File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2001/lyotard.0108, message 36


From: steve.devos-AT-krokodile.com
Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 10:39:59 +0100
Subject: Re: What is Empire about?




Hugh,

All reading is intertextual... and considering that the text refuses to
be 'standalone' I am mystified by the below statements.

If as you state below you wish to make a reading that revolves around
the 'Empie' text alone - an intellectual method I think I disapprove of
because of the impossibility of the practice - then I suggest you open
up with a close textual reading of Section 4.3 'The multitude against
the empire'.  Or alternatively perhaps section 3.4 'Postmodernization,
or the informatisation of production'. However given that the latter is
very much written against the grain of Lyotard's anti-historical
approach, and I've used this and other related sections of the text
continuously for the past year, I think the former is more useful as it
presumes to state what they regard as a 'revolutionary subject'.

If you don't want to write a summary or synthesis of the text then how
do you want to advance?

Some initial thoughts below:

Consider the contents of the book - it is in four parts: Part 1 'The
political constitution of the present, Part 2 Passages of soveriegnty,
an inter-mezzo Counter-Empire, part three passages of production, part 4
the decline and fall of empire.

Actually the 'Empire'; text fits within the range of leftwing texts that
discuss the current postmodern economy as being something with positive
elements, but it does not have the statistical evidence to support
itself,. Including most startling of all a new (maxist/hegalian)
revolutionary subject... Perhaps equally interesting but without any
actual supporting evidence is the notion of 'empire' itself - it is
emphasized that the notion is not a metaphor but a political concept
which demands 'a political approach' (xiv). The supporting evidence
seems thin because you would assume that the nation-state was in some
sense in retreat whereas the actual evidence suggests that this is not
the case. Think of the problems the Kyoto agreement has with the
Nation-states non-cooperative USA, the G8 conference with the meeting of
the poor countries in Zanzibar... It is true that there is a vast lack
of boundries for postmodern capitalism(xiv) however whilst capital has
no territorial boundries what evidence is there that globalisation is
threatening to suspend history? It does not re-create 'the end of
history' but rather so they argue creates new forms of resistence...

The initial three key points and rules of empire are: 1. Empire posits a
regime that that encompasses the spatial totality, actually the entire
civilised world (leaves out Afghanistan I would imagine) but no
boundries limit its scop[e. 2. The concept presents itself not as an
empire that originates from conquest, but rather as an order that
suspends history (and proposes to be eternal, where does this piece of
'end of history' get justified from?). Empire as a concept then is
post-hegelian and by default anti-Kantian and very much against the
sublime. 3. Empire operates at all points in the social register from
the very highest down to the lowest points in the social world. As such
it aims to rebuild human nature into its own requirements.

Is this a reasonable starting point....Hugh? Is this what you want?

regards

sdv

hbone wrote:

