Thursday, October 17, 1996
A General Note to my Reader(s):
In my text, I make use of four languages: English, Spanish, French and German. I am fluent in both English and Spanish, which is why I construct the bulk of my argument around those two. I use French and German to help in my own and my readers' understanding of the overdetermination of many of the terms used in this type of discussion, particularly when it takes place between individuals who have different native tongues. Within the text, foreign words are italicized and I indicate which language the word is with abbreviations: Sp for Spanish, Fr for French and Ger for German. Additionally, I make use of English cognates and/or etymology to point out some of the overdetermination of terms in my text, which is important in understanding the full content of my argument.
(K)nots
We are born into this world heads down, eyes closed and mouths open in a long silent gasp as we find ourselves thrust out of the throbbing darkness and into the blinding light. Eyes open; eyes close. (I(s) open; I(s) close. The subject/object is born in an instant.) In this moment, the strange wet, wrinkled body hangs in shocked suspense before the gasp rushes out in the long, protesting cry (Fr: cri) which is every person's first word. In this moment, we arrive; yet we were for nine months before. For those nine (like "nein" -- Ger for no) months, we were, and the w/hole time, were neither here nor there. Like this life before life, the "not" (or knot or nought or naught) resists comprehension. A cipher of plain letters and easy words secretes its meaning in the guise of casual conversation. While the meaning is pre-sent, we find it absent (away from perception).
What is this not, this absence? It is the thing whose self and being entire are completely existent only in the very fact of its non-existence. Is the not (Fr: ne) born (Fr: ne)? Or perhaps it is borne? The not neither is nor is not, but lies between, deceptive, the excluded middle that is the threshold, the verge. As such it cannot be born(e); it is a paradoxical circular description: The not is not, and this is how and what it is. We find it (not) in this tangle.
To write about the not, however, is to presume (to take up before or in front of) our own capabilities. These words inscribe a container, which negates this not by making it vorliegend (from Ger: be there). Unlike the thing, la chose, which is an absence shaped by presence, the no-thing collapses under the weight (wait: stay) of our words. The clay of Heidegger's jug contains the void for comprehension; but the not cannot be circumscribed and be made plain by that which is. It is "[s]hape without form, shade without colour/[p]aralysed force, gesture without motion..." (HM, lines 11-12). The not is wholly incomprehensible. It is entirely absent (Sp: absorto) and leaves us scratching our heads, ourselves absortos (from Sp: absorbed, amazed, ecstatic) by it.
To read St. John's poem, therefore, we must recognize each "not" as overdetermined: Each is both the not as I have considered above and the simpler negation of the verb to which it is attached. This is the tangle, the knot, which makes the poem interesting. Without the complication of layered meaning and intents (intense), it is a poem of dead-end nonsense. The apparent meaning is what Freud would call the dream-thought, while the layers beneath are the dream-content; we must beware "the mistake of treating the rebus [latent] as a pictorial composition [manifest]" (ID, 312).
Freud's conception of dream-work is useful as we attempt to understand the snarl of St. John's poem. Each descriptor of the dream in verbal or written language serves as a signifier, which is overdetermined. In order to get to the "truth" of the dream, we must explore the layered meanings available to us. Freud presents us with a tool to trace the loops of the knot (Sp: nudo). The printed words of the poem are the manifest content therein, and our wrestle with it serves as a path to its latent content. We must recognize, however, that this structure does not provide a release; it delivers us nowhere (now-here) so that we can shadow (shade) our own steps (Fr: pas) as we leave them on the face of reflexivity and paradox.
