Fragmentary Thoughts on Grace and Necessity (2)

 When one is borne to one’s extremity, when all illusions are dissipated, when the support with which one concentrates the force he sustains collapses, one is compelled, within the condition of suffering, to draw nearer to a question:

Is there a source of this entire edifice of necessity? If necessity has no source, that means absurdity; if it has a source, then transcendent will is implied. At the outermost edge, one has to interrogate the Invisible. “Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand.”[Job 1:12] Man and God cannot be coequal. When one cries out, “Why have You forsaken me?” he is in truth questioning the relation between him and god. Job, after all his calamities, did not relinquish his faith — yet this persistence was founded upon the presumption that “He must have His reasons,” that is, upon the judgment “He is good.” It must be noted, however, that Job doubted. Man and God cannot be juxtaposed; to thrust the finite into direct contiguity with the Infinite results only in the finite being torn apart. This act of transgression unveils no truth; it merely inaugurates a downward degeneration into ever lower level of illusion. Whenever man seeks to accomplish, through imagination alone, that which should be undertaken by other faculties, he not only sabotages his original aim but annihilates it altogether. Every intrusion of imagination into a domain where another power ought to reign constitutes a betrayal. Imagination, whenever it fabricates within the realm of reality, generates nothing but mirages. This pure transcendence — He — cannot be comprehended, cannot be described, His name is unknowable, unutterable. How, then, is He to be approached? Through prayer. “Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.”[Job 40:4] How are we to interpret Job’s doubt? As the posture of one under force. Yet, what Job truly sought to ask was: If God were an evil God, then what can he do? Gnosticism (γνωστικός) posited the Démiurge as an evil god — a lesser, foolish, and selfish being. Yet Gnosticism did not truly confront the question: it invented a “non-being God”, which is utterly ineffable, utterly aloof from the physical world— it is a silent abyss rather than an answer to everything. It is merely another illusion, substituting one illusion for another. The question “What if God is evil?” begins from man — and therefore is a transgression. In speaking of “my relation with Him,” man does not even truly know what he says. In order to take an example that is clearer, saying that a line has a discrete length and at the same time contains an infinite number of points implies a contradiction. The Greeks sought to resolve it by hypothesizing that lines are composed of finitely many points, they didn’t think what they were saying, because one can’t think it “I would need God to seize me forcibly, for if death in this instant tore away the veil of flesh and placed me right before God, I would flee.” “In the Jewish tradition, the name ‘YHWH’ (יְהֹוָה) — the Tetragrammaton — is unpronounceable. One must substitute Adonai (אֲדֹנָי) — ‘the Lord’.” The relation between man and the transcendent (divinity/the unknowable) cannot be a relation of equals. Thus, any assertion of “I comprehend” or “I define” is, in essence, illusion. The only real thing is the posture of enduring force — as real as Job’s doubt. The transmission of this posture cannot rely on assertion: reality cannot be transmitted through illusion. The only possibility lies in retaining an intentionality precisely where communication fails. The ineffable extremity manifests itself in the visible gesture. Apophatique. The finite cannot express the transcendent. All attempts are doomed to failure; but their traces, their imprint of hopeless action, reveal the possibility of tending-toward. Unless one consents to pay the full price, the end cannot be attained. Even the smallest concession renders it void. Reality admits no subtraction. We should adopt the manière de esoteric prayer. Frequent cases (to be enumerated, and classified) in which by asserting a truth on a certain plane you destroy it. As soon as you have announced it (or announced it on a certain plane) it is no longer true. It is only true behind (above) the contrary assertion. It can therefore only be perceived by minds capable of grasping simultaneously several superimposed rows of ideas. It is incommunicable in the sense that language is one-dimensional or at the most two-dimensional (two-dimensional if it is written, but the page forms a limit). Such is the raison d'être of esotericism. Eurydice. Truths which are seen to be false as soon as you examine them. ——“ne flectat retro sua lumina, donec Avernas / exierit valles; aut inrita dona futura.” (Met. X, 50–51) ——iamque iterum moriens non est de coniuge quicquam questa suo supremumque ‘vale,’ quod iam vix auribus ille acciperet, dixit revolutaque rursus eodem est. （Met. X, 60–62） Eurydice(you’re not permitted to