Thinking/Writing in the stream of
[beginning
with and repeating “Bird Song”…no fewer than 7 times!!!]
Without
commentary I want to share the fearless and brilliant piece of writing that is
Alain Badiou’s first paragraph from the Prologue to his Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism:
“Strange
enterprise. For a long time, this figure
accompanied me, along with others: Mallarmé, Cantor, Archimedes, Plato,
Robespierre, Conrad…(and this without venturing into our own century). Fifteen years ago, I wrote a play, The Incident at Antioch, whose heroine
was named Paula. The change of sex probably
prevented too explicit an identification.
For me, truth be told, Paul is not an apostle or a saint. I care nothing for the Good News he declares,
or the cult dedicated to him. But he is
a subjective figure of primary importance.
I have always read the epistles the way one returns to those classic
texts with which one is particularly familiar; their paths well worn, their
details abolished, their power preserved.
No transcendence, nothing sacred, perfect equality of this work with
every other, the moment it touches me personally. A man emphatically inscribed these phrases,
these vehement and tender addresses, and we may draw upon them freely, without
devotion or repulsion. All the more so
in my case, since, irreligious by heredity, and even encouraged in the desire
to crush the clerical infamy by my four grandparents, all of whom were
teachers, I encountered the epistles late, the way one encounters curious texts
whose poetry astonishes.”
Inspiring
writing! I’m particularly taken with his
description of the epistles as exemplars of familiar classic texts “their paths
well worn, their details abolished, their power preserved.” Details
abolished, power preserved……YES!!!
Yesterday
the commentary extracted 6 Sentences on Learning from 12/22/04, then distilled
from the meditation the dialectic of the art
work actualized in the praxis/techne
of learning. On 12/23 this art work is described as an “artistic
performance” and, further, identified as operating through the Kierkegaardian
algorithm of faith, which is to say, an enactment of the risk-taking leap, which I described on 12/12/14 OPM
(296(297) in the following way:
“With Kierkegaard we encounter a return to the sentiments of
earliest ‘philosophy’ of the Christian era that is organized around the absurdity of faith: credo quia absurdum est. (Read him on Paul, and being the apostle!) Anguish and absurdity are twin modalities, and
encompass the experience of faith as passion. The sublimation of this passion through
music-making philosophy is precisely what we encounter with the spirituals,
sorrow songs, the blues: I suffer, I sing, it is absurd, yet I feel the force
of grace. Yet, here, I read Paul as
catholic, which is to say, as one who has the aspiration of gathering together
communities of faith, and whose aspiration is an enactment of the very calling
he is receiving: he is an apostle, conveying the universal (catholic), and thus
relaying or delivering the message of the always already present Holy
Spirit. Being the apostle (to borrow Kierkegaard’s language) in this case
is enacting the role of conveying the force of the universal gathering spirit (koinōnia);
making proclamations (writing letters) that gather communities.”
Learning as art work on 12/23/04
is the artistic performance as “an improvisational Leap into the learning
community. The dialectic of openness
unfolds with this Leap and the reception of the learner as newcomer, as
beginner, as artist, as the bearer of novelty, the innovative and
improvisational.” (BL 321) Learning
is art work; the work as performance art – today, specifically,
music-making dialogic philosophy…but not just
what we might have in mind when we imagine the enactment of this work in a
seminar room, or what studio of learning we might imagine; indeed Rocha’s Late to Love is a recent example of
music-making philosophy (and I include my own contribution – the Palabras -- as part of the album); so too Coltrane’s Meditations (hence, I invite the reader
of my paper “Learning by Jammin” to
listen to Meditations while reading
my papers – in the same way I am asking readers of this blog to listen to the
GD performances I am streaming while writing my commentaries, for those
performances are yet another example of music-making philosophy; as I wrote on
OPM 300(301) 12/16/14: “But first and foremost I listen
for inspiration in the literal sense of experiencing that unequalled energeia of the live performance
galvanize my spirit; the live
performance breathe the very force of koinōnina into my heart, mind, my soul. There it is…I’ve said it…” Learning as performance art…be careful,
because this is exceedingly and purposefully misleading credo quia absurdum est
…and here the question concerning the
‘positionality’ of the phemenologists [nb:
need to find that place where Heidegger talks about the shifting and restless
movement of the phenomenologist]: in
what sense is the description enacting what is being described…when what is
being described is an ontological situation such as learning? The question
arises from the encounter with the description of learning as an
“improvisational Leap.” Of course, this
is what is happening in the experiment, with the phenomenological mediations
and with the commemoration of those original and originary daily musings.
