"Essayez donc de tousser, maintenant!"

ANTOINE: Lorsque j'ai ouvert la portière, votre mari vivait encore... et il a dit... Je n'arrive pas à comprendre. Il a dit: "Essayez donc de tousser, maintenant..."

Julie le regarde attentivement, un instant, puis commence à rire. Elle ne peut plus s'arrêter. Antoine la regarde sans comprendre. Julie, riant encore, lui explique.

JULIE: Mon mari était en train de nous raconter une histoire drôle. C'est l'histoire d'une femme qui va chez le médecin, elle tousse, elle tousse, elle ne peut plus s'arrêter. Le médecin lui donne une pilule: "Voilà exactement ce qu'il vous faut." La femme avale le cachet. "Qu’est-ce que c'est?" demande‑t‑elle. "C'est le laxatif le plus puissant que la médecine connaisse actuellement" répond le médecin. "Un laxatif, contre la toux?" demande la femme, étonnée. "Oui", répond le médecin, "Essayez donc de tousser, maintenant." Ça nous a fait rire. Au même moment, la voiture a rebondi...

La chute de l'histoire fait sourire Antoine. Julie se fait sérieuse.

JULIE: Mon mari faisait partie de ces gens qui racontent toujours la chute deux fois...

 —Krzysztof Kieslowski et Krzysztof Piesiewicz, Trois Couleurs: Bleu (1993)

哀悼的倫理與恐懼的義務：巴黎自殺恐攻事件下的危命

        “One way of posing the question of who “we” are in these times of war is by asking whose lives are considered valuable, whose lives are mourned, and whose lives are considered ungrievable. We might think of war as dividing populations into those who are grievable and those who are not. An ungrievable life is one that cannot be mourned because it has never lived, that is, it has never counted as a life at all. We can see the division of the globe into grievable and ungrievable lives from the perspective of those who wage war in order to defend the lives of certain communities, and to defend them against the lives of others—even if it means taking those latter lives."

—Judith Butler, Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable?

        "If something like a demonic element survives in the world of [Kafka and Robert Walser], it is rather in the form Spinoza may have had in mind when he wrote that the devil is only the weakest of creatures and the most distant from God; as such, it can not do us harm, but on the contrary it is what most needs our help and our prayers. It is, in every being that exists, the possibility of not-being that silently calls for our help (or, if you wish, the devil is nothing other than divine impotence or the power of not-being in God.) Evil is only our inadequate reaction when faced with this demonic element, our fearful retreat from it in order to exercise—founding ourselves in this flight—some power of being. Impotence or the power to not-be is the root of evil only in this secondary sense. Fleeing from our own impotence, or rather trying to adopt it as a weapon, we construct the malevolent power that oppresses those who show us their weakness; and failing our innermost possibility of not-being, we fall away from the only thing that makes love possible. Creation—or existence—is not the virtuous struggle of a power to be against a power to not-be; it is rather the impotence of God with respect to his own impotence, his allowing—being able to not not-be—a contingency to be. Or rather: It is the birth in God of love."

—Giorgio Agamben, The Coming Community

        因為上上週五（13/11）發生的巴黎自殺攻擊事件，在這裡先和大家報一聲有些晚的平安：謝謝大家的關心，我很好，依然在被我戲稱為「冷酷異境」的里爾安靜地進行學士厚顏咎。然而其實從星五晚上回到家消息開始進來後我就感到非常恐懼—尤其當自己事發前的一個週末才在巴黎，甚至下榻的青旅就在鄰近恐怖攻擊的第十區的同時; 我不禁要想：如果策動者把計劃提前了一個星期，如果我不小心把車票錯訂成了下一週，又如果當天在 Le Bataclan 開演唱會的不是 Eagles of Death Metal 而是 Damien Rice，那麼很可能那就是毫無中介地直接發生在自己身上的事，而大概我也不再能夠在這邊奢侈地想著關於自己的任何事了罷—於是我感到恐懼。然而這裡的問題除了我的恐懼之外，我想更重要的還在此自身的恐懼如何可能穿越個體存有的疆界延伸到他者（從吶喊「我的恐懼」到呼喚「我們的恐懼」），在於這新擴張、新劃出的「我們」的邊境何在（誰將屬於那之中，以及誰已然被排除於此看似普世的恐懼吶喊），更在於這「我們的恐懼」是否終究也會成為某種力量—就如同大家對巴黎的祈禱與哀悼終究也會成為某種力量一樣。如同文章的最後我會復述的，對於恐懼的肯認其實就是一種言說「我們」之行為、一種形塑共同體的想像：它使人們更切身地見證傷者、亡者與創痛本身（雖然同時必須認識到要無限地貼近直至完全見證終究是不可能）也同時在在提醒著我們任何（包括哀悼在內）言說的行為從來不僅僅是一項能力，更是一種義務 ： I speak not because I can—but because I must. 

