but. take a look at this.
the Two can take on three different guises:
1. There is a central antagonism, two subjectivities organised on a global scale in mortal combat. The century is the stage of this combat.
2. There is an equally violent antagonism between two ways of considering and thinking antagonism. This is the very essence of the confrontation between communism and fascism. For the communists, the planetary confrontation is in the last instance that of classes. For the radical fascisms it is that of nations and races. Here, the Two divides in two. We witness the entanglement of an antagonistic thesis, on the one hand, and of antagonistic theses on antagonism, on the other. This second division is essential, perhaps more than the first. All in all, there were more anti-fascists than communists, and it is characteristic that the second world war was fought in accordance with this derivative split, and not on the basis of a unified conception of antagonism, which only gave rise to a cold war, save on the periphery (Korean and Vietnam wars).
3. The century is summoned as the century of the production, through war, of a definitive unity. Antagonism is to be overcome by the victory of one camp over the other. Thus one can also say that, in this sense, the century of the Two is animated by the radical desire of the One. What names the articulation of antagonism with the violence of the One is victory, as attestation of the real.
Let us note that we are not dealing with a dialectical scheme. Nothing allows one to foresee a synthesis, an internal overcoming of contradiction. On the contrary, everything points to the suppression of one of the terms. The century is a figure of the non-dialectical juxtaposition of the Two and the One. The question here is to know what is the century's assessment of dialectical thought. In the victorious result, is the motor antagonism itself or the desire of the One? This is one of the main philosophical questions of Leninism. It revolves around what one must understand in dialectical thought by the unity of opposites. Without doubt, it is the question that Mao and the Chinese communists worked on most assiduously.
Around 1965 there begins in China what the local press, always inventive when it came to the designation of conflicts, calls a great class struggle in the field of philosophy. This struggle opposes, on the one side, those who think that the essence of dialectics is the synthesis of contradictory terms, and that it is given in the formula one divides into two, and, on the other side, those who think that the essence of dialectics is the synthesis of contradictory terms, and that the right formula is consequently two fuse into one. Apparent scholasticism, essential truth. For this is in fact a question of the identification of revolutionary subjectivity, of its constitutive desire. Is it the desire of division, of war, or is it instead the desire of fusion, of unity, of peace? In any case, in the China of the time those who hold to the maxim 'one divides into two' are declared leftists, and rightists those who advocate 'two fuse into one'. Why?
If the maxim of synthesis (two fuse into one) taken as a subjective formula, as desire of the One, is rightist, it is because in the eyes of the Chinese revolutionaries it is altogether premature. The subject of this maxim is yet to fully traverse the Two to the end, it does not yet know what an integrally victorious class war is. It follows that the One whose desire it harbours is not yet even thinkable, which means that under the cover of synthesis, this desire is calling for the old One. This interpretation of dialectics entails a restoration. In order to not be a conservative, in order to be a revolutionary activist in the present, one must instead desire division. The question of novelty immediately becomes that of the creative scission within the singularity of the situation.
http://www.lacan.com/divide.htm
read the entire article
discipline posted:
for a while now I've been reading up on israel's use of postmodern philosophy to exact their revenge on palestine and the world, but have recently dipped my toes into reading about hayek's organic ()holism and methodological individualism, that is, society as being reduced to a rhizomatic set of intentions between individuals. anyway I noticed it seemed sort of close to hardt and negri's approach to society (not to start on deleuze and guattari) and was sort of shocked and awed. I mean, wow! but I guess it's no surprise that the most destructive ideologies not only stem out of postmodernism but also from the hard work of self-professed "lefties"... and yet what is the ontological history of this thing!!!! I'm really lost.
and what does this mean for the left of today anyhow? I think this is why I left it. because the line is so thin and the concepts are rooted in the foundations of the enemy. it's no accident I suppose that I see islam's concept of Oneness (tawheed) is the perfect inverse to hardt and negri's multitude or hayek's society of individuals.
neoliberalism is the perfect hydra because it really is so rhizomatic in its approach, attack, constant reinvention and regeneration.
well, i think you're putting the cart before the horse here in several respects, and then proudly marching onward w/ knees fulla splinters. how painful!
