Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 11:59:30 -0700
Subject: re: festival


I think everyone interested in the discussion of this topic so far,
would benefit enormously by reading the article just brought to my
attention via deoxy.org.  It's called "Running on Emptiness: the Failure
of Symbolic Thought."  It was written by John Zerzan and mentions
Debord, Freud, Hegel, Kristeva, Levinas, Eliade and Chomsky among scads
of others on the very topic we've been discussing.  Our discussion would
benefit, I'm sure.  It can be found at:

		 http://www.deoxy.org/failure.htm

I feel Bataille's presence in the article's discussion of immediate,
face to face, autonomous existence versus mediate, civilized culture,
but Bataille is not mentioned.

So far, I really resonate with the view that "symbols are essential for
the development and maintenance of social order," and that "only what is
repressed is symbolized, because only what is repressed needs to be
symbolized;" that "the magnitude of symbolization testifies to how much
has been repressed, buried, but possibly still recoverable."  What would
Bataille say to this?  Or Edward Moore?

Also, look at what John says about how many thousands of years humans
must have lived before repressively domesticating themselves with
culture!  I do not think it was due to the ingestion of flesh!  

If you really want to consider other reasons why humans became
agressive, look at Margaret Power's _Egalitarian_ perspective on human
origins, and her critique of Jane Goodall's disruption of chimp behavior
through banana feeding stations.  In my view, this gave the chimps a
false sense of scarcity which led to violence and a more structured,
repressed, symbol-dependent society.

A nod in chaos is always incipient,

Don Socha