Power of Gentleness ; Meditations on the Risk of Living

Gentleness is an enigma. Taken up in a double movement of welcoming and giving, it appears on the threshold of passages signed off by birth and death. Because it has its degrees of intensity, because it is a symbolic force, and because it has a transformative ability over things and beings, it is a power. The simplicity of gentleness is misleading. It is an active passivity that may become an extraordinary force of symbolic resistance and, as such, become central to both ethics and politics. Gentleness is a force of secret life-giving transformation linked to what the ancients called potentiality. In our day, gentleness is sold to us under its related form of diluted mawkishness. By infantilizing it our era denies it. This is how we try to overcome the high demands of its subtlety--no longer by fighting it, but by enfeebling it. Language itself is therefore perverted: what our society intends to give the human beings that it crushes "gently," it does in the name of the highest values: happiness, truth, security. From listening to those who come to me and confide their despair, I have heard it expressed in every lived experience. I have felt its force of resistance and its intangible magic. In mediating its relation to the world, it appears that its intelligence carries life, saves and amplifies it.-- "from Catherine Malabou's Foreword" "Key moments of our lives, especially at the beginning and end, are marked by gentleness--but the simplicity of that concept is misleading. Gentleness is an active passivity that may become an extraordinary force of resistance within ethics and politics. In this powerful rethinking by a renowned philosopher and psychoanalyst, whose untimely death captured worldwide attention, gentleness becomes a series of embodied paradoxes: power that is also soft, nobility that is also humble, sweetness that is also intelligent, subtlety that is nevertheless striking, fragility that has the potential to subvert the status quo. In Greek and Christian myth, in the philosophical and religious traditions of China and India, and across Western literature and art, gentleness occurs in moments of tenderness such as birth, care, and mutual love, but also where least expected, amid danger, humiliation, and cruelty. Gentleness, Dufourmantelle shows, is marked above all by our early human connections to the physical world, uncovered and rediscovered primarily through the senses, with all the ambivalences that entails. Today, we are most familiar with a gentleness sold to us in the diluted form of mawkishness. This is how we try to evade its subtlety--no longer by fighting it, but by enfeebling it. In the name of our highest values--happiness, truth, security--we enforce "gentle" safeguards against hurt and are persuaded to participate in our era's three divinities: efficiency, speed, and profitability. But in doing so we seal ourselves off from the life-affirming gamble that a true gentleness affords. True gentleness entails an ethic of desire. Against a society that crushes human beings "gently" through consumerist logic and the illusion of total transparency, Dufourmantelle celebrates the uncompromising gentleness discovered by Gandhi and other revolutionaries. At the same time, within the despair confided by her patients, she traces the force of resistance and intangible magic that gentleness offers in the lived experience of ordinary women and men who fully embrace the risk of living."-- From the publisher Cover 1 Contents 8 Foreword: Philosophy in Furs 12 Translators’ Note 18 Introduction 26 Approach 30 Origins 33 Animality 36 Taking Care 37 Intelligence 39 Potential 42 The Sensory Cele bration (I) 45 Sales Pitch 49 Language Sources 52 Justice and Forgiveness 57 East 61 A Silent Transformation 63 Feeling and Sensibility 66 The Symbolic Force of Gentleness 68 Free Form 71 Pure Gentleness? 73 Patrolling 78 Sensory Celebration (II) 80 Counterfeits 83 Exhaustion 86 Penumbra 88 “Master and Man,” by Tolstoy 90 The Sensory Cele bration (III) 92 Sublimation 95 Cruelties 97 In Hell 100 Listening 103 Trauma and Creation 110 Beyond the Confines 112 Clandestine Gentleness 113 The Sensory Celebration (IV) 116 Childhood 120 Gentleness of Melancholy 122 Dolce Vita 125 A Gentle Revolution 128 Notes 132 Index 136 A 136 B 136 C 136 D 136 E 136 F 136 G 137 H 137 J 137 K 137 L 137 M 137 N 137 P 137 R 137 S 137 T 137 Y 137 Intro -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Foreword: Philosophy in Furs -- Translators' Note -- Half Title -- Introduction -- Approach -- Origins -- Animality -- Taking Care -- Intelligence -- Potential -- The Sensory Celebration (I) -- Sales Pitch -- Language Sources -- Justice and Forgiveness -- East -- A Silent Transformation -- Feeling and Sensibility -- The Symbolic Force of Gentleness -- Free Form -- Pure Gentleness? -- Patrolling -- Sensory Celebration (II) -- Counterfeits -- Exhaustion -- Penumbra -- "Master and Man," by Tolstoy -- The Sensory Celebration (III) -- Sublimation -- Cruelties -- In Hell -- Listening -- Trauma and Creation -- Beyond the Confines -- Clandestine Gentleness -- The Sensory Celebration (IV) -- Childhood -- Gentleness of Melancholy -- Dolce Vita -- A Gentle Revolution -- Notes -- Index