Date: Tue, 06 Jan 1998 15:47:06 -0800
Subject: transcendence implied


Reading Bonnefoy on 'freedom and poetry' where stoic freedom is said to
involve a certain settling.  

Squirming also in efforts to distinguish distinctions with Deleuze as
once 'real,' 'formal,' and 'modal' qualities were important in tracing
and thumping Descartes' concern for the clear and distinct in his
superficial borrowings from Scotus and 'misunderstandings' of the work
of Francisco Suarez, chiefly his "On the Various Kinds of Distinction". 
But why I dunno.  

Trying to understand the importance of distinguishing distinctions as I
am no longer required to pretend having done so, I suppose.  Something
tells me I want to equivocate more, and lend greater support to those
who do, especially in their battles against those who manifestly do not,
though these and other such battles are for me becoming less things to
be won or even fought so much as decorated.  

But, have joined the invent-l list where such battles are fought both to
gain favor with one Gregory Ulmer, and for the sake of what? 
Equivocations?  I find myself asking, what, aside from our right to
risk, are we fighting for?  Yeah, "we face the transcendence of an
unreachable Other".  And what "call or covenant" gets recognized
involves more of a presumption of what we share univocally than honest
indulgence would by chance authenticate.

Does Being itself 'interrupt our identity in giving identity', or is it
our awareness of time as _Faraway So Close_ suggests?  Anyway, isn't
equivocation preferred by those of us who know deep down [most often
without having to ennunciate it (it -as obsession- being irreducible to
consciousness)] that "we are always beginning in loss before proximity"? 
See what Deleuze says about approaching limits in _DR_?

It seems I advocate the contestation of anyone's ability to be reverent.
With Ari, this might be in the name of 'displaced directions' I now come
to if only semi-aware.  Legibility becomes an almost barbaric
requirement (in so much as requirements in general are not), however;
concern for understanding excesssively overt.  What friend of yours is
not someone who misreads you most generously?  Certainly there are times
(considering our miserable awareness of time) when we must run for
references, others when it's better to stroll, but clearly we benefit
most from our proximity to an Other when we awaken to find ourselves
grasping almost obsessively for connections with what s/he's said or
done even while it disturbs our sleep.  Isn't this linked to why
Bataille puts bedtime above politics, art, and science?

Finally, the settling required of Bonnefoy's stoic freedom sounds a lot
like the melancholia and bitterness of satire.