agonistics

is the idea that to speak is to fight, in the sense of playing. As subjects, we find ourselves called not only to witness and judge but also to participate.

We find ourselves called not only to witness and judge but also to participate, and in this daily struggle there is no admissible alibi. Agonistics calls for responsibility without end and indeed without plan. If life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans, agonistics is also a name for the ineluctable tension between life and those plans. Agonistics defies planning, in the name of the event. Even writing a sentence (like this one), and making it look as if it naturally follows on from a previous sentence, becomes a risky business, asking for trouble. To pretend otherwise and eschew trouble, for Lyotard, is to be dishonest or unjust. (sim 13)'to speak is to fight, in the sense of playing, and speech acts fall within the domain of a general agonistics' (PC, 10).

agonistics, n.Definitions

agonistics