Lyotard, Re-Writing Modernity

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Re-Writing ModernityAuthor(s): Jean-François LyotardSource: SubStance, Vol. 16, No. 3, Issue 54 (1987), pp. 3-9Published by: University of Wisconsin PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3685193Accessed: 05-06-2015 10:53 UTC

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Re-writing odernity*

JEAN-FRAN.OIS

LYOTARD

First

of all

let me

point

out how

much

indebted

am

to

Kathy

Wood-

ward,

Carol

Tenneson,

Sydney Levy,

and

Mary

Lydon

for

having sug-

gested

to me

(or

even

imposed

on

me)

the title

Re-writing

Modernity.

It is better

han

any

rubric uch as

Postmodernity,

Postmodernism,

Postmodern,

and the ike. The

improvement

ies in a

double

displace-

ment:

a

lexical commutationfrom

post-

to

re- ;

and

a

syntacticalone

dealing

with the transfer f the

prefix

which s now

connected with

writing

rather

han with

modernity.

This double transference

mplies

two

leading

directions.

First,

it

makes

immaterial

periodization

of

cultural

history

n termsof

pre-

and

post-,

of before nd

after,

nd

questions

the

position

f the

now,

the

present

from

which we claim

to

have a

right

iew over the

successive

periods

of our

history.Being

an

old,

continental

philosopher,

am re-

minded of the

analysis

of

time

by

Aristotle

n

the FourthBook ofhis

Phys-

ics.: impossible to determine a differencebetween what is gone

(prdteron,

revious)

and what is

coming up,

(huisteron,

urther)

without

referring

he

stream

of

events o a now

a

nun).

But,

in

one and the same

moment,

t is also

impossible

to take hold of such a

now,

which

s

al-

ways

vanishing,

drawn

along by

what we

call the flood of

consciousness,

life,

beings,

events,

nd the

ike,

so that t s once and for ll

both too late

and

too soon for

grasping something

ike an

identifiable now. Too

late

designates

n excess in

the

vanishing

going off ),

too soon re-

fers o an excess n thecoming up. An excess withregardtowhat? With

regard

to

identity,

o the

project

of

grasping

nd

recognizing

being

here

and

now.

Applied

to

modernity,

his

argument

has the

consequence

that

nei-

ther

modernity

or the so-called

postmodernity

an be identified

nd de-

fined

as clear-cuthistorical

ntities,

he latter

always being

next to the

former.On the

contrary

he

postmodern

ttitude

s still

mplied

in the

*Text fa

lecture

iven

t

the

University

f

Wisconsin-Madison

nd the

Uni-

versityfWisconsin-MilwaukeenApril,1986.

3






4

J.-E

Lyotard

modernone

insofar s

modernity

resupposes

compulsion

o

get

out of

itself nd to resolve

tself,

herefore,

nto

something

lse,

ntoa final

qui-

librium,be ita utopianorder or thepoliticalpurpose nvolvednthe Ca-

nonical Narratives-so that n

this ense

postmodernity

s a

promise

with

which

modernity

s

pregnant

definitely

nd

endlessly.

The

relevant

pposite

of

modernity

ere s

not

postmodernity

ut

the

Classical

age,

which

conveys,

et us

say,

a time

status

against

which the

coming up

and the

going

off,

he future

nd

the

past,

would be

measured

as

if

both of them do

carry

out

the entire

equence

of

ifeand

meaning.

That

would be

the

case,

for

nstance,

n

the

way

time s

shaped

and

dispatchedby myths,

hat

s,

in

making

rhythm

nd

rhyme

etween

thebeginningand theend of a story.

On

the same

subject,

t s

important

o

point

out that he

diachronical

periodization

of

history

s

typically

modern

obsession and meets with

the

revolutionary rinciple.

To

the same

extent hat

modernity

ontains

the

promise

of its own

overcoming,

t

is

urged

to

mark,

occasionally

to

date,

the

end of an

age

and

the

beginning

f

another. ince we are

begin-

ning something

ompletely

new,

we have

to re-set he hands of the clock

at zero. Such

a

gesture

an be

observedas well with

Christianity,

arte-

sianism,orJacobinism: yearnumberone of theRedemptionor Revela-

tion,

the Renaissance or

revival,

the

Revolution.

With those three

Re's we

get

nto the

very

ore ofthe

prescribed

i-

tle.

This

prescription

f course is

ambiguous

to the

same

extent

s mo-

dernity's

relation to time. The

re-writing

we are

dealing

with

could

consist

in

re-setting

he hands of the

clock,

which is

the

gesture

that

starts,

with clean

slate,

a

periodization

nd the

beginning

f

something

new.

