Dogmatism

I've been struck this week (and, it could easily have been any other) by currents of dogmatism. Dogmatism most dramatically appears in mainstream politics. So, we've had the nomination of Aito, a bone thrown to right wing domatists. And, finally the Democrats got some backbone and put the Senate in closed session. (I realize that this sentence reinforces the myth that the Democrats are in some way an opposition party.)

We expect dogmatism in the blogosphere. So, I won't link to the usual suspects but consider the less usual, generally more nuanced and thoughtful bloggers who have of late urged a kind of dogmatism in the name of  thinking and ethics.  Scott and Matt (in the comment thread), in different way, have urged dogmatism for the sake of intellectual seriousness, the former, and ethical responsibility, the latter. Scott, writes:

theory should fit the facts it purports to explain; instead, the facts chosen for explication are chosen because they fit the theories the critic intended to flatter all along.  This situation saddens me more than anything else.  If my tone seems combative, understand that when I see such wanton manipulation I want to scream my cords raw and tendons bloody . . . to invent the next generation of sanguineous parasynthetics.

Matt writes:

 

When it comes to Stalinism generally (considering also a certain historical context, and as it relates to Nazism in particular), I happen to think this condemnation is called for, if one is to be responsible. And this *duty* to condemn, unconditionally, should not be taken lightly.

I should clarify maybe and say I don't think this "unconditional condemnation" is at all a prerequisite for discussion, but speaking loosely, insofar as many discussions--generally, commonly--begin *and end* with this (for lack of a better word) "moral word"--it is therefore useful and often necessary to point out how it isn't mutually exclusive with more nuanced analysis.

And, to add one more twist, I'll mention that I've been reading a book manuscript and reviewing an article this week that follow Deleuze in rejecting the dogmatic image of thought. Friends and colleagues of a similar persuasion have written eloquently on the importance of generosity and responsiveness.

I am rarely persuaded by arguments for generosity, affirmation, and responsiveness in political theory. I prefer the political edge we get from, guess who, Zizek when he says that we need more political hatred (Fragile Absolute). Yet, I wonder if there is a difference between dogmatism in politics and other kinds of dogmatism, say intellectual and ethical dogmatism?

Or, maybe the matter should be approached differently. Maybe dogmatism is inherently, essentially, political. A dogmatic assertion is a move of power, an attempt to close off, to establish a limit. For the dogmatic, such a limit is necessary. It is necessary to get things done, to move on, to clear out a space. And, there is nothing about this limiting or clearing that says it is done without proper consideration or once and for all, irrevocably.

Really? if the dogmatic had her way wouldn't it be the case that imposed limit would be, if not absolute, then at least, solid, that it would hold, that matters would continue along the course, within the frame, established by the limit? And, that even challenges or contestations would be of that limit, so shaped an informed by it? So, the dogmatic assertion is a political attempt to form and affect, to direct even when one is fully aware that the attempt will be challenged, will exceed the intentions behind it, and will be necessarily incomplete.

Understood as a political move, rather than an intellectual or ethical one, dogmatism can make sense. It can be an effective and necessary political tactic. But, it shouldn't be confused with anything like seriousness or responsibility. Such a confusion is what installs in dogmatism a drive for purity. Purification comes to function as some kind of guarantee or justification, some kind of big Other, that gets the dogmatic off the hook, that places their dogmatism in the service of a higher end. Then the dogmatic are merely tools, instruments in the service of thought, reason, and morality. And this is what makes dogmatism dangerous, this bone of perversity.

Comments

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Ironically, the passage you cited actually argues against dogmatism, against the inflexible situation in which "the facts chosen for explication are chosen because they fit the theories the critic intended to flatter all along." I understand your general critique of my position, but in that post I oppose the psychoanalytic dogmatism of Lacanians. Another example would be Richard Pope's constant bleating about not being a relativist. No, he's not; he's a dogmatist of the worst sort.

