Mary Worth & French Postmodernism: 2/3/22

 

Pope St Martin I, Epistola XVII

Another quick translation for the feast of Pope St. Martin I:

"We always have every desire of consoling your love with letters and alleviating that anxiety which you have about us: and along with you also all the saints and our brothers who care about us because of the Lord.

Look, I am writing to you for the present about the things that oppress us. I speak the truth in the name of Christ our God. For we have been removed from all earthly disturbance, and separated from our sins, and look, we have even been deprived of life itself.

If only the people who live in this region were all pagans! Indeed the people who are known to dwell here have accepted pagan morals, and no longer have that love, with abundant compassion, which human nature shows even among barbarians. God knows that this is how it is, except in regards to the people from the ships which come from 'Romania,' as those who are here call those regions, that is to say, that is what they call the regions of Greek Pontus. For from this region I have not once been able able to get hold of even a single trimensis of grain or food of any other kind, except, as I said above, from the ships which rarely come here to depart again loaded with salt. In this way we have been able to buy with money three or four measures of grain during the period up to the present month of September. And til now we have not been able to buy any fresh produce except four measures for one coin.

I have been amazed, however, and I still am amazed at the lack of understanding and lack of compassion of all those who once belonged to me, even my friends and family, because they have entirely forgotten my plight, and do not even want to know, as I have learned, whether I am above the ground or not. I have also wondered much more at those who belong to the Most Holy Church of Peter the Apostle, because they have given so little effort about their own body and their own body part--that is, my love--in order to bring us back, and are without concern even for the necessities of my body and my daily needs. For even if the Church of Holy Peter does not have gold, nevertheless by the grace of God she does not lack grain and wine and other necessities, so that she could show her concern by giving me even a little.

What sort of conscience do you think we have to display before the tribunal of Christ, at that time when all people, who have arisen from the same mud and the same mass, will accuse and render accounts? What fear is this which has fallen upon people so that they do not at all do the commandments of God, or what fear can there be where there is no fear? Or have malignant spirits buried us in slander to such an extent? Or have I appeared to be an enemy of the whole fullness of the Church, and their enemy?

Nevertheless may God, who wills that all be saved and come to knowledge of the truth, through the intercession of Holy Peter preserve their hearts in the Orthodox Faith, and strengthen them against every heretic and every person opposed to our Church, and guard them immovable, especially that pastor who is now appointed to preside over them, and therefore let them neither fall away, nor turn away, nor let go of, any of those things which in the sight of God and his Holy Angels they have professed in writing, even to the smallest part, and let them, together with my humility, obtain the Crown of Justice of the Orthodox Faith from the hand of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

For the care for this humble body of mine will belong to the Lord himself, as it pleases him to govern it, whether in unceasing troubles, or in a little respite. For the Lord is near; why am I anxious? I certainly hope in his mercies, because he is not now delaying in bringing an end to my race, to which he ordered me.

Keep safe those who belong to you because of the Lord, and all those who for the love of God have had compassion on my chains. May the Most High God with his powerful hand protect you from every trial, and keep you safe for his kingdom."

 -Pope St. Martin I, Epistola XVII

Mary Worth & French Postmodernism: 1/30/22

"The reabsorption of critical negativity is echoed by an even more radical form of denial: the denial of reality.

In simulation, you move beyond true and false through parody, masquerade, derision to form an immense enterprise of deterrence. Deterrence from every historical reference, from all reality in the passage into signs. This strategy of destabilization, of discrediting, of divestment from reality in the form of parody, mockery, or masquerade becomes the very principle of government, is also a depreciation of all value.

The question is no longer of a power or a 'political' power connected to a history, to forms of representation, to contradictions and a critical alternative. Representation has lost its principle and the democratic illusion is complete--not as much by the violation of rights as by the simulation of values, general uncertainty and the derealization of all reality. Everyone is caught in the signs of power that occupy the entire space--and that are shared by everyone communally (take for example the resigned, embarrassed complicity in the rigged workings of the political sphere and polls).

From there, the system works exponentially:

--not starting from value, but from the liquidation of value.
--not through representation, but through the liquidation of representation.
--not from reality but from the liquidation of reality.

Everything in the name of which domination was exercised is terminated, sacrificed, which should logically lead to the end of domination. This is indeed the case, but for the sake of hegemony.

The system doesn't care a fig for laws; it unleashes deregulation in every domain.

--Deregulation of value in speculation.
--Deregulation of representation in the various form of manipulation and parallel networks.
--Deregulation of reality through information, the media, and virtual reality.

From that point on: total immunity--one can no longer counter the system in the name of one's own principles since the system has abolished them. The end of all critical negativity. Closure of every account and all history. The reign of hegemony.
[...]
The most serious of all forms of self-denial--not only economically or politically but metaphysically--is the denial of reality. This immense enterprise of deterrence from every historical reference, this strategy of discrediting, of divesting from reality in the form of parody, mockery, or masquerade, becomes the very principle of government. The new strategy--and it truly is a mutation--is the self-immolation of value, of every system of value, of self-denial, in differentiation, rejection and nullity as the triumphant command."

-Jean Baudrillard, The Agony of Power

Mary Worth & French Postmodernism: 1/9/22

"At the supreme moment of the crisis, the very instant when reciprocal violence is abruptly transformed into unanimous violence, the two faces of violence seem to be juxtaposed; the extremes meet. The surrogate victim serves as catalyst in this metamorphosis. And in performing this function he seems to combine in his person the most pernicious and most beneficial aspect of violence. He becomes the incarnation, as it were, of a game men feign to ignore, one whose basic rules are indeed unknown to them: the game of their own violence.

It is not enough to say that the surrogate victim 'symbolizes' the change from reciprocal violence and destruction to unanimous accord and construction; after all, the victim is directly responsible for this change and is an integral part of the process. From the purely religious point of view, the surrogate victim--or, more simply, the final victim--inevitably appears as a being who submits to violence without provoking a reprisal; a supernatural being who sows violence to reap peace; a mysterious savior who visits affliction on mankind in order subsequently to restore it to good health.

To our modern way of thinking a hero cannot be 'good' without ceasing to be 'evil,' and vice versa. Religious empiricism sees matters in a different light; in a sense, it confines itself to recording events as it sees them. Oedipus is initially an evil force and subsequently a beneficial one. It is not a question of 'exonerating' him, because the question of blaming him, in the modern moralistic sense of the term, never arises.

[...]

The beneficial Oedipus at Colonus supersedes the earlier, evil Oedipus, but he does not negate him. How could he negate him, since it was the expulsion of a guilty Oedipus that prompted the departure of violence? The peaceful outcome of his expulsion confirms the justice of the sentence passed on him, his unanimous conviction for patricide and incest.

If Oedipus is indeed the savior of the community, it is because he is a patricidal and incestuous son."

-René Girard, Violence and the Sacred