Professional Documents
Culture Documents
of Affect
~
TERESA BRENNAN
-1\liiW,. ''''
' r-
Contents
Copyright 2.004 by Cornell lJniversity
All rights resel'ved. Except for brief quotalionu hl a 1eview1 this book, 01 parts
thereof, must not be reproduced in ony forrn without per1nission in wdHng fro1n
\'he ptthlishet'. For h1forrnation1 Rddt-ess Col'nell University Press, Sage I-louse,
Foreword vii
Introduction
3. Transmission in Groups 51
B1mutan, Thresa, 1952-2003
The trans1nisslon of ~iffect I Tctesa. Brennan.
p.c1n.
Includes bibliographical 1-efeia1ceB and index.
ISBN 0 ..8014-3998-1 (cloth: alk, paper)-lSBN 0-8014-8862-1 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1, Affect (Puychology)-Social aspects. I. Title,
BF5y(.B74 .?.003
152,4-dc2.2
2003019730
lJaperback pdntiug
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9 8 7 6 .5 4 3
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8 7 6 5 4 3
116
Cloth printing
:1;
Notes 165
Wark Cited 203
Index
217
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CIIAPTER
SIX
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HS
that when I judge the othe.r, l simultaneously direct toward her lhat
stream of negative affect that cuts off my feeling of kinship from her
as a fellow living, suffel'ing, joyful creatme. I will expand on this notion briefly, before moving on. The act of directing negative affects to
the other severs my kin tie with her by objectifyi11g he1. I make her
into an object by directing these affects toward her, because that ad
mad<s her with affects that I reject in myself-"thesc affects do 110t
exist in me, but in her." l assmne thal she does not feel as I do. At lhe
personal level, the olhering underpinned by judgmental projections ls
evident in the scapegoating that occurs in mosl familial or professional communities.' At the cultural level, these judgmental projections feature in othering by race 01 sex or sexual orientation. Here lhe
othei~ collectively, becomes feminized, that is, styled untmthful by na"
ture, too emotional, less logical, 1nore superstitious than us reasoning
beings.' When Rousseau in Emile, or On. Education demands that Sophie be educated to lie, while Emile only speaks the truth, he is doing
no more than putting the realities of modem affective projections into
words. By encouraging attitudes of suspicion, by (worse) encouraging the id<:?a that a prlv1leged class, sex, race, 01 caste is free of dissembling, emotionality, or stupidity, one co1nes to overvalue one's oWn
ca1Jacities.
By examining the affects experienced in judging anothei) one learns
a great deal about how t11e illusion of self-containment is purchased at
the ptice of dumping negative affects on that other. The dyadic and
complex level of affective transmission js marked in terms of how it is
t11at one party cal'1'ies the other's negative affects; his aggressiot\ is experienced as her anxiety <l11d so forth. By means of this piojection, one
believes oneself detached from him or her, when one is, in fact, propelling forward an affect that he will experience as rejection or hurt,
unless he has sMelded himself against these affects by a similar negative propulsion, a passionate judgment of his own.
When one judges, one is possessed by the affects. When one discerns, one is able lo detach from them, to know where one stands, to
be self-possessed. Bence the idea that the slmng identification withthe living of-an actual ethical code is one basis for discerning the affects. Discernment, in the affective wodd, functions best when U is
able to be alert to the moment of fear 01 anxiety 01 grief or other sense
of Joss thal permit the negative affect lo gain a hold. Discemmenl
then is allied lo a position in which one receives and processes with-
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were and are discer11ed, 1nttch as affects are now disce1ned. There is a
rea"on why Descartes's Meditations are called n1editations. The
, p11rsuit of clear and distinct ideas may 110 !angel' mean .what 1t once
meant, but h1 the meditutive context it ineans reasoned ideas H1al" can
be called upon when one is assailed by affects md modes in which
one doubts one's faith.' These affects register as a se.l'ies of apparently
unconnected thoughts, in which one thought inten11pls another
thought's pathway without warning. By this meallB one ls distracted
and led to believe that one's feelings are other than they may be. Such
feelings are recoverable in some cases via reflecli~n, in oth~1s
analysis, but the procedure is essentially the same. It is that of lustoncal recollection, the comparison of 1nentories.
When a man realizes that there is grief behind his anget, and that
what he felt when he heatd this or that is not the passionate affect that
possessed him at the time, but something finer, how does he do so?
