When you say the most absurd things in earnest there is a certain kind of genius that can be born

That which is in Baudrillard is reducable to All Saints

"The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now;what we shall be has not yet been revealed.We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." from the second reading (1 John)

"To be at the beginning of the world would have been fantastic.But we arrived too late. Only the end remains. Let us therefore apply ourselves to seeing things - values, concepts, institutions - perish, seeing them disappear. This is the only issue worth fighting for." Cool Memories III, Jean Baudrillard

I have been reading Jean Baudrillard's Cool Memories III, I skip over any political parts because politics are admittedly stupid. However, once one cuts off the politiking, we are left with some great brilliance. Granted much is the tongue and cheek approach of Nietzsche which I so adore, but when you say the most absurd things in earnest there is a certain kind of genius that can be born. There are the generally enlightening and amusing, such as:

"Can you devote your existence to an idea which is not yours, or a woman you do not love?"

"The conspiracy of imbeciles is total."

And then there are the truely profound, such as the seeming sophistry of the following four lines which are in isolation within the text:

"That which in the object is irreducible to objectivity. That which in sex is irreducible to sexuality. That which in language is irreducible to signification. That which in the event is irreducible to history."

How is it that things have attributes which are not of the things? In order for an attribute to be of a thing, it must be of a thing, right? This seems obvious, this seems essential. And yet there are attributes of everything which are not of the thing. There is that which is beyond, that which is indescribably identifiable to a thing, but which is not of the thing in itself. Kant, if you will, was mistaken. Things are not in themselves.

So what does this have to do with All Saints? Ahhhh. "What we shall be has not yet been revealed." That which in a human is irreducible to humanity. The Pope today called on us all to become saints, it is not the task of the few. It is an attribute within us all which is outside of our humanity. Our most important attribute is that which is ineffable, the things which make us rise beyond our humanity and brings us closer to saintliness. Posted by mah at Thursday, November 01, 2007

1 comments: chris said... Excellent post!!!! Next you should check out Simulacra and Simulation, especially the section called "The Precession of Simulacra," where B. talks about "the divine irreference of images" and at one point writes: "What if God himself can be simulated, that is to say can be reduced to the signs that constitute faith? Then the whole system becomes weightless, it is no longer itself anything but a gigantic simulacrum -- not unreal, but a simulacrum..."