Something I've heard a lot about, since Occupy Wall Street formalized in the streets about a month ago, is its weakness due to its not having clear objectives. This blog is to argue that this 'weakness' is in fact its greatest strength. We should not desire that the movement have clear demands.
A week ago, I listened to an interview with the organizer for Occupy Humboldt State University. For weeks, tents have been stationed outside the classroom I teach in, and a sign reads "Join the 99%". The organizer, a veteran in his early thirties and student at HSU, argued that Occupy Wall Street is not putting out demands because it's not about that. Such demands might weaken the movement by alienating people. The idea of the movement is to include - to bring people into dialogue and thoughtful critique, to generate ideas for resisting corporatocracy. Since leading the movement on HSU's campus, he said a multitude of young people have approached him, unaware of the reach corporate America has and the injustices prevalent on Wall Street. The Occupy movement constituted a space for them to meet and talk and criticize and develop a more thoughtful and informed opinion. This has been the movement's greatest strength - it literally appeals to 99% of Americans because it isn't Democrat or Republican. It is not Communist. It is not labeled aside from generating critique of our socio-politico-economic situation.
There are important theoretical justifications for Occupy Wall Street's not having a defined objective. According to Alain Badiou, "It is better to do nothing than to contribute to the invention of formal ways of rendering visible that which Empire already recognizes as existent." This is to say, for too long liberals have busied themselves with the hard work of taking action within a structure they'd like to re-think. This has led to the closing off of a truly radical break. It has also made their liberal actions tolerable and non-threatening to the State. To take a stance on corporate personhood, for instance, usually involves signing petitions and writing letters to Congress. A whole plan, modeled on similar campaigns, can be googled and carried out. The State (the Supreme Court, the Congress, the President, the CEO's) already knows that there are inherent contradictions and injustices in corporate personhood: such injustices are recognized as existent. The campaign to right those wrongs from within the system, keeps the system in tact. It prevents a true rupture or radical break from the framework that made corporate personhood possible in the first place. Even if corporate personhood were to be made illegal, this would be a minor victory, for the political framework has not been altered, and corporations will gain their power in other ways.
Zizek argues that we must become "aggressively passive". That is, if we focus too much on actions and give up a theoretical critique of our situation, we will be "passively aggressive." Our aggression will amount to no fundamental change. If we were to retreat and do nothing, focusing our energies on theory and knowledge, the time will more likely become ripe for serious change. It's strange to refer to the Occupy Wall Street movement as one that is passive because people are getting arrested and beaten, but this movement is fundamentally about passivity. It gets its strength from its non-violent nature, and it's demand to set up a public space for people to come in and talk, learn, argue, criticize, become challenged and to challenge, to theorize, and to imagine. It is doing the work that true progressives desire - a forum for radical change.
The time is not ripe for an agenda. First, consciousness must be raised.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
I Want - A Video by Anita Magaña
Here is a video my wife, Anita, when she was a film student at UC Santa Cruz. It's really well done and powerful. Check it out!
I Want from Anita Magana on Vimeo.
I Want from Anita Magana on Vimeo.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Zizek-Inspired Psychoanalysis of a 53%-er
I wanted to do a bit of a Zizek-ian analysis on a sign help up by a "53%-er." You can see the actual picture if you click here. His sign reads:
I am a former Marine.
I work two jobs.
I don't have health insurance.
I worked 60-70 hours a week for 8 years to pay my way through college.
I haven't had 4 consecutive days off in over 4 years.
But I don't blame Wall Street.
Suck it up you whiners.
I am the 53%.
God bless the USA!
I I don't know if Zizek would agree with my analysis, but even if he wouldn't, it might shed some light on something important (hopefully!).
The 53% movement, by the way, is the conservative response to the Occupy Wall Street movement. The premise behind it is that people need to take personal responsibility for their lot in life and work hard. They assume that the We Are the 99% movement is comprised of people looking for free handouts from Wall Street or the government. Instead of working to earn their money, they are gathering together and protesting with the sole purpose of taking what rightfully belongs to the wealthy, and stealing it for themselves. I think this generally captures the sentiment. Most signs held up for the 53% movement end referring to protestors as whiners or lazy bums.
An important place to start with this particular sign we are reading is with Zizek's concept of psychoanalysis, and ultimately with fetishism. For Zizek, we begin a psychoanalysis with the assertion that there is no Subject without the Social - "the field of social practices and socially help beliefs." Against the idea that we can isolate the subject and explore their individual experience, or their individual psychoses, we understand the Subject's trauma or neuroses within the context of external, actual social conditions. In other words, we cannot understand this marine outside of the social conditions that gave him cause to write his letter. This is often not how psychoanalysis is performed.
Zizek notes, with regard to the standard way psychoanalysis works, "Instead of the concrete analysis of external, actual social conditions... we are thus given the story of unresolved libidinal deadlocks; instead of the analysis of social conditions that lead to war, we are given the 'death drive'; instead of the change of social relations, a solution is sought in the inner psychic change, in the 'maturation' that should qualify us to accept social reality as it is. In this perspective, the very striving for social change is denounced as an expression of the unresolved Oedipus complex... Is not the notion of a rebel who, by way of his 'irrational' resistance to social authority, acts out his unresolved psychic tensions ideology at its purest? However... such an externalization of the cause into 'social conditions' is no less false, in so far as it enables the subject to avoid confronting the real of his or her desire. By means of this externalization of the cause, the subject is no longer engaged in what is happening to him."
So, it's important to note that psychoanalysis is best performed with an account of social conditions and the subject's desires in relation to such social conditions.
In Late-Capitalism, as we find ourselves currently, Zizek holds that subjects will typically maintain a cynical distance with social norms. It's likely this cynical distance is that which Lyotard was referring to in his musings about post-modernism: people see themselves as being past the grand narrative. We no longer believe in the great stories of history's march towards perfection, or some such fairytale. We see ourselves as critical thinkers, not swept into an ideology. As Zizek scholar Adrian Johnston notes, "Subjects acquiesce to a system of rules, norms, and conventions (i.e. a big Other) only so long as they are somehow able to sustain a minimal sense of sane selfhood or individuality vis-a-vis conceiving of themselves as skeptics reluctantly going along with the run of things amidst a herd of simplistic, gullible believers." This seems pretty typical. Occupy Wall Street protestors see themselves as free-thinkers, individually taking a stance against the herd - those 53%ers or that Tea Party or the Republican or Democratic parties or those dumb red states. Likewise, the 53%ers maintain their sanity by speaking out against a 'simplistic' group of 'whiners' and 'lazy bums' and 'dirty hippies' who don't really understand economics or Wall Street or those heathens who don't know god and are unwittingly led by the devil. If they weren't such sheep, they wouldn't be out protesting.