        因此在這裡首先想提出來討論的恰好就是關於臺灣 Facebook 平台上祈禱/哀悼的問題。如同大家都知道的，在攻擊事件的新聞消息與死傷人數逐漸開始穩定後，我們首先看到來自世界各國的 Facebook 使用者貼出註有 Pray for Paris 的相片或文字，而同時 Facebook 作為平台本身也提供替大頭貼加上法國三色國旗濾鏡的服務以示支持與祈福。然而也就在這裡我們開始看到 Facebook 上輿論的聲音（至少很明確地在臺灣）漸漸出現分歧：一方面，我們看到一則則以「你關心巴黎為什麼不去關心其他（特別是發生在第三世界的）攻擊/屠殺」為形式對 Pray for Paris參與者的批判，試圖指出其行動在西方中心主義與權力、傳媒資源極度不對稱等條件下產生的局限性與矛盾; 而在另一方面，我們同時也聽到更多對此一批判的反思，也就是正面肯認 Pray for Paris 參與者的祈福多半來自直接的「同情共感」（https://www.facebook.com/prof.chungilin/posts/1664697753778329），或者反過來進一步質疑批評者在談論Pray for Paris時嘲笑或譏諷的口吻，認為其批判自詡來自一道德制高點，然本質無非一種文青的「為反對而反對」罷了—那並無助於事，且他們才是此輿論角力中真正偽善的一群。

        的確，以嘲笑與譏諷的口吻談論 Pray for Paris 並不妥當，好似事件本身的創痛還不夠，我們還要用語言的暴力在其傷口上撒鹽一般。然而在另一方面我希望提出的疑問則是：是否只要真誠地發自內心，「同情共感」，在 Facebook 上 Pray for Paris 真的就是他人無從置喙的？是否的確只要我喜歡替自己的頭貼加上三色濾鏡，沒有任何人有資格從所謂「道德的制高點」對我指三道四？事實上我絲毫不這麼認為。我不這麼認為因為，首先，在 Facebook 此一（理論上）開放的公共平台上祈禱、哀悼就必然是一種帶有政治性的宣言。這裡的政治性指的並非是說公開祈禱或哀悼就代表支持或直接影響了特定政/霸權或民族/主權國家在國際政治上的角力; 相對地，我想強調的只是其內包的公眾、社會、與感性分享的特性：一則又一則的貼文不但一方面加強巴黎自殺攻擊事件的曝光率，另一方面它們也一再地以「我們」為主格形塑一想像共同體的發聲 （「我們」與巴黎同在、「我們」譴責恐怖攻擊、Je suis [Nous sommes] Paris、“We” are all humans、La solidarité entre “nous” etc.）。 從這個觀點看來，Pray for Paris 就是一個具有影響我們每個人感知、詮釋所身處之世界方式，並使參與者逐漸歸屬於一「我們」的同一社群想像的政治事件，也因此其也無可避免地將帶出一個問題：當「我們」祈禱與哀悼的同時，究竟誰屬於這個「我們」，而誰又已然無聲地被排除在此「我們」的想像秩序之外？

        而若回過頭來再進一步思考 Pray for Paris 的祈福與哀悼儀式，我們也會發現所有公開祈禱與哀悼的行為本身也必然是複數與政治的，因為其機制內皆已預設了他者的介入，並揭示我們的共在存有中個體與他者間必然的依存關係。以基督教的祈禱為例，祈禱永遠是向一絕對且不可知的他者—也就是上帝—的祈禱（而就算是從佛教觀點來看，祈禱也必然是對眾生—超乎一己甚至超乎人類社群範疇之外的所有他者—持有悲心的祈禱 [https://www.facebook.com/ngawangjungney721/posts/1095250863820688]）; 換言之，我們的祈禱從來不只屬於自己，而當他者的異質性透過祈禱進入每一個體的瞬間，其彰顯的不僅僅是我與他者間根本的依存關係，更重要的還有我對其必得肩負的倫理責任：因為當我禱告的同時，他者也正透過祈禱將其存有赤裸裸地暴露在我的面前。相似地，我們同樣知道「公開哀悼」的儀式從古希臘開始就一直是一個具有重大政治意義的問題：Antigone公開哀悼自己弟弟Polynices死亡的行為本身就已然帶有足以顛覆城邦社會律法的政治力量。而我的重點是，既然公眾哀悼與祈禱的儀式必然是一具有政治性的倫理議題，我們當然有義務回過頭來檢視那些最初推動我們如此行動之情感（即使它們感覺再怎麼直觀）與附加於其之上的價值判斷（即使那樣似乎有些教條），因為所有我們發自內心的真實感受必然是受到ㄧ公眾且既定的詮釋框架所歸範，而相對地每一則在 Facebook上的公開貼文、哀悼、或祈禱也在在以其方式鞏固或重塑了此認知結構的運作。我們也因此看到 Pray for Paris 與 Judith Butler 所謂「道德反饋的政治」（the politics of moral responses）間緊密的關聯性： 「我們的道德反饋—那些首先以情動力出現的反應—事實上暗自被某些詮釋的框架所管制 . . . 我們所感受到的有部份是被我們詮釋身邊世界的方式所制約，而我們如何去詮釋自己所感知的事物能夠（且也的確）改變了我們的感受本身」（“that our moral responses—responses that first take form as affect—are tacitly regulated by certain kinds of interpretive frameworks [. . . ,] that what we feel is in part conditioned by how we interpret the world around us; that how we interpret what we feel actually can and does alter the feeling itself.”）。

        講得更明確一點，「同情共感」也許能部份正當化 Pray for Paris 貼文的動機，但它卻絕不應（也不可能）將其徹底地去政治化。 所以回到我們最初的提問：Facebook 上諸多對 Pray for Paris 的批判真的只是酸民毫無建設性的廢文或文青無能的「為反而反」嗎？我的答案應該是否定的。必須明確指出的是，其批評縱使缺乏同理心、縱然過於嚴苛、又或者自詡站在道德的制高點，但它們的確具備了以下兩個重要的倫理與政治意義（就算言說批判的批判者自身也許並不自覺）：

