Here by initiating an attempt to question what is politics I think I have opened a particular kind of Pandora’s box. The discursive space of a common usage defined “politics” is one that I would not feel comfortable with even provisionally entering into without some caution. By asking what is politics I had in mind something that does not exist, or rather, something that could exist, a sort of possibility inherent in the present moment but denied by what is called in common usage “politics.” I have come to realize in reading the initial reactions posted here and beyond this blog that they are in fact the correct, “irrefutable” engagements with the existing language of politics. In my ignorance of this actual language of politics, I have assumed it would be possible to articulate through a perpetual questioning of this inherited “political” language, a sense of this possible politics. But even before this possibility can come into view, some engagement with the existing realm of political language must be performed. The difficulty is however, that given the structure of political language, a universal language that guarantees the equality of all by he perpetual articulation of inequalities within social reality, it would be a fairly precarious and irresponsible gesture to somehow pretend I had the capability to “deconstruct” the linguistic space of politics in a moment such as this. Which I think points to the need to identify the particularly ambiguous contours defining this moment.
Having said that, I must admit that this is in itself an incredible challenge, as we are by no means on certain ground and very much in transition between moments, geopolitical systems, and economic modes. As disorienting as this passage is, and despite the effectiveness of the abundant disorienting strategies of neo-conservative global forces that take advantage of this transition, we need some clear lines of sight that can steer us towards the actual possibilities that this perpetual questing hopes to articulate. I think DM rightfully identified one of the central forces of this transitional moment as being the aesthetic dimension of everyday life which confronts the inherited realm of politics with a deep ambivalence. The aestheticization of politics through lifestyles and diversified consumer practices as embodied in the avant garde of the forces of the coming mode of accumulation reveal for us today a deep abyss between not only the black-clad anarchists and national politics, but also a rupture between the affective regime of the aesthetic dimension and the common-usage discursive space of politics today.
The phrase above, the “aestheticization of politics,” was born at a critical juncture when the rising forces of fascism appropriated the inherent revolutionary possibilities of industrial capitalism through its expropriation of the affective dimensions of the collective social body. (I am of course referring to Walter Benjamin’s “The work of art in the age of its mechanical reproducibility,” where he says, “This is the situation of politics which Fascism is rendering aesthetic. Communism responds by politicizing art.”) But without going into the past too far, it remains crucial to engage the rising aesthetic regime and map its implications for the coming moment from the contradictions it embodies in the present, between different modes of accumulation. Does the present aestheticization of politics indicate a homologous juncture between fascism and revolution? That is another open question I think we need to address before we can begin to ask what is politics.
To continue with an outline of the present, let me just leave that question open and turn to one of the central ambiguities inherent within the present's so-called political discourse. In tandem with the rise of the reactionary political leadership with which we have justified contempt, the other party has been classically complacent until their gains in the election that brings us to the present moment where Dem ascendancy appears guaranteed. The “choiceless choosings” I referred to as the coming election has less to do with lack of difference between candidates and more to do with the ambiguous nature of the choice. If all goes as the present would indicate, a righteously justified Dem government will right the wrongs of an aberrant leadership, and perform what could be the single greatest accumulation of state power in the name of capitalism ever witnessed. By positing the failings of the abusive few as their literal raison d'état, the war responsibility of hundreds if not thousands will be completely obscured as a better, more polite government “moves forward” and “puts behind its differences” to deliver that idolized “bi-partisan” form of government that gave us such achievement’s as Clinton’s obliteration of the duties of the state to provide social welfare to its less prosperous members. The justified state might even do things we want, like “go green” and “stabilize the inequalities" (that is, not address their origins, but treat its symptoms) but these would all be problematic to say the least. To criticize what does not yet exist may seem ridiculous, but I think this “thought experiment” (although it is admittedly light on any actual thought so far) identifies a need for a means of questioning the “politics” of the present that can at once begin to identify the rightists’ full responsibility in bringing into existence the domestic and international atrocities of the present regime, and, at whatever level, to also identify the dem’s own responsibilities not only in the past six years, but responsibilities towards the coming moment to not sell the country short in the name of doing only a little better than Bush. That is, we need a dual mode of critique that can both confront the obvious wrongs where they exist past, present and future, and also confront the more subtle contours of the past, present and future even when it goes against our common sense. And I hope that is what we set ourselves to do when we ask what is politics.
