The garden where all loves end

Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining
We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other,
Under a tree in the cool of the day, with the blessing of sand,
Forgetting themselves and each other, united
In the quiet of the desert. This is the land which ye
Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity
Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

wrote T. S. Eliot in 1930, accurately capturing the essence of private life in our modern western societies. At some point we seem to have decided that any dream of accomplishing something great together, in community, is in vain, and that the best we can do is to set up the conditions for each individual or family to most effectively mind their own business.

Sometime during the general process that we might call modernisation, there was,
according to Hannah Arendt, (see my previous post) a general rebellion against the idea that any aspect of human existence should be considered crude and unimportant to the eyes of the public. It was no longer enough that the activities necessary for upholding our bodily existence would be carried out in the smaller communities called homes or households. The fact that working to support human life was at the same time an immediately communal activity was no longer enough to make it meaningful. Instead, even the basic bodily labour, human life itself as an activity, demanded a visible presence on the public stage which  had previously been reserved for heroic or artistic deeds of excellence. The recognition previously reserved for the excellence of unique personalities was being claimed for the very activities that made man man.

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

Thus arose what Arendt terms the social or society. A new realm where the basic concerns of every household and, increasingly, every individual, were a matter of universal interest and responsibility. The socialisation of man came about, only not in the form intended by Karl Marx. Marx used this very term, the socialisation of man, to lay out his vision of a society where the aforementioned survival labour would determine not only the organisation of households, but the organisation of society as a whole. Living the active life of labour together was what made human existence meaningful, Marx reasoned, and, therefore, global human community could be given meaning by arranging it according to this aspect of life, instead of orienting everything towards the extraordinary deeds of unique individuals.

Instead of this Marxian form of the socialisation of man, we got a society where both the former excellence of the public realm and the immediate community of the private realm are gone. The basic bodily concerns of the individual are now national political matters, but they are no longer a basis for community. The production of food, for instance, no longer serves as the hub of any meaningful social interaction, because we strive to maintain a system where any individual can be sufficiently fed without necessarily coming into contact with any other human being. Pushed to the extreme, the current situation is one where anyone has (or ought, politically speaking, to have) the opportunity to realise any conceivable dream, but where there is no longer any social scene upon which the realisation of that dream will have any significance. No lasting significance, at least. Whatever I
accomplish will be noticed briefly by friends, but forgotten by the next generation.

Society zealously guards  the rights of the individual, and these rights generally have to do with individual life not being determined or conditioned in any way by anything larger than the individual. Society takes great care to defend the individual against society. We fight and die for the right of anybody to be left alone.

Slavoj Žižek

Slavoj Žižek has said that the most precise image of global society today is that of the so-called masturbatorium (which, apparently, is a real phenomenon), where numerous people gather in great big halls to have sexual “intercourse” each with him- or herself only, all the while being visible to everyone else. The most extreme sense of privacy, the inviolability of the individual body, is secured by turning the public into an omnipresent, passive, asocial gaze.

Or, in the words of Eliot:

Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
[...]
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.

Note om kærligheden

Her siger Slavoj Žižek noget vigtigt: Kærligheden, den ultimative sammenhængskraft i enhver form for fællesskab, kan aldrig bringe os tilbage til en eller anden form for tabt harmoni, hvor individet finder sin plads i universet; kommer til sin fulde udfoldelse; realiserer sig selv eller lignende. Kærligheden accepterer derimod, at der i det hele taget kun eksisterer individer fordi selve virkeligheden i bund og grund er forvredet, mangelfuld – eller endda ond. Hvad er det så vi gør, når vi opstiller alle mulige betingelser for, at den enkelte kan få lov at indgå i et fællesskab? Hvad betyder vores krav om, at man skal tro på noget bestemt, bære nogle bestemte værdier dybt i sig, førend man kan kalde sig et egentligt respekterende og respekteret individ? Hader vi i virkeligheden det enkelte menneske så meget, at vi filtrerer det fra, menns vi efterstræber vækst og perfektion i stedet for fællesskab?

What I learned in School today

Til dem, som har interessen og tålmodigheden, er her nogle lidt mere fag-interne (idehistoriske) betragtninger om  sekularisering, religion, filosofi og Guds død. Først en længere smøre (20 sider):

Helligåndens Samfund - En redegørelse for, og diskussion af, Gianni Vattimos og Slavoj Žižeks respektive filosofiske udlægninger og brug af kristendommen.

(Emneopgave ved Afdeling for Idehistorie – Århus Universitet)

og den lidt kortere version (vist nok ca. 5 sider):

Helligåndens Samfund - Begyndelsen til en vurdering af sekulariseringens frigørende potentiale, samt til spørgsmålet om mulige alternativer til sekularisering ud fra Gianni Vattimo og Slavoj Žižek.

(Artikel trykt i de Idehistorie-studerendes magasin Tingen)