Silent Night Vs Non-Time (A Christmas Message)

Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht

 

 

I. 

 

What, more than anything, do we need to rediscover this Christmas in order to release us from the anxiety, the noise, the frenzy, and the coarseness of life in 2021? 

 

The answer is the kind of life hinted at within the popular Christmas carol Silent Night - a life wherein all is calm and we can sleep in heavenly peace; i.e., collect ourselves, gather our senses, and know a sense of blissful conclusion, rather than empty duration in which no rest is possible; a life wherein we understand that even the darkness is, paradoxically, bright.      

 

 

II. 

 

Composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber - with lyrics by Joseph Mohr [1] - Silent Night not only holds out the (in my view false) promise of Christian redemption, but speaks of a time which is now lost to us, one in which each day begins and ends in prayer and the year is marked by holy days and festive events. 

 

As Byung-Chul Han notes:

 

"The medieval calendar did not just serve the purpose of counting days. Rather, it was based on a story in which the festive days represent narrative resting points. They are fixed points within the flow of time, providing narrative bonds so that the time does not simply elapse. The festive days form temporal sections which structure time and give it a rhythm. They function like the sections of a story, and let time and its passing appear meaningful. Each section of a story completes a narrative section, and this provisional completion prepares the next stage of the narrative. The temporal sections are meaningful transitions within an overall narrative frame. The time of hope, the time of joy, and the time of farewell merge into each other." [2]   

 

Of course one has reservations about all this - but then so too does one have reservations about living (and perishing) in the Un-Zeit [3] of today when life has lost "more and more of the breadth that would give it duration [... and] become more rushed, less perspicuous and more directionless" [4]. 

Sadly, in the 24/7 world of non-time, there can be no silent night, holy night, when all is calm, all is bright; and we can never sleep in heavenly peace ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The English translation of Stille Nacht was written by John Freeman Young in 1859, based on three of Mohr's original six verses. In 1998, the Silent Night Museum (in Oberndorf) commissioned a new English translation by Bettina Klein of the German lyrics. For the most part, Klein leaves the Young translation unchanged, but occasionally it differs significantly in order to be more faithful to the original text. 

      As for the melody that is generally used today - a slow meditative lullaby  - this differs only slightly from Gruber's original.

 

[2] Byung-Chul Han, The Scent of Time, trans. Daniel Steuer, (Polity Press, 2017), p. 88. 

      D. H. Lawrence puts this idea in more poetic (and openly religious) terms:

       

"The rhythm of life itself was preserved by the Church hour by hour, day by day, season by season, year by year, epoch by epoch [...] We feel it, in the south, in the country, where we hear the jangle of bells at dawn, at noon, at sunset, marking the hours with the sound of mass or prayers. It is the rhythm of the daily sun. We feel it in the festivals, the processions, Christmas, the Three Kings, Easter, Pentecost, St John's Day, All Saints, All Souls. This is the wheeling of the year, the movement of the sun through solstice and equinox, the coming of the seasons, the going of the seasons. And it is the inward rhythm of man and woman too, the sadness of Lent, the delight of Easter, the wonder of Pentecost, the fires of St John, the candles on the graves of All Souls, the lit-up tree of Christmas, all representing kindled rhythmic emotions in the souls of men and women."

      See: 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), pp. 322-23.

[4] Byung-Chul Han's translator Daniel Steuer notes that 'non-time' is a neologism with the stress on the prefix which "expresses a negation that turns something positive or neutral into something negative". He continues: "'Non-time' and its derivatives [...] do not refer so much to an inopportune moment, or an anachonism, but to a particular modality of time itself". See note 1 to chapter 1 of Byung-Chul Han's The Scent of Time, pp. 115-16. 

      We might best summarise the idea by saying that non-time results when life is deprived of every form of meaningful closure (including death); when the present is no longer framed by past and future and is just made up of moments lacking in continuity; "an empty duration without beginning or end", as Han puts it [ibid., p. 7]. 

[5] Byung-Chul Han, The Scent of Time, p. 11. 

 

 

Thanks to Louise Tucker for providing the image upon which my illustration is based.

My Sister and I

My Sister and I (Dec 1967)

 

"The warm and lovely world we knew, has been struck by a bitter frost.

