Subjectivity and Identity
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By the same author Deconstruction and Critical Teory Modern/Postmodern: Modern/P ostmodern: Society Society,, Philosoph Philosophyy, Liter Literatur aturee What is Teory? Te Philosophy o Modern Literary Teory
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Subjectivity and Identity Between Modernity and Postmodernity Peter V. Zima
Bloomsbury Academic An imprint o Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK
1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA
www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2015 © Peter V. Zima, 2015 Peter V. Zima has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. This book is an augmented and updated translation by the author of ‘Theorie des Subjekts. Subjektivität und Identität zwischen Moderne und Postmoderne’, Tübingen, Francke-UTB, 2010 (3rd ed.) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Series: Bloomsbury Studies in Philosophy Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
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o Veronica – once more
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Contents Preace I
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Teories o the Subject: Definitions o the erm and the State o the Debate 1 Te concept o subject and the subject o theory (a) Individual and collective subjects in society and language (b) Subject and actant: Inra-individual, individual, artificial and supra-individual actants as subjects (c) Individual and collective subjects as discursive instances: Subjectivity, individuality, identity (d) Te subject o theory 2 Te state o the debate (a) From existentialism to postmodernity: Philosophy (b) From the lonely crowd to the social movement: Sociology (c) From psychoanalysis and the theory o personality to social psychology: Te discontent in culture and society (d) Individual subjectivity in linguistics and the theory o literature 3 Aporias o the individual subject in modernity and postmodernity Subjectivity Between Metaphysics and Modernism: Te Subject as a Fundamental, Subjugated and Disintegrating Instance 1 Subjectivity rom Descartes and Kant to Fichte: ‘Monsieur este’ 2 From Hegel to Marxism: Omnipotence and impotence o the subject 3 Vischer, Stirner and Kierkegaard as critics o Hegel: Particularity, contingency, chance and dream 4 Nietzsche’s criticism o the metaphysical concept o subject: Ambivalence, particularization and nature 5 From Nietzsche and Kierkegaard to Sartre: Sartre’s critique o surrealism and psychoanalysis 6 From Nietzsche to Critical Teory: Subjectivity, mimesis, alterity
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1 3 3 6 10 17 20 21 28 33 42 50
65 67 73 80 86 92 98
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7 8 9
Adorno, Freud and Broch: Te ‘weakness o the I’, the ‘discontent in civilization’ and the ‘theory o mass hysteria’ Te crisis o the subject in the literature o modernism: Nature and contingency as menace and liberation From modernism to postmodernism: A Clockwork Orange
III Disintegration and Submission o the Individual Subject in Postmodernity: Philosophy and Psychology 1 From Adorno to Lyotard: Te ambivalence o the sublime between modernity and postmodernity 2 Te linguistic subversion o subjects: Between iterability and iterativity 3 From Laing to Vattimo: ‘Divided sel ’ and soggetto scisso 4 From Laing to Goffman and Foucault: Stigmatization and organized experience 5 Ideological reification and ‘normalization’ o the subject: From Foucault and Althusser to ‘normalism’ 6 From Althusser to Lacan: Te ‘decentred subject’ as a subjugated and disintegrating instance 7 Psychosociology o narcissism: Te individual subject in postmodern indifference 8 Feminist concepts o subjectivity between modernity and postmodernity: From Virginia Wool to dialogical subjectivity IV Te Dialectics o Individual Subjectivity rom a Sociological Viewpoint 1 Te crisis o individual subjectivity in late modern sociology 2 Te decline o subjectivity in a media world: From Bourdieu to Baudrillard 3 Te liquidation o the subject by its omnipresence: Niklas Luhmann 4 Alain ouraine’s alternative: Subject and movement V
Teory o the Subject: owards a Dialogical Subjectivity 1 Subjectivity as dialogue (a) Ambivalence and negation (b) Dialogue and reflexivity (c) Identity as semantics and narrativity (d) Te ambivalence o chance
102 108 115
133 135 141 147 152 158 167 174 179
201 203 209 217 229 249 251 252 254 256 260
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Te subject o Dialogical Teory (a) Particularism vs. universalism: Lyotard and Habermas (b) From the particular to the universal: Critical testing (c) Interdiscursive theorems: Consensus and dissent (d) Te practice o dialogue: Psyche, language, politics (metacommentaries to a discussion) ‘Te dialogue or Europe’ (a) Language and subjectivity (b) Movement and historicity (c) owards European politics
Bibliography Index
ix 262 263 267 270 274 278 279 281 284 293 305
Preace What Jacques Derrida writes about translation, namely that it is both ‘necessary and impossible’,1 could be repeated in conjunction with an interdisciplinary analysis o subjectivity and identity . Te question concerning the ate o the subject has been dealt with or centuries by theologians, philosophers, psychologists and sociologists. Teir accumulated knowledge is daunting and makes the attempt to present an encompassing or interdisciplinary overview appear bold and risky.Who can claim to be knowledgeable in theology, philosophy, sociology and psychology? Although an interdisciplinary generalization may appear impossible in view o an increasing specialization in philosophy and science, it does seem necessary at the same time. Considering the act that, due to specialization, the concept o subject is defined in many different ways in various disciplines, only an interdisciplinary approach, which relates these diverging definitions to one another, can deal with it adequately. In view o this aporia that links impossibility and necessity, one could adopt Wittgenstein’s point o view and argue that, i we cannot meaningully talk about something, we can only all silent. It is not surprising that this ascetic advice is hardly ever heeded by scholars in the humanities whose disciplines ofen thrive on rhetoric. Teir innumerable commentaries and interpretations have crucially contributed to the growing ambiguity o the concept o subject. In this situation, marked by verbal excesses, the author cannot possibly decide to propose a definition acceptable to all parties and thus clariy the issue once and or all. Apart rom the act that such an attempt is bound to ail, it would not be in agreement with his Dialogical Teory (c. Chapter V, 2), in which knowledge appears as an openended dialogical process. Te concept cannot and should not be conclusively defined (delimited) so as to give other (dissenting) theoreticians the option to define ‘subject’, ‘subjectivity’ and ‘identity’ differently – without necessarily rejecting the approach mapped out here. Although all-encompassing knowledge, which would synthesize all existing perspectives in a Hegelian ashion, is not envisaged in this book, the attempt will be made to avoid arbitrariness by structuration. Te Czech structuralist Jan Mukařovský takes the view that ‘structure’ should not be defined by completeness because openness is one o its key eatures. Unlike a composition or a context (e.g. a sonnet or a sentence), which have to be complete in order to be perceived as such, a structure can be a meaningul unit without being complete: ‘Te act that we are dealing with a totality is [. . .] not in doubt; however, this totality does not appear to us as closure or completeness [. . .], but as an interrelation o elements.’2 Te ragment o a poem or a novel can be understood as a system o phonetic-semantic or semantic-narrative relations. For in such cases, ‘we can complete a structural analysis, e.g. o a specific relationship between intonation and meaning, between syntax and intonation’. 3 x
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In short, even an incomplete, ragmentary work o art can be perceived and analysed as a multi-layered structure. I these arguments are applied to the problematic o subjectivity, the ollowing scenario emerges: even an incomplete, open-ended description o individual subjectivity in its interaction with other orms o subjectivity can reveal a structure o this particular phenomenon. Hence it does not seem necessary to involve all relevant disciplines – such as law, psychiatry and medicine – in order to obtain a concrete definition. What matters is that the analysed theory compounds – philosophy, semiotics, psychology, sociology and literary theory – be related to one another in such a way that the structure o individual and collective subjectivity is recognizable. Tough consisting o similarities and differences, this structure stretches across the borders o disciplines and its contours become clearer at the border crossings: between Freud and Broch, Laing and Vattimo, Althusser and Lacan. But what are the components o this structure? It is both historical and systematic in character. While the first chapter deals with the ambivalence o the concept o subject, an ambivalence inherent in both the Greek word hypokeimenon and the Latin word subiectum, and presents the concept in an interdisciplinary context, the second and third chapters analyse this basic ambivalence in a historical perspective. Te subject or subiectum appears both as the oundation (o thoughts and actions) and as a subjugated, manipulated instance. Chapters II and III in particular ocus on the oscillation o subjectivity between these two extremes. While the subject as oundation o human thought becomes the basis o modern idealism and rationalism rom Descartes to Sartre, it is seen by postmodern thinkers as a subjugated (Foucault) or disintegrating (Vattimo) instance. Te ourth (sociological) chapter is meant to put the transition rom the modern apotheosis o the subject to its postmodern deconstructions into perspective. Tis sociological perspective coincides with the late modern (modernist) sel-criticism o modernity and subjectivity in the works o sociologists such as Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and Georg Simmel. Te last chapter is a return to the first and an attempt to turn the late modern and postmodern crisis o the subject into an asset. It is meant to show that an ambivalent conception o the subject as oundation and as subjected or disintegrating instance can yield a dialogical concept o subjectivity which resists postmodern criticisms by virtue o its flexibility – more so than idealist conceptions rooted in modernity (e.g. Habermas’s notion o intersubjectivity). Tis development o individual subjectivity rom modern sel-assertion to postmodern sel-abnegation was described and explained – especially in philosophy – independently o other kinds o subjectivity. However, Marxist, sociological and semiotic theories reveal the importance o abstract, mythical and above all collective subjects (subject-actants, Greimas: c. Chapter I, 1, b) or the ormation o individual subjectivity. Te relationship between individual subjects and the supra-individual instances mentioned here is ambivalent, and this ambivalence is inherent in the individual subjects themselves. Tus Hegel’s World Spirit (Weltgeist ) as a mythical instance may orce the individual subject in search o identity into (philosophical and political) submission in the same way as the Marxist-Leninist party acting as a collective subject . At the same time, however, Alain ouraine’s sociology o action
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(c. Chapter IV, 4) shows how important social movements as collective subjects can be or the emergence and the consolidation o individual subjectivity. It becomes clear, especially in a sociological context, that the interdependence o individual and collective instances or actors may imply both an affirmation and a negation o individual subjectivity, so that subjectivity, as defined in this book, appears as a permanent oscillation between sel-assertion and sel-abnegation. Tis is why in the last chapter a concept o subjectivity in the individual sense is proposed which relates these two extremes dialectically to one another: not in order to bring about a synthesis, but in order to show that the individual subject is a contingent construction, a search or identity raught with diffi culties that can succeed or ail. In this perspective, identity appears as the object o an individual or collective subject trying to realize itsel in thought and action. Tis process is dialogical in character because it is geared towards the Other and otherness in general. For this reason individual subjectivity is constructed in the last chapter on three different levels as a permanent dialogue with alterity: on the level o social and linguistic interaction, on the level o theory ormation and on the intercultural level o European integration. It is by no means certain that this subjectivity can survive in everyday lie. It can be overwhelmed by ideologies and media, split up by social differentiation, crushed by colliding cultures and languages. However, individual subjects do have the possibility to take advantage o the availability o inormation in the electronic age, to conront cultures, ideologies and television programmes critically and to overcome the difficulties o differentiation and specialization by technical innovation and by moving critically between languages and cultures. Teir answer to postmodern complexity and ragmentation can be a dialogical absorption o otherness: o the Other’s language and culture, o the new discipline or technology, o the Other’s world view that challenges prejudice and opens up new perspectives. In a similar way, the subject o Dialogical Teory (c. Chapter V, 2) listens to the Other’s voice. o the testing o hypotheses within its own group o scientists it adds criticism and testing between scientific groups whose members speak different theoretical languages. It exposes itsel to ‘outside’ criticism in order to be able to reconsider its own theory and its group o origin with critical detachment. Tis approach need not lead to relativism and disorientation – as little as the dialogue with otherness in everyday lie. On the contrary, in many cases, a subject open to dialogue is able to qualiy and consolidate its position by taking in the word o the Other. Te possibility that dialogical subjectivity might prove to be more flexible than the idealist and monological constructions o the metaphysicians rom Descartes to Hegel is examined in the last section o the fifh chapter, where subjectivity is reconsidered in conjunction with the collective subjectivities o the new social movements (workers, unemployed, women and ‘greens’) and within the ramework o European integration. Te movements are not the sole actors (as ouraine seems to suggest) 4 that can be expected to strengthen individual subjectivity; their impact on social lie can be considerably increased by the developing European institutions, some o which can contribute to the rise o a polyphonic subjectivity beyond the nationalist monologues o existing nation states.
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Te act that individual subjectivity cannot be viewed independently o collective actors and institutions was revealed by Michael Nerlich in his analyses o the adventure ideology. Te rise o commercial adventure in early modernity would have been inconceivable without the support o the princes and the Church: ‘Te impetus instilled into experimental thought and action in Europe (and later the whole world) by the ecclesiastical justification o adventure trade ound its way into all spheres o social action rom artistic creation to natural science and changed the world .’5 Is it conceivable that contemporary European institutions and uture European governments espouse some o the ideas o the social movements and contribute to the realization o a social Europe and a multilingual subjectivity by creating a multilingual education system based partly on European schools and universities? Can they contribute to the renaissance o the early modern ‘adventure spirit’? It is conceivable but by no means certain; and this is the reason why the last chapter should only be read in relation to Chapters III and IV, in which the precarious situation o the individual subject in a world dominated by trusts, media and ideologies is analysed. A lot depends on the question o whether the European project will be turned into an alternative to the North American model or be absorbed by the latter. Te book as a whole can be read as a continuation o the author’s book Modern / Postmodern (2010/12),6 in which late modernity is constructed as a problematic geared towards ambivalence, whereas postmodernity is seen as dominated by indifference. In both problematics, the dualistic discourse o ideology appears as the opponent o market-mediated ambivalence and indifference: as a negation o openness, indeterminacy and tolerance. Indifference as interchangeability o all social values appears as the other extreme: as a negation o cultural value judgements, o engagement and critique. In this context, the individual subject in search o autonomy can only escape the submission to an ideology and to the market-oriented, value-negating indifference by an orientation towards a late modern (modernist) ambivalence which makes an open dialogue possible and urthers social criticism at the same time.
Notes 1 J. Derrida, ‘Des ours de Babel’, in: idem, Psyché. Inventions de l’autre, Paris, Galilée, 1987, p. 208. 2 J. Mukařovský, ‘Pojem celku v teorii umění’, in: idem, Cestami poetiky a estetiky , Prague, Československý Spisovatel, 1971, p. 90. 3 Ibid., p. 89. 4 C. A. ouraine, Le retour de l’acteur , Paris, Fayard, 1984, p. 135. 5 M. Nerlich, Abenteuer oder das verlorene Selbstverständnis der Moderne. Von der Unaufebbarkeit experimentalen Handelns, Munich, Gerling Akademie Verlag, 1997, p. 308. 6 C. P. V. Zima, Modern / Postmodern. Society, Philosophy, Literature, London-New York, Continuum (2010), 2012.
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Teories o the Subject: Definitions o the erm and the State o the Debate Te greater the number o commentators who express their opinion on a given term, the greater the danger that the term will ultimately dey all attempts at definition. Subject is one such term whose vague, shifing character stems primarily rom the academic division o labour, which endows this ambiguous signifier with a different meaning in each discipline: grammatical subject, legal subject, literary protagonist, or even the subject o history. It is immediately apparent that there are a number o different levels at play here (language, law, literature, history as world affairs) which are ar rom homogeneous. Te aim o this book is not so much to establish a unity which closer inspection would reveal to be illusory, but to investigate the interdisciplinary links between the philosophical, sociological, semiotic and psychoanalytic uses o the term. One o the problems which has bedevilled discussions o the subject as a concept is a ocus restricted to a single discipline. In philosophical discourse in particular, the ocus o attention has mainly been on the abstract, transcendental subject characteristic o Cartesian, Kantian and Hegelian idealism: Descartes’s ego cogitans, Kant’s ‘I think’ and Hegel’s ‘spirit’. What has been overlooked here is the act that this subject did not only arise, think and act in concrete material circumstances described in the critiques o the Young Hegelians and Marxists, but became established through a constant interplay with collective, abstract or mythical subjects: with nation, state and class, Spirit, World Spirit and History. Above all, the interaction between the abstract, individual subject o philosophy and the collective subjects (groups, organizations, movements) o society was ignored entirely. In such circumstances, Marx’s idea that materialist philosophy is the ‘mind o the proletariat’ was more mystiying than illuminating. In the first section o this chapter, an attempt will be made in relation to a specific, semiotic definition o the term ‘subject’ (1) to describe the interaction between individual and collective subjects in a social and linguistic context; (2) to have a closer look at the relationship between inra-individual, individual, artificial and supraindividual actors; and (3) to consider individual and collective subjects as instances o discourse responsible or narrative programmes. At the end o the first section and in sections 2 and 3, the proposed definitions will give rise to questions concerning the subject o theory and the decline or disappearance o the individual subject – as diagnosed by various postmodern philosophies. 1
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Subjectivity and Identity
In contemporary debates, the ‘disappearance o the subject’ 1 is about to become a stereotype which merely diverts attention rom the act that nobody is actually able to define what exactly is about to disappear or has already disappeared. Hans Michael Baumgartner deserves praise or his courageous but risky attempt to distinguish notions o subject we can do without rom concepts that will remain indispensable. What has disappeared, according to Baumgartner, is the ‘subject as anticipation o reconciliation’ or ‘the universal subject o the intellectual which has caused diffi culties in other respects’.2 Apart rom the act that one need not discard everything that causes difficulties, it certainly makes sense to insist with Baumgartner on the inevitability o such grammatical subjects as the personal pronouns ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘he / she’, etc.3 A lot more problematical appears to be his enumeration o some philosophical concepts o subjectivity which he considers to be unavoidable: What has not disappeared because it continues to be a pre- condition o any meaningul speech, even o a speech on disappearance, is: 1. the sel- reerence o the ‘I’, 2. the subject as individual consciousness o cognition, 3. the subject as a responsible person in the legal and moral sense and 4. the communicative ‘I’ as a point o reerence o any shared discourse about the world and the lie o humans in it: even about the absolute.4
It will become clear later on, especially in Chapters IV and V, that not all o these concepts o subjectivity meet with consensus and that especially ‘the subject as individual consciousness o cognition’ and as ‘responsible person’ is queried by sociologists and social psychologists. However, contrary to what Baumgartner thinks, the ‘subject as anticipation o reconciliation’ may appear as a meaningul concept, especially i considered in the light o Critical Teory (c. Chapter II, 6). Reacting to a certain philosophical discourse exemplified by Baumgartner’s train o thought, this book is geared to the argument that the problem o the subject can only be dealt with within the interdisciplinary context in which philosophy, sociology, semiotics, psychology and theory o literature interact . Naturally, not all approaches related to this problem can be considered here; but it seems crucial to take into account constructions or definitions o the subject originating in different disciplines and to relate contradictory views to each other in a dialogical way. Tis is why in this chapter the theoretical debates ollow the definitions and why in the other chapters the problematic o subjectivity is viewed in the light o philosophy, literature, psychoanalysis (psychology) and sociology – all o which are considered as interacting and complementary disciplines. Within the methodological ramework mapped out above, a second, more concrete argument can now be put orward. It has an etymological as well as a philosophical aspect. Etymologically speaking, ‘subject’ is an ambiguous word which, both in ancient Greek and in Latin, means what is undamental or underlying (hypokeimenon, subiectum) and what is subjugated ( subiectus = subject in the sense o the king’s or emperor’s subject or subjects). It is important to know that in philosophy these two aspects coexist, sometimes in one and the same discourse – e.g. Hegel’s. Exaggerating slightly, one might argue that the entire philosophical discourse on subjectivity revolves around this ambiguity, which, time and again, leads to the old question o human reedom.
Teories o the Subject
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Descartes and the main representatives o German idealism – Kant, Fichte, Hegel – share ‘the idea that human subjectivity is the source o all reality or truth and the firm belie that human subjectivity is anchored in thought’. 5 Tis dogma o idealism was called into question afer the radical critique o Hegel’s philosophical system by the Young Hegelians, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Teir critique was intensified and became more radical in literary modernism (Dostoevsky, Musil, Valéry) and in Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s Critical Teory. It probably reached its climax in the writings o postmodern philosophers such as Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida and Vattimo – all o whom were inspired by Nietzsche’s polemics against the complementary concepts o truth and subjectivity. Tey reveal the reverse o the idealist medal by pointing out that the subject is not a undamental or underlying entity but rather a subjugated or disintegrating instance: a product o power constellations (Foucault) and ideologies (Althusser) or an unstable epiphenomenon o the unconscious and its impulses (Lacan). In the latter case, it is marked by discontinuity and contingency. In the second and third chapters, it will appear that there is a contradiction between the subject as a subjugated and the subject as a disintegrating instance. For a subject held together by ideology can be quite homogeneous and its definition excludes a disintegration in language, contingency or the unconscious. In this situation, the authors o Critical Teory (Adorno, Horkheimer), who in many respects saw themselves as sceptical heirs to Kant, Hegel and Marx, gauged the scope and the limits o an individual autonomy located well beyond all idealist dreams o subjective omnipotence, but also beyond all orms o structural subjugation and psychic ragmentation. Te questions they raised will be reormulated here in conjunction with a Critical Teory geared towards the dialogical principle in the sense o Bakhtin – and not (as Adorno would have it) towards the negativity o modernist art.
1 Te concept o subject and the subject o theory Te proposed definition o the subject is linked here to a theoretical project, which will be worked out in the ollowing chapters: or it seems diffi cult to submit a new definition without embedding it in an appropriate theoretical context. Te theoretical project sets out rom Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s Critical Teory and is marked by Greimas’s semiotics o discourse, ouraine’s sociology, Ricœur’s hermeneutics and – above all – Bakhtin’s dialogical approach to literature. Te main topic o this section is the interaction o individual and collective subjects and the possibilities offered to them in different social and linguistic situations. (a) Individual and collective subjects in society and language
Te individual as an autonomous subject, capable o deending opinions, assuming responsibilities and adopting a critical stance, has not always existed. In archaic and ancient societies, the individual appears as subjected by collective myths or by what Emile Durkheim calls ‘mechanical solidarity’: a solidarity based on the similarity o all
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Subjectivity and Identity
members belonging to a particular tribe. Even in European eudalism the individual subject speaks and acts within the collective context o a vast religious community, the guild or the extended amily. Te process o ‘disembedding’, 6 as Anthony Giddens calls the release or liberation o the individual rom eudal tutelage, begins in the Renaissance, when Montaigne, in his Essais, sets out to explore the apparently boundless realm o secular thought located beyond the collectively accepted doctrines o medieval scholasticism. Klaus-Jürgen Bruder aptly points out that ‘the notion o the individual is itsel o modern origin’.7 Bruder relies on the sociologist Norbert Elias who doubts that the idea o individuality was actually known to antiquity: Norbert Elias insists on the act that, in ancient languages, an equivalent o the notion o ‘individual’ did not exist, a notion we use ‘in order to reer to the uniqueness o each human being, to the particularity o his existence compared with the existence o others’ and ‘at the same time to express our esteem or this kind o uniqueness’. Elias explains this idea arguing that [in antiquity] ‘there was apparently no need or a concept reerring to the modern identity o the “I” ’. “Te collective identity o the individual human being was ar too important in the social practice o the ancient world”. 8
Tis concise description o the individual subject’s ‘embeddedness’ in traditional collectives confirms in many respects the analyses o ‘classical’ sociology in the sense o Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Ferdinand önnies and Georg Simmel. All o these authors have described the release o individual subjects rom the links and bonds o the Christian eudal community and their ensuing atomization in market society which turned them into ree but exploited labourers or profit-seeking entrepreneurs. Te young Marx anticipates these sociological analyses when he relates the emerging market economy to competition, possessive individualism and egoism: ‘Te motive o those who engage in exchange is not humanity but egoism.’9 Te idea that the mechanisms o the market might eventually threaten the individual’s uniqueness and reedom, which they themselves brought about, was put orward by Georg Simmel, a sociologist o modernism and modernist crises. Commenting on the unction o money or the members o a society, he points out: ‘For money only reers to what is common to all o them, to the exchange value, which reduces all quality and particularity to the question “how much”.’10 Like the archaic or eudal community, but by quite different means, the market value as exchange value deprives the individual subject o his singularity by making him comparable to all others. Te ‘dependence o the autonomous subject on economic autonomy’ 11 mentioned by Rudol zur Lippe entails a drastic limitation o individual reedom (autonomy) insoar as individuals are reed by the market rom eudal bonds, but at the same time are reduced to their quantifiable components as producers or consumers. Tey are thus negated as social and cultural subjects. Isaiah Berlin might say that in this situation the individual subject enjoys liberty in the negative sense, i.e. liberty rom constraints and collective tutelage, but is unable to take advantage o positive liberty, defined by Berlin as the ability o the subject to acquire
Teories o the Subject
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certain objects and to realize particular projects which are part and parcel o his subjectivity . Berlin, who defines negative liberty as ‘reedom rom’ and positive liberty as ‘reedom to’ links the latter to the very substance o subjectivity: Te ‘positive’ sense o the word ‘liberty’ derives rom the wish on the part o the individual to be his own master. I wish my lie and decisions to depend on mysel, not on external orces o whatever kind. I wish to be the instrument o my own, not o other men’s, acts o will. I wish to be a subject, not an object. 12
Marxists and other critics o capitalism point out, quite rightly, that in a society dominated by large international trusts, some o which carry more weight than small states, it becomes increasingly difficult to be ‘one’s own master’, as Berlin puts it. Tis is one o the reasons why the sel-realization o the individual in the sense o ‘positive reedom’ is requently linked to the ate o the class which is meant to overcome capitalist class society: to the proletariat. According to the Marxist point o view, only the collective subject ‘proletariat’ is able to bring about reedom and autonomy in this particular sense. However, the consciousness o the proletariat is soon superseded, within the Marxist doctrine, by a second, superior collective subject whose leadership is justified by George Lukács: ‘Te orm taken by the class consciousness o the proletariat is the Party ’,13 he argues in an orthodox ashion in History and Class Consciousness (1923). Tis well-organized and genuinely existing collective subject eventually usurps the subjectivity or consciousness o the proletariat and that o the individual worker. In communist Eastern Europe ‘reedom’ was only conceivable as a kind o sacrificium intellectus: as a voluntary identification o the individual citizen or party member with the omnipresent and almighty collective subject and its rhetoric. Although the communist regimes had succeeded, in some respects, in overcoming the heteronomy o the market, whose laws tend to negate the qualities o the individual whenever they are not ‘needed’, they had to accept a substantial sacrifice: the sacrifice o positive and negative reedom. In some cases, ‘Western’ conditions were reversed: people had enough money but could not buy anything because there were hardly any interesting goods on offer – thanks to the miscalculations o central planning agencies such as Gosplan in the USSR. It goes without saying that the collapse o East European communism did not eliminate the alienations and contradictions o a globally unctioning market economy: on the contrary, globalization exacerbated them. Tis is why some sociologists – ouraine in France, Beck in Germany – investigate the relationships between individual and collective actors and the possibility o extending the scope o the individual’s ‘positive reedom’ by linking it to collective action. According to ouraine, or example, the social movement provides the kind o collective action which ‘deends the subject against the power o commerce, big business and the state’ (c. Chapter IV, 4).14 Tis kind o argument is both plausible and attractive. But who guarantees that contemporary social movements are immune to totalitarian tendencies characteristic o Leninist parties and o some postmodern sects whose members are requently brainwashed into different kinds o Orwellian Newspeak – and thus eliminated as
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Subjectivity and Identity
autonomous subjects? It seems worth having a closer look at the multiarious links between individual and collective subjects in order to obtain a more concrete notion o subjectivity. (b) Subject and actant: Infra-individual, individual, artificial and supra-individual actants as subjects
Tus ar, ‘the individual’ has been treated as a synonym o ‘individual subject’, an instance Franz Grubauer also reers to when he defines individuality: Individuality [. . .] means, considered rom outside, certain physical eatures, a particular system o relations and the particularity o behaviour patterns, orientations and utterances; considered rom within, it is the natural experience o the sel, the understanding o one’s own position within a social network and finally, the experience o individuality by the ‘I’ as a unique individual. 15
Although this kind o definition is perectly acceptable, as long as one agrees with the theoretical context presupposed by Grubauer,16 it makes sense to distinguish ‘the individual’ rom ‘the individual subject’ in order to take into account the biological nature and the biological oundations o subjectivity. Te individual who appears to us in the street or in the countryside is immediately recognized by us as an ‘individual’ (man, woman or child) – not as a ‘subject’. Only when an individual begins to speak or to act do we recognize a subject – albeit vaguely. Some o us have experienced the ineffable eeling that overcomes a healthy person who is conronted by a critically ill patient who no longer recognizes the visitor, even i the latter is a close relative. In this case, illness as a natural process has destroyed subjectivity as a social, cultural and linguistic phenomenon . Tis kind o situation illustrates to what extent subjectivity as a social act presupposes the biological basis o individuality, which includes such actors as the genetic code, certain physical eatures and propensities. Tis seemingly banal insight is not unimportant i one tries to understand why several modernist authors such as Kaa or Sartre consider – in some o their works – nature as a threat to the individual subject: at any moment the latter can be reduced, by illness, psychic regression or political terror, to its biological basis, to a speechless individual. (In the second chapter, the importance o this distinction between ‘individual’ and ‘subject’, which coincides with the distinction between nature and culture, will be commented on in detail within the context o philosophical and literary discussions afer the disintegration o Hegel’s system.) Manred Frank seems to oversimpliy the matter when he argues ‘that individuals are subjects (although not all subjects are individuals), that they are immediately conscious o themselves in the sense that they construct their world in the light o interpretations which would remain incomprehensible without consciousness’. 17 Like Grubauer, he overlooks the act that, first o all, individuals are nature and that this transitory nature constitutes a contingent and highly precarious basis o culturally and linguistically ormed subjectivity. In this respect, collective subjects, hinted at by Frank in the parentheses, differ substantially rom individual ones: as groups, institutions or
Teories o the Subject
7
organizations they do not know biological death – but they are permanently threatened by social and political disintegration. In the context mapped out so ar, the individual subject can be defined as an acting and speaking instance or subject-actant (actant-sujet ) in the sense o Greimas, which communicates and interacts with other individual, inra-individual, artificial and supra-individual actants. Tis attempt to conceive o the individual subject as actant has nothing to do with ‘scientism’ or ‘scientific jargon’, but stems rom the idea that the relationship between individual, collective and other subject-instances can best be described on the level o actants, especially since the description o the discursive structure presupposes this level which can be linked to the main patterns o argumentation in psychology and sociology. (In the next section, it will be shown how subjects come about in discourse and how they assume an identity as speaking and acting instances.) Within Greimas’s structural semiotics, two kinds o actants can be distinguished: on the one hand, actants o enunciation or communication (e.g. narrators), on the other hand, actants o narrative (e.g. characters in a novel). In the first case, we are dealing with speaking instances, in the second case, with acting instances among whom subject actants and object actants can be distinguished. Simpliying slightly, one could argue that Greimas starts rom an elementary structure o enunciation and action within which a subject o enunciation or communication narrates how an acting subject attempts to wrestle an object rom an anti-subject – or to deend its possession o the object. At this stage, it is important to bear in mind that structural semiotics does not primarily deal with literature, but is more concerned with religious, political, legal, journalistic and scientific texts. In this context, ‘subjects’ are not simply heroes in the sense o ‘protagonists’ or ‘characters’; they can also be mythical, collective or abstract actants: or example, the sun or the moon in a airy tale, the party in the discourse o a Marxist like Lukács (c. supra) or science in the discourse o a philosopher or scientist. Te triadic, dialogical and polemical model subject-object-anti-subject , which points beyond the dualist scheme o subject-object , gains complexity i we assume that subject and anti-subject are called upon or summoned by addressers (destinateurs, Greimas) and ordered to realize a narrative programme. Tey are aided by helpers (adjuvants: on the subject’s side) and by opponents (opposants: on the anti-subject’s side). In Greimas’s later work, the ollowing instances conront each other: addresser (destinateur ), antiaddresser (anti-destinateur ), subject (sujet ), anti-subject (anti-sujet ) and object (objet ).18 In Sémantique structurale (1966), he included the two complementary unctions o helper and opponent (mentioned above), but dropped them later on – in spite o the act that they seem quite useul.19 All individual, collective and abstract actants are endowed with characteristic eatures or qualities which Greimas calls modalities. Tey empower the hero o the novel, the scientist or the political subject (e.g. the party) to intervene as a competent actant (o a discourse or a narrative), to change situations according to certain needs and to realize the narrative programme in question. Greimas distinguishes the ollowing modalities: virtualizing modalities (‘having to do something’, ‘wanting to do something’), actualizing (‘knowing’, ‘being able to do’) and realizing (‘to do’, ‘to be’). In other words:
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Subjectivity and Identity
speaking and acting instances can only begin to act i they wish or have to do something and i they have a certain knowledge and certain skills.20 Tis particular semiotic approach was requently misunderstood as a kind o pseudoscientific jargon, and some critics argued that Greimas could easily have used ‘ordinary’ words like ‘character’ or ‘protagonist’ instead o actant. Tey overlooked the act that the Franco-Lithuanian semiotician reintroduced Lucien esnière’s concept o actant 21 and Vladimir Propp’s corresponding concept o unction22 not only in order to analyse airy tales and other literary texts, but in order to clariy the concept o subjectivity . For this concept designates a complex unit, which is not given at any moment o time, but evolves in a social and linguistic context on a discursive level. Te individual or collective subject comes about in a narrative programme consisting o words and actions. Te question how it develops on an actantial and narrative level can be described – albeit in a slightly simplified orm – with the help o Greimas’s semiotic terminology. o begin with, it ought to be realized that an individual subject can only be understood in a communicative context , in which it conronts other subjects in a permanent consensual or polemical dialogue. It can come about by ollowing another individual, a collective, an abstract or a mythical subject recognized as addresser (destinateur ) who partly or entirely usurps its reedom. A political leader, a party, a sect, a trade union or religion, science and art as idealized entities can all ulfil the unction o addressers and to a certain extent determine the ate (destin) o the individual subject. While George Lukács’s subjectivity was temporarily determined by the Hungarian Communist Party, Proust decided to act and narrate in the name o literature or art. It is a well-known act that the members o a sect are very ofen over-determined by the dogmatic tenets (a kind o Newspeak) o a creed. Hartmut Zinser confirms sociological and psychological findings when he points out: ‘Te orientation towards occultism can be considered as a valid symptom o the subject’s diffi culties.’23 It becomes clear at this stage that an individual, collective or abstract actant (as addresser) can both give birth to subjectivity as religious, artistic or scientific vocation and cause the subject’s elimination by orcing it into an unconditional submission ( sub-iectum) to authority. Te reedom o the individual subject – child, man or woman – seems to consist in permanent criticism: o the chosen addresser or authority and o its own attitude towards the latter. On the inra-individual level, which corresponds to the level o personality in the sociological sense,24 the individual subject can also be understood – albeit in a different perspective – as a communication or interaction o actants or acting instances. In George H. Mead’s interactionist approach, the Sel results rom an interplay between the I and the Me triggered off by the multiple social reactions to the I – or the attitudes people adopt towards ‘me’: ‘Te “I” reacts to the sel which arises through the taking o the attitudes o others. Trough taking those attitudes we have introduced the “me” and we react to it as an “I”.’25 Although he starts rom very different premises, Sigmund Freud also adopts an inra-individual perspective when he divides the individual subject into his wellknown instances – superego, ego and id – whose interaction is meant to explain the dynamics and woes o the psyche. Like Mead, he endows these instances with specific modalities (Greimas) such as ‘must-do’, ‘can-do’ and ‘know-how’:
Teories o the Subject
9
Te tension between the strict super-ego and the subordinate ego we call the sense o guilt; it maniests itsel as the need or punishment. Civilization thereore obtains the mastery over the dangerous love o aggression in individuals by eneebling and disarming it and setting up an institution within their minds to keep watch over it, like a garrison in a conquered city. 26
Tis is an almost complete presentation o Freud’s mythical and military actantial model. Culture as addresser orders the superego as inra-individual subject to occupy and supervise the obstreperous ‘I’ in its double role as anti-subject and object. By weakening and disarming the ‘I’, the latter’s virtualizing and actualizing modalities are reduced to a bare minimum: its reedom o will and its scope o action are drastically limited as long as it submits to the superego as ‘conscience’. Freud’s model is a particularly vivid description o subjectivity as ‘subjugation’ in the second sense o the Latin word subiectum. Te meta-discursive translation o Freud’s model into the language o structural semiotics is also meant to illustrate the gaps in this model. It includes abstract and mythical but not collective actants and hence cannot be used to explain the social process in the course o which subjectivity develops or disappears (e.g. by virtue o ideological or organizational subjugation). For it is not ‘culture’ in general that achieves the submission o the ‘I’ but such concrete institutions and organizations as the Church, the sect or the party. Tey send out the individual subject on ‘a mission’ (‘mission de salut’ , Greimas): ‘Te addresser (a social authority empowered to send out the hero on a mission) endows the hero with the role o addressee.’27 Te addresser can also be an abstract or mythical actant such as ‘science’, ‘socialism’, ‘History’ or the ‘World Spirit’ in the sense o Hegel, and the distinction between mythical and abstract actants (addressers) is hard to draw – as the critique o Luhmann’s sociology in the ourth chapter will show. One may well ask whether ‘civilization’ in the Freudian sense does not imperceptibly turn into a mythical addresser – at least in some o Freud’s texts. At the other end o the spectrum, the computer as artificial intelligence and artificial subject is very likely to have a long-term impact on both individual and collective subjectivity. Te common denominator linking human and artificial intelligence seems to be the narrative programme (c. Chapter I, 1, c). Wolgang Huber takes note o this in his essay on ‘Te Artificial Subject’: However, not only computer models o humans as thinking, planning and acting beings lead to the artificial subject. Te discovery o the genetic code has led to the idea that human hardware is an inormation processing machine and that the task o science consists in investigating the programme o this machine. 28
Te question seems to be: who will programme whom? However, this question does not merely concern the interaction between individual and artificial subject- actants, but also that between individual and collective subjects. In both cases, the autonomy o the individual subject is at stake. A better understanding o individual subjectivity can reinorce this autonomy; this is why an attempt has been made here to define the subject as a dynamic and dialogical
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Subjectivity and Identity
unit , as a dynamic, permanently shifing equilibrium resulting rom the interaction o inra-individual, individual, collective, abstract, mythical and artificial actants. It is hardly necessary to point out that this equilibrium is permanently threatened, since even collective subjects can only be adequately conceived o as relatively unstable, changing units. Coalition governments all apart as soon as the parties involved begin to oppose each other as independent actors29 and no longer adhere to the common programme their coalition is based on. It is this (narrative) programme which guarantees the unity and identity o the collective actant ‘government’. As long as it stands, such a government is a legal, political and economic subject. Te nation as a collective actant has not always existed (in the Middle Ages, e.g. during the English ‘War o the Roses’, eudal amilies appear as the decisive acting instances), and it may be that the uture does not belong to it any more. Tis possibility o a decline o the national actant is not even envisaged by the editor o the Nueva revista (Madrid) who is quite confident that nation states will continue to be the relevant political and historical units: ‘Nations continue to exist as subjects and agents o history, and their dissolution by European powers or their destruction by regional nationalisms is not in sight.’30 It is not so much the ideological prognostic which matters here, but the author’s description o the historical context o interaction and communication within which the actant ‘nation’ operates. Like the collective actant ‘nation’, the individual subject has a historical dimension to it and is permanently threatened by unctional atrophy, decline or disintegration, especially since it owes its changing identity to geographical, historical, cultural and linguistic actors which are also relevant to the identity o the ‘nation’. Will it still be possible to eel ‘British’ i Scotland leaves the United Kingdom at one point? Is there, was there ever, a ‘British nation’? Tis example shows to what extent individual and collective subjectivity and identity are tied up. So ar, these introductory remarks were meant to show that the individual subject is embedded in a communicative or dialogical context within which it acquires an identity. Within this context, it interacts as an individual subject – which this analysis ocuses on – with inra-individual, artificial, abstract and mythical instances most o which can be conceived o as subject-actants – but not as individual or collective subjects, which always presuppose the existence o biological, psychic and social actors. (We can thus consider ‘history’ or ‘ate’ as mythical subject-actants, as acting instances, but not as subjects in the individual or collective sense.) Te question is how the individual subject comes about in a social and linguistic situation, where it moves between different languages (natural languages, group languages, technical languages) and appears as both over-determined and autonomous. (c) Individual and collective subjects as discursive instances: Subjectivity, individuality, identity
Te idea developed here can be summed up in a ew words: collective and individual subjects come about in social and linguistic situations which can be considered as interactions o group languages and their discourses. A subject is, among other things, a discursive instance whose development depends on a dialogue with others in the
Teories o the Subject
11
course o which it reacts imitatively, consensually or polemically to other discourses and their subjects, thereby opting in avour o or against a certain vocabulary, particular semantics, relevance criteria, classifications and definitions. Its identity as speaking and acting subject develops in discourse as narrative programme. Tis discourse can only come about in a permanent dialogue with others: with parents and relatives in the course o primary socialization; with teachers, riends and colleagues in the course o secondary socialization. Te best example in this case is probably language acquisition: children acquire their mother tongue by interacting daily with their parents, relatives, brothers, sisters, riends and teachers. Tey acquire a second language by communicating with many others whose cultural and linguistic otherness is decisive: it is only by listening to the stranger who thinks, acts and speaks differently that they make their subjectivity expand into the new, the unknown – and the uture. From the mother to the teacher o the second language it is the (generalized) Other in the sense o Mead who contributes decisively to the development o the individual subject in dialogue: by incessantly introducing alterity, innovation, transormation. However, this dialogical process o socialization and acculturation is at the same time a process o social and linguistic over-determination o the subject: o subjection. For each individual and collective subject (e.g. a peer group) moves in a social and linguistic situation it has not created and cannot immediately change. Te sociolects or group languages o peer groups, political parties or ideological movements are given in the same way as technical languages, the languages o advertising and science. Assuming that the behaviour o the child, the youth and to a certain extent even the adult is primarily adaptive and imitative, one can argue that, in many respects, the individual and the group are over-determined by society and language. More ofen than not, this means that subjects are conditioned by certain religious, political or scientific sociolects. At this stage the sociolect can be defined more concretely as a permanent interaction within a group o real or potential discourses based on a common vocabulary and common semantics: i.e. relatively homogeneous relevance criteria,31 classifications and definitions. Considering that individuals can hardly invent general relevance criteria o their own (e.g. in medicine, ecology or economics), they tend to rely heavily on the vocabulary and the semantics o the most influential political or technical sociolects as articulated by the media. 32 Te discourses they turn to in order to get by in everyday lie are produced by these group languages and have a narrative structure (they tell a ‘story’) based on a schematized interaction o actants and actors. (Consider a conservative discourse which invariably presents the ‘loony lef’ as a negative collective actant or anti-hero and a complementary discourse o the lef which reserves this role or ‘capitalism’ as a mythical actant. Everybody is amiliar with this anti-hero: but how do you get hold o it?) In other words: individual and collective subjects cope with social reality by declaring certain semantic oppositions and differences as relevant (thereby neglecting others) and by using this relevance or the construction o actantial models and narrative sequences: stories about social events which make it easier to distinguish subjects and antisubjects, helpers and opponents, addressers and anti-addressers. Unlike Marxists, who start rom the opposition between bourgeoisie and proletariat in order to narrate their own personal story and the story o society as a ‘history o class
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Subjectivity and Identity
conflicts’, the ‘green’ politician constructs an antagonism between economy and environment or civilization and nature, thus trying to involve us in a completely different ‘story’ in an apparently post-industrial society. Te eminist presents an alternative to both by drawing our attention to the millenary conflict o genders and by re-narrating history as ‘His-story’. Marxist story, ‘green story’ or ‘Her-story’? Which one is relevant? How do you choose? Te situation does not change radically i we turn to scientific theory. Te act that a single semantic distinction can change the actantial scheme, the narrative structure and the direction o a discourse becomes apparent i one compares Niklas Luhmann’s distinction between system and environment with Jürgen Habermas’s distinction between systems and lie world (Lebenswelt , Husserl, Schütz, Habermas). While Luhmann narrates society as a process o system-differentiation, Habermas tells the story o a intensiying conflict between the systems ‘power’ and ‘money’ on the one hand, and the ‘lie world’ on the other. His expression ‘colonization o the lie world’ is the story in a nutshell.33 Each o these two stories creates a philosophical or sociological subjectivity as soon as somebody – or example, a young sociologist – adheres to its relevance criteria and starts propagating it. Greimas confirms the idea that the decision to espouse a sociolect or a particular discourse as narrative structure is an existential act , when he explains in an interview ‘that one may consider the narrative scheme as an ideological model in which man conronts lie and with the help o which he acquires qualifications and competences allowing him to realize meaning and a particular project’.34 Te existentialist connotations o the word ‘project’, which evoke Sartre’s projet , are not due to chance but are meant to remind us o the act that the partly over-determined decision to adopt a discourse as a narrative programme has an existential character and involves a certain amount o autonomy and reedom. Within this context, all attempts to programme computers and to use them as helpers o planning humans could be viewed as efforts to extend and optimize the lie programmes o individual and collective subjects. Susanne zur Nieden, who has explored diaries o German women under National Socialism, shows that the individual subject’s autonomy is ofen limited or even suppressed by overwhelming collective subjects who impose their language on society as a whole. She quotes rom the diary o the ourteen-year-old Edelgard B., who notes on 25 August 1944: ‘Now Dr. Goebbels has coined the slogan “total war”. We, that is our school, will also have to ulfil various tasks. Tat would be perectly all right, or we have to win!!! It’s better to give everything now than end up in Siberia.’ 35 Tis is almost a caricature o ‘over-determination’, that is o the subject as ‘subjected instance’, as subiectum. At the same time, this example illustrates Jean-Pierre Faye’s theory o ‘totalitarian languages’, 36 most o which usurp the subject’s linguistic autonomy by suppressing or curtailing its critical aculties. It also illustrates Louis Althusser’s thesis, according to which ideology turns individuals into subjects: ‘ Ideology interpellates Individuals as Subjects .’37 Althusser explains: ‘I say: the category o the subject is constitutive o all ideology, but at the same time and immediately I add that the category o the subject is only constitutive o all ideology insoar as all ideology has the unction (which defines it) o “constituting” concrete individuals as subjects. ’38 Althusser’s central idea is expressed more concretely by Michel Pêcheux, who adds: ‘In reality, the thesis according to which
Teories o the Subject
13
“ideology calls upon individuals as subjects” means that a “non-subject” is called upon by ideology and turned into a subject.’39 In spite o its merits, this approach to ‘ideological subjectivity’ is problematical or three reasons. o begin with, it neglects the act that theories, very much like ideologies, rom which they cannot be entirely dissociated, turn individuals and groups into subjects (as Althusser’s own theory shows). Tis idea will be developed in some detail in the next section. Moreover, it completely neglects the well-known act that ideologies can also shape the subjectivity o groups, organizations (e.g. political parties) and even masses, especially in totalitarian states. Finally, it neglects the potential o ‘positive reedom’ in the sense o Isaiah Berlin. It seems worth dwelling on the third point. On the one hand, the discourse o ourteen-year-old Edelgard B. seems to confirm Althusser’s thesis in all respects, or this discourse appears to be entirely overdetermined by the National Socialist sociolect; on the other hand, anyone amiliar with the development o totalitarian systems can imagine that the individual subject is not permanently reduced to a puppet o propaganda. As a dialogical and developing unit, it relies on reflection, difference and dissent. It thrives on difference and divergence because competing viewpoints and ideologies even exist in totalitarian systems (one may think o the semi-official Catholic dissent in ascist Italy and National Socialist Germany) and because an ideological interregnum ollowed the collapse o the totalitarian systems in Germany and Italy afer 1945. Tis interregnum revealed the ambivalence and relativity o the old values, thereby calling into question all ideological subjectivities (collective and individual) o the past and at the same time releasing the critical potential o reflecting and dissenting individual subjects: a critical potential which contributed to the movements and revolts o the 1960s – and especially o 1968. Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s Critical Teory thrived on the collapse o the totalitarian ideologies and on the intense process o (sel-) reflection it brought about. Afer the collapse o National Socialism and ascism, it was no longer possible to maintain the subjective modalities o ‘being’, ‘knowing’ or ‘willing’ within the disintegrating official language or sociolect. Tis act is amply illustrated by the disillusioned hero o Alberto Moravia’s post-war novel Il conormista (1951). At the end, Marcello Clerici, an agent o ascism, is conronted with the transormation o the entire value system and the ambivalence o values: ‘In other words, there must be brought about, thanks to orces which did not depend on him, a complete transormation o values: injustice must become justice; treachery, heroism; death, lie.’40 In this kind o social and linguistic situation, which is marked by the transormation and ambivalence o all ideological values, the individual subject undergoes a crisis because its discursive and ideological identity is at stake: At this point he elt the need to express his own position in crude, sarcastic words, and said to himsel coldly: ‘I, in act, Fascism is a ailure, i all the blackguards and incompetents and imbeciles in Rome bring the Italian nation to ruin, then I’m nothing but a wretched murderer’. 41
However, the ambivalence o social values does not only cause a crisis, but at the same time provokes radical criticism o the ideological sociolect which or years or decades
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Subjectivity and Identity
ormed individual subjectivity. Te subject gradually dissociates itsel rom its own subjectivity and begins to envisage a general reorientation as a speaking and acting instance. A reorientation o the kind experienced by Marcello Clerici is also conceivable in the case o Edelgard B. Like Clerici’s, her situation in 1945 was marked (i she survived the war) by crisis and critique. Both actors may have induced her to embrace a new ideology or to react with active scepticism: as a floating voter, writer, critic or as a eminist author who considers the competing eminisms with irony and reveals their contradictions. She may even have read Althusser’s works and noted in her new diary: ‘What is presented here as pure science, as a scientific brand o Marxism-Leninism that has been purged o all humanist ideologies, is merely a new ideology, which is about to turn credulous individuals into subjects. Tis is more or less what we experienced in the GDR.’ Unortunately, the last sentence misses Althusser’s and Pêcheux’s main point, or Althusser’s thesis (quoted above) represents considerable progress within the theory o ideology. ranslated into the language o social semiotics, it shows to what extent individuals are governed by ideologies and turned by them into speaking and acting agents. Althusser overlooks, however (a act pointed out by the fictive Edelgard B.), that even scientific discourses turn individuals into subjects who unwittingly practise a ‘normal science’ in the sense o Tomas S. Kuhn 42 without being able to imagine an alternative to the paradigm within which they have been ormed as scientists by particular historical and always contingent discourses. Te alternative to their paradigm nevertheless suraces at a certain point: not only because scientific development produces anomalies or contradictions, thus calling the entire paradigm into question (as Kuhn would have it), but also because certain individual subjects are encouraged by these contradictions to look or alternative relevance criteria, definitions and explanations. Tis positive reedom ‘to do something (different)’ is overlooked by Althusser and his ollowers who seem to have lost sight o the dialectic between over-determination and reedom.43 Tis dialectic, without which innovative and inventive thought would be impossible , can be described as a relationship between individuality and subjectivity . Te biological individual who, as an inant, is not yet mature because it is unable to articulate impressions, needs and ideas in a coherent way, grows up gradually in a permanent interaction with other subjects and objects, 44 to become an individual subject conscious o its own unique individuality (as socialized physis) and subjectivity (as socialized psyche). At this point, it is capable o realizing itsel in the sense o ‘positive reedom’. Tis kind o reedom may, or a certain period o time, be usurped by ideologies, religions and even media, as the ascist, National Socialist and Stalinist episodes have shown – but not at all levels and not or ever: or in late modern and postmodern societies the domination o ideologies, scientific ‘paradigms’, religious ‘revivals’ and media ashions are quite short-lived. Teir sporadic disintegration leads to new ideological and cultural constellations which provide new scopes o action and new kinds o reedom or individual and collective subjects (e.g. social movements). Hence Althusser’s highly questionable assertion that ‘ideology is eternal’ 45 could be countered by the insight that ideology is a relatively new phenomenon, i.e. a
Teories o the Subject
15
characteristic eature o secularized bourgeois society, 46 and that in contemporary society ideologies are more ephemeral than ever. It ollows rom this that one and the same person can be perectly capable o reflecting critically and sel-critically on different ideological attitudes and identities, thus turning subject-orming ideology into an object o scepticism (c. Chapter III, 5). At this point, it seems helpul to recall Rüdiger Bubner’s concise and lucid remark on subjectivity: ‘Reflection is always able to take the sting out o ate.’ 47 We are dealing here with the dialectical relationship between individuality as social physis or potential and subjectivity as realization o this potential in thought, speech and action. Hence the individual subject could be defined – at least or the time being – as a dynamic, dialogical synthesis o individuality and subjectivity. 48 Te circular orm o the argument, which is due to the act that subjectivity presupposes (biological, physical) individuality, while the latter also presupposes subjectivity (because individuality can only be defined in the linguistic context o subjectivity), is not a major problem, since the aim o the argument is not a chronological explanation but a description o the dynamic, dialectical unit.49 Paul Ricœur comments on this matter in some detail: First there is being-in-the world, then understanding, then interpreting, then saying. Te circular character o this itinerary must not stop us. It is indeed true that it is rom the heart o language that we say all this; but language is so made that it is able to designate the ground o existence rom which it proceeds and to recognize itsel as a mode o the being o which it speaks. 50
Te reflexive moment is decisive here because the discourse, which constitutes subjectivity, reflects at the same time on its own nature in relation to its origin. Manred Frank has recognized the importance o this auto-reflexive moment or the structure o subjectivity: ‘Even the so-called critics o subjectivity – e.g. Heidegger and Derrida – have never seriously questioned the idea that subjectivity as a act is correctly described as auto-reflexivity o thought.’51 In a complementary ashion Vincent Descombes defines the subject as ‘subject conscious o itsel’ (‘sujet conscient de soi’). 52 Against this backdrop, Ricœur’s distinction between ipseity (ipséité ) and sameness (mêmeté ) seems relevant, because ipseity corresponds in some respects to individuality , while sameness corresponds to subjectivity . A crucial aspect o ipseity (translated as selfood by the American translator) is physis as corporeity , or ‘to the extent that my body’s belonging to mysel constitutes the most overwhelming testimony in avour o the irreducibility o selood to sameness’, 53 the corporeal criterion is linked to the problem o ipseity (selfood ). Ipseity as origin o statements and actions is a guarantee o continuity and identity. Ricœur quotes as examples the given promise and the perpetrated crime which can both be attributed to a certain identifiable (even i not always identified) ipse. Even the change o sex, one could add, can be attributed to an ipse who decides to give her or his narrative programme a new orientation and to present her- or himsel as a new actor. Paradoxically, the change itsel occurs on the level o sameness or mêmeté which is linked by the individual’s narrative project to ipseity .
