all, towards a‘history of the present’ (Foucault 1986) in ways only now being
dreamed of.
In philosophy the genetic fallacy is the mistake of allowing the question ‘How
come?’ to preempt the question ‘What?’ It is the mistake of thinking that
the power of knowledge can be justified, explained away, or nullified by an
account of its history. For example, a scientist might justify the predictive
power of a conclusion by giving an account of the rigorous procedures which
led to the conclusion. A social constructionist might call an argument into
question because it is the product of particular historical, or cultural circum-
stances that could have been otherwise....Both arguments commit the
genetic fallacy, the fallacy of forgetting that the primary value or meaning of
an event has no necessary connection with its genesis in history or its causal
explanation.
(Bradley 1998: 7 1– 7 2)What gets mislaid in the genetic outlook, in other words, is ‘any sense of the many
difficulties inherent in understanding the present in its own right’ (Bradley 1998:
7 2, my emphasis).
How might we start to understand what is carried in and carried away by
different voyagers and beings in becoming? How might we begin to tack away
from the vapid certainties of so much current cultural work? In previous books
and papers (Thrift 1996, 199 7 , 1998) I have pointed to the uses of an alternative
‘non-representational’ style of work. Note that I use the word ‘style’ deliberately:
this is not a new theoretical edifice that is being constructed, but a means of valuing
and working with everyday practical activities as they occur. It follows that this
style of work is both anti-cognitivist and, by extension, anti-elitist since it is trying
to counter the still-prevalent tendency to consider life from the point of view
of individual agents who generate action by instead weaving a poetic of the
common practices and skills which produce people, selves, and worlds. But ‘how
hard I find it to see what is right in front of my eyes’ (Wittgenstein 1980: 39). For
to see what is in front of our eyes requires thinking – and thinking about thinking
- in different ways.
Drawing on a number of traditions of work, I will therefore, in the first part
of the chapter, offer an account of a style of thinking which I call ‘non-
representationalist’. I will argue that this style of thinking offers an engaged
account of the world which has inevitable practical consequences. Then, in the
second part of the chapter, I will argue that the protagonists of this approach all
tend to lay stress on ‘performance’ but have insufficiently investigated what this
usage might entail. I will try to correct this imbalance by considering some lessons
drawn from the performing arts. In the third part of the chapter I then turn to a
particular example of a performing art (dance) as an illustration.
So, throughout the chapter, the emphasis will be on activating powers of
invention and, especially, the invention of new means of occupying, usurping, and
producing spaces and times. In particular, this emphasis on active contrivance must
112 Part II