Some may find the following essay disturbing. I mean no disrespect, nor do I intend to disturb, or, at least, I do not intend to disturb for its own sake.
“Substitute forgetting for anamnesis, experimentation for interpretation. Find your body without organs. Find out how to make it. It’s a question of life and death, youth and old age, sadness and joy. It is where everything is played out.” – Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus
“Sadism like desire seeks to strip the Other of the acts which hide him. It seeks to reveal the flesh beneath the action.” – Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness
“For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh . . .” – Galatians 5:17
As I write this, Terri Schiavo may already be dead. There has been a storm of words and images over, not this woman, but her body. There is a metaphysical question unanswered in the middle of all of this, and to discuss it seems pathetic, revolting, even evil. But we have to discuss it, and it may point us to other questions that we need to ask if we are going to survive, or live, in or out of body.
In David Cronenberg’s graphic film Videodrome, the owner of a small, controversial TV station intercepts pirate transmissions of a show dedicated to the torture and death of its participants. As he says to a colleague, there is no plot, no story, no character development – just pure, sadomasochistic violence. He assumes it is simply incredible acting, and that assumption is challenged as the film continues. What is clear is that the violence itself becomes a gateway to a new form of perception, the flesh incorporates a shift in psychic and spiritual existence, a human Being that is not tied to the necessity of the body but can exist through the communicative networks of satellite, cathode ray, and, (to contemporize this 1983 film), internet cable.
Which, incidentally, is where Terri Schiavo has existed over the last several weeks. Her body is lying somewhere in Florida, but she as a person is manifested in the descriptions offered by those around her. Depending on who you ask, she is in a “persistent vegetative state” (which has a macabre nuance to it – she is persistently vegetative, as if what we would call consciousness is something she is actively resisting), responding to her mother’s cooing, a potential icon for our “culture of life,” or a will in the past tense (“this is what she would want”). “Terri Schiavo” has apparently spoken to us more now then she ever did when she could speak.
And what is she saying? SHE is silent, but she IS silent, and, which has created the legal battle in the first place, WAS silent – silent on what should be done in this situation. I emphasize the temporal because this is, in my mind, the critical metaphysical (although not ethical, which I will get to) question. I have heard one version of her say that starving to death is “what she would have wanted.” Always, always in the past tense. Not “what she wants now.” What does Terri Schiavo want now? This is the question, in fact, for if she wants now, then she, as a conscious human being still exists. We can speak of Terri Schiavo as a self, a real, in space and time, human entity. If, however, she does not want now, if she is no longer a human being but an animated body, then she no longer exists. All we have is her flesh. Of course, implicit in all this is a spiritual existence that is the real person, a spiritual existence we only speak of when it is convenient for us. So we could just as easily say that this is a debate about her spirit.
But it’s not. This is, above all else, a battle over Terri Schiavo’s flesh, not Terri Schiavo. She is our Videodrome. Like all flesh, her’s has become a site of belief, fear, anger, difference, and, above all else, power. What has struck me the most is how much power, when ultimately purified and examined, is always about who lives and who dies. Iraqis, terrorists, Americans, murderers, Jews, Palestinians, the mentally disabled, fetuses, and Terri Schiavo – its all a matter of what power structure, system, TV series is dominant. Our bioethics were long ago determined by ER, our politics by The West Wing, and our taste in entertainment by Survivor (and this legal battle is, of course, reality TV at its best – is she going to live or is she going to die?) The virtual, immaterial, ideological is manifesting itself on the fleshly, material, physical. The two are blurred and turning into each other. We cannot separate our version of Terri Schiavo from the body that lies on the bed, but it is that very body that allows us to create our versions of her self.
I do not mean to neglect the ethical in this. The ethical clarity that I personally find in this case makes the legal and ideological language games violently pathetic. As long as we can point to a body that breathes, pulses, digests on its own and can say “this is Terri Schiavo, she has not clearly told us how we ought to treat her” then we have no right, NO one has the right, to make that decision for her. We give her the food and water she needs to live, as we would any Other. We do not say, “they’ll probably lose the legal battle, there is no reason to keep her alive until then.” We do not say “she would have wanted this” because we cannot say what she would have wanted or what she wants now. We do not say “that is not Terri Schiavo” as we don’t know who or what she is now, if she is herself, if identity, although fluid, carries a memory and a continuity that is necessary for change to occur. I’m being simplistic, I know, but it seems to me that there is a clear difference between taking someone off a heart or breathing machine and denying them food. We are becoming machines more and more; where does the human, or human life, stop and the nonhuman begin? Are we post-human? Questions without answers that constantly elude us. But even when they are not answered, ethical responsibility is always there.
Is Terri Schiavo alive? I don’t know, I’m writing this at home and haven’t yet seen the news. But if, as she was yesterday, she is still what we could call physically alive, living flesh, then I believe the answer is yes. And if Terri Schiavo is alive, then what right do we have to kill her? (And to kill her from exposure, another one of the violently disturbing paradoxes of American bioethical culture. We keep doctor-assisted suicide illegal so that we can simply starve those patients physically and mentally incapable of feeding themselves. If you are going to watch her die, fucking give her an overdose of morphine. Ethical? Probably not; but if I was one of Terri Schiavo’s caretakers, legally forced to watch her flesh slowly stop working from a lack of nutrients, I’d be very tempted to show her unethical mercy, suffer all the legal consequences, and pray for forgiveness.) And who is she? And who are we? We’re the animus, the sadistical urge, not for killing this woman but for the flesh we have turned her and all like her into, pure flesh where we play out our fantastic and virtual existence, cigarette burns, needles, whips and all, the embodiment of cultural, political, ideological power. We need Terri Schiavo, since she is our collective body without organs, pure physicality upon which we act our spirit. Her broken body is ours. Long live the new flesh.
