File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_1998/lyotard.9810, message 46


Subject: Re: PMC:  What is Postmodernism:  A Demand
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 21:16:48 -0600



-----Original Message-----
From: hugh bone <hughbone-AT-worldnet.att.net>
To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu <lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Date: Wednesday, October 28, 1998 8:35 PM
Subject: Re: PMC: What is Postmodernism: A Demand


>EricMurph-AT-aol.com wrote:
>>
>> Donald Turner wrote:
>> >> What does Lyotard's "war on totality" (p.82) and rejection of the
whole
>> >> mean for ethics?  Are traditional grounding ethical systems also
rejected?
>> >Bayard G. Bell responded:
>> >In this regard, I think you will have to deal with Lyotard's
>> >relationship to the ethics of Emmanual Levinas
>>
>> Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with you here, Bayard.  I also have thought
for
>> some time now that Lyotard philosophy parallels in many respects the
pattern
>> used in the book "Totality and Infinity."  The chief difference being
that
>> Lyotard avoids the piety, religiousity and humanism of Levinas, using the
same
>> structure in a more profane context.
>>
>> My nutshell version of Levinas would be this. (It is a lie. Please do not
>> accept it. You really have no real choice except to read T&I yourself).
>>
>> Totality is essentially what the Self (chez soi) does when left to its
own
>> devices.  It wants to absorb everything that is other into the circuit of
>> itself and reduce it to the same. (Narcissus as the arch-philosopher:
Ulysses
>> always seeking home.)
>>
>> It is the basis of both Hegel and Heidegger with their totalizing schemes
of
>> the Absolute and Being.  It is also the thrust of Lyotard's criticism of
>> Habermas and metanarratives.
>>
>> The Infinite is met in the Other; the alterity of the face that can no
longer
>> be subsumed into ourself.  Rather, like Abraham, it is an encounter that
leads
>> us into a new country.  The face reveals the Infinite because it contains
>> depths that cannot be reduced to mere presentation.  The self is
confronted
>> with a Transcendence and the face demands from us a response.  This is
the
>> basis of ethics. It is grounded in our response to a face - be it widow,
>> orphan or stranger. It meets us before we know what to do.
>>
>> This ethical relationship is prior to the totalizing schemes of ontology.
It
>> is not grounded in logical systems. It is instead the relevation of the
>> Infinite.  This is what Lyotard himself terms the sublime. (also, in
other
>> respects, the differend)
>>
>> This leads us back to the question of what art should "look like."
Obviously,
>> as Lyotard states, he is committed to a art based not on beauty, but
rather on
>> the sublime. What does this statement really mean, however?
>>
>> Rather than ask what such an art would look like (which throws us
immediately
>> into the categories of taste and reflective judgement), perhaps it would
be
>> more fruitful to ask what happens to us when we experience such art.
>>
>> In his introduction to The Postmodern Condition, Lyotard makes the claim
that
>> he is a philosopher, not an expert. He goes on to say: "the latter knows
what
>> he knows and what he does not know: the former does not.  One concludes,
the
>> other questions - two very different language games."
>>
>> What I personally have come to value in Lyotard is not what he says about
the
>> postmodern, the differend, the sublime or judgement, important as these
things
>> may be. Instead, he time and again invites us into a space where we must
place
>> to one side our thoughts, representations, generalizations and
assumptions so
>> that we can experience the event, what is happening, in a way which
brackets
>> our own pre-judgements and allows a response to occur which is different
from
>> the one previously thought out by us in advance of the event.
>>
>> This seems to me to be Lyotard's religion, to the very limited extent we
can
>> use that particular word is speaking of him, a postmodern pagan.  It is
>> something, however, I hope we can discuss further. I believe it lies at
the
>> heart of his postmodern conceptions.
>-AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT-
>
>REPLY:
>
>I don't think of Lyotard as religious; I agree he takes us to a
>different space
>and would like to hear more about it.  Artists sometimes do this, but
>rarely, and
>it it happened more often it wouldn't be that different.
>
>Today I read a quote of from Van Gogh, in a letter to his brother, which
>he wrote 9 months before his suicide.  "I have a terrible need for -- I
>will use the word religion -- so I go outside at night to paint the
>stars."
>
>Regards,
>Hugh
>
>-AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT-
>
>

This is an interesting quote, Hugh. We often think (or at least myself and
many others in my circles) of the religous as dogma and a system of belief,
but in its "natural state" (for lack of a better term) religion is also a
way of coming to terms with the "unpresentable".  Religion can be a coming
to terms with those emotions for which we have no images for. Van Gogh
painted the night sky of his mind and we recognize its terror and beauty;
Lyotard reminds us that we have a mind that is beautiful if we recognize the
terror.


   

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