Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 09:58:57
From: Mark Bower <mab207-AT-psu.edu>
Subject: Re: Query - Sovereignty


William ,

At 06:45 PM 11/24/97 +0000, you wrote:
> Where "politics" takes
>place as the "question of linkage" then the judgement concerning how to
>link onto a phrase (which seems to come down to a judgement as to which
>genre one is going to adopt for this pupose) is made without a rule.  It
>the critical judgement which is in search of a rule.  

This is also my understanding of Lyotard's "politics."  Determinant
judgment (the application of given rules to a case) settles litigations
within a genre and is not "political" in Lyotard's sense of the term.
Reflective judgment (the discovery of a rule from a case) can work between
genres if the linkage is temporary.  I think that this sort of politics
happens in two parts:

(1)  Bearing witness to a differend.  This involves recognizing a dispute
in which one genre excludes another, thereby silencing the party who cannot
articulate its claims in the other genre.  Having recognized the differend,
the witness insists upon the incommensurability of these genres while
maintaining that translation and consensus are impossible.  This part of
Lyotard's politics has been described as "agitation."

(2)  Linking genres.  By judging without criteria, one may be able to find
a rule for temporarily linking these two incommensurable phrase regimes.
This is not translation and does not require a consensus--it is not bridge
building.  Lyotard has variously described it as a leap across the abyss, a
sailing among the islands of an archipelago, and a perigrination.  

While I can think of many ways of doing the first, the second is much
harder.  

Mark Bower