In spite of what postmodernity’s ubiquitious biographism would have us believe, writing allows one to escape one’s personal history: Spinoza (and Althusser, who followed him very closely in this respect) understood that freedom is only possible once we begin to apprehend the structural determinations that engender our illusion of being naturally autonomous subjects. Spinozist joy arises from a slow, careful dismantling of the self – not a temporary obliteration of the self by the use of intoxicants, but a sober, cognitive detachment from the sad passions that once agitated us. Posted by mark at November 25, 2007 02:45 PM TrackBack k-punk Main
This posting is typical of the nievety that (mis)informs all those that chatter on about "theory" etc etc. It is all just superficial word games.
ReplyDeleteOne can write all day and everyday until one dies and it wont make the slightest bit of difference to ones presumed personal history or personality.
Real change requires a profound re-patterning of everything that one is by tendency---tendencies that have the immense force of lifetimes of hell-deep accumulated karmas behind them.