Reflections on Vita Contemplativa by Byung-Chul Han (Part Two)

Cover of the original German edition

(Ullstein Verlag, 2022) [a]

 

 

I.

 

One of the key paragraphs in the opening chapter of Vita Contemplativa is this one:

 

"The dialectic of inactivity transforms inactivity into a threshold, a zone of indeterminacy that enables us to create something that was not there before. Without this threshold, the same keeps repeating itself." [17]  

 

In other words, the threshold of inactivity engineers difference and produces the new. For example, only silence enables us to say something previously unspoken and unheard of [b]. Madonna's insistence that we all express ourselves may be accompanied by a funky upbeat dance track, but the message is inherently fascist, ensuring conformity and sameness [c]. 

 

Jamie Reid was right: pop music keeps young people under control [d] and pop stars like Madonna are merely the "sexual organs of capital, the means of its procreation" [20].

 

Or, as Byung-Chul Han writes: "The compulsion to be active [...] turns out to be an efficient means of rule. If revolution is inconceivable today, that may be because we do not have time to think." [18] 

 

Perhaps if young people listened to less music and read more poetry, they'd be able to liberate "the immanence of life from the transcendence that alienates life from itself" [21]. Whether this results in bliss is debatable, but, who knows, it might at least rescue them from the abyss of the virtual and the hell of the same.  

  

II.

 

I have written several posts on Torpedo the Ark that refer to Cézanne's work - click here and/or here, for example - but I've never come across the notion that his canvases construct a landscape of inactivity in which things are wedded to one another until now.  

 

It's a nice idea. Or, at any rate, I like the idea of things falling in love and entering into "frank relations with one another" [24]; of tables and trees and bowls of fruit all interacting in a friendly manner whilst shining in their own singularity; "liberated from human intentions and actions" [24]. 

 

Cézanne's landscape of inactivity: "cuts ties with humanized nature, and restores an order of things that is not anthropomorphic, in which things can be themselves again" [24-25]. His apples, for example, are not merely fit for consumption, as D. H. Lawrence recognised [e]. 

 

This is at the heart of Cézanne's greatness; the fact that he allowed objects to "have their own dignity, their own radiance" [25] and didn't put himself into every picture. Indeed, he knew that a painting only succeeds when the artist makes himself absent.

 

 

III.   

 

Because he essentially comes out of the German Romantic tradition, it's no surprise to see that Han loves nature and posits the "reconciliation between humans and nature" as the "final purpose of a politics of inactivity" [26].   

 

He coninues: 

 

"The Anthropocene is the result of the total submission of nature to human action. Nature loses all independence and dignity. It is reduced to a part of, an appendix to, human history. The lawfulness of nature is subjected to human wilfulness and to the unpredictability of human action." [31] 

 

What can be done? 

 

Heidegger famously concluded that only a god can save us [f]. But for Han what is needed is an angel of inactivity to "arrest the human action that inevitably becomes apocalyptic" [33]. It's reflection that will lead us back from the edge of catastrophe and to that dwelling place where we have our being (on the earth and beneath the sky).  

 

Reflection - and learning to wait: "'Waiting is a capacity that transcends all power to act. One who finds his way into the ability to wait surpasses all achieving and its accomplishments'" [35][g] - which, arguably, is simply a Heideggerian version of the English proverb: Good things come to those who wait.

 

Han seems perfectly okay with this delving into folk wisdom, but I have to admit it troubles me; what next - should we write in praise of common sense and popular opinion ...? I do like reading Heidegger. And I do like reading Byung-Chul Han. But you have to be in a certain mood to do so ...

 

 

IV.

 

Funny enough, Han speaks about mood in Vita Contemplativa ... Being-in-a-mood, he says, precedes the being of consciousness and allows being-there to find expression. But mood is not something of our choosing or at our disposal: "It takes hold of us [...] we are thrown into it" [36].

 

And that's a good thing, as it reveals that our being-in-the-world is determined less by activity than by primordial ontological passivity. Actions are never thus "entirely free or spontaneous" [36]. And even thinking, says Han (following Heidegger), is grounded in mood. 

 

Thus, AI doesn't really think because it isn't capable of extracting thoughts out of mood: "Contemplative inactivity [...] is alien to the machine" [37], even when you switch it off. For the machine, to think is simply to produce data - it's certainly not about expressing gratitude.  

 

 

V.  

