[The original idea for this text was that it would consist of only a few short notes that illustrate the problematic of writing on the internet; the planned brevity has however remained only a plan. The reality of writing this text has proved, on the contrary, a task that defies condensation. I would then like to warn the reader in advance; the length of the text is significantly longer than the other posts on ‘The Night Shift’ – the word count comes to about 3,500. I do hope that it does not make for tedious reading; even though I have tried to keep the text clear, there will crop up at times certain digressions which I hope the reader will simply indulge. Also, I have been working on this text on-off since the launch of ‘The Night Shift’ but I feel that instead of continuously refining the text (which could go on forever!) it has become clear that it is about time to just post it, so apologies for the errata.]
On the Narcissism of ‘The Night Shift’
Not knowing what he sees, he adores the sight;
That false face fools and fuels his delight.
You simple boy, why strive in vain to catch
A fleeting image? What you see is nowhere;
And what you love – but turn away – you lose!
You see a phantom of a mirrored shape;
Nothing itself; with you it came and stays;
With you it too will go, if you can go!
- Ovid
I would like to discuss here Narcissism. I would like to discuss more specifically the Narcissism of writing, that is, everything that is written here, under the title of ‘The Night Shift.’ I would like to set the text off by way of a general question: why do we desire to be seen, to appear? Before this question is developed, let me provide a sort of cursory definition of the term Narcissism. It has become common knowledge amongst academics that the term ‘Narcissism’ runs parallel to the works of Sigmund Freud (Oedipus would be another name that forms such an instant conjunction). The very reference to Narcissism is to a certain extent a theoretical reference to Freud; perhaps we would do better to think rather of Narcissus. This of course would suck us back into the academic realm we wish to maintain, momentarily, at least some distance from. Seen as though ‘The Night Shift’ is not limited by the confines of academia, it seems very plausible to think Narcissism without recourse to Freud (of course I will not feign ignorance of his thoughts on the topic, however, I do not think the thoughts I sketch out here require any knowledge of his work; which, I might add, leaves me open to criticism of the severest kind!).
By Narcissism then, I mean very broadly a relation of one’s self to itself; an auto-relation. This general definition is to be grasped on a preliminary reading the famous myth of ‘Narcissus and Echo’, to which we shall return (and from which the epigraph above is found). Narcissus’ fate is well known. Narcissus is blessed by the gods with a divine beauty that, paradoxically, carries and casts his miserable fate and his organic future (in the shape of a little flower). After refusing numerous advances of his enamoured country folk and the advances of supernatural beings (Echo the wood nymph), Narcissus catches a sight of himself in a pond and falls madly and dangerously in love, and yet, it is precisely this love that, for Narcissus, is unattainable. Through his zealous excessive auto-relation Narcissus effectively commits suicide (by over-exhaustion). It will be important to forge a distance from the negativity that the immediate interpretation of the myth points towards. Indeed Narcissism is directed unhappily towards self-annihilation. But through a re-interpretation of what the effects of self-annihilation could lead to, maybe we will come to an understanding of the myth that goes beyond positive or negative. Let us turn back to our concern: why do we desire to be seen, to appear?
Perhaps, more than any other technological system, the Internet has radically globalized this desire for appearance. It comes as no surprise that ‘The Night Shift’ then, takes the form of a website in which readers can enter at any time and choose to participate more actively (in the form of contributions) or more passively (by simply reading the texts provided – passivity is perhaps the incorrect word). Let me state clearly here that I do not valorize the former over the latter; the question of the law that governs the distinction between active and passive would no doubt have to be raised (it would consist primarily in the analysis of conceptual apparatus’ that determine oppositional thinking and more importantly how the subordination of one term over another has come about). This may turn up as a point of discussion another time. Let us for the moment stay with the promise of a discussion on Narcissism.
Why does the advent of ‘The Night Shift’ ‘come as no surprise’? It is precisely because the desire for appearance has, arguably, reached its nadir in the form of the Internet, which in turn harbors within it the very desire for globalization. Doubtless, the word globalization here slips in very easily into the lexicon that accumulates on the pages of this website; that is, a lexicon that privileges a Marxist vocabulary. Indeed, it is a word that has grown and developed out of certain Marxist trends. However, we should not necessarily understand globalization in the immediate sense of the term. Perhaps what is meant is rather the imaginary potentiality of an event that expands the length, width and depth of the globe. As such, ‘The Night Shift’ would be an expression of globalization (both the great texts of the major monotheist religions and the Manifesto of the Communist Party would likewise be similar expressions). If our text then operates around the general field of Narcissism and by now, the question of appearance, will and desire, we must ask the following: Whence the desire for globalization? This is an ostensibly simple question. To answer dogmatically (that is, simply), Capitalism, is to veer slightly off the mark.
It is incontestable that the activity and process of globalization can be examined within the frame of a critique of political economy, starting of course, with the critical analysis of the system of capitalism. But does this standpoint gain enough critical distance, or, a fortiori, is it possible to gain critical distance when one is caught within the immanence of the system one is trying to displace? Things are perhaps all too close to us, to human society; thus the generation of critical distance appears as an impossibility. If critique is a matter of proper distance from the reflexive object of criticism itself (what is meant by distance here: physical or ethical?), then it is absolutely necessary to take some distance from the Marxist schema that dominates the pages on ‘The Night Shift.’ This of course is not a disavowal of its injunction and the imperative to think with Marx. It is necessary however to examine and interrogate the prevalent theoretico-metaphysical presuppositions of Marx’s thought itself (for example, the Metaphysics of Labour, the Metaphysics of the world-view as presupposed in the eleventh thesis on Feuerbach [A German ‘materialist’ philosopher writing between Hegel and Marx who had, momentarily a strong influence on the humanist dimension of Marx’s thought], which if the reader is not familiar with it goes as follows: “The philosophers have interpreted the world, only in various ways; the point is to change it”), that is, its ideologies (by ideology I understand simply as a metaphysics that does not understand itself as such). Political economy offers only one way of approaching the figure of globalization. Another way is to consider, historically, pre-capitalist societies in order to begin to locate something called, generally speaking, the will to globalization.