you seem to be starting with a suppositionary bias of "zionist ideology = bad, therefore zionist influences = bad," which is not really sound you know. zionism existed long before our paranoid pairsum were born, and its likely that the 6 days war ended years before even a single word was written of anti-oedipus. its actually surprising to me that you present this bias from within the same paragraph that shows that you are at least congnizant of Negarestani, whose islamic perspective on D&G I would think you would at least be a bit sympathetic towards!
but now, "hayek's organic ()holism and methodological individualism, that is, society as being reduced to a rhizomatic set of intentions between individuals" is so wrong that I've struggled to find a place to begin with it. first of all, "rhizomatic set of intentions between individuals" is pretty much a 2-fold oxymoron as far as my understanding of what you mean. "rhizomatic" essentially describes that the form of a complex is irreducibly complex; so in this case, being able to reduce the elements of your view of a superstructure to individuals already proves via contradiction that your perspective on the matter is not rhizomatic. second, if anything, the structure of a rhizome would describe interactions, not intentions, as the latter already suggests that one operates without any conscious nor subconscious consideration of the other. and that, unfortunately, *is* in line, isomorphic even, with hayek's purist purrspective on individual interactions - the homo econimus.
and so I think this is why you've turned to using "rhizomatic" as a slur. "neoliberalism is just so, just so, just so rHIZzomatic..." and well, of course it is, just as it is the structure of any ideology. such it is as a property of human thought and communication. but why would you even want to discuss self-professed (as if you would accept any other kind of profession in this case?) """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""leftieism""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" if you've already concluded that the most destructive ideologies spring from it and that it is the foundations of your enemies?
yes, there are many"self-professed" leftieists who are selfish, decedent bougie fucks. i think that much of this may be attributed to a phenomena, wide-spread in the baby-boom generation and perhaps amplified further in our generation, of trying to "choose" an ideology (in itself born from individualism, as you correctly identify) that they think brings them closer to a purer sense of spirit. "yes, see, i'm a leftieist too, and all of history's past struggles against oppression have become my struggles too... so... peace and love to you and all that other good stuff..." it is fetishism of the soul, as if by possessing the light and holding it in within yourself, your pious constipation will ward away that darkness which you fear most (ruptured bowels? yeah I don't think I should continue going where I think I'm going with this one anymore either) and keep in mind that the quest for purity is not a phenomena we could soley attribute to the left, as it is just as present in the right in the form of rabid jingoism and FREEDOM / FOUNDING-FATHERS worship, and in other forms (scientism/posthumanism, post-ideologicalism, etc).
i think some commie once said that no man can escape the spirit of his age, after all. but does this pithy saying apply to girls with self-professed super tiny brains too??!??? i don't know.
the OP seems to me like a brain dump of things youre digesting. theres some questions in there but theres no foundation to them provided in the OP so it's impossible to really respond except to pull apart the tangled ideas you've presented
germanjoey posted:discipline posted:
for a while now I've been reading up on israel's use of postmodern philosophy to exact their revenge on palestine and the world, but have recently dipped my toes into reading about hayek's organic ()holism and methodological individualism, that is, society as being reduced to a rhizomatic set of intentions between individuals. anyway I noticed it seemed sort of close to hardt and negri's approach to society (not to start on deleuze and guattari) and was sort of shocked and awed. I mean, wow! but I guess it's no surprise that the most destructive ideologies not only stem out of postmodernism but also from the hard work of self-professed "lefties"... and yet what is the ontological history of this thing!!!! I'm really lost.
and what does this mean for the left of today anyhow? I think this is why I left it. because the line is so thin and the concepts are rooted in the foundations of the enemy. it's no accident I suppose that I see islam's concept of Oneness (tawheed) is the perfect inverse to hardt and negri's multitude or hayek's society of individuals.
neoliberalism is the perfect hydra because it really is so rhizomatic in its approach, attack, constant reinvention and regeneration.well, i think you're putting the cart before the horse here in several respects, and then proudly marching onward w/ knees fulla splinters. how painful!
you seem to be starting with a suppositionary bias of "zionist ideology = bad, therefore zionist influences = bad," which is not really sound you know. zionism existed long before our paranoid pairsum were born, and its likely that the 6 days war ended years before even a single word was written of anti-oedipus. its actually surprising to me that you present this bias from within the same paragraph that shows that you are at least congnizant of Negarestani, whose islamic perspective on D&G I would think you would at least be a bit sympathetic towards!
