Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2002 16:00:29 +0100
From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk>
Subject: Re: x-files/polemic




Rod

An interesting note. It's mid afternoon on sunday and I've had a busy 
weekend in and around the stop-the-war-demonstration in London this 
weekend. Curiously it's worth noting that the 'media' with the exception 
of the BBC all misquoted the police as stating that 150,000 people 
attended, whereas the policae actually stated we stopped counting at 
150,000 people. It's a strange world when the police are more 
trustworthy than the media/press... The world of Bush and Berlesconi!

If possible I'll respond  tonight or failing that tomorrow at latest.

regards
steve


Thomas Taylor wrote:

>Please Steve, tell me more about M. Klein.
>
>I am interested in your post. I just finished a conversation with a collegue
>regarding the bringing  of theoretical positions to particular historical
>current moments (the only way that the so-called literary theory camp can
>transfigure its elaborate and high stakes politics into something practical,
>telling, and perhaps forceful).
>
>Your post opened the question: what is america actually? How does it
>constitute itself as a defense against certain, shall we say, primal fears?
>How do these "deep" fears become, in turn, frightening public policy? I am
>very ashamed to be labled as an american at the moment, given that the
>majority trend is to side with 19th century notions of colonialism and
>imperialism, but with more intensity given that the rhetoric used ( freedom
>v evil) is apocalypitic in high crusades-era style.
>
>The fear of contamination by alien forces, if not carnal in its initial
>expression, may be so in origin. Klaus Theweleit works out a theory of the
>masculine body in early 30's Germany. I will not elaborate on it too much,
>unless asked. In general, the thesis is: the constitution of the body occurs
>with respect to establishing a certain rigidity of boundaries. However,
>given any human body's capacity for sensation, the topos within which the
>body derives its source material, but also within which anything defining
>itself as an independent body is threatened (ie-- we compose our bodies
>through feeling, but in the course of feeling, our bodies are open to the
>world, not hard and fast, touched or penetrated)-- this situation gives rise
>to certain phobias which jump contexts from the personal to the political.
>That is, the drama of maintaining one's carnal sovereignty and the
>vulnerability one opens oneself up to in the process tend to become
>automatically extrapolated into political, social, and ethical arenas.
>
>We need supersoldiers because  our carnality excludes invulnerability. It is
>the case that so-called good citizens adopt the position of allowing the
>current administration free reign in order to not be considered soft. They
>do this in order to make our skin iron: so that america should become its
>own transcendental thing, its borders made of iron, much like we contstrue
>our own to be-- touch me not and do not tread on me. Not only the person,
>but a nation built of persons must attempt this invulnerability.  In so
>doing we become the constructed slave race, a slave unto ourselves.  The
>maintainance of privacy has been a constant american concern from the
>beginning. Perhaps it has a less-personal and more teleological-sick
>messianic end. That is, to put the world in the form of america.
>
>Furthermore, we can witness its defensive tactics playing themselves out
>both previously and currently. To maintain the hard iron skin of the
>american body, it has been seen as "necessary" on a number of occasions to
>go beyond the american skin (manifest destiny and colonial policy of the
>19th century). This spark of paranoid insight has once again been rekindled.
>I feel that our current war policy (and I say "our" even though it is not my
>own) reflects the former policies in which the american skin must be
>maintained at all costs, from both inside and outside-- what ever is more
>pragmatic.
>
>First, with a resistance against aliens. But secondly, with a premptive
>program against potential aliens (evidence of their guilt is no longer a
>concern-- only any slim possibility that they might become evil at some
>time, and therefore threaten the freedom of the organs of the american body:
>which is apparently the freedom to work ourselves to death and not ask
>questions). As an american citizen, i can say that the sentiment now is as
>such: dissent, or what I would call asking good political questions is not
>only an infraction against the social bond, an  unpopular postion, but more
>importantly has become to be seen as a mortal sin. With all the eternal
>qualities of sin, inviting a slight against god and the good in general. It
>is our duty, or so I have been told, to allow our politicians to do what
>must be done in order to protect ourselves from terrorism, and in a larger
>spectrum, evil (a word defined in the public sphere as anyone opposed to
>Bush policy).  But our most important duty as good (read: servile, robotic)
>citizens is precisely not to ask what should be done and what this phantom
>signifier, terrorism, is. Go on with you daily lives as you usually would,
>Bush says. Buy what you are told to buy, not only in the grocery store, but
>also when you watch the news.
>
>It is even more disturbing to me that the latter position, citizenship
>revised as quietism and eating whatever is made handy for hand and mouth,
>is advocated in just over half of americans poled. Do these people have any
>understanding of democracy? Politics only exists in dissensus. And there is
