist dieses „geregelte Leben“ geregelt, wenn nicht von einer sozialen Struktur, die immer eine Struktur der Herrschaft war. Dieses „Funktionieren“ ist also ein Funktionieren im sozialen Glied, in einer Hierarchie, an deren Hebeln die „äußeren Herren“ sitzen. Als Herrschende müssen sie sich nicht mit den anarchischen und regelgefährdenden Kräften unkontrollierter Gefühle auseinandersetzen, wenn die beherrschten mittels der Katharsis als Ventil für unpraktische Gefühle, sich selbst schon kontrollieren und diese Kontrolle als wünschenswert postulieren.

So dargestellt, scheint die Evidenz der Funktion der Katharsis überwältigend, dennoch ist dieses Wesen der Katharsis erst offenbar geworden unter dem Eindruck der Kulturindustrie, welche die Innerlichkeit „zur offenen Lüge“ (166) herrichtete, indem sie hohe Güter und Ideale durch stereotype Behandlung, durch Übersetzung in das Idiom der Kulturindustrie den Massen zuwider machte. An ihre Stelle trat das Amusement, in dessen Diensten, also in Diensten der Filmhandlung, der Stars, der Unterhaltung, des Spaßes, des Witzes alles: Liebe, Lust und Wut gestellt wird.

Das Amusement ist nicht der Spaß oder die Unterhaltung des individuellen Konsumenten sondern sie ist das verbindende Element dieses Prozesses, gleichsam der Wiedergänger jener Katharsis, ein Gefühlskompositum, das es dem Konsumenten erlaubt, für den Zeitraum des akuten Konsums gefühlsmäßig „die Sau rauszulassen“, mitzulieben in einer Schnulze, mitzuhassen in einem Boxkampf, mit dem Actionheld zu fluchen und dem Bösewicht zu zürnen, mit einem Wort: sich zu reinigen, um nach dem Konsum wieder ins Glied treten zu können, als Bürger, Konsument und Beherrschter.

Der Beherrschte ist, scheinbar, auch immer der Umworbene, selbst wenn die werbenden Parteien wenig trennen mag. Das Mittel dieser Umwerbung ist die Reklame, die jedes Produkt umgibt und somit Teil des Idioms der Kulturindustrie geworden ist, und so wie das Idiom Hinweise auf die „Verfahren der Menschenbehandlung“ (187) durch das in ihr durchscheinende Individuum gibt, so unterstützt die dem Idiom entspringende Sprache, die völlig im Sprechen aufgeht, die Beeinflussung des Konsumenten durch Reklame oder Propaganda.

Ursprünglich, sagen Horkheimer und Adorno, waren Wort und Bedeutung eng verknüpft miteinander, ein Wort bedeutete wirklich etwas, es war mehr als nur eine Bezeichnung, das Bezeichnete war ihm innerlich und wesentlich, gleichsam eingeschrieben. So konnte die Verwendung von emotional aufgeladenen Worten wie denen der Wortgruppe der Vaterlandsliebe in propagandistischen Zusammenhängen schwer aufgedeckt werden als manipulativ, denn die Worte schienen wirklich „Vaterland“, „Heimat“, „Zuhause“ zu bedeuten. Sie trugen diese Bedeutungen in sich.

Nun aber, da die Verbindung erkannt ist als eine willkürliche, gerinnen gemeinhin als bedeutungsvoll anerkannte Ausdrücke zur Formel, deren Bedeutung sich, wenn überhaupt, aus ihrer Verwendung ergibt. Das Wort „Vaterland“ ist ein hervorragendes Beispiel für ein Wort, dessen Bedeutung nicht aus dem Wort selbst, sondern nur aus dem Kontext gewonnen werden kann. Das Wort bezeichnet zwar eine Sache, diese macht aber keineswegs ihre Bedeutung aus, so sind etwa mehrere propagandistische Bedeutungen denkbar.

