World subjectivity is in the arms of its others. The world, no matter how materially determined, still selects itself negatively in differentiation from its other forms. Modernity as nationalism, science, and capital self-determines in itself just as it other-determines of itself; as in the determinate progression out of the historical movement of abstractions stemming from the classical era in its philosophy, dual sacrifice, and religious wars. There is a moment of quality differentiation within world selection where quantity becomes quality, where the quantified being of a world becomes beyond itself, becomes so over-determining that it must seep out into its other. The other is lost, and so must be returned, self-created. In our time we call this generalised lunacy, although it may be better stated as the world lost from its subjectivity born into its subjects within a general equivalent of lunacy. We see in this separation the story of the Tower of Babel, a story which has returned in our time in differentiating forms.
As everything becomes its opposite, so too must this story of Babel. The inversion occurs in that the story is no longer a scattering of people inwards to the over-determinate moment that their confused communication must be overtaken by the Grace of God, who then scatters the people about the earth. Instead the story goes that the self is scattered inward and its own communication scatters God about the earth and the self returns abstractly, in the Grace of him or her. The automatic subject returns. What is interesting in this retelling is that what the philosophers could not accomplish in their investigations of being within nothingness, Beckett (and perhaps others) did in his eternal rewriting of the line, “The Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies.” An ambiguous and infinite ending to a Poe story. Are the enemies the liberators? Were they the enemies and liberators all along? Does the Inquisition go on? There is no end. When everyone else wrote the nothingness of being in itself, Beckett wrote the being in nothingness, for itself, of itself, ill itself. Nothingness of being outside of itself. The Inquisition went on, eternally returning in itself, but our being did not eternally return into nothingness. Subjectivity became something else so as to escape itself. It self-abstracted against its own automation within itself. Subjectivity returned, and then being.
This was in total contradiction to what all of the philosophers were attempting at the time. How fitting then that the dominant subjectivity of our time becomes the automatic abstraction of Beckett fictions (what we might call ill seen ill said fictitious capital): minimalist versions of objects within Beckett, the misunderstandings and wrong readings, and particularly the unfinished parts themselves self-abstracting. This occurs within the void of post-capitalism, a period in which we do not know our being, in which lunacy is the only general equivalent, and in which we do not know if we are in the hands of capital or its enemies - the capital or its enemies. We do not know if we are in a known totalitarianism, or an unknown revolution. Is the French Revolution just a continuation of the Spanish Inquisition within a world unknown to its own subjectivity? Is the automatic revolution of lunacy simply a continuation of the French Revolution? We do not know. We are waiting for an arrival. Does the subject come? We do not know. We are waiting. And all the while when avant-garde playwrights began to write plays within plays, plays completely determined by minor characters from the past, we ourselves, who ignored Beckett’s important work, became the rewriting of plays within plays. We began, we became automatic writing of the important work, just as we thought we were thinking of the famous play. And we are still waiting.
And how fitting it is that today when the communist is debating the nothingness of revolution, the impossibility of a subject, and the opiate being of revolution, the revolutionary subject returns - a revolutionary subject who does not know, a subject masked and himself or herself abstracted, not knowing if he is a liberator or in the hands of the next Inquisition. The abstract subject is both asemic being of the autorevolution and object of its totalitarian world. I am my tormenter, you decide, now on.The 5th of Novemeber will be every day. You are my tormenter, I decide, nohow on. It is every day, as the first automatic subject did not know whether he wanted to be in the hands of British Liberation or in the arms of the Spanish Inquisition. Revolution is on and nohow on. We are tied beneath a pendulum, to what used to be a wheel of fortune, and we do not know if we are in the arms of the liberation of capital or the hands of the inquisition of tomorrow.
