File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_1998/lyotard.9812, message 74


Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 20:32:10 -0600
Subject: The Science of Flux


I have always been struck by the difference in the way that Lyotard
describes the postmodern and the way that pomo is described in pop
culture.  Perhaps, the best philosopher of pomo in the terms of the
popular understanding is Baudrillard.  By comparison, Lyotard seems more
like a beautiful tropical fish swimming in the dangerous waters of the
archipelago.
 
However, when Lyotard discusses legitimation by paralogy, he seems to be
moving closer to the popular understanding of the postmodern.  Some
background may help to explain why this is so.

In my previous posts on science in relation to social construction, I
have not attempted to approach this subject from a positivistic point of
view.  I certainly agree that there is an element of social construction
to science, but this is very different in principle from, say, the
Balinese puppet theatre or Day of the Dead rituals in Sonora. The
concept of social construction (and paradigms) is simply too limited in
scope to unravel what it is that is so unique about contemporary
science.  

Science, technology and capitalism (STC) have become the unholy
triumvirate that today rules not merely the West, but the entire world.
This bastard child STC has usurped the throne and declared itself
legitimate. It acts in a way that is literally hyper-orgasmic; growing
and developing according an ever increasing rate of change.  STC
proceeds by exponential equations that approach the limit to infinity.

It is this very rate of change that for Lyotard limits legitimation by
performativity.  As he points out; "the idea of performance implies a
highly stable system because it is based on the principle of a relation,
which is in theory always calculable, between heat and work, hot source
and cold source, input and output."  
(P. 55)

Systems theory bases itself on this conception.  This may have been true
enough back in the fifties, but since history has become Beckett's
"wind-gauge spinning like a propeller" such a approach has lost its
relevance.  The law today is the change is all there is and the rate of
change is accelerating.  This more than anything else defines the
postmodern, both in the public mind and for Lyotard.  That is why he
evokes the concept of legitimation by paralogy.  When change becomes an
absolute, the only possible science is the science of flux; the language
game of the social bond which becomes "let's pin the tail on the
hurricane."

That is why Lyotard uses the examples of fractals, catastrophe theory
and paradox.  Today we would probably add chaos and complexity theory. 
These approaches assume flux, change and fluidity as opposed to
substance, matter, and solids.  They serve as markers for the
postmodern,  They are perhaps the only basis possible for legitimation
when change becomes our god.

I can't go into the topic right now, but I believe it was this notion of
flux and the paralogical that led Lyotard after the PMC to become the
philosopher of the sublime.  If reality is only flux, then it cannot be
represented.  The paralogical strains to point out what cannot be shown:
the postmodern sublime as the limit to infinity.

   

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