What, then, does he mean when he complains in The Sultan of Babylon of a "dehumanized foe?" It seems to me as if he incorporates language that subverts his goal by tacitly agreeing to what he is attempting to abolish. Because doesn't the category "human" include at least a pinch of universalism, a touch of essence (and any universalism is fatally detrimental to Cohen here)? It seems to me that a project truly intent on deconstructing human universalism would have to abolish the human. It would have to see through to only bodies. So is "humanity" merely a trace, a shorthand for a category that is useful for discussion but really meaningless?
But that is irrational. How can the meaningless be useful for discussion? It seems to me that this deconstruction includes the threads of its own deconstruction. Cohen, by attempting to abolish all universalism has set himself up against the Goliath of language, which penetrates even his own thinking.
Even the smallest mustard seed of the universal, which I am coming to think Kristeva defends pretty well, is utterly devastating him.
Or Maybe...
ReplyDeleteIf we give Cohen the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is internally consistent here, perhaps it's not the dehumanization of "them" (Saracens) he's concerned about so much as the humanization of "us" (Westerners). If the latter move were never made the former would be impossible.
But then, whence neighbor love? Would neighbor love be possible if a "human" body had the same claim on me as a non"human" body? Or a piece of furniture?
Does the neighbor require essence?
I was very skeptical of Cohen’s argument. For the moment I am willing to concede that the text encourages identification with Saracens. I am having trouble with this given the text’s attitude toward Ferumbras and Floripas. The degree to which they are assimilated into courtly and heroic culture seems to foreclose the possibility of identification or neighbor-love. They seem like the converts whose “embrace of their new religion is more a declaration of what they always already were (white—that is, Christian—before the fact) than a true conversion from one state to another” (Cohen 5). Like a good courtly lover, Floripas falls in love with Guy by his reputation. Of course you could argue that Floripas, orchestrating her own marriage and conversion, does not fully understand this code of behavior. At the very least, Floripas seems more courtly than Guy who must be convinced of the marriage. A few moments after Guy relents, Floripas plays the role of cup-bearer, a familiar heroic role for women. Ferumbras understands heroic culture too. As Ganelon leaves behind his lord in battle, Ferumbras understands that this is a serious violation of Ganelon’s oath to his lord. He is responsible for saving Charles. I cannot reconcile this assimilation of the particulars of Floripas and Ferumbras with Cohen’s claim about the Saracens in this romance. So I guess the point of my post is that post-Cohen, I am terribly confused about assimilation in The Sultan of Babylon.
ReplyDelete@ Trevor: I think you're right to suggest that Cohen's ultimate project involves dismantling even the category of the human. I also think you're exactly right about the point you make about "humanization" above--that's a very Zizekian move, frankly.
ReplyDeleteAs to "neighbor love" (all of which has been theorized since Cohen wrote) Cohen might say that genuine "neighbor love" is ONLY possible if both "human" and "non-human" bodies are at issue--he's continued to work on "animal" and "object" as pushing the limits of "agential beings," that is, as beings with agency. But would R/S/Z agree to this stipulation? Hard to say--on the one hand, from the point of view of the "Real," the non-human is very much at issue. The Thing (Das Ding) is both agential and explicitly "inhuman." One the other hand, I'm not sure psychoanalytic theory is very good at thinking about actual animals--in Lacan's terms creatures without human language would reside outside the symbolic, so very different from symbol-making critters like humans.
@ Emilie: I share some of your skepticism about Cohen's argument. I'd want to think more--along the lines of our conversation at the end of class on Thursday--as to how the text brings readers into and out of those moments when monstrosity erupts, those moments of "Saracen joy." I think Cohen is mostly silent on those transitions from the eruption of imaginative excess to more aphoristic declamations: "God send them good deliverance" (and the like). Whether the text does, indeed, "transverse the fantasy" of Saracen monstrosity seems to me to rest in part on how it frames its representations of monstrosity on all sides. And while I see why he makes the point that Saracen "joy" is linked to family (cf. Scott's points last time) I really do NOT see why this means that the fantasy of Saracen monstrosity is overcome--why not, instead, see this as a limitation of Saracen caritas, in contrast to Charlemagne who is willing to adopt those giant Saracen babies?