Ethics-Badiou/ Ch3(20.04.03) / Hwannyzzang

Chapter 3. Ethics as a Figure of Nihilism

허무주의의 형상으로서의 윤리

 

p30 : The reign of ethics is one symptom of a universe ruled by a distinctive combination of resignation in the face of necessity together with a purely negative, if not destructive, will. It is this combination that should be designated as nihilism.

 

Ethics as the servant of necessity

필연성의 시녀로서의 윤리

 

p31 : Parliamentary politics consists of turning the spectacle of the economy into the object of an apathetic public consensus.

For the possibilities whose development it pretends to organize are in reality circumscribed and annulled in advance, by the external neutrality of the economic referent in such a way that subjectivity in general is inevitably dragged down into a kind of belligerent impotence, the emptiness of which is filled by elections and the ‘sound-bites’ of party leaders.

 

p32 : How, indeed, could the incalculable novelty of a truth, and the hole that is bores in established knowledges, be inscribed in a situation without encountering resolute opposition? Precisely because a truth, in its invention, is the only thing that is for all, so it can actually be achieved only against dominant opinions, since these always work for the benefit of some rather than all.

 

p33 : The concern for the other signifies that it is not a matter of prescribing hitherto unexplored possibilities for our situation, and ultimately for ourselves. The Law(human rights) is always already there. But there is no question of reconsidering the foundation of this Law, of going right back to the conservative identity that sustains it.

 

p30 : But what must be understood is that this resignation in the face of (economic) necessities is neither the only nor the worst component of the public spirit held together by ethics. For Nietzsche’s maxim forces us to consider that every non-willing(every impotence) is shaped by a will to nothingness, whose other name is: death drive.

 

p30 : distinctive 고유의, resignation 주저함, in the face of ~에 직면하여

p31 : apathetic 체념적인, circumscribed 억제된, annulled 무효의, 취소된, drag down 맥빠지게 만들다, belligerent 공격적인, impotence 무능력, sound-bites 미사여구들

p32 : herald 예고하다, incalculable 계산될 수 없는, novelty 새로움, bore 뚫다, resolute opposition 결단적 반대

p33 : concern for the other 타자에 대한 배려, ultimately 종국적으로, sustain 지탱하다, resignation 굴복, public spirit 공공정신, held together by ~에 의해 땜질하다, maxim 금언, death drive 죽음충동

 

Ethics as the ‘Western’ mastery of death

죽음의 서양적 정복으로서의 윤리

 

p35 : Ethics is nihilist because its underlying conviction is that the only thing that can really happen to someone is death. And it is certainly true that in so far as we deny truths, we thereby challenge the immortal disjunction that they effect in any given situation. Between Man as the possible basis for the uncertainty of truths, or Man as being for death( or being-for-happiness, it is the same thing), you have to choose. It is the same choice that divides philosophy from ethics, or the courage of truths from nihilism.

 

p35 : underlying 깔려있는, conviction 확신, disjuction 이탈

 

Bio-ethics

생명윤리

 

p37 : The conjuction of ethics and bio is in itself threaening. So is the similarity of prefixes between (evil) eugenics and (respectable) euthanasia. A hedonistic doctrine of dying-well will make for no defence against the powerful and genuinely muderous aspiration of generation-well, an obvious component of living-well.

The root of problem is that, in a certain way, every definition of Man based on happiness is nihilist.

p35 : conjuction 결합, prefixes 전치사, eugenics 우생학, euthanasia 안락사, hedonistic 쾌락주의적, muderous 치명적인, aspiration 열망, generation-well 잘 낳기

 

 

[Q: I didn’t understand this statements.]

1. p26-27 : We must not forget that there are also savages among us,(the drug addicts of the banlieues, religious sects – the whole journalistic paraphernalia of menacing interal alterity), confronted by an ethics that offers, without changing its means of investigation, its recognition and its social workers.