From: "Eric" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
Subject: RE: Postmodern Religion
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 20:23:17 -0600


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Steve,
 
I know we have our differences over these issues and I certainly see
your point about Tony Blair. In affairs of state, as a rule, power
politics trumps ethical goodness almost every time.  The question
remains, however, whether there is still a space for ethics in this
fragile, broken world.
 
When T.S. Eliot received the drafts of Ezra Pound's so-called 'Inferno'
Cantos his chief criticism was that Pound had merely created a hell for
others. 
 
My guess would be, if you examined your own life, there has been a space
at times where you have considered questions of goodness and happiness.
Like Pound, it is easy to castigate the lack of ethics in others, but
the point remains that each one of us must live out our lives in between
the waiting for the glorious revolution, and therefore something like
ethics persists as a condition of our lives. I believe that if each one
of us examined his or her own life we will find a call of duty that
isn't merely a reflection of either God or society, but a quiet voice
that tells us what we must do to persist in becoming human. 
 
(I must go on. I can't go on. I will go on.)
 
You mentioned a recent posting, but for me, this thread goes all the way
back to the time when we first discussed Badiou's "Ethics". You
certainly had the jump on me then; and as I recall you strongly
championed Badiou.
 
In hindsight, however, your admiration of the book seems to have been
merely partial.  Although you endorsed Badiou's critiques of
multiculturalism, postmodernism, and Levinas, I recognize now that you
were always silent about Badiou's positive arguments for an ethics of
truth.  
 
In my recent postings, I acknowledge that I have been attempting to
develop the concept of ethics as it has been argued for by Badiou,
extended by Zizek, and supplemented by Lyotard's considerations of the
intractable and the 'enfans'. Despite their obvious difference, the link
I see between Badiou and Lyotard is that both their philosophies are
responses to the singularity of the Event and the need to bear witness
to this.
 
My sense is that not only do you disagree with my approach, but you also
find Badiou's own theory of ethics problematic as well. 
 
I agree with you that Zizek is a special case and the interpretation of
what we read is always difficult, but my questions for you are these. 
 
Do you think Badiou is wrong, not merely in this or that detail, but in
principle, in the presentation of his ethics of truth?  Are you
maintaining the stance that no ethics is valid - we only precariously
lead out our lives, as best we can, beyond good and evil, in the face of
power politics?  
 
My own answers to these questions would be that Badiou has something to
say, not only about postmodernism, but about ethics as well; and that
ethics remain necessary, not as a substitute for, but as a supplement
to, politics. I sense this may be the real difference between us.
 
eric 
 
 
  
 
 
 

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