The Pervert at the Centre of Democracy

(Subjective-Objective as antagonism, and the Cynical glare of Audience)

There is a problem with democracy today. There has always been a problem. It has always declared itself the voice of the people (as have Dictators and Socialists); it has always acted systematically, against the idea of a revolutionary event, in an apparently objective motion, but by the whims of subjective individuals; it has always projected itself into an objective reality, from the subjective safety of power (the Oval Office, Downing St. etc.); but what it has never done, is to exist in practice as its theory claimed.

In the (post)modern West, Democracy has become the trump card of moral goodness, the epitome of an ethical-political system. Even though Churchill himself, faced with the onslaught of drastic Fascism, admitted that Democracy was in-fact a terrible system (although it was the best one we had/have), we still refuse to move past it, or to even question it ideologically. As if we have reached the very end, or Absolute (In a pseudo-Hegelian sense), of ethical-political history, we refuse to see past the mask of Democracy.

Much like the inner workings of a capitalistic/corporate world, in which the monetary and ethical value of an action is read from a strict, objective perspective, but acted upon from a subjective voice to a (faked)subjective employee/customer, the actions of democracy itself contradict each other in the very clash of the Subjective-Objective. Whereas the idea of democracy is to allow the mass of subjects (proletariat & bourgeoisie, master & slave) to act decisively on a level playing field, it is easy to see the inconsistency of the act.

Even if we are to take away the “unfair” notions of the majority being right, or the repression of the proletariat/slave/ethnically unwanted, Democracy still fails. In-fact, even in perfect conditions democracy is intolerable for the simple fact that it attempts to act upon a single level of Objectivity whilst always referring to the autonomy of the Subject.

For example, in the voting process a leader is objectively chosen—the very numbers of the (hopefully unaltered) votes, in-themselves, give an irrefutable result. The subjective wishes of the many are washed into the simple clarity of Yes or No. This leap from subjective to objective, from individual action to national (Universal) voice, is not ridiculous at all—in choosing this system for themselves, the masses claim to “take history into their own hands”. On a pure level of mathematics, nothing here is false or incorrect. The inconsistency comes into play when the leader, mathematically elected, turns out to be a Subject in-him(or her)self, not the Objective principle that was voted upon When the Objective Will of the many suddenly needs to jump back down into a subjective position, it crashes, bleeds, dies, empties of all its truth (pragmatically speaking), and ends with a false position (this is why modern democracies have to defend themselves from the terrifying centre of the Other (in this case: Mr. President) by constricting his freedom, and sharing his autonomy of power with many others, thinning out the force of action from the tight point of a stiletto shoe, to the flat foot of an elephant (aka the yap-yap of Capitol Hill)). When every action that is taken—in the name of democracy, morality or nationalism—is taken by the individual will of the elected leader, Objectivity quickly collapses, somehow taking a backstage place, almost like a faint outline of the Law, whilst the Subject stands bright within the spotlight.

There is nothing Democratic about any Presidential action. Saying that a president or prime minister (or whomever) takes an action democratically, is like saying that a young child in a playground Acts democratically because of the shouting and screaming of the children behind him (that may or may not affect him in his choice). There is no escaping the abyssal nature of the Leader's subjectivity: the action comes from he/she, and relies in no-way upon the democratic mass. The very notion of Democracy is a falsification; claiming Democracy because of an election in the U.S.A is much the same as claiming the current leadership (Hugo Chávez) of Venezuela as being “Democratic” simply because it was reached by election. The systematic string of various elected leaders, apparently all speaking for the people, culminating in the peak of the pyramid, is one of the most laughable monstrosities of truth in our present age. At least dictators, communists and fascists don't have to hide their true faces.

But Democracy isn't the primary problem (and we can fall back to Churchill once again). The corruption of the west really falls in the realm of the Audience, and how the masses react and view the world around them (or more specifically: the world they live in and alter). The problem today lies in the idle nature of the people. The End of History has been claimed—lazily. Intellectuals spend their times defending the present state against the revolutionary minority, instead of trying to move forwards (take for example Peter Berger's latest book, a monstrosity of horse-blinded Death: In Praise of Doubt (ISBN: 978-0-06-177816-2)). Time seems to continue on in a tightly closed circle (one that even the events of 9/11 were not able to disturb or shake). What is needed is the Act, or to put it as Badiou would: an Event. Enough of mere Being, of continuing “living” in a basic state, in homoeostasis:

“The circle that remains self-enclosed and, like substance, holds its moments together, is an immediate relationship, one therefore which has nothing astonishing about it. But that accident as such, detached from what circumscribes it, what is bound and is actual only in its context with others, should attain an existence of its own and a separate freedom—this is the tremendous power of the negative; it is the energy of thought, of the pure 'I'. Death, if that is what we want to call this non-actuality, is of all things the most dreadful, and to hold fast what is dead requires the greatest strength.”

—G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, ISBN: 0-19-824597-1, p.19.

What we need is this negative, this “death” of our current mode of life, of the still-safety of things as they have-been and are. The antagonism between the subject and the objective law of democracy-capitalism, like the cog that believes its own autonomy as a piece in the machine, but refuses to prove it (in a revolutionary sense), is a sickening trap, a false-livelihood that knows not the true meaning of life. Life comes in the excess, the sprouting from and evolution—life is the faithful crawl of mutated sea-creatures onto the beach, breathing freely. It does not come in stabilising the present condition, in staying still (like death).

In moving on, it is clear that the main threat to this attempt, or any urge to revolutionise, is not in the hands of the Leader, nor the Master, nor the Bourgeoisie, but in-fact, in the hands of the Audience: the masses, those that watch (and minimally act) within the political/ethical/social field. What hinders any realisation of democratic (and capitalistic) failure, is the lack if integrity in the every-day Joe. In the absurd cynical-distancing of the Audience (for that is what they are, those that watch in “physical silence” whilst abusing the air blue with verbal “acts” of disapproval) there is a lack of attachment or responsibility.

