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"You reminded me of good things, of late nights and stories, my hand through your cool light hair. Perhaps it was better for that ending upon the stair.. Perhaps, though a natural trajectory was frustrated, a more lasting one was initiated."

Fragment of a letter

"I've thought for some time about a secret I could tell you, but in the end I feel I don't really have any secrets. What secrets I did have are faded things of yesterday. To be honest I think I've lost hope in having any secrets of my own, and so I live vicariously through yours. Someday, I suspect, that will all change and your secrets will come to light. You'll have to behave yourself then, and perhaps live vicariously through whatever secrets I may have grown into. In the meantime I remain yours, in confidence."

On Sex and Love (letter)

Sex, like many other acts, can be reduced to its barest (pun intended) physiological form: in this case, bodies stimulating the genitals of other bodies.  Why is this done?  There are many reasons.  Usually it is because this stimulation feels good.  Sometimes however it may be for reasons of power, violence, despair, intoxication, need for affirmation, loneliness, etc. 

But the question concerned sex and love.  At first this seems rather straightforward.  One has sex with one’s partner because one loves him/her, i.e. sex is a natural consequence of deep-seated feelings of mutual affection.  I should point out that sex is only one natural consequence of this affection.  Perhaps this is only too obvious, but it may surprise some to know there are lovers who never have sex.  I have heard of celibates, for example, who live their lives deeply in love with one another and yet never engage in sexual intercourse.  I have heard other celibates say that even caressing their lover’s arm can send both partners into a kind of orgasmic ecstasy.. a kind of sexual intercourse without what one would normally think of as the sex act. 

A professor and friend once told me that given enough time, any two people, no matter what their gender, trapped on a desert island alone, would have sex with one another if given enough time.  I throw that out there to reflect on.  Quite probably he’s right.  Coupled with one’s biological need for sex (and I do think there is one), social/psychic forces form a very powerful impulse.  Of course, given a choice, I already know who I would prefer to be trapped with on a desert island…

Now if the question involved morality and sex, I would have much more to say about this.  I will say I believe love sanctifies the sex act insofar as it affirms the love relation.  Here I use “sanctify” in the sense of a kind of legitimation.  But there is no need for recourse to the gods, religious law, or to the state’s marriage act.  These are merely usurpers and tumours.  As you know, only Two are required to form the basis of a love relation, and these alone have the right to make any kind of affirmative declaration, either between the sheets or otherwise. 

Sex and Christianity (Letter to a friend)

I think the sexual revolution of the 60's has something to do with much of the Church's attitude towards sex.  The blogger was right to point out that for the monastics purity extended to all aspects of their lives, not just their attitudes toward their sex organs (but let's face it, any spirituality that seeks to be truly holistic must also consider the physical act of sex or self-pleasure otherwise it risks becoming an elitist gnosticism scorning even the redeemed flesh). 
 

During the sexual revolution the churches reacted. Like any pushback the reaction may have gone too far. You present us with sexual freedom, we respond with a militant sexual ethic veiled in ideal purity. You say we are existentially free, we say your subjectivity is bound up with your sexual practice. 
 

The tricky part then is reclaiming a Christian subjectivity that is not reactionary.  But Christians, of all people, know something about a new creation.
 

 

The logic of Sacrifice (A letter)

Something beautiful?  I wish I could draw it out of the very field of molecules whirling about me.  Perhaps I could if I had more time.

This morning, however, I've been reading de Sade.  He is the opposite of beautiful.  He is destruction.  He is rape and murder.  He is the slit throat of a dead prostitute.  He is a child torn to shreds in a frenzy, broken skulls, wine and blood, bloody corpses, screaming and blasphemy.  People are his playthings.  His pleasure is their suffering.  Try as I might there is no beauty to be found here. But somehow he finds the divine in all this.  Perhaps it is because the Divine once desired the destruction of peoples, once demanded the blood of gentle lambs soaking his altar, spilled from gaping slit throats.  Even Christianity touches on violence and the divine, as Bataille says:

"The ordeal of the Cross itself links Christian conscience to the frightfulness of the divine, though blindly.  The divine will only protect us once its basic need to consume and to ruin has been satisfied."

