Two heterologies: Georges Bataille and Mikhail Bakhtin

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TWO HETEROLOGIES:
GEORGES BATAILLE AND VHKHAIL BAKHTIN
by
Andrei Khorev
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNLA
in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(COMPARATIVE LITERATURE)
December 2000
Copyright 2000 Andrei Khorev
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
The Graduate School
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LO S ANGELES. CALIFORNIA 90089-1695
This dissertation, w ritten b y
A n d rei K horev
Under th e direction o f A is.. D issertation
Com m ittee, and approved b y a ll its members,
has been presen ted to and accepted b y The
Graduate School, in partia l fulfillm ent o f
requirem ents fo r th e degree o f
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Dean o f Graduate Studies
D ate December 18 . 2000
r ON COMMITTEE
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Andrei Khorev Professor Peggy Kamuf
ABSTRACT
TW O HETEROLOGIES: GEORGES BATAILLE AND MIKHAIL BAKHTIN
In the 1930s Mikhail Bakhtin (Russia, 1895-1975) and Georges Bataille
(France, 1897-1962), working independently, elaborated a series of interrelated
theoretical conceptions bearing upon the problems of language, literature, and
society. Describing his approach, Georges Bataille coined the term "heterology"; this
same term would later be applied in literary studies to the work of Mikhail Bakhtin.
The "heterologies" of both Bataille and Bakhtin essentially deal with centrifugal
forces and phenomena, "deconstructive" in relation to authority-centered literary,
linguistic, or social structures.
In the first chapter I analyze Bakhtin’ s theory of the heterological 'laughing
culture” of the carnival by concentrating on some of its crucial aspects, such as the
notions of laughter and debasement. The second chapter establishes the general
economic patterns of Bakhtin and Bataille's respective approaches and shows the
major divergences between them, which can be summarized as the difference
between the "restricted" and "general” economies, respectively. The following
chapter deals with temporal and spatial characteristics employed in Bataille and
Bakhtin's heterologies. Next, I address the philosophical and methodological
foundations of Bataille's theory. Analysis of the two authors' discursive theories is
offered in chapters V (Bataille) and VI (Bakhtin). Here I also continue addressing
Bakhtin's and Bataille's strategies in relation to such general philosophical questions
as the problem of "truth” ("reality"), which in the final instance affects all aspects of
Bakhtin’ s and Bataille's work.
Of course, the main object of this study— the relation to the Other— is never
lost from view in all these, thematically diversified topics or strata. In the
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2
Conclusion of the dissertation I propose some assessments of Bakhtin and Bataille’ s
conceptions, using the criteria of effectiveness and comprehensiveness of their
heterologies. A brief discussion of both authors’ respective positions in the space of
literary theory is also offered here, as well as the issue of reading them from the
angle of complementarity (a concept both Bakhtin and Bataille were familiar with
and interested in).
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ii
CONTENTS
Note on the system of reference iii
Introduction 1
Chapter I. Systematic Heterology of the "Carnival.'' Bakhtin versus
Bakhtin 8
Chapter II. Heterology Unbound: Bataille versus Bakhtin 47
Chapter III.
General Characteristics of Time and Space. Bakhtin 101
Life and Death in relation to Time. Bakhtin 114
Time and Space. Bataille 117
Life and Death. Bataille 130
Chapter IV. Bataille
Being and Communication 148
The Last Questions 160
Method 181
Chapter V. Bataille. Discourse 212
Chapter VI. Bakhtin. The Last Answers: Dialogue 259
Conclusion 303
Works Cited 326
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NOTE OX THE SYSTEM OF REFERENCE
In making references to Bataille's works in French I followed the well-
established practice: unless otherwise specified, they are to Oeuvres
completes, 12 vol. Paris: Gailimard, 1970-92; Roman numerals designate
volume, .Arabic numerals designate page(s). However, if the exact
provenance of a quotation is significant, the concrete text is indicated,
together with the volume in the Complete Works of Georges Bataille
(e.g., when a text is of a paramount importance for the given subject or in
case of an extended quotation).
A similar procedure is used for the following collections of Bakhtin s
works: The Dialogic Imagination . Art and Answerability. Aestetika
slovesnogo tvorchestva [Aesthetics of Verbal Creation), Voprosv
literaturv i aestetiki [Problems of Literature and Aesthetics); for
bibliographical data on these publications see Works Cited.
Whenever a quotation is given from a Russian edition, the translation is
mine.
Italics in the quoted material indicate the original emphasis; underlining
indicates my emphasis.
The following abbreviations were used in the main text of the
dissertation and in the footnotes (for full bibliographical data on these
publications see Works Cited):
Problemv
Rabelais
Tvorchestvo
Aestetika
Voprosv
Bakhtin:
Aestetika slovesnogo tvorchestva [Aesthetics of
Verbal Creation)
Problemv poetiki Dostoevskogo
Rabelais and His World
Tvorchestvo Fransua Rable i narodnaia kul’tura
srednevekovia i Renessansa [Francois Rabelais'
Creation and the Folk Culture of the Middle Ages and
the Renaissance)
Voprosv literaturv i aestetiki [Problems of Literature
and Aesthetics)
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A A Bakhtin. Art and Answerability-
CD \ ranc\'. La communaute desoeuvree
DI Bakhtin. The Dialogic Imagination
EG Derrida. "De l'economie restreinte a l’economie
generale"
El Bataille. Experience interieure
LM Bataille. La literature et le mal
LP Jakobson. "Linguistics and poetics"
MB Derrida. "La mythologie blanche"
MM Jakobson. 'The metaphoric and metonymic poles"
PDP Bakhtin. Problems of Dostoevsky’ s Poetics
RG "Groupe Ji." Rhetorique generale
RP "Groupe fi.” Rhetorique de la poesie
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Introduction
In the 1930s Mikhail Bakhtin elaborates his concepts of "dialogism"
as well as 'carnival culture’--i.e. of centrifuga l. dispersing forces opposed
to consolidating, centripetal forces in language, literature, society, history.
His works of this period, such as Francois Rabelais' Creation and the Folk
Culture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (published 1965,
translated as Rabelais and His W orld) and essays from Problems of
Literature and Aesthetics (published 1975, partly available in English as
The Dialogic Imagination ). in fact express most of his core ideas in the
areas of history' and ideology of literature, discourse and language.
Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics (revised edition 1963) also belongs to
Bakhtinian canon; and, of course, some postulates from Marxism and the
Philosophy of Language (1929) continued to characterize Bakhtin's later
thought.* At least in the books published under his name, Bakhtin is
consistent in delimiting the object of his writing to specific topics (such as
the 'novel,'' ’ ’ Rabelais,’ ’ ’ ’ Dostoevsky" etc.) and not positing it as a
philosophy of language, literature or discourse. Nevertheless, while not
directly and extensively addressing epistemological or ontological
problems, his investigations constitute a very certain Weltanschauung .
In his writings on Bakhtin, Tzvetan Todorov (and subsequently
American translators of Todorov's books) translates "pa3HOpeMte," one
of Bakhtin's cornerstone notions, as "heterologie" (heterology, science or
knowledge of the Other).~ While Emerson and Holquist’ s "heterogiossia”
(in The Dialogic Imagination ) is closer to the Russian term, Todorov’ s
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translation is fully legitimate: the stress on the aspect of "logos ’ - thought,
knowledge (as in "logic") and not on the aspect of "logos ’ - word (as in
"philology") is meaningful given the global scope and implications of
Bakhtin's ideas. Bakhtin’ s "heterology," as the central concept, based, in
his case, on opposition to authority, dogmas, established order in various
domains of human existence, and particularly in language, discourse and
literature, is the focal point for my discussion.^
Contemporary to and independently from Bakhtin, Georges
Bataille creates his "heterology"--an oxvmoronic "science” of "gai non-
savoir"~which deals precisely with forces and "matter," centrifugal
(Bataille uses the same term as Bakhtin) in relation to authority-centered
literary, linguistic or social structure and, more generally, subverting the
logocentric concepts and values of Western culture. In books such as
[/Experience interieure . L'Erotisme . La litterature et le m al. La part
m audite. as well as in numerous articles, drafts, commentaries and
lectures, Bataille in fact posits his "heterology" as an (anti)philosophy and
establishes its controversial relations with authors like Heidegger, and,
more importantly, Nietzsche and H e g e l .4 Bataille's heterology focuses
primarily on the aspect of logos as "knowledge," but encompasses the
problem of the "word” (understood in the broad Bakhtinian— in fact,
Russian— sense, i.e. also as "discourse" and even "language") as well. The
sometimes different accentuation of logos will be significant for my
comparative analysis of Bakhtin's and Bataille's heterologies.
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In our time these two authors are considered as pivotal figures in
modem literary theory and in such related fields as linguistics and
philosophy of discourse; the repercussions of their ideas are far from
subsiding. Georges Bataille is probably known and studied on a more
restricted scale, but one should not forget that Bataille's thinking
stimulated and deeply influenced such writers as Maurice Blanchot,
Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida (among many others)-a fact that
allowed Alan Stoekl to call Bataille's work an "urtext of deconstruction. "5
In the last decade some of Bakhtin's ideas have been interpreted in the
poststructuralist vein; thus, an attempt has been made to establish not
only a connection, but a kind of "kinship’ ’ of thought between Mikhail
Bakhtin and Jacques Derrida.^ In this context a comparative analysis of
Bataille and Bakhtin may help establish some useful (indeed, necessary’)
correlations and or corrections.
A comparative reading of Bataille's and Bakhtin’ s texts is based on
solid grounds. These authors often approach the same problems and
make use of identical materials in their argument; such focusing on the
same issues but from different viewpoints results in surprising
similarities as well as significant divergences, which can sometimes be
plausibly seen in terms of complementarity (e.g. their interpretations of
the problem of time).
An extensive comparative analysis of two authors makes the
composition of the study not a simple issue. Basically, two possible
compositional principles are: switching back and forth between the
authors in order to prove a (dis)similaritv of their positions on some
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4
point-an approach, tending to a synchronic description; and, on the other
hand, following a development of some subject in the frames of one
author's work(s). In order to avoid a monotonous structural
homogeneity throughout the whole study, I tried to combine the two
principles, which resulted in the following structure. In the first chapter I
analyze Bakhtin’ s theory of the heterological "laughing culture" of the
carnival by concentrating on some of its crucial aspects, such as the
notions of laughter and debasement. Here some problematic issues,
inherent to the inner structure of Bakhtin's conception, will be discussed
without as yet referring to an alternative approach to the same problems
offered by Georges Bataille.
The second chapter further develops the analysis of Bakhtin's
theory’ by way of juxtaposition with Bataille's conceptions. Discussion of
such notions as food, scatology, sacrifice in both authors' arguments helps
to establish the general "economic" pattern of their approaches and show
the major divergences therein, which can be summarized as the
difference between the "restricted" and "general" economies (respectively,
an economy based on classical principles of appropriation and
accumulation and the one that takes into account phenomena of
irrecuperable loss). In this way, I offer an initial or tentative approach to
Bataille’ s theory.
The next chapter deals with temporal and spatial characteristics
employed in Bataille and Bakhtin’ s heterologies. The ways both thinkers
consider the problem of death also highlights, importantly, some new’
parameters of their "philosophical modes.” The fourth chapter
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concentrates on Bataille, just as Chapter I did on Bakhtin. Here I address
the philosophical and methodological foundations of Bataille's theory
(e.g., respectively, the question of subjectivity in Bataille and the notion of
glissement). I believe that such an analysis is indispensable for a
comprehensive interpretation of any aspect of his work.
From a certain angle, all major problematics indicated earlier may
be seen to converge, for both authors, in their conceptions of discourse,
understood both in its literary', linguistic, social, and philosophical
aspects. Analysis of our authors’ attitudes in such spheres as ontology and
epistemology of discourse, as well as their preoccupation with more
specific problems (such as the interrelation of different genres of literary
discourse, the metaphoric and metonymic aspects of language, the
problem of the author and so forth) is offered in chapters V (Bataille) and
VI (Bakhtin). Here I also continue addressing Bakhtin’ s and Bataille's
strategies in relation to such general philosophical questions as the
problem of "truth" ("reality"), which in the final instance affects all
aspects of Bakhtin’ s and Bataille's work.
Of course, the main object of this study— the relation to the O ther-
is never lost from view in all these, thematically diversified, topics or
strata. In the Conclusion of the dissertation I propose some assessments of
Bakhtin and Bataille's conceptions, using the criteria of effectiveness and
comprehensiveness of their heterologies. A brief discussion of both
authors' respective positions in the space of literary theory is also offered
here, as well as the issue of reading them from the angle of
complementarity (a concept both Bakhtin and Bataille were familiar with
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6
and interested in). It is my belief that, in a certain sense, their theories can
and should be juxtaposed in a complementary-dialogical, in Bakhtin’ s
form ulation-relation and not in terms of irreconcilable divergences or
gratuitous coincidences. The fact, that a dialogue of a kind takes place on
the pages of this study, may explain in part the abundance of the cited
material.
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7
NOTES
1 The question of the authorship of this book is not within the sphere of
my interest.
2 First of all I mean here a chapter on Bakhtin in Critique de la critique
(Paris: Seuil, 1984) and Mikhail Bakhtine: le prindpe dialogique (Paris:
Seuil, 1981).
3 Henceforth I will use "heterology" in the broader sense, not confined to
translation of Bakhtin's ” pa3HOpeMfce.”
4 The most penetrating reflections on the Bataille— Hegel relation are
those of Jacques Derrida (’ ’ De l'economie restreinte a l’ economie
generale” in L'Ecriture et la difference). .Among other works on the
subject see Arkady Plotnitskv’ s In the Shadow of Hegel and
Reconfigurations ; see also Mark C.Taylor’ s Altaritv).
5 In Politics. Writing. Mutilation: The Cases of Bataille. Blanchot.
Roussel. Leiris. and Ponge . p. XIII et passim. For Bataille viewed as "pre-
poststructuralist” see introduction to Carolyn J. Dean’ s The Self and Its
Pleasures: Bataille. Lacan, and the History of the Decentered Subject
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992).
6 See Kujundzic, Dragan. "Laughter as Otherness in Bakhtin and
Derrida." Discours Social / Social Discourse: The International Research
Papers in Comparative Literature . 1990, Spring-Summer, v 3 (1-2).
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Chapter I.
8
Systematic Heterology of the "Carnival." Bakhtin versus Bakhtin
For both Bakhtin and Bataille, the notion of laughter (as the center
of the duster of dosely interrelated notions and concepts such as carnival,
feast, play, and so forth) is one of the cornerstones of their global
"heterological" conceptions.The goal of this chapter is to demonstrate the
stable pattern that underlies the whole concept of Bakhtin's
heterogeneous "laughing culture of the carnival," as manifested, for
instance, in such concepts as laughter and ideological degrading, time and
history', and so forth.
The "carnival culture" serves as a historically rooted pole of the
main axis of Bakhtin's literary' and linguistic theory!. The sequence starts
with carnival, and via the "camivalized literature" and novel leads to the
general "dialogical principle," conditioning not only separate forms of
discourse but human life itself. For the purpose of further analysis it is
necessary' to recall here some of the essential characteristics of Bakhtin's
"laughing culture" of carnival.
Carnival is a complex notion, but, "in spite of their variety, folk
festivities of the carnival type, the comic rites and cults, the clowns and
fools, giants, dwarfs, and jugglers, the vast and manifold literature of
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9
parody-all these forms have one style in common: they belong to one
culture of folk carnival and laughter " (Rabelais, 4; trans. mod.; emphasis
added); "all these forms . . . [are] based on laughter," reflect "a single
laughing' aspect of the w orld... . "(5; trans. mod.).2 "Carnival" and
"laughter" are often interchangeable in Bakhtin’ s texts— as in "carnival
culture" and "laughter [laughing] culture" ("grotesque realism" also
belongs to this chain of synonyms).
The principle of carnival is that of centrifugal forces:
As opposed to the official feast, one might say that carnival
celebrated temporary’ liberation from the prevailing truth and from
the established order; it marked the suspension of all hierarchical
rank, privileges, norms, and prohibitions. Carnival was the true
feast of time, the feast of becoming, change and renewal. It was
hostile to all that was immortalized and completed. (10)
In fact, carnival is described primarily in terms of opposition on every
level of its functioning. Thus, as a festivity', it is opposed to labor : "The
feast (every feast) is an important primary form of human culture. It
cannot be explained by the practical conditions and goals of the
community's work, and it would be even more superficial to attribute it
to the physiological demand for periodic rest" (8; trans. mod.). It is
essentially opposed to religion ("all these forms are systematically placed
outside the Church and religiosity’. They belong to an entirely different
sphere" ) as well as to instrumentality’ of magic ("They are also completely
deprived of the character of magic and prayer; they do not command nor
do they ask for anything" [7]). In the established hierarchy of values
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carnival posits itself as anti-utilitarian : "the feast means liberation from
all that is utilitarian, practiced. It is a temporary transfer to the utopian
world” (276). Being in radical opposition to the "everyday order of
things," carnival relates to it as crisis:
Moreover, through all the stages of historic development feasts
were linked to moments of crisis, of breaking points in the cycle of
nature or in the life of society and man. Moments of death and
revival, of change and renewal were always leading in festive
perception of the world. Precisely these moments, expressed in
specific forms of concrete feasts, created their peculiar festivity. (9;
trans. mod.)
However, carnival is far from absolute negativity ("there is not a gran of
nihilism in it" [PDP, 160]), so that it creates a world of its own:
A second life, a second world of folk culture is constructed to a
certain extent as a parody of the "normal," that is extracamival life,
as a "world inside out." V V e must stress, however, that the carnival
is far distant from the negative and formal parody of modem
times. Folk parody denies, but it revives and renews at the same
time. Bare negation is completely alien to folk culture. (11; trans.
mod.)
I want to emphasize this transition— from negation to creation— as
crucial for the whole of Bakhtin's conception:
All forms of carnival festivities, as organized on the basis of
laughter, were sharply (one can say in principle) distinct from the
serious official, ecclesiastical, feudal, and political cult forms and
ceremonials. They offered a completely different, non-official,
extraecdesiastical and extrapolitical aspect of the world, of man,
and of human relations; they built as if a second world and a
second life outside officialdom, a world in which all medieval
people particated more or less, in which they lived during a given
time of the year. If we fail to take into consideration this specific
tivo-zvorld condition, neither medieval cultural consciousness nor
the culture of the Renaissance can be understood. To ignore or to
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underestimate the laughing people of the .Middle Ages also distorts
the whole picture of European culture's historic development.
(Rabelais. 5-6; trans. mod.)
"Thus carnival is the people's second life, organized on the basis of
laughter," "it was the world's second truth extended to everything and
from which nothing is taken away. It was, as it were, the festive aspect of
the whole world in all its elements, the second revelation of the world in
play and laughter" (8, 84).
The most important characteristic of the carnival is that, being
inseparable from the "material and bodily roots of the world" (19), it at
the same time possesses an ideal significance:
In carnival life itself. .. performs another, free and unencumbered
version of its own realisation, enacts its renaissance and renewal
on an improved basis. Here the real life’ s form is at the same time
given as its reborn ideal form (Tvorchestvo . 10-11; omitted in the
English translation);
"[the feast] must be sanctioned not by the world of practical conditions but
by the highest aims of human existence, that is, by the world of ideals”
(Rabelais. 8-9). In carnival ”[f]or a short time life comes out of its usual,
legalized and consecrated furrows and enters the sphere of utopian
freedom" (89; trans. mod.).^
Accordingly, although carnival is opposed to "official seriousness,”
at the same time (as a "second world" in its own right) it is not (only) a
"laughing matter." I already indicated the "positive" essence of Bakhtin's
carnival, as opposed to "destructive nihilism." By the same token, "the
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characteristic trait of [true, carnival], laughter, was precisely the
recognition of its positive, regenerating, creative meaning" (71)4. In this
context it is important to recall Bakhtin's differentiation between three
kinds of laughter, which is usually neglected by researchers: the "true,"
ambivalent camivalesque laughter is consistently contrasted with "pure
satirical” as well as with "purely recreational, thoughtlessly cheerful
laughter which is devoid of any philosophical depth or power"
(Tvorchestvo . 16 et passim). The "true" ”[l]aughter is as universal as
seriousness" (Rabelais. 84; trans. mod.), it
has a deep philosophical meaning, it is one of the essential forms
of the truth concerning the world as a whole, concerning history
and man; it is a specific universal point of view relative to the
world; the world is seen anew, no less (and perhaps more)
profoundly than when seen from the serious standpoint.. . .
Certain essential aspects of the world are accessible only to laughter
(Rabelais. 66; trans. mod.);
The world of carnival and laughter is presented as both ideal and
real in two aspects. First, it unfolds in an "objective" duration of time and
space for its participants— and at the same time its nature is utopian: "Here
the real life’ s form is at the same time given as its reborn ideal form"
(Tvorchestvo . 11); "The utopian ideal and the realistic merged in this
carnival experience, unique of its kind" (Rabelais. 10). Second: a specific
feature of carnival is that the "utopian element acquires . . . in all
popular-festive utopias, a sharply defined material bodily form" (264-65);
The familiar conquest of the world [by and in the carnival]. . . drew
the world closer to man, to his body, permitted him to touch and
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test every object, examine it from all sides, enter into it, turn it
inside out, compare it to every phenomenon, however exalted and
holy, analyze, weigh, measure, try it on. And all this could be done
on the plane of material sensual experience. (380-81)
Hence the "material abundance" of the carnival, for instance, a
proliferation of food:
Eating and drinking are one of the most significant manifestations
of the grotesque body. The distinctive character of this body is its
open unfinished nature, its interaction with the world. These traits
are most fully and concretely revealed in the act of eating; the body
transgresses here its own limits: it swallows, devours, rends the
world apart, is enriched and grows at the world's expense. (281)
Thus the "laughing culture" or the "second world” of Bakhtin is posited
as an "ideally materialistic” or "materially idealistic" conception of "the
world which continuously grows and multiplies, becomes ever greater
and better, ever more abundant,” so that "the final result is always
abundance, increase" (195, 62). Here lies the "objective" foundation for
the constant "dominanta" of Bakhtin s carnival— its "positiveness".
Laughter-the general "basis” or principle of cam ival-acquires
some particular functions in Bakhtin’ s conception. First, laughter is the
means to establish human contact, or to open a dialogical relation— an
important point in view of the global scope of Bakhtin's oeuvre.
Here . . . a special form of free and familiar contact reigned among
people who were usually divided by the barriers of caste, property,
profession, and age . . . such free, familiar contacts were deeply felt
and formed an essential element of the carnival spirit. People were,
so to speak, reborn for new, purely human relations. (Rabelais 10)
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14
Language is of course the primary vehicle for these relations, but on the
plane of language
all high and serious genres, all high forms of language and style, all
mere set phrases and all linguistic norms were drenched in
conventionality, hypocrisy and falsification. Laughter done
remained uninfected by lies.
We have in mind here laughter not as a biological or
psvcho-physiological act, but rather laughter conceived as an
objectivised, sociohistorical cultural phenomenon, which is most
often present in verbal expression .. . [Laughter causes] a
destruction of linguistic norms for language and thought. . . . [It
has] that special force and capability to strip, as it were, the object of
the false verbal and ideological husk that encloses it. (Dl, 236-37)5
In general,
Laughter is a specific aesthetic relationship to reality, but not one
that can be translated into logical language; that is, it is a specific
means for artistically visualizing and comprehending reality and,
consequently, a specific means for structuring an artistic image, plot
or genre. Enormous creative, and therefore genre-shaping, power
was possessed by ambivalent camivaiistic laughter. This laughter
could grasp and comprehend a phenomenon in the process of
change and transition, it could fix in a phenomenon both poles of
its evolution in their uninterrupted and creative renewing
changeability: in death birth is foreseen and in birth death, in
victory defeat and in defeat victor}', in crowning a decrowning.
Carnival laughter does not permit a single one of these aspects of
change to be absolutized or to congeal in one-sided seriousness.
(PDP 164)
Secondly, Bakhtin consistently emphasizes the ideological function
of laughter (quite in the spirit of Marxism and the Philosophy of
Language): "For thousands of years the people have used these festive
’ laughing’ images to express their criticism, their deep mistrust of official
truth, and their highest hopes and aspirations" (Rabelais 269: trans.
mod.)— this is the "critical" aspect of laughter, aimed against the "old"
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world. But more than that, the "important trait of laughter was its
relation to the people s unofficial truth" (90). It "not only permitted the
expression of an antifeudal, popular truth" (94), but "could never become
an instrument of oppression, a means for drugging the people. Nobody
could ever make laughter altogether official. It always remained a weapon
of freedom in the hands of the people” (Tvorchestvo 105). Another very
interesting point here is that "its idiom is never used by violence and
authority" (101).
In the final instance, laughter represents truth-o f course, the
people's, centrifugal, "world's second truth" (Rabelais 84 et passim).
In the "ideal/material" dimension of carnival laughter, death itself
is defeated, for "death is entirely drawn into the cycle of life" (359), "the
vital process . .. does not cease on death but on the contrary triumphs in
it, for death is life’ s rejuvenation" (405). It is very characteristic of
Bakhtin’ s heterology that death is defeated not on the plane of individual
existence, but on the plane of the human genus. so that ”[t]he death of the
individual is only one moment in the trium phant life of the people and
of mankind, a moment indispensable for their renewal and
improvement" (341): "Having done its part upon earth, the individual
soul fades and dies together with the individual body; but the body of the
people and of mankind, fertilized by the dead, is eternally renewed and
moves forever forward along the historic path of progress" (404). In fact,
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Bakhtin proclaims here "the immortality of man’ s seed, deed, name, and
culture" (Tvorchestvo 440).
This steadfast positive development is seen from the angle of life's
wasteless economy:
Here, at the summit of grotesque and folklore realism, as in the
death of one-cell organisms, no dead body remains (death of such
organism is at the same time its reproduction, it divides into two
cells, two organisms, not leaving any wasted "remains"); here old
age is "expecting," death is pregnant, all that is limited, narrowly
characterized, fossilized, and completed is thrust into the lower
stratum of the body for recasting and a new birth. (Rabelais 52-53;
trans. mod.)
Thus, death in the carnival dimension is always the death of the
old (that is, pertaining to the hierarchized, centripetally structured world):
"Negation and destruction (death of the old) are included as an essential
phase, inseparable from affirmation, from the birth of something new,
and better" (62); both phases are conversely inevitable: "The birth of the
new, of the greater and the better, is as indispensable and as inevitable as
the death of the old" (256). This distinction is categoric, so that "All
limitations are bequeathed to the dying world, now in the process of being
laughed out of existence" (DI, 240; emphasis added).
As an overall picture, we have, on the one hand, all that is "stable,
unchanging, perennial: the existing hierarchy, the existing religious,
political, and moral values, norms and prohibitions . . . a truth already
established,. . . put forward as eternal and indisputable" (Rabelais 9); a
world of stagnation, where
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[h]ypocrisy and falsehood saturate all hum an relationshs. The
healthy "natural” functions of hum an nature are fulfilled, so to
speak, only in the ways that are contraband and savage, because the
reigning ideology will not sanction them. This introduces
falsehood and duplicity into all hum an life. All ideological forms,
that is, institutions, become hypocritical and false, while real life,
denied anv ideological directives, becomes crude and bestial. (DI,
162)
But, on the other hand, "[tjime has transformed old truth and authority
into a Mardi Gras dummy, a comic monster that the laughing crowd
rends to pieces in the marketplace." There follows Bakhtin's footnote:
All these representatives of old authority and truth are, in the
words of Marx "mere comedians of the world order whose real
heroes have already died” . . . The people's laughing culture
perceives all these pretenses of immovable stability and eternity in
the perspective of all-changing and all-renewing time. (Rabelais
213; trans. mod.)
And again, in this process, the "hero and author is time itself, which
uncrowns, covers with ridicule, kills the old world (the old authority and
truth), and at the same time gives birth to the new" (Rabelais 207).
The concept of time in the whole of Bakhtin’ s heterology requires
special attention. An important characteristic of carnival time is that it is
always "incompleted," "unfinalized" (nezaversheno ). according to its
nature of "’merry time,’ time which kills and gives birth, which allows
nothing old to be perpetuated and never ceases to generate the new and
the youthful" (Rabelais 211): hence, "the ever incompleted character of
being" (32).
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Next, Bakhtin is very consistent in emphasizing the ideological
essence of carnival time:
we must here stress once more the essential relation of festive
laughter to time and to its "passing" nature . . . all that is new or
renews, all that is about to draw nearer is emphasized as a positive
element. And this element acquires a wider and deeper meaning: it
expresses the people’ s hopes of a happier future, of a more just
social and economic order, of a new truth. (81; trans. mod.)
In Bakhtin’ s conception of time two basic aspects are of particular
interest to us. First, since carnival laughter is essentially a crisis of the
"old world," the time of carnival, seen from the point of view of this "old
world" is perceived as critical, disruptive: "through all the stages of
historic development feasts were linked to moments of crisis, of breaking
points in the cycle of nature or in the life of society’ and man" (9).
"Graphically," the tim e/space dimension of carnival can be represented
(as seen from "conventional" continuum) as a "single spatial and
temporal ’point.’ And what is necessary’ for this is carnival freed o m and
carnival’ s artistic conception of space and time" (PDF, 177).6 For example,
"The time here [a day from The Idiot 1 is neither tragic time ..., nor is it
epic time, nor biographical time. This is a day in special carnival time,
excluded, as it were, from historical time, flowing according to its own
special carnival laws and finding room in itself for an unlimited number
of radical shifts and metamorphoses" (175-76). Particular instances of
carnival time occur in gambling ("The stake is similar to a crisis: a person
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feels himself on the threshold. And the time of gambling is a special time:
here, too, a minute is equal to years" (171) and in penal servitude:
Both the lives of convicts and the lives of gam blers-for all their
differences in content— are equally "life taken out of life" (that is,
taken out of common, ordinary life). In this sense both convicts
and gamblers are camivalized collectives. And the tim e of penal
servitude and the tim e of gambling are— for all their profound
differences-an identical type o f time, similar to the "final
moments of consciousness" before execution or suicide, similar in
general to the time of crisis. All this is time on the threshold, and
not biological time, experienced in the interior spaces of life far
from the threshold. (172)
In Bakhtin’ s theory of chronotopes this kind of time constitutes a
"chronotope, highly charged with emotion and value, the chronotope of
threshold;... its most fundamental instance is as the chronotope of crisis
and break in a life . . . In this chronotope, time is essentially
instantaneous; it is as if it has no duration and falls out of the normal
course of biographical time" (DI, 248).
The most interesting paradoxical metamorphosis occurs with the
change of perspective— more precisely, with the change of the whole
system of coordinates. Time, considered from within carnival laughter
dimension, loses its essence of a "crisis," "break," or "point" and acquires
the same characteristics it repudiated in the "normal time" of the "old
world” (the one "killed," "laughed out of existence”): "Feast always
essentially relates to time. It is always based on a defined and concrete
conception of natural (cosmic), biological and historical time”
(Tvorchestvo 12; emphasis added). First excluded from the historical
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duration of the compromised reality, time "again becomes" historical in
formulations of the "ideal reality" of the carnival, with its "powerful
historic awareness . . . a deeper understanding of reality," "sober and
fearless knowledge of this [historical] process" (Rabelais 208, 237), and "the
growth of a new man together with the growth of a new historical era, in
a new historical world, which exists alongside the death of the old man
and the old world" (Voprosv. 388).
At this point a major substitution takes place in Bakhtin's
argument. Not only is carnival time opposed to that of "the old world,"
but it appropriates the status of "real" time; conversely, the "official" time
(history) of the "old convention" loses this status, and is perceived as
inadequate, "irreal" as it were:
There was destroyed as well the medieval conception of history' .. .
in which real time is devalued and dissolved in extemporal
categories. In this world view, time is a force that only destroys and
annihilates; it creates nothing. It was necessary to find a new form
of time and a new relationship of time to space, to earthly space
("The frames of the old orb is terrcirum had been broken; only now,
precisely now, was the earth opened up. .. ." [Bakhtin quotes Marx
and Engels]). A new chronotope was needed that would permit one
to link real life (history) to the real earth. It was necessary- to oppose
to eschatology a creative and generative time, a time measured by
creative acts, by growth and not by destruction. (DI, 205-206)
Here I would like to address an important methodological
problem, usually skipped over by researchers of "Bakhtin and his world".
As I mentioned in the introduction, in the texts that for now serve as the
primary- source for our analysis, Bakhtin more or less consistently limits
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the object of his study to a given topic, such as "Francois Rabelais'
Creation and the Folk Culture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance."^
At the same time, however, the most important, axiological
fundamentals of his more global "heterological" theory are recurrent in
his argument (with only slight, easily recognized modifications) in all of
these works, be it "about" Rabelais, the novel, Dostoevsky or chronotope.
In the present context one can say that, in a way, the "dark Middle Ages"
do not represent a concrete epoch which came to an end with the
Renaissance; they continue to exist ex tempore, as a centripetal,
authoritarian tendency-and to be an object of Bakhtin’ s investigation,
dealing with a quite different era (e.g. Dostoevsky's oeuvre).
Continuously "the growth of a new man . .. exists alongside the death of
the old man and the old world" (Voprosv. 388).
One might think that by the same token the liberating forces of the
Renaissance would be equally (and easily) conceived as a manifestation of
the concurrent extemporal--"anti-authoritarian," centrifugal— tendency.
However, in this particular instance Bakhtin’ s argument unexpectedly
offers much more resistance. Bakhtin is insistent that the decisive victory
of the progressive forces of the Renaissance took place in "real" historical
dimension of the new era, where "real life (history) [is linked] to the real
earth” (DI, 206); only here one finds "that exclusive faith in earthly space
and time, that pathos® for spatial and temporal distances and expanses
that is so typical of Rabelais, as well as of other great Renaissance figures
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(Shakespeare, Camoens, Cervantes)" (168; trans. mod.). The reality of this
new era is further accentuated, for this is the world where "America was
being discovered, a sea route to India was being opened up, new fields in
natural science and mathematics were being established" (166).
Does this mean that ever since that major breaking point mankind
has lived in "the ever more abundant," "new" historical reality of the
carnival?^ Or did it at some point revert back into an anti-historical
atemporalitv of the authoritarian structure? In other words, to which
"side of the barricade" belongs "our" history? Or, once again, do we still
live divided between two planes of existence, the centripetal "everyday"
and the liberated life of the carnival? (In this case, one of many possible
problems is that science, according to Bakhtin, is essentially a product of
the liberated, unencumbered vision ["great changes, even in the field of
science, are always preceded by a certain carnival consciousness that
prepares the way” (Rabelais 4911: on the other hand, science is an
inalienable element— and, as it is, a very active factor-of the everyday,
conventionally structured life). A seemingly obvious solution, that of a
"dialogical" exchange between two planes of existence, does not hold,
since authoritarian structure is by definition monological, incapable of
such an exchange (the starting point for Bakhtin’ s "heterology"). As
concerns our methodological problem, the most productive approach
(and well grounded in Bakhtin’ s own writing strategy) is still to see in
"centripetal" and "centrifugal" tendencies two continuously opposing
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forces, manifesting themselves in different aspects of human existence as
a whole.10
The answer to the question, where does history belong or, which
history (time continuum) is "real," is not facilitated by Bakhtin's
terminology. We have seen that the dimension of the carnival falls out of
conventional biological, biographical, and historical time— but only to be
characterized by exactly the same parameters. This fact is all the more
significant as Bakhtin is known to be an author who freely coins new
terms and definitions (cf. his heteroglossia, exotopv, chronotope of the
threshold etc.). I would tend to see here an example of Bakhtin's general
predilection for considering a problem on the plane of modality (in the
present context it might be confusing to speak about the historical
functioning of phenomena) rather than on the ontological plane; thus, at
some point Bakhtin emphasizes that '[cjamival is, so to speak, functional
and not substantive’ ’ (PDP, 125).
Let us take a look at one of Bakhtin's attempts to pose and to
resolve a problem (here related to the concept of time) on the ontological
level. "Bom of folk laughing culture, [the grotesque] in fact always
represents in one form or another, through these or other means, the
return of Saturn’ s golden age to earth” (Rabelais 48; trans. mod.). This is a
manifestation of
what might be called a historical inversion. The essence of this
inversion is found in the fact that mythological and artistic
thinking locates such categories as purpose, ideal, justice,
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perfection, the harmonious condition of man and society and the
like in the past. Myths about paradise, a Golden Age, a heroic age,
an ancient truth, as well as the later concepts of a "state of nature,"
of natural, innate rights and so on, are all expressions of this
historical inversion. To put it in somewhat simplified terms, we
might say that a thing that could and in fact must only be realized
exclusively in the fu tu r e is here portrayed as something out of the
past, a thing that is in no sense part of the past’ s reality, but a thing
that is in its essence a purpose, an obligation.
In the next paragraph we read:
The historical inversion in philosophical structures is
characterized by a corresponding assumption of "beginnings" as the
crystal-clear, pure sources of all being, of eternal values and modes
of existence that are ideal and outside time. (DI, 147-48)
To an attentive reader these eternal values outside time immediately
signal the transition to the authoritarian, conservative structure. And in
fact Bakhtin tries to introduce a differentiation: "There is a greater
readiness to build a superstructure for reality (the present) along a vertical
axis of upper and lower than to move forward along the horizontal axis
of time." The horizontal movement refers to the "fearless" and "realistic"
progress made possible by the camivalistic liberation of time, whereas the
vertical axis marks conservative transcendentalism. Then things get
more complicated:
Even if these vertical structurings are proclaimed other-worldly,
idealistic, eternal, outside time, still this extratemporal and eternal
is perceived as simultaneous with a given moment in the present;
it is something contemporaneous, and that which already exists is
perceived as better than the future (which does not yet exist and
which never did exist). From the point of view of reality, historic
inversion (in the strict sense of the word) prefers the past— which is
more weighty, more fleshed out— to such a future. On the contrary',
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vertical, other-worldly superstructures prefer to such a past that
which is eternal and outside time altogether, yet which functions
as if it were indeed real and already contemporary, (trans. mod.)
A reader is presented with a rather confusing overlapping of past, present,
and future, of "inversion in the strict sense" and "superstructures," of
conservative idealism and progressive ideals, of essence and function. It
is no wonder that Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist's translation of
the quoted passage is rather inexact. H Things do not get any more
comprehensible when Bakhtin writes (only several lines further): "we
must define in more detail the relationship between these forms and an
actual future. For even in these forms, after all, everything must lead into
a real future, into precisely that which does not yet exist but which at
some point must exist."
The "circle" is completed when we juxtapose the first quotation in
the presented sequence, where the "return of the Golden Age"— historical
inversion "in the strict sense" of "looking to the past"— essentially
pertains to camivalistic culture, with the following:
The popular, laughing aspect of the feast to a certain extent
presented the better future of a general material affluence, equality,
and freedom, just as the Roman Saturnalia performed the return
of the Golden Age. Thus, the medieval feast had, as it were, the two
faces of Janus. Its official, ecclesiastical face was turned to the past
and sanctioned the existing order, but the face of the people of the
marketplace looked into the future and laughed, attending the
funeral o f the past and present. (Rabelais 81; trans. mod.)12
So, finally, what are the essential differentiating characteristics that
would permit us to distinguish between the two worlds, centripetally
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conservative and centrifugally liberated? As we have seen, at least as
concerns Bakhtin’ s definition of the time structure of these worlds, they
do not differ on the categorical plane, nor is there any difference on the
terminological level.
Furthermore, according to Bakhtin, the historical inversion
realized in "vertical superstructures” (extemporal, "out of this world")
can produce only a character who is either "falsely debased" or one whose
image serves as an "idealized compensation for human weakness and
need" (Voprosv. 3 0 0).13 At the same time, folk historical inversion
produces the image of a hero who "possessed unseen physical strength
and capacity to work; his struggle with nature, his sober-minded and
realistic intelligence, even his healthy appetite and thirst were portrayed
on a heroic scale" (DI, 149; trans. mod.). However, to draw a line between
such a "heroic projection" and the "idealized compensation for human
weakness and need" is difficult at best.14
In the last instance, the only criterion that allows one to
differentiate between the "official real world" and the "even more real"
world of carnival is Bakhtin’ s use of highly emotionally and ideologically
loaded qualifiers which are distributed on the opposite sides of the main
ideological borderline: old-youthful, vertical-horizontal, offidal-people’ s,
gloomy-merry, conservative-progressive etc. Finally, in view of Bakhtin’ s
ideological— that is, explicitly democratic in the etymological sense of the
word— preferences, his very consistent structural division is reducible to
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the opposition of "bad" to "good" or, again in terms of life's general
economy (and considering general psychological connotations), of
"minus" to "plus": "[EJverything that is good grows: it grows in all
respects and in all directions, it cannot help growing because growth is
inherent in its very nature. The bad, on the contrary, does not grow but
degenerates, thins out and perishes" (168).
Here is found the clue to the whole architectonic (to use Bakhtin s
term) system of camivalistic heterology. At the beginning of this chapter I
already mentioned that the world of carnival is based on opposition. Now
we can add that, first, it is consistently opposed to the "world of
officialdom" (to escape the false "truth of this world" fRabelais 491): and
second, structurally and categorically (and even on the level of
terminology) it duplicates this same repudiated system. In order to avoid
a "sweeping statement," based only on the instance of a "new time"
(which surreptitiously integrates with the "old" one), some more
examples will be useful.
'The feast means liberation from all that is utilitarian, practical"
(276); "it [the feast] cannot be explained by the practical conditions and
goals of the community's work" (8; trans. mod.). Nevertheless, ”[f]or
thousands of years the people have used these festive laughing’ images
to express their criticism, their deep mistrust of official truth, and their
highest hopes and aspirations" (Rabelais 269; trans. mod.; emphasis
added). Inside the liberated universe of carnival, ”[a]ll objects . . . are
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present to man . .. exclusively as part of the collective process of labor and
the battle against nature" (DI, 2 0 9). 15 And then, the abundant food— one
of the essential elements of carnival— "concluded work and strusele and
was their crown of glory. Work triumphed in food. Human labor's
encounter with the world and the struggle against it ended in food, in the
swallowing of that which had been uTested from the world. As the last
victorious stage of work, the image of food often symbolized the entire
labor process" (Rabelais 281; emphasis added). And that is why the real
folk hero "possessed an unseen . . . capacity to work" and was endowed
with "sober-minded and realistic intelligence"-all of which is rather far
from declared anti-utilitarianism but very close to the "regular"
utilitarianism, only, of course, with the substitution of the ideological
"minus” for "plus". Analogically, "at first" the "rejection of the official
world with its philosophy, system of values, and seriousness . . .
presupposes freedom from personal material self-interest, from shady
ability to profitably manage one’ s domestic and personal affairs’-w hich
then is quite exhonorated "at the people’ s market square [where 1 even
cupidity and cheating have an ironical, almost candid character" (261-62,
160; trans. mod.).
Laughter "cannot be changed for seriousness without destroying
and distorting the very' contents of the truth which it unveils" (94; trans.
mod.). But, being the structural basis (and more: the very foundation of
positiveness) of the camivalistic world, it cannot help becoming serious
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itself--naturally, after the ideological character of seriousness has been
changed: "Official medieval culture did not know the fearless, free, and
sober forms of seriousness"--they are established in and by carnival. Good
triumphs over bad.16
The laughter of the carnival is essentially inimical to all "other-
wordliness"; based on the "classical" structural opposition high-low, "all .
. . forms of grotesque realism degrade, bring down to earth, turn their
subject into flesh . . . The people's laughter . . . was linked with the bodily
lower stratum. Laughter degrades and materializes" (20). At the same
time, however, "let us particularly stress the philosophical and utopian
character of festive laughter and its orientation toward the highest
spheres"; festivities "must be sanctioned by the highest aims of human
existence, that is, by the world of ideals" (12, 9; trans. mod.; emphasis
added).
The connecting problem of "sacred" and "profane" is another
important point in perceiving Bakhtin's heterology. In accordance with
his general structural coupling of oppositions: high-low, authority -
freedom, serious-laughing etc., Bakhtin understands the "sacred" as
sanctioned by authority (religion, political power, tradition-centripetal
forces in history and society); profane is seen as the opposing element
(liberating forces— "free thinking," "healthy materialism of the body,”
carnival).
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The essential principle of grotesque realism is degradation, that is,
the lowering of all that is high, spiritual, ideal, abstract; it is a
transfer to the material level, to the sphere of earth and body in
their indissoluble unity .. . [in] the entire system of degradation,
turnovers, and travesties . . . the same topographical logic is put to
work: shifting from top to bottom, casting the high and the old, the
finished and completed into the material bodily nether world for
death and rebirth. (Rabelais 19-20; 81-82; trans. mod.)!-7
The whole principle of desacralization is concentrated in the image of the
decrowned sovereign. "Here is a dimension in which thrashing and
abuse . . . are symbolic actions directed at the highest— at the king . . . He is
elected by all the people, and all the people mock, abuse and beat him
when the time of his reign is over . . . It is the king's uncrowning" (197;
trans. mod).18
The camivalistic act of crowning/decrowning is, of course,
permeated with carnival categories (with the logic of the carnival
world): free and familiar contact (this is very clearly manifest in
decrowning), camivalistic mesalliances (slave-king), profanation
(plaving with the symbols of higher authority), and so on. (PDP,
125)'
According to the concept of "merry death," decrowning is presented not
as a tragic event, but as a positive phase in life’ s cycle: "Deeply ambivalent
also is carnival laughter itself. Genetically it is linked with the most
ancient forms of ritual laughter. Ritual laughter was always directed
toward something higher: the sun (the highest god), other gods, the
highest earthly authority’ were put to shame and ridiculed to force them
to renew themselves" (126-27 ) .^
In general,
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[a]ll limitations are bequeathed to the dying world, now in the
process of being laughed out of existence. All representatives of the
old world-m onks, religious fanatics, feudal lords and royal
courtiers, kings . . . -are treated as absurd and doomed. TTiey are
completely limited beings, their potential is utterly exhausted by
their pitiful reality . .. Such kings as Picrochole represent the real-
life kings of a dying sociohistorical world-kings who are as limited
and pathetic as the sociohistorical reality that is theirs. There is no
freedom to be found in them, no further potential. (DI, 240-41)
And here the general rule of Bakhtin's heterological
"architectonics’ -substitution by a structurally similar counterpart-com es
into play. "The king is dead-long live the king!", that is, the ’ "bad"’ king is
decrowned but the " ’ good" one is anointed: such kings as
Gargantua and Pantagruel are certainly not kings in the same
restricted sense that the feudal kings. . . are kings; but not only is
there a fleshing-out of the humanist king ideal as opposed to the
feudal king (although that aspect is, to be sure, present)-... [s]uch
heroes are made kings in order to endow them with the greatest
possible potential and the freedom to fully realize oneself, one's
human nature (241; trans. mod.; emphasis added) .20
Here we have another instance of conceptual overlapping: the obvious
compensator)' function of the given characters should relegate them to
"vertical superstructures," produced by the "old world" time-structuring.
All in all, the dynamics of the heterology of carnival and laughter
can be formulated as a certain dialectical process: first to negate, then to
construct, using the structural patterns of the negated:
One might say that it [laughter] builds its own world versus the
official world, its own church versus the official church, its own
state versus the official state. Laughter celebrates its own masses,
professes its faith, observes its rites of marriage and funeral, writes
its epitaphs, elects kings and bishops. (Rabelais 88; trans. mod.)21
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Hence the consistency with which Bakhtin uses such expressions as "the
single logic,” and "systematic whole" of carnival, "the order of the (new)
world".
In light of this, we can see from a new angle Bakhtin's
differentiation between the "liberating power" of laughter and "its power
of regeneration" (38). And of course, the most important characteristic is
the ideological nature of Bakhtin's conception of carnival heterology. In
terms of structure, we have here the same model: having been anti-
ideological in the "old" frames ("Laughter is as universal as seriousness;
it is directed at the whole world, at history, at society as such, at ideology"
[84; trans. mod.]; "[carnival] offered a[n]... extrapolitical aspect of the
world" [5-6]), laughter is openly ideological in the "brave new world".
Let us summarize, at this point in our analysis, the overall
parameters of Bakhtin’ s camivalistic heterology.
The main thrust of the carnival conception is declared to lie in its
accentuation of change or becoming, in its ambivalent (a favorite epithet
of Bakhtin’ s) perception of all life’ s aspects (this essential nature of
heterology serves as the basis of heteroglossia as such, i.e. a more specific
area of Bakhtin’ s theory which will be analyzed further). "Carnival is, so
to speak, functional and not substantive. It absolutizes nothing, but rather
proclaims the joyful relativity of everything" (PDP, 125); "its
indispensable trait is am bivalence: in this or in that form both poles of
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33
transformation are given (or implicit)— the old and the new, the dying
and being bom, the beginning and the end of metamorphosis"
(Tvorchestvo 30);
All the images of of carnival are dualistic; they unite within
themselves both poles of change and crisis: birth and death (the
image of pregnant death), blessing and curse . . . praise and abuse,
youth and old age, top and bottom, face and backside, stupidity and
wisdom. (PDP, 126)
Thus, without exception, ambivalence characterizes all aspects of the
camivalistic perception of the universe : time, space, history, death,
games, and so forth. We have seen that this emphasis on ambivalence,
on a certain relativity, leads, on the level of categorical expression, to
ambiguity and beyond that, to several paradoxical "overlappings" of the
opposed (supposedly heterogeneous ) concepts. To some extent, Bakhtin
seems to forestall criticism of this kind, when he says for instance (and
here he claims a certain priority "in the field") that
[u]p to now, only phenomena expressing the relations of formal
logic have been analyzed, or, in any case, those that fit the
framework of these relations . . . But in manifestations of the folk
laughing culture we find precisely dialectics in forms of images.
(Rabelais. footnote on 410; trans. mod.)
V V e can note here that Bakhtin obviously bases his argum ent on the
Marxist.rewriting of the Hegelian dialectics. Thus, he extensively uses its
fundamentals, the "laws” of "negation of negation" and the "unity and
struggle of opposites." However, the dialectical approach to carnival in its
"living unity" involves some problematic issues. For the sake of
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34
coherence, different aspects of the following argument are presented
sequentially, which is not the case in Bakhtin's writings.
The "unity of existence" as a whole presupposes some kind of
"coordination" of its primary constituents--"two worlds," the
centripetally organized one (official, concervative, dogm atic-in a word,
"old") and the centrifugallv liberated ("new'") one. in other words,
theoretically, logically as well as practically (for instance, in the pages of
Bakhtin’ s works), there exists a certain correlation or interdependence of
these two basic parts of the overall system. This implication has already
attracted the attention of several commentators. Umberto Eco, for
example, writes:
Carnival [according to Bakhtin’ s theory'J is the natural theater in
which animals and animal-like beings take over the power and
become the masters. In carnival even kings act like the populace . ..
The upside-down world has become the norm. Carnival is
revolution (or revolution is carnival): kings are decapitated (that is,
lowered, made inferior) and the crowd is crowned.
Such a transgressional theory has many chances to be
popular, today, even among the happy few. It sounds very-
aristocratic. There is but one suspicion to pollute our enthusiasm:
the theory' is unfortunately false.
If it were true, it would be impossible to explain why power
(any social and political power throughout the centuries) has used
circettses to keep the crowds quiet; why the most repressive
dictatorships have always censured parodies and satires [which in
Bakhtin’ s view do not represent the authentic carnival laughter]
but not clowneries; why humor is suspect but circus is innocent;
why today's mass media, undoubtedly instruments of social
control. . . are based mainly upon the funny, the ludicrous, that is,
upon a continuous camivalization of life. To support the universe
of business, there is no business like show business. 22
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35
Analyzing the essence of comic laughter, Eco comes to the conclusion:
Carnival, in order to be enjoyed, requires that rules and rituals be
parodied, and that these rules and rituals already be recognized and
respected . . . Without a valid law to break, carnival is impossible ..
. Carnival can exist only as an authorized transgression (which in
fact represents a blatant case of contradictio in adjecto or of happy
double binding-capable of curing instead of producing neurosis)..
. In this sense, comedy and carnival are not instances of real
transgressions: on the contrary, they represent paramount
examples of law reinforcement. They remind us of the existence of
the rule. (Frames of Comic Freedom 3; 6)23
The dependence on the "frame" or the (negated) starting point
signifies, in fact, determinism (let us call it determinism 1) of the
carnival, postulated at the outset as anti-deterministic . Also, there is
another aspect of the same problem: the "unity of life"-that is, the
"superstructure" englobing the constituent elements— is possible only due
to a certain homogeneity of these constituents, which, in other words, are
given as phenomena of the same order. As we have seen, the relation of
the "two worlds" (primarily postulated as heterogeneous in Bakhtin's
conception) is indeed characterized by this conceptual and structural
homogeneity:
We have already spoken of the structural characteristics of the
carnival image: it strives to encompass and unite within itself both
poles of becoming or both members of an antithesis: birth-death,
youth-old age, top-bottom, face-backside, praise-abuse, affirmation-
repudiation, tragic-comic, and so forth, while the upper pole of a
two-in-one image is reflected in the lower, after the manner of the
figures on playing cards. It could be expressed this way: opposites
come together, look at one another, are reflected in one another,
know and understand one another. (PDP, 176)
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36
Bakhtin seems to try to "counterbalance" the predicament of
determinism and homogeneity by stressing yet more, even to the point of
compromising the overall unity, the differences (the heteros) of the
opposing worlds, in conformity with the general economical ideological
principle: "everything that is good grows . . . The bad, on the contrary, . . .
perishes" (DI, 168). Thus, "death is included in life" (Rabelais 50 et
passim), but not vice versa. In another example,
debasement is the fundamental artistic principle of grotesque
realism; all that is sacred and exalted is rethought on the level of
the material bodily stratum or else combined and mixed with its
images. We spoke about the grotesque swing, which brings together
skies and earth.24 But the accent is placed not on the upward
movement but on the descent: skies get buried in earth and not
vice versa. (370-71; trans. mod.)
This blatantly disrupts the "spirit of free and joyful play, in which high
and low, sacred and profane are equal in their rights and involved in a
unanimous verbal merry-go-round" (Tvorchestvo 173-74). Finally, it is
very symptomatic, that "homo camavalis" lives two lives in two
different worlds and not one life in one world with two opposed
extremes: centripetal forces in Bakhtin's conception seem not to be strong
enough to save the postulated "united two-bodied world" from
desintegration (Rabelais. 6 et passim; 447).
We can note here that, singled out of the ambivalent unit}' of
conventional "plus" and "minus," the positive thrust in the
philosophical and historical aspects of Bakhtin's theory loses much of its
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37
potential and often degenerates into idealized pictures of "fearless
knowledge," "historical progress of humanity" based exclusively on the
wishful thinking of the author: "they are real, as real as human nature
itself, and therefore sooner or later they will force their way to a full
realization"-in a word, good grows, bad perishes, because that is the
nature of things (DI, 51).
However, polarization does not "save" the camivalistic world
from determinism, even if one conceives of it as not depending on the
frame. By virtue of using the same structural laws as the frame (laughter
"builds its own world versus the official world, its own church versus the
official church, its own state versus the official state" [Rabelais 88]),
carnival is as "architectonically" determined (determinism 2) as its
opponent, the "official" world:
Camivalisation can act as a revolution (Rabelais, or Joyce) when it
appears unexpectedly, frustrating social expectations. But on one
side it produces its own mannerism (it is reabsorbed by society) and
on the other side it is acceptable when performed within the limits
of a laboratory situation (literature, stage, screen...). When an
unexpected and nonauthorized camivalization suddenly occurs in
real’ everyday life, it is interpreted as revolution (campus
confrontations, ghetto riots, blackouts, sometimes true "historical"
revolutions). But even revolutions produce a restoration of their
own (revolutionary rules, another contradictio in adjecto) in order
to install their new social model. Otherwise they are not effective
revolutions, but only uprisings, revolts, transitory social
disturbances. (Eco 6-7)
There is yet another aspect to the problem of the anti-determinism
and anti-authoritarianism of Bakhtin's carnival. The official, dogmatic
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38
world of perennial authoritarian structures is, by its very essence in
Bakhtin s definition, incapable of free and unencumbered interchange or
open-minded contact with the liberated forces of the carnival. This means
that it has to be forcefully submitted to "participation" in a "merry-go-
round" of continuous camivalistic "becoming." And in fact, in Bakhtin's
conception, no other "choice" is given to the old world, which is to be
thrown dow n "into the material bodily inferno for death and
r e c a s ti n g " .^ Thus, ”[t]he truth of laughter seized and involved everyone:
nobody could defy it": "One cannot 'go away' from carnival. . . [from] the
law of the carnival freedom" (Tvorchestvo 91-92:93, emphasis added; 10:
omitted in Izvolsky’ s translation). This violent and, in fact, authoritarian
side of carnival (determinism 3) is yet another "dialectical antithesis" to
the categorical statement that ”[p]ower, violence, authority never use
laughter s idiom" (Rabelais 90; trans. mod.).
In this context it is very characteristic that Bakhtin positively
relishes blood-bath descriptions from Rabelais, which are recurrently
quoted, once at the length of eight pages with only minor interpolations,
without omitting any detail, such as:
...they whacked with lusty gauntlet, knocking their enemy d izzy . . .
bruising his whole frame . . . making one eye like nothing so much
as a poached egg with black-butter sauce . . . smashing eight ribs,
staving in his chest, and cleaving his shoulder-blades in four . . .
breaking his jaw into three separate parts . . . and accomplishing the
whole amid good-natured laughter (... et le tout en riant) (Rabelais
200; Bakhtin quotes without omissions) etc.
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All these "merry, melodious, and festive" blows "presented a . new
positive aspect of the world and at the same time gave the right to express
it zcith impunity" (207; 271; trans. mod.). It is noteworthy that the only
examples of these "popular-festive forms” that Bakhtin gives from
Russian history refer to periods of state-sanctioned terror under the rule
of the czars Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great.26
Analyzing this side of Bakhtinian camivalism in its application to
Russian history of our century, Boris Groys comes to this quite
convincing conclusion: "All these considerations suggest further that
Bakhtin was far from criticizing the Revolution and the terror of Stalin’ s
regime, but, on the contrary, gave them theoretical justification as
manifestations of unremitting camivalistic performance."27 It goes
without saying that such a portrayal of Bakhtin as a "cryptostalinist"
(Groys' expression) blatantly contradicts the universally accepted image of
an "oracle of a truly democratic, people’ s alternative to the hierarchically
structured totalitarian state" (Groys 96, 94). Again, this determinism of
violence perfectly corresponds to, or even "transcends" ("beats" is an
appropriate word in the context) that of any "centripetal” structure.
To draw a preliminary' conclusion. Bakhtin’ s camivalistic
heterology disrupts the order of things only to establish a new order of its
own, which, in fact, faithfully reflects, copies, and duplicates its negated
prototype. The difference lies in the purely ideological plane and is
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40
postulated by a totally arbitrary (Bakhtin himself being the arbiter) gesture
of good will: the ’ good" system supplants the "bad" one. This limited
transgression never calls into question fundamental concepts of system,
truth, reality, order, value, and knowledge as such (and as they are
established in the history of Western civilisation). In other words,
Bakhtin's "heterology" stays fatally bound by the tenets of logocentrism .
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41
NOTES
1 While Rabelais and His World is undoubtedly an outstanding and
"modeling” creation, Bakhtin's name was more than "canonized" in the
last decades (the tendency that, ironically, runs exactly against the main
thrust of his "heterological" conception), so that one encounters such
overexaggerated evaluations as: "Undoubtedly it was the translation of
Michail Bakhtin's monumental study of Rabelais and the camivalesque
which initially catalysed the interest of Western scholars (albeit slowly -
the book was only translated into English in 1968) around the notion of
carnival, marking it out as a site of special interest for the analysis of
literature and symbolic practices" (Peter Stallybrass and Allon White. The
Politics and Poetics of Transgression. p. 6). Not to mention the selective
references made by Bakhtin himself, the interrelated notions of carnival
(feast - fete), laughter, rituals etc. were in the focus of attention of such
contemporary or slightly earlier authors as Bergson, Caillois, Eliade, and,
of a particular interest for us, Bataille (to name only a few French figures).
2 Consistent translation of "laughter" as "humor" by Helene Iswolsky in
Rabelais and His World does not render adequately Baktin’ s concept. For
Bakhtin these terms are not interchangeable; he understands humor as
only "a part" or a form of the "whole"--laughter as the quintessence of the
carnival culture: "there exists in addition a multiplicity of forms for the
various indirect linguistic expression of laughter: irony, parody, humor,
the joke, various types of the comic and so forth (as yet no systematic
classification of these exists)"; "'parody', 'joke', 'humor', 'irony',
grotesque’ , 'whimsy' etc., are but narrowly restrictive labels for the
heterogeneity and subtlety of the idea" (DI, 237; 166).
3 Thus, "[tlhe grotesque, bom of folk laughing' culture, always represents
in one form or another, through these or other means, the return of
Saturn's golden age to earth— the living possibility of its return . . . there is
the potentiality' of a friendly world, of the golden age, of carnival truth”
(48; trans. mod.).
4 Here Bakhtin in one sentence scathes "the later theories of the
philosophy of laughter, including Bergson's conception, which bring out
mostly its negative functions ’ — never to mention Bergson as the author
of Le rire again.
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42
5 Thus, even the reduced laughter in Plato's Socratic dialogues "remains .
. . --most importantly--in authentic (not rhetorical) dialogicality itself,
immersing thought itself in the joyful relativity of evolving existence
and not permitting it to congeal in abstractly dogmatic (monologic)
ossification" (FDP, 164).