Take for example the voices of the Right after a (black, charismatic, press-baby) Leftist/Socialist victory: “I didn't vote for him”, “It's their [the Others] fault”, etc. Or the same problem vice-versa: “I didn't want the war, They did”, which is bipartisanship at is worst . . . (And is it not interesting to point out that George W. Bush's actions apropos the War on Terror, in which the watering-down of the Senate and various other powers were ignored for direct Subjective Will (in the name of the country, of the party, of Freedom etc.) is in-fact the very embodiment of true democracy and its frailties. It is as if the very King of Democracy (the elected leader par excellence) becomes the terrifying pit of negativity at the centre of the democratic system: he becomes the perversion, the very contradiction of political democracy (no wonder that we try so hard to humanise our leaders)).

The two directions one can take from this problem, or what we could perhaps call the two direct-answers, are either to take a leap (in a Kierkegaardian sense) of faith, so that the democratic system, and its Leader's actions, always conform to the will of the Audience by the simple fact that the People say: “Yes, you are the embodiment of our will, and hence, act for us” (which is what dictatorial and fascist regimes impose upon their followers), or the Audience can finally clear themselves of doubt, distance, cynicism and blindness, for the Event, the very negative act of Absolute eternity penetrating into the self-enclosed circle of the present State.

The revolutionary act does not necessarily have to come physically—perhaps all we need is the open discussion of intellectual movement. Perhaps a new vocabulary simply has to be placed within the (apparently) complete language of our lives.

September 27^th 2009

Sacramento

A Clarification

(on the Levels of Abstraction, the Immortality of Subjectivity,
& the Honesty of Contradiction)

This piece is designed to clarify certain ideas that compose the framework of my current metaphysics and general philosophical beliefs. In clarifying the meaning of these three terms, I hope to make further discussions and writings on various subjects more accommodating to the general reader—the piece is aimed at creating the foundations of my terminology.

In realising that the use of language (no matter for the objective standards that are printed in dictionaries, encyclopaedias or expressed by college professors) generally falls upon its own subjective use. Whether from a conditioned or artistically contracted source, the subject signifies the meaning (or at least attempts to) trying to capture the very essence of a feeling, sensation or expression. It would be easy to argue that this fails on most levels, and in most cases, and as Lacan realised: this is the torment of man, within his ability to express himself, he is only increasingly frustrated by the limits of his own tongue.

Bearing this in mind, this clarification of terminology falls into subjective obscurity itself. But this does not hinder my attempt. Language will always flow, frail and fragile, manipulated in the receiver's ears or eyes by his or her own subjective stance.

(1) The Levels of Abstraction

This is an important concept to the very fabric of my own reality, whether or not it is active in my thought in every living moment or not—it signifies the basis for my moral outlook on life (in relation to my actions against others, in judging other people's actions, and most importantly: in how I view the vitality of my life and its position in “the cosmos”).

To help clarify it I wish to begin with the very analogy that sprouted its origins.

Let us imagine a tree, or what is conjured from the word “tree” itself. The tree is a total of many parts, contracted into one by various concepts (some aesthetic, some scientific, some simply from conditioned reflex: from the nature of the space around it the separates, or the unifying concepts of living connection, as an organism living as a whole, to the way in which we are taught “tree” by small images in a picture book). What must be realised however, is that in a certain sense, the tree does not exist. As a total of parts it is simply that: a fabricated fiction, a mixture of other things. Nothing in a tree is a tree in itself. The leaves, rustling, living and dying within themselves, may affect the unified organism “tree”, and the tree as a whole may affect them, but they are not “tree” in their singularity. The notion of the tree comes to life only when we come to perceive it from the perception of a certain size, stance and knowledge. To the ant crawling along the bark, there is not a tree, but bark, wood, and leaves above (perhaps each branch that sprouted out of the central trunk was a tree in-itself to him. And these words too—bark, leaf, wood, etc.—in themselves can be split into a smaller portion, viewed from a more microscopic standpoint (is an atom within a tree, let us say an atom of what is referred to as “nitrogen”, a tree, a piece of bark, a leaf?).

This same manipulation of perspective can be taken in the opposite direction. Is the tree not a part of a larger eco-system, which in itself is part of a larger planet, which is part of . . . and so forth. Does a God playing with the Universe in his palm perceive The Universe, and does he pay any attention to the tree or ant from this Universal perspective? Is it actually possible from a single perspective to view the parts at the exact moment that you are admiring the whole?

The point of this is that the nature of things (subjectively based) lays completely in the very nature of the observer. Objective realities are a blend of these subjective views, and the contradictions they entail are born from these differences of perspective, and often from the Levels of Abstraction, the point in which the subject is viewing a certain thing (whether it be a physical thing, a moral point, a metaphysical claim). One man may say: I see a tree; another may say: I see many leaves, and many trunks . . . one many may say: I see a People; the other may say: I see a series of feet, smiles and eyes. When a politician takes an action, he sees a Nation, and those that are effected by such actions react on a personal and subjective basis, seeing not a Nation, but a person, or people within that grander concept, that grander level of Abstraction.

Now, one part of the definition of abstract, or abstraction, is that it can simplify, often to a point of losing its inherent meaning. But is not the word “tree” a simplifying and brutal disregarding of all its parts? Is the word “nation” not the same . . . “people” etc.. Language in itself is an abstraction, whether we will it or not. Even the nature of the subject is lost to this abstraction (and hence the Lacanian frustration): is my name, “Dylan”, not a monstrous fiction, something that attempts to clarify my many parts, my many thoughts and feelings into a single, senseless and shapeless abstraction? Is this not a Level of Abstraction that is necessary for everyday communication and action, but totally inadequate in the eyes of intra-personal awareness, even intimate inter-personal awareness?