And this is true.  Why the cross, that torturous stake?  Only after the scourges and rending of the Saviour's flesh can we receive the blessing!  Marcion was wrong to deny the God of the Jews was the same God of the Christians.  Here's how we know: This God is bloodthirsty.  He demands blood before bestowing gifts upon the people.

But I have to add a qualification here.  The God of the Jews demanded death as a satisfaction.  The God of the Christians demands death so he can create anew.  Bataille stops at the cross, but he should visit the empty tomb.  This is little consolation in the end however.  Why, one might ask, must we destroy before we can witness the new creation?  Why must the Saviour be covered in his own blood and filth, pierced by crude nails, before he can know his own exaltation?  This is still the logic of the old god, the logic of satisfaction, now with a promise.  When I sacrifice myself for the love of Christ I do so to remove myself out of my own way in order for the new man in Christ to come forth.  I cannot pour new wine into old wineskins.  But when Jesus was sacrificed, who was it he had to remove?  He was already the man of God, full of the new wine.  Here we see the scandal: We do not die like Jesus, he was a true sacrifice.. the last bloody corpse to satisfy the old god.  Sacrifice today means something quite different.

Letter to a Friend

It's miserable now, and the world no doubt seems like it's ending. In a way it is ending.. the world as you once knew it is no more. The sooner you accept that you can never go back to this world the better.. but of course you're probably in no position to accept it yet.

I lost my mind during my separation.. I mean I was lost completely. During that time I had to do whatever it took to keep from going off the deep end into suicide. It meant creating a space for myself right where I was. It meant rethinking what it meant to be me.. you know, who I was as a man apart from anyone else. Throughout history men (and women) have found themselves in that place.. and they have left some heart-wrenching monuments along the way. It is a human truth that each one will move through that moment in a different way. Some will indeed commit suicide.. others will become destructive towards others and themselves.. still others will channel their feelings into a momentous creative act.. some will travel. Each one is different.

The reality is life is an open possibility.. even though it may not feel like it right now. It is. The key is not to do something stupid that will narrow those possibilities.. In the moment this kind of foresight is rare.. but it is vital. Destructiveness is ultimately futile. Suicide works in that it ends the pain, but it's permanent, without the possibility of discovery or a new event. But all men, having considered suicide and persevered, realize what a small thing it was, in the end, that caused them to consider death, the most unchangeable human act. The act is not commensurate with the suffering... There is no human experience that is as permanent as death (including suffering), and so the suicidal act is ultimately excessive. What you need is not excessiveness, but simplicity. 

Here in the early hours of darkness is no time to lose your head.

Brain Dead (Fragment of a letter)

The brain is the size of a grapefruit. It weighs about 3lbs (Einstein's was 2.75lbs), and has the consistency of custard. You could scoop it up with a spoon. It is the single most complex system in the universe, perhaps more complex than the universe itself. It has over a hundred billion neurons in it, each with hundreds or even thousands of connections. It has evolved at an incredible rate over approx. 300 millions years, growing in size and complexity. It is here, inside the skull, that all emotion, sensation, all human art and science, all gods and angels are created.. and for the most part we are not even aware of it.

A person has a heart attack and lives, they get shot in the liver and survive. Throughout they maintain their consciousness, their personality, their sense of "me." But then they get shot in the brain. They either die instantly or live. If they live, and depending on where the bullet strikes, they are no longer the person we used to know. Their personality is radically different. Anyone who has known a person with Alzheimer's understands how a disease that effects the brain can erase a person's former personality, in a sense, killing the person we loved so dearly, leaving a body that on the surface looks like our loved one, but essentially is a different person, sometimes not recognizing who we are as if they had never known us, even ill treating us.

What implication does this have for any notion of an afterlife? A philosopher once said: "If we can be dead when we're alive (the complete loss of who we psychically are due to disease or injury), we can be dead when we're dead." In other words if physical damage to the brain can erase our personality, what makes us think that the physical damage of brain death and decay once we die is any different? It seems clear that there is no continuation of personality or awareness after death. It will be the end.

Someone once asked me, but what do you believe happens after we die? I asked them "what was it like before you were born?" Here is the answer.. It will be a radical nothingness that we cannot be aware of. Somewhere, sometime in the universe, a new consciousness will be born from a young mother.. the light at the end of the tunnel is in a sense the light at the end of the birth canal.. a new beginning.