When the marine notes that he works two jobs, it's with an attitude of cynical distance - as though he, through hard work, forded a way to become independent of the system. While those in the herd complain, he works. And whatever Wall Street does, he will work. He sees himself as being independent of Wall Street's actions. While likely seeing himself at a distance from social norms, in actuality, he has conformed very nicely to the current strategies of Capitalist Liberal-Democratic Ideology. While surely maintaining a cynical distance from it in his conscious life, in his unconscious fantasy, he has found conformity bearable. He has found the rough life of 60-70 hours a week and the uncertainty that comes with having no health insurance a bearable reality. So, while I'm sure he would be offended if labeled a conformist (can you think of anyone who wouldn't be?), given his work-life and his acceptance of the status quo, he is absolutely a conformist. Zizek investigates how this is possible, and it brings us to fetishism.
For Zizek, fetishism is not unique to this marine, but is a cultural neurosis. So, as you read this, consider what you yourself fetishize. Johnston writes, "Fetishists... deliberately and knowingly 'enjoy their symptom'... The fetishist is someone who can, whether through stoicism or sarcasm, tolerate the harshness and difficulty of daily existence: 'fetishists are not dreamers lost in their private worlds, they are thoroughly 'realists,' able to accept the way things effectively are - since they have their fetish to which they can cling in order to cancel the full impact of reality.' However, if the fetish-object is taken away from the fetishist, this cynical facade of pragmatic realism disintegrates, plunging the subject into depression, despair, or even psychosis."
The marine is definitely a fetishist through stoicism. He tolerates a terribly difficult life by distancing himself from any feeling of dependency and just working and working and working. He is a 'realist' - the world is harsh and difficult and you can't count on anyone but yourself for anything. He's come to accept this world as it is. But that would be a devastating world to live in, so how does he tolerate it? With his fetish, which is work. He works like a madman. It takes up his time and gives him little in return, but as he clings to it, his work takes on purpose and the harsh world becomes a bearable world, one in which he can afford rent and food. Even as he comes home exhausted, he prepares himself for the next day's work because, as a worker, he can exist in the dog-eat-dog reality.
Now, imagine this proud man was diagnosed with cancer and he could no longer work 60-70 hours a week. According to Zizek's assessment, his fetish-object, which is intense work, would be taken away. His ideas about not wanting to rely on others for health insurance would no longer be held up triumphantly, but would be incredibly painful for him. He may not change his mind about it, but without his fetish, he would not be able to pretend that the world was bearable. His suffering would intensify, and his outlook would be depressing: "I can't afford to live in this world - I simply can't afford my medication." And perhaps his outlook would change with the removal of his fetish - perhaps he would no longer be accepting of the status quo: Johnston writes, "The implication is hence that if the relatively small salaries and various little techno-gadget toys of today's late-capitalist subjects were to be taken away from them, their pretense to being realistically accepting of the status quo would be dropped immediately." He would likely no longer see a justice in the dog-eat-dog reality.
Zizek is not recommending that we get rid of our fetishism. He maintains that fetishism is an important coping technique for us in the face of Ideology. But we need to maintain some self-criticism, and at times challenge the status quo. Especially in light of such a grim picture depicted by the marine, why not challenge that type of harsh reality? Why not face the tenuous structure of your lifestyle? Seriously, one bad injury or sickness and this man's world is shattered. It's completely reliant on the continuation of an insane workload. Will he be able to maintain those hours when he's 50 years old? And this really goes for all of us. How do we maintain sanity when we learn about sweatshops overseas or we hear about rain forests being chopped down to make space for growing sugarcane for biodiesel to run our cars? How do we keep our cool when we hear of oil leaks in the Gulf of Mexico when we know we buy food which travelled miles and miles and miles to get to our table? What fetish object in our life makes it bearable? And why has Occupy Wall Street taken so long to unearth? We knew millionaires weren't paying their fair share. What in our lives made it ok for their wealth to keep multiplying and multiplying at a disproportional rate to our own? How have we tolerated lobbying for all these years? Why did the breaking point take so long? I think the answer is clear: money.
For most of us, money is the ultimate fetish-object. Zizek argues just this. Consider, the Occupy Wall Street didn't happen when banks were bailed out because absurd unemployment rates were just getting started. Now people have not been working for a long time and their fetish-object, money, is looking more scarce. Driven to despair, the people are taking action. So long as we have money, and we can put that money towards investments that multiply it, life in late-Capitalism is pretty bearable. We can live with growing disparities between the rich and poor, we can live with industrialization, we can live with globalization. Granted, we maintain our cynical distance - we disapprove, we see ourselves as fighting the herd who would destroy this earth before giving up their gas-guzzling cars. But however cynical we are, so long as we have money, life is bearable. It appears that, if we are not to wait until a horrible crisis, revolution rests on psychoanalysis and self-criticism.
To the marine who is part of the 53%, your work ethic is admirable, but I sure hope we can do better than that.
I am a former Marine.
I work two jobs.
I don't have health insurance.
I worked 60-70 hours a week for 8 years to pay my way through college.
I haven't had 4 consecutive days off in over 4 years.
But I don't blame Wall Street.
Suck it up you whiners.
I am the 53%.
God bless the USA!
I I don't know if Zizek would agree with my analysis, but even if he wouldn't, it might shed some light on something important (hopefully!).
The 53% movement, by the way, is the conservative response to the Occupy Wall Street movement. The premise behind it is that people need to take personal responsibility for their lot in life and work hard. They assume that the We Are the 99% movement is comprised of people looking for free handouts from Wall Street or the government. Instead of working to earn their money, they are gathering together and protesting with the sole purpose of taking what rightfully belongs to the wealthy, and stealing it for themselves. I think this generally captures the sentiment. Most signs held up for the 53% movement end referring to protestors as whiners or lazy bums.
