Policing the Convergence of Virtual and Material Worlds (2)
Wednesday, 9. May 2007, 10:34:11
Posts tagged with "PHILOSOPHY"
Policing the Convergence of Virtual and Material Worlds (1)
Wednesday, 9. May 2007, 10:28:24
Dion Dennis
CTheory
12/5/2006
"The True Object of Police is Man."
Introduction
In the late 17th Century, German political theorists developed a meta-notion of policing and gave it a name: Polizeiwissenschaft. The term embraces broad policy and policing functions. In The Foucault Effect, Colin Gordon assembled a pastiche of snipped citations and paraphrases to convey the ambitious sweep of the object and the practices of Polizeiwissenschaft. I've reshuffled this mini-mosaic (below):
Life is the object of police: the indispensable, the useful, and the superfluous ... Police 'sees to living;' 'the objects which it embraces are in some sense indefinite ... [The task of] calculating detailed action appropriate to an infinity of unforeseeable and contingent circumstances is met by [the desire to create] an exhaustive detailed knowledge of reality... [that extends from cataloging the behavior of masses to the micro-details of an individual's life]. . Police is a science of endless lists and classifications ... a knowledge of inexhaustibly detailed and continuous control ... a kind of economic pastorate of men and things ... where the population is likened to a herd and flock ... [1]
CTheory
12/5/2006
"The True Object of Police is Man."
Introduction
In the late 17th Century, German political theorists developed a meta-notion of policing and gave it a name: Polizeiwissenschaft. The term embraces broad policy and policing functions. In The Foucault Effect, Colin Gordon assembled a pastiche of snipped citations and paraphrases to convey the ambitious sweep of the object and the practices of Polizeiwissenschaft. I've reshuffled this mini-mosaic (below):
Life is the object of police: the indispensable, the useful, and the superfluous ... Police 'sees to living;' 'the objects which it embraces are in some sense indefinite ... [The task of] calculating detailed action appropriate to an infinity of unforeseeable and contingent circumstances is met by [the desire to create] an exhaustive detailed knowledge of reality... [that extends from cataloging the behavior of masses to the micro-details of an individual's life]. . Police is a science of endless lists and classifications ... a knowledge of inexhaustibly detailed and continuous control ... a kind of economic pastorate of men and things ... where the population is likened to a herd and flock ... [1]
Jean Baudrillard: The Global and the Universal
Saturday, 5. May 2007, 06:09:02
The European Graduate School
Globalisation and universality are not equivalent terms; in fact they could be considered to mutually exclude one another. Globalisation pertains to techniques, the market, tourism, information. Universality pertains to values, human rights, freedoms, culture, democracy. Globalisation seems to be irreversible, the universal on the other hand appears to be almost an endangered species. At least in so far as it constitutes a system of values for Western modernity with no counterpart in any other culture. No word for a value system which claims to speak with a single voice for all cultures and their difference, but which, paradoxically, does not think of itself as relative and sees itself quite ingenuously as the ultimate transcendent goal of all the others. We do not imagine for one moment that the universal might refer only to localised Western thought, a product that is specific to the West, which, original though it may be, is in the final analysis, every bit as difficult to export as any other local product. Yet that is exactly how the Japanese see the universal, as something specifically Western, and far from adopting this abstract concept, they take what for us is universal and, in a curious reversal, make it relative and incorporate it into their own singularity.
Globalisation and universality are not equivalent terms; in fact they could be considered to mutually exclude one another. Globalisation pertains to techniques, the market, tourism, information. Universality pertains to values, human rights, freedoms, culture, democracy. Globalisation seems to be irreversible, the universal on the other hand appears to be almost an endangered species. At least in so far as it constitutes a system of values for Western modernity with no counterpart in any other culture. No word for a value system which claims to speak with a single voice for all cultures and their difference, but which, paradoxically, does not think of itself as relative and sees itself quite ingenuously as the ultimate transcendent goal of all the others. We do not imagine for one moment that the universal might refer only to localised Western thought, a product that is specific to the West, which, original though it may be, is in the final analysis, every bit as difficult to export as any other local product. Yet that is exactly how the Japanese see the universal, as something specifically Western, and far from adopting this abstract concept, they take what for us is universal and, in a curious reversal, make it relative and incorporate it into their own singularity.
Jean Baudrillard: Integral reality
Friday, 4. May 2007, 23:25:37
The European Graduate School
"We have eliminated the real world - which world is left ? The world of appearances ? Not at all. Together with the real world, we have eliminated also the world of appearances" -- NIETZSCHE
There are two hypotheses. The first one, the poetic one, is that the lost universe of appearances has not given way to an objective world - the world relieved from truth and appearances becomes a fable. But at first I would come to the second hypothesis, that of a gigantic countertransfer, a negative counter-transfer, which is quite simply the fall, the collapse of the world into reality. Once the world of truth is lost, together with the world of appearances, the universe becomes a real one. It falls into reality in a kind of telescopic collapse. It falls into reality as a rest, as a residue, as a definitive reduction and deconstruction of the enchanted world of illusion - as a sort of final solution . Reality as a product of the universal process of entropy. The universe becomes a factual one, a matter of fact, posi-tive, operational, never to be contested anymore, and which no longer even needs to be true. As factual as a ready-made. So to speak a "fountain" : the most famous ready-made of Duchamp is the emblem of our modern hyperreality, as a result of a violent countertransfer of all poetic illusion onto pure objectal reality - the object transferred to itself by feedback thus cutting short any possible metaphor. The ready-made as archetyp is up now overwhelming not only the artworld, but our whole life, as the only magic left to us - that is a sort of radical fetishism. Just as Dushamp desinvolves himself as subject from the fountain as objest, depriving it from any usage, any reference and any illusion, so we could say that God has withdrawn from the world, abandoning it to its destiny as a ready-made.
