Barbarism Today II

Michel Henry and the Language of Life

“Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men who have barbarian souls.” -Heraclitus, DK107.

I. Phénoménologie de la Vie

Michel Henry’s diagnosis of the modern world is severe. In 1987’s La Barbarie, we read:

“for the first time in the history of mankind, knowledge and culture diverge, to the point of opposing each other in a gigantic confrontation, a fight to the death.” (Henry, La Barbarie. Translations from the French are my own)

Henry speaks of barbarism; the condition of life turning against Life. But what is Life? And what does it mean for life to turn against Life?

From the perspective of a phenomenology, the study of phenomena, the study of how things reveal themselves, Life is the absolute a priori. A thing is seen here, I intend towards another thing there, a feeling arises in response to this, a thought arises in response to that. I am aware of all these phenomena, by way of the intentionality of consciousness. But, says Henry, we can only see things, if prior to seeing them, we are already in possession of the capacity to see. And furthermore, we could only see, if we are able to feel this seeing. I can doubt that I am seeing (perhaps I am hallucinating, in a simulation, etc.), but I cannot doubt that I feel myself seeing. “Sentimus nos videre”, as Descartes writes, “it feels to us that we see.” All intentionality, all intending towards anything whatsoever, is only possible, because prior to such intentionality, we feel ourselves feeling.

It is this primal capacity to feel ourselves feeling, seeing, walking, thinking, etc. that is the basis of all real experience. No phenomena could reveal themselves, if we didn’t already posses the capacity to reveal these phenomena, before any particular revealing whatsoever. I can only feel the rays of the sun, if prior to feeling them, I am already in possession of this capability of feeling. Not a feeling of any thing in particular, but the mere fact that I feel myself feeling. That is, the mere fact that I am alive. It is this quality of feeling ourselves feeling, of which we have a knowledge more intimate than any other knowledge whatsoever, that Henry calls Life, known through affectivity. And for Henry, any phenomenology must necessarily be a phenomenology of Life. For things only reveal themselves in and by Life. It is only in the presence of my feeling myself feeling, my subjectivity, that phenomena can be revealed to me. And it is because of this ‘I feel myself feeling’, that phenomena are revealed to me. Life, the phenomenological absolute.

I say of myself and my family, that we are alive. I say of an animal in the forest, that it is alive. Of this table in front of me, I do not say this. Of this computer in front of me, I do not say this. Why? Because I believe these latter things to not possess the capacity to feel, they do not have the capacity to feel themselves feeling. There is an impact on my computer when I type on it, but this computer does not feel my fingers touching it. It might register my typing, but it does not feel it. The computer is a dead object.

This is then Life, the simple capacity to feel ourselves feeling, affectivity, undone from any particular object felt, the phenomenological absolute. This intimate knowledge of Life, is prior to all other knowledge. Before I am able to know this object in front of me, I must be aware of its presence, I must feel its presence. But this is only possible, because I, as the capability to feel myself feeling, am already present, because I am already alive. Life, this is the first known before any knowing, this is the phenomenological absolute, the essence of manifestation. No phenomena could reveal itself, could come into presence, if Life was not already present with itself.

In Plato’s Charmides, we read:

“when a person has a knowledge which knows itself, then I imagine he will be a person who knows himself.” (Plato, Charmides, 169e).

This is exactly what Henry means; no thing could be known, if prior to this knowing, we didn’t already have “a knowledge which knows itself.” And it is because we have this knowledge, that we are “a person who knows himself.” For it is through this self-knowing in affectivity, that we are revealed to ourselves. And it is this self-knowing in affectivity, this auto-affection, this self-revealing, that constitutes who we are. We are nothing but this capacity to feel ourselves feeling. Michel Henry tries to show, that if there were no such self-knowing in the immediacy of auto-affection, there would be no possible way in which we’d know ourselves. We would know ourselves only as objects, in the same manner that I know this computer in front of me. But evidently, this is not the case. This ipseity that I am, is revealed to myself in an entirely different manner, than this computer is revealed to me. I am revealed to myself subjectively, as life, and in life.

In characterizing Life in this manner, phenomenologically, Henry opposes himself against most modern, scientific and philosophical, ways of conceptualizing life. When studying an organism under a microscope, the scientist looking at it claims it is alive when it possesses a few qualities; it is moving, it has respiration, it has a pulse, etc. But this is not Life for Henry, for Life is the pre-condition of all looking whatsoever. Life is not a thing, that can be present or not. Life is the pre-condition for all presence whatsoever, as it is that which makes all things come into presence. This is then Life, not an abstract quality that can be present or not, depending on the definition of ‘life’ we use, but the pre-condition for all postulation of presence or definition. Philosophers that postulate some principle of life in matter, a ‘vital’ principle, are equally deceived. For they seek life out there in the world, not realizing, that life is the subjectivity that is doing the seeking.