Is language not vulgar in this? And from this, does it not lose all of its truth?

(2) The Immortality of Subjectivity

This realisation of this daily notion, this daily use, of abstraction, as the essence of life in-fact, may seem terrible and lonesome. But it has its uses, and in its truth, relinquishes the confines of pseudo-Knowledge, taking the weight off the shoulders of Truth itself, bringing forth the truths of the Many. What it gives birth to is the realisation of Life itself, in its brutal entirety . . . :

If nothing “exists” in a significant sense without the subjective view (from whatever point, level, abstraction etc.), then surely the very act of signifying, the subjective utterance from a certain Level of Abstraction in Infinity, is the very act of creation and birth of Life itself! Not to say that nothing exists in a physical sense without the act of observance or signifying: but it might as well not. The “tree” exists only as pointless matter, uncollected or recognised, without the voice or eye that says that it is . . . Without the subjective viewpoint, the Universe becomes a collection of space and matter, like the binary 1s and 0s, and infernal Nothingness (was not the first work of creation The Word?).

“The fact that in the end we all die, that only dust remains, in no way alters man's identity as immortal at the instant in which he affirms himself as someone who runs counter to the temptation of wanting-to-be-an-animal [. . .] subjectivication is immortal, and makes Man. Beyond this there is only a biological species, a 'biped without feathers', who's charms are not obvious.” —Alain Badiou, Ethics, p. 12, ISBN: 978-1-85984-435-9

From this willing of signification, the naming action, the very act of observance and standing as a subject, we can see the very sprouting of Godliness, the bright light of living itself. The soul is not a metaphysical abundance but a simple trickery of awareness, that fickle thing known as consciousness. Language spawns this. When we grow as a child and learn to look at ourselves and conjure the meaning of “I”, we are born fully . . . beyond what was our base, biological birth from the womb. In willing our existence we come to fully exist. In embracing the objective fiction of ourselves, we come to exist (which could be deemed contradictory, and it is, but it is from this contradiction that our lives sprout, our notions of emotion and expression emerge: there is no real “I”, there is no real “man” or “woman” or “lover” or “father”, only our attempts to attach fictional works of language to the material binary code of the world around us—an act of immortality). This is Man.

All that is deemed beautiful in man, whether rightly or not, bears no reality outside of the subjective core—objectivity sees none of this, which is why the machines of Hollywood movies fail to recognise humanity: not for their strict logic, but the simple inability to perceive past the mechanist notion of the Whole. This absurd realisation will strike to some as a heavy weight, a final clarity and the meaningless quality of existence . . . its fickle breath. But these thoughts miss the mark. In searching for his objective meaning, man has missed the very truth of existential fright, living upon the meaningless space of existence in a Nietzschean roar of life: meaning can only be brought forth form its contradiction, life can only come from End & Death, and creation itself from the destructive ebb of Nothingness. . . .

To clarify:

Who holds the vitality of life? An immortal gnat that feels nought, names nothing, and fails to feel the hum of existence within him—or the mortal man who creates the existence of things around him with the use of fiction, sprouts meaning (however short-lived) into himself, and burns with the humming of existence? Is not the subjective shout of “I am a mortal man, who grows old and sick and finally dies” an act of immortality over the shining stars that simply go on forever (well, almost).

And let us not forget Kant's realisation of man's transcendence through Space & Time—it is in man's ability to turn the shapeless into the finite, to be able to perceive an object due to its position in space and also its position in a chronological line, that allows him to transcend over the base notion of the world and to a point in which one is able to see various objects, to come to create an understanding of what there is—man's immortality is in being able to subjectivize the world around him so that it is His. It does not matter that time is relative, nor that objects in space are perceived differently depending on the position in which they are viewed from—this is the act of creation, to make “something” out of “nothing”.

In essence, man is brought to his place by speaking as a Subject and viewing the world from whichever frame and Level of Abstraction that suits (the Ethics of this shall have to be left for another time).

(3) The Honesty of Contradiction

As with all good things, complete awareness of one's own existence and the existence of the world around oneself, comes not only from naming & signifying, but also from asking: why? in realising the contradiction beneath the idea, the abyss that language is suspended over, the negativity that surrounds the abstraction of the positivity you utter: when you speak Yes into the Abyss, it is formed by the Nay of the negativity it resounds within . . . In a sense a positive creation is as much that as a negation of everything else—

When man signifies, or when man makes any sort of claim, stretching out into the world to create a truth, he has two choices: (a) to signify or reason without any consequence, to deny its opposite or even the possibility of its opposite, in a blind Kierkegaardian leap of faith, a diabolically inhuman act of dishonest fiction; or (b) to only make actions of reason, language or belief upon the grounds of uncertainty, upon the very contradiction of their negativity, to be a Subject whilst realising the absurdity of the world around them, and still making the decision whilst realising the absurdity and fragility of their attempt!

Let us take belief, or faith, in God, as the most obvious and easily explained of examples. Is not a man who claims God, even shouts knowledge of it, but leaves no space in his life for its opposite, completely devoid of the claim? How can the claim, even linguistically, live without its fragile edge that mutters affirmation against the negation of its opposite, or lack-of? Is not the true notion of faith, of human adherence to God, the very act of questioning Him and laying in a pool of uncertainty (which was why news of Mother Teresa's journals, and their apparent dictation of lost faith or questioning, were the true signs of her religious being).

