At 10:18 25-2-97 -0500, you wrote:
>I find these comments very helpful. Let me try to restate parts of
>the argument in my own words. First of all, what F means by "emergence
>of sexuality" is its emergence as a central problematic in the discourse
>of our culture. In "the Christian world of fallen bodies and of sin",
>the sexual experience -- perceived in terms of "desire, rapture, penetration,
>ecstasy, the outpouring that leaves us all spent" -- did not form a separate
>problematic, but emerged into language as part of the discourse of mysticism,
>where it was used to articulate experiences leading, "without interruption
>or limit, right to the heart of a divine love". Thus, to something beyond
>itself, and beyond ourselves. The emergence of a separate discourse of
>sexuality, as a cultural "event", is coextensive with the emergence of
>sexuality, and also philosophy, as something that "points to nothing beyond
>itself". Dialectics, both as a method and as a postulated principle of
>our universe, is based on the perception that each thing has something
>beyond itself with which it enters into dialectical relationships, and
>that through these relationships something new is produced, something
>beyond both of them. In particular, dialectics' underlying view of man
>is as worker -- in that it fundamentally regards man as shaped through
>a process of struggle with his environment (in the widest sense).
>The emergence of sexuality, in signalling the end of a perception
>of sexual ecstasy as a form of uninterrupted communication that leads
>"right to the heart of divine love", also signals the end of a perception
>of language as being capable of communication which leads right to the
>heart of truth, or even to anything outside itself. In this sense it
>marks "the transformation of a philosophy of man as worker to a philosophy
>based on a being who speaks".
>
>Do you think this is a somewhat faithful recapitulation?
>
>
>-m
>
>
Your recapitulation is very helpful. If I understand you correctly,
transgressive experience as witnessed in sexuality/mysticism works on a
principle of expenditure, a kind of sacrifice toward something beyond only
to be replaced with a "nothing beyond" once sexuality develops an
independent discourse (hence also to a communication that leads to nothing,
and a human as a being who speaks). Dialectics on the other hand operates
on a principle of accumulation, whereby something is brought into
relationship with something other to produce a new thing and so on. Please
excuse me if this has been awkwardly expressed.
Do you think there is a relationship between transgressive experience, as
expenditure, either as part of a wider mystical tradition or a later
nihilistic(?) one, to negative theology and a refusal to conceptualize the
absolute?
Also, what relationship holds between these two different processes (for
want of a better word), the transgressive and the dialectical: is it
complementary, dialectical, undecideable, a non-relation, or what?
I am still curious about the distinction you made regarding "finding" and
"capturing" in the transgressive mode vs the dialectical.
~Sebastian
>I find these comments very helpful. Let me try to restate parts of
>the argument in my own words. First of all, what F means by "emergence
>of sexuality" is its emergence as a central problematic in the discourse
>of our culture. In "the Christian world of fallen bodies and of sin",
>the sexual experience -- perceived in terms of "desire, rapture, penetration,
>ecstasy, the outpouring that leaves us all spent" -- did not form a separate
>problematic, but emerged into language as part of the discourse of mysticism,
>where it was used to articulate experiences leading, "without interruption
>or limit, right to the heart of a divine love". Thus, to something beyond
>itself, and beyond ourselves. The emergence of a separate discourse of
>sexuality, as a cultural "event", is coextensive with the emergence of
>sexuality, and also philosophy, as something that "points to nothing beyond
>itself". Dialectics, both as a method and as a postulated principle of
>our universe, is based on the perception that each thing has something
>beyond itself with which it enters into dialectical relationships, and
>that through these relationships something new is produced, something
>beyond both of them. In particular, dialectics' underlying view of man
>is as worker -- in that it fundamentally regards man as shaped through
>a process of struggle with his environment (in the widest sense).
>The emergence of sexuality, in signalling the end of a perception
>of sexual ecstasy as a form of uninterrupted communication that leads
>"right to the heart of divine love", also signals the end of a perception
>of language as being capable of communication which leads right to the
>heart of truth, or even to anything outside itself. In this sense it
>marks "the transformation of a philosophy of man as worker to a philosophy
>based on a being who speaks".
>
>Do you think this is a somewhat faithful recapitulation?
>
>
>-m
>
>
Your recapitulation is very helpful. If I understand you correctly,
transgressive experience as witnessed in sexuality/mysticism works on a
principle of expenditure, a kind of sacrifice toward something beyond only
to be replaced with a "nothing beyond" once sexuality develops an
independent discourse (hence also to a communication that leads to nothing,
and a human as a being who speaks). Dialectics on the other hand operates
on a principle of accumulation, whereby something is brought into
relationship with something other to produce a new thing and so on. Please
excuse me if this has been awkwardly expressed.
Do you think there is a relationship between transgressive experience, as
expenditure, either as part of a wider mystical tradition or a later
nihilistic(?) one, to negative theology and a refusal to conceptualize the
absolute?
Also, what relationship holds between these two different processes (for
want of a better word), the transgressive and the dialectical: is it
complementary, dialectical, undecideable, a non-relation, or what?
I am still curious about the distinction you made regarding "finding" and
"capturing" in the transgressive mode vs the dialectical.
~Sebastian