Contemporary problems, such as ‘when does the child stop being a collection of dead molecules and start being alive’?, are nonsensical from the perspective of a phenomenology of Life. For we see Life as a ‘thing’ that can come into presence or not, we seek to find Life out there, in the womb investigated through technology, and depending on the definition of Life we use, we say whether it is present or not. ‘Does it show this or that vital sign?’ If these things are present, then it is alive. If these things are not present, then it is not alive. It is the same with other phenomena we experience. Sickness is not denominated by the feeling that we have of feeling at a low or painful vibration, such as we experience when we ‘feel sick.’ No, sickness is denominated when our experience corresponds with a few abstract criteria, ‘symptoms’, written down in a diagnostic manual somewhere. What is common to these ways of thinking, is an unawareness of what Henry calls the ‘duality of appearing.’ All phenomena, appear to us in two manners. As a ‘thing’ out there, and as internal states of Life. When I feel ‘sick’, there might be external manifestations of this; I look tired, I have this or that physical symptom. But besides this, I have the feeling of sickness. I know the sickness, externally through being aware of symptoms, and I know it internally, through feeling myself sick. Our modern scientific way of knowing is completely unaware of this internal way of appearing, and in its worst manifestations even sees it as an illusion. Only in the parlance of everyday peoples does this internal appearing survive; “I feel sick.” But even here it disappears, as we are being told increasingly, that we should not listen to this feeling. We no longer feel sick or healthy, we reason that we are sick or healthy when certain theoretical criteria apply to our condition as it is externally manifested. Or even worse, we are no longer sick or healthy when we feel sick or healthy, but when we are told that we are sick or healthy, regardless of our experience. This occluding of our connection to internal appearing, leads to all sorts of idiocies. People will feel really sick, but go to work anyway, because ‘the test was negative.’ People will feel really sick, but ‘nothing is going on, because the doctor couldn’t find anything.’ It is not so much that we are no longer aware of internal appearing, you cannot decide yourself out of feeling (for you are nothing else than this feeling of feeling), but you can stop listening to this internal appearing, and deem external appearing as the only veritable appearing. The result is a tortured existence, that listens only to what is externally manifested and grasped through the theoretical gaze, but no longer to itself as this primal capacity to feel oneself feeling. This is where we are, barbarism: a life cut of from itself, looking only at the world, failing to listen to itself.

II. Life turning against life

A simple fact of life: Life, before anything else. Yet, Henry diagnoses our time as one of barbarism; the turning of life against Life. We, living beings, have turned against Life. Why? Because we have lost sight of this Life, no longer knowing it. How could we no longer know, the most evident, the most present, of facts? It is a human, and especially philosophical, tendency, to always go forth, to search for more complex types of knowledge, and thus forget the most basic of truths. In doing so, man has sought to know the world. He has sought to gain increasingly objective, and increasingly complex knowledge of the universe outside of him, thereby failing to notice simply that he is alive. As Descartes says: these philosophers, they are so ‘smart’, that they don’t even know that they themselves exist. They know so much, but they do not know the one who is doing the knowing. Henry states that the majority of Western thought is marked by ‘Ontological Monism.’ Such a monism states that what is known, is what is known in front of us. What can be known, is what can be seen in the light of the world, the Greek phenomenon. This manner of knowing has offered many results, as evident from the advancements in the sciences and technology. Following these advancements, the conviction arises in us, that if this type of ‘objective’ knowledge produces so many results, then it must be the best type of knowledge. And soon, one even forgets that there is another type of knowing; the knowing of Life in the intimacy of feeling oneself feeling. One denies this intimate subjective knowing, that consists in the experience of subjectivity experiencing itself. One only knows the world, and no longer knows that this knowledge of the world would be impossible, if we were not first in the possibility to feel, if we were not first alive. We grasp what is manifested before us, but not ourselves: the essence of manifestation. This condition is theoretical barbarism, which Henry defines as ‘life turning against itself.’ A living being, a philosopher for example, in his thinking, denies that life exists.

III. Barbarism, barbarians

Barbarism, this is our condition. But what is barbarism? A barbarian, βάρβαρος, barbaros, is a foreign person, as opposed to a “citizen.” A barbarian is a foreigner, as opposed to someone who belongs to the city. An uncivilized or uncultured person, as opposed to someone who enjoys civilization or culture. A barbarian is someone who does not speak the language of the polis, he ‘babbles.’ And because he does not speak the language, he cannot be veritably said to speak at all. It is a being lacking Logos. Logos, which also means the ability to know oneself, or perhaps even self-knowing knowing itself.

