Notes on 'The Crisis of Narration' by Byung-Chul Han (Part 3)

Byung-Chul Han pictured with the Spanish language

edition of Die Krise der Narration (2023) [a]

I. 

 

Byung-Chul Han is very good at coming up with memorable phrases and titles for his books. Arguably, indeed, that's his greatest talent and I understand why a friend of mine characterised (and dismissed) his work as merely a mix of soundbite and slogan distilled from the work of other much greater thinkers. 

That's a bit harsh, but I know what she means (even if I wouldn't wish to criticise Han for this). 

 

Anyway, on we move to section six of The Crisis of Narration [b] - 'From Shocks to Likes' ...

 

Reading Benjamin (who is in turn reading Baudelaire and Freud), Han argues that external reality impacts upon the subject as a form of shock and that consciouness is a way of registering and protecting us from stimuli that would otherwise be too much to handle: "The more readily consciousness registers these shocks, the less likely they are to have a traumatic effect." [44]  

 

Having dreams and forming memories are thus delayed ways of coming to terms with things that might otherwise overwhelm us. And the modern world is profoundly shocking; "the shock aspect of individual impressions has become so intensified that our consciousness is forced to be permanently active as a shield against stimuli" [45].  

 

But that isn't good; for it means we register less and less reality and have weaker and weaker experiences (our dreams become less disturbing and our memories less vivid). We need some degree of shock in order to feel and to think and to create. 

 

Unfortunately, we don't just now act as living organisms to protect ourselves from stimuli - we employ digital technology to (literally) screen off reality. Han writes:

 

"Etymologically, a screen [Schirm] is a protective barrier. A screen bans reality, which becomes an image, thus screening us from it. We perceive reality almost exclusively via digital screens. [...] On a smartphone screen, reality is so attenuated that it can no longer create any shock experiences. Shocks give way to likes." [46] 

 

That's what we want today: a non-threatening, non-disturbing, non-shocking world that we can like. Not a world of otherness that we can gaze at and which gazes into us, but a familiar, friendly, flat, sealed-off and smoothed-off world that is pleasing to the eye and satisfies our need for safety and smartness. 

 

Nietzsche would not approve. Lawrence would not approve. Heidegger would not approve. Baudrillard would not approve. In fact, anyone who loves objects and otherness and wishes to live dangerously in a world in which dreams, memories, and disturbing artworks are still possible would not approve.  

 

For Han, this world cowardly new world is typified by Netflix and Jeff Koons:

 

"In the age of Netflix, no one speaks of having shock experiences in connection with films. A Netflix series is nothing like a piece of art that corresponds to a pronounced danger to life and limb. Rather, it typically leads to binge watching. Viewers are fattened like consumer cattle. Binge watching is a paradigm for the general mode of perception in digital late modernity." [47] 

 

"The type of artist represented by Baudelaire, someone who inadvertently causes fright, would today  seem not only antiquated but almost grotesque. The artist who typifies our age is Jeff Koons. He appears smart. His works reflect the smooth consumer world that is the opposite of the world of shocks. [...] His art is intentionally relaxed and disarming. What he wants above all is to be liked." [48][c]

 

 

II. 

 

I do agree with Han: big data does not explain anything and the numbers never speak for themselves. 

 

Having said that, if we know the how, what, where and when, perhaps it becomes a bit easier to answer the metaphysical question of why and I don't see why theory shouldn't be based upon data. 

 

Similarly, I agree that whilst AI can compute and count it doesn't really think, but that doesn't mean it can't help us conceptualise and comprehend and continue to produce narratives (be they philosophical, psychoanalytic, or artistic in character) if that's our wont. 

 

Because Han tends to think in quite stark (and oppositional) terms - narrative community contra information society, for example - his work can unfortunately become trapped in its own binaries.         

 

III.

 

I have to admit, I'm a bit dubious about the healing power of narrative, even if I quite like the idea of the philosopher as cultural physician practicing the art of critique et clinique, and even if I have in the past promoted an idea of rescripting the self. 

Obviously, Han sees himself very much as one who has come to heal (even save) mankind by helping us to come to terms with the many ills and woes of contemporary culture by embedding them in a meaningful context; if not, indeed, in what comes close to being a religious narrative that "provides consolation or hope and thus carries us through the crisis" [57]. 

 

Jesus! This reminds me of that pompous egg-headed philosopher Alain de Botton, who, thankfully, seems to be keeping a lower media profile of late. He also treated his readers like small children in need of the consoling voice or gentle touch of a loving parent when they felt bad. 

At best, it's patronising and at worst, it's philosophical mollycoddling. 

 

 

IV.

  

As a Lawrentian, I often refer to the inspiration of touch and/or the democracy of touch: click here or here, for example. 

 

Touch is one of the key terms in Lawrence's phallic vocabulary [d] and so I'm pleased that Byung-Chul Han also recognises the importance of touch: "Like storytelling, touching also creates closeness and primordial trust." [58] 

 

That's true, but I suppose it depends on who's doing the touching and in what context.        

Han goes on to suggest that we now live in a society "in which there is no touching" [59] and that this has negative consequences:

 

"The retreat of touch is making us ill. Lacking touch, we remain hopelessly entrapped in our ego. Touch in the proper sense pulls us out of our ego. Poverty in touch ultimately means poverty in world. It makes us depressive, lonely and fearful." [59-60]   

And, paradoxically, the rise of digital connectivity and social media only makes things worse. 

