Roger-Pol Droit's Articles on Lions Roar

Philosopher Roger Pol-Droit devises everyday adventures that tickle and illuminate. Not every idiocy contains a philosophical pearl. But there exist ordinary situations, everyday gestures, actions we carry out continuously, which can each become the starting point for the astonishment that gives rise to philosophy. If we are ready to accept that philosophy is not a matter of pure theory, but that it originates in particular attitudes towards existence'in the unusual adventures philosophers have had in the realms of feelings, perceptions, images, beliefs, powers and ideas'then it should not be impossible to imagine experiments to be lived through that may incite further inquiry. The idea is to provoke tiny moments of awareness. Invent things to do, to say, to dream, that produce astonishment or the unease generated by certain questions. It's about fabricating microscopic starter devices, minimal impulses. Each experiment is to be carried out properly. It is possible to compare them, to modify them and to invent others. But you must really apply yourself if you are to feel the unsettling of reality that they seek to produce. For that has always been the end in view, since philosophy began: a systematic discrepancy, a step to one side, a change of viewpoint - perhaps a very slight one to begin with - which can reveal the landscape under a quite different angle. If the entertainment proves useful, it's because it offers such points of departure. Deliberately strange. Even crazy, if need be. But intended always to shake a certainty we had taken for granted: our own identity, say, or the stability of the outside world, or even the meaning of words. Obviously, these experiments are founded on certain hypotheses and convictions. They suggest in particular the possibility that "I" is always another, the world an illusion, time a lure, language a fragile veil laid across the unnamable, politeness a moratorium for cruelty, pleasure a form of morality and tenderness the sole horizon. No one is obliged to share these views. The only thing that counts is that we should be stung, or tickled, into exploring further. Empty a word of its meaning. This can take place anywhere, and at any time. Simply make sure, once again, that no one can hear you. Best to avoid the fear of being ridiculed while you're doing it. Speaking to oneself is nothing. But to be spied upon and teased would spoil the desired result. So, choose a place where no one will hear you. Take what comes to hand, the most ordinary object'a pen, a watch, a glass - or even a piece of your own clothing: a button, a belt, a pocket, a shoelace. Whatever. Just let it be ordinary. Its name is known, its presence familiar. You have always called this object by the same word. Consistent, natural, normal. Now take this inoffensive, familiar, safe little object in your hand. Repeat its name, in a low voice, as you look at it. Stare at the watch in your hand and repeat: "watch," "watch," "watch," "watch," "watch," "watch," "watch." You can keep going. It shouldn't take long. In a few seconds the familiar word detaches itself, and hardens. You find yourself repeating a series of strange sounds. A series of absurd and meaningless noises that denote nothing, indicate nothing, and remain insensate, formless or harsh. You probably experimented like this as a child. Nearly all of us have felt the extreme fragility of the link between words and things. As soon as it is twisted, or pulled, or distended, that link becomes problematic. It becomes contorted, or it breaks. The word dries out and crumbles, a scattered shell of sonorous inanity. And what happens to the object is no less startling. It's as though its substance becomes thicker, denser, cruder. The object is somehow more present, and differently so, the moment it escapes the fine net of recognizable syllables. You should repeat this old game of dissociation. Try to observe the moment when meaning dissolves, and how a new, raw reality emerges outside of words. Glimpse the hard scale beneath the prose. Repeat the same word several times, for the same object, and dissipate all meaning. Is it not marvellous? Terrifying? Funny? Just a few seconds are enough to tear that fine film within which we make sense of things, smug with the power of giving things a name. Drink while urinating. For hundreds of thousands of years the vast majority of humans have lived and died without trying the following experiment. It is, however, both extremely straightforward and extremely interesting. Like everyone else, you urinate. And at other moments you drink. What you do not know is what it feels like to do both at the same time. This experiment will show you. So, just have a large glass of water at hand. When you begin to urinate, start drinking. As far as possible, you should try to drink the water straight down, without pausing. You will feel quite bizarre sensations almost immediately. The water you evacuate seems to be synchronized with that