“Can Otherness challenge our arrogant, insular cultural narcissism?”
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 02/20/2016 - 18:57I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about otherness recently, trying to tie together various thoughts, borrowing from Lacan, Levinas, Delueze, Guattari, Focault, my own spiritual journey, and, of course, others.
My thoughts all remain someone unclear and disorganized. This is at least my third attempt to try and organize clarify them into a blog post, but I expect, instead, it will be more like random, incompletely partially related thoughts, with no clear beginning of end.
One idea I’m grappling with is Lacan’s L’Objet Petit a, the unobtainable object of desire, with its echoes of Melanie Klein’s object relations and Winnicott’s transitional object. Related to this is the Le grand Autre, which I have even less of an understanding of.
In my mind, Le grand Autre is somehow connected to collective memory, to official history, orthodoxy, the agreed upon master narrative. This leads me to Foucault and counter memory, and perhaps through that, back to Lacan and L’Objet Petit a. We connect with one another sharing our stories of the hidden unobtainable desires, and it becomes a counter memory, an antithesis to the dominant collective memory, and ultimately the two become synthesized into a new collective memory.
I think of this in relation to Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the Rhizome. All our L’Objet Petit as connected to collective memory and counter memory, constantly evolving, shifting.
Somewhere in all of this is alterity, with a nod to Levinas, our sense of self and not self in this great dance. As I try to wrap my head around this, I stumble across Jean Baudrillard and Marc Guillaume’s Radical Alterity. The MIT Press page about the book asks, “Can Otherness challenge our arrogant, insular cultural narcissism?”
My thoughts move to my spiritual journey, my discussion with my bishop about embracing otherness, our discussion of Christ’s otherness, fully human and fully divine. Fully self and fully other? How do I embrace otherness? Otherness of people different from myself, whether it be Donald Trump, or the homeless man on the street?
“Can Otherness challenge our arrogant, insular cultural narcissism?”
I’m reading Slow Church right for one study group. The book challenges the much of the discussions about church growth, but it feels like it is just another angle of the same insular cultural narcissism. I’m also reading The Monastery of The Heart for a different study group. A Benedictine based rule of life seems much more other, much more of a challenge to cultural narcissism.
These are all still random thoughts in the early phase of formation. I worry that to the extent I’m still scratching my head over all of this, it may seem even more obtuse to many reading it.
Yet I put it out there. Does any of what I’m saying make sense to you? Does it spur thoughts in your mind? Do you have insights that might help me out?
The Other
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 02/19/2016 - 12:54There is always an other in the room with us
whether we know it or not
whether or not we are alone.
There are those we know;
our mother,
an ex-girl friend
from long ago
who still haunts our memories
whom we’re never able to quite forget,
and that teacher
from that time in class
whom we’ve never have been able to forgive.
There are those we don’t know;
the unknown soldier in the faded photograph on the wall,
the homeless man that once slept in this room,
or the man
who died of AIDS
that no one remembers.
There are those we seek to know
Elijah, Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus.
Then, there is the other inside of us,
the other we seek to deny or kill off,
our greed and lust,
our desires for earthly goods,
that nice watch that man is wearing,
our desires for physical pleasures,
as we look at someone attractive.
It is hard to write in the voice of the other,
those we remember, those we repress,
and those we seek to serve.
Note: This was written for a poetry group prompt about writing in the voice of someone else
Finish Later
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 02/19/2016 - 00:12This evening, I went to hear Jonatha Brooke at The Kate in Old Saybrook. It is very late, too late for me to try and write anything very coherent, but I want to get down some of my thoughts, even if I’ll need to finish them later.
One of the songs she sang was parts of some of Woody Guthrie’s writing, including one with the words, “Finish Later” at the bottom. When I heard that, I knew that would be, at least part of my quick evening post.
It seems like more and more of my writing is falling into the finish later category, ideas for blog posts, parts of poems.
