Dionysus
December 22, 2007, 12:20am
1
Taken from one of my posts on another board concerning an essay:
No. My overall thesis is a complete disintegration of the concept of the individuated human being through a radical reconstruction of his material organism, thus obliviating the need to assign to him a moral agent in the form of ‘ego’. I intend to do this by asserting that the concept of the individual is a historically recent one, referencing Georges Bataille in the process. I further intend to suggest that the icon - the symbol of the god - when destroyed in literal iconoclasm, represents a process of Dionysian de-individuation insofar as the deity is ‘projected’ into the form by the adherent. I next intend to suggest that the body is treated likewise, and finally to offer this as an explanation for certain modern trends by drawing parallels to historical examples.
EDIT: I also mean to examine the concept of the triune Godhead from a phenomenological standpoint in a yet-unwritten essay, and to suggest that it is an example of the negation of Schopenhauer’s principium individuationis in essence, and that, alongside the Catholic conception of transubstantiation and possession, represents the lingering influence of pagan Dionysianism on Christianity. Through this the ultimate ‘aim’ of my thesis is to suggest a radical act of de-individuation, chiefly violence, as a means to attain Godhood, or the feeling of Godhood, through Bataillean transgression .
Yes, I am treating this psychologically, which, ultimately, is the only realm which matters. To understand why, consider two amoeba which, when they come into contact with one another, begin consuming each other and, because of their biological makeup, become quite literally one. Then try to place yourself ‘within’ one of the pair. That, phenomenologically speaking, is the power of violence - the reduction of the individual through absorption into a multiplicity. This is a pure study in the phenomenology of violence, and a study of pure active nihilism, devoid of the contaminant which is the atavistic, chest-thumping neo-pagan nationalism so prevalent here.
In other words: what is violence? Violence is the feeling that one has obliterated individual boundaries. For this reason knowledge, too, is violence. It doesn’t matter why one commits an act of violence, or feels violent; what violence is is the transgression of clearly delineated ‘outlines’ traditionally assumed to be established ‘around’ the individual. The absolute purest active nihilism would be an utter ignorance of these boundaries and borders in an explosive act of violence, just as the absolute purest passive nihilism is the withering away of the individual. No ideology, no religion and no ontological outlook need here be considered; this is nihilism, and furthermore it is Dionysianism . Everything else is pseudo-radicalism.
Finally, in a formula:
Mereological reduction of the individual, which entails
The complete disintegration of ‘the individual’ as such, which leads to
Violent orgiastic assimilation towards no end (this is where teleology is involved: for teleology naturally involves ‘entities’, e.g. race, class, and all of the other dualistic myths).
It’s a ‘nihilist’ messageboard, but apparently they’re more interested in dressing up their Hitlerism with dark, Romantic undertones than actually considering a radical philosophy. Am I absolutely insane, or does this make sense to anyone else?