Archive for the ‘on poetry’ Category
Protected: Reflections: On the desire to read
Posted in on eros, on poetry, on reading, on thought itself, philosophy, tagged amelo14, andresmelo, books, desire, eros, philosophy, rarefaction, reading, reflection on December 9, 2005|
Reflections: On trees, deep ecology and poetry
Posted in A Refuge of Nocturnal Birds, deep ecology, literature, on ecology, on poetry, on Quasimodo, trees, tagged amelo14, andresmelo, art, bird, ecology, eros, poetry, quasimodo, rarefaction, reflection, tree on July 15, 2005| 5 Comments »
(Note: FOR AN IDENTICAL PRESENTATION WHICH INCLUDES SOME PHOTOS, PLEASE SEE THE FOLLOWING: link )
On trees, deep ecology and poetry
1. Introduction
Most of us, if not all of us, have a particular fondness for and connection to living things. And since each of us is unique, we have greater connections to some living beings over others. This connection is very difficult to articulate. For example, some people have a fondness for dogs; still others for tarantulas. Dali was fond of flies, though most of us aren’t. I myself have always had a particular fondness for trees. I cannot tell you why exactly; I can only say that my adolescence was close to them. I was lucky, I got to know MANY diverse trees. But many other living beings were also close to me, and yet my fondness for trees stands out. This journal tries to articulate this connection.
But, fortunately, I am not the only one. Here at dA many people are fond of trees and flowers. One need only check out the photography category Nature to find thousands upon thousands of photographs being uploaded constantly. And I ask myself, what are all these deviants trying to say? Of course, not all such deviations are artistic, but they DO show that artists and non-artists have a strong and deep connection with the living.
But for some, it is poetry which is THE privileged art that opens this connection with the living more primordially than any other. This journal is also about this connection with poetry, with a poem that tells about our connection to trees. Once, one such poem came to me. It is a poem about trees. I am sorry, I must correct myself. It is a poem about A very unique tree. These are the opening lines of this poem entitled A Refuge of Nocturnal Birds:
“High on a cliff there’s a twisted pine;
intently it listens into the abyss
with its trunk curved down like a crossbow. ”
(Salvatore Quasimodo; Nobel Prize, 1959.)
Poetry uses such deceptively simple words! I mean, I am sure most of us know each and every single word just read. So much so, that we think we have understood these few lines. But then I wonder, why would Quasimodo receive the NOBEL prize if things are as simple as they appear? Surely there is a mystery brewing here. Perhaps our complex modern lives have made us a bit hasty. We know too much and rarely pause.
Instead, I propose we listen “intently” again to the poem as this peculiar pine listens intently to the abyss. But this is not easy; for I am not sure if our capacity to listen is at its best. How could we listen being surrounded, as we are, by so much noise pollution? How could we listen if we are always talking? Have we forgotten to listen in our hectic age?
But much more importantly, and these are the VERY difficult questions which guide this journal: if indeed we CAN listen to the world of living things —–if we can listen to their Being— what would it mean to be able to listen TO them? I mean something not too complex. I mean, in part, this; the latest I heard, trees just DO NOT speak. Or, more to the point, how exactly can a poem speak for trees in an age in which trees are becoming extinct because of our technological encroachment? How can we humans –specially artists and philosophers— let trees speak? Or, can/should we just shed our technological understanding of the world, an understanding in which trees have lost their symbolic enchantment? How, indeed, to let them speak without Imposing our anthropocentric voice unto them?
This journal attempts to be a very incomplete preparation towards new types of encounters. Mainly, it is shared so that together we can listen more clearly to our fondness for trees and other living beings. But like the twisted pine in Quasimodo’s poem, before getting to the poem itself, we must —unfortunately— make some preparatory twists.
2. A puzzle
The previous questions carry with them a very perplexing puzzle; it is a puzzle which is of particular interest to us modern Westerners for we alone have brought about the demise of a mythological understanding of the universe and the beings which inhabit it. To this we shall return; but for now, how to express better this puzzle which I feel so intensely?
In one of the most beautiful Platonic dialogues –—the Phaedrus, which deals with erotic discourse— Socrates says something altogether puzzling to us moderns. Phaedrus teases Socrates by telling him that he rarely leaves the city of Athens for the countryside. In the countryside Socrates seems to be totally lost. Socrates seems to not be much of a hiker, as we modern city dwellers in our polluted cities have become. To this teasing, Socrates responds:
“Forgive me, best of men. For I am a lover of learning (philomathes). Now then, the country places and the trees are not willing to teach me anything, but the human beings in town are. But you ….” (230d; Translated by James H. Nichols; Ithaca, Cornell University, 1998) ” (on the web a lesser translation, see:
[link]
(In this regard see the striking lack of reference by Xenophon’s Memorabilia (Ithaca, Cornell University, 1994) to Socrates’ studies in natural philosophy, a silence which points to the puzzling relation, to say the least, between “natural philosophy” and “political philosophy”.)
Socrates is of the city, rather than of the countryside. What could Socrates be getting at? But, is this true? Don’t we have anything to learn from trees? Isn’t Socrates absolutely wrong here? We might think about this possibility: Socrates just simply did not foresee an age in which the very existence of the Earth would come into play because of the powers we have harnessed as humans caught in our technological grids. Of course, Socrates knew VERY WELL the Greeks could destroy themselves. But for US humans to destroy the Earth, that, I think, was a situation Socrates could not have foreseen.
And yet, might not there be some truth to Socrates’ important point? To see what might be behind his point just consider a very simple question once again: when was the last time you actually spoke to a tree, and it actually answered back? By the same token, recall the opening lines of the poem above. The tree in Quasimodo‘s poem is NOT the tree which I see through my window. I bet you, the tree outside does not actually listen to anything, for it just does not have ears! So after all, it seems, Socrates has a point. Trees cannot teach us much. But, is this true?
It is this ambivalent questioning which moves me to try to listen more carefully to what trees might say to us humans in an age in which trees are continuously fallen and seen as standing reserve ready to be cut, rather than as the wilderness of which we are an integral part. This is why, in contrast to Socrates’ words, I must let you listen to Tolkien’s words. In particular, we listen with deep gratitude to how Pippin tried to describe his encounter with the Ents, the oldest inhabitants of Tolkien’s symbolically rich world:
“One felt as if there was an enormous well behind them, filled up with ages of memory and long, slow, steady thinking, but their surface was sparkling with the present; like sun shimmering on the outer leagues of a vast tree, or on the ripples of a very deep lake. I don’t know but it felt as if something that grew in the ground –asleep, you might say, or just feeling itself as something between root-tip and leaf-tip, between deep earth and sky had suddenly waked up, and was considering you with the same slow care that it had given to its own inside affairs for endless years.” (BOOK II; ‘Treebeard’, pg. 77)
How could we not learn from such creatures? How could we not wish to become like them? I mean ; “enormous wells with ages of memory of slow thought and a sparkling present as surface”, who does not seek something like this before death arrives? We moderns in particular; how could we not learn from beings whose motto, Tolkien tells us, is “do not be hasty”?
It is the pull of these two views, summed up in the contrasting words of Socrates and Tolkien, that move me to write this journal. I am extremely fond of trees, but I do not want to simply project my fears upon them. If they do indeed have nothing to teach me, I prefer to know.
3. Two understandings of trees; secular biology and sacred wisdom.
To better understand this puzzle, which I myself find difficult to grasp and even to share with you, one can bring to memory certain stories. Think of the role trees play in two very important events in human history. One concerns the origins of Buddhism; the other, the origins of our modern scientific approach.
It is said that Siddhartha, at the age of 29, was forever transformed when he came upon the sight of four very special humans: an old crippled man, a sick man, a decaying corpse, and finally a wandering holy man. The sight of suffering and the search for a meaning to such suffering, became the meaning of his life. Years later, it is said that while sitting in meditation under a bodhi tree Siddhartha reached enlightenment and became a Buddha.
“But, what does all this have to do with trees?,” impatiently you ask. Very much. The Bodhi tree plays a central role in the story; Siddhartha could just as well have been meditating in the shower when he reached Nirvana. Or under an orange tree. But that is not how the story goes. Instead, there is something in trees, specially THIS tree, which brings us closer to certain fundamental and sacred truths about ourselves and the universe. No wonder in Buddhism the bodhi tree is considered to be THE tree of wisdom; it is both sacred and its name literally means “supreme knowledge”. ([link] ) Scientific nomenclature itself has been so struck by this that it calls the tree, using its binomial categorization, ficus religiosa! [link]
(If you come from a Christian background, as many of us do in the West, you might ponder about our very own initial myth, that of the tree of life and the tree of knowledge: “And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2; 9; For a consideration see Thomas Pangle Political Philosophy and the God of Abraham“ [link] )
But we modern westerns also have another, very different story about trees. It is the story of Sir Isaac Newton’s tree. ( [link] ) It is said that the apple that hit Newton on the head allowed him to think anew our relation to the universe and its fundamental laws. The privileged realm above in the heavens could now be understood by the very same laws which were applicable to the natural world right here in our Earth. Of course, this might not have happened exactly as the story goes, but the myth has greatly become part of our understanding. And I ask myself, can you sense how different roles the trees play in each of these two very important stories? What Newton discovers is not wisdom in the company of a wise tree, but his universal mathematical understanding over and above any tree. For ALL trees are covered by the laws of gravity. In contrast, in Buddhism, NOT ALL trees are wise trees. Newton and Siddhartha sought the comforting shadow of trees for two VERY different reasons. [link] .
What this story reveals then, if I am right, is that we can no longer safely move without reaching into BOTH stories. Trees, in the West particularly, have definitely lost the strong symbolic powers which once attached to them and linked them directly to the Gods. It would seem that this is simply a loss. But I do not think so. The story of yet another tree may help us to understand the necessity of both discourses. It is the story of the neem tree.
On the one hand, ayurvedic medicine has known for centuries of its multileveled benefits. They are so many that it is actually called the “village pharmacy”. So a pre-scientific understanding has already gained much. But the biological-scientific understanding seems to provide the possibility for this tree ‘s playing a central role in the defense of complex ecosystems themselves:
“Of primary interest to research scientists is its activity as an insecticide. Many of the tree’s secondary metabolites have biological activity, but azadirachtin is considered to be of the most ecological importance. It acts by breaking the insect’s lifecycle. Research has increased in the past few years as the desire for safe pest control methods increases and it becomes apparent that this tree will be able to play a role in integrated pest management systems.“
[link]
It seems, then, that both discourses have MUCH to gain from their interaction. And yet, at the same time, we are overly conscious of the destruction of trees and rainforests in our world. We no longer have the confidence we once had that the solution to our technologically generated dilemmas can be cured by the use of technology itself. We recognize that something has gone wrong with this scientific-instrumental view of nature. We fear, rightly, that it does not have the tools to pull itself out of the dangers it generates.
And the tension of our initial puzzle, which I hope has progressively become clearer, returns. On the one hand it is WE humans who are disrupting the planet and therefore humbly must take into consideration the symbolic relevance of other living beings. But on the other hand, we somehow sense that WE alone have consciousness of the world and know what it would actually mean to SAVE or DESTROY this living world of ours. Perhaps if we try to understand more closely the dangers of instrumental reason we can get clearer still on this difficult puzzle. Here, the aid of some philosophers is much required.
4. Instrumental reason and deep ecology
To see how deep we are into this scientific model of understanding nature, we can do an exercise in memory. Biology courses provide a great example. For, it seems, we moderns take it for granted that the way we classify nature and seek to understand it, is THE primary way of access to the world. A standard biological definition of a tree reads: “A tree can be defined as a large, perennial, woody plant. Though there is no set definition regarding minimum size, the term generally applies to plants at least 6 m (20 ft) high at maturity and, more importantly, having secondary branches supported on a single main stem or trunk.” [link]
That we do not feel any uneasiness at this view of trees, should indeed make us a bit uneasy. This understanding of trees is quite unique and problematic. Don’t you see something odd here? First of all, it is indeed odd to even try to define trees. Of course, biology requires it. But, is this mode of access the PRIMARY access to trees we must adopt? What this model emphasizes is not without problems. We classify, categorize, measure and analyze. Don’t you feel you are objectively being told what a tree is, as if the tree were being observed from above, rather than the tree being a participant in a complex ecosystem? And such definitions usually continue by telling us what we westerners seem to love, they proceed to speak of superlatives. We are immediately told about the tallest, the widest, the oldest, constantly seeking in reality what we can quantify analytically. However, as for the height of trees, it is interesting that we are told: “the heights of the tallest trees in the world have been the subject of considerable dispute and much (often wild) exaggeration.”. Trees serve our purposes for recognition by others; we want to have the tallest tree near US, so we can stand out much taller than we actually are.
But how to quantify what for others is the sacredness of certain trees? The Bodhi tree does not seem to stand so much physically apart from all other trees as it does spiritually. To have been the one tree under which marvelous events occurred, what more could a tree wish for? A more comprehensive, a deeper, understanding of trees is required. Trees must be allowed a voice beyond their classification. Poetry, as we shall see, is such a possibility.
Many philosophers have likewise pointed out how strange this view of reason is; primarily because it begins its processing by severing our access to the world of living things. For it to work accurately and cleanly, it must begin by separating us form the world. This is a non-starter for many of us. This strangeness can be revealed as well in our modern maps. This type of reason is known in philosophical circles as “instrumental reason”: It has a complex history of its own connected to the rise of the new science defended by Bacon and Descartes. Among other things, when one speaks of instrumental rationality the idea is that we consider the means without thinking reflexively about the ends to which this means might lead us. Production must keep increasing even if there will in the end be nothing to produce with. We seem caught in this self-destructive dynamic. Underpinning this view of the world is the preponderance of a cost-benefit analysis and in general a utilitarian outlook to ourselves, others and nature. Taylor sums up the issue quite well:
“Instrumental reason has grown along with a disengaged model of the human subject, which has a great hold on our imagination. It offers an ideal picture of human thinking that has disengaged from its messy embedding in our bodily constitution, our dialogical situation, our emotions and our traditional forms of life in order to be pure, self-verifying rationality. This is one of the most prestigious forms of reason in our culture.“ (“The Ethics of Authenticity”, a MUST read for ANY artist, pg. 102)
Disengaging ourselves from trees, easily we topple them. We might say to ourselves: “They cannot engage in dialogue; so much the worse for them.”
To this position the Romantics, among many, revolted. They pointed out the dangers of this separation between humans and their natural world. Art became a way to bridge the disconnected parts which conformed a mechanical view of the universe. To make a very long story short, what has come out of such critiques is what is known as a stance called “Deep ecology”. This position stems from a reconsideration of what language reveals about ourselves and the world we inhabit. Under it, living things place a demand on us humans which moves us beyond our anthropocentrism into a view in which we “let things be”. In an article entitled “Heidegger, Buddhism and deep ecology”, Michael Zimmerman writes:
“Buddhism, Heidegger and Naess argue that puncturing the illusion of permanent selfhood would alleviate the infliction of such suffering by freeing one from the illusory quest for total control. Being liberated from the illusion of egocentrism also frees one from the spontaneous compassion towards other beings human and non-human alike. One ´lets things be´ not for any external goal, but instead simply from a profound sense of identification with all things” (pg 263-264)
It is not by chance that it is Buddhism which leads the way here. Siddhartha knew much about trees, or so it seems. Now, this perspective in itself is not without problems, but it stands as a powerful critique of the anthropocentric view which sees humans as dominators of nature, rather than as one of the highest expressive possibilities of the natural.
Deep ecology reconsiders seriously the role language plays in our relation to the world. Instead of using language to classify the world, words become the way to disclose things and allow them a voice beyond our own. Having language center exclusively on humans likewise makes it impossible to hear subtler languages which open humans to realities beyond their own anthropocentric paradigm. Our initial puzzle seems to have found a possible response. Although it is WE humans who have language, it is by changing the way we understand language, that we can hear the voice of the living things to which we belong. Something like this is what Taylor is trying to get at with the use of the term “epiphany”:
“what I want to capture with this term is just the notion of a work of art as the locus of a manifestation which brings us into the presence of something which is otherwise inaccessible, and which is of the highest moral or spiritual significance; a manifestation, moreover, which also defines or completes something, even as it reveals” (SotS pg 419)
Art in particular provides the human possibility in which epiphany can be realized. Perhaps now we are more prepared to listen to Quasimodo’s poem about a very unique tree.
5. A poem about a unique tree: “A Refuge of Nocturnal Birds”
Do forgive so many twists and turns. Now, finally, to Quasimodo’s complete poem. A Refuge of Nocturnal Birds, reads:
“High on a cliff there’s a twisted pine;
intently it listens into the abyss
with its trunk curved down like a crossbow.
A refuge of nocturnal birds,
in the deepest hours of midnight it resounds
with the swift fluttering of wings.
Even my heart has a nest
suspended into the darkness, and a voice;
it, too, lies awake listening at night.”
Let’s listen to it a stanza at a time. We must remain open to see what poetry can reveal and transform as it reveals. It reveals complexities, even if made up of the simplest of words. As few other arts can, it reaches origins.
.
First Stanza
“High on a cliff there’s a twisted pine;
intently it listens into the abyss
with its trunk curved down like a crossbow.”
