{"id":752,"date":"2016-09-23T17:24:25","date_gmt":"2016-09-23T21:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/?p=752"},"modified":"2016-09-23T17:31:29","modified_gmt":"2016-09-23T21:31:29","slug":"bernard-e-harcourt-an-epilogue-on-reparation-and-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/bernard-e-harcourt-an-epilogue-on-reparation-and-chance\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernard E. Harcourt: An Epilogue on Reparation and Chance"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bernard E. Harcourt<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reparation. Chance. Labyrinth. The insightful presentations<\/a> of Denis Hollier, Rosalind Morris, and Anthony Vidler focused our attention on these three key concepts in Bataille\u2019s writings on Nietzsche<\/a>. By reflecting more on the three concepts, it may be possible to connect them, draw some critical insights, and open a few doors.<\/p>\n

Reparation to Nietzsche. Bataille sought to recuperate Nietzsche on evil from the Nietzsche of the will to power. He suggests as much in the final passages that he wrote Sur Nietzsche<\/em>, which are in effect his preface. Bataille\u2019s engagement with Nietzsche, he tells us, was intended to set the record straight: We should not read Nietzsche as an advocate of some collective will to dominate others, of parties or partisanship or group domination, but instead as someone who struggled at the personal, ethical level with the task of overcoming notions of good and evil. <\/em>Bataille wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cNietzsche is believed to be the philosopher of the \u2018will to power,\u2019 to have presented himself as such, and he has been received as such. But I think he is instead the philosopher of evil<\/em>. It is the attraction, the value<\/em> of evil that, it seems to me, gave meaning in his eyes to what he was saying in relation to power.\u201d (SN, 16; ON, xxiv).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On his view, the idea of \u201cwill to power\u201d as part of a political practice of partisanship is entirely irreconcilable with Nietzsche. This derives, in part, from the anti-fascist reading Bataille had developed earlier in the Ac\u00e9phale<\/em> collective, but more than that, it rests on a curiously anti-collective<\/em> position that becomes clear in 1944. Bataille homes in on a passage from The Gay Science<\/em> where Nietzsche, speaking as the \u201cg\u00e2te sauce<\/em>\u201d or \u201cspoiler,\u201d admits that he \u201cspoils for everyone the taste he has for his party.\u201d (SN<\/em> 16)<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0Je g\u00e2te \u00e0 chacun le go\u00fbt qu\u2019il a pour son parti\u00a0: — c\u2019est ce qu\u2019aucun parti ne me pardonne.<\/em>\u00a0\u00bb (SN<\/em>, 16) [\u00ab\u00a0I spoil for everyone the taste he has for his party: \u2014 this is what no party will ever forgive me\u00a0\u00bb]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bataille reads Nietzsche here as speaking on his own behalf\u2014which is remarkable and fascinating because it strikes at the very heart of Bataille\u2019s own yearning for collectivity. It scratches his own scab.<\/p>\n

Now, this, I would argue, is the central productive tension in Bataille’s writings and in the work of so many of us, critical thinkers,<\/em> who spoil our own parties<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Stop and think for a moment about the centrality of this tension for Bataille, someone who is wracked by such a deep desire for a fraternal order, for a collectivity, for an atheological substitute to divine love, and who is constantly spoiled by the critical questioning of that very desire itself, always and forever. What might this tell us of our own critical practice? Are we too doomed to agonize, to struggle, to fail in the constant critiquing of our own collective endeavors? Are we destined to the same extreme experience of anguished thought and being? Are we caught in an endless struggle? Is this our fate: to bleed in critical thought? And how come it feels so familiar to me? This constant, endless yearning for solidarity that never withstands the uncompromising critical impulse, not even for a moment. Are we, sympathetic readers of Nietzsche, doomed to the abyss of critique?<\/p>\n

To my mind, these are not limit experiences. They are not transgressive. They are simply painful. So painful that there is little place to turn. And this resonates with Bataille\u2019s work as well. The struggle there becomes so relentless, there is practically nowhere to turn\u2014except, in the end, to chance. We meet there, Bataille and I, without ever having met on our journey together.[i]<\/a><\/p>\n

It is to chance, to the roll of the dice, to an arbitrary game that Bataille ultimately turns:<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0Ces difficult\u00e9s majeures de l\u2019opposition de l\u2019individu \u00e0 la collectivit\u00e9 ou du bien au mal et, en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, ces contradictions folles dont nous ne sortons d\u2019ordinaire que les niant, il m\u2019a sembl\u00e9 qu\u2019un coup de chance seul \u2013 donn\u00e9 dans l\u2019audace du jeu \u2013 en peut librement triompher. [\u2026]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

C\u2019est seulement ma vie, ce sont ses d\u00e9risoires ressources qui pouvaient poursuivre en moi la qu\u00eate du Graal qu\u2019est la chance. Celle-ci s\u2019av\u00e9rait r\u00e9pondre plus exactement que la puissance aux intentions de Nietzsche. Seul un \u00ab\u00a0jeu\u00a0\u00bb avait la vertu d\u2019explorer tr\u00e8s avant le possible, ne pr\u00e9jugeant pas des r\u00e9sultats, donnant \u00e0 <\/em>l\u2019avenir seul, \u00e0 sa libre \u00e9ch\u00e9ance, le pouvoir qu\u2019on donne d\u2019habitude au parti pris, qui n\u2019est qu\u2019une forme du <\/em>pass\u00e9.\u00a0\u00bb (SN, <\/em>17)[ii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Chance. The roll of the dice. The game \u2013 le jeu<\/em>. We end there, in pain, bloody. By default, as I had said in Postmodern Meditations on Punishment<\/a><\/em>, not otherwise. We end there by accident.[iii]<\/a> \u00a0<\/em>\u201cNietzsche wrote \u2018with his blood.\u2019 Whoever critiques or better yet, experiences <\/em>him can only do so bleeding in his turn.\u201d (SN<\/em>, 15; ON<\/em>, xxiv).<\/p>\n

As Rosalind Morris reminds us, the subtitle of Sur Nietzsche<\/em> is:\u00a0 Volont\u00e9 de chance. <\/em>\u201cThe Will to Chance.\u201d (Although it was not retained in the English translation).<\/p>\n