Bataille, sex and truth

April 23, 2009

I would like to write about sex and truth, but since I don't think that my ideas would be interesting enough to capture the attention of even an imaginary reader, I will attempt first of all to explain Bataille.

George Bataille was an unsual fellow. He studied ancient literature or something hard-nosed-academic but he wrote books about, among other things, sex. Sex? What does that mean? Before I attempt to explain Bataille's answer, there is a more mundane question as to whether "sex," refers to the act or the nouns: the male sex and the female sex. Alas, while the question appears mundane, and the two meanings of sex very different, in my limited understanding of Bataille, a French man, he does not make it clear which of these two meanings he is referring to. I am English. I like to be plain speaking, unlike those Frenchies. But in the following explanation of sex according to, my understanding of, Bataille these two meanings are not clearly separated.

Bataille says something like this...

An amoeba, or other non-sexual existence, can reproduce by division and has no clear beginning or end. On the other hand, sexual beings die. Our cells reproduce, but as sexed beings, we are individuated; we cannot just keep on going like an amoeba. Death and individuation is a product of sex. If we were not sexed, we would live forever, reproducing our selves, giving birth to ourselves, regenerating our cells and our being, ad infinitum.

The existence of sex is the basis of our individuation. However, Bataille claims, the act of sex allows us to return to our unindividuated state, and experience our 'death' as an individual. As mentioned above, this argument seems to confuse the state with the act of sex. Even if our sexual state is responsible for our individuation, it does not necessarily follow that the sex act should result its dissolution. At the same time it is persuasive. It seems reasonable to admit that "sexual union" is more than a metaphor, and that in humans at least (with all that intertwining, banging, bonking and penetrating) something unifying is going on. Moreover, drawing on the French word for "orgasm" "le petit mort" or little death, Bataille argues that in sex we experience our death, the dissolution of our individuality. Less that we unite with our partner, more that it is not only the desire, but the very existence of both partners which is extinguish at sexual climax.

To sum, sex is a “little," or a little like, death. It is a return to an unindividuated state. I find myself very persuaded by this argument and what little I have to say is only a footnote.

I was reading a book, which is very popular in Japan about evolution and love. The author was trying to persuade readers that humans are attracted to those members of the opposite sex who seem most likely to be able to ensure the continuation of ones genes. There is nothing new in this theory and there is quite a lot of research to support it. I hear of studies purporting to show that men are on average more interested in young fertile women with broad fertile child-bearing hips and big fertile breasts, and women fancy men with strong protective bodies and big baby backing bank balances. So at first glance, those evolutionary psychologists are right: mojo merges with Darwin, our libido jives with our genes.

Perhaps it is because I am in Japan, the land of sleek, slender ladies, or because I am not heterosexual enough to appreciate the buxom, that I am not entirely convinced. Here in Japan, the ladies even go so far as to wrap themselves in layers of stiff fabric, called kimono that accentuates their sexy hipless-ness, and small, or at least non-bovine, bosoms. Japanese sex is sexier precisely because the procreative aspect is hidden. Wherefore Darwin-san?

In the light of the Japanese experience, is it really true that we want what our genes need to win the evolutionary baseball game?

Which brings me to the topic I wanted to write about: truth.

Truth is that which connects volition and action. When a person has the truth, then they are able to act in accordance with their volition. When they are deceived, and when they are in the dark, they are floundering.

One upshot of sex is that people want to be found attractive. This means that we want to behave in accordance with other people’s volition. Furthermore, since it is difficult to know what other people's volition is, it is very difficult to get to the truth. As the bangles song, "If he knew what she wants, he'd be giving it to her" highlights, it is very difficult to know what she/he wants. The existence of sex, the state, leads to a lot of untruth flying around. And that, it seems, may be its evolutionary advantage. The existance of sex brings untruth into the ball park of evolution.

To be continued.

Susan Boyle

April 21, 2009

I cry when I watch Susan Boyle's audition for Briton's Got Talent. It was very well done. Her choice of song was excellent. The story of a woman who dreamed a dream only to find it torn apart seemed to have been written by the lady herself.

The producers too set her up for a surprise. They filmed her stuffing sandwiches into her mouth. They gave her no advice on self presentation. While the two goons backstage acted out our better conscience, the audience and judges laughed derisively, and all but groaned at her self-introduction. They asked her questions designed to make a fool out of her aspiration, including, "Why hasn't it worked out so far, Susan?" as if to say, "Just look at yourself, granny, how do you expect to be a famous singer looking like that?"

And here lies the rub. Susan Boyle does not look at her self. Her friendly eyes look only outwards, at us the viewers. She is about as ego-involved in her body as my dog. She has a body, of course and she knows she has one, but she also knows it does not matter. For one reason or another, she has taken little interest in how it, her body, looks at all. Life she knows, 'is not a beauty contest.'

This is why I think we admire her so much. There are other not so beautiful singers. Mama Cass, of the Mamas and Papas, was big. Ella Fitzgerald was not all that hot to look at. Even that Canadian has a pretty weird nose. With a "workover" would Susan Boyle look all that different from her heroine, Elaine Page(58)? Truth be told, Ms. Boyle does not care.

I think that it is less the shock of "the fat lady sings," but the shock and awe at the disparity between the complete lack of narcissism -- the complete absense of visual self love -- and the depth of love, the longing, the hope that is expressed in Susan Boyle's voice. She sang a dream of being loved, of deserving to be loved, of being lovable. She sang that she still believed, even in the face of knowing that it is impossible.

