Ideology is not lies
Brian Leiter makes in passing a rather curious remark about materialism. He says materialism involves a scepticism about two claims:
> (1) that moral ideas and reasons make a causal difference to the course of events; or, (2) that certain normative
> ideas in the form of a theory make a causal difference to the course of events.
He then goes on to discuss in positive terms a version of egoism. But it seems to me what he describes precisely _isn’t_ materialism, but a version of dualism, albeit one which sees thought as epiphenomenal (that is, as perhaps being caused by the physical, but not in its turn causing anything physical). Materialism is, in a way, almost the opposite of this; it _insists_ on the causal efficacy of ideas, precisely because it is _not_ dualism, because it denies that ideas are anything other than material.
What materialism _does_ deny is that ideas are only caused by other ideas. This is what Marx attacks the young Hegelians for in The German Ideology, who, he says, think that the way to combat false ideas is to oppose to them true ideas. The key statement of materialism is Putnam’s, that ideas “ain’t in the head,” (Putnam was once a Maoist, don’t forget, and apparently regularly taught introductory philosophy of science courses by discussing Lenin’s Materialism and Empirio-criticism). Ideas are not simply caused by prevailing material and social relations: they _are_ (some of) these relations. To know something, or to hold a belief or attitude, is to be in a complex causal relationship with other people and objects, not to be in some special internal electro-chemical state.
From the point of view of ideology-critique, then, the correct materialist approach is not the realism or egoism that Leiter commends, the attempt to find hidden self-interest behind and in contradiction to public statements of ideas or ethics. A better example would be Quentin Skinner, who identifies the way in which political theory _as an intellectual discipline_ is constituted by succesive attempts to wield it in the service of particular interests.
(Next up: why I fancy Kimberly out of Girls Aloud)
My problems with structure in the anti capitalist movement
I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while, but I haven’t gotten around to it, and I’m really tired at the moment, so what I’m going to write probably won’t be that good.
I guess, one problem I have is that i think that there are big problems with sexism, and this is not acknowleged at all in the uk. I was talking to my neighbour (who is not left wing at all) about gender stuff, and she said that in a lot of the theatre stuff she’s involved in, within the commitees, the women will do a lot of the unrewarding work - like taking minutes in meetings, or searching for venues, or contacting other groups, and the men will do the more satisfying stuff - like if posters need to be made, or if they need a website to be set up, and the people who really take charge, and get most of the credit for organising stuff are men.
I think this kind of thing happens all the time within the movement as well. i’ve met quite a few people - mainly women, who have said that they’ve not felt confident enough to volunteer to do the more difficult work, and that they’ve felt unskilled. Most men that i’ve spoken to about this don’t seem to know what I’m talking about. The structure we use relies on people deciding what they want to do and doing it - not being told what to do. Not everyone feels confident enough, or feels that they are skilled enough to do whatever they want. And I think often they are not encouraged to feel this way. The people (mainly men) who have the confidence and the skills tend to just take charge of things. Many of the informal leaders seem to really enjoy the feelings of power that doing loads of stuff brings. Note that I am not writing from my experiences in Cambridge here :-).
There was quite a good (although somewhat patronising) article in zmag about how to resolve problems of skill/confidence. I’m so sick of going to meetings where there are like, 3 guys talking to each other. I’ve spoken to a few people in Brighton (where I’m living now) about this, and all of them seem to see who does what tasks as just being a matter of individuals having to “take the initiative” (It really pisses me off when anarchists use phrases like “take the initiative”). There seems to be no discussion of the fact that if you want groups to be non hierarchical you need to do lots of stuff to make them non hierarchical. Much has been written about sexism within the movement: Let Patriarchy Burn |
Shut the fuck up. There should in fact be a list of links here.
I’m not saying that problems with structure are simply to do with men being the informal leaders and women being oppressed - some men can also feel less confident and less able to do stuff, and in “non hierarchical” womens groups there have often been problems with the oppression of participants. The tyranny of structurelessness was in fact written about the womens movement. It just seems to me that in mixed groups (and there are very few women only groups in the uk) men are much more likely to be at the top of the informal hierarchies than women.
