Re: Unthinkable in Literature

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Thanks Katie, I would like to read it someday soon. Before I do I would be
interested in your (and anybody's) comments on the following:

'Both David Carroll and Sherry Simon have critiqued Foucault's discussion of
transgression on the grounds that it refuses to articulate the position from
which he speaks, a problem often raised by critical attempts to "place"
Foucault. In A Preface to Transgression Foucault's explicit investment in
"losing" or transgressing his own philosophical and discursive position
raises the problem most acutely. Carroll writes that, in identifying with and
collapsing the distance between himself and his privileged "disruptive
discourses" (what I have outlined as Foucault's attempt to lose himself in
Bataille's loss), Foucault lightens his load and frees himself of the more
tedious but still necessary task of carrying his own critical weight and
assuming the philosophical-political consequences of his critical
perspective. I have seen Foucault's effacement of the writing subject's
position as particularly symptomatic of this difficulty.... In focusing upon
a self-loss that is perpetually deferred as long as he continues to theorize,
Foucault finesses and obscures the position he remains in while writing.'
(Judith Surkis (1996) No Fun and Games Until Someone Loses an Eye:
Transgression and Masculinity in Bataille and Foucault (Diacritics Vol 26 no
2 Summer 1996 p.29).

This seems to me to be a similar criticism of Foucault's writing as the
grievance expressed by Guibert. Though Surkis's complaint is that Foucault
ignores the 'female partner' in Bataille's writing in Eroticism, similarly
Guibert expresses regret (?) at Foucault's refusal to describe (for example
in a Blanchotesque style?) the loss of the male object of homosexual desire.
For me the problem with both views is that they elide the transcendental and
sovereign status of the desiring 'lover'. (For me 'Lover' is a problem word
as it is also transcendental or implies an absolute state. Maybe it would be
better to say imaginary lover. Or better still imaginary object of desire.)
As Desire becomes stronger through discontinuity the potential for satisfying
it leads to excess that does not satisfy but has already created new desire.
All penis erections are similar in this (and the "enclosed Sun" may arise on
any man - see Death & the Labyrinth). But traditionally Love and God are
symptomatic of each other. Fruitful love is Godly love. To my mind this is
where such anti gay (etc) Biblical bigotry arises from. The Sermon of the
Mount is about wasted seed etc etc. Fertility is the issue here I think.
Religions imply that the collapse or fall from the graceful union with the
absolute spirit is outside the law of God. Men! They get erections but do not
always see them through to fruition (please excuse the crudity here as I
extemporise!!). They sometimes start by creating desire (but they do not or
cannot always finish {capitalism!?}, or (sometimes) it feels more like the
expected union because the (g)host of the wasted seed of transgression leads
them to further transgression (i.e. they cum twice but experience only the
second as orgasmic.) But this is just interpreting the bible or Freud or
Bataille, Blanchot etc. My main disagreement with all this is the
transcendental is only an imaginary transcendental. Tradition requires the
male and female to behave in a sexually civilised manner for the sake of
society and its future success. Positing a transcendental as the ideal model
for the subject elides the loss of power/knowledge relationships of desire.
The lesson of transgression discovers that the obscured path of desire can be
purified, but that we are all sinners in the eyes of God. This is how writers
exert their own power or want of it as writers (which is a bit like me now,
e-mailing not properly prepared thoughts). After Sade reading literature
acknowledges the 'power' of words to unveil their meaning. The doubling and
redoubling of the ideal of veiling and unveiling has, at least, an ambiguous
status or many. Like the mystification of the eye in Bataille which Foucault
isolates as a transcendental that can be burst.

Foucault's non placed position is a strategy to unmask the authority of
discourses and its claims to merit the use of this power. I suggest it was
difficult enough to deal with the majority of writers and academics
entrenched in various Marxist or Freudian guises whose popularity dominated
the debate at the time (many were strictly anti-gay). Sexual confessions by
erudite scholars (particularly in the 60's) are more likely to make the
sanctimonious more deaf to the insistence that God does not, never has and
never will exist. I would suggest that Foucault wanted to remove prejudice
but was very, very wary of a comprehensive universal answer to the problems
it provokes. His silence on the subject of being gay is, I think, more to do
with countering the culture of traditional phallocentric (and as a
consequence white western male) discourses rather than denying his
homosexuality. I confess that over 40 years ago the taboo probably had a lot
to do with it too (And I do not really know why he was silent on the
subject.)
Any response or thoughts would be welcome.
Anyway when I have finished reading about Diderot in St Petersburg and some
20th Century people following his trail I will have a look at the book you
recommend.
Thanks again
Cheers Ed

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<HTML>Thanks Katie, I would like to read it someday soon. Before I do I would be
 interested in your (and anybody's) comments on the following:
 
