Rough Theory

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Category Archives: Transformation

Quick Reflexes

17 Comments Posted by on August 29, 2007

So I’ve finally finished my homework (or, as the case may be, other people’s homework that I’ve been marking), and can come out to play – only briefly, unfortunately, as today is a very heavy teaching day for me. I wanted, though, at least to begin to take up Joseph Kugelmass’ post on self-reflexivity (with discussions currently underway at The Kugelmass Episodes and The Valve). I won’t be able to address all the issues Joe raises adequately, in the amount of time I have to reply today. But hopefully I can at least tug on a couple of threads, and see what that manages to unravel…

I want to start with the challenging declaration with which Joe begins: “From my point of view, reflexive critiques are not capable of doing what we want them to do”. In the comments over at The Valve, rob has already suggested the minefield covered over by this casual “we”. 😉 One of the most fascinating things in the cross-blog discussion of self-reflexivity, has been the range of meanings attached to the term “self-reflexivity”. Not surprisingly, these different meanings carry their own, sometimes radically different, senses of what self-reflexive critiques are, and what purpose such critiques might serve. Joe contributes a new vision of self-reflexivity in his post – one that overlaps with some of the meanings in play in the original discussion, but one that also deviates in interesting ways, setting up for some important critical points about the limitations of self-reflexive theory as Joe understands the term. The first question, then, is what Joe takes self-reflexive theory to be – and how “his” self-reflexive theory relates to the version of self-reflexivity I’ve tended to push on this blog.

Readers who haven’t read Joe’s post should start there. I’ll write this response comment-style, and so this may be a bit difficult to follow if you aren’t familiar with what Joe has written.

Joe begins with a couple of quotes from Sondheim and Zizek, illustrating what he takes self-reflexive theory to be. Both quotes centre on a form of analysis in which an individual (or group) reflects consciously on the formative factors (social, economic, life circumstance) that have made them what they are. Mischievously, Joe selects quotes that represent an all-too-familiar narrative trope, in which persons engaging in violent or criminal activity demonstrate that self-reflection – insight into the possible causes of their objectionable behaviour – can quite happily co-exist with the objectionable behaviour itself. In this way, Joe sets up for a critique of the notion – which I agree is quite common in certain forms of critical theoretic work – that knowledge or insight is somehow intrinsically transformative. Joe’s argument is both that insight can quite easily be divorced from transformation – and that transformation can quite easily be divorced from insight.

Throughout Joe’s post, he glosses the concept of “self-reflexivity” with phrases like “self-reflexive thinking” (my italics), and links self-reflexivity to the self-awareness of individuals or groups – to their understanding of, and conscious reflection on, what causes them to be the way they are. Joe questions the possibility of this kind of self-reflexivity, arguing that we “can [n]ever be so self-aware as to lack an unconscious element“. He also questions the power of this kind of self-reflexivity, questioning theories predicated on the notion that “if I come to understand what is causing my behavior, I will lose interest in repeating this behavior”. This is beautiful, challenging material – Joe is right to push these points, and we should continue to discuss them, as he has hit on some important common assumptions about why theoretical practice might be effective that deserve to be interrogated. It’s precisely because I share substantial sympathy with Joe’s questions, that I feel a twinge of guilt for what I will do next, which is to bracket these questions entirely, in order to make what is essentially a terminological point. For, while Joe’s questions are quite valid and deserve a full discussion, I don’t believe they connect with the specific sense of “self-reflexivity” that I put into play, when discussing what Joe has delightfully christened my “great theme”.

To avoid confusion, I’ll follow the convention that emerged in the cross-blog discussion, and use the term “reflexive theory” to refer to the idiosyncratic constellation of concepts I’ve generally tried to capture through the term “self-reflexivity”. A reflexive theory is not primarily concerned with the question of how an individual theorist adopts a critical attitude or orientation toward their context. The point is not to explain how the critic is possible – or to suggest that some special kind of thinking (“self-reflexive thinking”) will somehow magically constitute a rupture that denaturalises the social field and renders transformation possible. The point instead is to unfold an analysis of the social field that highlights (1) how that field tends to be reproduced, and (2) how the very process of reproduction is such that a particular social field cannot be reproduced, without this process of reproduction also entailing the production of determinate possibilities for transformation. By analysing social reproduction in a way that exposes the existence of such possibilities, the theory “self-reflexively” incorporates itself – its own possibility – an account of the origins of the potentials whose existence the theory expresses – into its theory of social reproduction. A reflexive theory is therefore, as Sinthome has expressed it in his contribution to this exchange, a theory that can account for its “own position of enunciation” – a theory that can specify its “standpoint of critique”, and show how that standpoint is immanent to the society being criticised, rather than reflecting some kind of transcendent standpoint outside of society, against which society is being judged and found wanting.

