Comments on radar_anomalous: a fragment of badiou

...to go back to your original post, just why shou...

2004-08-21T06:07:00.000-07:00

...to go back to your original post, just why should rationality be allied with Control? For that matter, what's so bad about control (or which bits are bad and which bits good, and when)? If control is always bad, I suggest you avoid operating any heavy machinery! ;)

Thanks for response RA! Two related points (one n...

2004-08-21T05:56:00.000-07:00

Thanks for response RA!

Two related points (one nice and pithy, the other laborious and repetitive. Fortunately 1 pretty much sums up 2):

1. If you're prepared to try expanding the meaning of perception beyond its canonical usage, why not do the same with rationality?

2. What McCrone calls 'raw biological consciousness', but what we may prefer to call the zones of interaction between body and world, involve loads of different modes, some which deepen and widen connections and some which shut them down. Why should it be a foregone conclusion that R is invariably (or perhaps just often) aligned with the latter?

You seem to start from the position that rationality is part of the problem or at least something to be suspicious of, without first of all saying what you mean by it, but in the absence of an explanation of what you mean by rationality, one can only assume you are opposing it to the irrational (=good), i.e. you allow yourself to remain locked in other peoples' dualsim. To avoid this, wouldn't you have to give some indication of which aspects of 'rationality' tend to shut things down, under what circumstances? (It's almost as if someone merely using the word in an approving or even neutral way is enough to shut things down for you - why should this be?)

If on the other hand you start from saying that it is precisely rational to extend and deepen your connections with the world, to experiment, to open yourself up to the anomalous etc etc, then you keep open the possibility that intensification can occur through thought, language, reason and understanding as much as it can through all the other modes. (What would be a better example of 'shutting things down' than denying at least the possibility that this might be the case?)

In any case, how can you deny this last point without completely undermining any position you may try to put forward, in, like, words, for others to grasp, take up and work with (as I for one would certainly like to say that rationality is connected with learning from others' mistakes and breakthroughs)?

Let's reclaim and transform rationality and its manifold resources. Let's not demonise it (at least, not without defining it first).

Bruce. Not a dualism surely!? i.e. rational/irrat...

2004-08-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

Bruce.
Not a dualism surely!? i.e. rational/irrational.
The point (which I may or may not have had success in making) is just that of all the fantastic possibilities opened to a species by R, I would consider the following...
that there are spaces (specifically of perception, but this may be a key term, as I suspect my view of this would lead to it having a far greater potentiality outside its normal and 'canonically' held realm) which the continued presence of R within a person's operating system may exlude them from.
This does not presuppose that being outside rationality in some spatio-temporal sense is the same as being irrational (that smacks of rationality's view of anything outside of itself to me)...
But that there may be other forms of assessment, knowledge, and connection-engineering perception...
( you can ask me to say what that is, but as I neither believe nor disbeleive the potential answer, it would be better for me to say that indiginous people's have posited other systems of understanding/ other glosses (to use the term uncovered within the Hyperstition posteed interview with Castaneda)that are as potential for humans. So, i suppose that can be easily dismissed?

but all, again, all I want to say to anyone who may read this is to bear in mind the following:
That reason may not contain the 'key' to states of utmost intensity, but that those states will in *at least some cases* actually only be possible with the absence of reason / rationality...

I have re-read the main post and it pretty much says everything I want to say. other than maybe to point out that for those who take Castandeda seriously, an identification is made of clarity as a potential 'enemy' of those seeking knowledge... what you define as clarity in this context is upto you...

(apologies for making synonynous Rationality and reason... this is typical of a lazy non-academic non-philosopher...)

From the above article (by John McCrone): "It har...

2004-08-14T07:41:00.000-07:00

From the above article (by John McCrone):

"It hardly needs to be said that the rational-irrational division of the mind is, of course, quite wrong. Or rather, being irrational in the romantic sense is as much a pose - a socially-evolved and socially-approved role - as being rational. They are both ways of thinking and behaving that exploit a common foundation of what, for want of a better term, might be called raw biological consciousness. The job for a dynamic approach has to be to explain the total package. Dynamics has to explain first the basic "animal-plan" brain and then show how language and cultural forms interact with these basic properties to produce something extra. And as argued, this should change our view of what it is to be a rational scientist as much as an irrationally-inspired artist or genius."

Very exciting blog R_A! On the subject of 'rationa...

2004-08-14T07:39:00.000-07:00

Very exciting blog R_A! On the subject of 'rationality' (and whether or not opposing it necessarily aligns you with 'irrationality'), I thought you'd be interested in this article (and no doubt other stuff on this site):

http://www.btinternet.com/~neuronaut/webtwo_big_picture_page_one.htmin particular, the section entitled MYTH THREE....the human mind is half rational, half irrational - the upshot of which for me is that a lot more needs to be said about what is meant by rationality/irrationality, if we're not just perpetuating a silly dualism waving a flag for one side or the other.

Insofar Badiou can be expected to be arguing his case in language; without reliance on mysticism (debatable, sure); in a consistent and coherent manner (likewise); his use of "rationally" in that quote is redundant, and to my mind in no way aligns him from the off with stratic forces of control and subjugation... it is simply a signpost that he's operating within a particular genre.

At least that's what my lucky astrology mood watch tells me

Have made a off topic response at http://glueboot....

2004-08-08T11:56:00.000-07:00

Have made a off topic response at http://glueboot.blogspot.com . Didn't want to clog up your comments with needless length.

you found that on my blog, no? Anyway, will respo...

2004-08-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

you found that on my blog, no?

Anyway, will respond just as soon as I'm back from the beach (non-beach, Southampton).

I would briefly say that the 'misey-misery' of everyday reality has nothing to do with rationality (contra the Adorno/Horkheimer/Deleuze axis here). I'll explain why in a bit!