Piercing incomprehensible power

• Author: Nethersole, R.
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a10
• Published date: 05 September 2022
• Date: 05 September 2022
• Citation: 2022 Acta Juridica 220
• Pages: 220-245

220

https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a10

Piercing incomprehensible power

REINGAR D NETHERSOLE*

Demonstrat ing the inherent indiscernibility of political power,

particularly in our post-tellurian, celest ial epoch (Schm itt) of ‘post-

democracy’ ( Rancière), a focus on space s and sites of power – in its

dual char acteristic of dom inating, c ontrolling a s well as enablin g force

– illum inates hi storic changes that produced tod ay’s technological ly

and pecuniary propel led ‘governance’ (Morozov). Dispensed by

idola of the ‘ma rketplace and the theatre’ (Bacon) coursing through

cyberspace, the muted demos is coaxed into accepting Sil icon

Valley’s promise of utopia u nless forensic rhetoric pierces the broken

connection bet ween having power and exercising it deliberatively.

That depends on the extent to which concea led places of power can

be made comprehen sible for the demos to withstand cele stial seduction

and regai n her political ly informed voice.

I INTRODUCTION: RHETORIC AS

COMPREHENSION

Rhetoric is a verbal skill necessary for language as performance,

hence action. To full this function, comprehension is vital and

essayin g the term gives an idea of the expan se of its semantic reach:

Comprendre (French, meaning ‘to understand’ and also ‘to include’,

from Latincomprehendere‘to take together, to unite; include; seize

in the sense of catching re or the arrest of criminals’) entered the

European vernacular in the mid-fourteenth century, interestingly

at the time of the early Renaissance when cities became important

centres and the European mind began to wean itself from docile

compliance with theocratic auctoritas. From the 1600s onwards,

its meaning – ‘to be able to be understood, capable of being

conceived by the mind’ – has been relatively stable in both English

and French, with the German verstehen in the early nineteenth

century even propelling the textual ‘science’ of hermeneutics.

Its task to elucidate the meaning of mu ltiple semantic and semiotic

constellations makes it rhetoric’s competitor, but like the former

* P rofessor emerita of Co mparative Literat ure, University of t he Witwaters-

rand; Vis iting scholar, Univers ity of Richmond , Virginia, USA .

2022 Acta Juridica 220

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PIERCING INCOMPREH ENSIBLE POWER 221

https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a10

it seeks, in its guise of a Hermeneutics of Suspicion,1 to stall the

spread of ‘intolera nce, a closed mind, a nd a hardening of attitudes’.

‘Comprehending and ghting’2 these antonymic traits make an

understanding of their working peremptory, as Phil ippe-Joseph

Salazar suggests in the French title of his book that interrogates

the seductive force of verbal power waged by ISIS (Islamic State of

Iraq and Syria) terrorists.3

But what is rhetoric to do about making comprehensible

something as powerful as the ‘Incomprehensible’, the topic of this

Festschrift? After all, the Incomprehensible (capital I) as such derives

its power precisely from def ying comprehension. We cannot grasp

it. It overwhelms us a nd we stand in awe, like deeply relig ious people

stand before the div ine in one of the world’s many di erent genii

locorum.4 Thus, a noema like ‘The Incomprehensible’, shrouded in

an aura of sin gularity, mig ht spur an investigation into spee ch about

the numinous nature of divine spirit that dees understanding.

Would it not then be obvious if we were to embark on an i nvestigation

into iterations of the Mystics? Or should we look at how and why

poetic language likes to skirt clear verbal reasoning? After all, the

sublime keeps close company with semantic density; for Friedrich

Schlegel, the Ger man Romantic poet and philosopher, it was

even the lodestone for inspired meaning, as he claimed in 1800.5

1 P R icœur Freud and Philosophy (19 65).

2 Ph -J Salaz ar Paroles Armée s: Comprendre et combat tre la propagande

terrori ste (2015).

3 I bid.

4 I n the histor y of Western cult ure, the Roma n Temple of Jupiter and

enigm atic Delphi come to m ind when thi nking of f amous cult sit es inhabite d

by incomprehensible spirit.

5 F S chlegel ‘Über di e unverständl ichkeit’ in C Grützm acher (ed) Athenaeum

II (1969). Schlegel plead s for irony when dis tingu ishing bet ween reason and

unreas on, argui ng that it is the occulte d order of incomprehen sible phenomena

that forces u s to seek comprehension in t he rst place. It is wort h pointing out in

this con nection, too, th at Mathemat ics, always per ceived as parag on of clarit y,

actua lly benets f rom perusi ng incomprehens ible entities. A s the Harva rd

mathemat ician B Ma zur ‘The author ity of the incom prehensible’ Ber frois 3

July 2014, avail able at https://www.berfrois.com/2014/07/barry-mazur-the-

authority- of-the-incomprehen sible/, suggests: ‘But our very vo cabular y: the

depth of an idea g ives some normative weigh t to toughness of comprehen sion. In

fact, bei ng led to the bri nk of incomprehen sibility – the limit s of knowledge –

has held a fa scination for m athematic ians, and t his fasc ination has led to some

of the most impo rtant brea kthroughs. From the Py thagorea n concern over

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