The poem opens by distancing us from what appears is its main character. High on a cliff, far away, one sees a tree. But this tree is not just any tree. It could have been a maple, or a eucalyptus. But no. It is a pine. “Why a pine?,” you might ask. Only later shall we see. We must be patient and not skip the lines of the poem. We must not be hasty as Tolkien’s trees remind us. But then we puzzle a bit. This pine is no ordinary pine; it is instead, twisted. But tell me: have you ever seen a twisted pine? Aren’t pines the straightest of trees? Why does Quasimodo do this?
Perhaps that this special pine is twisted tells us something. It is a pine which has undergone a transformation. Its nature is no longer what other trees of its species take for granted. It has mutated. It stands out. And we imagine all other pines blushing somewhat at the sight of such abnormality. In contrast, Siddhartha would not have mocked this tree. .
Having described the tree and its location, we are now told what it actually DOES. Trees aren’t really the most active of creatures. But this tree is special. It is a listening tree. It listens with its twisted trunk. How does it listen? This tree listen INTENTLY. It is an intense twisted tree. What does it listen to? It listens to the abyss. It listen to the depths; to the depths of time and the darkness of origins.
And through the magic of words Quasimodo suddenly transports us from the distance on the high cliff afar, to a certain closeness to this tree. We are moved , with a few words, to focus on the shape of its trunk. The tree trunk provides the solidity of a tree’s very existence. Just remember the biological definition of trees. It is the trunk which holds the branches, not the other way around. Surely a tree without a trunk is like a person without a spinal chord. And this tree’s trunk has a special form; that of a crossbow. And we puzzle at Quasimodo’s choice of words. A crossbow for what? This pine intently listening is both a pine and a crossbow. Now we suddenly understand why it MUST be a pine. For a pine has the form of an arrow. This pine listening intently projects itself ready for flight as an arrow thrown from its very own being towards itself. But how can this be so? Have you ever seen a tree move? How can it move while remaining in its place? Trees seem to have a certain magic to them.
Second Stanza
“A refuge of nocturnal birds,
in the deepest hours of midnight it resounds
with the swift fluttering of wings.’
Quasimodo gives us pause to rethink what has happened. And while we do so, we return only to suffer a move towards the inside. This fantastic tree, shunned by other trees in their upright existence —–which does not mean this tree is not itself upright, only that it is so in a very different way— has a peculiar function. It is the tree chosen by the surrounding birds. It is a refuge for life. Bent, it can carry the birds which upright trees might not. These winged friends flock to it at night, when the light of day is gone and great perils arise. Waiting in time, probably remembering its own rings, suddenly this tree resounds in the darkest of moments. And we look carefully at Quasimodo’s choices upon the many which opened before him while writing. This tree “resounds”. Why not simply say that this tree “sounds”? Why emphasize that it RE-sounds. Perhaps because this tree has sounded before, and will sound again at midnight as long at it lives and there are humans to tell the story. Other trees seem soundless in comparison.
It resounds at a specific time; at the time in which much of night has gone by, and still much of night is still to come. One needs strength to survive until midnight and great hope to survive afterwards. For dusk is long past, and dawn is far away. How can we be sure dawn will in fact arrive? This tree has no songs of its own, though its rings have the memory of countless singing inhabitants it has outlasted. This unique tree resounds with the fluttering of wings. Swiftly the birds ——who take refuge in it as a home—– give it motion and musicality. Instead of simply lying asleep within the tree, they keep it close company. It is as if the birds —-in gratitude towards this special tree— want to take the crossbow which this twisted tree is, directly into flight. Unable to fly, this tree is now prepared, because of the presence of fluttering birds, to fly. For we are truly grateful to refuges; particularly to those refuges which took us in the midnight hours of our lives. Specially those refuges who gave us shelter based on the DIFFICULT maturity of true generosity. Grateful as Siddhartha must have been before he became another; a much better other.
Third Stanza
“Even my heart has a nest
suspended into the darkness, and a voice;
it, too, lies awake listening at night.”
And we catch our breath for we are heading towards the end. We began far way, only to enter into the very branches which hold these birds within. But now, suddenly, WE appear to ourselves for the very first time. The twisted tree OUT there in the cliff, the birds OUT there in the twisted tree, becomes the tree IN which WE live. We are not the tree, but we are close. Have you ever been close to a tree? Quasimodo tells us that even our hearts have a nest here. But we KNOW we are not birds If you have doubts, try to fly into the abyss. And yet, a bit like birds, we create our nests from the twigs and small branches of our lives. Furthermore, for Quasimodo the nest is not primarily for our brains, or legs; though it is ALSO nest for them. It is primarily a refuge for our hearts. This twisted tree is a refuge for artists who value our emotional human existence as a privileged way of accessing the world which surrounds us in constant immediacy.
Quasimodo is grateful as well; even HIS heart has a nest. This is why he shares this poem with us. He does not simply want a nest for himself, but rather a nest for US. But this nest, we are told, lies suspended. It lacks a firm grounding which guarantees total safety. Total and firm grounding is not a possibility for us moderns, as it was possible for earlier times. Our access to nature as moderns cannot have the grounding we once knew in earlier mythologies which allowed for a direct connection between trees and gods. We know of science and its understanding. This is why our nest lies suspended in the darkness. .A strong and compassionate refuge is required precisely in such times. It is in darkness that the generosity of shelter becomes a gift. Suspended in the darkness and close to the abyss, Quasimodo’s poem allows us to reconsider ourselves and our relation to the world of trees.
And then the MOST puzzling aspect of the poem appears as a lightning bolt. Quasimodo briefly adds “and a voice”. Not the tree’s voice. Not the birds’ voices. Not Quasimodo’s voice, for he could just as well have said “my” voice. And yet it is A voice. This voice does not have the presumptions of possession, but rather discloses, in the darkness, the possibility itself of a language in which things are freed unto themselves for us to hear them. And what does it say? Nothing; for our human voice may perhaps have said too much. Instead, it is open to the difficult activity of listening beyond our own speech. This voice is open to the disclosure of nature in the very words of the poem we are reading together.
In contrast to so many voices, this voice lies speechless; it awaits the time to speak, to open itself in renewed speech. It listens, as once the twisted tree we knew at the beginning of the poem did. Awakened, it has allowed this tree access to language. Our consciousness –liberated from pure instrumentality – becomes itself a crossbow which projects the tree as an arrow into the abyss. This voice, the voice of the poem itself, resounds ever again as we feel the pull to return to the beginning, to its origin. Perhaps in it, awake at night, we might feel the echoes of a faint refuge for us humans, specially of us artists. Instrumentality has seen the possibility of a depth beyond its dangerous limitations.
6. Conclusion
This has been, once again, a long journey. I am grateful if you have been a refuge to my weak words. Perhaps now we are more prepared to listen for calls which we might otherwise miss. Perhaps at least this call must be heard; the tree of life must be heard before we continue climbing up the tree of knowledge. For it seems we know much, but live well little. Perhaps together we are now better prepared to listen to Quasimodo’s deceptively simple words. Let’s listen intently:
A Refuge of Nocturnal Birds
“High on a cliff there’s a twisted pine;
intently it listens into the abyss
with its trunk curved down like a crossbow.
A refuge of nocturnal birds,
in the deepest hours of midnight it resounds
with the swift fluttering of wings.
Even my heart has a nest
suspended into the darkness, and a voice;
it, too, lies awake listening at night.”
(RIFUGIO D’UCCELLI NOTTURNI
In alto c’è un pino distorto;
sta intento ed ascolta l’abisso
col fusto piegato a balestra.
Rifugio d’uccelli notturni,
nell’ora più alta risuona
d’un battere d’ali veloce.
Ha pure un suo nido il mio cuore
Sospeso nel buio, una voce;
sta pure in ascolto, la notte. link )
Reflections: On the City, Graffiti and Property
Posted in literature, on graffiti, on poetry, on politics, philosophy, tagged amelo14, andresmelo, law, painting, politics, property, rarefaction, reflection, street art on May 17, 2005| Leave a Comment »
(Note: FOR AN ALMOST IDENTICAL PRESENTATION WHICH INCLUDES SOME PHOTOS, PLEASE SEE THE FOLLOWING: link )
On the City, Graffiti and Property
1. Introduction
There are indeed some journals one never thought one would ever write. This is one of those journals. It concerns the nature of street art in general, and that of graffiti and the issue of its legality in particular. Why ask this question, you might wonder. At a personal level I have, a bit to my surprise, found myself impressed by the works of graffiti one finds all over the gorgeous and welcoming city of Toronto. These are for the most part beautiful and complex works of art usually found in city spaces where an “artistic” atmosphere prevails; such is the case of famous Kensington Market. Talented artists have clearly left their mark, for the most part without upsetting the space of public institutions. But at a more general and political level, there is currently a “debate” within Toronto itself —between its political leaders and graffiti artists— regarding the very legality of graffiti. The fundamental question revolves around the question as to whether graffiti is a form of art which beautifies the city and expresses certain discontents among its citizens, or whether it is a criminal activity which damages the private property of citizens whose rights are in this manner trespassed without consent.
But the issue, I believe, goes beyond the status of the law. The impact of Graffiti is felt by the totality of citizens within a given city. Graffiti is out there to be seen, even if only in some neighborhoods. One need only recall the infamous Berlin Wall; hardly anyone would have denounced THAT graffiti. As a citizen of Toronto perhaps I myself might contribute to the debate. What can we learn from the constant appearance of graffiti in modern cities prone to the difficulties which overwhelm them at times; social inequalities, discrimination, pollution, bureaucratic indifference? What indeed could be learned by all citizens alike? It is my hypothesis that the best of Graffiti may teach us something about how we should reconsider our understanding of the role of private property in our society. In this respect one is led to ask what seems to be an utterly incredible question: can the love Graffiti artists show to the forgotten walls of the city, point to a different way of inhabiting our modern cities and of relating citizens to each other? This is the question to be considered here which, I repeat, necessarily move us beyond a mere consideration of the legality of graffiti. This journal is but a brief and inadequate attempt to deal with the complexity of the issue.
But first, I must let you have a taste of the graffiti which I have been photographing lately here in Toronto. I have only photographed a minimal amount —–for reasons some of you know— but it will help as a starter. This is an exercise in imagination, faculty crucial to the resolution of conflicts. Politicians may learn this from artists.
Toronto Graffiti
Now imagine yourself walking down a busy downtown area, underneath massive skyscrapers, and finding yourself suddenly impressed by the bluish tones of a sidewalk which has been taken over by a street artist which allows us to reflect on what sidewalks might be good for. What are sidewalks for? Obviously for walking; for safeguarding pedestrians in a world dominated by cars. But you would never know it from what the following street artist, with his exceptional ability, has brought to life. The sidewalk has become the temporary canvas for the appearance of heroes that govern the imagination of many. Batman and Batwoman arise as those heroes who safeguard precisely the common interest of an imaginary city; the conflict-ridden city of Gotham with all its evil Jokers. Check him out and be briefly humbled, let yourself be open to what this artist provides to our city without demanding much in return:
(For other examples see the graffiti found at Keele metro station, one of the subway stations here in Toronto: [link] )
Perhaps now you understand why I had the need to try to understand my attachment to these artists, though I myself know little of Graffiti and unfortunately could never paint one because of my lacking such amazing abilities. And of course, the issue in question regards ONLY great work by talented artists. We are not speaking here of simple tagging which merely destroys the very possibility of intelligent graffiti by truly creative and thought provoking artists.
And more importantly this walk generates an incisive question: whether Graffiti in particular allows for a reconsideration of the way we understand property rights. To put it very directly; would YOU allow for the presence of such art within your own private area? What would YOU do as political representative if your voters disliked graffiti? To this issue of property we will return below. But the issue of property rights goes beyond the issue of graffiti and therefore this argument might later be extended to other areas. You can think of the following debates: Windows vs. Linux and the GNU project; shareware vs. freeware applications (e.g. such as Photoshop vs. Gimpshop, Open Office vs. Microsoft Office, Pixia vs. Illustrator); ourmedia.org vs. privately owned media; and of course, decisively, political debates regarding the role of property in society and the question of just distribution.
2. The debate
2a. The law
As in all debates two sides deck it out. On the one hand, political representatives in multiple governmental agencies –usually at the level of cities—have sought to produce laws which portray graffiti as a criminal activity. One such example is provided by “New York’s Graffiti Laws”. As the law reads, in some excerpts provided below:
Ҥ 10-117. Defacement of property, possession, sale and display of aerosol spray paint cans, [and] broad tipped markers and etching acid prohibited in certain instances. (my emphasis)
a. No person shall write, paint or draw any inscription, figure or mark of any type on any public or private building or other structure or any other real or personal property owned, operated or maintained by a public benefit corporation, the city of New York or any agency or instrumentality thereof or by any person, firm, or corporation, or any personal property maintained on a city street or other city-owned property pursuant to a franchise, concession or revocable consent granted by the city, unless the express permission of the owner or operator of the property has been obtained (my emphasis)……
§145.05 … a person is guilty of criminal mischief in the third degree when with the intent to damage property of another person, and having no right to do so …. (for the compete law see: “ [link]
This law as well establishes the creation of an “Anti-Graffiti Task Force” whose purpose is to clean the city of graffiti. It: ”assesses the scope and nature of the City’s graffiti problem, examines the effectiveness of existing provisions of law aimed at curbing graffiti vandalism and proposes amendments to strengthen such legislation. (Title 10 § 117.1)”
Now it would be fine and well if we could just destroy the law and consider it simply an arrogant proposition by the citizens who question graffiti, many of whom I am sure are not simply rich folk. But this is a dangerous and self-destructive proposition. Again, just imagine if you —if you indeed own a property— were to see graffiti on YOUR walls. I think at least two things should be pointed out from the law so as to curve the passion and anger of some artists. One the one hand, it clearly specifies that it is applicable “in certain instances”. But the issue is whether politicians, or for that matter the police, are artistically educated so as to judge in which instances Graffiti has in fact broken, or not, this law. A second concern might be that of older graffiti which has already been painted without consent; in New York some have had to actually erase their work if they cannot find the owners who once consented. Perhaps in this case the solution might be to ease the legislation retroactively.
The third problem the law states is much more important, it clearly specifies that the central issue is the damaging of private property. It is against the law to “damage property of another person, and having no right to do so.” Of course, defenders of Graffiti might point out that in many cases, and herein lies a deep irony, they have been asked to paint the very walls which have become their canvases in truly forgotten neighborhoods. One need only recall that Canadian commercial in which an inner city school is compared to jail because of its lack of green spaces, among many other lacks. But isn’t the law blind to a certain reality which street art expresses? Isn’t this particular law somewhat blind as to the more positive role Graffiti may play within a society in crisis? Will erasing walls erase the malaise? Isn’t it clear that some owners may actually want graffiti on their grounds, as is clear from walking around places such as Kensington Market?
2b. The position of one Graffiti artist: Zephyr
[link]
Zephyr, a well-known artist from New York, expresses great concern in a defense he wrote against the city law. I would simply like to point out the idea that Graffiti artists are extremely talented artists, not simply wall painters from a hardware store. If you want to have your house painted, well that almost anyone can do; but to have an engaging mural done, well that very few can do well. These are some of Zephyr’s words:
“The attacks on the graffiti “muralists” is probably the most troubling and disturbing new twist to an already frightening situation. These modern-day Picassos specialize in multi-artist, and sometimes multi-day, productions. Elaborate masterpieces replete with scenes, figures and symbolism. Huge sprawling paint jobs that can run full city blocks. The neighborhoods where they’re most common are neighborhoods where they’re most welcome. Take, for example, the South Bronx. The local communities embrace and protect many of the “graffiti murals” painted there. Many of the works inspire joy and unity-and represent how a simple gesture with the right energy is capable of manifesting a measurable positive transformation on. It is this ability for communities of color to empower themselves through public art, that poses a threat to the racist regime of the Giuliani administration. The right for a community to paint their own neighborhood falls outside this mayor’s fascist rules of “appropriate behavior.” [link]
His acute argumentation is clear. Graffiti artists are amazing artists. This I have tried to portray myself above. However, the very language in which the position is expressed —–allusions to “racist regime” and “fascist rules”—– can only deepen the suspicion of authorities. In this respect both parties can polarize the debate only to the detriment of them both and, specially to the citizens themselves. Much more can and should be said in defense of graffiti and public art, but instead I would like to focus on the question of property itself. (Source of the debate: the incredibly instructive and “featured” article in wikipedia: [link] )
3) Some brief considerations on Graffiti and property
One of the roles of Socratic political philosophy, perhaps the single most important one, is to curb anger. The violence which ensues from enraged parties ruins cities, and even nations. Anger may disrupt the political as no other deeply ingrained emotion can. One need look at my dear Colombia. A political philosopher might aid in reaching alternative positions which may broaden the debate. This is why I want to focus on an issue dear to me as a political philosopher, the question of property.
Since the fortunate, and long awaited fall of communism, the idea of collective property has been shown to be a dangerous and illusory proposition. Stalin was, is and will be a nightmare; as was foreseen by Plato over 2000 years ago. In my dear Colombia, the FARC (infamous Guerrilla forces who tag the walls of my beautiful Bogotá) have not received the message yet. So it seems the permanence of private property has been shown to be crucial to the stability of a functioning society. In general, one could say that there are two broad models of the role private property might have in a given political society. They are not mutually exclusive, but require a certain degree of balancing out for the good of the political community. In this sense there might be two very broad and ideal models for private property. I will call one, the “inward looking” view of property, and the second, the “outward looking” view of private property.