(By "reduced laughter" Bakhtin means— unambiguously and in full
accordance with the etymology— the laughter which is "muffled down to
the minimum" [ibid.], so that it is not clear, how can "camivalistic . . .
culminatfe 1 in what Bakhtin calls 'the reduced laughter in the
mentioned above article by D. Kujundzic [ 279; emphasis added]).
6 Thus, ”[a]ll decisive encounters of m an with man, consciousness with
consciousness, always take place in Dostoevsky’ s novels in infinity’ and
'for the last time' (in the ultimate moments of crisis), that is, they take
place in carnival-mystery play space and time" (ibid.)
7 This is the full Russian title, never mentioned by Helene Iswolsky
(translator) or Krvstyna Pomorska (author of the Foreword) in Rabelais
and His W orld.
8 In the Russian sense of "pathos": the emotional quality’ of the main goal
or "idea" of one's activity.
9 The implications of such an understanding of Bakhtin’ s "historism" are
indicated in Boris Groys' article "Between Stalin and Dionysos" (Svntaksis
25 (1989): 92-97 (Paris; in Russian), which will be discussed further.
Perhaps, the primary significance that Bakhtin himself gives to such an
understanding, accounts for his often "subjective” (to say the least)
interpretation of the history of Western civilization: cf. for instance his
consistent and very categorical vision of the "dark Middle Ages," as a
society in which "time is a force that only destroys and annihilates" (DI,
206)— a rather oxvmoronic characterisation of a "centripetal" structure,
based on preservation, reproduction, perpetuation of the existing forms.
A rather tendentious interpretation here may be explained by a relatively
secondary importance of the object of study, which first of all serves to
prove the main point ("the unity and the struggle of the opposites"). Of
course, the influence of Marx-Engels’ "historical dialectics" is obvious.
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43
Cf.: "Should these vertical structures turn out as well to be other
worldly, idealistic, eternal, outside time, then thic extratemporal and
eternal quality is perceived as something simultaneous with a given
moment in the present; it is something contemporaneous, and that
which already exists is perceived as better than the future (which does not
yet exist and which never did exist). From the point of view of a present
reality, historic inversion (in the strict sense of the word) prefers the past—
which is more weighty, more fleshed o u t-to such a future. And these
vertical, other-worldly structurings prefer to such a past that which is
eternal and ouside time altogether, yet which functions as if it were
indeed real and contemporary."
12 Generally, one can observe that Bakhtin's idealized historical
conception of the "laughing folk culture" presents a typical example of
historical inversion in his own formulation.
13 The English translation of this passage is again incorrect.
14 Since "falsely debased" folkloric characters are generated in "vertical
superstructures," they (to follow Bakhtin's logic) should not be
considered as authentic folk-lore (for instance, victims of "magic,"
witchcraft-or any other malefaction-in Australian mythology and
"pessimistic" Celtic or Lithuanian "folklore" [no other w ord is still
appropriatel). The same exclusion is also applied by Bakhtin to any
mythology based upon an eschatological conception (we might speak
about Scandinavian mythology): eschatology is also an example of
"vertical, other-worldly structurings," each of which "empties out the
future, dissects and bleeds it white" (148).
15 This process of course takes place in camivalistic time: "collective labor
concerns itself for the future: men sow for the future, gather in the
harvest for the future, mate and copulate for the sake of the future"— the
last one is a rather unorthodox example of "collective labor" (DI, 207).
16 In relation to this subject, Bakhtin gives another indication that "our"
(post-medieval) time and history are the "good ones”: "In the culture of
modem times a specific form of seriousness, strict and scientific, has
acquired the greatest importance. In principle, this seriousness is exempt
from all dogmatism and any one-sidedness; the question mark is
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44
incorporated in its very nature, it is self-critical and incompleted" (122;
trans. mod.).
17 Note the role of excrements in debasing: "debasem ent. . . [besmirched]
with excrement and urine. This is a very ancient gesture which lies in the
origin of the more m odem euphemistic metaphor mudslinging" (147;
trans. mod.).
1 ® Bakhtin gives as an example (without going into detail) of "abuse with
uncrowning, as truth about the old authority, about the dying world . . .
the Gospel story of the mock crowning, uncrowning, and scourging of
’ the king of the Jews'" (198). It is not exactly clear how Christ in the
Gospels represents the old authority.
19 In this context Bakhtin quotes the famous \larx-Engels’ phrase:
"History acts fundamentally and goes through many phases when it
carries obsolete forms of life into the grave. The last phase of the
universal historic form is its comedy. . . . Why such a march of history?
This is necessary in order that mankind could say a gay farewell to its
past" (436; evidently Helene Iswolsky’ s translation [?]).
20 Bakhtin draws a sharp division line between the "profoundly
democratic" folk hero ("[i]n no sense is he opposed to the mass") and the
individualistic Nietzschean Obermensch (DI, 241-42).
21 Bakhtin s use of dialectics will continue to be discussed throughout
this study.
22 On the psychological plane Eco aptly relates the carnival transgression
to "the m urder of the father" (2). As an example of this connection one
can recall Bakhtin’ s obsessive fascination with the scene from Goethe’ s
description of the carnival in Rome (Bakhtin mentions this scene at least
four-five times in different texts): "a young boy blows out his father's
candle, crying out, sia ammazzato il signore PadreI D eath to you, sir
father!' This admirable [!] camivalesque interjection of the boy merrily
threatening his father with death and blowing out his candle needs no
further comment" (Rabelais 251).
23 See also in this context a remark about "licensed carnival" in
Stallybrass and White's The Politics and Poetics of Transgression (p.13).
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45
(To be fair, one should remember that Bakhtin mentions the objective
historical-social and temporal— limitations of carnival; nonetheless, this
moment is overwhelmingly downplayed ["transcended"] in the general
pathos of his work). Even before turning to analysis of Georges Bataille's
heterolog}’, it is worth indicating that, unlike Bakhtin, he always kept in
mind the limitations ("frames") of carnival (analogous to "fete” in the
following quotation):
la fete, c'est sans doute, un instant, l'arret du travail, la
consommation incontinente de ses produits et l’ expresse violation
des lois les plus saintes, mais l'exces consacre et complete un ordre
des choses fond£ sur les rfegles, il ne s'oppose a lui que
tem porairem ent. . . En verity, la tricherie et l'echec sont la rfegle de
ces mouvements [le dechainement heureux de la fete]: les inferdits,
en premier lieu, preparaient la transgression de la fete, et l'aspect
demesure de la fete observe n£anmoins la mesure heureuse,
reservant le retour de la vie que rfeglent les interdits (VIII, 78; 93-
94).
24 Reference to Rabelais 163.
-5 Considering the problem of the "status reversal" from the semiotic
point of view, V.V. Ivanov writes: "At certain moments in the seasonal
cycle, which are defined differently in various cultures, certain groups (or
categories) of people, usually occupying an inferior position, exercise
ritual authority over their superiors. The latter in turn . . . must accept
their ritual degradation with good will . . . In the ritual performance, the
inferiors often establish a hierarchy that resembles a parody of the normal
hierarchical order of the superiors" (Ivanov 12; emphasis added).
Accentuating irreconciliable contradictions (of ideological order) between
the "old" and the carnival, Bakhtin denies the former any "good will".
The quoted article does not deal with Bakhtin's conception, except
for the initial "gesture of reverence" which is not devoid of interest in the
context of the present study: "The general theory of carnival as an
inversion of binary oppositions, outlined by Bakhtin, has been supported
by contemporary ethnological research devoted to rituals of the inversion
of social position (status reversal)" (11).
The fact that "bloodless carnival wars" (PDP, 125) are not that
bloodless— and not only in Bakhtin’ s quotations from Rabelais— is
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46
confirmed by historical and anthropoogical data: the aspect of violence is
always present in the carnival type of celebrations. Obviously, here "the
true humanism of relations" in the "carnival experience" manifests itself
(Rabelais 10; trans. mod.). This subject will be further discussed in relation
to the problem of sacrifice in Bataille and Bakhtin.
27 See "Between Stalin and Dionysos." Of course, Groys speaks here about
the "Great October Socialist Revolution" as it was known in Russia for
more than seventy years. Camivalization of life under Stalin's regime is a
well-known fact. "Bakhtin s descriptions of carnival are of course bom by
the experience of the Revolution and of the civil war. It is possible,
however, that even to a greater extent they reproduce the atmosphere of
Stalin's terror of the 30-es, which, according to numerous
contemporaries, carried pronounced camivalistic traits, such as
unbelieveable laudations and debasements, 'merry crowning-
decrowning' of the victims. This specific festivity of the 30s is confirmed
by an overwhelming number of witnesses; by the way, widely publicized
processes of the time were often accompanied by public laughter and, in
the cultural frame of Stalin's epoch, Bakhtin was not the only one to
elaborate on the theme of carnival. It was not accidental, that Stalin
himself remarked: Life has become better, comarades, life has become
merrier’ " (Groys 95-96). An important specification for Groys' view will
be given in the subsequent chapter.
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Chapter II
47
Heterologv Unbound: Bataille versus Bakhtin
The predominant pattern of this chapter deserves a brief
methodological explanation. First, I indicate the "common grounds" or
points of convergence in Bakhtin's and Bataille's texts, for instance, for
such important topics as laughter, scatology, and so forth. Second, I focus
on the radically different development of the common themes and
motifs in Bataille and Bakhtin’ s texts. Thus, the constant circular
character of Bakhtin's argument will be exposed this time not only by
showing its inner contradictions or reversals, but also by juxtaposition
with a contrasting possibility--that of Bataille's consistent heterological
movement, indicated as ’ ’final" (I, 511). The main difference, rich in
implications, between Bakhtin and Bataille here is seen in that they
follow the rules of the restricted and the general economies, respectively.
On this level of analysis, the primary goal is to compare the
general tactics of the both authors. Therefore, Bataille's argument, for the
first time introduced in this study, is taken to a certain extent at face
value, as suggested by reading of his texts "in good faith." In other words,
in what concerns Bataille, this chapter should be seen as introductory. At
the same time, the consistent juxtaposition of the two authors' global
strategies gives a preliminary understanding of Bataille's heterology, and
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48
thus provides the necessary point of departure for the deeper analysis of
his conceptions, which will be the substance of subsequent chapters.
Laughter can be considered as a key to Bataille's as well as to
Bakhtin’ s heterology:
Si vous voulez, cela revient a trouver, dans la donnee qu est le
rire, la donnee centrale, la donnee premiere, et peut-etre meme la
donnee demiere de la philosophic... . Je puis dire en effet que,
dans la mesure oil je fais oeuvre philosophique, ma philosophic
est une philosophic du rire. (Conferences 1951 -1953: VIE, 219-20)1
An important feature of Bataille's laughter is its association with the
tragic: "Bien entendu, il reste que le rire est joyeux. Mais malgre tout,
cette joie qui est donnee dans le rire, et qu’ il est si paradoxal de voir
associee aux objets du rire qui ne sont pas joyeux d'habitude, cette joie ne
peut pas se separer pour moi d'un sentiment tragique’ ’ (224). In this
respect Bataille insists on an affinity of his approach to Nietzsche’ s,
quoting and commenting on the latter’ s phrase:
"Voir sombrer les natures tragiques et pouvoir en rire, cela est
divin". . . . Si vous voulez, il y a ceci d'im portant pour moi dans la
mesure oil je parle du rire, c’ est de le situer au point du glissement
qui mene a cette experience particuliere, le rire qui devient divin
dans la mesure oil il peut etre le rire que I on a a voir sombrer une
nature tragique. (225)
However, a specification follows:
Je ne sais pas s'il n’ y a pas malgre tout quelque chose qui me gene
dans l'expression de Nietzsche. Elle est peut-etre un peu, je ne
dirais pas grandiloquente, mais un peu trop tragique. En effet, du
moment que 1 ’ on eclaircit l’ experience de ce qui est proprement
tragique, jusqu’ a la possibility de pouvoir en rire, tout est simple,
et tout pourrait etre dit sans aucune espece d’accent douloureux,
sans aucun appel a des emotions autres que surmontees.
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Up to this point Bataille's argument seems to concur with
Bakhtin’ s concept of "ambivalent laughter," uniting in its universality
comic and tragic, life and death and presenting this unity of opposites in
a simple way, "sans aucune espfece d'accent douloureux." However, an
important move changes the overall perspective:
En effet, c'est, je crois, ce qui caracterise le rire .... c'est qu'il est lie
a une position dom inante.. . . En general, on rit k la condition que
la situation dominante ou I'on se trouve ne soit pas a la merci du
rire, de l’ objet du rire. II est necessaire pour rire, par exemple, que
Ton ne risque pas de perdre sa situation dominante (225-26; I will
return to this point).
One should recall here Bakhtin's formula, characterizing the opposition
of laughter to any dominating situation: "Power, violence, authority
never use laughter's idiom" (Rabelais 90; trans. mod.)2; we have seen
also how this axiom was de facto refuted or reversed in the "laughing
culture of carnival." This reversal of laughter into "a weapon of freedom
in the hands of the people" (Tvorchestvo 105) is actually well grounded
in the ideological, since in Bakhtin's conception laughter is the people's
laughter par excellence, and is preconditioned precisely by the
predominant position of the people (for instance as opposed to
aristocracy or clergy) as the force majeure of the historical progress.
In terms of structure and function, the second world of liberated
"laughing culture" strictly corresponds to the desecrated world of
authority. In other words, in Bakhtin's conception of "laughter’ s
ambivalent unit} ,’ ’ the whole neatly folds upon itself along the axis of
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50
ideological transition (from ruling classes to people’ s masses, from "bad"
to "good," from "minus" to "plus"). In this particular domain of
Bakhtin's heterology, "hetero” in fact reproduces the same. That is to say,
absolute negation (postulated at the outset of Bakhtin's anti-
authoritarian doctrine of laughter) ends up with an equally
unconditioned revalorization.
Bataille's strategy is different:
le rieur, en principe, n'abandonne pas sa science, mais il refuse de
l’ accepter pour un temps, un temps limite, il se laisse d^passer par
le mouvement du rire, de telle sorte que ce qu'il sait est d^truit,
mais au fond de lui-meme il garde la conviction que tout de
meme ce n’ est pas d£truit. Le rieur garde au plus profond de lui-
meme, ce que le rire a supprime, mais qu’ il n'a supprime
qu'artificiellement, si vous voulez, de m£me que le rire a la
faculte de suspendre une logique trfes serree. En effet, lorsque nous
sommes dans ce domaine, nous pouvons aussi bien garder des
croyances sans y croire, et reciproquement nous pouvons savoir ce
qu'en meme temps nous detruisons comme connu. (VIII, 226,
emphasis added)
It is interesting to note here that only at the beginning of Rabelais does
Bakhtin realistically mention "temporary liberation from the prevailing
truth and from the established order" in carnival (10, emphasis added);
then this acknowledgement is completely transcended in the
absolutizing movement of his argument.
The outspoken acceptance of the dominant position in laughter
would make too easy-and obvious— the construction of yet another
logocentric system.^ A radical effort is needed to avoid such a trap, a leap
of faith of a kind, or maybe a leap of doubt:
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Si ma vie se perdait dans le rire, ma confiance serait
ignorante et par 1 & serait une totale absence de confiance. Le rire
eperdu sort de la sphere accessible au discours, c’ est un saut qui ne
peut se definir a partir de ses conditions. Le rire est suspendu, le
rire laisse en suspens celui qui rit. Nul ne peut s'y tenir: le
maintien du rire est la lourdeur; le rire est suspendu, n'affirme
rien, n'apaise rien.
Le rire est le saut du possible dans l’ impossible-et de
l’ impossible dans le possible. Mais ce n’ est qu’ un saut: le maintien
serait la reduction de I'impossible au possible ou I'inverse. (Le
coupable: V, 346)4
Precisely such a reduction "de I’impossible au possible" happened to
Bakhtin s carnival, despite a declaration very similar to Bataille's "le rire
est suspendu, n’ affirme rien, n'apaise rien": "Carnival is, so to speak,
functional and not substantive. It absolutizes nothing, but rather
proclaims the joyful relativity of everything" (PDP, 125).
In the last instance Bakhtin's laughter dominates in order to
establish yet another ("new") set of values: " The truth of laughter seized
and involved everyone: nobody could defy it” (Tvorchestvo . 93,
emphasis added). The only thing that Bataille's laughter maintains in a
dominant manner is the suspension of logic, discourse, and so forth
("Nul ne peut s'y tenir: . . . le rire n’ affirme rien").
A brief methodological interpolation is needed here before
proceeding with the analysis of the parameters of Bataille's heterological
conception. Presenting Bakhtin’ s theory, I moved inductively . first
choosing certain of its specific points or lines of development and then
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52
trying to make them converge in an overall picture. Such a procedure
presents significant difficulties in approaching Bataille's writings. This is
due to the nature of these writings, which are extremely dense with
conceptually and emotionally charged notions and terms: rire. erotism e.
sacre. dSpense and so forth. .-M l of them are closely interrelated and
together form a kind of widespread but tightly woven net; at the same
time, each of them presents a facet of the ultimate nucleus of Bataille's
philosophy. It seemed to me more productive and economical to analyze
Bataille's heterolog}' not only using a necessarily sequential inductive
approach (from parts to the whole) but also setting forth at the outset,
and constantly keeping in mind, the general perspective, insofar as it can
be provisionally perceived from a reader’ s initial self-exposure to
Bataille's argument. In this way, a more deductive movement than that
used in the first chapter will characterize the subsequent analysis as well.
Hence the following overview, which begins with an extensive
quotation.
Le rire, les larmes, la poesie, la tragedie et la com edie-et plus
generalement toute forme d'art impliquant des aspects tragiques,
comiques, ou poetiques— le jeu, la coliire, I’ivresse, l’ extase, la
danse, la musique, le combat, I'horreur funebre, le charme de
I'enfance, le sacre— dont le sacrifice est l’ aspect le plus brulant-le
divin et le diabolique, l'erotisme (individuel ou non, spirituel ou
sensuel, videux, cerebral ou violent, ou delicat), la beaute (liee le
plus souvent a toutes les formes enumerees precedemment et
dont le contraire possede un pouvoir egalement intense), le crime,
la cruaut6, l effroi, le degout, representent dans leur ensemble les
formes diffusions dont la souverainete dassique, dont la
souverainete reconnue, n’ est certainement pas I'unite achevee,
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mais dont la souverainete virtuelle le serait, si nous l’ atteignions
secretement. Je n'ai pas epuise, je le sais, ces soudaines ouvertures
au dela du monde des oeuvres utiles .... Tel terme [souverain]
d ’ ailleurs designe un ensemble si vaste qu'il est difficile de les
alleguer: le mot de fete, en un sens, n'en annonce pas moins la
modality la plus proche de la souverainete (mais peut-Stre
justement la fete n’ existe, au meme titre que la souverainete
traditionnelle, que dans la mesure ou elle est g£neralement
reconnue, aussi bien a-t-elle perdu la plus grande partie de son
pouvoir. (La Souverainete: VIII, 277)
An interesting point here is the dismissal of the word "fete"— feast,
cam ival-also discarded, though not completely, as an object of analysis.
The terms "souverainete," "tete" are partly compromised in Bataille’ s
view precisely because of their "all-pecple" nature ("g£n£ralement
reconnue"), which makes of them heterological manifestations par
excellence for Bakhtin.
Like death, sacrifice, eroticism and other manifestations, laughter
pertains to the domain of the sovereign or the sacred ("le monde
souverain ou sacre"), which cannot be directly approached by rational,
logical thought (269). Instead, Bataille’ s heterology is indicated as the
impossible (beyond any limit) experience of the unknowable, the realm
of "non-savoir” ("une philosophic qui d£passe le rire seul, telle que par
exemple ce que je pourrais appeler une philosophie du non-savoir" [VII,
2181).
It is necessary to indicate at once the major difference in the usage
of the terms "sacred" and "profane" by Bakhtin and Bataille. We have
seen that Bakhtin understands sacred and profane rather conventionally:
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the former as sanctioned by authority, the latter as representing "folk,"
"people's," "laughing truth."^ In the final instance the ideological
opposition between them is reducible to that of "bad" to "good"
("minus" to "plus"), which, taken as a whole, form the "unity of human
life."
Bataille's conception has a different scope. Any political,
ideological or linguistic structure, preconceived relations of opposites,
given rules of interactions, and more generally, the order of Western
thought and civilization constitute hum an life as "profane." Its
functioning follows the rules of restricted economy of exchange, which is
based upon certain sets of values (interest, gain, work, continuation of
human race). But "la vie humaine ne peut en aucun cas etre limitee aux
systfemes fermes qui lui sont assignes dans les conceptions raisonnables. .
.. elle ne commence qu'avec le deficit de ces systemes" (II, 318). Such
phenomena as laughter, death, eroticism, poetry’, escape "la valeur
fondamentale du mot utile" (I, 302), are not included in the sphere of the
restricted economy and are characterized as constituting the sacred or
sovereign domain of heterology, juxtaposed with the profane only in the
global notion of the general economy.6 The structural division of "high”
and "low” inside the sacred (such as primitive violence vs. sacrifice,
divine vs. demonic) is thus of a secondary character.^ In this way all
heterological manifestations belong to the same plane, being expelled
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from the restricted economy of the profane, so that, for example, God and
feces are equally viewed as excreted matter.®
Alongside with laughter, Bataille indicates fear as one of the sacred
or heterogeneous aspects of hum an existence (to the chain of synonyms
belong "l'horreur funfcbre," Teffroi," "terreur," "angoisse,'' etc.). On the
contrary, in Bakhtin’ s "positive" world of carnival there is no place for
fear, since "fear is the extreme expression of narrow-minded and stupid
seriousness, which is defeated by laughter" (Rabelais 47).
In class culture, seriousness is official and authoritarian, it is
combined with violence, prohibitions and limitations and always
contains an element of fear and of intimidation . . . Laughter, on
the contrary, overcomes fear, because laughter never creates
prohibitions, no limitations . . . It was not only a victory over
mystic fear ("fear of God"), but also a victory over the awe inspired
by the forces of nature, and most of all over the oppression and
guilt related to all that was consecrated and forbidden ("mana” and
"taboo"). It was the defeat of divine and hum an power, of
authoritarian commandments and prohibitions, of death and
punishment after death . . . Through this victory laughter clarified
man’ s consciousness and gave him a new outlook on life. (ibid.
90-91; trans. mod.)
Note here that laughter overcomes both ’ ’individual" and "cosmic" fear
of "the ancestral body of mankind" ("An obscure memory of cosmic
perturbations in the distant past and the dim terror of future
catastrophes' ): "cosmic fear (as any fear) is defeated by laughter" (335-36).
All this follows from the principle of the carnival, where the "cosmic,
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social, and bodily elements are given . . . as an indivisible living whole.
And this whole is gay and gracious" (19; trans. mod.).
In this "victory" the role of the most "base" elements of the
material substance of the carnival is important: "In the sphere of imagery
cosmic fear (as any fear) is defeated by laughter. Therefore, feces and
urine, as comic, familiar, bodily-understandable matter play here an
important role" (336; trans. mod.).9
The significance of excrement and its connection with laughter in
Bataille's conception is quite different:
L'interpfetation du rire comme un processus spasmodique des
muscles-sphincter de I’ orifice buccal, analogue k celui des musdes-
sphincter de l'orifice anal pendant la defecation, est probablement
la seule satisfaisante, k condition qu’ il soit tenu compte dans l'un
comme dans l'autre cas de la place primordiale dans l'existence
humaine de tels processus spasmodiques k fin excfetoire ("La
valeur d'usage de D.A.F. de Sade": H, 71).
'Joyful" characteristcs of feces, connecting it with laughter for Bakhtin, is
only of a secondary, "descriptive" significance for Bataille: "Aussi la
merde peut etre caracferis£e par Yhilarite qu elle occasionne .... meme
si cette forme particuliere d'exdtation doit £tre donnee comme une
forme degradee" (ibid.).
On the other hand, the primary common feature which unites all
the "sacred" manifestations, including laughter and feces, is that they
represent one of the two basic operations, regulating human interaction
with the world, "deux impulsions humaines polarisees, a savoir
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l'EXCRETION et 1 ’ APPROPRIATION" (58). The sacred being essentially
excessive in relation to the "conservative" (centripetal) tendency of
hum an existence, this division on the social plane "repr^sente la voie la
plus largement ouverte aux impulsions excr^mentielles collectives
(impulsions orgiaques) en opposition avec les institutions politiques,
juridiques ou economiques.” An "excessive," heterogeneous element "se
trouve chaque fois traits comme un corps stranger (das ganz Anderes)";
such elements are (periodically) expulsed by the social body in the same
way that they are expelled by any human body. Therefore, they can all be
viewed as pertaining to the same order:
La notion de corps etranger (het6rogfene) perm et de marquer
l'identitg el£mentaire subjective des excrements (sperme,
menstrues, urine, mat&res fecales) et de tout ce qui a pu etre
regarde comme sacre, divin ou merveilleux: un cadavre & demi
decompose errant la nuit dans un linceul lumineux pouvant etre
donne comme caracteristique de cette unite (58-59).
"La forme elementaire de l'appropriation est la consommation
orale, consideree en tant que communion (participation, identification,
incorporation ou assimilation)" (59). Let us see how this process of oral
consumption is viewed by Bakhtin.
Eating and drinking are one of the most significant manifestations
of the grotesque body. The distinctive character of this body is its open,
unfinished nature, its interaction with the world. These traits are most
fully and concretely revealed in the act of eating; the body transgresses
here its own limits: it swallows, devours, rends the world apart, is
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enriched and grows at the world's expense .... Man's encounter with
the world in the act of eating is joyful, triumphant; he triumphs over the
world, devours it without being devoured himself. The limits between
man and the world are erased, to man's advantage (Rabelais 281). 10
One of the numerous examples dealing with food and excrement
that Bakhtin takes from Rabelais is the following: "Alcofribas spends six
months in the giant's mouth; he feeds on the morsels from the food that
enters it and defecates in Pantagruel’ s throat" (Rabelais 337). Bakhtin
interpretes this episode in accordance with his concept of the "healthy
materialism of the body" overcoming (cosmic) fear: the episode
"expresses the idea of the relativity of the evaluation of time and space,
presented in its grotesque aspect" (338);
In the sphere of imagery cosmic fear (as any other fear) is defeated
by laughter. Therefore feces and urine, as comic matter that can be
interpreted bodily, play an important role in these images. They
appear in hyperbolic quantities and cosmic dimensions. Cosmic
catastrophe represented in the material bodily lower stratum is
degraded, humanized, and transformed into grotesque monsters.
Terror is conquered by laughter (336).
A different approach is used in Bataille's analysis of a scatological
passage from the Marquis de Sade. In this interpretation the process of
appropriation (seen as unilateral— ’positive" by Bakhtin) is perceived as a
"centripetal" force which constitutes only one "beat" in the complex
overall movement:
Le processus d ’ appropriation simple est donne d une faqon
normale a I’ interieur du processus d'excretion compose, en tant
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qu'il est necessaire a la production d'un rythme altematif, par
exemple dans le passage suivant de Sade:
Verneuil fait chier, il mange I'etron et veut qu'on mange le
sien. Celle a qui il fait manger sa merde vomit, il avale ce quelle
re n d....
Le processus d'appropriation se caract£rise ainsi par une
homogeneite (Squilibre statique) de l'auteur de l'appropriation et
des objets comme resultat final alors que l'excretion se presente
comme le resultat d ’ une h6t6rog6neit£ de plus en plus grande en
liberant des impulsions dont l'ambivalence est de plus en plus
accusee. C'est ce dernier cas que r6presente, par exemple, la
consommation sacrificielle sous la forme 616mentaire de l'orgie,
qui n’ a d'autre but que d ’incorporer des elements
irreductiblement heterogenes a la personne, en tant que de tels
elements risquent de provoquer un accroissement de force (plus
exactement un accroissement du mana). ("La valeur d'usage de
D.A.F. de Sade": II, 59-60)
It is very characteristic that "mana" and "les differents tabous" represent
for Bataille the heterological domain, the unfathomable sphere of his
quest (58).H On the other hand, for Bakhtin "all that was consecrated and
forbidden ("m ana" and "taboo")" (Rabelais 90, emphasis added) pertains
to the authoritarian structure, presents an object that is to be desacralized
(by laughter) and appropriated— incorporated by human reason in its
relentless historically progressive march.
As three main aspects of "human nature," which constitute the
specificity of the human genus and oppose it to the animal state, Bataille
indicates work, repulsion ("horreur") vis-a-vis excreta, and "knowledge"
of, as well as repulsion vis-a-vis, death (L'Histoire de 1 ' Erotisme: VIII, 43-
44). In this context he notes that "Hegel, qui insiste sur le premier et le
troisieme aspect, evite le second, obeissant ainsi (et n’ en parlant pas) aux
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interdits universels que nous suivons" (one should not forget that, for
Bataille, the Hegelian system was the System par excellence): "Sur ce
point, la negation est si parfaitement reussie que Ton tient pour peu
humain meme d'apercevoir et d’ affirmer qu'il y a Ik quelque chose" (44).
If one uses Bataille's criteria, the very fact that Bakhtin addresses
the subject of excreta might be seen as truly heterogeneous, and his
demarche as "centrifugally" undermining the fundamentals of any
system (or, in view of the following m etaphor, the "critical points" of
construction), its taboos: "Autour de nous, nous avons ordonne le
monde de telle maniere que, si les saletes’ n’ en etaient pas
incessamment rejetees, l'gdifice se decom poserait" (53, emphasis added).
Let us examine, however, the way in which Bakhtin "decomposes" the
system of "centripetal" prohibitions. In Bakhtin’ s "presentation" of
excrement— pertaining, in Bataille's perspective, to the taboo,
heterogeneous, or sacred— feces and urine, in fact, do not represent the
sphere of taboo at all. Its primary function is to be a "weapon" that helps
to eliminate all "fear" from human existence, that is, to desacralize it (in
this instance, both authors' notions of the "sacred" seem to correspond).
This goal is actually quite opposite to Bataille's quest in. the domain of
the sacred (his. heterogeneous). Thus, interrelated with laughter,12
excrement in Bakhtin’ s camivalesque draw s "the world closer to man,"
"darifie[s] man's consciousness," makes the world a "familiar, bodily
understandable matter"— that is, helps to appropriate the world. This
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"familiarity," the possibility for man to understand and to know, is not
only an essential feature of the "laughing culture" of the carnival; it
serves as a basis for (or is a manifestation of) the epistemological
postulate of "sober and fearless knowledge," an ever "deeper
understanding of reality" (Rabelais 237, 208).
Developing his m etaphor of the "edifice" of social conventions,
Bataille writes:
L’ homme ne s’ approprie pas seulement ses aliments mais aussi
les differents produits de son activity, vetements, meubles,
habitations et instruments de production. II s’ approprie enfin la
terre divisee en parcelles. De telles appropriations ont lieu par le
moyen d ’ une homogeneity (identity) plus ou moins
conventionnelle etablie entre le possesseur et l'objet possedy. II
s’ agit tantot d ’une homogeneity personnelle qui, k une epoque
primitive ne pouvait etre dytruite que solennellement, & l'aide
d'un rite excreteur, tantot d'vme homogynyity generate, comme
celle que l’ architecte etablit entre la ville et ses habitants . . .
L homogeneite d ’ aspect realisee dans les villes entre les hommes
et ce qui les entoure n’ est qu'une forme subsidaire d'une
homogeneity beaucoup plus consyquente, que l'homme a etablie ^
travers le monde exterieur en substituant partout aux objets
exterieurs, a priori inconcevables, des series dassees de
conceptions ou d'idees. L’identification de tous les elements dont
le monde est compose a ete poursuivie avec une obstination
constante, en sorte que les conceptions sdentifiques aussi bien que
les conceptions vulgaires du monde paraissent avoir abouti
volontairement a une representation aussi differente de ce qui
pouvait etre imagine a priori que la place publique d'une capitale
I’ est d’un paysage de haute montagne.
Cette dem iere appropriation, oeuvre de la philosophic aussi
bien que de la science ou du sens commun, a comporte des phases
de revolte et de scandale, mais elle a toujours eu pour but
letablissement de I'homogeneite du monde. . . ("La valeur
d’ usage de D.A.F. de Sade": II, 60-61; emphasis a d d e d ).
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This characteristic of general appropriation can serve as an exact
evaluation of Bakhtin's systematic outlook, including its camivalesque
"phases de re volte et de scandale." And it is precisely in the "place
publique d ’une capitale" (inexact "marketplace" in the following
translation) that Bakhtin s carnival has its "natural habitat," or, to use
Bakhtin’ s term, "chronotope": 'The marketplace was the center of all
that is unofficial; it enjoyed as if a certain extraterritoriality in a world of
official order and official ideology, it always remained 'with the people’ "
(Rabelais 153-54, trans. mod.; cf. also PDP, 128).14 The prototype for the
folk marketplace of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is the "real-life
chronotope, in which one’ s own or another's life is laid bare (that is,
made public), and the facets of a human image and life are cut, so that
man is presented in a specific way. This real-life chronotope is
constituted by the public square (the agora’ )" (Voprosv. 282);
It was a remarkable chronotope, in which all the most elevated
categories, from that of the state to that of the revealed truth, were
realized concretely and fully incarnated, made visible and given a
face. And in this concrete and as it were all-encompassing
chronotope, the laying bare and examination of a citizen’ s whole
life was accomplished, and received its public and dvic stamp of
approval. (DI, 132)
Apparently, it is because it has genetically developed from this
"realistically opened" "agora chronotope," that the camivalesque
marketplace is able to embrace both unoffidal, lolk life of the people and
"the offidal sdence. Thus,
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the spatial-temporal world of Rabelais was the newly opened
cosmos of the Renaissance. It was first of all a geographically
precise cultural and historical world. Furthermore, it was the
whole universe illuminated by astronomy. Man can and must
conquer this entire spatial and temporal world (242 trans. mod.,
see also 166-68; Aestetika. 237-38).
In turn, Bataille characterizes this "Weltanschauung" in a very precise
way:
Les donnees de la science, c'est-a-dire les r£sultats de
l’ appropriation, conservent seules un caract&re objectif immediat
et appreciable, l'objectivity immediate se d£finissant par les
possibility d'appropriation intellectuelle. Si Ton d£finit des objets
exterieurs reels il est n£cessaire d’introduire en mSme temps la
possibility d'un rapport d'appropriation sdentifique [qui en
dem iere instance] represente la persistance d'un besoin dominant
d ’ appropriation, l'obstination maladive de la volonty cherchant h
se representer malgre tout (par simple lUchety) un monde
homogene et servile . . . II sera trop facile de trouver dans la nature
objective un grand nombre de ph£nomfenes qui r£pondent
grossifcrement au schema humain de I'excretion et de
l'appropriation, afin d'atteindre encore une fois la notion de
l'unite de I’ ^tre, par exemple sous une forme dialectique. ("La
valeur d'usage de D.A.F. de Sade": II, 63-64)16
The positivity of knowledge in Bakhtin’ s conception in turn
predetermines the principle of utility - of material objects as well as of
human actions-manifested primarily in the process of work.1? And
work leads to production, the basic valuable product being food:
"Human's labor encounter with the world and the struggle with it ended
in food, in the swallowing of that which had been wrested from the
world" (Rabelais 281). The following physiological process of
transformation of food into excrement can also be seen according to "the
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essential principle" of the carnival, the principle of "degradation, that is,
the lowering of all that is high [in this instance, food, entering the
"higher" orifice of the body, the mouth] . . . to bottom, . . . into the
material bodily nether world for death and rebirth"--this time, from the
"lower orifice," anus (19, 81-82; trans. mod.). It is characteristic for these
orifices that "it is within them that the confines between bodies and
between the body and the world are overcome: there is an interchange
and an interorientation," all subordinated to the global process of
recycling (317). (And further, this "newly bom ,” "comic," "joyous,"
"tender," "bodily understandable matter" helps to overcome fears of
human existence.) The circle of "organic economy" is completed in
Bakhtin’ s conception. For comparison, Bataille's already cited analogy
"mouth-anus” is based upon common "processus spasmodiques a fin
excretoire." In fact, every element in the chain food-work-utility -
knowledge is seen by Bataille from a very different perspective.
As is often the case, the (conventional) "point of departure" in
Bataille's thought is similar to that of Bakhtin's. Laughter (of the same
heterological order as excrement) disrupts the stable world of calculated
causes and effects and introduces the unknown, unforseeable, and
subversive. However, in Bakhtin’ s conception of "the two worlds," the
subversive elements, having performed their "revolutionary” role,
acquire a new, constructive function of "just another brick in the wall"
in a "better," "liberated" system. For Bataille, the primary disruption
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leads only to the "understanding" of "une parfaite absence de feponse a
notre attente":
II y a, en nous et dans le monde, quelque chose qui se fevele que la
connaissance ne nous avait pas donne, et qui se situe uniquement
comme ne pouvant pas etre atteint par la connaissance. C’est, me
semble-t-il, de cela que nous rions. Et au fond, il faut le dire tout de
suite, lorsqu'il s’ agit d'une th£orie du rire, c’ est ce qui nous
illumine et ce qui nous comble de joie. (Conferences 1951 - 1953:
VTH, 216)
In general, "Connaitre est toujors s'efforcer, travailler, c'est toujours une
operation servile, ind^finiment reprise, ind£finiment fepetee. Jamais la
connaissance n est souveraine. . . ." (La Souverainefe: VIII, 253). The
cognitive link in the "positive" chain food-work-utility-knowledge is
discredited here.
We have seen that, for Bakhtin, the "real” hum an hero "possessed
unseen physical strength and capacity to work”; his "struggle with
nature, his sober-minded and realistic intelligence," together with "his
healthy appetite and thirst" are consistently emphasized (DI, 149; trans.
mod). Here is found the basis for an "anthropomorphic cosmology" of
the carnival: "The body acquires cosmic dimensions, while the cosmos
acquires a bodily nature. Cosmic elements are transformed into joyful
bodily elements of the growing, procreating, and victorious body"
(Tvorchestvo . 368). This cosmic anthropomorphism, initially triggered
by fear, in fact does not leave room for the possibility of what is truly
heterogeneous, or radically O ther. In Bataille's words,
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L’ anthropocentrisme se situe au sommet de cette tendance [un
'mouvement d’ ensemble' qui apparait comme un m ouvement de
devoratior. generate] . . . l’ etre humain perd conscience de la
r£alit£ d u monde sur lequel il est porte— autant que le parasite
ignorant les transports de douleur ou de joie de celui dont il tire sa
subsistance. Plus encore, cherchant, pour mieux fermer ce monde
qui lui est proche, k se representer le prindpe de tout ce qui est, il
tend a substituer k l’ 6vidente prodigality du del l'avidite qui le
constitue: c’ est ainsi qu'il efface peu a peu l'image d ’un reel celeste
depourvu de sens et de pretention et la remplace par ia
personnification (de nature anthropomorphe) de Vimmuable id£e
du Bien. (I, 518)18
While acknowledging the "anthropomorphic move" in the
history of human sodety,!^ Bataille is interested, on the contrary, in the
destruction of such a homogeneity (cf. II, 60-61, 63-64, quoted above); or,
more: in the "inhuman" in the hum an. Thus, writing about prehistoric
art (such as the rock paintings of Lascaux), he is particularly fascinated by
the fact that "les dessins et les sculptures qui ont et£ charges de
representer les Aurignadens sont presque tous informes et beaucoup
moins humains que ceux qui representent les animaux .. ." (I, 251).20 A
commentator notes: "The difference implies that the hum an was
represented as inhuman and guides Bataille's interpretation of this
gesture as a refusal of the human world of work" (Guerlac 14).
In Bataille’ s perspective, "[l’lhomme qui travaille est un homme
qui se separe de l'univers, l’ homme qui travaille est un homme qui
s’ enferme d£ja dans des maisons, qui se lie a ses chefs, a ses tables, a ses
etablis et a ses rabots. L’ homme qui travaille est un homme qui detruit la
realite profonde ...." (VII, 387). Caught in the vidous d rd e of
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production, "[i]l travaille afin de manger, il mange afin de travailler"
(Vin, 248). Work, subordinating man to goals and results, constitutes his
world as servile. opposed to sovereign: "Futility: ce dont la fin est
1 ’ activite productive . . . L'au-dyft de I'utilite est le domaine de la
souverainety.”
It is to servile knowledge, chained together with the concept of
"utility" and the necessity of work, that Bataille proposes the alternative
of the "philosophy" of "non-savoir": "La conscience . . . n'est souveraine
que dans le non-savoir" (La Souverainety: VIII, 253-54).
Traditional knowledge, along with food consumption, is, of
course, the most general example of appropriation:
Tout element d u monde exterieur qui sollidte I'attention
humaine est assimily (mangy. appropriy physiologiquement,
juridiquement ou intellectuellement) ou rejety avec la plus
grande brutalite (excreta). . . En outre, le d6veloppement
ideologique represente un systfcme d ’ appropriation extr§mement
adequat, 1 ’ id^e en tant que devoir etre general et permanent est
substituee aux choses particulieres et permet de les incorporer
dans une hierarchie etablie sur l’identity fondamentale des
elements (c’ est-a-dire sur leur conformity a la raison). ("La valeur
d’ usage de D.A.F. de Sade": II, 72; emphasis added)
Viewed from this standpoint, Bakhtin's joyous "work triumph[s]
in food" (Rabelais 281) presents a case of appropriation "in the second
degree." And the "reappropriation" of excreta (as a "weapon" against
fear) constitutes a possibility not even considered in Bataille's
heterological conception— that of appropriation in the third degree,
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potentially leading to a total, wasteless appropriation.-^ On the other
hand, for Bataille
[l]'excretion n est pas seulem ent un moyen terme entre deux
appropriations, de meme que la pourriture n est pas seulement un
moyen terme le grain et l'6pi. L'incapadte d’ envisager dans ce
dernier cas la pourriture comme fin en soi est le resultat non
precis^ment du point de vue hum ain mais du point de vue
spedfiquement intellectuel (en tant que ce point de vue est
pratiquement subordonn6 a un processus d'appropriation). (II, 65)
In general, Bakhtin's whole historical optimism is based on this
concept of life’ s wasteless economy in its historical becoming, of " the
world which continuously grows and multiplies, becomes ever greater
and better, ever more abundant," so that "the final result is always
abundance, increase" (Rabelais 195, 62). This process, as seen by Bakhtin,
conforms altogether to Hegelian dialectics, where "the father of
speculative philosophy runs a profitable domestic economy in which
there must be a return on every investment" (Taylor, Altaritv 32). In the
same context Bataille's attention focuses on the radically other issue of
(truly "heterological”) expenditure ("depense")--the "economic"
equivalent of the prindple of excretion, with "non-savoir" as its
"cognitive" counterpart:
Je partirai d’un fait elementaire: I’ organisme vivant, dans la
situation que determinent les jeux de l’ energie a la surface du
globe, re<;oit en prindpe plus d'energie qu’ il n’ est necessaire au
mantien de la vie: l’ energie (la richesse) excedante peut etre
utilisee 5 la croissance d ’ un systfeme (par exemple d ’ un
organisme); si le systfeme ne peut plus croitre, ou si l’ excedent ne
peut en entier etre absorbs dans sa croissance, il faut
necessairement le perdre sans profit, le depenser, volontiers ou
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non, glorieusement ou sinon de faqon catastrophique. (La Part
m audite: VII, 29)
Mark Taylor writes on the subject of expenditure and
appropriation (of knowledge as well as of food):
A form of the verb penser (to think), pense intimates la panse,
which means belly. Since Hegel often relates knowledge to
assimilation, incorporation, and digestion, that which is outside of
thought likewise appears to be outside of belly. Depense, in other
words, connotes something difficult to stomach, something the
belly cannot contain— like shit or vomit. Such excrement is a
refuse that can be neither refused nor re-fused. Always opened at
both ends, the gaping body spreads its excremental residue from
anus and penis to m outh and eye: shit to vomit, fart to laugh, piss
to spit, sperm to cry, blood to tears.22
Practically, depense designates an "expenditure" (gx* out +
pendere, to pay) without return. This expenditure releases
’remains" (le reste) that reason works to repress: shit, vomit, farts,
laughs, piss, sperm, cries, blood, sweat, and tears. (Altaritv 134)
This "gaping body," "opened at both ends," strikingly resembles
Bakhtin’ s "grotesque body," with its "open, unfinished nature, its
interaction with the world" (Rabelais 2811:
The grotesque body, as we have often stressed, is a body in the act
of becoming . . . This is why the essential role belongs to those
parts of the grotesque body in which it outgrows its own self,
transgressing its own body, in which it conceives a new, second
body: the bowels and the phallus . . . Next to the bowels and the
genital organs is the mouth, through which enters the world to be
swallowed up. And next is the anus . . . Mountains and abysses,
such is the relief of the grotesque body; or speaking in architectural
terms, towers and subterranean passages (318-19; cf. also 26).23
However, that which cannot be re-fused or contained in the
"belly" (panse) according to Bataille’ s conception and Taylor’ s
commentary, is subject to global, ideologically based re-appropriation in
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Bakhtin’ s economy. Thus, although Taylor did not have Bakhtin in
mind, precisely "Sancho's fat belly (panza) [represents] the drive to all-
people abundance" (Tvorchestvo 27);24 it is an example of "the
reproductive lower stratum, the zone in which conception and a new
birth take place" (Rabelais 21). For the whole world "one dense bodily
atmosphere is created, the atmosphere of the great belly" (221). There is
no place for any de-pense here.
Let us see what happens with "excremental residue" (Taylor) or
"dechets irreductibles" (II, 61) in this giant melting and reproducing
"pot."
I already indicated the reappropriation of feces and urine (as
"bodily understandable matter," "conquering" fear). By the same token
such excreta as fart, sweat, and spit, mentioned by Taylor, are seen from
the angle of the "grotesque realism of the [cosmic] body": for instance,
sweat (and urine) connects with salt and accordingly with thirst (Rabelais
330,333-34; Voprosv. 329 et passim). Blood is nothing but wine in the
(strangely numerous and insistent in Rabelais) blood-bath episodes,
interpreted as "the Vineyard of Dionysus,’ the vendange, the feast of the
grape harvest" (209). As for tears, they are, for instance, conventionally
associated with such a positive emotion as human compassion
(Bakhtin's notes in Aestetika, 364).
Vomit seems to be altogether omitted from the general recycling
scheme; an eloquent exception, since the m outh in the grotesque body is
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primarily an absorbing, devouring orifice "through which enters the
world to be s w a llo w e d the "wide-open bodily abyss" (Rabelais. 317;
emphasis added) (cf., on the contrary, the mouth as an orifice "a fin
excretoire," or, "at best," "bouche closet belle comme un coffre-fort" in
Bataille [I, 238]).
A particularly interesting case is that of sperm -or, by extension, of
such broad semantically connected areas as sex, eroticism, and so forth.
Eroticism in its various forms ("individuel ou non, spirituel ou sensuel,
vicieux, cerebral ou violent, ou dSlicat"), is one of the most important
manifestations of the sacred or heterogeneity for Bataille, and,
accordingly, is the subject of numerous pages in his writings (cf.
L'Erotisme . L'Histoire de 1'erotisme and other theoretical works, as well
as Bataille's poetry and pornographic novels) (VIII, 277). The essential
feature of eroticism is its irreducibility to the positive goals or, generally
speaking, to the economy of exchange (cf., e.g.: "en opposition au travail,
l activite sexuelle est une violence, . . . en tant qu'impulsion immediate,
elle pourrait deranger le travail" [X, 53]).
Precisely this Bataillian aspect of eroticism is totally ignored by
Bakhtin. To the contrary, the erotic is com pletely-that is, without
"waste": "dechets," residue-reduced to the "act of procreation," that is to
a kind of useful chore (Tvorchestvo 222) .25 So, for instance, in the
"Rabelaisian chronotope" "collective labor concerns itself for the future:
men sow for the future, gather in the harvest for the future, mate and
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copulate for the sake of the future" thus providing for "the immortality
of man's seed, deed, name, and culture" (DI, 207; Tvorchestvo 440: cf.
also Voprosy. 352). This is how Bataille characterizes such a vision:
En demifere analyse il est clair qu'un ouvrier travaille pour se
procurer la satisfaction violente du col t (c’ est-^-dire qu’ il accumule
pour depenser). Par contre la conception selon laquelle cet ouvrier
doit col ter pour subvenir aux futures n6cessit6s du travail est li6e h
Identification inconsdente de l’ ouvrier et de l'esdave . . . ("La
valeur d'usage de D.A.F. de Sade": n, 65)
("Slave" here might be read both in the sense of "submitted to 'servile'
utility," and as referring to the Hegelian dialectics of master and slave.)
Images of genitalia, used by Bataille in complex metaphorical
chains, always keep their heterogeneous or ir-rational character. As for
Bakhtin, he interprets them according to the concept of the victorious
human (and anthropomorphic cosmic) body— as a means for "an endless
torrent of conceptions and renewals" (Rabelais 243). This "torrent" of
course flows through "the inexhaustible vessel of conception, which
dooms all that is old and terminated"--that is, "through" woman, more
exactly, through "woman's sexual organ" (240, 243), since in the
"carnival" "the woman’ s womb is inexhaustible and never satisfied. She
is organically hostile to all that is old (she is the principle of the new to be
bom)" (242; trans. m o d .26 ). The exclusive function of the phallus is also
to generate new life (312); all in all, "the leading theme is fecundity, as
the greatest array of strength” (313).
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The same parameters of procreation, growth, and acquisition
define what Bakhtin wrote about love:
The central and basic motif in the narrative of individual life-
sequences is love, that is, the sublimated aspect of the sexual act
and fertilization.. . . the motif of love occupies its central place
thanks to the authenic, real-life role it plays in individual life-
sequences: that is, thanks to its link with marriage, the family,
childbirth and, finally, with those intrinsic ties that bind through
love (marriage, children), a given individual sequence is bound
up with the sequences of other individual lives, those of
contemporaries as well as those who follow (children,
grandchildren) and with the most immediate social group
(through the family and marriage). (DI, 215-16, trans. mod.; cf. also
213)27
And, yet on a more sublimated level: 'The hot, sweltering
atmosphere of love is necessary in order to objectivize the purely
interior, almost ethereal, and sometimes capricious movement of the
soul.... sin is often a wayward caprice in the way of God. . . . Immortality
as the postulate of love" (Aestetika. 158). Despite the elliptic style (these
materials were not prepared for publication by the author), the general
positive connotation is manifest in the sequence: love (first in its carnal,
then in the spiritual understanding)--soul— God--immortality. From
Bataille's point of view, precisely the progressiveness of this sequence
inscribes its terms in the overall movement of human assimilation,
acquisition, or appropriation.
Yet another aspect of male and female genitalia in Bakhtin's view
is that, according to the principle of debasement, they represent "the
lower bodily stratum," the quintessential structural counterpart to "all
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74
that is high" (Rabelais 20)~that is generally "bad," "sanctioned by
authority,” anti-democratic, centripetal, old. Conversely, in an
(ideologically) understandable move, "all that is old” is denied the
possibility of renewal (procreation). Structural logic, however, leads to a
curious topographical paradox: even the (presumably "all people’ s")
"phallus that generates new life" is opposed to the upward direction
("urge" in the Russian original), so that the act of procreation implicitly
takes place in absentia of the ithvphallus (phallus in erection; see
Rabelais 312; DI, 207)28
Bataillian depense (expenditure) or perte (loss) characterizes
natural processes as well as human interactions and constitutes the
major difference between "general eonomy" and "restricted e c o n o m y ,”29
or, in other words, ” la difference non explicable": "le monde heterogene
comprend l’ ensemble des r£sultats de la depense improductive (les
choses sacrees forment elles-memes une partie de cet ensemble)" (I, 345-
46). The famous example of economy based upon loss— potlatch- is
discussed by Bataille in his analysis of Mauss' "Essai sur le don, forme
archalque de lechange":
Le caractere secondaire de la production et de 1'acquisition par
rapport a la depense apparait de la faqon la plus daire dans les
institutions economiques primitives, du fait que l'6change est
encore traite comme une perte somptuaire des objets ced6s: il se
presente ainsi, a la base, comme un processus de depense sur
lequel s’ est developpe un processus d'acquisition . . . Le don doit
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etre considSre comme une perte et ainsi comme une destruction
partielle: le d£sir de detruire etant reporte en partie sur le
donataire. Dans les formes inconscientes, telles que le
psychanalyse les d£crit, il symbolise l’ excretion qui elle-meme est
liee a la mort conformement k la connexion fondamentale de
l’£rotisme anal et du sadisme. (I, 308, 310; emphasis added)
An interesting point about potlatch in our context is that "meme sous
une forme plus evoluee, il ne peut jamais dtre disjoint d’une fete, soit
qu’ il occasionne cette fete, soit qu’ il ait lieu a son occasion” (309). Not less
significantly, Bataille consistently counterposes gift, associated with
excreta, to Tavidife immediate, dont le principe est la faim" (I, 519;
emphasis added).
It is with the introduction of destruction (of goods as well as of
lives) that the gift attains the status of sacrifice, the ultimate expression of
dgpense and one of the most heterogeneous manifestations in general
("Le sacrifice n'est autre, au sens etymologique du mot, que la production
de choses sacrees" [306]). One can present the following historical
sequence of different forms of sacrifice according to Bataille’ s hypothesis
(Bataille’ s emphasis, VII, 551).
The principle of sacrifice in its purest form is "le veritable don de
soi," the "besoin de se donner, ou soi-meme ou les richesses que Ton
possede” (1,519). Thus, in the prehistoric past,
Les animaux, les hommes, les plantes, la pluie et la lumiere se
jouaient ensemble et se confondaient dans I'unife d ’une nature a
la fois destructrice et prodigue de vie. Les terreurs et les joies se
partageaient egalement entre les etres. Si 1'on voulait jouir d ’ une
abondance de pluie ou d'animaux, I'on devait se conduire soi-
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meme de faqon prodigue. II n’ 6tait pas alors de sacrifice
proprement dit, les hommes ne mettaient pas de victime a mort:
ils se mutilaient, s'arrachaient les dents, se tranchaient le prepuce
ou les doigts, se tailladaient la poitrine ou le gland. C'est leur
propre sang qu'ils faisaient religieusement couler par terre.
[En marge: on provoque l'abondance de ce qu'on mange par une
fete! a quel point c'est eloign6 de l’ £gol sme magique]
Ils se conduisaient en cela autrement que des animaux. Par
le travail des mains, par leurs armes et leurs outils, U s
transformaient le monde autour d ’ eux, accaparant et detruisant.
Mais ils se servirent aussi de leurs mains et de leurs outils
tranchants dans le sens contraire: comme ils absorbaient,
modifiaient et captaient a leur usage ce qui r€pondait k leurs
besoins, ils se meurtrissaient en contrepartie, se d6truisaient eux-
memes en ^change de ce qu'ils d^truisaient en autrui, donnant
pour recevoir ou pour avoir pris. (Notes: VII, 550; emphasis
addedpO
” [L']unite d’une nature a la fois destructrice et prodigue de vie," based on
global exchange without reserve, is obviously opposed to Bakhtin's
conception of "life's unity," founded on "interaction with the world,"
where the human body (as well as soul) "swallows, devours, rends the
world apart, is enriched and grows at the world's expense" (Rabelais 281).
Another interesting detail in the passage is Bataille’ s indication of the
limitations of (degraded) fete (feast, carnival) in its function of
"provoking abundance "-the basis of Bakhtin's economy, including the
economy of carnival.
Auto-mutilation (seen as ”[l]a rupture de I’ homogeneite
personnelle, la projection hors de soi d ’ une partie de soi-meme" [I, 266])
is not restricted to the pre-history of mankind:
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L’ etrange pratique de 1 ’ ablation du doigt parait etre
particulierement frequente dans une region aussi archa! que que
I'Australie qui ne connait pas le sacrifice au sens dassique du m o t.
.. Les pratiques analogues constat£es de nos fours chez les dements
apparaitraient ainsi non seulement comme generalement
humaines, mais comme tres primitives; la d£mence ne ferait que
lever les obstades qui s’ opposent dans les conditions normales a
I’ accomplissement d'une impulsion aussi elementaire que
I'impulsion contraire qui nous fait mange r . (267, emphasis added)
And again, Bataille is particularly insistent in opposing sacrifitial acts
(such as auto-mutilation) to appropriation prctisely in the form of food
consumption (the favorite symbolic act of Bakhtin’ s restricted economy):
"Une telle action [sacrifice] serait caracterisee par le fait qu’ elle aurait la
puissance de liberer des elements heterogenes et de rompre
1 ’ homogeneite habituelie de la personne: elle s'opposerait a son
contraire, a l'ingestion commune des aliments de la meme faqon qu'un
vomissemenl (269; emphasis added) .31
The "next" conventional phase in Bataille's hypothesis of sacrifice
is the sacrifice of an "outside object". The most important here is that
sacrifice challenges the profane world of things:
[l]e sacrifice restitue au monde sacre ce que 1 " usage servile a
degrade, rendu profane. L’usagc servile a fait unc chose (un okjci)
de ce qui, profondement, est de meme nature que le sujet, qui se
trcuve avec le sujet dans un rapport de participation intime. II
n’ est pas necessaire que le sacrifice detruise a proprement parler
1 ’ animal ou la plante dont i’ homme dut faire une chose a son
usage. II les faut du moins detruire en tant que choses, en tant
qu’ils sont devenus des choses. La destruction est le meilleur
moyen de nier un rapport utiiitaire entre 1 "homme et I’ animal ou
la plante. (La Part mauditc: VTI, 61)
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The sacrificed victim "passe du monde des choses— fermees a l'homme et
qui ne lui sont rien, qu’ il connalt du dehors-au monde qui lui est
immanent, in tim e, connu comme I'est la femme dans la consumation
chamelle . . . [au monde] de I'immanence entre l'homme et le monde,
entre sujet et I'objet" (307). Despite the striking resemblance that this
"immanence entre l'homme et le monde" bears to Bakhtin's ambivalent
unity, where "the limits between the man and the world are erased," the
emphasis is radically different: useless expenditure (human and cosmic)
totally negates the postulate of "man’ s advantage" (Rabelais 281) in this
relation.
Here I would like to make an additional observation on the
subject of expenditure without return. For decades, Bakhtin’ s attention
was focused on Dostoevsky’ s oeuvre, which became the subject of his
two books and numerous pages in other works. Dostoevsky was
attracted, even fascinated, by the phenomenon of useless depense in
human behaviour, or, in Bataille’ s words, by "les etats d ’excitation qui
sont assimilables a des etats toxiques . . . des impulsions illogiques et
irresistibles au rejet des biens matGriels ou moraux qu'il aurait ete
possible d’utiliser rationnellement (conformement au principe de la
balance des comptes)." The "general economic" principle according to
which ”[l]a vie humaine, distincte de l'existence juridique . . . ne peut en
aucun cas etre limitee aux systemes fermes qui lui sont assignes dans des
conceptions raisonnables. . . elle ne commence qu’ avec le deficit de ces
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79
systemes. . . " functions, in fact, as one of the main psychological axes of
many characters and situations in Dostoevsky's works (1, 318-19). (One
might recall, for instance, the "philosophy" of the Underground Man or
an intense episode of money-burning by Gania in The Idiot, the novel
closely analysed by Bakhtin.) The fact that such an important theme
never attracted Bakhtin's attention could probably be best explained by
his general economical orientation toward gain and material
abundance .32
The essence of the sacrifice stays the same in the human sacrifice,
for instance, that of a slave:
Les sacrifices d ’ esclaves illustrent le principe selon lequel ce
qui sert est voue au sacrifice. Le sacrifice rend l'esdave, dont la
servitude accentue I’ avilissement de I'ordre humain, a la nefaste
intimite du dSchainement.
En general, le sacrifice humain est le moment aigu d'un
d£bat opposant a I’ ordre reel et a la duree le mouvement d'une
violence sans mesure . C’ est la contestation la plus radicale du
primat de l’utilit£. ("La limite de 1 ’utile": VII, 317; emphasis added;
see also 412)
The phylogenetic feature of sacrifice is violence : "Le sacrifice met en jeu
des attraits d'une grande puissance: il est l’ effet d'un besoin violent de
perdre" (257, emphasis added). It is the originally unrestricted essence of
violence that (centrifugally) opposes it to the profane order of
homogeneity, where "les rapports humains peuvent etre maintenus par
une reduction a des regies fixes basees sur la conscience de I’ identite
possibles de personnes et de situations definies; en principe, toute
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violence est exclue du cours d'existence ainsi impliquee" (I, 340;
emphasis added).
The sacrifice of the king or sovereign is the"highest” point in the
sacrificial gradation: "C’ est a la mise k mort du roi qu'aboutit ce
dechainement de la violence interieure" (413):
La consumation intense exige au sommet des victimes qui ne
soient plus seulement la richesse utile d'im peuple, mais ce
peuple lui-meme. Du moins tels elements qui le signifient et qui
seront cette fois voues au sacrifice . . . par une exceptionnelle
proximite, comme le souverain ou les enfants (dont la mise ^
m ort realise enfin l'accomplissement d'im sacrifice en deux fois).