To Remember or Not (Letter Fragment)

You seem skeptical.. a mind of our age.. a thought without guarantee.  It's funny you mention false memory.  I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately.  For example did you know that after WWI at least 70% of returning soldiers reported having a battlefield encounter where they could see into the eyes of the enemy, a moment of contact before sticking their bayonet into them or shooting them?  But when it was empirically verified the statistics were closer to .5% actually having experienced this.  There are some interesting explanations as to how this could happen (a way to mitigate a deep anxiety etc), which I won't get into here, but it at least supports the idea that we may "remember" things that never took place.  It is possible using various techniques (some quite basic like suggestive wording etc) to help a patient "recollect" a memory that never existed, or distort an authentic memory.  Last year a psychologist in New South Wales (Australia) was prohibited from continuing his practice for this reason (among others): that he "repeated requests for his client to recall or reconstruct memories of childhood traumatic incidents" even though these incidents never took place the way the psychologist suggested.  It is a known fact that people who have been a victim of false memory suggestion often cling to these constructions even in the face of objective evidence pointing to the falseness of their recollections.  The memory takes on a vividness and clarity that few authentic memories possess.  It seems especially despicable to me that here at the hands of a person we go to in confidence for emotional aid such a great deception and sinister lie could be perpetrated.  As someone has pointed out, the person becomes quickly obsessed with the reconstructed memory (often merely the interpretation of the therapist), to the point that the true cause of the mental distress is neglected or overlooked.  It is a comfort to know that many within the healthcare field recognize and fight to overcome those within their fold who through either poor training, insufficient qualifications, the desire for power, or perhaps sheer stupidity cause further damage to the progress of some in their care.  

I think you're right to draw the conclusion that all this suggests the limitations of the human mind, that it is inherently limited, easily manipulated, even able to dupe itself.  It was Darwin who said: 

"But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?"

No doubt there is something to the idea that in our inherent "animality" we are already self-limited.  Are we monkeys dressing up in suits and taking on airs like the chimpanzee I would sometimes see on television, lounging in a sofa chair and looking every bit like George Burns?  What game are we playing with ourselves?

What is the meaning of Jesus? (To a comrade)

Don't mind at all.. feel free to post whatever you write me.

What or who is Jesus? Is this not the question you pose? He is neither angelic nor heroic. In fact, he is a failure. But let us not read this statement outside of its proper context. He is a failure precisely insofar as his life led to no real break in the situation. He came from nowhere, for a time was a someone, accrued those followers who glimpsed in him something higher than those animal interests so common in our species. But in the final hour all left him: his monument was little more than the tattered clothing of a common Jew, once a disciple "committed unto death" in this Nazarene cause, left behind when their owner fled for his life at the first sign of opposition. Pilate certainly never said the words "Ecce homo!" Perhaps only to ridicule this worm standing before him. Perhaps only appended to the gospel letter long after the fact. Here was no man, but something much less!

But you understand the radical break in history the death of this worm would wreak. Had the story ended with the crucifixion we would be left with any other self-deluded messianic fool, a lesson for other fools. History is replete with them. The life and death of this madman had zero consequences within the previous order. All those who were formerly willing to die with him (and declared so!), now returned to the sea whence they had been called with tail between legs. Zero consequences=zero Event. Ah but the world and ages this void would soon fill! No angels, no heroes present.. but grace was present.

We will not speak of "historicity." A truth is not of the historical order. We will speak of a break within a situation, a "creative novelty" if there ever was one. We will speak of maximal consequences, of the maximal existence of an inexistent. Why else is the Nazarene's "biography" so dispensable for St. Paul? It is clear that it is so because it is the biography of a madman and failure. It is a lesson for fools. But St. Paul is no fool! For him it is clear that the Resurrection retroactively reinstates this man from Nazareth: not his virgin birth, not his life among his disciples (Paul has no interest in biography), but his Death. This is so because the Death immanentizes the possibility of the Resurrection.

