File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2004/lyotard.0412, message 9


Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 13:03:41 -0500
From: hugh bone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: New Ideas


Eric/All,

Any new ideas out there?

1) About Lyotard
2) About  Philosophy, Science, Politics, Aesthetics?

In the serveral months I was off line there were about 1500 messages, mostly 
from Lyotard List and about a dozen other lists.  Perphaps 500 or more 
messages ore are spam
spam.

Instead of the usual sort by date, a sort by subject in chronological order 
is interesting.

Thoughts about the regularities of physics vs. the irregularities of 
evolution came
to me lately, and there must be some literature on it.  I've been curious 
about DNA for a long time.  I read Dr. Watson's book when it was new.

regards,
Hugh
Hugh




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eric" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
To: <lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2004 11:02 AM
Subject: RE: sideways


> Steve,
>
> I agree with your comments about class.  I have been loosely attempting
> to address some of these issues from Paolo Virno's perspective in "A
> Grammar of the Multitude" and he also points out it is a serious mistake
> to think that the multitude somehow signals the end of the labor class.
>
>
> As he writes: "Since the labor class no longer assumes the mode of being
> the people, but, rather, that of the multitude, many things change, of
> course: the mentality, the forms of organization and of conflict.
> Everything becomes more complicated. How much easier it would be to say
> that there is a multitude now, that there is no labor class...But if we
> really want simplicity at all costs, all we have to do is drink a bottle
> of wine."
>
> What matters I think to this discussion is the transformation of labor
> brought about by changes in technology, especially in the areas of
> information processing and communications, which, while certainly not
> ending exploitation, appear to offer a very different basis for social
> relations, one that at the same time transcends the old hegemony of the
> State and the people.
>
> This, I think, is the crux of the matter. Echoing the Marx of
> Grundrisse, Virno speaks of the General Intellect, and argues that this
> has become the new universal. The old political will of the people,
> defined by both Hobbes and Rousseau is superceded, once the General
> Intellect comes into play. It is the locus of common places which comes
> to stand in for the homelessness experienced by the multitude. It
> becomes as well a non-governmental public sphere.
>
> The dangers of all of this, however, is that if the General Intellect
> does not inaugurate a public sphere, but remains privatized, the result
> becomes terror.  In my reading, this sounds quite a bit like the
> dystopian question Lyotard asked at the very end of "The Postmodern
> Condition" about "who will control the data banks?"
>
> Virno goes on to say: "Even for the new "multitude," it is not a
> question of "seizing power," of constructing a new State or a new
> monopoly of political decision making; rather, it has to do with
> defending plural experiences, form of non-representative democracy, of
> non-governmental usages and customs...the contemporary multitude is
> fundamentally based upon the presumption of a One which is more, not
> less, universal that the State: public intellect, language, "common
> place" (just think, if you will, about the World-wide Web..).
> Furthermore, the contemporary multitude carries with it the history of
> capitalism and is closely bound to the needs of the labor class."
>
> It is this potential, which I find exciting and hopeful about the
> multitude, even though it remains unclear how resistance and a politics
> can be made from an assemblage of forces that remains merely potential.
> That is why I personally feel the need to investigate the concept of
> multitude further, if only because it points so clearly to a possible
> disruption of the currently privatized public sphere, in which it
> sometimes seem the destiny of the entire planet is only to become a
> giant shopping mall.
>
> eric
>
>
>
>
>
> 


   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005