StephenKMackSD's Blog

Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An essay on the necessity of contingency. Trans. Ray Brassier. London: Continuum, 2008

After Finitude by Quentin Meillassoux

This book written by a young French philosopher has been taken up with great enthusiasm by a small group of English language philosophers -notably Graham Harman, Iain Hamilton Grant and Ray Brassier members of the London-based “Speculative Realism” and Atlanta-based “Object-Oriented Ontology” movements. (See also Larval Subjects for an interesting discussion). Alain Badiou in his preface praises the book in glowing terms claiming that the author ‘has opened up a new path in the history of philosophy’. (p.vii) I wasn’t able to track down the French original on interlibrary loan, so I have read the book in English (a rather good translation by philosopher Ray Brassier I am happy to say). Continue reading →

Here is the utterly abhorrent Richard Nixon, showing the prejudices of a certain generation of American males, and their obsessive stereotyping of all others who were not them. Nixon’s policies almost look ‘progressive’ compared to the Republican Party of the last ten years, but he was a man who embodied most fully the political irrationalism that was the central notion of the Southern Strategy. Nixon was a self-hating and self-destructive authoritarian personality, much like so many of the present day Republican Party leaders and followers.

But here is a quote that highlights the realpolitik of the revered and lionized Mr. Henry Kissinger,our Metternich , and Nixon’s closest ally : “The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy,” Mr. Kissinger said. “And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.” Master and servant in a perfect harmony of what? We drown in the evolution of questions.