If we are to locate the meaning of Jesus in the regime of the given, it is here at this impossible moment, at this hole punched into the cosmos, a void circumscribed by being's appearance. That this void had such consequences is not a fantastic determination. This is merely its historical and political one. Fantasy is not a proper designate here. It belonged to the previous order of Messianic nationalism (an order Judas himself defended and grew disenchanted with). We are reminded of René Magritte's famous painting of a pipe with the inscription "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" beneath it. Here too might we not inscribe the field of the historical Nazarene with the words: "Ceci est un Immortel"?

Inception -Excerpt from a letter-

"Those who dream of the banquet may weep the next morning, and those who dream of weeping may go out to hunt after dawn. When we dream we do not know that we are dreaming. In our dreams we may even interpret our dreams. Only after we are awake do we know that we have dreamed. But there comes a great awakening, and then we know that life is a great dream. But the stupid think they are awake all the time and believe they know it distinctly." Chuang-tze

And of course the question remains: What difference does it make whether we dream or wake? Both in Inception and our butterfly Philosopher one experiences the same sufferings, the same joys, the same frustrations and anxieties whether the subject sleeps or wakes. Once again the Whole of a given life is a chimera (whether dreamlike or wakeful). It is rather the worlds of a subject which contain truths, mediated through the subjectivity of a subject (asleep or awake).

In other words, the movie ends at an appropriate moment (the top continues to spin and we do not find out whether it topples or not) not because it "keeps us guessing whether we're dreaming or not" (as the website suggests). The point is precisely that it no longer matters. The subjective truths conveyed by the main character finally meeting his children subsumes all other concerns. This is the ultimate truth of the scene. The top represents the Whole of the situation (the possibility of Wakefulness or Fantasy) which is abruptly cut off (cinematographically) because it no longer represents the Real of the situation (the -subjective- localization of the truth of the power of Love). We could say that ultimately we are indifferent to the top. It's being (and representative function) cease to exist from the point of view of the subject, hence, its banishment from sight without further consideration. Whether it stands or falls, it is no longer considered a site of truth for the subject.

The Capitalist Brain (Letter to a Friend)

I've been convalescing after a small operation.. picked up a copy of Laing's The Divided Self and have been enjoying it thoroughly. It is a pity the contemporary psychiatric establishment is quickly falling prey to neuroscientific reductionism.. What a rich and wonderful world exists just through the rabbit hole, and to be banished by a few milligrams of compressed colourless powder seems almost a crime. Will all this not result in a Romantic counter-revolution? Perhaps it already has..

I think where Laird may be used as a counter-critique is in his understanding that mental illness functions within a social field, that it can never be fully removed from it. Here neurological reductionism fails miserably in that it treats merely the underlying chemical realities. Perhaps this is precisely what it wishes though.. it ensures a long and profitable future for the pharmaceutical industry along with its boot-licking cronies the reductionists. No, Laird would perhaps agree with me that this will simply not suffice. The more fundamental treatment would involve not just the brain organ, but the whole field in which the brain organ functions, i.e. society. Such a great project has already been (re) proposed and is steadily reaching its new realization. That is: The Communist Hypothesis, the little red pill for the capitalist dis-ease.

Regards

jeremy.

Letter to a colleague (it's not all in the head, but it is)

You know, one's views may always be partial.. insofar as they are one's views, which are particular. But maybe this speaks more to one's understanding of wholeness. What if your thoughts are complete in themselves? What if what you're missing is not a "view" but an ontology, a Being which is satisfactory? What if the pursuit of a more complete view only compounds the issue by nurturing this existential incompleteness through intellectual grasping (which has an infinite field to draw from). Perhaps this isn't the answer. People in the academy are often stuck in their own heads. This isn't a bad thing or unnatural. Human beings are capable of high rationality, but they are also capable of rolling around in the grass laughing for no apparent reason at all. It is not a matter of one or the other. I think the more one ignores the other, the more one is missing out on humanity. There is a richness of experience here that should not be overlooked. I say this sincerely. Human experience is not a zero sum game, but involves a rich intermingling and potential for a variety of experiences.

If it's not you, it's not you... but at least consider the possibility. Try experiencing something without thinking about it. Do not consider your inability or ability as a failure or a success. Instead, consider it a practice, an immediate way of life which cannot be defined in terms of pass or fail. Allow your head to try working in a different way. You may be surprised what you find when you stop looking...