The Lateset New World

8/12/2019 The Lateset New World

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Th e Latest New W orldAlexandre KojvePublished online: 30 Sep 2011.

To cite this article: Alexandre Kojve (1997) The Latest New World, Parallax, 3:1, 23-27, DOI:10.1080/13534645.1997.9522371

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The Lates t New World

A l e x a n d r e K o j v e

Francoise Sagan, onjour tristesse (Paris: Ju llia rd , 1954)- Un Certain Sourire (Paris: Ju llia rd , 1956)

Tr a n s l a te d b y D a v i d M a c e y

A new type of world has been born to l i terature. And for my part , I f ind i t quitenatura l tha t i t should have been born in Par is and dia t an unmarr ied mother (d iemother of a purely l i terary neonate of course) should have given binh to i t .

This new world i tself was obviously not born yesterday. But aluhough research intome question is no long er forbidden, pate rnity is far from hav ing be en definitivelyestablished in this case, and the procession of cla ima nts to tha t heavy responsibil i tyhas not yet come to a close. An d yet , even du rin g the l ifet ime of die pu tative fadier,a G er m an - and he too was a genius - hinted discretely at wh at a Gr eat Co rsica

migh t be. And for m y par t , I am b eginn ing to believe firmly m at die lat ter c on qu ero rwas himself effectively respon sible for wh at was, for him , die h on ou r an d th e plea sureof d ie conceiving our new world . G er m an ins inuat ions as ide , d ie Ge rm an informersaw very cleariy and predicted die nature of die child he announced to the worid.Even though many people who are well endowed with common sense st i l l fai l totake seriously visions, even diose of this visionary (not to m en tion die disturbin gvisions of certain of his aposdes), despite the fact diat he was en am ou re d of reason[Vernunft].

In England, however, one contemporary seemed to have seen t i l ings just as clearly.

At al l events, he certainly realized diat , dianks to die exploits of his Franco-Ital iancompeti tor, the honour (which some call vainglorious) of viri le heroism can now bewon (albeit in purely sartorial terms) only in civil ian dress ( the colou r of m ou rn ing ,of course). But that peaceful genius died an unknown martyr to his sensationaldiscovery (which was to have unforgettable repercussions in the world, defined inthe true sense of the word) without leaving any l i terary trace, an d his h agio gra ph ersnever revealed to non-init iates die true meaning and import of his painful act ofwitness (a French nunnery still shelters his material relics).

parallax 4 (february 1997): 23-28


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In France, finally, the re was on ce a Ma rq ui s wh o was impriso ned by the Tyra nt butl iberated by the People. He too understood that , in the new free world, everythingwould now h ave to be com mit ted in private, especially murd ers, which were perforceseen as the (nobly gratuitous) acts of an egali tarian and fraternal Liberty. But thepopular Liberators init ial ly saw this l iberated man as a mere Libert ine. Even today,the few eli te men who read him and talk about him seriously are accused by theem ine ndy serious masses of not really be ing serious. An d so he did not divulge thesecret ei ther

Truth to tel l , i t is because I wanted at last to reveal a mystery mat has been socarefully preserved by those who are party to i t (assuming that some of them sti l lexist), that I resolved to write and even publish the few pages that follow, and todedicate mem to al l those who will read them and, merefore, quite definitely tomademoiselle Sagan. The good offices of some vigilant Argus will no doubt ensurethat they come to her notice.

For it is thanks to the care with which this young girl has written her first two booksthat the world in question has be en 'bo rn to l iterature". Un ti l this you ng Frenc h girlcame along, no man of letters was willing to speak of it, or at least to speak of it sonicely. O ne g reat A me rican l i terary hack of m od er n t imes specialising in the analysisof viri le behaviour did of course look into the problem of a world that had beenemascula ted by i t s fa ther, who remains unknown as i t happens . Having grown hisbeard (now white) , probably to give himself courage in his heroic struggle againstdespair, this famous author searched the world for the last human male, or ratherthe last truly male man, and claims to have at last found him in the Caribbean Sea,

in the form of an old f isherman. True, he was half-dead. Even then, the only worthyadversary he could find for him was a fish (of a different species, as it happens, to theone that served as a model for one of the symbols of a well-known religion).2 Aheroic and very strong fish, but even so. . . But this m od er n A nglo-Sax on's very rece ntna tu ra l h i s to ry r em aine d jus t a s e so te r i c a s the a l r eady vene rab le G er m an icapocalypse of universal History.

It is merefore a very-very-young-young French girl who has the ( l i terary) honour ofrevealing to the crowds (her male and female readers) throughout the true nature ofthe world w here this glory was won . An d she ce rtainly does so in a very honest way,though her way of do ing so m ay s ti ll pe rha ps be som ewh at 'unconscious ' ( in thephilosophical sense of the term) or 'naive ' ( in Schil ler 's sense, or in other words asopposed to sent imenta l ) .