If we were to imagine a single spot of paint that we are define as “red”, can we contemplate it in its singularity without respecting the negating field of otherness that surrounds it: all that is not it. Does not a complete disregard for anything else than that which we are trying to perceive, or describe, or experience relegate the aim itself to Eternity and thus to Emptiness and Formlessness? Is the basis of human life and experience not that justification of all that is not just as much as what is—in the sense that we cannot appreciate or even acknowledge one thing without seeing the space between It and “Other” and Everything Else itself?

In contradiction is reality.

In calling something by one name, we negate all other things in eternity, including the parts that make the whole of which we just named. This is not always a downfall, nor a negative thing, but should be realised whilst in-action as means to perceive reality as whole. Some fail in this: Politics, in its apparent reach for “ethical universality”, fails man on his own level (of abstraction) for it disregards him as a significant individual, instead abstracting him into a named collective (that truly does not exist in any sense): The People, or The Universal; the educational and philosopik fail to pertain to the individual situation whilst aiming at the universal mind . . .

*****

Let us be clear, in no means do I want to say: everything is Relative. What I do wish to say, is that: the subject, in an infernal act of apparent God-hood, in his subjectivication, is the starting point for all notions of life and “humanity” (and I do not mean humanity in the collective, but in the singular, as an adjective not as a noun).

Creation spawns from The Word.

Further reading (for non of this has been original, but it has been poorly realised):

Ethics, Alain Badiou.

Existentialism is a Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre.

On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense, Friedrich Nietzsche.

August 19^th 2009, Santa Rosa

The Break, Fidelity & "The Adversary"

(Badiou and the Personal)

The Break (or The Event):

What is the break but the moment in which the very norm, the common (of society, history, psychology, fashion, art, science, knowledge etc.) is broken by a turning away from itself into a new space. Whether it is a creation or discovery of a new place is of little importance; its affect on the commonality of what came before it is where the importance lies.

These “breaks” can be ultimately large in universal scale or simply vast in a subjective dimension. The Break is Einstein against Newton, Tesla and the coil, The Communist Manifesto against Capitol (which re-enacts the break perpetually throughout the last hundred years of history, it seems); or it is making a decision against your own past, flying like Jonathan Livingston Seagull into the air, marrying yourself to a cause, falling in love . . . The break is a moment in which one's gaze is taken from its fixed position and shone out into the darkness of the unknown. That which it was fixed on before-hand is the common, it is “Knowledge” itself, where opinions vary but the expanse of information fails to. The break gives an opportunity to revalue all that is within this common space, even if it does not necessarily bring anything new.

The Break (Event) is like a birthplace for a new perspective. And in being a birth, it is life itself.

Fidelity (the ethic of the Break):

Fidelity, as an ethic, is adhering to this new perspective and continuing as far out of the common as one possibly can. Fidelity is living a truth, preserving it (without delusion) until the time comes to return it to the common of Knowledge. If we were to imagine the space of human knowledge, Geist, spirituality etc. as a globe with its own gravitational pull, then Fidelity would be the force that drove wandering objects from its surface, into unknown space, and thus capturing a new realm for the globe to expand into.

But the size of the globe is irrelevant, there must be no thought of a final “Absolute”. Death is the absolute, the space outside of the common is the absolute, and the space that is the common is, in a sense, absolute: for it is dead-still, unchanging without the spark of The Event. The only thing that lives is this excess from the norm, the flying arc of life, this Break that must perpetuate itself. On a base level, Existence itself is a break from the norm of non-existence, and thus living itself is an ethical act. But on a “human” level (a personal level) life is more than mere existence, and thus Life as an ethical act must be more than simply eating, breathing and shitting. Life Must Be The Break In-Itself and the perpetuation in action.

The Adversary (or why we must be our own Anti-Thesis, Anti-Christ, Anti . . . ):

The Ego-Ideal (the part of ourselves that we compare to, feel judged by, like the voice of complete undermining) is a necessary adversary. The imbalance and insecurity of human existence is like the fragile movement of petals opening at the dawn. A secure movement, a secure change, as if a result known in advance, is nothing but a robotic thread of in-action. An insecure growth, whether positive or negative, is the human Break.

On a vary basic level, I would ask: what gives any thesis, action, thought, life, word its insecure purity? Is it anything but its opposite, or the threat of it—the antithesis, the anti . . . What is life without the thought of death, but emptiness? What is love without the thought of hate, or apathy? What is a belief, an act of faith, without its Devilish opponent, its Adversary par excellence? Is not the very foundation of any event the combination of combating forces, like a synthesis of frictions, a duality that acts in One.

Are not all memories, words & dreams but stepping stones onto themselves that act as birth and death in the same instantaneous moment.

In thinking this, should we not accept the Adversary of anything that we consider to be beautiful, profound, moral or necessary, as the very whore-mother-origin of all that is wanted. The Adversary is the freedom of space and the willingness to step out of bounds. To oppose knowledge is to redirect to new thought, and this (albeit meaningless in-itself) action is the very nature of life itself, the profound act of faith that perpetuates nature from worm, tree, horse to man—but this is not simply the will to live, or the survival instinct in its basic and disgusting simplicity: it is a step beyond the realms of the necessary or the comfortable, like an artist's faith in new-discovery, a continuous proof of life and existence against the void of 0+0+0+0+0 that constitutes basic living.

The Break is the moment in which a new digit appears, and the Fidelity is the willingness to continue in its tracks . . . but the Adversary is the continuous friction of Fidelity against its Anti-, or perhaps Fidelity is the Anti- itself. Bravery and recklessness are not enough without the conscious recognition of one's own frailties, fears, insecurities, and failings.

Betrayal (in an honest form) is the most profound expression of love. A student who betrays his teacher for the evolution of Ideas; a child who becomes his own before being able to love his parent outside of the reality of childhood—these are the frictions of difference, the adoptions of opposition that give birth to life.

Judas gave birth to the world as he hung from his tree.

