Towards the end of the first part of The Siege of Milan, as the initial Christian attack against the Saracens has been unsuccessful and the Duke of Normandy is dying in Roland's presence, the Duke makes this speech about seeing soldiers going to heaven: "Loo! I see oure vawarde ledde to hevene/With angells songe and mery stevene...." (316-324). He's been talking to Roland for awhile about what he wants Roland to do if he ever gets back to France, but it's not until this moment that a Saracen standing nearby "brayded owte with a bryghte brande/When he harde hym say soo;/And to the Duke a dynt he dryvede" (325-327). It would appear that the Saracen didn't mind Roland paying his last respects to the Duke until the Duke's speech took a distinctly religious turn.
My question in terms of this moment is this: Is religion here a "traumatic kernel"? Zizek talks about how the "traumatic kernel forever persists in my Neighbor--the Neighbor remains an inert, impenetrable, enigmatic presence that hystericizes me" (140-141). I think that perhaps we can read this moment in terms of religious hystericization.
Another example of religion as the traumatic kernel in the Neighbor that leads to hystericization would be lines 385-480. Here the Sultan, after hearing Roland give what's basically a credal statement about his faith, laughs and orders a cross to be burned--which becomes an epic failure, of course, with a spectacular explosion that blinds all the Saracens.
So if religion is a traumatic kernel that keeps these two sides from being able to get along, does the text open up any places for redemption to happen? Any places where the two sides can meet? Or could we argue in this case, contrary to R/S/Z, that neighbor-love is impossible, and the text does not want contact between the two sides on any level? Are there times when neighbor-love fails totally and completely?
This is a very interesting comment, Evelyn. First of all, I do think that there are certain structures in which "neighbor-love" fails, and this may well be one of them. That said, "impossibility" is something that, according to Zizek and Reinhard anyway, constitutes neighbor-love: the traumatic kernal of the real cannot be approached head-on; this "impossibility" creates the space for a consideration of neighbor love as that which is shot through with this trauma. Impossibility is, as you imply, different from failing "totally and completely."
ReplyDeleteOne way to think about this would be to separate "religion" from the divine, the latter referring to the absolute/unattainable otherness of the godhead. If we think about the divine as that "cruel and inhuman partner" that sits in the place of the Thing (alluding to the traumatic kernal), then we might think of religion as a detour around that kernal, and effort to get as close as possible, circling and containing the divine as radical other. And this means that your statement that "religion as the traumatic kernel in the Neighbor that leads to hystericization" would be made just slightly more precise in this way: "religion approaches the traumatic kernel in the neighbor, and this kernel sometimes erupts in hystericization" of the type you identify in the SM.
Really thoughtful and interesting post!