But my sister and I, recall with a sigh, the world we knew, and loved, and lost." [1]

 

 

Like Herr Nietzsche, I also have a sister called Elizabeth (named after a princess). And like Herr Nietzsche, I also have a somewhat troubled relationship with my sibling who, for the record, is eleven years my senior. 

 

But whereas Nietzsche's sister was keen to take control of her brother's archive after his collapse and capitalise upon his growing fame throughout Europe [2], it seems that my sister would rather eradicate all traces of my existence.

 

Thus, for example, not only did she remove and destroy all of my childhood toys, games, and treasured possessions from our parental home (with my mother's acquiescence, but without my knowledge or consent), but she has now searched through all of her family photograph albums in order to find any pictures of me, so that these too might be removed. 

 

To be fair, she didn't burn or bin these pictures (or try to sell them on eBay). Rather, she presented the images to me so that I may do with them as I please; this includes the photo above, taken in December 1967.    

 

This censorship of images and editing (or falsification) of the past is reminiscent of what went on in the Soviet Union under Stalin, although my sister is driven by sibling resentment rather than political expediency; i.e., it's an act of spite rather than propaganda.  

But whatever the motivation, it's all a bit of shame, really. But there you go - all families operate with a degree of dysfunction, don't they? And, to be honest, I don't feel inclined to apologise for having been born (I'm just pleased to have the pictures).     

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Lyrics from My Sister and I, a song written by Hy Zaret, Joan Whitney and Alex Kramer, recorded by Jimmy Dorsey, with vocals by Bob Eberly. It hit number one on the Billboard charts on June 7, 1941. Click here to play on YouTube.

[2] In 1889, aged 45, Nietzsche suffered a collapse in Turin and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, until his death in 1900. 

      As curator and editor of Nietzsche's manuscripts, Elisabeth used her brother's unpublished writings to promote her own agenda, wilfully overlooking his philosophical views when they conflicted with her nationalism and antisemitism. 

      Readers who are interested in this topic should see Carol Diethe's Nietzsche's Sister and the Will to Power, (University of Illinois Press, 2003), in which she demonstrates how Elisabeth's desire to place herself - not her brother - at the center of German cultural life damaged his reputation for many years.

      Readers might also enjoy the apocryphal work attributed to Nietzsche entitled My Sister and I, trans. Oscar Levy (1951). This book - which most scholars consider a forgery - was supposedly written in 1889-90, during Nietzsche's time in a mental asylum. If legitimate, My Sister and I would be Nietzsche's final text, chronologically following his Wahnbriefe. Amongst several highly contentious (and otherwise unreported) biographical claims, the book details an incestuous relationship between Nietzsche and his sister Elisabeth. 

Revenge of the Macaques

Image: Suresh Jadhav for News18

 

That man and monkey be redeemed from the spirit of revenge - 

that for me is the bridge to our highest hope ... [1]

 

 

Well, it's clear now from recent news reports coming out of India that our simian friends are not Christian and do not believe in turning the other cheek [1], nor leaving vengeance in the paws of their god [2] ...

After a pack of dogs killed an infant macaque, an enraged troop of rhesus monkeys have launched a merciless month-long campaign of revenge, grabbing around 250 puppies off the streets and then throwing them to their death from atop buildings and trees.  

According to some reports, when the troop can no longer find any young canines, they begin chasing terrified schoolchildren and one unfortunate eight-year-old had to be physically rescued from their clutches. Other villagers have apparently been injured attempting to protect their pooches.

 

Thankfully, such organised primate attacks on other species are rare, although not unknown. And it certainly isn't the case that they are the only animals other than man who seek revenge; camels, elephants, lions, crows, are all known to enjoy getting their own back. 

 

Indeed, even some fish have been known to engage in what Francis Bacon (disapprovingly) termed wild justice ...   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm paraphrasing Nietzsche writing in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, II. 7 - 'On the Tarantulas'.

 

[2] Matthew 5:38-39 - "Ye have heard that it hath been said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth'. But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."

[3] Romans 12:19 - "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine; I will repay', saith the Lord."

Chastity (Or the Peace That Comes of Fucking)

 

I. 