Again, I think that's probably true, but I understand why some would dismiss this as a series of groundless assertions, made as they are without any supporting evidence. In the end, when you read an author like Han, you simply have to take a lot on trust (those who love his work will believe every word; those who don't will adopt a more sceptical position).  

 

V. 

I mentioned above Han's notion of a narrative community. But other than being something in contradistinction to the information society, what is a narrative community? 

 

It seems to refer to a small village (with or without an ancient tree at its centre), where the villagers sit around and swap stories that reinforce values and norms and thereby ensure unity (i.e., produce a we). There's no competitive individualism in the narrative community; just solidarity and empathy.

 

But Han doesn't want his readers to mistake the narrative community for some kind of Volksgemeinschaft as conceived by the Nazis and rooted in ethno-nationalism (or blood and soil). 

 

He wants, rather, that we conceive of the narrative community as a dynamic society allowing for change and otherness and do not "cling to a particular identity" [63], embracing instead a model of universal humanism informed by Kantian philosophy [e] and the poetry of Novalis [f].  

     

Well, I'm sorry, but where Han leads I will not follow ...

 

Push comes to shove, I think I prefer even the hell of the present to a future utopia promised by Idealist philosophers and Romantic poets! And Han's optimistic political vision, based on his concept of a narrative community which "provides meaning and orientation" [68] and opens up a new order, is not one I share.      

Notes

 

[a] This image is borrowed from a review of Byung-Chul Han's La crisis de la narración, by Marco Nicolini entitled 'El regreso del storytelling' (20 Oct 2023) and published on the Arzeta website: click here (or here for the English translation).

 

[b] Byung-Chul Han, The Crisis of Narration, trans. Daniel Steuer, (Polity Press, 2024). The work was originally published as Die Krise der Narration, (Matthes & Seitz Berlin, 2023). Page numbers given in the above post refer to the English edition. 

 

[c] Han really hates Jeff Koons. I have written on this (and in defence of the latter and his artwork) previously on TTA. See for example the post dated 16 Feb 2022: click here.  

[d] I explore this phallic vocabulary on James Walker's Memory Theatre (a digital pilgrimage based on the works of D. H. Lawrence): click here.

[e] Han refers to and quotes from Kant's 'Perpetual Peace', a philosophical sketch from 1795 in which the latter dreams of a global community in which all human beings are united and there can be no refugees: "Every human being enjoys unlimited hospitalty. Everyone is a cosmopolitan." [Han, The Crisis of Narration, p. 63.]

      Kant's essay can be found in Political Writings, ed. H. S. Reiss, (Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 93-130.  

 

[f] Han writes: "Novalis is another thinker who argues for radical universalism. He imagines a 'world family' beyond nation or identity. He takes poetry to be the medium of reconciliation and love. Poetry unites people and things in the most intimate community." [63] 

      That Han should simply take us back to moral idealism and Romantic fantasy is disappointing to say the least. However, those readers who wish to know what Novalis has to say about the world family all living as one in a beautiful society, should see his Philosophical Writings, trans. and ed. Margaret Mahony Stoljar, (State University of New York Press, 1997).   

 

 

Part 1 of this post can be read by clicking here. 

 

Part 2 of this post can be read by clicking here.  

Notes on 'The Crisis of Narration' by Byung-Chul Han (Part 2)

(Matthes and Seitz Berlin 2023) [a]

 

 

I.

 

Byung-Chul Han really likes Walter Benjamin - not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

He makes over a dozen references to Benjamin's work in the opening chapter of his new book and more than another dozen or so references to texts by this quirky cultural theorist in chapter two, which is where I'm picking up this commentary-cum-critical encounter ...

 

In 'The Poverty of Experience' Han - following Benjamin - mourns the fact that communicable experience passed down orally from generation to generation is "becoming increasingly rare" [10]; nothing is narrated any longer; no one tells stories drawn from their own lives any more.    

 

Folk wisdom no longer counts for much when people freed from tradition by technology look to Google for answers and download problem-solving apps: "The new barbarians celebrate the poverty of experience as a moment of emancipation." [11] 

 

And, to be fair, perhaps modernity did provide an opportunity to start from scratch and make it new ... 

 

Benjamin's thought is shot through with ambivalence on this question; as a Marxist, he believes in progress and the revolutionary spirit. But, in the end, his "deep-seated scepticism towards modernity" [13] wins out and he decides that we are ultimately impoverished (and dehumanised) by the disenchanted world of today - and not even Mickey Mouse can save us. 

And for us, in a late-modern (or post-modern) era, not only do we exist without history, but even the future has come and gone. No one even tries to make things new or dares to dream of radical social transformation; no one has "the courage to create a world-changing narrative" [14] and storytelling is now mostly "a matter of commercialism and consumption" [14]. 

 

This is quite a bleak analysis: "It is only with narrative that a future opens up, for narrative gives us hope." [15] But as a Nietzschean philosopher, I can happily do without the morally optimistic idea of hope. Indeed, let me remind readers of my new year's message for 2024:

 

Hope may be one of the great Christian virtues, but in Norse mythology it is simply the drool dripping from the jaws of the Fenris Wolf; and courage is a term for the bravery displayed by the warrior in the absence of hope [b]. 

 

 

II. 

