Scott Beauchamp
  • Home
  • Writing
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Home
  • Writing
  • Contact
  • Blog
An Aggregate of Last Moments

houellebecq’s unfinished critique of liberal modernity

7/31/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture
More from the Summer issue of American Affairs:

​Take, for example, the protagonist of Soumission, who tries with all his might to convert to Christianity in the legendary cliffside city of Rocamadour:

"The Virgin waited in the shadows, calm and timeless. She had sovereignty, she had power, but little by little I felt myself losing touch, I felt her moving away from me in space and across the centuries while I sat there in my pew, shriveled and puny. After half an hour, I got up, fully deserted by the Spirit, reduced to my damaged, perishable body, and I sadly descended the stairs that led to the car park."

Any reader, in my view, will be hard-pressed to deny that Houelle­becq has identified—in passages such as this one—a crisis we all recognize. A crisis of atomization. We are free, and we are glad we are free. Yet we are also sad, fundamentally uprooted, always wan­dering, never at home, never safe—exiled, in effect, from the garden we still vaguely remember having once inhabited.
​
So the paradox is this: the freedom we desire eventually makes us unfree and unhappy, while the constraints that we reject eventually make us happy and free. We are profoundly incapable of defining ourselves as individuals (although we think we can). We constantly overestimate our own abilities to create a world on our own.

Here.
1 Comment
order essay link
8/8/2019 09:06:47 pm

We all have that one hobby that will make us stand out and will make us who we are. The story that is written here will inspire people and will give them the fighting spirit that they need. People are seeking for their motivation and inspiration that will keep them moving forward in this life. A great journey will be created after we read this post, I am sure of that and there will be new ideas that will come into our minds.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Scott Beauchamp

    Writer - Critic - Poet - Editor

    Archives

    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly