File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_2000/foucault.0012, message 43


Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 20:32:54 +0100 (CET)
From: Jeremiah Luna <jeremiah.luna-AT-zdv.uni-tuebingen.de>
Subject: Re: Intellectual Specificity and Inner Fascism


AUDIO: thys gret cete

http://www.peak057.com/yourselfdown/ceteone.rm

http://www.peak057.com/yourselfdown/cetetwo.rm



if you don’t already have a realplayer click here in order to download it.

http://proforma.real.com/real/jukebox/jukebox.html?src=001222realhome_1,001221rjbchoice_2&dc=122812271226



Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is very nice to write to you tonight to announce the launch of a new,
throwyourself: down a journal of radical theory and action, sorry I do not
mean to blather, or any thing like that. . . But here are two new audio
files from the essay, thys gret cete: two approaches and a belgrade diary
entry . please listen to this audio file, it is better than watching TV,
or a Rented Movie, or a Good Book from well know publisher. Still if press
and media are just that the press and the media, what ever effect these
hideous institutions might have on modern subjectivity and the present
psychology of identity. Still the "social being"ness of the representative
science of the citizen in mass society, faced with his alienation both
social (in terms of personal lives) and economic class positions. The
social narrative of the past "History".















---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 14:59:36 GMT
From: alanturner-AT-australia.edu
Reply-To: foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
To: Doug Stokes <dstokes14-AT-hotmail.com>,
foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu,
     deleuze-guattari-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Re: Intellectual Specificity and Inner Fascism

Firstly, hello, i have read from the Foucault list, and
the ones with stuff about Guattari, and Neitzsche and
Deleuze, from time to time, but never participated, in
writing.

So, hello. I hope that this maiden posting will be
accepted as lengthy because it's 'beginners' length'...
Mhmm yes, well,

I really am interested in answers to the piece of fun
posted by Doug Stokes.

Isn't this all a piece of fun, your message, Doug?

Sorry, okay... firstly,
May I claim that I am also unfamiliar with either piece
of thread mentioned by Mr Stokes.

That said, may I know lauch a polemic of my own? In the
form of some questions. (Can a series of questions be
considered a polemic? - please, by anyone?)

These questions, for Doug, if you would supply answers,
or answers, from anyone?

Q.1/ Who the hell did it?

What, no. No, I'll have non of that. No more excuses.
Now! I want to know who is responsible.
...
Yes, right now! No. I said Now! OK. Who is going to own
up to being responsible?
...
Yes. Right, yes...for failing to ground themselves or
their writings within a coherent 'politico-ethical
framework'?
...
Come on. I know there's a few out there. No
skivving...yes, you, the poststructuralists, I see you.
Yes. Over in the smoking section. Yes you. Disgusting,
the lot of you.
...
Lucky we're here today in Tokyo, you'd not be allowed
to drape yourselves in those (smoky) clouds up the back
there.
...
No, like you are now. No you wouldn't be doing that
where i come from... No. No thought for others.
Smokers! Damn postctructuralists!
...
Sorry. What?! A modernist? No. You're lying... No, you
are not. No, well she's definitely not a...
...
No. She's not, I can see well enough, yes even from
here... it's a stage, I'm on, yes it's higher than...
oh, look. It's not the point. As I was saying...
...
No, an obvious crypto-feminist... oh, really, I'm
sorry, okay then, a marxist. Better?
...

Yes, well, that was not all that I'd expected to
hear... Let's see if Q.2 is easier...

So. Q.2/
Where comes from, the assumption that
poststructuralists choose to navel-gaze? Who are this
obvious, guilty mob of nihlists anyway, these
poststructuralists?

Line them up now, all who choose to watch from
armchairs, the global juggernaut of capitalism as it
goes gliding by their windows, again?

ANSWER:
Why don't you try putting up a 'stop' sign then, Doug.
Or articulating a note and pass it on, next time the
captain sails the juggernaut of capitalism along.

Then we can stop the jutggernaut at the sign, and tell
the captain to stop universalising oppression... Yes,
maybe the Cap'n's just not aware yet...