To get straight to the point , we are dealing with a world that is new because i t iscomplete ly and def in i tively devoid of me n (as def ined by M alrau x-M onth er lant -Hcmingway to ci te only those three classics and to leave Homer and the others inpeace). A world without men, seen (vu3) by a young girl of course. But a world thatdiffers completely from the already dusty world in which another young girl (not a


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Parisian, as i t happens) saw, so to speak, nothing but the f lannel trousers which, atthat t ime, we re wo rn by practically no one but 'au the nt ic ' m en . By con trast , in thenew world revealed to us by the young girl to whom this world has been revealed,men (not in the ambiguous sense of the equivocal French word, but in the preciseand proper anatomo-physiological sense) or those who stand in for men, tend toflaunt themse lves quite naked (but with c om pul sory muscles) or in a state of und ressbefore the by no me an s start led eyes of y oun g girls. In m y day (and for me those werethe good old days, as has been the case for all time and of all the times that havebeen spoken of with a certain sadness [une certame tristesse]). In my day, I say (withviri le pride), nudity, even when complete, tended rather to be the preserve of pretty-girls (at least in art and literature). Such too was its fate in a more distant past. Andbesides - God knows - undressing the viri le men of the past was no easy matter. I ttook four or f ive people to get a shining knight out of his gleaming armour, andmo re recently st il l the help of a strong you ng lad was n o luxu ry if you wan ted to geta famous soldier out of his fine shining boo ts. N o do ub t things have gready imp roved

since then . Even in my day, casual and com fortable pyjam as from the effeminateIndies had conquered the free Western world, thanks to the Brit ish conquerors ofthe servile Orient. And yet, insofar as it was a literary theme, the role of these occi-oriental garm en ts (initially reserved exclusively for men ; their ma m m as stricdy fo rbadewell -brought up young girls to wear them) was str icdy confined to bedroom farces.It would be difficult indeed to imagine a serious (masculine) author of those timesevoking the pyjamas of a (literary) hero whose virility was called upon (on, say, thebleeding soil of re volution ary Sp ain a nd , to spell it out , in an a rm y sleeping bag) toinitiate into the purest love a young girl whose purity (moral purity, of course) hadnot been sull ied by her earl ier and repe ated rap e at the hand s of a dozen (reactionary)males. Of course in our new world (where, fortunately, pure young girls no longerneed to get themselves rap ed to beco m e able to mak e love prop erly or, i f you preferto put i t that way, purely an d simply), the you ng girl w ho is talking abo ut i t speaks indetail only of her own pyjamas, and their immaculate puri ty is watched over with amaternal eye by the second young man of her choice. But one really cannot see whytoday's young writeresses should no t be a ble to talk jus t as easily, and with just asmuch fraternal devotion, about the pyjamas worn by the ex-viri le partners of themasculine-looking lovers of their novels ' heroine s. For their hero ines already eye u pwith a very masculine indifference (which st i l l , i t is true, seems to them to be'marvellou s ' , as they themselves ad m it with tou chin g hum ili ty) the viri le forms thatare on show as they watch one of their potential conquests walking in beauty in the

street or, more specifically, on the pavement of the Promenade des Anglais (Un CertainSourire, 18). W he n die conqu est ha s bee n con su m m ate d in a bed (ibid. , 106), theykiss his ' torso' (which, unfortunately and even if it were that of the Apollo Belvedere,can never, from a certain point of view, be as good as that of a Venus from dieCapitol , or anywhere else come to that) .


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N o one co uld honestly deny th at all diis is profou ndly hum iliat ing for those of usw h o , thanks to some M endel ian accident , were bo rn wi th the body of a m an (unlessthey have forgotten the non-sexual meaning of the generic name they bear) . Evenso , in this case, i t would take som e coura ge, not to den y and disagree, but to conformand agree. But is there any poin t in expressing in dign ation , as som e sti ll claim to beable to do? O r in describing m ese young girls as Am az on s' , with a sub de hin t of theirony that ha s so advantageou sly replace d the ou tm od ed bronze of the heroic legendsof very ancien t Greece , now brough t back4 in to fashion by die sophist icated thinke rsof o ur time? A s the saving goes, beg gar s can't be ch oosers. At all events, I am reluc tantto believe that anyone has any intention of advising these so-called Amazons (whohave, as i t happens, shown no hosti l i ty towards any husbands, not even their own)ma t they shou ld divide, if only for a jok e, into two grou ps, with on e gro up tak ing therole of die men they have had to stop fighting because there are no men left to fight.