 

Is the past something that needs salvaging - or something in need of salvation? It's an interesting question (assuming the past doesn't just need forgetting). 

 

Han - again following Benjamin - plumps for the latter: "We owe our happiness to the salvation of the past." [16] 

 

I have to say, that's not the kind of sentence I'd write. For it is just as true that we owe an awful lot of misery to the fact that people often can't (or won't) let go of the past and that far from saving the past they ruin the present and sacrifice the future with something else that "has a long tail and reaches back into the past" [16] - ressentiment and the will to revenge. 

 

Nietzsche says that the greater the plastic power of a people, the more history they can embrace and affirm as their own. But he also ties innocence to forgetfulness and insists that whilst it is Christian to forgive, it is noble to forget. So I'm not entirely convinced that we need to resurrect the past and make it a continuing influence upon the present.     

 

Having said that, I do enjoy a certain level of temporal (and personal) continuity; I like to imagine I'm pretty much the same now as I was aged six, for example. And one of the things that's nice about the theory of evolution (or, I suppose, the myth of creation in Genesis) is that it allows one to feel part of a much wider and longer story (though I'm not greatly concerned about this). 

 

 

III. 

 

When it comes to certain things - selfies, social media, and the art of Jeff Koons, for example - Han is very much like a dog with a bone; i.e., unwilling to let go and determined to get to the marrow (or essence) of the thing. 

 

Thus, no surprise to see him taking a pop at Snapchat and Instagram once more and declaring that digital photos are - if not quite the soul-stealing work of the devil - things that "announce the end of the human being as someone with a fate and a history" [20] and mark the birth of Phono sapiens - non-beings who have surrendered to the momentary actualities of experience and are unable to discriminate or be selective. 

Phono sapiens believe they are being playful on their smartphones 24/7 and that this puts them in control, but, actually, they are being manipulated and exploited. 

 

 

IV.

 

Ultimately, Han comes to the same conclusion as the protagonist of Sartre's Nausea (1938): "Only with narration is life elevated above its sheer facticity, above its nakedness." [27]

 

In other words, narrating make's the world and time's passing meaningful; it inhibits that feeling of nausea that Roquentin experiences. But, arguably, la nausée is just a Sartrean synonym for (or another aspect of) what Heidegger terms angst  - and surely the key thing about angst is that it's not something to be overcome or resolved. 

 

Narrating the world may make meaningful and be comforting - may make objects seem less alien and less threatening; may make the fact that being rests upon non-being seem less troubling - but this also insulates us from a fundamental form of freedom.      

 

Ultimately, I think I'd rather be dizzy before the void and bewildered by the (sometimes malevolent) presence of objects than fobbed off with some transcendent narrative, even if that makes the world rhythmically structured and promises blissful order. 

 

By insisting that existentialism is a humanism, Sartre transforms "frightening being-in-the-world into familiar being-at-home" [29] and such domesticity is not something philosophers should be advocating.      

    

V.

 

The thought has just occured to me: I'm Konrad - the boy who cannot tell stories [c]. 

 

For just like Konrad, I lack the inwardness that would allow me to "internalize events and to weave and condense them into a story" [34] and my world, like Konrad's, is pretty much entirely disenchanted. 

 

Perhaps that explains why my dreams of becoming a novelist came to nothing - and why I like fragments and pieces of factual information so much. 

 

But please don't send me to see Ms Leishure ... 

 

For whilst I agree that, utimately, the world is made up of events that resist explanation and that we might question causality, I don't wish to become "a member of the small narrative community" [36] if that means abandoning reason or denying the possibility of objective facts. 

 

If things have a magical aura that's great: but even things that don't possess that radiance which raises them above mere facticity, they're still astonishing and it seems to me that a scientific description of the unfolding of the universe is just as beautiful as a mytho-religious narrative such as the one found in Genesis.     

 

And finally, as readers will know, I hate full-stops and prefer to use an ellipsis whenever possible ... 

 

And that's because, in my view, there's always something left unsaid and even the most perfect of narratives can never really be sealed off in an intertextual universe; can never be a concluding form that has closure as its goal and can't wait to stamp the words The End, thereby passing a kind of death sentence. 

 

There is no end - and there is no origin; we should instinctively mistrust any book or story that opens with the words In the beginning ...       

 

 

Notes

 

[a] This is the cover of the original German edition. I am relying upon the English translation by Daniel Steuer published as The Crisis of Narration (Polity Press, 2024). All page numbers given in the post refer to this edition.  

[b] See the post 'Nothing Changes on New Year's Day' (31 Dec 2023): click here. See also the much earlier but related post 'Happy to be Hopeless this Christmas' (26 Dec 2014): click here.

 

[c] Konrad is a character in a short story by the children's author Paul Maar. Han discusses this story in chapter five of The Crisis of Narration. 

 

 

Part 1 of this post can be read by clicking here.

 

Part 3 of this post can be read by clicking here.

 

 

Notes on 'The Crisis of Narration' by Byung-Chul Han (Part 1)

(Polity Press, 2024)

 

 

I. 

 

Byung-Chul Han has had a new book published in English translation: The Crisis of Narration [a]. 

 

It's another slim little work which, like Jason Alexander's Acting Without Acting (2009), is not so much a book as a pamphlet [b]. Nevertheless, I coughed up the £12.99 asking price on Amazon for the paperback and thought I would offer a running commentary on it here as I read it over dinner ...

