Saturday, November 13, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Art, Class and Revolutionary Politics (Part 1)
1. Art and Art Criticism under Capitalism
The immense majority of the art that we receive – view, read, hear; in a word, consume – is bourgeois art. That is not to say that most art is produced by the bourgeoisie, actually, most art is produced by the petty-bourgeoisie. In very-slightly-less-Marxist terminology, most artists who live by their art, also own the means by which they produce it and have effective control over their labour and conditions. There are exceptions, obviously; the TV and cinema director controls the labour of others, as do artists like Damien Hirst who own large studios full of assistants. It is also not to say that all or even most petty-bourgeois artists identify ideologically or culturally with the ruling class. Some of the most interesting and well regarded art was made by people sharply critical of the ruling class and their interests, even if the artists themselves did not understand their critiques in class terms. And occasionally, you get an artist like Pablo Neruda who was not only politically critical of the ruling class but was actually a communist (although, being a Stalinist, it would be more accurate to say that he was opposed to the ruling classes of the West and an ally of the ruling classes of the USSR and its allies). The fact that most artists are middle class, rather than ruling class, probably accounts for a good deal of its range and scope – it is, after all, the middle classes which are most adept at swimming from one camp to the other.
Indeed, the ability of the middle classes to take the side of the oppressed and exploited is probably a vital part in the 'information processing' which the formation of the ideology of the oppressors and exploiters so requires.
Furthermore, a good deal of what gets called art was produced before there were any bourgeoisie, petty or otherwise, to produce anything. By what stretch of the imagination could it be claimed that The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Iliad, or Beowulf are products of bourgeoisie?
Only in the sense that the bourgeoisie have inherited humanity's cultural history and they can do with it what they will.
I was required to read The Iliad in my all-boy high school, I have since come to a greater appreciation of it, but, like most high school boys, I was not, at the time, capable of seeing what was tender, beautiful, or sublime in that poem. What I absorbed was that there was something absurd about paganism, something valorous about prowess in aggression and in warfare, and I found it wholly intelligible that the conflict of the text should have centred around who should have the honour of raping one particular woman. It was just a matter of course that 'manly' virtues like courage and glory were men's work, while 'womanly' virtues like being the spoils of battle was women's work.
Lysistrata has not entered into the canon of literary masterpieces in the way that The Iliad has. Perhaps we can blame Aristotle for this – it was he who deemed comedy inferior to tragedy – but it is surely surprising that our choices for what should be read and what can be put on the back-burner should still be made in the shadow of Aristotle. The enduring influence of Aristotle's judgements may have something to do with the fact that Lysistrata has too much in it politically that can be twisted against the bourgeoisie. Lysistrata calls together women from all over Greece to propose a way to end the Peloponnesian War. Her plan is simple, withhold sex until the men agree to peace. Having been written a good deal before Victorian prudery, she can do this not because women are in reality sexless anyway – actually the plan nearly founders on the women's frustrated libidos – but because the women are able to prioritise, they can place their hopes for peace above their animal desires for sex. By this reading, Aristophanese, in 411 BCE, was able to recognise in women what the bourgeoisie have only grudgingly begun to today: reason. And agency with it.
In a similar way, the poetry attributed to Sappho is – to my mind, at least – every bit as lyrical and moving as some of the much more famous and heterosexual Albas of Medieval Europe: it is exactly those virtues which might make Sapphic poetry dangerous.
The essays of T.S. Eliot, a semi-fascist, were instrumental in temporarily nudging John Milton's Paradise Lost out of the English canon – supposedly on 'aesthetic grounds'. That Milton was a left-wing bourgeoisie revolutionary, that Eliot's elitist theological approach to humanity differed radically from Milton's, or that previous revolutionaries (Shelly, Blake) had found inspiration in Paradise Lost must not have had anything to do with it. The aesthetic difference between Milton and Eliot is itself political. Milton's cerebral verse was composed with the express intention of forcing the reader to be both active and conscious; T.S. Eliot's is written to appeal to the reader's 'digestive tracts' in an irrationalism which would have warmed Goebels' heart. (Whether Eliot actually succeeded in that project is another matter.)
This is not to say that critics of similar politics should necessarily agree on aesthetics. C.S. Lewis agreed with Eliot on many issues outside of literature, but defended Milton from him and others with his usual mix of erudition, sentimentality and silliness. However, Lewis' Preface to Paradise Lost is primarily concerned with decorum and sexuality (he doesn't really explicitly relate the two). Both topics are highly ideological. The processes of art criticism, canon formation and art distribution are intimately linked and always political.
Of course, art production is also always political. That is true whether or not the art actually thematises politics. Under capitalism, art is political on at least two grounds: first, as an autotelic activity (art is surely, at least in part, its own purpose) it is a utopic space separate from the instrumentalism of alienated labour; second, because art must be produced by living breathing human beings, it is itself conditioned and determined by the same things which condition and determine human beings. Hence, it is utopic in both meanings of the word: it is an enclave of unalienated labour and an imaginary escape from the realities of capitalism. Art is both produced under and creative of ideology.