but now, "hayek's organic ()holism and methodological individualism, that is, society as being reduced to a rhizomatic set of intentions between individuals" is so wrong that I've struggled to find a place to begin with it. first of all, "rhizomatic set of intentions between individuals" is pretty much a 2-fold oxymoron as far as my understanding of what you mean. "rhizomatic" essentially describes that the form of a complex is irreducibly complex; so in this case, being able to reduce the elements of your view of a superstructure to individuals already proves via contradiction that your perspective on the matter is not rhizomatic. second, if anything, the structure of a rhizome would describe interactions, not intentions, as the latter already suggests that one operates without any conscious nor subconscious consideration of the other. and that, unfortunately, *is* in line, isomorphic even, with hayek's purist purrspective on individual interactions - the homo econimus.
and so I think this is why you've turned to using "rhizomatic" as a slur. "neoliberalism is just so, just so, just so rHIZzomatic..." and well, of course it is, just as it is the structure of any ideology. such it is as a property of human thought and communication. but why would you even want to discuss self-professed (as if you would accept any other kind of profession in this case?) """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""leftieism""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" if you've already concluded that the most destructive ideologies spring from it and that it is the foundations of your enemies?
yes, there are many"self-professed" leftieists who are selfish, decedent bougie fucks. i think that much of this may be attributed to a phenomena, wide-spread in the baby-boom generation and perhaps amplified further in our generation, of trying to "choose" an ideology (in itself born from individualism, as you correctly identify) that they think brings them closer to a purer sense of spirit. "yes, see, i'm a leftieist too, and all of history's past struggles against oppression have become my struggles too... so... peace and love to you and all that other good stuff..." it is fetishism of the soul, as if by possessing the light and holding it in within yourself, your pious constipation will ward away that darkness which you fear most (ruptured bowels? yeah I don't think I should continue going where I think I'm going with this one anymore either) and keep in mind that the quest for purity is not a phenomena we could soley attribute to the left, as it is just as present in the right in the form of rabid jingoism and FREEDOM / FOUNDING-FATHERS worship, and in other forms (scientism/posthumanism, post-ideologicalism, etc).
i think some commie once said that no man can escape the spirit of his age, after all. but does this pithy saying apply to girls with self-professed super tiny brains too??!??? i don't know.
thats what i meant to say
discipline posted:
did postmodern culture (pomo) spring out organically or was it propelled via economic motivations?
i don't really understand what you mean by contraposing 'organically' to 'propelled via economic motivations'. or is the question whether postmodernism was historically inevitable vs. contingent?
for example : an excerpt here from deleuze's 1983 paper 'the grandeur of yasser arafat' (what a fantastic title! )
The United States and Europe owed reparation to the Jews. And they made a people, about whom the least that could be said is that they had no hand in adn were singularly innocent of any holocaust and hadn't even heard of it, pay this reparation. It's there that the grotesque begins, as well as the violence. Zionism, then the state of Israel will demand that the Palestinians recognize its right(droit).(italics and French in the trans.) But the state of Israel will never stop denying the very fact of a Palestinian people. They will never speak of Palestinians but of the Arabs of Palestine, as if they found themselves there by chance or in error. And later, they will act as if the expelled Palestinians came from outside, they will speak of the first war of resitance that the Palestinians led all
alone. Since they haven't recognized Israel's right, they will be made into descendants of Hitler. But Israel reserves the right to deny their existence in fact. Here begins a fiction that had to stretch further and further, and to weigh on all those who defended the Palestinian cause. This fiction, this wager of Israel's, was to make all those who would contest the de facto conditions and actions of the Zionist state appear as anti-Semites. This operation finds its source in Israel's cold politics with respect to the Palestinians.
From the start, Israel has never concealed its goal:to empty the Palestinian territory. And better, to act as if the Palestinian territory were empty, always destined for the Zionists. It was clearly a matter of colonization, but not in the nine-teenth-century European sense: the local inhabitants would not be exploited, they would be made to leave. Those who remained would be made, not into a dependent territorial workforce, but rather into a mobile and deteched workforce, as if they were immigrants placed into a ghetto. From the start, lands bought on the condition that they be empty of occupants, or can be emptied. It's a genocide, but one in
which physical extermination remains subordinated to geographical evacuation:being only Arabs in general, the surviving Palestinians must go merge with other Arabs. Physical extermination , though it may or may not be entrusted to mercenaries, is most certainly present. But this isn't a genocide, they say, since it's not the "final goal"; in reality, it's just one means among others.
