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Eksvplot wrote:
he's got a couple books on film, Cinema 1 and Cinema 2. i own them but have yet to read more than a four or five pages without wondering why the fuck i'm bothering at all to read them.

I hear these are Deleuze's most difficult books. I have no intention of reading them.

I say Deleuze is a commitment because it takes a bit of doing to understand the various concepts which all relate in a "rhizomatic" way. And I'd never read any Spinoza before, so I didn't have that foundation. But I agree with Antero, if you like it, it's great, seriously mind-altering stuff (tho I agree, in part, with some of Zizek's criticisms and have criticisms of my own).

Anyway, salut EA forum, where we can chat about such things.

Speaking of Zizek, he's so fucking awesome and gave two lectures at my university* this month.

*University of Chicago... which, I suppose, utterly explains the attendence - the first was in a big lecture hall, and not only were all the seats filled but all the floor space as well, AND people were sitting on the windowsills and clustered outside around the windows. It was hysterical.

his book on Spinoza, the light-greenish one with the dude standing on the shore, is actually pretty lucid if i recall correctly. it's not bad.

btw, LAD, i got Minima Moralia a couple weeks back. it's pretty good, though i'm only about 20 pages in and had to put it down to read the first 20 pages of something else.

Eksvplot wrote:

btw, LAD, i got Minima Moralia a couple weeks back. it's pretty good, though i'm only about 20 pages in and had to put it down to read the first 20 pages of something else.

Minima isn't a cover-to-cover book. It's great because you dip in and out. Each piece stands alone. And the sentences. There are so many great sentences in this book. Perfect fucking form.

I was just talking about it with vilna43 yesterday. I ought to get points from Verso for the copies I've sold.

Deleuze is a nice counter-weight to Adorno, anyway.

But how about science and faith!

sunlore wrote:

matthew wrote:
I see what you're saying here about Nietzsche. However, it is utterly irrational.

If it wasn't for your lack of playfulness, Mattheus, you would be a true master of irony.

If there is no "good and evil" why not embrace the maggoty ressentiment? Why not? You might even gain something if you build upon the Socratic/Christian ressentiment....sort of. I mean, there's nothing lost and nothing gained here. Why NOT have ressentiment???

Provided you have a basic understanding of Nietzsche, like you claim you do, you would be able to answer this question for yourself. So I'm not sure whether you are sincere here. But I'm going to pretend that you are.

What Nietzsche was attacking in the Genealogy of Morals were specific thought processes and perceptions underlying the moral of good and evil. That is to say, "good" and "evil" have a specific meaning in Nietzsche's discourse. They are fixed concepts, and they are, therefore, explicitly (conceptually) separated from the ideas of "good" and "bad", ideas that still have a place in Nietzsche's ethics.

I'll pass the mic to the man himself:

On the other hand, imagine the "enemy" as the resentful man conceives him—and it is here exactly that we see his work, his creativeness; he has conceived "the evil enemy," the "evil one," and indeed that is the root idea from which he now evolves as a contrasting and corresponding figure a "good one," himself—his very self!

...

The method of this man is quite contrary to that of the aristocratic man, who conceives the root idea "good" spontaneously and straight away, that is to say, out of himself, and from that material then creates for himself a concept of "bad"! This "bad" of aristocratic origin and that "evil" out of the cauldron of unsatisfied hatred—the former an imitation, an "extra," an additional nuance; the latter, on the other hand, the original, the beginning, the essential act in the conception of a slave-morality—these two words "bad " and "evil," how great a difference do they mark, in spite of the fact that they have an identical contrary in the idea "good."

You see how he untangles the concepts of "bad" (as opposed to "good") and "evil" (as an outcome of a moral of ressentiment)? There is good and bad in Nietzsche. There is a moral. His ethics are not gratuit (now there's a word you're likely to enjoy).

All this formal academic education, and yet you failed to understand this Nietzsche 101. Boy, am I glad I didn't go to your school.

Oh boy you don't know how many times I've been in Nietzsche discussions......man......I wasn't going to get involved in this one, but I made the mistake now. I do remember reading all that in the Genealogy. Wasn't he specifically targeting utilitarians i.e. "those English psychologists" with that book? They're a rather poor representative of Christian ressentiment. Also doesn't he also call Tertullian a "church father" and use him also to exemplify this ressentiment as well?? Tertullian was in fact a scriptor ecclesiae who died in the state of excommunication after becoming a Montanist. Way to go, Fritz. How about trying Thomas Aquinas or Bonaventure or Scotus on for size rather than some heretic?

Genealogy is CRAP. For more on this, check out this book. Awesome, awesome book. The author delivered the contents of this book as the Gifford Lectures initially.

matthew wrote:check out this book. Awesome, awesome book. The author delivered the contents of this book as the Gifford Lectures initially.

MacIntyre is a Thomist and, surprise surprise, a conservative catholic, no?

MacIntyre argues that moral theory and practice are currently in a state of grave disorder, brought on in part by the liberal individualism of the Enlightenment. He holds that people can best remedy this disorder by reviving the Aristotelian tradition of virtue ethics.

But Matthew, without liberal individualism there could be no flourishing capitalism. Doctrinaire theism on one hand, the ecstacy of exploitative markets on the other. That looks like a dilly of a pickle to me.

Fortunately, you swing both ways.

Andrew L. wrote:But Matthew, without liberal individualism there could be no flourishing capitalism. Doctrinaire theism on one hand, the ecstacy of exploitative markets on the other. That looks like a dilly of a pickle to me.

Like Steve did months ago in another thread (I think it was Steve), you're confusing classical liberalism with modern liberalism. They're two different things. Also, what makes you say that a free market is by definition exploitative? Because there is socio-economic stratification in our world? That's the way the world works, bub. Sure, there's some exploitation within a free market system...it's inevitable...but this generally happens when there are few institutions and/or poorly enforced or nonexistent rules governing the market. Far more exploitation and WASTE takes place when an economy is centralized and the market is stifled. Far more.

I agree with you if you say that the classical liberal tradition had as one of its fruits free market capitalism. No doubt. I can see that you're being a bit sarcastic here, but you're right nonetheless. Modern liberalism however is nothing more than a front for power-grabbing. Liberals (modern ones) LOVE power, and they'll do ANYTHING to get it.

I also see no conflict between a free market and Christian theism. It is by far the most fair way of distributing goods and services to people, mostly because it tends to diffuse economic (and hence political) power.

Matthew,

MacIntyre's beef is apparently with "Enlightenment liberalism." What do you mean by "classical liberalism" if not that?

Take your time.

matthew wrote: Modern liberalism however is nothing more than a front for power-grabbing. Liberals (modern ones) LOVE power, and they'll do ANYTHING to get it.

If you substitute "conservative" for "liberal" in the above, you have a more-nearly-accurate (though still absurdly simplistic) statement.

Can you provide any examples of these power-mad liberals you have dreamed up?

steve wrote:Can you provide any examples of these power-mad liberals you have dreamed up?

Duh! Its the media, dude! Its run by a gay (Jewish) cable! How else do you esplain Queer Eye 4 Da Straight Guy, Willies and Grace, Ellen, Tha L Werd and reruns of Smoky An Da Bandit wid that dude wid da mostash and Dom De-LOUISE (girlz name lol!).