It is still possible to encounter that common sense idea that studying art or the humanities more generally can somehow make you a better person. I did not come up with the refutation for this position but it is worth repeating. The fact that the Nazi's were aficionados of Goethe and Schiller – the fact that Auschwitz was perpetrated by some of the most learned and cultivated men in Europe – must surely put paid to the lie. It should be patently obvious, but somehow it isn't; the fact that Heidegger was an out-and-out Nazi, the fact that T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and D.H. Laurence all flirted with fascism, should have alerted us to the nature of ideological production and warned us against naivety in our ideological consumption. Of course, this danger is easily enough avoided: we can simply forget.
Of course, this is not to argue that all canonical art is simply reactionary. The modernist canon in literature contains T.S. Eliot, but it also contains Brecht; in the visual arts the cutting edge of modernism was made up of people who often identified as socialists of one sort or another. Furthermore, it would be stupid to suggest that just because T.S. Eliot dabbled with fascism there is nothing of value in his work. Actually, the very effectiveness and the beauty (inexact terms) of the texts produced by authors like T.S. Eliot comes from the energies that have so much in common with fascism. Part of the task of the critic, surely, is to understand why that is.
But here the socialist critic is in a difficult situation. Part of the reason there exists a critical industry is that the bourgeoisie are proud of 'their own culture' – even when that 'culture' has been inherited from the past. By subjecting that 'culture' to analysis, critics are not only a living part of its production process, they help society – and especially the ruling and middle classes – to gain some understanding of its own cultural products. This work, to a great extent, is one of legitimation. Quite often, it serves to recuperate artefacts of their cultural heritage after aspects of the culture itself have come under attack – witness, for example, attempts to claim Milton as a proto-feminist. If this cannot be done, criticism at least offers an apology. In truth, no matter how tenaciously the critic may attack it, the very task of criticism itself serves to shore up the myth of civilisation which is so often employed to valorise capitalism (and, little doubt, every ruling class).
This is not to suggest that professional criticism – i.e.: the academia – should simply be avoided. There are, I think, four reasons that this is the case. [1] 'Intellectuals' need to make a living like everyone else, and we all serve the system in one way or another (productive labour, for example, directly serves the needs of capital accumulation). More to the point, [2] ideology is almost infinitely multi-sided and contested. Just as the likes of Brecht and Walter Benjamin (commited Marxists both) have been put to use by people less committed to capital's destruction, so it is conceivable that the likes of Conrad (or more likely, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky) could provide psychological energies to the revolutionary proletariat. Furthermore – and if that strikes you as too sanguine – [3] there is an inherent danger to the project of cultural analysis: if it plumbs too deeply it may conclude with Walter Benjamin that
[art] owes its existence not just to the efforts of the great geniuses who fashioned it, but also in greater or lesser degree to the anonymous drudgery of their contemporaries. There is no cultural document that is not at the same time a record of barbarism.
(Arcades Project 359)
Or with Marx, that human progress resembles “that hideous, pagan idol, who would not drink the nectar but from the skulls of the slain.” (The Future Results of British Rule in India http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/07/22.htm). That kind of understanding begins to turn back against the very system that relies upon it. That does not empty it of usefulness for capitalism, far from it, but it also gives something to its enemies.
And finally, [4] Marxists believe that history belongs to the proletariat. Or, less floridly, if the proletariat can succeed in making a revolution, they will be able to lay claim to the accumulated achievements of humanity. And criticism is surely a part of that heritage. Even if Benjamin was right when he said that art
“may well increase the burden of the treasures that are piled up on humanity’s back. But it does not give mankind the strength to shake them off, so as to get its hands on them.” (361)
the proletariat doesn't need art for that, that is the task of its own self-organisation. The proletariat needs art because aesthetic expression (which under capitalism becomes fetishised and commodified into art) is part to what it is to be human; criticism, for Marxists, can therefore illuminate capitalism's inscription upon our species-being – both in the manner in which it has degraded us, and in the manner in which we have resisted it.
It can do this by attending both to meaning, and to how meaning is made. Criticism should understand the explicit content of a text as well as uncover its latent ideological machinations, strategies and perspectives. But is should also search out those strategies of signification which can more readily render service to one side or another in the class war.1 That is surely the difference between simply appreciating or dismissing someone like Eliot and actually subjecting his work to Marxist critique.
1It is useful here, I think to consider several interacting levels of what might be called form. Form as a category encompasses the medium (spoken word, text, sculpture, painting), the use of that medium (a novel, a serialised webcomic, street art), the genre (science fiction, cubism, naturalism), and what is rather more ephemeral, the 'style' or the authorial devices employed. Obviously, these 'level' are not clear-cut, they are only a provisional way of conceptualising a category that is often dealt with very cavalierly.
Rhys' Comments on "The Marxist Conception of History"
I'm posting a detailed response sent to me by a friend regarding my essay on Marx's conception of history. In general I agree with it and will be writing 2 or 3 supplementary essays to make use of his criticism. I will also probably pilfer some quotes.
Reply to Anton
On Your use of the Literary and the Historical
I quite like your introduction and attempts to combine an understanding of Marx’s theory of history with Marxist literary theory.
Christopher Hill especially believed that understanding historical literature (what people wrote to understand and explain their lives) was very important for Marxist historians. In fact if you look at the work of the CPGB historians (Hill, Hobsbawm, Kiernan, etc) there are a lot of references to Literature. I think it is a tradition that Marxist historians should keep – understanding the intellectual as well as the practical realities of class societies.
