Post-Modern AKMA

I was going to write a review of AKMA's book, What Is Post-Modern Biblical Criticism?, but he's blogged a review of my book, so running a review of his book would look a little too hand-washy. Instead, I'll just say that this is the clearest introduction to post-modernism and deconstructionism that I've read. Yes, it happens to use biblical interpretation as its topical area, but it applies far more widely. AKMA is a clear, entertaining and generous writer, but you knew that already because you're reading his blog, aren't you?

So, allow me to expose the depths of my inability to understand post-modernism ("POMO"). Perhaps AKMA can be enticed to help pull me out of my hole.

Here's some context about me. (I am being somewhat POMO in acknowledging the subjectivity of my reaction.) I am ill-disposed towards POMO for a stupid, personal reason. Deconstructionism arose in part in reaction to Heidegger's work. I did my doctoral dissertation on Heidegger and was elected a member of the "Heidegger Circle" of scholars around 1979. At that point, the Derrida-ian deconstructionists' role seemed to be to disrupt conversations just as they got fruitful by taking an external and superior position. For example, Heidegger's stand against the rule of metaphysics was out-radicalized by the deconstructionists by their claim that it's still a "stand" and a stand contains remannts of the old metaphysics it's renouncing. Ok. Interesting. But when you tried to pursue it with them, they would subvert all discussion by saying something about conversation itself being a stand. They seemed to me get their jollies by proving themselves more advanced in their thinking by looking for ways to pull the rug from under others, Cowardly bulllies.

Now, I could be right in this characterization of the deconstructors in the Heidegger Circle and be wrong about deconstructionism. But these early interactions have colored my reading of them ever since.

So, I read AKMA's book with great interest. He is an Anglican minister and theologian whom I trust intellectually and personally. We are friends. We have talked in blogs and email about our understanding of each other's religion, and we have refused to come to agreement without good cause.

I nod in agreement throughout most of his book, especially with regard to POMO's recognition of the irreducible complexity of the interpretive act and its refusal to accord any interpreter privileged status. This has the salutory effect of keeping us open and humble. For example, POMO's careful analysis of historiography shows that the assumption that there are continuous threads in the development of social institutions -- the assumption that "the penal system" or "the educational system" actually has an identity through time and culture -- leads to brilliant insights. The POMO argument against our assumption that truth only resides in universal, self-consistent, all-embracing systems is truly radical and truly liberating. In fact, it is an important corrective to the Christian tradition; my religion, Judaism, is not a universal, self- consistent religion. Yet, the POMO insistence on out radicalizing its own previous speakers leads it to positons I don't Get.

At its heart, I don't see how POMO resolves the apparent contradiction between removing the ground from interpretation and enabling interpretation to go forward other than randomly. In particular, I don't see how two interpretations can engage in conversation...which is to say, I don't see how conversation itself is possible in a POMO world. (Yes, I know that POMO isn't monolithic on these questions.)

Here's AKMA setting up the pulling-the-rug side of the contradiction: "The formal character of narrative provides no way to distinguish a narrative that describes events that actually happened from one that reports fictional events..." Of course: you can't tell from a text taken in isolation whether it's true or not. But he goes on to say: "Because we lack any way to mark the difference between truthful and fictitious narratives, some interpreters refer to all narrative discourse as 'fictive,' or 'fiction-like' (although not necessarily 'fictional')." (63) If, the truth of a truthful narrative isn't in the narrative it seems it must be in its relation to what "actually happened." But it's core to POMO that we have no access to what "actually happened" outside of interpretations of it. In fact, the entire correspondence theory of truth (a statement is true if it describes something actual) is worse than suspect; it is at the basis of politically oppressive ideologies. So, we can't ascertain the truth of a narrative from within the narrative nor by comparing it to what "actually happened." Is anything left? The notion that all narratives are equally fictive suggests that no, nothing is left by which we can distinguish truth from fiction.

This seems confirmed -- yet contradicted -- by AKMA's brilliant discussion of "transgressive readings." For example:

The resources for transgressive readings are limited only by the interpreter's imagination. ...

There is therefore no need to limit our transgressions to the history/fiction distinction; we may likewise dissolve the genre distinction between bilbical narratives and the dream reports that form a basis of analytical psychological interpretation. (64)

AKMA suggests some limits to these transgressive readings: "Responsible border crossers follow the laws of the country into which they have entered..." But then he takes that back: "Other border crossers may reason that they are no more bound to local laws than to the laws that bind biblical interpreters to historical inquiries... These wanton transgressors need observe no criteria other than the exhilirating thrill of an interpretive tour de force."(65)

And then we get to what feels like a crucial point:

...if we permit transgressive interpretations, we run the risk of abolishing hermeneutical borerlines altogether. This fear... fails to reckon with the fact that, although borderlines may be arbitrary, location is not. One may find a place that does not clearly belong to one political (or discursive) district or another, but that does not mean that one is nowhere. Interpreters cannot 'make the bible mean whatever they want it to mean' unless there are audiences that find those interpretations convincing. And thereby hangs the hermeneutical dilemma: No interpretation is self- authenticating, but the validity of any interpretation depends on the assent of some audience." (68)

AKMA points to Stephen Moore as a positive role model. Moore weaves together the approaches of Derrida, Lacan and James Joyce, using "puns, coincidences and allusions" as well as heavyweight biblical scholarship. The result, says AKMA, is a work that we judge to be convincing "on the basis of Moore's having assembled a fascinating textual and theoretical construction."

But is being fascinating enough? "How interesting!" or "How clever!" isn't the same as "How revealing!" But what is this "enough"? Enough for what? I personally am not looking for fundamental, universal truths. I am looking, however, for the possibility of conversation that goes beyond: "I find this interesting and provocative." Is "We -- this audience -- find it interesting" really enough?

For example, AKMA uses as an extended example a feminist retaking of scripture. He points to the "sacrificial economy" in the Old and New Testaments according to which sacrifices "buy" favor. Here's what AKMA says:

...women of biblical narrative did not typically control possessions suitable for sacrifice. They could not offer sacrifices because they had little to offer. Whatever the condition of women in anacient Palestine may have been, the women in the Bible are typically adjuncts to men."(p. 55)

Interesting point. I'd never thought of that. But how does the discussion advance beyond this? The discussion will turn on some matters of fact -- what did women control? -- and on two highly laden terms: "adjunct" and "typically." The evaluative nature of "adjunct" is clear, but the use of the term "typcially" is more subtle. Perhaps women were generally adjuncts to men but the Scripture is pointing to the exceptions as those to be emulated or as those who best express the true role of women.

This seems to me to be a useful response and I can imagine the discussion going on for a long time and quite fruitfully. But, in my experience and understanding, it is not the discussion a POMO interlocutor will engage in. She'll instead keep subverting the very terms of the discussion. "You say the Scripture points to exceptions? Pointing? you think the Scripture points? Don't you know that in interpreting, we're pointings pointers pointing pointedly at a vanishing point..." What could have been a useful conversation becomes simply an exercise in nihilistic one-ups-manship.

Useful converesation? What does that mean? Does that imply that the text hides a truth that can be exhumed, a truth that is true for all and independent of interpretation? No. Our involvement in interpretation is always to be kept in mind. But, ok, we got the point. Now we want to talk not about the nature of interpretation but about whether the feminist interpretation AKMA has sketched is right. "Right?" How dare I! Ok, then, use another term. But I still want to know: How were women oppressed in the multiple cultures discussed in the scripture? How did their world look to them? And what do we do with the fact of women's oppression when we read and study the scripture? It'd be condescending to call the feminist interpretation "Fascinating!" and move on.

So, I accept much of POMO and find it useful in heading off some unconscious arrogance. But having reminded us that we can never find an unassailable foundation for our interpretations, and that all human awareness is intepretive, we don't want to be put into an interpretive solipsism. We want -- we insist -- that interpretations be capable of revealing the world better or worse. Some are right and some are wrong and some are just plain laughable. How can that be within the POMO framework?

That is my 1,600 word question for AKMA.

David Weinberger
April 10, 2002