Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 21:36:48 -0600 From: "Daniel F. Vukovich" <vukovich-AT-students.uiuc.edu> Subject: RE: disappeared At 07:11 PM 30-11-98 -0500, you wrote: >My stars. Who am I to cast aspersions on the desires of the Chileans? >Who are *you*, Daniel, to get so worked up on their behalf? (Maybe you >are someone; if so, well, fair enough.) Well, I am simply someone whom fancies himself a Leftist, critical intellectual. And a passionate internationalist to boot. I would ask you, again, where you are coming from, but I no longer care. But do please forgive me -- in your kindly, Christian kind of Nietzchean-way -- for getting "all worked up" over your insulting, condescending *judgments* and *policings* of said Chileans. >I do not deny anyone who has been persecuted their *right* to revenge, to >the desire for revenge. It just seems to me that the world would be a >nicer place if people would forego that right. You sound here a lot like the Rorty of *Contingency, Irony, Solidarity,* only your "ethic" or "value" seems to be "niceness" or "anti-revenge/vengeance," whereas Rorty would say "the absence of cruelty," and would base all this in an uncritical type of pragmatism, as opposed to your quasi-religious, "St. Bernard Dog" type of "thinking." It is also odd, to say the least, that the main way this entire event has been discussed (within your posts, primarily, but the list too), has been in terms of what "is" reputedly going on inside these people's heads, and about the "dynamics" of "revenge." Foucault, for one, ought to be rolling over in his grave. Before you got into the Rodney King speechifying (why cant we all just get along?), I had thought you might have had some tacit questions in re. the state, governmentality, etc etc. I'd even venture that they >would feel better themselves, that the mania of revenge is not as >satisfying as attaining a position where you *could* have revenge--and the >object of your potential revenge knows it--but you show your lack of >consideration for the object by *not* taking revenge. (Which, indeed, to >answer someone else's question, would be the attitude of the overman. See >_Thus Spoke Zarathustra_, particularly the section titled "On the >Tarantulas"). Who am I to say that? Well, no one. I just offer it for >consideration--and again, I do not deny the Chileans their *right* to >revenge; I do not claim that they are *wrong* to react as they do; I do >not claim that they *should* react otherwise. This is a trivialization of Nietsche's reading of Hegel's master/slave dialectic, which at least has the virtue of basing the psychologizing in something more complicated than "revenge" (surely, "overcoming" and "becoming" and "identity," etc. a bit more complicated than this?). But, regardless, it seems to me that, while you graciously do not deny the "right" of said Chileans (or of the liberal Spanish state, the refugees, etc) to do as they please in re. Pinochet, you have said, a few times now, that you find their efforts to be "vengeful" and "disturbing," if not downright "scary." (I am not going to requote your posts again, read them yourself if you do not see this). If that is not passing judgment and policing, and a rather clear "claim that they *should* react otherwise," then tell me what it is? Just an innocent questioning for "our consideration"? Of course, I do not say "judging" is a bad thing -- as Nietzcheans are wont to do -- but it ought to come with a bit of critical self-reflection. I think that book by Rorty is something of an embarassment, but I find myself agreeing with his claim that while Nietz and Freud can serve us well as theorists of or "tools" for "personal" or "private" issues (and Rorty is nothing if not an apologist for the private/public split), they are practically worthless as *social* and *political* thinkers/theorists. I believe you have demonstrated his point, but then again, the question of politics/the political as such, is for you a bit too dirty for a proper, kindler and gentler philosopher. I mean, really, all that claptrap about the 11th Thesis on Feurbach is a bit distracting, isn't it? >Matthew > > ---Matthew A. King---Department of Philosophy---York University, Toronto--- > "Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken; lest thou hear thy > servant curse thee: For oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that > thou thyself likewise hast cursed others." > -----------------------------(Ecclesiastes)-------------------------------- ------------------------------------------- Daniel Vukovich English; The Unit for Criticism University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign -------------------------------------------
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