Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2001 21:37:07 +0000
Subject: Re: libidinal ethics




Glen

You're right that the inhuman I am writing of is not in any sense 
'human' , I have tried to maintain in my use of the term Lyotard's 
definition and understanding which is sufficiently broad to be confusing 
- but it breaks down into two definitions - the first being the 
inhumanity of the system - which we construct and which constructs us - 
which Lyotard suggests is being 'consolidated under the name od 
development'  the second being the supercession of human beings, 'in 
humanism's sense... in the prcess of being constrained into becoming 
inhuman...'  and ultimately to become inhuman intelligent machines.... 
(His argument contains the incorrect science fiction notion that in 4.5 
billion years time the sun will go nova... and the earth will die, 
between 500M and 1Bn years time the earth will be unihabitable by human 
beings as the sun will around that time make the surface of planet earth 
to hot to live on).  (Personally I think we should just move the 
planet/moon system somewhere else).

The non-human is that which is not human - from my volcanic rock, the 
cat sleeping once again beside the radiator, the cows in the field down 
the road, to the planet of which I am an inextricable part and the 
planet circulating Barnard's Star. The non-human is the other to which 
we need to establish a practical ethics towards.

The cyborg in the narrow definition that Eric is using remains human all 
too human with the probablity that it translates into the inhuman at 
some stage in its development. Contrary to Eric and the definition 
referred to below I suspect that the cyborg is normative given that it 
is being used to oppress and constrain our 'human' everyday lives.

In short - my consistent 'complaint' in relation to the common use of 
the 'other' in philosophy is that the other/Other always refers to the 
human. Considering that as a species we humans are the biggest 
extinction event since the last major climate change - an asteriod 
caused that I believe - we need to start considering ethics against the 
non-human (not just animals) rather than structuring ethics on the 
subject/Other relationship.

Looking at the above perhaps I remain the ambivalent anti-humanist that 
I've always been.

regards
steve

fuller wrote:

>A while ago (several months) I said something like the other is made up
>those victims that tell the world that they are as such, (I think it is what
>prompted Steve to raise Badiou for the first time?). The other I meant was
>the regimented scientific naming and classifying that was being appropriated
>by post-colonialist factions to retrieve some despotic power (I am thinking
>of Mugabe, but there are other right wingers eg Pauline Hanson and the One
>Nation Party here in the land of Aus). I do not hesitate to agree with Steve
>in saying that the liberatory potential of the 'other' is there but it must
>be of the non-opinion other. Opinon in the Badiou sense.
>
>Oh, what do you mean by human and inhuman (non-human?)? Because I read this
>(which I quite like):
>
>>The image of the cyborg is one who has differentiated herself through
>>jouissance to become inhuman (i.e. not normative) and thereby
>>unrecognizable according to the gaze of identity.
>>
>
>And it doesn't seem to be the same inhuman I gathered Steve was talking
>about, or maybe I have grossly misunderstood. It seems to me you can look at
>it two ways. The human is the analogue, affective, non-ego-thinking being
>that is not in the center of, but centers, everyone's name, or the 'human'
>is a story George W. tells us 'we' are protecting by bombing the crap out of
>the (opinion) other (for example). And in both cases the inhuman is the
>other to the respective 'human'(??). Aye? What do you fellas reckon?
>
>Cheerio,
>Glen.
>
>

HTML VERSION:

A while ago (several months) I said something like the other is made up
those victims that tell the world that they are as such, (I think it is what
prompted Steve to raise Badiou for the first time?). The other I meant was
the regimented scientific naming and classifying that was being appropriated
by post-colonialist factions to retrieve some despotic power (I am thinking
of Mugabe, but there are other right wingers eg Pauline Hanson and the One
Nation Party here in the land of Aus). I do not hesitate to agree with Steve
in saying that the liberatory potential of the 'other' is there but it must
be of the non-opinion other. Opinon in the Badiou sense.

Oh, what do you mean by human and inhuman (non-human?)? Because I read this
(which I quite like):

The image of the cyborg is one who has differentiated herself through
jouissance to become inhuman (i.e. not normative) and thereby
unrecognizable according to the gaze of identity.

And it doesn't seem to be the same inhuman I gathered Steve was talking
about, or maybe I have grossly misunderstood. It seems to me you can look at
it two ways. The human is the analogue, affective, non-ego-thinking being
that is not in the center of, but centers, everyone's name, or the 'human'
is a story George W. tells us 'we' are protecting by bombing the crap out of
the (opinion) other (for example). And in both cases the inhuman is the
other to the respective 'human'(??). Aye? What do you fellas reckon?

Cheerio,
Glen.