“Real, Neutral and Pale Discourse with Guarantees of L'académie” and On

although the authors are mostly con- “real, neutral and pale discourse with cerned with and explain the extent to guarantees of l’Académie” and on the which the technology of modelling other hand “courage at searching for 3d avatars and embodied systems things” (p.197–8). Like Kramberger works on pleasure and arousal. and Rotar, Foucault consequently pursued and reflected upon these two inseparable sides of an engaged intellectual. The authors’ resistance Ana TOMINC against the social injustice, particular- department of Linguistics and ly the injustice inherent in neoliberal English Language, Lancaster dogmatism, and against academic ina- University bility for a reflexive and autonomous science – “imperative parts of one’s Taja Kramberger, drago Braco Rotar discipline” (p.xvi) – does not exist just Misliti družbo, ki (se) sama ne in their texts, but it is also reflected in misli [Thinking society that does their daily action. The ways in which not think (itself)] Sophia, Ljubljana this collection of essays also exhib- 2010, pp. 244, 19,80 EUR its resistance against various forms (ISBN 978-961-6768-25) of social control that some of these 1702 texts have been subjected upon are Thinking society that does not thus not silenced and hidden into the think (itself) is a collection of essays personal experience of the authors. written by two Slovene social scien- Rather, they make an effort to express tists, writers and intellectuals that can and recognize such censorship, start be associated with the tradition of confronting it, and not just reconcile the French historiography. The ma- with it and then ‘shut up’: exposing jority have been published before the relations between an author’s and have now been revised. For just original text and its final printed ver- one of them, this is a première. As sion uncovers the force of powerful much as this book provides critique intermediaries that can act as censors. of the society that does not think (it- In many ways, registering such an self), at the same time it already con- unauthorised intrusion is already suf- tains concrete traces of those social ficient: this is the first step to a possi- mechanisms which it constantly criti- bility of thinking about it, an activity cally addresses. The authors’ open doomed not to be easy: “it is some- exposal of the processes of censor- thing like cleaning Augias’ stables ship that the essays in this collection when there is acute lack of water and seem to have undergone, points to ‘helping hands’, (p.xv) as authors ex- their conviction that “writing and ac- plain in the introductory chapter. tion are the same”. In this, they fol- Censorship is a mechanism of so- low Foucault’s idea of an intellectual, cial control as old as societies them- for whom there was on one hand no selves. It can be manifest in many dif- TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 48, 6/2011 ferent ways, such as silence people’s mented. Hence, the role of linguis- thoughts and prevent their activities. tic proof-readers should equally be This collection of essays notes traces transformed from a rather prescrip- of two different forms of control: tive to what may be called ‘advisory’ firstly, there is a control on the level function. This means suggesting im- of one’s language which can be no- provements and focusing on stylistic ticed when writers are advised not inconsistencies in an agreement with to use certain words, syntactic struc- an author, rather than taking the lib- tures, and styles in a piece of text be- erty to make unauthorised changes, cause they may not conform to the as seems to be the case with “The tire- standard, in our case literary Slovene. some itineraries of the Spanish Civil And secondly, there is control of cir- War” (Chapter 3, p.71), where Kram- culation of knowledge in the academ- berger discusses lieux de mémoires ic field. of the Slovene Spanish combatants. The Slovene literary language is Related is the still persistent purist not a natural phenomenon, inde- ideology according to which ‘foreign’ pendent of various centres of power words should not be encouraged in and historical developments, agents, Slovene. Proof-readers, and above ideologies and interests: it is the leg- them, the editors censor the original acy of the 19th century prescriptiv- author’s texts by ‘cleaning’ them up. 1703 ist language policy. Based on one of Little do they know about the subject the many dialects, this particular va- the terminology of which they so ig- riety of language was constructed to norantly police, or about the reason become the standard and was given for which a particular term is em- the powerful status of a language that ployed. Thus, it is not surprising that was to unify the nation. Acquiring the the Halbwachs’ Slovene translation Slovene literary standard thus means of Memoire collective results