The barbarian lacks reason and speech. And thus, he cannot be a veritable person. At least, not a veritable person from the view-point of the dominant opinions of the city. We must admit, the accusation of barbarism is largely contingent on the culture which voices the accusation. As such, for the Greeks, the non-Greeks were barbarians. But perhaps equally, the Greeks were barbarians from the viewpoint of the ‘barbarians.’

Michel Henry diagnoses modern culture as barbaric, from the viewpoint of his philosophy of Life. But from the viewpoint of this modern culture, Henry is the barbarian. Perhaps, this latter diagnosis is more faithful to the etymology. The accusation of barbarism was always voiced from the perspective of a dominant culture. It is because the Greeks were many and connected through one dominant culture, that they could call those individual groups that fell outside of this culture barbarians. It is because we, as many, have one shared language, that we can call barbaric those who speak not like us. The barbarian is he who falls outside of what is common, outside of what is law. There is here much connection to the notion of idiōtēs, the individual who lives singularly, not by way of what is shared and common. For this notion of idiōtēs, see my earlier post:

Tólma

IDIŌTĒS

I. The solitary Our word ‘idiot’ originates from the Greek Idiōtēs, which in its most basic form means as much as that which is peculiar to itself, that which distinguishes something from everything else. Idiōtēs is that which makes something singular and unique, as opposed to common and shared. Idiōtēs is what is singular, as opposed to what is regular…

3 years ago · 1 like · Tólma

But for someone to fall outside of what is common, there must be something that is common: the dominant culture. Hence, from the perspective of contemporary culture, Michel Henry and the phenomenology of Life, are barbarian.

Let us remind ourselves of the defining characteristics of a barbaros: he doesn’t speak the common language, and more broadly, he is not in possession of Logos. He does not reason. Is this not eerily close to how the phenomenology of Life positions itself vis-à-vis the barbarism of today? The phenomenology of Life does not speak the language of today; the language of signs and symbols, the language of science, the language of the metaverse, the language of abstraction, not even the language of reason.

In a modern definition from an American dictionary, a barbarian is defined as someone who has no experience in the habits and culture of modern life, and whose mode of living is therefore considered as offensive. The example is given of someone who doesn’t know how to use a computer. But what is meant here with ‘culture’? Surely not what Henry means with culture. For Henry, a culture is always a culture of Life, in the double sense of ‘of Life’. It are living subjectivities that express themselves through culture, and what this culture seeks to express, is life. We, the living, are alive. We know this through the most intimate and absolute knowledge that we have, the primal feeling of ourselves feeling. This Life, we express through culture. Thus, as Henry states, “there is no culture of computers.”(Henry, La Barbarie, 5). For the simple fact that a computer does not feel itself feeling. Leaving aside that the over-use of computers can have a detrimental effect on subjectivity’s capability to express its own life, and even on its ability to acknowledge its own life. From the perspective of a phenomenology of Life, what our ‘culture’ calls culture, is precisely barbarism, it is no culture at all.

Furthermore, Henry positions himself violently against the dominance of reason over feeling. The phenomenology of Life speaks not in abstraction or representation, it speaks the language of Life. It admits of a knowledge, that is not the knowledge of thought knowing what is other than itself, but consists in the primal fact of feeling ourselves feeling. It admits of a knowledge, that is not objective, but subjective. And from the viewpoint of modern life, having lost sight of Life altogether, the speech of the phenomenology of Life is nothing but a babbling, a monstrous speech, signifying nothing, pointing nowhere, and coming from nowhere. For it precisely aims to signify nothing, it seeks to point nowhere else than to itself, and it comes from now-here. It has no root, in the world, in the languages of the peoples of the world, or in the languages of science or technology. And for modern culture, which only knows the existence of these latter languages, it is no language at all. From the viewpoint of modern culture, the language of Life is blind, stupid, ‘barbaric.’ The phenomenology of Life has no external goal, but only seeks itself, and it seeks not to designate the other through what is other, but only seeks to express itself through itself.

An important part of the original sense of ‘barbarian’, is the lacking of Logos, which also signifies the possibility of knowing oneself. In this sense, Henry is right in designating our culture as one of barbarism. So enamoured by the world and our ways of knowing the world, we fail to know ourselves. But if the ‘barbarism’ of today lacks Logos, then what is this Logos that it lacks? If it is not the Logos of theoretical and objective knowledge, the Logos that explicates itself in the sciences, and by way of which we grasp the world?

IV. Le Dire primitif

What is this foreign language, this ‘barbaric’ Logos? What is the language of the phenomenology of Life? Phrasing this question in this manner leads us on the wrong path. For there is no language of Life, only the language that is Life. And there is no phenomenology of Life, but Life is phenomenology. That is, Life is the manner in which phenomenality explicates itself, the manner in which phenomenality narrates itself. Life is the way in which phenomenality is known. And this way, is Life. How so?