3a. The “inward looking” view of private property
Historically one could consider the work of John Locke as the basis for this perspective on property. It is the founding conception of modern views on the role of property within political society. To put it as briefly as possible, the emergence of modernity goes hand in hand with a given comprehension of private property and the role of the individual with respect to its accumulation and utility. Under this view of private property, emphasis is placed not only on the fact that the property is radically MINE, but in a more radical development, that I am free to do in the private sphere as I desire. We have grown so accustomed to this view that it is hardly seen as problematic, except of course, by those who lack the very private property defended by our liberal societies. It is to something like this conception of property that the political leaders against Graffiti hearken because they obviously see street artists as trespassing what is a fundamentally the possession of each individual citizen. The political sphere, and specially the law and its enforcement organisms, are there precisely to safeguard our private rights. It is therefore no surprise to see graffiti as a criminal activity. The law is clear; graffiti damages the property either of private citizens or of the city itself bent on safeguarding the security of its citizens. And I bet that even graffiti artists will defend this view of property when their own property is actually abused by others. For example, if there were a break in at a graffiti artists’ house, I am pretty sure he/she would call 911.
I say this view of property is “inward looking” for it seems to promote, in a disproportionate manner, the defense of the private over the role of the public; the ‘mine’ overruns the ‘ours’. Contrast the ideal view of healthcare in the US and Canada to have a feel for this. The radicalization of this view can be easily seen in many examples of unquestioned practices which have become normal for us: the impossibility of generating carpooling in North America where possessing a car is the mark of freedom (not to mention in Toronto the lack of funding for PUBLIC transportation), the inward separation of the house into ever more private and inward looking spaces (one constantly hears in North America that young people argue: this is MY room.), the constant search for MY space in interpersonal relationships, a blind eye towards the homeless as radically unsuccessful citizens precisely because they have not been able to create the conditions for a private home(thus burdening individual tax payers who have lost sight of the sense of the whole), the flight to the suburbs where privacy is the dream, and finally, the dismissal of claims of property from Native Americans (see for example James Tully’s powerful Strange multiplicity .)
3b. The “outward looking” view of private property
But there are other traditions of political thought besides this liberal Lockean one. Very briefly, and in very general terms, one could call this view the “outward looking” conception of private property. One could say it is best expressed originally by Aristotle. (See his Politics Book II; a text which lays the foundation for an understanding of the city and its citizens as no other). In discussing private property he argues that the best of possible worlds would be one in which property were actually possessed privately, but could be used publicly.
This view is “outward looking” for, although it likewise safeguards the possession of private property for individual citizens and their families, it nonetheless seeks to reactivate certain interpersonal ties amongst citizens; the ties of generosity and friendship without which a community may not generate the best of conditions for its excelling over others. Under this view, the radical privatization of citizens may lead to the overall malaise of the society of which they themselves are part. Think again of the rush to the suburbs and the creation of inner cities; a problematic which has slowly been changing as a more conscious model of the interrelation of citizens has been taken up. In a sense, politically speaking, we are of the city, rather the city simply being for us. It is in this respect that the city I was born in, Bogotá, has become a model for the developing capitals of the world. This is due to its civic education model, its concern for the public space, and its demand for a redressing of class inequalities. (exemplified in its model public transportation system ––called Transmilenio—, its gorgeous public libraries, and its Sunday bike day where millions take over the city street in bikes). The city as a whole becomes healthier, beautified and populated by better citizens capable of taking on –as intelligent and alert citizens should– a questioning perspective.
Now, if all this is even partially true, then graffiti allows us to
break down the usual way of perceiving property simply as that which is my own. Mothers may teach us to share as kids; but they seem to be fighting a loosing battle in our society. Street artists, I repeat, particularly the great ones— seek to make art become public at the very edge where the private meets the public. By placing their work at this border (the wall is private, but the message is public) they call our attention to the dilemmas previously noted. They might just be reminding us that the city is more than the sum of its individual houses and privatized walls.
To rephrase it; what seems to be terribly uncomfortable about graffiti is that it lies in a privately-owned wall, but its expression is simultaneously meant to grab the attention of ANY public citizen walking the city streets. Now, if our society is one which concerns itself simply with an “inward looking” view of private property, then of course, graffiti is seen ONLY as damaging and criminal. But if our society recognizes the value of private property, AND AT THE SAME TIME concedes that our modern malaise may lie precisely in not having concerned itself with other possible, and perhaps more “generous” relations to property, then the common interest of the city and its good may start to become a central concern for us all. Graffiti in this respect would be both pointing to the tension and to its solution, for it beautifies the whole city by giving expression to an “outward looking” perspective of property which might provide the conditions for the good of many, if not all.
4. Conclusion
To conclude, perhaps the debate can become more interesting and open-minded if both parties recognize the different view of property they emphasize. In this respect the city has every right to protect its citizens from unwanted graffiti; and at the same time graffiti artists must seek to convince other citizens to allow for the creation of their paintings in the shared public space. The crucial problem is with that graffiti which already exists; those works must be looked and assessed by dealing with each particular case to see which stays and which goes. Graffiti artists must be willing to take the time to argue for some of their creations. For instance, the graffiti at “Keele station” is now a landmark; this is also true of the work found in unique and historical “Kensington market”. Others might go, and yet others might stay. And perhaps those who know the city well –usually dedicated politicians— can provide artists with other spaces to express themselves and reach out to the community. (Of course, sending the best of graffiti artists to an “indoor” warehouse does not work, precisely because the issue is the outward looking public space; however, this might help for aspiring graffiti artists who want to practice their skills.)
In sum, this journal has tried to understand —-at least in small part and by someone who is neither a politician nor a graffiti artist—- the debate over graffiti and its possible positive role within our cities. By letting ourselves be open to its appearance, it reminds us of possibilities regarding our own unquestioned understandings of property which might make of our cities, and of us involved citizens —the very life of cities— much more outward-looking, solidarity-prone and generous beings. In this respect, perhaps the street artist AND the city may find some common ground from which to resolve their impasse in favor of the benefit, not of this or that faction, but of the community as a whole. Will we be able to find our common interest, acknowledge it, and work to understand the basis from which each position springs? Or, will we make the problematic idea presented by Plato —expelling the poets from the city—a reality in the 21st century?
Reflections: Aristophanes’ speech in Plato’s Symposium
Posted in literature, on Aristophanes, on comedy, on eros, on Plato, on poetry, on politics, on Socrates, on Symposium, philosophy, tagged amelo14, andresmelo, Aristophanes, comedy, eros, on Socrates, philosophy, Plato, rarefaction, reflection, Symposium on March 11, 1996| 1 Comment »
ARISTOPHANES’ SPEECH IN PLATO’S SYMPOSIUM: A presentation
1) SITUATING THE SPEECH
Just as Socrates covers up his physical ugliness through his unusual use of “fancy slippers” (174a), so Aristophanes covers up the tragic nature of his brief speech on the nature of human erotic longing with the temporary soothing elements of comic myth. In this sense Ar. shares, as we shall see, Freud’s own pessimism regarding the search for human happiness through a life centered fundamentally on the erotic intermingling between lovers. For Freud, as we already know, “the weak side of this technique of living is easy to see … it is that we are never so defenceless against suffering as when we love, never so helplessly unhappy as when we have lost our loved object or its love” (CiD, 270). But before looking more closely at the way this pessimism finds expression in Aristophanes’ speech, we must seek to briefly situate the comedian’s words within the whole of the Platonic dialogue. In doing so we should keep in mind the fact that it is not Aristophanes the author of The Clouds who speaks, but rather Plato appropriating the comedian’s way of life for his own purposes.
That this concern is central in trying to understand the comic’s speech can be clearly seen in that Ar. is mysteriously silenced by Plato at different crucially climatic points of the dialogue. The first of these occurs just after Socrates has finished recollecting Diotima’s complex words concerning the possibility of an ascent to “the beautiful in itself”. Diotima’s speech not only explicitly mentions and rejects Aristophanes’ myth ———due to its distancing itself, allegedly, from the goodness of the lovers involved (206d-e)——– but also involves a starting point in the ascent that stands in outright conflict with the comedian’s understanding of what is involved in the erotic interrelation between lovers. For Diotima the initiate in erotic understanding “first of all … must love one body and there generate beautiful speeches. Then he must realize that the beauty that is in any body whatsoever is related to that in another body; and if he must pursue the beauty of looks, it is great folly not to believe that the beauty of all bodies is one and the same. And with this realization he must be the lover of all beautiful bodies and in contempt slacken this erotic intensity for only one body, in the belief that it is petty” (210a). For the Diotimian lover the uniquely beautiful body of the loved one is not only interchangeable with others, but is linked to a kind of brutishness unworthy of those engaged in ascending towards “higher ground” (and those who believe this bodily interchangeability is not so problematic, must grapple with the fact that it also holds for the individual soul of that human being which we love as no other (210d)). Now, what is extremely suspicious from the stance of the defender of Ar.’s speech lies in that, once Socrates has finished speaking, we learn that the comedian does not only NOT praise it, but moreover is just about to speak when Plato silences his reservations via the entrance of the bodily beautiful and drunken Alcibiades. (212c). Perhaps Alcibiades’ speech will retake elements of Ar.’s myth, but perhaps too Alcibiades will not fully express the comedian’s deepest reservations. Now, however that may turn out to be, it is likewise suspicious that towards the end of the dialogue Plato once again is quick to silence Ar. In the culminating conversation between Ar., Agathon and Socrates, conversation in which the latter is trying to “compel” (223d) the other two to admit that the tragic poet is also a comic poet, Ar. , by the magical hand of the author, is the first to be “put to sleep”. Socrates, in contrast, goes on sleepless to the Lyceum. How to understand this? Is their a hierarchy between the different speeches, Socrates’ being the culminating one? Does Socrates speech take up and complete Ar.’s, just as Pausanias claimed to complete Phaedrus’? Does Ar.’s speech present itself not as a dialectical “stepping stone” for what is to follow, but rather as a sort of broken bridge which divides two different ways of living one’s erotic life? Could one then not say that Ar. sleeps first for he somehow knows that his speech has already accomplished what Socrates is trying him to compel him to admit, namely, that comedy and tragedy are two sides of a circle eternally split for us humans who are continually torn between the bitterness of tears and the sweetness of laughter.
The competition between Socrates, who is characterized by his ‘strangeness’ (215a), ‘outrageousness’ (175c) and ‘oddness’ (175a), and Ar., is further made clear by the starting point each takes up in order to the clarify our erotic involvements. While Socrates, unlike in the Apology, claims to have “perfect knowledge of erotics” —— a knowledge expressed not by him but by Diotima (177d) ——– Ar. speaks from his own personal, perhaps lived-through, opinion (189c) (although it is also important to remember that Ar., of all the speakers, is the only not paired with any other as lover to beloved). Moreover, both speakers seems to hold allegiance to very different gods. Socrates lets us know that Ar.’s “whole activity is devoted to Dionysius and Aphrodite” (177d). Ar. is concerned with two very particular Olympians: on the one hand Dionysius, the only god who knows of death and a subsequent rebirth, the god of wine and music (music being “exiled” from the dialogue, while wine is “moderated”), the god of excess which Agathon calls upon to judge the rivalry between him and Socrates (175e), and on the other hand, Aphrodite, the beautiful goddess of delicate feet born asexually from the genitals of Uranus after having been conquered by Cronos, the goddess who commits adultery with Ares, god of war, and is made to pay for it by Hephaestus, to whom we shall return. (It is noteworthy that Ar. seems to avoid Pausanias’ clever and complex split between the Uranian and Pandemian Aphrodites, a split which leads to controverial dualities such as those of beloved/lover, passive/active, body/mind and, their social expression in conventional roles such as those of the “machismo/marianismo” dichotomy in a Latin American context). These two gods, which are mysteriously absent from Ar.’s speech itself, stand in outright contrast to the Apollinian values of self-knowledge and moderation, values which partly characterize the behaviour of Socrates.
Aristophanes’ linkage to the love of wine, and thus to Dionysius, is made clear from the very line which marks his entrance. Celebrating Agathon’s victory he drank not moderately, but rather like a human sponge, taking in so much that he has become completely soaked. (176b). Aristophanes is not by any means a measured Athenian gentleman. His disordering presence becomes even more evident precisely when his turn to speak arrives. If Socrates rudely interrupts by his bodily inacitivity the dinner to which he is invited (174d), Ar. rudely interrupts by his bodily activity the original order of the speeches. Just when Pausanias has finished his sophisticated speech on pederasty, Ar. reveals that hiccups have gotten the best of him. Hiccups, we are mysteriously told, due to “satiety or something else” (perhaps wine?) (185d). Eryximachus, the physician who had played a key role both in ordering the whole banquet (177d), and in moderating the dangerous effects of wine (176d), sets out to cure the poor comedian’s sudden illness. Medicine rescues the comedian by putting forward the strongest of cures known to hiccuping, the soaking outbursts of sneezing. Once Eryximachus’ “doctoral” speech come to an end (presumably with Ar. hiccuping and sneezing throughout), the comedian ironically challenges the doctor’s claims to understanding the nature and erotics of the body. He says: “so I wonder at the orderly decency of the body, desiring such noises and garglings as a sneeze is; for my hiccuping stopped right away as I applied the sneeze to it” (189c). That Ar. is not by any means thanking his doctor, is made evident by the laughter of all those present; a laughter which comes into conflict with the seriousness of the doctor who fights back by way of an aggressive challenge. Eryximachus will become the guardian of comedy; “you did have the chance to speak in peace”, he tells Ar. (189b). The comic poet becomes now the doctor who must cure the excessive anger which bursts easily from the moderate physician. Ar. seeks a truce (as in his work Peace), claiming to want to start from the beginning: “let what has been said be as if it were never spoken” (189b). (An apology which seems to imply that the previous speeches have somehow gone wrong.) Eryximachus, in turn, demands that the poet give a rational account (‘logos’) of eros; a demand which, if fulfilled, would reduce the speech of the comic to pure silence. Ar. will speak in another vein, it is one which involves story-telling, imaginative interaction and poetic creativity; much the same things we feel are neccesary in speaking about one’s love for that other who makes us feel “head over heels”. Finally, the comedian shares with us his one big fear; Ar. is not afraid of saying laughable things, that is to say, things which can be shared by all of us who somehow feel ourselves identified with what is said —–things which, besides, represent a gain for the poetic Muse (189c)—— but he is afraid of saying things that are “laughed at”, that is to say, things from which we think we can distance ourselves and judge from a higher plane than that of our vulnerable and tragic condition (189b).
2) ASPECTS OF THE SPEECH
At the outset I argued that Freud and Ar. investigate the viability and shortcomings of the highly risky human possibility which centers the attainment of happiness on a radical emphasis in the life of erotic sharing between two individuals. But besides this similarity, what is more amazing still, is that we find in Freud a passage in which he makes us recollect Ar.’s own mythological comprehension of the power of Eros in our lives. For Freud: “ a pair of lovers are sufficient to themselves, …… in no other case does Eros so clearly betray the core of his being, his purpose of making one out of more than one … (thus) we can imagine quite well a cultural community consisting of double individuals like this, who libidinally satisfied in themselves, are connected with one another through the bonds of common work and common interests …. but this desirable state of things does not, and never did, exist” (CiD, 298). For Ar., once upon a time, such state did “exist”, and his story stands as imaginative “proof”. It is a story which allows us to re-’collect’ the genesis of human erotic longing. Only through its understanding can we come closer to comprehending that force in us which strives to reach out for another’s physical and psychical partnership.
The brevity of the speech stands in stark contrast with its complexity. Too many issues are brought together and unfortunately, I cannot, nor know how to, deal with many of them. Therefore, I propose first to put forward some questions regarding a few of the most relevant aspects within the myth, and second, to zero-in more closely on one of these aspects, namely, the central issue which links Ar. to Freud’s ‘community of double individuals’..
