File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2004/lyotard.0411, message 41


Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 21:17:11 +1100 (EST)
From: "Glen Fuller" <g.fuller-AT-uws.edu.au>
Subject: Re: modes of production and procedures of truth


Hi Eric,

> 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. 

I certainly agree about the slip-into-relativism problem and some 
postmodernist theories. I was not arguing that all truths are equally 
valid, but that all truths are absurd, some just more so than others. I 
think Deleuze comments about 'creating the right' (as in human rights, 
not right wing) are useful: http://www.generation-
online.org/p/fpdeleuze10.htm

"Creation, in law, is jurisprudence, and that's the only thing there 
is. So: fighting for jurisprudence. That's what being on the left is 
about. It's creating the right."

Arguably it is the exact same process for the Right as it is the Left 
(witness Camp X-Ray and the creation of non-prisoner prisoner rights)

> 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.

But all we have are absurdities (lets call them one of Badiou's 
three "evils" if you want), because what ever these politicians say 
they will not be able to stop much of the suffering in the world (or in 
their own countries) precipitated by poverty, poor health care, 
insufficient personal safety, etc., and nor will they have the gumption 
to stand up to the oil cartels and militant automobilists (especially 
in the US, which is eventually going to be an ecological catastrophe). 
Everything I saw and heard on television was absurd, utterly and 
totally absurd. Ralph Nader is made out to be an insane man, which may 
be accurate as he should realise his puppet movies are going to be no 
where as funny as 'Team America', but his perspective's arguments fell 
on deaf ears and his perspective is probably closest to everyone's on 
this list (?). 

Basically what I am arguing is that the possibility of the 'right' 
response is absurd. It does not exist. Ideals are great guides - the 
differentials of everyday life - but when you follow a differential 
curve, you end up heading off on a tangent. I think that is a problem, 
confusing ideals with truth. 

Ciao,
Glen.


-- 
PhD Candidate 
Centre for Cultural Research
University of Western Sydney

Read my rants: http://glenfuller.blogspot.com/


   

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