A few comments from this thread… “The Other is not constituted by the self, as Levinas haves it, but the inverse.” There is no ‘constitution’ of the self from the Other in Levinas. The self is a historical and/or personal retreat from the absolute alterity of the other. The self is a kind of violence [...]
Postmodernism would argue that language is power. On the surface this is just as ludicrous as suggesting that money is speech. However, what they mean is that any use of language is a use of power. Language always aims at ends such as influence, persuasion, domination. When a bird tweets it may be to effect [...]
“Class warfare has been going on for decades. Republicans are really good at propaganda. However, they have finally deconstructed themselves. They could only talk generally for so long about cutting the size of the Federal government before their rhetoric caught up to them. Now that their own people are demanding that they walk the talk, [...]
“…transcendence as the erasure of the other” I realize this last phrase resists the notion that Levinas has of transcendence. Levinas wants to reconstitute metaphysics. He wants to re-think transcendence along the lines of Descartes’ idea of infinity. It is as if he wants to find the authenticity of metaphysics. For Levinas, metaphysics was always [...]
Tell me all of this, you Muses who have your homes on Olympus, from the beginning, tell who first of them (the gods) came-to-be. First of all Chaos came-to-be; but then afterwards Broad-breasted earth, a secure dwelling place forever for all (the immortals who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and misty Tartara in the [...]
When Nietzsche writes of ‘going under’ he does not refer to some sort of Buddhist extinction, sunyata. He refers to Zarathustra’s descent. From the coldest of heights Zarathustra, drawn by compassion, over-rich with pity, descends into mortality, the all too human. From beyond good and evil and nursed from the nausea of eternal recurrence of [...]
There used to be a conservative website, some of its content is still around, called “The Postmodern Conservative”. I read a little content from this site as I am a little intrigued how one could maintain the conjecture of a ‘postmodern conservative’. On the surface, this is an oxymoron. Perhaps it is intended ironically. It [...]
The Other is radical only if the desire for it is not the possibility for anticipating it as the desirable or of thinking it out beforehand but if it comes aimlessly as an absolute alterity, like death. John Heaton ‘The Other and Psychotherapy’ in Provocation of Levinas New research on the unconsciousness is reviving discussions [...]
Chris Hayes made an argument on his MSNBC show “Up” that the Occupy movement demonstrates a more effective, inclusive form of government in their nightly town hall type discussions than is demonstrated in the “Super Committee” that was setup to address debt concerns. He viewed the Super Committee as an example of elitist power broking. [...]
Re-reading Blanchot’s essay “From Dread to Language” and thinking of Kierkegaard’s concept of Dread there is a feeling I have of self-obsession. Dread is the ultimate solipsism. Exteriority abandons oneself in Dread and leaves one in a state of irrecoverable and unsalvageable narcissism. The impending doom of an absolute immediate moment that cannot be intervened, [...]
