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BOOK REVIEWS/267 can never be grounded in certitude or education or lucidity or prescriptive obeisanceâ (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 opposedâfor example, pigheaded certainty and meek conformity, saying âweâ instead of âIâ 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 youâll lose; realizing that you yourself are sometimes stupid; discussing Flaubert, Barthes, and Nicholas of Cusaâtopics coincidentally present in André Glucksmannâs La bêtise. Ronellâs 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
Comparative Literature – Duke University Press
Published: Jan 1, 2003
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