He remembers. Then he onlwits the affects by comparmg the state in
whicl1 he was possessed by the othering affects with the stale in
which he discerned and felt. He may do so with an analyst or, occasionally, with the kind of friend who helps him see thmugh the veil of
affects tatl1er than thickening the veil with misplaced sympathysympathy for t11e affects (as in the sharing of indignation).rather than
love for the friend. He reviews the history of his own feelings and affects in the matter. He follows an essentially histotical procedure in
order to recover a truth, and lte does so with loving intelligence 1at11er
than by wallowing in. judgments of himself (guilt and shame) or others (fe1.u and paranoia). 111e limits to this process are not only set by
insight (the process whereby se11sation and feeling connect) but by
language and concept (the means whereby sensation and feeling
nect). The pl'Ocess consists of the redh'ection of energy; the means he
in the comparative sensations of those redeployments, as well as the
words into which we are born. Our man has to have a language for
any 111atte1' involving histod.cal 1eview, al\d lauguage is always cultural and traditional,' but that does not mean the development of !an
gnage is over. In naming a sensation of whiclt he may be aware (energy depa1'1ing and returning) he may be limited by his c1.ment
vocabulary, but he is pushed to expand it in accounting for sensations
in sequence: the knowledge gleaned by comparison.
(~01npariso.n based on 111en1ory is critical h1 all practices of discern1nent. B11t unlike the instanta11eo11s con1parison of positions discussed
br
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in the last chapte1; compal'ison based on memory does not depend on,
but ratl1er works against, the agitation of the affects.a ~rhe instanta-
feat ti1e affects and fantasies that interrupt it.rn As we have also see11,
the affects and concentration boti1 draw on energy, but the affects
have a direct relation to visual and audito1y fantasy, while mncentrati.on and feelings have a direct relation to words (and that open form
of visio11 and the "ot11er ear/' prevail when these hypot11etical forn1S
of vision and audition are not abducted by fantasy). As blocks in the
way of feeling, vision and audition only serve the ego when one is
wearh1g Freud's #ca1) of hearing on one side/' ~111d seeing with an of~
fending eyeJI
The battle between feelings and affects that has characterized this
argument so far is plainly intensifying. So, in t11is chapte1; will a battle
between ~he notion of "spontaneous" einoHons a11d educated feel-
ings. The education, beghu1ing with t11e discemment, of the affects relies 01\ the feelings, which communicate with the sensations. But the
sensations have a linlited range of self-expression when no language
for 01 practice in theil
r~~cogi1ition
that the education of the senses has been altogether lacking. We shall
look at how the educatl011 of 1110 finer feelings was partially accom
plished through religious codes and codes of courtesy. That is to say,
codes of courtesy and ethical or religious conduct operate on a level
similar to philosophical and psychological discermnent insofar as
they use the sa111e n1eans: con1parison, detach.n1ent, and living attcn~
lion. Ilollowing some refiections on religious and cn\tural codes, and a
related discussion of the virtues embodied in those codes, I shall discuss the level of discernment that is reached by the various philosophical and analytic practices. From "\his discussion there follows
more analysis of living attention and the life drive and of the role
u2
Cultural Discernment
Civil codes are not understood, of course, as means for diAce1ning and
resisting the transmission of affect and responding to another's affective states in ways that would help dissipate 11egative and disabling
affects (putting a person at ease),12 But this is what they do. Codes of
courtesy and religious codes compare the passionate hnpulse to act or
cogitate in a certain way with a code of conduct and restraint. When
the code is strong enough to override the in1pulse, whether its origins
are internal or extemal 01 both, the impulse is refused. The ability to
do this as a n1atter of cot1rse, or on occasion, was captured in the old
I.