entering your mouth. You will then visualize, and above all feel, your body to be organized in a way which until then you had never imagined possible. The water you are drinking seems to exit directly from your bladder. In a few seconds you will feel directly wired, from throat to urethra, from stomach to bladder - a physiology that is impossible but that you intuit, directly and unquestionably, to be real. It has taken no more than a few moments for you to discover this wonderfully simple body, and you feel there can be no other. No more intestine, no kidneys, no filtration time, no waiting. Water pours through you vertically, a cool liquid washes through you in a peculiar and palpable way. Your system seems to have opened inside out, with the water flowing smoothly from inside to outside. It is like–take your pick–the cosmic flux or an automatic washing machine. This experiment, which can be repeated indefinitely, that costs nothing and is likely to procure ever new sensations and surprises, had not hitherto been considered a thermal cure. Look in vain for "I" It's one of the terms you employ most frequently. During the day, the word "I" crops up in nearly all your sentences. Since your most tender childhood you have ceased referring to yourself by your own first name. "I" has become the word by which you express your desires, disappointments, projects, hopes, acts of all kinds, physical sensations, illnesses, pleasures, plans, resentment, tenderness, your weakness for vanilla and your aversion to fennel. For a long, long time you have linked this tiny word to your multifarious mental states. It is intimately involved in your feelings and your memories. Apparently, nothing is possible without it. It is there in all your stories and all your judgements. Not a single decision, not the slightest rumination escapes it. The curious thing is, everyone uses the same word. The most irreducible intimacy, the most singular existence, for each one of us, is linked to a word that we neither chose nor coined, and that everyone else employs in exactly the same way. A pronoun in the language. There's nothing less personal than this "personal" pronoun. The particular existence it refers to remains, linguistically speaking, completely interchangeable. It could be anyone who says "I'm happy" or "I'm sad." All of us, in all our difference, refer to ourselves by exactly the same word as everyone else. A most paradoxical situation. But you don't think about it, and nor does anyone else, of course. You have enough to do without worrying your head about questions of that order. And yet, try to pin down this "I." Does it exist? How can you find it? What does it look like? If you apply yourself to asking these questions, and trying to resolve them, you'll find that this "I" is neither simple to localize nor to authenticate. This is not a brief experiment, whose limits are easy to circumscribe. It can come to seem, on the contrary, like a long pursuit. You need time, different occasions, a certain application, and stubbornness. So where is this blindingly obvious "I?" You will seek for a long time, in different places and under different aspects. And there is a strong chance that, at the end of it all, you'll return somewhat at a loss. Which is where things start to get interesting. Among the avenues of inquiry you might like to pursue, it's worth remembering the existence of the body. Is not this "I," which is both individual and yet assimilable to others, in fact identical with the body that houses it, with its habits, its weaknesses, its vulnerabilities and its particularities? But there's no trace of an "I" in your body. Not one of your cells lives longer than ten years. No part of your body has persisted unchanged. So what will you address as "I?" The form? The ensemble? The general organization? There remains, famously, the phenomenon of thought. All may change, but not your memories, not your sense of remaining unchanged despite corporeal alterations. But even here, you cannot put your finger on an "I." All you will ever discover are thoughts, sequences of thoughts, memories, associations of ideas, desires'all of them pressed into service by what you call your "I." To all these sensations, to all these mental events, the "I" seems to provide a common denominator. But it neither supports nor drives them. It merely imparts to them something like a family resemblance, a shared aspect to what are very diverse notions and feelings'something like a color or an odor. A way of seeming, a style. Nothing more. "I" is not a someone or a something. And yet neither is it just a word. It must be a refrain of the self, a secondary quality, at one remove. If you manage to carry the experiment thus far, you will need to know what to do about this sensation. What impact will this impossible discovery about your "I" have upon your existence? How will you cope once your "I" has gone missing? That is another story. Try on clothes. For...

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