Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 17:31:59 +0000
From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk>
Subject: Re: solar anus


Eric,
In my lifetime we have managed to advance to the point of recognising 
that humans are not unique in having 'language' and 'tool use'. Until 
recently this was denied by science, philosophy and all other aspects of 
human culture, and so below your suggestion that 'culture' and  
'cultural history' are now the points of uniqueness and superiority that 
need to be looked at with the same levels of suspicion.  

Where Lyotard discusses the entrance into culture - if you ignore the 
line about 'cats' in 'The Inhuman' it is reasonably clear that the 
discussion works as well for the great apes and domestic cats as it does 
for humans. The wound is in no way necessarily human, the human speaking 
subject - the split subject  is divided between unconscious and 
conscious motivations, that is of course between physiological processes 
and social constraints. If I state that the subject George - is also 
constituted as a split subject  and is divided between unconscious and 
conscious motivations, that is of course between physiological processes 
and social constraints. To address the kernal of your claims for 
difference between the human subject and the cat subject we have to 
address the few short years of 'human domination'. A dominance achieved 
since the neolithic revolution(10,000BC), or perhaps more accurately 
since the enlightenment/industrial revolution(1780AD). The idea that 
'dominance' can be argued for before these key dates cannot be made. 
 The primary difference may simply be is that the normal western human 
is a subject existing within a specific information/industrial 
heterotopian society and the non-human subject, perhaps a wasp or a 
dolphin may be peripheral to the mega-machine.

Notwithstanding these caveats - you are correct I am not questioning 
Lyotard or Zizek's premise if they are restricted solely to the human 
and are not attempting to justify the case with references to the 
non-human. However you are incorrect in your proposal that understanding 
our uniqueness will enable us to avoid lapsing into an acceptence of our 
'ontological superiority' - it is through understanding our 
non-uniqueness that we will avoid this trap. It is because of this that 
Lyoptard and Zizek's  masked  humanism needs surfacing. (This is not to 
say that it is in some sense a right-wing enlightenment humanism) No it 
is a humanism in the sense that they are comparing the human with the 
non-human, and using this to invent an unnecessarily distinctive human 
species.

No the crows are not creating 'weapons of mass...'  that meaningless 
phrase seems to require the perculiar madness of human culture.

Rereading this, and I am uncharectistically trying to 'write this' more 
as a letter than a conservational email note, it occurs to me that 
whilst it may appear that I am being contrary - in the sense that where 
you say "..you aren't really questioning the basic argument Lyotard and 
Zizek are making. You just don't want to limit it to humans...."  this 
is correct and where I above say that 'comparing the human to the 
non-human'  what I am trying to establish, which is probably to strong a 
word,  is that there is an unconscious acceptance of the superiority of 
the human over the non-human and that further we need to accept that the 
issue of our unconcious and concious 'ontological superiority' is 
extraordinarily inportant - to use my favorite example an ethics has to 
begin from the equivilance of the human and non-human. (at least now 
that we are causing the 6th extinction event).

Recent evolutionary convergence theory proposes that intelligence may be 
the inevitable result of evolution. Just don't imagine that it is human.

regards
steve

Eric wrote:

>Steve,
>
>I have to disagree with your critique of Zizek's humanism.  Even though
>I agree with you "that the evidence is mounting regarding tool use, and
>language use in other animals" I don't think this addresses the real
>issue.
>
>What separates the human from the animal are not these aspects taken in
>isolation, but their mediation through the entire time-binding aspects
>of a cultural history.  This becomes the primary accumulation which
>allows development and complexification to occur among humans according
>to the cybernetic principle of positive feedback operating as a kind of
>runaway mechanism.
>
>It isn't really necessary to enter into another animal's consciousness.
>In sheer behavioral terms, it's obvious no other animal has the scope
>for creating such transformations of their environment, as we do, during
>the current epoch.  
>
>What Lyotard pointed out in a number of essays is the extent to which it
>is this very entrance into culture, this process of 'humanization' that
>is traumatic, inscribing us with a wound that can never be healed. It is
>this very split subject of human/inhuman, enfans/developing organism
>which marks us as different from all the other animals. 
>
>I don't say this to argue for the ontological superiority of the human
>or to claim certain rights for our species, but simply to assert this is
>our basic situation.  Unless we can understand our uniqueness, we really
>will lapse into a "low-level/psychoanalytical 'humanism'" instead. (And
>isn't it this very idealized conception of humanity that Lyotard, Zizek,
>and others are attempting to refute?)
>
>In my reading of your post, you aren't really questioning the basic
>argument Lyotard and Zizek are making. You just don't want to limit it
>to humans. That is fine, but it isn't sufficient merely to speculate
>about the consciousness of other animals. You need to show evidence that
>other animals are acting as agents of complexification in the same way
>humans are. 
>
>Are the crows in your yard actually creating 'weapons of mass
>destruction'?
>
>eric
>
>
>  
>