 

To return to the question of how to save the natural world, clearly we need a radically transformed relationship with the latter and this requires thinking through. That doesn't mean not doing anything, but it does mean questioning the will to activity that has brought us to where we are today:

 

"There can be no doubt that the determination to act is necessary in order to rectify the catastrophic consequences of human intervention in nature. But if the cause of the impending disaster is the view that what is absolutely fundamental is human action - action that has ruthlessly appropriated ad exploited nature - then we require a corrective to human action itself. We must therefore increase the proportion of action that is contemplative, that is, ensure that action is enriched by reflection." [ 40-41]   

 

It also means learning to breathe again ... for the compulsion "to be active, to produce and to perform. leads to breathlessness" [41]. That's certainly true. I've been slowly suffocating for the last eight years and very much hope that taking time to reflect a bit more carefully will, in future, allow me to finally catch my breath ...

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Although this is the cover of the original German edition, please note that page numbers given in this post refer to the English translation of Byung-Chul Han's work by Daniel Steuer (Polity Press, 2024), entitled Vita Contemplativa: In Praise of Inactivity.  

[b] This is an idea found in the work of Deleuze, which Han acknowledges by quoting the following passage: 

      "So it's not a problem of getting people to express themselves but of providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say. Repressive forces don't stop people expressing themselves but rather force them to express themselves. What a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, and ever rarer, thing that might be worth saying." 

      See Gilles Deleuze, 'Mediators', in Negotiations 1972-1990, trans. Martin Joughin, (Columbia University Press, 1995), p. 129. 

[c] I have written about this song by Madonna and the socially corrosive effects of insistent self-expression in a post dated 6 August 2023: click here.

[d] The artist Jamie Reid is best known for his work with the Sex Pistols. His Stratoswasticaster design was intended to alert people to the oppressive nature of the music industry. Click here to view on artnet.

[e] See Lawrence's essay 'Introduction to These Paintings', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 182- 217. 

      For Lawrence: "Cézanne's apples are a real attempt to let the apple exist in its own separate entity, without transfusing it with personal emotion [...] It seems a small thing to do: yet it is the first real sign that man has made for thousands of years that he is willing to admit that matter actually exists." [201]

[f] This phrase - which, in the original German reads Nur noch ein Gott kann uns retten - comes from an interview given by Martin Heidegger to Rudolf Augstein and Georg Wolff for Der Spiegel magazine in September 1966, but not published until after his death in May 1976. 

      The interview touched on many aspects of Heidegger's thinking, including the relationship between philosophy, politics, and culture. It was translated into English by William J. Richardson and published in Heidegger: The Man and the Thinker, ed. Thomas Sheehan, (Transaction Publishers, 1981), pp. 45-67. 

 

[g] Han is quoting Martin Heidegger, Country Path Conversations, trans. Bret W. Davis, (Indiana University Press, 2010), p. 147. Heidegger goes on to say: "In waiting, the human-being becomes gathered in attentiveness to that in which he belongs." Something I try to remind myself of when at the bus stop. 

 

 

Part one of this post on Byung-Chul Han's Vita Contemplativa can be read by clicking here. 

 

Part three of this post on Byung-Chul Han's Vita Contemplativa can be read by clicking here.

Express Yourself: On How Individualism Becomes Socially Corrosive

Madonna performing in the video for 

her 1989 single 'Express Yourself' [1]

"Expressive individualism holds that each person has a unique core of feeling 

and intuition that should unfold or be expressed if individuality is to be realised." [2]

 

 

I. 

 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that individualism as a moral and political philosophy is intimately connected to capitalism, which is why Marx spoke of it as a bourgeois form of abstraction, heaping scorn on liberal thinkers who conceived of men and women existing prior to, outside of, or free from social relations and insisted that these individuals had a fundamental right to express themselves and their desires.

 

Of course, one needn't be a Marxist to find such an idea problematic. Indeed, there are many on the right of the political spectrum who oppose such thinking, arguing that if you deny or dissolve the bonds that hold a people together by sanctioning individual rights and modes of conduct over and above their duty to (and kinship with) others, then you threaten social stability. 

 

Nietzsche, for example, brands liberal capitalism as political degeneracy; a form of anarcho-nihilism in disguise [3]. For Nietzsche, the sovereign individual is the supreme product of culture and society, like a beautiful (but quickly fading) flower. Without the latter providing nourishment and vital support, the former would never blossom.