(318)
In the historical perspective, however, "tout ce qui s’ est fait dans ce sens
avec une decision si ferme est peu de chose. La rfcgle est l’ echappatoire"
(257). For Bataille, one of the reasons for the "degradation" of violence,
sacrifice, and sovereignity lies in the inherent paradox, or "glissement":
la souverainety, dans le monde divin, glisse de la divinity noire k
la blanche, de la nefaste a la protectrice de l'ordre reel. Elle suppose
en effet la sanction de l'ordre divin. En admettant la puissance
operatoire du divin sur le ryel, l’ homme avait pratiquement
subordonne le divin au reel. II en reduisit lentement la violence k
la sanction de l’ ordre ryel qu est la morale, k la condition que
l’ ordre reel se plie justement dans la morale k l’ ordre universel de
la raison . . . La faiblesse du sacrifice etait de perdre a la longue sa
vertu et finalement d'ordonner un ordre des choses sacryes, non
moins servile que celui des objets ryels. (325, emphasis added; 329)
Following this movement, we find ourselves in the familiar world of
Bakhtin's carnival, where the original sacred force is reduced to a
comically degraded version:
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Le souverain nest plus mis a mort mais il est deguise en pietre
sire et d'ailleurs prive personnellement do force. II n'y a plus
chute essentielle du roi vivant au roi mort, il y a simple
degradation: emission d'energie qui ne peut se composer que dans
le rire peripfferique . . . (II, 347; emphasis added) .33
I have already signaled Bataille's reservation concerning the
"fete,” which most often represents the (necessarily and objectively)
degraded phases of violence and sacrifice. In the following qoutation
Bataille formulates historical limitations of the carnival and seems
actually to comment on the corresponding structural determinism of
Bakhtin's conception (see Chapter I):
En principe, ce qui est engage dans l'operation du sacrifice est
comme une entree en jeu de la foudre: il n est pas en principe de
limite a l’ em brasem ent. . . Mais s’ il s'abandonnait sans reserve a
l’immanence, l’ homme m anquerait a 1'humanite, il ne
I'acheverait que pour la perdre et c’ est a la longue a I'intimite sans
eveil des betes que la vie retoumerait. Le probleme . . . reqoit la
solution limitee de la fete . . . La fete assemble des hommes que la
consommation de l’ offrande contagieuse (la communion) [du
sacrifice] ouvre a un embrasement toutefois limite par une sagesse
de sens contraire: c'est une aspiration a la destruction qui eclate
dans la fete, mais c'est une sagesse conservatrice qui l’ ordonne et
la limite . . . Ainsi le dechainement de la fete est-il en definitive,
sinon enchaine, borne du moins aux limites d ’ une realife dont il
est la negation. C’ est dans la mesure ou elle reserve les necessites
du monde profane que la fete est supportee. (Theorie de la
religion: VII, 313-14)
Hence the "dechainement h eu reu x de la fete. En verite, la tricherie et
lechec sont la regie de ces mouvements: les interdits, en premier lieu,
preparaient la transgression de la fete, et l'aspect demesure de la fete
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observe neanmoins la mesure heureuse, reservant le retour de la vie que
reglent les interdits" (Mil, 93-94).
Precisely these degraded formes of camivalistic freedom, violence
and sacrifice are the focus of Bakhtin's attention. Here, a brief
observation on the different approaches to the common subject: whereas
Bataille carefully discerns between the conceptual "fete," sovereignity,
violence and sacrifice and their historical forms and m anifestations,^
Bakhtin's chronological placement of the carnival does not secure it
from the sweeping absolutizing movement (motivated economically
and ideologically ).
For Bakhtin, "[tjhere is no pure abstract negation in the popular-
festive system of images; it tends to embrace both poles of becoming in
their contradiction and unity. The one who is thrashed or slaughtered is
decorated. The beating itself has a gay character; it is introduced and
concluded with laughter" (Rabelais 203; note a curious implementation
of the Hegelian dialectics). Accordingly, numerous blood-bath episodes
quoted, for instance, from Rabelais arc ’ ’filled not only with gay tones but
with triumphant ones. This is the 'Vineyard of Dionysus,’ the vendange,
the feast of the grape harvest" (209). And as a matter of fact they are
followed by food, as in the episode where "the fire on which people were
just burned becomes a merry kitchen fire on which a pile of venison is
roasted" (Tvorchestvo 227).
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The identification of the king with the sacrificial victim is also
seen from an angle of food consumption; thus, '"boeuf violle was
meant to be slaughtered, to be a carnivalesque victim . This bull was a
king, a procreator (representing the year's fertility)-but at the same time
it was the 'sacrificial meat,' to be chopped up (hache) and 'anatom ized'
for sausages and pates" (Tvorchestvo 220).35 The ideological basis for all
degrading representations of a sovereign is, of course the same "all
people's" victorious future as opposed to the doomed centripetal
structure:
Here is a dimension in which thrashing and abuse are not a
personal chastisement but are symbolic actions directed at the
highest-at the "king" . . . In this dimension, as previously pointed
out, the kitchen and the battle meet and cross each other in the
images of the body rent a p a rt. . . In this system the king is the
clown. (Rabelais 197, trans. mod.; emphasis added)
"Such kings . . . represent the real-life kings of a dying sociohistorical
world— kings who are as limited and pathetic as the sociohistorical reality
that is theirs. There is no freedom to be found in them, no further
potential" (Dialogic Imagination 241). The motive of food (that is, of
appropriation) in the previous quotes is examplary in its combination
with the degraded violence (i.e. suppressed expenditure).
The degraded sacrifice does not require actual sacrifice of human
life, and, theoretically, Bakhtin emphasizes the "bloodless" character of
carnival (cf. "bloodless carnival w ars’— PDP, 125): "All blows here have a
broadened symbolic, ambivalent meaning: they at once kill (at the
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potential lim it) and regenerate, put an end to the old life and start the
new one" (Rabelais 205, trans. mod., emphasis added).36 In this vein, for
instance, "Rabelais does not torture living persons. Let them go, but only
after they remove their royal robes.. . " (213, trans. mod.). In fact, all
examples of the "king's death" that Bakhtin gives from Rabelais do not
reach the "potential limit" of destruction, be it scenes of the "false death"
(Tvorchestvo 216-17 et passim) or descriptions of the degraded life of
sovereigns in the "nether world" (416-19) 3? Generally, violence .
together with prohibitions and limitations, pertains to the "official and
authoritarian" structure and is opposed to liberating laughter (Rabelais
90).
However, two observations can be made in this respect. First, the
bloodless character of the carnival is an anti-historical fiction (often
contradicted by Bakhtin's own examples), whether we deal with the
Middle Ages, the Renaissance, modernity, Europe, Latin America or
Dostoevsky's novels with their very real deaths and killings. Secondly,
Bakhtin’ s very' noticeable fascination with violent descriptions (such as
the ones from Rabelais) on some level belies the theoretical
bloodlessness; it is exactly this proclaimed symbolic and impersonal
chastisement that would, and at the limit of Bakhtin's logic does, "bleed
white” (in Bakhtin’ s words) the (even degraded) conception of carnival
and bring it, without any ambiguity, to the very opposite— the "pure
abstract negation," with a matter-of-fact "nothing personal, strictly
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85
business" of a modem movie killer. (Cf. Bataille's: "La mise a mort est la
transgression de I'interdit du meurtre. En son essence, la transgression
est un acte sacre. La mise a mort legale est profane et comme telle
inadmissible" [La Souverainety : VIE, 297]).
Bakhtin’ s ambiguous attitude in this matter (he shies at the
conceptual acceptance of the m urder and, at the same time, is fascinated
by the bloody process itself) reflects the historical parameters of the
prohibition of murder, formulated by Bataille:
Les imperatifs du monde de la pratique opposent de multiples
limites a l’intrusion de la mort: . . . elle lui oppose en particulier
I'interdit du meurtre. . . nous pourrions pourtant apercevoir que
les limites opposees par la civilisation aux mouvements
immediats d ’ une "passion inutile" ne sont pas des limites
absolues. Ces limites sont & pour que la civilisation dispose des
conditions quelle exige. Mais il suffit quelle en dispose le plus
sou vent. Des que la situation apparait claire, tout se passe comme
si les limites etaient 1 & pour etre transgressees. ("Le paradoxe de la
mort et la pyramide": VIE, 516)
On the other hand, the very consciously and theoretically asserted
symbolic and impersonal character of Bakhtin's camivalistic sacrifice
places it precisely at a certain level in Bataille's conception of historical
(de)gradation of sacrificial violence, where little was left of the initial
impulse of self-sacrifice .38 Self-sacrifice in any form, be it self-mutilation,
co-participation of the victim and the executioner, or just a psychological
sacrifice (like that of Dostoevsky’ s characters) is totally alien to Bakhtin's
economy as an example of an unjustified expenditure.
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In the earlier dted article, Boris Groys interprets the violence of
Bakhtin's carnival as a manifestation of the Dyonisian principle (and
sees here Nietzsche's influence):
carnival justifies the absurdity and cruelty of the Revolution in
the ahistorical dimension of the relativizing pure laughter .. . For
Bakhtin, carnival is in fact synonymous w ith the Dyonisian: the
victim of the Apollonian-Stalinist terror experiences it as a ritual
self-dismemberment, as a voluntary carnival act, and, by virtue of
such a perception, overcomes this terror, changing from inside its
very meaning. (Groys 96-97)
(Here Bakhtin is exonorated from being just a straightforward Stalinist).
However, I would argue that the lack of the sacrificial (especially self-
sacrificial) motif and (at least theoretical) devalorisation of violence in
Bakhtin's writings, combined with the consistent constructive (based on
human reason), positive thrust in presenting the edifice of the people's
new better world invalidates such an interpretation. By the same token,
the Nietzschean motif and, still less, Niettzsche's influence do not seem
so obvious (I will later return to this subject). The all-permeating,
unrestricted force of "relativizing pure laughter” ("Carnival Unlimited ."
so to speak), if not, in Groys' case, the truly democratic essence of
Bakhtin’ s laughing culture is often taken too much for granted. In a
similar vein, it is mainly the a priori accepted axiom of the Carnival
Unlimited that allows Dragan Kujundzic to establish parallels between
Bakhtin and Derrida, who both "offer laughter and scandal as a
performative energy which shatters the foundations of tradition.
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87
ideology, or any kind of closure" (Kudjundic 272). Even in the earlier
d ted article by Eco, only the viability of Bakhtin’ s theory is put in doubt,
whereas its forceful constructive-logocentric side (at the very least
balancing, if not outweighing the centrifugal one) is never brought into
view.
The obvious contradiction or impasse of the centrifugal,
dispersing, and as such violent. movement of the carnival, ending (if we
introduce a chronological sequence) in a new centripetal structure is
presented by Bataille in his explanation of "l’ achoppement de la revolte."
The revolt starts when a "man from people's masses" observes the
splendor of the highest social class:
"Cette splendeur est fausse!" (il ne se trompe guere) et: "Ce qu elle
cache est 1 ‘ exploitation des miserables dont je suis!" (il a, cette fois,
tout a fait raison) . . . Mais la seule veritable revolte commence au
moment ou la personne du roi est en jeu, ou l'homme de la
multitude decide de ne plus aliener en faveur d ’un autre, quel
qu’ il soit, la part de la souverainete qui lui revient. C'est a ce
moment seulement qu’il assume lui-meme, en lui seul, I’ entiere
verite du sujet. . . Le revolte se definit par le non categorique qu’ il
oppose au monde de la souverainety globalement. Mais si, dans ce
mouvement de negation, la revolte meme etait niee? la revolte, le
sujet lui-meme, cette verite intime qui soudain se fait jour a des
moments souverainsl .. . L’ homme qui cessa de voir sa propre
verite subjective dans le roi, qui voulut la trouver en lui-meme,
ne la trouva, comme essentiellement l'avait fait le roi, que dans le
crime. S’ il l’ a trouvee, c'est par le meurtre du roi, mais s'il
abandonne le crim e. il se soum et d'avance, sinon au roi, qu’ il a
tue, a ce pouvoir du moins qui, au nom du roi, limitait la liberte
de quiconque n’ avait pas la prerogative souveraine et qui, le roi
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mort, limite la liberty de tous les hommes . . . (La souverainety:
m 296, 298; emphasis added).
The "abandonment of the crime" (of violence ) marks precisely the
transition to the new, liberated world of the Bakhtin's, supposedly non
violent, carnival, with its own establishment of churches, state, faith,
kings, and bishops (see Rabelais 88). In Bataille’ s words, "Dfes lors est
donne sans contrepartie un empire de l'ordre r£el qui est une
souverainety de la servitude. Un monde est d£fini ou la libre violence
n'a de place que negative" (VII, 329).
Bataille's view of sacrifice is summarized in the following lines,
which also give a concise rendition of the key moments in Bakhtin's
heterology of the carnival:
Le vivant avide de vie absorbe de la vie mourante. II
commence k devenir conscient de la vie d£truite absorbee en lui.
II se reconnait lui-meme en tant que vie perissable et
s’ attarde, en sacrifiant, a cette reconnaissance.
Cet homme qui s'est reconnu en tant que vie p£rissable tue
d ’ autres hommes et les mange, ou les asservit, comme il tue,
mange ou asservit des animaux.
II les absorbe, les exploite et les reconnait dans
l’ exploitation.39
Le sujet est d'abord l'animal dont la conscience ne
discrimine rien. Puis animal conscient d ’ etre un vivant entre les
autres (plantes, animaux). Puis homme conscient d’ etre homme.
II devient homme conscient d'etre homme:— dans le
sacrifice humain; puis dans I’ abolition du sacrifice; puis dans la
celebration de la mort du Christ, ou le sacrifice et l abolition
col ncident.
Ce qui distingue l'homme des animaux, c’ est peut-etre la
communication qui, peut-etre, est l’ effet du sacrifice. Dans ce cas.
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la fin des sacrifices signifierait I'atrophie de l'homme, son retour a
une nouvelle forme de l'animalite. C’est possible pour la m asse-
si se d€gage de la masse un petit nombre dTiommes si
"nouveaux" que le nom d ’ homme ne leur convienne plus
exactement. (Notes: VII, 551-52)
Sacrifice ("crime"), with its inherent violence is what interests Bataille in
what may be the most important sacrifice in human history; and he
analyses it in terms of the sacrifice of the king: I.N.R.I— lesus Nazarenus,
Rex ludaeorum (see, for instance, II, 344). Bakhtin applies to Christ the
same parameters of the sacrifice of the king. But he approaches "the
Gospel story of the mock crowning, uncrowning, and scourging of the
king of the Jews'" according to his general principle of ”[a)buse with
uncrowning, . . . truth about the old authority', about the dying world"
(Rabelais 198). In this interpretation, which does not address violence as
the quintessential characteristic of sacrifice, Bakhtin’ s adherence to the
ideologically based structural postulate— degradation of "everything that
is high’ ’ — results in a very unclear and undeveloped, if not completely
out of place, illustration of the main doctrine.40
This example connects with the question of both authors'
religious attitudes. We know that Bataille was very religious in his youth
and prepared himself for the priesthood. He broke with the church
abruptly and decisively. In short, the idea of God (as of any other
absolute— ideal Beauty, ultimate Good, etc.) represents for him the
compromised dialectics of goal and achievement, that is, the vicious
circle of subordination and servitude (cf. servus D eum l. Bataille wrote:
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Ce que la foi nomme Dieu ne peut etre a mes yeux que I'objet,
mieux I’ absence d'objet du non-savoir. Cela ne signifie pas qu'un
monde sans Dieu est complet, comme l'imagine T ’ ath&sme nal f.
La place laissee par 1'absence de Dieu (si l'on veut, par la mort de
Dieu) est immense. Mais voir en Dieu I'objet d ’ un savoir positif,
c'est d'abord, a mes yeux, un comble d'impi6t6. C'est aussi le
mensonge par excellence (c’ est parler avec aplomb de ce dont nous
ne savons RIEN). C’ est enfin le compromis le plus d€risoire avec
le monde des oeuvres utiles (Dieu createur, Dieu du bien), c’ est le
monstrueux contresens ou le m onde religieux se dissout dans
celui des oeuvres utiles. (La Souverainety : note on VIII, 274)
The sweeping pathos of Bakhtin's Rabelais is anti-clerical and
seems to be anti-religious, since, generally, any religious doxa is a pure
manifestation of centripetal authoritarian structure (in the context of his
books, however, it is West European religious institutions and not the
Russian orthodox one, that are subject to "merry degradation”). So, "all
carnival forms are systematically placed outside the Church and
religiosity. They belong to an entirely different sphere" (Rabelais 7; trans.
mod.). On the other hand (in one of Bakhtin's dialectical reversals), in
the architectonics of the new, people’ s world even laughter "builds . . . its
own church versus the official church, . .. celebrates its own masses,
professes its faith" (88). V V e must recall here, that, according to reliable
sources, Bakhtin himself was deeply religious (a Russian orthodox
believer). A glimpse of Bakhtin's religiosity can probably be seen in lines
from his notebooks: "Faith in an adequate reflection of oneself in a
higher other: God is at the same time in me and outside myself' (155;
emphasis added). And also the already quoted lines from Aestetika: "The
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hot, sweltering atmosphere of love is necessary in order to objectivize
the purely interior, almost ethereal, and sometimes capricious
movement of the soul... sin is often a wayward caprice in the way of
God .. . Immortality as the postulate of love." (One must not forget
however, that immortality for Bakhtin is the "immortality of man's
seed, deed, name, and culture" ITvorchestvo 440].) Whatever may have
been Bakhtin’ s true religious attitude, the possible positive acceptance of
the idea of God (as well as of any good) inscribes it, from Bataille's point
of view, in the overall frame of the economy of growth and acquisition
and positive knowledge: "There is no mutual hostility, no contradiction
between spatial and temporal measurements, and value of any kind-
food, drink, holy truth. The Good,’ beauty, they are directly proportional
to one another. Therefore, everything that is good grows ..." (DI, 168;
emphasis added). It is quite symptomatic that the totalizing effect of this
general positive valorization neutralizes any kind of phenomena, for
instance when food and holy truth, drink and beauty are put on the same
plane. And the achievement of these goods is guaranteed by human
reason ("sober and fearless knowledge," a "deeper understanding of
reality," of "life as it is") which thus becomes sacralized, that is posited as
the utmost value.
The leveling tendency of reason characterizes, in Bataille’ s view,
the transition to the world of the profane:
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Le monde profane, me semble-t-il, est exactement la raison. La
raison, qu'on le dise ou qu’ on ne le dise pas, qu'on l'appelle
divine ou qu’ on se passe de commentaire, la raison est par essence
la chose profane, la raison est par essence le compte qui introduit
des egalites; et en tant qu elle est le compte, en tant qu'elle
introduit I’ egalite, elle est la chose qui nous est tout k fait
exterieure . . . (Conferences 1947 - 1948: VII, 369).
And in fact, the reasonable foundation of Bakhtin's second,
liberated, "people's" world can be seen as the reflection ("opposites . ..
are reflected in one another ” ) or the counterpart for the sacred.
ideologically compromised (PDP, 176). Thus the ("new") morals are bom,
which, in Bataille's words,
condamne generalement toutes les consumations inutiles . . .
I'homme avait pratiquement subordonne le divin au r6el. II en
reduisit lentement la violence k la sanction de I'ordre r6el qu'est la
morale, k la condition que I’ ordre r6el se plie justement dans la
morale a I'ordre universel de la raison . . . La raison et la morale
unies . . . rationalisent et moralisent la divinity dans le
mouvement meme ou la morale et la raison sont divinisees.
(Theorie de la religion: VO, 325)
It is in such a real order of divinized morals and reason (as opposed to
the historically doomed morals of oppression), that the "forms of
popular-festive sp irit. . . serve the new historic aims of the epoch; they
are filled with powerful historic awareness and lead to a deeper
understanding of reality" (Rabelais 207-208). Bakhtin's hesitation as to
how to reconcile the irreconciliable— the liberating relativity of
"laughter" with the structuring function of reason and morals— is
apparent in the following passage:
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In this joyful relativity the distinctions between the just and the
unjust, the progressive and the reactionary are of course not
erased as the framework for the definite epoch and its immediate
past and future; but these distinctions lose their absolute character,
their one-sided and limited seriousness. (Tvorchestvo 487)
As a solution to the problem nothing better is proposed than a new,
better "form of seriousness, strict and scientific," which is "exempt from
all dogmatism and any one-sidedness" (133)-one of the dubious
manifestations of the oxymoronic serious laughter (cf. Bataiile: "il est
impossible de rire et d'etre serieux a la fois. Le rire est 16gerete: on le
manque dans la mesure ou Ton cesse de s en moquer " ITheorie de la
religion: VII, 279]).
In an interesting move Bataiile ties together several of the
notions, central to both his and Bakhtin’ s heterological conceptions:
violence, fear, reason and God:
Si Ton perd le controle de la raison sur la violence (le sacre), la
possibility humaine s’ estompe. Qui a parfaitement perdu ce
controle n’ est plus un homme: il est fou. Et, en consequence . . .
l'homme continue, comme un chien qui courrait apres sa queue, h
se bien conduire, n’ avant d ’ autre fin que d'autres hommes
continuant & se bien conduire; . . . jamais les conduites
rationnelles n'auront d'autre fin que de rendre possibles d ’ autres
conduites rationnelles et ainsi sans fin.
Je ne sais cependant si la peur peut etre tenue pour une
barriere, ou pour une protection definitive . . . [L’ homme] n est
meme pleinement vivant qu'au delk de la peur qui I’ arretait et
qu'il n'existait q u a moitie tant que la peur le commandait.
Mais s’ il est vrai que l’ homme ne peut tout entier ceder a la
peur, il recule indefiniment le moment ou il en affrontera I'objet,
il recule indefiniment I'instant ou il se trouvera nu devant lui-
meme, ou il n'aura plus l'aide de la raison que Dieu garanit, ou il
n’aura plus l'aide de Dieu, que garantit la raison. (VII, 450-51)
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94
This passage can, in fact, be seen as an overview of Bakhtin’ s conception:
violence . which accompanies the supposedly unlimited and unrestricted
carnival is bridled by the necessity of human reason : the perpetual value
of hum an progress; the initial fear that triggers this circular (and, because
of this, interminable) trajectory of reasonable escape (despite the
correlated inner necessity of overcoming fear); the final coincidence of
the seemingly opposite principles of reason and God in their function as
guarantors of the stability of the human situation (another aspect of the
Marx’ s famous "religion is the opium of the people"). The passage
continues as follows:
Mais s'il est inevitable de reculer, il n’ est pas inevitable de sauter.
et I'on n’ a peut-etre recule que pour mieux sauter. L’ exemple de
Sade est frappant. Nul ne saurait douter que Sade n'ait saute!
Meme si Ton veut examiner l'oeuvre de Sade avec attention, il
faut avouer quelle nous depasse de toutes les faqons: celui-d n'est
pas venu qui peut lire les 120 Journees et y reconnaitre le monde
qu'il voulut et qu’ il est resolu k manifested ("Sade et la morale":
451; emphasis added)
Sade’ s "saut" (leap) seems to be isomorphic to Bataille's approach to the
problem: "Le rire est le saut du possible dans l'impossible— et de
l'impossible dans le possible. Mais ce n'est qu'un saut: le maintien serait
la reduction de l'impossible au possible ou I'inverse” ; but I will discuss
the general question of Bataille’ s method later (V, 346). At this point,
however, it is possible to observe that, from Bataille's point of view,
Bakhtin definitely did not recoil just in order to leap better-beyond the
conventional frames of the system of good and evil.
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NOTES
1 Just like Bakhtin (in Rabelais), Bataiile deplores the insufficiency of
studies on the problem of laughter (VII, 526). Similarly, he is rather
sceptical about Bergson’ s Le Rire (although, presumably, from a position
radically different from Bakhtin's: cf. Vm, 221 and Note 4 for Chapter I).
Of course, as it will be clear, Bakhtin and Bataille's respective
contributions to this field differ significantly in many respects.
2 See also Aestetika. 357-58.
3 It is possible that such avoidance of the "logocentric trap" is to a large
extent made possible by choosing as the site of philosophical operation
not a "generally human" scale (cf. Bakhtin's "all-people," "humanity,"
etc.) but, at least initially, a very personal standpoint: "J’ aimerais rendre
sensible, de la faqon la plus precise, que je pourrai, cette orientation
determinee de la philosophic, ou du moins de I'experience refl^chie a
partir de l'erp^rience du rire. Et je partirai pour cela de mon experience
personnelle." (VIII, 220). It seems that the more im- or inter-personal is
the operational scale, the easier and less (immediately) noticeable are the
conceptual "auto-reversals" and essential substitutions of the kind
performed in Bakhtin’ s works. I will return to this point in a different
context.
^ A more detailed analysis of the problems involved here, is offered in
subsequent chapters.
^ In Russian, CBHTOft (saint) and CBflmeHHBlft (sacred) are closely related
by common etymology, which makes the connection between them
easier and more "natural" than between their equivalents in English.
6 See, for instance, The Notion of Expenditure in Visions of Excess (La
notion de depense. OC, v. I).
2 "Elle [la souverainete] supposerait en effet I'unite du tragique et du
risible, du pur et de I’ impur, de la chaste et folle passion et de l’ erotisme
soumois... Mais I’ unite d u rire et des larmes appeile le rire qui ne rit pas,
les larmes qui ne pleurent pas'. L’ unite dont je parie appeile la cruaute
qui ne sevit pas et I’ effroi que rien n’ effraie... Dans I’ unite, I'objet des
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effusions contradictoires se resout en RIEN et le silence regne" (Bataille's
footnote on VUI, 277; see also 1,349-50; II, 61).
8 Cf. Bataille’ s definition: heterologie — "science de ce qui est tout autre. Le
terme d 'agiologie serait peut-etre plus precis mais il faudrait sous-
entendre le double sens d'agios (analogique au double sens de sacer)
aussi bien souille que saint. Mais c'est surtout le terme de scatologie
(science de l'ordure) qui garde dans les drconstances actuelles
(specialisation du sacre) une valeur expressive incontestable, comme
doublet d ’ un terme abstrait tel qu’ heterologie” (II, footnote on 61-62)
9 Euphemistic [?] "dung" in the English translation is not adequate to the
"humanistic" thrust of Bakhtin's argum ent.
Cf. also on this subject: "In the images of urine and excrement is
preserved the essential link with birth, fertility, renewal, welfare";
excrement is "both joyous and sobering [?] matter, at the same time
debasing and tender; it combine[s] the grave and birth in their lightest,
most comic, least terrifying form" (148; 176).
To note here the unilaterally violent character of the process: the
victorious appropriator-hum an genus— devours food in the same way it
"devours, rends apart" the world. "What is important here is that the
militant spirit,’ war, battle and the kitchen intersect at a certain point,
and this point is the dismembered body, minced flesh" (Rabelais. 193;
trans. mod.). Of course, this "dismembered body" is that of the "people’ s
enemies" and is not to be confused with the "body victorious" of the
people itself— so that this violence acquires the deterministic
("centripetal") character, discussed above.
11 On mana and taboo see also "La structure psychologique du fascisme”
(1,345-46).
12 "Laughter demolishes fear” etc. (DI, 23).
13 Hence the ’ ’ chiourme architecturale" (I, 172). On the other pole we
find the relation of the sacred to architectural structure: "[L]a violence de
la mort renverse entierement— definitivement— l'6difice de la vie, la
violence sexuelle renverse en un point, pour un temps, la structure de
cet edifice" (X, 107).
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In turn, Jacques Derrida places the "topos" of Bataille's thought
"loin de la place publique" ("De l'economie restreinte a l'6conomie
gen^rale," 370). In this context one might recall one of Bakhtin s favorite
(positively charged) terms, "architectonics," which will be discussed later
in some more detail. For analysis of "architectural" theme in Bataiile see
Denis Hollier's La prise de la Concorde: essais sur Georgps Bataillp.
Both "marketplace" and "public square" in English translations refer
to the same Russian word nJTOIQaAfc used by Bakhtin, which exactly
corresponds to Bataille's "place publique."
15 Despite that "when Pushkin said that the art of the theater was 'bom
in the public square,’ the square he had in mind was that of 'the
common people,’ the square of bazaars, puppet theaters, taverns, that is
the square of European cities in the thirteenth, fourteenth and
subsequent centuries. He also had in mind the fact that the state and
'official society' (that is, the privileged classes), with their 'official' arts
and sciences, were located by and large beyond the square" (DI, 132).
The obvious paradox or contradiction of such a "universality" of
the carnival was discussed in the previous chapter.
16 vVe have seen, that Bakhtinian "l'unite de 1 ’ etre . . . sous une forme
dialectique," based on "sober and fearless knowledge" (or "simple
lachete" for Bataiile) is, in fact, constantly tom apart by the irrecondliable
"centripetal" and "centrifugal" forces.
17 The contradictory overlappings in Bakhtin’ s trajectory': heterogeneous
laughter - positivity of knowledge - utility - work were noted in previous
chapter.
18 "Par contre affirmer que l’univers ne ressemble a rien et n’ est
q u 'inform e revient a dire que l’univers est quelque chose comme une
araignee ou un crachat" (I, 217).
19 "On n'entre pas plus avant dans la comprehension de la nature pour
avoir n ie en elle tout caractere anthropomorphe. On cree de cette fa^on
une apparence abstraite, un fantome algebraique et non du m onde.. . .
[LJ'image anthropomorphe, du moins, evitait le vide" (VUI, 553). One
can notice that Bakhtin's hum anitarian ideal tries, in fact, to combine the
"algebraique” (scientific) with anthropomorphic vision of the world.
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20 Generally, art proceeds " par destructions successives,” according to
the principle of "alteration" (I, 253, 251). Footnote on 251: "Le terme
d 'alteration a le double interet d'exprimer une decomposition partielle
analogue a celle des cadavres et en meme temps le passage k un etat
parfaitement heterogene correspondant a ce que le professeur protestant
Otto appeile le tout autre, c’ est-a-dire le sacre...
21 Cf. also: "Having done its part upon earth, the individual soul fades
and dies together with the individual body; but the body of the people
and of mankind, fertilized bv the dead, is eternally renewed and moves
forever forward along the historic path of progress" (Rabelais. 404;
emphasis added). By the same token, in his recurrent analisis of various
passages from Goethe, Bakhtin consistently downplays Goethe's
subjective (individual, lyrical) motives and emphasizes, for instance, the
theme of food. Thus:
"Concerning 'Myron’ s Cow' Goethe wrote: '. . . This beautiful image
shows us the principle o f nourishment, on which the entire world relies
and which penetrates all nature As we can see, Goethe fully
understood the symbolically extended meaning of the images o f feeding .
...' (Rabelais. 253; Bakhtin’ s emphasis omitted in the English
translation).
22 Concerning "spit," cf. Bataille's alredy cited anti-anthropomorphic
formulation: "Par contre affirmer que l’ univers ne ressemble a rien et
n’ est qu 'inform e revient a dire que l’ univers est quelque chose comme
une araignee ou un crachat" (I, 217).
23 The use of an architectural metaphor here is characteristic in view of
the respective attitudes we mentioned above of our two authors to the
"architectural appropriation" of the world.
24 Only fragmentary translation in Rabelais.
25."Sexual act" in Izvolsky's translation is not an exact equivalent.
26 "Bowels" in Izvolsky's translation stands for "womb" .
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27 However, precisely this accumulative character of social structures
leads to centripetal authoritarianism; in Bataille's words: "D’une /agon
generate, les societes auxquelles nous appartenons traitent la nature
humaine comme les parents traitent leurs enfants, c’est-a-dire qu'elles
lui prodiguent tout ce qui doit assurer sa subsistance, mais qu'elles
prohibitent consciemment les brusques ruptures et les evacuations
ehontees qui sont indispensables a sa satisfaction et qui constituent la
DEFENSE comme terme oppose de I’acquisation" (11,76).
28 The English translation in Rabelais is again partly inexact (truncated
in this case). Russian text reads: "It has to be underscored, that, like all
similar images, the bell tower has a topographical character: thrusting
upward, to heaven, the tower is transformed into th e fa llu s (the bodily
lower stratum [bottom]); as a shadow it falls down to earth (topographical
lower stratum [bottom]) and im pregnates women (again lower stratum
[bottom]" (338-39).
29 "Passer des perspectives de l'economie restreinte a celles de
l'6conomie generate realise en v£rit6 un changement copemicien” (VII,
32)
30 For anthropological data on the subject of self-mutilation see, for
example, I, 266-69.
31 Of course, sacrificial communion has "un sens irreductible a
I'absorption commune de la nourriture " (VII, 61; emphasis added). As
can be seen, for instance, in the passage quoted above from Sade, "la
consommation sacrifidelle sous la forme 61ementaire de l’ orgie . . . n’ a
d'autre but que d'incorporer des elements irreductiblement h£t£rog£nes
h la personne, en tant que de tels elements risquent de provoquer un
accroissement de force (plus exactement un accroissement du m an a
["sacred" force, leading only to the more and more violent excretion or
expenditure])” (II, 60; emphasis added), so that this form of food
absorption is inscribed in heterogeneous movement.
32 But "nomen illis legio'-there are many of them, with various forms
and levels of unproductive (often self-) sacrifice in Dostoevsky's novels.
In this context it is worth mentioining Bataille's own interest in
Dostoevsky. (Bataiile, characteristically, critisizes Dostoevsky of the
Underground Man not for an "extreme" but for a limitation: "Le Sous-
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sol met I’ extreme au compte de la misere. . . . que l'extreme en passe par
la honte n’ est pas mal, mais le limiter h la honte! . .. c’ est trahir" (V, 57).
The connecting problem of death in Dostoevsky is addressed by Bakhtin
more extensively; this subject will be discussed later.
33 And also: "La tricherie substituait au roi l'esdave auquel une royaufe
temporaire etait conferee (VII, 318); "les rois de camaval ont eu, sans
doute successivement, le double privilege d'attirer sur eux la mort ou la
plus joyeuse derision" (VIII, 278; emphasis added).
34 Thus, Bataiile is far from idealizing 'royaufe'-assessed in a more
historical way than theoretical "souverainefe" (see, for instance, VIII 286-
300).
35 This tiny passage probably holds the record number of mistakes per
line in the English translation.
36 The emphasized part is omitted in the Izvolsky's translation.
37 Of course, with a rather sinister "dialectical counterpart": "Hell is a
banquet and a gay carnival. We find here all the familiar debasing
ambivalent images of drenching in urine, beating, travesty, abuse”~’ ’ God
save us from getting into Bakhtin's carnival!" (Rabelais 419; Groys 95).
38 Cf., on the subject of self-mutilation, the already quoted: "on
provoque I’abondance de ce qu ’on mange par une fetel h quel point c’ est
eloigne de I’ egol sme magique” (VII, 750).
39 Here one might recall Bakhtin s carnival structure, where, in
"dialectical negation" of several of Bakhtin's postulates, the "opposites
come together, look at one another, are reflected in one another, know
and understand one another" (PDP, 176).
40 See Chapter I, Note 18.
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Chapter HI.
I. General Characteristics of Time and Space. Bakhtin
Before analyzing some critical aspects of the notion of time in
Bakhtin and Bataiile, I would like to emphasize the ambiguity of the
notion itself. In the context of the present study I mean first of all the
traditional global framework(s) engaged in various approaches to the
subject of time. Analyses of (spatial-) temporal relations by different
authors in Western literature and philosophy are determined, to a
greater or lesser extent, by the following parameters, among others. On
the one hand, time is thought as "flowing" and ever changing— that is,
the focus of attention is its constant movement, relentless change, its
heterogeneous (destructive) opposition to any kind of finished structure,
in fact— to any kind of formation. The famous Heraclitean "river of time"
would be a conventionally accepted prototype (that actually became quite
stereotyped) for this approach. As a correlate, a (conventionally,
Aristotelian) convergent concept of an instant (moment) was accepted.
Such an instant was deemed to be a necessary (even if fictional) temporal
point or unit of time making possible the interpretation and evaluation
of time itself, as such (as a "whole"). In its functioning as a measurable
unit, such an instant is supposedly identical to itself, homogeneous, in a
sense stable.
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A second, somewhat contradictor}' (or sometimes complementary)
set of coordinates is no less important. The "river" of time, being of a
constantly changing nature, acquires, by virtue of this constanq', a stable
character; the paradoxical immutability of the movement itself allows
thus for the notion of time as a continuum . as a homogeneous process
leading to such implications as, for instance, infinity and thus to
different variations of the absolute. Conversely, the instant is seen in a
new opposition to this homegeneous continuum and acquires the
quality of uniqueness, of a heterogeneous (traditionally, personal)
experience which to various extents defies the inexorable law of all-
leveling time. This brief observation of a general character is essential for
the following analysis, since both Bakhtin and Bataiile use both noted
approaches to the problems of time and his tor}-.
I have already discussed some of the aspects of Bakhtin’ s
conception of time; here his approach will be analyzed from a different
angle, as required by the context of the present chapter.
The starting point for Bakhtin s conception is the Heraclitean
view of the '"merry time,' time which kills and gives birth, which allotvs
nothing old to be perpetuated and never ceases to generate the nezo and
the youthful" (Rabelais 211). Further, following his predominant pattern
of ideological evaluation, Bakhtin differentiates between several
historical periods or epochs. The "camivalesque” concept of "merry
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time,” together with such derivatives as "true historical consciousness"
and a dialectical and materialistic approach, characterizes antiquity (e.g.
the so-called Socratic dialogues and Menippean satire), the Renaissance
(the 16th century in particular), Romanticism in part (grotesque and
historical awareness), and of course Dostoevsky’ s writings. On the
contrary, the intermediate phases of the "dark Middle Ages," the 17th
and 18th centuries (with some contradictory statements about the latter
in different texts by Bakhtin), and Romanticism in part (with its idealism
and subjectivism) are presented as historical manifestations of the
concept of time based on dogmatidsm, hierarchy, fear, oppression, and so
forth.
The dialectical concept of the spiral historical and cultural
development of mankind (cf. Rabelais 406-407 et passim), as well as the
familiar dichotomy of "good" and "bad," underlies this Bakhtinian
position. In terms of the general frameworks outlined above, Bakhtin
opposes the renovative aspect of the "river of time" to the stability of the
time continuum manifested in the periods of "stagnation." Out of the
traditional triad: past - present - future, the present is taken for the basic
value:
The present, in its all openendedness, taken as a starting point and
center for artistic and ideological orientation, is an enormous
revolution in the creative consciousness of man. In the European
world this reorientation and destruction of the old hierarchy of
temporalities received its crucial generic expression on the
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boundary between dassic antiquity and Hellenism, and in the new-
world during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. (DI, 38)
Howrever, the insuffidency of a merely ideological criterion is all
too obvious in the opposition on this level, so that the noted
overlappings occur. For instance, merry time that "kills the old world"
(Rabelais 207) cannot be functionally differentiated from the medieval
time that "destroys and annihilates" (DI, 206); the good new- seriousness,
"devoid of narrow- dogmatism" (Rabelais 121), pertains to the first, but is
rather unsubstantially opposed to the "bad" seriousness of the second (cf.
94). A more formalized differentiation is required, and Bakhtin
introduces it with the concept of the carnival time as crisis.
In the concept of the "laughing culture” of the carnival as crisis.
opposed to regular time, Bakhtin considers a spedal temporal dimension
of the cam ival-a "single spatial and temporal point’ " (PDP, 177), or a
chronotope, highly charged with emotion and value, the
chronotope of the threshold; . . . its most fundamental instance is
as the chronotope of crisis and break in a life .... In this
chronotope, time is essentially instantaneous; it is as if it has no
duration and falls out of the normal course of biographical time.
(DI, 248)
These "ultimate moments of crisis . . . take place in carnival-mystery play
space and time” (PDP, 177) and characterize the "camivalized literature,"
starting with Menippean satire and continuing to Rabelais and to
Dostoevsky. Understood in this global, genre-modeling sense, "[tlhe
menippea is a genre of 'ultimate questions.’ In it ultimate philosophical
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105
positions are put to the test, . . . the ultimate and decisive words and acts
of a person, each of which contains the whole man, the whole of his life
in its entirety" (115).l
Such a temporal, or rather ex-temporal, ultimate moment or
point-for instance, in Dostoevsky's w orks-can contain,
often at the expense of credibility, as many persons and themes as
possible in one place at one time . . . the greatest possible
qualitative diversity. . . . And hence the catastrophic swiftness of
action, the "whirlwind motion," the dynamics of Dostoevsky.
Dynamics and speed here (as, incidentally, everywhere) represent
not only the triumph of time, but also the trium ph over time, for
speed is the single means for overcoming time in time. (28-29)
Thus, Bakhtin in fact reevaluates "merry time" as truly realized not in
the continuum, but in the unique moment. Moreover, such a moment,
accessible by "speed," is presented as "the single means" for liberation
from time’ s inexorability, with far-leading implications, such as the
achievement of immortality' of a kind.
However, an unavoidable contradiction follows. Bakhtin's
predominant orientation towards the (materialistic) understanding of
history as continuum ("the historical development of culture and
literature,” based upon the "essential significance of time and historic
becom ing") undermines the validity of the unique moment as the
primary element in the conception of time (Rabelais. 123; Tvorchestvo .
136). History' as continuum is preconditioned by the "temporal contiguity
of phenomena having widely differing characteristics (associations based
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on the unity' of time )" (DI, 206; emphasis added). In other words, unique,
ultimate, qualitatively heterogeneous moments do not constitute
history. A possible solution for the problem: the concept of two radically
different planes of human existence, with two different sets of time(-
space) coordinates, which Bakhtin at one point accepts (Rabelais 5-6), but
later neglects and completely invalidates in the absolutizing movement
of his argument.
The primacy of the historical approach for Bakhtin evidently
dictates that carnival time must acquire the traditional parameters of the
temporal-spatial historical continuity. Accordingly, a "new chronotope
was needed that would permit one to link real life (history) to the real
earth" (DI, 206), the chronotope that is characterized by "powerful
historical awareness . . . a deeper understanding of reality," "sober and
fearless knowledge of this [historical] process" (Rabelais 208, 237). Thus,
for instance, "[t]he spatial-temporal world of Rabelais was the newly
opened cosmos of the Renaissance. It was first of all a geographically
precise cultural and historical world. Furthermore, it was the whole
universe illuminated by astronomy. Man can and must conquer this
entire spatial and temporal world" (DI, 242; trans. mod.). Here we find
the basis for the already discussed economical side of Bakhtin's
conception of the cultural progress of humanity', that is, of man’ s
"appropriation of [the] world, [for instance] a world in which
simultaneously America was being discovered, a sea route to India was
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being opened up, new fields in natural science and mathematics were
being established" (166).2
The essential feature of the "new," historically founded
camivalistic time is that ”[t]his is a time maximally tensed toward the
future [so that, for instance] men . . . mate and copulate for the sake of the
future" (207). In this way, Bakhtin introduces "the doctrine of the
biological and historical immortality of man (the biological and historical
do not of course contradict each other), the immortality of the seed, the
name and the act," guaranteed by perpetuation of the human genus:
"The movement in time is guaranteed by the birth of generation after
generation" (DI, 202; Rabelais 367). This victory’ over time disregards
completely the previous one, pertaining to the concept of instantaneous
time (and at some point defined as the only possible one). Consequently,
in the new context, "least of all does he [Gargantua] posit an immortality
that one might achieve at any particular point of development ” (DI, 203;
emphasis added). The ideological evaluations arc also correlated
accordingly, from the angle of the historical continuity, so that now, for
example, the possibility of "the eternal [to be symbolized] by the
moment" pertains to the "bad" conception of time, to "the
disproportionality inherent in the feudal and church-dominated world
view, where values are opposed to a spatial-temporal reality" (168; trans.
mod.). Another aspect of such a substitution of one time frame by
another: this orientation toward the future 3 (cf. "people's hopes of a
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108
happier future, of a more just social and economic order, of a new truth"
[Rahplais 81]) devalorizes the essentially instantaneous hie et nunc of the
"last questions" which, in the parameters of the time continuum .
become rather an endless utterance.^ The whole concept of the
qualitatively different, heterogeneous time of laughing culture is totally
reinscribed in the global historical-cultural continuity.
Furthermore, "[t]his time is profoundly spatial and concrete" (DI,
208); the main vector of the temporal-spatial progress is directed forward-
-that is, along a horizontal axis as opposed to a vertical one, directed
upward:
I want to emphasize that here the idea of man’ s perfection is
completely cut off from the vertical ascent. The new, horizontal
movement forward in real time and space celebrates its victory
here. Man's perfection is attained not by the rise of an individual
soul toward the hierarchical higher spheres but by the historical
development of the whole humanity (Rabelais 407 et passim; cf.
also DI, 207).
Of course, here we find the physical ("objectively scientific") roots of the
whole anti-vertical, anti-hierarchical, "anti-high" pathos of Bakhtin’ s
conception.
The linear and continuous characteristics of Bakhtinian time and
space is manifestly a legacy of the Hegelian dialectical system. The
concept of the spiral historical progress of mankind (cf.: 'The human
race is not merely renewed with each new generation, but every time it
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109
rises to a new, higher level of historical development") directly connects
with "[t]he famous Hegelian spirals [that] are also based on this 'ideal of
continuous movement,’ in this instance, as the combination of the
straight and the circular" (Rabelais. 324, trans. mod.; Plotnitsky In the
Shadow of Hegel 274) 5 By the same token, the victory over time in
Bakhtin's conception, guaranteed by the continuity of this linear (and or
spiral) process (to continue the already given quotation: "men . . . mate
and copulate for the sake of the future. All [these] labor processes are
aimed forward" [DI, 207]) emulates the Hegelian model:
In his analysis [in De la grammatologie 1 Derrida shows that "the
line” has been perhaps the most prominent and persistent model
throughout the history of philosophy as the metaphysics of
presence, or any history in which temporality may be involved:
science, linguistics, psychoanalysis, literature, literary criticism and
theory, and their multiple interactions. The model thus becomes a
general condition of reduction of difference and exteriority in
presence, as in Hegel, where it takes place in the name of the
"annulling of Time." As Derrida suggests, the Hegelian economy
may still be as far as one can go on this road .... (Plotnitsky. In the
Shadow of Hegel. 274).
However, the Hegelian concept of history as the evolution of
consciousness or, globally, the continuity of the Absolute, is not taken
over by Bakhtin without some im portant modifications. For him, the
historical continuum manifests an evolution not of the ideal subject
(Geist). but of the human collective (progressive development of
m ankind)-in this way, the infamous (for the followers of Marx’
materialistic dialectics) "subjective idealism" in Hegelian philosophy is
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110
accounted for. Not less importantly, "human" is understood as primarily
"material," so that for Geist is substituted Matter:
The m atter which forms the whole universe, discloses in the
human body its true nature and achieves its highest potential. I n
the human body matter becomes creative, constructive, is called to
conquer the cosmos, to organize all cosmic matter: in man matter
acquires a historic character. (Rabelais 366; trans. mod.)
(To note here the equation: creation = construction = conquest,
symptomatic in the context of the determinism of Bakhtin’ s conception,
discussed in Chapter I). Of course, the transition from the "bourgeois,
subjective-idealistic dialectics" to the "truly democratic, all-people’ s,
objective-materialistic dialectics" is not Bakhtin's personal philosophical
achievement, but rather shows him to be an attentive follower not only
of Hegel but of (a certain) Marx (and Engels) as well.
The material conquest of the cosmos leads to "the divinization
and apotheosis of man" that is, in fact, a total absolutization,
divinization of matter (367). Man, being substantially and essentially
(qualitatively) of the same material order as the whole universe, is
therefore situated on the same level with the thing. In turn, thing
(object) acquires "human" characteristics, for instance a kind of
immortality: "Negation reconstructs the image of the object and first of
all modifies the topographical position in space . . . Negation and
destruction of the object are therefore its displacement and
reconstruction in space" (410).^ The Thing is never "finally destroyed";
in the system of the renovating "material bodily lower stratum . . . things
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I l l
are reborn in the light of the use made of them" (373-74 et passim; trans
mod.)- Thus (in contradiction to its original function of "killing the
old”), ”[t]he passage of time does not destroy or diminish but rather
multiplies and increases the quantity of valuable things " (DI, 207;
emphasis added). Instead of destruction, a more utilitarian approach of a
periodical inventory’ and recycling is proposed: "As in every annual
inventory, it is necessary to test every thing separately, to weigh and
measure it, to determine its wear and tear, to establish the damage and
deterioration, to evaluate and reevaluate" (Rabelais 376). This is the
practice of a good owner of a "place," the strategy of appropriation.
permeated with "the new awareness of the cosmos as man’ s own home .
.." (365; emphasis added). Once again we are in the realm of Hegel’ s
dialectics:
Within this father’ s house, the son who saves rather than the son
who spends is rewarded. The father of speculative philosophy
runs a profitable domestic economy in which there must be a
return on every’ investment. Within the System, profitless
expenditure, senseless prodigality, and excessive loss cannot be
tolerated and therefore must be excluded or repressed. Each
negation is, in the final analysis, negated. The negation of
negation domesticates any difference that is not an identity and
every other that is not the same. (Taylor 32)
There follows Taylor’ s note:
. .. Economy and domesticity or domestication are closely related.
"Economy’," which derives from the Greek oikonom os:oikos
house + nomos, to manage, control, means "management of a
house; the art or science of managing a household." Such
management is, of course, primarily concerned with expenses or,
more precisely, with controlling expenditure.
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The question of whether Bakhtin’ s use of the basic laws of the
dialectics (Hegel’ s, or Marx'-Engels’ , in view of the proclaimed
materialistic and ideological valorization) is ’ ’ successful’ ’ or
"unsuccessful” is of course open to assessment. I would like to comment
on the following, however. The unity and struggle of the opposites are
manifest, for example, in the relation between the centripetal and
centrifugal forces in history’. Two contradictory’ tendencies are rather
obviously at play in Bakhtin’ s argument, as I tried to demonstrate in
Chapter I. First, the radically opposed poles tend to integrate (due to their
structural and functional similarity)— thus the ’ ’ struggle’ ’ is
compromised. On the other side, the emphasis of the ’ struggle" term
compromises, up to the state of disintegration, the presumed "unity of
life"; this is due to the absolutizing character of Bakhtin's pathos, most
symptomatic of his theoretical thinking. Introducing a diachronical
aspect, we pass to the negation of negation or a rather reduced (in view of
the following) version of Hegel's Aufhebung . The example of the tw’o
Bakhtinian concepts of the carnival time dimension is pertinent here.
After positing a traditional, perennial, centripetal time structure, Bakhtin
follows with the anti-thesis of the (conventionally, Heraclitean) ’ ’ merry’
time" killing the old, which culminates in the concept of the
instantaneous time-as-crisis. The negation of negation, however, looks
less like a synthesis and more like a fatally straightforward arithmetic
equation: x + y - y = x'; the "new" history’ , with its science, "churches,
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kings and bishops” suspiciously resembles the "old," "bad" one. In this
operation the value of the time-as-crisis is not incorporated and then
transcended but simply substracted; the whole sequence of transitions is
governed by the same principle of elementary exclusion of the heteros.
In other words, qualitative difference is not a subject of Bakhtin’ s
consideration. Here we pass to the "law" of the transition of quantity into
quality. The whole system of values is homogeneous to the space-time
parameters in Bakhtin's conception:
There is no mutual hostility, no contradiction between spatial and
temporal measurements, and value of any kind— food, drink, holy
truth, "The Good," beauty, they are directly proportional to one
another. Therefore, everything that is good grows .. . The bad, on
the contrary . . . perishes. (DI, 168)
That is to say, that all manifestations of the good are essentially-
qualitativelv-the same 7 Next, all these parameters and "measurements"
are subject to predominantly quantitative changes: 'This is the time of
productive growth . . . The passage of time does not destroy or diminish
but rather multiplies and increases the quantity of valuable things " (207;
emphasis added). There follows a statement that is supposedly meant to
compensate for the "lack of quality" and to conform to the dialectical
postulate: "The passage of time marks not only a quantitative but also a
qualitative growth--a movement toward flowering and ripening." But
again, this growth of the homogeneous universal matter represents
rather a quantitative process, an "increase" which changes nothing
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essentially or qualitatively. I will return to the connecting problematics
(e.g. that of Bakhtin's general m ethod) in subsequent chapters.
II. Life and Death in relation to Time. Bakhtin
Connected to the problem of time, the problem of life and death,
and conversely, of immortality deserves special attention in both
Bakhtin's and Bataille's conceptions.
Here, I will briefly sum up Bakhtin's conclusions pertaining to the
concept of death, which were already discussed before in relevant
contexts.
"Death is entirely draw n into the cycle of life" (Rabelais 359).
Death is the destiny of an individual being, not of the human
collective; as for the individual, it is nothing but "a part that has been
separated from the whole, the dying link tom from what is bom," and, at
best, a fertilizer for the future growth of this whole: "Having done its
part upon earth, the individual soul fades and dies together with the
individual body; but the body of the people and of mankind, fertilized by
the dead, is eternally renewed and moves forever forward along the
historic path of progress" (Rabelais 256, trans. mod.; 404 et passim).
D eath begins nothing decisive, and ends nothing decisive, in the
collective and historical world of hum an life” (DI, 204).
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Accordingly, from the point of view of "laughing culture," death
is represented "as an anatomical-physiological fact in an impersonal
series" (DI, 195; emphasis added). Bakhtin might as well speak about
himself, saying about Rabelais that "he must portray the material aspect
of death within the triumphant life series that always encompasses it
(without, of course, any poetic pathos, which is deeply alien to Rabelais)—
while at the same time portraying it as something that occurs just in
passing’ [no pun intended in Russian], without ever overemphasizing
its importance” (194). This connects, in the context of the carnival
violence, with death (proclaimed) only at the potential lim it.
In any (re)presentation death is always somebody else's death, the
death of the Other (cf. Bakhtin's ignoring self-sacrificial motives). This
correlates with the Bakhtinian principle of exotopv (briefly: we cannot
observe our own death-I will return to this subject in a different
context). Paraphrasing Rabelais’ Panurge: I am into it up to death-only
exclusively . not inclusively . A curious example of this important
transition— from death as an all-human experience, including the "I," to
death as an all-human experience, which, precisely because of its global
scale, neglects (excludes) the individual— can be found in Bakhtin's
analysis of Goethe’ s "Sagt es niemand. . .":
Und solang du das nicht hast,
Dieses stirb und werde,
Bist du nur ein triiber Gast
Auf der dunklen Erde.
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Bakhtin argues, that
the protagonist of the camival~the people— is the absolutely merry
host of the earth flooded with light, because it only knows death as
pregnant with new birth, because it knows the merry image of
becoming and of time, and because it is in full possession of this
"stirb und werde." The heart of the matter is not in the degree of
the subjective awareness of all this by separate participants in the
carnival, but in their objective participation in the people's self-
awareness of its collective eternity, its earthly historical
immortality and continuous renewal-growth as a people.
(Tvorchestvo 271)
However, a sleight of hand is played here with the reader. Goethe speaks
from or to a lyrical subject: Du, which can as well be Ich; Bakhtin's own
Russian translation is significant in this respect: "And as long as you do
not possess yourself this yearning to perish . these 'die' and 'be renewed' .
. . (Tvorchestvo 270, emphasis added; emphasized part omitted in
English translation) .8 But, comparing the themes of the stanza with a
description of the carnival (also taken from Goethe), and coming to the
quoted conclusion, Bakhtin uses examples of the "death wish’ ’ (cf. the
imperative stirb). explicitly addressed to others. I already mentioned his
favorite example: "a young boy blows out his father's candle, crying out,
sia ammazzato il signore Padre! 'Death to you, sir father!’ This admirable
camivalesque interjection of the boy merrily threatening his father with
death and blowing out his candle needs no further comment" (251).
The biological and historical immortality' of m an” pertains and is
guaranteed to the human genus b y the birth of generation after
generation" (202, 367). This doctrine is rooted in Bakhtin's economy,
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where "[t]he passage of time does not destroy or diminish but rather
multiplies and increases the quantity of valuable things: where there was
but one seed sown, many stalks of grain appear; the new issue [litter]
always eclipses the passing away of individual specimens. And these
single items that perish are neither individualized nor isolated; they are
lost in the whole growing and multiplying mass of new lives" (DI, 207;
emphasis added). To note here the equation: "life" = inorganic matter +
(organic life - individual hum an life).
Finally, an ideal version of the unlimited time continuum, with
its wasteless economy (of "real" life as well as of its representation), is
found in the example of "the summit of grotesque and folklore realism
[where], as in the death of one-cell organisms, no dead body remains
(death of such organism is at the same time its reproduction, it divides
into two cells, two organisms, not leaving any wasted 'remains’
(Rabelais, 52-53; trans. mod.).
HI. Time and Space. Bataille
The general framework of time conceptions, proposed at the
beginning of this chapter and pertinent to the analysis of Bakhtin's
thought, was clearly perceived and evaluated in Bataille's writings. In
fact, as is often the case, elements of the two authors' outlooks here are
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the same, including some uncanny verbal "coincidences." Nevertheless,
the overall perspective is quite different in each case.
I begin with Bataille's assessment of the time continuum which
served as both a starting and a resulting point for Bakhtin's argument.
Dans les drconstances communes, le temps apparait enferm e-
pratiquement annule— dans chaque permanence de forme et dans
chaque succession qui peut etre saisie comme permanence.
Chaque mouvement susceptible d'etre inscrit a l'int6rieur d ’ un
ordre annule le temps absorbe dans un systeme de mesure et
d ’ equivalence: ainsi le temps, devenu virtuellement reversible,
d£perit et avec le temps toute existence. (I, 94)9
The article "L'obelisque” (1938) deals preeminently with time and here is
found much which is essential to Bataille's attitude toward this problem.
In the dialectical interaction of centrifugal and centripetal forces (a
favorite terminology of Bakhtin’ s), time is presented here in its version
of the "monde h£racliteen des fleuves et des flammes," as opposed to the
immutability of God. Although Bataille speaks about Hegel, he pictures
with precision the final result of Bakhtin's dialectical conception of time.
[Hegel] donnait ainsi au mouvement du temps la structure
centripete qui caract£rise la souverainet6,1’ Etre ou Dieu. .\lors
que le temps, dissolvant chaque centre qui s’ est forme, est
fatalement connu comme centrifuge— etant connu dans un etre
dont le centre est d6ja \k. L'idee dialectique n est ainsi qu'un
hybride du temps et de son contraire, de la mort de Dieu et de la
position de 1'immuable. Mais elle marque malgre cela le
mouvement d'une pensee avide de detruire ce que refuse de
mourir, avide de conquerir le temps autant que de briser la loi par
laquelle Dieu oblige. (I, 505, 509)
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Next, similarly to Bakhtin, Bataille focuses on the (Heraditean)
notion of time as "mouvement deletere," "absurdite d616tfere" which is
also characterized, just like Bakhtin's "speed," by a "vitesse predpitee"
(see 505-510). As the analogy continues, this "killing time" concentrates
in the concept of "time without duration"--"instant," accompanied by
such qualifiers as "catastrophique," "immotiv6," "souverain" etc.
("instant privilegie . . . : rien qui constitue ime substance a l'£preuve du
temps, tout au contraire, ce qui fuit aussitdt apparu et ne se laisse pas
saisir" (I, 560). H This "instantaneous time" is consistently marked by its
opposition to time-as-duration on every level of manifestation. Time-as-
instant pertains to the order of the sacred (manifested in eroticism,
sacrifice, glory etc.) and is, of course, counterposed to the world of
"profane" morals, knowledge, science, utility, and generally the economy
of appropriation.
Here we have the point of the decisive parting of the ways for the
two thinkers. Whereas Bakhtin’ s thought performs a full circle, so that
time-as-crisis (instantaneous) is finally incorporated in a new, "better"
continuum (history), Bataille is consistent in discriminating between
time-as-instant, time-as-duration and virtual transitions from one to
another. Already at this point, I want to underscore that Bataille's choice
of dme-as-instant for the field of heterological operations necessarily
involves— among other "complications"— the subversion of such
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concepts as knowledge and discourse, as they are traditionally
understood in the Western thought.
Now I would like to focus on Bataille's view of time in terms of
the triad past-present-future. Time-as-continuum, or "duree," constitutes
for Bataille the most general chronotope (to use Bakhtin's term) of
human degradation, the condition for the circular chain of necessities,
forged by the economy of appropriation: "il est servile d'envisager
d'abord la duree, d'employer le temps present au profit de I'avenir, ce
que nous faisons quand nous travaillons" (VIII, 248). The valorization of
the future over the present, and "Vaccumulation des formes successives,
necessaires a la vie des masses humaines” (I, 508)12 in fact "bleeds white"
this present (again to use Bakhtin’ s words):
C’ est un monde de I'operation subordonnee au resultat attendu,
un monde de l'enchainement dans la duree, ce n est pas un
monde de l’instant. L'instant y est expressement annule; l'instant
n'est plus qu'une sorte de zero, avec lequel nous ne voyons plus
qu'il est possible de compter. . . . [LJe probleme du moment
souverain . .. se pose . . . comme une necessite de combler le vide
du monde des oeuvres utiles. (La Souverainete : VIII, 274)
We have seen that in the same context of the problem of time Bakhtin
positively valorizes the preeminence of the future over the present, and
his concern is precisely how to prevent the future from ” bleed[ing]
white.” Interestingly enough, the past (at least some periods of it) is also
valorized in his conception, for instance in the context of the "historical
inversion." Here lies yet another point of divergence not only of Bakhtin
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from Bataille, but Bakhtin from Nietzsche, about whom Bataille wrote:
"Le primat de l’ avenir sur le passe essentiel k Nietzsche n’ a rien a voir
avec celui de l'avenir sur le p resen t. . (note on VI, 186). And
significantly, subordination of the present moment to the future in the
continuity of knowledge and discourse confirms an affinity of Bakhtin to
Hegel:
dans I’ esprit de Hegel, ce qui est immediat est mauvais . . . il
insistait sur le fait que la philosophie est un d^veloppement dans
le temps, qu’ elle est un discours qui s£nonce en parties
successives .. . c’ est faire de chaque moment de la philosophie u n
moment specialise, subordonne aux autres. (X, 249)13
Instantaneous time, counterposed to the duration of the m o ra ls ,14
utility, science etc. in Bataille, is also the time of the "question dem iere”—
an exact "replique" (in an imaginary dialogue between the two authors)
o f-o r to (depending on the sense of "replique”)~Bakhtin's "last
q u e s ti o n s ." ^ Here, too, the "ultimate philosophical positions are put to
the te s t.. . each of which contains the whole man, the whole of his life
in its entirety" (PDP, 115). In Bataille's case, the last question par
excellence is the problem of sacrifice, essentially alien to Bakhtin (VII,
264-65). I have already discussed the subject of sacrifice in the framework
of the "economic." In the present context yet another important aspect
has to be underscored, the aspect of the sovereign sacrifice of knowledge
in its traditional, logocentric understanding, that is, as a process taking
place in, and inseparably linked to, the continuity of time:
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Mais la science est toujours soumise au primat du temps k venir
sur le temps present. C'est negliger le temps present en vue des
resultats qui suivront que faire oeuvre de science. . . . Hegel a bien
vu que, fdt-elle acquise d ’ une maniere definitive et jusqu'au bout,
jamais au fond la connaissance ne nous est donnee que se
developpant dans le temps. Elle n’ est pas donnee dans une
soudaine illumination de l'esprit, mais dans un discours, qui
s'articuie necessairement dans la duree. . . . Connaitre est toujours
s’ efforcer, travailler, c’ est toujours une operation servile,
indefiniment reprise, indefiniment repet£e. Jamais la
connaissance n'est souveraine: elle devrait, pour etre souveraine .
avoir lieu dans l'instant. Mais l'instant dem eure en dehors, en
de<£ ou au-dela de tout savoir.. . d’une modalite de l’ etre servile,
subordonnSe a l'avenir, k son enchainement dans le temps. Nous
ne savons rien absolument. de l'instant . . . La conscience de
l'instant n’ est vraiment telle, elle n'est souveraine que dans le
non-savoir. C’ est seulement annihilant, du moins neutralisant,
en nous-memes toute operation de connaissance que nous
sommes dans l’ instant, sans le fuir. C’ est possible sous le coup
dem otions fortes qui brisent, interrompent ou rejettent k
l’ arrifere-plan le deroulement continu de la pensee. (La
Souverainete : VIII, 252-54; emphasis added)
The key problems of (un-)knovvledge and discourse are posited here in
relation to the problem of time. For the "time being," though, before
approaching them directly, I will proceed with investigation of some
closely connected questions and continue with the problematics of time-
space in Bataille’ s conception.
