Author Topic: Where there is a stink of ****, there is a smell of being... -Artaud  (Read 1707 times)

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Holden

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The body with­out organs is one of Artaud’s most famous and impal­pa­ble con­cepts. Fraught with para­dox and incon­sis­tency, it is most pop­u­larly cited in one Artaud’s final works To Have Done with the Judg­ment of God. In Judg­ment,  Artaud con­demns organs as “marks of a judg­ment … per­ma­nently etched within us.” . Here the organs, or rather, the orga­ni­za­tion struc­ture of the human body/being hin­ders man’s con­tact to a more infi­nite reality.

Artaud most clearly expounds on body with­out organs toward the end of his life, after spend­ing years in the sev­eral insane asy­lums. How­ever, the body with­out organs is not the final ram­blings of a mad­man given over to the frag­men­tary psy­chosis of schiz­o­phre­nia. Instead, this idea cul­mi­nates much of Artaud’s thought through­out his life. We see seeds of the body with­out organs in Artaud’s writ­ings- he asks “… why was it that each time… I felt myself touch­ing on a vitally impor­tant phase of my exis­tence, I did not come to it with a whole organ­ism?”  In Mex­ico, Artaud con­fronts his lack of bod­ily and patho­log­i­cal unity,  “a man pos­sesses him­self in flashes, and even when he pos­sesses him­self, he does not reach him­self com­pletely” . “Man is sick” Artaud claims “because he is badly con­structed”  . Artaud’s claim seems prob­lem­atic: he was sick, spend­ing a great deal of his life in men­tal insti­tu­tions, falling in and out of drug addic­tion, suf­fer­ing from col­lapses of thought and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. His dete­ri­o­rat­ing health was cer­tainly a symp­tom of poor phys­i­o­log­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal con­struc­tion. Deleuze and Guat­tari take Artaud’s denun­ci­a­tion of organs as a way of locat­ing the expe­ri­ence of bod­ies in soci­ety and cul­ture. Roland Bogue sum­ma­rizes Deleuze’s treat­ments of Lewis Car­roll and Artaud in the Logic of Sense:

Car­roll may resem­ble a child­like per­vert, and Artaud a rav­ing mad­man, but as writ­ers they are cul­tural physi­cians whose dif­fer­en­tial diag­noses unfold diver­gent real­i­ties and alter­na­tive modes of life.

The stink of existence is so bad..it could gag a maggot.

Here are the gorts trying to do way with the stink of existence-


I think I am going off my rocker.. now it's time to eat some squirrel pie :P
« Last Edit: January 14, 2015, 02:14:08 pm by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

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Nation of One

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I think that it must be humiliating for us to be alive.  I have to sympathize with men and women in this respect.  I am embarrassed to use someone's toilet as a guest.  That is how offensive I find the odor of my bowel movements.  Maybe this is at the root of why some relations remain Platonic.  Both parties want to maintain some level of dignity without "being exposed" for the ridiculous creatures we know ourselves to be. 

It must take an incredible amount of emotional maturity to cohabit for long periods of time without feeling we are less in the eyes of another than before.  One becomes vulnerable.

I think I like to live alone because then I can be in whatever mood I am in without feeling I have to apologize.   :(
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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Holden

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I think that it must be humiliating for us to be alive.  I have to sympathize with men and women in this respect.  I am embarrassed to use someone's toilet as a guest.  That is how offensive I find the odor of my bowel movements.  Maybe this is at the root of why some relations remain Platonic.  Both parties want to maintain some level of dignity without "being exposed" for the ridiculous creatures we know ourselves to be. 



Thats whats so great about you- you give voice to my vague thoughts.
It must take an incredible amount of emotional maturity to cohabit for long periods of time without feeling we are less in the eyes of another than before.  One becomes vulnerable.

Thats the reason I've been staying alone for last 6 years now,even if it meant paying extra rent.Anyway,most women are not interested in the kind of things that we are into.That said,I am not blaming them-they are victims of this show business world too.
“May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.” ― George Carlin ;)
« Last Edit: January 17, 2015, 01:34:36 pm by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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Ghostly Being
« Reply #4 on: December 15, 2015, 12:45:11 pm »
I am through with appearances.Will is the inner content.I have been driven,since the age of 16 or 17 to find the thing in itself and that which lay behind all appearances.
Schopenhauer:When at times I felt unhappy this was by virtue of a misunderstanding,of a flaw in my person.I then took myself to be other than I was and then lamented that other person's misery and distress,e.g.for a Privatdozent who does not become a professor and has no one to hear his lectures,or for the one of whom the philistines speak ill and the gossips spread stories.

