The most illuminating example of human nature is found in the New Testament when Peter and Jesus Christ talk together and Peter urges his master to believe his devotion to be completely sincere. Thus, Jesus announces to him that the rooster will not have crowed that he will have denied him three times. The first place every man talks about is this: his weakness. Taking into account the limits of each, not always to resolve them, but also to overcome them, obliges to reason from what one is and not from what one believes to be. Any man who does not know his weaknesses, who forgets them, who does not take them into account is above ground, as we are used to saying nowadays. Above-ground meaning that we are nourished by a pasture that is not ours, that we renounce our pasture to find any other pasture than our own, better because it is different. Above ground also means that the comments received could be obtained anywhere else in the world without this posing a problem, these comments being rootless, translatable into any language and exportable as a computer “framework”. The formula "above ground" forbids answering the question "where are you talking about?" » and the first formula likes to taunt the second as identity or « far-right ». By dint of having wanted to dodge this question, we destroyed it. In the future it will no longer be possible to ask where we are talking about, because we will have reached such a level of abstraction and uprooting that this question will no longer even have any meaning.
Category: Antigone
Antigone, rebellious and intimate (4/7. Freedom)
Antigone did not come to life at dusk. Antigone is born with dawn. It is at daybreak that Antigone becomes anti , which means facing and not against . At the reflux of the army of Argos, Antigone emerges from the shadows where she could have resided all her life, not to solve the riddle of the sphinx like her father, not to solve the riddle of the stages of the life, but to fill the space between each of them. Oedipus tore off his skin, his nails, his knuckles. Dusk describes an uncertain state in the morning as well as in the evening. Antigone rises with the day, with the dawn, when freedom takes life, and therefore body.
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Antigone, rebellious and intimate (6/7. The vocation)
So many stories about identity! The word does not appear in Greek epic or tragedy. Identity at the time of Antigone is based on lineage and belonging to a city. Identity was impregnated with rootedness. The family and the city brought together under a virtual banner all of what the other was to know about himself during a first meeting. During antiquity, no one proclaimed his identity or promulgated it, and no one decided on his identity. It wasn't about putting on a costume. Men depended on their identity. Identity was like a charge, we had to be worthy of it. It established being and becoming. The modern era has made it an issue, because it has transformed identity into having, a sort of asset which one can dress up or discard. In its modern fantasy of believing that we can choose everything all the 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. Living one's identity, being what one is, inhabiting one's name , allowing intimacy and therefore knowledge and deepening of one's being, these are the sine qua non conditions for an encounter with the other. The first difference between Creon and Antigone is located in this precise place, the ground on which the fight is built, Antigone preserves anchored in her this gift of the elders, of the gods, this rootedness which defines the authority to which she leans for stand up to this man, his relative, the king, who espouses the will to power and finds himself blinded by it to the point of hearing only his own voice, its echo. Continue reading “Antigone, rebellious and intimate (6/7. The vocation)”
Antigone, rebellious and intimate (3/7. Destiny)
3rd part: destiny
The man comes down from the tree. Man, like the tree, is defined both by its roots and by its fruits. Man, like the tree, depends on external and internal elements to reach maturity. Man resembles this trunk sculpted by hardship, leaning on its roots and bearing more or less beautiful, more or less good fruit… The resemblances between the plant world and man are endless. From the water that nourishes the roots, to the sun watering the fruits, to the oxygen exuded by the leaves, all this life that rushes in and circulates reminds us in an irremissible way of the human condition. The tree is a metaphor for the family. From the seedling to the fruits and leaves, a metaphor for the history of man and the family develops. Which evil fairies presided over the birth of the Labdacides family from which Antigone descends? Any fine conscience these days would see it as a calamity and a pathological explanation for Antigone's decisions. How does this little Antigone become this heroic fruit by being born on a trunk so full of stigmata and bruises? Destiny blows and guides this family in an uninterrupted and obtuse way and, suddenly, Antigone frees herself from this straitjacket, frees her whole family from this straitjacket, she undoes the straitjacket, and completes the dismissal of destiny. What a miracle! From a distance, clinging to their branch, two leaves always seem identical, yet you just have to approach to see how much they differ. Continue reading “Antigone, rebellious and intimate (3/7. Destiny)”
Antigone, rebellious and intimate (2/7. The funeral)
Part 2: The funeral
“ My dear Ismene. I come this morning to tell you that I took care of everything. I took the same undertakers for our two brothers. I couldn't choose and since our brothers didn't leave any last wishes, I took matters into my own hands to get it sorted out as soon as possible. I still ordered embalming so that they are presentable. If you want to go see them, they'll be ready around 3 p.m. You do not have to. Well, if you can take ten minutes, that might be fine. It may be better to keep an image of them happy, children for example. I took the same urn model for both. A priest will come to the funeral home and give a short speech before the cremation. I ordered him to come to the funeral home. You see, I took care of everything. Eteocles will be buried in the cemetery which is located about thirty minutes from Thebes by taking the national. For Polynice, it is more complicated with the law of our uncle, Creon. I decided to scatter his ashes on the battlefield as the king does not want him buried. Makes sense, right? Tell me what you think, I'm not stopped on this point. This portrait of Antigone living in the 21st century delivering the remains of her brothers to the funeral director summarizes the rite of funerals today. The family has since the Industrial Revolution been rendered unproductive. Funerals are no longer part of the family tradition. The modern world is reassured by using the formula make sense , as the translation of the Anglo-Saxon expression is heard today, and as it is so comforting to repeat it to oneself without it really having any… sense, because what what are these mini-senses found on the ground almost by chance, what are these skin-deep that invite themselves in almost without our being there for nothing, if not the residues of a past sense, a common sense, a good sense sculpted by the centuries? Through the destruction of the family, transmission between generations is lacking, the meaning of our actions is lost, so we have to invent meaning, create meaning, we have to give ourselves the illusion of still living, of not not have totally given up. Deceit is backed up by ignorance, and on this point too, trickery is not new. The meaning given by death within the family, this meaning almost completely forgotten nowadays, is recalled by Antigone in Sophocles' play where she stands as a guardian of the values that liberate, because they protect man from death. 'animal. Antigone reaffirms what man can and cannot; it takes hold of a force destined to protect us from our will to power and to teach us the time of responsibility; a time nowadays entrusted to specialists replacing the family, the people who compose it and the tenuous links woven between them over time.
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Antigone, rebellious and intimate (1/7. The family)
1st part: the family
From the first reading of Antigone, an ambiguity settles in the mind of the reader. Does Antigone embody action or reaction? What moves Antigone? The reaction never exists by itself whereas the action needs no one, it legitimizes itself in the act. Action always inaugurates something. Contrary to what is often said or believed, Antigone does not wait for Creon to be Antigone. Like Electra for revenge, Nausicaa for hospitality, Penelope for fidelity, Antigone embodies duty. It is action, because it serves: it is accomplished in duty. It is accomplished in servitude (are we pretending to forget that servitude means “to be a slave”?). Contrary to what is often said or believed, Antigone is never an individual. She never stands alone. If the law of Creon pushes it to action, and if this one can seem a reaction, it is only on the surface, by simple chronology.
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