Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 19:17:51 +0000
From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Beckett and Duchamp


Eric,

At the moment I am especially enjoying observing the development of a 
new generation of militants. It has been developing since the late 90s 
and has begun to collect itself around specific reactive issues. It is 
significant - that people do not become committed to social change 
through 'affirmation' but rather by responding, reacting against 
things.  Affirmation in the sense that Badiou means is is a middle-aged, 
old person's thing.... The sort of thing that we might talk about - for 
a new militant, say a student or someone working in there first or 
second job, the reality is that they go to their first meeting, a Mayday 
anti-globalisation demonstration,  an anti-war demonstration - as a 
reaction against the state, the state of things.  Negation is the key 
moment the desire to say No!  Affirmation seems to happen later - in the 
moments of quiet after the storm.  May68 produced a lot of affirmative 
statements and affirmative philosophy but refusal remains the most 
important thing of all. Of course I agree with the core of Badiou's 
statement - but I am not the problem, rather the 20 year olds who went 
to the meeting on Wednesday last week discussing what to do next are the 
problem, for there is no possibility that Badiou or I can supply them 
with an affirmative universalizing notion. (For that is what Badiou 
wants to do)... But then we are both some kind of Marxists so that we 
tend to have some kind of universalist values, even if they have been 
unfashionable over the past two and half decades during the 
counter-reformation.

However I think that we may be thinking of  'micropolitics' from very 
different understandings - for myself I would and do support a 'leftist 
micropolitics'  just as I would and have supported for example animal, 
gay and feminist micropolitical positions - but  one must always 
remember at least the title of Guattari's apocryphal piece of writing 
"The micro-politics of fascism"(from 1973).

What is micropolitics then ?

regards
steve

Eric wrote:

>Steve,
>
>I differ from you in not regarding micropolitics as a strategy pecular
>to a certain time and place, but rather as a way of regarding the
>politics inherent to a specific situation, regardless of whether or not
>formal democratic and parliamentarian procedures may apply.
>
>The following quotes from the Badiou interview for which Glen gave us
>links actually do a pretty good job of clarifying this concept of
>micropolitics and how it might also apply to Beckett during the French
>resistance as well.
>--------------------
>
>Politics is not the management of the power of the State. Politics is
>first the invention and the exercise of an absolutely new and concrete
>reality. Politics is the creation of thought
>
>To say that liberal capitalism is Evil would not change anything. I
>would still be subordinating politics to humanistic and Christian
>morality: I would say: "Let's fight against Evil." But I've had enough
>of "fighting against," of "deconstructing," of "surpassing," of "putting
>an end to," etc. My philosophy desires affirmation. I want to fight for;
>I want to know what I have for the Good and to put it to work. I refuse
>to be content with the "least evil." It is very fashionable right now to
>be modest, not to think big. Grandeur is considered a metaphysical evil.
>Me, I am for grandeur, I am for heroism. I am for the affirmation of the
>thought and the deed.
>
>For example, if, during the occupation of France by the Nazis, I join
>the Resistance, I become a subject of History in the making. From the
>inside of this subjectivization, I can tell what is Evil (to betray my
>comrades, to collaborate with the Nazis, etc.). I can also decide what
>is Good outside of the habitual norms.
>
>eric 
>
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