This

connotation

f

the Re-

implies

going

back to the

very

be-

ginning,

a

beginning supposedly

free from

prejudices,assuming

that

pre-judices

are

nothing

but the resultsof the

process

of

piling up

and

storing

ets

of

already

uttered

udgments

taken for

granted

without

re-

consideration.Once

again

the

play

and the

display

between the Pre-

and the

Re-

(the

Re-

being

understood

s a

goingback)

aim at eras-

ing

the

Pre-

of

some

udgments,

as

in

Pre-history,

s Marx

used

to

say

when he named the

epochs

preceding

he Socialist Revolution for

which

he

was

waiting

nd

working.

Now a

second connotation

f

the

prefix

Re- can

be made

clear:

if

t

is connectedfirst nd foremostwithwriting,tdoes not mean goingback

to the

origin

at

all,

but rather

working hrough,

s

Freud would

say,

a

Durcharbeitung,

work

of

thinking

he

meanings

or

events hatare hid-

den not

only

n

prejudices

ut also

in

projects,

rograms,

rospects

nd the

like,

that

are

concealed even in the

propositions

r

purposes

of

a

psycho-

analysis.

Freud differentiated

e-petition,

e-memorationnd

working

hrough

in one of his most

memorable-so to

speak-short

texts,

namely

his first

text

about the

psychoanalytical

technique. Repetition

s

nothing

but

the fact fneurosisor

psychosis,

he

dispositif,

hedevice or

apparatus

allowing

he

wish to fulfilltself

n

enacting

one's

present

ife.The

pursuit






Re-writing

odernity

5

of

this

device

sketches he

ifeof the

patient

n

terms

of a

fate,

destiny.

The

paradigm

of this s the

story

f

Oedipus.

In

such

a

destiny,

he be-

ginning

nd

the

endingrhyme nd,

to this

xtent, heybelong

to

a

clas-

sical

organization

of ife n which

gods,

even the

God,

a

H61olderlin

aid,

never ease

being

actors.

The

wishing

device

is

embodied

n

Apollo's

ora-

cle

setting

p

in

advance

the main

events

Oedipus

is

going

to encounter.

His life s

stamped:

the future

f

the

King

is inscribed

n

his unknown

past.

This

is

repetition.

But

the

point

s

that,

both

n

Sophocles'

tragedy

nd

in

Freud's

analy-

sis,

Oedipus

and the

patient

seek

access to

consciousness

of the

reason,

the

cause

for

the ills

they

are

suffering

nd have

suffered

uring

their

lives-they seekrememoration, heremembering fa dismantled ime.

Childhood

is

the

name

of this ost time.

Oedipus,

the

King,

undertakes

investigations

bout

the

cause,

the sin

which

s at

the

origin

of the trou-

ble,

the

plague,

afflicting

is

kingdom. Lying

on the

couch,

the

patient

seems committed

o the same

inquiry.

This

enterprise

f

recollection

e-

sembles

a

detective

novel.

It rises as a

second

plot,

aying

ts own

process

over the

first,

hus

accomplishing

he

destiny.

Most

often

re-writingmodernity

s taken

in

this

sense: that

is,

the

termre-writings giventhe connotationofremembering, fa processof

positioning

nd

identifying

rimes, sins,

and

calamities

resulting

from

the modern device.

And,

finally,

he

connotation

of

an

attempt

o write

the

destiny

lready

written

n

this oracle called

modernity.

This use

of

re-writing

becomes

tricky,

or uch an

enquiry

about

origins

s

a

part

of

destiny

tself.

n

other

words,

questioning

he

begin-

ning

of

the

plot

takes

place

at the end of

that

veryplot.

The

murderer e-

comes

criminal as the detective s

unmasking

him. That is the reason

why

here

s no

perfect

rime,

no crime

capable

of

remaining

nknown

for ll time.Secrets couldn't be genuine secrets ftheyweren'tknown

as

secrets.

n

other

words,

there s

no

silence,

as

John Cage

would

say.

There is

a sort of

intimacy,

n

intrication,

hat of

the detectivewith the

criminal,

that

of

sounds with silences.

If,

therefore,

e

understand

re-writing

modernity

n this

ense,

in

the

sense

of

prospecting,

esignating

nd

naming

the hidden facts

up-

posed

to

be at

the

origin

of the

troubles

we

suffer,

hen

n the mere

pro-

cess of

remembering

we are driven

to

carry

on and

out

the crime

rather

than to breakit down.And in doingso, rather han a genuinere-writing

of

modernity,

we

are still

performing

he

writing

of

modernity

tself.