Die Worte werden blind und stumm was ihre Bedeutungen betrifft, sie sagen nichts mehr darüber aus, sie lassen, für sich genommen, keine anderen Befunde zu als über den einen Gegenstand den sie bezeichnen, statt dessen wirken sie nun in Form von Praktiken, wodurch die Verbreitung von Ideologien, Propaganda und natürlich auch Reklame vereinfacht wird, da die Worte nichts mehr von dem zu bedeuten scheinen, was sie mit der Welt der Erfahrungen verbunden hatte. Sie werden kälter und nehmen überall in ihrer Verwendung Reklamecharakter an. Und durch die Rückwirkung von Entwicklungen im gesellschaftlichen System auf das Idiom, die wir zu Beginn ausgemacht hatten, wird somit aus aller Reklame- und Propagandasprache umgekehrt Alltagssprache.

Nun freilich ließe sich behaupten, dass all die aufgeführten Veränderungen eher ein Zeichen von kulturellem Verfall denn einer guten Entwicklung seien, welcher Art auch immer. Man übersähe jedoch die Wendung, die alle drei Veränderungen ermöglichen in Bezug auf die Erkenntnis von Einflüssen auf die Beherrschten und auf die Aufrechterhaltung von herrschaftlichen Strukturen mittels der Sprache. In allen drei Fällen enthüllte die extreme Entwicklung von sprachlichen Mustern die Machtstrukturen und die Manipulationsmöglichkeiten, die immer schon in der Sprache gelegen hatten, die jedoch immer übersehen worden waren. Erst die von der Kulturindustrie herbeigeführten Änderungen, deren entscheidende darin bestand, dass die verhüllenden Trennungen von Individuum und Allgemeinheit durch die Allgegenwart der Konzerne aufgehoben wurden und Strukturen, die zuvor nur im Kleinen sichtbar waren, in ihrer Wirkung im Großen offenbar wurden.

In diesen Erkenntnissen sehe ich einen entscheidenden Fortschritt, die Hoffnung einer Kunsttheorie, einer Ästhetikkonzeption, in der die Einflüsse klar liegen, in der die Kunst und die Macht offen getrennt liegen, die nicht mehr Herrschaft perpetuiert. Die Möglichkeit ist eröffnet, eine Kunsttheorie zu entwickeln, die „Kunst“ von „sozialer Struktur“ trennt, die das Moment reiner Kunst darzustellen vermag, ein Moment, dessen Notwendigkeit bislang verborgen blieb, das nun aber zu Tage tritt.

Ja, die Kulturindustrie, so könnte man die Eingangsfrage aufnehmen und beantworten, rettet die Kunst, sie rettet die blinde Kunst vor sich selbst, indem sie mit der Vergrößerungslinse des totalen Stils, des kulturellen Idioms, alle ihre Schwächen aufdeckt und so den Weg freimacht für eine Erneuerung.

Sommer

wenn es am dritten tag nacheinander
den sommer in die erde brennt
glüht der kehrricht der stadt in der luft

man möchte sich in den wald schlagen
aber wer macht das schon es führt keine straße hinein
nur kieswege und lichte streifen zwischen den bäumen

am dritten tag maghrebinischer hitze
sitzt man im geruchslosen gras vorm eigenen haus
und wendet jeden stein um

bevor man die katze des nachbarn
auf dem schönsten davon totschlägt
katzen wehren sich länger als hunde

On Paul Gilroy’s "The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity"

(Fußnoten sind in eckigen Klammern in den Text integriert)

Paul Gilroy’s text, “The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity”, the first chapter of his book on the Black Atlantic, struggles to arrive at a clean notion of ‘blackness’. His problems, however are due to the same problems he shows ‘Cultural Studies’ to have, moreover, problems, that most academical writing informed by modernity struggles with. So his own difficulties are symptomatic for the topic he discusses and they might resurface in my own discussion of his text.