look back.) I don’t know whether you have stared away in class/when working/while chatting, and I don’t know whether you wear glasses…but if you experience them both, you may notice the reflection on the inner side of your lens: a reflection of the world behind you. Blurrily, instant-imaging. You gaze forward, intent on some certain object, but suddenly, at the edge of your perception, a twisted fragment of the rear world appears — inverted, blurred, almost hallucinatory — and with a slight alteration of hue, it vanishes. Those which are blurry, spontaneous — are they more real? Eurydice dwells within this reflected image. At the instant Orpheus turned his gaze, the image disappeared — and with it, she was drawn back into the darkness. Even the best singer Orpheus no longer had his chance. This reflection was not the axis of vision, not the focus of consciousness, but it appeared — superimposed upon what you intended to see. Yet if you try to focus upon it, to grasp it, it dissolves. It lies precisely where attention cannot remain much: the periphery of vision, where light enters at a particular angle. Eurydice — the beloved borne by Orpheus — at that moment, was she real? Might she not have been more real than the Eurydice who had not yet died? Is this structure — let us call it the Eurydice structure — suggesting that the interior, blurred, instantaneous image may possess a greater reality? “Unmanufactured,” “uncontrollable,” “blurry yet self-revealing” — as for men, these properties seem to signify greater reality. But this does not confer superiority; it simply marks our incapacity to seize, to question, to demand it：It neither submits to will, nor accepts contemplating, nor tolerates naming. It is closer to illusion than to any tangible object. It is not an object. It merely manifests as if it were an object. It denies and transforms the act of voir. It cannot be termed “anti-seeing”; it exists dependent upon the inverse of the medium — surfacing upon the medium itself. To confirm the real is to diminish the real. This non-object protests against the ordinary structure of the real. The pro forma structures of reality collapse here. From the ruins rises a sense of mystery, an imitation of the sacred — the very heart of esoteric rites. The form of the esoteric rite: To refrain from filling the void with imagination; to desist from speaking the void; to speak only the describable, to the utmost. Gesture transmits itself through its delicacy, its interweaving, its blurred form — and poetic language, is its natural analogue. Poetic language, bearing its destiny of failure, invokes indirectly, leaving only traces. It does not name a concept, but in its inevitable failure, in its meandering (since poetic material already consists of compounded images), in its blurriness, through a ritualistic structure of repetition, it mimics the structure of the posture under force or juxtaposes it against its contrary — causing it to surface. Presence, vibration, and openness — these three traits complete the imprint. We have not yet known “it”; poetic language awakens our attention to it while simultaneously veiling it. To describe the reflected image is merely to create a sliding sensation of perception. Using a form of structure, before the contents fully form, to momentarily summon and retract the evocative posture — thus transmitting a fragile, evanescent shard. Ποικιλόθρον’ ἀθάνατ’‘Aφρόδιτα, παῖ Δίος δολόπλοκε, λίσσομαί σε, μὴ μ’ ἄσαισι μηδ’ ὀνίαισι δάμνα, πότνια, θῦμον. Ποικιλόθρον᾽ Ἀθανάτ᾽ Ἀφρόδιτα “ On the throne of many hues, Immortal Aphrodite, child of Zeus, weaving wiles: I beg you, do not break my spirit, O Queen, with pain or sorrow” [Ode to Aphrodite, Sappho, Fragment 1，translated by Diane J. Rayor and André Lardinois] Ode to Aphrodite— according to Simone Weil — exemplifies perfect poetry: Language, here, exists to sustain — to sustain the space of meaning under the weight of suffering and force. This sustaining is not for the sake of expressing emotion, but to avert collapse. The posture of poetic language: Its semantics coil upon themselves, pointing inward, achieving the maximum congealment— coagulated from the structure of sustaining the force — seeking the narrowest outward signifying bandwidth. “It cannot be directly seen; it emerges at the rupture of the structure of contemplation.” Repetition - disturbance - fracture - return. To repeatedly behold this developing image — might one not glimpse its structure? Paul Valéry: “Philosophy is poetry.” When philosophy recognizes its incapacity to verify ultimate truth, it transforms into an art of spirit creation — into poetry. This transmutation is itself a deeper acknowledgement of limits: That truth, in its transcendence, cannot be verified; man can only respond to chaos through forms — aesthetic responses to the abyss. Philosophy thus becomes more like art —The struggling and shaping of spirit along the brink of the abyss. The structure, the posture of enduring, thus transmits itself outward.