 

Further, it's worth recalling that Nietzsche values the individual for their power of self-stylisation and self-mastery - i.e., not the fact they express an authentic, pre-supposed self, but, rather, that they create and shape out of chaos an identity via discipline and cruelty. This is what he designates as a great and rare art [4].    

 

II.

As one might suspect, individualism vs. collectivism is a common dichotomy in cross-cultural research. 

 

Comparative studies have found that the world's cultures vary in the degree to which they value personal freedom over conformity to social norms. Since, as we have indicated, individualism is strongly correlated with liberal capitalism, the cultures of more economically developed regions tend to be the most individualistic in the world. 

      

Despite this, there are still some on the radical left who insist - like Oscar Wilde - that only with the abolition of private property and the triumph of socialism, will we witness the emergence of a true, beautiful, and healthy individualism. 

      

In his famous essay, 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism', Wilde went on to equate individualism with art, arguing that the crucial value of such is that it disturbs the "monotony of type, slavery of custom, and tyranny of habit" and saves man from being reduced to the "level of a machine". 

 

Many other artists and philosophers have also argued in favour of individualism - indeed, as a youth, I was all for a punk form of anarchic individualism too. But that's a long time ago and now and I'm no longer quite so seduced by those who insist on their absolute right to lead an aberrant and unconventional lifestyle regardless of how this impacts on others.

 

Thus, for example, when presented with Joseph Brodsky's proposition that the "surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism" [5], I would now ask what protects us from the latter when it has itself become malevolent?    

 

And surely there is little doubt that we are now living in an age of what we might term toxic individualism; i.e., a form of individualism in which self-expression has given way to narcissistic (and solipsistic) self-obsession. 

 

I don't quite want to say that TikTok threatens the future of civil society, but it's undeniable that a culture's understanding of the notion of selfhood and individual rights has broad (ethical and political) implications and is at the heart of many of the issues being contested today. 

 

My concern is, if you raise a generation in which each individual is convinced of their own uniqueness and their absolute right to live how they like (in the name of authenticity and in accord with their feelings), then that's probably not going to end well (unless you think the atomisation of society a good thing). 

 

In sum: this is obviously a large and complex topic - one way beyond the scope of a post such as this. However, the all-pervasive spread of toxic individualism and the consequences of this (i.e., the dissolution of traditional institutions and structures) are increasingly obvious. As Marx predicted long ago, with the triumph of bourgeois modernity all that is solid melts into air ... [6]       

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The music video was directed by David Fincher. The single was taken from the album Like a Prayer (Sire Records, 1989). 

      In an interview, Madonna explained what the ultimate message behind her song was; namely, that if you don't express yourself, you will remain "chained down by your inability to say what you feel or go after what you want". See Mick St. Michael, Madonna 'Talking': Madonna in Her Own Words, (Omnibus Press, 2004), p. 59.

      If interested in watching the video and listening to the song on YouTube, click here.   

 

[2] Robert Bellah, Habits of the Heart, (University of California Press, 1996), pp. 333-334.

 

[3] See the post entitled 'Nietzsche and Capitalism' (4 Oct 2013): click here. 

 

[4] Nietzsche, The Gay Science, §290. 

[5] Joseph Brodsky, speaking in his commencement address at Williams College (1984), quoted by Robert Inchausti in Thinking through Thomas Merton: Contemplation for Contemporary Times, (SUNY Press, 2014), p. 110.  

      To be fair to Brodsky, he came to this conclusion after living for thirty odd years in a regime in which individual rights were not exactly top of the agenda. In 1963, his poetry was denounced as pornographic and anti-Soviet. This resulted in continuous state harassment until he finally left Russia for the United States in 1972. Not only were his papers confiscated, but he was twice confined in a mental institution, and eventually charged with social parasitism. For this latter crime, Brodsky was sentenced to five years hard labour, although his sentence was commuted in 1965 after protests by prominent cultural figures, including Jean-Paul Sartre. Little wonder then that he became such a strong advocate of individualism. 

[6] This is a famous line from the first chapter of The Communist Manifesto (1848), trans. Samuel Moore (1888). 

 

 

Notes on 'The Ladybird' (Pt. 2)

If I were a little ladybird

And had four little wings

I'd fly to thee -

 

 

This post is a continuation of Notes on 'The Ladybird' (Pt.1): click here. 

 

 

V. 

 

And speaking of secret knowledge ... The Count, it turns out, subscribes to occultism and is a member of a secret society. One of his beliefs concerns the true (invisible) nature of fire and the blackness of the sun. As I have discussed this in a previous post, I won't go into details here [g]. 

