Foucault asks ‘how do we know there is a real essence’? All we see is someone who doesn’t fit into their prescribed role, then we postulate this must be because their essence is contrary to that role, but we do not really know this, we just postulate a cause.

All Foucault is saying is that we can’t know the nature of the essence if it exists or if it does not exist, or if the cause is something else, all we can know is the exterior ramifications through social interactions and maybe we should start there more, rather than from these essences.

If we do think about these essences, we must base it on the nature of someones relations and their changing identities, which implies that the essences or drives or whatever we want to call them, may not be as fixed as our previous notions of the self implies.

Perhaps it is harmful to have a fixed notion of someone’s essences?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0KJvxS8pzk&t=721s

Check out this hilarious documentary, it is about a guy named Mark Landis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Landis

He was diagnosed with a schizoid type disorder and has an amazing ability of being able to copy master pieces of works of art, which he then donates to galleries and museums across the USA, mainly in the southern states.

Critique and Non-Critique of Rituals

Is there an object of analysis for someone who studies rituals? We can’t say it is a ‘field’ of research as without ritual there would be no society. Rituals are everywhere. Let’s call someone who studies ritual an ‘analyst’, but let’s also consider an actor, someone who can actually play a role through experience of a ritual – this would mean he simultaneously knows the logic of the ritual and to some extent, must be able to analyse it.

You must be able to understand the norms of the ritual and how it unfolds into a ceremony, an uncertain boundary becomes clear between actor and analyst. Not all analyses are equivalent – there appears to be an essential difference between someone who participates properly in a ritual and someone who analyses the ritual without aligning with it – tries to explain it – giving an account of principle and purpose. For the participant must also develop a critical position.

There are many roles and choices to be made, even the ‘spectator’, here the reader of this text – in the volume outside the volume – find themselves in a similar situation. We have to mark the difference between critiques and place non-critique in a place which would no longer be opposed to or even exterior to critique – they are fundamentally the same.

Ceremony is the most appropriate and the richest word to bring together all the aspects and traits of the event. A critical moment or crisis unfolds however when we propose (deliver, offer and give) a reader-analyst, who may be among us, this work for the purpose of objectivity. The crisis of familiar procedure, academic and editorial.

The problem is in proposing, or offering, ‘we’ (us, or me) ask for the possibility of intervening, that is of ‘contributing’ which means bringing a tribute, freely, in the post/book/text.

The ritual, as it unfolds, risks losing its automatic quality – not conforming to the analysts first hypothesis. There is a second. Which? At a certain place in the system, one of the elements (‘I’ surely, even if the ‘I’ is not always ‘me’) no longer knows what it should do. It knows it must do incompatible and contradictory things, counter to itself, risking paralysis in this double obligation. Going-against and going-along-with the desire of of the particpants, supposing they had one desire, does not the hypothesis lead on to suppose that there was a single desire common to all or that each had in themselves only one non-contradictory desire? One can imagine that one participant, even the master of ceremonies themselves, may somehow desire the failure of the ceremony.

More, or less secretly, it goes without saying, and that is why we must tell of the secret, not reveal it, and, with the example of this secret, pass judgement on the secret in general. What is a secret? Even if this post in no way corresponds to a secret ceremony, one may imagine that there is no ceremony, however public and exposed, even if it is the secret of a non-secret, or a secret which is a secret to no one.

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[*]The first hypothesis – the ceremony would unfold normally
[*]The second hypothesis?
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Duty

If we were only to obey a ritual rule, gestures of ‘friendship’ and politeness’ would not be friendly or polite. This is supposed to be out of duty, one must not be friendly or polite out of duty. The proposition is against Kant. Would there be a duty to not to act out of duty? In what way would such a duty or counter duty indebt us? According to what? According to whom?

This is enough to give us vertigo, a hypothesis in the form of a question. Paralysis at the edge of an abyss. Doubtless it would be impolite to appear to be making a gesture, for example by responding to an invite, out of simple duty. It would also be impolite to respond to a friend out of duty, It would be no better to respond to an invitation or to a friend in conformity with duty.

The ‘ought’ of friendship, like that of politeness, must not be in the order of duty. As soon as it generalises a prescription of a single case – the gesture of friendship or politeness would be destroyed. It must not even take on the form of a rule, never mind a ritual rule.

It would be beaten by rules, or more precisely by norms.