1. 透過批判 Pray for Paris 祈禱對象的局限，我們某種程度便顛覆了臺灣網民下意識悅納歐美國家「我們」共同體的同一性平滑想像。事實上，唯有透過這樣無限擾動「我們」觀念組成的過程，祈禱哀悼中「他者」的倫理向度— Levinas所謂的「基進他異性」(radical alterity)—才真正有可能出現。誠如 Butler在文中解釋的，「『我們』的觀念無法（也不可能）辨明自身，因為它最初便是斷裂的，是被他異性擾動的 . . . 而其義務事實上恰好正是去干擾任何確立鞏固『我們』觀念的事物」（“the ‘we’ does not, and cannot, recognize itself, that it is riven from the start, interrupted by alterity . . . and the obligations ‘we’ have are precisely those that disrupt any established notion of the we’）。更簡化一點，也許我們可以說：真正的祈禱永遠沒有明確對象，或說總以無對象本身作為其終極對象（我們知道有明確目的、對象與條件的祈禱不叫祈禱，叫賄賂）—是批判者的發聲讓我們看清了這一點。
2. 事實上，「你關心巴黎為什麼不去關心其他攻擊/屠殺」的批判不單單只破壞或搗亂了「我們」的預設秩序，他們同時更明確道出了那些原被排除在「我們」想像之外之他者的身分與姓字：敘利亞、巴勒斯坦、黎巴嫩貝魯特、土耳其安卡拉、肯亞‥‥‥。正是透過這樣建設性的反思過程，「我們」的共同體才得以不斷增補、不斷重塑而彰顯其悅納異己的倫理向度，至此其觀念模型也才終將從一反射性、匿名、便宜行事的單數「我（們）」（On） [Adorno: “To say ‘we’ and mean ‘I’ is one of the most recondite insults.”] 逐漸過渡至反思且具備獨立個體意識的複數的「我們」（Nous）。 

            最後，當 M. Hollande 在攻擊事件後立即宣布發動「毫無悲憫」（impitoyable）的戰爭（而隨後我們也馬上看到法/美軍轟炸後敘利亞滿目瘡痍的圖片）時，我想我們對攻擊事件的討論就無論如何不能只停留在「對 Pray for Paris 批判是否語帶譏諷」或「我換 Facebook 頭貼屬於我私人的權利與否」的層次。 相對地，藉由檢視巴黎自殺恐攻事件的討論—透過認清祈禱的限制、反思可與無可哀悼的生命與揭露其儀式中「我們」之共同體的實踐—我們必須更進一步看到的是語言與生命的政治如何透過社群的想像緊密地聯繫在一起，而本應平等存在的生命又如何在一既定輿論的詮釋框架裡暗自被區分為「非常活著」（“very much alive”）及「可疑地活著」（“questionably alive”）兩種，就如同異質的「他者」也逐漸被分流劃定為「那些我們生活所仰賴的他者」（因此幾近喪失他者所能帶進的倫理他異性）及「那些威脅我們的生活的他者」（至此他者不再為人，不再被視為擁有平等故事或至少生命的獨立個體）。這是一個重要的問題因為，如同 Butler 所述，「如果戰爭（或至少當前的戰爭）仰賴並持續將生命分割為那些值得捍衛、珍視、或哀悼的（當其失去生命時）以及那些稱不太上生命、不太有價值、不太可辨明、或者（沒錯）不太能被哀悼的，那麼那些不可哀悼的生命的死亡必然會在那些理解到自身生命並不被視為完整或有意義的人們的心中產生無比巨大的憤怒」（“But if war or, rather, the current wars, rely on and perpetuate a way of dividing lives into those that are worth defending, valuing, and grieving when they are lost, and those that are not quite lives, not quite valuable, recognizable or, indeed, mournable, then the death of ungrievable lives will surely cause enormous outrage on the part of those who understand that their lives are not considered to be lives in any full and meaningful sense.”）。

        而事實上，這也正是為什麼我通篇文章始終堅持並置「恐怖攻擊」與「自殺攻擊」來指稱巴黎攻擊事件的原因。沒錯：ISIS（Daech）是恐怖組織，他們發動的是「恐怖攻擊」也毋庸置疑（且我們不應也無法以西方霸權的暴力與壓迫來正當或合理化其行為）。但當攻擊事件中八名嫌犯之中有七名引彈自殺（另外一名遭警察擊斃：我們可以合理推斷若非警力的介入其大約也將以相同的犯行手法自殺），這很明顯地就是攻擊者枉顧自身的自殺攻擊。而以「自殺攻擊」將其稱呼，我們肯認的最終也不過就是他們同樣身為人，同樣曾是活生生、血淋淋的八條生命的事實—這並不因他們犯下的罪行或他們的信仰多麼極端有所改變。而也只有在此時—只有理解到不只受害者，其實加害者也同樣是生命，也因此同樣可能屬於以「我們」為名所行之祈禱與哀悼的共同體想像之中時—我們才能看見我們的恐懼在根本上為何物：我們恐懼，因為我們都是脆弱不安的危命，因為我們不只有被毀滅更有毀滅他者的能力—而正是此凝視深淵時「墜落」與「成為怪物」夾縫間的（不）存在使我們恐懼。如此巨大的恐懼可能帶領我們走向兩種截然不同的反應：我們可以選擇以同樣（甚至更強）的力量還擊以逃避那恐懼內包的不存在與不確定性（也就是的確讓自身成為怪物）; 又或者，我們可以堅持站定，定睛凝視那盪在空中的、自身與他者共享的脆弱的危命。我們能做的也許並不太多，但我們可以呼喊，可以哀悼，可以言說，可以祈禱—而唯有在肯認自身恐懼、言說他者死亡的同時，我們才真正有超越深淵之所以為深淵，恐怖攻擊之所以恐怖的報復邏輯的希望。

