File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2002/lyotard.0205, message 13


From: "Thomas Taylor" <taylorth-AT-bellsouth.net>
Subject: Re: Give me some milk or else go home
Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 22:44:39 -0400


Hugh/All,

I'm glad you mentioned silence. I am currently going through a seminar on
the figures of silence and affect in later Lyotard, which explains my
emphasis on these points.

Also, I am doing a little with Pinter and Beckett. In the Differend Lyotard
identifies more than one order of silence, at least two. In the first case
there is the silence that is a phrase, that presents a phrase universe (with
the four poles). In the second case (and I'm thinking particularly of the
Gertrude Stein notice here, but there are other places too) the silences
negates one or all of the four poles of the phrase universe (addressee,
addressor, referent, and sens).

This second case is very important to him. This silence, we might say, is an
instance of the sublime, or an affect. All of these are words he uses to
think something which by definition can have no vocabulary. This other
silence poses itself as a threat to all phrasing, not just the current
phrase. One of the tricks I love so much in the differend is that genre of
phrasing that would ignore the insistence of this other silence is already
involved in it. In the Plato notice he speaks of the four silences of
Gorgias. In each case there is no purely positive assertion. Instead, the
positive assertions come as refutations of nihilism. There is no addressor,
yes there is, etc. This undercurrent of a threatening silence kind of hums
under the classical atom of the proposition.

This is what we get in Pinter. Not only in the literal silences, but in the
dialogue. There is always a subtle violence in him. To speak metaphorically,
his plays are like those days where it is always about to rain but doesn't
(of which we have had many in Atlanta recently).

I have a wealth of literary, artistic and musical examples. The problem I am
having is not there. Here it is: "non-synonymous synonyms". In my first
paragraph I think I mentioned affect, silence, and later the sublime as
linked. I feel that they are linked, that they are trying to find the
impossible metaphors for the Thing. But how to talk about them in this
context without reducing their specificity?

I have much more to say, but, until monday, I really have to talk to
Spinoza. I'll take a peek in and over the summer talk more eloquently
(maybe). Sure am tired of adequate and inadequate ideas, finite and infinite
modes.

Rod T.


----- Original Message -----
From: "hbone" <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
To: <lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 11:27 PM
Subject: Re: Give me some milk or else go home


