Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 01:53:39 +0100
From: Nate Holdren <nateholdren-AT-gmail.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: Fwd: [VT_THEORY] on empire and negri


Hi Thomas-

Yeah I think you're right on here, I think this is a real issue for
Negri. I'm not too convinced that how folks vote means much (I mean,
yeah I guess it's reactionary to vote Bush, but hell, there's no way I
believe there's any reason to expect much better of Kerry), but
clearly Uncle Toni has a bit of explaining to do...

Virno talks about the multitude as an ambivalent form, just like the
proletariat, and talks about 'postmodern fascism' as being a form the
multitude can take in addition to the radical forms Negri identifies.
I know Virno and Agamben and others worked on a journal called Luogo
Comune (sp?) dedicated, among other things, to exploring postmodern
fascism. Bits of the journal are around the net in Spanish, probably
in Italian as well. I think points about fascism can be overstated but
I think the idea might be helpful for understanding the religious
right and fascists in our country, and maybe the Lega Nord in Italy
etc.

On thing that's often not clear to me is how the term multitude
applies (and whether Negri and Virno have different uses of the term)
- whether it means 'class in itself' or 'class for itself'. Sometimes
one, sometimes the other I think. The new Negri/Hardt is clearer on
some of this, but not conclusively to my mind.

best,
Nate


On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 16:28:05 -0700 (PDT), Thomas Seay
<entheogens-AT-yahoo.com> wrote:
> We have been discussing this and I think this article
> is worthless;  on the other hand, I thought that
> Fukuyama had a couple of interesting things to say in
> his article.
> 
> For example, I remember Fukuyama pointed out that a
> whole lot of the "multitudes" in the USA are voting
> Republican...just as the exit polls in the last French
> Presidential run-off in France found that a lot of
> workers had voted Le Pen.
> 
> I dont see Negri addressing this issue anywhere.
> There is this romantic notion of the multitudes that
> seems to be a construction of his imagination.
> Whenever I try to picture the "multitudes" using
> Negri's description, the image that comes to mind is
> that scene from the second Matrix where the cave
> dwelling hordes are engaged in a  dionysian dance.
> You know the scene.
> 
> 
> --- "Nicholas J. Kiersey" <nkiersey-AT-vt.edu> wrote:
> 
> > interesting... sorry if you all have read this
> > already. When i first
> > read this I was furious at the clear lack of effort
> > on the part of the
> > author. But then I started to think that authors are
> > not really authors
> > at all, but relays. And perhaps what this author is
> > relaying is worth
> > taking seriously if we want to bring our ideas into
> > a more
> > strategically advantageous situation.
> >
> > NiK
> >
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > I can't take it any more. None of the world's real
> > problems - from
> > > poverty to tyranny to climate change - are
> > discussed in Negri's work,
> > > except to claim that the poor are "more alive",
> > and the citizens of
> > > liberal democracies are living under the "real
> > tyranny", and... oh, I
> > > give up. It's not just that this preacher of
> > Empire has no clothes; he
> > > is living in an intellectual nudist colony. There
> > are some important
> > > anti-globalisation writers, such as Monbiot and
> > Joseph Stiglitz. But
> > > Negri is trying to keep alive a patient - Marxism
> > - whose heart stopped
> > > beating long ago.
> > >
> > > So, this is where revolutionary Marxism comes to
> > die. It has been
> > > reduced to an obscure parlour game for ageing
> > bourgeois nostalgics,
> > > played out a few feet from Buckingham Palace by an
> > old terrorist who
> > > needs us to forget.
> > >
> > > from
> > >
> >
> http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/story.jsp?story=552229
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Nicholas J. Kiersey
> > PhD Student, Environmental Design & Planning
> > VPI&SU
> > email: nkiersey-AT-vt.edu
> > home: nicholaskiersey-AT-mac.com
> > mobile phone: (540) 998-1218
> > AIM: NervousFishdown
> >
> >
> >
> >      --- from list
> > aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> >
> 
> 
> ====> The real world gives the subset of what is; the product space represents the uncertainty of the observer.  The product space may therefore change if the observer changes; and two observers may legitimately use different product spaces within which to record the same subset of actual events in some actual thing. The "constraint" is thus a relation between observer and thing; the properties of any particular constraint will depend on both the real thing and on the observer.  It follows that a substantial part of the theory of organization will be concerned with properties that are not intrinsice to the thing but are relational between observer and thing.
> 
> W. Ross Ashby
> 
> 
> _______________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now.
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> 
> 
> 
> 
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>


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