The sacred

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani approaches the sacred from several angles. Discussing Antigone, he recalls that funeral rites have belonged to the sacred since Cro-Magnon times, and that the sacred belongs to the private sphere: the dead belong to the family1. He stresses the ambivalence of the sacred, which, like taboo, both attracts and repels, the Latin sacer meaning one thing and its opposite2. This ambivalence sheds light on money, where the dirtiest is bound up with the most exalted, God and the sacred3. He also defines the sacred as what binds people together, following the etymological sense of religion, whether or not one believes in God4. He adds that without collective song, the god remains nameless. He distinguishes the sacred from the religious in the official sense, for example in Parsifal, which he likens to medieval mystery plays5. In Mallarmé, the sleeping workers bear witness to the share of the sacred in existence, through pause and waiting6. Finally, in his view there must be a sacred space set apart from the profane, one that breaks with the prose of the world, even if it is only a piece of cardboard7.

1. 1La PHILO avec PAGANI : A comme ANTIGONE20 Mar 2023 · 16:40
2. 2La religion de l'Argent29 Sept 2019 · 25:43
3. 3La religion de l'Argent29 Sept 2019 · 5:16
4. 4#10 • Retour aux logiques du sujet11 Jun 2020 · 48:34
5. 5L’hésitation fascinée par l’ouÏe et par la vue : Siegfried et Perceval12 Dec 2022 · 1:03:26
6. 6Mallarmé ou la lutte des classes sur le gazon - Lectures sur le vif31 Jan 2023 · 11:16
7. 7AFRIQUE SAHÉLIENNE ET IMPÉRIALISME : Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger - avec Dominique PAGANI23 Mar 2024 · 32:25

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