The conventional concept of history' can be seen as the single
manifestation of the opposed but complementary (in the sense
developed by Plotnitsky) notions of time-as-continuum and time-as-
instant. In view of Bataille’ s predilection for the instant, the question of
history' acquires an additional interest. As we have seen, sovereign
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moments are opposed to "duree," i.e. continuum. In fact, Bataille does
not hesitate to speak about a certain opposition of the sovereign domain
(eroticism in the following example) to history:
L'erotisme est de toute faqon, meme dans la faible mesure oil il a
lui-meme une histoire, en marge de I’ histoire proprem ent dite,
militaire ou politique. . . . mais si l'histoire a la fin s'achevait,
meme touchait a son ach&vement, l'erotisme ne serait plus en
marge d'histoire. . . . la conscience de la verity 6rotique antidpe
sur la fin dliistoire . . . (L'Histoire de l’ erotisme : VIII, 163).
However, the empirical fact itself of such an observation— or, for that
matter, of any observation of any event-constitutes it as a historical
phenomenon, and in this sense, ”[l]e non-savoir est essentiellement
historique, puisqu'on ne peut le designer que comme une certaine
experience qu'un certain homme a faite k une certaine date" (Sartre 150;
cf. also Plotnitsky In the Shadow of Hegel 390). In this context it is worth
recalling the historical basis of numerous writings by Bataille, be it
precolumbian civilization of America or the biography of Gilles de Rais,
various "histories" (from "Histoire de I'oeil" to "L'histoire de religion"
and "L'histoire de l’ erotisme" and to plans for "L’ histoire universelle")
and his professional occupation: part historian, part librarian in the
Cabinet des medailles of the Bibliotheque nationale . Obviously, Bataille
was perfectly aware of this "equivority” and treated it with an undeniable
irony: "L'erotisme e s t. .. en marge de l'histoire. . . . Cet aspect a meme
un sens tel que je puis aborder maintenant la conclusion du r6dt
historique quest ce livre [i.e. L'Histoire de l'erotisme 1 " (VIII, 163).
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Bataille avoids the absolutization of one of the two main
conceptions of time. Just like in the case of the previously analyzed
notions of fete, rire. sacrifice, or violence . he carefully introduces the
difference between the sovereign instant and its historically degraded
realization: "C’ est l'instant libre et toutefois soumis, engage furtivement
dans de menues operations par la peur de laisser se perdre le temps qui
justifie la valeur pejorative du mot futile" (from Latin futilis: that runs
away) (VII, 344).
In terms of the interaction of time-as-duration and time-as-
instant, one can make the following observation. It seems that for
Bataille, history "grows around" some initial sovereign instants (similar
to the process of crystallization, triggered by depositing an initial
crystalline molecule in a solution); thus a certain kind of spatial-
temporal continuum is form ed-e.g. any "history" from the pages of his
books. The instant, however, remains in the focus of his attention. For
Bakhtin, on the other hand, the historical continuum is primary, into
which crucial moments are then inscribed depending on ideological
needs and more or less adequately.
Developing his notion of the instant in its pure, not degraded
(non)sense, Bataille links it to Nietzsche s eternal return :
J'imagine necessaire en ce sens d'inverser l’ idee d ’ etemel retour.
Ce n'est pas la promesse de repetitions infinies qui dechire mais
ced: que les instants saisis dans l'immanence de retour
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apparaissent soudainement comme des fins. Qu'on n’ oublie pas
que les instants sont par tous les systemes envisages et assignis
comme des moyens: toute morale dit: "que chaque instant de
votre vie soit motive". Le retour im m o tiv e l'instant, libfere la vie
de fin et par & d'abord il la ruine. Le retour est le mode . . . dont
chaque instant dlsorm ais se trouve immotiv6. (Sur Nietzsche: VI,
23; emphasis added)
And also: "le 'retour' .. . ne fait qu’ arracher a Dieu sa puissance totale
pour la donner a l'absurdite d£16tfere du TEMPS" ("L'Ob^lisque”: I, 510).
Bataille's moments, immotivated and liberated of any goal (fin), indicate
the end (fin) of any system with a familiar set of coordinates; they are
consistently characterized by catastrophic— sovereign— final fall without
return: "la chute du ’ retour’ est FINALE," ”[c]ar ce qui est tomb£ dans un
vide sans fond est I’ ass/se des choses" (511, 513; see also 94). The spatial
notion of the final fall is coexistent with the temporal concept of a time-
explosion. resulting from the maximal acceleration and precipitation of
time-as-instant and being the ultimate descriptor in the chain of time-as-
instant characteristics (471 et p a s s i m ) .^
The paradoxical return of the (unique) moment (a configuration
resulting from various possible superimpositions of even the basic
complementary time frameworks formulated above) liberates life from
the continuum of goals and achievements, and of course destroys it in
terms of this continuum. In the same context of the relativity of time
frameworks and, more exactly, of the eternal return, Bakhtin
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characteristically opts for life’ s continuation and continuum (in his
version) and, not less characteristically, criticizes Nietzshe:
The memory of the supra-individual body . . . This major memory
is not a memory of the past (in the abstract temporal sense): time is
relative here. That which eternally returns and at the same time is
irrecuperable . . . The moment of return apprehended by Nietzsche
but interpreted abstractly and mechanically. (Notebooks 158)
Spatial characteristics in Bataille are also quite interestingly
juxtaposed to Bakhtin's view.
La repartition des existences organiques a la sufrace du sol a lieu
sur deux axes dont le premier, vertical, prolonge le rayon de la
sphere terrestre et dont le second, horizontal, est perpendiculaire
au premier. Les vegetaux se developpent k peu pres exclusivement
sur I'axe vertical (qui est aussi celui de la chute des corps); au
contraire, le d^veloppement des animaux se situe ou tend a se
situer sur I'axe horizontal. ("L'oeil pineal": II, 25)
Despite the fact that man has tom himself away "k la paisible
horizontalite animale," his vision has remained strictly subjected "aux
choses vulgaires au milieu desquelles la n£cessite a fixe ses demarches”
(26). When Bataille is speaking, just like Bakhtin, about the steadfast
geographical expansion-horizontal--in the Renaissance world, he
evaluates it from a radically opposing point of view: "D fes l epoque de la
Reforme, les inventions nouvelles et la d£couverte de la Terre
agrandirent le domaine de l'action utile," "les hommes ont commence
de mesurer la part faite a la gloire [glory-a manifestation of
sovereignity]" (YU, 207, 206). Thus, the horizontal projection— topos for
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the (always eventual) blossoming of humanity for Bakhtin--is relegated
to the realm of the profane (restricted economy).!? With the abandoning
of the animal "etat d'equilibre . . . donne par la position horizontale
commune," a very different kind of "blossoming" occurs: first, it is
"l'epanouissement obscene de leur [des singes] anus chauve, aureole,"
then "l'epanouissement de la figure humaine . . . ayant la possibility de
degager d'immenses quantites d ’ energie sous forme d’eclats de rire, de
larmes ou des sanglots, a . .. [utilise] tout l’ £clat qui avait jusque-la fait
bourgeonner et embrase I'orifice anal" (II, 16-17, 19). Human here is not
the less obscene, since in this capacity it touches upon the sacred (cf. 21;
for sacred see chapter I).
The combination of horizontal and vertical vectors in Homo
erectus results in complementary movements of rotation (cf. Bakhtin s
"body rotator)'") and of human coitus (see the whole "Anus solaire"). For
Bataille, the latter follows an unambiguously vertical "mouvement
sexuel." On the other hand, for Bakhtin, as we remember, it takes place
exclusively in the horizontal projection ("men . . . mate and copulate for
the sake of the future. .All [these] processes are aimed forward") and leads
to a somewhat oxymoronic procreative coitus without ithvphallus --that
is, without erection, compromised as an upw ard "urge,"or "thrust,”
directed upward (to high: see Rabelais. 312 [truncated translation]; DI, 207;
cf. Chapter II).
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In the rearrangement (or de-rangement) of all these spatial
notions, and especially of the structural notion of high, we can observe a
typical case of significant divergence between the two authors. Despite
the manifest ideological negation of the high. Bakhtin, in a familiar
circular pattern comes to affirmation: carnival is "orient[ed] toward the
highest spheres," "must be sanctioned by the highest aims . . . (Rabelais
12, 9; emphasis added). At any given point his agrument is categorically
unilateral, leaving out of account or simply neglecting the opposing
tendency (heteros) postulated at another point, so that Aufhebung or
unity and transcendence of the opposites is not achieved.
Another interesting point in this context would be the human
head. On the scale of the human body (micro-version of the all-
embracing anthropological model), Bakhtin does not focus on the head
as the highest point, which, following his structural logic, should be
castigated. Moreover, Boris Groys suggests that Bakhtin was, in a certain
way, a supporter of the leader of the Soviet totalitarian stated® (In
Russian, as in French, leader = chef, and here we should recall the
etymology of chef: from Latin capitum . head.)
For Bataille, the highest point of the body— the head— is also
compromised for a similar reason, that is, because it is the locus of
reason, logos, the eventual center of any logocentric system: "le prindpe
meme de la tete est reduction a 1 'unite, reduction du monde a Dieu" (I,
469). Hence Bataille's acephalic interests (including a publication and a
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129
secret society of the same name). At the same time, however, the head,
with its "possibility of unleashing immense quantities of energy in the
forms of laughter, tears or sobs” is the locus of self-subversion
(deconstruction); from it comes the
(ir-)realization of the whole sovereign domaine: "L'etre humain arrive
au seuil: la il est necessaire de se pretipiter vivant dans ce qui n’ a plus
d’ assise ni de tete" (513). So that the vertical ascendance becomes only a
means to reach certain heights, necessary for the fall ("les hauts lieux a
partir desquels la vitesse precipitee de la chute est possible" (507). And in
this fall, "ou seraient volatilisees les sensations de haut et de bas .. .," the
opposition high-low, up-bottom becomes utterly ambivalent and
irrelevant, since any conventional system of coordinates is negated (VH,
520).
Est-ce que nous ne tombons pas sans cesse? En arriere, de cdte, en
avant, de tous les cot£s? Y a-t-il encore le haut et le bas? Ne
sommes nous pas portes au hasard dans un neant sans fin?
("L’ Obelisque”: I, 502; Bataille quotes Nietzsche)
The result of this explosion and final fall is death: "Et lorsque quelqu'un
est porte par la gloire a la rencontre du temps et de sa coupante
explosion, il les trouve aussitot et c’ est a ce moment-lk precisement que
se revele la mort” (506).
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V. Life and Death. Bataille
The problem of human death in Bataille's conception is inscribed,
in a seemingly simple and a matter-of-fact way, in a laconic sentence, of
which two parts correspond to the two elements given in the initial
formulation of the problem: " nous ne sommes pas to u t. n'avons m£me
que deux certitudes en ce monde, celle-la et celle de mourir" (V, 10;
emphasis added). I will follow these two guidelines, which, in the final
analysis, will lead to a possible interpretation of the whole of Bataille's
philosophy.
Speaking about the qualitative difference that characterizes the
transition from inorganic world to organic, Bataille again quotes
Nietzsche:
Accorder la perception egalement au monde inorganique; une
perception absolument precise— Ik regne la "verit£"!~L'incertitude
et l illusion commencent avec le m onde organique.
Perte dans toute specialisation: la nature synthetique est la nature
superieure. Or, toute vie organique est d£jk une specialisation. Le
monde inorganique qui se trouve derriere elle represente la plus
grande synthese des forces; pour cette raison, il apparait digne du
plus grand respect. Lk I'erreur, la limitation perspective n'existent
point. (I, 470)1^
A surplus of absorbed energy gives two possibilities to organic life.
The first can be considered as fully contained by the limits of a restricted
economy: it is the growth of a homogeneous organism; on the level of
primitive organic life, it is equal to asexual reproduction (scissiparity).
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These processes are essentially quantitative and potentially, intrinsically
limitless. However, due to numerous objective factors (biological:
competition of different species; climatic: adverse conditions;
geophysical: limitation of space; and so forth), this possibility of wasteless
development is precisely very restricted. It is evident that even in the
frames of a restricted economy and already on the level of asexual
reproduction, continuation of life is only a chance, whereas death is
always a given ("L’insensible passage de 1'accroissement a la perte est
impliqu£ par un principe: la perte a pour condition le mouvement de
croissance, qui ne peut etre ind6fini, ne se resout que dans la perte. C’ est
a letat animal, le plus simple, la reproduction asexuee" [V, 337]).
The second possibility (or necessity), which underlies the whole
concept of Bataille's general economy, is the principle of expenditure or
loss. Death is the fundamental form of expenditure, and sexual
reproduction pertains to the same phenomenal plane (first, by being an
excessive dilapidation of energy, and, second, by being directly correlated
with death).20 In the following passage, Bataille applies the laws of
general economy to the problem of death:
En principe, I’ existence particuliere risque toujours de manquer de
ressource et de succomber. A cela s’ oppose 1 ’ existence generate
dont les ressources sont en exces et pour laquelle la mort est un
non-sens. A partir du point de vue particulier, les problemes sont
en premier lieu poses par l'insuffisance des ressources. Ils sont e n
premier lieu poses par leur exces si I’ on part du point de vue
general. . . H est d’ ailleurs bien entendu que Yeconomie generate
doit envisager aussi bien, chaque fois quelle est possible et
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d'abord, la croissance a d£velopper. Mais si elle envisage la misere
ou la croissance, elle tient compte des limites que l'une et l'autre
ne peuvent m anquer de rencontrer et du caractere dominant
(dScisif) des problfemes dScoulant de I’ existence d ’ excedents. (La
Part maudite: VII, 45)
In view of this passage, despite the common grounds for Bataille's and
Bakhtin's conceptions, the trajectory of Bakhtin's argum ent concerning
the excessive energy, growth, development and death, definitely stopped
short of a general economy. The following textual examples again
present striking similarities in images, but lead to radically opposed
conclusions. Bakhtin:
where there was only one seed sown, many stalks of grain appear .
.. Perishing and death are perceived as a sowing, after which
follows an increase and harvest, multiplying that which had been
sown. . . . [SJuch things as . . . decay and death can be nothing more
than aspects subordinated to growth and increase, the necessary
ingredients of generative growth (DI, 207).
Bataille:
L'excretion n'est pas seulement un moyen terme entre deux
appropriations, de meme que la pourriture n’ est pas seulement un
moyen terme entre le grain et l'£pi. L'incapacite d'envisager dans
ce dernier cas la pourriture [i.e. an aspect of death] comme fin en
soi est le resultat non precisement du point de vue humain mais
du point de vue spedfiquem ent intellectuel (en tant que ce point
de vue est pratiquem ent subordonne a un processus
d’appropriation). ("La valeur d'usage de D.A.F. de Sade": II, 65)21
The dialogue Bakhtin - Bataille at this point includes one more
party who might possibly be seen as an actual link between them. In 1953
Bataille published "Le paradoxe de la mort et la pyramide a review of a
book by a Marxist biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, logician and
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133
philosopher Edgar Morin, entitled L’ Homme et la Mort dans 1'Histoire
(1951). In it, Morin briefly comments on Bataille's concept of death. In
turn, Bataille's attitude to Morin's book is rather critical. In our context,
however, it is important to note that Bataille’ s attention seems to be
attracted, among other points, by two small sections entitled
"L’ amortalite unicellulaire” and "La cause de la mort." The crucial
scientific observation from these pages and some far-reaching
implications resulting from it, were repeatedly (and critically)
commented on by Bataille not only in the review, but on several other
occasions. Coincidentally perhaps (if parallels, similarities and
intersections of Bataille's and Bakhtin's writings can be called
coincidental at all), the same passage from Morin is very closely
reproduced in the already quoted lines by Bakhtin, which, in fact, present
an important constructive point for his whole system: "in the death of
one-cell organisms, no dead body remains (death of such organism is at
the same time its reproduction, it divides into two cells, two organisms,
not leaving any wasted 'remains’ . . . .)" (Rabelais 52-53; trans. mod.);
Bakhtin then develops this observation into his concept of the
immortality and victorious expansion of --and appropriation of the
universe by— the human species (see a b o v e ).22 [t is probable that Bakhtin
read the French Marxist Morin who had written on the subject closely
related to Bakhtin's problematics; and it appears that both Bataille and
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Bakhtin first put to use the basic biological observation in question in
their works after reading Morin s book.
From the very outset of his argument, Bataille attacks the
conclusion (Morin's and Bakhtin's) about the immortality of organic life
on the level of the cell (and some primitive organisms). In asexual
reproduction, sdssiparity, a cell divides into two new cells, but "[11a
cellule a ne survit ni en a ' ni en a ", a ' est autre qua, autre qua
positivement, a, dans la division, cesse d ’ etre, a disparait, a meurt. II ne
laisse pas de trace, de cadavre, mais il meurt” (X, 98). In fact, ”[q]uelque
chose d ’ fl subsiste en a', quelque chose d'a subsiste en a"" (96).
Nevertheless,
leur immortality n'est pas celle de I'individu puisqu'il se divise. .
. . Letre que je nomme A meurt en tant qu'individu, puisque A
n'est plus lorsque lui succfede le double r£sultat de sa division: A’
et A" . . . Un caractere constitutif, fondamental, de l'ytre
individuel n’ est en dernier lieu jamais a l’ a b ri. .. ("Le paradoxe de
la mort et la pyramide": VIII, 518-19; emphasis added).
With the specialization of organic cells and formation of higher, more
complicated organic forms, death necessarily conflates with life. More
than that, it becomes the condition of life: "la croissance determine la
reproduction--la division en consequence— elle determine la mort de
I’ individu plethorique . . . Et comme pour les etres plus simples, [la
surabondance de lenergie] . . . commande la mort" (L'Erotisme: X, 101).
Death's priority’ , in fact, is based on the already noted objective necessity,
since it laisse incessamment la place necessaire a la venue des
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135
nouveaux-nes et nous maudissons bien a tort celle sans qui nous ne
serions pas" (La Part maudite VO, 4 1).23 in this wav, death is seen
"d’ abord comme une negation de nous-memes, puis, dans un
renversement soudain, comme la verite profonde du mouvement dont
la vie est l'exposition" (VII, 41). (Here Bataille's conclusion seems to
concur with that of Bakhtin formally . only with a radically different
emphasis).
One of the key moments in Bataille's chain of propositions is the
formation of the human individual. Generally, the self (soi) is always
the focus of Bataille's attention, which does not mean that it is an
unproblematic or even positively charged notion. I cannot
overemphasize the importance of self for the human being (soi, ipse): in
the final analysis it affects the whole of Bataille’ s philosophy. Thus, "le
probleme de la souverainete (que chacun, pour son compte, doit
atteindre) [est] pose generalement pour tout homme" (La litterature et le
mat 207). This personal basis makes Bataille lose interest in the
continuity of the species— the major link in Bakhtin’ s conception—
although at some point Bataille's and Bakhtin’ s positions seem to
coincide, when they both decry’ personal continuity’ .
Objectivement, si nous faisons I’ amour, c’ est la reproduction qui
est en jeu. C’ est done . . . la croissance. Mais cette croissance n’ est
pas la not re . . . Ce que met en jeu la reproduction est la croissance
impersonnelle. L’ opposition fondamentale . . . de la perte et de la
croissance est done reductible, en un cas, a une autre difference, ou
la croissance impersonnelle, et non la perte pure et simple.
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s'oppose a la personnelle . . . Si la croissance a lieu au profit d ’ un
etre ou d un ensemble qui nous d£passe, ce n'est plus une
croissance, mais un don. Pour celui qui le fait, le don est la perte de
son avoir. Celui qui donne s'y retrouve, mais tout d'abord il doit
donner . . . (L'Erotisme: X, 97).
Of course, Bakhtin s conception, with its economy of appropriation and
total ignoring of the gift, as well as with the obligatory involvement of
the individual into the global process, presents a different modification
of the concept of impersonal continuity (see remarks on "determinism
three” in chapter I).24
Man’ s uniqueness can be seen as twofold: first, biologically, as a
unique combination of cells; second, as a characteristics of an entity with
an individual consciousness: "la verity fondamentale [de I'homme):
I’isolement dans lequel une reflection rigoureuse acheve de l’ enfermer
(quand, affirmant 'je petise, done je suis’ , il lie le je a la pensee comme a
son grain irreductible" (La limite de l’ utile: VII, 267). And man is pledged
to death twice: objectively, biologically; and, by dint of being conscious of
one's nature, in the death of consciousness: "comprendre
qu’ essentiellement, la conscience de la mort est conscience de soi— mais
que , reciproquement, la conscience de soi demanda celle de la mort"
(L’ Histoire de l'erotisme : VTII, 71).
In his understanding of the death of the individual, Bataille
reverses, in terms of continuitv-discontinuity, one of the most
traditional frames of the concept. An individual is isole. autonome and,
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accordingly, is discontinu . separated from the perpetual "dance” of life
(Vm, 73 et passim). Accordingly, death (and other forms of the sacred,
such as the eroticism) negates the isolation and paradoxically opens the
gates to the continuity of life and to communication with the Other,
including with other hum an beings.25 Of course, the passage to the
sacred domain takes place not in the time continuum, but in the
dimension of the time-as-instant, time-explosion. Conversely, life in the
continuity of time, where the individual is seen (by Bakhtin, for
example) as only a micro-link in the chain of the continuation of the
species (biological as well as socio-cultural reproduction), is a
manifestation of the profane (restricted economy) (cf. VU, 310 et
passim).26
La crainte de la mort appararait des l’ abord liee a la projection de
soi dans le temps futur qui, etant un effet de la position de soi
comme une chose, est en meme temps la condition de
I'individualisation consciente. C’ est 1 etre que le travail rendit
consdem m ent individuel qui est dans I’ angoisse. L'homme est
toujours plus ou moins dans l'angoisse, parce qu’ il est toujours
dans I'attente: dans une attente qu’il faut nommer attente de soi.
Car il doit se saisir soi-meme dans le temps futur, a travers les
resultats escomptes de son action. C’ est pourquoi il meurt
pleinement, car, dans la perspective oil il s’ efforce incessamment
de s’ atteindre lui-meme, la mort possible est toujours fe, la mort
empeche l'homme de s’ atteindre. La mort est ce qu elle est pour
nous dans la mesure ou elle peut nous empecher de nous
atteindre, oil elle separe ce que nous etions, qui n’ est plus, de l’ etre
individuel que nous cessons d ’ etre . Un etre qui n’ existerait que
dans l’ instant ne pourrait etre ainsi separe de lui-meme en une
sorte de "traumatisme”. Mais, subjectivement, ce ne serait pas un
individu. (La Souverainete: V III, 266-67; emphasis a d d e d )2 ?
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Again, this is the choice between the cupidity of the profane existence
subordinated to the ever receding future ("La peur de mourir est le
principe de l'avarice") and the sovereignity of the sacred moment,
between the ever incomplete attente de soi and le don de soi: " nous ne
sommes pas devant l'opposition abstraite, nous la vivons: c'est le combat
que menent notre etre et notre mort, la prodigalite et l'avarice, la
conquete et le don de soi" (VII, 247, 268). The constant linkage of such
basic notions of Bataille's thought as sacre. 6rotisme . m ort. violence and
sacrifice (in both their active form— meurtre and passive— don de soi). and
so forth, is in full play here.
It is important to specify, who or what is dying in Bataille's theory
of death. First and foremost, in the sacrificial death, or in any sovereign
moment similar in function to death (e.g. orgasm = "little death”), that
aspect of an individual dies that belongs to the profane domain of
’ ’thing” (chose).
L’homme devient dans l’ activite efficace I'Squivalent d ’un outil,
qui produit, il est semblable a la chose, qu est l'outil, qui lui-meme
est un produit. Ces faits ont une portee bien d€finie: le sens de
l’ outil est donne par l'avenir, dans ce que l'outil produira, dans
l outilisation future d u produit; comme l'outil, celui qui sert— qui
travaille— a la valeur de ce qui sera plus tard, non de ce qui e s t. . .
La decheance fondamentale est donn£e dans ce fait que l’ homme
devient une chose. Sinon entiferement, du moins toujours. (La
Souverainet6 : VUI, 266).
Ainsi la mort au milieu des choses bien rang£es dans leur
coherence est un effet qui derange cet ordre, qui, par une sorte de
miracle n£gatif, echappe & cette coherence. La mort detruit, elle
reduit a RBEN I’ individu qui se prenait et que les autres prenaient
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pour une chose. identique a elle-meme. Non seulement cet
individu etait insere dans l’ ordre des choses mais l’ ordre des
choses etait entre en lui et, a l’ interieur de lui, avait tout dispose
selon ses prindpes. II avait, comme les autres choses, un passe, un
present et un avenir, et une identity a travers ce passe, ce present
et cet avenir. La mort detruit ce qui fut avenir, qui est devenu
present en cessant d’ etre. (264; emphasis a d d e d )2 8
Of course, such a position counterposes Bakhtin’ s predilection for
material things (see the first section of this chapter). Conversely, here
dies the consdousness, subordinated to that same domain of the profane,
in other words, consdousness predetermined by a logocentric set of rules:
"C'est seulement annihilant, du moins neutralisant, en nous-memes
toute operation de connaissance que nous sommes dans l'instant, sans le
fuir. C’ est possible sous le coup d’ emotions fortes qui brisent,
interrompent ou rejettent a I'arrifere-plan le deroulement continu de la
pensee "(254).
And here comes the turn of one more of Bataille’ s paradoxes:
death is negated in death, that is, in the sacred dimension of the instant,
”[l]a mort rev&le la vie dans sa plenitude et fait sombrer I’ ordre reel"
(VII, 309). "Le monde souverain est le monde oil la limite de la mort est
supprimee. La mort y est presente .. . toujours pour etre niee, jamais elle
ne Test que pour cela"; "Si nous vivons souverainement, la
representation de la mort est impossible, car le present n’ est plus soumis
a l'exigence du futur .. . L’ homme souverain echappe a la m o rt. . . en
ced qu’ il vit dans l’ instant" (VUI, 270, 267).
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Since sovereign death is the death of conventional reasoning and
consciousness, the "new," instantaneous and sovereign, existence (being)
is unthinkable in terms of this consciousness. Here Bataille approaches a
contradictory and seemingly untenable program, based on the experience
of "[rjevolte contestant toute possibility et ne se tenant qu'& l’ impossible”
(203). "[A] partir de la mort de la pensee . . . partir du non-savoir [il y a]
un nouveau savoir possible," "une reflexion ordonnee qu’ il est possible
de faire sur I’ experience du non-non-savoir" (204, 203). Obviously, the
transition between the old knowledge and the non-non-savoir is
extremely problematic, and "entre le temps de I’ effort et le temps
souverain, il y a obligatoirement une coupure et I’ on pourrait meme
dire un abime” (207). From the conventional standpoint, this abyss even
must be seen as unsurmountable and, in this case, Bataille's persistence
raises suspicion of a fraud. Bataille himself, however, admits to it: "Ni la
mort de la pensee ni l’ extase ne sont moins empreintes de tricherie et
d'impuissance profonde que la simple connaissance de la mort d'autrui";
"Le souverain est dans le domaine du silence et si nous en parlons nous
nous en prenons au silence qui le constitue. C’ est toujours une comedie,
une fumisterie" (205, 207).
Some of the questions a suspicious reader might ask are: How come
the direct conclusion of a conscious process is "unthinkable"? Is it not a
weakness in thinking (Bataille’ s or in g e n e ra l) ?29 How can we deal with
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141
a trickery in philosophy? Is it acceptable; if yes, on what terms? and so
forth.
In fact, this kind of questions about Bataille's writings were
repeatedly posed, starting with his contemporaries. Thus, in the already
m entioned Un nouveau mystique . an altogether virulent (if not rude)
article on Bataille, Sartre denounces the latter s blatant "illogicality " :
La phrase de la jouissance intuitive, qui se ramasse dans l’ instant,
voisine, dans L'Experience interieure, avec le discours qui prend
son temps.
C'est a regret, d'ailleurs, que VI. Bataille use du discours. fl
le hait et, a travers lui, le langage tout entier (146).
Sartre’ s logic leads him to the following accusation: Bataille does not
have any (moral) right to speak of sovereign moments such as death,
sacrifice, loss, since "enfin M. Bataille ecrit, il occupe un poste a la
Bibliotheque Nationale, il lit, il fait l'amour, il mange" (175). In other
words: a problem posed on one plane cannot be resolved on a totally
different one.
In a similar vein, although from a different angle, Barbara
Hermstein-Smith in her "Contingencies of Values" criticizes Bataille's
general economy. She argues that such notions as expenditure, loss, and
gift in Bataille's interpretation are untenable (tricherie) and that in the
final analysis human activity in general, is in advance caught in the
circle of interest (appropriation)--a very "Bakhtinian" point of view.
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In close reading, the attitudes of these authors converge in that
any positivitv (claimed by Bataille on a totally different, "sovereign"
plane) is necessarily (always already) appropriated, and presupposes
homogeneity with the very order of traditional (Western) thought, i.e.
with logocentrism. That is, from such positions, qualitative difference or
radical Otherness is excluded in advance. In other words, heterogeneity
as such, and, a fortiori, heterology is denied its place (space and time).
I would argue differently. Already at this point in the study's
interpretation, it is possible to perceive Bataille's heterology, which
pushes thinking to its very limits where it loses its grip, as a kind of
"Derridien" differance (avant la lettre): a spatial-temporal and qualitative
deferral o f-n o t avoiding— the ("solution" to) problem(s). In such a
perspective, his sacre might be seen as the ever approachable, but forever
unattainable domain of l’ excrit (cf. Jean-Luc Nancy). However, som e-not
only additional— points of further interest, common for both Bataille and
Bakhtin, could be found in the sphere of ecrit— written. if not always
developed-that is, in the sphere of discourse. If nothing else, the
importance of discourse here lies in the fact that we are dealing with the
texts of two paradigmatic writers. who also operate with other texts
(unlike, let us say, "pure" philosophers). The problem of discourse and
such connecting areas as communication and, last but not least, method,
are the subject of the following chapters of this study.
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NOTES
1 Et passim on "ultimate questions." The original Russian word for
"ultimate" in all these examples— HOCJieAHHe-could be more
restrictively and exactly translated as "the last"; thus one could read of
"the stripped-down pro et contra of life's last questions" (116); this
specification will play a role later.
2 But even in this real-time chronotope it is the carnival consciousness
that, somehow, precedes and prepares scientific progress (cf. Rabelais 49).
3 Or toward the past, as in the case of the "historical inversion" discussed
in Chapter I.
4 I will discuss later the presumably dialogical character of this utterance.
5 Circular trajectory is characteristic also of Bakhtin's argument: see
Chapters I, II and subsequent as well. As concerns Bakhtin’ s conception
of time structure, an additional observation can be made. In his notes of
1946 Bakhtin seems to propose an interesting development of "the
combination of the straight and the circular." In this instance he writes
about the memory, that is, a specifically temporal dimension:
The memory of the supra-individual body .... This major
memory is not a memory of the past (in the abstract temporal
sense): time is relative here. That which eternally returns and at
the same time irrecuperable. Time here is not a line but a complex
trajectory of the body rotatarv [term of physics]. The moment of
return apprehended by Nietzsche but interpreted abstractly and
mechanically. (Notebooks. Literatumaia ouchioba 1992, 5-6,158;
emphasis added)
If the concept of the "historical inversion" is Bakhtin's attem pt to pursue
this subject of the memory’ of the body collective, one can readily agree
that it presents a really "complex trajectory"-see discussion of the
"historical inversion" in Chapter I. Several lines in an article,
untranslated into English, deal with the same subject: memory and
"renovation of the beginnings," which follow a more complicated
trajectory than a "straightforward movement forward" ("Rabelais and
Gogol: The Art of Laughter and the Folk Laughing Culture" in Voprosv.
492).
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6 There is an obvious confusion in the English translation where one
reads "their" instead of "its".
7 In fact, the same "sameness" embraces both "good" and "bad" poles of
the world in Bakhtin's conception; the difference between them is thus
located not on the ontological but on a purely ideological plane (see
Chapter I).
8 The Russian translation of Goethe’ s stanza in Tvorchestvo is given in
footnotes which are generally written by Bakhtin.
9 Cf. Bakhtin’ s "temporal continuity," "proportionality,"
"measurements" etc.
10 Here Bataille speaks about sovereignity in its historical aspect, i.e.
sovereignity degraded by existence in duration of time (cf. Chapter II on
the degradation of sacrifice).
11 Cf. Derrida: Tinstant-m ode temporel de l’ operation souveraine" (op.
cit. 387).
12 Cf. Bakhtin’ s positively charged "temporal contiguity of phenomena .
. . (associations based on the unity of time)" (DI 206).
1^ It is possible that this aspect of knowledge (philosophy) and discourse-
as essentially involving a temporal duration— was underscored by
Bataille after Sartre's criticism in "Un nouveau mystique" (first
published 1943): "La phrase de la jouissance intuitive, qui se ramasse
dans l’instant, voisine, dans L'Experience interieure, avec le discours qui
prend son temps" (146). Bataille's own emphasis of this aspect comes in
later texts: L'Erotisme and La Souverainet£ (see the present quotation
and the following main text).
I 4 Cf.:
La morale enonce les regies qui d€coulent universellement de la
nature du monde profane, qui assurent la duree sans laquelle il ne
peut v avoir d ’ operation. Elle est done opposee a l'echeile des
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145
valeurs de l’ordre intime, qui mettait au plus haut ce dont le sens
est donne dans I’ in stan t. . . .
"En tant que des homines prennent sur eux de donner a d'autres une
regie de vie, ils doivent faire appel au merite et proposer comme fin le
bien d ’etre— qui s'accomplit dans le temps a venir" (VII, 325; VI, 50).
Which are, in turn, obviously a replica of Dostoevsky’ s "last
questions" (noCJie&HH0 BOIipoCil) and "ultimate foundations"
(nocneAHHe Havana).
1^ For scientific data available to Bataille on "time-explosion" see VII,
186.
17 Cf. previous discussion on Bakhtin's "time o f . . . blossoming" and
horizontal "movement toward flowering" (DI, 207).
I® In the already mentioned article "Between Stalin and Dionysus."
19 I will return later to this point to show that this differentiation
(organic versus inorganic) is not conclusive or irreversible for Bataille.
20 Cf.: "la mort des uns est correlative de la naissance des autres, dont
elle est finalement la condition et I’ annonce” (VIE, 68). I develop this
moment later in the text of the study.
21 "La mort de l’un est correlative de la naissance de l’ autre, qu elle
annonce et dont elle est la condition. La vie est toujours un produit de la
decomposition de la vie. Elle est tributaire en premier lieu de la mort,
qui laisse la place; puis de la corruption, qui suit la mort, et remet en
circulation les substances necessaires a 1 ’ incessante venue au monde de
nouveaux £tres" (X, 58).
22 Cf. Morin: "Les cellules vivantes sont potentiellement immortelles.
Chez les unicellulaires, individu et cellule germinaie, c'est-a-dire
individu et espece, forment un tout indivisible et par la virtuellement
immortel. En effet, l'unicellulaire se reproduit par scissiparit6, c’ est-a-
dire par dedoublement a I'infini, et ne trouve la mort que quand le
milieu exterieur lui rend la vie impossible" (303).
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Also, quite in Bakhtinian veine: "les donnees sdentifiques
confinnent les vues hegeliennes, puisque chez le mortels, le veritable
individu, le veritable acteur, le veritable vivant c’ est I 'espece. Mais la
biologie unicellulaire permet de reconnaitre, avant la dialectique des
espfcces composees d'individus mortels, une dialectique ant£rieure qui
ignore la mort" (307). And, finally: "La mort-naissancp. loi du cosmos,
e st appropriee par Vhomme. une immortality " (105; emphasis added).
Yet another interesting point is Morin’ s references, in this context, to
works by Russian scientists (among others): Metalnikov, Bogomoletz
and, particularly, a famous Russian biologist and physician Mechnikov.
However, Bakhtin s readings would more probably include a broadly
culturological book by Morin than these more specialized publications.
23 Cf. also "Selon cette loi, la vie est jaillissement, exuberance, elle est
contraire a l’ £quilibre, a la stability. C’ est un mouvement tumultueux,
qui explose et qui s’ £puise. Son explosion perpetuelle est possible k une
condition: que les organismes uses cedent la place k de nouveaux, qui
entrent dans la danse avec des forces nouvelles" (VIII, 73).
24 Incidentally, Morin in his book opts for a kind of combination of
personal with impersonal continuity: we have thus a very interesting
example of three different configurations resulting from the same set of
premises.
25 Cf. : "La continuity globale des etres . . . est donn£e d'un etre k l'autre
et de chaque etre a la totality des autres dans les passages de la
reproduction. Mais la mort, qui toujours supprime la discontinuity
individuelle, apparait chaque fois que, profondement, la continuity se
revele . . . la mort annonce la discontinuity fondamentale des etres (et de
l etre). L’ etre discontinu seul meurt et la mort ryvele le mensonge de la
discontinuity" (X, 98). In a related context Bataille mentions the classical
example: orgasm as a "little death” (X, 234).
26 "Cependant, c'est la perte a la fin qui l'emporte. La reproduction ne
multiplie la vie que vainement, elle la multiplie pour I’ offrir a la mort,
dont seuls les ravages s’ accroissent quand la vie tente aveuglement de
s’ etendre. J’insiste sur le gaspillage s’intensifiant malgry le besoin d ’ un
accomplissement de sens contraire" (X, 228).
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27 Cf. also: "Ainsi chaque homme doit envisager a la fois de se confiner
dans l’ isolement et de s’ 6vader de cette prison. II voit d'un cote ce qui
fonde, ce sans quoi rien ne serait: une existence particuliere, egolste et
vide. De l'autre un monde dont la splendeur vient d'elements qui
communiquent et se fondent entre eux comme les flammes d ’ un foyer
ou les vagues de la mer . . . Entre ces poles, incondliables, un homme est
dechire n^cessairem ent. . . . II ne peut pas renoncer a son existence
isolee; ni a I’ exuberance d’ un monde qui se moque de cette existence et
s'apprete h . I'an^antir" (VII, 269).
28 Cf. also: "La mort est une negation mise en oeuvre du monde de la
pratique: le prindpe de ce monde est submerge dans la mort comme l’ est
une ville dans un raz de m aree. C'est le monde de la chose, de I'outil, le
monde de l'identite dans le temps et de l'operation disposant du temps
futur, c'est le monde des limites, des lois et de I'interdit. C'est dans son
principe une subordination g£n£rale des etres humains a des oeuvres qui
r£pondent aux n£cessit£s d'un groupe" (268; emphasis added). Here, the
m etaphor of the submerged city presents an additional interest, just like
in the following: "La mort n'est pas la seule contradiction qui entre dans
I'edifice ferme par 1 ’ activity de l’ homme, mais elle a une sorte de
preeminence (VIII, 511; see Chapter II on use of architectural metaphors
by Bataille and Bakhtin).
29 Cf.: "Je ne sais si j'enonce de cette faqon I'impuissance humaine--ou la
mienne..." (VI, 201).
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Chapter IV
Bataille
I. Being and Communication
In the context of this stu d y -a comparison of the two heterologies-
the necessity of presenting a summary' reading of the core of Bataille's
"anti-philosophical" theory comes to the foreground at this point. In fact,
only such a synoptical overview will allow us to put the previously
considered aspects of his writings into a coherent perspective (inasmuch
as this interpretation does not claim to be heterogeneous itself). In the
same way, we will put in place a necessary basis for the subsequent
chapter on Bataille and discourse. Of course, given the identical material,
some interpretations in the following pages might rem ind one of those
proposed by other authors. Nevertheless, while approaching the subject
in question, I kept in focus my objectives, followed my own lines of
reading Bataille's texts and made conclusions based on this reading.
Certain analogies thus may be seen, but not tautologies.
To approach the problem of communication in Bataille, it is
necessary to keep in mind a careful distinction between his terms l'etre.
soi and ipse, l’ individu , and lhom m e souverain . Briefly, l’ etre is
adequately rendered by "being" (noun: a singular hum an being, a divine
being or a social body, such as ’ TEtat"), as long as one recalls that "etre”
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149
is also the verb (etre = to be).l Of course, the most obvious opposition to
(l')etre is death (mort) or n£ant (non-being). But l’ etre is a general term,
not an ”1” or ’ ’ self’ : "L'etre est dans le monde si incertain que je puis le
projeter ou je veux-hors de moi. C'est une sorte d'homme m aladroit-
qui ne sut pas d^jouer l'intrigue essentielle— qui limita l'etre au moi....
L'etre n'est nulle part: .. . il n'est pas d'etre sans 'ipseite. Faute
d "ip seite, un element simple (un electron) n'enferme rien" (V, 98).
Thus, ipse or soi. is a being characterized by a sum of features which
constitute it as singular or particular. In turn, the tendency of ipse to be
"just" itself (which is originally its "raison d'etre’ ’)— "ce m o i qui s’ est
replie sur lui-meme”~leads to the formation of l'individu . autonomous
and isolated from the universal "dance of life" (114). These preliminary
definitions give the necessary point of departure for the dynamics of
being offered in Bataille’ s conception.^
There is nothing stable in the conditions of these aspects of being.
In fact, the very basis of ipse (its selfness), is just contingency', blind
chance realized in a gratuitious combination of particles.
UN HOMME EST UNE PARTICULE INSLREE DANS DES
ENSEMBLES INSTABLES ET ENCHEV£TR£S. Ces ensembles
composent avec la vie personnelle a laquelle ils apportent de
possibility multiples .... A partir de la connaissance l’ existence
d’ une personne n’ est isolee de celle de I’ ensemble que d ’ un point
de vue etroit et negligeable. Seule I’ instabilite des liaisons . . .
permet I’ illusion de l’ etre isol£, replie sur lui-meme et possedant
le pouvoir d ’ exister sans ^change.
D’ une faqon generate, tout element isolable de l’ univers
apparait toujours comme une particule susceptible d’ entrer en
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composition dans un ensemble qui le transcende . . . L'etre est
toujours un ensemble de particules dont les autonomies relatives
sont maintenues. Ces deux prinripes-com position transcendant
les composantes, autonomie relative des composantes— rfeglent
I'existence de chaque "£tre." (El: V, 100-101; emphasis added)
Consequently, one of the initial characteristics of hum an being is
common for both Bakhtin and Bataille: "L'£tre n’ est jamais moi seul,
c’ est toujours moi et mes semblables," ”[p]ersonne n'echappe k la
composition sodale" (Vm, 297; V, 102). The human paradox is that "(c]et
etre ipse, lui-meme compost des parties et, comme tel, resultat, chance
imprevisible, entre dans 1 ’univers comme volont6 d'autonomie. . . .
[C'est] le commandement du savoir. par le moyen duquel I'homme tente
de se prendre lui-meme pour le tout d ’ univers . .." (El: V, 100-101;
emphasis added). (In this passage we also find a brief synopsis of
Bakhtin's program of cosmic appropriation: man, armed with
knowledge . aspires to conquer =become the universe). Nevertheless,
absolute knowledge— as any form of absolute appropriation— is absolutely
discredited in the whole of Bataille’ s anti-philosophy. So, any scenario
based on it presents a model of degraded or minor communication :
Ce qu'on appelle vulgairement connaitre quand le voisin connait
sa voisine-et la nomme— n'est jamais que i'existence un instant
composee . . . qui fit une fois de ces etres un ensemble aussi r6el
que ses parties . . . La connaissance apparait de cette fa<;on comme
un lien biologique instable . . . La connaissance d'un etre par un
autre n'est qu’un residu, un mode de liaison banale que des faits
de communication essentiels ont rendu possibles (je songe aux
operations intimes de Vactivite religieuse, au sacrifice, au sacre . . .
). J'ai bien fait de parler de connaissance, non du sacre, en ce sens
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qn'il valait mieux partir d ’une realite familiere (99-100; emphasis
added).
(Note that in both the previous and the following passages dealing with
the differentiation between major and minor communication, Bataille
uses intermittently "ensemble(s)," "liens," "liaison(s)," "composition"
and "communication"; the context of each phrase, together with such
indicators as "connaissance," "partielle," "mineure" unambiguously
indicates the hierarchy). The minor forms of communication,
"possibility mineures," do not contradict the tendency of a separate
being to universality; it is precisely in the social composition that this
desire manifests itself.^ As one ascends the steps to the "summit,"
confrontations with other beings (ensembles) are as inevitable as unions:
"En premier lieu— il ne peut l'6viter— I’ homme doit combattre, devant
repondre a la volont6 qu’ il a d'etre seul et lui-mdme tout." Oust as
conflict, fighting are the other side of Bakhtin's communication in
laughter and dialogue: see Chapters I, VI).
In terms of individuality, Bataille postulates that ” [i]tre isole,
com m unication, n'ont qu’ une seule realite. II n'existe nulle part d"etres
isoles' qui ne communiquent pas, ni de communication' indSpendente
des points d'isolement" and admits that, from the positions of
communication, there exists only an "illusion de l'etre isole, replie sur
lui-meme et possedant le pouvoir d ’ exister sans echange" (El: V,101).
However, by the same token, the "communication independente des
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points d'isolement" is also only an illusion, for instance, from the point
of view of ipse, the isolated individual, at the limit where "l'homme
accede a sa solitude demifere” (108). These forces or tendencies coexist; the
important moment here is that this relation of m utual "contamination"
(not exclusion) is established on the profane plane, in the domain of
m inor communication and ipse beings (or, provisionally, as an initial
phase of the other, major communication).
The opposition between social "liens" and the tendency to
autonomy continues on a more fundamental level, which is altogether
crucial for the whole of Bataille’ s theory.
Q apparait que dans le monde corpusculaire l'aspect de la
communion pr£vaut sur l'isolement mal affirm^ des corpuscules.
Dans ce monde de solides et d'unit€s organiques stables ou la
pens£e humaine a pris sa forme, il en est tout au contraire: les
activity se laissent ram ener pour la plus grande part k des centres
clairement distincts (des personnes ou des choses) qui sont leur
cause. Mais de meme que la separation des 616ments est d6j&
marquee dans un monde ou la com m unication est sans limite, de
meme ce monde divisg par les doisons de l'individu est agity sans
treve du souci de maintenir ces doisons au soud contraire de
com m uniquer. chacun de nous doit se livrer sans cesse & la perte
de soi-partielle, totale— qu'est la com m unication avec autrui. Une
premiere opposition entre deux mondes (un monde de lumifere et
de forces dectriques, un monde d'hommes et de solides) se
complique de la seconde opposition qui se retrouve a l’ intdrieur
de chacun d'eux. Mais pour nous, qui sommes dans l'int&ieur du
monde des hommes et de solides, nous ne sommes pas devant
l opposition abstraite, nous la vivons: c’ est le combat que menent
notre etre et notre m ort, la prodigality et l'avarice, la conquete et le
don de s o i Entre ces poles, incondliables, un homme est
dychire necessairem ent. . . (La limite de l'utile: VII, 267-69;
emphasis added).
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The human self is in fact postulated as a prerequisite for the minor
communication (communication with other human beings, that is, on
the level of "solids," inside the "secondary opposition") and the
necessary starting point if one is to approach the major one. Generally,
the subjectivity of an already formed self seems to be for Bataille the key
moment, a necessary' point for the subsequent trajectory of transcending
the self, crossing its limits and crossing out its limitations
(notwithstanding the noted paradox of the very notion of self).4 Thus:
"jamais je ne perdais de vue que la souverainete . . . designe au contraire
la subjectivity profonde.. . . Nous apercevons des rapports de forces et,
sans doute, l’ element isole subit l’ influence de la masse, mais la masse
ne saurait le suborcionner’ ’ (VIII, 283). In contrast, from the position of
Bataille's major communication (partaking of the sacred), various kinds
of action that pertain to the profane plane of "masses" (or, at best, to the
"secondary' opposition") are certainly compromised (in different contexts,
these are denominated as actes. action, activite. lutte. combat and,
furthermore, linked to travail and projet). Thus, for instance,
la conscience de la verite erotique anticipe sur la fin d'histoire:
cette conscience introduit dans le temps present l'indifference
profonde, r ’ apathie” d'un jugement anhistorique . d ’un jugement
lie a des perspectives tres differentes de celles qu'ont des hommes
engages sans reserve dans la lutte .... Le sens de toute activite se
situe par dela sa valeur utile, mais nous I'ignorons tant que nous
voulons demeurer enfermes dans les perspectives du combat .. .
Des hommes engages dans la lutte politique ne pourront jamais se
plier a la verity de I'erotisme .... Mais d'aucune maniere nous ne
pourrions tenter de substituer les notres a leurs directives. Nous
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n’ attendons rien d’une direction. (L’ Histoire de l'£rotisme : VTII,
163-64; emphasis a d d e d )^
Here, the "anhistoridty" of eroticism characterizes it as a
manifestation of the sacred (the dom ain of major communication) and
posits it beyond the trajectory of a restricted development, struggle and
fight, and the final "echec" of the ipse which take place precisely on the
profane plane of the minor communication, where "(pjersonne
n'echappe a la composition sodale’ ’ (V, 108). Bataille's interest in a
different plane of communication is stated unambiguously:
Personneilement, je ne suis rien aupres du livre que j'6cris: s'il
communique ce qui m'a brule, j'aurais v6cu pour l’ 6crire. Mais le
livre lui-meme est peu de chose s'il est restreint k quelque
domaine isole, comme de la politique. de la sdence ou l’ art: la
communication peut mettre en jeu la vie entiere et les possibility
mineures s’ effacent aupres d'une possibility si grande . (La limite
de 1'utile: VII, 270; emphasis added)
Most dedsively, the whole argument concerning Bataille’ s notion
of communication and the role of others (autrui. semblables) therein can
be summarized by the following quote, where the possibility of personal
attainment of the major communication is stated: H est plus difficile de
se perdre seul. Si un homme se perd seul, il est devant I’ univers .... Au-
dela la mort de Dieu' que Nietzsche a representee accomplit le retour a
la realite objective, fragmentee, changeante et insaisissable. Dans ce cas,
meme fictivement, il n'y a plus communication avec autrui mais perte
nue et sans merd" (VI, 298).
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In this "naked and merciless loss" the inner self and the cosmic
void merge (a movement possible only due to their consubstantionality
posited by the thesis of "primary" and "secondary" oppositions). Thus, in
major communication a certain-and unambiguous— loss of inferiority is
postulated; far from being an abstract philosophical schema, it is most
often desribed by Bataille in terms of a "communication by open
wounds." ”[L]'horreur prochaine du cadavre et l'horreur presente du
sang lient plus obscurement le m o i qui meurt a un infini vide: etcet
infini vide est projete lui-meme comme cadavre et comme sang”; T o u r
que la communication' soit possible, il faut trouver un defaut— comme
dans la cuirasse— une ’faille’. Une dechirure en soi-meme, une dechirure
en autrui" (I, 93; emphasis added; VI, 297) .6 The limits are often effaced
between the gaping wound, what is gushing, spilling or leaking from it,
and the process itself, so that a following semantic sequence without a
clear demarcation is established in Bataille’ s writings: blessure.
dechirure. felure. plaie. angoisse. sang, gloire. abim e. n u it. neant. vide.
perte and so forth.? The invariant of the "infini vide" (or "vide infini ” )
is essential. Thus, Bataille’ s communication is, in every sense, mortal
and, by the same token, evil:
La "communication" ne peut avoir lieu d ’un etre plein et intact a
l’ autre: elle veut des etres avant l’etre en eux-memes mis en ieu.
place a la limite de la mort, du n e an t. . . .
Toute "communication" participe du suicide et du crime.
L'horreur funebre I’ accompagne, le degout en est le signe ..
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. . C'est en ruinant en moi-meme, en autrui, l'integrite de l’ Stre,
que je m ’ ouvre a la communion, que j'accede au sommet moral.
Et le sommet n’ est pas subir, il est v o u lo ir le mal. (Sur
Nietzsche: VI, 44, 49)®
Bataille's "subject" (ipse or soi). "object" (autrui.sem blable) and
minor communication between them are doomed: ipse faces its last
confrontation with the "matador fan to me," death (V, 108-109). The self
plays its necessary and crucial role precisely on the level of minor
communication (secondary opposition with the "void"). But major
communication presupposes the loss or death of the self, which becomes
insufficient . Insufficiency and incompleteness, of course, connect with
the openness of the wound.9 More than that, the principle of
insufficiency becomes a paradoxical basis for Bataille's heterology, and is
directlv--phylogenetically--related to laughter: the only adequate reaction
to ipse’ s tragedy and or comedy, bom every time from the "insuffisance
dem iere” (115, 106). As we remember, laughter may exist in its
peripheral or minor forms, but ”[i]l y a un rire majeur a cdte d ’ un rire
mineur"; major laughter is a transitional phenomenon that approaches
the sacred plane— the heteros of human existence [VIII, 226|).10
"Je suis heureux, quoi qu’ il en soit, de l'echec eprouve. Et je perds
mon serieux moi-meme, en riant. Comme si c’ etait un soulagement
d ’ echapper au soud de ma suffisance" (V, 106). Thus, the welcome
failure of the false suffiriencv (e.g. of "la violence et I’ avidite de I’ empire
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du m o i sur le vide ou il est suspendu" [I, 90]), accompanied by laughter
are the ultimate realities of minor communication and profane being.
Up to now, several points in Bataille's exposition have
corresponded precisely to those in Bakhtin's project but, of course, with a
totally different emphasis and in reversed sequence In Bakhtin,
purifying laughter (satum ales. fete, camaval - centrifugal force)
undermines the authority (center) and thus paves the way for man (as
social being, first of all— that is, as "composition sodale" ) working
productively to defeat ideological enemies ("mise a mort des rois") and,
ultimately, to conquer the universe; man (provisionally) becomes the
whole in this conception.12 And the new order of things, being "good,"
is not or should no longer be threatened by subversive laughter. For
Bataille, however, the final fiasco of ipse (a singular individual or a
social collective) is only an initial opening onto another, altogether
different kind of communication . And, again, both Bataille and
Bakhtin's positions in relation to Hegel are clearly seen in the following
passage:
La construction de Hegel est une philosophic du travail, du
"projet”. L ’homme hegelien—Etre et Dieu— s ’accomplit, s'acheve
dans I'adequation du projet. L 'ipse devant devenir tout n'echoue
pas, ne devient pas comique, insuffisant, mais le particulier,
I'esclave engage dans les voies du travail, accede apres bien des
meatidres au sommet de I'universel. Le seul achoppement de cette
maniere de voir . . . est ce qui dans I'homme est irreductible au
projet: I'existence non discursive, le rire, I'extase, qui lient— en
dernier lieu— I'homme a la negation du projet qu’ il est pourtant—
I’homme s'abhne en dernier dans un effacement total de ce qu'il
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est, de toute affirmation humaine. Tel serait le passage aise de la
philosophic du travail—hegelienne et profane— a la philosophie
sacree, que le "supplice” exprime, mais qui suppose une
philosophie de la communication, plus accessible. (El: V, 96)
Furthermore, this philosophy of (major) communication is very
concisely characterized by the recurrent key phrase: "la communication
peut mettre en jeu la vie entiere et les possibilites mineures s’ effacent
aupres d'une possibility si grande.. . . H est une sorte de communication
majeure oil tout est violemment mis en question " (VII, 270-71 et passim;
emphasis added). As was already demonstrated, the whole of profane
existence, dominated by work, utility, knowledge and so forth, is being
questioned in the global heterological approach. For an individual, ipse.
who is necessarily the product of the profane world, this self-questioning
means, of course, anguish (angoisse). wound (blessure). rending apart
(dechirure). abyss (abimej, loss or gift of self (perte. don de soil, and death
(mort). These are the basics of communication, the "content" of such
"forms" as ecstasy, laughter, eroticism, sacrifice, poetry.
Partout, dans toute la realite accessible et dans chaque £tre, il est
necessaire de trouver le lieu sacrifidel, la blessure. Chaque etre
n'est touche qu’ au point ou il succombe, une femme sous sa robe,
un dieu a la gorge de I’ animal de sacrifice .... Dans la mesure ou
les existences apparaissent parfaites, achevees, elles demeurent
separees, refermees sur elles-memes. Elles ne s'ouvrent que par la
blessure de I’inachevement de l'etre en elles. Mais par ce qui est
possible d ’ appeler inachevement, animale nudity, blessure, les
etres nombreux et separes les uns des autres c o m m u n iq u e n tet
c'est dans la com m unication de Fun a I'autre qu'ils prennent vie
en se perdant. ("L'amihe": VI, 295-96)
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What is at stake is the "becoming" of lhom m e souverain --a somewhat
misleading term, since such a (non)-being would relate to l'homme in
the conventional understanding in the same way the sacred, or the
radical Other relates to (our) profane life. 13 "n n'y aurait pas de
difference en un sens entre 'communiquer' et etre si communiquer
netait pas en meme temps perdre l'etre . . (VI, 386). .As to the sacred
plane, the plane of (pure, major) communication, it can be described only
tentatively: "un monde dont la splendeur vient d ’ elements qui
communiquent et se fondent entre eux comme les flammes d'un foyer
ou les vagues de la mer," "[l]es passages de force ou de la lumiere," "le
jeu libre des mondes" and so forth; this free play of cosmic elements in
"I’ espace libre" appears in a radical contrast to a domesticated—
appropriated— universe a la Bakhtin (VII, 269-70; VI, 305; et passim).
But here we find ourselves precisely at the same point where the
discussion of death in Bataille's theory* was left: the problematic
transition between the radically (qualitatively) different planes of
(non)existence, between the human and the sacred (in the strong sense of
these terms, since something of the sacred is present in the human and
perhaps something human in the sacred...).
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II. Bataille: The Last Questions
Just as with the notions of laughter and carnival, sacrifice,
violence and loss (expenditure), time and death, and even the sacred, in
Bataille's theory of being and communication "only" a radical leap
("saut") can unite the degraded (minor) forms of all these concepts and
phenomena and their major function on the sacred or sovereign plane.
As we saw, the latter was postulated as radically, qualitatively Other,
"autre que tout autre" (I, 91) and not just referring to the other(s) as
encountered on this side of the watershed. The obvious problem is: how
can the Other be thought and approached if, in order to do that, every
structure and essence of hum an existence, including human thought
itself, must be subverted and, finally, negated-again in the strong sense,
"sans pallier": "comment sortir de la situation humaine?" (VII, 288)14
This global problem can be provisionally and conventionally
differentiated into two aspects. First, in a more abstract, theoretical
register: how can the Other be (be possible, be thought of and thus, in a
way, be approached)? Second: how can it be approached "in practice"—
this is the problem of Bataille's m ethod. (In Bataille's writings this very
nuanced differentiation between theoretical and practical aspects
corresponds sometimes to the slightly different configurations of the
sacred and the sovereign .1 Of course, this division is a convenient
(artificial) simplification and is accepted for the sake of analysis while
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necessarily impoverishing the subject, since "il est impossible de parler
du non-savoir autrement que dans I'experience que nous en faisons"
(vm, 218).
The importance of the opposition between the open world of
cosmic expenditure and the world of "humans and solids" was noted
above. By the same token, "la to tali te, qui excede de tous les cotes le
monde reduit de la pensee . . . est faite de distances et d'oppositions
(emphasis added)" (VIII, 19 et passim; elsewhere Bataille speaks of the
"seule realite," "matiere universelle," "unite," "une realite in d efin ie ").1 5
The overall reality, unity or totality is, therefore, not equal to, and does
not entail, the uniformity senseless in any sense (sameness), so that,
generally, ”[t]out gravite autour d'un principe d’ opposition" (VII, 551).
