“Every artist, everyone who considers themselves an artist, has the right to create freely according to his ideal, independently of everything. However, we are Communists and we must not stand with folded hands and let chaos develop as it pleases.” -Lenin
In a recent TED lecture Sheena Iyengar discussed some preconceptions people have in making choices. One of the principle questions is whether more choices are necessarily better, which she believes to be be a common idea for Americans. It is interesting that Americans identified several choices when shown several varieties of soda, whereas Russians nearly across the board said there was only one choice: soda. There is a problem in terms of the framing of the question of choice, which once shifted significantly questions some seemingly common sense based ideas.
I think when we talk in general about what “freedom” means in the United States, there are some tacit assumptions about what we are referring to. Freedom is aligned with “agency”, or ones ability to decide on their actions based on their own volition without external coercion. This definition of freedom which I align with liberalism begins to fall apart nearly immediately when we scratch the surface. The choices we make are always influenced by our historical experience, our relationship to law, and what we desire or aim toward in our actions is influenced in the extreme by our cultural circumstances. There is a coded language of universal and abstract “will” behind the discourse of freedom which ignores history, circumstance, conditioning, and especially the way the discourse of freedom itself is framed. I have argued else-where about the absurdity of the “pure realm” of art— it is imperative that we see the same to be true of freedom.
In Marcuse’s essay on liberal tolerance, he does an excellent job of explaining why “free speech” in a general sense can actually be detrimental to freedom considered socially. We are living in circumstances of hierarchical power structures to such an extent that an equal playing field would actually entail the necessity of silencing and coercing some people who have power in a given situation. The argument that racist voices should be given equal rights as voices advocating for the dismantling of racist systems must necessarily ignore the structural racism at play. The problem of framing is involved, as the two sides are seen as isolated entities rather then two forces being swept along by an already existing tide of public opinion, international domination of people of colour, a prison-industrial complex that is disproportionately filled with poc people, and brutal anti-immigration tactics. Any idea of “freedom” that doesn’t factor in the general direction on a wider social level is going to be a severely impoverished account.
Lenin’s quote with which I opened this discussion seems to be a sort of “have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too-ism”, where the artist is able to produce with complete impunity, but also needs to consider their role and position in the class struggle. I think rather that these two sides are congruent in a way that is difficult to grasp for people (like myself) fostered in a society that is structured monadically. “Social responsibility” is an increasingly unpopular topic, and most people would defend themselves in the interest of freedom against their social responsibility, whether it be as an artist, or chemist. If we re-frame the way we look at morality on terms of issues like class, I think we get a more holistic image of social well-being that actually renders the conditions for the possibility of a meaningful freedom.
Hegel offers an interesting and provocative definition of freedom that I think it would be wise for us to consider socially. Freedom is a relationship to un-freedom, in other words, freedom itself only exists as left does to right, rather than as an abstract category of individual volition. This definition by necessity points us toward taking a wider scope in our definition of morality, and also locates it in concrete instances of oppression. What I think needs to be added to this understanding to make it complete, is an approach which seeks to account for systemic instances of non-freedom, rather than simply saying “that’s the way it is”, ascribing it to some trans-historical definition of human nature. One of Marxism’s great intellectual achievements was the realization that freedom means something extremely more complicated than “doing what one wants”, and positing that true freedom is a dialectic interplay between the desire and responsibility to the society in which it plays out. I am interested in the radical non-subject oriented perspective this brings up, which non-the-less understands that there is no objective standpoint to critique from, nor a properly speaking “social whole” that can act as an object of critique. The dialectic process is a method of illuminating social relationships and adjusting based on the interplay of various perspectives.
This idea is especially important when we talk more specifically about what the stakes are for achieving freedom, and what the role of the Communist in trying to develop them is. In Benjamin’s essay on The Role of the Artist as Producer we are given one of the best descriptions of communisms role in the arts. Rather than the focus on the individual genius, issues like class antagonism actually bar the possibilities for the creative outlet of proletarian people. When Steve Jobs died there was a strong outpour of voices defending his genius, and ability to understand and program devices people wanted. No one asked the question: How many brilliant people were never given the chance to develop their ability because they were working in a sweatshop producing these devices? The fantasy of the genius who through sheer talent and ability is able to become rich seems almost absurd when we consider the conditions of the proletarian forces who are coerced into signing statements that they won’t commit suicide or their family will face financial consequences.
Reframing freedom as a task for communists would more accurately be described as “refracting” freedom, a balancing that considers the point where it interacts, and alters its course through this interaction.
-M
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
“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
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if you ever want to know why some communists get along with republicans better than democrats just watch king of the hill
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