Fragmentary Thoughts on Grace and Necessity (1)

 In her notebooks, Simone Weil had this question:

What power has a man to extricate himself from Malheur? This power is necessarily physical. He can thus be deprived of it. The question is to know whether one can deprive him of it without killing him. Yet the question remains, and it might be able to be applied to Antigone: can she extricate herself, without destroying herself, without betraying her purity, and without relinquishing her nobility? Vous me dégoûtez tous avec votre bonheur! Avec votre vie qu’il faut aimer coûte que coûte. On dirait des chiens qui lèchent tout ce qu’ils trouvent. Et cette petite chance pour tous les jours, si on n’est pas trop exigeant. Moi, je veux tout, tout de suite, – et que ce soit entier – ou alors je refuse ! Je ne veux pas être modeste, moi, et me contenter d’un petit morceau si j’ai été bien sage. Je veux être sûre de tout aujourd’hui et que cela soit aussi beau que quand j’étais petite – ou mourir. [Antigone Jean Anouilh, La Table Ronde, 1964] Antigone declared her purity, as one of those who is constitutionally inclined toward refusal. Thus, we are faced with a question: is individual purity an integral component of necessity itself? Antigone prossesses no consciousness of “choice”. Even when she told Ismene: σὺ μὲν γὰρ εἵλου ζῆν, ἐγὼ δὲ κατθανεῖν (You choose to live, I choose to die.) [ Sophoklēs Ἀντιγόνη l. 555] This, truly, is no act of choice. Rather, it is the sole available continuum of necessary poses of action for postural gestures dictated by necessity: to bury her brother’s corpse, and to perish in the consequence. (Creon: Am I to sentence her to living?) And before tackling this question, one must clarify what is meant by necessity: necessity is the totality of laws of change governed by immutable relations. For the intellective spirit of humankind, the reality is the connection of necessity. To circle around an object, one can ascertain its reality. There is a transcendent form——external to all/more external than all forms, and thereby most internal——which determines the formness of form. Thus, the very existence of form enables us to probe the reality of the thing: it exists, it possesses spatiality. Walking around a cube, one never sees a “cube”, what he sees are edges, surfaces and angles. Yet the perspective verifies the reality: there is une ordre in its configuration, by which angles and surfaces collectively instantiate the real presence of the cube. Thanks to necessity, it constructs relation, and such structured relations are what appear to us to be “the real”. We live in a world full of constant flux, multiplicity, a reality shaped by the proportional movements of ever-shifting external necessities. Everything visible is a momentary congealment of this flux. (A static object possesses the narrowest signifying bandwidth —this must be noted.) To articulate the relation between the real and the image, between necessity and appearance, we might consult Alain Badiou’: Theater does not present us with isolated elements—a script, a stage, an actor, music, or an audience. Rather, in the event of performance, all these elements are composed into a singular event, within which theater is born as something that has never existed. Note: this stands in contrast to the mechanism of necessity. Necessity occupies the site of the event but relinquishes itself to phenomena. Individual purity: When Antigone cries, “ou alors je refuse!” she is not asserting will, but giving voice to the logos of necessity. It seems evident: The human will to act, whether or not one believes in indeterminism, is trapped in such an aporia: a)If I believe that man is not at the mercy of circumstances. I act upon others inconsiderately. b)If I believe that man is at the mercy of circumstances. I abandon myself personally to them. The former leads to cruelty. The latter leads to degradation. Both, ultimately, converge upon the same result. Thus, true action must be a response to circumstance—even when that response is non-intervention. This is an action devoid of volition acts. In this sense, we may say that intention, in its strongest sense, refers to doing harm as little as possible. Antigone’s actions are driven by necessity. She does not “do good”; she confronts the necessity of circumstance, doing only the harm that cannot be avoided. Antigone as “la petite maigre,” has