From: "Eric" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net> Subject: modes of production and procedures of truth Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 08:44:37 -0600 Glen wrote: Is it even possible to talk about 'truth-value' anymore though Then Truth is still possible in some Real sense. However, if the actualisation of the virtual only ever produces a low-level simulacra (from Massumi on the molar aggregate of the 'person'): Glen, The past election in the US has left me stunned. While I recognize the manipulative propaganda machinery at work here and the convergence of hegemonic orders that made Bush's election appear as just common sense for many, it has also left me thinking in a somewhat old-fashioned way about truth and values. The common charge of the far right is that America has lost its moral center and that the left practices a nihilistic relativistic approach to morality. Certainly, some of the trends in academia seem to substantiate a kind of anything goes approach to these issues, a carnival of ironic frivolity, even as I recognize the rhetoric of the right against the university is both overwrought and overheated. What does seem ironic in the current situation is that the right, in the name of defending morals, is attacking the very foundations of those things that, arguably, have made the American experiment so successful. I'm referring, of course, to the great Enlightenment values of the Founding Fathers, which included limited government powers, a basic bill of rights, separation of church and state, science and rationality. I'm certainly aware that Americans have not always lived up to these ideals, but these ideals have always been present, and to a certain extent they have guided the nation. Now these values are under attack, not merely from the deconstructionists and poststructuralists, but from the far right as well. >From this perspective, I feel called upon to defend these values against the fundamentalists and extremists as well as the so-called pomos. I certainly don't want to lapse into a relativistic approach to 'truth-values' because the underlying logic of this argument implies that the 'gospel truth' of the fundamentalist is as good as any other; even if it now becomes the law of the land. I certainly find much of Badiou very problematic, but in critiquing Deleuze, he has raised, I think, the essential issue, this whole problematic of truth. Badiou argues truth procedures do exist; which are not to be identified merely with the virtual ontology of the situation, and that methods also exist to ascertain their relevance and validity. I agree with him that it is both possible and necessary to defend truth and ethics as a non-relative fidelity to this truth. I also think it is wrong to interpret the fundamentalists as post-modern in the way they approach truth values. I agree with you that fundamentalism is a reaction to modernity, but I would argue its approach to truth is ancient and classical. It is simply the old argument from authority that guided philosophy before the Renaissance (which then offered other authorities) and the rise of the scientific Enlightenment (which then championed empiricism and experimentation.) I believe as well it is counterproductive to conflate Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalism with US Christian fundamentalism, not because I think the one is less problematic than the other, but because I think they are structured differently and possess very different hegemonic orientations. Each needs to be examined as a specific phenomenon and not lumped together by a lazy generalizing sociology. As someone who is continually frustrated and fascinated with the works of Immanuel Kant, I would also argue we need to think more for ourselves and become both empirical and critical in our perspective as we struggle to reclaim the world from the extended-run spectacles of the panopticon, neo-liberalism, postmodern fables, Islamic jihad, and Christian rapture. Our struggle is against a set of values that entail the fear factor simultaneously as a reality television show, religious indoctrination concerning hell and a demonized other, and government policy. eric
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