From: "Thomas Taylor" <taylorth-AT-bellsouth.net>
Subject: Re: (rougher thoughts for a tuesday night)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 11:27:29 -0500


Eric,

I think that you are on the mark here. Since I know precious little about
Badiou (the article I mentioned which instigated this discussion is a
pragmatic one) I would refer back to an earlier philosopher, quite
postmodern but before the inauguration of the word.

The Russian philosopher Berdyaev (sp?) proposed that in the earlier part of
the twentieth century the world was returning to a new Middle ages. At the
expense of truth, the new philosophies of pragmatism/utilitarianism on the
one hand were taking dominance. On the other, ideas of all truths being
taken as constructions issuing from ideology (Marxism).  As such , the world
will be left without a principle a will suffer for it greatly.

Although I cannot claim to have in depth knowledge of Berdyaev, his
principle of returning to the middle ages may be of some  service in
fleshing your repeated term "fundamentalism". Or unilateralism. Its
similarity to the middle ages comes in insofar as we begin to think america,
despite its power, as one of many competing unilateralisms who have become
bereft of a guiding principle. Without such a principle, principles are
invented for the sake of action. Think of all the complex theological
inventions of the middle ages which eventually led to multitude of bloody
wars around reformation time.  Each group, in the name of its invented
principle, went on to slaughter or be slaughtered by groups of the same
nature. (And it is at this point, when universals such as God become
principles for modification and manipulation, that the distinction between
the modern state as a purely practical entity and a theological one break
down). Principles are invented for the sake of their destructive valences on
the one hand (in silencing other such principles) and in giving a given
group (for our case a state) the illusion of a unity derived by means of a
fiction.

As Lyotard holds, then, there is a terror inscribed within the very process
of consensus itself. I think this terror (the constitutive terror and not
the consequential terror, which deserves attention in its own right) is not
so much in the destructive power of a unifying principle, but in the process
of its unifying function, its constitutive function, it denies the
possibility that it is both a) a fiction and b)a defense against an
underlying nihilism (there is no truth).

It is here that I depart from Berdyaev. I do not think that there is any
turning back: we must all recognize that we are bereft and will be bereft of
eternal principles that are really eternal and not fictional. But by bearing
witness to the great nothing that they would hope to smother, we become
radical pluralists. That is, we attempt to allow for the strange situation
that Lyotard terms (I think) a positive or productive dissensus. When
principles come into conflict, we allow their frictions to produce new games
that do not destroy the previous games but respect their incommensurability.

In practical politics concerns, my thoughts come into play like this. We
turn away from the tragedies of the blood, the Greek way of family, lineage,
revenge and abjection (fundamentalism), and we turn to the tragedy of
Checkov in which we somehow manage to get along without destroying one
another. This seems like a soft position, and it is. But remember that it
is, as yet, impossible among the bundle of fundamentalism guiding our
future. Our current task is to address in rhetorically violent manners the
bankruptcy in their own  discourses as a bankruptcy their own discourse
ignores.

Again, as usual, these are my final thoughts, but the struggling to come to
a position. I am always open to revision.

Rod T.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
To: <lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2002 9:34 PM
Subject: (rougher thoughts for a tuesday night)


> Steve,
>
> Central to what I am saying is the following thesis:
>
> America is in a state of crisis today and this crisis does not stem from
> 9/11 (that was merely a manifestation). Instead it is a crisis brought
> about by the development of globalism; or the emergence of Empire, to
> use N&H's terminology. This is what is currently causing the breakup of
> the liberal-democratic consensus.
>
> I read an article recently which pointed out the difference between
> causality and correlation with regard to education results. This
> principle can also be applied to America's recent history.  For a time
> in the nineties, after the Cold War ended, it seemed America had emerged
> as the victor and was the new heir apparent. The stage was being set for
> a new Pax Americana where the 'American model' would become the paradigm
> for all geopolitical transformation.
>
> In reality, it now seems clear what was really happening was America was
> merely being carried along in the new ascending wave of globalism and
> that it mistook its position of pre-eminence, based merely upon its
> status as the most developed nation, to be the very cause of the
> phenomenon of globalism that was then occurring. It was only being taken
> along for a short ride on a very fast wave. America mistook correlation
> for causation.
>
> During those heady days when the book "The Lexus and the Olive Tree"
> seemed to define the era, the rhetoric was that technology and globalism
> were defining a 'new economy' which needed to be free of the outmoded
> shackles of local government bureaucracy in order to bring prosperity to
> all.
>
> Then the dot.coms crashed, the Asian tiger economies continued to have
> problems, Seattle, Quebec, Genoa occurred, the European Union was
> strengthened, populist movements arose in South America, the Middle East
> became more hostile to the American presence, corporate scandals such as
> Enron, Arthur Andersen, and World.com emerged and suddenly it appeared
> to American's horror the genie was out of the bottle. Globalism was
> beginning to take a course that was indeterminate, unpredictable, and no
> longer obviously controlled by the American hegemony.
>
> I believe the current political division in the United States came about
> as a response to this crisis and find it interesting that the pundits
> are no longer talking about globalism the way they used to.  Instead,
> the rhetoric on the right has shifted to what is commonly referred as
> unilateralism; mistrust of the U.N., refusal to comply with the
> establishment of a world court, failure to sign the treaty on global
> warming, a trend towards breaking old alliances and treaties, and
> increased willingness to go it alone with episodes of military
> adventurism.
>
> The sharp turn to the right came about because the ruling corporate
> elite in America came to realize the continued development of globalism
> will not automatically privilege U.S. interests. That is also one of the
> reasons why I invoked Hayek, Rand, and Friedman in my previous posting.
> They have long been considered as the primary intellectual forces behind
> what used to be called neo-liberalism. Now that this ideology has
> exploded and become simply another god that failed, religious
> fundamentalism must intervene to achieve the lost consensus. America is
> retribalizing in the midst of the present crisis and all its totem gods
> appear again; blood thirsty, and demanding vengeance.
>
> This leads me to state the strategy I believe the Democratic Party and
> progressives should follow in order to become more successful.
> Obviously, the attempt to move back to the center again is now hopeless.
> That center has been burst asunder by recent events and there is no
> turning back the clock. It is also insufficient, however, to merely turn
> leftward since the lack of media control makes it difficult to get out
> the message in the midst of rigorous, well-funded campaigns of
> misinformation. Instead, what needs to take place is for progressives to
> become more global in order to resist market fundamentalism and to move
> the world closer to Empire.
>
> The tactics of this strategy cannot be laid out here, but, obviously,
> there are potential allies in Canada, Europe, South America, the Middle
> East, Africa, and Asia; in short, everywhere in the world. If
> progressives can make common cause with these elements then they will
> have found the political dynamite capable of bursting the present anemic
> moment asunder.
>
> The breakup of the liberal-democratic consensus means that it is no
> longer Democrat versus Republic, left versus right, liberal versus
> conservative.  Instead, it is a case of globalist versus unilateralist,
> Empire versus fundamentalist. Today we find; it takes a planet.
>
> eric
>
>
>