>
>
>      Steve,Eric,All,
>
>      Responding to Eric's invitation to engage in discussion of
>      "Empire" I was naive.
>
>      I thought the conversation would be about the book, not
>      Deleuze, Guattari, Baudrillard, Batailie, Lacan, Kristeva,
>      Marx, neo-marxists, and a host of others. Possibly about
>      Lyotard, since this is his List.
>
>      I thought the discussion would be about the ideas Hardt and
>      Negri put into words and managed to get published in four
>      printings and several languages.
>
>      More specifically, the relevance of their ideas to the
>      world-scene we call globalization.
>
>      Instead, the parade of names and notions of their
>      predecessors continues, while contents of the "Empire" are
>      cynically ignored.
>
>      In the spirit of "Give Peace a chance", can't we give the
>      book a chance?
>
>      best,
>      Hugh
>
>
>
>      I
>       Hugh
>
>      Answer your own question - what is the 'empire' text you
>      have read  about?
>
>
>
>      regards
>
>      sdv
>
>      hbone wrote:
>
>     > Eric, Steve/ All The short answer is: 496 pages. A lot of
>     > you probably pick books, as I often do, by roaming the
>     > stacks, opening the back of the book, searching for
>     > conclusions, for names of authors you trust among the 150
>     > plus references that seem mandatory for scholarship.  Also
>     > searching for sections, headings, text, of interest.Since
>     > Derrida did not meet these requirements, I never read
>     > him.  But a lot of his contemporaries did meet them.I
>     > never had the pleasure of seeing Derrida on TV, as I did
>     > see Hardt, who is a very engaging personality and appears
>     > to be an independent thinker.  He got his first degree in
>     > Engineering, at present is teaching literature at Duke,
>     > and says he will get a degree in Paris when he completes
>     > his thesis. Scanning the online version, of Empire, I
>     > found the first few hundred pages to be of considerable
>     > historical interest, but loaded with (to me ) unfamiliar
>     > abstractions i.e. the use of familiar words in unfamiliar
>     > ways,  such as "empire", "subjectivity", "multitude",
>     > "measure", and the occasional reification of terms like
>     > "power", and "imperial capital" as if they were natural
>     > entities/phenomena that cause human problems.Remembering
>     > the Lyotard of "Le Differend", who stressed the importance
>     > and difficulty of communicating with words, and the
>     > indispensable requirement thataddressor and addressee
>     > share a significant commonality of meaning of the  words
>     > they use, I searched for clarification in the "Empire"
>     > text.  For some words there was such clarification,
>     > "imminance", for example.  For others, there was not.So,
>     > going to the end of the book, I selected, copied and
>     > posted a few paragraphs that seemed most significant.  Now
>     > let me add the lead-in lines of other paragraphs which are
>     > easily found with Acrobat's fieldglass/find button. NOTE:
>     > Search for first words, NOT page number.            Scroll
>     > to the first page on the list below, then enter first
>     > words                and you reach them in an instant.
>     > This will help answer the question:  What is Empire about?
>     > and we can discussour various opinions. regards,Hugh
>     > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>     > 396 - centered on the production of subjectivity 397 -
>     > Only from the consciousness of the uniqueness of my life
>     > arises
>     >         religion- science art
>     >
>     > 398 - The complete deterritorialization of the coming
>     > Empire
>     >       - The multitude has internalized the lack of place
>     > and fixed time
>     >
>     >       - The coming imperial universe, blind to meaning, is
>     > filled by the
>     >         multifarious totality of  the production of
>     > subjectivity.  The decline is no longer future destiny but
>     > the  present reality of Empire.400 - the indeterminate but
>     > uncontainable will to innovation that drove the
>     >         last wave of great  European cultural movements,
>     > from expressionism to       d
>     >         cubism and abstractionism
>     >
>     > 402 - The fundamental principle of Empire as we have
>     > described it throughout
>     >         this book is that its power has no actual and
>     > localizable  Imperial power is
>     >         distributed in networks, through mobile and
>     > articulated mechanisms of
>     >         control.403 - the universe we live in is a
>     > universe of productive linguistic
>     >         networks.  The lines of production and those of
>     > representation cros and mix
>     >         in the same linguistic and productive realm.
>     >
>     > 406 - In reality we are masters of the world because our
>     > desire and labor
>     >         regenerate it continuously.
>     >
>     > 416 - Mass migrations have become necessary for
>     > production.
>     >       -  What we need to grasp is how the multitude is
>     > organized and
>     >          redefined as a positive political power.417 -
>     > Imperial capital does indeed attack the movements of the
>     > multitude
>     >         with a tireless determination:  it patrols the
>     > seas and the borders; within        each country it
>     > divides and segregates; and in the world of labor
>     > it reinforces the cleavages and borderlines of race,
>     > gender, language,        culture, and so forth.
>     > Even then, however, it must be careful not to restrict the
>     > productivity of the        multitude too much because
>     > Empire too depends on this power
>     >
>     > 418  - What specific and concrete practices will animate
>     > this         political project?  We cannot say at this
>     > point.   What we can see nonetheless  is a first element
>     > of a political demand:  "global citizenship". 419 - Empire
>     > too depends on this power.      - In modernity, reality
>     > was not conceivable except as measure, and meaure in  turn
>     > was not  conceivable except as a (real or formal) a priori
>     > that corraled
>     >         being within a transcendent order 421 - a social
>     > wage and a guaranteed income for all.
>     >
>     > 422 - Knowledge has to become linguistic action and
>     > philosophy has to become a        real "reappropriation of
>     > knowledge"  In other  words knowledge and  communication
>     > have to constitute life through struggle.424 - the right
>     > to reappropriate.
>     >
>     > 425 - the earthly city must demonstrate its power as an
>     > apparatus of the        mythology of the multitude.
>     > being-knowing-having power.428 - a society in which the
>     > basis of power is defined by the expression of
>     >         the needs of all.
>     >
>     >
>

