Subject: MB: My response
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 13:29:45 -0500 (EST)


	Here is my response to what I see as a clear logic of exclusion
that has descended on this list gathered around a run of "I agree" and no
willingness to engage discussions and the texts of Maurice Blanchot. Reg
has already informed us that if in his interpretation we do anything out
of line we will be banned from the list. This is my analysis based on the
writings of Maurice Blanchot. And Of course there is no intention on his part
of shutting this list down as he suggested he would.

	In the 'The Great Refusal' (_IC_ pg 33-48) Blanchot writes, "we
untiringly construct the world in order that the hidden dissolution, the
_universal corruption_ that governs what "is" should be forgotten in favor
of a _clear and defined_ coherence of notions and objects, relations and
forms - The _work_ of the tranquil man" (_IC_ pg. 33 my emphasis). It is
this "work" that, Blanchot still on page thirty three writes, does not
allow through the use "beautiful names" the infiltration of "nothingness,"
of the "randomness that always frightens us because it conceals an
_obscure_ decision" (_IC_ pg. 33 my emphasis). This work, "according to
the measure of our knowledge" (_IC_ pg.33) is a hope committed to "the
illusion of a beyond, a future without death or to a logic without chance"
(_IC_ pg.34). Three elements are being thrown up, refused by normative
hope and an elevation of discourse through the use of "beautiful names."
These are immanence, death, and chance, everything that has to do with
"the writing outside language," with "the absence of work" (_IC_ pg. 33
again). The imposition of the work of "beautiful names" can appear very
innocent, pure, and all for the good of greater clarity, working in the
name of keeping out the noise, "obscure speech" of outsiders, of others.
Such quasi-racist sentiments is expressed for instance, when one defends
another from _corruption_ by suggesting that he "deserves better". This is
particularly serious when such a remark comes with suggestions, now in
effect, of filtering, exclusion, and exile -- a logic of sacrifice that is
at the heart of all neo-fascist sentiments. I leave you to the comfort and
tranquility of your "beautiful" work for my friends in silence and solitude
living in the desert of the screen. 

With the outside always,
Ariosto Raggo


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