Some of the questions one could consider in trying to begin to understand the comic speech by Ar. are: i) Why are the circular gods of nature ——– the sun, the earth and finally the moon as intermediary between both—— gods from which the circular beings are born (male, female, androgynous respectively) (190b), quickly transformed into the anthropomorphic gods of Olympus whose origin is not even discussed (190c)? How to understand the needy nature of the Olympic gods (particularly Zeus) who wisely, after being perplexed, come to realize that by destroying the circular race of protohumans they will end up destroying their ‘other half’, namely, the one which honours and praises them? Is the Zeus mentioned here identical with the Olympian Zeus of tradition? And if so, then why so much emphasis on his deliberation (190c), his perplexity and his pity (191b)? Moreover, why, if Socrates has told us that Ar.’s god’s are Dionysius and Aphrodite, do precisely these gods not appear in the mythical narration of the genesis of eros and our permanent illness? Furthermore, why is Zeus made to speak three times in the present “says” (190c), “supplies” and “rearranges” (191b), while the rest of his speech is in the past? Does this imply, as in Freud, that somehow the process of civilization, although comprehensible to a certain extent regressively, is nevertheless a process which has constituted us in a radically imperfect and incomplete way, a process that is, in other words, ‘here to stay’? Finally, is the process of what Ar. considers the unjust splitting up by Zeus, a split which seems to link sexuality to shamefulness, comparable to the “unjust” process of religion in Freud’s own perspective, a process which links sexuality to guilt? How could one link this new reference to shame, to the shame of the lovers of honour which one finds in Phaedrus’ speech? ; ii) How to understand the fact that the circular beings, who seem complete in themselves, nevertheless are, from their very mysterious conception, made to lack something so that they are taken over by “proud thoughts” which make them try to overturn, not the natural gods, but the anthropomorphic gods of Olympus (190b)? How do they end up getting this overwhelming desire for power into their heads in the first place? And if not their own fault, then why are they punished for something which presumably is not in their power to modify? Moreover, what is one to make of the status of the ‘androgynous’ original kind which has mysteriously disappeared, leaving only its reproachable name behind (189e)? Is it reproachable, not for Ar. who in the Lysistrata reaches peace through a Panhellenic strike of wives, but for the Greeks in general due to their view that men are superior to women? Could one link this ‘androgynous’ type to Freud’s views on bisexuality, particularly as it finds expression in each individual?; iii) How can we understand Ar.’s intention of including in his speech a concern for all human beings by focusing on human nature in general (189c-d, 190d, 191c-d), and not just a few who have the ‘real’ key to loving? Does not Ar. then miss the fact that loving IS somehow or other inevitably linked to the customs (‘nomos’) within which it develops; so that for instance loving between Canadians, Latin Americans and Japanese is really quite different?; iv) What is the relationship between the, ironic, yet serious reference Ar. makes to pederasty as the only activity which prepares men to political office, but does so by setting aside the very procreation of the species and thus endangering the very subsistence of the city (192a)?; v) Is Diotima’s critique concerning the ethical nature of lovers one that radically undermines Ar.’s position? (For instance, we think there is something odd in saying that Eva Brown was the ‘other half’ of Adolf Hitler) Moreover, don’t we conceive of lovers likewise as somehow seeking out to become friends in terms of character?; and finally, vi) given that each half of the circular beings, I think, must have been generated simultaneously in time, and that in their original form they each had their own set of everything, except for the head which was shared by the two opposing faces, could one not then somehow link these creatures to Freud’s notion of narcissim by looking at the following passage in which he discusses the relationship between love and hypnosis: “we see that the object is being treated in the same way as our own ego, so that when we are in love a considerable amount of narcissitic libido overflows onto the object. It is even obvious, in many forms of love-choice, that the object serves as a substitute for some unattained ego ideal of our own. We love it on account of the perfections which we have striven to reach for our own ego, and which we should now like ro procure in this roundabout way as a means of satisfying our narcissim.” (GP, 143). (one could also look at the Phaedrus (252e) where the beloved becomes a mirror image of us, a divine mirror image that is) Would one not have to consider then the complex relation between self-love and the love of others?
Not having the space, nor the understanding to even start to provide some answers to these questions, I would like instead to focus now on Ar.’s claim that the power of Eros lies in its providing us with the greatest possible happiness any human being could ever expect to achieve in this world. As he puts it: “Eros is the most philanthropic of gods, the helper of human beings as well as a physician dealing with an illness the healing of which would result in the greatest happiness for the human race” (189c-d)”. According to Ar. we humans can allegedly reach happiness via erotic involvement, but it seems, not just with anybody. Eros represents this regressive possibility by allowing us to catch a glimpse of our ancient nature (also, but differently, Phaedrus 250 ff). Unlike the tragic results of the first operation by Zeus, operation which culminated in the painful death of the two newly severed parts which were left to cling unto each other, dying “due to hunger and the rest of thier inactivity, because they were unwilling to do anything apart from one another” (191b), (a reminder of the cicadas in the Phaedrus (259b)), for us who are the “beneficiaries” of the second more complex Apollinian operation, sexuality has been brought to the fore. Having placed the genitals, the “shameful things” in Greek, in the front (191b), we can move beyond clinging by now engaging in sexual activity. Through the latter the previous oneness can be, only temporarily for sure, remembered once again. Eros’ power allows this, and it is because of it that we must thank, praise and sacrifice to this god’s, usually taken for granted, divine presence (189c). But sexual interaction with just anyone will not lead to the happiness which reminds us of our past protohuman “fulfillment”. We must permanently search for that other who matches the jagged features of our patched up bodies (191a). Eros is then “the bringer-together of their (that is to say, ‘our’) ancient anture, who tries to make one of two and to heal their (that is to say, ‘our’) human nature. Each of us is a token (‘symbolon’) of a human being ….. and so each is always in search of his own token” (191d). Ever since we become old enough to feel the erotic longing for another’s patches, we turn into permanent seekers of what in Spanish we call “mi otra media naranja”, that is to say, that “my other half-orange” who will complete our fruit like original nature in which we ressembled the natural gods. The Greeks here preferred to speak of apples (190e).
And if ever we are so lucky as to be allowed by Eros to find that other who strikes us wondrously with friendship and erotic love to the point that, now, we “are unwilling to be apart from one another even for a short time” (192c), then human bliss seems to reach its highest possible peak. The other’s presence modifies one’s own self-perception and that of the world in a way in which both are mutually enriched; we feel ourselves enhanced in a world which suddenly opens itself to new, previously unseen, possibilities. Nietzsche captures this optimism beautifully: “the lover is more valuable, is stronger …. his whole economy is richer than before, more powerful, more complete than in those who do not love. The lover becomes a squanderer, he is rich enough for it. Now he dares, he becomes an adventurer, becomes an ass in magnanimity and innocence; he believes in god again. He believes in virtue because he believes in love; and on the other hand this happy idiot grows wings and new capabilities, and even the door of art is opened to him” (WtP #808) (The very same wings that the lover of the Phaedrus will grow in one of the most beautiful passages of all the Platonic dialogues (255ff.))
But unlike Nietzschean optimism, Ar. and Freud seem to have reservations. Freud, as I have said from the outset, centers his critique on the loss of the beloved. Ar., though aware of this danger, provides a more devastating critique by looking at the problematic functioning of erotic desire itself. The lucky lovers who are finally able to reach each other, presumably following several painful misses and rather uncomfortable fits ——— for Ar. makes it clear that this reunion is not what normally happens at present (193b) ———- these lucky lovers nevertheless seem to desire something more. This something, Ar. jokingly says, one could not conceivably take it simply to be the delight of sexual intercourse with that other half which seems to fit, ‘just right’, in yourself: “as though it were for this reason —-of all things—– that each so enjoys being with the other… but the soul of each wants something else” (192c) But that ellusive ‘something else’ which the soul of each wants for him/herself, that cannot be easily put into words. Just as it so happens when one is asked why one loves his/her, hopefully, ‘real’ other half, there comes a point where you cannot quite “explain”, and instead just feel like saying, “Can’t you see why?, well that is really odd”.
Nevertheless Ar. challenges this silence, the same silence which Plato forces on him, by providing us with a riddle to be solved. The riddle, like Oedipus’, concerns humans, but unlike the King’s, Ar.’s concerns a dilemma which is brought to light by looking at our desiring nature. The riddle is spoken by yet another Olympian god, Hephaestus, the weak god of fire and crafts/arts (techne). It is he who chained Aphrodite and Ares for having committed adultery; chaining them, not to bring them eternal bliss, but rather eternal boredom. Hephaestus seems, tragically, to seek welding as punishment (Od 315). This god is made to ask us humans what we really want out of love, and, just as Zeus was perplexed with the attitude of the circular beings, so we humans stand perplexed by Hephaestus’ question (192d). He must therefore not only rephrase the question, but very directly answer it in doing so. Would we not really desire just to become one once again, our belly wrinkles giving way to a stronger sphericity? What more lovely than reaching this “golden state” capable even of denying the individual death of its members, so that even “in Hades you (that is to say, we) would be together one instead of two?” (192e). Would this not be the ultimate happiness, that which involved a shared immortality?
The riddle, and riddles one would think are so because they are, presumably, very difficult to answer, is to our perplexity immediately answered in the affirmative. It seems as though nothing would be more desirable for us, ill halves, than to permanently rejoin that other whom Eros has granted us, finally, to reach. However, we should remember that even the protohumans though fused to their extremities, nonetheless did not seem to have seen themeselves as part of a Paradise in which nothing was lacking. Even human sphericity finds itself lacking, striving to move beyond its original condition. Oneness reaches beyond itself, although of course it reaches out more powerfully with four arms, four legs, not just two of each. And moreover, what distinguishes our humanity lies precisely in that, like it or not, we will forever remain as halves in constant search for that which we lack. Desire flourishes precisely due to this incompleteness which moves us beyond ourselves. The feverish conditions which evolve out of the absence of the loved one seem to move in the same direction. If Hephaestus’ riddle were not only answered in the affirmative, but actually set in place, our human condition as we know it, fragile and ill as it may be, would come to a permanent end. Letting Hephaestus do his work would turn out to be a punishment much severer than that of Zeus who intended to break us down once more, leaving us “hopping on one leg” ( 190d). Seeking to become spherical again requires the death of Eros’ presence in our lives. And Ar. hints to this towards the end of his speech in a paragraph which links past, present and future possibilities: “our race would be happy if we were to bring our love to a consummate end, and each of us were to get his own favorite on his return to his ancient nature. And if this is the best, it must necesarrilly be the case that, IN PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES, that which is closest to it is the best; and that is to get a favorite whose nature is to one’s tastes” (193c) (here a specific reference to the pederasts, but shedding light, I believe, into all the different kinds of relationships). Ar. qualifies his appeal to a return to oneness by continually using the hypothetical ‘if’, as in ‘if this is the best’. But as I have argued this undoubtedly is not the best desirable course for us humans to take. Our present circumstances cannot be done away with, no matter how hard we imagine ourselves to have been otherwise. At best we should seek out to reach the sweetness of that other who allows the growth of those beautiful wings characteristic of the highest kind of lovers in the Phaedrus (251e); but, at the same time bitterly knowing, or perhaps feeling, full well that Eros’ presence immediately sets us humans in the web of a dilemma which maybe Sophocles, a tragedian, can better help us to understand. Eros is like ice, we delight in having it, yet its presence is a reminder of a painful reality, that of our constant neediness:
“Like children that beneath a frosty heaven
Snatch in their eagerness at icicles
(First they are ravished with this latest toy;
Yet soon they find it hurts their hands to hold
That icy thing; and yet how hard to drop it!)
Even such are lovers too, when what they love
Tears them between ‘I would not’ and ‘I would’” (Lucas, 224)
Reflections: Tracing desire’s traces in Camus, a conceptual exercise
Posted in literature, on Camus, on eros, on language, on poetry, tagged amelo14, andresmelo, art, camus, conceptual, eros, language, philosophy, rarefaction, reflection on December 5, 1995| 2 Comments »
INTRODUCTION
In the Myth of Sisyphus Camus retraces Hamlet’s famous words: “the play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king”. The murdering king’s bloody desire for power must be uncovered, and a play within a play will allow this. Camus is also, like Hamlet, keen on desiring to catch and uncover. This can be seen in our tracing anew his commentary on the words by Ophelia’s vanishing lover: “‘Catch’ is indeed the word. For conscience moves swiftly or withdraws within itself. It has to be caught on the wing at that barely perceptible moment when it glances fleetingly at itself” (MoS, 77). Conscience eludes us, and yet we desire to get hold of it, somehow. Conscience is a task, not a given; it is there, but it is not.
Eros, for the Greeks, was much like this. It too moves in flight: “flutters its wings amongst the birds of air” (Sophocles, Love, fr 855, Lucas 224). We humans of course do not fly. And this perhaps it is why desire is so hard to ‘catch’: “as a sweet apple turns read on a high branch/ high on the highest branch and the applepickers forgot —-/well, no they didn’t forget — were unable to reach” (Carson quotes Sappho, 26). Eros and Camusian conscience both evade us as soon as we attempt to ‘catch’ them. They are like red apples we cannot really bite, and yet we yearn to taste their sweetness.
Writing a concept trace has to do a lot with all this. To leave a trace is to leave marks, a sign of something’s presence. But the marks stand there as a memory, what left the trace in the first is long gone. And we long for it; if not, then why trace it in the first place? And so we set out to trace that which left its footsteps, or better, its wing-marks. For this particular quest we reach out to the vestiges of desire as it traverses Camus’ lyrical philosophy.
But to trace, we ought to remember, is not only to follow, or to track down. To trace can be like the hunter; but we do not want to hunt, that is, catch in death. Hunters seem to be fond of stones. But stones leave no traces, for they neither walk nor fly. (Stones are truly not ruins, like the ruins at Tipasa). To trace can also refer to a much simpler innocent act that, as children, we repeated again and again and again. To trace refers also to the act of drawing or copying with lines or marks. To trace, then, is to recopy. I set out then to recopy Camus’ words, listening intently for the appearance of such an elusive force as is desire, the Greek Eros. In this sense to trace is truly to plagiarize. And plagiarizing is not only always inevitable and desirable, but, it can, if done properly, also be liberating. Besides, plagiarizing Camus is remembering him again and again and again. And this is something to be desired.
Our search along desires’ vestiges in Camus’ marks and lines will proceed in triangular fashion: i) by providing the general location of desire within it, albeit, given that this is just a tracing, briefly, incompletely, and sketchily, ii) by giving some specific locations in the work by referring to some pages where desire has been “caught” in words, pages which I will copy once again, that is trace, as I did as a child, and iii) by letting desire have its play through the desire to question which we feel governs us. Questions born out of desire as fragile sketches.
TRACING THE TRACES
I. CALIGULA
i) General location
a) Drusilla’s death is the death of a loved one. Besides it is the death of a desired sister. Loss here is at once erotic and filial. Caligula’s refusal to face this desire as truly relevant.
b) Caligula’s desire for the impossible as symbolized in the moon. His drive to physically possess the moon; to be sexually moonstruck. Sadistic desire to kill and to obliterate, out of love of power and of the impossible, the other, the human and the possible. Caligula as hunter. The forceful desire to teach his logical truth: “Men die and are not happy”.
c) Caesonia’s desiring love of Caligula.
d) Cherea’s desire for meaning and his hard-won respect for Caligula.
e) Caesonia v.s. Cherea on love.
f) Scipio’s love and admiration of Caligula. Scipio’s love of art v.s. Caligula’s solitude and rejection of the lies of art.
ii) Specific locations
a) pages. 4, , 6, 6, 10, 15, 71
b) 7, 8, 15, 40, 46, 49, 71
c) 17
d) 21, 58,
e) 63
f) 67, 65,
a) 71, “love isn’t enough for me; I realized it then. And I realize it today again; when I look at you. To love someone means that one’s willing to grow old beside that person. That sort of love is outside my sort of range. Drusilla old would have been worse than Drusilla dead”
b) 46, “she was coy to begin with, I’d gone to bed. First she was blood-red, low on the horizon. The she began rising, quicker and quicker, growing brighter and brighter all the while. And the higher she climbed the paler she became. Till she was like a milky pool in a dark wood rustling with stars. Slowly, shyly she approached, through the warm night air, soft, light, as gossamer, naked in beauty. She crossed the threshold of my room, poured herself into it, and flooded me with her smiles and sheen … So you see Helicon, I can say, without boasting, that I’ve had her”
c) 17, “ I needn’t swear. You know I love you”.
d) 21 “to loose one’s life is no great matter; when the time comes I’ll have the courage to loose mine. But what is intolerable is to see one’s life drained of meaning, to be told there is no reason for existing”
58, “he forces one to think, there’s nothing like insecurity for stimulating the brain, that of course is why he is so much hated” (words said even after his condemnation of Caligula’s “corruption” of Scipio (56)
e) 63, “too much soul, that’s what bites you, isn’t it? You prefer to label it disease .. tell me Cherea, has love ever meant anything to you?”
f) 67, “I shall go away, far away, and try to discover the meaning of it all … Dear Caius when all is ended remember that I loved you”
iii) Some questions
Is Drusilla’s role simply secondary, as Caligula says? Why then did Camus not choose any lover? What is that only emotion Caligula ever felt, that “shameful tenderness for” Caesonia (70)? Why does Caesonia ask Cherea if he has ever loved? Is Cherea truly ‘loveless’ and ‘simple minded’? Does Caligula ‘really’ think he has possessed the moon? If so then why does he say “even if the moon were mine, I could not retrace my way?” (49) What could it mean that Caligula is still ‘alive’? Does desire have to do something with it?