14 comments:
Care to translate this into English? I hope this doesn't come across as too hostile, but this sort of academese drives me insane; there's a vast, vibrant on-line discussion out there, some of which even touches directly on a couple of the topics you mention, and yet does so in (generally) clear, concise prose and a (to me)very refreshing, solid grounding in the realities of the political landscape as it actually exists today.
This might require a post of its' own to really lay out, but I believe that the academic/cultural studies left shares a good deal of blame for the lousy position that progressive politics finds itself in these day (basically, rather than serving as public intellectuals who would try to speak to a broad range of people and sway the public discourse, they retreated into isolation and a dismissal of the real work of affecting positive political change, thus leaving the space of mainstream public discourse to conservative think tanks and right-wing radio, which has used these tools to great advantage). This is why I find the liberal/progressive blogosphere so refreshing.
Just as an example, Hillary Clinton is exceedingly unpopular, and John Edwards very popular, amongst the "netroots" in part because she is seen as offering nothing in regards to “stabiliz(ing) the inequalities" (that is, not address their origins, but treat its symptoms)" whereas Edwards offers one of the most progressive economic policies a dem has offered in ages. A lot of people are very suspicious of Obama, myself included, because he pays a lot of lip service to the "idolized “bi-partisan” form of government." So, I think that these debates are taking place already, and in a very fruitful way that is grounded in the effort to actually have an impact on what happens and what will be possible for the next dem president to achieve.
I'll try that again...
Does the present aestheticization of politics indicate a homologous juncture between fascism and revolution?
I believe Benjamin has already answered your question, but to get to it, we must step back. The “aestheticization of politics” was prefigured in the act of Louis Bonaparte returning to France, under the calculated spectacle of newspaper rumors that opened the door, creating a room of power into which he would step. Benjamin spoke of such a media apparatus, and the possibility of illusion within the assumed mirror of the press (circa 1931). Yet Benjamin was in a peculiar position whereby he could split the political potentiality of media between three spheres – fascism, communism, and capitalism. For Benjamin, Fascism sought to supplant “the class consciousness of the masses” by fostering illusions through the “German revolutionary press” (he is referring to the far Right, the forces that evolve into Nazism). But media under capitalism is equally problematic: “there can be no political advantage derived from this control [control of the media] until film has liberated itself from the fetters of capitalist exploitation. Film capital uses the revolutionary opportunities implied by this control for counterrevolutionary purposes.” The revolutionary potential of media, it socialism, lies beyond exploitation and illusion, and in distraction - “collective laughter is one such preemptive and healing outbreak of mass pychosis.” “To outrage the public,” or make them laugh, breaks through the fog of illusion formed by the media apparatus. So though the aestheticism of politics, between fascism and revolution, is conjoined in the media, it is the role of those invisible controllers on either end to manifest these mediations as either suppressing ideology or revolutionary deconstruction.
The revolutionary potential is most clear in its separation from economy. The First Amendment allows this potential to be fostered, to show us the cracks in the facade. One example.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy05zj0X23M
I more or less agree with tigrenoche here. I just don't understand this kind of writing, and I know I'm not alone.
For example, I don't get what the issues are with the "aestheticization of politics." I just plain don't know what that expression means. Hasn't politics (as with just about everything else) always had an aesthetic element? And what does it mean to "aestheticize" something? It's okay to make up words, but you've got to make sure people will follow your meaning. If I were to guess what "aestheticize" means, I'd say it meant something like "beautify" or "decorate" (just looked it up in the OED, and that's more or less what it said); but I don't think that's the way it's being used here. I googled "aestheticization of politics" and just got a bunch of the same type of jargon.
I go through the same kind of process for just about every sentence. It's pretty tedious and unenlightening. I know something is being said, but have only the slightest idea what.
Maybe this kind of specialized language serves a purpose. If it does, then fine, but it is definitely particular to certain disciplines--disciplines that not all of us are familiar with. If this blog is supposed to be "interdisciplinary," then we'll have to find a way to make ourselves understood to those from other disciplines.
If some of the threads here are for the critical-theory-initiated only, I guess that's fine too. It would be really cool for me if it was presented in such a way that I could get something out of it, though.
A:
The desire for transparency of language is one I share, and as demonstrated by this post, the need to question the political requires a challenge to the binding and regulating forces of our shared common sense. Though perhaps unclear, this post stands as a testament to this fact.