I hope that the reader will forgive the following abstract assumption and I apologize in advance but I would like to keep the economy of this text to that of generality for the moment. The assumption is as follows: from the earliest formations of society, it has become clear that present within these social formations lies a certain will to globalize. What is meant by this phrase? The will to globalize is quite simply the collective drive and desire to dominate; a desire that is born out of the social antagonism of the event of the recognition of the very social itself. In the most general schematic, the social is recognized as such when one self-consciousness is attained; that is, when a being thinks itself as such (a being). This self-consciousness is only possible however through the passage and dependence of another self-consciousness (whose experience is reciprocated). One cannot say ‘I’, cannot mutely point to oneself, one cannot even think ‘oneself’ without the constitutive presence of another. Put very simply, no one is born independently; we all enter into family, which is, if anything, the most immediate articulation of the social (this immediacy however does not make the family a natural social structure or foundational it is simply the most familiar form of the social). This interdependence then is itself the very expression of social antagonism. However, what is presupposed here is the political figure of freedom. There is only antagonism insofar as freedom is the goal of the struggle to be recognized as self-conscious. This struggle for freedom is at times dangerous, often leading to death. Death, that is, the cessation of the very relation between one and its other, is the absolute annihilation the social. Thinking, technology, advancement, looks very small in light of the destruction of the solar system (one could even restrict this comment to the earth if one considers the global consumption of the earth’s natural resources, the systematic destruction of the ozone layer, the melting of the ice caps, etc.). And yet, on occasion death is not feared. History’s rhythms clearly illustrate that death is often the most valorized form of the affirmation of the social; this is a difficult paradox to come to terms with: the annihilation of the social is its living affirmation (I think it will be absolutely necessary to provide a systematic critique of the drinking habits of society, especially, the drinking habits of the economically advanced; but if the reader requires more historically ‘concrete’ examples, one need only look at the practice of human sacrifice of the Aztecs, the funerary rituals of the Ancient Egyptians and the practice of circumcision in Judaism and Islam).
This deathly (not dead but a living phenomenon veering towards death) affirmation of the social is of course analogous to the love Narcissus faced in the reflective occulus of his limpid tomb. Like all tombs, the body is not only housed within its structures, but the body and the self are liquidated (Ovid’s genius [Ovid – 43BC-17AD – was a Roman Poet whose most famous work is perhaps Metamorphoses, from which the poem of ‘Narcissus and Echo’ derives] is intensified when we consider the locus and form Narcissus’ tomb takes). Our tomb here is without question, cyberspace; a structure that, like the drowning waters of passion, liquidates space, time and, more importantly for the text here, subjectivities or how we come to understand the subject. Let us ask again ask the primary question that mobilized this text: why do we desire to appear? At the conjunction of the figure of Narcissus and the desire to appear, the problem is complicated. If, like Narcissus, we do not ask why we desire to appear, we simply restlessly and anxiously believe in the reality of ourselves, we then desire, in a depth that Narcissus perhaps secretly intuited, our disappearance. Disappearance, the culmination of the deathly desire for appearance, occurs when the waters are unrippled. The still pond marks the absence of Narcissus and perhaps – and this time I stress the word perhaps, the accent placed on the rhetorical trope of speculation which remains more innocent than mere rhetoric – it is only through a certain absence of Narcissus that we can operate. And yet, why do we desire to appear? A fortiori why do we write on the virtual wall of ‘The Night Shift’, which surely accelerates a Narcissism of the most grotesque kind? Perhaps the answer lies in the concept of desire. Desire is something that we have been referring to a lot; but what is desire for it to produce a certain modality of appearance?
On the one hand, we could argue that desire is determined by nature, or rather, by a natural relation. The human as merely conscious being is a rather weak entity in the ferocious world of nature. Before he understands himself as ‘man’ or ‘being’, he (should we say ‘it’?) is subject to the harshest realities of the natural world: he must take cover from the capricious weather; he must satisfy his hunger and thirst; he must establish a dwelling in which to rest, etc. The natural world as such is as of yet not the reflexive object for man, it is rather the subjectivity that subjugates man to a moment of mere objectivity. The natural relation determining desire constitutes man’s immanent will to survive. On the other hand however, this natural relation itself is overcome at the very point of desire, at the moment of its own appearance. Desire is as such a productive agency that allows for the manipulation and configuration of the world itself. It is what allows man to think; it is the primordially instigation of thought. Nature and thought cannot be separated: desire is what forms the relation between them. Between the two intertwining definitions, desire produces Narcissism. More abstractly, desire is the Narcissistic production of the human and the world it inhabits. Desire then begins to form a chain in which production, Narcissism, thought and Nature are links.
Maybe it is about time we considered Narcissism closer, taking as our point of departure here, the short cursory ‘definition’ provided at the very beginning of this text. Writing is a practice of Narcissism. All the more reason precisely because Narcissus (the mythical figure) could not write anything. The water of the pond is impenetrable; it remembers nothing, it traces nothing, which, in a way, means that Narcissus has no memory of himself or his deranged love (this lack of memory is perhaps what infinitizes Narcissus’ love, in so far as it springs new each time the pond calms and the image that reflects back is sharpened). Writing on the internet (websites, blogs, emails) is a very modern phenomenon. Indeed, writing is a peculiar activity, but perhaps the human is not alienated from its technicality. We understand writing as an extension of ourselves which has the power of recording the very relation of the self to itself. This is the Narcissistic core of writing. The Narcissism of the writer is intensified when within the time of a blink of the eye (how fast is information transmitted onto the internet now – the mere click of the button; this is not a cliché any more, it is quite simply the truth, the practice of writing on computers and working with the Internet) – that is, the time of Narcissus – the writings of the writer return to the writer himself in a moment of pure Narcissistic pleasure. The writer in the restricted sense of the one who contributes to the webpage – as I do here – is a Narcissus of the most intense form. In less than a second, a text that took hours, days, weeks, maybe even years to compose, is reflected straight back to the writer who in the same instance transforms, metamorphoses into a, or rather, the reader; the tightness of this circularity, of this economy of the exchange, is at times disquieting. It strikes the writer, who is nothing but the reader, as worrying as when the voyager lost shouts into the empty valley to hear nothing but the echo of his/her appearance. We notice here that Narcissism is not reducible to an image.
The experience of Narcissism does not just refer to an image or picture in the restricted sense of the word (which means that it can of course refer to images). The Narcissism that interests us here takes the form of a modality of a return to something that is attributed to the self; in this instance, I am interested in the use of writing and the use of names. The Narcissism of the writer as touched upon above is redoubled in the event of the signature of the name; that is, all our posts are named, either from the beginning or at the end. From this we could ask: is it possible that all our endeavours on ‘The Night Shift’ are secretly (but not too much) driven by a longing to see ourselves return onto the (virtual) page? Let us not think that this would be a reduction! The work, thought, vignettes, notes and texts archived and collected on ‘The Night Shift’ is to a certain extent irreducible precisely because of the Narcissism involved; that is, my question (part provocation part sincere) only performs a reduction if we understand Narcissism in the reduced (often negative) sense of the term. The task of Narcissism (would it even constitute a ‘task’) could no be re-appropriated methodologically. What I mean is, Narcissism, or at least the Narcissism that we are trying to develop, or, more precisely, trying to witness, to take account of, could not be molded into a determining, technical ethos or procedure that could at once offer itself up to infinite repetition (the consequences of this would clearly lead to the different and distinct institutional forms and contexts of disciplinarity we face daily). This leaves the necessity of mastery asunder: the force of Narcissism must be left un-mastered; or rather, the very force of Narcissism is un-masterable.
