What is Deleuze?

[josef k.]

Reduced to their fall-back position, Badiou's claims seem completely banal only dressed-up in kind of a messianic arrogance and a few further rhetorical flourishes, which in fact make his own claims less then banal. Badiou = banality + arrogance. His appeal is to intellectual vanity. I hope that he has a fourteen inch penis, because otherwise it really is unacceptable.

 

[nomadthethird]

I hope that he has a fourteen inch penis, because otherwise it really is unacceptable.

Having seen my fair share, I can vouch for the fact that this is highly unlikely.

 

[josef k.]

Badiou urges you to retain fidelity.

 

[nomadthethird]

back to the original subject

My criticism of D&G is that they come too close to endorsing groups like Al Qaeda in their blazing hatred of capitalism. Not that they're too quick deny the value of radical action. Quite the opposite.

 

[josef k.]

That said, they do have a more nuanced understanding of capitalism (and its relationship to desire) then a lot of other theorists, Badiou included.

 

[four_five_one]

Anyway, I can't believe there's anybody on here defending the "what I do is Thought, what you do is just ideology" brigade.

Laaammmeee.

Are some thoughts more valuable than other thoughts though? Aren't people's thoughts situated firmly within normative ideology until they make some effort to think past it? (Or rather isn't there an exceptional orientation that philosophy might engender?)

 

[josef k.]

Are some thoughts more valuable than other thoughts though? Aren't people's thoughts situated firmly within normative ideology until they make some effort to think past it? (Or rather isn't there an exceptional orientation that philosophy might engender?)

Is there a normative ideology?

 

[nomadthethird]

I mean what exactly are the people that critize him for this, what are they doing for Africa (or another immiserated other)?

Didn't see this before. My colleagues and I raised literally millions of dollars for the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, which brought malaria vaccines to millions of Africans. (also working on AIDS vaccines/anti-microbial gels, Dr. David Ho and others are in stage 3 with a patent on a vaccine, testing it in China)

But that happened mostly by chance, I didn't seek out that job because I wanted it, necessarily.

Plus it didn't count, because it was dirty LIBERAL money that did the job.

 

[nomadthethird]

Are some thoughts more valuable than other thoughts though? Aren't people's thoughts situated firmly within normative ideology until they make some effort to think past it? (Or rather isn't there an exceptional orientation that philosophy might engender?)

See, now you're making the argument that Poetix has already gone to great lengths to prove he isn't making, namely that philosophy is a privileged discourse.

So, according to Badiouvians, I guess the answer is no.

 

[nomadthethird]

According to Badiou, philosophy can only sit back and decide from afar what the current lay of the intellectual-qua-metaphysical land is. It can't wash away our sins.

 

[nomadthethird]

What is more politically paralyzing than anything is the idea that the only way to do good is to first find the "Outside" of discourse, or politics, or meaning-as-we-know-it. (Pssst, this doesn't exist.)

I'm going to do good things now, as many of them as possible, and as efficiently as possible. I feel pretty good about the fact that the work I've done for money and sustenance (on a team that raised $500 million for science in 3 years) has direct applications that will make life better for people globally. This isn't a "pure" process, but at least it's something, and it's mobilized, and it's not about me, or my Other, or anything but helping as many people as possible live as comfortably as possible.

 

[four_five_one]

See, now you're making the argument that Poetix has already gone to great lengths to prove he isn't making, namely that philosophy is a privileged discourse.

So, according to Badiouvians, I guess the answer is no.

I thought his point was that anyone, given resources and some aptitude, could understand Badiou (but in any case that it's far from the only route to action). If that is true then there must be some tipping point where a discourse ceases to be privileged; either I make the effort to read it and understand it, or perhaps when Poetix mediates between myself and Badiou, so that I might understand, it is no longer privileged? But the question is whether it's more worthwhile, or useful to me (or someone that is, let's say, more oppressed) than another ideology...

And you think that it's not. And Josef K thinks that Badio's ideas are so obvious, that when the difficult terminology (making it a privileged discourse?) is removed, the ideas are commonplace anyway.

 

[four_five_one]

Is there a normative ideology?

What is 'commonsense'?

 

[Wrong]

It is entirely possible that philosophy is not the most politically viable or efficient activity.

No shit. Who one earth is suggesting otherwise?

 

[josef k.]

What is 'commonsense'?

Good question. Often, it's deployed as a general figure of the intellectual enemy by people who have apparently more insightful angles on reality to sell, like the X-Ray specs that they used to sell in the backs of comic books, and probably still do.

It seems pretty clear to me that any discourse which feels the need to stage itself against commonsense (as Badiou's does, through his spokesmen and in his own texts as well) understood as the thought of the herd, is elitist, unquestionably, since it is taking as its point of departure its own superiority to the speech of the masses. However, what commonsense actually is beyond its ideological figurations is not easy to know.

