Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 18:52:03 -0700
From: "arjan simons (FWW)" <A.F.W.J.M.SIMONS-AT-kub.nl>
Subject: Re: fascism,Lacan,Lyotard


dear emmanuel and friends,

(i realise i am quite productive, i hope that my notes are helpful and give a 
thought-provoking sensation)

first one long note on a small, apparently insignificant passage in your message:

the "différend" isn't "formlessnes within form". i think you sensed the idea quite 
right, but the formulation gives more problems then you want to summon. the "différend" 
is the negation of form, it has no place within form. form is the negation of the 
feeling of the "différend". the presentation or the occurence of a form (i.e. the 
occurence of matter as a color, a word or sound) always negates what it presents; form 
is the inadequate substition of the silence of the "arrive-t-il?", the "is it 
happening?".
the "différend" is the occurence of matter as a silence, a non-form or non-phrase, 
inarticulated it is the "phonè". form or phrase is "logos", articulation, and it is pure 
form; as presentation it negates its matter.
but something strange comes with the occurence of a form: a form or phrase are first a 
"that", a feeling!, because a form takes places, is an occurence, and only after the 
occurence of form we can look for the "what" of the form, what the occurence presents.
the problem is: we need another prhase or form to present us "what" the first phrase 
presents, because the presentation of a phrase (the universe that the occurence of a 
phrase presents) is plunged into the river "Lethe", the phrase doesn't present its own 
presentation, another phrase is necessary to present the presentation, which is obvious 
impossible.

sound, word or color are phrases, forms, concepts, but the occurence of sounds, word and 
colors are the occurence of matter; first a feeling, then a desperate reflection.

for lyotard -in this view- is every occurence of form sublime, the form is a 
"darstellung" (WHAT) which the occurence of the form (THAT) entails. every form is in 
discord with its object.

but for lyotard art isn't sublime. a poem, for example, that is in discord with the idea 
it want to represent, is not sublime. a poem that testifies that it itself discords with 
the idea (as "negative darstellung"), a poem that testifies that it is an occurence; it 
has no rule, no (empirical) addressor, addressee, sense or referent. they are NOT 
absent, but transcendental; unknown.

my SECOND note concerns the relationship between the nazi's and beatiful art:
i think t.w. adorno has analysed this in an unhomely ("unheimliche") fashion in the last 
chapter of "negative dialektiek". this chapter, which combines a perfect analysis with a 
imperfect feeling of senselessnes, tries to make death again, what it is; complete 
negation, abgrund, senseless, not-reasonable. the metaphysical "beatiful death" (after 
an indivudual dies, his consiousness will be remembered ("ER-INNERING", taken in) in the 
objektive mind (GEIST) of the society, IMMORTALITY) parfumes the rotting of the corpse, 
the senseless negation of consiousness.
for adorno "AUSCHWITZ" is the negation of this metaphysical experience of death. 
auschwitz unmasks the beautiful death.
to make a sense (a "RESULTAT", a concept or name) out of "AUSCHWITZ" (for adorno is 
auschwitz an experience without a concept, an experience that negates (positive) 
dialectics) is identical with how the SS DROWNED the screams of the victims in the 
beauty of accompaning music. the unarticulated screams were destroyed in the pure 
("reine") form of music.
a concept or meaning of "auschwitz" destroys the immanent of auschwitz: "its screams, 
beating, shouting, savage howling, which negated all language" (eli wiesel).

for lyotard auschwitz isn't a experience, it is a feeling that negates even the feeling 
of a "différend"; there was no dispute. auschwitz wasn't an "is it happening?". it 
happened. it is the most blur, senseless feeling a human being can feel.
this feeling splits the "self", the subject. then: comes the "obligation". we are 
obligated to testify.

perhaps lyotard tries to say that there is only certain "ethical" feeling, a feeling 
that without a doubt obligates in an ethical way. this feeling is "auschwitz". a feeling 
that escapes every idiom, every genre, every form, every phrase.
if ethics is considered as "absolute", a law the precedes and destines all other laws, 
than this law is absolute unpresentable; a feeling without any trace.
the feeling of the occurence, the "arrive-t-il?" (temporary death of the mind, threat of 
nothingness), is the "unbewuste affekt" of freud and perhaps this fear, that overpowers 
is, is the "nachträglichkeit" of "auschwitz". "auschwitz" was "too much" for our 
consiousness, a shock without effect, we didn't notice it. a shock without a memory.
our mind tries remember the cause of the unconsiuous affect, the overpowering fear that 
comes from out of nothing. because there is no recollection, no concept, it wasn't 
classified or conceptualized within the diachronical time of consiousness.
the subject has only unconsious "experienced" the shock.

the feeling of auschwitz can be silence, but als it can be screaming, self-mutilation, 
insanity; it sentences the subject to a live-long solitude. the only sensation that 
can come from outside is the sensation of fear, the threat of nothingness, tempory 
death. the sensation of mortality (identical with a notion of burke).