2 links

An interesting article on John Berger,by the author of a book on Guy Debord.

A new Lacan blog. Contains links to lectures by Badiou, Zizek & others.

Reading Scholem..

In chapter one of The Messianic Idea in Judaism, Scholem quotes a long passage from Maimonides’s “Laws Concerning the Installation of Kings”. Scholem then remarks that “In these measured words of a great master every sentence has a polemical purpose.” This does not of course mean that Maimonides is a polemicist. Scholem is talking about strategic strikes against an enemy in a larger battle. Each statement is simultaneously an attempt to displace and rebuff another position. This of course is what polemic is about. But, just to clarify my previous post, the Polemicist (as I defined him) is someone who makes the enemy into a kind of fetish, a fetish to which he constantly returns and derives some obscure jouissance from doing so. Furthermore, without this enemy he would evaporate, lose his drive and consistency. The one who only engages in polemic, on the other hand, strikes against the enemy only to move forward to his true object. The Polemicist invokes the true object merely as a stick with which to beat the enemy.

But actually, what I wanted to quote was this passage from chapter two of Scholem’s book:

THE 19th century, and 19th-century Judaism, have bequeathed to the modern mind a complex of ideas about Messianism that have led to distortions and counterfeits from which it is by no means easy to free ourselves. We have been taught that the Messianic idea is part and parcel of the idea of the progress of the human race in the universe, that redemption is achieved by man's unassisted and continuous progress, leading to the ultimate liberation of all the goodness and nobility hidden within him. This, in essence, is the content which the Messianic ideal acquired under the combined dominance of religious and political liberalism-the result of an attempt to adapt the Messianic conceptions of the prophets and of Jewish religious tradition to the ideals of the French Revolution.

Traditionally, however, the Messianic idea in Judaism was not so cheerful; the coming of the Messiah was supposed to shake the foundations of the world. In the view of the prophets and Aggadists, redemption would only follow on a universal revolutionary disturbance, unparalleled disasters in which history would be dislodged and destroyed. The nineteenth century view is blind to this catastrophic aspect. It looks only to progress toward infinite perfection.

This also, in part, is why utopia cannot be envisaged. Because the subject who does the envisaging, the frames and metaphors and concepts that are the media of that envisaging, will themselves be smashed or interfered with in the course of 'revolutionary disturbance'.

Schmidt's

A reader emails me about the German restaurant Schmidt’s that used to be on Charlotte St (ie the real Charlotte st. in central London). Schmidt’s was pretty famous in its day and frequented, I think, by T.S. Eliot and various writers & journalists. ( A quick Google search reveals that the first edition of Socialist Register was launched there in 1964 ). But anyway, my email correspondent is interested in any information or anecdotes about the place. I know some CS readers are familiar with that area of London as it is and was, so do drop him a line if you have anything: londonleben@mac.com

Polemic

Reflections on friendship inevitably involve thinking about the figure of the enemy (Although I wonder, is the enemy really the opposite of the friend? And talk of enemies made me think of polemics.

The polemicist is one who must always have an enemy. He must plug in to the enemy to get his desire going, to keep himself awake and angry.This is why the polemicist is a curiously castrated figure.

When he takes a position, makes an argument, this is usually on the rebound from an encounter with his adversary. Once the rebound loses momentum so do the polemicist's principles and logic. He is not the master of his own agenda.

I've written elsewhere of the polemicist Peter Hitchens. His stance of injured dignity and appalled indignation is fully dependent on what it recoils from and attacks.Were these things to disappear the stance would crumble in ruins, doubtless taking a sizeable chuck of Peter Hitchens with it.

That he owes his enjoyment, his stance, his very self-definition to his enemy, has to be disavowed by the polemicist. And the disavowed debt then serves as a useful ingredient in the bile to be heaped on the enemy's head.

The further point is that the polemicist's enemy is never an abstract noun like Injustice, Exploitation. It is always a this idiot or these morons. It is a person or group, or the chimerical image thereof. An argument or position is thus seldom analysed or articulated in its own right. The polemicist cannot breath in the rarified atmosphere of pure reason. The argument is attacked only as an emanation, reflection or signature of the person or group in question. (The chimerical 'chattering classes' or dinner-party liberals, or the 'bleeding heart liberals' attacked every other day in The Sun, the 'trendy lefties', 'Guardianistas' and other polemical spectres beloved by the Right.. ). You will find no critique of, say, the idea that economic imperatives determine political decisions, only an attack on the mentality represented by this idea.

