WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.200 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.200 --> 00:00:05.050 align:middle line:84% And it's kind of weird because this book, the hydra 00:00:05.050 --> 00:00:08.680 align:middle line:84% of the criticism, I mean, I was describing today earlier 00:00:08.680 --> 00:00:12.123 align:middle line:84% that none of my writing feels very different to me 00:00:12.123 --> 00:00:12.790 align:middle line:90% from each other. 00:00:12.790 --> 00:00:14.748 align:middle line:84% When I'm writing it, it just kind of eventually 00:00:14.748 --> 00:00:16.129 align:middle line:90% gets shaped into something. 00:00:16.129 --> 00:00:18.800 align:middle line:84% The more of it I produce, that might take a different genre. 00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:21.100 align:middle line:90% So a lot of this book, I wrote-- 00:00:21.100 --> 00:00:24.880 align:middle line:90% The Art of Cruelty, I wrote-- 00:00:24.880 --> 00:00:27.943 align:middle line:84% I moved to Los Angeles and I was living accidentally 00:00:27.943 --> 00:00:29.110 align:middle line:90% in the middle of Hollywood-- 00:00:29.110 --> 00:00:29.860 align:middle line:90% West Hollywood. 00:00:29.860 --> 00:00:35.320 align:middle line:84% And I was-- it was the middle of the era of George W. Bush 00:00:35.320 --> 00:00:36.760 align:middle line:84% and the torture in the Abu Ghraib. 00:00:36.760 --> 00:00:41.950 align:middle line:84% And I was surrounded by a lot of movie posters 00:00:41.950 --> 00:00:44.680 align:middle line:84% and other things that were very involved in glorifying 00:00:44.680 --> 00:00:47.710 align:middle line:90% torture and pop culture. 00:00:47.710 --> 00:00:49.210 align:middle line:84% And I just started writing a series 00:00:49.210 --> 00:00:52.000 align:middle line:84% of really angry political rants, tying together 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:55.150 align:middle line:84% pop culture and what was going on in our country. 00:00:55.150 --> 00:00:57.820 align:middle line:90% And then, I also-- 00:00:57.820 --> 00:01:01.510 align:middle line:84% I kind of ended up marrying that whole ranting discourse 00:01:01.510 --> 00:01:06.790 align:middle line:84% to a lot of artwork that I had both loved and hated 00:01:06.790 --> 00:01:09.580 align:middle line:84% all throughout my life as a devotee 00:01:09.580 --> 00:01:11.860 align:middle line:90% of avant-garde spectacle. 00:01:11.860 --> 00:01:17.620 align:middle line:84% And everything from Artaud through Ana Mendieta through 00:01:17.620 --> 00:01:22.107 align:middle line:84% the Viennese Actionists through a lot of ethically difficult 00:01:22.107 --> 00:01:23.440 align:middle line:90% or just in-your-face difficult-- 00:01:23.440 --> 00:01:25.030 align:middle line:90% Paul McCarthy, Kara Walker-- 00:01:25.030 --> 00:01:26.740 align:middle line:90% a lot of different work. 00:01:26.740 --> 00:01:29.590 align:middle line:84% And I had been amassing a lot of material 00:01:29.590 --> 00:01:36.670 align:middle line:84% for that on the art side because I both love art and teach 00:01:36.670 --> 00:01:37.480 align:middle line:90% in an art school. 00:01:37.480 --> 00:01:39.460 align:middle line:84% And also because I've been trying 00:01:39.460 --> 00:01:42.202 align:middle line:84% to think through questions about violence and representation 00:01:42.202 --> 00:01:44.410 align:middle line:84% in other works of mine, the ones that Ander mentioned 00:01:44.410 --> 00:01:45.490 align:middle line:90% about my aunt's murder. 00:01:45.490 --> 00:01:48.250 align:middle line:84% So I married together all this stuff, 00:01:48.250 --> 00:01:51.950 align:middle line:84% and it just ended up being this critical book, 00:01:51.950 --> 00:01:56.050 align:middle line:84% The Art of Cruelty, which is a bit of a nod, 00:01:56.050 --> 00:01:58.750 align:middle line:84% obviously to Artaud, Theater of Cruelty. 