JAC Volume 16 Issue 1

Having noted some of the incongruities in the discourse of Jean-François Lyotard that appear in the fall 1995 JAC interview, Gary Olson nevertheless reassures us that Lyotard's "views on culture, feminism, postmodernism, and writing are potentially useful to many of us." Given the extent to which Lyotard's comments concern, in particular, his ideas about writing, the apparent incongruities, while indeed difficult to overlook, can escape critical commentary; as Olson speculates, they perhaps simply serve as testimony to the "need to invent new vocabularies" (393). Or, because they bear on Lyotard's ideas about writing, the incongruities can be seen as reinforcing his ideas about writing and resistance. As Lyotard puts it, a writer's insights "necessarily . . . allude to something else" (394). To me, this suggests that Olson's observation that Lyotard is potentially useful is apt. Certainly, Lyotard would not expect us to come away from reading the interview with definitive answers bout how to apply his notions about writing. Instead, his emphasis is on the potential of discourse, the capacity to advance any given conversation beyond that which has already been said. This is to say, then, that discourse has heuristic potential, which Lyotard's discourse both addresses and illustrates. Because conflict or tension is a necessary circumstance for this potential, it stands to reason that some degree of incongruity in discourse is inevitable.

First, it is important to recognize the extent to which Lyotard's conversation with Olson concerns writing, as Olson's title for the piece, "Resisting a Discourse of Mastery," indicates. Throughout the interview, Lyotard responds to such topics as feminism and the other germane concerns that Olson mentions with reference to his more pressing preoccupation with writing. In addition, Lyotard more or less explicitly indicates that his primary interest currently is writing. In his final response in the JAC interview, Lyotard wishes to clarify the misconception that he is a "theorist." In doing so, he denounces The Postmodern Condition as "the worst book" he ever wrote. It is not altogether clear why Lyotard has taken this posture toward what is arguably his most popular work, for it is not the case that Lyotard refutes ideas in the book; rather, it seems likely that it is, in part, the very popularity of the book that troubles Lyotard. He is adamant in pointing out that he does not regard that which is postmodernist to be something explicable with reference to an -ism, yet to a large extent The Postmodern Condition has been received as a work that has helped to define postmodernism. Lyotard also describes having returned to the question of the postmodern in a second and third book out of obligation: "I'm obliged to do this in order to maintain or to find certain directions in the use of this word" (410). And it should be noted that Lyotard's sense of obligation is no small matter to his ideas about writing. As we learn from its recurrence as a topic in Just Gaming, obligation is regarded as a "pragmatic virtue" by Lyotard (72), a virtue according to which one assumes a posture of openness toward "other-ness."

Both of these problems—becoming labeled a theorist of postmodernism and being detoured by what was to have been "just a passage" for Lyotard—have led Lyotard to distance himself from The Postmodern Condition for reasons that might have less to do with its being "this horrible book," as Lyotard maintains, than with its interfering in various ways with his inquiry into writing. That is, on the one hand, grappling with what is meant by postmodern has aligned Lyotard with theorists, scholars who engage in academic writing, which is precisely the kind of writing Lyotard wants to resist. On the other hand, Lyotard now finds himself obliged to continue discussing the postmodern even though he would prefer to discuss writing. In his closing remarks, with reference to the topic of the postmodern, Lyotard tells Olson, "It's not my real question. I think that the questions you asked, particularly at the beginning of this interview, were closer to my concerns" (410). Although, as has been suggested, virtually the entire conversation with Lyotard bears on his notions about writing, especially since Lyotard continually redirects the discussion to that topic, it is at the beginning of the interview that the topic of writing is most directly discussed.

Understanding Lyotard's responses in the context of his preoccupation with the topic of writing makes the incongruities in his comments intriguing to consider in terms of what they might indicate about Lyotard's views of writing. Olson tells us that Lyotard has provided a "redefinition of writing" that "seems a sensible stance in the postmodern world" (393). I do not wish to quibble about terms, but according to the postmodern stance taken by Lyotard, to define writing would be to pin it down precisely, to stabilize its meaning, an effort antithetical to postmodernist pursuits. Yet, there is a kind of stance Lyotard takes with regard to writing, and it is that stance that comes most closely to approximating a definition of writing. Here, however, the notion of stance needs to be considered within the context and dynamics of narrativity. As both a process and a kind of posture one takes, writing, for Lyotard, provides a site wherein one both seeks and resists positioning. Lyotard's ambivalence toward his work on the question of the postmodern could be seen as exemplifying such struggle.