Something else that annoys me is just that general unpleasantness and bullying seems to occur. There is some stuff about this (and other struture issues) on this website, especially this article.
A final (and brief) thing is that a lot of what activists do seems to have no relavance to the outside world at all. We’ll go and do an action or work on a project, but all the time it just feels as if we are just doing it for reasons of personal development or something. It doesn’t feel as if we are trying to change things at all. We are just stuck in these sort of activist cliques and have no idea of what is going on outside. I read Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism by Bookchin the earlier today, and i think he makes some good points, but i have not really had time to think about it yet. I also thought his critique of primitivism as not recognising the “liberatory aspects of euro-american civilisation” was slightly racist, although i think primitivists are fucking crazy. Hope this makes some sense, I am about to fall asleep on the keyboard.
Dissent in a disaster area
I wrote this shortly after the disaster, but didn’t finish it. It’s now February 2005 (despite what the date on the post says), and I doubt I will finish this, but I’m putting it up in its current form because I don’t want to just delete it.
Should there be an anti-capitalist response to the devestation caused by the tsunami in Asia? There are certainly many things we could be saying about it from an anti-capitalist perspective. Natural disasters, after all, are not wholly natural, but affect people the way they do because of the human structures on which the natural forces act: from the distribution of population and the structures of buildings to the details of the relief effort, all these affect the consequences of the disaster, and are all man-made and so political. The last one is of particular importance to other-globalists, because the current crisis allows the institutions of globalisation to be seen in another light, one which may make it harder to make our arguments against them. It’s easier to attack the G8 as the coordinators of global capitalism than as coordinators of a global relief effort, even though we know that the latter is in fact simply one element of the former.
Even so, there’s an obvious resistance to approaching this from a political direction, a worry that we would be putting our own political concerns ahead of the terrible suffering of the victims of the disaster. But I think that’s a mistake, not just because, as k-punk says, the idea that suffering is non-political is precisely the politics of our opponents, but because the idea that _our_ politics is something we can put aside reveals a significant weakness in our movements.
Labour’s Dorian Grey
Many people have remarked on the change in Tony Blair’s appearance since he became Prime Minister; the thinning, greying hair, the increasingly sallow, drooping skin; the demise of his once-famous smile. I’m not sure people have drawn the correct conclusion from this, though. Perhaps, in fact, Labour made a cleverer choice even than anyone realised when they selected Blair as leader in 1994.
I was listening to somebody on the radio a couple of days ago complaining about a government policy, I don’t remember which one. What struck me was the way in which this criticism was articulated as abuse of _Blair_. And that does seem to be something of a theme of late; Blair is, as far as I can tell, held in almost universal contempt; while the evils instantiated in Blair are really, and more importantly, evils of New Labour’s adoption of neo-liberalism: managerialism, increased control, privatisation.
But the Labour brand name is still in pretty good shape, with the party able to pass off the most reactionary crap as progressive; and note that it’s precisely the stuff that looks most egalitarian that is most neo-liberal: tax credits (more intrusive and less labour intensive than the old means tests), the New Deal (or, unpaid compulsory labour), not to mention, obviously, the increasingly ethical (and, not coincidentally, murderous) foreign policy.
New Labour is Dorian Grey, and Tony Blair is its portrait, but, in true post-modern style, on the TV screens rather than in the attic. Unfortunately, being the undead monster it is, New Labour has the advantage that it can get rid of one portrait and choose a new one.
The white man’s burden
The standard piece of contemporary anti-imperialist rhetoric would not be complete without a glancing reference to the White Man’s Burden, with it’s non-specific allusion to 19th Century-style racist colonialism. This inevitably irritates Kipling fans, who point out that he was _himself_ something of an anti-imperialist, aware of the brutal and brutalising nature of British colonial rule.
> Take up the White Man’s burden–
> The savage wars of peace–
> Fill full the mouth of Famine
> And bid the sickness cease;
> And when your goal is nearest
> The end for others sought,
> Watch sloth and heathen Folly
> Bring all your hopes to nought.
