Against the Robots

So many stories about identity! The word appears neither in Greek epic nor in tragedy. In Antigone's time, identity was rooted in lineage and belonging to a city-state. Identity was imbued with rootedness. Family and city-state gathered under a virtual banner everything the other person needed to know about them upon a first encounter. During antiquity, no one proclaimed or promulgated their identity, and no one decided on their own. It wasn't about putting on a costume. People were defined by their identity. Identity was akin to a responsibility; one had to be worthy of it. It determined one's being and becoming. The modern era has made it a battleground, transforming identity into possession, a kind of acquisition that one can either acquire or discard. In its modern fantasy of believing that one can choose everything at any time, the modern era has relentlessly replaced being with having. Yet this logic, this ideology, has its limits: some things cannot be acquired, among them otherness. To live one's identity, to be who one is, to inhabit one's name , to allow intimacy and therefore the knowledge and deepening of one's being—these are the essential conditions for an encounter with the other. The first difference between Creon and Antigone lies precisely in this, the ground on which the struggle is built. Antigone preserves within herself this gift from the ancients, from the gods, this rootedness that defines the authority upon which she leans to stand up to this man, her relative, the king, who embraces the will to power and finds himself blinded by it until he hears nothing but his own voice, his echo.

The modern world demands self-murder; it makes it a condition; a new form of sacrifice, a new holocaust. Rid of the self, everything is permitted. The self is the enemy. The upheaval of values, their pure and simple inversion, forces us to pause for a moment on its consequences. The proposition seems simple: suffer once and for all, by destroying what nature has made of you, and live your life to the fullest. A religious sentiment immediately recognizes the language of the Devil, the voice of seduction, advertising. Nature made you a man, awaken the woman within! Nature made you ugly, surgery will transform you and make you an object of desire! Nature didn't give you the memory you would have wished for, an app on your phone will follow you everywhere to give you the radiance you deserve! Everything will be given to you, moreover, because you're worth it. Who still hears the echo, the murmur, after the slogan: "Because you're worth it!" "?" You have to listen closely, and then, clearly, you hear: "You will be like gods!" Under the fallacious pretext of offering freedom without self-examination and without the inherent difficulties, the modern world sells a cloud of smoke and a smokescreen. The feeling of power of the era will be reproduced with every sale, every transaction, and will revel in this snake oil sold at exorbitant prices, provoking an addiction so strong that it swells with pride, distancing man a little more each day from himself. Georges Bernanos's formula: "One understands nothing of modern civilization if one does not first admit that it is a universal conspiracy against all forms of inner life" reveals the modern world's attachment to omitting the human being within himself; it is better to push man out of himself; the only worthwhile attitude lies beyond the walls; Far removed from oneself and one's condition: for it is no longer possible to live this struggle in harmony with one's nature, this struggle has lost its meaning, it is obsolete, meaningless, timeless, so outdated when everything is possible, everything remains possible, everything within reach. This first memory, so quickly erased, so quickly labeled as outdated, archaic, even ancient—and this speaks volumes about the ignominy we are witnessing—this first memory is swept away, spat upon to demonstrate the infamy that characterizes it; this shame, this attachment, this prison, this chaining to oneself when one can be everything! When one can be everything.

The tragedy of Antigone prophesies our modern era by denouncing the struggle between individualism and individuation. Did Sophocles sense that humanity would become estranged from its own nature? If we still feel for Antigone, if she continues to resonate, to thunder at our door, it is because she expresses an urgency: the safeguarding of freedom. And human freedom cannot be solely individual; it is also collective, for humankind is a political animal, as Aristotle said. People suffer from their vision becoming dulled between the near and the far. The space between these two destinations is the same as that between a call and an answer. Balance remains the most perilous exercise for humankind. Forgetting the past, murdering memory, always amounts to forgetting our relationship to ourselves. Many label this forgetting of the past as pragmatism and thus dismiss criticism while assuaging their consciences. Pragmatism becomes a magic key, a law. Indeed, Antigone constantly oscillates between conservatism and innovation. The anarchist loves a clean slate, but Antigone is anything but an anarchist; the anarchist always wants to reinvent everything. Creon embodies the anarchist. He denies what is not himself. He "creates" laws. He "is" his laws. All anarchists have thought this, and all dictators have applied it. Is there an identity without memory? Identity unites; it should never exclude. Identity establishes the conditions for an encounter. Paul Ricœur summarized the condition of encounter by saying: "To be open to the other than oneself, there must first be a self."

