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/
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005