Kant,Foucalt and Satan

Should the human will be seen as irredeemably tainted by evil?This is the subject of Joan Copjec's essay on Kant's notion of radical evil which if it or the more extreme,diabolical evil is true,would negate the possibility of his ethical system's ability to be adopted. Radical evil is described as "the ineradicable tendency to do evil despite the concomitant possibility of choosing good",and diabolical evil as "the ineluctable perpetration of evil deeds, without any choice in the matter."Kant actually thought of evil as a product of human freedom,issuing from the same spectrum in which we nd good,both being at diametric extremes in relation to one another,"Kant sets evil as uniquely the product of a free humanity, and it is this which is new in his thought"(Copjec),"....genuine evil consists in this', that a man does not will to withstand those inclinations when they tempt him to transgress - so it is really this disposition that is the true enemy.' Evil is to be sought 'in freedom itself"(Kant).Derrida was to comment also on Kant's position as We now turn to the harrowing case known as Bennington(1993) explains"...in Derrida what makes possible immediately makes impossible the purity of the phenomenon made possible." We now turn to the horric 'Ripper-Raper' case and ask whether,if diabolical crime is true,determinism is unavoidable and can justice then truly be thought of as just.On Dec 18 1994 ,South Africa,Alison was abducted outside a nightclub by one Frans DuToit later to pick up an accomplice named Theuns Kruger.Both,supposedly by the will of the devil raped,beat and then cut from ear to ear the victim,leaving her for dead.The court and other documents relating to the crime were the subject of a discourse analysis by Thamm(1998).Foucalt describes discourse as "denot(ing) the convergence of language, knowledge and power; hence his concept of genealogy' as a mode of analysis which focuses on discursive practices with a view to articulating, not simply their 'rules of formation', but more especially the power-relations in which they are embedded."More than this,language is how we communicate and express ourselves.Our life can be located in our discourses and portions from which are ripe for analysis.Foucault's notion of discourse seems to suggest that, because human subjects are discursively constituted, their actions can only be grasped in terms and on the basis of the (historical) discourses that comprise subjects subjectivity exhaustively. Copjec's argues that Kant provides a way out of such a historicist-deterministic discourse-theoretical dilemma by demonstrating that 'radical evil', because it is predicated on the freedom of human will, posits an ethical subject 'in excess of itself',"This subject would have access to a quasi-discursive realm, as it were,that enables it to intervene in the practical functioning of discourses or to confront the effects of (as well as to oppose) those discursive practices that may impel us to act in apparently pre-determined ways",for the purposes of this article we shall leave talk of this 'quasi discursive realm' though it is of interest to note that other terms such as 'innate ideas' ,'the unconcious','forms of life' and 'internalism' have been used by others to mean much the same thing! The Port Elizabeth 'Ripper Rapist' case is an paradigmatic example of uniquely differing language games,psychology,juridical and satanism, in confrontation with one another.An event more frequent in our post modern world where once more,value systems lying out the 'three rational spheres of cognition,art and morality' are entertained and subsequently proliferating. Here,these differing discourses are used not merely as a ,".. factor for consideration in determining the causal psychological elements relating to the crime of raping and attempting to murder a young woman, 'Alison', but as a premodern (myth-informed) discourse of justication making its claim to legitimacy in the accommodating context of postmodernity."

