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Stupidity

Stupidity BOOK REVIEWS/267 can never be grounded in certitude or education or lucidity or prescriptive obeisance” (p. 19). This subject, the degree zero of agency and identity, is treated at the end of the book. Other meanings of stupidity (each instance of its use being singular) occupy the introduction and first two chapters. Prominent among the examples are the stupidities that keep society on its stolid track: religion, education, discipline, obedience, and patriarchy. Enlightenment reason, which equates stupidity with error, deviance, and impropriety, may itself be our most massive example of the symptom. In its creation of the modern subject, the Enlightenment produced all the unique instances of stupidity that it opposed—for example, pigheaded certainty and meek conformity, saying “we” instead of “I” and vice versa, the irruption of the Lacanian real and obliviousness to such experiences. The topic imposes its topoi: going to war with stupidity, knowing you’ll lose; realizing that you yourself are sometimes stupid; discussing Flaubert, Barthes, and Nicholas of Cusa—topics coincidentally present in André Glucksmann’s La bêtise. Ronell’s book is however unique in its exploration of the feeling of stupidity that supervenes when one decides to write. She treats the symptom as it is presented http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Comparative Literature Duke University Press

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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2003 by University of Oregon
ISSN
0010-4124
eISSN
1945-8517
DOI
10.1215/-55-3-266
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS/267 can never be grounded in certitude or education or lucidity or prescriptive obeisance” (p. 19). This subject, the degree zero of agency and identity, is treated at the end of the book. Other meanings of stupidity (each instance of its use being singular) occupy the introduction and first two chapters. Prominent among the examples are the stupidities that keep society on its stolid track: religion, education, discipline, obedience, and patriarchy. Enlightenment reason, which equates stupidity with error, deviance, and impropriety, may itself be our most massive example of the symptom. In its creation of the modern subject, the Enlightenment produced all the unique instances of stupidity that it opposed—for example, pigheaded certainty and meek conformity, saying “we” instead of “I” and vice versa, the irruption of the Lacanian real and obliviousness to such experiences. The topic imposes its topoi: going to war with stupidity, knowing you’ll lose; realizing that you yourself are sometimes stupid; discussing Flaubert, Barthes, and Nicholas of Cusa—topics coincidentally present in André Glucksmann’s La bêtise. Ronell’s book is however unique in its exploration of the feeling of stupidity that supervenes when one decides to write. She treats the symptom as it is presented

Journal

Comparative LiteratureDuke University Press

Published: Jan 1, 2003

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