I spent so many hours pondering Saint Paul's words: "For we see as in a mirror and dimly, but then face to face." To see oneself, to know oneself, to be known… Odysseus is known only to Eumaeus and his dogs. Is it by magic? No, one can only surrender to fidelity by having experienced it; experiencing fidelity also means taking a step back from oneself, especially if this step back is not voluntary. This dimness, this mirror, this face-to-face encounter—it is all about self-awareness, and this self-awareness is nothing but love. The question to ask oneself: "Do I do things out of love? Does love guide me?" But what is love? A demand above all. And this demand intercedes with love. The demand rests against love and bestows this balance, this quest, this thirst, this self-knowledge. Who am I? I embody this demand, this will to be oneself and therefore to be open to the other. Being oneself merits, validates, and even demands encounter. I allow myself this encounter. What might this encounter be? Oedipus meets his father and kills him, but he is not himself . Every Oedipus in Sophocles points to the pursuit of self. Every Antigone in Sophocles points to self-acceptance.

The past gives courage and allows for understanding. Isn't meaning lacking in the modern age? The awareness of memory grants a strength that moves mountains; and the first mountain to move is our ego. Lacan, in his mad study of Antigone, sees desire, only desire and nothing but desire, but Lacan senses that there is something else, something that escapes fact and analysis. Turning the concept of amartia , the Greek sin, the transgression, over and over is not enough. Antigone does not transgress for the sake of risk. And reductio ad desiderum does not explain everything. It does not account for otherness. Lacan has forgotten the event, the one that conditions everything. For Antigone, the death of her brother. Wasn't Antigone trapped in her habits before this event? The inhabitants of Thebes barely paid any attention to her. She went about her business among them without any particular purpose. She was living her life, as the saying goes. And this double outrage comes as yet another curse from the gods against her family. The two brothers killing each other. One must accept the yoke of the gods, mustn't one? But a man rises up among the gods. Creon believes himself invested with a mission: to restore order and dictate everyone's conduct. He knows it; it's his destiny. He will bring Thebes to its zenith, make it a model city. Instead, Creon will allow the butterfly to emerge from its chrysalis. Antigone will be transformed. One doesn't become someone else when one transforms; one becomes oneself, but different. It's often a surprise to those around you. It's not a surprise to the person concerned. Antigone is never surprised to become herself, otherwise she would question her own behavior. She would hesitate, stammer… This metamorphosis signifies otherness, a shift in perspective. It's a lesson from Antigone: knowing the other comes through knowing oneself. From the loss of self, due to the cult of the ego, nothing healthy is born; one must confront oneself, cultivate oneself with what disturbs oneself, accept and live the resulting metamorphosis in order to encounter and love the other. Antigone allows us to redefine identity. If someone wanted to define Antigone's identity, they would be undertaking an endless task; it proves virtually impossible to define identity since it is constantly evolving. Some will say that identity circumscribes the core of a personality, but how can one neglect character? How can one pretend that character and personality are constantly intertwined and form a new alliance after an event? An identity that no longer feeds on its encounter with the other is doomed to suicide. The countdown to his death began to tick away. Identity rests on the past and therefore on a certain idea of ​​transmission; if identity becomes narcissistic, it dies; if identity becomes egotistical , it dies; without transmission, there is not an identity, but an epitaph. Identity must thirst for the other; otherness holds the secret to a flourishing identity by allowing the lifeblood to flow; otherness can suffer from the same ills as identity: it can be narcissistic, seeking encounter for the sake of encounter, seeking intoxication to forget itself , to be the other, to have the impression of becoming the other. In this case, no encounter is possible, because encountering the other is a matter for vertebrates.

