Similarities Between Nietzsche's Uebermensch and The Survivor Personality

Historical Background

Two states of mental and emotional functioning, new to the human race, were observed in Germany about 100 years ago. Nietzsche recognized the emergence of a new human he called an "Uebermensch," a new, better human with personality qualities far beyond those of the ordinary person of that time. As described by Nietzsche, this higher, advanced person was a self-created person who was emotionally "harder" than the average person in part because of having synthesized many contradictory personality dimensions. In addition, such "free spirits" were morally stronger and easily resistant to external social controls because of the development of their own individual values for living.

At the same time in Germany, Kraepelin observed the emergence of a new, spontaneously occurring mental disorder in young people which he called "dementia praecox." A few years later, Bleuler named the phenomenon "schizophrenia" (a splitting apart of the personality) to make the diagnostic term reflect the primary symptom of the condition.

The picture drawn from the long term study of people who are life's best survivors is similar to Nietzsche's description. Such persons are seen as deriving their flexibility, resiliency, and psychological strengths from the successful assimilation of many major paradoxes into their ways of thinking, feeling, and functioning. In addition, people with survivor personalities are above average in operating independently from external social forces, in successfully defending themselves against negative, judgmental reactions to their way of existing, and in resisting efforts by others to control or change them.

The Emergence of a New Psychological Disorder

E. Fuller Torrey writes in Surviving Schizophrenia that schizophrenia is a relatively new disease. (Torrey, 1985, p. 208.) He states, "The more one peruses these ancient sources, moreover, the more striking it becomes that nobody clearly described the disease we now call schizophrenia." (p. 209)

Torrey goes on to observe, "Overall it is a strange history for a disease. Virtually unknown or at least undescribed for centuries, it suddenly appears all over the western world simultaneously and is noted to be increasing rapidly." He asks, "How could it have been missed if it affected one percent of the population, as it does now?" (p. 215)

Eugen Bleuler wrote Dementia Praecox or The Group of Schizophrenias, in 1908 and published it in 1911. From the beginning, the phenomenon of "schizophrenia" has been very difficult to name, describe, understand, and treat. According to Bleuler, Kraepelin used the term "dementia praecox" to refer to a dementing or deteriorating condition afflicting young adults, in 1896. Referring to the condition as a mental deterioration in young adults was an awkward diagnostic term, however, because a number of conditions could cause that. It was not very useful.

Bleuler suggested that the term "schizophrenia" be used instead. He wrote, "In every case we are confronted with a more or less clear-cut splitting of the psychic functions. If the disease is marked the personality loses its unity; at different times different complexes seem to represent the personality. Integration of different complexes and strivings appears insufficient or even lacking. The psychic complexes do not combine in a conglomeration of strivings with a unified resultant as they do in a healthy person; rather, one set of complexes dominates the personality for a time, while other groups of ideas or drives are 'split off' and seem either partly or completely impotent.... Thus the process of association often works with mere fragments of ideas and concepts. This results in associations which normal individuals will regard as incorrect, bizarre, and utterly unpredictable." (Bleuler, 1911, p. 9)

The Emergence of a New, Exceptional Level of Mental Health

A primary research activity of the author, for many years, has been to understand and describe people with such exceptional mental and emotional health that they gain strength from extreme adversities instead of becoming psychological casualties. For descriptive purposes an operational definition "the survivor personality" was created. Questions about why some people survive better than others, what consistent personality traits appear in life's best survivors, and how the survivor personality develops have been core questions. (Siebert, 1967; Water and Siebert, 1976; Siebert, 1983; Siebert, 1985a., Siebert, 1994; Siebert, 1996.) Other questions about the survivor personality include, "How many people have the survivor personality?" and "How long have there been people with this sort of personality?"

The pattern of traits usually found in life's best survivors include:

Behavioral...

A playful curiosity, an inclination to experiment, try things out on their own, a preference to find out for themselves how things work rather than accept other people's perceptions. They ask lots of questions. As adults they show that they have retained from childhood the ability to be playful, toy with things, and learn directly from experience.

Laugh and play with life, with their own minds and feelings, with people and situations. They enjoy being mirthful, foolish, laugh at their own foibles.

They enjoy finding out how things work. They show the natural neurogenic, self-motivation described by White in his classic paper on the concept of competence. (White, 1959)

Motives and personality characteristics...

Their endurance, persistence, resiliency in new and complex situations is primarily derived from having integrated major mental and emotional paradoxes into their ways of functioning. They act with a selfish unselfishness, approach challenges with an optimistic pessimism, have a sensitive toughness, engage in self-confident self-criticism. They have achieved an independent dependency, the list goes on and on. Each person's paradoxical make up is unique, however, because their response patterns are a function of the world they interact with.

A central motive emerging from self-managed learning is best described as a synergy motivation (Siebert, 1976, 1983, 1985a). They are good at making things work well, need to have things working well, expect to be able to make things work well, and are creative in coming up with unique solutions that work. They function well in ambiguous, confused situations because of their inner directed sense of direction. They feel motivated to change situations and conditions from low synergy to high synergy, this having many signs of being a neurologically based need.

Capacity for empathy for people, groups, things. They have pattern empathy, can "read" situations quickly with their eyes and feelings; can draw meaningful impressions from little data; have empathy (not sympathy) for enemies and attackers.

Consciously attuned to subliminal perceptions. They read their own bodies well, notice little physical clues that something is not right or that everything is OK. Will consider as valid hunches, intuitions, ESP experiences.

Defend themselves well. Anticipate danger and take avoidance or preventative action before it can happen. They can be highly resistant to threats, con jobs, pressure, and trickery. They can be deadly opponents if forced into that position.

Key Outcomes

Life gets better and better for them as the decades go by. They get stronger and stronger from the various adversities, strains, and difficulties they encounter. The best survivors have usually been through the worst experiences. They match up with descriptions of people who are the small percentage of individuals who recover from cancer, alcoholism, or major medical conditions. (Siegal, 1986)

Function autonomously within society according to own personal values. They are responsible rebels, cooperative non-conformists. While they can't be controlled or made to be responsible citizens, they voluntarily participate in making things run well.

Exercise a talent for serendipity. They convert misfortune into good luck. Typically refer back to the worst things that ever happened to them as being the best thing that ever happened.

The First Description

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a trained observer. He called himself a philosopher and a psychologist. He was a superb observer of the workings of the human mind, including his own, and the processes promoting or impairing clear thinking and personal improvement.

At the same time that Kraepelin, Bleuler, and other European psychiatrists were first observing a puzzling mental disorder, Nietzsche was observing and describing a new, better, "higher" Uebermensch. In his descriptions he describes almost every element of development and traits of the survivor personality:

Playful curiosity--the final metamorphosis of spirit is to be a child, a free spirit who dances across truths, beliefs, and values. A free, independent mind and spirit "cannot be taught, one must 'know' it from experience" (Beyond Good and Evil, p. 155) and from questioning everything.

Laughing--throughout his writings he emphasizes laughing. Zarathustra says to laugh ten times a day (p. 24); it is important to laugh at oneself, confirm the validity of insights and discoveries with laughter, and let wisdom about all aspects of the human experiences be coupled with gaiety and joy.

Self-actualization--Nietzsche was compelled to explore and understand his own nature. He wanted to find out how his mind worked and the way that thoughts and sentiments influence human actions. He said, "We ourselves want to be our own experiments, and our own subjects of experiment." (Joyful Wisdom, p. 248)

Paradoxical--throughout his writing he makes reference to the paradoxes, opposites, and antitheses in himself and the new human. About Zarathustra he said, "all opposites are in him bound together into a new unity." (Ecce Homo, p. 106) He described himself as lonely and friendly, decadent and decent, terrible and beneficent, and Janus faced. He wrote "viewed from his angle, my life is simply amazing. For the task of transvaluing values, more abilities were necessary perhaps than could ever be found combined in one individual; and above all, opposing abilities which must not be mutually inimical and destructive." (Ecce Homo, p. 45)

Synergistic--he was deeply bothered seeing how much human energy was wasted through people trying to live by values and beliefs taught to them. He was distressed by the harm people do to themselves and others in trying to act unselfishly. He tried to tell, teach, and show people how life could be better for everyone if, through a process of experimenting, developing their own values, and enjoying a healthy selfishness, they became free spirited individuals.

Sensitivity--he stated, "I have in this sensitivity psychological antennae with which I touch and take hold of every secret: all the concealed dirt at the bottom of many a nature, perhaps conditioned by bad blood but whitewashed by education, is known to me on first contact." Being around people was so difficult for him that he needed many periods of solitude to recover, and to return to himself with "the breath of a free light playful air...." (Ecce Homo, p. 48-49)

Toughness--with enthusiasm Nietzsche describes the new human as "better and badder," as needing hardness, as being strong willed. He says, "another form of sagacity and self-defense consists in reacting as seldom as possible." (EH p. 63) He observes that all creators are hard. They have to be because they are, in the act of creating something new, destroying the old. He says, "We premature born of a yet undemonstrated future need...a new health, a stronger, shrewder, tougher, more daring, more cheerful health than any has been hitherto...a great health." (Ecce Homo, p. 101)

Serendipity--throughout his writings he talks about the value of an illness. "The man who lies in bed sometime...gains wisdom from the leisure forced on him by his illness." "It was sickness that brought me to reason." (Ecce Homo, p. 56); "It was in the years of my lowest vitality that I ceased to be a pessimist." (Ecce Homo, p. 40) He also said that with every hurt or injury he revitalized himself and became stronger.

There are many more examples in Nietzsche's writing, but this is sufficient to demonstrate that he covered most of the elements in the survivor personality pattern. These qualities, traits, and abilities must be searched for among the many other things he wrote about, but they are present to a degree far beyond what appeared in any writing before his time.

In his writings, Nietzsche demonstrated more self-understanding than was ever recorded before his time. According to Ernest Jones, Sigmund Freud's biographer, Freud said several times of Nietzsche that "he had more penetrating knowledge of himself than any man who ever lived or was likely to live." (Jones, 1955)

Nietzsche obviously understood the process of self-actualization very well. Scattered throughout his volumes, he showed an awareness of the many abilities and traits that facilitate self-managed, self-motivated personal development. He had a good grasp of how to learn directly from experience while freeing one's thinking from perceptions and beliefs taught by others. And, of course, he knew this. He said, "out of my writings there speaks a psychologist who has not his equal." (Ecce Homo, p. 75)

More importantly, he understood that no one could equal him by attempting to act in the ways he described. He wanted no followers, no cult, and no believers. He saw that uniquely created, individual self-discovery was the only way to have a free spirit.

A Schizophrenic Connection

How is all this connected to the emergence of schizophrenia in Germany in the late 1800s? For a partial answer, let us look to Nietzsche himself...

On July 24, 1876, at 32 years of age, he arrived in the city of Bayreuth to attend a festival. He experienced "a profound estrangement from all that surrounded me...It was as if I had been dreaming...'Where was I?' I recognized nothing. I hardly recognized Wagner." (His mentor and close friend.) (Ecce Homo, pp. 90-91) Nietzsche goes on to describe how he left, went to a forest retreat, sent a curt telegram to Wagner which ended their relationship, and withdrew from the world. Isolated from other humans, he spent months splitting his mind apart and clearing it of "ten years of a trash of dusty scholarship."