> Rod/All,
>
> Your emphasis on skin, the body, this package of hopes and fears infused
by
> all the communities that brought it to its present state of being, is,
IMHO,
> an aspect of Le Differend worthy of more discussion.
>
> Incidentally, this Webster link mentions 11 entities as community:
>
> http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary
>
> Le Differend is obviously about coimmunity when L. writes of justice
> (phrases in dispute), terror, obligation, or the social bond.
>
> His approach to language is, for me, unique -  words and silences are put
in
> a different light with discussion of addressor/addressee,
> situation/circumstance
>
> As to silence in music, Cage, Adams, and others use long silences in their
> works.  Traditional music used shorter silences essential to its
enjoyment,
> but being accustomed,  we scarcely notice them.
>
> Pinter's plays are famous for long silences.
>
> All the languages of the senses and the arts are important.  Sight and
sound
> are monopolized by the media, but taste, smell and touch have their high
> priests in
> cuisine, perfumery etc. Lyotard had considerable interest in painting.
>
> regards,
> Hugh
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > It's nice to hear that. Right now, I have a few seminar papers to clear
> up,
> > and then its reading reading for the summer. Thanks for the translation
> > info.
> >
> > My specific interest in his later works, which begin on naive
> periodization,
> > during and following The Differend. What The Unamable was to Beckett,
this
> > was to JFL. I am lucky where to be where I am, which is part of my
reasons
> > for choosing this topic. Emory was his last University, and many of
> advisers
> > worked very closely with him.
> >
> > Sorry about the intro, but I like to be more than just
> > a scroll expressed from an arrangement of code. So far as my project is
> > planned (and I have a little over a year to complete it) my specific
focus
> > will be on the body. There are certain key words that come up during and
> > after The Differend: silence, feeling, affect, mutic, prescription,
> > mainmise, and the list goes on. They seem to perform an attempt to
think,
> or
> > at least to approach, something that is both below or behind language
(and
> > understand this last term broadly, as there are sensual, visual, aural,
> > languages too). And not only below and behind the articulate, but also
> > within it.
> >
> > This should surprise. It is quite unthinkable. However it does have a
> > connection with community, which is why I chimed in on the community
> > comments. Lyotard seems to be
> > less interested in the maintainence of a community,
> > than in the paradox of its constitution.
> >
> > I think a reading of the skin would be apt here, and it may link to some
> > things Diane had to say about
> > Nancy, though I cannot be sure because I know
> > precious little of him. She did however make a
> > comment on being exposed. We remain on a
> > threshold, both inside and outside ourselves. This is the paradox of
> > community. It is like a body made of bodies. Before I digress, though, I
> > want to try to
> > unpack the word, exposure.
> >
> > We are inside ourselves to the extent that we have an ostensible limit.
> > There is me and then you, my yard and your yard, the frame of the
painting
> > and then the museum. Contexts abound for this discussion. However, it
> > becomes more complicated when look to what I would call the
> > 'final' limit. This is the limit that must be maintained at all costs,
but
> > cannot be. This limit is skin.
> >
> > Skin can be understood in at least two ways. 1. The limit, the boundary,
> > (and I said final, because it is only in the breaking of this boundary
> that
> > we feel pain, that we are literally opened). 2. A sort of opening onto
or
> > unto the world. Our skin is where we reach into the world and where the
> > world reaches into us. I hope I have not done an injustice to Diane or
> Nancy
> > in this description.
> >
> > To me, and this is the precise focus of my project, due the empheral or
> > maybe spectral nature of skin as I have defined here, the constitution
of
> a
> > community would never be complete. That is, the boundary only becomes
> > present to us when is reasserted, either by violation or by basic,
passive
> > sensations. I don't have as much time as I would like, but I think this
> > holds as much for bodily space as for the space of a nation, a text, an
> > oeuvre, or a performance, just to give a few examples. Constitution,
both
> in
> > the sense of health and in the sense of beginning or initiation, is
being
> > ceasely repeated.
> > Lurking behind it, the repetition of constitution that is,  is the
threat
> of
> > nothing happening, no skin, no articulation, no nothing. I made
reference
> to
> > "Music, Mutic" previously to emphasize this point. Sorry I didn't stop
to
> > think that others hadn't read it. In this piece, Lyotard holds that a
> signal
> > of the threat of the inaudible persists and motivates any work in the
> > language of audibility. It hangs there, not even recognized, but maybe
> felt,
> > as the threat of the piece's disintegration at any moment. Like an
animal
> > crouched for the pounce or a stranger in the house that we sense but are
> not
> > aware of (and these are his figures, not my own).
> >
> > If any of you are familiar with the music of John Cage, there are
silences
> > spliced between moments of mobility and rhythmn. If you witnessed the
> > performed piece, these silences hang over the audience as threats of the
> > piece's possible but indeterminant ending. These silences are signals,
but
> > not signs, of another silence that can never be spoken-- that is,
nothing
> > ever being heard again, or nothing ever having been heard.
> >
> > The figures for this other silence are almost always linked to a kind of
> > limit sensation. He will call this affect at moments. "Music, Mutic"
makes
> > reference to the labor of childbirth. The blow in the french "after the
> > fact" (apres-coups) in which blow is literally read as strike, (Emma).
Or
> > the earthquake which destroys the instrument which would have measured
its
> > intensity (The Differend). Mainmise (the grip, but also more generally,
an
> > authority figure's expression of its prohibitive function).
> >
> > The exposure that occurs in being in a community, then, even if we do
not
> > break it down to the skin itself, I think has the magnitude of the
> continual
> > constitution of the skin as limit. That's as clear as I can make it
right
> > now, since I have to switch channels and say some twentity pages of
> > something interesting about Spinoza before Monday.
> >
> > And by the way, I am particularly ignorant of Lyotard before the PoMo
> > Condition and The Differend. Any ideas, send them on. I can read French
> for
> > the untranslated stuff. (Why is there so much?)
> >
> > Rod Taylor, Emory U. Searching for the end of undergraduate education.
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Mary Murphy and Eric Salstrand" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
> > To: <lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 8:51 PM
> > Subject: Re: Give me some milk or else go home
> >
> >
> > > Rob,
> > >
> > > There is a English translation of 'Sensus Communis' in "Judging
Lyotard"
> > > edited by Andrew Benjamin.
> > >
> > > By the way, I just wanted to say that, based on the short description
> you
> > > have given of yourself, I think we share a common interest in Lyotard.
I
> > > look forward to hearing more from you, and if you want to discuss
> anything
> > > related to your current writing project, I would enjoy discussing some
> of
> > > these topics with you here.
> > >
> > > eric
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
>
>
>


   

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