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Tis is why Ricœur speaks o a ‘narrative identity’ which results rom the dialectic between ipseity (selfood) and sameness.54 Tis narrative identity as a narrative project or ‘emplotment’ (‘mise en intrigue’)55 is a ‘synthesis o the heterogeneous’ 56 in which continuity and discontinuity are intertwined and in which discontinuity can dominate to such a degree that subjectivity as sameness is put in jeopardy: or example in Robert Musil’s novel Te Man without Qualities – quoted by Ricœur – where the hero’s narrative programme is questioned rom episode to episode: ‘Te story o this novel boils down to a situation where the story which was meant to be told is not told.’57 What remains is a hero without ‘qualities’, without a definable subjectivity, or rather: with differentt coexisting differen co existing and competing subjectivities (narrative programmes). In many cases, ideology covers the ‘lack o qualities’ by turning the individual into a subject: into a speaking and acting being. In a Hungarian university town, a person unknown to us greets our colleague, and we ask: ‘Who was that?’ ‘In the past, he was a anatical communist whom everybody was araid o.’ ‘And what is he now?’ ‘A pious Catholic who, thank goodness, is no longer a threat to anybody.’ In spite o his break with communism, this particular individual has managed to saeguard a certain amount o continuity as a subject. His addresser ( (destinateur ) may no longer be the Party but the Church – but his crucial modality, i.e. the will to believe, to adopt a aith and to consider redemption as the main goal in lie (as the objectactant ), ), has been preserved. His narrative identity may have become more complex, but it can still be considered as the same, la même. It may very well be that this whole conception is based on a hermeneutic and semiotic illusion deconstructionists such as Derrida could easily break up. For i the new (old) Catholic identity is viewed as a radical negation o the old communist identity, it seems preerable to speak o a disintegration o the subject or o his renewed submission to yet another ideology – and not o continuity within an increasing complexity. Te way out o this dilemma may be a dialectical link between the hermeneutic-rationalist hermeneutic-rationalist and the deconstructionist extreme: it may show that the subject is a dynamic unit o individuality and subjectivity which can neither be understood as a constant, sel-identical sel- identical and homogeneous instance, nor as a disintegrating or subjugated entity. Te idea o subjective autonomy can best be made plausible within a theory in which the dialectic between individuality and subjectivity is perceived as an open-ended open- ended narrative process geared towards identity . Finally, the word ‘identity’ raises questions concerning the definition o this requently used and abused concept. Teorists o identity such as Heiner Keupp tend to use ‘identity’ and ‘subjectivity’ as synonyms. Following Stuart Stuar t Hall, Keupp queries the idealist view o a homogeneous and indivisible subjectivity or identity: ‘It is the idea o an “indivisible subject”, o a unified and indivisible identity.’ 58 Subjectivity or identity? Can these two concepts be distinguished – and is a distinction meaningul? An explicit distinction is not offered by Keupp, but a closer look at his text shows that he works with an implicit difference. It can be made explicit within the semiotic model used here. Identity is the object o o the eeling, thinking, speaking and acting subject-actant. subjectactant. ‘Identity work’ or ‘ Identitätsarbeit ’59 in the sense o Keupp appears in this context as a complex interaction o narrative programmes, most o which evolve at
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an affective, cognitive cognitive or pragmatic level, in the sense that every subject constructs an emotional, rational rational or rationalized and actact-related related lie story. Te idea that ‘identity’ unctions as the ‘object‘object-actant’ actant’ within the narrative programme or the story crops up at crucial moments in Keupp’s work. In Identitätskonstruktionen , or example, he speaks o the ‘very creative role subjects perorm while working on their identity’.60 Especially his expression ‘identity materials’ suggests that he conceives o ‘identity’ as an object constructed constructed by the subject within an actantial model in the sense o Greimas. Te inant as individual, as ipse in the sense o Ricœur, does not yet dispose o a psychic and social identity; it has to appropriate the latter as mêmeté , as Ricœur would say. From this perspective, one could consider subjectivity as a dynamic synthesis o individuality and identity, or only somebody who has acquired a a psychic, social and linguistic identity is recognized by others as a eeling, speaking and acting subject. Te narrative process leading to identity ormation is thus reflexive in character, and Keupp has a point when he reers to ‘processes o subject ormation’. 61 Here again the circular relationship relation ship between individuality (as (as ipseity ) and subjectivity as as (sameness / mêmeté and identity ) makes itsel elt. One presupposes the other. Te act that, as a psychoanalyst, Gianpaolo Lai finds numerous breaks in the identities o his patients, need not lead to the conclusion that identity is a myth or simply does not exist. Identity, like textual coherence, like the political cohesion o a (coalition) government is relative: it need not be absolute or monolithic in order to exist . Te more open or flexible it is, the longer it may survive: the more flexible, the more open to compromise the political parties p arties o a coalition government are, the longer longer the latter is likely to last . . . Tis does not necessarily mean that such parties – as collective subjects – lack identity; i dentity; and what applies to them also applies to individual subjects. Commenting on his therapies, Lai concludes: ‘It is a non-identical non-identical therapy applied by a non-identical non-identical therapist to non-identical non-identical patients.’62 Tis does not mean, however, that identity is no longer the main objective o the subject’s quest; it means that it has become more complex and undergoes requent changes in a postmodern society – very much like party programmes, programmes, political organization organizationss and institutions. institutions. 63 Keupp is right in pointing out, afer Beck, that the contemporary decline o traditions and social solidarities (e.g. class solidarities) brings about a never experienced ‘disembedding’ (Giddens) o individual subjects and ‘that social processes o disembedding entail undamentally different conditions o identity ormation’. 64 In the ollowing chapters, the change o these conditions will be described more concretely in relation to the transition rom modernity to postmodernity. (d) Te subject of theory
A theory o the subject, which ails to reflect upon its own social and linguistic origins and upon its own subjectivity, would not only be incomplete – it would be ideological. For one o the salient eatures o ideological discourse (defined as a semantic and narrative structure with an underlying actantial model) is its ‘naturalist’ attitude towards itsel. Its subject views its language as naturally given and hence necessary and does not reflect sel-critically sel- critically upon the context o its social and linguistic origin. Tis
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monologic attitude gives birth to the authoritarian claim to be identical with reality, i.e. with all the objects the subject reers to: they can only be defined in the sense o the subject’s ideology. Adorno and Horkheimer chose to call this kind o thought ‘identitarian thought’ or ‘Identitätsdenken’. Another aspect o ideological discourse is its dualistic structure which, on the actantial level, boils down to a rigid opposition between heroes and anti-heroes, anti-heroes, helpers and opponents (traitors).65 Considering the complexities and diffi di fficulties encountered by most people in the course o their lives, it is not altogether surprising that they have recourse to collective ideologies and tacitly or unconsciously accept being turned into subjects by their semantics and their narratives. Niklas Luhmann quite rightly reminds us o the dangers o ideological manicheism: ‘oday one would be shocked i, among the campaign staff o a political party, p arty, he heard someone some one say, say, “All the people want to know is who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, and this is what we are going to tell them”.’66 Tis worry may be symptomatic in the case o a sociologist who has replaced the subject by the system (c. Chapter IV, IV, 3) and is thereore unaware o the link between subjectivity and ideology. However, or individual subjects it may be useul, or practical and emotional reasons, to drastically reduce the complexity (Luhmann) o everyday lie by adopting monologic and dualistic language patterns offered by a vast number o ideological discourses. Tis is probably the main reason why ideological arguments or explanations are more easily understood and accepted by groups than theoretical ones – which are ofen hypothetical and leave crucial questions unanswered.67 In this situation, the subject o theory can afford neither linguistic naiveté nor a blind political engagement. It It will adhere to three basics: (1) It will reflect upon its own subjective position in a particular historical and socio-linguistic socio- linguistic constellation; (2) it will avoid certain discursive mechanisms o ideologies such as dualism, monologue and identification with reality and construct a theoretical alternative both on the semantic and the narrative level; and (3) finally, it will remain open to dialogue with other sociolects and their discourses in order to overcome the doxa or prejudice underlying its own language and subjectivity. In short, the subject o Dialogical Teory (c. Chapter V), V), which underlies this book, will not only reflect upon its socially ormed subjectivity but will sporadically call it into question. It does not aim at a metaphysical oundation o its stance but at a permanent critique o its theorems in an open dialogue. Discussions about the role o individuality in theoretical discourses may only have begun. How How does individuality as corporeity corp oreity and material basis o subjectivity maniest itsel in theory ormation? Cartesians, Kantians and Hegelians – unlike materialists such as Hobbes and Feuerbach 68 – may consider this question as meaningless. ‘Science smiling into its beard’ (‘Das in den Bart Lächeln der Wissenschaf’) 69 (Musil) may be a suitable topic or novels – not or scientific discourse which only admits serious gestures and aces. Tese are creatively ignored by Henning Klauß who sets out to prove in minute analyses ‘that ‘that the sensual rapport between the scientific subject and its object is progressively selective, i.e. limited limited in a certain sense and not encompassing the whole’. He goes on to explain: ‘Te other aim was to show that, due to methodological exigencies, the distance between subject and object increases.’ 70
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Both ideas are important, because the first reveals that, due to the individual, physical bias o the scientist, an ‘objective’ representation is very unlikely to come about, while the second reminds us o the act that distance and abstraction mark the subject-object subjectobject relationship. relationship. Te socially accelerated process o abstraction in science is convincingly convinc ingly related by Klauß to the dominance o sight among among humans: Within this historical process, the sense o sight has acquired a dominant position Within vis-à-vis other senses, because it has become more intense or or specific reasons reasons and because it ulfilled the demands o growing abstraction, distance and rationality more easily and was able to reproduce and develop the latter latter.. 71
It can be assumed that, aided by the sense o vision, this process o abstraction was initiated by homo sapiens, who was orced to think and act strategically in order to survive in a hostile environment. It is certainly inherent in rationalist discourses on the domination over nature dealt with critically by Horkheimer and Adorno Adorno in Dialectic o Enlightenment . Not only the social subject, even the individual as a creature o nature has to accept painul constraints constrain ts in order to survive: ‘Odysseus ‘Odysseus recognizes the archaic superior power o the song even when, as a technically enlightened man, he has himsel bound.’ 72 Eventually, technical or instrumental reason yields a mode o thought so abstract that subject and object are dissolved by it: ‘Subject ‘Subject and object are both rendered ineffectual. Te abstract sel, which justifies record-making record-making and systematization, has nothing set over against it but the abstract material which possesses no other quality than to be a substrate o such possession.’73 In view o this nexus between domination and thought, it seems crucial to reflect upon the position o one one’’s own discourse in a particular social and linguistic situation in which the subject’s decisions in avour o certain relevance criteria, taxonomies, definitions and arguments are never ree o domination because they are invariably linked to individual and collective interests. Within each theoretical sociolect s ociolect (e.g. that o Critical Teory or o Critical Rationalism), R ationalism), special objects are constructed in relation to the relevance criteria and taxonomies o the sociolect. Tey compete with comparable object constructions in other scientific group languages. Te claim to supremacy o one’s own language can only be controlled and mitigated by the subject o discourse i it succeeds in avoiding the dualistic, monologic and identiying mechanisms o ideologies. For unlike the subject o ideology, the subject o theory calls the dualism o ideological speech into question and reflects upon its own social and linguistic situation, upon its semantic and narrative techniques and the object constructions resulting rom them. Such constructions are subsequently presented as hypotheses in a critical and open dialogue with other scientists. Tis dialogic approach is meant to overcome – at least partly – the particularity and contingency o the subject o theory by a sel-critical sel- critical and ironical attitude towards the position it deends .74 Te contrast between ideological identification (o thought and reality) and theoretical construction o objects is analysed by the semiotician Luis J. Prieto: ‘Te knowledge o a material reality is ideological whenever w henever the subject considers the limits and the identity o an object, in which reality appears to it, as part o reality itsel, i.e. i
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the subject attributes to reality the idea it constructed rom it.’ 75 Implicitly, Prieto criticizes not only Hegelianism and various brands o Marxism-Leninism, but also hermeneutic approaches and even Popper’s Critical Rationalism, whose ollowers requently pretend that their scientific metatheories are universally valid. 76 Unlike all o these approaches, the dialogic approach proposed here is marked by the consciousness o the subject o theory that its concept o subjectivity is merely a contingent construction which competes with other – comparable and divergent – constructions in an open scientific dialogue. Such constructions do not simply come about in the minds o individual subjects but are the products o collectively shared philosophical traditions and scientific group languages (sociolects) – as the works o Jürgen Habermas and Michel Foucault show. Reflecting upon its particularity and its contingency, contingency, Dialogical Teory (c. Chapter V, 2) will never lose sight o these competing constructions and will keep an eye on both consensus and dissent in theoretical debates. It is guided by the idea that a dialogue between heterogeneous group languages and philosophical traditions is more likely to expose theories and theorems to critical tests than intersubjective control in the sense o Popper and Habermas, 77 which depends on individual thinkers within a particularr scientific particula scientific group and more ofen than not confirms the th e group’s collective collec tive doxa. In other words: the subject o Dialogical Teory takes the view that it can only survive as a theoretical subject i it remains open to the otherness o competing scientific languages and listens to their criticism. It thereby thereby defines itsel as a dialogical, polyphonic subject in the sense o Bakhtin. Far rom excluding multiplicity and plurality, it thrives on the conrontation and combination o dissenting voices and thus becomes itsel a polypho w hich homogeneity and heterogeneity are not polyphonic nic narrative narrative in which mutually exclusive. Te act that identity can only be understood in its relationship to alterity was pointed out by Mikhail M. Bakhtin, probably the most important theoretician o dialogue. According to him, both the speaking subject and the spoken word are to be viewed in a dialogical set-up. set-up. Commenting on Dostoevsky’s work, Bakhtin writes: Every experience, every thought o a character is internally dialogic, adorned with polemic, filled with struggle, or is on the contrary open to inspiration rom outside itsel – but it is not in any case concentrated simply on its own object; it is accompanied by a continual sideways glance at another person. 78
Like Dostoevsky’s (Bakhtin’s) hero, the subject o theory becomes conscious o the act that it can only develop in a permanent interaction with others and the ‘generalized Other’ in the sense o Mead.
2 Te state o the debate ‘State o the debate’ may sound slightly pretentious, or no theoretician will ever be able to comment on all o the crucial discussions regarding the notions o subject, subjectivity and identity. As a matter o act, the concept o subject crops up in virtually
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all theological, philosophical, psychological, sociological and literary debates so that any attempt at a general or panoramic view o this particular topic is bound to turn into a recapitulation o classical, medieval and modern thought. Since the next chapter will deal with the problem o subjectivity in Descartes, German idealism and late modernity, it seems reasonable to limit the presentation o the debates to the second hal o the twentieth century. In what ollows, it is not individual authors and their works that will be at the centre o the discussion but currents o thought such as existentialism, Marxism, Critical Teory, psychoanalysis, systems theory, etc. A major topic will be the relationship between individual and collective actants and the problem o disintegrating social value systems. systems. In a postmodern retrospective, three actors appear to have have precipitated precipitated the crisis o the modern mo dern subject: (1) the increasingly increa singly diffi cult orientation o individuals in dividuals towards collective subjects; (2) the gradual disintegration o collective value systems; (3) the devaluation o language which accompanies these developments – as a basis o individual and collective subjectivity it turns out to be less reliable than ever. Anticipating the third section o this chapter and the chapters that ollow, this section will deal with the opposition between thinkers o a modernity who contin continue ue to adhere to the concept o subject, albeit in a revised version, and postmodern authors who radically criticize the notions o subject and subjectivity or discard them altogether as metaphysical relics. Since Since some o the positions mentioned here will be dealt with in more detail later on, what ollows will be limited to a general outline. At the same time, however,, a dialogue with other theories o the subject will be pursued. however (a) From existentialism to postmodernity: Philosophy
On the one hand, it may seem advisable not to worry too much about philosophical and literary ashions; on the other hand, one should avoid neglecting them completely because, more ofen than not, they unction as signs o the times we live in. Why was existentialism superseded by structuralism and the latter by deconstruction and postmodernism? Te simple ormalist idea that yesterday’s theories become ‘automatized’ and that the public demands and rewards innovation overlooks the act that Jean-Paul Sartre’s idealist and heroic he roic concept o subjectivity, subjec tivity, which in the late 1930s stood or domination over the object and over nature, was meant to be integrated afer the war – especially in Questions o Method and and Critique o Dialectical Reason – into the supraindividual subjects o Marxism: into the subject-actants subject-actants ‘History’ and ‘Proletariat’ – independently o all structuralist or semiotic debates. (Te collective subjects in question were not considered as a s ‘myths ‘myths’’ or ‘illusions’ but as concrete historical histor ical orces.) orces. ) While the young Sartre, the author o La Nausée (1938), pleads or the reedom o the individual subject vis-à-vis the world o objects (‘Tings have broken ree rom their names.’),79 the author o Critique de la raison dialectique (1960) aims at an incorporation o existential philosophy as a theory o the concrete individual into Marxist discourse. Te Marxist omission o the individual’s role in history is to be corrected: ‘In view o this deault [. . .] existentialism, at the heart o Marxism and taking the same givens, the same Knowledge, as its point o departure, must attempt in its turn [. . .] the dialectical interpretation o History.’ 80
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Sweeping statements o this kind expose themselves to contemporary criticism, especially since they have been superseded by events in the second hal o the twentieth century. Nevertheless, Sartre’s suggestions in Te Problem o Method are not only reasonable, but continue to be relevant because the author attempts to combine Kierkegaard’s particularistic approach with the generalizing, historical perspective o Hegelian Marxism within the ramework o a ‘progressive-regressive method’, thus making Marxist theory more concrete.81 He quite rightly points out that it is difficult to locate Flaubert’s work within history by simply relating it to the situation o the French petty bourgeoisie, thus omitting the writer’s childhood within a particular amily. 82 It is not so much this Sartrian methodological project which should be called into question – it could even prove relevant to sociologists ond o ‘social systems’ – but Sartre’s notion o the individual subject. It rules over nature in Nausea and Being and Nothingness and later declares its solidarity with Hegelian Marxism and its concept o History. Long beore postmodern critiques o Sartre’s existentialism appeared, Camus expressed his distaste or Sartre’s domineering subject and attempted to extricate it rom a historical meta-narrative (Lyotard) which he considered as atally committed to the principle o domination. His objections to Christian teleology are also directed at the Marxists: From this moment, human nature becomes the subject o history, and significant history expressed by the idea o human totality is born. From the Annunciation until the Last Judgement, humanity has no other task but to conorm to the strictly moral ends o a narrative that has already been written.83
In the French original the relevant expression is ‘récit écrit à l’avance’:84 it shows to what extent Camus anticipated the postmodern critique o the grand meta-narratives within which individual and collective subjects were supposed to act. In this context, the harsh criticism o Camus’s L’Homme révolté (1951), published by Francis Jeanson in Sartre’s journal Les emps Modernes, appears – especially in retrospect – as a modern justification o History in the Hegelian sense. Camus’s reply to his critic announces in many respects the now prevailing postmodern scepticism vis-à-vis all meta-narratives: ‘Te truth, which is to be reiterated and deended against your article, is that my book does not in the least negate history (such a negation would be meaningless); rather, it is content with criticizing an attitude which turns history into an absolute.’85 Camus, in this respect a ollower o Nietzsche,86 enhances the status o nature vis-à vis history as (Christian or Marxist) teleology so dramatically ‘that one can hardly avoid the impression that individuality is dissolved in the unimaginable and ineffable totality o lie or nature’.87 Te quarrel between the two philosophers, both o whom continue to be labelled ‘existentialists’, flared up at two points o dissent: one o them was the attitude adopted by the individual subject towards nature; the other was its role within the Hegelian-Marxist narrative. Both problems are at the centre o Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s Critical Teory. In their work Dialectic o Enlightenment , written during the war in American exile, the authors criticize an instrumental, technical reason, which tends to annihilate both
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subject and object. Te domination over nature exercised by a rationalist, enlightened subject leads to the reification o this subject: eventually, it is obliged to control itsel in order to impose its will on nature and in the process becomes itsel an instrument o economic, social and technical progress. Tis act is obscured by idealism – rom Descartes to Hegel – which celebrates abstract subjectivity as an expression o human autonomy and ree will. Te critique o the abstract ‘I’, so prominent in German idealism, reappears in Adorno’s Negative Dialectics (1966, orig. version), where the idealist principle o ‘identity between subject and object’ is called into question: Te ego principle imitates its negation. It is not true that the object is a subject, as idealism has been drilling into us or thousands o years, but it is true that the subject is an object. Te primacy o subjectivity is a spiritualized continuation o Darwin’s struggle or existence. Te suppression o nature or human ends is a mere natural relationship. 88
Inverting the idealist hierarchy, Adorno pleads in avour o a ‘preponderance o the object’. Far rom ollowing Camus, who tends to dissolve the human subject by assimilating it to the natural order, Adorno envisages a thought capable o representing the particularity or the unique character o the object, thus delivering the subject rom its atal involvement in the rationalist principle o domination over the objective world. According to Adorno, philosophy ‘must strive, by way o the concept, to transcend the concept’89 and aim at ‘the nonconceptual in the concept’. 90 Adopting a stance similar to that o Robert Musil, Adorno believes that the essay, by considering the object rom different sides without ever defining it or identiying it with a concept, is best suited to articulate the ‘consciousness o nonidentity’. 91 In his Negative Dialectics he turns to the model in order to grasp the singular, the specific ‘without letting it evaporate in its more general super-concept’.92 Tis balancing act o a non-theoretical theory geared towards the mimetic principle o art93 leads eventually to the paratactic composition o Adorno’s posthumously published Aesthetic Teory (1970, orig. version): to a text experiment designed to reconcile subject and object by deying the idealist principle o subjective supremacy. It may have become clear that a theory attracted by the particular and its nuances is likely to consider with scepticism the Marxist idea o linking theory and practice and any attempt to make the individual subject submit to an ideologically defined party discipline. In this respect, Adorno is quite close to Camus. Like the French writerphilosopher he rejects the subordination o the individual subject under the mythical subject ‘History’ and the collective actant ‘Party’. Against Marx’s and Engels’s apotheosis o History he pleads or the individual whom Hegel and Marx are prepared to sacrifice to History as raison d’Etat or as class struggle: ‘Te individual survives himsel. But in his residue which history has condemned lies nothing but what will not sacrifice itsel to alse identity.’94 Although he continues Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s critique in some respects, Habermas departs significantly rom the subject-object model by trying to map out an alternative to what he calls the ‘philosophy o the subject’ and a ‘subject-centred reason’.
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His model is based on the two complementary notions o ‘intersubjectivity’ and ‘communication’. His basic aim is to replace Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s subject-object dialectic by intersubjective communication and to show ‘that the paradigm o the knowledge o objects has to be replaced by the paradigm o mutual understanding between subjects capable o speech and action’.95 Since Habermas’s universal pragmatics will be discussed in some detail in the last chapter, it may be suffi cient at this stage to mention some o the critical arguments his approach has met with. It ought to become clear that, in spite o his plea or the continuation o an ‘unfinished modernity’, his communication model tends to reduce subjectivity by placing it within a homogeneous lie world (Lebenswelt ), in which the linguistic, cultural and ideological differences between subjects are neutralized by semantic and pragmatic language rules. In particular his sociological writings show to what extent he not only ollows American pragmatism (Peirce) but also a sociology o consensus in the sense o Mead and Parsons, whose consensus ideology was criticized by Alwyn W. Gouldner and others.96 Habermas imagines a homogeneous lie world which orms the basis o a consensus-oriented communication.97 What is meant, however, is not the real, conflictridden world o everyday lie, but a ‘ormalized’, ‘idealized’ lie world in which the ideal speech situation (ideale Sprechsituation) is anchored. In what ollows, only two aspects o this concept will be considered, both o which reveal Habermas’s intention to make consensus prevail and, i necessary, even against the particularities o the participating subjects. In the ‘ideal speech situation’, he argues, the dialogue roles involved ought to be interchangeable, and the ‘constraint o the better argument’ should be recognized as binding. In this situation, subjectivity is suppressed insoar as the interchangeability o dialogue roles presupposes a homogeneous language common to all participants, a kind o ‘universal jargon’ commented on by Otto Neurath in the days o the Vienna Circle.98 However, this kind o universal or universally spoken language exists neither in everyday lie nor in philosophy and the social sciences, where every speaking subject is constituted by its sociolects and discourses. All o these are particular and hence cannot become objects o consensus. Tis is why Habermas’s thesis concerning the ‘constraint o the better argument’ is questionable. For in each group language a different argument is recognized as ‘better’ or ‘more convincing’. Tis is the reason why an argument that is immediately accepted by subject A (e.g. within a eminist sociolect) is rejected by subject B as ‘unscientific’, ‘irrational’ or ‘absurd’ (e.g. rom the point o view o systems theory). Te existence o successul communication among heterogeneous groups should not be denied;99 however, Habermas does not have this problem in mind. His aim is a unification o language meant to exclude psychic, social and discursive differences between subjects: ‘Different speakers may not use the same expression with different meanings.’100 One need not be a anatical ollower o Derrida and his deconstruction in order to realize that this rule is rooted in a repressive utopia. Did Margaret Masterman not discover twenty-one different meanings o the word ‘paradigm’ in Tomas S. Kuhn’s Te Structure o Scientific Revolutions (1962)?101 I one took Habermas’s rule seriously, one could hardly discuss Kuhn’s book in public . . .
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Habermas breaks with the discourse o Critical Teory in the sense o Adorno and Horkheimer by replacing these authors’ attempt to strengthen the individual subject – an attempt renewed in this book – with an intersubjectivity marked by the rationalist principle o domination over nature and human beings. He thus continues the dialectic o Enlightenment instead o proposing an alternative to it. In spite o his criticism o Adorno and Horkheimer, the German philosopher Hans Ebeling is closer to their version o Critical Teory than to Habermas because he returns to the nexus between domination over nature and sel-preservation. Moreover, he ocuses on those actors which prevent humans rom becoming subjects: ‘Everything, all that derives rom acts, is disposed in such a way as to prevent the rise o human subjectivity, to minimize it and to push it back into sel-abnegation. Against human subjectivity the gods conspire with the economy and the computers with nature.’ 102 Unortunately, this dramatic and metaphoric discourse contains arguments that can be inverted: or the artificial subject in the sense o computerized artificial intelligence can very well be considered as an enhancement or expansion o human subjectivity – as long as it is used intelligently. According to Ebeling, the present decline o subjectivity can be halted by a selcritical ‘return to the subject o modernity’. 103 In spite o his proximity to Kant, his postulate o a collective, ‘technically realizable death-drive’104 moves him closer to Heidegger’s philosophy o Being and makes him predict that the subject can only be saved by its ‘rebirth within the resisting synthesis o thought and death’. 105 Tis reormulation o memento mori leads to the complementary but extremely questionable assertion that the ecological death o the human race can only be averted by a drastic limitation o democratic rights: ‘Democratic aspirations cannot be satisfied, once the human race has disappeared. Tis is why they have to be limited or a long period o time on a global scale.’106 Tis kind o rhetoric, which is reminiscent o Tomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, is particularly ominous in times o increasing and electronically reinorced state controls. Te expression ‘or a long period o time’ sounds particularly threatening. In this respect, the (politically experienced) Romans were more cautious: they elected their dictator or only one year . . . Te postmodern philosophers, whom Ebeling scorns on several occasions, differ substantially rom him insoar as their analyses o the subject’s subjugation ( subiectum) and disintegration do not prevent them rom analysing the social mechanisms responsible or the decline o subjectivity. Tey would certainly reject any proposal aiming at the limitation o democratic rights. Michel Foucault, who will play an important part in the third chapter – along with Goffman and Laing – views individual subjectivity as a pseudo-entity lacking genuine autonomy: it appears to him as a product o power constellations most o which take on the orm o language or discourse ormations. Tus the power o the human sciences (including medicine) maniests itsel in the realm o language where the scientific division o labour leads to a repartition o the human being according to the various scientific disciplines marked by specialized discourses: a repartition every patient who has undergone multiple tests in a hospital is painully aware o. Tis scientific subjugation o the individual by modern medicine is commented on by Roddey Reid in conjunction with Foucault: ‘We may already be witnessing the final
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death o man as he was constructed by “medical humanism”.’107 What matters here is the act, discovered by Merleau-Ponty,108 that humanism as an ideology turns individuals into subjects. However, this insight remains valid in the realm o institutionalized science, whose vocabulary, statistics and taxonomies have a lasting impact on everyday lie and on the subjectivity o individuals. In this context, Jürgen Link starts rom the work o Michel Foucault in order to add a new dimension to it: the concept o normalism. It means neither normality nor normalization but the institutionalization and ideological use o what is presented as ‘normal’ by databases, statistics and opinion polls. Following Foucault, he asks: ‘What characterizes normalist subjectivities and how are they produced?’ 109 One could answer with Link that they are produced in a society ridden by scientific and pseudo-scientific quantifications, some o which penetrate into individual and collective consciousness. Tis presupposes, o course, that normalities in this particular (quantitative) sense can only emerge in data-dominated societies110 which ‘continuously, routinely, comprehensively and institutionally produce their own transparency’. 111 Tis kind o transparency, Link argues, is a orm o domination over the subject: ‘Tis kind o statistical transparency, also considered by Foucault, is certainly related to panoptical transparency, although it is not identical to it: in the extreme case, they differ like the Stasi [the East German secret service] and opinion research.’112 One might also say that they differ like Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Huxley’s Brave New World . For the process o normalization, possibly located beyond the ideological realm (c. Chapter III, 5), is not repressive like National Socialism or Soviet Marxism-Leninism; it persuades by continuously releasing data: ‘Act like the statistical majority, like everybody else; then you’ll have less problems and you’ll be accepted.’ Link’s innovative revision o Foucault’s theory o the subject brought about a turn in the German debates on subjectivity and identity because it oregrounded the French philosopher’s basic project: the aim to understand the individual subject as a subjugated instance (a sub-iectum) and to investigate – in conjunction with Foucault’s later work – the scope o an autonomous subjectivity. For without a comprehensive analysis o social constraints and o the subject’s over-determination a plea or autonomous subjectivity is bound to ail. Tis is what German Marxists and ollowers o Critical Teory overlooked in the 1970s when they blamed Foucault and the ‘structuralists’, who in those days were not yet considered as postmodern, or intending to dissolve subjectivity in the structure. Tus Alred Schmidt criticizes the existentialists or stopping at ‘abstract man’ and the structuralists or opting or the other extreme: ‘Tey dissolve all subjectivity in supraand intersubjective “structures”.’ 113 It may well be that, at present, this critique fits Habermas’s intersubjective approach rather than that o the ‘structuralists’. Both Foucault and Althusser envisaged a critical analysis o those social mechanisms which turn the individual subject into a pseudo-subject and a marionette. However, the German critics had a point insoar as Foucault and Althusser tend to overemphasize the over-determining structures (as was shown above in conjunction with Althusser) and to underscore the reedom individuals may find between collective subjects, ideologies and technical jargons. In this respect, Urs Jaeggi is not entirely wrong when he remarks: ‘In Althusser, structural necessity remains embedded in a kind
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o natural necessity , which reflects an inveterate scepticism towards all kinds o political practice – although this point is hardly ever mentioned. Te absence o the subject entails an absence o class struggle.’ 114 Althusser himsel realizes this in the 1970s 115 but still insists that scientific discourse is a process without a subject. He thereby precludes himsel rom understanding his own scientific language as the contingent construct o a subject speaking and acting in a specific social context.116 His thesis concerning the ideological character o subjectivity is nevertheless based on a valuable insight that must not be underestimated. In spite o their one-sidedness, which is reminiscent o Althusser’s, the critiques o coherence, identity and subjectivity put orward by Deleuze, Derrida and Vattimo are illuminating. Tey will be dealt with in more detail in the third chapter. What matters at this stage is a basic idea common to the two French thinkers. Derrida’s L’Ecriture et la différence (1967) and Deleuze’s Différence et répétition (1968) are both geared towards the idea that the repetition o a sign (in the sense o semantic recurrence or redundancy), ar rom promoting coherence, entails semantic shifs and contradictions, thus causing the discourse and its subject to all apart. It seems impossible to reiterate words such as ‘paradigm’ (c. supra), ‘subject’ or ‘science’ in a particular discourse without producing shifs and divergences all o which cause the discourse to disintegrate. Tereby, subjectivity as identity o the subject is radically called into question. Following Nietzsche, who was among the first to doubt the discursive identity o the sign and the subject, Deleuze points out: ‘Te subject o the eternal return is not the same but the different, not the similar but the dissimilar, not the one but the many, not necessity but chance.’117 Tis somewhat cryptic sentence can be taken to mean that, due to the numerous differences it produces, the subject o discourse is never identical with itsel. Gianni Vattimo continues this train o thought: ‘From the very outset, difference has the same meaning or Deleuze as or Derrida. It actually means that all apparent directness is always the duplicate o an original that does not exist.’ 118 Hence there is no origin but only simulacra differing rom an unknown X. However, the divergence rom an unknown unit, which underlies both Derrida’s and Deleuze’s argument, is sel-contradictory. Tis act was pointed out by Manred Frank, who seeks to ‘avoid the subversion o the subject’, 119 as Rainer Leschke puts it, and at the same time objects that Derrida’s attack on the idea o presence [as presence o meaning and o subjective identity] is not only radical but too radical, i.e. sel- contradictory. Without the reerence to a moment o relative sel- consistency, differentiation (shif o meaning, metaphoric renewal o meaning) could not be ascertained or it would be devoid o criteria and could no longer be distinguished rom a state o pure sameness.120
Tis argument is certainly correct and could be completed at a semiotic level to the effect that differentiation not only entails divergences and contradictions but can also lead to a more concrete definition: or example, o the concept o subject which finally appears in its multiple semantic aspects. Frank’s hermeneutic-semiotic position could
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be described with Leschke ‘as a reconstruction o the subject on a terrain made unsae by semiology’.121 Relating all o these arguments to one another, subjectivity could be viewed (as is the case in this book as a whole) as a dialogical, changing identity and as unity in multiplicity. It seems important to abandon the idealist notion o subjectivity as static identity in order to imagine a subject whose individuality as socialized nature and whose subjectivity as culture can only be understood as processes or dynamic units. More ofen than not, the idea o a disintegrating or vanishing subject appears plausible merely because we observe movement and change where we expected a static, inalterable identity – which Deleuze, Derrida and their ollowers rightly reject. (b) From the lonely crowd to the social movement: Sociology
Te move rom philosophy to sociology shows that the problem o subjectivity is less requently dealt with by sociologists than philosophers and that it is more prominent in French than in British or German sociology.122 Tis comes as a surprise because we have become accustomed to the stereotype according to which critical or ashionable Paris thinkers have dismissed the concept o subject as an obsolete relic o German idealism, whereas it continues to be staunchly deended by quixotic proponents o German hermeneutics such as Manred Frank. Te act that this stereotype – like all stereotypes – is only partly true is not only borne out by the last works o Foucault, who investigates the scope o ancient and contemporary subjectivity, but also by Ricœur’s hermeneutic theory which maps out a dynamic notion o subjectivity. Te writings o sociologists such as Alain ouraine and Edgar Morin can be read parallel to Ricœur’s philosophy. Tey react to the sociological insight that the individual, who has been reed rom traditional constraints, may very well go under in an automated, networking data society in which the liberties and initiatives o the liberal era are being curtailed. Both sociologists ask how individual subjectivity can survive in the relatively unavourable constellation brought about by ‘postindustrial’ or ‘programmed’ (ouraine) society. Teir inquiries are based on a model that is also invoked – albeit in different contexts – by sociologists such as David Riesman, Lucien Goldmann, Daniel Bell, Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck. Inspired by Durkheim’s and Ferdinand önnies’s idea that traditional societies have been transormed into secular, individualist societies marked by the division o labour, this model is the starting point o most sociological theories o the subject. Afer the Second World War, however, they add a second dimension to the model which remains implicit in classical sociology: the idea that in a society ruled by trusts, mass organizations and mass media the individual subject remains helpless. Sociologists o the late modern and the postmodern era usually begin their historical narrative with analyses o traditional orms o society ollowed by comments on modernity as liberal capitalism and on an ill-defined contemporary society, called capitalisme d’organisation by Goldmann, late modernity by Giddens and postindustrial society or société postindustrielle by Bell and ouraine respectively. Baudrillard considers contemporary society as being divided into two phases: a ‘structural stadium’ entirely dominated by the exchange value and a ‘ractal stadium’ in which use value and
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exchange value become indistinguishable, so that reality (as use value) disappears as a point o reerence.123 In spite o all the theoretical and terminological divergences that separate these authors, their descriptions o the final stadium o capitalism have one trait in common: the decline o the individual subject . Tey all seem to converge in one o the central insights o Adorno’s Negative Dialectics, namely that ‘the individual survives himsel’.124 In this respect, the sociologists confirm the diagnoses o philosophers such as Lyotard, whose subject-negating aesthetics will be discussed in the third chapter. In this context, David Riesman’s well-known analysis o the transition rom the autonomous, inner-directed individual o the liberal era to the other-directed individual o the late capitalist era is particularly characteristic. Unlike the society o innerdirectedness, which coincides with the climax o individual autonomy, the late capitalist order o other-directedness is marked by heteronomy. Claus Daniel views this process as a weakening o the individual subject: ‘Te subjects consider their actions less in conjunction with their individual conscience and more in relation to signals received rom prestigious personalities. Tis type o character is what Riesman calls “otherdirected”; society now relies on other-directedness.’125 However, this social heteronomy should not be over-personalized and linked to ‘prestigious personalities’; or it was shown by Leo Löwenthal in his analyses o popular magazines126 that other-directedness is also brought about by media-produced models such as V stars, actors or popular singers whose ‘images’ have an impact on collective and individual behaviour. Such ‘images’ unction as simulacra which, according to Baudrillard, replace social interaction in the subject’s consciousness with a phantasmatic model o reality: ‘Te transition rom signs that cover up something to signs that dissimulate the act that nothing exists, constitutes the decisive turning point.’ 127 Riesman’s model is completed by Daniel Bell’s ethically motivated diagnosis, according to which productive capitalism o the liberal tycoon, o the inner-directed subject, has been transormed into consumer-oriented capitalism in which the virtues o the liberal era (responsibility, ambition, initiative) have been replaced by a consumerist hedonism. In Bell’s book Te Coming o Postindustrial Society , capitalism itsel is made responsible or its decline: ‘Ironically, all this was undermined by capitalism itsel. Trough mass production and mass consumption it destroyed the Protestant ethic by zealously promoting a hedonistic way o lie.’128 It is obvious that Bell, who considers with dismay the decline o what Max Weber calls ‘the Protestant ethic’, can only regret the postindustrial social turn – as the negative connotations o expressions like ‘hedonistic way o lie’ indicate. In his view, the mythical actant ‘capitalism’ is responsible or the present malaise. Less mythical is Lucien Goldmann’s Marxist story o capitalism in which the liberal and the monopolist phases are ollowed by a capitalism organized by the state and dominated by market laws and reification. Te domination o the exchange value relegates qualitative values in the ethical, aesthetic and political sense to the periphery o society, thus undermining the oundations o collective and individual subjectivity. Te monopolist or imperialist phase appears to Goldmann as marked by the ‘disappearance o the individual’,129 the phase o state-organized capitalism (capitalisme d’organisation) by the spread o reification which turns into an autonomous world,
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in which the human, both as individual and as community, is deprived o its meaning.130 Structured by the contrast between exchange value and use value, this neo-Marxist discourse is nonetheless related to Bell’s neo-Weberian diagnosis by the belie that the autonomous subject o the liberal era is a thing o the past and that subjectivity and individual initiative become increasingly diffi cult in late capitalism. Moreover, the passage quoted above reveals a striking affinity between the humanist Marxist131 and the ashionable postmodernist Baudrillard. For both are inclined to believe that the rule o the exchange value produces an autonomous world structured by specific laws and considered by Baudrillard as ‘hyper-real’. Goldmann’s reified world is not substantially different rom Baudrillard’s world o commercialized media – especially i one takes into account the orientation o his early writings (e.g. Le Système des objets , 1968) towards the nexus between exchange value and reification. In Britain and Germany, sociologists like Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck react to Riesman’s, Bell’s and Goldmann’s diagnoses in a postmodern situation but without postmodern convictions. In his Risk Society , Beck seems to reer to the problems sketched by Riesman and Bell, when he argues that the old industrial society marked by a productivity ethos no longer exists. It is superseded by a ‘risk society’ which reflects the imponderables and risks o the industrial era. Modernity thus begins to reflect on itsel: Te argument is that, while in classical industrial society the ‘logic’ o wealth production dominates the ‘logic’ o risk production, in the risk society this relationship is reversed [. . .]. Te productive orces have lost their innocence in the reflexivity o modernization processes. 132
In other words: modernity as industrial society becomes a problem in view o ecological disasters and other risks threatening society as a whole. Although Beck does not consider himsel a postmodern thinker in the sense o Lyotard or Baudrillard, he reacts to postmodern and postindustrial phenomena, because, like ouraine, he seeks to map out a new social ethic as an alternative to the ‘industrial’ Protestant ethic in the sense o Weber.With Bell he may share the view that the Protestant ethic belongs to the past, but he radically departs rom Bell’s diagnosis o decadence and presents the picture o a risk society which the accumulated risks o industrialization have constrained to become critical o its own past. Like ouraine in Critique de la modernité (1992), he replaces Bell’s conservatism with a sel-criticism o modernity. Tis is the reason why he does not view the loss o individual autonomy as a symptom o decadence but, rather, as the result o a globally experienced uncertainty due to the disintegration o a value system geared towards perormance, production and success. In a social situation in which success symbols such as income, career and status no longer make up individual subjectivity, because the ‘industrial’ ethic o perormance no longer prevails, the question concerning subjectivity is raised in a new context marked by uncertainty. Te consequence is that ‘people are set ree rom the certainties and modes o living in the industrial epoch [. . .]. Te shocks unleashed by this constitute the other side o the risk society’. 133 Beck adds that all sorts o experts
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and agencies are marketing strategies o sel-reassurance in order to counter the new risks. His remarks are o particular interest here, because they show that in times o crisis the individual subject finds two points o orientation: the market (the exchange value) and the ideologies o collective subjects. Tey are all the more important here because they can be related to Anthony Giddens’s Modernity and Sel-Identity (1991), a study which arrives at different results. Although the British sociologist observes the ragmentation o society and the corresponding changes o its value system, which may produce anomie, he does not conclude that global uncertainty or the disintegration o sel-identity is the inevitable outcome. He rather invokes the nexus – constructed here in a different context – between individuality as corporeity and subjectivity as discourse or narrative programme: ‘Te potential or the unravelling o sel-identity is kept in check because demeanour sustains a link between “eeling at home in one’s body” and the personalised narrative.’134 Sceptical thinkers such as Riesman, Bell and Beck may well object to this that demeanour becomes a magic buzzword destined to hold together ‘corporeity and subjectivity’ in a ‘personalized narrative’. Are we not dealing here with a hollow word? Moreover, ‘eeling at home in one’s body’ can no longer be presupposed in most cases. Te increasing number o psychosomatic diseases may be an extreme example, but it calls into question the validity o Giddens’s thesis. Te weakening o the individual subject diagnosed by late modern and postmodern sociologists is certainly one reason why, in his theory o social systems, Niklas Luhmann eliminates the concept o subject: ‘We can thereby abandon the concept o subject’,135 he argues in Social Systems. Tis radical step is undoubtedly motivated by the act that the subjugation o the subject by collectives, ideologies and bureaucracies, commented on by Durkheim, Simmel and M. Weber, has dominated modern sociology or decades. One might add that Luhmann takes the view that the social ought to be grasped in conjunction with the difference between system and environment , rather than in relation to the concepts o structure and action (in the sense o Parsons and Merton). In spite o Luhmann’s critique, the problem o subjectivity will not disappear. For subjectivity is also a linguistic problem inherent in all texts – even those o Luhmann. On the one hand, it crops up in speech (énonciation) because it is always an individual or collective subject who speaks, criticizes, narrates; on the other hand, it appears in the narrative structure o texts ( énoncé ) where actants (Greimas, c. Chapter I, 1) act and oppose each other. In airy tales, it can be kings, witches, princesses or dragons; in novels, ambitious, loving or vicious heroes or anti-heroes; in modern sociology, individuals, groups, classes or organizations were the relevant agencies. In Luhmann’s theory, these actors are replaced by systems as abstract subject-actants, some o which turn into mythical actants (c. Chapters I, 1 and IV, 3). Tis idea cannot be elaborated on here, but will be developed in some detail in the ourth chapter. It is meant to cast doubt on the widespread belie that Luhmann’s theory has once and or all relegated all sociologies o subjectivity and action (in the Weberian sense) to the realm o ‘Old-European thought’. Since the state o contemporary discussions is at stake here, it makes sense to mention Franz Grubauer’s alternative to Luhmann’s approach. Grubauer seems to confirm the above criticism when he points out:
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Subjectivity and Identity Tis theory o ‘organized social systems’ is undoubtedly relevant within the theory o subjectivity proposed here (a) because it contains implicit statements about subjects o organizations, (b) because it reveals in such practical statements the ambivalence o systems theory vis-à-vis the position o subjects and their subjectivity and (c) because it can still be shown that the systemic question o rationality can only be elucidated within the context o different interests o individual reproduction and systemic reproduction. 136
Finally, Grubauer turns against the systemic approach when he emphasizes that ‘in the dialectic between individual and organization [organizations] rediscover their dependence on subjects’ 137 because they depend on reflexive subjectivity. Tis opinion is confirmed by French sociologists o organizations such as Michel Crozier (c. M. Crozier, E. Friedberg, L’Acteur et le système , 1977); however, it is as devoid o empirical proos as Luhmann’s assertion that concepts like ‘subject’ and ‘subjective understanding’ (in the Weberian sense) can be disposed o. In this respect, sociologists – like philosophers – keep struggling with words – some o which are hollow. In the ourth chapter it will be shown in text analyses to what extent Luhmann suppresses the concept o subject – without making it redundant. At the same time, the – a priori improbable – affinity between Luhmann and Baudrillard will be revealed. For Baudrillard, too, takes the view that concepts such as ‘subject’, ‘meaning’ and ‘history’ are anachronistic because they are related to the realm o the use value which, he believes, has disappeared in a society marked by exchange. Tis is why he takes the view that ‘the subject’ and related concepts no longer explain anything because, in postmodern society, all processes are being moved by systemic operations – behind the backs o the actors as it were. 138 It will appear that Luhmann can hardly justiy his rejection o the concept o postmodernism, because he himsel tends to ollow the postmodern trend whenever he proclaims – with Baudrillard – that the subject does not exist. Unlike these two thinkers, French sociologists such as Alain ouraine and Edgar Morin try to show to what extent the concept o subject is indispensable not only on an individual but also on a collective level. ouraine’s response to the crisis o the individual subject in late modernity and postmodernity (ouraine does not adopt the concept o postmodernity) is a plea or solidarity between individual and collective subjects in the sense o social movements. In his book Le Retour de l’acteur (1984), he sums up his basic intention: ‘make possible and prepare the analysis o the new social movements: o the actors o our time’.139 From a typological or comparative point o view, 140 it is particularly rewarding to observe similar arguments in German sociology, which by no means appears as dominated by systems theory, i considered as a whole. Tus Claus Daniel’s book Teorien der Subjektivität is reminiscent o ouraine’s recent works, especially in the ollowing passage: ‘Nowadays, when reflexivity as a principle o lie is itsel threatened, social movements, e.g. alternative movements, appear in order to struggle or orms o lie threatened by technology and or the – always contradictory – possibility to be onesel.’141 Te link established by Daniel between individual emancipation and social movement (which he relates to Marcuse’s ‘new sensibility’) is a salient eature o
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postmodern society, whose actors deend their interests against state interventionism, party organizations and the power o multinational trusts. Especially in his more recent publications, ouraine expects social movements to counter the quandaries o neo-liberalism by allying themselves with political actants such as parties and trade unions. He does not believe in a re-birth o revolutionary parties within movements because the latter are marked by discontinuity and heterogeneity. Teir actions are limited in time and do not pursue clearly defined goals. Tereore he appeals to the intellectuals ‘to reveal the common orientations’ 142 o contemporary movements. He thus provokes the critical question how the marginalized intellectuals, who are extremely heterogeneous as a group, are supposed to find a common line. Sometimes ouraine’s attempts to establish a link between intellectuals and social movements is reminiscent o Sartre’s ailed rapprochement between existentialism and the French Communist Party (c. Chapter I, 2, a) and o Lucien Goldmann’s humanist Marxism, the politics o which no longer rely on the revolutionary proletariat but on a radically reormist ‘new working class’.143 Like the latter,144 the social movement in the sense o ouraine could turn out to be a late modern or postmodern chimera: an ephemeral actant incapable o supporting or strengthening the individual subject. Te multiple links between individual subjectivity and social movements will be reconsidered in the last chapter. (c) From psychoanalysis and the theory of personality to social psychology: Te discontent in culture and society
It is a mistake to consider psychoanalysis and the discovery (or rather construction ) o its central object, the unconscious, independently o social change. For both can be deduced rom the crisis o cultural values, so astutely commented on by Nietzsche in his Genealogy o Morals. Outside o or beyond these values, their prescriptions and prohibitions, ‘animal man’145 appears: with his appetites, his vulnerability, his mortality. Tis discovery o the animal in the human, o nature in culture, gives rise to a undamental ambivalence: an ambivalent attitude towards all religious, ethical, political and aesthetic values. ‘It might even be possible that what constitutes the value o those good and honoured things resides precisely in their being artully related, knotted and crocheted to these wicked, apparently antithetical things, perhaps even in their being essentially identical with them.’146 As i responding to Nietzsche, Freud shows to what extent cultural opposites are ‘crocheted’ to one another, when he declares God and Devil to be one: ‘Not much analytic astuteness is required in order to guess that God and Devil were originally one.’147 Not much imagination is required to realize that in this social and linguistic situation, structured by ambivalence, the subject becomes disoriented. When two actors such as ‘God’ and ‘Devil’, defined as irreconcilable opponents in Christian discourse, are used until ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ become indistinguishable, then the identity o the individual subject, which in many respects depends on the Christian and humanist metanarratives and their notion o subjectivity, is called into question. At the same time, a Freudian ‘discontent in civilization’ makes itsel elt which is due to the spreading crisis o the
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social value system – a crisis hinted at by Carl Gustav Jung: ‘Whoever has lost the historical symbols and reuses to put up with an “Ersatz”, finds himsel in a difficult position: he is conronted by a nothingness rom which he turns away in horror.’ 148 Te situation o ‘discontent’ and anguish described by Freud and Jung suggests that the survival o the individual subject is no longer certain in late modernity. In many cases it has orsaken God as its ultimate addresser (destinateur , Greimas) and scans the horizons or new – ideological – addressers who guarantee the coherence o new, existentially comorting metanarratives. It is in this post-metaphysical context that one may re-read Ernst Mach’s amous dictum: ‘Te I is irretrievably lost.’ 149 For this dictum is ollowed by remarks which reveal to what extent philosophers and psychologists at the turn o the century presuppose the individual subject’s dissociation rom the Christian metanarrative: At that point, one will no longer attach that much importance to the I, which varies a lot in the course o an individual’s lie and can be altogether absent during sleep, in moments o intense contemplation or meditation and especially in the happiest moments. One will gladly renounce individual immortality and will no longer preer a minor matter to the main thing. 150
