Sid Vicious Versus the Crucified

Sid Vicious Versus the Crucified 

(SA/2024) [1]

The god on the cross is a curse on life, a signpost to seek redemption from life; 

Sid Vicious on his motor-bike is a promise of life: it will be eternally reborn 

and return again from destruction.

 

 

I.

 

Can it really be forty-five years ago yesterday that Sex Pistol Sid Vicious died, aged twenty-one, from acute intravenous narcotism? 

 

It may seem hard to believe, but time flies and it's absolutely the case that Sid departed this world in the early hours of February 2nd, 1979.

 

 

II. 

 

There's really not much more to say about a death of which so much has already been written. 

 

Besides, I'm not one who mourns or regrets Sid's martyrdom; for his was what we might term a necessary death; fatal in the originary sense of the term and one which secured his tragic status. 

 

It's important to realise that punk was - despite its nihilism and apparent morbidity - a form of thanksgiving and an affirmation of life; that Sid, as its highest representative (i.e., its one true star), was not just a drug-addicted loser, but an ecstatically overflowing spirit who redeemed the contradictory and questionable nature of rock 'n' roll.   

Christ on his Cross counts as an objection to life in its eternal fruitfulness and recurrence. But Sid on his motorbike was a spiky-haired Dionysus who affirmed life whole and not denied or in part - even in its most destructive and terrible aspects.

 

As Nietzsche writes:

"One will see that the problem is that of the meaning of suffering: whether a Christian meaning or a tragic meaning. In the former case, it is supposed to be the path to a holy existence; in the latter case, being is counted as holy enough to justify even a monstrous amount of suffering. The tragic man affirms even the harshest suffering: he is sufficiently strong, rich, and capable of deifying to do so. The Christian denies even the happiest lot on earth: he is sufficiently weak, poor, disinherited to suffer from life in whatever form he meets it." [2]

 

In sum: Christ on his Cross places a curse on life; but Sid on his motorbike - or singing on stage at the Olympia, Paris [3] - is a promise that life will be eternally reborn from destruction.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The iconic image of Sid on his motorbike is from The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980): click here. Christ Crucified is an oil painting by Velázquez (1632), located in the Prado Museum, Madrid.  

 

[2] Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, (Vintage Books, 1968), section 1052, pp. 542-543. I'm essentially paraphrasing this section throughout this post. 

 

[3] See the post published on 13 October 2018: click here. 

 

Nothing Changes on New Year's Day

Lasciate ogni speranza per il 2024

 

 

I don't like - and have never liked - the Irish rock band U2.

 

But that isn't to say they haven't written some fine songs, including 'New Year's Day', which contains the killer line: Nothing changes on New Year's Day [1] - a line which counters all the mad optimism of those gawping at fireworks, popping champagne corks, and singing 'Auld Lang Syne' without any idea of what the phrase means. 

 

Often, these are the same people who criticise others for being despairing about the past or present and who insist on being hopeful for the future - even though the expectation of positive outcomes with respect to temporal progress seems entirely groundless.   

 

I don't want to sound too diabolical, but it seems to me that the phrase lasciate ogni speranza written above the gates of Hell is actually a sound piece of advice [2]. For Nietzsche may have a point when he suggests that it is hope which prolongs the torments of man and is thus the most evil of all evils [3].    

 

Finally, let me remind readers also that whilst hope may be one of the great Christian virtues, in Norse mythology it is simply the drool dripping from the mouth of the monstrous Fenris Wolf and courage a term for the gay bravery displayed by the warrior in the absence of hope.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] U2, 'New Year's Day', released as a lead single from the album War (Island Records, 1983): click here to play the official video (dir. Meiert Avis). 

 

[2] The line in full reads Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate ('Abandon all hope, ye who enter here') and it concludes an inscription above the gates of Hell according to Dante. See Inferno Canto III, line 9: click here.

[3] See Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, II 71: click here.

Dancing Jesus

 

 

I. 

 

'Lord of the Dance' is one of those hymns we were expected to sing when I was a young child at school which I truly hated.

 

The problem was, I had a difficult time accepting such a groovy Jesus; even as a six-year-old, I could sense that Our Lord and Saviour, weighed down as he was by the sins of mankind - not to mention a heavy wooden cross - wasn't likely to be light on his feet.

 

The song was thus revisionist at best; fraudulent at worst. 

 

For the fact is, there is no record in scripture of Jesus laughing and I'm pretty sure he didn't dance (or sing) a great deal (if at all) either; he wept, he prayed, he agonised over things, but the Man of Sorrows didn't get down and boogie nor strut his funky stuff. 

 

And I'm sure Sydney Carter, who wrote the lyrics to the hymn - having adapted the melody from an old Shaker song - knew this perfectly well. 

 

Indeed, according his own account, 'Lord of the Dance' was only partly written with Jesus in mind; a statue of the Hindu deity Shiva that sat on his desk also inspired him; as did the idea of Jesus as some kind of Pied Piper; as did the possibility of a cosmic Christ who inspired alien races in far away galaxies to dance the shape and pattern which is at the heart of reality. 