To put this another way: Lacanian psychoanalysis only seems to undogmatic to those who accept its fundaments, well, dogmatically; if you don't, as Deleuze certainly didn't, then the problem with a Lacanian condemnation of other ostensibly dogmatic schools of thought becomes apparent. (And I realize you're not a Lacanian, or are only one by dint of Zizek's elaborations of Lacanian thought; I'm more expanding on my original point--which was about literary studies--in a more general vein.)

[Adam Kotsko]

A Lacanian "dogmatism" is just wrong-headed in my opinion, not least because it often (though of course I'm not going to give specific examples) seems to me to result in a serious misunderstanding and misapplication of Lacan (or of the Lacan of whatever point of his career you privilege). Dogmatism seems to me to indicate a decision to stop thinking -- and as we often find among Christian dogmatists as well, the stop often occurs before the dogmatically-accepted ideas are themselves fully thought through.

I would support a "dogmatism" of the type that Karl Barth performs in his Church Dogmatics -- a sprawling life's work that touches on (or tries to) nearly all areas of human existence and that was never completed (and he knew he couldn't complete it), a work in which he changes his mind about points in previous works and about points in previous volumes of the Dogmatics, a performative mockery of the idea of "dogmatics" itself, which may well have produced the current situation in which theologians no longer tend to cap off their careers by "writing their dogmatics."

[Cap-a-blanco]

The humanities, lit,. and "theology" are pretty much predicated on dogmatic and clerical types of wisdom. A falsification critique implemented across the board in academia would not bode well for "Peoples of Letters," nor for psychoanalysis, or marxists or theists: though there was empirical tendency in orthodox marxism which was at least nominally non-dogmatic, and concerned with demonstrating how the concepts of Capital function or are realized in various capitalist or financial contexts. A falsification or at least "confirmation criteria" of some sort might be to the advantage of those opposing finance capitalism and the onset of the theocracy; economic data obviously can be used (as Marx used it) to establish that the disparity between rich and poor is widening, or the presence of obscene salaries of corp. CEOs, or that BushCo's tax slashes have been a windfall for the wealthy at the expense of the impoverished. It's a rather serious faux pax to view statistical and empirical research as somehow inherently structuralist or "logocentric".

That said, it would be difficult to avoid some types of dogmatism--say of the literary type: tossing out Macbeth or Red Badge of Courage simply because the statements in those texts cannot be falsified or are not necessarily true would seem to be misguided; thus the task for the literatteur would seem to require correlating literary texts to some valid type of study, such as, well, biology, instead of to Lacan.

[Alain]

Jodi, your post seems to touch on a core issue in current politics: if one is dogmatic it is suggested they are unreasonable, but if one updholds and stands-by core "principles" they are praiseworthy. Bush used this distinction quite effectively in his re-election campaign: "you may not always agree with me but you know where I stand." While Bush is clearly full of it, the distinction seems to me to be legitimate, if not always easy to define. It is precisely the dogmatism of right-wing zealots that is so disturbing in the current environment but it is also the apparent lack of conviction that is so infuriating about the democrats (What do they really believe in or stand for anyway?)

And certainly a belief in the big Other helps motivate the troops. Mark Crispin Miller's new Book makes another attempt at arguing that the 2004 election was "stolen." Whether or not this is true, a big part of his argument is that Bush has a (not so) small army of core believers willing to do anything for the cause - in fact they believe that the democrats are the handmaidens of satan. How does one compete with or attempt to match that sort of passion? I myself find it difficult not to demonize the current military Junta, and yet how effective is that as a counter stratagy? And it also seems to add nothing to what is clearly a necessary change.

[Alley Oop]

Better to term that type of fundamentalist zeal "enthusiasm" than dogmatism: there's really no creed or ideology being held as True but more of a hyper-gung-ho attitude; yet a similiar type of Soldierness --one hesitates to call it a manifestation of a Nietzschean herd mind, but perhaps there is a resemblance-- operates in many groups of males of all races, reinforced by the females drawn to and encouraging the most warlike of the platoon. The soldier code--like that of the Minutemen--is more determined than some type of ideological decision, I think, however unpleasant such determinism would be to belle-lettrists. Once war has been initiated one senses that many humans become quite different sort of creatures; not merely patriotic but sort of united in a, well, murderous rage towards Charlie; yet the same type of esprit de corps can be identified among leftist guerillas or muslim martyr-soldiers.