Tigrenoche:
It is unfortunate that your comments would so quickly attempt to constrain the possibilities of what we can explore within this space by simply reducing our questions to those explored by existing blogs. These blogs you mention, from the few I have made a cursory glance at, are, for the most part, delightful infotainment, a mode of mundane political writing that in its clarity, effaces much of the politics of the present. These are indeed thriving new realms of discussion and interaction which offer some sense of comfort in an age of great discomfort. But by opposing this blog to those which are grounded in "the realities of the political landscape as it actually exists today" you constrain this space to their self-limiting horizons. I do agree however, that those irresponsible academics (and they do exist) should be taken to task for their self isolation. However, as should be clear from the effective journalism of existing political blogs, the economics of monopoly media do not include within their principles of growth the inclusion of media products that relinquish their determination of both the "people" and "public discourse." This does not deny the responsibility that intellectuals have to participate in new and creative ways, nor does it require them in their participation to accept the given language of politics. In my case, the phrase, "real work of affecting positive political change," although it sounds nice, and makes me feel good, it makes no sense to me. It is a phrase that I can imagine coming out of the mouths of the most ardent liberal humanist and the most authoritarian right-wing nut job.
Greenmedallion:
Great reading of WB, I like the return to Marx's 18th Brumaire, solid analogy. Although the central question remains unanswered in the present. I am just a bit confused by the last bit, and in particular, am unsure what "The revolutionary potential is most clear in its separation from economy," could mean. There is no revolution without Marx, and no Marx without revolution. But if you mean some other kind of potential, and in fact some other order of political possibility that articulates itself beyond the a crudely economic realm, then I think we are on the same page. There remains a danger in reproducing the separations which are induced by the functioning of capitalism in our attempt to go beyond the economic. And by this I mean most transparently, we cannot afford to pretend the new possibilities of internets are somehow divorced and discrete from fundamental transformations to older economic orders.
To all:
Your silences are most telling, the questioning of the Dem's war responsibility should not be off the table, nor should the critique of the right's atrocities be weakened by their attribution to an abusive few. War responsibility is one of the most defining dimensions of the political in the present, to deny it is to deny any hopes of questioning the political.
I'd like to comment a bit on the language issue first. Obviously at times it's necessary to bring in pretty technical language to make a pretty technical point, to create new vocabulary or re-define existing vocabulary to make new arguments. More often than not, though, I don't get the sense that the bulk of the academic/culture studies writing out there is that way out of necessity so much as it is a way of staking out a certain identity, claiming membership in a certain club. I think that I could go through the initial post by transcritique here and translate most of it into pretty straightforward language that would be understandable to the layperson (and if challenged, I'll produce that translation!). If that translation is possible, then what's the point of all the excess verbiage in the first place? I think that this is more than an issue of aesthetic preferences, too. There's too much obscure and obfuscatory language out there in the world today already, from political spin to advertising to the media's lazy, bullshit he-said-she-said reporting. We don't need any more. And we don't need fancy critiques and deconstructions and references to Foucault to say that torturing people is wrong or the Iraq war is wrong.
As to this "...your comments would so quickly attempt to constrain the possibilities of what we can explore within this space by simply reducing our questions to those explored by existing blogs...a mode of mundane political writing that in its clarity, effaces much of the politics of the present."
I'm reminded of Richard Rorty's critique of western philosophy's several-thousand-year long search to get to the capital-T Truth, and his idea that that quest is essentially misguided. You think that we need to get past the appearance of current politics down to its essence, to question the very foundations of political discourse as such, to develop some radical new vision. I, along with Rorty, don't. I think this quest distracts from the task of living meaningful lives and creating a just society, where a just society can be pretty simply defined as one where everyone has the equal ability and means to lead a meaningful life as free of cruelty and coercion as possible. The exact contours of that society and the process of achieving it might be hard to define, but those are essentially questions to be handled by pragmatic political engagement. I don't see arcane and convuluted discussions of Benjamin or French Theory comprehensible by only a handful of people as really helpful in that process. And the reason that I don't see those discussions as being particularly helpful is that they've been going on for literally decades now while large segments of the culture have drifted futher and further right, the social safety net gets dismantled and one of our two main political parties has drifted ever closer to outright fascism.
Tigrenoche:
I'm not sure how transcritique's analysis can be seen as a search for "Truth." Perhaps you can elaborate on this.
