On the Politics of Disgust

Disgust makes her revulsion clear in Disney Pixar's 

Inside Out (dir. Pete Docter, 2015)

 

'Nothing is more important than for us to recognise that we are bound

and sworn to what provokes our most intense disgust.' - Georges Bataille

 

 

I. 

 

Arguably, disgust - as an expression of taste - betrays a high level of sensitivity and culture; an African dung beetle, for example, may be able to navigate by the stars, but it knows nothing of disgust. 

 

But then neither does a Sadean libertine, who has vanquished all emotional responses that might be regarded as all too human and all forms of pleasure rooted in the senses over which they lack control. Sade terms this form of asceticism or Stoic indifference to the natural passions, apathy and it is central to his philosophy in the bedroom. 

 

However, most of us are not Sadean libertines and do not posit apathy as an erotic ideal, nor strive to overcome our disgust for shit-eating (coprophagy) and corpse-fucking (necrophilia), for example, as signs of our superiority. We might even view apathy, in the end, as the way in which a madman seeks to justify his lack of remorse or compassion for others.    

 

 

II. 

 

Disgust, as Tina Kendall rightly says, "has long been a subject of anxious speculation" [1]. 

 

And as she also reminds us: 

 

"Recently, there has been a revitalisation of debates pertaining to disgust from across a range of disciplines, as witnessed by publications in the fields of philosophical aesthetics, phenomenology, cognitive and moral psychology, literary theory, and feminist and queer theory." [2] 

 

Continuing: 

 

"What unites much of this interdisciplinary work on disgust is a shared concern with thinking through the relations between bodily sensation, emotion, and cognition [...] and with probing the political, moral, and ethical implications that arise from those particular conditions of embodiment." [3]

 

That's true, I think, though I also agree with Martha Nussbaum, who suggests that what is most interesting about disgust is that it often acts as an intensifier of other negative emotions, such as anger or hatred. 

 

But what is the origin of disgust: is it rooted in evolutionary biology, or is it primarily an emotional phenomenon - with an added moral dimension - that is determined culturally?

 

Darwin famously wrote on the subject and seemed to believe that disgust is an evolved response to potential dangers, such as rotten meat, or body products that can spread disease (such as excrement). This identifies disgust - mostly associated with our sense of smell and taste - as an important defensive mechanism, protecting us from pathogens, etc. It's not, therefore, the wholly irrational reaction that some people imagine.   

 

But, of course, we can experience disgust for things we don't like the look or feel of too - and some people with particularly sensitive ears can even find certain noises disgusting (readers can provide their own examples, many of which will doubtless involve bodily functions).

 

There's extensive research evidence that women experience greater levels of disgust - including self-disgust and sexual disgust - than men. Again, there may well be physiological reasons for this, but it's surely something that has been socially reinforced.

There's also evidence that forms of visceral prejudice, such as racism and homophobia, are rooted in disgust and not just in ignorance, as many idealists like to believe - which is why education isn't the solution they hope it will be. In some cases, disgust for others is so overwhelming that it prevents individuals from self-examination or ever learning to love their neighbour. 

 

Ultimately, the greater one's level of disgust, the greater one's level of hate for those who inspire such and the greater one's desire to do away with them; we recall once more the case of Gregor Samsa. Fascism is the collective political expression of disgust which denies not only the rights of other citizens, but their humanity, and this results (ironically) in the most disgusting acts and scenes imaginable. 

 

And yet, disgust may also be the strong vital sensation that Kant said it was; one that prevents us from committing acts of atrocity or vile crimes. 

 

Besides, as Walter Benjamin concluded, no one is ever completely free from disgust; not even the Sadean libertine, who never really overcomes their instinct of revulsion, merely redirects it, so that, for example, they feel disgust for conventional forms of love and moral behaviour. 

 

In sum, and to quote Tina Kendall once more, disgust's complex and "distinctly polymorphic nature" [4] as both a visceral reflex and a leared emotional response, makes it a "uniquely privileged concept" [5] and critical tool for thinking through a number of important issues. 

 

The philosopher, therefore, can never just say eww! and look away from that which (rightly perhaps) revolts the non-philosopher living in Tunbridge Wells.    

