ICONOCLAST, n. A breaker of idols, the worshipers whereof are imperfectly gratified by the performance, and most strenuously protest that he unbuildeth but doth not reedify, that he pulleth down but pileth not up. For the poor things would have other idols in place of those he thwacketh upon the mazzard and dispelleth. But the iconoclast saith: "Ye shall have none at all, for ye need them not; and if the rebuilder fooleth round hereabout, behold I will depress the head of him and sit thereon till he squawk it."
-- Ambrose Bierce

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Is Spider-grandmother a seductress or is it entrapment?

[Posted in May by Dave on the Synchromesh Transmission]

Au contraire, Pierre, a spider never seduces its dinner. Seduction would not even apply to the Venus Fly-trap, which only indicates an error in judgement on the part of pollenating insects. The web is well-placed alongside another's path, a point of transition, a bottleneck like a Chinook fishtrap or a cop posing as a hooker on a busy downtown intersection where one might expect a bit more authenticity. The extent of the web is the horizon of a spider's perception extending its sensation of a perturbation. The spider still must move to the vibration to enwrap and consume it. It is a joyful noise played on the spider's web of expanded consciousness. If anything, it is the fly which, albeit inadvertently, seduces the spider with an angelic pluck of the harp string! A sublime sound for the spider, a frantic wiggle for the fly.

Seduction, on the other hand, is an invitation for some mutual wiggling and not a matter of consumption at all. It is not, as Baudrillard suggests, a faux appearance for possession; it is merely an expression of receptivity. A faux appearance for possession is a sales pitch to enfavour a commodity exchange. A seductive adornment is merely an expressive emphasis, to attract another's attention, a perturbation within their perceptual horizon. A pleasant surprise. A question of extension by means of a simple redirection where a loud vocal announcement such as "Hey baby, wanna booogie?" may seem inappropriate for the situation.

There is a difference between seduction and entrapment residing in one's motivation. Hell, they don't even rhyme! The confusion is brought on by the posing of equality when we notice matching patterns. When we witness overwhelming entrapment in our own lives, we redirect to that side of the equation as par excellent or primary index of the other. Thus, in the same manner that Baudrillard cannot find an "authentic" gift (he thinks it therefore cannot exist), he says seduction is at base entrapment, jiving with social psychologists who pronounce all communication antagonistic.

Pretty quickly, half the equation disappears altogether by virtue of linear sequencing. Reductionism reduces meaning by shrinking the horizon of perception. It does not annihilate meaning, which is always a potential. From a mechanical point of view, the same muscles are engaged in seduction and entrapment. It is a matter of polysemy which gets the poet in us excited, whereas the mathemetician proclaims identity and "end of discussion". The romantically susceptible has at least a fifty percent chance of error. Over time, our own language illustrates the poetic associations of similarity without demanding linear causality: a tela 'web'; a toile 'sheer fabric'; a toilette 'bag for clothing'; a toilet 'receptacle for shit'; coming full turn back to toilette water 'perfume to cover the stink' and network telecast a 'web of lies' inviting all to serve themselves another helping of, more toil. That once just meant "the way we weave our baskets".

An after thought: By insisting on clarity, linearity and unvarying precision, mathematical distinction (definition always being a process of exclusion of what never really goes away – we just proceed to ignore it), we're set up for confusion. Consider how, to this day, we mix up the social with the political – I'm sorry, in my book they're not equivalent nor in adjectival relation (except as one negates the other) and maybe that's why they'll always be at war. Self-fulfillingly prophetic, the victories and the victims always rekindle the political (that's as well to say the economic) and everything else stays the same. But then, I don't consider language an exclusively antagonist game.

– see Fanny Söderbäk, Impossible Mourning

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