II. THE MISUNDERSTANDING
i) General location
a) Maria’s unconditional, bodily love for Jan; simplicity; loss of a world outside Europe in which together they were happy.
b) Jan split not only between the desire to fulfill his duty to relatives and his love for his spouse, but also between the land of exile and the homeland.
c) Martha’s longing for the wind of the sea. Her desire to breathe under the sun, even if this implies murder. Her asexuality, bodilessness and stone-like character. (Like The Commander for Don Juan, like Sisyphus’ stone, like the Gods).
d) The mother’s fatigue of life briefly cast aside through the emergence of a late love. (Like Meursault’s mother’s love for Perez)
ii) Specific locations
a) 81, 84, 128
b) 88
c) 79, 105
d) 81, 124
a) 128 Martha: “What does that word mean (i.e. love)?”, Maria: “It means all that is at this moment tearing, gnawing at my heart; it means that rush of frenzy that makes my finger itch for murder. It means all my past joy and this vivid sudden grief you have brought me, yes, you crazy woman”
b) 86-87, “As for my dreams and duties, you’ll have to take them as they are. Without them I’d be a mere shadow of myself; indeed you’d love me less, were I without them” …. and ….. “One can’t remain a stranger all one’s life. It is quite true that a man needs happiness, but he also needs to find his true place in the world. And I believe that coming back to my country, making happy those I love, will help me to do this”
c) “What is human in me is what I desire, and to get what I desire, I’d stick at nothing, I’d sweep away every obstacle in my path” ….. and ……. “ I have a very different idea of the human heart, and to be frank, your tears revolt me” (129) …… and ….. “Buried alive! No one has ever kissed my mouth and no one, not even you, has seen me naked. Mother I swear to you that MUST be paid” (122)
d) 122 “its no more than the pain of feeling love rekindle in my heart”
iii) Some questions
Is Maria simply a secondary character? Is Maria’s appeal to the Gods a ‘weakness’? Are these Gods the same stony one’s of which Martha speaks? Is Martha’s longing similar to Caligula’s? Is it just in a ‘minor’, much less impressive, scale? Can it not be seen instead as appealing to the contrast between the public and the private sphere? Politics and ruthlessness as against family and intimacy? Is The Misunderstanding really more familiar than Caligula? What is Camus’ idea in recovering the force of this play in The Stranger? Is this a little like Hamlet’s staging a play within a play? Is Jan at fault for not being straightforward? How to understand the dichotomies present in this work of mirrors: home/exile, dark/light, burning sun/sun of life, family love/erotic love, past/future, rich/poor, men/women? Can the absurd be seen as springing precisely out of their tension? Would it be too crazy to say that it is rather strange an odd that Camus chose the names of Maria and Martha as those of the central figures of the work? Is it not puzzling that their names, out of a million others, begin with the three letters which stand for sea in Spanish(i.e. mar)? Are not Maria’s tears which Martha repudiates born out of this sea? Can one see Maria’s encounter with Martha as a mirroring encounter? Like the different mirroring encounters Caligula has with himself? What does this mirroring have to do with our recopying Camus’ words in front of us? What of the words in The Stranger which tells us of the sea that “it lay smooth as a mirror”? (54)
III. HELEN’S EXILE
i) General location
a) Greek valuation of nature’s beauty. Socratic desire for limits and desire for admission of ignorance.
b) Modern split between instrumental rationality, and expressive powers (Like Jan split duty/love)
c) Hubris; desire of power (Like Caligula’s overstepping of limits)
d) love of friendship (a healthy Scipio)
ii) specific location:
a) 187
b) 189
c) 191
d) 192
a) 187, “The Mediterranean sun has something tragic about it, quite different from the tragedy of fogs. Certain evenings at the base of the seaside mountains, night falls over the flawless curve of a little bay, and there rises from the silent waters a sense of anguished fulfillment. In such spots one can understand that if the Greeks knew despair, they always did so through beauty and its stifling quality. In that gilded calamity, tragedy reaches its highest point. Our time on the other hand, has fed its despair on ugliness and convulsions. This is why Europe would be vile, if suffering could ever be so”
b) 189, “we turn our backs on nature, we are ashamed of beauty. Our wretched tragedies have a smell of the office clinging to them and the blood that trickles from them is the color of the printer’s ink” (very different, of course, than that of Camus’)
c) 189 “Our reason has driven all away. Alone at last, we end up by ruling over a desert” ……. and ……. 190-1 “Nature is still there, however. She contrasts her calm skies and her reasons with the madness of men. Until the atom too catches fire and history ends up in the triumph of reason and the agony of the species. But the Greeks never said that the limit could not be overstepped” (Overstepping in a universe devoid of Gods)
d) 192 “we shall fight for the virtue that has a history. What virtue? The horses of Patroclus weep for their master killed in battle. All is lost. But Achilles resumes the fight, and victory is the outcome, because friendship has just been assassinated: friendship is a virtue?”
iii) Some questions
Is Camus’ view of Nature here truly romantic? Is not an appeal to nature as objective standard inaccessible to us moderns? Could one then relate this view of nature to our inner expressive powers? Nature reborn out of its transfiguration? Nature’s epiphany? Does Camus fall into a regressive desire for a land long lost for us, that is the Greeks? Is his a failure like Rimbaud’s ambivalent Soleil et Chair? Or does he find a way to retrace this past era in a way that it opens, for us moderns, new possibilities of becoming? How to link Helen’s beauty with both a political project and an ethical outlook? Can Helen return form exile?
IV. RETURN TO TIPASA
i) General location
a) longing love of the homeland; permanent exile (Like Maria and Martha, and Caligula, and Jan, and Camus, and us)
b) love of water and the Sea God (a God in Camus!)
c) love of light; its ephemerality
d) love of what is, as it is
e) split love again: beauty and the humiliated
f) love of love; an ethics of overflowing giving
g) strange love of paradoxical articulated secrets
ii) Specific location
a) 194 Medea “You have navigated with raging soul far from the paternal home, passing beyond the sea’s double racks, and now you inhabit a foreign land”
b) 195 “for five days rain had been falling ceaselessly on Algiers and had finally wet the sea itself ….. which ever way you turned you seemed to be breathing water, to be drinking the air” …. and …… 200-201 “before dropping into the sea itself. It is seen from a distance, long before arriving, blue haze still confounded with the sky. But gradually it is condensed as you advance towards it, until it takes the color of the surrounding waters, a huge motionless wave whose amazing leap upward has been brutally solidified above the sea calmed all at once. Still nearer, almost at the gates of Tipasa, here is its frowning bulk, brown and green, here is the old mossy god that nothing will ever shake, a refuge and harbor for its sons, of whom I am one” (The sea of Meursault’s flowing with Marie)(Tipasa, the loved ruins of our youth)
c) 199 “In the earth’s morning the earth must have sprung forth from such light” …. and …..202 “O light! This is the cry of all the characters of Ancient Drama brought face to face with their fate … I knew it now. In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was an invincible summer in me”. (invincibility in Camus!)
d) 196 “disoriented, walking through the wet, solitary countryside, I tried, at least to recognize that strength, hitherto always at hand, that helps me to accept what is when once I have admitted that I cannot change it. And I could not indeed; reverse the course of time and restore to the world the appearance I had live” (dis-orientation)
e) 203 “yes, there is beauty and there are the humiliated, whatever may be the difficulties of the undertaking, I should like never to be unfaithful either to one or the other”
f) 201-2 “For there is merely bad luck in not being loved; there is misfortune in not loving. All of us are drying up of this misfortune. For violence and hatred dry up the heart itself … I discovered at Tipasa once more that one must keep intact in oneself a freshness, a cool wellspring of joy, love the day that escapes injustice and return to the combat having won that light” (ethics of benevolence and artistic creation; good-fortune?)
g) 203-204. (a secret cannot be revealed)
iii) Some questions
Is the tension between beauty and the humiliated fully surpassable? Can one think of a longing to a rebirth of the world outside a Christian tradition? What is the relationship between Camus’ moving philosophical work and his moving and lyrical work? Are they complementary, in tension? Does Camus’ loving transfiguration of nature eliminate its silence? If not, then what does it mean to ‘leave everything as it is’? (Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence)
V. THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS
i) General location
a) contradiction: desiring the end of desiring. Force of suicide and lack of meaningfulness
b) a desire too move beyond nihilism as loss of meaning. Beyond exile and malaise.
c) desire and nostalgia: modernity and homelessness
d) Lovers’ dialogue: A: “What are you thinking of” B: “Nothing”
e) death appears: mortality and the end of desiring
f) Don Juan’s Love: like a platonic cicada
g) The actor: the body is king
h) Conqueror: desire for articulation, lost causes and self-conquest.
i) desire for creation: ephemeral works of art
j) loving and knowing
k) desire to break stones; hatred of unhealthy rockiness
l) desire for happiness
ii) Specific location
a) Preface, 3, 5 “It is confessing that life is too much for you, or that you do not understand it … It is merely confessing that it is not worth the trouble”
b) Preface, “even within the limits of nihilism, it is possible to find the means to proceed beyond nihilism”
c) 6, “in a universe suddenly divested of illusion and light, a man feels alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy (a logical contradiction with b?) since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting is properly the feeling of absurdity”
d) 12, “but if that reply is sincere, if it symbolizes that odd state of soul in which the void becomes eloquent, in which the chain of daily gestures is broken, in which the heart vainly seeks the link that will correct it again, then it is as if it were the first sign of the absurd”
e) 57, “the idea that ‘I am’, my way of acting as if everything has meaning, all that is given the lie in vertiginous fashion by the absurdity of a possible death”
f) 69, 71, 72, 76, 77 “the more one loves the stronger the absurd grows” ….. “this life gratifies his every wish and nothing is worse than loosing it. This madman is a creative man” …… “yet it can be said that at the same time nothing is changed and everything is transfigured. What Don Juan realizes in his action is an ethic of quantity, whereas the saint on the contrary, tends towards quality” …. “what more ghostly image can be called up than a man betrayed by his body who, simply because he did not die in time, lives out the comedy while awaiting the end” ….. “the ultimate end awaited but never desired, the ultimate end is negligible”.
g) 80, 81 “the actor is the intruder. He breaks the spell chaining that soul, and at last the passions can rush onto their stage. They speak in every gesture, they live only through shouts and cries. Thus the actor creates his characters for display. He outlines or sculptures them and slips into their imaginary form transfusing his blood into their phantasms”
h) 84, 88 “don’t assume that because I love action I’ve forgotten how to think …. I can thoroughly define what I believe. Believe it firmly and see it clearly and surely. Beware of those who say :’I know this too well to be able to express it’ For if they cannot do so this is because they don’t know or it is out of laziness they stopped at the outer crust” (biting the apple of desire?) …. “conqueror’s sometimes talk of vanquishing and overcoming. But it is always ‘overcoming’ oneself that they mean”
i) 93, 94, 113, 114 ( 93-4)“it is certain that a new torment arises wherever another dies. The childish chasing after forgetfulness, the appeal of satisfaction are now devoid of echo. But the constant tension that keeps man face to face with the world, the ordered delirium that urges him to be receptive to everything leave him another fever. In this universe the work of art is then the sole chance of keeping his consciousness and of fixing its adventures. Creating is living doubly” ….. 113 “ this is the difficult wisdom that the absurd thought sanctions. Performing these two tasks simultaneously, negating of the one hand and magnifying on the other is the way open to the absurd creator. He must give the void its colors”
j) 97, 98, 117 (97), “there are no frontiers between the disciplines that man sets himself for understanding and loving, they interlock, and the same anxiety merges them”
k) 120, “You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted towards accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of the earth”
l) 123 “I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy”
iii) Some questions
Is Don Juan just a step on the ladder to the conqueror? Is this not too Hegelian a view? In other words is quantity leading up to quality or are quantity and quality at the same level; even in constant interacting conflict? (like Dyonisius and Apollo in Nietzsche) Can one have a Doña Juana? Is loving and knowing at the same time really possible? Can one not desire suicide under certain circumstances? How is Sisyphus’ stone linked to Christ’s cross? Does not Camus tend to see the Greeks and the Catholic tradition too much like each other? Can Sisyphus be really happy, or is he just fooling himself? Can one really move beyond nihilism starting from it? Why does Camus say yes and no? How is it that the body and all we are ‘become’ conscious of its mortality? By reading Camus? By being sentenced to death? By external events; an accident? Is the Myth of Sisyphus simply related to an ‘individualistic’ retrieval of ‘consciousness’; if so then why does the conqueror say, “as for me. I decidedly have something to say about the individual. One must speak of him bluntly and, if need be, with the appropriate contempt” (84)? What then does the conqueror’s self-conquest imply? How is it that art becomes the sole possibility of keeping consciousness?
VI. THE STRANGER
i) General location
a) Marie, lovely laughing living Marie. (Like in The Misunderstanding?)
b) Salomon and his dog (Raymond and nameless girlfriend, a variation)
c) Friendship; love of Celeste
d) Love of ghosts: Marie’s traces
e) Mother’s new love
f) Love v.s. priest (Cherea v.s. Caesonia?)
g) Love of life: love of ice-cream
ii) specific location
a) 27, 28, 29, 42, 56, 57, 78
b) 52
c) 93
d) 75, 79, 80, 113
e) 120
f)118
g) 98, 104-5
a) 27, “ I let my hand stray over her breasts” …. I caught her up, put my arm around her waist, and we swam side by side. She was still laughing”, ….. 41 “ One could see the outline of her firm little breasts, and her sun tanned face was like a velvety brown flower” …56 “for the first time I seriously considered marrying her” …. 78 “I remember Marie’s describing to me her work with that set smile always of her face”
b) 52 “I tried hard to take care of him; every mortal night after he got that skin disease I rubbed an ointment in. But his real trouble was old age and there is no curing that“ (Meursault’s reaction ‘a yawn’)
c) 93 “ I didn’t say anything, or make any movement, but for the first time in my life I wanted to kiss a man”
d) 80 “ I never thought of Marie especially. I was distressed by the thought of this woman or that …. so much so that the cell grew crowded with their faces, ghosts of my old passions. That unsettled (desire unsettles?) me, no doubt, but at least it served to kill time” (compare to Don Juan “he is incapable of looking at portraits” (72))
e) 120 “and now it seemed to me I understood why at her life’s end she had taken on a ‘fiancé’. Why she’d played at making a fresh start”
f) 118 “and yet none of his certainties was worth one strand of a woman’s hair. Living as he did, like a corpse, he couldn’t ever be sure of being alive”
g) 104-5 “only one incident stands out; towards the end, while my counsel rambled on, I heard the tin trumpet of an ice-cream vendor in the street, a small, shrill sound cutting across the flow of words. And then a rush of memories went through my mind — memories of a life that was no longer mine and had once provided me with the surest, humblest pleasures: warm smells of summer, my favorite streets, the sky at evening, Marie’s dresses and her laugh. The futility of what was happening here seemed to take me by the throat, I felt like vomiting, and I had only one idea: to get it over, to go back to my cell, and sleep …. and sleep”
iii) Some questions
How does desire’s appearance relate to the idea that Meursault is simply a ‘passive’ character? Is not desire precisely where Meursault finds meaning in life? Is he not truly artistic in his meticulous descriptions of places and people; like Camus, in a sense? Is this a prearticulate sense of bodily activity and meaningfulness a more adequate path towards Caligula’s questioning and dismissal of Drusilla and consequent search for the impossible? (Like enjoying ice cream, and the smells of summer, and favorite streets, and the evening sky, and Marie’s dresses and especially her laugh) Why did Meursault decide, finally, to marry her? What to say about Meursault indifference to his mother’s death, to Salamano’s beatings, to Raymond’s beating’s, to his four extra-shots? Just chance? Just psychoanalysis? Just unethical? How do we in our everyday life become aware of the value of life; do we have to be sentenced to death? But is not reading this book a kind of death and a rebirth? How, if at all, can Meursault ever become a political being? Is there not a tension here?
We have in this way come to the end of some of the tracks left by desire in Camus’ words. But surely many other traces remain untracked, and if we are to follow the Conqueror’s conception of conscience, somehow we must be able to articulate what moves elusively in all these marks and figures. But for now, tending to believe that such a project is doomed to fail, let us remind ourselves of the ambivalent love of ice that Sophocles tells us children feel; that same love of ice, as of ice-cream, which triggered in Meursault the surest and humblest pleasures:
“Like children that beneath a frosty heaven
Snatch in their eagerness at icicles
(First they are ravish with their latest toy;
Yet soon they find it hurts their hands to hold
That icy thing: and yet how hard to drop it!) —
Even such are lovers too, when what they love
Tears them betwixt ‘I would not’ and ‘I would’” (Sophocles, Lucas, 224)
Desire traced has come into our hands but it has melted; its gone. This is a feeling Camus knew all too well. It, too, is present in the gaining of our own self and meaning: “For I try to seize this self of which I feel sure, If I try to define it and summarize it, it is nothing but water slipping through my fingers” (MoS, 19).
Reflections: Camus and Nietzsche on Nihilism
Posted in literature, on Camus, on Nietzsche, on poetry, on religion, philosophy, tagged amelo14, andresmelo, art, camus, Nietzsche, nihilism, philosophy, rarefaction, reflection, religion on November 30, 1995| Leave a Comment »
INTRODUCTION
We have so become accustomed to looking at ourselves in mirrors, that even when facing ourselves we overlook ourselves. And not having seen ourselves, once we turn around, we are blind to the beauty and the injustices of the world. Lifeless we see no life; deaf we hear no cries. We have lost the child’s playful love of mirrors. Even Zarathustra, who has to be handed a mirror by a child, is a stranger to himself:
‘O Zarathustra,’ the child said to me, ‘look at yourself in the mirror’. But when I looked into the mirror I cried out and my heart was shaken; for it was not myself I saw … (TSZ, II, “The Child with the Mirror”)
Zarathustra, unlike us, dares to look; he dares to challenge what he finds staring back at him, a “devil’s grimace and a scornful laughter”.
One way of shedding some light on the event known as ‘nihilism’, involves recovering ourselves, and the world, through mirror-like relations. Just as mirrors provide the possibility for a doubling split between spaced figures, so nihilism itself is a split phenomenon arising from what is truly spaceless, a point in which we learn of the death of God. In order to understand the duality characteristic of nihilism, I shall turn in Section I to Zarathustra’s creator, Nietzsche. Why him? Well because Camus sees in his works, in the multitude of colorful mirrors it provides, and the multitude of mirrors it shatters, a lucid reflection of the emergence of modern meaninglessness. The death of God marks, according to Nietzsche, our modern identity. It is an event in which all possible reflection is shadowed; an event which forecloses all foreshadowing. From it, flowers nihilism in its two principal mirroring modalities, the passive and the active. But besides this important theoretical gain, for Camus, Nietzsche is one of those whom it is worthwhile to mirror creatively: “if it is true, as Nietzsche claims, that a philosopher, to deserve respect, must preach by example, you can appreciate the importance of that reply” (MoS, 3). But, can we, really? We, who are unable even to mirror ourselves.