An important place to start with this particular sign we are reading is with Zizek's concept of psychoanalysis, and ultimately with fetishism. For Zizek, we begin a psychoanalysis with the assertion that there is no Subject without the Social - "the field of social practices and socially help beliefs." Against the idea that we can isolate the subject and explore their individual experience, or their individual psychoses, we understand the Subject's trauma or neuroses within the context of external, actual social conditions. In other words, we cannot understand this marine outside of the social conditions that gave him cause to write his letter. This is often not how psychoanalysis is performed.
Zizek notes, with regard to the standard way psychoanalysis works, "Instead of the concrete analysis of external, actual social conditions... we are thus given the story of unresolved libidinal deadlocks; instead of the analysis of social conditions that lead to war, we are given the 'death drive'; instead of the change of social relations, a solution is sought in the inner psychic change, in the 'maturation' that should qualify us to accept social reality as it is. In this perspective, the very striving for social change is denounced as an expression of the unresolved Oedipus complex... Is not the notion of a rebel who, by way of his 'irrational' resistance to social authority, acts out his unresolved psychic tensions ideology at its purest? However... such an externalization of the cause into 'social conditions' is no less false, in so far as it enables the subject to avoid confronting the real of his or her desire. By means of this externalization of the cause, the subject is no longer engaged in what is happening to him."
So, it's important to note that psychoanalysis is best performed with an account of social conditions and the subject's desires in relation to such social conditions.
In Late-Capitalism, as we find ourselves currently, Zizek holds that subjects will typically maintain a cynical distance with social norms. It's likely this cynical distance is that which Lyotard was referring to in his musings about post-modernism: people see themselves as being past the grand narrative. We no longer believe in the great stories of history's march towards perfection, or some such fairytale. We see ourselves as critical thinkers, not swept into an ideology. As Zizek scholar Adrian Johnston notes, "Subjects acquiesce to a system of rules, norms, and conventions (i.e. a big Other) only so long as they are somehow able to sustain a minimal sense of sane selfhood or individuality vis-a-vis conceiving of themselves as skeptics reluctantly going along with the run of things amidst a herd of simplistic, gullible believers." This seems pretty typical. Occupy Wall Street protestors see themselves as free-thinkers, individually taking a stance against the herd - those 53%ers or that Tea Party or the Republican or Democratic parties or those dumb red states. Likewise, the 53%ers maintain their sanity by speaking out against a 'simplistic' group of 'whiners' and 'lazy bums' and 'dirty hippies' who don't really understand economics or Wall Street or those heathens who don't know god and are unwittingly led by the devil. If they weren't such sheep, they wouldn't be out protesting.
When the marine notes that he works two jobs, it's with an attitude of cynical distance - as though he, through hard work, forded a way to become independent of the system. While those in the herd complain, he works. And whatever Wall Street does, he will work. He sees himself as being independent of Wall Street's actions. While likely seeing himself at a distance from social norms, in actuality, he has conformed very nicely to the current strategies of Capitalist Liberal-Democratic Ideology. While surely maintaining a cynical distance from it in his conscious life, in his unconscious fantasy, he has found conformity bearable. He has found the rough life of 60-70 hours a week and the uncertainty that comes with having no health insurance a bearable reality. So, while I'm sure he would be offended if labeled a conformist (can you think of anyone who wouldn't be?), given his work-life and his acceptance of the status quo, he is absolutely a conformist. Zizek investigates how this is possible, and it brings us to fetishism.
For Zizek, fetishism is not unique to this marine, but is a cultural neurosis. So, as you read this, consider what you yourself fetishize. Johnston writes, "Fetishists... deliberately and knowingly 'enjoy their symptom'... The fetishist is someone who can, whether through stoicism or sarcasm, tolerate the harshness and difficulty of daily existence: 'fetishists are not dreamers lost in their private worlds, they are thoroughly 'realists,' able to accept the way things effectively are - since they have their fetish to which they can cling in order to cancel the full impact of reality.' However, if the fetish-object is taken away from the fetishist, this cynical facade of pragmatic realism disintegrates, plunging the subject into depression, despair, or even psychosis."
The marine is definitely a fetishist through stoicism. He tolerates a terribly difficult life by distancing himself from any feeling of dependency and just working and working and working. He is a 'realist' - the world is harsh and difficult and you can't count on anyone but yourself for anything. He's come to accept this world as it is. But that would be a devastating world to live in, so how does he tolerate it? With his fetish, which is work. He works like a madman. It takes up his time and gives him little in return, but as he clings to it, his work takes on purpose and the harsh world becomes a bearable world, one in which he can afford rent and food. Even as he comes home exhausted, he prepares himself for the next day's work because, as a worker, he can exist in the dog-eat-dog reality.
Now, imagine this proud man was diagnosed with cancer and he could no longer work 60-70 hours a week. According to Zizek's assessment, his fetish-object, which is intense work, would be taken away. His ideas about not wanting to rely on others for health insurance would no longer be held up triumphantly, but would be incredibly painful for him. He may not change his mind about it, but without his fetish, he would not be able to pretend that the world was bearable. His suffering would intensify, and his outlook would be depressing: "I can't afford to live in this world - I simply can't afford my medication." And perhaps his outlook would change with the removal of his fetish - perhaps he would no longer be accepting of the status quo: Johnston writes, "The implication is hence that if the relatively small salaries and various little techno-gadget toys of today's late-capitalist subjects were to be taken away from them, their pretense to being realistically accepting of the status quo would be dropped immediately." He would likely no longer see a justice in the dog-eat-dog reality.