Amor is rooted in sexual impulse alone.The man is a cuckold for the first part of the marriage ,a ****monger for the second part.
Ghosts:Schopenhauer argued that one could not a priori rule out the possibility of spirit-seeing,as the essence of a person's will is not destroyed by death.But death annihilated anything that could individualise one dead person from another-each and everything at the level of will is ,well,just will.
Later ,he would pronounce the question concerning how deeply the roots of the individual go into the being in itself of all things as one of many questions that required transcendent answer,an impossible one.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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... a Privatdozent who does not become a professor and has no one to hear his lectures,or for the one of whom the philistines speak ill and the gossips spread stories.

We are Schopenhauer's students.  He wrote for us, the few.
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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Holden

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Quote
From the biography by Cartwright I learned about Schopenhauer's fascination with Italy.   I thought that maybe that is where he went to sow his wild oats (most likely).

Do you remember the incident where Cartwright describes how Schopenhauer was about be cuckolded by some lady in Italy? Let me refresh your memory:Goethe had given a letter of introduction to him so that he may meet Byron during his visit to Italy.One morning he and his  lady companion were strolling ,he writes"when my Dulcinea cried out in great excitement"Behold the English Poet".Byron swept by me on horseback & the woman could not let loose of the impression for the entire day.I decided then not to send  Goethe's letter. I was afraid of being cuckolded."

I am sorry to say but Cartwright comments on this scene in a rather frivolous manner. He says that Adele,his sister, who was also a big Byron fan could never understand why Schopenhauer did not meet Byron. Apparently ,neither does Mr. Cartwright  for whom this incident is amusing at best.He tries to paint Schopenhauer as a coward who did not dare to tell his sister the real reason as to why he did not meet Byron.
Now,if I were writing that biography,I'd have treated this incident very,very gravely and differently.
These are my comments:
1.On the Lady: Clearly,the woman was being paid quite well by Schopenhauer. Still she chose to betray his trust for Byron.
She possessed no sense of loyalty. She should at least have hid her feelings about Byron from Schopenhauer.But that is too much to expect,I guess.
2. On the Sister:She tries to make sure that Schopenhauer is humiliated in a two folded manner.First with regard to his lover and then with regard to his sister.She betrayed him when he would have expected her to support him very much. His expectations from the lady may not have been very high ,but he would not have expected that his sister would let him down too.
3.On Cartwright: He should learn to be a little more honest and a little less politically correct.
4.Schopenhauer: In the entire incident ,he really practices what he preached:
a.He was clear eyed enough to notice the bad behaviour of the lady(probably dumped her the very next day).
b.Gives the middle finger to  Byron-rockstar or no rockstar, by not meeting him.
c.Understood his sister's psychology and deals with her accordingly. Not as Mr.Cartwright would have him behave-like a medieval knight by telling her the "truth" & then have her laugh in his face .

Tell you what, when he writes "I was afraid of being cuckolded",he was not cracking a joke to amuse Mr.Cartwright. He was being dead serious. He was AFRAID.
I makes me very,very sad to think of this incident-here you have one of the greatest philosophers of all time-driven by the WILL against his better judgment to seek the company of women.

200 years after that incident men are still  solving the cost-to-reward equation women give them. They’re forced to solve an equation presented to them by women who feel entitled to having their hypergamous natures appeased, with no insight as to how disposable men might adapt to their conditions.

These aren’t lost ‘boys’, they are mature, relatively accomplished men responding to their condition.
Is it a mystery why in later years ladies could not compete with his dear companion Atma?

« Last Edit: June 04, 2017, 10:01:41 pm by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Icelander

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“because he is badly con­structed” - Artaud

This about sums up my lifetime research into the human condition. And on so many levels. Both physical and psychological and possibly spiritual if such exists. I really don't understand those who state what a miraculous perfection is man. They are obviously unable or unwilling to see the forest for the trees which just proves the quote above. And here's something that has dawned on me recently. It's the madman that is most sane most often for he cannot bear living the lie we all struggle with and so he lets himself go but has more health and is better constructed but what a sad thing that is because his construction is wrecked also and so painfully.

Pity the human above all things. I know of nothing in the universe that suffers to such an extent with its own consciousness and thereby causes suffering that covers the earth. I think if we really wanted to discuss the above quote in depth we could write a book worthy of Thomas Ligotti.



