'Derrida may be a little too opaque for our crowd...'

Have people seen this?

Comments

[Lou Deeptrek]

this is a very interesting article, thanks for pointing it out - i wonder what kind of philosophy is popular in the US army? as strange as it sounds, maybe they do need to get some "opaque Derrida" published in a pocket camouflage version like the New Testament?

[Roger Whitson]

hmmm..this may be totally blasphemous (maybe in a bad way) and completely thoughtless and may provoke really bad reactions. However, I thought of an analogy when I read this article.

Nietzsche was to the Nazi Army what Deleuze is to the Israeli army.

[Phuckoffski]

You ever note that many Postmods retain the hegelian Being/notBeing phase, sort of shape it to their ends? Notwithstanding that Jacques D himself was pointing out false binaries (the dialectic isself, ne c'est pas, JD?). So Nietzsche, opposed to socialists of his era, thereby becomes Nazi--you with us or against us, ese? When Zizek (forgetting the cliffnotes to Of Grammatology) mentions the "negations" of like the bourgeois, be afraid---.

[Evgeni V. Pavlov]

"Nietzsche - Nazis, Deleuze - Israelis" - i think it is certainly a very uncomfortable way to put it, in fact, it might imply some comparison between Nazis and Israelis, which i don't think you are trying to make, my question is - does it mean then that Israeli army misreads Deleuze as Nazis misread Nietzsche? or did they? or do they?

[CBR]

I don't think the "Nazi Army" got any tactical help from Nietzsche...and the Israeli's don't seem to be attempting to extract an ideology from D&G. Thus, it strikes me as dissimilar except in the most superficial way.

[sputnik]

I think that often left-leaning folks would dismiss this as "reading the theory wrong." Does anyone think that it isn't be a matter of the Israeli military reading Deleuze wrong, but maybe that the theory is equally (if not more) consequential to the state, military, etc. than to those who are trying to 'resist' these structures? In other wrods, perhaps it cannot be dismissed as misreading or simple coincidence that the theory lends itself so readily to military strategy. What does it inidcate about the political significance of the theory that it is so useful for the Israeli military? It certainly shows Delueze's ideas have validity, but might it also suggest at least an ambiguity in the theory when it comes to political resistance and refining techniques of control (despite the intentions of the author)? Does it give any fans of Deleuze, who might be trying to 'resist' modern militarism pause?

[sssssssshiz]

if you need to read deleuze to come up wtih the idea of blowing a hole in a wall, you got bigger problems than 'reading theory wrong.'

[more links]

http://ojs.gc.cuny.edu/index.php/situations/article/view/176/200

[Phuckoffski]

"""""We read Normon Podhohertz, can you imagine?; we read Elliot Abrams, and other social architects. We are reading Sigmund Freud as well; we are reading some Marx, as well as lighter stuff: Woody Allen. Seinfeld. Allen Ginsburg. Joan Rivers. Not myself, but our soldiers, our generals are reflecting on these kinds of materials. We have established a school and developed a curriculum that trains “kosher operational architects”.’"""""'

[Matt]

Ginsberg is light?

Maybe they meant Max.

[Phuckoffski]

Scuzi'-- parody went a bit awry: pre-C8H10N4O2. (Or jus' delete.) What think ye of rude, obscene insulting LS threads on some hip east-coast neo-cons, like Podhoretz, Norman. Even Poddy was quite the marxo-theoretician backintheday. Viva Ressentiment, like...............(serio, if crackers wrote murderous crap like Pod. does the entire blogosphere would riot)

[Phritz]

Poddy from his WSJ manifesto:

"""""Since a ground invasion of Iran must be ruled out for many different reasons, the job would have to be done, if it is to be done at all, by a campaign of air strikes. Furthermore, because Iran's nuclear facilities are dispersed, and because some of them are underground, many sorties and bunker-busting munitions would be required.""""

A bit like Meyer Lansky or Bugsy Siegel in charge of, what, the entire US Military. Take dat ya dirtay wat! Pod's Ghoulian's top advisor as well: maybe some opportuni-tays for a sublime poetical PoMo to point out all the rich suggestions of that.........

[sdv]

Actually the logic is wrong, think rather of Cioron and then remember as he suggested that the Israeli army/state learning from those who oppressed them the Nazis and other imperial forces...

[sdv]

Actually the logic is wrong, think rather of Cioron and then remember as he suggested that the Israeli army/state learning from those who oppressed them the Nazis and other imperial forces...

[Cornchops]

"How could Heidegger's concepts not be intrinsically sullied by an abject reterritorialization? Unless all concepts include this gray zone and indiscernibility where for a moment the combatants on the ground are confused, and the thinker's tired eye mistakes one for the other--not only the German for a Greek but the fascist for a creator of existence and freedom." (D+G, What is Philosophy? p. 109)

Not sure how relevant it is to this discussion, but it came to mind.

[Carceraglio]

To the question of "have people seen this?", it was reported in other places. In the New York Times, for one; also in several articles by Eyal Weizman that are on the internet, and most recently in Weizman's book Hollow Land, which has gotten reviews.

(And also, in my own blog: http://scentedgardensfortheblind.blogspot.com/2006/08/war-theory-as-i-write-this-us-air.html}

This doesn't add that much to the discussion, except to say that it was more widely reported than it might have seemed if you just came upon it in Frieze.