David Foster Wallace, Slavoj Žižek & The Monstrosity of “Zen” Cynicism

Reading through Wallace's essay “E UNIBUS PLURAM – television and fiction” (A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, ISBN: 0-316-925284) I've come to realise the truly malignant notion of “postmodern” cynicism that has already been touched upon in Žižek's work. What both Wallace's critique on television and Žižek's insight into modern ideology hold in common is the very concept that we, in a fit of liberal education, are aware of the very systematic ideology that confronts us on a day to day basis; but, through our cynical adaptation of our daily lies, through a comical irony, we have convinced ourselves of our innocence and inculpability in relation to this “system”--in a truly cynical sense, we have convinced ourself of a lack of guilt even in our own actions. This cynicism comes with an unhealthy dose of zen-like apathy in which the inner journey of meditation and peace is justified by the refutation of “actual” actions through a mental distancing—in an absurd reversal of Sartre's citation of the waiter and his “bad faith”, modern cynicism seems to have eradicated any notion of freedom or choice at all, but not in a deterministic sense, simply in a nihilistic sense: almost as if the mind has given up to the corporate nature of reality, playing along with it . . . but when the cynicism is obvious (take Sartre's waiter or Wallace's example of TV viewer “Joe Briefcase” who sees the falsity of a commercial, feels rewarded for realising the irony of it, but still ACTS as Audience) we are culpable, guilty of “Bad Faith” at a far worse level than our parents and grandparents who may have been excused to a more “provincial” viewpoint (not yet cynical, but in Direct Belief) in Modern and Pre-Modern periods.

This is why Žižek spends so much time pointing out the ideology of our times when we seem to claim on a daily basis that we are “post-ideological”; this (latter) claim is a contrived piece of drivel seemingly spawned from a disillusionment with The Dream itself (in an American and international sense), or perhaps, as Wallace discusses, the rise of television's voyeuristic perversity into the realms of politics, social life and so forth, gave birth to the claim. When television broadcasting and mass-media allowed the everyday Joe to see the false-face of ideology itself, and even his/her own simple actions, is it not this cynicism itself that provided a means to escape the disillusionment—in this sense, and I'm sorry to say, shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, are the best examples of postmodern distancing and aloof commentating in which fun is made but every day life continues as usual (this is why I was disappointed in how Jon Stewart rebuked his own actions on the show Crossfire: the power behind one of the most powerful comedic actions of our times, rumoured to be the cause of the show's cancellation itself, expresses regret for stepping “out of bounds” . . . and isn't this a problem in-itself, as if the cynical eye is the “personal mind” that still refuses to act within the mass-system itself as a free-agent).

I never intended to write this piece in relation to an existential sense of freedom, but it's what it comes down to: act-freedom itself has been replaced by the “safe”-freedom of cynical distancing. Like a series of Zen drones acting out their every-day, ideological responsibilities (Heinrich Himmler always carried a copy of the Bhagavad Gita with him) we, as a post-modern, cynical society, act out our duties whilst claiming that they are not our duties or actions at all. And technology really has made it worse, (or our irresponsibility in the face of technology has); this is what Wallace's piece confronts. The “pseudo”-narcissistic nature of our times (we can carry multiple personalities on the internet, through our correlation with TV shoes, our romantic interests in pop icons, movie stars and so forth) has allowed us to escape even further—but not into ourselves, or any “romantic” ideal as such. Instead, we have lost ourselves in a terrible noise, a White Noise (Don Delillo) of MySpace pictures, favourite TV shows, blogs, internet communities—in which our freedom in any given situation is relegated because we are justified by some “other image” of ourselves, or the world. The Individual is considered to be more and more aware of himself, but in-fact seems less and less separate from the “Other” of the Masses, or “Audience”. This is so wonderfully demonstrated by Wallace in the whole self-referential irony of modern TV commercials; it says to us: we know that you know that we are trying to manipulate you like some ordinary Joe, and we're going to reward you for your individual observation by being blatantly obvious about it—in this sense the TV becomes a caricature of itself, cynical before-the-fact, and treats everyone like an individual (i.e. telling us that so-and-so product makes us a highly-valued individual just like everyone else that consumes/uses/wears so-and-so product), an individual that is part of a Mass of individuals. In acting along with this, we become the culprits in the most widespread, communal act of “Bad Faith” that the the times know.

The greatest example of this distancing (blanketed by some idealist impression) is the character Kessler in the Lars von Trier's Europa. Unfortunately, in reality, such mentalities are not so well punished—there is no drowning train car for us millions and billions staring at the TV set, spouting cynical judgements at the screen, acting our daily lives with the pretence that we are “somewhere else, someone else, incorruptible and blameless”.

God In the “Forsaken” Distance

A reading of Bergman's "Trilogy of Faith"

As with most things religious, the last words of Christ are disputed in various circles; however, for the sake of this piece we are to assume the following as the last spoken words of Christ (before his death upon the cross). On the ninth hour, he spoke:

“Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani” (My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?)

The earthly incarnation of God, faced with the imminence of death, questions the Absolute version of Himself. This moment of doubt can easily be interpreted in all its negativity, as a complete negation of the Promise and the Absolute (Eternity), and has been so referred to in popular art and literature as a seed for the atheistic spirit. In opposition, the positive interpretation often reads as a testament for the embodiment of sin: as Christ takes the “weight of the world” upon his shoulders, engulfed in the Sins that he dies for, he feels his separation from God—not of his own fault or doubt but as the consequence for his earthly tasks: for us. But both interpretations miss the truly positive formation of Christ's words and final actions. Is not Christ's last moment, on the verge of an atheistic fall, in fact the moment of true Godliness? Just as the presence of the Tree of Knowledge inevitably led to The Fall and, more importantly, a separation from God, an awareness of oneself (symbolised in God's question: “Who told you that you were naked?” (Genesis 3:11)) does the manifestation of God on earth, and his consumption of Sin, not signify God ridding himself of the confines of Eternity and formlessness for the finitude of Sin itself (of what is referred to in India as Maya—the illusion) for a constricted and human existence. In a sense, God did not give His (one and only) son for humankind, but he gave Himself, and through it learnt love in a real sense: that which is constricted, limited, futile and stuck in time: Humanity itself.