 

One of the most surprising things about Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928), is that it closes with an affirmation of chastity, or what Oliver Mellors likes to call the peace that comes of fucking. 

 

In his Grange Farm letter to Connie, he informs her of his intention to remain patient during their time apart and abide by the little flame that burns between them, trying not to think of her too often, as this only tortures him and wastes something vital [1]. 

 

He writes: 

 

"So I love chastity now, because it is the peace that comes of fucking. I love being chaste now. I love it as snowdrops love the snow. I love this chastity, which is the pause and peace of our fucking, between us now like a snowdrop of forked white fire. [...] Now is the time to be chaste, it is so good to be chaste, like a river of cool water in my soul. I love the chastity now that flows between us. It is like fresh water and rain. How can men want wearisomely to philander. What a misery to be like Don Juan, and impotent ever to fuck oneself into peace [...]" [2]  

 

 

II. 

 

Of course, this real and accomplished chastity [3] won't come as too great a surprise to readers who are familiar with Lawrence's Pansies, a collection of verse written in 1928/29 in which the cry of noli me tangere rings throughout and the theme of chastity - understood as freedom from the mind and hands exploiting the sensual body [4] - is key.

 

"Great is my need to be chaste / and apart, in this cerebral age" [5], writes the poet for whom sex is a state of grace. All he wishes of a woman is that she shall feel gently towards him when his heart feels kindly towards her: "I am so tired of violent women lashing out and insisting / on being loved, when there is no love in them" [6].

 

Touch comes slowly, writes Lawrence, if ever; "when the white mind sleeps" [7] and cannot be forced: 

 

For if, cerebrally, we force ourselves into touch, into contact 

physically and fleshly, 

we violate ourselves,

we become vicious. [8] 

 

All of these ideas coalesce in the poem 'Chastity' -

 

Chastity, beloved chastity

O beloved chastity

how infinitely dear to me

chastity, beloved chastity!

 

That my body need not be

fingered by the mind,

or prosituted by the dree

contact of cerebral flesh -

 

O leave me clean from mental fingering

from the cold copulation of the will,

from all the white, self-conscious lechery

the modern mind calls love!

 

From all the mental poetry

of deliberate love-making,

from all the false felicity

of deliberately taking

 

the body of another unto mine,

O God deliver me!

leave me alone, let me be!

 

Chastity, dearer far to me

that any contact that can be

in this mind-mischievous age! [9]     

 

III. 

 

Lawrence's notion of chastity is, therefore, distinct from the Christian virtue synonymous with moral purity and closely tied to an ideal of celibacy. 

 

In fact, if anything, Lawrence's model of chastity is closer to Nietzsche's than the Church's and he would doubtless echo Zarathustra in saying that whilst with some Christians chastity may indeed be a virtue, with many others it is almost a vice; such persons may exercise self-restraint, but doggish lust looks enviously out of all that they do.  

 

It is preferable, says Zarathustra, to fall into the hands of a murderer than into the arms of a person driven by lust in which there is no innocence. Individuals who find it difficult to be chaste - and whom it makes resentful and cruel as well as lustful - should be dissuaded from it. 

 

Only those for whom chastity is a form of victory - the peace that comes of fucking - should practice it; for they are kinder (and warmer) of heart and know how to laugh even at their own selves:   

 

"They laugh at chastity too and ask, 'What is chastity? Is chastity not folly? Yet this folly came to us, not we to it. We offered that guest hostel and heart: now it dwells with us - may it stay as long as it will!" [10]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] It's debatable what this means, but I read it as a coded confession from a fetishistic masturbator who was previously only too happy to sleep with Connie's flimsy silk nightdress pressed atween his legs at night, for company. See D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterleys Lover and A Propos of Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 249. 

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, p. 301. 

[3] See A Propos of Lady Chatterley's Lover, where Lawrence uses this phrase, writing: "Years of honest thought of sex, and years of struggling action in sex will bring us at last where we want to get, to our real and accomplished chastity [...]", p. 309. 

[4] D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), see Chapter X. The line quoted from is on p. 146.  

[5] D. H. Lawrence, 'Noli me tangere', The Poems, p. 407. 

