File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2003/lyotard.0306, message 31


From: "Eric" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
Subject: RE: The Matrix - Reloaded
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2003 23:11:21 -0500


This is a multi-part message in MIME format.


Steve,

Let me try to unpack briefly what I was trying to say in my posting on
the Matrix that related it to some of Lyotard=92s theories.  I recognize
the whole concept of postmodernism is a little passé these days.  Who
would now dare to call themselves postmodern? It=92s like so
pre-millennium.

Still though, as the Matrix shows, these ideas aren=92t really dead yet. 

My point was this. Despite the various changes in style, Lyotard=92s work
shows much more unity in its themes retrospectively then he is usually
given credit for.  If we read the Postmodern Condition in the light of
later books such as the Inhuman and Postmodern Fables, it would seem
that the Postmodern is not merely a temporal period for Lyotard, but a
kind of conceptual space brought about by the proliferating idea of
complexification and, with it, a bracketing of the concept of humanism
that once had strong currency under modernism. 

Certainly Lyotard is not alone in critiquing the concept of humanism.  I
have no desire to equate the philosophies of Badiou, Zizek and Foucault
with Lyotard, but I would certainly argue there is a negative agreement
among them in terms of this critique. Badiou says it far better than I
can. In the first chapter of his Ethics entitled =91Does Man Exist?=92 he
points out that Foucault, Althusser and Lacan all critiqued the concept
of Man and says: =93It followed that the humanism of human rights and
ethics in the abstract sense were merely imaginary constructions =96
ideologies =96 and that we should develop, rather=85 a =91theoretical
antihumanism.=92

Man is this sense is simply that old bogeyman; the white male
heterosexual European/American rational subject who has been critiqued a
thousand ways by poststructuralist, postcolonial, feminist thought.  No
real surprises here.

It is also of interest, however, that a similar theme with a slightly
different orientation has also been in vogue during the same period
within technological circles (principally biology and computers) and
science fiction which also have been contesting Man by proclaiming he
will become superceded by a silicon-based machine intelligence, a
merging of human and machine in the guise of the cyborg, or a
transformation of the human as the result of a singularity memorably
evoked by Olaf Stapleton in his novels and Arthur C. Clark in 2001 and
Childhood=92s End. 

I know in previous postings primarily directed against Sean and me, you
have been extremely critical of this notion of the cyborg, primarily for
what you see as its unrealistic utopian expectations.  What seems harder
to deny, however, is that in a certain sense this doesn=92t really matter
since these notions have already entered into imaginative collective
discourse and reshaped the shifting boundaries of what it already means
to be human.  As I see it, the very popularity of movies like the Matrix
make the strongest possible counter-argument to your whole critique.

For who is Neo if not a cyborg who straddles both the flesh meat world
and the virtual realm? Both human and avatar?

The latent fear the Matrix plays upon is that machines now rule the
world and there is no real place for humans except in a subservient role
as power serfs whose energy is required to keep the machine world
running.  How far is this from those critiques of globalism that argue
the system has its own agenda in terms of the flow of capital and free
markets to which human and ecological needs remain merely secondary?
How far is it from Lyotard=92s own arguments about complexification when
he says:

=93The pursuit of greater complexity asks not for the perfecting of the
Human, but its mutation or its defeat for the benefit of a better
performing system,  Humans are very mistaken in their presuming to be
the motors of development and in confusing development with the progress
of consciousness and civilization,  They are its products, vehicles, and
witnesses.  Even the criticisms they may make of development, its
inequality, its inconsistency, its fatality, its inhumanity, even these
criticisms are expressions of development and contribute to it.=94

Since you=92ve seen the Matrix-Reloaded twice, don=92t you agree the last
past of this statement chillingly mirrors exactly the theme that is
presented at the end of the sequel?

