Radical Atheism, Liberal Fascism, Capitalist Realism

Ethics, Hospitality, and Radical Atheism

A Dialogue Between Derek Attridge (University of York) and Martin Hägglund (Harvard Society of Fellows) 5.15 pm, Thursday March 4, 2010 New Seminar Room, Wadham College University of Oxford

Hägglund’s recent book, Radical Atheism, offers a novel and provocative account of Derrida’s thinking on life and death, good and evil, self and other. The book has already been the subject of a special issue of CR: The New Centennial Review and has prompted enthusiastic critical responses from thinkers like Ernesto Laclau and Derek Attridge. Attridge, eminent literary critic and theorist, is responding to Hägglund in his forthcoming book Reading and Responsibility, where he further develops his influential notion of the relation between deconstruction, ethics, and literature. In his response, Attridge raises the question of what difference deconstruction makes for the way we live our lives and opens the stakes of the debate through the question of hospitality. This dialogue will stage a wide-ranging discussion between these distinguished interlocutors before opening the debate to the floor. Places are limited. Please register interest with Ankhi Mukherjee: ankhi.mukherjee@wadh.ox.ac.uk Yet Another Conference Announcement from An und für sich by Anthony Paul Smith

Check out Jonah Goldberg's new book "Liberal Fascism". I disagree with the title. It should be "Leftist Fascism". New Zeal: Why Fascists Are Leftists 10 Jan 2008

Now, what would be the difference between absolutism and totalitarianism? I don't think I want to get too deeply into that question because it's just too vast a subject, but it is beautifully addressed in one of my perennial raccoomendations, The Book of Absolutes: A Critique of Relativism and a Defence of Universals, by William Gairdner. A key point is that the Absolute does not deny our freedom, but is its first and last guarantor. Absolutist Philosophy and Totalist Necrophilia from One Cosmos by Gagdad Bob

Towards the end of Capitalist Realism Fisher puts his finger on the central reason for my reluctance to discuss issues of normativity… One of the more compelling themes that punctuates Fisher’s Capitalist Realism is the linkage between the rise of certain mental illnesses and post-Fordist capitalist modes of production, identifying it as a key site of thepolitical (at least virtually). Paradoxes of Mereology and Social Systems from Larval Subjects, Depression, Affectivity, and Capitalism

We’ve now completed compiling all the articles for The Speculative Turn so the manuscript will be sent off to Re.Press in the next day or so. A Little Less Speculative, A Little More Real from Larval Subjects

Just as a kind of heads-up, we will begin our reading of Catherine Malabou’s Plasticity at the Dusk of Writing: Dialectic, Destruction, Deconstruction next week. Plasticity at the Dusk of Writing Book Event: Announcement from An und für sich by Brad Johnson

On a related note, Julia Fischer of the Cognitive Ethology Laboratory at the German Primate Center in Göttingen, Germany has written a short review of Michael Tomasello's book "Why We Cooperate." Biolinguistics, Cooperation, the Importance of Theory of Mind for Language - and Dinosaurs  from Shared Symbolic Storage by Michael

But the self-interest of the Capitalist can only be achieved by serving his customers better. The self-interest of the personnel of The State is achieved only by screwing the people. One works for good things; the other is pure evil. Gordon Tullock's little book, The Vote Motive, proves that this is the motive that is pure evil. On the other hand, the much maligned "profit motive" is totally innocent, seeking only to benefit the customer, as in this old song. On Selfishness - Good And Evil from ANTIDOTE by Sauvik

Ludwig von Mises from his magnum opus, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, For MBA Students And Aspirants from ANTIDOTE by Sauvik