The complicity of the United States with Israel does not arise soley from the Zionist lobby. Elias Sanbar ( Revue D'Etudes palestiniennes) has shown clearly how the United States rediscovered in Israel an aspect of its own history:the extermination of the Indians which, there as well, was only in part physical. It was a matter of emptying, as if there had never been an Indian except in the ghettos which were made for them as immigrants from inside. In many respects, the Palestinians are the new Indians, the Indians of Israel. Marxist analysis reveals the two complementary movements of capitalism:constantly to impose limits, which it develops and exploits its own system; and always pushes these limits farther back, to exceed them in order to begin its own foundation once again on a larger and more intense scale. Pushing back limits was the act of American capitalism, the American dream, taken up by Israel and the dream of Greater Israel on Arab territory, on the backs of the Arabs.
How the Palestinian people learned to resist and are resisting; how a people of ancient lineage became an armed nation; how they gave themselves a body which simply represent them but embodied them, outside their territory and without a state:all these events demanded a greater historical character, one who, we might say from a Western point of view, could have stepped out of Shakespeare, and that was Arafat. It wasn't the first time in history that something like this had happened (the French can think of Free France,except for the fact that it had a smaller popular base at the beginning). And all the occasions on which a solution or element of solution was possible, occasions that the Israelis have deliberately , knowingly destroyed, are not happening for the first time in history either. The Israelis held onto their religious position of denying not only the Palestinian right but also the Palestinian fact. They cleansed themselves of their own terrorism by treating the Palestinians as terrorists from outside. And precisely because the Palestinians were not that, but rather were a specific people as different from other Arabs as Europeans can be among themselves, they could expect only ambiguous aid from the Arab states themselves, aid which sometime turned back into hostility and extermination when the Palestinian model became dangerous for them. The Palestinians have run through all the infernal cycles of history: the failure of solutions each they were possible, the worst reversals of alliance of which they bore they brunt, the most solemn promises not kept. And on all this their resistance had to nourish itself.
fun fact, none other than hugo chavez cited this essay in this letter to the united nations, supporting the recognition of the palestinian state
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/46705
gyrofry posted:discipline posted:
did postmodern culture (pomo) spring out organically or was it propelled via economic motivations?i don't really understand what you mean by contraposing 'organically' to 'propelled via economic motivations'. or is the question whether postmodernism was historically inevitable vs. contingent?
ya this
to you, what is the difference between organic ideological development and economically motivated development? without defining these terms you leave us with nothing but a conspiracy theory, hence gooey's response
discipline posted:
jeet crist joey I was just wanting to talk about the MATERIAL RISE OF POSTMODERNISM here!!! I wasn't laying any moral judgment on this kind of thing... and I'm sure we know how we all feel about liberals by now! I just wonder about the chicken and the egg, that is, did postmodern culture (pomo) spring out organically or was it propelled via economic motivations? I mean can we ever actually answer this question?? I'm a big dummy
well, I mean, sorry if you construed me as being a little harsh but it did seem like you were on the attack.
I don't doubt that you're seeing/feeling some kind of abstract connection, but I'm having trouble personally understanding what you're talking about. historically, post-modernism has its roots in the aftermath of the first world war... progenitors of the loins of heidegger, joyce, etc... it seems difficult to tie it to neoliberalism. but maybe you're thinking of a more modern form of postmodernism... NCF would be the guy to talk to here... guys along the lines of derrida and baudillard and lyotard and guys like that, where a historical connection could be made? but "economic motivations" makes it sound like you think these guys were taking bribes from big bankers to write a bunch of bullshit haha. I don't think you mean that... some sort of alienation, perhaps?
babyfinland posted:gyrofry posted:discipline posted:
did postmodern culture (pomo) spring out organically or was it propelled via economic motivations?i don't really understand what you mean by contraposing 'organically' to 'propelled via economic motivations'. or is the question whether postmodernism was historically inevitable vs. contingent?
ya this
to you, what is the difference between organic ideological development and economically motivated development? without defining these terms you leave us with nothing but a conspiracy theory, hence gooey's response
i think the words are wrong but there is an idea here...
germanjoey posted:discipline posted:
jeet crist joey I was just wanting to talk about the MATERIAL RISE OF POSTMODERNISM here!!! I wasn't laying any moral judgment on this kind of thing... and I'm sure we know how we all feel about liberals by now! I just wonder about the chicken and the egg, that is, did postmodern culture (pomo) spring out organically or was it propelled via economic motivations? I mean can we ever actually answer this question?? I'm a big dummywell, I mean, sorry if you construed me as being a little harsh but it did seem like you were on the attack.