Did Nietzsche develop acute schizophrenia? If we look at Nietzsche from the perspective of clinician aided by DSM-III, we find in his self reports:

--the sudden onset of a state of mental deterioration triggered by a major depersonalization experience.

--withdrawal from contact with other humans, loss of capacity for close contact with others. History of many brief relationships with women. Never married, his strong sexual drives were usually satisfied through brief encounters with street women.

--stated that he purposefully worked at not responding to things said or done to him.

--claimed that his mind and feelings were controlled by others. Refused to read any books for years at a time claiming the authors were trying to put their thoughts into his head.

--deterioration from previous levels of functioning, had to take a long leave of absence from his work because of recurring physical problems, ill health, and migraine.

--rejected traditional values calling himself "the Anti-Christ" waging a war on Christianity, "an immoralist," "a decadent," a "Satyr" and "by far the most terrible human being there ever has been...." A sign of his moral deterioration and loss of capacity for judgment is that he had an incestuous relationship with his sister and wrote about it.

--expressed incongruous thought patterns. For example, he said most people disgusted him.

"This makes traffic with people no small test of my patience.... Disgust at mankind, at the 'rabble,' has always been my greatest danger." (Ecce Homo, pp. 48-49) Then he said, "My formula for greatness in a human being is...not merely to endure that which happens of necessity...but to love it." (Ecce Homo, p. 68) Another example is his bragging about not reading any books for years while he was busy writing books for future generations to read and study.

--demonstrated little empathy for the people and groups he was so critical of; showed little empathy for the effect his behavior had on others.

--in his writings he produced long lists of unrelated, sometimes bizarre aphorisms, assertions, and metaphors.

--experienced a period in which he became possessed by a personality named Zarathustra. For a year he was totally absorbed in listening to the conversations of this imaginary person and writing an account of Zarathustra's life in an imaginary world. He claimed that Zarathustra is "the highest species of all existing things." (Ecce Homo, p. 107)

--while writing about Zarathustra he could, by his own account, be seen laughing, dancing and talking to himself as he went for long walks.

--showed many signs of grandiosity. Stated "It is my fate to be the first decent human being." And "I am the bringer of good tidings such as there has never been." Predicted that in the future, universities would have professorships or "chairs" endowed for the sole purpose of studying the Zarathustra volume. Upon completion of Human, All Too Human, which he describes as a memorial of a crisis, he said he felt tremendous certainty that he held in his hands a "world-historic" book. In an autobiography he included essays on "Why I am so wise," "Why I am so clever," and "How I write excellent books." He predicted that his existence would create a crisis in the human race like none other before, stating, "I am not a man, I am dynamite." (Ecce Homo p. 126)

His best friend and acquaintances believed that he had a mental breakdown. He interpreted that as information about how far advanced beyond their comprehensions he had become.

What Would Happen to Nietzsche Today?

If you saw only the description above, without knowing the name of the person, what would you think? If Nietzsche were alive today in our country, what do you think would be the reaction to him? Would he be respected as a great teacher of how to self-manage a deep, healthy metamorphosis? Would he be diagnosed as "a schizophrenic"?

Did Nietzsche go through a classic peak experience in which he achieved a higher level of consciousness and then defied the world to understand? Was he, as he claimed, an example of great health, of abnormal mental health? Did he experience a schizophrenic breakdown which was too much for him to accept, that he tried to deny? What was "Nietzsche's syndrome"?

There is No Proof That Schizophrenia is An Illness

After all these years, the case has still not been proven that schizophrenia is a disease or an illness. As summarized elsewhere (Siebert, 1985b), no one can catch schizophrenia from someone else, it has a correlation of occurrence in families and twins close to that of IQ, athletic ability, music ability, etc., no one dies from it, there is no known cure for it, people can recover from it on their own with no treatment, the longer a person is given drugs or treated in a mental hospital the worse off they are, the less treatment given the better the recovery, and some people are made stronger by the experience. No illness known to medical science acts like this.

But if it isn't a disease or illness then what is it? Is it possible that in some instances of schizophrenia we are observing some sort of desirable development? Does something happen in the human brain during young adulthood that is a version of what Jaynes has described as a breakdown in the bicameral mind? Is there an unrecognized process of neurological integration going on that takes years to occur?

Is there another developmental stage beyond those already identified? Is there a cerebral stage that occurs when a young person tries to take control of his or her brain functions? Are some versions of schizophrenia a developmental crisis that is being interfered with rather than facilitated?

Conclusions

Two mental and emotional states, the survivor personality and schizophrenia, have followed a parallel course of development during the 20th century. Now, almost 100 years later, the incidence of schizophrenia and the survivor personality is each estimated at being present in 1% to 2% of the population. The author's assertion is that they are manifestations of the same basic phenomenon. The classic "dementia praecox" form of schizophrenia is a misunderstood, mishandled, disrupted, interfered with, version of the survivor personality and, conversely, a person with a survivor personality demonstrates a successful form of schizophrenia.

Research Questions

The organizing theme of this paper is that the survivor personality and some forms of schizophrenia are two aspects of the same phenomenon. Research is needed to explore the perspective that the survivor personality is a successful outcome of what is currently perceived during metamorphosis as schizophrenia and, conversely, that schizophrenia, when it becomes chronic, a disrupted, aborted, malfunctioning version of the survivor personality.

If there is validity to this hypothesis, two variables seem to play a key role in determining the outcome. First, is the person distressed by the experience? Are they frightened? Do they ask for help? Do they want "it" to go away? Or, is the person OK with it and willing to let it happen? Does the person experience it as desirable, as opening doors to understanding while family, friends, and therapists are the ones distressed and feel compelled to act for the person's own good to try to make "it" go away?

Second, is the person street smart? An invulnerable? Able to tell people offering unwanted help to go away? Able to defend his or her mind and feelings from intrusion, therapy, and help even during a vulnerable period? Or, is the person passive and compliant with what others want him or her to do? Does he cooperate in the recommended treatment program to the best of his ability even though no cure takes place?

In the present circumstances, these two variables within the person appear to determine whether or not the Nietzsche syndrome produces "a survivor" or "a schizophrenic."

The problem is that there is a serious lack of information. Even though over 100,000 books and articles have been published on schizophrenia, important research areas have been neglected:
Anyone with experience in psychiatric wards knows that many patients do not agree that they are mentally ill. The question is, if schizophrenia is a disease or illness, then why do so many people diagnosed as schizophrenic have to be talked into believing they are sick? What differences are there between people who agree that they are schizophrenic and those who do not?

Why are people who refuse to believe that they are mentally ill viewed by therapists as the sickest of all?

What is the long term outcome when people diagnosed as schizophrenic disagree that they are sick and successfully avoid treatment? How do escaped mental patients compare with cooperative patients years later? Are the treated patients more healthy and improved when compared to the ones who got away?

by Al Siebert, Ph.D.

Dialogue II

BUZZ!!!

Durwood Eldridge: Good morning, Andrew.

Andrew: good morning

Durwood Eldridge: My father and I did end up going to the fair yesterday and I played poker for about an hour and lost $60.

Andrew: ok, are you happy now ?

Durwood Eldridge: Actually, yes. The limits were quite high, 5/10, so I did well. But I've realized what an inexperienced, frankly bad poker player I am in the bricks and mortar sense.

Andrew: ok, i'm glad you had a good time at the fair

Durwood Eldridge: How did your day go? (I'm sorry I didn't chat with you when I got back but I was so tired I went straight to bed.)

Andrew: my head hurt yesterday, so i went to bed at 4 pm

Durwood Eldridge: Oh, no. Is it better now?

Andrew: yes, it feel fine now

Durwood Eldridge: Do you know what caused the pain?

Andrew: no, i don't

Andrew: but im going to the neurologist on sept 16th

Andrew: my mother is taking me

Durwood Eldridge: Yes, it's definitely something to talk to the neurologist about. Be specific about the location and nature of the pain and how intense it was and in what way it interfered with your activities.

Durwood Eldridge: You never know whch of those details could be important.

Andrew: ok, thank you

Andrew: im not sure if the pain went away because of the tylenol or the risperdal

Andrew: probably the tylenol

Durwood Eldridge: I would make notes about it. If you want me to stand by while you make some notes I'm happy to. People tend to forget details over two weeks.

Andrew: no, thats fine

Andrew: do you think it is possible that the voice i heard was Nietzsche's voice ?

Durwood Eldridge: What voice did you hear and when?

Andrew: when i was growing up

Durwood Eldridge: I don't know, Andrew. It's one of those gray areas. Some people say those voices are hallucinatory, others think they are spirits, others thing something else yet. Your doctors are very likely to consider them hallucinatory.

Andrew: probably

Durwood Eldridge: I can't say whose voice it was because I didn't hear it, and even if I did there are no recordings of Nietzsche's voice to compare it to.

Andrew: when i was very young i had a playroom in the basement of the house where i lived and i recall being instructed in philosophy down there

Andrew: my voices

Durwood Eldridge: Instructed in philosophy?

Andrew: by voices

Andrew: yes, taught in the manner that Aristotle teaches things

Durwood Eldridge: Did you ever mention this to anyone?

Andrew: no, only to you

Durwood Eldridge: You mean you've never mentioned this to anyone before?

Andrew: no, i haven't

Durwood Eldridge: I'm honoured. When did the voices stop?

Andrew: i dont know for certain

Andrew: but my mother remembers that before i went to bed i used to have to write down what i was going to think about at night

Andrew: i called it "My Thinkings"

Durwood Eldridge: Do you still have those notebooks?

Andrew: no, i dont

Durwood Eldridge: What happened to them?

Andrew: were talking about when i was a pre-teen

Durwood Eldridge: Yeah, but how come you didn't save the notebooks?

Andrew: they were just scraps of paper

Durwood Eldridge: Oh, okay. I kept notebooks in my late teens but later destroyed everything.

Andrew: ok, interesting

Andrew: i did a lot of writing after my head injury but i threw out most of those notebooks, too

Durwood Eldridge: Why did you throw them out?

Andrew: too painful

Durwood Eldridge: Mine were just no longer relevant to who I am. And there wasn't much meat in them, anyway

Andrew: ok

Andrew: its all on the path to our becoming anyhow

Andrew: Now playing: Bob Dylan, "What Can I Do For You?"

Durwood Eldridge: Dylan can give me some ideas on what to do today.

Andrew: i dont care how rough the road is / show me where it stops

Durwood Eldridge: That part of the lyrics?

Andrew: yes

Durwood Eldridge: Well, it definitely isn't true for me. For over ten years I've been wishing the road would stop, and it hasn't yet.

Andrew: the road never stops, i think

Durwood Eldridge: What a horrible thought. I'm very much a mortalist now. I *want* death to be the end of everything, because everything is so useless.Andrew: dont look at it that way

Andrew: I know all about poison, I know all about fiery darts,I don't care how rough the road is, show me where it starts,Whatever pleases You, tell it to my heart.Well, I don't deserve it but I sure did make it through.What can I do for You?

Andrew: thats the correct lyrics

Andrew: Soon as a man is born, you know the sparks begin to fly,He gets wise in his own eyes and he's made to believe a lie.Who would deliver him from the death he's bound to die?Well, You've done it all and there's no more anyone can pretend to do.What can I do for You?

