From: "D. Diane Davis" <d-davis-AT-uiowa.edu>
Subject: RE: Becoming Intellectuals Without Organs
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 05:20:25 -0600


>"Man is unhappy and he dies." which is about as short and accurate as a
Grand
>Narrative can be.

But Hugh, what's missing in this extreme minimalism is precisely everything
lyotard is trying to point to.

>Is it happening? = Is what happening?   Will it ever happen?  Will it never
>happen?  Will I/we sense its happening?  Will it happen to all of us, some
>of us, none of us?  Will we understand it?  Will it have meaning?  Will it
>be true?  Will we believe it?  Will it help us or hurt us?  But most of
all,
>what was it for Lyotard who seems to have invented it?

The Is it happening? is a question that preceeds and exceeds all the others
you ask up there. Lyotard doesn't invent it--he simply articulates it as the
sublime question. And the difference b/w What is happening? and Is it
happening? is *enormous*. Whereas the former still tries to bring
intelligence to the rescue, to assimilate the inassimilable by forcing an
event into subject/object mentality, the latter involves what lyotard calls
the "disarming of thought," in which the "I" experiences more than it can
ac/count (for).

Though there is no way really to explicate the sense of the Is it happening?
adequately (and that's part of the point, the pain and pleasure involved in
the experience of what is inarticulable), L does give it his best shot in
several places. In The Inhuman, which you mention, I think he works the
notion through quite rigorously. The sublime moment, the It happens, refers
to the disarming of thought in the experience of that which is beyond or
overflows representation: the unpresentable. The It happens is an
expropriating experience, or the experience of one's own depropriated state.
It's something like the experience of the "face" in Levinas.

best, ddd
  ______________________

       D. Diane Davis
       Rhetoric Department
       University of Iowa
       Iowa City, IA 52242
       319.335.0184

       d-davis-AT-uiowa.edu
       http://www.uiowa.edu/~ddrhet/




> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> [mailto:owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu]On Behalf Of hugh bone
> Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2001 11:30 PM
> To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Subject: Re: Becoming Intellectuals Without Organs
>
>
> Eric,
>
> I have problems with most of Lyotard's French contemporaties.
> They developed exotic and inflated abstractions of recondite
> terms from the
> Greek, or French, or God only knows where..
>
> I read several Foucault books because his description of
> the evolution of knowledge and power was something new to me, and it made
> sense.  I tried a few times to read Derrida, because he was so famous, but
> he didn't make sense.
>
> I read a little of Sartre, most of Camus, but not for the
> politics, although
> "The Plague",  has political interest, and in "Caligula",  he writes: "Man
> is unhappy and he dies." which is about as short and accurate as a Grand
> Narrative can be.
>
> Is it happening? = Is what happening?   Will it ever happen?
> Will it never
> happen?  Will I/we sense its happening?  Will it happen to all of us, some
> of us, none of us?  Will we understand it?  Will it have meaning?  Will it
> be true?  Will we believe it?  Will it help us or hurt us?  But
> most of all,
> what was it for Lyotard who seems to have invented it?
>
> Once, a couple of years ago, two or three of us posted our
> understanding of
> the sublime.  Maybe someone can explain the
> "is it happening".  I didn't find an answer in "Le Differend", where it is
> mentioned, don't think it was mentioned in PM or
> The Inhuman. Those books and Lyotard  quotes posted to the List, are my
> knowledge of Lyotard.
>
> About Nixon:  I think the article is accurate about the liberal
> legislation
> he signed.  Expect its also correct about him being an outsider to the
> Republican Establishment.
>
> Hugh
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > hugh:
> >
> > I wish you would elaborate on this post. I wasn't quite sure what you
> > were driving at. I take it you have problems with the "is it happening"
> > but I not sure why.
> >
> > By the way, I don't know that I buy the Nixon story either, but it
> > certainly makes a great counternarrative, doesn't it.  Makes you stop
> > and think - "What's happening?"  even when your thoughts fail to
> > comprehend the event in all its complexity.
> >
> > >
> > > Diane,
> > >
> > > Stimulating!
> > >
> > > One could send  organs to bank.
> > >
> > > The "is it happening" .  Lyotard should have taken his own advice and
> > > "elucidated his presuppositions" about this little gem.
> > >
> > > No organs, no senses, no witness, no words, no communication,
> > > no deleuzion.
> > >
> > > Imagine a universe of one (atomic) particle.  Your garden
> isn't complete
> > > until there's nothing left to take out. Remove particle.
> > > Remove "being".  Remove "happening".
> > >
> > > What was in Lyotard's "mind"?  Absence of Presence? Presence
> of Absence?
> > > Being or Nothingness?
> > >
> > > regards,
> > > Hugh
> > >
> > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> >
> >
>
>