From: "Eric" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net> Subject: RE: Adieu's Beckett and all Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 22:40:01 -0600 Lydia wrote: PS: Since it's that time of the year, maybe we could come up with our own lists of "the greatest philosophical disappointment of the past year", the "best Lyotard neveu of the year", the "worst (Zizek's?) jokes", the "least feminist leftist thinker", or what have you. Lydia and all: First of all, thank you for writing the pieces on Beckett. He is one of my favorite writers and Badiou is quickly becoming one of my favorite philosophers, so I appreciate your comments ahead of the curve for when this book is finally published in a paperback English translation. Badiou's book on Paul was certainly one of the most stimulating books I read this year. (I was also lucky enough to have the chance to see a lot of Sondheim productions this year, including Sweeny Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Company, and Assassins. I truly love his musicals. I think Sondheim is a songwriting genius who manages to be tender, sad and ironic; sometimes in the same stanza. The revival of his musical 'Assassins' was a special inspiration to me. If you ever get the chance to see a performance of this, you should drop your philosophy books at once and just go. It is an amazingly dark musical with a lot to say about US culture.) Your question about philosophical disappointment stumped me at first. I can't really think of any particular books I've read this year that struck me this way. In a naïve way, however, I must say I was very disappointed in Matrix II and III. The first movie astonished me because it managed to deal with philosophical issues such as the brain in a vat problem in interesting and humorous ways, while remaining at the level of popular culture. At its best it was the cinematic equivalent of a book by Zizek. Its politics also were suggestive. Here at last was a movie that dared to confront the society of the spectacle. The sequels, however, descended to the level of the old biblical epics from the fifties and sixties. Instead of wry observations we were merely handed a cybernetic rehash of Demetrius and the Gladiators. The politics seem to suggest as much insight as the ugly retribalization of the Don't Blame America Firsters. A great disappointment! On a completely different note, I've noticed lately when I look into the philosophy section at a store like Borders, the books that are most prominently displayed are meaty tomes with titles like 'Seinfeld and Philosophy', 'The Simpsons and Philosophy', 'Buffy and Philosophy' and, of course, 'The Matrix and Philosophy'. I don't want to condemn these things out of hand, but I wonder has anyone here actually looked at these things and do they have any merit? I sometimes wonder in the still of the night if these books will not prove to be the best-selling philosophy books of 2003. That I suppose would be classified as a disappointment. On a more political level, 2003 will always be for me the year of lies and the war in Iraq. As a US citizen I am frightened that my country appears to have been taken over by a right-wing junta, as comical as Mussolini, who has lied to the American people over the reasons for going to war, over the economy and taxes, over the environment, over the loss of civil liberties and incarceration without legal rights, over unions and overtime, over health and education and over the role that God should play in our domestic sexual life. It is simply the worst I have seen in my lifetime (and I am old enough to remember Nixon) and it appears that they are getting away with it. A huge disappointment. I'll leave the bad Zizek jokes and chauvinistic leftists for others, but on the subject of Lyotard very briefly, let me just say that I became very interested in Machiavelli this summer; not just the sound-bite Machiavelli of the end that justifies the mean, but Machiavelli the rhetorician, the playwright, the lonely exile, the Machiavelli of Gramsci and Althusser, the Republican Machiavelli, the last great Renaissance thinker and the first modern, the man who foreshadowed Nietzsche in so many ways. I think there are certain affinities between Machiavelli and Lyotard, but I gone on long enough. That is a subject for another time perhaps. Happy New Year everyone! May 2004 prove to be the year the US gets out of Iraq and Bush gets out of the Whitehouse. eric http://flash.bushrecall.org/ --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.524 / Virus Database: 321 - Release Date: 10/6/2003
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