Zizek is not recommending that we get rid of our fetishism. He maintains that fetishism is an important coping technique for us in the face of Ideology. But we need to maintain some self-criticism, and at times challenge the status quo. Especially in light of such a grim picture depicted by the marine, why not challenge that type of harsh reality? Why not face the tenuous structure of your lifestyle? Seriously, one bad injury or sickness and this man's world is shattered. It's completely reliant on the continuation of an insane workload. Will he be able to maintain those hours when he's 50 years old? And this really goes for all of us. How do we maintain sanity when we learn about sweatshops overseas or we hear about rain forests being chopped down to make space for growing sugarcane for biodiesel to run our cars? How do we keep our cool when we hear of oil leaks in the Gulf of Mexico when we know we buy food which travelled miles and miles and miles to get to our table? What fetish object in our life makes it bearable? And why has Occupy Wall Street taken so long to unearth? We knew millionaires weren't paying their fair share. What in our lives made it ok for their wealth to keep multiplying and multiplying at a disproportional rate to our own? How have we tolerated lobbying for all these years? Why did the breaking point take so long? I think the answer is clear: money.
For most of us, money is the ultimate fetish-object. Zizek argues just this. Consider, the Occupy Wall Street didn't happen when banks were bailed out because absurd unemployment rates were just getting started. Now people have not been working for a long time and their fetish-object, money, is looking more scarce. Driven to despair, the people are taking action. So long as we have money, and we can put that money towards investments that multiply it, life in late-Capitalism is pretty bearable. We can live with growing disparities between the rich and poor, we can live with industrialization, we can live with globalization. Granted, we maintain our cynical distance - we disapprove, we see ourselves as fighting the herd who would destroy this earth before giving up their gas-guzzling cars. But however cynical we are, so long as we have money, life is bearable. It appears that, if we are not to wait until a horrible crisis, revolution rests on psychoanalysis and self-criticism.
To the marine who is part of the 53%, your work ethic is admirable, but I sure hope we can do better than that.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Thoughts on 'Occupy Wall Street'
We are now weeks and weeks into a growing protest called Occupy Wall Street. This protest has spread well beyond the streets of New York. It started as a protest that had to fight for publicity - the media, primarily controlled by the institutions the protestors criticized, gave them little to no attention. Still, it grew, largely on the back of facebook and other social media outlets. People had the means to provide the story themselves, and they did with still images, blogs, and video. When the police started spraying pepper into the air, the major networks could no longer ignore it. It’s now a part of America’s story as unemployment remains dreadfully high and the facts we already knew are being distributed: corporations and millionaires avoid taxes through loopholes and pay a FAR less percentage of their earnings than, say, a family bringing in $50,000 a year. Millions of people have a bigger mortgage to pay than their homes are worth and still more have no medical insurance. The economy is a mess, and people are demonstrating their frustration at Wall Street - that institution, through their effective lobbying, guaranteed their bailout even as their irresponsibility wrecked our economy.
I want to think through some important features of this demonstration.
First of all, this demonstration is a repetition. As we’ll see, that doesn’t make it any less unique and important, and not therefore impotent in effecting change. One substantial protest that comes to mind is the protest of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, Washington in 1999. As they are now, the big banking policies and the social consequences of such policies were passionately criticized on the streets. This protest is a repetition, signifying that when the streets of Seattle were brought back under State control, the critique was not, however, brought under State control. The call for justice and reform remained, emboldened even. I also see the protests and consciousness-raising with regard to Hurricane Katrina and the pathetic government response as an important repetition here. It further revealed the fragility of the State and helped solidify a critique in the minds of political actors (the people, not necessarily their representatives in government).
Philosopher Gilles Deleuze talks a lot about repetition. Drawing from Lacanian psychoanalysis, he argues that profound change comes about through repetition.
This is because, #1, repetitions do not indicate static sameness. Repetitions rather indicate the bringing forth of creative differences. That is, repetition, strictly speaking, is impossible. While we may use the same words to describe two repetitive occurrences (this being the Symbolic architecture), the repetition occurs under different circumstances that make it a more or less effective instantiation. The Seattle protests importantly focused on the World Trade Organization as it enslaved the people of poor nations through the means of debt and maxims of globalized economic policies, through the exploitation of their corrupted governments. It destroyed valuable habitats and it violently spread Capitalistic ideals against the will of the people. Today, the protest occurs as the local US economy is in shambles. The focus importantly rests on Wall Street and its exploitation of citizens of the United States. While a repetition, it engenders difference, and these differences become incredibly important.
This brings me to #2: As a repetition, we should be hopeful that our critique is not lost. People criticize the Occupy Wall Street movement for not having a specific goal. It serves more as a demonstration than a protest. This should not concern us. Often times, when lobbying for profound institutional change, the exact goals are never known, and that’s because, until the aftermath (until the State’s power is revealed as weak and vulnerable and open to a realignment), the old institutions reign. How can the goals of a radical movement be understood according to the old axis points? How can we explain the change we need according to the old lexicon? First, we need to deconstruct the Big Other (the State, the institution). The repetition serves to remind people that the State is not as powerful as it would have us think. When we see police act out, when we see arrests, when we imagine clandestine actions undertaken by the State, and when we see a strong counter-reaction from the self-declared “realists”, we will then recognize that the institution of Wall Street and two-party, lobbied, “democracy” exist only insofar as the people imagine it. The demonstration does not need an expressed goal yet - at this point it needs to reveal the State and Wall Street as a Paper-Tiger. The Wall Street bailout was not necessary (as we were encouraged to believe) insofar as we could have enacted profound institutional change. We could even rethink Capitalism. The real “goal” of the Occupy Wall Street movement will appropriately be defined in a literally New World. In Badiouian language, it will be a post-evental project. The “Event” will be the unprecedented shift in the political axis - an amazing change in the way we think economics and politics. Upon naming the Event and recognizing a profound change, subjects of that Event will go to work and define and work out the real project of the revolution. For now, as more and more dissatisfied citizens gather across the country, it suffices to say that this demonstration serves the sole function of revealing the points of vulnerability in the Big Other.
Does this demonstration constitute an Event? I don’t think so. But as a repetition, it effectively opens the space for an Event. We are in an age of Late-Capitalism. We know this because we are taught to despise revolution. Those people who would die for an ideal are simply insane. Why? - Because in Late-Capitalism, life is all that matters. Life is the highest ideal. And in Late-Capitalism, “life” means biological existence. We are asked to be satisfied with the fact that we are alive. As the discrepancy between the rich and poor widens and as people find their prospects for a good life diminishing, this call to be satisfied with biological existence is all that’s left to sustain The State. The conservative reaction to “We Are the 99%” beautifully embodies the ideal of life. In the “We Are the 53%”, poor people hold up signs which talk about how they work several jobs, 80 hour workweeks, they have no health insurance, they lost their homes, they are veterans and, after risking their lives, are thankful to have their low-paying job, even as it denies them benefits. They don’t blame Wall Street, they don’t want to re-think our political institutions. That is, they are happy to exist. This is the highest ideal. Those who are not satisfied with mere existence are labeled “Whiners” and are told to shut up. This is the truth of Late-Capitalism. When I read signs from “We Are the 53%”, I want to cry. Where is the critique of their situation? Where is their revolutionary zeal?