That is because

re-writing

modernity

s

part

of

writing

t.

Modernity

writes

tself,

nscribes tself

n

itself s a

perpetual

re-writing.

Let us

illustrate his

trickwith

two

examples.

In

detecting

he

hidden

functioning

f

capitalism

and

in

putting

the disalienation

of

the

labor

force

nto

the focus of a

process

of

emancipation

and

awareness,

Marx

couldhave believedthathe had identified nd

denounced

the

early

crime

in which modern

troubles are

rooted: the

exploitation

f workers.Like

everydetective,he could thinkthat the uncoveringof a fake reality,

namely

iberal

economy

and

society,

would enable

mankind to

get

rid

of






6

J.-E

Lyotard

its

major

plague. Today

we

know that

the

October

Revolution,

s

well as

all

revolutions,

rought

about

or

carried

on the same hell on behalf

of

Marxism. It has repeatedthealienation ofman, thoughMarxistsclaim

they

were

working

for

disalienation.

Now let's turnto

philosophy.

Nietzsche

strove o

emancipate

his

way

of

thinking

romwhat

he called

metaphysics:

he

prevailing

dea

(from

Plato to

Schopenhauer

and

Wagner)

that

the

primary

ask formankind

is to seek

the

foundation

nabling

it

to

speak

truth nd to behave

in ac-

cordance

with

ustice

and

goodness.

The main

idea of Nietzsche's

philos-

ophy

s

thatthere s

nothing

ike an

according

to,

nothing

ike a first r

initial

principle,

nothing

ike a

Grund,

e

it the Platonic idea of Good or

the Leibnizian principle fsufficienteason. All discourses, he scientific

and

philosophical

nes

included,

are

only prospects,

r

Weltanschauungen.

But Nietzsche

in his turn

yields

to the

temptation

f

designating

foundation

or hese

prospects,

hat

s,

the

will

for

might

or

power.

And

in

doing

so

his

philosophy

eiterates he

process

of

metaphysics;

t

will-

fully

chieves

the

metaphysics

f

the

will,

which is

implied

in all the

Western

philosophical systems.

The

example

of

Nietzsche's

re-writing epeating,

n

spite

of

himself,

the same faulthe found n his predecessors, s relevant o this reflection

on

what

sortof

re-writingmight

scape,

as much

as

possible,

the

repeti-

tion

of what

t re-writes.t could be the will tself

nacting

he

process

of

remembering.

Freud had

foreseen he

problem

when he

differentiated

the

working

hrough,

he

Durcharbeitung,

nd the

remembering,

he

Erin-

nerung.

In

remembering

we

do want too

much: we want to take hold of the

past;

we wantto

grasp

what s

gone;

we

wantto master nd revealthe ost

initial,

primary

rime

as

such,

as

though

t

could

be detached

from

he

affective

ackground

nd itsconnotations f

guilt,

hame,

pride, nxiety,

that

re still

very

much withus.

Through

this

ffort

oward he

objectiva-

tion of the first ause-as in

the case of

Oedipus' inquiry-we

become

unaware

of

how much our will

to know the

origin

of our trouble

s

urged

on

by

desire-our desire to work free

fromdesire.

In

pursuing

ts

end,

desire also

performs

his

purpose.

(I

have in

mind

the

ambiguity

f the

French

wordfin,

which

means both end

and

purpose.)

Thus

it s

conceiv-

able

that even

remembering

s

still

a

good

way

to oblivion.

Ifthehistorical nowledge f an objector a thing equires ts solation

in a

place

apart

from he

network f the nterests

f

the

historian,

his et-

ting

apart

is

surely

doomed to

lead to

a

putting

down.

I

guess

English

speakers

re

responsive

o the

connotation f the term

utting

own.

Right

or

wrong,

use it

in

both senses of

writing

own

or

inscribing

nd of si-

lencing,repressing,

ven

suppressing. Writing

down

conveys

he dea

of an

inscription, recording,

nd

a

discredit.

Many

historical

writings

belong

to this sort of

re-writing.

Nietzsche

pointed

out this

problem

n

his

Untimely

onsiderationsnd showedhow

that

trick s at

work n

histori-

cal research.And I

presume

it is because Freud became aware of the

same trick hat

he

finally

ave

up

his former

ypothesis

hat

a

neurotic






Re-writing

odernity

7

device

was founded on an actual and testifiable ventthat he had

called

the

primitive

r

primal

scene. In

doing

so he

opened

the

door,

on the

other ide

of the

psychoanalytical rocess,

to the dea

according

o

which

the

process

of

taking

cure could

be,

and

presumably

hould

be,

an end-

less one. Unlike

remembering,

he

working hrough

ould be defined s

a workwithout

purpose

and, therefore,

ithoutwill: without

purpose

in

the sense

that

t workswithout

being guided by

the

concept

of its

aim,

but

not without

purposiveness.