This question is related in complex ways to the question of how people might come to desire transformation (and I’m happy to discuss these relationships in greater detail), but it is analytically distinct from this question. On a philosophical level, reflexivity is intended to allow a theory to be adequate to the concept of immanence – to make a serious attempt at thinking what critique might look like, if we are not asserting (or tacitly smuggling in) transcendent standards that do not arise immanently within the context within which the theorist is situated. On a practical level, reflexivity is intended to identify social, psychological and material resources, generated by collective processes that may not be consciously intended to have any such result, that suggest the possibility for transformative practice. In this specific sense, it’s unintentionally ironic that Joe sought to contrast what he takes to be my focus on reflexivity, with the form of theory Marx deploys in Capital. Joe argues:

When Karl Marx wrote that the contradictions within capitalism would eventually destroy it, he wasn’t writing a purely reflexive analysis. He was writing a historical analysis that used the transition from feudalism to capitalism as a model for the transition from capitalism to socialism.

Leaving aside that I don’t quite read Marx’s argument this way, what Joe is unintentionally pointing to here is actually very close to my sense of “reflexivity”: Marx is, to me, the quintessential reflexive theorist – which may perhaps clarify how far my notion of self-reflexivity is, from the notion of “self-reflexive thinking”. What is “reflexive”, for me, is the theory – not the theorist’s cognition: if a theory is aiming at emancipatory transformation, the theory reflexively allows for its own possibility by theorising its context in such a way as to highlight how that context produces the potential for particular forms of practice that hold the potential for reacting back on the reproduction of society itself.

This may begin to clarify somewhat how I would respond to Joe’s final question, which relates to why I have expressed an objection to theories that centre themselves on notions of intersubjectivity. The point – and rob and Sinthome have both picked up on this, in their respective interventions – is not to argue that the notion of intersubjectivity is invalid, or to suggest that theories that focus on intersubjectivity are somehow logically inconsistent or lacking in methodological rigour. The point – somewhat ironically, given where Joe begins his post – is that such theories are often very poor at thematising non-conscious, unintentional side effects of collective practice. My quarrel isn’t with the notion of theorising intersubjective processes, but with an exclusive focus on such processes. In his interpretive gloss on my (correctly quoted) comment about theories of intersubjectivity, I notice that Joe adds a “the” outside the quotation, and therefore becomes concerned about what I might regard as “the” central dimensions of contemporary society. I want gently to suggest that this is a concern perhaps introduced from the outside – that the definite article was deliberately omitted from my original comment 🙂 In criticising theories of intersubjectivity, my intention was not to reject them in favour of theories that focus on “the” important issues as I define them, but to draw attention to additional aspects of contemporary society that tend to be overlooked by such theories, including particularly (in the case of my own work) unintended side effects of practices oriented to other purposes entirely.

I’ll have to leave this post in its somewhat undercooked (and unedited!) state – I have to teach until late this evening. Apologies for the truncated discussion here, for the bracketing of important issues, and for any delays that might affect my ability to respond to further comments. The substantive issues Joe raises deserve their own discussion – likely a more interesting one than the terminological issues on which I’ve concentrated here. Hopefully we’ll have time to get back to all these things in the near future.

Conversations, Critique, Self-Reflexivity, Transformation

Reflex Reflux

1 Comment Posted by on August 28, 2007

Just a very quick note, as I’m running and can’t comment substantively until later, that Joseph Kugelmass has picked up on the cross-blog discussion on self-reflexivity, with cross posts at The Kugelmass Episodes and The Valve that ask whether reflexive thought is possible – and whether such thought is really required for emancipatory transformation. Sinthome has responded at Larval Subjects, with an amazing post that discusses the “cash value” of the concept of reflexivity with reference to Lacanian practice and to critical theory. I promise a response as soon as I have time (Joe – you go away for the summer, you don’t call, don’t write, and then you come back and write something like this when I’m too busy to respond! Seriously – welcome back, and apologies for the delay in my substantive response), but wanted to put up a pointer to the discussion in progress.

