Showing posts with label michel foucault. Show all posts
Showing posts with label michel foucault. Show all posts

19 Mar 2024

Ghost Cats

Ghost Cat (SA/2024)
 

 
You don't need to accept everything that Dusty Rainbolt [1] tells you on the topic to believe it possible that cats possess uncanny powers and haunt the human imagination in a unique manner. 
 
But can they have a posthumous presence; that is to say, should we take the idea of ghost cats seriously? 
 
I would, as a sceptic, instinctively say no to the proposition that a dear departed feline can, as it were, still be heard purring beyond the grave and visit us in the night as a shadowy presence often coming to forewarn of danger.
 
But, having said that, stories of ghostly or demonic shape-shifting cats can be found in a vast number of cultures around the world and, like Foucault [2], I have always been fascinated by the Cheshire Cat who knows how to make himself invisible and thus become a grinning non-presence. 
 
Similarly, I have long been haunted by Dandelo, the white Angora cat who, in The Fly (1958), fails to reintegrate after being disintegrated (at a molecular level) in André Delambre's matter transporter and is lost in atomic space, from where she can still be heard meowing in a pitiful manner [3].   

Finally, there's the photo above to consider ... 
 
It's a picture I took recently of a neighbour's shorthaired ginger cat sitting in my back garden and looking a bit lonely. Apparently, he's pining for his friend who was killed by a car a few months ago and is captured here in spectral form sitting besides him.
 
What are we to make of this: is it just a trick of the light? Is there something wrong with the camera on my phone? Or is this actual photographic evidence of something spooky?
 
 
Notes
 
[1] Dusty Rainbolt, Ghost Cats: Human Encounters with Feline Spirits (The Lyons Press, 2007). 
 
[2] Foucault uses the Cheshire Cat to illustrate his model of ars erotica in which we are free to experience free-floating pleasures without holding on to an abiding essence or fixed identity (i.e., smiles without the cat).
 
[3] The suggestion is given that poor Dandelo is nowhere and everywhere and alive and dead at the same time, à la Schrödinger's famous cat in a box. 
 
   

20 Feb 2024

Reflections on Two Speeches by Emmeline Pankhurst

Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928) 
photographed in 1913

'I am by nature a law-abiding person - one hating violence, hating disorder - but from the moment 
we began our militant agitation to this day, I have felt absolutely guiltless. 
For in Great Britain there is no other way ...'
 
 
I. 
 
For some reason, the figure of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst continues to haunt my imagination [1]
 
And so I thought I would take a look at a couple of her speeches, both from 1913, and perhaps find a clue as to why I find her so unsympathetic (although, actually, I know precisely what it is that irritates: her self-righteous moral and political idealism; i.e., her fascism with a human face, as BHL might say). 
 
 
II. 
 
Freedom or Death [2]
 
In a famous speech given in the United States in 1913, Emmeline Pankhurst identifies herself as a revolutionary and a soldier on the field of battle, waging civil war on behalf of women.
 
She wishes to make it clear to her American audience that she is not merely a spokesperson or an advocate - that the time for talking has been surpassed by a time for action: Deeds Not Words is the suffragette motto and if her deeds make her a dangerous person in the eyes of the authorities, well, she seems to revel in that.
 
Forced to choose between two evils - either having to "submit indefinitely to an unjust state of affairs" or rise up and adopt violent methods - Pankhurst chose the latter on the grounds that political (and maternal) history shows which option is most effective: 

"You have two babies very hungry and wanting to be fed. One baby is a patient baby, and waits indefinitely until its mother is ready to feed it. The other baby is an impatient baby and cries lustily, screams and kicks [...] until it is fed. Well, we know perfectly well which baby is attended to first."
 
Pankhurst could have refused this binary and opted for neither/nor, but instead she decided that she would make more noise and be more obtrusive - be more of a big baby - than anybody else, throwing her explosive toys out of the pram.
 
Initially, she says, the term militant was was wrongly applied to her and her cohorts. But after brutal ill-treatment at the hands of men simply for asking questions in public, they were now quite willing to accept the description and begin to terrorise the nation. 
 
And if shit happens, and the non-combatants suffer as well as the combatants, well, that's okay with her; "you cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs; you cannot have civil war without damage to something." 
 
Similarly, if suffragettes are killed for the cause (or die whilst on hunger strike in prison), well, that's unfortunate, but might also be viewed as one way of escaping male power; for the dead cannot be enslaved or denied their rights. And whilst human life is sacred, says Pankhurst, the sacrifice of life in the name of Freedom, Justice, and Equality is the greatest thing of all and she would fight for any of these noble ideals. 
 
And so we see how moral idealism turns deadly and collapses into the black hole of fascism ... 
 
 
III.
 
Why We Are Militant [3]
 
The Freedom or Death speech, as it is known, was not the only speech that Pankhurst made whilst on her fund-raising tour of the US in 1913. Why We Are Militant was another speech that is often cited and reproduced by her admirers today.
 
It opens by taking on her critics who argue that human emancipation is an inevitable evolutionary process and that women will therefore be given the vote sooner or later, thus making the violent campaign of the suffragettes unnecessary and unjustifiable. Such critics argue that educating women and preparing them for citizenship would be time better spent than smashing shop windows, burning down churches, and sending letters bombs in the post. 
 
Pankhurst, however, rejects this argument and sees little virtue in patience. Indeed, she sees patience as "something akin to crime when our patience involves continued suffering on the part of the oppressed" and argues that political change has only come at the point of a sword, i.e., via rioting, revolution, and war - not peaceful evolution. She reminds her listeners that the Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867 which extended the vote first to middle class men and then the urban male working class, were passed in response to violence and the threat of still greater violence to follow.   
 