[6] D. H. Lawrence, 'All I ask', The Poems, p. 415. 

[7] D. H. Lawrence, 'Touch comes', The Poems, p. 408.

 

[8] D. H. Lawrence, 'Touch', The Poems, p. 406. 

[9] D. H. Lawrence, 'Chastity', The Poems, p. 407. 

[10] Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, I. 13, 'On Chastity', in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann, (Penguin Books, 1988), p. 167.

Don't Touch Me!

Angry weasel by zee1975

imgur.com

 

Noli me tangere, touch me not! / O you creatures of mind, don't touch me!

O you with human fingers, O never put your hand on me!

O you with your human bodies, stay a little distance from me! [1]

Whilst it's true that the term touch, along with tenderness, has a privileged role to play within D. H. Lawrence's phallic vocabulary [2], that doesn't mean that he was always comfortable with people putting their paws on him, particularly in an intimate manner that violates his animal integrity.

Thus, in an amusing verse probably written in 1916 [3], the male protagonist is not best pleased when he is told by his lover, a married woman, that he shouldn't be shy or ashamed of his nakedness; that he should allow her to see and touch and enjoy his body:

 

She said to me: What an instrument, your body!

single and perfectly distinct from everything else!

What a tool in the hands of the Lord!  

 

Just as she once handled her father's riding-whip as a child, and his pens - feeling something surge through her when she touched them - now she wished to grab hold of him and possess his male beauty:

I wish I could grip you like the fist of the Lord,

and have you -

 

This, however, places a constraint upon his heart, leaving him feeling trammelled and hurt. He replies:

 

No tool, no instrument, no God!

Don't touch me and appreciate me.

It is an infamy.

 

And then, somewhat astonishingly, he compares himself to an adder lying in the sun, a young bull in a field, and a weasel on a fence:

 

You would think twice before you touched a weasel on a fence

as it lifts its straight white throat.

Your hand would not be so flig and easy. 

 

What he wants is that she not only recognise his singular beauty, but respect it by hesitating somewhat before reaching forward to caress him. For as Lawrence writes in a later cycle of poems, touch comes slowly, if at all, as a form of trust developing not out of desire, but chastity [4].

 

That's an important point I think (particularly if one wishes to understand Lawrence's complex notion of touch). 

 

But, arguably, it's even more important to acknowledge what Lawrence is telling us here about wild animals; that they hate to be stroked, cuddled, picked up, or petted by humans and so we should refrain from trying to touch them in an inappropriately familiar manner if and when we are fortunate enough to encounter them. 

 

If you want to show how much you admire and care for a wild creature, let it be; respect it in its otherness and acknowledge the pathos of distance that exists between you.     

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I've slightly altered the opening lines from D. H. Lawrence's poem 'Noli me tangere', The Poems, Vol. I, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 406-07. Italics added.

 

[2] See Annabel Banks, 'Voli Me Tangere: Touch and Tenderness in the Lady Chatterley Novels', Postgraduate English - a Journal and Forum for Postgraduates in English hosted by Durham University - No. 32 (2016). Readers who wish to dowload the full text as a pdf should click here.

 

[3] The poem, 'She Said As Well to Me', is part of the collection Look! We Have Come Through! and can be found in D. H. Lawrence, The Poems, Vol. I, pp. 208-09. It can also be found online: click here.

 

[4] See the Pansies 'Chastity', 'Let us talk, let us laugh', and 'Touch comes', in The Poems, Vol. I, pp. 407-09. And for a follow on post to this one in which I discuss the idea of chastity in Lawrence (and Nietzsche), click here.  

 

 

This post is for animal rights activist and Lawrentian David Brock. 

Look Don't Touch (Notes on Art and Haptic Compulsion)

 Image credit: Raul Arboleda / AFP / Getty Images

 

 

I. 

 

Touching objects is surely a vital activity. But just as green grocers don't like you handling the fruit and veg, so gallery owners seem to have a real problem with people touching works of art on display. 

 

Obviously, there are practical reasons for this; dirt particles and perspiration on the hands can stain or, over time, cause serious damage to the surface of a sculpture, for example, which it might be difficult (or even impossible) to repair. Whilst porous materials, such as wood or stone, are particularly vulnerable, even works made of bronze or stainless steel, are not entirely immune to damage. 