Durwood Eldridge: I just googled "mortalist" and it's a long-standing Christian heresy. Have to come up with a new term for my philosophical position

Andrew: Pulled me out of bondage and You made me renewed inside,Filled up a hunger that had always been denied,Opened up a door no man can shut and You opened it up so wideAnd You've chosen me to be among the few.What can I do for You?

Andrew: you have to be on guard of cynicism

Durwood Eldridge: why?

Andrew: it could turn into nihilism

Durwood Eldridge: unlikely. I'm just not motivated enough.

Andrew: ok, do you have amotivation ?

Andrew: you went to the fair yesterday, so you got motivated for that

Durwood Eldridge: Yes, but it was a mirage. I thought I was a decent poker player. Online I am, but in person I suck.

Andrew: so stay online, it removes the unknown human element

Andrew: brb - more coffee

Durwood Eldridge: All right. Once I feel the desire to play poker again, I'll go back to online play. brb myself

Andrew: im back

Durwood Eldridge: I'm back too.

Andrew: ok, great

Andrew: have you been investigating my blogs ?

Andrew: im thinking of putting Postmodern Christianity on my Lit blog

Durwood Eldridge: What's postmodern christianity?

Andrew: even though im embarassed of it

Andrew: i had a dream about a golden book and its title was Postmodern Christianity

Andrew: this was in 1994 or 1995

Andrew: when i was at Bard College

Andrew: so i went to a religion professor and i told him about the dream

Andrew: and he noted that a person named John Smith had a similar dream in similar parts - upstate New York

Andrew: and it was the Book of Mormon

Durwood Eldridge: You're not kidding. The guy's name really was John Smith?

Andrew: so he allowed me to do an independent study to write as much of the book as i could

Andrew: yes, i think that was his name

Durwood Eldridge: poor bastard

Andrew: yes, a common name

Durwood Eldridge: every time he gives his name nobody believes him.

Andrew: yes, right

Durwood Eldridge: I'm going to Wiki the name John Smith to see what I get. one sec

Andrew: Joseph Smith was his nameAndrew: Joseph Smith, Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844) was the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, also known as Mormonism, and an important religious and political figure in the United States during the 1830s and 1840s. In 1827, Smith began to gather a religious following after announcing that he had discovered and was translating a set of golden plates describing a visit by Jesus to the indigenous peoples of the Americas, which he published in 1830 as the Book of Mormon. Smith also organized a denomination of restorationist Christianity, began preparing a new Bible translation, and directed followers to the western outpost of Jackson County, Missouri, where he planned to establish a Latter Day Saint utopian society.

Andrew: John Smith is "everyman"

Durwood Eldridge: Yes, I know about the mormon Joseph Smith.

Durwood Eldridge: Ya, but there's also a list of about 80 guys who have been called John Smith

Andrew: yes, i even knew one growing up

Durwood Eldridge: The most interesting is the main character of _The Dead Zone_

Andrew: oh was he John Smith too ?

Durwood Eldridge: Johnny Smith

Andrew: ok

Durwood Eldridge: I never met a John Smith. But I did go to high school with a Chris Jones

Andrew: The Book of Mormon is one of the sacred texts among the churches in the Latter Day Saint movement. It was first published in March 1830 as The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi by Joseph Smith, Junior, author and proprietor. Adherents believe that Joseph Smith, Jr. translated it from from an otherwise unknown language called Reformed Egyptian written on golden plates that Joseph Smith discovered in 1823. Smith claimed that the Golden Plates had been buried in a hill near his home in Manchester, New York, and was directed to their location by the Angel Moroni.

Durwood Eldridge: Lol there's an angel named Moroni? I thought that was a character from _Johnny Dangerously). In the end he was deported to Sweden even though he claimed he wasn't from there

Andrew: At 17 years of age Joseph Smith Jr. said that an angel of God, named Moroni, appeared to him and told him that a collection of ancient writings, engraved on golden plates by ancient prophets, was buried in a nearby hill called Cumorah in Wayne County, New York. This ancient record is believed to describe a people whom God had led from Jerusalem to the Western Hemisphere 600 years before Jesus’ birth. Moroni was the last prophet among these people and had buried the record, which God had promised to bring forth in the latter days. Smith called the language written on the golden plates Reformed Egyptian. Smith stated that he was instructed by Moroni to meet at the hill annually each September 22 to receive further instructions and that four years after the initial visit he was allowed

Durwood Eldridge: Typical delusions of grandeur cultist, except this one founded a religion

Andrew: ok, i am supposed to have the same delusions

Durwood Eldridge: What, of being directed by an angel named Moroni to go back to a hill every september 22nd?

Andrew: well, it wasnt that well developed, but yeah

Durwood Eldridge: So what have you done about it?

Andrew: i wrote what i could until my health changed after 9/11

Durwood Eldridge: Do you still have those writings, or are those the books you referred to earlier that you threw out?

Andrew: i consider the writings on my blog to be more valuable

Andrew: and more mature

Andrew: the blog with my book on conrad and woolf

Durwood Eldridge: I agree. be very wary of delusions of grandeur. It's the worst of our species who give in to them.

Andrew: well, thats not an option now that i am on antipsychotic medication

Andrew: i only have the ambition to watch tv - not to change the world with a book or novel

Durwood Eldridge: Antipsychotics are not a cure. They're a treatment, and a lifelong ongoing treatment at that.

Andrew: yes, but they have diminished my creativity - and the pleasure i get from creating new works

Durwood Eldridge: They do have that effect. I haven't written anything at all in a few years.

Andrew: they have made me satisfied - the same way i feel in regard to women and sex

Durwood Eldridge: Wish they'd do the same for me. I find myself mostly bored.

Durwood Eldridge: Life has always dragged for me. I just never noticed before.

Andrew: life does not drag for me - im excited about music

Andrew: i consider it a privilege to listen to music

Durwood Eldridge: Lol we're not done witih Gustav yet, and Hanna hasn't made landfall, and they're already talking about Ike

Andrew: ok, i dont remember them coming in threes before

Durwood Eldridge: These are weird times, weather-wise.

Durwood Eldridge: Or, to quote William Strunk, "Soulwise, these are trying times."

Andrew: yesterday i was playing Bartok and Pablo Casals' Bach cello concertos

Andrew: and lying in bed listening to that great music

Durwood Eldridge: Bach cello concertos? Oughta be nice.

Andrew: Pablo Casals and Rudolf Serkin - a magnificent pair

Durwood Eldridge: When were they recorded?

Andrew: and someone sent me an email asking me to recommend 5 Chet Baker CDs to buy

Andrew: i was elated

Andrew: irecorded in the 1960s ?

Durwood Eldridge: Remastered?

Andrew: im not sure

Durwood Eldridge: You can usually tell by the sound quality.

Andrew: the sound is very good

Durwood Eldridge: Oh, no, they're going to keep the space shuttle fleet operational beyond 2010

Durwood Eldridge: And there's literally no wind here--"winds calm 0 kph"

Andrew: why is that a bad thing ?

Durwood Eldridge: Because it increases the chance of breakdowns. All the space shuttles are now at least 20 years old

Andrew: ok

Durwood Eldridge: brb--water

Andrew: ok

Andrew: its going to be 87 degrees here today

Durwood Eldridge: about the same here. We'll probably get the remnants of Hanna, tho, since it's making landfall in georgia or virginia

Andrew: ok, i am surprised it will be so warm by you

Durwood Eldridge: I'm not. the weather is cuckoo now. There ain't no such thing as normal where the weather is concerned any more.

Andrew: do you think the purpose of the space shuttle is to control the weather ?

Andrew: i wonder what you will say to that ?

Durwood Eldridge: No, I don't.

Andrew: what do you think the purpose of the space shuttle flights is ?

Durwood Eldridge: These days, mostly to deliver stuff to the space station. Sometimes to launch satellites.

Andrew: ok, dont say i didnt tell you

Andrew: i had a dream about the space shuttle crashing over Maui

Durwood Eldridge: Not funny if it happens. I remember when Challenger crashed in 1986

Andrew: yes, so do i

Andrew: but my dream was related to me by the archangel Gabriel

Durwood Eldridge: delusions of grandeur again

Andrew: thanks

Durwood Eldridge: I doubt the archangels bother with guys like you and me

Andrew: sure they do. normal people like you and me - thats who changes the world, typical bourgeois people

Andrew: like Rousseau

Durwood Eldridge: I'm not a typical bourgeois. I'm a welfare bum who lives with his parents

Durwood Eldridge: If anything I'm below the underclass

Durwood Eldridge: Just one step above homelessness

Andrew: ok, a typical consumer

Andrew: i will give you that title

Durwood Eldridge: Nope. Most consumers have jobs, spouses, kids, own houses, drive SUVs.

Andrew: ok, so your not a consumer either ?

Durwood Eldridge: Not really.

Andrew: you watch tv and use technology to communicate

Durwood Eldridge: What I am, really, is a turnip. I just happen to be masquerading as a person.

Andrew: you shouldnt be so down on yourself

Durwood Eldridge: It's realism.

Andrew: not when it gives you a poor picture of yourself - you should look on the bright side

Andrew: my friend Bill always says, "At least we're not in jail....."

Durwood Eldridge: My picture of myself is poor only because it _is_ realistic, Andrew. when I die the earth will close over everything I ever was, and it'll be like I never existed. Which is just the way I want it. It's my form of protest against the futility of existence

Andrew: ok

Andrew: there are other ways of looking at things - ways that may be more profitable in the present state of affairs

Andrew: for the condition we find ourselves in now

Durwood Eldridge: Feel free to look at things any way you like. Hmm, wonder why I'm not sleepy yet. It's a first.

Andrew: were you up at 3 am again ?

Durwood Eldridge: Close to it. Had some kind of weird dream that woke me up early.

Durwood Eldridge: I think my body is getting ready for the psychiatrist appointment, which is at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.

Durwood Eldridge: Maybe the psychiatrist will put me into a day program so I can hang out with some local people who aren't boozers

Andrew: a day program - like day care ?

Durwood Eldridge: I don't know if that's what it's called here. And I don't know the details of what it's like. But so far, the only local people I know just drink pig-swill beer all day. Not my scene.Andrew: no, stay away from that scene, you're right to keep your distance

Durwood Eldridge: When I went out with them a couple of nights ago they acted like little kids.

Andrew: oh, you have those feelings too ?

Andrew: i thought i was the only one

Durwood Eldridge: What feelings do you mean? That other people are childish?

Andrew: yes

Durwood Eldridge: Very much so.

Andrew: when i was at the party the other day - i was affronted by what the other people were talking about

Andrew: Alicia and I were discussing things about life

Andrew: other people were being very shallow

Durwood Eldridge: talking about other people? Remember what Oscar Wilde said.

Andrew: no, what did he say again ?

Durwood Eldridge: "Great people talk about ideas. Good people talk about things. Mediocre people talk about other people."

Andrew: yes, hes right

Andrew: but remember what George Washington said

Durwood Eldridge: You notice I don't talk about other people much. Wilde's statement stuck with me.

Andrew: I am a soldier so that my son might become a farmer so that his son might become a philosopher

Andrew: we occupy the social stratum our conditions fit us into - a bit of an economic determinist

Durwood Eldridge: I like this one by George Bernard Shaw: "In a stupid nation the man of genius is like God: everybody worshps him and nobody does his will."

