Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 10:19:54 -0500 (EST)
From: TMB <tblan-AT-telerama.lm.com>
Subject: Re:  God help us, back to tropes


On Tue, 26 Jan 1999, Michael Rooney wrote:

> 
> 
> On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, TMB wrote:
> 
> > I don't see why I'm on a high horse. 
> 
> Because the generality of your ethics entails
> unending hand-wringing; and, as you are its
> sole layman and pontifex maximus, you can wring
> everyone else's hands ad nauseam.
> 

I get it. You think I'm trying to operate and master a space which I've
chosen according to the priciple simply of my being the one and only, the
master, etc. No, I'm not. I work the general, the arche, etc., *because
you don't*, and it is not what I would perfer to do. It's as if I'm going
into DOS and working again and again on some basic aspect of the program
(hence its generality) and view it in terms of its effects throughout the
fields, windows, programs that are "run" on the computer. Why this
basically philosophical activity is opaque to you I haven't the slightest
idea, but I guess I do have some ideas. I will sa, definitely: there is a
thing, called philosophy, that effectively renders philosphy impossible.
Deleuze said this. There is a thing, polemical philosophy, that likewise
renders philosphy and thought impossible. It remains that what we are
close to we often are a part of. A whole history of progress (from
Descartes to Husserl, for example) shows again and again the partialness
of that progress. In the case of Deleuze, and you, I guess, there is this
attempt to make it "back into thought" through the recuperation of the
polemical, in a polemic and "leftism" against the conservative tendency
(Hegel or straw Hegel enter here). There is a moment of truth in that, but
at some point it seems to me to become clear that the relation to the
"DOS" grounding, the grounds, what I referred to to Paul as a kind of
basic chromatic range, etc., remains truncated, and the work of opening
that up, of showing its relationship to what is produced, how things go,
is just one particular kind of work. I am thrust into appearing hopelessly
general, and misread according to the selfhood/character contours
determined within your warlike mentality. It is not what I am doing. 



> 
> > Nor do I understand why, suddenly,
> > "ordinary usage" is the meaning de regeur. 
> 
> It is not required, but a default assumption.
> Equivocation should be avoided simply out of
> practical economy, and coinage should fulfill 
> some end -- logical, pragmatic or aesthetic.  
> As far as I can tell, your usage serves only
> as self-indulgence.

This is simply foolish attack. The characterization is brutal and wrong.
Now, this is precisely *how* the access to the broader archic principles,
and, indeed, philospophy, gets closed off. By having at one another in
this way (and this really should be a little more obvious than this), from
this depths, this more personal aspect, the imputation of intentions,
etc., all one can do is hurl defenses, which is hardly a philosphical
practice. 

> 
> 
> > I thin my conception is fine. I
> > don't see ethics as "fulfllling moral rules", but see that conception as a
> > typical misunderstanding. 
> 
> Uh-huh.  What is the correct understanding of
> ethics?  Please be clear and concise; your
> previous disquisitions have inflicted an
> undue gravity upon the eyelids of your readers.
> In particular, what does your ethics prescribe
> and how does it justify that?

I don't want to talk to you about it because *all you want to do is
attack*. Isn't that true? Is there *really* anything I could say here that
you wouldn't attack? And even if there were, would I really be in any
shape to say it, once  you are done attacking everying else, raising my
ire, my defensiveness, etc.? Yes, here images of the schoolyard do indeed
come to mind.


> 
> 
> > If you're going to have at me (and why is
> > "having at" about your only way of interacting?) 
> 
> Again: parrhesia.

Don't know what that means. Now: you attack here, I guess: "you faggot,
you don't know what that means!"

I swear, when it comes to this kind of procedure, I will always be a
"faggot", you can bet on that.



> 
> 
> > about divergent
> > conceptions qua simply not the usual, I don't know how you expect to read
> > D and G.
> 
> Oh, I manage.  A purely idiosyncratic approach
> to language, were it possible, would be even 
> less constructive.  How do you read them?

I read them as having wonderful implications for creative thought, a deep
respect for plurality, at times a very inviting texture within which to
entertain new ideas. I read them also as a bit too leftists, as kind of
violent, as in some ways *very* much in the situation of replicating the
very problems they bemoan. I read them as successful and machinic, as
veryt metaphysical and a bit naive And, above all, *I read them poorly*,
which is something I do not want to do. I do so, because I am already so
traumatized (for various personal reasons stemming from a highly traumatic
childhood), and, to boot, so relatively isolated, that I just get get it
up for good reading.

You know, you elsewhere asked: "why nonviolence" and "why is it implied by
violence?" This is irresponsible thinking. In your polemic, you hurls such
questions without attempting ("why should I? huh? huh?") any sort of
answer yourself. I think philosphy kind of needs to be a bit more
responsible than that. But a case in point: Deleuze says, "There is a
thing called philosophy that has effectively rendered thoguht impossible"
(something like that). It's part of a whole bunch of parallel movements.
Partly it is true, partly it is wrong. But in any event, Deleuze was
identifying a violence: to philosphy. And he is saying: where there is a
gravity of such violence, if we do not take up the nonviolence that goes
along with it, it just pushes forward and hurts, destroyes, incapacitates
things. He's saying, "we must guard against this violence, we must be, in
t his way, nonviolent." Not at all unlike Heidegger, he rails against
crippling moralism (as do I, but I do so differently): he says: let
thinking be more violent if it must, let us realize that the 'beautiful
soul" is hurting thought, hurting too much. Heidegger says, "If there were
true opponents and not just adversaries" (or it might be the otherway
around), "thinking's cause would be more auspicious". Nietzsche says, well
you know what he says, I guess. I hold against this move. I hold that by
now if we can't see that war and simple, bland oppositionism (which you
are practicing here quite clearly) has a likewise deadening effect on
philosphy, then something is wrong. But war works for some, but not for us
fags. That is really about as intelligent as this is gettting, and I am a
fag as far as that goes. 


TMB