File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2003/lyotard.0303, message 103


Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 19:18:00 -0600
Subject: Re: silence
From: Nathaniel Kuster <cperezh-AT-juno.com>


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Are the policies of preemptive strike and regime change available to the
governments of all nations?  Or is there a specific group of nations that
can adopt these policies?  These are questions the governments of the
United Kingdom, involved in Operation Telic, Australia, involved in
Operation Falconer, and the USA, involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom,
have not answered.  Or have they provided answers?

Another question might be:  What criteria must be met for a nation to
knowingly drop nuclear bombs on humans?  To my knowledge there is only
one nation that has done so.

Nathaniel

On Fri, 28 Mar 2003 18:50:50 -0500 Thomas Taylor <taylorth-AT-bellsouth.net>
writes:
Thanks for saying so Steve... Not only are the bombs still falling in
Afghanistan too, the road through Bagdad leads to Syria, to Korea. That's
when it gets really frightening. We might see really massive protests
until then unfortunately (at least I don't expect them here, where it is
still a living argument that what our government is doing might actually
be defensive in nature). I hope that we can de-elect this character in
the next term, but that is looking unlikely given that most prefer to
live with the lies forcefed to them as if they are ice cream.

RT
----- Original Message ----- 
From: steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk 
To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu 
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 4:36 PM
Subject: Re: silence


I read the below quickly - But  a few comments spring to mind - given
that you are attempting to argue ethically against colonialism - is this
possible ? I've always agreed with Sartre on this that dead colonialists
and supporters of colonial power is simply irrelevant - the wanton
exploitation and death of the colonised on the other hand is an ethical
monstrosity. Rather I suspect that arguments for colonialism (c.f. the
new american century being the latest example) does justify anti-colonial
ad anti-imperialist violence.  In post-modern capitalism, the argument
goes,  the State organises the exploitation of all living and non-living
social labour through new forms of control this means that the 'poor'
must be both violently excluded but also ultimately violently included.
It's clear, especially as liberal democracy exists in crisis around me as
a result of an imperialist  war nobody wanted (I write this from europe
where this is a true statement), that the coercive calculations carried
out by Blair/Bush and the whole sorry gang - represent an ethical
decision and position gone completely wrong - which could be understood
as "the renewed militarisation of america and the uk as a result of a
minor atrocity known as 911..."  

I cannot answer the question of what constitutes an argument against the
american system and state - looking at Mike Davis at the ICA last week it
occured to me that in some ways he was like a 19th C english marxist
arguing against british colonialism - consequently I've been wondering
whether it is the case that an american radical (and only those on the
left are radical in this world view, the right being simply reactionary
running dogs) exists in a world and with related views not dissimilar to
late 19th C anti-colonialists. From this position to be anti-imperialist
is to be anti-american an uncomfortable truth that is gradual being
realised... 

Floowing on from this then and reading the haunting reminders of Vietnam
in the below -  How many weeks of anti-colonialist resistence must the
Iraq war have  before the colonial flags wave and burn ? One has to be
brutually honest in these circumstance the death of a few volunteer
soldiers is irrelvent compared to the death of a child in the third world
who dies because the lack of antibiotics... Let the soldiers die.

When I watch the spectacle unfold on a day to day basis i am reminded of
debord - "for every imbecility presented by the spectacle, there are only
the media's professionals to give an answer, with a few respectful
comments...." and "... When the spectacle stops talking  about something
for three days it is as if it did not exist..." But the bombs still fall
in afghanistan.... 



yours
steve




Thomas Taylor wrote:

Maybe I won't talk about silence. And maybe I will address issues already
put forward on the listserve which I missed (I am trying to graduate,
while at the same time being automatically at the mercy of these dark
events).  

In any case, there is a certain automatic silence which United States'
citizens have inherited. The facts of the matter are: unlike our European
counterparts we do not have a memory of the war being here, outside our
doors, visible from our windows, violent to our mothers, fathers,
sisters, friends. A friend of mine, a French Algerian whose father died
in that war, tells me that it is this family memory of the impact of war
which drives Europe to think war as only the last reserve, and really the
last. 

