Code

Summary

Dominique Pagani takes from Clouscard the formula "the code precedes being", which he presents as a quip to be taken in a certain sense1. He understands it this way: in human beings, the relation between subjects precedes the relation to the object. The social relation of servitude and domination is received like a language before any relation to the outside world2. He draws the meaning of the prefix from this: the "co" of code is that of convention, contract, companion. The code is thus the relation to the other, not yet to the thing3. He adds that we are born into a class and a praxis4. He shows this through Zola's worker who chooses the superfluous5, and through the link between the power of seduction and mastery of a coded discourse already in place in society6. He also contrasts the code, a convention that nothing imposes, with the channel, which remains material. In music, he locates the listener's pleasure, at once frustrated and fulfilled, in the gap between the expected code and the message. He sees in it a dialectic of freedom and constraint78.

1. 1Being born human is not enough to be human19 Jul 2021 · 1:04
2. 2With Clouscard2 Aug 2016 · 28:53
3. 3Being born human is not enough to be human19 Jul 2021 · 8:40
4. 4Preface to Simon Verdun's master's dissertation, “The critique of neo-Kantianism in Michel Clouscard”5 Jul 2018 · 1:20:19
5. 5With Clouscard2 Aug 2016 · 35:47
6. 6From the debauchery of sense to the orgy of sentiment29 May 2023 · 34:59
7. 7#4 Sound ghettos3 Dec 2020 · 13:17
8. 8#4 Sound ghettos3 Dec 2020 · 42:15

Summary produced automatically from 9 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.