註：

1. 文中對 Judith Butler 的引用來自其在Verso網站上發表的文章 “Judith Butler: Precariousness and Grievability—When Is Life Grievable?” [http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2339-judith-butler-precariousness-and-grievability-when-is-life-grievable]
2. 「厚顏咎」一詞雙關語的用法來自黃崇凱的小說，《壞掉的人》
3. “I speak because I can” 的說法來自 Laura Marling 第一張專輯的名稱與其同名歌曲 〈I Speak Because I Can〉。
4. 法文裡的兩種「我們」—匿名的 “On” 與個體化的 “Nous”—之倫理區分來自Gérard Wormser, Sartre: Violence et éthique: « Tout le poids de la question morale chez Sartre tient à l’effort pour rendre effectif le Nous personnalisant à la place de l’annonymat du On » (30).
5. Adorno的引用來自 Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life (190).
6. 深淵與怪物的寓言來自尼采: « Celui qui lutte contre les monstres doit veiller à ne pas le devenir lui-même. Or, quand ton regard pénètre longtemps au fond d’un abîme, l'abîme, lui aussi, pénètre en toi » (Par-delà le bien et le mal, VI [146] ). 

Hemingway, Pascin and the Dark Girl

Jules Pascin, "Girl with a Doll" (ink/watercolor)

"Look," Pascin said. "if you think I'm in love with canvases, I'll paint you tomorrow in water colors."

"When do we eat?" her sister asked. "And where?"

"Will you eat with us?" the dark girl asked. 

"No. I go to eat with my légitime." That's what they said then. Now they say "my régulière." 

"You have to go?" 

"Have to and want to."

"Go on, then," Pascin said. And don't fall in love with typewriting paper."

"If I do, I will write with a pencil."

"Water colors tomorrow," he said. "All right, my children, I will drink another and then we eat where you wish." 

"Chez Viking," the dark girl said. 

"Me too," her sister urged. 

"All right," Pascin agreed. "Good night, jeune homme. Sleep well."

"You too." 

"They keep me awake," he said. "I never sleep."

"Sleep tonight." 

"After Chez Les Vikings?" He grinned with his hat on the back of his head. He looked more like a Broadway character of the Nineties than the lovely painter that he was, and afterwards, when he had hanged himself, I liked to remember him as he was that night at the Dôme. They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always seemed to me that in those who make jokes in life the seeds are covered with better soil with a higher grade of manure. (103-4)

—Ernest Hemingway, "With Pascin at the Dôme" from A Moveable Feast (1964)

Metonymy, Taishun

"I know what to do with the play now.I have an idea. I think if everyone--"

So I used to date this girl who's a painter. 

Now, you know what people always say. "Don't get too involved with artists. Finally they are just unbearable" or "The more beautiful their art is the messier they will be"--those are kind of the phrases. But you know what's interesting? In my case, certainly the gap is there--I mean, that supposedly irredeemable gap between art and life--but somehow I just enjoyed it. I really did! I mean, Dog, how I loved to watch her struggle with pieces and pieces of paper torn from her scrapbooks, getting the room all dirty and herself all moody just to get the touch of a stroke right. . . And the point is--despite all this messiness and awkwardness during the process--at the end of the day, it still did not prevent me from admiring her works or being touched by them, y'know? In fact, not only wasn't the charm--this "aura" or "mana" as they call it--diminished in the slightest from her final pieces, but, on the contrary, I've always felt that something more--something magic even--was being added up to them and that, exactly because I was there in almost every aspect of her life, this something belonged to me alone, y'know? It's like, among the seven billion people in this crazy world of ours, I am the only one who actually witnesses her secret mutation from the scruffiest to the purest, from the most quotidian of life to the most earth-shattering of art, y'know?

And finally I remember thinking to myself that, perhaps, that's the point of art, and perhaps that's why we cannot but keep creating it. It's not life itself--it can never be life itself, it always falls short--yet neither is it simply not life. Rather, I'd imagine what matters is this infinitely close yet minutely distant connection we create between art and life, see? It makes you think. It gives you an idea of man's potentiality and transformation. 

It's this very gap between "the chaos of life" and "the beauty of art" that shows us what, as finite human beings, we aspire and are capable of. 

"Foreword by Maestro Mimmo Repetto"

Saul Fletcher, "Untitled #224" (2010)

       Everything I can't stand has a name.

I can't stand old people. Their drool. Their complaints. Their uselessness. 

Even worse when they try to be useful. Their dependency.

Their noises. Numerous, repetitive. Their exasperating anecdotes.   

The centrality of their stories. Their scorn for successive generations. 

But I can't stand the successive generations either. 

I can't stand old people when they start shouting and demand a seat on the bus. 

I can't stand young people. Their arrogance. The way they show off their strength and youth. 

The saga of the heroic invincibility of young people is just pathetic. 

I can't stand the impertinent young people who refuse to give up their seat for an old person on the bus. 

I can't stand hoodlums and hooligans. Their sudden laughter, shameless and useless. 

Their scorn for their fellow man, for anyone who's different. Even more intolerable are respectful, responsible, generous young people. They're all volunteerism and group prayers. Such goo manners, such a smell of death. In their hearts and in their hands. 

I can't stand wilful self-referential children and the obsessive parents, referential only toward their children. I can't stand children who shout and who cry. Silent children make me nervous, so I can't stand them either. I can't stand workers and the unemployed and the mellifluous and reckless ostentatious display of their divine misfortune. 