Andrew: thats what it means to me

Andrew: well, the man of genius does not exist anymore, i think

Durwood Eldridge: They do, but they've learned to keep a low profile. It's the shebangers who control everything now, and they resent competition

Andrew: i like expression shebangers - but i dont know what it means

Durwood Eldridge: Neither do I. I just used the word for no particular reason.

Andrew: i think the musicians of the 1960s were a kind of renaissance that will be studied for ages

Durwood Eldridge: Possibly. I don't know enough about music to say. But I like some of their stuff.

Andrew: ok, im glad that you agree

Durwood Eldridge: brb--coffee

Andrew: ok

Andrew: Emil Cioran - thats the philosopher for you !

Andrew: hes Romanian and very dark - he would appeal to you mightily

Andrew: Pessimism characterizes all of his works, which many critics trace back to events of his childhood (in 1935 his mother is reputed to have told him that if she had known he was going to be so unhappy she would have aborted him). However, Cioran's pessimism (in fact, his skepticism, even nihilism) remains both inexhaustible and, in its own particular manner, joyful; it is not the sort of pessimism which can be traced back to simple origins, single origins themselves being questionable. When Cioran's mother spoke to him of abortion, he confessed that it did not disturb him, but made an extraordinary impression which led to an insight about the nature of existence ("I'm simply an accident. Why take it all so seriously?" is what he later said in reference to the incident).Andrew:

His works often depict an atmosphere of torment and torture, states that Cioran experienced, and came to be dominated by lyricism often prone to expressing violent feelings. The books he wrote in Romanian are best identified with this characteristic. Preoccupied with the problem of death and suffering, he was attracted to the idea of suicide, believing it to be an idea that could help one go on living, an idea which he fully explored in On the Heights of Despair. The theme of human alienation, the most prominent existentialist theme, presented by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, is thus formulated, in 1932, by young Cioran: "Is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home?"

Andrew: Cioran’s works encompass many other themes as well: original sin, the tragic sense of history, the end of civilization, the refusal of consolidation through faith, the obsession with the absolute, life as an expression of man's metaphysical exile, etc. He was a thinker passionate about history; widely reading the writers that were associated with the period of "decadent". One of these writers was Oswald Spengler who influenced Cioran's political philosophy in that he offered Gnostic reflections on the destiny of man and civilization. According to Cioran, as long as man has kept in touch with his origins and hasn't cut himself off from himself, he has resisted decadence. Today, he is on his way to his own destruction through self-objectification, impeccable production and reproduction...

Andrew: excess of self-analysis and transparency, and artificial triumph.Andrew: Regarding God, Cioran has noted that "without Bach, God would be a complete second rate figure" and that "Bach's music is the only argument proving the creation of the Universe can not be regarded a complete failure". (wikipedia)

Andrew: "Is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home?" - words you echoes earlier in this chat session

Andrew: echoed

Andrew: brb-phone

Durwood Eldridge: back. had to make the coffee

Andrew: im back

Durwood Eldridge: Yes, so am I.

Andrew: what do you think of Cioran ?

Durwood Eldridge: I don't know. I'll have to find some of his books and read at least one.

Andrew: ok, maybe you will find a kindred spirit

Durwood Eldridge: What's his full name again?

Andrew: Emil Cioran (April 8, 1911 – June 20, 1995) was a Romanian philosopher and essayist.

Durwood Eldridge: one sec

Andrew: ok

Andrew: did you wikipedia him ?

Durwood Eldridge: Yes, I did. give me a sec

Andrew: another thinker who admired Hitler

Andrew: like Celine and Hamsun

Durwood Eldridge: The book that seems most interesting is _On the Heights of Despair_, which hasn't been translated into English yet.

Andrew: i find it hard to believe that it has not been translated

Durwood Eldridge: That's what wiki says. Reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend in high school. I said: "You have to face death?" He said: "And then what? What happens after you've faced death?" I had no answer and still don't. The answer is that _nothing_ happens.

Andrew: Cioran has an answer for you

Durwood Eldridge: I have a feeling I'm being co-opted, but I'll give it a shot

Andrew: good, i'm glad

Durwood Eldridge: Figured you would be.

Andrew: i found something that you're interested in

Durwood Eldridge: what?

Andrew: Cioran

Andrew: right now i am thrilling to the passion in Bob Dylan's singing

Andrew: im listening to a CD I made of his concert in Portland OR 1980

Durwood Eldridge: I looked up cioran at Chapters Indigo, the major Canadian new book chain. All they have is used books in french

Andrew: oh too bad

Durwood Eldridge: Tsk tsk. Did you record it illegally?

Andrew: try amazon ?

Andrew: yes, i did

Durwood Eldridge: Shame on you, stealing the great man's music

Durwood Eldridge: Just kidding

Andrew: well, he refuses to release a live album from his Jesus period

Durwood Eldridge: So the recording you have is not commercially available?

Andrew: right

Durwood Eldridge: Ah. Then I guess it isn't quite theft. Sorry

Andrew: well, you can buy commercially released studio versions of these songs - which i have done

Andrew: but the live versions have so much passion that they are worth having, too

Durwood Eldridge: (Lol there is now a $60 *municipal* fee to renew your licence plate sticker in Toronto.)

Andrew: and the bob dylan concert download site makes this available to me

Durwood Eldridge: (Fucking greedy-guts don't stop at anything to rake in the cash.)

Durwood Eldridge: And Dylan hasn't tried to shut the site down?

Andrew: i just got a bill to renew my registration - $47 down the tubes

Durwood Eldridge: Why bother if you don't drive?

Andrew: i have a car and i may have to use it someday

Andrew: the site says if you are acting on the authority of bob dylan and you object to any of this content being up here, please contact me and i will remove it

Andrew: a few things have been removed - maked DO NOT SHARE

Andrew: maybe that means they will be released commercially one day ? who knows ?

Durwood Eldridge: Who knows? But it's good that the person who runs the site is being respectful towards Dylan.

Andrew: yes, it ensures that the site is not going to be shut down

Andrew: i just want it to stay up until i get some more blank discs for christmas and then i will make several more recordings

Durwood Eldridge: Can't you just download the music to your hard drive and make the recordings later?

Andrew: rapidshare says the free downloads will only stay active for 90 days

Durwood Eldridge: Oh, okay. Are there paid downloads too?

Andrew: yes

Durwood Eldridge: These pay royalties to Dylan, I assume.

Andrew: no, they do not

Durwood Eldridge: I'm surprised he'd let people make money off his music without asking for a cut.

Andrew: yes, for some reason this stuff is available - im surprised this is available

Durwood Eldridge: Andrew, i need a break from chat. Will you be on later?

Andrew: yes - i have to take a break tooAndrew: i enjoyed chatting with you

Durwood Eldridge: okay, ttyl

Andrew: ttyl

Postmodern Christianity

Friedrich Nietzsche: The Proto-Postmodern Christian

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the marketplace, and cried incessently: "I seek God! I seek God!" As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes: "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him--you and I. All of us are his murderers. ... Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not become Gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us--for the sake of the deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.



This passage from The Gay Science (1887) is often used to substantiate the claim that Friedrich Nietzsche represents the precursor of modern athiesm, as his work is often cited for its supposed anti-Christian bias. This ignores the fact that on several occasions, especially in works like Beyond Good and Evil (1888), he had expressed his feelings that the Christian doctrine had been an advantage for the masses. In her biography of Nietzsche's life, Elizabeth Forster-Nietzsche indicated that her brother had displayed a sincere gravitation towards individuals who had expressed their desire to live their lives in accordance with Christian doctrine. This may come as a surprise to individuals who are only acquainted with the mythological figure of Nietzsche, a figure who is 'remembered' for one famous statement, that God is dead. Ignorant of Nietzsche's true feelings, these people would suppose all believers to be the object of Nietzsche's scorn whereas, in fact, Nietzsche honored those who displayed attitudes of piety. Forster speaks of a bond of mutual affinity which quickly established itself whenever Nietzsche encountered what he considered to be an authentic Christian. In what may be taken as a moderate apology for the anti-Christian tenor of his writings, Nietzsche wrote, "My attack on Christianity is not due to any personal grievance; I have always had a friendly feeling towards earnest Christians."

Nietzsche, a man who claimed to have witnessed God in all his glory at the age of twelve, qualified his attack of religion as an attack on the teachers of institutional Christianity, its primary exponent being the Catholic church. However, the Christian ethos continued to have great appeal for Nietzsche; he felt that if it could be wrenched out of the hands of its controlling ideologues, the hierarchy of Catholic authority, it was possible for it to be rehabilitated. Up until the end of his life Nietzsche expressed bewilderment, even anguish, by the fact that he was in effect barred from entering a church as a Christian, that "the gentle teaching of Jesus had been so thoroughly distorted by the Christian fathers." Over time, Nietzsche retreated further and further away from any organized religion, while inwardly yearning to call for a transformation in the religious spirit, a re-configuration of Christian ethos from which he would be able to derive a spiritual satisfaction. Forster-Nietzsche remembers her brother often remarking that is was one of the greatest trials of his life to relinquish his faith in God. Nietzsche rendered his sorrow in prose, expressing his passionate feeling, not for the denial of the Christian God, but a lamentous ode dedicated to his passing.



Excelsior! Never more wilt thou pray, never more worship, never more repose in boundless trust--thou renounceth the privileged of standing before an ultimate wisdom, an ultimate mercy, an ultimate power,
and unharnessing thy thoughts--thou hast no constant watcher and friend for thy seven solitudes--thou livest without gazing upon a mountain, that hath snow on its head and fire in its heart--there is now no redeemer for thee, none to promise a better life--there is no more reason in that which happens, no love in that which shall happen to thee--thy heart now hath no resting place, where it needeth only to find, not to seek--thou refuseth any ultimate peace, thou desirest the eternal recurrence of war and peace: man of self denial, will thou deny thyself all this? When wilt thou gain the strength? No one ever had such strength!



However, Nietzsche regarded this denial of the religious spirit to be, ultimately, a necessity. Reconsidering his initial reaction to this phenomenon, Nietzsche grew hopefulm saying that he perceived a possibility that this denial of the religious self would someday enable humanity to deny the existence of any essential self. At this point humanity would have entered an era of ascetic self-denial which, as Nietzsche felt, would culminate in a rebirth of the religious spirit, a new era in the morphology of the spiritual self; this period of mass-asceticism will result in the production of a form of humanity imbued with all of the human energies, once flowing outward to an external God, now turned inward to give praise, continuous strength and plenitude to the male and female gods of the human world. The fatal flaw of Christianity, according to Nietzsche, which depleted the religious ideology of any significant effects, was its focus on the mystical and its attempt to prove the veracity of their mystical propositions in an empirical sense. More than anything else, Nietzsche demanded that religion requires a sense of intellectual honesty. Nietzsche felt that he was a being that could stand as a representative figure for the Christian tradition in its entirety and he saw his actions, specifically his move away from religion, as indicative of the mass exodus away from Christianity which was necessary in order to continue the process of transformation and becoming that is humanity.