entirely ceded herself to necessity, to divine law. Man is not assigned the power to do good. He is only permitted to dismantle a portion of evil. It is not I who wield force—but necessity, through me, exerts force. This is the root of Antigone’s action. Thoughts, like action: indirect preparation through concentration without an object or on another object. In Antigone, the drama originates from an idea, advances through actions, and unfolds across a continuum where intention, action, and non-action each find their moment. Yet imagination is absent. True action, by its nature, is non-imaginary. Justice—in imagination —may not be justice. The absence of imagination in the play gestures toward a cruel truth: The essence of moral collapse lies in the unbridled proliferation of the imagination. This is why Creon forbids anyone from burying Polynices‘corpse——to govern the city’s imagination. （(In Anouilh’s version, this is even more explicit. Creon: “Ils étaienten bouillie, Antigone, méconnaissables. J’ai fait ramasser un des corps, lemoins abîmé des deux, pour mes funérailles nationales, et j’ai donné l’ordre de laisser pourrir l’autre où il était. Je ne sais même pas lequel. Et je t’assure que cela m’est égal. ”) At any moment, no matter what emotion arises, human judgment arises through imaginative readings of the situation. Those who become conscious of this attempt to interpret the situation—thus to read it, and from there, make ethical judgments. Even this consciousness—of interpretation—is rare. Far more common case is being unconscious when judging. In this light, Aristophanes’ interconversion between the strong and weak Logoi becomes the best case. But within the domain where necessity has intervened—If one contemplating something that appears to be good, and gazes with equal intensity at the risks which shadow it, and nevertheless acts, with unwavering resolve—Is that not good? Antigone cannot escape death in the cavern. To bury Polynices is a necessity of divine law. To preserve her father Oedipus’ nobility, to preserve her own purity, she must annihilate herself. In this context, purity means perceptible death. Antigone dissolves the self, yields to necessity, with a noble motive: love to the higher. Thus, death is inescapable. (To say it is ineluctable” is not to imply that “escape” was ever a viable intention.) Antigone knows this—more than anyone. She knows the truth most clearly: “Je veux être sûre de tout aujourd’hui et que cela soit aussi beau que quand j’étais petite”After all, the existence in childhood is wholly governed by necessity. Hence the following reflection: …This created body—can it endure such a destiny of affliction If there is endurance, then there must be extrication. One who is under the force must have something that supports him… Les systèmes planétaires qui tournent dans l'espace comme des disques rapides et dont le centre se déplace également en décrivant un cercle infiniment plus grand ne s'éloignent continuellement de leur propre position que pour revenir vers elle en achevant leur rotation. [Georges Bataille, L’anus solaire] Without support, existence cannot be sustained. A spinning disc must have an axis. A rotating sphere must possess a pole around which it revolves. That point of support, that axis—is not easily displaced. Even necessity must have support, to remain more than a mere abstraction. Necessity requires grounding in order to manifest a post-geneses reality. What support is available to the one under force? From where does the force originate? The force endured by man does not confront him directly. The medium of that force may be absent, may have no configuration, or even without intentions. In such conditions, man cannot intervene. And so, if one is to sustain, there must be support—Otherwise, sustaining becomes delusion. One may frequently be confronted with a sense of nothingness. Yet this sensation—this feeling of nothingness—arises not from true void, but from the sustaining of force. The source of force is not nothingness itself, for nothingness is not the relief of being erased, not peace, not vice—nor is it good. Rather, the feeling of nothingness is a kind of illusion, an inferior illusion. It presumes a prior “existence” and then dramatizes the loss of it—a hollow staging of absence as if it were annihilation. This sense of nothingness is itself a lie, which seeks to usurp and