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Tina Kendall, 'Tarrying with Disgust', an Introduction to Volume 15, Issue 2 of the journal Film-Philosophy, ed. Tina Kendall, (Edinburgh University Press, Oct 2011), p. 1. 

      Click here to read Kendall's Introduction; or click here to read the entire issue on academia.edu 

[2] Ibid.  

[3-5] Ibid., p. 2. 

Contrasting Visions of the Last Man in Nietzsche and Olaf Stapledon

 

 

 

Nietzsche and Olaf Stapledon both had a vision of the last humans ...

 

I. 

 

For Nietzsche, der letzter Mensch is the antithesis of a superior being. 

 

And yet, despite all his flaws and shortcomings, the last man is self-content and represents the culmination of humanity's desire to become the perfect domestic animal: passive, apathetic, averse to risk taking or living dangerously, in favour of all those things beginning with the letter C that Zarathustra so despises; comfort, convenience, and conformity, for example. 

 

The last man simply wants to earn a reasonable living and secure his own health and safety; i.e., self-preservation not self-overcoming is his goal and he cares more about walking the dog than exercising his will to power. He is small and he makes everything around him feel smaller. All that is different from himself - everything alien, queer, or superior - appears to him as criminal, insane, or obscene (in a word, evil).      

 

And yet, for all his profession of happiness, the last man is full of resentment and the lust for revenge; he is compelled to seek out those individuals who manifest this difference so that he may cut them down to size and bring them into line, thereby negating the chaos which generates dancing stars in the name of love, peace, equality, and justice.

 

The last man's dream is of belonging to a one great reconciled herd of humanity in which everyone wants the same and is the same and whoever thinks otherwise goes voluntarily into the madhouse. Or, indeed, to the Vernichtungslager.*

 

 

II. 

 

For the British philosopher and sci-fi writer Olaf Stapledon, on the other hand, the Last Men - whom he imagines living on Neptune 2000,000,000 years from now - are very much Übermenschen (though not in the Nietzschean sense).

 

As the eighteenth and final species of human being, these Neptunian Last Men are a perfected version of the relatively short-lived Seventeenth Men (created by the Sixteenth Men to succeed them and with an ability for mental fusion between individual minds resulting in an altogether new mode of consciousness).  

 

Essentially, the Last Men are a race of genderfluid polyamorous philosophers and artists with a penchant for ceremonial cannibalism. They are also potentially immortal; that is to say, whilst they can still have fatal accidents, be murdered by others, or die via suicide, they needn't worry about sickness or old age.   

 

Stapledon writes:

"If one of the First Men could enter the world of the Last Men, he would find many things familiar and much that would seem strangely distorted and perverse. [...] 

      Among the familiar things that he would encounter would be creatures recognizably human yet in his view grotesque. [...] Some of these fantastic men and women he would find covered in fur, hirsute, or mole-velvet, revealing the underlying muscles. Others would display bronze, yellow or ruddy skin, and yet others a transluscent ash-green, warmed by the underflowing blood. As a species, though we are all human, we are extremely variable in body and mind, so variable that superficially we seem to be not one species but many. [...] The traveller might perhaps be surprised by the large yet sensitive hands which are universal, both in men and women. [...] The pair of occipital eyes, too, would shock him; so would the upward-looking astronomical eye on the crown, which is peculiar to the Last Men. [...] Apart from such special features as these, there is nothing definitely novel about us [...] We are both more human and more animal. [...] Yet our general proportions are definitely human in the ancient manner. [...] Moreover, if our observer were himself at all sensitive to facial expression, he would come to recognize in every one of our innumerable physiognomic types an indescribable but distinctively human look, the visible sign of that inward and spiritual grace which is not wholly absent from his own species."**   

 

These multi-racial and bestial-bodied god-men with faces that remain (depressingly) all-too-human, habitually wander around in the nip, only wearing clothes for special occasions or for when they wish to fly (made possible thanks to a pair of overalls fitted with gravity-defying radiation-generators). They live a happy communal form of life, growing vegetables, observing the stars, pottering about in their garden, or home decorating.

