Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Ahmadinejad, Alternative Christmas message, Christmas, Nietzsche, Queen, speech, The Dispossessed, Ursula Le Guin
This Christmas, I made a mistake. On Christmas Eve I finished Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, and then on Christmas Day I began Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo. As if it needed saying, do not read Nietzsche at Christmas. The Dispossessed is about a flawed utopia, whereby Le Guin explores the irreconcilability of different ideologies within a shared physical space. The book speaks of the fragility of true communality; a fragility which Nietzsche, I imagine, would dismiss. Ecce Homo is more concerned with the absolute, solipsistic self-belief necessary for going it alone and realising man’s true potential, but nonetheless acknowledges the loneliness of having strayed away from the pack in this way. Taken together, these books brought to mind an old quote of whose origin I am unsure: We can exist in ambiguity, but it means the deepest loneliness.
The family Christmas, for me, is characterised by this tension between a desire to go it alone but also to be a part of an empathetic unit. I always find that, as detachment makes the heart grow fonder, the idea of the family is far less complicated when considered from a distance. ‘The family’ proved central this year to both the Queen’s speech, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s alternative, controversially broadcast on Channel 4. I imagine the Queen’s daily duties to be an endless repetition of all those niceties and sacrifices that I associate with the family Christmas: the forced smiles, bitten tongues, gritted teeth; the standing on ceremony, the lazy contentment matched by a frustration arising from a sense of limitation, of repressed self-expression. Still, the hypocrisy of the Queen’s speech is rather grotesque: she spoke of the virtues of altruism and humility, the pleasures of life’s small mercies, and the righteousness of serving rather than being served. Ahmadinjad’s hypocrisies were no more concealed. He spoke, apparently without self-consciousness, of the people rising up against tyranny, discrimination and injustice.
The orations of these two figureheads of power had in common a faith in the family, the Queen more explicitly and traditional, and Ahmadinejad in relation to the brotherhood of “Ahbrahamic faiths” and the family of Jesus, “son of Mary” (some very select use of religious taxonomy). Their speeches both preached unswerving faith in family unity, unfaltering belief in the solidarity between unified families, and of the inherent goodness of the family unit. In contrast to their supposed antagonism, both speeches offer the same binarism, the same distinction between their own fold, and the Other, disparate and indistinct, powers that oppose that benevolence and goodness. The Queen makes an assumption, and Ahmadinejad a provocation, of who we are, who we support, where our allegiances lie; but both of their formulas are arranged as opposing powers of good and evil. They both speak with the false humility of the leader-as-prophet. They both disguise the will to power as the benevolent matriarch or patriarch.
But whilst both the Queen and Ahmadinejad urge us into identifying with the family, they also tell us to assume a subaltern position. The family, the brotherhood, the loving unit is the presupposed, a priori form of social organisation, they say, but the real loci of power lie elsewhere. Power remains something to be expected and endured, history as something that washes over us. Our responsibilities, we are told, are minimal. They will sort things out, they just require our quiet servitude.
I support Channel 4’s decision to broadcast Ahmadinejad’s address, and not just because its opposition reeks of moral indignation and tabloid crusading. Nor would I justify this choice on the self-congratulatory grounds of being a confident, free-speech democracy which is impervious to the sophistry of the enemy. Rather, taken together, the two speeches say something more complex on the nature of ideology: its assumed familial loyalty, yet also its indistinctness, its unwillingness to openly declare itself as such. This is ideology mediated by and bearing witness to the spectacle. To step outside of the spectacle, as far as it is possible, is to recognise that what the Queen represents and what Ahmadinejad represents in turn are mutually enforcing elements; two sides, yes, but of the same coin. They are complementary in that they both presume the same forms and offer the same images of social organisation, an image represented by the family, and a particularly loaded image at Christmastime. The family is a closed system, hostile to its alternatives, arranged into strict roles, and motivated by an obscure concept. Ahmadinejad’s speech, considered alongside the Queen’s, demonstrates that these two antagonistic sides comprise a whole, a formula for and loci of power that seeks to keep its subjects contained and at a distance. Not so much an Alternative Christmas Message, then, but an Alternate Christmas Message.
Filed under: Uncategorized
As Christmas passes in a haze of fraught familial relations, grotesque overindulgence and tragic dinner table scenes replete with paper hats, and as I formulate some sort of comment on the relations between the Queen’s Christmas speech and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s alternative message (Zizekian to a tee!), I’d just like to point you all in the direction of the recently published second issue of the online World Picture journal. Its theme is ‘Obvious’, and it includes all sorts of not-so-obvious things, including Ernesto Laclau and a report from a pimple on the ass* of Drew Barrimore.
*Probably should mention that this is a transatlantic journal, so this is the American form of ass. To my knowledge, Drew Barrimore has no interest in donkeys.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: jean charles de menezes, police, police review
A lot of visits to this blog seem to be coming as a result of the last post, via search terms like ‘police’, ‘protest’ and ‘dalston’. So this seems a rather opportune moment to direct any interested parties over to this blog, from the Jean Charles de Menezes Family Campaign. As the inquest of Menezes’ killing continues, the Police Review of November 14th uses the above cartoon to illustrate a new ruling ‘preventing firearms officers from conferring after a shooting’. Absolutely incredible!