Jacques Lacan, in his audacious attempt to grasp, to touch upon, Antigone's desire, noted that Aristotle indulges in a curious play on words between habits and tradition ^. This could also be the subtitle of the Book of Job. Tradition represents an identity and should allow one to evolve and grow through contact with it. These are the guardians invented by humankind to transmit their knowledge, to ensure that it is not forgotten. It is a uniquely human creation. Perhaps the most beautiful of all. But often tradition can become like a kind of habit, it can even be confused with it because people forget, and the difference between habit and tradition lies in the lost meaning. Meaning can be easily lost, especially if one believes oneself to be its guardian. Antigone possesses nothing but love, and she deceives Creon: "It is not to share hatred, but love that I was born." She does not consider herself the custodian of tradition. She does not defend her identity. Her encounter with the other unfolds in negative. Creon embodies this other who forces her to stand up. Antigone, relying on what she knows, what she believes, what is immutable, and what has allowed humankind to stand upright since the dawn of time, picks up the thread of a lost, forgotten, or nearly lost tradition; she affirms that despite its age, this tradition has not aged a day and continues to be a safeguard. Antigone discovered her calling by seizing her past, her memory, her tradition—all one—and waving them in the face of Creon, who strikes her down and forces Oedipus's daughter to become Antigone; no doubt Antigone is stunned by this announcement; she panics at first, loses all bearings, finds herself bewildered, her vision blurred. It is then that she thinks of her father, that she sees her two brothers again, and her thoughts allow her to regain her senses and begin to breathe again. The air she breathes gives her back her life, she feels the sap of life rushing into her. She thought she was going to die a few seconds earlier, as if Creon had torn her heart out. And as she comes back to life, she thinks, she reviews her thoughts, everything mixes and tangles, although little by little a clearing pierces the ideas that obstruct her mind, and in this clearing, she distinguishes Zeus enthroned, and as the king of Olympus gathers the other gods around him, Antigone finally gathers her thoughts, what she knew, what she had been taught, what her father instructed her in, what her childhood with its mixed moods lists of love and hate; The clearing continues to advance, and suddenly the elements of her mind each take their place, as if they were fitting together, and Antigone understands that everything has its rightful place, that it is important to keep this natural place, because it conceals a protective force.

Isn't becoming oneself always becoming someone else? But what can become of someone who doesn't know who they are? A wreck, an eternal drift, a shipwreck? Such a person can sink into all forms of submission, like the will to power or cowardice; there is nothing that can temper, soothe, or control them. Here, the same rigor is required as in writing: to bring style and subject together as closely as possible. To succeed in becoming one. To effect and accomplish the metamorphosis in order to transcend oneself, to be oneself. Contrary to what is often said or believed these days, the perpetual encounter with the other, also called hybridity, is merely a subterfuge, a hysterical channel surfing, a way of perceiving oneself, of glimpsing oneself, and of camouflaging this vision under an ungrateful, anemic, and amnesiac makeup. Here, the hysteria of the modern world continues to generate new needs, fueling an insatiable source of dissatisfaction. The modern world only considers the consequences, never addressing the causes. Otherness does not imply enjoyment, at least not immediate gratification. It implies a plunge into oneself, an odyssey, an exploration and understanding of oneself. Borders are necessary to know one's country; removing borders does not abolish nationalities, but rather the awareness of oneself within one's own space. The atomistic and pleasure-seeking "I" has thrived by allowing the ephemeral and the forgetting of self. Intimacy, self-scrutiny, self-disquiet, a feverish self-absorption—not narcissistic, but driven by a desire to position oneself in the world in relation to the other—brings a completely different kind of contentment. The modern world flatters, it only invests in the realm of mood, because it knows that mood is queen, that it reigns supreme over man's daily life. The modern world, like a good sociologist, has merely provided man with his greatest enemy, the one that sharpens his envy: the instinct for ownership, and it has built its empire upon it. Envy and ownership represent a hellish and devastating duo in which man is consumed and extinguished. The will to power, class struggle, communitarianism—all these forms of social disorganization drink from the wellspring of envy.

