In both my comments I wonder why The Stone does not tell readers that just a few days earlier we had been given a long article in which Thomas Chatterton Williams also successfully presents Adrian Piper in her own words. Here is the headline over the OnLine version of that article, not the title that appeared in the print version of the Magazine on Sunday, July 1:
"Adrian Piper’s Show at MoMA is the Largest Ever for a Living Artist. Why Hasn’t She Seen It?
The conceptual artist’s life and work push against the boundaries of race and identity in America.
Readers who had read Williams article understand a little better why Ms. Piper tells L.O.B. that one of her 4 most important achievements is:
2) To have escaped from the United States with my life.
They (you) will also understand why Thomas Chatterton Williams himself also had to leave the United States for Berlin in order to work on a book questioning, as does Piper, the USCB system and the American belief that there are distinct races.
I pose a question to which I never can get an answer:
Do you, American reader, accept the USCB system, and in contrast with Piper and Williams believe that you belong to a genetically distinct race?
If so you could write to Piper and Williams to challenge their positions.
I support their positions without reservation.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
2
This interview was fascinating, very dense reading material but worth every moment of it, this was full of electric ideas and I am glad to have learned about Adrian Piper from this, she is definitely a thinker to watch. I enjoy every edition of "The Stone" but this was an exceptional piece, simply wonderful. I love observing smart people (women especially) discuss.
2
Revelatory to learn of Adrian Piper. So late in the game for me.
Responding to one of the challenges she raises: I have chosen to live an integrated life in an integrated neighborhood these past twenty-two years. It has unsettled many aspects of my life. The idealism that caused me to choose to live here was not well-grounded in principle or in practice. And I don't know what it would mean to make that choice again given what I've experienced over these two decades. But I am staying.
3
I’m not smart enough to make a comment; but i’m Glad I read this and the article in the magazine and went to the opening at MoMA. I’m going back Monday to see what I didn’t “get” the first or the second time at MoMA
And i’ll Try to be a bigger part of the solution, thanks Adrian Piper
3
Oh. This is so good. She seems to be the philosopher I would have wanted to be had I had the talent.
If I try to follow up on this column by looking into Vedic philosophy or Kant, Hume, and decision theory I’ll probably be limited by the fact that after closely reading about a page and a half of the Critique of Pure Reason I need to take a nap.
I’d quibble about the distinction between deviations from rationality that consist of failures to meet its requirements and deviations that call into question the adequacy of rational principles themselves. When I read Huckleberry Finn, as Huck and Jim raft down the Mississippi trying to square what they’ve been taught with what they encounter, Huck’s decisions to reject what he’s been taught seem entirely rational to me. A museum exhibit I walked through arguing against the concept of race seemed entirely consistent with what I learned in classes on logic and set theory, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of language.
But her distinction between transpersonal and egocentric rationality makes those quibbles unnecessary.
Point taken on gaslighting and misogyny but I’ll ask people to also contemplate the following sentence: Real men do what their coaches, wives, and employers tell them to do.
3
Why only 6 comments on such an important presentation and why no link to Thomas Chatterton Williams equally fine interview that appeared in the print edition of The Magazine on July 1 and in the Online version first on June 27.
The two interviews together are of great importance for reasons obvious to those of us lucky enough to have seen both.
I can only wonder why so few people seem to be reading and commenting on reports about an American intellectual and artist of such importance. I will not speculate.
Only-Never in Sweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
3
I look forward to visiting the exhibit, then reading this piece again! Thank you both!
4
I had the extraordinary good fortune to attend 2 meetings of Adrian Piper's class on Kant's moral philosophy at Wellesley College. I was a middle-aged woman returning to get a long-overdue bachelor's degree. These two meetings set me on an intellectual path I am still following, one that is as crooked as can be imagined. Thank you, Adrian Piper!
7
My thanks to the author and the Times for an extended 'comment' on what would normally be a topic for another publication. As a philosophy major from the olden days, who exited the area in order to teach English and write poetry, I find this piece highly engaging -- and find Adrian Piper inspirational.
The cross-disciplinary nature of her work runs contrary to so much of the study in American universities, though places like the small College of the Atlantic (Bar Harbor) pursue it with a beautiful vengeance. Piper is a brilliant example, sadly, of someone who American academia could not easily integrate, as highly creative, nonconforming thinkers are not what our educational system prizes the most highly.
Kant remained a puzzle to me as an undergrad. Piper's language here is most accessible, and I'm considering looking at her publications -- for now, her MoMA creations, for me, are a good first step. Thank you again, Ms Lauren O'Neill Butler.
5
Best seminar I've been to in years. Thank you both!
5
Thank you Adrian Piper for presenting the most important statement I have ever seen in the past 5 years of studying the Times treatment of the American system of classifying us by "race".
Adrian Piper to Lauren O'Neill-Butler:
"In art, I’m working on a new piece called 'The Pixel Grayscale System of Human Classification.' The title is pretty much self-explanatory. It proposes a constructive, value-neutral alternative to the sick and outmoded system of 'racial' classification we have inherited from 19th-century pseudoscience. Of course it will be very inconvenient for those whose self-worth or social advantages depend on locating themselves within that outmoded system." 1, 2, 3
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
Footnotes:
1) This is the 2d report from Berlin, see Thomas Chatterton Williams report in the Magazine last Sunday.
2) Why did philosopher George Yancy never interview Adrian Piper in his 17 interview series that ended with his letter "Dear White America"?
3) Why have we never heard of Adrian Piper before in 100s of Times columns about "race"?
5
This piece touches such astounding strands in my understanding that it may have opened a new world for me. I can't, yet and perhaps never will be able to, place it any perspective. It's enough, at present, to thank Adrian Piper for her strength and persistence, and Ms. O'Neill for having conducted the interview. Now...time;
10
@ Ted Lehman - Ted glad to see this sign of life at comment review board or its algorithm. Have submitted 2 comments so far and they are intended to convey the same sense of wonder as yours, but also much more.
Note that no mention is made here of Thomas Chatterton Williams' equally important long article-interview in the Sunday Magazine on I think July 1. Don't miss it.
Now to submit comment no. 3
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
Passing note. Just back from VT and Albany where I was subjected to the worst bus service imaginable - Greyhound, writing from the world's best Bus4You, Sweden
2
Adrian is a maybe the greatest warrior of our time, in that she not only walked the talk, but, in many respects, did the walking, then the talking. Everything she's done has been grounded in a) direct perception, b) deep and prolonged reflection, and, c) a moral compass that somehow never failed to guide her. I wish I could say the same for myself. What does it say about our country that a woman who never promoted or engaged in violence, a teacher with a doctorate from Harvard University, counts getting out the country with her life as as one of the four things she's most proud of? Does the threat she refers to concern only those of us who identify, or are identified, as black or black women? Or is it one we all face? I am a privileged white male. I feel it. Bravo, Adrian! Go girl!
7