Tis passage is characteristic o Mach’s Die Analyse der Empfindungen (1886) because it bears witness to two complementary tendencies, both o which made an impact on European thought at the end o the nineteenth century: the detachment o the individual subject rom Christian discourse and its actantial model along with the growing scepticism towards the secularized I, which seems to be at the mercy o emotions and impulses. ‘Not the “I” is the primary instance but the elements (emotions). Te elements orm the “I”,’151 argues Mach. In a polemical reaction to German idealism, the individual subject as oundation or substratum is negated by Mach and some o his contemporaries. Tey redefine it as a disintegrating or subjugated instance. Against this background, psychoanalysis rom Freud to Lacan can be considered as a systematic attempt to analyse the subject’s late modern woes and to devise therapies that could strengthen it. Te question, which will be raised here on several occasions, is whether the multiple variations o the ‘I’ mentioned by Mach are actually incompatible with individual subjectivity. Are contradiction, movement and change not part and parcel o the individual and collective subject’s development ? Does the subject’s developing identity have to be called into question only because sociology and psychology reveal its dynamic complexity and its contradictory character? Te problem seems to be that psychoanalysis discovers this complexity at a moment o cultural crisis, when no clear line can be traced between complexity and disintegration. Te rise o monopoly capitalism threatens society as a whole with a disintegration process both Freud and Jung seem to be aware o. What Freud has to say about the hostility o individuals in late modernity is reminiscent o Hobbes, the philosopher o ‘possessive individualism’:152 ‘Civilized society is perpetually menaced with disintegration through this primary hostility o men towards one another.’153 Te ‘disintegration o values’, commented on by Hermann Broch (c. Chapter II, 7), implies
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that ‘evil’ is no longer recognized as such because it can entail joy or pleasure: ‘Evil is ofen not at all that which would injure or endanger the ego; on the contrary, it can also be something that it desires, that would give it pleasure.’154 In this precarious situation, one has to see to it that ‘the core o the I (the Id, as I called it)’155 does not always prevail but is controlled by the super-ego as a cultural instance: ‘Te super-ego torments the sinul ego with the same eelings o dread and watches or opportunities whereby the outer world can be made to punish it.’156 Te moralistic metaphors in this sentence are quite telling: I can agree and identiy with the super-ego within me and thereby accept that ‘I is Another’; I can also mobilize the id (the ‘core o the I’) against this controlling instance, thereby confirming the division o the subject. Freudian psychoanalysis can be seen as an offshoot o Romanticism and Nietzsche’s philosophy,157 insoar as it ocuses, in a culture marked by crisis, on the dualism o nature and culture which threatens to split the subject. Like literary Romanticism with its doubles and look-alikes,158 like psychiatry around 1900, whose proponents – Téodule Ribot, Pierre Janet, Alred Binet – discover the ‘multiple personality’,159 Freudian psychoanalysis ocuses on inraindividual actants ( ego, id, super-ego), who are responsible or the dynamics o the individual subject. By basing the subject’s narrative on this new actantial model, it disavows philosophical idealism which knows the subject exclusively in its unction o ‘oundation’ ( hypokeimenon). In psychoanalysis, it reappears as both a disintegrating and a subjugated instance: as an unstable entity ruled by external powers. Henri F. Ellenberger explains in his study Te Discovery o the Unconscious to what extent the idea o a heterogeneous multiple subject pervaded psychiatric research which finally led to the discovery o the unconscious and the birth o psychoanalysis: ‘Multiple personalities thus dramatically illustrate the act that unity o personality is not given to the individual as a matter o course, but must be realized and achieved through the individual’s persistent, and perhaps lie-long efforts.’160 Te phenomenon o ‘multiple personality’ not only illustrates the disintegration o the subject but also bears witness to its ‘other-directed’ nature; or one o the ‘personalities’ inhabiting it is ofen the socialized persona or mask in the sense o Jung:161 an instance sporadically rejected by the other actants coexisting within the subject. Tis kind o situation is described by Ellenberger when he comments on the case o Mary Reynolds: ‘In each state she knew o the other and eared to all back into it, but or different reasons. In her second state she considered the other one as dull and stupid.’162 It appears at the same time as a state o estrangement and depression which excludes all joy o lie and the mood to write verse, so strongly elt in the second state. Tis idea o estrangement and Freud’s metaphorical description o the ego as a city occupied by the super-ego are developed by Jacques Lacan in his claim that the individual subject comes about during the transition rom the imaginary to the symbolic stadium when the presence o the Other asserts itsel through language. Lacan emphasizes that he does not negate subjectivity, but intends to reveal and analyse its dependence on the symbolic order as language : ‘What is at stake, is the dependence o the subject (dépendance du sujet), and that is something completely different; the return to Freud implies the dependence o the subject on something elementary, which the concept o “signifier” was meant to highlight.’163
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Lacan sees the Freudian unconscious as an interaction o signifiers when he describes it as a ‘chain o signifiers’.164 He suggests that the individual subject depends on unstable signifiers whose movement does not allow a definable identity, because the repetition o a signifier entails an endless process o semantic shifs without ever yielding a ‘presence o meaning’ – as Deleuze and Derrida have shown (c. Chapter I, 2, a). In the third chapter, the determination by outside instances and the ‘deconstruction’ o the subject in Lacan’s ‘chain o signifiers’ will be dealt with in some detail. What matters here, is the ambivalence o Lacan’s theory: it may not negate subjectivity, but it ‘deconstructs’ it (Derrida) as it attempts to represent over-determination by the unconscious as an overdetermination by the non-conscious language o the Other. It thus contradicts all idealist and rationalist notions o ‘subjective autonomy’ (including Sartre’s). Alred Lorenzer does not seem to be aware o this deconstructionist ambivalence, whenever he blames Lacan – in an idealist ashion – or degrading the individual subject: ‘Not only is the “I” degraded to a secondary, reproducing instance, but subjectivity is dissolved in objectivity – not by revealing the objective existence o its constitution, but by assuming that it alls prey to illusions.’ 165 Tis critique ails to do justice to Lacan’s sel-assessment. What he has in mind is – as was pointed out above – the dependence o the subject on the symbolic order: i.e. ‘its objective constitution’ in the sense o Lorenzer. But Lorenzer’s critique is not so ar off the mark when the subject’s ‘dependence on the chain o signifiers’ is at stake. In this case, it may very well all prey to semantic differences and shifs. At this stage, it seems essential to imagine a dialogical, processual or narrative subjectivity (c. Chapter V, 1), whose dynamic aspects are highlighted – albeit onesidedly – by Lacan and Derrida. Teir arguments are one-sided or the ollowing reason: although they quite rightly stress the over-determination and instability o the subject, they tend to gloss over the possibilities o individual coherence and autonomy – even in the most adverse circumstances. Within the ramework o a dialogical and processual subjectivity, as mapped out in Chapter V, new scopes o autonomy can be delineated – beyond idealism and rationalism. I these new possibilities are not to remain abstract projects or illusions, a permanent dialogue has to be sought with such theoreticians as Althusser, Foucault, Derrida and Lacan, who ocus on the over-determination o the subject or on its instability. Among these theoreticians is also Ronald D. Laing, whose thought will be related to Foucault’s and Vattimo’s philosophies in the third chapter. Laing takes up some o Foucault’s questions (c. Chapter I, 2, a) in Te Politics o Experience and the Bird o Paradise (1967) insoar as he considers primary and secondary socialization as a process o domination in the course o which a subject is ‘normalized’ and deprived o its openness to experience. Te amily appears to him as an ambivalent instance: as a stronghold o love and violence simultaneously. It offers affective shelter or the sake o more effective normalization: ‘Te amily as a “protection racket”.’166 In the third chapter, it will appear that, in his study La Police des amilles (1977), Jacques Donzelot takes a similar view o the amily’s unction. Even love itsel turns into an ambivalent medium o affective security and social domination: ‘Love is the path through permissiveness to discipline: and through discipline, only too ofen, to betrayal o sel.’167 Te expression ‘betrayal o sel ’ reveals the
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distance that separates Laing rom Foucault’s structural thought which implicitly excludes the notion o an authentic ‘I’ that might be betrayed. However, Foucault might share Laing’s view that subjectivity is an illusion: ‘the illusion that we are autonomous egos.’168 Nevertheless, Laing is closer to Marcuse’s Critical Teory, the vocabulary o which he uses sporadically. Far rom being an orthodox ollower o Freud, who views socialization as a process o necessary adaptation to society, Laing claims to recognize in society an organized pathology no sane individual can accept: ‘Adaptation to what? o society? o a world gone mad? Te Family’s unction is to repress Eros: to induce a alse consciousness o security: to deny death by avoiding lie: to cut off transcendence: to believe in God, not to experience the Void: to create, in short, one- dimensional man.’169 It is not merely the ear o a one-dimensional world that links Laing’s approach to Critical Teory, but also the concept o experience which is inseparable rom Adorno’s notion o an autonomous subject. Te work o Christopher Lasch could be read as a response to Laing’s social psychology insoar as it analyses some o the most questionable reactions o the individual subject to over-determination and the disintegration o the social value system in narcissism. Klaus-Jürgen Bruder writes about Lasch: But he is right in not using ‘narcissism’ in order to explain the disintegration o the public sphere, but in considering it the other way around as a ‘psychic aspect’ o this disintegration, or which he finds a political cause: the ‘expansion o powers o organized domination’. ‘Social lie’ becomes ‘increasingly barbaric and warlike’.170
Te question is why. What matters most at this stage is not an answer to this question, but the act that, in a chapter o his book Te Minimal Sel (1984), which carries the subtitle Te Politics o the Psyche, Lasch continues Laing’s argument by showing to what extent even contemporary psychotherapies turn into technologies o a one-dimensional world, most o which estrange individuals rom their environment and make them seek reuge in narcissism. Like Laing, he queries the scientistic, progress-oriented creed o these technologies which ultimately integrate subjects into a disintegrating society and an anomic system o values hollowed out by the indifference o market laws. Teir integration attempts usually ail and the subject retreats into the isolated citadel o the ‘I’. ‘Tis book, however’, Lasch writes about Te Culture o Narcissism (1979),‘describes a way o lie that is dying – the culture o competitive individualism, which in its decadence has carried the logic o individualism to the extreme o a war o all against all, the pursuit o happiness to the dead end o narcissistic preoccupation with the sel.’171
But is the narcissist supposed to become socially motivated in a society where ideologies and simulacra transmitted by the media occupy one part o his ego, while the other is subverted by Lacan’s shifing signifiers? One possible answer is offered in Adorno’s Minima Moralia where the loss o the subject’s substance is at the centre o the scene:
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‘Narcissism, deprived o its libidinal object by the decay o the sel, is replaced by the masochistic satisaction o no longer being a sel. ’172 It will be remembered that Lasch’s comments on the decline o liberal individualism develop some arguments put orward by Riesman, Bell and Goldmann and run parallel to those o Giddens, Beck and ouraine. On the whole, it becomes clear that, in spite o their heterogeneity, the philosophical, sociological and psychological theories converge in the idea that the individual subject finds itsel in a precarious situation on all levels o analysis. Tis situation is hardly considered by the behaviourist and positivist personality theories developed by Skinner, Eysenck, Cattel, Mischel or Rogers. Although these theorists deal with pathologies o the personality on both the quantitative and the qualitative level,173 they all tend to neglect the pathologies o society which Freud and especially Laing ocus on. Te concept o personality as such seems questionable, because it aims at ‘totality’ 174 or ‘wholeness’175 where disintegration is ofen the rule. Tis is one reason why theories o the personality (most o which were developed in the United States) will not be dealt with in the third chapter. Te other reason is terminological. Although the concept o ‘personality’ overlaps with the concept o ‘subject’ by virtue o its involvement with ‘autonomy’ and ‘coherence’, it is not directly related to the concept o ‘object’ nor to that o ‘collective subjectivity’. However, both o these concepts are crucial to the sociological and critical understanding o subjectivity. Only when it becomes clear how individual subjects relate to their objects, how they are turned into objects by powerul groups, organizations or institutions, can subjectivity be explained in a social, historical and linguistic context. Tis is why Greimas and his ollowers have decided to replace the concept o personnage by that o actant-sujet .176 In this context, it is hardly surprising that the theoreticians o personality have some trouble in defining the key concept o their research. ‘Actually, there is no absolute or generally agreed upon definition as to what personality is’,177 admits Lawrence A. Pervin and at the same time suggests such a definition: ‘Personality represents those structural and dynamic properties o an individual or individuals as they reflect themselves in characteristic responses to situations.’ 178 Pervin adds: ‘Personality can be defined in terms o characteristics (traits) o the individual which are directly observable in his behavior.’179 Tese definitions are important or two reasons. On the one hand, they locate the concept o personality between the particular and the general, on the other hand, they reveal a link established by all theories o personality: the link between traits (Allport, Eysenck, Mischel)180 and behavioural consistency .181 Ledord J. Bischo even suggests that psychology should ocus on this consistency o behaviour rather than on personality.182 What matters here is not so much Bischo’s recommendation, but the word ‘behaviour’, which evokes the behaviourist background (Watson, Skinner) o this theory complex and an important discussion in this particular field: Walter Mischel’s radical criticism o the consistency postulate in personality theories. Tis postulate is based on the idealist notion (held in high esteem rom Descartes to Fichte) o a stable
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and consistent personality structure, the consistency o which is maintained in very different situations. In his well-known work Personality and Assessment (1968), Mischel challenges this notion with the behaviourist idea that changes in the social environment o individuals can jeopardize the consistency o their behavioural patterns. Sarah E. Hampson comments: ‘Mischel’s attack on personality was aimed at its most vulnerable point – consistency – and the attack was partially successul.’ 183 Mischel himsel puts orward two crucial arguments,one o which is epistemological, while the other is empirical in character. o begin with, he argues that patterns o behaviour and situations are considered as identical or psychologically equivalent by the scientist although they are heterogeneous.184 Tis argument has been successul in philosophy rom Heraclitus to Nietzsche and Derrida: Te repetition o ‘the same’ is not the same but something different. Tis does not only apply to Heraclitus’s river and Nietzsche’s word but also to Derrida’s signifier which never denotes the same signified – and apparently also to Mischel’s ‘behaviour’ which always seems to diverge rom a subject’s ‘behaviour’ in the previous situation. Eventually, consistency appears to Mischel as a scientist’s construct and not as an aspect o somebody’s personality: ‘Analysis o personality ratings tells us more about the rater than about the ratee.’ 185 Mischel’s empirical argument is as convincing as his epistemological critique. He thus considers ‘honesty’ not so much as a constant character trait o certain individuals but as a actor depending on situations. Whoever is honest in situation A need not remain honest in situation B. (In principle it ought to be possible, o course, to distinguish honesty as a social attitude rom ‘honesty’ as a tactical manoeuvre: in certain situations, being naively honest can result in cruelty.) Mischel’s criticism raises the basic question whether traits, which Hans J. Eysenck and others consider as quantifiable, are a suitable basis or scientific research. raits, afer all, are essential aspects o character .186 But the trait dimensions listed by Mischel are marked by the kind o vagueness one finds in many stereotypes: extraversion or surgency; agreeableness; conscientiousness; emotional stability; culture .187 However, someone who manages to keeps calm in everyday stress situations (rom traffic jams to public perormances), may lose his head in a love affair. Hence the expression ‘emotional stability’ is itsel not particularly stable. One o the problems o the – quite heterogeneous – theories o personality is due to the act that they contain everyday stereotypes like talkative – silent; good-natured – irritable; calm – anxious , etc.188 In this situation, Hans J. Eysenck’s and Michael W. Eysenck’s attempts to give the analysis o traits a biological oundation is not particularly helpul. Tey explain ‘that in looking or causal aspects o personality we should take a careul look at physiological, neurological, and hormonal actors as being most likely to mediate the genetic determinants o behavior’.189 When Hans J. Eysenck and Sybil B. G. Eysenck eventually decide to admit only ‘analytic methods capable o being machine programmed’,190 one might ask whether they are not under the spell o the kind o scientistic ideology Robert C. Bannister criticizes in early American sociology.191 As ar as the link between character traits and social situations is concerned, L. A. Pervin is not altogether wrong when he concludes that nowadays all research sets out rom the interaction between the individual and his environment – in spite o all the
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differences that still subsist between theoretical approaches. Most o them differ in answering the question what in a person reacts in what way to environmental variables and changes.192 It seems thereore that the most pressing questions remain unanswered . . . Nevertheless, theories o personality are o some importance to the dynamic and dialogical approach o the subject developed here, especially because they emphasize the processual character o personality as individual subject . Tus Donald H. Ford sees personality as a process o ‘sel-construction’ and ‘sel-organization’,193 in which the determining eedback is not more important than the creative eedorward : ‘As we will try to demonstrate later in this book, it is the enhancement o eedorward and positive eedback processes that provide the key to making a human the most complex adaptive control system that has yet emerged rom evolutionary processes.’ 194 Tus processuality, coherence and creative anticipation (‘eedorward’) characterize the individual subject. In this context, M. E. Ford and D. H. Ford speak o ‘sel-organizing and sel-constructing [systems] in both a biological and behavioural sense’. 195 However, one may doubt that an ‘adaptive control system’ will ever call its social environment into question. It seems ar too ‘adaptive’ or that kind o critical perormance. Carl R. Rogers’s client-centred theory is ‘adaptive’ in most respects because Rogers ignores all o the social and linguistic hurdles that stand in the way o the subject’s aspirations towards autonomy and unity. Without considering ideological overdetermination or the orce o market laws, he writes – together with John K. Wood: ‘A person’s behavior can be counted on to be in the direction o maintaining, enhancing, and reproducing sel – toward autonomy and away rom external control by external orces.’196 In the ‘best o existing worlds’ imagined by Enlightenment rationalists, this may have been the case, but what is it like in Rogers’s American society, most o which has been transormed by powerul trusts and trade unions into an ‘adaptive’ system? Instead o raising this kind o question, Rogers ocuses on the ‘tendency towards wholeness’197 in a biological sense and maps out a ‘client-centred’ theory aiming at the therapeutic ideal o the ‘total person’.198 Tis ‘philosophy’ is a symptom o the economydominated society insoar as it seeks success by transorming the patient into a client – in spite o Laing’s and Lasch’s critical warnings. Instead o analysing – with Laing – the pathologies o society, it tries to dispose o the very notion o pathology on an individual level. Instead o curing patients, it tries to serve clients. 199 Although the Freudian Erik H. Erikson has a different approach, he also ignores the woes o late capitalist society. His avourite concept is not ‘personality’ but ‘identity’ (c. Chapter I, 1, c) which he defines as a relationship between individuality and collectiveness: ‘Te term “identity” expresses such a mutual relation in that it connotes both a persistent sameness within onesel (selsameness) and a persistent sharing o some kind o essential character with others.’ 200 Erikson’s psychoanalysis differs rom the theories o personality in that it links the individual subject to group and society. However, his theory takes the North American social order o the 1950s or granted: to such a degree that it can only be understood as part and parcel o this order. Its main ocus is the middle-class amily which offers affective shelter to its children along with the possibility to develop an identity. Erikson speaks o ‘ psychosocial moratoria’ during which an ‘inner identity’ can come about. 201
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What links Erikson to the theorists o personality is his unmitigated belie in the possibility o individual coherence and identity. He differs rom Laing by omitting all analyses o social over-determination, alienation and disintegration o identities. He does not consider coherence and identity as social problems. At the end o adolescence, he argues, individual subjects reintegrate and reshape their past identifications with adults and other social models. 202 I one compares this approach to the scepticism o some ‘irreconcilable’ psychoanalysts like Laing, then Erikson’s optimistic hypothesis that, at the end o adolescence, the average subject orms a ‘coherent whole’, appears as an ideological by-product o what Adorno calls ‘the revised psychoanalysis’.203 Like Erich Fromm’s theory o personality,204 it ignores the damage done to the individual in contemporary society.205 In this respect, one appreciates Heiner Keupp’s emphasis on the social context o Erikson’s theory. Keupp’s central insight is that the institutional and ideological stability o post-war American society orms the background against which one should reconsider Erikson’s work today: ‘As a theorist o subjectivity, Erikson himsel was well aware o the reality o the empirical world o his time and o his social position in the 50s and 60s.’ 206 It goes without saying, especially within the context o recent debates on postmodernism, that this reality is a thing o the past. Tereore Keupp is quite justified in searching or alternatives to Erikson’s concept o identity: I it is correct that the social processes o disembedding entail new rameworks o identity ormation and i it still seems plausible that Erikson’s classical paradigm o identity is no longer applicable to these readjustments, then the search or theoretical alternatives becomes ever more pressing. 207
What do Keupp’s alternatives look like? One o his key concepts, which he borrows rom the sociologists Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens, occurs in the sentence quoted above: disembedding (Freisetzungsprozesse ). By ‘disembedding’ Giddens means the breaking up o traditional ormations such as the amily, neighbourhood, nation and religion. Teir disintegration entails the disembedding o individuals who are orced to reintegrate themselves into emerging social contexts (‘networks’, says Keupp)208 in order to find a new identity. Riskante Chancen (Risky Chances), the title chosen by Keupp or his book, sums up the new situation: individuals can take advantage o the possibilities offered to them by breaking out o traditions; they may also succumb to the new complexity. Commenting on the processes o disembedding, Keupp remarks: ‘Tey demand o the subject an original combination o multiple realities.’209 At the same time, they yield a ‘subject with multiple identities’.210 What do ‘multiple identities’ look like? Although Keupp derides all postmodern obituary notices regarding the subject, 211 he does not really describe ‘multiple identity’ in the sense o a plural unity. Moreover, he neglects the crucial question how subjectivity can still be deemed possible in spite o social differentiation, reification, ideological over-determination and commercialization. Although his approach is more critical and more reflexive than Erikson’s, it is still too acquiescent. In spite o this, it will be reconsidered in the last chapter because it constructs the process o identity ormation
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in a more subtle way than most theories o personality: as a reflexive and narrative process. But in what social and historical circumstances can this process be successul? So ar, this question was lef open. (d) Individual subjectivity in linguistics and the theory of literature
At this stage, it makes sense to return to the first part o this chapter where the subject appeared in a sociolinguistic situation marked by competing sociolects. Te grammatical subject o linguists is not at stake here but the subject o semiotic discourse theory which stands at the crossroads between semiotics, sociolinguistics and gender linguistics.212 Te American authors Nikolas Coupland and John F. Nussbaum quite rightly remind us o the act that traditional sociolinguistics did not devote much attention to the subject and tended to assume that individual subjectivity and identity were static entities: ‘It is ironic that sociolinguistic and communication research should have endorsed, on the whole, a static conception o identity, when, or many social scientists, language and interaction are achieved above all as dynamic and processual events in shifing social contexts.’213 Nevertheless, sociolinguistic theory is indispensable or a dynamic conception o subjectivity. Saussure’s parole and Chomsky’s perormance as subjective acts depend entirely on the social competence o individual actors: on their modalities (knowledge, will, ability ), Greimas would say. When, in his well-known analyses,214 Basil Bernstein opposes the restricted code o the lower classes to the elaborated code o the upper and middle classes, he – at least implicitly – maps out a linguistic theory o subjectivity. Whoever disposes o a restricted code based on a deficient vocabulary and a rudimentary syntax will not be able to articulate his interests and problems as coherently and clearly as a speaker o the elaborated code. Te latter stands a better chance when it comes to deending subjective autonomy against over-determination by ideologies, advertising or the media in a dialectics o criticism and sel-criticism. Te simpliying schemes o ideologies and the stereotypes o advertising have more o an impact on restricted than on elaborated codes and tend to overpower speakers o the lower class. Tis explains why lower classes are more likely to succumb to authoritarian, dualistic discourses such as National Socialism, ascism or Marxism-Leninism. Tey are less likely to cope with the processes o disembedding described by Giddens, Beck and Keupp than their middle-class counterparts. Although she does not use Bernstein’s terminology, Mary M. albot shows in Language and Gender (1998) to what extent the restricted code can turn out to be a problem or women who have no access to education. She challenges Otto Jespersen’s ideological thesis according to which women dispose o a smaller vocabulary than men and do not use it optimally by insisting on the flaws o the education system: ‘As women were denied the level o education permitted or (some) men, one would expect them to have ewer words at their disposal.’ 215 It becomes clear at this stage how subjectivity and social domination are linked at a linguistic level. Like the subjectivity o lower classes, which cannot be adequately articulated within the narrow boundaries o the restricted code, emale subjectivity
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requently degenerates into small talk because emale topics tend to be defined as trivial within the dominant male sociolects – which do not orm a coherent whole. albot’s book also reveals the importance o relevance criteria and classifications or the subject constitution o the two genders. ‘ Dis-mois comment tu classes, je te dirai qui tu es,’216 remarks Roland Barthes in one o his Essais critiques, and the linguists Kress and Hodge aptly point out that a homogeneous system o classification does not exist: ‘But classification systems do not exist or a whole society; different groupings have different systems, though the differences may be slight.’ 217 Tey need not be slight, and even slight differences may bear witness to power relations and conflicts: or example when shades o colours are at stake which seem irrelevant to some men. albot believes that nuances such as beige, ecru, aquamarine articulate emale concerns and comments on Robin Lakoff ’s research: Lakoff reports seeing a man ‘helpless with suppressed laughter at a discussion between two other people as to whether a book jacket was to be described as “lavender” or “mauve” [. . .]’. She concludes rom this that rom a man’s point o view such fine distinctions are trivial and beneath their notice.’ 218
Nowadays even some women may be too busy to bother with this kind o nuance, but albot’s example shows that classification criteria vary rom group to group and that subjectivity is dependent on gender language. It also reveals to what extent emale subjectivity can be – implicitly – trivialized and marginalized in a situation dominated by male languages. However, individual subjectivity does not only come about on a lexical and semantic level; it also evolves on the level o narrative syntax where linguistics and literary theory interlock. Te sociolinguists Kevin Buchanan and David J. Middleton explore the relevance o biography research219 or geriatric studies, some o which emphasize ‘reminiscence work’ in the orm o a biographic narrative based on ‘the intimate relation between memory and sel, biography and identity’.220 Tey tend to overlook, however, that literary theory ofen questions this relation by stressing the complexity and the concomitant instability o biographical identity, both o which may appear in disintegrating (literary) narratives. Here again it becomes clear why a concrete idea o the individual subject’s stance in contemporary society can only crystallize on an interdisciplinary level. Although most literary studies confirm the linguistic, sociological and ethnomethodological 221 hypotheses according to which (auto-)biographical writing aspires towards coherence and identity, they do not support the somewhat naïve assumption that ‘memory, selood, biography and identity’ orm a coherent whole. By viewing this coherence in the light o irony , they tend to subvert it. Tis literary perspective marks the work o Philippe Lejeune, who uses different texts (novels, diaries or autobiographical narratives) in order to show that the narrating ‘I’ is a stylized instance which may differ quite substantially rom the ‘I’ o everyday lie. Je est un autre (1980), I is another person is the title o one o his books. It presages what Lejeune’s analysis o Ségolène Leébure’s biography Moi, une infirmière finally reveals: that the nurse’s narration is a successul construction based on the rules o a particular genre and geared towards the expectations o a public amiliar with that genre (the
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document vécu). Te nurse’s ‘real’ person is eventually usurped by the narrative stereotypes o commercialized literature. Lejeune speaks o the ‘game she plays while narrating’ 222 and adds that, in the eyes o the reader, she remains an unknown person who, afer leaving the hospital, marries somebody without revealing who it is. Although Lejeune emphasizes that the narrator is not identical with the author (the writing nurse), he glosses over the act that the narrator relies on heavily commercialized constructs (certain orms o dialogue, inner monologues, etc.) which help to produce the narrator’s subjectivity. Tis research into paraliterary orms tends to confirm what Adorno and R. D. Laing have to say about subjective experience: it is eradicated by ideological and commercial techniques. Even in Jean-Paul Sartre’s autobiographical text Les Mots it becomes clear to what extent the narrator differs rom other Sartrian subjects, some o whom appear in interviews or in Sartre par lui-même – and are not necessarily ‘more real’. Lejeune concludes that or him ‘the narrator o Les Mots and the gentleman who, in the film Sartre par lui-même, tells his lie on the screen [. . .] represent two contrasting figures’.223 Like most texts, the biographical narrative – considered as a whole – seems to be prone to deconstruction. But does this mean that there is no narrative unity and that the experiencing and the narrating subject are in permanent disharmony? Ursula Link-Heer seems to answer in the affi rmative when, relying on Hans Robert Jauß’s analysis o Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu, she adds to Jauß’s dual structure consisting o a remembering and an experiencing ‘I’ a third instance. 224 Within the new triadic structure, the experiencing and the remembering instances are completed by a narrating instance. As the latter is not identical with the remembering instance and hence not restricted to telling the past, it is ree to interrupt the narrative flow and indulge in essayistic and philosophical divagations. Like Lejeune in his comments on Sartre, Link-Heer analyses the disintegration o the – seemingly – autobiographical Proustian subject and shows how the different experiencing, remembering and narrating instances eventually contradict each other.225 Her findings are partly borne out by those o Annelies Schulte Nordholt, who concludes in her article ‘Proust and Subjectivity’: ‘I believe on the contrary that the Recherche is questioning the modern subject.’ 226 Naturally, the object ‘Proust’ can be constructed differently by showing, or example, that, in spite o all contradictions, Proust’s novel achieves a high degree o coherence by relying on ‘involuntary memory’. At this level, the narrating ‘I’ o the novel comes so close to that o the author Proust in Carnets or Contre Sainte-Beuve that coherence and incoherence, homogeneity and heterogeneity balance each other out in Proust’s work.227 However, this seems to be the case in most biographical and autobiographical texts, and Monika Schmitz-Emans quite rightly points out that ‘since its very beginning, the history o the subject has been a history o texts’.228 ‘Te link between the theme o the subject and the interest in the writing process’, 229 which she considers crucial, is o particular importance or modernist authors such as Proust and Sartre. In the course o many literary debates it has become clear that the individual subject o late modernity is permanently threatened by what Hermann Broch calls ‘the disintegration o values’ and by ideological over-determination. Various collective volumes published in the last ew decades deal with subjectivity and the crisis o the
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value system. Without mentioning the concept o ambivalence, which will be central here, Dieter Borchmeyer deduces the crisis o the individual subject in Nietzsche rom the ambivalence o political, ethical and aesthetic values in the age o decadence: ‘It was not Wagner’s involvement in décadence that worried Nietzsche most, but his “instinctive deviousness”: the act that he simultaneously eyes the “moral o the master race” and the “gospel o the humble”. Tis “innocence between the opposites” characterizes modern man.’230 It will appear that this conflict within the individual subject, caused by ambivalence as unity o opposites, calls all o subjectivity into question. However, ambivalence also undermines ideological dualism and thus encourages a critical stance. Commenting on the ‘multiplicity o the “I” ’ in Paul Bourget’s work, Ulrich SchulzBuschhaus shows that late modern subjectivity is threatened by ambivalence in Bourget’s novels Un crime d’amour (1886), Le Disciple (1889) and Cosmopolis (1893). He argues that Bourget ‘considered as dangerous the disintegration o the “I” and o society amid a multiplicity o mental states and liestyles’, 231 especially since he took the ‘orm o a unified personality’232 or granted. Here again one may eel that the idea o a ‘disintegrating’ or ‘vanishing’ subject comes up in a social and linguistic situation in which subjectivity has come to be viewed primarily as a timeless constant in the sense o philosophical idealism (c. Chapter II, 1) – and not as a dynamic ormation and as a social and psychic process. A collective work in two volumes dealing with the history o modern subjectivity, edited by Fetz, Hagenbüchle and Schulz (1998), shows how the modern ‘I’ oscillates between the idealist illusion o omnipotence and its disintegration in society, psyche and language. In one o the volumes, Gudrun M. Grabher analyses the precarious situation o the lyrical subject in modernist poetry and reveals a permanent oscillation between antasies o omnipotence and a tendency towards disintegration accompanied by Nietzschean and psychoanalytic connotations. Relying partly on Hiltrud Gnüg’s study on the birth and crisis o lyrical subjectivity ( Entstehung und Krise lyrischer Subjektivität ),233 she concludes: ‘Te lyrical “I” o modernism is subject to doubts which oscillate between subject negation and subject glorification.’ 234 Similar conclusions are drawn by the authors o a more recent volume on subjectivity edited by Paul Geyer and Monika Schmitz-Emans: Proteus im Spiegel. Kritische Teorie des Subjekts im 20. Jahrhundert (2003). Especially Käte Meyer-Drawes’s article on the ‘duplicity o the subject’ exposes the nexus between the subject’s autonomy and its heteronomy, its unity and its multiplicity.235 Exploring the tensions between these extremes, Adorno’s Aesthetic Teory can be read as a legacy o late modern Critical Teory. Afer Walter Benjamin who, in his comments on Baudelaire, describes the decline o the subject in mass society and in the shocks o modern lie,236 Adorno declares his solidarity with individual subjectivity which seems condemned to atrophy in a society dominated by trusts, bureaucracies and mass organizations. He sides with poets such as Mallarmé and Valéry who reuse all cults o personality in the sense o Maurice Barrès 237 or Stean George,238 but nevertheless try to save the autonomous lyrical subject by relying on a poetic language unspoiled by ideology and commerce.239 What he has to say about Valéry as a representative o the human subject is also true o Mallarmé whom he mentions several times in his Aesthetic Teory : ‘Te artist who is the bearer o the work o art is
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not the individual who produces it; rather, through his work, through passive activity, he becomes the representative o the total social subject.’240 Te confidence emanating rom this sentence has nothing to do with the cult o the subject Adorno condemns in his essay about lyrical discourse. 241 However, it is qualified in Negative Dialectics in a different context in which subjectivity appears as belonging to the bygone era o liberal individualism: an era closed or good by ascism and monopoly capitalism. Te capitulation o the individual beore the social powers o the twentieth century seems to be a ait accompli when Adorno writes about modernist novels and their narrators that ‘they are testimonials to a state o affairs in which the individual liquidates himsel’.242 His theory o the subject oscillates between the reusal o the lyrical subject to capitulate and the liquidation o the subject in the modernist novel: it clings to the concept o subject while observing the latter’s inevitable decline (c. Chapter I, 2, a, b). Adorno’s remarks concerning the disintegration o the subject in the modernist novel are developed in his well-known article about Samuel Beckett’s drama. Beckett’s Endgame reveals what is lef o the heroic subject o German idealism and existentialism: a residue unctioning as a caricature. ‘Existentialism itsel is parodied’, remarks Adorno and adds: ‘Nothing remains o its invariant categories but bare existence.’ 243 In his view, the only hope lef lies with a subject capable o speaking a language beyond ideology and commerce. Is such a subject conceivable? Adorno’s maniold attempts to answer this question certainly did not satisy all o his interlocutors, as some discussions about ‘subjectivity and the avant-garde’ show.244 Scepticism is also uelled by his plea in avour o a ‘paratactic theory’ (in the sense o Hölderlin’s poetry): a theory geared towards artistic mimesis and permanently threatened by aporias, as Habermas and some o his ollowers pointed out.245 Te idea that Beckett’s Endgame announces a theatre beyond the modern subject is taken up by Gabriele Schwab who seeks to understand this drama as a ‘strategic game’246 with subjectivity. About Beckett’s fiction in general she writes: ‘In it, the subject experiences both the impossibility o assuming the task o being master o the senses and the joy o drifing in the medium o apparently strange, but subconsciously possibly amiliar senses.’247 In this commentary, the postmodern categories o ‘joy’ and ‘playulness’ replace Adorno’s ascetic deence o modern subjectivity. Endgame as a strategic game with senses and social roles no longer implies Adorno’s autonomous subject, but playully quotes subjectivities o the past and thus abandons the critical project. It announces Eco’s postmodern game with literary orms o the past. Unlike Eco, Adorno adopts a modernist view and considers the decline o subjectivity as a disaster. His point o view is close to that o Peter Szondi who observes the decline o subjectivity in modernist drama and concludes: ‘Everything alls to pieces: the dialogue, the orm as totality, human existence.’248 Is playulness still conceivable among these ruins? Postmodern authors seem to think that it is. It would be precarious to count Michel Foucault among these postmodern thinkers, especially since he ofen appears in the company o science theorists249 or ‘structuralists’ such as Barthes and Lévi-Strauss whose common theoretical denominator has never been defined.250 During a discussion about Foucault’s lecture ‘Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur?’
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at the Collège de France (1969), Lucien Goldmann blamed him and the ‘structuralists’ or eliminating the human subject. Tis somewhat reductionist critique was countered ironically by Jean d’Ormesson who pointed out that, although Foucault doubted the existence o the author as creator o a homogeneous work, he resuscitated him as ‘ounder o discursivity’, ‘instaurateur de discursivité’. 251 What had happened? In retrospect, it becomes clear that Foucault’s stance never boiled down to a simple negation o the subject as Goldmann and German Marxists like Alred Schmidt would make us believe (c. Chapter I, 2, a). Like Lacan, he drew our attention to the ‘dependence o the subject’252 on institutions, organizations and social structures. According to him, the subject can no longer be viewed idealistically as a static entity conronting a variable ‘external’ world. Foucault’s arguments are nevertheless blurred by his requent oscillation between subjective autonomy and reedom on the one hand, and overdetermination or disintegration on the other. He puts orward three arguments in order show that it is not realistic to consider a particular individual as ‘the author o a work’: (1) an individual can never be understood as a causa sui but only unctionally as a position within a discourse ormation, which enables her or him to speak or to write; (2) the work o an author is always heterogeneous and hence cannot be read as a homogeneous message emanating rom a particular source – it reers to several authors who may contradict each other; (3) the reception o a work and its use are beyond the control o an author whose intentions cannot be clearly defined anyway. In this respect, Foucault seems to agree with Derrida (c. Chapter III, 2). In Foucault’s lecture, the first point is commented on as ollows: Doing so means overturning the traditional problem, no longer raising the questions: How can a ree subject penetrate the substance o things and give it meaning? How can it activate the rules o a language rom within and thus give rise to the designs which are properly its own? Instead, these questions will be raised: How, under what conditions, and in what orms can something like a subject appear in the order o discourse? What place can it occupy in each type o discourse, what unctions can it assume, and by obeying what rules? In short, it is a matter o depriving the subject (or its substitute) o its role as originator, and o analyzing the subject as a variable and complex unction o discourse. 253
Far rom denying the existence o the subject, Foucault explains its dependence on social and linguistic structures. However, it is not clear why Foucault insists on separating the two sets o questions. It seems that a dialectical link between reedom and over-determination might make more sense than one-sided polemics against Descartes’ and Sartre’s autonomous subjects.254 Why does Foucault allow or creative reedom when he reers to Marx and Freud as ‘ounders o discursivity’ (‘instaurateurs de discursivité’) 255 and deny this reedom when dealing with authors o particular works? Did he not himsel coin new terms such as ‘episteme’ and ‘discursive ormation’ which would be inconceivable without the reedom o Sartre’s projet ? Te idea that a subject can only speak and act within a social and linguistic situation marked by particular sociolects and discourses
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goes almost without saying. It would be more important to observe the subject’s growing or shrinking reedom in different historical constellations . It is nonetheless Foucault’s and Lacan’s merit to have revealed the ‘dependence o the subject’, thus dissolving some Cartesian and existentialist illusions. Te dialectical perspective, in which reedom and over-determination appear as two sides o a coin, is also an attempt to relate the homogeneity and the heterogeneity, the openness and the closure o literary or philosophical works to one another. Tere may be different narrators in Sartre’s work, as Philippe Lejeune points out. But this work nevertheless orms a relatively coherent, albeit heterogeneous, whole – and its coherence explains why Sartre’s attempt to link existentialism and Marxism by the concept o history makes sense. Foucault’s own work can be read as a contradictory whole which, at the end o the day, sets subjective reedom against the random movements o manipulating powers.256 Lastly, even the unintended impact o a literary or philosophical work cannot be used as an argument or the non-existence o the author. Nietzsche anticipated the extent to which he would be misunderstood or misused, and Marx is supposed to have exclaimed in despair that he was ‘not a Marxist’. Nevertheless, the evolution o philosophy and literature cannot be understood as a history o misunderstandings, because words such as ‘misunderstanding’ or ‘misreading’ lose their meaning i everything is misunderstood or misread. Mallarmé, the ‘obscure’, never said that a poet like Valéry misunderstood or misread him. Goldmann’s critique o Foucault implies a paradox insoar as Goldmann, in owards a Sociology o the Novel , reads the Nouveau Roman as a genre marked by the historical decline o the subject in ‘organized capitalism’ (c. Chapter I, 2, b). Although his polemic against Foucault revolves around the thesis underlying his major work, Te Hidden God ,257 according to which philosophical and literary texts ought to be read as products o ‘transindividual’ or collective subjects (o the noblesse de robe and Jansenism in the case o Pascal and Racine), he drops the notion o ‘collective subject’ in his analyses o the novel, because he believes that it has allen prey to the disintegration o collective values and to reification in late capitalism.258 Eventually, he and not Foucault appears as a philosopher o the ‘vanishing subject’. Paradoxes and contradictions o this kind, along with Ernst Mach’s sporadically repeated diagnosis concerning the ‘irretrievable “I” ’, may have prompted Peter Bürger to respond with a counter-project which is a typology o philosophical and literary positions rather than a history o the subject or o its decline. His book about the ‘disappearance o the subject’ (Das Verschwinden des Subjekts, 1998) is an attempt to ascertain the subject’s position in modernity and to show ‘not only how closely Montaigne’s, Descartes’ and Pascal’s concepts o the subject are interrelated by their very dissent, but also that these three thinkers have determined all subsequent statements o the French tradition to such a degree that I thought it necessary to map out a history in arrest’.259 Te Cartesian ‘I’ and Pascal’s anxious ‘I’ complete Montaigne’s conception o the subject. ‘ogether with Montaigne’s corporeal “I” they orm a constellation which I define as the field o modern subjectivity’, 260 explains Bürger. In this context, Barthes’s and Foucault’s belated ‘return to the subject’ appears as a reemergence o the old constellation, as a kind o déjà vu.
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Apart rom the act that the development o Barthes’s thought in the 1970s can hardly be subsumed under the label ‘return to the subject’, Bürger’s way o dealing with the topic raises several problems. (1) Bürger ocuses on the individual subject and neglects abstract, mythical and especially collective subjects whose role in philosophical and sociological discussions can no longer be neglected. (2) His analysis aims at literature and philosophy and does not take into account semiotic, sociological and psychological contributions to the discussion about modern subjectivity. Tus Alain ouraine’s attempt to rescue the altering subject by orging an alliance with social movements contradicts Bürger’s ‘static’ model as much as Jean Baudrillard’s diagnosis regarding the disappearance o the subject in the ‘ractal state’ o media society. (3) Since the scope o Bürger’s argument is limited to the French context, it does not deal with Luhmann’s elimination o the concept o subject within his theory o social systems and completely neglects British and American theories (Laing, Goffman, Lasch) whose authors observe a decline o the subject in societies dominated by trusts, bureaucracies and commercialized media. Surprisingly, Bürger does not even reer to the historical nexus between the crisis o the subject and the birth o French and German sociology around 1900, whose authors – Durkheim, Max Weber, Alred Weber, Simmel – conront the decline o individual subjectivity in late modernity. However, this decline can hardly be dealt with within a scheme described by Bürger as ‘history in arrest’ – or history is always movement: a movement described by philosophers, sociologists and psychologists. However, Bürger is quite right in pointing out that the subject o modernity has so ar been defined as a monological entity: as an isolated actor without a link to the other: ‘But as subject it is an isolated “I”. Te other is o no importance to its sel- awareness.’261 Dialogical subjectivity, as sketched by Madame de Sévigné, does not materialize because it is repressed by the censorship o the clergy. Tis concept o a dialogical subjectivity will be developed in the ollowing chapters (in particular in the last chapter) in conjunction with M. M. Bakhtin’s work, the author’s What is Teory? (Zima, 2007) and Modern / Postmodern (Zima, 2010). Bakhtin shows convincingly that individual subjectivity in the novel can only be understood dialogically: as a polyphony arising rom the ambivalence o social values and urging the ‘I’ to seek a response rom the Other, the stranger. 262 However, ambivalence as a coincidence o opposites ( good / evil, le / right, male / emale, etc.) is not only a starting point o criticism and dialogue (How evil are moralists? Where do lef and right politics coincide?), but also a cause o crisis. Te narrating and acting subject, which is conronted by the ambivalence o values in the novels o Kaa, Musil, D. H. Lawrence or Virginia Wool, is threatened by a paralysis leading to the interruption o the narrative discourse. ‘Paradox: to write the novel that cannot be written’, 263 notes Musil sel-ironically in his posthumously published ragments. It was shown in Modern / Postmodern to what extent postmodern novels – rom the Nouveau Roman to Patrick Süskind’s Perume – abandon the problem o ambivalence along with the entire value problematic. In a situation dominated by the indifference o the exchange value and by a general eeling that all values are relative and interchangeable, even the question concerning the ‘I’ as an evaluating instance rooted in a value system becomes indifferent. raditional questions, which accompany the narrator’s discourse in
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a modernist novel like Svevo’s Conessions o Zeno – Who am I? What is truth? What is good, evil? – are abandoned by postmodernist novelists such as Alain Robbe-Grillet, Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco, Patrick Süskind or Tomas Pynchon as metaphysical or meaningless quests. Te main actor o a postmodern novel dominated by indifference is requently a pseudo-subject (e.g. Mathias in Robbe-Grillet’s Le Voyeur or Grenouille in Süskind’s Perume) devoid o personal autonomy and blindly obeying natural instincts. 264 Tese considerations, which will be developed at the end o the second chapter, give rise to two questions. (1) o what extent is the argument put orward here in conjunction with the modernist and postmodernist novel corroborated by other sciences such as sociology and psychology? (2) Can developments or tendencies be observed which justiy the counter-argument: namely that subjectivity has a uture in postmodern society despite all the setbacks it has experienced so ar? Both questions will be briefly dealt with in the last section which is meant to cast light on the problematic as a whole.
3 Aporias o the individual subject in modernity and postmodernity Te argument concerning the modernist and postmodernist decline o the individual subject can only be made plausible or revised 265 by a return to the beginning o this chapter and to the question o which subject is endangered by modernist ambivalence and negated by postmodernist indifference. It is primarily the individual and transcendental subject o idealist philosophy (rom Descartes and Kant to Fichte and Hegel), which, in its orm as cogito or spirit , pretends to hold sway over reality and its objects, claiming that nature is identical with thought. It is the subiectum as undamental entity, as the anthropomorphic and anthropocentric replica o the divine subject which repeats the creation o the world within its rationalist or dialectical systems; it is the secularized god. As heirs to the Young Hegelian philosophy o Friedrich Teodor Vischer, whose experimental novel Auch Einer will play an important part in the next chapter, authors o modernism such as Kaa, Musil, Proust, Camus, Joyce and Svevo reveal to what extent the individual subject is swayed by its unconscious and its instincts instead o being led by reason. Tey reveal its over-determination by chance, Freudian slips, language and ideology. ime and again Svevo’s and Pirandello’s novels illustrate Nietzsche’s anti-rationalist and anti-Hegelian idea that chance, not reason, presides over human actions.266 In spite o their scepticism, most authors o modernism – defined as a late modern critique o modernity 267 – set out to save the individual subject in a context dominated by ambivalence and the crisis o values. In this respect, they are quite close to the philosophers o Critical Teory. ‘Individualism is coming to an end. Ulrich does not care. But its true moments ought to be preserved,’ 268 writes Musil in his posthumously published ragments. Tese paradoxical statements, which may be attributed to Ulrich, the narrator, or Musil himsel, sum up crucial tenets o Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s Critical Teory whose solidarity with ‘metaphysics at the time o its all’269 is proclaimed at the end o Adorno’s Negative Dialectics. Tey also express one o the basic aims o
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this book: namely to strengthen individual subjectivity by a dynamic and dialogical redefinition o the concept o subject. Te perspective adopted throughout this book is that o modernism and Critical Teory insoar as this theory reveals the impossibility and the ideological character o rationalist and Hegelian concepts o subjectivity, but at the same time reuses to conront dualistically the subject as basis or oundation with the subject as subjugated or disintegrating instance. It is geared towards the modernist, ambivalent idea that the individual subject, as unity o opposites, is both: an autonomous, productive and an over-determined, possibly even disintegrating instance. Ambivalence in the modernist sense is itsel double- tracked, because it reveals to the subject its contradictions, but at the same time stimulates its critical impulse. It shows that crisis and critique270 are interlinked. In Musil’s novel, the socialist Schmeißer, who imagines subjectivity ideologically as a homogeneous whole (thus conusing it with Althusser’s notion o subjugation), is conronted by Musil’s hero with a paradox produced by ambivalence: “‘Ten I shall argue”, Ulrich completed his sentence, “that you will ail or other reasons, or the simple reason, or example, that we are capable o calling somebody dog even though we love our dog more than our ellow men”.’ 271 It is not by chance that Schmeißer reacts with disdainul silence. He eels that an analysis o this paradox might cast doubts on the ideological coherence o his subjectivity. Derived rom the modernist problematic and Bakhtin’s theory o dialogue, the key argument o this book can be summed up in a ew words: the individual subject is neither a sovereign (undamental) nor a subjugated entity, but a permanently changing dialogical being whose development depends on its interaction with others and with alterity in general. Te argument is an attempt to correlate dialectically unity and multiplicity and to show that ambivalence, contradiction and the absorption o otherness, ar rom undermining subjectivity, are indispensable to its development. Naturally, individual and collective subjects cease to exist whenever ambivalence, heterogeneity and heteronomy gain the upper hand. In this respect, all subjects, even institutions and organizations, are endangered as actants or agents and have to prove themselves in crises. A heterogeneous coalition government composed o two or more parties may all apart, and the multicultural, multilingual individual subject can become speechless: incapable o articulating its eelings and opinions clearly and coherently in any one o its languages. Te ironical pendant to the argument put orward here would be the idea that the modernist and postmodernist subject is a case in point because it illustrates – in literature and everyday lie – this kind o disintegration in aphasia and in various cases o over-determination imposed on it by advertising, media and ideology. Tese negative aspects o subjectivity are revealed in the critiques o modernity voiced in very different ways by Foucault, Baudrillard, Lyotard and Vattimo. Tey ofen give the impression that the individual subject is an anachronism whose survival is more than uncertain. In spite o this one-sidedness, such postmodern critiques o the subject as a subjugated or disintegrating instance are ar rom excessive or esoteric. For they produce a salutary shock in philosophy and the social sciences where more reflection on the ambivalence and the complexity o individual and collective subjects is required.
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Tey are not pure inventions, but are based on sociological insights, some o which announce a decline o the individual subject and will be dealt with in more detail in the ourth chapter. Tey are, among other things: the rise o international monopolies and trusts and the concomitant decline o the individual entrepreneur; a growing bureaucratization due to state interventions inspired by Keynesian economics; the resulting systemic constraints, some o which provoke the mobilization o workers and employees in tightly organized trade unions; the invasion o all spheres o lie by market orces and the exchange value, both o which entail a crisis o values and a weakening o collective consciousness (in the sense o Durkheim); the over-determination o individual and collective subjects by ideologies, as described by Althusser; the parallel over-determination by the media described and denounced in sweeping statements by Baudrillard; the relatively recent development o a ‘atherless society’ studied by Mitscherlich and regularly reerred to by sociologists (Giddens, Beck, ouraine) and social psychologists such as Lasch; finally, the ofen neglected but growing discrepancy – discovered by Georg Simmel – between subjective and objective culture, i.e. between individual culture and the objectively available state o human knowledge. In view o this daunting predominance o objective social actors, one might be tempted to conclude that the individual subject cannot but capitulate. Kaa’s hero sums up this hopeless situation in a ew words: ‘Te man rom the country did not expect such difficulties . . .’ Te social developments enumerated above could also be turned against the author o this book who might be accused o a euphemistic approach. Te ‘I’ might afer all turn out to be an illusion in the sense o Nietzsche or Mach . . . Te key argument o this book does not imply that dialogical subjectivity is or will be the rule in contemporary society. Rather, it is based on the assumption that new, dialogical perspectives have been opened up recently by European integration and the parallel rise o ecological, eminist and eco-eminist movements, all o which aim at incorporating otherness (o nature, o the other sex) into individual and collective identity. Te argument does not gloss over the difficulties o being a subject, but is meant to reveal new orms o subjectivity made possible by certain developments in contemporary society. I such possibilities, which will be dealt with in some detail in the last chapter, actually exist, they will appear in the relationship between individual and collective (i.e. European) subjectivity which is requently completed by regional and national identities. Te idea that the individual subject cannot be saved as long as it sees itsel as an isolated atom, is confirmed by Charles aylor at the end o his remarkable study Sources o the Sel. Te Making o Modern Identity : But our normal understanding o sel-realization presupposes that some things are important beyond the sel, that there are some goods or purposes the urthering o which has significance or us and which hence can provide the significance a ulfilling lie needs. A total and ully consistent subjectivism would tend towards emptiness: nothing would count as ulfilment in a world in which literally nothing was important but sel-ulfilment.272
Te post-eudal identity o the bourgeois individual was mostly national; should, in the course o European integration, a new subjectivity crystallize, a subjectivity
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evolving beyond the bourgeois nation state, then such a multilingual and multicultural subjectivity might be more flexible – and hence stronger.