 

Essentially, the Count's point is that, like fire, true love isn't white and ideal; it may look that way on the surface, but underneath it's dark; "a throbbing together in darkness" [180]. Daphne is unconvinced. Nevertheless, she could see the darkness in his eyes and perceived the "invisible, cat-like fire stirring deep inside them [...] coming towards her" [181]. And so she turns and hurries away. 

 

During the summer, she rather forgets about Count Dionys and remembers she has a husband; one who was shortly to return. Nevertheless, the Count's words have penetrated her unconscious: "So it was that in her own way she thought often enough of the Count's world inside-out." [181] And so it was she shivered when thinking of Basil, whose love had made her nerve-worn. 

 

She determined not to think of the Count and the secret love he offered: he was not merely an "impudent little fellow" [182], but a madman. Better off with Basil; "an adorable, tall, well-bred Englishman" [182] with a penchant for silk underwear. He might get on her nerves, but better that than the Count and his foreign unreality. 

 

"But still she used the Count's thimble." [183] Until, that is, she loses it (down the back of the sofa, as we shall see).

 

 

VI. 

 

In late Autumn, Daphne decides to visit the Count once more. She finds him collecting chestnuts and thinking to himself that "'the same power which put up the mountains could pull them down again'" [186], a thought that makes him happy. In other words, the Count has found his god at last: and he's a god of destruction who tears down the world of man as well as the mountains. 

 

Daphne thinks him foolish as well as perverse. He calls her a plucked white lily and tells her that he cares only about her invisible root - that's what he wishes to discover, though not with kisses, but with the hammer that beats in his heart. She again bids him farewell and takes her leave. "And henceforth she thought only of her husband, of Basil. She made the Count die out of her." [189] 

 

But when Basil returns to England and she hears his terribly cultured voice - "like cold blue steel" [190] - on the telephone, her heart "contracted with fear" [189] (which is never a great sign). When he arrives home, within moments he is on his knees and kissing her feet in amorous worship. Again, I have commented elsewhere on this scene, so won't discuss it here in any detail [h]. 

 

Needless to say, Daphne is a little frightened - almost horrified - but she was also "thrilled deep down to her soul" [193] and a little giddy with the sense of her own pale power: "She really felt she could glow white and fill the universe [...]" [193] 

 

While Daphne is semi-enjoying her new goddess status, Basil plonks himself on the sofa and pushes his hands "between the deep upholstery of the back and the seat" [193]. And lo and behold, he pulls out a plum - or, rather, Daphne's lost thimble, which seems to fascinate him almost as much as it does her. He questions her about it and is told the tale of Count Dionys. 

 

Then Basil returns to worshipping his wife - this time admiring her sacred white hands and wonderful Prosperine fingers [i], begging her to accept the sacrifice of himself (which sounds suspiciously like a euphemism and it's probably la petite mort that he desires, rather than actual death) [j]. 

 

Placed back on a pedestal and subject to Basil's adoration-lust, Daphne is soon feeling ill again. For alas, she was not the goddess he thought her. And of course she starts to dream about Count Dionys and "to yearn wistfully for him" [196]. So she decides, shortly before Christmas, to go visit him again - though this time accompanied by Basil. 

 

 

VII. 

 

Perhaps wishing to seem mysterious and full of the darkness that Count Dionys so loves, Daphne wears black furs and a black lace veil for her visit. She is worried, however, that he will still find her too modern in her beauty and effective loveliness. 

 

Uncertain whether the Count is mocking her with his compliments and flattering remarks, Daphne is sure of one thing - he doesn't like Basil: "Nay more, she could feel that the presence of her tall, gaunt, idealistic husband was hateful to the little swarthy man" [199], despite his polite manner. 

 

Strangely, however, Basil is fascinated by the Count. And before long Daphne is ignored by both men, as they exchange their philosophies of life: "She might just as well have been an ugly little nobody, for all the notice that was taken of her." [200] Nevertheless, she follows the argument between Basil and the Count - sympathetic to the latter, but agreeing with the former, whose words she believed to be true. 

 

In brief: Basil argues for love and the Count says there is something else; something unnameable beyond love (we know, of course, as readers of Lawrence, what this is: it's power and the so-called sacred responsibility of power as exercised by natural aristocrats). 

