January 15th, 2010 by Nagypál Tamás
Introduction
When we think of Evangelicals and sex, we think of repression. We should think again, according to Dagmar Herzog’s book Sex in Crisis. Since the late 90s, we are witnessing an astounding shift in the nature of the religious right’s discourses on sex, a movement towards solicitation rather than prohibition, or to put it bluntly, towards “Christian pornography” (Herzog). In this paper, I will follow Herzog’s description of this move, but give a slightly different, psychoanalytic interpretation to it. My emphasis will be on the way which Evangelicals undermine the liberal democratic consensus on sexual equality based on heteronormativity, and with it the functioning of the symbolic law. As a central figure of this move I’ll present, following Herzog, the new ideal of the real man.
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January 14th, 2010 by Nagypál Tamás
Film a mexikói határ mentén tanyát vert három sorozatgyilkos ámokfutásáról; Ulli Lommel valós eseményeken alapuló DTV-horror ciklusának újabb darabja. Noha maga a rendező ezúttal nem tűnik fel, az életmű legújabb szakaszának összefoglalását kapjuk sűrített formában.
A három szociopata furcsa együttélését a szükség diktálja: egyéni tömeggyilkos ambícióik megvalósításához a munkafolyamat felosztásán keresztül visz az út.
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January 14th, 2010 by Nagypál Tamás
Confession of Love in Slumdog Millionaire
Finally, let’s look at the finale of Slumdog Millionaire and try to delineate the theatrics of the love confession it presents us with. The game show setting itself quite clearly positions the main character of the movie (Jamal) as the Nietzschean ascetic priest, performing his confessions about episodes of suffering in his past (as witnessing the death of his mother, being used as a beggar by criminals etc.) in front of an audience of believers and the representative of the big Other in the figure of show’s host. In the latter, we can witness from the start the split between subject supposed to know and not to know as he both knows all the answers and is completely ignorant about Jamal’s personal experience (of jouissance) that gives him the key to the questions. The split between subject supposed to believe and not to believe is played out as well, the latter manifested in the ruthless police interrogator while the former in his benevolent and naïve assistant. Jamal as a subject is stretched out in this matrix and is asked to confess. He does, and the excess in every one of his narrated fragment works as the driving force of the game (and the film’s plot): it helps to push forward to the next question, to a higher level. This part of the movie fits perfectly the Nietzschean model of the guilt-suffering-machine.
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January 14th, 2010 by Nagypál Tamás
Rorty’s Critique of Nietzsche
We thus can summarize Nietzsche’s critique of Strauss from a Lacanian point of view: he looks like an epigone, acts like an epigone, but don’t let that fool you, he is an epigone. It is to break out of this deadlock that Nietzsche proposes the destruction of the slave values, breaking with the machine of guilt, clearing of the air, and forgetting the baggage of the past so that new creation can be possible. Why would, however, the new values be different than the personalized master-signifiers of Strauss? Why would Nietzsche be the one with the hammer, the one with authority, which he clearly opts for, despite the ironic tone of his self-celebrating outbursts? This seems to be the gist of Richard Rorty’s liberal critique of Nietzsche. Rorty splits Nietzsche in two, fully endorsing him as poet of new metaphors, that is, his perspectivism and irony, but refusing to accept his post-belief utopia about the Übermensch:
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January 14th, 2010 by Nagypál Tamás
A ’60-as évek előtt
Ulrike Meinhof 1934-ben születik evangélikus szülők gyermekeként, akiktől puritán vallásos nevelést kap. Nővérével együtt Jénában nő fel, „kényelmes középosztálybeli” életet élve. Apja egy múzeum vezetője, a nácik hatalomra jutása után az egyházi ellenállás tagja. 1940-ben tragikus hirtelenséggel meghal rákban. Az ekkor ötéves Ulrikét nem viseli meg nagyon az eset, továbbra is élénk és eleven, szeret például fára mászni. A lányok egyedül maradnak anyjukkal, aki művészettörténetet kezd tanulni, és hogy megéljenek, kiad egy szobát egy 19 éves diáknak, Renate Riemecknek, akit a gyerekek hamar megkedvelnek, amolyan második édesanyjuk lesz. A háború alatt titokban az özvegy Ingeborg Meinhof és Renate is ellenállók. 1946-ben a szocializmus elől Nyugat-Németországba, Oldenburgba költöznek mind a négyen. 1949-ban aztán rövid betegeskedés után az édesanya, Ingeborg is meghal rákban. Az árván maradt gyermekeket ezek után Renate neveli fel.
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