The most relevant dea available to

us

about

re-writing resumably

ies

in

this double

gesture.

We

know that

Freud

put

a

special

emphasis

on

the

rule

called

equally

floating

tten-

tion

which

the

psychoanalyst

must observe

n

front

r

in

back of

the

pa-

tient. t consists n payingthe same attention o all the elementsofthe

sentences

uttered

by

a

patient,

no matterhow

petty

r

trifling

hey

may

sound.

In

short,

he rule is: no

prejudices,

but

suspension

of

udgments,

responsiveness,

nd

equal

attention o all occurrences

s

they

ccur.

The

patient

on

his side

must

respect symmetrical

ule: he is

required

to

let

his

speech go,

to

give

vent to all

ideas,

figures,

cenes,

names,

sen-

tences,

as

they

may

come

up

into

words,

as

theymay

occur,

n disor-

der,

unselected,

unrepressed.

Such a ruleputsthe mind under theobligation o be patient n a new

sense:

not because

it is

passively

nd

repeatedly nduring

he same

old

passion,

but because it

is

practicing

ts

own

passibility

r

responsiveness

to

whatever ccurs to

it,

making

tself

assable

through appenings

com-

ing

from

something

t doesn't

know. Freud

named the whole

process

free

association.

It is

nothing

but

a

way

of

inking

sentence

with an-

other

without

regard

for ither

he

ogical

or

the

ethical

or even the aes-

thetic

value

of the

linkage.

You

may

wonderhow

such

a

practice

s

relatedto

re-writing

moder-

nity. Let me remindyou thatthe clue, theonlyleading thread n this

working

hrough

ies in

feeling

r,

et

us

say, istening

o

feelings.

A

frag-

ment of

a

sentence, bit,

one

word,

s

coming up.

You

link

t

on

the

spot

with anotherbit.

No

reasoning,

no

arguing,

no

mediation.

n

doing

so,

you

are

graduallygetting

lose to a

scene,

the

scene

of

something.

You

sketch t

out,

you

don't know what

it

is,

your

only

certitude s that t re-

fers o

the

past-both

the farthest

nd the nearest

past; your

own

past

and

the

others' too. Lost time s

not

re-presented

s

on

a tableau or even

presented t all. Lost time s presenting heelementsofthe tableau and

re-writing

s

primarily

he

recording

of

them.

It

is

patent

that

this

re-writing ives

us

no

knowledge

of

the

past.

Freud himself

hought

the

same.

In

his

view,

it was

a matter of tech-

nique,

of art rather han

science.

Re-writing

oesn'tresult n a definition

ofthe

past.

On the

contrary,

t

presupposes

hatthe

past

is

actingby giv-

ing

the mind the elementswith which

the scene will be

built.

But

this scene does not claim to

be the exact

copy

of a would-be

pri-

mal scene. It is

a

new scene

because it is felt o be new. What has

gone

off

is,

so to

speak,

vivid. I would

say

it is not

present

s an ob-

ject,

if an

object

can be

present

t

all,

but as an

aura,

a

mild

wind blow-






8

J.-E Lyotard

ing,

as an

illusion. Marcel

Proust n his

A

La Recherche

u

Temps

erdu

nd

Walter

Benjamin

in

One

Way

treetr

Berlinian

hildhood

ndulged

n

the

same technique.Runningtheriskofsoundingunconventional, would

suggest

that this

free

floatingprocedure

is

primarily

t work

n

Mon-

taigne's

Essays.

To

conclude

with an

impossible

conclusion,

let

me

add

three

re-

marks:

first,

ven

f

Freud

had

come to

think

hat

this

technique

was

a

matter

f

art,

he

also had the

view

that

t was inscribed

s

a

moment

n a

process

of

emancipation,

of

deconstructing

he rhetoric

f

the uncon-

scious,

that

is to

say,

the

preorganized

set of

signifiers

onstituting

he

neurotic

or

psychotic

evice which

commands

a life s a

destiny.

don't

think his

hypothesis

s suitable. While

describingbriefly

what I meant

by re-writing,

n idea was

looming

at

the

back

of

my

mind. I won'ten-

large

on

it.

I will

only point

out how close is the

description

f

re-writing

to

the

Kantian

analysis

of the work

of

imagination

on the

sense

of

the

beautiful.

