I'm intrigued with (though I disagree with) the post-structuralist notion that the universe is "decentred" and therefore, "inherently relativistic." I mean, yeah, it's true that relativity is a crucial factor in perception, but perceptions are not necessarily truths.
Standing on the side of the road, a car driving by at 60 mph appears to be zooming; yet, that same car from the perspective of a car driving parallel with it, and at the same speed, appears to be standing still. So how fast is the car actually going? Is it going? Are there multiple answers because there are multiple perspectives?
A post-structuralist would say that there is no answer because the answer you give depends on the point, the center, of perception that you argue from - and there is no correct point because the universe is decentred.
But how is the car even going at all if there is no answer? At one moment it is at Emmanuel College, and a few moments later it is at Star Market. No matter what perspective you take, the car still traverses space and time.
I don't know if this is true, but the post-structuralist may argue that space and time are an illusion and there is no space nor time (since there is no center of anything). But if this were the case how does anything happen at all? Causality (cause and effect) depends on time: one thing cannot cause another unless the first thing happens before the next (otherwise, how could it be considered the cause?). Further, how could there even be existence in the first place?
Everything falls apart unless the answer is that the car is going 60 mph, and it only appears to be standing still to the other car because the other car is also going 60 mph. So, yes, relativity plays into the appearence of reality, but there is still a real answer outside of perspective.
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This is actually a pretty impressive gripe you raise with the theory, I think. I am of the opinion, and I (like you) maybe be wholly misinformed, that the opportunity for a completely relativistic perspective is something that post-strucuralists flirt with and only very narrowly shrug off.
The way I see it is a little more, I'll borrow Derrida's word for this, slippery than the model you propose with the car. I don't believe that the well-thought-out post-structuralist argument is going to claim that the car either is, or is not, zooming purely based upon the observer's perspective. Actually, I don't think that the fact of the car's movement is going to be challenged at all. It's movement may be aggressively scrutinized, but the critics seem able to give credit where credit is due. It is necessary to assume something of a middle ground on the nature of the car's movement. On the one (liberal humanist???) side it's afoolish to simply classify the car's movement as something absolute, something fixed in a specific space and time, that only the trained observer, observing from the proper vantage point and possessing the proper tools, can understand. Conversely, it is faulty logic to just attribute a random and unqualified value to the car's movement simply based on a "well, the way I, the observer of the moment, see it" argument.
Neither of these approaches will satisfy the post-structuralist - at least not the thorough one. Instead of either flawed approach, the post-structuralist is going to simply call into question the specific understanding of the car and its movement. After all, what, if anything, do we know about the car and its mysterious ways? It is not so simple as a "point A to point B" exchange of location, although this is the eay way to understand something. Yet it is cetainly more concrete than a singular, impersonal, arbitrarily-assigned value. This is, once again, a simplistic way of looking at things. Post-structuralists are entirely bent on challenging the outward simplicity of things to reveal the great seas of discord storming just below the surface. That we (the rhetorical "we," natch) choose to gloss over the complexity of the world and its expression by over-simplifying in either direction is precisely the sort of behavior that post-structuralists see incarnate in the structure of language and that they wish to carefully tease out and expose.
I follow what you say for the most part; it's a little vague, but I think I get the jist of it. I definitely understand the post-structuralist notion that people over simplify things and that there are a plurality of meanings, the "great seas of discord" as you put it -- but my question has to do with the essence of the thing itself. What I don't understand is how a post-structuralist conceives of a thing without a center. Of course we don't perceive the thing the way it truly is (one's sense perceptions take in information, the brain interprets the thing and then simulates it, which is what we see in consciousness, and which is by no means accurate...and it certainly is human nature to try to categorize everything as simplistically as possible), yet the thing is still there outside of observation, doing something, and more importantly being something one moment at a time. Everything is a process of continuous change and motion, but if you were to take a snapshot of a thing at a particular moment, that thing is that thing without motion, and even before you categorize it, before you observe it, it is captured as a concrete, centered thing in that specific moment of time. As much discord as there may be in the perception of a thing, the thing must be something in order for a perception to even take place. If not, how can there be reality at all?
I get what you're saying, I think. There's a certain need for something to exist in itself because what can really be perceived? The thing about that is that it's an easy thing to classify, say, my motorcycle that way. There's this collection of pistions, fairings, tires and loud pipes (setting off your car alarms, suckers), but that's all there is to it. A bunch of bits stuck together, working. That's the technical (literally a product of technology) aspect of the bike.
But what does it all mean????
That's where things seem to get tricky with the essential nature of my motorcycle. Even for such a simple object. Never mind abstract notions like love, truth and justice!
For me, my bike is a thing to get me around allrighte enough. But it's also a thing of love. Shit, a thing of life. There's all kind's of meaning wrapped up in steel and plastic that just simply don't exist within the material reality of the VTR1000 as a motorcyle.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the bike, or other thing, may be something in and of itself. But what does it really matter? What good does it do me, you or Jacques to have the gears turning and the engine burning if it doesn't mean anything?
Yeah, I definitely agree about the importance of meaning. And I guess meaning is my main issue with post-structuralism...if everything is decentred and deconstructed, what is the pragmatic value in that? And how do you take meaning out of something that has an infinite number of possible meanings?
It's only by interpreting it your own specific way do you find meaning in the object. The meaning you get from your motorcycle is unique to you; it means something completely different to another person, and it would mean something completely different even to you if you were to hold back your natural interpretation and, instead, deconstruct it to see its disunity.
And I believe that meaning is what makes life worth living...as you said, your bike is a "thing of life". So even though I agree with post-structuralists that any given thing has a plurality of meanings, I think that true value only comes with interpretation. You wouldn't love your bike the way you do if you sat around deconstructing it all day.
Yeah, then it might not go anymore, what with all the parts lying around on the ground...
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