The fact that such a counter-protest exists indicates the effectiveness of the Occupy Wall Street campaign. The conservative response will of course be considered the “Realist response”, but it is a Utopian dream - an Idealist response that, upon seeing the State in its feebleness, clings to a nonexistent, unattainable stability. The State is ok. Wall Street is ok. The State will persevere. What they fail to recognize is that The State is never stable. As a repetition, the Occupy Wall Street is always brought out under different conditions, but always poking holes in The State’s machinery. We are reminded with this protest that profound change is imminent if we continue the fight.
I want to think through some important features of this demonstration.
First of all, this demonstration is a repetition. As we’ll see, that doesn’t make it any less unique and important, and not therefore impotent in effecting change. One substantial protest that comes to mind is the protest of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, Washington in 1999. As they are now, the big banking policies and the social consequences of such policies were passionately criticized on the streets. This protest is a repetition, signifying that when the streets of Seattle were brought back under State control, the critique was not, however, brought under State control. The call for justice and reform remained, emboldened even. I also see the protests and consciousness-raising with regard to Hurricane Katrina and the pathetic government response as an important repetition here. It further revealed the fragility of the State and helped solidify a critique in the minds of political actors (the people, not necessarily their representatives in government).
Philosopher Gilles Deleuze talks a lot about repetition. Drawing from Lacanian psychoanalysis, he argues that profound change comes about through repetition.
This is because, #1, repetitions do not indicate static sameness. Repetitions rather indicate the bringing forth of creative differences. That is, repetition, strictly speaking, is impossible. While we may use the same words to describe two repetitive occurrences (this being the Symbolic architecture), the repetition occurs under different circumstances that make it a more or less effective instantiation. The Seattle protests importantly focused on the World Trade Organization as it enslaved the people of poor nations through the means of debt and maxims of globalized economic policies, through the exploitation of their corrupted governments. It destroyed valuable habitats and it violently spread Capitalistic ideals against the will of the people. Today, the protest occurs as the local US economy is in shambles. The focus importantly rests on Wall Street and its exploitation of citizens of the United States. While a repetition, it engenders difference, and these differences become incredibly important.
This brings me to #2: As a repetition, we should be hopeful that our critique is not lost. People criticize the Occupy Wall Street movement for not having a specific goal. It serves more as a demonstration than a protest. This should not concern us. Often times, when lobbying for profound institutional change, the exact goals are never known, and that’s because, until the aftermath (until the State’s power is revealed as weak and vulnerable and open to a realignment), the old institutions reign. How can the goals of a radical movement be understood according to the old axis points? How can we explain the change we need according to the old lexicon? First, we need to deconstruct the Big Other (the State, the institution). The repetition serves to remind people that the State is not as powerful as it would have us think. When we see police act out, when we see arrests, when we imagine clandestine actions undertaken by the State, and when we see a strong counter-reaction from the self-declared “realists”, we will then recognize that the institution of Wall Street and two-party, lobbied, “democracy” exist only insofar as the people imagine it. The demonstration does not need an expressed goal yet - at this point it needs to reveal the State and Wall Street as a Paper-Tiger. The Wall Street bailout was not necessary (as we were encouraged to believe) insofar as we could have enacted profound institutional change. We could even rethink Capitalism. The real “goal” of the Occupy Wall Street movement will appropriately be defined in a literally New World. In Badiouian language, it will be a post-evental project. The “Event” will be the unprecedented shift in the political axis - an amazing change in the way we think economics and politics. Upon naming the Event and recognizing a profound change, subjects of that Event will go to work and define and work out the real project of the revolution. For now, as more and more dissatisfied citizens gather across the country, it suffices to say that this demonstration serves the sole function of revealing the points of vulnerability in the Big Other.
Does this demonstration constitute an Event? I don’t think so. But as a repetition, it effectively opens the space for an Event. We are in an age of Late-Capitalism. We know this because we are taught to despise revolution. Those people who would die for an ideal are simply insane. Why? - Because in Late-Capitalism, life is all that matters. Life is the highest ideal. And in Late-Capitalism, “life” means biological existence. We are asked to be satisfied with the fact that we are alive. As the discrepancy between the rich and poor widens and as people find their prospects for a good life diminishing, this call to be satisfied with biological existence is all that’s left to sustain The State. The conservative reaction to “We Are the 99%” beautifully embodies the ideal of life. In the “We Are the 53%”, poor people hold up signs which talk about how they work several jobs, 80 hour workweeks, they have no health insurance, they lost their homes, they are veterans and, after risking their lives, are thankful to have their low-paying job, even as it denies them benefits. They don’t blame Wall Street, they don’t want to re-think our political institutions. That is, they are happy to exist. This is the highest ideal. Those who are not satisfied with mere existence are labeled “Whiners” and are told to shut up. This is the truth of Late-Capitalism. When I read signs from “We Are the 53%”, I want to cry. Where is the critique of their situation? Where is their revolutionary zeal?
The fact that such a counter-protest exists indicates the effectiveness of the Occupy Wall Street campaign. The conservative response will of course be considered the “Realist response”, but it is a Utopian dream - an Idealist response that, upon seeing the State in its feebleness, clings to a nonexistent, unattainable stability. The State is ok. Wall Street is ok. The State will persevere. What they fail to recognize is that The State is never stable. As a repetition, the Occupy Wall Street is always brought out under different conditions, but always poking holes in The State’s machinery. We are reminded with this protest that profound change is imminent if we continue the fight.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Narratives Forgotten
Over the last year, I recorded this album. I released all these songs on my blog through soundcloud, but now it's been mastered and released as an official album. Each song tells some kind of story.