Thus, the primary opposition inside the universal is followed by the
secondary one: inside the world of "humans and solids" opens onto the
abyss that is isomorphic to and consubstantial with the open "free space"
of "light and electric forces" of the first opposition. This space, radically
alien— hetero. Other— to the opaque human being, is necessarily perceived
as threatening to the (conventional) consciousness, and is accordingly
characterized by the conventionally negative series: mort. neant. vide
and so forth. "L’ etre dans la tentation se trouve, si j’ ose dire, brove par la
double tenaille du neant" (VI, 47). (Whereas for Bakhtin man is, in the
final analysis, homogeneous with the universal matter, without radical
opposition).
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En ELLE [nuit] tout s’ efface, mais, exorbit£, je traverse une
profondeur vide et la profondeur vide me traverse, moi. En ELLE,
je communique avec r'inconnu" oppose h I'ipse que je suis; je
deviens ipse, a moi-meme inconnu, deux termes se confondent en
un meme d£chirement, differant a peine d'un vide— ne pouvant
par rien que je puisse saisir s’ en distinguer-en differant
neanmoins plus que le m onde aux mille couleurs. (El: V, 145)16
The "void" itself is thus spatially ambivalent, since it is at the same time
external and internal to the human being and constitutes both the "free
space” of the universe (universe minus "solids") and the sacred part of
"la trame (i’ etoffe) dont I'homme est fait." Thus ”[d]ans ce fait que vie et
mort sont vouees passionnement a I'affaisement du vide, ne se revfelent
plus les rapports subordonnes de l'esclave au maitre, mais vie et vide se
confondent et se melent comme des amants" (V, 96; I, 93; cf. the spatial
characteristics in Chapter III). In fact, the profound duplicity of hum an
nature is one of the reasons the human being should always already be
considered as Other in relation to itself: thus, an additional meaning for
the "Other" is indicated.
Due to the partial consubstantionality of the elements of hum an
being with the elements of "free space," at this point in my presentation
of Bataille’ s thought a speculative possibility is opened for us to make
the transition-saut or glissement - from one to the other (Other).
Moreover, with such a transition there comes the possibility of a "non-
savoir": (anti-) philosophy or "study," "dans le sens ou le mot etude
signifie application vers une possibilite" counterposed to "toute
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application au monde” (VII, 206; I, 93; see also Chapter II). (At the same
time, this philosophy should prepare the way and is seen as a key that
must fit, for instance, the kev-hole problem of laughter, opening a
passage out or through the "monde divise par les cloisons de
I'individu," in order to "sortir de la situation humaine” [VII, 267, 288].)
[E]t les possibilites mineures s’ effacent aupres d’ une possibility si
grande. (VII, 270)
Transition, "glissement," transgression (in relation to the order of
things), breaking out: I avoid the term "transcendence” for the following
reason. The sacred, universal part being of the primary order in the
human being, its (his/her) profane existence is seen as a degradation, a
m utation of a kind. Subsequently, Bataille sometimes uses the terms
"transcendence" and "immanence" in a very specific way. Since it is the
human being that is a deviation from the universal reality (not to be
confused with the reality of hum an life), it is precisely this being, and the
whole "order of things" created by this being ("ordre des choses":
restricted economy, utility, appropriation, work, knowledge and so
forth), and not the sacred, that should be considered as "tout autre."
[L]e sacrt? est 1 'immanence meme.
On ne saurait y insister trop lourdement; il faut le dire
clairement et le redire: le sacre n'est nullement une chose, c'est le
contraire d’une chose, c'est la contagion d ’une force entendue au
sens oil l’ etre en nous-memes nous semble une force; c'est la
contagion de ce qui nous est intime, et ne peut etre maintenu en
dehors de nous, de ce qui ne peut etre reduit a une chose et que
nous liberons si nous dytruisons les choses comme teiles (dans le
sacrifice).. . . Cette immanence du sacre, cette vertigineuse
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intimite, ce desordre divin oil chaque objet est dissous dans la
subjectivity infinie . ne peuvent neanmoins supprim er le monde
de la raison objective. Les deux mondes subsistent en fait.... Mais
la nature mena<;ante du sacre, dont I'existence est une contagion
incendiaire de I’immanence, accuse la nature trartscendente du
profane. Seulement, comme le profane est ce qui nous entoure,
nous inversons d'habitude les rapports: nous disons du sacre qu’ il
transcende ce qui nous entoure et nous oublions qu'intimement
notre existence meme est sacree, que ce sont les choses qui la
transcendent. ("Sade et la morale": VII, 448; emphasis added)
So we have here a third possible interpretation of the "Other": the Other
being us (our profane part) in relation to im m a n e n c e .
This provisionally static schema must at this point be
supplemented by that which makes possible the major possibility (of
"transition") itself: the postulation of an energetic impulse, a
momentum of a kind (triggered, for instance, by a sacred instant^). Its
provenance is rooted in the same partial consubstantionality of the
extremes: "Le non-savoir communique I’ extase— mais seulement si la
possibility (le mouvement) de I’ extase appartenait dyja, a quelque degre,
a celui qui se deshabille du savoir" (V, 144). Thus, in the context of
sacrifice and the communication between the victim and the "sacrifiant,"
"ce glissem ent.. . se substitue aux etres et aux vides” (VI, 385).
Xow I would like to focus on the dynamics of the proposed
configuration of the basic elements. The major change, the negation of
the thing, the reified part in oneself (soi) is a qualitative transition
implying a radical alteration of all parameters of being. "Mais pour nous .
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. . c’ est le combat que menent notre etre et notre mort, la prodigalite et
I'avarice, la conquete et le don de s o i. . . " (VH, 268).
The principle of alter(n)ation acquires a particular significance for
Bataille's heterology (alter [Latin] = hetero [Greek] = other): "Le terme
d 'alteration a le double interet d'exprimer une decomposition partielle
analogue a celle des cadavres et en meme temps le passage a un etat
parfaitement heterogene correspondant a ce que le professeur protestant
Otto appelle le tout autre, c'est-a-dire le sacre . ..." (I, 251).20 In turn,
alternation is the general mode of transition between qualitatively
different planes on every level of manifestation: excretion and
appropriation, particle and wave, the orgy of carnival (fete) and the
(architecturally consolidated) centripetal social forces: "En entier le cours
des choses humaines, comme le rythme des saisons, est l'altemance du
denuement et de 1'exces" (VII, 247; emphasis added) .21 As such an
alternation and in a certain parallelism with the major transition in
question here, Bataille on several occasions discusses the transition from
the animal to the human. Although isomorphic to it, the "next" major
alternation ("saut")— from the profane to the sacred— does not, however,
mean a simple reversal or return to the previous condition:
En un sens, la seconde contestation fait appel a des forces que la
premiere avait niees, mais en tant qu’ elles ne peuvent etre
enfermees vraiment dans les limites de la premiere. . . . Aussi bien
le sacre annonce-t-il une possibility nouvelle : il est le saut dans
I'inconnu dont l’animalite est lelan.
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Ce qui s'est passe se resume en une simple phrase: la force
d un mouvement, que le refoulement a d6cuplee, a projetd la vie
dans un monde plus riche. (L’ Histoire de l'£rotisme : VIII, 80-81;
emphasis added)
The principle of alternation thus presupposes a constant doubling [”le
dedoublement (la 'mise en question’ )"— X, 99] opening each time new
possibilities .22 Moreover, the essential feature of Bataille's doubling or
alternation (the result of radical alteration of the conventional point of
departure) is its permanence .23 (A constant change : contradiction,
paradox, oxymoron is an appropriate means for disrupting the Same and
approaching the Other.) This is the most important characteristic which
appears to exonerate Bataille's conception from accusations of being just
another variation on the theme of Hegelian dialectics.
This point requires some additional consideration. The
"mouvement," or "glissement . . . se substitue aux dtres et aux vides,”
that is, acquires a value of its own or a sovereign value (VI, 384-85).
Thus, answering Sartre's accusation of creating (just) another system
("pantheisme noir" in Sartre’ s formulation), Bataille insisted on the
ceaseless character of this movement; his critics cannot but miss the
point, since their argument is based on the solid ground of axiomatic
premises .24
A limitless doubling, multiplication or mirroring are all images
used by Bataille for his heterology.
Ce qui est sacre, n’ etant pas fonde sur un accord logique avec soi-
meme, n est pas seulement contradictoire par rapport aux choses
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mais, d'une maniere indefinie, est en contradiction avec soi-
meme. Cette contradiction n'est pas negative: a l’interieur du
domaine sacre, il y a, comme dans le reve, une contradiction sans
fin qui se multiplie sans rien detruire. Ce qui n est pas une chose .
. . est mais en meme temps n’ est pas, est impossible et cependant
est la. (La Souverainete : VIII, 263)25
Thus, thought or, rather the death of thought (la mort de la pensee"),
doubling, mimicking and exceeding the physical death, opens the
possibility of not only un-knowledge ("non-savoir"), but of a "non-non-
savoir," "a partir du non-savoir un nouveau savoir possible." Which, in
turn, is subject to transgression due to the constancy of "la REVOLTE
devenue consciemment par la philosophie revolte contre tout le monde
du travail et contre tout le monde de la presupposition. . . . Revolte
contestant toute possibility et ne se tenant qu a l’ impossible" (203, 205).
The answer to the question about the "positive results" of the sovereign
operation of the (non) -non-savoir is implied in the given dynamic
configuration. Not being negative (always opening new possibilities), the
heterological movement at the same time, by its very definition, always
escapes the appropriation of or by positive knowledge; this is one of the
aspects of the major game of homogeneity catching up— but never
overtaking--with heterogeneity, the Other, the sacred. Perhaps the only
feature immanent to the whole process is the subjective "griserie" or
"extase," alongside, of course, with "angoisse" and "dechirement" (VI,
199). In fact, the profound human essence is approached here: "La seuie
revelation qui se lie a I’ extase . . . est la revelation entiere, ingenue de
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l'homme a ses propres y eu x ," "l’ homme a la negation du projet qu ’il est
pourtant— I’ homme s'abime en dernier dans uneffacem ent total dece
qu’ il est, de toute affirmation humaine" (VI, 303; V, 96).
Here the problem of the Bataille-Hegel relation again comes to the
foreground. Bataille is far from being "simply" an anti-Hegelian thinker
(in fact, in Jean-Luc Nancy’ s reading of Bataille in terms of subjectivity,
he is much closer to Hegel than he claims: see La communaute
desoeuvreej. He is also far from disavowing the important role of
negativity in Hegel's philosophy (see, e.g. "Hegel, Death and Sacrifice" in
On Bataille). Bataille’ s relentless critique of Hegel is launched from the
position of the permanent revolt (negation) and aims precisely at the
latter's unsustained movement of negativity where with the negation of
negation comes the final affirmation of the world of project, work,
achievement, and so forth; ’ ’ en Hegel, la conscience poss&de le monde,"
becomes the universe (VII, 542 et passim). (As was shown, Bakhtin
emulates Hegel’ s model of the universal appropriation, but with some
significant changes; see Chapter n.)
To the pair Hegel-Bataille is connected a curious series of readings
and possible misreadings (the following set is, of course, only a small
fragment of a truly wide-spread web). Giorgio Agamben in his Language
and Death: The Place of Negativity' asserts the central place of negativity
in Hegel’ s writings and in passing denounces Bataille for "disengaging
negativity” and for the ultimate affirmation of the Meinung — that is, he
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actually uses Bataille’ s critique of Hegel against Bataille (this reading of
Bataille appears, however, to be based solely on a loose interpretation of
an excerpt from one of Bataille’ s letters to Kojeve) (49-53).26 On the
other hand, in Agamben’ s unorthodox reading of Hegel, certain features
of Hegelianism present important similarities with Bataille’ s philosophy
(in my reading): much more than Bataille himself admits to, in the
overall perspective. This may raise an interesting question of validity', or
exactness, of Bataille’ s reading Hegel (of course, if one accepts Agamben's
reading of Hegel).2? In turn, Jean-Luc Nancy', making reference to
Derrida's "De 1 economie restreinte a leconomie generale," remarks:
'L'hegelianisme sans reserves’ que Derrida reperait chez Bataille ne
peut ne pas etre soumis, au bout du compte, a la loi hegelienne d ’ une
reserve toujours plus puissante que tout abandon de reserve: la reserve,
c’ est-a-dire en fait la releve du sujet, qui se reapproprie dans la presence .
. (CD 62-63). However, this statement appears to take Derrida’ s
expression at face value and out of context, and so to distort fatally the
whole subtle analysis of the Bataille-Hegel relation.28 [n particular, it
seems to contradict Derrida’ s interpretation of sovereignity which, "a la
difference de la maitrise hegelienne, . . . ne doit meme pas vouloir se
garder elle-meme, se recueillir ou recueillir le benefice de soi ou de son
propre risque .... L’ enjeu de I'operation n est done pas une conscience
de soi, un pouvoir d’ etre aupres de soi, de se garder et de se regarder.
Nous ne sommes pas dans l element de la phenomenologie" (EG 388). It
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seems, moreover, that Nancy makes precisely that interpretative move
against which Derrida warns explicitly:
Prises hors de leur syntaxe generate, de leur ecriture, certaines
propositions [de Bataille] manifestent en effet le volontarisme,
toute une philosophic de l'activit6 operante d'un sujet. La
souverainet6 est operation pratique. . . Mais ce serait ne pas lire le
texte de Bataille que de ne pas tisser ces propositions dans la trame
generate qui les cUfait en les enchainant ou en les inscrivant en
soi. (Note, 392)
The hum an being (ipse) being (in) Time, the heterological
movement necessarily affects both being and time. Here some additional
specifications can be added to the analysis of time in Bataille which was
offered in the previous chapter. Ipse exists in time-as-continuum;
following the ever accelerating rhythm of alternation ("mouvement
d u n e vitesse irrespirable” ["L'ob61isque": I, 506]), glissement becomes
vertige becomes chute-ipse loses (gives) itself ("perte" or "don de soi").
And, by the same token, time accelerates, becomes time-as-instant,
becomes time-explosion. Thus, the principle of "revolt" manifests itself
in both aspects of being-(in)-time:
[L]a pensee vit I’ aneantissement qui la constitue comme une chute
vertigineuse et infinie; ainsi n’ a-t-elle pas seulement la
catastrophe en tant qu’ objet: sa structure meme est la catastrophe;
elle est elle-meme absorption dans le n£ant qui la supporte et en
meme temps se d£robe La catastrophe—le temps vecu . . . Ainsi
la nature d u temps en tant qu’ objet d'une extase se revfele
conforme a la nature extatique du m o i qui meurt. Car I'une et
I’ autre sont changement pur et l’une et I’ autre ont lieu sur le plan
d ’ une existence illusoire. (94-95)
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Accordingly, with the death of ipse dies the (profane) time, just as with
the sovereign "life in death" ("la mort ou le vide n'etant que le domaine
ou seleve infiniment--par sa d£faillance meme~un empire du mo i qui
doit etre represente comme une vertige") time is liberated, for instance,
from the conventional opposition "continuum-instant": "La catastrophe
e s t. . . le temps delivre de toute chaine" (92, 95).
And again, the permanent revolt presupposes the permanent
failure ("parfaitement faible, parfaitement fragile" once said Bataille
contentedly about his position in a discussion [VI, 345]), because a success
would immediately signify the trium ph of Logos, system, appropriation.
Hence, we should keep in mind that the mentioned possibility of
thinking (and thus approaching) the heteros. and thus the inherent
positivitv of heterology, both result in and depend on impossibility
(improbability) and negativity. Thus, for example: the human being,
"broye par la double tenaille du neant,” is originally "suspended over the
void"; its existence itself is a refutation of any possible presupposition
("cette combinaison particuliere que je suis n’ avait qu’ une chance de se
produire, contre 225 trillions de chances contraires"); and it is
unescapablv pledged to negation by death (I, 89; VI, 47, 445). In turn,
however, death itself, although real, pertains to the domain of the
impossible (cf. "temps irreel de la m ort"-I, 92); in this context Bataille
quotes Goethe’ s phrase about death recalled to him by Morin: "une
impossibilite qui tout d un coup se change en realite” (VIII, 260, 262). (In
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a curiously mirroring movement, Bakhtin finds in Goethe confirmation
of the irreality of death included in the life's drcle— see Chapters III and
VI). The same ambivalence that characterizes the coupled relations of
life-death, internal-external or immanent-transcendent englobes the
very opposition of possible-impossible and positive-negative. At some
point— not the final, decisive point— even the alternation (revolt) itself,
transgressing itself in accordance with its own principle, must necessarily
be negated, since any permanence must be transgressed, including that of
permanent revolt. (Another aspect of the same necessity: revolt should
be transgressed, because it depends on the will, that is, achievement and
so forth). "En d'autres termes, le moment de revolte inherent a la
volonte d une connaissance au-dela des fins pratiques ne peut etre
indefinement prolonge: etre le tout de I'univers, l'homme devrait pour
cela lacher son prindpe: n'accepter rien de ce qu'il est, sinon de tendre h
l'au-dela de ce qu'il est” (VI, 202).
From a certain angle, all this might seem like the opening of an
abyss of pure relativity, where any movement involves an equally
forceful cancellation, even without any positive Aufhebung.
Nevertheless, the heterological movement is not circular in Bataille, the
mirroring is not symmetrical (the way it is for Bakhtin’ s "better world"
of the "laughing culture"), so that no leveling or neutralization occurs:
”[d]e tels prindpes s'opposent a toute morale necessairement niveleuse,
ennemi de l’ altem ance" (VI, 296; emphasis added).
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A pertinent illustrative example here would be the traditional
idea (involved in many very different traditions, in fact) of transcending
the dichotomy subject-object, as implemented in Bataille's heterology. In
the already mentioned interpretation, Nancy closes the distance between
Bataille and Hegel and asserts that the "fusion du sujet et de l’ objet" in
Bataille's communication is nothing else than the Hegelian dialectical
operation, where "disparaissent, ou plutot ne peuvent apparaitre ni
I 'autre, ni la communication. . . . La communication et I’ alterite qui en
fait la condition ne peuvent par prindpe avoir qu'un role et qu’un rang
instrumental, non ontologique, dans une pensee qui rapporte au sujet
l'identite negative mais speculaire de l’ objet, c’ est-a-dire de l'ext6riorite
sans alterite" (61-62). In other words, in both Hegel and Bataille, Nancy
sees a neutralization of alterity, or affirmation of the same (the subject)
resulting from negation (of the object)— neutralization being essentially
negative (cf. Derrida: "La neutrality est d’ essence negative [ne-uter], elle
est la face negative d ’une transgression" [402]). Bataille, however, goes
beyond this trajectory': "Une phenometiologie de I'esprit developpce
suppose la col ncidence du subjectif et de I’ objectif, en meme temps
qu’ une fusion du sujet et de I’ o b jet. .. Mais precisement, posant ces
prindpes. je dois en meme temps renoncer a les suivre ” (VI, 201;
emphasis a d d e d ).29 In Derrida's words, ”[l]a souverainete n est pas
neutre meme si elle neutralise, dans son discours, toutes L es
contradictions ou toutes les oppositions de la Logique classique. La
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neutralisation se produit dans la connaissance et dans la syntaxe de
l'6criture mais elle se rapporte h une affirmation souveraine et
transgressive" (EG 402-403; the already quoted passages from Derrida on
subjectivity and Hegelianism in Bataille are fully applicable here as well).
Here, the discussed moments of communication and being are
indicated. "Dans ce fait que vie et mort sont vou6es passionnement a
l’ affaisement du vide, ne se revelent plus les rapports subordonn€s de
I'esclave au maitre, mais vie et vide se confondent et se m31ent comme
des amants, dans les mouvements convulsifs de la fin . . . [qui] n’ est pas .
. . acceptation et realisation du n£ant" (I, 93). Sovereign (self-)negation,
lovers' ecstasy, ivresse. griserie of the vertiginous fall into the "void”: all
these, while not being goals in themselves, are very far from the
neutralization and primacy of either the subject or the object. The
possibility of the sovereign sacrifice of Self, as well as of an other (Other)-
-a major possibility for Bataille, totally ignored by Bakhtin— seems to
remain unconsidered by Nancy.
"Dans un infini idealement brillant et vide, chaos jusqu'ii d^celer
l'absence de chaos, s’ ouvre la perte anxieuse de la vie mais la vie ne se
perd . . . que pour cet infini vide” (ibid.). I have already indicated the
ambivalent terms of the series: m ort. vide, neant and so forth. All of
them are ambiguous due to the principle of (primary and secondary)
opposition: even inside each of them there is inherently "something"
that is not quite dead, void, inexistent. Still, despite the postulated
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ambiguity, the persistent denotation of the "pure" negativity is strongly
apparent on the semantic level, and m ort. vide, neant are often
differentiated from "affirmation souveraine et transgressive” (Derrida):
"La passion brulante n’ est pas non plus acceptation et realisation du
n6ant; ce qui s'appelle neant est encore cadavre; ce qui s’ appelle brillant
est le sang qui s'ecoule et se coagule" (I, 93). In this context, yet another
term, consistently used by Bataille, is worth looking at with more
attention: MEN.
La Souverainete. one of Bataille's most important works, is a
book^O par excellence about MEN (the whole word is consistently
capitalized by Bataille). This term is posited as an essence and a "target"
of Bataille's anti-philosophy: in an aggressively equivocal formulation,
'[l]a souverainet£ n'est MEN." Furthermore, the seemingly simple
negative predication ("n'est. . . rien") is somehow contradicted in the
substantivized attribution— "le non-savoir, c’ est-a-dire, . . . le MEN” (VIII,
259). This calls for a more in-depth analysis. In fact, this term condenses
much of Bataille's heterology and, to a certain extent, it is possible to
follow some of the main phases of Bataille's thought on the level of one
word.
To begin with, rien. in its basic dictionary meaning— nothing -
sometimes intersects in Bataille's texts with vide: however, as we saw,
void for Bataille is not all that void and can possibly include "light,"
"forces,” "free play of the w’ orlds," generally, something like "germs" of a
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qualitatively different-phenom enal-reality (cf. the "primary
opposition" discussed earlier). R ien. being the (target of) sovereignity
itself, is not the same as "pure" non-existence; what is primarily negated
in rien is the profane order of things, so that it becomes necessary to
highlight the rather obvious morphological structure of this no-thing (cf.
the etymology of rien: from Latin res, thing). By extension in this sense,
rien is opposed to tout— the domain of the universe that the self (ipse),
rooted in the world of things, ever in vain aspires to conquer (cf. the
already quoted: "Nous ne sommes pas tout, n’ avons m£me que deux
certitudes en ce monde, celle-l^ et celle de mourir" [V, 10; emphasis
added]). With the negation of the order of things (rien = no-thing) and as
one approaches the immanence of the sacred, a certain positive content
of rien usually differentiates it in Bataille's texts from neant.
The polemic with Sartre (very restrained on Bataille's side and
aggressive on Sartre’ s) can illustrate what we mean. The non-being is
defined concisely by Bataille: "Le neant est pour moi la limite d ’ un etre.
Au-delk des limites definies— dans le temps, dans I’espace— un etre n’ est
plus ’ -th a t is, it is a limit for the ipse, individual pertaining to the
restricted, profane plane (VI, 203). In turn, Sartre attacks Bataille's rien.
insisting on its pure negativity, on its synonymity with non-being
(evidently understood in a global "existential" sense), and reproaches
Bataille for a simple proliferation of terms: "'rien' . . . c’ est un pur neant
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177
hypostasie." Then Sartre proceeds (just as Nancy will do) with the
criticism of the subject-object relation in Bataille:
Le non-savoir est "suppression de l'objet et du sujet, seul moyen
de ne pas aboutir a la possession de l'objet par le sujet".. . . C’ est
une certaine faqon de se dissoudre dans le rien. Mais M. Bataille-
id comme toute a l’ heure...- satisfait par la bande son desir "d'etre
tout". Avec les m ots de "rien", de "nuit1 , de "non-savoir qui
"denude”, il nous a tout simplement prepare une bonne petite
extase pantheistique. (VI, 197-98)
Bataille thus explains his interpretation of rien :
[L'effort de connaissance] devait necessairement echouer dans la
mesure oil le non-savoir, c’ est-a-dire, ou le RIEN, pris comme
objet supreme de la pensee, qui sort d'elle-meme, qui se quitte et
devient la dissolution de tout objet, n'6tait pas implique dans la
resolution du problfeme.
[There follows a footnote:] Inutile de dire que ce RIEN a peu de
chose a voir avec le neant. Le neant, la metaphysique l'envisage. . .
. Sans doute le m etaphysiden peut dire, lui, que ce RIEN est ce
qu'il envisage s’ il parle de n6ant. Mais tout le mouvement de ma
pensee s'oppose k sa pretention, la rtiduit a RIEN. Ce mouvement
meme veut qu a I'instant ou ce RIEN devient son objet, il s’ arrete,
il cesse d'etre, laissant la place a l’ inconnaissable de I’instant. Bien
entendu, j'avoue d'ailleurs que ce RIEN je le valorise, mais le
valorisant je n'en fais RIEN. II est vrai que je lui conffcre, avec une
indeniable solennit£ (mais si profond^ment comique), la
prerogative souveraine. ... A une condition, d ’ oublier, de tout
oublier... (La Souverainete : VIII, 259).
The noted valorization— that is, a (certain) positivity of the heterological
movement— is also inscribed by Bataille into rien: "C'est toujours RIEN,
mais se revelant soudain reponse supreme, miraculeuse, souveraine"
(252). In fact, a certain positivity is inherently contained in rien. which in
French can, in certain constructions, mean a non-determined something
(quelque chose), not equal to some thing (une chose) (again, cf. the
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etymology: from Latin res). Something versus some thing: doubling.
asymmetrical mirroring, alteration and alternation, affirmation but not
of the same; the difference from neutralization or else from the Hegelian
reinstallation of "presence" is not that significant in quantitative terms,
it may be a letter, (a) space (vide), a trifle (un rien)— but it is a qualitative
rien. which changes everything (tout).
The "fusion of the subject and of the object," contrary to Sartre’ s
and Nancy's apprehensions, is achieved not by a reinstatement of the
subject, but by the subject putting itself in play or in question (mise en
jeu, mise en question) without any presupposition of "winning" or
"answering" this last question; in fact, we saw its very structure to be this
mise en ieu. or catastrophe .31
[Djans I'immensity immuable, egale a elle-meme, ce que je suis est
enje u. Je ne suis pas ced, que je nomme, de la meme fa^on que je
nomme chaque chose particuliere dans un ordre ou elle a sa place
et un sens qui en rend compte, je suis un objet en question, un
objet dont le contenu fondamental est la subjectivite, qui est
question, et que ses contenus differences mettent en jeu. En tant
que sujet, je ne suis RIEN, au sein de l'immensite qui n’ est RIEN.
(vni, 4io)
Thus, subject becomes of the same order as object, in the sense that they
both are subject to the movement of the heterological transgression. At
this "point," this movement can be considered in a new phase: here, as a
general centrifugal force, it negates not just the thing but any kind of
(objective or subjective) condensation: ”[L]e RIEN se trouve-t-il au point
meme ou la connaissance et le non-savoir sont I’une et l'autre de mise,
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179
la connaissance impliquSe dans I’ objectivite de l’ experience, le non-
savoir donne subjectivement. Mais I’ objectivite dont il s'agit s'^vanouit
dans la mesure ou elle est ainsi posee" (281)32 And it is in this dynamic
sense of dissolution that the postulated "single reality" or "universal
unity" should be seen: "L'unife dont je parle appelle la cruaute qui ne
sevit pas et l'effroi que rien n'effraie... Dans l'unite, l'objet des effusions
contradictoires se resout en RIEN ..." (277; emphasis added). What is
indicated here is the dissolution of the object(-subject), not (yet) of the
"effusions contradictoires"— elsewhere oppositions. interferences .
brisures and so forth— the forces constituting rien itself. However,
transgression negating (transgressing) itself, RIEN is dissolved in its turn
("le RIEN n'est que l'objet qui disparait"— 281).
On the level of "rien," conversely with affirmation already
contained in negation, the movement of negation or "mise en question"
is inherent even in the case of a restricted affirmation: "Non accompagne
de n e, il frienl a le sens de quelque chose dans les subordonnees
dependant d'une principale negative, dans une comparative, dans une
interrogative . . . (emphasis added)" (dictionary Larousse de la langue
francaise). In fact, negation is anagrammatically contained in rien as well
as affirmation (of a thing: res)— etymologicailv: it is difficult not to read
nier (to negate) in rien. for instance in these lines:
Parler de RIEN. ce n’ est au fond que nier I’ asservissement, que le
reduire a ce qu'il est (il est utile), ce n’ est en definitive que nier la
valeur non pratique de la pensee, la reduire, par dela I’ utile, a
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l'insignifiance, a l'honnete simplicity du defaut, de ce qui m eurt et
qui defaille, (note on 259; emphasis added)
Here, the heterological movement reaches yet another (an Other)
plane: after the negation of the thing, then of any kind of object, the very
value of sovereignity ("valeur non pratique") is negated, or rather
reduced to welcome failure, which, despite intermittent positive
configurations, remains the only permanent (but always already
provisionally permanent) characteristics of the sacred or of the RIEN. In
this perspective, where
disparai[t] la difference entre le positif et le n£gatif, l'extreme
bonheur et le malheur extreme, . . . il n’ importe qu'en seconde
lieu de savoir si, dans l'attente que RIEN ne suit, la surprise est
triste ou joyeuse. En premier lieu ce qui importe de ce point de
vue est qu'un aspect inattendu, inespere, tenu pour impossible se
r£vele.. . . Ce qui compte est chaque fois que l'attente, ce qui lie
dans I'activity, dont le sens est donn£ dans l’ attente raisonnable
du r£sultat, d’ une mani&re renversante, inattendue, se resolve en
RIEN. (260-61)
(Here, "attente" is, of course, linked to the category of project, activity,
result, discussed earlier.) That is, the sovereign jouissance (singled out by
Sartre, Nancy, and Agamben as an avatar of Bataille's M einung) and the
angoisse of the self are equally (de)valorized, are worth each other ( se
valent) in the space devoid of any stable value (valeur). in RIEN.33
"Chaque fois qu'elle se resout en RIEN, l'attente d£que suggfcre un
soudain renversement du cours de la vie." Between the attente and
renversement . there is the liberated (d£chaine: moment or eternity?)
(no-) time of the Other, the time of RIEN which includes every
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(im)possibility of tout. (A metaphor of the pendulum at the zenith of its
trajectory might be appropriate here: at the highest point but ready to fall
[cf. Bataille’ s chute 1 . immobile but pregnant with the inherent impetus,
concentrated in an instant but containing infinite duration-one can
recall Bakhtin s "pregnant time.") Contrary to Sartre, I see in such a
RIEN not a proliferation of signifiers, but rather an excess (the basis for
the general economy) of the signified: an excess of meaning which is not
a conservation or affirmation of a(ny) meaning. A term like RIEN thus
reproduces the glissement and does not let one grasp, denote or
otherwise stabilize any referent (chose), signified (objet). or value
(valeur). What it does (obliquely) is indicate (from Latin: indicare <
dicare < dicere) a trace (cf. French: indice < . . . dicere) of what is and is
not there and which is, therefore, unutterable (French: indidble < . . .
dicere).
On the other hand, a very certain meaning can be ascertained in
the fact that Bakhtin has nothing to say about "nothing" frienl except for
the laconic equation: ”Nothing[ness], this terrible void . . ." (Tvorchestvo
47).
HI. Bataille: Method
As I already noted, in Bataille's case, method— understood as a
practical aspect and application of theorv-emulates, and is indissociable
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from, the more speculative "theory," so that a differentiation between
them for an analysis of Bataille's philosophy is mainly a m atter of
convenience. Nevertheless, while following the trajectory of the "last
questions," this part of the chapter will introduce some new, or
underscore some already indicated, aspects.
First of all, as Bataille emphasized again and again, his
"philosophy" is, precisely, a personal endeavor— hence L'experience
interieure ("1 1 faut vivre l'experience, il faut en saisir le sens du
dedans'"-V, 21-20)34 fact, some occurrences from Bataille's life (as
indicated by himself as well as by commentators) are an organic part of
his theoretical oeuvre: the most important of them is the famous series
of five photographs of a Chinese prisoner under torture, given to
Bataille— at a very early stage of his writing career-by his psychoanalyst; I
will return to this subject in a different context (among others: episodes
"le rire fou sous le parapluie" and the "arrival of the train at the Saint-
Lazare station"). In the context of this study, the important moment is
Bataille’ s very self-conscious cultivation of certain (ir)rational senses (for
instance, related to eroticism, death, laughter and so forth), as opposed to,
let us say, Rimbaud’ s absolute "derfeglement de tous les sens." Thus, a
certain affirmation (positivity), stemming from the very fact of
experience, is a proiri given: "II n'y a jamais, en fait, absence d'effort. Ce
qui ressemble a I’ absence d ’ effort est ambigu, c’ est l affaisement sans la
douleur, ce contre quoi s'affirme VExperience interieure" (VTQ, 586).
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So, while questioning (la mise en question) is the only in a way
permanent characteristic of heterology, affirmation (action, effort) is
nevertheless a necessary phase of the overall "unity":
La negativity est ce double mouvement de mise en action et de
mise en question. . . . L'homme est ce double m ouvem ent.. . .
Entre l’un et l'autre mouvement, I'interaction est n£cessaire,
incessante.. . . Mise en action et mise en question s’ opposent sans
fin, d'un c6t6, en tant qu'acquisition au profit d ’un systfcme ferme,
de l’ autre en tant que rupture et desgquilibre du systfcme. (Le
coupable: V, 385-86)
Of course, despite its objective necessity, action is already always subject
to limitations in Bataille's perspective (cf. the example of political
struggle above). Understood in a broader sense, action (operation, project
and so forth) includes human knowledge in general (science and
philosophy), to which the same limitations (of a restricted economy)
apply: "La raison est, en fait, la forme universelle de la chose (identique &
elle-meme), et de I’ operation (de l'action)" (VII, 3 2 5).35 And in the order
of things and profane action ("dans I'edifice de projets qu est I’ ordre des
choses” ), m an himself becomes a tool, a thing, "[sjinon entierement, du
moins toujours" (312, 266). In fact, to consider some of the far-reaching
implications of this dehumanization, it is precisely the degeneration of
the sovereign (ecstatic) moments, put under the strictest control of
reason (appropriation), that characterized fascism and led to the Nazi
concentration camps (VII, 376). (Just as the supposedly unrestrained
laughter of the carnival ["carnival unlimited"]— in close analysis, put
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184
under control of the superior reason in the "better reality "--led Bakhtin,
in Greys' view, to the implicit justification of the Soviet Stalinist regime
with its own concentration camps.)
Nevertheless, for Bataille, reason or orderly thought (connaissance
as well as conscience in many instances) is more than just an
indispensable component of the profane human existence.
Corresponding to the plane of minor communication, the domain of the
positive expansion of the ipse, science, thought, and philosophy can and
must prepare the self (soi) for the major transition (saut) to the sovereign
realm.
Si par chance une "donnee de science" d£pouille, d£chire l'6toffe
qui donnait h l’ objet son apparence trompeuse, il est done possible
de s'en servir a des fins qui ne sont pas les siennes mais celles que
Ton poursuit fidfelement depvds longtemps: qui visent a d6truire
ce qui separe l'homme d'un monde exterieur qui est sa v£rit£, la
pensee de son objet. Le recours h la science, & ce quelle d6couvre,
n'est qu’ un detour dans cette entreprise . . . L'erreur commence
seulement quand cette conscience r£flechissante prend au s&ieux
le petit temps de repos que les circonstances lui accordent. (Note,
268; 271)
Hence a very conscious ambiguity in relation to science and philosophy
in Bataille; their relative value depends on whether they serve the
profane (utility, appropriation) or prepare the qualitative transition to
the sovereign (the sacred). In fact, from a certain angle, not only "[l]a fin
d'une operation utile peut a la rigueur etre un objet depourvu d'utilit£,"
but "(l]a philosophie . . . intervient comme une exigence de rigueur. Elle
peut etre un barrage contre toute philosophie possible. Elle seule peut
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l’ Stre" (Vm, 253, 201). Of course, this position, like any other for Bataille,
is not absolute and depends on the particular phase or moment in the
general dynamic trajectory of his conception in which it is formulated (cf.
the previous section). So, following the heterological movement, one
finds a point where the perspective seems to oppose the previously
indicated one: "Le recours aux donn£es sdentifiques . . . me parait
d'importance secondaire, 6tant donne le fondement, l’ experience d’ ou je
partais" (V, 115). There is an opposition, but not contradiction: this point
needs to be clarified.
The provisional acceptance of conventional reason, knowledge,
and science is ambivalent by itself. Firstly, science is "framed" by its
limited function in the global context of the heterological movement (a
manifestation of the alternation principle). Secondly, it is in advance
assigned a self-subversive role "d'aller & rebours dans les voies de la
connaissance-pour en sortir, non pour en tirer un r€sultat que d'autres
attendent" (Vm, 258). Illustrations of this agenda can be found, for
example, in Bataille's use of biological, economic, historical, and
astronomic data (see above): in these occurrences Bataille performs what
he called a "changement" or "renversement copemiden," radically
changing the overall parameters for the implementation of the sdentific
observations in question. Along with all this, he was deeply interested in
contemporary sdentific data which seemed to conform, even without
the necessity of a "renversement," to his own philosophical conceptions-
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-and or, in turn, influenced his thinking. I have already mentioned
Bataille's (not uncritical) attention to psychoanalysis, quite obviously
based on the unconscious nature of heterology in relation to
conventional consciousness: "II est facile de constater que— la structure de
la connaissance d'une r6alit£ hom ogene 6tant celle de la science-celle
d'une reality heterogene. . . est identique k la structure de I'inconscient"
(I, 347). An even more significant issue is that Bataille recurrently
addresses the dual way of perceiving physical processes (and matter by
extension): in the aspect(s) of particle and or wave and continuity and or
discontinuity (e.g. V, 110; VI, 305; VII, 266 et passim). In the field of
(already to Bataille) contemporary physics (quantum mechanics), the
principle of complementarity . describing these (and other) dual aspects of
"reality" was introduced by Niels Bohr in 1927; it can be seen as a forceful
argument toward a picture of the world radically different from a
"logocentric" or "restricted economical" one. All these problematics are
addressed in depth in Arkady Plotnitsky's Reconfigurations and In the
Shadow of Hegel, where the author also extensively characterizes the
major parallel changes in the (postm odern theory represented by
thinkers like Nietzsche, Bataille, and Derrida, and opposed to the
previous, as well as contemporary, restricted economies (Hegel’ s par
excellence).
In fact, in the context of this study, it is important that the
principle of complementarity conforms, for instance, to what I called
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Bataille’ s principle of alternation between any two qualitatively different
planes of existence and or manifestation.
Bohr speaks in this context of features of description that are
mutually exclusive but complementary insofar as both are
necessary for a comprehensive description and understanding of a
given process. Thus we need both the partide-picture and the
wave-picture of quantum process, although we cannot use them
both simultaneously and neither one is by itself suffident for a
comprehensive description and analysis. (Reconfigurations 4-5)36
Thus, a seeming methodological contradiction-negation and acceptance
of knowledge (stience) by Bataille— as well as the conceptual opposition of
the qualitatively different planes of existence (profane - sacred) discussed
earlier- might itself be best seen from the angle of complementarity. In
this light, a certain corrective may be proposed to the widely accepted
notion of Bataille's anti-sdentific attitude.37
In the context of the positive aspects of "sdence" for Bataille, one
more point must be mentioned: the sdentific rigor of his method (cf.: "La
philosophie . . . intervient comme une exigence de rigueur" [Vm, 2011)38
Since we are speaking about complementarity, it is worth mentioning
that Bataille is indeed rigorous in applying the alter(n)ation-
complementarity prindple. YVhat I mean here is that, while analyzing
qualitatively different (phe)no(u)menai planes, he is very careful to
discriminate between them, while indicating all virtual transitions (cf.
glissement. degradation and so forth; in fact, as was already shown, the
movement itself acquires an independent, sovereign value— to a certain
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extent) .39 Such tactics perfectly conform to one of the postulates of
complementarity, according to which a rigorous (adequate) picture of the
world (of course, on a complex level— e.g. on the level of quantum
processes or a theory of communication) cannot be simultaneously
draw n in complementary terms (e.g. in terms of both particle and
w a v e ).4 0 it is important to indicate here that this is precisely the
(methodological) mistake made by Bakhtin (which makes his theory
vulnerable to a criticism in the vein of Hermstein-Smith— which was
actually addressed to Bataille):
One might say that it [laughter] builds its own world versus the
official world, its own church versus the official church, its own
state versus the official state. Laughter celebrates its own masses,
professes its faith, observes its rites of marriage and funeral, writes
its epitaphs, elects kings and bishops. (Rabelais 88; trans. mod.)
Bakhtin’ s project thus logically comes to the phase of construction : but,
in Bataille's words, ”[l]a mort n'est pas la seule contradiction qui entre
dans l'edifice ferme par l’ activite de l’ homme . . . (Vm, 511; emphasis
added). In other words, in an attem pt to conceive and to formulate the
Other using the characteristics of the Same, to "describe a wave
configuration in terms of particle," so to speak, the Other is necessarily
confined to the previous parameters (in this case, initially compromised
in Bakhtin's theory logocentric parameters) .41
In the general trajectory of heterological movement a description
of Bataille's methodological aspects comes to a point of a major "rupture
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189
des rfegles— une interruption" (I will call it provisionally "interruption
1") or "leap”— a moment of negation of the "positive" phase in the
overall process (VIII, 80-81). In other words, "etant reduit a la chose par
I'operation, il [l’ homme] procede a 1 'operation contraire, a une reduction
de la reduction" (X, 342).^ In fact, the phase of dis-continuity of ipse and
of (scientific) knowledge, the concentration was only necessary for the
centrifugal "rejaillissement" ("La particularity est necessaire a la perte et
k sa fusion brusque" [VII, 271, 265; X, 3011). Again, this is a transition from
the appropriation of a restricted economy to the loss of the general
economy.
Ce n'est que la seule attitude irrefutable (mais non fondle): ce
n'est pas une position mais un mouvement maintenant chaque
operation de I'esprit possible a I’ interieur de limites particulieres.
Cette conception est un anthropomorphisme dechire .. .. A un
point extreme de son developpement, la pensee aspire a sa propre
'mise a mort’: elle est predpitee comme par un saut dans la sphere
du sacrifice . . . ("L’ amitie": VI, 295; emphasis added) .43
In this leap, all parameters are changed, since "[cj'est le renoncement a la
solidite acquise depuis les temps ou I’ activite et son resultat ont permis
aux hommes d'inserer sans a-coup leur existence dans le temps” (379).
Accordingly, the logic of "la connaissance discursive" is not congruent to
the operation of non -savoir. so that new "rules of the game" are engaged,
methodological rigor of "la conscience claire" being ever in p la y .44
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Project, system, (pre)ordered knowledge find their forceful, indeed,
in Bataille's understanding, violent counterparts in the notions of (mise
en) jeu. chance, hasard. rire. surprise.
Every human being is already a manifestation of chance in the
already chance "qualitative play of the universal matter" (cf. the
"primary opposition"): ’ ’ Cet etre ipse, lui-meme compose de parties et,
comme tel, resultat, chance imprevisible,” "cette combinaison
particuliere que je suis n'avait qu'une chance de se produire, contre 225
trillions de chances contraires" (1/ 319; V, 101; VI, 445). By the same token,
all human existence, including in parameters of time, is the same
manifestation.4^ Consequently, the role of philosophy (even in the
frame of restricted economy) is to incorporate chance in its own
demarche; in fact, it is viable to the extent it is successful in doing so.4^
Of course, on this level, we speak about minor chance and jeu . On the
sovereign plane, chance and play acquire a different status,
corresponding to the principle of "permanent revolt" (alternation) in
negation of any system or presupposition of a result and maintaining (an
fiml possibility of) both positivity and negativity:
La mise en question qu est l’ experience apparait necessairement
comme une mise en jeu: c'est la mise en jeu de l’ £tre en tant que
sujet comme en tant que l'objet. En dernier lieu la chance qui pent
resulter de la mise en jeu est ce qui seul peut survivre a la
contestation, la chance etant la fille de la contestation et ne
pouvant subsister sans une contestation nouvelle, une nouvelle
mise en jeu. Sans la chance un acces de I’ etre au niveau de
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l’ im possible-la comprehension d'un m alheur illim ite-serait tout
a fait ferme. ("[College socratique]": VI, 291; cf. also 322)4?
There is no possibility (not even a speculative one) of chance being
appropriated; every such attempt provokes laughter (rire). even though a
possibility of (partial) positivity— for instance, "dans I’incoherence un
equilibre impr£vu"~ is always there (VII, 271-72; VI, 21). The same
relation of undecidability characterizes all crucial oppositions discussed
earlier: for example, subjectivity-objectivity (cf., e.g. VTO, 410-11). And
again, all this in accordance with the relation of indeterminacy,
probability or undecidability, complementary to the principle of
complementarity. The principle of mutual exclusion also continues to be
in play; thus, "il est impossible de rire et d'etre s£rieux a la fois. Le rire est
I6geret6: on le manque dans la mesure ou Ton cesse de s en moquer"
(VII, 279). The serious laughter in Bakhtin s conception (see Chapter I)
conforms, on the other hand, to an understanding of play-gambling-
game (all are H rpa in Russian), in the final analysis, as a system in
another system (of "real life"), where they have "a common
denom inator-m erry time" and "transform the gloomy eschatology of
the Middle Ages into merry monster,' humanize the historical process
and prepare a sober and fearless knowledge of it" (Tvorchestvo 256). This
point of view, excluding radical loss and sacrifice, is inscribed in
Bakhtin's general philosophy of appropriation, where a "reasonable
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192
investor does not gamble, for he does not know how to read a ’ die' [de]"
(Taylor, op. dt. 134).
At a certain point, of course, an interruption (interruption 2) of
the sovereign continuity, its consrious (self)deferral, a "return" to the
project, to the attente. to discursive logic and so forth, is postulated by the
very nature of the permanent altemation.48 In fact, this interruption,
just like the initial concentration preparing the saut. is necessary and is
seen as a requirement of the rigorous method:
II est pusillanime de craindre une stabilite fondamentale, plus
encore que d ’ hesiter a la rompre. Car l'instabilitg constante est
plus insipide que la regie la plus dure: on ne peut dfe^quilibrer-
ou sacrifier-que ce qui est; et le dSsequilibre, le sacrifice sont
d'autant plus grands que leur objet 6tait 6quilibr£ et acheve. De tels
prindpes s’ opposent a toute morale n£cessairement niveleuse,
ennemie de l'altemance. . . . M£me la recherche de I'extase ne peut
pas echapper a la m dhode. II faut refuser de tenir compte des
contestations habituelles: elles trahissent toujours une volonte
d'inertie qui se contente de l’ enlisement d£sordonn£ ou la plupart
des etres se trainent. Une methode signifie la violence faite h des
habitudes de relachement. ("L’ amitie": VI, 296)
From a slightly different angle, this is how "[I]'operation souveraine, qui
ne tient que d'elle-meme I'autorite— expie en meme temps cette
autorite": authority being, of course, the main characteristic of
logocentrism (V, 223; note on the same page credits Blanchot with the
expression).
The same methodological strictness is postulated for the
(temporarily) accepted "objective consdousness": ”1 1 est meme
important, cette connaissance intervenant, qu elle intervienne en
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193
suivant les methodes rigoureuses qui garantissent ses succes
fragmentaires” (VTI, 527). Method exculpate? the objective consciousness,
"(l]'errew commence seulement quand cette conscience reflechissante
prend au serieux le petit temps de repos que les circonstances lui
accordent. Ce temps de repos nest qu'un temps de charge" (271). In case
of such an error, a certain degradation of the sovereign manifestations
follows; thus,
la poesie . .. serait comme le rire et le sacrifice, ou comme
I'erotisme et l'ivresse, i riser ee dans la sphere de I’ activite. Insere
n'est pas tout a fait subordonne: le rire, l’ ivresse, le sacrifice ou la
poesie, l'£rotisme lui-meme, subsistent dans une reserve,
autonomes, inseres dans la sphere, comme des enfants dans la
maison. Ce sont leurs limites des souverains mineurs . qui ne
peuvent contester 1 ’ em pire de l'activite. (Methode de m ediation:
V, 220; empasis added)
(Note the image of the house, a variant of edifice: see Chapter H). In fact,
minor, degraded— not completely appropriated— forms of sovereignity are
the only ones "originally'' available to an individual, the creator of the
order of things and him /her-self partly a thing ("if not completely, at
least always"). So that these "minor sovereigns" represent a major
methodological aspect of Bataille's philosophy: a necessary mediation or
glissement. 49
Due to double human nature (secondary' opposition), (s)he is
always in struggle with her-himself; an attempt to grasp one's essential
identity triggers the sensation and understanding of the inherent
glissement .50 Consequently, glissement characterizes all major aspects of
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194
hum an existence; however, this movement can be directed to both of
radically opposed poles. We have already seen the examples of
glissement. inscribed into the historical continuum (and thus opposed to
the sovereign continuity), directed from the sovereign to the profane and
characterized as degradation of violence, of sacrifice, of laughter, and so
forth. Conversely with this movement, the transcendence of the (order
of) thing is being affirmed. The opposite process occurs when a sacred
contagion takes place in the empire of the profane world, which is thus
subject to transgression and dissolution in the "monde glissant" (273).
Thus, glissement is itself subject to glissem ent: both in the direction of
acceleration and the sovereign leap, and toward degradation-
stabilization.This is the aspect of glissement as mediation between the
opposites.
The glissement (of consciousness) in the direction of the sacred
becomes synonymous with the general principle of ceaseless movement,
revolt, alternation, and thus acquires a sovereign value.^l On the other
hand, when corresponding to the "minor sovereigns," inserted in the
sphere of the profane, it necessarily becomes a subversively furtive force
(Bataille uses "furtive" in a similar context on several occasions, e.g. VUI,
203). The following example deals with eroticism:
Ce qui est en jeu dans I’ erotisme est toujours une dissolution des
formes constitutes. Je le repete: de ces formes de vie sodale,
reguliere, qui fondent l'ordre discontinu des individualites
definies que nous sommes. Mais dans lerotism e, moins encore
que dans la reproduction, la vie discontinue n’ est pas condamnee,
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195
en depit de Sade, a disparaitre: elle est seulement mise en
question. Elle doit etre trouble, d£rangee au maximum. I l y a
recherche de la continuity mais en prindpe seulement si la
continuity que seule ytablirait dyfinitivement la mort des etres
discontinus, ne l'emporte pas. II s'agit d ’ introduire, a l'interieur
d'un monde fond£ sur la discontinuity toute la continuity dont ce
monde est susceptible. (L ~ Erotisme: X, 24)
Thus, glissement is accompanied by an obvious trickery' (tricherie.
fumisterie. tromperie. mensonge . echappatoire. palliatif). which, first of
all, plays a trick with the major, radical, unconditional Other: in a way, it
is betrayed, having to be contained within certain limits.52 However, the
trick is played both ways, and a provisional submission is only a
subterfuge, a temporary concession (inscribed in the time continuum)
before engaging the other (Other) (im)possibility:
Comment obtenir de l'etre qu'il se perde sinon en echange d ’ un
gain? II importe peu que le gain soit illusoire ou plus petit que la
perte: trompeur ou non, c’ est l’ appat du gain qui rend la perte
accessible [I]l lui faut poser le possible d ’ abord. Le salut est
miserable en ce qu’ il met le possible aprfcs, qu’ il en fait la fin de
I'impossible. Mais si je pose le possible d'abord, vraiment d'abord?
Je ne fais qu’ ouvrir la voie de I’ impossible. ("Le rire de Nietzsche ” :
VI, 313)53
Here the ’ ’tremplin de I'impossible" is created (echafaude), where
glissement accelerates into a fall (chute) and or saut (see also the
discussion of time) .54 Here, glissement merges with laughter and, in a
certain way, is invulnerable to trickery’, because laughter is itself a
resolution of trickery.55 At the same time, glissement -as-tricherie
becomes the always final ("retour etemel" but "sans retour" like the fall
of Time) betrayal of the Same, or any particular "other" betrayed next,
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196
always faithful to the Other. Derrida thus formulates this aspect of
heterology: "Le non-savoir est alors outre-historique mais seulement
pour avoir pris acte de l’ achevement de l’ histoire et de la cldture du
savoir absolu, pour les avoir pris au serieux puis trahis en les exc£dant
ou en les simulant dans le jeu" (EG 395-96). With every truth a lie, a
trickery, only trickery is ultimately honest-even though in its failure (cf.
"l'honnSte simplicity du dyfaut" [note on Vm, 259]).
The open possibility of unlimited "mise en question” is not
resolved into an answer; ”[n]i la poesie, ni le rire, ni l'extase ne sont des
reponses, mais le champ de possibility qui leur appartient dyfinit
l'activite liee aux affirmations d ’ une pensee negative" (V, 387).56 in the
(never) final instance ”[l]a mise en question veut encore lichee, elle
veut la reussite de I'echec (que ce soit lichee qui r£ussisse) . . . La mise en
question glisse a l’ indecision d ’ interfyrences et de brisures, comme le
rire" (348-49). Bataille characterizes his method by the series:
interferences . brisures. dissolution . oppositions. retards, decompositions .
intersections . inversions . pulverisation . tremblement and so forth. On a
certain level, I find his assessments of his own writings very adequate,
for instance: ,rLa philosophic, par exemple, se reduit pour Bataille & une
acrobatie— dans le plus mauvais sens du mot. II ne s’ agit pas d'atteindre
un but, mais d echapper aux pieges que represented les buts" (Notice
autobiographique. VII, 4 6 2).57 So that a good example of his method— and
style— can be found in a very truth-ful (Bataille's laughter here) note:
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"Aux trois quarts acheve, j'abandonnai l'ouvrage ou devait se trouver
I’ enigme resolue" (VII, 502). His anti-philosophy is best characterized by
a provisional title for one of his "projects": ”[l]e svsteme inacheve du
non-savoir" (note on Vm, 258).
"U faut v i v re I’ experience . .. C'est n'est que du dedans, vecue
jusqu'k la transe, qu'elle apparait unissant ce que la pensee discursive
doit separer . . . ne laissant dehors que le discours [qui] fai[t] d eux des
r£ponses aux difficulty ..." (El: V, 21; emphasis added). But discourse, of
course, cannot be just "left outside": instead, it is the subject of the next
chapter of this study.
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NOTES
1 To the sodal body (collective being) corresponds a "collective
consciousness." Bataille speaks of it very restrictively and more or less in
passing (in the same way he speaks about the continuity of the species—
see chapter 01-linking it to the problematics of death and, generally, the
sacred) and concentrates on the relation subjective-universal. See,
however, "Society de psychologie collective" and appropriate pages from
"College de sotiologie" (respectively, 0 and VO, 247). Characteristically
(cf. chapter 10), collective body and collective consciousness tend to
stability and duration in time— that is, to profane existence (restricted
economy and so forth) (VO, 265).
2 "I" (je) completes the list but is, overall, of little importance in
Bataille's conception. "Le ’ je’ incame en moi la chiennerie docile, non
dans la mesure ou il est Yipse, absurde inconnaissable, mais une
equivoque entre la particularity de cet ipse et 1 'universality de la raison.
Le 'je' est en fait I'expression de I'universel, il perd la sauvagerie de
1 'ipse pour donner a I'universel une figure domestiquye; en raison de
cette position equivoque et soumise, nous nous reprysentons I'universel
lui-meme a I’ image de celui qui l'exprime, k l'opposy de la sauvagerie,
comme un etre domestique. Le je' n'est ni la dyraison de Yipse, ni celle
du tout, et cela montre la sottise qu est l'absence de sauvagerie
(l’intelligence commune). . . . (Yipse et le tout sont des contraires, alors
que le ’ je’ et Dieu sont des semblables" (V, 134-35). Some parallels with
psychoanalytical theories of the structure of the psyche can obviously be
drawn.
3 ”[D]ans cette composition [sodale], chaque sentier conduit au sommet,
mene au dysir d ’un savoir absolu, est necessity de puissance sans limite”
(V, 102). In this context Bataille characteristically uses architectural
metaphors of the dty, capital, and pyramid, all of which manifest the
"domination du centre" (103-107); see chapter II.
4 Cf.: "S'il n'y avait que communication sans frein, s'il ne se produisait
pas de remous nouant et ralentissant les courants trop rapides, le repli
multiplie sur soi-meme qu est notre consdence serait impossible. Cet
ordre de choses a peu prfcs stable, la construction en apparence dyfinitive
de I’ isolement sont necessaries a la formation d'une consdence
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199
r£fl£chissante. Le mouvement meme ne peut etre reflechi qu a la faveur
d ’une fixity relative du miroir. L'erreur commence seulement quand
cette conscience reflechissante prend au serieux le petit temps de repos
que les circonstances lui accordent" (VII, 271). And, in terms of the
problem of time: "le temps, dissolvant chaque etre qui s'est form e. est
fatalement connu comme centrifuge— etant connu dans un etre dont le
centre est d£ja lfr" (I, 509; emphasis added). Cf. also I, 90 et passim.
5 I would argue that Bataille's own involvement in political activity
should be regarded as pertaining to the plane of "secondary opposition"
in relation to the "sacred" core of his philosophy. In any case, he was
always disappointed in attem pts to discern sovereign elements in
political manifestations, as was the case with the "ecstatic" moments in
the fascism or with the communality of the communism (an evidently
regretful disappointment in this particular instance). Cf. the following
passage:
La vie ne demeure entiere que n'etant pas subordonnee a tel objet
precis qui la d^passe. . . . Je ne puis vouloir n£anmoins devenir un
homme entier par la simple fait de lutter pour la liberte. Meme si
lutter ainsi est l'activit6 entre toutes qui m'agree, je ne pourrais
confondre en moi l'6tat d'int6grite et ma lutte. C'est I'exerdce
positif de la liberty non la lutte negative contre une oppression
particuliere qui m eleva au-dessus de I’ existence mutilee. Chacim
de nous apprend amerement que lutter pour sa liberte c’ est
d'abord I’ aliener.
Je l’ ai dit, I’ exerdce de la liberte se situe du cote du mal,
tandis que la lutte pour la liberte est la conquete d'un bien. Si la
vie est entiere en moi, en tant qu elle est telle, je ne puis sans la
morceler, la mettre au service d'un bien, qu’ il soit celui d'un autre
ou de Dieu ou mon bien. (VI, 18)
6 Cf. also: "[Les existences) ne s’ ouvrent que par la blessure de
I’ inachfevement de I’ etre en elles"; "L'etre accompli, de rupture en
rupture, apres qu'une nausee grandissante 1 ’ eut livre au vide du del, est
devenu non plus etre' mais blessure et meme agonie' de tout ce qui
est" (VI, 296; V, 95) et passim.
7 Cf. Bataille quoting Sartre quoting Bataille quoting Blanchot (Thomas
l'obscur) : "La nuit lui parut bientot plus sombre, plus terrible que
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200
n’ importe quelle autre nuit, comme si elle etait reellement sortie d’ une
blessure. . . " (VI, 197).
8 Thus, for example: "Le monde du sujet est la nuit: cette nuit
mouvante, infiniment suspecte, qui, dans le sommeil de la raison,
engendre des monstres. Je pose en principe que du 'sujet' libre,
nullement subordonne a I'ordre 'reel' et n ’ etant occupe que du present,
la folie meme donne une idee adoucie" (VII, 63).
Generally, on the metaphorical level, Bataille's philosophy can
probably be best represented by the semantics of evil, vice, crime,
contamination, infection, and contagion rather than by development,
exchange, sharing, and so forth. The most consistent, and even
fascinating in its own way, reading of Bataille's communication of
disease, evil and death ("sacr6 nefaste") is Nick Land's The Thirst for
Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism CAn Essay in
Atheistic Religion ).
9 "[IJnachevement, mort, d6sir, inapaisable sont a I'&tre la blessure jamais
fermee, sans laquelle il ne differerait pas d’un vide priv£ de lumifere"
(VI, 294).
In general,
il n’ v a pas dans la vie, dans 1'histoire, de r€sultats qui ne
comportent une part d echec et l'£chec est trfes loin de meriter
d ’ etre pris comme le font ceux qui ne veulent pas aller plus loin,
comme une sorte de preuve de la vanit£; l'6chec ne peut etre pris
au contraire que comme ce que doit rechercher le plus
attentivement celui dont l'impatience appelle un rebondissement.
(VO, 390-91)
In the context of the present chapter, note the characteristic juxtaposition
of "ceux” and "celui." Cf. also:
Je ne puis que rire de moi-meme ecrivant (ecrirais-je une phrase si
le rire aussitdt ne s’ y accordait?). n va de soi: j’ apporte a la tSche le
plus de rigueur que je puis. Mais le sentiment qu'une pensee elle-
meme a d ’ etre friable, surtout la certitude d'atteindre ses fins
justement par lechec . . . me prive de la detente favorable a
l'ordonnance rigoureuse. Voue £ la dfeinvolture, je pense et
m’ exprime a la m erd de hasards. (Sur Niet?sche: VI, 200)
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201
The following passage deserves to be quoted at least in a note. Here
several recurrent notions converge, important for the whole of Bataille's
conception.
"Chercher la suffisance est la meme erreur qu'enfermer l'etre en
un point quelconque: nous ne pouvons rien enfermer, nous ne
trouvons que I'in su ffisa n ce.. .. L’ enfant est I'occasion de se pencher—
sans profonde inquietude— sur im abime d'insuffisance.
