Page 76 - Vinkler, Jonatan, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco. Eds. 2019. Ideology in the 20th Century: Studies of literary and social discourses and practices. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 76
Ideology in the 20th Century: studies of literary and social discourses and practices
Alexie’s conclusion reminds of Hannah Arendt’s observations about
the banality of evil, but Alexie is more radical. Hannah Arend, describ-
ing Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem, always keeps the position of a detached
observer. She tries to be objective describing the persons involved and the
proceedings even to the extent that she expresses concerns about the con-
duct of the case (cf. Arendt 2017, 91–92). This objectivity makes her re-
port even more credible. In this way, she makes it possible for the read-
er to join her at the detached ‘place of observation’. Whereas the narrator
in Alexie’s poem loses the safety of distance when looking into the abys.
He stumbles down into the abyss and drags the reader along. A shift hap-
pens from the locus observandi, prevailing in the first part of the poem,
to the locus producendi. The narrator changes his epistemology and real-
izes that he produces the world he lives in; though this has the unpleasant
76 consequence that he realizes he produces the genocide too. The address
invites the reader to share this knowledge and this way of knowing, but
it does not force it upon him: the reading of a poem is or should be a free
decision. The decision for a participatory epistemology is not a sentimen-
tal turning back to some imaginary holism; it means confrontation and
acceptation of responsibility. Or, to paraphrase the sentence quoted by
Foerster: If I am the wind and the trees, I am a part of the genocide too.
It is possible to read the traces of a participatory epistemology in con-
temporary Native American literature in the context of decolonial stud-
ies as radical resistance against ‘epistemological hegemony’. It is radi-
cal, because it goes down into the abys of the ‘imperial mind’ and delink
from it at its roots. In the short story The Search Engine Sherman Alex-
ie introduces the character named Harlan Atwater, a fictional poet, who
remarks “I believe that poetry can save the world. And shoot, that one
has always been a radical thought, I guess. So maybe I am a radical, you
know?” (Alexie 2012, 383).
Still open for further discussion are the questions of how to create
and convey knowledge about literature from a decolonial and participa-
tory position. Tzvetan Todorov reflects on specific aspects of this prob-
lem in the epilogue to his book The Conquest of America: The Question of
the Other (1982). He does not discern between two epistemologies, but
between two discourses: the narrative and the systematic. He wants to
separate himself from the discursive form, the conquerors ‘appropriated
for themselves’. “I feel the need … to adhere to that narrative which pro-
poses rather than imposes; to rediscover, within a single text, the com-
plementarity of narrative discourse and systematic discourse” (Todorov
1984, 253). By this complementarity, he avoids submitting to the hegemo-
Alexie’s conclusion reminds of Hannah Arendt’s observations about
the banality of evil, but Alexie is more radical. Hannah Arend, describ-
ing Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem, always keeps the position of a detached
observer. She tries to be objective describing the persons involved and the
proceedings even to the extent that she expresses concerns about the con-
duct of the case (cf. Arendt 2017, 91–92). This objectivity makes her re-
port even more credible. In this way, she makes it possible for the read-
er to join her at the detached ‘place of observation’. Whereas the narrator
in Alexie’s poem loses the safety of distance when looking into the abys.
He stumbles down into the abyss and drags the reader along. A shift hap-
pens from the locus observandi, prevailing in the first part of the poem,
to the locus producendi. The narrator changes his epistemology and real-
izes that he produces the world he lives in; though this has the unpleasant
76 consequence that he realizes he produces the genocide too. The address
invites the reader to share this knowledge and this way of knowing, but
it does not force it upon him: the reading of a poem is or should be a free
decision. The decision for a participatory epistemology is not a sentimen-
tal turning back to some imaginary holism; it means confrontation and
acceptation of responsibility. Or, to paraphrase the sentence quoted by
Foerster: If I am the wind and the trees, I am a part of the genocide too.
It is possible to read the traces of a participatory epistemology in con-
temporary Native American literature in the context of decolonial stud-
ies as radical resistance against ‘epistemological hegemony’. It is radi-
cal, because it goes down into the abys of the ‘imperial mind’ and delink
from it at its roots. In the short story The Search Engine Sherman Alex-
ie introduces the character named Harlan Atwater, a fictional poet, who
remarks “I believe that poetry can save the world. And shoot, that one
has always been a radical thought, I guess. So maybe I am a radical, you
know?” (Alexie 2012, 383).
Still open for further discussion are the questions of how to create
and convey knowledge about literature from a decolonial and participa-
tory position. Tzvetan Todorov reflects on specific aspects of this prob-
lem in the epilogue to his book The Conquest of America: The Question of
the Other (1982). He does not discern between two epistemologies, but
between two discourses: the narrative and the systematic. He wants to
separate himself from the discursive form, the conquerors ‘appropriated
for themselves’. “I feel the need … to adhere to that narrative which pro-
poses rather than imposes; to rediscover, within a single text, the com-
plementarity of narrative discourse and systematic discourse” (Todorov
1984, 253). By this complementarity, he avoids submitting to the hegemo-
