honneth, language and recognition.

Marx’s economico/political anthropology gives up arbeit, or labour as the essence of humanity. I’ve argued elsewhere that this seems too narrow, and am in agreement with Honneth that a weaker formal anthropology would be more appropriate. Habermas, replaces this concept with ‘communication’ in turn, Honneth feels that ‘recognition’ is more appropriate.  I’m not sure that this is the right manoeuvre.

Honneth would argue that human beings do not become fully ’socialised’ just through language but through mutual recognition; the acknowledgement of an other’s self-worth, the generation of self-respect and so on. As an aside, the similarities to Kant’s moral philosophy are quite striking, particularly with respect to the various iterations of the categorical imperative. Moving on, Honneth argues that it is wrong to equate the the (chief) medium through which the activation of social agency occurs, with logic contained in that medium.  Now, I don’t agree with this argument. Firstly, I should point out that I also disagree with Habermas- the when the ’system’ imposes itself on the life-world, it is meant to disrupt social communication, imposing its non-linguistic edicts on social relations.  I don’t believe this to be true. Systems do have a language/communicative aspect- the stock market can interact in a symbolic/linguistic way with people, so too can governments and bureaucracies.  Reification, in the Marxist/Lukácian sense, seems to be the more fundamental problem- abstract entities being granted  human autonomy. I should also point out that I have a very broad notion of communication, drawn from both contintental semiotics and analytic philosophy of language.  Anything that can be thougt about the world can be expressed through a language of sorts, even if a thoughts  initial utterances, though symbols, speech or writing etc. are unclear- they are always open to the possibility of further refinement and clarification.  I think perhaps that I would go as far to say that reason is itself language, or at least, can only be expressed through language- in the most fundamental sense, language represents the ability to recognise relationships between persons and things, and to communicate this recognition to others thus incorporating both the core Habermasian and Honnethian ideas.

However, can language (in the above sense) be separated from recognition?  I’m pretty certain that it can’t- the way in which we interact with others must be able to be described or represented in some form for it to have any meaning and be acknowledged by others, in the same way that the ability or desire to communciate at all represents an act of recognition.  Indeed, the concept of recognition can itself, only be expressed through language, and vice versa.  Recognition and communication are fundamentally inseparable concepts, neither should be given ontological priority over the other- neither can exist without the other, and like the relationship between the individual and the society, their relationship is dialectical.

links

Just a brief word on links: I’ve had a few problems with spam comments from active linking, so if you want to view the pages that are marked with blue, just cut and paste them into your browser. Also, wordpress only seems to allow ten entries to a page; if you want to view old posts in chronological order, scroll down to the bottom of the main page and click on the previous/archived entry link.  The links on the side bar are meant to be represent diverse viewpoints, both libertaian and socialist and do not reflect my political/social affiliations in any way!

outlaw bike gangs: system vs. lifeworld, or system vs. system?

Recent events revolving around outlaw motorcycle gangs put an interesting spin on conflict between the Habermasian concepts of  ’system’ and ‘lifeworld’. The internal workings of these gangs  and their relationship to wider society are interesting for a number of reasons.  Firstly, the gangs themselves encourage a very tight knit sense of solidarity between members but the expense of fostering distrust towards any outsiders: ordinary ‘civilians’, the police, other gangs.  This kind of mistrust and insularity has the interesting effect of creating its own kind of micro system which stands at odds against a multiplicity of other systems.  Now, these gangs originated after the Second World War, in the United States, created by returned G.I.’s who were dissatisfied with kind of overly regimented life they had endured in the armed services, and these same gangs were given a huge boost by the Vietnam war, their ranks being swelled by traumatised conscripts and those eager to escape the machinations of a system which seemed utterly alien and alienating.  In Australia, these gangs now seem to be dividing along racial lines; Shia,Sunni, Islander, European and so on.  In each instance, I think it could be reasonably argued that members of each group felt, (or feel) that their life world, their beliefs about the way the world should operate and the their capacity for free and open communication with others was threatened.  The logical consequence was to band with others who felt similarly disaffected, forming their own shut-off life-world.  The natural consequence of this insularity was the formation of a system (with its own laws, codes and procedures) , which could not and cannot relate the enclosed life-world of the gang to the life-world of society as a whole, i.e., as mentioned previously a system/system relationship.  The consequences of this kind of relationship are obvious; the gangs turn to crime as the only way their particular system can be supported, and thus wider society naturally comes to view them with disapprobation.

