Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 15:17:39 -0400
From: Don Socha <socha1de-AT-cmich.edu>
Subject: RE: silence


Eric/all,

If I may interject, I would like to qualify this portrayal of 
my stance just now.  

Eric writes: 

>Don wants to privilege R.D. Laing over Lacan because the 
former seems to
>allow for a greater harmonization rather than fragmentation, 
but for me
>(invoking a little theology perhaps) I would like to recall a
>distinction the church fathers made between the 
preternatural delights
>of Eden and the supernatural delights of the New Jerusalem 
yet-to-come.
>According to a doctrine known as the felix culpa, or happy 
fault, some
>were even so bold as to argue that the fall was necessary in 
order to
>attain to a greater future state than would otherwise be 
possible.  

And Don says, 

I'm sure it is quite clear from things I've said before that 
if I am in favor of greater harmonization, it is not in the 
name of harmony but more in the name of working toward it, if 
that distinction isn't too fine.  

The reason I might lean more toward Laing than Lacan then has 
less perhaps to do with the fact that the former _allows_ for 
greater harmony than because the former will entertain or is 
concerned with nothing but fragmentation... Lacan treats us 
and is concerned more about our suffering than any 
possibilities for invention, and that is why I don't go to 
him for stimulating reading.  

No, I don't buy into everything Laing is about.  I myself am 
less interested in resolving the divided subject than 
allowing for new connections.  

So I too would stand with Lyotard in holding "that 
[absolutely] everything is an advent," or otherwise capable 
of enlightening us, if only through perpetual anamnesis.