Sunday, March 1, 2015
Revolt Kristeva
From my understanding of the text the author is discussing the way revolt has been and the way that revolt in becoming. Revolts in the past have been rooted in the need for new dogmas to replace old ones and have had political implications. The new revolt, to my understanding, is actually a revolt from facing evil. Kristeva explains this through the analysis of adolescence, where she states that in adolescence one tries to break the Oedipal tensions by following a pleasure that has absolute satisfaction. the adolescent becomes either radically idealistic or falls to a state of nihilism, choosing not to see evil and good in order to ignore evil. This is called extreme evil, "In addition to this type of evil, however, there is an extreme evil, which
sweeps away the meaning of the distinction between good and evil and
thereby destroys the possibility of accessing the other’s existence, meaning,
and self." (Kristeva 18) through this nihilism or blind idealism the adolescent does not recognize the values that exist by proxy of there being other beings and therefore becomes a force that excludes or harms.The only way out of this is through rational thought and questioning the roles of some grand other in ones life.
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Your interpretation of the text is insightful and brings to light ideas I had not thought of before. You claim that the new revolt is "actually a revolt from facing evil," yet ultimately in this revolt, adolescents become nihilist and do not face anything. I wonder if the adolescents knew that their initial revolt would result in one of two extremes, whether they would continue with the "new" revolt or stick to the old one, simply accepting that they may come face-to-face with evil at some point. I am a little bit confused how this idea of old vs. new revolt would translate to a different example beyond adolescence. It seems that any age could participate in a revolt from facing evil, is Kristeva claiming that the only force strong enough to inspire such a revolt is one rooted in breaking Oedipal tensions? I think the text was a little unclear on this point, so I applaud you for tackling one of the more difficult points in the article.
ReplyDeleteRevolt from facing evil? I like the direction you took Kristeva's article with. I never thought about it as a fight between good and evil where the ultimate wrong is to ignore that evil exists. This bring me back to Tuana's taxonomy of Epistemology of Ignorance and the "loving" and "willful" ignorance where the perpetrator ignores their ignorance and following oppressive tendencies either because they think they know better or a will to turn a blind eye due to conflicting interests. All of this could be tied to racism exhibited within the US, where many seek to ignore evil by saying that it no longer exists- willful ignorance if there ever was any. I appreciate your interpretation, as it is very thought provoking and ties in nicely with all of the topics and themes we have discussed and read.
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