Miscreating [1979]

Summary

To discuss the infinitive that is the banner over this work

A belief in god has always—and now more than ever—seemed the convention. It may be a better alloy than a belief in people for those who believe themselves to be nonbelievers. As for people who do believe, they’re the direct heir of those who came to be in times past, when a belief in god was unanimous, or nearly so.

For people who don't believe—in the supernatural—it's a matter of not taking over, in good faith, from the person who projects themself, who's immutable, or nearly so. But it's to be expected that this rupture is just barely repaired, endlessly—people holding on to their image just as they did that of god. It's the same thing.

The space of an attempt is, for me, the space of a rupture. It's not that I myself need to break away from some belief, having never inherited a belief—in the supernatural. Instead, it's a matter of breaking away from the image acquired of the person, of myself, of others—but rather than acquired, incorporated: I want to talk about the inveterate image in which the thousand and one ways people have regarded themselves, and regard themselves, are focused, reiterated, and condensed; the ‘self’ supplanting, substituting, the human that everyone, in good conscience, can't help but be unaware of, people's consciousness eclipsing, in good faith, the human that is not its responsibility, and which it must expel in order to further its influence.

Put otherwise, consciousness is totalitarian, and the human always/already liminal.

MisCreating, which is the banner over the connected texts gathered here, doesn't evoke a different way for people to imagine themselves. The beliefs derived from believing are varied; they may appear disparate and contradictory; they may boast of materialist good sense. They inevitably share a point of coherence, an inevitable focal point; put otherwise, they share the one in every that is to the human what a reflection on the ceiling or beneath the arch of a bridge is to the water that does the reflecting.