From: dmwri1-AT-student.monash.edu.au
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 11:08:22 +1000
Subject: Re: Truth


 
> > I was playing with translation toys. What I'm interested in 
> gauging your response to is the complex of ideas around 
> Sartre's notion of  *engagement* (that's the French for the time 
> being)... [gilligan]
> 
> Funny you should mention that.  The Note I took this from is a 
> critique of Sartre. [Ken]
>
Thought so. It's funny that Sartre managed to be condescended to, 
patronised and belittled by both Heidegger and Adorno, who represent 
interesting poles in Sartre's own thought. Why is Adorno a pole in 
Sartre? Because he is a possibility for Marx-derived enlightenment.
 
> Commitment rests upon an absolute.  Critical thought rests on 
> the negation of what is not autonomous.  I am advocating 
> freedom over stance.  The law is commited.  And if we follow 
> Derrida, whose books sell for less than those of Adorno, one 
> might see that the law is a mystical force - a metaphysical 
> force - not too far from commitment.
>
And if we follow Derrida, that freedom might also be play. 
 
> "He who is not for me is against me" is a commitment, an 
> engagement.  All it leaves is an abstract authority of the 
> choice enjoined, without regard for the fact that the very 
> possibility of choice is dependent on what is to be chosen - 
> "The prescribed form of the alternatives through which Sartre 
> wants to prove that freedom can be lost negates freedom" 
> (Adorno, Notes to Literature, Vol. 2, 79).  The idea that one can 
> accept or reject torture, for instance, inwardly, as Herbert 
> Marcuse noted, is nonsense.  When commitment presents 
> decisions to be made and makes those decisions their 
> criteria, the choices become interchangeable...
>
Yes, it's a strong critique. But do you think Adorno has a better 
understanding of praxis, better than the practico-inert/engagement 
model? 
> Kenneth, the derriere-garde of the avant-garde.
> 
Does that make you a batty-man?

gilligan.