I can safely say that in the early 90's I was angry, but now I am
hateful. I am hateful of the regime which runs my country and its
murderous actions. Sometimes self-murderous (thus a certain disgust
should be given to the elevation of "allied" deaths who have faces put
upon us in preponderance, unlike the others, the "enemy" who become
merely reported numbers, even in la liberation!). This situation makes me
hateful. I attend protests. I write to my congressmen. I firmly stake out
my position to my family and my friends. But, the big but, our military
is still there. Themselves being killed and killing. 

I suppose that what I am proposing might be too naive for this list.
There are various arguments, for and against the war (these couched in
their chosen ideology); there are various arguments for and against
american empire (a movement which I also oppose, but soften my opposition
here in order to make another point). Beyond placing our actions upon the
political map, or better, before we do so, before our positions become
philosophies, there is another properly ethical argument against this war
which in no way engages in the global chess game. It is prescriptive and
ugly, vulgar, unyielding. It appears naive. It is something that
pragmatists do not want to hear (or philosophers for that matter). This
war and the stupid trade history which made it possible (an extension of
American post-WWII war profiteering, really) are wrong. Life is the
question, or rather living. That is the final line. We can argue against
the war by virtue of the ample evidence of the US complicity with a
certain economic terrorism it devised in the 1910's and carried out to
form and enforce its global dominance throughout the cold war. We could
say this and the argument is solid, valid. But the left in the US will
never get anywhere arguing from this position (a position which I expect
is possible in Europe-- but only because families remember the weight of
bombs and, yes, let's say it, death and murder). 

My question, and my desparation, which once again has become a motivating
force for my own possible immigration from the United States, is: will
this group of idiots and demagogues who seem to be the polled ones who
comprise public opinion, when will these people realize that war is war,
an absolutely destructive exercise, and an absolutely egalitarian
exercise-- you are numbered regardless of your race, sex, or color? And
for the purposes of "securing a middle east peace"? I cannot give a
closing enthymeme. I am desparate and crushed. My voice has been actively
and consciously crushed by a collective effervescence into CNN or, what
is worse, Foxx News. It is like what N. Chomsky said of the Vietnam War:
the official positions are-- 1. it is wrong to attempt to liberate
vietnam; or 2. it is right to attempt liberate vietnam. The silenced
voice is quite other: it says there is no liberation happening only
death, murder. The naive ethical argument, my position, the absurdity of
killing, certainly a violation of family values, (a positon not phrased
as such in the american media, because of injected fear, fictions, as
Michael Moore was right to put it) my naive, my stupid argument-- I will
stick with it. There is a group in America which, with much dissent, has
been putting up billboards which say: "Support our Troops-- bring them
home NOW."  I would like to engage in a broader line into american
economic and literal terrorism, but I think the FACT to remember is that
people are dying. Families are being broken. Colateral damages are not
colateral. Dead Georgia soldiers are no less important  than the Syrians
who died on the bus. This is hell. And hell must stop, 'we', European,
American, whoever, must bear witness to the fact that hell is in fact
hell, and not just another instance reality televison programing. The
best and most viable argument against the war (which is also
unfortunately, the most naive) is the one that says: this war is wrong
because people are dying, their skins are being opened by bombs and
bullets, and that is no condition for, no way to resolve a conflict.
Unless we remember broken skin, unless we feel it, feel what a wound
means, any argument against the war, and against the american empire,
falls to null. Americans unfortunately seem to think that war will be now
and will continue to be a CNN event. Unfortunately for the so-called
anti-americans who do not support the war, our protests are equally
televised. Another event among others. How does one make a dent, short of
literal violence? 

RT
----- Original Message ----- 
From: steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk 
To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu 
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 7:07 AM
Subject: RE: silence


Eric/all

I suppose that given I am thinking of this in both the issues of - both
the 
examples where to be silent - is interpreted as being politically 
acquiesent and what is an adequate social and political response to this 
position, shades of the situationists hegalian/marxism I suspect. 