In Section II, I will proceed to look at one who loves mirrors as few do, Camus’ Caius. He comes to mirrors by confronting the death of his beloved. In Caligula, his imperial name, passive nihilism shows one of its two faces, that of murder. His feverish mirror becomes stained in blood. It is precisely because of its reddish reflection, the one which likewise invades the moon he longs for, that he must in the end break it. But ironically, at the moment where all reflection ends, Caligula claims to be finally alive. Could this be possible?
Finally, in the last section of this essay, I will take up Camus’ remark that “even within the limits of nihilism it is possible to find the means to proceed beyond nihilism” (Preface, MoS). The guiding questions here will be: can we truly move beyond nihilism? Would it not be better, perhaps, to say we learn to move within a certain kind of nihilism, that is to say, its active variant as elucidated by Nietzsche? I will try to look here at the possibility of re-covering ——- in other words, covering anew ——- ourselves and the world through a new light that streams from a web of mirrors exhibiting an ephemeral value. We will be able to look at, and through, an artistic kaleidoscopic whose motion is born out of the present desire of life. But in this peculiar kind of kaleidoscope, the playful child who delights in it, is him/herself part of the figures and colors recreated. Perhaps by partaking of some of the dancing figures which Camus himself allows us to see ——-and as in a mirror, reflect upon—— we will come closer to understanding what Camus meant by saying that ‘creation is the great mime’. (MoS, 94). (*1)
SECTION I. THE DIVINE MIRROR IS BROKEN; NIHILISM’S MIRROR SPLIT
In The Gay Science Nietzsche wrote concerning ‘New Struggles’: “God is dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown —-and we —– we still have to vanquish his shadow, too” (TGS, 108). The divine mirror on which we saw ourselves mirrored has been shattered. Of it there remain only fragments and the shadow of a corpse. But a shadow is much like a mirror; for it, too, is our other. But this other, unlike the reflected self facing us in the mirror, is born out of the absence of all sunlight. Nevertheless, the shadow spoken of, is of infinite dimensions. To divine mirroring, there follows a dead God’s omnipresent shadow.
The death of God is a modern phenomenon which alludes to the downfall of all previously held hierarchical valuations. The divine axle, that standard around which we orbited, has been crushed. (*2) We are left suspended in mid-air; or no, mid-air implies there being a middle to which one can refer in order to place oneself appropriately. There is no middle anywhere now. Instead we are exiled into a weird atmosphere lacking any gravitational pull whatsoever. Flung around, disoriented where once we knew our way around, we see the land we once stood on, crumbling. (*3) Where lay constructions now appear ever-fading ruins. We are overtaken by the aquatic fluidity of it all:
In the horizon of the infinite.—-We have left the land and have embarked. We have burned our bridges behind us—- indeed, we have gone farther and destroyed the land behind us. Now, little ship, look out! Beside you is the ocean: to be sure it does not always roar, and at times it lies spread out like silk and gold and reveries of graciousness. But hours will come when you will realize that it is infinite and there is nothing more awesome than infinity. Oh, the poor bird that felt free and now strikes the wall of this cage! Woe, when you feel homesick …… there is no longer any land. (TGC, 124) (*4)
There is nothing but ocean straight ahead; only in the sea can we come to see ourselves again. And on it, knowing of its dual nature, at the same time a silky gold and a deep devouring black, we landless moderns must set sail. But this quest is precisely the quest for ourselves because looking overboard we cannot overlook the reflection which stares at us from beneath. The sea is the mirror of mirrors:
Free man, you will forever love the sea!
The sea’s your mirror; you observe your soul
Perpetually as its waves unroll,
Your spirit’s chasm yawns as bitterly (Baudelaire, 51) (*5)
Like waves, we long for a land upon which to break. But instead, for us, there remains only a world rid of continents; a true laberynth made up of watered walls. Our universe, at its worst, is that of a whirlpool sucking us to the dark depths where shadows find comfort.
But even if we look up, tired of gazing downwards, we find much the same picture, that of utter confusion. Even our galaxies have ceased to follow the regularity we had become accustomed to. We voyage in a milky way, but one lacking orbits, lacking milkiness, lacking predictable ways:
Parable.—–Those thinkers in whom all stars move in cyclic orbits are not the most profound. Whoever looks into himself as into vast space and carries galaxies in himself, also knows how irregular all galaxies are; they lead into the chaos and labyrinth of existence. (TGC, 322)
Looking at oneself not only involves the sea, but star filled galaxies where all light is born. However, our galaxies, these have to be constructed anew out of chaotic ruins. Nostalgia reminds us of once known star systems where orbits, milk and predictability were taken for granted.
But continuously longing for this center upon which to gravitate, we start to become dizzy as never before. The chaos that emerges and the marine labyrinth into which we are flung leave us at a loss. Meaning and purpose mean nothing.
He who feels the blurring of our disintegrating cartographies; he who holds a compass liberated from any magnetic pull; he who knows himself at a crossroads whose point of origin is quicksand; he who feels all this is the mad human:
‘Whither is God?’, he cried; ‘I will tell you. We have killed him —- you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? …Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? …. who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? Is not the greatness of this deed to great for us? (TGS, 125)
Sunlight is effacing; night sets in, enlightened by a blood covered moon. Thirst becomes unquenchable for to quench it there is only the salty water of the ocean which, the mad human tells us, we have already drank up. Even the sea seems permanently deserted, lifeless. The madman announces an event, but nobody listens. Breaking his lantern, he tells us, from the ensuing shadowy atmosphere: “deeds though done, still require to be seen and heard …. themselves” (ibid.). But we, who are unable to look at ourselves in mirrors, how could we not overlook the deed that precisely shatters all mirroring?
Nevertheless Nietzsche did try to see; as a matter of fact, he foresaw as few have. His tenacity allows us to gain clarity while still among shadows, shadows whose pull is like that of black holes. Nietzsche stood his ground for, as Camus tells us, one who “has become conscious of the absurd ….. is forever bound to it” (MoS, 31). The absurdity of nihilism is what Nietzsche faced. The deed, God’s death, triggers an event, the leveling of all values; the ‘reign’ of emptiness, the will to nothingness. If God’s death arrives as shadow, then surely nihilism is that shadow which we carry upon ourselves; like Zarathustra his dwarf. Ours is not a cross, but a cross’ shadow. Nietzsche places himself at the crossroads, at that point where the two logs meet, that point where the divorce between humans and the world has taken place. And there, in that crack which follows the earthquake —-a crack quick to close itself—– lucidly he awaits; and listening intently, there he sees two paths flowering in different contradictory directions. (*7)
The question “What is nihilism”, is an odd question to ask. The real question, for Nietzsche, is quite different: what does nihilism, the situation emerging out of God’s death, mean to whom? For one does not, in a parallel way, ask what is the beautiful, nor what is the good, or the true:
In every case it is a question of the conditions of preservation of a certain type of man: thus the herd man will experience the value feeling of the beautiful in the presence of different things than will the exceptional or over-man” (WtP, 804) (8)
Beauty, goodness and truthfulness are taken to be different things depending on the character of those concerned. And this holds true, likewise, for the interpretation of nihilism.
Nihilism is an event we as moderns share. It is in this sense that Nietzsche speaks of it as being a “normal condition” (WtP, 23). But this normal condition, which we have seen is defined precisely because of it abnormality, its anomie, is one which can be faced in different ways. And the way we do face it, says a lot of the way we face ourselves in mirrors. How we see the world and how we perceive who we are, are as inseparable as a coin’s two sides.
Even though Nietzsche has been all to keen on portraying, as vividly as possible, the disorientation that stems from the death of God, he wants anything but simply despairing beings who embrace as desirable the loss of all valuations. Not only has he told us that we have a ship on which to cruise the ocean, but likewise reminded us of the silky gold graciousness of the sea upon which we travel. And furthermore, his keen eyesight brings to light that “only ONE interpretation succumbed; but because of the fact it passed as THE interpretation, it looks as if there were no sense in existence, as if everything were in vain” (Melendez, FP, 5 (71), 1887, p 31). God’s death is the culminating point in the history of a unique interpretation; an interpretation which claimed to be the only mirroring possibility. Its having been questioned leaves now open the possibility of a plurality of mirrors.
For the univocal pessimist, the loss of an interpretation necessarily involves the loss of all possible interpretations. Unsurpassable meaninglessness ensues:
Everything lacks meaning (the impossibility of practicing one unique interpretation of the world to which immense efforts have been dedicated —– awakens the suspicion of the falsity of all interpretations of the world —-) Buddhist tendency, longing for nothingness (Melendez, 2(127), 1885-86, p. 23) (9)
The pessimist rids all life of meaning for life does not fit his/her notion of what meaningfulness is. The pessimist prides himself on dis-covering the world; but his egoism lies precisely in his/her passion simply to un-cover, leaving everything nakedly, shamefully, barren:
it has been discovered, the world is not worth what we thought … a senselessness which finally begins to be understood after unfortunate roundabouts, a Comedy of Errors, a bit too prolonged, which shamefully looses itself in nothingness. (Melendez, FP, 3(14), 1886), p. 31) (10)
Love of disorientation. Desire for an endless fall free of any meaning whatsoever. A decision to remain in perpetual indecision. Triumph of the shadow and its aimless wandering, its coldness incapable of taking in the light required to carry on the quest for horizons of sense. All this is the pessimist, and much less. Through the pessimist, who is nothing but shadow, one gains clarity on the phenomenon of nihilism. His/her shadow asks Zarathustra:
Nothing is alive anymore that I love; how should I still love myself? …. how could anything please me any more? Do I have a goal any more? A haven toward which my sail is set? A good wind? Alas, only he who knows where he is sailing also knows which wind is good and the right wind for him. What is left to me now? A heart, weary and imprudent, a restless will, flutter-wings, a broken-backbone. Trying thus to find my home ——O Zarathustra, do you know it? ….’Where is —-my home?’ I ask and search and have searched for it, but I have not found i. O eternal everywhere, O eternal nowhere, O eternal—in vain!’ (TSZ, IV, “The Shadow”)
Windless wandering upon boats without masts; ships peopled by back-bone lacking creatures; eternal homelessness and never-ending directionless wandering; all this is the world of shadowy figures. Theirs is an adventure which is truly an undertaking, that is to say, an ‘under’-taking. A death sought in dreamt ships, among ghostly seamen vent on fictitious quests. Shadows who, lacking any port, disdain all possible ports. Each and every possible site of arrival is burnt out of resentment and resignation. A lifeless life of blackened mirrors, is for them a perfect life:
“Perfect nihilism
Its symptoms: The great scorn
The great compassion
The great destruction
and its culminating point: a doctrine which precisely makes of the life of nausea, of compassion, of the pleasure of destruction, more intense, and teaches them as absolute and eternal” (Melendez, FP, 11 (149), 1987-88, p.67)
Perfect teachers of the hatred of life. Desire vent on destroying itself; on punishing itself.
But for every shadow in us, there lies a living laughing being from which it stems. Not all destruction need simply rejoice in its destructive abilities. This is why nihilism is not a one way affair; but much more like a coin with two opposing faces. Nihilism flowers into two variants which stand to each other as one stands to a mirror. On the one hand, the passively imprisoned image, on the other, the actively living human:
“Nihilism. It is ambiguous:
A. Nihilism as sign of increased power of the spirit; as active nihilism.
B. Nihilism as decline and recession of the power of the spirit; as passive nihilism” (WtP, 22)
Active nihilism, for it Nietzsche, for the most part, stands as mirroring model due to his lively confrontation with the void. A dignified spirit standing its ground under the most extreme of disasters. Affirmation of a life desired ever and ever anew just as it is; a ‘yes’ to a loved narration which eternal recurs. (*11) A faint light in the dark world of madness and indifference. The fragile light born out of a candle in the quiet of the night onboard our interim home:
“With ropes I have learned to climb many a window; with swift legs I climbed into high masts; and to sit on high masts of knowledge seemed to me no small happiness; to flicker like small flames on high masts —- a small light only, and yet a great comfort for shipwrecked sailors and castaways” (TSZ, III, “On the Spirit of Gravity”)
Our homes, ships with backbones and true sea-humans. Zarathustra, climber of masts whose words shine in order to be mirrored creatively. Creatively, that is, not like blind shadow-like followers. Shadows to which Zarathustra asks: “this is my way; where is yours? —-thus I answered those who asked me ‘the way’. For the way —that does not exist” (ibid.).
Caligula is no follower, and he too will tells us of his way.
SECTION II. CALIGULA: MIRRORS, LOVE AND MURDER
In the ‘Introduction’ to The Rebel Camus lets us know that absurdity and mirrors go hand in hand: “in a certain way, the absurd, which claims to express man in his solitude, really makes him live in front of a mirror” (R, 8). Caligula’s absurdity lies precisely in his being a lover of mirrors. But what he sees there, in front of him, is not the light that Zarathustra won through his unconditional affirmation of life. He sees there, at a distance, that which Zarathustra once saw, a “devil’s grimace and a scornful laughter”. That grimace and laughter somehow tied to the passive nihilist.
Passive nihilism itself is a complex phenomenon which Camus portrays as split; it too, like nihilism construed broadly, is like a coin. When tossed its downward fall resembles that of a guillotine. When it lands on the emptiness from which it springs, two possible outcomes can follow: heads is suicide, tails murder. Absolute nihilism
“which accepts suicide as legitimate, leads even more easily, to logical murder. If our age admits, with equanimity, that murder has its justification, it is because of this indifference to life which is the mark of nihilism” (R, 6)
Caligula’s coin has landed heads-side up. Murder is Caligula’s peculiar sort of passive nihilism. But ironically it seems completely opposed to all passivity; it is active nihilism set head over heels. All this is better seen by looking at the mirroring pages of Camus’ Caligula.
The recurrent appeal to nothingness with which the play starts, stems from their being no news of the emperor who, on parting, himself had nothing to say (C, 3). Caligula, the political name for Caius, the man, has left to see, for the last time, Drusilla. Loving her was an affair “something more than brotherly” (5). Face to face with the death of his beloved, Caligula disconcerts us. Rather then entering into a radical disorientation, he remains calm, cool, in control: “he stroke it with 2 fingers and seemed lost in thought for a while. Then swung around and walked out calmly” (5). Caligula’s body has come into contact with Drusilla’s shadow. The death of God manifests itself for him in the death of the beloved one. And yet, seemingly, nothing happens. The others, most of whom believe that loosing a loved one “doesn’t amount to much” (4), do not yet perceive that Caligula has already been lost to them: “and ever since we’ve been hunting for him in vain” (5). Caligula evades them for they disdain what Caius has felt.
It seems to me not at all self-deceptive to seriously take Caesonia’s words concerning Caius’ love for Drusilla: “one thing is sure, he loved her. And its cruel to have someone die whom only yesterday you were holding in your hands” (10). (*12) But, why believe her? Particularly given the fact that Caligula himself, again and again, denies this? Because she, of all the characters in the play, knows love. She alone will stand by Caligula, as unconditionally as the fool by King Lear: “Caligula: Swear to stand by me, Caesonia. Caesonia: I needn’t swear. You know I love you” (17).
Nevertheless, what Caesonia affirms, Caligula denies vehemently. The emperor denies, from the start, the determining encounter with mortality which was his touch of Drusilla: “love is a side issue, I swear to you, her death is not the point” (8), or elsewhere, “what nonsense is this? Why drag in Drusilla? Do you imagine love’s the only thing that can make a man shed tears?” (15). All this talk of love is, for Caligula, pure nonsense. In him loving is senseless, it turns out to be that loving is precisely what lacks all meaning; it is, for the emperor, nihilism at its clearest. And yet, he cannot stop desiring and loving.
We do not, and should not, believe Caligula. Why take his ‘swearing’ seriously if he sets out to replace all Gods? Something deep down in us rebels against Caligula’s denial of Drusilla. And we faintly know why. We sense somehow that Caius’ body feels what Caligula’s logical knowing fails to admit. Caius has touched Drusilla, and is moved, Caligula moves back untouched. Drusilla’s death shatters Caius’ every bodily sense, it makes life senseless:
Pain everywhere, in my chest, in my legs and arms. Even my skin is raw, my head is buzzing. I feel like vomiting. But worst of all is this queer taste in my mouth. Not blood or death or fever, but a mixture of all the three” (5)
Caius’ skin, that which stands between him and the world, between him and Drusilla, is raw material. The body is pure flesh left naked and vulnerable to the world’s hostility and indifference. But Caligula, well he knows better. He finds this new taste in his mouth not so much queer as desirable.
Nevertheless in the first entrance of Caius-Caligula unto the scene of the action, he appears not naked, but rather covered. That which covers his body, and garments, is the earthly mud of a torrential night:
“His legs caked with mud, his garments dirty, his hair wet, his look distraught. He brings his hand to his mouth several times. Then he approaches a mirror, stopping abruptly, when he catches sight of his reflected self” (6-7)
And with the world sticking to him Caius-Caligula catches sight of himself as he never had before. Without Drusilla’s absence, a love which cost even the overstepping of the incest taboo, Caligula would not have come to be present to himself as he is now. A child gave Zarathustra his mirror; mortality gave Caligula his. Stopping abruptly one can imagine Caligula’s silent mouth saying: “I am alive, you, my love, are dead; I cannot be happy; and if I cannot, no one will”.