"To come to the pleasure you have not," then, is to arrive at an enjoyment that you are without (Sp: sin), while at the same time, finding pleasure in the lack itself. And to "...go by a way in which you enjoy not," is to follow a path that you find unpleasant, while simultaneously taking pleasure in the not. We can trail ourselves again to interpret similar lines in terms of knowledge. Thus, "to come to the knowledge you have not," is to learn something new, but also is to learn that you have nothing, in the sense that everything you have is nothing at all, that is, all you have is naught. Finally, to "...go by a way in which you know not," is to travel a new path and to follow your own ignorance. In this nudo of ne (from Fr: not; Ger: nicht; Sp: no) and rien (from Fr: naught, nothing; Ger: Null; Sp: nada; alternatively, rien is "they laugh" from Sp), Freud, Lacan and St. John answer the question that is not.
The nudo is also that which Lacan represented as the location of exchange in the network of the symbolic order: the node. Concurring with le nom du pere, the nudo is a fundamental component of the symbolic order. The nudo is the intersection and tangle of the elements of which the network consists. The threads (Sp: hilos ; also Sp for edge or blade) between nudos describe (write down, cut from, scratch an outline of) the relationship of all nudos to each other; the threads provide enough connection to bond the nudos and unite the structure, which creates stability, which in turn allows for the development of a language for communication between nudos. The structure must be recognized for several features: First, it is multiple; that is, it exists in and on many levels and magnitudes. Second, each network itself constitutes a nudo in a larger system of relations. Third, the nudos in a given network consist of threads of relation from all directions. This multi-dimensional structure is not simply spatial, but temporal, as well. Additionally, the hilo, which is the thread, can be translated as edge or blade, as of a knife, so even as they are the ties that bind, the hilos have the power to sever those ties. In the hilo, we encounter the delicate balance of the not in the knot.
Nudo also means nude, which indicates its correspondence with the conscious and the ego. It is without masks: unveiled and available. This is to say that in its form and content, it is manifest; the nudo is da (like "dad") and can be, to a large degree, conceived by the human nous, reason. Just as one might inspect an intersection of silk on a spider's web or envision a site on the World Wide Web as nudos which we find on hand, one can explore the ego as a complex but not inaccessible form. In this sense, it accords with the concrete, the clay walls of Heidegger's jug.
In the form of the nudo, therefore, there must be a void for that which is concrete to circumscribe. This void is la nada (from Sp: nothing, naught). We can recognize it immediately as corresponding with the real precisely as Heidegger conceived it. That is, la nada is la chose. No matter how tightly one ties the threads in a knot, there will be spaces between them in some places. These are the gaps, where Lacan finds (not) "something on the order of the non-realized," despite the fact that what is there is the real (FFCPA, 22). Insofar as la nada corresponds with the real, la chose, and the gap, it is the ever-present navel, the essential, inconceivable, ceaseless kernel of the dream. Where the nudo is structure and law, le non du pere, la nada is the cause, the continually withdrawing present, to which we have access only in its absence.
As the nudo agrees with the ego, la nada corresponds with the id and that which is present only in its glaring absence. It is the fort, whose lack we may perpetually attempt to negate, while in doing so we guarantee its everlasting removal from our senses. The reel cannot be an adequate substitute for the real, so we find ourselves frustrated by our limitations and the boundaries into which we are born (Fr: ne). For want of omnipotence, we must settle for the forms hollowed out by the real to provide us means of vague comprehension of the matter. We build ourselves a fort of fantasy and imagination, whose walls we think to be solid and tangible. Like Ernst with his reel, we live within our fort, on whose walls we hang delicate veils of control, security blankets, cathected objects, and close our eyes to the fragility of our castles.
Of course, the language of la nada and related concepts clearly indicates its gender: female. We spend our nine (nein: Ger. for no) first months, the for(e)gotten original experience, swimming (Sp: nada) in the sea (Fr: mere) of the womb, and upon expulsion into the for(e)given nudo, we struggle to recognize (to think again) and reconcile (to unite again) our known selves with all the different others that are pre-sent to us, even before we ourselves were actually participating. We confront the gap, the vagina, the inconceivable rent in the world of the womb, and (oops!) we are ejected (thrown out) from it to find ourselves subjected (thrown under) to the law of the father, which is somehow, mysteriously, shaped by the parole, or event, of the mother.
