File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2003/lyotard.0308, message 8


Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2003 11:14:03 -0400
From: hbone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: Re: powerlessness


Steve/All,

In the sense that each human being is constituted of  multiple "selves", I
can understand 'pessimism of the intellect" and "optimism of the will",
Hamlet's dilemna..

Foucault wrote of the "history of ideas", and his historical description of
power, in several books, could be called "beyond good and evil" in the sense
that those with sufficient power can ignore good and evil.

I don't know a Master/Slave model, and if there is an empire model in Hardt
Negri, I missed it when I read that huge book.  But, as you say, I don't
claim to be a European liberal.

Last night I saw part of a documentary filmed, in China, that shows
capitalism flourishing in a country , which does not seem to be an empire,
but may, in a few years,  prove to be the most powerful competitor of  the
U.S.

regards,
Hugh

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

> All

> I was interested in the interpretation that those writing on the list
> represent themselves as "powerless". I choose to understand this in the
> face of the discussions that we have had in relation to politics and
> current macro-political events.  Politics here is being used in the
> broad but hopefully precise sense  to refer to positioons taken up with
> respect to power relations that exist between people and that are
> embedded in the major structures of society. [This would normally be
> 'thought' in my everyday social and political activity (case) as also
> encompassing the relations between human persons and the non-human
> (persons and non-persons) ]  So the question might be rethought of in
> terms of the Brecht/Gramsci statement " ...Pessmisim of the intellect,
> optimisim of the will..." So does this phrase represent how you feel or
> is it the case that Shawver was right and that you feel powerless and
> suffer from pessimism of the will ?
>
> Recently power has been referred to in ways that suggest that the
> Foucauldian understanding of power as being beyond 'good and evil' is
> the accepted currency of the understanding of power. I do not think, any
> longer, that this is a necesscary improvement on the Master/Slave
> dialectical model, if it is not also in alignment with the biopolitical
> model and understanding that is part of the empire model.
>
> [I am especially interested in Hugh and Judy responding to this as I
> think of you as more 'liberal' than I am - but in the european sense of
> liberal not the american (which is why sometimes Hugh especially
> sometimes drives me nuts!!!) ]
>
> regards
> steve
>
>



   

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