The Allegory of the Cave is an interpretation of Plato's famous story.
The Angry Customer draws from my experience working at a call center for Netflix. This man's story is the only way I can understand the anger that drives people to be so rude on the phone.
The McCain Blues is a reaction to John McCain's support of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" even as it was being abolished.
The Tea Party An(a)them(a) describes the wet dream of ultra-conservative politics - a world in which a person isn't required a sense of compassion and support for their community.
Do You Ever Think You'll Understand? was written a while ago. It was inspired by Three Cups of Tea by Mortenson.
The Anguish of Kyoto the Dog is written for Anita and my pup, Kyoto. It tells the sad tale of being put in a crate and being left alone.
Allison is written for my niece. It probably doesn't fit well on the album, but I think it's a catchy tune, and I wanted to pay tribute to this special lady!
Pinch Me Now was also written a while ago. It's dedicated to my wife, Anita.
And finally, The Creation and Destruction According to Mike is an inspired piece I wrote from God's perspective to explain Global Warming.
The Allegory of the Cave is an interpretation of Plato's famous story.
The Angry Customer draws from my experience working at a call center for Netflix. This man's story is the only way I can understand the anger that drives people to be so rude on the phone.
The McCain Blues is a reaction to John McCain's support of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" even as it was being abolished.
The Tea Party An(a)them(a) describes the wet dream of ultra-conservative politics - a world in which a person isn't required a sense of compassion and support for their community.
Do You Ever Think You'll Understand? was written a while ago. It was inspired by Three Cups of Tea by Mortenson.
The Anguish of Kyoto the Dog is written for Anita and my pup, Kyoto. It tells the sad tale of being put in a crate and being left alone.
Allison is written for my niece. It probably doesn't fit well on the album, but I think it's a catchy tune, and I wanted to pay tribute to this special lady!
Pinch Me Now was also written a while ago. It's dedicated to my wife, Anita.
And finally, The Creation and Destruction According to Mike is an inspired piece I wrote from God's perspective to explain Global Warming.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
The Start of Something
Anita and I are really excited because we now have a studio! We are planning on doing all our recording and mastering on our own, in our home. So, here was our first attempt at learning and using the software (Logic 9). It's a little jam we wrote as we went, inspired by a drum pattern I've had in my head for months. I'm glad to finally have done something with it so it could get out of my head and into the world where it belongs. We think it came out pretty well. Let us know what you think!
The Start of Something by tmhfband
The Start of Something by tmhfband
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Heteronomy, Autonomy, and Ethics
Heteronomy, Autonomy, and Ethics
In his book, Nietzsche’s Epic of the Soul, T.K. Seung makes a distinction between what he refers to as the heteronomous and the autonomous will. The heteronomous will is the perspective by which human beings see themselves as subject to thoroughly causal, natural influences and are therefore without the ability to self-govern. It’s from this perspective that science takes off on its project to find causal explanations for the things we do and even think. The other perspective, the autonomous will, refers to the way in which a subject has the ability to shape her destiny. This perspective attends less to a scientific approach of understanding human beings, and attends more to a phenomenological understanding - that is, it attends to the way human beings experience their actions and thoughts. In relation to ethics, whereas a cognitive scientist may understand a human being’s ethical actions as they relate to the agent’s environment, situation, cognitive style, physiology, and so forth, a phenomenologist would want to look at the agent’s reasons for doing as they did, which, unless the agent is a cognitive scientist, will probably not resemble anything like a scientific causal explanation.
Seung is right to point out that the two wills, the heteronomous and the autonomous, are opposing wills. They seem to conflict with each other. Some type of synthesis seems necessary if we are not to settle on an incomplete description of human behavior. As oppositional, the heteronomous and the autonomous wills do not provide such a description in themselves. Regarding heteronomy, if we accept a materialist’s account of the world as well as a strong version of the theory of cause and effect, it’s difficult to see a way out of theorizing that, due to our growing up with particular psychological and physiological components alongside particular environmental conditions, our actions are fundamentally decided. But the idea that we are fated to be who we are and act as we do is deplorable to most people because we feel a sense of autonomy - an ability to break out of the causal chain, or a sensation that we were never in it. Our autonomous will defies the idea of fate. In Seung’s words, “The hatred of fate is the most natural response of the individual will to the world because it is bound to clash with the unlimited power of fate. As long as the individual self defiantly asserts its will against the world, it has no chance of coming to love the cosmic self,” which is the heteronomous will (Seung 353).
The opposition between the heteronomous and the autonomous wills has recently captivated the philosophical work being done in ethics. Thanks to the work of neuroscientists and experimental psychologists, serious questions have been raised about the supposed autonomy of our moral behavior. Studies suggest that we may not be in as much control over our moral actions as we once thought. This is an important subject for scientists because the relatively recent work done in cognitive science that persuasively articulates the heteronomous ethical will needs to find ground amidst the work philosophers have been doing in ethics for over 2,000 years. At the same time, the recent breakthroughs in cognitive science need to be accounted for by philosophers if their theories are not to become dogmatic. William D. Casebear notes, “As we cast about for a post-Enlightenment normative anchor, if we are to prevent backsliding into dogmatic supernatural and non-naturalistic conceptions of the moral life, it is imperative that we demonstrate the possibility of intelligent, useful interactions between the human sciences and human ethics” (Casebear 1). This paper aims to explore the heteronomous will of ethics as well as the autonomous, and offers an approach toward their synthesis. Let’s begin by discussing the heteronomous will in ethics.
The experiments being carried out in the relatively recent history of moral psychology have indicated that the ethical behavior exhibited by human beings is causally related to wildly mysterious factors. The argument posited by many studies indicates that what ultimately drives us to act morally or immorally seems irrelevant from the point of view of the agent in question. Just like the moon influences the ocean’s behavior, apparently a good-smelling fragrance influences our likelihood to offer a person change for their dollar (Appiah 41). According to a study by Robert Baron and Jill Thomley, the scent in the air influences most individuals’ willingness to make change for a dollar. According to such findings, if you need change for your dollar, your best bet is to situate yourself outside a bakery than, say, a “neutral-smelling dry-goods store”. In another study, Princeton seminary students who’d just attended a lecture on the Good Samaritan story from the Bible were less likely to help a visibly distressed person slumped in a doorway if they thought they were running late to an appointment (Appiah 41). It’s suggested that these seminarians were not necessarily bad people, nor uncaring. It seems the causal factors in the situation did not lend themselves to helping. It seems their autonomous will was not resilient.