 

Daphne is not impressed by the Count's arguments, even though Basil finds what the latter says terribly amusing. And curiously enough, "it was now Basil who was attracted by the Count, and Daphne who was repelled" [204]. But if she now almost hates the Count, her grudge against her "white-faced, spiritually intense husband was sharp as vinegar" [205]. In all honesty, she feels let down by the pair of them - men!

 

What next? A gay romance? A queer threesome? No - that's not quite Lawrence's style. But Basil does invite the Count to stay with him and Daphne, at his in-laws mansion, for a fortnight before being shipped back to Austria. Of course, this was rather naively inviting trouble ... 

 

 

VIII. 

 

Whilst staying at her parents place, the house in which she was born, Daphne thinks with fondness of the working-people and regrets the fact that, ultimately, her consciousness "seemed to make a great gulf between her and the lower classes" [211]. She accepted this as a form of fate - even as her doom: "She could never meet in real contact anyone but a super-conscious finished being like herself: or like her husband [...]" [211] 

 

That said, there was the Count: he had something that was hot and invisible; "a dark flame of life that might warm the cold white fire of her own blood" [211]. However, whilst he stays at her home, she mostly avoids contact with him. In fact, all three - Daphne, Basil, and their queer guest - avoided one another as much as possible. And the days slipped by ... 

 

At night, when alone in his room and alone in his soul, the Count likes to sing "the old songs of his childhood" [212], in a small, high-pitched voice: "It was a curious noise: the sound of a man who is alone in his own blood: almost the sound of a man who is going to be executed." [212] 

 

One night, Daphne hears this strange "bat-like sound of the Count's singing to himself" [212]. And, even though unable to understand a word, the crooning made her forget everything. And so, after that first night, she listens out for the sound of his voice. Indeed, it became "almost an obsession with her" [212]; she had to hear him - and she had to respond to this call from the beyond that promised to transport her out of herself and out of her world. 

 

When the singing stopped, Daphne went to sleep; "a queer, light, bewitched sleep" [213]. This enchantment continues into the daytime: "She felt strange and light, as if pressure had been removed from around her [...] her feet felt so light, and her breathing delicate and exquisite" [213]. 

 

One night, the Count doesn't sing and Daphne is terrified lest the spell be broken and she is thrown back into her old life. She waits like one doomed throughout the following day. Happily, that night the singing resumes - and Daphne can resist no longer; she goes to his room, answering his peculiar call.

 

Whilst sitting outside his room and trying to find the courage to enter, a new song begins; the most terrible song of all, a kind of inhuman serenade: "It began with a rather dreary, slow, horrible sound, like death." [214] Still, this does the trick and Daphne knocks desperately on his door and pushes her way past the astonished figure of the Count when he answers, into the darkness of his room. 

 

There's an awkward silence as they sit together in the dark. If she remained more or less spellbound, he was genuinely a little embarrassed by her presence in his room and unsure what to do: 

 

"Then suddenly, without knowing, he went across in the dark [...] And he sat beside her on the couch. But he did not touch her. Neither did she move. The darkness flowed about them thick like blood, and time seemed dissolved in it. They sat with the small, invisible distance between them, motionless, speechless, thoughtless." [215] 

 

Lawrence continues, in his own unique manner: 

 

"Then suddenly he felt her fingertips touch on his arm, and a flame went over him that left him no more a man. He was something seated in flame [...] like an Egyptian king-god [...]" [216] 

 

Daphne slides to the floor and presses her face against his feet, her hair against ankles, and there she clung, crying, whilst he sat erect and motionless. Unable to offer her much of a future in this world, he promises that she will be his in the next life: 

 

"'In the dark you are mine. And when you die you are mine. But in the day, you are not mine, because I have no power in the day. In the night, in the dark, and in death, you are mine. [...] So don't forget - you are the night-wife of the ladybird [...]" [216-17] 

 

Is that really likely to satisfy a woman? I mean, it's nice to know you have someone waiting who wants you in the afterlife for all eternity. But that doesn't pay the bills and mostly it just seems an elaborate way for him to take his leave of her whilst, at the same time, making her feel - as Madonna would say - like a virgin / touched for the very first time [k]. 

 

 

IX.

