Randall:
>Also, note in this book how Foucault has disconnected "sex" from "love".
>Again, highly dangerous, in my opinion. That's not what he's talking about,
>but it IS largely a way to "tame" the sexual instinct-- by seeing the
>"other" to whom you direct your love, be it ever so kinky, as someone you
>LOVE and would never want to hurt.
Seeing that you've quoted from Lawrence's more obscure prose (Apocalypse, I
believe?), I'm sure you're acquainted with his "Psychoanalysis and the
Unconscious", A major source of Deleuzian thought. Allow me to quote:
"We are now in the last stages of idealism. And psychoanalysis alone has
the courage necessary to conduct us through these last stages. The
identity of love with sex, the single necessity for fulfillment through
love, these are our fixed ideals. We must fulfil these ideals in their
extremity. And this brings us finally to incest, even incest-worship. We
have no option, whilst our ideals stand.
Why? Because incest is the logical conclusion of our ideals, when these
ideals have to be carried into passional effect... And once he has built
himself in the shape of any ideal, man will go to any length rather than
abandon his ideal corpus...
We do know this much: that the pushing of the ideal to any further
lengths will not avail us anything. We have actually to go back to our own
unconscious. But not to the unconscious which is the inverted reflection
of our ideal consciousness. We must discover, if we can, the true
unconscious, where our life bubbles up in us, which is innocent of any
mentality."
My point here is that your critique of F's separation of sex and love,
and your critique on Deleuze are related, in that according to Deleuzian
thought it is the confusing of the two which is ultimately dangerous.
"The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty, the hands and
feet Proportion." (Blake)
A few days ago you proposed to supplement F's materialist troika
(Marx, Nietzsche, Freud) with a holy trinity (James, Emerson, and ?).
James and Emerson were deeply religious thinkers, and their thought
directly opposes F's basic project. James believed in absolute "good" and
"truth":
"... neither the whole truth nor the whole good is revealed to any single
observer, although each observer gains a partial superiority of insight
from the peculiar position in which he stands."
James, ever the optimist, sees in the individual's "peculiar position" a
source for superior insight into an existent good and truth. F,
materialist that he is, sees the peculiar position as the source of all
"truth" and "good". There is no "truth" beyond what the observer's
position creates.
The Materialist/Spiritualist schism is one of the most basic in
philosophy. It is not to be taken lightly or be ignores. To try to color
F's thought with a Jamesian tinge is impossible - it undermines the basis
of the whole project.
-- David W.
>Also, note in this book how Foucault has disconnected "sex" from "love".
>Again, highly dangerous, in my opinion. That's not what he's talking about,
>but it IS largely a way to "tame" the sexual instinct-- by seeing the
>"other" to whom you direct your love, be it ever so kinky, as someone you
>LOVE and would never want to hurt.
Seeing that you've quoted from Lawrence's more obscure prose (Apocalypse, I
believe?), I'm sure you're acquainted with his "Psychoanalysis and the
Unconscious", A major source of Deleuzian thought. Allow me to quote:
"We are now in the last stages of idealism. And psychoanalysis alone has
the courage necessary to conduct us through these last stages. The
identity of love with sex, the single necessity for fulfillment through
love, these are our fixed ideals. We must fulfil these ideals in their
extremity. And this brings us finally to incest, even incest-worship. We
have no option, whilst our ideals stand.
Why? Because incest is the logical conclusion of our ideals, when these
ideals have to be carried into passional effect... And once he has built
himself in the shape of any ideal, man will go to any length rather than
abandon his ideal corpus...
We do know this much: that the pushing of the ideal to any further
lengths will not avail us anything. We have actually to go back to our own
unconscious. But not to the unconscious which is the inverted reflection
of our ideal consciousness. We must discover, if we can, the true
unconscious, where our life bubbles up in us, which is innocent of any
mentality."
My point here is that your critique of F's separation of sex and love,
and your critique on Deleuze are related, in that according to Deleuzian
thought it is the confusing of the two which is ultimately dangerous.
"The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty, the hands and
feet Proportion." (Blake)
A few days ago you proposed to supplement F's materialist troika
(Marx, Nietzsche, Freud) with a holy trinity (James, Emerson, and ?).
James and Emerson were deeply religious thinkers, and their thought
directly opposes F's basic project. James believed in absolute "good" and
"truth":
"... neither the whole truth nor the whole good is revealed to any single
observer, although each observer gains a partial superiority of insight
from the peculiar position in which he stands."
James, ever the optimist, sees in the individual's "peculiar position" a
source for superior insight into an existent good and truth. F,
materialist that he is, sees the peculiar position as the source of all
"truth" and "good". There is no "truth" beyond what the observer's
position creates.
The Materialist/Spiritualist schism is one of the most basic in
philosophy. It is not to be taken lightly or be ignores. To try to color
F's thought with a Jamesian tinge is impossible - it undermines the basis
of the whole project.
-- David W.