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Kritiks and catsulas

> Check this out....from NDT-L...
> --- John Katsulas wrote:
>  I refuse to
> even mention the possibility of critiques (yes, intentionally spelled
> without the K), since I don't view them as legitimate arguments in debate.
> But those fools seeking to run them will have ample opportunity.
> --- end of quoted material ---

I beleive Tuna is right that you/we/one should check this quotation out.  
Tuna opens a space for a possibly pressing question: what would such a 
check, or critical examination, reveal?

I think that we can immediately reject, or at least not valorize, an 
intrpretation or response that seeks to ANSWER Katsulas' argumentative 
logic as it is presented.  Katsulas does not present an argument here, 
in the strict sense, but instead presents us with a puzzling enthymeme, a 
series of conclusions whose premises remain intentionally obscured and 
subterranean.

We first notice that Katsulas greets the presence of the critique not 
with an actual response, but with silence - he not only refuses to 
acknowledge the existence of the Kritik, but won't acknowledge its very 
possibility.  This curious tactic of refutation by refusal might be 
analogous to the habit of Spivak's Derrida of writing "under erasure," 
deliberately crossing out certain terms so that their mention does not 
reify the metaphysics of presence that Derrida seeks to counter.  
Katsulas' deliberate lacuna, however, simply re-establishes the 
credibility of the Kritik.  An argument so powerful and pervasive that 
even its refutation will re-establish its force must be a powerful 
argument indeed.

>From a psychoanalytic perspective, Katsulas' comments can be compared to 
the infant who plays "peekaboo," or shuts her eyes tight in order to 
"make the monsters go away."  We can thus establish a certain solipsism 
and assumption of power on Katsulas' part; he has appointed himself as 
the high priest of discouse, whose acknowledgement is a precondition for 
the very reality of an argument.  His response, more importantly, reveals 
the mentality of a man under siege, who feels his community to be 
threatened by the "alien invasion" of peculiar arguments, and reacts by 
publicly enacting a dramatic regression.
WE next observe that Katsulas refuses to spell the Kritik "with a K." 
What reasonign would dictate this move?  Katsulas surely cannot seek to 
deny the Kritik's links with Continental philosophy.  The orthography is 
not a necessary sign of respect; one can call the "Clinton disad" the 
"Clinton disad" (instead of, I suppose, the Klinton disad) and 
successfully refute the argument at the same time.  Catsulas might seek 
to avoid the encroachment of the c/Kritik/que by refusing to even grant 
it its proper name.  This is analogous to the social tradition of 
"unspeakability," where something is so truly offensive that it cannot 
even be mentioned.  Speech can only apply to objects within a given 
circumscribed social sphere, any attempt to expand the field of language 
is thus viewed as a subversion of the original social sphere.

"WHat your Uncle Frank did was unspeakable...UNSPEAKABLE."
	--Hellraiser

It is thus particularly appropriate that Katsulas chooses to expel a term 
that is foreign not only to debate, but is genuinely "foreign," or 
non-English as well.  A more thorough scholar migth profitably compare 
Katsulas' text with, say, the text of Claifornia's Proposition 187, or 
the attempt from opponents of "multi-culturalism" to expel Spanish from 
the United States.

Katsulas then attempts to provide a warrant for his aforementioned 
claims.  He will not acknowledge the presence of the K/CritiK/que, 
becuase he does not "view it as a legitimate argument within debate."  
Katsulas thus implies that there is some sphere where arguments can 
exist which is outside of debate.  This is a strange paradox.   The very 
presence of argument seems to bring with it "debate."  This is a 
defintional precondition.  By relegating the critique to a sphere where 
it can no longer exist, catsulas tries to obfuscate the violence of his 
exclusion.  Exile is a preferable punishment to exclusion, even though 
exile carries with it the certainty of death outside the community, 
simply because the exile allows the sovereign catsulas to remove himself 
from the violent reversals possible ina  public execution (do I need to 
provide a citation here?)  Another analogy can be found within American 
history, inthe example f Native Americans,w ho were banished to unlivable 
conditions in order to vitiate the colonizers' possible guilt over a 
full-scale massacre.

Katsulas' final sentence tries to provide another circle of defenses from 
the accusation that his exclusion might be an act of violence.  Debators 
who seek to expand the field of debate theory that catsulas attempts to 
Kontrol are subject to ridicule and humiliation, but this punishment is 
not truly punishment since debators have the "opportunity" to run what 
they please.  Katsulas' argument might be rephrased as an Orwellian 
dictum: "All arguments receive an equally fair hearing; some are simply 
more equal than others."   As in a supposedly "free" market, the violence 
of inequality is masked by the supposed "equality of opportunity."

Catsulas' post displays a mix of fear,loathing, revilement, exclusion, 
and attempts at self-justification.  His words should encourage all 
proponents of the Kritik, who realize that when someone is truly 
horrified at what theya re saying, they must be onto something valuable.

Cordially,
Michael Antonucci
University of Iowa
References:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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