Politeness and the sharp determination of this value relates to what enjoins to go beyond rules, norms and hence, ritual. This internal contradiction in the concept of politeness, is in all normative concepts, involves both rules and invention without rule. Its rule is that no one knows the rule, but is never bound by it. It is impolite to merely be polite out of politeness.

Here is a rule that one not act simply by conformity to the normative rule but not even by virtue of the said rule, out of respect for it.

What is at issue is the concept of duty. By speaking of responsibility in discourse, we are implying already that discourse itself must submit to the norms or to the law of which it speaks. A seemingly impossible implication, inescapable.

Problem

Let us proceed directly and without detour. One could and one should tackle a concept or a problem frontally, in a non-oblique way. There would be a concept and a problem, that is to say, something determinable by a knowing and which lies before you, there before you, in front of you, from which comes the necessity to approach from the front, facing toward, in a way which is at once direct, frontal and head on, what is before your eyes, your mouth, your hands and not behind your back, there, before you like an object pro-posed or posed in advance, a question to deal with, therefore quite as much a subject proposed, that is to say, surrendered and offered from the front, surely?

Problem also means in some respects, the excuse given to clear oneself of blame. It seems to designate a cover.

The classic metaphysical definition of responsibility is in ones own name and before the other, but one must take for another, in his place, in the name of the other or of oneself as the other, before another other, and an other of the other, namely the very undeniable of ethics.

We must go further, in the degree to which responsibility not only fails to weaken but on the contrary arises in a structure which is itself supplementary. It would be the duty above all ‘not to do it’ the ‘duty above all not to’ approach from the front the pro-positional form of the response, but even within the ‘question’ form of thought or language.

The non-response

Clearly, it will be possible to say, and it will be true, that non-response is a response. One always has, one always must have, a right not to respond, this liberty belongs to responsibility itself, that is, to liberty that one believes must also be associated with it.

Take an example. What example? This one.

If I respond to an invitation which is made to me to respond to a text collected here, which do me the honour or the kindness of taking an interest in certain earlier threads on the forum, am I not going to be heaping up errors and therefore conduct myself in an irresponsible way – by taking on false responsibilities? What faults?

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[*]I find it normal to subscribe and act as if I found myself at ease in a strange place. As if we are sitting at a table with 12 people who were speaking on the whole about ‘me’ or addressing themselves to ‘me’. ‘I’ who am both 12th insofar as I am part of a group, one among others, yet being thus split or redoubled, the 13th insofar as I am not one example among others in the series of the 12. What if I supposed I could respond to all of them? I could begin by replying? Thus disregading the scholarly and singular strategy of each of the 11 or 12 discourses? Speaking last? In introduction and conclusion, in 12th and 13th place am I not treating them like disciples? This is not the Last Supper!
[*]If I did respond I would put myself in the situation of someone who felt capable of responding, ‘he has an answer for everything’, he takes himself up to be answering each of us, each question, each objection or criticism; he does not see that each of the texts gathered here has its force, its logic, its singular strategy, that it would be necessary to reread everything. More reasons for not responding.
[*]From 1 and 2 we can glimpse that a certain non-response can attest to this politeness (without rules) of which we spoke above, and finaly to respect for others, that is to say, also to an exigency of responsibilty. Let’s wait and see, perhaps pride and self-satisfaction, the elementary confidence which it would take to answer when a good education teaches children that they must not answer back when grown-ups speak to them. No criticism, not to ask them questions.
[*]The respondant presumes that he can respond to the other and before the other because first of all he is able to answer for himself and for all he has been able to do, say or write. This would presume one knew all that one could do or say, or write. All the more reason not to respond. One cannot, one ought not to respond with nothing. The ought and the can are here strangely co-implicated. Perhaps. Let us wait and see.
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Continuing these four preceding arguments, I would avoid errors, erros of politeness, moral errors, by not responding elliptically.

If I took heed of all the reasons not to respond, I decided not to respond, then I would run into even worse risks! Which ones?