00:01:58.750 --> 00:02:01.878 align:middle line:84% And I just thought I would-- it's a little dense, 00:02:01.878 --> 00:02:04.420 align:middle line:84% but I thought just for the sake of hearing a little criticism 00:02:04.420 --> 00:02:06.040 align:middle line:84% out loud and also because it really 00:02:06.040 --> 00:02:07.930 align:middle line:84% leads into what I'm working on now 00:02:07.930 --> 00:02:11.620 align:middle line:90% in a very maybe obvious way. 00:02:11.620 --> 00:02:14.110 align:middle line:84% I will just read the very last couple of pages of this book 00:02:14.110 --> 00:02:15.940 align:middle line:90% from the afterword. 00:02:15.940 --> 00:02:17.590 align:middle line:84% And it might not make a whole lot of 00:02:17.590 --> 00:02:21.130 align:middle line:84% per se because you haven't read the whole book. 00:02:21.130 --> 00:02:26.110 align:middle line:84% But it's kind of doing a summation of some 00:02:26.110 --> 00:02:33.190 align:middle line:84% of the ethical questions about cruelty and love 00:02:33.190 --> 00:02:36.210 align:middle line:84% that the book has focused on heretofore. 00:02:36.210 --> 00:02:40.300 align:middle line:84% So I guess all you need to know is that I talked elsewhere 00:02:40.300 --> 00:02:43.180 align:middle line:84% in this book about this William Carlos Williams 00:02:43.180 --> 00:02:44.980 align:middle line:84% epigraph or a line from a poem that 00:02:44.980 --> 00:02:49.240 align:middle line:84% says, "The business of love is cruelty, which by our wills, 00:02:49.240 --> 00:02:51.945 align:middle line:90% we transform to live together." 00:02:51.945 --> 00:02:53.320 align:middle line:84% And earlier in the book, I'd talk 00:02:53.320 --> 00:02:56.050 align:middle line:84% about how I have been very moved by that and had it on my wall. 00:02:56.050 --> 00:02:57.592 align:middle line:84% But the more I looked at it, the more 00:02:57.592 --> 00:03:00.298 align:middle line:84% I had no idea really what he was talking about. 00:03:00.298 --> 00:03:01.840 align:middle line:84% And I eventually realized, it was not 00:03:01.840 --> 00:03:04.540 align:middle line:90% going to be an epigraph at all. 00:03:04.540 --> 00:03:05.680 align:middle line:90% It just sounded good. 00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:09.610 align:middle line:84% So that's the beginning of this little part that I'll read. 00:03:09.610 --> 00:03:12.730 align:middle line:84% This is, like I said the last two pages. 00:03:12.730 --> 00:03:15.880 align:middle line:84% "So to return to my rejected Williams epigraph, which 00:03:15.880 --> 00:03:18.910 align:middle line:84% takes love as its subject: The business of love 00:03:18.910 --> 00:03:24.200 align:middle line:84% is cruelty, which by our wills, we transform to live together. 00:03:24.200 --> 00:03:27.430 align:middle line:84% It still sounds good, but what could it mean? 00:03:27.430 --> 00:03:30.670 align:middle line:84% I don't particularly agree with its temporal proposition 00:03:30.670 --> 00:03:34.150 align:middle line:84% that the business of love begins as a form of cruelty, which 00:03:34.150 --> 00:03:38.500 align:middle line:84% can be subsequently heroically altered until we all get along. 00:03:38.500 --> 00:03:42.490 align:middle line:84% I do, however, like its calm admission of the coexistence 00:03:42.490 --> 00:03:43.930 align:middle line:90% of love and cruelty. 00:03:43.930 --> 00:03:47.110 align:middle line:84% Its acknowledgment that they can exist within one another, 00:03:47.110 --> 00:03:49.390 align:middle line:84% rather than at opposite ends of the spectrum, 00:03:49.390 --> 00:03:51.790 align:middle line:84% or locked in an oppositional embrace. 