Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 19:12:54 +0000
From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.com>
Subject: Re: Advocating violence




Hugh

These are issues related to ethics and moral law...  At this point I 
refer back to the beginning - Sartre's legitimisation of anti-colonial 
violence is founded on the position that human beings have the right to 
fight for there rights/freedom and that colonialism, neo-colonialism and 
of course imperialism are ethically and morally wrong. The shift that 
results from the move towards globalisation does change things however,  
because the expectation is there that we can and should recognise the 
invalidity of the nation-state as a means of  recognition of what 
constitutes a 'human other' as a consequence we can see that an 
anti-globalisation protestor should in some sense recognise that one 
cannot justify aggressive actions against another simply because of the 
nation-state they originate from, religious sect, race etc...

The legitimacy of resistence and the associated violence which you are 
not addressing is and remains one of the most interesting ethical and 
moral issues. I presume that since you, in earlier emails, about the 911 
event seemed to support the coalition action against the afghanistan 
regime, belive that the USA and other G20 states maintain a right to 
state violence and aggression?

I, of course, do not...

Of course the ethics referred to are pragmatic, practical, situation and 
event based, not constructed from having to produce an ethical position 
derived from 'social duty' which is constructed from 'moral law' which 
obviously is very different for us, considering the social/economc and 
political differences between the USA and Europe.

(whatever made you think war has something to do with capital?)

regards
steve




hbone wrote:

