On Fetishes, Electoral and Revolutionary
A pithy explanation to our conundrum from the much-maligned Herbert: "The commodity form becomes universal, while at the same time, with the disappearance of free competition, the 'inherent' quality of the merchandise ceases to be a decisive factor in its marketability. A President is sold like an automobile, and it seems hopelessly old-fashioned to judge his political statements in terms of their truth or falsehood - what validates them is their vote-getting quality. To be sure, the President must be able to perform the function for which he is bought: he must be able to assure business as usual." (Counterrevolution and Revolt, 1972) Of course, if you've been inundated, as I, with ever more detailed accounts of Diebold's self-hacking of central tabulation in Ohio and sundry other states (perfectly plausible stories, by the way) you may wonder if 'vote-getting' is anything to trouble ourselves with. 'One man, one vote' is more than obsolescent in the society of control, no? So what if they 'stole' the election again? The very idea that Gore winning in 2000 would have been a visitation of justice upon our graceless planet is an obscene crime perpetrated against anyone who has ever actually lived and/or died for an idea. Surely, as Monsieur K notes, the bearded Slovene is right in stating the obvious: for reasons too boring to enumerate, our 'liberal democracies', evacuated of any of the criteria that would make the act of voting in any sense political, are so beyond rescue that dispensing with this anal attachment to counting our freedom and agency would be a liberating prelude to the parturition of the quivering larvae of some actual thought, not to mention action. Doubtless, if the latter were ever to rear its faceless head, we would once again be confronted with the good old problem of how to separate 'persons' from their 'roles': from the sans culottes of the French Terror to the child armies of the Khmer Rouge, revolutionaries have always harboured an unfortunate obsession for the signs of one's role, one's participation in the machinations of Moloch, whether these be glasses, love handles, or what have you. But surely, if K's commendably fanatical formalism is to have a future, it must be based on the most thorough indifference to signs, properties and qualities. Ergo, the abolition of the role (its possibility, consequences, etc) is what is at stake, and any question of guilt ('why did you choose to be a lawyer?') or exception ('but I'm a nice lawyer') is quite irrelevant. Or, as the great agitator had it: "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation." Gal. 6:15