 

What really sets them apart from all earlier human beings, we are told, is their unique love life; the Last Men are futuristic swingers in small multisexual groups that form the basis of super-individuality in which single brains become mere nodes within a giant network of mind:

 

"Of course the mental unity of the sexual group is not the direct outcome of the sexual intercourse of its members. Such intercourse does occur. Groups differ from one another very greatly in this respect; but in most groups all the members of the male sexes have intercourse with all the members of the female sexes. Thus sex is with us essentially social. It is impossible for me to give any idea of the great range and intensity of experience afforded by these diverse types of union. Apart from this emotional enrichment of the individuals, the importance of sexual activity in the group lies in its bringing individuals into that extreme intimacy, temperamental harmony and complementariness, without which no emergence into higher experience would be possible." [272]         

 

Ultimately, Stapledon's Last Men, rather like Nietzsche's letzter Mensch, form theselves into a perfect herd and the individual discovers his truest self as part of a transhuman collective made up from a million million brains and bodies. I don't know if any one objects to this process - or if there would be any point, for one suspects that resistance would be futile: 

 

"Ours is in fact a society dominated [...] by a single racial purpose which is in a sense religious [...] in each mind of man or woman the racial purpose presides absolutely; and hence it is the unquestioned motive of all social policy." [280]   

 

Stapledon regards this as the ultimate form of democracy: free of all serious conflict, as individuals learn to increasingly trust in the judgements and dictates of the hive mind. Nietzsche would despise such mystical-spiritual-utopian twaddle. And I despise it too: such cosmic idealism is just another form of fascism at last: Ein Volk, ein Welt, ein Geist ...      

 

 

Notes

 

* See Nietzsche, 'Zarathustra's Prologue' (5), in Part 1 of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-85) on which I base this summary.  

** See Olaf Stapledon, Last and First Men, (Gollancz, 2004), pp. 262-63. Further page references to this text will be given directly in the post. 

 

For a related post to this one, contrasting the thought of Nietzsche and Stapledon on the death of man, click here.

On Becoming a Vaccine Hero

 

 

One of the big differences between the old school fascism of law and order and our new age fascism of health and safety is that whereas the former terrorised its population into compliance and conformity, the latter unfolds via the insidious infantalisation of its people who become ever-more dependent upon the nanny state (that kindest of all kind monsters).

 

The iron fist has morphed into a helping hand and the boot in the face has become a pat on the head ...

 

Thus, for example, if and when you go to have your coronavirus vaccination - as I did this morning - you'll be subjected to the usual humilations that we've become all-too-accustomed to over the past twelve months. 

 

But, adding insult to injury, just when you think the process has finished and you're free to go, a woman standing by the exit steps forward to place a little sticker on your person featuring a heart and a crown design signifying you've been a brave little boy or girl and that you're a model citizen (or a vaccine hero as I heard someone else say).

 

What is one to do? 

 

Perhaps when I return in a few weeks time for my second jab, I'll wear my Foucault t-shirt and hand out leaflets reading: 

 

Biopower: diverse techniques allowing for the subjugation of individual bodies and the coordination of entire populations by the modern state under the guise of defeating Covid-19; often justified in the UK with the slogan Save Lives and Protect the NHS.    

Clap Trap

It's a clap trap Billy - and you've been caught!

The (now almost compulsory) communal clap-along in support of our NHS heroes and other key workers (since when did locksmiths become so essential?) is a form of collective virtue signalling almost designed to irritate those of us who hate public displays of sentiment and moral correctness as well as the sight of people applauding like well-trained seals hoping to be thrown a fish. 

Doubtless, many clap with naive sincerity and a sense of civic duty and are not just showing off with their saucepans and fireworks, but the entire performance is being cynically orchestrated by politicians and the media and I would rather have a dose of the clap than stand on my doorstep and join in with this depressing (and sinister) display of solidarity.

Like James Delingpole, though I'm never entirely certain what I'll be doing at 8pm on a Thursday evening, there's one thing I know for sure I won't be doing; for like Lionel Shriver, I've always had immunity to the herd. [1]

And if my non-participation annoys the neighbours and marks me out in their eyes as some kind of anti-social ingrate who wouldn't deserve treatment in the event of falling ill with coronavirus, that's unfortunate, but fuck 'em. This is still - despite the hysteria and lockdown - a free country: and freedom is often best expressed as refusal and not-doing, because as Barthes powerfully reminds us: fascism is the power to compel activity. 

