November 27, 2011
Preliminary notes for a discussion of inter-subjectivity

There are a few axis points I think are important for the discussion on subjectivity, one being inter-subjectivity in the embodied Hegelian sense, against a Habermasian conception of communicative inter-subjectivity that focuses on the deeper stratum of rationality and (soft) linguistic teleology. The second is Liebnizian/Spinozian/Deleuzian subject monism versus a comparative structure. Of course there is an unavoidable ground for some degree of comparison, but the monistic account can suffer that on the instance of the subject being validated on its own standards.

It is difficult to plot the axis for this distinction before parsing out whether a Spinozian subject monism meets the anti-humanist claims which are made for it. Before really going through with a critique of this it would perhaps be important to reread some of Delueze’s work on Spinoza. However, I think there are substantial grounds in the Ethica for dismissing a radical anti-humanist interpretation. Especially looking into the affects there is an almost liberal account of subjectivity, combining Liebniz’ monad with some proto-version of the will to power, or more accurately an Epicurean relationship to activity and passivity which seeks to rationally plot life in such a way as to become most happy/active. Spinoza believes there is some space for being affected in a positive way (in “love”, and “nobility”) but generally relies on the core argument that utter self-sufficiency and control are the stabilizing factors in maintaining a happy life. This is at the heart of the Ethics, and plugs deeply into the metaphysical structure of the book, as the active subject becomes more and more godly the less it relies on others, or merely receives affects as “passions”. There is something profoundly humanistic in the account, and perhaps even hubristic despite Spinoza’s warnings against pride. Most notably perhaps in Spinoza’s disdain for humility, which he describes as degrading to the individual.


Of course this is all to be taken in terms of a more general structure which certainly dethrones the human in a way, especially when we’re given the anti-Cartesian A2 in EII, which mockingly states: “Man thinks”, and the definition of a body itself (EIId1): “By body I understand a mode that in a certain and determinate way expresses God’s essence insofar as he is considered as an extended thing.” This brings up another intresting axis of the Ethica generally, which is that the focus on “The mind” in the chapter on the affects, and its ability to overcome the passions, seems to almost reintroduce a mind/body duality, despite such radical definitions of mind as just the idea of the body (this of course opens up a whole discourse regarding parallelism which I will skip for now). There is a way in which these more general structures that seem exciting are undermined in the chapter on the affects, by rendering them almost void in the way the structural elements actually play out.


So the question of “anti-humanism” in Spinoza seems far more complicated than the charts I am constructing will allow, though the Hegelian in me wants to just stuff him the subject-based monad corner. This corner is extremely problematic in its own right, as it certainly plays a huge role in liberal idealogy/individualism (perhaps I should look at Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism), but also seems to be making a re-emergence as a radical idea. This is the question of “pluralism”, which I am excited about, but my gut reaction is to qualify it as inter-subjective pluralism, rather than monadic, perhaps falling somewhere between my provisional designation for Spinoza and the Habermasian completely structure-based account (maybe a slightly less consciousness oriented Hegelianism). If anyone has some clarifying passages or books on this topic please send them over!

My final concern, having just finished Kompridis’ book on Habermas, is his brand of what I will call “hard inter-subjectivity”, which reacts to Habermas’ structural account to such an extent that there is the romantic stink of humanism. There is a good reason to take the other to reason perhaps, especially if were going to have an account that considers factors like environment and non-human animals (though I am generally critical of many accounts which focus too hard on these issues, and miss some of the deeper problems occurring). The useful bit that I got from Critique and Disclosure, is that idea of “receptivity” as method of being active in receiving, which beautifully disrupts the rigidity of the Spinozian active/passive grid.

I am also  interested in thinking about this in terms of Marx’ Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, and the Hegelian account of “Substance as Subject”, which construct a really solid account of the dialectic interplay which undermines the traditional narrative of “consciousness versus nature”, but in the end are perhaps a bit too far on the consciousness side of it. Marcuse will probably be helpful in such a consideration.

The main thing I hope to work out from this discussion would be getting at the wiring behind class-consciousness, and how to think about a collective phenomenology of class struggle. I want to work around sites of common oppression in such a way that harmonizes between the collective totality and the particular, so that dialogue and structures can be built without the necessity of folding in difference. Mainly I want to explore how we can consider difference not to be a problem, but as strategic towards achieving an intersectional, broad-based, and militant party structure.
-M

5:18pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z57pbxCVy8Z-
(Notes: 8)
  
Filed under: Marcuse Marx Hegel Habermas Kompridis Dialectics Nature Consciousness Subjectivity Deleuze Spinoza Descartes Philosophy Liebniz Epicurus Critical Theory Communism 
November 26, 2011
Hijacking Queerness

This post is a response to an article I read on Reality Sandwich which argues for Psychedelic Studies justification as an interdisciplinary academic field due to its close relation with queer studies. However, I feel my critique is viable for any of the various abuses composed from the snatched dwarf fruit of queer theory, particularly Judith Butlers concept of gender performativity.