How to un-master our relation with Narcissism? Maybe we need more time. Maybe the process of slowing down is required. This tempo-dynamics does not immediately appear possible within the virtual reality of cyberspace. Certainly, let us not disavow Narcissism. Maybe it requires redeeming somehow. The difficult question that arises here is that of the mode of presentation: is the website the best way of presenting the ideas that ‘motivate’ its injunction to be, that is, to appear somehow? Or does it operate too immanently within the dangerous circularity of a Narcissism that desires only its annihilation? Have we sufficiently interrogated this desire to appear? Perhaps we should think to communicate otherwise, slower; this would derail the insistence of using the Internet all too destructively. As a slight digression, I find it very interesting today that on a cultural level we think it inconceivable that one did not have access to the Internet; this appearance of inclusion is perhaps an illusion, an illusion that neutralizes the voice of another. The Internet is maybe not the (technological) ground for our commonality; it is something that is maybe not shared.
Consequently, it is another modality of the will to globalize, which, appropriated a certain way, could form into the will to dominate which is a will that would always require the active subservience of its other. One would have to provide a systematic critique of this mode of communication (does it even communicate if communication is the affirmation of commonality?). Communism, in its historical forms (which was once fashionably referred to as ‘Soviet style communism’), has been superseded. But, the trace of its injunction is clear and has been re-inscribed in the promise of democracy: to build a politics on a common foundation. This is why, the specificity of our current historical conjunction is so volatile: perhaps the question of the environment, the consumption of the world, gives us a chance to re-think politics and the politics of commonality. What else do we share absolutely other than the totality of the geo-physical world (even though we, as of yet, do not share it equally; nevertheless, the dominance of hegemonic political powers are established on the resources of the world and once it is emptied of its source, death is imminent)?
This, in a very peculiar way, always comes back to the deathly figure of Narcissus (sharing, commonality, start with division, antagonism). That is, a return to the micro-politics of the relation of the self to itself, which, more than anything, is not a process of individuation, rather, it is the development of an ethics that tries to first describe how and why the self relates which could result in nothing but the affirmative de-individuation of the self or the proliferation of the self as many selves.
Hammam Aldouri
Re-inscribing this article:
Before I can respond (based on my idiotic, half-baked understanding of such statements), I feel like I should ask a further question, because in the economy/tendency of this blog I would now begin to post this article on facebook and elsewhere so as to be read an attract viewers…but is this not to subsume the blog to the very narcissism, to reduce it to a singular element in a system that uses and mobilises the heterogeneous (the diverse) to its own ends? Ie, this post asks questions and is it simply to ignore them in posting this blog everywhere on the net without really thinking it through myself? (this very action is, of course, what I – amongst others – claim that capitalist ideology serves to do to all elements of social interaction, no matter how diverse).
It just struck me…
This is a great, difficult post. What I think I’ll do first of all, for my own Narcissistic benefit and for that of the other Narcissi, is to attempt to rearticulate what you’ve written – to make sure I understand it. I’ll respond to it properly when I’ve had more time to think about the massive issues at stake.
You begin by posing the question: why do we desire to appear/ to be seen? This is then linked to the problematic of Narcissism, which you define as the relation of one’s self to itself – an auto-relation. Somehow, this auto-relation is linked to self-annihilation (i.e. Narcissus drowning). But we mustn’t assume that this self-annihilation is a good or bad thing, since that remains to be seen.
The internet has globalized this desire for appearance. The internet also harbours a desire for globalization itself. So that which harbours a desire for globalization has globalized the desire to appear and be seen.
At this point there’s a brief digression on Marx. Marxian political economy is only one way of understanding globalization. The Night Shift has been far too reliant on Marxist terminology and ways of thinking and hasn’t sufficiently questioned their presuppositions.
Globalization is not simply a modern phenomenon. If we understand the will to globalize as the collective drive and desire to dominate, then we can see that globalization arises at the exact moment of the appearance of the social itself. In other words, sociality itself is a form of globalization.
How so? For a self to become a self – i.e. to become self-conscious – requires the recognition of another self. The coming into being of self-consciousness, which is the birth of sociality since it requires the recognition of someone other than myself (an other self mediates my self back to me), institutes social antagonism. It does this because in order to win recognition from the other requires a struggle for freedom. And sometimes the struggle for freedom, the struggle to be recognised as a self-conscious being, entails either the death of myself or of the other. Death, the asocial absolute, in a bizarre turning of the tables, becomes the ultimate sign of sociality.
This is analogous to Narcissus’s self-annihilating self-love. (Somehow, wasn’t entirely clear to me how). You then go on to define desire. Essentially it seems that desire is a kind of negativity: it first arises when I no longer remain passively manipulable by my immediate environment, when I first force myself back against the forces of nature. Consequently, desire (or negativity) is a form of productive agency and constitutes the capacity for thought itself. A resistance to the world which forms the basis of my manipulating it, the transformation of man as object into man as subject. Because of this, desire produces Narcissism – the relation of a self to itself. (Though I’m not entirely sure this follows logically from the nature, thought, desire linkage. What’s the difference between a conscious man and a self-conscious one?)
Writing is a practice of Narcissism. Here at The Night Shift we are prey to an extreme form of Narcissism. Having spent hours or days on a text, after just one click we can immediately bask in the glory of seeing ourselves there on the virtual page, the shift from writer to reader being almost imperceptible. This is essentially a form of ‘literal’ (in the sense of letters and writing) masturbation. We fool ourselves into believing that we alone are capable of constituting a single ‘I’ – one which requires no mediation through any other ‘I’. We believe that the ‘I’ we send out is exactly the same as the ‘I’ we receive, and the gratification we experience on reading our own writing – like sniffing one’s own farts (as Stephen Fry once said), or providing one’s own sexual pleasures – is an illusory pleasure.
How do we get out of this intellectual wanking, beyond into a territory which avoids the bad side of Narcissism? (The good side, it should now be clear, is that the destruction of the self at least ends the illusion that that self was immediately immanent to itself, a full self capable of self-plenitude without any other self needed). Here you suggest that the internet may not be the way forward. The internet, which harbours a desire for globalization (and globalization – so it turns out – is secretly a form of Narcissism, an attempt to homogenize the whole of reality under a single totality, leaving no remainder; here, the US would be the Narcissus par excellence) may well not be capable of constituting an appropriate medium. If we could increase the time between writing and public appearance of that writing, perhaps we could avoid the circularity of Narcissus. For the common to be possible at all, we cannot be Narcissi. We must pause, stop our Marxist political clamourings, and go back to the modest domain of the ethical – of seriously thinking through how the self relates: hopefully this could become an ethics involving the affirmative de-individuation of the self or the proliferation of the self as many selves.