Notes 1 C. H. Schrödter (ed.), Das Verschwinden des Subjekts , Würzburg, Königshausen und Neumann, 1994 and P. Bürger, Das Verschwinden des Subjekts. Eine Geschichte der Subjektivität von Montaigne bis Barthes , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1998. 2 H. M. Baumgartner, ‘Welches Subjekt ist verschwunden? Einige Distinktionen zum Begriff der Subjkektivität’, in: H. Schrödter (ed.), Das Verschwinden des Subjekts , op. cit., p. 26. 3 Ibid., p. 27 4 Ibid. 5 H. Schmidinger, in: E. Beck, Identität der Person. Sozialphilosophische Studien zu Kierkegaard, Adorno und Habermas, Würzburg, Königshausen und Neumann, 1991, p. 49. 6 C. A. Giddens, Modernity and Sel-Identity. Sel and Society in the Late Modern Age, Cambridge-Oxord, Polity-Blackwell (1991), 1994, pp. 17–20. 7 K.-J. Bruder, Subjektivität und Postmoderne, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1993, p. 38. 8 Ibid. Tis diagnosis is confirmed by K. Oehler, Subjektivität und Selbsbewußtsein in der Antike, Würzburg, Königshausen und Neumann, 1997, pp. 80–85. 9 K. Marx, Early Writings (ed. . B. Bottomore), London, C. A. Watts, 1963, p. 185. 10 G. Simmel, Das Individuum und die Freiheit. Essais, Berlin, Wagenbach, 1984, p. 194. 11 R. zur Lippe, Autonomie als Selbstzerstörung , Frankurt, Syndikat-EVA, 1984, p. 114. 12 I. Berlin, wo Concepts o Liberty. An Inaugural Lecture delivered beore the University o Oxord on 31 October 1958, Oxord, Clarendon Press, 1958, p. 16. 13 G. Lukács, History and Class Consciousness. Studies in Marxist Dialectics, London, Merlin Press, 1971, p. 41. 14 A. ouraine, Critique de la modernité , Paris, Fayard, 1992, p. 331. 15 F. Grubauer, Das zerrissene Bewußtsein der gesellschalichen Subjektivität , Münster, Westälisches Dampoot, 1994, p. 31. 16 Grubauer ofen uses the concept o ‘individual’ and ‘subject’ as synonyms. In the context mapped out in this book, ‘individual’ reers to the socially-conditioned biological basis o individual subjectivity. 17 M. Frank, Selbstbewußtsein und Selbsterkenntnis. Essays zur analytischen Philosophie der Subjektivität , Stuttgart, Reclam, 1991, p. 43. 18 C. A. J. Greimas, Maupassant. La sémiotique du texte: exercices pratiques, Paris, Seuil, 1976, p. 63. 19 C. A. J. Greimas, Sémantique structurale, Paris, Larousse, 1966, p. 181. 20 Te theory o modalities is explained in A. J. Greimas, ‘Pour une théorie des modalités’, in: idem, Du Sens II. Essais sémiotiques, Paris, Seuil, 1983. For an exemplary application o this theory consult . H. Kim, Vom Aktantenmodell zur Semiotik der Leidenschaen. Eine Studie zur narrativen Semiotik von Algirdas J. Greimas, übingen, Francke, 2002. 21 C. L. esnière, Eléments de syntaxe structurale, Paris, Klincksieck, 1959. 22 C. V. Propp, Morphology o the Folktale (1928), Austin, Univ. o exas Press, 1968 (2nd ed.). 23 H. Zinser, ‘Verlust des Subjekts? Christentum und neuere religiöse Bewegungen’, in: H. Schrödter (ed.), Das Verschwinden des Subjekts, op. cit., p. 236.
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24 A definition o ‘personality’ in the sociological sense can be ound in: B. Schäers (ed.), Grundbegriffe der Soziologie, Opladen, Leske und Budrich, 1986, p. 230. 25 G. H. Mead, ‘Te Sel ’, in: idem, Mind, Sel, and Society rom the Standpoint o a Social Behaviorist (ed. Ch. W. Morris), Works o George Herbert Mead , vol. I, ChicagoLondon, Univ. o Chicago Press, 1967, p. 174. 26 S. Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, Mansfield Centre (C), Martino Publishing, 2010, p. 105. 27 A. J. Greimas, Du Sens, Paris, Seuil, 1970, p. 234. 28 W. Huber, ‘Das artifizielle Subjekt’, in: R. L. Fetz, R. Hagenbüchle, P. Schulz (eds.), Geschichte und Vorgeschichte der modernen Subjektivität , vol. II, Berlin-New York, De Gruyter, 1998, p. 1294. 29 Te relationship between actants and actors is discussed in detail by J. Courtés in: Introduction à la sémiotique narrative et discursive, Paris, Hachette, 1976, p. 95. He shows that a collective actant, e.g. a trade union, can be represented by individual actors (its members or lawyers) and that a particular actor may belong to different actants (party, trade union, amily). 30 A. Fontán, ‘La Unión Europea después del Euro’, in: Nueva Revista 61, February 1999, pp. 6–7. 31 C. D. Sperber, D. Wilson, Relevance. Communication and Cognition, Oxord, Blackwell (1986), 1993, chap. III. 1: ‘Conditions or Relevance’. 32 A redefinition o Greimas’s concept o sociolect can be ound in: P. V. Zima, extsoziologie. Eine kritische Einührung , Stuttgart, Metzler, 1980, pp. 72–81 and P. V. Zima, Ideologie und Teorie. Eine Diskurskritik, übingen-Basel, Francke, 1989, pp. 248–50. 33 C. J. Habermas, Te Teory o Communicative Action, vol. II: Te Critique o Functionalist Reason, Cambridge-Oxord, Polity-Blackwell, 1987, pp. 391–6. 34 A. J. Greimas in discussion with P. Stockinger, ‘Interview. Zur aktuellen Lage der semiotischen Forschung’, in: Zeitschri ür Semiotik 5, 1983. 35 S. zur Nieden, ‘ “Ach, ich möchte (. . .) eine tapere deutsche Frau werden”. agebücher als Quelle zur Erorschung des Nationalsozialismus’, in: Berliner Geschichtswerkstatt (ed.), Alltagskultur, Subjektivität, Geschichte. Zur Teorie und Praxis von Alltagsgeschichte, Münster, Westälisches Dampoot, 1994, p. 181. 36 C. J.-P. Faye, Téorie du récit. Introduction aux ‘langages totalitaires’ , Paris, Hermann, 1972, pp. 36–40. 37 L. Althusser, On Ideology , London-New York (NLB, 1971), Verso, 2008, p. 44. 38 Ibid., p. 45. 39 M. Pêcheux, Les Vérités de La Palice, Paris, Maspero, 1975, p. 139. 40 A. Moravia, Te Conormist , London, Prion Books, 1999, p. 324. 41 Ibid. 42 C. T. S. Kuhn, Te Structure o Scientific Revolutions, Chicago-London, Te Univ. o Chicago Press, 1996 (3rd ed.), chap. IV: ‘Normal Science as Puzzle-solving’. 43 Te Russian ormalists and the Czech structuralists never suggested that literary evolution could be conceived o as unctioning without subjects. For the dissatisaction with established and ‘automatized’ orms, most o which reveal nothing new, can only be detected on the level o individual and collective subjects (e.g. critics). 44 C. C. F. Gethmann, ‘Praktische Subjektivität und Spezies’, in: W. Hogrebe (ed.) Subjektivität , Munich, Fink, 1998, pp. 126–7. Gethman confirms K.-O. Apel’s and W. Kuhlmann’s thesis, according to which ‘subjectivity can practically be attributed to those who are capable o argument’, by pointing out that inants, mentally handicapped or incapacitated individuals cannot be considered as subjects.
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45 L. Althusser, On Ideology , op. cit., p. 49. 46 It is not by chance that the first work on ideology – Eléments d’idéologie – was published by Destutt de racy between 1801 and 1815. 47 R. Bubner,‘Wie wichtig ist Subjektivität?’, in: W. Hogrebe (ed.), Subjektivität, op. cit., p. 246. 48 C. P. V. Zima, Ideologie und Teorie, op. cit., chap. I. 49 Te sel-reflection o subjects is discussed in: P. Stekeler-Weithoer, ‘Das Subjekt des Handelns als Objekt der Reflexion’, in: W. Hogrebe (ed.), Subjektivität , op. cit., pp. 165–6. 50 P. Ricœur, Te Conflict o Interpretations. Essays in Hermeneutics , London-New York, Continuum, 1989, p. 259. 51 M. Frank, Selbstbewußtsein und Selbsterkenntnis, op. cit., pp. 23–4. 52 V. Descombes, Les Embarras de l’identité , Paris, Gallimard, 2013, p. 96. Descombes distinguishes two aspects o subjectivity which seem to be mutually exclusive: the subject as ‘mental interiority’ and the ‘subject as expressive behaviour’: i.e. a subjectivity that is only accessible to mysel and a communicating subjectivity that is accessible to others. However, insoar as we are able to express our eelings and thoughts at any time, these two ‘subjectivities’ are permanently linked . . . 53 P. Ricœur, Onesel as Another , Chicago-London, Te Univ. o Chicago Press (1992), 1994, p. 128. 54 Ibid., p. 140. 55 Ibid., p. 141. (P. Ricœur, Soi-même comme un autre, Paris, Seuil, 1990, p. 168.) 56 Ibid. 57 R. Musil, Gesammelte Werke, vol. V, Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1978, p. 1937. 58 H. Keupp et al., Identitätskonstruktionen. Das Patchwork der Identitäten in der Spätmoderne, Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1999, p. 21. 59 H. Keupp, Riskante Chancen. Das Subjekt zwischen Psychokultur und Selbstorganisation. Sozialpsychologische Studien, Heidelberg, Asanger, 1988, pp. 150–51. 60 H. Keupp et al., Identitätskonstruktionen , op. cit., p. 10. 61 H. Keupp, Riskante Chancen, op. cit., p. 132. 62 G. Lai, Disidentità, Milan, Franco Angeli, 1999, p. 28. 63 H. Keupp, ‘Ambivalenzen postmoderner Identität’, in: U. Beck, E. Beck-Gernsheim (eds.), Riskante Freiheiten, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1994, p. 342. 64 H. Keupp, Riskante Chancen, op. cit., p. 142. 65 C. P. V. Zima, Ideologie und Teorie, op. cit., chap. VIII. 66 N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanord, Univ. Press, 1995, p. 240. 67 Reception and impact o ideological discourses are discussed in detail in: P. V. Zima, Ideologie und Teorie, op. cit., chap. VIII. 2. g. 68 Tis topic is dealt with in quite an original way by H. Klauß in his book Zur Konstitution der Sinnlichkeit in der Wissenscha. Eine soziologische Analyse der Wandlungen des Subjekt-Objekt-Verhältnisses , Rheda-Wiedenbrück, Daedalus, 1990. 69 R. Musil, Te Man without Qualities, vol. I, London, an Books-Picador, 1979, p. 358. 70 H. Klauß, Zur Konstitution der Sinnlichkeit in der Wissenscha , op. cit., p. 240. 71 Ibid. 72 . W. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, Dialectic o Enlightenment , London-New York, Verso (1979), 1997, p. 59. 73 Ibid., p. 26. 74 C. P. V. Zima, Ideologie und Teorie, op. cit., p. 56. 75 L. J. Prieto, ‘Entwur einer allgemeinen Semiologie’, in: Zeitschri ür Semiotik 1, 1979, p. 263.
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76 C. P. V. Zima, ‘Framework ist kein Mythos. Zu Karl R. Poppers Tesen über wissenschafliche Kommunikation’, in: H. Albert, K, Salamun (eds.), Mensch und Gesellscha aus der Sicht des Kritischen Rationalismus, Amsterdam-Atlanta, Rodopi, 1993, pp. 319–22. 77 C. P. V. Zima, ‘Dialogische Teorie’, in: Ethik und Sozialwissenschaen 4, 1999 and chap. V in this book. 78 M. M. Bakhtin, Problems o Dostoevsky’s Poetics, Minneapolis-London, University o Minnesota Press, 1984, p. 32. 79 J.-P. Sartre, Nausea, London, Penguin, 1965, p. 180. 80 J.-P. Sartre, Te Problem o Method , London, Methuen, 1963, p. 175. 81 Ibid., pp. 85–90. 82 Ibid., pp. 63–4. 83 A. Camus, Te Rebel , Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1962, p. 60. 84 A. Camus, L’Homme révolté , Paris, Gallimard (‘idées’), 1951, p. 91. 85 A. Camus, Essais, Paris, Gallimard, Bibl. de la Pléiade, 1965, p. 762. 86 Te relationship between Nietzsche and Camus is commented on in detail by B. Rosenthal in her book Die Idee des Absurden: Friedrich Nietzsche und Albert Camus, Bonn, Bouvier, 1977. 87 H. R. Schlette, ‘Camus’ Aktualität im Spannungseld der Antithese “Natur-Geschichte” ’ in: M. Lauble (ed.), Der unbekannte Camus, Düsseldor, Patmos, 1979, p. 129. 88 . W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, London-New York, Routledge (1973), 2000, p. 179. 89 Ibid., p. 15. 90 Ibid., p. 12. 91 . W. Adorno, ‘Te Essay as Form’, in: idem, Notes to Literature, vol. I, New York, Columbia University Press, 1991, p. 9. 92 . W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, op. cit., p. 29. 93 C. W. M. Lüdke, Anmerkungen zur ‘Logik des Zeralls’: Adorno – Beckett , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1981, p. 68: ‘For the particular, non-identical is precisely that which resists concrete definitions, concepts – i.e. identification.’ 94 . W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, op. cit., p. 343. 95 J. Habermas, Te Philosophical Discourse o Modernity. welve Lectures (1987), Cambridge, Polity Press, 1990, pp. 295–6. 96 C. A. W. Gouldner, Te Coming Crisis o Western Sociology , London, Heinemann, 1971. 97 C. J. Habermas, Vorstudien und Ergänzungen zur Teorie des kommunikativen Handelns, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1986 (2nd ed.), p. 591. 98 Te problem o a universally valid language in philosophy is discussed by O. Neurath in: ‘Universaljargon und erminologie’ (1941), in: R. Haller, H. Rutte (eds.), Gesammelte philosophische und methodologische Schrien, vol. II, Vienna, Hölder-Pichler-empsky, 1981. 99 C. P. V. Zima, Modern / Postmodern. Society, Philosophy, Literature, London-New York, Continuum (2010), 2012, chap. VI: ‘Dialogical Teory: Between the Universal and the Particular’. 100 J. Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, Cambridge-Oxord, Polity-Blackwell, 1992, p. 87. 101 C. M. Masterman, ‘Te Nature o a Paradigm’, in: I. Lakatos, A. Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth o Knowledge, Cambridge, Univ. Press, 1970, pp. 61–5. 102 H. Ebeling, Das Subjekt in der Moderne. Rekonstruktion der Philosophie im Zeitalter der Zerstörung , Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1993, p. 190.
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103 Ibid., p. 195. 104 H. Ebeling, ‘Das neuere Prinzip der Selbsterhaltung und seine Bedeutung ür die Teorie der Subjektivität’, in: H. Ebeling (ed.), Subjektivität und Selbsterhaltung. Beiträge zur Diagnose der Moderne, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1996, p. 19. 105 H. Ebeling, Das Subjekt in der Moderne, op. cit., pp. 249–50. 106 Ibid., p. 269. 107 R. Reid, ‘Corps clinique, corps génétique’, in: L. Giard (ed.), Michel Foucault. Lire l’œuvre, Grenoble, Millon, 1992, p. 126. 108 C. Merleau-Ponty, Humanisme et terreur , Paris, Gallimard, 1947, p. 306. 109 J. Link, ‘Von der “Macht der Norm” zum “flexiblen Normalismus”: Überlegungen nach Foucault’, in: J. Jurt (ed.), Zeitgenössische ranzösische Denker: Eine Bilanz , Freiburg, Rombach, 1998, p. 260. 110 C. C. Bordoni, Società digitali. Mutamento culturale e nuovi media, Naples, Liguori, 2007. 111 J. Link, ‘Von der “Macht der Norm” zum “flexiblen Normalismus” ’, op. cit., p. 255. 112 Ibid. 113 A. Schmidt, ‘Der strukturalistische Angriff au die Geschichte’, in: A. Schmidt (ed.), Beiträge zur marxistischen Erkenntnistheorie, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1972 (4th ed.), p. 197. 114 U. Jaeggi, Teoretische Praxis. Probleme eines strukturalen Marxismus, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1976, p. 109. 115 C. L. Althusser, Eléments d’autocritique, Paris, Hachette, 1974, p. 94: ‘Les plus politiques de mes critiques l’ont bien relevé: il n’est guère question de la lutte de classes pour elle-même dans Pour Marx et Lire le Capital ; il n’en est pas question lorsque je parle de la onction pratique et sociale de l’idéologie (. . .).’ 116 Not only in Althusser’s but also in Pêcheux’s work, does it become clear how detrimental the elimination o such hermeneutic and dialectical categories as reflection and dialogue can be. 117 G. Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, London, Athlone, 1994, Continuum, 2008, p. 153. 118 G. Vattimo, Le avventure della differenza. Che cosa significa pensare dopo Nietzsche e Heidegger , Milan, Garzanti, 1980, p. 159. 119 R. Leschke, Metamorphosen des Subjekts. Hermeneutische Reaktionen au die (post-) strukturalistische Herausorderung , vol. I, Frankurt-Bern-Paris, Lang, 1987, p. 35. 120 M. Frank, ‘Subjekt, Person, Individuum’, in: M. Frank, G. Raulet, W. van Reijen (eds.), Die Frage nach dem Subjekt , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1988, pp. 25–6. 121 R. Leschke, Metamorphosen des Subjekts, vol. I, op. cit., p. 35. 122 Te concept o subject is not only conspicuous by its absence in the dictionary o sociology edited by B. Schäers (Grundbegriffe der Soziologie: c. supra) but is also missing in Methodologie der Sozialwissenschaen (eds. N. Wenturis, W. Van Hove and V. Dreier, übingen-Basel, Francke, 1992). In Wörterbuch der Soziologie (ed. G. Hartfiel, K.-H. Hillmann, Stuttgart, Kröner, 1972), the related concepts o ‘subject’, ‘subjectivism’ and ‘subjectivity’ were still prominent. Both are defined in the Penguin Dictionary o Sociology edited by N. Abercrombie, S. Hill and B. S. urner, London, Penguin, 1984, p. 384. 123 C. J. Baudrillard, La ransparence du mal. Essai sur les phénomènes extrêmes , Paris, Galilée, 1990, p. 13. 124 . W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, op. cit., p. 343. 125 C. Daniel, Teorien der Subjektivität. Einührung in die Soziologie des Individuums, Frankurt-New York, Campus, 1981, p. 146.
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126 C. L. Löwenthal, ‘Biographies in Popular Magazines’, in: idem, Literature, Popular Culture and Society , Englewood Cliffs (N. J.), Prentice Hall, 1961. 127 J. Baudrillard, Simulacres et simulation, Paris, Galilée, 1981, p. 17. 128 D. Bell, Te Coming o Postindustrial Society. A Venture in Social Forecasting , New York, Basic Books, 1973, p. 477. 129 L. Goldmann, owards a Sociology o the Novel , London, avistock, 1977. 130 Ibid., chap. II, III. 131 As early as 1966, Jacques Leenhardt, a ollower o Lucien Goldmann, described Goldmann’s approach as ‘prooundly anachronistic in relation to our epoch’. C. J. Leenhardt, ‘Psychocritique et sociologie de la littérature’, in: Les chemins actuels de la critique, Paris, UGE (10/18), 1968, p. 400. However, it can be shown that Goldmann’s view o the individual subject’s gradual decline coincides in many respects with the diagnoses o Simmel, Bell, Riesman and even ouraine and Beck. 132 U. Beck, Risk Society. owards a New Modernity , London, Sage (1992), 2008, pp. 12–13. 133 Ibid., pp. 14–15. 134 A. Giddens, Modernity and Sel-Identity. Sel and Society in the Late Modern Age, Cambridge, Polity, 1991, p. 100. 135 N. Luhmann, Social Systems, op. cit., p. 74. 136 F. Grubauer, Das zerrissene Bewußtsein der gesellschalichen Subjektivität , op. cit., pp. 161–62. 137 Ibid., p. 154. 138 C. J. Baudrillard, ‘Facticité et séduction’, in: J. Baudrillard, M. Guillaume, Figures de l’altérité , Paris, Ed. Descartes, 1992, p. 109 and chap. IV. 2 in this book. 139 A. ouraine, Le Retour de l’acteur. Essais de sociologie, Paris, Fayard, 1984, p. 245. Te question o individual autonomy is dealt with by E. Morin in Sociologie, Paris, Fayard, 1984, p. 438. 140 Te relationship between typological and genetic comparisons is dealt with by P. V. Zima, Komparatistik. Einührung in die Vergleichende Literaturwissenscha , übingen-Basel, Francke, 2011 (2nd ed.), chaps. III and IV. 141 C. Daniel, Teorien der Subjektivität , op. cit., p. 125. 142 A. ouraine, Comment sortir du libéralisme? , Paris, Fayard, 1999, p. 116. 143 C. L. Goldmann, ‘La Dialectique aujourd’hui’, in: idem, La Création culturelle dans la société moderne, Paris, Denoël-Gonthier, 1971, pp. 167–81. 144 C. A. Gorz, Farewell to the Working Class, London, Pluto Press (1982), 1997. 145 F. Nietzsche, Te Genealogy o Morals, Mineola (N. Y.), Dover Publications, 2003, p. 117. 146 F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil. Prelude to a Philosophy o the Future , London, Penguin, 1990, p. 34. 147 S. Freud, ‘Der euel als Vaterersatz’, in: idem, Studienausgabe , vol. VII, Frankurt, Fischer, 1982, p. 301. 148 C. G. Jung, Bewußtes und Unbewußtes, Frankurt, Fischer, 1957, p. 23. 149 E. Mach, Die Analyse der Empfindungen und das Verhältnis des Physischen zum Psychischen, Darmstadt, Wiss. Buchgesellschaf, 1991, p. 20. 150 Ibid. 151 Ibid., p. 19. 152 In the sense o C. B. Macpherson’s study Te Political Teory o Possessive Individualism. Hobbes to Locke, Oxord, Clarendon Press, 1962. 153 S. Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, op. cit., p. 86.
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154 Ibid., p. 106. 155 S. Freud, ‘Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse’, in: idem, Studienausgabe , vol. IX, Frankurt, Fischer, 1982, p. 69. (Note omitted in the English translation.) 156 S. Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, op. cit., p. 108. 157 Te relationship between philosophy and psychoanalysis is also dealt with by Marcia Cavell in her book Becoming a Subject: Reflections in Philosophy and Psychoanalysis , Oxord, Univ. Press, 2008. 158 Te figure o the ‘double’ in literature is dealt with in great detail by S. M. Moraldo, Wandlungen, des Doppelgängers. Shakespeare – E. . A. Hoffmann – Pirandello , Frankurt-Berlin-Bern, Lang, 1996. 159 H. F. Ellenberger, Te Discovery o the Unconscious. Te History and Evolution o Dynamic Psychiatry , London, Allen Lane-Te Penguin Press, 1970, p. 141. 160 Ibid. 161 C. C. G. Jung, Bewußtes und Unbewußtes, op. cit., p. 29. 162 H. F. Ellenberger, Te Discovery o the Unconscious, op. cit., p. 128. 163 J. Lacan, in: B. Ogilvie, Lacan. La Formation du concept de sujet (1932–1949), Paris, PUF, 1988 (2nd ed.), p. 43. 164 J. Lacan, Ecrits, Paris, Seuil, 1966, p. 799. 165 A. Lorenzer, Über den Gegenstand der Psychoanalyse oder: Sprache und Interaktion , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1973, p. 122. 166 R. D. Laing, Te Politics o Experience and the Bird o Paradise, London, Penguin, 1967, p. 55. 167 Ibid., p. 60. 168 Ibid., p. 61. 169 Ibid., p. 55. 170 K.-J. Bruder, Subjektivität und Postmoderne, op. cit., p. 145. 171 Ch. Lasch, Te Culture o Narcissism. American Lie in An Age o Diminishing Expectations, New York-London, Norton (1979), 1991, p. XV. 172 . W. Adorno, Minima Moralia. Reflections on a Damaged Lie, London-New York, Verso, 2005, p. 65. 173 C. S. B. G. Eysenck, ‘Personality in Subnormal Subjects’, in: H. J. Eysenck, S. B. G. Eysenck, Personality Structure and Measurement , London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969, pp. 317–22. 174 C. C. R. Rogers, Encounter Groups, London, Penguin, 1969, p. 14: ‘Each member moves toward greater acceptance o his total being (. . .).’ 175 C. C. R. Rogers, J. K. Wood, ‘Client-Centered Teory: Carl R. Rogers’, in: A. Burton (ed.), Operational Teories o Personality , New York, Brunner-Mazel, 1974, p. 215. 176 C. A. J. Greimas, J. Courtés, Sémiotique. Dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage, Paris, Hachette, 1979, p. 274 (‘personnage’). 177 L. A. Pervin, Personality: Teory, Assessment, and Research, New York-London-Sydney, John Wiley and Sons, 1970, p. 1. 178 Ibid., p. 2. 179 Ibid. 180 C. H. J. Eysenck, M. W. Eysenck, Personality and Individual Differences. A Natural Science Approach, New York-London, Plenum Press, 1985, pp. 17–18. 181 C. S. E. Hampson, Te Construction o Personality. An Introduction, London, Routledge, 1988 (2nd ed.), chap. IV: ‘Personality and Consistency’. 182 C. L. J. Bischo, Interpreting Personality Teories, New York-Evanston-London, Harper and Row, 1964, pp. 664–70.
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183 S. E. Hampson, Te Construction o Personality , op. cit., p. 81. 184 C. W. Mischel, Introduction to Personality , New York, Holt-Rinehart-Winston, 1971, CBS College Publishing, 1981, pp. 19–20. 185 S. E. Hampson, Te Construction o Personality , op. cit., p. 80. 186 C. H. J. Eysenck, M. W. Eysenck, Personality and Individual Differences, op. cit., p. 4 (character and traits). 187 W. Mischel, Introduction to Personality , op. cit., p. 27. 188 Ibid. 189 H. J. Eysenck, M. W. Eysenck, Personality and Individual Differences, op. cit., p. VII. 190 H. J. Eysenck, S. B. G. Eysenck, Personality Structure and Measurement , op. cit., p. 327. 191 C. R. C. Bannister, Sociology and Scientism. Te American Quest or Objectivity, 1880–1940, Chapel Hill-London, Univ. o North Carolina Press, 1987. 192 C. L. A. Pervin, Personality , op. cit., pp. 373–4. 193 D. H. Ford, Humans as Sel-Constructing Living Systems. A Developmental Perspective on Behavior and Personality , Hillsdale (N. J.)-Hove-London, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1987, p. 73. 194 Ibid., p. 72. 195 M. E. Ford, D. H. Ford (eds.), Humans as Sel-Constructing Living Systems. Putting the Framework to Work. Hillsdale (N. J.)-Hove-London, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1987, p. 10. 196 C. R. Rogers, J. K. Wood, ‘Client-Centred Teory: Carl R. Rogers’, op. cit., p. 215. 197 Ibid. 198 Ibid., p. 214. 199 C. C. R. Rogers, Encounter Groups, op. cit., p. 34, where it is said: ‘In Synanon, the ascinating group so successully involved in making personas out o drug addicts, this ripping away o acades is ofen dramatic.’ Here the psychic and especially social problems o drug addiction are completely ignored. 200 E. H. Erikson, Identity and the Lie Cycle, New York-London, Norton (1980), 1994, p. 109. 201 Ibid., p. 119. 202 Ibid., p. 121. 203 C. . W. Adorno, ‘Die revidierte Psychoanalyse’, in: M. Horkheimer, . W. Adorno, Sociologica II. Reden und Ausätze, Frankurt, Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1973 (3rd ed.), p. 111. 204 C. P. V. Zima, ‘Erich Fromm: Le discours affi rmati ’, in: idem, L’Ecole de Francort. Dialectique de la particularité , Paris, L’Harmattan, 2005 (revised and augmented ed.). 205 C. E. H. Erikson, ‘Growth and Crises o the “Healthy Personality” ’, in: M. J. E. Senn (ed.), Symposium on the Healthy Personality. Supplement II. Problems o Inancy and Childhood (ransactions o the Fourth Conerence), March 1950, New York, J. Macy Jr. Foundation, 1950. 206 H. Keupp et al., Identitätskonstruktionen. Das Patchwork der Identitäten in der Spätmoderne, Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1999, p. 33. 207 H. Keupp, Riskante Chancen. Das Subjekt zwischen Psychokultur und Selbstorganisation. Sozialpsychologische Studien, Heidelberg, Asanger, 1988, p. 142. 208 Ibid., p. 146. 209 H. Keupp, ‘Diskursarena Identität: Lernprozesse in der Identitätsorschung’, in: H. Keupp, R. Höer (eds.), Identitätsarbeit heute. Klassische und aktuelle Perspektiven der Identitätsorschung , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1997, p. 20. 210 H. Keupp, Riskante Chancen, op. cit., p. 151.
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211 C. ibid., p. 151. 212 Brigitte Schlieben-Lange shows to what extent sociolinguistics and text linguistics converge in France as both disciplines are subsumed under semiotics. C. B. Schlieben-Lange, Soziolinguistik. Eine Einührung , Stuttgart-Berlin-Cologne, Kohlhammer, 1973, p. 51. 213 N. Coupland, J. F. Nussbaum (eds.), Discourse and Liespan Identity , London, Sage, 1993, p. XXII. 214 C. B. Bernstein, Class, Codes and Control , St. Albans, Paladin, 1973. 215 M. M. albot, Language and Gender. An Introduction, Cambridge-Oxord, PolityBlackwell, 1998, p. 38. 216 R. Barthes, Essais critiques, Paris, Seuil, 1964, p. 179. 217 G. Kress, R. Hodge, Language as Ideology , London-Boston-Henley, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979, p. 63. 218 M. M. albot, Language and Gender , op. cit., p. 38. 219 Tis kind o research seems to be particularly popular in Britain. C. J. P. De Waele, R. Harée, ‘Autobiography as a psychological method’, in: G. P. Ginsburg (ed.), Emerging Strategies in Social Psychological Research , Chichester, Wiley, 1979 and K. Gergen, M. Gergen, ‘Narrative and Sel as Relationship’, in: L. Berkowitz (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology , New York, Academic Press, 1988. 220 K. Buchanan, D. J. Middleton, ‘Discursively Formulating the Significance o Reminiscence in Later Lie’, in: N. Coupland, J. F. Nussbaum, Discourse and Liespan Identity , op. cit., p. 65. 221 C. H. Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomethodology , Englewood Cliffs (N. J.), Prentice Hall, 1967. 222 P. Lejeune, Je est un autre. L’Autobiographie, de la littérature aux medias, Paris, Seuil, 1980, p. 217. 223 Ibid., p. 175. 224 C. H. R. Jauß, Zeit und Erinnerung in Prousts ‘A la recherche du temps perdu’. Ein Beitrag zur Teorie des Romans, Heidelberg, Winter, 1970, chap. II. 225 C. U. Link-Heer, Prousts ‘A la recherche du temps perdu’ und die Form der Autobiographie, Amsterdam, Grüner, 1988, p. 51 and pp. 130–5. 226 A. Schulte Nordholt, ‘Proust and Subjectivity’ in: W. Van Reijen, W. G. Weststeijn (eds.), Subjectivity , Amsterdam-Atlanta, Rodopi, 2000, p. 83. 227 C. P. V. Zima, L’Ambivalence Romanesque. Proust, Kaa, Musil , Paris, L’Harmattan, 2002 (2nd revised and augmented ed.). 228 M. Schmitz-Emans, ‘Das Subjekt als literarisches Projekt: Ich-Sager und Er-Sager’, in: Komparatistik. Jahrbuch der deutschen Gesellscha ür Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenscha , 1999–2000, p. 79. 229 Ibid., p. 52. C. Also M. Schmitz-Emans, ‘Subjekt und Sprache’, in: P. Geyer, M. Schmitz-Emans (eds.), Proteus im Spiegel. Kritische Teorie des Subjekts im 20. Jahrhundert , Würzburg, Königshausen und Neumann, 2003, p. 303, where the author links human over-determination by language to the ‘theme o the I’. 230 D. Borchmeyer, ‘Nietzsches Begriff der Décadence’, in: M. Pfister (ed.), Die Modernisierung des Ich, Passau, Rothe, 1989, p. 94. 231 U. Schulz-Buschhaus, ‘Bourget und die “multiplicité du moi”’, in: M. Pfister (ed.), Die Modernisierung des Ich, op. cit., 59. 232 Ibid. 233 C. H. Gnüg, Entstehung und Krise lyrischer Subjektivität: Vom klassischen lyrischen Ich zur modernen Erahrungswirklichkeit , Stuttgart, Metzler, 1983 and D. Rabaté (ed.),
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Figures du sujet lyrique, Paris, PUF, 1996, especially the article by D. Combe, ‘La Réérence dédoublée. Le Sujet lyrique entre fiction et autobiographie’, who discusses the ‘dissolution o the I’ in modernism. 234 G. M. Grabher, ‘Formen des lyrischen Ich im Modernismus: Subjekt-Kult und Subjekt-Absage durch die Sprachskepsis’ in: R. L. Fetz, R. Hagenbüchle, P. Schulz (eds.), Geschichte und Vorgeschichte der modernen Subjektivität , vol. II, Berlin-New York, De Gruyter, 1998, pp. 1099–100. 235 C. K. Meyer-Drawe, ‘Zur Doppeldeutigkeit des Subjekts’, in: P. Geyer, M. Schmitz-Emans (eds.), Proteus im Spiegel , op. cit., pp. 43–9. 236 C. W. Benjamin, Te Writer o Modern Lie. Essays on Charles Baudelaire, Cambridge (Mass.)-London, Te Belknap Press, 2006, p. 179. 237 Te cult o the subject in Maurice Barrès’s aestheticism is commented on by P. Bürger, ‘Naturalismus-Ästhetizismus und das Problem der Subjektivität’, in: Ch. Bürger, P. Bürger, J. Schulte-Sasse (eds.), Naturalismus / Ästhetizismus, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1979, p. 44. 238 C. . W. Adorno, ‘George’, in: idem, Notes to Literature, vol. II, New York, Columbia Press, 1992, pp. 178–92. 239 C. P. V. Zima, La Négation esthétique. Le sujet, le beau et le sublime de Mallarmé et Valéry à Adorno et Lyotard , Paris, L’Harmattan, pp. 93–9. 240 . W. Adorno, ‘Te Artist as Deputy’, in: idem, Notes to Literature, vol. I (ed. R. iedemann), New York, Columbia Univ. Press, 1991, p. 107. 241 . W. Adorno, ‘On Lyric Poetry and Society’, in: idem, Notes to Literature, vol. I, op. cit., pp. 51–3. 242 . W. Adorno, ‘Te Position o the Narrator in the Contemporary Novel’, in: idem, Notes to Literature, vol. I, op. cit., p. 35. 243 . W. Adorno, ‘rying to Understand Endgame’, in: idem, Notes to Literature, vol. I, op. cit., p. 243. 244 C. M. Moroni, ‘Dynamics o Subjectivity in the Historical Avant-Garde’, in: W. Van Reijen, W. G. Weststeijn (eds.), Subjectivity , op. cit., p. 10. 245 Even Gretel Adorno and Rol iedemann, editors o the posthumously published Aesthetic Teory (orig. 1970) mention the aporetic character o Adorno’s project in their aferword. 246 G. Schwab, Samuel Becketts Endspiel mit der Subjektivität. Entwur einer Psychoästhetik des modernen Teaters, Stuttgart, Metzler, 1981, pp. 105–25. C. also: J. Becker, Nicht-Ich-Identität. Ästhetische Subjektivität in Samuel Becketts Arbeiten ür Teater, Radio, Film und Fernsehen , übingen, Niemeyer, 1998. In this study, Beckett’s work is read as an attempt to deconstruct subjectivity. 247 G. Schwab, Samuel Becketts Endspiel mit der Subjektivität , op. cit., p. 125. 248 P. Szondi, Teorie des modernen Dramas, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1969, p. 90. 249 C. D. Lecourt, Pour une critique de l’épistémologie. Bachelard, Canguilhem, Foucault , Paris, Maspero, 1972, pp. 98–133. 250 Te aesthetic heterogeneity o semiotic theories (Barthes, Eco, Greimas) is commented on in: P. V. Zima., Te Philosophy o Modern Literary Teory , London, Athlone-Continuum, 1999, chap. VI. 251 J. d’Ormesson, in: M. Foucault, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur?’, in: idem, Dits et écrits I (1954–1969), Paris, Gallimard, 1994, p. 812 (discussion). 252 J. Lacan, in: M. Foucault, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur?’, op. cit., p. 820 (discussion). 253 M. Foucault, ‘What is an Author?’, in: P. Rabinow (ed.), Te Foucault Reader , New York, Pantheon Books, 1984, p. 118 (in this volume the ‘discussion’ has been omitted).
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254 As ar as Foucault’s criticism o Sartre is concerned, c. ‘Foucault répond à Sartre’, in: M. Foucault, Dits et écrits I , op. cit. 255 M. Foucault, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur?’, op. cit., p. 805. 256 C. P. V. Zima, ‘Abwesenheit und Anwesenheit des Werks. Zu Foucaults Subjekt- und Werkbegriff’, in: K.-M. Bogdal, A. Geisenhanslüke (eds.), Die Abwesenheit des Werkes. Nach Foucault , Heidelberg, Synchron, 2006, p. 187. 257 C. L. Goldmann, Te Hidden God. A Study in the ragic Vision in the Pensées o Pascal and the ragedies o Racine, London-New York, Routledge, 1964. 258 C. L. Goldmann, owards a Sociology o the Novel , op. cit. 259 P. Bürger, Das Verschwinden des Subjekts. Eine Geschichte der Subjektivität von Montaigne bis Barthes, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1998, pp. 23–4. Caroline Williams is more confident as ar as the survival o the individual subject is concerned: C. C. Williams, Contemporary French Philosophy: Modernity and the Persistence o the Subject , London-New York, Continuum, 2005. 260 P. Bürger, Das Verschwinden des Subjekts , op. cit., p. 222. 261 Ibid. 262 C. M. M. Bakhtin, Problems o Dostoyevsky’s Poetics, op. cit. and P. V. Zima, Roman und Ideologie. Zur Sozialgeschichte des modernen Romans, Munich, Fink (1986), 1999, chap. III. 3. 263 R. Musil, Gesammelte Werke, vol. VII, Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1978, p. 876. 264 Te reification o the postmodern hero is discussed in: P. V. Zima, Modern / Postmodern , op. cit., chap. V. 7. 265 A final reutation is seldom possible in the cultural and social sciences. C. P. V. Zima, What is Teory? Cultural Teory as Discourse and Dialogue, London-New York, Continuum, 2007, chap. IV. 2. 266 F. Nietzsche, Werke, vol. V, op. cit., p. 323. 267 A definition o modernism as ‘late modern criticism o modernity’ is proposed by P. V. Zima, in: Modern / Postmodern, op. cit., chap. I. 268 R. Musil, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaen, Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1952, p. 1578 (ragments). 269 . W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, op. cit., p. 408. 270 Te dialectical link between crisis and critique is analysed in detail in: R. Koselleck, Kritik und Krise. Eine Studie zur Pathogenese der bürgerlichen Welt , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1973. 271 R. Musil, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaen, Gesammelte Werke , vol. IV, op. cit., p. 1457. 272 Ch. aylor, Sources o the Sel. Te Making o the Modern Identity , Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard Univ. Press, 1996 (8th ed.), p. 507.
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Subjectivity Between Metaphysics and Modernism: Te Subject as a Fundamental, Subjugated and Disintegrating Instance Tis chapter is a return to the beginning o the first in the sense that the nexus between the subject as a basic given and the subject as a subjugated or disintegrating instance will now be reconsidered in a diachronic perspective. Te word ‘nexus’ evokes the kind o dialectic relationship inherent in the great metaphysical systems o modernity – in the philosophies o Descartes, Kant, Fichte and Hegel – in which the idea o the subject as a undamental instance is tacitly linked to its subjugation by an external or internal power. ime and again, the autonomy o the individual subject is bought by concessions to heteronomy and submission. It is one o the merits o modernism, defined here as a late modern sel-criticism o modernity , to have recognized and explored this dialectic between autonomy and submission. Auch Einer (1879), an almost orgotten novel by the Young Hegelian philosopher Friedrich Teodor Vischer, initiates this sel-criticism by revealing to what extent Hegel’s subject depends on chance and the contingency o the objective world. Vischer’s method is a paradoxical, sel-reflexive ‘thinking against one’s sel’, 1 which he applies whenever he turns the satire o his novel against his own Hegelian premises. His Young Hegelian critique is intensified and radicalized by Stirner, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, who reveal the other side o the Hegelian coin: the particularity and contingency o all subjective projects – along with chance and dream, the body and nature as irreconcilable but indispensable companions o Spirit. Following the Young Hegelians and some Romantics,2 Nietzsche in particular emphasizes the role o contingency and casts doubts upon the idea o historical necessity underlying Hegel’s system. o him, as to Hegel’s rebellious disciples, this system appears as a contingent construct: as the particular project o a contingent individual. Tis late modern rejection o Cartesian, Kantian and Hegelian aspirations towards universally valid knowledge is inherent in Kierkegaard’s and Sartre’s thought in which, as Kierkegaard himsel points out in conjunction with Hegel’s reading o Socrates, ‘the person o Socrates is essential’. 3 Tis tendency towards particularization also characterizes Sartre’s approach which is marked by the reusal o the subjective alibi underlying the metaphysical systems (Descartes’, Hegel’s) and by the ocus on the individual subject’s political, epistemological and ethical responsibility. o the existentialist philosopher this subject appears as undamental and subjugated at the 65
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same time: ‘Whenever reedom is at stake, Sartre’s thought is constantly aware o submission, o a possible or real experience o over-determination, o violence. Te possibility o submission and concrete violence thus appears as the permanent reverse o Sartrian reedom.’4 In view o this dialectic between reedom and subjugation, Sartre insists on the autonomy and sel-determination o individual subjects. Having rejected Cartesian and Hegelian systems, all o which tend to suppress individual responsibility, he pleads in avour o an autonomous individual subject and condemns all experiments with the unconscious, chance and dream. He believes that such experiments call into question subjectivity as conscious action. Tis is why he criticizes André Breton’s surrealism, whose experiments with the unconscious and ‘automatic writing’ he considers as a threat to autonomous and rational action. It will become clear that the drawback o Sartrian autonomy is a repressive attitude towards nature and sexuality which makes itsel elt in Sartre’s first novel, La Nausée (1938). Subjective autonomy is preserved at the cost o the subject’s nature: a atal sacrifice anticipated by Descartes and Kant. In this perspective, Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s Critical Teory may be considered as an attempt to mediate between subjectivity as reason and subjectivity as nature. In many ways, this theory is a return to the Young Hegelian problematic mapped out by Vischer in his critique o Hegel, some o which is an attempt to reconcile nature and mind (Spirit): ‘Man’s domination over himsel, which grounds his selood, is almost always the destruction o the subject in whose service it is undertaken.’5 Tis maxim is completed by a more concise remark in Adorno’s Aesthetic Teory : ‘Ratio without mimesis is sel-negating.’6 However, the attempt to mediate between reason and artistic mimesis turns out to be as aporetic as Sartre’s attempt to break out o the contradiction between subjective reedom and over-determination. For Adorno’s conception o a non-theoretical theory geared towards the mimesis o art contradicts the very idea o theory and o a theoretical subject who cannot afford to replace theoretical argument by essayistic or paratactic writing.7 Adorno’s essayistic style, sprinkled with paradoxes, comes close to that o some modernist writers like Robert Musil, Italo Svevo and Hermann Broch, who reacted to the ambivalences, aporias and crises o their times with attempts to save the individual subject. Like Adorno, these writers tried to turn the symptoms o crisis – ambivalence, doubt, irony – into instruments o criticism and put these at the disposal o a new, invigorated individual subject. Te idea that their attempts could be o some relevance to the postmodern problematic, because they avoid metaphysical illusions as well as ideological dogmas, will be made plausible in what ollows. ogether with Adorno’s philosophy and Freud’s psychoanalysis, modernist novels announce a postmodern problematic in which the notion o subject is requently considered as an illusion: as a euphemism or subjugation. What Freud has to say about the subject in mass society sounds like an answer to Adorno’s remark in Minima Moralia that ‘to think that the individual is being liquidated without trace is overoptimistic’:8 ‘His emotions become extraordinarily intensified, while his intellectual ability becomes markedly reduced, both processes being evidently in the direction o an approximation to the other individuals in the group.’9 Hermann Broch chooses a similar vocabulary when describing the ‘dozing’ mass individual who ollows
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unconscious impulses without reflection: ‘He loses his individual human physiognomy; whenever doziness [das Dahindämmern] overcomes him, man turns into mass.’ 10 It is not the empirical basis o such diagnostics that matters here, but their symptomatic value. Tey announce a postmodern era in which the position o the individual subject appears as a blank usurped by illusions, ideologies and determinisms. In this context, Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, a late modern novel on the threshold o postmodernity, will be commented on at the end o this chapter. It illustrates some o Freud’s and Foucault’s mechanisms o over-determination which usurp individual reedom.
1 Subjectivity rom Descartes and Kant to Fichte: ‘Monsieur este’ Te idea that Descartes’s cogito introduced individual subjectivity into philosophy is both right and wrong. It is right in the sense that Descartes locates the criterion o truth in the individual subject – and no longer in Plato’s objective world o pure orms. Yet the idea is wrong because the ounder o modern rationalism defines the subject-actant underlying the cogito as the addressee o a powerul divine addresser (destinateur , Greimas). He thus enhances and at the same time reduces the role o the subjective instance. At a crucial point o A Discourse on the Method , it becomes clear how strong the subject’s dependence on the addresser is: For, in the first place, even the rule which I stated above that I held – namely, that the things that we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are all true – is only certain because God is or exists, because He is a perect being, and because everything that is in us comes rom Him. 11
Te actantial autonomy o the subiectum cogitans is thus called into question insoar as it owes all o its modalities (especially those concerning knowing and doing ) to its addresser. In this respect, Descartes’s subjugated subject hardly differs rom that o orthodox Marxists who speak in the name o Marx or Marxism and seriously believe ‘that only Marxism can explain . . . etc.’ In Descartes’s case, the submission to the addresser is relative in the sense that he imagines an internalized God and rerains rom appealing to the Church or to the Bible as mediating authorities. In his comments on Descartes and Kant, Gert Kimmerle is well aware o the subject’s role as addressee in Cartesian philosophy: ‘Tis is what the methodological necessity o the proo o the existence o God , which is not external to Cartesian thought, but orms its innermost core, consists o.’ 12 Te proo is at the core o this philosophy, one could argue with Greimas, because it produces the addresser who guarantees all modalities o the thinking subject. In other words, the Cartesian actantial scheme is based on a kind o tautology insoar as the narrating subject produces its own addresser who is meant to guarantee the truth o its discourse and to protect it against the nihilism o the malin génie acting as counter-addresser .
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However, the semiotic model merely clarifies and illustrates what has been known to philosophers or a long time: namely that the divine instance o the Discourse is to be considered as a fiction and a substitute or the lost medieval and Christian unity o consciousness and world. Tis is how Christian Link describes this loss: It is the break-up o this last, temporary unity between I and world, which radicalizes the crisis beyond its own premises to such a degree that the ‘ Subject ’ – and no longer the imponderable world – plays the central role in the philosophical triad o God, World and Man. Its reason – absolved rom all indebtedness to the world – is now turned into an instrument used to realize the modern dream o man as ‘maître et possesseur de la nature’. 13
On the one hand, this description is correct because it locates the human subject at the centre o the scene and assumes that the divine addresser is a construction or fiction; on the other hand, it is misleading because it ails to recognize the extent to which the individual subject o philosophy submits to its own construction. By ollowing an addresser who is primarily thought or spirit, it can only define itsel as a thinking subject. It is ‘a rational soul’, an ‘âme raisonnable’, 14 as Descartes puts it in his Discourse, and a ‘thinking thing’, a ‘chose qui pense’,15 as he adds in his Meditations. As an image o God it stands above matter; as human existence, as a mortal being it is tied up with it. Tis dilemma o Cartesian rationalism is recognized by Kimmerle who points out: ‘Cartesian dualism [. . .] is not, as is ofen maintained, the simple (and simplistic) dualism o body and spirit, but a much more complex and multi-layered dualism o an autonomous, sel-contained spiritual being and an indissoluble unity o body and spirit.’16 However, it is precisely this contradictory dualism, inherent in the submission to the divine spirit as addresser, which entails the subject’s sel-negation as body and sensual existence: ‘Te prerequisite was the abstraction o the thinking I rom all kinds o sensual existence, which the thinking I itsel is made o .’17 Tis is the reason why it does not make sense to speak o an ‘apparent’ submission o the individual subject to the fictive addresser. For this submission is real in all respects and could be compared with the submission o the Freudian ‘I’ to the ‘super-ego’ (which may cause neuroses). Te Cartesian submission is as problematical insoar as it subordinates the subject as body and nature to pure thought. It entails the latter’s domination over body and nature and leads to the reification o both. Charles aylor, who speaks o Descartes’ ‘disengaged reason’, because his ratio is detached rom nature, describes this process o detachment as reification: ‘We have to objectiy the world, including our own bodies, and that means to come to see them mechanistically and unctionally, in the same way that an uninvolved external observer would.’ 18 Domination over nature leads, as Adorno and Horkheimer observe in their Dialectic o Enlightenment , to domination over one’s sel. Whatever is not spirit or thought is excluded rom the realm o the cogito. In the Meditations, bodies are considered exclusively as objects o thought, not o sensual perception, or ‘even bodies are not perceived by the senses or the aculty o imagining, but are perceived only by the mind.’19 Tis tendency to subordinate nature to conceptual
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thought also asserts itsel in the metaphysical systems o Kant, Fichte and Hegel. In spite o their differences (especially between Kant and Hegel) they seem to agree in their view that the individual subject is primarily ratio and not physis, i.e. sensual perception. In this respect Hegel is right when he considers the Cartesian cogito as the beginning o modern thought: ‘ René Descartes is in act the real ounder o modern philosophy, insoar as the latter turns thought into the basic principle.’ 20 Tis also applies to Kant, but within the ramework o a radically secularized actantial model without a divine addresser. Te subject o philosophy no longer needs to rely on a transcendental instance in order to be able to make well-ounded statements. Te Copernican turn brought about by Kant – rom the empirical world to the subject o philosophy – and considered by him as the basis o objective knowledge (‘our knowledge o objects’, Kant) gives birth to a new subjectivity . Reality as such or ‘the thing in itsel’, argues Kant, cannot be known, and objective knowledge in this sense is impossible. For the a priori oundations and modi o human experience, the transcendental categories o space, time and causality are subjective. Space and time do not exist in themselves, but only in relation to a human subject: ‘ime is thereore merely a subjective condition o our (human) intuition (which is always sensible, that is, so ar as we are affected by objects), but in itsel, apart rom the subject, it is nothing.’21 Te entire cosmic order would collapse i subjectivity as a oundation and condition o our knowledge disappeared, and Kant explains ‘that, i we remove our subject or even only the subjective constitution o the senses in general, then the entire constitution and all relations o objects in space and time, nay space and time themselves, would vanish’.22 Tese explanations are ambiguous insoar as they could mean either that we can only perceive objects and events in space and time (a plausible idea) or that the human subject is responsible or the world order in the sense o Radical Constructivism. But does the sun that comes into being and becomes extinct not have its own non-human time? Does it exist in space and time only because we are aware o it? Starting rom the idea ‘that everything that exists is either subject or object’, 23 as Tomas Nenon puts it, Kant has to deny that the subjective categories o space and time belong to the objective world and base the world order on the subject. Otried Höffe adds: ‘He not only overcomes rationalism, empiricism and scepticism; more importantly, he defines a new position o the subject towards objectivity. Knowledge is no longer determined by its object, but the object by our knowledge.’ 24 At this point, the ambiguity o all brands o constructivism comes to the ore. Te constructivist does admit that ‘the thing in itsel ’ cannot be known, but suggests at the same time that his (subjective) constructions are the only possible ones. Te ambiguity o Kant’s concept o subject is due to the act that, although he limits subjective knowledge in time and space and removes the ‘thing in itsel’ rom the subject’s cognitive sphere, he proclaims human subjectivity to be the basis o the perceptible world order. Peter Baumann describes the relationship between Descartes and Kant as ollows: ‘Kant’s egologic conception o the time and space order, defined as “ormal perception”, appears rom a Cartesian viewpoint as human presumptuousness.’25 In Descartes’ case the almighty addresser guaranteed humanity’s conception o time and space.
