Hypatia vol. 27, no. 4 (Fall 2012) © by Hypatia, Inc.

Buddhism and bell hooks: LiberatoryAesthetics and the Radical Subjectivityof No-Self

LEAH KALMANSON

This article engages bell hooks’s concept of “radical black subjectivity” through the lensof the Buddhist doctrine of no-self. Relying on the Zen theorist Dogen and on resourcesfrom Japanese aesthetics, I argue that non-attachment to the self clarifies hooks’s claimthat radical subjectivity unites our capacity for critical resistance with our capacity toappreciate beauty. I frame this argument in terms of hooks’s concern that postmodern-ist identity critiques dismiss the identity claims of disempowered peoples. On the onehand, identity critique has an emotional component, as it involves questioning the selfand possibly letting go of aspects of that self in which a person has inevitably madeemotional investments. On the other hand, it has an aesthetic component, as it opensa space for the creative crafting and recrafting of identity. Japanese aesthetics empha-sizes that all aesthetic appreciation is accompanied by feelings of mournfulness, for theobject of aesthetic appreciation is transient. Linking hooks’s liberatory aesthetics withthe resources of the Japanese tradition suggests that mournfulness in the face of self-lossnecessarily accompanies all instances of critical resistance. Thus non-attachmentbecomes a useful framework in which to understand both the emotional and aestheticcomponents of empowered identity critique.

If identity has become suspect, identity politics has been prose-cuted, tried, and sentenced to death. To espouse identity politicsin the academy today risks being viewed as a member of the Flat-Earth Society. Like “essentialism,” identity politics has become theshibboleth of cultural studies and social theory, and denouncing ithas become the litmus test of academic respectability, politicalacceptability, and even a necessity for the very right to be heard.(Alcoff 2000, 313)

It never surprises me when black folks respond to the critique ofessentialism, especially when it denies the validity of identitypolitics, by saying, “Yeah, it’s easy to give up identity, when yougot one.” (hooks 1990, 28)

Writer and critic bell hooks offers the following challenge to those consider-ing the implications of an anti-essentialist identity critique: “Any critic exploringthe radical potential of postmodernism as it relates to racial difference and racialdomination would need to consider the implications of a critique of identity foroppressed groups” (hooks 1990, 26). Does the critique empower oppressedpeoples by revealing the disenabling structures of race, class, and gender thatpartly determine their identities? Or does the critique disempower them byundermining the very grounds upon which they might assert themselves as politi-cal subjects? hooks expresses her disappointment with postmodernism for rarelyadvancing beyond the negative function of identity critique to make a positivecontribution toward the empowerment of the oppressed.

If we can understand the Buddhist doctrine of no-self as a kind of identitycritique, then we might also imagine comparative philosophers charging them-selves with the same challenge that hooks assigns to postmodernism—that is, inexploring the radical potential of no-self, they may ask about the implications ofthis idea for oppressed groups. This is the question of the present article. Inanswering this question, I argue that the Buddhist doctrine of no-self comple-ments hooks’s vision for what she at times calls “radical black subjectivity,”expands our understanding of this empowered subjectivity in important ways,and thus presents itself as a resource for feminist critical discourse.1

Central to my argument is the assertion that the practice of identity critique isnot merely a theoretical exercise but has a complex, yet often overlooked, emo-tional dimension. After all, to critique identity is to question one’s own sense ofself and to consider letting go of aspects of that self in which one has inevitablymade emotional investments. If this emotional dimension is not brought to theforeground, it threatens to sabotage the practice of identity critique by preventinga person from taking a hard and honest look at herself. The doctrine of no-self isuniquely situated to accommodate the emotional complexity of identity critique.

My interpretation of no-self does not necessarily reflect standard Buddhistdoctrine—rather, I rely heavily on Dogen, an admittedly idiosyncratic Zen theo-rist of thirteenth-century Japan, as well as on Japanese aesthetic theory, whichengages but does not wholly appropriate Buddhist concepts. I begin with anoverview of the doctrine of no-self and consider some possible objections to itspolitical usefulness, especially for feminists. I then turn to a discussion of whathooks means by radical black subjectivity, casting it as an explicit rejection ofwhat I refer to as a disenabling “dialectic of self-overcoming.” In this dialectic,claims based on identity politics are seen to have limited usefulness for

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addressing immediate and glaring injustices, but ultimately the claimants areexpected to “get over” their divisive political stance, as well as their essentialistaccount of identity that this stance reflects.