In order to respond, I would have to understand precisely the relation between the elements of your argument. It seems to me that there are four basic elements (though there may be more):
1. Narcissism – the illusory attempt to achieve a pure auto-relation which is free of the other.
2. The Social – self-consciousness which only comes about via a deathly affirmation (i.e. potentially destroys the other)
3. Globalization – a collective will to dominate contemporary and coextensive with the social itself.
4. Internet – globalized desire to see or be seen, to generate a pure auto-relation.
What is the relation between these four elements? Is it one of causality? If so, which one causes which? Is it one of analogy – in the sense that all four are ‘essentially’ the desire for pure unmediated auto-relation? If so, how do you reconcile your implicit Derridean non-ontology, or self-differing/ self-deferring presence, with a logos capable of such essentializing ‘analogos’?
Secondly, why do you define the internet solely in terms of the desire for appearance? Surely there are myriad other ways in which one could define it: as a solution to the capitalist necessity constantly to increase space and decrease time? As a means of access to information? As a more modern embodiment of systems of communication – for families and friends to stay in touch, for example? As a means of political organisation? Why reduce all these to the desire to appear? Why stifle such dizzying heterogeneity under the yoke of such an essentializing raison d’etre? Is this not to globalize a single argument to the point of Narcissism?
Thirdly, I agree with the idea of narcissistic immediate gratification on seeing one’s work appear before one on The Night Shift. This is the main point I think we need to overcome.
Fourthly, is not ‘the affirmative de-individuation of the self or the proliferation of the self as many selves’ what we already have? What if what used to be a desire to eradicate the Other in its constitutive role in producing my self has, via shifts in the mode of production, now become a desire simply to have a self at all? What if on a daily basis I struggle to hold together all the selves which society splits me into? What if multiplicity and difference is what we already have, and in order to overcome this we should rather attempt to forge the Same?
In other words, to replay the old record, how distant is an ethics of pure proliferation of self from a certain form of capitalist self-proliferation?
If someone asked me to point them in the direction of a prime example of narcissistic intellectual wankery, then I’m afraid to say that this discussion would definitely be my choice. I do love the irony though.
John, funny you should say that. Terry and I were discussing last night whether or not we should jokingly put that very comment up already under your name!
Well, glad that I didn’t let you down then.
haha, well technically you let me down because my money was on the ‘irony’ comment being in the first sentence rather than the second!
What can I say, I’m unpredictable.
I stand by what I said though, this discussion is absolutely pseudo-intellectual monkey-spanking of the highest order. I hold a begrudging admiration for the ability to write the way that you fellas do, despite the fact that reading it makes me want to poke my eyes out with a soldering iron.
I did my best to simplify it in my first comment. But I don’t know the philosophy well enough to do so fully. There’s a famous passage in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit called the ‘Master and Slave Dialectic’ (or at least that’s what it’s become known as. Should point out that it’s been crucial for Marxism and revolutionary movements since it was written – going right up to colonial liberation movements in the late 20th century. So clearly some people seem to get something from it). That’s where all the self-consciousness bits come from. The stuff on Narcissus is from various texts by Derrida, but again I don’t really know them that well. My understanding of it is a sort of instinctive one, rather than one I could communicate clearly.
But, as I say, I did do my best with my current levels of comprehension to rewrite the main points. It took me 3 and a half hours (from roughly midnight to 3.30a.m.) which included reading the post 3 times, taking notes, and checking tens of references.
It comes down to something like this: The Night Shift’s form (i.e. a blog on the internet) is in danger of making us unwittingly reproduce certain ways of thinking and behaving which help capitalism rather than hampering it.
I do feel slightly embarrassed that Dan you put that much time and labour into the response! Saying that, I do feel he provides an excellent ‘summing up’ of the central ideas; I was however under the illusion that what I wrote was quote clear. Anyway, I would like to respond to some of the comments and questions raised.
First to Dan (seen as though he provides the most to tackle); I will try and break it down point by point.
1: “desire produces Narcissism – the relation of a self to itself. (Though I’m not entirely sure this follows logically from the nature, thought, desire linkage. What’s the difference between a conscious man and a self-conscious one?)” – This is a very difficult point to clarify, and you are absolutely right in pointing out that this is the point that would require developing; I am more tempted to argue that desire producing Narcissism can also be read the other way round thus dissolving the ‘anterior’ relation that desire holds over Narcissism. Therefore, we could say ‘desire is Narcissism’ in so far as desire in the capacity of a natural relation is already a certain relation with the self; I am always struck by children’s behaviour and sometimes think that they provide a good explanation of what I mean. For example, the child who throws a stone in a pond is excited, one could argue, because s/he immediately identifies with him/herself as the ‘author’ or producer of the ripples in the pond. The child is not alienated from the action but rather experiences the opposite. This moment of identification is perhaps, to come to Dan’s parenthetical remark, the transition from consciousness to self-consciousness.
2: “What is the relation between these four elements? Is it one of causality? If so, which one causes which? Is it one of analogy – in the sense that all four are ‘essentially’ the desire for pure unmediated auto-relation? If so, how do you reconcile your implicit Derridean non-ontology, or self-differing/ self-deferring presence, with a logos capable of such essentializing ‘analogos’?” – Again this is a very difficult question. Before I try to answer however, I must admit that I am somewhat lost by the part on ‘Derridean non-ontology’ and a ‘logos capable of such essentializing…’ I sort of get what you mean but I am not sure I really want to second guess! As to the first question, the answer comes at first, negatively: there is perhaps not a central or primary causality that could ground the thoughts on Narcissism. Of course, I have tried to show somehow that these relate in the circularity of concrete reality and subsequent interpretations; there is however not a primary principle on which to establish the argument. If anything, what comes ‘first’ is the antagonism at the heart of consciousness, of, very generally, ‘man and the world’, which is already in the thought, man and man’s idea of the world…it is very hard for me to provide a lucid answer for this at the moment, but I will try to come back to it later (it doesn’t look like I will be able to answer anything!).
3: “Secondly, why do you define the internet solely in terms of the desire for appearance?” – I am not sure I did, but if I did then of course I don’t think that the Internet is reducible to the desire to appear; saying that though, I do not think that this desire is a reduction. I do however like your examples of the alternative and other uses of the Internet which I actually think, all somehow come back to the desire to appear: increase of space and decreasing of time (the shift to tempo-dynamics is however the supersession of space in the Internet…I am not sure whether ‘space’ actually figures in the Internet as a material or concrete phenomenon…this is actually a question for those who know more about the net, I have a suspicious feeling that I could be radically incorrect!), especially, the shift in time, is in a way the shift in the time to relate to the self – it’s as if the tempo-dynamics of the Internet wanted to simulate the time it takes to think or intuit; ‘access to information’ and ‘family and friends staying in contact’ – I am not exactly sure how they are otherwise than Narcissism – if it is the experience of the singular self that accesses the net – that is, me reading myself writing up this response at this moment – then you will have to convince me how these things are not bound up with the desire to appear.