 

 

II.   

 

Han provides a short preface that opens: "Everyone is talking about 'narratives'." [vii] 

 

And I had to smile at this assertion as I can't imagine anyone outside of academia ever using the word narrative and although the word crisis is very popular with politicians and political commentators - the cost of living crisis, the NHS crisis, Middle East crisis, etc. - I don't think they care too much about the crisis of narration. 

 

But maybe they should: because maybe Han is right to argue that narratives provide our anchor in being and furnish life with "meaning, support and orientation" [vii]. So perhaps we need the return of narration and to give back to narratives their power and gravitational force. 

But that won't be easy in an age in which narratives have lost their mystery. We all know now that they are constructed and don't possess any essential inner truth, having been revealed to be "contingent, exchangeable and modifiable" [viii].

Han is acutely aware of this. He knows that we are living in a post-narrative time - which is really just another way of saying a secular age in which God is dead. For the kind of narratives that Han values are basically religious narratives that reach into "every nook and cranny of life" [viii]. 

The problem is, I'm not sure I want to live in a new age of narrative if that means living once more in a theocratic society. Having to lose ritual and festivity is probably a price worth paying for not being ruled over by a priestly caste. And besides, I'm not convinced that being anchored in being necessitates being mired in faith and religious dogma. 

I prefer what Han terms micro-narratives over grand narratives that transform our being-in-the-world into a being-at-home; I don't want to be domesticated in the name of  truth, thank you very much. Nor do I want to belong to a concluding form that creates a closed order founded upon meaning and identity 

 

I guess this makes me a recalcitrant postmodernist in Han's eyes; still kicking against the idea of belonging to any community or returning to some past ideal. Ultimately, I'm with D. H. Lawrence who famously declared: 

 

"I don't want to live again the tribal mysteries [...] I don't want to know as I have known [...] My way is my own [...] I can't cluster at the drum any more." [c]  

 

Of course, Han also knows there is no going back: 

 

"No amount of storytelling could recreate the fire around which humans gather to tell each other stories. That fire has long since burnt out. It has been replaced by the digital screen, which separates people as individual consumers. Consumers are lonely. They do not form a community. Nor can the 'stories' shared on social media fill the narrative vacuum. They are merely forms of pornographic self-presentation or self-promotion. Posting, liking and sharing content are consumerist practices that intensify the narrative crisis." [ix]

Does that include blogging, I wonder ... 

 

I rather suspect Han would say it does; that he would dismiss the fragments of fiction-theory assembled here on Torpedo the Ark as being forgetful of being and lacking empathy; that posts such as this one simply inform and pass the word along without ever providing a meaningful narrative or creating a genuine community. 

 

The fact that the posts are typed on a laptop is, Han would argue, "already a barrier to the telling of stories" [xi]. Well, I'm sorry but the days when I would handwrite poems and leave them in public places or hidden in tree hollows for people to find by chance are long behind me.

 

Perhaps Han initially writes his books in blood and narrates them in person to a select few followers who know how to listen closely and pay deep attention: I don't know. But I do know he has also agreed to the commercial publication of over twenty works, translated into many languages, and sold all over the world, so I'm not going to take too much shit from him on this matter. 

 

Having said that, let's follow him as he traces out the long pre-history of the present narrative crisis ...   

III.

 

The first chapter of Han's new book opens with an attack on those who prefer local news rather than hearing news from afar. For Han being interested about what is happening close to home shows a form of attention deficit:

 

"The newspaper reader's attention extends only to what is near. It shrinks to mere curiosity. The modern newspaper reader jumps from one news item to the next, instead of letting her gaze drift into the distance and linger. The modern reader has lost the long, slow, lingering gaze." [1]    

 

This surprises me. And, as a Lawrentian, I obviously cannot let it pass ... 

 

One recalls, for example, that Richard Somers loved nothing more than to read bits in the Sydney Bulletin - "the only periodical in the world that really amused him" [d] - even if it didn't provide an earnest editorial narrative. The assembled bits had real vitality: "There was no consecutive thread. Only the laconic courage of experience." [e] 

 

And one thinks also of the essay 'Insouciance' in which Lawrence condemns his neighbours at a Swiss hotel - "two little white-haired English ladies" [f] - for sweeping him off his balcony with all the latest news from abroad: "away from the glassy lake, the veiled mountains, the two men mowing, and the cherry-trees, away into the troubled ether of international politics" [g]. 

 

Lawrence is curious and concerned about the immediate world that is physically present before him - that is actually there - but he doesn't care about gazing into the distance and feigning interest in what happens in every corner of the earth or in numerous abstract issues.   

 

Does this make Somers a modern reader? Does it make Lawrence less of a thinker; a lover only of information and triviality? Han seems to want the earnestness that Lawrence hates; to privilege news stories that possess a temporal breadth and the power of destiny. But we might ask if there has ever been a newspaper that never explains or informs, but only narrates in a manner that is both wondrous and mysterious. 

 

It's hard to imagine Herodotus working on Fleet Street, as much as Han may wish it. 

 

One might at this point wonder why, if Han longs for stories that are more like seeds of grain - full of germinal force - rather than specks of dust, he doesn't simply read works of literature and give the tabloids a miss. Well, it's because, like Walter Benjamin, he thinks modern novels also mark the decline of narrative; the latter is an expression of a community, whereas the novel is all about bourgeois individualism.