"We have eliminated the real world - which world is left ? The world of appearances ? Not at all. Together with the real world, we have eliminated also the world of appearances" -- NIETZSCHE
There are two hypotheses. The first one, the poetic one, is that the lost universe of appearances has not given way to an objective world - the world relieved from truth and appearances becomes a fable. But at first I would come to the second hypothesis, that of a gigantic countertransfer, a negative counter-transfer, which is quite simply the fall, the collapse of the world into reality. Once the world of truth is lost, together with the world of appearances, the universe becomes a real one. It falls into reality in a kind of telescopic collapse. It falls into reality as a rest, as a residue, as a definitive reduction and deconstruction of the enchanted world of illusion - as a sort of final solution . Reality as a product of the universal process of entropy. The universe becomes a factual one, a matter of fact, posi-tive, operational, never to be contested anymore, and which no longer even needs to be true. As factual as a ready-made. So to speak a "fountain" : the most famous ready-made of Duchamp is the emblem of our modern hyperreality, as a result of a violent countertransfer of all poetic illusion onto pure objectal reality - the object transferred to itself by feedback thus cutting short any possible metaphor. The ready-made as archetyp is up now overwhelming not only the artworld, but our whole life, as the only magic left to us - that is a sort of radical fetishism. Just as Dushamp desinvolves himself as subject from the fountain as objest, depriving it from any usage, any reference and any illusion, so we could say that God has withdrawn from the world, abandoning it to its destiny as a ready-made.
Jean Baudrillard: Simulacra and Simulations
Friday, 4. May 2007, 23:14:12
Departments of History and Philosophy
Stanford.edu
From Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings,
ed. Mark Poster (Stanford; Stanford University Press, 1988), pp.166-184.
The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth--it is the truth which conceals that there is none.
The simulacrum is true. -- Ecclesiastes
If we were able to take as the finest allegory of simulation the Borges tale where the cartographers of the Empire draw up a map so detailed that it ends up exactly covering the territory (but where, with the decline of the Empire this map becomes frayed and finally ruined, a few shreds still discernible in the deserts - the metaphysical beauty of this ruined abstraction, bearing witness to an imperial pride and rotting like a carcass, returning to the substance of the soil, rather as an aging double ends up being confused with the real thing), this fable would then have come full circle for us, and now has nothing but the discrete charm of second-order simulacra.l
Stanford.edu
From Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings,
ed. Mark Poster (Stanford; Stanford University Press, 1988), pp.166-184.
The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth--it is the truth which conceals that there is none.
The simulacrum is true. -- Ecclesiastes
If we were able to take as the finest allegory of simulation the Borges tale where the cartographers of the Empire draw up a map so detailed that it ends up exactly covering the territory (but where, with the decline of the Empire this map becomes frayed and finally ruined, a few shreds still discernible in the deserts - the metaphysical beauty of this ruined abstraction, bearing witness to an imperial pride and rotting like a carcass, returning to the substance of the soil, rather as an aging double ends up being confused with the real thing), this fable would then have come full circle for us, and now has nothing but the discrete charm of second-order simulacra.l
Hannah Arendt: Reflections on Violence (2)
Monday, 30. April 2007, 09:43:20
Hannah Arendt
The New York Review of Books
Volume 12, Number 4
February 27, 1969
IV
Power and violence, though they are distinct phenomena, usually appear together. Up to now, we have discussed such combinations and found that. wherever they are so combined, power is the primary and predominant factor. The situation, however, is entirely different when we deal with them in their pure states—as for instance in cases of foreign invasion and occupation. The difficulties of achieving such domination are very great indeed, and the occupying invader will try immediately to establish Quisling governments, that is, to find a native power base with which to support his dominion. The head-on clash between Russian tanks and the entirely non-violent resistance of the people in Czechoslovakia is a textbook case of a confrontation of violence and power in their pure states.
The New York Review of Books
Volume 12, Number 4
February 27, 1969
IV
Power and violence, though they are distinct phenomena, usually appear together. Up to now, we have discussed such combinations and found that. wherever they are so combined, power is the primary and predominant factor. The situation, however, is entirely different when we deal with them in their pure states—as for instance in cases of foreign invasion and occupation. The difficulties of achieving such domination are very great indeed, and the occupying invader will try immediately to establish Quisling governments, that is, to find a native power base with which to support his dominion. The head-on clash between Russian tanks and the entirely non-violent resistance of the people in Czechoslovakia is a textbook case of a confrontation of violence and power in their pure states.