4: “Fourthly, is not ‘the affirmative de-individuation of the self or the proliferation of the self as many selves’ what we already have?” – Formally, yes, but only formally. There is however more and more evidence today to suggest the opposite. I don’t think the Internet divides and proliferates the self; it could only do if it was in fact a ‘free space’; this freedom however is only a simulation (maybe this applies for freedom in general though). More and more we are ‘signing up’ to things under the authority of names, addresses, dates of birth, etc. Border control is getting tighter, immigration policies are getting more perverse, identity cards are still in the wings in England (but are used in some countries), bank accounts, mobile phone registration, university degrees, etc. I can’t remember where he said it, but I read somewhere that the Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google) once said that he [Google] wanted to know more us [we who use the Internet] ourselves than we actually did ourselves.
5: “how distant is an ethics of pure proliferation of self from a certain form of capitalist self-proliferation?” – yes, but only if this ‘ethics of proliferation’ was un-critical.
Second, to John: I really would like to know what exactly makes the discussion ‘intellectual wankery’; this could be a number of things (tone, style, mode of presentation, lack of coherence, diction, content, etc.).
As to ‘irony’, I hope that irony is not seen as a superficial thing that feigns ‘sophistication’; I think we should take irony seriously (yes, yes, this would be ironic).
As to Terry: your suggestion leaves me blinking as I am not exactly sure what you say…on the other hand, I await your response.
Oh yes, I forgot to add a final point at Dan’s first response: I don’t think it is necessary to ‘postpone Marxist clamourings’; this would not only be ridiculous and regressive, but also impossible. I would just like to highlight that like all praxis, a specifically Marxist one is open to criticism. To’ postpone’ or ‘suspend’ the metaphysical assumptions of certain Marxist thoughts, then yes, perhaps this is necessary but only to try to come to terms with what is at stake in the irreducible body of work signed by Marx.
I guess ‘intellectual wankery’ is somewhat relative to our expectations. Obviously you guys don’t think this is intellectual wankery because you clearly find this discussion a lot more important than I do.
I don’t see any alternative to the internet based form that we are currently adopting, because of our respective locations and the need for us to be able to think about what we write before we write it. So assuming that we stick with the blog, I trust people to challenge me if they really think that my thoughts are forced by the medium. I’d rather get on and discuss things that we can do. In the future I’ll just bypass these discussions and let you guys enjoy yourselves.
Apart from that, if you believe that your first post was an easy read then all I can say is that either my patience, my intellect or my grasp of the English language (or all three) is somewhat deficient in comparison to yours.
I don’t think that I said I thought what I wrote was easy, I though that it was clear; ‘thinking’ in this respect means that I of course could be wrong. And please let us not reduce the discussion to rhetorical tropes such as your last comment.
I sympathize with the weight you place on the practical side of things, but you do prefix this imperative with ‘discuss.’ Now, if it is necessary to think about things before we do things – and our contemporary consciousness is perhaps constituted as exactly that – then the space provided here is to do exactly that. If, however, the pages here are dedicated solely to a relaying of information after the event, that is, ‘today I did not buy a pair of shoes that I did not really need and this is how I did it’, then yes, I think you are absolutely correct in bypassing discussions such as this one (of course I think the worst thing you could do is bypass the discussion; i actually like the tone you use sometimes as it works as a fresh angle on the ‘academic tone’ that sometimes some of us slip into; saying that however, I wish that more was added to qualify some of your frustrated comments). However, if the pages are not necessarily dedicated to a kind of ‘prescriptive politics’ then it strikes me as important to have discussions, even if at times they lead into difficult terrain.
‘Discussing things to do’ is a very large field and I actually like that you use it. For example, should we discuss the convention of marriage, the sexuality of children, the implications of religious belief, the rights of homosexuality, the grotesque ‘corporealization’ of those effected by disease/famine/natural disasters, etc, biomedical ethics, etc? Before I even reflect on these things, a voice answers yes. One question however, before getting to the point of all the above, asks after the law that governs the duty to say ‘yes’. That is, what is it that says yes before any reflection? Perhaps it is something called ‘Justice.’
The problem then is the following: is ‘Justice’ something to do or something to think? If it is something to do prior to thinking or discourse, then surely man is perfectly capable of doing it and has been doing it since his evolution from his ape ancestors. But if ‘Justice’ is not essentially innate or immanent to man (and I am of course not saying it is not, I don’t know), then who or what is it that made it? And if someone made it, can we take account of what they did? If this account can be made, is it sufficient for how society has developed today? Basically, the questions start to multiply and questioning becomes something ‘to do’.
By way of another example, let us take everyone’s favourite intellectual: Marx. How would you classify Marx’s early ‘de-naturalization’ of the social order (feudalism)? Is what he did a ‘doing’ or a ‘thinking’? It took of course a great critical mind to come to something as seemingly simple as the de-naturalization of the social order, something we on occasion understand as given. Marx, one could possibly argue, did not ‘do’ very much, other than write books, get drunk, accumulate economic and social debt and become somewhat politically disillusioned (I stress somewhat). On the other hand, his reflections on the capitalist system provided a ground on which to think modes of subversion and political resistance. He did however not think of all of them! How did he ‘do’ this? Sat in the British Library reading and thinking for a very, very long time.
Now I am not saying that the figure of Marx is exemplary here or that we should all aspire to do what he did. There are just some things that are much more complicated than what kind of food to buy, how to learn how to fix a computer when it crashes, etc. Of course I do not disavow the necessity to think these things. I just use them momentarily as a counter-point to illustrate that there are somethings that occur at a psychical or more subterranean level; for example, how we relate to one another, which, on a very general level, the post above began to touch on.
Please do not avoid discussions that immediate strike you as insufficient or futile. I guess I can only ask this much of you.
I like you’re last post, you say some very sensible things, and more importantly ask some good questions.
In my previous comments I am indeed being a bit crass. Of course you can’t seperate ‘thinking’ and ‘doing’ into two neat piles.
For me, in terms of what we discuss, the end justifies the means. I want the ultimate goal of our discussions to be to inspire people into new modes of action. I can see already as I type that the counter-argument for this is that we need to inspire people into new modes of thinking aswell. But I can’t see this particular discussion going much further than paralysing people with a confusion about their motives for contributing to discussion.
Anyway I have no right to tell other people what they or should not deem necessary to discuss. I’m just concerned that we will end up being a small group of men who spend hours and hours of our valuable time doing nothing more than essentially disappearing up our own backsides.
Which leads me onto exclusivity (and I must stress this is not aimed at hammamaldouri specifically). Some people have been bemoaning the fact that on the whole participation in this forum is limited to a small number of us, and more so that we are predominantly men. I still don’t think we’ve decided who we’re looking to attract. As someone who has academically done nothing in the humanities (apart from a few music essays) since the age of 16, I find many of the posts in this forum unbelievably difficult to follow.
Marx is much easier to read than some of the stuff you guys write. You throw around fairly obscure terms (by my standards) so casually that I am constantly scrambling for a dictionary. As far as time permits I try to work at it because I don’t want to be ignorant, but its hard. You take a phrase like (picking one at random) “implicit Derridean non-ontology” and offer it to 99 out of 100 people, and you will get the blankest of stares.
