Re: [microsound] glitch and dualism | romanticism

[Kenric McDowell <kenricm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wednesday, December 18, 2002, at 01:31 PM, dbuchwald wrote:
> I forgot who it was, but someone posted that he is looking for a way to 
> get away
> from binary distinctions, away from dichotomies.  And I would fully 
> underline
> that.  As soon as we argue in dichotomies the whole gnostic strand 
> comes back in
> (darkness against light, good against evil, spirit against flesh).  To 
> think in
> terms of at least three positions (subject, object, abject for example) 
> without
> understanding this in terms of dialectics (thesis, antithesis, 
> synthesis -- that
> would be Romanticism again) or even better to think in terms of 
> multitudes, the
> multiple, the tiny, the swarm is the only way out, at least the only 
> way I see
> so far.  And I don't care whether this is post-something, I'd rather 
> call it
> para-something, because it was always there, but always muted by this
> overwhelming urge to think and theoretize in dichotomies.

There are also paradoxes ( x and not x ) and, um, something else that's 
hard to put into words (neither x nor not x). These could also be 
considered 'ways out'. Although, I think the root of the binaries 
problem can't be gotten to by thinking and theorizing.

When you are eating a strawberry, what binary is being thought?

Binaries aren't  entirely useless. As  generalizations of measurements 
they are handy:

"That fire is hot. This ice is cool."

So can we think about 'the glitch' and not be unnecessarily dualistic or 
romantic? I don't know. Maybe it's more like petting a bunny or laying 
in the sun?

-km

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