the struggle, part 6

Felice Sharp, "Markers" (2006) [mixed media on board]


faith is the belief that in and through human activity something more gives itself; a commitment to the idea that there will be a fullness of Truth; that this fullness is the implicit promise carried in the experience of meaning (this is what makes faith a rational hope). it is faith precisely because this fullness is not-yet. thus the object of faith is the Truth-which-is-our-Future.

the claim of faith: out of the Old the New will impossibly emerge.

Truth is not something that simply is. Truth is not a collection of facts. Truth presents itself in and through human activity and because of this one never simply has the Truth. it is instead encountered in the various ways in which human beings examine the question of meaning, and so it is presented with all the partiality and brokenness of humanity. this is the origin of the struggle: humanity's constant attempts to come to the fullness of meaning, the Whole, that is promised in all they do. Truth is not held in the past, nor does it exist as a timeless present as if it were an already fulfilled reality. Truth is the Future which must be realized. This is why History is Truth. we experience Truth as that which is about to come.

hegel claimed that the True was the Whole. adorno countered this with the claim that the Whole is the False. but these two claims are not in conflict with one another. for hegel, Truth could only be known from the standpoint of the fullness of History. adorno reminds us that in the midst of History all claims to possess such knowledge already are occult. claims to grasp what that might be, or to insist that one knows the plan or practice by which progress toward Reconciliation might be certainly achieved is the height of >undialectical= or >uncritical= thinking. it can only serve the interest of whatever totem is raised as a banner of salvation, shutting humanity off from any hope for the Future. today Truth is crucified and broken, and thus all claims to Wholeness, Holiness, Peace or Reconciliation are ideology and mystification. adorno is the truth of hegel as seen in the middle of History.

in the present all writing must make clear that it is an exercise in productive failure.

-LoA