Pankhurst thereby defends the arson attacks carried out by her suffragette comrades and suggests that if half of England needs to be burned down in a single night so that she might be able to put her X on a ballot paper, then so be it. Peaceful marches and meetings were having no effect - even if on a large scale - and appeals made fell on deaf ears - violence was unfortunate, but necessary.   
 
And the right to behave in a violent manner was part and parcel of female emancipation and equality; women should be free like men to behave in a non-constitutional and criminal manner - to break heads and destroy property - when the time called for direct action. They had the human right to do so when all other available means to bring about social and political change had failed. 

 
IV.
 
So, I think it becomes clear from these speeches why I don't like Emmeline Pankhurst. 
 
During the years she, her daughters, and the rest of her gang were particularly active on the UK political scene - from the founding of the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903 until the advent of the First World War in 1914 - there was, as Foucault would say, a certain style of political discourse and a certain ethics of the intellectual [4] - a style and an ethics that justified violence in the name of certain high ideals (such as freedom and equality). 
 
This radical moral philosophy appealed to a wide variety of political ascetics, angry militants, and potential terrorists - those who may claim to act in the name of Love, but are actually motivated by hate and resentment and seem to be particularly gripped by the molecular fascism that is in us all (in our speech and our everyday actions; in our thoughts and our desires). 
 
Paraphrasing Foucault once more, I would remind those who continue to admire Pankhurst and still think that revolutionary violence is justified by some greater good, that even if what you are fighting for is noble - and even if those you oppose are base and deplorable - you do not have to terrorise in order to be militant. 
 
And, further, don't think that politics is only and always about (defending or granting) individual rights as defined in liberal humanist philosophy.  


V.
 
It's worth noting, finally, that it was Emmeline's eldest daughter Christabel who was the real black shirt of the family. It was only after she took over leadership of the WSPU that the real violence began and the group resorted to terrorism as a legitimate political tactic - much to the horror of more moderate members who either spoke out against the bombings and arson attacks. 
 
In 1913, when Emmeline gave her speeches in America, several prominent individuals left the WSPU, including Pankhurst's younger daughters, Adela and Sylvia. 

Somewhat ironically, it was only with the outbreak of war the following year that Emmeline and Christabel called an immediate halt to their militant campaign and lent their full support to the British government in the conflict with Germany. Not only that, but they encouraged all women to assist in the war effort and all men to fight for king and country - happily handing out white feathers to those who had no wish to do so.   
 
After the War ended, Emmeline became more concerned with what she perceived as the threat posed by Bolshevism and joined the Conservative Party; her daughter Christabel, along with other more radical one-time suffragettes, chose to support the British Union of Fascists [5].   
 
 
Notes
 
[1] I have recently published two posts on Pankhurst and the insufferable suffragettes and their far-right political affiliations: click here and here
 
[2] This speech was delivered in Hartford, Connecticut on 13 November, 1913. It can easily be found in full online. An edited version was also reproduced in The Guardian (27 April 2007) as part of a series of great speeches of the 20th century: click here.     
 
[3] This speech is also from the US tour of 1913 and can also be found easily enough online: click here, for example. 

[4] See Michel Foucault's preface to Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus, trans Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane, (The Athlone Press, 1994), pp. xi-xiv. 

[5] Again, see the post 'On Suffragettes and the British Union of Fascists' (17 Feb 2024): click here


12 Dec 2023

Foucauldian Thoughts on Never Mind the Bollocks

Cover design by Jamie Reid for the Sex Pistols' compilation album 
Flogging a Dead Horse (Virgin Records, 1980), featuring the gold 
disc awarded to the band for sales of 500,000 copies of  
Never Mind the Bollocks ... (Virgin Records, 1977)
 
 
I.
 
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols is the only studio album by English punk rock band the Sex Pistols. 
 
Released on 28 October 1977, by Virgin Records, it entered the UK Album Charts at number one, having achieved advance orders of 125,000 copies. Within weeks, it went gold and it remained a best-seller for most of the following year, spending 48 weeks in the top 75. 
 
In the many years since its original release, NMTB has been reissued on several occasions; most recently in 2017, proving that you can continue to flog a dead horse even when just the bare bones remain.   
 
NMTB has inspired many bands and musicians and is frequently listed by critics not merely as the most seminal punk album, but one of the greatest albums across all genres of popular music. In 2015, the album was officially inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, the music industry thereby acknowledging its lasting qualitative and/or historical significance.

 
II. 
 
The idea that NMTB is the Sex Pistols' greatest achievement cannot be allowed to pass without close critical examination. Don't get me wrong - there are lots of things I love about it; the title, for example, and Jamie Reid's artwork for the sleeve. It even contains half-a-dozen or so songs that I still listen to today. 
 
However, rather than being viewed as an ideal reference point to which all later manifestations of what we term punk rock must nod, NMTB might be seen as just some product released, distributed, and promoted by Virgin Records. The belief that it somehow eludes and resists power and possesses radical or revolutionary properties, is simply a romantic fantasy. 
 
Of course, this isn't to deny that the myth of the Sex Pistols as anti-establishment hasn't proved to be commercially useful - or that it will cease to function in the immediate future. God's shadow is still to be seen long after his death and for a great number of fans the band continues to provide them with their most precious form of identity. Indeed, to such people NMTB is a kind of sacred artefact.
 
But it gets tedious, does it not? 
 
