Date: Tue Jul 25 21:58:41 1995
Subject: errors, clarifications, distinctions


Errors, clarifications, distinctions 
 
1. No, the discourse of powerknowledge does not yet 
attain to substantive nonviolence. One such discourse I 
know of, itself occuring in the space of thoughtaction, 
is Gandhian amisha satyagraha.
 
2. I am distinguishing the thoughtaction concerning 
nonviolence from the example of the "activist 
intellectual", e.g. Chomsky or Foucault. Chomsky's 
philosophical work operates at a very far distance from 
his political work. Foucault's conception of the specific 
intellectual, articulated in a *most* general discourse, 
supports a very strong thought/action distinction and 
stylistic continuity (hence, in part, the call for 
"avalance"). Thoughtaction concerning violence, where it 
treats in discourse the substantive theme of violence, 
can or should attain to the fullest possible ideals 
concerning thought. The entire discourse on thinking, 
examplified by the history of philosophy, by the writings 
of Heidegger and Arendt, would have to be a provisional 
guide for what constitutes thematic-substantive 
treatment.
 
 
3. I wrote "The position of the academic is the 
continuous ground of the freedom to engage directly in 
action concerning violence in favor of the payoff of 
sustained research."  "To engage" should read "not to 
engage".
 
4. In alluding and sketching out conditions of choice in 
the torture example, I failed to include what I consider 
to be the cheif means by which the Satrean rigidity and 
innumerable other rigidities maintain themselves: the 
quesiton, roughly, of "how": skill, talent, fluencies, 
methods, training. My feeling is that the capitalism of 
the academic space systematically hides the question of 
"how", or even perverts it by characterizing the 
situation of the breaking down under torture as a "how", 
rather than a "what". This capitalism permeates the moral 
sphere to alarming degrees, it seems to me.

---
There is no path to peace. Peace is the path.

Tom Blancato
tblancato-AT-envirolink.org
Eyes on Violence (nonviolence and human rights monitoring in Haiti)
Thoughtaction Collective (reparative justice project)




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