> Steve,
>
>  
>
> You would replace capital and state violence legitmized by existing 
> rules with
>
> new rules legitimized by whom?
>
>  
>
> In Spain, Franco replaced an elected government (helped by German and 
> Italian governments) with himself as leader-for-life.  Like Castro he 
> assembled armed forces who created the necessary legitimacy, the 
> legitimacy of the man with the gun.
>
>  
>
> The industrialized and wealthy countries are mostly democracies, which 
> in theory can  replace oppressive officials with others who will 
> respond to the needs of their citizens.  The G-7 or G-20 earn hundreds 
> of billions of dollars selling arms to Third World countries who war 
> against each other and their own citizens, sell illegal drugs and 
> smuggle illegal immigrants.
>
>  
>
> History shows that wars beget wars, armed conflict breeds new 
> conflict. There is no magic
>
> bullet, alchemy or elixir for ending this situation.  New leaders take 
> over the wealth, prerogatives of those who are defeated.  And are 
> supported by the same capitalists. 
>
>  
>
> Disarmanent and practice of human rights, rejection of capitalist 
> corruption, and getting out the vote in democratic countries, offer a 
> better chance for the future than re-playing the unfortunate record of 
> history endlessly.
>
>  
>
> regards,
>
> Hugh.
>
>  
>
>  
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>
>     From: steve.devos <mailto:steve.devos-AT-krokodile.com>
>
>     To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>     <mailto:lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
>
>     Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2002 10:17 AM
>
>     Subject: Re: Advocating violence
>
>
>     Hugh/All
>
>     I heard today of another American child taking a gun to school and
>     killing some classmates and wounding a teacher.  I  was told by a
>     friend of mine who works on worldwide criminal statistics that
>     more people in the USA died from criminal acts of violence than in
>     the WTC tragic event during 2000. Perhaps given such a tragic
>     environment, with its ever increasing cycles of violence, it is
>     understandable that you do not want to 'think' the difference
>     between resistence to the appalling practices and places we live
>     in and the oppressive violence inflicted upon people on a daily basis.
>
>     Let us use an extreme example - when the Polish-Jewish resistence
>     fighters killed and murdered Germans - (not just German Soldiers)
>     during the second world war and immediately afterwards was this
>     wrong? Was it wrong when these same people went to Isreal and
>     killed British troops? (Not to forget the appallingly racist way
>     they treated the palestinians at the time).
>
>     Let us use another extreme example - do you imagine that women
>     were given the right to vote? or that they fought for it?
>
>     Or another - the violence that the European states are inflicting
>     on the migrants and refugees that are on our borders by not
>     allowing them free access to 'human rights', what is an adequate
>     response?
>
>     The societies we exist in are founded on violence, sacrifice and
>     death - both within the borders and without - to assume that
>     things will  improve without struggle and resistence is extremely
>     foolish and mistaken.
>
>     These are of course rhetorical questions that do not require
>     answers - I understand that resistence is not allowed within the
>     intellectual framework that you are reproducing  and that only the
>     state and capital are allowed to exercise legitimate and
>     illegitimate violence...
>
>     regards
>     steve
>
>
>     hbone wrote:
>
>>     Steve/All,
>>
>>      
>>
>>     Quite surprised at your advocacy of violence.  The Bolsheviks and
>>     Stalinists were the best ever at that project, betraying Marx's
>>     dream.  The neo-Marxists and living French philosophes may be
>>     doing the same,  I'm surprized, but my knowledge is admittedly
>>     secondhand, as I acquired it from reports on this List.
>>
>>      
>>
>>     I can't imagine the the neo-Marxists and French philosophes
>>     legitimating violence and moving from the ethereal to the actual
>>     by organizing to destroy by force the 180 or so national
>>     governments who, with corporate leaders and globalization
>>     agencies, operate the political and economic world we live in. 
>>
>>      
>>
>>     In 1968 a big noise was made by youngsters in the streets of
>>     Paris for a week or so, but it petered out when their parents
>>     decided they needed to get back to work.
>>
>>      
>>
>>     The French are wonderful people and contribute greatly to food
>>     and fashion.  It was my pleasure to vacation in all parts of the
>>     hexagon for many years. Theirs is a sense of freedom that brought
>>     refugees from all over the world.  Who among them would take up
>>     arms to destroy their way of life and the freedom that preserves it?
>>
>>      
>>
>>     Of course it is true that violence caused the changes that create
>>     today's problems - it may not be correct to assume that more
>>     violence will end them.
>>
>>      
>>
>>     regards,
>>
>>     Hugh
>>
>>      
>>
>>      
>>
>>         ----- Original Message -----
>>
>>         From: steve.devos <mailto:steve.devos-AT-krokodile.com>
>>
>>         To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>>         <mailto:lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
>>
>>         Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 5:15 AM
>>
>>         Subject: Re: Negri
>>
>>
>>         Hugh,
>>
>>         No social political advance in the history of the world has
>>         been made without struggle, resistence and violence.  
>>
>>         Absolutely none of examples below are relevant to the issue
>>         regarding the status of anti-colonialist violence in Sartre's
>>         era of colonialism and neo-colonialism and the current era of
>>         Globalisation.
>>
>>
>>         regards
>>         steve
>>
>>         hbone wrote:
>>
>>>All,
>>>
>>>Legitimate violence!!!
>>>
>>>My God is better than your God. He gives me the Holy right to kill for His
>>>Glory.  Your God is the Devil in disguise.
>>>
>>>As Bill Maher said, Jesus was a mid-eastern young man with a beard who would
>>>have difficulty boarding and airplane in the US..
>>>
>>>So was Mohammed.
>>>
>>>Only a few centuries after the Crucifixion, the philosophy of Jesus
>>>triumphed over the Romans, who had lost their convictions, no longer trusted
>>>their pagan Gods who had served them well for centuries.
>>>
>>>The Inquisition was truly a milestone in Christian violence.  Take a walk in
>>>the courtyard in Madrid where burning humans alive was a public celebration.
>>>
>>>Maher also said there are beheadings in Saudi Arabia every Friday.  Why are
>>>religions so in love with Death?
>>>
>>>Mohammed's followers were conquerors, globalizers who, between and during
>>>conquests of  Spain, the Middle East and Southeastern Europe mai
>>>ntai
>>>ned
>>>mosques, hospitals libraries, international trade, trips to Mecca, preserved
>>>the learning  of  the ancients while medieval knights in northern Europe
>>>indulged in a violence mutual destruction.
>>>
>>>Nation-states with  standing armies and guns brought in a new era of
>>>violence in Western Europe, and now there are almost 200 nation-states
>>>worldwide.
>>>
>>>Each one legitimates its own violence, which is about the only thing the UN
>>>can unanimously agree on.
>>>
>>>regards,
>>>Hugh
>>>
>>>
>>>>All,
>>>>
>>>>I sent the Negri interview/statements yesterday to try and take us
>>>>beyond the nihilism of the Baudriallard position and to try and open up
>>>>the discussion into new areas... Rather than discuss the Negri piece
>>>>directly...
>>>>
>>>>A number of things concern me regarding the discussion(s) around these
>>>>issues that I've seen and heard in relation to the USA and the
>>>>globalization issues following on from Septembers terrorist activity.
>>>>
>>>>We can respond to the current crisis of the global as either: the
>>>>domination of the US nation state or the globalization perspective
>>>>referred to in the Negri interview yesterday.
>>>>
>>>>If the former position is accepted as being an accurate representation
>>>>of the current crisis then we are inexorably return to the conflictual
>>>>position of attacking the USA as an imperialist nation state - to the
>>>>possibilityt of having to support the anti-conlonial murders and
>>>>associated violence th
>>>>at t
>>>>his legitimizes. In this sense Sartres book on
>>>>colonialism and neo-colonialism becomes essential reading, Sartres
>>>>argument (which is very convincing) is that against colonialism the
>>>>colonized can and most probably must engage in legitimate anti-colonial
>>>>violence. From India, China, Algiers, Southern and Northern Ireland to
>>>>Israel, Palestine and beyond this violence has been directed not just
>>>>against the nation state but also the people-state nexus, but this
>>>>violence must in some sense be considered legitimate... However the side
>>>>effect of this, assuming that you accept that people have the right to
>>>>fight against the colonizers, is that it seems to justify and explain
>>>>the WTC attacks as anti-colonial violence - in the same way as the
>>>>random bombing of London during the past 30 years by the IRA - were
>>>>considered legitimate - certainly by the USA citizens who financed the
>>>>bombing campaigns...
>>>>
>>>>However within the N&H's vari
>>>>ant of t
>>>>he theory of globalization we have
>>>>something very different because of the implicit separation of people
>>>>from capitalism - as a consequence the legitimate responses to the
>>>>post-colonialist activity of postmodern capital is functionally
>>>>different and attacks on 'people' become harder to justify -perhaps in
>>>>part because of the strange notion of the 'multitude', which is related
>>>>both to theorisations of the proletariat but relates to Spinosa and
>>>>Deleuze. The strict capital and anti-capitalist construction and the
>>>>identification of globalisation structures as targets for social and
>>>>political elements, perhaps in this sense only the 'multitude' can
>>>>define what would be legitimate violence...
>>>>
>>>>Finally then if the former position is being maintained may this not be
>>>>because of a desire founded in the imaginary for the maintenance of the
>>>>USA as nation-state ruler of the/an 'empire' ? Living in the UK it is
>>>>easy to understand the
>>>> desire for 
>>>>the false memories of our histories to
>>>>be true...
>>>>
>>>>regards
>>>>steve
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>

