NP I don’t think I’m capable of writing a coherent response at the moment…

I have also been thinking as to how 9/11 – and more importantly the reaction to this – may have clouded a historical shift that may have been occuring. My immediate thought between the first tower and the second tower going down was ‘This is going to change everything…there is going to be a massive swing to the right of politics.’ I think I was both very wrong and very right about the possible reactions to this event.

A friend of mine told me a very bad joke about 9/11.

(WARNING! Read no further if 9/11 jokes will offend you.)
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He said:

“You can tell how evil you are in relation to how soon after 9/11 you masturbated…

A. One month.
B. One week.
C. Between the first and the second tower coming down.”

I think that revolution is built into captialism to some extent; due a the boom-bust cycle, infinite growth paradigm, and the inherent inequality of life that props up capital… I think now it is not so much that revolutions happen, more than enough evidence that they do, but it seems a question of what happens the day after the revolution? Certainly in Cambodia what was recreated was a product of what was already there – in a sense certain social relations and mores were just amplified…

I guess I wrote these three posts feeling flooded and symptomatic of being atomized and alienated from the intellectual community to which I had some attachment to. In this sense everything seems to be structurally fucked (that is a technical term) at the moment. But is an expression of despair going to result in anything? Other than me not finishing my marking, not doing anything productive, and not trying to fight… I don’t know. I think despair can also crush the imagination as well.

When I use the term self-reflexivity in the context of critical theory, the term refers specifically to the question of whether the theory is able to identify some specific kind of potential for transformation in the historical or social context the theory is analysing. This potential then “grounds” the normative ideals of the theory – by linking those ideals in a specific way to the potential for change.

None of this contradicts the notion that the personal might be political, that theory is inseparable from theorists, etc. – I’m not denying these things, or affirming them. They just aren’t actually related in any way to what I’m trying to discuss, when I use the term “self-reflexivity”. So: yes, being self-reflexive in ways that touch on the issues you mention could conceivably degenerate into some kind of narcissistic paralysis – it could equally lead to rising empathy and sensitivity to others, useful forms of self-awareness, etc. – all kinds of good and terrible things. But none of this is really in the same conceptual space as what I’m trying to capture through the term “self-reflexivity”.

I don’t own the term, of course, and I’m not trying to suggest that everyone should use the term the way I do. Just trying to point toward what I mean when I toss the term into play.

I have a more complex issue relating to your question about how I situate myself in relation to “certain theories held by individuals”. Mainly in that the type of theory that I do – including, actually, the sort of analysis I was gesturing toward in this post – isn’t really oriented to individuals as atomised social actors. I tend to be interested in aspects of collective behaviour and, while no doubt some individuals will adopt “outlier” theories about social life, I’m more interested in the theories that resonate at a given moment, as I tend to think these will express more widespread forms of practice… My theoretical thinking is in this sense fairly nonpersonal.

In terms of your argument that the post reflects some kind of reaction to the failure of “utopian” experiments in the 20th century: although this probably isn’t very clear if someone hasn’t been following the broader cross-blog discussion, it’s true that some of the discussion – around the “lack of imagination” about alternatives to capitalism – does suggest that the failure of such experiments has led to a kind of loss of faith and political paralysis. My argument here was actually intended as a – very gentle – critique of such a position, suggesting that, if people would pay attention to these very expressions of despair, they might be surprised to discover in them at least a few signs that we have moved beyond that historical moment – that a new, more active, political orientation is emerging – and that it might be productive to examine its contours. In other words: I might agree with you that there was a period of deeply insular theory in reaction to the sorts of events you highlight – it’s just that I think there are actually signs that this period has ended: we just haven’t consciously recognised this yet (and, I think, events like 9/11 have clouded some elements of a historical shift).

In terms of my broader views on revolution: I don’t think we have to “try” to have revolutions under capitalism. The way I understand capitalism is as an unusually historically dynamic social form, which is intrinsically revolutionary, driving ongoing small transformations of social and cultural practices, and resulting in periodic paroxysms of dramatic structural transformation. So, from my point of view, what requires effort is not “revolution” – these happen anyway – but rather substantive goals such as the achievement of more humane living conditions and meaningful social relations. So the issue for me isn’t “do we want a revolution” but “what kind of revolution are we going to have”.

I’m not trying to disarm through self-deprecation The issue for me is that I’m far more confident that this kind of theoretical work is important, than that I personally will have anything meaningful to contribute to such work. So I’ll defend this sort of project as being more than “just thought”, but I’m not as confident of what my personal work might contribute.

I agree that action must be informed by theory. But it is very difficult to see the social context that any one individual exists in, let alone the context of a social movement in the present tense. I do take your point regarding reconstituting the same thing as what there was before, just with different leaders and different namings.