Hannah Arendt: Reflections on Violence (1)
Monday, 30. April 2007, 09:39:20
Hannah Arendt
The New York Review of Books
Volume 12, Number 4
February 27, 1969
I
These reflections were provoked by the events and debates of the last few years, as seen against the background of the twentieth century. Indeed this century has become, as Lenin predicted, a century of wars and revolutions, hence a century of that violence which is currently believed to be their common denominator. There is, however, another factor in the present situation which, though predicted by nobody, is of at least equal importance. The technical development of implements of violence has now reached the point where no political goal could conceivably correspond to their destructive potential or justify their actual use in armed conflict. Hence, warfare—since times immemorial the final merciless arbiter in international disputes—has lost much of its effectiveness and nearly all of its glamor. "The apocalyptic" chess game between the superpowers, that is, between those that move on the highest plane of our civilization, is being played according to the rule: "if either 'wins' it is the end of both."[1] Moreover the game bears no resemblance to whatever war games preceded it. Its "rational" goal is mutual deterrence, not victory.
The New York Review of Books
Volume 12, Number 4
February 27, 1969
I
These reflections were provoked by the events and debates of the last few years, as seen against the background of the twentieth century. Indeed this century has become, as Lenin predicted, a century of wars and revolutions, hence a century of that violence which is currently believed to be their common denominator. There is, however, another factor in the present situation which, though predicted by nobody, is of at least equal importance. The technical development of implements of violence has now reached the point where no political goal could conceivably correspond to their destructive potential or justify their actual use in armed conflict. Hence, warfare—since times immemorial the final merciless arbiter in international disputes—has lost much of its effectiveness and nearly all of its glamor. "The apocalyptic" chess game between the superpowers, that is, between those that move on the highest plane of our civilization, is being played according to the rule: "if either 'wins' it is the end of both."[1] Moreover the game bears no resemblance to whatever war games preceded it. Its "rational" goal is mutual deterrence, not victory.
Humanism as the Theme of Chinese Modernity
Friday, 27. April 2007, 17:57:37
Wang Hui
Institute of Literature, Beijing
(Translated by Edward Peng)
Surfaces Vol.V.202
(v.1.0A - 01/11/1995)
ABSTRACT
By examining humanist and Enlightenment discourse in reference to China and to the West, this essay reopens the question of how modern Chinese intellectuals assimilated Western ideas and applied them in their own social practice. It indicates the historical conceptions that underlie Western humanism and traces the evolution of Chinese humanist discourses in terms of their media of dissemination, their impact on the organization of knowledge, and their relationship to Marxist concepts of the mode of production.
Institute of Literature, Beijing
(Translated by Edward Peng)
Surfaces Vol.V.202
(v.1.0A - 01/11/1995)
ABSTRACT
By examining humanist and Enlightenment discourse in reference to China and to the West, this essay reopens the question of how modern Chinese intellectuals assimilated Western ideas and applied them in their own social practice. It indicates the historical conceptions that underlie Western humanism and traces the evolution of Chinese humanist discourses in terms of their media of dissemination, their impact on the organization of knowledge, and their relationship to Marxist concepts of the mode of production.
Guy Debord: The Society of the Spectacle
Wednesday, 25. April 2007, 07:11:03
The Society of the Spectacle
by Guy Debord
Rebel Press, England, 2006
(New translation by Ken Knabb)
Bureau of Public Secrets
Reprinted from the Situationist International Anthology(Revised and Expanded Edition, 2006).
Table of Content
1. The Culmination of Separation
2. The Commodity as Spectacle
3. Unity and Division Within Appearances
4. The Proletariat as Subject and Representation
5. Time and History
6. Spectacular Time
7. Territorial Domination
8. Negation and Consumption Within Culture
9. Ideology Materialized
by Guy Debord
Rebel Press, England, 2006
(New translation by Ken Knabb)
Bureau of Public Secrets
Reprinted from the Situationist International Anthology(Revised and Expanded Edition, 2006).
Table of Content
1. The Culmination of Separation
2. The Commodity as Spectacle
3. Unity and Division Within Appearances
4. The Proletariat as Subject and Representation
5. Time and History
6. Spectacular Time
7. Territorial Domination
8. Negation and Consumption Within Culture
9. Ideology Materialized
Guy Debord: The Culmination of Separation
Wednesday, 25. April 2007, 06:44:52
By Guy Debord
The Society of the Spectacle
Chapter 1: The Culmination of Separation
Translated by Ken Knabb
Bureau of Public Secrets
“But for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence . . . truth is considered profane, and only illusion is sacred. Sacredness is in fact held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness.” —Feuerbach, Preface to the second edition of The Essence of Christianity
The Society of the Spectacle
Chapter 1: The Culmination of Separation
Translated by Ken Knabb
Bureau of Public Secrets
“But for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence . . . truth is considered profane, and only illusion is sacred. Sacredness is in fact held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness.” —Feuerbach, Preface to the second edition of The Essence of Christianity
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