There is more proud savagery in the person whom no pleasure can satisfy than in one who feels frustrated by everything and barks at the fun others have. The energy needed for supersession is to be found in the first, whereas the anger of the second perpetuates the impotence of a world where nothing changes. Instead of contenting ourselves with compensatory sprees, which is the suicide’s homage to what is killing him, we will destroy the world and offer nothing in its place. No barrier can stand up to the centred violence of irrepressible gratuity. Instead of taking advantages of laws framed to exploit us, we gradually substitute a practical innocence in which all legality is null and void. The time is near when no one will be presumed to know what the laws are at all.
i) The Book of Pleasure (Le Livre des plaisirs). Trans. John Fullerton. London: Pending Press, 1983. p.65
ii) “Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.” (The world is all that is the case). Ludwig Wittgenstein. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.1961 Pears-McGuinness translation. Cited from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein
iii) “So long as an illusion is not recognized as an error, it has a value precisely equivalent to reality. But once the illusion has been recognized as such, it is no longer an illusion. It is, therefore, the very concept of illusion, and that concept alone, which is an illusion.”
“We are faced, ultimately, with two irreconcilable hypotheses: that of the extermination of all the world’s illusion by technology and the virtual, or that of an ironic destiny of all science and all knowledge in which the world – and the illusion of the world – would survive. The hypothesis of a ‘transcendental’ irony of technology being by definition unverifiable, we have to hold to these two irreconcilable and simultaneously ‘true’ perspectives. There is nothing which allows us to decide between them. As Wittgenstein says: ‘The world is everything which is the case’.”
Jean Baudrillard. The Perfect Crime (Le crime parfait). Trans. Chris Turner. London & New York: Verso, 2008. p53, 76.
The WAR IS OVER! campaign was originally launched by John and Yoko on 15th December, 1969. Billboards with the inscription “WAR IS OVER! (IF YOU WANT IT) Happy Christmas from John and Yoko” were placed in 11 cities worldwide: New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Rome, Athens, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong. Along with these billboards leaflets were distributed, posters plastered up, newspaper advertisements placed and radio announcements made.
When John was asked how much the billboards cost, he replied “I don’t know- but it is cheaper than someone’s life.”
The WAR IS OVER! campaign was originally launched by John and Yoko on 15th December, 1969. Billboards with the inscription “WAR IS OVER! (IF YOU WANT IT) Happy Christmas from John and Yoko” were placed in 11 cities worldwide: New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Rome, Athens, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong. Along with these billboards leaflets were distributed, posters plastered up, newspaper advertisements placed and radio announcements made.
When John was asked how much the billboards cost, he replied “I don’t know- but it is cheaper than someone’s life.”
與許多人以為的相反，我沒有細讀過Foucault 的諸種著作，他說話的模樣倒是很可愛的，但他不是甚麼偶像、代言人，我覺得在談文說藝的公開場合有避談他的必要，他的名字正如許些思想家、學者的名字一樣在完全無關或關聯極待發掘的場合或語境中，總是突然被拿來當作一種「非政治」的、和稀泥式的言詞策略，供人對號入座，母須站立任何立場。傅柯前傅柯後的人既不知道牢獄、也不太知道精神病院、以至舊式公共屋邨到沒去過，他們跟你談論圓形監獄、bio-power…… 可總是恰恰忽略了受難者的自我意志與心聲。吊詭的是，當「受害人」或個別受害人羣體嘗試(再次) 以學究的論述或政經文化政治座標作為自我生存狀況的一種解釋或描述，「受害人」不得不面對一種撕裂：理論 vs 未被掘挖的真實；描述者 vs 被描述物；普遍的可援引性 vs 獨例所作的見證；那個撕裂是兩種位置之所以對立、劃分或懸置所待馳的力(force) 必然招致的撕裂，論述的主體和經驗的主體無法安然共處一室、一個身體，論述的主體在語言的脈胳與危險通路上雖然不是風馳電制的暢遊或悠然漫行、可是他到底廁身在語言那邊。「受害人」因為一時／長久的失語，總是在另一邊。或被語言逮住 (arrested)、擱置。
傅柯企圖——而必然失敗的——某種有關知識生產之系譜考據，許是與尼釆在On the Genealogy of Morals 想說的遙相呼應—— 尼采認為，執於凡事皆有「始作俑者」的尋源追溯，正正是一種受「語言的誘惑」所致的表現，在該書的 I, Sect 13 他以雷電(lightning) 與它的閃光(flash) 為例，指雷電並沒有「導致」閃光、閃光亦非雷電「所引致」的，雷電亦非甚麼可以或不可以導致任何事情發生、或不發生的「主體」，「行雷導致閃電」的因果關係不外是語言、文法上的邏輯，僵化的理性思考亦因循同樣謬誤，因此尼采說：
there is no “being” behind doing, effecting, becoming, “the doer” is a merely a fiction added to the deed— the deed is everything.
可是，既然瘋狂只能以「病例」的形式出現，傅柯對醫藥文獻的考據並沒有重溯甚麼「瘋狂史」或「瘋人血淚史」，誠如布朗修在 “Michel Focault as I Imagine Him” 一文所言， 傅柯再次發現的是一道充滿挫傷的權力與政治、以至哲學意涵的切口：理性(Reason) 把所有異質切割開去、把所有「非理性」的人／事／身體／精神經驗摒拒於「現實」之外的切口。如果神權／教會指導的古典時代把俗人分為善良／奸惡，人事分為好／壞、或公義／不公義，啓蒙時期以降則為此等劃分的轉移和置換，人與人事只有「理性」與「不理性」之最重要劃分。醫藥論述與醫療執業的科技化、技術化與這個劃分歷史性轉向有密切關係，而這個劃分與轉向是各種形式的暴力與宰制達成和維繫的。
欲加之罪何患無辭的意思就是這個了，年終幾百幾千個集會，專挑一個謂其非法，「非法集會」的宣稱又由誰定斷？又是同一個警方隊伍，宣稱其為非法，又指控其涉嫌參加，違反語意邏輯而由制度武力維管的就是我城的法治基礎了。只是，得悉人兒一天早上被人跟蹤、被幾名身高約1.75米操流利廣東話的中國藉男子，在一整個商場的人前拿送到警處、在未有法律代表在場下搜身，還有年紀不少的公屋居民、為人妻、母的婦人，都在類似的情景中被拘捕、於覊留期間遭遇一羣穿制服、戴配槍、按電腦的Good Boys & Good Gals….. 手持一枝手寫板塑膠筆的「我」，為文者可以再講、再寫甚麼呢？我的身體、一個時刻只能在一處，可以抵抗甚麼？然後我哭了，又給有關揾食工事的一通電話打斷了，忙裝著認真工作的聲音。然後突然再哭下半場。不是甚麼男兒淚，僅是軟弱。
