Re: VMs: postmodern cryptography: Foucault, Panopticon, and Voynich MS

[Ronald Lorenzo <rlorenzomba@xxxxxxxxx>]

If anything, the project of cryptography is an act of
deconstruction.  Given the failure of other approaches
to de(constructing/crypting) the Voynich Manuscript, I
see no reason for a postmodern approach.  Cryptology
was postmodern before there was postmodernism.  

To say that there is "postmodern babble" is to fail to
grasp the project of postmodernism.  Perhaps there is
no truth, no knowledge.  Not just in the Voynich
manuscript, but in other worldly texts.  So-called
postmodern babble opens a new strategy at decryption. 


--- Milo Velimirovic <milov@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Postmodern babble. I fail to see how this advances
> knowledge or 
> understanding of the VMs.
> 
> Milo
> 
> On Oct 7, 2004, at 10:19 AM, Ronald Lorenzo wrote:
> 
> > Foucault in Â?Discipline and PunishÂ? discusses
> the
> > panopticon as an architectural feature established
> > first in the prison as a method of control by
> > observation.  With its diffusion into other spaces
> > (air traffic control towers, surveillance cameras,
> > software that tracks the number of keystrokes),
> the
> > panopticon is no longer a feature limited to its
> > prison origins.  Or if it is still within the
> realm of
> > its prison origins, it has been because of its
> > transformation of the world as a prison.  The
> prison
> > has transcended its physical embodiment and
> entered
> > the hyperspace of our hyperreality.
> >
> > As a list that sets out to study the Voynich
> > manuscript, the hyperreal panopticon comes to rest
> in
> > the realm of cryptography.  This is the age of
> > postmodern cryptography.  Nothing challenges
> authority
> > and control more than that which is concealed. 
> The
> > white, male, CAPITAList, heterosexist gaze of
> > modernity is refracted by writings over 400 years
> old.
> >  These are the writings of a different spirit than
> the
> > one that embodies this age.  The Faustian spirit
> of
> > modernity, with its restless drive to control
> through
> > measurement and observation, is dying.  And on its
> way
> > to the grave, the impulse to observe and control
> comes
> > to rest on one of its few indomitable foes.
> >
> > Just like any other text (Madonna, Survivor, or OJ
> > Simpson), the Voynich MS is a text that can be
> read.
> > Or rather, it is a text that turns the gaze of the
> > reader.  Like a mirror, it gives off more
> information
> > on the reader than on itself.  In one age, the
> text
> > reads: I am of interest to religious mystics.  In
> > anOther age, the text reads: I am of interest to
> > CAPITALists, to collectors of rare books as if
> they
> > were butterflies or baseball cards to be
> collected.
> > And in our hyperreal age of control and
> measurement,
> > the text reads: I am a danger to national
> security,
> > the potential weapon to an invisible enemy.
> >
> > As Jean Baudrillard stated, reality is a bitch. 
> And
> > as Machiavelli wrote, fortune is a woman.  From
> > Renaissance Florence to Postmodern Paris, the
> thread
> > of masculine domination over feminine pliability
> > connects the two philosophers.  The Voynich text
> is
> > the indomitable bitch that has survived the
> strikes
> > and blows of modernity and the enlightenment.  She
> is
> > a text that refuses to be dominated.  Jorge Luis
> > Borges wrote that one day the mirror people would
> no
> > longer imitate us; they would revolt.  The day of
> the
> > mirror people will come when they will no longer
> obey
> > their orders.  And on that day, the books of the
> > mirror people will also revolt.  No longer texts
> to be
> > dominated, they will come to have power over us.
> >
> >
> >
> > 		
> >
> >
>
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> >
> >
> Milo VelimiroviÄ?							<milov@xxxxxxxxx>
> La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601 USA				43 48 05 N 91 14
> 22 W
> --
> Unix: Where /etc/init is job #1.
> 
>
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> 



		
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