Searching for an irenic force
By Mark-Alec Mellor
Perhaps it’s too contrived, or even disingenuous, to announce at the beginning of an essay—in the very title—the pursuit of something, as if the outcome were in doubt, as if every sentence were a step of discovery or a new clue, and the conclusion a triumphant report on success. Surely the searching is done prior to the act of writing—and, if fruitless, yields a retreat from the page for further reflection. Yet it’s also true that written words don’t merely transcribe our thinking. Often, thoughts are not even glimpses, but only intimations of what might be there to see—a spectral presence, like Michelangelo’s Prigioni, that writing carves into a thing we can look at. And when a concept is finally put into words it continues to be moulded and polished by use and debate.