Formerly, in these meditations and Being and Learning, there is the rhythm of epic (‘Homeric’)
repetition and then there are the abrupt shifts that mark a transition, of sorts; because the material taken up in the meditation that marks the
shift has actually been taken up before. The relation between the two -- repetition and sudden shift-- can be described as swing, or syncopation. The
meditation from this day ten years ago represents a sudden shift, with the return to Heidegger's citation of Holderlin's poem hymn "Mnemosyne." The shift moves back into "the movement toward thinking, which occurs when humankind is drawn into what withdraws, i.e., pulled into the essential swaying, we enter into a dialogue...and find ourselves in the space where truth emerges..."(10/27/04 BL 253) I want to move with this shift, this withdrawal backward that is at the same time a thrusting outward and upward, by way of recording a note that I plan on returning to in a year from now when I review these ‘field notes’ (as I call them in my sabbatical application)....
…there
is an expression of Heraclitus’ “War is the ruler of all things”, which I
combined with another fragment to make the aphorism: thinking is the subject of war. (OPM 252/53
10/25/14)
follow
the common (koinon) ἕπεσθαι τῷ
κοινῷ
hepesthai tō
koinō.
(Heraclitus, 91)
We
must know that war (πόλεμος
polemos) is common to all and strife
is justice (dike eris), and that all
things come into being through strife necessarily. (Heraclitus, 44)
(10/26/14)
When
I was working through the war fragments in Heraclitus over the past two days and
arrived at the extended version of 44 that includes dike eris (strife is justice), I couldn’t help but think about “that
eternally recurring place of tragedy and redemption, the second floor balcony
in front of room 306 of the Lorraine Motel.”(OPM 249/50, 10/22/14) That is, I couldn’t help but think about the
relationship between the disruptive counter-hegemonic movement of the learning
community, lead by the sage who calls out and gathers by saying something, and the relationship
between MLK, Jr., the movement he lead, the blues, and justice. This thought came back to me when I was
talking today with Samuel Rocha about his current project that is tying
together, with much tension, too many events to list here. During the conversation he spoke twice of a
move he was making through ‘King’. When
he referred to a formative event early in ‘King’s life' I presumed this ‘King’
was Martin Luther. Only after the second
reference did I realize it was B.B., sage of Beale Street. Here is not the place to take up the relationship
between Beale Street and the Lorraine Motel.
I’ve indicated a possible way I will explore that relation, with my point of
departure a graphic art portrait of Howlin’ Wolf. [The thorn encircled heart of
Howlin Wolf, with its outward and upward
transcending flames; Cf. OPM 10/19/14] I
would think the relation as a crossroads of a different kind; the cross, the
passion, the horizontal and vertical moments of transcendence. Here I want to make mention of another path
of thinking, one that would think the polemos
as basileus (king, or king of
kings). And the figure of MLK helps me
to think the sage as basileus who
reigns through polemos in order to
bring forth justice. It is a strange
reading, for sure, but one that responds to the common criticism that MLK's persona has been softened by our contemporary sensibilities and what some cultural
critics call the general ‘war fatigue’ that the populace suffers. Despite, or inspite, of this fatigue MLK was a warrior for justice. And he
lead a struggle, full of strife (polemos).
Dike
eris (justice is strife) only makes
sense as an existential implication of the alethiealogical movement of Being, which is moving through
the play of presencing/absencing. To
follow this is to recognize that disclosure and presencing happen via
breaking. The hardest apprenticeship
(Schürmann) is to learn how to follow the movement of Being. If human legein follows Logos then it is a legein (saying, saying something) that
is essentially a breaking of silence. “…the
song crashes over the learner like a wave that throws and carries.” (10/27/04 BL 254) But this breaking, which leads
to making (formation, gathering, bringing together), that manifests through legein is not reduced to the ontological, but, rather to the
political. This is the way I
understand Heraclitus citation of dike
(justice). Of course, within his
worldview justice was pre-anthropic, so that following the common course of
things was the way of letting justice appear in the anthropic. Even if this is the case, there is a
specifically human appearance of
justice, and, what’s more, a specific place for this appearance. Following Arendt’s category, I want to call
this place the ‘political’ (as opposed to politics, which may or may not be
what happens in the political…and suspect the latter to be the case!). Further, the letting be of justice
happening within the political follows the common course of things; which is to
say, follows the rule of strife and struggle.