 

[nomadthethird]

No shit. Who one earth is suggesting otherwise?

Not Badiou!

 

[four_five_one]

It seems pretty clear to me that any discourse which feels the need to stage itself against commonsense (as Badiou's does, through his spokesmen and in his own texts as well) understood as the thought of the herd, is elitist, unquestionably, since it is taking as its point of departure its own superiority to the speech of the masses.

OK. But all of philosophy has at one time (some of it will naturally become incorporated into commonsense/become naturalised) stood against commonsense. Aristotle thought the starting point for philosophy - & science as they were indistinguishable at that time - was to examine 'common notions' and appearances, proceed to pull them apart, and then return to them and see what has changed. Any new discovery would, of course, be only known to a few, initially. And only a few would understand the value of the discovery, initially. Possibly only those trained in that particular discourse.

I'm sure this was noted earlier in the thread ;P But in any case, known to a few does not equal 'elite'. Some ideas or discoveries transcend their particular discourse by way of an advocate. Badiou tries to disseminate his ideas; which at the moment compete against common notions. It isn't his fault that his ideas are only known to a few. So he cannot be elitist for (only) this reason.

But if his ideas are actually commonplace, then there's no possibility of him being elitist, is there?

 

[nomadthethird]

I thought his point was that anyone, given resources and some aptitude, could understand Badiou (but in any case that it's far from the only route to action). If that is true then there must be some tipping point where a discourse ceases to be privileged; either I make the effort to read it and understand it, or perhaps when Poetix mediates between myself and Badiou, so that I might understand, it is no longer privileged? But the question is whether it's more worthwhile, or useful to me (or someone that is, let's say, more oppressed) than another ideology...

And you think that it's not. And Josef K thinks that Badio's ideas are so obvious, that when the difficult terminology (making it a privileged discourse?) is removed, the ideas are commonplace anyway.

Eh? Who can understand it is beside the point. Either there are forms of discourse or types of utterances that are privileged metaphysically over others, so that they have more direct access to Truths or Reality, or there aren't. Badiou himself says that there aren't any (but rather that Truths are the magical exhaust fumes that waft up after science, art, love, and politics have staged an Event). Poetix seems to agree, at several points in this thread, although I'm not really buying it from him.

I agree with Badiou on that point, in the instances where he says that philosophy is not a privileged political Truths vehicle, but I find him ultimately inconsistent on it.

 

[nomadthethird]

Aristotle thought the starting point for philosophy - & science as they were indistinguishable at that time - was to examine 'common notions' and appearances, proceed to pull them apart, and then return to them and see what has changed. Any new discovery would, of course, be only known to a few, initially. And only a few would understand the value of the discovery, initially. Possibly only those trained in that particular discourse.

Actually, you're wrong. Aristotle thought philosophy/science (he made no distinction) should be about 'wonder' regarding the natural world. This wonder would lead people to investigate into the causes of the natural world. No qualifications are placed on this, and no talk of "few" versus "many" ensues.

But if his ideas are actually commonplace, then there's no possibility of him being elitist, is there?

It's not the first time that conservative Liberal Platitudes about art, love, truth, and science have been dressed up as Royal Philosophy.

 

[poetix]

You know all the links already, they're most likely all in your favorites.

Find me one. Me or someone else who can plausibly be called a "Badiouvian" saying that a full-blown revolutionary transition to state communism is the solution to all our political problems, and the problem with any other form of political orientation or action is that it somehow falls short of that.

I do remember you calling someone who worked for the ACLU a "shill"

Nadine Strossen is a fucking shill.

apparently because she was not a comrade in fighting for total transformation.

Because she told lies about other feminists in order to further her own career as a noted public defender of the commercial freedoms of pornographers.

I can't think of any other reason why fighting for the legal rights of women would be a bad thing.

It's pretty clear to me whose rights Strossen is most interested in. She is certainly more than happy to smear and caricature women whose view of what their legal emancipation might entail includes access to legal redress against misogynist hate speech.

See, this is where the misplaced polemics against "identity politics" becomes threadbare. The Civil Rights movement was the original movement of identity politics that all of the rest have based themselves on, and to which the rest of them look for inspiration.

The only reason why, say, the gay rights movement would be bad or not as "true" as the civil rights movement is...?

I dunno, you think of one. I regard the Stonewall riots as an initiatory moment in a genuine and continuing emancipatory political sequence. On the other hand, I regard most soi-disant queer politics nowadays as the occultation of that sequence through reactionary conformity dressed up as taboo-busting transgressiveness. Fings ain't wot they used to be.