Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 00:16:43 -0800 Subject: Re: Lyotard's religion EricMurph-AT-aol.com wrote: > > Hugh et al, > > I thought I had qualified my statement enough to indicate that when I referred > to Lyotard’s religion, I was slightly ironic, but apparently, I was not being > clear enough. Let me now state here that I have no intention to promulgate > Lyotardism as the latest faith to place alongside others such as Christianity, > Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Scientology, etc. I do not regard it as the newest > product offering from Religion Incorporated. > > I simply wanted to state that something real is at stake in Lyotard’s > conception of the postmodern and it is not merely the cute, the frivolous or > the trendy. > > When both sides of the political spectrum accuse contemporary philosophy of > nihilism, perhaps something important is occurring there. The right wants to > return us to traditional family values and the left wants to return us to more > militant Marxian ones, but both sides are actually engaged in a politics of > nostalgia, mourning our loss in the face of the new. > > What does Lyotard mean when he says: “Let us wage a war on totality; let us be > witnesses to the unpresentable; let us activate the differences and save the > honor of the name.” > > How do we practice that today? -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- Eric et.al., I agreed that Lyotard takes us to a different space; I said I don't think of Lyotard as religious, and I expect everyone will agree we don't want waste our energes arguing religion. Religion is often used as metaphor for ideologies, such as science, free trade, human rights, the environment, etc. I think we want to get at the substance of PMC now, other works later, and bounce around opinions about the "unpresentable", "totality", and other terms to increase mutual understanding. Incidentally, on PBS TV, I saw a piece on art by Vietnam veterans, collected over many years, and now exhibited in Chicago. If any member of this List have seen it, have an opportunity to see it or, are themselves Vietnam veterans, they might have some thoughts on art an the unpresentable.
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