Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 16:42:51 +1100
From: hbone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: Re: The Matrix - Reloaded


This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--Boundary_(ID_lj13M6uk1PDdjnEf8h/sgg)


Eric wrote,

> Hugh,
>
> What I stated was a principle and not necessarily a program for specific
> actions. In the last 50 pages of Empire, however, N&H talk about a
> global income, elimination of borders and giving people access to
> computer technology. These furnish some examples of movements that would
> create a more autonomous society.

                          Objective    Issues   Action Plan           

Movement "A"           "              "              "
Movement  "B"          "              "              "
Movement "C"           "              "              "

Sorry, but I've forgotten the details. I remember Hardt on TV, saying he didn't know how to make a revolution.

> Do you really think that China, India and Africa are free of capitalism
> today as opposed to being merely underdeveloped?  Isn't this exactly one
> of the definitions of globalism - everyone today must dance for the
> benjamins.
> You really need to clarify your position here.

A couple of nights ago, Andy Grove, CEO of Intel, said China could pose a
threat to U.S. technological supremacy in 20 years.. He said they are
modernizing communications at a rapid rate, adding the equivalent of a
Verizon corporation each year.

He also said that 30 percent of Chinese students opt for math and hard
science courses compared to 5 percent in the U.S.

How could 40 percent of the world's population be "free" of capital? 
Without resources for food and shelter (capital) humans and other species
perish.

I go along with the idea of more autonomy for local groups that you
mentioned above.

Add:   Quality of life items, such as health, longevity, literacy,
education, workers rights, local worker ownership of resources they use, homes they live in.

Avoid:  extreme inequality, unemployment, large prison/parolee populations,
homelessness,  destruction of charitable health care by HMO's & malpractice
insurance, neglect and deterioration of public schools - buildings,
facilities and staff. Avoid decay of public roads and other infrastructure.
Avoid  pollution of air, land and water.

Avoid:   Overlapping layers of federal, state, county, city, township
governments, taxes, and bureaucracies. Many of the smallest of these jurisdictions were developed in an era of 19th century or earlier transport, and without telephones.  Do we really need 50 states?  About a dozen of those that have no coast line have less combined population than one large city.  How about 50 city-states with mayor-governors or governor-mayors

The global threat of capitalism from the U.S. is the threat of
Empire-building.  The real one, not the book.  What is captured by financial
activity of global corporations is protected by the most powerful military
the world has seen.

Russia has, for now, substituted capitalism for communism with disastrous
effects on quality of life.  A TV program said that fear of kidnapping
causes many of the very rich to send their children to Finland.

China and India have been civilized  for thousands of years.  U.S.
civilization, colonial  and afterward is only a few hundred years old.

China and India are likely to use global trade, as did Britain and Japan to
create prosperity and military power within their own boundaries.  They are
not likely to attack U.S, but must be prepared to defend themselves, hence
massive troops. missiles, nukes.

I can't imagine China and India permitting  hundreds of thousands of U.S.
troops on their own soil..

As for Africa, it will continue to be exploited, selectively by corrupting
the leaders, and
also by selling those countries armaments to kill each other   Generally
speaking, I don't think it offers the near-term money-making opportunities of an Iraq or
Iran.