My point is that at what moment does self-reflexivity in a praxis sense become inaction and narcissism? I do not see how you can neatly separate out the theory from the theorists either. The personal is the political in my view. That is why I stated that self-reflexivity can become narcissism. Certain theories held by individuals about the social world result in their inaction, other theories held by other individuals result in them willing to attempt change of their surrounding world. I guess I am left wondering where you see yourself?

I guess this is all at least partially informed by my recent experiences of my workplace, where I have seen certain individuals take a “whatever it takes attitude” to getting ahead a modicum in terms of their so-called academic careers.

What you are seeking seems the impossible and is only thinkable after the failure of the so-called utopias in the USSR, China and Cuba. In a sense you seek a way out of revolutionary change to ‘the transformation of an existing context’. Trying to think this way seems resultant from the loss of faith in a left wing politics or any form of revolutionary politics to change anything. Instead, and call me cynical, ‘thought’ is being substituted for action or practice.

I am not sure that your theory is woefully inadequate at all, but was not the point of my response, (and your self-deprecating position may be usually disarming to me). My concern is that there seems to be no praxis – it looks like all just thought to me.

The reaction you’re having is fairly common – although, to be honest, I’m always a bit puzzled when someone expresses something like this: how does engaging in theoretical reflection in any way get in the way of practice? It’s not as though I’m telling the assembled masses to return to the factory until I get this whole capitalism concept figured out… ;-P

One issue may be that I don’t draw an ontological line between things we do and things we think – forms of practice are inextricably associated with determinate forms of perception and thought. And determinate forms of perception and thought can facilitate and hinder the ways in which we practice our environments as open to change.

As well, in case there’s some confusion around the term: self-reflexivity in the Frankfurt School incarnation has nothing to do with an individual theorist reflecting on themselves on some personal level: it’s not an individual concept. Instead, self-reflexivity has to do with analysing the context to determine ways in which that context suggests the potential for its own immanent transformation – theories, not theorists, are self-reflexive.

When I speak about “self-reflexive” theory, I’m therefore searching for a way to do something rather similar to what you’ve suggested above: to engage in a form of theory that exposes – in very concrete, determinate ways – the potential for the transformation of an existing context. “Unreflexive” theory – I usually call it “pessimistic” theory – in this framework is theory that “merely” exhorts or criticises, without pointing to some specific potential for transformation. Of course, there are historical periods when specific potentials are very difficult to identify – and exhortation and critique can still be quite important in such a context, if only to preserve a hope that something more might be possible at a later time. Many of the theorists I work with – Adorno, Horkheimer, etc. – found themselves in precisely such a situation…

In this particular post, of course, I was trying to point to what I regard as a form of practice that is already underway – a practice of how we conceptualise the potentials available in our context: some such conceptualisation has to underlie any kind of practical politics.

My position – but I’d need to explain this in a more elaborated form – is that many social movements with otherwise admirable aims have been unsuccessful (sometimes drastically, tragically so) because their understanding of their own social context led them inadvertantly to reconstitute what they thought they were abolishing. I think our context is very complicated – in ways that can serve as traps for those who are seeking to implement change. The kind of theory that I do is simply oriented to rendering such traps more visible. A social movement might well succeed without such a theory. But a theory that can cast some meaningful light on immanent potentials and risks can increase the odds.

I’m not trying, of course, in any way to valorise what I personally do: my own theory may well be woefully inadequate, etc. This is part of the point of engaging in these sorts of public theoretical discussions: at the very least, if my own work fails to make any significant and direct contribution, perhaps I can irritate other, more capable, people into lifting their own game. Collectively, the group of us engaging in these sorts of exchanges might be able to generate at least one or two useful theorists among us…

It seems to me to be wonderful to engage in critique and to theorize what might not be from we have, but unless at some point those engaging in critique shift from commentating on the sidelines (I am certainly guilty of this as much as anyone) and start to imagine how things might be different through taking some form of collective action that is lead by an imagining of how social relations could be, then we shall never know if anything could actually be emancipatory. Self-reflexivity can also become narcissism in my view.

I’m not sure what I am trying to say here. I do not mean this in a harsh way, but perhaps it will come across with that tone. Perhaps things do actually need to change from capitalism. But until you actually try changing some small aspect of the world around you, your workplace, your relationships at work, your life in general, you will never actually need to apply in praxis the notion of ‘self-reflexivity’ in relation to social change. As thinkers we are surely more than just bystanders whose only role is critique?

I know I’m probably missing the point to parts of this post and that I am perhaps over-simplifying it all, but that is what I ended up writing in response.

Hope you are good.