Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 21:51:49 +0000
From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.com>
Subject: [Fwd: re:  Ethics as a figure of nihalism]




Hugh

I arrived in the USA at  3PM on a Monday afternoon. That night I sat and 
drank a beer, around six PM, watching TV whilst waiting to go out for a 
light evening meal. (I was in Falls Church Virginia) In a 30 Minute 
period I counted 14 references to community. About 8 to neighbourhood. 
About 50% of the references were in adverts.

Where is the 'operative community' here ? The community on display and 
discussed here on the media is simply a specular community and that the 
community definition that you are using is defined by the effects on the 
imaginary of this appalling definition of community. The specular 
'community' is simply beyond my, and the average Europeans understanding 
of what a community is, or can ever be.  The American lived experence of 
what constitutes a community is inoperative. The question the Americans 
on this list need to address is the following - Is it possible for an 
American human subject to seperate their local community from the 
specular community?

Regarding evolution - the general feeling is that the form of 
 community, that it evolved because of its giving human beings an 
advantage. This does not contradict post-modern understandings of 
community....

regards

steve

hbone wrote:

> Steve,
>
>  
>
> As is often the case, words and definitions are the problem.  All the 
> communities of post-modernists, deconstructionists etc.etc.have not 
> yet reversed my conviction that
>
> self-interest is the engine of survival, the motor of evolution, the 
> reason for Being as in being human.  The basis of values, as in 
> working towards future goals, and ethics, the rules for protecting 
> inter-personal relationships.
>
>  
>
> Apparently there is, for the purposes of some philosophers, a 
> definition of a type of self-interest that renders communities 
> inoperative.  I expect it is impossible to quarrel with a 
> philosopher's innermost beliefs because of the inadequacy of 
> language, all the languages of the senses and the arts, not just words.
>
>  
>
> To know another's consciouness you would have to be that person.
>
>  
>
> These words on this screen - best explanation I can offer.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Hugh
>
>  
>
>     Hugh
>
>     Yes all communities are declared as inoperative. At best they are
>     lost or broken - sometimes 'people imagine' that the first
>     christian communities, communes, the peoples of the Kulu chain in
>     some sense had a 'community' that was not inoperative - but
>     community is declared as being the model of families and love and
>     responsibility - the harsh reality is that families and love need
>     to be understood though the violence, aggression and death that
>     communities and families inflict upon  themselves ...the harsh
>     reality of modern life... (The notion of inoperative is understood
>     from Nancy and Agamben)
>
>     Singer's ethics works around quite simple premises but draws the
>     necessary conclusions from them - (some misquotes from Singer).
>     1.    Pain is bad and similar amounts of pain are equally bad, no
>     matter whose pain it might be....
>     2.    Humans are not the only beings to capable of suffereing pain
>     3.   When we consider taking life , we should look not at race,
>     sex or species but at the characteristics of the individual being
>     killed, for example at its own desires to live... or the life it
>     is capable of leading.
>     4.    We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what
>     we could have prevented. We may not kill or deliberately harm a
>     stranger but we know that our intervention could save the lives of
>     people in a distent country and we do nothing.
>
>     from these quotes which are declared as simple claims and not as
>     'truths',  it is easy to see that all human societies have always
>     attempted to put their local self-interest  first, as such are
>     they not inoperative?
>
>     regards
>     steve
>
>
>     hbone wrote:
>
>>     Steve/All,
>>
>>      
>>
>>     Did Lyotard or any of the others you name say "all communities
>>     are inoperative"?
>>
>>      
>>
>>     regards,
>>
>>      
>>
>>     Hugh
>>
>>      
>>
>>     ````````````````````````````````
>>
>>          
>>
>>         Steve wrote,
>>
>>          
>>
>>
>>         Hugh
>>
>>         I am interested in the Lyotard paragraph because it is a nice
>>         summation of precisely the point of struggle I have around
>>         this issue. It is not clear that the ethical positions