As Slavoj Žižek rightly points out, “we have to get rid of the old Platonic topos of love as Eros that gradually elevates itself from love of a particular individual . . . to love for the supreme Good beyond all forms”, true love is “forsaking the promise of eternity itself for the imperfect individual.”¹ Does the Christian story itself not point to this reversal of old fashioned sensibilities? Through man(and God)'s continuous distancing from the Absolute (through the Fall, Christ's crucifixion) can we not see the true ethics of love perpetuating itself into “insignificance” and “meaninglessness” (but compared to the confines of eternity are truly significant and meaningful)? Is not the existential rebuke of Eternity for Humanity itself the only truth worth pondering?

To clarify the figure of Christ as identical to that of Man himself, let us take a look at the film Winter Light by Ingmar Bergman. In the film, Pastor Tomas Ericsson (Gunnar Björnstrand) reaches the climax of his “crisis of faith”, spawned from the death of his wife and his inability to love since. Confronted with Jonas Persson (Max Von Sydow)'s own crisis, a suicidal one at that, Tomas is unable to offer any comfort, instead pointing his own tortured soul, and divulging his own miseries. The result of this outburst is Jonas' violent end as he puts a rifle to his own head in the cold snows of Swedish winter. The semblance of God that Björnstrand's character (David) managed to hold onto at the end of Bergman's previous film, Through a Glass Darkly, in referring to God as Love Itself, is now destroyed by the reality of his confrontation with God's terrible and (seemingly) everlasting silence. The film's truth however, and it's quietly realised answer, comes in-fact from one of its minor characters: Algot, the hunchbacked sexton. In the final discussion of the film, Algot asks Tomas a question that he has been withholding: why the religious emphasis on Christ's physical suffering through history (as a martyr) when his (Algot's) own suffering, through the length of his life (as a hunchback unable to sleep, steeped in pain, and so forth) is surely equal if not greater to Christ's brief suffering at the hands of the Romans and on the cross? Such a question may seem blasphemous, but as anyone who has watched the film will know: Algot is in-fact the embodiment of true Faith in the film—his question is simply one of a curious nature. And is the truth behind the question (sadly missed by Tomas himself, who sits quietly and dumbfounded) not that Algot has found the parallel between himself and Christ? The pair then discuss the true suffering of Christ: God's silence—another unification of Christ and Man.

But whereas this can be read negatively, as Christ demeaned from Spirit to simple Flesh, doubtful and meaningless, is it not in-fact God who has moved up² to the form of man, and in denying himself (in His silence) has reconciled Himself with His own creation? In this sense, the separation from the absolute, a recognition of finitude is Love itself—one can claim God is the distance between the finite form and the Absolute itself, not as the Absolute but the perversion of it.

Bergman's trilogy as a whole points to this tale from absolute to individual. In the first film, Through a Glass Darkly, there is an attempt to choose the spiritual and “Other” realm over that of the human and “here”; this is characterised by Karin (Harriet Andersson)'s schizophrenic dive into God, involving her disregard for the love of her husband and family, only to find that the God that she awaits is a spider that attempts to perversely penetrate her—the conclusion of the film negates the “Other” God for the God as love in David (Björnstrand)'s final speech to his questioning son. Of all three films, despite its weight, it is the most optimistic in its ends. The second is the darkest, starting with Faith in God and Man and ending with nothing at all but the depressive and dead soul of Pastor Ericsson's inability to love, tortured by God's silence (although momentarily liberated, in a strangely hopeful moment, by an atheistic speech). The last film, The Silence, relegates God to a minor part, a silent partner in the back-ground, and in it Bergman's transition form the monstrosity of God to the “monstrosity” of Human Love is complete (with all the complications and pains still prevalent, but not in question of God) . . . this transition can also be seen in the flux of Bergman's career as whole, from the likes of The Seventh Seal to Scenes From a Marriage, from the existential wonder of God, and terrible fear of death (think Kierkegaard) to the reduction of faith to the existential life of love and friendship and simply: existence (think Nietzsche to Camus).

To clarify again: the last words of Christ are not the last words of man, at a loss of faith, but in-fact the last words of Spirit (in the religious sense), giving up eternity for the most profound (but necessary) aspect of human life and love: Death. In God's acceptance of Humanity's “Sin” (another word for Life/Love) he Himself forfeits the “Tree of Life”.

But what of the Tree of Knowledge? Martin Hiedegger claimed death as a necessary thought as one could not live fully without realising death's claim upon life, and one's own temporality. Is this not an aspect of the Tree of Knowledge?—upon eating from it (the apple) Adam and Eve find shame, nudity, death: for years confronted as the negative downfall of humanity, but in-fact the beauty of mankind in all its painful glory. Was it not in-fact God who ate the apple, and plunged head-first into temporal existence (from the “prison” of his eternity, the stillness that is practically not existing)(think Heidegger's Being & Time)? The misconstrued nature of The Fall has always been that it was a fall from grace, from the “bliss of eternity (think Buddhism); yet it is actually a complete reversal of this: eternal “bliss” (which can be nothing but empty nihilism)is forfeited for the pains of true meaning, true life, true love, true existence. In this strict sense, Christ was an existentialist, a result of God's existential realisation—mankind is not the discarded mistake of our “forefathers”, but the improvement upon The Father's seed.

Son: My God (Father), My God, why have you forsaken me?

