Ethics: Alan Badiou

[Christophe]

It's me again. Still not writing a paper, but working on it.

I hereby recommend Badiou's small booklet "Ethics: an essay on the Understanding of evil"
This is excellent material, far beyond anything I've read on an Integral Web Page.

He basically shows that our current postmodern 'human rights' ethics does a poor in job in taking care of justice in the world. Instead he proposes a very simple definition of ethical behaviour: in order to do good, you need to stay true to the event, the ethical imperative being: "Carry on".

The problem of Evil is then defined in the context of the above: To do evil means to commit one of the following mistakes: 1. to be an unfaltering follower of a false event (the error of illusion) 2. to fail the fidelity of an event (the error of treason) and 3. the enforcement of the unutterable (the error of desaster).

So in conclusion, Badiou states that Evil is nothing but the shadow side of an eternal truth event.

cheers

[Balder]

Hi, Christophe, welcome back. Is this booklet available online anywhere? I think he's right that postmodern 'human rights' has some serious failings (Panikkar critiques it as well), but most of what you wrote regarding his recommendations is opaque to me. I don't understand what you (he) are saying.

[Christophe]

Hey Bruce.

Yes sure, here's a link from Google books.

I'm sorry to say that my understanding of Badiou is partial itself. Nonetheless I am impressed by the effectiveness and the reach of his formulations. He draws upon Heidegger, Plato and Lacan and adds his own unique perspective.

In regard to what he says about ethics, it is interesting to apply it to different ideas: for example Wilber keeps hanging on about his baby, Integral Thought. Perfectly Ethical, says Badiou. Or take Jesus Christ, who kept his fidelity even when the going became tough ("always look on the bright side...").
Concerning evil, it's easy to imagine the Nazi Party of the 30s to have committed the error of illusion, which is to say they stayed true to a false event, which was merely a shadow figure of the true greatness of the event of the 20th century. (See also Badiou's book "The Century"). And who didn't fall in love yet in a woman and lost faith in the initial Event somewhere along the way? That's what Break-up and Divorce is about, I guess. And so on and so on.

hope it gets clearer now.

cheers.