Nietzsche felt that the only person equal to the perfection exemplified by the Christian philosophy was the figure of the Romantic artist. If society were to abandon these two figures, he noted, it would inevitably find itself caught in a downward slide, unable to find any spiritual satisfaction in those supplementary figures. For this reason, Nietzsche was obliged to exile himself from the world. He saw the lessons of Jesus, as expressed by the Church, a perversion of the spirit in which they were given. Converting the teachings of Jesus into the axiomatic dogmatism of the Church rendered Jesus into more an ideologue than a savior. Nietzsche saw the parables of Chirst, not as exercises in dogmatic ideology, but as the founding principles of an active concern with one's neighbors and environment. To re-align the spirit of Christianity is a perilous task, with potentially deleterious effects for that section of humanity which relies on the Christian moral code in order to bring an enduring significance to their lives, especially to those who are physically weaker as a result of sickness or disease, or the mentally impoverished. The significance carried by the Christian tradition was one which possessed the ability to restore these people to their original health conditions. Ultimately, as Nietzsche saw it, the spirit of Christianity is a life-affirming spirit, one that permits individuals from all nationalities, creeds and ethnicities to legitimize themselves as individuals; it brings them into a state of holiness, a type of being at peace with the world which, Nietzsche felt, was not attainable through other means.

Regardless of his difficulties with its ideological formation, Nietzsche nevertheless felt tremendous affinities for its founder; he felt that others, such as St. Paul, were responsible for distorting Christ's message of love, establishing it in a network of power so dense that any message transmitted from the source was inevitably precluded from having any effect; it took on a different meaning as it traveled through the dense ideological apparatus of Church-invented supplements to Christ's teachings, meant for the humble and poor in spirit. Nietzsche felt that this led to a problem, contradictory to the production of human beings. For the Church, in preaching to the congregations its desire to see Christians re-make themselves on the model of Chirst, was asking people who measure themselves according to a being who was without sin, a being who the ordinary person was never permitted to stand equal to. Nietzsche saw that this had a disastrous homogenizing effect of the self, on those huma differences which, in an ideal health society, would take on a diverse number of forms, as many forms of religious personae as there are people.

Seeing the role of history to consist in the production of this great multitude of forms, it was inevitable that Nietzsche singles out a seond point of Christian doctrine which, he felt, was damaging to the superior human being: the introduction of the idea that all souls are equal before the eyes of God. This principle of equality, as introduced in the context of religion, became the stimulus to the development of the ethical system of spiritual equality, a system which legitimized the power relationship which subjugates one class to another; the fact that human perception was ordered according to such a system led to a series of repercussions which touched on every field of knowledge, establishing end-directives for every intellectual pursuit. The manifestation of this type of thinking can be seen most clearly in the field of political philosophy: Nietzsche felt that the political theories of his day, the demands for socialism and democracy and, most of all, the pessimistic philosophies which were being adopted by members of every class throughout Europe in the 19th century, served as further indications that many individuals were determined to witness the equalization of civilizations. Once the superior individual came to an awareness of themselves as the representative embodiment of the supreme power, they were then obliged to act conscientiously, mindful of their position as shapers of the future, the diligent guardians and contributors to the repository of human knowledge. As this project makes clear, Nietzsche would have been very much in favor of postmodernism, in that it legitimizes the abandonment of the self and the emergence of a new forms of Christian subjectivity.

Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus and the Critique of Christian Morality

Although it was first published in 1922, 55 years before Jean-Francoise Lyotard announced the arrival of the postmodern age, Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus may be seen as the forerunner of those texts that are consensually acknowledged as postmodern texts, as it contains the premises on which many of postmodernism's critical thesis will be built on. Starting with the preface, Wittgenstein immediately qualifies this work as belonging to a different tradition. Although this text might ostensibly be packaged and lebeled as a philosophical text, Wittgenstein feels that such a label would be a misnomer. Wittgenstein judges the Tractatus to be an ordinary book, without burdening his text under the title of 'text-book', a signification which would position it as a work which played a central role in the production of knowledge. As Wittgenstein suggests, by freeing it from such a status, seeing it not as a book whose premises are held to be sacred or incontrovertible, the Tractatus becomes a work whose primary function is to provide pleasure for the comprehending reader.

The meaning of the book, as Wittgenstein puts forth even before we arrive at the first page of the text, stands as follows: "What can be said at all can be said clearly, and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent." The Tractatus possesses a pioneering philosophical spirit, as Wittgenstein positions this work outside any mainstream philosophical intellectual framework; he problematizes the question of where to situate the Tractatus, saying that even he himself cannot be certain whether this work is 'philosophical' in an historical sense. It is my contention that this work, rather than seeing it as a philosophical text, ought to be seen instead as a text which is fundamentally of a religious nature--a key text in illustrating the way to a postmodern Christianity. For this reason, Wittgenstein believes his work to transcend the world of everyday works, where it enters a world of sacred texts, works whose significance is not be found through a direct appeal to the history of textuality.

According to Wittgenstein's conception of the world, rather than being the totality of objects, the world is seen as the totality of moral facts, all of the facts of morality, including both good and evil. The organization of these moral factors determine both that which is and that which is not. It is not that the moral order is affixed to the world of objects in a permanent sense. Instead, it is the world of objects which is imbued with this moral energy which inhabits space as a dynamic free-flowing entity. This is the new conception of morality of Postmodern Christianity, a Christian order which does not believe in claims of moral superiority. The postmodern Christian does not proscribe a particular action on what is, objectively, a normative ethical value, but sees ethical standards as emanating from a multiplicity of pivoting subjectivities.

Wittgenstein conditions this system of moral facts with the premise that, for any action, whether it is prescribed or proscribed by the moral order, the possibility of its occurrence (or non-occurrence) must be predetermined by that Being which governs the logical order, by the governing body which prevents any accidents from appearing: God, who rigorously maintains the foundations of our mathematics and geometry. That is, starting from moral facts, which are conditioned by the possibility or their occurrence, Wittgenstein reasons that if actions can be found to occur in the world, then it may be said that the creator-God has deemed it necessary for these conditions to exist. The world is ordered by a system of moral possibilities, the range of which is wider than anyone has supposed, for nothing in logic is accidental. Rather, that which is accidental is that which is isolated, that which has not been caused by the surrounding circumstances, for things which exist alone exist of their own account. All possibilities of action are to be treated as valid possibilities in a new moral universe. Accordingly, Postmodern Christianity does not expect any messiah or savior-figure to step forth and lead the world to salvation.

According to Wittgenstein, it is not possible to cognitively grasp objects apart from the possibility of their interconnectedness with other objects. However, in those instances where an object retains the possibility of its being situated in the context of a moral fact, as an element of a moral proposition, then these elements are elevated into the class of moral objects. Although the elements in the class of non-moral objects appear to exist independently of the system of moral objects, this is a false independence. All objects, both moral and non-moral, are to be viewed in a relationship of interdependence with the moral system. In this way Postmodern Christianity alters its view on the origin of morality. No longer do we see the moral system as having derived from the higher nature of humanity. Morality is now seen as arising directly from the clash of living objects in the arena of the real. In this new picture of the universe, the individual is judged not according to some innate quality of their soul, but by the characteristics they display in its actions, in their dealings with the outer world. In this way Wittgenstein switches our focus from what is often false, the surface nature of objects, to their true moral reality; he shifts the weigjt to the latter half of the inner-outer opposition.

As can be seen from the above, Postmodern Christianity brings with it a dynamic set of propositions, a conception of self-identity which is eternally in flux, as codes of morality are seen to form and collapse themselves repeatedly throughout the history of moral valuation. The individual who inhabits the landscape of Postmodern Christianity has been instilled with a questioning attitude regarding what were originally sacred truths. A personal code which centers on acting, transformation and becoming rather than the constricting code of punitive action, abstince, self-abnegation and the guilt of confession. For moral facts to contain a significant weight, so that they are considered to be self-identical with the principles of all social moralities, they must take a form other than that of an incontrovertible pronouncement from the highest authority; instead, these moral facts must be grouped in the space of a critique, a public space which each individual must have access to.

Deriving the concept of the moral fact from the philosophy of logical atomism, Wittgenstein goes about logically re-configuring the moral order of the universe. Seen in these terms, Wittgenstein can be seen as proposing a new conception of the universe where the world is made up of moral facts, facts which can be studied apart from their placement in the moral order. Atomic facts call for the interdiction of a new moral order and a new foundational (non-Aristotelian) logic, a logic structed according to the signs that are in play. Wittgenstein poses before us a conception of a new moral universe where the propositions of morality are composed from the world in which we live, not from an idealized picture of the world which is non-existent, the world as it ought to be. Postmodern Christians conducts their lives in the full knowledge that morality is not a strict code which prescribes a certain action for any given situation, but sees moral codes of a community as being derived from the surrounding social body.

By de-legitimizing the claims to morality one individual has over another, the Tractatus reveals that which has long been known, but has yet to be fully accepted: ultimately, it cannot be determined from mere observation of the conditions of an individual's life whether or not they are deserving of salvation. The conditions of one's salvation are determined, not according to the figure of the creator-God; instead, one's salvation must be ascertained according to a locus of intersubjectivity which is derived from a differentiated regime of (non-heirarchical) moral values. When Wittgenstein writes that "There is no picture which is a priori true," he makes a statement which summarizes his critique of the Christian moral order. In his view, there is no truth that can be obtained either prior to one's judgment or prior to one's experience of the situation. There is no escape from the process of decision-making, as the individual is at liberty, existentially, and must be held responsible for directing their own lives. In effect, the self generates its own non-hierarchical truth, the truth of one's existence and nothing more. Accordingly, a Postmodern Christianity recognizes there can be no original judgment, that there is no original sin, and would dissuade us from believing in the existence of a final judgment.

In his Tractatus, Wittgenstein supplies us with an extra dimension for our thought, one which allows us to supercede the limits imposed on thinking by the contemporary Christian tradition. He shows us how the logic of Christianity structures our thought, the extent to which our destination is predetermined by this structure, how we are rooted in this tradition we so boastfully claim to have proceded beyond. Through his critique of language, Wittgenstein strips away and discards all that which is dead, empty and meaningless. In this way he is preparing humankind for its journey into a new mode of religion. Philosophical perspectivism is a false farce necessary to conceive of this road to thought. Postmodern philosophy attempts to win us over to a new mode of truth, the truth of our own perspective.

"Colloquial language is part of the human organism and is not less complicated than it." Postmodern Christianity employs a simple language to communicate with clarity, order and intelligence; language that is in everyday use is better suited to discover the mystery of Being. The language of Postmodern Christianity does not employ metaphysical terms like spirit, sin or God, seeing these terms as potentially causing a great deal of confusion. "If a god creates a world in which certain propositions are true, he creates thereby also a world in which all propositions consequent of them are true." No longer will the negative correlation of a proposition be constructed in direct opposition with the positive; rather, these two propositions are seen to be complementary in nature. The positive is seen as being contingent on the negative, it presupposed the existence of the negative proposition, and the same may be found to occur conversely. This is why the world is constructed on the basis of an interdependence of logical moral values, as Wittgenstein reveals the hidden complementarity of positive and negative; this is also why the postmodern Christian believes in a God who has created a world where all the propositions contain an element of truth.