>little of that, even among my fellows who before 9/11 made a pretense to
>being "leftist".
>
>I must appologize for conflating several angles in one. I am preparing for a
>dissertation while wondering if I might be better off in some remote shack
>somewhere, the where and world that america quite ignorantly calls the
>third. If I have been polemical, it is because, as a provisional american, I
>have noticed that next to no one is interested in asking the pressing
>questions. Is "our" position ethically sound? Or does it base itself rather
>on the project of america becoming rome to the second power? My personal
>question (now seemingly incidental given recent political moves on the
>global chessboard) is of course about sources and orgins: is our
>relationship with our own bodies a factor in cementing the loathesome and
>sick lack of positive dissent which we see in american culture at the
>present? I was so immersed in it, my great question,  before things have
>become what they are now. My question now, though I have not put the latter
>to the side, would be like this: by what means can we put a stop to these
>ridiculous propositions of world policing put forth by american politicians?
>It involves the mingling of the rarified air of literary theory and
>concerted political effort. But I can't help thinking that most of my
>countrymen are more interested in the next television program. (The latter
>have become more spectacular as our political situation has become more
>dire).
>
>By my own assessment, activism has become useless in my country.
>Intellectual remarks as well. Standard political channels have been
>overtaken by CNN (for instance: no one, at least it is rare, reads the Bush
>policy statements, or congressional propositions, instead we get slices of
>rhetorical moments in the public appearances of politicians).  The condition
>is nauseating to me. Any active dissent becomes before the fact, not only
>un-american, but threatening to each and everyone's private and personal
>security (or so they say: I think that it is imperial politics, in all its
>valences, that jepordized my personal, and for that I forgive no one
>involved in the process, as far back as Andrew Jackson: america is old and
>sick, older than europe, a dream of conquest, economics and aesthetics
>without politics).  And by dissent I don't even mean anything as extreme as
>revolution, much less contesting the actual policies which are being devised
>(behind closed doors). Dissent as I see it means puting a policy to the
>test, asking of its future, its consequences, what it entails. This is not
>being done here. A democracy, which is a government based on dissent,
>entails at least that. But we are not  a democracy. Just a republic with
>alot money and influence like the romans. And much interal decadence: less
>responsibility to actual descions and more to ny own pocket.
>
>As such, being in such an impotent and frustrated position, I would urge any
>non-american to oppose the american position as it stands. Write your
>representitives. Raise hell. No matter what rhetoric we try to put over on
>my side, there are so few listeners (their ears have been stunted by red
>white and blue bumper stickers). But if there was a sound resistance in the
>European Union, a much contested organization I admit, and one which led to
>a total resistance the american practice of manifest destiny, then maybe
>some cards come into play.
>
>I began this response with the theory that I am so fascinated with, still
>am. But I have to end in despair. The deck is stacked over here. My
>neighbors treat me suspciously (this is true) because I refuse to fly a flag
>in my yard already, when my general sentiment is to burn it, as it is dead
>anyway, and in america, that is a flag's proper funeral. it should have been
>given years ago, as america, the idea, was decadent and misguided even
>before it began.
>
>Cheers, Rod T. (ready to immigrate if you've got options)
>
>(please pardon spelling errors, as I do not have a spell checker on this
>account and am a terrible speller).
>
>In any case,
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk>
>To: <lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>; "eric and mary salstrand"
><ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
>Sent: Friday, September 27, 2002 11:26 AM
>Subject: x-files
>
>
>>Eric
>>
>>Last night i watched the last episodes of the X-files tv series - linked
>>directly into the ideological heartland of  america - contemporary fears
>>and terrors drawn out on the countryside of an america that never
>>references the non-american unless, that is, it is a representation of
>>the Kleinian Schzoid/Paranoid position. Here then lies the terror of the
>>X place - Alien Invasions (with the inevitable collusion of the paranoid
>>state), secret governments,  the production of people as slave races,
>>the reproduction of  people as 'aliens', 'super soldiers' - all this is
>>rendered incoherent next to the deep suspicion of the state.  There is a
>>classic inversion in the dying moments of the series. Love, redemption
>>and the return of faith, the return to jesus. Faith closing the circle
>>and finally eradicating the last moments of rationality - as the aliens
>>are scheduled to invade on 22th December 2012. Within the X-files return
>>to faith and the shows commitment to weak knowledge the date is marked
>>as the apocalypse - Mulder lies on the bed with Scully fondling her
>>
>cross...
>
>>It was a universe structured around Melanie Klein's Schzoid/Paranoid
>>position.
>>
>>The sooner the aliens return the better.... but then we don't live in
>>this universe.
>>
>>regards
>>steve
>>
>>
>

HTML VERSION:

Please Steve, tell me more about M. Klein.