HTML VERSION:

Steve,

 

You would replace capital and state violence legitmized by existing rules with

new rules legitimized by whom?

 

In Spain, Franco replaced an elected government (helped by German and Italian governments) with himself as leader-for-life.  Like Castro he assembled armed forces who created the necessary legitimacy, the legitimacy of the man with the gun.

 

The industrialized and wealthy countries are mostly democracies, which in theory can  replace oppressive officials with others who will respond to the needs of their citizens.  The G-7 or G-20 earn hundreds of billions of dollars selling arms to Third World countries who war against each other and their own citizens, sell illegal drugs and smuggle illegal immigrants.

 

History shows that wars beget wars, armed conflict breeds new conflict. There is no magic

bullet, alchemy or elixir for ending this situation.  New leaders take over the wealth, prerogatives of those who are defeated.  And are supported by the same capitalists. 

 

Disarmanent and practice of human rights, rejection of capitalist corruption, and getting out the vote in democratic countries, offer a better chance for the future than re-playing the unfortunate record of history endlessly.

 

regards,

Hugh.

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: steve.devos

To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu

Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2002 10:17 AM

Subject: Re: Advocating violence

Hugh/All

I heard today of another American child taking a gun to school and killing some classmates and wounding a teacher.  I  was told by a friend of mine who works on worldwide criminal statistics that more people in the USA died from criminal acts of violence than in the WTC tragic event during 2000. Perhaps given such a tragic environment, with its ever increasing cycles of violence, it is understandable that you do not want to 'think' the difference between resistence to the appalling practices and places we live in and the oppressive violence inflicted upon people on a daily basis.

Let us use an extreme example - when the Polish-Jewish resistence fighters killed and murdered Germans - (not just German Soldiers) during the second world war and immediately afterwards was this wrong? Was it wrong when these same people went to Isreal and killed British troops? (Not to forget the appallingly racist way they treated the palestinians at the time).

Let us use another extreme example - do you imagine that women were given the right to vote? or that they fought for it?

Or another - the violence that the European states are inflicting on the migrants and refugees that are on our borders by not allowing them free access to 'human rights', what is an adequate response?

The societies we exist in are founded on violence, sacrifice and death - both within the borders and without - to assume that things will  improve without struggle and resistence is extremely foolish and mistaken.

These are of course rhetorical questions that do not require answers - I understand that resistence is not allowed within the intellectual framework that you are reproducing  and that only the state and capital are allowed to exercise legitimate and illegitimate violence...

regards
steve


hbone wrote:

Steve/All,

 

Quite surprised at your advocacy of violence.  The Bolsheviks and Stalinists were the best ever at that project, betraying Marx's dream.  The neo-Marxists and living French philosophes may be doing the same,  I'm surprized, but my knowledge is admittedly secondhand, as I acquired it from reports on this List.