I don't doubt that you're seeing/feeling some kind of abstract connection, but I'm having trouble personally understanding what you're talking about. historically, post-modernism has its roots in the aftermath of the first world war... progenitors of the loins of heidegger, joyce, etc... it seems difficult to tie it to neoliberalism. but maybe you're thinking of a more modern form of postmodernism... NCF would be the guy to talk to here... guys along the lines of derrida and baudillard and lyotard and guys like that, where a historical connection could be made? but "economic motivations" makes it sound like you think these guys were taking bribes from big bankers to write a bunch of bullshit haha. I don't think you mean that... some sort of alienation, perhaps?
reminds me of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_de_Man#Posthumous_controversy
Impper posted:
sorry too drunk to read this entire thread but doesnt postmodernism seem to be a very natural response to the conditions of the 20th century, rather than some economically motivated shit?
i'm still not grasping what the distinction is that you and khamsek both seem to be drawing between a "natural" response to the conditions of the 20th century and "economically motivated shit".
gyrofry posted:
Impper posted:
sorry too drunk to read this entire thread but doesnt postmodernism seem to be a very natural response to the conditions of the 20th century, rather than some economically motivated shit?
i'm still not grasping what the distinction is that you and khamsek both seem to be drawing between a "natural" response to the conditions of the 20th century and "economically motivated shit".
im not sure what the hell it's supposed to mean either, i was sort of responding to the idea that seemed to have been established that there was some "purposeful" rise of pomo
Impper posted:gyrofry posted:
Impper posted:
sorry too drunk to read this entire thread but doesnt postmodernism seem to be a very natural response to the conditions of the 20th century, rather than some economically motivated shit?
i'm still not grasping what the distinction is that you and khamsek both seem to be drawing between a "natural" response to the conditions of the 20th century and "economically motivated shit".im not sure what the hell it's supposed to mean either, i was sort of responding to the idea that seemed to have been established that there was some "purposeful" rise of pomo
hmmm, well, what if we split the genesis of postmodernism as a line of thought from what made it a widespread intellectual movement? in that case, it wouldn't be unprecedented; take the CIA's promotion of Abstract Expressionism around the very same time period we're talking about, for instance...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html
germanjoey posted:
Impper posted:
gyrofry posted:
Impper posted:
sorry too drunk to read this entire thread but doesnt postmodernism seem to be a very natural response to the conditions of the 20th century, rather than some economically motivated shit?
i'm still not grasping what the distinction is that you and khamsek both seem to be drawing between a "natural" response to the conditions of the 20th century and "economically motivated shit".
im not sure what the hell it's supposed to mean either, i was sort of responding to the idea that seemed to have been established that there was some "purposeful" rise of pomo
hmmm, well, what if we split the genesis of postmodernism as a line of thought from what made it a widespread intellectual movement? in that case, it wouldn't be unprecedented; take the CIA's promotion of Abstract Expressionism around the very same time period we're talking about, for instance...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html
hmMMm, yeah i can see how this would be a productive thing to try to promote. i guess what's funny though, or maybe what makes this perplexing, is somehow relating how pomo rose in europe as a response to cultural conditions, and then somehow got big in america - how did that happen? the cultural conditions weren't even close to the same; america has always specialized in cultural production, the very sort of things that wore so heavily and infected the continentals, perhaps pomo might have been nothing more than a susceptibility to american consumer culture, but that begs the question - what is the deal with american pomos? why are they so insufferable and boring (i know u disagree with me here joey)? how could they possibly have come about? it seems as if american pomos (myself possibly included) are responding to a simulation of cultural conditions, responding today to conditions and events of europe some decades ago, conditions which to an american are fully imagined, constructed, basically bullshit.
Impper posted:
and then somehow got big in america - how did that happen?
it didn't. what the fuck are you talking about.