When we say ‘phenomenology of language’, this can be understood in two senses. In the one, phenomenology is seen as a certain method of inquiry, and in the phenomenology of language, this method is applied to a specific object of inquiry: language. (Henry, Phénoménologie matérielle et langage, 325). Because phenomenology is then a method that can be applied to language, it can also be applied to other things; the body, emotions, the other, etc. We have the phenomenology of the body, the phenomenology of emotions, the phenomenology of language, etc. Phenomenology is a method of looking at different phenomena, a method that is autonomous vis-à-vis its specific object, but that lends its method in part from the object in question.

But, is phenomenology such a method? Or rather, the elimination of all method? In Being and Time, Heidegger tells us that phenomenology is not “a stand-point”, not “any special ‘direction’” of looking at phenomena. (Heidegger, Being and Time, §7) The phenomenon is merely that which appears into view. The function of the λόγος (Logos) in phenomeno-logy, lies in merely letting something be seen, in letting entities be perceived (Being and Time §7). Phenomenology is then not a method applied to an object of inquiry, rather, it is the manner in which anything whatever appears. It is the letting-be-perceived of appearing itself, regardless of the specificity of the object. As Heidegger tells us, phenomenology is

“to let that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself.” (Being and Time §7)

It is not the application of a certain method onto appearing, it is not an exercising of control on appearing. It is first and foremost an abiding, a letting-go of control, in order that appearing might be given the freedom to show itself by way of itself.

From this perspective, what is signified by the expression ‘phenomenology of language’?

If there is, as Heidegger claims, a way in which appearing shows itself by itself, in which it explicates itself by itself, then this explicating is what is meant by the language of phenomenology. The Logos in phenomenology is then, the manner in which phenomenality reveals itself, the way in which appearing makes itself known. There is thus both the phenomenology of language, and the language of phenomenology. There is phenomenology applied to language. And there is the language in which phenomenality ‘speaks.’

The phenomenology of language that Henry is interested in, is then about this, the way in which phenomenality speaks to us by itself, unconcerned for our own particular methods or languages with which we might choose to interpret particular phenomena. It is the Logos by which appearing appears, the language in which appearing makes itself intelligible.

When Henry speaks of Logos in the phenomenology of Life, he is referring to the manner in which appearing appears, the manner in which appearing makes itself known. And how does appearing appear for the phenomenology of Life? Precisely, appearing appears in and by Life. It is in Life that all appearing whatsoever takes place, and it is because of this Life that all appearing whatsoever appears. This Life, known in the most intimate knowledge that we have of our own subjectivity, our own feeling of ourselves feeling, that explicates itself by itself. It is the manner in which this Life reveals itself, that Henry designates as the Logos of Life, the “Primal Saying.” How is Life said? How does Life reveal itself? It reveals itself in this feeling of ourselves feeling that is the precondition for all other appearing whatsoever, this auto-affection of life affecting itself. We read:

“the Primal Saying thus never occurs from the side of what is said, that is, from what is shown. Rather, it is that which shows.” (Henry Phénoménologie matérielle et langage, 327)

Thus, when Henry uses ‘Logos’, he does so in a peculiar manner, strange to the common usage as either the inherent order of the universe, or the rationality of human thought. Henry is not interested in the order of the universe, nor in the order of thought, but in the manner in which phenomenological Life reveals itself.

There are thus two types of ‘Logos’. There is a transcendent Logos, and an immanent Logos. (Henry, L’Essence de la Manifestation, 711). There is the transcendent Logos, the way in which the world becomes intelligible to us, and there is immanent Logos, the way in which Life speaks to us. For Life is no mere blind process, it speaks to us. Life speaks to us, and not only to signal its own being, to have us love it, to have us abide in it. It speaks to us very concretely, at every single point of our being, to guide us, or to punish us when we do not listen to it. I go through my day, and the feeling of hunger arises in me. How is this thing, ‘hunger’, revealed to me? There are no words involved, I don’t have to think to know that I am hungry, no one has to tell me that I am hungry. I don’t have to cut open my stomach to see if it requires food. No, hunger is simply revealed to me in my feeling of myself feeling hungry. This is Life, signalling to me, helping me, telling me that I need food. In this way, Life, as this intimate knowledge of our feeling ourselves feeling, speaks to us continuously. When I am not living life as I should, I might come to feel depressed. This ‘feeling depressed’, is Life telling me that I need to change my life. When I hurt someone, I might feel guilt, this is Life telling me, to change my ways. Life is this teacher looking out for us, telling us all we need to know to go through life. But Life can be an unforgiving teacher, not afraid to punish us when we refuse to listen. When I act in a manner detrimental to the flourishing of Life, to life expressing itself to greater and greater degrees, Life gives me pain. When I eat a harmful food, I might feel discomfort, but I can ignore it, and eat the food again and again, refusing to listen to the increasing discomfort. After a while, I develop an illness. Why? Because I didn’t listen to life. In this manner, Life speaks to us very concretely, and its manner of revealing is not a blind process, but a veritable immanent Logos, a real speaking. The transcendent Logos by which we grasp external manifestation is a helpful tool to better understand what Life is saying to us, but without it, we are not blind barbarians, for we are already in the possession of the Logos that is Life. This is then the basis for the designation of ‘barbarism’ given by both Henry and the barbarism of today. The latter speaks; ‘you are a barbarian because you do not know science or how to use a computer’. Henry replies: ‘no, you are a barbarian, for so occupied with your transcendent Logos, you have forgotten the most important and primordial Logos of all, Life.’ And this immanent Logos can veritably be said to be most important, for it is the Logos by which we come to be revealed to ourselves, and it is the Logos that guides us through this life that we live, by telling us continuously, what to avoid, and what to pursue. If we return to our example of life speaking to us concretely, imagine a very skilled biologist, someone who knows everything there is to know about how the human body works. But, this person never listens to his own experience, to his own feeling. He knows everything there is to know about the heart, but he fails to listen when his heart repeatedly signals to him that something is wrong, and eventually he gets heart disease. This is the sort of stupidity of modern barbarism that Henry speaks about. This is what happens when, so enamoured by what is to be found out there with the transcendent Logos, we fail to realize that this transcendent Logos is rooted in an immanent Logos.

