File spoon-archives/bourdieu.archive/bourdieu_2004/bourdieu.0410, message 29


From: "Orion Anderson" <libraryofsocialscience-AT-earthlink.net>
Subject: RE: [BOU:] War, Death and History
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 20:01:15 -0400


David,

	Thank you.

	Yes, this is what war ATTEMPTS to do: to "reinforce what remain the
unchanging values of the
Collective."

	This does not mean there is not a space for reflection or separation
beyond the sacrificial space.

	However, my hypothesis is that when (some) people in society get
desperate with regard to the loss of the "unchanging values," this is when
war may be initiated as a means of AFFIRMING the absoluteness of the values,
to prove that nothing has changed.

	Sacrifice says, in effect, look: We are still willing to kill and
die. This proves that the value has not changed; that the Collective is
still intact.

	You might say that war aspires toward unity in the face of the fear
of fragmentation.

Best regards,

Richard Koenigsberg

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-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bourdieu-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
[mailto:owner-bourdieu-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU] On Behalf Of David Slocum
Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2004 6:19 PM
To: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: [BOU:] War, Death and History opportunist


The pieces I've read are plagued by at least three
consistent problems.  First, World War II and the
experience of Germany leading up to and during that
conflict are presented as constituting a master
narrative for what occurs across societies and (at
least modern) history during times of war.  (This
seems especially evident in more recent pieces on
Saddam Hussein's Iraq.)  Second, the guiding
relation between individual and nation of
"martyr-for-cause" is mostly unproblematized:
individuals are presented as participating in war
because loyalty to various collective drives --
nationalism, "sacred ideals," religious
fundamentalism -- allows them to demonstrate, in the
deployment of violence but especially by dying, the
full measure of their devotion and belonging. 
Following this, and third, the idea (or "logic") of
sacrifice is rendered in schematic, nearly
functional terms that allow for little variation or
individual exception and end up
reinforcing what remain the unchanging values of the
collective in whose name the individuals acted in
the first place. The theoretical underpinnings here
seem less Bataille that the rudiments of Girard. 

David Slocum
New York University


----- Original Message -----
From: John Lowther <j.lo-AT-earthlink.net>
Date: Tuesday, October 19, 2004 5:50 pm
Subject: Re: [BOU:] War, Death and History  opportunist

> On Tuesday, October 19, 2004, at 04:54  PM, kent
strock wrote:
> 
> > Has anyone read his work?
> 
> 
> on the lacan list, one of the folks there levi
bryant, read one of 
> the 
> piece and offered a good bit of critique (to which
i don't recall 
> any 
> response) which while offered in good faith seemed
to me to 
> effectively 
> sink the piece in question.  i have tried reading
a few things 
> that 
> have gone around and found them, well, a bit
confused wrt issues i 
> was 
> familiar.  beyond that i cannot say.
> 
>
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