.

And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again? Archilochus

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Mythic Violence v. Divine Violence*

Officially Stalinism was based on atheist Marxist theory, but if we look closely at the subjective experience of a Stalinist political agent, leader, we see that it's not a position of an arrogant master, who can do whatever he wants. It's on the contrary the position of a perfect servant. In a Stalinist universe there definitely is what in psychoanalytic theory we call the 'Big Other'. This 'Big Other' in the Stalinist universe has many names. The best known of them are the necessity of historical progress towards communism - simply history. History itself is the 'Big Other'. History as the necessary succession of historical stages. A communist experiences himself as simply an instrument whose function is to actualise a historical necessity. The people, the mythic people whose instrument the totalitarian leader is are never simply the actually existing individuals, groups of people and so on. It's some kind of imagined idealised point of reference which works even when, for example in rebellions against the communist rule, like in Hungary 56, when the large majority of actually resisting people raises up, is opposed to the regime. They can still say: "no, these are just individuals," "they are not the true people." When you are accused of: "My God, how could you have been doing all of these horrible things?" You could have said, and this is the standard Stalinist excuse: "Of course my heart bleeds for all the poor victims, "I am not fully responsible for it, I was only acting on behalf of the 'Big Other'" "As for myself, I like cats, small children, whatever - this is always part of the iconography of a Stalinist leader. Lenin in Stalinism is always presented as someone who likes small children and cats. The implication being Lenin had to order many killings and so on, but his heart was not there -this was his duty as instrument of historical progress and so on and so on.

The way to undermine Stalinism is not simply to make fun of the leader, which can be up to a point even tolerated. It is to undermine this very reference, mythic reference which legitimises the Stalinist leader: the people.
* Note
“If mythic violence is lawmaking, divine violence is law-destroying; if the former sets boundaries, the latter boundlessly destroys them; if mythic violence brings at once guilt and retribution, divine power only expiates; if the former threatens, the latter strikes; if the former is bloody, the latter is lethal without spilling blood. …Mythical violence is bloody power over mere life for its own sake, divine violence pure power over all life for the sake of the living. The first demands sacrifice, the second accepts it.”
(Benjamin,1921/1986, p.297)

6 comments:

FreeThinke said...

More toxic BULLSHIT from the Frankfurt School.

Why court Mental Malignancy? You might CATCH it, and THEN where would you be?

Sophistry and guile of this pernicious ilk should be AVOIDED like the PLAGUE.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

FT,

This BS is how the Left "justifies" violence. If you don't find this topic "worthy" of research by someone who is determined to "know his Enemy" (ala Sun Tzu), then there is nothing so worthy.

FreeThinke said...

As long as you continue to KNOW that the Enemy IS the Enemy it should be all right.

The convoluted, twisted, perverted brand of logic employed by the DEVILS who made up the Frankfurt School –– and make no mi
stake about it they WERE devils –– can be VERY persuasive.

Once again I quote Pope:

Vice is a creature of such fearful mien
As to be hated needs to be seen,
Yet seen too oft –– familiar with her face ––
At first we endure –– then pity –– then embrace.


Substitute "Marxism" for "Vice," –– and Bob's your uncle! ;-)

FreeThinke said...

As for finding a vile topic "worthy of research," I can only quote my old friend Bitch Cassidy yet again.

When asked why she didn't want to explore the evils of Marxism in greater depth, Bitch said, "Honey, I don't need to eat a pound of shit to know it don't taste good. All I need is a little whiff."

Bitch deserves a high, centrally placed niche in the Pantheon of Great Thinkers, if you ask me.

CHEERIO!

];^}>

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”
― John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty"

Thersites said...

Go to 52:30 in the Haidt/Peterson discussion (2nd video) a few threads up and you'll understand what I mean by understanding the framing of the "violence" question.