HTML VERSION:

Hugh,

All reading is intertextual... and considering that the text refuses to be 'standalone' I am mystified by the below statements.

If as you state below you wish to make a reading that revolves around the 'Empie' text alone - an intellectual method I think I disapprove of because of the impossibility of the practice - then I suggest you open up with a close textual reading of Section 4.3 'The multitude against the empire'.  Or alternatively perhaps section 3.4 'Postmodernization, or the informatisation of production'. However given that the latter is very much written against the grain of Lyotard's anti-historical approach, and I've used this and other related sections of the text continuously for the past year, I think the former is more useful as it presumes to state what they regard as a 'revolutionary subject'.

If you don't want to write a summary or synthesis of the text then how do you want to advance?

Some initial thoughts below:

Consider the contents of the book - it is in four parts: Part 1 'The political constitution of the present, Part 2 Passages of soveriegnty, an inter-mezzo Counter-Empire, part three passages of production, part 4 the decline and fall of empire.

Actually the 'Empire'; text fits within the range of leftwing texts that discuss the current postmodern economy as being something with positive elements, but it does not have the statistical evidence to support itself,. Including most startling of all a new (maxist/hegalian) revolutionary subject... Perhaps equally interesting but without any actual supporting evidence is the notion of 'empire' itself - it is emphasized that the notion is not a metaphor but a political concept which demands 'a political approach' (xiv). The supporting evidence seems thin because you would assume that the nation-state was in some sense in retreat whereas the actual evidence suggests that this is not the case. Think of the problems the Kyoto agreement has with the Nation-states non-cooperative USA, the G8 conference with the meeting of the poor countries in Zanzibar... It is true that there is a vast lack of boundries for postmodern capitalism(xiv) however whilst capital has no territorial boundries what evidence is there that globalisation is threatening to suspend history? It does not re-create 'the end of history' but rather so they argue creates new forms of resistence...

The initial three key points and rules of empire are: 1. Empire posits a regime that that encompasses the spatial totality, actually the entire civilised world (leaves out Afghanistan I would imagine) but no boundries limit its scop[e. 2. The concept presents itself not as an empire that originates from conquest, but rather as an order that suspends history (and proposes to be eternal, where does this piece of 'end of history' get justified from?). Empire as a concept then is post-hegelian and by default anti-Kantian and very much against the sublime. 3. Empire operates at all points in the social register from the very highest down to the lowest points in the social world. As such it aims to rebuild human nature into its own requirements.

Is this a reasonable starting point....Hugh? Is this what you want?

regards

sdv

hbone wrote:

 
Steve,Eric,All,
 
Responding to Eric's invitation to engage in discussion of "Empire" I was naive.
 
I thought the conversation would be about the book, not Deleuze, Guattari, Baudrillard, Batailie, Lacan, Kristeva, Marx, neo-marxists, and a host of others. Possibly about Lyotard, since this is his List.
 
I thought the discussion would be about the ideas Hardt and Negri put into words and managed to get published in four printings and several languages.
 
More specifically, the relevance of their ideas to the world-scene we call globalization.
 
Instead, the parade of names and notions of their predecessors continues, while contents of the "Empire" are cynically ignored.
 
