Re: AUT: Statist Thinking

["Chris Hurl" <munkah@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wow. I hate to sound like a hippy, but bad vibes on this list, man... We should all get together and have a drum circle or something (hehe). Anyways, back to some attempt at productive discussion (err... at least for me).



It occurs to me that a productive way to approach the difference between critical Hegelianism and D&G is through the concept of "spontaneity".  Maybe this is misguided because I am not aware of any specific mention of this term in Hegel or D&G. Nevertheless, it has provided an important frame for my own understanding. So, what is spontaneity (if anything)?

It seems that from a Hegelian standpoint, spontaneity does not really exist.  What is understood to be spontaneity is actually the explosion of undercurrents that were previously repressed by the universal.  I am reminded of Montaldi's stuff.  The explosion of the Italian worker's movement as result of the movement of militants away from the universalized trade unions and Communist Party and into clandestine networks.  These networks remained largely invisible from the perspective of universalized power until their explosion.  The Italian workerists (ie. Montaldi, Alquatti, etc) attempt to trace and help expand these clandestine lines through their analysis.  Continuities are drawn and consequently the 'event' is deconstructed, viewed as the product of lengthy struggles.

On the contrary, it seems that from D&G's standpoint, the explosion of the 'event' cannot be reduced to these continuities, to these causal chains (I am thinking of their analysis of the May 68 event).  They argue against the 'historians', that the event is an opening of possibilities.  It creates a 'new subjectivity'.  This is not to say that it cannot be recuperated.  In fact, they argue that the New Deal was largely a response, putting enabling 'subjective redeployment' that was largely capable of coopting this movement.  In France, they argue that May 68 was never recuperated through 'subjective redloyment' and consequently a lot of people were left hanging in a system that did not fundamentally change.

But the thing to note here is the apparent novelty and autonomy of the 'event'.  The opening of possibilities is an altogether external moment and hence cannot be fully tied to the development of any sort of repressed undercurrents.

I guess from my perspective, this shows the different priorities that can be taken for activism for these two different standpoints.  From a critical Hegelian standpoint, importance can be placed on developing continuities, solid networks, undercurrents in struggle that are capable of providing an basis for action.  I get this sense in reading Harald's stuff on anarcho-syndicalism.

On the contrary, it seems that D&G's standpoint would focus on creating an 'event' (I know this language is problematic from this perspective insofar as creating an event cannot be reduced to causal connections).  It seems almost insurrectionary.  A war machine must somehow be established that is capable of continuously opening up new possibilities through its refusal to be subordinated the 'Statist thinking'.  I run into problems envisioning how this plays itself out historically in social movements.  In fact, it seems like this movement cannot be restricted to any single group.  Rather, this is more like a 'moment'.  (I am reminded of Bergson's idea of duration).

of course, I realize that in my analysis I have painted grossly oversimplified caracatures.  But I do find engagement with these ideas in terms of 'spontaneity' to be useful for me.

keep it real,

--chris





>From: Lowe Laclau <lowe.laclau@xxxxxxxxx>

>Reply-To: aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

>To: aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

>Subject: Re: AUT: Statist Thinking

>Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 04:03:40 +0100

>

>Chris, Others...

>

> > I guess my first question would be, how do you think D&G's thought have been translated into representative systems by people like Negri?  Because it seems that Negri borrows a lot of ideas from D&G but then integrates them into a more conventional historical material analysis.  It seems as though bits and pieces of D&G's thinking, those aspects that tend towards the representative, such as Deleuze's discussion of the Society of Control, are incorporated, but the movement in their thinking is lost.

>

>I'm not quite sure what you mean by "representative systems", but I

>tend to find Negri fairly (logically) consistent in his interpretation

>of Deleuze & D&Gian themes... but having said that, it is but one

>particular brand of interpretation and as such, I wouldn't maintain

>that there is only one way to make use of their work. For people who

>know D&G's work well, you can see that Negri really appropriated a lot

>from them, but most is elided, the same with his appropriation of

>Foucaultian thought. He doesn't mention it all the time, but lots of

>philosophers proceed like that. He puts them to use in his own

>particular way.

>

>As for whether the movement is not incorporated, mmm... I'm not sure.