Mais de meme que l’ enfant, le rire grandit. Dans sa forme
innocente, il a lieu dans le meme sens que la composition sodale: il la
garantit, la renforce (elle est rejet vers la peripherie des formes faibles): le
rire compose ceux qu’ il assemble en convulsions unanimes. Mais . . . par
un renversement necessaire, il revient de I'enfant au pere, de la
p6riph6rie au centre, chaque fois que le pere ou le centre trahissent a leur
tour leur insuffisance. (Dans les deux cas, nous rions d'ailleurs d ’ une
situation identique: pretention injustifiee a la suffisance.) La necessite du
renversement est si importante qu'elle eut jadis sa consecration: il n’est
pas de composition sociale qui n’ ait en contrepartie la contestation de ses
fondements; les rites le montrent: les satumales ou la fete des fous
renversaient les rdles.. . . Le rire pressent la v6rit6 que denude le
d^chirement du sommet: que notre volonte de fixer l'etre est maudite.
Le rire glisse en surface le long de depressions 16geres: le d&durement
ouvre I'abime. Abime et depressions sont un meme vide: l'inanite de
l’ etre que nous sommes. . . . [L]’ homme, inevitablement, doit vouloir
etre tout, rester ipse. II est comique k ses propres yeux s’ il en a conscience:
il lui faut done vo u lo ir etre comique, car il est en tant qu'il est l’ homme
(il ne s'agit plus des personnages emissaires de la comedie)-sans
echappatoire. [Cela suppose une dissociation de so i-me me angoissantc,
une disharmonie, un disaccord definitifs— subis avec vigueur— sans vains
efforts pour les pallier]” (El: V, 104,106-108).
One should recall here that laughter is a "keyhole" (Bataille's metaphor)
to the whole of his (anti-)philosophy; cf. also: "cela revient k trouver,
dans la donnee qu est le rire, la donnee centrale, la donnee premiere, et
peut-etre meme la donnee demiere de la philosophic . . . [Djans la
mesure ou je fais oeuvre philosophique, ma philosophic est une
philosophic du rire" (VIII, 219-20; cf. Chapter H).
The importance of the notion of project for Bakhtin will be discussed
later.
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12 Some correlations and correctives to Bakhtin’ s "carnival culture” will
be offered in Chapter VI.
13 "[N]ous ne pourrions plus dire de lui qu’ il est un hom m e-de
l'homme il differerait d6jk, autant qu'un oiseau d'un serpent" (VII, 279).
1^ This question is indicated as a "probleme premier"-cf. Bataille's and
Bakhtin’ s "questions demieres" earlier in this study (see also VI, 321). (Of
course, in Bakhtin's if not in Bataille's case, the "last questions” derive
directly from Dostoevsky). To the series may be added "une v6rit6
demiere: c’ est que les apparences superfidelles dissimulent une parfaite
absence de reponse a notre attente" (VIII, 216) and Texp&ience
demiere" (VI, 290).
13 In the context of the differentiated unity, the opposition between the
organic and inorganic matter (see Chapter ID) becomes more and more
problematic; e.g.: "Nietzsche accordait la perception k la matiere
inorganique et, par la, la connaissance; au point meme d'insister sur le
fait que I’ inerte seul pouvait atteindre la v6rit& I'organique engage dans
les intSrets complexes etant par lk voue a I’interpretation utile et k
I’ erreur. . . . je suis endin depuis longtemps k voir les choses de la m£me
faqon" (B, 298).
"Je prete meme a la particule inerte, au-dessous de I'animalcule, cette
existence pour soi, que j'aime mieux nommer experience du dedans,
experience interieure [cf. one of Bataille's major works under this title],
et dont jamais les termes qui la designent ne sont vraiment satisfaisants"
(X, 100).
16 Cf. a real life discussion after one of Bataille's lectures:
Sartre: Ce qui m’ apparait surtout, c'est que vous dite qu’ il y a un
au-delk de l’ etre, qui est le neant. Mais . . . vous ne portez pas le neant en
vous-meme, sans quoi vous ne pourriez pas le nommer comme tel.
Bataille: Je porte le neant en moi-meme comme negation. (VI, 339)
17 The reverse movement of "glissement," characterising the
degradation of the sacred, and inscribed into the historical time
continuum, was indicated in Chapter II and will be discussed in more
detail later.
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Cf.: "Le m o i, tout autre, du fait de son improbability constitutive, a ete
rejete au cours de la recherche normale de ce qui existe’ , comme l’ image
arbitraire, mais eminente, de la non-existence: c'est en tant q u ’ illusion
qu’ il repond a l’ exigence de la vie. En d'autre termes, le m o i, comme une
impasse hors de 'ce qui existe', dans laquelle se trouvent reunies sans
autre issue toutes les valeurs extremes de la vie, bien qu'il soit constitue
en presence de la reality, n'appartient en aucun sens a cette ryality qu’ il
transcende et il se neutralise (cesse d ’ etre tout autre)..." (I, 91).
19 "En meme temps qu’ un plein dans l’ ytre, il y a aussi le sentiment
d'un vide, puisque c’ est ce sentiment du vide qui le rejette vers le dehors
” (VI, 340).
20 On alter see, e.g. Taylor, op. cit. pp. XXVTO-XXIX et passim.
21 Cf. also II, 69; VII, 266, 314-15; et passim.
22 Cf. yet another comparison of the two major alternations: "Le monde
sacry n’ est, en un sens, que le monde naturel subsistant dans la mesure
ou il n'est pas entierement reductible a l'ordre instaure par le travail,
c’ est-^-dire, & l'ordre profane. Mais le monde sacre n’ est qu’ en un sens
seulement monde naturel. Q depasse en un autre sens le monde
antyrieur a l’ action conjuguee du travail et des interdits. Le monde sacre
est dans un sens une negation du monde profane, mais il est aussi
dytermine par ce qu'il nie. Le monde sacre est aussi le resultat du travail
en ce qu’il a pour origine et pour raison d ’ etre, non I'existence
immediate des choses que la nature a creees, mais la naissance d’ un
nouvel ordre des choses. en contre-coup susdte par I’ opposition a la
nature du monde de l’ activite utile" (X, 115; emphasis added).
23 Thus, in terms of communication: "£videmment, ce que je mets en
avant, c’ est la mise en question de soi-meme et de I'autre dans la
communication; et il ne s'agit pas seulement de la communication qui
s'aboutirait a une union que precisement je mettrais en question a son
tour" (VI, 352).
24 "[Mia pensee, son mouvement partaient d'elles [ces difficultes]— mais .
. . ce que toujours je voyais, c’ etait leur dissolution dans le mouvement .
.. [M]a course . .. ne m'empechait jamais d ’ eprouver le vide . . . A peine
apparu [le] sens neuf, l’ inconsistance m en apparaissait, le non-sens a
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204
nouveau me vidait. Mais le retour du non-sens etait le depart d'une
griserie accrue. Tandis que Sartre .. .co n clu t son article en
s’ appesantissant sur le vide . . . Ce que dans 1 'Experience interieure
j'essayai de decrire est ce mouvement qui, perdant toute possibility
d ’ arret tombe fadlement sous le coup d'une critique qui croit l'arr^ter du
dehors puisque la critique, elle, nest pas prise dans le mouvement. Ma
chute vertigineuse et la difference qu'elle introduit dans l’ esprit peuvent
n’ etre pas saisies . . . [A]boutir au vide!.. .{fje n'aboutis jamais" (VI, 199).
In this context Bataille rebukes Tzara for an easy paradox
('borrowed from Hegel"): "I'absence de systfeme est encore un sysfeme,
mais le plus sympathique" (1,183). It is curious to see the same critique
addressed to Bataille himself (for instance, by Sartre and Hermstein-
Smith).
25 On several occasions Bataille remarks on similarities between the
sacred and the unconscious in the psychoanalytical-Freud's and
Freudian but also Jung’ s— works (e.g. 1,342; II, 324 et passim); cf. note 2.
On the subjective plane, the process of doubling results, for instance, in
the following image: "J'ai finalement plus d ’ un visage. Et je ne sais
lequel se rit de I’ autre" (VI, 83). We can recall here Bakhtin's image of
the two faces of Janus, expressing the ambivalence of the carnival (see
Chapter I and also VI). According to Bakhtin's conception, they look onto
two different planes of existence; in the final analysis, however, they see
the Same.
26 In fact, the author seems to maintain that outside "the horizon of the
Hegelian dialectic" and "Hegelian wisdom" any attem pt to "surpass
metaphysics" is doomed; Derrida and Bataille are listed as unlucky
contenders (39, 49, 52, 53).
27 Mot to mention Kojeve’ s reading of Hegel, also involved in
Agamben s reading of Bataille and, of course, in Bataille's reading of
Hegel.
28 Thus, the "unreserved Hegelianism" of Bataille is subject to crucial
specifications in Derrida's article (see, e.g., 405 et passim).
29 Cf.: "La question de l’ etre est en jeu dans la dialectique dont j’ ai parle,
qui oppose le moi et l’ autre, et il est exact que j'envisage toujours comme
objet d'un desir l'autre, que le moi est le sujet du desir et que ce sujet du
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205
d6sir est a priori une contestation de soi-meme en tant qu'il est d£sir
d'un autre. En meme temps qu'un plein dans I’ Stre, il y a aussi ce
sentiment du vide qui le rejette vers le dehors" (VI, 340; emphasis
added).
30 Actually, it was planned as a book, but never was published as such
and was dismantled by Bataille into different parts to be incorporated
into other publications.
31 As was shown, the energetic impulse, generating this aler(n)ative
movement is, nonetheless, indissodable from subjectivity (at the same
time it is only possible due to the partial consubstantionality of the self
with the universal "void").
"Dans la meditation, le sujet, exced6, se cherche lui-meme.
II se refuse le droit de rester enferm6 dans la sphere de l’ activite.
II refuse, cependant, ces moyens ext£rieurs que sont des toxiques,
des partenaires erotiques ou des alterations d'objet (comiques,
sacrificielles, po€tiques).
Le sujet resolu se cherche lui-meme, se donne a soi-meme rendez
vous dans une ombre propice.
Et plus entifcrement que par un toxique, il se met lui-meme en jeu,
non des objets" (Vfethode de m ediation: V, 219).
32 Cf. also: "[Lie RIEN [est] pris comme objet supreme de la pensee, qui
sort d ’ elle-meme, qui se quitte et devient la dissolution de tout objet”
(259).
33 "[L]a valeur est le refus . .. Je vais ainsi de rien a devenir rien
(passivement), puis & devenir rien (activement), enfin h quelque chose
pire que rien. Dans le second cas, le sacre est I'objet aime et dans le
troisieme, le sacre est l'effet de ma violation, de ma destruction. Le
quatrieme cas, c'est le d^sespoir. Les quatre possibilites sont equivalentes,
il n’ y a pas de repos en l'une d ’ elles, et elles se resument ainsi dans leur
mobility:
sens = non-sens
sens + non-sens = sens profond
sens trop profond = haine de tout sens, revolte incessante
sens 6troit irrecusable = acceptation d ’une equivalence de la mort"
(Notes: Vm, 589-90).
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34 Ln the same sense: "il est impossible de parler du non-savoir
autrement que dans l'exp&ience que nous en faisons" (VIII, 218). And
even: ”[L']etude qui se veut scientifique r£duit la part de l’ exp6rience
subjective, alors que, par methode, au contraire je r^duis la part de la
connaissance objective" (X, 100).
35 "[L’Jaction consiste k prendre possession des choses.
II y a prise de possession par le travail;
le travail est I’ activite humaine en general,
intellectuelle,
politique,
economique;
a quoi s'opposent
le sacrifice,
le rire,
la poesie,
Textase, etc...,
qui sont les ruptures des sysfemes prenant possession.. . .
D’ une fa<;on g6nerale, en tant qu'elle est le rire, la po£sie... la mise en
question va de pair avec la d£pense, la consommation des sommes
excedantes d ’ 6nergie. Or, la somme d ’ 6nergie produite (acquise) est
toujours superieure a la somme n^cessaire a la production
(l’ acquisition)" (Le coupable: V, 384-85).
3b Alongside the particle-wave duality, Bataille's reconfiguration of
continuity-discontinuity (cf. Chapter HI) also seems to echo Bohr’ s
insight. "Bohr writes: the .. . quantum postulate . .. attributes to any
atomic process an essential discontinuity, or rather individuality . . . [my
ellipsis]' Conjoining 'essential discontinuity’ w ith individuality'
connotes a radical dislocation of classical causality, eventually leading to
quantum mechanics and complementarity. . . . Bohr's matrix, thus, puts
in question and finally abandons all metaphysical realism— physical,
mathematical, or other-w ithout, however, making complementarity an
idealist or subjectivist theory. In short, in present terms, it makes Bohr’ s
complementaritv a general economy" (Plotnitsky. In the Shadow of
Hegel 32).
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37 Cf., e.g.: Bataille's "heterology/materialism possesses] its own laws
antithetical to those of classical philosophy or modem science " (Michele
H. Richman. Reading Georges Bataille. 104; emphasis added).
38 "It is equally important, that, as both Bataille and Derrida insist, the
general economy as theoretical practice remains a rigorous science or
theory, however much it undermines the classical theories and however
much it extends or complementarizes itself by way of other forms of
writing, such as literature, criticism, history, or politics. For Nietzsche,
Bataille, Derrida, and other major authors relevant here, theoretical,
historical, or critical rigor is a crucial dimension of their work and style.
The point of sdentific-or historical and critical-rigor, specifically in
Bataille and in general, is stressed by Derrida throughout and is equally
important with respect to his own practices" (Plotnitsky.
Reconfigurations 29).
39 That is partly why I do not consider the altern a tio n and
complementarity principle(s) as fully synonymous. The alternation
principle, in my sense, emphasizes more the transition term (not just a
mediation) in any (in)equation; together with Bataille's subjective
attitude in regards to all indicated heterological processes, this constitutes
a very personal variation (configuration) of the broadly understood
"general economy." This point will be developed to some degree further
on.
40 This theoretical point-of course, as other ones— was pondered by
Bataille extensively; some variations in assumptions and conclusions
occur (see Notes on VII, 526-27).
41 Cf. also Bohm’ s formulation: ”[T]he most general physical properties
of any system must be expressed in terms of complementary pairs of
variables, each of which can be better defined only at the expense of a
corresponding loss in the degree of definition of the other " (cited in In
the Shadow of Hegel 33; emphasis added).
42 That is, as already and always postulated in Bataille's heterology, the
negative phase in turn possesses a certain positivity: "Le systfeme [of
knowledge, Hegel’ s in the context] est l'annulation"— therefore, by
annuling the system -by a certain negative move— a certain positivity is
approached (V, 56).
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Cf. Bakhtin's anthropomorphic conception, discussed earlier.
44 Cf.: "Indypendamment du fait que I'affirmation d'un non-savoir
fondamental peut etre fondle par ailleurs, la conscience daire de ce qui
est en jeu lie des l'abord la vie divine a la reconnaissance de son caractfere
obscur, de la nuit qu’ elle ouvre k la connaissance discursive. Cette
col ncidence immediate de la consdence daire et du d£chainement de
l'ordre intime n'est pas seulement donn£e dans la negation des
presuppositions traditionnelles, elle implique I'hypothfese formulae une
fois pour toutes: T'intimity est la limite de la consdence daire; la
consdence daire ne peut rien connaitre dairem ent et distinctement de
I’ intimite, sinon les modifications des choses qui lui sont lines’ . (Nous
ne connaissons rien de l'angoisse sinon dans la mesure oil elle est
impliquee dans le fait de 1 ’ operation impossible.) La consdence de soi
£chappe ainsi au dilemme de l'exigence simultan£e de I'immydiatety et
de ['operation. La negation immediate dytoum e l'op^ration vers les
choses, ainsi vers le domaine de la duree” (Theorie de la religion: VII,
342).
45 "Le temps sans jeu serait comme s'il n'ytait pas. Le temps veut
I'uniformite dissoute: faute de quoi, il serait comme s'il n’ ytait pas. De
meme sans le temps I'uniformite dissoute serait comme si elle n'ytait
pas.
Necessairement, pour I'individu, la variability se divise en
indifferente, heureuse et malheureuse. L'indifference est comme n'etant
pas. La malchance et la chance se composent sans fin en variability de la
chance ou de la malchance, la variability ytant essentiellement chance
(meme en vue d'une malchance) et le triomphe de l'uniformity
malchance (meme ytant l’ uniformity de la chance) (Sur Nietzsche: VI,
144).
46 ”[L]a chance est ce que I'intelligence doit apprehender pour se limiter a
son domaine propre, k l’ action," "La philosophic— prolongeant la chance
au-del^ d'elle-meme--se situe dans la diffyrence entre 1 ’ univers et le
travailleur’ (l’ homme). Contre Hegel . . . Hegel yiaborant la philosophic
du travail. . . a supprime la chance-et le rire" (V, 320, 341).
47 Cf. : "Mes reflexions sur la chance sont en marge du dyveloppement
de la pensee.
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Nous n'en pouvons faire cependant de plus arrachantes (de plus
d£risives). Descendant au plus profond, elles tirent la chaise de celui qui,
du d^veloppement de la pensee, attendit la possibility de s'asseoir, de se
reposer.
Nous pouvons, nous devons r£duire a la raison, ou, par la science,
a la connaissance raisonnee, une partie de ce qui nous touche. Nous ne
pouvons supprimer le fait qu’ en un point, toute chose et toute loi se
dyridfcrent selon le caprice du hasard, de la chance, la raison
n’ intervenant, a la fin, que dans la mesure ou le calcul des probabilites
l’ autorise.
Q est vrai, la toute-puissance de la raison limite celle du hasard:
cette limitation suffit en prindpe, le cours des choses obeit lo n g u em en t a
des lois, qu'ytant raisonnables, nous discemons, mais il nous echappe
aux etremes.
Aux extremes, la liberte se retrouve" (Le coupable: V, 312-13).
"[Nlous ne pouvons ni conserver ni supprim er le changement, nous
ne pouvons pas nyanmoins changer sans treve" [VIII, 81).
49 "L’ operation souveraine presente dfcs l'abord une difficulty si grande
qu'on dut la chercher dans un glissement" (221).
50 "Entre ces poles, incondliabies, un homme est decline
necessairement" (VII, 269);
"La vie de mon etre organique est faite de contagions d ’ energie, de
mouvement ou de chaleur. Elle ne peut etre localisee en un point: elle se
produit en passant rapidement d'un point a I’ autre (ou de points
multiples a d'autres aussi nombreux), de la meme fa<;on que dans un
reseau de forces electriques. Des que je veux saisir ma substance, je ne
sens plus que glissement" (VII, 271).
51 "La 'communication' [du sacrifice] est elle-meme ce glissement . . . [et]
se substitue aux etres et aux vides" (VI, 385); "L'origine de cette maniere
de voir est l’ extreme liberte faite a 1'esprit par la vanite des philosophies
opposees, c’ est l’ absurdity meme de toute pensee. Au dela d ’ un certain
point d ’ inanite, I'exerdce de I’ intelligence ne va plus contre le rire mais
s’ accorde follement avec lui. . . . L’ esprit saute, joyeusement sombre dans
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l'absurdite,. . . d'accord avec l’ absurde et le ree l, d'accord avec un
glissement vertigineux . . . (plus de fondement de la connaissance, plus
de metaphysique de l'origine ou des fondements, pas plus de fondement
de la connaissance que d'origine ou de causes du monde, il n'y a qu'un
etat de fait, comme l'equilibre rfeulte du mouvement. . . " (VO, 528).
52 Bataille thus states the necessity of a palliative: "que ta dlchirure
n’ empeche pas ta reflexion d’ avoir lieu, ce qui demande qu’ un
glissem ent se produise (que ta dSchirure soit seulement reflytye, et laisse
pour un temps le miroir intact). . . . cette tricherie ..." (V, 113). Here he
again uses the image of the mirror: cf. "une fixity relative du miroir" of
reflective consciousness, "les multiples miroirs," "jeu de miroirs" (VII,
271, 265).
53 Cf.: "A la naissance d'une convulsion menant a une sorte de perte,
l'intervention d'un profit— la conscience de superiority— est necessaire,
mais quand la convulsion atteint sa folle intensity, cette conscience ne
peut plus jouer ce rdle” (VII, 278). It is precisely in this perspective, that
the "dominant position of laughter" should be put (see Chapter II).
And also: "Je veux reprysenter id . . . la longue rigueur, l'integrity naive,
intrypide,-jamais lasse d'avouer la propre tricherie,-qui limite les
concessions au nycessaire et jamais n 'adm et de ne pas 'ytre
souverainement " (VUI, 476).
54 Of course, the impossible must be seen as a lie (mensonge ): "L'autority
et I'authentidte sont tout e n u re s du cdty de la chose, de la production et
de la consdence de la chose produite. Tout le reste est mensonge et
confusion "Mais j’ ai place dans ces mensonges la seule verity qui
compte a mes yeux": "Au del& du possible il y a ce qui ne nous trompe
pas, comme le possible evidemment nous trompe, puisqu'il cesse" (VH,
341, 300, emphasis added; Vm, 588).
55 "C’ est dans lechec qu’ est I'interrogation que nous rions” (VI, 322).
50 Bataille's image of "doisons," limiting an individual being and
separating it from the universal, continues: "La porte en meme temps
doit demeurer ouverte et fermee" (V, 109).
52 "L'acrobatie et non I'edification de la pensee est donnee dans le
mouvement de la pensee” (VI, 366). Cf. also: "La pensee se produit en
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moi par Eclairs incoordonnes et s’ eloigne sans fin du terme dont la
rapprochait son mouvement. Je ne sais si j'enonce de cette fagon
l'impuissance humaine— ou la mienne" (VI, 201);
"II est entendu, je l'ai dit pour commencer, je le dis encore une fois, que
cet apergu n'est qu'un plan, en quelque sorte m£me ne sera jamais qu'un
plan. Je veux dire par l& , en premier lieu, que ces propositions peuvent
itre boulevers^es, ni6es, remises en ordre; en second Ueu que celles qui
suivraient pourraient l’ Stre a leur tour" (VI, 291).
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Chapter V
Bataille. Discourse
The problem of discourse in Bataille is, of course, located at the
major intersection of different aspects of his thought considered earlier
in this study. Unexpectedly, however, this particular subject in Bataille's
oeuvre is the least articulated. in comparison with the economic, the
problems of being and sacrifice, death and communication. A partial
explanation for this paradoxical situation will occupy the following
pages. The question I will be directly addressing: how can discourse be
adequate to Bataille's heterological theory and method? In other words,
how can it be adequate to the task of thinking, positing, (re)presenting
and approaching the Other?
Discourse, for Bataille, is part and parcel of the whole of his theory;
accordingly, the all-important principles of opposition, movement
(glissement. alternation) are not only relevant but decisive here, too.
Bataille’ s principle of opposition corresponds to the crucial aspect of
discourse, its double nature. (At this point I do not mean any particular
one of the oppositions, relevant to an analysis of discourse, be it the
relations referent-sign, material thing-concept, signified-signifier, reality-
representation, or "reality”-(re)presented reality). I will start with a
dynamic trajectory, which is traced by Bataille's concept of discourse
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(manifested in language, literature, poetry) and is similar to the general
dynamics of his heterology outlined above.
Of all arts Bataille distinguishes literature and theater as
introducing the principle of "d^pense symbolique." Especially, ”[l]e terme
de poesie, qui s'applique aux formes les moins d£grad£es, les moins
intellectualisees, de I’ expression d ’ un etat de perte, peut etre considere
comme synonyme de d6pense: il signifie, en effet de la fa<;on la plus
precise, creation au moven de la p erte. Son sens est done voisin de celui
de sacrifice" (I, 307; emphasis added). From the outset, I would like to
focus on Bataille's underscoring of poeisis (by means of loss) as implicitly
and explicitly opposed to a certain mimesis . to "ce qui sert h designer
vulgairement," and associated precisely with (major) poetry, of ail genres
of representation (ibid.). At this point in the discussion of discourse in
Bataille, we first encounter the image of language as mirror:
Le langage n’ est pas seulement le plan sur lequel se donne le sens,
car le sens est sa nature.. . . En effet, Existence humaine est une
realite qui se construit dans le miroir ou elle se reflechit, ou elle se
revfele a ses propres yeux comme sacree et noble, comme
heteroqene par rapport h ce qui l'entoure. comme active et
positive. (II, 231; emphasis added)1
Thus, viewed from a certain angle, "langage" reflects the sacred, not the
profane reality (that which surrounds "l'existence humaine . . . sacree et
noble"); the traditional mimetic function is radically reduced if not
disregarded completely. Language here (and poetry par excellence) is
open to a glissement - directed toward the domain of the sacred; the
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"mirror" is multiplied, or multiplies itself. Consciousness itself, along
with language, becomes a "champ mal limits d ’ une concentration
toujours inachevee, jamais fermee” of multiple reflections of multiple
mirrors, in a "jeu de miroirs . . . On ne saisit jamais d'arrdt dans ce jeu: il
y a toujours mouvement, activity, passage" (VII, 265).
However, following the familiar trajectory discussed earlier, no
sooner is the "positive and active" representation of "la reality poetique"
stated than the counter-glissement occurs (VII, 393; see previously on
knowledge and science). This is again due to an insufficiency: the
insufficiency or inadequacy of a language, conceived on identity of a
thing, as a means for representing the heterogeneous sacred (sovereign)
(VI, 350) 2
In fact, to establish an existence is, first of all, to give it a name, an
identity (from Latin idem = the same): to form a link between it and a
certain signifier— a link which, as linguists say, is objective (Jakobson),
non-spontaneous (Barthes), necessary (Benveniste). Thus, to designate
discursively the sacred or sovereign would mean to chain it with or to
Logos in both senses of the word: "knowledge" and "word." To the
insufficiency of language is added the speculative undesirability of such
an operation, viewed from the position of the radical Other, heteros.
That is partly why, in terms of knowledge, the sovereign stays
(un)identified only as RIEN: conversely, ”[l]a poesie est sacree dans la
mesure ou elle n’ est rien (VII, 456).3 Bataille’ s other favorite
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designation for the result of a sovereign operation is silence. e.g.: "La
communication profonde veut le silence. En dernier lieu, l'action, que la
predication signifie, se limite a ced: fermer sa porte afin d'arreter le
discours . . . ” (V, 109 et passim). By the same token-and here we
encounter the already familiar notion of M cheating"-"[l]e souverain est
dans le domaine du silence et si nous en parlons nous nous en prenons
au silence qui le constitue. C’ est toujours une com£die, une fumisterie"
(VIII, 207). For a while, though, I will focus on other aspects of the
dynamic conception of discourse in Bataille.
Silence (1) manifests, in the most obvious way, the inadequacy of
discourse faced with the task of representing the sacred (heterosj. The
other side of the same problem, however, is the already discussed
necessity of ’ discursive knowledge" (frequent phrase in Bataille), and,
consequently, of discourse as such, since
Ip lour supprimer V explication il ne suffit pas de ne pas en donner.
. . . Je crois pouvoir introduire id une proposition fondamentale.
A supposer la tragedie et l'6motion qui en r^sulte, non seulement
elle se presente par rapport ^ ce monde comme souveraine . . .
mais ce qu elle introduit c’ est preds&nent l'inad6quation de toute
parole. Or cette inad£quation, du moins, doit etre dite. En d'autres
termes, au-dela de l'amok ou au-del^ de la tragedie, je puis aller
plus loin en disant que l'amok et la tragedie mettent un terme k
tout discours. (Conferences 1951 -1953: VIII, 200-201)4
Or, in still other words, and to continue with (the metaphor of) the
mirror, ”[i]e mouvement meme ne peut etre reflechi qu'k la faveur
d une fixite relative du miroir" (VII, 271). Particularly, this same
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necessity of mimetic discourse ("discours enchalne," "logique discursive"
and so forth) manifests a fiasco of the poetic operation-potentiaUy the
most sovereign-w hen it is compromised precisely by pursuing the
sovereign goal (that is, by being based on expectation that may degrade
into project): "Ce saut [souverain] peut etre la poesie, mais la poesie qui
pretend le faire, a partir du moment ou elle se juge, k partir du moment
oix elle aperqoit le saut qui doit etre fait, et ou elle n'a pas encore tout
d£truit, la poesie est aussi I’ impuissance de la poesie." So that "poesie
[est] d'autant plus proche de la tricherie qu'en un sens oppose, sans
detour, elle mene, semble-t-il, au sommet..." (Conferences 1947 -1948:
VII, 374; "Nietzsche a la lumiere du marxisme": VIII, 476).
In the process of this glissement. directed from the unnameable
sacred to the order of things ("ordre des choses"), poetry finds itself
inserted into the chain of work, objectives, discursive thought, project,
where Hegel, for instance, "reduit le monde au monde profane: il nie le
monde sacre (la communication)" (V, 96; VII, 298). Here, discourse in
general faithfully follows the developments of the profane world: the
"order of words” reflects the "order of things" and or adequately
represents it in human consciousness, that is, performs "vulgar
operations" (VII, 379; VUI, 207) .5 Bataille questions the very system of
signification governing the (mimetic) linguistic universum and, in a
certain perspective, reducible to the figure of a vicious circle, with the
familiar paternal God at the beginning, the end, and the center.
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Ce qui est souverain n’ a d'autre fin que soi-meme. Or le langage
(discxirsif et non poetique) porte en lui-meme la "signification"
par laquelle les mots renvoient sans cesse de i'un h l’autre: la
definition est l'essence du langage, par la definition chaque mot
tire son sens d'un autre mot, si bien que, pris dans l’ ensemble, le
langage nest fini que par le mot Dieu . . . Dieu, la fin des choses,
est pris dans le jeu qui fait de chaque chose le moyen d'une autre.
En d'autres termes, Dieu, nomm£ comme fin, devient une chose
en tant qu’ il est nom m e. une chose et mise sur le plan de toutes
les choses. (La Souverainete : VIII, 413-14; emphasis added)**
Maming as an operation of reification (and appropriation) is of a
paramount significance here; it also allows us to speak of the mimetic
aspect: reified word becomes thing, and discourse forever continues to
reflect and to refer to it(self). At the same time, on this level, the very
maximum of heterogeneity that is left even for poetry is a meek
compensatory "desordre des mots” which substitutes for the "6tats de
transe reels" (VI, 22). Thus, the understanding of poetry as a sovereign
operation is subject to a crucial correction or to a glissement toward a
profane mimetic function: "II est vrai que le nom de poesie ne peut £tre
applique d ’ une faqon appropriee qu'k un rfeidu extremement rare de ce
qu’ il sert a designer vulgairement . . "Elle [la poesie] a presque
toujours ete a la merci des grands systfcmes historiques d'appropriation"
(I, 307; emphasis added; II, 62).
So, the limits for discourse are indicated: at one extreme, the
sovereign silence, and on the other, the potentially endless relay of
signification and words bound in the restricted economy of logocentrism
and homogeneity and capitalizing economy. On this level, discourse
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(language) serves as a means for minor communication within the
limits of "social composition," "dans le Iabyrinthe brumeux forme par la
multitude des connaissances’ avec lesquelles peuvent etre echangges des
expressions de vie et des phrases" (I, 438; emphasis added; see also
chapter IV on communication). Thus, of all verbal procedures (forms of
discourse), dialogue is the real "porte-parole" for the minor
communication:
L etre est en lui [chaque personnel mediatise par les m ots. qui ne
peuvent se donner qu’ arbitrairement comme "£tre autonome" et
profondement comme "etre en rapport". Ce qu’ on app&lle
vulgairement connaitre quand le voisin connait sa voisine— et la
nomme — n est jamais que I'existence . . . qui fit une fois de ces etres
un ensemble aussi reel que ses parties. Un nombre limits de
phrases echangees suffit a la connexion banale et durable . . . La
connaissance q u a le voisin de sa voisine nest pas moins 61oignee
d’ une rencontre d'inconnus que ne I'est la vie de la mort. La
connaissance apparait de cette faqon comme un lien biologique
instable. non moins reel, toutefois, que celui des cellules d ’ un
tissu. L echange entre deux personnes possede en effet le pouvoir
de survivre k la separation momentanee. (El: V, 99-100; emphasis
added)
In this quotation, 1 would like to underscore, in addition to the dialogical
nature of minor communication and the explicit sexual connotation of
"connaitre," several moments: the same parallelism of "knowledge” and
appropriation with naming; the temporal quality of duration which
characterizes minor communication; the possible implicit metaphor of a
building where such a communication is likely to take place-im portant
in view of the theme of architecture/dom estication/appropriation
discussed earlier and in the following pages. Yet another characteristics of
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the minor communication is its exteriority in relation to ipse: "La
communication etroite du langage a pour objet le soud des choses (nos
relations avec les choses), la part qu elle exteriorise est d'avance
exterieure . . . ” (V, 390; cf. chapter IV).
On the contrary, in major communication, dialogue is the most
insuffident form of the insuffident discourse:
[L]a pleine communication quest l'experience, tendant a
l'”extreme" est accessible dans la mesure ou l'existence se denude
successivement de ses moyens termes: de ce qui procfede du
discours, puis, si I'esprit entre dans une interiorite non discursive,
de tout ce qui retoume au discours du fait qu'on en peut avoir une
connaissance distincte— en d'autres termes, qu'un "je" Equivoque
en peut faire un objet de "possession servile".
Dans ces conditions apparait encore ced: le dialogue de
personne a personne, de l'ame h Dieu, est une mystification (de
soi-meme) volontaire et provisoire. (El: V, 135)7
(Note the ambiguity of "personne.")
At this point I would like to recall the three possible
configurations of the Other in Bataille's texts as suggested earlier: an
exterior Other; the Other as part of "us"; and "us" as the Other in relation
to somebody or something else. The concept of dialogue discussed here
obviously has in view a (minor) communication with another "I" (un
semblable). This type of discourse of course takes place in the duration of
time and is opposed to the instantaneous sovereign un-knowledge:
"Hegel a bien vu que, fut-elle acquise d’une mani&re definitive et
jusqu'au bout, jamais au fond la connaissance ne nous est donnee que se
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developpant dans le temps. Elle n'est pas donnee dans une soudaine
illumination de I'esprit, mais dans un discours, qui s’ articule
n£cessairement dans la duree." (VIII, 253; see chapter III for discussion of
time). The dialogical "self-mystification" has as its counterpart human
attitude toward death, also specifically connected with the time duration.
In this case, a partner in the dialogue is not a proxy, "un semblable" or
God, but one’ s own double, generated by fear.
[Un individu] avait comme les autres un passe, un present et un
avenir,e t une identity a travers ce passe, ce present et cet avenir.
La mort detruit ce qui fut avenir, qui est devenu present en cessant
d ’ etre. . . . [MJourir humainement, dans 1'angoisse, c’ est d'avoir de
la mort la representation que permet le d£doublement de soi-
meme en un present et un futur . . . Si nous vivons
souverainement, la representation de la mort est impossible, car le
present n’ est plus soumis a I'exigeance du futur. (La Souverainete :
Vm, 264, 267)®
Here I would like to return, in the context of the problem of the
Other, to the relation subject-object (provisional Other) which, for
Bataille, always connects with the Hegelian dialectics of master and slave.
”[L]’ autonomie du ’ savoir absolu’ de Hegel est celle du discours se
developpant dans le temps. Hegel situe la subjectivity . . . dans l’ identite
que le sujet et I'objet atteignent dans le discours. .. . Partant du savoir
absolu’ , Hegel ne pouvait eviter que le discours ne s'evanouit, mais il
s’evanouissait dans le sommeil” (VUI, 403; emphasis added). The
discourse immersed or lost in sleep describes the already characterized
infinite chain of profane signification. In turn, for both subject and
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object, the identity' (again, from Latin idem = the same) must be achieved
in discourse by naming. In any given discursive configuration of minor
communication--for instance, in the "original" relation of master and
slave— this act (cf. "quand le voisin connatt sa voisine— et la nomme")
acquires a unilateral character of domination, by both word and
knowledge as aspects of Logos, w ith the sexual connotation as well. On a
larger scale, we saw the same process occur, in the context of
communication, with ipse (often soi, self in Bataille) trying to conquer
the universe ("le tout") (e. g. V, 101, 108; see chapter IV). In this struggle,
self is armed with knowledge and language, but this is "l'intelligence
discursive (qui asservit) ’: that is, conquering, taming the provisional
Other, the self becomes a slave itself, in "l'attachement de I’ esprit a
Taction (au projet, au discours— . . . la servitude verbale de l’ etre
raisonnable, du dom estique) . .." (V, 134; emphasis added). An attempt to
dominate the Other results, at best, in domination over others
(semblables. autrui) and leads to (self-)domestication of the self. In a
similar move, poetry', which fails in its sovereign function, also finds
itself "inseree dans la sphere de I’ activite . . . comme f un enfant/ dans la
maison " where it may or may not be completely domesticated (V, 220;
emphasis added).
On the other hand, that which stays unnamed, stays
undomesticated; hence Bataille's all-important, but more than vague
from the point of view of identity, terms 'le tout," "RIEN," "silence,”
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"personne." Thus, an "Other" that can be dominated, domesticated and
appropriated— known ("connu[ej") in every sense— is reducible to the
Same (presence, subject, Logos), insofar as it is only partly the Other and
is "same" enough to be recognized, named and addressed in discourse. In
the already familiar passage, Bataille indicates the difference between an
"Other" and the radical Other (heteros): "La connaissance qu a le voisin
de sa voisine n’ est pas moins eioignee d ’une rencontre d'inconnus que
ne I'est la vie de la mort." The major, sovereign transgression and
meeting the unknown evidently must occur ouside the discursive
ontology; thus, for instance, "[l]'ipst? et le tout se d^robent I’un et I'autre
aux atteintes de l’ intelligence discursive (qui asservit); les moyens termes
seuls sont assimilables.. . . [C]ar ['ipse et le tout sont des contraires, alors
que le je' et Dieu sont des semblables" (V, 134-35).
Appropriation, of an other or of the universe, is also assimilation,
that is, a reduction of variety of forms to a single form, at the limit. Thus,
for example in Bakhtin s anthropomorphic cosmology, the universe is,
in a way, recreated-or, rather, represented— in the image of man: "The
body acquires cosmic dimensions, while the cosmos acquires a bodily
nature . . . In the human body matter becomes creative, constructive, is
called to conquer the cosmos, to organize all cosmic matter ..." (Rabelais
339, 366; trans. mod.). Not incidentally, this anthropomorphization of
the universe comes as the next step after its domestication : "This all
people’ s body, growing and ever-victorious, is at home in the cosmos"
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(341; trans. mod.). Human image is (to use Bakhtin's expression) a
"common denominator" in the operation of universal equation where,
for instance, Bataillean "le tout" (from Latin: totus = all, whole,
complete) becomes (slides into, glisse) "everything," becomes every
thing --espedallv if we keep in mind that 'Thomme devient une chose.
Sinon entierement, du moins toujours” (VIII, 266). Thus, '[l]e je’ est en
fait l'expression de l'universel, il perd la sauvagerie de Yipse pour
donner a l'universel une figure domes tiquee; en raison de cette position
equivoque et soumise, nous nous repr£sentons l'universel lui-meme a
I'image de celui qui l'exprime, . . . comme un £tre domestique" (V, 1 3 4 )9
Of course, discursive and morphological aspects converge in the
homological world, where the verbal mode par excellence is dialogue,
possible to the extent that the communication takes place between
"semblables" sharing the Sameness. And yet, speaking avant la lettre. it
is precisely dialogue that is the cornerstone of Bakhtin's heterology in its
discursive aspect ("heteroglossia,” dialogism ).^
The issue of universal anthropomorphism opens onto one more
stratum of the generally understood problem of discourse and language:
namely, rhetoric. Here, first of all, I will be interested in some aspects of
metaphor, the central figure in countless texts (for many centuries) and
animated debates (for the last century) on questions of rhetoric. For the
moment, I will focus on the way m etaphor links the initial and the
resulting terms of the rhetorical operation (which is a deviation from the
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neutral linguistic code or "normal language,” "des expressions de vie et
des phrases” in Bataille’ s formulation), by similarity, parallelism,
analogy, equivalency and so forth. A more or less successful fusion of
two coherent semantic unities in m etaphor is made possible by their
partial overlapping. I take an example from Bataille’ s La Part maudite:
for an individual, the sexual act is "l'occasion d une soudaine et
frenetique dilapidation des ressources d'energie, portee en un moment a
l’ extreme du possible (dans le temps, ce que le tigre est dans l'espace) ”
(VII, 41; emphasis added). The initial term of metaphoric mediation:
coitus, the resulting term: tiger. A reduction to conventional lexical code
would be rather dubious, even in the presence of the initial term (a case
of metaphor in praesentia). specifications "in time . . . in space"
("corrected" metaphor) and even with the indication of the probable
transitional term: in Bataille's context of the general economy, focusing
on loss and expense, the main characteristics of the sexual act is the
"dilapidation des ressources d ’ energie." Uncertainty remains as to semic
overlapping: why is it that tiger represents in space a radical loss of
energy? Actually, an exact reading of the metaphor is made possible by a
paragraph on the previous page: from the primitive organic forms to
vegetation to ruminants to predators, the ratio of energy accumulated in
a life form, grows in inverse proportion to the surface area it occupies:
the same amount of energy is necessary for supporting, let us say, twenty
square yards of grass and one cow\ Therefore, tiger, the predator par
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excellence, by killing for instance this cow, wastes an amount of energy
that is enough for supporting "lower" forms of life on a vast territory. So,
the transitional term of metaphoric operation is confirmed: "tiger” and
"sexual act" intersect and have common semes of "concentrated expense
of energy.’ '^
The most general and fundamental of the coherent semantic
unities, strata, or isotopies of the linguistic universum are, in terms of
the linguists of the Belgian "Groupe n," Cosmos and Anthropos, which
are metaphorically mediated by means of the third one: Logos, text,
literature and so fo rth .!^ Thus, in the given example, the individual
performing the sexual act would be inscribed in the major isotopy
Anthropos, and the tiger in Cosmos. The isotopy of Logos is presented by
Bataille's theory of expenditure, or, more restrictively, by his text,
involving other texts: from this point of view, Bataille's reference to the
famous Tiger" by William Blake presents an additional interest h e r e .!3
Consequently, from a certain point of view, metaphor can be seen
as the means for an anthropomorphic reduction of the (not only
linguistic) universum. Numerous attacks were launched against
metaphor as a weapon of anthropomorphism, anthropocentrism and
even pananthropism (Robbe-Grillet)— in general, as a conservative
fo rc e .!4 However, as any proponent of the metaphor can claim in return,
the main function of the metaphor can be seen in a radically different
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perspective, as a revolutionary one, in a sense. But some additional
structural details are needed here.
In an overwhelming majority of cases, metaphor operates with
abstract, conceptual units, that is, with certain schemata formed in a
personal consciousness: e.g. the notion of expenditure in the given
example, or, in another of Bataille's formulations, "[l]a projection
objective de soi-meme," which, in the context of "heterogeneous reality,"
happens "k peu pres comme si le changement avait lieu non dans le
monde des objets, mais seulement dans les jugements du sujet" (V,137; I,
347). Certainly, these concepts are themselves formed under a certain
influence of "objective reality"; however, for now my point is that, in the
metaphoric operation, the schemata and patterns in question are
projected, and make possible a transition, from one semantic plane to
another (e.g. from Anthropos to Cosmos, or, more restrictively in the
given example, from individual sexual activity to violent death in the
animal existence). From the linguistic point of view, a parallel shift
occurs from one signifier to another (from "sexual act" to "tiger"). Or,
from a generalized point of view, in rhetorics, in a most simple case, a
shift occurs from the "zero level" of speech to the rhetorical one. In fact,
in a consistently conventional linguistic code, the same example might
include the indicated explanatory paragraph for Bataille’ s metaphor, and
continue something like this (without ellipses, used here for economy’ s
sake): "An approximate calculation of the amount of energy, necessary
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for sustaining life in a . . . shows th a t.. . Now, this amount is comparable
to . . . Especially interesting, in the context of the theory of expenditure,
general economy, and heterology in principle, is the concentration of .. .
in space and time.'' In fact, stricto sensu. we must view as metaphor
proper only the direct quotation from page 41 of Bataille's text (coitus =
tiger), whereas if one considers it alongside the explanatory passage from
page 40 (why tiger represents loss of energy), addionally oversimplified
by my paraphrase, the metaphor might be relegated to the status of an
explicit comparison with an insufficient for a metaphor deviation from
the conventional lexical code.
So, especially on the level of metasememes (tropes, particularly
m etaphor and metonymy), the "primary" linguistic reality is to a certain
extent replaced by a new one, personal and rhetorical-metalinguistic.
This is due to the fact that it is precisely on this level that semantic shifts
(shifts of meaning) primarily occur and thus the problem of signification
is directly touched u p o n . 15 The change affects both aspects of a sign, or,
roughly speaking, the "meaning" and the "form”: thus in the m etaphor
proper on page 41 of La part maudite the signifier "tiger" is linked not to
the signified "striped predator" but to "coitus." Since language, in
Benveniste's words, symbolizes "objective reality" (the referential plane),
a rhetorical operation involving a semantic shift might be called, in fact,
a secondary symbolization.16 In other words, on the rhetorical level of
language, "objective reality" can be thought of as re-presented and re-
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structured (Benveniste) in the second degree. From this point of view,
the metaphoric operation opens new, not yet fixated strata of reality due
to a new, potentially unprecedented fusion of several planes: referential,
conceptual and semiotic (the plane of signifiers).^ That is, as well as a
link domesticating the Other and reducing it to the Same (evolutionary,
if not conservative, function, "mimetic" in a sense), m etaphor can be
seen at the same time as a wav to the Other, awav from the Same
- *
(revolutionary function, "poetic" in a sense). Speaking of domestication,
one can say (again metaphorically) that for the new semantic content the
old signifier is only a "demeure empruntee" (Derrida, MB, 302).
Similarly, in Jakobson’ s seminal articles on poetics, 'Two aspects
of language and two types of aphasic disturbances" (often called "The
metaphoric and metonymic poles" [1956)) and "Linguistics and poetics"
(1958), metaphor acquires the status of the poetical figure par excellence,
since it realizes the principle of parallelism (equivalence, similarity,
analogy) projected from the axis of selection onto the axis of combination
(from paradigmatic axis onto syntagmatic, similarity superimposed on
contiguity and so forth). Furthermore, the poetic function is defined as
focusing on the message for its own sake, so that its essential feature is
nonreferentiality: "This function, by promoting the palpability of signs,
deepens the fundamental dichotomy of signs and objects" (MM, 37-38).
In terms of "Groupe fi," "[t]rouvant en lui-meme sa propre justification .
. . I’ intention poetique se manifeste par cette obliteration de la chose par
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229
le mot" (RG, 27). Such an obliteration of the thing, together with poetic
secondary symbolisation, which is metaphorical par excellence, would
seem to correspond perfectly to Bataille's objectives. An operation of
metaphorical symbolization, in its "revolutionary" heterological
function, differs radically from the process of naming as domestication
("vulgar signification"). It attains a heterogeneously Other strata and
tends to the sovereign principle of "la qualification insubordonnee," a
reflection of "le jeu qualificatif de la matiere universelle" (V, 319). Hence
Bataille's predilection for poetic over prose, in terms of the theory of
discourse; "La poesie semble au premier abord garder une grande valeur
en tant que methode de projection mentale (en ce qu elle permet
d ’ acceder a un monde entierement heterogene) (II, 62; emphasis added).
The explicit focus on the metaphorical structure is of primary
importance for me here.
There is no inherent limit to metaphoric transgression of the
"primary" linguistic code. However, such a limit is imposed by the
function of language as a means of communication: to understand, or
even to appreciate a m etaphor one must be able to read, that is, to
decipher it (reduction of a trope). Thus, an overextended metaphor may
be altogether lost to a reader’ s comprehension; this is the case of many
enigmatic poetic images, such as abound in Rimbaud's later works, that
continue to be reinterpreted by generations. Another example of
unmediated strata of discourse is the episode from Rabelais analysed by
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Bakhtin, in which Panurge, using only sign language, defeats the English
philosopher and scientist: afterwards it becomes clear that despite the
common signifiers (gestures) neither interpreted correctly a single
"word" (signified) of the opponent. In Bataille's theory, mediated
discourse pertains to minor communication, as in the already quoted
M [l]7psc et le tout se derobent I’ un et I'autre aux atteintes de I’ intelligence
discursive (qui asservit); les moyens termes seuls sont assimilables."
Nevertheless, for him, as we saw, even the sovereign must be said and,
to a certain extent, understood. In this context we may recall Bataille’ s
repeated criticism of surrealist poetry for distancing itself from "real life."
It is also characteristic that, in the Surrealist manifesto of 1924 for
example, Breton illustrates precisely with metaphors what he argues to
be the most successful realizations of poetic principle. Here we again
come across the extrinsic necessity of the glissement toward profane
signification in the overall trajectory of Bataille's dynamic theory of
discourse. There is also another, more intrinsic reason for this
degradation of the sovereign poetic function.
Language, discourse and furthermore poetry or any rhetorical
operation, deals with ready-made signs and constitutes, in Barthes’ s
term, a connotative system. However radical a rhetorical transformation,
however purely "formal" may seem the relation between the
conventional sign and the signifier of the resulting term of a trope, a
certain link remains with the "zero degree" of language, the nominal
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code. That is, strictly speaking, one cannot escape the chain of "vulgar
signification’; at the other extreme, ending with "discours endormi,"
words and concepts and humans are reified, turned into things. To
borrow an appropriate expression of Edgar Morin, a stock of reified— or,
in linguistic perspective, referentially bound— words constitutes a "pocket
cosmos" of our vocabulary ("cosmos de poche," qtd. in RG, 101). Despite
(or because of) its objective necessity, such a cosmos is radically opposed
to Bataille's unchained universe ("le tout").
And from yet another structural angle the poetic metaphor itself
loses its heterogeneous power. In opposition to the poetic principle,
Jakobson posits the prosaic one, with metonymy as its central rhetorical
fig u re . I® Metonymy pertains to the syntagmatic plane and connects
components of utterance "prosaically," through spatial contiguity. "The
principle of similarity underlies poetry; the metrical parallelism of lines,
or phonic equivalence of rhyming words prompts the question of
semantic similarity and contrast. . . Prose, on the conrary, is forwarded
essentially by contiguity. Thus, for poetry, metaphor, and for prose,
metonymy is the line of least resistance ..." (LP, 61). For me, the
following structural aspect is important: metonymical transformation
usually involves a replacement of some material whole or its part by
another. In other words, unlike metaphor operating with conceptual
units, metonymy generally operates with concrete substantial units, that
correspond to real objects or their parts. The frames of metonymic
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operation are defined by the transitional term that is also, in the
terminology of "Groupe y.," an always "deja-l&"-an already existing
substantial unity. Thus in a phrase "an example from Bataille,"
"Bataille" would metonymically stand for "a text written by Bataille"; the
transitional term would include Bataille himself, his life, work and texts:
in this englobing unity Bataille and his text are related by c o n tig u ity .1 9
"S'il est theoriquement possible de construire des metaphores
perceptuelles et des metonymies conceptuelles . . . il est de fait qu'on ne
les rencontre guere" (RP, 90). However, from a certain perspective, any
metaphor can be seen as always already inscribed in the global isotopy
Logos that metonymically englobes it along with all other
manifestations of discourse, thus related via a certain contiguity and
dependent on a "d6ja-lV an already existing unity (first of all in the
plane of signifiers) .
On a certain level, the division between the metaphoric and
metonymic principles seems to be unambiguous. Nevertheless, avoiding
a clear-cut binary opposition, leading linguists (Benveniste and Jakobson
among others) have underscored a certain relativity of the dichotomy in
question, starting probably with Saussure's remarks on the
interdependence of seemingly incompatible perspectives founded either
on the diachronic, paradigmatic or on the synchronic, syntagmatic
planes. (They did seem incompatible for the author of Marxism and the
Philosophy of Language). Thus, ”[i]n poetry where similarity is
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superimposed on contiguity, any metonymy is slightly metaphorical and
any metaphor has a metonymical tint" (LP, 49). And, from a structural
point of view, ”[t]out comme la metaphore peut tendre a la limite vers
une intersection nulle, la metonymie peut recourir a un ensemble
englobant infini. Les deux figures ainsi se rejoignent, sans justification
intrinseque ni extrinseque" (RG, 119). The same aspects of intersection,
mutual projection, and penetration of m etaphor and metonymy are in
the focus of discussions of such theorists as de Man, Riffaterre, and
Culler, to name only a few.20 The question is obviously much more
general and fundamental than just the relation of two rhetorical figures
and involves the problem of cognition (perception and conceptualizing)
as such. In Derrida's words, what is being put into question here is first
and foremost, 'Topposition du sensible et de 1 ’ intelligible" ("La
structure, le signe et le jeu," 413).21 Thus, the opposition of the
conventionally metaphoric and metonymic planes of perception and
expression, unambigously formulated by Jakobson, can probably be traced
at least to the ancient distinction of reality in the aspects of hvle and
eidos. Whereas in the contemporary context of the complementarity of
these two modes, a fact from Jakobson’ s biography is worth mentioning:
he valued very highly the years of working at MIT (1950’ s and 1960’ s)
and particularly his collaboration with Bohr, with whom he taught a
graduate seminar. Thus, parallels between Bohr's complementarity of
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particle and wave aspects of reality and Jakobson’ s theory are far from
fortuitous.
All these considerations are directly related to the problem of
discourse in the context of Bataille's heterology. In view of the problems
exposed above, the heterological potential of the metaphorical (poetical)
approach is not satisfactory for Bataille, as we may see from the
restrictions on poetry he sets in the previous quotations. To sum up its
shortcomings as a means for (un)knowing the Other: metaphor, poetry,
discourse must be read and have a meaning; at the same time, it must
not be domesticated by the infinite relay of signification chaining it to the
thing. Provisionally, and for obvious reasons~but only for the time
being-silence as solution to the problem may be put aside.
Bataille’ s way to attain the (im)possible Other on the philosophical
plane is indicated via his notion of glissement as resulting in a
"trickery.’ ’ As we remember, in this movement no final stabilization is
admitted: all definite reified entities, including the human individual
inasmuch as s/h e is a thing, are subject to ceaseless doubling,
alter(n)ation or ” mise en jeu" which is a "jeu de miroirs." Again, this is
not a faithful mimetic reflection tending toward a reproduction of the
same, but a subtle "jeu qualificatif de la matiere universelle" introducing
a "difference non logique qui represente par rapport a Yeconom ie de
l'univers ce que le crime represente par rapport a la loi” (I, 319). Thus,
the words, the signifiers remain the same: but these are simulacra, words
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sliding (glissant) to the bottomless depths— or heights— of the sovereign
RIEN.22 Bataille gives the following example of verbal glissement in-
between the substances of positive meaning: "Je ne donnerai qu'un
example de m ot glissant. Je dis m o t: ce peut etre aussi bien la phrase ou
Ton insere le mot, mais je me borne au mot silence. De mot il est d£ja, je
I'ai dit, l abolition du bruit qu'est le mot; entre tous les mots c'est le plus
pervers, ou le plus poetique; il est lui-meme gage de sa mort" (V, 28).
Here we have at least one more "meaning" of silence (in addition to the
immanent silence of the sovereign, indicated at the outset of this
chapter), which is unattainable to conventional discursive logic If we
speak about qualification, it is necessary to recall that not only "silence,"
but numerous other terms already discussed in these pages are
characterized by a "non-logical difference": among the major ones are
communication . rien. personne. and glissement itself. As often as not,
only nuanced qualifiers indicate the difference of such a term from the
"original" one, domesticated by the "sleeping discourse" (Hegelian par
excellence for Bataille): "minor," "major," "double," "degraded" and so
forth. Often— and we are left only to speculate how often— a correction of
"meaning" (analogous to rhetorical reduction) is left entirely to the
reader's discernment and responsibility. In this light Bataille's words
may be reevaluated : "L'apparente immobility d'un livre nous leurre:
chaque livre est aussi la somme des malentendus dont il est l'occasion"
(VI, 199-200).
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"Ce glissement est risque. Mais ainsi oriente, ce qu'il risque, c'est le
sens, et de perdre la souverainete dans la figure du discours. Risque, a
faire sens, de donner raison. A la raison. A la philosophic" (Derrida, EG
386). An answer to the question whether Bataille's texts make sense,
makes itself at least three senses. Of course, on one level, Bataille can be
interpreted in the "basic" sense of the conventional theoretical discourse,
since "cette parole de souverainete n'est pas un autre discours, une autre
chaine d£roulee a cdte du discours significatif. U n’ y a qu'un discours, il
est significatif et Hegel est id incontoumable" (383). Considering
glissement and trickery, however, another layer of "sense" may be
discerned, consdously and radically opposed to the "vulgar chain of
signification" and, still to use terms largely compromised in the present
context, inscribed not into the isotopy Logos, but into isotopy of
sovereignity. The stress in such a hetero-logical operation is still on the
logical part, albeit read with a reversed sign. The most important in the
(non)sense of irredudble heteros or radical Other is the third sense,
where, in Derrida’ s words, "[p]erdu pour le discours, le sens alors est
absolument d6truit et consume. Car le sens du sens, la dialectique des
sens et du sens, du sensible et du concept, 1 ’ unite de sens du mot sens, &
laquelle Hagel a ete si attentif, a toujours ete liee a la possibility de la
signification discursive" (ibid.). An im portant addition follows in
Derrida’ s text: "Le jeu mineur consist[e] a attribuer encore un sens, dans
le discours, a l'absence de sens.” As we remember, this was precisely
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237
what Bataille reproached Tzara with, and what differentiates the second
and the third of the proposed "senses" in Bataille. In other of Bataille's
terms, this division of "senses" is analogous to the relation between
"savoir," "non-savoir," and "non-non-savoir" (see previous chapter).23
Here I would like to pause on two expressions in the preceding
quotations. For Bataille, "silence," as an example of glissement. is the
word le plus pervers, ou le plus poetique; il est lui-m£me gage de sa
mort." Speaking about the same glissement. Derrida indicates the risk of
making sense and losing sovereignity "dans la figure du discours" (386).
We are back in the problematics of rhetoric. Or maybe not exactly rhetoric
as commonly understood, since a reader of Bataille as often as not does
not notice any deviation (shift) from the conventional lexical code—
whereas such a deviation is partly the raison d'etre for a traditional
rhetorical figure. In any case, "poetic" in Bataille's phrase obviously does
not mean "metaphorical" in the Jakobsonian sense, but maybe in a
different, indeed "perverse" sense. In fact, in the major perspective of
heterology, the main condition of rhetoricity on the semantic level is
satisfied in Bataille's "sliding discourse": that of the semantic shift
(change of meaning) deeply affecting the whole structure of the sign.
Thus, the "mutation de sens" leads to the "potlach des signes,” to use
Derrida's expressions (EG, 392, 403). Bataille himself speaks about it as a
L o gomachie or "le sacrifice ou les mots sont vie times": from the restricted
"desordre des mots" of conventional poetry, "ou elle n'a pas encore tout
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d£truit," a radical shift or even a leap (saut, discussed earlier) occurs as a
new poeisis with "la faculte particuliere au desordre des images
d'aneantir I’ ensemble de signes qu est la sphere de l'activite. . .. [U]ne
hecatombe des mots . . . est pour l'homme un moyen majeur d’ affirmer,
par une effusion denuee de sens, une souverainet£ sur laquelle,
apparemment, rien ne mord" (VH, 374; V, 156, 220).24
,rLe droit fondamental de l'homme est de ne rien signifier"; thus
the (im)possibility of the silence majeure is proclaimed (VI, 428).
However, for the moment I would like to focus on the phase of
transgression of conventional discourse, poeisis in general and its
rhetorics. Bataille sets his universal principle of insufficiency,
inadequateness, incompleteness in the "foundation" of representation
(VI, 295-96); the resulting glissement. involving the sovereign self-
sacrifice of ipse, subverts the very tripartite structure of the traditional
linguistic universum (Anthropos, Cosmos, Logos). Therefore, the
anthropomorphic aspect of the mediation between these isotopies
(conventionally metaphorical) loses its "standing ground": Bataille’ s
poeisis is characterised as an "anthropomorphisme dechire.” In fact, the
whole system of temporal and spatial coordinates collapses: the major
constituents of the global metaphor, Anthropos and Cosmos, instead of
being mediated in Logos, lose their identity in the new dimension of the
O ther "dans la fusion ne subsistent ni ['ipse ni le tout, c'est
l'aneantissement de tout ce qui n est pas l"inconnu' dernier, l’ abime ou
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l’ on a sombre" (V, 135). Traditional tropes are based on certain spatial
relations: intersection or contiguity; they may be "extended" and
"overextended" due either to insufficient semic intersection of the initial
and the resulting terms (in metaphor) or over-generalized transitional
term (in metonymy). (Thus 'le langage, assemblant la totality de ce qui
nous importe, en meme temps la disperse" [X, 268; emphasis added]).
Bataille's overcompressed "figures of discourse" open a new kind of
space (or, "[s]i l'on veut, le temps"): the structure of the sign implodes
into an abyss not of le n£ant but of R IFT M with its excessive squandering
of meaning(s) (V, 137). Ceaseless glissement does not allow for a final,
decisive decoding or establishing of a "true" meaning. In other words,
such a figure might be seen as essentially irreducible, although
in(de)finitely readable. Instead of naming and definition it presupposes
infinite "insubordinate qualification"; in the general economy of the
sacrificial "potlach des signes" and "hecatombe des mots": a gift without
possibility of return or full com pensation.^
By the same token, the dichotomy of m etaphor and metonymy
becomes effaced in Bataille’s condensed "figure of discourse." Among
other "things," trickery subverts the opposition of exteriority and
interiority. To continue a previously interrupted quotation, ”[l]a
communication etroite du langage a pour objet le soud des choses (nos
relations avec les choses), la part quelle exteriorise est d’ avance
exterieure (& moins que le langage ne soit pervers. comique, po£tique,
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6rotique... ou n'accompagne une demarche contagieuse) (V, 390;
emphasis added). In this contagious movement, glissem ent. the subject-
object dichotomy is eroded (at the limit erased) as well.