The child either follows the prescribed rule or not. In both cases, the rule dictates and directs. By learning or rejecting the rule, the child develops. The child builds their adult life through action or reaction. In this way, they lay the foundations. For a long time, I pondered Saint Paul's words: "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me." And Paul of Tarsus links this childlike state to the mirror and to dim vision: "For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; but then face to face. Now I know only a little; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." Why is there such a great difference between Saint Paul's and Jesus Christ's views of children? And perhaps this is also where the distinction between authority and power lies? The military is well aware of this dividing line between rank and function. A corporal will not yield an inch of ground to a colonel unless the latter has the necessary credentials. Power and authority derive their strength from their authority and power. Authority and power are intertwined; one could almost say they are organized, or better yet, they are "organized." But power is temporal, earthly, while authority has no fixed location; it is everywhere. This last comparison offers an important insight and challenges the words of Saint Paul. The law exists to allow us to grow, to strengthen us like a child, but what distinguishes the child from the adult lies in their capacity to believe, especially in the marvelous. Whoever has never seen the starry eyes of a child told a story that transcends the senses has never truly seen anything. The child believes and loves to believe, for they delight daily in the marvelous and the extraordinary. This is the child of Christ, certainly Antigone in her childhood; one imagines a mischievous little Antigone, not easily fooled. This is the common thread of saints, often animated by the wonder of everyday life. “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” For they are not yet robots corrupted by a jumble of false beliefs intended only to reassure them. Humans so quickly armor themselves with so many layers of security, yet sterile. The first robots are embodied in those men burdened by their habits. Saint Paul sees another facet of childhood: the little person never ceases to learn—and learns by engaging with the law. Saint Paul hopes that the child who belongs to the letter will become an adult who embraces the spirit, for they will have digested this nourishment of their childhood and will possess the entire law without even thinking about it. In short, it's acculturation, when education becomes second nature. Saint Paul embodies this success in Jesus Christ, who never abandons the old law and, on the contrary, explains it to the teachers of the law, but perfects it with an understanding that eludes them. This understanding is the spirit. Antigone's vocation belongs to the spirit. A vocation cannot grow within the letter of the law; it becomes rigid and withers. The person we hope for must be freed and grow in the spirit while recognizing the imprint of the law within them.

Humility resides in the heart of man, and man pretends to ignore it, driven by the demon of pride that fuels the will to power. Authority has lost its nobility along with humility. Authority has become synonymous with implacable order, unthinking force, and tyranny. What a reversal of values! Whereas, according to Antigone, authority prevented tyranny! The modern era has this impression of authority because it has been trampled underfoot by men who have used it; whereas one cannot, must, and is obligated to serve authority. But has authority been damaged by these disastrous experiences? A value cannot be damaged by a man. Fidelity extends beyond Saint Peter, even though he is incapable of it. Fidelity extends beyond betrayal, for it always embraces it. Loyalty is affirmed even in betrayal. Betrayal carries no meaning within it, except its own satisfaction. Every value also speaks of the uncertainty within humanity. Every value is a guardian and a refuge. There is no need to choose; value adapts to our weakness since it precedes our uncertainties. The modern world conflates authority and power, making them bear the same wounds and the same suffering. Because God had to be removed from everything. Neither the ancients nor the contemporaries would understand, but that mattered little; they counted for nothing now. If God never left, he would have to be killed. The 20th century proclaimed itself the time of God's death. It only killed the idea of ​​God. Above all, it created a new anthropomorphism based on suicide. If each generation secretes its own morality, can we go so far as to replace morality with authority? What must be believed and what must be said. It was the beginning of the reign of relativism. Thus, under the term "authority," everything that was hated was amassed. An outlet was needed. How many flowers have we seen wither at the loss of their support? What tree can survive when its trunk deteriorates? To deny the laws of nature is to deny life. Life is ebb and flow, balance, vigilance; so many people fail to understand that, while they were doing well just a short time before, they suddenly feel close to the abyss. Because that is how life fluctuates. Some things are easy for us and then difficult, without anything making them harder than the passage of time. Grasping this state requires humility, which is a weapon, for humility compels us to be in touch with ourselves in all circumstances. Humility is animated by acquiescence, by docility to events, by trust, by unconditional love, by wonder…