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[*]It looks like I am not taking anyone seriously, that I have an inadmissible ingratitude, culpable indifference.
[*]To exploit the ‘good’ reasons’ for not-responding to make use of silence strategically. Polite silence can become the most insolent weapon and the most deadly irony. Sheilded from criticism, yet feeling incapable of responding to the other and answering for oneself does not one undermine, the concept of responsibility, which is actually the very essence of the socius?
[*]Justifying one’s non-response by all these arguments, one can still refer to rules. Nothing could be more immoral and more impolite.
[*]Two contradictory faults appear: claim to mastery or to an overview, and the becoming-work of art – where serious, thoughtful discussion is expected!
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So, what are we to do?!

It’s impossible to respond here! It is impossible to respond to this question about the response! The logic is too overwhelming. It’s Aporia.

No question. No response. No reponsibility. Let us say that there is a secret here. There is something secret.

We speak of a secret without content, without content separable from its performative experience and tracing, no uttering, or propositional argumentation.

Let us say therefore: There is something secret. It would not be a matter of an artistic or technical secret reserved for someone – or for several.

There is something secret. It would not be a question of a secret as a representation dissimulated by a conscious subject, nor the content of a unconscious representation, some secret motive.

There is something secret. The being-there of the secret belongs no more to the private than to the public. It is not a deprived interiority that one would have to reveal, announce, confess, that is, to which one would have to respond by accounting for it. It’s not like a military secret that can be solved, if it can be solved, it is no longer a secret – it is only a problem.

There is something secret. It concerns neither that into which a revealed religion initiates us nor that which it reveals, namely a mastery of the passion, nor a learned ignorance, nor the content of an esoteric doctrine. The secret is not mystical.

There is something secret. But it does not conceal itself. Certainly, one could speak this secret in different names, whether one finds them or gives them to it. Moreover, this happens at every instant. It remains secret under other names and it is irreducible to the very name which makes it secret.

There is something secret. One can always speak about it, that is not enough to disrupt it. It remains silent, it will remain a secret. It does not say ‘I, the secret’. Whether one respects it or not, the secret remians there impassively, at a distance, out of reach.

There is no longer time nor place.

Without liking philosophy for its own sake, I like something about it, and which above all cannot be reduced to some aesthetic quality, to some source of formal pleasure, this would be in place of the secret. In place of an absolute secret. There would be the passion. There is no passion without secret, this very secret, indeed no secret without this passion.

Solitude is an important philosophical inquiry. Friedrich Nietzsche sees it as the ascetic ideal of the philosopher, Plato sees Odyessus as the ideal of the philosopher, as someone who wants to escape and be alone and face challenges that will lead them to knowing oneself.

Solitude can become an excess, reclusive being can be bad, but in some instances it is the only possible way to grow and so solitude is a neccessary practice for the formation of the subject, to become an individual.

The main reason is because of what Nietzsche calls ‘the herd’, the general collective of people in society who has laws, norms and customs that offer certainties, familiarity and ethics that seem like duty, or utility – the greatest good for the greatest possible number. This falls apart however whenever someone steps outside of these norms, laws and customs. Let’s not draw a distinction between laws and norms here, as some norms can work like laws if they are accepted by enough people.

Sometimes when these norms (unwritten rules that are implicit, enforced by unofficial agents) are violated, it is because of say, stealing, a person may hide from others because they know they will be caught and punished. There are other times however, where we can be ‘caught’ and ‘punished’ because we want to wear clothes that don’t fit ‘the norm’, a man wears what a woman is ‘supposed’ to wear, or we have political views that don’t correspond with the conventions of the society we are in.

We become excluded, yet at the same time included (although the better term is enclosed). We can’t be a part of the group until we stop doing what we are doing and if we don’t stop, force will be applied to ‘correct’ the differences that are considered abnormal.

The only way one can grow in these situations, is to run away, to escape and pursue what it is you want, but when we desire in this way, we actually reject, exclude and reject (abject) the part of ourselves that is part of that norm.

Sometimes we flee from persecution, but feel guilt and shame for leaving others behind. We may be seen as ‘snob’ for not putting up with what everyone else seems to think is their duty.

It’s like living in a parallel universe when this happens, we feel alienated  and it doesn’t matter what you try to do to come back and carry on with your life with other people, you are shunned. When you try to ask for reasons, you get knee-jerk reactions that are not even conscious to those explaining the reasons. Norms and customs are so deeply embedded sometimes that we don’t even recognise when we are enforcing them as they seem ‘normal’. Why would you question what is ‘normal’, after all?