For tho usan ds of years, m en ' took' gir ls . T h e n i t be ca m e the fashion for girls to 'give 'diem selves. But is it the girls' fault if, in a new wo rld w he re th ere is no m ale hero ism,they can be no longer ei ther 'given' nor ' taken' and have to be content widi letdngthemselves be talked into it, like it or not? In these conditions and in a world inwhich w e are no w forced to live so long as our d eat hs m ean s n odiin g to us, is i t notpreferable for them to let themselves be talked into i t with the best possible graceand will-power? And wh at would be the poin t of se ndin g these gracious but vo luntary'Am azons ' to nunn eries (as som e would see m to wish to do , witho ut every dar ing tosay so), or to other subde and professional healers of supposedly damaged souls (assome occasionally think fi t to suggest on the grounds that the girls in question arenot ' t ruly h app y' , tho ugh th ey never offer to mee t the cost - a high cost , as i t ha pp en s

- of this so-called moral decontaminadon)? Even assuming that die girls could be'normal ised ' to such an extent d ia t behaving l ike ' rea l women ' would make themperfecdy 'ha pp y' , how could they find die real m en they need in a world w here th eacm e of m ale power now lies in die peaceful an d laborio us (aldiough duly mo torized)activity of a fenile husb and ?

To sum up my final opinion, I wil l say that in my view Ccile and Dominique (diename is to be read in the feminine) are, l ike Frangoise herself girls like any odiers.W ha t I me an is this: l ike any od ier girls in any dm e or place with un usua lly sha rpm inds an d wh at is com mo nly (or nobly?) called 'guts ' (even thou gh n ot all of them

ha d the dazzlingly precocious literary talen t displayed by at least on e of their n um be r).W ha t is new abou t the abov e-m entio ned yo un g girls (and this is wh at is hum iliat ingfor those of us wh o are after all m en , at least from a c erta in po int of view) is tha t th ethird of them has al lowed the other two to begin to l ive, not in the world of whichyou ng girls dre am almost as m uch as yo un g men , but in this strange ne w wo rld. Th islatest ne w world is indeed o ur world a nd its specific cha racteristic, wh ich distinguishesit from all othe r is, as we know, the fact tha t dier e a re virtually no m or e rea l war s orveritable revolutions. Before long, the only place for a glorious death will be a bed(private or public) . Dying a glorious death will be condit ional upon taking on wild

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beasts (non-castrated rum inants) sword in han d, o r r isking on e's life to scale peaks ofover eight thousand meters (or the equivalent number of English or other feet) .Now , there are very few such peaks, an d they will soon be forgotten ab ou t wh en theylose al l the viri le interest they now have. They will be equipped with eidier cablecars that present as l it tle danger as possible, or landin g-pa ds for helicop ters wh ich,we all hope, will soon be being used for purely peaceful purposes, meaning that al lsexes an d ages will be able to use them . As for the wild beasts d iat ar e cu rre nd y usedto realize the virtual vir i l i ty of a few authentic (and mosdy Iberian) human males,there is a great dan ger th at a public opinio n (which is certainly far from 'naiv e' bu tvery 'sentimental' , to re-cite the great poet of Sturm and Drang that no longer toleratesdie idea of (painlessly) execudng real murderers (even in the formerly aristocradchomeland of the last civic dandies), wil l soon be mobilized to put an end to diesufferings (and diey are cruel and so humiliadng) inflicted upon these poor vegetariananimals who have never done anyone any harm.

When diey see the state of paradisiacal peace diat has f inally been reestablished onearth, the ancient gods (male and female al ike) who laughed so loudly in the day ofAchil les 's batde s but wh o almost died of thirst in a less rem ote a rea , ma y themselvesbe content to smile a certain smile as diey, like everyone else, drink visqui, which - atleast in our world - is pro no un ce d scotch an d drun k diluted widi iced water. Even diemost Epicurean Sage in die world will readily grant diem that pleasure.

Notes

' "The Lates t New World" was f i rs t publ ished as" L e D e r n i e r M o n d e n o u v e a u " i n Critique 1112(Aug-Sept, 1956).

T h e exc lus ive ho no ur accor ded to fi sh andfishermen would be unfair to non-e ma scula tedbov ines, we re it not that d ie latter wer e the objectof an ear i ier book by the author in quest ion, whohas devoted th e bet ter par t of his l i terary auvre a n deven his own life to bloody combats between (male)mammals, and were it not that he fell back on coldblooded animals only when he was in his (vi r i le)

decl ine .1 -Any typog raphical e rror that ad de d an Y to theend of ' / ' would be a horr ible b etrayal of theaut ho r 's deepest thou ght (because me n and notworld would be the object , t rans . ] .

'On ce aga in , a typograp h ica l e r ro r omi t t ing the(feminizing V) on 'remise' would make i t agree, notwith Ancient Greece, but wi th the famous poet ic'bronze ' . We could make i t perfecdy wel l today,and even use i t in the way the legendary heroesused i t in theirs (when they could make nothingbet ter, or a t leas t not in terms of metals) . No onewould dare (e i ther in their l i fe t ime or even af tertheir glorious deaths) to challe nge their virili ty. Su cha typo migh t expose me to th e r i sk (which i sc e r t a i n l y s e r i o u s f o r a n a u t h o r ) o f b e i n g

misinterpreted, or even tota l ly misrecognized ( indie sense of mis-unders tood) .

The Lateset New World

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