[-empyre-] Ontology again

[sdv at krokodile.co.uk]

Dean,

I'll respond properly later today... 

but surely 'we' are those people you refer to below tough I don't recognize the description...

steve



>Steve's taxonomy:
>
>"To argue that 'science is not THE best way to explain everything' well
>that's just nonsensical, what do you have left but religion, faith,
>magic, transcendentalism, humanism none of which explains anything."
>
>Then above:
>
>"From  now on then we are controlling things which previously
>controlled us, because we dominate the planet we become accountable
>for it.  If you have the ability to manipulate the genetic structures,
>gender, what is normal and pathological then you are going to have to
>decide every thing; gender, eye color, skin color, intelligence,
>Everything. And I mean Everything from choosing what is allowed to
>evolve to deciding what can become real."
>
>I see the logic in there, since escalation is part of the pattern. But
>these ideas seem to reduce possible events to calcuable functions and
>systems that neglect the tantalizing prospect of people like Samuel
>Beckett and other untidy matters like desire, tsunamis, meteor showers
>... Besides, if the premise is true, then the need for "control" would
>be a predetermined trait and "we" would not be able to "decide" as
>free subjects. Those decisions would be made for us before we were
>born. How convenient.
>
>A few days ago Judith brought up ideas of pleasure and the wonderful
>word "oedipalism" while continuing, usefully, to advocate skepticism
>toward representations of DNA. The biological sites of unconsious
>drives may be locatable through some scientific/rhetorical slight of
>hand in the near term, but I can think of quite a few things now,
>perhaps naively, that are beyond the alleged control of well-paid
>scientists, including the scientists themselves.
>
>Bourdieu might say that control obsessions have less to do with
>imperialism, or Marxism, and more to do with the reproduction of
>symbols, or a kind of denial. It's curious how equating the social
>sciences with hard science can throw the historical process into a
>tailspin, or ... god forbid ... disorder. One example of a meaningful
>shift in capital perhaps might be the reasonably quantifiable measure
>of population. Do the alienated, powerful, antisceptic, wealthy,
>mass-mediated humans really have all the power to determine who or
>what is to be born? Will they determine "Everything. And I mean
>Everything" for populations that are "out of control"? I think the
>Chakrabarty insinuates some of these questions into the ongoing
>discussion.
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