It made me think of a poem by Billy Collins about unfinished poems by Paul Valery, January in Paris. These partial memories make me think of another poem by Billy Collins, Forgetfulness.
But this is a digression. Another song Jonatha Brooke sang was about her mother as the Alzheimer’s took hold. “Are you getting this down?” her mother would ask her. I’m trying to get some of my reactions to this evening’s music down.
One of the things she spoke about between songs was about that doubt that wracks all writers. I touched on this doubt in a recent blog post talking about Lent and The Accuser. It relates to my daughter’s book, Don’t Make Art, Just Make Something. I’m sure there is material here for me to explore in my discernment process. Where does art, being a creator created in the image of The Creator, yet tormented by doubt about being good enough, a good enough writer, among other things, fit in?
One other song she sang was about when her mother went into hospice and she wasn’t ready. She sang about The Last Call, and Red Molly’s song “The Last Call” came to mind. Poetry, music, art, woven together with doubt, uncertainty, reconnecting art to daily life, reconnecting spirituality to art and to daily life.
There is so much more that needs to be written about all of this, when I’m not over tired, when I have more time. So this, too, will end with
Finish Later.
The Common Journey
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 02/17/2016 - 20:59Here we choose to seek God
in step with others,
even though not always in common with others –
each of us on an apparently separate path
and yet all of us in veritable community
with one another on the way –
as lifelines,
as mentors,
as guides,
as models,
as brothers and sisters in whose loving company
we choose to make our common journey to God.
Our Lenten study group is reading The Monastery of The Heart by Joan Chittister and that passage from our reading yesterday really jumped out at me. I am spending a lot of time thinking about my journey, try to discern, with the help of others where my path is leading.
Early on in the present leg of my spiritual journey, a friend spoke with me about the Camino de Santiago, the great pilgrimage in northern Spain that seekers have travelled for centuries. The stories I read of the pilgrimage frequently spoke of being a common community, while not always travelling together.
I’ve been thinking about the online component of my journey: this blog, various other blogs, mailing lists, Facebook Groups; a spiritual rhizome, to build off the idea of a group of digital higher education pedagogues I hang out with online.
Somewhere in this crowd, are the poets, the mystics, the post-structuralists, all making a common journey, no matter how much they recognize the commonality and no matter how different the languages are.
Somewhere in all of this, is the rule of life, from St. Benedict, echoed by Joan Chittister, and providing a framework for the journey. Somewhere in all of this is the writing of Wilfred Bion looking at how groups work together, and the ideas growing out of this around primary tasks, roles, boundaries, authority, and to return to St. Benedict, humility.
Somewhere in all of this is the homeless man, who’s had a rough life, knows he should deal with his drinking problem, and is struggling with God. Somewhere in all of this is the victim of domestic violence, who lost her son to cancer, and is struggling with Allah.
This Lent, I am seeking to spend more time studying, praying, and listening. There doesn’t seem to be enough time, so a bracket in Lent Madness slips by unattended. A blog post gets scrimped on. Hours of sleep are cut short.
And still, I make my journey.
Evening Reflections
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 02/16/2016 - 22:39It was after nine when I got home, so I’m pretty tired, too tired to write in detail about the things I’ve been thinking about recently. So, I’ll mention them briefly and perhaps expound on some of them in more detail later.
Last night and this morning, my commutes were lengthened by icy weather. It is much warmer now.
I’ve been returning to the idea of being in the world, but not off the world, being a participant observer. of contemplation and action. I think of Christ as fully human and fully divine, our great bi-vocational high priest and wonder about being fully in my spiritual journey, while at the same time being fully in my daily life and work.
Part of my Lenten study is reading The Monastery of the Heart by Joan Chittister. It is the book we are reading at church. In preparation, I listened to The Rule of St. Benedict (off of Librivox) as part of my commute. We had a good discussion, and I look forward to how all of these come together.
But, it is time for bed.