In addition, Wittgenstein tries to show that there is no such thing as a soul, the subject, as it is conceived in contemporary superficial philosophy. Here he explicitly states the ambitions of his project, the destruction of the metaphysical self. Wittgenstein seeks to convince us that the notion of a hierarchy of forms is an untenable position for the modern thinking individual; the only hierarchy that exists is the social hierarchy of present-day civilization. Again, Postmodern Christianity turns our attention to the world as it is actually experiencedm refusing to permit oneself to conceive of a next world to come after one's death and abandoning the after-life experience that the Christian doctrine suggests. It is only in the life-span of one's existence that one will be able to take part in the world; there will be no life after death, there will be no resurrection, there will be no final judgment. By questioning the existence of metaphysical phenomenon, such as the soul, Wittgenstein conceives of postmodern Christians as people who see themselves both as being part of the world in a macrocosmic sense and as a being whose existence comprises the totality of the world in a microcosmic sense. There is, in fact, no part of our experience which we could term as having existed previously, there are such such a prior facts.

Postmodern Christianity is only a sigle member in the class of religion; it is a Christianity which has abandoned the desire to realize a totalized truth, a Christianity which has realized that the world is not something to be conquered in Christ's name.

Jacques Derrida, Logocentrism and the Ethics of Deconstruction

If Postmodern Christianity has a new conception of Christian morals, does it also have a new conception of ethics as well ? There is an ethical aspect to Postmodern Christianity, as evident in Jacques Derrida's writing which, although it is highly important, has not yet been made clear. In this section I will attempt to render this dimension with the clarity it deserves. The Christian doctrine developed under the influence of Greek philosophy, Derrida makes clear to us, falling into logocentrism in its attempt to relate the practice of inscription with the Word of God or the Logos of divine presence. Derrida looks to break this pact which was established between word and truth for once and all.

Derrida targets logocentrism as one of the main philosophical obfuscations he intends to eradicate, for it postulates a certain approach to the world, and a specific manner of thinking about language, truth and reality. In Derrida's work the concept of the originary genesis of the world is consigned to the history of mythology, for Derrida believes that humanity has long outgrown this belief. It may even be said that such a story as the one from the Book of Gensis is responsible for the alienating effects of present-day society, a society of repetition and endless reproduction; a society locked in a permanent state of fallenness, having failed to find the original thing-in-itself, having failed to recapture the original heavenly kingdom in either one's actions or in one's art.

The basic tenents of logocentrism are as follows: writing exists strictly outside of living speech/full self-presence and, because of its lesser ranking, the opposition between inner and outer must be maintained at all times, for it is seen that writing may do damage to speech, or the divine word located within it. In this way, God's word has been given a privileged position, as something which is separate, standing outside of the words of humanity. This is related to the belief system which sees writing as a form of secondary speech, displaced from the site of divine reality and the belief that humanity's only legitimate legacy in the world being that of fallibility and original sin. In these terms, then, was the divine world conceived of as existing in a state of purity, a notion which legitimized the establishment of discriminatory social barriers between individuals, to keeping out all those who were unwanted: the debased, the useless, the alien, the non-moral, the marginal, the non-Christian.

Writing, too, has been seen as a realm governed by a functioning principle of repetition, as alphanumeric language has been seen as a mimetic device for knowledge, that 'true knowledge is not contained in books'; however, Derrida insists that there can be no thinking back to one's source of origin. He takes up the concept of writing as being the apotheosis of the fragility of humankind, which looks to compare their all-too-fallible understanding of God with God's omnipotent incomprehensibility. Looking over the course of philosophical history, Derrida sees that writing has been conceived of as an implement for knowledge, as a representation of knowledge and not the knowledge itself. With writing one could attempt to inscribe, in a primitive form, the divine Word which lay hidden in the soul, the word which has originally emanated from the higher Logos. As a result of focusing on the points in the texts of Greek philosophy which could be reconciled with in, the Platonic system which proselytized for the existence of a life of spiritual truth after one's passage through the physical plane, the existence of a life after death, came to be incorporated into Christian doctrine. Writing itself can only be understood in relation to its physical imprint, for it is to be abandoned after death; as a result writing was devalued as an instrument through which one might appreciate one's understanding of the mysteries of God: knowledge that could be attained through writing came to be devalued. As a result of our highly concentrated focus on the Word, the power of the Word was lost.

From the pre-Christian era to the modern period, literary critics have constructed a technique of analyzing the relatioship between text and criticism which is analogous to the hermeneutical principles through which the early Christians interpreted the Bible; and just as any written commentary, and interpretation, is inherently found to be wanting in comparison with the Word of God, so historically, any literary criticism has been consistently judged as a product derived from the creative work and not something which stands on its own merits, but as a derivative, supplementary form of thought. In this way, always, writing is cast under a cloud of doubt and suspicion because any text is only a supplement to the sacred texts that are necessary in a logocentric world. This primal psychological fear that we may lose the ability to see the original form through too rough a contact with the human world, through an all-too-intimate contact, is something which Derrida hopes to subvert.

As a result of the opposition which places speech over writing, the creation of literary criticism as an institution is forced to enter a position of subjugation to the more authentic literary text. All critical texts, including all commentary on the Bible, are consigned to secondary, less importat roles. Christianity exhibits the principles of logocentrism, the prejudice which has, according to Derrida, manifested itself repeatedly throughout the historical thought of the West. Derrida's philosophy contains a host of traces from the philosophy of the Jewish tradition, even more than those traces which derive from the Christian tradition. Derrid'a project is also similar to Wittgenstein's project of the destruction of hierarchies: in attempting to dissolve those boundaries which position a primary text from a secondary text, he is looking to establish a non-hierarchical regime of literary values. Derrida calls our attention to Christianity's hold over the written word, to that logocentric bias so firmly entrenched in our thinking, a bias which accounts for speech's entrance into a world of privileged signifiers such as presence and origin, whereas writing is consistently obliged to perform the duties of speech. Derrida employs the term 'play' to indicate his desire that texts should remain as they are first written, highly unstable, formless, in a dynamic state of flux. A text, either literary or critical, is not a series of static, precise calculations implemented in order to gain control over the literary work. Derrida sees the history of Christianity as being predetermined by its historical lineage in the philosophical texts of ancient Greece, the Greek lexicon of intelligibility. He views the terms employed by these ancient Greek philosophers as a structure which is analogous to the Christian tradition, and constructs his own lexical system in keeping with these two superannuated regimes of signs.

Each of these three systems move in a similar direction, that is, they seek to move us to a plane where, by grounding us historically, we are able to take responsibility for our own existence, rather than being dependent on the ideologies of others. In this way, Derrida conceives of Christianity as a terrain the individual can traverse without having to fear that, because he is dissociated from a social network, they lose their authenticity as a Christian. To position God's presence of the truth--and nothing else--is to actively confine oneself to a limited number of states of being in the age of human becoming, to blind oneself to the complete range of moral possibilities. Derrida calls our attention to the work of Emmanuel Levinas, who felt that the primary quest of Western philosophy is to provide absolute answers to our various epistemological miasmas; so, too, does Derrida suggest that it has been responsible for promoting a type of thinking which has led to the isolation of the individual subject as, in the quest for absolute knowledge, the individual is obliged to become familiar with the sinfulness of the self.

Historical Chrstianity has played a fundamental role in the marginalization of alternate discourses, proscribing an interactive dialogue between the self and other. This discourse which is repeated in the form of moral maxims seeks to limit its movement by sedimenting itself in the constricting system of ethical values--a self-regulating construct as it imposes an order from within on the outside world. Deconstruction is the dissemination of texts; the practitioner of this process may not be able to reveal and crucial points in these texts without first training oneself in the history of Western logocentric thought; only by first laying the historical foundation to one's thought can one leap ahead, beyond the current tradition and into an entirely new paradigm of Christian thought: this is precisely what Derrida intends to do. In constructing his post-modern philosophy, he seeks to legitimize the Christian tradition for the present age.

According to Iddo Landau, although they like to stress the differences which mark it as a new order, nevertheless, post-revolutionary conditions often bear significant traces of resemblance to the regime prior to the time of the revolution; these traces often have effects which suggest that the revolutionized state is more similar to the pre-revolutionized state than these revolutionaries might suggest. Landau poses the postmodern revolution as such a case of this 'false' revolution. Specifically, he suggests that the 'revolutionary' work of Jacques Derrida, which has played such a significant role in postmodern history, may be seen as merely a disguise. As we shall see, Derrida's work may be thought of as a reactionary attempt at legitimizing the Christian paradigm; this stands is stark contrast with the typical view, held by many postmodern philosophers, who see the work of Derrida as forming a significant break, a definite rupture with the philosophical tradition; these self-proclaimed 'postmodernists', seeking to establish a unique foundation for postmodernism, latch onto Derrida's criticisms of the philosophical tradition. In this way postmodernity is legitimized as a mode of thought which transcends the history of the Western world.

Briefly, Derrida's break with philosophical thought include the following: disbelief in the progressive advance of history; anti-narrative sense; dissolution of essentialisms; and the willingness of philosophical discourse to adopt a sense of playfulness. In this way, these similarities between Derrida's work and the Western philosophical tradition (which has its roots in Greek philosophy/Christian Gnosticism) are ignored, thus blurring the interdependent relationship between these two textualities. While critics such as Christopher Norris have spoken about postmodern texts as being like nothing else in modern literature, for they represent a challenge to the tradition of the discipline, Iddo Landau, taking an even more extreme point of view, feels that Derrida's work contains, in a sublimated form, a multitude of tenents to which Derrida lends a central significance, thus reproducing the same framework which is associated with the standard tradition of Western-Christian philosophy. As one might guess, this position--which goes against the grain of how Derrida is most usually perceived, that is, as a philosophical iconoclast--is one which endangers the entire philosophical tradition. Iddo sees Derrida as throwing away the old idols of thought and replacing them with a shifting multiplicity of philosophical values; by preaching a philosophy of bad faith and by breaking with history in such a radical way, Iddo sees Derrida as deliberately setting out to confuse our sense of historical-philosophical continuity. Through his methodic deconstruction of philosophy, Derrida carried out a re-working of the philosophy of Christianity, reconstructing its foundation for the postmodern age.

Specifically, Derrida is more traditional than he is usually considered to be, in that his philosophy is centered on theories about appearance and reality as other philosophical systems. In particular, the philosophical view which holds that behind appearances there is something essential which directs a person and the actions they commit is something that carries over. The appearance may be understood as the result of the principle that works behind it, and may be conceptualized as a veil which separated the person from the realization of the principle. The ability to perceive into the true state of things, the ability to perceive the reality which lies behind appearance, requires a special ability which may only be attained through the effort of an educated and knowledgable expert. This notion, the idea that there is a world of higher reality which lies behind the world of appearances carries over into Derrida's thought. As seen in such works as Of Grammatology (1967) and Writing and Difference (1968), Derrida's most central task is his attempt to discern the true reality behind the texts of such authors as Saussure, Rousseau, Freud or Descartes. Through a process of literary dissemination he calls deconstruction, Derrida reveals that these authors have produced texts which, like the authors themselves, are constricted by their "deeply dichotomous nature". These texts indicate, by means of a central oppositional relationship where one terms is positions over another, where one term is preferred at the other's expense, the establishment of a hierarchy of philosophical valuation.