In sum, King Martin Luther is the proper sage of the learning community
(koinonia); leader of those gathered
together in the fellowship of the struggle that makes way for the appearance of
justice. Douglass’ maxim: no peace
without justice, is coupled with the co-arising of peace and freedom. This is not a teleology. It is not: first justice then peace. Rather, justice, peace and freedom all co-arise
together in the political (public realm) under the rule (king, basileus) of war (strife, struggle, polemos). Neither peace, freedom, without justice, which is struggle. This is the trinitarian lens through which we can perceive the dialogic koinonia of the learning community. Perhaps the essential sway is a dialectical Logos ?
“To hold sway is ‘to rule,’ ‘to
govern,’ and to ‘rule’ over and dominate. The sway of the essential sway is the
movement of dialogue, the swinging that shelters and spares the free play of
the improvisational.” (10/27/04 BL 254)
3.0 (Sunday, Portland, ME). A few weeks ago when I was editing "LEARN" I followed up on a citation I made to Derrida, which wasn't really a citation but an adaption of deconstruction as an interruption of a system.
ReplyDeleteMy description of the deconstructed library as the place where the open text is discovered is inspired by Derrida. So when I followed up I realized I needed to study his early work, "Voice and Phenomenon," which Leonard Lawler, in his excellent introduction, reminds us is a reversal of 'phenomenology.' Lawler's introduction is the most succinct overview of Derrida's project that I have ever encountered. And it is also exhilarating for me to read because so many of the moves I make in the book, which is a combination of years of study, intuition and an aesthetic sense of what sounds/feels like a groove. Below I will share two important fragments from his introduction that are especially relevant to "LEARN." Here, however, I want to recite the fragment from the OPM from this day, which also resonates with Derrida's project: "Formerly, in these meditations and Being and Learning, there is the rhythm of epic (‘Homeric’) repetition and then there are the abrupt shifts that mark a transition, of sorts; because the material taken up in the meditation that marks the shift has actually been taken up before. The relation between the two -- repetition and sudden shift-- can be described as swing, or syncopation." [The resonance is heard below] Now I want to make it clear that I am not celebrating an achievement of mimesis or loyalty test. I'm neither a scholar of Derrida nor a Derridean. I am, generally, heavily influenced by Heidegger and the project that was taken up in France by those, like Derrida, who were directly or indirectly inspired by Heidegger and/or produced their own modernist philosophical writing. I'm exhilarated because "LEARN" seems anchored within that tradition in more ways than I realized. And that realization is motivating me as I begin, tomorrow, the edits of the second draft!
3.0b (Fragment from Lawler intro to Derrida "Voice and Phenomenon") - "Let us continue with the idea of deferral to infinity. The trace refers back to this absence, but it continues to come back and function. The trace really resembles a memory. Insofar it continue to function as a memory does, it also resembles something written (an outline, a drawing, a tracing), and Derrida indeed calls the movement of temporalization 'archi-writing.' The repeatability to infinity of the retentional trace, which defers the final institution of an identity, is alike a book, a book always available for other readers and therefore other readings. The name of 'supplementarity' evolves out of the written book always available for other readings. The 'book' seems to be produced by someone who had certain thorught present to himself, thoughts that he may have exerenalized in speech to others. But since human thought is finite -- the authors and his interlocuters have died -- the 'book' refers to that living but now dead author; it functions as a reminder of those thoughts that were present in the past."(Lawler, xxiv)
ReplyDelete3.0c (Another fragment from Lawler intro to Derrida "Voice and Phenomenon") - "...deconstruction demonstrates that the self-knowledge of the 'I am' is only apparent. The lack of cognitive foundation allows deconstruction to unmake the metaphysical decision for presence. In other words, it reopens the question of the meaning of being. Or, more precisely, deconstruction aims at hearing the question in a new way, in asking an 'unheard-of-question.' Hearing the question in an unheard-of way makes us recognize that this question has no absolute answer, that every answer given to it is inadequate, that every answer will find itself opposed by another possible answer. Hearing the question in an unheard-of way is supposed to make us exit the enclosure and experience the insecurity of the question."(Lawler, xxvii). Borrowing from Blanchot's borrowing of Bataille, I describe the affirmation and response to what Derrida calls the "insecurity of the question" of Being as the enactment of the principle of insufficiency (incompleteness).
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