Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 02:50:38 +1100 (EST) From: Sebastian Gurciullo <sebtempo-AT-silas.cc.monash.edu.au> Subject: Re: A Preface to Transgression At 10:18 25-2-97 -0500, you wrote: >I find these comments very helpful. Let me try to restate parts of >the argument in my own words. First of all, what F means by "emergence >of sexuality" is its emergence as a central problematic in the discourse >of our culture. In "the Christian world of fallen bodies and of sin", >the sexual experience -- perceived in terms of "desire, rapture, penetration, >ecstasy, the outpouring that leaves us all spent" -- did not form a separate >problematic, but emerged into language as part of the discourse of mysticism, >where it was used to articulate experiences leading, "without interruption >or limit, right to the heart of a divine love". Thus, to something beyond >itself, and beyond ourselves. The emergence of a separate discourse of >sexuality, as a cultural "event", is coextensive with the emergence of >sexuality, and also philosophy, as something that "points to nothing beyond >itself". Dialectics, both as a method and as a postulated principle of >our universe, is based on the perception that each thing has something >beyond itself with which it enters into dialectical relationships, and >that through these relationships something new is produced, something >beyond both of them. In particular, dialectics' underlying view of man >is as worker -- in that it fundamentally regards man as shaped through >a process of struggle with his environment (in the widest sense). >The emergence of sexuality, in signalling the end of a perception >of sexual ecstasy as a form of uninterrupted communication that leads >"right to the heart of divine love", also signals the end of a perception >of language as being capable of communication which leads right to the >heart of truth, or even to anything outside itself. In this sense it >marks "the transformation of a philosophy of man as worker to a philosophy >based on a being who speaks". > >Do you think this is a somewhat faithful recapitulation? > > >-m > > Your recapitulation is very helpful. If I understand you correctly, transgressive experience as witnessed in sexuality/mysticism works on a principle of expenditure, a kind of sacrifice toward something beyond only to be replaced with a "nothing beyond" once sexuality develops an independent discourse (hence also to a communication that leads to nothing, and a human as a being who speaks). Dialectics on the other hand operates on a principle of accumulation, whereby something is brought into relationship with something other to produce a new thing and so on. Please excuse me if this has been awkwardly expressed. Do you think there is a relationship between transgressive experience, as expenditure, either as part of a wider mystical tradition or a later nihilistic(?) one, to negative theology and a refusal to conceptualize the absolute? Also, what relationship holds between these two different processes (for want of a better word), the transgressive and the dialectical: is it complementary, dialectical, undecideable, a non-relation, or what? I am still curious about the distinction you made regarding "finding" and "capturing" in the transgressive mode vs the dialectical. ~Sebastian
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