If you want to know more about Marxist approaches to literature as a tool of historical research then check out the work of Hill (17th century literature), Kieman (on Shakespeare), T. J. Clark and Hobsbawm (19th century bourgeois literature), and of course Raymond Williams.
You should read Wickham’s recent edited collection of essays by Marxist historians on the future of Marxist historiography (Marxist History Writing for the 21st Century).
On Historical Agency (Class Struggle and Revolution)
The two aspects of Marx’s theory that I think you have not adequately looked at are (1) the concept of class struggle and (2) the part played by Revolutionary upheaval in the historical process.
Marx’s conception of the mode, relations and forces of production are important but from my perspective these do not provide the human agency of historical change – nor do I think Marx understood them as such (thus I reject the argument of economic, technological or any other determinism in Marx’s theory). I accept that social change is precipitated by conflicts between the productise forces and the social relations but their ultimate expression can not occur without the human agency. Without these dual forms of agency (class struggle, revolution) then Marx’s theory is one sided and would be determinist. Thus while I think you have done a brilliant job of describing the basis of Marx’s theory (abstraction and concrete analysis of the mode of production, forces of production, relations of production) it is incomplete without an analysis of the active human aspect of the theory. Thus your analysis of the base must be combined with an analysis of Marx’s dual doctrine of historical agency (class struggle and revolution) if we are to understand fully Marx’s theory of history.
The agency, the change, for any (major) historical change comes from human action – class struggle in its most basic form. This belief in the agency of human activity is the most important part of Marx’s theory of history because it gives power of historical change to the mass of people – rather than history unfolding at the whim of some great man or something else. Engels suggested that if Marx had outlined the materialist theory of history in full he would have stressed the active element – the agency of class struggle/revolution – of the theory. "I use 'historical materialism' to designate the view of the course of history, which seeks the ultimate causes and the great moving power of all important historic events in the economic development of society, in the changes in the modes of production and exchange, with the consequent division of society into distinct classes and the struggles of these classes." Frederick Engels, Socialism Utopian and Scientific – p 51
Perhaps I have read too much into the historiography and method of the CPGB historians group but it is this agency of human struggle (within the context of the economic base and the, social, political superstructure) which is the key thing that I think must be stressed within the materialist method of history. You have to read E.P. Thompson’s The Poverty of Theory. The strength of “history from below” comes from its stressing of the agency of oppressed classes in the acts of the historical process. Marxist historiography must continue to stress that (while also examining what a ruling class is doing – history from above). It is this that has always most attracted me to Marxist historical theory.
“Revolution” (the act of) is another important part of how Marx sees change (real, ultimate) historical change. From revolution in the ancient world, to the bourgeois revolutions, and ultimately the socialist revolution. I think we have to underline the importance of revolution in creating massive socio-economic historical change (alongside class struggle in the arbitrary). Conflicts within an existing mode of production (between the relations of production and its forces, and other forces) can create the reason for change and class struggle gives the opportunity to create or prevent that change but without revolution (in one sense or another – social, political, economic, philosophical) that change is practically unrealised.
Focusing Marx’s theory of history within a dialogue of revolution as key part of creating socio-economic change (change in the historical sense) is also important for the practical rebuilding of Marxist history theory. It is needed to defend against the revisionist trend in recent decades within the history of revolutions – especially the bourgeois revolutions (which see no socio-economic aspects underlying them or indeed any real historical change caused by them or even developing from them). See the debate on the French Revolution in recent years – suggesting that it changed very little of French society and was but a cultural change.
If we can show the importance of revolution in historical change in the past we not only defend Marxist theories of history but we also have then an argument showing that in any future change revolution is an inevitable part. Human history is a history of revolutions and struggles –for Marxist historical theory fundamental socio-economic change has rarely come without them.
Of course it is possible to construct a version of Marx’s theory of history which purges the dialectic (Cohen’s Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence) or the agency of human activity (Althusser) but in my mind without class struggle or revolution Marx’s theory of history is inevitably weakened. Class struggle gives humanity agency within the framework of society (an agency that is actually much greater than those in bourgeois historiography give it credit for). Revolution allows practical destruction of that framework and the creation of new ones. Ultimately the strength in Marx’s theory of history comes from its concrete understanding of the basis of society and linking that to human activity.
So my main critique is you have to further develop the importance of agency within Marx’s theory of history. You’ve outlined it in some parts but I think some expansion is needed.
The Preface of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
Your quotation and analysis of the Preface of A Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy is quite good but when dealing with the preface it must be remembered that Marx’s outline of the materialist conception of history within it deliberately excluded the notion of class struggle because of police censorship. Marx was desperate to get something published in Germany in the 1850s and so cut out deliberately provocative statements from the Critique (anything the police censors could use).
In applying the method of the conception of history outlined by the Preface the most important thing to keep in mind is the degree of correspondence or conflict between the productive forces and the social relations of production – which is what the Preface succinctly outlines – but to also acknowledge that the Preface does not really outline the entirety of the theory (such as class struggle and revolution – despite a short reference to the epoch of social revolution). Marx and Engels understood this Marx later lamented that the Preface lacked an outline of the active element of historical materialism – class struggle.
We thus must be very careful in the use of the Preface as the “outline” of Historical Materialism. You have avoided those possible problems.
Forces of Production
Note – I will look at the Harman/Callinicos debate below. This section looks at Forces of Production outside of that debate.
Marx and Engels did not believe that human history featured a continuous growth of the productive forces. Rather, the development of the productive forces was characterised by social conflicts. Some productive forces destroyed other productive forces, sometimes productive techniques were lost or destroyed, and sometimes productive forces could be turned into destructive forces. There is a large paragraph in the German Ideology which outlines this (Part I: Feuerbach. Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook: D. Proletarians and Communism).
This is why I am critical of Cohen’s conception of Historical Materialism – his theory of the development of the means of production and productive forces being the driving force of history. Although I think his work is important in stressing that the productive forces are important. I think he just goes too far.
In my mind, the productive forces reflect not just the means of producing but also reflect in some forms the relationship of people to the objects and forces of nature used for the production of material wealth. (These relationships can be different than the more formal relations of production – these are relationships between a person and their tools, rather than the person/people in organized producing society).
We must remember that the productive forces remain a human activity (despite the fact that the idea of productive forces conceives of technology within the human/nature dialectic). In my understanding the productive forces are not this overbearing, all powerful determiner of human history (this is the worst sort of technological determinism). The productive forces are created by human labour and thus must be understood through the human relationship and not as stand–a-lone.
Marx identified three components of the production: human labour, subject of labour, and means of labour (Capital Vol. I, p 174). Productive forces are the combining of human labour and the means of labour; means of production are the union of the subject of labour (resources) and the means of labour.
My view that the Productive forces are a very wide set of forces and that the human element is critical to understanding them. Setting out my view of this is important for when I get to Harman/Callinicos.
The Harman/Callinicos Debate
From my reading of Harman on the whole productive forces debate it seems that he is agreeing with Cohen’s and Althusser’s narrow interpretation of those forces as merely elements of production (to prove the forces of production as the prime mover). While I am not saying that Harman’s views on this are the same as Cohen or Althusser, similarities should be noted. That is bad. Too narrow for my liking – it breaks with Marx’s theories of totality and it ignores the fact that the forces of production include combining those elements with human labour. Thus Harman is wrong to separate the forces of production as arbitrarily as he does and to be so narrow in his definition of them.
Callinicos is more interesting in how he focuses his view of Marxian history as an attempt to understand exploitation, which lies inside any analysis of relations of production, and is hostile to the teleology of ‘orthodox historical materialism’—the idea that the movement to a socialism is an eventually inevitable consequence of the contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of production. While I agree with him that the relations of production should also be stressed I also disagree on the opposite reason I disagree with Harman – he divorces the relations of production from the forces of production.
The problem, as I see it, with Harman and Callinicos is that while attempting to distinguish the importance of their selected relationship (forces or relations) they have arbitrarily disconnected the one from the other. Both are needed and both are interconnected.
I agree with you that we can’t separate one from the other as easily as Harman and Callinicos try to. I also agree with Barker that we should see the forces of production and relations of production in some way related. Harman and Callinicos (in my mind) are guilty of quoting Marx without taking his wider meaning or keeping in mind Marx’s views on totality. Harman’s conception of narrow forces of production (and their supposed domination by the upper classes) is incredibly troublesome – too limited - as I outlined in the above section.
As for Baker failing to stress labour power I have not read any of his work so I am not qualified to comment.
However, I am slightly unhappy with Callinicos’ idea of “class” in history being an objective reality whether or not its members have any consciousness of themselves as a collective. In my mind Class is an objective reality (as a result of the relations of production) but the construction of consciousness is too important for Callinicos to just ignore (See E.P. Thompson). The Marxist medieval historian Chris Wickham has some things to say on this as well. Consciousness and the building of consciousness are important when understanding human agency. Human activities (and history) occur within the connections of the mode, means, forces and relations of production but consciousness is vital for informed activity. It does not mean activity cannot happen without consciousness – but it helps.
What we both must do is get our hands on Callinicos’ book “Making History: Agency, Structure, and Change in Social Theory” and have a real in-depth reading group on it – as well as bring in Harman’s work. http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=210&pid=17890 - even if it is just the two of us.
As a historian, I am of course more interested in how these theories works historically for understanding past class societies. So, for example, I would have liked Callinicos, Harman, Baker and Brenner to each explain how their models explain the logic of development of individual modes of production (not just the capitalist mode, but the feudal, ancient and (the problematic) Asiatic modes as well). These modes in their ‘normal operation’, not just in social/revolutionary crisis. Harman can’t any longer but the others still can.
What is needed is to show via actual historical evidence of past (and current) class societies the development of these relations and forces as Callinicos and Harman describe them. The superiority of Harman or Callinicos (or their dual faults) will be shown by actual historical research – not just theoretical conjecture.
Dialectics
This section was very well put together and showed very well the importance Marx placed on the dialectic in his own method. I don’t really have much to say on this.
The Purpose of Marx’s Theory of History
I think you need to come up with what you think the purpose of Marx’s theory of history is for this paper.