 

Thus, in public art museums the world over there are signs reading do not touch, white boundary lines marked on the floor, and security guards lurking nearby to ensure people keep their distance. The curators want the public to engage with the art and be inspired by it, but they want them to do so with their eyes whilst keeping their filthy paws off. 

 

Oh, and just to be clear, kissing statues is also strictly forbidden and very much frowned upon.   

 

 

II. 

 

Practical concerns aside, there are clearly other issues at play here; aesthetics is founded upon an ideal of detachment and enforcement of the golden rule of look don't touch. Nietzsche, however, mocks this ability to gaze upon beauty apparently free of all desire as immaculate perception and suggests that objective contemplation is very often a disguised form of emasculated leering: click here for a post in which I discuss this. 

 

We see this aesthetic idealism expressed in Byung-Chul Han's 2015 work Die Errettung des Schönen (trans. rather prosaically in English as Saving Beauty (2018)), where he writes disapprovingly of Jeff Koons's sculptures on the grounds that their ultra-smooth surfaces not only reflect a social imperative lacking in all negativity, but cause "a 'haptic compulsion' to touch them, even the desire to suck them" [1].

 

Han writes: 

 

"It is the positivity of smoothness alone that causes the haptic compulsion. It invites the observer to take an attitude without distance, to touch. An aesthetic judgement, however, presupposes a contemplative distance. The art of the smooth abolishes such distance." [2]     

 

Like Hegel, Byung-Chul Han wants art to be meaningful and that requires visual appreciation. For sight, along with hearing, is a theoretical sense that allows us to interpret, judge, and reflect upon a work. Smelling, tasting, or touching an object might inform us of its material reality and sensible qualities, but won't enable us to make profound sense of it as an artwork. 

 

And like Roland Barthes, Byung-Chul Han believes the sense of touch to be "'the most demystifying of all senses, unlike sight which is the most magical'" [3]. Why? Because whilst the latter preserves distance, the former negates it. To touch an object is to demystify it and make it available for enjoyment and consumption: "The sense of touch destroys the negativity of what is wholly other. It secularizes what it touches." [4]

 

For Han, Jeff Koons's seamless sculptures may embody "a perfect and optimized surface without depth and shallows" [5], but so do soap bubbles made of air and emptiness and as any West Ham fan will tell you, there's no real salvation to be found in blowing bubbles ...  

 

 

III.

 

The problem is, whilst I might agree with many aspects of Han's critique of smoothness, I'm a little more ambivalent on the subject than him (and I also like the work of Jeff Koons, as discussed in a recent post: click here).

 

Further, it seems to me that professor of museum studies, Fiona Candlin, is right to call for a radical rethinking of aesthetics as it has traditionally been conceived and to challenge the idea of art museums as sites of visual learning. In her 2010 study, Art, Museums and Touch, Candlin demonstrates that touch was - and remains - of crucial importance within the history, theory, practice, and appreciation of art, whilst, at the same time, contesting ideas of touch as an unmediated and uncomplex (i.e., primitive and inferior) mode of discovery [6].     

 

Having spent many years investigating why visitors to galleries and museums often can't help reaching out to (illicitly) touch exhibits, Candlin shows just how common this is. Whether those moonlike philosophers who wish us all to simply gaze upon life like it or not, the fact is many people want to physically touch objects they admire and don't like to think of art as something out of bounds and out of reach (nor do they wish to creep around a gallery speaking in hushed tones as if in a church surrounded by sacred relics).

 

Ultimately, perhaps this haptic compulsion is not a sign of an obsessive disorder, nor the mark of a philistine, but, rather a form of resistance to an overly visual (virtual) world. And perhaps sculptures today should be exhibited in darkened rooms where visitors in blindfolds are invited to feel their way around, physically interacting with objects and one another, groping their way into a future democracy; the democracy of touch [7].         

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Byung-Chul Han, Saving Beauty, trans. Daniel Steuer, (Polity Press, 2018), p. 3.  

[2] Ibid.

[3] Roland Barthes writing in Mythologies, quoted by Byung-Chul Han in Saving Beauty, p. 4.

