Zizek's Leninism

bat020

Active member
k-punk said:
What's at stake in the refusal of communication btw?

What I'm getting at is not so much a "refusal of communication" as a constitutive impossibility of communication between politics and philosophy - no meaning is exchanged between them since each interprets the other in its own terms.

As a rather cheesy analogy, think back to those off-yer-face conversations at raves, where the two parties have quite different ideas as to what the conversation is about. Each interprets the others' words through their own assumptions, they walk away thinking they've had a heart-to-heart, but...

I imagine this has something to do with Lacan's infamous "il n'y pas de rapport sexuel".
 
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henrymiller

Well-known member
the thing with language is: it's useful to have distinctions. this is not the same as having binary oppositions, btw.
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
k-punk said:
Alright, name one serious philosopher who holds to this navie psychological realism. This DOES NOT include your beloved Herr Heidegger, obv, whose whole philosophy is based on denying that complete self-knowledge is possible.

i'll have to get back to this later today, as my answer will have to address certain ambiguities about the terms of this discussion before i jumped into it

but to adumbrate my answer:

(1) for a kind of practical knowledge of one's situation that informs action before or during the fact-- i'd put aristotle & heidegger together

and i'd put hegel over on your side of the ledger (owl of minerva looks backward)

(2) for nature -- surely any political philosopher before rousseau thinks that political action is limited by "nature" ----- but i'm admittedly not sure where the rationalists descartes/spinoza/leibniz stand w/ respect to nature

(3) my basic criticism of your position is that you dissolve action into a question of pure power -- and since we don't know what a body can do, everything for you is possible (at least before the fact)

also: heidegger is not my favorite philosopher -- however, several years back i studied him more closely than any other thinker, such that i tend to read everything through the lens of heidegger

in fact: the more i reflect on badiou, the more i like him

my default position is skepticism, though i realize that skepticism is powerless to explain how we actually get through life
 
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k-punk

Spectres of Mark
henrymiller said:
few post-modernist academics would accept that a striking trade unionist is engaged in "theoretical work".

I'd be much more ready to accept that a striking trade unionist could be engaged in theoretical work than that a postmodern academic could be. :D
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
APOLOGIES for writing far too much in what follows -- but there's a lot going on in this thread


k-punk said:
Alright, name one serious philosopher who holds to this naive psychological realism. This DOES NOT include your beloved Herr Heidegger, obv, whose whole philosophy is based on denying that complete self-knowledge is possible.

Not sure what you mean by "naive"? Is Hegel an "experienced" psychological realist b/c he preserves Kant and modern science? Or is all phenomenology naive? Or perhaps any philosophy that does not take its bearings from math (philosophy is queen, but math is . . . )?

And even if Heidegger were the only "serious" philosopher to take an approach or position, are you suggesting that truth is a matter of counting votes?

Let me state the issue b/w K-Punk and Bat on the one side, and JE on the other:

(1) Is political action subject to limits?

(2) If so, is it wise (productive) or foolish (counter-productive) to heed or conform to such limits in advance of taking action?

As to the first question, there are four main alternatives:

(1a) political action is subject to limitations attributable to "nature": (i) man's natural ends; or (ii) the passions predominant in most men, e.g., fear of death, love of comfort, love of one's own, greed; or (iii) the actor's own nature & purposes

(1b) political action is subject to the historical situation

(1c) political action is subject to the play of "power," i.e., there is nothing but power and its expression has no laws of its own

(1d) political action is free purposive action and is in no way bound by contingency; its sole criterion is universality b/c its movement occurs in the noumenal realm

As to the second question, the (superficial) solutions are:

(2a) insofar as the actor has knowledge of nature, that knowledge should inform and guide his actions before and during the fact, in some instances counseling caution, and in other instances daring

(2b) here the answer depends on whether history & action are conceived primarily in terms of praxis or poiesis; if poiesis (hegel), then the limit cannot be known until after the fact, which, in combination w/ the subject's extreme alienation from the world, militates in favor of bold or transformative endeavor; if praxis (heidegger), then there is no limit to know as such b/c action has no end outside of itself, which means that its virtue is phronesis/resoluteness, doing the truly proper or originary----in badiou this is fidelity to the axiom that names the event

(2c) here there is no need for measure, but also no argument against measure

(2d) here there is no good answer b/c the noumenal/phenomenal distinction is unworkable

But since I'm not capable at the moment of elaborating on any of the above, I'll refrain from trying . . . .

