Walking Shadow
June 2, 2009“A representation, however, changes neither the environment for the condition of the organism itself. An image making creature, therefore, is on that indulges in the making of useless objects or has ends in addition to the biological ones.” – Hans Jonas The Phenomenon of Life pb 158.
The image itself does not change the organism, but does the process? Does the ability to ‘create’ a ‘useless’ object imply an unbiological desire of man to do so? Can an ability be discovered prior to any desire to do so? What are the biological ramifications of this? Furthermore, does the viewing of the image have any affect? Here of course comes the idea of aesthetic beauty but also visceral repulsion. Doesn’t this constitute a use, even biologically? (Like a butterfly changing colors to frighten). What if other things had this desire and ability – Hans Jonas says that makes them one of us – is that so? Can we tell something about a creator by their creation? If so, then doesn’t that constitute a change in that creator in terms of its ontological revelation of self.
“I am very sorry, good Horatio, that to Laertes I forgot myself, for by the image of my cause I see the portraiture of his.” – William Shakespeare’s Hamlet Act 5 Scene 2.
How much can one reveal about himself? Only so much as one knows about oneself. At least on purpose, I suppose. At what point do we become what he represent to others? At what point do we become the representations that we see from others? It is one biological question to say that we create these images to begin with (as Hans Jonas points out) but completely another to say that we fight and kill other humans over these images. Such fruitless killing has no evolutional advantage at the best and is completely contrary to evolution at its worst. What tie do images have to us? That they can go from being what connects us to what control us? Are we telephone operators connecting images together – or puppeteers – or puppets.
“I, the godhead’s image, who thought myself \ close to the mirror of eternal truth, \ and stripped of my mortality, \ saw Heaven’s light and clarity reflect on me. \ I, more than Cherub, with unbounded power \ presumed to course through Nature’s arteries \ to create and live the life of a divinity — \ now I must do penance without measure;\ one thunder-word has swept me off to nothingness.” – Goethe’s Faust Part I lines 614-622
It is not a new idea to say that we have a nature inside us that seems most particular. It is however a new idea to assume that such a power might not be good – at all. Certain doubts have always been raised, but we have come to a point where it is acceptable to completely mistrust man’s possible divinity. Unfortunately, by removing possible divinity (whether it was ever there or not) you remove the possible divine responsibility. The images that once connected us, or even enraged us, are now sedating us. We are the anti-Faust who have unshackled ourselves from the divine cravings so as to avoid the devil’s temptations. Rather than delve into our own image-making and discover ourselves (“Is parchment then the sacred fount \ from which a draft will quench our thirst forever? You must draw in from your inward soul \ or else you’ll not be satisfied.”) we use those same images to keep our eyes peering outside on digital parchments, in electronic hymns, and in bestial behavior, often violent and sexual.
“…what is man that You have been mindful of him, \ mortal man that You have taken note of him \ that You have made him little less than divine, \ and adorned him with glory and majesty.” Psalms 8 5-6.
what is man that he is not mindful of himself, moral man that he cannot take note of himself, that he has made himself little less than divine, and adorned himself with glory and majesty.
hmmm the post of a thousand and yet one thoughts…
I would agree, the process of creating a representation, that sometimes painful extraction from within into without, surely alters the organism. Nevermind the simple act of viewing a representation…
I think sometimes our greatest self revelations are not intended, not known by us before hand. These can be the truest ones, not tainted by intention or imagination to be anything but a raw view of the innards of the self.
What do you mean by fighting and killing over these objectifications of ourselves in representation?
and how do you get from the anti-faust to the inter-net…?
By killing and fighting I simply mean wars and violence. The greatest example being Nazi Germany and its ideal of the “super human” or “master race” but this point even holds biblical significance.
The anti-Faust is the person taken out of the position to even make a deal with the devil because another pernicious evil has taken his place. Man, if you will, has become his own devil, his own tempter, his own bargainer. As we reject God, we also reject the devil – we of course end up filling these gaps with our “self”. It’s like Greek mythology in reverse. Rather than make the gods look like us, we make us look like gods. Whereas Faust sold his soul for love, we simply abandon the soul writ large at birth as a cultural imperative. We are then allowed to embrace any number of ideals without the cumbersome weight of ’soul’ or ‘virtue’.
Yet as we remove these weights we begin to feel empty and weightless. Not a freeing weightlessness but a lonely weightlessness, a chaotic uncontrollableness. Our emotions or reason wreak havoc with our humanity as they vie for complete control. We lose the ability to find the mean between both extremes and tend toward absolutism on both ends. The void gets filled with something but a useless something, something so useless we cannot be content with merely believing it, but rather we must share that belief with others in order to validate our ideals. We do this through communication, the most perverse and universally manipulated form of communication being, of course, the internet.
lol gotcha