The illusion of choice, the choice of illusion

[k-punk]

The point that Badiou and Zizek have forcefully made, using numerous examples, is that the only way that emancipatory politics can be articulated is through a concept of the universal... no nations, no ethnicities, no sexualities.... So that, incredibly, St Paul becomes the key figure for a conceptualization of militancy:
'There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female.' (Gal, 3.28)

'There is nothing more captive, so far as commericial investment is concerned, nothing more amenable to the invention of new figures of monetary homogeneity, than a community and its territory or territories. The semblance of a non-equivalence to itself can constitute a process. What inexhaustible potential for mercantile investments in this upsurge - taking the form of communities, demanding recognition and so-called cultural singularities - of women, homosexuals, the disabled, Arabs! And those infinite combinations of predicative traits, what a godsend! Black homosexuals, disabled Serbs, Catholic pedophiles, moderate Muslims, married priests, ecologist yuppies, the submissive unemployed, prematurely aged youth! Each time, a social image authorizes new products, specialized magazines, improved shopping malls, 'free' radio stations, targeted advertising networks, and finally heady 'public debates' at peak viewing times.' (Saint Paul, 10)

 

[Grievous Angel]

What we have in education, in fact, is typical of what we have in Blairism: the worst of Nanny State interventionism combined with a corrupt business rhetoric that it is about producing mission statements and the like.

Correct.

BTW I never met a strategy consultant who "believed" in the value of mission statements in and of themselves.

I keep faith with Braudel's notion that capitalism is essentially an ANTI-market. (How to make sense of its tendency to produce dominant near-monopolies such as Microsoft unless this is the case?) Paul Meme pointed out a while back that markets have preceded capitalism; indeed, capitalism has actually systematically destroyed real market activity and replaced it with regulated retail.

Absolutely right. See also, Free Trade. It's a fantastic idea and I look forward to seeing it being tried sometime.

Capitalism (and patriarchy) don't 'arf look like a magical virus that needs to be confronted magically, both personally and collectively...

And yes, the education reforms have everything to do with rightist ideological rectitude, and nothing to do with bringing "best business practice" into education. It just breaks the system.

 

[Grievous Angel]

The point that Badiou and Zizek have forcefully made, using numerous examples, is that the only way that emancipatory politics can be articulated is through a concept of the universal... no nations, no ethnicities, no sexualities.... So that, incredibly, St Paul becomes the key figure for a conceptualization of militancy:

Yeah, yeah. That whole thing about paganism gearing itself up for universalism after finding that parochial localism (the omphalos of the landscape etc) was no longer adequate for making sense of a culturally-mobile world... and hence the experimentation with the theological corrolary of universalism, which is a unified single deity. All of which was going on in the run-up to Christianity, with Christianity being a pick-n-mix of a number of previously multi-deity religions that had turned themselves monotheistic. This was a real intellectual debate for hundreds of years. It was why the Druids found it very easy to reconcile themselves with, at least, Celtic Christianity.

And then universalism and compassionate monotheism turned into monopoly, and the Pauline Roman church turned into a brutal, dominating monster.

I guess Badiou and Zizek are picking through the wreckage and trying to remix universalism.

 

[k-punk]

BTW I never met a strategy consultant who "believed" in the value of mission statements in and of themselves.

But not believing in it and doing it any way is ideology in itself. Which is why postmodern ironic distanciation is one of kapital's great wheezes of the past two decades.

 

[henrymiller]

See also, Free Trade. It's a fantastic idea and I look forward to seeing it being tried sometime.

Capitalism (and patriarchy) don't 'arf look like a magical virus that needs to be confronted magically, both personally and collectively...

are you sure about this? if you're going to use the word 'capitalism' i think you owe some debt to that word's theorists, most of whom came through with the idea that free trade was *not* a fantastic idea, and that its social consequences, in late victorian england, for example, were terrible, and that state action would be needed to prevent catastrophe. the market would not 'provide', in other words, for eg sanitation, basic health care. free trade *was* practised of course, but it *changed* with the advent of big-i imperialism [aka 'the last stage of capitalism' hem hem]. how free trade can be 'fantastic' and capitalism a 'virus' is one for the webster's people. but if you have no concept of process, and regard capitalism as an ahistorical curse, then interpreting -- or changing -- its course is an impossibility.

 

[k-punk]

are you sure about this? if you're going to use the word 'capitalism' i think you owe some debt to that word's theorists,

Why?

most of whom

Two well-known fallacies here: irrelevant appeal to authority and irrelevant appeal to popularity. Because most ppl thought that the earth was flat in 1500, were they right?

came through with the idea that free trade was *not* a fantastic idea, and that its social consequences, in late victorian england, for example, were terrible, and that state action would be needed to prevent catastrophe. the market would not 'provide', in other words, for eg sanitation, basic health care. free trade *was* practised of course, but it *changed* with the advent of big-i imperialism [aka 'the last stage of capitalism' hem hem].