 

Still, as bad as modern works of fiction are, "the ultimate decline of narration comes not with the novel but with the rise of information under capitalism" [5].    

 

Information technology doesn't allow us to rest, to relax, to be bored; it "drives the dream bird away" [5] and stops us listening carefully (for Han the narrative community is one which immerses itself in what it hears). 

 

In a crucial passage, Han writes:

 

"On the internet [...] the dream bird cannot build a nest. The information seekers drive him away. In today's state of hyperactivity, where boredom is not allowed to emerge, we never reach the state of deep mental relaxation. The information society is an age of heightened mental tension, because the essence of information is surprise and the stimulus it provides. The tsunami of information means that our perceptual apparatus is permanently stimulated. It can no longer enter into contemplation. The tsunami of information fragments our attention. It prevents the contempative lingering that is essential to narrating and careful listening." [6]

 

It's a nice passage: classic Han. And I find it hard to disagree with anything he says here. His fundamental argument that in a digital era reality itself is turned into information and human beings are no more than living data sets, is quite clearly the case. 

 

And whilst some would simply shrug and ask so what, I can't help feeling, like Han, that this is not a good thing and will result in a new form of algorithmic domination which "hides behind the illusion of freedom and communication" [7]. 

   

 

Notes

 

[a] Byung-Chul Han, The Crisis of Narration, trans. Daniel Steuer, (Polity Press, 2024). The work was originally published as Die Krise der Narration (Matthes & Seitz Berlin, 2023). Page numbers given here refer to the English edition.    

[b] See the season 7 episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm entitled 'Seinfeld', written by Larry David and dir. Jeff Schaffer (November 2009). To watch the scene I'm referring to on Youtube, click here. 

 

[c] D. H. Lawrence, 'Indians and an Englishman', in Mornings in Mexico and Other Essays, ed. Virginia Crosswhite Hyde, (Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 120.  

[d] D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 269. 

[e] Ibid., p. 272

[f] D. H. Lawrence, 'Insouciance', Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 95. 

 

Part 2 of this post can be read by clicking here. 

 

Part 3 of this post can be read by clicking here. 

Reflections on the Sorcerer's Apprentice and the Villainy of Things

 

Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer's Apprentice

Fantasia (Walt Disney, 1940)

 

 

I. 

 

Goethe's Der Zauberlehrling (1797) is a ballad composed of fourteen stanzas with an unusual rhyme scheme. It tells the tale of an occult master and his young disciple who discovers that objects are not always there simply to serve us and may in fact be invested with a malevolent spirit; that an enchanted realm is not necessarily a safe space to inhabit.   

Whilst the poem remains popular in the German-speaking world, I suspect most people know the story of 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' thanks to its adaptation by Walt Disney in the animated film Fantasia (1940), starring Mickey Mouse - a character about whom the philosopher Byung-Chul Han writes in his fascinating short work Undinge: Umbrüche der Lebenswelt (2021) [a] ...        

 

 

II. 

 

According to Han, the representation of material reality in the Disney universe and Mickey's relationship with things radically changes over time. 

 

In his earliest adventures, inanimate objects of all kinds have their independence and behave in an unpredictable - somewhat treacherous - even dangerous manner. Mickey is constantly obliged to grapple with these objects and they remain a permanent source of frustration for an anthropomorphic mouse attempting to impose his will upon the world, as well as providing comedy gold. 

 

For as Han rightly notes: "The cartoons are entertaining to a large extent because of the villainy of things." [46]

Sadly, however, times have changed and one of the depressing aspects of life today is that things have lost their mischievous character. In transforming material reality into a safe space that offers no resistance or dangers, we have succeeded in subordinating objects to our control. 

 

In other words, objects are obliged to behave themselves and even though we manipulate and exploit them, they no longer have the right to rebel or extract their revenge: 

 

"The villainy of things is now probably a thing of the past. We are no longer maltreated by things. They are not destructive; they do not offer any resistance. [...] Things are submissive. They are submitted to our needs." [46-47]

 

Han continues:

 

"Today, even Mickey Mouse leads a digital, smart and immaterial life. His world is digitalized and informationalized [...] the representation of material reality is markedly different [...] Things no longer have an independent life; they are obedient tools for solving problems." [47]

 

Is this a good thing? Is it right for a cartoon mouse to teach children that there is a quick solution - an app - for everything? 

 

I don't think so. 

 

And, personally, I would prefer life to be problematic; that physical reality remain something we constantly bump up against. I rather like being at the mercy of objects which not only want to harm or make fools of us, but also support, sustain, and comfort us.  

 

Ultimately, I agree with the young witch who recently informed me: 'When non-things beckon us to enter a virtual abyss, it will be the saving power of actual objects that will summon us back into the nearness of the nearest.' [b]

 

 

Notes

 

[a] This work was translated into English as Non-things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld, by Daniel Steur, (Polity Press, 2022). Page numbers given in the above post refer to this edition.

     

[b] I'm paraphrasing here from a paper due to be presented at Treadwell's Bookshop, on 8 February 2024, entitled Bells, Books, and Candles: On the Continuing Allure of Actual Objects in an Age of Virtual Reality. For more information - and an abstract - see the most recent entry on the TTA Events page: click here.   

