[-empyre-] Re: Ontological equality

[Eugene Thacker <eugene.thacker@lcc.gatech.edu>]

What if this 'mastery of mastery' is really about whether there can really be a
nonhuman ethics, insofar as 'ethics' is bounded by either moral philosophy or
theology? I agree that Latour's nonhuman is, conceptually compromised, and all
the nonhumans are there 'for us.'

Instead of intervening in or manipulating nature, would the mastery of mastery
be something like the creation of new laws of nature (perhaps Venter would like
to see himself in this guise...)? Does this also describe somewhat paradoxical
attempts to instrumentalize self-organization, emergence, and complexity?

The title of Brian's post - 'ontological equality' - actually gets at the
problem quite directly. The absolute assertion of equality leads one to forms of
pantheism or mysticism...or, from the all-too-human vantage point, nihilism. But
then even the counter-assertion of 'difference' still requires some notion of
the common, or that within which difference differs. For some, Deleuze's
assertion of difference-in-itself simply reverts back to pantheism/univocity/
immanence.

Perhaps this is why Badiou begins from nothing, or the void. All of the
discussion on being and ethics presumes a notion of being-as-generosity,
positivity, presentation. But even Badiou will still assert an efficacy of the
subject (though radically retooled via set theory) with the notions of fidelity,
situation/event, and the generic. (I apologize for my shoddy reading of Badiou,
but at times I feel the lefty-May'68 subject furtively enters his discussion...)

What if, in addition to the problem of ontological equality, then opens onto
another problem, which is that of causality (ontological action)? Or maybe the
relation between equality and causality is itself the issue - that is, the
concept of 'relation' itself?...

But maybe this is a way to bring things back to Judith's notion of a poetics of
DNA. I take 'poiesis' here to be nonhuman, but not in the Latourian sense.
Poiesis has, at least since Aristotle, been about affectivity (pathos), and
there is no affectivity without circulation and relation.

-Eugene




Quoting Ryan Griffis <ryan.griffis@gmail.com>:

 > Ok let me start from here... and see where the experiment takes us.
 > Perhaps the difference begins from the recognition that
 > philosophically
 > and politically we are precisely the highly privileged people who have
 > to change.

 i don't mean to take away from Eugene and Judith's really great
 points for discussion, so i apologize for that, and won't follow this
 thread up with any more. but do look forward to the remaining
 discussion.
 So, last set of attempts to try to understand what you're saying
 exactly here Steve:
 >
 > The danger of Ryan's position is that the question which Latour asked
 > Serres "So, then, science and technology remove the distinction upon
 > which morals are based ?" is by implication answered "Yes" -
 > whereas the
 > more interesting and important answer is one that recognizes that the
 > Cartesian philosophical question that emerged during the invention of
 > capitalism and science of "How can we dominate the world ?" has been
 > replaced (I like to think it happened in 1968 but it was probably
 > later
 > than this...) with the question of "How do we control our
 > domination of
 > the planet, how do we master our own mastery ?"

 OK... this sounds like what i was trying to express myself. Only i
 would still maintain a challenge to this "we" you're using here, as
 it seems to imply a larger homogeneous "humanity" that is seemingly
 equally invested in the benefits of domination.
 But i would also ask if you really honestly believe that to be true?
 Has this question really shifted as you describe? Can you verify the
 existence of this new pragmatic world view in the minds of those
 shaping our environment? It sounds, in all honesty, like the shift
 you mentions coincides more with the development of public relations.

 > 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.

 And how is this different from the goals of eugenics? This is not
 new, it was taught in schools in the 30s in the US.
 "We" have always been accountable, at least in the minds of some -
 what has changed? Are you holding up the post-human dream of getting
 rid of oppression by designing it out? As if it exists in our
 biological beings? Norplant was used to negatively effect the
 population of "welfare mothers". First Nations peoples in North
 America were sterilized. Toxic waste was located in predominately
 black neighborhoods (still the most reliable correlation between
 geography and toxic sites). How is what you're saying to be taken in
 the context of these realities?
 To reiterate an earlier point, i don't see you addressing that this
 "choosing" that you point to will always be political and an
 expression of power. Who is allowed access to the decision making
 process is something that power can be made accountable for.
 But i have to say that i don't understand the preoccupation with
 GATTACA-like narratives of a potential future, as if these
 developments are immanent, rather than political.
 >
 >  Rather we should accept that the human
 > relationship to the world has significantly changed and that given our
 > levels of accountability and our responsibilities an ethically based
 > response, even those founded on utilitarian based approaches (Singer),
 > phenomenological approaches (Levinas) or even those that derive from
 > situation ethics fail ? because they cannot address the absolute
 > equivalence of value of any humans, let alone imagine that there is no
 > justification any longer for prioritizing the human over the non-
 > human.
 > Why should there be ?

