What is Deleuze?

[Tentative Andy]

Ok, that k-punk post has got me fairly annoyed, but that's probably what he wanted, and it's useful in a way because it's got me geared up to make a topic about some of the presuppositons behind it and some other blogland posts. Come soon. In the meantime, something vaguely relevant to this thread and the question about whether Badiou is a hegemonic figure currently, and if so, why is this annoying people?

I'll happily admit that I know next to nothing about the higher echelons of academia, and so can't comment on whether there a huge number of card-carrying Badiouvians about at the level, or how being one affects people in terms of conference reception, presitgeous job appointments, publishing deals etc (though the recent Communism Conference and the ammount of attention that was paid Badiou at it must mean something, I think, even if it's just that he's held as something as a figurehead for the oppositional/marginalised parts of the academy).
Where Badiouvian thought does appear to be very influential however, to the point of often being accepted without question or justification, is... not perhaps this site in particular, but certainly the larger network of message boards, websites and blogs of which it is a part. It seems to me that a particulary strong influence is notable on the sort of blogs which dabble in a bit of philosophy, a bit of general cultural theory, a bit of more specific criticism on music, film etc (and I'm not the first by any means to make this accusation, of course) - there's definately a small but very influential network that exists between k-punk, Infinite Though, owen h and Poetix's own blog (however modest he may be about it), one of the functions of which has to been to promote central Badiouvian ideas. It should also be noted that k-punk in particular has been influential in the passing-down of similar ideas to other bloggers and critics like Reynolds and Woebot, who do not primarily deal with philosophy and who may not be formally philosophically trained. (I'm aware this may all seem a bit paranoid, but reckon it contains some undeniable truth).

Edit: I forgot to mention gek/Mr Splintering, who's clearly another important part of the Badiouvian on-line merry-go-round (or austerity-go-round? ;D ), but to his credit he's far more self-aware and self-critical than most. If there's anyone else that I've missed, then no offence, I've probably just not read you yet.

Oh and Poetix, I really don't mean to pick a fight with you, but as regards Heidegger and 'authoritarian obscuratanism', I really don't find Being and Time on the whole to be obscure in any needless or oppressive way. His later work I struggle with though, I'll acknowledge that.

 

[Tentative Andy]

That was longer than required, but I could sense a bit of an elephant in the room, and you know how much I hate them.

 

[nomadthethird]

I agree with you on later Heidegger, Andy. The later the Heidegger the stranger it gets.

Unfortunately, the hype trickle down effect is how "philosophy" works/gets distributed now. Along the way, theory has become the purview of journalists (that ultimate the liberal ideal, the "public intellectual", that check and balance against the power of the government). Derrida hated this situation, and I do too. I think it's pathetic. I'll get on the formalism train when journalists and mediagentsia (and the parent companies who pay them) no longer decide what is important and relevant to philosophy.

Funny, isn't it, how capitalists love to publish these allegedly heretical tomes? Sort of the same way they love a Bill O'Reilly or a Glenn Beck or an Anne Coulter. (All of whom believe there are Truths--like American supremacy and entitlement--that need fighting for, with violence if necessary.) Extremism sells, in this complicated time of global visibility and data overload. Easy answers, that good old "because Daddy says so" insistence, is refreshing and like water to dying men when the world gets out of hand and too much for us.

We've finally built networks that we know we can't control, and this is what happens.

 

[Tentative Andy]

Extremism sells, in this complicated time of global visibility and data overload. Easy answers, that good old "because Daddy says so" insistence, is refreshing and like water to dying men when the world gets out of hand and too much for us.

This is very, very true.

 

[nomadthethird]

Common sense versus intellectual authority

I love the opposition Poetix makes between a statement like "there are truths that should be adhered to at all costs" and "no, obviously not" (which is a statement made based on the fact that truths, whatever they may be, are not self-evident and therefore cannot sustain entire networks or social matrices without negotiation). His statement about truth is, of course, somehow beyond "common sense", somehow a statement that transcends the common man's grasp, and so it is superior to any reactions that are, like mine, not published in the New Left Review. My hesitation can only be based on a complete lack of intellectual reflection and capability.

Any reaction to or dispute with a statement of Badiou's, or for that matter, Poetix's, is a lowly appeal to common sense, and so it could never have the validity of the powerful and magical utterances of the Philosophers. It couldn't be that intellectual stances could diverge from each other. Nope.

This kind of logic makes a giant circle around itself.