Je me repr^sente: un objet d'attrait,
la flamme
brillante et legfere
se consumant en elle-meme,
s'annihilant
et de cette faqon revelant le vide,
l’identit6 de L'attrait,
de ce qui enivre
et du vide;
Je me represente
le vide
identique a une flamme,
la suppression de I’ objet
r6v61ant la flamme
qui enivre
et illumine.
(VI, 80)26
Without going into a detailed interpretation, it is sufficient to indicate
difficulties for a traditional rhetorical analysis of this "thfcme de
meditation." On the plane of nouns (and names: nom Fr. = noun,
name), "je," "vide" and "flamme" are linked by complex interrelations
of "identity" and "attraction": both (or neither) metaphorical and (nor)
metonymical. On the plane of rema (verbs), antithetical (or synonymous)
"consumer," "annihiler" and "reveler," "iiluminer" further complicate
the situation. And, from beginning to end, the act of representation itself
is vertiginously equivocal, from the outset not giving to an interpretor
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any firm ground; 'Je me represente": does "je" represent itself as or
does "je" represent... to itself?; or both? And does it make a difference?
And so forth.27
At this point I would like to propose a reading of a brief "history"
of tropology implicitly contained in several pages from L’ exp&rience
interieure . Among the additional materials I would use is the
interpretation of Blake’ s "Tiger"--that we saw to be also in part Bataille’ s
”tiger"--by Wellek and Warren in "Image, Metaphor, Symbol, Myth" (in
their Theory of Literature. 1956). In their interpretation, Blake's poem
runs "counter to man's projection of himself into the non-human
world," summons up "the impersonal world of things"; finally "God, or
an aspect of God, is a Tiger" (205). Two moments are of interest to me
here: the anti-metaphorical inasmuch as it is an anti-anthropomorphical
reading, and the implicit equation of God and thing in the perspective
devoid of human p re se n c e .2 8 in view of the certain anti-rhetoridty, I
will conventionally assume Wellek and W arren’ s reading to be a "zero
degree" discourse in the course of the following. In Bataille's
metaphorical formation, the tiger represents a concentrated expenditure
of energy; coitus is "dans le temps, ce que le tigre est dans l'espace." The
already mentioned passage from the previous page of Bataille's text to
some extent subverts the relatively straightforward metaphorical status
of the primary qoutation; it is nevertheless overcompensated for by
additional tropical links:
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William Blake demandait au tigre: "En quels abimes, en quels
deux loin tains le feu de tes yeux s'est-il embrase?” Ce qui le
frappait de cette faqon etait la pression cruelle, le pouvoir de
consumation intense de la vie. Dans I’ effervescence generate de la
vie, le tigre est un point d'extreme incandescence. Et cette
incandescence, en effet s'est bien embrasee dans la profondeur
reculSe du del, dans la consumation du soleil.
I will focus only on the following. The tiger is the point of extreme
incandescence and thus metaphorically related to the "consumption of
the sun "--another point in space; and both are analogous to coitus, a
point of excess in time. In fact, just as in Blake's poem, the isotopy
Anthropos is not expressed explidtly: human coitus is only im plidt in
that of an ambiguous "individu” and "animal superieur"; the collapse of
the traditional tropical structure discussed earlier is already "initiated"
here. Nevertheless, in relation to Wellek and W arren's conventional
zero degree of rhetoridty, this is a trope that can be interpreted as a
tripartite metaphor. The point for me is that the tiger is a point of excess,
(as) is the sun, and that this point is external to the im plidt human
subject.
A phase of l'experience interieure consists in the "dramatic
projection" of the self or of the subject which acquires a similar form,
becomes the semblable .29 However, this traditionally metaphoric,
anthropomorphic image is at the same time seen in two other forms: it is
a point that behaves strangely sunlike : "Le point, devant moi, reduit a la
plus pauvre simplidte, est une personne. A chaque instant de
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l’ experience, ce point peut rayonner des bras, se mettre en flammes. . . .
Dans la projection du point, les mouvements interieurs ont le role de la
loupe concentrant la lumiere en un tres petit foyer incendiaire" (V, 138).
Projection here does not invoke unidirectionality: it is a movement "qui
ne va pas moins du dedans au dehors que du dehors au dedans."30
Precisely this moment of erosion of conventional forms and spatial
parameters ("[des] d£ja-la") in the "flux" of interior movements
(Bataille’ s phrase) marks the liberation from discours in the "experience
non discursive" (138-39).
In this phase the sun is indicated explicitly in conjunction with
another interesting tropical formation. I have already mentioned that
Bataille owned a series of five photographs of a tortured Chinese
prisoner. Speaking about one of them, Bataille describes the victim in
what seems to be a traditional metaphor: ”[Z]ebre de sang, beau comme
une guepe.’ ’ W ithout any technical complications, the prisoner would be
inscribed in the major isotopy Anthropos and the wasp in Cosmos. The
isotopv of Logos is presented by Bataille’ s text, or, more restrictively, by
Timage photographique— ou . . . le souvenir que j'en ai." Self-projection
of the writer into the image of the tortured prisoner is more than just
implicit in the context.
More than one moment deserves attention here. First of all, the
metaphor "zebre de sang, beau comme une guepe" is only deceptively
simple. On the one hand, the semic intersection between "wasp" and
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"prisoner" in "beauty" makes figure (1) ("prisoner beautiful like a wasp")
a trivial comparison ("'x' is beautiful like ’ y"’ is arguably the tritest figure
in the history of human speech). On the other hand, however, an
uncertainty remains: why are both prisoner and wasp beautfui? Next,
"zebre” "corrects" the metaphor (1), but not by elaborating on the
semantic field ''beauty.” In fact, "zebre" establishes a new link between
the prisoner and the wasp by focusing on their stripes. Thus, instead of
"correcting" metaphor (1), "zebre" furtively subverts it in favor of
metaphor (2): "prisonier z£bre comme une guepe." In fact, we may say
that only "zebre" (itself an implicit comparison or metaphoric formation
(3): "prisoner striped as a zebra") makes metaphor (2) a metaphor proper:
a simple "prisoner striped as a wasp," analogous to (3), would be a
canonical comparison without a sufficient rhetorical deviation from the
conventional lexical code. And, finally, the initial ambiguity remains
unsolved, and the question "why the prisoner and the wasp are
beautiful?" receives no other answer but the implicit: because they are
covered with stripes. Having started with "zebre" and ended with the
"guepe," the whole formation (re)coils onto itself: the sacramental
"beauty" is only an insertion between the dark stripes.
Moreover, (2) presents a rather rare case of perceptual or visual
metaphor in discourse. In the already dted formula, ”[s]*il est
theoretiquement possible de construire des metaphores perceptuelles et
des metonymies conceptuelles .. . il est de fait qu’ on ne les rencontre
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245
guere" (RP, 90). In fact, such a metaphor "has a metonymical tint"
(Jakobson), since the transition between the initial and resulting terms
proceeds via the englobing substantial, "referential" whole (”un d£ja-
la"): stripes. In other words, the semic intersection between "wasp" and
"prisoner" (and "zebra") occurs not in an abstract concept ("beauty") but
in the visually concrete "stripes," be this notion extended to all the
stripes in the w o r ld .31 (Speaking of which, the stripes of the tiger are not
to be lost from view, either.) So that "ce type de metaphore pourrait bien
n etre que la transposition linguistique de la metaphore picturale ou
plastique, que nous rencontrerions en g£neralisant la rh^torique aux
autres arts" (RG, 109). And again the erosion of structural limits and
borderlines is in play: those between metaphor and metonymy, the
discursive and the visual, the subject and the object.
Overall, the analyzed here rhetorical figure is an appropriate
illustration of the power of the corrected metaphor; in the words of the
"Groupe fi," "[ajinsi se precise le jeu de la metaphore corrigee: faire
eclater le reel, creer un choc en extrayant une contradiction d’ une
identite" (RG, 111). Bataille speaks about the ex- or implosion of the
traditional reality in strikingly similar terms.32
But I continue with the metaphor of the sun. The reference to the
photograph ends thus: "J’ ecris 'beau'!... quelque chose m'6chappe, me
fuit, la peur me derobe a moi-meme et, comme si j'avais voulu fixer le
soleil, mes veux glissent” (139).
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The sun is the referent (in the plane of the sensible), arguably the
most charged with connotations in human mentality (in the plane of
intelligible). For millenia, in traditional "heliotropic metaphors,'' the
sun is Logos, the center of absolute presence, shedding the light of
discursive knowlege. Just like sunlight, the sun's circular trajectory
pertains at the same time to the natural, sensible plane, and to the logical
or speculative one; thus, for instance in Hegel, ” [l]e tour du soleil
s'interprete alors comme cercle speculaire, retour a soi sans perte de sens,
sans depense irreversible" (cf. Derrida MB, 320 et passim). The same
circular figure forms a paradigm for, and is tropically connected with, the
shapes and trajectories of the oval, ellipsis, eye, egg and so forth (in this
context, Derrida refers to Bachelard's analogies [MB, 310-11]).
Of course, Bataille's attitude in relation to the traditional image of
the sun comes to mind right away. A number of authors have written on
related ambiguous and "perverse" images in Bataille’ s texts (we can
understand "perverse” literally as well as strategically, in the sense of
subversion of the "sleeping discourse"). Eye: simply blind or the gouged
out eye of a torero; egg or testicle (same word in a number of languages
and slangs): regular hen’ s egg or teste of the castrated bull (another of the
sun's impersonations), and so forth. From the (anti)rhetorical point of
view, it is characteristic that these images establish complex links in
Bataille’ s texts, where it is often not clear at all whether to describe them
as metaphorical or metonymical formations: thus, sun, egg, testis, eye are
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all related in many (im)possible ways in the famous "LTustoire de
I'oeil.”
Following the circular trajectory, heliotropic metaphors do not shy
away from the sunset.
T ransports dans le champ philosophique, une telle metaphore
n'y retrouverait-elle pas toujours, par destination, le m£me? la
meme physis, le me me sens (sens de I'etre comme presence ou, ce
qui revient au meme, comme presence / absence), le meme cerde,
le meme feu de la meme lumifcre se montrant / se couchant, le
meme tour de soleil? . . . Le discours philosophique— en tant que
tel-decrit une metaphore qui se deplace et se resorbe entre deux
soleils. Cette fin de la metaphore n ’ est pas interpretee comme une
mort ou une dislocation, mais comme une anamn&se
interiorisante {Erinnerung), une recollection du sens, une relive
de la m etaphoridte vivante dans une propriete vivante. Desir
philosophique— irrepressible--de r6sumer-int6rioriser-dialectiser-
maitriser l'ecart metaphorique entre I’ origine et eUe-mdme . . .
(Derrida, MB, 317,321).
At the "nighttime” between two suns, the "light of knowledge"
nevertheless enlightens the philosopher who sees the truth by it. To
some extent analogically, in a phase of the trajectory of Bataille's
experience— or of the trajectory of his dynamic rhetorical m odel-a certain
kind of vision perseveres in the night of non-savoir : "ce sont des yeux
qui recherchent le point, ou du moins, dans cette operation, l'existence
spectatrice se condense dans les yeux. Ce caractfere ne cesse pas si la nuit
tombe" (144). In the ever accelerating glissement. neither day nor night is
excluded: light and darkness alternate like the black and light stripes of
the tiger, zebra, wasp, or blood (black on Bataille's photos) on the skin of
the tortured prisoner. Speaking about Bataille's "night" in the already
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248
mentioned polemics, Sartre invokes Hegel: "C'est que M. Bataille oublie
qu’ il a construit de ses mains un objet universel: la Nuit. Et c’ est le
moment d'appliquer a notre auteur ce que Hegel disait de I’ absolu
schellingien: 'La nuit, toutes les «vaches sont noires.»* II parait que cet
abandon a la nuit est ravissant" ("Reponse a Jean-Paul Sartre ” : VI, 198; I
will return below to this "ravissant"). Sartre’ s doubts have very
reasonable grounds inasmuch as this night is only "l’ absence de la
lumiere," or a reflection of the provisional night between sunset and
sunrise, when the familiar cows can still be seen, be it in black. But here a
certain assymetry between the night of philosophy, from which the Sun
rises again in its diurnal glory, and the night of the non-savoir has
already been introduced, an assymetry of a not exactly mimetic mirror:
II fallut que l'objet contemple fasse de moi ce miroir alt£re d'eclat.
que j’ £tais devenu pour que la nuit s’ offre enfin a ma soif. Si je
n’ etais pas alle vers ELLE comme les yeux vont a l’ objet de leur
am our,. . . ELLE ne serait que l absence de la lumiere. Tandis que
mon regard exorbite LA trouve, s’ y abime . . . (145; emphasis
added).
It is precisely in this, initially barely perceptible asymmetry, in the
mimicking of the mimesis, of rhetorics, of metaphor that the major
glissement occurs in Bataille’ s anti-philosophy: "La reinterpretation est
une repetition simulee du discours hegelien. Au cours de cette
repetition, un deplacement a peine perceptible disjoint toutes les
articulations et entame toutes les soudures du discours imite. L rn
tremblement se propage qui fait aiors craquer toute la vielle cogue"
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(Derrida, EG 382; emphasis added). Of course, the image of the egg-shell is
not fortuitous in the present context.
Thus, miming absolute knowledge, Bataille's tropism seems to
follow a similar trajectory; only, instead of a temporary sunset, it
gradually slides to a very different kind of a night. Here a qualitatively
different vision is needed: a night vision of the tiger who kills a cow, for
instance, the proverbial philosopher’ s cow, rum inatm g-let us say, on a
discursive chain of the "discours endormi."
In a paragraph, profusely commented on in the field of Bataille
studies, Bataille speaks (metaphorically) about the blind spot of
knowledge: "une tache aveugie: qui rappelle la structure de l'oeil" (V,
129). Insignificant from the perspective of the practical,
dans la mesure ou Ton envisage dans l'entendement l’ homme
lui-meme, je veux dire une exploration du possible de I'Stre, la
tache absorbe ('attention: ce n est plus la tache qui se perd dans la
connaissance, mais la connaissance en elle. L'existence de cette
faqon ferme le cercle. mais elle ne l'a pu sans inclure la nuit d ’ ou
elle ne sort que pour y rentrer. Comme elle allait de I'inconnu au
connu, il lui faut s’ inverser au sommet et revenir & I’ inconnu.
(emphasis added)
Such a blind spot is also a point: a point (only) formally inscribed in the
elliptical contour of the eye, a point of not seeing (in) the light of
knowledge. This is a kind of blindness (but is it one?) that is not
explained by structural reasons and, for example, can be caused by tearing
out the eye, or by looking at the "sun"--as does the narrator in
L'experience interieure , describing the photograph of a tortured man. Of
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course, the sun here is the Other sun~that of cosmic excess and sacrifice,
the one that fired the incandescence of Blake's and Bataille's tiger. In yet
another text Bataille thus speaks about Blake and the ’ Tiger": "Jamais les
yeux plus grands ouverts n'ont fixe le soleil de la cruaute" (LM, 108).
And, moreover, in this night, caused not by the absence but by the excess
of the sun, the whole metaphorical (tropical) structure of discourse,
including the fundamental subject - object and or Anthropos - Cosmos
oppositions, collapses:
A contempler la nuit, je ne vois rien . . . Je puis m'imaginer un
paysage de terreur, sublime, la terre ouverte en volcan, le del
empli de feu, ou toute autre vision pouvant "ravir" l’ esprit;. . . la
nuit surpasse ce possible limite et pourtant ELLE n’ est rien, il n’ est
rien de sensible en ELLE, pas meme a la fin l'obscurite. En ELLE
tout s’ efface, mais, exorbite, je traverse une profondeur vide et la
profondeur vide me traverse, moi. En ELLE, je communique avec
['"inconnu" oppose 'a ['ipse que je suis; je deviens ipse, a moi-
meme inconnu, deux termes se confondent en un meme
dechirement, different a peine d ’ un vide— ne pouvant par rien que
je puisse saisir s en distinguer— en differant neanmoins plus que le
monde aux mille couleurs. (145; emphasis added)
From the perspective of trickery, of mimicking the mimesis, global
demetaphorization does not mean a return to the zero degree of
rhetoridty, like the one adm itted earlier, and conventionally, in Wellek
and W arren’ s brief reading of the Tiger." (In fact, given the perfect
circularity of the sign "zero," vve may perhaps reevaluate the "zero
degree" of speech as not just innocently "normal” and "neutral”).
Bataille's conception of tropes and of discourse in general describes the
whole circular trajectory; nevertheless it does not come to the Same (God
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251
or the sun). Instead, this is the death of metaphor that Derrida speaks
about: "la figure meme de ce qui double et menace la philosophic: ces
deux mots se repetent et se simulent 1 ’ une I'autre dans 1 'heliotrope.
Heliotrope de Platon ou de Hegel d'une part, heliotrope de Nietzsche ou
de Bataille d'autre part, pour se servir id d'abbr£viations
metonymiques" (MB, 324).
Now it is time to recall again the three possible modes of
understanding the Other, proposed earlier: the Other in relation to "me";
the T as Other; part of me as the Other. In the final analysis, these
configurations were based on the opposition external - internal;
accordingly, in the indicated global collapse of the fundamental system of
coordinates, they lose their pertinence as well. As does the dialogue
between the "I" and the "Other," since "I'un et I'autre ont perdu
I'existence distincte. . . . le sujet n’ est plus la, son interrogation n'a plus
de sens ni de prindpe qui l'introduise. De meme aucune reponse ne
demeure possible" (V, 7 4).33
When Sartre attacked Bataille's discursive theory and practice, he
was schematically correct: "C'est a regret, d'ailleurs, que M. Bataille use
du discours. II le hait et, a travers lui, le langage tout entier" ("Un
nouveau mystique," 146). This is correct, however, only as long as one
does not take into account the "mutation of meaning" in Bataille's anti-
rhetorical tropism, where "discourse" (and language) is altogether
equivocal. Not only is the modified triad of the basic isotopies Anthropos
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- Cosmos - Logos compressed in Bataille's texts into the dimension of
discourse: w riting/reading/text, but the de-structunng continues to slide
further into a hardly fathomable ambiguity .34 if the subject is, first of all,
the consciousness of the Other, the Other is ”[l]e tiers, le compagnon, le
lecteur qui m’ agit, c'est le discours. Ou encore: le lecteur est discours,
c’ est lui qui parle en moi, qui maintient en moi le discours vivant a son
adresse. Et sans doute, le discours est projet, mais il est davantage encore
cet a u tr e , le lecteur ..." (75) .35
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NOTES
1 Thus, heterogeneity in this phase does not go against the grain of
"activity and positivity," which, in a certain sense, it does on a different
plane (see previous chapter). These lines were written in the period
(mid-30s) when Bataille was actively politically involved; in die same
years he criticizes Tzara's poetry which "se r£vele incapable de modifier
le cours d ’ aucune existence . . . La rupture avec la vie dans son ensemble
n'est encore, si seduisante qu elle soit, que l'aboutissement des tendances
appauvrissantes de la poesie mallarmgenne . . . gtant incapable de
realiser une liaison de la poesie avec la vie" (I, 325). See also the
following discussion.
2 Cf.: "La 'communication' n'est pas un etre: elle n’ est pas exprimable en
termes de choses. La conception d ’ un objet sacrS trahit cette impuissance
du langage" (VI, 385).
3 Cf. "cet o b jet. . . que j'appelle I’ inconnu et qui n’ est distinct du neant
par rien que le discours puisse enoncer" (V, 133).
4 In the same sense, "seul un recours aux formulations du langage
permet la position du problfeme" (VHI, 477). For "connaissance
discursive" linked to "projet,","utile," and "action" see, e.g. I, 527; V, 124;
VI, 290 et passim.
^ Cf.: "Sur le plan du moment souverain le langage trouble tout ce qu’ il
touche, il I'altfere, le corrompt, I’ entache d un proc£d€ qui ne convient
qu'aux operations vulgaires, comme de raboter une planche ou de
labourer un champ" (VTII, 207).
6 Of course, as usual, the same thought can be found in the conjunction
of discourse with the economic: "C'est que la souverainete, la valeur
souveraine-que le langage lui-meme exige, puisque toujours il remonte,
dans l'enchainement des moyens et des fins, un peu plus haut— toutefois
jamais n'est donnee sans ambigul te dans ce langage meme qui l’ exige. En
effet, le langage a beau nous dire que le moyen postule une fin, il doit,
sitot cette fin enoncee, repondre encore a la question: & quoi sert-elle?,
qui, de quelque maniere, et comme une menace, reste suspendue, quelle
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254
qu'elle soit, sur la cause finale. Le langage implique bien la necessite de
fins, par rapport auxquelles il definit les moyens, mais il ne peut isoler
une fin et en dire, decid£ment, qu’ elle ne sert a rien: il ne peut eviter de
l'inserer dans un cercle sans fin de propositions ou jamais il n'y a de
sommet, ou jamais rien ne s’ arrete, ou rien ne se perd" (La
Souverainete : VIII, 354; emphasis added).
7 Thus, dialogue is immanent to the "I" level of existence: "je'-the
avatar of being, most removed of the sovereign, not the same as ipse or
soi. "Mais, en meme temps que par cette fuite [dans le labyrinthe
brumeux forme par la m ultitude des ’ connaissances’ avec lesquelles
peuvent etre echangees des expressions de vie et des phrases] U echappe a
I'angoisse d 'e tre — autonom e et isole dans la nuit— un homme est rejete
dans l'insuffisance . . . (I, 438; emphsis added). This insufficiency should
be seen as a minor one in relation to the insufficiency indicated in
chapters HI and IV (the insufficiency of the "victorious" ipse or the
general principle of insuffidency-another side of the unsubsiding revolt
or alternation).
8 This mimetic "d£doublement," taking place on minor plane of
existence and communication, is not of the same order as the major
"d£doublement [la mise en question]" which occurs in the process of
alternation.
9 Cf. also chapter II for Bataille's position in the question of
anthropom orphism .
10 Of course, only certain characteristics of dialogue were underscored
here; some different aspects of it will be considered further on.
11 Cf. aggression and the theme of predator in both Nietzsche and Freud.
1^ Cosmos versus Anthropos is the "opposition fondamentale de
1'univers semantique immanent." Although its exclusion is possible, for
example "[l]a mediation operee entre une isotopie animale et une
isotopie vegetale ne nous interesse que mediocrement" (RP, 105-106). In
the previous and following textual analysis I use, among other sources
and in a rather simplified way, structural approach and methodology
developed by "Groupe fi" in their Rhetorique generate (1970) and
Rhetorique de la poesie (1977). For major aspects of the philosophical
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dimension in the problematics of metaphor, see Derrida's "La
mythologie blanche: la metaphore dans le texte philosophique" (1971) in
Marges de la philosophic (1972).
I will cite Bataille's reference later on.
1^ Cf. Genette on ideological metaphorocentrisme (in "La rhetorique
restreinte," Communications . 1970:16).
15 Or, the problem of "la signification de la signification" (RG, 91).
16 i U se "symbol" here in a general— but also restrictive-sense, as it is
used by Benveniste in Problfemes de linguistique g£nerale (Paris:
Gallimard, 1967). Problems of the theory of symbol or different aspects of
relation sign-symbol (e.g. as developed, respectively, by Vig£e, Lacan and
Barthes) remain beyond the scope of this study.
17 In a purely speculative epistemological sense, the origin of all
thought can be seen as metaphorical: following the rupture of the
hypothetical proto-unity of the referent-signified-signifier, the
"beginning" of perception and conception by an "interpretor" (Peirce's
term) is essentially of a metaphorical character. The following
observation can be seen as a complement to this speculation: reduction
of rhetorical figures by an interpretor first consists in metaphoric
(analytically-abstract) operations; only in case of failure does (s)he reverse
to connotative, metonymical procedures (RG, 119; on metonymy see
further in the main text). Jakobson also observed that "when
constructing a metalanguage to interpret tropes, the researcher possesses
more homogeneous means to handle metaphor, whereas metonymy,
based on a different principle, easily defies interpretation" (MM, 60). In
Hegel, the value-sequence metaphor - metonymy is reversed: see
Derrida’ s "La mythologie blanche," 268-69.
1 ® Various corrections and objections have been proposed to Jakobson's
theory' (e.g., by Genette and "Groupe ji"). For instance, in some of his
examples he mispresented synecdoche— a figure in itself and the
structural forming element of metaphor— as metonymy. This does not
affect the point in question.
19 Cf. example on Julius Cesar in Rhetorique generate . 118.
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20 Of course, discursive practice was obviously "in advance of' theory;
wre might think here of some French poets of the late 19th~early 20th
century and particularly of Mallarm£ (if we use the temporal chronology
which is also put in question here: cf., the earlier discussion of time-as-
catastrophe).
21 In the context of the present study, it is characteristic that Derrida sees
this opposition as Hegelian par excellence (cf. MB, 269).
22 The "simulacre" is used extensively by Derrida in his "De l'economie
restreinte k l'economie g£n£rale." Major points in the following
discussion are the result of much thought, reading of the primary
sources and preparation on my part. So that I feel even more encouraged,
realizing how close some of them came to Derrida's formulations. I
believe that to distort my reading of Bataille on the pretext of coming too
close to Derrida would be a false modesty. Of course, notwithstanding
such convergences, I am happy to acknowledge my debt to Derrida’ s
seminal reading of Bataille.
23 So that, due to the polysemy of "sens" in French (as in English), a
certain contextualization is required for the remark made in the
previous chapter on the difference between Bataille’ s position and the
"ddr&glement de tous les sens” a la Rimbaud. For Bakhtin such a
specification is not needed, since there is no etymological relation
between the two "senses" in Russian.
24 It is appropriate to recall here that ”[c]e saut peut etre la poesie, mais la
poesie qui pretend le faire, k partir du moment ou elle se juge, a partir du
moment ou elle aperqoit le saut qui doit etre fait, et ou elle n’ a pas encore
tout d£truit, la poesie est aussi l’ impuissance de la poesie” (Conferences
1947-1948: VII, 374).
25 Again (see above, Mote 19), concentration of the distended tropes (as
generally understood) into the space of the text is a very noticeable
tendency, e.g. in Baudelaire and postbaudelairian poetry and prose. I
believe however, that Bataille's thought opens a qualitatively new
dimension in this respect.
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257
26 This short text was picked purely at random, being found in a volume
of theoretical works by Bataille.
27 Grammatical ambiguity, inherent in similar constructions with
pronominal verbs in French, is reinforced by the difference in
punctuation (column versus absence of punctuation) and spatial
structuring (breaking of the line) of the otherwise identical syntagmes at
the beginning of the two parts.
28 in fact, the equation Tiger = God proposed by Wellek and Warren as
an example of "dehumanizing" metaphor, in my view is debunked by
the poem itself; in brief, the problematics of the ’ Tiger" is rather that of
the "auto-reflective" relation of creation - creator (God as well as the
artist): "What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?"
29 Cf. Aristotle: "Bien faire des metaphores, c'est bien voir le semblable,”
quoted in Derrida's "La mythologie blanche," 282.
30 So that, on the other hand-but by the same token— the sun itself is the
center of the excessive (self-destructive) emission: ”[L]e rayonnement du
soleil est l'incessante projection dans l'espace d une partie de sa
substance, sous la forme de chaleur et de lumi&re (l'£nergie ainsi
prodiguee procederait d'une destruction intSrieure de sa substance)."
(VH, 187-88)
31 Following the structural approach of the "Groupe fi," the quasi
abstract notion of "stripeness" still would not qualify as the true abstract
concept (e.g., "beauty”). On the other hand, here we deal precisely with
the erosion of such clear-cut oppositions as metaphor - metonymy or
abstract - concrete, intelligible - conceptual and so forth.
32 Thus, in a passage linking heterology to the unconscious, Bataille
underscores the collapse of the traditional oppositions subject - object
and metaphor - metonymy:
La realite heterogene est celle de la force ou du choc . . . passant
d'un objet a I'autre d ’ une faqon plus ou moins arbitraire, h peu
pres comme si le changement avait lieu non dans le monde des
objets, mais seulement dans les jugements du sujet. Ce dernier
aspect ne signifie pas cependant que les faits observes doivent etre
regardes comme subjectifs . . . Toutefois, d'une faqon
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deconcertante, le sujet a la possibility de d£placer la valeur
exdtante d'un element sur un autre analogue ou voisin . Dans la
r^alite hyterogene . . . la partie peut avoir la meme valeur que le
tout. [L]a structure de connaissance . . . d'une ryalite hetyrogene en
tant qu elle se retrouve dans la pensye mystique des primitifs et
dans les reprysentations du reve . . . est identique a la structure de
I'inconscient (1 / 347; emphasis added).
The emphasized segments actually present very precise formulations of
the metaphoric and metonymic modes of operation: here, in the
dimension of heterology, they are not contained by the conventional
frames of binary opposition (cf. "analogue ou voisin" alongside each
other).
33 it seems likely, that this is the "ravissement" Sartre, in his
interpretation of L'experience intyrieure . was referring to as an instance
of the ultimate Meinung for Bataille; if this is the case, and in view of
Bataille's context, the allusion seems to miss the point.
34 Speaking of the multidimensionality or ambiguity of Bataille’ s
glissement and de-structuring, after analysing the textual metaphor, the
next step— to the visual then to the audial m etaphor— is very tempting.
"Je parle du discours qui entre dans la nuit et que la clarty meme acheve
de plonger dans la nuit (la nuit-c’ est le silence dyfinitif)" (VIII, 403). Of
course, Bataille's silence is not less evocative than "blindness," especially
since "cri” in his texts relates to the sun and to the "blind vision." The
considerations of the main subject of this study, as well as of space (and
time), however, impose necessary restrictions.
35 Little indeed is left here of "hate"or, for that matter, of the (traditional)
authorial function: however, neither is primacy given to the discourse or
text, in the Foucauldian sense.
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Chapter VI
Bakhtin. The Last Answers: Dialogue
The aspects of Bakhtin’ s heterology that were previously
interpreted in this study: carnival (laughter), history (time and space),
economy (appropriation versus expenditure) are all related to the central
notion of his world outlook: dialogism. Dialogism, despite its widespread
ramifications, is rooted in Bakhtin’ s theory of discourse which is thus
rightly considered to be the nucleus of his positions in the fields of
philosophy, aesthetics, and history. Accordingly, the relation with the
Other— the underlying aspect of dialogism— will be the focus of this
chapter.
Dialogism by definition presupposes some kind of
communication, verbal par excellence, with another interlocutor. In
Bakhtin’ s works, dialogue manifests itself, depending on the level of
complexity and on the area of implementation (e.g. literary discourse
proper vs. history), in a synonymous chain: double- and polyvoicedness
(MHOroroJIOCOCTfe), polvglossia (MHOrOfl3inme), heteroglossia in
additionally varying aspects (pa3HOpeMie, pa3H0r0JI0C0CTb,
pa3H 033B T m e), polyphony, hybridization and so forth. The limits of
dialogism are posed: on one hand it is "the mutual nonunderstanding
represented by people zvho speak in different languages' (DI, 356). This
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limit is considered to be only a provisional one, in view of the general
ability of, and the m odem world tendency to, learning other languages.
On the other hand, there is another limit that is altogether more
important and indicated in opposition to the very principle of dialogism:
this is the word removed from live communication--the monological,
and first of all, the authoritative w ord. (To avoid cumbersome
commentaries, it is worth indicating from the beginning that for
Bakhtin, as is generally the case in Russian, "word" can also mean
"speech,” "discourse" and even "language," depending on the context,
although more exact equivalents for all these notions exist as well.) The
dialogical svnonvms of the indicated chain have their antonvms in
monologue, homology, one-voicedness and so forth. The boundaries for
Bakhtin’ s dialogism are similar to the limits set for the discursive range
in Bataille’ s conception (see previous chapter).
The immediate implication of this premise is the whole system of
subsequent oppositions operative in Bakhtin’ s conception: the
interactive essence of the dialogical word is opposed to a static word of
the language understood as a stable structure (Saussurean "langage ” ) and
the social dimension of dialogue to individualistic tendencies. In
Bakhtin’ s theory of literary genres, individual is the main characteristic
of poetry which opposes it to the dialogical genre par excellence, the
novel (DI, 264, 329 et passim). In fact, the poetic and the novelistic
become representative of the forces underlying all social, linguistic, and
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literary phenomena: "At the time when major divisions of the poetic
genres were developing under the influence of the unifying,
centralizing, centripetal forces of verbal-ideological life, the novel~and
those artistic-prose genres that gravitate toward it-w as being historically
shaped by the current of decentralizing, centrifugal forces" (272-73). Thus,
poetry is essentially "single-voiced," unlike the "authentic double
voicedness" of the novel. (A juxtaposition with Bataille’ s predilection— if
any— for poetry invites itself at this point.) Furthermore, poetry operates
with what Bakhtin calls "direct word" that "acknowledges only itself
(that is, only its own context), its own object, its own direct expression
and its own unitary and singular language" (276). In turn, this
[ujnitary language constitutes the theoretical expression of the
historical processes of linguistic unification and centralization, an
expression of the centripetal forces of language. A unitary
language is not something given [dan] but is always in essence
posited [zadan\-and at every moment of its linguistic life it is
opposed to the realities of the heteroglossia. (270)
In the final instance, and paradoxically, given the individual basis of
poetry, its idiom is equated with the "common unitary language [that] is
a system of linguistic norms" (emphasis added). (In the following
analysis I will try to show that germs of major inherent contradictions in
Bakhtin s theory are contained in this coinddentia oppositorum ). On the
other hand, the true dialogized, novelistic word is seen as a meta-word
(metalanguage) or else as the "image of language, the image of the direct
word" (59). Reality itself, primarily in its linguistic and ideological
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aspects, becomes an "immense novel,” a "mirror of constantly evolving
heteroglossia [where] any direct word and especially that of the dominant
discourse is reflected as something more or less bounded . . . aging, dying,
ripe for change and renewal" (60).I
The tropical essence of Bakhtin's dialogical meta-discourse thus
seems to be indicated unambiguously; the very "dialogical quality of
discourse" is "revealed with great external precision in rhetorical forms .
.." (269). In fact, Bakhtin formulates the function of art in general, and
literature in particular, as essentially congruous to metaphorical
function: art "humanizes nature and naturalizes man" (AA, 279). The
postulate of a monological poetic discourse requires, however, that one
draws a line between the undeniable— but limited, in Bakhtin's view -
poetic tropicity and the "true" dialogical tropicity of the novel: for
instance, its "authentic metaphors" (cf. DI, 297-98, 326, 329-30) % This
distinction is not unproblematic and seems to depend mainly on the
level of representation. Thus, in Bakhtin’ s example from Pushkin, a
character’ s speech is defined as poetical and monological, but when read
in the context of Pushkin's "novel in verse" (Eugine Onegine 1 it becomes
dialogical. I will return to the fundamental importance of the authorial
point of viewr for the concept of dialogism.
To the reader of Bakhtin's Rabelais. the formula of the "dominant
discourse . .. aging, dying, ripe for change and renewal" does not look
unfamiliar; it is precisely in opposition to this "old" domination that the
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parodic-travestying forms, characteristic of the "laughing culture," called
to life the heterogeneous "other," the (proto-)novelistic discourse. "They
liberated the object from the power of language in which it had become
entangled as if in a net; they destroyed the homogenizing power of myth
over language; they freed consciousness from the power of the direct
word, destroyed the thick walls that had imprisoned consciousness
within its own discourse, within its own language" (DI, 60).
So, the direct, individual, poetic word is formally and essentially
completed or finalized (3aBepmeHO), whereas the dialogized,
camivalistic, novelistic word is always open to heteroglot operation and
is never finalized. Thus,
[tlhe catharsis that finalizes Dostoevsky’ s novels might be . . .
expressed in this way: nothing conclusive has yet taken place in
the world, the ultimate word of the world and about the world has
not yet been spoken, the world is open and free, everything is still
in the future and will always be in the future.
But this is, after all, also the purifying sense of ambivalent
laughter. (PDP, 166)
In fact, the opposition between the always contextual dialogized word
and the opaque, finalized word leads Bakhtin to the implicit and
sometimes explicit valuation of speech and utterance in live form over
the written— and thus, in a certain sense, finalized— text (DI, 252-53;
Aestetika. 318,385; Marxism and the Philosophy of Language passim).
Such are some of the constitutive parameters of dialogism. Before
I continue by looking at how the concept of dialogism, and consequently
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the concept of the Other, functions in the model of the "carnival culture"
and "ambivalent laughter," a methodological observation is needed.
Bakhtin's basic study of "carnival culture," Rabelais and His World . is
carefully written in such a way that most of the issues of a generalizing
theoretical order might be read as referring only to the specific subject
under investigation: to the laughing culture of the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance. It is highly probable that this, somewhat "Aesopian,"
manner was necessitated by the historical conditions under which
Bakhtin created this text. At the same time, the sweeping personal pathos
is undeniable, and some ideological and philosophical extrapolations are
impossible to neglect.^ Most interpreters of Bakhtin's text rightly take for
granted the legitimacy of analyzing it as a theoretical statement dealing
with actuality as well as with literary history. This legitimacy becomes all
the more obvious, since most of the theoretical issues from Rabelais are
further deployed in the other two books of the "canonical Bakhtin":
Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics and The Dialogical Imagination . In this
vein, Paul de Man, speaking about the subject of fiction and meta-fiction
in Bakhtin's case, noted: "The dialogism of a revolutionary community
reconciles fact and fiction ...: the freedom that is being celebrated is not
utopian, yet it is not actualized in the immediacy of the textual
invention. It is projected in a metatextual future as the prolepsis of a no
longer fictional freedom” ("Dialogue and Dialogism," 108).
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As can be remembered from the previous chapters, the essence of
the centrifugal laughing culture of the carnival is its democratic ideology:
"For thousands of years the people have used these festive laughing'
images to express their criticism, their deep mistrust of official truth, and
their highest hopes and aspirations" (Rabelais. 269; trans. mod.). The
direct consequence of this ideological-heterological opposition to
authoritarian, centripetal forces is the modus of struggle with the
ideological enemy: politically, culturally, and linguistically consolidated
structures on top of respective hierarchies, that is, in fact, the same
hierarchy. We saw that this confrontational premise leads to
dogmatically deterministic aspects of Bakhtin’ s heterology, or, to use de
Man's expression, to "dialectical imperialism" in Bakhtin's dialogism
with its sanctioned violence. Speaking about discourse proper, it "is still
warm from that [sociall struggle and hostility, as yet unresolved and still
fraught with hostile intentions and accents"; generally, Bakhtin's
dialogical vocabulary is saturated with the spirit of aggressive
confrontation and military-style terminology such as "enemy territory,"
"borders," "resistence," "domination" and so forth (DI, 331 and passim)/*
The ideological premise of the Marxist class struggle provides, in fact,
one more reason for the anti-poetical stance. In a convincing
intrepretation of Mikhail Gasparov, Bakhtin— a "man of a new culture"—
attacks poetry as a traditional "high" genre in the literary hierarchy .5
This observation interestingly connects with the parallels drawn later by
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Paul de Man and Michael Andre Bernstein: the first one between
Bakhtin's "dialogized" interlocutor and Hegel's slave in the dialectics of
master and slave; the second between the same figure in Bakhtin and the
slave's reactive consciousness in Nietzsche's The Genealogy of Morals .6
In the context of this study, where Hegel and Nietzsche recurrently
appear as points of attraction and or rejection for both Bataille and
Bakhtin, these observations present an additional interest.
The second staple of camivalesque and dialogized culture is its
collective, anti-individualist basis. Even softening the radical
formulations of Rabelais. where the individual is sometimes seen as
nothing more than a "fertilizer" for the growth of the collective,
formulations like the following are typical:
Oppositions between individuals are only surface upheavals of the
untamed elements in social heteroglossia, surface manifestations
of those elements that play o n such individual oppositions, make
them contradictory, saturate their consciousness and discourses
with a more fundamental speech diversity. (DI, 326)
However, some important correlations complicate the concept of
dialogism at this point. "Every discourse has its own selfish and biased
proprietor; there are no words with meanings shared by all, no words
'belonging to no one’ " (401). In fact, it makes sense that the dialogized
word is opposed to the dogmatic one, as unique is opposed to unified;
such a uniqueness is, at least in part, constituted by the individuality of
the interlocutor. Thus, in Bakhtin's words to this effect: the "authentic
environment of the utterance, the environment in which it lives and
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takes shape, is dialogized heteroglossia, anonymous and social as
language, but simultaneously concrete, filled with specific content and
accented as an individual utterance " (272; emphasis added). Actually, in
one short paragraph Bakhtin manages to oppose the "poet's
individuality as reflected in his language and speech" to the "social
heteroglossia and the variety of individual voices in it. the prerequisite
for authentic novelistic prose " (264; emphasis added). In addition, as I
have already shown, the same individual poetic language is actually
defined in the same text ("Discourse in the Novel") as a "common
unitary language" and a "system of linguistic norms." All this requires
some further analysis; for now, though, I will turn to yet another
problematic aspect of dialogism.
The economical basis for the laughing culture of the carnival is
the economy of appropriation. Thus Bakhtin notes that "Paul Lehmann
states outright that the history of medieval literature and its Latin
literature in particular 'is the history of appropriation, re-working and
imitation of someone's else property' .. . — or as we would say, of
another's language, another’ s style, another’ s word" (D I69; see also 293-
94)7 The juxtaposition of word with material property here is
characteristic, for, as we saw, the very essence or force mo trice for the
collective progress of humanity in the camavalesque conception is the
"material surplus," quantitative growth of matter, and the consequent
valuation of the thing. However, it is precisely the opaqueness,
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crystallization, materiality and reification of the dogmatic (poetic,
authoritarian, centripetal) word, and to some extent of the written
(materialized in brute matter) text, that opposes it to the openness and
incompleteness (He3aBepmeHHOCTfc) of the dialogized word.
All three indicated problems are interrelated; in the final analysis
they lead to the "last questions" of Bakhtin's heteroiogy. At this point,
however, I would like to turn to the question of the (relative) otherness
contained in the figure of Bakhtin-the author.
On several occasions in the previous chapters I have mentioned
the frequent allusions to Goethe in Bakhtin's works. These are by no
means accidental occurrences. In fact, from various materials and
especially from those prepared for the unpublished book The Novel of
Education and Its Role in the History of Realism . Russian researchers
have concluded that "it becomes dear that Goethe, alongside Dostoevsky
and Rabelais, was the third prindpal protagonist in Bakhtin’ s creative
oeuvre" (Aestetika. note on 415) ® It is important to underscore that no
dear-cut chronological or thematic boundaries divide Bakhtin's work
into a "Dostoevsky period," "Rabelais period," or "Goethe period";
references to Rabelais abound in the works on Dostoevsky, while those
on Goethe abound in Rabelais. One might see here a manifestation of the
prindple of dialogism, where words, names and ideas enter into an
unencumbered open dialogue as well as into a struggle. At the same
time, considering Bakhtin's truly panoramic outlook, one could
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conjecture that he would in some way group his manifold ideas in and
around the proposed thematical clusters. In fact, the suggestion of such a
grouping seems to find confirmation in Bakhtin's own observations of
strategical character, as well as when one considers his oeuvre as a whole
from a thematic angle. Thus, in several contexts he juxtaposes, and to a
large extent opposes, aesthetics to ethics and to gnoseology (e.g. AA, 88).
If we provisionally accept the possibility of a thematic division, precisely
this tripartite structure can be discerned, with concentrations on
problematics of an aesthetical, ethical, and gnoseological order. Focusing
on a representative figure for these three thematical clusters, we may to a
certain extent identify them with, respectively, Goethe (aesthetics),
Rabelais (ethics: Bakhtin's "philosophy of act") and Dostoevsky
(generally, gnoseology).
Here, once again, I want to underscore the conventional character
of such a structure, especially from the point of view of chronology. In
their overviews of Bakhtin's work, such authorities as Holquist, Clark,
Emerson, Todorov, and Morson all seem to agree on the desirability of
differentiating between several stages in Bakhtin's creative biography
(their approaches, however, focus on different aspects than the ones
proposed here). Such conventional periodization seems to be as justified
as a simultaneous recognition of an overall coherent pattern, which
allows us to speak about the unity of Bakhtin's thought which is also
duly noted. So we may tentatively discern Bakhtin of the "earlier" works
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(concentration on aesthetics); the "canonical" Bakhtin (ethics, action);
and the later Bakhtin ("Dostoevsky" and gnoseology). Again, however,
in the unity of "Bakhtin's world" the chronological division is mostly
conventional, especially due to the fact that Bakhtin sometimes worked
on his texts for decades, reworking, revising and publishing new
versions. In the following pages, I will refer to this periodization on
those occasions when it involves some meaningful turn in analysis. The
proposed thematical-chronological division will also help me in an
economical sense, since it partly explains, by contextualizing them, some
of the blatant contradictions in Bakhtin’ s texts, thus eliminating
redundant commentary. Of course, this provisional shock-absorber of a
kind is meant to function only to a restricted extent and not to smooth
out the essentially problematic points. In view of all this, the problematic
issues indicated above in the context of the "philosophy of act" or the
carnival culture of Rabelais. find significative correlates and corrections
in Bakhtin's aesthetic and gnoseological postulates.
The Dostoevsky" pole presents yet one more difficulty in
addition to chronological overlappings and intersections. If such works
as "Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity’ ’ or Rabelais and His World to
a large extent bear out the principle of thematic unity (respectively,
aesthetics and ethics), the works on Dostoevsky, along with gnoseological
problematics, deal extensively with aesthetic and ethics. This question
itself can be approached in the spirit of dialogism. In fact, for Bakhtin, the
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universality of dialogism posits it as a truly dialectical philosophical
principle: "Dialectics was bom from dialogue, in order to return to it on a
higher level" (Aestetika 3841.9 We also saw that Bakhtin's thought in
general follows faithfully the dialectical trajectory.10 In any case, whether
we call it dialectics or dialogism, the "Dostoevsky" or generally speaking
gnoseological, pole of the proposed tripartite structure would correspond
to the Aufhebung of the dialectical synthesis, where the opposition of
thesis and antithesis (or inherent contradictions that in fact occur
between Bakhtin's aesthetics and ethics, or "Goethe" and "Rabelais")
would be relieved. In terms of a concern for methodological rigor, it is
important that Bakhtin himself practices and formulates grounds for a
simultaneous analysis of discourse from aesthetical as well as from
epistemological and ethical angles, since the principle of dialogism is
relevant to all planes of hum an existence (cf., e.g. DI, 337-38). In this vein,
for instance, the "carnival sense of the world helps Dostoevsky
overcome gnoseological as well as ethical solipsism" (PDP, 177).
The quotation continues: "A single person, remaining alone with
himself, cannot make ends meet even in the deepest and most intimate
spheres of his own spiritual life, he cannot manage without another
consciousness. One person can never find complete fulness in himself
alone." We are back to the problem of the Other proper, and to Bataille
who from a certain angle seems to share this basic presumption with
Bakhtin: "L’ etre n est jamais moi seul, c'est toujours mot et mes
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semblables” (VUI, 297). But, for BataiUe, discursive contact with one’ s
"semblables,'' dialogue, constitutes minor communication, absorbed
further on (the boundaries of the subject-object relation eroded and
erased) in the major glissement toward (non-) non-savoir (discursive
non-sense). In this context, Bakhtin's orientation toward the "complete
fulness" of man— based, in close analysis, on expansion and
appropriation— corresponds exactly to ipse’ s desire to "devenir tout"
decried in BataiUe's heterology.
In the "Rabelaisian" action nexus of Bakhtin’ s oeuvre, the
problem of individuahty versus coUectivity seems to be "resolved" in a
straightforward manner in favor of the "coUective body" and coUective
consciousness. Nevertheless, some problematic issues noted above were
closely examined in Bakhtin’ s writings related to the conventional
"aesthetics" or ’ ’ Goethe’ ’ pole. Thus, the analysis of subjectivity in art and
Uterature is the focus of such works as ’ ’Author and Hero in Aesthetic
Activity" and 'The Problem of Content, Material and Form in Verbal
Art," both written in the 20s. Again, however, Bakhtin continued to
elaborate the problematics of subjectivity in his much later works— that
is, it remained a central theme in the conventionaUy gnoseological, or
rather synthetic, "Dostoevsky" corpus (i.e., in the revised edition of the
book on Dostoevsky, as weU as in his notes and drafts from the 70s).
The problem of reification on the ethical plane is (at some point at
least) interpreted by Bakhtin in unambiguously Marxist terms: man
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becomes thing in class society, particularly under capitalism, where the
"reifying devaluation of man had permeated into . . . the very
foundations of hum an thinking" (Aestetika. 342; PDP, 62). "This is
violence in all possible forms of its manifestation: economical, political,
ideological; it is not possible to fight these forces except on the exterior
plane and by exterior means (a justified revolutionary violence).
Personal self is what is at stake in this figh t " (Aestetika. 342; emphasis
added. The idiom of violence seems to be a constanta for Bakhtin). By the
same token, subtracted from the personalized dialogical exchange (for
instance, between the speaker or author and the listener or reader), the
word also runs the danger of reification (e.g. poetical word) (DI, 346).
Hence the all-important opposition of "[tjhe thing and person (subject) as
the lim its of cognition" (Aestetika. 383 et passim). The most important
second part of Bakhtin’ s syllogism is the opposition of thing to sense
(meaning) (385, 387). Thus, the subject (self) participating in dialogue,
and a meaning correlated to the dialogized word, are interdependent and
to a certain extent are a precondition of each other. At this point, a
certain analogy appears in Bakhtin's and Bataille's respective arguments
in terms of the opposition of thing and subject. However, Bataille’ s
trajectory leads to sacrifice: of the thing, of ipse, of the degraded discourse,
and of the positive meaning. In the general parameters of the economy
of appropriation, Bakhtin does not consider sacrifice; so that meaning
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(sense) remains valorized in his conceptions (whereas the subject seems
to be completely downplayed in the "Rabelaisian carnival" argument).
But ”[o]ne must not forget that thing and person are lim its and not
absolute substances” (387). So that even a reified substance can and
should be "turned into a meaningful context for the thinking, speaking
and (creatively) acting individual" (ibid.). Thus, opposite processes are
always (potentially) at play: "reification and personalization,"
recognizable as versions of centripetal and centrifugal forces (391, 392).
The relativity of reification here is analogous to Bataille's formulation in
the same context. It is also quite interesting that Bakhtin sees the relation
between these two forces and cognitive poles in terms of the principle of
complementarity . However, an even more interesting correlation
follows: "I also understand the principle of complementarity
dialogically'' (392, 393; I will return to the significance of this phrase). Just
like BataiUe, Bakhtin on several occasions involves quantum mechanics
theory in his texts, and speaks, for instance, about the dialogism
penetrating the molecular and subatomic levels of substances (DI, 300).
The problem of the Other is formulated by Bakhtin thus:
The I and the other are the fundamental value-categories that for
the first time make possible any actual valuation, and the moment
of valuation or, rather, that of the valuational attitude of
consciousness, is present not only in an act proper, but also in
every’ lived experience and even in the simplest sensation: to live
means to take an axiological stand in every moment of one's life
or to position oneself with respect to values. (AA, 187-88)
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This position is indicated in the cornerstone notion of exotopv (in some
earlier texts, "transgredience"). In fact, exotopy continued to be one of the
main props in Bakhtin's theoretical thought from his early works to the
last years. Essentially it is based on the empirical observation that we
cannot perceive, conceive of or represent ourselves with absolute
exactness: just as we cannot see the back of our head, we cannot
comprehend our own birth or death. Of course, the ramifications and
implications of this premise extend very far, but I will concentrate on the
following fundamental moment: the fullness of self-being denied to
being (esthetically as well as emotionally and cognitively), ”[t]he values
of being a qualitatively defined personality are inherent only to another"
(Aestetika. 99). In other words, any qualitatively adequate evaluation,
description, knowledge of anything or of anybody is possible only from
an exterior position. The basic example of exotopy is the relation of the
author to the hero in his creation.
Bakhtin made only one modification in this notion in half a
century of his writings. If in some early instances Bakhtin differentiates—
never very consistently-between application of the exotopical principle
to the esthetical, ethical and gnoseological spheres, it fast (often on the
same page with the differentiation) becomes quite universal. Thus, in
"The Problem of Content, Material and Form in Verbal Art": "We shall
subsequently illuminate the role of the creative personality of the author
as a constitutive moment in artistic form; it is within the unity of his
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activity’ that the cognitive and ethical moment finds its unification" (AA,
286-87 et passim).
The exotopical position of the subject creates what Bakhtin calls a
"surplus of vision and knowledge of the author in relation to every one
of his heros" (Aestetika. 16; 27, 343; DI, 32; et passim )^. This coupling of
the visual with the cognitive and the general "process of the conclusive
spherization and unification of the real world” are positively
exemplified in Goethe, for whom, "as is widely known, . .. the seeing eye
was the center, the first and last authority" (239, 218). Here we find a
meaningful juxtaposition of Bakhtin and Bataille's positions in terms of
the conclusive metaphoridty of eye and circle, as discussed earlier. For
Bakhtin, the author is the embracing and framing "consciousness of the
consciousness," endowed with a surplus of meaning (sense) conversely
with the surplus of word, and that of truth (16,18,175, 361). Thus, for
instance, "the author-spectator always embraces temporally the whole;
he always succeeds, and not only temporally, but in meaning" (110; I will
soon return to this temporal aspect). This hierarchical structure reserves
for the author a stable position not in existence but in "superexistence"
(361; emphasis added).
In terms of appropriation, the subject acts here somewhat like the
Borg from the Star Trek adventures: after "self-implantation" into (the
world of) the other, he literally feeds on the other life and its sufferings
in order to accumulate them as valuables and then to return to the
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exotopical position of the superbeing (20, 27-29). Again, this exotopical
program is not restricted to the sphere of aesthetics, since
only from this place the material acquired by self-implantation
may be comprehended ethically, cognitively, or aesthetically . . .
Strictly speaking, a pure self-implantation, involving the loss of
one’ s own place external to the other, is hardly possible and in any
case is absolutely useless and meaningless. Implanting myself into
another’ s sufferings, I experience them precisely as his sufferings,
inside the category of the other . . . (28).
Thus, in Bakhtin's exotopical model of dialogism we have all the
elements present in Bataille's formula for the dialogue as minor
communication: the basis of knowledge-appropriation; (self-) identity;
the temporal sequence opening onto duration; and even the theme of
the self-domestication of the subject armed with knowledge and word,
taking place despite (or because of) his domineering position-so,
Bakhtin's exotopical subject "must feel [himjself at home in the world of
other people" (105). (Appropriation and domestication— two aspects of
the same human activity-dom inate in both the Rabelaisian-
camivalesque and exotopical models in Bakhtin's theory). .And again the
pathos is quite different for both thinkers.
Bataille’ s conception of exteriority in the context of the problem of
the Other is based on the same initial premise as Bakhtin's. "In order for
Man to reveal himself ultimately to himself, he would have to die, but
he would have to do it while living— watching himself ceasing to be. In
other words, death itself would have to become (self-) consciousness at
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the very moment that it annihilates the conscious being" (qtd. in On
BataiUe. 19). The difference— at first a slight one— starts to appear with the
practical representation:
In a sense, this is what takes place (what at least is on the point of
taking place, or which takes place in a fugitive, ungraspable
manner) by means of a subterfuge. In the sacrifice, the sacrificer
identifies himself with the animal that is struck down dead. And
so he dies in seeing himself die, and even, in a certain way, by his
own will, one in spirit with the sacrificial weapon. But it is a
comedy!
The ambiguity of Bataille's "subterfuge" and "comedy" was already
discussed. In fact, it is an indication of the glissem ent: and first, comedy
slides into drama (V, 136-39J.12 The initial phase of dramatization
consists in the self-projection of the subject into the form of the
"semblable," then into a "point"; ”[c]eci reste du point, meme efface, qu’ il
a donne la forme optique a l’ experience. Dfes qu'il pose le point, Vesprit
est un oeil (il le devient dans I'experience comme il l’ £tait devenu dans
I’ action)" (V, 138). In this phase the subject and the object are united by a
kind of dialogical relation "qui ne va pas moins du dedans au dehors que
du dehors au dedans." But, however "artificial" the self-identification
with the object in the (self-)sacrifice is, it is as real as death, albeit in
effigy. Glissement inexorably leads to the collapse of the oppositions of
exterior to interior, subject to object, life to death and thus to a
devaluation of vision . of discourse and, especially interesting, of
dialogue and meaning, since 'Tun et l’ autre ont perdu l’ existense
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distincte . . . [L]e sujet n est plus 1 & , son interrogation n'a plus de sens ni
de prindpe qui l'introduise. De meme aucune response ne demeure
possible" (74).
Already on this level of interpretation, one can see how radically
Bakhtin’ s exotopy with its surplus (the spoils of appropriation) differs
from Bataille’ s provisional exteriority indissociably linked to excess
(manifestation of expenditure and sacrifice). One more aspect of the same
problem concerns temporality. A loss of the position of exteriority and
identification with another— categorically proscribed by Bakhtin-entails
the danger of the doubling of the subject and the appearance of the
vampiric doppelganger (probably the only morbid and undesirable form
of dialogism) (Aestetika. 19-20, 59). This happens if the subject focuses on
the present, and forgets and neglects his beneficial transgredience not
only in space but in time as well: the aforementioned temporal
succession in the future versus the object who dies enframed in the
present. For BataiUe the exact reverse is true: man dies "humanly," in
abject fear, precisely if he projects (him or her)self into the future (self-
representation split betwen the present and the future). On the contrary,
”[s]i nous vivons souverainement, la representation de la mort est
impossible, car le present n est plus soumis a 1 ’ exigeance du futur" (Vm,
267).
In Bataille, the religious (in the broad sense of "sacred”) and the
economical intersect in the notion of "gift” (see above). Whereas sacrifice
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is totally alien to Bakhtin’ s theory, there is a gift even in his economy of
appropriation. Sharing, in a way, the given (in advance and "in
succession"), acquired, and accumulated surplus, the author bestows on
the hero the "gift of form" which is also the "gift of love" (Aestetika. 80-
86). (And again, it is the "surplus of vision [that] is the bud where the
form is slumbering" [27, emphasis added].) This love, of course, has
nothing to do with eroticism: it is a compassion or sympathy (cf.
etymology: Gr. svn - together; pathos - feeling) to a cripple ("a person
with disabilities" in proper parlance), a "relation of gift to need,
forgiveness gratis to crime, grace to a sinner" (86). The borderline
between this relation and anything more excessive is very exactly located
in the difference between compassion (CO^iyBCTBHe, literally: "co
feeling") and "co-suffering” (COCTpaRaHHe) which endangers the
authorial exotopy, for instance by producing the mentioned double.13
The word and concept COCTpaflaHHe is extremely rich and developed in
Russian language, ethics, aesthetics and theology; for instance, it is a real
mode of existence for many of Dostoevsky heroes, and it takes Bakhtin a
great deal of dialectical-dialogical skill to circumvent this problem in his
writings on Dostoevsky. At the same time, for Bataille, love (and not
only eroticism) and compassion in their excessive form are emotions
that can lead to the sovereign, while breaking down the conventional
dimensions of being, including exteriority. Thus, to return once more to
the sequence in L’ experience interieure .
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le moi pose necessairement devant lui ce point, son profond
semblable, de ce fait qu'il ne peut sortir de lui-meme que dans
l’ amour. C'est une fois sorti de lui-meme qu'il accede au non-
amour. . .. Le jeune et seduisant Chinois dont j’ ai parle, livre au
travail du bourreau, je l'aimais d'un amour ou l'instinct sadique
n'avait pas de part: il me communiquait sa douleur ou plutot
l'exces de sa douleur et c'Stait ce que justement je cherchais, non
pour en jouir, mais pour ruiner en moi ce qui s’ oppose a la ruine.
(El: V, 138, 140; emphasis added)
All in all, from the dominant position of exotopy, the relation
subject-object is characterized by Bakhtin in the following eloquent
sequence. "The other is entirely objectivized for me, and his [ is only an
object for me"; "completeness of the interior and exterior being in the
other is experienced [by me] as an abiect and miserable passivity "the
soul of the other [is] the soul-slave " (Aestetika. 40,116-17, 33; emphasis
added). On the plane of discourse proper, the object corresponds to or is
equated with his "word,” or dialogized speech. Accordingly,
representation of the object becomes representation of his verbal activity
(e.g.: "Characteristic for the novel as a genre is not the image of a man in
his own right, but a man who is precisely the image o f a language" [DI
336]). Thus, accordingly to the "slavish" image of the other, his is the
"language-servant,” crude m aterial-that is, reified m atter-to be worked
with, formed and overcome by the subject-author (Aestetika. 178,177).
Between it and master's (subject’ s) enframing discourse the opposition is
established: "Word as a means (language) versus word as
comprehension. The comprehensive word pertains to the dom ain of
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goals. Word as the ultimate (highest) goal" (357). And, vis-a-vis the
Calibanian language of an "under-being" (which is nevertheless given to
him by the master and is the same language), violence— supposedly
"loving," "compassionate," in-forming violence— becomes quite justified:
"artistic completion [is] a kind of violence" (335). And so, in this
particular aspect, Bakhtin s exotopical model of relation with the Other
generates a version of unmistakenly "colonial discourse" where the "gift
of form" proves to be truly poisonous (and characteristic of the
"dialogical imperialism" noticed by de Man).