      

It is astonishing, when one considers this, that the song became such a huge and immediate hit with Christians all over the English-speaking world: I mean, the tune is quite catchy and it has an optimistic message at its heart - as well as an antisemitic verse [1] - but as at least one commentator has pointed out the underlying theology is unorthodox to say the very least.

 

Even Carter was surprised by the hymn's success. He later confessed: "I did not think the churches would like it at all. I thought many people would find it pretty far flown, probably heretical and anyway dubiously Christian." [2] 

 

 

II. 

 

In some ways, thinking about the hymn now, Carter's dancing Jesus reminds me of the resurrected figure in Lawrence's The Escaped Cock (1929) and there's the same interesting mix of Christianity and paganism in the lines "I danced in the morning / When the world begun / And I danced in the moon / And the stars and the sun" [3] which one finds in the latter. 

 

Thus, although the song still irritates the hell out of me - it's just so impossibly upbeat - I acknowledge its heretical character and the fact that it counters the puritanism of those who would reject song and dance as a vital part of religious worship.    

 

To paraphrase Emma Goldman: If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your religion. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The third verse of Carter's hymn implies collective Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus. This dangerous idea of Jewish deicide - which conflicts with Catholic doctrine - is central to much religious antisemitism. 

 

[2] Sydney Carter quoted in his obituary in The Telegraph (16 March 2004): click here. 

     

[3] Sydney Carter, opening four lines of the first verse of 'Lord of the Dance' (1963). For full lyrics and further information visit the Stainer & Bell website: click here.  

 

You'll Never Turn the Vinegar Into Jam: On the Figure of the Tiger in the Philosophy of D. H. Lawrence

Most of their time, tigers pad and slouch in burning peace.

Yet they also drink blood. [1]

 

 

I. 

 

Although I wouldn't name it as one of Lawrence's totemic animals, nevertheless the tiger often appears within his work and held an important place in his philosophical imagination as one of the great realities of reality; i.e., a living thing that has come into its own fullness of being: 

 

"The tiger blazed transcendent into immortal darkness." [2]

 

"The tiger is the supreme manifestation of the senses made absolute." [3]

 

For Lawrence, in other words, the tiger is physical perfection and counters the bodiless idealism of those who, like Shelley, sought pure spiritual consummation: 

 

"The tiger was a terrible problem to Shelley, who wanted life in terms of the lamb." [4]  

 

 

II. 

 

In the the first essay of the Genealogy, Niezsche argues that it's perfectly natural for lambs to hate and fear tigers, wolves, and eagles. But mistaken to believe that they are morally superior to those animals that prey on them; the latter are not evil and act out of instinctive necessity, not cruelty.    

 

To expect fierce and powerful carnivores to lie down with meek and mild herbivores is as absurd as thinking you can turn the vinegar into jam; "a tiger is a tiger not a lamb, mein herr" [5] and cannot behave otherwise (and nor can the lamb - a creature which acts from weakness, not goodness).   

 

What's more, Lawrence argues that just as the tiger requires the lamb for sustenance, the lamb needs the tiger; for only the juxtaposition of the tiger "keeps the lamb a quivering, vivid, beautiful fleet thing"  [6]. 

 

Take away or exterminate the tiger, and all you're left with is a flock of letzte Schafe; happy, but little more than woolly clods of meat. Fear and suffering are vital principles; they help concentrate the soul, in man as well as lamb. 

 

Thank God, says Lawrence, for the tigers who liberate us from the "abominable tyranny of these greedy, negative sheep" [7]. And not only does he affirm the spirit of the tiger, he dreams of becoming-tiger and of making the tiger's way his own:

 

"Like the tiger in the night, I devour all flesh, I drink all blood, until [...] in the sensual ecstasy, having drunk all blood and devoured all flesh, I am become again the eternal Fire ..." [8]   

 

 

III.

 

Lawrence being Lawrence, however, he soon starts to oscillate from one pole of delirium to another and concede that the tiger's way - the way of the flesh and becoming "transfigured into magnificent brindled flame" [9] - is not the only form of ecstasy. 

 

Man can also become-deer, become-lamb, or, indeed, become-Christian, and move beyond the tiger, finding consummation not in the devouring of those who are weaker, or even in the negative ecstasy of offering non-resistance and being eaten oneself, but in acknowledging otherness:

 

"The Word of the tiger is: my senses are supremely Me, and my senses are God in me. But Christ said: God is in the others, who are not-me. In all the multitude of others is God, and this is the great God, greater than the God which is Me. God is that which is not-me. 

      And this is the Christian truth, a truth complementary to the pagan affirmation: 'God is that which is Me.'

      God is that which is Not-Me. In realising the Not-Me I am consummated, I become infinite. In turning the other cheek I submit to God who is greater than I am, other than I am, who is in that which is not me. This is the supreme consummation. To achieve this consummation I love my neighbour as myself." [10]

 

But then, having said that, Lawrence warns of the danger of pushing this ideal too far; of becoming too selfless whilst, somewhat paradoxically, identifying oneself with all that is other, like Walt Whitman, who aches with amorous love and insists with false exuberance on grasping everyone and everthing to his bosom, believing as he does in One Identity as the great desideratum [11]. 

