Simultaneously Villain and Savior

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 6 August 2015.



I do see why we absolutely must engage the concepts of simulacra, the undead nature of language, and the secular worldview that derives from Camus and Sartre. I get why we need to engage Nietzsche, too, and any time I forget, I've got Planned Parenthood to remind me. Speaking of Derrida, I was thinking about your last major email, and the value in keeping Farthington "of indeterminant ethnicity" (I think those are DeLillo's words about Willie Mink; Jack Gladney also is frustrated by Orest Mercator for the same reason) and of having him set "indefinite longevity" as a goal.

Orwell talks about this idea that when Big Brother needs 2+2 to equal 4, it equals 4, and when he needs it to equal 5, it equals 5, but that's not exactly what Derrida is talking about.

Philosophically, we live in the age of O'Brien: the unborn child is a child when society needs her to be a child, a fetus when it needs her to be a fetus, tissue when it needs her to be tissue, a clump of cells when it needs her to be a clump of cells. But all we're really doing is doublethink: choosing temporary meanings.

Still, our increasing tendency to keep all options open approaches Derrida, where language is like a zombie--resistant to binary oppositions of words like "alive" and "dead." And for some reason, the more digital/binary our existence becomes, the more our communication becomes undead.

I think about this with that horrible Chevy commercial that borrows its plot from Sophie's choice: a mom must choose which child goes in the Chevy and which child goes in the car with inadequate airbag protection. The salesman who gives her the choice is also her savior, because he lets both kids go in the Chevy. So he is simultaneously villain and savior and neither and both...we can't sort the two out.

This undead thing works well for Farthington, who may or may not be alive, and who communicates digitally.