Filed under: space and everyday life | Tags: anarchism, dalston kingsland, demonstrations, Greece, protest
(draft #1, this may be refined)
Report
I’ve just returned from a few hours stood out in the cold at Dalston Kingsland, having attended the demo in solidarity with the anarchists in Greece. I should clarify first, perhaps, that I don’t consider myself an anarchist as anarchism is currently expressed and conceptualised. Whilst the rhetoric of anarchism is appealing, and its aesthetic is rather exciting, I find that too great a gulf exists between what anarchism represents and what I consider possible or realistic (both horrible terms, I know). Nonetheless, I will show solidarity with an anarchist movement if it expresses shared concerns with me in a specific instance.
So after arriving at the station, I wander around a little to see what is going on. At this point, there are a few scuffles and lots of people taking photos. Soon after, the body of the protest – about one hundred people maybe, and a few banners – is penned into the pavement area outside of the station by many police, and vans lining the road. They later claimed that we were given the option of leaving this area, moving past the police line, and this is a lie. We were not given the option of leaving this area, and when I asked a policemen if he would let me pass, he said no, and gave no explanation for keeping us in what was essentially an open air prison. Likewise, another line of police kept all onlookers very far back, so no-one could see what was happening.
We were kept in this small area for about two hours, whilst many more people grouped on the opposite side of the road and even more police buttressed the line of uniforms and truncheons keeping us contained. This is, of course, a standard tactic. Anyone with any experience in this situation knows what to expect: smug coppers making jokes about those detained and refusing to make eye contact, sporadic chanting and occasional scuffles resulting in arrests and perhaps de-arrests.When the mass of people moved towards the line of coppers that I was stood near, it took no time for one of them to grab my neck and another to raise his baton, snarling. I didn’t even raise my hands, but later I did make the mistake of trying to talk to one of them, which is an incredibly frustrating experience. You are met with short-sighted pub logic and a patronising refusal to actually engage in a human way: “I’m just protecting law an’ order mate.” Well can I walk past you and go home? “No.” Why not? “You just can’t”.
After about two hours of standing in this small corner, hemmed in by an increasingly deep row of increasingly short-tempered police, talk within the protesting body turns to what to do next. A deal was negotiated with the police that we would be let go, in groups of three. They would not search us, although they would ask for names. We could refuse to give them. Within the body of protestors, we were warned not to respond to antagonism, although to expect a few arrests as the police would invariably want something to show for this day in the cold. Some people objected, saying that this response was negotiating with the police, although to continue this face-off really added nothing more to what had already passed, and I think this was the correct decision. I gave a little wink to the police cameraman videoing me as I walked away.
Comment
As I have tried to say before, whilst I do consider events like this necessary in the absense of an alternative, I have qualms about these forms of protest. For one thing, the peaceful protest/ aggressive demonstration duality is limiting. It seems masochistic to incite aggression in a scenario like this – a handful of black-clad young men and women versus dozens of suited and booted coppers – because to use force is to operate on police terms. They expect and are capable of violence, and will invariably be victorious in a physical confrontation. On the other hand, peacefully standing there produces no tangible results, and it is very difficult not to respond to police provocation.
Likewise, the symbolic gesture of a group of anarchists facing off with a line of police no longer has the import that it once did. The police are familiar with protesting tactics, and are quick to (however unlawfully) contain and dissipate the energies and divert the agenda. Once huddled together and going through the usual routines of taking and blocking photos, chanting and charging, the protesting body no longer represents what it stands for, which I take to be direct democratic engagement and resistance to authoritarian repression. Having been reduced in the physical space they occupy and made to appear hysterical and motivated simply by anger, the protestors appear as a minority acting against reason. Which isn’t, of course, the case.
So, I feel that most protests and demonstrations follow a self-defeating logic of physical confrontation and corporeal visibility that ultimately justifies increased police presence and encroachment on forms of direct political engagement.The officer has joined the police force because he likes direct confrontation, he likes asserting himself over weaker people. I have joined the protest because I want to stand up for an abstract concept that I believe will result in a greater good for a greater number of people.
In this instance, the situation is made twice as complex because the dissenting body is trying to express dissatisfaction with the authoritarian body that regulates the dissenting process itself. How is one to protest against the police and produce a tangible result, without the event descending into a mutual display of aggression between the very social representation of force and a group organised under unorthodox principles (i.e. forms of organisation not immediately recognised and understood by either the police or onlookers)? As long as protest remains the physical confrontation of one side against another, the physically stronger side will remain in control. What I would like to see is a movement towards alternative forms of political engagement that have the immediate gratification of the demo but refuse police logic.
Filed under: adverts, space and everyday life | Tags: financial crisis, the simple life
Well, if economic crises can repeat, so can aesthetic responses. It is nice to be reminded that loss doesn’t have to characterise the current climate, we can instead supplant our material and financial absense with a gain in other types of wealth: interpersonal relations, subsistence production and back-to-basics good livin’. Although I doubt somehow that those most affected by the financial crisis – the working classes – will be particularly consoled by a reminder to cycle, recycle, chat and grow vegetables. Which is a shame, because all of these things are very real solutions to other very real problems, but this response is naively disproportionate.
