I've taken a break from reading Hardt and Negri's Empire by way of short chunks of text over these last few days. I've encountered some problems. It is not just that the fragmentary nature of reading leaves the threads hanging.
The problem I'm having is that the text has become so very abstract. Theory's conceptual wheels are spinning madly; new concepts are being developedall over the place; we shift from one theoriest to another---eg, from Foucault to Deleuze and Guattari at a fast clip; and the concepts have become free floating.
I'm not sure what is retained, what is discarded and what has been achieved from one passage to another.
I accept that philosophy is about the creation of new concepts. But the concepts in the Empire text are proving to be difficult to pin it all down. You can see why people get frustrated with this book and throw it away in a corner.
That would be a mistake.The text is trying to do something important. My response has been twofold.
I've gone back to the old posts and reintroduced new material--starting from here--- to spell out things in more detail.
Secondly, we need is some hook in reality to stop the free floating of concepts. What sort of hook into reality could that be?
Lets make a good solid one. The Middle East. Here and here is enough of a hook, don't you think? That is enough meat on that for the concepts to work on? There is enough paradox of plurality and multiplicity there.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at May 23, 2004 11:25 PM | TrackBack