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Te idea that Kant did not only attempt to limit the scope o human understanding (a limitation negated later on by Fichte and Hegel), but at the same time envisaged a new, secular oundation o subjectivity, is to be ound at the beginning o Schopenhauer’s Te World as Will and Representation . According to Schopenhauer, this innovation is due to the act that: the essential, and hence universal, orms o every object, namely space, time, and causality, can be ound and ully known, starting rom the subject, even without the knowledge o the object itsel, that is to say, in Kant’s language, they reside a priori in our consciousness. o have discovered this is one o Kant’s chie merits, and it is a very great one. 26
Tis merit consists mainly in the act that, in obeying the laws o reason, the human subject no longer relies on a transcendental addresser, but exclusively on its own insights. By introducing, in his Critique o Pure Reason, synthetic judgements a priori , judgements that are independent o experience 27 and o superhuman guarantees, Kant ounds a new autonomy o the subject which he subsequently extends to ethics and aesthetics. owards the end o this work, it becomes clear that this newly ound autonomy is the result o a secularization process initiated by Descartes and continued by Kant, who deduces the validity o moral actions rom the individual subject’s reason: ‘As ar as practical reason is entitled to lead us, we shall not look upon actions as obligatory because they are the commands o God, but look upon them as divine commands because we have an inner obligation to ollow them.’28 Kant’s decisive step is the internalization o moral obligation, which is based on the synthetic judgement a priori according to which every rational being has to acknowledge and obey the categorical imperative. Kant’s ethics are based on principles ‘which a priori determine and make necessary our doing and not doing ’.29 Te actions o the human subject are autonomous insoar as they conorm to the laws o reason inherent in the subject and recognized by the latter as universally valid. Tis means that the subject is autonomous inasmuch as it is rational. Kant opposes all kinds o heteronomy arising rom non-rational impulses such as passion, egoism or inclination. I (to the dismay o some philosophers) we reconstruct this line o argument as a discourse based on an actantial scheme, we find that autonomy turns into heteronomy as soon as it is considered as a submission o the individual will to an abstract and ascetic reason – a kind o Freudian super-ego.30 Te ollowing passage rom the Fundamental Principles o the Metaphysics o Morals reveals the ambiguities and interdependencies o Kant’s abstract and inraindividual actants: ‘But here we are concerned with objective practical laws and, consequently, with the relation o the will to itsel so ar as it is determined by reason alone, in which case whatever has reerence to anything empirical is necessarily excluded; since i reason o itsel alone determines the conduct [. . .], it must necessarily do so a priori.’ 31 On the semiotic or actantial level, the question arises who exactly acts (‘determines the action’): will or reason? Kant’s answer would have to be: the will as reason, as thought a priori. I this is correct then it becomes clear that all the other actants, which deal with
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the ‘empirical world’, but are nevertheless crucial to the subject’s decision-making, are ignored. Eventually, Kant’s reason resembles the Freudian super-ego which subjugates, in the name o culture, an ‘I’ moved by the id. On the whole, it seems that Kant’s epistemological and ethical attempts to redefine subjective autonomy and responsibility are ambiguous. On the one hand, the human subject appears as an actor independent o external authorities and capable o reconstructing the world under transcendental conditions a priori in space, time and causality; on the other hand, it appears as exposed to heteronomous control by an abstract reason which reduces it to pure thought by separating it rom its empirical and natural components. It is not by chance that the question concerning the a priori conditions o thought is crucial to Kant. For his aim is to abstract rom the subjects’ experience in order to make them submit to general principles. In this respect, Kant agrees with Descartes. Both o them could have adopted the maxim o Valéry’s Monsieur este, according to which the mind does not deal with individuals: ‘L’ esprit ne doit pas s’ occuper des personnes. De personas non curandum.’32 What Valéry says about Monsieur este is also true o the Cartesian and Kantian subject: ‘un témoin tout intelligence’.33 Tis reduction to spirit and intellect is a kind o subjugation: not only because it neglects the natural components o the mind (i.e. physis and psyche), but also because it dissolves the particularity o the individual mind in abstractions. Te tendency to negate body and nature links Kant to Fichte. Hartmut and Gernot Böhme, who attempt to ‘read Fichte with Freud’,34 emphasize the intellectual asceticism o both philosophers: ‘Te body as the Other o the object and the subject is negated by both Kant and Fichte.’35 Te early Fichte sounds like a precursor o Monsieur este when, in his efforts to bring about a ‘ unity between subject and object ’,36 he maps out a ‘Teory o science’ (Wissenschaslehre) and defines it as a closed system to which nothing can be added and which does not tolerate anything outside itsel: ‘Science is a system, or it is complete, when not a single sentence can be added, and this is a positive proo that not a single sentence is missing in the system.’ 37 Tis ‘Teory o science’ was meant to become the basis o all existing sciences. It is not surprising that a discourse, which brings about this kind o closure, turns out to be both monologic and monistic. It is monologic because it identifies ideologically with reality (c. Chapter I, 1, d.) and does not tolerate any competing discourses; it is monistic because it only recognizes the ‘I’ as individual subject o a particular (idealist) philosophy and does not admit anything located outside this subject. What Fichte has to say about the sel-created subject could be regarded as a prime example o the idealist subject as a basic given, as undamentum mundi: Te ‘I’ posits itsel and it exists, thanks to this positing, by virtue o itsel; and conversely, the ‘I’ is and posits its being by virtue o its mere being. – It is simultaneously the actor and the product o its action, the acting instance and that which is produced by its action; action and deed are one and the same thing; and thereore the: ‘I am’is the expression o an action as deed [ Tathandlung ]; but also the only possible one, as ollows rom the entire Teory o science [Wissenschaslehre].38
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Tis passage not only contains the idealist credo concerning the subject as a undamental instance; it is at the same time a negation o the object as alterity. Tis negation is confirmed several pages later: ‘Everything that is only exists insoar as it is contained in the “I”, and outside the “I” there is nothing.’39 It ollows rom all this that even the empirical ‘I’ is eventually dissolved in the absolute ‘I’: ‘Te “I” is meant to be identical with itsel and nevertheless be opposed to itsel. But it is identical with respect to consciousness, consciousness is a unit; but within this consciousness the absolute “I” is posited as indivisible.’40 In other words: the idealistically sublimated empirical ‘I’ suffers the same ate as empirical reality as a whole in the sense ‘that the entire system o objects exists or the “I” only by virtue o the “I” ’.41 Tis also applies to the empirical ‘I’ and it now becomes clear ‘why the unity o thought and being is called [by Fichte] pure knowledge’,42 as Hans Rademacher puts it. In view o this sel-empowerment o the ‘I’, it is hardly surprising that, among Fichte-scholars, it is regarded as an ambiguous instance: as both divine and human. However, there seems to be a consensus that Fichte ‘projects the image o God into man, thus turning the world into raw material whose only task consists in helping man to become an image o God’.43 With respect to Descartes and Kant, the pretensions o the philosophical subject are thus projected into dizzying heights. On the actantial level it now parades as its own addresser and creator o the real world. Tis excessiveness o the Fichtean subject, which is only surpassed by Nietzsche’s superman (c. Chapter II, 4), is plausibly explained by Hartmut and Gernot Böhme in relation to psychoanalytic theories o narcissism. In this context, the apparent opposites ‘megalomania’ and ‘anxiety’ are dialectically connected: Tis is where anxiety appears, which makes Fichte’s philosophy tick: namely that strangeness, otherness exists, a actual block. Te ear o strangeness and otherness, o that which we are not, but which we depend on nonetheless, has to be driven out – in the same way as the inant drives out the rightening experience that the mother’s breast or its own excrements are not itsel by recomposing the narcissistic ‘Almighty I’.44
Isolated as it is, this psychoanalytic explanation is insufficient because it glosses over the political and economic context: the nationalist, petty bourgeois ideology that makes Fichte (who thus anticipates National Socialism and Stalinism) 45 prohibit all individual contacts with oreigners: ‘All contacts with oreigners have to be prohibited and made impossible to the subjects.’46 Once more, the dialectic between the ‘undamental’ and the ‘subjugated’ subject comes to the ore. Te definition o the abstract, thinking subject as a dominant instance unwilling to tolerate anything outside itsel, can only produce ‘subjugated subjects’ in empirical reality. It will appear that the closure o Fichte’s nation state is a replica o his closed philosophical system . In a complementary ashion, otherness is sacrificed to homogeneity and oneness in Fichte’s Speeches to the German Nation . Fichte, who did not have to worry about the empirical and scientific status o linguistics and semantic classifications, surprises the contemporary reader by declaring in his ourth speech that ‘the Scandinavians can undoubtedly be defined as Germans and are thereore, or all means and purposes,
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included in our considerations’. 47 Having ignored the Finns and subsumed the Scandinavians under the collective actant ‘Germans’ (which is analogous to the ‘absolute I’), Fichte continues the semiotic annexation process to the point where the French, the Italians and the Spanish can also be incorporated into the collective actant ‘Germans’: ‘One should not attribute too much importance to the act that, in the conquered countries, those o German origin mixed with the aboriginal population; or the victors, rulers and makers o the nation resulting rom this mixture were in any case the people o Germanic origin.’48 According to this ideological construction, the French turn into Franks, the Spanish into Visigoths. What matters here, is the train o thought that ollows rom this construction. Spaniards, Italians and Frenchmen may be o Germanic origin (in Fichte’s discourse), but they have given up their original Germanic language and are currently using an artificial Latin idiom which – according to Fichte – is not their own, is highly abstract and thereore prevents them rom expressing their true emotions. Tis accounts or the crucial cultural difference between the Germans and ‘the other nations o Germanic origins’, i.e. the French, the Italians and the Spanish: ‘Tis difference appeared immediately afer the first break-up o the original tribe and is due to the act that the German speaks a living language driven by the orce o nature, whereas the other Germanic tribes speak a language that is superficially alive, but dead at the root.’49 As in the Wissenschaslehre, the basic idea here is the narcissistic reconstruction o unity on a Germanic basis: o an apparently European unity rom which all kinds o alterity – especially the Romance, but also the Slav, the Celtic and the Finno-Ugrian elements – have been monologically excluded. Here, more than anywhere else, the domination o the idealist subject asserts itsel, and it becomes clear to what extent Fichte’s political writings are part and parcel o his philosophical monologue. For none o the other idealist systems sheds so much light on the dialectical nexus between the subject’s monological domination and its subjugation as a political subject in Fichte’s ‘closed state’ rom which the Other is banned.
2 From Hegel to Marxism: Omnipotence and impotence o the subject In spite o the complexity underlying the transition rom Hegelianism to Marxism and to Marxism-Leninism, the basic arguments o this section can be summed up in a ew words: the cancelling o the Kantian opposition between subject and object, made possible by Hegel’s category o totality, leads to an unconditional submission o the individual subject under state authority – both in Hegelianism and in MarxismLeninism. Like the idealists, Marxist materialists try to convince the subdued subjects that their insight into the political necessity sanctioned by the state is their real reedom: the reedom o the rational citizen or that o the true socialist. Te act that Hegel considers his own systematic philosophy as an overcoming o Cartesian, Kantian or Fichtean dualism is a well-known aspect o his idealism. He sees reason as the kind o thought that cannot acknowledge dualism because it does not recognize anything outside itsel. Tis is why he speaks, in conjunction with Fichte’s
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‘Teory o science’ (Wissenschaslehre), o a ‘completely insufficient externality’ and explains: ‘Te “I” is related to an Other, then again an Other, etc. into infinity.’50 o Hegel this seems irrational and hence unsatisactory, and he blames Fichte or ‘not arriving at reason as the ulfilled, real unity o subject and object or o the “I” and the “Non-I”; as in the case o Kant, it is an Ought, a goal, a belie that the two are one, but a goal the attainment o which contains a contradiction, as with Kant, and has no present reality’.51 He blames both Fichte and Kant or merely postulating the unity o subject and object without actually bringing it about: ‘Fichte stops at an Ought; however, like Kant, who presents the idea o unification as a belie, Fichte also ends with a belie.’52 It is Hegel’s basic project to correct this flaw by relying on a totalizing thought which cancels Kant’s ‘thing in itsel’ (already criticized by Fichte) as well as Fichte’s mere aspiration towards unity.53 What is missing in Hegel is not only Kant’s noetic restraint, but also Fichte’s noetic aggressiveness, which characterizes the narcissistic subject o an idealism committed to unity. In Hegel’s system, this ideal unity is realized thanks to the intervention o a supra-individual actant who helps the individual subject (especially on the level o modalities) to appropriate all o reality and to bring about the unity between the ‘I’ and the world: the World Spirit (Weltgeist ). As a successor to Plato’s soul and Ariostotle’s nous,54 Hegel’s World Spirit appears as the mythical subject-actant who guarantees the coherence o universal history and o Hegel’s narrative (as métarécit in the sense o Lyotard). For Hegel, it is o greatest importance to prove that the history o humanity ‘has been a rational process; that the history in question has constituted the rational necessary course o the World-Spirit – that Spirit whose nature is always one and the same, but which unolds this its one nature in the phenomena o the World’s existence’.55 Synonymous or almost synonymous with ‘God’,56 Hegel’s World Spirit becomes the new addresser o those collective and individual subjects who act in his name in world history as a narrative. Descartes’ transcendental addresser is thus turned into a world- immanent principle which overcomes the French philosopher’s rationalist dualism – in a somewhat Spinozistic manner, as Hegel himsel points out.57 It belongs to the spirit’s essence to be sel- contained and to acknowledge nothing outside itsel: Matter has its essence out o itsel; Spirit is sel-contained existence (Bei-sich-selbstseyn). Now this is Freedom exactly. For i I am dependent, my being is reerred to something else which I am not; I cannot exist independently o something external. I am ree, on the contrary, when my existence depends upon mysel. 58
It becomes clear at this stage that, in spite o all the differences between the two philosophers, differences over-emphasized by Hegel in his critique, Fichte and Hegel have a lot in common: especially their monomaniac rejection o the Other, o an alterity that resists annexation and demands dialogue. One is reminded o Plotinus, the neo-Platonic philosopher, when Hegel writes about the divine spirit: ‘Spirit is essentially the result o its own activity: its activity is the transcending o immediate, simple, unreflected existence – the negation o that
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existence, and the returning into itsel.’ 59 Tis spirit, unctioning as general addresser in Hegel’s historical narrative, inspires the spirits o nations as collective actants and those o ordinary citizens as individual actants alike: ‘Te principles o the successive phases o Spirit that animate the Nations in a necessitated gradation, are themselves only steps in the development o the one universal Spirit, which through them elevates and completes itsel to a sel-comprehending sel- comprehending totality .’60 ‘otality’ is here the key concept. Reason as totalizing thought and as a undamental modality o spirit (in the sense o Greimas’ Greimas’ss savoir aire) offers to the subject in all its maniestations the possibility o becoming one with the World Spirit and dwelling ‘within itsel’. Tis is why, in his sel- conscious spirit’.61 For Outlines o the Philosophy o Right , Hegel speaks o ‘reason as sel-conscious Hegel’s individual subject it is thereore crucial to attain a degree o sel- awareness that identical l with enables it to eel identica with the World Spirit and world history. In this context, it is easier to understand Hegel’s critique o German Romanticism and o romantic irony, so thoroughly commented on by Otto Pöggeler. Te romantics, especially the Schlegel brothers, are heirs to Fichte in the sense that they also ‘ail to solve the problem o the relationship between the pure and the empirical “I” ’, 62 as Pöggeler puts it. Te romantic attempt to bring about a unity between subject and object does not go beyond longing and yearning and remains a dream. It finds its expression in ragment and irony, but never attains a dialectical totality and is thereore unable, according to Hegel, to unite subject and object, thought and being. While romantic irony expresses ‘the negative power o subjectivity as individuality and as artistic ar tistic genius o the empirical empir ical “I” ’,63 thus presenting the irreconcilable individual subject as its central figure, Hegel sees this irony in a different light: as a symptom o individual limitation and incomprehension in view o the World Spirit’s historical grand design. Pöggeler sums up Hegel’s position when he explains: ‘o the subjectivist dialectic o irony, Hegel opposes the dialectic o the World Spirit, which negates and absorbs all individuals.’64 Te romantic subject, who persists in its Fichtean nostalgia, thus negating reality in an abstract manner, is exposed to a different kind o irony in Hegel’s system where its triviality is revealed and ironically commented on in the perspective o the World Spirit (Hegel’s addresser). Considering this Hegelian negation negation o the individual subject by the mythical actant act ant World Spirit, once again the question arises concerning the actantial model o Hegel’s discourse, a model that only a thorough and lengthy analysis could reproduce in all its details.65 In the present context, a schematic description ocusing on the divergences rom Descartes, Des cartes, Kant and Fichte F ichte might mig ht be suffi s ufficient. Te World Spirit as a historically immanent, secularized divinity becomes the o such collective subjects as the spirits o nations (c. supra) which, as agents addresser o o the World Spirit, turn into addressers o individual subjects. Te object in in this model is the realization o the Idea against all obstacles inherent in unormed Matter as as antiaddresser and anti-subject subject or and in non-rational non-rational Nature as anti or compound o anti-subjects anti-subjects such as passion, dream and chance. Right at the beginning o his Philosophy o History , Hegel opposes the reedom o spirit to the th e gravity o matter: matter : ‘As As the essence esse nce o Matter is Gravity, so, on the other oth er hand, we may affi rm that the substance, subst ance, the essence esse nce o Spirit is Freedom. Freedom.’’66 Te final victory
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o the addresser and his actants is teleologically predetermined in Hegel’s discourse insoar as the spirit penetrates nature and matter by conceptualizing their laws and thereby acquires the power to orm them: Tis ormal conception finds actual existence in Spirit; which has the History o the World or its theatre, its possession, and the sphere o its realization. It is not o such nature as to be tossed to and ro ro amid the superficial play o accidents, but but is rather the absolute arbiter o things; entirely unmoved by contingencies, which, indeed, it applies and manages or its own purposes. 67
Tis means that the spirit as logos is the incarnation o a necessity that finds its expression in the Idea. Te key modality enabling the World Spirit to penetrate reality, and to empower other collective and individual subjects to participate in its essence, is reason, which Hegel ofen uses as a synonym or the general addresser: ‘For reason is the comprehension o the Divine work.’68 He writes about this rational insight in his that it ‘reconciles us to actuality – the reconciliation Outlines o the Philosophy o Right that which philosophy affords to those in whom there has once arisen an inner voice bidding them to comprehend .’69 Te nexus o subjectivity, objectivity and their reconciliation as subjective appropriation approp riation appears in another passage o this Hegelian work: Tus subjectivity sometimes means something wholly particular, and at other times something with the highest justification, since everything which I am to recognize has also the task o becoming mine and attaining its validity in me. Subjectivity is insatiably greedy to concentrate and drown everything in this simple spring o the pure I. 70
However, this subjective appropriation o reality as reconciliation with the objective world is fiction. In reality – and this is amply demonstrated by Hegel’s philosophy o history – the individual subject is subordinated to the national spirit ( Volksgeist ) as collective actant and together with the latter incorporated into the mythical actant called World Spirit. Tis is how Hegel assesses the position o the individual subject: ‘For he finds the being o the people to which he belongs an already established, firm world – objectively present to him – with which he has to incorporate himsel.’71 As in the philosophies o Descartes, Kant and Fichte, the ambivalence o the subject in Hegel’s thought consists in the act that its knowledge, sel-knowledge sel- knowledge and selrealization all boil down to sel-renunciation sel- renunciation and subordination. Te sel-renunciation sel-renunciation o the individual subject is due in Hegel’s system – as in other idealist philosophies – to the exclusion o nature rom the idealist discourse and to its suppression within the subject . Te act that, in spite o his aspirations aspirat ions to total knowledge, knowle dge, the idealist thinker ails to include nature by reconciling it with conceptual thought, was observed early on by the Young Hegelian Friedrich Teodor Vischer. He blames Hegel or not having succeeded in deducing nature as alterity ‘rom the Idea’. 72 In the ollowing section, the consequences o this critique will be examined.
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In her analysis o Hegel’s notion o subjectivity, Petra Braitling comments on the role o irreconcilable nature within the philosopher’s system. She confirms Vischer’s objection that the Idea (as sel-realization sel-realization o the World Spirit) has ‘created an alterity that escapes its conceptual comprehension’73 and adds: ‘I that were the case, this would obviously amount to the complete renunciation o its absolute status.’ 74 Tis is the neuralgic point also aimed at by Vischer’s critique. I the Hegelian system is obliged to tolerate an alterity that is external to it, Hegel can no longer argue that he has overcome the subject-object subject-object dualism he questions in the philosophies o his predecessors. Tis is how Braitling sees it: ‘Te Hegelian concept o nature is thus marked by an essential dualism between a real outside and an ideal inside. What is more, Hegel sees in this discrepancy between the two spheres the deficient character o nature, which subsequently justifies the necessary transition to spirit.’ 75 However, this discursive manoeuvre ails to reconcile nature and spirit, and Braitling rightly concludes that ‘nature is thus heteronomously defined by the Idea.’ 76 Parallel to nature, which is heteronomously over-determine over- determinedd by spirit, the individual subject is incorporated by the spirit o the nation (c. supra) and subjected to the authorityy o the modern state. Te individual subject who, as a moral instance aims at authorit the abstract Good (in the sense o a particular par ticular will), has to agree to the cancellation o his particularity by the Good or Sittlichkeit o o the state: Te objective ethical order, which comes on the scene in place o good in the abstract, is substance made concrete by subjectivity as infinite orm. Hence it posits within itsel distinctions whose specific character is thereby determined by the concept, and which endow the ethical order with a stable content which is necessary or itsel and whose existence [ Bestehen] is exalted above subjective opinion and caprice. Tese distinctions are laws and institutions that have being in and or themselves .77
Tey alone are real; by contrast, the aspirations o the individual subject are abstract, lack reality and thereore have to be cancelled and incorporated ( augehoben) in the laws o the collec collective tive actant a ctant ‘state’ ‘state’. Hegel’s expression ‘aule Existenz’ or ‘worthless existence’, 78 which reers to all that has no unction in the project o a ‘History ‘History o the World World’’79 or in i n the World Spirit’s Spirit’s (i.e. Hegel’s) narrative programme, also reers to the hopes, ears and aspirations o the individual subject whom Adorno deends against Hegel. 80 Tis subject is volatilized in Hegel Hegel’’s system, as in the philosophies o Descartes, Kant and Fichte, into a conceptual entity and subordinated to the reason o the State. Michael Rosen chooses the right expression when he speaks o ‘Hegel’s purified sel whose activity constitutes the sel-development sel- development o Tought’.81 Once it has been deprived o its particularity and singularity, this ‘purified I’ can declare its identity with state reason and indirectly with the World Spirit. ‘In practice’, Hermann Schmitz explains, ‘this means that the will comes to terms with the existing contents and circumstances and appropriates appro priates them in such a way that they no longer appear to it as constraints imposed on its aspirations. aspirations.’’82 With the help o totalizing reason – conceivable as a modality o o the
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‘ree’ mind – the seemingly autonomous subject is imperceptibly transormed into a submitting subiectum. Te question remains how state reason as an expression o the World Spirit and as the ultima ratio o reason closes clos es Hegel’s system. Can one go beyond this kind o reason? Te Marxists Jean-Pierre Leebvre and Pierre Macherey believe that one can. Art, religion and philosophy, they argue, announce, as orms o the Ab (Hegel), Absolute solute Spirit Spirit (Hegel), which reflects upon the evolution o the World Spirit , an overcoming o the state: ‘Philosophyy has not only the task to think the state, i.e. to endow it with the status o an ‘Philosoph ideal and unsurpassable rationality: it also has to think the End o the state, i.e. the conditions o its overcoming.’ overcoming.’83 However, it is by no means certain that this overcoming as dépassement (Leebvre, Macherey) is actually inherent in Hegel’s system, as the authors believe. But there is no doubt that it was envisaged by Marx, Engels and the Marxists and discussed even afer the collapse o Euro European pean communism. Marx’s basic idea is clear and is explained in his early comments on Hegel’s philosophy. He queries Hegel’s sublimation o the individual subject into pure spirit and redefines man, or example, in his ‘Teses on Feuerbach’, as an active material being, i.e. as thinking nature. It is striking to what extent the young Marx ollows Vischer’s critique by emphasizing the natural and nature-bound nature-bound character o thought, when he remarks that in Hegel’s philosophy ‘not real man as such and thereore not nature is made subject – or man is human nature – but only man’s abstraction, abstrac tion, his selawareness (Selbstbewußtein)’.84 Tis critique yields yi elds the insight that, in Hegel’s Hegel’s system, alienation between subject subj ect and object is only overcome in and by thought, that is without changing the reified material conditions that cause human alienation: ‘Since Hegel knows man only as selconsciousness, the alienated object, man’s alienated essence is only consciousness, only the idea o alienation, a lienation, its abstract and and hence empty and unreal expression, the negation.’85 It is undoubtedly Marx’s merit to have discovered, together with the Young Hegelians, the human being as physical, corporeal nature and to have made it the centre o his critique, thus conronting idealism rom Kant to Hegel with its most serious flaw. flaw. Starting rom a critique o the idealist concept o subjectivity subjectivity,, Marxism as philosophy, social science and revolutionary movement tried to overcome the alienation between subject and object by a radical change o the material conditions. Tis change was also meant to include the state and its reason. Both were to wither away in a classless society. However, the expression ‘dictatorship o the proletariat’ coined by Marx and Engels points to the contradiction between the lofy revolutionary ideals and the limits o political action. For For who else was w as supposed to bring about this dictatorship (a kind o historical purgatory) i not the Communist Party ounded by the authors o the Man Maniest iestoo? As early as in Marx’s and Engels’s writings, this wellorganized collective actant appears as the ‘avant-garde’ ‘avant-garde’ o the proletariat, whose modalities o knowing, willing and enabling (savoir, vouloir, pouvoir , Greimas) it influences, controls and (finally) usurps. In the last resort, it is not the proletariat that acts in the name o History as its addresser, but the Party in the name o both. In an article published later on in History and Class Consciousness under the title ‘owards a Methodology o the Problem o Organisation’, Georg Lukács explains what really matters:
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o adapt the tactics o the Communist Party to those acets o the lie o the class where – even though in alse orm – a genuine class consciousness appears to be fighting its way to the surace, does not at all imply an unconditional willingness to implement the momentary desires o the masses. On the contrary contrary,, just because the party aspires to the highest point that is objectively and revolutionarily attainable – and the momentary desires o the masses are ofen the most important aspect, the most vital symptom o this – it is sometimes orced to adopt a stance opposed to that o the masses; it must show them the way by rejecting their immediate wishes.86
At the end o the day, Lukács concludes, the masses will understand the Party’s view and approve it. What matters in this passage is the distribution o the modalities knowing, willing, enabling (Greimas: c. supra). It can be shown that the Party as collective subject or actant reserves the right to define all o these modalities because it alone can distinguish right rom wrong knowledge, the right rom the wrong orm o will wi ll and is alone able to fix the moment o historical or revolutionary action (i.e. the ‘enabling’ moment). It thus usurps the narrative unction o the collective actant ‘proletariat ‘proletariat’:’: both on the discursive level o enunciation (énonciation) and on that o narrative action (énoncé ). ). Lukács’s expression ‘the highest point that is revolutionarily and objectively attainable’ indicates that we are dealing here with a Hegelian usurpation. Te unction o the Hegelian state as expression o a historical ‘national spirit’ is now ulfilled by the Party as ‘avant- garde o the proletariat’. Its consciousness is deemed objective because the Party and its ideologues ideologu es rely on Hegel’s central category o totality in order to assess the revolutionary revoluti onary process. As in Hegel’s Hegel’s philosophy philo sophy,, discourse and reality are thus monologically identified . In this situation, individual and collective subjects have only one option: to define their reedom within this mechanism o identification. Following Hegel and Lukács, the Marxists-Leninists consider individual reedom as an insight into objective necessity – as described by the Party. In its orm as materialist Hegelianism, the Soviet ideology thus adopts a simplified model o Hegel’s identiying thought in which the revolutionary revolu tionary impulse o Marxian philosophy is smothered. G. Kunyzin’s interpretation o artistic reedom illustrates the basic tricks o MarxistLeninist linguistic ling uistic manipulation: manipu lation: ‘Politically, the artist arti st may be completely ree. ree. However, However, i he adopts points o view that are ideologically and aesthetically alse or i, or whatever reason, he alsifies the truths o lie in his works (e.g. because he lacks talent or experience), then he is no longer ree as an artist.’ 87 In other words: only those artists are ree who subscribe to the Party’s definitions o reality. Kunyzin’s final argument confirms Hegel’s postulate concerning the identity between subject and object: ‘Tus reedom coincides with the insight into necessity.’ 88 Here, the repressive intentions and unctions o Soviet Marxism, defined by Predrag Grujić as Marxist Hegelianism,89 come to the ore. When Ernst Bloch remarks that it was one o the main concerns o reactionary thinkers ‘to make the transition rom Hegel to Marx impossible’,90 he is partly right because right-wing right-wing Hegelians did actually go to great lengths to block it; but he seems to have overlooked the effects o this transition in Soviet ideology.91
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3 Vischer, Vischer, Stirner and Kierkegaard as critics o Hegel: Particularity, contingency, chance and dream Tree philosophers will be considered here in whose writings the late modern or modernist critique o Hegel’s systematic reconciliation o all modern contradictions takes on different but complementary orms: Vischer, Stirner and Kierkegaard. It goes without saying that these thinkers adopt very different points o view. However, apart rom their critique o Hegel, their their philosophies articulate similar ideas, some o which presage the late modern sel-criticism sel-criticism o modernity: the idea that the individual subject is unique in its particularity, the idea that it is contingent, that institutions are contingent, too, and finally the idea that nature and thought have not been reconciled and that natural orces such as the unconscious, contingency (chance) and dream are agitating under the cultural crust o society. Hegel’s name appears as a metonymy o modernity in the sense that his philosophy is the last large-scale large-scale attempt to overcome ‘the divide as the structure o the modern world and o its consciousness’ conscious ness’,92 as Joachim Ritter puts it. Te disintegration o Hegel’s system announces a late modern or modernist era whose thinkers collect and revise the ragments: the liberation and isolation o the individual who can no longer appeal to an (all-)mighty divine addresser; the revolt o nature against spirit and conceptual thought; the non-identity non-identity between subject and object; contingency and chance; the unconsciouss and the dream; the absence o meaning rom history and the negativity o unconsciou dialectics. First comes the Young Hegelian Friedrich Teodor Vischer, who, in his ‘Plan or a New Structure o Aesthetics’ (1843), discovers ‘the modern as an independent main orm o the aesthetic ideal’,93 thus suggesting that Hegel’s system is no longer part o a late modernity beginning in the middle o the nineteenth century, century, because it ends with 94 the Christian-Romantic era. Like Stirner and Kierkegaard, Vischer belongs to those o Hegel’s disciples about whom Karl Löwith writes: While Goethe and Hegel, in their joint reusal o the ‘transcendent’, still succeeded in creating a world wherein man could eel secure, their closest ollowers could no longer eel at home in it and misjudged the the equilibrium created by their masters as a product o mere harmonization.95
Te modernist advocate o Critical Teory might say: recognized instead o ‘misjudged’. Te insights o Hegel’s critics have a considerable impact in postmodernity, where not only Hegel’s synthesis, but even Marx’s idea o a revolutionary reconciliation o subject and object appears as a dangerous utopia. In 1875, Vischer published a detailed review o Johann Volkelt’s study Die Imag ination’) and commented on Volkelt’ Volkelt’ss interpretation interpretati on raumphantasie (‘Te Dream Imagination’) o Hegel’s attitude towards nature and the dream. According to Vischer, Hegel had not succeeded in reconciling nature with spirit: He [Hegel] believes that he has succeeded in synthesizing world reason and nature, but he ailed to explain their absolute discrepancy and to deduce nature’s
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‘otherness’ rom the idea [. . .]. But i nature is not really deduced, then chance as a natural phenomenon is not deduced either. 96
In this passage, the most important issues o late modernity (as sel-criticism o modernity) are compounded: the discrepancy o nature and spirit, o subject and object; the detachment o contingency (chance, dream) rom necessity; the critique o rationalist and Hegelian historical reason. All o these topics are to be ound in Vischer’s philosophical novel Auch Einer (1879), whose narrator ocuses on the disintegration o the Hegelian unity between subject and object. It is a novel o negativity which confirms and illustrates what Ewald Volhard has to say in his insightul study about Vischer: ‘But in the negative, in the discovery that an objective and absolute truth as the decipherable meaning o lie does not exist – contrary to Hegel’s firm belie – Vischer anticipates the problematic o a new era.’97 o begin with, the novel bears witness to the indissoluble symbiosis o literature and philosophy described by Vischer as a historical dialectic. It is a novel about the ‘malice o the object’98 which tends to evade the subject, thus breaking out o the Hegelian identity nexus: ‘For example, a red-brown spectacle case hides on a red-brown urniture; but the greatest malice o the object is to crawl to the edge and all rom a great height, slip out o your hand – just one moment o inattention and bang.’ 99 In this context, the narrator parodies Hegel’s system o necessity and advises his hero to turn to that which seems trivial and contingent, but nevertheless calls our subjectivity as experience into question: ‘You should heed whatever is considered as not worth remembering, you should study whatever is not considered as worthy o thought and turn it into a system!’100 Here and elsewhere, Hegel’s system, which tends to ignore the contingent, all that does not fit into the scheme o necessities guaranteed by the World Spirit, is parodied and deconstructed. In the process, the body and the physical weakness o the individual subject become apparent. Albert Einhart, the hero o the novel, suffers rom a chronic catarrh that can erupt at any moment and thwart his plans, especially those which require eloquence and a calm, strong voice. Troughout the novel, the human body is seen as part and parcel o the contingent world o objects and their ‘malice’. Te reasoning subject, the subject as spirit, is quite unable to control the body and alls prey to its contingencies. However, Einhart’s and Vischer’s answer to this challenge is not a tighter control o nature and contingency, but a better understanding o the natural world.‘Hatred o man because he elevates himsel above nature creating orders ull o light, a luminous empire’,101 Einhart notes in one o his fictive diaries which also contain a latent polemic against Enlightenment thought. Tere we also find the complementary remark: ‘Te object keeps pestering me. A file has hidden rom me in a dastardly manner.’102 Author o a voluminous Hegelian aesthetic, Vischer appears in his later works not so much as an anti-Hegelian, but as a sceptic who can no longer take his master’s doctrines or granted: Philosophy? ry to construct something? Tat isn’t enough. And then the misortune: philosophy’s all into disrepute because o the systems. A system is
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Te matter is surely ‘ambiguous’ and even contradictory because the system constructed by a particular subject is meant to encompass everything, i.e. reality as such, but at the same time is obliged to omit so many unknown, unexplored and incomprehensible phenomena that it ‘remains the idea o that particular individual’ and thus alls prey to contingency. It becomes clear that even Hegel could never hope to achieve a conceptual reconstruction o the real world, and Vischer, instead o trying to revive Hegelianism, attempts to shed light on those aspects o the natural and social world Hegel neglected: the absurd, the grotesque, the trivial, the ephemeral, ambivalence and chance.104 In particular, his ideas concerning ambivalence and the grotesque were developed much later by Mikhail M. Bakhtin,105 one o the main theorists o modernism. In this light, Vischer not only appears as a critic o modernity and o the modern (Hegelian) concept o subject, but as an early theoretician o literary modernism whose authors discover the absurd, the grotesque, ambivalence and chance. In retrospect, Hegel’s system, allegedly guaranteed by the World Spirit, appears as based on chance: ‘Providence. It would be better to say retrospective insight [Nachsehung / Vorsehung = play on words]. It’s all due to chance anyway.’106 From this insight to the idea o the absurd it is only a step: ‘Occasionally, I must admit, I have a great liking or the absurd. [. . .] I’d like to write a treatise about it, but I haven’t yet ound the key concept.’107 Tis concept will take shape in the works o Stirner, Kierkegaard and especially in those o the modern existentialists. Unlike Vischer, who distances himsel ironically rom Hegel’s system, the egoistic anarchist Max Stirner appears as a militant anti-Hegelian who deends the unique individual subject against all kinds o systematization and against the entire idealist tradition. He is a kindred spirit o Kierkegaard and Nietzsche insoar as he preers the singular and particular to totalizing universal reason. With respect to the actantial model, one might argue that Stirner rejects the very idea o a divine or secular addresser (Greimas). He wants the individual subject to depend exclusively on itsel: ‘Why do they denounce Me i I deny the existence o god? Because they put the creature above the creator [. . .] and because they need a dominating object in order to make the subject serve obsequiously . I am supposed to submit to the absolute, I am supposed to do it.’108 What matters here is not primarily the critique o religion developed later by Marx, but the inversion o the relationship between addresser and addressee. It reveals the subject’s subjugation in society and is the basis o Stirner’s particularizing critique o Hegel’s concept o subject: ‘Hegel condemns the particular, that which is mine, “my opinion”. “Absolute thought” is the kind o thought, which orgets that it is my thought, that I think and that thought only exists through Me.’109 Tis passage reveals the ambiguity o Young Hegelian particularization: Stirner not only blames Hegel or ignoring the particularity o the
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individual subject, but also or adorning himsel with the aura o the absolute instead o acknowledging his own particularity and contingency. Stirner not only rejects Hegel’s World Spirit and its divine role as supreme addresser, but also Hegel’s collective subjects: the nations and the states. He insists on their contingency and denies their role as historical actors. o him, the nation as sovereign appears as a ‘sovereign made o chance’110 and as ‘an enemy he has to deeat’.111 His critique o the state is an unambiguous rejection o all Hegelian attempts to mediate between the individual subject, civil society and the state: ‘Since the state, as might be expected, only recognizes its own interests, it does not look afer My needs, but is only interested in killing Me, i.e. in transorming Me into another I, into a good citizen.’ 112 Stirner’s remark ‘the dressage [is becoming] universal and all-embracing’113 not only anticipates the ideas o Laing and Foucault, but also reveals the importance o the Young Hegelians or the postmodern problematic. His critique o German idealism in general is most concrete in his criticism o Fichte: ‘When Fichte says “Te I is Everything”, then he seems to agree entirely with my point o view.’ But this is a misunderstanding or the ollowing reason: ‘Fichte speaks o the “absolute” I, but I speak o mysel, o the mortal I.’ 114 Tis criticism, which Stirner extends to Feuerbach, who subsumes the individual I to humankind, not only anticipates Kierkegaard’s critique o idealism, but also some arguments o German and French existentialists. In some respects, Stirner’s main work Der Einzige und sein Eigentum is an inversion o Hobbes’s Leviathan.115 While Hobbes imagines an absolute sovereign in order to put an end to the ‘war o everybody against everybody else’, Stirner would like to abolish the state and pleads in avour o a ‘state o nature’ which C. B. Macpherson defines – in conjunction with Hobbes – as a mythical image o market society and o bourgeois ‘possessive individualism’.116 Anticipating Macpherson’s approach, Kurt Adol Mautz recognizes in Stirner’s philosophy a ‘metaphysics o liberalism’117 and explains: Stirner’s basic position is marked by the tension between ‘nature’ and ‘convention’. ‘Convention’ means the world o cultural values, petrified as it is in empty ormulas transmitted by tradition. o this ‘second nature’ alienated subjectivity opposes the mythical image o an initial state o nature and its original powers. 118
Unlike Hobbes, Stirner views the state o nature with sympathy and believes that the individual subject is genuinely ree in this phase o human development: ‘Help yoursel and take whatever you need! At this point the war o everybody against everybody else is declared. I alone decide what I want to have.’ 119 Standing outside o Hegel’s actantial model, delivered rom the yoke ‘o the Spirit as “general” subject’,120 Stirner’s individual subject is a pre-Nietzschean power-seeker who is the very opposite o Vischer’s hero Einhart. Instead o aiming at a reconciliation with nature and the object, it tries to dominate both. Commenting on Stirner’s individualist theory o social values, Mautz writes: ‘In it the individual only counts as a centre o power.’121 Long beore Nietzsche, Stirner attempted a ‘genealogy o morals’ in which virtues such as love, humanity and compassion are reinterpreted in a utilitarian perspective
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based on market laws. About the love o one’s neighbour he writes: ‘How indifferent he would appear to Me without this love o mine. I only share my love with him and thus use him: I enjoy him.’122 Such considerations are reminiscent o Bentham’s utilitarianism.123 Stirner’s genealogy does not respect the metaphysical concept o truth which Nietzsche later on deconstructs by recognizing in it an idealistically disguised claim to power. Anticipating Nietzsche, Stirner considers ‘truth’ as a dangerous addresser who turns the individual subject into an instrument. He writes about inexperienced young men who readily embrace truth: ‘o them, truth is “sacred” and whatever is sacred demands blind veneration, submission and sacrifice. [. . .] You don’t want to lie? Ten all prey to truth and become – martyrs!’ 124 Like Nietzsche, an enthusiastic reader o Stirner, who deconstructs truth, defining it as a ‘mobile army o metaphors, metonymies, anthropomorphisms’,125 Stirner decomposes both the concept o truth and the concept o subject at a linguistic level. He shows that truths are linguistic constructs, most o which come about in power constellations and subsequently turn individuals into subjects. In this respect, he not only appears as a precursor o Nietzsche but also o postmodern theories o discourse and subjectivity. He anticipates Nietzsche’s rhetorical analysis when he remarks: ‘ruths are phrases, sayings, words [. . .]’.126 However, these words and phrases turn me into a subject because they name and define me, and ‘as my own creations they become alienated rom me afer the act o creation’. 127 o break out o this alienated subjectivity or subjugation: that is Stirner’s programme. owards the end o his treatise, his anarchistic rebellion passes the peak when he replaces the divine addresser by his own “I”: ‘Tey say about god: “Names cannot name you”. Tat applies to Mysel: not one concept can define Me, nothing o what they say about my essence exhausts Me, it’s just names.’128 Te act that this trivializing ‘just’ reveals an underestimation o discursive constraints becomes clear in the second hal o the twentieth century: in the writings o R. D. Laing, E. Goffman and M. Foucault. Vischer, Stirner and Kierkegaard are related to one another by their drastic reevaluation o the particular and singular at a linguistic, aesthetic and political level. Henri Arvon is probably right when he writes about Kierkegaard and Stirner: ‘With the same dialectical orce they fight against Hegel’s system; with the same verve they turn against supra-individual reason.’129 Long beore Arvon, Mautz noticed the existential and ethical affi nities between Stirner and Kierkegaard: ‘Stirner thus combats the transer o the personal reedom o decision and o personal responsibility or ethical action into a supra-individual sphere o objective norms [. . .]. By adopting this ethical attitude he agrees with his theological partner S. Kierkegaard.’130 In what ollows, only one central aspect o Kierkegaard’s thought will be commented on, an aspect o considerable relevance to Sartre’s existentialism (c. Chapter II, 5): his critique o the Hegelian system as an enhancement o the individual subject . Tis critique has both ormal-conceptual and existential-ethical components which will be dealt with briefly. On a ormal level, one is struck by the contrast between Hegel’s systemic approach and Kierkegaard’s essayism. Essay, ragment and diary are the orms preerred by Kierkegaard, not the conceptual system. Tese orms bear witness to the internalization
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o the individual problematic. It is no longer related to collective and other supraindividual actants (as in Hegel’s case), but transerred into the individual inner sel where inra-individual actants o truth conront actants o hypocrisy or dissimulation. Adorno simplifies somewhat when, in his analysis o Kierkegaard’s construction o the aesthetic, he writes about the relationship between Hegel and the Danish philosopher: ‘Kierkegaard did not “overcome” the Hegelian system o identity; Hegel was internalized by him, and Kierkegaard renders reality most accurately wherever he adheres to Hegel’s historical dialectic.’131 Te question is whether he actually does this – or whether, ollowing Vischer and the Young Hegelians, he maintains both the ambivalence and the contradiction Hegel wanted to overcome by his systematic syntheses. Te process ‘within’ Kierkegaard’s individual subject is not a process o totalization and unification, but a permanent struggle with ambivalence, contradiction and paradox which does not culminate in a synthesis but in a tragic antinomy in the sense o Either – Or . In this long essay, Kierkegaard writes: ‘Tinking a contradiction, in spite o all the assurances o modern philosophy and the oolhardy courage o its young adherents, must always involve great diffi culty.’132 Te expression ‘new philosophy’ reers to Danish Hegelianism, as the editor Niels Tulstrup points out in the German edition.133 Unlike Hegel, Kierkegaard stops at the contradiction. Tis act is amply illustrated by his polemics against Hegel’s concept o Aufebung which he replaces with paradox. With characteristic irony he comments on the Germanizing use o the Danish word ophaeve (aufeben = cancel and preserve): ‘I am not aware that the Danish word “ophaeve” permits o any such ambiguity but I do know that our German-Danish philosophers use it like the German word.’134 Tey use it in the Hegelian sense o aufeben and believe that they can thus do justice to Christianity. Kierkegaard calls them ‘speculators’: ‘For Christianity as it is understood by the speculator differs rom what plain olk are presented. For them it is a paradox, but the speculator knows how to suspend the paradox.’135 In Kierkegaard’s perspective, the paradox appears as insurmountable and leads to the innermost sel o the subject, where a decision comes about: ‘Christianity is on the contrary subjective; the inwardness o aith in the believer is the truth’s eternal decision.’136 Te withdrawal into the inwardness o the subject can be seen as a consequence o the disintegration o both the Hegelian system and o the social system o values. Early on, Karl Jaspers realized that Kierkegaard’s paradox is pre- or post-dialectical and leads to an act o aith in the sense o Pascal’s pari: ‘One can consider the dictum credo quia absurdum as the key ormula o this religious spirit, which puts the antinomy and the paradox at the centre o aith. Most recently, Kierkegaard characterized the essence o this paradox and was possibly the first to do so in depth.’ 137 Heinrich M. Schmidinger adds that in Kierkegaard’s thought contradictions ‘are not overcome but, on the contrary, given prominence’.138 Kierkegaard was also considered in this light by the young essayist Georg Lukács, who emphasized the Danish philosopher’s reusal to dissolve contradictions in ‘higher units’ (in the Hegelian sense). 139 As Kierkegaard’s kindred spirits, Jaspers and the young Lukács doubt the validity and truthulness o the system. It unctions as an alibi o the individual subject which
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alienates itsel in collective and mythical actants: in national spirits, in the World Spirit and the Absolute Spirit. In his Book on Adler , Kierkegaard illustrates the return to the individual existential problematic afer the disintegration o Hegel’s system by commenting ironically on the development o a Danish Hegelian. Magister Adler, who would like to justiy his contingent existence, 140 discovers the magic ormula o lie: ‘You lack everything; study Hegel and you have everything.’141 Te approaching catastrophe is inevitable, and the philosopher-narrator explains ‘that Magister Adler by a qualitative leap was transported rom the medium o philosophy, and specifically the antastic medium o Hegelian philosophy (pure thought and pure being), into the sphere o religious inwardness ’.142 In a way, this is a leap backwards into romantic irony which relies exclusively on the individual subject’s critical potential. Adler’s itinerary leads to the insight ‘that the subject is existing and that existing is a becoming, and that the notion o truth as the identity o thought and being is a chimera o abstraction, and truly only a longing on the part o creation’. 143 In this respect, Kierkegaard’s philosophy is based on the notion o non-identity: with human history, with society and its institutions. It is at the same time, as Adorno pointed out,144 a thought beyond society which does not reflect upon its own socio-historical character and thus alls prey to abstraction – as Sartre’s thought much later on. ‘Te subject evolves as a radically particular being’, 145 remarks Elke Beck in conjunction with Kierkegaard, and Schmidinger adds: ‘Tis is why Kierkegaard proclaims in view o all this: Only particularity will be able to save this era.’ 146 However, this particularity is in itsel social, not only because it results rom the disintegration o the Hegelian system, but because it is also a product o social crises which – as Stirner saw – become aggravated in the second hal o the nineteenth century and finally give birth to modern sociology as a global reflection on modernity (c. Chapter IV). Te leap o the Kierkegaardian subject into the religious stadium is symptomatic o late modernity or modernism. In retrospect, this era appears as a protracted search or the lost addresser who, in Kierkegaard’s philosophy, can only be ound individually because, to the Danish philosopher, God is subject and thereore only accessible to subjectivity as inwardness. However, Kierkegaard’s, Vischer’s and Stirner’s rejection o Hegel’s supra-individual subject does not help philosophy to overcome the social crisis but exacerbates it by critique and negativity.147 Anticipated by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and the Young Hegelians, the new era o negativity and criticism is also a period o ideological affirmation, o mighty addressers who make the individual subject submit to states, party organizations and other collectives. It is against this backdrop that one should try to understand Nietzsche’s ambivalent attempt to save the individual subject in crisis.
4 Nietzsche’s criticism o the metaphysical concept o subject: Ambivalence, particularization and nature Concrete understanding is only possible in context. In what ollows it is thereore necessary to consider Nietzsche’s critique o the metaphysical subject in conjunction
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with his critique o Hegel’s system and in relation to Young Hegelian thought. It will be shown that, on the one hand, Nietzsche radicalizes Young Hegelian criticism o the Hegelian concept o subjectivity and that, on the other hand, he reacts to the crisis o subjectivity with a bold project: the Superman. Following Vischer and Stirner, he considers the individual subject – defined by Descartes, Kant and Fichte as the substratum o all meaning and by Hegel as an element o the World Spirit – as a disintegrating and subjugated being. It appears to him as a heterogeneous instance torn by contradictions and struggling against annihilation: ‘ “Subject” is the fiction inducing us to believe that many identical states within us emerge rom one substratum: however, we have brought about the “identity” o these states; their identification and adaptation is the actual basis, not the identity (– the latter ought to be denied –).’148 In an analogous manner, Nietzsche explains the origin o concepts without which the modern notion o subjectivity would be inconceivable: ‘Every concept is due to the identification o what is different. [. . .] Our overlooking o the individual and real yields the concept.’ 149 In other words, our notions o subjectivity and conceptuality are due to our blindness and our domineering, identiying intellect. Long beore Lacan, Nietzsche recognizes in subjectivity a construction anchored in the imaginary. It is not by chance that he inserts the word ‘subject’ aphoristically between the key words ‘reality’ and ‘modernity’ and deduces ‘reality’ rom ‘our degree o lie and power sensation’.150 Finally, he presents Superman as an answer to the constraints o late modernity: to its conormism, its mass instincts, its breaking in o individuals.151 It is within the context o a bourgeois, utilitarian and democratic Christianity that Nietzsche’s vision o the individual subject as a subjugated, manipulated and incapacitated instance ought to be understood. Starting rom Stirner’s diagnosis, according to which the manipulation o individuals is becoming more intense, Nietzsche remarks: ‘Man, with the help o the morality o customs and o social straitwaistcoats, [was] made genuinely calculable.’152 He thus inverts Hegel’s discourse. Unlike the systematic thinker, who defined state morality as a state o reedom in which all individual subjects could realize themselves, Nietzsche defines it as a state o submission and constraint. He thus anticipates the theories o some postmodern thinkers such as Foucault who consider primary and secondary socialization as a corporeal and mental training designed to make the subject conorm. Tis inversion o Hegel’s argument, which resembles that o Marx in some respects, has ar-reaching consequences. (1) As in Stirner’s and Kierkegaard’s case, Hegel’s historical system is considered as the construction o a particular thinker. (2) Tis critical assessment is then extended to include Hegel’s positive, synthesizing dialectic which Nietzsche transorms into a negative dialectic geared to ambivalence and contradiction. (3) Finally, Nietzsche brings about a drastic particularization and actual dissolution o general concepts such as reason, truth and morality. His reaction to the decline o metaphysics as universal thought and to what he defines as ‘decadence’ culminates in his myths o ‘Superman’ and ‘Eternal Return’. Like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche discovers the particular origin and the contingent character o Hegel’s system. Hegel’s World Spirit as a world-immanent god does not make history, but is one o its products:
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In his essay on Kierkegaard and Nietzsche (1933), Löwith aptly speaks o the ‘humanization o philosophy and its truth’,154 and this expression does not only apply to these two thinkers o the nineteenth century, but also to Sartre and his criticism o Hegel. Te implausibility o Hegel’s synthesizing system in an era o social tensions, revolutions and revolts is denounced in Nietzsche’s well-known aphorism: ‘I distrust all systematisers, and avoid them. Te will to a system shows a lack o honesty.’ 155 Tis will seeks to unite subject and object, but becomes obsolete in late modernity when the gap between consciousness and reality is widening. Like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche replaces the system with alternative orms such as maxims, aphorisms and essays, all o which bear witness to the decline o systematic thought. Which actors are responsible or this decline? In Nietzsche’s case, as in modernist literature, it is the crisis o social values and the resulting ambivalence that unites opposites without synthesizing them: it stops at the antinomy or the paradox. Whenever Nietzsche links opposites such as logic and irrationality, pleasure and displeasure, he does not aim at a higher orm o knowledge, at a synthesis, but brings about a paradox: ‘How did logic come into existence in man’s head? Certainly out o illogic, whose realm originally must have been immense.’156 Similarly, he reuses to reconcile pleasure and displeasure: ‘But what i pleasure and displeasure were so tied together that whoever wanted to have as much as possible o one must also have as much as possible o the other?’157 Like modernist writers such as Musil, Kaa or Camus, all o whom he influenced, Nietzsche stops at ambivalence and the concomitant paradox: ‘ General insight: the ambiguous character o our modern world – the same symptoms can point to decline and to strength.’158 Tis kind o ambivalence cannot possibly yield a systematically organized historical discourse, or rise and all, construction and disintegration run parallel and tend to deconstruct each other instead o orming Hegelian syntheses: ‘As a matter o act, every kind o growth involves an enormous decline and deterioration: the suffering, the symptoms o degeneration belong to the phases o immense orward movement.’159 It is striking how Nietzsche emphasizes the simultaneity o opposites using words such as ‘belong’. Te opposite terms are inextricably but aporetically joined together. In view o this negativity, which excludes any kind o systematic construction, concepts such as reason and truth appear as particular and lose their universal validity. Mihailo Djurić explains: ‘In Nietzsche’s perspective, it becomes clear that logic does not help, even i it is dialectical logic.’160 It does not help because it is linked to the illogical and hence remains contingent. According to Nietzsche, this also applies to the metaphysical concept o reason. In a context governed by ambivalence and paradox, reason becomes unreasonable: ‘Tat the world is not the abstract essence o an eternal
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reasonableness is suffi ciently proved by the act that that bit o the world which we know – I mean our human reason – is none too reasonable.’ 161 Tus reason and olly belong together like good and evil, pleasure and displeasure, expansion and decline. Along with reason, the concept o truth alls prey to contingency and particularization. Nietzsche, the critic o language, links the emergence o truth(s) to questionable linguistic conventions which cannot possibly claim universal status. ‘What then is truth?’ – he asks and answers: ‘a mobile army o metaphors, metonymies, anthropomorphisms.’162 Tese rhetorical figures, he adds, become customary and are institutionalized to such a degree that they come to be considered as natural or true in a particular culture. However, they are illusions. Such considerations amount to a radical particularization o the concept o truth. At first, it is projected onto a rhetorical level, where truth appears as a contingent constellation o rhetorical figures, subsequently it is made dependent on social conventions and presented as the product o a particular culture. In this light, it appears as particular or ortuitous and loses the universal character attributed to it by Descartes, Kant and Hegel. Ethics are treated by Nietzsche in a similar way. Tey are interpreted as a perverted ‘will to power’, as a kind o ideology developed by the resentul and the weak in order to challenge the historical position o the strongest and best. In this context, Kant’s categorical imperative is seen as the product o Jewish-Christian moral resentment and considered as dangerous and hostile to lie. Its abstract character is interpreted as a threat to the individual’s will to live: ‘Nothing is more prooundly, more thoroughly pernicious, than every impersonal eeling o duty, than every sacrifice to the Moloch o abstraction.’163 It was not considered as dangerous because it was seen – along with Descartes’s cogito and Hegel’s Sittlichkeit – as a realization o the individual subject’s reedom. Individual reedom was only conceivable as progressive generalization. Anticipating postmodern trends, Nietzsche inverts this development by revealing the particularity and contingency o key modern concepts such as truth, reason and moral obligation, and by insisting on their repressive unction. For whoever demands that individuals should recognize a contingent truth or reason, subjects them to an outside will – and not to a universal principle within them. ime and again, Nietzsche shows that the distance separating the subject as a undamental instance and the subject as a subjugated being is minimal. Only i I recognize in Kant’s categorical imperative and in Hegel’s moral law universally valid principles, do they appear to me as principles o reedom; i I reuse to do this, because I consider them – with Nietzsche – as culturally contingent, they turn into instruments o repression. While Descartes starts rom the assumption that the ‘I’ as cogito is the basis o thought, Nietzsche inverts this relationship by showing – long beore Althusser and Foucault – that the ‘basis’ is elsewhere and that the ‘I’ is conditioned by outside instances. Günter Abel explains: ‘ “Tought” is the condition, the “I” is conditioned. Te “I” is not the thinking instance, it is being thought.’ 164 Here, Stirner’s and Nietzsche’s idea o a ‘social straitjacket’165 is reormulated. It is Stirner’s and Nietzsche’s merit to have shown to what extent idealism’s ‘basic instance’ is conditioned by outside actors. What is Nietzsche’s final answer to the question o subjectivity? It is – in short – the idea that the subject ought to be redefined in relation to nature. Habermas
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adds: ‘Subject-centred reason is conronted with reason’s absolute other.’ 166 Like Stirner, Nietzsche starts rom a human will transposed into a fictive ‘state o nature’ imagined by Nietzsche in relation to his aristocratic vision o medieval and renaissance cultures and his (pre-existentialist) idea that the individual subject can only justiy itsel. Tere is no supra-individual instance entitled to insert the individual into a narrative programme such as history or eschatology. Tis is the reason: ‘Most human beings enter the world by chance: no higher necessity inhabits them.’167 Since there is no collective grand design in the Christian or Hegelian sense, meaning can only come about through individual acts o will. However, considering the heterogeneity o the subject revealed by Nietzsche himsel, the idea o a meaningul subjective act o will may contradict his philosophy. ‘Not “humanity”, but the Superman is the goal!’ 168 Tis sentence contains in a nutshell the actantial model o Nietzsche’s discourse which is marked by extreme reductionism: by the elimination o all addressers (God, World Spirit, History) and by the coincidence o the subject- and the object-actant. For Superman is not only the subject or the driving orce o the social change envisaged by Nietzsche, but at the same time his own object: the goal o his actions. Te anti-subject enters the scene at the very end o Ecce Homo: ‘Have you understood me? Dionysus versus Christ .’169 However, it is by no means certain and a matter o interpretation (a Nietzschean principle) that Dionysus and Superman are one. Ursula Schneider seems to think so: ‘For this reason Superman is just another side o Dionysus, he is the Dionysian principle par excellence.’170 Te entire actantial model is based on the idea o ‘sel-empowerment’ or ‘Selbstermächtigung ’:171 an expression introduced by Peter Köster. Nietzsche imagines a sel-sufficient subject acting beyond the constraints o the social ‘straitjacket’. Like Stirner’s ‘the Unique’, his Dionysian Superman is a myth inspired by nature and an attempt to dey the mediocrity o nineteenth-century bourgeois society. Tis myth is completed by Nietzsche’s myth o the ‘eternal return’. In the context mapped out here, the latter appears as an attempt to break out o history as a linear narrative with addresser and anti-addresser and to negate all kinds o Christian or Hegelian teleology that would limit Superman’s reedom. Superman is his own addresser and his own telos. Volker Gerhardt is probably right when he points out that Nietzsche does not negate historical thought (e.g. in the sense o ‘monumental history’): ‘Tereore a arewell to history is not being considered. Rather, the question is how to make historical knowledge “benefit lie”.’172 But at the same time Günther K. Lehmann’s observation is valid: ‘However, one has to bear in mind that, although Nietzsche takes historical developments into account, he thinks outside o historicity.’ 173 His drastically simplified actantial model explains why this is the case. A subject which rejects all addressers and views itsel narcissistically as its own object can no longer be integrated into a linear narrative; it can only unction in a circular structure. Te latter is analogous to a mythical state o nature insoar as it negates social time along with historicity. In conjunction with the archaic myth, Lévi-Strauss speaks o its ‘double structure, altogether historical and ahistorical’. 174 He locates the time and the succession o events in mythical narratives outside the (modern) historical continuum:
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‘A myth always reers to events alleged to have taken place long ago’:175 ‘beore the creation o the world’, ‘rom time immemorial’, etc. Nietzsche’s ‘eternal return’ is a Dionysian myth o late modernity, an attempt to break out o historical continuity and to revive the a-historical consciousness o antiquity. Tis mythical space beyond history is inhabited by a Superman imbued with the will to power and well aware o history which he despises as he resists the downward trend o decadence. Reinhard Knodt links Superman and the will to power to the myth o the ‘eternal return’ and implicitly deals with Nietzsche’s reduction o the actantial model, when he points out: ‘Te link between the eternal return [. . .] and the experimental activity o the will to power is necessary because nothing can claim undamental authority aer the idea o the eternal return – apart rom the experiment inherent in this idea.’176 In other words, addresser and object are both absorbed by a sel-sufficient subject acting ‘outside o historicity’ (Lehmann). At the same time, the will to power appears as an essential modality, as a crucial will to do (vouloir aire, Greimas) that makes the sel-empowerment o the Superman possible. Following various interpretations o Nietzsche, one could decide that destiny or atality is the secret addresser o the Nietzschean subject. 177 As a matter o act, Nietzsche’s discourse does oscillate in an ambivalent way between sel-empowerment and a atalism marked by a narcissistic identification with ate. Te last section o Ecce Homo (‘Why I am a Destiny’) suggests that the speaking subject identifies with destiny in the same way as Christ identified with his divine ather. However, this relationship is difficult to define, especially since Nietzsche adds with his idiosyncratic humour: ‘Maybe I am a clown.’178 Te idea that Nietzsche’s atalistic and super-human subject is domineering and violent is not new,179 and in spite o his one-sided critique, which ignores the ‘deconstructionist Nietzsche’,180 Martin Heidegger is probably right when he reads Nietzsche’s work as the completion o the dominant metaphysical tradition. He considers Superman ‘as the supreme subject o accomplished subjectivity’. 181 Tis assessment sounds plausible, because Nietzsche’s subject not only usurps the authority o the addresser, but also negates the otherness o masculinity: the emale principle. (In this respect, Nietzsche is quite similar to Fichte, whose idealistic ‘I’ systematically excludes alterity.) Not only Nietzsche’s misogynous remarks are an eloquent testimony to his bias, but also the act that he ofen presents masculinity as the positive principle tout court . o Christianity he preers Islam because the latter appears to him as a stauncher deender o male domination than the Christian churches: ‘I Islam despises Christianity, it is justified a thousand times over; or Islam presupposes men.’182 Such apodictic statements, hardly the highlights o Nietzsche’s thought, were commented on by many psychoanalysts and criticized by eminists. Tus Günter Schulte would like to understand ‘Nietzsche’s philosophy o repressed eminity by starting rom his own efforts o repression and by discovering behind his philosophy o ostentatious virility a kind o “anxious erection”.’183 Compared with this somewhat one-sided approach, Kelly Oliver’s eminist merit consists in linking Nietzsche’s ‘masculine metaphors o potency and hardness’184 to his deconstructionist openness to alterity.