For me (this is just my own philosophical conception and you don’t have to accept it) understanding Marx’s purpose for his theory of history is of great importance. Why did Marx come up with a theory of history in the first place? I think it is Marx’s stressing of the importance of understanding history for a political end (understanding the origins and structures of existing class societies in order to overthrow them). Marx didn’t study history or come up with a model for understanding it for purely intellectual development – he did it so he could understand how human society developed to the point it had (class society) and how that reality could be changed. This political consequence is ultimately (in my mind) why bourgeois historians hate historical materialism so much – because it has a definitive political objective in mind. It combines the historical and the political.
“The purpose of Marx’s theory of history is that we understand history in order to make it” – if you will forgive the obvious ripping off of the 11th Feuerbach Thesis.
Conclusion - On Marxist History Writing
A unifying theme that I took from your paper was an attempt to answer real problems in Marxian historical theory – on method, theory and problems of formulaic Marxism - especially page 33. “How can we write history in the vein of Marx’s theory and still comply with the intricacies of the period being studied?” Intricacies which (at first glance) possibly contradict Marx’s theory (for example the English Revolution as bourgeois revolution despite a lack of concrete bourgeois ideology at its start).
This is a serious problem and I think solved by studying what Marx had to say on history not as a clear cut guide into which we pour history and expect a clear cut result. Instead we should take his method and apply it as best possible while at the same time actually studying the period. E.P. Thompson was quite right when he critiqued Althusser’s versions of Historical Materialism as an “excuse not to study history”. You are also right when suggesting that Marx’s theory is not a formula but a method of analysis.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Habermas and History: a very short critique
In principle, Habermas' Universal Pragmatics only applies to communicative action — that is “action oriented to reaching understanding {verständigungsorientiert}”2—specifically, spoken/written communicative action. Communicative action he says, must always raise four universal validity claims: (1) that the utterance is comprehensible, (2) is the truth, (3) is uttered truthfully — that is, the speaker desires to speak the truth — and (4) is right in reference to a “recognized normative background.” Anyone acting communicatively must “suppose that ... [the validity claims she raises] can be vindicated {or redeemed: einlösen}”.3 These validity claims are “cognitively testable”; in inviting a hearer to engage with her communicatively, the speaker makes a commitment “to provide grounds or to prove trustworthy” the validity claims raised; on the assumption that this warranty is sound, the hearer can be “rationally motivated” to accept the “speaker's signaled engagement”4
Habermas' focus on communicative action is justified by his assumption that “strategic action” — that is, “modes of action that correspond to the utilitarian model of purposive-rational action”5 — is derivative of communicative action6. This appears to be the same assumption behind the oft sited quote,
What raises us out of nature is the only thing whose nature we can know: language. Through its structure, autonomy and responsibility are posited for us. Our first sentence expresses unequivocally the intention of universal and unconstrained consensus.7
It is at least true that latent strategic action (deception) depends on the existence of communicative action, although Maeve Cooke, contends that Habermas has not proven that the same can be said of manifest strategic action (coercion)8. It is only possible for me to lie if most speech acts are basically communicative: if people are willing to assume the general truthfulness of speech acts.
Nevertheless, I find it difficult to accept that, “[o]ur first sentence expresses unequivocally the intention of universal and unconstrained consensus”; and I find the idea that “‘reaching understanding inhabits human speech as its telos’ (TCA1, 287)9” suspicious. It does not follow from the fact that language functions communicatively that communicative action is the ultimate purpose of language in the metaphysical sense.
To put it another way:
There is something profoundly ideological, in the pejorative sense of concealing contradictions, about a theoretical project which explicitly assumes that society is constituted by communication. 10
In any case, a theory of language which treats as aberrant such common speech acts as lies and obfuscations can hardly be considered adequate.
Habermas here provides us with what is almost a meta-normative theory. Any validity claim may be challenged, the normative context of an utterance may be hypothetically argued — but it is impossible to act communicatively without accepting the presuppositions that the comprehensible, the true, the truthful, and the right are preferable to the incomprehensible, the untrue, the untruthful, and the wrong11. These must hold for social activities in which communicative action predominates — although this is patently not so of other speech acts.
For Habermas, interaction — in contradistinction to work — is communicative action and is “governed by binding consensual norms, which define reciprocal expectations about behaviour”12. He sees this dynamic as fundamental in society. It governs the distribution of products:
the distribution of products requires rules of interaction that can be set intersubjectively at the level of linguistic understanding, detached from the individual case, and made permanent as recognized norms or rules of communicative action.13
And Cooke explains that, “[for Habermas] in the life world, coordination of action takes place primarily by way of communicative action and depends on the action orientations of individuals in society”14 and consensus is “a mechanism of social coordination”15
For Habermas it is the medium of of social integration16. Societies evolve by introducing new forms of social integration (“securing the unity of a social life-world through values and norms”) when system problems arise in the basic domain of society — basic in the Marxist sense. Doing so requires “knowledge of a moral-practical sort” the development of which is governed by the rules of communicative action17.
The dialectic of history therefore cannot be understood merely as the progression of instrumentality — the greater and greater ability to control external (and internal) nature. Rather, inherent and dialectically developing in human society is a reflexive rationality, a self-critical ability to define ends for the means which we develop through technology. In fact, evolutionary innovations in social integration act retroactively on the base and allow “the as-yet unresolved system problems [to] be treated with the help of the accumulated cognitive potential [technical knowledge]; from this there results an increase in productive forces.”18
But to what degree are these relations constructed intersubjectively?
