Fascism!
- Thread starter josef k.
- Start date
Jesus said:
"Whenever two or more of you are gathered in my name, I am in your midst."
At the beginning of Confessions of a Mask, Mishima quotes The Brothers Karamazov:
Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed and never can be fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side. I am a cultivated man, brother, but I’ve thought a lot about this. It’s terrible what mysteries there are! Too many riddles weigh men down on earth. We must solve them as we can, and try to keep a dry skin in the water. Beauty! I can’t endure the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom. What’s still more awful is that a man with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not renounce the ideal of the Madonna, and his heart may be on fire with that ideal, genuinely on fire, just as in his days of youth and innocence. Yes, man is broad, too broad, indeed. I’d have him narrower. The devil only knows what to make of it! What to the mind is shameful is beauty and nothing else to the heart. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe me, that for the immense mass of mankind beauty is found in Sodom. Did you know that secret? The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man. But a man;s heart wants to speak only of its own ache. Listen, now, I'll tell you what it says...1
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
- But who is that on the other side of you?
Frog Phelan he came on the job when Truman was President. I'm like twenty-one, twenty-two and we get a call. Lafayette Houses, there's a kid screaming in an apartment, door's locked. The elevator's broke so Frog sends me up alone, he ain't gonna jog up six stories, he's blotto anyhow. I get up there, Housing's just popped the lock. We go in, there's a three-year-old kid handcuffed to a burning hot radiator, nobody else in the house. The handcuff's metal, right? Metal conducts heat? I don't know how long the kid was hooked up like that, but he had a ring of cooked flesh around his wrist, OK?
We call the ambulance, cut the cuff, they take the kid to Christ the King. Housing leaves, but I just stay in the room by the radiator. Sit there on the windowsill. Sitting there forty fucking minutes, and finally in comes the mother. That's forty more minutes the kid would have cooked if we didn't get in, OK? She walks in, she's fuckin' got them half-mast heroin eyes, right? Went out to cop? She walks in, no kid there. She looks at me. I look at her. There's like this moment, you know? All of a sudden she tears ass. I chase that fucking bitch down six flights of stairs. She makes it into the lobby, runs right into Phelan, he grabs her but here I'm coming like the avenging angel, ninety miles an hour. Frog throws his shoulder into me. Boom, I go right into the mailboxes. I'm looking at him like, What the fuck? He takes her out, gives her over to another cruiser, they take her in. He comes, gets me. We're sitting in the car, he says to me, “Rocco, that lady you were gonna brain? Twenty years ago when she was a little girl I arrested her father for beating her baby brother to death. The father was a real piece of shit. Now that she's all grown up? She's a real piece of shit. That kid you saved tonight. If he lives that long, if he grows up? He's gonna be a real piece of shit. Rocco,” Frog says to me, “It's the cycle of shit and you can't do nothing about it. So take it easy and just do your job.2”
Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed and never can be fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side. I am a cultivated man, brother, but I’ve thought a lot about this. It’s terrible what mysteries there are! Too many riddles weigh men down on earth. We must solve them as we can, and try to keep a dry skin in the water. Beauty! I can’t endure the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom. What’s still more awful is that a man with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not renounce the ideal of the Madonna, and his heart may be on fire with that ideal, genuinely on fire, just as in his days of youth and innocence. Yes, man is broad, too broad, indeed. I’d have him narrower. The devil only knows what to make of it! What to the mind is shameful is beauty and nothing else to the heart. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe me, that for the immense mass of mankind beauty is found in Sodom. Did you know that secret? The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man. But a man;s heart wants to speak only of its own ache. Listen, now, I'll tell you what it says...1
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
- But who is that on the other side of you?
Frog Phelan he came on the job when Truman was President. I'm like twenty-one, twenty-two and we get a call. Lafayette Houses, there's a kid screaming in an apartment, door's locked. The elevator's broke so Frog sends me up alone, he ain't gonna jog up six stories, he's blotto anyhow. I get up there, Housing's just popped the lock. We go in, there's a three-year-old kid handcuffed to a burning hot radiator, nobody else in the house. The handcuff's metal, right? Metal conducts heat? I don't know how long the kid was hooked up like that, but he had a ring of cooked flesh around his wrist, OK?
