Re: AUT: RE: CLR James, Negri, etc.

[chris wright <cwright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Nate!

Lowe,

Several things come to mind.

Firstly, just because Deleuze studied with Hyppolite does not mean that
he understands Hegel.  That is a non sequitir, and an authoritarian one
at that, Lowe.  I know several people who studied Hegel with one of
England's finest Hegel scholars, Stephen Houlgate, because I studied
with Stephen, and they still don't understand Hegel either.  But
according to your logic, they studied with one of the most prominent
English language scholars of Hegel, eo ipso facto, they understand
Hegel.  Don't be stupid.

Secondly, the problem with Deleuze and Foucault and Nietzsche (I have
not read Bergson in 17 years, and then only his writing on
comdey/tragedy for a class with Stephen Houlgate, oddly enough) is not
the same as Negri and Hardt, IMO.  Hence the fact that I differentiate
between Deleuze's critique and Negri/Hardt.  cf. "the problem with the
critiques of
Hegel and Marx's dialectic by people like Deleuze and Guattari and bad
version sof that critique by people like Negri and Hardt is that it
misses the point.  They have no purchase because their project is
neither Hegel nor Marx's.  Maybe that explains Deleuze's infantile
critique of Hegel."  Deleuze's work is simultaneoulsy serious, in so far
as his own work is a serious matter, and infantile, in so far as he
rehashes the same lame critiques of Hegel one could find from any range
of academics who have not read Hegel.  Nietzsche is another matter
beyond this discussion, though any adequate discussion of Deleuze or
Foucault clarly involves a discussion of Nietzsche.

Thirdly, the idea that one can do an end-run around Hegel by going to
Kant (Hegel's daddy?  Really quite a stupid comment on several levels,
even though Kant raises the issues which will play a vital role in
Hegel's concerns, even as he completely breaks with Kant's approach) is
indicative of a very different approach to the matters at hand.  This is
part of the reason I maintain that Deleuze, et al do not fundamentaly
understand what either Hegel or Marx are doing and as such, their
critique misses the point.  Re: Nietzsche and Kant, IMO Nietzsche is
essentially a neo-Kantian in relation to the notion of truth (see the
very informative and well-written book by Maudemarie Clark.)

Fourth, how can you say that Deleuze does not go on a tirade re: Hegel?
He refuses to deal with Hegel except to say tha he wans to fuck him in
the ass.  Brilliant!  As for Nietzsche, again, he is not so clearly
against Hegel in his later work when he breaks with Schopenhauer.  But I
would expect that you know these things, mastering the history of ideas
as you have.

Fifth, I never equated Deleuze with Leftism, not in ths context.  My
point is that the treatment of Deleuze is often Leftist, something which
I have myself been guilty of from the point of opposing Deleuze, if
indeed he has something worth listening to and which indicates something
of importance.  However, I am not of course obliged to take crap
seriously, but to ask then why crap is taken seriously, into which place
I frankly would put (late) Negri and Hardt and Althusser.

Finally, as for lumping all these in whit the SI, their sectarianism
does not mean that one can ignore their deep attention to dialectic.  Do
you people ever read Debord?  Please do not talk about my lack of
knowledge of French intellectual and political history if you lump
Debord and the SI in with the anti-dialecticians.

But enough.  Next people will repeat the same banalities about Hegel's
"What is rational is real, what is real is rational" that this list
excels in.  My point was to respond to Chris Hurl's thoughtful questions
re: the relationship between James and Lenin.

Cheers,
Chris



     --- from list aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---