Re: To Snob or Not to Snob

[ken <kenneth.mackendrick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 01 Jun 1999 22:58:07 -0400  Ralph Dumain wrote:

> > (KM) In this respect, H/A are quite aware that
epistemological limitation is the positive condition of radical
contingency.

> This sentence flies right over my head.

Adorno might have put it this way - dialectics is the ontology of
a wrong state of affairs...  Basically I'm saying that human
beings can know things, for certain, and what we know, for
certain, is this: we can't know things completely
(epistemological limitation).  This partiality, a blind spot, is
exactly what makes subjectivity possible (a "proper distance"
toward the object) (ie. "letting the object speak") (making room
for others).  This partiality is radically contingency, it is not
determined by historical forces (historicism) nor is it
completely free (idealism) (although, in ethics, the subject is
treated as through she or he is free).

> >(KM) What is more important for a critical analysis of
> >culture then, in this respect, is the way in which culture is
> >reproduced in accord with some Law-like structure
(knowledge for the sake of knowledge alone, progress for the
sake of progress, profit for the sake of profit).

> I don't believe culture is reproduced solely in this way at all.
I do think most of the contemporary Cultural Studies
infatuation with the "resistance" and "utopian" characteristics
of popular culture is BS, esp. since opposition has itself been
sublated into the dominant culture industry over the past
quarter century.  "Commodify your dissent!" as THE
BAFFLER says.  However, a large part of my historical
argument is to deny the most extreme implications of this
allegedly law-like reproduction.

"It's the *political* economy, you idiot!"  (Zizek).

Adorno notes somewhere in his notes on the culture industry
that culture is reproduced for its own sake.  This empty and
tautological phrase ('culture for the sake of culture') (which
means NOTHING) is then filled in with the sadistic and
efficient motor of industry - eliminating all 'pathologies' that do
not conform to the sharpened product.

I completely agree with you about the lunacy of resistance and
utopian characteristics as elements of popular culture.  Pop
culture thrives on contradiction.  Hell, isn't this exactly what
Calvin Klein has been pushing for the last couple years: ONE,
BE, CONTRADICTION (formerly Eternity, Escape, and
Obsession).  It's all postmodern:  Do what you want, use a
commodity to justify it, recognize that nothing matters, don't
believe anything (except this).

There is a logical irony with these law like statements though.
 Take "Knowledge for the sake of Knowledge" (the imperative
to "Know!")  If knowledge does not exist prior to the formal
statement (which is the only possible condtion of the
statement), then it is knowledge, precisely, that is prohibited
(the statement only informs one that there is a duty to uncover
knowledge, but what knowledge is remains unknown).  So the
statement also reads "You can not know!"  In other words -
tautologies prohibit the extremes - they prohibit exactly what
they demand one fulfill (this is the necessary and impossible
relationship that defines contingency).

> > (KM) This rather Kantian imperative (You can because you
must!) is, in Freudian terms, a manifestation of the death drive
-  the attempt by cultural forms, institutions, and subjective
ego formations, to realize themselves through an Other
(nature, myth, nation).  The identification with the Law then, as
an fidelity unto death (mimesis unto death) is a forfeit of
subjectivity and a betrayal of the idealist insights regarding
freedom since subjectivity itself is 'handed over' and placed
in the service, as an instrument, of otherness.

> I don't know what the hell you are talking about, and I don't
believe it either.  Now if you were talking in plausible terms
about the absoluteness of the ideological contours of certain
mass media products and the repression of critical thinking, I
would understand you.  I've been watching soap operas lately,
and the repression of "subjectivity" they enforce is damn
absolute.  But the Freudian death-instinct?  I think that's
bogus, man.

I'm thinking of H/A's reading of Sade here - the Sade is the
truth of Kant.  In other words - in the Kantian framework of
duty, others are reduced to objects for instrumentalization.
But what H/A miss is Lacan's insight, that in Kant the subject
instrumentalizes themself.  They become the instrument of the
will of the Other.  These two positions can be illustrated by the
movie In the Company of Men and the novel Dangerous
Liaisons.  In ICM Chad, the manipulator, simply uses Christine
for his (sadistic) enjoyment.  Simply because he can (ie. You
can, because you must!).  Chad's deception is purely
strategic.  In DL, Valmont manipulates Mme. Tourvel, but he
does so with her full knowledge that she is being manipulated.
 In other words, Valmont lets himself become the instrument of
her (knowing) will.  He subordinates himself to the will of the
Other.  This is what I mean by the "handing over" of
subjectivity ot the Other.  Whenver someone acts in the name
of God, Nation, or Neighbour, they are acting in the name of an
Other.  As Alenka Zupancic notes, "I'm not afraid of the man
who thinks he's a god, I'm afraid of the god who thinks he's a
man."

As for the death drive, this is speculatory.  But it runs like this
- if the law tells you to do X and you do X, then the law no
longer exists.  It disappears the moment X has been fulfilled
(ie. once you possess what you once desired, you no longer
desire it).  This is the death drive.  The attempt to fulfill desire
(eros).  Once fulfilled, it disappears (ie. you die).  It seems
plausible to me, esp. because it isn't the (false!) straight and
narrow (and insipid) reading "Oh, she killed herself because of
the death drive."

> > (KM) What H/A are attempting to accomplish then, is a
kind of critical reistance to well greased economic machinery.
Their thoughts on culture only make sense in this light - as the
attempt to think the imperatives of culture against
themselves.

> Why am I so skeptical of such a perspective?

Maybe this isn't what they are doing, and I've misunderstood.

> >Theoretically, what is forbidden in H/A then is precisely the
snobbery that is being discussed - a prohibition of "going all
the way."

> Meaning what?  I want to know if my suspicions are on
target or not.

When Adorno passes judgement on jazz, he's being a twit.
Not necessarily a in practice, but in theory.  The only possible
judgement that can be passed on something that is living and
breathing is an indefinite judgement (not-jazz).  Adorno
passes a negative judgement (get rid of jazz!).  Adorno's
negative judgement basically glides over the contradictions,
repress them, whatevA, and then packages whatever is at
hand (ie. set up the straw person) in a commodity form, put
words in its mouth, and knock it down.  Adorno could have
learned something if he'd read more vampire novels.

> >In other words - what, in theory, a critical theory seeks to
negate is the affirmative moment of culture (a fidelity to the
law).

> Affirmative culture?  Do I have this buried with my Marcuse
books?  Again, why am I so skeptical of this mandatory
negation of affirmative culture? Apparently, culture itself would
have to obey an imperative of negativity, or it would
automatically be part of the system to be opposed.  I don't
believe this.  In reference to music, I think it's utterly
ridiculous.  One would have to be at a complete dead-end to
resort to this, and at that point, why not just slit your wrists
instead?

Ok, I can only speculate at what is bugging you here - and I'll
put it crudely: it is culturally conservative to point your guns at
everything, because you never bother shooting down the
place that you live.  I agree - obedience to the imperative of
negativity (No means no!) is ridiculous (and pretty sadistic if
you think about it - critique as ongoing purge...).

I've tried to capture an alternative to this with the idea of
positive (the soul is mortal), negative (the soul is not mortal),
and indefinite judgement (the soul is not-mortal) (ie. the soul
is more or less than mortal but not not mortal).

ken