[4] Byung-Chul an, Saving Beauty, p.  4.

 

[5] Ibid. 

[6] See Fiona Candlin, Art, Museums and Touch, (Manchester University Press, 2010).  

 

[7] The democracy of touch is an idea found in D. H. Lawrence's late work. I have written several posts discussing the idea; click here, for example, or here. 

      Interestingly, however, Lawrence isn't always pro-touch; see for example what he says in Chapter X of Fantasia of the Unconscious (1922) about "hands exploiting the sensual body, in feeling, in fingering, and in masturbation". 

      As for aesthetics, whilst Lawrence doesn't feel the English are devoid of feeling for the plastic arts, he does believe them to be full of fear for the body and that this fear distorts their vision and instinctive-intuitive consciousness. Thus it is, says Lawrence, that even those intellectuals and critics who get an ecstatic thrill from looking at artworks are "only undergoing a cerebral excitation" and remain essentially unmoved and untouched. See 'Introduction to These Paintings', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 182-217. The line I quote from is on p. 190.    

 

   

The Day of the Golden Jackal

Canis aureus

 

 

Golden jackals are small wolf-like canids, about three times the size of a red fox, native to Southeast Europe and parts of Asia, with a lovely coloured coat (the golden base shade varying seasonally from a pale creamy yellow to a dark tawny), though, fortunately, not one prized by the fur trade, as it is quite coarse in texture and relatively short in length. 

 

And, I'm pleased to report, their numbers and range have been rapidly expanding during the last few decades. Indeed, you can now find jackals living, hunting and howling in many parts of Central and Northeastern Europe, occupying areas where there are few or no wolves, but abundant food and shelter. 

 

It has been estimated by the IUCN that whilst there may be fewer than 17,000 wolves left in Europe, there are around 117,000 jackals - and the more the merrier, I say, although, of course, all the usual suspects - such as farmers - raise their familiar objections and even poets warn: "We should never have let the jackals loose, and patted them on the head. They were feeding on our death all the while."

 

Sadly, therefore, these intelligent and sociable animals continue to be hunted in many countries and in the charming region of Transcaucasia, where they still associate jackals (as carrion-eaters) with the underworld, they are caught with large fishing hooks baited with meat and suspended three feet from the ground with wire (as the jackals can only reach the meat by jumping, they are then hooked by the lip or jaw). 

 

May the great jackal-headed god Anubis bite off the hands and tear out the throats of those who practice such cruelty ...

 

On Beauty Spots (Contra Tattoos)

Using Gainsborough's Woman in Blue (1770-1780)

to show meaning in mouche placement

hair-and-makeup-artist.com

 

 

I've always been a fan of beauty spots - though preferably of the artificial variety that the French call mouches and which fashionable women (and dandyish men) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries loved to apply to their faces (much to the scorn of satirists and the anger of moralists).

 

Natural marks can, of course, also be considered an attractive feature but, for me, as a matter of personal taste, I choose flies over moles, and silk or velvet cut into fanciful shapes over clusters of pigmented skin cells [1].

 

Whilst some used them simply to disguise (or divert attention from) smallpox scars or syphillis sores, other (more sophisticated and stylish) individuals recognised them as empty or free-floating signifiers that allowed for the playing of a seductive game; they had no function and carried no fixed meaning as such; they made a face enigmatic and mysterious and opened up a symbolic form of cultural interaction. 

 

As Byung-Chul Han notes: 

 

"The face itself became a stage on which various characters were represented with the help of beauty spots. If they were placed at the corner of the eye, they meant passion. Placed on the lower lip, they indicated the frankness of the wearer. The face understood as a stage is utterly remote from that face we find presented today on Facebook." [2] 

 

Some commentators think that the contemporary equivalent is a tattoo or piercing, but I'm sceptical of this and agree with Han that the tattoo, in today's society of authenticity, is just another expression of "narcissistic introspection, a permanent occupation with one's own psychology" [3]. 

