Dear Listers,
There's a wonderful moment in the recently published interview with
Celine, filmed in his dwelling in the 1950s (reluctantly, which is
becoming increasingly obvious as the reel continues, the interviewer
taking a more demanding -- and demeaning -- stance in attempts to
wrestle further concessions from a reclusive and withdrawn interviewee,
particularly with claims that the author is coquettish and dishonest in
his public appearances, until Celine comes straight out and pronounces
that the only reasons for him granting the occasion in the first place
are purely mercantile, as his publisher Guillmard has given so many
advances that the only way for him to extract further concessions is by
submitting to being interviewed, a task that is clearly of the
excrusiating kind) when the legendary author makes a reference to the
myth in Plato where Socrates retells the story of the king who would not
allow writing to enter his kingdom. To Celine the story shows that an
author needs to outdo the notion of writing in Socrates so as to
demonstrate that the written word has a potentiality of its own, there
is one part of Thamus' -- the mythical king who rejects writing as
admissible techne -- deliberation he does not mention. When writing was
presented to the king as a gift it was with the argument that it would
improve memory and reason, since it would enable the kingdom to refer to
events and decisions that have taken place before. Now, this is
precisely the reason why Thamus REJECTS the gift: "why should I," he
claims, "allow a technology that would REDUCE my domain of law-making?"
Why, indeed, should a leader accept limitations to his domain of
governance? We should not forget, though, that Thamus was not only a
king, but, in the mould of the Pharaoes, descended from the divine: he
was a God-King.
--
mvh. torgeir
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