I notice that you mention "meaningful lives" a couple of times as desired outcomes of political action. I agree with you, but I think that defining this term is a necessary and extremely interesting project. I hope to take this up soon in an extension of my earlier discussion of identity, ZZ Top, localism, and aesthetics.
Oy, I was supposed to be going to bed, but keep getting sucked back in...my point above was pretty unclear, so let me try again.
What I find problematic about transcritique's post is that it strikes me as approaching things in a way that's so abstracted from any actual existing (in this case) politics as to be, I believe...I want to be polite here...unhelpful.
It reminded me (though it isn't an exact analogy) of Richard Rorty's writing on the desire, so defining of Western thought, to get beyond "mere appearances" to the foundation of knowledge, the essence of a thing, the capital-T truth. Rorty, following Wittgenstein, advocates that we abandon that quest, in all it's variations, as it hasn't really done us any good, and pursue instead the pragmatic and concrete. I tend to agree and am very skeptical of "theory" and its ability to solve our problems or tell us how to live our lives.
I might develop this thought some more later, especially if it still seems unclear to anyone. Glad you picked up on the meaningful lives theme. That's a discussion I'm hoping to spark with my "Means and Ends" post.
Tigrenoche:
In your second to last comment, as well as the later elaboration I think I see the foundation of your dissatisfaction with my post. It lies with a stereotyped image of 'theory' and the obscuring language of irresponsible academics. Rorty's critique of all critical thought as a search for new Truth shares this image as its target. I agree with these critiques' desire to confront academia's irresponsible language games, but must insist that we cannot accept image over the actual practices of thought, which are in fact much worse than both of these stereotypes depict. More than a homogenously irresponsible pursuit of new Truth through increasingly obscuring language, their has been a professionalization of thought which would be a much better target of your disdain for their writing practices as "claiming membership in a certain club." At a talk about a year ago, Rorty himself identified professionalization as the central problem with “theory”, but then proposed something extremely problematic, he called for a return to how things were, when people just read nice books without having to think about them. The nostalgia of humanism reared its reductive and in fact un-pragmatic head in this desire. (He called for academics to function as the conduits of enriched student experiences of classic texts, stripped of any confrontation of their desires with the difficulties of thinking. This was particularly problematic because it reproduces the logic of the market and the rightist ‘activists’ on campuses nationwide vigorously demanding an end to thinking (which infringes upon their rights as consumers of their educations by making them think about the inequalities produced by the machinations of a social order they directly profit from) The increasing reach of this logic is in fact the force that produces the professionalization of thought, a force any pragmatic politics must confront rather than efface.)
But what we must not lose site of is the fact that your radical pragmatism and the unclear language of my post share a desire to move away from the ir-responsibilities of thought's isolation in a way that does not require 'going back' to some lost democratic form, nor some new Truth, but rather, towards something that works, cause shit ain’t working so good right now. The way I see it after trying to understand your comments is that your desire for a radical pragmatism is mostly compatible with a radical questioning if we can pursue and elaborate that dual mode I hinted at in the last portion of this post. That is, its not really a choice between pragmatism and theory- that would be an irresponsible opposition. This opposition has in fact contributed to the isolation and increasing professionalization of intellectuals on the one hand, and the increasingly pragmatic liberalism that must be recognized as a major factor in the rise of fascism over the last thirty years. But rather than perpetually reproduce this opposition between theory and practice, we should recognize that these are mutually dependent modes of change. The dual mode of critique must include both, and know when to dispense with irresponsibly obscure abstractions while our practices must not exclude the exploration of possibilities beyond the necessarily reductive demands of pragmatism. The difficulties of exploring the possibilities of the present need not include the reproduction of stereotypes (which is the logic of the right) nor the arbitrary play of language freed from any practical reality (which this post, upon closer inspection, can not be said to be performing).
TC said: "The desire for transparency of language is one I share, and as demonstrated by this post, the need to question the political requires a challenge to the binding and regulating forces of our shared common sense."
I'm afraid this reply is pretty opaque. What does the desire for clear prose have to do with the supposed need to challenge common sense in the political realm?
And as to challenging common sense: Sometimes this needs to be done, sometimes it doesn't. It needs to be done when it is demonstrably false, or when it is not obviously true. So, what piece of common sense do you think needs to be challenged? (Surely you're not attacking common sense in general.) Put it on the table and tell me what's wrong with it. I feel like I see very little common (in the sense of shared by everyone) sense in politics. (Am I just blind to it? If so, someone please help me see it.) It seems like a realm where there are very few things people agree on. A little bit of common sense would be wonderful.