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Both o these interpretations reveal the dilemma o modern subjectivity, a dilemma exacerbated in late modernity and located at the centre o the modernist scene by Sartre’s existentialism, Critical Teory and many modernist novels. Te individual subject seems unable to evolve without suppressing the Other – nature, eminity, the other culture – within itsel. It not only defines itsel monologically by opposing the Other, thus initiating a potentially meaningul dialogue, but by negating the Other who appears as a threat or a danger. In what ollows, this dilemma will be considered in some detail in conjunction with Sartre and surrealism.
5 From Nietzsche and Kierkegaard to Sartre: Sartre’s critique o surrealism and psychoanalysis Te question concerning Sartre’s link to Nietzsche and Kierkegaard can be summed up in a ew words. It is the particularizing argumentatio ad personam. In existentialist terminology this would mean that the individual existence has to be granted priority over the essence (in an Aristotelian-Hegelian sense). Not a supra- individual, unolding essence is made responsible or the process o knowledge, but an individual consciousness capable o negation. In his critique o Hegel, Sartre keeps reerring to Kierkegaard’s philosophical writings in which the author comments avourably on Hegel’s presentation o Socrates, because Hegel ocuses on the person o the Greek philosopher and not on the historical context (as is his wont): ‘Tis discussion by Hegel is remarkable in that it ends as it begins – with the person o Socrates.’185 Te personality o Socrates, says Kierkegaard, appears as the instance representing the good lie so ‘that the good as such has no absolute binding power’.186 And this is what matters: the Good and the rue should not be discovered by individual subjects as pre-existing universal principles, but should be created by them – individually. Tis postulate, according to which the rue and the Good are created by individual philosophers and not discovered as universal or historical principles, is also the starting point o Sartre’s critique o Hegel. In an article entitled ‘L’Universel singulier’, he challenges Hegel’s system as a pseudo-objectivity that glosses over its subjective contingency. o the philosopher, who pretends to have grasped history as a meaningul totality, he objects: But history has not come to an end, and this timeless reappraisal o temporality as unity o logic and tragedy is itsel turned into an object o knowledge. From this point o view, not Being appears as the beginning o the Hegelian system, but the personality o Hegel, as it was shaped by others, as it shaped itsel. Tis is an ambiguous discovery which, considered rom an epistemological stance, can only lead to scepticism. 187
At this point, Sartre’s arguments coincide with those o Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. His scepticism not only aims at Hegel, who pretended to speak in the name o History as his addresser, but also at Descartes, who invoked God as his epistemological
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guarantor. In a well-known essay about Cartesian reedom (‘La Liberté cartésienne’), he sets out rom Nietzsche’s dictum about the ‘death o God’ and tries to deliver the individual subject rom an almighty addresser whose presence limits human reedom to the discovery o divine laws. Descartes, says Sartre, was the first thinker to consider human thought as a process o negation. Unlike Spinoza, who – according to Sartre – sacrificed ‘human subjectivity’188 to a cognitive process without a subject (an idea revived later by Althusser: c. Chapter III, 5), Descartes sees true knowledge as produced by the human subject. ruth as a result o the cogitatio, i.e. as human truth, only exists because we perceive it. We are ree to negate it and thus revolt against the divine subject as addresser. He recognizes in this possibility o revolt and negation a reedom o decision and action in the existentialist sense. ‘Since the order o truths exists outside o me, that which will define me as an autonomy is not creative invention but reusal’,189 writes Sartre. He himsel does not believe that Cartesian negation or reusal is suffi cient and opts or a solution involving creativity . He blames Descartes or remaining within the spell o a divine addresser and or stopping at pure negativity: ‘In short, he ailed to conceive negativity as productive.’190 Continuing this train o thought, Sartre tries, in the 1930s and 40s, to give negation as néantisation a creative turn. His main philosophical concern o this period is aptly summed up by Mary Warnock as ‘the possibility o projecting what is not the case’. 191 In his early phenomenological writings, Sartre tries to show, among other things, that, ar rom depicting reality, human thought negates and transcends it creatively. Te creative negation, which goes beyond reality, is theoretically conceivable, Sartre says, i we start rom Husserl’s concept o epoché that implies the systematic bracketing out o all opinions concerning an object. Epoché cancels all those actors subsumed by the author o L’Imagination (1936) under the expression ‘l’attitude naturelle’. 192 In this book, Sartre distinguishes ‘perception’ rom ‘fiction’: ‘Tus every fiction is an active synthesis, a product o our ree spontaneity; by contrast, every kind o perception is a purely passive synthesis.’193 Te flute-playing centaur, argues Sartre, ollowing Husserl, is fiction insoar as it radically negates conventional reality by recomposing it in a novel and antastic ashion. A ew years later, in L’Imaginaire (1940), he confirms the nexus between negativity and creativity when he explains: ‘Te imaginary act is thus simultaneously constituting, isolating and negating ’ (‘Ainsi l’acte imaginati est à la ois constituant, isolant et anéantissant ’).194 Tis argument develops the essential aspects o Sartre’s critique o Descartes. Te emancipation rom the divine addresser rees the individual subject and endows it with creative powers. It goes without saying that Sartre’s monumental work Being and Nothingness (L’Etre et le Néant , 1943) cannot be commented on in detail here. For the understanding o the present context, two critical remarks concerning reedom and the subject may be suffi cient. As a Cartesian phenomenologist, Sartre – like Husserl – neglects the psychic and social actors o subjectivity, ocuses exclusively on what Ricœur calls ipseity or selfood (ipséité ) and glosses over sameness (mêmeté , Ricœur) as a psychosocial process. He thus constructs an abstract subjectivity which only knows a tragic ‘either / or’ and completely ignores the dialectical ambivalence as an unsurpassable unity o opposites. Tis explains why the author o Nausea (La Nausée, 1938) bans the
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alterity o nature and emininity rom his male definition o subjectivity by suppressing it in a rationalist manner. In his perspective, it is not the social actors and the established systems o values that condition individual subjectivity; it is the other way round, the individual subject creates ex nihilo, as it were, its own scale o values: I do not have nor can I have recourse to any value against the act that it is I who sustain values in being. Nothing can ensure me against mysel, cut off rom the world and rom my essence by this nothingness which I am. I have to realize the meaning o the world and o my essence; I make my decision concerning them – without justification and without excuse. 195
Te truth o this argument consists in its radical negation o determinism which cannot explain why it is that prophets become ounders o religions, intellectuals emerge as ounders o ideologies, and scientists change social lie with their inventions. Hence Sartre is right when he maintains that ‘I have to realize the meaning o the world.’ He nevertheless overlooks the truth o determinism: the banal but correct insight that even the most original o thinkers is a product o society and has to rely on the knowledge accumulated by his ancestors. Christ had to set out rom the Old estament (i.e. could not put orward Buddhist or aoist arguments), and Marx was not only a Hegelian, but also a reader o Adam Smith. Tus reedom appears as reedom in context and within certain limits or determinations which impose constraints and offer new possibilities at the same time. Tis is certainly not Sartre’s point o view. He deends reedom in an idealist and rationalist manner when he declares: ‘Man cannot be sometimes slave and sometimes ree; he is wholly and orever ree or he is not ree at all.’196 Te opposite is probably the case. Individual subjects are never entirely ree because they always participate in the collective history o society (they can no longer enjoy the reedom o the year 1000 and cannot even imagine the reedom o the year 3000) and because they are always bound by their past decisions that constitute their lie narrative – in very much the same way as the novelists and their narrators. Sartre ocuses too much on Ricœur’s abstract ipseity in the sense o the ‘promise made’ or the ‘crime committed’ and neglects ‘sameness’ as changing identity. Insoar as he defines reedom as negativity, he can imagine existence as ‘nihilation o acticity’ (‘néantisation de la acticité’), 197 thus overlooking the act that the subject owes its identity precisely to the social, psychic and linguistic acticity which it is born into. Negation and creativity can only be thought o as concrete processes taking place in particular social and linguistic contexts, in which subjects conront specific social and linguistic structures in order to negate or to develop them. Sartre himsel developed his brand o existentialism in this kind o context, relying on the discourses o Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger, and thus becoming a creative subject shaped by others. Tis is roughly Sartre’s own argument in the case o Hegel when he – quite rightly – points out that Hegel’s system is inextricably tied up with his person: ‘telle qu’ on l’a aite, telle qu’ elle s’ est aite’ (c. supra). Tis expression reers to both components o individual and collective subjectivity: negative- creative reedom
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and over-determination. Te latter component is bracketed out in Being and Nothingness. Tis is one o the reasons why Sartre rejects Freudian psychoanalysis since his Esquisse d’une théorie des émotions (1938), which he mentions in L’Etre et le Néant .198 However, psychoanalysis neither negates individual reedom nor is it exclusively interested in the individual’s past, as Sartre argues when he blames it or blocking the uture by a regression rom the present into the past.199 By constructing the triad superego, ego and id , Freud would like to increase the individual’s scope o action. Although he does occasionally put orward deterministic arguments, his psychoanalysis is by no means rigidly deterministic. Especially his theory o neuroses is meant to strengthen the ‘I’. However, this project can only succeed i the determinants o the subject’s actions are analysed. Te act that Sartre ignores them instead o taking them into account is amply illustrated by his discussion in Esquisse d’une théorie des émotions o a case rom Janet’s psychoanalysis. A young emale patient intends to discuss with Janet her obsessions, but instead o opening the discussion, she breaks out into tears. Without considering the physical and psychic actors, which can block speech (we all know the lump in the throat that prevents us rom inorming someone o a sad event), Sartre interprets the patient’s behaviour as a symptom o ‘bad aith’ permitting her to avoid an embarrassing discussion.200 Naturally, nobody will ever be able to prove that her behaviour was not tactical. But Sartre’s argument shows to what extent he is inclined – as a Cartesian and a phenomenologist – to reduce the individual subject to the cogito and to bracket out all physical, psychic and social actors. His attitude towards psychoanalysis explains his rejection o surrealist experiments, many o which are geared towards the unconscious and ofen involve a transormation o culture into nature. Sartre, the rationalist philosopher, cannot accept surrealism because the latter reveals the reverse o the Cartesian cogito: the unconscious, dream and chance. All o these actors belong to the sphere o nature – boldly subsumed by Hegel under the dominant historical logos. Surrealists such as Breton never intended to dissolve the individual subject in the unconscious; they sought to ree imagination and creativity rom the etters o social convention. Tey did, however, envisage a liberation o human nature rom the constraints o a petrified culture. Gisela Steinwachs not only describes the almost imperceptible transition rom culture to nature brought about by surrealist experiments, but also establishes a direct link between Breton’s inconscient and the unconscious o psychoanalysis: ‘Tere is a direct path leading rom the contestation o the paramount position o consciousness in automatic writing to scientific psychoanalysis in its most advanced – i.e. structural – orm.’201 Sartre may have agreed with this statement, especially since he knew Breton’s amous definition o surrealism in the first maniesto: ‘psychic automatism in its pure state’.202 At the same time, Breton exalts the power o dreams. 203 He not only turns Descartes’s but also Sartre’s rationalism upside down. For Sartre’s comments on Janet’s patient show to what extent he equates subjectivity and identity, especially in the 1930s and 40s. Te human being appears to him as a consciousness without an unconscious: transparent to itsel and devoid o suppressed natural
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impulses and instincts. It is hardly surprising thereore that, along with psychoanalysis, he rejects surrealism as an art o the unconscious. He blames it or dissolving subjectivity in the unconscious and in nature: ‘Te first thing to be done is to eliminate the conventional distinctions between conscious and unconscious lie, between dream and waking. Tis means that subjectivity is dissolved.’204 Steven Ungar explains: ‘For Sartre, automatic writing is a game whose end is the dissolution o subjectivity into tangles o irony and paradox.’205 Not surprisingly, the surrealists adopt the opposite view, and in the light o Vischer’s and Nietzsche’s critiques o Hegel, it becomes clear why this is the case. Teir basic aim was to ree the individual subject as part o nature and the unconscious – not to dissolve it. All depends on the definition o subjectivity . Tey set out to demolish the decrepit conventions, which appeared to them as obstacles to the subject’s development. What would creativity be without the unconscious and the dream? – Breton might have asked Sartre in a discussion about the origins o creativity. From a surrealist and psychoanalytic point o view, Sartre’s problem seems to consist in his ailure to recognize to what extent the undamental, apparently ree ipse is in reality a product o institutions, ideologies and conventions, i.e. a subjugated being. Sartre may have delivered the individual subject rom the tutelage o the divine addresser, however, like his idealist precursors, he made it submit to an abstract cogito, thus reducing it to one o its components. In view o this reductionism, the surrealists may celebrate their discovery o the other hal o subjectivity, o its natural and oneiric aspects, as a revolutionary step orward. Nevertheless, their liberation is only partial in character, or the liberated subject alls prey to the mechanisms o the unconscious: to the objet trouvé and the contingencies o ‘objective chance’ or what the surrealists call hasard objecti .206 Adorno writes about surrealism: ‘It must be understood not as a language o immediacy but as witness to abstract reedom’s reversion to the supremacy o objects and thus to mere nature.’ 207 Tis is how Sartre saw surrealism, albeit in a different context. His first novel, La Nausée (1938), which belongs to the same period as his early phenomenological writings (L’Imagination, 1936 and L’Imaginaire , 1940), could be read as a fictional inversion o surrealism. In this novel, the transormation o culture into nature does not appear as liberation, but as a threat to a subject identiying one-sidedly with culture: Good Lord, how natural the town looks in spite o all its geometric patterns, how crushed by the evening it seems. It’s so . . . obvious rom here; is it possible that I should be the only one to see it? Is there nowhere another Cassandra on top o a hill, looking down at a town enguled in the depths o Nature? 208
Unlike surrealist painting (e.g. Dalí’s), some o which shows ruins and other remnants o civilization euphorically overgrown by buoyant vegetation, Sartre’s Nausea novel suffers rom a nature phobia leading to a split o the narrator into nature and culture. He is in permanent denial o his natural hal, and this denial pushes him to the brink o suicide: ‘My saliva is sugary, my body is warm; I eel insipid. My penknie is on the table. I open it. Why not?’209
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Rimbaud’s dictum ‘Je est un autre’ (‘I is someone else’) is illustrated by La Nausée in the sense that repression o nature and nature phobia lead to a split o the subject into mind and body. Te nausea caused by nature makes the narrator-hero reject his own body and adopt a schizophrenic attitude towards himsel commented on by Georgiana M. M. Colville: In a crisis caused by nausea, he has a schizophrenic vision o his own body as something separate rom himsel, and the result is a division o the character into I and He: ‘. . . I turn lef, he turns lef, he thinks that he turns lef, mad, am I mad? He says that he is araid o being mad’. 210
Te divided subject and the dissolution o syntax in what might be called ‘stream o consciousness’ are both reminiscent o surrealism. However, in Sartre’s text they are accompanied by negative connotations: as aspects o nausea, o the subject’s decline and o its dissolution in nature. Everything that entails euphoric connotations in surrealism – or example, the unconscious, chance and dream in Breton’s and Soupault’s Les Champs magnétiques – appears in a negative light in Sartre’s novel. In this context, it is hardly surprising that even the emale body, a crucial component o the surrealist dream, alls prey to misogynous polemics in Sartre’s novel: ‘Te emale body is essentially vegetative in character; Nausea shows why. Roquentin describes public gardens where all objects are submerged in existence, like those women who let themselves go, adding with a humid voice: “Laughter is healthy.” . . . Femininity and sexuality are a rotting garden.’211 Tese critical remarks by François George are later confirmed by Martin Dornberg who quite rightly stresses the violent character o Sartre’s subject which explains its permanent negation o otherness (o nature, emininity and the object): ‘It [this negation] is the product o a thought and an experience both o which perceive and define the Other as something antagonistic and hostile.’212 At the same time, this negation is the long-term effect o a repressive metaphysics whose authors – rom Descartes to Fichte and Hegel – exclude otherness rom the realm o pure thought. Within this idealist tradition, the subject as basis or oundation appears as a sel-sufficient being. Te act that this apparently autarchic being is also a subjugated instance whose other hal (nature) is being repressed, is conveniently glossed over. Sartre continues the idealist tradition when, in Critique de la raison dialectique (1960), he tries to integrate the existentialist subject into the Hegelian-Marxist historical narrative which – as Camus noticed early on 213 – negates the alterity o nature (c. Chapter I, 2, a). His acceptance o this narrative is due to his purely negative definition o subjective reedom: as néantisation, as reusal o the existing order. Tis negativity stems rom his Cartesian and rationalist reusal o the Other. Sel-definition is seen primarily as a negation o the Other and otherness. However, it is diffi cult to persist in this attitude, which is finally superseded by Sartre himsel when he accepts the authority o the Hegelian-Marxist discourse and its collective actants. As critics o rationalism, Hegelianism and Marxism, Adorno and Horkheimer have mapped out a critical theory o society aimed at alterity. Instead o ocusing on the
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figures o geometry (like the rationalists and Sartre’s narrator), they saw in the mimetic language o art a possibility to approach nature mimetically and to reconcile the subject’s concepts with the objective world. Tey opened conceptual thought to the Other.
6 From Nietzsche to Critical Teory: Subjectivity, mimesis, alterity In the first chapter it was pointed out (I, 2, a) that the subject as oundation and metaphysical postulate is exposed to a thorough and ar-reaching critique in Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s Critical Teory, in particular in their Dialectic o Enlightenment , originally intended to become an analysis o the origins o subjectivity. 214 Te underlying thesis can be summed up in a ew words: rom Descartes to Hegel, idealism negates or ignores alterity, especially the alterity o nature . It tends to identiy all that is different with itsel by dissolving it in the concept. Tis atal tendency to impose the subject’s conceptual domination on nature and the objective world is countered by Adorno and Horkheimer with their concept o mimetic thought and their attempt to deliver conceptuality rom the principle o domination by opening it to alterity. In his Aesthetic Teory , Adorno summarizes the project o the Dialectic o Enlightenment in one sentence: ‘Ratio without mimesis is sel-negating.’215 Tis is possibly the most concise presentation o European idealism and o its key problem (dealt with again by Derrida’s deconstruction). In the Dialectic o Enlightenment , this sentence is announced by more detailed considerations: ‘Te ratio which supplants mimesis is not simply its counterpart. It is itsel mimesis: mimesis onto death. Te subjective spirit which cancels the animation o nature can master a despiritualized nature only by imitating its rigidity and despiritualizing itsel in turn.’ 216 Te subject’s domination over the objective world leads to the sel- destruction o the ruler: ‘Man’s domination over himsel, which grounds his selood, is almost always the destruction o the subject in whose service it is undertaken.’217 Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s dialectics o subjectivity originate in the Young Hegelian context insoar as the authors o the Dialectic o Enlightenment start rom Vischer’s and Nietzsche’s basic idea that Hegel never succeeded in reconciling subject and object, spirit and nature. Adorno’s expression ‘negative dialectics’ is meant to signal ‘the difference rom Hegel’.218 In a late modern or modernist context, this difference renews and confirms the Young Hegelian discovery o a repressed (human) nature and its various elements – contingency, chance, the unconscious and the dream – all o which disavow Hegel’s claim that subject and object are one. Within this Young Hegelian context, it is easier to understand Norbert W. Bolz’s article about ‘Nietzsche’s race in Aesthetic Teory’. In this article, Nietzsche does not appear as the last metaphysician in the sense o Heidegger, but as the precursor o a Critical Teory which recognizes in the domination over nature man’s domination over himsel: ‘Early on Nietzsche mentioned the impossibility o imagining a pure concept o humanity that is separate rom nature, and he reminded us o the “rightening ambivalence” o nature inherent in each o us: the act that we are both a threat to existence and a basis o humanness.’ 219
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Long beore Adorno, he hoped or a decisive impulse rom art (especially rom music) that would lead to the reconciliation o subject and object. Tis is why Adorno invokes Nietzsche’s notion o an art which goes beyond metaphysics and at the same time realizes its utopias: ‘Metaphysics cannot rise again [. . .] but it may originate only with the realization o what has been thought in its sign. – Art anticipates some o this. Nietzsche’s work is brimul o anti-metaphysical invective, but no ormula describes metaphysics as aithully as Zarathustra’s “Pure ool, pure poet”.’220 Although the philosopher, sociologist and dialectician Adorno is closer to Marx than to Nietzsche, he is a Nietzschean in the sense that his negative dialectic aims at the mimesis o art and rejects the historical immanence o Hegelian Marxists or whom the proletariat is the only collective subject capable o putting philosophy into practice. In spite o his trust in conceptual thought, which should prevent postmodern commentators rom reading him as a postmodern or ‘proto-postmodern’ thinker,221 Adorno joins ratio and mimesis in such a way that – like Nietzsche – he does justice to the particular and to alterity by aesthetic rather than by theoretical means. However, by ocusing on the particular, which rationalists and Hegelians tend to dissolve in conceptual abstractions, his own discourse becomes so particular and idiosyncratic that it is virtually impossible to relate it to the terminology o the social sciences. In this respect Habermas may be right when he points out that the Dialectic o Enlightenment does not do justice to modernity and ‘that Horkheimer and Adorno perceive cultural modernity rom a similar experiential horizon, with the same heightened sensibility, and even with the same cramped optics that render one insensible to the traces and the existing orms o communicative rationality’. 222 It may not be necessary to speak o ‘cramped optics’ (‘eingeengte Optik’), merely because Adorno and Horkheimer reuse to rely on ‘communicative rationality’ which may have appeared to them as mediated by the exchange value; 223 but Habermas is right in assuming that the orientation towards artistic mimesis and the negativity o Adorno’s dialectic are not conducive to a ruitul dialogue with contemporary social sciences and at the same time render theory insensitive to social processes held in motion by intercultural communication and dialogue (e.g. the European integration process). Nevertheless, the critical value o Adorno’s concept o negativity cannot be doubted – as will be shown in the last chapter. It is negativity that makes a critical appraisal o social communication and evolution possible, thus preventing theoreticians rom being blinded by their own political engagement. Negativity enhances the particular and the individual subject, both o which were underrated by Hegel and subordinated by the Sartre o Critique de la raison dialectique to the collective actants o history. Te essay, the model and paratactic writing, commented on in the first chapter (I, 2, a), are Adorno’s attempts to do justice to the singular and the object which were sacrificed to systemic abstraction by Hegel. Te idea is to find orms o thought and language allowing the subject to adopt an attitude described by Adorno (ollowing Hegel) as ‘reedom to the object’.224 Such an attitude is impossible within the system, because the system dissolves objects in conceptual abstractions. At the same time, the individual subject is sacrificed
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to systemic constraints, which are meant to give it insight, but in reality blind it by making it subservient. Tis is why the young Adorno ollows Walter Benjamin 225 by proposing ‘configuration’ as an alternative to the system. ruth, he argues, cannot be expressed in the language o traditional philosophy. Any attempt to do so is based on the illusion that orm and content can be separated. Tere is no other solution, he believes, than ‘to position the words around truth in such a way that their configuration as such yields the new truth’.226 In the process, linguistic orm and conceptual content coincide. Apart rom ‘configuration’, the key word here is ‘yields’ (‘ergibt’): truth is not postulated, deduced or defined, but is ‘yielded’ in the process o configuration. 227 Between the Scylla o speechlessness and the Charybdis o commercially manipulated language, configuration appears to the young Adorno (in the 1930s) as a solution, as a possibility to endow philosophical subjectivity with language: ‘Compared with the traditional words and a speechless subjective intention, configuration is a third option.’228 Adorno, the essayist, may have revived this early notion o ‘configuration’ when writing his posthumously published Aesthetic Teory . Te paratactic order underlying his last major work is a kind o configuration and is at the same time related to Hölderlin’s ‘parataxis’ or ‘serial technique’ (‘reihendes Verahren’), 229 as Adorno describes it. About the paratactic composition o Hölderlin’s poems he writes: ‘Hölderlin is irresistibly drawn to such constructions. Te transormation o language into serial order whose elements are linked differently than in the judgment is music-like.’230 Tese remarks are highly relevant to his Aesthetic Teory which is indebted to Hölderlin by its paratactic, associative structures. 231 However, theory is not poetry, and all attempts to bring about a rapprochement between theory and art, attempts anticipated by the Dialectic o Enlightenment , turn out to be sel-contradictory. Tey lead to the paradox o a non-theoretical theory. Tis danger was clearly recognized by Gretel Adorno and Rol iedemann, the editors o Aesthetic Teory . In their aferword, they also mention the link between the paratactic composition and the individuum ineffabile: ‘A theory, however, that is sparked by the individuum ineffabile, that wants to make amends to the unrepeatable, the nonconceptual, or what identiying thought inflicts on it, necessarily comes into conflict with the abstractness to which, as theory, it is compelled.’ 232 It is certainly one o Adorno’s merits to have developed the Young Hegelian, romantic and Nietzschean critique o Hegel in the sense o a negative dialectic. He gave this critique a particularizing bias without, however, renouncing conceptuality. Te crucial role o the concept is confirmed in his Negative Dialectics: ‘Concepts alone can achieve what concept prevents.’233 Tis is one good reason or reusing to read Adorno as a poststructuralist or to count him among those postmodern thinkers who doubt the necessity o concepts. He is nevertheless a precursor o postmodern thinking by virtue o rejecting the system and a mythical History to which Hegelians and Marxists tend to sacrifice the individual subject. Tose who light-heartedly call Adorno a Neo-Marxist seem to ignore this act. Te questionable character o the Neo-Marxist label is made clear in Negative Dialectics where Adorno blames Marx and Engels or ‘deiying history’.234
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In this particular respect, Adorno agrees with Camus’s critique o Sartre and the latter’s adhesion to the Hegelian-Marxist notion o history. Tis critique is articulated most clearly in L’Homme révolté (1951): a book severely attacked by Jeanson (in Sartre’s name) in Les emps modernes (c. Chapter I, 2, a). Like Camus, Adorno rejects the incorporation o the individual subject into an actantial and narrative scheme where it is made subservient to a powerul mythical or collective addresser and to an historical teleology. In contrast to Sartre, who, in the 1960s, considers Marxism as ‘the unsurpassable philosophy o our time’ (c. Chapter I, 2, a), Adorno sees the individual subject as standing outside o all teleologies. o him, it appears as the basis and the last chance o critical thought. By deending ‘the non-identity o subject and object’ 235 against Hegel he lays the oundations or a critical distance and a negative critique, both o which are only conceivable on an individual level. Only the individual subject, who does not identiy with an historical orce such as the World Spirit, the nation or the proletariat, can maintain a critical distance towards all ideologies and at the same time deend the autonomy o thought. Te value o Adorno’s theory consists – among other things – in its reusal to accept the Marxist submission o the individual subject to mythical or collective instances and in its emphasis on the decisive role o individual criticism: ‘In view o the collective powers, which in the contemporary world are usurping the world spirit, the general and rational is better looked afer by the isolated individual than by the stronger battalions which have abandoned the generality o reason in a docile manner.’236 In contrast to the dominant powers, most o which present their particular interests as universally valid, the individual subject is still capable o ‘perceiving the negativity o the administered world (verwaltete Welt)’ and o imagining a more human one.237 Parallel to this train o thought, Adorno considers a critical artist such as Paul Valéry as the deputy o ‘the total social subject’. 238 By resisting the commercialized communication o the rapidly developing culture industry, his poetry reveals the pernicious character o the latter and produces a work o art that demands utmost concentration rom the reader, thus projecting ‘a figure o the subject who is aware and in control o himsel, a figure o the person who does not capitulate’. 239 Adorno differs rom all Marxists and neo-Marxists by the permanent orientation o his thought towards the individual subject, whom he sees as the final critical instance, both in philosophical or aesthetic and in socio-political matters. Unlike Lucien Goldmann, a disciple o Hegel, Marx and Lukács, who tried to replace the vanishing revolutionary proletariat with the highly diffuse ‘new working class’, with whom he identified his humanist brand o Marxism, Adorno reuses to identiy with a particular collective subject. Although he is perectly conscious o the impact o collective actors (norms, values) on philosophical discourses and artworks, he considers the individual subject as the last bastion o critical consciousness. Even the subject o Dialogical Teory (c. Chapter I, 1, d), which will be discussed in some detail in the last chapter in conjunction with dialogical subjectivity, is individual in character. Its search or new insights and truth is quite independent o the success or ailure o collective actants and o a mythical History. It nevertheless differs
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rom Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s theoretical subject inasmuch as it goes beyond a purely negative stance by insisting on the importance o alterity and dialogue (with the Other in the sense o Bakhtin). Te Critical Teory o the two Frankurt philosophers lacks the sel-reflexive and dialogical insight that pure negativity can yield a monologue – about ‘late capitalism’, the ‘approaching catastrophe’ and the ‘culture industry’ – that becomes insensitive to the truths o other theories. It may also become insensitive to the critical potential o political developments such as European integration, which points beyond ideological and metaphysical monologues (e.g. Fichte’s or Hegel’s) by virtue o its cultural and linguistic polyphony . In spite o this affi nity with certain political developments (c. Chapter V, 2), no identity will be postulated here between Dialogical Teory and particular social movements or agents. In the past, too many philosophers and scientists have allowed themselves to be blinded by their own political engagement. A theory cannot survive without ideological engagement and will always receive the odd impulse rom contemporary politics. However, the prevailing attitude o the theoretical subject will be critical ‘distance’240 in the sense o Norbert Elias. And this distance can also be considered in the light o Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s negativity (c. Chapter V, 2).
7 Adorno, Freud and Broch: Te ‘weakness o the I’, the ‘discontent in civilization’ and the ‘theory o mass hysteria’ ‘In many people it is already an impertinence to say “I” ’,241 notes Adorno in his Minima Moralia. Far rom being an elitist gesture, this sentence is a critical provocation that can best be understood in the context o Critical Teory. It relates the latter to the postmodern French critiques o subjectivity whose authors consider the individual subject (sometimes rightly) as an epiphenomenon o language (Lacan), as an ideological effect (Althusser) or as an ephemeral image o power constellations and structural constraints (Foucault). o them, it appears as a chimera o the nineteenth century which gradually begins to dissolve afer the end o existentialism. As in the works o the French thinkers, there are multiple reasons in Adorno’s theory or the disintegration or the submission o the individual subject. Sometimes Adorno dwells upon the supremacy o organizations (trusts, trade unions) in late capitalism, sometimes he shows how individuals all prey to reification and ideology. He reads Beckett’s Endgame as a parody o existentialist ideologies, most o which emphasize individual reedom without taking into account the organizational, communicative and economic constraints to which the individual subject succumbs. About Beckett’s drama he writes: ‘Te grimacing clowns, childish and bloody, into which Beckett’s subject is decomposed, are that subject’s historical truth.’ 242 And not existentialist heroism or that o socialist realism, one might add. Tis decomposition o the subject is not only brought about by mighty organizations, ideologies and commercialized media, but also by certain psychic mechanisms, some o which subtly suggest that conorming to the powers that be might be the best solution. In Te Authoritarian Personality , which he wrote together with Else FrenkelBrunswik, Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanord, Adorno describes how these
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mechanisms prompt the individual subject to submit to individual, collective or mythical authorities: to leaders, parties or myths.243 Much later, Adorno comments on these studies in an article about ‘Sexual aboos and Law oday’: One o the most palpable results o Te Authoritarian Personality was that persons with a character structure predisposing them to ollow totalitarian leaders were haunted by antasies o persecution o all that seemed sexually perverse to them and were generally haunted by wild sexual ideas which they rejected by projecting them onto out-groups. 244
Te complementary attitude in such cases is the narcissistic identification with the ingroup and its leaders. Tey usurp the ather-image o liberal capitalism that was dissociated rom the amily ather in late capitalism: In act, the individual psyche is secondary, superstructure, i you like, in view o the supremacy exercised by the actual social processes. Among the collective powers, which have replaced paternal authority, the ather- image survives, as Freud already noticed in Group Psychology and the Analysis o the Ego .245
Tis image attracts the narcissistic libido o powerless individual subjects who tend to identiy with a mighty leader or ather figure in order to increase their sel-esteem. Te empirical studies assembled in Te Authoritarian Personality show how the individual subject is dissolved in an ‘authoritarian syndrome’, how it submits to authorities and charismatic leaders. Te nine components o the authoritarian character mentioned by the authors illustrate what is meant: (a) conventionalism: a blind acceptance o middle-class values; (b) authoritarian submission: uncritical submissiveness vis-à-vis idealized authorities; (c) authoritarian aggression: the tendency to spot people who are likely to ignore conventional values; (d) antiintraception: rejection o the subjective imaginary; (e) superstition and stereotypy : a mythical belie in ate; () power and ‘toughness’ : thinking in terms o power relations; (g) destructiveness and cynicism : a generalized hostility towards the human; (h) projectivity : the disposition to believe in dangerous developments and conspiracies; (i) sex : an exaggerated interest in sexual matters.246 In conjunction with the ‘authoritarian personality’ the authors speak o a ‘sadomasochistic resolution o the Oedipus complex’.247 It is due to the act that the individual submits masochistically to a ather figure and sadistically expects an analogous submission rom his subordinates. In this social and psychic constellation, individual subjectivity is sacrificed. In Escape rom Freedom (1941), Erich Fromm describes how this happens: ‘Te different orms which the masochistic strivings assume have one aim: to get rid o the individual sel, to lose onesel ; in other words, to get rid o the burden o reedom.’248 Fromm’s analyses complete the studies published in Te Authoritarian Personality in the sense that they expose the historical and religious causes o submission and sel-abnegation, thereby establishing a link between a remote past and a totalitarian present.249
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Although critics o totalitarian systems such as Adorno, Horkheimer and Fromm deal primarily with problems o ascism, National Socialism and Stalinism, their research is by no means irrelevant to postmodern societies emerging afer the Second World War. For the various orms o nationalism that can be observed in different parts o the world are marked by the identification with the in-group analysed in Te Authoritarian Personality . More than anywhere else, this identification makes itsel elt in the world o sport, and Adorno’s remark concerning ootball continues to be relevant: ‘At each ootball match the indigenous population celebrates its own team in blatant disregard or the right to hospitality.’ 250 Te idea that this criticism will be treated as naive in contemporary society merely shows to what extent collective narcissism is taken or granted. Te ascination emanating rom narcissistically acting authoritarian leaders in totalitarian states may have diminished, especially since the personality o contemporary politicians exhausts itsel in the ephemeral images o television. Te postmodern situation is marked by a sustained effort o all participants in public communication – intellectuals, journalists and politicians – to invest their narcissistic libido in a mediabased image ormation. Te libidinally invested media image becomes a substitute or the ‘I’, which is no longer under the spell o a leader, but alls prey to anonymous mechanisms o commercialized culture. In the ourth chapter, this pseudo-subject o media culture will be dealt with in more detail in a sociological context. At this stage, it may be suffi cient to point out that Bourdieu’s comments on contemporary television confirm in many respects Adorno’s critique o authoritarian behaviour and reified communication: ‘ elevision is a universe where you get the impression that social actors – even when they seem to be important, ree, and independent, and even sometimes possessed o an extraordinary aura [. . .] – are the puppets o a necessity that we must understand, o a structure that we must unearth and bring to light. 251
It is the structure o a narcissistic libido projected onto a commercialized media image. Tis basic structure is analysed by Freud and his ollowers who believe that, in the course o analysis, patients transer their ego ideal onto the psychoanalyst. 252 Similarly, a Marxist-Leninist may project his ego ideal onto the party presidium, the ascist onto his duce and the media-dependent politician, journalist or intellectual onto his image on the V screen. In all o these cases, the illusion prevails that the narcissistic libido is being invested in a grandiose ego. In reality, the ego is systematically alienated rom itsel. It is the kind o alienation described by Freud in conjunction with the phenomenon o mass psychology: ‘A primary group o this kind is a number o individuals who have substituted one and the same object or their ego ideal and have consequently identified themselves with one another in their ego .’253 (Freud speaks o ‘primäre Masse’, not o ‘group’. Te translation is misleading, especially since in sociology ‘group’ and ‘mass’ are two very different concepts.) What matters in this case is not only the transer o the ego ideal onto narcissistically acting leaders, but also the libidinal identification o mass individuals with each other. In an industrial or postindustrial society marked by organic or unctional solidarity in the sense o the Durkheim School, this identification
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brings about mechanical solidarity (Durkheim), a solidarity based not on unctional interdependence but on similarity and affective proximity o the actors. It is an archaic and mythical solidarity that obliterates the complexity o human relations in late capitalism and that will always be welcomed by individuals with a penchant or simplification. Tis social context o mass psychology could be considered as a ‘relapse into primitive and archaic conditions’ and explains why Freud links the emergence o masses to a weakness o the ego ( Ichschwäche). In the case o mass individuals, he diagnoses a sense o diminished responsibility due to their submission to a leaderdominated collective and to the eruption o their irrational instincts. In conjunction with the mass he speaks o a ‘weakness o intellectual ability’ and a ‘lack o emotional restraint’.254 As a relapse into atavistic conditions, mass ormation combines the individual subject’s submission to a leader and a collective with its dissolution in affectivity and primitive drives. It might be possible to read the entire discourse o Freudian psychoanalysis as a permanent oscillation o the subject between the pole o cultural submission and the pole o dissolution in sexual drives. In this perspective, the submission and dissolution o the subject in the mass would appear as a short-circuiting o the two poles in a social state o emergency which threatens to become permanent. It goes without saying that Freud had a strong aversion towards this eclipse o individual subjectivity in mass hysteria and that he saw it as one o the basic tasks o psychoanalysis to strengthen the position o the ego between the cultural super- ego and the id. One o his aims was to limit the exaggerated moral demands o culture and at the same time keep the destructive tendencies o the id at bay. His analyses in Civilization and its Discontents show how precarious a weakening o the cultural mechanisms o control can be: Te substitution o the power o a united number or the power o a single man is the decisive step towards civilization. Te essence o it lies in the circumstance that the members o the community have restricted their possibilities o gratification, whereas the individual recognized no such restrictions. 255
All this sounds amiliar, or it reminds the English reader o Hobbes, who eared nothing more than a relapse o potentially anti-social individuals into the state o nature and the ensuing bellum omnium contra omnes . His introductory remarks to the second part o Leviathan (‘O Commonwealth’) cast light upon the historical context in which Freud approved o the individual’s submission to cultural constraints: Te finall Cause, End, or Designe o men, (who naturally love Liberty, and Dominion over others,) in the introduction o that restraint upon themselves, (in which we see them live in Common- wealths,) is the oresight o their own preservation, and o a more contented lie thereby; that is to say, o getting themselves out rom that miserable condition o Warre, which is necessarily consequent [. . .] to the naturall Passions o men. 256
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Like Freud, several centuries later, Hobbes seeks to avoid a relapse into the state o nature and its passions. A relapse o this kind is also perceived as a danger in Freud’s psychoanalysis where the id appears as an imponderable and threatening orce o nature. Early on, Tomas Mann recognized in the threatened ego an appendage o the id: ‘It is a small, advanced, enlightened and vigilant part o the “Id” – in more or less the same way as Europe is a bright province o the vast Asian continent.’ He adds a quotation rom Freud: ‘Te Ego is “that part o the Id which was modified by the proximity and the influence o the outside world”.’257 Te actantial model underlying all o these considerations has roughly the ollowing structure: on an inra-individual level, the ego is instructed by two antagonistic addressers to realize two incompatible programmes. In contrast to the super-ego, which uses all o its moral influence in order to make the ego realize the programme ‘culture’, the id mobilizes all the drives at its disposal in order to make the ego realize the programme ‘nature’. It is difficult or the ego to break out o this aporetic constellation marked by permanent conflict. Only in a situation imbued with mass hysteria does the individual subject succeed in reconciling the conflicting demands and in realizing both programmes simultaneously: by projecting its narcissistic libido onto a charismatic leader who usurps its ego ideal and its autonomy as a subject. In this exceptional situation, the subject can conorm to the cultural norms o a particular historical moment by projecting its ego ideal onto a collective led by a charismatic leader and at the same time release its drives and aggressions. It may thus temporarily avoid the ‘discontent in civilization’. Eventually, it may all prey to the kind o depression experienced, afer 1945 and 1989, by many ascists, National Socialists and communists who were conronted by the collapse o their totalitarian systems and by the revival o Christian, democratic and liberal values. However, this does not change the act that in ‘mass hysteria’ or ‘Massenwahn’ (in the sense o Hermann Broch) the two enemy addressers super ego and id can make peace at ego’s expense. Tis peace usually marks the beginning o a barbarian era. It is a development Hermann Broch warned against at the same time as Freud and Adorno. Teir writings reveal to what extent modernism, as a sel-critical reassessment o modernity and its rationalist or Hegelian notions o subjectivity, considers the autonomy o the individual subject with scepticism. Te intention o the three thinkers to deend this autonomy is beyond doubt, but the question remains whether their liberal and individualist project can be realized, especially since the writer, the psychoanalyst and the philosopher discover substantial economic, social and psychic obstacles which block the individual subject’s emancipation. In the postmodern era, these obstacles seem to have taken on daunting dimensions. While Adorno and Freud consider the dangers inherent in reification, mass organization, ideology and mass hysteria, Broch relates the ‘disintegration o values’ (‘Zerall der Werte ’) to the disintegration o the individual subject in mass hysteria. Starting rom the idea o social differentiation, he shows in the third novel o his trilogy Te Sleepwalkers how the division o labour estranges the different systems o values rom each other: ‘Like strangers they exist side by side, an economic valuesystem o “good business” next to an aesthetic one o l’art pour l’art , a military code o
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values side by side with a technical or an athletic, each autonomous, each “in and or itsel ”.’258 In a similar perspective, and reerring to Schiller, Georg Lukács asks in History and Class Consciousness how ‘man having been socially destroyed, ragmented and divided between different partial systems is to be made whole again in thought’ .259 None o the modernist thinkers has an answer to this pressing question. However, all o them seem to agree that the accelerating process o social differentiation and ragmentation, analysed in detail by the sociologist Georg Simmel,260 decisively contributes to the decline o the individual subject. Tis decline is not only due to specialization and ragmentation, both o which prevent the subject rom considering the whole; it is also due to the ambivalence o values that prevails between the autonomous social systems. For the central and uncontested value o one system may lose its unction and its prestige in another. On a ootball pitch, a poet sadly resembles Baudelaire’s helpless albatross afer its orced landing on a ship’s deck. Tis ambivalence o values between systems can turn into an indifference o values and value judgements as soon as it becomes clear that no encompassing, universally valid system (religion, ideology) exists that would be beyond relativity and contestation. About Huguenau, the value-indifferent character o the Sleepwalker trilogy, Broch writes that his thinking is beyond Good and Evil. In his rationalist world, there are no sinners, at best harmul individuals. 261 In this kind o world, political, ethical or aesthetic orientations become increasingly problematical because the subject lacks the relevance criteria (c. Chapter I, 1, c) which are always based on a particular system o values. Lack o orientation due to social differentiation, ragmentation and ambivalence is one o the causes o ‘sleepwalking’ (Broch) and the disintegration o the subject in mass hysteria. Broch deals with a actor neglected by Freud when he shows how the traditional cultural superego is weakened by the social division o labour and overpowered by nature in mass hysteria. About the ‘sleepwalking’ individual he writes in his Massenwahntheorie: ‘His vegetative-animal nature has gained the upper hand within him, and whatever he thinks, plans or undertakes, actively or just in his imagination, with a riendly or hostile attitude towards his environment, it invariably descends into the instinctual sphere.’ 262 In other words, the instinctual nature (Freud’s id) overpowers the ego within the individual subject and nips any rational impulse pointing beyond existing conditions in the bud. Tis subject’s world is marked by a one-dimensional outlook in the sense o Marcuse. Elsewhere in Massenwahntheorie, a relationship between mass hysteria and the crisis o values is postulated: ‘Te individual lives under the spell o a multitude o independent subsystems, each o which pretends to be absolutely valid. Te consequence is a hypertrophy o deductive values and a concomitantly growing mass hysteria.’ 263 Te rif within a subject conronting rival value systems weakens his superego and makes him all prey to demagogues or (more recently) to the spell o the media. He may join a tightly organized group – a party, sect or movement – in order to escape rom reedom (in the sense o Fromm) and rom personal responsibility. (It seems odd that Niklas Luhmann, who mapped out a complex theory o social systems, avoids a dialogue with Broch and renounces the concept o subject instead o examining the
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impact o social or systemic differentiation on individual subjectivity. In the ourth chapter, this problem will be discussed in detail.) Like most modernist critics o modernity, such as Freud and Adorno, Broch reuses to disavow the liberal and individualist concepts o subjectivity and autonomy. In Te Sleepwalkers, his narrator expresses the hope that the ‘sleepwalking’ subject o late modernity will finally wake up. He speaks o a ‘longing or awaking [or: resurrection]’: ‘Sehnsucht nach Erweckung’.264 Tis longing also inspires Critical Teory with hope.