Interesting analysis Pauly; I can always count on your blog for a shot of the theory that is sadly missing from my current studies.
It does seem like the Person gets lost in this whole affair. And it does seem distasteful (to state it mildly) that Schiavo the Person has been objectified and used to make political points. Perhaps this is a symptom of a degenerate culture?
I really don't know where I stand on this particular issue, but I won't attempt to reason my way through it here.
Posted by: mikey at March 24, 2005 11:48 PMMikey --
It's definitely a tough one in a lot of ways. Or at least it implies gnarlier problems. But I don't know if I would say "degenerate culture" as much as I would say "degenerate behavior," on every side of the issue (there are clearly more than two). One of the things that led me to write the essay was the realization that every person I heard speak on the matter was posturing themselves as the moral highground, (as I probably have done as well). I think the position of absolute ethical clarity and moral justification is far more difficult to attain. Our ethics should always be dosed with redemption, because none of us are ethically viable, although we are responsible to act morally.
But that is one side of the coin. The other side is the virtuality of the body that this case demonstrates with a terrifying clarity. Western culture did not leave its taste for viscera in the Middle Ages.
Posted by: paul at March 25, 2005 09:24 AMHave you read much of Bakhtin? I barely remember what I read of his work, but is there some connection between his ideas of the carnivalesque and your assertions here?
Posted by: mikey at March 25, 2005 11:27 AMI'm lacking on my Bakhtin, particularly his discussion of the carnivelesque. There may be some connections. I'm a bit more familiar with his emphasis on the heteroglossic, the emphasis on multiple voices making discursive space. What is interesting in this case is that the heteroglossia tends to drown out the legitimating factor, namely Terri Schiavo herself. Her's is the only silent voice, although she herself is the initiator of the discourse, in one way. Which introduces Foucault -- is her body being created by the discursive conflict, while she herself is silenced, and is she in fact silent or are we only MAKING her silent; that is, is her silence the product of a hegemonic definition of speech that excludes her voice? Social constructivism vs. biological limitations . . . Wow. There's a lot there.
So no theory in law school? How can you stand it?
Paul,
Very good posting. I feel very similar to you about the ethics of withholding food and water. Once a decision to insert a feeding tube is made, I have felt for years that to arbitrarily remove it is murder. I really appreciated how you humanized her...sometimes it feels like people arguing over an altzheimer patient as if they are not in the room. Thanks. I have been srtuck at how autonomous humankind is in our generration. Michael, Terri's parents, the courts, the state all claiming the right to determine her life. As Paul quotes in Romans "They do not fear God." We trample into His holy domain with political stickers on our chests. I do not want to treat the thorny issues of medical ethics simplistically. I just visited a sweet elderly woman who refused medical intervention for her 83 year old husband and beleve she did the right thing. God will hold people to account for the starvation of this woman. And to muddy the waters more;if it were Hannah I would also have to be restrained from using the morphine needle as well. Oh how my heart breaks for this family and the antagonism and hatred and pain and death. Come Lord Jesus.
Posted by: Dad at March 29, 2005 03:14 PMI've been trying to decide if I wanted to speak up about this post or not. I have decided to be brief. Today Terri Shiavo died, a sad day for those who have been trying to save her. Which begs the question, are the supporters of the food removal happy? Surely not!? Are they indifferent? What do they feel? They got what they wanted!?
As I've seen in the news, many "save Terri" people seem angery at the government or at the courts for not doing something. My only point in this comment is to say that our government and legal system are not designed to deal with situations of this sort. Our system does not exist in tiny little capsuls, each day, each individual problem, separated from the previous and the next. No, it is a flowing system with each little part having ramifications on the whole, and we need the whole system to keep working - maximum benefit sort of thing. Where does this situation need to be dealt w/ and discussed? Not in the courts or halls of Congress but right here as Paul did it...in social discourse. We (who are Christians) are called to impact the hearts of those around us, this is where the discussion belongs. We cannot use the legal system as a shortcut to change hearts and impact culture, we must continue to touch the hearts of individuals.
Do I find the whole situation sad? Yes. Do I think the courts messed up? Do I know when the soul has left the body? Do I want the Court to tell me when the soul has left the body? Do I think we thwarted God's eternal justice? No. Our system is finite; God's is not.
Ok, not so short...but you should have seen the one I didn't post where I traced the legal remifications.
Posted by: Timmy at March 31, 2005 02:40 PMTimmy,
I very much value your perspective on this, and heartily agree with you. I think you hit it when you point out (if I'm reading you correctly) that a legal system, necessarily, is finite and therefore there are certain things that it simply cannot deal with, nor should it posture itself as capable of dealing with it.
I would add that such is the nature of all human life, institutions, and structures: finite, imperfect, yet necessary. Never complete, yet we cannot but seek to improve them.
I, for one, would be interested in hearing about the legal ramifications from someone like yourself, but this is probably neither the time or place.
Thanks again.
Paul, you read it exactly how I intended. Perhaps someday we'll be able to sit around and discuss issues of life face to face, but we first have to figure out how to get back to Chatt. I'm shooting to be back w/in 5 yrs, how 'bout you?
Posted by: Timmy at April 1, 2005 08:37 PMThere is a part of me that would very much want to go back to chattanooga. But I just have to see. Finishing my PhD (well, I guess getting a masters first) is a priority, and then finding a job. It's a fairly tight market, so if I want to keep teaching, I need to go where the job is. But maybe I'll start my own school.
If nothing else, I would love to spend my summers there . . .