It is here, in this confusion (fused together beyond recognition) that we descend from the surface to the depths of the unplumbable, yet irresistible, navel where, if there were a bottom, we might find rest (repose, sleep, stoppage: death). In the chasm we encounter the enigmatic riddle (Ger: Ratsel) in whose language the rebus speaks. This language cannot be carried across (translated) into comprehension because the key is perpetually plunging farther, even as we may dive after it; we inherit, in deed from the father, the natural law of grave-ity (death), which guarantees we will always be behind the key, following its traces, no matter where we begin. The "...thing that oscillates in the interval [of the hole]" is our own psyche trembling in the face of la nada. We did not trim the walls of our fort with holes, yet we find them everywhere; our shelter is riddled with la nada. We cannot name what happens within the fissure, but we can be overwhelmed by it. Our tongues are tied even when we are at home (Ger: heim).
How then, can we begin? In the face of this paralyzing paradox, action seems futile, "yet, without the paradox, there can be no action" at all, not even the movement of life (MCR, 10/15/96). Where is the comfort in St. John's negative theology? "To come to the knowledge you have not/you must go by a way in which you know not," seems foolhardy and reckless; let us blindly leap head-first into the fissure until we strike it rich, or strike a rock, which is more likely. St. John leaves it to us to find God in the not. Any other conclusion in theological terms would indicate a profound misunderstanding of St. John. As he is neither the first nor the last to speak this language of negativity, however, we can decipher Freud and Lacan as speaking in theological terms of their own.
Freud's unplumbable navel, the id and the unconscious, Heidegger's thing, Lacan's real, cause and gap, all answer (Sp: contesten) the question of the not with an appropriate non-answer: no contest (Sp: no contesten). We are all lost at sea (Fr: mere: also mother in Fr.) together, swimming (Sp: nada) in the silence. Ultimately, the (non-)answer is not le non du pere, but the nada of the royal (Sp: real) absence of the mother. Herein lies God: we allow ourselves the comfort of a silent God because its very absence is proof of its presence. God, the not, la nada, exists outside of existence, beyond comprehension or discussion. We fa(u)lt(er)ingly stutter and stumble our way about a vague periphery, all the while knowing that no thing we say will be right. God does not, because if we can think it, God is more than what we think; God is not, for if we can see it, God lies beyond what we see. Any recognizable response would destroy everything. The comfort is that we cannot be certain whether God's absence is simply an absence that can be comprehended or if the absence itself is God, infinitely beyond our conception in every way. No response from God, therefore, affirms our conclusion that the power of God is beyond nous, while arousing our suspicion that, perhaps, God is w/hol(l)y in our heads -- the illusion to which we cling like babes. The absence of God's manifest presence is like the dream image that fulfills our repressed desires in proxy, while the falsity of the proxy frustrates us all the more.
The nudo of present, available terms allows us to communicate, or, at least, to think we do so. The nudo both anchors and binds us. We, as individuals within the network, are ourselves nudos in all senses: knots, nodes and naked. Despite all attempts at cleverness and wit, we are bare; no amount of make-up will cover us. The nada is the crack in our composure: we make ourselves up every morning and a single tear is enough to wipe out the thin coat of control. Let us close our eyes (I(s)) and play pretend: On our knees, we pray to God; no answer is the best and worst response for which we can hope: presence and absence intricately woven together. On our feet, we ignore the question, while in our dreams it insists on making an entrance, and our strange ticks and neuroses reveal us as the impostors (ones not in place) we are.
Why Oedipus and not Electra? Why a jug rather than a pole? Why a gap instead of a wedge? For Freud, Heidegger and Lacan, the most power lies in that which cannot be understood. Oedipus lusts after his mother; the jug is not the clay walls, but the emptiness they contain; the gap is where la chose quivers and pulsates. That is, the feminine, that which is most distant and constantly unattainable and uncomprehendable, is where the most tantalizing power throbs.
