Dead Men Make Good Mould

Decay is the Laboratory of Life

(SA/2023)

 

 

Because so much of my thinking has been informed by the work of D. H. Lawrence - and because, as the author of a book of essays on thanatology, all aspects of death are a matter of continued philosophical interest - it means I can never see a pile of fallen wet leaves slowly decomposing without recalling the following lines from Fantasia of the Unconscious:

 

"Old leaves have got to fall, old forms must die. And if men at certain periods fall into death in millions, why, so must the leaves fall every single autumn. And dead leaves make good mold. And so dead men. Even dead men's souls." [1]   

 

That's quite a hard teaching from the materialist school of general economics - one that Bataille would happily affirm - but its apparent callousness in the face of some kind of huge event that results in the mass destruction of human lives doesn't detract from the essential truth that life is rooted in and thrives upon death, and that "the whole universe would perish if man and beast and herb were not putting forth a newness" [2] out of the decay of the old.

 

Or, as the Iranian philosopher Reza Negarestani puts it: "Through decay, life and death multiply and putrefy each other to no end." [3] 

 

So, next time you see a pile of rotting leaves - or, indeed, contemplate a mass grave of human bodies - try to overcome your horror and console yourself with the knowledge of how compost enriches the soil with organic nutrients and provides sustenance for a range of detritivores on both the macro and micro level; for dead men make good food as well as good mould.    

 

 

Notes

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious (1922), Ch. XV, p. 266. 

      For readers who prefer to consult the 2004 Cambridge Edition of Fantasia, published jointly with Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious and ed. Bruce Steele, see p. 189.   

[2] Ibid.

[3] Reza Negarestani, Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials, (re:press, 2008), p. 184. 

The Filth and the Fury (Or Never Mind the Sex Pistols - Here's the Borborites)

O fangeuse grandeur! sublime ignominie!

 

 

I. 

 

I've always been fond of a bit of base materialism, thus my fascination with the works of Georges Bataille who knew a thing or two about constructing a down and dirty philosophy of excess and excrement (or muck and mysticism as one critic described it) and seeking some kind of transcendent limit-experience via the transgression of social and sexual norms. 

 

But of course, torpedophiles are likely to know all this; there's been shitloads of stuff written on Bataille over the last thirty years - not to mention loads of shit stuff - beginning with Nick Land's classic (if fittingly unorthodox) study The Thirst for Annihilation (1992). 

 

And so my interest here is in not in Bataille, but members of a Gnostic sect who might be said to prefigure the modern writers with whom we are more familiar. Known as the Borborites (or Borborians), their name derived from the Greek word βόρβορος, meaning dirt, muck, or sewage. 

 

It is thanks to this etymology that the term Borborites can probably best be translated as the filthy ones ...

 

 

II.

Like other early Christian sects, there's not a great deal known about the Borborites and what details we do possess were often written by their opponents (so must be read with a degree of scepticism). 

 

It seems that the Borborites based their creed on a number of texts which they deemed sacred, but which would later be branded as heretical; these include, for example, the Gospel of Eve, the Gospel of Philip, and The Apocalypse of Adam. 

 

The figure who most captured their religious imagination, however, was Mary Magdalene and they produced a body of literature revolving around the question of her status and significance, as well as the precise nature of her relationship with Jesus, whom they acknowledged as a teacher, whilst rejecting his Father as an imposter deity [1]. 

According to Epiphanius of Salamis, a 4th-century saint who assembled a compendium of heresies known as the Panarion [2], one Borborite work, known as The Greater Questions of Mary, contained a shocking episode in which Jesus took Magdalene for a walk to the top of a mountain, whereupon he pulled a fully-formed woman from out of his side and engaged in sexual intercourse with her.   

 

As if this weren't enough, Jesus then proceeded to eat his own ejaculate and, turning to Mary, told her: Thus we must do, that we may live. At this point, Mary fainted and had to be helped to her feet by Jesus who chastised her for being of little faith. 

I'm not quite sure what to make of this cum-eating Christ, but it's an amusing narrative to consider. As are the other elements of sexual sacramentalism which, according to Epiphanius, formed an important role in Borborite ritual. He informs us, for example, that the Borborites performed their own obscene version of the eucharist (i.e. what would become known as a black mass), in which - scorning the use of wine and wafers - they would consume menstrual blood and semen. 