One grows tired of having to treat NMTB with reverence and bored of the austere monarchy of the Sex Pistols ruling over our thoughts and actions. Ultimately, one gratefully accepts the escape root from punk fandom and the worship of Saint Johnny offered by The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle ...
 
As Michel Foucault might say, in a postpunk future, many years from now, people will be unable to fathom our fascination with NMTB. And they will smile when they recall that there were once critics, like Robert Christgau, who believed that in the lyrics of the Sex Pistols resided forbidden ideas containing an undeniable truth value ...
 
 

1 Dec 2023

Passion Ends in Fashion: Notes on SEX

 
Malcolm outside his notorious boutique 
at 430 King's Road (1976)
 
 
I. 
 
When it comes to the band's name, there's an argument to be made that the Sex Pistols should have been stylised as the SEX Pistols, thereby emphasising the fact that their origins lay in the shop at 430 King's Road and Malcolm's penchant for the kinkier aspects of sexual activity and experience.
 
For Malcolm, as for Foucault, sex is best understood not as a natural function, nor as something to be scientifically studied in order to discover an essential truth about human identity, but, rather, as a sophisticated ars erotica - i.e., a form of pleasure which needs to be creatively cultivated and via which the subject might, in fact, lose (or reinvent) themselves. 
 
And for Malcolm, sex always needed to be thought in relation to two other terms beginning with the letter S: style and subversion (i.e., fashion and politics). Add these three elements together et voila! you produce a pair of bondage trousers.      
 
 
II.
 
McLaren's store at 430 King's Road - run in collaboration with his partner Vivienne Westwood - underwent a series of radical transformations and name changes during its history. 
 
It originally opened (in 1971) as the Teddy boy hang out Let It Rock, before then briefly becoming Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die (1973-74), selling a range of fashions for rockers who preferred to wear black leather jackets and biker boots, rather than drape jackets and blue suede shoes.   
 
In December 1976, the shop was reinvented as Seditionaries and it continued trading under that name until September 1980. As Seditionaries, the boutique adopted a brutalist aesthetic and attitude and stocked the clothes that are now considered the epitome of punk fashion (and sell for thousands of pounds at auction).  
 
In late 1980, the store was relaunched under the name World's End and resembled - as per Malcolm's design instructions - a cross between an 18th-century galleon and the Olde Curiosity Shoppe; punks had been superseded by pirates, Apaches, and buffalo gals. 
 
Each of these shops has a unique fascination and history and each has secured a place in the pop cultural imagination. But, for me, it is Sex that continues to most excite my interest ...
 
 
III.   
 
Quickly bored even with his own projects and uncomfortable with the idea of commercial success, in the spring of 1974, McLaren radically refurbished 430 King's Road and rebranded the shop as Sex: '"That is the one thing that scares the English. They are all afraid of that word.'" [1]
 
The façade included a 4-foot sign of pink foam rubber letters spelling out the new name in capitals. The walls of the interior of the boutique were also lined with pinkish foam rubber and covered with graffitied lines taken from erotic literature and Valerie Solanas's SCUM Manifesto (1967). Latex curtains, red carpeting, and various sexual paraphernalia used decoratively helped to create the sleazy (somewhat intimidating) look of an authentic sex shop.
 
Sex sold fetish and bondage gear supplied by existing specialist labels, as well as designs by McLaren and Westwood which were intended to be provocative rather than seductive. These included T-shirts printed with images of a nude adolescent smoking a cigarette; homosexual cowboys, bare female breasts; and - perhaps most notoriously - a leather mask of the kind worn by the Cambridge Rapist. 
 
Lines taken from pornographic texts were also often added to the designs, as were various Situationist slogans from May '68 - Sous les pavés, le plage, etc. - and references to some of Malcolm's heroes, such as the playwright Joe Orton.    
 
Pamela Rooke - known as Jordan - was hired as a sales assistant and quickly became the shop's face. 
 
In fact, Jordan embodied the spirit of the store better than anyone; better than the extraordinary clientele (which included members of the Bromley Contingent as well as the newsreader Reggie Bosanquet); better than members of the band; better even than Malcolm and Vivienne (though it can't be denied how great the latter also looked wearing her own designs) [2].  
 
Sex was far removed from the retro-revivalism of Let It Rock - although arguably Too Fast To Live possessed some of the same sense of danger and fetishistic appeal - and the customers who hung out at Sex were not the ageing Teddy boys who had so quickly bored and disappointed McLaren. They were, as mentioned, kids who had come out of glam and liked to dress up to mess up and weren't shy about challenging sexual and social conventions.
 
Paul Gorman provides an excellent summary:
 
"As an environmental installation, Sex was sensational; it literally assaulted the senses. The hectoring tone of the scawls on the 'soft' madhouse walls, the heavy jersey of the T-shirts showing severe images and text in queasy colours, the lack of natural light which produced a dull shine on the clinical black rubber garments and the powdery looking drapes, the clammy atmosphere, the 1960s garage-punk blasting from the BAL-AMi, all combined to make the experience unsettling, commanding commitment - a big Sex word - on the part of the visitor. When the door was closed, one felt less like a customer than a client entering a well-appointed dungeon, particularly when coolly appraised by the stern-faced Westwood." [3]  
 
Sex was, thus, a truly magical space aligned with McLaren's own artistic, sexual, and political obsessions. Whilst a million miles away from being what we now term a safe space inhabited by those who describe themselves as woke, it neverthless demanded that customers one day wake up and realise which side of the bed they were lying on [4].