[Matt]

Scott:

" the passage you cited actually argues against dogmatism"

As does mine. (A bit about the rest of what Scott says later.) I tried to make this clear in my follow-up comment (but not before I was accused of being "moral" and "metaphysically correct"). Again, my point was to oppose this necessary condemnation to any moral "last word." (Or rather, first *and* last word.)

A duty or responsibility can never be merely a matter of dogma. Half-provokingly, perhaps, I am still wondering if there is something like a 'duty to condemn' related to responsibility. Again, this doesn't preclude more nuanced analysis (on the contrary). I think it may be necessary (and in the case of Stalinism, yes, particularly necessary).

(To speak in a seemingly dogmatic *tone* about it.)

Scott again:

"Who cites and is cited by whom means everything when evaluating contemporary criticism. So when I run across an article about Nella Larsen’s Passing which cites seven works by Jacques Lacan, three by Freud, ten glosses of Lacan but only five citations from the rich critical history of Larsen’s novel, I hardly need to read the article to know that I do not trust this critic’s ability to evaluate his or her sources. (All that talk of gazing and yet so myopic. Sigh.)"

Only five? (The cricital historians are aghast.) Is a specifically Lacanian approach to anything literary destined to being de facto *bad*? A dogmatic "yes" seems indeed to be both the beginning and conclusion point of Scott's contribution.

I mean even if five is more than Freud got, it wasn't more than Lacan got (and together, Freud and Lacan got so many, many more).

Seriously though, I think Scott makes an interesting gesture at the end:

"Deffeyes’ intellectual flexibility—his determination to fit his theory to the facts and not the other way around—should be a model for humanistic inquiries as much as scientific. A theory should fit the facts it purports to explain; instead, the facts chosen for explication are chosen because they fit the theories the critic intended to flatter all along. This situation saddens me more than anything else."

When "Theory" is applied as formulae *in place of (the risk of) reading*, and indiscriminately, something is lost. Something literary (even for Blanchot). Furthermore, this happens a lot. Too often. In an empire-like manner, even. OK. But it's still not enough to criticize a straw castle without at least allowing others to read the article for themselves and decide if you actaully have a point or not (i.e., if your post, heavily accusing the author by name, actually had anything to do with the article itself). If you don't do this, then you're just repeating (yes, we've discussed this before) the kitschy-pseudo-theory gesture yourself.

[Matt]

Really what Scott's talking about, it seems at least to me, is good vs. bad writing (in this case a popularly appealing, but theoretical n+1 piece, vs. something Lacan-inspired about some novel--we really aren't given much more information than that with which to judge).

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Matt,

You ask, then assert: "Is a specifically Lacanian approach to anything literary destined to being de facto *bad*? A dogmatic "yes" seems indeed to be both the beginning and conclusion point of Scott's contribution."

I explicitly addressed that issue in the original post, stating:

"But Fiedler’s Freud appeared in the service of literary explication; his Freud did not function as the principle of selection behind the literature he analyzed."

Your characterization then of my post, as being about good vs. bad reading, hits the mark. Implicit in the original post is the idea that while their are a few casual Lacanian critics, the large majority of them are dogmatic system-buil...elaborators. I think there's a reason for the Lacanian's drive to totalization, for The Key To All Mythologies; I don't think that, say, deconstructive critics suffer the same compulsion.

"I mean even if five is more than Freud got, it wasn't more than Lacan got (and together, Freud and Lacan got so many, many more)."

You would expect that from a Lacanian reading, since the majority of citations of Freud would be second-order citations setting up the Lacanian extensions.

"But it's still not enough to criticize a straw castle without at least allowing others to read the article for themselves and decide if you actaully have a point or not."