 

For this path ends in nihilism and the triumph of the Machine and it's a "horrible thing to see tigers caught up and entangled in machinery [...] a chaos beyond chaos, an unthinkable hell" [12].   

  

IV. 

 

Ultimately, Lawrence's sharp-clawed feline philosophy can probably be best construed as tragic in the Nietzschean sense; one which understands according to the desire of death as well as according to the desire of life and is true for all things that emerge from the matrix of chaos, including "the tiger and the fragile dappled doe" [13].  

 

The former is a blossom of pure significance, born of the sun. But the tiger, like the leopard, needs to quench herself with the blood (or soft fire) of Bambi, so that she too might know tenderness when nursing her young and dreaming her dreams in stillness:

 

"For even the mother-tiger is quenched with insuperable tenderness when the milk is in her udder; she lies still, and her dreams are frail like fawns." [14]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] A misremembered couple of lines from 'Glory', by D. H. Lawrence; The Poems, Vol. I, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University press, 2013), p. 430.   

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Crown', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 270. 

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Lemon Gardens', Twilight in Italy, in Twilight in Italy and Other Essays, ed. Paul Eggert, (Cambridge Univrrsity Press, 1994), p. 117. 

[4] D. H. Lawrence, 'Fenimore Cooper's Anglo-American Novels', in Studies in Classic American Literature (First Version: 1918-19), ed. Ezra Greenspan, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen , (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 214.

 

[5] I'm quoting here from the brilliant Kander and Ebb song 'Mein Herr', from the musical Cabaret (1966). 

      To expect a tiger or leopard or lion to lie down with its prey is, says Lawrence, as vain as hoping "for the earth to cast no shadow, or for burning fire to give no heat". See 'The Reality of Peace', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays ... p. 49. 

[6] D. H. Lawrence, 'Fenimore Cooper's Anglo-American Novels', in Studies in Classic American Literature ... p. 214. 

 

[7] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Reality of Peace', Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays ... p. 42.

 

[8] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Lemon Gardens', Twilight in Italy, in Twilight in Italy and Other Essays ... p. 117.

 

[9] Ibid.

 

[10] Ibid., pp. 119-120. 

 

[11] I have discussed Walt Whitman and his fatal idealism elsewhere on Torpedo the Ark: click here.

 

[12] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Lemon Gardens', Twilight in Italy, in Twilight in Italy and Other Essays ... p. 121.

 

[13] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Reality of Peace', Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays ... p. 38. 

 

[14] Ibid., p. 48. 

 

 

For a related post which anticipates this one and in which I evoke the spirit of the Champawat Tiger, click here.  

 

 

Brief Notes on the History of the Human Flock 2: The Judeo-Christian Era

The Good Shepherd

Bernhard Plockhorst (1825-1907)

 

 

I. 

 

Whilst the ancient Greeks - even Plato - ultimately found the idea of a kindly shepherd inadequate for conceptualising political power, the Jews were still very much smitten with it. And among them the thematic of the pastorate is developed into something far more complex:

"It covers a large part of the relations between the Eternal One and his people. Yahweh governs by leading: he walks at the head of the Hebrews [...] and by his strength, he 'guides them toward the pastures of his holiness'. The Eternal One is the shepherd par excellence." [1]

 

Foucault continues:

 

"The shepherd reference characterizes the monarchy of David, in that his reign was legitimized by having been given responsibility for the flock by God [...] It also marks the messianic promise; the one who is to come will be the new David; as against all the bad shepherds who have scattered the sheep, the one to come will be the unique pastor, designated to bring the flock back to him." [2]

 

Of course, we all know whom those designated as Christians identify as this new David and their Messiah: Jesus; he who styles himself on more than one occasion as the good shepherd - i.e. one who not only knows and cares for his sheep, but is prepared to lay down his life for them [3].

 

This old idea, circulating widely in the Hellenistic and Roman world, was one the early Christians recognised as possessing great power; namley, the power to convert non-believers and corrupt even the noblest soul. 

 

And so they not only latched on to it, but, "for the first time in the history of the West" [4], they gave it an institutional form; i.e. they developed a herd morality upon the human herd instinct [5] and organised themselves into a Church: 

 

"And that Church defines the power that it exercises over the faithful - over each and all of them - as a pastoral power." [6] 

 

This was a decisive move: a vital development in what Nietzsche terms the slave revolt in morality; an ongoing process that originated in Judaism but radically extended under Christianity; a way in which the spirit of ressentiment becomes a driving force in history, negating power in the old sense by turning all active forces reactive [7].

 

 

II. 

 

Foucault offers some very interesting remarks on the figure of the shepherd-lord and the charismatic power he exercises in the name of Love ...

 

Firstly, he exercises his power not over a place, but directly on the people. Whereas others look to build an earthly kingdom or powerful state with solid foundations, he gathers a crowd whom he subjects to his unique will. It is he alone who creates the "unity of the sheep" and forms "the flock out of the multitude" [8].

