The second wound is violence, which wounds ethical desire or the desire for human flourishing in the world today. In this situation, according to theologian Sally McFague, the “arrogant eye” which objectifies, triumphs over the “loving eye” which “acknowledges the other as subject.” (McFague) Levinas calls this “voluptuosity” – not love of the other, but love of the love of the other, which is really love for oneself (see Black, 121).
PJ Harvey "Me-Jane"
Oh damn your chest-beating, just you stop your screaming
It's splitting through my head and swinging from the ceiling
Move it over, Tarzan, can't you see I'm bleeding?
I've called you by your first name, good Lord it's me-Jane!
And I'm rolling
Split head
And I'm moving
I'm me-Jane
Me-Jane
Oh damn your chest-beating, just you stop your screaming!
All the time you're hunting swimming fishing breathing ?
Don't you ever stop and give me time to breathe in?
I've called you by your first name, good Lord it's me-Jane
And I'm running
Split head
And I'm moving
I'm me-Jane
And I'm trying
To make sense
You're screaming
Don't load it on me
Don't load it on me
Don't load it all on me
Tarzan, I'm pleading, stop your f...ing screaming!
You've got me many walls around here, but no ceiling
Oh, move it over Tarzan! Can't you see I'm bleeding?
Good lord you never stop!
Don't load it on me
Don't load it on me
Don't load it on me
Don't load it on me-Jane
Don't load it on me-Jane
Don't load it on me-Jane
Don't load it on me-Jane
Don't load it on me-Jane
Oh damn your chest-beating, just you stop your screaming
It's splitting through my head and swinging from the ceiling
Move it over, Tarzan, can't you see I'm bleeding?
I've called you by your first name, good Lord it's me-Jane!
And I'm rolling
Split head
And I'm moving
I'm me-Jane
Me-Jane
Oh damn your chest-beating, just you stop your screaming!
All the time you're hunting swimming fishing breathing ?
Don't you ever stop and give me time to breathe in?
I've called you by your first name, good Lord it's me-Jane
And I'm running
Split head
And I'm moving
I'm me-Jane
And I'm trying
To make sense
You're screaming
Don't load it on me
Don't load it on me
Don't load it all on me
Tarzan, I'm pleading, stop your f...ing screaming!
You've got me many walls around here, but no ceiling
Oh, move it over Tarzan! Can't you see I'm bleeding?
Good lord you never stop!
Don't load it on me
Don't load it on me
Don't load it on me
Don't load it on me-Jane
Don't load it on me-Jane
Don't load it on me-Jane
Don't load it on me-Jane
Don't load it on me-Jane
Rene Girard comments on this wounding of desire, naming it “mimetic desire.” According the Rowan Williams’ summary, "I learn to desire by seeing the desire of others; and the danger of this imitative process is that I then conceive myself as competing with the other for what I have learned from the other to desire. This rivalry in desire more and more distracts me from the object and locks me into a destructive mutual hostility with the other: I look no longer at the object but at them.” (Williams, 126).
The writings of Jewish post-holocaust philosopher Emmanuel Levinas capture many of the elements of this wounding of genuine ethical desire. For Levinas, the visage or “face” of the vulnerable other presents each of us with a profound obligation or responsibility. Understood in its best light, this obligation is not a suffocating burden but a liberating desire for the freedom and wholeness of the other person. (See W. Farley) As international xenophobia increases, however, mimetic desire increases and the desire for the well-being of the other is hidden behind the trumped up need to protect “one’s own.” The myth of scarcity overwhelms the myth of plentitude, and “I have to get and hang on to what is mine” even at the expense of others. We worship God as “Totality” rather than “Infinity,” the Holy One, instead of the Holy One-for-the other,” a triumph of the god of ontology over the god of ethics.
This often leads to a belief in what Walter Wink once called "the myth of redemptive violence." Like the Western B-movie plot line, redemption is tranquility in our town and anything goes in protecting it from dangerous "others."
American girls
American guys
Will always stand up and salute
Will always recognize
When we see Ol' Glory flying
There's a lot of men dead
So we can sleep at peace at night
When we lay down our heads
My Daddy served in the Army
Where he lost his right eye
But he flew a flag out on our yard
Til the day that he died
He wanted my mother, my brother,
My sister and me
To grow up and live happy
In the Land of the Free
Now this nation that I love
Has fallen under attack
A mighty sucker punch came flying in
From somewhere in the back
Soon as we could see clearly
Through our big black eye
Man, we lit up your world
Like the Fourth of July
Chorus:
Hey, Uncle Sam put your name
At the top of his list
And the Statue of Liberty
Started shakin her fist
And the Eagle will fly
Man it's gonna be hell
When you hear Mother freedom
Start Ringing her bell
And it will feel like the whole wide world is raining down on you
Ohh Brought to you courtesy
Of the Red, White and Blue
Ohh Justice will be served
And the battle will rage
This big dog will fight
When you rattle his cage
And you'll be sorry that you messed with
The U. S. of A.
'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass
It's the American way
Chorus:
Hey, Uncle Sam put your name
At the top of his list
And the Statue of Liberty
Started shakin her fist
And the Eagle will fly
Man it's gonna be hell
When you hear Mother freedom
Start Ringing her bell
And it will feel like the whole wide world is raining down on you
Ohh Brought to you courtesy
Of the Red, White and Blue
American guys
Will always stand up and salute
Will always recognize
When we see Ol' Glory flying
There's a lot of men dead
So we can sleep at peace at night
When we lay down our heads
My Daddy served in the Army
Where he lost his right eye
But he flew a flag out on our yard
Til the day that he died
He wanted my mother, my brother,
My sister and me
To grow up and live happy
In the Land of the Free
Now this nation that I love
Has fallen under attack
A mighty sucker punch came flying in
From somewhere in the back
Soon as we could see clearly
Through our big black eye
Man, we lit up your world
Like the Fourth of July
Chorus:
Hey, Uncle Sam put your name
At the top of his list
And the Statue of Liberty
Started shakin her fist
And the Eagle will fly
Man it's gonna be hell
When you hear Mother freedom
Start Ringing her bell
And it will feel like the whole wide world is raining down on you
Ohh Brought to you courtesy
Of the Red, White and Blue
Ohh Justice will be served
And the battle will rage
This big dog will fight
When you rattle his cage
And you'll be sorry that you messed with
The U. S. of A.
'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass
It's the American way
Chorus:
Hey, Uncle Sam put your name
At the top of his list
And the Statue of Liberty
Started shakin her fist
And the Eagle will fly
Man it's gonna be hell
When you hear Mother freedom
Start Ringing her bell
And it will feel like the whole wide world is raining down on you
Ohh Brought to you courtesy
Of the Red, White and Blue
Zygmunt Baumann notes that the wounding of ethical desire is deeply influence by “the wish to consume. To imbibe, devour, ingest and digest – annihilate. … Desire is an impulse to strip alterity of its otherness; thereby, to disempower. …In its essence, desire is an urge of destruction. And, thought but obliquely, the urge of self-destruction; desire is contaminated, from its birth, by the death-wish.” (Bauman, 9)
And so we encounter within our human condition a second wound – violence, which is the wounding of ethical desire – or a wounding of the desire for the healing and wholeness of all human others.
