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From: "Matthew Asher Levy" <mattlevy-AT-mindspring.com> Subject: Re: [Fwd: re: Ethics as a figure of nihalism] Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 09:33:23 -0600 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. Well, it is true that purchases pay for ads. But I don't have to make a purchase to enjoy the ads. You are right that I don't buy things based on ads. After reading a bit about advertising, I think that ads are things that advertising agencies and media outlets sell to corporations, not things that corporations use to sell commodities to people. And as to whether commercials are art, I wonder what economic system would have to be in place for you to find something to be art. Does an artist have to have a rich patron for his or her work to be art? Does the artist have to be independently wealthy? Does the artist have to have a day job? Or does the artist have to be a single person and not a corporation? Or does art have to be without utility, because if it had utility it would be a "craft"? There are other equally arbitrary possibilities. mal ----- Original Message ----- From: hbone To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 5:02 PM Subject: Re: [Fwd: re: Ethics as a figure of nihalism] MAL, It isn't art. It isn't free. We pay for ads with each purchase. Communications and entertainment take a large share of U.S. income.. And if you're buying a major item such as auto, furniture, appliances, you don't depend on adds. You ask friends, read consumer magazines, ----- Original Message ----- From: Matthew Asher Levy To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2001 8:53 AM Subject: Re: [Fwd: re: Ethics as a figure of nihalism] In my opinion, most Americans recognize commercial interests and the fact that sometimes those interests coincide with their own and sometimes they do not. Everybody knows that community is "virtual," though virtual is probably not the word most people would use ...And people also know that virtual things are no less real than physical things. If your question is, Are Americans patriotic? the answer is yes, many Americans have faith in the virtual "American people." But, there are many, also, who feel explicitly excluded from that community. Now, if your question is, Do most Americans scoff whenever they hear the word "community" or any other pathos appeal in a commercial? the answer is no, because then we would do nothing but scoff. But, yes, people realize the purpose of advertisements is to manipulate. Why do we put up with commercials? We like the free art. mal ----- Original Message ----- From: steve.devos To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 3:51 PM 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 likeFerry, but there seems to be very little here that resembles Lyotard'sthought - and nothing that has much in common with the approach to ethicsof folks like Derrida. -shawnShawn P. Wilbur www.wcnet.org/~swilbur | lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoonswww.wcnet.org/~paupers | alwato.iuma.com On Wed, 7 Nov 2001, Mary Murphy&Salstrand wrote: This chapter begins with the statement that "ethics designates aboveall, the incapacity, so typical of the contemporary world, to name andstrive for a Good...resignation in the face of necessity together with apurely negative, if not destructive, will. It is this combination thatshould be designated as nihilism."What Badiou considers as the realm of necessity is one that issynonymous with ethics as the figure of the logic of Capital. The roleethics plays is to organize subjectivity and public opinion to ratifywhat seems necessary. Since this economic realm is sacrosanct, theroles 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, thenecessary. What must be done is no longer a matter of principle, butmerely a matter of practicality - what is eff ective under the existingcircumstances.In this way, ethics acts as an implicit denial of truth. For what ischaracteristic of truth is that it bores a hole in establishedknowledges. Truth is the only thing for all and therefore standsagainst 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 Lawin the form of human rights is always already there. It has beenpre-established. There is, however, no question of reconsidering thisLaw and thereby going beyond it. Like economics, the Law is governed ultimately by the conservativeidentity that sustains it. The Law is simply another word fornecessity. As Badiou points out, from a psychological point of view, inthe end such an ethics is governed by a will to nothingness, a deathdrive.This leads to the shiver t h a t is felt when the Other comes too close,when Evil knocks at one's own door. For at its core, ethics remainssimply the power to decide who is to live and who is to die. Ethicsregards with pity those victims who are being-for-death. It condescendsto help, but only to the extent that these victims choose what isnecessary as opposed to what is true. Otherwise, ethics transforms thesevictims 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 theImmortality of resistance."He compares this to Nazism which had a very thoroughgoing ethics ofLife. The distinction it made was to distinguish between a dignifiedlife and an undignified one - to uphold the one and to destroy theother. Badiou argues that similarly today, the conjunction of bio (geneticengineering, euthanasia et c) w ith ethics in the hands of abstract<br>committees is threatening in similar ways. "Every definition of Manbased on happiness is nihilist." He says.In other words ethics is used to enforce our happiness by imposingconditions of misery based upon necessity on those who potentiallythreaten our superior condition - to improve the white man and destroythe monster - without recognizing the extent to which the one dependsupon the other.Ethics is the interweaving of an unbridled and self-serving economy withthe discourse of law. It dooms 'what is' to the Western mastery of death- conservative propaganda with an obscure desire for catastrophe. (likethose American conservatives who aren't afraid of global warming becauseJesus is coming back anyway.)Only be affirming truths against this desire for nothingness cannihilism be overcome - against the ethics of living-well whose realcontent is the dec idi ng of death, there stands an ethic of truth.eric file:///a:/uncommunity.html --------------040305010103040508040603--

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 | lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons
www.wcnet.org/~paupers | 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 t h 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 et c) 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

File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2001/lyotard.0111, message 120

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