Sid Vicious Versus the Crucified

Sid Vicious Versus the Crucified 

(SA/2024) [1]

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

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

and return again from destruction.

 

 

I.

 

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

 

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

 

 

II. 

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

As Nietzsche writes:

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

 

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

 

 

Notes

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

On the Ball with D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence: Spring (c. January 1929)

watercolour (30 x 22.5 cm)

 

 

I. 

 

John Worthen's short piece in the latest Journal of D. H. Lawrence Studies [1] concerning Lawrence's time as a pupil-teacher in Eastwood, is interesting for the revelation that the latter liked nothing better than to arrange an informal kickabout in the school playground during the lunch break, using bricks - and perhaps even jumpers - for goal posts. 

 

Although it seems Lawrence did not himself participate as a player, he was happy to act as a referee and so clearly understood the rules of the beautiful game - just like any other working-class lad at the time - even if there is no evidence (so far) to suggest he supported a local team [2].

 

Knowing this allows us to look at the above painting - Spring (1929) - with fresh eyes; perhaps Lawrence was not merely painting some local youths in the lovely French seaside resort of Bandol celebrating the scoring of a goal during a soccer match, but also fondly recalling the passion with which his own pupils at the Albert Street School would play the game ...

 

 

II.  

 

Funny enough, this picture by Lawrence is one that Keith Sagar seems to particularly loathe:

 

"Spring is supposed to be a painting of some boys in Bandol playing football, but by removing the blue shirts they wore in the first version of the painting, leaving them wearing nothing but boots, and by having all but one of them engage in activities which, whether homoerotic or not, have certainly nothing to do with the ball, he produces a ludicrous painting." [3]

 

The problem, however, is that whilst Sagar was a great Lawrence scholar, he was not, alas, a very good art critic and he misses the opportunity to recognise Lawrence's importance as a painter [4]. There is, I would suggest, a very special violence - and, indeed, a very special beauty - that emerges from his canvases as part of an art of sensation.

 

Lawrence does not wish to reduce his figures to the level of optical cliché; he is not trying to capture a likeness! Nor is he simply revealing and celebrating the flesh, he is rather pushing it in the direction of deformation and disfiguration (anatomical fidelity is no more an issue for Lawrence than it was for Cézanne).  

And so, returning to Spring ... 

 

Expecting and wanting to see an actual game of football, Sagar is irritated by the fact that Lawrence provides sensation rather than spectacle and that he is as uninterested in the score-line, the colour of the kits, or the intricacies of the offside rule, as the boys who play for the joy felt by healthy young bodies exerting themselves, the love of team mates, the ecstasy of celebration, etc. 

 

Spring demonstrates Lawrence's appreciation of the fact that football - and, indeed, sport in general - expresses and liberates certain vital forces and flows.   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See John Worthen, 'D. H. Lawrence as Games Organiser and Football Referee', Journal of D. H. Lawrence Studies, Volume 6, Number 3, ed. Susan Reid  (D. H. Lawrence Society, 2023), pp. 11-16.    

[2] Lawrence might have supported Notts County; the oldest professional football club in the world, formed in 1862; or Nottingham Forest, formed three years later; or Derby County, formed in 1884, and one of the twelve founding members of the Football League in 1888.

 

[3] Keith Sagar, Introduction to D. H. Lawrence's Paintings, (Chaucer Press, 2003), p. 68.

[4] What I mean by this is that Sagar thinks it sufficient to carefully establish the connections between Lawrence's life, writing, and painting, thereby framing the pictures in a bio-literary context. But in simply substituting snippets of biographical detail, personal anecdote, and literary criticism for a genuine analysis of Lawrence's paintings - i.e., one that is written in the terms appropriate to a discussion of a practice primarily concerned with colour and line - Sagar produces a somewhat pointless commentary which not only betrays his own ignorance of the plastic arts, but also his ultimate lack of confidence in Lawrence’s ability to draw.

Margiela Artisanal Collection 2024: Pubic Hair and Porcelain Faces

Maison Margiela Artisanal Collection 2024 [1]

 

 

I was pleased to see that John Galliano decided to experiment with an older ideal of female beauty in his latest collection for Maison Margiela; one with tiny waists, wide hips, and (at least the illusion of) hairy genitalia.

 

For I've long been interested in the question of female body hair and its removal; particularly from the pubic area due to a porno-aesthetic convention shaping our idea of what constitutes desirability. As I wrote in a post published back in January 2013:  

"I am slightly troubled by this trend. For whilst I understand the appeal of the hairless pussy on grounds that range from the practical to the perverse, still I can't help regretting the universal Brazilianization of women as I recall the words of Henry Miller: 'It doesn't look like a cunt anymore; it's like a dead clam or something. It's the hair that makes it mysterious.' [2]  

 

So, well done to Galliano for his use of couture merkins, fashioned from real human hair and visible beneath the sheer dresses worn by models. Perhaps this will start a new trend and maybe even encourage some women to go easy with the wax or refrain from relentlessly shaving every single hair [3].

 

 

II.

 

Of course, Galliano isn't really interested in reviving a more natural model of femininity. As he once admitted long ago, he hates female breasts for ruining the line of his designs.

 

And as the hyper-shiny complexion of his models indicates [4], his queer and slightly uncanny fantasy is to make a real woman resemble a porcelain doll; or perhaps bring the latter to life, fitting her out with all the secondary sexual characteristics of genuine womanhood, and then having her walk down the catwalk looking like a lurid Edwardian prostitute.  

