File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2003/lyotard.0301, message 106


From: steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 16:13:12 -0000 (GMT)
Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?RE:_global_meta-narratives_no_local_narratives_yes...?=


Eric

I don't have time to reply to this at the moment - but just to clarify -
when I read the text referred to originally I was bemused by the thought
that 'capital' and its supporting ideologies do not constitute a
grand-narrative...

On a side note - on the growing strength of the left at moment - what war in
recent history as had demonstrations prior to it even beginning? (400K
people in October in London)

regards
steve
> Steve,
> 
> Maybe I just feeling perverse tonight, but reading your posting and
> thinking about the recent libertarian exchange, I'd like to offer these
> thoughts.
> 
> If you really think about a conservative libertarian like Hayek, I
> think you need to acknowledge something. Sure the man was an incredible
> political reactionary in many ways, but his economic thought was not
> entirely based upon make-believe. Otherwise, he wouldnt have created
> the influence he currently wields.
> 
> At the heart of his thought (and I am the first to admit I am no
> economist) is the notion that knowledge and decision-making in a market
> situation act as a kind of spontaneous order, like language, and one
> that no individual or group has sufficient knowledge of in a timely
> enough fashion to intervene efficiently in order to command the
> economy.
> 
> There is little question that the Soviet and Chinese economies were
> failures at this, and, although I agree there are many different ways
> to explain it, it is necessary to admit the left has lost credibility
> because of this and also because of the reign of terror that occurred
> under this regime. The left needs to find a way to argue more
> persuasively than it has about such matters in order to win back the
> trust of ordinary citizens who no longer believe it offers a meaningful
> alternative.
> 
> I believe that Hayek's idea of spontaneous orders finds some rapport
> with both N&H's idea of Empire and Lyotard's own notions of
> complexification and incredulity towards metanarratives.  In my own
> perverse reading of postmodernism, as I have previously stated, I see
> it as a sublime event in the Kantian sense where reason attempts to
> apply the concept (a metanarrative) to the growing complexification and
> fails; but thereby enthusiastically realizes with awe and respect a
> reality too complex for mere understanding.  At the heart of
> postmodernism is a new paralogical sense of the Real; a kind of
> metaphysical feeling of
>surprise at a world that has become infinite again and in which we are
>all participants. 
> 
> What I am arguing is that libertarians have been more realistic about
> the complex nature of global economies, but nave insofar as they
> believed this signified a triumph of freedom and democracy.  Instead,
> as we are currently witnessing, these spontaneous orders are just as
> dystopian as totalitarian command economies.  All along they were
> simply the road to serfdom by another means.  
> 
> The value of Lyotard is that he recognized both ends of this spectrum;
> the growth of complexification and development and the continuing need
> for justice in the face of this very complexification. In my reading,
> Lyotard is thus a kind of left libertarian and not the neo-conservative
> Habermas argues him to be at all. He is certainly not on the same side
> of the political fence as Hayek, but rather turns Hayek on his head,
> making a similar argument about capitalism that Hayek did about
>socialism.
> 
> I think at the theoretical level, complexity makes the kind of
> metanarratives the left favors harder to sustain - given the various
> orders of complexity - is history really just about creating global
> state socialism? (and in what form, does anyone honestly know?) Lyotard
> seems more honest about these matters to me. 
> 
> There is also the question of metanarratives at the practical level of
> strategy and tactics. Here it is necessary to ask - what is the
> metanarrative of resistance that can currently be sustained? I still
> can't see any unified international proletarian labor movement, rather
> a patchwork of resistances, operating complexly alongside multiple
> plateaus.  
> 
> I personally would like to see a greater unity and strength within
> these resistance movements, but I don't think postmodernism should be
> blamed simply because the critical watchman pointed out to us the
> complexity of what currently confronts us.  
> 
> This is what needs to be more deeply understood as nomads halt their
> transgressive caravans, pitch their tents, and wait for the encroaching
> night to fall.
> 
> eric 



   

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