For those who missed the original cross-blog conversation, the posts are indexed here.

Conversations, Critical Theory, Self-Reflexivity, Transformation

Blind Process and Critical Vision

Leave a comment Posted by on August 15, 2007

So, since today is a horrific day teaching, and I’m unlikely to find time to write anything here, another pointer to Now-Times, where the discussion on self-reflexivity continues to unfold, in two main posts (linked here previously, but just to mention that the discussion in both is still “live”).

I also wanted to cross-post another comment fragment, again because it outlines some things that I should take up here in greater detail at some point – with the caveat that, since this is written contextually in response to an ongoing conversation, it’s rather… abbreviated and somewhat problematic as written, and should therefore be read as a placeholder in need of development):

Both Marx and Hegel make gestural comments in various places about “things appearing as they are” – among other things, this sort of comment indicates that they are both trying to develop a form of analysis that does not reduce from appearance to essence, while still capturing the qualitative determinacy of what they are analysing. Both of them are attempting to figure out what it might mean to criticise, without having a notion of objective truth at our disposal.

Hegel tries to square this circle with a sort of developmental notion, where the forms of thought being criticised are both necessary (as moments in an unfolding process), and yet also partial (as revealed when they are compared with later, more adequate, moments). Hegel can do this, though, because he has a concept of the universal realising itself in time.

Marx inverts this argument: his “universal” is capital – a blind, meaningless, destructive force – a mockery of Hegel’s Spirit. However, this blind, meaningless, destructive process is also generative: potentials for freedom arise from it, even though nothing and no one sets out to create them. Marx sees an historical opportunity for us to seize these potentials from the alienated forms in which they have been constituted, and derives from this potential the immanent critical standards against which he judges existing forms of social life wanting.

I tilt more toward Marx than Hegel. That is, I don’t think there is a “meaning” to the overarching process (historical or natural) that has brought us to where we are. However, I think this blind, aleatory process has generated the possibility for meaning. I don’t think history or nature “needs” the individual, but I think individuals have been generated – and, more specifically, potentials for free subjects have been generated. And I think that being constituted in and amongst such potentials has impacts on what we desire – on the kind of world we will find adequate to our own constitution: we do not feel at home in the world as it currently is, precisely because, as its creatures, we know that this world could be other and more.

I think this would be compatible with the evolutionary/emergent concept you suggest above – just with a stronger emphasis on the notion that nothing has necessarily been “pointing” human or natural history in this direction “all along” – and nothing is going to lead quasi-automatically to any kind of transcendence now. It’s just that the blind process that has tossed creatures like us out of itself as unintended side effects, has generated creatures who might be subjects – and it is toward the realisation of this immanent possibility that I would understand critical theory to be directed.

I’ve also been meaning for some time to point to Sinthome’s piece on Morphogenesis, Marx, and Coagulation– Questions for a Materialist Philosophy – a fantastic set of reflections on Marx’s use of metaphors of coagulation and congealment, which then moves to a discussion of morphogenesis and materialist philosophy. Sinthome’s post, I suspect, was part of the constellation out of which the above comment crystallised.

Conversations, Critical Theory, Materialism, Philosophy of History, Political Economy, Self-Reflexivity, Transformation

In Process [Updated]

3 Comments Posted by on August 14, 2007

Just so Alexei doesn’t feel too different, I thought I should point to the current Now-Times (hmmm – can one have past Now-Times?) post on self-reflexivity “self-referential, performative actualization” that continues the cross-blog discussion on self-reflexivity begun at Larval Subjects, and that also responds to Gabriel Gottlieb’s reflections (non-reflexive reflections?) on Fichte over at Self and World. I tried to intervene in this discussion earlier, but have been told that I’m discussing reflexivity, not self-reflexivity, so I suspect I’ll continue to be selfless, and stay out of this… 😉 (At least until I’ve gotten a bit of work done today…)

Alexei’s concluding passage gives a taste of the post as a whole:

I take it that this final characterization of intellectual intuition in terms of an ontological difference between a given self, and the meaning of subjectivity, to be precisely what Pepperell is trying to suggest with the notion of self-reflexivity. That is, Intellectual intuition qua self-reflexive activity is an immanent development of the human potentials to act and understand, one that begins from a concrete, historical situation (although i can’t find the page, Fichte actually calls the development of the Absolute self, ‘History from a pragmatic perspective), and gestures towards an absolute ideal of human agency and freedom. It is critical, in other words, because it does not merely re-affirm the status quo, but recognizes its limitations and tries to move beyond them.

