[-empyre-] Meillassoux / Harman

Fri Jun 15 08:35:58 EST 2012

Hey All, - I've been subscribing to this mailing list for a while now, so I'm glad this debate is getting aired - I just hope it doesn't inherit the unfortunate slippage of tone that the blogosphere features typically in these types of discussions.

So, I really don't understand this criticism of OOO, which tars the ontological 'equivalence' brush with capitalism or neo-liberalism. This is straightforward reductionism in my eyes. There are plenty of political questions which need asking. But asking the question 'what is' need not be a politically contentious one. This is what SR is precisely getting away from, no matter what anti-correlationist critique one advocates.

The key issue here is sovereignty. If a current position can articulate contingent surprise within an ontology that's a start (even the early zizek took the correlated 'Real' has a sovereign theoretical given, to which ideology conceals or masks). For my money OOO (which Levi Bryant has argued), has an interesting proposition in that one could potentially argue that all real objects have an ambigious sovereign inner core of surprise which can never be fully articulated, by anything: whether benvolent dust mite or proprietary software. This might be a starting point for discussion.

Best
Rob

On 14 Jun 2012, at 21:06, Ian Bogost <ian.bogost at lcc.gatech.edu> wrote:

> Jacob,
> 
> Thanks for this clarification. I apologize if I was thread-hijacking. 
> 
> Not sure if you're aware, but the empyre list website is very slow to respond, and I can't find any archives thereon, so it's hard to go back and see the conversation that's already taken place...
> 
> Ian
> 
> 
> On Jun 14, 2012, at 4:02 PM, Jacob Gaboury wrote:
> 
>> Hello Ian. Thanks for joining the discussion, and for your
>> contributions. The goal of this week's conversation is a larger look
>> at computation and the nonhuman, and the broader theme of this month
>> is queer new media. SR/OOO is clearly important to any discussion of
>> the nonhuman, and I think one of the goals was to think through what
>> queer theory has to say to that field specifically, both in supporting
>> and critiquing it. This may explain the focus participants have made
>> on what is missing, rather than what is there.
>> 
>> That said there are other ways of discussing these issues, such as
>> Micha and Jack's conversation on the Queerreal and the Transreal, or
>> our earlier discussion of uncomputability and the failure of technical
>> objects. I think it's useful to continue this conversation but my hope
>> is that it doesn't stop other people from chiming in about the other
>> topics and questions we have covered this week, or even to hear what
>> you have to say about these other approaches.
>> 
>> It seems like part of the debate here is the notion that queer theory
>> and the tradition of continental philosophy focus a great deal on
>> issues of identity as they relate to the human. Part of our earlier
>> discussion was an attempt to theorize those nonhuman objects and
>> practices that we might productively understand as queer. That is, to
>> decouple the human, identity, and human-embodied experience from the
>> field of queer theory and apply it to the nonhuman and the
>> computational. Not as a way of "queering" these things but as a way of
>> understanding them as already queer to begin with. My impulse is to
>> look to uncomputable processes and super-Turing machines, Jack looked
>> to specific types of nonhuman objects such as animation or "stuffed"
>> objects in what I read as a continuing application of a kind of "low
>> theory".
>> 
>> I don't know if this gets us outside this debate over the different
>> canonical/historical approaches of these two disciplines, but I think
>> it's a useful way of bringing them into conversation. I'd love to hear
>> more from all of you on this approach.
>> 
>> - Jacob
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 3:31 PM, Ian Bogost <ian.bogost at lcc.gatech.edu> wrote:
>>> Look, I'm new here, but is this really the level of conversation this list
>>> strives to support?
>>> 
>>> If this is just a place where like-minded folk pat each other on the back,
>>> please let me know so I can unsubscribe.
>>> 
>>> Ian
>>> 
>>> On Jun 14, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Rob Myers wrote:
>>> 
>>> On 06/14/2012 07:02 PM, Ian Bogost wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> As for queer and feminist formulations, I agree with the spirit of what
>>> 
>>> you say, but I'll reiterate my observation that SR/OOO is moving in a
>>> 
>>> slightly different direction—one that concerns toasters and quasars as
>>> 
>>> much as human subjects (note the "as much as" here). Why not take this
>>> 
>>> work for what it is, at least for starters, rather than for what it
>>> 
>>> isn't?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> The "as much as" is precisely the problem.
>>> 
>>> Galloway's critique of OOO that Zach mentioned explains why:
>>> 
>>> http://itself.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/a-response-to-graham-harmans-marginalia-on-radical-thinking/
>>> 
>>> But I wouldn't lump Meillassoux in with Harman. I think Meillassoux's
>>> philosophy can indeed be interesting for this debate because of its
>>> embracing of contingency and possibility.
>>> 
>>> - Rob.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> 
> _______________________________________________
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