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Being able to contradict.- Everybody knows now that being able to stand contradiction is a high sign of culture. Some even know that the higher human being desires and invites contradiction in order to receive a hint about his own injustice of which he is as yet unaware. But the ability to contradict, the acquired good conscience accompanying hostility towards what is familiar, traditional, hallowed–that is better yet than both those abilities, and constitutes what is really great, new, and amazing in our culture; it is the step of all steps of the liberated spirit: who knows that?

In this passage, Nietzsche constructs a loose hierarchy of cultural values, stating that one’s ability to recognize contradiction is a hallmark of a sophisticated mind capable of enacting the Socratic method with some level of efficiency. While efficiency may not be a term that Nietzsche himself would use, contradiction is employed for this purpose in the context of philosophical inquiry, despite contrary appearances. Nietzsche talks about using contradiction to “receive a hint about his own injustice of which he is as yet unaware”–in other words, as a tool to make the geography of one’s ideological world more navigable by mapping its hazards. This serves the dual purpose of increasing the efficiency with which one can maneuver in the greater world of ideas, and also of helping them locate where they stand in that world at any given time. The critical question of this passage, however, is who has the capacity to contradict. Nietzsche has already stated that “higher” human beings recognize and invite contradiction, but who is to act as the dispensary? It seems almost an obvious answer that Nietzsche may have left blank as a lame joke, or perhaps as a sign of modesty, but I would assume that unless I am missing something crucial, it is the philosopher who has the “ability to contradict.” I am surprised that Nietzsche would call this something “new” in his culture, however, as he was no doubt aware of, for example, Socrates’ role as an agitator and frenetic contradictor in ancient Greece. Perhaps this was an oversight in what was probably quick sketch in Nietzsche’s journal, or perhaps he means something entirely different. Whatever the case, his primary point of contradiction as an essential tool of cultural advancement stands firm.

Abandon, give up give up with the intent of never claiming again. “Abandon your life to God”; “We gave up the drowning victim for dead”

Abound, burst, bristle be in a state of movement or action. “The room abounded with screaming children”

Gag, muzzle tie a gag around someone’s mouth in order to silence them. “The burglars gagged the home owner and tied him to a chair”

Offensively, objectionably, obnoxiously in an obnoxious manner. “He said so in one of his more offensively intellectually arrogant sentences”

Damply in a damp manner. “A scarf was tied round her head but the rebellious curl had escaped and hung damply over her left eye”

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In paused rain
they fall asleep snowflaking with elipses in their eyes

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I want to make you safe for me
my interests do not include one word sentences

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Truth got wasted & wandered into a bad neighborhood
the expiration date keeps shifting

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Partitioned into discrete sections
but they all still need to sleep

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My private war against neon & buoyancy
gets me nowhere but closer to the front

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The nature of feedback is to sustain itself
but something always brings it down

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I want to start a band called
Newt Romney & the Reptilians

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That death is not death
a corpse is death

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Sometimes I let unrehearsed chemicals
coddle me into a world of sleep

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Since the world is coming to an end
can you just let me store my silence in yours

In Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal there is a poem called “The Taste for Nothing” (The Flowers of Evil, p. 102) which illustrates the craft of Baudelaire’s ethereal language as well as his unclenching fascination with absence. In “The Taste for Nothing” he writes of being abandoned by hope and love, and the ever-present yearning for absence emerges–as it does in many of Baudelaire’s other poems. What is perhaps most common across Baudelaire’s exploration of absence in his work is his full longing for sleep and numbness. He writes, “Resign yourself, my heart; sleep your brutish sleep.” It is well known that Baudelaire (along with many others of his time) was an opiate user and an alcoholic, and his apparent resignation to what could be called the transient voids of sleep and anesthetizing agents should come as no surprise as a theme in his work. There seems to be a dominant motif of wanting time to pass without having to experience it–to exist not as a participant of time (which, to Baudelaire, was at times nothing but an involuntary exercise in suffering), nor even as an observer of it, but as one who wholly denied it. In the same poem, Baudelaire writes, “And Time, minute by minute engulfs me, like heavy snow around a stiffening body…” Sleep and drugs were perhaps Baudelaire’s best attempts at becoming immaterial enough for an artificial unity with true absence, a way of averting his painful experience with time and space while not permanently abandoning them in real resignation. Not unexpectedly, then, does Baudelaire’s diction in much of his work mimic his longing for ethereality.