8 Te crisis o the subject in the literature o modernism: Nature and contingency as menace and liberation Te ollowing analyses take up some o Adorno’s, Freud’s and Broch’s arguments and at the same time return to the third part o this chapter: especially to Friedrich Teodor Vischer’s critique o Hegel. Long beore the modernist writers, long beore Proust, Musil, Svevo and Pirandello, the Young Hegelian philosopher-writer discovered the repressive eatures o systematic thought and noted – as a disciple o Hegel – that the master o idealism had not succeeded in reconciling mind and nature, subject and object. Te fictive notes o his hero Einhart could be read as preliminaries to a philosophy o contingency that queries subjectivity as an unshakable oundation and pure reason. Te idea that philosophy might one day master nature’s whims and contingencies is commented on with irony: In the endless activity o people trying to cope with chance, there are mysterious laws at work which the philosophy o history has tried to investigate without much success [. . .]. Tere is not much we can do; we can only accept what there is; there is only one consolation: i the blind laws o nature are meant to bring orth unending lie and endless well-being, then, inevitably, they will also have to demand sacrifice.265
In view o this undamental ambivalence o nature underlying the problematic o modernism, individual subjectivity appears as an ambivalent instance oscillating between nature and culture, and its uture seems uncertain. Te hero o Vischer’s novel anticipates a late modern or modernist era when he notes that the thinkers o antiquity ‘were not really amiliar with the spectre o the “I” ’266 and then expresses doubts concerning the ‘I’: ‘Whenever I think about the “I” at night, in my bed, beore alling asleep, I can very well imagine that it can drive you crazy.’267 Here, he not only broaches one o Proust’s avourite topics: a person’s multiple character between day and dream, but anticipates the doubts o many modernist writers who would like to save the individual subject and at the same time grapple with Ernst Mach’s dictum that ‘the “I” is irretrievably lost’. Like Vischer – and much later Adorno – modernist novelists such as Musil continue the Young Hegelian critique o Hegel whenever they reveal the repressive aspects o Hegel’s system and look or non-systematic ways o writing. In Musil’s ragmentary
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novel Te Man without Qualities, an anti-systematic, essayistic and ragmentary text in the sense o Vischer’s Auch Einer , the reader encounters a critique o systematic thought that is characteristic o modernism. Te attitude o the novel’s hero is ironically commented on by Musil’s narrator: ‘He was no philosopher, philosophers are violent and aggressive persons who, having no army at their disposal, bring the world into subjection to themselves by means o locking it up in a system.’ 268 Not only the world and nature are conquered by the system, but even the individual subject itsel – although it is responsible or the systematic construction (as Kierkegaard and Sartre have shown in conjunction with Hegel). Tis is why Musil – in this respect similar to Adorno – hopes that essayistic thinking and writing will guarantee a certain reedom o the subject vis-à-vis its objects: It was approximately in the way that an essay, in the sequence o its paragraphs, takes a thing rom many sides without comprehending it wholly – or a thing wholly comprehended instantly loses its bulk and melts down into a concept – that he believed he could best survey and handle the world and his own lie. 269
Tis ‘reedom vis-à-vis the object’ thus appears to Musil as an alternative to systematic domination over objects and nature. His solution is ambivalent insoar as it makes inner and outer nature appear as a contingent orce deying rationality and conceptual thought. Te extent to which nature breaks through the cultural layer o society becomes clear in Musil’s work whenever the writer comments on the unconscious, on neurosis and madness in a context dominated by incest myths and by Ulrich’s and Agathe’s revolt against the incest taboo. 270 Te basic difference between culture and nature is called into question by this revolt, and culture as a structured system becomes uncertain, as was pointed out by Derrida in conjunction with Lévi-Strauss’s structural anthropology.271 Te difference turns out to be problematical in social and linguistic situations in which ambivalence as insuperable unity o opposites is the rule . In such situations, the individual subject appears as an irreconcilable coexistence o nature and culture, consciousness and unconscious drives, necessity and contingency, moral attitudes and immoral instincts. At the same time the ambivalence o values, announced by Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil and analysed on different levels in literary modernism, becomes a generally recognized act. It bears witness to the crisis o the entire system o values, but at the same time opens up critical and ironical perspectives, especially in the works o Broch, Musil, Svevo and Pirandello. In Broch’s Te Sleepwalkers, the ideologist Esch rejects modernist ambivalence and nostalgically insists on clarity: ‘Nothing was clear and simple, thought Esch in anger, nothing was clear and simple, even on a lovely spring day like this.’ 272 Here it becomes clear how univocal definitions and dualistic perspectives contribute to the constitution o ideological subjectivity which excludes ambivalence. Te latter is considered as an acute menace by Esch because he eels that it threatens the cohesion o his ego and his ability to take decisions and act. He only eels at home in ideological dualism and its pseudo-subjectivity.
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However, ideologies are exposed to erosion in a market society dominated by the indifference o the exchange value and torn by ideological strie. While the exchange value suggests that all ideological values are irrelevant in the marketplace, the warring ideological groups eventually destroy what they are fighting or: the rule o ideology. Tis scenario is completed by the indifferent or hostile coexistence o value systems described by Broch. ogether with the ideological conflicts and the exchange value they contribute to the increase o ambivalence until it turns into indifference. 273 Te act that the ambivalence o values can inhibit action is recognized – parallel to Broch’s hero Esch – by Musil’s Diotima, whose behaviour is commented on ironically by the narrator: ‘Every time when Diotima had almost decided in avour o one such idea, she could not help noticing that it would also be a great thing to give reality to the opposite o it.’274 It is obvious that this kind o reasoning can lead to the conclusion that all values and value judgements are interchangeable, indifferent. Te writers o modernism do not draw this conclusion because they know that social values are the basis o a subjectivity they do not wish to renounce. Tis is one reason why Italo Svevo’s Zeno Cosini keeps asking himsel: ‘Am I good or bad?’ 275 His question leads to the critical and ironical insight into the ambivalence o his own personality, an ambivalence investigated simultaneously by Freud’s psychoanalysis. Tis ambivalence produces an ironical and sel-ironical discourse or which the ollowing sentence is particularly characteristic: ‘I can account mysel a good observer, though a rather blind one.’276 In Musil’s case, ambivalence also yields a critical, ironical and sel-ironical discourse geared towards his well-known definition o irony: Irony is: to describe a clerically minded person in such a way that the description also fits a Bolshevik, to describe an idiot in such a way that the author suddenly eels: in some respects, this is also me. Tis kind o irony – constructive irony – is virtually unknown in contemporary Germany. 277
It is – quite rightly – defined as ‘constructive’ because it does not simply ocus on the weaknesses o the other, but leads to a sel-criticism conducive to a dialogical attitude and a better comprehension o others and their alterity. Te last chapter will set out rom this modernist ambivalence underlying a dialogical subjectivity. As might be expected, this ambivalence is a double-edged weapon combining crisis and critique and threatening the sel-critical subject with disintegration. Tis kind o ambivalence is – as was shown earlier on – an aspect o the crisis o values and an aspect o critical irony. It can be used against our interlocutors, but can also turn against ourselves – as Musil’s example shows. Many literary works o modernism illustrate the relationship between ambivalence and the disintegration o the individual subject: a relationship marked by critical and sel-critical components, most o which were analysed by romantic philosophers and writers. Sandro M. Moraldo casts light on both the creative and the destructive aspects o ambivalence when he explores the world o the double who becomes a central literary figure during the transition278 rom romanticism to modernism: ‘Te individual seeks to realize and develop the diverse possibilities inherent in his personality. Te
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double thus becomes a projection surace or his unrealized wishes and desires.’ 279 Within the context o ambivalence, possibilities o experiencing lie are perceived that would be inconceivable within an ideological dualism in the sense o ‘either – or’. However, this reedom, which implies an increasing critical potential, is accompanied by the danger o disintegration: Te abyss o the unconscious opens. Man, in his individual particularity, turns into a problem or himsel; he loses his psychic equilibrium, as it were. On the one hand, he appears as a construct o contradictory poles; on the other hand, he recognizes ‘le sue multiple identità [. . .] la sua disidentità’, which shatter his illusion o being identical with himsel. 280
Tis disintegration o the subject, which reaches its climax in Giampaolo Lai’s Disidentità (1988) (quoted by Moraldo), is most pronounced in modernism where ambivalence as a coincidence o opposites dominates the entire problematic and makes the question concerning the identity o the individual subject move to the centre o the scene. Later on, the transition rom ambivalence to indifference and the parallel development o a postmodern literature relegate this question to the periphery o the problematic. In this postmodern situation, many come to regard the subject as a proton pseudos o the liberal era or as an ideological chimera. In modernism, however, both the possibilities and the dangers o the subject’s multiplicity are taken into account and analysed in different contexts. Pirandello, or example, is interested in the alterity within the subject, in the stranger we house within ourselves: ‘How could I bear this outsider inside me? Tis outsider that I was or mysel?’281 Such questions are provoked by a repressed or ignored alterity and, rom Pirandello’s Te Late Mattia Pascal (orig. 1904) onwards, lead to the assumption that the ‘I’ is a human invention or construction: ‘I was nothing other than an imaginary man now.’282 Tis question is raised again, albeit with greater urgency, by Pirandello’s narrator in One, No One and One Hundred Tousand (orig. 1926). He concludes that the subject is a chimera that changes rom observer to observer like the image in a kaleidoscope. In the eyes o each observer I am somebody else.283 In a complementary ashion, the narrator o Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwol (orig. 1927) speaks o ‘the illusion o the unity o the personality’.284 Tis incredulity towards the subject’s stable identity anticipates the disintegration o the subject in the ‘Magic Teatre’ where the multiplicity o the ‘I’ that results rom the ambivalent, conflictridden coexistence o wol and man is seen as a liberation: ‘He held a glass up to me and again I saw the unity o my personality broken up into many selves whose number seemed even to have increased.’285 In Steppenwol , as in the novels o Svevo and Proust, this disintegration o the ‘I’ is linked to the unconscious, and Hesse’s ‘Magic Teatre’ could be considered as a metaphor o the unconscious. In this ‘theatre’ the social persona (Jung) is treated as the ‘mask o an actor’286 and cast aside so as to reveal the ‘inner lie’ o the subject: its repressed drives, antasies and desires. ‘You have no doubt guessed long since that the conquest o time and the escape rom reality, or however it may be that you choose to describe your longing, means simply the wish to be relieved o your so- called
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personality’,287 explains Pablo to Harry Haller beore the latter’s unconscious opens up beore his eyes and he contemplates the hal-orgotten images o his desire. In some respects, the involuntary memory in Marcel Proust’s Recherche appears as an analogon to Hesse’s ‘Magic Teatre’, especially in Le emps retrouvé where the social world o the intellect and o witty talk is subordinated to the artist’s instinct, the instinct artistique . Since Contre Sainte-Beuve, Proust doubts the authenticity o social intellect and intellectual conversation and seeks a solution in the unconscious world o an involuntary memory unctioning beyond the intellect’s social control. 288 At this level, he encounters Musil who would like to locate literary writing beyond conventional consciousness. More explicitly than Proust, the Austrian novelist doubts the validity o established syntax – in spite o his critique o psychoanalysis: As long as one continues to think in sentences with a ull stop, certain things cannot be said – only vaguely elt. However, it might be possible to learn to express things in such a way as to open up and understand perspectives which today are still located at the threshold o the unconscious. 289
Musil’s and Proust’s novels open such perspectives which are later on extended and clarified by the surrealists. In his psychoanalytic study ‘La Rhétorique du rêve. Swann et la psychanalyse’, Michel Grimaud even seeks to show ‘to what extent all o Proust unctions like a dream’.290 On a structural and narrative level, Gérard Genette confirms this hypothesis when he insists on the associative (Adorno would say: ‘paratactic’) order o Proust’s novel because it obeys the associative laws o dreams rather than the deductive principles o narrative syntax. He speaks o the ‘multiplicity o reminiscing instances’ and the ‘multiplicity o beginnings’. 291 Tis ‘multiplicity o beginnings’ is also a salient eature o Musil’s novel which begins with the hero’s ‘three attempts to become a amous man’. Like Proust’s Recherche, it doubts the validity o narrative syntax and its causality, both o which are a result o conscious construction. It explores in an essayistic manner the possibilities o associative writing that lie beyond the consciousness and the intelligence o everyday lie. With their exploratory sorties into the realm o the unconscious and the dream, the modernist novels o Hesse, Proust and Musil revive Vischer’s meditations about the ‘spirit’s indebtedness to nature’ and at the same time anticipate surrealist writing with its orientation towards the unconscious, the objet trouvé and the hasard objecti . In the case o Proust, or example, chance (a kind o hasard objecti avant la lettre ) guarantees the authenticity o involuntary memory and its link to the unconscious: ‘But it was precisely the ortuitous and inevitable ashion in which this and the other sensations have been encountered that proved the trueness o the past which they brought back to lie.’292 Te revival o the subject’s past is thus linked to the unconscious mechanisms o involuntary memory. Similarly, in Hesse’s novel an almost surrealist chance prevails in the scenes o the ‘Magic Teatre’. In an unconscious scene reminiscent o Musil’s ‘allocentric state’, the conscious ‘I’ abdicates and alls prey to contingency. In the ‘Great Automobile Hunt’, the kind o ‘arbitrariness’293 mentioned by Breton in Les Pas perdus gains the upper hand: ‘ “Are you shooting everyone, without distinction?” “Certainly. In many cases it
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may no doubt be a pity. I am sorry, or example, about this charming young lady. Your daughter, I presume”.’294 At this point it becomes clear that no rigid opposition should be postulated between modernism and the avant-garde (surrealism). For modernists such as Proust and Hesse develop avant-garde mechanisms whenever they locate the unconscious and its contingency, both relegated to the periphery by Hegelians, classicists and realists, at the centre o the problematic. Following Astradur Eysteinsson, the avant-garde should thereore be considered as an aspect o the modernist problematic.295 Surrealists such as Breton and Soupault agreed with the modernists on one crucial point: they also set out to ree the individual subject rom the constraints o convention, ideology and a rationalist tradition. Tey never intended – as Sartre argues in What is Literature? (c. supra) – to dissolve subjectivity, but tried to lay bare the unconscious layers o personality because they believed that these were the authentic (non-conventional, non-manipulated) substrata o subjectivity. Tis is why Gisela Steinwachs is right in speaking, in conjunction with surrealism, o a ‘re-transormation o culture into nature’. 296 o Breton, the liberation o the individual subject appears as an escape rom cultural conventions and as a liberation o nature in man. Te act that surrealism did not plan a dissolution o the subject becomes clear in Point du jour where Breton confirms that his movement intended to ‘uniy personality’: ‘le surréalisme ne se propose rien moins que d’unifier cette personnalité’. 297 With this project Breton continues the efforts o Lautréamont, Rimbaud and Freudian psychoanalysis. However, his project is as ambivalent as that o the other writers or that o Freud who would like to relax the controls o the super-ego, but at the same time unleashes unconscious orces, which threaten the ‘I’ as a product o culture. Tis ambivalence o psychoanalysis (and the avant-garde) was noticed early on by D. H. Lawrence, who saw in the ‘re-transormation o culture into nature’ an acute threat to society: ‘Psychoanalysis is out, under a therapeutic disguise, to do away entirely with the moral aculty in man. [. . .] At every step the most innocent and unsuspecting analyst starts a little landslide. Te old world is yielding under us.’ 298 In Breton’s case, the problem spotted by Adorno and Sartre in different contexts is an undialectical conrontation o subject and society. Te surrealist overlooks the act that this subject can only be understood as a socialized instance. Te undamental contradiction underlying surrealism and other modernist currents seems to be the aporetic search or purely individual values. Christian Kellerer noticed this when he discovered in surrealism an antinomy between individual and collective symbols: Insoar as the individual symbols are ofen complex images, which have nothing to do with collective and cultural values and requently even contradict them, they separate the individual rom the collective consciousness by endowing it with an individual world o values that is ofen very different rom that o the collective. 299
Tis assessment is confirmed by Michel Carrouges, who speaks o a surrealist dédoublement that yields a supra-social observer who looks at the world with distance and irony.300 In their efforts to distance themselves rom social and cultural reality,
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the surrealists agree with modernists such as Proust, Hesse and Camus301 who tend to preer the unconscious, the contingent and the natural to cultural convention. However, modernist writers differ substantially in their attitudes towards the conflict between nature and culture. While it may be possible to trace a development rom Proust and Hesse to surrealism that is marked by the literary unconscious, the ‘artist’s instinct’ (Proust), chance and oneiric objects (Proust’s madeleine, his pavés inégaux and his serviette empesée),302 it is equally possible to observe the opposite development in the case o authors such as Kaa and Sartre. Unlike Proust, Hesse and the surrealists, these two modernists consider the sphere o nature not as a world o reedom but as a menace to subjectivity. Tey would have reacted with scepticism or even aversion to Hesse’s Nietzschean pact with nature that is so prominent in his short novel Kurgast : ‘As long as martens still existed, the scent o a primeval world, instinct and nature, the world was still possible or a poet, even beautiul and ull o promise.’303 In Kaa’s work, the other side o modernist nature appears: nature as man’s relapse into animality, as cretinism and a catastrophe that threatens the cultural order and, along with it, the oundations o individual subjectivity. Te enlightenment zeal that motivates Joseph K. clashes with the naturalness o a world inhabited by non-rational, animal-like individuals whose sexuality ofen assumes animal connotations. When Joseph K. discovers that Leni, the advocate’s mistress, has a ‘connecting membrane’ between her fingers (like water-birds on their eet), he exclaims: ‘What a reak o nature!’ and adds: ‘What a pretty claw!’304 Te connotations o this scene are clearly negative, especially since Leni’s intentions are purely sexual and devoid o emotions. In Sartre’s work, as in Kaa’s, nature, contingency and chance are more likely to cause a depression than a Proustian or surrealist euphoria. In La Nausée, it is the contingency o nature-bound existence that is responsible or the hero’s attacks o nausea.305 Like Kaa and Lawrence, Sartre ears nothing more than a surrealist ‘retransormation o culture into nature’. Tis explains his early rejection o psychoanalysis (c. Chapter II, 5). Te ambivalence o modernism, illustrated by the contradictory attitudes o its writers towards nature, is due to the act that these writers recognize the constraints inherent in the ‘discontent in civilization’, but at the same time become aware o the act that the unconscious, the impulses o instinct and the contingencies o nature, can threaten individual subjectivity. Tis danger is not perceived by all o them in the same way, and authors such as Proust, Hesse or Breton tend to consider natural actors as stimulants o creativity. In this context, the late modern subject appears as an ambivalent unit torn between culture and nature. Tis inner conflict is mainly due to the numerous modernist attempts to remove the individual subject rom the transcendental actantial model. As long as the presence o a divine addresser seemed beyond doubt, even nature and its contingencies could be integrated into the (narrative) programme o this addresser. Afer the disintegration o this programme in the course o secularization, human nature and human culture drif apart because the contingencies and imponderables o the one negate the claim to absolute validity o the other. Te human mind as subject turns out to be mortal
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because it cannot survive the body, its material basis. Tis idealist skandalon, which Hegel tried to cover up systematically, breaks out as soon as it becomes clear that the spirit as individual subject no longer communicates with its divine addresser and no longer participates in his powers. In this situation, a completely new aspect o contingency becomes visible: its absurdity . Franz Jose Wetz comments: At one point the whole world appeared as a contingent act and was justified as such because it could rely on God’s choice and approval. At present it no longer appears as justified because it no longer has a oundation and a goal. Te act that everything could also be different and that it need not exist as such, proves, all things considered, that it might be better i it did not exist at all .306
However, the insight that the world could be different need not lead to the negation o everything or to sel-negation. It may also yield the project o a dialogical subjectivity based on the idea that the One and the Other, ego and alter, are inseparable and that the opposites o modernism ought to be linked dialectically. I it is true that ego as subject could not exist without its permanent interaction with alter, then the relations between culture and nature, consciousness and the unconscious, necessity and contingency should be considered in analogy to this interaction. Tis will be attempted – beyond all rationalist exclusions o nature, beyond Sartre’s ‘nausea’ and Breton’s experiments with the unconscious – in the last chapter.
9 From modernism to postmodernism: A Clockwork Orange Te ollowing is little more than an epilogue and a way o introducing the main issues o the next chapter. An attempt will be made to understand Anthony Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange (1962) as a transition phenomenon between the critical and selcritical subject o modernism and postmodernism’s sceptical view o subjectivity. In its descriptions o subjectivity as submission, Burgess’s text not only anticipates key arguments o Michel Foucault’s philosophy, but also heralds a postmodern literature that has abandoned the modernist question concerning individual autonomy because o its ‘metaphysical’ character. Which aspects o subjectivity are at stake in Burgess’s novel? Te short answer could be: it shows how the reedom o the individual subject is deended by a violence- prone peer group against a conormist post-war society dominated by market laws and consumerism. But this somewhat simpliying answer overlooks the dialectic o violence and domination inherent in this alienated and alienating text. For the subjectivity o the approximately fifeen-year-old narrator Alex, whose rebellious language seems to revive the picaresque tradition ( Moll Flanders, Lazarillo, Buscón), comes about by virtue o a rigid identification with his peer group. Troughout the novel this violent group unctions as a collective actant that expects rom its actors 307 obedience, discipline and submission. (In structural semiotics the actor is defined as an instance subordinate to the actant.)
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Although discipline and submission assume extreme orms in Burgess’s novel because they are reinorced by the violent character o the group and the hostility o its environment, they do confirm current sociological research on peer groups as socializing and uniying instances, ‘which “take over socialization”, create their own space o experience and thus intensiy the general tendency towards the ormation o homogeneous age groups’.308 Te conormism o the group, presented as solidarity by its members, diverges sharply rom general social conormism and turns out to be the crucial phenomenon. As a participating actor, the individual subject has to conorm to the ideology o the group and to sacrifice his identity to the collective actant. For the ollowing reasons Burgess’s novel is a symptom o the transition rom modernism to postmodernism. (1) It narrates the revolts o a violent group o youths, some o which can be linked to the revolts o modernism (e.g. Hesse’s) by virtue o their anti-bourgeois, arbitrary and avant-garde (uturist, surrealist) character. (2) It presents the peer group as an emerging socializing instance which did not exist in this orm beore the Second World War and which intensifies conormism and submission by introducing new pressures and constraints. (3) It highlights – even more clearly than Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Huxley’s Brave New World – the individual subject’s ideological malleability which Foucault and Althusser locate at the centre o philosophical debates. (4) It is nevertheless a modernist novel because it narrates the ailure o individual and collective emancipation and because it makes an individual rebel speak who challenges the establishment . Alex, the narrator, acts as an individual subject in the sense that he is eventually betrayed by his comrades-in-arms and handed over to society or its immediate representatives: the police, the psychiatric clinic, etc. owards the end o the novel, he still speaks his group’s jargon that is interspersed with pseudo-Russian vocabulary, but keeps pondering on his solitude between peer group, amily and society. From a postmodern point o view, the novel appears as a narrative about the impossibility o individual subjectivity and as a confirmation o the latter’s ideological character. In a late modern or modernist perspective, it could be read as the history o a collective revolt against a society marked increasingly by one-dimensionality and the decline o subjective reedom. Tis modernist reading is linked here to the concerns o Critical Teory and is based on the assumptions that the ‘second dimension o society’ (in the sense o Marcuse) should be made visible, that a critical theory o society will not renounce the concept o subject and that individual subjectivity is possible in spite o adverse conditions. A Clockwork Orange does reveal a ‘second dimension’ o social reality, albeit in an ironical light that is due to the adolescent character o the revolt. Te action is set in an English town at the end o the 1950s or at the beginning o the 60s. A handul o youngsters orm a gang and revolt against the established social order o the older generation by organizing protests ranging rom a simple punch-up to robberies and homicides. Teir solidarity is expressed in a group jargon sprinkled with Russian words, most o which have been adapted to English grammar and pronunciation. Tey use the language o the Soviet enemy, who is permanently condemned in the official media and their ideologies, in order to provoke their social environment to the utmost.
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Te narrator, who, together with his droogs (drug = riend), enjoys considerable public attention, comments: All this was gloopy and made me smeck, but it was like nice to go on knowing one was making the news all the time, O my brothers. Every day there was something about Modern Youth, but the best veshch they ever had in the old gazetta was by some starry pop in a doggy collar who said that in his considered opinion and he was govoreeting as a man o Bog I WAS HE DEVIL HA WAS ABROAD and was like erreting his way into like young innocent flesh, and it was the adult world that could take the responsibility or this with their wars and bombs and nonsense.309
Tis text can be read as a metonymy or synecdoche o the British social and linguistic situation o the 1960s. Te group language o the rebellious youth is inspired by a mythically enhanced Soviet Union (time and again reerred to as ‘Russia’ by riend and oe). It is permanently under fire rom different institutions o the establishment, all o which attack it as an instrument o the political enemy. Dr Branom, one o the clinic’s doctors, explains: ‘But most o the roots are Slav. Propaganda. Subliminal penetration.’310 Te narrator’s subjectivity is not entirely dissolved in his group’s solidarity although he remains aithul to its jargon, the nadsat talk. In the course o a robbery, he is betrayed to the police by his brothers or droogs and transerred to a uturistic clinic whose medical doctors and psychologists make violent youths undergo a ‘psychotechnical manipulation’ (Adorno) in an attempt to eradicate their anti-social drives. In order to attain this goal, they apply the notorious Ludovico-inusions and at the same time try to make the patient or victim associate classical music with unbearable violence. Tey have discovered the second dimension, which in Alex’s imagination points beyond the existing order: the (apparently) irreconcilable and violent music o Beethoven, Handel and Skadelig. Te narrator’s dream in his prison cell shows to what extent he associates his personal revolt against society with this kind o music: But it was not really like sleep, it was like passing out to another better world. And in this other better world, O my brothers, I was in like a big field with all flowers and trees, and there was a like goat with a man’s litso playing away on a like flute. And then there rose like the sun Ludwig van himsel with thundery litso and cravat and mixed-up wild and windy voloss, and then I heard the Ninth, last movement, with the slovos all a bit mixed-up like they knew themselves they had to be mixed-up, this being a dream: Boy, thou uproarious shark o heaven, Slaughter o Elysium, Hearts on fire, aroused, enraptured, We will tolchock you on the rot and kick your grahzny vonny bum. But the tune was right. 311
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It is not by chance that the nadsat talk, a language anticipating a utopian community, is linked to Schiller’s well-known text and to Beethoven’s symphony. Both negate the repressive social order by linguistic and aesthetic means. A sentence rom Adorno’s Philosophy o Modern Music casts light on the narrator’s attitude towards art: ‘Te inhumanity o art must triumph over the inhumanity o the world or the sake o the humane.’312 (Using nadsat , Burgess radicalized Schiller’s text substantially because he was well aware o the conciliatory, humanist tone o the ode – and probably also o Adrian Leverkühn’s radical criticism o Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Tomas Mann’s novel Doctor Faustus, orig. 1947.) Eventually, the inhumanity invoked by Adorno turns against the fictive author o A Clockwork Orange who appears in the novel as a floating figure between the worlds: Alex and his comrades break into his house, ill-treat him and his wie and destroy his manuscript. Te manipulating doctors, scientists and politicians in Burgess’s novel seem to be vaguely aware o this inhumanity whenever they try to nip the revolt o the youth and o art in the bud by applying new methods o domestication. Tey orce Alex to look at films about war and torture, in which a technically perect genocide is accompanied by Beethoven’s music: ‘Ten I noticed, in all my pain and sickness, what music it was that like crackled and boomed on the sound-track, and it was Ludwig van, the last movement o the Fifh Symphony, and I creeched like bezoomny at that. “Stop!” I creeched.’313 Alex’s protests against this abuse o classical music are met by Dr Brodsky’s – somewhat modernist – argument concerning the ambivalence o a culture that is inseparable rom the principle o domination. In some respects his argument anticipates deconstruction: ‘Delimitation is always diffi cult. Te world is one, lie is one. Te sweetest and most heavenly o activities partake in some measure o violence – the act o love, or instance.’314 Te entire humanist tradition, to which Beethoven’s compositions belong, seems to be impregnated with this kind o violence. At any time, as Merleau-Ponty points out in Humanisme et terreur (1947),315 it may serve as an instrument o domination. In A Clockwork Orange, the manipulators succeed at first in transorming a rebellious subject, who is gradually becoming aware o his linguistic and aesthetic potential, into a sub-iectum, a subjugated being. In the second hal o the novel, the word ‘subject’ is used exclusively in this negative sense which is reminiscent o Foucault’s philosophy: ‘At this stage, gentlemen, we introduce the subject himsel. He is, as you will perceive, fit and well nourished.’316 Dr Brodsky’s Mephistophelian arguments announce postmodern attitudes because they suggest that the subject is a result o successul manipulations (called socialization): ‘Our subject is, you see, impelled towards the good by, paradoxically, being impelled towards evil. Te intention to act violently is accompanied by strong eelings o physical distress. o counter these the subject has to switch to a diametrically opposed attitude. Any questions?’ 317 One o the questions rom the auditorium is motivated by ethical considerations and concerns the subject’s reedom o decision. Characteristically, Dr Brodsky and the minister o the interior answer that they are not interested in higher ethics because their top priority is ‘cutting down crime’ and ‘relieving the ghastly congestion o our prisons’. 318 Te new era knows neither subjectivity nor ethics.
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Te reader’s initial suspicion that the revolt o the narrator and his peer group is not directed against a peaceul society but against a social order marked by endemic violence is confirmed when Alex returns home rom the clinic. In the library o his native town, he is recognized and manhandled by some elderly people whom he had attacked in the past. He is unable to deend himsel because his aggressive drives are accompanied by ‘strong eelings o physical distress’. In view o the act that even the police are presented as a violent organization whose aggressive subculture differs rom that o the gang by virtue o its legality, one may conclude that Alex’s youthul revolt runs parallel to the negativity o the music he admires. Each o the two negates the omnipresent violence in its own way. Even members o the political opposition turn out to be unscrupulous, especially when they see an opportunity to discredit the minister o the interior and his government. Alex appears to them as a useul weapon in their war on the government: ‘What a superb device he can be’, 319 one o the opposition leaders exclaims in a perect imitation o Leninist jargon. However, Alex rejects the kind o submissive subjectivity the socialists would like to impose on him: ‘Stop treating me like a thing that’s like got to be just used. I am not an idiot you can impose on [. . .].’ 320 In the end one o them – his philanthropically acting host – recognizes in him the ruthless hooligan who in ormer days had so brutally ill-treated his wie that she died shortly aferwards. Te philanthropist plots revenge, locks Alex up in his room and puts on a record with Skadelig’s third symphony. In a mixture o pain and despair Alex jumps out o the window. Tis act o desperation is meant to appear as a suicide induced by the government’s policy and used or propaganda purposes by the opposition. However, Alex survives, is taken to a hospital, and the government succeeds in turning the tables on its detractors. Te vindictive humanist is arrested, and the minister o the interior parades at the sickbed o the misguided youth as the latter’s protector and riend: ‘ “When you leave here”, said the Min, “you will have no worries. We shall see to everything. A good job and a good salary. Because you are helping us”.’321 He gives him a stereo unit, and the narrator-hero listens to the Ninth Symphony, which violently announces reedom and happiness: When it came to the Scherzo I could viddy mysel very clear running and running on like very light and mysterious nogas, carving the whole litso o the creeching world with my cut-throat britva. And there was the slow movement and the last singing movement still to come. I was cured all right. 322
Tis convalescence is as ambivalent, however, as the Ninth Symphony, as the humanist tradition itsel in which it came about. Alex, whom the government offers a well-paid job in the National Gramodisc Archives, turns to romantic music and a romantic inwardness – very much like the post-revolutionary French and German bourgeoisie. He turns his back on his ormer comrades because he is lucid enough to realize that the peer group is also a power constellation: ‘Power power, everybody like wants power.’323 He decides to grow up and look or a wie like his ormer droog Pete. More than the Ludovico-inusions, which, together with the acoustic inusions
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administered by ‘Ludwig van’, make up the modernist ambivalence o the novel, inwardness, career and marriage contribute to his integration into the existing social order. Published in 1962, Burgess’s novel anticipates the ate o the 1968 generation which demanded the impossible and sought to destroy a social order it considered to be ated. At the same time, it anticipates a one-dimensional postmodernity whose proponents believe that they can do without (dangerous) utopias and a notion o subjectivity inherited rom ‘old-European thought’ (Luhmann). Te protagonists o many novels considered as postmodern can no longer imagine an alternative to the existing social order because, without realizing it, they have also undergone a psycho-technical treatment and are entirely determined by psychic and material actors. Tey are subjects in the sense o over-determination and submission. In their world, Alex’s sentence ‘Stop treating me like a thing’ is no longer conceivable because they have been turned into psycho-material mechanisms that can perceive others only in a mechanistic manner. One o the first postmodern heroes is probably Mathias in Alain Robbe-Grillet’s nouveau roman Le Voyeur (1955). Mathias is a traveller whose thinking and acting revolves exclusively around two activities located in the economic and the sexual sphere. He visits an island in order to sell its inhabitants as many watches as possible. At the same time, he is under the spell o a sexual obsession. He imagines raping a girl named Violette afer tying her to the ground with pegs and strings. Tis idea o a perect rape originates in an obsessive association or alliteration ( violer Violette) and corresponds to the equally obsessive idea o a perect sale: ‘Mathias tried to imagine this ideal sale that only took our minutes.’ 324 Tis analogy between economics and sexuality is reinorced by the phonetic proximity o the words voyageur – voyeur . Mathias’s world is one-dimensional in the sense that sel-reflection and a reflexive attitude towards his own thoughts and acts are completely unknown to him. Similarly, Grenouille in Patrick Süskind’s novel Perume (orig. 1985) is unable to reflect critically upon himsel and his world. Having been born ‘without a scent o his own’, he is dominated by the obsession o acquiring – i necessary by murder – a scent that makes him irresistible. It is not by chance that the narrator reers to him as ‘tick’: ‘Te tick had scented blood.’ 325 He behaves like a tick when he murders the first girl: ‘And afer he had smelled the last aded scent o her, he crouched beside her or a while, collecting himsel, or he was brimul with her.’326 In the end, he succeeds in getting hold o the perect perume, in becoming irresistible and in subjecting others to the determinism o scent. Tey turn into animal-like beings: ‘Te air was heavy with the sweet odour o sweating lust and filled with loud cries, grunts and moans rom ten thousand human beasts.’327 Te determining actors need not always be sexuality and smell. A tune can also become irresistible, as A Clockwork Orange shows. In Daniele Del Giudice’s short story ‘L’ orecchio assoluto’ (‘Te Absolute Ear’), published in his volume Mania in 1997, a melody predestines the hero to murder somebody. He hears the melody in the room o an Edinburgh hotel and is overcome by ‘an extremely lucid and irresistible urge to kill somebody’.328 Afer a relatively short search, he finds his victim. Is it an acte gratuit in the sense o Gide? By no means, rather an acte déterminé : something very different
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rom Gide’s attempt to make his hero act independently o all determinants and conventions. Tis search or a world beyond established conventions and determinisms seems to be lacking in postmodern literature whose authors have renounced modernist utopias or relegated them to the outskirts o their problematic. However, this problematic is not co-extensive with the works o Robbe-Grillet, Süskind or Giudice. It also made the experimental works o Tomas Pynchon and Jürgen Becker possible – or the more readable novels o authors such as John Fowles ( Te French Lieutenant’s Woman , 1969) or Umberto Eco. It may even admit some collective utopias in the sense o ecological (Ernest Callenbach), eminist or eco-eminist (Marge Piercy) movements.329 Nevertheless, its protagonists have abandoned the vision o ‘this other better world’ which is central in Burgess’s novel. Te idea underlying the ollowing chapters can be summed up in a ew words: without the critical notion o a ‘better world’ and the complementary notion o a ‘second dimension’, the subject as a critical instance and source o criticism is bound to disappear.
Notes 1 W. Schulz, Ich und Welt. Philosophie und Subjektivität , Pullingen, Neske, 1979, p. 13. 2 Te relationship between Nietzsche and German Romanticism is discussed by T. Meyer, Nietzsche. Kunstauffassung und Lebensbegriff , übingen-Basel, Francke, 1991, pp. 300–2. 3 S. Kierkegaard, Te Concept o Irony with Continual Reerence to Socrates – together with Notes o Schelling’s Berlin Lectures, Princeton, Univ. Press, 1989, p. 223, 4 M. Dornberg, Gewalt und Subjekt. Eine kritische Untersuchung zum Subjektbegriff in der Philosophie J.-P. Sartres, Würzburg, Königshausen und Neumann, 1989, p. 17. 5 . W. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, Dialectic o Enlightenment , London-New York, Verso, 1997, p. 54. 6 . W. Adorno, Aesthetic Teory , London, Te Athlone Press, 1997, p. 331. 7 C. P. V. Zima, Essay / Essayismus. Zum theoretischen Potenzial des Essays: Von Montaigne bis zur Postmoderne, Würzburg, Königshausen und Neumann, 2012, chap. VI. 8 . W. Adorno, Minima Moralia. Reflections on a Damaged Lie, London-New York, Verso, 2005, p. 135. 9 S. Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis o the Ego, Greensboro, Empire Books, 2012, p. 19. 10 H. Broch, Massenwahntheorie. Beiträge zu einer Psychologie der Politik, Kommentierte Werkausgabe, vol. XII, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1979, p. 70. 11 R. Descartes, A Discourse on the Method , Oxord, Univ. Press, 2006, p. 33. 12 G. Kimmerle, Kritik der identitätslogischen Vernun. Untersuchung zur Dialektik der Wahrheit bei Descartes und Kant , Königstein/s., Forum Academicum, 1982, p. 53. 13 Ch. Link, Subjektivität und Wahrheit. Die Grundlegung der neuzeitlichen Metaphysik durch Descartes, Stuttgart, Klett-Cotta, 1978, p. 47. 14 R. Descartes, A Discourse on the Method , op. cit., p. 48. 15 R. Descartes, Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings, London-New York, Penguin (1998), 2000, p. 25.
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16 G. Kimmerle, Kritik der identitätslogischen Vernun , op. cit., p. 51. 17 Ibid. 18 Ch. aylor, Sources o the Sel. Te Making o the Modern Identity , Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard Univ. Press, 1996 (8th ed.), p. 145. C. also A. J. Cascardi, Te Subject o Modernity , Cambridge, Univ. Press, 1992, p. 33: ‘Descartes establishes the cogito as an entirely sel-contained orm o reflection and “ounding” o thought.’ 19 R. Descartes, Meditations, op. cit., p. 30. 20 G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie III, Werke, vol. XX, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1986, p. 123. (Te English translation Lectures on the History o Philosophy [translated by E. S. Haldane and F. H. Simson], Lincoln-London, Univ. o Nebraska Press, 1896, does not correspond to the German original used by the author.) 21 I. Kant, Critique o Pure Reason, London, Penguin, 2007, p. 70. 22 Ibid., p. 75. 23 T. Nenon, Objektivität und endliche Erkenntnis. Kants transzendentalphilosophische Korrespondenztheorie der Wahrheit , Freiburg-Munich, Alber, 1986, p. 75. 24 O. Höffe, Immanuel Kant , Munich, Beck, 1983, p. 53. 25 P. Baumann, Kants Philosophie der Erkenntnis. Durchgehender Kommentar zu den Hauptkapiteln der “Kritik der reinen Vernun” , Würzburg, Königshausen und Neumann, 1997, p. 338. 26 A. Schopenhauer, Te World as Will and Representation, vol. I, New York, Dover Publications, 1969, pp. 5–6. 27 C. I. Kant, Critique o Pure Reason, op. cit., pp. 330–31. 28 Ibid., p. 644. 29 Ibid., p. 658. 30 C. . W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, London-New York, Routledge, 2000, p. 275: ‘Necessarily hidden rom Kant was the arcanum o his philosophy: that in order to have the capacity with which he credits it, to constitute objectivities or to objectiy itsel in action, the subject on its part must always be objective also.’ 31 I. Kant, Fundamental Principles o the Metaphysics o Morals, Milton Keynes, Merchant Books, 2009, p. 46. 32 P. Valéry, ‘Monsieur este’, in: Œuvres II , Paris, Gallimard, Bibl. de la Pléiade, 1960, p. 70. 33 Ibid., p. 126. 34 H. Böhme, G. Böhme, Das Andere der Vernun. Zur Entwicklung von Rationalitätsstrukturen am Beispiel Kants, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1985, p. 130. 35 Ibid., p. 126. 36 I. H. Fichte, ‘Vorrede des Herausgebers’, in: Fichtes Werke, vol. I (Zur theoretischen Philosophie I ), ed. I. H. Fichte, Berlin, De Gruyter, 1971, p. IX. 37 J. G. Fichte, ‘Über den Begriff der Wissenschafslehre oder der sogenannten Philosophie’, in: Fichtes Werke, vol. I, op. cit., p. 59. 38 Ibid, p. 96. 39 Ibid., p. 99. 40 Ibid., p. 110. 41 J. G. Fichte, ‘Grundlage des Naturrechts nach Principien der Wissenschafslehre’, in: Fichtes Werke, vol. III (Zur Rechts- und Sittenlehre I ), Berlin, De Gruyter, 1971, p. 27. 42 H. Rademacher, Fichtes Begriff des Absoluten, Frankurt, Klostermann, 1970, p. 76. 43 I. Schindler, Reflexion und Bildung in Fichtes Wissenschaslehre. Versuch einer Ausarbeitung systematischer Grundstrukturen der Pädagogik, Bonn, Phil. Tesis., 1962, p. 61.
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44 H. Böhme, G. Böhme, Das Andere der Vernun , op. cit., p. 129. 45 C. H. Schmitz, Die entremdete Subjektivität. Von Fichte zu Hegel , Bonn, Bouvier, 1992, p. 147: ‘Tus Fichte’s mysticism afer 1800 is a totalitarian, brutal mysticism (. . .).’ 46 J. G. Fichte, ‘Der geschlossene Handelsstaat. Ein philosophischer Entwur als Anhang zur Rechtslehre und Probe einer künfig zu lieernden Politik’, in: Fichtes Werke, vol. III, op. cit., p. 419. C. also A. Verzar, Das autonome Subjekt und der Vernunstaat. Eine systematisch-historische Untersuchung zu Fichtes ‘Geschlossenem Handelsstaat’ von 1800, Bonn, Bouvier, 1979, p. 16. 47 J. G. Fichte, ‘Vierte Rede’, in: Fichtes Reden an die deutsche Nation , Berlin, Deutsche Bibliothek, 1912, p. 56. 48 Ibid., p. 58. 49 Ibid., p. 71. 50 G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie III , op. cit., p. 409. 51 Ibid., p. 408. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid., p. 407. 54 C. M. Riedel (ed.), Hegel und die antike Dialektik, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1990, especially the ollowing contributions: O. Pöggeler, ‘Die Ausbildung der spekulativen Dialektik in Hegels Begegnung mit der Antike’; K. Düsing, ‘Formen der Dialektik bei Plato und Hegel’; P. Aubenque, ‘Hegelsche und Aristotelische Dialektik’ and R. W. Meyer, ‘Dialektik der sinnlichen Gewißheit und der Anang der Seinslogik’. 55 G. W. F. Hegel, Te Philosophy o History , New York, Dover Publications, 1956, p. 10. 56 C. ibid., p. 457: ‘Tat the History o the World, with all the changing scenes which its annals present, is this process o development and the realization o Spirit – this is the true Teodicaea , the justification o God in History.’ 57 C. G. W. F., Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie III , op. cit., p. 157. 58 G. W. F. Hegel, Te Philosophy o History , op. cit. p. 17. 59 Ibid., p. 78. 60 Ibid. In this respect, Ernst Bloch’s presentation o Hegel’s model is somewhat inaccurate: ‘Hegel calls the motor and the subject o history, quite idealistically, “national spirit”.’ (E. Bloch, Subjekt-Objekt. Erläuterungen zu Hegel , Frankurt, Suhrkamp [1962], 1985, p. 136.) 61 G. W. F. Hegel, Outlines o the Philosophy o Right , Oxord, Univ. Press (1952), 2008, p. 15. 62 O. Pöggeler, Hegels Kritik der Romantik, Munich, Fink, 1999, p. 47. 63 Ibid., p. 50. 64 Ibid., p. 61. 65 A detailed presentation o the actantial model rom a semiotic and literary point o view can be ound in: A. J. Greimas, Maupassant. La sémiotique du texte: exercices pratiques, Paris, Seuil, 1976, pp. 62–3 and in idem, Du Sens II. Essais sémiotiques, Paris, Seuil, 1983, especially the chapter ‘Les Actants, les acteurs et les figures’. 66 G. W. F. Hegel, Te Philosophy o History , op. cit., p. 17. 67 Ibid., p. 54. 68 Ibid., p. 36. 69 G. W. F. Hegel, Outlines o the Philosophy o Right , op. cit., p. 15. 70 Ibid., p. 45. 71 G. W. F. Hegel, Te Philosophy o History , op. cit., p. 74. 72 F. . Vischer,‘Der raum. Eine Studie zu der Schrif: Die raumphantasie von Dr. Johann Volkelt’, in: idem, Kritische Gänge, vol. IV, Munich, Meyer und Jessen, 1922, p. 482.
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73 P. Braitling, Hegels Subjektivitätsbegriff. Eine Analyse mit Berücksichtigung intersubjektiver Aspekte, Würzburg, Königshausen und Neumann, 1991, p. 82. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid., p. 83. 76 Ibid. 77 G. W. F. Hegel, Outlines o the Philosophy o Right , op. cit., p. 154. 78 G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte, Werke, vol. XII, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1986, p. 53. 79 G. W. F. Hegel, Te Philosophy o History , op. cit., p. 36. 80 C. . W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, op. cit., p. 8: ‘Te matters o true philosophical interest at this point in history are those in which Hegel, agreeing with tradition, expressed his disinterest. Tey are nonconceptuality, individuality, and particularity (. . .).’ 81 M. Rosen, Hegel’s Dialectic and its Criticism, Cambridge-London, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982, p. 113. 82 H. Schmitz, Die entremdete Subjektivität , op. cit., p. 279. 83 J.-P. Leebvre, P. Macherey, Hegel et la société , Paris, PUF, 1987 (2nd ed.), p. 87. 84 K. Marx, ‘Kritik der Hegelschen Dialektik und Philosophie überhaupt’, in: K. Marx, F. Engels, Studienausgabe , vol. I, Frankurt, Fischer, 1966, p. 69. 85 Ibid., p. 77. 86 G. Lukács, History and Class Consciousness. Studies in Marxist Dialectics, London, Merlin Press, 1971, pp. 328–9. 87 G. Kunizyn, in: Weimarer Beiträge 2, 1973, p. 36. 88 Ibid. 89 P. Grujić, Hegel und die Sowjetphilosophie der Gegenwart. Zur materialistischen Dialektik , Berne-Munich, Francke, 1969, p. 18 and pp. 59–70. 90 E. Bloch, Subjekt-Objekt , op. cit., p. 386. 91 Tis transition is dealt with in some length by: S. Hook, From Hegel to Marx. Studies in the Intellectual Development o Karl Marx , Ann Arbor, Univ. o Michigan Press, 1966 (2nd ed.), pp. 43–7 and J. D’Hondt, De Hegel à Marx , Paris, PUF, 1972, Part IV: ‘L’Histoire et la dialectique’. 92 J. Ritter, Hegel und die ranzösische Revolution, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1965, p. 47. Hegel’s importance or philosophical modernity is dealt with in detail by M. Gans, Das Subjekt der Geschichte. Studien zu Vico, Hegel und Foucault , Hildesheim-ZurichNew York, Olms, 1993, p. 16, where the author argues that Hegel’s dialectic ‘has assembled the key concepts o modernity in a system’. Gans certainly has a point when he reads Foucault as an anti-modern thinker and an adversary o Hegel. 93 F. . Vischer, Kritische Gänge, vol. IV, op. cit., p. 175. 94 C. G. W. F. Hegel, Aesthetics. Lectures on Fine Art , vol. III, Oxord, Te Clarendon Press, 1975. 95 K. Löwith, Von Hegel zu Nietzsche. Der revolutionäre Bruch im Denken des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, Hamburg, Meiner, 1986 (9th ed.), pp. 42–3. 96 F. . Vischer, Kritische Gänge, vol. IV, op. cit., p. 482. 97 E. Volhard, Zwischen Hegel und Nietzsche. Der Ästhetiker Friedrich Teodor Vischer , Frankurt, Klostermann, 1932, p. 155. 98 F. . Vischer, Auch Einer. Eine Reisebekanntscha , Berlin, Deutsche Bibliothek, 1879 (Reprint: Wurmlingen, Schwäbische Verlagsgesellschaf, s.d.), vol. II, p. 418. 99 Ibid., vol. I, p. 38. 100 Ibid., vol. I, p. 49. 101 Ibid., vol. II, p. 379.
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Ibid., vol. II, p. 378. Ibid., vol. II, p. 450. C. ibid., vol. II, p. 330. M. M. Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World , Cambridge (Mass.)-London, M.I.. Press, 1968, p. 44. 106 F. . Vischer, Auch Einer , vol. II, op. cit., p. 461. 107 Ibid., p. 455. 108 M. Stirner, Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, Stuttgart, Reclam, 1991, p. 380. All translations by the author. Te American translation by Steven . Byington – Memphis, General Books, 2012 – is deective and cannot be used. 109 Ibid., pp. 381–82. 110 Ibid., p. 252. 111 Ibid., p. 253. 112 Ibid., p. 350. 113 Ibid., p. 365. 114 Ibid., p. 199. 115 C. P. V. Zima, ‘Von Hobbes zu Stirner: Mensch, Naturzustand und Staat’ in: Der Einzige ( Max Stirner und Individualität ), 4/28, 2004. 116 C. C. B. Macpherson, Te Political Teory o Possessive Individualism. Hobbes to Locke, Oxord, Clarendon Press-Oxord Univ. Press, 1962, pp. 61–8. 117 K. A. Mautz, Die Philosophie Max Stirners im Gegensatz zum Hegelschen Idealismus, Berlin, Duncker und Dünnhaupt, 1936, p. 23. 118 Ibid. 119 M. Stirner, Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, op. cit., p. 286. 120 K. A. Mautz, Die Philosophie Max Stirners, op. cit., p. 54. 121 Ibid., p. 94. 122 M. Stirner, Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, op. cit., p. 330. 123 C. J. Bentham, Teory o Legislation, 2 vols., Oxord, Univ. Press, 1914 and J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, London, Everyman Library, 1910. In this work Bentham’s theses are developed. 124 M. Stirner, Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, op. cit., p. 338. 125 F. Nietzsche, ‘Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn’, in: idem, Werke, vol. V (ed. K. Schlechta), Munich, Hanser, 1980, p. 314. 126 M. Stirner, Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, op. cit., p. 390. 127 Ibid., p. 391. 128 Ibid., p. 412. 129 H. Arvon, Aux sources de l’existentialisme: Max Stirner , Paris, PUF, 1954, p. 177. 130 K. A. Mautz, Die Philosophie Max Stirners, op. cit., p. 116. 131 . W. Adorno, Kierkegaard. Konstruktion des Ästhetischen, Frankurt, Suhrkamp (1962), 1974, p. 60. 132 S. Kierkegaard, Either / Or. A Fragment o Lie, London, Penguin (1992), 2004, p. 194. 133 N. Tulstrup, in: S. Kierkegaard, Entweder – Oder (eil I und II), Munich, DV, 1998 (5th ed.), p. 966. 134 S. Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Crumbs, Cambridge, Univ. Press, 2009, pp. 186–87. 135 Ibid., p. 187. 136 Ibid., p. 188. 137 K. Jaspers, Psychologie der Weltanschauungen, Berlin-Göttingen-Heidelberg, Springer, 1960 (5th ed.), p. 245.
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138 H. M. Schmidinger, Das Problem des Interesses und die Philosophie Sören Kierkegaards, Freiburg-Munich, Alber, 1983, p. 282. 139 G. Lukács, ‘Das Zerschellen der Form am Leben: Sören Kierkegaard und Regine Olsen’, in: idem, Die Seele und die Formen, Neuwied-Berlin, Luchterhand, 1971, p. 49. 140 C. S. Kierkegaard, Te Book on Adler , Princeton, Univ. Press, 1998, p. 91. 141 Ibid., p. 93. 142 Ibid., p. 99. 143 S. Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript , op. cit., p. 165. 144 C. . W. Adorno, Kierkegaard , op. cit., p. 73. 145 E. Beck, Identität der Person. Sozialphilosophische Studien zu Kierkegaard, Adorno und Habermas, Würzburg, Königshausen und Neumann, 1991, p. 58. 146 H. M. Schmidinger, Das Problem des Interesses und die Philosophie Sören Kierkegaards, op. cit., p. 295. 147 C. E. Volhard, Zwischen Hegel und Nietzsche, op. cit., p. 155. 148 F. Nietzsche, ‘Aus dem Nachlaß der Achtzigerjahre’, in: idem, Werke, vol. VI, op. cit., p. 627. 149 F. Nietzsche, ‘Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn’, in: idem, Werke, vol. V, op. cit., p. 313. 150 F. Nietzsche, ‘Aus dem Nachlaß der Achtzigerjahre’, in: idem, Werke, vol VI, op. cit., p. 627. 151 Nietzsche is interpreted as a radical critic o ‘reactive’ – i.e. non-creative – thought by Gilles Deleuze: C. G. Deleuze, Nietzsche et la philosophie, Paris, PUF (1962), 1994 (9th ed.). 152 F. Nietzsche, Te Genealogy o Morals, Mineola (N. Y.), Dover Publications, 2003, p. 36. 153 F. Nietzsche, Te Use and Abuse o History , London, Maestro Reprints, 2000, p. 35. 154 K. Löwith, ‘Kierkegaard und Nietzsche’, in: idem, Nietzsche. Sämtliche Schrien, vol. VI, Stuttgart, Metzler, 1987, p. 76. 155 F. Nietzsche, wilight o the Idols. With Te Antichrist and Ecce Homo , Ware, Wordsworth Editions, 2007, p. 8. 156 F. Nietzsche, Te Gay Science. With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix o Songs, New York, Vintage Books, 1974, p. 171. 157 Ibid., p. 85. 158 F. Nietzsche, ‘Aus dem Nachlaß der Achtzigerjahre’, in: idem, Werke, vol. VI, op. cit., p. 624. 159 Ibid., p. 625. 160 M. Djurić, Nietzsche und die Metaphysik, Berlin-New York, De Gruyter, 1985, p. 98. 161 F. Nietzsche, Human, all too Human. Beyond Good and Evil , Ware, Wordsworth Editions, 2008, p. 389. 162 F. Nietzsche, ‘Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn’, in: idem, Werke, vol. V, op. cit., p. 314. 163 F. Nietzsche, ‘Te Antichrist’, in: idem, wilight o the Idols with Te Antichrist and Ecce Homo, op. cit., p. 101. 164 G. Abel, Nietzsche. Die Dynamik der Willen zur Macht und die ewige Wiederkehr , Berlin-New York, De Gruyter, 1998 (2nd ed.), p. 146. 165 C. F. Nietzsche, ‘Aus dem Nachlaß der Achtzigerjahre’, in: idem, Werke, vol. VI, op. cit., p. 434. 166 J. Habermas, Te Philosophical Discourse o Modernity , Cambridge, Polity (1990), 1998, p. 94. 167 F. Nietzsche, ‘Wir Philologen’, in: idem, Werke, vol. V, op. cit., p. 327.