Instead, I'll re-state and elaborate on what K-Punk, Bat, and JE have already said, and in so doing show the relevance of the scheme I have outlined . . . .

But first, let me briefly address K-Punk's add'l remarks, in order:

k-punk said:
Being a determinist does not mean that you are committed to any view about 'knowledge of limits'. Remember that Spinoza is a philosopher of total metaphysical determination AND a philosopher of Freedom AND the philosopher who says 'no one knows what a body can do'. Rationalists like Leibniz and Spinoza are determinist i.e. Leibniz says that crossing the Rubicon is part of Ceasar's essence but this does not mean that they think that Ceasar or any other human beings could know that in advance of it happening. It just means that there is a sequence of cause and effect that is strictly logically entailed. Leibniz would argue that only God can know what this sequence is, though; we post-Cantorians know that even God cannot know.

Can't say that I've read Leibniz. Am curious to know what he means by Caesar's "essence" -- the essence of his nature (bold, decisive)? or his essence as in the historical purpose he serves (i.e., to bring an end to Republican Rome)?

if the former, Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon established his decisive nature - then this is akin to a finite point along an infinite line of causes & effects -- but as Spinoza reasons, the infinite does not consist of finite parts -- the Rubicon cannot be isolated either prospectively or retrospectively -- we are in the region of calculus

if the latter, Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon revealed his historical purpose -- then we have moved into the region of poiesis -- and here we have retrospective knowledge of the limit (Leibniz read through a Hegelian lens)

k-punk said:
The claim that there are limits is not equivalent to the claim that such limits could be known. Insofar as there is knowledge, it is always retrospective.

There are different ways of knowing limits.

Objective knowledge of limits = Hegelian retrospection = reliance on the concept of poiesis

Resolute knowledge of limits = the Heideggerian moment = reliance on the concept of praxis

Rough knowledge of limits = Leibniz's calculation = reliance on the bad infinity

Denial of limits = "everything is possible" before the fact = groundless assertion

k-punk said:
But what, in fact, are these limits? Yes, down with History, down with Nature (except in the Spinozist sense): politics AND cybernetics are predicated on the destruction of these theistic residues. Cyberpunk as the dismantling of everything Possible, all limits, all so-called facticity. All codes (social, genetic, semiotic) are up for grabs.

sounds like empty pomo rhetoric to me (except the Spinozist bit)

the task of philosophy -- to paraphrase badiou -- is to extract "truth" from politics (praxis) and art (poiesis) by judicious use of the matheme
 
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dominic

Beast of Burden
now turning to what was said before i entered this thread:

(1a) k-punk states his view that existing organized opposition to global capitalism suffers from a lack of theoretical scope (adequacy & rigor) and a corresponding lack of poitical ambition; i.e., if the anti-globalization forces had an adequate understanding of capitalism they would realize that it is driven by a logic & power that far exceeds the ability of elite actors & institutions to dictate or reform its expression (and so their protests futile, mere spectacle)

(1b) k-punk also rejects a return to a tito-style socialist state b/c it's a mixed & confused regime that fails to vanquish the logic of capitalism

(1c) k-punk then rejects as so many "temptations" other stances, b/c of their lack of daring & potential effect: (i) micropolitical engagement; (ii) psychedelic fascism (prozac + entertainment); (iii) quietism short of redemptive teleological revolutionism

(2a) k-punk advocates extending badiou's procedure of making certain demands of the state (w/o seeking to transform or negate the state) ------ k-punk describes this procedure as "insufficient" in itself, as though the purpose of the procedure were to effect an objective outcome

