Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 08:01:37 +1100
Subject: Re: AUT: The stability of nations!
From: Thiago Oppermann <difference_3ngine-AT-yahoo.com.br>


On 3/12/2004 1:08 AM, "Lowe Laclau" <lowe.laclau-AT-gmail.com> wrote:

>>> Well, as I said before no one is denying the interestingness or
>>> importance of a wal mart on the planet, however until the careful
>>> regulation of wal mart holds the stability of nations and global
>>> capitalism in general in its hands, then unfortunately, its not "the
>>> cutting edge".
>> 
>> If that's all that's important to you, you will die by a thousand cuts.
> 
> if the words "no one is denying the interestingness or importance of"
> means that something is *not* important to me then something is awry
> <i think thats the right word?>.

"You're important Lowe, but so-and-so is the *cutting edge*" implies a
rather drastic relative allocation of priorities, wouldn't you say? "That
computer is good, but this one is the *cutting edge*" That's a sales pitch,
no? Don't be disingenuous, I went to university too.

> 
>> The
>> recomposition of the working class is pretty unglamorous stuff, boring,
>> conducted by stolid companies like Wal Mart and shitty family businesses
>> which are utterly at the mercy of the vagarities of finance. But above all
>> it is brought about by a working classes that understand themselves in ways
>> which are as seemingly incomprehensible as this list's fascination with
>> Deleuze, and who will, when the chips are down, actually produce the society
>> your kings and merchants survey.
> 
> :) Thats pretty funny, but I'm not if you're talking to "me" or
> someone else. Perhaps the problem is that you have entirely missed the
> point of this discussion... which was to repeat yet again... the
> definition of "cutting edge"

If that's all  we've been discussing, you've been wasting my time. Who the
fuck cares about that? Jesus... I take issue with this very idea that a
particular section  - which just so happens to be the elite of capitalism -
is the privileged one, the one that brings about change.  It's a very wrong
headed approach to an organic system.  So you think that money - an
abstracted social relation - is the 'cutting edge' while the recomposing
working class isn't.  What I object, above all, is the relative allocation
of priority here, which is very blatant and not at all accidental. It's a
deliberate choice you've made, in fact, an elaborate and evasive rhetorical
ruse to exonerate your darling authors from the serious criticism that their
key concept happens to prejudice the analysis of the the American working
class, or rather, misses its composition entirely.

You disagree with me in this pretentious and fundamentally dishonest way and
then drop something like "Deconstruct this notion of the wage regime, it
presupposes the creation of dispositifs that affect each and every person on
the face of this planet" , which was my point backwards.  For you, it's a
matter of taking the regime, in  fact take Money itself, and breaking it
down to see what bits you can find inside it, whereas I am more interested
in starting with, you know, people, and seeing how it is that such an awful
regime can be supported, indeed created by them. Other than the sheer
megalomania of talking about everybody, everywhere, there isn't much
difference, except that from my perspective, the concept of multitude turns
out to be rubbish, whereas you're out there in the stratosphere unable to
see this. 

> Yeah... I have nothing really to say to this. But you know its a
> hundred times more difficult to understand someone than it is to want
> and desire to be understood.

You're a martyr, Lowe. Nobody understands you. The future will be amazed.


Thiago















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