replace necessity. The sensation of nothingness renders desire,—whether as act, intention, or aim—utterly irrational. If nothing is ever whole, then why does desire make sense? If all that is gained is eventually lost, then why does pursuit make sense? Desire and loss wear the same face. Thus does the experience of absurdity rupture life: Life becomes unintelligible. This, too, is a form of affliction: To live always for another thing; to live in a perpetual state of desiring. This, too, is affliction: Within that first affliction, to be told, “Be honest with yourself. Nothing in this world is worthy of your life. Just imagine all desire as already void.” (This is the Ἄδικος Λόγος rhetoric of “all desire is satisfied.”) This, too, is affliction: no longer being satisfied; To desire what cannot be desired, for one no longer knows what is desirable, nor what it is that one desires. One might say, “I live for something.” But he should not deceive himself. He must understand: The mission will rob him of the reason for his existence. When the mission is fulfilled, he will be wretched by it. So it is with all desired. We construct imaginary edifices from any available material: We imagine what we want, what we may gain or lose, we even imagine what lies beyond desire—And to make it seem more “real,” we populate the image with pain, so as to lend authenticity to our illusion. This is an illusion. Authentic captivity. Without lies, life is unbearable. For the one sustain force, if illusion is dissipated, the force becomes unendurable. Illusion is what assists us to concentrate on the force we endure on one point so that the Malheur for existing gets lessened. Thus, illusion turns into the revelation of the suppression between existence and force, revealing how man endures force instead of what force that man endures, yet it still, an imaginary sensation. Disillusioned ones, the force is sustained all their existences. The dissimilitude between the enduring postures of men proceeds form ones natural. One recepts the same feeling of nausea/affliction due to the same posture of enduring. To exist in unconsciousness, to be unaware of the body’s predicament, to be blind to one’s own punishment, to dwell within illusion—this is a kind of surrender. A attachment to unconsciousness wholeheartedly—captivity. To exist within lies, to suffer the invasion of the sense of void into being, to be ignorant of the reason for one’s actions, unaware of what one’s next movement will be—To be darkened by illusion, mistaking blackness for the void. And even if—by some rare fortune—the chains are undone, the one still being remains still, unmoved, never having truly crossed over. “How is that not that what constitutes a passage towards the best, carried into effect?” Those who refuse lies, who would rather see the unendurable condition of life, who would allow the pressure of force to press nakedly upon existence without resisting—Those who burst the chains, who step forth from the cave, who endure the searing light of the sun, and finally behold the moon— Les yeux humains ne supportent ni le soleil, ni le coït, ni le cadavre, ni l'obscurité, mais avec des réactions différentes. [Georges Bataille, L’anus solaire] The sun does not set. How, then, can one advert? They are the ones who leap into the void, who accept the void, who, with unwavering resolve, believe in acceptance, who renounce hope and expectation, and choose instead to see, to stare without retreat, to endure without evasion. They submit to fate, or to force—but not out of submission. They preserve a non-angry defiance, yielding themselves to nothingness, accepting the crushing weight of force—and by doing so, their posture becomes the support. In this way, man becomes a self-sustaining structure. A mechanical architecture. A method of force. By utilizing the counterforce of what has been endured, the soul can, for a moment, detach itself from this world. But it shall never reach the other world—the soul now lies within the void, within nothingness. It must return, again, to this world, in order to take the shattered fragments of this mortal realm—the deaths of the mortal within the mortal—and transmute them into something real: necessity. To the those who are awake, there exists only one world—singular and identic one To concentrate on necessity—this is how one applies the counterforce. This is love, pure love