But I'm interested in whether the 20th C use of 'silence' in philosophy
in 
some sense functions contrary to the approach I've taken here.

regards
steve

> Steve/Don/All
>  
> I admit I havent been following this thread all that closely. 
> Somewhat like the Dixie Chicks, I spend my days lately ashamed to be an
> American because of what George W. Bush has done.  He is not my
> president and his war of aggression is not my war. It is mean, ugly,
> and stupid and I feel sympathy for all the soldiers and civilians who
> will suffer and die as the result of what others in high places far
> removed from the front direct others to do for their selfish and silent
> ends.  
>  
> And yet I am a US citizen so my own guilt cannot be completely escaped.
> Like it or not, I remain partially complicit with this war despite my
> protest and refusal.  It is my country who is the invader and like it
> or not I bear a measure of responsibility for these war crimes.
>  
> I am told 70% of American citizens polled currently support the
> president and this war. On the question of morality, the majority are
> strangely silent.  Hussein is Hitler and America is innocent or so we
> are told on the six oclock news amidst all the video game footage from
> the embedded journalists in bed with the military. There is no sense of
> a Jungian shadow or our own possible complicity with evil in the midst
> of all of this shock and awe.
>  
> This issue appears to impact on the question of silence.  You see, it
> isnt a question of merely voluntary acts  to choose to speak or to
> choose to remain silent.  Sometimes those who speak the loudest are
> simply attempting to cover up their own hidden guilt and dread. 
>  
> There is also the matter of the threshold, of articulating what has not
> been said before, wresting words from the silence.  Giving fresh voice
> to the emptiness, dread and sorrow or not giving voice because the old
> idle words stick in our throats and ring untrue. Mere clichs veil the
> truth.  Sometimes it is better when everyone is shouting out their own
> simplistic answers about why this war needs to occur to remain silent
> and questioning.
>  
> Lately, I have begun watching the PBS series on the American Civil War
> by Ken Burns. It seems appropriate right now in a time of war to
> reflect upon Americas own long history of violence as a nation.  I
> watched the episode tonight which talked about the Emancipation
> Proclamation.  One commentator of the period described how when some
> African-Americans heard the news they broke into song and it sounded
> like the choked voice of a race at long last unleashed.  
>  
> Something like this is the silence I am trying to invoke without
> putting it exactly into words. 
>  
> I think it also follows from what Lyotard says in section 14 of The
> Differend as well.
>  
> eric 
>  
> p.s.  another thing we have talked about before is the question of the
> victim.  What is so weird about all this is the US persists in the
> belief it is simply a victim even as it acts belligerently and those
> who would question this ludicrous notion of victimhood are told to keep
> silent because merely to suggest it is rather silly to consider America
> as a helpless victim when it is the richest and mightiest nation in the
> world is now deemed to somehow be an unpatriotic gesture.
>  
> No one else in the world really appreciates Americas kindness,
> goodness and generosity so now we have to kill you all to make you
> understand!
>  
> And they told us irony was dead.
>  




---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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HTML VERSION:

Are the policies of preemptive strike and regime change available to the governments of all nations?  Or is there a specific group of nations that can adopt these policies?  These are questions the governments of the United Kingdom, involved in Operation Telic, Australia, involved in Operation Falconer, and the USA, involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom, have not answered.  Or have they provided answers?
 
Another question might be:  What criteria must be met for a nation to knowingly drop nuclear bombs on humans?  To my knowledge there is only one nation that has done so.
 
Nathaniel
 
On Fri, 28 Mar 2003 18:50:50 -0500 Thomas Taylor <taylorth-AT-bellsouth.net> writes:
Thanks for saying so Steve... Not only are the bombs still falling in Afghanistan too, the road through Bagdad leads to Syria, to Korea. That's when it gets really frightening. We might see really massive protests until then unfortunately (at least I don't expect them here, where it is still a living argument that what our government is doing might actually be defensive in nature). I hope that we can de-elect this character in the next term, but that is looking unlikely given that most prefer to live with the lies forcefed to them as if they are ice cream.
 
RT
----- Original Message -----
From: steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk
To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 4:36 PM
Subject: Re: silence

I read the below quickly - But  a few comments spring to mind - given that you are attempting to argue ethically against colonialism - is this possible ? I've always agreed with Sartre on this that dead colonialists and supporters of colonial power is simply irrelevant - the wanton exploitation and death of the colonised on the other hand is an ethical monstrosity. Rather I suspect that arguments for colonialism (c.f. the new american century being the latest example) does justify anti-colonial ad anti-imperialist violence.  In post-modern capitalism, the argument goes,  the State organises the exploitation of all living and non-living social labour through new forms of control this means that the 'poor' must be both violently excluded but also ultimately violently included. It's clear, especially as liberal democracy exists in crisis around me as a result of an imperialist  war nobody wanted (I write this from europe where this is a true statement), that the coercive calculations carried out by Blair/Bush and the whole sorry gang - represent an ethical decision and position gone completely wrong - which could be understood as "the renewed militarisation of america and the uk as a result of a minor atrocity known as 911..."  

