Fascism!

[nikbee]

I dunno about Badiou - I also don't know what he means by "Maoism" when he endorses Maoism, how much his idea of Maoism has to do with anything that actually happened in China under Mao. actually Badiou's whole take on Maoism (or maybe that should be the take of Badiou fans on Badiou's take on Maoism) reminds me of La Chinoise.

more generally on the topic of Maoism tho; certainly it was an authoritarian regime that was responsible for a lot of terrible things - but - I've seen the argument advanced that it was better than what came before (warlords) & at least on par w/what came after, the current regime. not saying I endorse that argument. I think if you're talking about Maoism tho it's worth asking - is China better off then it was before Mao? I would say yes, probably. I'm sure many ppl would say that's in spite of & not b/c of Mao but I'm don't know enough about it to say either way.

similar to Tito.. my wife would say same for Georgia.. she feels very strongly about this..

 

[nikbee]

if you can't explain your points in even the most rudimentary fashion using jargon, then no, jargon isn't useful.

no offense nikbee but all this bollocks about Events & Truth Processes & so on is kinda laughable. it's just another measure of how little bearing any of this stuff has on reality. at least Zizek's entertaining.

here i disagree.. it has everything do with reality.. are you just being lazy? zizek often 'follows through' on badious ontology.. maybe you prefer zizeks style.. but dont say it has nothing to do with reality.. maybe you should try to 'follow through' yourself.. and enter a truth process..

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

here i disagree.. it has everything do with reality.. are you just being lazy? zizek often 'follows through' on badious ontology.. maybe you prefer zizeks style.. but dont say it has nothing to do with reality.. maybe you should try to 'follow through' yourself.. and enter a truth process..

life is a truth process. I don't need an Event to enter a Truth Process.

really tho - what does it have to do with reality? I don't mean capital R Reality in an ontological sense. how has anything you've said been anything other than silly word games?

tbc I think Zizek is just as much of a crank, he's just full of it in a more entertaining fashion.

 

[vimothy]

more generally on the topic of Maoism tho; certainly it was an authoritarian regime that was responsible for a lot of terrible things - but - I've seen the argument advanced that it was better than what came before (warlords) & at least on par w/what came after, the current regime.

With respect, I don't think that's creditable. In terms of raw numbers, Mao was possibly the greatest mass murderer in history.

 

[nikbee]

life is a truth process. I don't need an Event to enter a Truth Process.

really tho - what does it have to do with reality? I don't mean capital R Reality in an ontological sense. how has anything you've said been anything other than silly word games?

tbc I think Zizek is just as much of a crank, he's just full of it in a more entertaining fashion.

correct. life is a truth process. this is nice construction.. but where would we be without Events?

 

[nikbee]

life is a truth process. I don't need an Event to enter a Truth Process.

really tho - what does it have to do with reality? I don't mean capital R Reality in an ontological sense. how has anything you've said been anything other than silly word games?

tbc I think Zizek is just as much of a crank, he's just full of it in a more entertaining fashion.

honestly, i dont know what this means: "word games"

if the words Event, Truth, and so on dont signify anything, its not because badious playing mysterious word games. maybe you dont fully understand them.. the concepts are quite simple, if your intellect prevents you from following through on their logic, or simply understanding them, then thats a different problem entirely..

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

With respect, I don't think that's creditable. In terms of raw numbers, Mao was possibly the greatest mass murderer in history.

with the caveat that as stated I don't necessarily agree with it either;

how many deaths were malicious & how many were the result of mismanagement/flawed policies? are the latter murder? if so, are they at least partially ameliorated by any good that came out of those same policies? (also, one point about raw #s, if we're getting into that - obv one of the reasons why more Chinese died is cos there were more to begin with, Pol Pot killed a far higher % of his ppl in a far shorter period - anyway at a certain point I think a tag like "greatest mass murderer" kinda becomes pointless)

really I think the main question is - were more Chinese people better off after Mao then before? If so how much credit, if any, should he, his philosophy & his regime get for that? and, more importantly perhaps - would China & its people have been better or worse off under Chiang Kai-shek (by all accounts a rather odious figure - & more relevant, an incompetent one) & various provincial warlords (assuming he would not have been able to rein them in)?

I'm not defending Maoism or the Cultural Revolution or so on. you may notice most of this takes the form of questions, b/c I don't have answers & I don't know if all these questions have clear answers.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

honestly, i dont know what this means: "word games"

if the words Event, Truth, and so on dont signify anything, its not because badious playing mysterious word games. maybe you dont fully understand them.. the concepts are quite simple, if your intellect prevents you from following through on their logic, or simply understanding them, then thats a different problem entirely..

yes, that's the ticket, if someone calls your jargon bluff then call them stupid. "the problem isn't that I'm just pumping out abstruse meaningless toss, it's that you're too dense to understand what I'm saying". right, whatever.

also I didn't say Badiou plays word games - I said you were playing word games. then, of course, you're no Badiou.

