Existentially paradoxical strategy of being what one wants

Being What You Want: problematic kataphatic identity vs. potential of apophatic identity? (Part #10)

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By being what one "wants", as suggested in the title of this exploration -- and knowing what one wants -- the possibility of being otherwise is seriously inhibited. Potential options are closed off -- "fenced off" as suggested above. Identity is constrained to what can be articulated in terms of tangibles -- with all that implies for patterns of consumption. The strategic need to "change patterns of consumption" must then be understood in terms of the challenge of changing identity.

These seemingly obscure issues are brought sharply into focus as a consequence of the kataphatic tendency of individuals and groups to identify with tangibles that they have been induced to "want". Marketing necessarily promotes such identification -- with a house, an automobile, clothing, accessories or other products that are held to define the identity of the person. This is effectively an exercise in misplaced concreteness. One is encouraged by convention to recognize one's identity, and that of others, through such possessions -- through conspicuous consumption. Patterns of consumption, and the challenge they constitute in any transition to sustainability, are then more fruitfully understood in terms of sustaining and "consuming" identity (Anup Shah, Behind Consumption and Consumerism, 2001). By contrast, an apophatic approach is consistent with dematerialization and the association of identity with subtler and more dynamic patterns -- through refining and complexifying the nature of what is "wanted" (Emergence of Cyclical Psycho-social Identity Sustainability as "psyclically" defined, 2007).

As noted above, from the theological perspective highlighted by Janet Williams (Judging Judgement: an apophatic approach, Theology Today, Jan 2002), in citing Carol Zaleski (The Life of the World to Come: Near-Death Experience and Christian Hope, 1996), the best strategy is one of "imaginative proliferation" in which a multiplicity of images, including mutually sublating contradictories such as eternal damnation of sinners and universal salvation, both articulate and challenge the best efforts at coherence. It is this simultaneous play of mutually incompatible and affirmed-and-denied images that is the work of imagination rather than cognition. This implies an essentially self-reflexive process as Williams argues:

It would seem that Christian speech on judgment will have to be an apophatic speech, an uroboric talking about judgment that both posits and displaces itself, mediating new life to the extent that it is crucified with the Logos whose judgment it proclaims.

An interesting example of collective use of imagination is offered by intentional communities (Renaissance Zones: experimenting with the intentional significance of the Damanhur community, 2003; Imaginal Education: game playing, science fiction, language, art and world-making, 2003; Consciously Self-reflexive Global Initiatives: Renaissance zones, complex adaptive systems, and third order organizations, 2007). Arguably the identity of collectivities may be fruitfully reframed in an analogous manner (Experimental Articulation of Collective Identity through a dynamic system of metaphors, 1991) -- notably in the case of Europe, the Middle East and the United Nations.

Valuable philosophical explorations of the implications of such imaginative possibilities, notably hypoessentialism and hyperessentialism, have been made by Saul Kripke (Naming and Necessity, 1980) -- as discussed in relation to identity by Christopher Hughes (Kripke: Names, Necessity, and Identity, 2004).

Faced with these possibilities of the neglected "abundance" highlighted by Feyerabend and McFague, the challenge lies in the strategic dilemmas of "being what you want". If the individual is in some way free imaginatively to elaborate both a sense of identity and the nature of contextual reality, what are the implications of any "want" in relation to any emergent sense of "being" and identity -- of who is doing the wanting? Operationally the "want" can be expressed kataphatically by defining, more or less rigidly, identity and the sense of being. Alternatively the "want" may be expressed apophatically by withholding such definition (as unwanted premature closure), or "dancing" between alternative definitions, doffing and donning various identities.

Perhaps more intriguing is the extent to which neither extreme is felt to be satisfactory and instead a form of "middle way" is sought. In this sense it is worth noting the work of Kinhide Mushakoji (Scientific revolution and interparadigmatic dialogue, 1978; Global Issues and Interparadigmatic Dialogue, 1988) who distinguishes from Eastern traditions four modalities through which the human mind grasps reality:

• Affirmation: Leading to affirmative action in the form of support, commitment, initiative, proposition, cooperation, consensus formation, empowering, "opening".
• Negation: Leading to negative action in the form of sanction, withdrawal (of support), denial, disassociation, delimitation, criticism, opposition, promotion of dissent, disempowering, "closing".
• Affirmation and negation: Leading to ambiguous action, non-violent resistance, "dumb insolence", "giving with one hand and taking with the other", "double dealing", "stick and carrot tactics", the "yes but no" response of the frustrated cross-examinee.
• Non-affirmation and Non-negation: Leading to action in the form of indifference, indecision, non-action (in the oriental sense), "neither confirm nor deny", "opening and closing".

The first two correspond to the kataphatic and apophatic modes. It is the sense in which individuals may dance between all four modes -- in response to different circumstances -- that is a challenge to further reflection. Although seemingly abstract, the familiarity of many with all four modes is evident in the challenge of interpersonal relations, especially those associated with the mysteries, dynamics and uncertainties of being in love.

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