Photo by David Dagley taken inside Sex in 1976 featuring (from L-R):
Steve Jones, Unknown, Alan Jones, Chrissie Hynde, Jordan, & Vivienne Westwood
 
 
Notes
 
[1] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 220.
 
[2] As Paul Gorman notes, in 1975, aged 34, Westwood "cut a stunning figure stalking the streets of west and central London, with her shock of blonde hair complemented by such Sex designs as rubber knickers and stockings and a porn T-shirt or a studded Venus top". See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 251.
 
[3] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 226. 
 
[4] I'm referring here to the famous T-shirt conceived by Bernie Rhodes and known (by its abbreviated title) as 'You're Gonna Wake Up'. See the post published on Torpedo the Ark on 16 Dec 2012 on the political importance of making lists: click here.    


25 Nov 2023

Silence is Violence (Or How Wokeism Restricts Freedom by Compelling Speech)

 
 
I. 
 
I don't know who came up with the slogan Silence is Violence, but it's certainly pithy - as an effective slogan should be.
 
In effect, it's a radical extension of the old idea qui tacet consentire videtur and powerfully conveys the contentious arguement that refusing to speak up against racism, for example, is tantamount not merely to lending one's support to discrimination and oppression, but is an act of violence in and of itself.
 
However, as a reader of Roland Barthes, I have long subscribed to the idea that fascism compels speech [1] and therefore have real concerns with the slogan silence is violence - and with the people who chant it in all seriousness (often having failed to think the idea through).
 
In brief: my worry is that the same kind of people who censor or restrict certain forms of speech on the one hand, now also wish to disallow the right to silence on the other hand; insisting that we must speak - although only in an approved manner [2].
 
 
II.
 
Of course, compelled speech has long troubled civil-liberties campaigners and not just Barthesians like me who would wish to keep the option of strategic non-discourse on the table. 
 
The fact that woke activists fail to recognise the inherent authoritarianism of forcing people to identify themselves, express their views, and confess their feelings - so long as they conform to what now passes for moral and political orthodoxy - is certainly ironic (to say the least).
 
And writers including George Orwell and Michel Foucalt must be spinning in their graves ...  
  
 
Notes
 
[1] Roland Barthes, 'Lecture in Inauguration of the Chair of Literary Semiology, Collège de France, January 7, 1977', trans. Richard Howard, October, Vol. 8 (Spring, 1979), pp. 3-16. Published by the MIT Press. This text can be accessed via JSTOR: click here
      I am referring to the paragraph in which Barthes says: "But language - the performance of a language system - is neither reactionary nor progressive; it is quite simply fascist; for fascism does not prevent speech, it compels speech." The reason for this, of course, is that speech acts don't take place in a vacuum; they unfold within the bounds of power (and very often enter into the service of power).       
 
[2] Mick Hume summarises all this as follows:
      "The slogan 'Silence is Violence' does not only mean that you must speak out, but that you must follow the correct script. You are free to say exactly what everybody else is saying, and say it loud. Free speech must always involve the right to offend, to speak what you believe to be true regardless of what others think. The flip side of free speech is that you must have the right to be silent when you choose - particularly when somebody is trying to compel you to speak as instructed."
      See his article 'No, silence is not violence', Spiked (16th June 2020): click here.   


4 Aug 2023

Marxist Musings on Being a Fish Out of Water

Wood carved fish (Raphael Park)
Photo by SA/2023 
 
 
I suppose many people have felt like a fish out of water at some time or other; that is to say, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, surrounded by the wrong people [1].
 
But for some, this is far more than just an occasional feeling of discomfort due to their being in an unfamiliar environment or awkward social situation. For some people, indeed, it's essentially a state of being; they are permanently estranged (or alienated) from others and perhaps even themselves and their own lives.
 
Marx certainly knew a thing or two about individuals not being in their element, although, as far as I'm aware, he never used the English expression [2]. 
 
However, in a collection of manuscripts written in collaboration with Friedrich Engels between the autumn of 1845 and the spring of 1846, and first published as Die deutsche Ideologie in 1932, Marx does say this:
 
"The 'essence' of the freshwater fish is the water of a river. But the latter ceases to be the 'essence' of the fish and is no longer a suitable medium of existence as soon as the river is made to serve industry, as soon as it is polluted by dyes and other waste products and navigated by steamboats, or as soon as its water is diverted into canals where simple drainage can deprive the fish of its medium of existence." [3] 
 
In such circumstances, when existence no longer corresponds with 'essence', what's a poor fish to do? Quietly accept the fact that external conditions have irrevocably changed? See this in terms of an unalterable fate, or an unavoidable result of progress? 

Marx suggests otherwise: he suggests that the fish should - like the millions of proletarians in capitalist society - rise up and, by means of a revolution, bring their existence once more into harmony with their 'essence'.
 
At least, that's my understanding of Marx - which is admittedly limited and may even be mistaken - that via an active, practical alteration of material reality we can radically change the interior life of men (and fish) and end their self-estrangement. We can, in other words, not only make free but make happy and build a world in which everyone feels at home and is able to fit in (i.e., a communist society). 
 
Obviously, I have problems with this Marxist vision, as I do with every other form of utopianism. And as I looked at the above wood carving in my local park, I couldn't help but recall Michel Foucault's remark about Marxism as something out of place and unable to survive in the world today: 
 
"Marxism exists in nineteenth-century thought like a fish in water: that is, it is unable to breathe anywhere else." [4] 
 
 
Notes
 
[1] This expression was first used by Chaucer in The Cantebury Tales (1387-1400) to describe a seaman's awkwardness when obliged to ride a horse and a monk's discomfort when in the world at large rather than safely cloistered in the monastery. 
 
