[DEBATE] : Re: Cornel West: The Spirit of Spinoza

[Dominic Tweedie]

Donna Harraway would have made Spinoza puke.

Dominic

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-----Original Message-----
From: debate-bounces at lists.kabissa.org
[mailto:debate-bounces at lists.kabissa.org]On Behalf Of Peter van Heusden
Sent: 04 August 2006 10:58 AM
To: debate: SA discussion list
Subject: [DEBATE] : Re: Cornel West: The Spirit of Spinoza

Wow. Deutscher's essay sounds facination - thanks for the quotations,
Russell. I think that Spinosa (and maybe West) would appreciate Donna
Haraway's invocation of the importance of blasphemy (in her 'Cyborg
Manifesto'). She says: "I know no better stance to adopt from within the
secular-religious, evangelical traditions of United States politics,
including the politics of socialist feminism. Blasphemy protects one
from the moral majority within, while still insisting on the need for
community."

In a world where various (im)moral "majorities" stridently posture, we
could do with more heretics and blasphemers. And of course, West's
failure to move beyond "critique" is inadequate - as someone said more
than 150 years ago, "the point is to change it". No point just being a
voice in the wilderness.

Peter