Saturday Night Fever

Good evening.
Some of you may be aware of the Saturday Night Fever that hits me occasionally. There have been emails. I hope there haven't been tears... Fortunately there is yet to be an AVO.

Anyway, this evening I am being more sensible than that. I have, however, been struck with some incorriguble mental knots which have made me occasionally unable to get much wordage done at all, and that shits me. I resolved, to write.

This next paragraph is what happens when four years of uni resolve to 'just write'. I will decide in the morning whether it is too ranty to be marked.

Aboriginal perspectives can also be viewed within an ['idealist'] tradition. The emphasis on accuracy which we have discussed – irrespective of its source – needs to be considered in the same way. Clinging to the superior accuracy of an Aboriginal perspective is not a form of resistance against White political authority. Perspectives like Phillips', or Mycak's (in []) need to be viewed not as a reversal of power, but as an appropriation of the position of authority which reinforces the system of power upon which inequality is dependent. Fanon's [] provides a powerfully lucid perspective on the dangers of appropriating the methods and structures of power which have been enforced by a colonial authority. He argues that an appropriation that retains the same power structures – even if they are exercised by previously unpriveleged social groups - is a recreation of oppression, and that the necessary paths of resistance need to involve a reconstruction of social relations which is not dependent upon systems of oppression. Arguments for the superiority of Aboriginal perspectives which are grounded in a basis of truth and authority reinforce the distinction between Aboriginal and White interests which is the basis upon which White authority is enforced. It will, moreover, only ever be possible to re-organise authority within small pockets of resistance []; power is hegemonic [], and a retension of the structures of White authority will retain the power attendent with the “knitted togetherness” [said] of White discourse. Opposition is a war, in other words, that Aboriginal writers cannot win.

Deconstruction as entropy

I had a neat thought just now - well recently enough - a beautiful wedding of the mathematical and literary nerds within. I didn't want it to die with the essay it's going into, so...

Entropy,
is a wonderful concept - half obvious (intuitive), half impossible to understand.

Heterogeneity is a concept I'm engaging with currently. Heterogeneity in literature, heterogeneity of story - of voices, histories, narratives... Heteronarrativity I think I'll call it.

The urge, mathematical in source, is to relate what the authors (Z. and A. Smith) are doing
to the concept of entropy (really I should probably say that it is relating the word to the concepts...).
Where 'what they are doing' is of course my reading of the books, but you can stick it up your arse and suck it if you have an issue with the vocab.

Not at the same time, obviously.

The idea of discrete (mathematics again), coherent, monolithic, distinct, self-identical... of Stories as things Singular, and not Other than themselves... is being challenged and undermined, being replaced by an understanding of voice as heteroglossic, of story as discursive, of history as rhizomatic. The partitions, regulations, potential differences of the structures and relations of stories - or unity of story, should we be blinkered well enough to not even see the other - are being hacked at, dismantled... deconstructed.
Deconstruction when you sit and think about it (decrease its entropy would you, you reactionary fascist!) it doesn't involve disprovals, contradictions, arguments against. Deconstruction is more like generic 'kicking', shaking, putting in the boot - applying pressure and degenerating a stressed, artificial order by speeding up the process of entropy.