Adaptations frequently involve perversions or dilutions of meaning. The Phantom of the Opera is a good example. The musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart is, like many contemporary musicals, a transparent parable for the persecution of Self by societal norms. “Masquerade” offers the standard whine of the misunderstood Individual, hiding his face so the world will never find or evaluate or condemn him, while in “The Music of the Night” the Gospel of True Identity is proclaimed in an exhortation to “[t]urn your thoughts away from cold, unfeeling light” and “let your fantasies unwind” and “live as you’ve never lived before.” Into the Woods expectorates the same thematic arc of social artificiality followed by persecution of Self and heroic adolescent rebellion, ending in cautious accompaniment. Fairy tale characters bullied by stylistic convention undergo a Dark Night of the Self as they uncover the ultimate truth, not of the soul but of psychological and appetitive idiosyncrasy. They escape drowning in this mire only by treading water in the cynical, self-pitying assurance that, at least, “no one is alone.”
In chapter fourteen of the novel by Leroux, the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny and his guide, the Persian, find themselves in a “torture-chamber” described as “a regular hexagon, lined entirely with mirrors.”
For the architectural motive [that is, the object reproduced indefinitely by the mirrors] … , he substituted an iron tree. This tree, with its painted leaves, was absolutely true to life and was made of iron so as to resist all the attacks of the “patient” who was locked into the torture-chamber. … The walls of this strange room gave the patient nothing to lay hold of, because, apart from the solid decorative object, they were simply furnished with mirrors, thick enough to withstand any onslaught of the victim. … That impenetrable forest, with its innumerable trunks and branches, threw him [the Vicomte] into a terrible state of consternation. He passed his hands over his forehead, as though to drive away a dream; his eyes blinked; and, for a moment, he forgot to listen. … I did my best to induce the poor viscount to listen to reason. I made him touch the mirrors and the iron tree and the branches and explained to him, by optical laws, all the luminous imagery by which we were surrounded and of which we need not allow ourselves to be the victims, like ordinary, ignorant people. “We are in a room, a little room; that is what you must keep saying to yourself. And we shall leave the room as soon as we have found the door.”
The Vicomte’s “consternation” is symptomatic of one sensing his imprisonment in the Platonic Cave but incapable, for the moment, of finding his way out. This consternation is compounded, as in the Cave, by an artificial and deceptive imitation of a natural object, a tree.
In a recent encounter with Airbnb I made the mistake of clicking on the company’s “nondiscrimination policy,” which introduced my latest acquisition of liberal jargon. According to Wikipedia, deadnaming is “the act of calling a transgender or non-binary person by their birth name or other former forename (their ‘deadname’) after they have chosen a new name. … Deadnaming is considered offensive, as it misgenders its subject and potentially outs them as transgender.” (Even the word “outs” is hyperlinked to indicate a fixed sense in the vocabulary of the Party of Unfixed Sense, or PUS.) I will skim past Wikipedia’s poetic hint that a clipped “forename” establishes a progressive covenant by a new rite of circumcision. According to Ariane Resnick (who holds an impressive CNC from NHI––that is, a certificate of nutritional consultation from the Natural Heart Institute), the “technical definition” of deadnaming is to call somebody by a name he, or she, has publicly abandoned (e.g. a maiden name). However, says Resnick, “the term deadnaming is not applicable for cis people. That’s because it is known as a specifically harmful act towards people who are under the trans umbrella. Deadnaming is generally perpetrated by cis people,” etc.1 Then comes the interesting bit.
People who are trans … often do something called transitioning. That is the process of going from being who others label you as, to who you actually are. [italics added]
The absurdity of this definition is quickly apparent to anyone with a mustard packet of Platonic or scientific sensibility. As bequeathed to us by the ancient Greeks, the concept of science, or episteme––that is, knowledge of anything––rests on the identification of an essence underlying appearances. Science in this architectonic sense furnishes the possibility of ethics, philosophy, art and natural science and, critically, definitions.