I offered to send the article to anyone who wanted to read it, but only three people took me up on that offer. I renew it here, however. Matters of visibility preclude me from attacking another scholar by name in a public forum. Oh, to be anonymous and hatchet-wielding again!

[Matt]

Matters of visibility haven't stopped me from stalking Mark Greif.

Thanks for the response. I'd like the article please.

[Adam Kotsko]

I've also attacked B. C. Hutchens, author of The Boy's First Shitty Book on Jean-Luc Nancy.

[Amie]

It is Saturday night so I am even fuzzier on such things than usual, but what are the facts to which theory must conform? Just wondering, because if theory is limited to "conforming to the facts" what else would it be but dogmatism.
Do the facts refer to texts? or do the texts refer to facts? And does one ever come to the one or the other, the one as the other, all wide-eyed innocence without the slightest prejudice, dogma, theory...?
and while we're at it, what is reading?

[Jodi]

Scott,

I chose that portion to illustrate your dogmatism in part because of the expressive language near the end and in part because of the 'should statement.' Together, they seemed to me to illustrate a kind of dogmatism: a sort of outrage or line drawing justified with reference to how theory should be done according to you. That the theory wasn't done according to the way you think it "should" be done was the grounds of the outrage.

Matt, I chose the statement from you because it made the argument that 'condemnation' should not be undertaken lightly and does not by itself indicate non thought. At the same time, your statement(s) in the thread attempt to mobilize a moral or ethical position.

In both instances, my cites/glosses were not meant as attacks or accusations. That's why I also put in some praise of dogmatism and my frustration with generosity and affirmation. Alain gets at this dilemma really well in his comment. There is a time and a place for dogmatism, as I see it (and I think Alain is grappling with this but perhaps not sure; I could be wrong, though).

One might say that mathematical formalism is dogmatics in action. That would be interesting because it could conceivably hurt my argument that dogmatism is necessarily political. The way I would try to bridge these is with reference to Foucault on power/knowledge, or to any metatheoretical accounts that acknowledges the necessary incompleteness of any system (any is too broad a term but it late and I can't recall the exact term having spent the evening with 789 children at Chicken Little).

I think the dogmatics I want to reject is one that tries to protect itself with reference to something else, like morality or theory or reason writ large.

On Lacanian dogmatics: this one is difficult for me in my approach to theory is to think that much work is on small questions, applications, and extensions of interest to a small number of people. What some see as Lacanian dogmatics, I see as debates in a small field. Same with Foucauldians, Habermasians, Deleuzians, etc. More interesting is work that exceeds sectarian discussions--but not always. I've found the detailed consideration of Agamben's ontological efforts very interesting. There is beauty in the details. There will likely be all sorts of narrow articles glossing and extending these details. Perhaps the article Scott originally mentioned is of this type. That seems worthwhile to me.

[RIPope]

Scott, you are quite the dogmatist yourself, even if it is to the negative theological God of liberalism itself. Who knows what you believe in, or what you stand for. Indeed, it is the very absence of standing for anything that is, precisely, what you stand for. So anyone who does work within a field not simply defined negatively, you call 'dogmatist'. You embody (well not really `embody', as here you are welcome to be as disembodied/dematerialized as 'your' thoughts themselves), as Badiou might say, the worst form of Evil.

[Adam Kotsko]

RIPope,

If you wanted to change Scott's impression of you, that is probably not the best way to do so. Not that changing his impression is a self-evidently necessary goal, etc., but -- just saying.

[Art]

Understatement is such a subtle art.

[Matt]

Scott, thanks for sending the article. A cursory groggy morning glance doesn't really get my blood boiling, but then it doesn't really grab me either. Still, the concept of paranoia is of long-standing interest to me, and anyone who takes Sedgewick especially as their point of departure may be worth a closer look.

[Jodi]

I'm interested in paranoia--Scott could you send me the article, link, whatever?

Also, I'm out-of-the-loop was there another bloggy exchange between Scott and Pope that I missed? Perhaps Matt referred to it?