tions. The level of finer feeling is tli.e level referred to in the Spanish lo
siento: colloquially, "I'm sorry," and literally, "I feel it." On this level
discer1lment and the social cottrtesies de1ived fron1 it ai<e 1nanifest, in~
solar as one is open to otl~ers in a way that wishes them well and
would dissipate their anxiety or so11ow if one could. It is an opening
through which one feels the other's pain or joy as one's own. hl describing friendship, Montaigne put it this way: "11ue friends feel each
otl1er's feelings."13 They feel their joy or !heir sonow. This taking on
of the other's feeling, as a consdo11s thing, presupposes a different
sense of self or boundary than the boundary the ego manufactures by
projecting out-or by being swamped by negative affects: One is not
open to ti1e other through the ego's routes but thmugh the deploy
ment of sensation, mmning feeling. This is the equipment of the discerne1~ as distinct froni. the p1ojecto1'. Civil and spiritual codes t11at re~
strain affects that pass around as well as within cottld lu1ve been
wdtten wlth Hi.is difference in mind. liar instance, a code of child reaiing based on restraining anger does not only repress.14 It also builds
resistance to expressing a wave of passing angry affect. A code based
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telling whether they expressed the self or something other than the
self. One stmpects that some understanding of the need for discern-
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Perso11a1 Discer111nent
The production of habits appropdate to dlscemmmt is a matter of
personal practices in.volving comparison, recollection and 1netnory;.
and detachment. These practices are held in common in the meditative tradition in philosophy, in psychoaMlysis, and in meditation itself, or passive prayer, although the emphasis on one practice mther
than another varies. Comparison for the religious Wol'ks by comparing one's actual conduct with a religious ideal. For the religious and
the eal'ly moderns alike, ii also works by comparing and contrasting
inner states. But such comparLon of itself does 110! really explain the
decislon to embrace or reject a certain affect. If we conceive the momc11t of judgment as the moment in which we forcefully embrace or
project an affect, then we can accept that the judgment itself is a deployment of energy directed toward an object, and as such, an affective f.orce h1 itself. 17 But because the stream of judgn1ents one Jnakes i11
daily life takes place in the context of affective transmission, the lessons learned from the comparison of states of feeling are constantly
intermpted by waves of affect. It is not only one's own inner states
that are the objects of a meditative investigation by reJfoclion and
evaluation, as they were for Desca1'1es and Hobbes. It is also a qnestion of one-self and the othl~t. But because of the other, we learn the
difference between living attention and draining affects. One can experience directly the effects of receiving atte11tlon (once one k11ows to
look) and the remarkable experience of being bored or dr11ined. (Boredom, after all, is not explicable only on the basis 1of the bore's utterances. Another can say the san\c wo1'(ls and leave one vitalized and
fascinated.)
The more one lives in the emotional world of judging 01 being
judged the more the affects distupt concentration or the pl'Ocess of
J.26
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. cussed earlie1; dls~etnin.g insight ls not achieved in a state of tempestuous defe1we. It 1B ach1<;ved m that brief suspension of the state of
p;ojectlo.n that leaves a refreshing inner silence by its absence, in
which one can detach from any possessing affect, and attend. To detach tn accord with the procedure involved in comparing past and
prese~1t affective states is to 1narsl1al and inove attention toward a
negative affect when one expel'iences it. The key to the nature of this
real detachment (as distinct from a sadodispassionate projection of
detac~ment! is tha~ it is an exercise in feeling, but feeling of a calming
and drncernmg variety. When Kant advised telling an angry man to sit
down, and notes l1ow tl1at net alrendy n1akes him cahner, he is advocating an act of self-regulation that it1 om terms here could be recast
as an act of self-possession. One lets go of the affect by examining its
course or by allowing the course of oU1eI; calmer, feelit1gs to assert itself.19 This examination rneans exercising attention, wlUch is literall
a11. aid. to gro"'.th, ".'hether given to oneself in the pmcess of liberatin~
1eflect10n (antlthellcal to narcissistic fantesy) or to those who need it
For a~tention to be present one would have to be aware, rather tha~
focush1g on an inter11al daydre;Jtn or a preconception about the otller.
In such a case we inight say that attention is, as Fl'eud had it wheii
talking of the best: frame of mind to conduct analysis, "eve1ily su8 _
P end ed " 20 Th'IS." tat e wouId th en be one that is simultaneously active
~nd passive, actively ~ware yet undirected and receptive." As the ego
is always focused on its own ends and judg111ental 8tTucttue1it carulot
at~end in t~is receptive way. Thet-e has to be some agency that does
tins. atten'.lmg, some other regulator of the powers of observation and
foehng. aside :~om the ego"It~ addition, that rngulator has to be capable of rec~lled10.n when rt 1s mvolved in historical comparison. lb be
capable ~I .recalling memories that seem to be lost, it has to be capable
of organ1z1ng and obsel'Ving froni, a distinctive standpoint, a candi~at~ :~l' th~ ':;ther I1 ~hose existence has been inferred throughout
t11is study. I an1 notlung, as 1nany a mystic and Laca11ian has observed. But I am o~ly nothing once l unpack the history out of w.hich
I am composed, htstory gathered in affective clumps of memoties.
