Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 09:43:00 -0500 (EST)
From: Inna Runova Semetsky <irs5-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re:  Re: Provisional Remarks on the Question of Violence


Point well taken, unleeesh! However how wd you explain that in Tarot
layout swords may coexist with other suits? by the way, where the
interpretation that cups convey the idea of collecting comes from? No
arguing just interested what the source may be.
thks inna
 On Wed, 27 Jan 1999 Unleesh-AT-aol.com
wrote: 
> Re: violence and cuts : In the Tarot, Swords are only one suit of four. Thus,
> division of some sort, making a cut is seen as a necessary phase of things,
> but also : Collecting (cups, which hold or collect), Directing (wands, which
> direct or focus will), and Materializing (discs, which ground or actualize.)
>
> A cut needn't be violent necessarily. One can hack away with a sword in an
> attempt to mutilate an opponent, or a surgeon can make an incision to let pus
> ooze out of a sore and expedite healing. One can cut loose bonds as well. A
> tattoo requires a cut of sorts. And a pen -- does it "cut" the page or merely
> "impress" it? Where does an impression become a cut?
> 
> But even a pencil can become a weapon depending on the stance with which it is
> yielded.
> 
> And importantly, there is Procrustes' sword, which hacks anything which
> doesn't fit his one-size beds.
> 
> I would suggest that Rooney functions as a Procrustes, cutting down anything
> which doesn't fit his premade model or idea of the right and true.
> 
> Now if I were facing someone other than Procrustes, for example, I would be
> much more willing to engage in a give and take. But Rooney, like Procrustes,
> is an impersonal force, like an archetype, a machine whose only concern is to
> make its cuts, a fine system of blades snipping to reproduce the arche.
> 
> Now it may be true that in "the real world" one will have to deal with
> opponents like this, that one will face such adversaries, and thus the whole
> "know thy enemy" approach ... in this regard, one might visualize that this
> list has become similar to the X-Men's "Danger Room" at Professor Xavier's
> mansion, a room where all sorts of simulated opposition is thrown their way as
> a training ground. That's one vision. (But of course very different according
> to whether it's consciously played or unconsciously acted out unconsensually.)
> 
> Another vision is of an open creative space where judgement and criticism are
> suspended in order to follow certain progressions or leads.
> 
> Both of these visions, while interesting, disclude the other, for their
> conditions are different.
> 
> If this is a gym, a danger room, I want to know (well, it will probably morph
> and become all sorts of things over time) ... if we are all to be spontaneous,
> democratic Gurdjieffian Zen Masters to each other, batting each other on the
> heads, generating difficulties, let me know ... because even in those
> situations, every now and then the student fucking turns around and slugs the
> master a good one ... not that there are Any hierarchies here, no, but that
> these roles flicker on and off democratically across the space, perhaps ...
> 
> 
>