PAGE 2 — THE DECREE — MARCH 15,1991
The Decree
OFFICIAL STUDENT NBWSFAFER OF
NORTH CAROUNA WESLEYAN COLLEGE
Editors—Dhaaa Cbesson and Jolin PerneO
Staff—Jatofe Stump, Jfautes Oakley^
Aian Felfcn, Tr«y Davis
TheDfeme b located in the Student Xlnion, North Carolina
Wesleyan College, Wesleyan CoOege Station, Rocky Mcnm^
NC 27801. Policy i$ determined by the Editorial Board of The
Decree. Re-publication of any matter herein without the ex
press consent of the Editorial Board Is strictly forbidd^n.TA^
Decree is composed and printed by J^ipley New^apefs of'-
SpringHope. ' ' '
Opinions publii^ed do not necessarily reflect those of North
Carolina Wesleyan College.
Cynical companies
prey on patriotism
Our world of Ninja
turtles, plastic rain forests,
and Evian Water has just
been sent to the edge of in
sanity with the highly com
mercial events of Desert
Storm. In the past several
months, the American con
sumer has been bombarded
with patriotic items that
could be found on the
shelves between the pecan
logs and the toy tomahawks
in a Stuckey’s on 1-95.
We have seen Desert
Storm tee-shirts, cigarette
lighters, baseball caps,
mugs, buttons, beer huggers.
war maps, bumper stickers,
and, rudely enough, boxer
shorts.
Luckily the war has come
to a quick end to stop this
abuse of patriotism. We are
now ready for the introduc
tion of such products as the
Stormin’ Norman Schwarz
kopf Designer Jeans, Bush
Binoculars, Saddam Con
doms, Dick Cheney Bur
gers, Peter Arnett Candy
Bars, Desert Storm action
figures, Scud Light Beer,
and, of course, the Patriot
Missile Nintendo Game.
Only in America.
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He would see war^s irony
Morrison understood excess
By DR. STEVE FEREBEE
Oliver Stone, a Vietnam vet
eran who brought us Platoon and
Born on the Fourth of July, has
now reinvented Jim Morrison in
the current movie. The Doors.
Morris would have recognized
the obesiance to our military that
many Americans are indulging in.
President Bush says that we have
found common purpose and de-
Dr. Steve
fined ourselves. We are having a
super bowl of celebration to prove
it Morrison understood excess.
Morrison the writer and con
cert performer was a less palatable"
More debate on ’phallogocentrism'
Dear Editor:
The latest essay on the impor
tance of antiphalloocentrization
by Margee Morrison (who natu
rally rejects the “Dr.” to which
she is phallocratically entitled)
certainly suggests a possible
meaning of her first work (insofar
as the two works may be said to
have a common text and insofar
as she, merely the writer of the
works, may claim to interpret it).
I am, however, concerned that
there is an apparent inconsistency
in her test (insofar as I, a mere
(mis)reader of these essays, may
discern it).
Her argument is couched in
that most phallogocentric of ter
minology, academic deconstruc-
tionese. Ironically, the very lan
guage of her attack on phal
logocentrism is itself a power play
par excellence of the very type it
would marginalize; by my
Letters to
the Editor
sketchy count, many Wesleyan
faculty don’t have any idea of the
meaning of the term “phallo
gocentric” (roughly, “centered on
the linguistic imperialism of pa
triarchal domination”) and thus
are excluded from her discourse.
As for the people whose language
she is defending, they wouldn’t
have a clue.
This irony instantiates one
fundamental inconsistency of
theoretical talk about linguistic
imperalism; it is invariably in the
imperialist tongue. This is inevi
table, in that theoretical manipu
lation is the explicit forte of this
language and those who speak it
(as it is not for many marginalized
discourses and speakers). Thus
even to get some idea of their
relation to the world — to say
nothing of defending themselves
— marginalized minoritarians
need a working acquaintance with
the phallogocentric power lan
guage.
There is a difference between
starving and fasting. To fast is to
choose not to partake of available
food; to starve is not to have food
available. Those who speak the
metadiscourse within which
“phallogocentric” has meaning
have chosen to marginalize the'
structures which inafgiiialize’
them — they are fastiiig phal-
logophages. They can afford to
fast because they are essentially
related to those structures. Those
who have no metadiscourse at
their disposal are simply starving.
They are not socially connected
to power.
I would not want to deny the
essential point that there are many
forms of discourse, and that each
has a different use. One main goal
of education has always been to
give access to the current lan
guage of power, which also has
its uses. Finally, as Margee’
sessays so aptly illustrate, only
those with supreme control of the
current phallogocentric language
of power will be able to under
stand that power and shape its
evolution.
Thiaf is why the teaching of
“Standard English” cbiitintfies to;
be iissentikl, afid also why those
very minoritarians who ^ irii-
properly marginalized by the di
chotomies of “Standard EngUsh”
are precisely the people with the
greatest need to learn it as well as
to maintain their roots.
Charles Creegan
figure than the band’s radio hits
suggested. As Stone shows,
Morrison had evidently read —
and understood — Antonin
Artaud’s theory about drama
known as Theater of Cruelty.
Artaud demanded that theater
upset the audience with intense
confrontation. Though Stone
concentrates on Morrison’s
Dionysian tactics — drawing the
audience into a purging, orgiastic •
celebration of the body — I think
he might have created a movie
which makes us intellectually
angrier than this one does. Angry
at our own complacency.
Morrison believed that
American youth wanted to ex
plore experience on a different
level than lhat offered by “She
loves you, yeah, yeali, yeah” or
TV sitcoms. In fact, the San
Francisco acid rock scene, led by
The Grateful Dead and the
Jefferson Airplane, as weU as the
Beatles m their reincarnation as
pop gurus, also spoke to this de
sire.
But Morrison had a theory
about the rock concert as a theater
of confi-ontation, as a place and
tinie to ‘^reak through to the other
side,” tO; move from the desire
for exploration to exploration it
self. He took the name of his band
from William Blake and Aldous
Huxley, two other rebels against
self-satisfaction.
I guess he was wrong about
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