AI:~ ;'ho unpacks t~is, if not the attentive other I, iyhose feeling perspe~tive on. events Is not the same as the ego's, but blunted by the
ego .s thuggish affects? This other I has to persist, or li1ere is no one to
1-eahze that I am an illusion, nothing to make the connecting links that
show this.
.28
]3ut we are getting ahead of the facts. All we can say is that whatever embodies and directs allention away from fantasy or distraction,
it is not the ego, It is whatever gathers attention together to discem
the affects that disrupt concentration and reflection. This may be another center in the mind, a soul as distinct from an ego; and indeed,
sometimes two selves do seem to be at wmk simultaneously, Conside1 how the mind-as-the-neurological-brain attends both lo subliminal and routine matters while also focusing on a particular fantasy;
hence, fot hwtance, it can drive and daydream or converse at the sa1ne
titne, even if 1r1aiutaining such activities shnultaneously is haza1dous.
Its daydreams are the stuff of its identity maintenance, while its attention keeps it and others alive. But consideration of another agency in
the mind (a soul as opposed to the ego?) has to wait. The immediate
concern is with the fact that attention obviously accords with whatpr6 forn1a-we are ter1ning the life drive, at th.e san1e lin1e as it provides an alternative. to the subject-centered focus.
The focusing of attention, as we have seen, requires both the logicnl
and energetic ability to sustain attention; snch energy is less available
when the passions are monopolizing it. TI1is undoubted fact may have
led to Kant's conclusion that apathy-the state of no passion-is a goal
to strive for1 and s11ch striving makes 111ore sense whe11 passion is undemtood not as joy and pleasure but as waves of negative affect. Stl'iving for apathy-being without passio.ns--makes more sense if the passions one is stl'iving to lose are: (a) acquired and redistributed via
transmission, rather than one's own; ai1d (b) unpleasant. But this does
not mean striving to be without feeling 01 sensual enjoyment, especially when feelings, hypothetically, mark out one's alternative boundari.es. 'fhe state of apathy, strictly, would be 011e in which one was suspended from the prumions, but not bereft of feeling and sensual
enjoyment. On the contrary, joy and enjoyment may intensify when
feeliiig is not blunted by the affects. But drawing this out l'cquires noting that, in the end, the personal discernment of the affects does not
only require t11eir l'esistance, it requires their transformation. More ac-cu1ately, their resistance is their t1ansformation1 as we have already
seen, and the key to it lies in the change in direction effected by a concentrated change it1 thought. We can add here that the living attention
that discerns and transforms the affects grows in climates of love and
hope. That optiml"m also effects a biochemical shlft (where different
hormonal directions lake ovel' from othem) is now a matter of mcord .
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t bl. shed the subject-centered ego has lo project negAs we 1ave es a 1
'
.
rd er to inaintain its identity. Or
alive affects on or into the oU1er m o s de ressions. These can be felt
the ego accept~ fat m1hlar edprowie~:l~o~~:: ang~r that propelled them. Or
udginents 111 erna iz
. .
b
as J
.
.
d igiditv in order to ma1nta1n su b
gistered as 1nert1a an r
11
.
they can ere
. .
0 both These affective proiec
. "d l"ty b femmme means. r
ject1ve I en "1
Y
.
e saw at u1e beginning, can
tions and introjections or 1udg1nents, asd"'. ' w'ds llt1t it is obvious
.
d withstoo 111 cro
11
1
The Theological Virtues
.
