François Laruelle’s Nietzsche contra Heidegger. Thèses pour une politique nietzschéene

“Someone” scanned and uploaded Laruelle’s early 1977 work Nietzsche contra Heidegger. Thèses pour une politique nietzschéene (also uploaded on aaaaarg). It’s out of print and an incredibly difficult text to find (I’ve been looking for a copy for about a year) but really one of his most impressive early works. There are plans for it to be translated into English, but that is years off I think, so it seemed wise to make it available to those who wanted to read it now. I’m starting to realize that Laruelle is quite explicitly a political thinker and that’s most obvious in his early work. Some of the themes developed here remain in his thought, especially up through his works on religion, but prior to how those themes change in the light of his “science of philosophy”. I’ve translated the blurb from the back of the book in hopes it’ll entice you. In many ways it is combination of Nietzsche and Marx, though in a way that differs from Deleuze & Guattari and goes far beyond what Derrida hinted at in his books. Pay close attention in the blurb for his appropriation of Marxist and Maoist style, which continues in the text itself.

The Nietzsche-thought introduces a radical break in our political knowledge and practice. Nietzsche discovered a specific political content, irreducible to history. In place of the correlation of history and economy he substituted the correlation of power Relations and the libido as a principle productive force. This new object defines a new knowledge equally irreducible to historical Materialism: the duplicity of a manifest fascistic politics and of a latent revolutionary politics that takes aim at restrained politics.

Nietzsche is the only serious adversary of imperialism and fascism because he found the means to combat them without falsifying them.

It is that revolutionary politics as limit to the destruction of the domination of productive forces as technologies, at once of metaphysics and capitalism, which Heidegger misses in his reduction of Nietzschean politics to its imperialist surface: Nietzsche, thinker of absolute technology.

Through this continued misunderstanding where he falls into the trap of Nietzsche duplicity, Heidegger confuses the latent revolutionary possibilities of the will to power with the fascistic techno-logos that Nietzsche also had to hold on to – in order to slaughter it.

Nietzschean politics is the remedy to Marxist political impotence.

Violence of Names

It’s often observed that creation does not take place without destruction, that there is no life without death, and so on. Theories of redemptive violence aside, there is truth to this. And this truth would hold for names as well. Strangely, though, we rarely seem take the time to clean house, to throw away names. Or maybe we do throw them away, or replace them with new ones … but still, what about actively calling out, critiquing, and destroying names that hold us down? A slave revolt against master names… 

The self-assurance of liberal theology

It is well-known that the standard tropes of liberal Christian theology are radically unconvincing to most conservative Christians. Nothing is met with more scorn in such circles than the suggestion that we should guide our actions by the standard of love or, God forbid, by following Christ’s example of helping people. At the same time, such claims are often felt to be more or less banal by non-Christian liberals — they are perfectly willing to employ such tropes in order to catch conservative Christians in an apparent contradiction, but they show no inclination to become Christian as a result of their agreement with liberal theological principles. Such notions seem to be generally available moral principles that everyone obviously agrees to, even if they don’t always practice them.

Thus with both of liberal theology’s most obvious audiences, there is a certain lack of critical edge — the conservative Christians feel able to dismiss their claims out of hand, while the secular liberals more or less automatically agree without experiencing any significant challenge to their pre-existing beliefs. Where does this lack of critical edge come from?

Maimonides and the Whiteness of Jewish Philosophical Theology

In addition to the Introduction to Philosophy course I am also teaching another with the title “Nature, Cosmos, God” (basically a survey of theories of nature in the monotheisms and Darwin). We are going to read some selections from Maimonides Guide of the Perplexed and as I was prepping for that lecture I came across a passage where Maimonides displays some explicit racism. I thought this was interesting in the light of our book event on Carter’s Race because it calls into question some of his claims. I’ll quote the relevant section and then outline some of what I think might be going on here, but I’m no expert in Jewish thought and so am looking forward to what Bruce and Adam might have to say.