Hooks refuses to cast identity claims in these dialectical terms. She envisionsblack identity occupying a stance of critical resistance that is oppositional withoutbeing merely reactionary, and she describes this creative sense of oppositionality inaesthetic terms. As she says, there is a “connection between our capacity to engagein critical resistance and our ability to experience pleasure and beauty” (hooks1990, 111). Japanese aesthetics can help make this connection clear. With itsemphasis on the aesthetic appreciation of impermanence and the emotional qual-ities of such experience, it shows that an empowered and creative sense of self-identity cannot be separated from a sense of self-loss. Addressing this loss, theBuddhist notion of non-attachment to the self becomes a model through which tounderstand the relation hooks sees between critical resistance and aesthetic expe-rience. On this model, the radical subjectivity of no-self becomes a rich resourcefor critical discourse: It supports a notion of identity qua radical subjectivity with-out falling back into essentialist thinking; and it provides a coherent frameworkin which to work through the emotional complexity of identity critiques.

OVERVIEW: THE DOCTRINE OF NO-SELF AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

FOR CRITICAL DISCOURSE

The doctrine of no-self is best understood in the context of other important Bud-dhist terms, such as emptiness, impermanence, and dependent arising. The notionof emptiness does not refer to simple nothingness or to the nihilistic negation ofexistence. Rather, the doctrine of emptiness asks us to take an unrelentingly hon-est look at the immediacy of lived experience and to recognize the fundamentalimpermanence of all that exists. In other words, it asks us to reflect on the ideathat we always experience life in its passing. In this continual flux, beings have nopermanent nature and are thus “empty” of independent existence. Because nobeing exists independently, all are said to rely on one another in a web of mutualinterdependence, or what Buddhism calls dependent arising. The self, also lackingindependent existence, is called no-self. Again, this does not mean that the self issimplistically non-existent, but that its manner of existing cannot be separatedfrom the web of mutually interdependent relations that sustain it.

From out of themes such as no-self, impermanence, and mutual interdepen-dence, comparative philosophy has come to share with feminist thought aconcern for what both groups call the relational self. Comparative philosophytends toward an extreme form of relational personhood that I call constitutiverelationality. For example, contemporary work in Confucian role ethics holds thata person is constituted entirely through her roles and relations. A person is a

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mother to a daughter, a daughter to a mother, a teacher to a student, a friend toa friend; and there is no atomistic core self existing apart from these relations(see, for example, Ames 2011). For another example, twentieth-century Japanesephilosopher Watsuji Tetsuro interprets the notion of self-emptiness to mean thatpersons exist in a state of “betweenness,” constituted entirely in the liminal spaceof inter-subjective relationality (Watsuji 1996). In the denial of the atomisticself, these comparativist projects are at odds with essentialist or modernistaccounts of self-identity, in which the independent core self may be in relations,or even in some ways dependent upon relations, but not constituted by them.

The comparativist model of constitutive relationality also finds itself at oddswith some articulations of relational personhood in feminism. For example,feminist theologian Catherine Keller, who also advocates a relational self, none-theless objects to the kind of constitutive relationality that she sees as followingfrom Buddhist emptiness. In an article critical of Abe Masao’s treatment ofemptiness, she writes that “there are tensions between the feminist pursuit of arelational self and the Buddhist pursuit of a nonself whose relationality disclosesits emptiness of any own-being” (Keller 1990, 107). According to Keller, therelational self in feminist thought retains the capacity for self-assertion, becauseit does not deny the self’s “own-being.” Thus she marks a divide between a femi-nist relational self, which retains some inner core, and a constitutively relationalself, which is exhausted by its relations. She asserts that we lose the grounds forpersonal empowerment when we move to the latter sense of relationality. Onthis model, because the Buddhist self is purely relational and entirely empty ofown-being, it lacks the capacity for self-assertion.

From Keller’s observations, we can generalize three objections against thedoctrine of no-self relevant to feminist concerns:

1. The doctrine holds that the self is constitutively relational,and to be fully constituted by relations is to be determined bythose relations.

2. Being determined by its relations, the constitutively relationalself is incapable of critical resistance, political or otherwise. Inother words, if the self has no non-relationally constituted van-tage point from which to carry out its critical reflections, thenthe whole notion of a self “thinking for itself” becomes unintel-ligible. Such a self would be unable to distinguish whichthoughts and desires are its “own” and which are determinedby its interactions with others.

3. Being incapable of critical resistance, the constitutively rela-tional self—and, by extension, the doctrine of no-self—is dis-empowering, and a poor resource for feminist projects.

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In the concluding section of this essay, I will offer an alternative interpreta-tion of the doctrine of no-self that answers these three objections, thushighlighting the potential usefulness of the doctrine within critical discoursessuch as feminism and race theory.

“BLACK ORPHEUS” AND THE DIALECTIC OF SELF-OVERCOMING

I frame my reading of bell hooks in the context of a brief but illustrative storyabout Jean-Paul Sartre and the poets of the Negritude movement, an anti-colo-nial movement of the 1930s involving black intellectuals and artists in France,French-speaking Africa, and the African diaspora. In this story, Sartre writes theessay “Black Orpheus” as a preface to the first published volume of Negritudepoetry. This project presents him with a challenge, for on the one hand, Sartrethe philosopher is committed to debunking essentialist accounts of identity. Onthe other hand, Sartre the political activist is committed to the anti-colonialistagenda of the Negritude movement. Problematically, for Sartre the philosopher,the poets of his book are self-consciously preoccupied with the search for theiressential black identity—their negritude.

