GPT

Gordian knots can be solved by cutting them, untying them, or—more darkly—by discarding them altogether, as has been done throughout history: the so-called "Jewish problem" was to be solved by eliminating the Jews; the problem of poverty, by disappearing the poor; the problem of illness, by ridding society of the unwell. The logic of excision—of treating entanglement as something to be eradicated—has always been the logic of empire, a refusal to engage with complexity except as something to be subdued or erased.

Alternatively, we might recognize that we are part of the tangle itself. To tangle it further is not necessarily to obscure but to acknowledge: entanglement is not just an obstacle but a condition of being. The Celtic braid, endlessly weaving itself, offers an alternative to the imperial gesture. Alexander does not create; he only cuts, only removes. He does not enter into relation, into the co-creation of reality. His solution is force, the assertion of a clean break where none truly exists.

It has become possible—through economic, educational, political, and technological mediation—to misrecognize entanglement, to mistake it for something external, something we can opt out of. But mediation does not sever entanglement; it reorganizes it, intensifies it, produces new knots under the guise of abstraction and distance. The more intricate the mediation, the more tempting it is to believe in detachment. And yet, we remain within what we see. Our methods of distancing—whether ideological, institutional, or technological—do not free us from entanglement. They make it all the more elaborate. The knot never vanishes; it just becomes someone else’s noose.