Which isn't divine. Just a lack of determination. 

How can you put up with all those who are dedicated t the struggle, the revindication of claims, the facile political speech, and the sweat under the armpits? No, it's impossible to put up with them. 

I can't stand executives. There's no reason even to explain why. I can't stand the petite bourgeoisie, closed up in the shell of their shitty world. Their lives are guided by fear. The fear of everything won't fit into that tiny shell. And they're snobs, without even knowing the meaning of the word. 

I can't stand boyfriends, because they get in the way.

I can't stand girlfriends, because they intervene. 

I can't stand people who are broad-minded, tolerant, and unbiased. 

Always correct. Always perfect. Always impeccable. 

Everything's allowed, except murder. 

You criticize them, and they thank you for your criticism. You scorn them and they cheerfully express their appreciation. In other words, they're always tripping you up.    

Because they boycott viciousness. 

So, they're intolerable. 

They ask you: "How are you?" and they actually want to know. A shock. But deep down, under the disinterested interest, somewhere, there's a stab in the back lurking. 

But I also can't stand those who never put you in a quandary. Always obedient and reassuring. Loyal and duplicitous.

I can't stand pool players, nicknames, the indecisive, non-smokers, smog and fresh air, traveling salesmen, pizza by the slice, pat phrases, chocolate crunch cones, bonfires, stockbrokers, flowered wallpaper, fair-trade products, disorder, environmentalists, the sense of civility, cats, mice, soft drinks, unexpected doorbells, long phone calls, people who say that drinking a glass of wine every day is good for you, people who pretend to forget your name, people who say that they're professionals to defend themselves, former classmates who meet you thirty years late and call you by your last name, old people who never miss an opportunity to remind you that they fought in the Resistance, grownup children at loose ends who have nothing to do so they decide to open an art gallery, former Communists who go crazy over Brazilian music, airheads who say "how intriguing," fashion hounds who say "that's hot" and related terms, the sugar-sweet ones who say things like "cute," "lovely," and "stupendous," ecumenical types who call everyone "sweetheart," certain beauties who tell you they "adore" you, the lucky ones who can play an instrument by ear, the supposedly distracted types who just don't listen when you speak, the superior types who judge, feminists, commuters, artificial sweeteners, fashion designers, film directors, car radios, make dancers, politicians, ski boots, adolescents, undersecretaries for this or that, rhymes, aging rock singers with skin-tight jeans, stuck-up over-serious writers, relatives, flowers, blondes, bows, mantelpieces, intellectuals, sidewalk artists, jellyfish, magicians, VIPs, rapists, child molesters, anyone who works in a circus, cultural impresarios, social workers, amusements, animal lovers, ties, fake laughter, provincials, hydrofoils, all collectors of anything, especially watch collectors, all hobbies, doctors, patients, jazz, advertising, builders, mothers, people who watch basketball, all actors, all actresses, video art, amusement parks, experimentalists of any kind, soups, contemporary painting, elderly craftsmen in their workshops, amateur guitarists, statues in the main square, people who kiss hands, beauty farms, good-looking philosophers, over-chlorinated swimming pools, algae, thieves, anorexics, vacations, love letters, priests and altar boys, suppositories, ethnic music, fake revolutionaries, bivalves, pandas, acne, percussionists, showers with shower curtains, birthmarks, calluses, knickknacks, moles, vegetarians, view painters, cosmetics, opera singers, Parisians, high-neck pullovers, music in restaurants, parties, meetings, houses with views, Englishisms, neologisms, momma's boys, chips off the old block, wealthy heirs, other people's children in general, museums, town mayors, commissioners, protesters, poetry, people who run delicatessens, jewellers, car alarms, thin chains made of yellow gold, leaders, followers, prostitutes, people who are too short or too tall, funerals, body hair, cell phones, bureaucracy, art installations, automobiles of all engine sizes, keychains, singer-songwriters, the Japanese, high officials, racists and the tolerant, the blind, formica, copper, brass, bamboo, chefs on television, crowds, suntan creams, lobbyists, slang, stains, kept women, cornucopias, stammerers, stutterers, youthful old people and elderly young people, snobs, the radical chic, plastic surgery, ring highways and bypasses, plants and trees, loafers, sectarians, television personalities, aristocrats, cords that get tangled, showgirls, comedians, golfers, science fiction, veterinarians, fashion models, political refugees, the obtuse, blinding white beaches, made-up religions and their followers, factory reject floor tiles, the stubborn, professional critics, couples where he's a lot younger than she is and vice-versa, people who are mature, everyone with a hat, everyone with sunglasses, tanning lamps, forest fires, bracelets, nepotists and protégés, people in the armed forces, dissolute tennis players, sectarians and fans and supporters, perfume that was purchased from a tobacconist, weddings, jokes, first commons, freemasons, Mass, people who whistle, people who burst into song, burps and belches, junkies, Lions Clubs, cokeheads, Rotary Clubs, sexual tourism, tourism, people who detest tourism and say that they're "travelers," people who speak "from experience," people who have no experience but want to have their say all the same, people who know how the world works, elementary-school teachers, people who are obsessed with meetings, people who are obsessed in general, nurses who wear clogs, but why do they have to wear clogs? 