We forgive this kind of, phono-vocal self love. We even approve of a one sided identification with only the phonological aspect of self -- indeed it only the voice that is deemed capable of being a self. Susan Boyle is not a fat lady singing, she is a song. It is as if her soul has arrived on stage, demanding, claiming her right to be loved and accepted.

A lot of commentators say that the message is "Don't judge the book the its cover!" I think that her message is a little more extreme; there is a book which has no cover. Ms. Boyd is living proof; soul exists. It is there for all to witness, the light and the life, the ressurection, on Youtube.

Two types of reflection and TimeCrimes Los Cronocrímenes

April 21, 2009

The little Prince travels the solar system to find that "adults" are all caught up in one thing or another. I guess I am caught up in a theory, that we think in words and images, and that we exist at their intersection. It is from that (Lacanian??!) perspective that I watched Los Cronocrimenes. It seemed to me that the film articulated the stages of Lacanian development of the ego. I believe that we have a self by virtue of the fact that we reflect upon ourselves, or represent ourselves in two ways - visually and linguistically.

Contra this claim, a Russian thinker, in common with many Western perspectives, claims that the animal mind is like a mirror, and as a mirror it can not reflect itself. Whereas the human mind, has another mirror, that of language, it is our ability to mirror ourselves, name ourselves in language that enables us to have self reflexivity, a self.

The Russian is drawing our attention to two types of self relection - that of a mirror and that of language, and yet encouraging us to forget one of them. The mirror of language, he argues, is powerful. It allows the looking glass mirror to function. The visual mirror is nothing on its own. Even animals have them. The ability to reflect visually is a given, something that requires no art, no culture. Visual reflectivity is a nothing, a blank sheet, a un-ploughed field, that must wait for the plough of language.

Is this fair? First of all, it is far from clear to me that animals do have the power of visual reflection. The metaphor of the mirror for animal consciousness has two prongs of meaning. Like a mirror, animal consciousness is something quintessentially and entirely visual; a vision is not the thing itself. Just as things reflected in mirrors are not really in the mirror, so the things in animal consciousness are not really in the animals mind. In other words, the mirror is a metaphor of the image. Not wishing to argue with Bishop Berkeley, let us say so far so good. Animal minds are not dark. Animals too have a visual field, a more or less multicoloured disk. Secondly however, a mirror is something that not only displays, but also bends light such that viewers can (if they have language at least) see themselves in mirrors. Is this something that animals can really do?

First of all let us consider the physical technology required for visual reflection. We have mirrors, things made of glass or polished metal. Animals too have at least the occasional water surfaces. In addition however, humans have the ability to draw to mind images from other perspectives than their own. Just as I can imagine what I would see were I to stand up and look down at the road below my 3rd floor window, I can also imagine what I would see were I to be in the position of the mirror and looking at my face. My consciousness can, as it were, bend light. Now it seems to me that, not only are animals not too good at making looking glasses, but also they may not be able to do the perspective taking required for visual reflection.

I am suggesting that a lot of animals do not "REflect" at all. The ‘flect;’ they just see. When we put mirrors in front of them, something moves in the mirror that they are able to recognise as an animal of their kind. But it is at least not proven that they are able to take any perspective but their own so even if they had a "name" for themselves, they would be unable to realise that the name also applies to that other animal in the mirror.

To cut to the chase, it seems to me that the Russian is being unfair. He should recognise that there are two forms of reflection going on, and that humans are good at both of them. And it is the coexistence of both that allows humans to 'see' themselves. Both abilities are required, there is a double return, a double feedback loop.

The Spanish film Los Cronochrimes, is about a man that goes back one our in time twice to visit himself. The first time came a bit of a shock, to the protagonist and to the viewer, but when the hero demands to return to the past again so that there are two doubles of his original self, is this not excessive? On the contrary. It was the double return of Hector that made the film resonate for me as an allegory of growing up. There were other hints that made me think my interpretation was not merely capricious.

At the start of the film Hector is rather young, and visual. He likes to sit and watch, though his house is only partly decorated. Though he does not appear to work, his wife offers her body to him. He is like a baby. This is in sharp contrast to the more commanding Hector that the hero becomes by the end of the film.

Furthermore, the first time-slip of Hector is so spatial. In both cases we presume Hector travels back in time the same amount, but in his first time-slip, Hector merely seems to jump accross space, to take a perspective looking back at himself, with the same binoculars from the other side of a divide. This first bandaged, cloaked Hector is only a pair of eyes outside of himself. He becomes a perspective upon himself from without. Using only his scary gaze he manages to force the second hector to follow the same path. But he makes a mistake. He attempts to return to his wife while still in swaddling, causing the woman to fall to her death. Utterly dissatisfied, Hector decides he must return to the past again. This time, he takes control. We learn that through the machinations of the time machine, the second double of Hector, or Hector #3, has scripted the actions of the first too. The volition powering the Hectors is no longer the gaze, but the voice of Hector #3. Hector #3 has determined what each of the other Hectors should do in advance. Finally, he manages to make another woman look like his wife, having her fall to her death, and ends the film very much older, less philandering and in charge, having returned to himself twice.

My only disappointment is that rather than two travels in a time machine, the first doubling might have been achieved by more spatial means.

As Derrida points out however, we Westerners tend to see the possibly of doubling ourselves as a process of differance.