The cardinal v1.rtues
.b
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hope-repels rather than attracts anger and depression. Faith is a superb shield insofar as it presupposes that one is the focus of a divine
loving intelligence, but the trusting ability it also presupposes is at
odds with the n1odern existential te1npera1nent, which views faith as
symptomatic of a childlike dependence (which it is), an alternative to
the courage to look aloneness full in the face.23 On the other hand, if
the modern person truly wants to grow up, he or she will have the
courage to follow through on reaso11 when its exercise leads to the
recognition of the existence of God, and not deny this conclusion because of an e1notional dependence on the other's social approval. For
111y own part, I think faith depends on reason, insofar as sustaining a
faith hangs on reason rather than the ego's credulousness.2'1 But reason is also tied to love. J_Jove, as we have arg11ed throughout, cannot
really be divorced fro1n attention and, therefore, fro1n thinking. In
short, thinking and loving are closely related in themselves. They are
also-both of then1-forms of resistance in tl1c nonperpetuation of the
negative affects, as it see1ns is any process of 1naking or sustaining
connections consistent with the known facts or the needs of others
and psychical and physical health. In short, the tendency to bind and
bring together, to make things cohere, follows the logic of the life
drive. Without it, the psyche is in pieces. This erotic and cohering energy is absent especially it1 psychosis, whose schizophrenic versions
are marked by the inability to make logical connections and by lack of
sexual affect and/ or loving ties to others.25 (Milder forms of these inabilities also characterize the hysterias, not to mention the disorders
of attention and hyperactivity (see chapter 1). At the same time, while
one inay gauge a thinker a cold fish, that does not n1ean he is witho11t
love; it may be that he is merely channeling all of his ability to connect
with his thoughts rather than siphoning it off by interaction.
B11t t11e 1nain point is about the relation between the virtues and the
pracLice of discern1nent. It is perhaps plain now that the internalization of religio11s codes, and the religio11s observance of codes or courtesy, are also linked (potentially at least) to an inner process of discern1nent, discern1nent at a n1ore private level. 1~his is the case insofar
as these inter11alizations function as an ethical sense\ That deep ethical
sense is a 1neans for differentiating betwee11 one's position (oneself)
a11d the legitin1acy or conviction an invading affect lends to thoughts
that were hitherto kept in their place. Consider an example: I am toying wit11 a fantasy of revenge that I have exan1ined ethically and
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aggressive response. Really love those that hale you; do good to them
that persecute you. There is no better escape, no clearer path to freedom. There is also no better revenge.
But if 011e is to be free of the negative affects, one has to give over an
identity based on projected judgments. In the introduction, I proposed t11at an identity based on discern1nent was not the sa1ne as an
identity based on the ego's status-bound boundaries. Enough has
been said about the latter. We can now add that proceeding by discernment and proceeding by judgmental projections are different, but
we can only see this because we have situated both processes in the
context of affective trans1nission. If one n1ai11tains tl1e sense of a distinct identity by discernment, one does so best by meditative practices
and an openness to the distinct being who is sheltering behind the
are 1nore easily adopted and reinforced where there is enjoy1nent and
com1non ego, in 011eself and others alike. Only then can one attend to
one's own sensations a11d feeling for the other, by se11sing what is not
oneself, a11d noting, as well as feeling, when one falls back on the neg-
where there is plenty; the bodily changes in rage and pain are indissolubly tied to those in hunger;27 and too much hunger for too long
can drive a people mad. Yet discern111ent can also be co1n1nunicated in
son, affection) reorder aggression. They can be deconstructed (the images and energies trapped in them taken apart) and turned around.
For oneself, this can be done in solitude. But the transformation of the
affects at large requires being in the world, rather than living the life
of the mind. It requires subjecting oneself to eddies or even torrents of
affects, wl1ile so1nehow 1naintaining equilibritnn. Such is the practice
of sot1ls who, when assailed by envy or contempt or rage do not take
it personally, for they know that these are forces that possess even the
fects and ego. But we have also shown, a little at least, that a sense of
finest souls, whose discerning agencies so1nethnes cower in the corners of their possessed minds, waiting for jt to be over.
best approximation.
Feelings
cially. The affects are thickened, the heart scaled better, when there are
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tion cry out to be named "the soul." But these capacities, by the definition of feelings employed here, are linked to the unimpeded
se11ses-tl1e se11sitive and vegetative capacities/ s11ch as smell, rather
than the higher ones, such as thought, the traditional abode of the
soul. Setting aside further discussion of the investigation of the other I
or soul for now, we can look at feelings as sucl1, which takes us back
to t11e idea of the senses as 11 the seneschals of attention."