Lodged within discourse, we are, according to Lyotard, inside narratives that are ongoing. This view presupposes discourse to have a heuristic aspect, as Lyotard suggests when he describes an answer as "only interesting as far as it is a question," or when he discusses the give-and-take that is "inscribed in speech itself," or when he characterizes writing as a means of discovering "that which is precisely not yet included in the circulation of commodities" (405, 389, 397). The insight that writing has a heuristic function has in many ways already proved itself to be useful to us in rhetoric and composition. But I think that Lyotard discloses something else about the heuristic aspect of writing. If the incongruities of Lyotard's discourse indicate something about how he views writing, it might be useful to consider the possibility that they point toward how the heuristic aspect of writing operates.

Concerning his "campaign against mastery and certitude" on the one hand and his own definitive notions and ways of expressing them on the other, the incongruities noted in Lyotard's discourse disclose a tension between permanence and change (or stability and flux, metanarratives and individual narratives, answers and questions—centripetal and centrifugal forces, to use Bakhtinian terminology—and so on). According to Lyotard's views about writing, this tension could be regarded not only as a condition of discourse but also as a condition for discourse. That is, it might be that the tension helps to enact the heuristic potential in writing.

Lyotard's conception of agonistics provides support for regarding tension as a condition of discourse. In the interview, Lyotard insists that his concept of agonistics is a concept about language games (or "phrase regimens"), not about people. And in The Postmodern Condition Lyotard states that "speech acts fall within the domain of a general agonistics," the pleasure from which "depends on a feeling of success won at the expense of an adversary—at least one adversary, and a formidable one: the accepted language, or connotation" (10). For Lyotard, tension (or conflict) is a characteristic of language use, as phrase making involves choosing one expression over another, which is thereby silenced or repressed.

Lyotard provides a poststructuralist characterization of agonistics, with conflict regarded as a feature of discourse. This conflict ensures that writing has a heuristic aspect, for the centrifugal forces of conflict keep things in motion—maintain narrativity. But the implications of Lyotard's characterization are such that we can get knowledge that writing has a heuristic potential; more intriguing are questions Lyotard's characterization raises about how the heuristic potential operates. I suggest that with regard to such questions Lyotard's efforts to resist mastery envelop the how of discourse-as-heuristic in mystery. But it is a mystery that Lyotard himself helps to shed light on. Lyotard yearns to be the kind of writer who can fully confront the unknown without being on a quest for meaning. However, it is a yearning that Lyotard's own rhetorical views of writing serve to thwart.

Again I return to the incongruities in Lyotard's discourse, specifically those that reveal an apparent inconsistency in Lyotard's characterization of writing as passive or active. I would contend that a passive/active tension in Lyotard's discourse is in keeping with the overarching tension between permanence and change previously discussed. One might expect there to be a parallel relationship between these two tensions; after all, it is usually the case that change is thought to be effected by that which is active. However, this expectation is not met. Implicit in Lyotard's descriptions of writing as passive or active are deconstructive maneuvers that align "passivity" with change—with centrifugal forces, questions, narrativity, flux, and so on—with the heuristic potential of writing. For example, the differences Lyotard see between "philosophers" and "writers," as we learn from the beginning of the interview, hinge on the philosopher's active pursuit of meaning or certainty as opposed to the writer's openness to follow uncertainty to where it might lead. Whereas the philosopher maintains "a certain idea of mastering the material" (394), the writer's job is "to wait for, to be passive." Yet, it is the writer's job that Lyotard characterizes as "active resistance" (397). Between this characterization of writing and Lyotard's descriptions of how language use necessarily silences or represses alternative expressions, we certainly get the idea that Lyotard regards writing to have a decidedly political aspect. When Lyotard discusses what was for him a "complete activism" during his involvement with Socialisme ou Barbarie, however, he implies that "real" writing is not compatible with social activism. In fact, the incompatibility Lyotard sees between "real writing" and politics is one of the recurring themes in the JAC interview.

