Date: Sun, 20 Oct 1996 13:05:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: Christine Mills <cmills-AT-astro.ocis.temple.edu>
Subject: Re: Hello????


Well, I go out on a limb as I am in no sense a Lyotard scholar, but I 
have a question or two. The last lines of The Inhuman are these: 
"Attested, suffering and the untameable are as if already destroyed. I 
mean that in witnessing, one also exterminates. The witness is a traitor."

He deals with this idea in The Differrend to a large degree as well, 
especially in the argument about the holocaust. But what does it mean 
when he extends this idea to the place of the cultural witness? It seems 
to me that philosophers and writers and academics are, in effect, bearing 
witness when we interrogate an object or idea and "report back" with our 
findings. He speaks of cultural witness and extermination. Why isn't the act 
of witnessing salvation, not extermination?  If the differend needs 
expression, if it is necessary for the whole that the other be heard, shouldn't
that priviledge the witness? as the bringer of the previously unconsidered--on 
any level?

other stuff, too, but this is the crux of what continually escapes me in 
his theories (and. please, go easy on me, as my bag is art history--this 
is my secret pleasure as opposed to my field).

 On Sun, 20 Oct 1996, Omar Nasim wrote:

> Helloooo???
> Is anyone out there?? I joined this list, expecting to be bombarded with 
> great post-modernism and crazy lyotardean stuff....but it seem's i've 
> been getting nothing, with regards Lyotardean stuff????  
> Either my computer system is screwed up, or you people have lost interst 
> in Lyotard??? I deem both impossible.....
> So if there is anybody out there who'd like to discuss stuff with me, i 
> would be glad to hear from you people!!!
> Omar Nasim
> University of Manitoba,
> Department of Philosophy
>