Polite Vomit

Norwegian airline Widerøe accept the potential oral effluent of their customers with polite and polished ease. One side of the complementary vomit bag carries the inscription “uff da… (ooops…)” while the other one conveys the best wishes of the airline: “god bedring! (get well soon!)”. Isn’t that nice?!

These are the days of the COP15 summit and more or less everyone is busy stating their views of a better world. There are a lot of professional opinion makers in the fray. Prominent among them, Naomi Klein yesterday contributed with the following commentary in her Memo to Danes: Even You Cannot Control This Summit: “In the morning demonstrators are going to march to the Bella Center to demand real solutions to the climate crisis, not the fuzzy math and carbon trading on offer inside.”

Carbon trading might be a legitimate means for handling the current problems, it might be the contrary, but to simply oppose “real solutions” to “fuzzy math and carbon trading” is downright silly. Why is math an unreal tool to the task? One should think that mathematics would be a necessary and very real element in fighting climate change. What she means, of course, is that the official negotiators have trouble agreeing on the math and that carbon trading is an unacceptable solution. But sadly, the math seems equally fuzzy at Klimaforum09, and carbon trading is, supposedly, a manifestly more real solution than “real solutions.”

Of course, there should be a popular appeal for a strict and binding resolution. But when Naomi Klein uses her Naomi Klein authority to back the appeal she should be a bit more careful not to weaken it by random ranting. Apparently, when marveling at Danish design and wondering where the Danish talent for such products comes from, she was told the following: “We’re control freaks.” “It comes from being a small country with not much power. We have to control what we can.” Naomi Klein then uses this dubious rendering of Danish character, if such a thing ever existed, to conclude in a final bravado: “So memo to our Danish hosts: sure, Copenhagen is your city, and we love you for your bicycles and windmills. But it’s everyone’s planet. Stop trying to design us out of the picture.”

She seems to be using a rather confused terminology. The title is directed at Danes. In the finale she addresses the Danish hosts. The organizers or the Danish population? Copenhagen is who’s city? The bicycles and windmills belong to whom? What is “it’s everyone’s planet” if not an empty phrase, “everyone” being the most fuzzy mathematical description of quantity ever? And when she wants not to be “designed out of the picture,” is she asking the organizers, the population of Denmark, the police, or who?

The acts of the police during saturday’s demonstration are a disgrace, and so are the laws that allow them. But ascribing “fuzzy” identities to Danes or the owners of the planet or whoever she feels are responsible for restrictions of the rights to protest and the doubtful outcome of the summit demonstrate that the angry call for “real solutions” is but words, words, words. And not the poetry as is needed, which signifies its own lack of signification, but the endless words of indignation that strut and fret their hour upon the stage.

Blanchot once wrote: “Je ne puis dire quel malheur envahit l’homme qui une fois a pris la parole.” A possible translation would be “I cannot express the calamity that falls upon a man once he starts to speak.” Speaking is a wondrous and terrible thing. To speak out for or against something as an authoritative individual will easily undermine the goals you hope to achieve and serve nothing but the constitution of your own self image. Maybe it is time to adopt the motto of a certain unnamable character: “De nobis ipsis silemus.”

I just now stumbled upon the following gem of an aggressive defense:

“J’aime les grandes métaphores venues de la religion : Miracle, Grâce, Salut, Corps Glorieux, Conversion… On a évidemment conclu de ce goût que ma philosophie était un christianisme déguisé. Le livre sur saint Paul que j’ai publié en 1997 aux PUF n’a pas arrangé les choses. À tout prendre, j’aime mieux être un athée révolutionnaire caché sous une langue religieuse qu’un “démocrate” occidental persécuteur de musulman(e)s déguisé en féministe laïque.” (Baidou: Second manifeste pour la philosophie note 4)

In case your French is a bit rusty, here is a rusty translation:

“I love the great religious metaphors: Miracle, Grace, Salvation, Glorious Body, Conversion… Obviously, someone concluded from this preference that my philosophy was disguised christianity. The book on Saint Paul, which I published in 1997 at PUF, didn’t help the matter. All considered, I would rather be a revolutionary atheist hidden behind a religious vernacular than an occidental “democrat” persecuting muslims disguised as a secular feminist.”