The polemicist is thus a in thrall to the Imaginary. He is uncomfortable with structures and concepts, but when one of his designated targets swims into view then the world - and with it his ego - assumes strength and definition.

Charlotte Street, Literary connections...

Yeats:

"He [Lionel Johnson] and Horne and Image and one or two others shared a man-servant and an old house in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, typical figures of transition, doing as an achievement of learning and of exquisite taste what their predecessors did in careless abundance. All were Pre-Raphaelite, and sometimes one might meet in the rooms of one or other a ragged figure, as of some fallen dynasty, Simeon Solomon, the Pre- Raphaelite painter, once the friend of Rossetti and of Swinburne, but fresh now from some low public house."

(Nowadays, Fitzroy Sq, leads into Fitzroy St., which then becomes Charlotte st. Not sure whether Yeats has misremembered things or whether Charlotte street extended further back then).

Request

Am looking for this article:

Deleuze, “Statements and Profiles.” Trans. Keith W. Faulkner. Angelaki 8.3 (2003): 87-93. (I understand it relates to some of the stuff on friendship posted below). If anyone has a copy, or knows if it appears other than in Angelaki, please email me.

Also, for those interested in Zizek's forthcoming London 'masterclasses' on Lacan, the details are here:

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/bih/activities/lacan.shtml

Dispensable objects, Indispensable Relations

One of the failings of some of the cruder versions of psychoanalysis, whether in looking at literary texts or examining individuals, is a preoccupation with objects over relations and functions. (As well as the presupposition that origin is goal).

Let’s take this from Wordsworth:

“That one, the fairest of all Rivers, lov’d / To blend his murmurs with my Nurse’s song.”

The crudest of ‘psychoanalytic’ equations here is Nature (river) = Mother (nurse). Nature is described in terms of the maternal role (here performed by the first mother-substitute, the nurse), and so much of how Wordsworth relates to nature is really a relation to the Maternal object. His relation to nature is only a shadow play, through which he enacts the longing for the maternal Thing etc. The Mother is the original, nature is a copy. Nature is the merest of stand-ins for something now absent.

The point, however, is that the relation to the mother is precisely that, a relation. If this relation – of an impossible proximity but also a 'slow ecstasy' – can be repeated with another ‘object’, all well and good, for what is sought is the relation. The relation escapes its object and becomes desired in its own right. Alternatively, you can think of this in terms of function. The nurse’s song functions to, say, lull him to sleep. The child, in discovering that function elsewhere is content at that. He does not need the object that in the beginning provided that function. Relations and functions are not glued to objects, nor do they serve simply as signs of those objects with which they were originally associated.

Friendship/ Blanchot

Blanchot: “The distance that affirms itself in proximity” & “We must give up tying to know those by whom we are linked by something essential”

As I move toward the friend her distance from me, which would otherwise have been hidden, emerges and is measured. This specific distance is the secret which the friendship discloses. It is the creature of intimacy.

___

Learn to keep silent, O friend. Speech is like silver, but to be silent at the right moment is pure gold. (Beethoven)

I was wondering about a phrase (re Nietzsche) from Friday’s conference on friendship: “There are truths in friendship that are better left unknown”. Is this significantly different from “There are truths that are better left unsaid”. Surely yes: it's not saying 'don't disclose' but - in certain areas - don't begin to question or interpret. To choose not to know.. (The friend is the one who knows when to say ‘I don’t want to know!’.)

This reminds me of two things not directly concerned with friendship. Rilke’s decision not to go through with psychoanalysis so that the invisible ground of his writing would not be exposed (and therefore ruined). The ‘dispute’ between Breton and CAillois about the Mexican jumping bean. Caillois wanting to open the bean and examine its secret, Breton insisting it remain closed – ‘I don’t want to know’ the effects are sufficient (poetry, mystery etc). We require certain blindspots; let us keep them blind even if it involves a certain artifice.