A conception of society as a general intersubjectivity the interruption of which can be corrected by the “special institutions” of law and morality19, certainly needs some strong qualifications. It is somewhat jarring to see law as a form whose content is the mutual understanding of everyone to whom it applies — a fairly cursory look at modern history would seem to suggest the opposite.
Universal pragmatics shows that an utterance is meaningless unless it is appropriate relative to accepted, recognised, and binding norms — and that these norms, in a 'post-conventional' society, must sometimes themselves be justified. It may be useful to understand these norms in context — on the assumption that laws, governments, and other institutions are structural reflections of the mode of social integration.
If I say, 'I will purchase food at the supermarket,' this is normatively valid, if I were to say instead, 'I am hungry, I'll go forage for some tubers,' this is not likely to be accepted by my hearer for the obvious reason that foraging is no longer the appropriate response to hunger. Similarly, if I say, 'I must find a job,' this presupposes an already existing system of relations (capitalism). To the extent that these norms were ever set intersubjectively, I was not involved. Rather, the communicating, living, social subject is always already bound by pre-existing social institutions and forms.
It is irrelevant to talk about communicative action in the larger context of social integration without coming to terms with the society in which communicative action may take place. A social being is obligated to work in the manner in which society reproduces itself generally and she is obliged to be socialized in the pre-established structure of the family, schools and culture. The social being constructs her subjectivity through the lived experience of being in a particular society. In the context of a class society, this means that social beings do not enter into society as equals, neither then do we always enter into intersubjective relations equally. To the extent that human beings work towards consensus therefore, they do so by reciprocally trying to bring others to accept as valid claims which are the result of the lived experience of inequality. The 'truth' of our statements naturally depends upon the perspective from which we utter them; moreover, the very signs by which we communicate – words such as 'people' or 'society' or 'useful' – can have very different referents depending on whether or not they are being uttered by members of the working class or members of the ruling class.
But this inequality already presupposes that in fact a great proportion of our social relations are not the result of communicative action — that is action intended to bring about universal consensus on the basis of valid intersubjective discussion by everyone involved. This is doubly true when you consider that moral-practical propositions are not even intelligible unless there exists the material means to actualize them — the development of material means not being governed by communicative action. Inequality in society would seem to indicate (historic) success on the part of some sections — that is, it would seem to be the result of well executed strategic action.
Habermas is aware, of course, that communication does not take place in a vacuum. Norms are binding not merely because of mutual recognition, but also often because there are institutions which can enforce them. He could write that the goal (as in telos) of social development is “the organization of society linked to decision-making processes on the basis of discussion free from domination”20 and again, “it is not unconstrained intersubjectivity which we call dialectic, but the history of its repression and re-establishment.”21
These considerations indicated in 1968 are far less prominent in Communication and the Evolution of Society written in 1976. The dialectic given focus is “the fact that with the acquisition of problem solving abilities new problem situations come into consciousness.” In the latest stage of this dialectic, “value came into consciousness as a scarce resource. The experience of social inequality called into being social movements and corresponding strategies of appeasement.” [my italics]22
Social integration, in modern times therefore, has functioned primarily to maintain the system. However, if, as Marx said, “the interests of capital and the interests of wage labour are diametrically opposed”23, that is, if class relations in capitalist societies are such that what benefits one injures the other then there may be cause to modify our understanding of consensus and integration. It is self-evident that there is nothing irrational about a boss seeking to exploit wage workers for profits any more than it is irrational for workers to fight to keep a greater share or even the full value of their labor. Consensus therefore in this situation must injure and benefit either party to lesser or greater degree, but built into these actions are pre-existing inequalities, the dynamic balance of which — far more, I would contend than rational argument — determines the outcome of the struggle. Consensus, as an ideological base for action, must in the long run benefit those already in a position of power.
Social movements in general cannot be understood in terms of communicative action. While it is certainly true, and important, that these movements generate discussion in the private, academic and public spheres it is not true that the “corresponding strategies of appeasement” can be understood as a consensus. Picket lines and placards are hardly the media of rational debate; they are, to put it bluntly, meant to coerce those who have no rational reason to accept the agenda of a movement until the alternative is too expensive. In as much as action intended for consensus is undertaken at all, it is within the movement itself (and those who stand to benefit from it) and not between the movement and its opposition within the rest of society. It would be more accurate, I think, to describe these movements in terms of praxis than communicative action.
Meaningful consensus — that is, consensus reached without the underlying pressures of inequality and false-consciousnesses — is only possible within sections of society that share corresponding interests and so can work from similar premises. As such, communicative action cannot begin to constitute society until the divisions in it which necessitate “diametrically opposed” interests are eradicated. Which is to say until classes no longer exist. Habermas steadfastly ignores this. His method is one of immanent critique24 of bourgeois society and he has kept true to his word: it is hard to imagine a critical theory more thoroughly bourgeois nor one the implications of which are so utterly in favour of the status quo.
2Ibid. pp. 1.
3Ibid. pp. 2-3.
4Ibid. pp. 63.
5Ibid. pp. 41.
