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  • From The Battle of Algiers To Alien vs. Predator: Philosophical Approaches To The Globalization of Terror

    Transféré par

    Mani Tadayon
    142 vues16 pages
    Presented at the Symposium on the Rhetoric of Threat at Cal. State Univ. Northridge, 23 April 2010 This paper contrasts two philosophical approaches to understanding global terrorism in the contemporary world: (a) the concept of terrorism as a tactic in a local struggle, as documented in the influential 1966 film The Battle of Algiers. (b) the concept of perpetual total war between unreconcilable forces, as imagined in the 2004 film AVP: Alien vs. Predator. AVP draws on two distinct franchises (i.e. Alien and Predator) to embody the concept of two worlds whose co-existence is absolutely impossible. AVP’s usefulness as a starting point for philosophical inquiry into terrorism will be justified on the basis of the sophisticated thought that went into creating the fictional universe and characters of each individual franchise and the structures by which both franchises were synthesized into a single meta-world that explores simultaneously their points of contact and the existential impossibility of such contact. Arguing that an imaginative application of philosophy is necessary to overcome the gross imprecision imposed by the current practice of applying traditional military concepts to the radically untraditional world of terrorism, examples from both films will be used to show how each philosophical approach would define differently the meaning of four key concepts: war, enemy, battle and victory. In closing, it will be argued, with reference to the works of Benjamin Barber and Jean Baudrillard on the nature of globalization, that the discourse of perpetual total war has steadily displaced that of terrorism-as-a- tactic.

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    From The Battle of Algiers to Alien vs. Predator : philosophical approaches to the globalization of terror

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    Presented at the Symposium on the Rhetoric of Threat at Cal. State Univ. Northridge, 23 April 2010 This paper contrasts two philosophical approaches to understanding global terrorism in the contemporary world: (a) the concept of terrorism as a tactic in a local struggle, as documented in the influential 1966 film The Battle of Algiers. (b) the concept of perpetual total war between unreconcilable forces, as imagined in the 2004 film AVP: Alien vs. Predator. AVP draws on two distinct franchises (i.e. Alien and Predator) to embody the concept of two worlds whose co-existence is absolutely impossible. AVP’s usefulness as a starting point for philosophical inquiry into terrorism will be justified on the basis of the sophisticated thought that went into creating the fictional universe and characters of each individual franchise and the structures by which both franchises were synthesized into a single meta-world that explores simultaneously their points of contact and the existential impossibility of such contact. Arguing that an imaginative application of philosophy is necessary to overcome the gross imprecision imposed by the current practice of applying traditional military concepts to the radically untraditional world of terrorism, examples from both films will be used to show how each philosophical approach would define differently the meaning of four key concepts: war, enemy, battle and victory. In closing, it will be argued, with reference to the works of Benjamin Barber and Jean Baudrillard on the nature of globalization, that the discourse of perpetual total war has steadily displaced that of terrorism-as-a- tactic.

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    142 vues16 pages

    From The Battle of Algiers To Alien vs. Predator: Philosophical Approaches To The Globalization of Terror

    Transféré par

    Mani Tadayon
    Presented at the Symposium on the Rhetoric of Threat at Cal. State Univ. Northridge, 23 April 2010 This paper contrasts two philosophical approaches to understanding global terrorism in the contemporary world: (a) the concept of terrorism as a tactic in a local struggle, as documented in the influential 1966 film The Battle of Algiers. (b) the concept of perpetual total war between unreconcilable forces, as imagined in the 2004 film AVP: Alien vs. Predator. AVP draws on two distinct franchises (i.e. Alien and Predator) to embody the concept of two worlds whose co-existence is absolutely impossible. AVP’s usefulness as a starting point for philosophical inquiry into terrorism will be justified on the basis of the sophisticated thought that went into creating the fictional universe and characters of each individual franchise and the structures by which both franchises were synthesized into a single meta-world that explores simultaneously their points of contact and the existential impossibility of such contact. Arguing that an imaginative application of philosophy is necessary to overcome the gross imprecision imposed by the current practice of applying traditional military concepts to the radically untraditional world of terrorism, examples from both films will be used to show how each philosophical approach would define differently the meaning of four key concepts: war, enemy, battle and victory. In closing, it will be argued, with reference to the works of Benjamin Barber and Jean Baudrillard on the nature of globalization, that the discourse of perpetual total war has steadily displaced that of terrorism-as-a- tactic.