We call the ambulance, cut the cuff, they take the kid to Christ the King. Housing leaves, but I just stay in the room by the radiator. Sit there on the windowsill. Sitting there forty fucking minutes, and finally in comes the mother. That's forty more minutes the kid would have cooked if we didn't get in, OK? She walks in, she's fuckin' got them half-mast heroin eyes, right? Went out to cop? She walks in, no kid there. She looks at me. I look at her. There's like this moment, you know? All of a sudden she tears ass. I chase that fucking bitch down six flights of stairs. She makes it into the lobby, runs right into Phelan, he grabs her but here I'm coming like the avenging angel, ninety miles an hour. Frog throws his shoulder into me. Boom, I go right into the mailboxes. I'm looking at him like, What the fuck? He takes her out, gives her over to another cruiser, they take her in. He comes, gets me. We're sitting in the car, he says to me, “Rocco, that lady you were gonna brain? Twenty years ago when she was a little girl I arrested her father for beating her baby brother to death. The father was a real piece of shit. Now that she's all grown up? She's a real piece of shit. That kid you saved tonight. If he lives that long, if he grows up? He's gonna be a real piece of shit. Rocco,” Frog says to me, “It's the cycle of shit and you can't do nothing about it. So take it easy and just do your job.2”
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
alright I know all you British people will be sleeping, but on the way home I had this thought re: "the state" & I don't want to go to sleep & forget it so...
I'm reminded of Hillel's famous quote; "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I?"
also, Josef - Clockers?
I'm reminded of Hillel's famous quote; "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I?"
also, Josef - Clockers?
mistadubalina
Banned
Ive always thought one plus one makes three, especially when you're mixing tunes...
mixed_biscuits
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matt b
Indexing all opinion
nowt to do with the state, merely agreed (whether formally or informally) norms/behaviours etc. Having no state does not preclude such things; having them does not equal 'state'.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
shooting enough professors
that'll be Vim's dry Manc wit intruding Matt
excellent stuff here; wrt states and a monopoly of violence think how - one eg, and relatively speaking - there would have been less bad abroad in the Levant in, say, the last five years if the Lebanese govt were genuinely independent and able to monopolise deployment and control of violence across her internationally agreed borders.
wrt to the discussion Nikbee started, Pearsall - i know it's been a while since he posted here, eh?! - has a neat summation here.
Vim OTM at no.508
that'll be Vim's dry Manc wit intruding Matt
excellent stuff here; wrt states and a monopoly of violence think how - one eg, and relatively speaking - there would have been less bad abroad in the Levant in, say, the last five years if the Lebanese govt were genuinely independent and able to monopolise deployment and control of violence across her internationally agreed borders.
wrt to the discussion Nikbee started, Pearsall - i know it's been a while since he posted here, eh?! - has a neat summation here.
Vim OTM at no.508
matt b
Indexing all opinion
that'll be Vim's dry Manc wit intruding Matt
partially- no.508 assumes a similar point, doesn't it?
that was a discussion?
namely, Zizek (and Badiou) are talking shit irt communism
scottdisco
rip this joint please
true, but - and if Vimothy himself could pop up here it would obv be best - i assumed (oops) that perhaps we could extend the girlfriend thing, as although you are quite right re informal norms not needing a state, a responsible state would be good to monopolise violence if it were needed. (i realise i'm making a huge leap to domestic abuse analogies now, which is probably a bit sub-Godwin's Law, but hey ho
)that was my dry Manc wit in action..
i always enjoyed Pearsall's style.
vimothy
yurp
You're both right. I was not being entirely serious, but if we ask, what is a state, and answer, a political entity ruling over a given territory, and the formalisation of the institutional (in the political-economic sense) frameworks that determine action and arbitrate disputes within it, well, "the state" is that third mind, no matter how large or small the territory.
Sorry I can't be more coherent -- very busy today!
Sorry I can't be more coherent -- very busy today!
as i said, when i left, i was very young. 6 years old.. i wasnt describing my experience, but my parents.
EDIT: wait, what does that even mean? youre about as yugoslavian as i am? i cant even process that.
i did not say in actu.. that was badiou.. please READ the posts. pretty please.
what is the obsession with the individual, or difference? this always strikes me as some kind of deep fear. totalitarianism is a weak concept to begin with.. what is it to be free from any ideological drip? im terrorized by the trees in the park sometimes, fascist fucking tree.. infinite difference is inscribed into being itself.. why should we construct any system based around a recognition of the Other, or infinite difference. im sorry, maybe it was my commie childhood, but isnt nicer to think we're all exactly the same ("There is only one world.")? doesnt difference itself render us completely ordinary (multiple on top of multiple, multiple composed of an infinity of elements)? im not sure about myself most of the time.. only a Truth cuts accross the infinity of difference, because a Truth is the same for all. to found a Law that is based on an entirely contingent state of things (difference (cultural)) is a totality, or a finitude. a system (philosophical, State) should construct a space for thought in which different subjective types, expressed by the truths of its time, coexist.
