Comments on: Politics and/or Political Economy

By: drurlelty

drurlelty — Thu, 08 May 2008 02:06:05 +0000

“Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lying around,
I’d rather lie around. No contest.”
– Eric Clapton

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http://ebloggy.com/joshuareevesld

By: What in the hell … :: … is an end? :: October :: 2006

What in the hell … :: … is an end? :: October :: 2006 — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 22:56:21 +0000

[...] As in, “treat humans like an end.” This began as a reply to a comment by Steve in discussion on a post over at Pinocchio Theory, but it got long enough that I felt impolite posting it as a comment and figured I’d make it a blog post instead. [...]

By: Steven Shaviro

Steven Shaviro — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 19:44:02 +0000

Nate,
I agree that “as if” can go both ways; the point is that aestheticism can go both ways, which is part of what I am trying to work through in my book (which therefore opposes the common idea that aestheticism is merely or only reactionary). But more of a case might be built for the moral or categorical as if: act as if you are a rational and free being, etc; and, human beings must be approached as ends and not merely as means (which, as Karatani says, rules out the market-capitalist economy in which people, together with all else, are only means).

By: Nate

Nate — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 19:26:04 +0000

Hi Steve,
I just had a thought. I had some music on while washing some dishes. A song came on with a line, “just throw your hands up at the sky” and it’s ambiguous as to whether it means “throwing up one’s hands” as in exasperation, or if it’s “wave your hands in the air, wave them like you just don’t care.” The thought that struck me about both options, though, is that they are both that same “as if, ” acting as if powerless or acting as if free from other cares. It seems to me that both are connected with certain aesthetic experiences, for me with music – in my case music that’s really depressing or angry more than really happy (so, usually it’s exasperation more than carefreeness). I don’t know if this has anything to do with anything, but I thought I’d paste it here in case it connects with the age of aesthetics and/or with Kant (I’m only on the beginning of the 3rd critique so I don’t know if this is relevant to that or no). This does suggest, I think, that as much as I want to valorize the as-if (a la Badiou’s Paul as figure of militant subject), I think it’s also compatible with capital and valorization, since it’s one of the selling points (use values) of at least some commodities – “as if you just don’t care” whether in a carefree or aestheticized despondency.
cheers,
Nate

ps- Ken, that’s the direction I want to take this stuff in too, not necessarily Paul but themes addressed by Badiou. The ‘as if’ as indifference rather than claim about identity, it’s partly my wanting to dodge around having to engage with ontology.

By: ken

ken — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 23:36:43 +0000

I always think credit should be given to St. Paul when it comes to asiffing…as Badiou reminds us.

By: What in the hell … :: … is the philosophy of the as if? :: October :: 2006

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 00:40:57 +0000

[...] A post at Steve S’s reminded me of some stuff I’ve been meaning to paste up hear for ease of access, which in turn reminded me to do a bit of interwebsearching, the results of which are also pasted here. [...]

By: Nate

Nate — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 00:16:21 +0000

Sorry to post twice, I had another thought, this one on the Adorno/despair thing. I’ve not read all of any of the critiques but one of the things I like best in Kant is the “as if,” acting like there is an intelligible world but not making a claim about intelligibility or nonintelligibility of noumena. There’s also a bit I like in the Religion with the Limits of Alone where he says that people should ‘proceed as though’ everything depended on them. The other thing this makes me think of is Badiou’s assertion of ‘keep going’ as the primary ethical principle, which he I think sometimes expresses via the Beckett quote “can’t go on, must go on” which has a sort of Adornian sensibility I think.

By: Nate

Nate — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 23:45:03 +0000

hi Steve,
Great post. I agree. I think the political-economic relation has to be thought through carefully, though, so as not to repeat any of the many mistakes littering much of the marxist tradition. I’m partial to seeing the economy as a political relationship and as the most important one in the world today. On this also, I think it’s important that by “market” one emphasize the labor market, which is also present in socialist countries (ie, state capitalism).
take care,
Nate

By: McKenzie Wark

McKenzie Wark — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 00:57:34 +0000

Its time to replace the insult ‘vulgar Marxist’ with a different one: ‘vulgar anti-Marxist’. Which would cover both the refusal to acknowledge any econimic determination, as well as anxious rewritings of them into other codes. Or in other words, both Foucauldians and Zizekians.

By: Steven Shaviro

Steven Shaviro — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 03:02:54 +0000

I didn’t think I was setting Whitehead against Spinoza, so much as recommending him as an amendment/recasting of Spinoza.

And although Adorno, alas, seems more and more relevant to me as I get older, I think of all this more as a kind of (inverted? I’m not sure) Kantian imperative. Kant warns us, in the First Critique, against the temptation of trying to push our understanding beyond the limits within which it works and is defined — although he recognizes such a pushing-beyond as an unavoidable illusion. But he also suggests, in the Second Critique, that we must — in the sense of a duty — think against (and thereby, perhaps, beyond) the limits that circumscribe our horizon, or define our conditions of possibility: in a process that Foucault (reading Kant with Bataille) calls an enigmatic process of nondialectical contestation. And in the Third Critique, still more enigmatically, Kant opens up the thought of aconceptual singularities, which do not transcend the limits of cognition, but take exception to it from this side, from within.

To my mind, this sort of Kantian approach offers a better way of negotiating the despair I was writing of, than does Derrida’s spectrality or endlessly deferred futurity. This is why I more or less embrace Adornoesque melancholy, while keeping much more of a distance from Derridean melancholy. I think that Adorno, far better than Derrida, approaches this Kantian sense of limits.

Not to mention that Adorno, but not Derrida, understands the crucial role of political economy.

In the original French editions of volumes 2 and 3 of Foucault’s History of Sexuality, there was, on the back covers, a motto from the poet Rene Char that did not make it into the English-language edition. It said (and excuse my feeble attempt at translation): “The history of human beings is the long succession of synonyms of the same word. To contradict this history is our duty.” Today, it is the ubiquity of the logic of capital, of the market, of the commodity, that it is our duty to contradict.