By the way can anyone tell me how to put up a video without you haven't to cut and paste it? I'd appreciate that.

Nation of One

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As for posting a link to a video on ZooTube, your method works just as well.

What I do also involves copy and pasting the url address.

Without the quotations marks, I type "["
then "url="
then the URL address, as in "h t t p s://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWqchTciaP0" (without the spaces between h t t p s)
then "]"
Then, anything, like "x" or "Wilhelm" (it doesn't display)
Then "[/url]"
 
It will look the same as if you just pasted the URL address alone, as you did.



Quote from: Icelander
I really don't understand those who state what a miraculous perfection is man.

Me neither.  That's why I am more than a little suspicious of medical doctors or judges or kings and governors or chiefs of police or Olympic athletes or anyone else who I am expected to defer to their authority, especially priests, college professors, psychiatrists, etc.

You see, there are classes of human beings who have undergone intensive training at specific tasks, but, one can't help but see through the farce of society, seeing the costumes and roles people play.

Nothing that is so, is so.  Underneath the facade we are all these human creatures, intelligent apes with opposable thumb and forefinger.

I have compassion and sympathy for all living creatures, especially human beings forced to live in cities, and most especially those left to fend for themselves without shelter or any kind of security in the cities, which are really man-made Hell on earth.

If you take any of the so-called "superior" human life forms, say the judge or the or the head psychiatrist or even surgeon, and place them in such an environment without their credit cards, bank accounts, without any such resources or "connections", within a short time, they most likely would become unrecognizable and perhaps would take up drinking alcohol heavily or even smoking crack or worse.

Man is to be pitied, for sure.

Think of the danger people are in who do possess a great deal of wealth and flaunt it before the desperate.   

Hell, even those who have very little might be strongly resented for carry a couple bags of groceries by those who are with absolutely nothing. 

Reflecting on the prisons and hospitals filled with misery and agony, if one is able to elude such trappings, or if one finds oneself not living in such misery as many, it is natural to be relieved.  Perhaps one even "thanks" some unseen forces or even just circumstances and coincidences that enable one to elude, for the moment, anyway, such Hell.

I suspect that those who state what a miraculous perfection is man have never really speculated on just how fragile such "perfection" is. 

Toothaches, migraine headaches, the loss of limbs ... It is mind boggling just how delicate this so-called perfection is.  A CEO got torn limb from limb by a mob of disgruntled factory workers in India.  That is our reality.  We are apes.

Evolution does not know what it is doing.

Sentience must suffer in this scenario for it is horrified not only by the actual suffering which persists in this world, but even terrified by the mere potential for the unforeseen twist of fate.  Fate is cruel.

Oh well, I have to get going this morning.

I would like to solve one problem before racing out of the house to get my mother to a doctor.

One problem involves geometry, one involves something more to me liking (posted by Holden) which I think I can solve with a couple "for loops" in a Python shell, and the other one posed by you, Icelander, about the existence of a Creator of this world.

I am not messing with the last, but will remain silent - only because it is not something I care to think about for too long.  Besides, that is in a different thread.

I will leave a little comment there explaining my stance.  It will be very short.

The geometry problem, on the other hand ... I don't know where to begin.  I will think about that one throughout the day, I suppose, maybe carry it with me on a piece of paper in my pocket.

So, it looks like I'll be eating Holden's math riddle for breakfast, and putting geometry and metaphysics on the back burner.

Take care.
-------------------------------------------------
PS:  I solved the geometry problem while smoking a cigarette ...

The mother will be late for her doctor's appointment ...
« Last Edit: August 14, 2017, 09:32:51 am by { { } } »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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Nation of One

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Quote from: Holden
“May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.” ― George Carlin

From "Antonin Artaud: The Scum of the Soul"

For Artaud, everything begins with the body and anything that is learned, rather than experienced directly through the body, cannot be trusted.  In a letter addressed to the legislator of drug laws he writes, "All the fortuitous scientific knowledge of mankind is not superior to the immediate knowledge I can have of my being.  I am the only judge of what is within me."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He is petitioning for the legalization of opium.

What interests me about Artaud is in relation to Deleuze's and Gattari's attack against psychiatry and Freudian psychoanalysis. 

Whereas Freud made a dogma out of the unconscious and celebrated his "discovery" that we do not know ourselves at all, Artaud seems to be stating the exact opposite. 

Naming something the unconscious does not help us understand it any better.  For all we know, Freud is using the word unconscious to describe what Schopenhauer called the Will.

