[lit-ideas] Xerxes's Beard
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 12:05:13 EST
Thanks to L. K. Helm for his elaborations on the "essay on antihumanism" by
this collaborative pair of French authors.
I see that we may narrow the issue then to the idea of Subjekt -- as you
say, and narrower still, to the idea of the Autonomie [sic? in German] of the
Subjekt.
I quote from the OED
autonomy: the Kantian doctrine of the Will giving itself its own law, apart
from any object willed; opposed to heteronomy.
-- The phrase 'apart from any Objekt willed' is possibly Kant's --
but it's not what Freud, Marx, or Nietzsche (and Foucault)
may be up to. For Kant, we don't really get to know
the 'thing in itself' (Das Ding im Sich), which is, I would
think the role that the Libido, Class, and Power play for
those betes noires of French thought -- all German,
as you note. At least German-speakers, in the case
of Marx and Freud, to be more precise).
The quotes in the OED are:
1817 COLERIDGE Biog. Lit. 70
Kant..was permitted to assume a higher ground (the autonomy of the will) as
a postulate deducible from the unconditional command..of the conscience.
-- well, autonomy as applied to _Will_, rather than Subject. And of course,
auto-nomous, is self-governing, giving your own law, so that's perhaps too
strong a thing for what we are looking for.
Free will (liber arbitrium) _was_ always a grand philosophical concern, and
we cannot just blame the German-speaking Trio for destroying our hope in it.
Perhaps "Libertarianism" would be a better word?
The second quote is:
1871 GROTE Eth. Fragm. ii. (1876) 45
"Kant..means by Autonomy, that there are in this case no considerations of
pleasure or pain influencing the will."
Well, this is very Platonic and against standard Greek thought on the
matter, from Epicurus onward. Hedone (pleasure) _is_ given a motivating force
in
most theories, including a lot of Classical Antiquity theories, like
Aristotle's -- I've just received his "Animal" volumes in the Loeb -- which is
all
about 'pneuma psycheos' as being moved by considerations of pleasure.
For Freud, indeed, PLEASURE figures large, and he has this "Principle of
Pleasure" (or Eros) -- so there need not be a contradiction between the Ego
(or
Subject) being of a non-autonomous will, and yet be driven by _pleasure_.
In Nietzsche is all very unclear, as you write, and I really am not too
concerned about how interesting Foucault found the prison system in La
Provence
-- never mind the asyla (plural of asylum). The French have their own ways of
judging criminals and 'lounatiques', as they call them, and it's none of my
business to interfere.
For Marx, PLEASURE is possibly too a constant. I cannot think of another
reason why the Repellents (or Les miserables) felt like cutting the throat of
Queen Marie Antoinette but because _they_ wanted to play coterie games in Le
Petit Trianon. It was envy that royals were getting ALL the pleasure that got
them revolved. It's different with Washington and your very own Xerxes from
Illinois, Lincoln, the Abraham.
The wiki for XERXES suggests that Alta-Xerxes was a Hebrew. Santoro says he
went to the mausoleum of Xerxes and the inscription brought tears to his
eyes. "The man [Xerxes] was hardly a 'god king' as "300" wants you believe. He
was a very weak character full of doubts as to whether he would succeed Darius
as king. His epitaph is just pathetic."
Still, Santoro got the MTV award for "Best Villain" of 2007. Which served
him _right_.
The same site says that the real Xerxes was very handsome, masculine, and in
all art representations he is wearing a sexy beard -- Instead they shaved
poor Santoro from head to toe.
The beard had a special significance for the Ancients -- "genaion". It meant
that you no longer counted as an 'eromenos' but could now start being an
'erastes'. This sometimes brought a clash of conflicts in civilisations. ("I
don't want to erastai! I just want to marry Klitoris and have lots of
children").
Cheers,
JL
---
Helm:
"their undermining of "the subject." The Renaissance Man is the subject.
He is the decider. He makes decisions and accomplishes things. But Freud
chipped away at him. No, RM you do not make decisions. You only think you
do, but in actuality if is your Unconscious that makes your decisions. You
may think you do things because you decide to do them, but you really don't.
Your Unconscious decides those things and you do the things it decides
because your are its creature.
In the case of Nietzsche, Ferry and Renaut focus more on his disciple
Foucault. Nietzsche gets credit because Foucault wrote such things as "My
whole philosophical development was determined by my reading of Heidgger.
But I recognize that Nietzsche won out." [Les Nouvelles litteraires, June
28-July 5, 1984, quoted on page 68 of Ferry & Renaut's French Philosophy of
the Sixties, An Essay on Antihumanism.] Foucault wrote extensively on
prisons and insane asylums and saw them as tools of the dominant class for
subduing the non-conforming. Thus, Foucault was anti-humaninstic in the
sense that he saw the "subjects" autonomy being severely restricted. The RM
may start out thinking he can do and say anything he likes, but he can't.
If he crosses the bourgeois lines then he is incarcerated in prison or in a
mad-house,
I read Foucault's Madness and Civilization, a History of Insanity in the Age
of Reason in 1995 and only read Ferry & Ranaut in 2005; so I didn't consider
F&R's thesis when I read Foucault, but when I did read F&R their thesis
sounded right to me. I read Nietzsche back in the 60s and am less clear on
his role. I subsequently read articles about Nietzsche and perhaps a
biography subsequent to that. His sister mucked around in his writings to
get them to support her adulation of Hitler, so one must tread lightly when
accusing him of such things as being a pre-Fascist, but he did deplore "the
last man." Which isn't exactly anti-humanistic - more a denial of the
subject through some sort of natural degeneration. He needs the ubermensche
to pep him up.
Now in the case of Marx, what F&R have in mind is his removal of the
Subject, the Man who decides things, and the substitution of Deterministic
Historical Forces which bring about events despite what the "subject"
fancies he is deciding and doing. This seems rather clear. If
Deterministic forces are causing events, then individuals aren't. This is
similar to the old Calvinist/Arminian argument: Either God is Sovereign or
Man is. Modern Christians who recoil at the idea of man being sovereign
invoke an antinomy, i.e., both things are true but we haven't God's ability
to see that. Nevertheless we accept that both things are true. Has anyone
invoked such an antinomy in the case of Marxism? I haven't heard of one;
which would leave the deterministic historical forces sovereign.
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