Trying to navigate this issue, Sartre spends a portion of his essay explainingthat “it is necessary through a poetic expression that the black man in hispresent situation must first take conscience of himself...” (Sartre 1976, 11). Intaking conscience of himself, Sartre admits that the black man may find itappropriate to speak of his racial identity in terms such as “the black soul” (17).But, as Sartre eventually concludes, one must at some point come to reject anybelief in the “inner homogeneity” of negritude (57). He explains why this notionof black identity will one day be outdated:

In fact, Negritude appears as the weak stage of a dialecticalprogression: the theoretical and practical affirmation of whitesupremacy is the thesis; the position of Negritude as antitheticalvalue is the moment of negativity. But this negative moment isnot sufficient in itself and the blacks who employ it well know it;they know that it serves to prepare the way for the synthesis, orthe realization of a human society without racism. Thus Negritudeis dedicated to its own destruction, it is passage and not objective,means and not the ultimate goal. At the moment the blackOrpheus most directly embraces this Eurydice, he feels her vanishfrom between his arms. (60)

In this passage, Sartre relies on a dialectical model to explain progress towardthe eventual overcoming of an essentialist account of identity. At an early stageof the dialectic, when a person’s identity is damaged due to a history of oppres-sion, that person needs to build up a functional sense of self-worth, which may

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involve empowering talk of his or her “soul.” But this sense of self, no matterhow empowering a person may find it in the short term, must eventually bediscarded. The ultimate goal lies in overcoming these divisive identity claims tomake possible a non-racist society.

On this dialectical model, the “black soul”—this fleeting Eurydice—is as illu-sory as the “white soul,” but the black man simply has yet to fully embrace thisexistential situation. Despite the attempt at a philosophically nuanced accountof black identity, Sartre nonetheless implies that the Negritude movement is areactionary position that must eventually be overcome, and black identity is anillusion that must eventually be discarded when the black man achieves the exis-tential crisis of the modern European male.

Versions of a dialectical model influence projects of identity politics to thisday. This is evident in questions about the goals of the people involved inidentity politics: Are they working to make their own cause obsolete? That is,after working to expose and overcome the oppression that afflicts their particulargroup, will they be out of jobs if and when their work becomes successful? Onemay be tempted to answer this question affirmatively—after all, no one wishes topromote oppression simply for the sake of continuing the work of identitypolitics. As Sartre says, the Negritude movement must be overcome to pave theway for a society without racism. And who doesn’t want that?

However, an affirmative answer conceals certain assumptions about the natureof identity and the nature of progress. Specifically, the idea that identity politicsshould one day be unnecessary reveals a kind of utopianism, which equatesprogress toward the utopian ideal with the progressive erasure of all conflict.From this perspective, it is difficult to say whether a society without racism isnot simply a society without race.

One may rightfully have suspicions about the apparent effacing of differencethat this utopianism implies, but a negative answer to the question about obso-leteness and identity politics threatens to take us from the extreme of utopianismto the extreme of nihilism. In other words, it invites an attitude of defeatism,which asks: if the overcoming of all oppression is impossible, then why work tochange anything at all? At both extremes, identity politics remains caught in thedialectical bind. At the one end, insisting on personal empowerment is dismissedas a naıve belief in an essential identity; at the other, personal empowerment isat best an attempt to “make do” under present circumstances while remainingresigned to the idea that no lasting victory against oppression is possible.

RADICAL SUBJECTIVITY: BEYOND THE DIALECTIC OF SELF-OVERCOMING

In her work on radical subjectivity and elsewhere, I see bell hooks searching fora way out of this dialectic. She recognizes that essentialist accounts of identity

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can themselves be oppressive, and that anti-essentialist philosophical projectshave the potential to be liberating. She wants, on the one hand, to affirm blackidentity without affirming the essentialist baggage that often accompaniesidentity claims. On the other hand, she wants to explore the liberatory potentialof anti-essentialist projects without deflating an individual’s sense of personalempowerment and self-worth. As she says, identity critiques “should not be madesynonymous with the dismissal of the struggle of oppressed and exploited peoplesto make ourselves subjects” (hooks 1990, 28–29). Her words cast light on thoseproblematic cases, such as Sartre’s project in “Black Orpheus,” when strugglesagainst sociopolitical oppression and struggles against the oppressive legacy ofessentialism have contradictory aims.