Sermon idea!

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was travelling, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a Republican was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by, reasoning that helping him would fail to teach him self-reliance. So likewise a Democrat, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side, plotting in his mind the tax credits he could propose to give private-sector companies the incentive to help people in similar situations.

“But an illegal immigrant while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having put Neosporin on them. Then he put him in his own vehicle, brought him to the emergency room, and waited with him. While the man was being seen by a doctor, a police officer happened by and accused the illegal immigrant of loitering, which he used as a pretext to ask him his immigration status. Unable to prove he had a right to be in this country, he was detained and is currently awaiting a deportation hearing.

“Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Introducing Philosophy through Its History

In a little over a week I’ll be teaching my first 100-level course. I would say I’ve been fortunate that I haven’t taught a 100-level before, but I don’t think that’s really the right sentiment. It just happened that at Nottingham the courses I pitched were always for students who were well into their second year or finishing their third. I had great experiences in those classes, but I’m looking forward to stretching myself as a teacher as well as getting students when they are just starting. I can see from the enrollment online that most of them are Freshman and it appears that most, if not all, are coming to the class from outside the philosophy major. I’m not surprised by this since most majors should be encouraged by their advisers to take classes with full-time instructors, but it also means that I’m getting students who are taking this class to get there philosophy general education requirement out of the way. That adds something to the challenge of teaching an introductory class.

I’ve been thinking about this over the summer and taking notes towards the syllabus. I even read through some other instructors syllabi and at my adjunct institution I’ve noticed that most tend to focus on a few texts. I can see the appeal of that approach since you get to teach the kids how to read a philosophical text closely, how an argument is constructed and the students will leave that class knowing they understand a few figures really well (if they do the work). I am going to go with a different teaching strategy and want to see what readers here think. I haven’t seen this approach in these other syllabi but I did experience a similar approach in the introduction to philosophy course I took as a freshman where the instructor really, really surveyed the history of philosophy. If my memory is correct we started with Plato and ended with Heidegger.

For my own class I was thinking of covering sixteen figures in the course of the ten weeks. The goal is to give them not a full understanding of a figure, but to give them a sketch of the development of philosophy through time. If this is done right the class has the potential to turn those students who may be taking the course for general education credit but who are undecided about their major into philosophy majors. The figures I’m covering are all going to be united around the theme of “what is philosophy?”, since the form of this question (what is) is at the heart of philosophical inquiry. I’ll then connect this question to themes from films we will watch in class, specifically “what is love?” and “why do we love the way we do?” For those films I’m fully committed to Hedwig and the Angry Inch and a bit stumped for my second film. I was thinking Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but it doesn’t quite fit into 90 minutes and that causes some viewing issues.

All in all, knowing the risks that this kind of class structure has, I think it is the best form for a survey class with this particular student body. The tone of the lectures will be very concise and direct and the figures will easily connect to form a kind of narrative. The diversity of the figures actually works in my favor in terms of classroom discussion, since there will be so many different ideas to work with and no established orthodoxy. I really think this kind of format could capture the attention of general education students because each session will be a confrontation. And confrontation is perhaps a form of wonder.

Carter Book Event: The Death of Christ: A Theological Reading of Fredrick Douglass’s 1845 Narrative (Chapter 7)

In this chapter, Carter continues his “investigation about an emerging Afro-Christian sensibility struggling with and against modernity” by looking at the 1845 Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass (286). Douglass, for Carter, provides further theological insights in that, whereas “Easter delivers Hammon back into captivity, Douglass’ 1845 Narrative struggles to undo this moment so that Easter will yield freedom rather than recapitulate him into bondage.” (286). Carter here is particularly focusing on Douglass’ religious critique of how America defined who he was, which proves instructive for two reasons. First, it points to the contradictions that become embroiled in emancipatory politics of identity—how “such a politics often repeats the form of the self that needs overcoming,”—and second, those contradictions illuminate how theological discourse is bound up in this, and how it contributes to the problem (287).

