I try to make the concepts I use include both the “is” and the “ought,” and to guide the transition from one to the other. So, when I speak of “singularized succession in perpetuity,” on the face of it I’m proposing an alternative to the near randomized leadership drift explicitly endorsed by liberal and democratic politics (and I am in fact doing that) but I’m also describing what anyone with any power, which is to say, any command over the attention of others, is already doing, more or less implicitly, more or less consciously, in however a convoluted way in conformity with existing mechanisms of succession. So, the concept simply enables us to make what is implicit explicit, to bring into focus everything that requires it to remain implicit, and to direct our attention to the possible means of making it explicit. So, the more thorough the study of existing conditions, the more visible and intelligible the way to transform them.
Thanks again for an interesting post. A few questions, if you have time for any of them:
1) Can you speculate as to why Gans, who critiques philosophy/metaphysics for burying the ostensive origins of language, would also show some of the fear of the imperative that you see as constitutive of philosophy?
2) "highly committed and intelligent individuals developed conceptual vocabularies that brought previously unimagined realities into greater resolution that could only be expressed mathematically"
-this confuses me. If something can only be expressed mathematically, what are the "conceptual vocabularies" doing? Surely this vocabulary is not strictly mathematical, or limited to the esoteric society that you see as parallel with the evolution of science... Maybe I have to read Horl?
3) "we can challenge that drive for scenelessness as resentment abolitionists confronting non-resentfully a kind of absolute, we might even say demonic, resentment."
-I recall a recent post where you raised this possibility of just saying "yes" to a non-resentful contemplation of the sign, but I'm still at a bit of a loss what to make of this idea. Is our overcoming of resentment to be somewhat limited to focused contemplation in disciplinary spaces or is it to be general to our intellectual, political, institutional, and emotional lives? I can't imagine how you will overcome all resentment, which I feel you still show, in some degree, towards the scenic/event abolitionists and their obfuscating fears of the imperative. Do you have a daily ritual or discipline for donating resentments? I could surely use one....
1) Ultimately, Gans's picture of "market culture" is a declarative one. He never really knew what to do with that critique of metaphysics. In the end his Whig view of history sweeps up everything.
2) Yes, you have a point here--I suppose I'm hedging here because I don't completely accept that science can be reduced to mathematical formulation. I mean, even setting up an experiment, which involves technology, requires non-mathematical references.
3) This gets caught up in all these other problems involved in talking about resentment. It's a very troubling concept. My next post takes a crack at it. But, assuming we can speak about resentment quantitatively, either there is a kind of fixed total sum of it in the human race, or it can be increased or decreased. If it can be decreased some, then it can be decreased further. How could we put a limit on it? Resentment, after all, is just a word--maybe, if reduced enough, resentment becomes something else, like constant questioning and helpful advice to those with responsible positions within institutions.
Thanks again for an interesting post. A few questions, if you have time for any of them:
1) Can you speculate as to why Gans, who critiques philosophy/metaphysics for burying the ostensive origins of language, would also show some of the fear of the imperative that you see as constitutive of philosophy?
2) "highly committed and intelligent individuals developed conceptual vocabularies that brought previously unimagined realities into greater resolution that could only be expressed mathematically"
-this confuses me. If something can only be expressed mathematically, what are the "conceptual vocabularies" doing? Surely this vocabulary is not strictly mathematical, or limited to the esoteric society that you see as parallel with the evolution of science... Maybe I have to read Horl?
3) "we can challenge that drive for scenelessness as resentment abolitionists confronting non-resentfully a kind of absolute, we might even say demonic, resentment."
-I recall a recent post where you raised this possibility of just saying "yes" to a non-resentful contemplation of the sign, but I'm still at a bit of a loss what to make of this idea. Is our overcoming of resentment to be somewhat limited to focused contemplation in disciplinary spaces or is it to be general to our intellectual, political, institutional, and emotional lives? I can't imagine how you will overcome all resentment, which I feel you still show, in some degree, towards the scenic/event abolitionists and their obfuscating fears of the imperative. Do you have a daily ritual or discipline for donating resentments? I could surely use one....
1) Ultimately, Gans's picture of "market culture" is a declarative one. He never really knew what to do with that critique of metaphysics. In the end his Whig view of history sweeps up everything.
2) Yes, you have a point here--I suppose I'm hedging here because I don't completely accept that science can be reduced to mathematical formulation. I mean, even setting up an experiment, which involves technology, requires non-mathematical references.
3) This gets caught up in all these other problems involved in talking about resentment. It's a very troubling concept. My next post takes a crack at it. But, assuming we can speak about resentment quantitatively, either there is a kind of fixed total sum of it in the human race, or it can be increased or decreased. If it can be decreased some, then it can be decreased further. How could we put a limit on it? Resentment, after all, is just a word--maybe, if reduced enough, resentment becomes something else, like constant questioning and helpful advice to those with responsible positions within institutions.