In one of the books by Levinas he states -- the book I am thinking of has
the title Infinity in it -- and I am sorry I can't recall it at the moment
-- in any event, in this book
Levinas says :When once we see the face of the Other, we are responsible
for his future: Note we are Responsible For his Future and not responsible
To: An important Talmudic like distinction:
Haing said that; You all must realise that this is not really any different
from the Standard Western ethicals -- no matter how many so-called praxis
you throw in -- to wit you gotta love your neighbour as yerself; pretty
much, in fact, the universal standard of you do this and I do that; and
politics paints its seat over that; and So Levinas who was by all accounts a
very nice man, who had been through quite a bit in life, Well after I read
some of these books of his, I t hought well what difference is there between
this and the other ethical injunctions of Christian, Jewish, and for that
matter Muslim, Buddhist ethical thought. All of these ways of life and
thought are animated by some sort of relation to theism and they are none of
them ways of thought that accept human history and atheism as their bases.
They all think that some God or some such Divine Inner being, i.e. the
Buddha will change them. Which is fine, -- of course I am being somewhat
simplifying and reductive here, but lets face it, religion is what Levinas
is about; and his ideas about being a chosen people, none of that is very
different is it? No matter; the world is a madhouse, don't you'll think;
perhaps it will all end very soon with atomic bombs in the thousands going
off and ending this rotten,filthy, vindicative, revengeful, mean, cold,
killing murderous planet; if it does I hope I get to laugh for a second
before seeing the White Light the big one the Tibetan Book of the Dead
speaks of -- of course those old lamas never knew they were having
premonitions of the Atomic Flash; Yes, you might all say that the Bombs wont
go off no more, and I say go ask Bush Jr. if he is building this new
umbrella against ICBMS for nothing; History is Aggression not ethics;
Levinas was dreaming, the dream of sweet old prophets becomes the inverted
cruel practice of gangs of politicos. Whatever.
--------------
>From: "david.bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
> poetics <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Levinas's door/ question
>Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 12:10:02 +0100
>
> > Could well be, Kent: could you elaborate on what those ethical poetic
> > praxes might be?
>
>Yes, Mr Kent, I'm very much with Alison on this question. I'd like to hear
>too.
>
>best
>
>Dave
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Monday, June 04, 2001 9:31 AM
>Subject: Re: Levinas's door/ question
>
>
> > >That's not to say, of course, that ethics and a regard of the Other are
>any
> > >less relevant within habitual and protocoled arrangements; but might
>there
> > >be a whole Outside of *ethical poetic praxis* yet waiting to be
>explored
> > >beyond the limen of conventionalized Authorship? Might tentative,
> > >speculative moves in such direction today tend to readily be given the
> > >stigma of 'hoax', 'fraud', 'fake', 'forgery' in great part *because* of
>the
> > >comfort of habit and safety of protocol?
> >
> > Could well be, Kent: could you elaborate on what those ethical poetic
> > praxes might be? The hoaxes I can think of seem to operate ethically in
> > a negative sense, that is, by exposing by their deceptions, wittingly or
> > not, the corruption or slewedness of certain means of critical or
>reading
> > practice. What are the aims of your own concealments/problematisings of
> > authorial identity? Does it go beyond the aim of "exposure" of another,
> > either as a fool (for believing the false identity) or shallowly
> > inartistic (for being angry at being taken in)? And why do so many of
> > these works revolve around the atrocities of WW2?? These are not
>needling
> > questions, but straight up: I'm curious.
> >
> > Emma Lew has engendered a fair bit of criticism from other poets in
> > Melbourne because of her practice, which involves working what she calls
> > "lines" from a variety of sources. I've had a few arguments with people
> > about this: from what I could work out, they say that at first they feel
> > deeply stirred by Emma's work, and then, when they discover that she is
> > "just stealing" other people's work ("plagiarising") they feel angry and
> > cheated, as if they're being lied to. It goes without saying that I
>find
> > this an entirely inappropriate response to Emma's work, though I do not
> > think her practice is by any means plagiarism; but then I thought that
>by
> > now ideas of authorial authenticity were sufficiently sophisticated to
> > render her practice entirely uncontroversial. So in that way, it seems
> > I'm wrong: the "originality" of the Authorial Self is still there and up
> > for grabs, and not merely as a convenient commodity... On the other
> > hand...
> >
> > One of the reasons I enjoy writing texts for theatre is how the identity
> > of author is in many ways problematised by the processes of
>collaboration
> > and presentation. Are actors "pretending"? The best actors are
> > certainly not "pretending": but then, what are they doing? Because I
> > think it's possible to imagine an authenticity which has nothing to do
> > with identity.
> >
> > Best
> >
> > Alison
> >
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