The Limit of the Useful: Bataille, War, and Fascism

In the decade prior to the publication of Inner Experience (L'expérience intérieure), the twentieth-century French philosopher Georges Bataille produced a nascent masterwork containing some of his most original and extensive reflections on a range of subjects. With thoughts on ritual sacrifice and military conquest, the nature of laughter, and the mechanisms of capitalism, The Limit of the Useful, as Bataille had planned to title the work, illuminates the philosopher's later corpus, yet it remained unfinished and unpublished in his lifetime, and untranslated until now.
This is the first English-language translation of what Cory Austin Knudson and Tomas Elliott argue is one of Bataille's most structurally consistent works. Paired with draft essays and plans for The Accursed Share, along with over a hundred pages of appendixes and notes, the volume distinctively elaborates Bataille's thought. The Limit of the Useful spans a decade of rich intellectual ferment in Bataille's life as he first formulated his challenge to capitalism, engaging with concepts and ideas in ways not seen in his other published works. The volume bridges the gap between Bataille's surrealist literary writings and later scientific pretensions, drawing attention to, and filling in, an overlooked lacuna in his oeuvre.
The book: mitpress.mit.edu/978026204733...
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[@user-xq5ui2uw9v]

52:37 I gamble professionally and always had this desire. Not read this yet but can see why Bataille would write about it, probably the ultimate masochistic act in capitalism. And the most pleasurable. Thanks for the show.

[@jerrimenard3092]

I think mentioning Metal music is part of the answer revealing itself conserning how to get the response we want on the left. We need mosh pits, pigs blood, war refrences and a meditative air via headbanging. It is through loss in an artform that we attane glory. Black metal fans and festavals have some of the most chill people in attendance. They tend to be fair and good to each other. Look at guys like George Fisher (aka corpsegrinder ). He is the ultimate girl Dad. Why? Because the excess is used for exaltation, not on self obliteration.

[@clumsydad7158]

more Bataille - now and always , ty !!

[@dm6801]

Loved the show! Thanks guys for the great content

[@_angelo.00]

I would like to suggest a video about ChatGTP it is incredibly good at summarizing critical theory concepts and answering really complex philosophical questions.

[@87ericmartinez]

Plastic Pills has a few videos you might be interested in.

[@DiamorphineDeath]

So are the dreaded F word and Bataille compatible? Can a man rooted in transgression as a fundamental personality trait, also only influence and associate himself within the Western leftist frame of mind/ideology/thought process. Sorel became influential on said F movement, as did Hegel, Nietzsche, the futurists, etc. A synthesis of left and right post dichotomy, a third position as it came to be known, adopting aspects of both “sides” of the coin. Can this in and of itself be a Bataille orientated idea, style of adapting a worldview in the modern era? Instead of being beholden to the neoliberal language, and functioning solely within it’s allowed dialogue; what then becomes transgressive and dangerous? Is it buying in wholesale to global capital and letting it dictate your morality, or trespassing into a Nieztschean-styled world of ideas to divorce one from the demiurge? Curious if you all have any response here, as Bataille only is discussed by limp academics of the post-left, usually in an unthreatening manner, versus say a Sartre advocating maoist brutality, or a Pol Pot being educated in the heart of Parisian Radicalism listening to those academics speak. Can Bataille be used for something more than pop-culture philosophy, especially that of a sanitized nature which is all I hear? Where is the transgression in these talks? Where is the courage and ability to look beyond and not be beholden to accepted norms?

[@dethkon]

How do I get ‘permissions’ or ‘rights’ from MIT Press? I’d really love to read it (the eBook version from the link), but I’m not a university student.

[@fogpimp]

just read it and post it

[@fogpimp]

or buy the book from MIT press. they have a shop of their own.

[@_mechcom_sponge_cell]

look for free pdf

[@_mechcom_sponge_cell]

reach out to friend in university, get free copy, make a google drive, put the copy in the google drive, post it to the comment section.