To quote D. H. Lawrence: "It's just weird. And for its very weirdness women like living up to it." [5] But they might do well to remember, however, that the moment they take on that artificial china doll face, the fashion will change and the demand will be for something else.  

 

Having said that, Galliano does have a certain decadent genius and I can't help admiring his latest collection - just as my own perverse interest in the (related) topics of pygmalionism, agalmatophilia, and dollification make it hard for me not to adore the perfect porcelain features of the model pictured above. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The Maison Margiela Artisanal Collection 2024 by John Galliano was shown underneath the arches of what for many is most beautiful - certainly the most ornate - bridge in all Paris, the Pont Alexandre III. Click here to watch the show - inspired in part by Brassï’s dimly lit, over exposed nighttime photos taken in Montmarte in the 1920s and '30s - on YouTube.  

 

[2] See the post entitled 'Epilation' (8 Jan 2013) from where I quote this passage.

 

[3] Perhaps. But probably not. I suspect that all the body positive and natural beauty stuff will make little difference within a pornified culture. Some readers might recall that the visual merchandising team at American Apparel tried something similar to Galliano at their East Houston Street store in NYC ten years ago to little effect. See the post 'On Mannequins With Merkins' (21 Jan 2014).

 

[4] The astonishing glass skin make-up worn by the models was created by Pat McGrath; a long time collaborator of Galliano's - from his days at Dior until now at Maison Margiela, where he was appointed creative director in 2014. 

[5] D. H. Lawrence, 'Give Her a Pattern', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 163. 

Three French Suicides: In Memory of Olga Georges-Picot, Christine Pascal, and Gilles Deleuze

Christine Pascal, Gilles Deleuze & Olga Georges-Picot

 

 

I.

 

Last night, on TV, they were showing one of my favourite films: the British psychological thriller written and directed by Basil Dearden and starring Roger Moore; The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970) [1]. 

 

There are many reasons to love this film, not least of all because it allows one to get a glimpse of the French actress Olga-Georges Picot in a very fetching black bra. She's luscious. She's ravishing. And there are some men who would happily give up red meat to be afforded an opportunity to perv [2] on this Franco-Russian beauty [3] - including Woody Allen, who cast her as Countess Alexandrovna in his 1975 film Love and Death.  

   

Whilst biographical information on her life and career seems to be limited and incomplete, we do know that she commited suicide in June 1997 by jumping from her 5th floor apartment overlooking the river Seine.

 

 

II. 

 

Olga Georges-Picot's death came less than a year after the death - also by suicide and also by jumping out of a window - of the brilliant French actress, writer and director Christine Pascal ... 

 

Interestingly, this multi-talented woman had often reflected philosophically on the question of suicide, and the first film she directed - Félicité (1979) [4] - opens with a suicide scene. Several years later, when asked by an interviewer how she would like to die, she replied: En me suicidant, le moment venu.

 

Well, that time came in August 1996, whilst receiving treatment at a psychiatric hospital in the Paris suburb of Garches [5]. Whether her suicide is best interpreted as a mad act by a mentally ill woman or a voluntary death by an unconventional woman with a penchant for transgressive behaviour is something I'll allow readers to decide [6].    

 

III.

Finally, let us remember Gilles Deleuze ... 

 

Deleuze was a philosopher very much admired by Pascal and one who, like her - and like Georges-Picot - also topped himself by jumping out of a window, when the respiratory conditions that he had long suffered from became increasingly severe [7].     

I remember the excitement news of this event generated in the Philosophy Dept. at Warwick, where I was doing my Ph.D at the time and had just started to read Deleuze's work seriously. Everyone wanted to know if his death came from within or without and pondered the question of whether it marked a loss of desire on his part, or whether the decision to terminate one's own individual existence as a way of affirming life indicates a final resurgence of vitality.  

 

In other words, was his suicide a logical way for Deleuze to show fidelity to his own philosophy, rather than merely a wish to end his suffering?

 

It remains an interesting question, I think ...       

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I have written about this in relation to Daphne du Maurier's 1957 novel The Scapegoat in a post entitled 'Never Give a Doppelgänger the Keys to Your Car ...' (17 June 2020): click here. 

[2] I'm paraphrasing George Costanza interviewing for a secretary in the season six episode of Seinfeld entitled 'The Secretary', (dir. D. Owen Trainor, 1998): click here.  

[3] Olga was was the daughter of Guillaume Georges-Picot, the French Ambassador to China, and a Russian mother, Anastasia Mironovich. She was born in Shanghai, in Japanese-occupied China, in January 1940. 

 

[4] Christine Pascal was born in Lyon in November 1953. She was given a starring role, aged twenty-one, in Michel Mitrani's Les Guichets du Louvre (1974). 

      The film portrays the infamous Vel' d'Hiv' Roundup in 1942, when French police assisted Nazi soldiers in the arrest of over 13,000 Jewish inhabitants of Paris and held them under inhumane conditions prior to their deportation to Auschwitz, where virtually all were murdered. Pascal played a young Jewish woman named Jeanne.

 

[5] Félicité was not only written and directed by Pascal, but she played the lead role too. It was a film that shocked many (even in France) with its explicit sexual content and provocative indecency and cemented her reputation as the mauvaise fille of French cinema.   

