Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 10:09:54 -0700
From: Lois Shawver <rathbone-AT-california.com>
Subject: Re: Trusting liars to lie


Let me add, Ingrid, that it is not my hope to morally condemn Colin's 
position, although some quality of that did leak through that text
(unfortunately). I presume that the differences between us reflect a
differend, no doubt related to our different contexts and language
games.  Don't you?  and others?

..Lois Shawver

Ingrid Markhardt wrote:
> 
> It might be helpful, at this juncture, to note how the conversations
> concerning "ruse" have become tinged by the negative moral colorations
> "ruse" carries (deceive, lie, etc.).  We might consider "ruse" to be
> morally neutral vis a vis Lyotard's thinking; consider that a ruse may even
> be deployed in the interest of "moral"/ethical action, even keeping the
> connotation "lie", say, in a Nietzschean sense of a "higher morality" that
> would guard against killing truths (just an example).
> 
> Otherwise the discussion is heavily encumbered by hidden (private?)
> narratives, as signaled by outcroppings of such words as "trust",
> "succumbed" (all the posts, not just the one below) and so on.
> 
> Ingrid Markhardt
> 
> >. . . . I can see why you don't want to abandon the word "ruse." It is
> central
> >to your appreciation of Lyotard.  And I think you give it the vernacular
> >meaning, too, which means cunning, deceptive, sly ways of ____ doing
> >what?  What is the success of the ruse?  Not consensus surely with the
> >one that succumbed to the cunning of the person performing the ruse.
> >
> >In my interpretation, Lyotard was inspired with another notion and the
> >connotation of slyness is incidental.  He says that the ruse is a new
> >langauge game.  It is what dissolves a differend.  It is the paradigm
> >shift.
> >
> >As you describe "ruse" it sounds the preferred game of the embezzler or
> >thief.  How would you differentiate it from that kind of game?
> >
> >..Lois Shawver
> >