So I pose the question, who is The Night Shifts for? The cognoscenti? I know the idea of ‘dumbing down’ always seems abhorrent, but how exclusive do you/we want this little club to be? If we simply want to retain the ‘elite’ then this forum will of course be an elitist one.
I hate it when people use “your” / “you’re” in the wrong way. I now hate myself (see third word of my last comment).
Yes, I think the question is a good one as in a way it covers most of the points you make your last post to which I would like to respond.
First, I think a very important problem in moving towards you final question of who the Night Shift is for is the problem of the means being justified by the end. I like this logic a lot; not necessarily however because it is a hermetically sealed solution, but precisely because it presents its own weakness and fragility as a way of thinking about ‘style’, ‘mode’, ‘rhetoric’ etc, which, from the ‘end’ that you present in your last post (that of inspiring people to action – the stress is put on ‘inspiration’ here), is one thing at stake. To put it simpler, the inspiration is as strong as its rhetoric. By way of example, let us consider the idea of equality.
On the one hand, there are some, due to an exposure to certain systems of thought and/or to certain historical circumstances, who believe that the political world should take as its primary principle universal equality. Very schematically, universal equality would mean that no person could obtain rights over another and consequently neutralize or subordinate the other. And, more importantly, this principle would be properly universal and its signification would be open and accessible to all who inhabit the world. On the other hand, there are those who think the very opposite of this; the unfolding of history shows that it is the former politics that has prevailed leading to social antagonism. I think one can become quickly arrogant in such a situation; the arrogance is marked by a certain moment of ignorance. What is ignored is the other side, as if its position was, by fact and by law, an error. Arrogance is the illusion of a ‘higher position’, that is, the position that judges the other’s politics as an error – and how far have some gone in the fixing of the other’s politics as an error? At times, the other’s politics are absolutized (to take the most obvious example: German National Socialism being defined retrospectively as absolute evil). Arrogance here can offer, on occasion, very murky images. It is very possible that the standpoint that one maintains in so far as it ignores its opposition, and let us say that this standpoint is an ‘end’, is (a) false in itself and (b) nothing but an illusion and therefore has no real or possible content.
How can this be proved? First, we must understand things in the world as being interdependent and interconnected; the arts, philosophy and science all somehow adhere to this; to take an example, evolutionary biology is the science of the study of the interconnection and development of nature and in some specific branches, the development of man; man, according to evolutionary biology, did not appear ex nihilo or created by a deus ex machina as a totality in himself. Second, the interconnection of all things is not necessarily a happy coincidence or a harmonious existence; the interconnection itself is generated by a series of antagonisms (be it atoms in space or social antagonisms). Antagonism can perhaps be reduced to the relation between differences. Movement is generated by this clash of difference (on a global scale, the electrical current of the world and on a local scale, the muscles move by the excretion of inhibitory and exhibitory motor neurons). Society likewise can be understood as a movement. Its movement is generated physically (the movement of tribes from warmer to cooler climates) or the psychical or relational movement of thoughts, discussion and argument.
(I hope this doesn’t sound patronizing; I understand fully that what I say, a lot of people know and I do realize that I generalize on occasion, I just want to lay things out clearly, demonstrating how I get to the point of the difficulty of thinking ‘ends’; so apologies for the tone!)
Society is antagnoistic because it is in relation to difference. However, this relation is only as such in so far as the social is dependent on the difference and is in fact constituted by differences. Therefore, to go back to my example of the ‘good’ politics and the ‘bad’ politics, they are in fact interdependent and one cannot annihilate the other (which would of course lead to the annihilation of everyone). If this interdependence is consequently the very genesis of the world and the social, by what law does the law of equality universalize itself? More importantly, how can something like equality becomes universal if the thought itself is constituted by the antagonism of difference?
First, one should not ignore the fact that the very concept of ‘universal equality’ has been written under the authority of certain powers at certain historical conjunctions. Second, and this may strike the reader as banal or an easy thing to overcome, but perhaps we should not ignore that ‘universal equality’ is written in the English language, or, more generally, in ethnocentric languages (Latinate languages, Germanic and Ancient Greek, which over the last few centuries has determined the very centre of Europe even though politically and historically it was in a more complex relation with what is called the ‘East’ these days). I don’t think that something like Esperanto will save all our problems. On the contrary, I think that a universal language is impossible precisely because of the force of difference that generates it. Now we are condemned to communicate through language and language is generated by the tensions of differences, how can we universalize ideas such as equality or ‘democracy’ or ‘rights’, etc.? And furthermore, what would a world of universal equality be? Perhaps it would first be a world without antagonism, which would be the very annihilation of the world (that is if we argue that the world is generated by the antagonism of differences).
Faced with such a problem one can quickly become either a fatalist or a nihilist; both would consequently destroy thought and action. On the other hand, perhaps it is productive to take as a primary principle the impossibility of a primary principle, precisely because the primary principle could only be as such through a subordination or ignorance of its difference. Politics then, in stead of choosing between ‘right’ or ‘left’ would be a production of differences and a multiplication of the production of ‘ends’ which would always understand themselves as inherently insufficient. There can then not be one end, that is, the inspiration of people into action, there are many ends, some of which could be dead ends (excuse the pun, but I think it works here).
To whom the Night Shift is for would be a question that will enter into this circular argument and face similar limitations. Of course, this does not mean that it is not a question worth asking or thinking about; on the contrary, I believe that putting something through this circular mode of argument and critique is an expression of the necessity to think these problems and is a response to the imperative to ask them. This mode of argument allows one to look beyond what comes as most immediate (which, over the last few decades, has constituted, one could argue, the de-politicization of the social). Therefore, with the question of to whom is the Night Shift written one could answer immediately, a reader known and a reader unknown; when I write, I can anticipate the reader on the other hand, what I write is picked up by a reader I do not know. This answer can at times be problematic in so far as it suspends thought and action precisely because what is ostensibly ‘known’ works as a given presupposition; that is, I believes, without question, that you are there to read this, I do not think, on an immediate level, the conditions that allow you to read what I write. How do I know you are healthy, read English, will be able to follow what I say, have access to the Internet, live in a society were ‘free thought’ can be used as a dictum, etc.? I can’t actually know these things for definite so I just write without making the assumptions that you will not understand what I say, or speak the same language as I do, etc. Why? Because at times it feels necessary and at times it feels adequate and at times because one is obliged or invited and at other times because I want to read it myself.
Perhaps politics is not something ‘over there’ in the real world, but rather it is performed in these blogs and posts. I don’t actually know, and I can only really speculate. On the other hand, it seems possible to open up certain ‘ends’ that are presented, to look at things in different directions, in suspending certain things that appear as ‘necessary’ (I stress ‘certain things’).
Maybe I have gone on too much.
I’m out.
