File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2003/lyotard.0311, message 59


Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 06:52:04 -0500
From: hbone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: Re: what is philosophy and this list for ?



Steve/All,

I don't know who submitted the following item that I found in old notes from
Lyotard List, but they are part of what the list is "for".

regards,
Hugh

This view sounds more like Karl Popper in The Open Society and its Enemies
than anything espoused by Lyotard.  Lyotard, in my reading, is certainly no
fan of capitalism.  If he acknowledges that capitalism has triumphed, it is
not because it is a more open, benign or democratic system, but simply
because it is so ruthlessly efficient.  In a kind of Darwinian survival of
the fittest capitalism has supplanted fascism, communism and traditionalism
because its protean nature allows it to adapt unceasingly to ever changing
situations.

In short, capitalism is the totalitarianism that works.  To understand
Lyotard's relationship to capitalism, we need to appreciate his long
involvement with the Socialism ou Barbarie group.  As Lyotard points out in
A Memorial to Marxism, there was a schism in the movement in 1964 which
resulted from a "tendency" noted by Castoriadis concerning the changing role
of capitalism in the postwar era.  In a number of theses he argued that
workers and economic issues no longer appeared to have revolutionary force,
due to the ability of capitalism to absorb their demands into the status quo
and thereby dilute their radical force.

There no longer seemed to be an objectivity leading to the ruin of
capitalism as Marx had argued; the problem of the revolution instead became
one of critical subjectivity.  In the United States,
Herbert Marcuse made the closest parallel to this argument in his
book One Dimensional Man.  There, Marcuse described the alignment
of philosophy, politics and media under capitalism to create a
positivist culture capable of co-opting all desires into a banal
status quo.  What is surprising is that Lyotard initially opposed
this "tendency" despite his obvious sympathy for it.  He continued
for a time to advocate the more traditional role of the proletariat
espoused by Marx.

When he did break with Marxism, however, it was not because he had
become somehow reconciled to capitalism, it was simply that he no
longer could accept its utopian scheme.  Even under socialism,
there is something that oppresses, a voice that cannot speak.  The
differend still abides.  In the name of the differend, Lyotard renounced
Marxism.  He did not embrace Hayek, Friedman and Ayn Rand.  A discussion of
Lyotard's views on capitalism would have to consider the following texts at
a minimum.  The chapters The Desire Called Marx and Capital in Libidinal
Economy The essay - What is Postmodernism? A Memorial of Marxism in
Peregrinations The chapter The Sign of History in The Differend The chapter
Time Today in The Inhuman   My short definition of capitalism, as Lyotard
describes it in these writings, is that it
is not merely an economic and social phenonemon.  It is nothing
less than instrumental rationality applied to time; a diachronic
relationship that tends to subsume all things into its mode.

As such it is totalitarian in its nature, a regime of terror.  Lyotard also
describes it as a Monad, a quasi-organism whose nature it is to bring about
complexity and which has its own agenda, in relation to which humanity is
subservient, marginalized and perhaps even obsolete.  The political question
in the face of this is measured in the differend between our own inhuman
desires and those of capitalist reason.

As Lyotard himself says in The Postmodern Explained (p.73).  "My
irrationalism.  Imagine I've struggled in different ways against
capitalism's regime of pseudorationality and performativity.  I've
emphasized the importance of dissent in the process of constructing
knowledge, lying at the heart of the community of knowledge.
People who invoke "Reason" perpetuate the confusion."

Others have argued here that Wittgenstein and Austin have relevance to the
study of Lyotard.  I would agree (and perhaps add the name of
Cavell to this list.) However, the twist that Lyotard gives to
language games and speech acts is to politicize them and place them
under the rubric of capitalism.

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

Steve wrote:

> All
>
> what is this list for ? Ostensibly it is haunted by the work of Lyotard,
> for the discussion of the work of J-F Lyotard.
>
> However the scope  and discussion is imprecisely wider than that.  Where
> a scientist might argue that they dscuss and think about probabilities
> and scientific hard facts, with rational hypotheses but those who think
> about philosophy and culture are just 'dreaming about the structure of
> everything'.  However philosophy is endlessly critical, extraordinarily
> more cautious even than science. Doesn't philosophy ask the most basic
> low-level questions ?  After all where tecnologists/science may ask a
> question about 'A theory of everything?' or Max Diesal's build of a new
> combustion engine. The point of philosophy would be to ask 'What are the
> concepts that the scientist has presupposed, consciously or
> unconsciously in order to formulate this question, this answer?'
> Philosophy and cultural work is then, to engage in the questioning of
> concepts and those presuppositions that always already exist, with the
> usually hopeful result that it is possible to understand what is
> understood, to know what it is you are doing.... I think then that the
> perfect philosophers are probably Hegel and Kant for they both explore
> the presuppositions of existence.
>
> This is I suppose contrary to the Deluezian romance of philosophy being
> about the invention of concepts - being based, almost in fact a
> paraphrase of Zizak with a large element of Adorno. Where does Lyotard
> exist in this structure ?  - for me he personifies the questioning
> driftwork across this structure.
>
> I realise that thinking about philosophy and culture including obviously
> human/posthuman, science and technology in these ways is not necessarily
> what people have in mind... but then you can enunciate that for yourself.
>
> oh and i liked Carole's deleuze quote very much...
>
> regards
> steve
>
> carole lindholm wrote:
>
> >Paul,
> >
> >Yes.....but....
> >
> >
> >"The use of philosophy is to sadden. A philosophy that
> >saddens no one, that annoys no one, is not a philosopy."
> >- Gilles Deleuze
> >
> >
> >On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 21:25:14 -0500 (EST)
> > Paul Antschel <antschel-AT-m-net.arbornet.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Carole,
> >>
> >>Two quick things:
> >>
> >>One, as you're probably aware, there are no answers for
> >>the
> >>kind of questions you ask.
> >>
> >>Two, like me, I think you might have subscribed to the
> >>wrong list.
> >>
> >>regards,
> >>
> >>Paul
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >=> >Download ringtones, logos and picture messages at Ananzi Mobile Fun.
> >http://www.ananzi.co.za/cgi-bin/goto.pl?mobile
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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