 

I can't imagine the the neo-Marxists and French philosophes legitimating violence and moving from the ethereal to the actual by organizing to destroy by force the 180 or so national governments who, with corporate leaders and globalization agencies, operate the political and economic world we live in. 

 

In 1968 a big noise was made by youngsters in the streets of Paris for a week or so, but it petered out when their parents decided they needed to get back to work.

 

The French are wonderful people and contribute greatly to food and fashion.  It was my pleasure to vacation in all parts of the hexagon for many years. Theirs is a sense of freedom that brought refugees from all over the world.  Who among them would take up arms to destroy their way of life and the freedom that preserves it?

 

Of course it is true that violence caused the changes that create today's problems - it may not be correct to assume that more violence will end them.

 

regards,

Hugh

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: steve.devos

To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu

Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 5:15 AM

Subject: Re: Negri

Hugh,

No social political advance in the history of the world has been made without struggle, resistence and violence.  

Absolutely none of examples below are relevant to the issue regarding the status of anti-colonialist violence in Sartre's era of colonialism and neo-colonialism and the current era of Globalisation.


regards
steve

hbone wrote:

All,

Legitimate violence!!!

My God is better than your God. He gives me the Holy right to kill for His
Glory.  Your God is the Devil in disguise.

As Bill Maher said, Jesus was a mid-eastern young man with a beard who would
have difficulty boarding and airplane in the US..

So was Mohammed.

Only a few centuries after the Crucifixion, the philosophy of Jesus
triumphed over the Romans, who had lost their convictions, no longer trusted
their pagan Gods who had served them well for centuries.

The Inquisition was truly a milestone in Christian violence.  Take a walk in
the courtyard in Madrid where burning humans alive was a public celebration.

Maher also said there are beheadings in Saudi Arabia every Friday.  Why are
religions so in love with Death?

Mohammed's followers were conquerors, globalizers who, between and during
conquests of  Spain, the Middle East and Southeastern Europe
 mai
ntai
ned
mosques, hospitals libraries, international trade, trips to Mecca, preserved
the learning  of  the ancients while medieval knights in northern Europe
indulged in a violence mutual destruction.

Nation-states with  standing armies and guns brought in a new era of
violence in Western Europe, and now there are almost 200 nation-states
worldwide.

Each one legitimates its own violence, which is about the only thing the UN
can unanimously agree on.

regards,
Hugh

All,

I sent the Negri interview/statements yesterday to try and take us
beyond the nihilism of the Baudriallard position and to try and open up
the discussion into new areas... Rather than discuss the Negri piece
directly...

A number of things concern me regarding the discussion(s) around these
issues that I've seen and heard in relation to the USA and the
globalization issues following on from Septembers terrorist activity.

We can respond to the current crisis of the global as either: the
domination of the US nation state or the globalization perspective
referred to in the Negri interview yesterday.

If the former position is accepted as being an accurate representation
of the current crisis then we are inexorably return to the conflictual
position of attacking the USA as an imperialist nation state - to the
possibilityt of having to support the anti-conlonial murders and
associated violenc
e th
at t
his legitimizes. In this sense Sartres book on
colonialism and neo-colonialism becomes essential reading, Sartres
argument (which is very convincing) is that against colonialism the
colonized can and most probably must engage in legitimate anti-colonial
violence. From India, China, Algiers, Southern and Northern Ireland to
Israel, Palestine and beyond this violence has been directed not just
against the nation state but also the people-state nexus, but this
violence must in some sense be considered legitimate... However the side
effect of this, assuming that you accept that people have the right to
fight against the colonizers, is that it seems to justify and explain
the WTC attacks as anti-colonial violence - in the same way as the
random bombing of London during the past 30 years by the IRA - were
considered legitimate - certainly by the USA citizens who financed the
bombing campaigns...

However within the N&
H's vari
ant of t
he theory of globalization we have
something very different because of the implicit separation of people
from capitalism - as a consequence the legitimate responses to the
post-colonialist activity of postmodern capital is functionally
different and attacks on 'people' become harder to justify -perhaps in
part because of the strange notion of the 'multitude', which is related
both to theorisations of the proletariat but relates to Spinosa and
Deleuze. The strict capital and anti-capitalist construction and the
identification of globalisation structures as targets for social and
political elements, perhaps in this sense only the 'multitude' can
define what would be legitimate violence...

Finally then if the former position is being maintained may this not be
because of a desire founded in the imaginary for the maintenance of the
USA as nation-state ruler of the/an 'empire' ? Living in the UK it is
easy to un
derstand the
 desire for 
the false memories of our histories to
be true...

regards
steve