I am interested in your post. I just finished a conversation with a collegue
regarding the bringing  of theoretical positions to particular historical
current moments (the only way that the so-called literary theory camp can
transfigure its elaborate and high stakes politics into something practical,
telling, and perhaps forceful).

Your post opened the question: what is america actually? How does it
constitute itself as a defense against certain, shall we say, primal fears?
How do these "deep" fears become, in turn, frightening public policy? I am
very ashamed to be labled as an american at the moment, given that the
majority trend is to side with 19th century notions of colonialism and
imperialism, but with more intensity given that the rhetoric used ( freedom
v evil) is apocalypitic in high crusades-era style.

The fear of contamination by alien forces, if not carnal
 in its initial
expression, may be so in origin. Klaus Theweleit works out a theory of the
masculine body in early 30's Germany. I will not elaborate on it too much,
unless asked. In general, the thesis is: the constitution of the body occurs
with respect to establishing a certain rigidity of boundaries. However,
given any human body's capacity for sensation, the topos within which the
body derives its source material, but also within which anything defining
itself as an independent body is threatened (ie-- we compose our bodies
through feeling, but in the course of feeling, our bodies are open to the
world, not hard and fast, touched or penetrated)-- this situation gives rise
to certain phobias which jump contexts from the personal to the political.
That is, the drama of maintaining one's carnal sovereignty and the
vulnerability one opens oneself up to in the process tend to become
automatically extrapolated into political, social, and 
ethical arenas.

We need supersoldiers because  our carnality excludes invulnerability. It is
the case that so-called good citizens adopt the position of allowing the
current administration free reign in order to not be considered soft. They
do this in order to make our skin iron: so that america should become its
own transcendental thing, its borders made of iron, much like we contstrue
our own to be-- touch me not and do not tread on me. Not only the person,
but a nation built of persons must attempt this invulnerability.  In so
doing we become the constructed slave race, a slave unto ourselves.  The
maintainance of privacy has been a constant american concern from the
beginning. Perhaps it has a less-personal and more teleological-sick
messianic end. That is, to put the world in the form of america.

Furthermore, we can witness its defensive tactics playing themselves out
both previously and currently. To maintain the hard iron 
skin of the
american body, it has been seen as "necessary" on a number of occasions to
go beyond the american skin (manifest destiny and colonial policy of the
19th century). This spark of paranoid insight has once again been rekindled.
I feel that our current war policy (and I say "our" even though it is not my
own) reflects the former policies in which the american skin must be
maintained at all costs, from both inside and outside-- what ever is more
pragmatic.

First, with a resistance against aliens. But secondly, with a premptive
program against potential aliens (evidence of their guilt is no longer a
concern-- only any slim possibility that they might become evil at some
time, and therefore threaten the freedom of the organs of the american body:
which is apparently the freedom to work ourselves to death and not ask
questions). As an american citizen, i can say that the sentiment now is as
such: dissent, or what I would call 
asking good political questions is not
only an infraction against the social bond, an  unpopular postion, but more
importantly has become to be seen as a mortal sin. With all the eternal
qualities of sin, inviting a slight against god and the good in general. It
is our duty, or so I have been told, to allow our politicians to do what
must be done in order to protect ourselves from terrorism, and in a larger
spectrum, evil (a word defined in the public sphere as anyone opposed to
Bush policy).  But our most important duty as good (read: servile, robotic)
citizens is precisely not to ask what should be done and what this phantom
signifier, terrorism, is. Go on with you daily lives as you usually would,
Bush says. Buy what you are told to buy, not only in the grocery store, but
also when you watch the news.

It is even more disturbing to me that the latter position, citizenship
revised as quietism and eating whatever is made handy for ha
nd and mouth,
is advocated in just over half of americans poled. Do these people have any
understanding of democracy? Politics only exists in dissensus. And there is
little of that, even among my fellows who before 9/11 made a pretense to
being "leftist".

