Comments on: Simulcasting

By: N Pepperell

N Pepperell — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:09:08 +0000

Hey John – Sorry again for the delay responding directly. As I commented in the preface to the thesis chapter, my more developed response is there, rather than in anything I could say briefly here. This doesn’t mean that I’m quite hitting the target I’m trying to hit there, of course. But I share, I think, your negative reaction to trying to what is generally meant by ideology critique – I see Marx’s standpoint of critique differently from most ideology-critical approaches: as an analysis of the potentials or implications of various moments currently implicated in the reproduction of capital, with an eye to criticising the reproduction of capital, against the potentials that might be unleashed, given other sorts of social relations.

Marx does talk quite a lot about the ways in which the various processes he analyses come to be “reflected in the brains” of social actors, and not just in the fetishism discussion – the meta-theory here, though, sounds to me as though he simply thinks that we tend to cognise via what we do – and can therefore look past or fail to notice unintended consequences of our practices, where those consequences don’t arise directly from some specific practice, but rather from the aggregate effect of lots of practices. So he uses this sort of analysis as part of an argument about why this social context has properties that have to be deduced or discovered, rather than being immediately intelligible. I don’t think this sort of point contradicts what you are saying, though, and to avoid confusion I’ve tried to change the way I’m expressing this point in the chapter – whether this has made things better or worse, we’ll see

But I should discuss this when I’m more awake Mainly just wanted to say thanks again for the questions and comments, which were very helpful when I was having my last go at revising this.

By: john

john — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:52:42 +0000

I’m really not sure how to respond to you here, as I really think you’re onto something, especially after reading your Goldsmiths paper which gave me a lot to think about, and led me to rethink a lot of my reading of ch.1. To the extent that I still have reservations they all concern your terms, and what they seem to imply about the frame through which you read Marx, particularly the emphasis you put on “forms of thought”. And yet even here, I’m tempted to agree when you say that for Marx “forms of social objectivity and subjectivity both emerge in distinctive forms of social practice, such that habits of thought are necessarily implicated as moments of forms of social being.” I guess in a weird way what I’m saying is that this might be the right answer to the wrong question. Basically I think one of the most common misreadings of Marx is to project twentieth century “critical theory” back onto him, to read a theory of the formation of consciousness and subjectivity into his work, to read him as an ideology critic. Any comprehensive look at Marx’s mature writings (and I would even argue his early writings) reveals very little by way of a systematic account of the formation of consciousness. When he does explicitly refer to consciousness it is usually to dismiss it as irrelevant to the socio-historical dynamics he describes (e.g. the ref. to capitalist’s subjectivity in the first preface), and I think that his critique of the ideology of political economists never extends to an interest in ideology per se (see McCarney’s article on the Marx Myths and Legends site for a good defense of this point). However, 20th century Marxists for a bunch of reasons felt they needed a theory of ideology, and in the absence of any general account of ideology in Marx’s mature works they (eg. Lukacs) latched onto the fetishism chapter as providing one by proxy. I think this is the main reason so many 20th century Marxists have misread fetishism as illusion – because they have read the whole section to be fundamentally about consciousness. I could go on about this for a long time, but hopefully you should understand from this why I am in two minds about your approach to “forms of thought”. On the one hand I think you address the issue in a way that is much closer to how Marx would address the issue than say Lukacs and Adorno read him, on the other hand I just don’t think Marx saw himself as fundamentally talking about “forms of thought”, even of forms of thought rightly viewed as necessarily implicated as forms of social being. Yes he refers to both thought and ideality in the chapter on fetishism, but I read these references as picking out an ideality inherent to the ontology of the capitalist mode of production, and only secondarily a reference to the ways these forms are reflected in people’s minds.

But as I say, I agree with a lot of what you write and find your research project really interesting, so perhaps I’m just imposing something onto your perspective which isn’t there?

By: N Pepperell

N Pepperell — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 18:54:13 +0000

Hey folks – Deepest apologies for the very long delay in responding – and further apologies that I won’t have time to respond adequately now.

Lynda: I’ve been thinking of Capital as Marx’s Frankenstein for some time – glad you like the image

John: Many thanks for your comments – I really should reproduce the footnotes when I post papers here, as that’s where I usually comment on the relation between my work and the work of other commentators – apologies that this omission can make things a bit more ambiguous than they might otherwise be…

In terms of your questions – yes, I am familiar with Ehrbar (but haven’t tried to double-check the textual case myself, although it doesn’t seem implausible – although Marx’s terminology is often a bit… fluid…). I do see myself as operating closely to the space marked out by Postone and Arthur, but I wouldn’t myself draw the exact contrast you seem (and apologies if I am mishearing your emphasis or intention above) to be drawing between the analysis of “habits of thought” and an analysis that asserts the “reality of the fetish character” – I would take Marx’s anti-idealist move to consist in the assertion that forms of social objectivity and subjectivity both emerge in distinctive forms of social practice, such that habits of thought are necesasarily implicated as moments of forms of social being. So yes, the fetish has a social validity or a practical reality. At the same time, though, Marx is engaging in a critical theory – and the structure of the first chapter (and, of course, of the rest of the work) suggests that “social being” in capitalism is internally multifaceted, such that some forms of thought, formal theories, etc., may be both “socially valid”, but also partial and therefore subject to criticism on the basis of what they grasp, and what they fail to grasp, about the context whose properties they express. So the fetish is real – it is enacted – but at the same time not all theoretical articulations adequately express the limitations or presuppositions of that enacted reality. When these conditons aren’t grasped, then opportunities for critique and potentials for transformation can be missed. In this sense, Marx can both assert the social validity of forms of thought that express the fetish character, but also mobilise other immanently-available social experiences to criticise certain political economic expressions of the fetish as inadequate. If this makes sense?