Father: For it is the only love I know.

As John Milton (Al Pacino), The Devil, so wonderfully puts in the film The Devil's Advocate: “I'm a humanist. Maybe the last humanist.” Where God (in Absolute form) found it impossible to love, he “gave his Son” so that he could love. Whilst Sin, the embodiment of the “forsaken distance”, has been “here on the ground with [its] nose in it since the whole thing began.” The symptom of our Fall has been life itself.

1. Thanks to Slavoj Žižek's The Puppet And The Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity

2. Once again, I owe this concept to Slavoj Žižek.

A Treatise on the Underpinnings of a Closed System

or why the Opening Undermines it

Sanity is the most common of madnesses and madness the rarer of sanities. This isn't a new idea, and to a point: completely unoriginal. But it seems rarely to be followed through to an end, as philosophers delve instead into the common of a system and eventually forget the individual essence that it spawned from. This is not a negative thing, it is worthwhile in its enterprise. But where do we end if we push the envelope a little further . . . is Nietzsche's madness an answer, or is a general acceptance (whilst still distant) realisation of the many around the one the answer (Foucault and his two spheres of philosophy).

Taken from History of Madness (Michel Foucault, ISBN: 0-415-27701-9): “ 'Many people, not to say all of them, fall into madness by being overly preoccupied with a single object' [Sauvages, Nosologie, vol. VII, p. 20]. Inside the imagine, trapped within it and incapable of escaping, madness is still more than the image . . . it is an act of belief, an act of affirmation and negation, a discourse that sustains the image whilst working it . . . the ultimate language of madness is that of reason [italics not in the original].” Foucault her shows the logic that is based upon the single image, the madman's fetishistic possession (unquestioned and holy), giving examples of syllogistic arguments from the mouth of the insane. One, stuck on the image of his death argues:

Dead men do not eat

I am dead

Therefore, I do not eat.

This is a simple example, and to most of us we would scoff at the misuse of reason in the hands of the, most certainly, unable. But brutal honesty shows a different side of the picture. Whereas logic (and its truths and frailties) are to be argued by better men, we can see that even if we apply an apparently truthful concept, a mathematical certainty, it makes no difference if that actual concepts and contexts of its use are not put to question. What I would argue is that logic, language, mathematics, will always be nothing but a structure of fragile webs hovering above and infinite abyss of unreason, as if the halo of purity above the actual Real of darkness. And are not all philosophical, political, religious, cultural systems all underpinned with at least one fetishistic, illogical, item of faith (an image) that all other relations, languages, logics, dynamics etc. are based upon. And if this is so, then how do we ever judge one over the other? (I can no longer respect the “easy” answer of the Correspondence Theory of Truth . . .).

A personal philosophy is just that: balanced on the image of the self, the scrutinies of opinions and “intrinsic” qualities that are generally taken for granted. The personal thought is corrupted by the fact that it is founded on the unfounded personal being, the very essence of its own opinion (we can call this the unconscious). In the sense that it is founded on a single image, a fetish (the self), it is a madness in itself, but rarely called so, for most personal philosophies do not clash (at least not on a large scale) with the general social constitution. A herd philosophy, or a social philosophy, is simply a way of life by democratic acceptance (even philosophies forced upon the unbelieving, unwilling, constitute that same thing if the majority allow it to prevail—in this sense fascism is a democratic choice on a shallow level; on an exterior, objective level). From this, any difference of opinion is reconciled (at the price of the personal more than the social) or rectified in some form of violence, alienation etc. The same with madness.

But is that really a problem? The romantics allowed the unreason of the base to come to the forefront (in the guise of the heart, the passions etc.) in an attempt to overturn the constricting natures of “rational” philosophies. Nietzsche took the same concept but added a strength of form to the passion, a well-crafted Dionysus. To many, the romantic notion is out-of-date, childish in a sense—but what I find it has that all other philosophy lacks is the honesty to accept the futile image, the primary point of all thought. Whilst the rationality of the modern era claims incorruptibility it is clear that it itself is founded upon an irrational, fetishistic primary—just as with all systems before. Even in mathematics (although not in itself a metaphysical claim, it is generally the rational language placed upon the empirical world) we come to question the incorruptibility of numbers and their relations once we have questioned the founding term of all the others: the number one. If we dissolve the “unity” of an individual thing into the abstraction it really is, then all the other multiples and divisions have to go with it. Even the number one refers to itself (1/1) for it cannot exist independent of this status (1/0 or 1/∞).

In my experience so far there has been no philosophy that abides by a system that does not balance upon the one infeasible foundation (solid in theory, but a delicate kernel to the probing mind), the infinitely irrational birth of all (the beginning of mankind, God as a moral guide, etc.). Surely a question to begin with, before delving into the ridiculous and obstructionist philosophical quests (what is mind, what is self . . .) is as to what sort of irrational base should be ethically acceptable. And is it even possible to decide this, or are we all lost to our desires, our hidden drives that only search for the rational basis upon which to argue our claim.

Does thought only work on an abstract level, as a sublimation of the animalistic Subconscious, as an Ego of symbolic justification for the unknown Real that is perpetually crushed by the Super-Ego (the restricting force that none-the-less teaches us what to desire) in a ridiculous circle of insane misunderstanding ad infinitum.

Does philosophy work as anything but a re-ordering of the symbolic network that is upheld by strings of faith?

Is the only truth the abyss—where Schopenhauer dwells as Nietzsche dances on air?