All of this presupposes that there was such a thing as Free Trade in this period - rather than a situation artificially set up with the collusion of the State.

how free trade can be 'fantastic' and capitalism a 'virus' is one for the webster's people.

No, your commonsense assumptions are one for 'improperly conflated concepts' people.

but if you have no concept of process, and regard capitalism as an ahistorical curse, then interpreting -- or changing -- its course is an impossibility.

Who has no concept of a process? And let's say it were an ahistorical curse, why would interpreting or changing it be impossible?

 

[henrymiller]

irrelevant appeal to authority and irrelevant appeal to popularity. Because most ppl thought that the earth was flat in 1500, were they right?

not really -- it's more relevant appeal to historical facts. if even free trade's defenders had eventually to acknowledge the insurmountable social difficulties produced by free trade, i think it's worth pointing that out. [of course i'd feel more like engaging with yr anti-authority-appeal line were it not for your fondness for authorities -- foucault, d&g...]

and free trade did more-or-less exist. not in its 'pure form', of course not, but the salient fact of british politics in the age of free trade was its withdrawal, its smallness, in the domestic sphere its irrelevance. it 'created conditions' in a negative sense, but whoever it was advocating free trade could do worse than to look at what actually happened after the introduction of free trade: ie an inexorable trend towards monopoly -- which is what i meant by 'process'. i suppose it's *possible* to somehow resist 'kapital' without understanding it as process -- step one would be to disengage with marxism, necessarily -- and i wish you luck, but i think if you acknowledge structural ie radically anti-human laws of motion, then you have to acknowledge process too.

 

[johneffay]

K-Punk, how come you seem to be defending free trade? I thought it was absolutely antithetical to communism; mostly for the reasons that henrymiller is outlining.

 

[k-punk]

K-Punk, how come you seem to be defending free trade? I thought it was absolutely antithetical to communism; mostly for the reasons that henrymiller is outlining.

I think this is far more complex than people are allowing. Surely we can take at least this from Braudel/ De Landa/ D/G: capitalism is not marketized, it is an anti-market.

Surely we can dispense with any idea that the 'despotic grey totality' of state socialism had anything to do with communism.

It is the idea that the market SUBSTITUTES for politics that is anathema to communism I would have thought.

Is it possible to have a free market AND politics? Hmmm, that question is interesting.... But perhaps it needs to be reversed, perhaps the only way to have a genuinely free market is through communism?

The Chinese, at least, think that way.

 

[henrymiller]

perhaps the only way to have a genuinely free market is through communism?

or vice versa: and this is kind of what i was reaching for in re process: in classical marxism communism was the supercession of free trade. free trade had to exist first to create the necessary historical conditions for communism.
the obvious initial problem is: it didn't happen. immiseration of the proletariat didn't happen in the west. nonetheless marxism is antithetical to anti-process thought: the new world cannot simply be brought about ex-nihilo.

 

[k-punk]

or vice versa: and this is kind of what i was reaching for in re process: in classical marxism communism was the supercession of free trade. free trade had to exist first to create the necessary historical conditions for communism.
the obvious initial problem is: it didn't happen. immiseration of the proletariat didn't happen in the west. nonetheless marxism is antithetical to anti-process thought: the new world cannot simply be brought about ex-nihilo.

Your notion of 'process' seems to be equivalent to a Hegelian sense of Progress (through dialectical opposition). I think we can dispense with that version of History; as you say, it's nonsense.

Don't know where this ex nihilo thing comes from. We have to start from concrete situations, sure....

 

[henrymiller]

The problem of Progress can't be dismissed *that* easily -- and it's less Hegel's sin than Marx's. Marx's view of the transition to communism is possibly his weakest point.

Kojeve:

"Thought is dialectical only to the extent that it correctly reveals the dialectic of Being that is and of the Real that exists... The Hegelian method, therefore, is not at all “dialectical": it is purely contemplative and descriptive, or better, phenomenological in Husserl’s sense of the term."

This is a fine starting point, but also means that Marx is not entitled to prophesize as much as he did. But the fact remains that history, contre Foucault, is process -- whether it is Progress is a slightly different question. Hegel in his polemicist's hat would have said yes -- as would have Marx. Foucault's stand on, say, the Iranian revolution makes clear his position as regards progress, and you need a strong stomach to follow it, do you not?

