Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 09:57:21 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: Reason & Metanarratives




On Fri, 12 Dec 1997, hugh bone wrote:

> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> Misunderstanding.  I read you post as post-structuralist rejection of
> "self", not language.
> 
> If you read my response to Jon (yesterday) you will find yourself
> quoted as an authority.

Hugh,
I hope I didn't sound like I was criticizing you--it was just a wild
thought that post-structuralism rejects language--I was taken by surprise 
by the suggestion.  I hope the tone of my responses conveys my enthusiasm 
for the discussion and not any grouchiness, but if it sounded like the
latter I apologize!

> Quantitatively, Stalin and Gulag outstripped Hitler and the Holocaust.
> I somehow find qualitative distinctions re: genocides or even daily
> murders, repugnant, however "true".  Yet such meditations on evils past
> might conceivably lead to overt acts which would diminish present and
> future horrors. 

I agree with you about quantitative and qualitative arguments, and the
Gulag probably did outstrip the Holocaust in terms of sheer numbers.  But 
my point is in line with a view that is currently very troublesome, very
problematic about how one can talk about something which is essentially
unspeakable.  The debate revolves around Heidegger's Nazism.  In France a 
lot of people fell under attack because of their identification or use of 
Heidegger's thinking for their own work--people including Derrida,
Lyotard, Lacoue-Labarthe and others.  So it became imperative to try to
respond to that event in our recent history, even if any response would
fall far short of its mark.

I also think--and I'm not Jewish and so perhaps have no right, or no more
right than the next person, to say anything about this--but the way the
Jews were killed was unique.  This was not a war, and they were not
resisting--in the sense of Partisans or guerillas, there was no "defense". 
And the intention was not to imprison them, or to lock them away for
"awhile"--exiling them within the nation state as a way of controlling
their movements or activities.  The intent was very clear--they were to be
eliminated, or "exterminated" as if they were vermin, like the
erradication of a "stain".  And the elimination of their memory, their
trace, not just elimination of their presence--their gravestones, their
family heirlooms, their clothes, their bodies--to wipe away any suggestion
that they were ever there in the first place, a kind of sick rewriting,
reconstruction of history.  In order to prove Hegel's promise true, the
Other must not only be sublated as mediation of consciousness back to
itself--the Other must "disappear" at the end of the Aufhebung (which I
recognize ignores Hegel's point about the Other, but doesn't ignore his
disturbing comments about the "Unhappy Consciousness" which refuses this
movement of self-consciousness--the One who refuses this
self-reconciliation through the mirror of another).

This, I think, is utterly unique to our history, and this is what can't be
thought--as if something utterly non-human entered human history and had
its expression at a particular place and at a particular time.

Lacoue-Labarthe of course would criticize that way of characterizing what 
happened.  But I think his explanation is also completely inadequate.  It 
conflates several aspects of what happen down to an aesthetic reading of
Heidegger's decision.  But for me this misses the point of the
aftermath--when Heidegger was "silent" (the point being that he wasn't
silent at all--he did respond, and that's the problem.  In the early 50's 
Marcuse sent a care package and a letter to his former teacher asking him 
how he could have joined the Party given the contrast his philosophy
offered to the values encoded in Nazism.  Heidegger's response is
appalling, not because he tried to be so dumb or unthinking about it, but 
as if something inherent to human communication was missing.  He said
that what the Russians were then currently doing to the Germans--forced
relocations, etc--was the Same as what the Germans did to the Jews.  As
Marcuse said Heidegger's moral calculus was unfathomable and any attempt
at communication between them was over).

It's that missing spot, that piece or connection between oneself and the
Other which I find most distressing about Heidegger.  It isn't that he
didn't "think" the "the jews", but something else, the connection in the
mind, the conscience, or the spirit--whatever you wish to call whatever
transpires between individuals in terms of understanding and
dialogue--held within its workings something missing in Heidegger, a
"lacunae" or blind spot that could permit him this reduction. 

> Popper was his mentor at one time; lectures,seminars.  He visited
> Popper, spoke to his cat.  

And did his cat have a reply?  :)

Best regards,
Matt