Alan's post is strangely remarkable and I read it with mixed feelings (as the questions enumerate engagements I have done for a while, not done, or not felt like wanting to do, but some of the philosophical thinking does not go away and does has not died) But how is it necessary? and at this moment? and from what generational point of view (indeed, as Max also suggests), and from what place.
i have two immediate reactions (if this text was an invitation for readers here to react), also depending on the way you phrase the refrain of the questions: "Do Deleuze and Guattari offer solace?" No, i'd think, not really, and I won't have time to bother with Husserl or Peirce. But then again, we always reread and sometimes ask whether we had read the first time. Reading a book review yesterday, by Christopher Browning on two newly published books, "How Ordinary Germans Did It" (New York Review of Books, June 20, 2013 (LX, no. 11), pp. 30-32), discussing the role & behavior of conscripted soldiers or civilian officials during WW II and the Holocaust, I came across a reference to Hannah Arendt: I quote: "Fulbrook is not the first historian to discover the central role of implementers and facilitators who neither made policy nor personally killed their victims. Fundamental to Raul Hilberg's analysis of the destruction of the European Jews as a vast administrative process was his appreciation of the phalanx of bureaucrats whose contributions to defining, expropriating, concentrating, and transporting Jews were essential to the Final Solution. At the core of Eichmann's defense strategy in Jerusalem was his effort to pass himself off as just one among many such banal bureaucrats, a strategy successful with Hannah Arendt, but not with the Jerusalem court or many historians. Arendt grasped an important concept but not the right example. .." so you ask "Is Arendt still necessary?, and I'd say yes, I remember reading her Report on the Banality of Evil a long time ago, but I now I have forgotten, and how to revisit that context? and perhaps critique her analysis, or thinking, now? It could be most fruitful! My second reaction to the roll call of names, has to do with my also reading Artforum and seeing a full page spread on Sam Durant's " Proposal for Public Fountain" which shows a tank with a water cannon shooting at a protester. While I look at this, I have this strange memory of Pina Bausch's dance piece "1980" when the dancers have to come forward, one after the other, and name somebody or somebodies that influenced their thinking, and there comes Mechthild Grossmann to the mike downstage and with her deep throaty voice says: "Schopenhauer Adenauer Beckenbauer" and walks off. The audience (in Germany) erupts into laughter. But then I read, over on the other side of my room here, the NYT on Brazil and Istanbul and the protests that are happening now, as we speak, the tear gas and water cannons pointed at the Turkish protesters, who now, I read, choose another tactic, standing still in the square, after Gesi Park was cleared out by the police/military men, all conscripted or perhaps volunteer functionaries. Tell me about the standing still, and what are these young women and men inspired by to resist the banality of authoritarian power? And are you/we asking the right questions? with regards Johannes Birringer ________________________________________ Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] Do we still engage? thank you alan... i meant to flip the style. i meant to switch from us generation to young people from today. why are they still reading/studying kanthegelmarxderridasartrerussellbadiouzizekpopperwittgensteinjunglacanirigaray? do we still engage? is it the same for them young people as it is for us? whats the guidance now? the inspiration? the information? the comprehension? what seems to be going on? what did go on 30 years ago? just had to forward your thoughts and couldn't let go to share it with you... just questions, no answers. thank you again alan max > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Alan Sondheim <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> > Date: Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 11:00 PM > Subject: [NetBehaviour] Do we still engage? > To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > > Do we still engage? > > Do we still engage with Sartre? Do we still read Derrida? Do > they speak to us? Does Heidegger speak to us? Does Husserl? Is > Hegel still critical to our thinking? Does anyone read Sartre? > Does anyone think through Derrida? Do we think we've absorbed > Badiou? Is Badiou important? Is Shestov? Is philosophy dead or > dying? Is thinking philosophically still important? Does anyone > read Plotinus? Does St Augustine speak to us? Is Descartes > necessary? Have we absorbed Spinoza? Are we the better for > Kristeva? Is Butler still relevant? Is Russell? Have we absorbed > Wittgenstein? Do we still engage with Reichenbach? Is Latour > still important? Have we gone beyond Carnap? Is Peirce relevant? > Does anyone read James? Have we buried Marx? Does anyone think > through Freud? Is Arendt still necessary? Are we still inspired > by Jung? Do we relate to Plato? Is our world Aristotelian? Is > Nietzsche still necessary? Has philosophy disappeared? Have > people read Thom? Has Mill disappeared? Is Confucius > fundamental? Do we still grapple with Hobbes? Is Kant still an > inspiration? Are there answers to questions? Do we still learn > from Kierkegaard? Is Lacan still read? Does Maimonides speak to > us? Have we abandoned Fanon? Does anyone think through Kofman? > Is there any reason to consider Hui Shi? Has Zhuangzi turned the > world upside down? Does Parmenides offer solace? Does anyone > read Goodman any more? Do we still engage with Bachelard? Is > Balibar important? Is philosophy important? Do we consider West? > Is Ranciere dead? Does Althusser still speak to us? Is the > thought of Merleau-Ponty important to anyone? Is there anything > to learn anymore from philosophy? Do we still read Trotsky? Is > Grene still relevant? Have we absorbed Cassirer? Is philosophy > of science science? Is philosophy of science necessary? Do we > still read Langer? Is thought important? Is untethered thought > necessary? Is philosophy tethered? Are we engaged with de > Beauvoir? Do we remember Deleuze? Do we consider Guattari? Do > Deleuze and Guattari offer solace? Is there any value in reading > Lyotard? Have we forgotten Kripke? Have we ever comprehended > Baudrillard? Is there any point to philosophy? Does philosophy > worsen us? Is it necessary to think philosophically? Is it > relevant to abandon philosophy? Have we taken Lao Tzu to heart? > Are we trusting Agamben? Have we forgotten Schopenhauer? Do we > still read Schelling critically? Is Heraclitus still inspiring? > Can our lives be guided by Pascal? Are we informed by Whitehead? > Do we comprehend the depth of any thought? Do we take thought to > heart? Do we still engage with Lucretius? Do we still read > Irigaray? How do we know? _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