 

[owen]

some incoherent thoughts here, i'm at work so a cogent argument is a bit difficult...but a few questions simmering in work damaged head-

what seems to be implied in this 'defence' of free trade is that trade was never free between countries that were economically unequal....which rather supports henrymiller's point that this has a great deal to do with specific historical processes, ie that in the 19th century western europe benefitted from free trade cos they had the maxim gun, etc

obv for marx communism was economically impossible without the foundations of advanced capitalism....and then communist revolutions only happened in peasant societies....

surely in china you have state capitalism, or protectionism, the only thing nominally 'communist' about it is the role of the ah, vanguard party.

i dont think dissociating ideas from their historical context is always a bad thing- i dont think foucault's dubious views on iran, or d&g's tacit maoism necessarily invalidate or infect their ideas. but forgetting or being ignorant of history altogether, aside from being profoundly unmarxist, can make one look a bit silly- cf k-p's claim in another thread that 'lenin got rid of the tsar'- lenin was in switzerland when the tsar was overthrown.

i am actually very interested in how a communist market would operate, and be brought about, and thats the point, no? how does it work, how do you bring it about.

 

[k-punk]

i dont think dissociating ideas from their historical context is always a bad thing- i dont think foucault's dubious views on iran, or d&g's tacit maoism necessarily invalidate or infect their ideas. but forgetting or being ignorant of history altogether, aside from being profoundly unmarxist, can make one look a bit silly- cf k-p's claim in another thread that 'lenin got rid of the tsar'- lenin was in switzerland when the tsar was overthrown..

Jeez, if anything is silly and 'unMarxist', it's that kind of personalist nonsense: Lenin got rid of the function of the Tsar. The person formally known as the Tsar of Russia was indeed in another country, but, neither the political system that according people with the title 'Tsar' nor EVEN the country in which that political system was in effect existed any more. And that was because of Lenin. And the bolsheviks.

I never claimed to be a Marxist, and the religiose (NOT religious) poring over what the Master might have said or meant or authorised illustrated by comments on this thread is one reason why I'm not. I'm a communist. For me, the insights that are of use from Marx are those concerning the analysis of Kapital. Those concerning the forward march of History and Progress are embarrassing Hegelian relics. And this reading of Marx through academics like Kojeve is one way in which 'Marxism' has effectively become synonymous with idealism.

There may well be history, but there is no History. But as Badiou says, Events are always a break with both.

 

[owen]

'Reading Marx through academics'! Good heavens!

Jeez, if anything is silly and 'unMarxist', it's that kind of personalist nonsense: Lenin got rid of the function of the Tsar. The person formally known as the Tsar of Russia was indeed in another country, but, neither the political system that according people with the title 'Tsar' nor EVEN the country in which that political system was in effect existed any more. And that was because of Lenin. And the bolsheviks

what on earth are you talking about? tsarism was overthrown in March 1917, Lenin was in Zurich at this point. 7 months later Lenin and the Bolsheviks overthrew a Provisional Government that was an attempt at representative democracy. this is secondary school history class stuff. it isnt personalist to point out that someone has their facts wrong.

I never claimed to be a Marxist, and the religiose (NOT religious) poring over what the Master might have said or meant or authorised illustrated by comments on this thread is one reason why I'm not. I'm a communist. For me, the insights that are of use from Marx are those concerning the analysis of Kapital. Those concerning the forward march of History and Progress are embarrassing Hegelian relics.

OK, point taken. But surely nobody here is defending this narrative of inexorable historical progress, process was the term used.

 

[henrymiller]

I never claimed to be a Marxist, and the religiose (NOT religious) poring over what the Master might have said or meant or authorised illustrated by comments on this thread is one reason why I'm not. I'm a communist. For me, the insights that are of use from Marx are those concerning the analysis of Kapital. Those concerning the forward march of History and Progress are embarrassing Hegelian relics. And this reading of Marx through academics like Kojeve is one way in which 'Marxism' has effectively become synonymous with idealism.

you're better than that. you can't say you're uninterested in marx scholarship and then declaim that the hegelian part of marx is embarrassing. you've taken a brazen althusserian stand there. marx's analysis of kapital is hegelian. althusser himself ended up junking everything bar 'the gotha programme' by trying to get rid of the hegelian in marx. there's nothing more idealist than the ahistorical notion of 'kapital' you keep resorting to because you have abandoned the hegelian sense of process which is at the heart of marx's analysis. if kojeve is an academic, who is foucault? or lacan, kojeve's pupil?

There may well be history, but there is no History. But as Badiou says, Events are always a break with both.

right. badiou says it, it must be true. events break with history. indeed. this is why braudel, who you quoted with approval yesterday, wrote against 'event-history', presumably. but given your obvious ignorance of history (ie remarks on the russian revolution) how do you know that the march of same is illusory?