From: "Eric" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net> Subject: RE: 44 and 38 Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2002 09:07:27 -0500 Steve/All So Kafka and Lyotard are species-ist, anthrocentric, human-glorifying PIGS? Somehow, Steve, I think you misunderstood me. From the standpoint of deep ecology there is certainly nothing 'special' about humanity unless, as you suggest, it is in our ability to FOUL THE NEST of the planet with a scope that exceeds that of any other species. MAN, THE BIGGEST BRUTE OF ALL! I think the word 'victim' makes you see red like a 'BULL.' Are you disagreeing with Lyotard because "The Differend" is a book of the wrong genre; i.e. a philosophy of politics rather than an explicit polemical politically ANIMATED work. It is interesting that even though you disagree with Lyotard about the political issues he leaves unstated, you still seem to be operating within the context of the differend he outlines. Take the word 'humanism' itself. In a number of places in the first chapter, Lyotard argues that this can be conceived either as a cognitive phrase or an Ideal, in the Kantian sense, and as an Ideal, the rights of man (or the rights of animals) are conceived in such a fashion that the situation becomes a BREEDING GROUND for differends because a Ideal as such can neither be affirmed or denied on empirical grounds. You seem to be critiquing one Ideal of humanity and replacing it with another, but seem to still be operating on the same TERRAIN. I agree with you that humans are not ontologically privileged in the sense of being a special creation (like ADAM & EVE!). However, in the COGNITIVE sense what makes us human does appear to be, roughly, such things as language and the time-binding properties of culture. (Dolphins may have a language as well, but, alas, it still remains inscrutable.) Even as this posting shows, we use language metaphorically to define our relationships through discourse and animality-humanity remains a charged site, even, perhaps, what Lyotard will later name a pagus. We ourselves remain a differend to ourselves because in us it is usually the case that the human speaks and the animal remains silent. Victor and victim wage war within the same flesh and we are their BASTARD offspring. The child is father to the man. Don't you find it at least curious that we pass LEGISLATION safeguarding ANIMALS and frame this in terms of RIGHTS? But this has nothing to do with what Lyotard is talking about, I suppose. eric
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