-- [nb:
and only today #306/306 do I finally identify the work of B&L 2.0 as the re-collective gathering of originary thinking by
recognizing that ‘commemoration’ arrives from Latin commemoratio(n-), from the verb commemorare ‘bring to
remembrance’] --
Learning as Leap denotes something akin
to the willing non-willing or letting-be (gelassenheit)
that is demonstrated as art work. And
this work is mimetic because, on the
one side (the ground), it is technē and
thus the work of servitude, which is not to say duty; duty is much too weak a
term to describe the force that compels the technē of learning. And this leads me
to qualify the description of the Leap as not so much a ‘jump’ but a ‘sudden,
abrupt change or transition.’ Leap not
as verb but as noun. Hence the Leap of
learning is analogous to the leap of faith, which describes the revolutionary
moment, the conversion. Learner appears
with the Leap, and learning demonstrates the Leap insofar as it is an
expression. “The artwork appears as the
(re)presentation of Being’s offering, the giving of existence and the
preservation of peace. The artistic
performance conveys and points to Be-ing as dis-persing and dis-pensing. The
artistic performance is a re-collection with this dispersal, this originary and
ceaseless dis-pensation of difference.”(BL
321)
Ceaseless
dis-pensation of difference. [original appearance
of ‘ceaseless nativity’?] If so, more
thinking/writing is called for on ‘difference’ vis-à-vis ‘nativity’. Is difference (or diff’rence) a qualification
of nativity, and if so in what sense?
Does it serve to show nativity as the eternal recurring break qua
interruption that preserves the possibility for the new (natality)? [the actuality of new (natality) is signified
by ‘excess,’ so that ‘diff’rence’ and ‘excess’ are stand in dialectical
relation, one with the other] And in
what sense is diff’rence dispensed? Spatially via the Open, or temporally via kairos (the interruption of the
chronological)? “The work of art appears
in/with the abode of freedom preserved by Being, whose dispersal is always
already ‘ahead’. As preceding, Being’s appearance is a showing, a revealing, a
clearing.”(BL 321)
Being’s “preceding” is ‘ahead’ and at
the same time ‘before’, and to think this demands a Leap that conveys into the kairological. And the thinking that conveys this is the performance that can indicate “Being’s
processural unfolding” (e.g., “Bird Song” form 12/27/82 circa 4:38). The learning community is the place where
Being makes a precedent , where the Leap
is happening. Being’s preceding breaks
into the world by setting a precedent.
Hence, the ceaseless nativity as interruption, as diff’rence. “’There’ in the learning community…’There’
in/with this gap, emerges the spectacle of alterity, freedom displayed with the
play of difference and the enactment of possibility…The
performance…(re)presents the quasaric appearance of Being…”(BL 321)
One important correction to be made on
this day, ten years later, as I think
the positionality of phenomenological description and the enactment of the Leap
in the meditation and the commentary that commemorates it: on 12/23/04 I wrote/thought “learning, as
poetic dialogue, re-collects the spectacular display of Being. But this re-collection
is not a mimetic ‘imitation,’ but a being-with this dynamic process, a
captivation and seizure, a raptures that gathers and enjoins in this
process. Learning…is the attunement with
this seizure, the wide-awakeness with Being’s spontaneity and improvisational
performance…”(BL 321) Today I want to either qualify or replace the
claim that learning, as re-collection, is not
mimetic ‘imitation’. The matter at hand
is ‘imitation’ and whether or not this denotes ‘fabrication’ or ‘enactment’…and
with this distinction I am brought back to the anachronistic yet pressing
question concerning ‘authenticity’.
‘Fabricate’ stands as the other enables us to understand the artistic ‘work’ of the learning community
as ‘authentic’ (bearing natality, from
diff’rence). ‘Imitation’ is the term
that can signify ‘fabrication,’ the ‘inauthentic’ expression that falls short
and is thus ‘unoriginal’ thinking.
3.0 (Monday, Portland, ME). Badiou's writing is indeed inspiring. Reminds me that I need to just keep writing...authentically and without contrivance!
ReplyDeleteSeems as if there is significant continuity from the last months of writing B&L and "LEARN." "Learning is art work; the work as performance art – today, specifically, music-making dialogic philosophy…." continues to be central to my description of philosophical learning. Here are fragments in "LEARN" that disclose that continuity: "In response to the muse who called out to him and said “make music and work at it,” Socrates bequeathed two legacies: first, the discovery of a location for philosophical study, i.e., the place of solitude; second, the establishment of the arrangement (faithful interpretation of a text) as a form of philosophical writing. The précis is the legacy of that form of philosophical writing." AND: "Rather than being a “professor” the philosophical educator is primarily a listener, but not a spectator. Her role is to ensure that the students rehearse interpretations, thereby performing an improvisational discussion and, in the Socratic sense, are thereby making music together as a community of learners. The philosophical educator will “conduct” the rehearsal through listening, which is to say, by remaining apart from the “music making,” yet responsible to ensure the discussion, while motivated by the principle of insufficiency, is inspired by the principle of kalon (beauty). Listening for learning, and learning by listening, the teacher is attuned to the sound of philosophical discussion." AND: "The teacher is the conductor of this polyphonic dialogue, and her conducting is one of allowing the improvisational circulation of what is said and heard. She conducts a discussion that is a non-linear, non-teleological event, an improvisational performance that could not be scripted in advance and cannot be repeated. A philosophical discussion is a rehearsal, trial or practice, and sounds like a musical jam session. The performance of discussion is not doing anything if by doing we understand producing something tangible, something that endures beyond the discussion. They are not doing (making) but performing and thus enacting freedom, which “appears in the world whenever such principles are actualized; the appearance of freedom, like the manifestation of principles, coincides with the performing act.” Being-with others, present in dialogue, the students “are free…as long as they act, neither before nor after; for to be free and to act are the same.”