 

[nikbee]

yes, that's the ticket, if someone calls your jargon bluff then call them stupid. "the problem isn't that I'm just pumping out abstruse meaningless toss, it's that you're too dense to understand what I'm saying". right, whatever.

also I didn't say Badiou plays word games - I said you were playing word games. then, of course, you're no Badiou.

im not restructuring badiou.. but merely paraphrasing.. ive not give one original construction in any of my posts (ive 'followed through' a few times i think).. most of this stuff comes directly from the books..

this 'jargon' is not my jargon..

but i do claim that i can think 'within Badiou'. at least on a basic level.. im not sure you can say that.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

im not restructuring badiou.. but merely paraphrasing.. ive not give one original construction in any of my posts (ive 'followed through' a few times i think).. most of this stuff comes directly from the books..

this 'jargon' is not my jargon..

the point is if you can't use Badiou's jargon to construct your own coherent points then his jargon is not useful to you.

but i do claim that i can think 'within Badiou'. at least on a basic level.. im not sure you can say that.

go on then, if you repeat "you're stupid" enough times it'll magically become true and no one will be able to argue with your overwhelming Badiouian intellect.

 

[nikbee]

yes, that's the ticket, if someone calls your jargon bluff then call them stupid. "the problem isn't that I'm just pumping out abstruse meaningless toss, it's that you're too dense to understand what I'm saying". right, whatever.

also I didn't say Badiou plays word games - I said you were playing word games. then, of course, you're no Badiou.

wait, where did you call my bluff? you just whined about me using jargon.. but this is the only way that i 'know' Badiou.. this is the language..

what do you want?

 

[nikbee]

the point is if you can't use Badiou's jargon to construct your own coherent points then his jargon is not useful to you.



go on then, if you repeat "you're stupid" enough times it'll magically become true and no one will be able to argue with your overwhelming Badiouian intellect.

what the fuck?

his jargon is very useful to me.. it envelopes me.. i can think within it.. thats my claim at least..

 

[vimothy]

really I think the main question is - were more Chinese people better off after Mao then before?

Just to go hard Godwin, run that same analysis with you-know-who.

In any case, what does Mao really have to do with what happened after he was dead? DXP deserves some credit (though obviously still a tyrant); less convinced by Mao's claims.

As for how many deaths Mao is directly responsible for, well, I guess that's hard to say (ditto our other top mass murderers, Stalin and Hitler), but how many deaths is the system that Mao instigated and ruled over responsible for? I think it's about 65 million.

[And don't get me wrong, I am sure that there is plenty of blame to go around...]

 

[vimothy]

nikbee -- the simple solution is to just explain your terminology.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

his jargon is very useful to me.. it envelopes me.. i can think within it.. thats my claim at least..

I'm saying Badiou is full of it & that you come off like a pale imitation of Badiou.

I don't "want" anything really. I do think that instead of making coherent points you've just repeatedly retreated in to Badiouspeak. tho admittedly, I don't really care if you go on about betrayals and truth processes and whatever.

the claim that the rest of us simply can't understand it is ("can't separate the betrayal from the truth process", can't think "within" Badiou & so on) is if nothing else quite amusing.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

nikbee -- the simple solution is to just explain your terminology.

he doesn't have to. we (or at least, I) know what his terminology means. I'm saying 1) he just repeats terms rather than using them to say anything & 2) the terminology itself is flawed - that is, Badiou's a crank. which I'm not 1st, 100th or last to say, of course.

 

[nikbee]

nikbee -- the simple solution is to just explain your terminology.

i think ive tried, no? if i have missed something, or if something is unclear, then lets try to dig into it. i cant know how you 'read' these terms. i am trying to be as clear as possible. never had any intention to mystify, or be obtuse, as padraig said.

 

[nikbee]

he doesn't have to. we (or at least, I) know what his terminology means. I'm saying 1) he just repeats terms rather than using them to say anything & 2) the terminology itself is flawed - that is, Badiou's a crank. which I'm not 1st, 100th or last to say, of course.

but if something is 'flawed' then lets investigate. what is flawed?

 

[josef k.]

honestly, i dont know what this means: "word games"

if the words Event, Truth, and so on dont signify anything, its not because badious playing mysterious word games. maybe you dont fully understand them.. the concepts are quite simple, if your intellect prevents you from following through on their logic, or simply understanding them, then thats a different problem entirely..

The interesting things happens when the jargon breaks down, and people are forced to try and think about what that might mean. It strikes me that there is a problem, if non-understanding returns to the position: "You need to try and understand these terms, these terms are key terms, the failure to understand these terms may be considered in some sense a moral failure."

You need to be able to think the space between... where words fail.

Truth is silent.

 

[josef k.]

Badiou, at best (like all authors?), is a crutch.