[2] Although German speakers, like Marx, cerainly refer to people not being in their element - nicht in seinem Element sein - I'm not sure they use the idiomatic expression fish out of water. However, I may be wrong about this and I'm happy to be corrected if so. 
 
[3] See Karl Marx, The German Ideology, Part I: Feuerbach. Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook, B: The Illusion of the Epoch. This can be read online by clicking here.  
 
[4] Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, (Tavistock Publications, 1970), p. 262.

 
 

24 Feb 2023

Notes on Young Kim's 'A Year On Earth With Mr. Hell' (Part 2)

A Year on Earth With Mr. Hell (Fashion Beast Editions, 2022) 
ft. Miss Young Kim and Mr. Richard Hell
 
 
To read part one of this post, which offers a series of opening remarks and notes on subjects including amorous gifts, dirty handkerchiefs, cunnilingus, and the politics of fashion, please click here
 
May I also remind readers that page numbers given below refer to the Fashionbeast edition of A Year on Earth With Mr Hell (2022). 
 
 
Random Notes on Young Kim's A Year on Earth With Mr. Hell (cont.)
  

On (In)Fidelity 
 
Miss Kim is irritated by Mr. Hell's feeling guilty about the fact that he is cheating on his girlfriend: "I think the truth is, as unconventional and wild as Richard is [...] he is hampered with a puritanical streak." [153] 
 
He is, she says, an absurd and puerile coward, ashamed of his own polyamorous nature. 
 
But is this the truth? Or could it not be that "the profound instinct of fidelity in a man" is "just a little deeper and more powerful than his instinct of faithless sexual promiscuity"? [j]
 
After all, even Lady Chatterley's lover ultimately desires the peace that comes of fucking [k] and recognises that his underlying passion is for constancy, not to endlessly chase skirt - particularly as, like Mr. Hell, he is no longer a young man [l]
 
"'What a misery to be [...] impotent ever to fuck oneself into peace'", writes Oliver Mellors [m]. And what a misery also to remain, in Kim's own words, a "hapless adolescent in trouble with too many women" [160]
 
No wonder that by the end of the book Mr. Hell is looking "sad and torn and guilty and weary" [223] and eventually tells Miss Kim that he can't continue the affair: "'I have to go. I feel terrible doing this to my girlfriend. Being two-faced. My head hurts.'" [223] 
 
 
On Lurking 
 
Like Mr. Hell, I too prefer to wait outside a bar or restaurant when meeting someone, rather than sit passively (and anxiously) inside; a practice that Miss Kim finds curious and bizarre, though explains it to herself by deciding that he must like to anticipate and observe the arrival of his date - "like a predator waiting for its prey" [44].
 
That's possible: but I think there's another reason why Mr. Hell likes to stay lurking in the shadows for as long as possible. For is there anything worse than to be seen looking lonely at a bar or table, waiting for someone who may or may not arrive; one feels not only exposed, but emasculated. 
 
Only a masochist would find pleasure in this; in their subordination and being kept in a state of suspense by another. 
 
 
On Name Dropping 
 
Whilst at the Knickerbocker Bar and Grill, Miss Kim and Mr. Hell both name drop like crazy in order to assert their own status and, presumably, find common cultural territory with one another by identifying shared acquaintances and inspirations: Picasso, Agnes Martin, Francis Picabia, René Clair, Ian Fleming, Ian McEwan, Allen Ginsberg, Karen Blixen, Carole Bouquet, Peter Beard, Russ Meyer, are all casually alluded to over oysters. 
 
I know this will infuriate some people, but I found it kind of funny, rather than a sign of snobbery or narcissism. And besides, isn't name dropping a function of basic human interaction; don't we all do it, to some extent - even those whose only connection to famous names is via a box of chocolate liqueurs. 
 
 
On Punk Anthems 
 
According to Miss Kim, Richard Hell's 'Blank Generation' is "the ultimate nihilistic punk anthem" [9] [n]. But that's debatable. And, in fact, I have already discussed this song (and found it wanting) in contrast to the far more provocative (if less poetic) 'Pretty Vacant', by the Sex Pistols: click here
 
 
On Sex 
 
Ultimately, Miss Kim comes to the conclusion that sex is sex [169] - i.e., a fixed and never-changing reality which in some way provides the great clue to being. But we can't let this metaphysical notion pass without comment ... 
 
Like Foucault, I tend to see sex as a complex type of agency formed by regimes of power unfolding within time and place, or history and culture, rather than as an ideal anchorage point supporting various manifestations of what we term sexuality. The belief that it somehow eludes and resists power and resides deep within us over and above the material reality of bodies and possessing its own intrinsic properties and laws, is simply a piece of modern romance. 
 
Of course, this isn't to deny that the convenient fiction of sex hasn't proved to be extremely useful; or that it will cease to function in the immediate future. It seems certain that sex will continue to be thought of as a great causal principle long after novelists and lovers have abandoned older ideas of the soul as mere superstition. 
 