Pointing the way out of this dilemma, hooks offers the term “radical black sub-jectivity.” She says: “Part of our struggle for radical black subjectivity is the questto find ways to construct self and identity that are oppositional and liberatory”(hooks 1990, 29). This insistence on being both oppositional and liberatory makesher picture of radical subjectivity quite complex. To evade the dialectic in whichone must first have an identity in order to give it up, and to support notions ofself and identity that do not fall back upon essentialist models, radical subjectivitymust be oppositional without being simply reactionary. As hooks asks: “How do wecreate an oppositional wordview, a consciousness, an identity, a standpoint thatexists not only as that struggle that also opposes dehumanization but as thatmovement which enables creative, expansive, self-actualization?” (15). In otherwords, this oppositional worldview cannot be “radical” only in the negative sensethat it pits itself against one or another form of societal oppression. Rather, itmust be radical in a positive sense, too, because its capacity for dramatic and crea-tive transformation remains relevant even in a context of societal harmony.

To claim otherwise would be to imply that a person’s empowered capacity forresistance would no longer be necessary were the world to become just and peace-ful. It would be to claim that the liberatory power of radical subjectivity is contin-gent upon the presence of oppressors from whom it seeks liberation. I argue, to thecontrary, that radical subjectivity must not be interpreted as being dependent uponthe continued existence of oppression in the world; rather, it is a non-contingent,non-reactionary oppositionality that can properly be called “radical.”

To cash out the implications of this assertion, in the next section I take amore detailed look at what hooks means by radical subjectivity. I identify what Isee as three main features that can be gleaned from her descriptions of it: (1)the multiplicity of identity; (2) the changeability of identity; and (3) theaesthetic dimension that accompanies this changeability and multiplicity.2 Insubsequent sections, these three features will be central to articulating theempowering potential of the doctrine of no-self.

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RADICAL SUBJECTIVITY: THREE FEATURES

Hooks objects that many formulations of individual identity only uphold injuri-ous power structures in society and block the creative expression of personhood:“Narrowly focused black identity politics do a disservice to black liberation strug-gle because they seek to render invisible the complex and multiple subjectivityof black folks” (hooks 1995, 247). She criticizes modernist accounts of atomisticindividuality and instead stresses the creative potential of inner-subjectivediversity. In several essays, she explores the possibility that one person may havemany selves and may speak in many voices, as when she (as Gloria Watson)interviews herself (as bell hooks) (see, for example, hooks 1990, 215–30). Hence,I identify multiplicity as a key component in her idea of radical subjectivity.

A second identifiable component is the changeability of identity, which hookslinks to political empowerment:

Whether the issue is the construction of self and identity orradical politicization, African-American subjectivity is always inprocess. Fluidity means that our black identities are constantlychanging as we respond to circumstances in our families andcommunities of origin, and as we interact with a larger world.Only by privileging the reality of that changing black identity willwe be able to engage a prophetic discourse about subjectivity thatwill be liberatory and transformative. (hooks 1995, 250)

Both multiplicity and changeability stress the potential for the creativereformulation of one’s sense of self. This creativity can be called radical becauseit allows for the possibility of complexity and changes so extreme that one mightplausibly say, “I am no longer the same person,” or “I am of two minds.” Further-more, it is important to note that this changeability is relationally constituted.In hooks’s vision, the construction of identity is always, at the same time, amatter of responsiveness to others.

The third key component of radical subjectivity lies in an often under-appre-ciated aspect of hooks’s political and cultural discourse, which is her emphasison aesthetics. She writes:

I remain passionately committed to an aesthetic that focuses onthe purpose and function of beauty, of artistry in everyday life,especially the lives of poor people, one that seeks to explore andcelebrate the connection between our capacity to engage in criti-cal resistance and our ability to experience pleasure and beauty. Iwant to create work that shares with an audience, particularlyoppressed and marginalized groups, the sense of agency artistryoffers, the empowerment. (hooks 1990, 111)

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I identify the empowering potential of artistry in everyday life as a third compo-nent in hooks’s vision for radical subjectivity. As I interpret it, this aestheticdimension helps to refine the radicalness of the creative changes that make possiblestatements such as “I am no longer the same person” or “I am of two minds.” Onedoes not become a new person through a brute leap in consciousness, or throughextreme detachment, in which the old self is unemotionally discarded. And onedoes not experience subjective multiplicity as the chaotic fracturing of identity.Rather, moments of personal rebirth or subjective complexity have an emotionalresonance that can be described in aesthetic terms: such moments may be beautiful,moving, or even tragic. The capacity to appreciate the aesthetic dimension of one’sown identity, even when this involves emotional pain, is a mark of radicalsubjectivity.