 

Epiphanius also insists that the Boborites had a penchant for eating aborted foetuses obtained from women who became pregnant during religious sex rituals, but I find such hard to swallow (even when mixed with honey and various spices) [3].       

 

In conclusion: unlike most other Gnostics who, because of their belief that the flesh was evil and formed a prison for the spirit, practised celibacy, fasting, and various other forms of self-denial, the Borborites were more cheerfully libertine than grimly ascetic and that makes them rather more attractive in my book. 

 

To paraphrase Dick Emery, ooh, they were awful ... but I like them.   

 

Notes

 

[1] According to Borborite theo-cosmology, there were eight heavens, each under a separate archon (ruler). In the seventh, reigned Sabaoth, creator of heaven and earth and the God of the Jews, believed by some Borborites to take the form of an ass or pig. Jesus - whom they considered a celestial being and not born of Mary (in accordance with the doctrine docetiem) - belonged to the eighth heaven, reigned over by Barbeloth, the supreme deity and Father of All.   

 

[2] Epiphanius was a 4th-century bishop considered a saint and a true defender of the faith by both the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. He is best remembered as the man who assembled a compendium of heresies known as the Panarion (c. 375-78), a work which discusses numerous religious sects and philosophies from the time of Adam onwards, detailing their histories and condemning their unorthodox beliefs and practices. According to Epiphanius, when he was a young man, he had dealings with the Borborites, but declined their invitation to join them, instead informing the local Church authorities of what they were up to and therby ensuring they were excommunicated and exiled. 

[3] Similar accusations of ritual child abuse and eating babies etc. would continue to be made by the Church against those it feared and hated or regarded as heretics; not just Gnostics, but Jews, pagans, witches, Satanists, et al. For Christians, this blood libel is the worst of all conceivable charges you can lay against those regarded as non-believers.     

To Think on One's Feet

Horst P. Horst: Barefoot Beauty (1941)

Feet: some people find them very beautiful and sexually attractive; others think them repulsive and shameful.

But, love 'em or hate them, the fact remains that plates are not without evolutionary, cultural and philosophical importance. Whilst Heidegger makes a huge fuss about the human hand, Bataille is more interested in the foot, particularly le gros orteil, which he regards as the defining feature of man; i.e., that which distinguishes us from other apes.

I don't know if that's true, but the fact that we can stand up and walk tall on our own two feet is certainly crucial. Freud argues that civilization begins with man's fateful decision to adopt an upright posture, with his nose in the air (this latter fact leading directly to the decline in his sense of smell and, subsequently, his association of bodily dirt and odours with shameful animality and base materialism).

Our habitual bipedalism developed rather belatedly in evolutionary terms and the human foot with its unique anatomical structure is a comparatively recent assemblage of bones, joints, tendons, muscles, etc. which might help to explain why our feet are so susceptible to all kinds of problems (from flat feet to swollen feet; from blisters to bunions).

Other maladies - including dodgy knees, bad backs, and hernias - are also associated with the fact that man likes to stand erect. Perhaps this is why in so many cultures feet are held in such low regard; the fact that they are often dirty and prone to sweat also adds to their perceived baseness. Arguably, only the sexual organs have a more degraded status within the heirarchy of the body.

Living as we do, we moderns, from the spiritual upper centres, we dream of becoming angels; i.e., heavenly creatures who have feet that never touch the ground. But, as a Lawrentian and as something of a podophile, I would challenge such idealism. I think we should overcome our secret horror for our terrestrial origins in mud and learn to value the naked reality of feet that are intensely alive with the desire for touch - as well as great centres of resistance with which to kick! 

See: Georges Bataille, 'The Big Toe', Visions of Excess, ed. Allan Stoekl, trans. Allan Stoekl, with Carl R. Lovitt and Donald M. Leslie Jr., (The University of Minnesota Press, 1985), pp. 20-23. Click here to read this essay on line. 

This post is for Mimi.  

Toilettenphilosophie

"[There are] three different attitudes towards excremental excess: 

an ambiguous contemplative fascination; a wish to get rid of it as fast as possible; 

a pragmatic decision to treat it as ordinary and dispose of it in an appropriate way."