You almost want to high-five your buddy and chest bump your pal shouting “Snap! Them mo-fo’s got pwned!,” don’t you?

Let us begin at home. At their main annual convention this summer, leader of Danish People’s Party Pia Kjærsgaard said something like the following: “So while the potential maximum penalty for a crime has maybe doubled, the actually passed sentences have only augmented slightly. We will not stand for this. The judges are not the rulers of this country!” As well as crying out for mandatory minimums, this angry minx is decreeing the power of “We” over the power of the judges. “We the people” may be sovereign in American law but even the Americans try to uphold the seperation of powers as described by Montesquieu. Kjærsgaard is actually calling for direct popular control of the judiciary branch. “We the people shall not accept delicate judicial treatment of those who dare defy our laws.”

Next, and slightly more seriously, we have the Danish minister of justice. Commenting on a new law that allows the police to hold potential unruly demonstrators for up to twelve hours without showing cause, Brian Mikkelsen said: “We must help those who help us. Thus, we will not stand for people who obstruct the work of the police.” When did “We must help those who help us” become a legitimate juridical argument? The man is not the greatest orator of our time and this does make him quite unable to hide is feeble intellectual powers, but under no circumstances is this sort of outburst to come from a minister of justice! “We the people shall not accept those who dare defy our controlling grasp.”

The final example from within the walls of delightful Denmark is kindly delivered by the chief coordinating officers of the Copenhagen police force. The New York Times quoted him for the following on the subject of the handling of COP15: “Mr. Larsen said that his officers would have low tolerance for behavior that deviates from “Danish society as we prefer it to be.”” Again the statement goes “We the people shall not accept the actions of those who dare defy our glorious society and they shall ne’er prevail against us.”

In all three cases, there is an indistinct “We the people” proclaiming the illegitimacy of certain unwanted elements. And it should be noted, that in the first case, the illegitimacy actually includes the nation’s judges. Their sentences are illegitimate because they do not correspond with the wishes of the people that unruly scoundrels be severely punished.

This is why “We the people” is a rather stupid and potentially very dangerous formula and why the sovereignty of “the people” is not really desirable. “We the people” is an empty vessel that may easily be filled poison. The above examples pretend to take it for granted that “We the people” all agree who “We the people” are and are not. In France they are currently having a debate to have the national identity carved in stone. It was launched by the Minister of Immigration and (wait for it!) National Identity!

A thing about this French debate about their national identity is that the Minister, Eric Besson, gave quite strict guidelines at the very outset. Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité are cornerstones he dictates. But more specifically, wearing a Burkha is against French national identity. This, apparently, is not open for debate. The point of the debate seems to narrowly define the vague “We the people” in order to use it as a means to exclude unwanted elements like the Burkha. With a narrow definition in hand it gets quite easy to put Sarkozy’s famous statement to good use: “France, love her or leave her.”

In conclusion, ladies and jellybeans, skipping the obvious problems in the American use of the word “patriot,” there should be quick mention of two alternative uses of the concept of “democracy” and “people.” First up is French philosopher Jacques Rancière who defines democracy as the equality of whomever with whomever, the absence of arkhé, i.e., the absence of any “true” order. His concept of people, démos, is the collection of those not counted as part of the community. Politics, in his conception, is not the guarding of imaginary identities, but rather the challenge of existing order.

Another viewpoint is that of Jean-Luc Nancy. In The Truth of Democracy, he states the following (my translation): “The democratic kratein, the power of the people, is first the power to defeat the archie and then, everyone together, to take care of the infinite opening, which is thus brought to light. Taking care of this opening enables the finite inscription of the infinite.”

These are not complicated matters. The current political misuse of “We the people” should be obvious for all to see. However, the contemporary global project of making a work (faire œuvre) of our societies continues unabated. Only therefor are the above banalities worthy of mention.