>Perhaps one could say that about certain aspects of N's work, but in

>others it does seem present. I know I've mentioned Alma Venus, Kairos,

>Multitudes here before, but that book far more than any other is the

>most Deleuzian of anything he's ever written. A lot of the difficult

>portions of Deleuze's thought that N doesn't reconcille himself with

>in earlier work, finally develops there. Its profoundly Spinozan, but

>the Spinoza that Deleuze reads. Not the one that people before had

>cast to the waste bin. The only portion not stolen from Deleuze is the

>Multitudes section in which he tries to develop a complement to the

>notion of "desire". But I also think that the successive development

>from Marx Beyond Marx to Il Potere Constituente to all of the many

>papers that turned to focus on the relationship between language and

>the subjective development of the working classes are successive

>attempts at dynamizing his previously more conventional historical

>materialism. This is my understanding generally, though many people

>here seem to think I've far too generous a perspective of Negri.

>

> > What do you make of statements like the one below?

> >

> > "What Foucault constructed implicitly (and Deleuze and Guattari made explicit) is therefore the paradox of power that, while it unifies and envelops within every element of social life (thus losing its capacity effectively to mediate different social forces), at that very moment reveals a new context, a new mileau of maximum plurality and uncontainable singularization--a milieu of the event." (H&N, Empire, 25)

> >

> > Upon first glance, this appears to be a very Hegelian viewpoint, not much different than CLR James' statement that it is precisely when the State (or Party) comes to envelop everything that it ceases to exist.  But does this really reflect D&G's perspective?  It seems on the contrary that for D&G the process of "unification" has always been a diffuse affair.  From this perspective, it is not the process of unification that negates itself.  On the contrary, the constitution of a new context demands the constitution of positive machines, war machines that refuse to implode into the black holes of Statist thinking.  Perhaps, this is a problem with Negri, that the multitude is often reduced to the negative image of Empire.

>

>Hmm... good question, and good eye. It is a very Hegelian statement,

>and its terribly awkward. It also sounds much more like Hardt than

>Negri words. You can find the same argument that you're making in

>Hardts Withering of Civil Society paper. The use of the word "power"

>here isn't even completely proper to Foucault's use of it. "Power" for

>both F doesn't unify or envelop anything, its particular "diagrams" or

>"dispositifs"--that formalize particular relations and functions--that

>would do such things. But ok, thats not important. Hardt in that

>article tries to reconcille Hegel's philosophy of State with Foucault,

>and even throws around Deleuze's name a bit. I think its fair to say

>that any Hegelian bits you see in Empire or Multitudes will be his

>influence. Even in his fairly bad book on Deleuze he tries to draw

>upon the relation between the two, which is not common practice at

>all, and I think simply reflects Hardts interest in Hegel more than

>anything else. Hardt goes as far as to say that F's work on

>disciplinary societies is an "extension" of Hegel. It is clear that

>this would not be D's perspective at all. D very clearly in his book

>on Foucault reads F as deveping his "strategization" and theory of

>"strata" as a means of avoiding making "governement" synonymous with

>"the State". Hardts paper ignore all of this. Especially if you read

>the latter pages of his chapter on Foucault's discussion of Power,

>Deleuze without being explicit about it references Foucaults' struggle

>with Hegel. If you've never read it, F in The Order of Things says:

>

>"But to make a real escape from Hegel presupposes an exact appreciation of what

>it costs to detatch ourselves from him.  It presupposes a knowledge of

>how close Hegel has come to us, perhaps insiduously.  It presupposes a

>knowledge of what

>is stll Hegelian in that which allows us to think against Hegel; and an ability

>to guage how much our resources against him are perhaps still a ruse which he

>is usin against us, and at the end of which he is waiting for us, immobile and

>elsewhere."

>

>Deleuze reads a real break with the latter Foucault that Hardt just

>kinda glosses over. Some commentators on D's book even say that he's

>"rehabilitating" Foucault's work for him. But that suggests something

>I don't agree with, namely that Foucault's development should not be

>read as an entirety but simply by whatever books somebody conveniently

>wants to pick up by him. That would be unfair to what Foucault

>accomplished IMO.

