(I sent this yesterday, May 18th, but did not see it on my inbox. I'm
assuming it didn't go through. I apologize if this message is appearing
twice on the list.)
****
Preface to my transgression:
This is the first time I?ve read this essay. My comments are going to be
a bit raw.
*****
In the essay ?Preface to Transgression? a concept of sexuality different
from that developed in History of sexuality, vol. 1., is elaborated. To
say that the sexuality referred to here is ?transhistorical? is
inaccurate, but here Foucault suggests a subversive figuration, an
opening for non-dialectical thought that, if peculiar to modernity,
resounds Greek tragedy and addresses itself to such philosophical
concerns as the death of God and the finite nature of human beings. (Of
course, this is all hitched to Bataille, but the terms of the
discussionsuggest that the moment-space of transgression is paradigmatic
for us--to an overwhelming degree). One might read this as an ?Other
sexuality? yolked with, and therefore opening possibilities of
resistance to, the ?deployment of sexuality?---but that is a conflation
of what appear to be different approaches. So, what is this ?sexuality?
and how might it relate to the ?deployment of sexuality??
*****
An interesting focus of this essay is that it goes back to the term
?communication.? Obviously, we are not in a space in which an idea, held
in the mind of a speaker, is transmitted, via its natural medium, to
themind of a listener; it seems to me that this circumstance, most
acutely,is what is meant here about the death of God. The particular
dead God is a classical one; he guaranteed that thought, if
conscientiously directed, would find purchase in truth, transcend
contradictions,realize, in sum, the aims of dialectic. Instead, it
seems, we are urgedto explore a different paradigm of ?communication,?
one that is fully relativistic, that reckons order and entropy as
tranposable figures when equated to meaning or knowledge. If the
?Classical Gaze? is one that sees only order, emanating from and
reflected in its God-like eye, modernity (re)produces reflections on
entropy as meaning, and unable to recapitulate its vision as a God-like
order, pops its socket, turns back on itself, faces the entropy that is
inherent in itself, not, of course,to pose itself securely again as
order over entropy, but, instead, to reckon itself as mirroring
--self-as-entropy, self-as-order, ad
infinitum. It is, then, this paradigm of communication-as-transivity,
of the decentered, infinitely reflected and fragmented subject, that
promises the repetition of transgression. Each line of order is
recognized as subject to entropy, and crossed by the transitive glance.
Communication is a lightning flash, it has no object, it is
differentiated in its occurrence, it is the eye turned upward in the
socket, caught in a voluminous darkness, in which the light of its gaze
dissipates and is reflected back upon it.
Does anyone know of any other places where Foucault talks about
communication?
*****
I wonder: How might the ?Foucault? in ?Preface to Transgression? rewrite
Stephen Hawking?s famous line ?Not only does God play dice, he sometimes
throws them where they can?t be seen.?
*****
Odd Question: Does anyone know of anything that?s been written on the
relationship of this image of the upturned eye in the film?s of Stanley
Kubrick?
assuming it didn't go through. I apologize if this message is appearing
twice on the list.)
****
Preface to my transgression:
This is the first time I?ve read this essay. My comments are going to be
a bit raw.
*****
In the essay ?Preface to Transgression? a concept of sexuality different
from that developed in History of sexuality, vol. 1., is elaborated. To
say that the sexuality referred to here is ?transhistorical? is
inaccurate, but here Foucault suggests a subversive figuration, an
opening for non-dialectical thought that, if peculiar to modernity,
resounds Greek tragedy and addresses itself to such philosophical
concerns as the death of God and the finite nature of human beings. (Of
course, this is all hitched to Bataille, but the terms of the
discussionsuggest that the moment-space of transgression is paradigmatic
for us--to an overwhelming degree). One might read this as an ?Other
sexuality? yolked with, and therefore opening possibilities of
resistance to, the ?deployment of sexuality?---but that is a conflation
of what appear to be different approaches. So, what is this ?sexuality?
and how might it relate to the ?deployment of sexuality??
*****
An interesting focus of this essay is that it goes back to the term
?communication.? Obviously, we are not in a space in which an idea, held
in the mind of a speaker, is transmitted, via its natural medium, to
themind of a listener; it seems to me that this circumstance, most
acutely,is what is meant here about the death of God. The particular
dead God is a classical one; he guaranteed that thought, if
conscientiously directed, would find purchase in truth, transcend
contradictions,realize, in sum, the aims of dialectic. Instead, it
seems, we are urgedto explore a different paradigm of ?communication,?
one that is fully relativistic, that reckons order and entropy as
tranposable figures when equated to meaning or knowledge. If the
?Classical Gaze? is one that sees only order, emanating from and
reflected in its God-like eye, modernity (re)produces reflections on
entropy as meaning, and unable to recapitulate its vision as a God-like
order, pops its socket, turns back on itself, faces the entropy that is
inherent in itself, not, of course,to pose itself securely again as
order over entropy, but, instead, to reckon itself as mirroring
--self-as-entropy, self-as-order, ad
infinitum. It is, then, this paradigm of communication-as-transivity,
of the decentered, infinitely reflected and fragmented subject, that
promises the repetition of transgression. Each line of order is
recognized as subject to entropy, and crossed by the transitive glance.
Communication is a lightning flash, it has no object, it is
differentiated in its occurrence, it is the eye turned upward in the
socket, caught in a voluminous darkness, in which the light of its gaze
dissipates and is reflected back upon it.
Does anyone know of any other places where Foucault talks about
communication?
*****
I wonder: How might the ?Foucault? in ?Preface to Transgression? rewrite
Stephen Hawking?s famous line ?Not only does God play dice, he sometimes
throws them where they can?t be seen.?
*****
Odd Question: Does anyone know of anything that?s been written on the
relationship of this image of the upturned eye in the film?s of Stanley
Kubrick?