The one thing I wanted to point out today is the tiny reference made to Monty Python in the recent episode 9 of the 6th season:

Wilson: I’m not here for an argument, House!)
House: No, right, that’s room 12 A.

This, of course, is a reference to Monty Pythons Argument Sketch, which goes something like this:

Abuser: WHAT DO YOU WANT?
Head Hitter: Well, I was told outside that…
Abuser: Don’t give me that, you snotty-faced heap of parrot droppings!
Head Hitter: What?
Abuser: Shut your festering gob, you tit! Your type really makes me puke, you vacuous, toffee-nosed, maloderous, pervert!!!
Head Hitter: Look, I CAME HERE FOR AN ARGUMENT, I’m not going to just stand…!!
Abuser: OH, oh I’m sorry, but this is abuse.
Head Hitter: Oh, I see, well, that explains it.
Abuser: Ah yes, you want room 12A, Just along the corridor.
Head Hitter: Oh, Thank you very much. Sorry.
Abuser: Not at all.
Head Hitter: Thank You.
Abuser: (Under his breath) Stupid git!!

The full sketch can be enjoyed here:

The technical question would be whether House is mocking Wilson with his reference or whether it is a joke from writer to spectator? Does House know his Monty Python or not? We believe that Hugh Laurie does, which is why the reference kind of works. The correspondence, the planting of classic British humor in the bearded mouth of one of its once beardless enactors reminds us of his whacky past and lets both Python and Laurie’s early work resonate through the ages. But the humorous effects are limited. The spectator doesn’t laugh out loud at the recognition, at the perception of correspondences, but he does feel a pleasurable rumbling inside: The pleasure of being in on the joke, the pleasure of ‘getting it’, of grasping the minute details. It is much the same game as the one served in Lynch’s later movies, i.a., Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire. He sets up a riddle with no answer, a game with no winning move. But they work because they unfurl a resonating web of correspondences for the spectator to play with. And each discovered correspondence is a shivering moment of pleasure.

So, the idea of this fecal accumulation was to have a place through which to channel the pile of bile that rises within us all when encountering that which is too high, too low, too in the middle, as well as that which just generally rubs us the wrong way.

An example: When some semi-celeb on the front page of a wholly disgraceful newspaper states “I am good in bed”, you must be made of sturdier stuff than me to avoid shaking your fists at the world, shouting insults and death threats at all who would even think of finding such a journalistic abomination worthy of print. Another one: The former princess Alexandra (Denmark), once visited a very hot country, somewhere with elephants, I forget… A photo of this young lady in a sweat stained t-shirt appeared on the front page of one of the weekly attacks on the minds of the already challenged with the following title “The Princess’ Hot Flashes”. I mean, really!

The idea is, that in stead of calling up your friends, begging them to reinstate your will to live after having witnessed the depths of human stupidity and the shameless efforts to profit from it, you pour out your anger here! You try to verbally slaughter, in the most grotesquely violent manner possible, the atrocities of life that are beyond your legal control. You obtain your peace of mind through the extreme violence of word and imagery.

The problem is, that when delivering yourself of an extremely violent attack or maybe even an attack the violence of which consists of a whit tied with frilly bows (ouch!) you strike a blow which is less than fatal. You strike for the sake of striking, of lashing out, it is the slap of annoyance in stead of the meticulous execution of a well wrought argument. Few things die from the impromptu attack of irritation so once you are done with your huffing and puffing you just stand there, rather out of breath and somewhat less than menacing.

Usually, when your attack fails to kill or at least disable your opponent you should have a ready defense, but the point of todays waffle is that within the strictly controlled environment of your very own War Blog you don’t have to! At least not until someone actually insists that you justify your outrageous outbursts in which case you may want to smooth everything over with an apologetic air. But until that happens I am happily humming Ride of the Valkyries whilst sharpening and loading my pen. As the man said: “The pen is mightier than the sword, if you shoot that pen out of a gun!”

