Subject: The Terrain of the Idol
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 19:11:16 PST


Surrounded by luxuriant foliage, neither man nor beast -- nor even a 
STONE -- for the "sense of escaping from the clockwork regulation of 
thought (of existing in the beyond as the stone does) is founded on 
humility" (Bataille, 'The Problem of Surrealism', _The Absence of Myth_, 
p. 97) -- there stands or strives a being with a sword through his 
spine, anchoring him to earth (can we call this creature a being?) who 
nevertheless "can still make forays to the very walls of heaven, heading 
a legion of assassins, and return to resume this posture and meditate 
anew upon lofty plans of vengeance" (Lautreamont, _Maldoror_, tr. 
Lykiard 1994, p. 144).  Despite the indeterminacy of his condition -- "A 
man or a stone or a tree ..." (ibid., p. 131) -- and the foul state of 
his carcass (who can speak of his SOUL?), he is the very picture of 
idleness.  Indeed, he is an IDOL!  But an idol worshipped by no one, not 
even the injudicious Pombo of Dunsany's tale.  He is a being in revolt, 
a revolt so pure that any action could only hurt his ca(u)se. When one 
is in revolt against Being, one must cease to be.

Writing is powerless (Bataille), as is speech, and all that depends upon 
thinking.  These acts of thought, which are acts of Being, are plagued 
by the assumption that "we truly incline toward something only when it 
in turn inclines toward us, toward our essential being, by appealing to 
our essential being as what holds us there [in the world, where Being 
unfolds -- E.M.].  To hold genuinely means to heed protectively, for 
example, by letting a herd graze at pasture" (Heidegger, 'What Calls For 
Thinking?', _Basic Writings_, p. 369).  The 'vulgar herd', to be sure, 
which only seeks its end, its 'teleology', in the world of beings.  The 
revolt against Being is the revolt against the limitations of the 
imagination (and here I am talking like a Surrealist, even though 
Surrealism no longer inclines toward me) -- but not just 'worldly' 
imagination; rather, an expression or private actualization of an 
autonomous 'mytho-logos'.  The limits of imagination, however, are 
displayed or displaced when one can only see or express this primal 
essence in what is called 'revolt'.  

Revolt is all about the creation of memory, an act that can only be 
approximated, through imaginative engagement with what is felt to have 
always been left out of existence -- that is, through 'adequation' in 
this world of limitations.  One is truly in revolt when one befriends 
absence.  The absence of movement, that is, pure idleness, since it is 
the 'antithesis' of being (becoming), is the ideal yet worldly 
expression of a revolt against the fetters of being-in-the-world (and is 
there any other kind of revolt or expression besides the 'worldly'?).  
But what is freed through such a revolt?  Certainly not the "carcass"?  
The mind, _nous_, is what is set free.  And the price of this freedom is 
the loss of the illusion of communication (adequation).

One acquires memory through learning -- or is it the other way round? It 
matters not, for "in order to be capable of thinking, we need to learn 
it" (Heidegger, p. 370).  That is to say we can only think and learn 
about what already exists, what has already 'proven itself' by producing 
an effect in the world of beings.  We cannot think about what has yet to 
BE.  We cannot think Being; we can merely experience its effects, and 
consign it to memory.  But to create a memory -- is that not to turn 
away from Being, to think purely, in the direction not of the world, but 
of the nothing?  To create a memory outside Being, in an open space 
where one no longer IS, for one no longer has a personality or even a 
name, is to cease to be human, or animal, or even stone.




Edward

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