>>         referred to. which I understand as referring to Lyotard,
>>         Levinas and so on - are relevant to the notion of significant
>>         others. This is because all communities are inoperative - it
>>         is not clear how ethics can help inform us how to get beyond
>>         our subordination to social and political divisions and
>>         techno-scienctific domination.
>>
>>         (Most of the time I'd probably say that the utilitarian
>>         ethics of peter singer are more usefully political than
>>         Levinas...)
>>
>>         Ethics as used in political and religious circles - are of
>>         course used simply to justify positions...
>>
>>         regards
>>
>>         steve
>>
>>         hbone wrote:
>>
>>>          
>>>
>>>              
>>>
>>>             All,
>>>
>>>              
>>>
>>>             Up to this point I've been unable to find anything of
>>>             interest in this discussion, 
>>>
>>>             have nothing to offer, yet wonder why.
>>>
>>>              
>>>
>>>             Ethics as national policy seems an oxymoron. 
>>>             Sacrificial death is not merely  the motif of suicide
>>>             bombers, and the origin of Christianity, it is central
>>>             to the concept of nation-statehood.
>>>
>>>              
>>>
>>>             When Lyotard and others speak of justice and the social
>>>             bond, they presuppose a continuity of personal
>>>             relationships and institutional support for those
>>>             relationships
>>>
>>>             as they affect significant others, parents and children,
>>>             extended families, tribes, communities.  Ethics are
>>>             relevant.
>>>
>>>              
>>>
>>>             The concept of the nation-state presupposes personal
>>>             relationships are subordinate to the nations's
>>>             interests.  Citizens are, from time to time,obliged to
>>>             fight and die for the state to preserve its interests.  
>>>
>>>              
>>>
>>>             A state's relation to other states is founded on
>>>             interests, not ethics.  Fidelity and loyalty between
>>>             states does appear, for a time, so long as mutual
>>>             interests are served. 
>>>
>>>              
>>>
>>>             regards,
>>>
>>>             Hugh
>>>
>>>              
>>>
>>>             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>             like the work of Negri and Hardt, Badiou's work is a
>>>             return to a more Hegelian line of descent, rather than
>>>             the Kantian turn favored by Lyotard. The inherent
>>>             materialism and the rejection of any transcendent
>>>             'beyond' are both implicit and sometimes explicit in the
>>>             text. Ignoring the new philosophers (which is a
>>>             pleasure) - the concept of difference is in various
>>>             forms is found throughout the work of Deleuze, Derrida,
>>>             Foucault and Lyotard is arguably founded on
>>>             distinguishing their thought from Hegelian conceptions
>>>             of difference. I am thinking especially of Derrida and
>>>             Deleuze here - (read through Gillian Rose ) - but it
>>>             also works in relation to Lyotard for  the
>>>             non-humanistic, initially anti-humanism  conception of
>>>             difference avoids contradiction and suggests that
>>>             contradiction is infinitely less important than
>>>             'difference'. But without contradiction how can the
>>>             marxist critique of capital be derived? Badiou's
>>>             relationship to 'difference' and the rejection of
>>>             Kantian approaches,  perhaps even the refusal of the
>>>             sublime begins from the materialist/marxist need for
>>>             contradiction which is used in Hegal to 'resolve it, to
>>>             interiorize it'... difference that is.
>>>
>>>             I touch on this (badly) to stress that Badiou's
>>>             anti-humanism, has the same origins as the previous
>>>             generation of radical French thinkers, but that the
>>>             divergence between the positions is in the relations to
>>>             the material...
>>>
>>>             The proposal of ethics as a nihalism is also a rejection
>>>             of the neitschean-marxism that was a feature of 1970s
>>>             radical thought in france...
>>>
>>>             regards
>>>
>>>             steve
>>>
>>>             Shawn P. Wilbur wrote:
>>>
>>>>I can see how this sort of "ethics" might be at work in someone like
>>>>Ferry, but there seems to be very little here that resembles Lyotard's