What approach then, should system that represents the life-world of wider society take to dealing with the kind of criminality that these rogue systems present, particularly a society that is committed, and least prima facie, to pluralism?  Should these organisations be banned wholesale?  Should they be forbidden to recruit new members? The N.S.W state government has just passed laws restricting membership and operating conditions of outlaw bike gangs but interestingly enough, the director of public prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery has recently come out as saying that this approach is a dangerous threat to civil liberties as a whole; a threat to the ’system’ so to speak.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/bikie-laws-a-threat-to-rights-says-cowdery-20090515-b62e.html?page=-1                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    This then becomes a variation of the ‘thin edge of the wedge’, if the government can chose to ban a particular group of groups by preventing free association, what is to stop them form silencing their political opponents, or other groups which they may be at odds with? In this instance, the intention is good; outlaw biker gangs are a serious problem but I think a better way of addressing the problem is looking at the underlying reasons for their criminality; the reasons for the insularity of their life worlds- systemic tension, between racial groups, economic groups and so on. Of course this approach is far more nebulous and difficult than banning these groups outright, nor am I suggesting that the behaviour of these groups is in anyway justified, but the consequences of the legislation represent the kind of impingement of the system on the life-world which fosters anomie, rather than alleviating it.

Habermas and the Rehabilitiation of Reason

The common thread running through the works of Lukács, Adorno and Horkheimer is a fierce criticism of reason and rationality.  I don’t think their respective positions are tenable.  Firstly, their critiques come from a rational perspective; even if one doesn’t agree with the conclusions they make, one has to at least respect their method- an irrational critique is, by definition, a poor critique.  Secondly, give the way in which reification, social pathologies and so on, permeate every aspect of society, what gives these philosophers any special insight into social problems? Their differentiation from the bulk of society becomes particularly problematic when one realises that: each of them came from a middle class background, i.e. they are  products of the bourgeoisie, and, that they were all academics, an occupation that is at open to accusations of ivory tower syndrome.  Thirdly, Marx’s  criticism of rationality as expressed through objectification and instrumentality seems to be limited to the way in which reason manifests itself in capitalist modes of production and social relations.  Now barring an endorsement of irrationality, the work of each man seems to contain an occult call for either a new type of rationality, or, a way of differentiating rationality into various modes or types.

The simple fact is that rationality is not a bad thing.  In a Marxist sense, rationality could be interpreted as the way in which labour is able to be freely expressed, i.e. the way in which man is differentiated from animal or natural world. Habermas acknowledges the necessity and utility of reason by making a distinction between communicative reason and instrumental reason, the former aspect seeming to be the most fundamental iteration of rationality.  Communicative reason seem to be the kind of holistic reason, hinted at negatively by Lukács: a form of thinking which according to Honneth, binds relations between the physical world of objects, the world of social interaction and the intra-personal world.  In this sense, communicative reason gives license to other forms of rationality.  Thus the way in which a person is acts instrumentally on or towards a person, social structure or object is mediated by a form of consideration which attempts, as far as is possible, to take into account the way in which each of these spheres interact.  Its easy to see the way in which this type of rationality might work.  Say I want to do something like build a factory and start a business (although this example might be a little to capitalist for some).  Then I would need to consider things like: the way in which I treat my workers (the inter-personal or social), the way in which the environment might be affected (the material or objective world), and my own personal desires and inclinations (the intra-personal).  This example is not exhaustive, nor are each of the categories necessarily clearly defined, but I think it points to the holistic nature of Habermas’ approach

Desperate Housewives and Resublimation

I may be permanently ostracised from every intellectual clique on the planet for writing this but, Desperate Housewives ranks as one of my favourite  works of art.  It is one of the cleverest, most elegant pieces of social satire I’ve ever seen/experienced, although, admittedly, the quality of writing has deteriorated over the last couple of seasons.  Viewed superficially, it’s just another another soap opera, filled with banal characters and cheap sentimentality.  Its cleverness resides in two aspects. Firstly, its a pastiche of every kind of kitsch, melodramatic convention dredged up from day time soaps, tele-movies and romantic comedies.  For example, each character represents a very clearly defined archetype: the frigid homemaker, the nymphomaniac, the glamourous model, the career woman, the emasculated husband, the rugged handyman and so on.  Secondly, the various elements of this pastiche are heightened and exaggerated to the point of producing a kind of emotional pornography- situations, characters and conflicts that are respectively, so absurd, contemptible and over the top, that even the most uncritical viewer cannot help but suspect the writers have some underlying motive or allegorical intent.  Each episode and season reaches a resolution that is so saccharin and cloying that one is compelled to search for some additional meaning.

