File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2002/lyotard.0206, message 90


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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