I cannot answer the question of what constitutes an argument against the american system and state - looking at Mike Davis at the ICA last week it occured to me that in some ways he was like a 19th C english marxist arguing against british colonialism - consequently I've been wondering whether it is the case that an american radical (and only those on the left are radical in this world view, the right being simply reactionary running dogs) exists in a world and with related views not dissimilar to late 19th C anti-colonialists. From this position to be anti-imperialist is to be anti-american an uncomfortable truth that is gradual being realised...

Floowing on from this then and reading the haunting reminders of Vietnam in the below -  How many weeks of anti-colonialist resistence must the Iraq war have  before the colonial flags wave and burn ? One has to be brutually honest in these circumstance the death of a few volunteer soldiers is irrelvent compared to the death of a child in the third world who dies because the lack of antibiotics... Let the soldiers die.

When I watch the spectacle unfold on a day to day basis i am reminded of debord - "for every imbecility presented by the spectacle, there are only the media's professionals to give an answer, with a few respectful comments...." and "... When the spectacle stops talking  about something for three days it is as if it did not exist..." But the bombs still fall in afghanistan....



yours
steve




Thomas Taylor wrote:
Maybe I won't talk about silence. And maybe I will address issues already put forward on the listserve which I missed (I am trying to graduate, while at the same time being automatically at the mercy of these dark events). 
 
In any case, there is a certain automatic silence which United States' citizens have inherited. The facts of the matter are: unlike our European counterparts we do not have a memory of the war being here, outside our doors, visible from our windows, violent to our mothers, fathers, sisters, friends. A friend of mine, a French Algerian whose father died in that war, tells me that it is this family memory of the impact of war which drives Europe to think war as only the last reserve, and really the last.
 
I can safely say that in the early 90's I was angry, but now I am hateful. I am hateful of the regime which runs my country and its murderous actions. Sometimes self-murderous (thus a certain disgust should be given to the elevation of "allied" deaths who have faces put upon us in preponderance, unlike the others, the "enemy" who become merely reported numbers, even in la liberation!). This situation makes me hateful. I attend protests. I write to my congressmen. I firmly stake out my position to my family and my friends. But, the big but, our military is still there. Themselves being killed and killing.
 
I suppose that what I am proposing might be too naive for this list. There are various arguments, for and against the war (these couched in their chosen ideology); there are various arguments for and against american empire (a movement which I also oppose, but soften my opposition here in order to make another point). Beyond placing our actions upon the political map, or better, before we do so, before our positions become philosophies, there is another properly ethical argument against this war which in no way engages in the global chess game. It is prescriptive and ugly, vulgar, unyielding. It appears naive. It is something that pragmatists do not want to hear (or philosophers for that matter). This war and the stupid trade history which made it possible (an extension of American post-WWII war profiteering, really) are wrong. Life is the question, or rather living. That is the final line. We can argue against the war by virtue of the ample evidence of the US complicity with a certain economic terrorism it devised in the 1910's and carried out to form and enforce its global dominance throughout the cold war. We could say this and the argument is solid, valid. But the left in the US will never get anywhere arguing from this position (a position which I expect is possible in Europe-- but only because families remember the weight of bombs and, yes, let's say it, death and murder).
 