As has already been stated on this page – it’s remarkable how long a webpage really is – bloggery is fit for the more or less cultivated or casual considerations of the works of mice and men over digital drinks and dinner, but not for laborious elaborations on the subtle workings of all things theory. Blogs are the very sanctuaries of commentary, it is where commentary goes when it is no longer wanted in respectable company, which is why blogs are usually just havens for washed up intellectual waste and futile observations of abundant banality.

So why more or less consciously commit the sin you are condemning? Why throw all personal pride and integrity overboard and just plow right through the known courteous seas? Because it feels so good! Bloggery as well as commentary are generally examples of what we might call rhetorical masturbation and rhetorical masturbation, as we have all learnt in our early years, makes you blind. Well, maybe you don’t really loose your eyesight but you do tend to lean back a bit and close your eyes with the sheer pleasure of it.

You start out wanting the real thing, actually you do all the way through, but once you’re at it you might as well enjoy that particular gratification you get by just rambling on by yourself. The curse of the well-connected computer: You can have a virtual discussion whenever you want, but it can’t really compete with actually getting off your ass to go have a decent shouting mach in real life.

Rhetorical masturbation is here both the point and the illustration. You think of a metaphor which oddly enough makes you laugh, rhetorical masturbation for instance, and see where it leads you. You may start out wanting to enlighten yourself and the world by hammering out a serious argument but then quickly get caught up in the fun of writing and just take the initial serious argument as an excuse to do a linguistic lambada. Even if you are a crappy dancer and never really got the gist of that whole latino thing…

Serious argumentation is not easily contained by this medium. But this is actually ok. For unlike the dirty deeds of professional multimedia commentators such as Hitchens and Zizek, bloggery is usually quite honest and more or less private autoeroticism. It is public to a certain degree because rhetorical masturbation needs a potential audience, if nothing else, but no one is invited or incited to actually witness the thing. At least not in our case.

What makes Hitchens and Zizek so obscene is that they so desperately cling to their show man personae. Commentary is crucial to the survival of the persona and the persona is crucial to the gratification of the person. They are not content with the shining solitude of serious work nor are they happy with the private pleasures of a potential audience. No, they incessantly need to pull out their membrum virilae in public and stick it in your ear.

So yes, the rhetorical masturbation of bloggery does make you blind to the serious argument you should be doing but at least it is done more or less in private. It doesn’t require an audience to be willingly violated by the obscene rhetorical gestures of the hardened exhibitionist. It is personal playfulness, not public gang banging.

Let us begin with the anti-theist. Hitchens is a very educated man. He went to Oxford, which is often mentioned when he is introduced before going on stage. But this is another thing: Why is it important that the man went to Oxford?! It is without a doubt a good school, but in no way is it a guarantee of the man’s competence. The snobbery of it! I know plenty of people who went to La Sorbonne. I see no greater assembly of geniuses there than anywhere else and yet it is mentioned with a certain awe, as if it were the proof of a mind as sharp as a surgical laser. Why can’t we simply accept that it is not the teaching which makes the thinker, but the studying.

Hitchens probably did a fair deal of studying. He seems to be a well-read man. But this also seems to be his only intellectual strength. If you listen to his speeches, interviews or debates or you actually read his texts you might notice that he is all reference and no analysis. He refers to literary quotes and the experiences of his own wicked self or those of others. His argument is thus based on the authority of texts or the allusion to “real life”.

This basis of reference without analysis is why his arguments about religion are so feeble. What he wants to do is provide an ontological critique of religion, cf. his book God is not Great. How Religion Poisons Everything. The title implies that religion is inherently bad, essentially corruptive. But the argument for this postulate states, that people do horrible things in the name of religion and that religion is the soft option for weak people who cannot face the responsibility and infinite complexity of “real life” (there we have it again!). This is in many ways true but can in no way lay the foundation for an ontological rejection of all things religion. It is the spectacular argument of the commentator, not of the thinker.