(2b) k-punk then relates the extension of this procedure to the existence for the first time in history of a global proletariat ------- k-punk leaves unaddressed why the existence of a global proletariat should have this significance when, for badiou, the proletariat is not a truth-subject (((unless the full realization of capitalism's global reach is an event that could constitute such a subject ----- but this is unpersuasive b/c for badiou an event interrupts existing processes, and is not a culmination or completion ----- and further, the proletariat (in marx) is formed by its consciousness that it is a class w/ interests opposed to the interests of the bourgeoisie ----- whereas in badiou a truth-subject declares "under fire of the event . . . what is" and then orients itself in and through what is, which in the procedure of politics is always equality, i.e., the truth-subject is constituted not by determinate interests but by its appropriative relation to the event)))

(3) JE replies by saying that he has opted for engagement at the micropolitical level ------ an alternative which he justifies by referring to badiou's position that the particular may give rise to truth-processes of universal import

(4) JE makes the further statement that knowing your limitations is not a bad place to start

(5) Bat describes this as a bad place to start b/c (a) such a stance is timid and reactionary, not ambitious or visionary; and b/c (b) you can't know what your limits are unless you try to break them-------and it is at this point in the conversation that there begins to be an equivocation about the term limitations-----that is, JE meant by limitations the historical actor's situation, the facts on the ground-----Bat shifts the meaning of limitations to the actor's power or lack of power to effect an outcome

(6) JE states that after seeing so many people attempt great projects and fail, he concluded that such failure is in large part due to a lack of self-criticism or self-knowledge in advance of or during the moment of action

(7) Bat disagrees and says that such knowledge is had only after the fact -- you don't know what your limits are, you learn what your limits were

(8) Bat makes the further claim that this temporal mismatch -- that you are never truly self-present -- is what allows the actor to do something new-------and it is here that a second equivocation is introduced which is whether action (a) realizes or brings into being something other than its own motion (poiesis) or is (b) an end in itself and therefore originary and new (praxis)

(((((and it is worth pondering how this distinction relates to badiou's understanding of the truth-procedure that is politics----on first look, it appears that badiou has in mind poiesis, b/c the procedure begins w/ an axiomatic assertion that equality is "what is, here and now, under the fire of the event" (Infinite T @72); on second look, it seems that badiou cannot mean poiesis b/c "equality is not what we want or plan, and b/c equality is not an objective for action, it is an axiom of action" (@72)-----and so it becomes clear that what badiou has in mind by action is praxis, and that praxis asserts a truth by making that truth manifest, whether by word or by inarticulate deed, and that it is praxis that follows a precarious trajectory (@75), and this b/c it follows its own course and does not (instrumentally) seek to bring the thought of equality into the open and then stand the thought in place, as does poiesis------and yet to say that praxis follows its own course is not to say that it is heedless of the event; on the contrary, praxis finds its orientation in fidelity to the truth of the event, and that orientation, which is a kind of knowledge, is not unlike resolute knowledge

(((((only in badiou, unlike heidegger, philosophy "subtracts" "truth procedures" from their political & artistic & amorous escorts, and it "pacifies the blind violence" of mathematics----it uses geometry to moderate politics, art, & love, and it uses finesse to moderate mathematics-----"philosophy subtracts from the truth procedures that condition it all *aura* of sense, all trembling and all pathos" (@104)

(((((and yet philosophy, despite its palliative effect, also has "a moment where it falls on the radical underside of all sense, the void of all possible presentation, the hollowing of truth a hole w/o borders" (@104)

(9) k-punk now re-enters and says "isn't politics about changing *you* and therefore redefining what counts as a limitation"-------this however is what hegel means by praxis, which is closer to aristotelian poiesis than aristotelian praxis------whereas what badiou has in mind by politics is heidegger-arendt's reading of aristotelian praxis

(10) k-punk says that badiou has done away w/ the pomo cult of limits-----PLEASE EXPLAIN!------badiou argues that true events are of universal import------but he also delineates the relationships b/w philosophy and its four conditions, LIMITING all parties to their proper domain (philosophy included)

------well, i think i've said more than enough now

AGAIN, sorry for saying so much ----

OR RATHER, i've probably said too much AND too little
 
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