 

After this, Daphne's face takes on a delicate stillness and purity, which even Basil notices. And this new innocence negates his ecstatic desire for her: "She was so still, like a virgin girl. And it was this quiet, intact quality of virginity in her which puzzled him most, puzzled his emotions and his ideas. He became suddenly ashamed to make love to her." [217-18] 

 

They decide to live more as brother and sister than man and wife from this point on. This suits Daphne, who has decided she belongs to the Count, but it also suits Basil: "The excitement of desire had left him, and now he seemed to see clear and feel true for the first time in his life." [218] 

 

The Count leaves, but not without giving another esoteric pep talk to Daphne: 

 

"'Don't forget me. Always remember me. I leave my soul in your hands and your womb. Nothing can ever separate us, unless we betray one another. [...] And never fail to believe in me. Because even on the other side of death I shall be watching for you. I shall be king in Hades when I am dead. And you will be at my side [...] since you are the wife of the ladybird." [220] 

 

One can't help wondering how many other women the Count has said this to ...? It seems a well-rehearsed speech to me.

 

And one can't help thinking that it's the kind of poisonous sweet nonsense which male cult leaders whisper into the ears of their female followers; one could easily imagine Charles Manson, for example, saying this to one of his devoted hippie girls. No wonder when he abandons Daphne, the Count laughs to himself. 

 

 

Notes

 

[g] Readers who are interested should see 'On the Scintillation of Being' (9 Jan 2018): click here. 

 

[h] Readers who are interested should see 'On the Transsexual Consummation of Foot Fetishism' (25 July 2013): click here. 

 

[i] For my thoughts on hand partialism, see the post of 27 Dec 2012: click here. 

 

[j] In many ways, Basil is similar to the character of Everard in Lawrence's novel Mr Noon: both men have a sensual nature which they disguise with their idealism; both like to kiss the feet of the woman they adore as a white goddess; and both are prepared to sacrifice themselves, if only they might receive their gratification first. See Mr Noon, ed. Lindeth Vasey, (Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 191-92.

 

[k] Madonna, 'Like a Virgin', single release (31 Oct 1984) from the album of the same title (Sire Records, 1984), written by Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. Click here to watch the official video, dir. Mary Lambert, on YouTube.

Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom: On the Genealogy of Hippie Morals

Pippa McManus: Crazy Daisy Dreams (2017)

Flower Child Group Exhibition (12 Aug - 2 Sept 2017)

Modern Eden Gallery (San Francisco)

I. Summers of Love and Hate

As a punk rocker, the symbolism of the zip and safety pin means more to me than that of the groovy floral designs so beloved of the hippie generation. However, as the Summer of Hate is now as much part of ancient cultural history as the Summer of Love, it's easier to view both events with critical perspective and concede that wearing flowers in one's hair is probably preferable to having to remove spittle.

And, of course, as a floraphile, I very much approve of intimate relationships between plants and people and can see how one might wish to develop a green neo-pagan politics upon a love of flora - although, personally, I've no desire for universal peace and love and refuse to accept that flowers can only symbolise such benevolent (and naive) idealism.    


II. If You're Going to San Francisco ...

Back in '67, San Francisco was the epicentre of the hippie counterculture, a movement mostly composed of privileged white youths who temporarily dropped out and experimented with drugs, sex, and alternative lifestyles, before moderating their views and dropping back in again as corporate yuppies in the 1980s à la Jerry Rubin.           

Thanks to a strong economy, the hippies were able to spend their time getting stoned, listening to psychedelic music, reading Allen Ginsberg,* protesting against the Man, dreaming of revolution and generally indulging their narcissism. Some formed communes and attempted to live as far outside mainstream society as possible. It's easy to mock and tempting to despise these idealists with flowers in their hair, but they have had (for better or for worse) a wide and lasting impact and many of their ideas and values are now part of the liberal orthodoxy.

Interestingly, the American author Robert Anton Wilson suggests that the hippies can be characterised as unearthly angels whose psychology manifests friendly weakness. Such people are kind, passive, generous and trusting. But they are also easily led and secretly in search of authority (which might explain the obsession with gurus and, indeed, why Charles Manson was able to wield such control over his extended Family of followers).  


III. On the Genealogy of Hippie Morals

I say their values, but, as the sociologist Bennett Berger pointed out at the time, there's nothing very new or uniquely hippie about the morality of the flower children. Their movement was merely another expression of the 19th-century bohemianism that the literary critic Malcolm Cowley had reduced to a relatively formal doctrine with several key ideas, some of which we might (briefly) summarise as follows:

(i) Only a Child Can Save Us

This first point, found in Christianity and Romanticism as well as flower power philosophy, continues to resonate today; thus the astonishing rise to global fame of Greta Thunberg, for example. The idea is that the innocent child is born with special potentialities which are systematically repressed by society. If they could only be left to blossom naturally and develop their personalities, then the world might yet be saved and humanity redeemed. 