Such findings by experimental psychologists comprise what Kwame Anthony Appiah deems “the situationist’s challenge”. They make questionable the theories developed by duty and virtue ethicists, who seem to attribute ethical behavior to rationality and context-independent dispositions. Appiah writes, “these psychologists are... ‘situationists’: they claim... that a lot of what people do is best explained not by traits of character but by systematic human tendencies to respond to features of their situations that nobody previously thought to be crucial at all” (Appiah 39). Such findings challenge assumptions made in the history of moral philosophizing because they favor heteronomy over human autonomy. They challenge us to consider what morality refers to if our everyday decisions have a grounding in a physical situation and not a free-thinking, rational decision procedure.
Marc Hauser, Liane Young, and Fiery Cushman have been rethinking the operative principles and the causal structure of our moral actions. By making an analogy with Noam Chomsky’s “Language Faculty,” they argue that “(A)ll humans are endowed with a moral faculty. The moral faculty enables us to produce moral judgments on the basis of the causes and consequences of actions” (Hauser e.t. 107). They argue that, much like humans are endowed with a language faculty, which refers to the idea that “human knowledge of language must be guided in part by an innate faculty of the mind - the faculty of language,” so too must they be endowed with a “mental organ” that produces moral judgments. This “mental organ” is not physical like a heart, but it draws from the many physical components of the human make-up, such as a human’s memory system, which is necessary in the outputting of moral judgments. It then perceives events and analyzes them in terms of component features such as intention, agent, recipient, and harm, and it cognizes a scenario and outputs a judgment. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of this theory is that the outputted judgment comes prior to feeling emotion and prior to conscious critical reasoning. Thus, according to Hauser, e.t., when the Princeton seminarians passed by the distressed person on the side of the road as they hurried off to their appointments, their moral faculty analyzed the event automatically (or, unconsciously) in terms of their commitments, the distressed person’s well-being, and the importance of both, and most made a judgment to move along. Their feeling bad and their rational commitment (or non-commitment) to the Good Samaritan’s model came after such a decision was made. This model was created in light of studies carried out by experimental psychologists and philosophers. It suggests that our biology tells us more about our moral life than does our free will.
The theory makes the claim that the traditional models of moral judgment are incorrect, or at least highly suspect. Traditional models state that we perceive an event, we feel emotions and/or we reason, and then we make a judgment. Traditional models all assume a sense of autonomy - that we are free agents who determine, in one way or another, our moral judgments and actions, and are thereby responsible for those judgments and actions. It stands out as one theory among others that warrants a “situation” with moral judgment and action, not an agent’s free-will.
Of course, this tells only part of the story. Pertaining to ethics, we must recognize that these studies can’t provide the whole story of our moral lives. For one thing, it doesn’t do justice to the phenomenological characteristics of acting morally. As Appiah says, “(A)sk people why they do something and they’ll expect that you want not a causal explanation of what they did, but their reason for doing it - that is, what it was about the choice that made it seem a good thing to do” (Appiah 43). It should be noted that the situationist’s research focuses primarily on the majorities. Studies in moral psychology don’t tell us much at all about the 10% of Princeton seminarians who, despite being late for their appointment, did stop and help. Appiah comments, “perhaps that subpopulation really did have a stable tendency to be helpful” (Appiah 49). That is, perhaps there are times in which the traditional models of moral judgment and action tell the more persuasive story of our moral lives. Perhaps one’s character or ethical reasoning, adequately developed over time, can trump a situation’s influence. Of course, Appiah also notes, “or, for all we know, (the seminarians were) heedless of time and careless about appointments” (49-50). The point is that work in moral philosophy still seems important. It’s unsatisfactory to attribute all developments in moral thinking to a mere situation. We can take a note from Husserl on this issue - that the physical sciences will reveal certain phenomena, but they will also conceal certain phenomena. What seems indubitable is that moral philosophy cannot ignore the work being done in experimental moral psychology. The future project of ethics will be to take account of the research being done in psychology while also taking into account the phenomenology of our moral lives. We cannot afford to treat the two as unrelated. We need to carve out a program for their integration.
Just what kind of a program this will be remains an open problem in modern moral philosophy. It might be valuable for westerners to study Buddhist ethics to help rethink an approach. Buddhist philosophy is generally grounded in theories of cause and effect. In describing sentient life, Buddhists will refer to the Padicca-Samuppada, or the “Chain of Causation,” which describes twelve causal states of individual consciousness, each one determining the next. The first state is ignorance and it is the first of a chain of causation. From ignorance arises activities. These activities can be either moral or immoral and the agent performs them in ignorance, and so does not consider them in light of rationality or moral theory. Still, these acts will be causes of future unfoldings of self-consciousness. Arising from such activities is what Buddhists refer to as “rebirth-consciousness”. Roughly, it is an awareness of the past, and therefore refers to time as it’s linearly experienced. This causes a sense of body and mind to take shape. With the body and mind, we become aware of our senses. We could say that at this point the aestheses arise and make contact with an external world. Such contact leads to feeling - whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. All these states described arise naturally and, importantly, passively. They are effects of prior mental/physical events. Our robust sense of autonomy comes as the next link in the causal chain, although, as noted, this sense of autonomy is itself conditioned by prior causes. We start to crave the satisfaction of pleasant feelings and the avoidance of unpleasant feelings. We, for instance, enjoy the feeling of tasting chocolate. This feeling causes in us a craving for more chocolate. This craving causes a grasping, and Buddhists identify this act of grasping as the source of human suffering. We crave chocolate and so we grasp at it, mentally and/or physically. We become attached to the satisfaction of our craving for chocolate. Such grasping is also part of a causal chain, and so conditions the way by which we then engage with the world. A cognitive psychologist would find resonance in this idea because our grasping or clinging can effectively shape our cognitive styles of thinking and experiencing the world. Cognitive style refers to “a recurring pattern of perceptual and intellectual activity” (Lavenda). Significant work has already been done to show that a person’s cognitive style is in part causally determined. One’s going to school, for instance, can affect the range of cognitive styles employed in various tasks (Lavenda). That is to say, one’s experiences affect the variety of cognitive styles employed for different tasks. There seems to be a commonality that can be drawn here between these scientific studies and the Buddhist insight that grasping essentially conditions and causes future mental states. The final link in the chain of causation is old age and death. We can think of this “old age” and “death” as unwholesome mental states such as despair, lamentation, and grief. That is to say, cognitive styles conditioned by craving and grasping will themselves cause mental anguish (all this, see Williams 71).