There is, of course, the problem of deception. I can feel a certain pain in my chest, and conclude it is a symptom of heart-disease, while in reality nothing is going on. But, this feeling of pain itself, is as truthful as truth can be. It is only in my interpretation of it, that I am deceived. It is because I thought that the pain was because of heart-disease that I was deceived. It could have just been that I ate the wrong food, or that I imagined it entirely. In which case, the pain was still speaking to me truthfully, that I ate the wrong food, or that I imagined it, I just failed to understand. As Henry says:

“Illusion or error always finds itself beyond the sensation, in the interpretation given to it by thought. What we call false or illusory sensations, are only sensations wrongly understood.” (Henry, L’Essence de la Manifestatoin, 710)

We say the senses deceive us, but in reality, we deceive ourselves. And very often, this deception happens because we are too invested in the transcendent Logos of thought, and are listening too little to the immanent Logos of feeling. If I have a pain in my chest, and conclude it is because of heart-disease, while in reality it is because I ate some wrong food, I deceive myself because I think I know the cause better than my own feeling. And when I imagine the pain entirely, I am fully to blame, for I myself completely manifested the pain by way of my thought.

V. Language of the World, language of Life

Henry says barbarism. Why? Because barbaras, because what we witness is foreign to Life. Yet, paradoxically, barbarism finds its origin in Life. Barbarism is life turning away from itself, turning away from its own proper language, unable to let itself receive its grace. Barbarism, seeking to impose a language, a mode of revealing, on Life, a mode of revealing that is foreign to the language of Life. Seeking to embrace a Logos, that is foreign to the primal Logos of Life. And in doing so, the barbarian, because he lacks the knowledge of Life, is unable to know himself. So caught up in our complex theories, so caught up with our shiny technologies, trying to know how the universe works, that we fail to know ourselves, that we fail to realize that we know ourselves, before any particular knowing. In Life, a language is always a mode in which life reveals itself, it is a manner in which life is lived by the living. Barbarism, is precisely a mode of living foreign to Life. A mode of living, that is barely alive at all. Not because it is not Life, but because it lives in such a weak manner, in a manner so destructive to itself, in a manner barely expressive of any life at all, that it is barbaric.

Hence, as the Greeks would say, it is not that the barbarian is not alive, but he lives in such an inferior manner, in such a slavish manner, that it can barely be called living at all. The life of those living barbarism today, live in a manner that is barely expressive of Life. But, from the perspective of this barbarism, it must be that those who do speak the language of Life, sound like barbarians. What they witness being said, sounds so foreign, so unexpressive of any reality, because they do not have any knowledge of Life. One cannot know what one doesn’t know to exist, what one doesn’t recognize. The phenomenology of Life speaks of life, but modern barbarism hears nothing, but the ‘bla bla’ of the barbarian, it recognizes nothing in the Primal Saying of Life. We speak of barbarism, to a culture that sees us as barbarians. It is a matter of perspective; from the perspective of Life, modern ‘culture’ is barbarism. But from the perspective of this barbarism, those who speak of Life are barbarians, their voices only sounding like regression, and violence to the values of today.