 

[6] Somewhat unfairly, I think, the psychiatrist who was caring for Pascal was sentenced in 2003 to twelve months in prison for failing to take appropriate action to prevent her suicide. 

 

[7] Deleuze, who had problems with his breathing even as a youngster, developed tuberculosis in 1968 and underwent surgery to remove a lung. In the final years of his life even writing became increasingly difficult and so, on 4 November 1995, aged seventy, he jumped to his death from the window of his Paris apartment.

 

Satanism is Not a Humanism

thesatanictemple.com

 

 

I. 

 

Just to be clear: I'm no great fan of Anton LaVey and I'm not a member or supporter of his Church of Satan [1]. However, if placed between the devil and the deep blue sea and forced to choose between LaVey and the Church of Satan or Lucien Greaves and his Satanic Temple, I'd probably go with the former. 

 

And that's because Satanism as a form of showbiz and ritual theatre appeals more than Satanism as a form of social activism and progressive politics and I think I prefer those who are faux wicked like LaVey to those who are sincerely woke like Greaves. 

 

 

II.

 

The Satanic Temple, co-founded by Greaves and Malcolm Jarry in 2012 and based in Salem, Massachusetts, declares in a mission statement on its website that it has several goals based upon Seven Tenets, including the encouragement of benevolence and empathy among all people; opposition to injustice; and the promotion of practical common sense.

 

None of these things sound particularly immoral to me - and it's no surprise to discover that, actually, Greaves and his associates in The Satanic Temple not only refuse to worship his Satanic Majesty, but deny his existence and believe that religion should be stripped of all supernatural elements, becoming, in effect, just another form of secular humanism [2] promoting reason and liberal values. 

 

Far from affirming an active form of evil, The Satanic Temple wish to reduce human suffering in the name of Love and - as a Nietzschean - I obviously can't go along with that on philosophical grounds [3]. 

 

For me, the altruistic values that Greaves holds dear - born as they are of impotence and ressentiment - are essentially the problem and it is not only absurd to persist with such ideals, but harmful to our present wellbeing and future becoming [4].   

Does Greaves not understand that it is only those with claws who are capable of showing compassion and that it is the strong who grant and guarantee the very rights with which he is so concerned? 

 

Apparently not ... Which is a bit of a shame, because - to give the devil his due - Greaves is undoubtedly an intelligent and courageous provocateur, it's just unfortunate that, ultimately, he's merely another social justice warrior peddling the same leftist ideology one might hear from Owen Jones or Billy Bragg.      

  

 

Notes

 

[1] Anton LaVey (1930-1997) was an American author, musician, and Satanist. A colourful and charismatic figure - once described as a natural born showman - he was the founder of the Church of Satan in 1966. Readers who are interested might like the post published on 24 Feb 2018 in which I discuss LaVey's relationship with Jayne Mansfield: click here. 

[2] Greaves tries to differentiate his model of Satanism from humanism by emphasising its rejection of tyrannical authority and adherence to a principle of individual sovereignty (including that of the outsider), but I can't imagine any secular-liberal humanist would find that problematic.    

[3] One of the things that Lucien Greaves dislikes about LaVey's model of Satanism is the fact that it was informed by a reading - admittedly a crude reading - of Nietzsche's philosophy. Click here to read a fairly lengthy refutation of LaVey's doctrines on The Satanic Temple website.  

 

[4] I discuss all this in chapter 4 of Outside the Gate, (Blind Cupid Press, 2010), pp. 89-99.

Forest Bathing

A Walk in the Woods by Frosted Moonlight 

 (SA/2024)

 

 

Having taken an early morning stroll in the woods by the light of a frosted moon, I'm sympathetic to the claim made by many dendrophiles that being in the company of trees is beneficial to one's physical and mental wellbeing. 

 

That even a short walk in the woods - depressing  as this can be when one sees all the litter and fly-tipped items including paint pots, pushchairs and printers - can help lower blood pressure, keep sugar levels balanced, boost immune systems and even improve cognitive function.     

 

Of course, the Japanese living in a land that is still two-thirds covered with a vast number and diversity of trees, have known this for many years and have even coined a (relatively recent) term [1] for finding oneself by losing oneself amongst them: shinrin-yoku - known in English as forest bathing. 

 

But the Japanese are not unique in recognising the health benefits of this practice; the Roman author Pliny the Elder, for example, argued that the scent of a pine forest was extremely beneficial to those suffering with respiratory problems or recuperating from a long illness. 

 

And I've written on several occasions about D. H. Lawrence's great fascination with trees: click here, for example. 

 

Like Lawrence, I'm conscious of the fact that you can never really know a tree - something which is so much bigger and stronger in life than we are - but only "sit among the roots and nestle against its strong trunk" [2], in silent contemplation [3]. But that's good enough for me. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The term shinrin-yoku was coined in 1982 by Tomohide Akiyama - Director of the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries - who, worried by increasing urbanisation, hoped to inspire the Japanese public to reconnect with nature and protect their forests by reminding them of the free health benefits that the latter afforded them.   

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 86. 

[3] Having said that, Rupert Birkin does rather more than sit in silence with his favourite young sapling; see chapter VIII of Lawrence's novel Women in Love (1920). I discuss dendrophilia in its erotic (and daimonic) aspect in a post published here on 3 October 2020: click here.