The importance of the Padicca-Samuppada, in light of our discussion on ethics, is that it grounds human activity in a rich causal theory. However, the Buddhist concept of cause and effect is not to be understood according to linear causality, which refers to a one-way relationship between a cause and an effect (such as the following example is to be understood: cue ball A is struck by B, thus leading it to strike C which goes into the corner pocket). It should rather lay the groundwork for a type of compatibilism, where causal determination exists in the form of conditions that effectively shape mental and physical states. Should certain conditions be present, certain mental and physical states will naturally follow. However, through the act of mindfulness, or a conscious sifting through such conditions and a bringing to rise certain conditioning factors rather than others, these mental and physical states won’t necessarily follow. For this reason, the Buddhist causal theory can not be considered to involve a one-to-one relationship between causes and effects, but rather a mutual causality in which causes and effects are co-present and effectively influence each other. There is therefore a degree to which, in Buddhist ethics, the heteronomous and the autonomous will can be said to co-exist. While we are not in control of the conditioning factors (the causes) that shape our present experience, these conditioning factors are multiple, and we do have control, through mindfulness, to bring rise to healthy conditioning factors over unhealthy conditioning factors. Thus causes and effects are co-present, and they influence each other.
Let’s now deepen our analysis of how exactly this is possible. Buddhist ethics is woven within the Noble Eightfold Path, known as the magga, which outlines a way by which we can, through effort, attain freedom from unwholesome mental states. The magga includes eight interdependent steps, which are mutually supportive and followed simultaneously, that should (hopefully) aid in a subject’s release from unhealthy mental states as they are conditioned via the Paddica-Samupada. The first two are related to wisdom - that is, understanding the root causes of unwholesome mental states. In relation to this discussion, these two steps, “Right View” and “Right Thought” refer to a respect for the Padicca-Samuppada, and thereby the heteronomous will. The following three steps, “Right speech”, “Right Action”, and “Right Livelihood”, ground Buddhist morality. Phra Rajavaramuni notes that “Buddhist ethics is rooted in knowledge and effort based on knowledge” (knowledge of the “impermanent, conflicting, and not-self nature of things, and the dependent origination of all phenomena, that is, that all changes are subject to causes and conditions”), “not accidentalism or fatalism” (47). The last three steps, “Right effort”, “Right mindfulness”, and “Right concentration” refer to mental discipline. These steps, which involve the various meditation practices developed over thousands of years, effectively promote a state of mindfulness, thus developing one’s ability to bring rise to certain conditioning factors rather than others. All eight steps are incredibly important in Buddhist ethics, because they clear the space and methodology by which we can affect the causal chain and bring rise to healthy mental states as well as wholesome moral action.
Preceding the magga are two prerequisites, known as the pre-magga factors, “which indicate the conditions for the arising and the support for the development of all the magga factors” (Rajavaramuni 47). They include “Association with good people,” and “Systematic attention or reflection” (47). Rajavaramuni notes, “The two pre-magga factors... deal with the influence and effect the world and society can have on the individual. They stress what one can get from one’s environment, natural and social, through one’s dealing and relations with it” (47). The lesson to be learned here is that, so long as we accept a compatibilist causal theory, we admit that we have a certain amount of autonomy with regard to the kind of community we can become involved in and also co-create, which will help to bring rise to healthy conditioning factors. If the situationist is correct, our only chance to autonomously promote wholesome moral judgments and actions is by altering our situation. We can work to surround ourselves with “good people” and we can also develop mental attention and stability using techniques developed by Buddhist contemplatives, which would alter our cognitive styles, which in turn would alter the situation. In this way, we might find Buddhist ethics to be a source of inspiration to westerners struggling to relate the heteronomous and the autonomous will. The seminarians would have certainly been more likely to help the distressed person if they weren’t grasping at being on time to the appointment they were hurrying off to. Studying Buddhist philosophy could assist in relieving such craving, thereby altering the situation itself which, according to situationists, was at the root of the immoral action of leaving behind a person in need in order to be on time to an appointment.
I hope to have shown that if we are to synthesize the heteronomous and autonomous ethical wills, we will have to approach it such as I’m suggesting here - in affecting the situation itself, in virtue of the physical environment and also the cognitive styles employed by an agent. Buddhist ethics, with its grounding in a rich theory of cause and effect, and also its rich grounding in approaching ethics through wisdom, can provide valuable insight as to the methods by which we might do so.
Works Cited
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Experiments in Ethics. Cambridge, Massachussetts: Harvard University Press, 2008.
Casebear, William D. Natural Ethical Facts; Evolution, Connectionism, and Moral Cognition. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003.
Hauser, Marc, Liane Young, and Fiery Cushman. “Reviving Rawls’s Linguistic Analogy: Operative Principles and the Causal Structure of Moral Actions”. Moral Psychology, Volume 2: The Cognitive Science of Morality: Intuition and Diversity. Ed. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. MIT Press, 2008.
Lavenda, Robert H. and Emily Schultz. “Cognitive Style.” Oxford University Press, Higher Education Group. <http://www.oup.com/us/companion.websites/ 9780195189766/student_resources/Supp_chap_mats/Chap10/ Cognitive_Style/? view=usa>.
Rajavaramuni, Phra. “Foundations of Buddhist Social Ethics.” Ethics, Wealth, and Salvation, A Study in Buddhist Social Ethics. Ed. Russell Sizemore & Donald Swearer. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina, 1990.
Seung, T.K. Nietzsche’s Epic of the Soul, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2005.
Williams, Paul and Anthony Tribe. Buddhist Thought, A Complete Introduction to the Indian Tradition. New York: Routledge, 2000.
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