Those who experience this exclusion and enclosure have a unique understanding of social conditioning and know there are steps one can take, as long as they overcome fear, that can free a person from these norms – that on a microcosmic scale, we enclose and confine ourselves, we self-police and this then extends into the macrocosm of society.

Solitude gives us space, a void, an emptiness, in which to expand who we are and it is an important meditative practice to have alone time in order to re-group and recover.

Most people suffer because they think they must be around other people all the time, that you are ill if you spend time alone, they never stop and think, an interesting term here is alexithymia – the equivalent of a shark that stops swimming and drowns.

I find solitude a very interesting subject, as you start to define boundaries between self and other, inclusion and exclusion, force, policing and the eventual return to the community. Solitude rejects authority and is a seeking practice.

I wanted to compare two concepts that seem to come to similar conclusions about meaning.

The first is from Hans Georg Gadamer (Hermeneutics):

In phenomenology, the ‘horizon’ is, in general terms, that larger context of meaning in which any particular meaningful presentation is situated. Inasmuch as understanding is taken to involve a ‘fusion of horizons’, then so it always involves the formation of a new context of meaning that enables integration of what is otherwise unfamiliar, strange or anomalous. In this respect, all understanding involves a process of mediation and dialogue between what is familiar and what is alien in which neither remains unaffected. This process of horizonal engagement is an ongoing one that never achieves any final completion or complete elucidation.

This concept comes most readily (the use of my language here is relevant) from Martin Heidegger in Being and Time. He speaks of what is present-at-hand or ready-to-hand also known as ready-made meaning that is for our use. Heidegger switches from the Cartesian (and for that matter the Platonist) view of ideas and thinking as being seen with sight faculties and instead speaks of consciousness in terms of hands, that thought and intentionality is always towards something in the world, not necessarily an object though, he’s talking about meanings and concepts.

Gadamer goes further with this ‘thinking hand’ and focuses on Human Understanding as it appears to itself, for itself. Understanding is always reaching for, grasping and then letting go. The Horizon it is in sets limits on what can be grasped, reached for or released, especially when looking at the historical meaning of language and signs, which is the main interest of Hermeneutics.

It is here that I will  turn to Michel Foucault’s epistemes:

However, if in any given culture and at any given moment, there is always only one episteme that defines the conditions of possibility of all knowledge, whether expressed in a theory or silently invested in a practice.

In a previous thread on epistemes, I understood this term to mean a collection of discourses within the time we are in, but each collection of discourses forgets the previous episteme, which places a limit on what can be understood and so a careful Archaeological and Genealogical ‘dig’ of ideas and concepts needs to take place in order for us to understand how epistemes change over time.

We are talking about how social norms and scientific knowledge has particular emphasis and goals, with criteria as to what it calls ‘true’ and ‘false’. Science itself is part of an epoch of epistemes. Thomas Khun has a similar notion of a Paradigm, whereby the (relatively) invariant dominant paradigm governing scientific research (supposing that one paradigm always is pervading, except under paradigmatic transition).

So comparing these two notions we can see how they have similarities.

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[*]They both explain an experience ‘within’ a particular time frame
[*]They both reveal limitations as to what can be understood
[*]They both validate Hermeneutics and Genealogy as specialist tools for dealing with this problem
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People come from different backgrounds and it is not possible to totally remove oneself from one’s background, history, culture, gender, language, education, etc. to an entirely different system of attitudes, beliefs and ways of thinking. People may be looking for a way to be engaged in understanding a conversation or dialogue about different cultures and the speaker interprets texts or stories based on his or her past experience and prejudice. Therefore, “hermeneutic reflection and determination of one’s own present life interpretation calls for the unfolding of one’s ‘effective-historical’ consciousness.” During the discourse, a fusion of “horizons” takes place between the speaker and listeners.

We could say this is relativism and that we are rejecting the pursuit of ‘absolute truth’ even if absolute truth is never possible. What Gadamer and Foucault also uncover however, is that there are no fixed essences to signs (probably moreso Foucault), only empty spaces that open up and reform signs, reshape them and transcend yet include themselves.

The better term to use for this type of investigation is perspectivism – this is a dirty word for Analytic philosophers, but it’s really the best possible way to attempt to grasp what is over the horizon, so to speak. Absolute truth may not exist, but history is something we can say ‘happened’ and that we can, by altering our point of view from a dominant authority (our everydayness), see another meaning and possibly grasp it in some way.