The apparent incongruity between Lyotard's characterization of writing as resistance, which seems to implicate writing in politics, and his avowed denial that resistance can be located in politics ("A political approach to this problem of resistance is completely wrong" [396]) provides a site for inquiry into how, according to Lyotard, the heuristic potential of writing operates. Indeed, it is precisely a site for inquiry that the incongruity provides. A passive/active tension becomes disclosed by Lyotard's comments about writing, resistance, and politics; it does not get resolved. Nor, according to Lyotard's view of agonistics, should it be. Again, Lyotard characterizes writing in such a way that a tension between centripetal and centrifugal forces is a condition of discourse that enables discourse to have a heuristic potential. By itself, this characterization presupposes a vitalistic view of writing whereby writers are propelled by forces they do not—and should not (and, according to vitalism, perhaps cannot)—understand. How the heuristic aspect of discourse operates thus remains a mystery according to a vitalistic, a-rhetorical view of writing. But despite his admiration of what could be called a vitalistic way of writing, it is not an a-rhetorical view of writing that Lyotard holds.

It is interesting to note that with regard to his own writing Lyotard regrets that the passive/active tension is not resolved. Confessing that he has not been able to abandon, entirely, being guided by meaning, Lyotard regards it a "poverty and a misery" that he remains a philosopher rather than a real writer (394). It is perhaps the case that Lyotard does not recognize the lack of resolution to be a consequence of the very tension that he regards as a condition of language use. This is to say that it is perhaps the case that Lyotard does not recognize that he also discloses such tension to be a condition for discourse, one that places the writer in a stance between "mastery" and "mystery." Or maybe Lyotard just doesn't recognize that he recognizes it. He is, after all, aware that he assumes such a stance in his own writing:

Lyotard longs for what is ultimately an untenable romantic ideal of writing as sheer process, which would make the writer wholly passive in the sense that Lyotard stipulates. But Lyotard is unable to resolve the passive/active tension, to abandon completely a discourse of mastery. Besides having Lyotard's own testimony to this inability, we are able to discern it from the incongruities in his discourse. And what we are able to discern from the apparent incongruities in Lyotard's discourse puts a decidedly new spin on how the incongruities might be regarded. Most specifically, they are indications of the tensions to which Lyotard responds. More generally, they suggest that tension is a condition for discourse. Accordingly, the "between" to which Lyotard refers becomes an apt description of a site for discourse wherein the heuristic potential of writing can be enacted.

Lyotard describes that which is written when he speaks of the already said alluding to the unsaid. This condition of discourse discloses an "other-ness" that Lyotard recognizes as being inscribed in speech itself. The process of writing entails assuming a posture of openness toward such other-ness. But for writing to be the kind of process indicated by Lyotard, the posture a writer assume needs to be both passive and active, which is the stance Lyotard takes. He might wish to be wholly a writer and not at all a philosopher, but Lyotard maintains a rhetorical mode of writing that apparently prevents him from doing so; as Lyotard indicates, he writes in such a way that requires some degree of consciousness of what he has to mean. Although Lyotard apparently bemoans this predicament, he describes his position in writing in a way that seems quite consistent with his views of writing and resistance.

For many of us in rhetoric and composition, the evocation and maintenance of consciousness is, indeed, a necessary condition for discourse, one which enables an awareness of "other-ness." Without such awareness, there would be no "in-between," no opening for the inquiry Lyotard wants to maintain. Lyotard asserts that "active resistance" is up to each individual, which is why, for him, resistance cannot be organized as a certain politics. But there is, nevertheless, a political aspect to writing-as-resistance that ultimately depends—as Lyotard would surely agree—on "the other."

The heuristic potential of writing requires conflict or tension, not only as a condition of discourse, but also as a condition for discourse. The relationship between the said and the not-yet-said is not one-way. There is always, as Lyotard asserts, a give-and-take, a response to the one that anticipates the other. The kind of "in-between" stance Lyotard has in writing, then, is not at all regrettable. It is the stance that is required of him if he is to turn "answers" into "questions," if he is to wait by writing for the other. Lyotard seems to think his way of writing indicates some kind of shortcoming because it aligns him with philosophers on the one hand, though he might be heartened by thinking that it aligns him with "real" writers on the other. But Lyotard's notions about writing show that he believes discourse to be rhetorical. How Lyotard views writing therefore necessarily aligns him to some extent with philosophers, for it has long been recognized that rhetoric and philosophy have a relationship with each other that is often fraught with tensions that remain unresolved.