In the spirit of "Give Peace a chance", can't we give the book a chance?
 
best,
Hugh
 
 
 
I
 Hugh

Answer your own question - what is the 'empire' text you have read  about?
 
 

regards

sdv

hbone wrote:

Eric, Steve/ All The short answer is: 496 pages. A lot of you probably pick books, as I often do, by roaming the stacks, opening the back of the book, searching for conclusions, for names of authors you trust among the 150 plus references that seem mandatory for scholarship.  Also searching for sections, headings, text, of interest.Since Derrida did not meet these requirements, I never read him.  But a lot of his contemporaries did meet them.I never had the pleasure of seeing Derrida on TV, as I did see Hardt, who is a very engaging personality and appears to be an independent thinker.  He got his first degree in Engineering, at present is teaching literature at Duke, and says he will get a degree in Paris when he completes his thesis. Scanning the online version, of Empire, I found the first few hundred pages to be of considerable historical interest, but loaded with (to me ) unfamiliar abstractions i.e. the use of familiar words in unfamiliar ways,  such as "empire", "subjectivity", "multitude",  "measure", and the occasional reification of terms like "power", and "imperial capital" as if they were natural entities/phenomena that cause human problems.Remembering the Lyotard of "Le Differend", who stressed the importance and difficulty of communicating with words, and the indispensable requirement thataddressor and addressee share a significant commonality of meaning of the  words they use, I searched for clarification in the "Empire" text.  For some words there was such clarification, "imminance", for example.  For others, there was not.So, going to the end of the book, I selected, copied and posted a few paragraphs that seemed most significant.  Now let me add the lead-in lines of other paragraphs which are easily found with Acrobat's fieldglass/find button. NOTE:  Search for first words, NOT page number.            Scroll to the first page on the list below, then enter first words                and you reach them in an instant. This will help answer the question:  What is Empire about? and we can discussour various opinions. regards,Hugh  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
396 - centered on the production of subjectivity 397 - Only from the consciousness of the uniqueness of my life arises
        religion- science art

398 - The complete deterritorialization of the coming Empire
      - The multitude has internalized the lack of place and fixed time

      - The coming imperial universe, blind to meaning, is filled by the
        multifarious totality of  the production of subjectivity.  The decline is no longer future destiny but the  present reality of Empire.400 - the indeterminate but uncontainable will to innovation that drove the
        last wave of great  European cultural movements, from expressionism to       d
        cubism and abstractionism

402 - The fundamental principle of Empire as we have described it throughout
        this book is that its power has no actual and localizable  Imperial power is
        distributed in networks, through mobile and articulated mechanisms of
        control.403 - the universe we live in is a universe of productive linguistic
        networks.  The lines of production and those of representation cros and mix
        in the same linguistic and productive realm.

406 - In reality we are masters of the world because our desire and labor
        regenerate it continuously.

416 - Mass migrations have become necessary for production.
      -  What we need to grasp is how the multitude is organized and
         redefined as a positive political power.417 - Imperial capital does indeed attack the movements of the multitude
        with a tireless determination:  it patrols the seas and the borders; within        each country it divides and segregates; and in the world of labor        it reinforces the cleavages and borderlines of race,  gender, language,        culture, and so forth.         Even then, however, it must be careful not to restrict the productivity of the        multitude too much because Empire too depends on this power

418  - What specific and concrete practices will animate this         political project?  We cannot say at this point.   What we can see nonetheless  is a first element of a political demand:  "global citizenship". 419 - Empire too depends on this power.      - In modernity, reality was not conceivable except as measure, and meaure in  turn was not  conceivable except as a (real or formal) a priori that corraled
        being within a transcendent order 421 - a social wage and a guaranteed income for all.

422 - Knowledge has to become linguistic action and philosophy has to become a        real "reappropriation of knowledge"  In other  words knowledge and  communication have to constitute life through struggle.424 - the right to reappropriate.

425 - the earthly city must demonstrate its power as an apparatus of the        mythology of the multitude. being-knowing-having power.428 - a society in which the basis of power is defined by the expression of
        the needs of all.
 
 


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