00:03:51.790 --> 00:03:53.890 align:middle line:84% That there might be an alchemical, rather than 00:03:53.890 --> 00:03:56.740 align:middle line:84% a conflictual relationship between them. 00:03:56.740 --> 00:03:59.260 align:middle line:84% That the possibility of such a transformation 00:03:59.260 --> 00:04:02.710 align:middle line:90% is always alive and always ours. 00:04:02.710 --> 00:04:04.720 align:middle line:84% Such a proposition is in keeping with the work 00:04:04.720 --> 00:04:08.200 align:middle line:84% of British psychologist, DW Winnicott, who concerned 00:04:08.200 --> 00:04:10.750 align:middle line:84% himself primarily with the needs and behaviors of infants 00:04:10.750 --> 00:04:12.670 align:middle line:90% and small children. 00:04:12.670 --> 00:04:14.800 align:middle line:84% Winnicott differed from Freud, Melanie Kline, 00:04:14.800 --> 00:04:18.070 align:middle line:84% and other analysts in that he did not customarily term 00:04:18.070 --> 00:04:20.860 align:middle line:84% an infant's business of love sadistic, 00:04:20.860 --> 00:04:23.300 align:middle line:84% no matter how aggressive the behavior. 00:04:23.300 --> 00:04:25.780 align:middle line:84% He thought, such a term attributed more malice 00:04:25.780 --> 00:04:28.330 align:middle line:84% to the infant than was plausible. 00:04:28.330 --> 00:04:30.460 align:middle line:84% But Winnicott did spend a great deal of time 00:04:30.460 --> 00:04:33.100 align:middle line:84% thinking and writing about the intense dance 00:04:33.100 --> 00:04:35.710 align:middle line:84% between vulnerability and ruthlessness 00:04:35.710 --> 00:04:38.980 align:middle line:84% that begins when we are infants and persists in its way 00:04:38.980 --> 00:04:40.810 align:middle line:90% for the rest of our lives. 00:04:40.810 --> 00:04:43.090 align:middle line:84% Our grappling with desire is so fierce, 00:04:43.090 --> 00:04:46.420 align:middle line:84% one fears they might overwhelm or obliterate others. 00:04:46.420 --> 00:04:49.060 align:middle line:84% Others that we may desperately not want to lose, 00:04:49.060 --> 00:04:52.870 align:middle line:84% indeed that we cannot afford to lose. 00:04:52.870 --> 00:04:54.640 align:middle line:84% For Winnicott, it was crucial and normal 00:04:54.640 --> 00:04:56.800 align:middle line:84% that a mother feel hatred for her baby, 00:04:56.800 --> 00:05:00.670 align:middle line:84% and equally so that the baby be able in turn to hate her. 00:05:00.670 --> 00:05:02.170 align:middle line:84% Love occurs, Winnicott thought, when 00:05:02.170 --> 00:05:04.720 align:middle line:84% the infant is able to test the love object, often 00:05:04.720 --> 00:05:07.750 align:middle line:84% via aggression, and the object survives, 00:05:07.750 --> 00:05:11.530 align:middle line:84% proves itself able to withstand the testing. 00:05:11.530 --> 00:05:13.630 align:middle line:84% One of Winnicott's most well-known images 00:05:13.630 --> 00:05:15.730 align:middle line:84% for the balancing act of parent and child 00:05:15.730 --> 00:05:17.410 align:middle line:90% has to do with holding. 00:05:17.410 --> 00:05:20.950 align:middle line:84% The baby must be held loosely enough to experience freedom, 00:05:20.950 --> 00:05:23.680 align:middle line:84% but tightly enough that it does not fall. 00:05:23.680 --> 00:05:25.510 align:middle line:84% Love in this case is a container, 00:05:25.510 --> 00:05:29.800 align:middle line:84% a holding environment with the right amount of space provided. 00:05:29.800 --> 00:05:32.260 align:middle line:84% Or-- and here is Winnicott's great generosity-- 00:05:32.260 --> 00:05:35.590 align:middle line:84% if not exactly right, good enough. 