 

[Tentative Andy]

Yeah, and the other thing that bothers me is the slippage which sometimes occurs from the position that there are certain truths which contradicts common sense (which is correct and important) to the unjustified and often dangerous position that any claim which is in opposition to common sense must always be true (and worthy of attention, approval etc.) simply because of this fact. Now admittedly this sort of argument is more often implied than stated outright, but still, the whole 'I am a persecuted crusader against the tyranny of common sense!' stance is getting rather long in the tooth, imo.

 

[poetix]

Ok, that k-punk post has got me fairly annoyed, but that's probably what he wanted

There is an element of wind-up I think, and also of following Lyotard's example of saying the "evil" thing ("hang on tight and spit on me" being a phrase from one of the most infamous passages of Libidinal Economy). A lot of the writing on k-punk is a probe for thinking with: "how can I know what I think until I see what I say?", although part of the point is to unearth what one "really" thinks, in the way of unconscious commitments and prejudices, and openly contest it in writing.

there's definately a small but very influential network that exists between k-punk, Infinite Though, owen h and Poetix's own blog (however modest he may be about it), one of the functions of which has to been to promote central Badiouvian ideas. It should also be noted that k-punk in particular has been influential in the passing-down of similar ideas to other bloggers and critics like Reynolds and Woebot, who do not primarily deal with philosophy and who may not be formally philosophically trained. (I'm aware this may all seem a bit paranoid, but reckon it contains some undeniable truth).

Well, if this small knot of bloggers isn't who Daniel means when he says "Badiouvians", then I honestly don't know who the fuck he thinks he means. There's a certain amount of old, warmed-over cuntishness in his furious attempts to portray us as heretic-burning elitists consumed by our own intellectual vanity. But "power-block"? Come on.

There is a sort of minor eminence - like being the kid with the high-score on the pinball machine in the local cafe - which makes you, locally, the person to beat. I can't say that it's an eminence particularly worth aspiring to. But, really, that's about the scale of power and influence we're talking about here. Only in the demented imagination of Dejan Nikolevic are any of us figures of the remotest importance.

There is the book series, which shifts the game up a register, and Owen's recently been doing very well for himself in architecture journalism (but he's not particularly into Badiou...). It's possible that one or other of us will eventually amount to something, although I don't think it's going to be me. Mark K-P would like to assemble a vast anonymous kollektive to swarm over the karkass of defunkt kapital, but there's a slight risk of us just turning into the wankers from Slate, and I don't think anybody really wants that.

If you ever see me pontificating on the Late Review, feel free to call me a careerist twat, as that's certainly what I will have become by that point.

Oh and Poetix, I really don't mean to pick a fight with you

How refreshingly novel.

, but as regards Heidegger and 'authoritarian obscuratanism', I really don't find Being and Time on the whole to be obscure in any needless or oppressive way. His later work I struggle with though, I'll acknowledge that.

I've never tried reading it in German, but my impression is that Heideggerian is an idiom that "comes clear" when you tune into it, and can seem terribly murky until you do. The later work, as you say, is problematic.

 

[nomadthethird]

Science long ago debunked the idea that there is a "common sense" and then some sort of other kind of more proper, more rational thinking.

Humans don't think rationally. That's simply not how the brain machine works. It didn't evolve that way. It evolved to react to situations to avoid predation and danger and perceived threats.

If you want to think rationally, why would you give in to the most autonomic, "mindless" impulse that humans experience ("fight or flight")?

Btw, the guy who killed Tiller believed in Truths that needed fighting for:
http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation/story/1226722.html

 

[Tentative Andy]

If you ever see me pontificating on the Late Review, feel free to call me a careerist twat, as that's certainly what I will have become by that point.

I will now to be keenly watching it in anticipation of a bloke in full clown clothing and make-up showing up.

But yeah, I can accept that my perception could be trick of the light, that the apparent dominance of Badiouvian-informed discourse only appears as such to people like me that move within these fairly small, enclosed circles. But equally I think you ought to accept, that within that particular circle, you and some of your friends (if that's the right word, which it almost certainly isn't) have a degree of influence. I don't really know anything about Daniel/josef k, and so can't comment on any broader axes to grind.
I should also mention that I feel that the 'provacative' school of writing which you describe is also getting a bit overdone; or, if not overdone as such, then too easy to produce a poor example of. But I can understand the position it comes from, bascially the Nietzchean that people sometimes need to be scared or alarmed into thought. Why attempts to do this often fail is something I need to reflect on more.

Being & Time has reasoned arguments and everything!

 

[nomadthethird]

no, more like wankers from Salon...