Derrida's work contains an insistence on the necessity of reforming the present for the betterment of the future; this, too, may be seen as having derived from Christianity: the concept that one is obliged, because of some innate 'chosenness', where they have been selected to carry out this reformation of ethical values and, in so doing, they will heal the breach between this world and the next world. In this way Derrida singles out the necessity of repositioning human consciousness in relation to this world and not to 'the next world'; we should take root in the present world, rather than investing ourselves in this false ego-structure in which the self does not, in fact, exist. To carry out this role, to fulfill the duty one has been selected by God to perform, this healing of the world, make it necessary to promulgate one's healing discourse by swaying the beliefs of others in order to get them to appreciate the ultimate responsibility of their mission. This drive to reform the present in preparation for the advent of a new world of glorious Christianity has taken many forms throughout the history of Christianity: it antedates the drive for religious reform, asceticism and missionary work. Derrida emphasizes the need to institute a new order of human consciousness: a life-style of efficiency, where people are able to exercise their reason, the necessity to attain precise, practical knowledge, to live without any constraints, whether these be in the form of prohibitions on their physical liberty, or a damaging type of cultural prejudices. In fact, Derrida's postmodern Christianity goes beyond a contemporary Christianity which would exclude homosexuals and women (as well as other minorities) from raising their voices, from making their presence known in the general social body.

Derrida's philosophy is, primarily, a call to change, a call to action which bears significant similarities to the work of the Christian missionary. Derrida's tripartite reform, then, is basically a re-institutionalization of the method of social action as practiced by Christians: Derrida attempts to change the individual in society, changing the way we think about ourselves, write about ourselves and conceptualize the world around us. He calls our attention to the inherent logocentrism which appears throughout the culture of Western-Christian thought in an attempt to make us consciously aware of this process, in order to give us the intellectual strength necessary to resist complying automatically with this process. This can be seen in Of Grammatology, where Derrida proposes, in place of the metaphysical philosophies offered by the logocentric tradition, a method of deconstructing these oppositions.

Like the missionary who proslytizes for the acceptance of Christianity, Derrida, too, has a mission: to witness the ends of logocentrism's hold on humanity; through his writing, he preaches in the name of this cause. His philosophy petitions for a new kind of universalism, reconceiving the human world as one immense family, just as Christian missionaries had once preached that the rational spirit will one day come to bring the world to goodness. His pluralistic philosophical methodology reveals that the Christian is, essentially, a revolutionary. In addition, his theories are shaped by his desire to cleanse the world of those theories which stands opposed to his own brand of desconstruction. There are several other Christian beliefs which are expressed in Derrida's work, beliefs which represent a fundamental change in our thinking. What had been taken for granted, the close relation between knowledge and virtue, the idea the one's outside reflects one's inside is significantly altered by Derrida's re-conceptualization of the text, which has neither outside nor inside. With this new textual model, appearances are not to be construed for moralities, for he presents a philosophy which allows one to go deeper. On the whole, Derrida is performing what is, essentially, a reworking of our religious-philosophical language, clearing it of those elements which have lost significance due to their constant handling; he is re-establishing a foundation of significance with the purpose of enabling the human world to connect with the religious components of language, with the spiritual dimensions of life, with the divine presence in the contemporary, postmodern age.

Derrida is interested in many of the same social goals as those than can be found in Christian doctrine, the desire to see an end to the world's hunger, disease and poverty; the wish to help to poor; to convince people to abandon their prejudices. Derrida's arguments do not state explicitly his interests in altering our religious beliefs in an immediate way: unlike a strict social theorist, he does not call for change in the sphere of politics, nor does he critique our system of moral values, as a traditional Christian missionary would. Nonetheless, Derrida's work contains serious moral and social disruptions in its potential for affecting change. For example, in his granting legitimacy to the pluralistic culture which has abandoned discriminatory practices that are based on one's association of difference with threatening behavior, in his dis-location of the human center, the self, in his petitions for the extension of respect to the other: all of these qualities promise the oncoming of a system of universal empathy, a social contract which can be extended to all of humanity.

Traditional moral values are inherent in Derrida's philosophy, influences most precipitately by the Christian tradition, which sees the weak, the poor, the suffering the world to be the ones who are considered as 'good', as those which are most worthy of assistance. In this way Derrida is found to be in keeping with Christian tradition, which prescribes a conception of an ideal society wherein there reigns a spirit of equality in liberty and freedom, and in terms of political and ideological perspectives. Derrida vaunts the equal validity of differences, conceivingof the ideal state by affirming the Christian tradition through his thought. In Derrida's view, the ideal state is one in which there are no privileged and underprivileged, no deprived or preferred classes; it is a state which holds no strate which is prescribed as the proper position for any epistemological (or moral) underclass.

It would be incorrect to suppose that he wishes to restructure the heirarchy, replacing that which had been below with that which had been above; rather, he wishes to establish a non-heirarchal structuration of social bodies where each member of the community would have a place, a position from which they could commence any discursive activities; a site through which they could make their voices present, rather than be continually stunted in the structure of silenced absence, theoretically disbarred from estrances into a political or social commentary. The Derridean vision is one which predicts a society where there are no inequalities, offering a non-hierarchical alternative structure instead of the highly territorialized, hierarchial structure of the present world; a society free from the systems of dominance and subjugation.

As can be seen from the above, Derrida shares a variety of characteristics with the Christian tradition and is very much a part of the Christian philosophical heritage. For several years now, he has been engaged in his projects, surreptitiously re-legitimizing this tradition without notice by the philosophical community or by the general population. This chapter makes it clear that Derrida is inaugurating a new mode of Christinaity, a mode which, curiously, has been always already present throughout the history of Christianity; a paradox which takes shape in a true Derridean form.

Schizos, Nomads and Desiring Machines:

the Neo-Gnosticism of Gilles Deleuze

In his Anti-Oedipus (1972), Deleuze conceives a new form of subjectivity, the desiring machine, which I propose has resemblances to the sect of early Christians, the Gnostics. Mary Barrie describes Gnosticism as one who possessed the knowledge of the Mysteries of the Kingdom of God, the wisdom which is hidden behind the parables, a momentary look at the glory of God. It is this glimpse, this all too brief flash of comprehension which compels a person not to rest until he able to return to this vision again. Most western intellectuals find Gnosticism to be a confusing muddle, filled with obvious contradictions. It is on of the main theses of the Gnostic doctrine that comprehension cannot occur without soul-illumination, an experience which resembles the expansion of consciousness, now extending into the realm of mystical thought. For most present-day writers, Gnosticism is a form of syncretism, an discrete mixture of Christianity, Judaism, Platonism and the religious cults of the Egyptian and Babylonian cultures. Barrie sees Gnosticism as an inheritance of the past which could throw light on the future.

It was the iconoclastic spirit of the early Fathers which drove the Gnostics into the secret places of the earth. Beginning as a sect of Christianity, the Gnostics attempted to solve the problems of religious systems by passing directly to the Gnosis of things unseen. This power, formerly possessed by only a few, is now coming to birth in the human race as a whole. Gnosis is more than a system, or a series of thoughts; it is a way to salvation. The Gnostics see knowledge as a way to salvation; they do not hold to the idea of salvation through faith as prescribed by the Church; however, the Gnostic conception of knowledge is not a type of science or mathematics, it is associated with magic. The idea of magical knowledge remains associated with Gnosticism even today. Yet the Gnostics were not magicians, they were people who felt that each individual must work out his own salvation and, after freeing himself from the bonds of matter (a task the required a rigid self-discipline), this person may finally enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Gnostics developed a keen, powerful mind which was able to go beyond the appearance of things, to see and understand how man fit into the great scheme of things. The Church writers distorted Gnostic thought so thoroughly that much of the Gnostic tradition has been lost; however, the Gnostic period is considered to be on the richest periods of human development. Under the Gnostic doctrine every aspect of life, no matter how great or how small, was part of One Life; religion stood for this unity and art and literature were inseprarable from it. The Gnostics were men who, growing weary of the world, became reclusive, seeking the knowledge of what lay behind the mortal veil of flesh and material sense, behinds these outer forms and the allegories of religion. The Gnostic community was composed of individuals who subjected themselves to a life of simplicity in dress, food and personality. Having given up all of their worldly possessions, these individuals possessed nothing more than two robes, one for work and one for worship. The dominant spirit in the community was one of silence and contained reverence; there were no unnecessary words of conversation, even meals were eaten in total silence. People interacted with each other only to listen to other members of the community speak about Scripture. Above all else, the central focus of their lives was purity, grace and love.

This atmosphere of solitude and simplicity was quite appropriate for a population who had renounced all worldly wealth, dedicating their lives to God. The Gnostics emphasized the social virtues, as the idea of justice played a role in directing all of their actions. Practicing a strict inner discipline, the Gnostics regulated themselves strictly. Public areas were to be avoided always and each Gnostic checked himself according to a strict self-examination, overpowered by the desire to attain a complete purity through the mastery of one's emotions. Through ascetic purification and disciplining the body, through the denial of all self-becoming and through adhering to a strict code of morality which kept the body in exile from reality, the Gnostics sought to cleanse the mind so that the soul could reveals the principles which inhabited it. Their code of self-discipline centered on mathematics as a means through which the mind could become free to experience the world.

In the Gnostic community little emphasis was placed on mental birth; instead, the Gnostics focused on the need to obtain ecstatic visions through purity of heart or through one's liberation from sexual desire; such liberation can only be attained through a renuciation of one's world existence. The Gnostic code entails the rejection of the body, as it is the body which causes man to enter into all kinds of sinful activities; it is the vehicle for his desires. The Gnostics saw the body as a mere disguise which must be dissembled as the individual becomes wiser and more skillful in the magic arts.

In his work Anti-Oedipus, Gilles Deleuze speculates on the dawn of a new type of individual in the modern world, an individual which surfaces because the postmodern age calls into existence a new form of subjectivity. Deleuze's name for these new subjects indicates his view of their status as non-territorialized subjects in the Cartesian sense: the desiring-machines. It is these schizophrenic individuals who are able to decode the structures of modernity and, by taking positions as denatured subjects, are able to reconstruct themselves as itinerant individuals who are controlled by their machine-like desire. Unlike ordinary human beings who are born from the mother's body, these desiring-machines are born as the end-products in the cycle of capitalist production. The presence of desiring-machines continues to grow, unless the institutional order of modern bourgeois society is re-aligned. The ceaseless production of desiring-machines in modern capitalist society is a result of the proliferation of those types of discouse which seek to codify the human subject under a specific intellectual framework, such as the ones constructed in the age of philosophical structuralism. To be produced as a desiring-machine may be seen as an act of rebellion against all normalizing institutions, whether those be social standards, ethical values or moral systems. It is my contention that through their stress on discipline and other techniques of self-subjugation, these desiring-machines come to resemble these early Christian Gnostics. The progression from a Gnostic to a desiring-machine can be seen as a record of humankind's personal transformation into a type of individual who, blind to all forms of social morality can only view one desire--their own. According to Deleuze, it is the role of the desiring-machine to act in accordance with this personal will, a drive which he likens to Wilhelm Reich's conception of desire as what is, essentially, a Revolutionary force. It is through their actions that these desiring-machines are able to liberate humanity by reversing the process where desire is enslaved to the service of the social body.

