Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 08:58:57 +1000 (EST)
From: Christopher Mcmahon <Christopher.Mcmahon-AT-jcu.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Beneath bashing


So we would have to feel sorry for all those little flows that get
stoppered? It goes further. They see that stoppering as the way to make
neurosis/paranoia (and they are clearly hostile to the barbarian state re:
the savage socius in this regard). But no ethical basis for anything is
provided. They don't do ethics - so the default kicks in with a
psychosocio-utilitarian feel. All those flows in angst. How terrible! But
I'm trivialising... I take your point that the idea of something like the
alienation of the worker from his/her work/produce/sv is reintroduced as
the coercion of little machines by molar ones. But if this is the case,
then why champion one set of flows over another. Why side with residual
tribal code flow machiness of the amazonian indians against exploitative
capitalist corporate flow machines? having disposed of the Kantian
imperative, having made the subject redundant, all that is left to ethics
is a certain "taste", eh? A certain stance which comes to the reader via
the style of the text. Why side with punk razor flows against fluffy toy
disney flows?

- Chris 

On Wed, 17 Jun 1998, Eugene W. Holland wrote:

> At 09:07 AM 6/17/98 +1000, you wrote:
> >Just and afterthought - maybe what they are jettisoning is not
> >exploitation but "alienation" (as it is traditionally thought in the
> >Lockea version of Marx which is familiar to us)? Hence the rewrting of
> >Hegel's theory of property?
> >
> 
> Here I think you're onto something: they have little use for any notion of
> "alienation" that keeps in reserve some substantive human (or species)
> essence from which people would be alienated.  
> 
> But what if their version of "species being" is desiring-production (and
> the immanent syntheses of the unconscious)?  Then any molar representation
> imposed on the BwO would function in a way similar to alienation.
> (Property being perhaps one form among many of "molar representation").
> 
> Gene Holland
>