00:05:35.590 --> 00:05:37.150 align:middle line:84% Such an image echoes that offered 00:05:37.150 --> 00:05:40.420 align:middle line:84% by John Cage in his 1966 piece of writing 00:05:40.420 --> 00:05:43.780 align:middle line:84% titled, Diary: How to Improve the World, You Will 00:05:43.780 --> 00:05:46.030 align:middle line:90% Only Make Things Worse. 00:05:46.030 --> 00:05:49.480 align:middle line:84% Here, Cage writes, 'The most, the best we can do, 00:05:49.480 --> 00:05:52.510 align:middle line:84% we believe (wanting to give evidence of love), 00:05:52.510 --> 00:05:55.690 align:middle line:84% is get out of the way, leave space around whomever 00:05:55.690 --> 00:05:58.000 align:middle line:90% or whatever it is.' 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:00.370 align:middle line:84% These lines have always struck me as an admirable mantra 00:06:00.370 --> 00:06:02.620 align:middle line:84% to live by, if not an exceedingly 00:06:02.620 --> 00:06:05.680 align:middle line:84% difficult and perhaps at times impossible one. 00:06:05.680 --> 00:06:08.080 align:middle line:84% Given the ruthlessness of our desires, 00:06:08.080 --> 00:06:11.170 align:middle line:84% the fraught apprehension of our dependency, 00:06:11.170 --> 00:06:14.050 align:middle line:84% the heavy chaotic experience of jealousy, 00:06:14.050 --> 00:06:16.420 align:middle line:84% and the radical undoness that can 00:06:16.420 --> 00:06:19.510 align:middle line:90% attend both loss and communion. 00:06:19.510 --> 00:06:22.390 align:middle line:84% What a relief then, to return to the John Cage piece, 00:06:22.390 --> 00:06:26.770 align:middle line:84% and find that its very next line reads, 'but there is no space.' 00:06:26.770 --> 00:06:30.040 align:middle line:84% A protest of the previous line's serenity. 00:06:30.040 --> 00:06:33.670 align:middle line:84% And so we are returned to negotiation, to paradox. 00:06:33.670 --> 00:06:36.010 align:middle line:84% A similar dynamic animates Cage's title, 00:06:36.010 --> 00:06:37.953 align:middle line:84% How to Improve The World, then in parentheses, 00:06:37.953 --> 00:06:39.370 align:middle line:84% 'You Will Only Make Things Worse-- 00:06:39.370 --> 00:06:42.490 align:middle line:84% Only Make Matters Worse,' which first acknowledges the desire 00:06:42.490 --> 00:06:44.950 align:middle line:84% to change the world, and then pulls out the rug from under 00:06:44.950 --> 00:06:45.850 align:middle line:90% it. 00:06:45.850 --> 00:06:48.580 align:middle line:84% Such gestures are in keeping with one of Buddhism's most 00:06:48.580 --> 00:06:51.940 align:middle line:84% enlivening paradoxes, that we can dedicate our lives 00:06:51.940 --> 00:06:54.220 align:middle line:84% to ending suffering while acknowledging 00:06:54.220 --> 00:06:57.820 align:middle line:84% the first noble truth, that life is suffering. 00:06:57.820 --> 00:07:01.360 align:middle line:90% Such paradoxes are ours to keep. 00:07:01.360 --> 00:07:03.580 align:middle line:84% A paradox is more than the coexistence 00:07:03.580 --> 00:07:06.640 align:middle line:84% of opposing propositions or impulses. 00:07:06.640 --> 00:07:10.210 align:middle line:84% A paradox signals the possibility, and sometimes 00:07:10.210 --> 00:07:13.330 align:middle line:84% the arrival of a third term into a situation 00:07:13.330 --> 00:07:15.010 align:middle line:84% that otherwise appeared to consist 00:07:15.010 --> 00:07:17.620 align:middle line:90% of but two opposing forces. 00:07:17.620 --> 00:07:19.790 align:middle line:84% Roland Barthes elaborates this third term, 00:07:19.790 --> 00:07:22.990 align:middle line:84% which Barthes calls the neutral, with the utmost of beauty 00:07:22.990 --> 00:07:26.230 align:middle line:84% and intelligence in his 1977 series of lectures 00:07:26.230 --> 00:07:28.060 align:middle line:90% titled, The Neutral. 