Does Deleuze's concept of the desiring-machine resonate with the earlier picture I sketched of the life of the Gnostic early Christian ? Specifically, what comes through most clearly in both concepts is the desire to regulate oneself, allowing the compulsion for self-regulation to go unchecked, so that one becomes a tyrant over one's self, a fact which causes us to love the very thing which dominates and exploits us. It must always be remembered that Anti-Oedipus is a book about ethics, a book about the proper way to conduct one's life. This book contains the principles essential for achieving a state of complete purification, ridding life of all forms of fascism. It lauds the individual's freedom from all unitary and totalizing ideologies as its highest state of actualization and the withdrawal of all ties of filiation from those categories which presuppose the existence of a negative other, which Western thought has historically held to be a sacred institution. Postmodern Christianity, as Deleuze sees it, prefers the positive over the negative, differences over uniformity, multiples over unities, mobile arrangements over systems. These postmodern religious subjects, the desiring-machines, believe that what is productive is not sedentary but nomadic. A proposition which marks Anti-Oedipus as being a representative of neo-Gnostic doctrine is that, with this text, true revoltionary action is located in one's drive towards reality, not in the loss of the self in forms of representation; the postmodern Christian sees both the concept of the soul and this notion of the originary site from which we derive as equally untenable in the present period.

The postmodern Christian knows politics have nothing to do with the truth; they do not fight wars in the name of Christian morality. Rather, they use holy scripture to intensify their thoughts about God, to arrive at judgments which are augmented by this intense concentration of their mental energies. There will be no more holy wars, as postmodern Christians do not attempt to use Christian morality to legitimize violent actions in the name of others. Instead, a de-individualization is required, for the individual is the product of the discourse of power which is organized throughout society. The church, the family, the school, all must be de-hierarchized; only in this way, Deleuze predicts, is it possible to return to a structure where individuals act as missionaries, setting out to bring new converts to de-individualization. These postmodern mission-workers, in seeking to prevent individuals from becoming so enamored with the divine presence, often themselves become blinded to this divine presence.

The model of which the desiring-machine is based on is the schizophrenic who inhabits the modern world. This is an individual who, having been confined by religion, breaks free to find himself lacking any position in human society and lacking, too, any position in the structure of the bourgeois family. Without God, without children, without father and mother, this individual finds himself in a universe which is inhabited by machines: here we have the desiring-machine. He lives, not alongside Nature as an organic component of the natural kingdom, but as a process of production. In an attempt to suppress the emergence of these desiring individuals, the figure of Oedipus has come to dominate our bourgeois ideology as it helps to preserve the status quo. Making no distinction between man and nature, the desiring-machines work only when they break down, and by continually breaking down.

Like the Gnostic early Christian, the desiring-machine views himself as an exile from reality, as a victim of his own body, which is a tomb, a prison in which he has been cast into the world. He must find a way out; existence is an ill. As the Gnostic recognizes himself as a spark of divinity, cast into exile as the result of a cosmic plot, so does the desiring-machine feel like a prisoner in a sick world. It is difficult to avoid seeing a Gnostic inheritance in many aspects of contemporary culture. Umberto Eco claims to find a Gnostic origin at the root in all types of human relationships, especially in romantic love-relationships, which are oftentimes governed by renouncement, a sense of loss, where individuals would often praise a purely spiritual relationship which excluded any sexual connection, for there is a Gnostic root the principles of romantic idealism. The desiring-machine and the Gnostic each celebrate evil as an experience of deep revelation, and go about searching for experiences through which they can realize the destruction of the body by means of sex and ecstasy, through drugs and delerium, through Gnosis and an interminable desire.

The Lexia of Roland Barthes: Relocating the Divine Presence

Through his voluminous writings, the semiotician Roland Barthes established himself as one of the founding presences of postmodernism. Barthes spent his life deconstructing our society's use of signs, symbols, texts, fashions and cultural institutions. This section reads the work of Roland Barthes as a re-evaluation of our religious beliefs; specifically, I will be looking at his concept of the lexia, a textual block which serves as the central site for the relocation of the divine presence in the postmodern age. Before I commence on his radical interpretations of the Barthesian ouevre as a contribution to theology, it will be necessary to define the discursive context in which he developed his theories.

Barthes, one of the leading figures of French Marxism, analyzed a variety of elements and institutions in contempoary culture, finding how each of them represented a manifestation of our desire to elevate these elements to a level of eternal signification. As Barthes suggested, these iconic presences, whether they are objects (novels, detergents, toys), events (cooking, criticism, wrestling matches) or figures (Einstein, Garbo, Gide), as component pieces of bourgeois culture, as representations of bourgeois ideology, all come to represent, in a mythical sense, the bourgeois desire to achieve a metaphysical state of full presence; in this way, the bourgeois individual is allowed to transcend their being by liberating themselves, allowing themselves to experience a level of reality which is beyond the real world. The mythologizing of bourgeois culture may be seen as an attempt to compensate for the death of God which Nietzsche had ironically announced. In a verification of the Nietzschean thesis, Roland Barthes' Mythologies (1957) was written with the project of revealing how the divine presence had been disseminated through the commodity-logic of bourgeois society. These iconic presences in contemporary culture share a common significance in the sense that they have all been appropriated into a mythic sign-system. In this way these sign have been elevated by the dominant social groups for the express purpose of reinforcing the ideology that keeps them in power. This type of signs, signs that are used to legitimize the social structure, is known as an ideological sign.

Seen in this way, these signs may be understood as agents which struggle to maintain the hegemonic order, strengthening a particular ideological viewpoint and keeping proponents of other viewpoints under control. The ruling class, desiring to impart an eternal character to the ideological sign, calls a halt to the struggle within the sign itself. This is an important step in maintaining social order, for if signification can be eternalized instead of being in a continual state of flux, then the ideology will adhere to the status quo, thus ensuring the continual dominance of the ruling powers. Therefore, signs and ideology may not be taken in isolation, but are permanently connected to one another.

In his work S/Z (1970), Barthes turned his attention to the manner in which modern authors constructed their texts, implicitly revealing a desire to transcend the banal textual sphere of the human world; for this reason their texts can be read as articles of faith. As Barthes saw it, the structural relationship corroborates with an ethical ideology; this reveals how the hierarchy of values encoded within these texts derives from the religious tradition of Christianity. Through a process of cultural archeology, Barthes shows how the same war of signification (good vs. evil, God vs. Satan, spirituality vs. sinfulness) retains a complicit relationship with the religious tradition which had been supposedly rejected in the writings of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and others during the 19th century.

By analyzing texts produced at the vanguard of literary realism, authors such as Balzac, Zola and Flaubert, Barthes reveals how, in each of these works, the author created a hierarchy of moral values. These values, Barthes shows, derive their prime signification from the fixed position society ascribes to the divine. By attempting to convey a sense of naturalism through language, these authors seek to transcend the textual limits which had been imposed on their works, in this way indicating the limits society had imposed on the text itself. It is a unique feature of the realist text, Barthes claims, that it is able to transcend the limits of signification and point to the underlying movement of our religious nature, encoding in it that plane of signification which has been acknowledged as belonging to the realistic school of literature. Postmodern Christianity recognized that, if humanity ever had access to a level of spirituality through language, that path has since been lost; for by being used over an extended period of time, any signification that language once possessed has been eroded. Our spirituality now has to be approached from another direction, as our modern approach to literary texts demonstrates, no single text can be said to impose its power over the full range of the canon.

Barthes' critical enterprise consists of representing the literary work through a series of textual divisions, dividing a text such as Balzac's Sarassine into as many as 500 lexical units. In this manner Barthes attempts to enter into the very site of textual production, as a way of examining the structures of signification themselves, how textual significance is distributed, the concatenation of significance along lines of textual development, how the realist text is constructed with what is, fundamentally, the mythological-mystical foundation at the basis of these 'realistic' texts, as these authors come to be seen as being responsible for the installation of the divine presence in the modern period. This postmodern equivalent of the divine presence is conditions by this development of significance which is organized and constituted by Barthes' reconfiguration of the divinity. In postmodern society the presence of the divinity is not qualified as a supplemental proposition, for it serves to add to the presence of the real, which is itself manifested by the order of signification found in the text of a realist writer such as Balzac.

This mystical foundation is central to the social production of the literary text, as the text is constituted, not by the unseen hand of a prime mover, but is formed through the imbrication of textual layering, forming a network of complex relationships which are in constant flux. In this way, Postmodern Christianity announces from a revolution in language, the emergence of a poetic writing which implicitly acknowledges the divine presence. But from where, one wishes to ask, does this divine presence emanate? This new location for the divine presence does not issue forth from a sphere of private language. The divine presence in Postmodern Christianity has been relocated throughout the inner workings of the realist text, in the space which is 'behind the scenes' of the literary text, into that textual seam where text both directs and is directed by signification; this is the space that Barthes called "the structure of structuration." This postmodern divinity is, according to Roland Barthes theory of textuality, a divinity whose nature is not fixed, but is changeable. Postmodern Christianity realizes that, because religion was first organized as a creation of human consciousness, it cannot remain fixed; like any systematized body of knowledge, it is subject to being re-organized according to the spaces which have developed in the modern period.

Barthes' new conception of the text presents us with a new model of presence and a new model of divinity as well. This new vision serves to nullify those texts which are overtly dogmatic and didactic; it de-stabilizes the ideological position these texts look to instill on a permanent basis. Postmodern Christianity is a time when one is not required to adhere to a systematized faith; the reader of divine text himself becomes a divine textual being. No longer simply the reader (the decoder) but now also the writer (the inscriber) and truly the receiver of holy language. In this way Barthes' analysis of the realist text explicates an idea of this text as re-generative, and divinely organized, full presence. For Roland Barthes, writing is the manifestation of pure consciousness, the corporealization of presence. It is an ideal medium for the preparation of the ideological ground on which meaning is to be installed, the position from which meaning is to be disseminated throughout the system.

As conceptualized in S/Z, the lexia represents an ideal form of textuality; this concept resonates most accurately with the newly developed technology of computerized hypertext. The hypertext document is composed of blocks of words (or lexias) linked electronically by multiple paths, chains and trails in an open-ended, unfinished form of textuality. In such a document, it is the lexia which serves as the dominant form of textual composition, as it allows individuals to position themselves in relation to language in such a way that, although they remain situated in the singularity of their perspective, they do not become the central point through which all language is transmitted; rather, reading becomes a process whereby the subject is de-centered. The lexia becomes a point in space which contains all other points simultaneously. The concept of the lexia can be seen as an evolution of textual theories which are developed to accompany the advent of the electronic age. However, Barthes' theory is far from being merely theoretical, as these concepts have already been actualized as working components of our postmodern society, the electronic medium of hypertext as well as the computer-controlled World Wide Web can be seen as a technological response to this evolution of textual theory.

Even with the age of electronic information, the text finds its referential basis in a type of textuality which has been present since antiquity -- the parable. Like Jesus' method for instructing his followers, this facet allows individuals to choose their own center for experience. The Barthian-structured postmodern text, the hypertext document, functions as a traveling parable. The high degree of mobility of this model of textuality allows any number of individuals to take an active role in the reading/writing process, linking together segments of text and creating different reading pathways. The parable-like quality inherent in this method of exposure to various forms of textuality has a consequence which will affect society greatly.

As I see it, this model of a computerized society of readers will further prepare the ground for the advent of the Postmodern Christian world. By exchanging the stories of their lives in the form of textual parables, individuals will experience the opening-up of horizons for discursive intercommunication, which will have significant ramifications for the acquisition/sharing of moral attitudes and religious principles. This will serve the Postmodern Christian well....

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