On Sun, 28 Jan 1996, Babette Babich wrote:
> To Colin Clayton; I do not claim to "be" anybody. I simply
> make comments now again in response to posts. This is ostensibly
> the point of the thing... The rather universally negative tone
> of replies to my posts doesn't disturb me because all this
> is vaporous stuff, of no consequence, aetherial murmurings.
I'm beginning to think you're joking. Vaporous? The division between
physical and psychical comes to mind here, body/spirit...where
"body"/substantia is "hard and true", the physical thing, the voice of
substance, and things you don't agree with are "spirit", gaseous, the
voice and disclosive power of language de-substantialized into the
mechanics of sound production, the murmur...
>
> But I read what people write. When what is written strikes me
> as thoughtful and or insightful, I say so. When not, I say so.
> In our male dominated society I am approrpiating a shooting from
> the hip style not allowed women.
It being Superbowls Sunday in the US, it may be worthwhile to note that
the number of wife beatings triples on Superbowl Sunday. Please don't
adopt the male habit of "shooting from the hip", or shooting at all.
There is enough shooting already. I, for one, don't like it in women any
more than I like it in men.
Thus good old Michael Harrawood,
> who seems none to fond of the ladies in the first place,
But I will indulge myself for a moment...are you saying Michael is a faggot?
prefaced
> one of his earlier nasty cracks of the "how dare she variety"
> with a term of endearment usually reserved for friends, into
> which category he and I assuredly do not fall, if I can judge
> from the tenor of his spleen.
>From spirit to humours? Well, why not find a way to *make* friends?
>
> In general, I have always found it to be a better course to begin
> by seeking to understand what could count as 'good' reasons why
> Heidegger settled on the instances he *did* choose as disclosive
> than to propose, as has been done more than once before on this list
> by the by, say, love (and Tom, if you are watching, all references
> to your name were fortuitous. I've nothing against you or your
> name, I liked some of the directions you seem to be moving in, just
> thought you could find much more inspiration in other fields
> than Heidegger's own) or "making Mommy proud" (credit: T. Blancato).
It is silly to use the "making mommy proud" example in the above context.
If you liked some of the directions I was moving in, you could have, and
perhaps should have, said so. I don't understand what you mean about
references to my name being fortuitous. Your thoughtfulness regarding
where I should direct my desire for "inspiration" is really uncalled
for. The "field" of philosophy, like it or not, extends beyond the
ownership of Heidegger. And perhaps this is something that Heidegger
teaches us...that the task of thinking, the "other thinking", the
"thinking that is to come" requires that one relinquish a certain
"ownership", an ownership which, *in spite of everything*, seems to
continue to this day.
But perhaps I have begun by seeking to understand the good reasons for
Heideggers instances for the disclosive, Babette. What *is* this tendency
you have here to take my one post and attribute to it such general
characterizations of me, my desire, my intentions, my conditions, my life?
It is polemical distortion. Perhaps my post, while drawn in unbelievely
broad strokes (Love, Death) with self conscious capital letters (though I
probably didn't throw in enough scarequotes), arose from having taken
myself, and Heidegger, so to speak, through innumerable contortions,
trying to "save" the writing (it's not lost on me, really), from my own
repulsion...Oh, what generous readings I've given Heidegger! I'll try to
remember some of them, if you like. I think they are very interesting, and
I still have many generous interpretations of Heidegger, as you will note
from, for example, my suggestion that Heidegger can teach us about the
essence of violence, a theme which barely comes up in Heidegger. I used to
think that this question of the essence of violence positively *drove*
Heidegger's writing, and to a certain extent, I still do, though not as
much as I used to.
In any event, to sum up how I approach the question of love with Heidegger,
and let me add: Nietzsche and Foucault, I go through a kind of three stage
process (which is a simplification): (1) The "positivities": Love/moral
force/the good, etc., which I refer to in summary terms as "the
positivities", owing to a certain "primacy of pleasure" (see recent
mention of this primacy in a post in this list re: Heidegger's own
characterization) develops "naturally" into a certain series of formations
of thought, institution, dogma. This would constitute the traditions of
Christianity in some traditional sense, the various discourses on power up
to a certain point, formations of power, scholastic philosophy and
thought, etc. (2) The "counterintuitive"/ammoral/unpleasant stage: of the
various "god is dead" philosophers (Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, et al)
involves the selection of emotions/conditions/states of mind which,
unpleasantly enough, affirm "man" or "Dasein", etc., as absurd and which
are themselves unpleasant (fear, anxiety, angst, dread, slimyness, etc.).
I don't buy that these categories or varieties of experience are somehow
primary or necessarily the only proper or even strategically best routes
for engagement in the various questions undertaken in such philosophy. I
tend to view their selection as somewhat strategic, and respect that. But
to found an ontology on a strategic is, I think, a bit of a mistake.
Please note my previous questions about the limits of the extendability of
fear/anxiety vis a vis other states of mind and existential conditions.
The other strategic which permeates Heidegger too much, I think, is the
perpetual (even when not explicit) re-invocation of the Cartesian paradigm
in order to bounce off of it to the phenomenologically more appropriate
thinking and data. While necessary, to a certain extent, this gives a too
polemical basis for the progression, and this may be one reason why love
is not adequately broached. This polemos can be found *everwhere* in the
writers I speak of here. And (3) the "return to the positivities" (love,
power/knowledge, governmentality, nonviolent thoughtaction, etc.) No
sentence containing the word love can keep us from shrinking back, as per
the "congealed" formations of (1). But it is possible, I think, to get
quite stuck in the critical mode of (2), particularly in its polemical
forms. The business of (3), be it thought of in terms of a "Heideggerian
hope" (Derrida), some comments made by Spivak come to mind here, a
reintroduction of psychoanalysis, etc., involves some very difficult
logics and really put thinking to the test, I think, and require,
minimally, certain conditions of hybridity and an independent, substantive
engagement of the issue of nonviolence. I won't develop this "return to
the positivities" here, though I think I have posted on this conception
earlier on this list.
>
> But this is just my idea of rigor. It is, more than manifestly,
> a minority viewpoint. And, Dr. Clayton, since you mention books
> you've published on Heidegger, be aware that as yet I've done no
> such thing. I am a Nietzsche scholar, and I daresay even British
> libraries carry my book. Be my guest: look it up.
I'm not sure what has been trans-spiring (provided we are not reducing it
to mere ill-humored gusts of mumuring spirit) is wholly lacking in rigor.
> I'll do the same, but your post hardly encourages me.
>
> See how mutual all this is?? Gives a new meaning to Heraclitus.
>
> Dr. B.E. Babich
>
>
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