Secondly, he does not set himself above the flock, so much as at their head; he's the one out in front, the leader whose example they must follow and his power "locates its purpose in an elsewhere and a later" [9]. In other words, his power has the form of a mission.  

Thirdly, the shepherd nourishes his flock. He's not acting in his own self-interest. Rather, his role is to make sure his followers prosper; that they are spiritually enriched. If he ensures the plumpness of his flock, then this justifies his authority. 

   

Fourthly, whilst his attention extends over the flock as a whole, he has a duty to watch over each individual as an individual; not view them as "indifferently subjugated subjects" [10]. Even today, Christians like to believe they have a personal relation with Jesus.  

Finally, the essential task of the shepherd is to ensure the safety of his flock; he is their saviour first and foremost: "The good shepherd must save the whole world, but also the least of the sheep that might be in danger." [11] 

 

Or, indeed, save the soul of even the blackest sheep, who has strayed far from the flock.

 

Thus, it isn't easy to be a shepherd; they have to assume total responsibility for their flock and Christianity in particular "demands of the pastor a form of knowledge which goes well beyond the skill or experience that tradition attributed to the shepherds of men" [12].

 

In conclusion ...

 

Whilst Jesus wasn't the first shepherd of men, he was undoubtedly the most successful in the role and the Church established in his name has brilliantly set in place "institutions and procedures designed to regulate the 'conduct' of men" [13], so as to transform the whole of humanity into one giant flock.

 

How one views this will depend of course on what extent one identifies as homo ovis ...  

 

 

Notes 

 

[1] Michel Foucault, Confessions of the Flesh, trans. Robert Hurley, (Penguin Books, 2021), Appendix 2, p. 303. 

      Foucault is referring to Exodus 15:13. The King James Version of this line reads: "Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation."

 

[2] Michel Foucault, Confessions of the Flesh, p. 303.

[3] See John 10:11-15, where Jesus twice calls himself the good shepherd. 

[4] Michel Foucault, Confessions of the Flesh, p. 305.

[5] These terms - herd morality and herd instinct - are Nietzsche's. Obviously, he's not a fan of such and whilst conceding that herd animal morality has triumphed in modern Europe, he hopes to demonstrate that many other forms of higher morality are (or ought to be) possible in a post-Christian era, just as they were prior to such. 

      See Beyond Good and Evil, V. 202. And for Nietzsche's analogy of lambs and eagles, in which he examines how each arrives at its own definition of what constitutes the good, see On the Genealogy of Morality, I. 13.    

 

[6] Michel Foucault, Confessions of the Flesh, p. 310.

 

[7] See sections 10-12 of the first essay in Nietzsche's Genealogy.  

 

[8] Michel Foucault, Confessions of the Flesh, p. 305.

 

[9] Ibid., pp. 305-06.

 

[10] Ibid., p. 307.

 

[11] Ibid., p. 310.   

 

[12] Ibid., p. 313.

 

[13] Ibid., p. 310. 

 

 

To read part one of this post - on the human flock in the pagan era - click here.  

Brief Notes on the History of the Human Flock 1: The Pagan Era

Late Roman marble copy of a Kriophoros

by the ancient Greek sculptor Kalamis 

(5th-century BC)

 

 

Many of us have what might be termed an Animal Farm moment of revelation when we look from A to B, and from B to A, and from A to B again, but are unable to tell which is which [1].

For example, at a certain point it becomes clear that there is no real difference between a punk and a hippie and that you should never trust either. Similarly, the distinction between pagan and Christian is impossible to maintain as soon as one reads a little religious history.

 

Take, for example, the idea of a human flock ... 

 

This is something I believed to be an exclusively Christian concept, referring to the followers of Jesus who styles himself as the good shepherd - i.e., one who not only knows and cares for his sheep, but is prepared to lay down his life for them [2]. 

But, thanks to Michel Foucault, I now discover: 

 

"The idea of a power that would be exercised on men in the same way as the shepherd's authority over his flock appeared long before Christianity. A whole series of very ancient texts and rites make reference to the shepherd and his animals to evoke the power of the gods or the prophets over the peoples they have the task of guiding." [3].

 

In ancient Egypt, for example, pharaohs received the emblems of the shepherd during their coronation ceremony; Babylonian and Assyrian kings were also awarded the title of shepherd, signifying their duty to safeguard the people over whom they ruled on behalf of the gods. 

 

By contrast, the ancient Greeks weren't so keen on thinking of themselves as a flock of sheep (or their rulers as shepherds) and the theme of pastoral power seems to have occupied only a minor place in their cultural imagination - even whilst it was customary amongst sculptors to produce figures known as Kriophoroi [4].

 

Foucault writes:

 

"The Homeric sovereigns were indeed designated as 'shepherds of the peoples', but without there being much more than a trace of ancient titulature. But later the Greeks don't seem to have been inclined to make the relation between the shepherd and his sheep the model of relation that must obtain between the citizens and those who command them." [5]

 

Of course, there were exceptions to this: Plato, for example - whom Nietzsche regards as a proto-Christian, preparing the ground for a slave revolt in morals - discussed pastoral power at some length in the Statesman, when he determines to define what the royal art of commanding consists in. 