It's not even close to a "power block", it's a small clique. The internet is very good at creating this sort of circle of influence, and also in magnifying its apparent significance: it draws together a "self-selected" group which has little reach outside of its own spheres of habit. This group will tend to visit similar websites, read similar blogs, have mutual friends, etc., and so they're "everywhere" to one another, but to anyone who isn't within the radius, its influence is invisible.

Polemics are interesting to me, but the Badiouvian stuff seems much more earnest than that. Maybe it's not, I don't know. If its extremism were merely a rhetorical flourish, there would be no need for the extremely arch self-righteousness (which sometimes I like), would there?

I could do without the utterly weird pretense to originality and shocking newness. Otherwise--this too shall pass. They always do.

 

[Tentative Andy]

The internet is very good at creating this sort of circle of influence, and also in magnifying its apparent significance: it draws together a "self-selected" group which has little reach outside of its own spheres of habit. This group will tend to visit similar websites, read similar blogs, have mutual friends, etc., and so they're "everywhere" to one another, but to anyone who isn't within the radius, its influence is invisible.

Again, a good point well put.

 

[vimothy]

In summary, then: there were violent, communist revolutions (called "truths"), and we want to have more of them?

 

[vimothy]

What is Nietzsche?

"Dying for the "truth."— We should not let ourselves be burnt for our opinions: we are not so certain of them as all that. But we might let ourselves be burnt for the right of possessing and changing our opinions."

 

[poetix]

In summary, then: there were violent, communist revolutions (called "truths"), and we want to have more of them?

May '68, the civil rights movement, Stonewall...more! But different! Fail better!

 

[poetix]

Science long ago debunked the idea that there is a "common sense" and then some sort of other kind of more proper, more rational thinking.

Science pretty much embodies the notion that there is a more rational way of thinking about reality than "common sense".

 

[poetix]

I mean, any sentence starting "science long ago debunked...", is clearly making some appeal to the rationality of the debunking agent ("science") over and above that of the debunked.

Is that appeal - gulp! - authoritarian? I don't believe so: scientific assertions of fact rest on evidence and demonstration, not a "...because I said so". The evidence can be enlarged, reframed or contested, the demonstration - if its form is rigorous - shown to contain inconsistencies.

A scientific "truth" in Badiou's sense is not a fact, but the "figure" (type of formal process) through which a fact is produced, its evidential basis demonstrated and its consequences derived. For the scientist, certainly, there are truths, and they are not reducible to opinions -although the facts they establish remain in principle contestable.

 

[poetix]

Here is a critique of Badiou with some polemical bite.

 

[vimothy]

George Tiller?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

well unsurprisingly I find myself again with nomad, in the common sense corner, against the Badiouists/apologists/etc

the $ quote. or a $ quote.

In a fight, I put my money on those same big dumb jocks who don't give a shit about the Forms and whose frat buddies probably work for Goldman Sachs.

all of K-Punk's (& etc) truth-to-power business, which also unfortunately comes off like an upscale version of bog standard old New Leftist ranting*, would be so much easier to take seriously if any the things/people he was rejecting cared. no compromise with the bourgeois liberals! FFS.

it reminds me of nothing so much as the kinds of hardcore anarchopunk bands I grew up proclaiming their hatred of commercialism as loudly & as often as possible. if no one is interested in offering you the chance to sell out what's the point of whinging on & fooking on about it...

the thing is, despite how learnedly stupid it all is, I would still be with the hardliners in a heartbeat if I thought there was the smallest, most remote, most infinitesimal fraction of a percent that any good would come of it. or that it was relevant to anyone, anywhere, beyond a few cloistered circles of leftist academics.

*tho that may be a compliment to some people

 

[swears]

There is an element of wind-up I think, and also of following Lyotard's example of saying the "evil" thing ("hang on tight and spit on me" being a phrase from one of the most infamous passages of Libidinal Economy). A lot of the writing on k-punk is a probe for thinking with: "how can I know what I think until I see what I say?", although part of the point is to unearth what one "really" thinks, in the way of unconscious commitments and prejudices, and openly contest it in writing.

Nope, I think he really actually means it, his whole schtick is super-earnestness.

My problem with what he was saying there is that it's not dogmatic to point out something like God's non-existence. It's about as "dogmatic" as pointing out the fact that unicorns aren't real. The dogmatic bit is when you actively start to prevent people from worshipping.

The idea of dogmatism is that you believe in something no matter what, and that's inherently stupid. I believe in the theory of evolution, but if it was proved to me tomorrow that the theory was flawed and a better theory replaced it, that would change my mind. I think pluralism and tolerance are often good things, not because they're "nice" or "liberal" but because I could be wrong. You don't always have all the facts, there's nothing anti-realist or anti-sceptical about listening to the views of others.