No Feelings

Jamie Reid: No Feelings (1977) [1]

tate.org.uk.

 

 

When Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten informs us that he has no feelings how are we to interpret this? 

 

Some suggest it's a sign of apathy - a key term within the punk lexicon. 

 

And it's certainly true that Rotten often exhibits emotional emptiness as sneering indifference; informing listeners of 'Pretty Vacant', for example, that there's no point asking him to care about what's happening in the world as he's out to lunch [2].

 

Others have suggested that we might also consider 'No Feelings' in relation to the neuropsychological phenomenon of alexithymia - i.e., that Rotten's problem is not so much an inability to feel, but identify, acknowledge, and express emotions. 

 

As an accomplished lyricist, however, Rotten is very rarely lost for words, so I think we can safely assume he doesn't suffer from alexithymia - and even his apathy is, ultimately, just another punk affectation or pose.  

 

Indeed, even the aggressive narcissism of 'No Feelings' is clearly put on for comic effect (although, sadly, Lydon's genuine self-regard has - like his waistline - expanded massively over the years).      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] This work takes its name from a song of the same title - 'No Feelings' - by the Sex Pistols, for whom Reid constructed a powerful graphic identity, designing record sleeves, posters, etc. The song can be found on Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (Virgin, 1977): click here. Or, to watch the band perform the song live at the Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas, Texas, on 10 Jan 1978, click here. 

 

[2] To listen to 'Pretty Vacant' on Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (Virgin, 1977), click here. To watch the official video (as played on Top of the Pops), click here. And for an earlier post on Torpedo the Ark (30 July 2018) discussing this song, click here.

On the Politics of Disgust

Disgust makes her revulsion clear in Disney Pixar's 

Inside Out (dir. Pete Docter, 2015)

 

'Nothing is more important than for us to recognise that we are bound

and sworn to what provokes our most intense disgust.' - Georges Bataille

 

 

I. 

 

Arguably, disgust - as an expression of taste - betrays a high level of sensitivity and culture; an African dung beetle, for example, may be able to navigate by the stars, but it knows nothing of disgust. 

 

But then neither does a Sadean libertine, who has vanquished all emotional responses that might be regarded as all too human and all forms of pleasure rooted in the senses over which they lack control. Sade terms this form of asceticism or Stoic indifference to the natural passions, apathy and it is central to his philosophy in the bedroom. 

 

However, most of us are not Sadean libertines and do not posit apathy as an erotic ideal, nor strive to overcome our disgust for shit-eating (coprophagy) and corpse-fucking (necrophilia), for example, as signs of our superiority. We might even view apathy, in the end, as the way in which a madman seeks to justify his lack of remorse or compassion for others.    

 

 

II. 

 

Disgust, as Tina Kendall rightly says, "has long been a subject of anxious speculation" [1]. 

 

And as she also reminds us: 

 

"Recently, there has been a revitalisation of debates pertaining to disgust from across a range of disciplines, as witnessed by publications in the fields of philosophical aesthetics, phenomenology, cognitive and moral psychology, literary theory, and feminist and queer theory." [2] 

 

Continuing: 

 

"What unites much of this interdisciplinary work on disgust is a shared concern with thinking through the relations between bodily sensation, emotion, and cognition [...] and with probing the political, moral, and ethical implications that arise from those particular conditions of embodiment." [3]

 

That's true, I think, though I also agree with Martha Nussbaum, who suggests that what is most interesting about disgust is that it often acts as an intensifier of other negative emotions, such as anger or hatred. 

 

But what is the origin of disgust: is it rooted in evolutionary biology, or is it primarily an emotional phenomenon - with an added moral dimension - that is determined culturally?

 

Darwin famously wrote on the subject and seemed to believe that disgust is an evolved response to potential dangers, such as rotten meat, or body products that can spread disease (such as excrement). This identifies disgust - mostly associated with our sense of smell and taste - as an important defensive mechanism, protecting us from pathogens, etc. It's not, therefore, the wholly irrational reaction that some people imagine.   

 

But, of course, we can experience disgust for things we don't like the look or feel of too - and some people with particularly sensitive ears can even find certain noises disgusting (readers can provide their own examples, many of which will doubtless involve bodily functions).

 

There's extensive research evidence that women experience greater levels of disgust - including self-disgust and sexual disgust - than men. Again, there may well be physiological reasons for this, but it's surely something that has been socially reinforced.

There's also evidence that forms of visceral prejudice, such as racism and homophobia, are rooted in disgust and not just in ignorance, as many idealists like to believe - which is why education isn't the solution they hope it will be. In some cases, disgust for others is so overwhelming that it prevents individuals from self-examination or ever learning to love their neighbour. 

 

Ultimately, the greater one's level of disgust, the greater one's level of hate for those who inspire such and the greater one's desire to do away with them; we recall once more the case of Gregor Samsa. Fascism is the collective political expression of disgust which denies not only the rights of other citizens, but their humanity, and this results (ironically) in the most disgusting acts and scenes imaginable. 

 

And yet, disgust may also be the strong vital sensation that Kant said it was; one that prevents us from committing acts of atrocity or vile crimes. 

 

Besides, as Walter Benjamin concluded, no one is ever completely free from disgust; not even the Sadean libertine, who never really overcomes their instinct of revulsion, merely redirects it, so that, for example, they feel disgust for conventional forms of love and moral behaviour. 

 

In sum, and to quote Tina Kendall once more, disgust's complex and "distinctly polymorphic nature" [4] as both a visceral reflex and a leared emotional response, makes it a "uniquely privileged concept" [5] and critical tool for thinking through a number of important issues. 

 

The philosopher, therefore, can never just say eww! and look away from that which (rightly perhaps) revolts the non-philosopher living in Tunbridge Wells.    

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Tina Kendall, 'Tarrying with Disgust', an Introduction to Volume 15, Issue 2 of the journal Film-Philosophy, ed. Tina Kendall, (Edinburgh University Press, Oct 2011), p. 1. 

      Click here to read Kendall's Introduction; or click here to read the entire issue on academia.edu 

[2] Ibid.  

[3-5] Ibid., p. 2. 

On Phlegm, Philosophy, and Apathy

Franz Gareis: portrait of Novalis (1799)

The 18th-century German poet and mystic known as Novalis was fond of the phrase: Philosophiren ist dephlegmatisiren - Vivificiren! This has since become a familiar slogan in the work of post-Romantic writers, often translated along the lines of: 'To philosophise is to cast off apathy and to live!' 

To be honest, however, I'm not entirely convinced by this call to philosophical vitalism, either in the original German or English translation (though would have happily painted it on T-shirt when I was nineteen and regarded myself as a punk revolutionary). 

For one thing, I'm not convinced that phlegmatic is synonymous with apathetic; to be cool, calm, and self-possessed isn't quite the same as being without passion - nor, come to that, does it mean one is deadened in some manner, like an unleavened lump of inert matter.

Ulimately, it's just prejudice to ideally equate the love of wisdom with life and the overwrought, overheated world of feeling. For philosophy can, actually, be something entirely other; something alien, something perverse, something inhuman; something as abstract and as beautiful as a solitary snowflake.  

The fact is - contrary to what Walter Pater might say - we don't all wish to burn like a flame or to think always on the edge of ecstasy (though, etymologically - and ironically - phlegmatic means inflammation); some of us want to put ideas on ice for the same reason we like to add ice to our drinks; some of us, indeed, aspire, like Sade, to a condition of apathy that is pleasurable (in a denaturalised and non-Stoic manner) not only beyond good and evil, but beyond hot and cold.

Thanks to Simon Solomon for suggesting this post.