And might the ‘unknown’ refer not to uncomfortable facts about each friend, but to something ‘unknown’ to both friends, something about the friendship itself, perhaps even concerning the very basis of the friendship. Someone at the conference mentioned the idea of an algorithm, which produces a program without being directly present therein. So, if I have misunderstood him correctly, couldn’t this be used to think about a friendship, the algorithm which having facilitated the friendship must remain hidden.

WB/BB & Friendship

One friendship that came to mind in thinking about this subject: Benjamin/ Brecht and the Benjamin-Brecht combination in contrast to the Benjamin-Scholem combination.

The WB-BB combination creates a kind of axis between two poles: the ponderer and master of allegorical detour vs the irreverence and brusque practicality of his friend. This is for WB the axis of a quite specific and necessary estrangement. There are conversations & thoughts which can take place only along this axis. There is a becoming which takes place noly along this axis.

Scholem is more like the vigilant friend, holding before the other the image of his best self and of a final destination. For him, the Brecht-Benjamin combination is disastrous, diverting his friend along paths contrary to his own singular bias and destiny.

Two ‘models’ of friendship are here. Scholem: one moves toward the pre-existing Concept of oneself. Brecht: one produces new ‘concepts’ of the self – new lines of thought - through entering into different combinations and configurations.

Nietzsche on Friendship

About friends. Just think to yourself some time how different are the feelings, how divided the opinions, even among the closest acquaintances; how even the same opinions have quite a different place or intensity in the heads of your friends than in your own; how many hundreds of times there is occasion for misunderstanding or hostile flight. After all that, you will say to yourself: "How unsure is the ground on which all our bonds and friendships rest; how near we are to cold downpours or ill weather; how lonely is every man!" If someone understands this, and also that all his fellow men's opinions, their kind and intensity, are as inevitable and irresponsible as their actions; if he learns to perceive that there is this inner inevitability of opinions, due to the indissoluble interweaving of character, occupation, talent, and environment-- then he will perhaps be rid of the bitterness and sharpness of that feeling with which the wise man called out: "Friends, there are no friends!"Rather, he will admit to himself that there are, indeed, friends, but they were brought to you by error and deception about yourself; and they must have learned to be silent in order to remain your friend; for almost always, such human relationships rest on the fact that a certain few things are never said, indeed that they are never touched upon; and once these pebbles are set rolling, the friendship follows after, and falls apart. Are there men who cannot be fatally wounded, were they to learn what their most intimate friends really know about them?By knowing ourselves and regarding our nature itself as a changing sphere of opinions and moods, thus learning to despise it a bit, we bring ourselves into balance with others again. It is true, we have good reason to despise each of our acquaintances, even the greatest; but we have just as good reason to turn this feeling against ourselves.And so let us bear with each other, since we do in fact bear with ourselves; and perhaps each man will some day know the more joyful hour in which he says:"Friends, there are no friends!" the dying wise man shouted."Enemies, there is no enemy!" shout I, the living fool.

Condescension/ Respect

The cult of 'popular culture' is often simple a purely verbal and inconsequential (and therefore pseudo-revolutionary) inversion of the class racism which reduces working-class practices to barbarism or vulgarity. Just as some celebrations of femininity simply reinforce male domination, so this ultimately very comfortable way of respecting 'the people', which, under the guise of exalting the working class, helps to enclose it in what it is by converting privation into a choice or an elective accomplishment, provides all the profits of a show of subversive, paradoxical generosity, while leaving things as they are, with one side in possession of its truly cultivated culture (or language), which is capable of absorbing its own distnguished subversion, and the other with its culture or language devoid of any social value and subject to abrupt devaluations.. which are fictiously rehabilitated by a simple operation of theoretical false accounting

Pierre Bourdieu, Pascallian Meditations

Idea

Peter Szondi, Introduction to Literary Hermeneutics:

"..the unity of a word, which is not itself present but instead rpresents, as it were, the configuration of its various nuances and possibilities of meaning: an idea in Benjamin's sense of the word."

(> the meaning of a word thus lies 'outside' it, in its possible relationships and uses, just as the 'meaning' of the self is 'deferred' through its actions, relations, implication in a world. )