Orientation and Meaninglessness

An event is a mark of where meaning takes the place. ‘The place’ can be anything, from a positive known-unknown, such as ignorance, to a negative unknown-unknown, such as a thing in-itself. These instances correspond to Badiou’s event as well as Zizek’s, respectively.

An event is a lacuna begun on one side of the sentence waiting for the other side; an event is the erasure of the lacuna, what Hegel could call a negation of negation.

Meaninglessness could likewise be understood in the same way as a lacuna. Namely, is it the substance that is supposed in the “…”, or is it more in line with Rudolf Otto’s version where the meaning is already gleaned from what came before and after?

Similarly we have our orientations:

Given an event which erupts into and or disrupts meaning: it is the difference between a sense which finds itself through presentations of words and the sorting out of what sense could be (is possible) made from the words and clauses already established — where there is a possibility of a meaning or sense which conveys to the person their own lack, incompletion, failure or stupidity, upon which then, toward either asset or deficit, one can build meaning– but then there is the case of already total sensibility that attempts to use words to convey “what already has meaning”.

The difference is in how discourse is used and is the issue more significantly than what is meant by any particular discourse. It is not about whether one is coming to conclusions prematurely or assuming what is meant compared to a thorough reading or consideration of the text — because even the deepest and most studied reading is still based in an assumed estimation; rather, it is more about the nature of the discourse in-itself, which is to say, how one is viewing the terms of the discussion that is at issue, and less what meaning one is making necessarily.

It is the difference between viewing and dealing with what is right there in front of us, and what is supposed to be lurking behind the scenes of any situation. The object itself is right in front of us; the lack is the assumption/ presumption of a deeper truth. The approach is evidenced in the difference between a science and a religion.