In contrast to Baudelaire’s diction invoking absence is Mallarmé’s poem “Un Coup de Dés”, which labors the theme not only in the words chosen, but in the disparate placement of those words on the page. A highly experimental piece considering its time, “Un Coup de Dés” acts almost as a frame, born of language, to border the concept of absence, void, or, in Mallarmé’s term, “the Abyss”. He describes it as “blanched/spread/furious/beneath and incline/desperately plane…” (Collected Poems, p. 128). But it is not only (or even primarily) the words chosen here to describe Mallarmé’s Abyss that enact a sense of peering into it–it is their arrangement on the page. The words themselves effect the qualities they project in that they leave a surfeit of empty space beneath them as they decline in a layered movement across the page. While this sequence is more linearly organized than some of the other sequences in “Un Coup de Dés”, it is also undeniably disorienting through the not-so-logical progression of its actual content. Mallarmé invented a kind of topographical formation in “Un Coup de Dés” through different sized text that necessitates the reciprocal invention of a new way of reading. In this sense, he invokes the Abyss (the unutterable) by breaching one’s trust in traditional ways of reading and forcing them into a liminal experience with words on the border between sense and nonsense. This silent exchange between the form and the content of “Un Coup de Dés” is a stunning development in the interest of absence in poetics, as both of them delineate the space not of what they are able to fill and possess, but of what they are unable to fill and possess.

What, then, are we to make of the idea that hovers incessantly around Baudelaire’s and Mallarmé’s attempts to enact the possession of that which cannot be possessed? The question that dogs Baudelaire’s work (and Mallarmé’s to a lesser extent) most of all is that of suicide. Why not, if one finds it such an unshakeable desire to embrace nothingness? In Blanchot’s essay “Death as Possibility” he meditates at length on the question of suicide and the possession of the nothingness and the void that Baudelaire and Mallarmé agonized over in the their poetry. It could be argued that Baudelaire and Mallarmé sought to possess their own negation through the industry of their art. Blanchot, however, might find that a useless endeavor. He writes, “Whoever dwells with negation cannot use it. Whoever belongs to it can no longer, in this belonging, take leave of himself, for he belongs to the neutrality of absence in which already he is not himself anymore” (The Work as Death’s Space, p. 103). Thus the attempt to possess negation is, in fact, an act of being dispossessed by that which one longs for most. Blanchot also points out the powerful contradiction implicit in the act of suicide: that it is, in fact, an act in pursuit of inaction. By attempting to grasp death, one is denying the maxim behind which they exert themselves in the first place.

While Baudelaire, Mallarmé and Blanchot certainly branched their bodies of work into distinct meditations on death, void and absence, they would likely all agree that death has no horizon: it is always in such immediacy to the artist that to ignore it requires a great effort. If it were otherwise, one may suffer from a fiercely domesticated consciousness that avoids even the thought of it. At some point, all of these writers must have realized poignantly that they had been given a body predetermined to dissolve, and that this fact posed to them the ultimate question: “Shall I pursue my death in an attempt to understand it, or shall I flee from it?” Death then begins its long exposure, accreting in the works of art that pierced them. Baudelaire died in a terrible way, trapped in his body which, in his final months, must have been a particularly excruciating experience with time. He lay paralyzed in bed due to (according to Waldrop’s introduction) “complications” (The Flowers of Evil, p. xxvii), only able to utter the singular expletive “Crénom!”. He had spent his life lamenting his life, but in doing so offered to us affecting artistic meditations on death and the void for which he yearned. Blanchot and Mallarmé presumably died in less tragic circumstances, but nonetheless had their own experiences with philosophical voids intense enough to precipitate the words they set down for posterity. The space to which these artists belonged is not altogether certain–it seems they were intent on having one part of themselves present in the material world which they attempted to illuminate with novel uses of language, and another part floating in a void that language could only point at. In any case, their experiences on the borders between the expressible and the inexpressible–between life and death–supplied them perspectives that fundamentally shifted the artistic capacity of language and heightened our sensitivity to the negative spaces they attempted to grasp.

Immediately I begin groveling at the feet of passersby sputtering sacred plumage I hope to be unmarketable to their inured and bruiseless visages of capital to dress me in the Teflon I now believe in

And when that doesn’t work it’s just another thing to keep my half-beaten mass of flesh against the bed like I were glad to be hinged to it in whatever stages of wakefulness I could muster

But if it helps me become them so I could forget them I am happy to do it until again like a shadow spangled mid-air into being I would slide my bills beneath the bedroom door for that parasitic system and dissemble into anguish

O ends of autumn, winter, springtime, steeped in slush, opiate of seasons! I love and honor you for thus enveloping my heart and brain in a shroud of vapor and a vague grave.

On this great plain where a cold wind from the south plays games, where through long nights the weathervane rasps, my soul more easily than at spring thaw opens its broad raven wings.

To a heart brimming with funeral fare, long laden with hoar-frost–you pallid seasons who rule our clime–nothing is sweeter than

the changeless sight of your pale shadows.–Except, on moonless nights, two by two, to put pain to sleep in a hazardous bed.

