Comments on: Defeatists! Renegades! Fascists!

By: Daniel Sacilotto (krelianx)

Daniel Sacilotto (krelianx) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:48:11 +0000

Perhaps someone will actually post a sustained critique of Badiou, instead of chirping around posting how it is ‘piling nonsense over nonsense’ and speaking about the ‘minimalist elegance’of his architectonic as if it this was a text oriented variant of Pitchfork.com, assessing works by the relative merits of a generalized popular aesthetic appreciation. I think Michael puts it best: if one is going to speak about ‘jumping the ship’ then at least offer something by way of an argument.

Ray Brassier’s chapter on Badiou raises an interesting objection as regards the status of metaontology and the possibility of speaking of non-ontological presentation, seeing that the latter seems substrative in being’s inconsistency, while ordinary situations ascribe to the being of the one and consistency. But it seems a free copout to leave it like that.

By: Beckett

Beckett — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 01:39:37 +0000

No, Levi. It’s your disavowal of ideology, your pretense of being free of it, of abandoning it altogether, of being ‘neutral’ (as both your “Orientalist” post and your recent hysterical response to my comments above at your blog starkly make clear, the problem with all ‘analytics’ and, increasingly, SR ) which provoked my remark above.

By: sdv

sdv — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:22:05 +0000

nice jokes. but really a complete waste of time

By: kvond

kvond — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 04:30:19 +0000

“Everybody, Out of the Sandbox!”

[Hey you Neo-liberals - you know who you are, you have been interpollated! - stay in the sandbox]

By: michael o'neill

michael o'neill — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:15:12 +0000

I think this is the downside of blogs. People throw out insanely poorly argued reactionary crap for no good reason than trying to be more ‘anti’ and ’spectral’. It reminds me of being a teenager and disavowing my favorite punk band as soon as they went ‘mainstream’ and signed to a major label or something of that sort. I hate that the internet has produced this fan culture around philosophy. And I hate that because of one fairly odd disavowal post everyone else decided to make similar leaps. This never ending quest for dark obscurity will not end well.

By: Levi

Levi — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:07:14 +0000

Wow Beckett. Perhaps some of us just feel that ideology critique produces little or no change and is just a way for literary studies academics to rationalize writing papers on the movies and television shows they enjoy. In the case of Badiou we have the placement of political economy outside of politics, whereas Zizek, despite his discussion of a parallax between economy and politics almost completely ignores the political. The critique of Badiou/Zizek has nothing to do with “loving it!” or “hating it!”, but with the strong conviction that the conceptual tools they articulate actually diminish the possibility of change by directing attentionn in the wrong directions.

By: infinite thought

infinite thought — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:55:53 +0000

Could philosophy boys be any sadder? Thinking that a philosopher can solve your minor weeny ego worries is as twattish as chucking their books down and flouncing off in a huff when they say something you don’t like. As for the group-think element of this…it’s all horrifically playground. Don’t people have slightly more complex thoughts than ‘I love it! It’s my thing!’ or ‘I hate it! Urg, get rid of it!’ It’s homosocial record-collecting for boys who are smart enough to understand bits of Kant and Hegel but not nearly smart enough to understand themselves or the groups they belong to.

By: Beckett

Beckett — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:54:13 +0000

Quite. Indeed, where are they going ... neo-liberal defensiveness - and its irritatingly ponderous and increasingly hysterical academic apologists - moves in 'mysterious' ways ... [ie Between attempts to 'neutralize' Orientalism (so utterly defeating the point of the original defence), between attempts to re-formulate an unhinged neo-liberalism as a "weaponised non-dialectical negativity" or "Xenoeconomics", between dissmissing Badiou (and Zizek) for all the, at this point nauseatingly, wrong reasons, between ... the continuing refusal to confront ideology ... it's all getting a bit sad and passive on the blogosphere ...]

By: sodade

sodade — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:23:32 +0000

I’m with Badiou.
St. Paul.
The subject.
The truth.
Don’t let yourselves overwhelme with his mathematics. Read him in the violent poetic way. Let it enter you, what he says. People who read Badiou are not accountants.