Welcome to the desert of the real=85.

eric

p.s. =96 in his ethics, Badiou distinguishes between what he calls the
Immortal and the animal.  Furthermore, he claims that one of the
conditions of an ethics of truth is that it must remain in a certain
sense unnameable. I think the burden is on you to show why this is so
different from Lyotard=92s conceptualization of the Inhuman, especially
when he quotes Adorno as saying: =93Art remains loyal to humankind
uniquely through its inhumanity in regard to it.=94



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Steve,

 

Let me try to unpack briefly what I was trying to say in my posting on the Matrix that related it to some of Lyotard’s theories.=A0 I recognize the whole concept of postmodernism is a little passé these days.=A0 Who would now dare to call themselves postmodern? It’s like so pre-millennium.

 

Still though, as the Matrix shows, these ideas aren’t really dead yet. =A0

 

My point was this. Despite the various changes in style, Lyotard’s work shows much more unity in its themes retrospectively then he is usually given credit for. =A0If we read the Postmodern Condition in the light of later books such as the Inhuman and Postmodern Fables, it would seem that the Postmodern is not merely a temporal period for Lyotard, but a kind of conceptual space brought about by the proliferating idea of complexification and, with it, a bracketing of the concept of humanism that once had strong currency under modernism.=A0

 

Certainly Lyotard is not alone in critiquing the concept of humanism.=A0 I have no desire to equate the philosophies of Badiou, Zizek and Foucault with Lyotard, but I would certainly argue there is a negative agreement among them in terms of this critique. Badiou says it far better than I can. In the first chapter of his Ethics entitled ‘Does Man Exist?’ he points out that Foucault, Althusser and Lacan all critiqued the concept of Man and says: “It followed that the humanism of human rights and ethics in the abstract sense were merely imaginary constructions – ideologies – and that we should develop, rather… a ‘theoretical antihumanism.’

 

Man is this sense is simply that old bogeyman; the white male heterosexual European/American rational subject who has been critiqued a thousand ways by poststructuralist, postcolonial, feminist thought. =A0No real surprises here.

 

It is also of interest, however, that a similar theme with a slightly different orientation has also been in vogue during the same period within technological circles (principally biology and computers) and science fiction which also have been contesting Man by proclaiming he will become superceded by a silicon-based machine intelligence, a merging of human and machine in the guise of the cyborg, or a transformation of the human as the result of a singularity memorably evoked by Olaf Stapleton in his novels and Arthur C. Clark in 2001 and Childhood’s End.=A0

 

I know in previous postings primarily directed against Sean and me, you have been extremely critical of this notion of the cyborg, primarily for what you see as its unrealistic utopian expectations.=A0 What seems harder to deny, however, is that in a certain sense this doesn’t really matter since these notions have already entered into imaginative collective discourse and reshaped the shifting boundaries of what it already means to be human.=A0 As I see it, the very popularity of movies like the Matrix make the strongest possible counter-argument to your whole critique.

 

For who is Neo if not a cyborg who straddles both the flesh meat world and the virtual realm? Both human and avatar?

 

The latent fear the Matrix plays upon is that machines now rule the world and there is no real place for humans except in a subservient role as power serfs whose energy is required to keep the machine world running. =A0How far is this from those critiques of globalism that argue the system has its own agenda in terms of the flow of capital and free markets to which human and ecological needs remain merely secondary?=A0 How far is it from Lyotard’s own arguments about complexification when he says:

 

“The pursuit of greater complexity asks not for the perfecting of the Human, but its mutation or its defeat for the benefit of a better performing system,=A0 Humans are very mistaken in their presuming to be the motors of development and in confusing development with the progress of consciousness and civilization,=A0 They are its products, vehicles, and witnesses.=A0 Even the criticisms they may make of development, its inequality, its inconsistency, its fatality, its inhumanity, even these criticisms are expressions of development and contribute to it.”

 

Since you’ve seen the Matrix-Reloaded twice, don’t you agree the last past of this statement chillingly mirrors exactly the theme that is presented at the end of the sequel?

 

Welcome to the desert of the real….

 

eric

 

p.s. – in his ethics, Badiou distinguishes between what he calls the Immortal and the animal.=A0 Furthermore, he claims that one of the conditions of an ethics of truth is that it must remain in a certain sense unnameable. I think the burden is on you to show why this is so different from Lyotard’s conceptualization of the Inhuman, especially when he quotes Adorno as saying: “Art remains loyal to humankind uniquely through its inhumanity in regard to it.”

 

 


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