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version seven. http://demongin.org |
Death March: Catatonic/Catacritical
The second installment of the "Death March" series: the inevitability of Desire; how Inevitability makes case for any rational person's insistence on an phenomenal "Absolute" that radically defies comprehension and description.
Wednesday, 2005-01-05 | Classic Gin, Philosophy
| ...the others were forbidden to probe for the answer when the chief chose to speak in riddles. |
Author's Note: You'll forgive me if I've fallen behind and am behind schedule, so far as this week-long expose is concerned. I've recently acquired Hideo Kojima's latest installment in the storied and historic Metal Gear Solid series; consequentially I have been devoting large amounts of time to the pursuit cum obsession that is Metal Gear. It is generally recognized as poor taste to apologize for the inevitable, but nevertheless I must offer my apologies for my negligence.
In our last installment we dealt with the radical manner in which the inevitability of death, the end of existence, affects the lives we must lead. We argued that the affect was a sort of relativizing one; the inevitability of death makes of death a great consistency within what is otherwise an endlessly unique (human) experience.
The most important consequence of this line of argument is the solidarity that it seems to lead inexorably towards. We might summarize the first installment of this 'death march' series as the exhortation towards humanity (i.e. being humane--living by ye olde 'golden rule'). We might paraphrase the first installment thus: 'there is of each of us a death; we are therefore each on the same journey, so to speak, and should consider ourselves and our fellows as pilgrims; our various raisons de etre retain their importance and significance despite the fact that they are utterly irrelevant in the face of our ultimate destiny.'
Now what concerns us is how the inevitability of death and the solidarity and (highly qualified) relativisim that this argues for affects other inevitabilities of the human experience. As the once-emminent 20th century theologian Karl Rahner once (bitterly) suggested, concupiscence is as unavoidable as death. Let us play the existentialist a bit longer and briefly consider desire.
In all cases, a 'want' or a desire presupposes a 'lack.' I cannot want what I have. I can only want what I do not have; I can only want a given thing if I am without it.
A lack, strictly speaking, presupposes a need. If I lack something, if I am without it (we're keeping this existential, remember?), then I have a certain need for it--perhaps a lesser or greater need, but a certain need nevertheless. The idea that I need any and every thing tha t I am without, of course, is the controversial part of the syllogism; I am arguing that all things are needed by all people, and in some limited sense, therefore necessary. I am without something and therefore need it; I need something and therefore it is a necessity.
We speak often of a 'complete person' or a 'wholehearted effort' or a 'total victory' and apply these phrases catacritically for rhetorical effect--we might speak of a certain romantic encounter, for example, as a 'total victory' knowing full-well that we are stretching the metaphor beyond the lengths it is accustomed to stretching.
The ideal state of being (see: the last million years of human life) is godhood; a complete possession of all things and, thus, an undivided self--a self that does not exist in relation to anything or anyone else--the sort of self or subjectivity that exists in complete autonomy because it can exercise unfettered agency and the sort of self that can exercise unfettered agency because it exists in complete autonomy.
Given the above, i.e. the ideal existence that man has been positing since he first became aware that he existed, it doesn't seem excessive to say, 'I need every thing that I am without in order to be complete, to be ideal.'
It is therefore natural, unavoidable--inevitable--at all times and in all circumstances to feel an uncertain (but poignant and actual) concupiscence; a covetousness or something like the 'Augustinian triple libido (lust for power, wealth and carnal pleasure).'
And how does the inevitability of death affect the inevitability of concupiscence? Is one inevitability the product of the other? Does one determine or cause the other?
The answer to these questions is easy: existentialism is a profitless venture that, unlike the damask metaphysics of a more civilized age, undoes itself even as it proposes to answer the questions that it un-necessarily and impolitely raises. Existential certainties (e.g. death, concupiscence) have nothing to do with one another and should not be forced into conversation with one another.
To marvel at existence is certainly immature; to demythologize or attempt to reduce its sublimity through rational inquiry, however, is inexcusable. Our 'death march' insists upon this notion that the inevitability of death (like its sister-inevitabilities) remain unmolested, un-investigated and austere.
For us, there must remain an inviolate and incomprehensible Absolute.