Resnick’s definition––which I cite because it is typical––consists of the following implicit claims: (1) before “transitioning,” you are what others label you; (2) “transitioning” is the process whereby you turn into your actual Self; and (3) your actual Self––as intuited by you––is more authoritative and “essential” (if we can use that term) than the “you” perceived by others. Resnick might object to (1) and (2) by clarifying that the actual Self was always present, although her wording suggests the opposite (“going … to [being] who you are”). Still, she would have to accept some version of (3), the position that everything we may be physically, socially and historically is accidental to our self-perception. This elicits a new confusion, namely, how to parse the implicit elements of “self-perception.” My perceiving myself to be something––a perception that implies possibilities of discovery and misunderstanding––involves a motion of my awareness towards a definite object. This object must furnish standards of knowability, even if the object is “me.” The Delphic injunction “Know thyself” is unlike––indeed, it often counteracts––the principle “Be thyself,” for precisely the reason that “knowing,” unlike “being,” entails a concord of two elements. We say we “know” something when the terms of this concord are met. Liberal theorists, qua theorists, are bound by standards of rational communication. They are not exempt from the obligation to explain what conditions are met when I say that I “know” myself. Liberal culture suggests two possible meanings of the injunction “Know yourself.” One is “Be yourself,” and the other is “Feel good.” The one condones “deadnaming” (as a “cis person,” I am de facto myself whenever I “deadname”), and the other condemns “transitioning” (which feels bad, if you're experiencing pain and suicide).
“Deadnaming” is an iron tree, an artificial thing with the semblance of reality. The experience of considering such a definition as “the process of going from being what others think you are to what you actually are” is like punching an iron tree. It is a pain caused by the iron and by the expectation that the iron is not iron but wood and leaves. This pain is compounded by mirrors, that is, by an echo chamber of inscrutably absurd propositions and jargon.
A friend with a taste in the macabre introduced me recently to a film, Sharp Corner, a sort of psychological drama with a vaguely mystical tinge. An effeminate beta-husband, Josh, struggles to focus on his job when he moves his family to a house near a dangerous curve in the road. A series of fatal car accidents fuels his unhealthy obsession with the victims, which aggravates his wife, Rachel, a no-nonsense therapist who towers above her husband literally and figuratively. Early in the movie, Rachel voices her frustration in terms unmistakably therapeutic. “This is about priorities, and where your head is at, which, frankly, is cause for concern. … I just think that you should examine what it really is you’re feeling. … You should talk to a therapist.” Instantly, the terms of the conversation are set by Josh’s feeling itself, to the subordination of any reason he might have for feeling them. The problem is the feeling, not what the feeling signifies. We have here an excellent instance of life in the hexagon, a life disoriented by the proliferation of fake substances, signs masquerading as things. Josh is unable to steer the conversation in the right direction, to turn a sharp corner from appearance to reality, because he has already fashioned his character out of pure affect. His only notion of virtue is to avoid emotional extremes.
These days I find myself feeling more and more like the Vicomte de Chagny, and yet I have an added anxiety, namely, that my reactions in point of fact are the reactions of Josh. How does one protest madness in a room of iron trees and mirrors, especially when one is all too aware of the futility of punching iron?
Two lines from Leroux suggest a way out. “[A]nd, for a moment, he forgot to listen.” That and no amount of punching was the height of the Vicomte’s madness. “Listening” clearly does not mean self-doubt. Often, when people speak of “listening,” what they mean is mere “sympathizing.” True listening is encouraged by confidence that the thing heard has significance, even if that significance is nothing more than a statement of two incompatible propositions. Listening to what is said may, indeed, diminish our sympathy for the speaker, if his position betrays a careless or deliberate misuse of words. Failure to listen is the height of madness, because it represents a concession to the very fear at the heart of madness, namely, that we live in a universe of force and not meaning.
“We are in a room, a little room” That is the second line from Leroux that caught my attention. Madness, in part, is a loss of context, a loss of the sense that definite situations call for definite reactions. To the madman, as to the man in despair, a difficult situation is not difficult in a particular way but is Difficulty itself. The madman, like Judas Iscariot, is no longer wrestling an evil but Evil itself, or the Problem of Evil––a “problem,” however, that only exists if we have ceased to believe in the Good. It is about Evil itself that the Persian speaks when he says, “We are in a room, a little room; that is what you must keep saying to yourself.”
Ariane Resnick, "Deadnaming––What It Is and Why It's Harmful to Mental Health," verywellmind.com, updated May 26, 2023, https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-deadnaming-and-why-is-it-harmful-5188575.