Performativity is important in that it is a critique of decisionism, a philosophical position that argues that authorities or aggregate “social contract” style decisions maintain legitimacy by the nature of their authority, rather than semantically in the specifics of their decree, or through empirical checks against implementation. Gender is performative in that a gender binary is a construct rather than a concrete relationship between biological sex organs and being. This claim importantly shows the context of a gender binary which punishes those who fall outside of it, not simply that a willful individual is capable of shattering this entire context through their actions.

The petitio principii committed in discussion of “performativity” in post-modern discourse lends itself consistently to this misapplication. A queer or performative turn is not some Yakov Smirnoff joke which simply inverts what we take for granted. There is still a grounding in reality, or what Heidegger calls a disclosure of a world. Kompridis splits disclosure into a pre-reflective and reflective disclosure, the latter being aligned with performativity to some degree, in that it reinterprets and alters a pre-reflective or “given-ness” of belonging to a specific historical period. The importance of the context one is altering through their action is not simply an important factor, it is a factor that renders the discourse intelligible at all. “Becoming” as the Heraclitian condition of being is insolubly linked to what it overcomes, it is conditioned and not determined by its historical being.

The solipsistic argument for performativity argued for time and time again by those unable to rectify their position without reverting to such sad lengths leaves a gap as wide as the discourse of “reason” in modernity: namely in ignoring that reason itself is a historically developed and contingent element. Without an account of historical activity and its current existence as a historic context/totality, we leave room for real disaster in denying people the right to organize around experiences of violence that align along lines of gender, or race. This is not an “essentialist” claim, it is one that locates sites of violence and reacts to them through inter-subjective and embodied resistance. The misuse of performativity could also be critiqued as a form of liberalism that results from what Habermas calls “dramaturgical action”, an action which communicates an element of the subject performing rather than between acting agents.

Also the extreme reliance on the word “essentialism” has become the easiest indication that someone is trying to misuse queer theory for something nefarious.
-H

1:31am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z57pbxCQ-CT7
(Notes: 4)
  
Filed under: Queer Queer Theory Hegel Butler Judith Butler Gender Performativity Queer Studies Reality Sandwich Dialectics Heidegger Kompridis post-modernity 
September 28, 2011
Technophobia is Healthy.

“Technology serves to institute new, more effective, and more pleasant forms of social control and social cohesion…. In the face of the totalitarian features of this society, the traditional notion of the “neutrality” of technology can no longer be maintained. Technology as such cannot be isolated from the use to which it is put; the technological society is a system of domination which operates already in the concept and construction of techniques…. As a technological universe, advanced industrial society is a political universe, the latest stage in the realization of a specific historical project-namely, the experience, transformation, and organization of nature as the mere stuff of domination…. As this project unfolds, it shapes the entire universe of discourse and action, intellectual and material culture. In the medium of technology, culture, politics, and the economy merge into an omnipresent system which swallows up or repulses all alternatives. The productivity and growth potential of this system stabilize the society and contain technical progress within the framework of domination. Technological rationality has become political rationality.”-Marcuse

“Heidegger shows that the nature of this threat is twofold.
First, because of its totalizing character, modern technology threatens the
pluralism of cultural practices, driving out other cultural practices, other
“styles of reasoning,” making them anachronistic, peculiar, passé. “Where
an ordering-calculating thinking dominates, it drives out every other possibility
of disclosure.” It is not just other practices, but other possible practices
that are driven out. Totalizing practices foreclose alternative
possibilities. Second, and this is its most distinctive aspect, as a totalizing
practice modern technology disguises, occludes, its own disclosedness—“it
conceals disclosure itself.”31 Now that, according to Heidegger, is what is
most dangerous about modern technology. Because it conceals its own
disclosedness, we fail to see what it is we are dealing with, and so fail to
respond to it correctly.” - Kompridis

3:57pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z57pbxA2GetZ
(Notes: 19)
  
Filed under: Capitalism Fascism Frankfurt school Marcuse Marxism Politics Technology Technophobia Kompridis Heidegger 
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