I thought of asking Bouvard how one might go about answering somebody who asks that one describes this object, describe it beyond a very general reference to 'a centre', a 'center' that is hardly the same thing as this object now possessing irresistible centrality somehow?
There's no problem with Muslims in particular. I would put it this way: the center, in the sense of THE CENTER, to which all more local objects are ultimately tributary, is the imaginary of a ruler or governor whom we don't want to tear to pieces, not even symbolically. So, you're right, there's not a physical object to point to, but an articulated set of practices and disciplines that seek to reduce all forms of violent centralization (i.e., scapegoating, again, even symbolic), in the name of a presider of order whom we also refrain from violently centralizing, because he makes the practices and disciplines possible.
Not sure what you're thinking of with that very first assertion, but do i THINK i know where you're headed with the rest? But my query was cast of course in light of your own guest COL&R "Crisis of Firstness", and I won't pretend to yet comprehend what "articulated set of practices and disciplines" work within the broader Muslim world to ensure avoidance of that "Final Conflict" of firstness and lastness, or the modern with an essentially tribal world? Which presiders are still operative within what one might well call the Muslim world, if any? If the Muslims are, as you say, now but more 'small o' others commingled with us (sic) and largely divested of their previous Otherness, does anyone 'preside' over (what remains of?) their religion at all? To be honest, I'm just not getting any sense of how ..their "local objects" made their transition to THE centre, which I'm presuming you are attributing some sort of globally irresistible universality.....?
If we think in terms of Muslim governments, the question is whether they can cooperate with other governments, both non-Muslim and differently Muslim, in maintaining order and respecting others' sovereignty within what is necessarily a hierarchical international order. We can think about this by analogy with a neighborhood--there are big property owners, middle sized one and small property owners. The largest owners are fine with everyone else owning and running their own properties, as long as conflicts within and between the other property owners don't spill over into the neighborhood, reducing values, etc. In that case, the largest owner(s) may have to step in an assert an otherwise mostly latent sovereignty. I think that we are seeing that Muslim governments are, in fact, capable of playing by these rules. You won't be surprised to see me refer to Saudi Arabia, which we might call a medium sized owner, as an example here. The way they have dramatically changed their behavior, and, I'm sure more subtly, their theology and cleric-state relations, demonstrates that this is indeed possible--especially given proper guidance from the larger property owners. The other Gulf states, for the most part, seem to be following S. Arabia's lead. Maybe Pakistan will show themselves similarly capable, if T Wictor is right and the US has taken out a huge chunk of their Islamist ISS operatives in Afghanistan. It's not a globally irresistible universality, but a more proper allocation and enforcement of obligations and responsibilities that solves the problem.
I thoroughly relished T Dubya when he had his blog but (but) the eventual transition to hardcore tweetering instead revealed what I think I can only call a level of zeal that, along with the follower-adulation which quickly grew all about him, generated in me a somewhat inevitable measure of distaste. This was hardly helped by the fact that he apparently cannot accommodate dissent of any kind! I realise of course that his mission is a big one, and mere upstarts such as myself, simultaneously viewing documentations of all manner of police horribleness all over the USA, can be no more than flies in his broader American annointments.. He simply gnores all protestation in his headlong rush to heal the heartland and hammer the peripheriff-raff...what's up Curmudgeon Canyon, Los Angeles, must eventually come (a little way) down...? I would be very interested indeed to know something of what Bouvard sees when he Peeks at his Shit !T Dubya's, I mean!
He runs his twitter feed as a very tight disciplinary space, with a very narrow purpose: to help Trump. Within that frame, we can see everything he says as so many hypotheses, which he justifies to the extent of the available evidence and his varied forms of expertise and the reading of what Trump is doing that (fixing the world) is his basic assumption. He could be wrong about anything or everything, but his argument and the subsidiary hypotheses will come through undiluted in his space. If someone wants to disrupt that process, e.g. by nagging him to defend some claim he has already posited as a presupposition of other claims, well, that someone can start his own twitter account. The online media world is an insane asylum, and anyone who wants an ordered space within it will have to be very exclusive and selective regarding interlocutors.
> It's not a globally irresistible universality, but a more proper allocation and enforcement of obligations and responsibilities that solves the problem. How would you say this idea of "obligations and responsibilities" works in with that understanding most central (methinks) to a work such as The End Of Culture, which is of course the existence and life of individual desire? The attempt to newly control which, pretty much defines any social evolution? It's darn curious enough that you use the term 'solves' here rather than 'defers', but really sir, isn't the advent of desire(s) as big a consideration as any concerning 'power(s)'?
Putting in place a mechanism of deferral is way of solving a problem--but you're right, there's something complacent about the whole notion of solving problems. We have to account for obligations and responsibilities in originary terms, though--after all, such things exist, and can't be off-loaded to the "market." Desires can't just be endlessly dispersed until they become harmless--sooner or later they're going to converge. My notion of donating one's resentment to the center is the best way I have of thinking this through.