 i'm not sure what you mean by the "prioritization of the human over
 the non-human" here... if you mean we need to stop identifying our
 interests with other similar beings (i.e. i shouldn't align myself
 with my neighbors just because they happen to be human), i don't know
 where that takes us.
 Equivalence isn't going to be found in "Nature" or a logical equation
 - it's a political decision. So will be whatever we do (or don't) to
 deal with a climate crisis.
 i get the feeling that you're playing with absolutes in a zero-sum
 game of intellectual purity here, but maybe i'm wrong.
 >
 > How do we think about this ? My  view as said is  that we cannot
 > address
 > this by reducing the discussion to an ethical problem. Rather what is
 > required is to radically democratize our philosophical,  ontological
 > structures to address the implications. The starting point for any
 > acceptable philosophical position is an engagement with equality.

 OK - i'm with you here. i just don't see how you get here from
 everything else above. i thought i was clear before that i don't see
 "ethics" as a useful construct at all, in fact just the opposite.
 >
 > Recently whilst rereading the introduction to a collection of
 > essays by
 > Alain Badiou called 'Infinite Thought', in which Feltham and Clemens
 > make the case for the strict separation politics and philosophy. If
 > you
 > wish to do politics they say "go become an activist, go decide what
 > event has happened in your political situation..." and don't confuse
 > politics and philosophy. But given the actual situation there is no
 > alternative to engaging in such a radical rethinking, since the
 > situation consists of on the side the mass-extinction event and on the
 > other the necessity of renegotiating our relationship with the world
 > which we are responsible and accountable for. But a politics has to
 > think and act globally because without it how can we possibly
 > master our
 > mastery ? besideswhat kind of idiot prioritizes their immediate
 > local in
 > the 21st century... That way leads to extinction.

 Please explain, if you can what the "necessity of renegotiating our
 relationship with the world" is. And why a politics that is global
 necessitates a move away from the "local"? Why are they not
 synthesized in your framing of the question? Can you define where the
 local starts/stops and global ends/begins? Is it in the political
 boundaries? The biological scale of gene flows? The subatomic
 movement of nano-particles? The cosmic scale of Near Earth Objects?
 To be honest about what i think - i agree in that there is a desire
 for renegotiating our relationship with the world. But a necessity -
 how can there be a necessity? It's a political desire. And do i think
 that desire is shared by Venter and those developing the "genetic
 revolution"? Are you kidding? They're renegotiating their role in the
 world based on age-old paradigms, just with new stuff.
 In short (hah) they are already radically reconceptualizing our
 relationship with the world. The problem is that they're making it
 more and more in their image - just as power has always done. That
 may lead to extinction. Or it may not, either way, it's bad for a lot
 of us. If it's a decision between the extinction of everyone and
 everyone but the powerful, who cares?
 What is the point of rethinking our relationships to a world unless
 those thoughts have some hope for materializing? The 2 sides of your
 coin seem one and the same. If you do the former (save the world from
 mass extinction) without the latter (reconceptualizing), you end up
 with little hope of the latter having any influence. And if the
 latter isn't oriented towards addressing the problem of the former,
 what's the point?
 And as a side note, if there's a severe energy crisis in the current
 context, see if you can still call someone who's prioritized the
 local an idiot.
 >
 > Oh and violence was first professionalized in the rennaissence,
 > mercenaries predate the invention of modern-science and capital by
 > some
 > hundreds of years.

 And eugenics predates synthetic genomics and the "new economy" by
 over a century.
 Again, i could have your arguments all wrong and i apologize if so.
 best,
 ryan_______________________________________________
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