{"id":10605,"date":"2026-06-17T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=10605"},"modified":"2025-12-14T15:41:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T15:41:22","slug":"looking-at-eric-santners-book-2016-the-weight-of-all-flesh-part-11-of-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=10605","title":{"rendered":"Looking at Eric Santner\u2019s Book (2016)\u00a0The Weight of All Flesh\u00a0(Part 11 of 28)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

0211 Santner continues to explore The Merchant of Venice<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0212 What is the difference between Antonio and Shylock?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0213 Antonio is like the laborer who ends up injured because he is naive yet talented<\/em>.  A laborer should never allow himself to be put into such a dangerous predicament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is his friend Bassanio worth the price?  Surely, he is.  Once married to Portia, Bassanio would be in hog heaven.  Antonio is along for the ride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the game.  This is a gamble involving real risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0214 Shylock is like the foreman who puts the confident laborer into danger<\/em>.  He is not taking a big risk. He really has no skin in the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0215 Is that enough?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Antonio is also a Christian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shylock is also a Jew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0216 This contrast lit a fire beneath the butt of Karl Marx<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unquenchable burning flatulence of Marx<\/em> cannot be separated from the Western history of anti-Jewishness<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0217 Santner quotes David Nirenberg, who wrote a treatise on the subject, posing the question: If a society builds itself on Jewish foundations of commerce, contract, property and law, then can it consider itself Christian?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is that the same question that Shakespeare addressed in The Merchant of Venice<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0218 Santner does not pause to contemplate answers.  After all, this is directed association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0219 Santner jumps to this question: What kind of meta-work is required to enact the emergence of a mercantile society?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, what pre-occupied Shylock?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0220 The answer is found in the transaction<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shylock was full of discipline.  Antonio was not.  Antonio was full of love for Bassanio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shylock was jealous of Antonio\u2019s charisma.  Shylock wanted a piece of Antonio\u2019s biopower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0221 Here is the kicker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shylock\u2019s move transgressed even his Jewish foundations.  Shylock wanted more than what traditional Jewish commerce, contract, property and law permitted<\/em>.  He wanted to usurp Antonio\u2019s perverse charm, so characteristic of the flesh of Venice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shylock was miserable.  Everyone picked on him.  Everyone was happier than him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amorous love flowered all around Shylock.  Even his daughter fell for the buzz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0222 Shylock wanted a pound of what made Antonio who he was<\/em>.  Shylock did not care whether Antonio would bleed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where does Jewish tradition call for that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0223 Shylock\u2019s deal is crazy in the same way that Marat\u2019s revolutionary zeal is crazy.  CitizenMarat<\/sup> does not care whether blood is spilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, Thomas Hobbes, writing 50 years after Shakespeare, noted that the sovereign cannot order the subject to injure himself<\/em>.  The third law of nature no longer applies once the king threatens the flesh of the subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0224 Antonio was not a very good Christian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shylock was not a very good Jew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0225 To Santner, Shylock ends up representing the social disorder accompanying the emergence of a mercantile economy<\/em>.  Blessed with discipline, Shylock aims to usurp Antionio\u2019s biopower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Needless to say, British mercantilism lived up to Shakespeare\u2019s expectations.  One of the main commodities turned out to be African slaves.  Talk about usurping biopower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0226 Happily, in Shakespeare\u2019s play, Shylock fails and falls from his perch as citizenShylock<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He gets demoted to citizenregular<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Shylock sees this as a mortal blow, he actually has been redeemed.  Not only can he re-unite with his estranged daughter, but he can participate in the wondrous carnality that is Venice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0227 The lecture continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What did the African slaves have that no one else did?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0228 They were outside the system.  They could not become citizensregular<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0229 So there remains a threat, an extrapolation of The Merchant of Venice<\/em>, not anticipated by even sweet Portia.  The threat is an inscription, a displacement within the flesh, connected to a political economic circumcision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0230 With the American slaves from Africa, this inscription was as obvious as the color of their skin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inscription bore a message, \u201cYou cannot be a citizenregular<\/sup>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cut still rends the American fabric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0231 But, that was not enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American slave was also a commodity, a person emancipated (so to speak) from all traditional affiliations and packaged for those who value someone who will do the dirty work<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did the theology of mercantilism justify this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How could humans become the equivalent of machinery?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When did work become \u201cdirty\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0232 But then, didn\u2019t the king also do a lot of dirty work, such as killing bandits, stopping marauders and addressing the constant bickering among the peasants (say nothing of those impious priests)?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No wonder he needed a glorious body to contextualize what his mortal body had to do to be kingly<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0233 Does the fetish of the person of the king (from late medieval and early modern political theology)<\/em> translate into the fetish of the commodity (in modern political economy)?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

0234 Has the site for the doxology of the sublime body of the king<\/em> shifted to broadcast advertising?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Has liturgy<\/em> turned into to pop songs about<\/em> everyday life?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Songs extolling the joys of citizenregular<\/sup>, in a strange way, exploit joissance<\/em> for financial or political gain, substituting fantasies for affiliations and dreams for social bonds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do today\u2019s American celebrities exemplify citizenMarat<\/sup>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do they have discipline?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

0235 According to Santner, Marx tried to figure out the secret of the commodity form<\/em>.  He tried to see the sublime body of the citizenregular<\/sup><\/em> who goes to work at a corporation and rarely gets paid enough to afford the products of his own factory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

0211 Santner continues to explore The Merchant of Venice. 0212 What is the difference between Antonio and Shylock? 0213 Antonio is like the laborer who ends up injured because he is naive yet talented.  A laborer should never allow himself to be put into such a dangerous predicament. Is his friend Bassanio worth the price?  Surely, he is.  Once married […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[417],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review"],"yoast_head":"\nLooking at Eric Santner\u2019s Book (2016)\u00a0The Weight of All Flesh\u00a0(Part 11 of 28) - An Archaeology of the Fall<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=10605\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Looking at Eric Santner\u2019s Book (2016)\u00a0The Weight of All Flesh\u00a0(Part 11 of 28) - An Archaeology of the Fall\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"0211 Santner continues to explore The Merchant of Venice. 0212 What is the difference between Antonio and Shylock? 0213 Antonio is like the laborer who ends up injured because he is naive yet talented.  A laborer should never allow himself to be put into such a dangerous predicament. 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