Finally, I want to appeal yet again to the idea that there is nothing wrong with dogmatism per se; that dogmatism may well be a condition of thought and action; that non-dogmatism can be a failure of thinking, an embrace of a lack of limits that is intellectually castrating; that one should consider, then, dogmatism as multiple/not one and think of how it combines with other efforts/affects as well as its context and the way it is deployed.

So, to call someone or a way of thinking dogmatic (or pious, which seems to be Goodchild's move, but I've said this a bit reductively)is not a criticism or an insult (or it doesn't have to be).

[RIPope]

Adam, clearly no I'm not interested in any sort of discussion with Scott. It's quite clear he's not either, having read one of my posts and taken that to mean that I'm a dogmatist (in the negative sense, Jodi) - and then exploding all over my site.

He, and what he 'stands for', is the worst the blogosphere has to offer. It's like being at a conference, hearing a couple people talk over coffee or wine & cheese, and deciding from that 5 minute listening session that someone is dogmatic - and then running out and telling everyone you know (plus some). Can you imagine it? But precisely because we are so distanced from each other in/via this medium, because there doesn't seem to be any consequences to our actions... Eyck.

(Jodi - `exchange' can be found here:
http://www.cprobes.com/archives/2005/09/the_academic_ch.html#comments )

[Jodi]

Pope, I looked at the 'exchange.' How completely bizarre. The way Scott enters the conversation makes one think that you guys had been in discussion previously, that there was on ongoing debate and someone had simply had enough, had no interest in discussion and just wanted to rant. Without another context, it seems totally out of the blue. I don't get it.

Also, I thought that your statement about neearly perfect system was completely right. It's a statement about formalization: how much of a metapsychoanalysis or language of psychoanalysis can Lacan provide?

I love formalization. The four discourses--great fun. How many different things can one say with them?

And then I wonder about the attachment of the system or the connection between the system at that which it claims to systematize. The easy answer is of course 'the clinic.' The harder answer, it seems to me, is the way that Zizek is working, namely, with contingency. And I wonder here if one can read objet a as the way the Lacanian system takes into account not just the lack in the subject or the incompleteness of a specific discourse but its own incompleteness as well. It's likely that to think through this properly requires close attention to the discourse of the analyst. Do you know of any good writing on that?

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Amie,

"Just wondering, because if theory is limited to 'conforming to the facts' what else would it be but dogmatism."

In this case--because my initial point was limited to literary studies--the "facts" would be the Nella Larsen novel Passing. Either a reading produces knowledge about that novel by treating the text on its own terms, acknowledging its complexity, the way it interacts with the cultural moment of its production; or certain moments in the novel are isolated to be used as a springboard by which to make a psychoanalytic point. A sound reading of novel, in my view, explicates the complexity of the book in all its, well, complexity; because novels are hideously complex things, existing at a matrix between the author, his or her culture, personal history, belief system, &c. As an historicist, I think that the best reading of a literary work acknowledges that complexity, tackles it head on, doesn't try to reduce its complexity by applying a theory external to it; in other words, it accounts for as much of the complexity as it can.

But, I repeat, this point's germane to literary studies, not philosophy or psychoanalytic theory. As I said on the thread over there, this particular article would be fine if published in The American Psychoanalyst--it is, after all, a Lacanian case study of a literary work--but that I don't think that's what should be done in literature departments.

Jodi,

I didn't take it to be a mean-spirited attack, I only wanted to point out the irony. Yes, I'd say that I'm a dogmatist of a type; to modify what I said above to put it in a more philosophical context, I believe the world more complex than the theories we formulate to describe it, and that we ought not reduce that complexity via an application of some system of thought (no matter how complicated it is in and of itself). Granted, I know the objections to this line of thought: whatever system you bring to bear on the world, acknowledged or not, will produce a different array of "facts." But I value intellectual flexibility, and consider my dogmatism, for whatever it's worth, to consist of the demand for intellectual flexibility. In other words, I agree with this:

"What some see as Lacanian dogmatics, I see as debates in a small field. Same with Foucauldians, Habermasians, Deleuzians, etc. More interesting is work that exceeds sectarian discussions--but not always. I've found the detailed consideration of Agamben's ontological efforts very interesting. There is beauty in the details. There will likely be all sorts of narrow articles glossing and extending these details. Perhaps the article Scott originally mentioned is of this type. That seems worthwhile to me."