Very nice to see a roving discussion that highlights, from a range of different perspectives, how the sometimes very abstract-sounding debates around issues of (self-)reflexivity are motivated by the concern to understand the possibility for emancipatory transformation.

Updated to add: I just wanted to mention that I’ve tossed a few comments over at Now-Times to continue this discussion. Hopefully Alexei won’t mind if I cross-post a bit of one of my comments over here, as these observations may serve a slightly different purpose for regular readers of this blog, than they do in the context of the discussion of Fichte over at Now-Times and, if nothing else, I wanted to leave this as a placeholder for myself:

…the form of the presentation suggests that there is something already there – latent – that is then realised historically through some process of externalisation and actualisation. This is a common structure for an argument attempting to explain the origins of critical sensibilities: I tend to characterise this sort of argument as an account that describes “nature realising itself historically”. I also tend to see it as a non-self-reflexive form of argument in a very specific sense: it (tacitly or explicitly) takes as given the qualitative characteristics of the phenomenon it is analysing (critical sensibilities or whatever else) – it sees the historical process as a form of uncovering of what it posited as already existing in some latent form.

A self-reflexive theory, in the sense in which I mean the term, seeks a more thoroughgoing analysis of the constitution of critical sensibilities – such that these sensibilities are not latent, aren’t there waiting to be uncovered, aren’t a sort of target toward which we progressively reach ever-more-closely – but are themselves products through-and-through, constituted to their core, not pre-existing the process that constitutes them.

The distinction is a bit difficult to express, but the basic idea is: does a theory act as though its object was discovered or uncovered (in which case, I would suggest, its object is actually no longer a product or a producer within a process – it instead sits outside the process, which serves only to uncover what was already there, unconstituted, even if the existence of this unconstituted thing was only ever discovered in a particular time and place, when time was ripe). Or does a theory take seriously the notion that its object is a product (and, if a self-reflexive product, then also a producer that refashions itself out of the products generated by earlier rounds of production). This latter mode of theorisation, I would suggest, does not see in history a telos that points toward the realisation of some determinate thing (some latent object progressively uncovered or realised over time), but is instead more open-ended in its conception of what history can “achieve”: it doesn’t necessarily believe that we know what we can become, what history can do, what subjects can be – none of which precludes critique of the ways in which we are constraining ourselves in the present time from realising the determinate forms of freedom that we have taught ourselves to desire and shown ourselves are possible.

To shift again to Marx: Marx treats the commodity as a sort of telos latent within capitalism, generated by a historical process, progressively more and more clearly realised over time. But this teleological movement is Marx’s image of domination, not freedom: it is this with which we need to break, to forward emancipatory goals. This is Benjamin’s leap in the free air of history – breaking the treadmill of progress – a step that we can take, however, only by using those materials generated by this process of progress itself – those documents of barbarism, envies for air we could have breathed, experiences, resources and desires generated nowhere else, but in and through the reproduction of that very thing we now need to overcome…

At least, that’s my take on self-reflexive theory… 😉

Conversations, Critical Theory, Negations, Philosophy of History, Political Economy, Self-Reflexivity, Transformation

Free Associations

Leave a comment Posted by on August 8, 2007

Sinthome from Larval Subjects has written a beautiful reflection on self-reflexivity and the formation of collectives, beginning with the lovely multi-layered play on words in its title (free associations indeed), organised around a series of reflections on Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason, and ranging both widely and masterfully through concepts from critical philosophy, social and anthropological theory, and psychoanalysis. Among many, many other things, Sinthome points back to, and expands upon, some of the themes recently outlined in my own sketchy placeholder post on the concept of theoretical pessimism. Sinthome concludes:

