File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2004/lyotard.0411, message 59


Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 09:25:26 +0000
From: "steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk>
Subject: Re: modes of production and procedures of truth


Glen

I was not arguing that the 'tool' should be abandoned - rather that to 
place it in a linguistic turn, so that 'discourse' has the central 
importance in the position you are constructing is what causes the 
problem  because you appear to have removed the materialist and 
universal themes from D&G's work, which is central to their work.  (You 
arer being rather gentle on Zizek's book which was dreadful. Though  
Zizek is not the high priest of obscurity - i think we can leave that 
claim to others...) 

Notwithstanding this you are right in identifying the differences 
between us where you state that the way to combat the 'universalism' of 
the neo-cons,  is to continue discarding intellectual and political 
territory to the reactionary discourses of the right. To combat it by 
avoiding the discusive arms-race and in the process having to discard 
the only arguments that are attempting to retake the high ground... In 
some sense the critique of Marxism that you mention in AO and Lyotard's 
interpretation of the text are precisely part of the retreat from the 
militancy of  68, whilst AO noticably misses the Stalinist target, 
Lyotard hits the target as he retreats to effectively support 
liberal-democracy. It took 20 years for a directly political usage of 
capitalism and schzophrenia to emerge, Guattari and Deleuze failing to 
construct a  leftist political line - which is seemingly impossible 
without establishing a reasonable relationship with Marx. It is no 
coincidence that in both the most challenging uses  of the 
capitalism&schzophrenia project Negri&Hardt and MacKenzie are in their 
different ways working to establish a post perspective (MarX on one side 
of the and and kant on the other rather than Deleuze being incapable of 
writing the book on Marx, obviously, obviously as was pointed out to me 
recently '..he could never write it he was so unsound on Hegel...').  So 
the difference here then is that I  refuse to leave the universal to the 
right, nor for that matter should we allow the local to disintergrate 
into being a discursive representation...

Yes I understood where you are getting that version of 'infinite' Badiou 
from, I'm drawing it from a different range of texts .

The monotheistic (Christian) dialectic is precisely to be both 
particularist in it's investment in the local community and excluding 
and also universalistic in it's indo-european godliness.  In this case 
we are not dealing with an assemblage of fragments - as D&G would have 
to agree given the use they make of  Dumezil and Simondan but rather 
something that requires 'history' and the trinary ideology of the 
indo-european as described in the ATP.

Have to go ---- I'm allergic to the word democracy as it's analytically 
clear that we will never get beyond 'actually existing democracy' whilst 
we continue to use it - I rather like Negri's post-marxist use of the 
word 'communism' but in truth I am using the phrases out of the more 
traditional Marxist lines of Badiou and Debord, simply because I 
distrust the prefix 'post' one always have to ask what is being left 
behind ? and I don't quite understand what Negri and Hardt are leaving 
behind in their post-modernism.  But it is of course the case that this 
line is connected and so 'democracy and the common' can be used in these 
terms.

late again...
best
steve

>Hmmm, some very brief questions as I need to get back to work (fuck, 
>always when it gets exciting!!). Your 'radical equality' does that mean 
>N&H's 'democracy'? And is the 'constitution of the proletariat' the 
>realisation of N&H's 'commoness'? Or a cross connection? I think you 
>are talking about what N&H call democracy and commoness in Multitude 
>but I am not sure??? 
>
>Ciao,
>Glen.
>
>
>  
>

   

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