    Droits d'auteur :

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Téléchargez comme PDF, TXT ou lisez en ligne sur Scribd
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    From The Battle of Algiers

    to AVP: Alien vs. Predator


    Philosophical approaches to the globalization of terror

    by Mani Tadayon
    graduate student, CSUN Geography Dept.

    Friday, April 23, 2010


    Friday, April 23, 2010
    Friday, April 23, 2010
    Friday, April 23, 2010
    Introduction
    AVP and philosophy

    Friday, April 23, 2010


    “The Americans are prosecuting this war as if
    they were defending themselves against a wolf
    pack. But this doesn’t work against viruses that
    have already been in us for a long time.There is
    no longer a front, no demarcation line, the
    enemy sits in the heart of the culture that fights
    it.That is, if you like, the fourth world war: no
    longer between peoples, states, systems and
    ideologies, but, rather, of the human species
    against itself.”

    (Baudrillard 2004)

    Friday, April 23, 2010


    “What if the true KGB Monster Plot was the
    very project to put in circulation the idea of a
    Monster Plot and thus immobilize the CIA and
    neutralize in advance future KGB defectors?”

    (Žižek 2006)

    Friday, April 23, 2010


    “We’ve got to re-evaluate our definition of the
    word ‘enemy’.”

    (Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commander of


    US forces in Helmand Province, Afghanistan,
    quoted in the New York Times, April 3, 2010)

    Friday, April 23, 2010


    Singularity in AVP

    ... AVP is Hollywood’s version of a


    fable, providing its audience not a
    dramatic performance but
    irreducible conceptual
    singularities...

    ... Like the singularity line at the


    middle of a spiral galaxy, the
    violence here is always so intense
    that it cannot be outdone...

    Friday, April 23, 2010


    War

    Friday, April 23, 2010


    “Acts of violence don't win wars. Neither wars nor revolutions.Terrorism is useful as a
    start. But then, the people themselves must act.”

    Ben M’Hidi, FLN leader in The Battle of Algiers

    Friday, April 23, 2010


    Terror against terror, there is no more ideology behind this. One is, from this point
    forward, far beyond ideology and politics. No ideology, no cause—not even the Islamic
    one—can explain the energy that feeds terror. It no longer aims at transforming the
    world.

    Friday, April 23, 2010


    Enemy

    FLN leader Ben M’Hidi at a press conference after his arrest. After M’Hidi’s
    death, Col. Mathieu publicly pays tribute to his “moral fiber, courage and
    commitment to his ideals.”

    Friday, April 23, 2010


    Battle

    ALEXA WOODS: My dad broke his leg seven hundred feet from the summit of Mount
    Ranier...We reached the top and he opened a bottle of champagne... He suffered for
    four hours before dying twenty minutes from the base.

    CHARLES BISHOP WEYLAND: You think that's the last thing your dad remembers?
    The pain? Or drinking champagne with his daughter fourteen thousand feet in the air? I
    need this.

    Friday, April 23, 2010


    Victory

    Ali La Pointe chooses to be blown up rather than surrender. He hugs the young
    boy who has fought with him from the very beginning.

    Friday, April 23, 2010


    Conclusion
    • Can we accept a world without existential
    conflict?
    • Is the real viral threat in the war on terror
    the spread of the discourse of a war on
    terror?
    • If so, how do you fight an enemy whose
    only goal is to convince you that you are at
    war with him?

    Friday, April 23, 2010

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