(ii) Express Yourself (Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey)

When hippies claim the right to do their own thing, they are, of course, simply reviving the idea that the moral duty of each person is to express themselves and realise their full potential as individuals via some form of creative activity. Or smoking weed. Madonna was still churning out such bullshit twenty years after the Summer of Love.       

(iii) Paganism Good / Christianity Bad

The idea that paganism is a happy, innocent worship of the natural world that regards the body as a temple in which there is nothing unclean, whilst Christianity, in contrast, is a morally repressive and anti-sexual religion is one that I used to subscribe to myself. But then I read Michel Foucault on power, pleasure, and Christian ascesis and realised that things aren't so simple; that the difference between Graeco-Roman (i.e. pagan) and early Christian forms of self-disciplining cannot be established in terms of a fundamental distinction or dialectic. Ultimately, even the Nietzschean binary of Dionysus versus the Crucified has to be deconstructed.    

(iv) Seize the Day, Man

The idea of living spontaneously and for the moment is crucial to hippie philosophy; the immediacy of the present or the nowness of the Now is where it's at; the past and future are just abstractions and what D. H. Lawrence calls the quick of time is contained only in the instant. We have the Roman poet Horace to thank for this: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero ...  But whether it's ever very wise listening to a poet (or Robin Williams) is debatable; doesn't it all just end in the sanctioned hedonism of consumer society and a Nike slogan?

(v) Free Love

Ah, the so-called sexual revolution of the sixties ... Again, part of a long tradition carried on by individuals who objected to the state having any say over matters such as marriage, contraception, sexual orientation, etc. What an individual chose to do with his or her body was, they argued, entirely up to them. The great hope was that sexual liberation would lead to greater freedom in all spheres of life and bring about profound social, political, and cultural change. Again, I used to subscribe to this, but then I read Foucault and realised that the politics of desire involves a naive and mistaken understanding of sex, power, and subjectivity thanks to our unquestioning belief in what he terms the repressive hypothesis.   

(vi) Romantic Primitivism and Exotic Otherness 

Finally, the hippies were of course anti-Western and believed that spiritual enlightenment either lay in Asia (and involved transcendental meditation and taking lots of drugs), or with native Americans who combined tribal wisdom with noble savagery. Embarrassingly, I also used to buy into this in my Kings of the Wild Frontier/Nostalgia of Mud period. But now, I'm wise to the culture cult and refuse the tyranny of guilt identified by Pascal Buckner.

Indeed, now, not only would I never trust a hippie, I'd never trust a punk, pagan, or poet either (even though I used to self-identify as a combination of all three during the 1980s).

* Note: In an essay written in 1965, Ginsberg advocated that anti-war rallies should become non-violent spectacles and that hippie protesters should be provided with masses of flowers to be handed out to political opponents, police, press, and members of the public. Thanks to activists like Abbie Hoffman, this idea of flower power quickly spread and became an important expression of hippie ideology. It also led to some iconic images, as flower-wielding protesters were confronted by armed force.

See: 

Bennett M. Berger, 'Hippie morality - more old than new', Society, Vol. 5, Issue 2 (December, 1967), pp. 19-27. Note that Society was entitled Transaction at this time.

Malcolm Cowley, Exiles Return, (W. W. Norton, 1934). The Penguin edition (1994), ed. Donald W. Faulkner, is perhaps more readily available.

Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising, (Falcon Press, 1983), p. 55. 

Play: San Francisco, sung by Scott McKenzie, written by John Phillips, (Ode Records, May 1967), the unofficial anthem of the flower power generation: click here. It's a pleasant enough tune, but like Sid Vicious I was busy playing with my Action Man whilst all this was going on.

    

The Portrait of Madame X

John Singer Sargent: Portrait of Madame X (1884) 

Oil on canvas (92" x 43")

I. Opening Remarks

Whilst I appreciate that the American artist John Singer Sargent has great technical ability, I've never been particularly interested in him or his work. Indeed, of the estimated 900 canvases he produced in oil, there's really one that captures my attention: his painting of a young socialite, Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, known as the Portrait of Madame X. 

Submitted to the Salon in 1884, this risqué and experimental work was intended to consolidate his growing reputation as a society painter. But, as we shall see, the picture aroused a hostile reaction from the critics and resulted in a public scandal.