>

>Anyhow, the point is that Hardt's analysis in that Civil Society paper

>is Foucault read for the sake of Hegel. The quotation you posted looks

>like the same, without mentioning Hegel. Interesting, but I never

>noticed that passage when i read Empire. Nothing in D's mentioning of

>the State would suggest the acceptability of this type of reading. An

>exteriority to government is always maintained and the state apparatus

>is always defined as an apparatus of "capture" of which war-machines

>always form field and form of exteriority.

>

>Now from the perspective of the development of social capital I can

>see the argument of the simultaneous development of singularization

>and plurality. Such an argument would not be different than that of

>Marx. And in this sense Negri's Foucaultian reading of Marx in MBM

>would not allow for the Multitude to be the negative of anything, but

>the prior resistance to which Power in turn reacts. I would like to

>give N the benefit of the doubt and say that this statement above was

>just the awkward wording of Hardt. But who knows. I'd have to look

>closer at what came b4 and after that section and I've already read

>too much today.

>

> > Now the concept of Negativity in Hegelian thinking, I have always found deeply problematic.  While I try to reconcile my empathy with a critical Hegelian analysis (a la Marx and Debord) with D&G's analysis, I always find that Negativity is the sticking point.  But to what extent is a critical Hegelian standpoint grounded in the Negative?

>

>Well, I would think that as with any philosopher, one can rehabilitate

>by virtue of what concepts one choses to pick up and what one finds

>unacceptable. Both N & D (or rather N after D) reject certain aspects

>of Spinoza, D's book on Leibniz gives the man a very thorough plastic

>surgery. Badiou calls himself a Platonist. Whitehead called himself a

>Platonist too. I don't know. Can one be a Hegelian without the

>Negative? I'm not sure its been tried yet. Derrida never gets beyond

>it, although he does do some creative things with him in Glas. But

>perhaps I'm giving the impression of it being a simple matter of

>"picking & chosing" when for each of these people it involves a very

>difficult process of setting out a plane upon which these people can

>be read consistently (logically consistant) and still give birth to a

>difference acceptable to ones own metaphysics.

>

> > I am critical of Debord, to the extent that his analysis of the spectacle does not seem to pay any attention to positive struggles and consequently risks imploding in the myopic viewpoint of the spectacle.  Likewise, it seems at times that Marx falls into the myopic viewpoint of Capital.

> >

> > And yet I think one of the virtues of Marx's stuff is that he moves towards a more positive position (contra Hegel).  Class struggle becomes a positive force, pushing Capital to expel the working class in the production process to the greatest extent possible through the introduction of machinery, etc.  Likewise, the situationist's stuff cannot be restricted to simply the spectacle, but rather they push through all sorts of positive measures (workers council's, etc).  It seems clear that capital will not simply generate irs own opposition.  This is fundamentally a backwards analysis.  Rather, capital itself seems to be a sort of black hole generated by the positive activity of workers.

>

>The black hole metaphor is interesting. I agree with what you're saying.

>

> > So then by beginning in struggle can the critical Hegelian perspective be reconciled with D&G?  I have doubts.  Yet it seems like both projects are opening onto a similar sense of praxis.

>

>I've never really thought about it. I still don't feel myself

>sufficient to comment really about critical Hegelianism except with

>respect to Marx, and in that case I'm not sure how a Hegelian Marx

>would relate with D&G. D in Diff & Rep seems to appreciate Marx's

>critique of "the Hegelians" for their abstractions of 'real movement'

>as well as his philosophy of repetition, and takes even more interest

>in an idea he draws out of Marx's materialism: the "social idea" as "a

>system of multiple ideal connections or differential relations between

>differential elements", but ultimately I don't think he sees this

>Hegelian Marx as ever really getting beyond this problematic of the

>Negative that lies at base of the issue of Representation in Hegel.

>Only in his work with Guattari (Guattari I believe being much more

>"literate" in the non-philosopher Marx) are they able to deal with him

>beyond Deleuze's earlier reading of him, but he's again the Marx

>without the Hegel that precedes Negri's Spinozified Marx. But this

>doesn't answer your question. I guess only someone who knows Hegel

>better than I do can answer that. I know Jon Beasley-Murray who lurks

>here also knows a lot about this stuff, if you can get him to talk.

>

>

>cheers,

>

>Lowe

>

>

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