6Ibid. pp. 1
7Habermas, Jürgen. “Appendix” in Knowledge and Human Interests (1968) Trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro (Heinmann, London 1972) pp. 314. For a very short riposte to Habermas' idealist focus on language see my essay on this blog "The Marxist Conception of History" section IV. 'Marx's Anthropology' which discusses some aspects of Marx's materialist anthropology. For a literal discussion of Marx's claim that "Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or anything else you like. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organisation." (German Ideology pp. 6) see Engels' very short but unfinished essay "The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man". Engels' essay is perhaps somewhat dated, but still useful and interesting.
8Cooke, Maeve. Langage and Reason (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1994) pp. 23-24
9Habermas, Jürgen. “Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 1” quoted in Habermas: A Very Short Introduction, James Gordon Finlayson (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005) pp. 34.
10Callinicos, Alex. Marxism and Philosophy (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1983) pp. 143. Callinicos' intuition that Habermas' theory is based on an ideological intrusion has, I think, some weight. Habermas' division of speech acts into communicative, symbolic, and strategic is somewhat arbitrary: isn't it likely that people engage in honest speech acts because they believe that they benefit personally from speaking the truth? In that sense, one could just as easily say that communicative action was a sub-category of success oriented strategic action.
11Habermas, Jürgen. “Toward a Reconstruction of Historical Materialism” in Communication and the Evolution of Society Trans. Thomas McCarthy (London, UK: Heinemann, 1979), pp. 177.
12Habermas, Jürgen. “Technology and Science as 'Ideology'” in Toward a Rational Society (1968) Trans. Jeremy J Shapiro (London, UK: Heinemann, 1971) pp.92
13Habermas, Jürgen. “Toward a Reconstruction of Historical Materialism” in Communication and the Evolution of Society Trans. Thomas McCarthy (London, UK: Heinemann, 1979), pp. 132. It is probably accurate to say that language is the medium by which we come to understand the world and speak that understanding. What Habermas has not shown is by what mechanism and to what degree this process — while remaining essentially linguistic — can actually constitute society. It may be helpful when considering this problem to ask how separate an entity an understanding of the world is from the world which is understood.
14Cooke, Maeve. Langage and Reason (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1994) pp. 5.
15Ibid. pp. 9.
17Habermas, Jürgen. “Toward a Reconstruction of Historical Materialism” in Communication and the Evolution of Society Trans. Thomas McCarthy (London, UK: Heinemann, 1979), pp. 144-147
18Ibid. pp. 147.
19Ibid. pp. 156.
20Habermas, Jürgen. “The Idea of the Theory of Knowledge as Social Theory” in Toward a Rational Society (1968) Trans. Jeremy J Shapiro (London, UK: Heinemann, 1971) pp.55
21Ibid. 59. These ideas, written in 1968, are explicitly based on Marx's conception of struggle.
22Habermas, Jürgen. “Toward a Reconstruction of Historical Materialism” in Communication and the Evolution of Society Trans. Thomas McCarthy (London, UK: Heinemann, 1979), pp. 164-165. Habermas is here explicitly attempting a reconstruction of historical materialism as Stalin conceived it, it is largely on the basis of this particular form of historical materialism's obvious moral and theoretical bankruptcy that he is able to claim the need for an alternative. It is not our concern here to reclaim or reinterpret Marxist historical materialism as such, but we may at least note that as early as 1936 Franz Jakubowski had already published a version of this theory that had little of Stalin's (or Althusser's) one sidedness and determinism. Torsky by applying the theory in his histories, of course also made no small contribution. More recent theoreticians include Callinicos, Chris Harman and the late Tony Cliff. While we may charitably admit that Stalin's view may have been dominant (although not hegemonic) in 1979 its subsequent total loss of credibility makes Habermas' explicit project appear somewhat quaint.
23Marx, Karl Wage Labour and Capital Plus Wages, Price and Profit (Bookmarks, London, UK 1996) pp.43
24Finlayson, James Gordon. Habermas: A Very Short Introduction, (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005) pp. 9.
Bibliography:
Callinicos, Alex. Marxism and Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983
Callinicos, Alex. The Resources of Critique. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2006
Cooke, Maeve. Langage and Reason. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1994
Finlayson, James Gordon. Habermas: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005
Habermas, Jürgen. Communication and the Evolution of Society Trans. Thomas McCarthy. London, UK: Heinemann, 1979
Habermas, Jürgen. Knowledge and Human Interests (1968) Trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro. London, UK: Heinmann, 1972
Habermas, Jürgen. Toward a Rational Society (1968) Trans. Jeremy J Shapiro. London, UK: Heinemann, 1971
Marx, Karl. Wage Labour and Capital Plus Wages, Price and Profit. Bookmarks, London, UK 1996
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Capitalism and the End of History
Environmental crisis has once again forced the possibility of human extinction back into our collective political imagination. The manner in which we interact with nature points to the possibility that we may one day undercut the very basis of that interaction. This is not the first time that we have been faced with this possibility – the two World Wars and the threat of nuclear annihilation which loomed so large in the Cold War that followed, even accidents like Chernobyl posed the question – but this time is different. Before, extinction was seen as the possible result of disaster, a cataclysm breaking violently into regular working of society; now, for the first time this threat is being posed not by some millenarian convulsion but by the normal humdrum of the system. For the far left, Global Warming and environmental destruction confirms what we already knew about capitalism – that it is not merely a crisis prone system, but rather one whose very existence is permanent and chronic disaster. But we are also faced with a new frustration: perhaps the most serious and constant threat to our existence has been illuminated and it is boring.
