It strikes me that lines of research ought not to be chosen with a conscious political purpose; but that on the other hand, to ignore the political dimensions — especially of science, art and philosophy — is cynically oblivious. The “edge” is thin but real. It simply doesn’t make very much sense (to me) to deny that theoreticians practice, are the first practitioners, and are even a sort of internalized clergy, regulating the flow of signals through the network. I like that somewhat asked whether or not this “obvious” question of knowledge-commerce was in fact lethal, probably since it reduces theoreticians to storytellers-for-hire. In other words: if theories are stories in a “radical” sense, what’s the limit? What’s to stop you from just saying whatever you want?

In the context of these sorts of concerns, I really like that you framed the problem initially in terms of post-Marxist theory, but then immediately widened it to include the “work” of theory in general — the politics of science. Transforming both good and common sense takes a very long time, relatively speaking. But I think it is possible to discover within ourselves a kind of political prudence, which without advocating violence explores the possibilities of resistance, which implicitly and even structurally acknowledges the usefulness, the importance of asking questions which may seem absurd, dangerous, paradoxical — if only because they expand what it is possible to ask, what it is possible to think.

I think that this is a problem one can start to feel very old thinking about, especially when you’re young at heart. The schism cuts both ways, especially in intellectual fields — in which we’re apt to carry over the haste and fervor of our everyday lives. When do we think today? When do we have time? What we have, in other words, is reflection without speculation, practice divorced from theory, an all-too-human mediation which yields neither and reconciles no one. “Truth” ought not to render silent our voices before an objective significance; it exists anonymously only as imperialism, the holy body of the despot. But shouldn’t truth reconcile us together?

Joe

Thanks for the Passion Quilt tag! Sorry I haven’t been by enough lately; perhaps I’ll explain why at some point over at my place.

It seems to me, in thinking about what Nate’s said, that there’s a sort of productive exhaustion with this question of the politics of academic work. Rather than motivating us towards new and more dynamic formulations of what we’re doing, it seems to push us towards screeds against academia that ring a bit hollow, or it forces us in the other direction, towards hero-narratives about academic work that are plain ludicrous.

I admire how you’ve avoided both extremes. You’re positing the value of achieving a certain level of reflection, without which we can’t get ahold (literally the dialectical Begriffen) of our situation under capitalism — how it works, how it benefits us, and how it might be changed. Interestingly, in your post, the “material” is a check, a form of demurral even. It curbs a radical cleverness that might otherwise produce those questionable hero-narratives, and it maintains some parity between the inside and the outside of academia.

My only reservations come in response to the idea that “academic thought mobilises very similar sorts of perceptions and thoughts as those mobilised in the marketplace.” Unquestionably, academia is a marketplace — individuals seeking jobs, books seeking publication, ideas seeking audiences and followers — and so are it auxiliaries, such as the academic blogosphere, in which blogs (or, more accurately, whole communities of bloggers) compete for the attention of readers.

That being the case, perhaps we need to begin to look at differences between marketplaces. For example, the kind of analytical work you have done with a couple of key texts on this blog (Hegel’s books and Capital) is certainly antithetical to the marketplace logic of breadth and browsing. Close reading, from a certain economic point of view, is a depressive form of under-consumption. There are great distinctions between different kinds of marketplaces, between their values and impacts, that we should recognize and uphold as part of the ethical practice of intellectual work.

Lisa – I think Tom can find the Letter to Ruge.

NP – thanks for starting this and see you at Goldsmiths soon for this.

Red Salute.
Trinketization

Personally, I don’t think I’ll ever really resolve the theory-practice relationship/problem. This is partly because I feel very uneasy with the separation, even though we are constantly called upon to make it; and partly because as a socialist activist, the question can’t be resolved for me politically until there is a completely different kind of society, at least post-capitalist. This is unlikely in my lifetime.

I see myself as activist first and theorist second (there… the separation again). What I mean is that, I am only a theorist in so far as it helps me to understand why I’m an activist; and also where our political, social and labour movements have gone wrong. The day I feel comfortable with the world around me is the day I stop bothering with research – well, except for some general curiosity I guess. But the thing that really drives me into theory at all is exactly a wish to understand why – socially and politically – the world just isn’t right. And from this, hopefully, contribute to ideas on how we can change it.

I don’t mean to sound moralistic about this either… for me it’s more about what drives me to understand things. Even when my early studies were focused on the natural sciences, it was a wish to better the world that made me interested in studying, not studying simply to understand. I can’t remember a time I did not want to know the practical significance of this knowledge.

I’ve been reading Negt and Kluge lately, on the concept of the proletarian public sphere. I find their take on consciousness and collective experience particularly interesting. In a section on the role of fantasy in providing ‘an unconscious practical critique of alienation’, they provide a great quote from Marx in a letter to Ruge, titled ‘For a ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing’. Here is a small part of it:

We develop new principles to the world out of its own principles. We do not say to the world: ‘Stop fighting; your struggle is of no account. We want to shout the true slogan of the struggle at you.’ We only show the world what it is fighting for… The reform of consciousness consists only in enabling the world to clarify its consciousness, in waking it from its dream about itself, in explaining to it the meaning of its own actions.

… I have not managed to find the whole letter online, but here is a little more: For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing

I think I agree with this… that theorising can help us to better understand our compulsion for political action, but along it cannot provide much by the way of advice for what specific plan of action we should take. Theory may help us a lot to understand what we are actually fighting for or why we’re fighting at all, but I’m not so sure it helps us to understand the practicalities of HOW we fight for this. Only collectivised political experience (which is both practical and theoretical) can do this – and by this I mean lessons from both gains and losses.

Lenin spoke a lot – and so have many historians – about the role of the 1905 events in Russia in teaching a whole generation of class fighters the lessons necessary for 1917. Whatever readers of this blog might think of these events, we can at least learn this… that one of the most (if not, the most) significant political events in the 20th century only occurred because of its ‘dress rehearsal’. It did also require those who could analyse, critique and share these lessons… but even this work could not be done by those who only sat behind desks.

How does this all translate to the ‘modern’ academic environment? I don’t know. But I find academia frightening and stifling. And for me at least, the test of any theoretical developments I might make will be in political struggle, off campus. That being said, considering the current state of political struggle, I am happy for the moment to shift the balance in favour of some theorising – it’s a sabbatical in political theory if you like. I hope that’s not too hypocritical.

Thanks for this N, and thank your for your comments; I’ll do a proper response later when I have a little more time.

Cheers

Tom