It is perhaps instinct, to perceive what one doesn’t know, as dangerous. But why do they not hear? Why does our ‘knowledge-economy’ not have knowledge of the language of Life? For, as the phenomenology of Life tells us, there is nothing but Life and its Primal Saying. It is the presupposition of all forms of knowing whatsoever, including the knowing which barbarism engages in. Turning against Life, presupposes Life. The language of Life is occluded, but it is present underneath, necessarily. Barbarism is born out of a turning away from Life, or rather, it is a turning away from Life. But why, would a life seek to turn away from Life? Why would a life seek to turn away from its own essence? Henry claims that, because all forms of knowing, and all forms of living, are born out of Life, we must explain the turning-away from within Life. That is, it cannot be a contingent turn of events that has lead the living away from Life, it must be a decision of a life itself that has lead to barbarism. In its most primal transcendental being, a life is nothing but the undergoing of Life. Life itself is a self-undergoing, an auto-affection, out of which a life is given its transcendental birth.

Before we feel some-thing, we must be in the possession of a feeling ourselves feeling, auto-affection. In this process of auto-affection to which the living are subjected, and in which the living are revealed to themselves, in this feeling of feeling itself, Life goes through its primal modalities of feeling, in an ever-changing alteration. These modalities are joy and suffering. From the greatest joys Life auto-affects, it flows into the greatest sufferings. And from the greatest sufferings, into the greatest joys again. In our deepest essence, we are nothing but this Life itself, auto-affecting itself, undergoing itself, ‘Suffering’ itself. Pure feeling, feeling itself, pure and real immanence. Real, because this is not the postulated immanence of some outside, or of the ‘real’. These postulated immanences always already presuppose the immanence of Life, out of which such a transcendent immanence can be postulated. If immanence is postulated, it has ceased being immanent. For all postulation, is already a departing from the immanence of Life. Before we can posit that being is immanent, there is already the immanence of Life, that makes possible any positing whatsoever.

But all is not said with this immanence of Life, for we all experience ourselves as separate ego’s, not being the undergoing of Life undergoing itself, but separate ‘things’ that undergo Life as something separate from ourselves. Somewhere in the auto-affection of Life itself, an ego is generated, an ego is brought forth which can see itself as separate from Life. And when such an ego sees itself as separate, in it arises the thought that it might be possible to turn away from Life completely. In it, arises the possibility of turning towards the World, and away from Life. This is the primal emergence of barbarism. Barbarism does not want to undergo Life, for it is suffering, and so it chooses to want what is not living instead. It chooses to not want to feel the primal Suffering that is the undergoing of the joy and suffering of Life, it chooses to not feel at all. Of course, if barbarism were consistent, it would proceed to suicide. But barbarism is incapable of consistency, for it is built on the false belief that it is separate from Life, and that it can thus live a life without Life. It believes it can build a life, in which there is no Life. A life, in which there is no suffering. This is the life of barbarism. It is a utopian project, to be sure, it is the project of a life that thinks it can have joy, without suffering. It is a life that thinks it can have the joy of living, without needing to undergo the Suffering of Life. From this, all sorts of projects are born; the most striking in our time perhaps being the project of trans-humanism. A life without that which makes it living —the feeling of itself feeling— this is what calls itself post-human. It sees itself as an improvement on the human, for from the internal logic of barbarism, what doesn’t feel, is preferred over what feels. But what doesn’t feel itself feeling, is dead. The post-human, announcing itself as an improvement on life, is merely the announcement of death within life.

’Truth is in the objective, error and delusion are in the subjective’; theoretical barbarism. We are beings who value knowledge above all else, who seek what is real before anything else. And thus, if subjectivity is seen as an illusion, subjectivity must be done with. A life, that because it thinks itself as an ego separate from life, thinks it has the capability to decide on its suffering and joy for itself. A life, that thinks it can eliminate the suffering, and live only in joy, not seeing that the one does not exist without the other. A life, that refuses to listen to what Life tells it.

This primal urge to escape Life, is as old as life itself. But the contemporary form of it, that seeks to escape Life through the means of science and technology, emerges with Galileo. For Henry, Galileo was the first to postulate that what is most real and most certain is not our subjectivity experiencing the world, but this world itself. Galileo knew, that if one observes experience deeply, one notices, sooner or later, that the sensible qualities of things, are not in the things themselves, but are projected onto them by us. This coffee just is, I taste it. This sun just is, I feel its rays on my skin. All that makes life living, is made living by the living. There is no (subjective) life in the world, but only in us. This was no new observation, but Galileo’s importance lies in that he was the first to postulate that this living quality, this subjectivity, is less real than the things themselves. Through the scientific method, Galileo saw that the things could be grasped through mathematical idealities, and he was the first to postulate that these idealities were more real than the subjectivity that is the pre-condition for creating these idealities in experience. As such, for Henry, with Galileo the primal urge for barbarism finds its way into the ways of knowing of man.

