sdv wrote:
[snip]
> Any scientific or
> engineering theory is inextricably linked to a moral and political exigency -
> theory as such is directly related to terror - (Kristeva is exceptionally
> clear on this).  Scientific theories are in this sense 'simply' theories of
> domination, and become quite frequently knowledge as political practice,
> evidence for this can be seen in GM foods and the fascinating discourses
> around this issue in the popular science magazine New Scientist....  As Serres
> said 'To engage in a practice (is to be) implicated in the ideology of command
> and obedience...'
[snip]

"[T]he ideology of command and obedience" -- ontical or transcendental?
I.e., is to engage in a practice (praxis?) *necessarily* to
be implicated in somebody bossing somebody else around and the
latter being bossed around by the former? Or is to engage in a
practice -- human praxis -- *sometimes* (and, in practice, in most if
not all societies hitherto, most of the time or even almost always...)
bossing-being bossed, but *in principle* praxis
necessarily involves command only
in the neutral sense of "changing something" and obedience in the
equally neutral sense that "something changes"?  (An analogy here
would be to say that all affirmation is necessarily negation
because it does not affirm the negation of what it affirms.
True, but not to quite the same effect as negation in the
sense of straightforward destruction which, in its turn, of
course, is also constructive -- in that it "constructs" the
breakdown products which result from the destructive act....)

Is [what Habermas,
for one, would call:] *dialog*: communication aimed at reaching
mutual understanding through cultivating respect for each party's
integrity, *impossible on principle* (and not simply something that,
in our society, happens relatively rarely and fragmentarily,
but which could happen more frequently and less fragmentarily)?

I once read somewhere that "God reigns in sorrow" (because He
has reduced everything and everybody to total submission and
therefore He cannot possibly have companionship)?  In _Crowds
and Power_, Elias Canetti tells the story of an Indian Prince who
bought up an entire city and then drove everyone out of the city.
He thereby became immortal, because there was no one left to
witness his death.

Perhaps, just as Descartes' Great Deceiver cannot deceive
about everything, but must at least leave some truths intact
as the building blocks of His deceptions, and just as no
disease can hurt a creature which is not somewhat functional
(i.e., healthy), perhaps [as Habermas, among others, would
claim], all domination is ultimately parasitic on
community ("strategic communication" is dependent on
communication aimed at reaching mutual agreement).

Surely there is little "consolation" here for the victims,
but philosophy (psychoanalysis, etc.) may at least show that
things don't *have* to be this way.

"Eppur si move"?

+\brad mccormick

--
  Let your light so shine before men,
              that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)

  Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)

<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [log in to unmask]
  914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
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