The author of the text from which this article is based urges that satanism be taken as a post modern phenomenon and rebelling against and lling the vacuum left by the collapse of the traditional Christian-Platonic value system.And with the particular subject matter part of a pervasive meta narrative. Were the men locked into this particular language game merely following in logical steps to its outcome.What imagery did the units of the language game portray in their minds?I was certainly surprised to learn that Satanism is in fact widely pervasive in the minds and culture of South Africa. Just how precarious this conguration is, may be gathered from an African provincial minister of security being interviewed on a radio news programme on the topic of graves having been robbed of corpses for Muti' (medicine-) purposes in South Africa's Northern Province a few years ago. (Local witchdoctors use amputated body parts such as ears, noses and genitals to prepare 'muti' sold to customers who wish to cast spells on their enemies.) In the interview he rst reassured the listening public, as any efcient, 'modern' politician should, that there was nothing to be concerned about - the investigation into the grave robberies was proceeding smoothly and the police service had everything under control. Then he added, almost as an afterthought, that, besides, 'muti' only worked when it was made from body parts amputated while the 'donor' was alive - a remark which evinced a conspicuously anomalous, 'premodern' belief in the efcacy of witchcraft."At the trial itself a Colonel Jonkers of the Occult Crime Unit,SA.Police Service testied at length on the cult's characteristics,support network,validity and its claims lending ofcialdom and perhaps some credibility to the defendants claims;". Your Honour, you know me ... I was in Murder and Robbery Branch for years: I used to go only by reality. But the last three years things have happened in front of me, too ... then you see the reality of it, that Satan is a reality as I am standing here in the dock and as God is too" thankfully this was balanced by the clinical psychologist Ian who says with regards to these cults "such 'religions' provide \.. unambiguous and simple answers' to the question concerning the meaning of life. Moreover, they provide Instant community identity' for alienated or marginalized individuals (p. 65), and satanism, in particular, legitimates rebellion against traditional orthodox or authority gures and moral systems"(I.Mayer1995) Du Toit and Kruger had thought themselves empowered by Satanism with knowledge and sexual prowess and wanted to challenge traditional authority."Given their own alienation from 'normal' society what seems to have mattered was that satanist practices and beliefs sanctioned their deance of orthodoxy. In its most extreme form this deance manifested itself as coercive power over their victim(s), the representatives of traditional society - a power that was experienced by them as being inseparable from their satanistic commitment, their contract' with the demonic."The author makes the point that modern or enlightenment discourse of rationality would not have entertained such fanciful a defence but this is now made possible by "(the) pluralistic discursive space of postmodernity". "The simultaneous treatment of satanism as something that has to be taken seriously as a factor in human motivation, that is, granted a certain credibility, and as something which should be denied normative standing, therefore has the effect of rendering it undecidable to a certain degree, and of exacerbating or complicating the axiological chaos' alluded to by Kurzweil".What the Satanic discourse provided was an in-group for the alienated outgroup that held in contempt the paternal discourse of mainstream society,the members of which having internalized and hold sure to the tenets of that discourse.What is this other discourse which we have internalized and why does is it now contentious?It is known as the 'pastoral' discourse and ". Foucault contended that the political model inherited from the Greeks - pertaining to the public relationship between citizens and the polis or state was incapable of providing guidance regarding a different form of power, namely the relationship of state care for individuals (Forrester),",furthermore," This required a different model, introduced to the west by the Hebrews, namely the pastoral' that is, the image of a shepherd guarding over and caring for the well-being of its ock. The crucial moment of

this model is that each individual in the 'ock' only becomes what it is in and through the caring bestowed on it by the 'shepherd'. It is therefore a model of positive', as opposed to negative' power, and emphasises individualisation (Foucault, quoted in Forrester 1997:12.4)." Could being a member of a community with such a discourses tied to such powerful imagery and in direct opposition to its perceived enemy be overcome by the human will,"if human subjectivity is indeed discursively constituted - if we, as one of the cardinal insights on the part of discourse theorists indicates, do not only speak, but are spoken' by the discourses which constitute our subjectivity (cf e.g. Derrida 1973: 145) - is it far fetched to understand actions like those of Du Toit and Kruger (but also everyday, normal' actions on the part of most people) as being performed under the sway or in the grip of discourses which 'speak' us?"This is the question I hope you will comment on.Here is the authors response,"I would argue, however, that anyone (including Du Toit or Kruger), who is an agent of the logic' of a certain discourse, is not for that reason exempted from responsibility for his/her actions, with the important proviso that such a person shows himor herself as being susceptible to guilt or remorse (the signs of an active conscience). Whatever the specic character of the multiple discourses - such as legal, economic, educational, gender-, political and cultural - by which our subjectivities are constructed, they are bound to include the moral discourse of'free will' in various guises, whether it is in the language of personal choice, of decision, responsibility, accountability or some other notion which presupposes freedom of volition."and continues "As such, these volitional discursive spaces provide a foothold, at least potentially, from which a dominant discourse (such as satanism, or patriarchy) may be challenged and/or defused by the very subject who enacts its logic' or functions as the agent of its power. As Foucault puts it (1990: 84): 'There is no power without potential refusal or revolt".What I hope my post has shown is that the 'beetle in the box' can be found in discourses and that perhaps these discourses,for some,are inescapable.

All that is to be found in quotation,unless otherwise stated,is taken from chapter 1 of 'Philosophy and Psychoanalytic Theory-Collected Essays - Bert Olivier,a really great work available online and from which for reasons of pith I left out fascinating analysis as regards to the case.A denite recommendation !