>>>>thought - and nothing that has much in common with the approach to ethics
>>>>of folks like Derrida. 
>>>>
>>>>-shawn
>>>>
>>>>Shawn P. Wilbur       
>>>>www.wcnet.org/~swilbur <http://www.wcnet.org/%7Eswilbur>  | lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons
>>>>www.wcnet.org/~paupers <http://www.wcnet.org/%7Epaupers>  | alwato.iuma.com         
>>>>
>>>>On Wed, 7 Nov 2001, Mary Murphy&Salstrand wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>This chapter begins with the statement that "ethics designates above
>>>>>all, the incapacity, so typical of the contemporary world, to name and
>>>>>strive for a Good...resignation in the face of necessity together with a
>>>>>purely negative, if not destructive, will.  It is this combination that
>>>>>should be designated as nihilism."
>>>>>
>>>>>What Badiou considers as the realm of necessity is one that is
>>>>>synonymous with ethics as the figure of the logic of Capital.  The role
>>>>>ethics plays is to organize subjectivity and public opinion to ratify
>>>>>what seems necessary.  Since this economic realm is sacrosanct, the
>>>>>roles of ethics becomes restricted to a secondary position.  
>>>>>
>>>>>The important issues are predetermined and remain unexamined by ethics.
>>>>>All its judgements of value remain within the context of economics, the
>>>>>necessary. What must be done is no longer a matter of principle, but
>>>>>merely a matter of practicality - what is eff
>>>>>
>>>>>ecti
>>>>>ve u
>>>>>nder
>>>>> the existing
>>>>>circumstances.
>>>>>
>>>>>In this way, ethics acts as an implicit denial of truth.  For what is
>>>>>characteristic of truth is that it bores a hole in established
>>>>>knowledges.  Truth is the only thing for all and therefore stands
>>>>>against dominant opinions which work only for the benefit of some,
>>>>>namely those who benefit from this so-called necessity.
>>>>>
>>>>>The way this applies to 'concern for the other' is as follows.  The Law
>>>>>in the form of human rights is always already there.  It has been
>>>>>pre-established.  There is, however, no question of reconsidering this
>>>>>Law and thereby going beyond it.  
>>>>>
>>>>>Like economics, the Law is governed ultimately by the conservative
>>>>>identity that sustains it.  The Law is simply another word for
>>>>>necessity.  As Badiou points out, from a psychological point of view, in
>>>>>the end such an ethics is governed by a will to nothingness, a death
>>>>>drive.
>>>>>
>>>>>This leads to the shiver th
>>>>>a
>>>>>t is fel
>>>>>t when t
>>>>>he Other
>>>>> comes too close,
>>>>>when Evil knocks at one's own door.  For at its core, ethics remains
>>>>>simply the power to decide who is to live and who is to die.  Ethics
>>>>>regards with pity those victims who are being-for-death.  It condescends
>>>>>to help, but only to the extent that these victims choose what is
>>>>>necessary as opposed to what is true. Otherwise, ethics transforms these
>>>>>victims into criminals who must then be destroyed. 
>>>>>
>>>>>Badiou next discusses euthanasia and bio-ethics. He remarks that ethics
>>>>>"allows death to go about its busines, without opposing to it the
>>>>>Immortality of resistance."
>>>>>
>>>>>He compares this to Nazism which had a very thoroughgoing ethics of
>>>>>Life.  The distinction it made was to distinguish between a dignified
>>>>>life and an undignified one - to uphold the one and to destroy the
>>>>>other. 
>>>>>
>>>>>Badiou argues that similarly today, the conjunction of bio (genetic
>>>>>engineering, euthanasia etc)
>>>>> w
>>>>>ith ethics i
>>>>>n the hands 
>>>>>of abstract<
>>>>>br>committees is threatening in similar ways.  "Every definition of Man
>>>>>based on happiness is nihilist."  He says.
>>>>>
>>>>>In other words ethics is used to enforce our happiness by imposing
>>>>>conditions of misery based upon necessity on those who potentially
>>>>>threaten our superior condition - to improve the white man and destroy
>>>>>the monster - without recognizing the extent to which the one depends
>>>>>upon the other.
>>>>>
>>>>>Ethics is the interweaving of an unbridled and self-serving economy with
>>>>>the discourse of law. It dooms 'what is' to the Western mastery of death
>>>>>- conservative propaganda with an obscure desire for catastrophe.  (like
>>>>>those American conservatives who aren't afraid of global warming because
>>>>>Jesus is coming back anyway.)
>>>>>
>>>>>Only be affirming truths against this desire for nothingness can
>>>>>nihilism be overcome - against the ethics of living-well whose real
>>>>>content is the dec
>>>>>idi
>>>>>ng of death, the
>>>>>re stands an eth
>>>>>ic of truth.
>>>>>
>>>>>er
>>>>>ic
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>


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