Resistance

Posted on by Jeff

Resistance

I have a profound resistance to isms. They get really confusing. It is far easier to greet every theorist as I would a person at a bar, listening with a healthy degree of skepticism for what they have to say. Though it is old-fashioned, I like to think of the words on a page as emanating from a person rather than an author function. Though the author function is a really interesting concept, I’ve yet to meet an author that wasn’t in some way human. However, trying to understand authorship, particularly when there are lots of people— editors, publishers, etc.— involved, thinking of things in terms of their function helps. Though may seem anti-humanist, Foucault’s concept, in that regard, is useful to me. A few years ago, I would have really championed the Tutor’s stance:

Nurse, send in next postmodern, please. We will just cut away from this lard all that does not look human.

In a comment, Invisible Adjunct further suggested: “The only way to fight the master-narratives of Karl Rove and Co. is through the master-narrative of Enlightenment universalism. You hold up the ideals of equal rights and equal justice, and insist that they be applied across the board.”

So far, I just don’t see that working— oddly enough, it’s that rhetoric which lead us, logically and rationally, into the latest war. Bush and company are working the “Enlightenment universalism” shtick better than any of the liberal minds that have come before. One of the key parts of Foucault’s essay “What is Enlightenment?” is the distinction made between enlightenment and humanism. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that life as we know it is a product of the Enlightenment.

Humanism is something entirely different. It is a theme, or rather, a set of themes that have reappeared on several occasions, over time, in European societies; these themes always tied to value judgments, have obviously varied greatly in their content as well as the values they have preserved.

Foucault goes on to list among the “humanist” enterprises things like National Socialism, Existentialism and Marxism. Then, he offers a strong caution:

From this, we must not conclude that everything that has ever been linked with humanism is to be rejected, but that the humanistic theme is in itself too supple, too diverse, and too inconsistent to serve as an axis for reflection.

Foucault’s primary argument in this section of the essay is that we must not submit to the “blackmail” of the Enlightenment—it is not a thing a person is “for” or “against.” Humanism in and of itself provides a very nebulous character for reflecting on our world as it is. What is the alternative? I think defining just what we mean by “enlightened” is a good start. Kant’s definition is quite slippery, and I want to write more about that as I work through it. It centers on a very problematic definition of autonomy. But for the time being, I think the us vs. them game has gone on long enough—both from a geopolitical standpoint, and a theoretical one.

However, by advocating resistance one is placed in the position of the slave. If we were the masters of our fates, there would be no need to resist.

Published by Jeff

9 thoughts on “Resistance”

  1. Exsqueeze me, but I do not hear Bush the Younger and his minions ringing changes on “Enlightenment universalism”–that they leave to their paid exegetes, and then only as sophistries to distract from the obvious adverse consequences of decades of cynical American realpolitik in the Persian Gulf region.
    The case for war on Iraq was made in two domains: to the American populace at large, Iraq was vaguely linked to al Qaeda and what Christopher Hitchens noxiously called Islamofascism, while the threat of Iraq wielding Weapons of Mass Destruction was the argument addressed to American intellectuals and the chattering class. Exactly how the ideals of the Enlightenment enabled what were an appeal to fear and racism in the first case and a bald faced lie in the second case escapes me.

  2. In the first example, the link behind “terrorist organizations” and the leadership in Iraq establishes that the nation of Iraq is not rational. Blind terror is a threat to our rationalism— we cannot allow disorder, especially irrational disorder to threaten our way of life. In the second case, the threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction, it is not so much that such weapons were in other hands, but that the hands that might wield them were irrational.
    As “rationality” is the cornerstone of the Enlightenment, these arguments are essentially the same argument— descended from the Enlightenment’s emphasis on rationality.
    What you do not mention is the way that the quest to “free the Iraqi people” was trotted out to appeal to the American people. This is really the core issue that swayed popular support. The Iraqi people would, if we Western, “enlightened” people proceeded to depose the irrational tyrant, reap the benefits of equal treatment under law.
    The question of whose law was never mentioned— because of the tacit assumption of a “universal law” of human rights established during the Enlightenment.
    I hope that clarifies it for you, Curtis.

  3. Sorry, that doesn’t cut it for me. I have problems with that account with regard to matters of fact, the nature of "rationality," and the core appeal of pro-war rhetoric against Iraq:

    1. You write that

      In the first example, the link behind “terrorist organizations” and the leadership in Iraq establishes that the nation of Iraq is not rational. Blind terror is a threat to our rationalism�-we cannot allow disorder, especially irrational disorder to threaten our way of life.

      I have several problems with this.

