The Differend and the Sublime:

Communication Impediments Rooted

in the Synthetic Processes of the Mind

The human mind contacts the external physical world through the medium of the
senses. This interaction is sometimes referred to as the “prisms of our senses” and
alternately, as the “prisons of our senses.” These phrases emphasizes both the distorted
quality of the mind’s images of the external the world and also the inescapable isolation
that our senses impose between each of us and the external world, an external world
which includes other human beings. Our ability to communicate with others, that is, our
ability to send and receive images, concepts, and feelings, is limited by the distortion and
isolation inherent with the use of our senses. In the process of human communication,
distortion and isolation are enhanced by the need to use symbols, i.e. words, gestures,
pictures, etc. to represent the ideas that we pass to, or receive from, other individuals.
In an absolute sense, we might say that communication between human beings is
a hopelessly flawed process. We can never hope to communicate our perceptions of the
real world with perfect accuracy. But all is not lost. In most situations, we can
overcome the problems of distortion, isolation, and faulty symbols to effectively
transmit and receive ideas.
At times, however, we seem to confront absolute barriers to communication,
barriers that are beyond the limitations of our senses and our symbols, barriers that we
can not penetrate with any amount of effort. Kant uses the term “sublime” to describe
that which is to vast even for perception, and therefore beyond our ability to
communicate. Lyotard uses the term “differend” to describe differing mental states that
preclude communication of certain events. But what is the basis of these concepts? Are
they really absolute barriers to communication? To answer these questions, it is
important to arrive first at a better understanding of what the terms refer too. Perhaps it
is best to try to use a very simple example.
Let us imagine that you and I enter a room together, sit down, and listen to a
symphony. At this first session, we both regard the music with only mild curiosity. At a
later time we repeat the act of listening to the symphony. We do this over and over again.
During these later sessions, you develop within your mind certain sensitivities and
associations with the sounds and rhythms of the music and it becomes for you something
pleasurable, something beautiful. In my mind, imagination works with the symphony’s
audible inputs to my brain to form a completely different set of sensitivities and
associations. For me, the symphony becomes something painful, something distasteful.
It grates on my nerves. I can’t stand it. If we try to discuss the quality of the music, we
find that even though we have both been subjected to the same experience, i.e. the same
inputs to our senses, we can not agree an the nature of the music. Also, it is impossible
for a third party to resolve the issue. We are at an impasse. This is a very simple
example of what Lyotard might refer to as the “differend” even though the example does
not involve a victim.

“The differend is signaled by the inability to prove…The differend is the

instant of language wherein something which must be put into phrases
cannot be…This state is signaled by what one ordinarily calls a feeling:
“One cannot find the words.”

