Agon in the administrative state 4

1. AGON IN THE
ADMINISTRATIVE STATE:
THE ART OF MISREADING
IN REGULATORY LAW
CHARLES EDWARD ANDREW LINCOLN IV

2. PSYCHOLOGICAL
BASIS ON
LITERATURE AND
POETRY —
HAROLD BLOOM
AND THE ANXIETY
OF INFLUENCE
• Bloom admits that influence has always been
recognized in literature and poetry.
• But it is not always a positive influence.
• Bloom states that “[p]oetic influence, as I conceive
it, is a variety of melancholy or the anxiety-
principle.”
• He views influence on the poet in a quasi-
Freudian way of thinking.

3. SIX
REVISIONARY
RATIOS
• Blooms Hegelian anti-thesis provides that six
“effects” on literature exist. These are in part
based on the Freudian familial drama. The six are:
• · Clinamen
• · Tessera
• · Kenosis
• · Daemonization
• · Akesis
• · Apophrades

4. CLINAMEN
• Bloom states that clinamen is the “poetic
misreading or misprision proper.”
• I interpret this theory as the poet agreeing up to a
certain point. That point is the “swerve” Bloom
takes from Lucretius on the Nature of Things.

5. TESSERA
• The concept of Tessera means completion. Bloom sees the
successor in the literary tradition as acting as a sort of
completion from finding the previous error in the clinamen.
• I interpret this is the first step breaking away from the former
poet’s former ideas.
• Bloom claims he received the concept of tessera from the
tokens people would cast in mystic traditions. It could be like a
handshake or sharing of words. The handshakes or sharing of
certain words are tokens — tessera. Also tessera are the
individual pieces in a mosaic. So, the poet takes something the
predecessor said and disagrees with that. He poet had agreed
to a certain point, then swerves, the clinamen, and then finds a
disagreement. The disagreement is the tessera. The poet re-
imagines the tessera in a new formulation.
•

6. KENOSIS
• Kenosis is the “emptying out” where the poet clears and
demystifies the “godlike father.”
• The poet after breaking with the tessera begins going in
another direction. The poet goes in another direction.
• Clinamen is Bloom’s indication where a poet agrees with the
interpretation of the former poet up to a certain point.
Examples of this in literature could even be that a poet agrees
with the conventions of grammar or other linguistic forms. But
it could also be the basis for understanding the same version
of a poem or piece of art, such as a part of one of Hamlet’s
soliloquy.
• On this basis, a legal jurist count agree that the Constitution
exists and that certain provisions exist in it. Jurists could
disagree with the interpretation of those certain provisions.
•

7. DAEMONIZATION
• Harold Bloom states that the successor poet
adopts a sort of animus “antithesis.”
• I think this means that the poet after breaking
with the former poet creates their own version of
what is true, sublime, or beautiful.
• Bloom takes the term daemonization from the
daemon Socrates claims is in his life and guides
his decisions.

8. AKESIS
• Akesis is the beginning of “truncating” the
addition to the former poet’s tradition.
• Judge Alex Kozinski wrote in Mattel v. MCA
Records, 296 F.3d 894 (9th Cir. 2002). “This one
would be funny just because it’s litigation over the
song “Barbie Girl,” but what really makes it
notable is the author’s words to the litigants at the
end: “The parties are advised to chill.” In a sense,
he is doing what Harold Bloom envisions as akesis
is.

9. APOPHRADES
• Finally, apophrades is where the successor is so
overwhelmed by the predecessor that he
“reverses” the father-son relationship. Perhaps, it
could be argued this is separate from the Freudian
Odepial paradiagm.
• Although not a legal text, Abraham Lincoln’s
Gettysburg Address is likely an example of
apophrades. This is not a legal text but it falls into
the ideals Harold Bloom was discussing. Lincoln
framed the intentions of the Founding Fathers in
such a way that it is difficult to imagine the
intentions of the Founding Fathers without
referring to Lincoln’s address.