I can't stand the timid, the overtalkative, the fake mysterious, the awkward, the awkward, the airheads, the whimsically inspired, the charmingly affected, the crazy ones, the geniuses, the heroes, the self-confident, the silent, the valourous, the pensive, the conceited, the rude, the conscientious, the unpredictable, the comprehensive, the attentive ones, the humble, the experts, the passionate, the bombastic, the eternally astonished, the equitable, the futile, the enigmatic, the wisecrackers, the cynical, the fearful, the arrogant, the quarrelsome, the proud, the phlegmatic, the con artists, the too precious by half, the vigorous, the tragic, the listless, the insecure, the dubious, the disenchanted, the awestruck, the winners, the miserly, the meek, the slovenly, the saccharine, the plaintive, the grumbles, the capricious, the spoiled, the noisy ones, the unctuous, the brusque, and everyone who interacts socially with relative facility. 

I can't stand nostalgia, normalcy, cruelty, hyperactivity, bulimia, courtesy, melancholy, poignancy, intelligence and stupidity, haughtiness, resignation, shame, arrogance, amiability, two-facedness, cavalier attitudes, athleticism, goodheartedness, religious convictions, ostentatiousness, curiosity and indifference, reenactments, reality, guilt, minimalism, the sober and the excessive, the generic, falsehood, responsibility, carelessness, excitement, wisdom, determination, self-complacency, irresponsibility, correctness, aridity, seriousness and frivolity, pomposity, necessariness, human misery, compassion, gloom, predictability, recklessness, captiousness, rapidity, obscurity, negligence, slowness, mediety, velocity, ineluctability, exhibitionism, enthusiasm, slovenliness, virtuosity, amateurishness, professionalism, decisiveness, self-sufficiency, autonomy, dependency, elegance, and happiness. 

I can't stand anything or anyone. 

Not even myself. Especially not myself. 

There's only one thing I can stand.

Nuance. 

--Paolo Sorrentino, "Foreword by Maestro Mimmo Repetto" in Everybody's Right (2011) 

Quotes from “Habitus as Topic and Tool: Reflections on Becoming a Prizefighter.”

"The Mike Tyson of sociology"!

—"While I was carrying out my investigations on boxing and on the ghetto, I was in permanent contact with Pierre Bourdieu, who encouraged and guided me. Upon learning that I had signed up to learn how to box at the Woodlawn Boys Club, he had written me a note that said essentially, “Stick it out, you will learn more about the ghetto in this gym than you can from all the surveys in the world.” (Later on, as I got deeper into my immersion, he got a bit scared and tried to get me to pull back. When I signed up to fight in the Chicago Golden Gloves, he first threatened to disown me as he feared that I would get hurt, before realizing that there was no need to panick: I was well prepared for this trial by fire.) Bourdieu came to Chicago several times, visited the gym, and met DeeDee [Wacquant's boxing coach] and my boxer friends (I introduced him to them as “the Mike Tyson of sociology"). During one of these visits, we hatched the project of a book that would explicate the theoretical core of his work, aimed at the Anglo-American readership, since it was on this front that there were the strongest distortions and obstacles to a fertile grasp of his models. We devoted three years to writing this book across the Atlantic (by fax, phone, letters and meetings every few months), entitled An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992), in which we disentangle the nexus of habitus, capital, and field. During those years, I led a sort of Dr.-Jekyll-and-Mr.-Hyde existence, boxing by day and writing social theory by night. In the afternoon, I would go to the gym, train, hang out with my buddies, and “conversate” on end with our coach DeeDee before driving him home at closing time. And, later that evening, after having typed my fieldnotes, I would switch to the book manuscript with Bourdieu. It was in turns intoxicating, invigorating, and exhausting. But the daytime sessions as a student of pugilism offered both a respite from theoretical cogitation and powerful stimuli for thinking through the abstract issues tackled in the book in very mundane empirical terms. The sociology of the ghetto (which I had extended to encompass a comparison with the postindustrial transformation of the French urban periphery), the carnal ethnography of the skilled body, and theoretical work with Bourdieu: all of these strands were elaborated together and at the same time, and they are all woven together" (86-7).

—"The idea that guided me here was to push the logic of participant observation to the point where it becomes inverted and turns into observant participation. In the Anglo- American tradition, when anthropology students first go into the field, they are cautioned, “Don’t go native.” In the French tradition, radical immersion is admissible—think of Jeanne Favret-Saada’s ([1978] 1980) Deadly Words—but only on condition that it be coupled with a subjectivist epistemology which gets us lost in the inner depths of the anthropologist-subject. My position on the contrary, is to say, “go native” but “go native armed,” that is, equipped with your theoretical and methodological tools, with the full store of problematics inherited from your discipline, with your capacity for reflexivity and analysis, and guided by a constant effort, once you have passed the ordeal of initiation, to objectivize this experience and construct the object, instead of allowing yourself to be naively embraced and constructed by it. Go ahead, go native, but come back a sociologist! In my case, the concept of habitus served both as a bridge to enter into the factory of pugilistic know-how and methodically parse the texture of the work(ing) world of the pugilist, and as a shield against the lure of the subjectivist rollover of social analysis into narcissistic story telling" (87-8).

—"Apprenticeship is here the means of acquiring a practical mastery, a visceral knowledge of the universe under scrutiny, a way of elucidating the praxeology of the agents under examination . . . it relies on the most intimate experience, that of the desiring and suffering body, to grasp in vivo the collective manufacturing of the schemata of pugilistic perception, appreciation, and action that are shared, to varying degrees, by all boxers, whatever their origins, their trajectory, and their standing in the sporting hierarchy (Wacquant 2005a)" (88).

—Loïc Wacquant, “Habitus as Topic and Tool: Reflections on Becoming a Prizefighter.”

Because We Are Also What We Have Lost

Bray, Ireland. 10/8/2014.

I.

"A luciano: porque también somos lo que hemos perdido."

—Alejandro González Iñárritu, Amores Perros (2000)

II.