How did this situation come to be? The differend in our example did not result
from the distortions created by our senses or from the limitations of the symbols we use
to communicate. It resulted instead from the way our individual minds characterized,
systematized, categorized, the empirical inputs from our senses. In Kant’s Critique of
Judgment, the mind is seen as more than a passive receptor of empirical or sensual
inputs. The mind always tries to go beyond the limits of empirical knowledge to find a
framework that can provide unity and coherence to the diverse tangle of inputs received
from the senses. This mental process of “synthesis” is not a part of the physical world.
For Kant, this process was beyond the boundary containing that which we are capable of
knowing. Since we cannot know or discuss the mental processes involved in our minds’
synthesis of empirical inputs, it would seem that we can never resolve the problem of the
differend, which arises from these mental processes.
But is this really the final word on the matter? Perhaps not. In some of the
novels we have read, such as The Immortal Bartfuss, Fragments, and Eve’s Tattoo, we
are shown characters who are confounded by the differend, i.e. situations and feelings
that cannot be communicated. We are shown characters who encounter the sublime, i.e.
situations and sensitivities too vast for comprehension or communication. These
characters struggle against the barriers of the differend and the sublime with varying
degrees of success. But the authors of these novels lift the readers above the struggle and
in some ways redefine our sensitivities, our synthetic powers. They help us to use our
imaginations to change the processes by which we organize and unify empirical inputs.
Since it is precisely these synthetic powers which create the differend, and fail to grasp
the sublime, the authors enable us, the readers, to breach the barriers, even though the
characters in the novels may not find any resolution to their problems.
In Fragments, Binjamin Wilkomirski gives us the first person account of a small
boy caught up in the terror of the holocaust. For the boy, the holocaust is infinite. It has
no beginning or end, no scale of space or distance. He has no language to describe the
events of his life: “I have no mother tongue, or father tongue either… I had a small
vocabulary, reduced to the essentials that would ensure survival… At some point, speech
left me altogether and it was a long time before I found it again.” The boy sees the
holocaust as infinite in time. He has no memories of a time before the terror and when
the war ends, he is not even aware of that fact and his personal holocaust continues:
“Goddammit - who got freed? Where was I when everyone else was being freed? I was
there in a camp and no one freed us. Nobody ever told me the war was over. We just
ran away because the guards had no more bullets to shoot at us. And the people outside
of the camps cursed and spat at us. I was told to forget it all, like a bad dream. And if I
tried to confide in other people, to tell them about it, they would listen to the first
sentence and say ‘you are making it all up.’ The camp is still there, just hidden and
disguised.” His perspective of the events he endured is so limited that he cannot
approach the magnitude of the holocaust: “My memories are a rubble field of isolated
images and events…mostly a chaotic jumble, with very little chronological fit, shards
that keep surfacing against the orderly grain…escaping the laws of logic.” Without a
perspective in time or space, the author confronts the sublime - the infinite horror of the
holocaust. Without a “mother tongue” he attempts to communicate that which cannot be
communicated. How does he do this? He uses his “knife-sharp shards of memory” to
work with the imagination of the reader. He uses his “rubble field of isolated images” to
modify the synthetic processes of the reader’s mind. From the influence of the broken,
disjointed narrative of the novel, the reader develops new feelings, new sensitivities, new
powers of characterizing the depth and scale of the holocaust. In the end, the reader has
achieved a perspective and an understanding of the holocaust which goes far beyond the
limited view of the boy who can speak only of his own personal memories. The author
breaches the barrier of the sublime. He author works with our creative mental powers,
our imaginations, to extend the synthetic powers of our minds. The limits of our
synthetic mental powers are the basis of the sublime. For the boy in Fragments, the
holocaust is an unfathomable infinity of terror. For the reader, the holocaust has
dimensions and duration. It is no longer sublime.
It is interesting to note that in Fragments, the author, at the beginning of his
novel, positions himself between the writing and the events he writes about, as Blanchot
might suggest as a possible approach to breaching barriers of communication.
Wilkomirski tells us “I had no mother tongue…The languages I learned later were never
mine, only imitations of other people’s speech…If I’m going to write about it, I have to
give up on ordering logic, it would only distort what happened…I am not a poet or a
writer and I can only use words to draw as exactly as possible what happened, what I
saw, exactly the way my child’s memory has held on to it; with no benefit of perspective
or vanishing point.” By positioning himself in this world between the writing and the
event, the author has given himself, and the reader, a new perspective. For the reader,
the new perspective enables him to begin to appreciate more fully the infinite evil of the
holocaust. For the author, the new perspective enables him to throw off the silence of his
early life: “I grew up and became an adult in a time and in a society that didn’t want to
listen, or perhaps was incapable of listening. Children have no memories…You must
forget it all. So for decades I was silent. Occasionally I would make attempts to share
some parts of the past with someone, but …aggressive questioning made me fall silent.
It is so easy to make a child mistrust his own reflections, to take away his voice. I
wanted my voice back so I began to write.”
The situation that exists in The Immortal Bartfuss is completely different. In this
novel, the main character, Bartfuss, has the advantage of perspective and sensitivity, and
yet he still lacks the ability to communicate with those around him, even though most of
those people shared the holocaust and its dismal aftermath with him. Bartfuss’ problem
is not one of sensitivity. Even though he builds walls between himself and the rest of the
world - in particular his own family - his senses work very well, perhaps too well. His
sensitivity allows him to withdraw from communication. “Once his wife had let out a
cry of despair: ‘Lets talk.’ Those attempts closed him off even more, but his attention
wasn’t at all impaired. Over the years, he had learned to interpret every one of her
movements, every twist of her mouth, before a word left her throat.” Later in the
relationship, we are told that “the wall grew more solid. Nevertheless, not a sound failed
to reach him, the throbbing of their sleep and their whispers, and of course their laughter
and coughing.” Bartfuss doesn’t need speech to carry out a one-way communication
with the rest of the world. His sensitivity provides him the luxury of isolation and
shields him from the possible humiliation of opening up to other people. Bartfuss cannot
even communicate with Dorf, a friend who had survived Nazi bullets and with whom
Bartfuss had spent several months hiding in the woods as the war was ending. “Dorf