Thus I interpret the connection hooks sees “between our capacity to engagein critical resistance and our ability to experience pleasure and beauty” to lie inthe empowering potential of having such an aesthetic perspective on one’s emo-tions as they relate to the creative crafting and recrafting of identity (hooks1990, 111). Based on this empowering potential, hooks invokes the possibilityfor a liberatory aesthetic that can harness the creativity of subjectivity in waysthat oppose social determinism and transform community life. She describes thiscreative potential while recounting her reflections on an essay in Japaneseaesthetics, which she discusses with her sibling:

After reading Tanizaki’s essay on aesthetics “In Praise ofShadows,” I tell this sister in a late night conversation that I amlearning to think about blackness in a new way... . My sister hasskin darker than mine. We think about our skin as a dark room, aplace of shadows. We talk often about color politics and the waysracism has created an aesthetic that wounds us, a way of thinkingabout beauty that hurts. In the shadows of late night, we talkabout the need to see darkness differently, to talk about it in anew way. In that space of shadows, we long for an aesthetic ofblackness—strange and oppositional. (hooks 1990, 113)

As indicated earlier, radical black subjectivity is not “strange and opposi-tional” through being simply reactionary. The above turn to aesthetics indicatesthat the driving force behind the capacity for non-reactionary oppositionality isartistic in nature. The drama and creativity of radical subjectivity are terms ofthis liberatory aesthetic. Here, hooks’s use of oppositionality challenges normalassociations with this word: What is oppositionality if not a reaction against thatwhich one opposes? What might it mean to be oppositional as an end in itself?Can one appreciate oppositionality for its own sake? Taking a cue from hooks’semphasis on artistic practice, the next section turns to Japanese aesthetics to

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explore the emotional complexity contained within the Buddhist idea of non-attachment as a key to understanding oppositionality in non-reactionary terms.

LIBERATORY AESTHETICS AND JAPANESE AESTHETICS

The doctrine of no-self has an immediate affinity with two of the above compo-nents of radical subjectivity: multiplicity and changeability. As stated earlier, theBuddhist themes of emptiness and impermanence point to the perpetual transito-riness of individual existence. Thus the subject is necessarily changeable. More-over, given that the self is a series of changing states, none of which correspondto any “true” self, the various states do not represent different versions of one andthe same self, but different selves. As Vrinda Dalmiya writes, drawing on MarkSiderits’s analysis of Santideva, “the future states considered as mine are really asother to the current me as some contemporary state of another” (Dalmiya 2001,70). Thus the subject is necessarily a multiplicity. What makes this connectionbetween Buddhist themes and bell hooks’s work most interesting is the potentialfor the doctrine of no-self to engage her vision for liberatory aesthetics. Thispotential hinges on another key Buddhist concept, non-attachment.

The roots of attachment lie in a failure to accept the continual arising andpassing away of the self’s experiences and in a desire to cling to some experi-ences while rejecting others. Thus Buddhism holds that the proper attitudetoward life’s impermanence is one of non-attachment. Whereas some may readnon-attachment as a kind of cool detachment, meaning to distance oneselfemotionally from life’s transience, not all interpretations of it offer emotionalescape from the pain of loss due to impermanence. Notably, the thirteenth-century Zen Master Dogen does not suggest overcoming attachments by retreat-ing from the world and worldly relations. On the contrary, Dogen claims thatnon-attachment is achieved through a heightened sense of responsibility for andresponsiveness to other people: “Just practice good, do good things for otherswithout thinking of establishing your own name, and truly benefit others withoutearning anything for yourself. To break free of the self, this is the first matter ofconcern” (Yamazaki 1972, 189).3 That the practice of non-attachment shouldinvolve a sincere and emotionally mature involvement with others and theirconcerns is somewhat counterintuitive. Yet the rich connection between non-attachment and compassion is a central theme within Buddhism in general andin the Japanese Zen tradition of which Dogen is a part. This is especially evidentwithin traditional theories of art in Japan, which, under the influence of Bud-dhism, show a marked preference for artistic themes meant to inspire attitudes ofnon-attachment and emotional engagement at the same time.4

This emotional dimension is usually described as a deep and sad mournfulnessthat accompanies aesthetic appreciation. Two terms in particular, aware and sabi,

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uphold this artistic preoccupation with highlighting the mournful aspects ofimpermanence for aesthetic effect. As Motoori Norinaga claimed in the late1700s, the essence of Japanese literature lies in the expression of mono no aware,or the bittersweet “sorrow of things.” Mark Meli comments: “This literal sorrowor misery of things is taken often to signify a sad, fleeting beauty that is conspic-uous in traditional Japanese cultural expressions. Thus regarded, mono no awareis easily connected to the Buddhist notion of transience” (Meli 2002, 60). Thisappreciation of fleeting beauty is also associated with the aesthetic value sabi,relevant to artistic traditions such as chado (tea ceremony), haiku (poetry), andikebana (flower-arranging). Sabi indicates an aesthetic preference for what is sim-ple, old, and rustic, especially what is old and rustic to the point of decaying orbreaking down. It also refers to the sense of sadness and mournfulness thataccompanies this decay.

