On Sun, 13 Apr 1997, malgosia askanas wrote:
> John, in the light of your examples, what is your take on the
> following passage (p. 30)?
>
> "Profanation in a world which no longer recognizes any positive meaning
> in the sacred -- is this not more or less what we might call trangression?
> In that zone which our culture affords for our gestures and speech,
> transgression prescribes not only the sole manner of discovering the sacred
> in its unmediated substance, but also a way of recomposing its empty form,
> its absence, through which it becomes all the more scintillating."
>
> -malgosia
>
A big question mark for me in this passage is the significance of the word
"scintillating." But let it go.
I think F is saying that the issue concerning transgression is how to read
it, into what story to embed it. A number of stories have given it a
transcendent significance. Those stories no longer have the persuasive
appeal they once, inexplicably, had. David Horowitz would be a good
example of someone who is no longer persuaded.
The question then becomes -- and I think this account self-consciously
proceeds on an abstract level -- what is the significance of
transgression? Does it *still* have some link to an experience that places
us beyond the world? The quotation you provide indicates that the answer
is, Yes.
> In that zone which our culture affords for our gestures and speech,
> transgression prescribes not only the sole manner of discovering the
> sacred in its unmediated substance, but also a way of recomposing its
> empty form, its absence, through which it becomes all the more
> scintillating."
It was never merely an interpretive imposition on transgression that
linked it with transcendence. To the extent that the divine is understood
in terms of a radical expansion of limits almost to their zero point
(immortality, willing that encounters no obstacles, and all the other
great things about being a god), transgression is closely linked to the
"divine" (broadly understood).
What's preferable about our experience relative to our god-besotted
ancestors is that we get to "discover the sacred in its unmediated
substance;" that is, rather than conceiving of transgression opening up
onto a positive vision of a glittering world, whether other- or
this-worldly, we get to experience transgression in its pure form, without
the added layer of whipped-cream transcendence nonsense.
And then precisely because we're not trying to make anything particularly
"positive" out of these transgressions, we refrain from subordinating
transgressions to some broader story about what makes them acceptable; a
move that usually gets in the way of, rather than helping to promote,
further transgressions. Thus we are able to "recompose the empty form" of
transgression, which is exactly what you want. You can't *say* what's
transgressive or what isn't, because that implies a conceptualization that
can only occur if the goose that laid the golden egg in the first place is
killed. Transgressions can't be codified.
--John
> John, in the light of your examples, what is your take on the
> following passage (p. 30)?
>
> "Profanation in a world which no longer recognizes any positive meaning
> in the sacred -- is this not more or less what we might call trangression?
> In that zone which our culture affords for our gestures and speech,
> transgression prescribes not only the sole manner of discovering the sacred
> in its unmediated substance, but also a way of recomposing its empty form,
> its absence, through which it becomes all the more scintillating."
>
> -malgosia
>
A big question mark for me in this passage is the significance of the word
"scintillating." But let it go.
I think F is saying that the issue concerning transgression is how to read
it, into what story to embed it. A number of stories have given it a
transcendent significance. Those stories no longer have the persuasive
appeal they once, inexplicably, had. David Horowitz would be a good
example of someone who is no longer persuaded.
The question then becomes -- and I think this account self-consciously
proceeds on an abstract level -- what is the significance of
transgression? Does it *still* have some link to an experience that places
us beyond the world? The quotation you provide indicates that the answer
is, Yes.
> In that zone which our culture affords for our gestures and speech,
> transgression prescribes not only the sole manner of discovering the
> sacred in its unmediated substance, but also a way of recomposing its
> empty form, its absence, through which it becomes all the more
> scintillating."
It was never merely an interpretive imposition on transgression that
linked it with transcendence. To the extent that the divine is understood
in terms of a radical expansion of limits almost to their zero point
(immortality, willing that encounters no obstacles, and all the other
great things about being a god), transgression is closely linked to the
"divine" (broadly understood).
What's preferable about our experience relative to our god-besotted
ancestors is that we get to "discover the sacred in its unmediated
substance;" that is, rather than conceiving of transgression opening up
onto a positive vision of a glittering world, whether other- or
this-worldly, we get to experience transgression in its pure form, without
the added layer of whipped-cream transcendence nonsense.
And then precisely because we're not trying to make anything particularly
"positive" out of these transgressions, we refrain from subordinating
transgressions to some broader story about what makes them acceptable; a
move that usually gets in the way of, rather than helping to promote,
further transgressions. Thus we are able to "recompose the empty form" of
transgression, which is exactly what you want. You can't *say* what's
transgressive or what isn't, because that implies a conceptualization that
can only occur if the goose that laid the golden egg in the first place is
killed. Transgressions can't be codified.
--John