Fog, Rain — an antonymic adaptation

A mere declension of sun orbits its way into my waiting game,
something I play when I have gone without it
just to help me fluoresce a little more steady.

But what I don’t know as an end to that confectionary dream
still isn’t a reason for faith, and what it was that cast a shadow
cross my face must have shaken you too, at least a little:

a standard reaction to the miscellany hobbling forth from the ruins
of their own interiors, people of the moth-eaten cardigan,
themselves fluorescing so violently as if I could not

grovel at their feet in worship, scattering plumage I hope to be
unmarketable before going back to whatever it was I was doing,
unattended to by the memory of it all, to my industry’s relief.

One of my primary concerns regarding specific issues of ethics like this is whether I am well-informed enough to make a measured, morally justifiable response or not. A common criticism (that I endorse) about the Invisible Children campaign is that they are not a balanced or even reliable source of information. They paint the conflict in Central and East Africa as one-dimensional: there is a bad man and you can help stop him doing bad things. Go out and do something. They explicitly want people in the United States to poster their cities and pressure the government to take action in a part of the world that almost none of them have been to or have any direct knowledge of. The good intentions are clear, but I am strongly opposed to isolating the moral worth of an action to its intentions and saying nothing of the effects. As I understand it, the area that Kony and the LRA operates in is highly sensitive and potential responses to direct military action against Kony could do much more harm than good. (Such military action is, by the way, what Invisible Children supports). I can’t pretend to fully comprehend the wars going on in Central and East Africa, but I do know that by answering Invisible Children’s call to duty, many people are (likely unknowingly) advocating for what could be a devastating move in a dangerously unstable region. This is why I see the Invisible Children campaign’s call to action as potentially harmful and morally irresponsible.

But let’s say that there was no call for military intervention. Let’s say that they simply wanted to make people aware of an issue that had affected them emotionally, and they are not heroically shouldering the white man’s burden to solve all the problems in Africa. Let’s assume the intent is purely raising awareness for its own sake. I’m not one to downplay the importance of knowing what’s going on in the world. In fact, I think it’s crucial to one’s moral character to be politically conscious and up to date on current events. In light of this bandwagon, then, I would have to ask: Why Kony? Why are we focusing so heavily (over 32,000,000 views for a video about Kony and the LRA in four days) on someone who plays a relatively small role in a massive conflict with many complex and moving parts? Why do we temporarily repurpose ourselves to make Kony known around the world? What is it about him and the LRA, specifically, that makes them of the utmost importance to our nations’ ethical agendas when there are baffling atrocities being committed in many other places on this planet, many of which are as equally appalling as Kony’s use of child soldiers? In the scope of all this, the Kony 2012 movement seems like a rather arbitrary cause to put one’s weight behind.

I get that Kony deserves to be condemned in strongest possible terms. But if we have a moral obligation to raise awareness about what is happening in the world, don’t we also have an obligation to actually understand the issues we are getting fired up about and realize that things like this cannot be solved as a series of isolated cases? Isn’t it imperative—now that Kony is about as famous as any minor warlord can expect to be—that we focus on other people in his game that are having a bigger impact and try to figure out how to solve this multi-faceted issue in tandem? What I see is a knee jerk reaction to propaganda that plays on peoples’ altruistic fantasies of “making a difference” in the world. But knowledge is paralyzing. The more you learn about almost any issue of this magnitude, the more complex it becomes and the more moral grey areas there are to sketch out. I want my emotional connectivity to other people on this planet to matter in some way as much as the next person, and I want to feel that I am promoting the well being of others, but I refuse to act without proper knowledge of the possibilities those actions might precipitate.

And I’ll admit, the greatest good I feel that I am getting out of this whole frenzy is having something to think about as I go on with my day. I try very hard not to be a dogmatic person, as I think that is the root of many of our problems. But what I see in a movement like this is a reflection of some of our encultured values—namely, convenience. Invisible Children presents change as something readily available and all we need to do is spend a weekend to do our part towards enacting justice. This method of procuring a heightened sense of morality is, in my view, entirely unjustified. On top of this, I find an odd and unsettling narcissism present in the whole thing. I won’t deny my own occasional narcissistic tendencies, but there is a sentimental and exploitative nature in this campaign that irks whatever sense of humility I may have. Pity is a sensitive subject for those on the receiving end, and it seems to me that this campaign is directing a tidal wave of it at Uganda and surrounding territories, and then collecting brownie points for the effort. I am not the kind of person who believes that altruism doesn’t exist in the world—I think altruism is very real and it is not difficult for me to imagine people advocating for someone other than themselves—but I do not get that vibe here in the least. It seems to me like we are trying to benefit from the privation of a stereotyped people, consuming their poverty and destitution for our own moral profits, and this is something I refuse to participate in.