The inversion of values ​​rests on a mise en abyme. Few people are inclined to mise en abyme because there is a constant risk of discovering themselves within it. Relativism is a gentle companion. Relativism is like the horse dealer in Abbé Donissan's novel by Bernanos. You can travel with him; he doesn't bore you, he stays in his place, and he demonstrates unfailing empathy. However, he doesn't know compassion. Is that a problem? Not at all! It's an advantage; he doesn't contradict me, he agrees with me, or rather, he anticipates my agreement by conceiving it before I've even thought about it. Relativism is truly the religion of our time; it is a natural offspring of secularism and keeps all religions on guard. Relativism doesn't help; it is merely content with its role as a witness. He acts and acquiesces; he is a technician, an administrator, a statistician's tool. He is not docile, he is not humble, even if he sometimes manages to pass himself off as such. But unlike humility, relativism does not compel self-reflection, because it constantly questions everything around him; it reinforces the status quo, relying on egotism and immediate gratification. While humility leads to confessing one's faults, relativism finds a way to qualify all infractions by invoking the "double standard," which proves to be a very useful catch-all, for better or for worse. Humility is learning the law to access the spirit. Knowing how to obey is learning how to govern. Obeying, to live better. To live fully. Antigone rises because she obeys. Antigone rises because Creon does not know how to obey. Perhaps Antigone rose up after lying in wait for weeks, anticipating Creon's misstep in the face of the ongoing war. Sophocles doesn't say. Perhaps there was nothing unexpected or provoked (from provo-care , to precede the call), perhaps Antigone had been plotting her revolt for a very long time… Antigone obeys both the law and the spirit. She constantly leans on the past, and it is from this, verifiable in every respect, that she speaks: leaning on the past. In Antigone, we find an embodiment of the idea of ​​authority formulated by Hannah Arendt ^together these past centuries, this accumulated life that is infinitely worth more than the latest idea weighed against the yardstick of relativism. Authority is this repose, this calm. One day at Delphi, exhausted from walking for hours, I went down to the temple of Athena and sat against a colonnade, dozing in the rising sun in a state of profound rapture. Antigone, and this is no small part of her promise, offers us a divine dialogue, one that is neither relativistic nor even comfortable. From the very first day of her commitment—that is, from the first day of her conversion, from the very first day of her vocation—Antigone prepares herself to die. Antigone draws inspiration from her relationship with the gods, especially Zeus. This intimacy with the gods and their edicts, which supersede earthly laws, is a matter of holiness. The saint bases his life on his dialogue with God and on dogma, growing ever more deeply in this intimacy. To speak with God is to be near Him. To reject authority is to reject this closeness. We see how the order is reversed, disrupted, and dislocated. Antigone discovers the sacred with her father's death; with her brother's corpse, she seizes her memory, and it reveals to her that she must choose: honor or madness. She chooses honor. She decides to follow her family's history with its ups and downs. To do so, she relies on an unwritten law, a dogma: one does not leave a dead person unburied. That's all. The word dogma represents a law based on authority. Dogmas are varied: written or unwritten, like this law that Antigone seems to possess: one does not leave a dead person unburied. Creon appears to discover it; he knew nothing of it, he had forgotten it; it must be said that he had neither written it nor decided upon it. By rising up against power and slipping her finger into a crack, Antigone inaugurates what the first Christians will do by standing up to Rome ^: to speak the truth of the spirit and confront it with the law, to refuse submission to temporal power, to rethink freedom in all places and on all occasions, knowing that freedom belongs to humankind and love to God, and that freedom leads humankind to the love of God. Antigone's action could have remained dormant, but the stumbling block named Creon decided otherwise. Antigone did not rebel against her fate; she even found it fitting. Zeus helped her to speak of him. Zeus allowed her to discover a piece of mystery. What Antigone received proves to be immeasurably greater than anything Creon could promise her. By entering into the mystery, Antigone finally opened the door that the divinity always leaves ajar. Thus Antigone escapes heresy: the right to choose among dogmas. Written law is established like the currency. Unwritten and irrefutable law shelters truth. This law includes and does not exclude. Antigone says: I am made for love … she has chosen. She has chosen Zeus ^, that is to say, Deus, that is to say, God, the God who comes and condemns tyrants. The God who comes to meet her and whom she will soon see face to face.