My question, and my desparation, which once again has become a motivating force for my own possible immigration from the United States, is: will this group of idiots and demagogues who seem to be the polled ones who comprise public opinion, when will these people realize that war is war, an absolutely destructive exercise, and an absolutely egalitarian exercise-- you are numbered regardless of your race, sex, or color? And for the purposes of "securing a middle east peace"? I cannot give a closing enthymeme. I am desparate and crushed. My voice has been actively and consciously crushed by a collective effervescence into CNN or, what is worse, Foxx News. It is like what N. Chomsky said of the Vietnam War: the official positions are-- 1. it is wrong to attempt to liberate vietnam; or 2. it is right to attempt liberate vietnam. The silenced voice is quite other: it says there is no liberation happening only death, murder. The naive ethical argument, my position, the absurdity of killing, certainly a violation of family values, (a positon not phrased as such in the american media, because of injected fear, fictions, as Michael Moore was right to put it) my naive, my stupid argument-- I will stick with it. There is a group in America which, with much dissent, has been putting up billboards which say: "Support our Troops-- bring them home NOW."  I would like to engage in a broader line into american economic and literal terrorism, but I think the FACT to remember is that people are dying. Families are being broken. Colateral damages are not colateral. Dead Georgia soldiers are no less important  than the Syrians who died on the bus. This is hell. And hell must stop, 'we', European, American, whoever, must bear witness to the fact that hell is in fact hell, and not just another instance reality televison programing. The best and most viable argument against the war (which is also unfortunately, the most naive) is the one that says: this war is wrong because people are dying, their skins are being opened by bombs and bullets, and that is no condition for, no way to resolve a conflict. Unless we remember broken skin, unless we feel it, feel what a wound means, any argument against the war, and against the american empire, falls to null. Americans unfortunately seem to think that war will be now and will continue to be a CNN event. Unfortunately for the so-called anti-americans who do not support the war, our protests are equally televised. Another event among others. How does one make a dent, short of literal violence?
 
RT
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 7:07 AM
Subject: RE: silence

Eric/all

I suppose that given I am thinking of this in both the issues of - both the
examples where to be silent - is interpreted as being politically
acquiesent and what is an adequate social and political response to this
position, shades of the situationists hegalian/marxism I suspect.

But I'm interested in whether the 20th C use of 'silence' in philosophy in
some sense functions contrary to the approach I've taken here.

regards
steve

> Steve/Don/All

> I admit I havent been following this thread all that closely.
> Somewhat like the Dixie Chicks, I spend my days lately ashamed to be an
> American because of what George W. Bush has done.  He is not my
> president and his war of aggression is not my war. It is mean, ugly,
> and stupid and I feel sympathy for all the soldiers and civilians who
> will suffer and die as the result of what others in high places far
> removed from the front direct others to do for their selfish and silent
> ends. 

> And yet I am a US citizen so my own guilt cannot be completely escaped.
> Like it or not, I remain partially complicit with this war despite my
> protest and refusal.  It is my country who is the invader and like it
> or not I bear a measure of responsibility for these war crimes.

> I am told 70% of American citizens polled currently support the
> president and this war. On the question of morality, the majority are
> strangely silent.  Hussein is Hitler and America is innocent or so we
> are told on the six oclock news amidst all the video game footage from
> the embedded journalists in bed with the military. There is no sense of
> a Jungian shadow or our own possible complicity with evil in the midst
> of all of this shock and awe.

> This issue appears to impact on the question of silence.  You see, it
> isnt a question of merely voluntary acts  to choose to speak or to
> choose to remain silent.  Sometimes those who speak the loudest are
> simply attempting to cover up their own hidden guilt and dread.

> There is also the matter of the threshold, of articulating what has not
> been said before, wresting words from the silence.  Giving fresh voice
> to the emptiness, dread and sorrow or not giving voice because the old
> idle words stick in our throats and ring untrue. Mere clichs veil the
> truth.  Sometimes it is better when everyone is shouting out their own
> simplistic answers about why this war needs to occur to remain silent
> and questioning.

> Lately, I have begun watching the PBS series on the American Civil War
> by Ken Burns. It seems appropriate right now in a time of war to
> reflect upon Americas own long history of violence as a nation.  I
> watched the episode tonight which talked about the Emancipation
> Proclamation.  One commentator of the period described how when some
> African-Americans heard the news they broke into song and it sounded
> like the choked voice of a race at long last unleashed. 

> Something like this is the silence I am trying to invoke without
> putting it exactly into words.

> I think it also follows from what Lyotard says in section 14 of The
> Differend as well.

> eric

> p.s.  another thing we have talked about before is the question of the
> victim.  What is so weird about all this is the US persists in the
> belief it is simply a victim even as it acts belligerently and those
> who would question this ludicrous notion of victimhood are told to keep
> silent because merely to suggest it is rather silly to consider America
> as a helpless victim when it is the richest and mightiest nation in the
> world is now deemed to somehow be an unpatriotic gesture.

> No one else in the world really appreciates Americas kindness,
> goodness and generosity so now we have to kill you all to make you
> understand!

> And they told us irony was dead.




---
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Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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