 

However, it's important to note that Plato qualifies the idea and argues that, ultimately, the modern political leader must be more weaver than herdsman; i.e., one who who is able to pull together all the complex social elements and different classes of people into a single fabric. 

 

As we will see in part two of this post, it will take "the spread of oriental themes in Hellenistic and Roman culture for the pastorate to appear as the adequate image for representing the highest forms of power" [6]. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm referring here to the famous ending of George Orwell's 1945 novel, in which it becomes impossible to distinguish between pigs and humans around the card table.   

 

[2] See John 10:11-15: click here. 

 

[3] Michel Foucault, Confessions of the Flesh, trans. Robert Hurley, (Penguin Books, 2021), Appendix 2, p. 302. 

 

[4] Often intended as representations of the god Hermes, Kriophoroi were figures bearing a sacrificial ram upon their shoulders. However, the figure of a shepherd carrying a lamb, simply as a pastoral vignette, was also common in ancient Greece and known by the same term. 

      The Christians adopted the image and made it their own; the Good Shepherd being the most common symbolic representation of Christ found in early Christian art in the Catacombs of Rome (before such imagery could be made explicit), and it continued to be used in the centuries after Christianity was legalized in 313. Initially, it was probably not understood to be a portrait of Jesus. However, by the 5th century the figure had taken on the conventional appearance of Christ in Christian art; the robes, the halo, the long flowing hair, etc.

 

[5] Foucault, Confessions of the Flesh, p. 303.

 

[6] Ibid., p. 304.      

    

 

To read part two of this post - on the human flock in the Judeo-Christian era - click here.

 

 

WWJD: Faith in the Age of Coronavirus

 

 

I. 

 

As even a neopagan nihilist such as myself knows, Mass, which incorporates Holy Communion, is the central rite within the Catholic Church and the source and summit of Christian life. 

 

Thus, preventing baptised members of the Church who are are otherwise in a state of grace from receiving the body and blood of Christ in the sacramental act of thanksgiving known as the Eucharist, is a deadly serious matter for those concerned (though whether it jeopardises their immortal soul I'm uncertain). 

 

And so the news that the archbishop of Berlin, Heiner Koch, has barred members of his flock from attending Mass unless they can prove they have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 is truly shocking and has rightly caused an outcry amongst Catholics worldwide. 

 

Were it not for his resurrection, the body of Jesus would surely be spinning in its tomb! I'm pretty sure he included the sick as amongst the blessed and often displayed the power to heal, taking the suffering of others upon himself, curing lepers, etc. I can't imagine he would turn his back upon the unjabbed or separate them off from his other followers.   

 

 

II. 

 

It is, as I say, shocking - even for an unbeliever and self-styled anti-Christ. But, it isn't surprising having read Byung-Chul Han's analysis of the pandemic and the manner in which Covid-19 has reduced us to a society of survival:

 

"The virus is a mirror. It shows what society we live in. We live in a survival society that is ultimately based on fear of death. Today survival is absolute [...] All the forces of life are being used to prolong life. A society of survival loses all sense of the good life. Enjoyment is also sacrificed for health, which, in turn, is raised to an end in itself. [...]

      The hysteria of survival makes society so inhumane. Your neighbour is a potential virus carrier, someone to stay away from. Older people have to die alone in their nursing homes because nobody is allowed to visit them because of the risk of infection. [...]

      Religious services are prohibited even at Easter. Priests also practise social distancing and wear protective masks. They totally sacrifice faith for survival. Charity manifests itself as keeping a distance. Virology disempowers theology. [...] The narrative of resurrection completely gives way to the ideology of health and survival. In the face of the virus, belief degenerates into farce."*

 

All of this is spot-on, I think. And it reminds me of something Nietzsche said that I would repeat to any person who truly wishes to be counted amongst the faithful: when faced with hardship - or threatened by a terrible disease - then, first and foremost, believe in the miracles of your god ... 

   

 

* Note: Byung-Chul Han, 'COVID-19 Has Reduced Us to a "Society of Survival"', a conversation with Carmen Sigüenza and Esther Rebollo of EFE, the Spanish International News Agency, in Capitalism and the Death Drive, trans. Daniel Steuer, (Polity Press, 2021), pp. 120-21.  

A Brief Note on Pain (Whilst Waiting to See the Dentist)

La douleur n'est pas mon fort ...       

 

Sitting here, with toothache, waiting to see the dentist, one recalls the line by Ernst Jünger with which Byung-Chul Han opens his new study: "Tell me your relation to pain, and I will tell you who you are!" [1]

Well, my relation to pain is a mixture of indifference and irritation. I don't share the universal algophobia that characterises our society today, but, unlike many artists and intellectuals, neither do I fetishise pain or regard suffering as the most crucial aspect of life. 

 

Thus, whilst I have a relatively high pain tolerance level and very rarely resort to painkillers, I don't think that this makes courageous or morally superior to those who reach for the paracetamol at the earliest opportunity and opt for drug-induced relief.