For example, in chado, tea houses are traditionally simple structures made ofuntreated wood that readily succumbs to the elements. The best teacups andother accoutrements are cracked and worn, revealing their years of use. In haiku,standard subject matter concerns the changing of the seasons and the coming toan end of seasonal pleasures. And, perhaps of all the arts, ikebana celebrates theconnection between beauty and impermanence by showcasing the brief lives offlowers already severed from their roots and thus in the process of dying.

One might question whether this aestheticized presentation of impermanenceamounts to little more than a morbid preoccupation with death and decay. Butthis would miss the point behind the artistic impulse to render life in its fleeting-ness. If one wishes to present and appreciate existence as faithfully as possible,then one must face its impermanence. And if one wishes to present and appreci-ate beauty in existence, then one must face the impermanence of beauty, aswell. Indeed, it seems that any attempt to present and appreciate beauty assomething lasting or eternal fails to engage the fullness of beauty, which inactuality is always arising and passing away. Thus the truest expression of beautywill not evade or cover over its transitory qualities but will instead highlightthem to full aesthetic effect. The fourteenth-century Buddhist priest KenkoYoshida writes:

Are we only to look at flowers in full bloom, at the moon whenclear? Nay, to look out on the rain and long for the moon, todraw the blinds and not to know the passing of the spring—thesearouse even deeper feelings. There is much to be seen in youngboughs about to flower, in gardens strewn with withered blos-soms... . [People] are wont to regret that the moon has waned orthat the blossoms have fallen, and this must be so; but they mustbe perverse indeed who will say, “This branch, that bough is with-ered, now there is nought to see.” (Kenko 2005, 58)

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Here, Kenko does not deny the regret that must accompany the passing ofbeautiful things, such as blossoms and full moons. Their passing is unavoidablysad. But, it would be wrongheaded to claim that the possibilities for aestheticappreciation are exhausted when flowers wither and moons wane. To thecontrary, the fullness of aesthetic experience includes beauty in its demise as wellas at its height.

Robert Carter summarizes the mournful and aesthetic dimensions of imperma-nence as follows:

The fleeting quality of life, and existence generally, creates a senseof melancholy, of sadness, even to the edge of despair, for thebeauty of the world, together with the joys of the world, aretransitory and always already disintegrating and decaying. Ourrecognition of impermanence carries with it a sadness; and yet,awareness of impermanence also carries with it an intensifiedsense of the preciousness of each moment and of each of thethings of this world. (Carter 2008, 82)

As Carter makes clear, the aesthetic appreciation of transitory beauty leadsnot to morbidity but to a deep sadness, which cannot be separated from a deepappreciation of life as it is in its constant arising and passing. To evade this sad-ness is to fail to appreciate life as it is or to impose a false sense of permanenceon what is actually in constant flux. The deepest appreciation of life in its livedimmediacy will not erect emotional barriers against the impermanence thateventually carries away all that one might appreciate. Such appreciation bringsinevitable sadness, but it also grants a valuable and meaningful aesthetic aware-ness, which would be impossible without the accompanying mournfulness.

Thus, in recognition of this ever-impending sense of loss, the aesthetic appre-ciation of impermanence calls for an attitude of non-attachment, which enablesone to savor beauty while it lasts and let go of it when it passes. However, to benon-attached to beauty is not simply to be “anti-beauty,” just as non-attachmentto the self is not simply “anti-self.” Non-attachment is not a reactionary stance.Rather, to be non-attached is to be open to, and to care deeply for, life in thepresent moment, while recognizing the futility of ever preserving, as if in stone,that for which one cares.

THE CREATIVE POWER OF CRITIQUE: NON-ATTACHMENT AND

NON-REACTIONARY OPPOSITION

The above reflections on transience and non-attachment point to the decep-tively simple insight that with all change comes loss. In order to seize the creativepotential of change, one must be emotionally equipped to deal with the inevita-

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ble loss. The doctrine of no-self speaks to the lived experience of the perpetualchanges and losses of subjective existence. In the constant flux of impermanence,my own identity is a fleeting thing. I am constantly required to adapt myself tonew contexts, to let go of past selves in order to move forward, and to managethe often competing identifications that express the multiplicity of my subjectivelife. On the one hand, the doctrine of no-self speaks to a sense of freedom:Because I have no single core self, my constant negotiations with identity arenot anchored to one dominating narrative. Yet on the other hand, the doctrineof no-self also invokes a perpetual sense of loss: Because I have no single coreself, and because my present identity is fleeting, my past selves are gone in a veryreal sense. As the Japanese aesthetic tradition helps to make clear, in order toappreciate myself fully, I must appreciate my capacity for freedom as well as mycapacity for loss. Hence non-attachment to the self is a liberatory practicefocused on the creative potential of subjective existence in a world of changeand instability.