Most of them barely knew my father, but some liked to conjecture that he was their friend and made it their purpose for the day to comfort his family. James and Theresa both skipped work on this clear day in early December to sit in the waiting room with us, though they had only met my father a few times at most. They were oppressively sympathetic people, peppering me and my brother with questions about our lives and offering information about themselves freely, even when no one had asked. James was older than my father, and had made it known during Thanksgiving dinner at our house that his father passed away years ago. There was also Adam and his wife Nicole. Adam was a metal head and horror enthusiast who could never seem to understand that others didn’t share his particular media fetishes. He had the remarkable ability to be as inappropriate as possible under dramatic circumstances, which I found more humorous in a pitiful way than offensive. He would sometimes try to talk about music or film with me, but our tastes so rarely aligned that it would usually turn into a monologue where one person would give a synopsis of a movie that the other had no real interest in. There were a few others with our party scattered around room, sitting in chairs provided by the hospital—including two Gnostic priests of my mom’s invitation—who didn’t say much, for which I was thankful.

I was anxious about what was happening in the operating room, or what could happen, but didn’t exactly feel like talking it out with the ostensibly available strangers. As I understood it my father was, by most definitions, dead at this moment. His heart was stopped under the pretense it would be able to start again after the necessary repairs to the malfunctioning valve had been made. The surgery was expected to last up to seven hours, the whole time a case of Schrödinger’s Father for me and my brother; Schrödinger’s Husband for my mom. We sat in a room and waited for someone to deliver the news of one of life’s most profound losses, otherwise biding our time with books, music, or light conversation. Through this I found that, despite heightened levels of anxiety, I thought about things more or less how I always did: with a vague anthropological interest in the environment and its inhabitants, and also looking for material to write about.

The mousey old volunteer who ran the desk in the waiting room was accommodating and non-intrusive. She would often get up and leave for intervals of 10-15 minutes—periods of time during which the phone would ring incessantly until either Theresa or my mother picked it up and took a message. There were some paintings on the walls, mostly idyllic landscapes of places that may or may not exist in reality. Knowing very little about painting, I wondered whether the artist they came from was as passionate about art as people like Picasso or Pollock apparently were, or if they just did it to supplement their income, or maybe to garnish their social lives with the declaration of being an artist, even if their work probably never furnished a room more effectively than their ego. It seemed a bit absurd to me that these particular paintings, hung in a room where people wrestled with crises of varying degrees, could be expected to provide any amount of comfort in the immediate presence of loss. Could art do that?

In the middle of this rumination late in the afternoon, a surgeon walked in. He had begun work early in the morning and emerged from his labor—unimaginable to me as one of the ignorant but admiring gadflies orbiting the horse of medical science—at about the expected time. He walked directly to our group and everyone stood to greet him. I quickly scanned his face for signs of failure, horror, or grief, but mostly he just looked tired. He said my father was alive, but remained in critical condition, and they would have to wait before they could close him up and take him to the ICU. The surgeon left and everyone went back to their chairs. People asked me if I was OK, if they could get me anything, taking my silence as a sign of unpronounceable despair at the thought of my father’s condition. I was fine, I said, and picked up my book. About a minute after sitting down, I saw a look on my mother’s face and she got up and went into the hallway. I followed her, saw her burst into tears, lean against the wall, and lower herself down to the floor. I sat next to her, put my arm around her, and rested my head on the wall behind me. Perhaps it was the phrase “close him up” that suddenly cracked her, language that struck me as particularly vivid and confrontational, though I don’t know what kind of language I was expecting the surgeon to use. It was a phrase that forced one to acknowledge that open heart surgery not only required cutting open a person’s chest, but also pushing the chest back together, expecting the person to resume life, and then applying that idea to a person she had seen almost every day for over 25 years. I felt strangely removed from it all in the hallway, as if it simply weren’t happening or if my brain somehow refused to fully process it. I half wondered if there was a standard I could refer to in order that I might judge my expression, or lack thereof, as adequate or not according the circumstances.

My mother cried for about 10 minutes, during which time nobody we knew came to investigate. She was free to experience the crisis, and I was able to escape the projections of those in the waiting room. I thought that maybe my lack of intense feeling had something to do with how I patterned my behavior over the years, which could be described, more or less, as a constant and eager state of observation. I sat next to my mother and watched as hospital employees passed us by, sometimes wheeling equipment, sometimes looking down at us briefly before returning their gaze to the floor in front of them. I almost wanted to tell them not to worry about us, that we were going to be fine and that nobody was dead yet. Somehow I wanted to relieve whatever vicarious grief may have entered them as they went from one place to another on this late afternoon in early December, to them a day not unlike all the others. This, of course, would have been ridiculous.