The theory of social-formations that speaks of social structures, systems, forces, and so on and so forth is not unlike the account of the billiard ball that passively suffers the laws of mechanics. That is, agents are simply seen as props of these structures. Yet as Sartre points out, we must distinguish between the knowledge of being and the being of knowledge (CDR, 24). That is, we risk falling into theoretical pessimism so long as we fail to take self-reflexivity into account, for we come to see ourselves as passive sufferers of these social forces. Yet, to make a Pepperellesque observation, what this proposition forgets is, namely, itself: the subject enunciating the proposition. That is, this proposition forgets that the minimal condition for the possibility of enunciating the proposition that we are effects of structure is a marginal distance from structure, a minimal deterritorialization from structure, a small crack or line of flight within structure. That is, one must have in part already have stepped out of structure in order to discern structure as an operative force of conditioning in the life of the subject. Just as the symptom must come to be seen as split or divided so that the analysand might discern it as a formation of the unconscious (i.e., the analysand must no longer see the symptom as directly the problem to be solved, but rather see the symptom as signifying something other), similarly structure must already be split and fissured to enunciate the claim that we are effects of structure. What the theoretical pessimist forgets is precisely his own position of enunciation: he treats himself as being outside of structure, even as he makes the claim that he is but an effect of structure.

Yet here emerges the question pertaining to the formation of collectives. A collective, as itself a critical entity, as itself a function of the breach in structure, must either punctually or gradually have encountered this breach in structure. Yet what are the conditions, by what confluence of forces, does this breach appear? In many respects this is the ten million dollar question. The elephant in the room that no one is talking about is the old Marxist question of the conditions under which the proletariat will be awoken to its own revolutionary vocation. Of course, social structure has changed significantly and we now know that the proletariat can no longer be identified with industrial workers tout court (this as a function of the shift to post-industrial capital and the emergence of communications technologies that have changed class relations… Indeed, Capital demonstrates that “class” is a far more fluid concept than it is often made out to me). Echoing Sloterdijk’s melancholy question, “why do we continue to do it when we know that we’re doing it?” Where is that crack that might function as the impetus for the emergence of a new people? What would be the conditions under which this crack might emerge. The fact that we’re theorizing it indicates that it is already there, if only virtually or potentially. What would it take for it to become actual? As usual, I have no answers and I’m not even sure that I’m posing the questions in the right way.

The excerpt simply doesn’t do the post justice – the original should be read in full. (And anyone who has any suggestions for a less ugly term than “Pepperellesque” can let Sinthome know…)

Conversations, Self-Reflexivity, Social Movements, Transformation

Echoes

Leave a comment Posted by on July 24, 2007

Over at the always extraordinary Taking Steps, little light has a series of reflections up on sustaining the will for engagement – this brief excerpt won’t do the post justice:

How do you navigate the politics of heartbreak?
Really.
No, really.

Because I see so many of us burn out. Slow down. Drop out. Get tired, exhausted, worn down. Nothing gets to an activist like despair, and there is no despair like that inspired by just looking at things the way they are.

All of our work, all of our exhaustion and blood, will not make our own situations very different, really, for the most part. The change we want–the deep-seated social shifts that will make the world a more decent place for more people–that will echo, and grow, and move planets for our children’s children’s children, and maybe they will thank us. But we will not taste it. We will not cross the Jordan. And what is it we’re changing?

Links, Transformation

Fragment on Theoretical Pessimism

22 Comments Posted by on July 24, 2007

I’ve been invited to present at an event that brings together critical theorists and activists to reflect on the relevance – or lack of relevance – of particular forms of critical theory to contemporary activism. The event won’t take place until early next year – the organisers are still finalising the details of the format and specific theme in consultation with the presenters. I’ll post more specific information to the blog when things are further along. For the moment, I’m just trying to get my head around what I might present, to give the organisers some information they can use when making decisions on format and promotion for the event.

The invitation has me thinking about the concept of theoretical pessimism – and wondering specifically how many current, “living” traditions of critical social theory are not pessimistic. It will already be clear from this question that I must mean the term “theoretical pessimism” in a very specific sense. There are many critical theoretic approaches that seek to ground some potential for emancipatory transformation – in the everyday sense of the word “pessimism”, many theoretical traditions are not pessimistic at all. My question relates more to the somewhat technical meaning of “theoretical pessimism” used in discussions of the trajectory of the Frankfurt School.

