Q:
A: No, by no means, quite the opposite, we should never shy away from such a provoking question, as we sometimes do when there is no ready-made answer we’d love to ape en masse. The way you phrase your telling question nearly mirrors how he himself had viewed it; I’d even say the question is inevitable considering the direction our discussion seems to be taking, so it seems only natural to advance this train of thought, if we are concerned with intellectual honesty, as I think we should be. This direction might not lead to anything concrete, in the sense that I could provide the final verdict once and for all, as this would go against the very spirit of his ‘project,’ of his way of viewing the world, his notion of différence. All I can offer is, therefore, something tentative at best—let’s stay with the word “direction,” indeed, if it will even amount to that—a direction I developed trying to make heads or tails of this subject for many years, probably a few years too many, as I am nearing my retirement and, still, to this day, find myself up to my neck, so to speak, in trying to wrap my head around it. The integral elusiveness of the topic, its ephemerality, does not assist me, to say the least. Neither does the immateriality and incorporeality—terms he sometimes throws in—as if it wasn’t complex enough. Words become empty, inauspicious, so to speak. I’ve been in this dogfight for many years, a few decades, you see. As an academic, I chose the wrong man to study, as he aims to show precisely this elusiveness of things, the violence of asserting too much. Even the word “thing,” which denotes everything and nothing, is too determining—a type of violence even. And I mean violence not as it is usually understood, but as violence against the world. Take a lamp, for instance. If I had only seen it from a certain angle and would claim to possess the full knowledge of it, I’d be too determining; I’d do an injustice to both the lamp and my world in general. I’d be judging rashly and, therefore, I’d claim, violently. Listen, by the way, you should not shy away from interrupting me when I go too fast, you absolutely must, as I could go on and on in circles; it’s awfully easy to lose oneself in too much academic sauce, as we love to joke with my colleagues at the philosophy department, which leads me to what I think is the most suitable path toward addressing your question: I usually tell my students a story, which I think is infinitely more fitting than being up to one’s neck in a conceptual sauce, so to speak. To get them somewhat engaged, I like to open with a goofy philosophical quip. I tell them I’m not exactly Immanuel Kant, the clock of Königsberg, whose strict regimen is a matter of legendary lore—you couldn’t set your clock by when you see me go on a daily stroll—but neither am I entirely exempt from having my own rituals. Yours truly has an incantatory ritual that looks like this, I tell them: each Sunday, I buy ten mini lumpias from an Asian supermarket and eat them on my way to the cinema. As a rule, I must finish six before I arrive at my final destination of intoxication: a signpost near the cinema entrance on which perches a miniature golden stork. The signpost bolsters my body as I lean on it and place my oily bag in my trouser pocket and open my eyes to the aorta of The Hague’s cultural heart—Amare—the shelter of the Royal Conservatory, Residentie Orkest, as well as one of the finest dance theaters in the whole of Europe. This architectural “wonder” has a visible skeleton—yellow-gray pillars—which resemble tuning forks. Well, as soon as my eyes fall on this structure with its branching and arborescent facade, my vision dilates, losing focus, as if my eyes were progressively dilating or undergoing osmosis, and my whole world swirls and whirls. I’m beyond my willpower; the incantatory call is overpowering. This experience comes with a particular, I dare say, idiosyncratic emotional charge, which I would do an injustice by naming. At this point, eyes usually begin to roll in the lecture hall, passing unforgiving judgment on their geriatric professor who seems to be off his rocker—and perhaps I am, haha. Undeterred, I’d pause, deliberately scan for the most incredulous pair of eyes, and resume my story in renewed brio, locking horns, as it were, with that stouthearted student. And you know why it has such an effect on me? I’d ask them and proceed to answer my own question. Well, one such pioneer of psychology, named Jean-Martin Charcot, had used tuning forks on my great-grandaunt to treat her hysteria at Salpêtrière, believing it to be a technique of deep brain stimulation. That is so. Presumption, I’d say, holds intact that which produces an illusion of continuity and endurance. Character and personality are by-products, secondary creations to the flux of ineffable beauty, to which we learn to be blind. These are concepts that kill, that pronounce the death of consciousness—no wonder so few of us are aware of the riches of our world; we judge too quickly; we determine too rashly—and that’s violence, remember, and the death of consciousness is the price paid for it. A steep, exorbitant price. So, I tell them, as my being dissolves in the intangible frequencies of the monolith tuning forks pointing at the gray sky, which inexplicably communicate my great-grandaunt’s mysteries, I open myself to the song of life. Each blurry passerby, on foot or riding a bicycle, is a note on my music sheet, part of that little phrase which so consumed our dear Swann in Proust’s first tome of À la recherche du temps perdu. Which is to say, and I quote, “only the signs of art are immaterial.” Surely, these notes, heads and limbs passing my vision as indistinct blurs, are physical. But what seems to be key is that their movements contain a spiritual entity. And I must quote again—I’m brimming with quotes, having perused this text to such an extent it now reaches my very bone marrow (this one comes from Proust himself)—their movements appear to me, as they do to dear Swann, I quote, “as if performers not so much played the little phrase as executed the rites necessary for it to appear.” In this way, the true unity between the immaterial sign and the spiritual entity blossoms in abundance. For that, however, a certain attitude, which I call intoxication, is necessary. My incantatory ritual to intoxication is that short walk, crunching my lumpias and bolstering my shoulder against the signpost with its golden stork. Though insignificant for the outsider, it opens the door to intoxication. It’s a movement of affirmation, a life-affirming movement, that is. You must stop me, I’m afraid we’ve plunged deep in the sauce. No? You don’t think? Then allow me to bring this back, back to my visions, art that seeps into my eyes. I understand why my students roll their eyes; what’s worse, my understanding never fails to induce in me a wave of mourning, cascading down my rocky spine, as I grapple with the conditionality of spiritedness; for “great and fine things can never be common property: pulchrum est paucorum hominum,” that translates to the beauty is for the few. The fault lies with education, the educational system that aims to perform a brutal breaking-in of youth with the idea of using them up for the state machinery; in other words, it flattens everything into poisonous mediocrity. Too many whys are answered with “because I said so.” Culture and art, therefore, are antagonists of the state. Such an entity as a cultural state does not exist. It’s an oxymoron. I’m only consoled by the few pairs of eyes sparkling upon hearing my little story, animating them as they relate and reciprocate. Unfortunately, with each passing year, there are fewer and fewer sparks. Maybe I’m losing my knack, maybe I’m speaking in an antiquated manner, maybe apathy triumphs these days, and we must wait it out patiently until another renaissance of spirit hatches, spreads its wings, and dazzles onlookers with its colorful plumage, until, that is, we relearn how to be intoxicated. But I digress… Does this make any sense? And for the remaining four lumpias… That’s a question in itself, albeit for another day, haha.