A Brief Reading (or viewing) of A Clockwork Orange

or (as some of you may read this): why I think that “ultra-violence” and rape is a positive step


Throughout the making of featurette on the A Clockwork Orange DVD, I felt myself confronted by the world's conscience against my own. Surely, by now, it cannot be so provocative to refuse to dismiss Alex's character and his actions as evil, symptomatic (an excuse of what made him instead of a reason for which he made his actions). The only comment that seemed to revive any life of the proceedings only dared to venture as far as to say that the viewer is drawn to 'like' the guy, maybe even admire him, because he has the courage to enjoy life to the fullest. But even this is a short-sighted, a humbled, approach. In truth, what is Alex's (the unformulated, uncensored Dionysus' (not in the “crafted” Nietzschean sense)) presence to say about the society of the seventies—and yes, you guessed it, the present?

There are many ways in which you could dissect this film (for those of you reading this in reference to the book: I will have to admit that I have yet to read it, thus, this is solely written in reference to Kubrick's vision): firstly, and very basely, you could see it simply as a foiled, but necessary, attempt at balancing out the wrong-doing, to kill the evil that threatens to ruin all society; secondly, you could view it as a juxtaposition of two extremes: the totalitarian nature of the state versus the reckless and egotistic nature of the individual that reacts against the state (and depending on your standpoint, you could view this juxtaposition from an objective stance, or from the relativistic stance of either end); thirdly, you could view the movie as a (heavy) metaphor for how the young child/individual is brought into (all) society by what—although it is rarely ever as excessive as that which Alex has to experience—can be easily classed as a form of brainwashing . . . I, however, prefer to view the movie in the following way: where life is awarded, by its own creation, order (let us suppose for now a necessary order) is too strict, too fearful in its reaction. The problem with A Clockwork Orange is not that Alex ever existed, or that the attempt at brainwashing failed, nor that he was not allowed to do “just as he wished”—more that Alex (and his Droogs) were not integrated into a system, into The System, for the qualities they carried (even though his Droogs, in an ironic twist, do later become part of the machine). Or you could say, that the system itself (for systems fear change just as much as the individuals that are a part of it, hence the wonderful transcendental unity of the machine) failed to integrate or change itself to match the passions of rebellion and violence.

It is clear (from the movie at least) that there is little reaction in Alex. This is not an individual squashed, beaten or abused by society (this is not Stuart of Alexander Masters' book), but a clear and highly intelligent conscience boosted by a strong sense of passion. In a sense there is little “rebellion” (in a reactive/bitter sense) in Alex; he has, in fact, created a positive space outside of the (nihilistic) nature of his birth-society. His rebellion is not a negation of the old but a positive notion of the new. In the Nietzschean sense, this is a Yes, not a No. Yet, as Žižek would point out, he makes a positive step in the wrong direction. What is it that his actions create? Do they really do anything at all . . . (what we find in Alex may not be strictly reactive in the childish sense, but there is a great notion of tomfoolery, an enjoyment in having the upper hand against those that are in-fact meant to hold power (parent, teacher, social-worker etc.)). And here is where the system is at fault: in facing a fertile mind, it fails to give a form and purpose to it; instead, in fear of its powers and its uncontrolled outbursts, it castrates the passionate fertility itself. And here is where the film shows it's true colours, its single-minded, throbbing cock (if you will) of an idea. Yes, the penis here is the symbol of fertility, and Alex's violence is the spewing jizzum of an uncontrolled masturbating Dionysus (next time you watch the movie, see how many times you can count its on-screen appearance, from the vandal's chalk on the walls, ice-pops, the jock-straps, the long noses of the masks, the brutal “art-piece” aka murder-weapon of the film's turning point etc.―and then pay attention to how its on-screen appearance is abruptly cut after Alex himself has been “castrated”). The penis is, therefore, we live―one is tempted, in this vein, to change Descartes' Je pense donc je suis/Cogito ergo sum.

The “cat-lady” screams (as Alex nudges and see-saws the penis-monument): “Don't touch it! It's a very important work of art!” . . . because it is, there are very few of us today, or at any time, that would have scoffed at creation in any or all senses (okay, extreme religion aside―in which even God's creation seems to be squandered as false and evil); creation is the driving force of life―it creates life and its own self, itself! Here is Aristotle's first “unmoved mover”, the causa sui!

To quote Nietzsche:

“To breed an animal with the prerogative of promise―is that not precisely the paradoxical task that nature has set herself with regards to humankind? is it not the problem of humankind?” (Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals, ISBN: 978-0-521-69163-5)

So, is the answer to an over-powering fertility to cut it (at the sack, if you will)? Surely the answer lies more in direction, in the hon(or)ing of the passions, of the will―as with the Nietzschean self-crafted, self-controlled Yes-Man, his Übermensch. Yes, Alex is dangerous, but only because he puts the nihilistic stillness of the State in jeopardy, he could err the path elsewhere. Why not cultivate the passions of youth―why not cultivate the passions that lead Alex and his Droogs to “ultra-violence” and rape?

In the end of the film, Alex is “cured” (although I have the sneaking suspicion―in the shot of his eyes rolling back before we cut to the slow-motion breasts, snow and marriage―is that Alex isn't so much cured but finally killed, sent to Heaven's gate, snuffed . . . or maybe, a la Ken Kesey: mentally handicapped to the point of lobotomy). After being reconciled as a political victim (the only place for the suppressed in society―as Malcolm McDowell opens and closes his mouth like a greedy little child, hand-fed) he is finally back just were he began . . . as with all realistic endings: Nothing Has Changed, the rebellion is empty and the atrocities attributed to Alex now stand as evidence for the correct nature of what is over what is not . . . here we have another Lost Cause (once again, see: In The Defence of Lost Causes, Slavoj Žižek, ISBN: 978-1-84467-108-3).
When will the castrated masses of children (and is too late for the old?) be released from their blood-thinning constraints? When will the fear of the problematic creation be eradicated (as in: when will we pick long-term consequentialism versus the stumped nature of short-term (moral) pragmatism and utilitarianism) . . . ?

[to be continued. . .]