Zizek & Machiavelli, Not Hegel (was Re: Montesinos)

JKSCHW at aol.com JKSCHW at aol.com
Mon Oct 9 07:15:49 PDT 2000


In a message dated 10/9/00 7:14:56 AM Eastern Daylight Time, furuhashi.1 at osu.edu writes:

<< Principles, be they ethical or philosophical, necessarily lack

concrete details. Possession of correct principles does not

guarantee correct applications of them . . . . we are not omniscient -- to err is human.

And what are we to conclude from this statement, which skirts platitudinousness?

> Conservatives read Machiavelli as if he were endorsing the crassest

of realpolitik for the sake of realpolitik,

Probably wrongly.

> as Justin accuses me for

doing. This conservative realpolitik, however, is the farthest from

what I advocate.

Very good, but now am I unclear about what you do advocate.

> I agree with Justin that "even when realpolitik is

called for, there are limits" . . . . In fact, I go further than

Justin. [I sais Trotsky was right to put down the Krondstadt revolt.] . . .

The

Machiavellian point is that Trotsky may have done what was

politically necessary, but it is vain for Trotsky (or us) to think

that those who died in the Krondstadt rebellion could or would

forgive Trotsky (and us).

Sure, but what is your point?


> For humans are not worms. Reading

Machiavelli thus, I am turning Machiavelli against conservatives'

Machiavelli.

M certainly did not think that the Prince's victims would forgive him. Didn't he advocate killing rather than merely hurting the Prince's enemies?

> I'm afraid that in the course of the Yugoslav civil wars many Western

leftists either retired into private life or preferred "to steer a

middle course which is very harmful" by, for instance, issuing

contradictory statements ("the Serbs must be brought to justice and

punished by 'the international community' but I am a nice pacifist

person and object to NATO bombings, ground forces, and/or economic

sanctions"),

Not me.


> Let us, yes, avoid conservatives' Machiavelli; let us, also, shun the

beautiful soul. (As I said, however, I may overestimate Western

leftists -- they may be simply lazy souls, given the way they are

waiting for the mass media's framing of good and evil with regard to,

for instance, Chechnya.)

>>

So you support the Russian's horrific war in Chechnya?

--jks



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