Interviewed by Arias-Misson
ARIAS-MISSION
Jean-Francois Lyotard, philosopher, may I suggest a playful element to this interview, since an interview us also a language game as you say, and I'm afraid of the hits you may score against me- a peculiar game as the interviewer appears to hold the advantage, his arsenal prepared in advance and so ready for the kill, on the other hand there you are with an Unknown, all the more formidable as you are the Philosopher- you see I take your warnings seriously and it is not without some trepidation that I approach as interviewer, so to relax an anxious occasion may I suggest we allow ourselves a certain elasticity? Since I can claim no philosophical status for my questions, I shall draw rough analogies and no doubt illicit extrapolations from your texts regarding matters of special interest to the novel and the arts, you on the other hand may answer as you wish, outside or beyond the question and according to your own interests. I should like to start by asking if there is not some madness to your method? I am thinking of your critical “drift” that “critique must be drifted out of”, of your "disturbing of reason" which you derive from the new sciences and propose as possible anti-model of society, and the desire you attribute to artists and which your thought celebrates, that they "want society as a whole to attain to this unreality'', or your idea that a revolutionary society should be "saturated with anxiety". Would the dangerous philosopher care to comment on the above?
JEAN-FRANCOIS LYOTARD
Yes, it's odd, because those are old texts you quote there, and after all I don't think... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline
