fragilekeys

Part theory, part manual, part love story and soul-history, Peter Sloterdijk’s work “Bubbles” is a high octane masterpiece. It is a membrane that breathes. This meticulous and elegant translation by Wieland Hoban will be a resource for decades. In what follows, I’ll try to paraphrase what I see is at stake and provide a few supporting examples from the book, in hopes of enticing you to this profound work.

In the preface to the Spheres trilogy as a whole, Sloterdijk warns: “let no one enter who is unwilling to praise transference or to refute loneliness.” A cogent presentation of this material ought to begin by unpacking this double inscription. Together, they indicate these two ontological tasks, both in terms of the position or whereabouts of the modern “individual”: (1) Refute loneliness: Expose us to the dual or doubled-up nature of self, the plural aspect of being, or to a subjectivity that is resonant. From the discussion of the Greek genius to mesmerism; from Giotto’s painting of inter-facial space to Magritte’s tree of infinite recognition; from Odysseus and the Siren’s Song to the idea that, “as soon as breath exists, there are two breathing,” this primary dyad that we are forms the bubbling center of microsphereology. Sloterdijk does not revise our notion of the self; he exposes its premises, and reminds us that we begin shared. (2) Praise transference: Expose us to these spaces of resonance that constitute our being-wholly-in-relation, being as “in-relation.” To praise transference is to praise the transferential nature of my being: I am only in transmission, I “am” transmission. I’m here so that sense can bounce and rebound off of me, in the infinite relating of shared truths, or the infinite creation of interiors. As Sloterdijk writes, “The limits of my capacity for transference are the limits of my world.” In other words, the creation of a world and the sharing of the world are very similar. Ultimately, to praise transference simply means to make room for another (in me or outside me). Continue reading →

This note began as a comment on Levi Bryant’s recent post on Loops and Systems. In it, he discusses the two possible therapeutic outcomes in psychoanalysis. The first is linked to a tragic subject who realizes how contingent all of his or her representations are (all the prohibitions, desires, as well as his or her view of the past, etc.), and thus no longer blames the world, but seeks to reorient their own life, write their own rules, so to speak. The second is linked to the realization that the demand coming from the Other is incoherent and inconsistent, that the Other in fact does not exist. But this means that the subject him or herself does not exist (in psychoanalysis, the subject is sustained by the Other’s gaze). In this case, there’s no one to write the rules. The two options seem to be situated at opposite ends. On the one hand, you overcome your old hang-ups, let go of the past and get back behind the wheel of your life. On the other, the very consistency of your existence is called into question. This quote summarizes:

In the first instance we’re doomed to perpetually traverse the mobius strip of our symptom, while now doing so with knowledge of our tragic condition. In the second instance we collapse as a subject because we no longer have the gaze that sustains us as a subject.

In this post, I’d like discuss this second instance in relation to J. Krishnamurti’s “teachings.” At stake is the question of the abandonment of the “me,” the gaze or position centered in the “me” (the supposed “little corner,” says K). It is my feeling that there is something to this second instance or outcome, something unique, although not unique to psychoanalysis, but necessarily unique in each instance. However… and it is a big “however”… we have to be absolutely careful here. We are asking the question: how does one speak the “destitution” of the I? But also: what good is our theory about it? Who would this theory or our theorizing help? And is it really helpful or useful for us to theorize these things, or to even write about them? What does it mean that we want to? And finally, what happens to our discourse if we abandon, not only the desire to theorize this destitution, but if we even let go of the desire to experience it? Continue reading →

They say Buddha practiced every form of asceticism known to the India of his times, in an effort to attain enlightenment. All in vain. One day he sat under a bodhi tree and enlightenment occurred. He passed on the secret of enlightenment to his disciples in words that must seem strange to the uninitiated: “When you draw in a deep breath, oh monks, be aware that you are drawing in a deep breath. And when you draw in a shallow breath, oh monks, be aware that you are drawing in a shallow breath. And when you draw in a medium-sized breath, oh monks, be aware that you are drawing in a medium-sized breath.” Awareness. Attention. Absorption. This kind of absorption one observes in little children. They are close to the Kingdom. — Anthony de Mello, The Song of the Bird Continue reading →