 

Pain, says Han, purifies. By which he means it has a cathartic effect. It should thus be recognised as a genuine passion. Which sounds suspiciously Christian to me and I remember Lawrence's remark made in a letter: "Jesus becomes more unsympatisch to me, the longer I live: crosses and nails and tears and all that stuff! I think he showed us into a nice cul de sac." [2] 

 

Lawrence's view contrasts nicely with the remark by Walter Benjamin which Han chose as an epigraph for The Palliative Society: 

 

"Of all the corporeal feelings, pain alone is like a navigable river which never dries up and which leads man down to the sea. Pleasure, in contrast, turns out to be a dead end, wherever man tries to follow its lead." [3]

 

This characterisation of pleasure as a dead end and affirmation of pain is simply a form of ascetic idealism, is it not? Again, far it be from me to reify pleasure, but I think we might challenge the idea that when pain is suppressed, happiness is attenuated and becomes merely a form of dull contentment. Or that those who are "unreceptive to pain close themselves off from deep happiness" [4].    

 

It may be Nietzschean to think like this - to give pain metaphysical significance and project it into the symbolic order (to speak of the art of suffering, etc.) - but when a tooth is troublesome who really cares about what this might (or might not) mean? At such times, we all rub our jaw and fall silent like Monsieur Teste ... [5] 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Byung-Chul Han, The Palliative Society, trans. Daniel Steuer, (Polity Press, 2021), p. 1. Han is quoting from Ernst Jünger's On Pain, (Telos Press, 2008), p. 32. 

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. V, ed. James T. Boulton and Lindeth Vasey, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 322. Letter number 3516 [26 Oct 1925], to John Middleton Murry. 

      

[3] Walter Benjamin, 'Outline of the Psychological Problem', Selected Writings, Vol. 1, (Harvard University Press, 1996), p. 397.

[4] Byung-Chul Han, The Palliative Society, p. 13. 

[5] With reference to the figure of Monsieur Teste, Byung-Chul Han writes: 

      

"Paul Valéry's Monsieur Teste represents the modern, sensitive bourgeois subject who experiences pain as meaningless, as purely physical agony. He has completely lost the Christian narrative [...] and thus also the ability to alleviate pain symbolically. [...]

      For Monsieur Teste, pain cannot be narrated. It destroys language. Where the pain begins, his sentences break off. [...] 

      Confronted with pain, Monsieur Teste falls silent. Pain robs him of his language. It destroys his world, traps him in his mute body." [19-20] 

 

 

For another brief note on pain and the palliative society, click here.

     

Apple Maggots

Apple with maggot linocut by linocutboy

on tumblr.com

 

 

I. 

 

In a short piece of fragmentary writing, D. H. Lawrence laughably declares himself to be a good Catholic at heart; one who believes in an all-overshadowing God, recognises the divinity of Jesus, and accepts the authority of the Church, including "the power of the priest to grant absolution" [1].

 

On the religious fundamentals, says Lawrence, there is no real battle between himself and Christianity and no major breach between himself and the Church of Rome. 

 

Only, of course, there is: for whilst acknowledging the divinity of Christ, Lawrence also insists that Jesus is not, however, the only Son of God; that there are in fact many saviours and to teach otherwise is disastrous and hateful. 

 

Now, I'm no theologian, but I'm pretty sure that the idea of Christ as the one and only true path to God is crucial to Christianity's brand identity and its exclusivity. And that to deny this is heresy, is it not? Lawrence would immediately - and rightly by the terms and conditions of membership - be excommunicated from the faith were he in fact a Catholic (which he wasn't).                

 

 

II. 

 

Ultimately, queer and quirky individuals such as Lawrence require their independence above all else; they are isolated outsiders who instinctively shun all attachments, reject all dogma, and question all authority - even their own: Never trust the artist. Trust the tale [2].

 

Nietzsche calls such individuals free spirits and rightly points out how they are highly unsuitable as members of any kind of political party or faith-based organisation [3]. For just as they eat their way in to the body of such, so too do they quickly (and destructively) consume their way through it and out the other side. They can't help it. It's their nature - they're like apple maggots. 

 

Now, without claiming to be a free spirit in the mould of Nietzsche and Lawrence, I've often wondered why it is that I could never quite fit in or join in with others; could never belong to a group or society or movement, with the exception of punk, which, of course, was always a loose association of odd-bods and weirdos who came together on the basis of hating everyone else even more than they despised one another and which had no rules and only one imperative - do it yourself: Don't be told what you want / Don't be told what you need [4].    

 

Notes

[1] D. H. Lawrence, 'There is no real battle ...', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988), Appendix I: Fragmentary writings, p. 385. 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature, ed. Ezra Greenspan, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 2003), Final Version (1923), 'The Spirit of Place', p. 14.  

[3] See Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, (Cambridge University Press, 1993), Vol. I., Pt. 9. §579.  

[4] Sex Pistols, 'God Save the Queen', (Virgin Records, 1977). 

 

 

This post is dedicated to the the free-spirited feminist Afiya S. Zia.

Zoom: What Would D. H. Lawrence Do?