At the not very distant limit in this direction, the object is
condemned to a near total reification, and can actually be seen and
treated as thing, even though it is a live human body. Here the laws of
the laughing culture are enforced, vendange of blood is celebrated, and
human flesh is chopped like pork liver, all according to the following
principle:
As a distanced image an object cannot be comical; to be made
comical, it must be brought close. Everything that makes us laugh
is close at hand, all comical creativity works in a zone of maximal
proximity. Laughter has a remarkable power of making an object
come up close, of drawing it into a zone of crude contact where
one can finger it familiarly on all sides, turn it upside down, inside
out, peer at it from above and below, break open its external shell,
look into its guts, doubt it, take it apart, dismember it, lay it bare
and expose it, examine it freely and experiment with it.... [The
contact here means] laughter, then abuse, then beating What
reigns supreme here is the artistic logic of analysis,
dismemberment, murdering the object. (DI, 23-24; trans. mod.,
emphasis added)!4
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Thus, it is precisely via reification (of the object, but by the same token,
and unavoidably, of the subject) and violence, that the exotopical model
is connected with its opposite in terms of exteriority: the anti-distancing
familiarity of the laughing culture.
Similarly to the concept of Other-object, a sequence of shifts occurs
with the subject-self. I will let Bakhtin's text here speak for itself: "[T]o be
means to be for the other and, through him, for oneself. . .. But the thing
is that the real human being is I myself . . . I remain the only one in the
world"; "Only l-for-myself, unique in all being, and all other others-for-
m e: this is the premise without which there is no value and cannot be
any value for me . . ." (Aestetika. 330,337,120-21).
Here we might recall the three possible configurations of the Other
that were suggested earlier in the context of analysis of Bataille's thought.
In a later draft from the 1970s, Bakhtin in a short-hand style writes about
self-hood (ipseitv would be Bataille’ s word), otherness and various
possibilities of their relation. The conclusion deserves to be cited: 'The T
hides in the other and others, wants to be only another one for others,
wants to enter the world of others as other, to discard the burden of the
unique in the world I {l-for-myself)" (371; emphasis added; also 1 18).15
With other as just a provisional shelter for the self (again the motif of
"home"), the very concept of otherness appears to be potentially
undermined, and a limited parallel may be noticed with Bataille, for
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284
whom the minor dialogical communication with the "solid" semblable
is a decoy ("leurre de I’ autre").
Following this line of thought it becomes difficult to distinguish
between the authorial and authoritarian word, which is demarcated in
the same exotopical way and "requires a distance vis-a-vis itself’ (DI,
343). In a rather obvious manner a conflict also arises with egalitarian
ideology, the ideology of "all-people’ s" culture, axiomatic for Bakhtin s
heterology. A certain corrective or amortization was required, and it was
introduced mainly, though not exclusively, in works leaning toward the
synthetical "Dostoevsky" pole. The new configuration comes with the
individualization of the object.
It is not without interest for my comparative analysis that
Bakhtin, in order to illustrate the active dialogical relation between the
subject who occupies the exotopical position and the object, compares it
to the position of the experimenter (or spectator) in a quantum physics
experiment, where the very fact of observation changes the parameters of
the observed phenomenon and thus the results of the experiment
(Aestetika. 319, 322, 359). Thus, exotopy here does not presumably lead to
reification of the object; the author engages the hero in an open live
dialogue: e.g. Dostoevsky and his characters (Aestetika 343; PDP passim).
Here it is once again necessary to underscore that, since its development
in Marxism and the Philosphv of Language . the axiom of the ideological
essence of the word was never questioned by Bakhtin. Thus,
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the person in a novel may act— but such action is always
highlighted by ideology, is always harnessed to the character's
discourse . . . is associated with an ideological motif and occupies a
definite ideological position. The action and individual act of a
character in a novel are essential in order to expose--as well as to
test-his ideological position, his discourse. (DI, 334)
In the following short summary of Bakhtin's discursive theory in terms
of individuality and exotopy, the ideological is indissodably linked to the
(anti-) individual, so that Bakhtin’ s argum ent intermittently switches
between the two modes or two aspects of the same "reality." First, the
hero becomes upgraded to the status of subject, and his consciousness is
defined as "in its own right " ; furthermore, now ” [f]or the author the
hero is not he’ and not 'I' but a fully valid thou', that is, another and
autonomous T (’ thou art ). The hero is the subject of a deeply serious,
real dialogic mode of address, not the subject of a rhetorically perform ed
or conventionally literary [dialogical] one" (Aestetika. 86, 331: Problemv.
84-85, PDP, 63).16
At its peak, the "thou-model" quite explicitly contradicts the
exotopical one (and here Bakhtin is again somewhat closer to BataiUe):
"In a human being there is always something that only he himself can
reveal, in a free act o f self-consciousness and discourse, something that
does not submit to an externalizing secondhand definition (PDP, 58;
emphasis added). At this point, authorial speech and the speech of his
characters are equalized as "merely those fundamental compositional
unities with whose help heteroglossia can enter the novel” (DI, 263).
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Conversely, authorial function is that of the "transmission belt," and the
author himself is "only a participant in the dialogue" (Aesthetika. 343,
341). A small detail, however, spoils the picture: Bakhtin adds in
parenthesis: "and its organizer [of the dialogue]" (this minimal addition
deservedly attracted Todorov's attention). From here it goes downhill
fast: ”[0]ne may speak of another’ s discourse only with the help of that
alien discourse itself, although in the process, it is true, the speaker
introduces into the other's words his own intentions and highlights the
context of those words in his own way"; "An authorial emphasis is
present of course, in all these orchestrating and distanced elements of
language, and in the final analysis all these elements are determined by
the author’ s artistic will" (DI, 355, 416). The familiar circle is completed;
we are back to the exotopical ’ ’ superexistence," and the mirage of the
"autonomous I" for the object fades away with the very notion of
individuality: "Individual character and individual fates— and the
individual discourse that is determined by these and only these— are in
themselves of no concern for the novel" (333; of course one should not
forget that for Bakhtin the novel is the utmost realization of the
dialogical principle as such).
Here I would like to dwell additionally on a couple of points in
Bakhtin’ s philosophy of act and project, mainly related to the
problematics of the subject The following paragraph introduces
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287
important concepts often analyzed in Bakhtinian studies: "From within
my consciousness, co-partidpating in Being, the world is the object of an
act: an act of thinking, act of feeling, act of speech, act of doing . . . [Objects
are opposed to mej in the open, still risky event of (co-) being whose
unity, meaning and value are not given [£,aHH] but posited [3aflaHK]"
(Aestetika. 93). (Characteristically, the unity of cognitive, ethical and
aesthetical aspects is again stated by Bakhtin.) The central opposition is
that of the very highly charged notions "given" and "posited": the latter
generally referring to the ever-open, incompleted, free, dialogized world
(as we already saw, de facto reserved for the subject). However, to repeat
part of an already quoted passage, it is the authoritarian "unitary
language [that) is not something given [dan) |A&H| but is always in
essence posited [zadan] {3aAaH}— and at every moment of its linguistic
life it is opposed to the realities of the heteroglossia" (DI, 270; the spelling
in Cyrillic added). The discursive values, but evidently not the
ideological ones, are altogether reversed here— a split that Bakhtin
himself would call impossible. To my knowledge, little or no attention
has been paid to this detail, which, at the very least, compromises the
clarity of Bakhtin's concepts and terminology.
Of course the superexistence imposes a certain responsibility
("answerability" in Liapunov’ s translation) on the transgredient author.
In terms of "colonial discourse," it is a kind of "white man's burden" in
regard to the object, the responsibility of giving sense to and making
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288
sense for this "abject and miserable passivity" (Aestetika. 116-17,114,119-
20). As to the other, his ”[t]emporally completed life is hopeless from the
point of view of meaning" and "I rightly relieve him of the
responsibility that poses a categorical imperative only for myself' (119,
112-13; emphasis added). The real problem of the "mission, or posited
givenness [3aAaHHe, ASHHOCTL 3aA3HHOCTH]" is defined "not in
categories of the temporal being, but in categories of not-yet-being, in
categories of goal and sense, in the meaningful future inimical to any
actual presence of myself in the past and the present. To be for oneself is
to pre-state for oneself; to cease to pre-state for oneself, to become totality
already here is to die spiritually" (115-16). Again, as emphasized by
Bakhtin, this sounds very much like Bataille; but the essence of the
project, antagonistic to Bataille’ s heterology-rigidly linked with goal,
sense, and priority of the future versus the present-puts everything in a
different perspective.
A passage from "Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity" deals
with what Bakhtin calls "the problem of rhythm." "Rhythm makes
meaning immanent to the experience itself, the goal immanent to the
aspiration . . . It presupposes a certain hopelessness for meaning . ..
[Bjeing and responsibility come together as enemies . . . In rhythmic
being . . . there is no responsibility for the goal... [Here] the totality . . .
is justified without th[el future” (110-12). Thus, the pure experience of
being, the rhythm of existence opposes meaning and responsibility of the
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289
project. A certain analogy to Nietzsche's Dionysian and Apollonian
aspects of life appears here and is confirmed by further analysis of
Bakhtin’ s texts. To this end I will briefly reexamine Bakhtin s notion of
n rp a (in Russian: play, game and acting in the sense of performance),
which is antonymically related to responsibility.
In the true dialogical spirit, and like all concepts and notions in
Bakhtin's theory, "play-game" is not a stable notion. Its trajectory can be
most economically considered in conjunction with the concepts of
laughter (and conversely seriousness) and time, analyzed earlier in this
study. We saw that in a circular trajectory laughter comes to recognize
the "new," "better" seriousness. Similarly, carnival time as crisis is
invalidated in duration: for instance, in the exotopical model with its
spatial-temporal transgredience. By the same token, the concept of game
as a camivalized heterogeneous moment— "The stake is similar to a crisis
. . . [It is] 'life taken out of life"’- is reinscribed into the responsible and
serious "philosophy of action" (PDP, 171-72). The conclusive
characteristics of game-play: it is pure fantasy, a dream— a "surrogate of
life" below the level of (serious) representation (Aestetika. 71-73). At the
very best, it attains the status of a more or less coherent system,
secondary in relation to the primary one ("real life” ). Thus, for instance,
"such a peculiar substitution of different systems— a game in a game— "
"drew the players out of the bonds of everyday life, liberated them from
usual laws and regulations, and replaced established conventions by
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other lighter conventionalities (Tvorchestvo . 252; Rabelais. 235;
emphasis added). 17 It is precisely via the irresponsibility of game and
play that Nietzsche gets evaluated in the context of project and exotopy.
"The aesthetisized philosophy of Nietzsche is a conception which grew
on the basis of the key moments of the first type of biography”: here
Bakhtin defines Nietzsche's work in terms of the adventuresque-heroic
type of the biographical genre, one of the constituent moments or value
of which is "gambling [playing] with . .. life, devoid of any responsibility
in the unified and unique event of (co-)being" (Aestetika. 148,147;
emphasis added). This kind of creativity is also shown to be on the side
of rhythm in the indicated opposition, and, furthermore, it is minimally
exotopical, due to the maximal proximity of the author and the hero.
Finally, and somewhat unexpectedly for present-day views on Nietzsche,
the author and the hero in this genre represent a "naive individualism
linked to naive and ingenuous parasitism" (144). There is no doubt that
Bataille's deeply personalized writings, such as L’ experience interieure .
would be placed in the same category in Bakhtin’ s classification. And of
course there is a direct correlation between the (critical) attitude toward
Nietzsche indicated here and the analogy between the participant in
Bakhtin’ s dialogue and Nietzschean slave, noted by Bernstein.
On the other hand, Bakhtin's notion of responsibility obviously
has much to do with Hegel. Thus, Bakhtin proposes what is a rather
faithful version of the Hegelian (and subsequently Engelsian) formula:
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"The better a man understands his determinedness (his thingness) the
closer he is to understanding and realizing his true freedom" (362-63).
Note that here Bakhtin actually establishes common parameters for
responsibility and reification.
In turn, Bakhtin's notions of responsibility and project, in the
context of his discursive theory, fit perfectly into Bataille’ s definition of
Hegel's conception:
La construction de Hegel est une philosophie du travail, du
"projet”. L ’homme hegelien—Etre et Dieu— s ’accomplit, s ’acheve
dans I’adequation du projet. L'ipse devant devenir tout n ’echoue
pas, ne devient pas comique, insuffisant, mais le particulier,
I’esclave engage dans les voies du travail, accede apres bien des
meandres au sommet de Vuniversel. Le seul achoppement de cette
maniere de voir . . . est ce qui dans l ’homme est irreductible au
pro jet: I’ existence non discursive . le rire, I’ extase, qui lient-en
dernier lieu— l'homme a la negation de projet qu’ il est pourtant—
l ’homme s ’ abime en dernier dans un effacement total de ce qu’il
est, de toute affirmation humaine. (El: V, 96; emphasis added)18
And again, a certain juxtaposition (and opposition) of Hegel and
Nietzsche, characteristic for Bataille, occurs in Bakhtin's context— vvith a
reversed polarity.
Up to this point in Bakhtin's conception, the relation to the Other
was seen in parameters of domination, at best a stale-mate.
"Inexhaustabilitv of the second consciousness, that is of the
consciousness understanding and answering: there is a potential infinity
of answers, languages, codes. Infinity versus infinity " (359-60; emphasis
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292
added; cf. 331-32). But despite the observed shifts of attitude, the ultimate
positions in being are taken (Bakhtin's expression), and the borders
between the world of the author and the represented world of the other
are "sharp and categorical" (DI, 253). A symmetrically mirroring picture
appears when the situation is transposed into a new perspective.
The transgredient vision of the author resolves the problem of the
"blind spot" of vision and knowledge for the hero but not for the author
himself (since a full-fledged self-representation is impossible, and
attempts to achieve it can lead only to the precarious doubling and to
"naive and parasitic individualism" of a Nietzschean kind). Thus
appears the third Other, the "higher super addressee," the "loophole
addressee " : all-seeing and hopefully understanding and benevolent (like
the good master already portrayed) (323). In fact, his existence is implicit
in dialogism, since the word wants to, and must be, heard, answered, and
understood; however, with all the lenience on the part of the author (the
good master), the abject and slavish "hero" cannot comprehend him,
give sense to his speech. And, since the exotopical position of the subject
applies to any other on the same plane of existence as his (they are all
"heroes"), only a higher comprehending entity can resolve the
problem .^
This Other is called, in ascending succession: artist, author,
Dostoevsky, Author (with capital A), Prometheus and God— the latter
quite logically completing the succession (cf. 58, 76,175, 327-28 et passim).
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(We also remember that Groys adds Stalin to Bakhtin's list.) The divine
essence of artistic creation repeatedly appears in Bakhtin's texts, for
instance, in a still tentative phrase about yet another form of authorial
gift: the gift of the soul (123). Generally, in the texts collected in
Aesthetics of Verbal Creation. Bakhtin speaks of God explicitly, often,
and of course only in a reverential and confessional tone appropriate for
the true believer.20 The following quotation, although not the most
characteristic in this respect, is from one of the most famous passages in
Bakhtin, which is widely interpreted in a sense different from the one
proposed h e re :
It is impossible to prove one’ s alibi in the event of being. Nothing
answerable, serious, and significant can exist where that alibi
becomes a presupposition for creation and utterance. Special
answerability is indispensable (in an autonomous domain of
culture)— one cannot create directly in God's world. This
specialization of answerability, however, can be founded only
upon a deep trust in the highest level of authority that blesses a
culture— upon trust, that is, in the fact that there is another-the
highest other-w ho answers for my own special answerability, and
trust in the fact that I do not act in an axiological void. Ouside this
trust, only empty pretensions are possible. (AA, 206)21
The obvious complication here is that the sanctified word is the
authoritarian word. Thus: "Often the authoritative word is in fact a word
spoken by another in a foreign language (cf. for example the
phenomenon of foreign-language religious texts in most cultures " (DI,
343; emphasis added; also Aestetika 356). Both "speech in other
language" (HH083ircne) and the authoritarian word are, at the outset of
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dialogical theory, posed as limits for dialogue and yet both de facto merge
here, in Bakhtin s profession of faith.
Here we may recall the issue of Bakhtin's religiosity. He was, of
course, a Christian; but he also was a man of a profoundly dialectical or
dialogical persuasion (cf. the already quoted "Dialectics was bom from
dialogue, in order to return to it on a higher level" and Dialectics is an
abstract product of the dialogue" 1 Aestetika. 384, 337]). His own authorial
ideas, such as the postulates of the laughing culture or dialogism, almost
seem to attain the status of religious dogma for Bakhtin. This may
explain a remark that sounds shocking to an orthodox believer's ears, a
one made in private conversation and "in a conspiratorial tone of
voice”: The New Testament is also a carnival" (qtd. in M.M. Bakhtin
and the Philosophical Culture of the 20th Century . 28). Be that as it may,
and even if God is left as a skeleton in a personal closet of the anti
authoritarian— heteroglot-free-thinker Bakhtin, the following list of
positive instances and possible avatars of the "loophole addressee" reads
rather as an enumeration of logocentric values, obviously with certain
ideological preferences: "God, absolute truth, the court of impartial
hum an conscience, the people [in the sense of demos 1 . court of history,
science and so forth" (Aestetika.323).
On any level of analysis, the contradictory character of Bakhtin’ s
thought remains always in play. As an alternative to the conception of
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the authorial truth, generally predom inant in Bakhtin's writings, we
might recall a conclusion based on significantly different, "Rabelaisian-
camivalesque" and collective, premises. Criticizing the "monistic
principle" of the "unity of consciousness," Bakhtin contends that
[i]t should be pointed out that the single and unified consciousness
is by no means an inevitable consequence of the concept of a
unified [unique, single] truth that requires a plurality of
consciousnesses, one that cannot in principle be fitted into the
bounds of a single consciousness, one that is, so to speak, by its
very nature fu ll of event potential and is bom at a point of contact
among various consciousnesses. (PDP, 81)22
One can again comment, parenthetically, on the Borg-like character of
this universal "truth," accessible only to a plurality of consciousness,
when juxtaposed with the authorial structure, with its partly Borgesian
plurality of truths and dialogical universality of c o n sc io u sn e ss.2 3 in a
close analysis, however, it seems possible, on a certain level, to reconcile
the collective and the exotopical models. The former seems to be
antithetical to the latter in terms of the collectivity - individuality
opposition. But collective consciousness and truth, just as the "ring of
the finalizing authorial consciousness" present, in fact, the same
encompassing structure, and in this major sense they both are exotopic
(Aestetika. 17). By the same token, the collective may be considered just a
quantitative growth of the "intersection of two consciousness" (with all
that follows in Bakhtin’ s argument) (332) .24 Thus, in a conclusive
evaluation of the controversy of "Rabelais" versus "Goethe,” the
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exotopical model seems to prevail, at any rate in aspects of gnoseology
("Dostoevsky").
The staunch logocentric credo in the ultimate truth seems to be at
odds with (although in the overall scope of Bakhtin's thought it
outweighs) his "poststructuralist" formulation of the "endless dialogue
where there is no first or last word" nor "first or last meaning"
(Aestetika. 391 and 393; 370). Sometimes, Bakhtin's optimistic and
positivistic thrust seems to be thwarted as to the cognizabilitv of the final
truth; in other words, a certain imbalance between ontology and
epistemology appears.
Primary, not created, and secondary author (the image of the
author created by the primary author). Primary author— natura
non creata quae creat; secondary au th o r-natura creata quae creat.
Image of the hero-natura creata quae non creat. The primary
author cannot be an image: he escapes any imaginative conception
. . . That is why the primary author is draped in silence. (Aestetika.
373; emphasis a d d ed )^
Here, still in the frame of Bakhtin's predom inant authorial model, the
exotopical and authoritative Author, the Other, acquires specific features
of deus otiosus and is somewhat pessimistically defined in terms of
silence in his (lack of) response to the eagerness of the "last questions"
posed by participants— intermediate "authors"— in the presumably all-
embracing and all-permeating dialogue. This silence is never absolutized
by Bakhtin as a negative principle and can even "adapt different forms of
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expression, different forms of the reduced laughter (irony), of allegorical
narration etc." (ibid.). Nevertheless it remains as a dark shadow on the
horizon of meaningful discursive logic and, for instance, can be
recognized precisely in the carnivalized literature, since ”[l]aughter is a
specific relationship to reality, but not the one that can be translated into
logical thought" (PDP, 164).
These observations reflect a certain inherent instability or
relativity in epistemological and ontological aspects of the dialogical
process: for instance, in the subject-object duality. But, however
suggestive may seem the similarity between, on the one hand, Bakhtin's
formulations concerning the dialectical movement in this dualistic
relation, and Bataille’ s glissement on the other, Bakhtin never questions
the fundamental values of knowledge, sense (meaning), and final truth,
even when it is relegated on a certain level to the competence of the
ever-receding Author.
Overall, two configurations may be distinguished in Bakhtin's
conception of the Other. First, the Other dominated and appropriated in
the dialogic relation, parameters of which are established in the authorial
power-range of the exotopical subject; it is, therefore, only a provisional
Other. The second is the "primary author" or the subject, exotopic to any
given level of the "secondary authorship." This is the irreducible Other,
outside the possibility of adequate knowledge by a "secondary author"
(who is thus put on the plane of protagonist), and thus potentially
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excluded from dialogue. The concepts of meaning and of truth itself
become seriously jeopardized here, since "falnswers to questions is what I
call meanings’ " (Aestetika. 369; emphasis added).
Meaning, truth, and otherness are inseparable in Bakhtin’ s theory:
truth is a valorized (first of all, ideologically valorized) meaning and is
expressed in utterance by a subject or the secondary subject-between
whom the relation of otherness exists. In terms of truth, Bakhtin's
position may be summed up thus: "The truth is out there. Only it may be
not cognizable to an individual. Or maybe not to anybody." But Bakhtin
himself never explicitly crosses the line of ontological disbelief, and in all
versions language and discourse— "names, definitions and value
judgements '-rem ain at the very least a "hypothesis of meaning"
prodding the "sober and fearless knowledge of the [historical] process"
(DI, 278; Voprosv. 182; Rabelais 237).
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1 In the following quotation Bataille uses a similar image, writing about
the novelistic genre that can, to a certain extent, partake of the poetic
essence. (However, he characteristically uses a past tense, whereas in
discussions on poetry he usually uses present).
[L]a tragedie et la comedie, et de meme le roman authentique dans
la mesure oil ils refl6chissent, dans les jeux eblouissants de leurs
facettes, la multiplicite changeante de la vie, n'ont-ils pas repondu
le mieux qu’ il fut possible au d6sir de nous perdre— tragiquement,
com iquem ent-dans le vaste mouvement ou sans fin se perdent
les etres. (La Souverainete : VIII, 95)
Of course, the motif of (self-sacrificial) loss is totally alien to Bakhtin's
pathos.
2 The problematic aspect of Bakhtin s interpretation of tropes attracted
the attention of Paul de Man (and other commentators): see his
"Dialogue and Dialogism” (111-12 et passim).
3 "Pathos" is used here, just like Bakhtin uses it, in the Russian sense of
a highly emotionally tinged, generalized leading idea; by extension, a
positive, assertive set of values.
4 A rather solitary remark to the contrary looks meek and not very
convincing: "On the other side, we should not understand dialogical
relations in a simplified and unilateral way: by reducing them to
contradiction, fight, argument, disagreement" (A estetika.321).
5 Cf. "Bakhtin in Russian Culture of the 20th Century."
6 Cf., respectively, D ialogue and Dialogism," 107 and The Poetics of
Rcssentim ent," 201-202.
7 Similarly, Gasparov underscores Bakhtin’ s "pathos of the
expropriation of the other's word."
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® Notes and comments on this publication were made by the preeminent
Russian theorist Sergei Averintsev and Sergei Bocharov, a friend of
Bakhtin's and specialist in his work.
9 By the same token, "the culture of folk humor reflects precisely [the]
dialectics in the form of imagery" (Rabelais. 410).
The fact that does not prevent Bakhtin from critisizing the
"monologism of Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit"' (ibid.).
11 "Surplus" in my opinion is more contextually exact than "excess," as
in Liapunov’ s translation; it also presents a qualitative difference with
Bataille's "excess."
12 The following brief summary recapitulates, but also adds new focus
to, the trajectory outlined in the previous chapter and based on extracts
from L'experience interieure .
13 Cf.: "It is necessary' to underscore the absoluteness of profit, surplus,
productivity and enrichment of the compassionate understanding . . .
The key here is not to reflect or duplicate, exactly and passively, another's
emotions in myself— in fact, such a doubling is impossible— but to
transpose emotion into a radically different stratum of values, into a new
category of value and form. The suffering that i co-experience with the
other is fundamentally alien, in the most important and essential sense,
to the suffering he experiences for himself or the suffering I keep to
myself. The only common thing here is the logically identical to itself
notion of suffering-an abstract moment that is never and nowhere
realized in pure form; in real-life consciousness even the word
suffering' every time changes its register" (97).
(Co)CTpaAaHHe and CTpaCTB (passion) derive from the same etymon
(cf. splitting between [Christ's] passions and everyday casual meaning of
"passion" in English). Thus English "compassion" hypothetically may be
located in-between CCmyBCTBHe and COCTpaflaHHe on the emotional
scale.
14 Emphasized segments replace the following in Emerson and
Holquist’ s translation: "subject. . . center . . . laughter means abuse, and
abuse could lead to blows . . . turning things into dead objects." I will
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301
comment on possible patterns in (mis) translations of Bakhtin s texts in
the Conclusion of this study.
15 Bakhtin unambiguously writes here from gnoseological positions (cf.
the headline of the passage: "Essays on philosophical anthropology"). I
would like to underscore once again that his, from time to time
proclaimed, differentiation between aesthetical, ethical and gnoseological
approaches is not rigorous and he easily transgresses categorical
boundaries (cf., in the given context, 26, 40 versus 28, 119-20 et passim).
16 The bracketed "dialogical" is omitted in Emerson’ s translation: for
obvious reasons, but, unfortunately, without commentary (see Note 14).
Is this "dialogical" "just" a lapsus on Bakhtin’ s part, or more: a Freudian
"slip of tongue"? (For reasons of grammatical coherence in the Russian
text it does not seem possible to attribute it to an editor's mistake).
17 The quotation from Tvorchestvo is omitted in Iswolsky's translation.
See Note 14.
1 ® Cf. also: "Hegel elaborant la philosophic du travail (e'est le Knecht,
I'esclave 6mandpe, le travailleur, qui dans la P henom enologie devient
Dieu) a supprime la chance— et le rire" (V, 341).
19 Once again, Bakhtin’ s attempt to posit the limits of purely "abstract
cognitive processes" to this argument is completely invalidated by
himself: cf., e.g. 368 versus 119, 323, 369 in the same text.
20 For the most part these texts were published after Bakhtin's death;
thus, considerations of ideological censorship and potential-and
eventual— repressive measures are mainly uplifted here, which were to
different extent imminent, probable or possible at different stages of his
life.
21 "Videbus posteriora m ea"-Jehova's dialogical utterance addressed to
Moses is very appropriate at the conjunction of the issues discussed here:
God, exotopv, vision and Bakhtin's focusing on lower bodily parts (see
also previous chapters).
22 Bakhtin links the themes of collectivity versus individuality, project
and work, and the very principle of cognition thus: "All objects— the sun.
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302
the stars, the earth, the sea and so forth-are present to m an not as objects
of an uninvolved thinking, but exclusively as part of the collective
process of labor and the battle against nature” (DI, 209; trans. mod.).
23 Cf. the following formula: "The individual feels that he is an
indissoluble part of the collectivity, a member of the people s mass body.
In this whole the individual body ceases to a certain extent to be itself; it
is possible, so to say, to exchange bodies, to be renewed ..." (Rabelais.
255). Sometimes it almost seems likely that the creators of "Star Trek:
Voyager" consulted Bakhtin s text when creating their Borg character(s).
24 Both the metaphoric and the metonymic modes of operation and
their complementarity seem to be discemable in the trajectory of
Bakhtin's theory (in the present reading), as they were discussed in
Chapter V (cf. the metonymically encompassing structure and the
metaphoric intersection of common "semes").
On the subject of the quantitative growth (characteristic of the
economy of appropriation) cf. Bakhtin s scathing the "numerous
philosophical, ethical, philosophical-historical, metaphysical, religious
theories that we can call impoverishing theories insofar as they tend to
explain a productive event by impoverishing it, first of all by the
quantitative reduction of the participants" (Aestetika. 83).
25 This text was not prepared to publication by the author: hence the
shorthand style. "It is striking to note that the scholastic definition
Bakhtin uses to identify the author was applied, in its original context
(for example by John Scotus Erigena), to God and to him alone”
(Todorov. Literature and Its Theorists. 81). Bakhtin recurrently uses this
and similar Latin formulae. The analogous "natura naturans” and
"natura naturata" are known from Latin translations of Averroes and
from Spinosa's texts (cf. Aestetika. note on 428).
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Conclusion
In their respective heterologies, Bakhtin and Bataille were
attracted to and made use of not only the same themes, but often
identical materials--from observations in quantum physics to
Dostoevsky and Tolstoi.^ To my knowledge, no information was made
public concerning these thinkers’ familiarity with each other’ s texts.
Nevertheless, in Bakhtin's terms, his and Bataille's works are
dialogically connected, since ” [t]wo utterances, distanced from each other
both in time and space, without knowledge of each other, demonstrate
dialogical relations if there is any convergence of meaning between
them, any partially common theme, point of view and so forth"
(Aestetika 321). We saw that Bakhtin's dialogism has its own problematic
issues; that is why I prefer to consider the relation Bakhtin - Bataille in
terms of complementarity rather than of dialogism as such (as we know,
Bakhtin himself thought of the principle of complementarity
dialogically). In fact, both complementarity and dialogism presuppose a
juxtaposition and or opposition of the (conventional) Same to the
(conventional) Other, which can be applied to the problematics of the
heteros in both theorists' works as well as to the relation between them.
Most characteristically, both Bakhtin and Bataille’ s interests
include the spheres of aesthetics, ethics, and gnoseological and
ontological issues— which allows one to speak about the philosophical (or
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rather anti-philosophical, in Bataille's case) quality of their work. Thus,
in Bataille’ s "experience," one can discern all these intellectual,
aesthetical and ethical operations, "ne laissant dehors que le discours par
lequel on tenta de separer ces objets . . . ” (V, 21). Paradoxically, however,
it is precisely in the problem of discourse (e.g., realized as "text") that one
can see, from a certain angle, all the main issues of his theory converge.
At the same time, the primacy of discourse is posited in Bakhtin’ s
conception; nevertheless, an analysis of discourse in Bakhtin inevitably
leads to the other mentioned aspects of his Weltanschauung . Here one
can notice a generalized example of the curiously recurrent pattern of a
"meeting" or intersection of our authors’ very differently oriented
arguments on the common ground of identical themes, subjects, and,
generally, "material." In any case, even though both thinkers’ outlooks
do not constitute a developed philosophical system in the proper sense,
they are both preoccupied with the fundamental questions related to the
very fabric of human existence, "la trame (l'etoffe) dont I’ homme est
fait"; of course, hence the common interest in the problems of subatomic
structure of matter (V, 96). In some contexts it is indeed tempting to
compare the different orientations of the two authors in this subject to
the traditional opposition of the eidetic and hyleatic aspects of matter, or,
in other words, to the opposition of essence and substance, which
Bataille, for instance, indicates as "une difference fondamentale et facile a
discemer entre le sacrifice (ou le sacre) et la substance divine (ou plutot
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theologique). Le sacre est le contraire de la substance” (VI, 301). And it is
precisely the material substance that is valorized in Bakhtin's theory, for
instance, in the "Rabelaisian chronotope." In fact, the intersection in
time of the two thinkers, so close in terms of subject-matter, but so
different in their orientation, can itself be seen as a curious "knot" in the
fabric of history (existence) %
The central, touchstone aspects of the problem of Otherness in
both authors are found in their attitudes in relation to the notion of the
self (for instance seen as an empirically given "same") and the notion of
system (for instance, understood as a general schematization of empirical
perception of the world, including self and others).
Heterology, Bataille’ s as well as Bakhtin’ s, is from the outset
posited as anti-systematic, at least in what concerns the traditionally
established system of social, political, cultural, and linguistic norms. We
have seen, however, that Bakhtin's argument, by virtue of using the
same structural logic as the one used in or by the negated system, is
fatally drawn back to a re-confirmation of the negated values, in the
overall perspective: to the systematic restoration of the Same. Hence the
presumption of the "single logic" both of "reality as it is" and of the "new
world order": overall, of the "ultimate whole" (cf. Rabelais 53 et passim).
In fact, the circular trajectory is exemplary for Bakhtin's thought and is
founded on its absolutist character: in different contexts, the leading
pathos (variable for different configurations) completely outweighs any
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opposing tendency and tends to be unilateral; in the final instance, this
strategy manifests the exclusion of the Other that we noted, for instance,
in Chapter I.
Bataille’ s heterological movement is more consistent, with its
continuous splitting of opposites appearing on any given level; thus, the
heterological glissement a priori subverts any system of coordinates (cf.,
in Chapter IV, the principle of alter(n)ation). In fact, the difference
between the two strategies can be formulated by the following paraphrase
from Bataille (cf. Chapter IV): in order to negate the Same in quest of the
Other, one needs this Same; an absolute negation loses its fulcrum after
the very first phase and collapses into affirmation of the initially negated
term (Bakhtin) .3 There is no absolute, in one step and straightforward
negation in Bataille's heterology; thus, Bataille does not speak about the
irrelevance of the restricted economy, but about its "relative value";
laughter does not cancel logic but "suspends" it, and so forth. The Same
is reintroduced at every new level of the glissement. and this is precisely
what makes the latter ceaseless and radical. In other words, Otherness is
not tantamount to the absolute-constant and thus uniform and
universal-negation of the Same. Bataille approaches heteros via a
sustained negation, including interruptions, breaks and phases of
negation of negation itself (that is, a recurrence— but always already
provisional recurrence— of the Same). Here is indicated an implicit and
explicit "solution" to the problem addressed, for instance, by Allan Stoekl
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(in his Preface to the Yale French Studies issue On Bataille): the "betrayal
of betrayal" (the return to the Same), committed by the fact of writing
itself, is a necessary and provisional step for the betrayal "in the next
degree"— the continuous heterological addressing of the Other.
Thus, the very notion of an englobing unity of existence is
compromised to a large extent in Bataille. "’ II me semble important de
nous detacher de I'univers de 1 'unite, de ce qui est absolu. Nous ne
pourrions nous empecher de le prendre comme instance supreme, de le
baptiser Dieu. Reprendre pour nous-memes, pour ce qui est proche, ce
que nous avons donne a I'inconnu et au tout.' Cette note des papiers
posthumes de Nietzsche . . . resume tout le mouvement de ma pens£e"
(Note, Vm, 445).
Of course, the question of the self (interconnected ipse, soi. sufet.
ambiguous personne. inividu in some contexts in Bataille) is of the
utmost relevance to the problem of the Other, das ganz Anderes. Bakhtin
poses the concept of the Other primarily in terms of human beings, a
person or people, since always ”[m]an returns unto himself’; his whole
system might be described by the title to a section in one of his texts:
philosophical anthropom orphism (Rabelais 48). On the one hand, for
Bakhtin, any manifestation of individualism denotes the centripetal
structure, inimical to the dialogical heterogeneity: this structure has to be
negated by the liberating centrifugal forces. In fact, in Bakhtin's view,
Nietzsche's writings as well as psychoanalysis can be considered such
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individualistic manifestations; no doubt, Bataille's personalized
discourse, which owes so much to Nietzsche, along with his heterology—
to a great extent similar to the structure of unconscious— woxild fit into
Bakhtin’ s critical category of the centripetal (cf., e.g. Tvorchestvo 57; see
also Chapter VI). (So the more so that, for Bakhtin, after Hegel, the
process of hum an history is the development of consciousness.)
However, in the familiar circular trajectory, Bakhtin's conception
provides a reinforcement of the authoritative function (deterministic
violence, the Author) and, at the same time, a loss of the actual human
personality, be it in the "collective consciousness” model or in the
highest "loophole addressee." Here, the end of the dialogue is
dangerously at hand, compromising the dialogical principle itself. The
Other, a proclaimed active participant in the event of co-being, recedes
into an unapproachable silence of the highest truth (deus otiosus). By the
same token, different aspects of the full-fledged human life lose their
immediate givenness (Rabelaisian chronotope) and rather become
posited "image of language," "image of idea," "sense of theory," and
even: "Not a belief .. . but a sense o f belief (Aestetika 338). With all this,
along with the precondition of hum an consciousness, the parameters of
exteriorit\r versus interiority always remain valorized— inscribed in the
system— in Bakhtin's thought.
For Bataille, the human subject is not primary either in
ontological terms, or even in terms of glissement. Nevertheless, as an
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309
empirically given "self," it serves as a necessary concept, a certain point
of departure (one of many, in fact) for his transgressive theory. "L'etoffe
dont l’ homme est fait," defined as and limited to the individual becomes
the reified "autre tissu," the one that it is necessary to break through
("l'etoffe d6chiree”) in order to (un-) know and (un-)see the Other ("tissu
des differences") (cf., e.g. V, 96; Derrida EG 392, 406-407). The anti-
philosophical "anthropomorphisme d£chire" contrasts with Bakhtin's
holistic "philosophical anthropomorphism." Bataille’ s subject sacrifices
itself in more than one sense and, first of all, in the sense of the
traditional subjective authority: "il faut expier I'autorite" (Bataille uses
Blanchot’ s expression). In the same move, the universe— an
anthropom orphic universe, consubstantial with man, for Bakhtin— loses
the familiarity of a human Home and may be perceived, for instance, as a
"spit" or a "spider" (cf. Chapter II).
At the same time, on no account should subjectivity in Bataille’ s
conception be underestimated, and not only from the point of view of
his deeply personalized style, influenced by Nietzsche, but in view of his
method and subject matter manifested, for instance, in the theory-
practice of L’ experience interieure (but also in Le Coupable and passim in
his works). The impression of a radical subjectivity may be easily created
in Bataille’ s reader unless (s)he keeps in m ind that such subjectivity is
always already put in the perspective of the (self-)sacrifidal glissement by
Bataille.^ In fact, Bataille’ s personal-subjective— method, as well as some
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310
of his notions and formulae, on several occasions gave grounds for
interpretations accusing him of or acclaiming him for being a kind of a
"new mystic" (e.g., respectively, Sartre and Audoine, Prevost).^
However, despite his interest in mysticism and "theologie negative,”
Bataille is also unambiguous in his critical evaluations of mystical trends
of thought. In the final analysis, negative theology, as well as other kinds
of mysticism, is inscribed in the ontotheology of presence: "projet du
salut,” God, attainment of the absolute ("devenir tout"), and is thus
characterized by "servitude morale" (VII, 433; V, 35, 222 et passim) .6
Here, in the notion of project, negative theology unexpectedly
meets with Hegel.? In short, for Bataille, Hegel’ s philosophy is the
manifestation of the project and appropriation by consciousness and
knowledge— that is, in the final instance, of the restricted economy as
opposed to Bataille s "economie generale." To a large extent, Bataille's
thought operates in the space created by the recurrent opposition of
Hegel to Nietzsche. O n several occasions in the course of this study, I also
indicated that, in relation to these two figures, Bakhtin's conceptions,
when compared to Bataille, are oriented with a rather precisely reversed
polarity. Of course, to address the issue(s) of Bataille and or Bakhtin in
relation to Hegel and or Nietzsche would require specialized research-
and a different dissertation; however, I would still like to address two
issues here, pertinent to the subject proper of the thesis I did write, and
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311
not the other, which is perhaps the one I should have w ritten or will
write next.
The relation Bataille - Hegel has been a staple in the field of
Bataille studies. The problem of reading Bataille as a Hegelian or anti-
Hegelian thinker— in various combinations involving numerous
secondary interpretations, w ith all the inherent subtleties and
complexities— has been discussed for decades, so that dozens more names
can be easily added to those of Derrida, Nancy, Agamben, and Plotnitsky,
dted in the present study ® In view of the radical mutation of sense(s) in
Bataille's discursive theory-practice, the sense (meaning) of Bataille's
reading of Hegel acquires an additional (potentially inexhaustible) degree
of ambiguity (cf. discussion in Chapter V). In other words, the noted
oscillating evaluations of the Bataille-Hegel relation, to a great extent
reflecting the personal patterns of perception and conceptualization of
their authors, are probably quite justified for the most p art-o n some
level(s) of Bataille’ s discourse. My task was to situate this relation in the
whole of Bataille's heterology in the most economical way, without
going into the evidently endless argument, and, at the same time,
without impoverishing Bataille's thought or neglecting the principles of
analytical rigor. For these reasons, and without sacrificing conclusions
based on my own readings, I chose to adhere to what may be called an
"obvious” or even "at face value" version (in view of the later endless
ramifications), forwarded by Bataille himself and, to a great part, upheld
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312
by Derrida (also c£. Plotnitsky's In the Shadow of Hegeli. I was mainly
interested in two of the major points thereof, which can be schematically
put like this: Bataille is a Hegelian, since "[i]l n'y a qu’ un discours, il est
significadf et Hegel est id incontoumable" (Derrida, EG 383).
Nonetheless, the whole thrust of his heterology, directed against the
System, knowledge, project, and absolutization of the temporal
continuitv-the foundations of the Hegelian logocentrism-makes him,
in a very simplified formulation, an anti-Hegelian thinker9 (For exactly
the same reasons, among others, Bakhtin appears to be a pro-Hegelian
figure of a kind.)
A constatation of the preeminent influence of Nietzsche on
Bakhtin’ s thought has become commonplace (in works by Holquist,
Morson, Groys and others). I was not successful in finding convincing
d a ta - biographical, bibliographical or textual-analytical-that would bear
out this conviction. On the contrary, the scarce references to Nietzsche in
Bakhtin’ s texts are all very critical in essence (which only in some part
may be explained by the considerations of political-ideological censorship
in Soviet Russia, where Nietzsche was de facto prohibited for many
decades). Furthermore, in my reading of Bakhtin's oeuvre, I was struck
by the rather obvious and strong tendency of conceptual rejection with
regard to Nietzsche’ s thought, which is manifest, for instance, in such
major points of Bakhtin’ s theory as systematic structuring and
responsibility, ideological valorization of demos (and, on the other hand,
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313
the higher "loophole addressee"), and in the whole "edifice" of Bakhtin's
economy of appropriation. In fact, the only noticeable Nietzschean motif
in Bakhtin, or, more precisely, in the "Rabelaisian chronotope," is a
radical organidsm and, generally, "dan vital" (which, however, is
confined by the "lighter conventionalities" of the "new” order of things
in Bakhtin's theory).
Generally speaking, Nietzsche's writings were widely accepted in
Russian cultural circles, but did not deeply influence Russian cultural
thought. In other words, for quite a number of years it was fashionable to
know the name Nietzsche and to be able to invoke Zarathustra and the
"superman." This cultural phenomenon was called Nietzscheanism
(HmpneaHCTBO): to be "in" Nietzscheanism did not really mean to
seriously follow Nietzsche’ s philosophy. I do not mean to imply that this
is true regarding Bakhtin; but a certain "Nietzschean" motif in Bakhtin,
if any, might be explained by the fact that the years of Bakhtin's
intellectual formation were also the years of Nietzscheanism in Russia.
At the same time, I would not exaggerate the possibility of Nietzsche’ s
influence on Bakhtin in terms of general "vitalism"; the latter can even
more legitimately be explained by the revolutionary, plebeian pathos
which characterized Bakhtin as representative of a new Russian culture
(cf. Gasparov, op. dt.). In other words, the general "£lan vital" is not
suffident for drawing a sustained parallel with Nietzcshe.10 As for
Bataille, his self-admitted and consistently emphasized affinity to
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314
Nietzsche seems to raise far fewer questions than the problem Bataille -
Hegel. But again, in any of these cases, a specialized approach to the
theme of Bataille and or Bakhtin vis-a-vis Hegel and or Nietzsche would
require a much more in-depth analysis, which is beyond the scope of this
study.
The conceptual differences between Bakhtin and Bataille's
heterologies are as significant as the similarities in themes and subject
matter. However, there is a major feature, common to both: the idea
(Bakhtin) or the notion (Bataille) of movement . the process of change,
opposed to "centipetai" forces (and, conversely, the principles of
"incompleteness’ ’ [Bakhtin] and "insufficiency" [Bataille]). Of course, the
differences in orientation and in method remain in full force here as
well. Thus, the noted absolutization, characteristic of Bakhtin’ s thought
in general, results when applied to movement, in an ail-too-easy return
to the initially negated point of departure, e. g. structured system (cf.
Chapter I). The circular trajectory of the presumably unbridled, absolute
heterological movement paradoxically cancels this same movement.
One can clearly discern this circularity in different settings in Bakhtin's
argument, be it in the domain of carnival or dialogue, about violence,
religion or time.H Also, it can be noticed that the circular trajectory
appears when Bakhtin attempts to pose a problem in ontological terms:
the postulated movement leads to a sequence of gradual shifts which in
the overall perspective close the circle. It seems that his argument is
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315
more consistent in the dimension of contextuality, modality, and
functioning, than ontology (cf., e.g., his "metalinguistics" of the
utterance— "translinguistics" in Todorov’ s terminology). On the other
hand, Bataille's trend of thought may be said to indicate rather often the
interest in ontology (not onto-theology): for instance, the ontology of the
unconscious.
Both Bakhtin and Bataille were interested in contemporary
developments in the "exact" science, physics, that indicated the
complementary nature of "reality," e.g. in terms of wave and or in terms
of particle. We can see the relation between the "wave picture" of the
world and the "particle picture" as the relation of Otherness (e.g., since
an adequately comprehensive description or representation of complex
phenomena simultaneously in terms of wave and particle is impossible).
In view of a more or less consistent (de)valorization of qualitatively
different aspects of reality, Bakhtin and Bataille themselves may, to a
certain degree, be considered in terms of Otherness and or
complementarity in relation to each other. This does not mean that as
heterologv — the "science" of the Other— their conceptions are of the same
order of effectiveness and comprehensiveness. Bakhtin's theory is, in
close analysis, a model of restricted economy. The main limitation of his
method may be seen precisely in the absolutist tendency: in the present
context, in consistent attempts for a more or less simultaneous global
representation (interpretation) of complex phenomena from the
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viewpoint of either "wave" or "particle." As often as not, the result is not
a complementary configuration and not even a dialectical picture, in
which Aufhebung leads to a successful synthesis, but a set of
contradictory statements (e.g., the categorical assertion of the unchained
"carnival" forces as the major force motrice of history versus the not the
less categorical insistence on the positive knowledge and scientific
progress as such force motrice).
Nevertheless, though not a comprehensive complementary
configuration itself, Bakhtin s heterology can be considered in a larger,
inclusive complementary matrix. Plotnitsky illustrates the inclusion of
the non-complementary restricted economical "motifs in the concept of
stucture" in the matrix of general economy in the following examples:
[T]he complementarity of history and the unconscious may be
applied either to what is conventionally seen as psychological
processes or to what is conventionally seen as historical processes.
Or rather, it must be applied to both at once, mutually
complicating, mutually inhibiting, mutually compromizing them,
making them mutually com plicit-in short, requiring precisely
that they be complementary. (In the Shadow of Hege l. 358)
Classical theories are not discounted in the process; they retain
their values and necessity within their refigured lim its.. . . [Thus,}
complementary relations are neither simply mutually exclusive
nor simply subjected to a full synthesis, as in Hegel, but are
interactively heterogeneous and heterogeneously interactive: at
times one; at times another; at times jointly, including in various
modes of synthesis; at times in conflict, acting against and
inhibiting each other; at times, separately or jointly, entering other
relations— other complem entarities-or at certain points yielding
description or analysis to different complementarities, or to other
modes altogether. (Reconfigurations . 9-10)12
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We can note that on several occasions Bakhtin himself came to a
formulation of similar principles-of course, with significant differences
stemming from his dialogical understanding of complementarity (DI,
252; PDP, 271; cf. Chapter VI).
In the course of this study, conflicts and differences rather than
analogies and similarities between Bakhtin's and Bataille's heterologies
were highlighted. A certain "tendentiousness" on my part was based on
the criteria of effectiveness, comprehensibility and complementarity of
the theories in question. In the (provisionally) final analysis, Bakhtin's
conception compromises the very notion of the Other. In its two
extremes (this is characteristic feature of Bakhtin's thought), the "Other”
is either completely and forcefully reduced to the Same (carnival
laughter model) or is seen as the Author (loophole addressee)--the Same,
familiar logocentric paternal figure. Bataille's model opens much more
interesting (complementary) possibilities. For instance, the radical
erosion of the traditional (restricted) sets of coordinates, of the
oppositions subject-object, continuity-discontinuity*, metaphor-
metonymy and so forth, together with the other developments in
Bataille's heterology, may suggest the following (initial) set of
propositions: the Other is (part of) us and we are (part of) it.13 The Other
cannot and therefore should not be sought or looked for; the moment it
becomes part of the project or is pinpointed by knowledge in any other
way, it ceases being the Other. The Other may, should, must, and cannot
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318
not to be actively (un) thought, (un) known and exscribed (to use Nancy’ s
expression).
As can be seen, Bakhtin provides numerous answers to many
questions. On the other hand, Bataille poses key questions among
numerous existing answers; his own answers are, in fact, closer to
questions in that they are always in advance exposed to "insufficiency."
These radically different strategies, in turn, directly affect the
perception(s), interpretations, and appropriation of Bakhtin and Bataille
in the space they created by their works and continue to create via the
same perception(s), interpretations, and appropriations.
Bakhtin s heterology— the camivalesque and the dialogism— won
tremendous popularity in an amazing variety of fields. The impersonal
and, generally, "cosmic" pathos; an always-positive program;
(over)abundant answers; the economical basis of appropriation— all this,
in fact, makes Bakhtin himself a profitable and comparatively easy object
for appropriation. It seems that Bakhtin’ s notion of Otherness, and, on a
larger scale, his theories, based on the "sober and fearless knowledge," are
much more appealing to the audience than Bataille's "unknowledge”;
one can notice that Bataille's audience is much more restricted even
inside academic circles. Bataille's influence spreads via a very personal
reading of his texts (the same personal basis that connected Bataille
himself to Nietzsche): his heterology is not a project or a program but the
"interior experience" and requires, at least to a certain extent, an adequate
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319
personal (and, maybe, sacrificial) effort on the part of his re a d e r.1 4 On the
other hand, it is not "just" a personal experience; in my view, there is no
reason to doubt the universal essence of Bataille's experience (as did
Sartre).
If Bakhtin's name is almost sacralized-ironicaily, precisely against
the grain of his initial heterological postulate--in positive cliches such as
"the oracle of democracy" (Rabelaisian chronotope) and the "founder of
dialogism” (Dialogic Im agination). appositions to Bataille’ s name are
symptomatically heterogeneous: from nihilism (Land) to different kinds
of mysticism (Audoine, Sartre) to badly masked idealism (Hermstein-
Smith) to deconstruction (Stoekl) to "homme politique" (Heimonet) and
so forth. If one applies the parameters of the Sameness and Otherness to
our perception of Bakhtin and Bataille (that is, establishes the relation
between the reader and their texts in terms of Sameness-Othemess), the
following conclusion can be made from the preceding observations: the
general readiness for accepting Bakhtin is probably rooted in the fact that
he is, with a relative ease, recognized as the Same. At the same time, the
Otherness in Bataille eludes an assessment based on the premises of a
classical theory (restricted economy) and calls for rigorous interpretations
engaging the complementary approaches (general economy).
Viewing the relative "exoticism" of Bakhtin— a thinker who wrote
in Russian behind the "iron curtain”— the problem of interpretation is
particularly complicated, in his case, by the issue of translation and
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320
quotation of his texts. In the course of this study, I did not have a goal of
indicating all discrepancies in the translation and quotation in English
versions I came across; however, it was inevitable on some occasions,
usually when a significant deviation from the original was involved. In
general, one can discern several types of these deviations. The first one
can be provisionally called an "honest mistake" by a translator:
understandable, if not theoretically a d m issib le .1 5 Modifications of the
second type can be characterized as attempts to "straighten" Bakhtin's
argument out, making it (presumably) more consistent: as often as not,
these "corrections" of the original consist of simple omissions of dubious
or otherwise "unwelcome" pieces of the original text.16 Yet another type
of omission and or distortion of the original seems to set a goal of
creating a certain image of Bakhtin the theorist and the writer. Thus, the
translators' "tradition" (which continues from Rabelais to The Dialogic
Imagination) to downplay the bloody and violent aspect of the "laughing
culture" conversely creates a "politically correct" Bakhtin (cf. Chapters I,
II, and VI of this study).
What is achieved by these strategies which, unavoidably, produce
a deep impact on the perception and interpretation of Bakhtin and his
w o rk s ? [f we consider the problem in the framework of the relation
between the Same and the Other, certain conclusions may be drawn
(although, of course, only some among numerous others). One side of
the "Bakhtinian coin" is the absolutization of his image: an exotic genius
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321
(Russia, Stalin's terror, "iron curtain"), father of the dialogism, oracle of
democracy and of the laughing culture who "initially catalyzed" the
Western research in this field (Stallybrass and White). The conscious or
unconscious tendency to overcomplicate the issues in Bakhtin's
argument actually reinforce this image (as if Bakhtin's argument,
convoluted as it is, needed such reinforcement). Thus, a provisionally
distinct Other is presented.18 On the other side is a simultaneous taming
of this Other: here we have the afore-mentioned "political correction" of
Bakhtin's texts which provides the reader with answers that are not
necessarily or exactly Bakhtin's own (again, as if Bakhtin's books lacked
answers).
Overall, the result is a domestication and appropriation of the
"other," quite similar, in fact, to the exclusion of the "Other" in
Bakhtin's own heterological theory. Nevertheless, I would join Russian
researcher Michail Gasparov who wrote, addressing the issue of the
appropriation of Bakhtin's thought, that Bakhtin's work is "a novel and
one must not make an epic out of it" (Gasparov, op. tit., 114; of course,
"novel" is used here in Bakhtin’ s own broad dialogical sense). In other
words, it would be worthwhile to somewhat "defossilize" his oeuvre by
engaging it in "dialogical" and or complementary matrix as I have tried
to do in these pages.
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NOTES
1 One of Bataille's first publications was a translation (from Russian, in
collaboration) of Russian philosopher-£migre Lev Shestov’ s book on
Tolstoi and Nietzsche; cf. Leon Chestov. L'idee de bien chez Tolstoi et
Nietzsche. Paris: Editions du Siede, 1925.
2 The issue of Bataille's heterology seen under the angle of historical
objectivity was addressed, for instance, in Carolyn Dean’ s The Self and Its
Pleasures: Bataille. Lacan, and the History of the Decentered Subject .
There, the dassical dichotomy between personal and "objective" factors
in history appears to be interpreted in favor of the "objective" historical
determinism. It seems to me, however, that a rigid linkage of ideas to
sodal processes (which, to follow Marxist logic, are, in turn, only a
"superstructure” of the material-economic relations) contradicts the very
essence of Bataille's heterological conception. Of course, as a historical
phenomenon, the appearance of Bakhtin and Bataille's heterologies
would require a spetial sodal-historical analysis.
3 Cf.: "[Ojn ne peut d£sequilibrer~ou sacrifier-que ce qui e s t..." (VI, 296).
4 Thus, 'Timpossible . . . revels . . . c’ est la souveraine consrience de soi
qui, pr&nsement, ne se detoum e plus de soi"; at the same time, however,
”'[s]oi-meme', ce n'est pas le sujet s'isolant du monde, mais un lieu de
communication, de fusion du sujet et de I'objet" (VII, 350; V, 21).
5 Cf. "homme souverain,” 'homme entier,” "forme heroique du moi,"
and, particularly, the well-known: "je ne suis pas un philosophe mais un
saint, peut-etre un fou" (Note, V, 218).
6 "Depuis deux ans, j’ avais pu m'avancer dans I'experience interieure.
En un sens, tout au moins, que les etats decrits par les mystiques avaient
cesse de m etre fermes. Cette experience etait independante, il est vrai,
des presuppositions auxquelles les mystiques l'imaginent liee" (El: V,
110).
7 ” [J]e crois qu’ il y a toute raison de penser que la theologie negative
n etait pas inconnue . . . de Hegel, et qu'en particulier la dialectique
hegeiienne ne peut pas etre consideree comme tout a fait sans rapport. . .
avec la theologie negative" (VIII, 230; cf. also 478).
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323
® Cf., in a publication of 1995: "Derrida's reading of Bataille’ s reading of
Hegel is examined for its metonymic m oves-if, as Com suggests, Derrida
'plays Bataille against Bataille in order to play Bataille against Hegel,'
then Com plays Derrida’ s Bataille against Hegel in order to play Derrida
against Derrida ..." and so forth (On Bataille: Critical Essays. 23).
9 In fact, the Hegel-Bataille relation is only an example of the more global
methodological problem of "simply" reading Bataille. I felt that the
radical questioning of the sense(s) (layers of meaning) by Bataille— his
"tricherie"— would only be reciprocated by a c e ^ in "trickery" in the
interpretative stance. That is why, in the course of this study, I took some
of Bataille's formulations more at "face value," while going into deeper
discussion of other ones: it seemed to me that, in some instances, a
plausible reading of Bataille can be achieved even while discarding
several possible layers of potentially controversial interpretation.
10 In this context, a limited contemporary analogy with Bakhtin may be
seen in Jules Romains’ "unanimisme" (cf. its "une force qui va").
11 1 m ust confess, that on more than one occasion I was tempted to see in
Bakhtin’ s oeuvre, viewed from a global standpoint, a huge and
deliberate practical joke. Considering Bakhtin's predilection for the
systematic unity of the whole and, on the other hand, the noted
circularity in his argument (which otherwise can be seen as blatant
discrepancies and contradictions), such theory would not only explain
these contradictions (and repeated circular pattern) but would also be
quite consistent with laughter postulated as an omnipotent force in
Bakhtin's (and Bataille's) heterology. Unfortunately, I did not find
sufficiently valid grounds for this interpretation: such a joke would
require an acute sense of drama, even tragedy, along with a developed
self-irony (in the vein of German Romanticism)— both of which can be
said to be alien (Other) to Bakhtin.
12 "The resulting matrix both offers a critique or deconstruction of
classical concepts and indicates a certain closure of these concepts, within
which closure it makes the functioning of classical concepts and models
complementary, and within rigorously defined limits, necessarily
complementary" (Plotnitsky. In the Shadow of Hegel. 34).
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324
^3 "C’ est a cette difference irfeductible-que tu es-que tu dois rapporter le
sens de chaque objet" (V, 111).
1^ Cf. the already dted: "Nous n'attendons rien d'une direction" (VIII,
164) and the following dedication (inserted in the main text) to the
readers of the Ttfeorie de la religion:
A QUI LA VIE HUMAINE EST COMME UNE EXPERIENCE A
MENER LE PLUS LOIN POSSIBLE...
Je n'ai pas voulu exprimer ma pensee mais t'aider h d6gager de
l'indistinction ce que tu penses toi-m$me...
Tu ne differes pas davantage de moi que ta jambe droite de la
gauche, mais ce qui nous unit est LE SOMMEIL DE LA RAISON-
QUI ENGENDRE DES MONSTRES.
15 A curious example of such a confusion, although not previously
addressed in this study, is the passage from the "Forms of Time and
Chronotope In the Novel" (in The Dialogic Imagination ). dealing with
Bakhtin's assessment of Kant. "Here we employ the Kantian evaluation
of the importance of these forms [space and time] in the cognitive
process, but differ from Kant in taking them not as 'transcendental' but
as forms of the most immediate reality" (DI, 85, Note; emphasis added).
This enigmatic "most immediate reality" (in some discussions: "the
most real reality ” ) recurrently serves as a point of considerable
theoretical importance— for instance, in Holquist's interpretations of
Bakhtin in Art and Answerability and Dialogism: Bakhtin and His
World . In Russian we have "$opMH caMOft peaJIBHOft
AeftCTBHTeJILHOCTH" (Voprosv. 235); Holquist and Emerson read
"CaMOft"--"the m ost"--with the stress on the first syllable. The whole
ambiguity and presumed depth of Bakhtin's phrase disappears, however,
if one recalls that, with the stress on the second syllable (the sign for the
stress is usually omitted in Russian print, as is the case in Voprosv).
"caMOft" means simply "itself"; thus, Bakhtin speaks, unambiguously
enough, about the "forms of immediate reality itself."
Cf. Note 11, Chapter VI on "dialogical" omitted in Emerson’ s
translation; Iswolsky's version of Rabelais abounds in instances of such
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325
"saving the original": e.g. the consistent omissions of the idealistic
characterizations of the carnival by Bakhtin (cf. Chapter I).
17 It has to be a conscious strategy, at least in part. Says Michael Holquist
in "A Note On Translation" (The Dialogic Imagination ): "Caryl Emerson
and I went over every word of Bakhtin's text together" (XIII).
18 And, since this imposing Other cannot be comprehended by just
anybody without the intermediacy of a special caste of initiated "priests"—
who understand Russian— the (mis)nterpretation of the oracle's
"original" word seems to be rather successfully monopolized; then, of
course, after the parameters of interpretation are established, everybody
is welcome to apply the teaching to his or her needs. The sanctified word
and or the word of a foreign "Other": these are the limits of dialogism
established by Bakhtin himself (not without some characteristic
controversy— see Chapter VI).
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326
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Asset Metadata

Creator Khorev, Andrei (author)

Core Title Two heterologies: Georges Bataille and Mikhail Bakhtin

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Comparative Literature

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag comparative literature,OAI-PMH Harvest,philosophy

Language English

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-128489

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Document Type Dissertation

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