FS & Praxis

[matthew piscioneri]

Bob,

Ok. So a few bucks got lost on the ticket, but hell we all have taken the 
ride. As an armchair critic I would say that EVERYONE has played their part 
- in this first half - with great aplomb.

Time for a roll call of rascals? Let's start at the top. Starring God, 
Allah. Too metaphysical. What about Corporal muslim in Kuwait weds private 
Lynch. Their children multiply. Or Benjamin makes it to Spain.
Ummm I'm not very comfortable with either happy or sad endings I've decided:

>    pardon the lapse in tone, Matt.
>...but performative contradiction is rather cardinal for y'all, eh?
>Resignation to Power may harmonize easily with a cushy oxonian (or for JH,
>superstar) idyl, but what insufferable dissonance to say a Victor Klemperer
>trapped by anonymity in kafka-esque cockroach-icity?  and that, and worse,
>is the essential dispensation of the species, no?
----------------
>And while "Totalitarianism" is one emanation, ...isn't bourgeois liberal
>"Consumerism" an equally momentous dystopia?  ...isn't marcuse confirmed as
>never yet by this latest masterpiece of  "lib western democracy," 
>fictitious
>war, on fictitious grounds, for fictitious freedom, by a fictitious prez
>with a real military power, propaganda apparatus and intelligence system so
>vast and irresistable as gives new meaning to the word, totalitarianism.

depends how hyperreal you want to get. If you have a fiction then there's 
gotta be something real. I thought it was all a fiction. My take on JH is 
his take on the fiction. Collective ideals and all that and Durkheim. If we 
need stories, what stories are we going to tell. Marx made it clear that the 
dominant stories serve the interests of the dominant. Funny thing that. I 
could shed a single tear for Saddam Hussein. There was - at least in the 
beginning - a valid strain of Arab nationalism shaping his actions. But 
shhhussh, the second act is about to start.
---------
>As for my personal mythology, ...for sure fatalist, but not yet resigned.

You have my admiration :-). Power flows. Does resistance strengthen it or 
dissipates it? Does resignation abide Power or just gets on with doing 
whatever is possible in whatever pathetic form this takes. The dialectic of 
enlightenment zen lies impotently in the enlightenment of the dialectic:

>Will-to-Power sits at the core of the being of the species like a law of
>nature; but, not alone.
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This is where we might diverge. If all of the below didn't just do Iraq, 
then I want my money back:

>Opposite the hyena there's the giest-structure, the
>logos, religion/art, the creator and preserver of the meaning of being.

but I may be misunderstanding you here.
---------------
Yes and no. Isn't there a script in which everyone's a winner? Big bummer.

>...very hard to shake these days, eh?

A few beers, some good music and we're ready to shake all over again.

MattP.

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