Subject: RE: Intellectuals and the unpresentable
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 10:47:56 -0600


Morning, Hugh.

>>**The neat thing  for me is nothing is missing.  More is less.
>>Like:  Mona Lisa is missing a mustache, or when you're in a
>>Gothic Cathedral the little colored panes of glass divert your
>>gaze from the altar.

What i mean is that this minimalism limits everything to the
phenomenological event--to the BIG event--and wipes out micro-becomings, any
event that does not make it to the level of categorizable phenomenon.
Deleuze's sense of becoming, Levinas's "otherwise than Being,"  Derrida's
"hauntology"--all of that is wiped clean yet AGAIN.

What Lyotard is trying to indicate with the term "sublime" is precisely the
pleasure/pain cocktail; if you have only pleasure, it is not a sublime
moment (not in Lyotard's terms). And b/c it's not about the so-called
"object," it makes no difference whether you see purple as reddish and i see
it as bluish: the sublime moment is not object-oriented but event-oriented.
Not *what* happens but *that* "it happens" rather than not.

Again, Lyotard defines "the sublime sentiment," after Kant, as "an intrinsic
combination of pleasure and pain: the pleasure that reason should exceed all
presentation, the pain that imagination or sensibility should not be equal
to the concept" ("Answering" 81). The sublime in Lyotard can't be conflated
with the beautiful or with taste, which offer a different experience
entirely. They're involved in pumping up the sense (appropriation) of Self,
whereas the sublime is involved in the Self's *de*propriation.

"There is not one subjectivity that experiences pure feelings; rather, it is
the pure feeling that promises a subject," Lyotard writes. "In the aesthetic
of the beautiful the subject is in a state of infancy" (_Lessons_ 20).
Further: "Taste promises everyone the happiness of an accomplished
subjective unity" (25), but if we HAD this unity or proper identity, we
wouldn't always be looking for it, hoping for it, waiting for it (in fact,
we wouldn't be KILLING for it, in its name). It wouldn't have to be promised
or sought after or protected. "The sublime," on the other hand, "speaks to a
few of another unity, much less complete, ruined in a sense, and more
'noble'" (25). The pleasure and pain of the sublime ("the incommensurability
of reality to concept" ["Answering the Question" 79] or of the imagination
to reason: the inability to "make the absolute that I conceive present in
your forms" [_Lessons_ 123]) names the experience of differend, which sparks
the sense of an/other kind of incommensurable, differential "unity" (a unity
that is no longer unified).

>>Does expropriating experience
>>mean suppressing or ignoring memories of feelings we are ashamed of,
>>or memories that cause other pain?

What i mean by expropriating experience is the sense of being *de*propriated
rather than tidily *a*ppropriated: spilling out, overflowing the bounds of
the Self--experiencing oneself as inassimilable, inappropriable, improper,
impertinent. Expropriation is a sublime experience: the pleasure that you
exceed all categorization; the pain that the real exceeds any verifiable
real*ity*.

Be right back to try again with the democracy post.

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: Friday, February 23, 2001 3:14 PM
> To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Subject: Intellectuals and the unpresentable
>
>
> Thanks Diane,
>
> for presenting more thoughts on the "is it happening.  My comments start
> with** below.
>
> > >"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.
>
> **The neat thing  for me is nothing is missing.  More is less.
> Like:  Mona
> Lisa is missing a mustache, or when you're in a Gothic Cathedral
> the little
> colored panes of glass divert your gaze from the altar.
>
> > >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).
>
> **O.K.  Thought can make one ill.  The San Francisco policemen
> who responded
> when the woman was killed by the
> dog, were given psychiatric help.  A witness to the bus that destroyed
> waiting Israelis, couldn't be alone afterwards. Since Freud, treating
> unpleasant memories conscious and unconscious has been an industry.
>
> Let's say the "happening", sublime as it may be, is different for each
> individual.  Each has different sensory faculties, each has a different
> life-history and a different memory-bank. I see a swatch of purple as
> reddish - you see it as bluish or vice-versa;
> which wine is more "dry", which choclate is more bitter?  Same with touch
> and odors, sense of balance, effect of bright lights.
>
> Lyotard makes us very conscious of the addressor, addresse
> relationship, and
> phrases like "bringing intelligence to the rescue", and
> "disarming thought"
> indicate that the addressor and addressee are the same.
>
> I tried, unsuccessfully, to find a quote of Wittgenstein's to the effect
> that, about things we can't put in words we must be silent. I
> think he only
> meant silence vis-a-vis others.
>
> Not-speaking and not having the words to
> speak is essential to the concept of the "differend".  It takes to two to
> create it - don't think it includes self-deception.
>
> The words I've read most about the "sublime" are "beauty" and
> "terror" and (I think from Rilke) beauty and terror combined.
>
> If I ever experienced this, I cannot recall it, but I can recall a few
> moments when there was a feeling of beauty without words to e
> xpress it, at
> that moment, or afterwards. So I must speak of
> sublimity without terror.  Until it happens.
>
> I am, infrequently,  subject to feelings which seem to come from
> objects or
> persons, and are for me, "sublime" events.
>
> The range of such feelings is mainly art, sometimes personal
> relationships.
> Such a feeling has come from a theatrical performance, a painting, a
> cathedral, a few phrases of music, a few lines of poetry.
>
> Other individuals must have feelings in some way similar, or certain
> objects, sounds, and words would not have become world-famous.  World fame
> of course has nothing to do with the sublimity.  But it is an indication
> that many people have had
> similar personal experiences -  of an event which interacted with their
> respective memories and created sublime effects.
>
> This idea of the sublime seems compatible with what you have
> written below.
> But if "is it happening" only has to do with sublime and beautiful
> experiences, and not with the rest of human life, it is very restricted
> indeed.
>
> Perhaps violent revolution inspiring and enacting terror and death also
> would also qualify under Lyotard's scheme, .....
> sublime, perhaps beautiful for the perpetrators... poly-ticks.
>
> > 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.
>
> **Unpresentable as not representable with words or body language
> makes sense
> for me.  Does expropriating experience
> mean suppressing or ignoring memories of feelings we are ashamed of, or
> memories that cause other pain?
>
> > It's something like the experience of the "face" in Levinas.
>
> **At one time I tried to read Levinas, but remember only the name..
>
> Thanks again,
> Hugh
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> >
> > 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
> > > > >
> > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>
>