regards,
Hugh

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Just as the Greeks and Romans had their myths, movies and television are
> ours.  You are right. Sex and violence are an old story. So is the need
> for myth. I would encourage to run out and rent the video/dvd of the
> matrix. Then you would know what we are talking about. Did you know it
> has become the most analyzed movie of all time. An ink blot that moves.
>
> eric
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> [mailto:owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu] On Behalf Of hbone
> Sent: Monday, June 02, 2003 7:15 AM
> To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Subject: Re: The Matrix - Reloaded
>
>
> Eric, Steve, All,
>
> I don't know how it happened, but apparently Norton Antivirus sent back
> your
> original message instead of the reply I was working on.  Sorry.
>
> Here's the message what I wrote:
>
> Marx and Foucault and Lyotard are all dead.  Some of their ideas apply
> in
> some degree to the world we live in.
>
> Wasn't it Lenin who said "What is to be done?"
>
> Can we translate the statement : "subvert the process of allopoietic
> complexication into that of autopoietic complexification"  into possible
> actions that would relate to living persons, actual countries, and the
> role
> of transnational corporations as well as the role of the politicians and
> military forces who do their bidding?
>
>  Do you really think China and India, and maybe Africa, are simply
> puppets
> of U.S. and European corporations and the politicians who benefit by
> enriching them?  And if so, how can we save a third of the world's
> population  from its  folly?.
>
> Aren't Matrix movies made to sell violence and fantasy as entertainment
> to
> young and ignorant moviegoers?   How does esoteric post-modern
> philosophy
> creep in?
> A new movie, but what's new about murder and sacrificial death and phony
> heroism.  Oldest story in the world?
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> > Hugh, Steve, All:
> >
> > Ever since I first read the Inhuman, I thought Lyotard's formulation
> of
> > complexification was a surprising, but fruitful turn. One of the
> > problems with Marx's analysis of capitalism in the popular mind is
> that
> > it appears to be limited to a kind of economic reductionism. One of
> the
> > problems with the popular journalistic interpretation of
> > complexification is that it appears to be limited to a kind of
> > naturalistic reductionism that tends towards the a-historical and
> > a-political.
> >
> > What Lyotard accomplishes by joining the terms capitalism and
> > complexification together is to state what in hindsight appears to be
> > rather obvious. Marx was really describing under the rubric of
> > capitalism a process of complexification which encompasses economics,
> > technology, information, militarization and ecological devastation
> into
> > a world system which acts according to its own dynamic and
> imperatives.
> > Undeveloped nations such as India and China do not exist outside of
> > capitalism. Rather they function as subordinate entities, subaltern
> > nations, which provide a source of cheap labor and the promise of
> future
> > markets, allowing development to continue. The nature of the system
> can
> > be defined as a plutocracy, but this is merely a tautology since
> > profitability and accumulation are the very drivers which allow
> > complexification to proliferate.
> >
> > In the sixties Foucault made the famous analogy about the concept of
> Man
> > being like a vanishing footprint made in the sand and Barthes talked
> > about the death of the author. It can be argued that the precise point
> > at which complexification converges with postmodernity is to be found
> in
> > this very transition from the human into the posthuman.
> >
> > Lyotard's famous definition of the postmodern as "incredulity towards
> > metanarratives" fits this equation perfectly once it is recognized
> that
> > by metanarratives, Lyotard didn't simply mean stories, but rather
> > stories of human emancipation and liberation.  Postmodernism coincides
> > with the moment when Man becomes obsolete and the posthuman arrives to
> > take his place.  The continued development of capitalism supercedes
> > human development. Man then becomes an also-ran.
> >
> > Certainly the manner in which Lyotard and others have argued for this
> > significant change takes place at a fairly high level of abstraction,
> > one that places it outside the orbit of ordinary social discourse.
> What
> > is not understood intellectually, however, is nonetheless felt at an
> > intuitive level and it is here that popular mythology steps in to fill
> > the void.
> >
> > The series of movies entitled the Matrix is just this kind of
> mythology.
> > It represents humans as literally a kind of coppertop battery who
> > function merely to keep the machines running for reasons that are
> vague
> > and ambiguous precisely because the humans are no longer in charge.
> Thus
> > the movies illustrate the very concepts of complexification and
> > posthumanism that Lyotard discusses, presenting a very melancholy
> > dystopian future in glossy cinematic Technicolor.
> >
> > What hope does exist in the Matrix is presented ideologically in
> almost
> > Gnostic terms.  Once the mind understands the illusory nature of the
> > Matrix, the fact that it is a simulacrum, it can practice a kind of
> > detournement upon the virtual commodifications that the spectacle
> > presents. This is coupled of course with Busby Berkley-Esther Williams
> > inspired karate choreography, a kind of lonely Ghost Dance at the
> edges
> > of the eschatolon.
> >
> > The problem with this, however, is that such a weak conception of the
> > political tends to obscure the only revolutionary practice which
> remains
> > viable today in contemporary terms, namely, to subvert the process of
> > allopoietic complexication into that of autopoietic complexification.
> >
> > eric
> >
> >
> >
>
>

--Boundary_(ID_lj13M6uk1PDdjnEf8h/sgg)

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