Bill, if the account of Abraham and Isaac is 'transparent' for you,
then I strongly encourage you to share your insight on a more
theologically inclined message board - folks who have been puzzling
for the past two millenium on the relation of sacrifice to the law as
questions (rather than simple vignette-readings of canned 'psychosis'
a la Norman Bates, of all figures) would be glad that you have arrived
with answers to their questions. I am likewise sure that figures in
the mental health community would also benefit enormously from your
thoughts on the matter.
_
On 05/04/2008, bill harris <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
>
> Hi Ken,
>
> "As the psychiatrist says...." (!?). Ah ha! You're dealing within the realm
> of prete a porter explanations: As Abe is not really crazy because we all
> know that the god he heard was real, so likewise, Bates, by contrast, is
> because the psychobabble Hitch gave us absolutely must be believed as true.
> Not.
>
> What Hitch offers the viewer is not a conclusive view of Bastes, but rather
> yet just another scene; which in this case offers us nothing but the
> received wisdom that we "want" to hear. Pursuant to "the Code", please
> remember that happy conclusions were demanded, and so received--albeit by
> those of genus with a deep sense of irony.
>
> Bates likes to kill people and also likes to dress up like momma to do it,
> yet no where in the film is Bates shown to be a potential killer. Rather,
> again, it's only a coda that pulls things together for the naïve viewer.
>
> Simply put, the world is full of people who derive pleasure from killing.
> True, the overwhelming majority of us need to be threatened with death in
> order to take a life; and the "message" from Hitch, so to speak, is
> precisely the opposite of what the foolish perceive it to be. In short
> measure, natural-born killers are among us, and we have no real way of
> determining who they might be. Moreover, if we listen to the offices of
> psychiatric medicine--thereby inferring that the emotional pain of a dead
> mother is transferred into a Thanatos of sorts which, in turn is manifested
> in the subject's taking on her identity, blah, blah, then we're totally
> screwed. Lesson one of The Hitch is never listen to authority.
>
> In the simplest of language, ignoring society's number one rule for the sake
> of personal pleasure is about as Nietzschean as one can get.  The cross
> dressing falls into that category, too; but cannot predict homicide any more
> than I can walk the streets and "see" which of a dozen or so young men in my
> field of vision has murdered women and children in Iraq. What we might only
> infer is that there's a sense of personal freedom in cross-dressing that,
> perhaps expresses itself in other ways ofr the homicidally-inclined. Cimino,
> surely, would deduct that those who enjoy killing deer have no real
> objection to going to Vietnam.
>
> Abe is different. He hears voices. better the lone psychopath than the
> millions who have heard the resonance of our semitic godfather.
>
> Bill Harris
>
>
>
>
> From: Ken Mogg
>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2008 2:21 AM
> Subject: Re: Bill Harris's post 'Re: Last-minute rescue'
>
> On Sat, 5 Apr 2008 00:02:43 -0500, bill harris <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >When people add "Voice of god" to their inner repertoire they're just
> offering a cover story; which is to say that Bates, indeed, was god-like in
> his non-Abrahamic refusal to do so. To trot out another Philosopher of
> record, then, it would seem as if Bates were the Nietzschean hero who
> refuses the supernatural crutch; thereby taking full responsibility for the
> delusional life.
>
> Hi again Bill.  Norman Bates god-like and/or an exemplary Nietzschean?
> That's a new one!  There ARE Nietzschean aspirants in Hitchcock (e.g., in
> ROPE and perhaps in VERTIGO), whom the respective films pretty much put in
> their place by the end (as I said the birds do to the humans in THE BIRDS),
> but Norman Bates is an absolute parody of such a being.  I do in fact see
> Norman as a parody of a 'tragic hero' or even of Napoleon (the film's
> reference to the 'Eroica' Symphony).  At the end, as he sits contemplatively
> in his cell and intones (in Mother's voice), 'He wouldn't even harm a fly',
> the moment parodies both Buddhism and 'all passion spent', to quote the last
> line of Milton's poetic tragedy 'Samson Agonistes'.  Despite the 'blinding'
> imagery in the film, Norman is not Samson, blinded by his enemies and
> extracting a terrible revenge.  Norman is a nut-case.
>
> However, a related matter:
>
> >As far as your pan-archetypes go, perhaps I might delicately mention that
> we're talking here of murder; so no, I don't consider life-taking to fall
> within the same genre as professor, husband, father [i.e., role-playing].
>
> I meant of course, Norman as an 'archetype' of the human situation, but in
> extremis (the archetype, not the human situation).  This is the lesson,
> after all, of Raymond Bellour's celebrated essay on PSYCHO, "Psychosis,
> neurosis, perversion".  The film begins in normality, and ends with Norman
> ('Nor man nor woman' perhaps?  Or simply 'Not normal'?).
>
> Norman is a psychotic, the most extreme point of the spectrum that includes
> LESS extreme instances of deception and perversion and lust and aberrant
> behaviour (we meet four of them in the realty office at the start: impetuous
> Marion, soon to steal $40,000; timid Caroline, who took sleeping-pills on
> her wedding night; affable Lowery, who keeps a bottle of liquor hidden in
> his desk; and sleazy Cassidy, who defrauds the tax people and covets a dirty
> weekend with Marion).
>
> Norman is a role-player, too.  As the psychiatrist says, 'When reality came
> too close' he dressed up, even wearing a cheap wig of female hair.
>
> >Epistemologically, this is to say that at a certain point symbolic
> interactionism loses its ability to coherently describe the world, thereby
> becoming nonsense.
>
> The alternative to 'symbolic interactionism' is, I take it, good healthy sex
> (or even one of Cassidy's dirty weekends)?
>
> In Abraham's day, they didn't have the Pill.  Could that have been how all
> the 'nonsense' got started?
>
> I'm (at least half-) serious!
>
> - Ken M
> http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~muffin/news-home_c.html
>
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