Re: shirtless helots & neo-asceticism

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

Lou & Doug:

>>>Marx himself deliberately pointed out the need to work out a system
>>>of needs, which has nothing to do with the neo-asceticism peddled in
>>>some circles as Marxist orthodoxy.
>
>Ascetism? How dare you! I am broiling a sirloin steak for dinner, courtesy
>of a Vinegar Factory gift certificate from Michael and Karen Yates. Yummy!!!

As it happens, postmodern masters _are_ neo-ascetics.  For instance, here's
Foucault's remark on asceticism:

*****  MF:  Asceticism as the renunciation of pleasure has bad
connotations.  But the _askesis_ is something else: it's the work that one
performs on oneself in order to transform oneself or make the _self_ appear
that happily one never attains.  Can that be our problem today?  We've rid
ourselves of asceticism.  Yet it's up to us to advance into a homosexual
_askesis_ that would make us work on ourselves and invent, I do not say
discover, a manner of being that is still improbable.  (Foucault,
"Friendship as a Way of Life," _Foucault Live_ [NY: Semiotext(e), 1989])
*****

In contrast to Romantic libertarians inspired by what he calls the
"repressive hypothesis," Foucault doesn't argue that the goal of sexual
politics is to "liberate sexuality from repression" imposed by capital &
the state.  He insists that our "sexual identities" - including "sexuality"
as such - are the production of what he rather vaguely calls "power" (a
notion that is more Weberian than Marxian).  In other words, he doesn't
subscribe to the dichotomy of natural pleasures and artificial restrictions
that is implicitly or explicitly presupposed by a libertarian argument.
(Foucault is no Susie Bright, you see.)  Hence his positive reassessment of
_askesis_ -- away from the modern notion of sexuality as the truth of the
self, toward the conception of the self as a work of art - near the end of
his life (see especially the third volume of _The History of Sexuality_:
_The Care of the Self_).  Foucault's later writings increasingly focus upon
ethics; he suggests that we take interest in ancient Greek morality, in
that he thinks it was "essentially a practice, a style of liberty"
(Foucault, "An Aesthetics of Existence," _Foucault Live_), unlike the
modern morality that concerns the state of one's conscience (deeply
influenced by Christianity, he argues).  An interesting idea, but Foucault
errs in his elitist thinking that to work on the self as if it were a work
of art _under capitalism_ can be a practice of liberty, instead of a form
of escaping into just another mode of individualism.  (I think his
suggestions are worth taking seriously in a communist society, however.)

Now, Lacan is another neo-ascetic.  To escape what he says is the danger of
becoming the "instrument of the _jouissance_ of a God," Lacan proposes that
we look toward several mythical figures of sacrifice and renunciation: the
figure of Socrates shying away from Alcibiades' desire & killing himself to
save the truth of Law; the Son who accepts the unfathomable ways of God
('Thy will be done!"); Antigone who doesn't give up on her desire even when
it means defying the State and choosing death; etc.  What interests Lacan
is not mundane desires and pleasures that concern utilitarians and (in a
different way) Marxists; his interest lies in the purification of desire
beyond fear of death.  Unlike Foucault who finds inspiration in the ancient
Greek ways of life (particular pleasures and ethical organizations of
them), Lacan's asceticism harks back to the most rigorist tradition of
Christianity & its obsession with Desire as an abstract category & how to
"traverse" it (even if, or especially if, "traversing" Desire means death).
A theme that is of interest to postmodern theologians, but inimical to
those of us who are of hedonistic persuasions.

Zizek's favorite philosopher besides Lacan & Hegel is Kant.  And it is well
known that Kant defines his philosophy of practical reason (concerning law
and morality) against utilitarian concerns with pleasures (= happiness):

*****   [The original contract] is in fact merely an _idea_ of reason,
which nonetheless has undoubted practical reality; for it can oblige every
legislator to frame his laws in such a way that they could have been
produced by the united will of a whole nation, and to regard each subject,
in so far as he can claim citizenship, as if he had consented within the
general will.  This is the test of the rightfulness of every public law.
For if the law is such that a whole people could not _possibly_ agree to
it?, it is unjust; but if it is at least _possible_ that a people could
agree to it, it is our duty to consider the law as just, even if the people
is at present in such a position or attitude of mind that it would probably
refuse its consent if it were consulted.  But this restriction obviously
applies only to the judgment of the legislator, not to that of the subject.
Thus if a people, under some existing legislation, were asked to make a
judgment which in all probability would prejudice its happiness, what
should it do?  Should the people not oppose the measure?  The only possible
answer is that they can do nothing but obey?.   (Kant, "On the Common
Saying 'This may be true in theory, but it does not apply in practice'")
*****

What matters for Kant is Law, not pleasures; and if the happiness (=
pleasures) of the people come into contradiction with Law, it is Law that
takes precedence.  What philosophy can be more ascetic - and more
anti-revolutionary - than Kant's?

To sum up, it is postmodern masters, not Marxists like us, who are
neo-ascetics.

Yoshie