addressed him softly, as one addresses a brother. Bartfuss was mute with embarrassment
and called out: ‘Forgive me.’” Later Bartfuss is sure that Dorf’s words were not the
words of his former friend. “Dorf had died in the forest. The one wandering around was
only an evil spirit.” Later confrontations with his former acquaintances produced similar
results. Even when he wishes to communicate with others, when he is willing to take a
chance on subjecting himself to humiliation, he cannot communicate. Something human
has gone out of Bartfuss, and it is not something that was lost during the war. It was lost
later, after the death of his first daughter: “In those feverish days when the Angel of
Death visited his daughter, his language began to take shape, a language with no words, a
language that was all eavesdropping, alert senses, and impressions. Even then he learned
to mute every sensation. But more than that, he stopped thinking.” This is the instant in
time when Bartfuss begins his ultimate withdrawal. A man who already has a difficult
time with communication takes his final step away from humanity, makes his final
attempt to avoid further failure and humiliation in his life. “Life is valuable,” he tells his
wife over and over again, “but there is a limit to humiliation.” At this point in his life,
Bartfuss attempts a sort of mental suicide. Kant says that the human mind is not a
passive receptor of sensual inputs, but Bartfuss’ mind becomes just that when he stops
thinking. He can no longer communicate because the reasoning part of his brain has
turned off, the synthetic operations of his mind have ceased. Bartfuss becomes the
ultimate example of the differend. Later in his life, Bartfuss realizes that he has failed in
his efforts to stop being human. Memories of the past, thoughts of those he knew, keep
coming back to him. As he approaches death, he has a chance meeting with his retarded
daughter, the daughter he still feels a vague sympathy for. In a very meager way, they
communicate with each other, even though Bartfuss is afraid, “afraid of himself, afraid of
his silence.” The daughter follows him, much as Rosa had followed him years before on
the beach in Italy. After the two return home, Bartfuss and the daughter part company:
“Once again, he couldn’t tell Bridget’s voice from Rosa’s, as though the two voices had
mingled with each other.” Bartfuss has re-established his humanity, even if only for a
brief moment. In the last days before his death, he has earned the right to be called
“immortal.” He has survived everything - the holocaust and its terrible aftermath, even
his own attempts to withdraw from humanity.
In The Immortal Bartfuss, the author shows us an example of what seems to be a
self-imposed differend. Bartfuss tries to terminate the reasoning, or synthetic operation
of his mind. In so doing, he creates a gap, a differend, between himself and the rest of
the world. In Eve’s Tattoo, we encounter another form of the differend. Eve, the main
character of the book is a writer in New York City during the early 1990’s. She has
studied the holocaust extensively and has developed a deep sensitivity for its victims.
For some reason, she feels incapable or unworthy of communicating her stories to others.
She attempts to circumvent the problem by getting a tattoo of the camp number of a
young lady who died in one of the Nazi death camps. The tattoo will serve as a
conversational starting point, allowing her the opportunity to tell stories of the victimized
women she has read about. Eve hopes she has found a way to bring the distant and dimly
remembered holocaust into the consciousness of her Manhattan acquaintances.
The first result of Eve’s tattoo is a widening of the gap between Eve and her
friend, xxxx, with whom she has never been able to communicate effectively about the
holocaust anyway. Her friend withdraws from her in silent rage. All communication,
even the relationship itself, comes to an end. In this case, the tattoo has failed to solve
the problem of the differend between Eve and her friend. The tattoo has made the
situation even worse. Eves first attempt to use her tattoo as a starting point for her
stories, as an attempt to breach the differend, meets a similar fate. Her first audience -
friends gathered for her birthday party - are too shallow and self-centered to really be
communicated with on this subject. They sense something of what Eve is trying to say,
but their response is that “she should write an article, it might make interesting reading.
The differend in this case, and in subsequent efforts by Eve to tell her stories to other
audiences, is caused by a shallowness, a lack of mental capacity on the part of the
listeners. The differend arises from the fact that the members of the audience cannot go
outside of their own narrow experiences to accept, in any real way, information on
something as horrifying as the holocaust. As Eve struggles with the tattoo and her stories
and her own identity, a curious reality settles into her mind. She begins to realize that
the holocaust is not just a distant case of violence against Jews by a group of mad Aryan
supremacists. The original cases of mass exterminations were exterminations of
Germans by Germans, or more broadly, of human beings turned against themselves.
Realization of this fact brings the holocaust home to Eve in a very stunning way. She
feels for the first time that she is not telling stories about others. She is telling stories
about herself. She is, in a sense, becoming the person from whom she has copied the
tattoo. She is becoming Eva. The tattoo has not helped Eve to communicate effectively
with her acquaintances about the holocaust, but it has helped Eve to remove the differend
between herself and the victims whose history she has studied. Other events occurring in
her life strengthen Eve’s identity with and sympathy for the holocaust victims. At her
smoking group, Eve hears a man complaining violently about a cabdriver. The violence
and racially directed slanders, Eve understands, could be coming right out of 1930’s Nazi
Germany, but she hears them in 1990’s New York City. Other events bring this feeling
that the “holocaust is here and now” to Eve more strongly. In the aftermath of a sewer
explosion, a homeless man saves the life of a shopkeeper, but the shopkeeper won’t even
acknowledge that the homeless man is a fellow human being. In another instance, Eve
sees a shopkeeper beating and cursing a mentally retarded street person. These events
shape eve’s perception of her world and of the holocaust. She is more aware of the
hatreds and the stereotypes that lead to the holocaust mentality. She is no longer an
outsider looking back in time to the holocaust. She is living with the holocaust, in
1990’s New York City, as it might have been in the early stages of the Nazi takeover in
1930’s Germany.
In Eve’s Tattoo, the author successfully breaches the barrier of the differend, not
just for the main character of the novel, but for the reader as well. The reader is carried
along by the events that affect Eve’s sensitivities and synthetic mental processes. The
reader undergoes the same metamorphosis as the main character.
In my opinion, all of the novels just discussed provide examples of overcoming
the differend and to some extent, they offer instances of the authors’ abilities to
encompass the sublime. The techniques used by the authors to breach these barriers to
communication differ in some respects, but they all involve, in one way or another, a
modification of the sensitivities, the synthetic powers of our minds. This is necessary
because it is differences in these synthetic powers which create the barriers in the first
place.