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Many of the Routledge Classics paperbacks are full of typos. Given the attention paid to the covers, it really is rather irritating that such a basic and essential thing as proofreading was so shoddily done. Particularly when the covers are so pretty. Their copy of Lacan's Ecrits retains the...

In that case, there's a section of Being and Nothingness in which Sartre gets stuck into Freud's thought that you might want to check out. (I forget the exact section, though - I think it's somewhere in the first half. It's been awhile since I read any Sartre.)

What you say should make the choice clear, then. The position that should be taken is one that is outside of the 'don't let superstitious, primitive Muslims take away my right to slander them!' / 'the West's values are incompatible with Islam' binary. What this third position would be is a...

Is Badiou's L'Etre et l'evenement available in English? I've had a look around Amazon, but I can't spot it, though his shorter works seem to be available in abundance. If it is around, what it translated as? Oh k-punk, your book club will soon rival Oprah's ;)

He's watching. Always watching.

Doesn't this use of the word, however, rely on an opposition between 'rational' and 'emotional'? So that the rational is the objective, and the emotional the subjective and therefore the irrational? (You may answer that it doesn't - the question isn't rhetorical :p ) With regard to this, there...

Well, speaking from a realistic point of view, perhaps if America in its current state evaporated mysteriously one night from the face of the earth, then we might see the disappearance of the structural factors that currently lead to the rather brutal consequences of American intervention. The...

In quite a few lines of discussion around these parts - many of which have bounced off k-punk, natürlich - the question has been posed: What is understood by the term, 'rational'? Among other points and comments made in the discussion, Mark k-p has invoked Spinoza to coin 'Cold Rationalism' (I...

It's not just 'should we intervene?', it's also 'will it work?' The problem with US interventions is not just their hypocrisy. It's also the fact that these interventions almost always, without fail, go horribly wrong. The result is either that the aims of the intervention are not reached...

Regarding onanism and freedom in relation to theory Without wishing to tacitly endorse this whole "if I can't build roads or cure diseases with it, I don't want it" charge levelled against so-called 'obscurantist' philosophy and theory, it is interesting to note that the work of Judith Butler...

I think the second two are in keeping with what Mark was arguing, but not necessarily the first. What is 'in control' in a hegemony - even one that is patriarchal - is the hegemonic position itself. Which, as I take it from his previous posts and arguments, Mark would probably categorise as some...

Oh, and to clarify in advance - I'm not endorsing the position: "masculinity and femininity are just constructs, maan, we're all just texts, there are no such things as bodies". Just pointing out that it's more than hormones. Oh, and apologies for going on a rather distant tangent with the post...

There's actually quite a large body of literature about this, if you're interested. The condition of art in 'modernity' (a much-disputed category in itself) is often defined as being 'without purpose', so that art has become 'autonomous'. (I use the overabundance of little quote-marks, in case...

Pseudo-scientific ramblings? The point that I tried to make was not about the 'facts' themselves. What was not 'accepted' - what was in dispute - was the definition of what it is that these concepts/categories of 'male' and 'female' mean. Science as a discipline doesn't really deal with...

And food?

Heehee, this is exciting :) Now I get to hear what some of you people sound like. Oh, and you all speak with your British accents, how amusing... ;)

Matt B - "slapping in fistfulls on PoMo theory suggests that you are trying to baffle people" Without a doubt, I agree. Ideally, theory is a tool used for insight, not mysticification, and I can't claim that my usage of it always (or even often) reaches the latter level. I guess this is the...

Is it really? Why's that then?

Well, hats off to you for resolving the age-old philosophical dilemma, of just what is Nature and what is Nurture. No, really. And what makes you think that we are using purely biological terms here? Biological conceptions of gender are damn near impossible to free from cultural valences. Just...

I'm fairly sure that the term 'male' used in this context doesn't mean literally male in a biological sense. Mark isn't saying that marijuana makes you sprout balls or hurry up your sperm. His elaboration of the sense of 'male' in this context is: "Self-satisfied, concerned only with yourself...