...but only inasmuch as Jodi's the type of scholar who will read all of this work. Those who produce it are another story; yes, there's a contradiction there, but it stems from my experience with people who do Lacanian readings is that they do Lacanian readings of everything, that they're not as intellectually flexible as Jodi.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Richard,

You're a blithering idiot. I'll address your nonsense point by point:

"Who knows what you believe in, or what you stand for."

Anyone who reads what I've written? I've made my positions clear countless times in numerous forums; to say that because I criticize you I have no positive platform on which to stand is nonsense. Just because I didn't articulate there doesn't mean I don't have one. Anyone who thought about the words they read and write would understand that point. And yet:

"Indeed, it is the very absence of standing for anything that is, precisely, what you stand for."

So because I criticize Lacanian thought I don't stand for anything? I know you're not big into logic, but I'd like to hear you explain how this makes sense. How is it that I stand for nothing? Please, elaborate. Of course, you may want to read other things I've written before brazenly displaying your ignorance.

"It's quite clear he's not either, having read one of my posts and taken that to mean that I'm a dogmatist (in the negative sense, Jodi) - and then exploding all over my site."

Actually, I had read a number of posts on your site, as well as things you posted here and comments you've made around the internet, like on Jodi's site; and I had, in fact, responded to them before. What you fail to realize is that everyone isn't so sloppy a thinker as you; that you find it beyond the realm of possibility that I'd read anything you previously written demonstrates the limitations of your thought. "He criticizes Lacan? He must not have read anything else I've written!" That second sentence doesn't follow from the first for anyone other than you.

"It's like being at a conference, hearing a couple people talk over coffee or wine & cheese, and deciding from that 5 minute listening session that someone is dogmatic - and then running out and telling everyone you know (plus some)."

Your limited perspective fools you into think this a valid analogy. A more proper one would be "it's like hearing someone speak at conferences for the better part of six months, and after thinking about what that person has said and reading what he or she had written, drawing a conclusion about their thought." You, on the other hand, with your blather about my not having any positive platform, do precisely what you accuse me of doing: you universalize my objection to psychoanalysis into an objection of all systems of thought and declare my head The Void. That you're unable to recognize how ridiculous this makes you look should cause you to cringe.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Jodi,

That response wasn't out of the blue. I'd read his posts here--I do read Long Sunday regularly, after all--and had already engaged with him in this exchange on your site:

http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/2005/08/whats_so_scary_.html#comment-8411911

"Excellent post, and far more gracious than I would have been if I had time to read the related posts, I'm sure. I just have no patience for graduate students, and especially professors, who profess their desire, or anti-desire, for ignorance. Why get into the profession, why claim to profess, if one doesn't want to challenge one's thought, one's way of being? Whynot just do the authentic thing, and become a bureaucrat?"

My response is further below, then, in a more extended form, on my site:

http://acephalous.typepad.com/acephalous/2005/08/antithoughts_ab.html

All of this happened before the second "exchange." The fact that he doesn't remember it happening, that he frequently insults and runs, doesn't make me into an irrational lunatic out to pick a fight. Also, I think the context of Richard's post itself is almost enough to warrant my response. It is, after all, titled "Academic Charlatans," and he says things like this in it:

"To refuse the theorise, but to instead surround oneself with the shiny trinkets of knowledge (discourse of the University)... this is the true charlatanism. When one doesn't argue a position, as Anglo-Americans don't, then one is only ever protecting oneself, perhaps for the hope of tenure. But without exposing oneself to critique one is just filling up space, and heck, I'll even follow the conservative line here, wasting taxpayer's money. Now that's charlatanism."

[Jodi]

Scott--ok. Point taken. Not out of the blue but part of a history of argument. Makes much more sense now.

