From Roman Amphitheatre to Nazi Death Camp (A Note on the Topology of Violence)

Postcards from Hell ...[1]

 

 

Oh, those Greeks! They regarded violence as an indispensable necessity [ἀνάγκη]: "tolerated like fate or a law of nature" [2] and cheerfully sanctioned acts of physical aggression as a legitimate means of conflict resolution.

 

I say cheerfully, because affectively discharging destructive energies is a good way of preventing neurotic conditions like depression and anxiety (even if it does have tragic consequences). As Byung-Chul Han notes: "External violence unburdens the psyche because it externalizes suffering." [3] 

 

The Greeks delighted in acts of appalling cruelty - including rape, torture, and arson - but they didn't internally agonise over them afterwards; indeed, their poets celebrated these acts and "Greek mythology is drenched in blood and strewn with dismembered bodies" [4].             

 

Of course, the Romans were just as cruel - if not worse - with giant public displays of staged violence designed to demonstrate the might and magnificence of Rome, free from all bad conscience. As Han writes, in the ancient world, violence was not only ubiquitous, it was "a significant component of social practice and communication" [5]. Power was spectacular, sensational, and bloody.    

 

But in the modern world, "brute violence was delegitimized [...] It has lost virtually every show-place" [6]. Auschwitz, with its gas chambers, is a million miles away from the Colosseum; unlike the latter, the former is located at the edge of town and what goes on there is kept hidden from the public.

 

Power continues to express itself, but does so without any sense of pride or glory: "It does not expressly draw attention to itself. It lacks all language and symbolism. It heralds nothing. It takes place as a mute annihilation." [7] 

 

This isn't to say being torn apart by wild animals in the Colosseum in front of a large crowd is preferable to being murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. 

 

But it is fundamentally different and it illustrates how violence itself has undergone a radical transformation, but without ever disappearing: "Violence is simply protean. It varies its outward form according to the social constellation at hand." [8]   

   

 

Notes 

 

[1] As these two picture-postcard images indicate, dark tourism is today a thriving industry. Whilst there are some who genuinely wish to get a better understanding of how violent power manifested itself in other times, places, and cultures, one can't help suspecting that, for most visitors, a day trip to Auschwitz, for example, is what Johnny Rotten would describe as a cheap holiday in other people's misery.        

 

[2] Byung-Chul Han, Topology of Violence, trans. Amanda DeMarco, (Polity Press, 2018), p. 3. 

 

[3] Ibid.

 

[4] Ibid.

      Han is surely recalling Nietzsche here, who famously describes how noble peoples - be they Greek, Roman, Arabian, Germanic, or Japanese - remain at heart magnificent blond beasts, avidly prowling round for spoil and victory and able to commit terrible deeds in a spirit of innocence and gay bravado. See On the Genealogy of Morality, Essay 1, §11. 

[5] Byung-Chul Han, Topology of Violence, p. 4.

[6] Ibid., p. 5. 

[7] Ibid. 

 

[8] Ibid., p. vii. 

 

When the Cat Lies Down With the Rat

And they shall make a covenant of peace ...

 

I. 

 

Last night, I had a horrible dream: my cat was lying in the garden on a bright frosty morning, much like this morning, and from under her body I could see a long, hairless tail poking out. Upon investigation, I discovered that a large rat had snuggled beneath her in order to keep warm. 

 

Although aware of the rodent's presence, my cat - normally a serial rat-killer - remained unconcerned. Indeed, she seemed content to rest in harmony with her fellow creature and fulfil Isiah's messianic prophecy [11:6] of a time to come, when there will be universal peace and love and the wolf shall dwell with the lamb; the leopard lie down with the kid, etc. 

 

 

II. 

 

Now, whilst there are many who share this vision, I remain with D. H. Lawrence on this and regard it as an expression of moral nihilism, in as much as it involves the negation not merely of otherness and opposition, but of existence as founded upon these principles of antagonism and one form of life eternally devouring another (for it's death that makes the world go round).  

