Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 09:41:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Santiago Colas <scolas-AT-umich.edu> Subject: Re: DROMOLOGY QUESTION I'm getting in on this discussion late, but have the benefit of Rahul's very sharply pointed question. I've not read the Virilio book in question but I was briefly interested in others guilty by their association with Semiotexte. Quite directly: the sentence you quoted makes no sense to me; indeed I have a hard time imagining that even a clarification or explanation of it would make me comfortable with its form of expression. But, and especially since I don't know the work in which it appears (and maybe you, Rahul, are), I wouldn't feel comfortable condemning the thought of this man, or even this book, in its entirety. Then again, maybe that's not what you're saying at all. But if this is just about this sentence fragment, I'm partly thinking "so what?" Who hasn't written a fucked up sentence at one time or another that they either thought was dynamite at first glance (and perhaps later regretted) or didn't even notice? One last proviso to my comments: as I missed the earlier discussion, I know it's possible this ground has been covered and if so I'm sorry to rehash it; but it does seem like the issue of the bankruptcy of certain form of contemporary so-called theory should rest on more than the patent absurdity of one sentence (fragment) of it. No? Santiago ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Santiago Colas e-mail: scolas-AT-umich.edu Asst. Professor phone: (313) 763-4352 Latin American and Comparative Literature fax: (313) 764-8163 University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1275 USA On Fri, 7 Jun 1996, Rahul Mahajan wrote: > Jon: > > >I read Virilio's _Speed and Politics_ a while ago, and found it > >interesting--though I wasn't over the moon about it. > > > >Lots of stuff, as I recall, about ships, navigation, trade, and the impact > >of the invention of latitude and longditude etc. on the conception of > >space. At least, that's also what Deleuze and Guattari pick up from that > >book. > > > >It's simply not trying to do the same thing as physics. > > Jon, the way you guys close ranks never ceases to amaze me. I don't care > that Virilio isn't trying to do physics (actually, I'm happy he's not). I > wouldn't even care if he was working on a massive monograph on religious > iconography among 14th-century Languedoc peasants and its significance to > modern international currency markets. The point is, why does this > egregious sentence fragment appear in his work: > > "the dromospheric space, space-speed, is physically described by what is > called the 'logistic equation,' the result of the product of the mass > displaced by the speed of its displacement, MxV." > > Somebody give me an alternative to egregious stupidity or charlatanry. If > he's talking about a completely different sphere, then why does he need to > throw in not only a reference to special relativity, which could not > possibly be of any relevance, but one that is completely nonsensical. Why > does everyone keep trying to slip this point? Is it true, as I've believed > for quite some time now, that even obvious, deliberate fraud is not > considered a serious matter in the modern academy? > > The unwillingness to condemn this kind of thing that many have shown makes > me question their own intellectual integrity. > > Rahul > > > > > --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- > --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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