Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 17:03:45 +0000
From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Dynamism




Good points

Just to be clear I was intent on the period 79-83

steve
Thomas Taylor wrote:

> Eric, Steve, Glen, Hugh, Lydia, and the phantom readers
>
>  
>
> Let's remember that this Lyotard fellow is dynamic. He constantly 
> revises himself. One of his ideas is that dogmatic marxism, and party 
> platforms in general have to go. But, and this is a big but, we are 
> lost unless we cling to the sprit which founded marxism.
>
>  
>
> And by the way, I'm not so sure that either theory advocating and 
> delineating the qualities of a universal subject or an outright 
> rejection of the latter will help to overthrow the Bush regime. Did 
> the people in Seattle say "hey wait, are we a universal subject or 
> not?" as a necessary precursor to the events? Well no.
>
>  
>
> To return for a moment to some of the critiques of Lyotard. They seem 
> to be coming mostly from Lyotard in his self-named "pagan" period 
> (that which follows the Libidinal Economy and ends in the Differend 
> where the positive and productive aspects of dissensus and paralogy 
> are coming into question). His last period, also self-proclaimed, he 
> calls the intractable. The writings of this period, pomo fables, 
> lectures d'enfance, misere de la philosophie, etc. In them, he holds 
> that there is something in us that will always resist both domination 
> and codification, like the gaze of Soutine's bellhop. These later 
> works bear more on maintaining faith in the face of despair. That is 
> an important point, being that most americas feel that their politics 
> are autonomous and beyond them. This is a faith we must have as a 
> first step to any practical resistance. It is almost Christic, save 
> that we don't even have the advantage of a god on our side as Christ 
> did. If more americans and others realized that "determination will 
> never exhaust birth" (Lyotard) america would have more voters and more 
> vocal resistance.
>
>  
>
> That said, I would like it if people specified in the future which 
> Lyotard they mean. He thought of his corpus as a plurality and I think 
> we should treat it as such.
>
>  
>
> As far as the debates on the list are going, they seem to come in the 
> form of quibbles within the left. My take on that is Deleuzean. There 
> is no need to come up with a final philosophy. Philosophy is a 
> toolbox. If this tool works, use it. If a tool with which we are much 
> accustomed does not work for this given situation, put it in reserve 
> for later. Neither a universal subject nor a de-centered subject can 
> be established finally. Use them when they work. I attend to agree 
> with Hardt. Some other form of organizing needs to commence if we are 
> to resist capital itself. Otherwise, there we go back to the state 
> again. Granted, capital has become post-statist (but under the rule of 
> american rome). As such it seems a double task is in order: to resist 
> both america as rome and global capital. But there have to be enough 
> of us with faith (the specific type of faith I mentioned earlier-- not 
> Christian but Christic) to get  this done.
>
>  
>
> Convoluted and half-thought as ever (forgive me), but enduring the 
> inquisition of grad school applications has taken its toll on the 
> clarity of my thinking. Really all I can think about is Robert Creeley 
> right now (my writing sample).
>
>  
>
> Cheers all...
>
>  
>
>  
>

HTML VERSION:

Eric, Steve, Glen, Hugh, Lydia, and the phantom readers

 

Let's remember that this Lyotard fellow is dynamic. He constantly revises himself. One of his ideas is that dogmatic marxism, and party platforms in general have to go. But, and this is a big but, we are lost unless we cling to the sprit which founded marxism.

 

And by the way, I'm not so sure that either theory advocating and delineating the qualities of a universal subject or an outright rejection of the latter will help to overthrow the Bush regime. Did the people in Seattle say "hey wait, are we a universal subject or not?" as a necessary precursor to the events? Well no.

 

To return for a moment to some of the critiques of Lyotard. They seem to be coming mostly from Lyotard in his self-named "pagan" period (that which follows the Libidinal Economy and ends in the Differend where the positive and productive aspects of dissensus and paralogy are coming into question). His last period, also self-proclaimed, he calls the intractable. The writings of this period, pomo fables, lectures d'enfance, misere de la philosophie, etc. In them, he holds that there is something in us that will always resist both domination and codification, like the gaze of Soutine's bellhop. These later works bear more on maintaining faith in the face of despair. That is an important point, being that most americas feel that their politics are autonomous and beyond them. This is a faith we must have as a first step to any practical resistance. It is almost Christic, save that we don't even have the advantage of a god on our side as Christ did. If more americans and others realized that "determination will never exhaust birth" (Lyotard) america would have more voters and more vocal resistance.

 

That said, I would like it if people specified in the future which Lyotard they mean. He thought of his corpus as a plurality and I think we should treat it as such.

 

As far as the debates on the list are going, they seem to come in the form of quibbles within the left. My take on that is Deleuzean. There is no need to come up with a final philosophy. Philosophy is a toolbox. If this tool works, use it. If a tool with which we are much accustomed does not work for this given situation, put it in reserve for later. Neither a universal subject nor a de-centered subject can be established finally. Use them when they work. I attend to agree with Hardt. Some other form of organizing needs to commence if we are to resist capital itself. Otherwise, there we go back to the state again. Granted, capital has become post-statist (but under the rule of american rome). As such it seems a double task is in order: to resist both america as rome and global capital. But there have to be enough of us with faith (the specific type of faith I mentioned earlier-- not Christian but Christic) to get  this done.

 

Convoluted and half-thought as ever (forgive me), but enduring the inquisition of grad school applications has taken its toll on the clarity of my thinking. Really all I can think about is Robert Creeley right now (my writing sample).

 

Cheers all...