 

In 'The Reality of Peace', Lawrence writes: 

 

"Shall I expect the lion to lie down with the lamb? Shall I expect such a thing? I might as well hope for the earth to cast no shadow, or for burning fire to give no heat. [...] When the lion lies down with the lamb he is no lion, and the lamb, lying down with him, is no lamb. They are merely a neutralisation, a nothingness. If I mix fire and water, I get quenched ash. And so if I mix the lion and the lamb. They are both quenched into nothingness." [1]   

 

He continues:

 

"The lion will never lie down with the lamb; in all reverence let it be spoken. Whilst the lion is lion, he must fall on the lamb, to devour her. This is his lionhood and his peace, in so far as he has any peace. And the peace of the lamb is to be devourable. 

      Where, then, is there peace? There is no peace of reconciliation. Let that be accepted for ever." [2]   

 

Concluding on a thanatological note: 

 

"It is peace for the lion when when he carries the crushed lamb in his jaws. It is peace for the lamb when she quivers light and irresponsible within the strong, supporting apprehension of the lion. Where is the skipping joyfulness of the lamb when the magnificent, strong responsibility of the lion is removed? The lamb need take no thought; the lion is responsible for death in her world." [3]

 

Of course, some critics have sneeringly suggested that this is not how an articulate lamb might put it [4]. 

 

But then, as Nietzsche points out in the Genealogy [1:13], whilst there is nothing strange about lambs harbouring resentment towards those beasts and large birds of prey that carry them off, that's no reason for us to come over all sheepish and blame the predators for being true to their nature, or to describe that nature in moral terms as evil [5].

  

 

Notes

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Reality of Peace', in Refections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 49.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., p. 50. 

[4] See, for example, Michael Black who discusses these passages from 'The Reality of Peace' in D. H. Lawrence: The Early Philosophical Works, (Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 439-441.         

      Black argues that whilst it is "one thing to contemplate predation as a fact of nature; it is another to elevate it to a mystic principle which turns immolation into a vocation." [440] It is precisely such mystification - which Lawrence often eroticises in a manner that reinforces gender stereotypes - that introduces deeply troubling elements in Lawrence's later work to do with sexual politics and human sacrifice.   

[5] Nietzsche goes on to point out that it is as absurd to expect the powerful not to delight in their strength, as it is for the weak to construe their impotence as a form of freedom and their self-restraint as a moral accomplishment, when they simply lack claws. See On the Genealogy of Morality, first essay, §13. 

 

 

For a related post to this one, click here.

      

Philosophical Reflections on the Case of Pinocchio

Original Illustration by Enrico Mazzanti for Carlo Collodi's 

tale of a punk puppet: Le avventure di Pinocchio (1883)

Although the Pinocchio myth has, thankfully, transcended its Disneyfication and is often now critically discussed in relation to cyborgs, posthumanism and artificial intelligence (both reflecting and challenging contemporary concerns), I think it important to also remember the original story by Carlo Collodi ...

Born in Florence in 1826, Italian author and journalist Sig. Collodi translated French fairy tales by Perrault in 1875, before beginning work on his own allegory for children five years later known as the 'Story of a Puppet' and first published in weekly installments in a newspaper created for young readers. Eventually, the tale was produced in book form entitled Le avventure di Pinocchio (1883). Collodi achieved world-wide fame with this work, although, unfortunately for him, he died a few years after its publication in 1890.

As everybody knows, Pinocchio is a hand-carved wooden-figure with a nose capable of dramatic changes in size whenever he is under stress or caught in a lie; a marionette who dreamt of becoming a real boy, but instead became a cultural icon whose story inspired countless new editions and spin-offs and has been adapted into over 260 languages.

Pinocchio is also a rebel who ridicules the paternal authority of his maker at every opportunity and even steals the old man's wig. Collodi is at pains to remind his readers that Pinocchio isn't a hero, but rather a rascal, a ragamuffin, and a confirmed rogue who won't allow anyone to pull his strings. If girls just want to have fun, then punk-puppets, it seems, just want to cause chaos, crush crickets, climb trees, and chase after butterflies. It's no surprise to discover that Pinocchio was much-admired by Malcolm McLaren. 

His bad behaviour, however, is roundly condemned by the author-narrator and Collodi reinforces the conventional moral belief that whilst good behaviour deserves to be rewarded, bad behaviour deserves to be punished - and punished severely. Thus it is that, in the earliest version of his story, Pinocchio comes to a tragic and violent end: his enemies, the Fox and the Cat, bind his arms, put a noose round his neck, and hang him from the branch of an old oak tree:

"a tempestuous northerly wind began to blow and roar angrily, and it beat the poor puppet from side to side, making him swing violently [...] And the swinging gave him atrocious spasms [...] His breath failed him [...] He shut his eyes, opened his mouth, stretched his legs, gave a long shudder, and hung stiff and insensible."  

It was only in the revised and extended book re-telling of his story that a resurrected Pinocchio, under the influence of a fairy godmother with blue hair, learns his lesson and comes good; finally acting in a responsible fashion and willing to study, work hard, and provide for his elderly father, thereby earning the ultimate reward: human status.

In sum: on the one hand, The Adventures of Pinocchio teaches a positive moral lesson: 'Listen to the voice of your conscience, children, and the truth shall set you free!' But on the other hand, it threatens bad behaviour and disobedience with capital punishment. Indeed, as one critic reminds us, Pinocchio is not only put to death for his sins in the original tale, but "stabbed, whipped, starved, jailed, punched in the head, and has his legs burned off".

Of course, some might point out that he's just a wooden doll - but he's a wooden doll, we are encouraged to believe, with the ability to experience pain. No wonder, then, that many sensitive young readers were upset by the savage cruelty that Collodi delights in.

As a Nietzschean, however, I share in this idea that humanity is an effect of tremendous cruelty and suffering experienced over a long period of time. Indeed, what else is human history and culture other than a spiritualisation and intensification of cruelty? To create a puppet with the right to claim human status is, therefore, to create a being that knows how to endure the agony of existence and still manage to give a little whistle. 

See:

Carlo Collodi, The Adventures of Pinocchio, trans. with an introduction and notes by Ann Lawson Lucas, (Oxford University Press, 2009).

Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, ed. Keith Ansell-Pearson, trans. Carol Diethe, (Cambridge University Press, 1994). 

Nathaniel Rich, 'Bad Things Happen to Bad Children', Slate, (24 Oct 2011): click here.


This post is dedicated to Georgia Panteli.

Fish Out of Water (Notes on Evolution and Cruelty)

According to a report in the New Scientist, blenny fish - fed-up with the predatory behaviour of their aquatic neighbours - are abandoning life beneath the waves of the South Pacific Ocean and gradually relocating to dry land. It's 400 million years after others of their kind first made the move and kick-started an evolutionary process that eventually produced us. But still, better late than never and I wish 'em the best of British.

The case is interesting because scientists have never been entirely certain why fish first chose to exit the sea and crawl gasping onto terra firma. After studying several species of blenny, however, researchers at the University of New South Wales have concluded that it's most likely an attempt to avoid being eaten by bigger fish, such as flounders. This desire to escape is an understandably strong impetus.

Of course, it's not all sweetness and light up here on land and there are still dangers awaiting for the blennies as they shuffle around the rocks - such as bird attacks. But predation risk is significantly less, however, than it is underwater. In fact, once they pick up their piscine courage and make the full transition - developing stronger tail fins so as to be able to leap about more successfully - their chances of being eaten drop by about two-thirds (66%).

Further, moving onto land has additional benefits for blennies; holes in the rocks, for example, provide conveniently sheltered spaces for laying eggs. So it's really a move worth considering seriously if you're a small fish. In fact, one is surprised that it hasn't been tried more often and by more types of fish other than the estimated 30-odd families that have made the crossing between worlds. 

That said, Nietzsche reminds us in the Genealogy that it is never easy for any creature to make such a fundamental change. For fish, becoming land animals was as difficult, as painful, and as terrifying as it was for the animal man to become a creature capable of making promises; a creature restrained by a morality of custom and subject to an internalisation of cruelty; a creature made regular and predictable and weighed down by bad conscience; a creature, in short, made human, all too human.    

Like us, the blenny fish is the result of millions of years of evolution. But only man has shaped himself through thousands of years of self-torture; indeed, this is what we have had the longest practice doing and wherein our genius as a species lies.    


See:

Alice Klein, 'These fish are evolving right now to become land-dwellers', New Scientist (16 March 2017): click here to read.

Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, ed. Keith Ansell-Pearson, (Cambridge University Press, 1994), particularly the Second Essay.