 

In other words, having ink done is all about self-exposure and self-exploitation; an obscene display of the flesh in line with a pornified culture:

 

"Within a ritual context, they symbolize the alliance between individual and community. In the nineteenth century, when tattoos were very popular, especially among the upper classes, the body was still a surface onto which yearnings and dreams were projected. Today, tattoos lack any symbolic power. All they do is point to the uniqueness of the bearer. The body is neither a ritual stage nor a surface of projection; rather, it is an advertising space. The neoliberal hell of the same is populated with tattooed clones." [4]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Beauty marks came in a variety of designs; not just spots, but also stars, crescents, diamonds, and hearts, for example. They were usually black in colour, as this emphasised the whiteness of the skin, but could also be made in colours to match the wearer's eyes or outfit. The most common materials used were velvet and silk, but the poor who sought to imitate the wealthier and more fashionable members of society might use paper or mouse skin to create their patches. Whatever the material, a simple glue was used to adhere them to the skin, which made both application and removal quick and easy. Some would keep their collection of marks in a small decorated box that the French termed une boîte à mouches.

 

[2] Byung-Chul Han, The Disappearance of Rituals, trans. Daniel Steuer, (Polity Press, 2020), p. 19. 

      See also The Transparency Society, trans. Erik Butler, (Stanford University Press, 2015), where Byung-Chul Han writes of how the naked face that is exhibited pornographically without any mystery, hides nothing and expresses nothing; it becomes transparent, as it were, and lacks all seductive allure.       

      Han also expands in the above work on his idea of the world of the 18th-century as a theatrum mundi in which communication and cultural exchange occurs via ritual forms, signs, and appearances. No one (apart from religious fanatics and readers of Rousseau) was interested in transparency of soul and revealing their innermost selves; they wanted to play with masks and retain their secrets. In a key passage, he writes:

      "The world of the eighteenth century was still a theatre. It was full of scenes, masks, and figures. Fashion itself was theatrical. [...] Ladies' hairstyles (pouf) were shaped into scenes that portrayed either historical events (pouf à la circonstance) or feelings (pouf au sentiment). [...] Both men and women painted parts of their faces with red makeup. The face itself became a stage on which one lent expression to character traits with the help of beauty marks (mouches). [...] The body was a site of scenic representation, too. However, it was not a matter of giving unfalsified expression to the hidden 'inside' (l'intérieur), much less to the 'heart'. Instead, the point was to toy with appearances, to play with scenic illusions. The body was a doll without a soul to be dressed, decorated, and invested with signs and meanings." [43]  

[3] Byung-Chul Han, The Disappearance of Rituals, p. 18. 

[4] Ibid., p. 21. 

WWJD: Faith in the Age of Coronavirus

 

 

I. 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

II. 

 

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

   

 

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

Might as Well Jump (Jump!)

Philippe Halsman:  

Grace Kelly Jump (1954) 

philippehalsman.com

 

I. 

 

As much as I admire Byung-Chul Han - and as much as I enjoy reading his books - I do slightly worry that he's just a teensy-weensy bit of a miserabilist. 

 

That is to say, the sort of philosopher who, when asked if he's a happy person, responds by first pointing out that, in his view, this is a meaningless question before then insisting that happiness is not a condition that he aspires to anyway.

 

Or the sort of philosopher who finds the world cruel and confusing and thus almost impossible to comprehend: "That is also why I am not happy. I rarely understand the world. It appears quite absurd to me. You cannot be happy living in absurdity. To be happy takes a lot of illusions, I think." [1]

 

And the sort of philosopher who, when offered a nice piece of cake, says: I don't eat cake ...

 

This perhaps helps explain how it is that Byung-Chul Han has kept his trim, somewhat boyish figure and also why it is that he hates people jumping with joy (particularly in front of a camera lens) ...   

 

 

II.

 

In a short piece first published in Die Zeit, in 2016, Byung-Chul Han claims that young people being photographed these days love to "jump around wildly" and that this phenomenon seems to have spread "like an epidemic" [2]. 

 

He asks: "Are they really jumping with joy? Is jumping an expression of the increasing vitality of our society? Or are these jumps rather pathological twitches of the narcissistic ego?" [3] I'm not sure I know the answer to these questions, but I do know that individuals jumping in front of cameras is nothing new (even if more widespread).  