This is especially evident in Dogen’s unique interpretation of Buddhistdoctrine. Commentator Hee Jin Kim describes Dogen’s transformative philosophyas follows:

As he probed the ethos of impermanence, thoroughly indigenizedby the native Japanese mind, Dogen did not indulge in aestheticdilettantism and sentimentalism as a way to escape from the fleet-ing fates of life but, instead, examined the nature of imperma-nence and its ultimate companion, death, unflinchingly,attempting to realize liberation in and through this inexorablescheme of things. In his view, things, events, relations were notthe given (entities), but were possibilities, projects, and tasks thatcould be lived out, expressed, and understood as self-expressionsand self-activities of Buddha-nature. This did not imply a compla-cent acceptance of the given situation, but required our strenuousefforts to transform and transfigure it. (Kim 1987, 136)

The transformative potential of Dogen’s philosophy lies in his explicitlynon-transcendent view of the role of nirvana as a so-called achievement inBuddhist practice. For Dogen, nirvana does not mean a state beyond theconstant arising and passing away of the impermanent world, and achieving nir-vana does not mean transcending or escaping ordinary, everyday existence. Hewrites: “Understand that birth-and-death itself is, just in other words, nirvana.There is nothing one should avoid as birth-and-death, and there is nothing oneshould seek as nirvana.”5 No enlightened state offers an escape from the inter-personal involvements of everyday life or overcomes the impermanence of suchinvolvements. To the contrary, realizing liberation involves a compassionatecommitment to the world in its lived immediacy.

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This reading of nirvana has important implications for the doctrine of no-self.By complicating the notion that the self is, in any simple way, to be overcome,Dogen’s philosophy allows us to reject an interpretation of no-self as ego-transcen-dence. He advises: “You should know that there are innumerable ways-of-beingwithin yourself; among them, there is birth, and there is death.”6 In this passage,Dogen’s words cannily address notions of the multiplicity and changeability ofidentity. On his view, striving against or seeking escape from the continual birth-and-death of the self is counterproductive. Based on his ideas, it is possible toenvision a person living with her constantly shifting identity in ways that harnesscreativity while not denying the reality of self-loss—that is, one can imagine herpracticing non-attachment and being emotionally engaged at the same time.

Relying on Dogen’s unique views of Buddhist practice, we can now articulate(1) a non-dialectical understanding of the relation between identity politics andidentity critique, and (2) a non-reactionary sense of oppositionality. First, hisnon-transcendent model of Buddhist practice lends itself to an analogously non-dialectical view of identity politics. If one rejects a simple progression in whichthe achievement of identity is followed by the overcoming of that identity, thenone can exit the terms of the dialectic altogether, and can shift the focus inidentity politics away from questions of the authenticity of identity and onto thereality of oppression. Moreover, taking the focus away from the authenticity ofidentity frees up the creative potential for identity-production that hooks sees inthe project of radical subjectivity.

Returning to the Sartre example, this means that Negritude, contrary to whatSartre says, need not be dedicated to its own destruction; rather, it is dedicatedto the destruction of those forms of oppression that make the expression ofNegritude impossible. When Negritude reflects what hooks calls radical subjec-tivity, it retains its urgency, relevance, and creative force—and it would do soeven if all oppression in the world were overcome.

Second, Dogen’s non-transcendent philosophy sheds light on what it mightmean to be oppositional without being reactionary. When the conventionalnotion of nirvana is rejected, the practice of non-attachment can be interpretedneither as the attainment of a pure state free of all attachments, nor as a stanceof knee-jerk reaction against that to which one is attached. Such a reactionaryposition attempts simply to shut out the immediacy of lived experience, and thisimpulse to retreat from life runs counter to both the teachings of Japaneseaesthetics and the transformative philosophy of Dogen. As these traditions show,non-attachment is a liberatory practice in and of itself. The non-transcendenttake on Buddhist doctrine does not dismiss the quest for personal empowermentas a naıve attachment to an essentialist identity-construct. Rather it shows thatthe quest is a never-ending process and that empowerment is a sense of self-effi-cacy that must be continually renewed in response to changing circumstances. In

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hooks’s language of non-reactionary oppositionality, this view on non-attachmentpromotes appreciation of the creative potential of oppositionality for its own sake.