Quite simply, the show points to the awfulness of the kind life that the worst excesses of consumerism, in a Lukácian sense, the total reification of society- the pointless striving for material goods, the banality and poverty of inter and intra-personal relationships, and the kind of hopelessness these generate.  In this way, it seems to exhibit one of Marcuse’s criteria for ‘great’ art, “Artistic alienation, is sublimation. It creates the images of conditions which are irreconcilable with the established reality principle.” But the difference here is that it a cultural product, i.e. the pastiche which is sublimated or elevated to an art form.  This kind of reflexivity and self-criticism is increasing in popular culture (although it’s not just a post-modern phenomenon)- pop culture can be elevated to high culture, that is to say, the popular have critical, political, social, and aesthetic value.

Marcuse and Freud.

While acknowledging Freud’s importance in the history of psychiatry, I have to admit that I’m a more than a little sceptical about many of his claims- the empirical evidence just doesn’t seem to be there.  I remember hearing a radio interview a number of years ago, in which the interviewee, a distinguished Australian Psychiatrist, compared Freudian concepts like the id, and the Oedipus  complex to the concept of Chi: an explanation, certainly, but explanation which isn’t grounded in any observable, physical system- correlation does not necessarily imply causation, particularly when the components involved are highly abstract.  I should also point out that I’m taking an analytic Philosophy of Mind course. One of the more controversial debates in this discipline is the validity of psychology as a meaningful science at all, given the physicalist agenda endorsed by most philosophers working in the field.  A book that’s worth  looking at, if you’re interested is ‘Mind in a Physical World’ by Jaegwon Kim; it’s a good introduction to physicalism and the problems of mental causation.

Nonetheless, there is one Freudian concept which seems to be compelling; sublimation (although, I think Nietzsche came up with the term).  This is the process by which immediate gratification is delayed, and in which the energies that would have been unleashed in the process of gratification are transferred to other processes or objects. One of the more important theses in Marcuse’s ‘One Dimensional Man’,  is that contemporary society is undergoing (or has undergone) a process of desublimation: the structure of modern societies makes it very easy to gratify one’s immediate urges, with minimal (immediate) negative consequences, and this can be readily seen in the proliferation of things like pornography, junk food, soap operas and so on.  For Marcuse, this is most evident in the transformation or ‘reduction’ of high culture and art to pop art and culture.  Here one can see contradictions similar to those inherent in much of Adorno’s cultural critique; a kind of perversely anti-Marxist championing of cultural artifacts which are by their very nature inaccessible to the bulk of humanity.  But, in an important sense, I think Marcuse is right; the commodification and reification of sexuality and violence becomes a form of repression.  The type of immediate gratification pedaled by entities like mass media and fast food corporations breeds an uncritical, conformist mentality.  Certainly, the choice of avenues for gratification has been expanded immensely, but the ability to create one’s own choices, outside of pre-determined paradigms of behaviour has been severely curtailed.

berg, schoenberg and adorno

Adorno, amongst other things, was a musicologist, music critic and composer.  He studied composition with Alban Berg, and was intimate with, and influenced by Arnold Schoenberg, the ‘father’ of the twelve tone music or ’serialism’.  I would have liked to upload a few snippets from each man, but unfortunately wordpress doesn’t make this easy to do- this doesn’t really matter, Its not too difficult to find their music on the web- wikipedia is a pretty good place to start.

Adorno’s affiliation with the Second Viennese School is interesting for several reasons. Firstly, this kind of music, (pre-serialism) is atonal, and dissonant,  often making for heavy, if not traumatic listening; its often said that 2oth century orchestral and ‘classical’ music reflects/ed the grimness of life in the 20th century: social fragmentation, industrialisation, and war, representing a kind of aesthetics of despair.  Indeed, Adorno is famous for saying that is was barbaric to write poetry after the holocaust.  Music, and more generally, art is not, or should not be,”  ’entertainment’; in the words of one commentator, “it should hurt and educate”.  

