[Dancecult-l] violence EDMC

[Nibelungentreue at aol.com]

Interesting thread, especially the most recent part about mimicry/ 
imitation's relation to originary violence. Last year I submitted a dissertation 
involving these themes, using the term "seriality" to reference 
imitation/appropriation, in relation to violence and technology. Anyway, I recommend pointing your 
browser to Mark Featherstone's online article which attempts to criticise 
Derrida's viewpoint in relation to Girard's thesis of the connection between 
imitation and violence,  "Speed and Violence, Sacrifice in Virilio, Derrida, and 
Girard", Anthropoetics: The Electronic Journal of Generative Anthropology, 6, 2: 
http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/

Once having read this article, it is easy to see how such a line of critique 
could be applied wholesale to EDMC by some misguided critics. It might be 
taken to be arguing that without the scapegoat as the means of defraying an 
originary mimetic violence, deconstructive cultural practices are left with no 
option other than the privileging of a mechanical objectivity over a radical 
subjectivity. Indeed, according to Featherstone, confirmation of this suspicion is 
available by turning to Bandera, for whom the endless deferral  associated with 
the play of différance contains nothing in principle that could prevent it 
from fostering a state of general undifferentiation:

The point is that, as the game accelerates there will be more and more 
differences in less and less time. And since their reciprocal differentiation 
depends on the duration of their deferring, the shorter this duration becomes the 
less distinctly different they will be from one another. Which means that, 
beyond a certain time threshold a la différance begins to work in reverse, against 
itself, actively promoting a state of general undifferentiation, for there 
will be a diminishing number of differences capable of making any difference 
whatsoever. Beyond such a point, a la différance turns into l'indifférance. In 
other words, the game that Derrida has uncovered in his deconstruction of 
metaphysics, cannot be postulated as endless - not because there is anything external 
to it that would stop it or destroy it, but because it can generate its own 
destruction in time (Bandera 1982: 322 cited in Featherstone 2001).  

The specific critique of deconstruction here, and by extension the cultural 
creolisation/ mixing practices of EDMC, is that no gap can open up between the 
positing of an end and its actualization, once speed has become so absolute 
that every telos is achieved quickly. Thus reservations accrue around Derrida's 
embrace of speed and violence as signs of unrealized potential. In "No 
Apocalypse, Not Now" he explains how the value of the aporia of speed may lie in its 
destructive function, its ability to destabilize existing structures and 
suggest the emergence of new forms of political organization. According to the 
theories advanced by both Virilio and Girard, such a commitment illuminates 
deconstruction's relation to the structures of technological fundamentalism and the 
machine-like process that allows form to overwhelm the warnings advanced by 
critical content. To many, this dilemma is nothing new to the avant garde 
(remember Futurism and its relation to fascism, for example - I think this whole 
debate about the relation of violence to EDMC is reflective, to some extent, of a 
recurring problematique).

I would choose though to reference these critiques here only in order to 
qualify them, because I believe, contra Featherstone et al, that deconstruction 
can be mobilized  against forms of "technological fundamentalism" and 
"machine-like process". To speak of it in relation to EDMC is not to necessarily endorse 
some "techno" [sic] dystopia. So, given Graham's concerns, it  might be 
important to qualify such critiques via reference to Derrida's own acknowledgement 
of this speed-based limit and the ability of metaphysical systems to 
approximate it when he observes that "metaphysical reappropriation …happens very fast" 
(Derrida 1981: 58). With these qualifiers in place it appears that Derrida is 
capable of assessing the value of speed relative to its situational deployment
; as opposed to the apriori almost Futurist/vorticist characterization of 
deconstruction [that Featherstone wishes to make with his references to Virilio 
and Girard]. Contrary then to Featherstone's argument, Derrida appears to 
foreground the significance of critical decelerations when he argues that the 
existence of absolute speed will have to be predicated upon the incorporation of a 
certain delay "that never allows itself to be captured" absolutely (Derrida 
1992: 24):

[t] he impossible of which I… speak…endows desire, action, and decision with 
their very movement; it is the very figure of the real (Derrida 1998: 149).

It becomes a question thus of critically selecting within a given context a 
rhythm of speed and difference relative to the forces of control. Derrida 
appears somewhat pragmatic then when he concludes that "[w] e must, as in 
democracy, struggle from within the movement in progress, in order to inflect it 
differently" (Derrida 1998: 1; Corson 2000: 197).
If it is the control of this democratic speed, rather than the performativity 
of mimetic violence that  is going to prevent the absolute impossibility of 
absolutization, then it is not beyond the bounds of credibility that it is the 
speed of the democratic process rather than the dynamics of technics in and of 
themselves, that one must have faith in. This would seem to leave the door 
open to the "Gandhi" like peaceful alternative that Graham was discussing. 

I hope this helps. If nothing else, I like the double play on "techno" 
dystopia in a discussion of EDMC!

cheers,

Neil Huthnance
   
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