 

Sat at home, surrounded by screens, I am no longer anywhere, 

but rather everywhere in the world at once, in the midst of a universal banality. 

- Jean Baudrillard

 

I.

 

One of the things I admire about Christianity is the inherent challenge it poses: take up your cross and follow me. These words, spoken by Jesus, are not addressed to those who are merely looking for a new faith, but, rather, those who would establish an entirely new ethical practice or mode of being in the world [1]. 

 

As Nietzsche says, this evangelical way of life - which is often a difficult and dangerous way of life (i.e., one at odds with the world and which can get you fed to the lions) - is what distinguishes a Christian from a non-Christian; he or she doesn't merely think differently, they act differently [2].    

 

One finds a similar call to action in the work of D. H. Lawrence; a writer who demands a far greater level of committment from his followers than most others: "whoever reads me will be in the thick of the scrimmage, and if he doesn’t like it - if he wants a safe seat in the audience - let him read somebody else" [3].   

 

Like Jesus, to whom he is often compared [4], Lawrence wants his readers to join him in the fight against modern techno-industrial society (or Mammon) and lead radically different lives from their fellow citizens, founded upon contrasting values.

 

Perhaps not surprisingly, however, most readers choose to discreetly ignore this revolutionary aspect of his work - and this even includes members of the D. H. Lawrence Society ... 

 

 

II.

 

According to a senior figure within the above - who shall remain nameless - the most exciting thing to emerge out of lockdown (due to the coronavirus pandemic) is the massive extension of social media. 

 

It is, he says, not only a necessity for all of us to embrace new technology, but a wonderful opportunity for members of the Lawrence Society to move online and experience the delights of virtual meetings, rather than suffer the inconvenience of physically gathering in the actual world. 

 

Indeed, he seems to be something of an evangelist for the communications and technology company Zoom, describing his own use of the software as an uplifting experience. 

 

Maybe it is: I don’t know, 'cos I don't use Zoom.

 

But what I do know, however, is that Lawrence was profoundly troubled by transcendent ideals of uplift which run counter to his gargoyle aesthetic and dreams of climbing down Pisgah back into the nearness of the nearest (as Heidegger would say). 

 

He, Lawrence, was particularly concerned by forms of technology that stimulate false feeling and counterfeit notions of community: 

 

"The film, the radio, the gramophone [and now the internet], were all invented because physical effort and physical contact have become repulsive to man and woman alike. The aim is to abstract as far as possible." [5] 

 

Lawrence would thus surely regard social media as just another attempt by hyper-conscious individuals to experience everything in their heads and to exchange the sheer intensity of life lived in the flesh for a virtual sensation. His fear is not that this results in a loss of soul, but in a denial of the body and corporeal reality: 

 

"The amazing move into abstraction on the part of the whole of humanity […] means we loathe the physical element [...] We don't want to look at flesh-and-blood people - we want to watch their shadows on a screen. We don't want to hear their actual voices: only transmitted through a machine.” [6] 

 

The fact that many people prefer to interact with family and friends via a video link is, I think, rather sad. But the fact that a Lawrentian would choose to celebrate this and act as cheerleader for an American tech giant strikes me as, well, problematic to say the least ...

 

For whilst it's not mandatory for an admirer of Lawrence to agree with everything he wrote and live a faultlessly Lawrentian lifestyle, they might at least take his work seriously enough to accept that the question concerning technology remains of vital philosophical import. 

 

Indeed, one might suggest that it has never been more crucial than now to examine our (obsessive) relationship with the screen, which, since the first lockdown in the spring of last year, has become virtually our only communicative interface with the world. 

 

We work online, we shop on line, we play online and thus our professional lives, social lives, and even love lives are all mediated via screens ... If that isn't something to concern members of the D. H. Lawrence Society, then what is?       

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See Matthew 16:24. The New International Version of this line reads: "Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.'"   

 

[2] See Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, (Penguin Books, 1990), section 33.

      Of course, as Nietzsche goes on to say, hardly anybody who has called themselves a Christian has understood this and risen to the challenge that Jesus presented. Nevertheless: "Even today, such a life is possible, for certain men even necessary: genuine, primitive Christianity will be possible at all times ... Not a belief but a doing, above all a not-doing of many things [...] To reduce being a Christian, Christianness, to a holding something to be true, to a mere phenomenality of consciousness, means to negate Christianness." Ibid., section 39.

[3] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Carlo Linati (22 Jan 1925) in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. V, ed. James T. Boulton and Lindeth Vasey, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), letter number 3341, pp. 200-01.  

[4] See Catherine Brown, 'D. H. Lawrence: Icon', in D. H. Lawrence and the Arts, ed. Catherine Brown and Susan Reid, (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), pp. 426-441. 

      Brown notes of Lawrence: "Christ-like he preached an idiosyncratic vision of salvation both parabolically and explicitly, denounced hypocrisy and materialism, prioritised content over form and soul over intellect, liked children and communal living, prophesised destruction, was poor and physically weak, died in pain and believed in a kind of resurrection." [427] 

[5] D. H. Lawrence, 'Men Must Work and Women as Well', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 277.

[6] Ibid., p. 283.