In Galileo, there is an interesting difference with Descartes, another thinker whom we often blame for our own inability to know anything but dead matter. Descartes, too, saw that the world could be grasped through mathematical idealities. And Descartes, too, believed this to be a worthwhile pursuit, which could lead to all sorts of advancements in physics, medicine, etc. But for Descartes, the possibility of such knowledge, never occluded the knowledge of Life which lies in subjectivity. Why? When we look at Descartes’ most physical works, such as Le Monde or L’Homme, his discussion is always introduced as a ‘fable.’ Whatever we postulate about the world outside of us, including our body as a ‘machine’ separate from our awareness of it (and not as a living thing), is always just a useful fiction. A model, an approximation, for grasping reality. But this model, is never as certain as the subjective knowledge that we have of life, and it can thus never be called more real than the subjective knowledge that we have of life; the knowledge of the Cogito, or the intuitive feeling of the union of Mind and Body. I can doubt everything, including my theoretical models about the world, but I cannot doubt that I doubt. I can doubt everything, everything is dubious, we are not sure of anything being real, but we are sure of ourselves in the immediate ‘awareness’ that we have of ourselves feeling ourselves feeling. “Sentimus nos videre.” With Descartes, scientific-mathematical method remains a method, which can aid a life to lead a better life. Scientific-mathematical knowledge can be used to know more about the body, and thus lead to experiencing more health for the subjectivity that decides to use the scientific-mathematical method. It is with Galileo, that the scientific-mathematical method ceases being just a method for subjectivity to intensify its life. With Galileo, the belief is born, that what is discovered through scientific method is more real, more certain, and more important, than the subjective knowledge we have of our own subjective experience. And in a next step, the belief is born, that what we call our own I, our own subjectivity, is nothing but an illusion, created out of the interactions of dead matter.

It was a conscious choice, to value method more than life. If we listen to Henry, we must seek out what it was in life that made Galileo make this decision. The turning against life by a life, must be explained from within the feeling of itself feeling of this life itself. What was it, for Galileo, in his feeling of himself feeling, that made him turn against this feeling? What made him see his own theoretical models as more real, and more valuable, than the life that brought forward these models to begin with? What was it, that made him value his theoretical models more, than himself? What made him trust his own models more, than himself? We cannot look into Galileo’s soul, but in our questioning, we have become clearer on what happens in barbarism, on what happens in the turning of life against itself.

1) What is discovered through scientific method is seen as more real than the subjectivity carrying out the method.

2) This is so, because method is trusted more than the knowledge that one has of oneself.

3) Because scientific method is seen as leading to truth, subjectivity comes to be seen as an illusion. Subjectivity gets in the way of knowledge.

4) Our models are no longer what deceive us, as they were with Descartes, it is now we ourselves that deceive our models.

Following Henry, we must make sure that in this process, we start with the feeling of oneself feeling, with the Primal Suffering of Life and its primal modalities; joy and suffering. Thus, we cannot say, that scientific method is discovered, and that through rational deliberation, the choice is made that the knowledge of scientific method is just more veritable and trustworthy than the knowledge of life. For this is an impossibility; before we know anything else, we feel ourselves feeling. Coming to see this feeling as less certain than what is discovered by this feeling departing into the world, is ludicrous. It cannot be explained through a thinking that seeks out certainty. For reasoning from an order of absolute certainty, it is fully evident that we are more certain of our awareness of ourselves feeling, than that we are of the existence of what this awareness discovers in the world. We can doubt the latter, and the former will remain. But if we doubt the former, everything dissipates. And thus, there must be a modality of feeling, that decides on this choice. It is thus not, that life is depreciated because of deliberation. No, it is because life is depreciated, that there is deliberated to be done with it. Likewise, it is not because one comes to trust scientific method, that one starts seeing oneself as an illusion and a thing not to be trusted. No, it is because one feels that oneself is an illusion, a thing not to be trusted, that one prefers to trust only scientific method. One doubts one’s own subjectivity, not because of theoretical deliberation, but because one has a weak subjectivity. It is a self that is so unsure of itself, that, starting from this feeling of weakness, seeks to theoretically deny itself. We must take note here, that barbarism is not the same as science. Barbarism is a mode of life, that uses science in a particular manner. It is not a confident life that uses science and tries to develop this science to its greatest degrees. It is a sick life, that out of a reaction against its own sickness, uses science to deny itself. Michel Henry is not writing against science, he is writing against barbarism. And it happens to be the case, that in our time, science is one the most common ways in which barbarism explicates itself in the philosophies of men. Whether this barbaric instinct was fully present in Galileo, I have my doubts. But it is arguable that Henry is right in pointing to him. For speaking from an order of absolute certainty, from a perspective of Cartesian doubt, it is ludicrous to posit that what one discovers through scientific method, is prior in certainty, to the one doing the discovering.

