transgression and acceptance
Fascinating post at Invocatio on the Harvard Black Mass Hysteria and the dynamic between transgression and acceptance/integration.
The observation re: the latter is particularly interesting. I have grappled for a long time how to reconcile discourses which seek to demarcate or exile oneself from others with the mix of new social entanglements that always seem to follow upon such efforts, even if they initially seem successful. Reading this point I realized that it would be practically impossible to be so transgressive as to transcend all society; of course transgressive acts ultimately lead one back to the "negotiating-table," attendance of which is a decidedly non-transgressive act, as Veale observes.
I guess if one really does not want to go that route, one can get violent. Today we call a lot of these people terrorists. I thought here of the Rote Armee Fraktion as portrayed in the Baader-Meinhof Komplex, a film that is really less about Marxist politics than someone who wants to just get the hell out of society, and is willing to become a Marxist terrorist in her effort to succeed in this endeavor. What is interesting is that despite everything she does, she cannot disentangle herself from other people, not in any way that brings the release she desires. It is hard to break away from the world.
Is transgression really about transcendence - not freedom from social norms or a prevailing hegemony, but freedom from the self and its attachments? Is the drive to transgress the drive to salvation?
The observation re: the latter is particularly interesting. I have grappled for a long time how to reconcile discourses which seek to demarcate or exile oneself from others with the mix of new social entanglements that always seem to follow upon such efforts, even if they initially seem successful. Reading this point I realized that it would be practically impossible to be so transgressive as to transcend all society; of course transgressive acts ultimately lead one back to the "negotiating-table," attendance of which is a decidedly non-transgressive act, as Veale observes.
I guess if one really does not want to go that route, one can get violent. Today we call a lot of these people terrorists. I thought here of the Rote Armee Fraktion as portrayed in the Baader-Meinhof Komplex, a film that is really less about Marxist politics than someone who wants to just get the hell out of society, and is willing to become a Marxist terrorist in her effort to succeed in this endeavor. What is interesting is that despite everything she does, she cannot disentangle herself from other people, not in any way that brings the release she desires. It is hard to break away from the world.
Click to viewIs transgression really about transcendence - not freedom from social norms or a prevailing hegemony, but freedom from the self and its attachments? Is the drive to transgress the drive to salvation?