I have another go at this topic in the Goldsmiths talk tomorrow, making more explicit reference than I do in this paper, to how Marx is playing with Hegel in the first chapter – the focus on Hegel, rather than Lukacs, makes it a bit easier for me to explore some of the implications of my argument, for how I see Marx’s critical standpoint (although I’m still finding it very very difficult to find a slice of the argument small enough that I don’t feel that I completely butcher it in any brief talk… But I think I handle certain issues better in the Goldsmiths talk, and other issues better here… Maybe across enough of these things, I can give a sense of what I’m trying to say…)

On Postone and Arthur specifically: I particulary like, and think my position is probably very close to, Arthur’s emphasis on seeing these opening categories as a result. Postone, to me, doesn’t capture this quite as well, because he tries to understand abstract labour in terms of a new function labour comes to perform in capitalism – I both think he is right to emphasise the importance of labour’s novel role, but also wrong to equate this (as his text sometimes, but not always, does) with what Marx is trying to get at with the concept of abstract labour. Apologies if this is very unclear (and also if it’s unfair to Postone, whom I need to re-read). Very little time at the moment, but just wanted to reply quickly while I can…

Take care…

By: john

john — Tue, 27 May 2008 12:58:31 +0000

Very interesting paper, I need to reread it, but for now a question: have you looked at the translational issue raised by Hans Ehrbar and others about the difference between the “fetish-character” (Fetischcharakter) and “fetishism” (fetischismus) (http://marx.econ.utah.edu/das-kapital/akmc/cic03s1.htm)?
According to Ehrbar Marx never uses the phrase “fetishism of commodities”, only the “fetish-character of commodities”, whilst the word fetishism is restricted to ideological references e.g. “fetishism of political economists”. The upshot is a seeming confirmation that one shouldn’t read ch.1sec.4 as about illusions in any sense (as it it s the character of the commodity form and not an “ism” pertaining to beliefs that is at issues). I’m not sure if Ehrbar’s reading completely holds up (there is a references to fetishism in ch.1sec.4 that doesn’t seem to be about ideology) but I think it would be interesting to see how such a distinction would work in terms of your argument. In your terms presumably fetishism would correspond to the “forms of thought” and fetish-character to the social relations or behavior they are peculiarly adequate to.

For me this also raises questions about your interpretation.
For the fact that it is the latter and not the former which Marx takes as the subject of ch.1sec.4 suggests that Marx is not really interested in “forms” or “habits of thought” in this section, but in a reality which is already perceived as having a fetish-character in virtue of its peculiar ontology. I’m not sure how much this view differs from your interpretation, for you seem to want to both stress the role of fetishized forms of thought (and what is lacking in them) and the sense that they are grounded in a social reality which validates them. A lot depends on how “social reality” is interpreted here, but your language of behavior “conferring” existence on things, specifically behavior “as though” these things exist, suggests to me an at least partial questioning of the reality of fetishized social forms. I’m much more inclined to follow Postone and Arthur in asserting unequivocally the reality of the fetish character. After all it is the social form of money which ch.1sec.4 is leading up to, and the impossibility of behaving “as though” money didn’t exist seems to render the “as though” in your formulation redundant. What’s wrong with saying that money (and abstract labour, and capital, …) has a fetish-character which in no way detracts from its existence, and which is substantively independent of our “forms of thought”? This character would presumably be simply the fact that it, a thing, mediates social relationships; or rather, it acquires social characteristics, becomes uncannily human (like the dancing tables), is the really-existing contradictio in adjecto of a “social thing”…

i look forward to reading more of your work on this subject.

By: Lynda

Lynda — Fri, 23 May 2008 01:34:23 +0000

Hey NP…. Bravo bravo.
Indulge me…I particularly love your closing Frankenstein analogy – “My Hideous Progeny”, (original title is far better reflection of the multiple demons that Shelley laid achingly bare in this magnificent text), alerts us to the consequences of our relationship to the monster that science enabled us to birth – isolate oneself from it only to bear witness to its havoc. Frankenstein’s monster – in recognising its own frailty and repulsiveness – sought to be understood and transformed.
Forgive both my romanticism (due largely to a long-standing love affair with this text) and my monumental conceptual leaps – to be clear, I’m (not quite) foolish enough to believe that capitalism is calling for its own destruction [nor did Shelley's 'progeny'] – rather, I see Shelley as specifically concerned with, as you say, standpoint and target of critique – hers is a cautionary tale that orients us to see the transformative potentials that reside in both the frailty and repulsiveness of the monster itself – and,moreover, that it is of our making
Ahhh…thanks for sparking a trip down literary memory lane. Now I really must get some work done