However, it seems to me that, contrary to both simple-minded anti-imperialism and conventional Kipling scholarship, it is precisely in Kipling’s anti-imperialism that he is _closest_ to contemporary imperialism. The curious thing about Kipling’s criticisms of imperialism is that he never draws from them a practical anti-imperialist conclusion. Likewise, isn’t Tony Blair himself an anti-imperialist, in his heart? In all his speeches about Iraq, we see how much guilt and pain he feels for the terrible acts he has to authorise. Yet, this doesn’t lead to him to reject imperialist policies. Indeed, it’s quite the opposite — Blair’s pain is increasingly presented as being a justification _in itself_ for his policies. The form of the argument is, “I feel bad about these short-term consequences; but it will work out for the best in the end.” As the argument is deployed repeatedly, the content of the ‘in the end’ shrinks and shrinks, while the ‘feeling bad’ takes on more and more argumentative weight. This is why, incidentally, it may be a mistake to put too much stress on arguments about Western self-interest in Iraq, because it invites in response demonstrations of the motives and feelings (selfish or selfless) of Western policy-makers, and thereby relieves them of the burden of addressing the _consequences_ of their policy.
This structure reaches its apotheosis in Kipling, where the surpressed premise ‘this will all be good in the end’ whithers away almost to nothing, while the middle term, the criticism of current imperial practice, swells to enormous proportions. But this argument can never lead to an anti-imperialist conclusion. Instead, Kipling argues that colonialism is terrible, unwanted, and almost entirely fruitless: and concludes, _if even something so evil will lead to good in the end_, think how incredibly justified it must be. With such an ideological structure in place, the harshest criticism of imperialism becomes, precisely, it’s justification.
We wish you a merry Christmas, and a fuck-you to spammers
Hi everyone. I hope you had fun yesterday (my dad asked if any of my radical friends opposed Christmas as a bourgeois deviation. I don’t think any do, but if you know different, let me know). I enjoyed Christmas day, but so, unfortunately, did the dada-ist spammers, attacking my comments with a couple of hundred posts each consisting of two words of random characters, one linked to a random address of a non-existant website. I’m at a bit of a loss as to what they hope to gain from that. Apologies to anyone who subscribes to the comments feed, and, in particular, apologies to those of you who post articles, as you’ve probably received a number of these spam comments in the form of e-mail notifications.
To try and stop this, I’ve added a little bit of spam protection. Most posts will still go up straight away, but if you include a link in the body of your comment, it will be held up for moderation. If you give a valid e-mail address, you will be sent an e-mail with a link you can click on to approve the comment yourself. Hopefully that should stop most of the spam without causing too much hassle for anyone.
Give up activism
(Warren Ellis uses the term ‘offboard memory’ for posting something on a blog to avoid having to remember it. So it is here: some notes for my potential paper on political theory)
There’s a Žižek quote which is to do with how capitalist ideology encourages us always to have a position on any issue, when perhaps sometimes the revolutionary thing to do is _not_ to take sides and _not_ to act (if anyone knows off-hand the reference for this, I’d be grateful — there’s fuck-loads of Žižek to wade through looking for it). Benjamin writes (in The Arcades):
> Marx says, revolutions are the locomotives of world history. But perhaps it is really totally different.
> Perhaps revolutions are the grasp by the human race traveling in this train for the emergency brake.
(And incidentally, am I wrong or has Benjamin recently had an upsurge in popularity? And if it’s true that we’re currently finding Benjamin increasingly useful, isn’t it very scary?)
In the recent Contretemps issue, something similar is attributed to Agamben. His claim (from State of exception) that:
> to live in the state of exception means ceaselessly trying to arrest the functioning of the machine
> that is leading the West towards the global civil war,
is glossed as requiring a search for “a theoretical monkey-wrench.” Now, this may be what I have recently seen referred to as “a Žižek/Hegel I’m-dead-wrong-therefore-I’m-right argument,” (Rachel has already accused me of much the same thing), but I’m wondering if there’s some mileage in arguing that _in order to be political_, theory has to be somewhat disengaged, not pursued for the purposes of immediate political struggles. This isn’t to say that we don’t use theory to plan our struggles, nor that the struggles don’t inform the theory, just that it would be a mistake to think that _coming up with a theory of X_ is a directly useful step in taking action on X. This is annoying, as political action would be easier if you could plan it out in advance. Perhaps Badiou’s distinction between the situation (which just reproduces existing ideology) and the event (in fidelity to which we can create truths) is useful here.