‘Painful education’ is perhaps most evident in Bergs’ Wozzek, based on Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck.  This is not easy listening or causal entertainment; the libretto is deeply depressing, and the music jarringly atonal.  I’d recommend reading Büchner’s play instead,  often hailed as a ’socialist masterpiece’, and which anticipates with uncanny accuracy twentieth century drama’s themes and form’s, even though it was written sometime in the 1830’s.  Werner Herzog’s film adaption is also worth seeing, and Tom Waits’ album Blood Money, inspired by both Wozzek and Woyzeck is also very good, and probably gives the best ‘feel’ for the opera, without having to actually sit through it.

On another note, and reflecting on the  last post, it interesting to note that both Berg and Schoenberg’s music is deeply ‘rational’, even mathematical, reflecting an immense knowledge of musical theory and requires great technical proficiency to execute.  Adorno’s praise for both men is based on the apparent ‘freshness’ and ‘novelty’ of their work, but in a way, this kind of music is little different to that of the high baroque.  In reacting against culture, tradition and social constructions, it requires a deep and appreciation of those very things.  Berg and and Schoenberg were products of the middle class, which gave them their appreciation of art and literature.  It’s also interesting to note that the avant-garde nature of both men’s works was condemned as decayed, bourgeois rubbish by Soviet realists and as decadent, filth by the National Socialists, again, finding its chief audience in the educated middle and upper classes.

Enlightenment…and the tyranny of reason?

I’ve recently re-read the chapter ‘The Concept of Enlightenment’ from Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment. I was prompted to do this ‘in light’ of reading Habermas, which was refreshing after reading so many gloomy critiques of ‘capitalist’ society.  There are two points of interest I’d like to focus on.  The first is the condemnation of reason.  I can understand the criticism of reason as it relates to labour relations and reification; a narrowly focused and perverted reason if you like. However I can’t understand Adorno and Horkheimer’s universal condemntation of reason.  Reason as the deceiver of the Masses?  How does ‘holistic reason’ do this?  Is Marx,  a direct inheritor of the tradition of the enlightenment, and who champions praxis through an application of rational and empirical observation also a target for criticism?  What is it that Horkheimer and Adorno are calling for?  A return to nature? The unthinking satisfaction of animal necessity?  Would either man admit that the way in which they reach their conclusions is through the use of reason?  I think the problem is that neither man, and Adorno in particular, is willing to provide a picture of the world, without the taint of reason.  Their critique is entirely negative: a diagnosis without the cure?  To provide a model or paradigm through which humanity could express itself in a positive sense would smack of utopianism, something which both men seem keen to avoid.

The next point I’d like to discuss is the reason for such pessismism.  Why is European philosophy, particulary German philosophy so bleak. I’m remined of episode of Yes Minister where Humphery Appleby describes Germany’s commitment to the European Union as, “a desire to apply for readmission to the human race”.  This may seem cruel, but I think it goes to the heart of the matter.  The sense of shame many Germans felt and still feel for the actions of Nazi Germany seems to have an even stronger influence of social philosophy, at least in the latter half of the twentieth century, than any concern for class struggle.  In this sense I can see why reason, at least in an instrumental sense, is viewed with suspicion, if not outright hostility.  The second World War saw the industrialisation of destruction and genocide on an unprecedented scale.  Reason, in a perverse sense,  made the Holocaust possible.  Indeed reason made the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima possible; not only in an instrumental sense, throught the design and production of atom bombs, but in the their calculated use; the hope that mass destruction would save more lives  continuing to wage war on a conventional scale.  Why is it then, that pessimissim doesn’t seem to have a foothold in Anglo-American philosophy?

reification and pornography

No, this is not an attempt to generate more hits! (well, maybe just a little.) The financial crisis/credit crunch has had an impact on every sector of the world economy; large companies are failing by the score, and governments, keen to preserve jobs and stimulate their respective economies are injecting cash into failing enterprises.  While the impending bankruptcy of General Motors is the hot topic at the moment, spare a though for one of the worlds largest industries- pornography.  Here’s a link to an article from the U.K’s Guardian Newspaper, which discusses Larry Flint’s appeal to the U.S. government for a $5 billion dollar stimulus package.

          http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/08/larry-flynt-porn-industry-bailout

Pornography is a massive industry, I’ve seen figures for world-wide annual revenue ranging from US $ 100 billion to $150 billion (its accounting practices are pretty murky).  That’s roughly the GDP of New Zealand! Now, I don’t really want to get into a debate about pornography and social harm in the popular sense, but I would like to look at it from the perspective of commodity fetishism/reification.