There was a confidence in oneself with Descartes, and a mistrust of the World. In Galileo, this is reversed, and a confidence in the World grows, at the cost of one’s confidence in oneself. This is the decision at the root of barbarism: the decision to trust the models we create about the world more, than ourselves. Until, in the end, one doesn’t even believe in life anymore. One sees it as an illusion, and all who speak of Life, are seen as barbarians, babblers, foreigners. It is because one no longer hears the Primal Saying of Life, the way in which Life immanently reveals itself to the living, that one sees those who speak of it as idiots, as barbarians. But if we follow Henry’s reasoning, this evaluation of those who speak of Life as barbarians, can be no neutral evaluation, born out of a purely rational deliberation. Rather, it is an evaluation born out of one’s own primal renunciation of Life, out of one’s own turning against life. This primal renunciation is the cause of turning against those who still speak of Life. It is not enough to silence the voice of Life in one’s own life, one must also silence it in everyone else’s life. If the destruction of Life, the silencing of the Primal Saying, the silencing of Life’s manner of revealing itself in the subjective feeling of oneself feeling, is the secret goal of barbarism, then this Voice must be silenced everywhere. For wherever it pops up, the possibility exists, that Life will once again find life in the living. This is where a certain ‘violence’ of barbarism arises. Barbarism seeks to turn against Life, and thus, it is not enough to mistrust one’s own subjectivity, no, everyone else has to do likewise. Barbarism soon claims, that those who trust in their own knowledge of Life more than in the World, are a danger to everyone else. Or rather, are a danger to the World, to the specific fable of mathematical-idealities in which we live, created by ego’s separated from Life. It is an illusion, that the knowledge of Life could destroy life, but this is precisely what barbarism will proclaim. For what it calls ‘life’, is not Life, but the artificial construction of an ego that sees itself as separate from Life. What it calls life, is life turning away from itself.

VI. Conclusion: Expelling the language of Life.

Why this violence against those who speak of Life? If Henry is right, this must be because barbarism recognizes in the language of Life precisely that which it has consciously decided to turn away from. When barbarism hears the phenomenology of Life, it might claim it hears only ‘bla bla’, but in fact it knows well what it hears. It hears the Primal Saying of Life itself, it hears its own innermost being, that from which it once decided to turn away. That from which it once dared to depart, and to which it fears to return once again. Fears, why? Because Life is a Suffering, an under-going, in which birth is given to the greatest joys, but also to the greatest horrors. The entire project of barbarism, the entire existence of the “barbarian souls”, is premised on the turning against Life. Its origin lies in this turning away, and its goal lies in completing this turn. Whenever such a soul sees or hears Life being spoken of by an other, its natural instinct is one of destruction. But, as Heraclitus says:

“Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men who have barbarian souls.” (Heraclitus, 107.)

For, those caught up in barbarism, see no Life, but only the World. And they hear not the language of Life, but only the language of Science. It is a soul, that doesn’t know itself. It is a soul, that has decided to turn away from the immanent Logos in which we are subjectively revealed to ourselves. What will such a soul do, when it sees Life emerging in the living who still listen to Life? These living will be seen as ‘barbarians’, foreigners, unversed in the models of barbarism’s science, the language of technology, and the images of the media; not worthy of life at all.

But why? Because one sees what it is like, to be left over to Life, the living experience in which one is condemned to undergo the greatest joys, but also the greatest sufferings, in a submission stronger than any choice whatever. Life offers us the freedom that we are as a life; it offers us the choice, to will Life, to listen to it, or to turn away from it, to will its erasure. Life offers us the choice; to be barbarians in the face of the World, or to be barbarians in the face of Life. But as much as Life is freedom, Life is also commanding. It speaks to us, and it punishes us, in the language of Life that is the Primal Saying, the most intimate feeling of ourselves feeling, in existence before the emergence of any other language whatever, knowing not of distance. In this Saying, Life commands us to listen to pain, to joy, to shame, to guilt, to love. It commands us to listen to its language, and it will destroy us if we won’t. If we choose to listen to it, it helps us. If we choose to turn away from it, it punishes us. And in those who have been punished, a resentment grows, and soon, the silent desire to be done with life. Barbarism: the desire to be done with Life, to destroy life wherever it might raise its head, to chase the ‘barbarians’ in whom Life still burns.

But, how long can one flee from oneself?

Sources:

Plato. Complete Works. Edited by John M. Cooper. Cambridge: Hackett, 1997.

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie, and Edward Robinson. Oxford: Blackwell, 1962.

Michel Henry. Phénoménologie de la vie III: De l’art et du politique. Paris: PUF, 2004.

Michel Henry. La Barbarie. Paris: PUF, 1987.

Michel Henry, L’essence de la manifestation. Paris: PUF, 1963.

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Barbarism Today II

Michel Henry and the language of Life

Barbarism Today II

Michel Henry and the Language of Life

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