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December 12, 2003
Trevor, you mentioned a discussion about Bataille's understanding of sovereignty with one of your honours students. You wrote:
"I described to him your recent discussion of sovereignty [here] and he raised what I thought was a very good point. Are you not experiencing sovereignty when asleep? he asked. I thought about it and it seemed to me that sovereignty might be described as like the condition of sleep, except that you are awake."
I beg to differ with this interpretation of sovereignty. My reason is that it overlooks Bataille's emphasis on intensity of inner experience.
If sovereignty is interpreted as 'the condition of sleep, except that you are awake' as you say, then it would be more akin to a nightmare. It would be more like a state of subjectivity with the intensity expressed by this painting:
E. Munch, The Scream, 1893
That is my understanding of sovereignty. (For very different interpretations of of Munch's painting see Bonyton)
It is not just the intensity of anxiety or dread. It can also be the intensity of religious ecstasy.
Or the intensity of sexual orgasm. Or the intensity of being raped.
So my understanding of sovereignty is quite different the passive conception of from the dairy cow chewing cud in the field. It is the emotional intensity that obliterates the boundaries of the self that make us self-contained individuals.
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