It is not actually clear that the rate of environmental destruction which we see today is sufficient to cause human extinction in the near future. Professor Frank Fenner of the Australian National University recently predicted that we would be extinct within the century1 but his almost entirely Malthusian reasons for this (to say nothing of his willingness to be published in 'The Australian') put his opinion under considerable suspicion. A somewhat more sober estimation is that a quarter of the plant and animal species on Earth will be extinct due to Global Warming alone by 2050, but the list does not include Homo sapiens2. Not counting 'climate change deniers', the consensus is that our prospects are pretty grim:
today, climate change is already responsible for forcing some fifty million additional people to go hungry and driving over ten million additional people into extreme poverty. Between one-fifth and one-third of Official Development Assistance is in climate sensitive sectors and thereby highly exposed to climate risks. 3
The same report quoted above claims that:
An estimated 26 million of the 350 million displaced worldwide are considered climate displaced people. Of these, 1 million each year are estimated to be displaced by weather- related disasters brought on by climate change. These populations are mostly temporarily forced displacement within national borders, but also include temporarily forced and voluntary displacement across international borders.4It goes on to explain that in 2030 the “number of Climate Displaced People could more than triple”5 and that the annual death toll from climate change could could rise to 500,0006.
These numbers cannot account for the number of deaths and displacements that could occur if violent conflicts arise from these desperate circumstances. And while the report notes that more people will “live under the continuous threat of potential conflict and institutional break down due to migration, weather-related disaster and water scarcity ”7 it does not mention the possibility that the resulting conflicts might have an impact on the international balance of power resulting in renewed and open aggression between the rival imperialist powers – i.e.: international war.8
It is capitalism which has posed this problem, but capitalism has entirely refused to address it. At the same time, the revolutionary left is quite possibly at the weakest it has ever been – in terms of numbers and organisation, but not, I think, in terms of theoretical clarity – since the Russian Revolution. This situation is related dialectically to another important factor: the lack of interest for Marxism and the generally reformist consciousness of the working class. It is almost as if we are starting from scratch; it looks as though the working class shall have – once again – to go through all the errors of class collaboration, and (hopefully) to draw the correct conclusions from this. Meanwhile, Marxist intellectuals holding out for the possibility of engaging with a significant vanguard of the proletariat experience all the old petty-bourgeois degenerations and flights of maddens that come from the inability to take root in the heart of the class struggle.
The very few left reformists watching us can see that we are fighting an uphill battle and accuse us starry eyed idealism. But Marxism is not an idealism (in the moral sense of the word), but the most hard nosed and stubborn practicality. We have identified a goal: an end to war and poverty and the continued survival of the human species. And we know that there is only one way to achieve that goal: socialism. Left reformists look at capitalism and our battle against it and conclude that capitalism will not be beat; their alternative is to stick to strategies that cannot work in the name of pragmatism. In reality it is nothing but cowardice and stupidity.
1Cheryl Jones. “Frank Fenner Sees No Hope for Humans” The Australian 16 June 2010. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/frank-fenner-sees-no-hope-for-humans/story-e6frgcjx-1225880091722
2Brian Handwerk. “Global Warming Could Cause Mass Extinctions by 2050, Study Says” National Geographic News 12 April 2006. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0412_060412_global_warming.html
3Forum 2009: Climate Change – The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis . p. 4
4Ibid. p. 48 (footnotes removed)
5Ibid. p. 49
6Ibid. p. 14 Figure 2
7Ibid. P. 22
8It is important, geopolitically speaking, that the effects of Global Warming should be making themselves felt at a time when America's military omnipotence is beginning to crack and both Russia and China (and to a lesser extent certain sections of the EU) have shown a clear desire to buck once again against that hegemony.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
The Marxist Conception of History (Full version)
Even though I promised myself that I would blog regularly (every 2 weeks) I got so into this project that I could not really bring myself to post because it felt like such a distraction.
So, I am done now, although there is some chance that I will improve upon it in the future. Since I am done, I figured I may as well post the whole monstrosity here even though I can't imagine anyone reading it.
So, I am done now, although there is some chance that I will improve upon it in the future. Since I am done, I figured I may as well post the whole monstrosity here even though I can't imagine anyone reading it.
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Marxist Conception of History III
III. MARX'S LEVELS OF GENERALITY
Bertell Ollman identifies seven levels of abstraction from the most unique to the most general, however, because Marx himself moves from the most abstract to the concrete1, I prefer to reverse the order – doing this, furthermore, highlights the way in which what is learned at the higher levels of abstraction can be brought to bear upon the lower ones. Ollman also includes two levels which we can omit for the purposes of this essay: [1] the level of the animal world which brings into focus everything we have in common with the animal world and [2] the level of generality “which brings into focus our qualities as material parts of nature.” (Ollman 56) With these changes in mind, Ollman's five remaining levels abstraction are [1] human society, [2] class society, [3] capitalist society as such, [4] contemporary capitalist society and [5] and “whatever is unique about a person or situation”. (55-56)
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