« Il [le fond] est là, qui nous fixe, pourtant sans yeux. L'individu s'en distingue, mais lui, ne s'en distingue pas, continuant d'épouser ce qui divorce avec lui. Il est l'indéterminé, mais en tant qu'il continue d'embrasser la détermination, comme la terre au soulier. Or les animaux sont en quelque sorte prémunis contre ce fond, par leurs formes explicites. Il n'en est pas de même pour le Je et le Moi, minés par les champs d'individuation qui les travaillent, sans défense contre une montée du fond qui leur tend son miroir difforme ou déformant, et où toutes les formes maintenant pensées se dissolvent. La bêtise n'est pas le fond ni l'individu, mais bien ce rapport où l'individuation fait monter le fond sans pouvoir lui donner forme (il monte à travers le Je, pénétrant au plus profond dans la possibilité de la pensée, constituant le non-reconnu de toute récognition).» (197-8)

—Gilles Deleuze, Différence et répétition (1968)

III.

我到魔鬼湖畔的時候
美麗還沒醒來
美麗還沒醒來，是
最美麗的時候
夢恣意遊移在視線內外
霧包裝的顏色還沒打開......
我輕輕把腳步聲栽進土裡
迅速忘掉它的所在。而
所有被忘了的事
將在我記得的部份盛開

羅智成，<清晨>（1989）

後設詮釋，或，為什麼我們要唸文學？

http://news.ltn.com.tw/news/life/paper/812659

       前一陣子（其實好一陣子了. . . 但我也相信這新聞大約還是會以各種面貌不斷重新出現的）因為一則「英文系沒前途？17系所改名、停招」的新聞，非常經典的一道問題「我們為什麼要唸文學？這到底有什麼用？」又重新再被提起。面對這千古大哉問，自己的（Facebook）朋友及許多文學院同學們也相當有默契地一致回答了ㄧ個同樣經典（近乎制式化）的辯護：文學讓我們更瞭解人（人性、他人、以至於人生）―而這是一種最根本且至關緊要的無用之用。某種程度來說，我自己並不反對這樣的回答。但針對這點我其實一直想替質疑者再提出的問題是：但究竟文學這種讓我們更瞭解人的功能是如何可能的？畢竟，所謂文學，說穿了終究不也就是印刷出來的白紙黑字、銀/螢幕上的投射影像、或舞台框架內的肢體互動―簡單來講，只是再現（representation）或後結構意義下的編成（text）―而它們終究不是真實的、有血有肉的人和人生吧？且有讀過 Madame Bovary 的人就會知道，小說讓我們擁抱的很有可能不是真實人生，而是最終導向自我毀滅的幻想; 曾接觸過一些意識形態批判（先假設我們接受這些批判的有效性的話）的各位也必然警覺，書本或論述正是意識形態運作、遮蔽社會上根本矛盾的主要場域（比如太多太多的西方文學經典作品都形塑和加深了Said 所謂「東方主義」的建構; 又或者 propaganda 在這個意義下也可以被視作是一種文學的極端）; 而有唸過拉岡精神分析的也會理解到，語言在根本上就是暴力的（Kojève: “The word is the murder of the thing.”），是把我們去勢而無法直接觸及「真實」（the Real）的根本原因。那麼，究竟是在什麼樣的意義下我們還是可以很有自信的說：即使有這層 textuality，這不可跨越的鴻溝的阻擋，文學終究能幫助我們更瞭解自己以至於我們所身處的世界呢？

事實上我的看法是：恰恰正是因為此 textuality 的存在文學才得以讓我們瞭解人―因為真實人生事實上就是 "stranger than fiction"！或者，用 Žižek 的話來說，電影（或文學）真正所求的並非逼真―並非是要觀眾在虛構 /再現的影像中看到真實人生―而是反過來讓他們體會到自己真實生活中既存的虛構面向：那層也許我們一般意識不到（不像在紙本或投影幕上那樣明顯）但卻依然無所不在 textuality。舉例來說，新聞故事、廣告影像、建築空間、政治人物的話語、甚至法律條文不也都是某種需要被詮釋的文本和虛構？從這個角度來看，文學中被詮釋文本與現實世界間的textuality非但不是阻礙我們瞭解自己與世界的鴻溝，反倒它讓我們更敏感―它使我們在對日常生活中無所不在的文本進行詮釋前有了許多預先演練的機會。講得更直接一點，只要人們還有使用符號或語言（並且使用語言的同時還不停地在說謊！）的一天，那麼獨立、自主、且外在於我們自身的各式文本及其 textualities 就必然存在―而正是此「現實的虛構」與「文學的虛構」間的對應關係使文學終究具有其無可取代的價值。然而從這樣的角度看來，事實上念文學之所以能讓我們更瞭解人的原因或許就並不如我們一般所理解的那樣，在於我們對文學作品的詮釋內容本身（從中習得某個角色的人生觀、掌握到小說的旨趣因而變得更世故聰明 etc.）; 相對地，我認為文學真正重要的時刻反而只發生在我們詮釋文本的運動過程本身、在乎上述文學與現實之虛構幾近疊合的那一個瞬間：唯有在我們拚命詮釋（失敗）的同時猛然撞上文本與現實間不可跨越的高牆而終於肯認跨越此 textuality 的不可能性―也就是說，唯有在感覺到痛―之後，我們才得以回過頭來反省自己平時在真實世界面對種種同樣不可知的其他 textualities的態度與方式。簡單來說，藉由詮釋文學的不可能達到詮釋世界的可能，一種我稱為「後設詮釋」（meta-interpretation）的效果。

