Georges Bataille (1897–1962)

Bataille’s central argument here is that all living creatures are bound to produce and thereafter waste an excess of energy. He then extends this precept to the economy of human beings. He mentions in his introduction that the material explored in this book had occupied his mind for 30 years, which is clear from the breadth of his scope in such a short book and the ingenuity in connecting his idea to such various and far-flung examples.
The ideas in this book are illuminating when it comes show more to understanding the repeated frustration of “progress” on a civilizational scale. The idea of being able to intentionally allocate every bit of what a society produces is folly to Bataille; what makes for a successful society is the ability to discern the best way to squander your resources. Herein lies the central conundrum of capitalism, an economic system based upon the promise of continuous growth, where excess is called “profit” and rolled back into the modes of production. While critics of communism might say that the idea of being by able to plan an entire economy is simply beyond the scope of human ability, Bataille makes clear that there is an idealism that underlies capitalism that is just as unrealistic. Excess/profit must find a libidinal outlet - it’s up to the society to decide if that is through monumental works or destructive wars.

I’m most certainly in on Bataille’s heady mixture of economics and occult/mystical preoccupations - I actually think his line of thinking is sorely missing from most modern thinkers on “hard” sciences. However, in some parts of this book, it was hard to understand what he was particularly getting at. I guess that’s par for the course for a midcentury French egghead. show less

“Don’t take our word for it! Alas, we’re not all that logical. We say God - though in reality God is a person, a particular individual. We speak to him. We address him by name - he is the God of Abraham and Jacob. We treat him just like anybody else, like a personal being...”

“So he’s a whore?”

“____________________________________”

This work is turgid with concepts structured like thicket bushes, with terms such as ‘summit’, ‘chance’, ‘risk’, ‘impalement’, show more ‘laughter’ and ‘theopathy’ bristling with contradictory value judgements. We have here limit concepts that induce a pendulum to continually swing between anguish and unbridled joy, clinging on to a minute prospect of naked chance. Us, the race of gamblers, not being able to recognise the permeable border between eroticism and ascetic mysticism - of a God we make a whore out of, a God weak due to his immutable nature.... never taking a chance (and chance, against the vicissitudes of time, being the most affable thing) - we are forever lacerated by attempts to communicate with one another, by trying to tell one another about the labyrinthine logic of the summit we each clamour towards.

I believe this work, in conjunction with Virilio’s Speed and Politics, really does provide a bulletproof anthropology, a perfect assessment of the current state of affairs. Speed and Politics has a macroscopic lens which becomes hyper focused in Bataille’s own interior monologue, with the fraught tension of occupied France being the backdrop of these contemplative diary entries seeing Bataille pushing toward the beyond of his particularlity, attempting to affect an abortive summit toward a transcendent nothingness.

This book’s a real beauty. show less

i think this journal is probably the best commentary and exposition of nietzsche ive ever read, and this makes me think bataille might b his most worthy successor--perhaps moreso than foucault or deleuze

but foucault and deleuze at least moved beyond some of nietzsche's aporia vis-a-vis sociality, while it seems like bataille & co recognize this aporia and the desperate need to resolve it, but r ultimately unable to do so--instead appealing to anarchists to plz help them. their steadfast show more refusal of marx might have even deepened this social helplessness

this self-defeating struggle to reconcile self and other (while somehow maintaining the poisonous duality) finds its most horrifying manifestation in the total acceptance and embrace of samsara, of eternal recurrence, of the successive murder of slaves-becoming-gods; to hell w the poor and oppressed of the world, who may never taste godhood, so long as the members of acephale get a taste of it

im always glad to see some recognition of the need for an anti-civilizational mysticism to buttress anarchist politics, but without the anarchist politics it becomes dangerously psychopathic, psychotic, and suicidal show less

Bataille usa Nietzsche para continuar a delirar na sua busca do ser. Mas é uma busca tingida pela individualidade, do indivíduo contra o espírito gregário. Daquele que rejeita o ocultamento de ser, quando este dá origem a algo, a uma forma de encarar as coisas, a uma criação que se estabiliza em redes de significados e ganhos. Então o ser é uma espécie de nada, sem vantagem, sem recompensa. Bataille vê isso em Nietzsche, na afirmação da chance surgida da junção do eterno show more retorno e do super-humano. Não torna o super-humano um humano melhor porvir, mas o porvir eterno do humano, que afirma e se perde na chance.

Ademais, forma extremamente excêntrica. Mistura de análise, diálogo, com um memorando de citações de Nietzsche, artigos de 2 páginas e um debate. show less