One recalls, for example, the astonishing pictures of Philippe Halsman, about which I have written previously on Torpedo the Ark [4]. This includes the above photo of American film star (and future Princess of Monaco) Grace Kelly, taken in 1954, which I will always love, no matter what arguments Han puts forward.  

 

However, I am prepared to consider his arguments ...

  

 

III. 

 

According to Han, in earlier times, when photos "served primarily as mementos, people being photographed presented themselves in a calm and civilized manner" [5]. No one, he says, would have dreamt (or dared) to leap about in front of the camera:

 

"The aim of a photograph was mainly to preserve the moment [...] People held back, and the event came to the fore. They receded behind the moment or occasion that was to be remembered. No one wanted to present themselves, let alone make an exhibition of themselves." [6]

 

Looking at old photos - and I'm talking about very old photos - there's obviously some truth in this. But perhaps this is for the same reason that, in most old photos, people aren't smiling either; namely, that early pictures required such long exposure times that the subject had to stay as silent and as still as possible. 

Of course, it's true that after 1900 exposure times became much shorter, thanks to the invention of the box Brownie, which ushered in the age of the snapshot. And yet, smiles were still uncommon in early 20th-century pictures and people were not, as a rule, jumping about in front of the camera; thus there were doubtless cultural conventions in operation (and not merely technological considerations). 

 

For example, photography was still not regarded as a unique art form with its own aesthetic; it was still heavily indebted to the tradition of portraiture in painting. People may or may not have taken themselves more seriously then than now, but they certainly took photography more seriously; having a picture taken was still a big deal and one didn't want to be immortalised acting or looking the fool.    

 

Han says that today, in the age of Facebook, self-exhibition is an absolute value and people vie for attention and for likes. That they have lost that which once gave photographs a certain austere charm and aura (lost their inwardness, their reserve, their humanity) and the world become "merely a pleasant backdrop for the ego" [7].

 

Han concludes: 

 

"We are witnessing the development of a kind of photography that is free of remembrance and history, a photography that is permanently on the hop, so to speak, that has an altogether different temporality, which lacks width and depth, a photography that exhausts itself in moments of fleeting emotion, a photography that is not narrative but only deictic." [8] 

 

The thing is, however, I rather like this kind of photography. One is even tempted to call it (à la D. H. Lawrence) the photography of the immediate present; instant photography in which there is "no perfection, no consummation, nothing finished" [9] (or, as Han would have it, no age, no fate, and no death). 

 

I don't want to stare at old black and white photos of the past, or Roland Barthes's mother, and think this is how it was ... If that makes me a spider monkey who leaps about jumping for attention whilst remaining fettered to the moment and "devoid of the [human] virtues of understanding and wisdom" [10], then so be it.

 

Notes

 

[1] See the conversation between Byung-Chul Han, Niels Boeing and Andreas Lebert, entitled 'I am Sorry, But These Are the Facts', in Capitalism and the Death Drive, trans. Daniel Steuer, (Polity Press, 2021), p. 135. 

 

[2] Byung-Chul Han, 'Jumping Humans', in Capitalism and the Death Drive, p. 49.  

[3] Ibid.

 

[4] Let me remind readers who can't be bothered (or don't have time) to click here, that Halsman produced a celebrated series of pictures of famous people jumping in the air, 178 of which were published as a book in 1959, along with an essay containing his philosophy of jump photography that he termed jumpology. 

      Essentially, Halsman was interested in seeing his subjects lose a little self-control and reveal character traits that would otherwise remain hidden. I suppose, that being the case, I would understand Byung-Chul Han's opposition to the project on the grounds that such a desire for transparency has fatal consequences.

 

[5] Byung-Chul Han, 'Jumping Humans', Capitalism ad the Death Drive, p. 49. 

 

[6] Ibid., pp. 49-50.

[7-8] Ibid., p. 51. 

[9] D. H. Lawrence, 'Preface to New Poems', in The Poems, Vol. I, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), Appendix I, p. 646. 

[10] Byung-Chul Han, 'Jumping Humans', Capitalism ad the Death Drive, p. 52. 

Readers might like to be reminded of my own contribution to jump photography (and the poetry of the present), in a 2017 post featurning the Lithuanian artist Gedvile Bunikyte: click here.