The whys of fearing death
Georges Bataille writes in this week to let me know why human beings fear death while animals don't. If you have a pet, you're probably thinking, "My Snookums is afraid of dying. One time he sniffed a dead chipmunk and I had to wipe away his tears." Well, to be honest, nobody--apart from the occasional animal psychic--knows what animals do or don't fear. But the key is that animals demonstrate no sign of fear. A typical animal reaction to a corpse is a brief sniff followed by moving along. Elephants seem to visit the occasional boneyard, but again, nobody knows what they're thinking during those visits.
Consider also the complete lack of evidence that animals deal with death. Then consider the abundant evidence of human beings' obsession with death: stone monuments, appeals to posterity, family trees, art, legacies, inheritance. I could go on.
Why this anxiety? What keeps human beings from surrendering to death without the pomp and ritual? My Buddy Georges B. suggests that death threatens everything that distinguishes human beings from the animals--namely, work.
The world of work, the entering of which marked the moment when the animals we were began the transformation into the humans we are, creates a world of things. These things are the tools we use in our work. The tool in itself has no value--neither does the act of labor itself. Nothing is pleasing about the act of labor in itself. Yet we labor anyway, for we desire the benefits to come, the pleasure that the act of labor defers. We work now to rest at the finish of our work, and at that point also to enjoy the thing we have made. Only at that point can we enjoy the fruits of our labor in a sovereign manner. Nowadays, we rarely enjoy the thing we have labored to make; rather, we enjoy the paycheck our labor earns. If we're very lucky, we get to enjoy the paycheck in a sovereign manner--spending without thought to the use or value of the money.
All value in the world of work is deferred value--it depends for its meaning on some future point that, paradoxically, almost never arrives. For when does our work end? When do we as humans become valuable just because of who we are? When does our value become independent of the labor we do, the contribution we make to society or to our family? When can we sit, and loaf, and slack, and be valuable nonetheless?
In the world of work, never.
Yet death ends the future upon which the world of work depends. Death cuts off the enjoyment of the fruits of our labor. Death kicks down the door and grabs us by the collar and laughs at our attempts to defer value. Death chops off the future, and the value, and renders us into the horror of objecthood, an empty body. That horror is inconceivable to a mind brought up within the world of work. That horror betrays everything the world of work had promised us. That horror betrays our humanity, which had its inception in the taking up of tools, in our entering the world of work.
If death so betrays us, if death presents such a horror to us, why do we sometimes crave it?
Bataille promised to write about that in his next epistle. I am chewing the walls with anticipation.
Consider also the complete lack of evidence that animals deal with death. Then consider the abundant evidence of human beings' obsession with death: stone monuments, appeals to posterity, family trees, art, legacies, inheritance. I could go on.
Why this anxiety? What keeps human beings from surrendering to death without the pomp and ritual? My Buddy Georges B. suggests that death threatens everything that distinguishes human beings from the animals--namely, work.
The world of work, the entering of which marked the moment when the animals we were began the transformation into the humans we are, creates a world of things. These things are the tools we use in our work. The tool in itself has no value--neither does the act of labor itself. Nothing is pleasing about the act of labor in itself. Yet we labor anyway, for we desire the benefits to come, the pleasure that the act of labor defers. We work now to rest at the finish of our work, and at that point also to enjoy the thing we have made. Only at that point can we enjoy the fruits of our labor in a sovereign manner. Nowadays, we rarely enjoy the thing we have labored to make; rather, we enjoy the paycheck our labor earns. If we're very lucky, we get to enjoy the paycheck in a sovereign manner--spending without thought to the use or value of the money.
All value in the world of work is deferred value--it depends for its meaning on some future point that, paradoxically, almost never arrives. For when does our work end? When do we as humans become valuable just because of who we are? When does our value become independent of the labor we do, the contribution we make to society or to our family? When can we sit, and loaf, and slack, and be valuable nonetheless?
In the world of work, never.
Yet death ends the future upon which the world of work depends. Death cuts off the enjoyment of the fruits of our labor. Death kicks down the door and grabs us by the collar and laughs at our attempts to defer value. Death chops off the future, and the value, and renders us into the horror of objecthood, an empty body. That horror is inconceivable to a mind brought up within the world of work. That horror betrays everything the world of work had promised us. That horror betrays our humanity, which had its inception in the taking up of tools, in our entering the world of work.
If death so betrays us, if death presents such a horror to us, why do we sometimes crave it?
Bataille promised to write about that in his next epistle. I am chewing the walls with anticipation.
posted by Peacock | 12:40 AM
1 Comments:
Do you think that Bataille's answer will have anything to do with the massive waste of engery released at death--that massive waste of energy being the necessity of all life's propagation? Do we somehow know to crave it in order to release that energy? Also, I've been dying to know (no pun intended, really) whether you find his metaphor of economics an appropriate system for understanding that which renders systems useless?
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