Subject: Re: Jouissance in the Dark
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 01:58:55 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)



On Tue, 24 Oct 2000 15:01:30 -0400 OY <oyojonigirl-AT-netzero.net> wrote:

> At 09:16 AM 10/23/00 -0400, you wrote:
> >Incidentally, what I find to be revealing in BtW is the *miracle* at the end,
> >which contrasts with the 'real world' style of the film. Without the miracle,
> >which from a modernist perspective appears absurd, then the film loses all of
> >its critical fitness.

>          Except that if "God" is going to perform this miracle anyway, 
> couldn't she have saved Emily Watson's character's degradation by just 
> fixing the husband and her coming to her senses and leaving him?

This is what I think is interesting about the film. God is, unquestionably, 
barbaric. However, in my reading of the film, I offer up a slightly more 
provocative interpretation of the ending, with the "bells ringing from heaven." 
I argued, when Chris and I debated this, that, in fact, the bells did not 
exist. Jan, and the other men, heard the bells because that's what they wanted 
to hear (the bells justify Bess's 'sacrifice' (?) and make it ok - ie. they 
are an illusion - them en here them only to comfort their guilt and absolve 
them from taking responsibility) --> illustrating that masculinity is not only 
perverse, but psychotic as well.

>          Oh, god, this is the difficult issue of objective interests.  Do I  
as a feminist have a right, a duty, when seeing a women "enjoying" her  abusive 
relationship to intervene?

???	 OF COURSE!

There is an article by Renata Salecl on hate speech - which can be found in 
either the anthology Radical Evil or her book (Per)Versions of Love and Hate, 
where Salecl outlines and criticizes the fallacy of moral relativism - drawing 
on the work of Cornelius Castoriadis to illustrate her point. Her argument 
indicating that we should NOT "give up on our desire" simply because we aren't 
identical clones (my paraphrase). In short - if we uphold universal values, we 
should give up on them simply because someone doesn't share them.

And this falls on the heels of Chris's comments about subversion. By "forcing" 
the issue of universality - we actually *create* a universalist discourse.

>          But, do we drink Coke b/c our best friend is drinking Coke, or b/c 
> at some level we've become convinced that we too can look like the 
> beautiful others in the commercials?

I'm not conviced that we "believe" the commericals, I'm only conviced that we 
act like we believe the commericals: ie. I know that drinking Coke won't make 
me beautiful like the people of TV, and it might even rot my teeth... 
however... I'm going to drink Coke anyway...

It isn't that we know not what we do. The problem is we know *exactly* what we 
are doing and we're still doing it!

ken