Trevor,
I did manage to find a clear spot for a moment today. My thought? I will use Bataille as a centring text, spin out from there in different directions but keep coming back to Bataille.
What I would like to put on the table is that we can understand Bataille's thinking otherwise to utility in terms of Weber's conception of modernity as the process of rationalization and the hegemony of technology as a way of thinking (economic/techological rationality).
Utiltity stands for this cconception of modernity.
The turn to the sacred and Christian ecstasy is a way of thinking otherwise. This ecstasy was propelled by desire. However, this desire did not lead to sexual orgies. As Bataille writes that with religious mysticism:
"Meditational subjects have taken the place of real orgies, drunkenness, and flesh and blood---the latter become subjects of disapproval. In this way there still remained a summit connected with desire."
There is also a communication with a beyond of oneself that is based on a wounding or tainting of ourselves.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at March 16, 2004 11:48 PM | TrackBack