Maybe it is this Body, this Creature.

Artaud argues that no trained psychiatrist can know him better than he knows himself via his own Body, the Will.

I once was smitten by a dark-skinned woman who had been advised by the State to seek psychiatric "help".  She witnessed what I was subjected to in receiving such "help," and she protested, "They can't know me better than I know myself!"

And here is something peculiar I have discovered throughout my life in my interactions with various peoples.   The picture of the world - as experienced from within as an animal creature - as it is described by Schopenhauer, is somehow shared by those who I know have never read his works, like that woman I had been smitten with back in 2006-2008 or so.

This is all too painfully real, and I can understand why Artaud found writing a book so problematic.   We need to write a book about how impossible it is to write a book about how we actually feel and what we actually think.

Maybe this is the key to understanding my continued obsession with these old math texts.  At least with math, as long as I give it enough time and patience, and work at a level I can follow, take notes, do the exercises in detail, and even write supportive computer programs based on the theorems I m studying, at least there is the calming effect of "making some progress"; whereas, with philosophical musing, there comes a point when I think, "Reality is for people who can't handle drugs."

 :-\

While reading I find my hand on my heart, and I hear little noises coming from the tubes connecting my belly to the mouth and the defecation tubes.  I hear the rain outside.   I almost want to recant what I have said about life and I entertain some doubts about "where I stand".  Then I think, no matter what I say about life, the heart wants to beat, and this Body wants to breathe!  It wants to drink water.  It wants to eat chicken.  :-\
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Nation of One

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I have been searching for a link to any copy of the document, Letter Against the Kabbala, as I am too lazy to type it up here.   To be more honest, I should also mention that his language is shocking and would have to be tweaked so as not to to be totally bastardized by the automatic censors in this message board's editor.  Big Nurse/Nanny Ratched must know better than us how to spell ****.

While searching I did find  Hello, Cruel World: Antonin Artaud's Pursuit of Primal Theater.  (109 page thesis)

Also: 
Antonin Artaud:  Works on Paper

In a certain Cthulhu Mythos, while neither the mythos itself of Arabic origin, nor Artaud himself of Arabic origin, wouldn't he [Antonin Artaud himself] represent an archetype of the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred, the fictional character who authored the fictional book Kitab al-Azif (the Necronomicon)?

Whereas Alhazred is fictional, and his work fictional, Artaud is in the flesh (WAS in the flesh) and did leave behind some "Letters of Interest" in which he blurts out nonsense-words, kind of poking a stick at the entire alphanumeric edifice of human language, machine language:  alphanumerics, a, b, c, 1, 2, 3 ... and he hates who I call "The People of the Book," meaning, those who gave us the aleph-beth alphabet transformed by the Greeks with vowels.

Artaud was pointing out the "hidden" reality society and authors of mathematics text books like to ignore:  the reality of the thing S H I T which our stupid automated editor attempts to disallow us [programming apes] from typing.   As if we apes can't outsmart the automated editor programmed by some other defacating baboon!   Let's see Nurse Robot censor words I can't even spell correctly!   Ha!

« Last Edit: September 21, 2019, 01:45:50 pm by Haywire Baboonery »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Nation of One

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"I would like to write a book which would drive men mad, which would be like an open door leading them where they would never have consented to go, in short, a door that opens onto reality."  (Antonin Artaud 1925)

Was Artaud a contemporary of Lin Yutang?

"We are not going to kill ourselves just yet.  In the meantime, leave us the hell alone."  (Artaud, January 1925)
« Last Edit: December 19, 2019, 03:16:26 pm by Kaspar Heinrich »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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Nation of One

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Crime in a Madhouse
« Reply #12 on: October 28, 2020, 10:05:08 pm »
Trailer: Crime dans une Maison de Fous (Crime in a Madhouse)





Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Nation of One

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I am currently struggling to become more emotionally mature.  Can we protect ourselves against the indifference and hostility of this world by developing and nurturing a comic attitude of indifference and hostility?   If there are continual subtle rejections and unrequited emotional presence, the, eventually, one is going to want the mind-fuck to end, the heartache to end.

If the very quality of the Thing-in-Itself in other sentient creatures, including our own mothers, is one of indifference (to our suffering), then we might naturally develop a hostile (even comically detached) attitude.  The human-society world itself, in the form of parents and other people, may have shown us such hostility or total indifference, that we have taken offense on a very deep level.

We feel assaulted by our own existence.
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~