I must appologize for conflating several angles in one. I am preparing for a
dissertation while wondering if I might be better off in some remote shack
somewhere, the where and world that america quite ignorantly calls the
third. If I have been polemical, it is because, as a provisional american, I
have noticed that next to no one is interested in asking the pressing
questions. Is "our" position ethically sound? Or does it base itself rather
on the project of america becoming rome to the second power? My personal
question (now seemingly incidental given recent political moves on the
global chessboard) is of course about sources and orgins: is our
relationship with our own bodies 
a factor in cementing the loathesome and
sick lack of positive dissent which we see in american culture at the
present? I was so immersed in it, my great question,  before things have
become what they are now. My question now, though I have not put the latter
to the side, would be like this: by what means can we put a stop to these
ridiculous propositions of world policing put forth by american politicians?
It involves the mingling of the rarified air of literary theory and
concerted political effort. But I can't help thinking that most of my
countrymen are more interested in the next television program. (The latter
have become more spectacular as our political situation has become more
dire).

By my own assessment, activism has become useless in my country.
Intellectual remarks as well. Standard political channels have been
overtaken by CNN (for instance: no one, at least it is rare, reads the Bush
policy statements, or congressio
nal propositions, instead we get slices of
rhetorical moments in the public appearances of politicians).  The condition
is nauseating to me. Any active dissent becomes before the fact, not only
un-american, but threatening to each and everyone's private and personal
security (or so they say: I think that it is imperial politics, in all its
valences, that jepordized my personal, and for that I forgive no one
involved in the process, as far back as Andrew Jackson: america is old and
sick, older than europe, a dream of conquest, economics and aesthetics
without politics).  And by dissent I don't even mean anything as extreme as
revolution, much less contesting the actual policies which are being devised
(behind closed doors). Dissent as I see it means puting a policy to the
test, asking of its future, its consequences, what it entails. This is not
being done here. A democracy, which is a government based on dissent,
entails at least that. B
ut we are not  a democracy. Just a republic with
alot money and influence like the romans. And much interal decadence: less
responsibility to actual descions and more to ny own pocket.

As such, being in such an impotent and frustrated position, I would urge any
non-american to oppose the american position as it stands. Write your
representitives. Raise hell. No matter what rhetoric we try to put over on
my side, there are so few listeners (their ears have been stunted by red
white and blue bumper stickers). But if there was a sound resistance in the
European Union, a much contested organization I admit, and one which led to
a total resistance the american practice of manifest destiny, then maybe
some cards come into play.

I began this response with the theory that I am so fascinated with, still
am. But I have to end in despair. The deck is stacked over here. My
neighbors treat me suspciously (this is true) because I refuse to fly
 a flag
in my yard already, when my general sentiment is to burn it, as it is dead
anyway, and in america, that is a flag's proper funeral. it should have been
given years ago, as america, the idea, was decadent and misguided even
before it began.

Cheers, Rod T. (ready to immigrate if you've got options)

(please pardon spelling errors, as I do not have a spell checker on this
account and am a terrible speller).

In any case,
----- Original Message -----
From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk>
To: <lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>; "eric and mary salstrand"
<ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
Sent: Friday, September 27, 2002 11:26 AM
Subject: x-files



  

    
Eric

Last night i watched the last episodes of the X-files tv series - linked
directly into the ideological heartland of  america - contemporary fears
and terrors drawn out on the countryside of an america that never
references the non-american unless, that is, it is a representation of
the Kleinian Schzoid/Paranoid position. Here then lies the terror of the
X place - Alien Invasions (with the inevitable collusion of the paranoid
state), secret governments,  the production of people as slave races,
the reproduction of  people as 'aliens', 'super soldiers' - all this is
rendered incoherent next to the deep suspicion of the state.  There is a
classic inversion in the dying moments of the series. Love, redemption
and the return of faith, the return to jesus. Faith closing the circle
and finally eradicating the last moments of rationality - as the aliens
are scheduled to invade on 22th December 2012. Within the X-files 
return
to faith and the shows commitment to weak knowledge the date is marked
as the apocalypse - Mulder lies on the bed with Scully fondling her

    
    
cross...

    

      
It was a universe structured around Melanie Klein's Schzoid/Paranoid
position.

The sooner the aliens return the better.... but then we don't live in
this universe.

regards
steve