- Slavoj Žižek, The Plague of Fantasies (1997)

I.

Faced with a 48-hour (non-figurative) shitstorm, I've come to the conclusion that there's really nothing funny about anorectal dysfunction and that bowel incontinence is not only beyond the pale, but beyond a joke.

Scatological humour might solicit laughter, but I agree with Cindy LaCom that this laughter is always rather hollow and "limited in its power to diminish public shame around the biological fact of shit".

Indeed, we might think of such gross-out comedy as a nervous defence mechanism designed to reduce anxiety and distance ourselves from the grim - often disgusting - reality of bodies subject to chaotic violence (bodies that have lost all integrity and self-control).     


II.

If the obscene is a loss of perspective that renders aesthetic judgement impossible, then horror might be defined as a shattering of taboo that results in a loss of illusion; i.e., it's the way in which the world rubs our noses in our own filthy mortality and its own base materialism. No matter how idealistic you are, you can't polish a turd. And you can't stop it stinking. 

Thus, even if there's nothing to laugh about when a frail and demented old woman shits her pants seven times in a weekend (the consequence of prescribing an aggressive laxative administered during a month long stay in hospital), there is something philosophically important to reflect upon ...


III.

Whilst clearly understanding the complex psycho-cultural reasons behind coprophobia, Georges Bataille and D. H. Lawrence both affirm the fact that human beings shit. Indeed, rather than seeing the act of defecating as something shameful, they think it should be acknowledged and celebrated.

Thus, in Lady Chatterley's Lover, for example, Mellors famously tells Connie as he strokes her soft sloping bottom and fingers the two secret openings to her body - "'An' if tha shits an' if tha pisses, I'm glad. I don't want a woman as couldna shit nor piss.'" 

I understand the point that Lawrence is trying to make here: he wants the human mind to free itself of its fear of the body and the body's potencies. For in his view, "the mind's terror of the body has probably driven more men mad than ever could be counted" and it's monstrous that anyone should be made to feel morally ashamed of their natural bodily functions.

That's fine. But I can't help wondering whether Mellors would be quite so un-Swiftian if Connie experienced a catastrophic loss of bowel control during the night of sensual pleasure ... Further, I have to admit - following recent experiences - that perhaps we need our illusions, our taboos, our lies surrounding the body.

Ultimately, perhaps it's preferable to have stars rather than shit in our eyes and not so unforgivable to find comfort in the reassuring smell of bleach ...

Notes

Cindy LaCom, 'Filthy Bodies, Porous Boundaries: The Politics of Shit in Disability Studies', Disability Studies Quarterly, Winter/Spring 2007, Volume 27, No.1-2. Click here to read online. 

D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 223 and 309.  

To read a related post to this one from March 2015, click here. 

Why Bataille's Work Remains Crucial

André Breton was not the last to describe and attempt to dismiss Bataille as an excremental philosopher. But such a characterization, whilst not entirely unfair or inaccurate, nevertheless fails to appreciate that it is precisely because the latter obsessively returns us to the idea that life is no more than a moment of temporary stabilization before the collapse back into the filth and chaos from which it arose, that his books say the essential and are essential.  

We need to have our noses rubbed in the fact that there is ultimately no difference between the magnificence and splendour of the sun and a coffin full of shit. Idealists like André Breton may not like it, but flies, dung-beetles, and base matter of every description belongs to the same general economy as all that he finds noble and elevated. 

In the end, what makes us beautiful and keeps us sane as human beings, is not the fact that we are capable of moral and aesthetic grandeur, but that we leave stains upon our underwear. It's the mind's inability to accept this fact and it's sense of disgust when faced with evidence of the body's physicality that is problematic and shameful. 

Like Heidegger, Bataille realised that thinking doesn't overcome metaphysics by attempting to transcend it in some manner; on the contrary, thinking overcomes metaphysics by climbing back down Pisgah and substantiating itself in the touch of bodies and the strangeness of objects. 

And so it's only when, like a young child, you can happily parade a lump of dog shit on a stick in the knowledge that here too the gods come to presence, that you'll be able to affirm the world as it is; with flowers that fade and corpses that rot.