3NT, I wrote your [human] name in the margins of Benhabib when she began demanding //das ganz Andere// as a precondition for 'not only morality but also radical transformation' (30). I'm wondering whether what Benhabib is describing is analogous to the 'radical otherness' that you keep expressing a kind of tentative hope for in class. If so, do you endorse Benhabib's election of Lyotard as the sort of poster-antagonist to this kind of otherness? And do you agree that the risk of utopianism, namely that a grand metanarrative will flatten out the 'multiple ambiguity, plurality, and contradiction' of the present, is worth taking to preserve morality and transformation?

I'm not sure how I feel about all this. A few general concerns: (1) Local utopian narratives will in fact just be one more narrative compatible with Lyotard's 'ambiguity, plurality, and contradiction' after all; (2) Even the grandest metanarrative, yoking together just all different sorts of utopian teloi, won't look 'radically other' after all; (3) Utopian teloi won't turn out to be preconditions for morality or radical transformation after all. But I haven't given any of those three sufficient thought, and am advancing them mostly as prods to get you (and anyone else interested in //das ganz Andere//) started.

--Guattari Hero