Confronting Girard and Baudrillard: what if globalization is also a Myth?

I'm wondering if we cannot put Girard in conversation with Baudrillard and vice-versa: Baudrillard makes the point that terrorism is an immoral response to the immoral system of globalization; the implication being that the latter conditions the former. So, with that all too neat hypothesis, can we not apply Girard's point that all myths are cover-ups for (actual) violent foundational acts to Baudrillard's understanding of the globalization/terrorist relationship by teasing out the myth(s) of globalization and exposing the immoralities within the system and, in so doing, begin to unravel the riddle of terrorism (globalization's shadow/double/twin etc.)? Although I really don't like working with such sweeping terms as "the system" and "globalization," Baudrillard, nonetheless, has a point which becomes much clearer when we approach globalization qua myth rather than monolith. As far as potential "foundational acts" (they seem more like gestures) concerning globalization: the creation of the World Bank, IMF, NAFTA, Patriot Act. But at the heart of globalization--and not surprisingly a key aspect of Baudrillard's early thought--is consumption, the underlying force that binds the global society. I cannot to point to a specific act and say "this is the foundational act for what will become a rampant consumer culture," I'm sure there are many to explore (although right now the only thing jumping out at me is the rise of plastics--i.e. The Graduate--so I hope there are better examples or this whole email is shot!) At any rate, there are more myths about globalization than there are students in the class, and I am certainly interested to hear any and all interpretations! Sorry for rambling a bit, but unraveling the "myth(s) of globalization" was not something I wanted to take on as a solo project...Matthew P.

Marion's Saturate Phenomenon: Options for Rebuttal?

Dear Prof Kearney,

Thank you for your challenging reply – I would have been disappointed with anything less! If I may be allowed to play the part of Hippomenes, I’ll run with you a bit longer.

First, I think that perhaps you misunderstood my comment on earl grey. I was referring to the tea named earl grey, not the beer named Guinness. Also in regards to Paul & the religions, I hope that I’m not being too presumptuous in thinking you’d agree with me that Christ is not to be found in any specific dogmatic formula, or ecclesial hierarchy, or even liturgical rite. Even beyond a simple creedal confession, there is a space for an unconscious, but demanded ‘yes’ (one may think of Rahner’s anonymous Christianity here; or the equally confessed anon-Hinduism, anon-Zoroastrianism, &c.).

To be honest, any drive to preserve pure (total?) freedom of choice sounds almost like an attempt to break free of the hermeneutical circle – hermeneutics ‘goes all the way down’ & so it is conditioned all the way up by its structure as the hermeneutical circle. Just like Angra Mainyu has corrupted all the elements of the world to a greater or lesser extent, even touching the high purity of fire, all of our freedom & freedom of interpretation is touched to a greater or lesser extent by the world in which we live. In fact, it doesn’t seem that anything like freedom can exist without a marriage to the unfreedom of given phenomena. Otherwise it would be like Kant’s dove wishing for the easy flying conditions of a void; otherwise this unrestricted freedom still seems to descend into arbitrariness. Furthermore, if all our choices are touched by some non-choice, it seems reasonable to think that some of our ‘choices’ could have a small-to-null degree of free choice because of exposure to saturated phenomena, even to the point that it seems like no real alternative is available (‘some of our choices’, not all; not every phenomenon is saturated).

Perhaps the crux is that I’m still foggy on your position to the saturated phenomenon itself. You sound like you affirm that saturated phenomena do exist; but if that’s so, would you also agree with Marion that the I is constituted by these phenomena (which seems to me a vital part of saturation). And if the I is constituted as such, then the actions of the I would also seem to be constituted by the phenomena. The ‘yes’ is no longer Mary’s yes, but a yes which she can say because she has already been saturated by the call. I’m reminded here of the great emphasis in God without Being on the inability to say ‘Jesus is Lord’ without the grace of God.

-Gabriel

Oedipus' burial

One of the questions that Prof Kearney raised was the reason for the mysteriousness of Oedipus' burial. Among the answers that we considered was that Oedipus is somehow transformed at the moment of his death, and so must not be associated with a single "place" but with all "places." Just today, I was reading Felix Budelmann's classics work The Language of Sophocles: Communality, Communication, and Involvement (Cambridge) and found his reflection on the choice of Sophocles' language to speak of the buried Oedipus. 

The line to which Budelmann gives attention is Colonus 1760-1763, which reads:

"Girls, that man (keinos) instructed me that no mortal should go near those regions or address the sacred tomb which that man occupies (hen keinos echei)."

Budelmann notes that the use of the indeterminate "keinos" to name Oedipus, who is no longer called by his proper name there, reinforces the sense of a supernatural transformation that occurs with Oedipus (as do the clap of thunder and the divine voice mentioned at 1621-1628). He goes on to say: 

"Oedipus is last named at 1638, around 150 lines before the end....If names are anything to go by, he is not the man he used to be. By failing to name him, Theseus makes Oedipus a rather numinous kind of figure" (p. 43). 

So it seems Sophocles' language of Oedipus from his death afterwards refers to his very being as no longer limited by his proper name, but as transformed into something more like the protective power of the city which he becomes. A strange stranger indeed!

Marina McCoy

Marion's saturated phenomenon: options for refusal?

