Date: Thu, 08 Jul 1999 16:00:28 -0700
From: Lois Shawver <rathbone-AT-california.com>
Subject: Re: Defending culture


Colin,

I just came from the dentist, and I am on my way out of the house for
another appointment, so this has to be quick.  However, I took to the
dentist waiting room stuff to read, a slim little paperback book I have
already read once, a secondary source on Lyotard:

Sim, S. (1996).  Jean-Francois Lyotard.  NY: Prentice Hall

And while I was reading it I thought of you and the folks here so I am
going to type in a short passage that seems relevant to our discussion. 

"I would suggest that what immediately strikes us about Lyotard as a
philosopher is a rock-solid sense of honesty.  One comes away from any
prolonged exposure to his writings with an enormous respect for the
honesty of his thought (as apparent in IN as it is in the earliest of
the Algerian writings), even if one does not always agree with where
this trait can lead him.  What can be said is that he is never one to
back away from a critis.  The crisis in Lyotard's thought that comes to
a head in the late 1960s/early 1970s (although as we have seen,
presentiments of ti are there far earlier) is one that many Western
Marxistshave had to undergo in the face of the theory's growing
inability to cope with the radical changes - technoological as well as
socio-political - that have marked late twentieth-century life.  Lyotard
chose the hardest of routes out of / this morass: whereas some Marxists
retreated back into the fundamentals of the theory as if they were
mattrs of faith that could not be affected greatly by the events of the
real political world 9where the theory was running into increasing
trouble), and others discarded Marxism in favour of coming to some kind
of an accommodation with the seemingly triumphant capitalist world
order, Lyotard opted to continue to resist capitalism with something
like the fervour of a Marxist beiever - but without benefit of the
theory itself.  Lyotard continues to suffer at the prospect of injustice
but can no longer call on Marxism, a theory rooted in the desire to
correct injsutice to humanity on the grand scale, for aid.  It is a
particularly uncomfortable position to find oneself in as a theorist.

To his credit, Lyotard adheres unflingingly to his principles,
retraining his revolutionary outlook while refusing to modify his
implacable opposition to the Marxist establishment; neither lapsing into
the embrace of a fundamentalist Marxism nor a tehno-science-driven
capitlism.  It can be a painful process to observe, this enacment of
Western thought in a period of accelerated cultural crisis, and
certainly the upheaval of the soul it has required of Lyotard is clear
for all to see on the pages of LE, with its 'flesh and blood of words'
only too palpably in evidence.  I would want to argue that Lyotard's
refusal to take the easy way out of the intractable situation in whichhe
finds himself in the aftermath of Algeria and 1968 (his very own
legitimation crisis, in effect) has to earn our respect, whether one is
in agreement with his sentiments or not."

---

I hope I got all of the right section -- I am afraid my mind wandered a
little as I was typing it and I don't have time to type it over.  But
what I got on reading it, that I wanted to put forward, because I think
it is probably right but I haven't entirely settled on it yet, is that
Lyotard found a path out of authoritarian systems, not only by
presenting us the unfinished, but by presenting us THE PUZZLE, or as you
would say, Colin the aporia, of Marx having failed us, and capitalism
having failed us, if iyr not having a systemof justice established,
already in place -- and yet he found something that assists our project
for finding justice.

More later.  Probablyshouldn't send this without reading but... I
presume it's okay even if its fragmentary.

..Lois Shawver

colin.wright3-AT-virgin.net wrote:
> 
> Lois Shawver wrote:
> >
> > Colin,
> >
> > <Capitalism disavows the very possibility of alterity,
> >  since, as with all Imperialisms, otherness is an affront to its very
> >  self-understanding.>
> >
> > Could you flesh that idea out a bit more, Colin.  On the surface,
> > capitalism talks about competition, which involves a kind of alterity.
> >
> > ..Lois Shawver
> 
> Lois,
>      This competition, though, always occurs within the enormous horizon
> of Capitalism, on the terms set by it. In this case, alterity would be
> too generous or strong a word: commodification posits rather
> an-equivalence-waiting-to-happen, which is quite different. By alterity
> I was trying to suggest an outside of Capitalism. To be honest, I'm not
> sure there is such a thing anymore, or even if this mode of thinking
> remains adequate. I do not mean this to sound funereal, as if I'm
> mourning the passing of this alterity. It is not this simple, since I
> feel ambiguously about Capitalism - it has some fantastic benefits, and
> some unfortunate side-effects. But I do think that the notion of
> equivalence upon which exchange-value is predicated necessarilly
> supresses difference, and the 'sensuous particularity' Adorno called
> for. It seems to do this by seeing it, much as Imperialist powers saw
> foregin territories, as potential capital, thereby already delimiting
> the other to the order of the same.
>     Brent's recent comments about how problematic it would be to
> differentiate postmodernism from Capitalism are very important I think.
> I think my initial comment 'Capitalism disavows the very possibility of
> alterity' was perhaps couched in too brusque a tone, a brusqueness that
> suggested the possibility of making this opposition. Capitalism is far
> more subtle in its dealings now than mere brute opposition. Hegemony
> would be a key word here too.
>      I find myself in a difficult position. I am certainly not an
> orthodox Marxist - this corpus has been largely discredited, not least
> by the former Soviet Union. But I do have a certain sympathy with a
> Western Marxism that, in fact, could provide the analytical tools with
> which to iron out the negative fallout of Capitalism - what Habermas, in
> a way that backs up what I have been saying, calls the 'colonization of
> the lifeworld'. I feel that Lyotard has a good deal to offer on
> precisely this problem.
> Col