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Seven: Mind the Gap
- Fordham University Press
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s e v e n Mind the Gap For there is no such thing as a man who, solely of himself, is only man. — m a r t i n h e i d e g g e r , ‘‘The Question Concerning Technology’’ Who I am for you and who I am for me is not the same, and such a gap cannot be overcome. — l u c e i r i g a r a y , To Be Two At Waterloo underground station in London, all commuters are warned repeatedly by loudspeakers to ‘‘mind the gap’’ when a train approaches the station, a reference to the rather large space between the platform and the carriage. This piece of advice is just as useful when considering the various gaps between the self and the other, as when stepping from the platform onto the tube. Take, for instance, this extract from Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness: I experience myself as any transcendence: to go from the subway station at ‘‘Tracade ́ro’’ to ‘‘Sèvres-Babylon,’’ ‘‘They’’ change at ‘‘La Motte-Picquet.’’ This change is foreseen, indicated on maps, etc.; if I change routes at La Motte Picquet , I am the ‘‘They’’ who change. To be sure, I differentiate myself by each use of the subway as much by the individual upsurge of my being as by the distant ends which I pursue. But these final ends are only on the horizon of my act. My immediate ends are the ends of the ‘‘They,’’ and I apprehend myself as inter159 160 Love and Other Technologies changeable with any one of my neighbours. In this sense we lose our individuality , for the project which we are is precisely the project which others are. In this subway corridor there is only one and the same project. (1956, 424) As fate would have it, this particular quote of Sartre’s is also used by Luce Irigaray in her book To Be Two (2000) as an example of what she believes is the misguided and masculinist method of approaching intersubjectivity . Instead of this rather traditional metaphysical paradigm, Irigaray offers her own alternative—‘‘a new philosophy of the caress’’ ultimately leading to a form of ‘‘in-stasy.’’ Unfortunately, for the most part, Irigaray’s response is a disappointing devolution into sanctimonious Hallmark-cardmeets -Helen-Reddy existentialism. Irigaray states, ‘‘Humanity reaches fulfillment between the two genders’’ (33). So far, so bad. For while lesbians will no doubt be glad to hear that ‘‘[w]e are not complementary or supplementarity to each other,’’ they may be less thrilled with this claim: ‘‘To be a woman necessarily involves—as far as human essence and existence are concerned—to be in relationship with man, at least ontologically’’ (34). No doubt it would be churlish to quarrel with Irigaray’s attempt to ‘‘propose relationships between two which are more human, more pleasing’’ (37), and it is indeed tempting to applaud her realization that ‘‘I can be a bridge for you, as you can be one for me. [But] [t]his bridge can never become the property of either’’ (43). However, these metaphysical gains compromise themselves as soon as she starts blaming that poor, misunderstood category ‘‘artifice’’ for annihilating authentic relationships between subjects. (As if ‘‘art’’ is not an essential part of being in love. Indeed, one wonders what Irigaray intends to do with her beloved, without such examples of artifice as music, cooking, candles—even conversation.) Thus, for Irigaray, ‘‘linking myself to the other protects me from the alienation and fascination produced by the fabricated, ‘manufactured’ world which surrounds us, preventing a communal between-us’’ (38).1 Her polemic goes on to argue that, in our increasingly instrumentalized society, ‘‘sexuality is left uncultivated, or rather, assimilated to a techne which does not take intersubjectivity into account’’ (40). However, as we have exhaustively detailed over the course of this book, techne is intersubjectivity—and then some. (This is why when Irigaray denounces ‘‘the latest Western philosophers ,’’ she conveniently avoids engaging with Nancy, Agamben, Agacinski , Lacan, Deleuze, Foucault, et al.—as if philosophy ended with Sartre.) [3.238.62.124] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 14:36 GMT) Mind the Gap 161 We must therefore be wary of arguments based on the suggestion that ‘‘we’’ have let technology get ‘‘out of control,’’ since this assumes that we can confidently trace a line between the human and the nonhuman, the natural and the artificial. Moreover, this assumption leads...