Dear Prof. Kearney,

As I understand your objection to Marion, you feel that saturated phenomena do suggest a course of action, but also leave open the space for interpretation ('one can have both a passive and an active response'). I can certainly see how it could at least appear to a person that there is a passive & active component. However, to really have a truly active component, it would seem that you would have to preserve at least a part of the subject apart from the phenomenon. That is, there would have to be a part of the subject which is not constituted by the phenomenon to which it responds. Maybe you can correct me (& I'm definitely open to correction!) but this seems to be denied by Marion. I'm reading here especially §22 of Being Given, under the heading 'The Paradox and the Witness' ('Far from being able to constitute this phenomenon, the I experiences itself as constituted by it.'). By preserving a part of the I, isn't the saturated-ness of the phenomenon undermined?

I'm also thinking loads about the possibility of saying 'no' as well as 'yes' to the phenomenon. While it would seem that a 'no' may be possible, it also seems that a 'yes' is the only real option - the only answer which would be authentically addressing the phenomenon (authentically addressing oneself to the phenomenon). For example, if you set a cup of Earl Grey in front of me, in theory I can refuse it, but that is not really an option for all practical purposes. Slightly less facetiously, I'm reminded of St Paul's discussions on attaining freedom by submitting to slavery - by becoming a slave to Christ I am set free. My ability to address the world properly (through the Logos) is dependent upon my renunciation of my ability to say 'no' to Christ.

Discernment may well have a place here ('discerning the Spirit' etc.), but to bring it down to a solid situation: you dislike discussion that speaks of '"when" Mary receives the Word, never "if" she agrees to receive it.' But isn't that somehow correct? Without this 'when, never if', is the phenomenon really saturating? Wouldn't some part of Mary have to be kept apart from the phenomenon, arbitrary, higher than God? And wouldn't introduction of the arbitrary ruin the phenomenon or at least the response to it, whichever response it is? As a final point, it seems that God/grace/the saturate phenomenon is much more pervasive and invasive than an either/or situation allows. Don't the stories of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, Paul on the road to Damascus, and (perhaps the most telling) Jonah on the road to Nineveh show of situations where 'a simple no' is not really an option for the travelers?

-GA

Dear G-

1) In depriving the self of the power to say no to the saturating phenomenon, Marion is denying human freedom. Here he follows Levinas's notion of a 'passivity beyond all passivity' which, in my view, is a recipe for masochistic passivism. Indeed when Levinas says that the most ethical subject is the most hostaged and persecuted - depriving the subject of choice, will, freedom - I think he is anticipating Marion's notion of the witness as 'interloqué' - the interlocuted (almost electrocuted!) self: speechless, powerless, invaded, overwhelmed by the saturating tsunami of the incoming Other.

It is no accident, moreover, that Marion's other favorite word for the saturated witness is 'l'adonné' - an ambiguous term in french meaning both the 'gifted' one (one involuntarily in receipt of a saturating gift - like Heidegger's Es Gibt?) and the 'addicted' one. As AA teaches, the addict is one who is 'powerless' over his/her condition. I have a real problem with the Marionesque claim that we have no freedom to say yes or no - a criticism spelled out on pages 198-199 of 'Anatheism', as discussed in class. It champions divinity by compromising humanity.

2) You give the example of not being able to say no to a cup of Earl Grey? Really? If someone puts a cup of cold, syrupy, malodorous liquid in front of me (as you can gather I don't like Earl Grey), why can't I say, 'thanks but no thanks'? I don't agree at all with Paul's claim - if it is true - that one has no freedom to say no to Christ? What about half the religions in the world? What about agnostics and atheists? Or many Christians who believe they 'do' have freedom to believe or not believe? Did not Christ say we were 'friends not slaves'? Did he not say he came 'to serve not be served'? Did he not identify himself as a starving stranger in the street rather than a Lord of Power and Glory' (see Matt 25 and Dostoyevsky's 'Grand Inquisitor'). Otherwise is not the washing of the disciples feet a charade?

The reason I quoted the three poets of the Annunciation scene - Levertov, Hudgins and Semonovitch - in second seminar (and first chapter of Anatheism) is precisely because they emphasize the radical freedom of Mary to say yes or no. As Denise Levertov writes: 'She was free to accept or to refuse/ choice integral to humanness'. One does not have to espouse these poets' feminist' readings (though I do) to resist the notion of divine rape, which is surely the only interpretation of the Word as 'invasive' rather than 'persuasive', as imposition rather than invitation, as coercion rather than call.

You call this freedom 'arbitrary' but I do not agree. It is 'motivated' as Husserl or Merleau-Ponty would say, but not determined or predetermined, it is inspired and solicited by incoming Word but without compromising human freedom in any way. That is why I argue in 'Anatheism' for reading of sacred stranger as grace rather than fear, as a free 'if' rather than an ineluctable 'when' (to return to my rejection of Marion's reading of annunciation).

If I had to choose I would prefer humanity to have power and divinity to have none. The Omni-God of a certain metaphysics - omnipotent and omniscient - is a pretty tyrannical god in my opinion who has done countless damage to human beings for millennia. I prefer the powerless god who knocks at the door and waits for the human host to open or refuse to open (as so beautifully captured in Rilke's poem, and in Revelation). The alternative is an Invincible Superintendent of the Universe. In other words, if I had to chose between host and guest in this matter, I would prefer to think of humanity as host and divinity as guest. The contrary, it seems to me, is inhuman and very undivine.

Hope that helps?

keep those great questions coming

yours in prolixity,

Prof Kearney