The Violence of Messages

March 20, 2007

*Note to readers: I respond to Tony’s post which can be found under the “About” section.*

First of all Tony, I want to thank you for your delectable post about the meaning of messages. As a therapist-to-be, I am of course intrigued and delighted by the proposition that our relationship to all Others in some sense approximates our orientation to the Wholly Other. In fact, most of my meaningful encounters with God have taken place far from ordained spaces . . . say in Steamworks or at Dairy Queen : ) Now on to my question.

I think what your post raises for me is the problem of messages which are both disclosed and shrouded. I mean two things by this: First, that the meaning of the message is found both in its disclosure and in its concealment. That is, in sending the message there is always something which remains unsent–that is, words/directions which are not encrypted on the page. We cannot separate what is sent/received from what is unsent/unreceived. Second, the message is inevitably sent to some but not to others. It is precisely in the singularity of the message that it becomes politically problematic. I, of course, always return to the Abrahamic vision of God beckoning him to Mount Moriah to slay his only son. What would the others who had not received this message–who were left off the mailing list–see in this violation of a father’s highest ethical responsibility? Assuredly, only murder. Just as we don’t believe that pedophiles or sociopaths are enacting the will of a God. But, if God is wholly other, might God send such messages? More importantly, should these messages be subjected to the bright light of communal scrutiny before they are enacted? My communitarianism I think exposes itself on this question. I cannot accept Kierkegaard’s radical subjectivism in which the individual enacts his message in spite of all protests. This seems to me a violent retreat from dialogue.

From my perspective, the great contemporary distrust of meta-narratives, grand visions, and fantasy relates to this question of messages received/unreceived. Does the reception of a message not entitle its bearer to engage in any manner of things which might offend communal sensibilities? I pose the question in this way, understanding full-well your Foucaldean sympathies: that the one “crazy” man is actually the most sane. Does the message embolden its bearer to violate the sacred contract of dialogue–that one must appeal to his/her fellows so as to justify his way of being in the world? Musn’t he endorse the whole horizon of significance in which he finds himself before bodying forth with this message? Foucault and Kierkegaard concern me because (if I understand them correctly) they seem to endorse the individual’s flight from the logics/ethics of the polis. In this case, the liberationist impulse seems bound up with a radically subjectivist impulse (not for Marx) which I do not share.

I have other thoughts on the violence of messages received but I would like to offer you a shot before I go down that little country road.

I hope this suffices for a first salvo.

Posted by MATT Posted in Continental Philosophy, Posts by Matt