A few thoughts on online education

I will start by saying that there are circumstances where I can envision online education being an attractive option. First of all, it has to be adult learners, preferably graduate students. That’s the only way I can see to guarantee the kind of self-discipline necessary. Secondly, it has to be people who are very comfortable with online forms of communication and are familiar with the pitfalls. (In such cases, there would even be the outside possibility that the online format could prove more productive than live class discussions.) Finally, and this is most crucial: it has to be offering something genuinely unique. That means it has to be offered by an institution that has a unique mission and whose appeal is not limited to their immediate geographic area. This is why, for instance, I’m cautiously optimistic about the new online programs at Chicago Theological Seminary — they easily meet the first and third requirements, and the second is not really something an institution can control in any case.

The cases where online education seems to me to be probably a huge crock of shit are when they’re essentially duplicating standard undergraduate coursework or other types of academic programs that are widely available (MBA programs, teacher ed stuff, etc.). If a person’s schedule is so busy that they need the ultimate flexibility of an online program, it’s not very likely that they will be able to finish the degree even in the best of circumstances — and we all know that online coursework is not the best of circumstances. And it’s not as though there’s some shortage of capacity in existing colleges and universities. They have a huge reserve army of cheap labor, and new buildings and campuses are popping up constantly. If you want an MBA program that’s compatible with your unique scheduling needs, I daresay you can find one.

In most cases, online education is attractive to institutions primarily as a way to generate fresh revenue. If it’s an institution like CTS that has a unique mission and ethos, I think online education can be a win-win: they get a little more financial stability, and a broader audience gets access to what they’re offering. In most other cases, though, I think it can be a pretty cynical move. The fact that for-profit universities rely so heavily on online education should be a warning sign.

There’s a sense in which online programming at traditional schools threatens to become a kind of “for-profit” unit within the school, with all that implies: cynical manipulation of marginal college students in order to extract money from them, with relatively little concern for their future. Online education leads to less feeling of connection on the student’s part — but the thing is, it works the other direction as well. If no one at the school has any sense of connection to these often marginal students, then there’s no one to care or stand up for them when they fall between the cracks and have to pay off the money they wasted on useless credits.

It beginneth

Tomorrow is my first day of classes at Shimer College. It still stuns me how good an outcome this is, and more broadly how well things have turned out despite my graduating in the midst of the financial crisis. In fact, even though the job market caused me a great deal of distress, my path — a visiting position right after graduation, followed by a permanent position — was, in the end, remarkably “normal” and smooth.

I wish it could be so for all of us, but the world is poorly made. I wish all of you good luck in this coming year, wherever you have wound up for now — and if you’re on the job market, I raise a toast: “Next year on the tenure track!”

The appeal of the idiosyncratic

Preparations for teaching have brought me into contact with two new translations: Robert Alter’s rendering of Genesis and Joe Sachs’s version of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Though the underlying texts could not be more different in style and genre, I think that the impulse behind the two translations is similar: to cut through a translation tradition that has impeded understanding, but more than that, has rendered the texts in question boring.

It is a gesture that I find profoundly attractive, a kind of “Protestant principle” of translation. Part of the appeal is probably the individualism of it, which sits well with someone like me, since I flatter myself that I have “charted my own way” without accumulating an approved pedigree. More than that, though, I think the attraction of this kind of radical retranslation is the sense that it’s not just possible to say something new about some of the most commented-upon texts in the Western tradition, but to see them again for the first time.

Genesis, for instance, is obviously one of the most familiar texts in the world to me, and yet Alter’s translation made it feel brand-new. I can’t say I’ve studied Aristotle anywhere near as closely, but the contrast between Sachs’s translation and the jargon-laden near-nonsense I struggled to work through before could not be clearer. I now want to read every translation both authors have done of their respective body of texts — which is especially striking in the case of Sachs, since I’ve previously had no particular interest in Aristotle.

Do others know of similarly iconoclastic translations of other major works?