DETOUR ABOUT THE VIPERS’ NEST

• Published date: 01 July 2004
• Date: 01 July 2004
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1059-4337(04)33002-4
• Pages: 25-62
• Author: Joseph Jenkins

DETOUR ABOUT THE VIPERS’ NEST

THROUGH HEGEL, ADORNO, AND

MANN’S DOCTOR FAUSTUS:

TEMPORAL VIEWS OF

SUBJECT/OBJECT CONVERGENCES

Joseph Jenkins

MAP OF THIS DETOUR

Map of this detour: This is one of a series of detours compelled by consideration

of inheritance law as an aspect of cultural transmission.1This course draws

attention to three problematic time forms (temporalities) through which the

“self” and its relations with history are often written and read. These implicit

time forms are all too common and all too easily go unrecognized. Each involves

the illusion of some kind of exalted and immediate convergence between the self

(the subject) and an object of exaggerated importance to this self (the world, the

universe, the metaphysical or artistic beyond, the origin, etc.). Three figures are

explored here: that of Hercules in Hegel’s Aesthetics, and those of Adrian and

Breisacher in Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus. Each of these invites attention to

a different temporality through which an exalted convergence may be imagined:

the first involves a fantasy of immediate belonging to the whole of history, the

second, that of escape forward from history (toward a self-created “ultimate”

Studies in Law, Politics, and Society

Studies in Law, Politics, and Society,Volume 33, 25–62

Copyright © 2004 by Elsevier Ltd.

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved

ISSN: 1059-4337/doi:10.1016/S1059-4337(04)33002-4

25

26 JOSEPH JENKINS

object), and the third, that of return to fullness in origin (before history). This

detour also suggests ways of reading history (including “reading for mana

through glances,” which will be explained) that protect against the problems just

described. The detour closes considering implications of all of the above for U.S.

inheritance law. The tutor text for this last leg is Fran¸cois Mauriac’s Le noeud

de vip`

eres.

This detour is written to be accessible to those without much experience in

critical theory. To those few for whom these courses are obvious, the goad would

be: why do you not take the next step? If these historiographical problems are

now well known to the humanities, is not current inheritance law their most

material and oppressive manifestation? Would not broader discussion of these

structural connections create enormous opportunities for non-violent social

change?

SUMMARY

I.A. Convergence Illusion Number One: Hegel’s Hercules and the Too-Tight

Suit.

I.B. Hegel’s Artistic Practice Under Modern Conditions.

I.C. Hegel’s Artistic Ideal as Reaction to Modern Alienation.

I.D. That Which is Unconcealed Through Hegel’s Artistic Practice.

II. Convergence Illusion Number Two: Adrian’s Artistic Practice in Mann’s

Doctor Faustus.

III. Convergence Illusion Number Three: Breisacher’s Myth of Fullness in

Origin.

IV.A. An Alternative Way of Reading History: Adorno and Horkheimer’s

Dialectic of Enlightenment.

IV.B. Convergence Number Four: (Re)reading For Mana Through Adrian’s

Artistic Practice.

IV.C. Comic/Mournful Illustration: The Beethoven-At-The-Doorway Story.

IV.D. Illustration of Nostalgic Passing: Kretzschmar’s Beethoven in the Latter’s

“Last Period.”

IV.E. Allegory of Relinquishment: Adorno’s “Late Style in Beethoven.”

V.A. Mauriac’s Noeud De Vip`eres As Novel Of Relinquishment.

V.B. Relinquishment and the Body.

V.C. Flickerings Beyond Direct Descent.

V.D. Dying Grasping for Epiphany.

VI. Ramifications.

Temporal Views of Subject/Object Convergences 27

I.A. CONVERGENCE ILLUSION

NUMBER ONE: HEGEL’S HERCULES

AND THE TOO-TIGHT SUIT

It is easy to be seduced by Hegel’s “artistic Ideal.” This is a figure drawn in

clear lines and bold strokes. Independent, at home where they live, heroes like

Agamemnon and Hercules fit the type. These are men of strong heart, responsible

themselves both for their needs and for their passions:

So too the heroes kill and roast their own food; they break in the horse they wish to

ride;theutensilstheyneedtheymoreorlessmakefor themselves; plough, weapons

for defence, shield, helmet, breastplate, sword, spear....In such a mode of lifeman

has the feeling, in everything he uses and everything he surrounds himself with,

that he has produced it from his own resources ...(Hegel, 1975, p. 261).

Surprising is that the first philosopher since Aristotle to think the aesthetic pri-

marily in terms of truth (in Hegel truth trumps beauty2) describes an artistic Ideal

impossible to achieve in a state like the place of his writing:

In this situation the long and complicated connection between needs and work,

interests and their satisfaction, is completely developed in all its ramifications,

and every individual, losing his independence, is tied down in an endless series of

dependences on others. His own requirements are either not at all, or only to a very

smallextent,hisownwork,and,apartfromthis, everyoneofhisactivitiesproceeds

not in an individual living way but more and more purely mechanically according

to universal norms. Therefore there now enters into the midst of this industrial

civilization, with its mutual exploitation and with people elbowing other people

aside, the harshest cruelty of poverty on the one hand ...(Hegel, 1975, p. 260).

No one is at home here, not even those who can free themselves by wealth from

immediate economic concerns (Hegel, 1975, p. 260). Hegel notes “great difficulty

and danger” (Hegel, 1975, p. 262) in artistically depicting life in such times. His

one positive example is Goethe’s Hermann and Dorothea, where family life in

the country, “productive of its needs within itself” (Hegel, 1975, p. 263), is also

concerned with “the great interests of the age, the battles of the French Revolution,

the defence of our country” (Hegel, 1975, p. 262).

Such depictions are difficult because of what Hegel’sartistic Ideal must portray.

In works of art that Hegel values most highly:

...absolute spiritual powers of life are presented in their difference from one

another and their struggle with one another. But the spiritual realm can only be