 

 

For a follow-up post to this one, click here. 

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.     

Holy Trichophilia! It's Hairy Mary Magdalene!

 Detail from an illustration in the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493),

depicting the assumption of a hirsute Mary Magdalene

 

 

I. 

 

Hair fetishism - or trichophilia as it is known by aficianados - is an erotic partialism in which an individual finds hair sexually arousing to look at, touch, smell, or lick. Whilst usually head hair is the object of fascination, some trichophiles express a preference for underarm hair, pubic hair, or hair on other areas of the body. 

 

Similarly, whilst some trichophiles have a penchant for dry hair, others insist it's only sexy when wet; some like long, straight blonde hair, carefully styled and groomed, others are excited by short, curly dark hair left to grow in a wild, natural state.  

 

Ultimately, like other members of the kinky community, hair lovers subscribe to a libertine philosophy of live and let live. Or as one trichophile joked: 'When it comes to hair fetishism, the only rule is hirsute yourself.'             

 

 

II. 

 

One of the defining characteristics of mammals, hair - a biomaterial primarily composed of the protein alpha-keratin - doesn't have any inherent value or sexual significance; these things are ascribed to it culturally.

 

Those brought up within the three main Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - seem to find hair - particularly female hair - problematic and associate various moral, magical, and erotic properties with it. 

 

Thus, Muslim women, for example, are expected to wear a hijab whilst in the presence of any male outside of their immediate family and Christian women in the West were also, until fairly recently, expected to cover their heads in church, thereby retaining modesty whilst at prayer.         

 

And speaking of Christian women ...

 

 

III.

 

Apart from the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene is arguably the most important woman in the Bible [1] and the subject of great controversy (and confusion) amongst the Church Fathers. For according to some sources, she was not only a woman of independent means, but also a former prostitute who had been possessed by seven demons [2]. 

 

In addition, she was also abnormally hairy, as depicted in numerous works of European art from the 15th-century onwards.

 

Just to be clear on this latter point: Mary didn't just have long luscious locks like Rapunzel; this gal was covered in thick hair - some might even call it fur - like some kind of wild woman of the woods or sideshow freak. Only her hands, breasts, face, knees and feet were free of hair.  

 

Whilst this might just be an artistic metaphor of some kind [3], it's also possible that Mary suffered from some form of hypertrichosis. And, if so, what does this tell us about Jesus; was his obvious affection for Mary - something that used to aggrieve his male disciples - a sign of his trichophilia? 

 

Maybe: that would certainly help explain, for example, the time he allowed his feet to be dried by a sinful woman using her long hair [4].   

 

Of course, it could be that Mary's condition only manifested itself after her time with Jesus. Some believe, for example, that in her later life she became a religious recluse and cared nothing for possessions - not even clothes which gradually fell away, and that her hair grew in order to protect her modesty [5].

 

Ultimately, who knows what the truth is in Mary's case? She is thought to be an actual historical figure, but very little is known about her life and she seems to have left behind no writings of her own. So let's just close this post with another fantastic image showing Mary in all her hairy glory ...

 

 

Mary Magdalene carried by Angels

(c. 1490-1500)

Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen

Notes

 

[1] Mary Magdalene is mentioned by name twelve times in the canonical gospels, which is more than any other woman apart from the Virgin Mary. She was an important follower of Jesus and was not only present at the crucifixion, but at the resurrection also. Indeed, according to some accounts, she it was who discovered the empty tomb and she it was whom the newly risen Jesus instructed not to touch him (on the grounds that he had not yet ascended unto his Father). She is also a favourite amongst the Gnostic authors, some of whom imagine that she and Jesus eventually married. See for example the non-canonical 3rd-century text known as the Gospel of Philip: click here.   

 

[2] The portrayal of Mary Magdalene as a repentent prostitute began after a series of Easter sermons delivered in 591, when Pope Gregory I conflated her with Mary of Bethany (sister to Martha and the zombie-like Lazarus) and the unnamed hussy who anoints Jesus's feet in Luke 7:36-50. This resulted in a widespread belief that she was a former bad girl; a belief which has persisted within the popular imagination to this day, despite the attempt by Pope Paul VI in 1969 to quash it once and for all.

      As for the demon possession, see Luke 8:1-3 and/or Mark 16:9. Luckily, Jesus was an excellent exorcist and soon put the girl right in mind and body. Consequently, she was completely devoted to him.

 

[3] That is to say, Mary Magdalene's hair suit is an iconographic feature - not the result of any medical condition - whose depiction borrows from religious drama and legend. 

 

[4] See Luke 7:36-50 in the New Testament. Lines 36-38 in the New International Version read:  

 

"When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. 

      A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume.       

      As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them."

 

So touched is Jesus by this (rather kinky) act of love, that he immediately forgives the woman her sins. 

 

[5] Unfortunately, this is another mistaken belief which is again due to the conflating of Mary Magdalene's life with that of another Mary, namely, Saint Mary of Egypt, a 4th-century prostitute who did indeed become a Christian ascetic and is venerated within the Orthodox and Coptic tradition as a Desert Mother.