“They saw their injured country's woe;
The flaming town, the wasted field;
Then rushed to meet the insulting foe;
They took the spear, - but left the shield.”
―Philip Freneau
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Lenten Remembrances of Advent
The deeper the sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
Great story. Thank you for the analysis. Not being familiar with the deities can make approaching such a tale difficult for someone outside the culture, so to speak. I'm sure you've read Plato's "Philebus". I kept flashing to concepts from there as the story unfolded.
Indian mythology is so very like the Greek, only it appears to operate at a much higher level.
I wish I had more time to pursue a more careful study of it. But like Brahma, I've a hundred beauties to dance with. ;)
What do you think of Plato's solution to the "evolutionary" /changing nature of measuring scales?
I'm with Nietzsche. To hell with asceticism. But I'm NOT so hard over to Nietzsche's side as Foucault.
ps - I will come back to your story in a bit... unfortunately, I'm currently stuggling to understand Lacan's distinctions between "acting out" and "passage a l'acte". The doorway between Vishnu and Brahma's worlds can often be elusive. ;)
I've got the difference now. In the passage a l'acte, the mortification of the subject (or its' transferred twin) by the Gran Objet 'A is actually carried out. It's an "acting out" which actually accomplishes the Gran Objet A's "desired end", not merely "communicates" them non-verbally to the subject (or his analyst).
I suppose I start with them, for they form the foundation (and back story) for everything "great" that followed.
The specialty of rule hath been neglected: And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
…O, when degree is shaked, Which is the ladder to all high designs, Then enterprise is sick! How could communities, Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, The primogenitive and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, But by degree, stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune that string, And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores And make a sop of all this solid globe: Strength should be lord of imbecility, And the rude son should strike his father dead: Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong, Between whose endless jar justice resides Should lose their names, and so should justice too. Then every thing includes itself in power…
-Shakespeare, "Troilus and Cressida"
Why did it take 10 years to conquer Troy? Achilles... as "symptom" of degeneracy.
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes: Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour’d As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done: perseverance, dear my lord, Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. /…/ O, let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was; for beauty, wit, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time.
Ulysses’s strategy here is profoundly ambiguous. In a first approach, he merely restates his argumentation about the necessity of “degrees” (ordered social hierarchy), and portrays time as the corrosive force which undermines old true values – an arch-conservative motif. However, on a closer reading, it becomes clear that Ulysses gives to his argumentation a singular cynical twist: how are we to fight against time, to keep old values alive? Not by directly sticking to them, but by supplementing them with the obscene Realpolitik of cruel manipulation, of cheating, of playing one hero against the other. It is only this dirty underside, this hidden disharmony, that can sustain harmony (Ulysses plays with Achilles’s envy, he refers to emulation – the very attitudes that work to destabilize the hierarchic order, since they signal that one is not satisfied by one’s subordinate place within the social body). Secret manipulation of envy – the violation of the very rules and values Ulysses celebrates in his first speech – is needed to counteract the effects of time and sustain the hierarchic order of “degrees.” This would be Ulysses’s version of Hamlet’s famous “The time is out of joint; O cursed spite, / That ever I was born to set it right!”. The only way to “set it right” is to counteract the transgression of Old Order with its inherent transgression, with crime secretly made to serve the Order. The price we pay for this is that the Order which thus survives is a mockery of itself, a blasphemous imitation of Order.
Who could truly claim to understand this, had he NOT read the Iliad?
Care for a look? :)
ReplyDeleteGreat story. Thank you for the analysis. Not being familiar with the deities can make approaching such a tale difficult for someone outside the culture, so to speak. I'm sure you've read Plato's "Philebus". I kept flashing to concepts from there as the story unfolded.
ReplyDeleteIndian mythology is so very like the Greek, only it appears to operate at a much higher level.
I wish I had more time to pursue a more careful study of it. But like Brahma, I've a hundred beauties to dance with. ;)
What do you think of Plato's solution to the "evolutionary" /changing nature of measuring scales?
