Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2001 18:25:31 +0000
Subject: Re: libidinal ethics - subjects


All

"We can assume that any theory of the subject has always been 
appropriated by the 'masculine'. When she submits to (such) a theory, 
woman fails to realise that she is renouncing the specificity of her own 
relationship to the imaginary. Subjecting herself to objectivisation in 
discourse - by being 'female'. Re-objectivizing her own self whenever 
she claims to identify herself 'as' a masculine subject. A 'subject' 
that would re-search itself as lost (masculine-feminine) 'object'?" 
 (Irigaray Speculum p133).

The above is the openning paragrph in in the section called 'any theory 
of the subject has always been masculine....' I believe that this has 
plainly remained the case into the present and that it will remain true 
until language and sexual difference mutates further. The importance of 
the work on difference, especially sexual difference, which is not out 
of place  in the current discussions of  Lyotard's Inhuman - is that he 
argues that the body and consequently sexual difference is critical for 
'thought' and his piece 'Can thought go on without a body' is profoundly 
non-cartesian, he argues that  'Thought is inseperable from the 
phenomenlogical body: although gendered body is seperated from thought. 
and launches thought....this difference causes infinite thought....'. 
However in itself this is not the issue I'm directly interested in here 
for let me try a small thought experiment...

"We can assume that any theory of the subject has always been 
appropriated by the 'human'. When a non-human submits to (such) a 
theory, it fails to realise that it is renouncing the specificity of its 
own relationship to the imaginary. Subjecting itself to objectivisation 
in discourse - by being 'non-human'. Re-objectivizing its own self 
whenever it claims to identify itself 'as' a non-human subject. A 
'subject' that would re-search itself as lost 'object'?"

Is this not the issue that I'm specifically interested in drawing into 
the ethical discussion? How can the non-human or indeed inhuman be 
subjected to the universalisation of a human and indeed masculine (as 
Irigaray would say) ethics?

regards
steve