Back to your other comment: I appreciate that we may well be in close agreement here (I interpreted your remarks as complementary, thanks.) I think we may disagree, but I don't know, on articles in 'literary' journals. So, in the example of the one you pointed out, I wouldn't think that it was 'about' Passing in any substantial way and that wouldn't be a problem (I think you said that the author would accept such a descriptiona as well?) But, to you it does seem like a problem, particularly if the author doesn't link her/his discussion to the literature on the book?

When I started thinking about it like this, I wondered whether thinking in terms of editorial boards and conditions for accepting a submission was a valuable heuristic. When I read for journals, I consider first, fit, is the article appropriate to the journal, connected with fit is whether the article is accessible to readers who may not know well one specific literature but might have somewhat of a clue about the general contours of the literature in question. Second are issues of originality and argumentation. These first and second considerations are linked. One expects the argumentation to refer to the revelant literature. But, one doesn't necessarily want a literature review. There are times when even the presence of a zillion cites seems inappropriate. But, one also wants to know that the author knows what she/he is talking about.

I wonder if these are the same general guidelines you follow. If so, then some of the issues you raise in your original post (and in your general arguments) may not be about Lacanians, theory, or intellectual flexibility. They may not have anything to do with dogmatism. They may be about thinking reflectively about standards of scholarship. But maybe I go too far here.

[Adam Kotsko]

Scott,

It seems to me that this discussion is hampered inordinately by the fact that we don't know what article you're talking about, nor (maybe I am remembering incorrectly here) what journal it's in. I sympathize with the etiquette issues, but it seems completely inbounds for you to publish a critique of that article, naming it explicitly, in a journal, assuming that you could get it published -- so why not on the Internet?

It's especially troubling because your refusal to name names means that the author of the article in question is deprived of the opportunity to respond to your charges. Instead, we're to take you at your word both on your characterization of the article and on the author's approval of your characterization.

At a blog that bills itself as part of the answer to the problem of lack of scholarly dialogue, this seems like a serious failing.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Jodi,

"Not out of the blue but part of a history of argument. Makes much more sense now."

Glad to hear it. Don't want people thinking me "a troll" so much as "responding vigorously to repeated insult at the hands of self-pious pr...persons."

"I wonder if these are the same general guidelines you follow."

Were I a reader for any journals, those would be the guidelines I follow, and so there's certainly a fair amount of this:

"They may be about thinking reflectively about standards of scholarship."

In my post. What's probably confusing to people (by which I mean, "me") is that I was inspired to make those disciplinary points through an article on psychoanalysis...which, as everyone knows, I'm not a fan of. To quote the sentences immediately before the ones you cited:

"Needless to say, while I would rather my criticism altogether empty of psychoanalytic position statements, due to recent interactions with intelligent people I have abandoned my hard-line snickering dismissiveness. I can now handle the occasional reference to psychoanalytic concepts with fruitive effects on the literary reading. ("Leslie Fiedler!" Luther Blisset said. "Leslie Fiedler!") So yes . . . . Leslie Fiedler! But Fiedler’s Freud appeared in the service of literary explication; his Freud did not function as the principle of selection behind the literature he analyzed."

Adam,

The article's in PMLA. I didn't mean to cover that information, and remedied that omission in the comments section. The article's easy to find through academic databases, and I've offered to email the article to anyone who wants to read it. I'm not concealling the identity of the author so much as not disclosing it; it clocks in fourth in a Google search for "Passing" "Larsen" and "Lacan."

"We're to take you at your word both on your characterization of the article and on the author's approval of your characterization."

And that's odd, since the other point of that post is discuss how an author builds trust in his readers; I'm only a terrible reader sometimes, and I think I can at least be trusted to "get" the article at that sufficiently general level of interpretation. I'm not saying you don't trust me, mind you, or that you think I argue in bad faith; only that I haven't earned the kind of trust Deffeyes has earned from me via McPhee. And that's not unusual; is, in fact, quite rather. Anyhow, you see my meta-point here.