From: steve.devos-AT-tiscali.co.uk Subject: re 9/11/01 Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 14:56:35 GMT Eric Actually, looking at the event from Europe and reading and judging the responses across the various media, from CNN to the BBC and into the Web, in some sense all of us who live in the G8 countries are as effected as thecitizens of the nation state - USA. In some sense with the proliferation of the global culture, the industrialisation of culture, perhaps I should say these days the informationalisation of culture, has led us to be (almost) all Americans in this circumstance... The extraordinary sight of the G8 countries commiting themselves and then realising the problems associated with Bush's declaration of war on the terroists (Which some people have in some sense been mis-read as a potential declaration of war on Islam, which it is by no means clear that it is...) The Bush declaration of war is the first virtual war in history. It is a war that has been declared without anyone to fight against, struggling to become actual, probably vainly waiting for someone to go to war against and of course never finding anyone, since no 'nation state' is involved. This will not stop the G8 countries bombing carefully selected targets if they can find any... but virtual targets are the hardest to locate and understand especially when they are resisting the desire of others that they become actual... If it is Bin-Laden, which seems probable, hiding out in the destroyed shambles of Afghanistan - it will not be hard too imagine the war-trail in Brussels in 2005. After he's handed over by the Afghanistan govenment for a reasonable price.... By then of course we will be able to define thefollowing much more clearly... (For Stalin substitute 'Bin-Laden'... ) "Reality entails the differend. That's Stalin, here he is. We acknowledge it. But as to what Stalin means? Phrases come to be attached to this name, which not only describe different senses for it (this can still be debated in dialogue), and not only place the name on different instances, but which also obey heterogeneous regimens and/or genres. This heterogeneity, for lack of a common idiom, makes consensus impossible. The assignment of a definition to Stalin necessarily does wrong to the nondefinitional phrase relating to Stalin, which this definition for a while at least, disregards or betrays. In and around names, vengence is in the prowl. Forever?" (Lyotard the Differend 92.) Regards sdv
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