Sunday, January 8, 2017

Negation

The logic of negation is evidently ambiguous. One can be so against something that they seek to destroy it, within their intentions and actions; or one can be against something merely in intention. Passive nihilism and active nihilism speak to this distinction, and by this account passive nihilism is a prior disposition from which one acts. Pessimists seem to have the intentions to destroy and yet are blocked by something, some incapacity; classically, we would say they lack the virtue of courage because they are given over to the vice of cowardice. These bodies are mutilated ontologically.

A lifetime of doing nothing then would produce the vice; whereas acts, here and there, would be sufficient to develop the virtue of courage. Temperance (and prudence) are required to know when to act and when to remain in intention. From this it follows that actionists, those that act all the time without end, or without consideration of burnout, lack temperance (and prudence). 

Negation is then twofold; on the one hand we have anti-X whereby one has given themselves over to a cause. The cause takes over. One is bound to act, whenever, not when one should, when it is prudent, when it is wise. On the other hand, negation might be qualified, as in double-negation, which is not straight away reducible to a similarity with our enemies. The logic of the margarine word ruptures this delicate qualification. It reduces not-anti-politics to a pro-political standpoint. However, our words here betray the simplicity of our language: anti-politics doesn't just mean, univocally, whatever one says anti-X means; rather, "anti" contains the logic of delicate qualifications. Thus, one might take issue with the plan; but they are not straight away reducible to one that is against all plans. 

It turns out that pessimism and passive nihilism are not necessarily synonymous. And they shouldn't be. It allows us to say 
(1) "there hasn't yet been anything reasonable to do", 
isn't the same as 
(2) "there wouldn't be (or could't be) anything reasonable to do." 

(1) evidently negates 
(3) there is always something to do, and also 
(4) there is something to do; 
and with this idea (1), along with the argument that not all double negations are reducible to nothing, we rupture the boomerang logic that would return us to our enemies, while making our anarchist line of flight more like an ellipsis than a period.   




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