For the fact is, a very great number of men and women - including Miss Kim and Mr. Hell - have made their very intelligibility dependent upon their sex and it provides them with their most precious forms of identity. Which is why they talk about and think about sex endlessly and desire to "have access to it, to discover it, to liberate it, to articulate it, to formulate it in truth" [o]
 
Despite the popular belief that there have been centuries of repressive silence and shame surrounding the subject, sex has in fact been the most obsessively talked about thing of all. What is peculiar about modern societies, suggests Foucault, is not that they kept sex locked away in darkness, "but that they dedicated themselves to speaking of it ad infinitum, while exploiting it as the secret" [p]
 
In other words, what really distinguishes the world we live in is a polymorphous and increasingly pornographic incitement to discourse about sex. Those who are genuinely interested in libidinal pleasures might do best not to vainly attempt to extract further confessions from a shadow, but show how sex is - and has always been - a purely speculative element within the historical process of human subjectification. 
 
In a postmodern future - that is to say, in a time after the orgy - people will be unable to fathom our sex mania. And they will smile, says Foucault, when they recall that there were once people such as Miss Kim and Mr. Hell who believed that in sex resided a truth "every bit as precious as the one they had already demanded from the earth, the stars, and the pure forms of their thought" [q]
 
 
On Sexism and Gender Difference
 
Miss Kim is annoyed when her steak arrives well done, having "clearly specified rare" [44]. Surprisingly, she interprets this as an act of overt sexism rather than incompetance or poor service: "Do they think only men like bloody steaks?" [44] 
 
However, she still expects and considers it normal that Mr. Hell pay for the meal. Why? Because Miss Kim believes in male gallantry and thinks it "only fair that the man pay for the experience [of dinner] when a woman spends a fortune maintaining her appearance" [89].
 
Woe betide any man who dares to go Dutch: 
 
"When the bill came, I put down my credit card before I went to the bathroom. I was curious to see what he'd do. It was a test. It wasn't a big tab, but I'd saw he split the check in two. That was the last nail in the coffin." [68] 
 
In fact, Miss Kim - who openly declares herself a non-feminist (even whilst complaining that, as a single woman, she is often shown little respect by men) - subscribes to many traditional ideas and stereotypes concerning gender and sexual difference: 
 
"A man thinks so differently from a woman" [79] ... 
 
"Men are wonderfully bestial" [106] ... 
 
"Men never grow up" [177] ... 
 
And - my personal favourite -  "Men are strange" [181].
 
Amusingly, however, by the end of the book Kim realises that she's not merely like a man in many respects, but, thanks to all the hardship she's lived through, has in fact "become a man" [230]
 
By which she means that at times of crisis or emotional stress she enjoys watching a lot of TV. 
 
 
On Smell 
 
"Smell is a surprisingly powerful sense - far more powerful than sight and touch" [110], says Miss Kim. And whilst unable to remember it, there is, she insists, a "scientific reason for this" [110].
 
That's probably true. But there's also an interesting pollyanalytic reason which D. H. Lawrence outlines in Fantasia
 
"The nostrils are the great gate from the wide atmosphere of heaven to the lungs. [...] But the nostrils have their other function of smell [...] delicate nerve-ends run direct from the lower centres, from the solar plexus and the lumbar ganglion [...] There is the refined sensual intake when a scent is sweet. There is the sensual repudiation when a scent is unsavoury." [r] 
 
One recalls also something said by the narrator of Patrick Süskind's fabulous novel Perfume (1985): 
 
"Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally." [s] 
 
I smiled to see Young Kim not only informing her readers that she always wears the same perfume - "pomegranate, from Santa Maria Novella" [111] - but that her vaginal fluid has a "distinctively sweet smell" [211] - although I accept that some might find that a little too much information. 
 
 
On Spanking 
 
Miss Kim writes: 
 
"I stretched myself out over his lap, he slapped my ass hard, but not hard enough to truly hurt, several times, maybe four. The slaps were surprisingly loud, crackling through the air, which made me uncomfortable, in case anyone heard. Then, his fingers explored my pussy and my asshole for a bit before his hand came down harder several times more [...] What fun." [122] 
 
The English vice, as it is known - and which includes all varieties of corporal punishment (caning, flogging, spanking, etc.) - remains ever-popular within the world of lovers. As a form of sensual discipline it is an ascetic practice which has a restorative effect on the soul. 
 
That is to say, if carried out with genuine passion, then chastisement establishes a circuit of polarized communication and produces as powerful a flash of interchange between parties as an act of sexual intercourse. It should, therefore, be regarded as a natural form of coition which makes a violent readjustment in the flow between lovers, allowing, like a thunderstorm, for a fresh start and a new feeling. 
 
Ultimately, corporal punishment is a vital necessity because man does not live by love and kindness alone and human culture is inscribed and cut into the flesh. To paraphrase Lawrence: As long as men and women have bottoms, they must surely be spanked ...
 
 
Notes
 
[j] D. H. Lawrence, A Propos of Lady Chatterley's Lover, in Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 318.   
 
[k] I have written on this key idea in Lawrence's late work in a post entitled 'Chastity' (19 Dec 2021): click here
 
[l] Age is always a significant issue - certainly for 67-year-old Mr. Hell, concerned he'll not be able to sexually satisfy a much younger woman. But when Richard tells Young that it would best if she forgot him, as he was too old, she dismisses the idea. Later, however, she wonders why it is she doesn't meet younger people, closer to her own age, with whom to form romantic relations, concluding she belongs to the wrong generation (see p. 141).
      Finally, note how when Mr. Hell breaks up with Miss Kim and expresses guilt over his infidelity, he again reminds her of his age: "'Next month I'll be sixty-eight! And I'm doing all this?!'" [229]

[m] D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, op. cit., p. 301.
 
[n] Later, Kim describes 'Blank Generation' as a "powerful piece of poetry, art, and emotion packed like dynamite into a catchy paean" [215]. Which is fair enough, but I still prefer 'Pretty Vacant'. 
 