 'Both David Carroll and Sherry Simon have critiqued Foucault's discussion of
 transgression on the grounds that it refuses to articulate the position from
 which he speaks, a problem often raised by critical attempts to "place"
 Foucault. In A Preface to Transgression Foucault's explicit investment in
 "losing" or transgressing his own philosophical and discursive position
 raises the problem most acutely. Carroll writes that, in identifying with and
 collapsing the distance between himself and his privileged "disruptive
 discourses" (what I have outlined as Foucault's attempt to lose himself in
 Bataille's loss), Foucault lightens his load and frees himself of the more
 tedious but still necessary task of carrying his own critical weight and
 assuming the philosophical-political consequences of his critical
 perspective. I have seen Foucault's effacement of the writing subject's
 position as particularly symptomatic of this difficulty.... In focusing upon
 a self-loss that is perpetually deferred as long as he continues to theorize,
 Foucault finesses and obscures the position he remains in while writing.'  
 (Judith Surkis (1996) No Fun and Games Until Someone Loses an Eye:
 Transgression and Masculinity in Bataille and Foucault (Diacritics Vol 26 no
 2 Summer 1996 p.29).
 
 This seems to me to be a similar criticism of Foucault's writing as the
 grievance expressed by Guibert. Though Surkis's complaint is that Foucault
 ignores the 'female partner' in Bataille's writing in Eroticism, similarly
 Guibert expresses regret (?) at Foucault's refusal to describe (for example
 in a Blanchotesque style?) the loss of the male object of homosexual desire.
 For me the problem with both views is that they elide the transcendental and
 sovereign status of the desiring 'lover'. (For me 'Lover' is a problem word
 as it is also transcendental or implies an absolute state. Maybe it would be
 better to say imaginary lover. Or better still imaginary object of desire.)
 As Desire becomes stronger through discontinuity the potential for satisfying
 it leads to excess that does not satisfy but has already created new desire.
 All penis erections are similar in this (and the "enclosed Sun" may arise on
 any man - see Death & the Labyrinth). But traditionally Love and God are
 symptomatic of each other. Fruitful love is Godly love. To my mind this is
 where such anti gay (etc) Biblical bigotry arises from. The Sermon of the
 Mount is about wasted seed etc etc. Fertility is the issue here I think.
 Religions imply that the collapse or fall from the graceful union with the
 absolute spirit is outside the law of God. Men! They get erections but do not
 always see them through to fruition (please excuse the crudity here as I
 extemporise!!). They sometimes start by creating desire (but they do not or
 cannot always finish {capitalism!?}, or (sometimes) it feels more like the
 expected union because the (g)host of the wasted seed of transgression leads
 them to further transgression (i.e. they cum twice but experience only the
 second as orgasmic.) But this is just interpreting the bible or Freud or
 Bataille, Blanchot etc. My main disagreement with all this is the
 transcendental is only an imaginary transcendental. Tradition requires the
 male and female to behave in a sexually civilised manner for the sake of
 society and its future success. Positing a transcendental as the ideal model
 for the subject elides the loss of power/knowledge relationships of desire.
 The lesson of transgression discovers that the obscured path of desire can be
 purified, but that we are all sinners in the eyes of God. This is how writers
 exert their own power or want of it as writers (which is a bit like me now,
 e-mailing not properly prepared thoughts). After Sade reading literature
 acknowledges the 'power' of words to unveil their meaning. The doubling and
 redoubling of the ideal of veiling and unveiling has, at least, an ambiguous
 status or many. Like the mystification of the eye in Bataille which Foucault
 isolates as a transcendental that can be burst.
 
 Foucault's non placed position is a strategy to unmask the authority of
 discourses and its claims to merit the use of this power. I suggest it was
 difficult enough to deal with the majority of writers and academics
 entrenched in various Marxist or Freudian guises whose popularity dominated
 the debate at the time (many were strictly anti-gay). Sexual confessions by
 erudite scholars (particularly in the 60's) are more likely to make the
 sanctimonious more deaf to the insistence that God does not, never has and
 never will exist. I would suggest that Foucault wanted to remove prejudice
 but was very, very wary of a comprehensive universal answer to the problems
 it provokes. His silence on the subject of being gay is, I think, more to do
 with countering the culture of traditional phallocentric (and as a
 consequence white western male) discourses rather than denying his
 homosexuality. I confess that over 40 years ago the taboo probably had a lot
 to do with it too (And I do not really know why he was silent on the
 subject.)
 Any response or thoughts would be welcome.
 Anyway when I have finished reading about Diderot in St Petersburg and some
 20th Century people following his trail I will have a look at the book you
 recommend.
 Thanks again
 Cheers Ed
 </HTML>

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