The difficulties in understanding that the senses and the flesh embody a logic that moves far faster than thought are tied to Western
schemas that degrade the body and bodily intelligence. This is because t11e schemas i11variably rank the so11l in ter1ns of intellect first,
followed by the capacity to sense, followed by the fleshly passions
and/ or vegetative soul. The fleshly category is assumed to be the least
intelligent and to 11ave the maximum disorder. It is prilne n1atter
witl1out for1n, or the successor of for1n, thinking intelligence. Yet it is
thro11gh the blood that hormones dance their dance of co1n1nunication, while tl1e senses lTy to inake sense of the1n in a vocabulary that
does 11ot provide the1n with an appropriate 11omenclature.29 More to
the point, all the se11ses, as vehicles of attention, con11ect the supposedly higher cognitive faculty of linguistic thought with the fleshly
knowledge or codes of the body.
By the logic of this argu1nent so far, it would be a grave n1istake to
perpetuate the association between the higl1er aims in 11tnnan encleavor and the 11igher brain functions. For ii1stance, s1nell 1nay appear 1norc prhnitivc than the "l1igher" developn1ent of language, but
it is, nonetheless, incapable of lying. It can be deceived, just as hearing
and vision ca11 be deceived, bt1t one cannot consciot1sly decide to e111it
a smell that is at odds with one's affects. Above all, smell precisely discerns. It does not content itself with wallowing in the primitive affective responses with which it is so often associated. It also works with
great rapidity, processing much in a millisecond, whereas Janguage
takes its thne.
Yet the intelligence of such rapidly moving olfactory knowledge is
regarded as inferior, so1nething like a reflex, rath~r than a faster n1ov~
ing mind within. Why is this? I suggest that there is one reason and
one reason only, ai1d it is na1ned the fotn1dational fantasy. That fantasy results in tl1e disposition to see activity as 1nindless when it is not
directed from the standpoint of self-interest. (In turn, this leads to the
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CflAPTER
SEVEN'
gives us joy. It is the "arousal fto1n below" that is so significant in rabbinical literature." Yet as the ego loses standing when the fleshly
senses win through to consciousness and direct the body's govem1nent, we also find the1n terrib.le as an arn1y.. leavil1g noth:in.g of us h1
its wake.
Freedom from the affects means freedom for the .feelings to be known
to conscioll8ness. Feelings ca11 be sifted from affects, and better
known to consciousness, thtottgh the deployment of living attention
or love. B11t stLch attc11lion encou11ters a fol'n1idable opposing fotce.
Affects (via hormones and other means o.f projection and 1eception)
arc carried in the blood, and with them is carried the presence of the
other and the social ln the system. (To find an utterly pure soul within,
something untouched by human error, one would have to sustain liv"
Ing atteitlion through a process of complete exsnnguination.) As t1
rule, affects can be sifted from feelings in everyday life through dis"
cemment, 01 through pradicing cultural codes tl1at suppress the affects, or through analysis, These embody llvlng attention dh'ected
toward the other within and withottt. But feelings are less likely to be
known when the heart is sealed, for the reason lhat the 1nore the affects thicken and harden the more difficult discernment becomes. The
hardenlng of t11e affects is a social affair1 so their transfortnation reqt1h(~8
personal cases, clmnging the disposition of the affects (from passivityinducing and raging judgments of the other to love 01 affection) requil"es practice and knowledge. The unclerstaitding and deployment
of feelings ls critical in both endeavors as the means for discerning af
fects and reconnecling with the original knowledge of tl1e senses.
Lu siento, it was noted, means, literally, "!feel it." The veib here, sentir, also n1eans to s1nell in the French languages, I 1nention this now
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Soloxnon notes that "the p1hnary entotions, those of the greatest concel'n,
va1'y considen:i.bly fro1n c:ulture to culture. Indian clasaifications and distinctions betW<:!en e1notions, passions, and afflictions display a very different structure .fron1 otn own con.unon taxo.no1nies. Artd even when cert'1.in
einotions t't..>J.11ain superficially the san1e, they lnay have very different sta
tus and play very different roles in social interactions. Angeris is considered
n1e1ely 'fear' in Utku culture, and.fear is inevitably mixed with hu1niliation
in a warrior society. Fa1nily affections, which would see1n essential to virtu.ally every society, a1e very different depending on the conception of family,
the conception of fa1nily roles, and so forth. And these conceptiontt, needw
less to say, undergo change, both giadual and violent, as in the several sop
cial l'evolutions of the past few decodes." R. ('.. 8olo.inon, "Some Notes on
E1notion, 1East and West' 11 , Philosophy East and West 45, no.