Go On... No you tell him:
Okay...
No more universalising now Captain Smears. Yes, the ol'
jugger' is a big old vessel Cap'n, but you'll have to
pull her in i'm afraid...
...
Well, no, it's... well, while you were away Cap'n, you
and the crew, yes, her, and the ship, well, there was a
vote you see.
...
No, yes, it was in all the papers. Oh, yes, yeah, the
one's you told me not to send you. Oh, sorry, I forgot,
yes, and it was also in all the news you asked the
entire crew not to talk about after the last 'bad
news'... yes, invariably Cap'n. Yes, bad. No, of course
you're right...
...
Yes, i'm sorry, I know, yes, depressing. But that's why
you told us not to tell you, but...
...
Continue, oh, sorry, well, Cap'n, yes there was a vote.
...
Yes, a vote. Oh no sorry cap'n a 'popular vote'. No,
not just us, no, well, yes, your mum did vote too.
Yes... How many? Well, how can I put it...
...
No, more. Okay, well, the whole world.
...
No. I mean voted. No I mean the whole world.
...
I'm not making faces. No I'm gesturing to indicate
magnitude. Yes, a lot... No, I'm not being abtruse
again.
...
I'm sorry I'm not being nasty...No. OK.
...
Yes, that's right. Yes, every human being in the world
voted. And yes. No, Ohh, I don't know how... It's not
the point.
...
No, Yes...They decided that the Juggernaut had to stop.
No, the... No, of Capitalism. Yes, that's right. This
Old Juggy here.
...
I'm sorry Cap, but everyone agreed. Too many
inefficiencies, inequities, yes, but the repairers
always replicate... No, it's not progress. No it's more
like 'more of the same, but with even more'...
...
Yeah, like excess. Yes, as you suggest Cap'n [waxing
wise in the politico-economical]...yes, Cap'n, you are
very astute.
...
Yes, only 'economic progress' is valued across the
board as a measure of success. Or, I mean 'progress'...
Isn't that the definition? Of 'progress'... an increase
in economic success.
... Blah, blah, script keeps going, so?...

So, history has seen as 'progress', somehow, doing the
same sorts of things differently... or in different
levels, in different ways, using different modes, of
expression, consumption, blah blah... isn't this
'progress':
doing the same things more excessively, rather than
really wondering, first, what progress means at all.

???QQQ

How do we progress?

Firstly, how do we measure 'value'?

What is the source of your certainty, Doug, that
'global oppression', even exists?
Do you mean that I feel a bit oppressed this morning
because I had to get up early. For Work!!! Damn work.
Damn getting up early, damn losing my wife, my kids.
...That 50 bucks... damn, 50... means I'll have to work
again tomorrow... get that 50 bucks back... after all,
i'll have nothing to blow on the horses, and getting
drunk this weekend. if i don't make back the money i
lost this morning...

damn capitalism... i'm chained to the yoke of the
juggernaut of opression. Capitalism.

Really, Doug, what are you talking about? Or are you
having us on back there, in your last mail?

>>>???
Please tell me how, in your own life, you reach
decisions about what is good and what is bad?

<<<???
What is on the 'nice' side of the line that divides off
what is 'oppressive' about the world?

And, again, how do you decide?
??       ??
???<><>???
  ?  ?  ?
   ? W ?
   <<>>
    ><
     >>>>>>>> ??????? .
Please tell me if you have some answers. Because I'd
like to know how anyone can be said to be 'shirking
responsibility' for anything, just because they fail to
articulate or provide coherent theoretical bases for
their lives.

Please bear this in mind, Doug. That failing to say
exactly 'why' (in what way it can be said, in so many
words) the way people live their lives now is 'bad', or
'wrong', or 'encouraging', or 'unproductive', 'too
academic', too hard-headedly 'materialistic', etc..
Failing to say things and failing to do are very
importantly different things.

It need not be pointed out, I'm sure, I hope...
that many 'theorists' who are currently failing their
responsibilities, right now, as we speak.
...Yes, skivving, shirking their calls to arms, are,
despite this... specific, (thoughtful, if not
intellectual) members of their own communities.

We should do what we feel we should do to live as we
feel we should be living... But, if this sounds like
'commonsense', right, or 'wrong', as a description of
'how to live life', Doug, what does it mean... why,
anyway, is this monster of capitalism the central
organising feature of your current perception of 'the
wrong about the world'?

and if capitalism structurates your world, should it be
the pivotal focus of the lives of others.. all
others... then, who? how? why?

-----------    ================  --------------
I would really appreciate any responses to anything
that was able to be read, and/or found coherent, or
not, by anyone. Yes... Take Care, and, of course, extra
points for certain answers... Yes, certain ones, of
which you are absolutely certain.

regards,
al






   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005