To say that person’s involved in the pornography industry are reified/objectified is not particularly new, or necessarily even a criticism. People instrumentalise/objectify/reifiy each other in far less controversial contexts; Hegel’s definition of civil society springs to mind. What I’m interested in is the the reification of sexual relationships, and the effect this has on broader social interaction. 

Pornography seems to have many similarities to the Lukácian ’spectacle’ of capitalist labour relations.  The sexual act is commodified, certainly, but the more interesting point, I think, is the passivity of those who purchase the sexual act in its commodified form.  What effect does this passivity have?  Again the empirical data is a little unclear. I’ve noticed quite a few articles lately in the popular press talking about pornography’s role in reducing  sex drive and so damaging relationships.  On the other had,  one quite often sees articles discussing the role of pornography in stimulating libido to an unacceptable extent i.e.  rape and sexual assault- most recently in the context of the Northern Territory intervention. Neither outcome is particularly good.  But the question still remains, how/why does the passivity of the spectacle result in negative outcomes? Is it the lack of ‘visceral’ experience in obtaining sexual gratification? The ease of access to sexual experience?  Or even the lack of ‘mytification’ (in the Marxist sense.) I’d be interested in hearing people’s responses.

lukács and the critique of reason

 György Lukács, for those of you who aren’t familiar with him,  was one of the founders of Western Marxism. My chief interest in him is his contribution to literary and aesthetic theory: his association with Brecht, his insistence on realism when it was unfashionable , and in particular, his work The Theory of the Novel. I’d like to post something about these a little later, time permitting- perhaps comparing him with Adorno.In this post I’d like to talk about reification and rationality, as discussed by Lukács in History and Class Consciousness.  Space doesn’t really permit me to give a full account of ideas, so if you’re interested I recommend you read the chapter, ‘Reification and Consiouness of the Proletaritat’.

The first point I’d like to discuss is the ‘freshness’ of Lukács account of reification.  Marx, to the best of  my knowledge, only uses the word ‘reification’ once.  However, he does use words and phrases like objectification, personification, material inversion, and realisation, frequently.  ’Objectification’ in particular, seems to capture almost exactly the same meaning as reification, or at least reification as it applies to persons. In this sense, I don’t think Lukács’ uses of the word ‘reification’ is as radical as some commentators make out.  

This leads to the notion of alienation.  My reading of Marx’s seems to suggest that reification/objectification is the root cause of alienation. However, most of the literature I’ve read on the matter suggests  reification is a particular aspect or trope of alienation.  But is this really what Marx thought?  Virtually every type of alienation seems to be related to objectification in some way: objectification of labour relations, internal objectification, the fundamental ‘evil’ of private property, and most importantly, the relationship between people and objects.

It is at this point that Lukács steps in, to really soup up some of Marx’s ideas, notably reification as it relates to commodity fetishism.  Again, I don’t really have the space to discuss this relationship in detail, but I would like to talk about Lukács’ attack on reason.  Firstly, I’m not convinced that Lukács was any near as pessimistic about the nature of rationality as Adorno or Marcuse.  His attack seems to be directed on the kind of fragmented rationality embodied by commodity fetishism.  Granted, one does need to read between the lines to see that Lukács is not calling for the abandonment of rationality, but rather a holistic approach to its application- (there are some interesting comparisons to be made with Husserl on this point).  Indeed, I think one is almost compelled to take this view, considering that Lukács dissection of the problem of reification is itself performed through an act of reason.  

An another observation of interest is that Lukács (and Marx) form their respective arguments, and reach their respective conclusions,  as individuals.  What does this have to say about the role of society (i.e. collectivity) in resolving the problems of flawed reason and reification.  I know this seems a little ‘meta’, but I think this remains a serious problem for most Marxist thinkers (Lukás was reprimanded a number of times for comments about the power of an individual to cause change.) The individual can, and does make a difference. But does this really have to be problem at all?