With Drusilla’s death, Caligula enters the night. And in it he sees a being so overwhelmingly lit that he longs for it as he perhaps never did for his beloved sister. Raising his eyes above Drusilla’s fragility, Caligula finds a pregnant moon overflowing in light. The moon is majestic, seemingly eternal; Drusilla, perhaps lovely, but neither majestic nor long-lasting:
Caligula: Yes, I wanted the moon
Helicon: Why?
Caligula: It’s one of those things I haven’t got …. I couldn’t get it ….That’s why I’m tired (7)
Caligula desires the moon, he longs to possess it. Drusilla he wanted and kind of had; but she was snatched from him. The moon, if he could have it, that would certainly, seem to be, a much more consummate affair. For the moon is a celestial being, not simply a worldly one: (*13)
“Really, this world of ours, the schema of things as they call it is quite intolerable. That is why I want the moon, or happiness or eternal life, something, in fact, that may sound strange, but which isn’t of this world” (8)
Only in the moon can Caligula now find eternal happiness; but scarcely does he know that for him the evanescent happiness of human evenings will never again be possible. Scarcely does he realize that the moon is only a mirror, its light source not of itself. The moon makes sense only by way of the rays of the sun and the permanent longing for the return of daylight.
Caligula, logician as he is, is one of those who really “dare(s) to follow his ideas” (13). Caligula persists as few do. He alone will have the courage of tracking down the moon. This hunter adventurer is set on “exploring the impossible, or more accurately, it is a question of making the impossible, possible.” (13). It is a quest begun out of a real death, carried through on a red sea populated by deadly encounters, and its circular conclusion being the proud prize of all hunters. It is a syllogistic proof of a single truth: “a childishly, simple, obvious, almost silly truth, but one that s hard to come by and heavy to endure … Men die and are not happy” (8). God’s die and they are not happy either; but what Zarathustra derived from this was certainly not what Caligula believed inevitable.
The mirror upon which Caius stares at himself shows him the magnanimity proper to an emperor; the mirror blurs Caius so, that now he sees only Caligula. Mirrors sometimes can be made to distort; Caligula’s eyesight so distorts this one that he appears magnified a thousand fold. And the reflection which reaches his eyes, much like in King Oedipus’ case, makes him turn around and see in the world, and us, nothing but lies and self-deception. (*14). But the Roman, unlike his Greek counterpart, feels a gnawing need to become a teacher. Caius has felt the truth, he has earned the diploma. In contrast Caligula believes it his mission to set out and impose: “for I know what they need and haven’t got. They’re without understanding, and they need a teacher; someone who knows what he’s talking about” (9).
Caligula’s denial of the experience of the death of the beloved becomes norm; his mirror is the only possible one. We must all stand in line to face ourselves through it. Whoever sees not death as Caligula himself does, must be sentenced to death. Then his raw skin will be made to feel what up to then it, stubbornly, refused to know. While Drusilla remains as the dead beloved unjustly taken away, those Caligula sets out to murder are his/her ignorant students, who, for their own good, must be ‘taken away’. Like the shadow Caligula task is truly an ‘under’-taking. And ironically, what Caligula sees flowering from this enlightening project is a noble end: “then perhaps I shall be transfigured and the world renewed; then men will die no more and be happy” (17). Caligula has come up with the answer to the predicament of death; but only faintly does he perceive that his transfiguration is such that it leaves no figure whatsoever to play with.
But, if to transfigure is to change in form, then Caius does so transfigure himself. He transfigures himself in that his now, unique and only, form seems to lie in the emperor’s figure. Facing the mirror once again, the transfigured Caius faces an image free of either landscapes as background, or comforting beings as companions;
Caligula: All gone, you see my dear … no more masks. Nothing, nobody left. Nobody? No, that’s not true. Look Caesonia. Come here all of you and look …. (He plants himself in front of the mirror in a grotesque attitude).
Caesonia: (staring, horrified, at the mirror) Caligula!
Caligula: Yes …… Caligula. (18)
The world is truly renewed, in it there remains one figure, one reflection, one interpretation. Only Caligula remains in the world. The transfigurative murdering of others and disruption of the world can commence. The untouchable is violated: murdered father’s and son’s, raped wives, usurped property. Anomie becomes the imposed norm (9).
Extreme solitude would seem to be price for all of this. This is what Scipio, whose father has been cowardly murdered, seems to believe. “How horrible loneliness yours must be”, he tells Caligula (36). But the latter again disconcerts us, as many years later will Meursault. The emperor is emperor, and not simply out of luck:
“You don’t realize that one is never alone…. Those we have killed are always with us. But they are no great trouble. It’s those we have loved; those who loved us and whom we did not love; regrets, desires, bitterness and sweetness” (37) (*15, *16)
Those who loved us and were taken away from us; that is the first, albeit unacknowledged, premise in Caligula’s criminal argumentative process. Drusilla’s absence haunts Caligula till the end, but everything he says seems to deny, again and again, our claim. Even nearing death he clings to his indifferent attitude towards the loss of the beloved’s face:
Love isn’t enough for me; I realized it then, and I realize it today again … To love someone means that one’s willing to grow old beside that person. That sort of love is outside my sort of range; Drusilla old would have been far worse than Drusilla dead” (71).
Caligula’s range is, as I briefly mentioned, sky oriented. And perhaps we might be tempted to say that he has real reasons to say that his sky-oriented range is not simply the desire of a madman; but rather can be considered as a real, human, possibility. Perhaps, like the Socrates of the Symposium, his desire for the moon can be seen as moving, somehow, beyond that worldly, too fragile love of a Drusilla condemned to aging and passing away.
Once, his reign of terror already on the roll, Caligula tells us that out of the mirror on which he only saw himself, there came a new light; the light of the moon. Once, while in bed, Caligula’s longing seems to have been temporarily consummated. The full moon itself decides to share its reflected and guiding light for those lost in the midst of darkness and utter despair:
“to come back to the moon —it was a cloudless August night …… She was coy, to begin with. I’d gone to bed. First she was blood-red, low on the horizon. Then she began rising, quicker and quicker, brighter and brighter all the while. And the higher she climbed, the paler she grew, till she was like a milky pool in a dark wood rustling with stars. Slowly, shyly she approached, through the warm night air, soft, light as gossamer, naked in beauty. She crossed the threshold of my room, glided to my bed, poured herself into it, and flooded me with her smiles and sheen …” (46)
The moon has shared itself with Caius, once lover of art. But the alleged encounter takes place too late. The moon’s reddish color perhaps stems from the evening contact with the evanescent sun, but Caligula’s reddish color projects from his murdering hands. The emperor cannot even comprehend what has just happened between Caius and the guiding light of night. Caligula now speaks, and with his words, the charm of the moon is forever lost: “so you see Helicon, I can say, without boasting, that I’ve had her” (ibid.) Revealing the intimacy of his encounter, viewing it as the hard won prize in a hunting competition; precisely this, is boasting.
And Caius knows this. This is why, just prior to the final mirroring encounter with Cherea, Caligula and Caius stand once again facing each other. Together they doubt. Caius seems to deny that they ever actually had the moon. Caligula ironically says:
Suppose the moon were brought here, everything would be different. That was the idea, wasn’t it? … After all, why shouldn’t Helicon bring it off? One night, perhaps he’ll catch her sleeping on a lake, and carry her, trapped in a glistening net, all slimy with weeds and water, like a pale bloated fish drawn from the depths, Why not Caligula? Why not, indeed? (49)
An ‘idea’, that is what it was all about; an idea, not a living loving act. Or was it? Caligula displaces his search for the moon on Helicon; Caius knows, deep inside, that his ‘trapping’ it is doomed to fail. But to our surprise the moon seems to have, itself, been transfigured. What Caligula intends to trap, in a move towards modesty, is not anymore, the heavenly body. The moon has descended, or perhaps, as Caligula says so himself, emerged from the depths of the earth. Moreover, the moon is now one which in its proximity comes to be covered by water and weeds, and unavoidably, by the mud that covers Caligula from the start. Disconcerting revelations follow. Caligula now he seems intent on a net-size moon. The moon, it seems, is no longer that unreachable object overlooking our world; but a reflection found in the mirror-like calm of a lake in a cloudless night of August. This is a human moon, and Caligula’s halfway realization, makes his tragic fate, even more so. It is not a chance event that Caligula, as we shall see, is loved and admired by many of his own.
The words just analyzed, we are told by Camus, are to be spoken in complete irony, and irony implies expressing that which one disbelieves in such a way that all who hear understand this masking. This is why to their pronunciation there follows a muffled voice which, like MacBeth’s, knows of the inevitability of the events to follow: “too many dead, too many dead — that makes an emptiness …. No, even if the moon were mine, I could not retrace my way … There’s no return” (49). To the emptiness born of the loss of Drusilla, Caligula adds a self-inflicted one. The world has become stained in red, looking at it unbearable. Caligula must look ahead, to the mirror in front. But before the ultimate confrontation, that of Caius and Caligula, the emperor is met by three successive attacks; attacks born out of love and/or admiration. But just as with the moonstruck encounter, these final encounters, take place after Caligula acknowledges that truly, “there’s no return”.
In the first place Caligula stands face to face with Cherea. The defender of a courageously held ‘common sense perspective’ likens Caligula to a rather odd ‘murdering Socrates’: “he forces on to think. There’s nothing like insecurity for stimulating the brain. That, of course, is why he’s so much hated” (58). Cherea, who sees himself as an “ordinary” man (52) desiring “to live and be happy” (51) refused, from the start, to join the hunters. He is no coward, rather he knows death’s inevitable appearance, but he likewise knows of the different ways of dying:
“to loose one’s life is no great matter; when the time comes I will have the courage to loose mine. But what’s intolerable is to see one’s life being drained of meaning, to be told there is no reason for existing. A man can’t live without some reason for living” (21)
He “refuse(s) to live in a topsy-turvy world”, he wants to stand secure (51). Cherea is a land creature, not a lover of the sea. His mirror is that which challenges, like no other, Caligula’s pretensions. He cannot bring himself either to hate Caligula, for he knows him not to be happy, nor to scorn him, for he knows him to be courageous (51). Nevertheless he will, and does, participate in the final stabbing of the maddened emperor.
A second mirror now appears in the mirror full world where Caligula’s death is steadily approaching. Scipio reflects a warmth for Caligula which Cherea did not. He both admired and loved Caius. (10) Fatherless because of Caligula’s ruthlessness, Scipio knows a love of Caligula which goes beyond the bondage of familial ties. Their bounding element is art. And this linkage is for Scipio unbreakable: “I cannot be against him, even if I killed him, my heart would still be with him” (56). Bonded by the heart, Scipio, though not a coward, denies himself revenge. His counterattack lies in the pen as a sword:
Pursuit of happiness that purifies the heart
Skies rippling with light
O wild, sweet festival of joys, frenzy without hope (66)
Scipio’s three line poem shines forth in a different light. The pursuit of happiness lies not only in knowing the bitter cold of a hopelessly unending night. Happiness as purification; that seems to be more a matter of the permanent interplay of night, and its frenzy, and day with its ‘skies rippling with light’. Happiness, as we shall see, in our third section, lies in between these; in the eveningsat Algiers. Scipio leaves; his poem unheard. Caius’ love of art mocked by Caligula’s disheartening wreckage. Another beloved has died to Caligula, and, as he told us, it is those loved who are the real problem: “I shall go away, far away, and try to discover the meaning of it all ……. Good-by dear Caius, when all is ended remember that I loved you” (67). Scipio loves Caius, the human being who has lost his beloved, not Caligula the human who has lost himself, his humanity. This is why he too finally participates in the culminating self-defensive act.
The third and final mirror which places itself against Caligula’s, is that of Caesonia’s love. But this one, the most fragile, is precisely the one which has been torn to pieces, even before the beginning of the play, with Drusilla’s death. Caesonia’s love for Caligula makes one shudder “we will defend you. There are many of us left who love you” (69). It is alone for her that Caligula has felt a sincere emotion a “shameful tenderness”(71). Caesonia makes Caligula blush, and she reminds tenderly of Caligula’s childish nature (10). But Caligula’s cheeks of filled with a red from a very different source; his tenderness buried under the redness of his crimes.
And Caligula knows this. Out of the two types of love and happiness he knows, he admits to have chosen the murderous kind:
I live, I kill, I exercise the rapturous power of the destroyer, compared with which the power of the creator is merest child’s play. And this, this is happiness; this and nothing else —-this intolerable release, devastating scorn, blood, hatred all round me; the glorious isolation of a man who all his life long nurses and gloats over the ineffable joy of the unpunished murderer; the ruthless logic that crushes out human lives (he laughs), that’s crushing yours too, Caesonia, so as to perfect the utter loneliness that is my heart’s desire.” (72)
Caligula’s destructive nature undoubtedly places him in the field of the passive nihilists; but his passivity can only be understood as a negative, counterclockwise activity turned against the world, others and himself.
But even this rage towards the world, this desire for complete loneliness, is marred by his incapacity to kill Caesonia (72). Drusilla was taken away, but if Caesonia were to die it would be by his hand, not by that of fate.
Nevertheless a kind of loneliness, not absolute, not so perfect as Caligula would like, sets in; it is that odd loneliness characteristic of a dialogue among identical, symmetrical beings, among Caius and Caligula who are one and the same. Caius, the man, the art lover, the living body who senses the loss of the beloved, he who knows of tears and of trembling, in the first instance condemns the distorted image of Caligula, that over-magnified image reflected on the red-tanned mirror: “Caligula! You, too; you too, are guilty”. But this momentary humane resurgence is followed by an imperial denial : “then what of it — a little more, a little less? Yet who can condemn me in this world where there is no judge, where nobody is innocent?” (72). A true duel is on the make, and in the space separating the duelers, sincerity is born. Caius, distressed, realizes now that the moon will “never, never, never” be his, and self-questioningly asks himself why, even though “innocence will triumph”, he is not among those sharing in it (72).
But Caligula’s calmer speech, that same calm attitude with which he left Drusilla’s inert body, is now reflected from the glassy surface. Calmness quickly diminishes and a heartbreaking screaming sets in:
If I‘d had the moon, if love were enough, all might have been different. But where could I quench this thirst? (*17) What human heart, what god, would have for me the depth of a great lake? (kneeling, weeping) There’s nothing in this world, or in the other, made to my stature, And yet I know (presumably Caligula) and you know (presumably Caius)(still weeping stretches out his arms to the mirror) that all I need is for the impossible to be. The impossible!”
The emperor kneels and weeps; his body has partly recovered his humanity. His knees on the floor remind us of the descent of the moon to the lake. Earthly bound, Caligula stretches out his hands, but in that space between him and Caius, he now only sees emptiness and death; death of the beloved, absence of the moon:
(screaming) See, I stretch out my hands, but it’s always you I find, you only, confronting me and I’ve come to hate you….. I have chosen a wrong path, a path that leads to nothing, My freedom isn’t the right one … The air tonight is heavy as the sum of human sorrows” (73).
Though heavy, the air is not so heavy that Caligula cannot pick up the stool and hurl it with all his strength at the mirror image which from the beginning has overgrown itself. Watching his reflected self disappear into shattered fragments Caligula shouts: “To history Caligula. Go down to history” (74). Caligula goes down into history for each and every one of us who, when we look at ourselves in mirrors, overlook ourselves. In each look of ours at the everyday mirrors that permeate our modern world, Caligula-Caius appears. In this sense, Caligula can claim to still live at the moment of death. We are challeged by the simple truth from which he derived the wrong conclusions.
Nietzsche too knew of this rebirth to which he alluded at the beginning of Book IV of The Gay Science. After a destructive period, Nietzsche wins for himself the miracle of Sanctus Januarius, whose blood, once a year, becomes liquid again:
With a flaming spear you crushed
All its ice until my soul
Roaring toward the ocean rushed
Of its highest hope and goal.
Even healthier it swells,
Lovingly compelled but free:
Thus it lauds your miracles
Fairest month of January! (TGC, IV)
Camus knew himself of such new beginnings.
SECTION III. ABSURD DESIRE AND ART
When we moderns try to reflect on nature, we do not see ourselves reflected through it. For us, nature has ceased to be a source we can mirror for it manifests itself as the other which confronts us with its overwhelming force and its silencing indifference. Nature is no home for us:
“in a universe suddenly divested of illusion and light, a man feels alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home, or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting is properly the feeling of the absurd (MoS, 6)
The universe has been rid of all its masks, there are no illusions left. And without illusions, no magic. Moreover, without light, the playful interplay of mirrors is destroyed. The home we once inhabited no longer is, and the one we longed to make our permanent habitat no longer will be, it never really was. Looking back one sees not cities but only ruins; looking forward, simply a void, not the divine city in which we thought our long pilgrimage would finally come to an end.
The most familiar, the beloved face itself becomes faceless: “there are days when under the familiar face of a woman, we see as a stranger her we had loved months or years ago” (14). The beloved stands unattached; living, but for all intent and purposes, dead-like. To corporeal intermingling there follows a separation and an endless longing. But not only personal beauty erodes, the beauty of the world too lies ravaged. Undressed, behind its illusory meaningful garments, there lies nothing but corroding hostility:
“at the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman and these hills, the softness of the sky, the outlines of the trees at this moment loose their illusory meaning … the primitive hostility of the world rises up to face us across millennia (14) (*18)
The colorful and meaningful mirror upon which we once saw ourselves reflected, lies now shattered into fragments (18). And with its infinite fragmentation, we ourselves become like nucleus-free electrons. Our-’selves’ are “nothing but water slipping through (our) fingers” (19). Nature’s silent indifference and incomprehensible violence is met, or better, never met, by our inability to hear and articulate.