00:07:28.060 --> 00:07:31.410 align:middle line:84% Barthes's neutral is that which throws a wrench into anything, 00:07:31.410 --> 00:07:35.340 align:middle line:84% the system, the doxa, that demands, often 00:07:35.340 --> 00:07:38.280 align:middle line:84% with menacing pressure, that one enter conflicts, 00:07:38.280 --> 00:07:39.750 align:middle line:90% that one produce meaning. 00:07:39.750 --> 00:07:41.400 align:middle line:90% That one takes sides. 00:07:41.400 --> 00:07:43.980 align:middle line:84% That one choose between binary oppositions 00:07:43.980 --> 00:07:47.790 align:middle line:84% (that is cruel; no, it's not) that are not of one's making 00:07:47.790 --> 00:07:51.480 align:middle line:84% and for which one has no appetite. 00:07:51.480 --> 00:07:54.630 align:middle line:84% As it disrupts such demands, the neutral 00:07:54.630 --> 00:07:58.380 align:middle line:84% introduces responses that had heretofore been unthinkable. 00:07:58.380 --> 00:08:03.900 align:middle line:84% Desires such as to slip, to drift, to flee, to escape. 00:08:03.900 --> 00:08:08.040 align:middle line:84% In a world fixated on the freedom to speak and the demand 00:08:08.040 --> 00:08:11.760 align:middle line:84% to be heard, the neutral proposes 'a right to be silent, 00:08:11.760 --> 00:08:15.270 align:middle line:84% a possibility of being silent, the right not to listen, 00:08:15.270 --> 00:08:17.910 align:middle line:84% to not read the book, to think nothing--' this is Barthes-- 00:08:17.910 --> 00:08:19.110 align:middle line:90% 'to think nothing of it. 00:08:19.110 --> 00:08:21.300 align:middle line:84% To be unable to say what I think of it. 00:08:21.300 --> 00:08:24.270 align:middle line:90% The right not to desire.' 00:08:24.270 --> 00:08:27.720 align:middle line:84% The neutral allows for a practice of gentle aversion. 00:08:27.720 --> 00:08:30.840 align:middle line:84% The right to reject the proffered choices, to demur, 00:08:30.840 --> 00:08:34.320 align:middle line:84% to turn away, to turn one's attention to rarer and better 00:08:34.320 --> 00:08:36.150 align:middle line:90% things. 00:08:36.150 --> 00:08:38.370 align:middle line:84% Preserving the space for such responses 00:08:38.370 --> 00:08:41.190 align:middle line:84% has been one of this book's primary aims. 00:08:41.190 --> 00:08:43.230 align:middle line:84% Of equal importance, has been making a space 00:08:43.230 --> 00:08:45.300 align:middle line:90% for paying close attention. 00:08:45.300 --> 00:08:48.990 align:middle line:84% For recognizing and articulating ambivalence uncertainty, 00:08:48.990 --> 00:08:51.450 align:middle line:90% repulsion, and pleasure. 00:08:51.450 --> 00:08:54.450 align:middle line:84% I have intended no special claim for art or literature-- 00:08:54.450 --> 00:08:57.700 align:middle line:84% that is, no grand theory of their value. 00:08:57.700 --> 00:09:00.810 align:middle line:84% But I have meant to express throughout a deep appreciation 00:09:00.810 --> 00:09:02.970 align:middle line:90% of them as my teachers. 00:09:02.970 --> 00:09:05.490 align:middle line:84% For as Barthes suggests, insofar, 00:09:05.490 --> 00:09:10.260 align:middle line:84% as certain third terms, however volatile and disturbing, 00:09:10.260 --> 00:09:13.920 align:middle line:84% baffle the oppressive forces of reduction, generality, 00:09:13.920 --> 00:09:19.162 align:middle line:84% and dogmatism, they too deserve to be called sweetness." 00:09:19.162 --> 00:09:20.370 align:middle line:90% So that's how that book ends. 00:09:20.370 --> 00:09:24.500 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] Thank you [INAUDIBLE].. 00:09:24.500 --> 00:09:25.000 align:middle line:90%