Monday, September 20, 2004
(6:28 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Morbid Fascination
There's a woman at work who is morbidly fascinated with disasters. She was one of those 9/11-obsessives -- the kind who must constantly bring themselves into the discussion of an event that occurred thousands of miles away: "When I think about how scary it would have been to be in one of those towers...." Or Beslan: "I don't know how I could have handled being in that situation...." Or the impending flood of the Kankakee and Iroquois Rivers... except that that one might actually affect her, as she lives in the overlapping flood plain of both.I ventured my opinion today that her home being destroyed in a flood would be the best thing that could ever happen to her. Her house is apparently severely dilapidated as a result of a decades-long power struggle with her husband as to who should clean the house, but every time she tries to clean, she can't throw anything away -- and so an act of God cleaning the slate would seem to be just the thing. Actually, a fucking divorce would be just the thing, but her holy quest to be above reproach will not permit it. She was right about whatever conflict started her house on the road to squalor -- of that I am certain. And she is right to point out everyone's mistakes. And she is right to tell the manager things behind our backs. And she is right that every time we catch something she did wrong, there is probably a valid excuse, such that it's a fluke -- or, better, that she was never properly trained, or we know how her memory is.... She is absolutely, 100% right, and I've never met anyone more miserable.
Too often, though, admitting you're wrong becomes a way of admitting that now, with all the relevant information at hand, you have become right. I do that myself. Certainly there is more than a little bit of the holy quest to be above reproach in capitulating to the demands of others -- in "admitting," every time, that yes, I was wrong, I misunderstood, I wanted too much from you, I just wanted you to be happy.... I used to tell all the little Christian girls who loved me for my philosophy that there are two ways of being self-centered, and they never understood, not even one time, that there is a narcissism of pleasing others, a hostility in refusing ever to assert one's own desires -- a bubbling resentment below the surface that doesn't know what it wants or what to do when it makes an occasional appearance. Because, damn it -- I've put in my time. I have done everything you asked. I have tried my best, even when you were unreasonable! I would do absolutely anything -- all you have to do is ask. A grab for power posing as impotence -- absolute hostility posing as complete openness and servitude.
It's the ultimate fuck-you to the world -- the pose of the beautiful soul who displaces every particle of blame onto mother, onto the lazy roommate, onto the recalcitrant lover, onto the symbolic order, and ultimately onto God himself. All the while, we beautiful souls cower in the corner, clutching our precious shred of jouissance, hoping that no one notices that we really are getting off on this. I used to say -- I claimed I took it from Lacan -- that people always get what they want. Beautiful souls above all!
The narcissism of self-denial or self-abnegation is not "better" than narcissism of the normal variety -- in fact, it is potentially much more insidious. And for all the Christians out there, or all those unconscious Christians for whom something like "self-denial" sounds like a great idea, I give you the Johannine Jesus, who, on the night he was betrayed, decided to take the opportunity to have one more lazy meal, one more lengthy talk, one more evening of cuddling with his boyfriend, sharing one last whispered secret -- who makes arrangements for his mother even from the cross, but is not afraid to say, "I thirst." Or I give you the Apostle Paul, who would certainly prefer that the members of the churches he founds wouldn't have to bother with the complications of marriage -- but if they need it bad, then they just need to find someone they can fuck regularly. If you feel like you need to take a break to pray, then that's fine, but make sure it's not so long -- because honestly, you married this person so that you could have sex with them. (This is all in the Bible.)
There is a terrible violence inscribed into the knight of self-denial, whose practice is surely more often based on a hatred of self than on a love of the other.