In this context, the concepts of theoretical pessimism, self-reflexivity, and socio-historical immanence are intrinsically intertwined. By theorising its own socio-historical context in a way that reveals how that context generates determinate, socially immanent, potentials for its own transformation, the theory becomes self-reflexive. Self-reflexivity, in this framework, therefore means simply that the theory can account for its own existence as a potential generated immanently by the socio-historical context it is analysing. Critical social theory accounts for itself by showing how its own socio-historical context internally generates determinate potentials for transformation, potentials that are then expressed in the ideals or values articulated by the critique. Self-reflexivity is thus intrinsically aligned with – defined in terms of – the theory’s ability to identify determinate, socially immanent, practical potentials for transformation. Within this framework, when a theory cannot identify how a specific socio-historical context generates determinate internal potentials for transformation, it ceases to be self-reflexive or immanent, and becomes a pessimistic theory – a theory whose critical objections to its own social context can no longer be linked with a determinate analysis of how that context might be transformed. This is, in fact, what happened to the first generation of the Frankfurt School.

One thing that is sometimes missed – in part because earlier forms of Marxist theory sometimes attempted to extrapolate some kind of general sociological principle from this vision of immanent critical theory – is that this kind of social critique would only ever be possible if the socio-historical context were to have very specific qualities. There is no reason to assume that all forms of human community would generate determinate internal potentials for some specific form of transformation whose character could potentially be theorised before it occurs: it’s not difficult to imagine scenarios in which something like immanent social critique wouldn’t make sense – scenarios in which change is solely aleatory in structure, or driven by human actors from outside the community being theorised, or catalysed by natural events, etc. The claim that something like an immanent and self-reflexive social critique might be possible, is therefore already a strong claim about the determinate characteristics of the particular society being analysed: only in the idiosyncratic circumstance in which a socio-historical context generates some kind of systematic potential for transformation, would this model of critique make any sense. Again, the first generation Frankfurt School theorists recognised this – and therefore drew the appropriate pessimistic consequences, when their particular theory of how capitalism might generate transformative potentials seemed no longer to apply.

Many forms of critical social theory appear to have stepped away from the vision of immanent critique sketched above – accounting for the existence of critical sensibilities in other ways, if at all, rather than attempting to locate determinate potentials for transformation that provide perspectives or standpoints that the critique expresses. Instead, the socio-historical context is often positioned as the object of critique – perhaps as something that provokes the recognition or mobilisation of certain critical ideals – but not often viewed as constitutive of the qualitative characteristics of critical sensibilities, by generating the potentials for particular kinds of immanent transformation. For this reason, many forms of social theory remain “pessimistic” in the technical sense of not identifying aspects of the socio-historical context that point beyond that context in determinate ways. This level of “pessimism” could be entirely appropriate, if our socio-historical context doesn’t have the strange characteristics required for some kind of systematic internal generation of transformative potentials. What I would like to explore in my presentation, however, are approaches that still try to “cash out” the instinct that something like an immanent and self-reflexive social critique might be possible – approaches that still attempt to conceptualise social critique as an expression of a determinate potential for transformation that is generated within our specific form of social life. More on this, hopefully, when I’m a bit less tired – and apologies for the rough and overgeneralised quality of these preliminary comments, which I’ve tossed here mainly so I don’t lose track of the chain of associations in the beginning-of-term crush.

Critical Theory, Critique, Events, Philosophy of History, Political Economy, Self-Reflexivity, Social Movements, Transformation

Reproducing Ambivalence

Leave a comment Posted by on July 20, 2007

And while I’m linking and punning on Benjamin, I meant to draw attention some time ago to the nice reading of Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” posted by Ryan/Aless over at massthink. A brief excerpt:

While modern mass are has negative effects, then, its potential benefits (esp. the development of a progressive stance in the waging of social battles) outweigh them. It must be stressed, however, that these positive effects, as Benjamin points them out, are potential ones. They, first and foremost, require (which is where we began with) that art be politicized. Art must find its basis in politics and politics must permeate art (art must concern politics; politics must be concerned with art) to explicitly make it a site of ideological struggle. If Benjamin is right in his assessment that massive reception is inherently progressive, then this-the mechanical reproduction of art, its massive reception, its explicit politicization-bodes well for a progressive social program (i.e. for Marxist political goals).

