Saturday, September 05, 2009

The Shadows of Totalization, Part XXXIV


What if I take the polemical as a primary form of inertia?

Engaged in a polemical round and round and round, one of the most fascinating characteristics of such a social mass is the way no net external force seems able to penetrate, let alone act.

The round and round and round of the polemical is easily mistaken for motion, in a way which seems to me entirely analogous to the way inertial motion of bodies at constant velocity in a straight line could have been taken, prior to Newton, as acting force.

In the polemical round and round, the social (or otherwise-conceived “social” body), while appearing to be transforming itself, can also be interpreted as endeavoring to preserve its present state.

I want to be able to sort real change (or maybe it would be better to call this simply the real,) from apparent change (or maybe, simply the apparent.) How far-fetched is it to think I make progress in this by bracketing the polemical from thought? Just how difficult is it to bracket the polemical from thought? How far will this take the project? Will the “discovery” be to find active forces within the polemical which I fail to recognize? Can I non-metaphorically, non-mythically, without analogy, show the polemical to be passive?

* Photograph of God by Tony Kelly.

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