John, I’m not convinced by your ‘I’m out’. There are a few reasons:
a) Hammam’s points are very interesting and the idea that we are working towards multiple ‘ends’ is an important one to consider. I urge you to reread a few times more, because there are somethings that have direct consequence upon our action. ie, whether we assume our possition to be the correct one, whether we feel the end we’re aiming for is one amongst many etc. And these issues reflect quite strongly on how we act right now, especially upon how we treat others who act differently to ourselves.
b) ‘I’m out’ assumes you were in in the first place, and I’m dubious about this. Again for a few reasons.
i) despite a few complicated terms (‘ex nihilo or created by a deus ex machina’) this comment isn’t too unaccesible I’d say
ii) Your statement is quite affrontive, for surely silence would have implied you being ‘out’ – instead your statement was itself a statement implying more that ‘i’m out’. Or so I read it. This is a great example of form doing more than content (as it happens), since the form of acting when action was simply not necessary to convey the message (of being ‘out of the conversation’) implies something extra – distaste, for instance….this leads me just to a last point of…
iii) is it necessary that all elements of The Night Shift be available to all members/readers? This seems to come down to Hammam’s point of ‘equality’. Do you think that everything should be available to everyone? I do not want to assume here. But if difference is the very construct of social relations, then surely The Night Shift should have space for this difference…
***
I ask these questions / make these points because I think that whilst Hammam might have a style that is at times difficult to grasp, what he is saying ISN’T beyond our grasp, and if we keep working we can try see how these things are applicable to our actions (which I tried to do in point a) and hence to the purpose of this blog…
(I wasn’t sure whether to put this as a new post altogether or not…) I’m not really gonna respond to specific points, but I just wanted to try and outline some problem areas.
Firstly, let’s remember how the Night Shift started. It began after a discussion between Joe and I in which he communicated to me his despair with the liberal Left (think Guardian columnists) and his increasing political hopelessness and a general sense of being ‘lost’ in life. I suggested we set this up to bring together people like him (and John seems to be one of those people), plus people in various industries with concrete inside info on how certain things function, and how they might function in an alternative society. It was meant to combine these 2 groups with students, who may as well here be referred to as the ‘theorists’ amongst us. The latter were meant to help rearticulate how we approach certain problems, the former were meant to provide the facts on how things stand within specific workplaces. Together, this was meant to lead to new forms of political action.
So, the target audience was originally ‘disillusioned lefties’. But this soon transformed into ‘universal’ – i.e. anyone should be able to come on here and understand everything. Why did this happen? Because in order to bring about any radical social change, large numbers of non-highly educated people must be well-informed as to how the world functions and be able to organise themselves as they see fit.
What’s been happening in practice can be seen from two perspectives: subjectively and objectively. Subjectively, what’s been happening could be described as personal disagreements over who we’re aiming The Night Shift at and what we want it to achieve. Objectively, what we’ve been witnessing could be described as the results of the ‘mental division of labour’. Just as in society generally there is a broad division of labour – engineering, education, military, agriculture etc. – and within the factory there is a different type of division of labour – one person pours the sand into the machine, the next controls the machine itself, the next packs the sandpaper into packets etc. – so there has also arisen a ‘mental’ division of labour: here, it is broadly that of the humanities as opposed to the sciences. If we were to look at this difference carefully, I’m sure we’d find there’s no fundamental opposition, but in practice what’s arisen is this: those trained in the humanities seem more concerned with posing the right questions, with framing the problems in the right way, which entails a rigorous questioning of each and every concept which might guide our actions; the scientists, on the other hand, seem more concerned with finding pragmatic solutions to problems they assume to be unproblematic (i.e. they don’t reflect on the potential redundancy of the questions they pose themselves), with getting something done.
What’s important to remember is that this opposition arises precisely because of our common enemy: capitalism. We need only remember figures like Aristotle, Aquinas etc. to remind ourselves that throughout many stages of human history it has been more than possible to acquire and act out a knowledge which comprises each and every facet of human life. Perhaps the last person of whom we could say that this was so is Hegel (or maybe Marx?). So the ‘sciences’ and the ‘humanities’ are not NATURALLY separate – they have been separated via the manner in which capitalism has grown to structure society. The arguments we’re having, then, are partly due to an enemy which unites us.
These are just a few vague and maybe unhelpful comments which lead to these questions/ comments which I think we need to think through:
1. Who is The Night Shift for? (and this needs to be definite)
2. John’s right about normal people not being able to understand much of what’s on here. That leaves 2 possibilities: either we make part of our ‘campaign’ the making people make the time to understand (which I half agree with but which seems pretty arrogant, as if our ideas are the best and worth understanding – by what criteria can u judge that?). Or we write in a way that’s immediately understandable. Which isn’t ideal either (not because I want to write in a deliberately obscure manner, but because some of the stuff I want to write about is difficult).
3. We need to rethink the boundaries between thought and action. But at the same time, we don’t all want to become Hamlets – i.e. tormented by the impossibility of acting…which is a circular argument because i use ‘acting’ as if i know what that means despite having just said that i don’t know… Let me put it another way: whatever we define as acting will never be preceded by or co-extensive with total knowledge. Every act is in some sense a blind act because you cannot see the chain of causality that led to it, nor the chain of effects that will lead from it. The unconscious elements of an act are unthinkable and many of the thinkable elements are potentially mistaken. So it would be quite conceivable to sit in a room and question concepts till the day we die whilst capitalism reigns supreme outside our windows (inside-outside distinction far too simple, i admit). A balance has to be found between philosophical exactitude and an intervention into capitalist reality (cue the argument that all actions are absorbed by capital…).
4. I don’t see any conceivable way out of this impasse. I think we’re doomed to fail.
5. Point 4 is the beginning of our success.
Ok,
Firstly, thank you Dan for actually responding to what I wrote on the 11th (or at least responding to it in a way that I could understand).
I have come to the same conclusion as your point 4, and it would be lovely to believe that 5 is also true.
Overall I have found this blog very inspiring, but ironically in the sense that it has inspired me to get away from blogs. I want to be an activist, not a theorist. This distinction seems more apparent to me now. Of course I want to be an informed activist, but if someone ever describes me as a theorist I believe that I will have failed to be an activist. I guess we need some people to be theorists, but I am not suited to being one of those people.
When I say ‘I’m Out’ what I mean is that I can’t cope with this blog. You are right Terry, by saying so I was implying a little more, but I would go with ‘exasperation’ rather than ‘distaste’. I have a limited amount of time, and I don’t want to spend it all desciphering these posts. I don’t feel like I’m getting enough out of it. I’ll continue to dip in and out of the blog from time to time, but I’m hoping to reduce my participation somewhat because I just don’t feel it’s the best use of my time.