It's precisely because I'm not a citizen of the People's Republic of China that I don't have to enthusiastically join in with ritualised adoration of the State and its institutions. Happily, even some healthcare workers are beginning to feel uncomfortable with where all this is going and "don’t care if people clap until their hands bleed with rainbows tattooed on their faces" [2].

They recognise that the NHS shouldn't be transformed into a sacred cow and that the people working within it shouldn't be exempt from criticism; nurses aren't angels and doctors aren't saints or miracle workers and, in fact, to insist otherwise is ultimately insulting to the (all too human and thus sometimes fallible) men and women who perform these roles.

Notes

[1] See: James Delingpole, 'No, I Won't Clap "Our NHS"', Breitbart, (14 May 2020) and Lionel Shriver, 'I have herd immunity', The Spectator, (18 April 2020).

[2] 'I'm an NHS doctor - and I've had enough of people clapping for me', anonymous letter in The Guardian, (21 May 2020): click here. 

For a related post to this one - on protecting the NHS - please click here.

Think of the Children

Helen Lovejoy: The Simpsons 

Throughout the European migrant crisis, the Helen Lovejoys and Corbynistas of this world have continually beseeched us to think of the children in an attempt to negate all serious discussion of what is an urgent political problem without any easy solution. 

Via the use of distressing images and necro-emotive language, powerfully compelling in its stereotypic consistency, campaigners who wish to welcome all refugees into Europe have transformed a complex question into a simplistic moral issue about which right-minded people everywhere must surely be in agreement. 

Bereft of any argument as to how Europe might accommodate (never mind assimilate) millions of people from very different cultural backgrounds - many of whom are fundamentally opposed to the values (or lack of values) of the West - humanitarians have simply pointed to the suffering and demanded Europeans share in it and, indeed, accept a large part of the blame for it; we are expected to feel not only pity and compassion, but guilt.     

The strategic use, however, of sentiment and stereotype to fill the void in thought is always suspect and all forms of logical fallacy and opportunism should surely be exposed as such.

Ultimately, we should think of the children - though not in that sticky, ideal manner in which perceived vulnerability is equated with innocence. But this should also include children who are native Europeans and not just young migrants. For presumably they too have the right to a secure and prosperous future on a continent that has its own distinctive history, culture, and destiny.

One really doesn't want to fall back into the Nazi rhetoric of blood and soil - and Europe is, I think, more than an ethno-geographical space - but current events force one to think about race, demographics, territory, borders, identity and notions of otherness, etc. That is to say, all those politically contentious subjects that seem to come to the fore in times of crisis and Völkerchaos.  

Godwin's law is, it appears, far wider in its application (and has far greater explanatory power) than some people imagine. And, somewhat paradoxically, fascism marks not only the end of all serious debate, but the beginning too. It's certainly fair to say that most of the really provocative political thinking today is carried out by those on the far right.

And this, says Baudrillard, is precisely because everything moral, orthodox and conformist - everything which was traditionally associated with the right - has now passed to the once radical left, stripping the latter of its political and intellectual energy. You only pathetically think of the children when you have nothing better to do.  

Post 555: The Scent of a Woman

The number five has no special significance or interest for me, although I'm vaguely aware of its symbolism within certain circles and that ancient Greek philosophers were endlessly fascinated by the mathematical beauty and symmetry of those three-dimensional shapes (or regular polyhedra) that became known as Platonic solids and of which there are five. 

The French fashion designer and couturier, Coco Chanel, also had a thing for the number five and it was rich with powerful associations for her. Indeed, for Chanel, five was the essential number and one which, she felt, always brought her luck. Thus, for a woman who liked to regularly launch her new collections on the fifth of May, it was only natural that she should choose the name No. 5 for her first (and to this day most famous) of perfumes.

Created by Franco-Russian chemist and perfumer, Ernest Beaux, Chanel No. 5 was released in 1921 and was designed as a scent for a new generation and a new style of independent, post-War women, with their short skirts, bobbed hair, and outlandish behaviour that pushed social and sexual boundaries.

