Re: <eyebeam><blast> Beauty's Wounds/emerAgency

[Greg Ulmer <gulmer@english.ufl.edu>]

Hello Robert

On Mon, 20 Apr 1998, Robert Adrian wrote:

> What "problem" did you have in mind exactly? And how was the 
> "holocaust" a solution to it?

  I noted several points of view regarding the Holocaust.  The Nazi's 
referred to the decision to exterminate the Jews, made at the Wannsee
Conference, as the final solution.  Pol Pot has been in the news
recently, with commentary reminding us that the killing fields in
Cambodia were a means (a solution) to the ends of creating an agrarian
utopia.  

> > like the  O-Ring
> >        to use a material example, engineering
> >  the Challenger or the WIRING
> >        (why so  many rings?)
> >  on TWA flight 800
> 
> Do you really think that the systematic humiliation, expulsion,
> imprisonment and murder of several million people was an accident like
> a plane crash - or a natural catatrophe like a hurricane or an 
> earthquake? Just one of those things ... ?

  I am not sure why you describe the Challenger and TWA explosions as
natural.  In any case, what makes them relevant to the emerAgency isthe
lesson they teach about disasters.  It is a lesson similar to the one
available in Greek tragedies.  
                ATH
     (meaning "foolishness" when applied to individuals
     and "calamity" or "disaster" when applied to collectives.
        the insight is that foolishness produces calamity).

in short, 
 the O-Ring and cracked insulation are an image
 a metaphor perhaps
 for the small details, trivial, abject, 
  whose collective effects are massive and
        unforseen.

Greg Ulmer





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