On Nov 5, 2009, at 3:07 PM, James Heartfield wrote:
> 'opposition to racism, totalitarianism, etc., in the name of
> *spirit* or universal human rights or some other axiom (i.e.,
> something taken as self-evidently true, or assumed from the
> outset),' is not convincing.
>
> This is your version of Derrida's list: '*spirit* or universal human
> rights or some other axiom '
>
> But this is Derrida's list: 'in the name of the spirit, and even of
> the freedom of (the) spirit, in the name of an axiomatic - for
> example, that of democracy or "human rights" '
>
> You dropped democracy from Derrida's list.
Because it's not his point. His point is that some appeal to an abstract universal like "Democracy" doesn't hold water. "Axiomatic." That's the point of the point.
> It seems to me that democracy is not a delusion, but a very real
> foundation from which to criticise fascism. It is the basis on which
> one ought to criticise fascism.
On what basis do you value democracy? The American founding fathers saw it as some kind of gift from god. That's nonsense, but at least it's coherent. On what basis does James Heartfield do it?
> You say "What you quote certainly doesn't prove that fascism and
> democracy are as bad as each other in Derrida's eyes." But that is
> precisely the argument of Of Spirit. There he isolates what he takes
> to be malevolent in fascism, and it is 'Spirit' - the very thing
> that it has in common with democracy. Subsuming them both under the
> commen heading Spirit is his way of equating them.
No it's not. That's just not in that passage at all.
> You say: "these abstract universals don't exist. They're creatures
> of imagination, of social convention. I would have thought that a
> Marxist would find this point obvious."
>
> Only a very poor Marxist. Marx himself rubbished the idea (as for
> example in his treatment of the proposition that money was a social
> convention - Galiani's, if I remember right). His point is that they
> are social *laws*, and as such are no less real than physical
> objects. Value, is, as he says, without an atom of matter in it, but
> nonetheless real for all that.
>
> Marx does not think that universals are creatures of imagination.
> Labour is, as he says, an abstraction, and a real abstraction, an
> abstraction that takes place every day in the labour market.
Money and labor are things we experience every day. They shape our lives. Spirit doesn't. There's no "law" that says that democracy is good. What's that quote from Marx? Something like, "Between two such opposed forces, there is no right and wrong. Only might prevails."
> Who is it that thinks that democracy is just an illusion, the kind
> of thing that only naive people would believe in, that ought to be
> swept aside?
Again, that's just not in anything you quoted. You're leaping to your own preconceived conclusions.
> Sounds to me like the point of view of the Caesarist Schmittian, all
> very Martin Heidegger, and not Marxist, at all.
Heidegger had a Nazi party card. Derrida signed all the high-minded petitions that the French intellectual left signs. There's a large difference on the basis of actual practice.
Doug