Filed under: academia, litrutchure | Tags: cornelius castoriadis, Gustav Doré, Jesus Christ, poetry, socialisme ou barbarie
Introduction to Castoriadis
I’m reading some Cornelius Castoriadis at the moment, as part of an ongoing project of piecing together the Situationist International as the sum of a series of influences. The SI was part Dada, part Surrealist, part Lautréamont, part Marx, of course, part Frankfurt School, part Lukacs, part Lefebvre, part Bataille, and so on. All very fitting for a group so enthusiastic towards plagiarism. Guy Debord was a member of Castoriadis’ Socialisme ou Barbarie group for a while, and in 1961, in the sixth issue of the SI’s journal, the Situationists declare that their own political allegiances lie only with the concept of workers’ council communism – autogestion, ‘the most radical current’ within the postwar workers’ movements - as developed by Socialism ou Barbarie.
The text I’m reading is a translation of the article, ‘Marxism et Théorie Révolutionnaire’, published across a few pamphlets in the Seventies by Socialisme ou Barbarie’s English sister group, Solidarity. The original French text was published between 1961 and 1965, and according to my limited knowledge of lthe evolution of critical theory, arises as poststructuralist/postmodernist thought acknowledges that it needs to move beyond the Grand Narratives of orthodox Marxism (or Marxism altogether, in Castoriadis’ case). Most of Castoriadis’ essay is concerned with debunking Marx’s methods, particularly through demonstrating that historical materialism, as a form of critique which professes ahistorical objectivity, is itself historically situated as a product of Nineteenth Century rationalism and scientism. Marx’s determinist claims and projections of inevitable revolution comprise a closed system, an incomplete schema, which will constantly be floundered by unanticipated elements. In form, Marx’s dialectic is as contained and limited as Hegel’s, both of which point to an end of history, a conception of completeness which Castoriadis proposes we discard.
Formal Revolutions
To an aesthete such as I, the great thing about these Solidarity pamphlets is their illustrations. These range from détourned woodcuts, with Jesus quoting Marx so that Marx’s words take on a religious anti-logic and didactic, Biblical, essentialism, to illustrations from a religious tract from the 1890s, whereby the author’s grim predictions of pestilence and calamity parallel Marx’s visions of revolution and capitalist crises.
A Poem
In line with Solidarity’s deft use of iconoclastic détournement, quoted below is Castoriadis’ negational formula for a non-essentialist dialectic, formatted by myself (basically just adding some line-breaks). Rearranged on the page like this, I think this passage – which stands out due to the sudden length of the central sentence and the implied excitement on Castoriadis’ behalf to finally be proposing something (nearly) positive – has echoes of a Godard narration, formally somewhere between an Allen Ginsberg and a William Carlos Williams poem, again affirming the impossibility of ahistorical forms. Perhaps, if form is the thing, we could make poetry of even the driest philosophy! So, I present to you, Castoriadis-as-poet:
Such a dialectic must eliminate notions such as closure and completion, and reject all finite world systems.
It could set aside the rationalist illusion,
Seriously accept the idea that there is infinite and indefinite,
Admit-
Without thereby forsaking work on the matter-
That all rational determination leaves a non-determined and non-rational residue,
That the residue is just as essential as what has been analysed,
That necessity and contingency continually interpenetrate,
That ‘nature’,
Both outside and within us,
Is always something other and something more than what our consciousness makes of it-
And that all this is not only valid for the ‘object’,
But also for the subject,
And not just for the ‘empirical’ subject
But also for the ‘transcendental’ subject,
Since all transcendental law-making by consciousness presupposes the raw fact that a consciousness exists in a world
(order and disorder, seizable and inexhaustible),
A fact that consciousness cannot itself produce,
Either really or symbolically.
It is only on this condition that a dialectic can really envisage living history, which a rationalist dialectic is obliged to kill before it can lay it out on the benches of its laboratories.
Quite beautiful, I think, and much more palatable than another text-heavy pamphlet! My favourite bits of Marx were always the poetic formulations (all that is solid/ melts into air).
An Aside
To return to matters of content for a moment, a conception of society or history like Castoriadis’, that proposes incompleteness and asks us to ‘fully comprehend the infinite and indefinite,’ pretty much recuperates any effort to pre-empt or undermine its own limitations. Yet for a forty year old text that insists on the historical specificity of any form of critiqe, ‘Marxism et Théorie Révolutionnaire’ resounds with quantitive judgements that seem remarkably applicable to current junctures:
‘… for a given society even crisis and being torn apart can, in a certain way, be manifestations of coherence, for they are inserted in its functioning. They are never followed by a total collapse, by a pure and simple atomisation. They are its crises and its incoherence. The great depression of 1929, like the two world wars, are entirely “coherent” manifestations of capitalism. It is not simply that they are integrated into its concatenations of causality, but also that they promote the functioning, qua functioning, of the system. In their very meaninglessness we can still see in many ways the meaning of capitalism.’