舉例來說，在我們的真實世界裡，人與人之間，人與動物之間，心與物之間，藍與綠之間、男與女之間，瘋癲與理性之間，東方與西方之間，或任何分裂的二元對立之間不也都存在著這樣如文本/現實間的 textuality 一樣巨大而無法完全被跨越或掌握的高牆嗎？以人與人間的相處為例，他人（他者）不也像是一個作者（其外表、話語、行為舉止、及種種外顯出來讓這個世界接收的符碼也恰似ㄧ部小說文本），而我們所讀出來、所理解到的不也往往都不是作者/他者原本要訴說的本意？從這個角度看來，所謂文學理論與批評最終或許都是要藉由思考上述文學與現實間的詮釋切點讓我們重新回過頭來反思自己在現實世界對各種他者詮釋的種種盲點甚或是暴力。以Roland Barthes 有名的「作者已死」來說， 從表面上看來，其所鼓吹的 “readerly” 式閱讀（非關作者的本意，而是讀者由文本符號對意義的自行創造）的確站在傳統的 “writerly” 式閱讀（一種對正確、唯一、或作者本身詮釋的追求）的對立面，也因此似乎總意味著對他者主體性及任何意義的消解（「作者已死，其本意也並不重要」等等）。然而更進一步來說，這告訴我們的其實也絕不是可以就視他人為草芥並隨意扭曲其意願或話語，因為我們不能忽略的是 Barthes 所提出的這兩種閱讀法事實上並非一種平行的二元對立，而是一垂直的、近乎具有時間縱深的承接。換句話說， Barthes所反對的並不是追求意義本身―其真正希望提倡的也並非是要用任何隨意的 readerly 詮釋對抗、甚至消解掉一切 writerly 解讀的意義―而是（如我們先前所見的）當符號與語言之本質所造就的外在於我們自身的 textuality高牆本就已使得任何天真的writerly式閱讀（真正瞭解他人、對先驗超然意義的追求 etc.）不可能的同時， 我們作為讀者究竟該如何超越、溢出此詮釋框架而有自行創造各種新的與文本及他者溝通的可能。換句話說，所謂 readerly閱讀所內包的其實正是 writerly閱讀本身的不可能性，而正是在這個意義與前提之下作者才已死亡。也因此只有在碰撞此「作者之死」（詮釋作者的不可能性）、藉由透過文本的 textuality反射回我們真實生活本身 textualities的辯證關係，我們才有可能超越各式被預先劃定的疆界、定義、立場、與意識形態，而「愛」或「友情」―這些變形、這些力的延伸、這些漫出身體輪廓所預先定義的人終極孤獨之存有的狀態―才成為可能。

從這個角度再反思回來，我想要特別指出的一點是：文學或許還是不能只是自己讀著好玩就好。當然我的意思並不是說我們完全不能這麼做，只是這樣子讀的文學可能還是比較像打電玩或唱歌一樣，只是種消遣罷了。如果真的希望能更瞭解自己和這個世界，真的想要無愧於我們口中這文學最重要的使命與功能，我們大約還是非得拚命地用力詮釋不可。只有不斷嘗試、不斷失敗、不斷嘗試、再不斷失敗（Beckett: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”）後，我們才可能撞到那面比天還要高的，叫做 textuality的牆。撞著了牆，感覺到痛，我們也才終於有經歷「後設詮釋」並真切地反思自己與世界的可能。而如果，如同村上春樹所說，所謂文學的本質無非一用虛構形式表達、轉化到另一虛構時空的真相，那麼此真相的「真實」（aletheia [disclosure]）之所以可能的原因事實上也恰好來自（後設）詮釋在文學與現實平行的兩層虛構間所劃出一絲絲夾縫：那雙重否定所帶來的可能性，那讓人們― Heidegger的 Da-sein [being-(the)-there ; être-le-là] ―得以對自身及世界進行其存有（論）本身（ontological）無止盡詮釋的 Da (there) 。

當然，最後我們還是必須回到那個最初的（也是這個時代普遍最關心）的問題：講了這麼多，那麼唸文學究竟是有什麼用呢―如果它能告訴我們的終究只是瞭解他人和世界的不可能的話？在這裡我必須很誠實地說：的確，幾乎沒甚麼用（哈哈. . .）。但我再強調一次，是「幾乎」沒有什麼用。而唯一的差別，那唯一可能的有用之處便在於：至少透過唸文學你確定知道你的不知道，至少多出來的可能便是這不可能性本身：一種不可能的可能性，或可能的不可能性―而我相信正是藉由這個承認或理解我們可以活得更好。因為某種程度來說，此不可能性不就像死亡一樣嗎？無論如何人終將不免一死，我們無論如何是超越不了它的，這是一個不可能性：但這也並不代表我們就不用活了！事實上，正是藉由透過對無處、無所、無時不在的死亡的承認甚至悅納，我們才能誠實地面對自己的每一部份，我們才（弔軌地）更有生的意志來擁抱這個世界。所以相似地，正是因為詮釋文學的艱難讓我們切身體悟到自己的無知，我們也才更能重新開始用反思的方式試著瞭解他人及我們自身所身處的世界。最後，如果如同Montaigne所說： “That to philosophise is to learn how to die” （“Philosopher, c'est apprendre à mourir”），那麼我想在此文我試圖劃出的文學與現實間的詮釋切點似乎同時也是一哲學與文學在遠方交會的起點：

“ ‘To philosophise is to learn how to die,’ while to read literature is to learn how to live―and ultimately learning how to die is learning how to live.”