Epic vs Lyric Mode of Action and Innovation
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Epic vs Lyric Mode of Action and Innovation
From the book: The Power of Networks
David de Ugarte:
“The lyric mode, understood as a way of projecting future possibilities from current experience, is nothing but the narrative representation of a particular ethos, a lifestyle which is seen as an option among many, and does not seek to negate or eliminate others. The lyric mode invites one to join in without becoming diluted in the whole – it seeks conversation, not adhesion. As an ethical option, it stands opposed to the excluding, sacrificial, and confrontational dimension inevitably entailed by the epic mode. It is true that this distinction is not new at all, except maybe in its application to blogging – to wit, that "I want to write a beautiful blog as part of a beautiful life" attitude so beloved of cyberpunks and digital Zionists. In any case, the literary debate is worth picking up once again.
In Of Love and Death, Patrick Süskind opposes the
lyric Orpheus – the mythical if human creator of the first
songs – to the epic Jesus of Nazareth.
[Orpheus] has lost his young wife to the bite of a
poisonous snake. And he's so distraught by his
loss that he does something which to us may seem
demented, but also completely understandable. He
wants to bring his beloved back to life. It's not
that he questions Death's power or the fact that
Death has the last word; much less does he want
to vanquish Death in a meaningful way, to seek
eternal life for mankind. No, he only wants his
beloved Eurydice back, not for all eternity, but for
the normal span of a human life, to be happy with
her. That's why Orpheus's descent to the
Underworld must in no way be interpreted as
suicidal, but rather as an undertaking which is
doubtlessly risky yet completely lifeoriented,
and even as a desperate struggle for life […]
It has to be acknowledged that Orpheus's
discourse is pleasantly different from Jesus of
Nazareth's rudeness. Jesus was a fanatical
preacher who didn't seek to convince people but
to impose an unconditional servitude. His
expressions are scattered with orders, threats, and
the constant refrain “I tell thee...” That is how
those who don't want to save a single man but all
Mankind have always spoken. Orpheus, on the
other hand, loves only one and wants to save only
one: Euridyce. And that is why his tone is more
conciliatory, kinder […]
The Nazarene makes no mistakes. And even when
he appears to make them – for example, when he
brings a traitor into his own circle – his mistake is
calculated, part of his plan for salvation. Orpheus,
however, is a man who has no plans or
superhuman skills, and, as such, is liable to make
a great mistake, a horrible error, at any time,
which makes us like him again. He takes
mischievous pleasure – and who could blame
him? – in his success.
No doubt many Christians will feel alienated from
Süskind's view of Jesus. No matter – that is not what is
relevant about this long quotation. Jesus can be replaced
by Che Guevara or any other leader who promises
salvation – by anyone who grounds his narrative of the
future on the epic, the ultimate sacrifice, the desire to die
for others.
What Süskind rightly points out is that the epic mode
is inextricably linked to the love of others conceived as
something abstract. That's why the hero's solution is
necessarily all-encompassing, and steps over every single
one in order to redeem the whole. The epic is definitely
monotheistic in the same sense as all the great theoretical
devices of modernity are.
Orpheus, the lyric mode, takes as a starting point the
humbleness of one among many, of love and the concrete,
of the person – not the individual – who assumes and
projects him or herself towards everyone else from the
acknowledgement of his or her own difference and that of
everyone else. Orpheus offers something and innovates
without trying to make others accept a single global truth.
That's why his narrative becomes acceptable in postmodernity
– because his action and his narrative are not
meant to be the ending to anything, but merely a part of
the great celebration that is his own life. An open
celebration. That's why the lyric mode starts a
conversation – because it can accommodate both inclusion
and ironical detachment, but never excommunication.
The epic mode, on the other hand, can only
accommodate adhesion and exclusion, for only the hero
can speak, the son of the God of Logos (both reason and
word) who knows no truth other than his own.
Desmond Morris recently wrote an odd essay on
happiness: The Nature of Happiness. He defines happiness
as the sudden burst of pleasure that one feels when
something improves, and argues that it is an evolutionary
achievement of our species, the genetic prize granted to
the members of a species that became curious, basically
peaceful, cooperative, and competitive in order to adapt
and improve in a diverse, changing environment.