Beaux worked from a rose and jasmine base, but brilliantly managed to make it cleaner and more daring than might be expected, by adding what he described as an element of pristine polar freshness. He also experimented with modern synthetic compounds and notes derived from a new commercial ingredient called Jasophore (an artificial source of jasmine). His complex formula also contained elements of orris root and natural musks. The revolutionary key, however, was Beaux's use of aldehydes; organic compounds which, when skilfully manipulated, can arrest and isolate specific scents, intensifying their aroma.

The bottle that the fragrance came in was also designed to counter the overly-ornate character of Victorian crystal which was then still in fashion and made popular by companies such as Lalique. Chanel wanted a container that would be lovely in its sheer simplicity and pure transparency; what she thought of as an invisible bottle. The perfection of the scent itself, she believed, meant not having to rely upon fancy packaging. As an ad from 1924 put it: Chanel is proud to offer its precious teardrops of perfume - unique in composition and of incomparable quality - in bottles that reveal the personality of their designer and not the customary art of the traditional glass-maker.    

Over the many decades since its release, Chanel No. 5 has managed to retain its magic and its allure, establishing itself as an immediately identifiable cultural artifact, worn by many beautiful women the world over; this despite the fact that the reputation of its creator has been somewhat tarnished by ugly revelations concerning her conduct during the German occupation of Paris ...

A girl, Chanel once said, has to keep her heels, head, and standards high; always remaining classy and fabulous. Quite how that squares with Nazi collaboration is debatable. For as a friend of mine once said, even the finest perfume in the world doesn't mask the malodorous smell of fascism.          

War Post

Statue of Ares, God of War 

(Roman Copy of a Greek original at Hadrian's Villa) 

Today, in Parliament, a government motion to extend the British military campaign against the Islamic State - to bomb targets in Syria as well as Iraq - is very likely to be passed with a majority assembled from both sides of the House. For some MPs, in the wake of Paris and other recent atrocities, there clearly exists a strong argument for doing so. For others, including the leader of the Opposition, a convincing case for further military intervention in the Middle East hasn’t been made. In fact, for Jeremy Corbyn, British bombs dropped over Syria would only serve to make a grave and ghastly situation far worse.

If I’m honest, I have no idea who’s right and who’s wrong. But I do know that Lawrence vehemently opposed modern warfare and regarded murderous weapons of mass destruction, which bring death to anonymous victims, as refinements of evil. Not that Lawrence was a pacifist or opposed to violence. In fact, he fetishized the male as essentially a fighter and tied his own philosophy of power to notions of conflict and combat. But he also hated the idea of turning a primary physical activity, such as war, into an abstract and ideal process.

Real war, writes Lawrence, is a type of passionate relationship between men and to die in battle is a type of blissful consummation or great crisis of being. Unfortunately, it's become "a ghastly and blasphemous translation of ideas into engines" [159] and men have been turned into cannon-fodder. To be blown to smithereens by a bomb from the blue, dropped by an invisible enemy while you are eating your supper or sitting on the toilet, is a horrible and monstrous state of affairs.

So, on the one hand, Lawrence celebrates mortal combat and wants to see fierce naked men fighting face-to-face; able to exercise what he terms the choice of war. But, on the other hand, they must not be given the chance to use automatic rifles, grenades and poison gases - the deadly fruits of our own moral idealism and will to universal love.

In a manner far more radical than anything advocated by the CND crowd, Lawrence calls on the British people to make a unilateral destruction of all guns, explosives and chemical weapons - as well as the means of their production. Were we to do this, he says, we’d be able to breathe a collective sigh of relief and come to our senses once more as a nation. It would constitute an act of "reckless defiant sanity" [162].

Then, when all the mechanical weapons were destroyed, we could arm our soldiers with swords once more and "introduce a proper system of martial training in the schools" [161], ensuring every boy is turned into a fighter; as swift as a greyhound, as tough as leather, and as hard as Krupp’s steel as another lover of struggle and fearless youth once put it.

Of course, for ardent supporters of Lawrence, the use of this famous line from a speech made by Hitler, might be seen as something of a cheap shot, or a low blow aimed at their hero. They would angrily object to the implication that Lawrence was a fascist. And, to be fair, they’d be right to do so. For, in historical terms, Lawrence certainly wasn’t a fascist, or a fascist sympathizer.