vimothy at 508 is right.. the state is everywhere. authority is everywhere. again, to construct a system with the fear of authority would be crazy.. authority is present in every disruption of social relations. this is inscribed in social relations itself.
therefore nomad, we can exist together, no problem, we'll just have to send you to camp for a little while.. no big deal.
this is simply invalid.. youre talking about someone else, not badiou.. dont listen to her, shes a liar. though sky daddy was hilarious.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
This talk about the Other, and infinity, and capital-T Truth all sounds a bit transcendental, even spiritual to me. I'm sure it's interesting, but I haven't read any Badiou so I can't really get a handle on this particular idiom. I'll leave that for others to discuss.
But - Lenin, Stalin and Mao obviously didn't read Badiou either, as they predated him, and perhaps Kim Jong-Il is a fan, though if he is I haven't heard about it. Point is, if we're comparing fascist regimes to communist ones, the theories of a French philosopher aren't especially relevant to the political realities of those regimes. I mean, I'm more interested in how (for example) Mao Tse-tung regarded his own ideology with respect to Marx's writings, and how closely the economic set-up of Maoist China reflected the ideals set out in Marx and Engels, than in someone else's very theoretical and academic take on communism (and fascism) from a psychoanalytic or metaphysical angle. And I don't know a huge amount about this, so I'd be grateful if anyone in this thread could contribute ideas about this from a more concrete - which is to say historical, political, economic - POV, rather than a highly theoretical one. Not that I don't think the theory is worth discussing, just that I'd have to a shitload of background reading before being able to make much sense of it, I think.
But - Lenin, Stalin and Mao obviously didn't read Badiou either, as they predated him, and perhaps Kim Jong-Il is a fan, though if he is I haven't heard about it. Point is, if we're comparing fascist regimes to communist ones, the theories of a French philosopher aren't especially relevant to the political realities of those regimes. I mean, I'm more interested in how (for example) Mao Tse-tung regarded his own ideology with respect to Marx's writings, and how closely the economic set-up of Maoist China reflected the ideals set out in Marx and Engels, than in someone else's very theoretical and academic take on communism (and fascism) from a psychoanalytic or metaphysical angle. And I don't know a huge amount about this, so I'd be grateful if anyone in this thread could contribute ideas about this from a more concrete - which is to say historical, political, economic - POV, rather than a highly theoretical one. Not that I don't think the theory is worth discussing, just that I'd have to a shitload of background reading before being able to make much sense of it, I think.
the Truth process (that libidinal goo) is not transcendental.. its a concrete/creative process.. there are 4 conditions for this: science, art, politics, love.. this is where Events occur. what is abstract or transcendental here? badiou is a mathematician. im not, so i cant say much here.. but i am an "artist". i would call what i do, my creative work, a Truth process.. i dont necessarily deal with concrete things. i cant give you formulas and equations, i cant even give you a material product.. art gives form to affects.. but the Truth of my work (if there is one, i hope) changes the constellation of possibility. this must not be repressed.. this is not relative.. you cant say, well, im a fascist, killing jews is my truth process.. that doesnt work! fascism is a force of fierce nihilism, not creation.
if Truth is transcendental than science is transcendental also. we can make this claim i suppose..
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Why can't you say this?
Also, what else can't you say?
For example, could you say, "fighting capitalism is my truth process"?
Or indeed, reading Badiou (and opening the way into the conferences, conversations, articles, networks, etc, noted early by V.) "is my truth process."
What about: "Training Mike Tyson to become a heavy champion is my truth process." (Cus d'Amato)
...
well, to put it as primitively as possible.. killing jews is not creative. even in its naming it is destructive. again, fascism is a return to a man of old. fighting capitalism can be a truth process, but it depends on what you mean by fighting, and so on.. if it leads to a creation of truths then you are arrested by the truth process (you are an ethical subject, and any force that disrupts this process is Evil).
we are in a truth process right now, lets not fuck that up.
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so, let's try this, then:
"fighting jews can be a truth process, but it depends on what you mean by fighting, and so on.. if it leads to a creation of truths then you are arrested by the truth process (you are an ethical subject, and any force that disrupts this process is Evil)."
EDIT: I appreciate this is taking a strange turn.
training mike tyson can be brilliantly artistic. that sounds great