How fitting it is as well then, that the great art of our time seeks the asemic destruction of the abstract mask, a mask for so long distorting the face of an automatic subject lost in its own torture. Of arms and hands we do not know. And we do not know if he will arrive. And he perhaps already arrived before we were waiting. It will go on, it can’t go on. And our waiting was itself the arrival. But we were not us. We were outside of ourselves. We went on without that which could not go on. Without being its on. And our on will, can’t will if it is no longer in or of or for or ill. It is ill of on. And then nohow on. And ill nohow on. And ill in on. Ill for on. Until nohow ill. To be in or to be of or or…
As everything becomes its opposite, so too must this story of Babel. The inversion occurs in that the story is no longer a scattering of people inwards to the over-determinate moment that their confused communication must be overtaken by the Grace of God, who then scatters the people about the earth. Instead the story goes that the self is scattered inward and its own communication scatters God about the earth and the self returns abstractly, in the Grace of him or her. The automatic subject returns. What is interesting in this retelling is that what the philosophers could not accomplish in their investigations of being within nothingness, Beckett (and perhaps others) did in his eternal rewriting of the line, “The Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies.” An ambiguous and infinite ending to a Poe story. Are the enemies the liberators? Were they the enemies and liberators all along? Does the Inquisition go on? There is no end. When everyone else wrote the nothingness of being in itself, Beckett wrote the being in nothingness, for itself, of itself, ill itself. Nothingness of being outside of itself. The Inquisition went on, eternally returning in itself, but our being did not eternally return into nothingness. Subjectivity became something else so as to escape itself. It self-abstracted against its own automation within itself. Subjectivity returned, and then being.
This was in total contradiction to what all of the philosophers were attempting at the time. How fitting then that the dominant subjectivity of our time becomes the automatic abstraction of Beckett fictions (what we might call ill seen ill said fictitious capital): minimalist versions of objects within Beckett, the misunderstandings and wrong readings, and particularly the unfinished parts themselves self-abstracting. This occurs within the void of post-capitalism, a period in which we do not know our being, in which lunacy is the only general equivalent, and in which we do not know if we are in the hands of capital or its enemies - the capital or its enemies. We do not know if we are in a known totalitarianism, or an unknown revolution. Is the French Revolution just a continuation of the Spanish Inquisition within a world unknown to its own subjectivity? Is the automatic revolution of lunacy simply a continuation of the French Revolution? We do not know. We are waiting for an arrival. Does the subject come? We do not know. We are waiting. And all the while when avant-garde playwrights began to write plays within plays, plays completely determined by minor characters from the past, we ourselves, who ignored Beckett’s important work, became the rewriting of plays within plays. We began, we became automatic writing of the important work, just as we thought we were thinking of the famous play. And we are still waiting.
And how fitting it is that today when the communist is debating the nothingness of revolution, the impossibility of a subject, and the opiate being of revolution, the revolutionary subject returns - a revolutionary subject who does not know, a subject masked and himself or herself abstracted, not knowing if he is a liberator or in the hands of the next Inquisition. The abstract subject is both asemic being of the autorevolution and object of its totalitarian world. I am my tormenter, you decide, now on.The 5th of Novemeber will be every day. You are my tormenter, I decide, nohow on. It is every day, as the first automatic subject did not know whether he wanted to be in the hands of British Liberation or in the arms of the Spanish Inquisition. Revolution is on and nohow on. We are tied beneath a pendulum, to what used to be a wheel of fortune, and we do not know if we are in the arms of the liberation of capital or the hands of the inquisition of tomorrow.
How fitting it is as well then, that the great art of our time seeks the asemic destruction of the abstract mask, a mask for so long distorting the face of an automatic subject lost in its own torture. Of arms and hands we do not know. And we do not know if he will arrive. And he perhaps already arrived before we were waiting. It will go on, it can’t go on. And our waiting was itself the arrival. But we were not us. We were outside of ourselves. We went on without that which could not go on. Without being its on. And our on will, can’t will if it is no longer in or of or for or ill. It is ill of on. And then nohow on. And ill nohow on. And ill in on. Ill for on. Until nohow ill. To be in or to be of or or…
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