A:
In literary studies they always say stuff like,"When in doubt, go to the text." So let’s try to do a little sentence analysis:
"The desire for transparency of language is one I share," meaning this is a desire I think we share yet this post has produced opacity for you, why is that? Because "the need to question the political requires a challenge to the binding and regulating forces of our shared common sense." Here, the verb "to share" appears a second time, modifying the noun common sense, so in effect the desire for transparency falls within the realm of our shared common sense. A sense that the clause-"and as demonstrated by this post"- indicates has been disrupted, thus producing that which is not transparent. This is indeed an opaque response, but one that in its form demonstrates the content of the sentence. Regrettably I cannot claim to have authored it with such an intent, but yet there it is. What the very useful comments by you and the others demonstrate to me here is that my own stated desire to confront this shared desire does not necessarily produce a shared understanding. In fact, although the post and my comments are crystal clear to me, I have violated my own intention to communicate a thoughtful raising of questions by the use of my own sense of language, one that is clearly not common. But this is thankfully not an organ of a Stalinist party nor the Democratic party, nor the Republican party, where every word must be weighed for maximum clarity and strategic impact, so my violation will not cost me my political life. And as the audience that here embodies the boundaries of the common sense I mention consists of five people, I should perhaps narrow my questionings with these dimensions in mind. Rather than a universal, general, or abstract space of writings on politics, this one need not pretend to solve the myriad quandaries of political thought but instead make room for each participant to explore, in whatever form they choose, the possibilities afforded by this shared space.
On clarity, my favorite music lyrics, even as a child, always sparked further questions. On Phil Collins' No Jacket Required he sings "Billy Don't You Lose My Number." That song sparked so many questions for me. It seemed that many lives and stories were caught up in that simple phrase. Who is Billy? What has he or she done that requires calling Phil Collins? I think the occasional lack of clarity in transcritique's writing actually provokes thought and questioning and therefore it is a more democratic form of communicating than the ultraclear political tracts he mentions - it allows us to create meaning together. All writing contains assumptions and obscurities that may often be usefully interrogated. Perhaps our goal should be to identify and track down the "key terms" that are simultaneously common sense (everyone loves freedom) and completely meaningless.
TC:
You can certainly explore political issues in whatever style of prose you think is appropriate. Don't let my needling stop you.
TC08, bro, that last comment of yours was maybe the most impenetrable thing, to me, that you've written yet. Which is of course ironic, given the subject of it. Rather than go in depth into my confusion, let me just note, from your second-to-last comment, the term "ir-responsibilities" What the fuck is that? How is ir-responsibility different from irresponsibility? What are you getting at by spelling it that way? This is a perfect example of those irritating grammatical tics that characterize writing in cultural studies.
DM speaks up for "the occasional lack of clarity in transcritique's writing" (occasional!?) saying it "actually provokes thought and questioning and therefore it is a more democratic form of communicating than the ultraclear political tracts he mentions - it allows us to create meaning together." A certain level of ambiguity can indeed lead to good discussions, as we each get to intrepret the statement(s) at hand from our own perspectives, but too much obscurity and we start getting into psychotic-thought-disorder/private language land.
As I think I've said before, I feel it'd be one thing if we were all in, say, the same seminar on Walter Benjamin, and we'd developed a sort of technical vocabulary in the process of discussing him together that would be opaque to someone stepping into the class mid-way through the term, but that we all got. I feel here though that I've got so little handle on some of the discussion that I'm the guy stepping into the seminar mid-way through the semester...I don't know what the conversation's grounded in, or what this convuluted language is referring to.
Again, just reading these posts, I don't really understand why we're discussing politics (however defined) and not something else; I can't tell exactly why you care; I assume that none of you are right-wingers (well, I know that, but only because I know you personally), but can't tell from reading anything you've written why you're not--I'd like to know what values (or aesthetics, if you prefer) are you drawing from in what you write; I don't see why wanting to "question the political" precludes us from taking just a moment to lay out in a relatively straightforward fashion why you're a leftist and not a rightist--is it just because that's the default position for humanities graduate students, or is there more to it? we've got at least one father-to-be on this blog; what kind of world do you want your kid to inherit? Without an answer to that question it's hard to see all these other discussions about politics as anything other than frivolous intellectual gymnastics.
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