There have been many definitions of what would constitute the ‘modern’ or ‘modernity’, but modernity’s roots in the Enlightenment [ Of course, Gilroy oversimplifies how influences worked at that crucial time. How the Romantics resurrected the racialized idea of the nation and used it against ‘scientific’ tendencies, in short, how the Enlightenment as the Age of Reason and the Romantics as the resurrectors of ‘culture’ have worked together to produce Modernity has not been considered by Gilroy, yet these are minor disagreements; they would not have an impact on his thesis.] have always been stressed. The so-called Age of Reason is usually evoked whenever politicians or academics attack ‘intolerance’ and ‘racism’. Yet that same age has not only been instrumental in inventing the modern nation-state, it also helped racializing culture via the “fatal junction of the concept of nationality with the concept of culture” (2). The crucial aspect was the notion of a racial community of members of the same nation. Germans were Germans because they were linked by blood [2 Blood, as a juridical marker of Germanness was kept until 1996, which explains many racialized arguments in this country, but not similar arguments in others. Gilroy’s argument, however, holds true for all of the ‘West’.] and culture. The same applied to Britishness. Thus, Britishness or Germanness took on a transcendent meaning. And British persons and Germans were, racially speaking, considered white [3 And Christians, of course. In the same period of time, modern Antisemitism was born from a cluster of notions similar to the cluster considered by Gilroy].

The racialization of culture is most obvious when the major role of ‘blackness’ (not darkness) as a trope in early 19th century lectures and discussions on aesthetics, which could be said to provide a foundation for most of modern aesthetics [4 This is of course a bold claim, but I think its true, considering the extent to which major claims of Hegel’s lectures in Jena and A.W. Schlegel’s lectures in Berlin keep resurfacing in modern aesthetics.], is considered. Thus, blackness, as the other, has been ingrained in the very basis of modern thought and writing. The idea of the black man as the adversary has long since become part of cultural thought and the identity of ‘Germans’ and ‘the British’ has for a long time been white. To black Europeans or Americans this has been a major problem, as they could not partake of the identity of their nation. As a result the idea of an African ‘homeland’ and of a black history arose that is -examined closely- basically identical to the history of Africa and the history of the Middle Passage. Thus, black empowerment, instead of changing anything about racist attitues, was intrumental in creating a nation for blacks.

However, blacks were not only in so far part of the creation of Modernity as they served as a trope. Gilroy stresses the extent to which blacks have been actively participating in crucial movements in ‘white’ history, from “Columbus’ pilot, Pedro Nino” (16) to the likes of Olaudah Equiano, who was involved “in the beginnings of organized working-class politics” (12). In the realm of whites, blacks were only seen as a victimized people, never as agents. Purportedly emancipated branches of cultural studies which are concerned with the study of blacks, reinforce that impression by reiterating the nation/culture juncture, the nation being, in this case, Africa. The consequence of these studies is the identity, for instance, of the Black American as the exception to the (white) rule. Gilroy’s focus on the Enlightenment makes clear to what extent the racialized notions of nation and culture have informed the tacit racism on Campuses around the world, and how much of it went unnoticed by scholars.

The difference in method in Gilroy’s text is the emphasis on traveling. Instead of focusing on nations as creators of culture, he creates the Black Atlantic as the epitome of travel. The Atlantic, upon which black slaves were carried from Africa to America, but upon which black captains, too, navigated on many routes. From the ships going back and forth several were built by blacks, and books and ideas crossing the Atlantic were -in part- written by blacks. The trope of the Black Atlantic, in other words, serves to destabilize the notion of stable cultural identities.

Gilroy proposes a “theorization of […] hybridity”, which would still (of course) be based on black and white identities, which is where Gilroy’s problems with the notion of ‘blackness’ enter, but focusing on travel and not on the awkward construction of a ‘homeland’ might very well be the way out of the trap set by Enlightenment, which ensured that you cannot dispense of talking about black and white if you do not want to drag these concepts along implicitly. However, using the Black Atlantic as a trope for the inbetween, these identities do not fuse (as this would create only new ‘stable’ identities), but instead, they are disregarded, losing their power in a theory concentrating on the fluidity of identities instead of their stableness.

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