Posted by mai-thu a. perret on November 25, 1996 at 09:05:51:
In Reply to: KRISTEVA - ad: repressed forms of identity formations posted by Rainer Ganahl on October 03, 1996 at 11:40:00:
: "Les adeptes des anciennes formes de mentalité veillent: ils ne comprennent pas, ou trop bien, et s'opposent quand ils ne censurent pas. Les retours répressifs aux besoins identitaires refont surface: nationalisme, traditionalisme, conservatisme, fondamentalisme, etc. les pensées se contentent d'archiver: on recense et on s'agenouille devant les reliques du passé dans une culture muséiforme, ou dans une culture de distraction s'il s'agit des ses variantes populaire. Nous en avons au moins par quelques dizaines d'années. Mais la révolte a eu lieu, elle n'est pas effacée, elle se donne à lire, elle se donnera à lire de mieux en mieux à une humanité déracinée que gèrent maintenant le relativisme des images ainsi que l'indifférence monétaire et humanitaire,...." ( Kristeva, Sens et non-sens de la révolte, p. 46)
: This is about the return of repressive forms of identity formations. nationalism, traditionalism, conservatisme, fondamentalism.
: also she speaks about the fact that thinking contents itself to just archivisation. The past turns into reliques and culture museifises itself in distraction.
: But she still believes in revolt.
: She sees in revolt the only change of a (psychological) revival.
I see what you mean here Rainer but I really wonder why she does not spend more time defining how to make reading be more than another form (active, but then
your eyes are open when you go to a musee de l'homme, eg) of relics worshiping. i can sit in my room and read about many revolts, catalogue them analyse them
and musealise them. in fact i believe that this is what most academic work (speaking from the inside of the whale) is about. last week i was reading nietszche's
'on the uses and disadvantages of history for life' from his untimely meditations and trying to think about the uses of forgetting for political struggle and action.
remember, the historical man is often a bit shrivelled. when you read too much you get option paralysis. no matter how flawed and biased nietzsche can be, this early
essay outlines a contemporary problem with enough distance that fruitful misreadings are possible for now. he urges one not to remember too much. and reading is akin
to remembering in many ways. kristeva doesn't seem to be very aware of this in the passage you quote. revolts are written where? in dusty library books, in traumatised
memories or in some abstract way on the skin of the world? but this overlooks the fact that rather than looking at old revolts, one should do new ones or simply forget
about it. if you write a family tree of revolt, you might kill its power to be nomadic and constantly renewing itself, even if you think to do good.