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art communication book frontispiece engraving leviathan esposito communitas freud father son murder violence death sacrifice

✖ Via Wikimedia Commons: book frontispiece by Abraham Bosse for Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1651). It was created with input from Hobbes. [click for hi-res]

Learn more about the frontispiece on wikipedia.

Here’s another way to interpret this illustration:

The incorporation of the father on the part of the sons corresponds to the incorporation of the sons of the part of which, upon the death of the father, substitutes for him. What else does the celebrated image of the Leviathan represent, composed as it is of many small human forms wedged in together one against the other in the shape of a scale of impenetrable armor, if not the inclusion again of the murderous sons on the part of the “second” father in one’s own body? (Communitas. The Origin and Destiny of Community by Roberto Esposito, trans. by Thimothy Campbell, Standford: Stanford University Press, [1998]2010, p. 40)

• Jul 09, 2010 link notes tagged: art communication book frontispiece engraving Leviathan Esposito communitas Freud father son murder violence death sacrifice

The sacrifice serves to protect the entire community from its own violence; it prompts the entire community to choose victims outside itself. The elements of dissension scattered throughout the community are drawn to the person of the sacrificial victim and eliminated, at least temporarily, by its sacrifice.

✖ Via Violence and the sacred by Rene Girard, tr. Patrick Gregory, Continuum International Publishing Group, [1972]2005 p. 8

Original French text:

C’est la communauté entière que le sacrifice protège de sa propre violence, c’est la communauté entière qu’il détourne vers des victimes qui lui sont extérieures. Le sacrifice polarise sur la victime des germes de dissension partout répandus et il les dissipe en leur proposant un assouvissement partiel. (éd. Bernard Grasset, coll. Hschette Littérature / Pluriel, Paris, [1972]1998, p. 18

Consider this for example. It doesn’t really matter (for what’s at stake here) if it’s true or not. What matter is that some people find it necessary to see McChrystal resignation as a sacrifice and are representing that belief by their talkings and writings:

Respected conservative Toby Harden of the UK Telegraph notes: “the way Obama fired McChrystal was choreographed to humiliate the general and bolster the President’s credentials as a macho man. So much for ‘no drama Obama.’ The manner of the firing came dangerously close to putting political theatre and image-burnishing above the conduct of a war.” Mortified, dishonored, ruined? I think not. General McChrystal may no longer be commanding the troops in Afghanistan, but his act of valor may very well have won the war here at home. Army General Stanley McChrystal may have taken a bullet, but crawling through the trenches on his belly the wounded patriot managed to set off a warning flare alerting America it is presently under presidential siege. (American Thinker: “McChrystal’s sacrifice?” by Jeannie DeAngelis, June 24th, 2010)

Previously on Skandalon : Rene Girard, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal

• Jul 05, 2010 link notes tagged: communication sacrifice violence victim community sacred immunitas communitas Esposito protection order war McChrystal United-States news representation anxiety Girard

He would rage and he would cry, my lost soldier. And I said to him, “There are two of you, don’t you see? One that kills and one that loves.” And he said to me, “I don’t know whether I am animal or a god.” But you are both.

✖ Via Apocalypse Now Redux, Francis Ford Coppola, [1979]2001

The entire script of the Redux version is available here.

• Jul 03, 2010 link notes tagged: art communication film movie filmmaker war soldier lost kill death love relation relationship violence horror Hobbes communitas Esposito

So the community does you no damn good!

✖ Via The New York Times: “The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is (Part 5)” by Errol Morris, June 24th, 2010

Who ever said that community was supposed to do good things for you? Really? I’m aware that most of us think that way, but where is this idea coming from? And what about another idea : community is a problem, not a solution. Consider this:

(…) what is meant by this word body politic, and how it signifieth not the concord, but the union of many men.

We are together, yes, but not necessarily because we love or agree with each other. This quote is taken from the book Elements of Law by Thomas Hobbes, chap. 8, §7, 1650.

• Jun 29, 2010 link notes tagged: Esposito beliefs communication communitas community humanism unity body politic concord love together Hobbes Leviathan