(Ap1'il 1995):
171-202.
35. Alisdair Macl11tyxe, Ajler Virtue: A Study in Moral 11ieory (Indiana: University of Notre Daine Press, :r.981).
36, James, p,uwion and Aclion, 174.
37. Ibid., :179.
38. Ibid., 159.
39. Teresa Brennan, I-listory after l.ncan (London: Routledge, 1993), purt 1.
40. Similarly, lhis too was foreshadowed by seventeent!H:cntury philosophers. Our p~1ssions, when warped by grandeut; inake us restless and even
nttt.cl. Madness and knowledge are opposed here, for, 1'by making us restless, our pass16ns undertnine the steadiness and conce11tration that the pux~
suit of knowledge :requires.'1 Ja1nes, Passion and Action, 181. I reltu:n to this
below in the discussion of discern1ncnt.
41. See Freud, "Negation," Stancla-rd Edition, vol. 19, 235-39.
42.. No1 can one ineasure time and distance without n fixed reference inarl<.
43. Augustine, CUy of God, 14.6.
11
11
4t~, Abra1nson1 Like Wate1; 15.
45 Ibid., 19.
46. Ibid., 1g--20.
1.
194
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96
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197
23. But this courage is only really courage if what it does is socially difficult;
that is to sa,y, if it risks the loss of the love of friends and fa1nily at one extren1e, or even ~he general good approval of others, intellectually or financially. Atheis1n in the nineteenth century was socially difficult, but thal" is no
longer the case,
24. See C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
2.r;. Freud nu1de the same polnt when he said that those who are well have
the ability to love and worl~
.
:z6. Gillian Rose, Love's Worlc (London: ChaHo and Windusr 1995).
27. W. B. Connon, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage (New York:
Evanston, 1963).
28. The act of resistance is loving, intelligent, never neutral, and always his~
torically based, whether it is exercised in an isolated or a socinl context.
29 Forn1 was always intelligence in ~hat it organized 1natter into intentio1ml
patterns thftt gave each pattern its distinct being or alln. That is the point of
the \ogos as proportionate i11atter, a point that is obscured the ntore the ego
gets things otlt of propo1tion, as is ita wont.
30. See Freud's account of the perceptual apparatus in chapter 7 of Tlw Interpret-ation of Dreams, Standard EdiHon, vol. 5.
31. The experience of rival interpreters in one's head is probably less con.1:inon than the experience of rival inte:tpretationa, but I would hazard that
inne1 dialogues are as recognizable an experience as throwill.g one's reason
to the winds when gripped by passh1g affects.
J2. See Abra1nson, "Like Water/' 16. As Abra1nson notes, the arousal ftorn
belff'V has been connected by respected Cabalists with the ir:nmediate co1n111unication between hen1ts, which is connected by Abratnson with the
sense of s1nell.
1
The, ego is slowe1 in its calculntiona and its ability to reach a conclusion,
slower than what is comn1011ly called inhlitio.t1. I hove argued that it ls
slower because it ulinost alwoyB re1noves itself, lo a greater or lesser extent,
frorn the present. (See Exhausting Modernity, chapter 3.) The ego-as the I'.e"
fleeting part of the mind-exists in past and fulttre thne, either calcttlaHng,
a1\ticipating, desiring, regretting, rctne1nbering, Ol' ill reverie. Oceasionally1
the mind is occupied by co11centratecl attention following a path ali.gned
with the living logic1 in which case 1everie functions to l'edirect I am not
saying that anticipation nnd l'Cflection can be avoided. The idea-rather is
U1at their exercise has a living cost. Really, all I tun doing here is making
1--Jegel's old point that refleclion and na1ning kill the vel-y thing they na1n'e,
"like capturing the fly in aspic/1 as Lacan later put the sa1nc point. See Lucio
Colletti, Marxisrn and ffegel 1 Ltt111s, Lawrence Garner (LondotL New Left
Books, 1973), 52-67, and jnc<[Ue,9 Lacan, Le Semluaire livm 20: Encore (Paris:
Seult 1975), For Augtu~tine, a sii:nilar contradiction between nwareness and
1,
i98
199