Re: RAT Moron Words

[gaby <gaby@ratconference.com>]

Oops.  This whole last part was the Artaud quote of course...

> 
> This Cruelty is a matter of neither sadism nor bloodshed, at least not in
> any exclusive way.
> 
> I do not systematically cultivate horror.  The word "cruelty" must be taken
> in a broad sense, and not in the rapacious physical sense that it is
> customarily given.  And I claim, in doing this, the right to break with the
> usual sense of language, to crack the armature once and for all, to get the
> iron collar off its neck, in short to return to the etymological origins of
> speech which, in the midst of abstract concepts, always evoke a concrete
> element.
> 
> One can very well imagine a pure cruelty, without bodily laceration.  And
> philosophically speaking what indeed is cruelty?  From the point of view of
> the mind, cruelty signifies rigor, implacable intention and decision,
> irreversible and absolute determination.
> 
> The most current philosophical determinism is, from the point of view of
> our existence, an image of cruelty.
> 
> It is a mistake to give the word 'cruelty' a meaning of merciless bloodshed
> and disinterested, gratuitous pursuit of physical suffering…  Cruelty is
> not synonymous with bloodshed, martyred flesh, crucified enemies. …
> Cruelty is above all lucid, a kind of rigid control and submission to
> necessity.  There is no cruelty without consciousness and without the
> application of consciousness.  It is consciousness that gives to the
> exercise of every act of life its blood-red color, its cruel nuance, since
> it is understood that life is always someone's death.
> 
> -- Antonin Artaud  (Theatre and its Double)
>