(The title of this post comes from an essay in the collection Reflections on J18, which continues to have a subterranean influence on the other-globalisation movement in the UK)
“Big brother’s watching me — and I don’t really mind”
Further to Rachel’s post on ID cards, are Girls Aloud not on the money yet again? If I’m remembering Discipline and punish correctly, Foucault argues that the idea of ‘privacy’ is a creation, and an integral part, of the disciplinary society built around the control of information. The idea that there _is_ some private self that could be separated from public surveillence and control at least provides a cover for that control, and may actually be the mechanism through which control is internalised. Michael Hardt says that when he was teaching Foucault to prisoners:
> They had this resistance to the idea of the production of subjectivity. It seemed to them like a threat, a
> personal threat. That was their last line of defense.
All of which is to say, I think it might be a mistake to formulate an anti-ID cards position in terms of concerns about privacy, because for any given piece of information, it’s plausible for someone to respond, “why would you care if the government knows your address/marital status/job/whatever,” (or to say — “if they want to find it out, they can already”). It’s not the government _knowing_ this that’s the problem (the information they get from surveillence), it’s the surveillence itself, the organisation of various social practices around finding out and confirming this information, which is dangerous.
ID cards leaflet
Tim and I are meant to be making a leaflet for the Cambridge Action Network about ID cards. It is meant to provide a contrast to the bourgeois liberal arguments of groups such at the NO2ID campaign. I’ve decided to post what I think should go in it so far on here. These are just some thoughts - I haven’t come up with a proper analysis yet - I fear it has to do with not having read enough marx and foucault!!
START: ID cards are coming to the UK… [explanation of what will happen - databases created, will be compulsory in 4 years(?), foriegn nationals first]. Government reasons for ID cards: to stop terrorism, crime, benefit fraud, illegal immigration etc.
NEXT: In recent years (not sure when this started) many other measures “to stop terrorism, crime, benefit fraud, illegal immigration.”
Military camps for young offenders.
Camps and deportations for asylum seekers, refusal to allow them NHS treatment.
Inreasing harrassment of homeless.
Anti poverty measures directed towards the deserving poor - the poor that do what they are told, and get a job, don’t commit benefit fraud etc.
Also anti -poverty measures aimed at increasing control over unemployed - forcing them to work in whatever shit job is available.
General racist stuff - ie forcing immigrants to swear an oath of allegiance to the queen (I think Blunkett did this??).
Anti terrorism laws. Belmarsh, general “climate of fear,” people kicked out of Mosques, many Muslims forced to say that of course they are not “fundamentalists”, Islamic fascists etc.
Community police officers etc .
These measures have not had any impact on terrorism, crime etc, and neither will ID cards, however they will give further excuses to harrass the homeless, the unemployed etc. And they will give the govt much more control over all of us - can be fined huge amounts if don’t notify about change of address.
Perhaps talk about Fallujah - testing of ID cards there, to control the population. (really liked Tim’s feature on Cambridge Indymedia)
Maybe talk about the fact that private companies will make a lot of money from ID cards - not sure where to fit this into the argument though.
Out of the mouths of Blair Babes and Thatcher’s Children
Labour MP Hazel Blears on Today this morning, talking about Community Support Officers:
>the police are very busy doing the more serious crime
How true. It hadn’t really occoured to me before, but is their not something disturbing about the recent introduction of various sort of quasi-cops like CSOs and City Wardens (who have no power, and aren’t afraid to abuse it)? They make it very tempting to use lots of probably inappropriate terms like ‘brownshirt’.
Not that more real police would necessarily be much of an improvement, as this song reminds us. Sing it with me: “I hope that I get taken into custody and die…”
I wrote this post at work, where I couldn’t listen to and check the interview, so the quote was slighly wrong. It’s now fixed. Also, hearing CSO’s approvingly described as the police’s “eyes and ears” doesn’t really reassure me.