Mike, I believe I see what you're driving at. Perhaps I can clear my position up even more. I said, >...whether it remains faithful >to some objective truth or not is a moot question because the >objective truth is not reliably accessible in any totalitarian >sense. U said, > . . . now I'm not entirely sure i understand this, and am worried by the >introduction of the notion of "totalitarian" into the debate, with the >implication, i suspect, that anything definitive, by constraining the >hermeneutic horizon, necessarily counts as totalitarian . . . My choice of the word "totalitarian" here was intentional (and paralleled my reference to Hitler's propaganda films). What I intended in deploying that term was to stress the danger in believing that absolute, objective truth can be unproblematically represented in film. Let me outline my logic here, and you can tell me if I slipped up somewhere. (1) If we buy the premise that a non-relativistic Truth can be perceived, and (2) that representation can faithfully refer to that Truth, then, there must exist (at least one) example of this; that is, some existing representation (and I'm thinking with this whole discussion primarily about documentary film) must actually refer unproblematically to its referent. Under these premises, any film is potentially an unproblematical referent, i.e. every documentary is potentially a completely (and objectively) True narrative. Furthermore, critique becomes unnecessary when in possession of complete and objective Truth. So, Nazi propaganda films present a narrative as objectively True. But, I hope, we can clearly see that they are shaped by subjective political and ideological objectives. I used Nazi propaganda films because I had ____ (I can't recall her name, Reni...Rosen..something like that) in mind the woman filmmaker who made "documentaries" for Hitler, and because I assumed that most of us would not call these "True" representations. The underlying agenda is rather blatant. Yet, these films were digested by a lot of Germans without question, because, I would argue, they believed that a completely True representation was possible. That belief prevented them from interrogating the veracity of what they were seeing, therefore, the ideas promoted in those films exercised absolute control over what they were able to believe, and therefore, controlled their actions by controlling what they believed to be possible. Let me see if I can make this clearer. The hermeneutic is made possible by the belief that we are not in total possession of truth. We critique because we realize that we are not in total possession of Truth. It is the realization that we are not in total possession of Truth that empowers us to question authoritative imperatives. So, to your other comment... I said, > >"It is precisely this, trendy relativist pseudo-problem >that allows human beings to recognize Hitler's >propaganda films as subjective representations rather than truth." U said, >. . . i dont quite know what to make of this but it seems [though i suspect >that kevin does NOT mean this] that since hitlers propaganda was indeed >faithful to his own perceptions that it must count as being as "true" as >anything else in a flawed discursive universe . . . in other words the only >thing that could count as a lie is something that was told in bad faith and >intended as a lie, thus misrepresenting the perception of the teller . . . and >that as long as the teller [or filmmaker] believes it, it counts as true . . . You are quite right, that is NOT what I mean. In fact, I mean the polar opposite. I am not saying that we should accept Hitler's narratives; I am saying we don't question them enough, and that is dangerous. I realize that in the case of Nazi narratives, we probably all doubt their veracity (which is, as I said, why I chose it as an example). But, if representation cannot present a completely (and objectively) True narrative (as I believe), then no narrative is beyond interrogation, and no interrogation of a narrative is ever complete. So, we must not only rigorously question Nazi narratives, we must also question American narratives, and social narratives. The tendency, I would argue, is to not question narratives we have already chosen to belief without question (pardon the circular logic). But those are the most dangerous, because those, like in Germany during WWII, are the ones that insidiously appear "natural" or "true." [A contemporary example of a dangerous narrative might be the American representation of Iraq. Consider how popular the idea of bombing Iraq is among the general population. I recall one woman (a self-proclaimed loving Christian) who said during the Gulf War that it was all right to bomb Iraq into oblivion because "they are all Godless heathens". She held this position because she did not question the seemingly objective narratives that the news media were presenting her with. I compare this to the comments made by one of my students who had fought in the Gulf War. He saw five-year-old children with their legs blown off, and entire families destroyed. He saw that Iraq, like any country, is not an insane collection of sub-humans; it is a place full of real human beings--mothers, fathers, children, teachers, bakers, and so on.] Now, to your last point, which I feel is the most important of all. >i, on the other hand, would think that what we need is a frame of reference >that allows us to recognize certain representations as lies even if they are >"subjective representations" Here I think you touch on the key issue. How do we make distinctions among subjective representations. And this, I believe, is the domain of Ethics, not truth. We evaluate representations on an ethical basis, because ethics are malleable and dynamic, while absolute objective truth is unquestionable and static. --Kevin ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/screensite