      • First–and I hope you agree with me on this point–no such link between terrorist organizations and Saddam Hussein’s government had been established. Assertions were made, notably by prominent right-wing ideologues, but those assertions could not withstand scrutiny.
      • Second, the fear this propaganda was meant to provoke was not fear of the irrational as such but fear for the integrity of our national identity. Dare I call that a counter-enlightenment trope? Examples: Darryl Worley’s perfectly awful song, "Have you Forgotten?," attacks inside the US on other Americans whose patriotism was found wanting–I recall a teenager at a sport event getting sent to the hospital after having neglected to stand for the song “Proud to be an American,” etc.
      • Third, blind terror is a threat to one’s self-preservation. It is not uniquely anti-rational.
    2. According to what established canons of international law there are–which, I should add, the US only observes when it is to its benefit–war with Iraq was an aggressive, illegal war. The US in this case is a sovereign above the law, again an anti-enlightenment stance (consider Carl Schmitt’s notion that the determination of ally and enemy is the apotheosis of the political, and that his thought is a direct attack on enlightenment liberalism. If you want to get paranoid, there’s also the Strauss-Schmitt link, the prominence of Straussians in the Bush administration, but that’s a long, long post).
    3. You write that "”rationality” is the cornerstone of the Enlightenment," and from that say that both the arguments that Iraq habored terrorists and that Saddam Hussein was an irrational agent were therefore the same thing. This move works only if rationality is reified into a dogma. In some cases, this may be true, and I’m of the mind that Enlightenment reason has within it the potential to decay into limited instrumental reason (I’m just following Adorno and Horkheimer in this). But even where this decay has occurred, it’s at best inaccurate to claim that Enlightenment rationality was under attack here.
    4. The real nature of freeing the Iraqi people as a casus belli has become evident now that the war is over (or has been officially declared over, since fighting and dying continues there): it was a coded appeal to a uniquely American identity and sovereignity. The silence from the pro-war amen corner on conditions in Iraq–and forget about political reform, because even more basic human needs like clean water, health care, and sanitation have gone wanting–is deafening. But that matters little to thte supporters of this war–WE WON!!! How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we go off to war! (Nietzsche)

    The rhetoric used to bolster support for the war did partake of Enlightenment tropes, but those figures functioned as mere fig-leaves for something approaching an atavistic nationalist pride in military might.
    Finally, a question: without the conceptual tools of the Englightenment, how is it possible to launch a substantial critique of actions like the recent war on Iraq? Lacking such, isn’t what’s left a battle of dogma and rhetoric?

  4. Your acceptance of my primary point is all I was reaching for. Your counter argument, however, is a perfect example of what Foucault would call “the blackmail of the Enlightenment”:

    The rhetoric used to bolster support for the war did partake of Enlightenment tropes, but those figures functioned as mere fig-leaves for something approaching an atavistic nationalist pride in military might.

    The rhetoric of nationalism is a product of the aftermath of the Enlightenment, and not what I was using as an example. Your counterpoise suggests that Bush and crew are examples of subversion of the Enlightenment through rhetoric.
    I’m not buying that. We’ll have to agree to disagree. That is a paranoid argument.
    I was against the war. The tools anyone would use to assail the war are products of the Enlightenment. The tools used to promote the war were also products of the Enlightenment. That was my point. To call either side “against” Enlightenment is the largest waste of time I can think of.

  5. There is likely more agreement than disagreement between us, and that alone makes it worth my time. The way to mutual understanding can be fraught with contention, but it’s worth travelling.
    That said, I’m at a loss for what you mean when you write "Your acceptance of my primary point is all I was reaching for."
    If the Enlightenment is something that is impossible to oppose, what then do you make of self-proclaimed foes of the Enlightenment, e.g., Schmitt and Strauss (maybe also Heidegger)? I mention this because I don’t want to suggest that Bush and his cronies are advancing an anti-Enlightenment program–I want to state that openly. "When you have eliminated the impossible, what remains, no matter how improbable…"or whatever the words were that Conan Doyle put in Sherlock Holmes’ mouth.
    If, as you say (and if I’m not misunderstanding you), it is impossible in any way to be against the Enlightenment, then how is it possible to adjudicate between conflicting claims?
    In general, when one is faced with an enemy, that is, someone who is bent on destroying your way of life if not you yourself, what must one do? The Bush administration’s program is a dire one: a perpetual readiness for war, a complete destruction of any social welfare protections, a society of total surveillance.
    Nationalist rhetoric followed the Enlightenment, but I doubt it is a product of the Enlightenment–the Counter-Enlightenment, instead.

  7. Topping the Wild Ass

    “H” Tom Matrullo : Corporations are complex, evolving tools whose mastery needs a larger context of human knowledge than is dreamt of in American business books, as the Tutor well knows.

  9. Topping the Wild Ass

    “H” Tom Matrullo : Corporations are complex, evolving tools whose mastery needs a larger context of human knowledge than is dreamt of in American business books, as the Tutor well knows.

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