This is why Benjamin feels it necessary to politicize art. It is inevitable. “The growing proletarianization of modern man and the increasing formation of the masses are two aspects of the same process,” a process that has and is happening. It is inevitable that art be mechanically reproduced, that it be massively received. The age of the masses has come, and the masses demand social and artistic participation. Thus, it is inevitable that art and politics be implicated with each other. This is why we must strive to politicize art. The only other alternative is for politics to be aestheticized, which, Benjamin points out, culminates in one thing: “War and war only can set a goal for mass movements on the largest scale while respecting the traditional property system. [. . .] Only war makes it possible to mobilize all of today’s technical resources while maintaining the property system.”

This, precisely, is what fascism aims for: “Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarians masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property.” Fascism finds its means of survival precisely in the aestheticization of politics: “If the natural utilization of productive forces is impeded by the property system, the increase in technical devices, in speed, and in the sources of energy will press for an unnatural utilization, and this is found in war. [. . .] Instead of draining rivers, society directs a human stream into a bed of trenches; instead of dropping seeds from airplanes, it drops incendiary bombs over cities; and through gas warfare the aura is abolished in a new way.”

The demand (and energy) of the masses, in other words, along with the novel forces of technology that society has developed ((e.g. mechanical reproduction), if art is not politicized (to change property relations), finds its object in war. Hence war-politics-is aestheticized: to legitimate it, to make the masses accept it. War, in effect, “suppl[ies] the artistic gratification of a sense perception that has been changed by technology. [. . . Mankind’s] self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order.” This-the aestheticization of politics, of war, of death-is precisely (since it does not want to change property relations) what fascism does-the only alternative, according to Benjamin, if we do not politicize art-if we do not make art, see art for what it is: a crucial site of ideological struggle. In other words: Destruction if not progress(ive social goals). Fascism if not Marxism.

R/A is on break for the moment – I’ll miss reflections like this until he returns.

Links, Materialism, Philosophy of History, Political Economy, Social Movements, Technology, Transformation

The More Things Change

5 Comments Posted by on July 16, 2007

Classes begin today, and so I’m in a horrific rush this morning. Before I lose the thought, I just want to lift very quickly out of the comments section an important question pdxstudent asked yesterday, in a conversation about how to understand the potential for transformation. Pdxstudent has raised a deceptively complex point, in the form of an apparently simply question, which is that, in order to understand the potential for transformation, we must first come to terms with the issue: what is change?

I didn’t make an adequate response to this question yesterday, and still won’t this morning, but I just wanted to foreground that I think there are particular reasons that this question is exceptionally important within my own theoretical framework. I define capitalism as a particular structure of historical change. Structures – this was implicit in the discussion of Deleuze and Marx yesterday – become manifest to experience indirectly: they cannot be seen in their own right, but only through the movements of other things through which they are enacted, and in which they appear. In the case of the structure of historical change that interests me, the structure becomes visible through the historical transformations of other, I tend to call them more “concrete”, social and cultural institutions over time.

The structural character of capitalism already poses particular complexities for social movements seeking emancipatory transformation, as movements can become beguiled by the concrete institutions in and through which the structure is enacted at a given point in time: movements can target a particular institution, not realising that the institution may be contingent in relation to the structure itself. When the structure is also dynamic, this poses further problems, as dramatic transformations are actually intrinsic to the system a movement might be seeking to transform. It becomes necessary – and yet very difficult – for movements to assess the qualitative character of the transformation being effected. What can instead happen is that movements can easily be caught in the “collective effervescence” and feeling of power that comes with occupying the pivot point of a dramatic historical shift – without realising that such shifts can also be the form of reproduction of what they believe themselves to be overcoming.

To borrow Marx’s term, this is how I understand the “fetish” of capitalism: these structurally plausible tendencies to become distracted by concrete institutions or excited by the experience of change as such. These elements, intrinsic to the social form itself, make fundamental transformation – or even a solid understanding of the likely consequences of reform – particularly difficult. Unless, as pdxstudent has suggested, we first tarry over the question: what is change?

Updated to add: pdxstudent continues the exchange over at And Now For Something Completely Different. My favourite sentence:

The most radical question we should be asking, if we are to return to Marx’s aim of philosophy, is that which confronts change head-on and takes it seriously and not its impossibility.

Best, though, to read the whole.

Fetish, Social Movements, Transformation

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