Nevertheless, there are clearly what might be termed molecular elements of fascism within his thinking which allow for the construction of a highly dubious cratology and a rather less-than-liberal education policy. And the job of a critic who cares is to counter these elements; to refuse to become enamoured of power and resist the urge to glorify war, heroism, strong leadership and all the other militant-militaristic bullshit that - post-Serpent - Lawrence himself decisively rejected in favour of tenderness.

See: D. H. Lawrence, 'Education of the People', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 85-166.

Can't We Talk About This?

John Keane, The Death of Theo Van Gogh (2007)

www.johnkeaneart.com

In November 2004, Dutch filmmaker and provocateur Theo Van Gogh was brutally slaughtered on an Amsterdam street for his part in the making of a short film entitled Submission; a film which, primarily, examined the relationship that exists between Muslims and their God and asks how necessary reform of Islam might be possible when Allah demands absolute obedience to his laws, with no room for doubt or critical dissent amongst his worshipers.   

Having shot his victim multiple times, Van Gogh's devout assailant then cut his throat and attempted to decapitate him in front of horrified witnesses, before finally plunging the knife deep into the dead man's chest. Apparently, among the last words spoken by Van Gogh to his killer were: Can't we talk about this?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Van Gogh's friend and collaborator on Submission - writes: 

"It was so Dutch, so sweet and innocent. Theo must have thought there was some kind of misunderstanding that could be worked out. He couldn't see that his killer was caught in a wholly different worldview. Nothing Theo could have said to him would have made any difference."

- Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel, (Pocket Books, 2008), p. 321   

I recount this deeply depressing incident by way of a response to a presentation recently given by John Holroyd on the topic of Islam.

Holroyd, a Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens hating crypto-theologian, teaches philosophy and religious studies at a London college and is a man for whom these subjects are perfectly compatible, if not, indeed, one and the same thing. His paper, in essence, called for still greater dialogue between the West and the militant forces of Islamic extremism, thereby strangely echoing Van Gogh's naivety in the face of those who hate us, hate all that we love and hold dear, and mean to do us mortal harm.

Now, whilst I concede that it might be good to talk - and that loving one's enemies might be the Christian thing to do - sometimes, unfortunately, there's really nothing further to discuss and inasmuch as this loving of enemies can lead to a reluctance to actively combat the forces of murderous and reactionary violence, then Jesus's teaching might be said to result in immorality and risk the triumph of evil.   

Thus, rather than listen to Jesus, I'd sooner heed Michel Foucault who argued that fascism - whether it be political or religious in nature and whether found in the hearts and minds of others or, indeed, in our own acts and pleasures - must be vigorously resisted as an essential aspect of living an ethical life.

  

Foucault's Islamic Folly

Photo from the front cover of the Turkish translation of 

Foucault and the Iranian Revolution

Michel Foucault wanted more than anything to be generous to the Iranian revolutionaries when he arrived in Tehran in September 1978 in order to report on events for an Italian newspaper. 

Despite their aggressive xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and fetishization of martyrdom, Foucault was keen to counter the idea that these bearded opponents of the Shah were simply political extremists or religious fanatics. On the contrary, he argued, their demand for the impossible was perfectly reasonable and their goal of establishing a new Islamic order held out the hope of a genuine revaluation of all values; the first great insurrection against global hegemony inspired by a creed of combat and sacrifice.      

Just a few short months after writing this, Ayatollah Khomeini and his mullahs assumed power and established a murderous theocracy which has endured to this day. For a while, Foucault continued to defend the regime - or, rather, he continued to promote his quasi-mystical belief in ecstatic violence and revolution as a crucial form of limit-experience (however tragic the outcome). But, eventually, Foucault was obliged to break with what André Glucksmann described as the terrorist radicalism of the theoretical avant-garde. 

Indeed, before his death in 1984 Foucault even found it possible (and important) to rethink questions central to the Enlightenment and to liberalism. He conceded that whilst the concept of human rights is a political fiction, it's nevertheless a useful fiction which needs vigorously defending; as does secular society when threatened by militant religious fascism.

And this is something I wish more of our intellectuals, media commentators, and public officials would have the courage and the tactical intelligence to acknowledge today.   

Note: those interested in reading more on this topic should see Janet Afary and Keven B. Anderson; Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism, (University of Chicago Press, 2005).