Diderot and the Lap dancer Chapter 2: Advice to a Comedian

And so, she sighed, her voice soft and entreating. 

In my cubicle, curtained away from nature – a perfect symbol, if you like, of the secret place deep inside your mind where you battle your own thoughts... in this cubicle, I shall explain to you why my performance conforms to your idea of the finest acting.

Diderot shifted uneasily. My dear, I would not reject your charms and yet: the content of your performance surely could not be regarded as a bourgeois tragedy.

She fixed her eyes on his. When he was silent, she continued.

Content is a later matter. At this time, we are concerned only with matters of form. Remind me again, of your very own paradox.
It concerns the actor. His skill is not that of transmitting those emotions that he feels, but remaining detached from his performance. He is at his most skilled when he is least engaged with the passions he displays. On stage.

And the example you gave – it was Garrick, if I remember aright...

And also the actress Clarion, but I took it further. I quote myself: ‘the actor’s whole talent consists not in feeling, but in recreating the external signs of feeling with such scrupulous accuracy that you are taken in by them’.

My dear Diderot, the touch of my hand tells me that you are indeed taken in by my performance: yet for all my moans and pretty sighs, the moistness of my eyes and the presentation of my body in display to you, am I feeling the passions that evoke such passions in you. Are you not deceived by my external signs?

When I leave, once my dress and shoes have been pulled back on, I am tired but I am left with no desire, no agitation, no arousal. It is you who takes away all those impressions with you.

‘The dancer is tired, and I am excited, because you have been writhing around inside the cubicle without feeling a thing, and I have been feeling the emotions without moving my seat.’

Mr Diderot, how to love to quote yourself: and you realise, of course, that it is your words that give power to my argument. The lapdance is removed from the character they perform. How many men ask me for my number, how many of them are convinced that, despite the folded money slipped into my purse, that my glances and poses are real, that my desire is for them.

You are the reason why Plato would have banished actors from his ideal state. You deceive... you are not yourself but another... you show the symptoms of a soul without feeling them, you deceive by the imitation of these signs.

‘Plato knew exactly very well what he was doing.’  Your reputation for complexity, M. Diderot, is ill-earned.

Paradoxe sur Le Comedien 312 pg 277 (ID)
Discours sur la poesie dramatique
AT X.185
https://tomsoares22.wordpress.com/2009/09/21/diderots-the-paradox-of-acting/
http://doc.gold.ac.uk/aisb50/AISB50-S09/AISB50-S9-Jackson-extabs.pdf

Diderot and the Lapdancer: Interlude 1, a poetic battle

Is not my body beautiful? She said, slipping from her dress.
Many things are beautiful: it’s just what we like the best.

Does not my revelation inspire you to adore me?
I honour the upright, he replied. You’re distracting, a debauchery.

Your denial of attraction suggests God just got it wrong
In creating skin so fair and my limbs so comely long.
I feel only pity for your sorry pretty vice:
You are just mistaking bad things for the nice.

Do I practice without reason, a science imperfect?
Your metaphysic’s already clear: it’s just cause and effect.

You resist this sacred moment, you cling to social codes...
A good man when unhappy still knows the happy road.

You are talking like a Stoic, but you were born an Epicure.
Attachment is no virtue, but virtue is its cure.

Be passive in your enjoyment, sit back and relax.Happiness is the final goal of every human’s acts.

Diderot and the Lapdancer: Chapter One.

In good weather, it was his habit to arrive at the club around five o'clock in the evening. I’d see him there, sitting with his back facing the bar, always alone, wrapt in thought. He was discussing with himself – and anyone who caught his attention – politics, love, art, philosophy.

I’m indulging my mind, he says, in whatever it fancies, letting it follow the first thought, daft or wise that it comes across...

Like the regulars, who follow the dancer with a carefree look, a welcoming face and a lively eye, then leaving her for another? His thoughts are his whores, obviously. Although the term preferred now is sex workers (a reminder that his revolutionary mind did not quite extend to the liberation of women...)

And do those  thought ever follow to actually having a dance while you are here? 

I was accosted by one of the most extraordinary characters that this country possesses – and God knows we are not short of them! She’s a mixture of the noble and the base, intelligence and madness. 

It’s very charming of you to describe me so, Mr...?

Diderot. I am the irresistible Diderot.

I’ve seen you here often, Diderot. But don’t you ever have a dance?

I don’t care for oddities like you. Once a year is enough for me. 

Ah, Mister Philosopher! What are you doing among this group of scoundrels, then? Are you wasting time pushing the wood around?

I enjoy watching the dancers work the room, when I have nothing better to do.

An observational philosopher, are we? Not a bold anthropologist who mixes with the culture he would understand? 

As long as things are in our understanding only, they are just opinions: it’s only by observing external objects, and linking them to our understanding, that we can know whether they be true or false.

You say that, yet you know that there is a multitude of phenomena that happen beyond the limitations of your understanding... for example, what happens behind the black curtain, Mr Diderot?

It is easier and quicker to consult my own mind than investigate it in the world. 

I think perhaps you’ll be astonished if you had a dance?

Then my work as a philosopher would be to dissipate that astonishment.

Then let me remind you that you are in the club, and here a certain set of rules abide. ‘Take the dress of the country you are going to...’ 

And in reply, let me remind you that your dance is merely the end of a process whereby the most solemn desires, a noble and innocent pleasure, has been converted into a source of depravity and evil. To be clear, in a better society, where no laws bound the natural passions, where women are not trapped in matrimony, where social status can be no barrier to shared delights, this corrupted merchantile exchange, this commodification of the very body itself, would be an unnecessary transaction.

The philosopher speaks again of ideals, some utopia of authentic experience. I can see the conflict in your eyes, the gestures, the way you writhe upon the seat: the natural man, with natural curiosity and honest passions, longs to know what is behind the curtain. Yet the other man, the artificial moral man, strives to chain this natural inquisitiveness with rules and codes. You want...

We both want... you want my money... you are made ill by the  tyranny of man, who has made you into property.

In want, a man has no remorse. In sickness, a woman has no shame... now, do you want to discover how shameless I can be?

And so he agrees, knowing that pleasure and pain are the only foundations for action, and that those educated men who lock themselves away from life for the benefit of study are not driven by their desire for women but thinking, only thinking (and that was never his desire).

Le Neveu de Rameau (3, 4) pg 190 (ID)

De L’Interpretation de la Nature (VII, VI, X) pg 62-3 (ID)

Supplement au Voyage de Bougainville pg 317, 315 (ID)

Refutation D’Helvetius pg 295 (ID)