The Ventriloquist’s Dummy
‘The philosopher is the consciousness of his age.’—Hegel
What does it signify that some things or notions we deem to be ours so that we exclude the rest? Is it anything more than the mind applying the label ‘mine’ to some things and not others? There is a constant interchange which is generated by this arbitrary distinction; but without it no communication would be meaningful. The question arises of who is really talking to whom? According to the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, language is the illusion that maps the real, ‘The basic function of language is to assure us that we are’. To put it another way, it is through language that the speaker demonstrates to himself that he exists. I speak therefore I exist.
Language is an illusion in the same sense that what we commonly consider to be reality is also an illusion. As Wittgenstein said ‘Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must remain silent’. Alternatively we could follow his lead and gesticulate with a poker! Do we know where our speech comes from? Who is really putting words in our mouths? How can we say something that is meaningful? If it is the imaginary other we are talking to, does it really matter what we say anyway? As Lacan has also said, ‘Style is the man to whom one speaks’. A man speaking is like a ventriloquist’s dummy; not an original thought in his head, though he thinks that he has lots of good ideas. In the Age of Reason, Sartre describes the situation of man thus:
All around him things were gathered in a circle, expectant, impassive and indicative of nothing. He was alone enveloped in the monstrous silence, free and alone, without assistance and without excuse, condemned to decide without support from any quarter, condemned forever to be free.
How then does the individual enlist support in his search for meaning and truth? How should education, art, religion and philosophy assist the individual in his quest?
A clue might be found in this statement by Kierkegaard in his journal:
The reason that I cannot really say that I positively enjoy nature is that I do not quite realize what it is that I enjoy. A work of art, on the other hand, I can grasp. I can—if I may put it this way—find that Archimedean point, and as soon as I have found it, everything is readily clear for me. Then I am able to pursue this one main idea and see how all the details serve to illuminate it. I see the author’s whole individuality as if it were the sea, in which every single detail is reflected. The author’s spirit is kindred to me… The works of the deity are too great for me, I always get lost in the details.
It would seem then that art is a powerful medium to commune with the individual, though perhaps, as hinted at, not the whole story. In our modern age, art seems to have struck some difficulties. As observed by Hegel: ‘thought and reflection have spread their wings above fine art… Art, considered in its highest vocation, is and remains for us a thing of the past’. It would seem that we cannot go back.
What both Hegel and Kierkegaard are saying is that the individual must make his own choices, but he is restricted in doing this by the ‘collective unconscious’ of the age that he lives in. Reflection or deconstruction has made ‘even love become dialectical in the modern age’. We must not lose our passion or our individuality, for ‘without passion, no poet, and without passion, no poetry’.
Let us take our cue from Pinocchio, who woke up and said to Jiminy Cricket, ‘Oh Jiminy, I had a terrible dream last night. I thought I was only a wooden puppet sitting on Geppetto’s knee. How wonderful to wake up and realise that I am a real boy.’
—TD
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