If God is la nada, and in St. John's text, God can be nothing else, we must recognize the theological implications of the dialectic between the nudo and la nuda. The nudo corresponds with the da, le non/nom du pere, the ego, structure and the symbolic order; la nada, on the other hand, concurs with the real, la chose, the navel, the cause and the id. Fundamentally, la nada is the fissure that splits before our very eyes. This given, the God who is presented by absence is not, in fact, the father, but rather the mother, the mat(t)er. We swim in the quiver of her chasm and infinite sea. We envision God to be masculine because that is the image that is accessible to us. The dream-thought coats (codes) the dream-content, but the structure secretes the dream-content: the tear drips from the curve of the jug/the tear provides a shadowed glimpse beyond the fabric of the veil. The feminine is ever-withdrawing, ever-beckoning; it teases us out to take the plunge into the inky mere. Freud, in all his misogynistic tendencies and habits, would certainly resist this analysis, as I imagine St. John and Lacan would do. Though he has no answer to the question of what a woman wants, Freud is far from, if I may be pardoned for making use of such blatant imagery, diving into this particular ocean. In his own analyst/analysand terms, however, such a resistance indicates a proximity to the truth: "...A doctor...had pointed out [the patient's] resistance to the patient, [thus bringing it to his awareness] and nevertheless no change had set in; indeed, the resistance had become all the stronger" (RRWT, 155).
But, he might find himself hard-pressed to "...replac[e] the effects of repression....neurotic relics....by the results of the rational operation of the intellect" (FI, 56), though it is likely he would insist my conclusion is not, in fact, the result of rational thought. At any rate, la nada, and all of its corresponding concepts reside in each individual within the unconscious, while the nudo is in the conscious; on the social scale, la mere is cause and le pere is law.
Finally, to return to the point of our departure, the structure of St. John's poem is clearly an interminable knot, a nudo all its own. Each of his "not"s can be taken as la nada or as a simpler comprehendible absence or as the basic negation of the action. As with any dialectical relationship, I consider these "not"s to be interrelated, themselves forming a knot in whose structure we ultimately run circles. Whether or not he would have accepted my conclusion that God, as la nada, is feminine, is unimportant; it seems clear that St. John would be in accord with me in making the parallel between God and the profoundly absent "not", the eternal "naught".
WORKS CITED
FI:Sigmund Freud. James Strachey, trans., ed. The Future of an Illusion. New York: W.W. Norton & Co; 1961.
ID:Sigmund Freud. James Strachey, trans., ed. The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: Avon Books; 1965.
RRWT:Sigmund Freud. James Strachey, trans., ed. The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud XII: Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through. London: Hogarth Press; 1958.
HM:T.S. Eliot. "The Hollow Men"
FFCPA:Jacques Lacan. Jacques-Alain Miller, ed. Alan Sheridan, trans. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis. New York: W.W. Norton & Co; 1978.
OTHER RESOURCES:
Books:
Sigmund Freud. James Strachey, trans., ed. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. New York: W.W. Norton & Co; 1961.
Sigmund Freud. The Uncanny. Bibliographical information unavailable.
Sigmund Freud. James Strachey, trans., ed. Totem and Taboo. New York: W.W. Norton & Co; 1950.
Jacques Lacan. Alan Sheridan, trans. Ecrits. New York: W.W. Norton & Co; 1978.
Mark C. Taylor. Altarity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1987.
Dictionaries:
Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield, MA: G&C Mirriam Co; 1973.
LangenscheidtUs German-English English-German Dictionary. New York: Pocket Books; 1970.
The Concise Oxford French Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press; 1980.
Vox New College Spanish and English Dictionary. Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Co; 1995.
Other:
MCR: Mary Catherine Rose, '97: discussions and proofreading
Mike Keim, '96: discussion
Kristin C. Doughty, '98: discussion
The Fall '96 Religion 301 Class: discussion