I'm with Nietzsche. To hell with asceticism. But I'm NOT so hard over to Nietzsche's side as Foucault.
ps - I will come back to your story in a bit... unfortunately, I'm currently stuggling to understand Lacan's distinctions between "acting out" and "passage a l'acte". The doorway between Vishnu and Brahma's worlds can often be elusive. ;)
ReplyDelete...but somehow, even the "purloined" letter always gets there. ;)
ReplyDeleteIndian mythology is so very like the Greek...
ReplyDeleteIndeed, FJ! Why I knew you would like the story.
Heh. I would remember the metaphor of the 'purloined' letter.
I've got the difference now. In the passage a l'acte, the mortification of the subject (or its' transferred twin) by the Gran Objet 'A is actually carried out. It's an "acting out" which actually accomplishes the Gran Objet A's "desired end", not merely "communicates" them non-verbally to the subject (or his analyst).
ReplyDeleteThanatos can be a hard "master".
...Not as hard as the devil (read 'you'). ;)
ReplyDeleteBtw, i have had a breakthrough on the gnothi seauton front. I now know my top five books. ;)
...and they are? :)
ReplyDeleteHeh. I was waiting for you to ask. Here:
ReplyDelete1. Faust
2. Don Quixote
3. Hyperion
4. Gorgias
5. To Kill a Mockingbird
What about you?
Not nearly as deep, but...
ReplyDelete1. Homer, "The Iliad"
2. Nietzsche, "Zarathustra"
3. Aeschylus, "Oresteia"
4. Plato, "The Laws"
5. Freud, "Psychopathology of Everyday Life"
A. Zizek "A Pervert's Guide to Cinema" (movie not book)
of course, none of the above would have been possible for me w/o Durant's "Story of Philosophy"
Aristophanes' "The Birds" might replace #5 if I actually needed to "limit" myself to these five books for the rest of my days.
ReplyDeleteI think 'Homer' and 'Aeschylus' may one day make my list, too - but not just yet. There is work to be done first. :)
ReplyDeleteI suppose I start with them, for they form the foundation (and back story) for everything "great" that followed.
ReplyDeleteThe specialty of rule hath been neglected:
And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
…O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
Then enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong,
Between whose endless jar justice resides
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power…
-Shakespeare, "Troilus and Cressida"
Why did it take 10 years to conquer Troy? Achilles... as "symptom" of degeneracy.
The cure...
ReplyDeleteTime hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:
Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour’d
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done: perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mockery. /…/ O, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was; for beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating time.
Zizek's analysis from "How to Read Lacan"...
ReplyDeleteUlysses’s strategy here is profoundly ambiguous. In a first approach, he merely restates his argumentation about the necessity of “degrees” (ordered social hierarchy), and portrays time as the corrosive force which undermines old true values – an arch-conservative motif. However, on a closer reading, it becomes clear that Ulysses gives to his argumentation a singular cynical twist: how are we to fight against time, to keep old values alive? Not by directly sticking to them, but by supplementing them with the obscene Realpolitik of cruel manipulation, of cheating, of playing one hero against the other. It is only this dirty underside, this hidden disharmony, that can sustain harmony (Ulysses plays with Achilles’s envy, he refers to emulation – the very attitudes that work to destabilize the hierarchic order, since they signal that one is not satisfied by one’s subordinate place within the social body). Secret manipulation of envy – the violation of the very rules and values Ulysses celebrates in his first speech – is needed to counteract the effects of time and sustain the hierarchic order of “degrees.” This would be Ulysses’s version of Hamlet’s famous “The time is out of joint; O cursed spite, / That ever I was born to set it right!”. The only way to “set it right” is to counteract the transgression of Old Order with its inherent transgression, with crime secretly made to serve the Order. The price we pay for this is that the Order which thus survives is a mockery of itself, a blasphemous imitation of Order.
Who could truly claim to understand this, had he NOT read the Iliad?
We are slaves to Kronos, are we not? ;)
ReplyDelete"Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad," Euripides
Later, Ajax!
The "distinction" separating Ajax and Odysseus becomes visible...
ReplyDelete...then dissolves into the myst of time.