Like Hitchens, Zizek is an educated man. Luckily no one would introduce him by mentioning which university he attended. Maybe it is because he graduated from the University of Ljubljana and not from Oxford, and again from Paris VIII and not from La Sorbonne (it should be noted that Paris VIII has employed more fine philosophers since its foundation in 1969 than La Sorbonne has in the entire 20th century). Or maybe it is because the man is convincing enough without carrying one of those ghastly Anglo-Saxon sweatshirts that cry out the name of your university for all to see (the carrying of such a sweatshirt should be seen as the clear sign that the wearer is in fact stark bollocks naked!).

Zizek is assuredly a well-read as well as a very intelligent man. The problem is, that he too tends to play the commentator in stead of the thinker he rightfully is. I recently read his essay “Neighbors and Other Monsters: A Plea for Ethical Violence”. Here you might notice the following parenthesis: “The paradox is that Butler, who is generally anti-Lacanian, reproaching Lacan for not allowing for change, is here asserting the inertia of human existence – against Lacan, who allows for a much stronger subjective intervention.”

According to Zizek it is a paradox that the “anti-lacanian” Judith Butler here almost does what she accuses Lacan of doing in stead of just doing what Lacan is “actually” doing, which is so much better. When did this become a legitimate argument? Apart from the nonsensical form of the argument, the problem is, that Lacan is used as a standard measure. The lacanian way is always already true. This, I feel, is a problem with most lacanians who tend to ruin all that is great in his thinking by their cultish worship and machine-like use of his theory.

Zizek must be aware of this and he probably just made the argument to piss off argumentation neat freaks like me. Or maybe he did it to be funny. Zizek has been called the Elvis of cultural theory and he does his best to live up to the name. Have you ever seen him live? The way that man works an audience is impressive and very funny. He is an outstanding entertainer. The problem, of course, is that the entertainment comes in the way of serious thought. I love the man as a stand up act but hate reading him as cultural analysis.

So what is the point of all this babble? Quite simply that the intellectual show men annoy me. Hitchens, because he shouldn’t even be a show man. His carefully constructed persona who shouts out “Fuck you!” and sticks a finger in the air to demonstrate his general irreverence is without perceivable interest. I have yet to hear an interesting thought from its lips. Zizek, because he could be so much better and because serious people take his not so serious gibbering seriously. If he is the academically celebrated standard for contemporary cultural theory we might as well close down the universities.

The problem is that in the media driven society in which we live even the anti-media cultural critics tend to pollute their own thought, and thereby ours, by acknowledging the spectacular importance of being Elvis. Even Elvis failed to live up to that requirement and wound up a bin-liner full of deep-fried chicken skin. Now think how the physical evolution of Elvis would look if he were a thought…

We therefore turn to the unbearable lightness of being sick. I am in such a state of illness right now, which, of course, is the reason for my choice of subject matter. It is not that I am really seriously sick, it is more that I am not at all well… Why, oh why must it be this way? A question which the afflicted tend to ask the room that contains them, most of them without expecting an answer. I, however, am a man of science! If God has chosen to punish me, I want him down here to tell me why, God dammit! But, since God is a very domestic animal with no great love of communication, I will have to invent my own unholy explanation. This, my invention, has three factors: The seed, the fun and the exercise.

The seed is the first introduction of illness, the advent of ailment. This is quite common in these wintery times. A slight cold invades the rundown temple of your body, liquid starts magically appearing in your nose, and your lungs get the odd urge to leave your chest by a sudden leap of inspired expiration. This does not yet constitute illness! This is nothing but inconvenience. The problem arises if, like me, you are a bit of an idiot. During the fun-packed weekend I had a lot to drink and not enough to sleep. Monday was blue and very tired, and this is where the idiocy kicks in: I thought I’d defeat fatigue by happily trotting around the nearby park. I even went so far as doing push ups. Tuesday I tried ignoring a tired body by working and drinking coffee, and Wednesday the bottom fell out of me (a nod is as good as a wink to a blind bat…).

Now, I am just inoperative. According to some philosophers this is good news. Terms like désœuvrement, inoperosità and otium all designate the relation between the inoperative and potentiality. I just don’t feel the potential gushing from my energy-deprived body. But, for now at least, I will trust potentiality and patiently await the coming of new acts, a time when the lightness of being becomes quite bearable again.

To your very good health!