in ‘Kole- identifying oneself with a particular ktivni spomin’ (souvenir) rather than group of people – the Slovenes –, but ‘Kolektivna memorija’ (memoire). it also means raising one’s linguistic One of the authors, who is also the capital. Major linguistic corrections translator of the work, distances him- of texts may have been necessary in self from the translation and its accu- the initial stages of the nation’s uni- racy. In all of his work, including this fication because the Slovene literary collection of essays, Rotar employs language was not yet established as the original distinction (Chapter 1: the language of the public commu- ‘History that serves, is a servant his- nication for the linguistically diverse tory’. About epistemic imperative of users of Slovene. Today, of course, the distinction between memoire and the situation seems to be different: souvenir & memory and history’). the access to this language through This has an intention to stress the in- media and schooling is improved terconnectivity between memory and and the status of the language ce- souvenir: “Memory is a crossroad of TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 48, 6/2011 various souvenirs” (p. 3), whereas is its sine qua non. It requires fair de- collective memory requires a selec- bate and public disagreement rather tive collection of souvenirs about the than coward backstabbing, especially same event that has been retained by based on ad personam as it is often a number of people. Here, the proc- the case. Hence, Kramberger’s ‘Euro- ess of control is not only visible in pean taxonomies, social cohesion and terms of whether or not one’s use of history’ (chapter 4, p.121) do not ap- the literary language conforms to the pear in the publication for which the prescribed norms and ideologies, but text was initially intended, despite her it goes further: it censors the terminol- refreshingly critical stance towards ogy of a particular scientific field with- the issue. In critiquing the popular out any reasonable justification. As a newspeak ‘multi/inter-culturalism’ consequence, not only is the transla- she contextualises it in terms of the tor made responsible for a translation neoliberal doctrine which utilises the that he never produced, but the field term on the level of a discourse that of memory studies remains weakened does not, unfortunately, reflect the re- by this terminological fiasco. ality: multiculturalism is a representa- The second kind of censorship tion of today’s society in terms of its has little to do with language. Rather, illusionary interaction of various so- 1704 it functions on the level of fields (in cial groups. However, as Kramberger Bourdieu’s terminology) which incor- states, in the society which is increas- porate positions of control: in the aca- ingly unequal and where exclusion demic field, for example, ideas and of too many social groups remains a new knowledge tend to be shared reality, a ‘multi’ meeting of the various in conferences, but also in academic ‘cultures’ cannot take place on equal written production. Instead of “a con- terms. In the global world, the local stant dynamic and public dialogue” has no possibility for a fair interaction (p. 135) between different directions with the rich global. The latter creates of academic thought, certain strands the world according to its own needs of knowledge tend to be suppressed and desires, regardless of the miseries if they prove to be ‘dangerous’ for that it leaves to those beneath. the established mainstream episte- While a more demanding reader mologies. Preventing the circulation still needs to wait to see, if the texts of texts that do not conform to the in this book reflect the original in- methodologies, theories and opin- tentions of the authors (who will no ions of the majority – or that even doubt express their disapproval at criticise them – is a symptom of a sci- the earliest occasion if this is not the ence that does not seem to be inter- case), it is quite clear that this is a col- ested in thinking (itself). But as such, lection for which every academic en- it cannot be science: reflexivity, so vironment hopes. In times such as explain the authors (Chapters 2 and 5, these, where academia increasingly but also throughout other chapters), subordinates itself to the interests TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 48, 6/2011 of the capital, a critique of a society the context of social work: as an such as this one should not appear academic discipline and as a profes- without being noticed. Thinking soci- sion. It reflects on ethical issues and ety that does not think (itself) is not, dilemmas pertaining to social work as the publisher promotes the book, as they occur under profound social, an easy reading, but it definitely an political, and cultural transformations intellectually stimulating one.

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