Subject: MB: The Once and Future Idle
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 12:51:38 PST


The "creation of difference" is simply (or not so simply, perhaps?) the 
silencing of the individual voice.  When I speak, I know what I want to 
say, what I MEAN to say -- but my meaning is always provided for me.  
Blanchot writes of how "man must separate himself from himself and from 
nature in order to assert himself; how he has to plunge part of himself 
into the objects and works which separation -- that is, negation -- 
enables him to complete; how he ceases to recognize himself in what he 
makes ..." etc., etc., in a fine passage from 'The Great Hoax' (_The 
Blanchot Reader_ p. 159).

The "creation of difference" certainly involves a form of 'alienation' 
-- in this case that alienation takes the form of silencing of the 
individual voice.  The Gnostic Artist then, to refer to a previous 
formulation of mine, can only THINK.  His or her creation is not of this 
world, and s/he suffers martyrdom whenever s/he attempts to give 
external expression, or form, to his/her thoughts.  E.M. Forster was a 
perfect example of the 'Judaeo-Christian' artist (the antithesis of the 
Gnostic Artist) as evidenced in the quote you, Socha, provided: "How can 
I know what I think until I see what I say?"

So 'meta' is certainly improvement: a movement from amorphous thought to 
externally FORMULATED thinking -- systematic thinking, rational 
thinking.  Since we lose our self, our private meaning, in expression, 
how could 'meta' mean simply "self-referral or reflection"?

The violence done to the individual during the primal moment of the 
meeting with beings is "an event where thought is completely disarmed 
and as such receptive and not even ensnared in questioning" (Ariosto, 
2-20-98 ... thanks for that post, by the way).  

The "cracked mirrors" you speak of, Ariosto, do they not "send out 
shivers to the city" where "the MUSICAL background of its song resembles 
night" (Andre Breton, 'The Sun on a Leash', tr. Zavatsky and Rogow 1993; 
tr. mod., my emphasis)?  

'Noise' is produced, as you say, by an "excess of phrasing," but also by 
a cacophony, in the sense of mutually competing voices, voices silenced 
by interpretation the moment they attempt to speak.

"The smoker puts the finishing touches on his work
He's looking for the union of himself and the landscape
He's one of the shivers of the cold storage room" (Breton, ibid.)

Opposed to this 'caca-phoney' then, is the 'Ka' (with a "nod" to Artaud, 
who knew of music).  Both music and thought can be cut off from all 
thought, and still cling to an absence of thought.  Even sleep is not 
idle -- for it is brought on by an excess of thought: when thought 
exhausts itself in idleness, when it becomes 'charged', it must either 
enter the world of beings, or close in on itself in the realm of dreams 
(see myself, 'The Vampire Girl' 1-10-98).  When thought ceases to be 
thought, by entering a world or realm, there is no longer any idleness 
to speak of.  If you will say that thought is not idle, then why does 
pure thought, like instrumental music, always situate itself 'between 
worlds' -- or between different and various interpretative 'regimes', if 
you will? 

When I speak of music as a 'non-discursive' art form, I hope I will be 
understood as meaning instrumental music.  The lyrics of songs are 
essentially poems, and attempt to communicate something concrete.  When 
you say, Socha, that "music appeals to the emotions not the mind," you 
are positing a duality, creating a distinction.  May we say that 
discourse is thought stripped of emotion?  When we receive a work, an 
artifact, in a museum, we use our emotions to bring the work to life -- 
but we interpret the work through and within "the phoney discourse 
everybody wnats to believe."  When we think, or listen to music, we are 
not meeting a presentation of the world, but rather an echo of the past 
and future infinite: the time before the world of beings, and a time to 
come when language and the world will have exhausted itself.  I have 
attempted to explain, or give my formulation, in previous posts, of how 
thought can operate in the absence of others, of beings.  In other 
words, thought can function in nothingness, because the 'emergent' will 
be aware, at least, of no longer being part of nothingness, of no longer 
being nothing.  The echo of the shout of surprise at this moment of 
emergence from nothingness is Music.  It is also the ground for Thought.  
The world of beings is a supplement to the autonomous emergent.  And a 
supplement to a totality, to a whole, since it is quite unnecessary, is 
obliged -- IDEALLY -- to account for its presence.  Only the opposite 
occurs: the autonomous emergent winds up engaged in being-toward-death, 
a struggle to account for his or her existence, coupled with a 
repressive sense of responsibility toward the other.


Edward



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