Christian tels us that "the terms 'minority' and 'discourse' are located firmly in a Western dualistic or "binary" frame which sees the rest of the world as minor, and tries to convince the rest of the world that it it is major, usually through force and then through language, even as it claims many of the ideas that we, its 'historical' other, have known and spoken about for so long" (Christian, 2130). Yet again, we find that the Western Aborescent model of knowledge is oppressive and based in false binary logic.
Gloria Anzaldua seems to be calling for a Rhizomatic model when she says "A massive uprooting of dualistic thinking in the individual and collective consciousness is the beginning of a long struggle, but one tat could, in our best hopes, brung us to the end of rape, violence, and war" (Anzaldua, 2101).
I know I'm probably beating a dead horse (my last post had to do with the limitations of our tendency to organize knowledge in this way, and I'm pretty sure more criticism of binary thinking is coming up in our readings on New Historicism. Still, I can't help but point out this recurring theme.
Christian moves from a discussion of Western dualism towards our tendency towards "monologic," which I believe is also related to the aborescent model of knowledge. She tells us that we have a "tendency to want to make the world less complex by organizing it according to one principle" (2134). Is this "one principle" the "seed" of the aborescent model? Should we move towards a more Rhizomatic model of knowledge? When I first read Deleuze and Guattari, I thought they were pretty out there, but I'm starting to find the problems that they point out everywhere I look. Christian would say that the powers that be suppress a more Rhizomatic model of thinking because "variety, multiplicity, eroticism are difficult to control" (Christian, 2134).
Henry Louis Gates Jr tells us that some black authors and critics, such as Alexander Crummell, felt that "mastering the master's tongue was the sole path to civilization, intellectual freedom, and social equality for the black person" (Gates, 2432). This would support the current social hegemony: "We must understand as well that the quest was lost, in a major sense, before it had even begun, simply because the terms of our own self-representation have been provided by the master" (Gates, 2437). Gates, however, believes that blacks should embrace rather than abandon the "black vernacular, the language we use to speak to each other when no outsiders are around" (Gates, 2437). Is his call for a new kind of criticism, departing from traditional Western criticism, a part of the Bloomian process of misprision? Does Gates believe in Deleuze and Guattari's idea that minority literature should be written in the major language, but that that language should be invested with the language and culture of the minor? Or does Gates call for an abandonment of the master language altogether?
That's all I've got for now. Hope everyone's having a great weekend!
Dan
I think Gates is calling for two independent ideas. One, that minority vernacular is the language in which minority literature should be produced while recognizing that this language is just as relevant as the dominant language. The second idea I think Gates is calling for is to consume traditional western white philosophy but reinterpret it towards a specifically minority reading. I think however, Gates takes an all too American experience and fails to address the Eurocentricity of both the literary canon and the philosophy used to critically approach it.
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