For example, consider that when a person becomes overly attached to a givennarrative of herself, her commitment to preserving its coherence actuallyundermines her capacity for critical resistance by preventing her from actingoutside of the narrative’s boundaries. Self-attachment prevents her from ques-tioning her assumptions about who she “really” is. This is why hooks not onlyobjects to the modernist tendencies in some black identity politics but also seesempowering potential in the postmodern identity critiques aimed at challengingaccepted narratives:

The nationalist insistence that black identity must be “saved” byour refusal to embrace various epistemologies (ways of knowing),cultures, etc., is not a movement away from Eurocentric binarystructure. It reinscribes the dynamics of binary thinking. Thecontemporary crisis of identity is best resolved by our collectivewillingness as African Americans to acknowledge that there is nomonolithic black community, no normative black identity. (hooks1995, 247)

In resisting a monolithic notion of identity, the doctrine of no-self opens upthe possibility of radically altering one’s self-conception through the practice ofnon-attachment. By enabling critical distance from the self as a relationalconstruct, non-attachment denies the “binary thinking” associated with reaction-ary opposition, or with the simple pitting of one identity claim against another.Instead, non-attachment recognizes the web of interdependency in which allselves are constituted, while accepting the impermanence of these constantlyshifting relations. Without the practice of non-attachment, communities riskbecoming webs of unhealthy co-dependency, in which anxious and needy selvescling to their mutually disenabling identity-constructs. Sustaining the health ofcommunity life is one positive function of oppositionality, which, understood asa form of non-attachment, remains focused on the creative potential of thepresent moment.

Finally, casting this creativity in artistic terms helps to unite hooks’s visionfor liberatory aesthetics with the resources of the Japanese aesthetic tradition.The aesthetic engagement with impermanence illustrates that non-attachmentto the self unavoidably involves an awareness of self-loss and hence cannot becarried out in an emotionally naıve way. Because a person is relationally consti-tuted, her resistance to the political, cultural, and interpersonal relations thatshape her identity is, at the same time, a resistance to that very identity. Thus, asense of mournfulness in the face of self-loss necessarily accompanies allinstances of critical resistance. A liberatory aesthetic allows a person to questionand resist her community’s practices and standards, while remaining appreciative

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of her deep connection to that community and her emotional involvement withthe very practices that she questions.

THE RADICAL SUBJECTIVITY OF NO-SELF: EMPOWERMENT THROUGH SELF-LOSS

In the first section, I considered three objections to the doctrine of no-self. Inshort, these objections held that a person with no own-being is determined by herrelations, loses the capacity for critical resistance, and is thereby disempowered. Ashas now been shown, although the self is constituted by relations, it is not therebydetermined by those relations. Indeed, it is the belief in some non-relational core,to which the self’s essence is thought to be anchored, that invites determinism.The illusion of a core can be maintained only through a strictly defined self-iden-tity, which stifles creativity and inhibits critical resistance. With the capacity forreflective resistance weakened, a person becomes determined not simply by herown self-narrative, but by the imposing power structures of race, class, and genderthat sustain the coherence of the framework in which an essentialist account ofidentity even makes sense.

In contrast, the relational self suffers no illusions about the permanence ofher identity, and she is aware that her self-concept is deeply affected by hercommunity and by the various power structures at play in it. Non-attachmentoffers critical distance from these structures, not only as an intellectual experi-ence, but as an emotional one. In the fullness of this emotional experience, onerealizes the extent of one’s indebtedness to the various narratives—social,cultural, political, and interpersonal—that shape one’s identity, while at thesame time finding oneself capable of facing the self-loss necessary to effectivelyresist power structures that are disenabling or abusive.

Thus the interpretation of no-self pursued in this essay, relying on bothBuddhist doctrine and Japanese aesthetic theory, enters into a productive conver-sation with hooks’s cultural criticism. Instead of a merely theoretical identitycritique, the doctrine of no-self offers a meaningful context in which to situateand work through the emotional dimension of engaging in such study. Byconnecting the capacity for critical resistance with emotional development, itdenies a strict divide among the political, the personal, and the interpersonal. Inthe final analysis, the radical subjectivity of no-self comes to resemble hooks’svision for artistry in everyday life, which we now see will be mournful as muchas it is creative, relational as much as it is “strange and oppositional,” andempowering to the extent that it can tolerate the emotional complexity associ-ated with self-loss.

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NOTES

1. I do not set out to show that hooks espouses Buddhism or that most Buddhists arefriends of feminists—although it is interesting to keep in mind hooks’s personal connec-tion to Buddhism. Not much attention is given to connecting her work as a cultural criticand feminist with her work as Buddhist practitioner and contributor to publications suchas Shambhala Sun and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. For more fruitful conversationsbetween feminism and comparative philosophy in general, see McWeeny and Butnorforthcoming.

2. For other takes on what hooks means by radical subjectivity, see the section titled“Radical Black Subjectivity” in Davidson 2009; the sixth chapter of Ziraek 2001; or Alex-ander 1992.

3. My translation from Yamazaki 1972, a collection of Dogen’s teachings purportedlyrecorded by his disciple Ejo.

4. For more on non-attachment in Japanese aesthetics, see Odin 2001.

5. Shobogenzo, “Shoji.” My translation from Dogen 1971–72, vol. 4, 397.

6. Shobogenzo, “Zenki.” My translation from Dogen 1971–72, vol. 1, 416.

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