Setting a date to which neither party cares to attend; something like this is the absurd. It “lies in neither of the elements compared (but) … is born in their confrontation” (30). But a confrontation requires an intermediate space, that space in which duels take place. It is a space of silence and darkness where we see, now, not simply God’s death, but our own mortality in a godless, and many times gutless, marine environment: “the idea that ‘I am’, my way of acting as if everything has meaning, all that is given the great lie in vertiginous fashion by the absurdity of a possible death” (57).
Caligula, for example, could never have proclaimed this ‘I am’. The confrontation between Caligula and Caius is born within the space lying between them. This space is precisely the “no man’s land” which separates Marie and Meursault in her only visit to the condemned stranger (S, 76). It is also that horrifying space that opens up in the mirror-like confrontation between Maria and Martha at the end of The Misunderstanding. (Maria and Martha, Spanish names whose three first letter match each other in perfect symmetry; three letters which, furthermore, in Spanish mean nothing other than ‘sea’. The sea in which alone we can see ourselves.)
Now, exile would truly be ‘without remedy’ if this intermediate space between us and the world, us and others, and us and ourselves, were totally devoid of any life forms whatever. But to our astonishment life seems capable of flourishing even in such arid territories. This is why we should take Camus literally when he says; the absurd is “born out of (a) confrontation”. The absurd is a kind of birth, it is not simply an aborted fetus. It is this dimly felt light, above anything else, which makes it meaningful to seek intercommunicative channels between those confronted. Without the presence of any links whatsoever, confrontation itself would become incomprehensible; for how to confront that from which one is completely detached? If confrontation were solely a matter of monologues, then surely there would follow the most monstruous of characters, a Caligula without any mirror to break, a lonely emperor without the possibility of redemption.
What Caligula did not see, or feigned he did not see —– or distorted when he in fact did see it —— is something to which Don Juan, in the The Myth of Sisyphus, dedicates his entire life. Don Juan lives for desire’s living. The lover is truly the most absurd human for “the more one loves the stronger the absurd grows” (69) If the absurd human’s ideal is “the present and a succession of presents” (60), then Don Juan ——and all Doña Juanas (*19)——- are more than any other human, the caretakers of this ever-present way of living. Their banner, that is, that for which they would, if they had to, give their lives, is that of the instant where they, others and the world come to be in the presence of each other. For them life is bodily vitality felt, here and now, at its highest energetic level: “life gratifies his (her) every wish and nothing is worse than loosing it. This mad(human) is a great wise (human)” (72) (*20). Living life’s every second has made this topsy-turvy human ——- a different species of mad human than the one we found in Nietzsche ——– aware of the stakes involved in life’s loss.
Loving passionately paves the way to transforming the space between the confronted parties. Don Juan’s love is the love of a human, and such love is capable of transformation. Yet, ironically, the transfiguration that ensues from his activity is one in which both “nothing is changed and eveything …… tranfigured” (72). Through his/her figure-giving love, the lover’s commanding figure rises, not as a stone sculpture that condemns, but rather as a thread-thin bridge which resonates to a world with a new, more humane figure (*21). In all this, the passionate lover is very much like a cicada, those platonic figures which “enter the ‘now’ of their desire and stay there”; little fragile animals who “have no life apart from their desire, and, when it ends, so do they” (Carson EBS, 139). (*22) Nevertheless, unlike cicadas, Don Juan and Doña Juana are human beings. Desire for them is a bridge to dwell upon, not an immediacy out of which no confrontation can be born. The lover, unlike the cicada, loves humanely, that is to say as a another Don does, Don Quijote.
Don Juan and Doña Juana know Caligula’s simple truth: they will die and they, like all of us, are not happy. But although Don Juan awaits “the end face to face with a God that he does not adore” (76), his interest lies not in a divine mirror from which are born rays of grace. Death he is faintly conscious of, but he does not desire to be conscious simply of its inevitable presence. He loves living all the more so, for he knows, but cares not to pay too much attention to this, that in the end love really ends. There he stands “the ultimate end awaited, but never desired, the ultimate end is negligible” (72). Don Juan and Meursault are vey much alike. The former’s attitude towards death, is that of Meursault to, among many other things, God. To the priests’ words he responds, thinking through: “though I mightn’t be so sure about what interested me, I was absolutely sure about what didn’t interest me. And the question he had raised didn’t interest me …… I hadn’t time to work up interest for something that didn’t interest me” (S, 114). In the same way Don Juan is not so much interested in death for what interests one is that which one spends time doing; Don Juan does not spend much time dying. (*23)
This is why he prefers to turn his loving aging face elsewhere. From the solitary monastery cell which has become his home, he turns to the light shining “through a silent narrow slit in the sun-baked wall, some silent Spanish plain, a noble, soulless land in which he recognizes himself” (76). Ennobled, nature rises temporarily, all too briefly re-’covered’, that is to say, covered anew, by the warmth of a being sold out to the pre-articulate desiring impulse which flows out of his body regained. Don Juan, unlike Caligula, is not covered by mud.
Don Juan and Doña Juana await death, perhaps even together, and death will come to each in their loneliness. But the air he/she breathes is one which does not weigh over and suffocate him/her like it did Caligula. His/ her air is of a much purer variety. It is that air which Camus himself allows us to breathe through our reading of his desire pregnant lyrical works. Breathing as Don Juan does, is recovering a new atmospheric confrontation which nevertheless cannot but remind one of one’s unavoidable exile:
“being pure is recovering that spiritual home where one can feel the world’s relationship, where one’s pulse beat coincides with the violent throbbing of the 2 o’clock sun. It is well known that one’s native land is always recognized at the moment of loosing it. For those who are too uneasy of themselves their native land is the one that negates them” (SA, 152)
Our spiritual home as moderns can only stem from the realization of our inevitable homelessness.
Caius surely recognized love’s abode by loosing Drusilla. Besides he mistakenly longed for a homeland, or better an over-land, which is impossible for any human to achieve. Martha too longed for a new realm of meaning, but unlike Caligula’s, it was earthbound. Nevertheless, like the emperor’s, it too travelled the reddish path of murder. Both Caligula and Martha longing as they do, become terribly uneasy. But somehow we sense that Don Juan is really the uneasy character par excellence; made uneasy out of the fragile bondage to life he so much cherishes.
In being uneasy we are not that different from Caligula, Martha and Don Juan. In what sense? Well in the sense that we too know of the longing for both a native land and a beloved face. This encounter if ever it is to happen for us becomes not a given, but rather a creative task. But even if all three characters share this with us, it is in Don Juan where uneasiness finds itself a home; his courage lies in living uneasily till the end do him apart. It is in him, as in no one else, that what Camus tells us occurs: the “pulse beats” of his desiring blood coincide with the “violent throbbing of the 2 o’clock sun”. A human being and nature stand confronted, but at the same time erotically intertwined as peculiar kinds of energetically charged mirror images. (*22) Don Juan’s selfishness lies in his love of this newly won mirror which reflects much more than he himself is, or can, see. Caligula, in contrast, must break the desert-like mirror in which he alone stands facing his red stained image.
But surely there is one thing Don Juan knew nothing of, this is creative writing. What would or could he have written about? (*24) He cannot even look at portraits —— yet another kind of mirror of which Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a beautiful portrait —– much less articulate what he would have seen in them. But Camus did write, his passion to articulate moves him much more towards towards a Don Juan, Conqueror of himself. (*25). In this sense, something like what Don Juan’s pulse beats felt looking enamouredly at the Spanish plain, is what Camus allows us briefly and secretly to read in his return to Tipasa. For Don Juan to return is a joke. “Return! To what?”, he would ask.
Camus’ permanent and healthy uneasiness is that which permeates his every written word. Camus is a lover of lively portraits which spring from the light of his pen. Returning to Tipasa he allows us a return. Although in some sense it is his return, he allows us all to share in its beauty. Together we return to the ruins of our youth. Camus re-walks paths once traveled. But traveling anew is not simply a childish nostalgia for what, somewhat disoriented, Camus knows has been inevitably lost:
“disoriented, walking through the solitary countryside I tried at least to recapture that strength …. that helps me to accept what is when once I have admitted I cannot change it” (RT, 196).
To return is to recapture desiring strength. Part of strentgh comes from purer air, part from purer drink. Through liquid words Camus reaches outside Don Juan’s monastic cell. He traverses that land he once inhabited. A landscape which once again gives him some refreshing water to quench, his two main thirsts:
“I satisfied the two thirsts one cannot reject without drying up — I mean loving and admiring. For there is merely bad luck in not being loved; but there is misfortune in not loving” (RT, 201)
The lovers of suicide and murder find their thirst quenched in the thickness of blood. They onle vary as to the source. But blood coagulates outside its body bound atmosphere. It does not refresh, and this is why Sanctus Januarius’ miracle strikes us as miraculous. Looking back at the quoted passage one is lead to realize: unlike this bloody saint, Caligula has known misfortune, Martha only bad luck.
Camus’ thirst for loving and admiring he met in a world he retraced; a world which allows us to bathe our naked, mud-covered bodies, again. A world of words and live figures which recovers the warmth of a fragile candlelight:
(I) discovered once more at Tipasa that one must keep intact in himself a freshness, a cool wellspring of joy, love the day that escapes injustice and return to combat having won that light. Here I recaptured the former beauty, a young sky and measured my luck, realizing at last that in the worst years of our madness the memory of that sky had never left me.. This was what in the end had kept me from despairing. I had always known that the ruins of Tipasa were younger than our new constructions … there the world began over again everyday in an ever new light. O light! This is the cry of all characters of ancient drama brought face to dace with their fate. This last resort was ours too, and I knew it know. In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer” (RT, 201-2)
In Tipasa Camus, face to face with the ruins and beauty of his past, resembles the condemned heroes of Greek tragedy standing facing fate’s decisions. And in these two face to face encounters —-separated by thousands of years ——- again springs that intermediate space, a void, which has recurrently returned to us. It is the unbridgeable space which separates us from ourselves, from others and from nature. But in that space there springs life out of a light never lost; a light that traverses the youthful ruins in a country to us unknown: “I had always known hat the ruins of Tipasa were younger than our constructions … there the world began over again everyday in an ever new light”. Camus is born to life like Meursault, but unlike him he does not need to be sentenced to death to do so. Sentenced to death officially, that is.
This light which allegedly gave Camus invincibility, this light is not that of divinity. It is not a never ending, shadow-free light. It is not the light that numbed Meursault. Not at all. Camus’ return knows instead of candlelight ephemerality. The return is not simply a longing for a golden lit age which would utterly blind us, if we in fact could ever reach it. The return is to ever fading, mortal bound ruins, the only homeland we moderns can know if we take the death of God seriously. In the ephemeral nature of ruins, Camus finds the most beautiful mirror for our fragile nature as desiring and mortal creatures (*26). Ruins are dead memories of fought for constructions, constructions made possible by proud and dignity deserving human beings (*27). Besides, the actual ruins stand only as a physical human reminder of the natural ruins which are summer and winter to each other. In its among the ruins of winter and its, apparently, lifeless landscapes, that Camus actually finds, facing himself in his ruins, a light so powerful and yet so weak, that it can even melt ice.
In the middle of winter Camus finds in himself an invincible summer. Winter and summer stand as the seasonal correlates, of the more recurrent confrontation between night and day. This is why Camus returns to find not the revival of a divinely everlasting light, but rather that light which is born when the day comes to an end and prepares itself to enter the night. Or to put it another way, Camus finds himself facing those Algerian evenings of which he asks that figure reflected in the mirror which are his books: “what exceptional quality do the fugitive Algerian evenings possess to be able to release so many things in me?” (SA, 146). Fugitive, lawless, evenings re-’lease’ Camus from a certain kind of imprisonment. Evenings give him a new lease on life. Why evenings? Why not sunrises? Aren’t they equally as beautiful? Caligula loved the absence of light; sunlight truly hurt Meursault; Camus enlightened both shadowy figures for us. Only evenings make us long for a return.
Evenings bring, in an instant, the divorce of night and day to a momentary togetherness. In those instants Merusault’s sun, fading, reaches the cool waters of the sea; but almost instantaneously, Caligula’s sunlit moon rises to allow us to see the emerging beauty of the night. And between them, in their confrontation, there is born the presence of an intemediary; “the old mossy god that nothing will never shake, a refuge, and a harbor for its sons, of whom I am one” (RT 200). Scipio’s sky, rippling with light, traverses the land bound ruins of Tipasa; that which remains of them is reflected unto the salty waters which in an mysterious instant fill the entire horizon, (and even Caligula’s weeping eyes):
“the evening is inhabited. It is still light, to tell the truth, but in this light an almost invincible fading announces the day’s end. A wind rises, young like this night, and suddenly the waveless sea chooses a direction and a flow like a barren river from one end of the horizon to another. The sky darkens” (RT, 203)
The space between one end of the horizon, and the other, is flooded; and we marine moderns can inhabit it momentarily by swimming away as Meursault and Marie did; that is, like strangers in love. (*28)
This Tipasian evening, this nihilistic event, is one of which Camus goes on to say, “begins the mystery, the gods of night, the beyond pleasure”. But knowing that we are bound to be lost in the language Camus uses, he tries to translate this natural event into something more familiar to us who are so unused to looking at evenings. The translation into human terms is peculiar, it involves a two-sided coin:
But how to translate this? The little coin I’m carrying away from here has a visible surface, a woman’s beautiful face which repeats to me all I have learned in this day, and a worn surface which I feel under my fingers during the return. What can that lipless mouth be saying, except what I am told by another mysterious voice, within me (*29) which everyday informs me of my ignorance and my happiness? (RT, 203-4)
The mysterious pleasurable dance of gods is mirrored unto a worthless coin which Camus carries away from Tipasa. A coin is much like a two sided mirror. But unlike the possible contact of two figures approaching themselves in a mirror; in a coin those two who constitute it stand forever apart, yet at the same time, welded by channels they feel intensely, yet cannot comprehend.
If for passive nihilism tossing the coin involved two possibilities, heads meant suicide and tails murder, Camus’ active nihilism involves two radically different ones. On the one hand, beauty emerges in all its visibility. It is the beauty of a woman, it is Drusilla born again, Marie meeting Meursault, Maria meeting Jan. But Drusilla is dead, Meursault and Jan too; beauty’s mouth must remain lipless. Yet beauty finds a translator who has word-loving fingers as lips. And this is why, what beauty silently says, remains nothing other than what another mysterious voice within Camus informs; informs, that is to say, gives form. What is informed are the limits of all possible forms; the inner limit being ignorance, the outer happiness.
But a coin has two faces and only one seems to have been brought to light. This is so because, just as the moon has too its permanent dark side, so beauty must have a worn backside to which it cannot turn its back on. The tail end of the coin is one that Camus’ fingers feel worn out, tired, exhausted. It is a deserted land of lifeless cries:
“I should like, indeed, to shirk nothing ad to keep faithfully a double memory. Yes there is beauty and the care of the humiliated. Whatever may be the difficulties of the undertaking, I should like never to be unfaithful either to one of the others” (RT, 203)
To each lucky coin there lies an unlucky face. But the tossing of the Camusian coin involves a more dignified outcome than that which accumulates endlessly in the coins amassed by some passive nihilists. This everyday coin, which enriches our life like no other, is the coin of art with its mirror-like duality: “negating on the one hand and magnifying on the other, is the way of the absurd creator, he must give the void its colors” (MoS, 114)
Perhaps know, I hope, we can come a little bit closer to understanding what Camus could have meant by remarking that “creation is the great mime”. But even if this is not so, at least, his creation will certainly allows us, not only never again to overlook ourselves when looking at mirrors, but also to see and hear the absurd confrontation between a beauty which certain evenings give and the painful endless cry which emerges humiliated out of voiceless mouths.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A) Primary Sources
Camus, Albert Caligula and three other plays, Vintage Books, New York, 1958. Translated by Stuart Gilbert. (Abbreviations: Caligula: C)
———The Myth of Sisyphus, Vintage International Books, New York, 1955 (1991), Translated by Justin O-Brien. (Abbreviations: MoS, Summer in Algiers: SA, Return to Tipasa: RT)
——– The Outsider, Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1961 (1980). Translated by Stuart Gilbert. (Abb: S)
——–The Rebel, Vintage International Books, 1956 (1991) Translated by Anthony Bower. (Abb: R)
B) Secondary Sources
Baudelaire, Selected Poems, Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1975 (1984). Translated by Joana Richardson.
Carson, Anne, Eros the Bittersweet, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1986.
Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Gay Science, Vintage Books, New York, 1974. Translated by Walter Kaufmann.
——–Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in “The Portable Nietzsche”, The Viking Press, New York, 1968. Translated by Walter Kaufmann.
———Will to Power, Vintage Books, New York, 1968. Translated by Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale.
———Fragmentos Postumos, Editorial Norma, Bogotá, 1992. Translated by Germán Meléndez Acuña.
Taylor, Charles, Sources of the Self, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1984.
Rarefactions: by Andrés Melo Cousineau 