Having read quite a few chapters of Michael Richardson's book entitled "Georges Bataille", (1994) by Routledge press, New York, the book is indeed providing a great introduction to Bataille's' work.
It is always important to read such books in the right context, particularly in a historical sense during the early 1920s. It seems that whilst he had originally planned quite a deep and religious vocation as either a priest or a monk, and with this train of thought had in fact joined the seminary of Saint-Fleur, which she continued through his novice religious yearnings for the next three years, he perhaps was too young to make such a devout commitment. Around this time while staying in the UK, in the Benedictine monastery on the Isle of Wight, it seems there may have been a possible tryst with a woman which caused him to question his Catholicism to such an extent that he felt that he had lost his faith and hence his vocation. (Richardson, 1994, p19).
On his return to France and continuing to write and research mediaeval texts, he created his thesis on "the order of chivalry, told in verse from the 13th century" in early 1922. With this doubt of his faith in the back of his mind, he then embarked on extensive travels in southern Spain. It was here that he witnessed the terrible death of a bull-fighter, already mentioned in the previous blog about Georges Bataille, and it is possible that this one single event led him on to his life of contemplation as a philosopher.(Richardson, 1994, p19)
The relationship that he had with the world that he lived in, particularly after reading the works of Frederick Wilhelm Nietzsche, was very much influenced by Nietzsche's interpretations written some 30+ years earlier. Likewise, therefore, the relationship that he had with Nietzsche, was somewhat akin to him writing responses, thesis and theories almost in conversation to that earlier great German thinker. (Richardson, 1994, p33)
With this background, the idea of "the social" and his view of it being a communal being, becomes the most important part of his philosophical enquiry. At the foundation, Bataille had a view that the unity and continuance of society were held together by the notion of the sacred. He believed that without the sacred, no society could exist. At the opposite end of the spectrum, (here, we have to take into account the idea of Durkheim), which is that the opposite of sacred is the profane. Likewise, it is earlier philosophers such as Spinoza building on yet earlier thoughts of Zarathustra (Zoroaster) and Tomas Aquinas who introduced the concept of those extremes as the ethics of good and evil. However, the difference between good and evil, in that they reflected each other as elements of morality, - to Durkheim, the profane and the sacred could never be mixed together. Something can be judged only as profane or only as sacred, and there is no grey intermediate state between the two. (Richardson, 1994, p35-36).
So as Michael Richardson goes on to say, Bataille's understanding of Durkheim fitted quite well with his earlier religious schooling and study. He goes on to say that;
'the sacred is the forbidden element of society that exists at the margin where different realities meet. Without it society could not exist, for if it was lacking then Bataille asserts that "the totality of the plenitude of being escapes man, [and] he would henceforth be only an incomplete man"'.
It is here, therefore, that Bataille makes the distinction that the sacred is not just some part of a revealed religion, but it is like the glue as an essential ingredient to hold society together in solidarity. However, this idea of the sacred only becomes important through communication, and most important is that the communication of it must be meaningful for society, in order for it to be held together. (Richardson, 1994, p36)
What this means is that an individual who chases after his own selfish benefit is considered to be socially unacceptable. Arguably this idea is one of the basic precepts of contemporary philosophy but also has its roots in the ancient philosophy of Socrates and the idea of the parable of Crito. In that story, Socrates said, and this is paraphrased somewhat that if an individual selfishly does some harm to others, and considers it acceptable, then why should the rest of society not think the same way? If that was the case then society and its laws together with the state would completely break down. (Craig, E. 2002)
(This idea of social acceptability, and in essence making a contract with society, is manifest quite clearly in the United Kingdom for repeated transgressions against society, which may not fall within the direct auspices of criminal law. In order to counter such bad behaviour, the idea of Antisocial Behaviour Orders (ASBOs), which are essentially a civil contract between an individual who continually transgresses towards the profane (in any form), were introduced in the late 1990s by the UK government. As such, the contract is a civil commitment by the individual not to transgress particular repeat demeanours, within 'their' society (i.e. local community). In order to enforce the same, the breaking of that civil promise carries a criminal penalty).
The idea that Bataille uses this fundamental concept to help define a society's structure helps to explain sociologically how society can maintain its own cohesion. He uses the words homogeneity and heterogeneity to explain some of the unique research which he expresses as an organised society which is built upon a cohesion with inflexible laws as a modern state as Homogeneity; and alternatively, Heterogeneity he explains is built upon social forms of cooperation ritual expression and customs. Bataille goes on to explain that critique of capitalist society. In such a society homogeneity is welcomed as a totalitarian control. This is at odds with the heterogeneous society where true communication and collaboration towards a common view of harmonious society, (in other words a revered and
sacred view), is the goal; that being akin to Marxism in its idealistic sense.
Conclusions;
- Coming back to the context that I have already mentioned of society in the 1920s, which was very much going through a massive change in terms of modernism, industrialisation and in particular automation through mechanical and technological advances: with highly controlled exploitation of society, it makes sense too, on the backdrop of job losses and labour disruption leading to the great depression that the deepest thinkers within society would find such resonance with the ideas of Nietzsche and thus the prophetic concepts of nihilism (Stoekl, A. 1986)
- In Michael Richardson's words, it is likely that the thinkers of this era and in particular Georges Bataille thought that homogeneity was the path to social disintegration, therefore.
References;
- Craig, E. (2002). Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Richardson, M. (1994). Georges Bataille. London: Routledge.
- Stoekl, A. (1986). Visions of Excess: (Selected Writings, 1927-1939 of Georges Bataille), (1986 Second Edition), Edited and Translated by Allan Stoekl. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
These callipers or dividers are based on the Greek pentagram mechanism that I think Archimedes may have used. They are a set of dividers with a difference, though. Instead of just having two legs, or arms, or pointers, there are in fact three. The outer two operate in the usual manner as simple calipers; approximately one third down the arms length, though, on both sides, is a link on one, and on the other a full-length leg which itself is divided into two parts, the centre of which links to the opposite divided third of the full arm. This effectively gives a third leg linked to both the primary and secondary arms of the callipers. The key to this intriguing little device, however, lies in its measurements and ratios, of which have been specifically calculated to ensure that the third leg, which sits in between the primary and secondary arms of the calliper, remain fixed at an exact ratio based on Fibonacci's observations of the golden ratio;
In my case, the linkage arm would not allow the third leg to sufficiently close next to the secondary arm, so I made a very small elongation of the upper linkage arm hole. (Approx 1mm). This allowed the arms to all fully close, however, this also means that the accuracy of the 1.68 ratios is slightly compromised, albeit, it is un-noticeable for my purposes, so I can live with that slight margin of error.