First,

they

have in common

the

importance

given

to the free

acceptance

of the

bits

released

by

sensitivity;

nd

second,

the

emphasis

put

on

the

release

of

forms

n

aesthetic

pure pleasure, making

them as

free

from

mpirical

or

cognitive

nterest s

possible

such

that

the more

fluid, hifting,nd evadingthephenomena,the more beautiful.Kant il-

lustrates

is

point

withtwo

metaphors:

the

shifting

lames

f

a

fire

blaz-

ing

in the hearth

and

the

vanishingfigures

haped by

swift,

treaming

waters.

Kant comes

finally

o

the

principle ccording

to which

magina-

tion

gives

he

mind much to

think,

more

to

think

han

theunderstand-

ing,

working

with

concepts,

can

give

it.

This

aspect

is related to

the

question

of

time

I

had

started

with.

This

aesthetic

access to forms

s

made

possible only through

he

withdrawal

f

any

claim to

master

time

in a

conceptualsynthesis.

What

is at stake s not

the

recognition

f

what

is

given;

t

s

the

ability

o let

things

ome

up,

whatever

hey

re. This at-

titude

ets

each

moment,

each now be

an

opening.

I

will also

invoke

the

names

of Ernst Bloch

(Spuren

r

Traces)

nd Theodor

Adorno

to

sup-

port

my

views.

At the end of Adorno's

Negative

ialectics

nd

partly

n his

unfinished

Aesthetic,

e

come across

the idea that

modernity

s to

be

re-

written

nd is the

re-writing

tself,

ut

only

n the form f

what he calls

micrologies

which is to be

compared

with

Benjamin's

Passagenwerk.

The second observation

s

quite

simple.

The

re-writing

meant here

has obviously nothing o do withwhat is called postmodernityr post-

modernism

n the market

places

of

today's

deologies.

t has

nothing

o

do

with the use

of

parodies

and

quotations

of

modernity

r

modernism

in either

architectural, heatrical,

r

pictoralpieces,

and even less with

that

movement

esorting

o the

traditional

orms fnarrative

s

they

have

been

displayed

n

novels

or short tories.As

you

know,

made use

of

the

word

postmodern :

it was

but

a

provocativeway

to

put

the

struggle

n

the

foreground

f the field f

knowledge.

Postmodernity

s

not

a new

age,

it is there-writingfsome featuresmodernity ad triedor pretended o

gain, particularly

n

founding

ts

legitimation pon

the

purpose

of the






Re-writing

odernity

9

general

mancipation

of mankind. But sucha

re-writing,

s has

already

been

said,

was fora

long

time active n

modernity

tself.

The thirdand last observationdeals with thequestionraisedby the

conspicuous

entrance of

the so-called new

technologies

n the

produc-

tion,

casting,

delivery,

nd

consumption

of cultural

goods.

Why

do

I

mention

these new

technologies

now?

Because

they

are

going

to

trans-

form

what is

called culture into

an

industry

a

trivial

observation).

Such

a

change

is

to

be understood

s a

re-writing.

he

well-known

word

re-writing

belongs

to the

argon

of

ournalism

and

it refers

o an old

job.

It

consists

precisely

n

the

erasing,

n

the

washing

out

of all

the traces

leftby unexpected,fancy-framedssociationsupon thewrittenmaterial

one

is

going

to

re-write.

he

New

Technologies

re

giving

his

process

a

tremendous

xpansion

insofar s

they

ubmit

any

kind of

nscription

n

any

kind of

medium-say

visual

images,

sounds,

speeches,

musical

scores,

ongs

and

the

ike, and,

finally, riting

tself-to an exact

compu-

tation.

This

observation

does not

go

so faras

to view the ultimateresult

as an immense

network f

simulacra,

s Baudrillarddoes.

I am

only

con-

cerned

with

upsetting

he

concept

of bits.

Bits are

no

longer

free

forms

given

to

sensitivity

r

imagination

here and

now;

they

re

units

of nfor-

mation conceivedby computing engineering t all the levels of a lan-

guage:

lexical,

syntactic,

hetorical,

nd

so forth.

hey

are

put

together

and

made into

a

system

ccording

to

a

set of

plans

under

the

command

of a director.

he

question

raised

by

those New

Technologies

with

regard

to the

dea of

re-writing

s it has

ust

been

sketched ut

could, therefore,

be

shaped

like

this:

what is

leftof

the

working hrough,given

that t is

mostly

made

of

the

play

of

magination

nd the

display

between a

before,

an

after

nd

a now?

How

can

it

escape

from he rules of

concepts

nd

rec-

ognition?For the timebeing, my answer is limited to this: to re-write

modernity

s

to

resist he

supposedly

postmodernwriting.

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Lyotard, Re-Writing Modernity