August 1, 2006

• Highway 1
  Revisited
  

  

  John Constantine,
  cartoon character, and
  Donald E. Knuth,
  Lutheran mathematician
  

  “I need a photo-opportunity,
  I want a shot at redemption.
  Don’t want to end up a cartoon
  In a cartoon graveyard.”
  

  
  
  Mel Gibson,
  7/28/06,
  photo by
  Los Angeles County
  Sheriff’s Department

  This meditation is prompted by memories of suicidal alcoholics Hunter S. Thompson and Ernest Hemingway, as well as by the title of Mel Gibson’s latest project, “Apocalypto.”

  A search on Gibson’s film title leads to this quotation:

  “And what does apocalypse mean? It means revelation: apocalypto means to open up and to show the truth.
  But it also means absolute violence, so the apocalypse is a violent
  revelation and a revelation of violence and immediately you see the
  relevance of this.”

  – Interview with Rene Girard in the June 1996 issue of UCLA’s Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology

  It is by no means clear that “apocalypse” means
  “violence,” let alone “absolute violence,” except in the Christian
  tradition.

  For apocalyptic Christian violence, see “Apocalypse and Violence:
  The Evidence from the Reception History of the Book of Revelation” (pdf), by Christopher Rowland of Oxford University.

  As for “the relevance of this,” see the definition of “generative anthropology” (GA) at

  anthropoetics.ucla.edu/purpose.htm:

  “The originary hypothesis of GA is that human language begins as an
  aborted gesture of appropriation representing–and thereby renouncing
  as sacred– an object of potential mimetic rivalry. The strength of our
  mimetic intelligence makes us the only creatures for whom intraspecific
  violence is a greater threat to survival than the external forces of
  nature. Human language defers potential conflict by permitting each to
  possess the sign of the unpossessable object of desire– the deferral of violence through representation.”

  Compare with the remarks of Jung on Transformation Symbolism in the Mass:

  Antecedents and parallels are found for the ritual of the
  Christian religious Mass in Aztec, Mithraic and pagan religious
  practices. “The Aztecs make a dough figure of the god Huitzilopochtli,
  which is then symbolically killed, divided and consumed….”

  Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 11. 2nd ed., Princeton University Press, 1969. (pp. 222-225)

  Mel Gibson’s interest in religion and violence is well known.  His film “Apocalypto,” scheduled for release on Dec. 8, 2006, deals with human sacrifice among the Maya, rather than the Aztecs or Jews.  (Cf. Abraham and “Highway 61 Revisited.”)

  It seems unlikely that Mel will learn more about these issues in his recovery program. Too bad.

  • 2:56 pm
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