Morris argues that happiness is fleeting because it's linked to change.
Thus, Juan Urrutia's oft-quoted motto
- “Allow yourself to be seized by change” would sum up singularly well the attraction of the lyric nature of innovation and its joyful outlook on the future. The lyric nature of networks is based on joy, on the happiness brought about by change. It is rebellious in that rebelliousness is a component of social network theory: by singing of the happiness caused by change, by innovation, by increasing the expectation of a prize for those who join in, the lyric of networks encourages listeners to lower their rebelliousness threshold, leading to the expansion of the new behaviours, and thus of social cohesion.
Within this framework, the lyric mode, understood as
the narrative of happiness, which takes as its starting point
happiness or the expectation of it, is an encouragement to
change: examples of it are the explorer or the cartographer
who minimise risks by experimenting – to their own cost –
in order to make their results public. This stands opposed
to the epic mode of the conqueror and the combatant, who
prefigure a society of sacrifice and conquest, of suffering
individuals struggling to attain the plus ultra of a final
victory which will give a meaning to the Passion
undergone. By contrast, the lyric mode of social
innovation looks more like the passionate tale of the
naturalist who is experiencing a permanent, progressive
discovery, who knows about the infinite beyond and
values the journey in itself as a complete work, a
permanent reinvention,
a joyful Resurrection.
The epic mode is ill-suited
to networks – at least
Southern ones – because epics are about individuals, about
solitudes. Prometheus undergoes his punishment in
isolation. The epic, martyred Jesus, is a lonely Jesus
(“Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?”) The Resurrected
Christ returns to establish links with others, visits his
mother and his friends, rebuilds the network that was
broken by the exhaustion caused in those he loved by his
own sufferings, bringing back the depleted faith, and
foreshadowing the great Pentecostal miracle: speaking in
tongues for every member of the original cluster.
It is hard to say to what degree, from the point of view
of networks, the individual is an aberrant abstraction. We
are not individuals – we are persons, defined not only by
our own being but by a set of relationships, conversations,
and expectations, which together constitute existence.
That which applies to individuals does not apply to
persons. The enemy is not your mirror when you are not
one but many. The epic task is the task to achieve a
coherent confrontation-based identity, to turn one's enemy
into everyone's enemy. That's why the epic simplifies and
homogenises. But the lyric mode tells us that our identity
lies not in what is, but in what can be achieved, in the
happiness of the next change, of the next possible
improvement. It encourages us to define ourselves by our
next step – it encourages everyone to carry the banner of
their own course. It encourages everyone to lead their own
way, not to accept a single destiny or destination.
That's why the epic mode sees the collectivity as an
organisation, a mould, an army, the result of a plan or a
tragic will. Che Guevara talks about Bolivia like a
suffering Christ talking about his Fatherpeople.
The lyric mode, by contrast, narrates collectivity from
commonality, in the form of magic (the invention of
which, by the way, was attributed to Orpheus by the
Ancient Greeks), as the image yielded by a reshaping of
practices, experiments, and games. Nothing is farther from
the Kabbalistic and Messianic Shekhinah that culminates
in the New Jerusalem than the right to seek one's own
happiness – which provides the subversive, lyric
counterpoint to the modern order of the American
Constitution.
This is the framework within which power is defined
in completely opposite ways in both forms of discourse. In
the epic mode, power emerges as the result of battle. After
the battle there remains a void, or a new fractal war cycle
on a new scale. The Iliad is followed by the Oresteiad.
From Iphigenia's sacrifice to Orestes's persecution by the
avengers of his own mother, through Agamemnon's
triumph: Troy betrayed, sacked and razed to its
foundations.
In the lyric tale, power emerges consensually, as the
collective result of an experiment tested by many, the end
of a road which is for many the way of building an
existence seized by change. The power of the lyric mode
comes from its ability to generate new consensus and
design new games, new experiences which many or all in
a network will regard as an improvement and a source of
happiness for every one.”
(http://deugarte.com/gomi/the-power-of-networks.pdf)