[o] Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality 1: The Will to Knowledge, trans. Robert Hurley (Penguin Books, 1998), p. 156. 
 
[p] Ibid., p. 35.

[q] Ibid., p. 159.
 
[r] D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 100. 
 
[s] Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, trans. John E. Woods, (Hamish Hamilton, 1986), p. 82. 
 
 

14 Dec 2022

La beauté est une promesse de bonheur: On the Joy of Discovering Stendhal

Portrait rouge et noir de Stendhal by SA (2022)
based on the original work by Louis Ducis (1835) 
 
"Ne me demandez pas qui je suis et ne me dites pas de rester le même ..." [1]
 
 
I. 
 
Stendhal is one of those 19th-century French writers that I've never got around to reading. 
 
And that's despite the fact that Nietzsche thought highly of him, describing Stendhal in Beyond Good and Evil as the last great psychologist [2] and confessing in Ecce Homo that he envied Stendhal for providing the finest and funniest atheist joke: God's only excuse is that he does not exist [3].

And it's also despite the fact that, astrologically speaking, Stendhal belongs to the House that I privilege above all others (i.e., the 11th). Being an Aquarian doesn't necessarily make you an interesting writer, but it does mean that Stendhal can be placed alongside the likes of Byron, Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and William Burroughs, to name but a few.   
 
However, the fact remains I've never been tempted to read Stendhal - until now; and that's entirely thanks to a fascinating article written by Naveed Rehan, an independent scholar based in Lahore, Pakistan ... [4]
 
 
II. 
 
Rehan's description of Stendhal as a man full of contradictions who is believed to have used over a 100 different pseudonyms and worn many masks in his lifetime, could almost have been written with the aim of catching my attention and sending me to the Amazon website so as to immediately order a copy of Souvenirs d’Égotisme, a short unfinished text which, Rehan informs us, recounts his time in Paris between 1821 and 1830 and which was written in just thirteen days during the summer of 1832. 
 
According to Rehan, this memoir would now be classified as a work of creative nonfiction - "a relatively new name [...] for an old way of writing, often referred to as belles-lettres" [5]. The key to this style of writing - whatever we choose to call it - is artfulness
 
It's a clever, ironic, sophisticated genre produced by writers who aren't afraid to slant the truth and who understand the importance of shaping experience and giving natural feeling artificial form. As Rehan notes: "It is not enough just to be sincere in writing true life stories; one must also craft them so that they can have the desired effect upon the reader."  
 
Having said that, Stendhal declares his intention "to be absolutely truthful and sincere in his Memoirs", which is a concern and more than a little problematic. But then we remember D. H. Lawrence's injunction to trust the text, not the author and we discover that Stendhal's perfect sincerity is just another pose and that, as Rehan points out, Souvenirs d’Égotisme is as artful as even a Wildean reader would wish for.   
 
The fact is, we never discover the real writer behind the mask; although arguably his identity is not so much hidden as dispersed and multiplied, until we are no longer sure who he is. Attempts to piece together an authentic and unified self from his fragmentary writings - to discover Stendhal's true identity - are ultimately doomed to failure; this master of illusion and disguise will never be found out or pinned down.     
 
And that's a good thing. Why? Because, as Rehan suggests, it enables Stendhal to preserve freshness of heart, by which I think she refers to the innocence of becoming; which is always of course a becoming-other and by no means merely an imaginative exercise, even if it can often be something that takes place within great works of literature, as Deleuze and Guattari demonstrated. 
 
I'm grateful to Naveed for presenting Stendhal in such a charming light; one which counters the orthodox Lawrentian view that he was, as a matter of fact, a nasty piece of work [6].      
 
 
Notes
 
[1] This line from Michel Foucault could easily have been penned by Stendhal; both men wrote in order to have no face. The line can be found in L’archéologie du savoir (1969) and is usually translated into English as: 'Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same ...'
 
[2] Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, II. 39. 
 
[3] Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, 'Why I Am So Clever', §3.
 
[4] Naveed Rehan, '"I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes": Rereading Stendhal's Souvenirs d’Égotisme', The Friday Times, (12 December, 2022): click here. All quotes in the post above are from this piece by Rehan. 
 
[5] Rehan is not the first or only critic to suggest that creative nonfiction is just a rather more austere sounding term for belles-lettres
      In an article entitled 'Non-fiction is dead: Long Live Belles-lettres', Arpita Das, for example, argues that writing which although based on reportage of real events, people and places is nevertheless a skilful literary construction, is best described "by that charming phrase coined in the days of Voltaire, 'belles-lettres', meaning simply 'fine writing'". 
      The article can be found in Open magazine (2 Dec 2011), or read online by clicking here.  
 
[6] See Lawrence's letter to E. M. Forster (6 Nov 1916) in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. III, ed. James T. Boulton and Andrew Robertson, (Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 21. 
      For those readers who don't have this book to hand, Lawrence writes: 
 
"I believe in bonheur, when people feel bon. But to pretend bonheur when you only feel malice and spite [...] no thank you. [...] I feel a bit shy even of Stendhal's bonheur. I look for it in vain in Rouge et la Noir, and L'Amour, and Chartreuse. A man may believe in that which he in himself is not. But I don't give much for such a belief. [...] Let a man go to the bottom of what he is, and believe in that. And Stendhal was not bon: he was méchant to a high degree. So he should have believed in his own wickedness, not kept a ticket to heaven up his sleeve, called bonheur."  

      Lawrence's essentialism and sincerity - on full display here - would of course make it difficult for him to ever really like (or trust) Stendhal, or those who, like Stendhal, affirmed the truth of masks and stamped becoming with the character of being. 


5 Dec 2022

Hyaena

A spotted hyaena (Crocuta crocuta)
aka the laughing hyaena
 
"I trot, I lope, I slaver, I am a ranger. 
I hunch my shoulders. I eat the dead." [1]
 
 
I. 
 
There are, as a matter of fact, four distinct species of hyaena. But I suspect that when most peope think of them - if and when they think of them at all - they think of the spotted laughing hyaena.
 
I also suspect that most people think of them with a shudder and a curl of the lip, finding them an uncanny mix of the creepy and contemptible; cowardly pack hunters that torment their prey, or scavengers skulking round graveyards and feasting on the bodies of the dead. 
 
 
II. 
 
D. H. Lawrence certainy wasn't a fan. He regarded the hyaena - like the vulture and baboon - as an example of arrested development; an evil creature that obscenely preserves a "fixed form about a voracious seethe of corruption" [2] and which knows no shame.   
 
The howl of the wolf may unsettle him, but it is the laugh of the hyaena that fills Lawrence with fear and horror - that and the "loathsome, cringing, imprisoned loins" [3] that are amost dragged along in the dust and dirt. 
 
The hyaena, says Lawrence, "can scarcely see and hear the living world; it draws back to the stony fixity of its own loins, draws back upon its own nullity, sightless save for carrion" [4].
 
It's surprising, when one considers his animosity against the poor hyaena, that Lawrence didn't refer back to that ancient belief they were hermaphrodites; i.e., intersexual creatures alternating with fluidity between male and female roles. [5].   
 
For as we know, Lawence was a passionate proponent not only of sexual difference, but sexual dualism: 
 
"Sex surely has a specific meaning. Sex means being divided into male and female. [...] Every single living cell is either male or female, and will remain either male or female as long as life lasts. [...] The talk about a third sex, or about the indeterminate sex, is just to pervert the issue." [6]
 
The truth of this is essential for Lawrence, as it is for early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria ...
 
 
III.
 
Despite being a Christian theologian and recognised as a Church Father, Clement of Alexandria was heavily infuenced by Greek philosophy and literature, particularly Plato and the Stoics. Fragments of his more obscure writings suggest he was also deeply familiar with Jewish esotericism.   
 
Although we don't know for certain when he was born or when he died, we do know that the moral lessons that Clement takes from the animal kingdom are invariaby negative; the hyaena, for example, teaches man what mustn't be done. 
 
Not that he takes seriously the legend concerning its hermaphroditism; rejecting it on the grounds that once the logic of nature - or, if you prefer, the stamp of creative reason - has determined what an animal is, it cannot be changed [7]. Thus, the hyaena, cannot switch sexes; nor does it possess two sexes, or a third intermediary sex between male and female.
 
However, Clement is obliged to address the fact that the genitalia of the female hyaena closely resembles that of the male; the enlarged clitoris is not only shaped and positioned like a penis, but is capable of erection. The female also possesses no external vaginal opening, as the labia are fused to form a pseudo-scrotum. Traversing the length of the pseudo-penis is a central canal, through which the female urinates, copulates, and gives birth. [8] 

Interestingly, although Clement describes the female hyaena's peculiar anatomy in exactly the same manner as Aristotle, he comes to his own conclusion: it must be due to the animal's moral shortcomings. In other words, hyaenas have a body that's arranged in such a queer fashion, because of a defective nature and the fact that, like men, they are prone to lasciviousness ... [9]
 
 
IV.
 
Despite the fact that, as a Lawrentian, I'm supposed to despise them, I'm starting to feel a certain admiration for the hyaena, which have limped on the face of the earth for millions of years. 
 
And this is not just because they challenge certain ideas about sexual dimorphism, but because they also curdle the line of distinction between cat and dog. For athough phylogenetically closer to felines, hyaenas are behaviourally and morphologically similar to canids; they hunt like dogs, for example, but they groom, scent mark, and defecate like cats ... 
 
Perhaps they only laugh because they don't know whether to bark or purr ...
 
 
Notes
 
[1] Edwin Morgan, 'Hyena', in Glasgow to Saturn, (Carcanet, 1973). The verse can also be found in Morgan's Collected Poems, (Carcanet Press, 1990). To read on the Scottish Poetry Library website, click here.
 
[2] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Crown', Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 295.  

[3] Ibid., p. 299.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ovid gives reference to this in Metamorphoses; see 15: 408. 
      Although Aristotle rejected this belief and few naturalists following him gave the idea any credence, still the queerness of the hyaena was taken as a given and its reputation amongst those who, like Lawrence, read everything (including animal behaviour and anatomy) in moral terms, was irretrievably damaged.      

[6] D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 66 and 126. 
 
[7] Christian ontology - building on its Platonic origins - insists upon the fixed nature of being; there is no transformation of essential forms; one species cannot become another and nor can one sex transition into the other.    
 
[8] In fact, the hyaena is the only placental mammal where females lack an external vaginal opening and have a pseudo-penis instead. This isn't something that seems advantageous; not only does it make mating difficult, but giving birth isn't a barrel of laughs either, often proving fatal for mother and cub (approximately 15% of females die during their first time giving birth and over 60% of firstborn cubs are dead on arrival).
 
[9] See Michel Foucault, Confessions of the Flesh, trans. Robert Hurley, (Penguin Books, 2021), pp. 19-21. 
     
    

16 Nov 2022

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.