II.  Before Madonna, There Was Virginie Gautreau

Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau was born in New Orleans, but grew up from the age of eight in France, where she became a socialite known for her unnaturally pale-skinned beauty and hour-glass figure. Although married to a wealthy banker and businessman, Virginie was happy to receive (and encourage) amorous attention from numerous other men. Indeed, her extramarital affairs were the subject of much popular gossip.

It was through one of her wealthy lovers that Virginie was introduced to Sargent, who, keen to advance his own career by capitalizing on her notoriety, pleaded with her to sit for him. She eventually agreed - they were both ambitious American expats after all - and invited him to her home in Brittany. Here, despite his model's lack of discipline and very obvious boredom with the entire process, Sargent made numerous studies in pencil, watercolour and oil - including the work that today hangs in the Met.


III. The Portrait of Madame X

As with many images that caused controversy in late-19th century society, it's difficult for us now to understand what all the fuss was about. But the suggestively coquettish pose and the revealing black satin dress worn by Mme. Gautreau provoked a huge hullabaloo at the time.

One critic wrote that to stand before such a portrait was to instantly be offended (if not, indeed, morally contaminated). What a woman may get up to in her private life was one thing - but to flaunt the fact of her infidelity in public ... Well, that was another matter entirely. Sargent was accused of not only defying artistic convention, but outraging public decency.

Virginie's mother decided she had to intervene; she persuaded her daughter to retire from society until the scandal blew over and she asked Sargent to remove the picture from the Salon. He refused, but did agree to change the title to that which it has been known ever since: The Portrait of Madame X.

He would also, later, when the picture was back in his studio, reposition the fallen right shoulder strap of the dress, rendering the work significantly less provocative - though it was a bit late by then, as the damage to his reputation and to hers had already been done.

Sargent made the wise decision to move to London, as it was clear that he would receive no more portrait commissions in France anytime soon. And it was in England - and later America - that he really made his name. But, by his own admission many years later, he never painted anything better than The Portrait of Madame X.

Notes

Readers interested in seeing The Portrait of Madame X for themselves will find it on display in Gallery 771 at the Met Fifth Avenue. For more details, click here. An earlier, unfinished version of the work is in the Tate collection, but not presently on display: click here for details.

Coincidently, Madame X is the title of the fourteenth studio album just released by Madonna (Interscope Records, 2019). However, the title is neither a reference to Mme. Gautreau nor Sargent's portrait. Madonna claims that she was given the name Madame X at the age of 19 by a dance teacher whom she perplexed due to her constantly changing image and identity. 

Finally, readers may be interested in a recent post on Rita Hayworth wearing a dress by the French-born American costume designer Jean Louis for the film Gilda (1946), which drew inspiration from Sargent's Portrait of Madame X. Click here.   

I'm in a Rut (But I Don't Wanna Get Out Of It)

To play this classic 1979 punk single click here. 

A woman emails to let me know she fundamentally disagrees with almost everything that is posted on Torpedo the Ark - and particularly the anti-Christian Easter message on warmheartedness [click here]:

"Most of the ideas - if we can even call them ideas - are no more than academic clichés. And to these you repeatedly return as if gripped by an obsessive compulsive disorder, offering the same crude assertions and vulgar insults as if also suffering from Tourette's. I'm sorry to say - though as a follower of Nietzsche perhaps you'll appreciate the cruelty - but I think you're in a deep philosophical rut."

This seems a bit harsh, I have to say, even to a follower of Nietzsche ...

For whilst it's true that I can't concentrate and I don't feel straight - and might also have some issues around the notion of sovereignty - I wouldn't say that I'm in a rut; certainly not in the wholly negative sense that is implied here.

I prefer to think that, as Madonna would say, I've got into the groove and that's ultimately how one proves one's love of wisdom. For philosophy demands a certain level of consistency and, yes, obsessive-compulsive behaviour; an eternal return to the same ideas, same scenes, same songs. It also involves the stuttering of language and a display of idiosyncratic tics, both verbal and behavioural in nature, which to an outside eye might seem to indicate a neuropsychiatric disorder.

But, really, why quibble or get pedantic over terms?

Ultimately, I'd rather be entrenched in the deepest and darkest of philosophical ruts than have my head in the clouds like my idealistic critic who concludes her email by telling me to cheer up and insisting that life is beautiful and Jesus loves me (which it isn't, and he doesn't).