From: colin.wright3-AT-virgin.net
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 00:43:12 -0700
Subject: Re: Lyotard and politics


hugh bone wrote:
> 
> Colin wrote:
> 
> >        Seeing as you asked me to highlight something Lois, I'd like to
> > ask you (and others) how you view the political in Lyotard's thinking?
> > cheers,
> > Col
> -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-
> 
> Colin et.al,
> 
> I found his comments about "saving time" in "Le Differend", puzzling,
> metaphysical, realistic, (time is money) etc., worth study -- I have no
> answers.
> 
> Hugh

Hugh,
     I, too, have no 'answers'. Just places to go to ask yet more
apposite questions. The opening 'Reading Dossier' of TD, under
'Address', touches on time and as such seems to be doing a couple of
things. Firstly, it represents a deconstruction of the Modernist demand
for clarity and historical cogency implicit in the idea of an
Introduction. In resisting this, he is resisting the commodification of
knowledge (which is what most types of introduction enact). Secondly,
and in rather nostalgic mode, he fears for the future of critical
reflection if the obligation to paraphrase becomes overriding. To
paraphrase is of course to condense (and therefore bastardize) both
content and the time required to assimilate it. There is a kind of wierd
slant on the Einsteinian conjuction of time and space, only here it
becomes time and information. This accounts for his sardonic tone in the
'Reader' entry:
     " Nevertheless, the present reading dossier will allow the reader,
if the fancy grabs him or her, to 'talk about the book' without having
read it." (p.xiv)
      Bill Readings, in his 'Intorducing Lyotard: Art and Politics',
takes on this problematization in his own introduction, and relates this
temporal differend to Geoffry Bennington's excellent 'Writing the
Event'.
      Like I said, no answers, but plenty of places to look for more
questions.
Cheers,
Col