> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 10:55 AM, Jeffrey Fisher<jeff.jfisher at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > fidelity of course in this context reminds one of heidegger in not-good
> > ways, but badiou is not unaware of this issue. whether his answers are
> good
> > enough is, of course, a separate matter.
>
> I can't read "fidelity to the event" without thinking of camps, show
> trials, purges, and the like. That's probably unfair, but he hasn't
> yet shown me why I should think differently.
perfectly understandable, if you ask me. i am still trying to nail down how he avoids this, as well, except that i think his treatment of forcing comes in (thus in the other thread my point about his being a fan, but in a very specifically constrained way). the sarkozy book, esp. the communist hypothesis part, is a kind of admission of the failure of party communism (which i know will piss some people off, or make them roll their eyes). but i think the answer is also partly in badiou's conception of the subject and subjectivity. so it's partly about the subject's auto-constitution around fidelity to the event (which can only be an event in the context of the subject that experiences or even makes it); and on the other hand the resistance that the faithful (if you will) must themselves maintain to forcing their truth to the degree of the absolute. or something like that. honestly i'm kind of winging it. sorry. but it's helpful for me to think through, so i'm exercising a little self-indulgence on this. sorry if it's trying. but i agree it is an important question, and one that any politics invoking a version of authenticity or faithfulness has to answer.
also note the OP is precisely the sort of organization that has no interest in compulsion. at least as far as i can tell.