The following is a quote taken from ‘Heat’ by George Monbiot and it seems apt. He is in the middle of discussing causes of inaction:
“…I also blame that tool of enpowerment, the internet. Of course it is marvellously useful, allows us to exchange information, find the facts we need, alert each other to the coming dangers and all the rest of it. But it also creates a false impression of action. It allows us to believe that we can change the world without leaving our chairs. We are being heard! Our voices resonate around the world, provoking commentary and debate, inspiring some, enraging others. Something is happening! A movement is building! But by itself, as I know to my cost, writing, reading, debate and dissent change nothing. They are of value only if they inspire action. Action means moving your legs.”
John, i agree in many ways and wish you well. The blog was meant to be these things, forms of engagement, and it seems that it has hitherto failed…I do not know which direction a blog can now take, but I for one will continue to contribute and attempt to steer it towards blogs that are both theoretical and provoke action. I will be posting a few blogs soon, which I hope you will read. One, entitled ‘Fuck Zizek’, will discuss this very issue of thought/action quite specifically. The second, ‘You are my enemy’ (catchy titles eh?) will discuss attempts to engage in conversation with those who are, essentially, ultimate representatives of the vilest aspects of our current culture (this is in response to a recent ‘attack’ – of sorts – that I had the misfortune to be on the receiving end of). The problem of engaging with others who refuse to listen, essentially. And this will hopefully start a discussion about how action can be made with actual people on the street…
anyway, i need to eat. (this is Terry, by the way)
This comment was by Terry, not Cara.
ah, he already wrote that…
Hi all. Theory is all well and good – I did a sociology degree, I should know, but this ‘how do we take on the the street’ is, frankly, worrying me. In the UK, and in France (anyone based anywhere else, you too) there are massive left movements – this isn’t something for you to create, it’s already there!
So if you feel impassioned, get out there and do something useful. Become a trade union rep in your workplace or something. But for goodness sake, but your brains and efforts to good use – THAT, my friends, is the only way to dig yourselves out of this rut, or indeed climb down from that ivory tower.
And I would have thought that was obvious.
Rosie
Rosie, cheers for this. Which massive left movements are you involved in? It’d be good to know so that I can recommend them to people in the UK and France.
I agree in many ways, but….
What I mean is, how one engages with someone who wants to kick the shit out of you for no reason or, more mildly, believes vehemently in consumer capitalism, in ‘the sun’ and page three. Well, you start by talking to them, yeah, but I sort of resent the ‘ivory tower’ comment since I never stop banging on about the fact that for me being a lefty today means picking apart every aspect of your everyday life and yet equally not reducing life to a series of prohibitions. Being a ‘lefty’ is in the fact that we are the people on the street and thus that we have to be lefty there also. Perhaps I should have been precise, as I meant – how we engage with the political other.
Furthermore, the blog is meant to play a part in wider movements, not be the movements themselves.
And for all the claims of this site being an ivory tower of theory, where is the reporting from others? John, please share with us something that you actually do in your day, your work in People and Planet for instance (this is you, right?). Rosie, how are you engaged in your own workplace? Which particular movements are you talking about when you say ‘established’ groups of lefties?
Part of the issue is often the half-assed attempts at theorising I see in a lot of left-groups which results in asking the government for a fairer capitalism – not the champagne socialist, but the H&M socialist. Personally, I’m still looking, and relatively down beat about the Parti Socialist here in France (though there’s the Anti-Capitalist Party I need to know more about). and yes I need to work more and on this, I accept, and if anything I have been propelled to do so, but one of the tenets of the blog was, initially, that there are a number of people who find that current left groups do not satisfy them. Furthermore, the point of the blog was to ask the question: what does it mean to ‘do something useful’? (Being a trade unionist is kind of out of the question when I work for an independent bookshop with 7 employees under a government that is, despite its faults, excellent to booksellers).
I believe that theory plays the role of forcing me to ask myself pertinent questions about how I look at others, how I see myself and objects etc. How I engage. These are intricate problems that are inherent to capitalism and that are socially determined since birth, thus take time and thought to unpick, a certain desire to mistrust our own egos. The theory and the blog can ask these questions, but it can’t bake or buy your bread for you…and I think this is obvious also. Yes, put your brains into something other than the blog, but you can blog as well eh.
So, Rosie / John / I’m inviting you to blog away…
actually, I need to add a blog on the Leeds University Strikes too, which I’ll try to do sometime soon…
Leeds Uni stuff – that actually is very interesting as the SU condemned the UCU members (lecturers) for taking industrial action – shame! See here for more detail: http://www.free-education.org.uk/?p=658
Also, don’t worry – those groups that end up lobbying the government – that’s not me. I’m in a revolutionary socialist organisation called the Alliance for Workers Liberty. You can check us out here: http://www.workersliberty.org/
And as for what I get up to – well, I work for Jobcentre Plus and as you may be aware the civil service is currently undergoing an industrial dispute with the government/our employers. I am a union rep in PCS and I have been out on the picket line recently. Other than that I spend a hell of a lot of time doing union type things. See this post: http://pcsyoungmembers.wordpress.com/ and the union’s website: http://www.pcs.org.uk/
See!
Rosie, this stuff is great! I really like the union article and the work you’re doing there – seems to me like some good, solid action! Also quite like the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty -which I’d never heard of – even if I don’t think I’d describe it as a ‘massive left movement’ and even though I don’t like some of its aims/ the wording of its aims.
Maybe you could write an article on some of this? And perhaps you’d like to republish your union blog post on The Night Shift?
Nice work. I am all up for it and learning from what you do…and this is why I asked you to post. I seriously believe we need to start sharing shit on this blog that draws from the everyday of our lives…and this is mint. I will still stand by the necessity of theory to challenge areas that such movements do not, but I think this is one area where this blog comes in perhaps…anyway, maybe you could post that link to the unions, as Dan asked.
again, this is Terry on Cara’s computer.
i read the very first post on the night shift in early March i think, got sidetracked, and have just returned to the blog this morning to read this, excellent, beautifully written, post by Hammam. some comments, I feel, are somewhat strange, specfically the debates surrounding theory/practice distinction. To offer a definition of Thoery (no doubt one riddled with holes and flaws): an account of what things do what in relation to other things. so, doing X without a theory that accounts for what X is in relation to Y/Z/A would, i suppose, mean we wouldn’t know we were doing X, or anything at all for that matter. moreover, theorising about X when the practice doesn’t already constitute us in some way, is an equally problematic supposition; X, in this instance would have to, literally, be meaningless. So i am curious about this dinstinction between ‘normal’ ‘doers’, or Lefties, (as Terry put it), and academic (presumably abnormal) thinkers; are we not just talking about doing different things? To stand barefooted in Parliament square (yes, ‘The Night Shifts’ has made me realise that I am even less of a ‘Lefty’ than I had previously thought) requires a theoretical foundation, whether you think about it or not. However, ‘doing’, without engaging with the theory that accounts for what and why you do something, means you will forever be barefooted on parliament square, unable to escape the shackles of impending corns and, no doubt, verrucas. i fear i am starting to sound like an unthinking meany, so shall stop.