Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Secrets

After reading Borges “El etnografo,” what struck me was the theme of the secret as an ethical responsibility. Fiction doesn’t presume a reality but posits its own truth, institutes own context. In “Acts of Literature”, Derrida talks about the “strange institution of literature” and the way it has a right to “say everything”. At the same time, it can be better to not say anything. Literature has a secret, and in Borges’ story, the secret of the character is a secret without a secret because it is a textual secret. The author’s highest responsibility is to not say everything- a right to non-response. The character of Murdock has a secret which he keeps from the institution to which he is held accountable. He is a resolutely irresponsible academic and in being so answers to a higher responsibility. At the same time, Borges has a secret which he keeps from us- this is a secret without a secret because it is a textual secret. This refusal to say everything reminds me of last week’s discussion about the way in which Borges exposes the limits of literature, the part literature plays in the social order. To be forced to tell secrets is totalitarian. Sometimes the irresponsibility of the author is the highest responsibility- not answering to the institution that creates literature or discourse. This happens within the narrative when the main character refuses to disclose the secret his superior, and meta textually, as Borges refuses to disclose the secret to us. As Avelar points out, he also leaves unanswered the question- what happens between the refusal of the project and Murdock’s working at the elite university? This is not ambivalence but absence.

3 comments:

  1. I think you really hit it with that last statement, there isn't ambivalence in this story, there is absence. I agree that there is some over-dependency on the belief of the omnipotent and omniscient abilities of literature. I wonder though how absence functions on a political level. I mean, as we think about cultural production, is absence a necessary part of the process?

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  2. I reacted to your very poignant statement "to be forced to tell secrets is totalitarian," especially in light of our readings this week on the subaltern. It reveals the hegemony within ethnography - Murdoch's superiors trying to appropriate the secret of alterity, Burgos' inscription and editing of Menchu's testimony. Maybe Burgos should have respected Rigoberta's "secrets" and not written the book like Murdoch? Is that the ethically responsible choice?

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  3. You mention the theme of "ethical responsibility" and that the "author’s highest responsibility is to not say everything- a right to non-response." I wonder about the definition of responsibility in the context of Murdock. Was he answering to a higher authority? The text is so short and there is very little mention of his true reasons for keeping his secret. He could be acting on ethical impulses or he could be an anarchist. Are we really sure which is which?

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