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168 F. Nietzsche, ‘Aus dem Nachlass der Achtzigerjahre’, in: ders., Werke, vol. VI, op. cit., p. 440. 169 F. Nietzsche, ‘Ecce Homo’, in: idem, wilight o the Idols with Te Antichrist and Ecce Homo, op. cit., p. 260. 170 U. Schneider, Grundzüge einer Philosophie des Glücks bei Nietzsche, Berlin-New York, De Gruyter, 1983, p. 37. 171 C. P. Köster, Der sterbliche Gott. Nietzsches Entwur übermenschlicher Größe, Maisenheim-Glan, Hain, 1972, p. 101. 172 V. Gerhardt, ‘Geschichtlichkeit bei Hegel und Nietzsche’, in: M. Djurić, J. Simon (eds.), Nietzsche und Hegel , Würzburg, Königshausen und Neumann, 1992, p. 41. 173 G. K. Lehmann, Der Übermensch. Friedrich Nietzsche und das Scheitern der Utopie, Berlin-Berne-Frankurt, Lang, 1993, p. 52. 174 Cl. Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology , New York, Basic Books, 1963, p. 210. 175 Ibid., p. 209. 176 R. Knodt, Friedrich Nietzsche. Die ewige Wiederkehr des Leidens. Selbstverwirklichung und Freiheit als Problem seiner Ästhetik und Metaphysik, Bonn, Bouvier, 1987, p. 143. 177 C. P. Köster, Der sterbliche Gott, op. cit., p. 101. 178 F. Nietzsche, ‘Ecce Homo’, in: idem, wilight o the Idols with Te Antichrist and Ecce Homo, op. cit., p. 253. 179 C. M. Sautet, Nietzsche et la Commune, Paris, Le Sycomore, 1981. Te author tries to explain Nietzsche’s rejection o the Paris Commune in the context o his aristocratic attitude and reads his work as an apology o aristocratic domination. 180 A detailed critique o Heidegger’s view o Nietzsche is to be ound in: J. Derrida, O Grammatology , Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1974. 181 M. Heidegger, Nietzsche II, Gesamtausgabe , vol. VI. 2, Frankurt, Klostermann, 1997, p. 273. 182 F. Nietzsche, ‘Te Antichrist’, in: idem, wilight o the Idols with Te Antichrist and Ecce Homo, op. cit., p. 160 183 G. Schulte, ‘Ich impe euch mit dem Wahnsinn’. Nietzsches Philosophie der verdrängten Weiblichkeit des Mannes, Frankurt-Paris, Qumran, 1982, pp. 13–14. 184 K. Oliver, Womanizing Nietzsche. Philosophy’s Relation to the Feminine, New YorkLondon, Routledge, 1995, p. 42. 185 S. Kierkegaard, Te Concept o Irony with Continual Reerence to Socrates , Princeton, Univ. Press, 1989, p. 223. 186 Ibid., p. 224. 187 J.-P. Sartre, ‘L’Universel singulier’, in: Kierkegaard vivant (Colloque organisé par l’Unesco à Paris du 21 au 23 avril 1964), Paris, Gallimard, 1966, pp. 38–9. 188 J.-P. Sartre, ‘Cartesian Freedom’, in: idem, Literary and Philosophical Essays, London, Hutchinson, 1968, p. 171. 189 Ibid., p. 178. 190 Ibid., p. 180. 191 M. Warnock, Te Philosophy o Sartre, London, Hutchinson, 1966 (2nd ed.), p. 29. 192 J.-P. Sartre, L’Imagination, Paris, PUF, 1969, p. 140. 193 Ibid., p. 157. 194 J.-P. Sartre, l’Imaginaire. Psychologie phénoménologique de l’imagination, Paris, Gallimard, 1940, p. 348. 195 J.-P. Sartre, Being and Nothingness, London-New York, Routledge, 2003, p. 63. 196 Ibid., p. 463. 197 Ibid., p. 466. (L’Etre et le néant , Paris, Gallimard, 1943, p. 499.)
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198 C. ibid., p. 84. 199 Ibid., pp. 613–23. 200 J.-P. Sartre, Esquisse d’une théorie des émotions , Paris, Hermann (1938), 1965, p. 27. 201 G. Steinwachs, Mythologie des Surrealismus oder Die Rückverwandlung von Kultur in Natur , Neuwied-Berlin, Luchterhand, 1971, p. X. 202 A. Breton, Maniestoes o Surrealism, Ann Arbor, Te University o Michigan Press, 1972, p. 26. 203 C. ibid. 204 J.-P. Sartre, What is Literature? , London-New York, Routledge (1993), 2001, p. 139. 205 S. Ungar, ‘Sartre, Breton and Black Orpheus: Vicissitudes o Poetry and Politics’, in: L’Esprit créateur 1, 1977, p. 11. 206 C. P. V. Zima, ‘Objet trouvé / Sujet perdu’, in: Les Lettres Nouvelles 4, 1972 and idem, ‘De Marcel Proust au surréalisme’, in: idem, L’Ambivalence romanesque. Proust, Kaa, Musil , Paris, L’Harmattan, 2002 (2nd ed.), pp. 343–4. 207 . W. Adorno, ‘Looking Back on Surrealism’, in: idem, Notes on Literature, vol. I, New York, Columbia Univ. Press, 1991, p. 89 208 J.-P. Sartre, Nausea, London, Penguin, 1965, p. 227 209 Ibid., p. 145. 210 G. M. M. Colville, ‘Eléments surréalistes dans La Nausée’: une hypothèse de l’écriture’, in: L’Esprit créateur 1, 1977, p. 23. 211 F. George, Sur Sartre, Paris, Bourgois, 1976, p. 427. 212 M. Dornberg, Gewalt und Subjekt , op. cit., p. 227. C. also G. Zurhorst, Gestörte Subjektivität. Einzigartigkeit und Gesetzmäßigkeit – Ein kritischer Vergleich von Sartre und Holzkamp, Frankurt-New York, Campus, 1982, p. 110. Zurhorst emphasizes – afer Lucien Goldmann – that or Sartre there is no such thing as a collective, supra-individual subject. 213 C. A. Camus, Te Rebel , Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1962, p. 161. 214 C. . W. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, Dialectic o Enlightenment , London-New York, Verso, 1997, p. 54. 215 . W. Adorno, Aesthetic Teory , op. cit., p. 331. 216 . W. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, Dialectic o Enlightenment , op. cit., p. 57. 217 Ibid., p. 54. 218 . W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, op. cit., p. 141. 219 N. W. Bolz, ‘Nietzsches Spur in der Ästhetischen Teorie’, in: B. Lindner, W. M. Lüdke (eds.), Materialien zur ästhetischen Teorie. T. W. Adornos Konstruktion der Moderne, Frankurt, Suhrkamp (1979), 1980, p. 376. 220 . W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, op. cit., p. 404. 221 C. S. Best, D. Kellner, Postmodern Teory. Critical Interrogations, London, Macmillan, 1991, p. 225 where the authors reer to ‘Adorno’s proto-postmodern theory’. 222 J. Habermas, Te Philosophical Discourse o Modernity , op. cit., p. 129. 223 Adorno’s radical critique o market-mediated communication in late capitalism is well known, and it is surprising that, in Te Teory o Communicative Action, Habermas assumes that authentic orms o communication exist outside o power constellations and market relations – as i these relations had no impact on amily lie, education and the health system. 224 . W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, op. cit., p. 48: ‘Hegel’s “reedom to the object”, the net result o which was the subject’s incapacitation, has yet to be achieved.’ 225 C. W. Benjamin, ‘Über den Begriff der Geschichte’, in: idem, Gesammelte Schrien, vol. I. 2, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1977, pp. 702–3, where the author uses the word ‘constellation’ in an historical context.
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226 . W. Adorn Adorno, o, ‘Te ‘Tesen sen über üb er die Sprache Spr ache des de s Philosophe Philo sophen’ n’, in: idem, Philosophische Frühschrien. Gesammelte Schrien, vol. I, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, Suhrk amp, 1973, p. 369. 227 Adorno’s concepts o configuration and constellation are discussed discusse d in relation to his essayism in: A. Bartonek, Philosophie im Konjunktiv. Nichtidentität als Ort der Möglichkeit Möglichk eit des Utopischen Utopischen in der negativen negativen Dialektik Teodor Teodor W. W. Adornos Adornos, Würzbu Würzburg, rg, Königshausen und Neumann, 2011, chap. II. 1 (d). 228 . W. Adorn Adorno, o, ‘Te ‘Tesen sen über üb er die di e Sprache Sprac he des Philo P hilosophe sophen n’, in: Philosophische Frühschrien, op. cit., p. 369. 229 . W. Adorn Adorno, o, ‘Parat ‘Parataxi axis. s. On Hölderlin’ Hölder lin’s Late Lat e Poetry Poet ry’’, in: idem, idem , Notes to Literature, vol. II, op. cit., p. p. 134. (‘Parataxis. (‘Parataxis. Zur späten Lyrik Lyrik Hölderlins’ Hölderlins’, in: idem, Noten zur Literatur III , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1965, p. 189.) 230 . W. Ador Adorno, no, Notes to Literature, vol. II, op. cit., p. 131. 231 C. ibid., pp. pp. 131–2. Aesthetic Teory , 232 G. Adorno, R. iedema ie demann, nn, ‘Editors’ Aferword’ Aferw ord’, in: . W. Adorno, Aesthetic op. cit., p. 364. 233 . W. Ador Adorno, no, Negative Dialectics, op. cit., p. 53. 234 Ibid., p. 321. 235 . W. Ador Adorno, no, Drei Studien zu Hegel , Frankurt, Suhrkamp (1957), 1966, p. 44. 236 . W. Ador Adorno, no, Kritik. Kleine Schrien zur Gesellscha , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1971, pp. 84–5. 237 Ibid., p. 85. 238 . W. Adorno, ‘Te Artist Ar tist as Deputy’ De puty’,, in: idem, ide m, Notes to Literature, vol. I, op. cit., p. 107. 239 Ibid., p. 106. 240 C. N. Elias, ‘Problems o Involvement and Detachment’ Deta chment’, in: Te British Journal o Sociology 1, 1, p. 252. Minimaa Moralia Moralia, op. cit., p. 50. 241 . W. Ador Adorno, no, Minim 242 . W. Ador Adorno, no, Aesthe Aesthetic tic Teory , op. cit., p. 250. 243 C. . . W. Adorno et e t al., al. , Te Authoritarian Personality , New York, York, Harper and Brothers, Brothe rs, 1950. 244 . W. Ador Adorno, no, Eingriffe. Neun kritische Modelle, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1971 (7th ed.), p. 102. 245 Ibid., p. 103. 246 C. . . W. Adorno et e t al., al. , Te Authoritarian Personality , op. cit., p. 228. 247 Ibid., p. 759. 248 E. Fromm, Escape rom Freedom, New York, Avon Books (1941), 1969, p. 173. 249 C. ibid., chap. II and III. 250 . W. Ador Adorno, no, Eingriffe, op. cit., p. 166. 251 P. Bourdieu, On elevision, New York, Te New Press, 1998, p. 38. 252 B. Grunberger, Le Narcissisme. Essais de psychanalyse , Paris, Payot, 1975, p. 67. 253 S. Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis o the Ego, op. cit., p. 44 254 Ibid., p. 45. 255 S. Freud, Civilization and its Disconten Discontents ts, New York, York, Jonathan Cape-Harris Cape-Harrison on Smith, Smit h, 1930, Mansfield Centre (C), Martino Publishing, 2010, p. 59. 256 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, London, Penguin, 1985, p. 223. 257 T. Mann, ‘Freud und die Zukunf’ Zukun f’ (V (Vortrag ortrag gehalten geh alten in Wien am 8. Mai 1936 zur Feier von Sigmund Freuds 80. Geburtstag), in: S. Freud, Abriß der Psychoanal Psychoanalyse. yse. Das Unbehagen in der Kultur , Frankurt, Fischer, 1953, p. 139. 258 H. Broch, Te Sleepwalkers , London-Melbourne-New York, York, Quartet Books, 1986, 198 6, p. 472. 259 G. Lukács, Histo History ry and Class Consciousness, op. cit., p. 139.
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260 C. G. Simmel, Über sociale Differenzierung , Leipzig, Duncker und Humblot, 1890. 261 C. H. Broch, Te Sleepwalkers , op. cit., the Second Novel. Massenwahnt wahntheorie. heorie. Beiträge Beiträge zu einer Psychologie Psychologie der Politik, Frankurt, 262 H. Broch, Massen Suhrkamp, 1979, p. 133. 263 Ibid., pp. 82–3. 264 H. Broch, Die Schlawandler , Frankurt, Frankurt , Suhrkamp, 1978, p. 723 (rom ( rom H. Broch’s comments on his novel). 265 F. . Visc Vischer, her, Auch Einer Einer , vol. II, op. cit., p. 462. 266 Ibid., p. 384. 267 Ibid., pp. 384–85. 268 R. Musil, Te Man without Qualities, vol. I, London, Pan Books-Picador, Books- Picador, 1979, p. 300. 269 Ibid., p. 297. mod erno. Una prospettiva prospettiv a d’analisi analisi su Bronnen, 270 C. . Flore Floreanci ancig, g, L’incesto nel moderno. Pirandello, Musil e Nin, Pasian di Prato (Udine), Campanotto, 2004, especially the chapter on Musil: ‘Incesto e utopia nell’ Uomo senza qualità’. 271 C. J. Derrid Derrida, a, Writing and Difference, London-New York, York, Routledge, 1978, 19 78, p. 358: ‘Obviously ‘Obvio usly there is no scandal except within a system o concepts which accredits the difference between nature and culture. By commencing his work with the actum o the incest prohibition, Lévi-Strauss thus places himsel at the point at which this difference, which has always been assumed to be selsel-evident, evident, finds itsel erased or questioned.’ 272 H. Broch, Te Sleepwalkers , op. cit., p. 200. 273 Te transition rom ambivalence ambivale nce to indifference is discussed dis cussed in detail det ail in: P. P. V. Zima, L’Indifférence Romanesque. Sartre, Moravia, Camus , Paris, L’Harmattan, 2005 (2nd ed.), pp. 50–4. 274 R. Musil, Te Man without Qualities, vol. I, op. cit., p. 271. 275 I. Svevo, Conessio Conessions ns o Zeno, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1964, p. 291. 2 91. 276 Ibid., p. 84. 277 R. Musil, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaen, vol. V, op. cit., p. 1939 (ragments). 278 Te idea that romanticism romanticism anticipates anticipates realism, aestheticism aestheticism and modernism is developed in: J. Barzun, Classic, Romantic and Modern, Chicago-London, Chicago-Lond on, Univ. Univ. o Chicago Press (1943), 1975, p. 99. 279 S. M. Morald Moraldo, o, Wandlungen des Doppelgängers. Shakespeare – E. . A. Hoffmann – Pirandello, Frankurt-Berlin-Bern, Lang, 1996, p. 26. 280 Ibid. 281 L. Pirandello, One, No One and One Hundred Tousand, New York, Marsilio, 1992, p. 15. 282 L. Pirandello, Te Late Mattia Pascal , London, Dedalus, 1987, p. 97. 283 C. M. Rößner, ‘Nietzsche und Pirandello. Pirande llo. Parallelen und Differenzen Differen zen zweier Denk-Charaktere’ Denk-Char aktere’, in: J. Tomas (ed.), (e d.), Pirandello-Studien. Akten des Paderborner Pirandello-Symposiums , Paderborn-Munich-Vienna, Schöningh, 1984, p. 16 where the author interprets Pirandello’s critique o subjectivity as a rejection o social roles. 284 H. Hesse, Steppenwol , London, Penguin, 1965, p. 71. 285 Ibid., p. 223. Te problem o subjectivity subject ivity in Hesse’s novel is analysed in great detail detai l in: P. Petropoulou, Die Subjektkonstitution im europäischen Roman der Moderne. Zur Gestaltung des Selbst und zur Wahrnehmung des Anderen bei Hermann Hesse und Nikos Kazantsakis, Wiesbaden, Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag, 1997, p. 87. Unbewußtes tes, Frankurt, Fischer, 1957, p. 29. 286 C. G. Jung, Bewußtes und Unbewuß 287 H. Hesse, Steppenwol , op. cit., p. 206.
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288 C. P. P. V. Zima, Zima , L’Ambivalence romanesque , op. cit., chap. V. agebüchern rn, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1971, p. 19. 289 R. Musil, Aus den agebüche 290 M. Grimaud, ‘La Rhétorique Rhét orique du rêve. Swann et la psychanalyse’ psychanaly se’, in: Poétique 33, 1978, p. 98. 291 G. Genette, Figures III , Paris, Seuil, 1972, p. 88. 292 M. Proust, Remembrance o Tings Past , vol. XII (ime Regained , Part wo), London, Chatto & Windus, 1970, p. 240. 293 A. Breton, Les Pas perdus, Paris, Gallimard, 1969, p. 73. 294 H. Hesse, Steppenwol , op. cit., p. 215. 295 C. A. Eysteinsson, Te Concept o Modernism, Ithaca-London, Cornell Corn ell Univ. Press, 1990, pp. 155–6. It might be useul to go back in time and to examine the links between surrealism and romanticism, as Walter Fähnders does in: “‘Projekt Avantgarde” Avantgard e” – Vorw Vorwort’ ort’, in: W. Asholt, W. W. Fähnde Fäh nders rs (ed (eds.), s.), ‘Die ganze Welt ist eine Maniesta Man iestation tion’:’: die europäische europäische Avantga Avantgarde rde und ihre Manie Manieste ste, Darmstadt, Darmst adt, Wiss. Buchgesellschaf, 1997, pp. 3–8. 296 C. G. Steinwachs, Mythologie des Surrealism Surrealismus us, op. cit. 297 A. Breton, Point du jour , Paris, Gallimard, 1970, p. 181. 298 D. H. Lawrence, ‘Psychoanalysis vs. v s. Morality’, in: idem, Fantasia o the Unconscious. Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious, London, Penguin, 1983, p. 202. 299 Ch. Kellerer, Objet trouvé und Surrealismus. Zur Zur Psychologie der modernen Kunst , Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1968, p. 43. 4 3. Breton et les données données ondamenta ondamentales les du surréalisme surréalisme, Paris, 300 M. Carrouges, André Breton Gallimard, 1950, p. 128. 301 C. P. P. V. Zima, Zima , L’Ambivalence romanesque , op. cit., chap. VI. 4: ‘De Marcel Proust au surréalisme’. 302 C. P. P. V. V. Zima, ‘Objets ‘Objets oniriques et structures str uctures narratives n arratives chez Proust’, in: Revue d’Esthétique 3/4 (‘Pour l’objet’), l’objet’), 1979, pp. 339–45. 339 –45. 303 H. Hesse, Kurgast , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1972, p. 53. 304 F. Kaa, Te rial , London, Penguin, 1994, p. 87. 305 C. J.-P J.-P.. Sar Sartre, tre, La Nausée – ‘Notices, documents, documents , notes et variantes’, in: idem, ide m, Œuvres Romanesques , Paris, Gallimard, Bibl. de la Pléiade, 1981, p. 1685. 306 F. J. Wetz etz,, ‘Kontin ‘Kontingenz genz der d er Welt Welt – Ein Ei n Anachronismu Anachr onismus?’ s?’, in: G. v. v. Graevenit Graev enitz, z, O. Marquard (eds.), Kontingenz , Munich, Fink, 1998, p. 95. 307 Te relationship between actors and actants is defined in: J. Courtés, Introduction à la sémiotique narrative et discursive, Paris, Hachette, 1976, pp. 95–6: ‘Actants et acteurs’. 308 B. Schäers (ed.), Grundbegriffe der Soziologie, Leverkusen, Leske-Budrich, 1986, p. 148. 309 A. Burgess, A Clockwork Orange Orange, London, Penguin, 1962, p. 35. 310 Ibid., p. 91. 311 Ibid., p. 59. 312 . W. Ador Adorno, no, Philosophy o Modern Music, New York, York, Te Seabury Se abury Press, 1973, p. 132. 13 2. 313 A. Burgess, A Clockwork Orange Orange, op. cit., p. 90. 314 Ibid., p. 91. 315 C. M. Merle Merleau-Ponty, au-Ponty, Humanisme et terreur. Essais sur le problème communiste , Paris, Gallimard (1947), 1980, p. 306: ‘Est-ce ‘Est-ce notre aute si l’humanisme occidental est aussé parce qu’il est aussi une machine de guerre?’ Orange, op. cit., p. 97. 316 A. Burgess, A Clockwork Orange 317 Ibid., p. 99. 318 Ibid.
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319 Ibid., p. 127. 320 Ibid., p. 128. 321 Ibid., p. 139. 322 Ibid. 323 Ibid., p. 143. 324 A. Robbe-Grillet, Le Voyeur , Paris, Minuit, 1955, p. 35. Murderer er , London, Penguin, 1987, p. 72 325 P. Süskind, Perume. Te Story o a Murder 326 Ibid., p. 45. 327 Ibid., p. 247–8. Mania ia, urin, Einaudi, 1997, p. 13. 328 D. Del Giudice Giu dice,, ‘L ‘L’’orecc orecchio hio assoluto’ as soluto’, in: idem, Man 329 C. E. Callenba Callenbach, ch, Ecotopia Emerging , oronto-New York, Bantam, 1982; M. Piercy, Woman on the Edge o ime, London, Woman’s Press, 1983.
III
Disintegration and Submission o the Individual Disintegration Subject in Po Postmodernity: stmodernity: Philosophy and Psychology Burgess’s modernist novel announces the beginning o a new, postmodern era by describing the decline o the individual subject in a society and a language marked by state interventionism, ideological conflicts and the psycho-technical psycho- technical manipulation o citizens. Unlike late modern writers and thinkers, postmodern philosophers such as Lyotard, Vattimo and Foucault are quite explicit whenever they are asked to comment on the ate o the individual subject. Tey believe that it is a metaphysical illusion or that it has disappeared – i it ever existed. Tey reveal the social, emotional and linguistic mechanisms which make the subject into what it is: a result o ideology, language or the unconscious. o them, it appears as a kind o chimera which hides the act that the promising mirage o an oasis is not the longed-or longed- or destination but yet another stretch o sand. Tey tend to relegate the concept o subject to that historical period o European metaphysics whose representatives ailed to realize that what they considered as undamental is in reality a derivate and an illusion based on the aith o those who mistake the illusion or the real thing. In reality, they argue, the subject is a prot proton on pseudos that alls apart on closer examination: either because the social and linguistic meaning within which it comes about can never be made present or coherent (Deleuze, Derrida) or because the individual is ideologically, linguistically and institutionally over-determined overdetermined so that it is misleading to speak o a subject defined as an autonomously autonomously thinking and acting instance (Althusser, Foucault, Baudrillard). Tese two points o view appear to be contradictory in the sense that the first assumes disintegration disintegration and absence o meaning, while the second se cond assumes – in spite o all the differences between the individual philosophers – a massive, subject- negating presence o (ideological) meaning. Tis postmodern contradiction can be structurally related to the contrast between the indifference o the exchange value and the dualism o ideology. It It fills modernist or late modern mo dern critics with hope because be cause they can imagine that between the extremes o meaningless disintegration and meaningul overdetermination a ree space inviting subjective creativity might appear. In the first chapter, it was shown how, afer the collapse o state-sponsored state- sponsored ideologies in 1945 and 1989, the individual subject’s scope o action increased. 133
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In what ollows, the transition rom the modern to the postmodern problematic, problematic,1 as Orange, will be at the centre o the scene. described in conjunction with A Clockwork Orange In the – always constructed – transitions rom Adorno to Lyotard, 2 rom Laing to Vattimo or rom Laing to Foucault, the basic difference will keep reappearing that separates late modern critique rom postmodern deconstruction. Unlike late modern or modernist authors who link their critique to a concept o truth and to the idea o a ‘better world’ in the sense o Burgess’s hero, postmodern authors analyse processes o disintegration or over-determination over-determination (by ideologies, power structures) without ever envisaging alternatives to the existing social order. Although Laing shares Vattimo’s view that the ‘I’ is divided, he immediately adds that this pathology is due to a alse social order.3 He keeps reerring to Marcuse’s critique o one-dimensional one- dimensional society and thus departs radically rom Vattimo’s approach which replaces the critical overcoming (dépassement, Überwindung ) o the 1968 generation with Heidegger’s Verwindung in the sense s ense o ‘getting over something’, orgetting it. it . I one considers the gradual transition rom philosophical, psychological and literary modernism to postmodernity in this perspective, it becomes clear that the discourses aiming at utopia and the overco overcoming ming o the bourgeois order were superseded by one-dimensional one-dimensional languages aiming pragmatically at what is easible or opportune or calling or desperate revolts (Lyotard). Te differences between Foucault’s escape to a pensieroo debole ( weak thinking ) private sphere modelled on Greek antiquity, Vattimo’s pensier or Lyotard’s critique o metameta-narratives narratives may be substantial, but but they all imply a rejection o modern and modernist utopias that are considered as dangerous: the rationalist, revolutionary or aesthetic projects, all o which were meant to give the individual subject a raison d’être. In the radical aesthetics o Lyotard’s last period, the subject, whose resistance Adorno hoped to increase by introducing the sublime into art theory, is sacrificed by being exposed to the destructive effects o the ‘sublime eeling’. Between the problematics o late modernity and postmodernity, Althusser and Lacan occupy hybrid positions. Although they still envisage an overcoming o the existing order in the modernist sense, they suggest that this overcoming might ail because o economic or ideological reification (Althusser) or because o the subject’s alienation within language (Lacan). In spite o this ambiguity, Lacan’s work, in which the concepts o truth (vérité ) and ull sense ( parole parole pleine) are undamental, will be ascribed to a late modernity that is gradually being superseded by a one- dimensional postmodern problematic. As was shown in Modern / Postmodern Postmodern (Zima, 2010), this problematic is structured by the indifference o market laws and the exchange value: Hence postmodernity, postmodernity, as analysed in the chapters to come, is the era o indifference: o exchangeable individuals, relations, values, and ideologies. Tis should not be taken to mean that in postmodern market society no religious, moral or aesthetic values exist; it does mean that those who act in their name do so in the ace o the dominant exchange exchange value whose influence increases rom decade to decade. 4
Tis social, cultural and linguistic constellation explains the act that postmodern thinkers no longer envisage an overcoming overcoming o the present social order and that even e ven a
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critical thinker such as Zygmunt Bauman (c. Chapter II, 4) gives up the search or alternatives. Political engagement, which is inconceivable without a critical valueorientation, yields to indifference. Erving Goffman’s work, commented on in the ourth section o this chapter, shows to what extent indifference as exchangeability o positions and values (not as a social or emotional attitude) can undermine individual subjectivity. o Goffman, the disintegration o individual identity appears as a consequence o market laws. He quotes the psychologist A. Hartman to prove his point: ‘Te average chorus girl changes her name almost as requently as her coiffure to accord with current theatrical popularity, show-business superstitions, or, in some cases, to avoid payment o Equity dues.’5 In many cases, religions (sects) and ideologies come to the rescue o a disoriented subject who can no longer cope with a situation marked by indifference and the disintegration o value systems. More ofen than not, their support turns out to be a stranglehold and a new heteronomy. Between these two kinds o heteronomy, the indifference o the market and the over-determination by ideologies, the new, postmodern problematic takes shape. It oscillates between Lyotard’s and Vattimo’s pluralism and Althusser’s ideologically ormed subjectivity. Te question is: How much scope does the subject have between these extremes? Some answers to this question are provided by contemporary eminisms, which cannot be globally defined as ‘postmodern’, but which nonetheless develop within a postmodern society whose male-dominated and growth-oriented economy begins to erode its ecological oundations. Te dialogue with some eminist theories o the subject will raise the question concerning the prospects o a subjectivity unhampered by male conceptualization. Te first part o the chapter ocuses on the disintegration o the subject in language, psyche and a society increasingly dominated by its own market (sections 1–3), whereas the second part deals with the subject’s submission to ideologies, institutions and normative systems (sections 4–7).
1 From Adorno to Lyotard: Te ambivalence o the sublime between modernity and postmodernity Te key argument o this section is linked to the sixth section o the previous chapter where Adorno’s ‘aesthetic turn’ o dialectical philosophy was interpreted as an attempt to save the individual subject. It can be summed up in a ew words: Kant’s sublime, which Mallarmé, Valéry and Adorno subsumed under the beautiul in a negative sense in order to strengthen the subject’s autonomy vis-à-vis the culture industry, is turned by Lyotard against the subject. Te latter’s coherence is negated by the disruptive orces o the sublime. What is at stake here is a reappraisal o the sublime during the transition rom late modernity to postmodernity. Unlike late modern thinkers, who considered the sublime in the sense o Kant as a critical tool used by the subject in its struggle against the culture industry (Mallarmé’s universel reportage), Lyotard defines the sublime as a subject-negating aesthetic principle. It should be added, however, that Mallarmé’s and
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Adorno’s attempt to integrate the sublime into the beautiul is a precarious step that has threatened the subject’s identity ever since Mallarmé’s poem L’Azur .6 By redefining the aesthetics o the sublime as a global threat to the subject’s existence, Lyotard destroys a late modern or modernist equilibrium that was never stable because o the tensions between the beautiul and the sublime. Tese introductory remarks are made more concrete by Joseph abbi’s study about the Postmodern Sublime, in which the negation o the subject by the sublime principle is illustrated in conjunction with Tomas Pynchon’s work. abbi shows how, in Pynchon’s novels, the subject is torn between paranoia (the belie in coherence) and relativism in the sense that these two attitudes negate each other: Pynchon likes to present characters in mental states that fluctuate between the total theory o a paranoid delusion and the ironical ‘mindless pleasures’ o a total relativism. Te overdetermined and wholly private meanings in the first state o mind are dissolved in the second by an irony that would undermine the ground on which any stable meaning might be built. 7
It is interesting to observe how abbi relates this postmodern irony and its relativism to the exchange value and the market laws, thereby confirming the postulate o indifference: ‘In a postmodern culture where the only absolute value is determined by world markets, irony and indeterminacy (in advertising and television, and even in Corn Belt politics) become powerul legitimations, ways o adjusting to the economic absolute while upholding the appearance o hip radicalism.’8 It is unortunately true that in televised discussions, newspaper commentaries and even scientific publications, an indeterminate radicalism tends to become a substitute or genuinely critical argument. In the case o Mallarmé, Valéry and Adorno, this kind o argument (i.e. critique in the modern and late modern sense) was deemed to be the task o the isolated individual subject whose position in society was becoming more and more precarious. Te insight into the negativity and inhumanity o the social order and the corresponding negativity o poetry and philosophy were meant to keep critical thought alive. ‘Te Beautiul is negative’,9 notes Paul Valéry, and adopts a stance similar to that o his riend and teacher Mallarmé. At the same time, he anticipates Adorno’s negative aesthetics. By radical innovation, distancing effects in language and a systematic negation o all commercially exploited stereotypes, the writer or artist should avoid all compromise with ideology, commerce and the culture industry. But how long will innovation as permanent negation be possible? Both Jean-Paul Sartre and the German literary critic Hugo Friedrich point out that Mallarmé’s poetry, especially in its last phase, is threatened by silence. Friedrich speaks o ‘the proximity o silence’,10 and Sartre comments ironically: ‘In reality he has nothing to say because he prohibited everything rom the outset.’ 11 In other words, Mallarmé’s poetry is an expedition to the outer limits o language where the lyrical subject is conronted with loss o vocabulary, silence and death. In this sparsely populated border zone, Mallarmé’s image o the beautiul is based on the aesthetic ideal o autonomy and harmony and is rom time to time overshadowed by the sublime and its negation o this ideal. Although the poet speaks in conjunction
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with his poésie pure o a ‘pact with Beauty’ (‘pacte avec la Beauté’),12 his poem L’Azur is a first attempt to describe the indescribable and to go beyond beauty’s harmony by taking on the sublime o the boundless azure above him. Commenting on the contrast between the beautiul and the sublime in nature, Kant explains: Te beautiul in nature concerns the orm o the object, which consists in [the object’s] being bounded. But the sublime can also be ound in a ormless object, insoar as we present unboundedness, either [as] in the object or because the object prompts us to present it, while yet we add to this unboundedness the thought o its totality.13
Formless and boundless, Mallarmé’s azur seems to correspond in all respects to Kant’s description o the natural sublime. It drives the lyrical subject to despair: ‘Je suis hanté. L’Azur! L’Azur! L’Azur! L’Azur!’ 14 Paul Bénichou quite rightly points out that the contradiction inherent in the boundless and indescribable phenomenon drives the lyrical subject mad, leading to a ‘mental anomaly’ (‘anomalie mentale’): ‘Since the Bible, traditional rhetoric admits the triple repetition as an acceptable figure. But he exclaims “L’Azur!” our times. Here the number 4 evokes endless repetition, i.e. a mental anomaly.’15 In spite o these sorties into the realm o the sublime, Mallarmé’s poetry as a whole remains true to the complementary ideals o aesthetic autonomy and beauty in the sense o Kant, in the sense o Mallarmé’s own ‘pacte avec la beauté’. Tis also applies to Paul Valéry’s work. Although it is based on the Kantian ideals o autonomy, harmony and beauty, it is a remarkable attempt to renew all o them by systematic negativity. Valéry’s aesthetics, like Mallarmé’s, is a large-scale attempt at poetic innovation by means o linguistic negativity. Te text carrying the symptomatic title ‘Le Beau est négati’ shows to what extent Valéry’s discourse is inspired by Mallarmé’s negation o linguistic stereotypes. Tis is how it begins: ‘Te Beautiul implies effects o inexpressibility, indescribability, ineffability. And this concept does not express ANYHING. No definition o it is possible, or the one and true definition is only possible as a construction.’ 16 In virtually all phases o his development, Valéry locates this construction within a theory o the beautiul whose negativity hardly ever moves beyond the idea o harmony. As in Kant’s case, aesthetic harmony cannot be defined by conceptual means, but or Valéry there is no doubt that harmony is the goal: ‘Te orce o the verses results rom the indefinable harmony between what they express and what they are.’17 He reers to a ‘univers poétique’ that does not ever communicate with reality directly. In spite o this orientation towards beauty and harmony, one comes across various remarks in Valéry’s work which seem to point beyond this Kantian world o autonomy and beauty. In a text written in 1929, he insists on the act that the ideal o beauty and the corresponding aesthetic theories are a thing o the past: ‘Beauty is a kind o corpse. It was superseded by the new, the intense, the strange, in short: all the values o shock (valeurs de choc).’18 Tese remarks are inspired by the avant-garde movements o the 1920s and anticipate Walter Benjamin’s theory o the aura together with his idea o a ‘demolition o the aura’
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(‘Zertrümmerung der Aura’)19 – but Benjamin does not mention them. 20 However, it is by no means certain that they mark a clear break between the aesthetics o beauty and autonomy on the one hand, and avant-garde aesthetics on the other, as Valéry seems to suggest. For Mallarmé’s negative beauty does include the ‘new’, the ‘intense’ and the ‘strange’ (in Un coup de dés, or example) – although one might hesitate to call these phenomena, in conjunction with Mallarmé’s and Valéry’s works, ‘valeurs de choc’. Te idea that there is a transition rom Mallarmé to the avant-garde is to be ound in Adorno’s Aesthetic Teory , whose author points out that ‘in this regard art that has been spiritualized to the extreme, such as that beginning with Mallarmé’s, and the dream-chaos o surrealism are more closely related than their disciples realize’. 21 (In the German original, p. 145: ‘als es dem Bewußtsein der Schulen gegenwärtig ist’, meaning: ‘than the institutionalized philologies realize’.) Institutionalized criticism seems to have also overlooked the basic interest Mallarmé, Valéry and the avant-garde movements had in common: the idea that aesthetic negativity might increase the individual subject’s reedom and save it in extremis. Tis was also Adorno’s project which he never abandoned in spite o his thorough analyses o the individual subject’s decline in late modernity. Tis paradox o despairing hope is considered as a simple contradiction by Daniel Kiper in his otherwise lucid study o individuality afer Adorno: ‘Te possibility o resisting the global trend towards atomization, integration and uniormity concerns exclusively the dying individual. In this theory, the deeated individual is the only instance capable o averting the individual’s deeat.’22 I one accepts this interpretation, which is actually borne out by various passages in Adorno’s work,23 then one can only agree with Kiper that Adorno’s theory o the subject is contradictory. I, however, one considers Adorno’s discourse as a whole and takes into account his comments on Valéry’s idea o the artwork as an analogy ‘o the subject who is aware and in control o himsel, a figure o the person who does not capitulate’,24 one will preer to speak o a subject in crisis, not o a deeated individual or subject. Tis expression does more justice to a paradoxical theory whose author continues to believe in the subject’s autonomy and his critical abilities. Tis is also what Aldo Rescio means when he reers to Adorno’s project in Negative Dialectics ‘to use the strength o the subject to break through the allacy o constitutive subjectivity’25 and adds: ‘On the contrary: to accept disintegration and pure discontinuity would only lead to a reconciliation with domination and death.’ 26 In this light Adorno not only appears as an early critic o deconstruction (c. Chapter III, 2), but also as an immediate heir to Mallarmé’s, Valéry’s and Stean George’s aesthetics. He shares their view that literature and the literary subject need innovation in order to avoid being overpowered by ideologies and commercial communication. ‘Te old,’ Adorno writes in Aesthetic Teory , ‘has reuge only at the vanguard o the new: in the gaps, not in continuity.’27 Without innovation, the subject’s autonomy in art and literature becomes inconceivable. However, the impulse o innovation aims at the ‘valeurs de choc’ (Valéry), the aesthetic shock effects that shake the oundations o individual subjectivity.28 Tis dialectic o innovation and subject-destruction is already announced in Mallarmé’s poem L’Azur in which one may discern, ollowing Bénichou, the surrealist
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‘dérèglement de tous les sens’. Repeated our times, the exclamation ‘L’Azur!’ announces a literature in which the beautiul may at any moment turn into the sublime, the unbearably immense in the natural or mathematical sense, thereby threatening the subject’s coherence. Adorno was perectly aware o this when he traced elements o the sublime in modernist and avant-garde art. According to him, this art is marked by the absorption o the sublime that Kant ound in nature: ‘Te sublime, which Kant reserved exclusively or nature, later became the constituent o art itsel. Te sublime draws the demarcation line between art and what was later called arts and crafs.’29 In various contexts the sublime is defined by Adorno as a negativity by which art resists its incorporation into the culture industry: ‘Te legacy o the sublime is unassuaged negativity, as stark and illusionless as was once promised by the semblance o the sublime.’30 I Adorno is right, then the decisive innovation o modernist art is the absorption o the sublime as negativity by the individual artwork . Te first part o this section was meant to show that the turn towards the sublime was announced by the poetry o Mallarmé and Valéry. Tis turn, however, which is considered by Adorno as an attempt to increase the subject’s autonomy, is not presented by him with the kind o destructive radicalism that marks Lyotard’s postmodern aesthetics o the sublime. In Aesthetic Teory , as in the works o the French poets, the sublime continues to be integrated into the negatively defined beautiul in which the autonomy o art and o the individual subject is anchored. What Adorno writes about the ugly also applies to the sublime: ‘In the absorption o the ugly, beauty is strong enough to expand itsel by its own opposite.’31 In Adorno’s aesthetics, the absorption o the ugly and the sublime does not challenge the dominance o the beautiul. Naturally, it is no longer the aesthetically pleasing beauty in the sense o Kant and Hegel, but a negative beauty in the sense Mallarmé and Valéry. Hence the German philosopher Albrecht Wellmer is probably correct in criticizing Wolgang Welsch’s postmodernist reading o Adorno’s aesthetics as a theory o the sublime. Wellmer reminds us o Adorno’s modern and modernist roots: ‘Even in Adorno’s case, the category o the beautiul continues to dominate insoar as even the realization o the artistic sublime is still associated with the condition o aesthetic autonomy.’32 Adorno is a modernist thinker insoar as he reuses to define the sublime as a destructive aporia pointing beyond the beautiul and threatening the very existence o the subject. By asserting in L’Inhumain (Te Inhuman) – a very Adornian title – that ‘the sublime is perhaps the only mode o artistic sensibility to characterize the modern’, 33 Lyotard moves away rom Adorno by just one step. But this step is crucial. It is crucial not only because it leads to the dissolution o the hierarchical link between the negative beautiul and the sublime, but also because it turns the sublime against the beautiul and the subject.34 Unlike Adorno who maintains – with Mallarmé and Valéry – that the autonomy o art and the subject is inseparable rom artistic orm, Lyotard invokes Kant – or rather his own reconstruction o Kant’s aesthetics, as Gernot Böhme points out 35 – in order to oppose the sublime to the beautiul as a basis o subjectivity. He explains his stance in an allegory. Understanding (Verstand , Kant) as an ally o the beautiul leaves the scene and is
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replaced by reason (Vernun , Kant) which demands that imagination represent the absolute in rational terms: Reason thus enters the ‘scene’ in the place o understanding. It challenges the thought that imagines: ‘make the absolute that I conceive present with your orms’. Yet orm is limitation. Form divides space and time into an ‘inside’, what it ‘comprehends’, and an ‘outside’, what it puts at a distance. It cannot present the absolute.36
Ultimately, the antagonism, which makes the subject succumb beore the sublime, can be traced back to the incommensurability (the ‘differend’, Lyotard) between understanding and imagination on the one hand and reason on the other. Although it is capable o representing the beautiul by resorting to its orm, imagination ails vis-à vis the sublime which only reason can think. Lyotard detects this incommensurability within the sublime: ‘Tis differend is to be ound at the heart o sublime eeling: at the encounter o the two “absolutes” equally “present” to thought, the absolute whole when it conceives, the absolutely measured when it presents.’ 37 Tis conflict o aculties is insurmountable, and the individual subject alls prey to it. ‘aste promised him a beautiul lie; the sublime threatens to make him disappear’, 38 explains Lyotard. What happened? Although Lyotard relies heavily on the negative aesthetics developed by Mallarmé, Valéry and Adorno, he breaks with these aesthetics by redefining negativity in the light o the sublime and by turning it against the individual subject and its autonomy. Far rom strengthening the subject, as in Adorno’s case, negativity thus becomes a mortal threat to it. In this context Lyotard’s critique o ‘trans-avant-garde’ or ‘consumable’ postmodernism can be reconsidered. Insoar as he continues the avant- garde aesthetics o late modern negativity, he is obliged to condemn the tradition- oriented innovations o postmodern artists such as Jencks, Eco, John Barth or Bonito Oliva which dey Adorno’s dictum ‘the old has reuge only at the vanguard o the new’ (c. supra). Lyotard is consistent with his postmodern negativity when he distances himsel rom the plea or a consumable art in the sense o Jencks or Bonito Oliva and when he blames ‘trans-avant-gardism’ or ‘squandering’ the heritage o the avant-gardes.39 Adorno might agree with this criticism because he also rejects all attempts to adapt art to the needs o a culture consumer who was socialized by culture industry. However, the two postmodern extremes – Lyotard and Oliva, Lyotard and Eco – do meet i they are considered rom the point o view o Critical Teory and in relation to the problem o subjectivity. For Lyotard and the advocates o a consumer- oriented postmodern art have abandoned Mallarmé’s, Valéry’s and Adorno’s idea o ‘the subject who is aware and in control o himsel’. At one end o the postmodern spectrum, Lyotard maps out an aesthetic theory that negates this subject, while at the other end o the spectrum, the trans-avant-gardists accelerate the integration o this subject into commercial culture. Tey also accelerate the decline o critique in the context o indifference: because critique is only possible in a situation where autonomous subjects can set out rom clearly defined social and aesthetic values.
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2 Te linguistic subversion o subjects: Between iterability and iterativity Te basic assumption o some postmodern thinkers is that the individual subject is over-determined by outside actors such as nature, language or the unconscious. In Lyotard’s case, it is negated by nature’s presence in the sublime (in the sense o Kant: c. Chapter III, 1) that exceeds the capacity o understanding and imagination. In the case o Derrida, whose critique o the subject will be at the centre o the discussion, along with the critiques o Gilles Deleuze and Gianni Vattimo, it alls apart in a language considered as an endless interaction o signifiers that results in a subversion o subjective meaning. In view o the act that linguists may find this assumption somewhat strange or unusual, it seems to make sense to say a ew words about André Martinet’s thesis concerning the ‘double articulation o language’. Te French linguist asks how language ‘coners upon the phonemes, i.e. upon units without signifieds, the constitution o its signifiers, thereby shielding the latter against the impact o meaning’. 40 Later on he underlines the arbitrary character o phonemes as a crucial aspect o this absence o meaning: ‘Stemming rom the second articulation o language, the phonemes thus appear as guarantees o the arbitrary character o the sign.’41 It stands to reason that, by subordinating signifieds to signifiers, a philosophy o language such as Derrida’s weakens conceptual thought and casts doubts on the complementary ideas o meaning and subjectivity. For the subject is, among other things, an instance responsible or conceptual definitions. In Writing and Difference , it becomes clear to what extent Derrida (ollowing Bataille) returns to Vischer’s Young Hegelian problematic when he blames Hegel or excluding rom philosophy whatever does not fit logical and conceptual thought: dream and chance, laughter and ecstasy, poetry and play. Bataille himsel comments: ‘In the “system” poetry, laughter, ecstasy are nothing. Hegel hastily gets rid o them: he knows no other aim than knowledge.’ 42 Derrida resumes this train o thought when he writes about Hegel: ‘In interpreting negativity as labor, in betting or discourse, meaning, history, etc., Hegel has bet against play, against chance.’43 Vischer was well aware o this, but unlike some postmodern thinkers he did not get the idea o betting against meaning, history and the subject. Tis is precisely what Derrida does when he maps out a theory o language based on the assumption that a stable, identifiable meaning cannot exist or two reasons: first, because each linguistic sign unctions in an open context o differences that does not admit its unambiguous definition; second, because a repetition o such a sign in context entails differences and semantic shifs which also prevent an unambiguous definition as presence o meaning ( présence du sens). Te first case is circumscribed by Derrida’s neologism différance (rom différer = to differ, to postpone), the second case by his notion o itérabilité (iterability = repetition with shifs in meaning). It goes almost without saying that, by denying the possibility o defining and identiying meaning, this conception o semantics enhances the role o the signifiers as phonetic units without meaning and tends to degrade or weaken the signifieds as concepts. Te definition o concepts as ‘presence o meaning’ becomes impossible in Derrida’s deconstruction. In a complementary way, the identity o the
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individual subject appears as an illusion that dissolves as soon as it is reconsidered in conjunction with différance and iterability. Like the concept, the subject alls prey to the unstoppable semantic shifing that occurs as one moves rom signifier to signifier. In order to understand the disintegration o the subject and o subjectivity (also as a collective phenomenon) in Derrida’s deconstruction, it seems necessary to have a closer look at différance and iterability because they both prevent the identification (‘definition’) o subjects in language. It will be shown that both notions imply a Nietzschean critique o Descartes and Hegel. Saussure, the rationalist, the Cartesian, believed in the possibility o defining the unction and the meaning o individual words within the language system constructed by him, and he imagined an identifiable subject capable o using language as parole in an unambiguous way. His synchronic conception o language is systematic and unctional in character. Tis means that a particular phonetic or lexical element cannot be defined in isolation, but only within a context where it interacts with other elements o language. Saussure himsel explains: Within the same language, all words used to express related ideas limit each other reciprocally; synonyms like French redouter ‘dread’, craindre ‘ear’, and avoir peur ‘be araid’ have value only through their opposition: i redouter did not exist, all its content would go to its competitors. 44
Although Derrida accepts Saussure’s idea that the meaning o a word only comes about by virtue o its difference rom semantically related words, he leaves the rationalist ramework when he argues that even Saussure’s differential approach cannot fix the meaning o a word. Te presence o meaning, he believes, cannot be brought about because linguistic contexts are open and the process o differentiation never ends. Not surprisingly, a text appears to him as an open interplay o signifiers whose meaning cannot be unambiguously determined: And that the meaning o meaning (in the general sense o meaning and not in the sense o signalization) is infinite implication, the indefinite reerral o signifier to signifier? And that its orce is a certain pure and infinite equivocality which gives signified meaning no respite, no rest, but engages it in its own economy so that it always signifies again and differs? 45
Derrida calls this endless deerment o meaning différance (rom the French verb différer = to differ, to deer, to postpone). But what does the expression ‘in its own economy ’ mean? It means that meaning can only exist as a semantic shif or deerment o meaning, not as a static idea in the sense o Plato or as an always present, unchanging signified presupposed by Saussure. As a metonymy o postmodernism, Derrida’s différance contains the problematic o postmodern particularization46 in the sense that it subordinates the interlingual and intercultural universality o the signified as concept to the particularity o the signifier – which is unique in each language. In this context Jochen Hörisch speaks quite rightly o the ‘supremacy o the signifier over the signified’.47 Whenever Derrida maintains that
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fixing the conceptual meaning o a word (as signified in the sense o Saussure) is impossible, he gives priority to the signifier and turns the signified into a secondary, derived phenomenon. At the same time, he particularizes meaning by denying the possibility o defining a generally valid concept. For him, only the ‘indefinite reerral o signifier to signifier’ is conceivable – and not a signified or the stable meaning o a text. Tis train o thought has considerable implications or individual and collective subjectivity. It means that the latter cannot be grounded in a stable meaning or identity because it dissolves in an unending concatenation o polysemous signifiers. It dissolves in this context because, since Descartes, it has been linked to the conceptualizing cogito and the possibility o conceptual definition. Subjectivity loses its cognitive basis in a situation where conceptuality is jeopardized by the indefinable interplay o signifiers. Tis process o disintegration will now be reconsidered in conjunction with Derrida’s notion o iterability (itérabilité ) which is slightly more concrete and better to grasp than différance. Iterability (Lat. iter = path, iterum = again, reiterare = to reiterate, repeat) means, on the ace o it, repetition. Unlike rationalist semioticians such as Algirdas J. Greimas, who believe that repetition o a word contributes to the coherence o a text and makes it easier to define its meaning, Derrida claims that, ar rom consolidating the text’s coherence, the repetition o a word calls its meaning into question. It destabilizes its meaning because a semantic shif occurs as soon as a word enters a new context (within a particular text or in different texts). Tis means that the identity o a word or a text can never be unambiguously defined. What Derrida says in conjunction with différance also applies to his notion o iterability : Te presence o meaning as conceptual definition is not possible. As soon as we re-read Nietzsche’s particularizing remarks concerning conceptuality and subjectivity, quoted in the ourth section o the previous chapter, we realize that Derrida’s deconstruction is a Nietzschean contestation o Descartes, Kant and Hegel: ‘Each concept comes about by identiying what is not identical.’ 48 Is this not a theory o iterability avant la lettre? Nietzsche’s deconstruction o the subject can be considered parallel to his conceptual scepticism: ‘ “Subject” is the fiction according to which many identical states orm within us a single substratum.’49 Like the concept, subjectivity thus appears as a fiction, which can only continue to exist because we overlook differences and semantic shifs. Tis is why, in his critique o Austin’s speech act theory, Derrida doubts the continuing presence o a subject’s intention within a speech act. For him, this presence is an illusion: ‘For a context to be exhaustively determinable, in the sense demanded by Austin, it at least would be necessary or the conscious intention to be totally present and actually transparent or itsel and others, since it is a determining ocal point o the context.’50 However, this kind o transparency is impossible, argues Derrida, because différance and iterability always thwart the repetition o one and the same speech act. In a changing context the repetition o a speech act invariably produces a new speech act. In short, what applies to the individual word and its semantic shifs also applies to the speech act. Tis semantic shifing does not allow or an identical and identifiable subjectivity or consciousness. Rudol Bernet explains: ‘It ollows rom this that no simple and direct
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presence o consciousness or itsel exists and that the stream o consciousness appears between what it is now, what it is no longer and what it is not yet.’ 51 In the differences between the ‘no longer’ and the ‘not yet’, the subject disappears as an indefinable, nonidentifiable phenomenon whose conceptual basis dwindles. Especially in his book Difference and Repetition, which can be read parallel to Derrida’s Writing and Difference, Gilles Deleuze considers repetition as a permanent semantic shifing. It prevents us rom speaking o a repetition o the same. Following Nietzsche, he denies the existence o essence and relies exclusively on appearance; he pleads against the concept o truth and in avour o the simulacrum: Te subject o the eternal return is not the same but the different, not the similar but the dissimilar, not the one but the many, not necessity but chance. Moreover, repetition in the eternal return implies the destruction o all orms which hinder its operation, all the categories o representation incarnated in the primacy o the Same, the One, the Identical and the Like. 52
As in Nietzsche’s case, identities and definitions are fictions or illusions and should be deconstructed. Deleuze considers ‘the possibility o differences without a concept’ 53 and reveals one o the basic concerns o postmodern thought: the conceptual dismantling o individual and collective subjectivity. In Lyotard’s theory o the sublime, the subject is deprived o its understanding, and in Deleuze’s theory o repetition, it is dissolved in reified language: It (language) repeats because it (the words) is not real, because there is no definition other than nominal. It (nature) repeats because it (matter) has no interiority, because it is partes extra partes. It (the unconscious) repeats because it (the Ego) represses, because it (the Id) has no memory. 54
What Deleuze describes here could be defined – in a modernist perspective – as the alienation o the individual subject in trans-subjective contexts such as language, nature, matter, the unconscious and the id. Te individual subject no longer exists because it is dissolved in otherness: in all those areas it no longer overlooks and controls because it has been deprived o its conceptuality. In Deleuze’s work, the modernist critique o the idealist, domineering subject has reached its last (postmodern) phase in which this subject succumbs to heteronomy and heterogeneity. In a society, in which all values appear as exchangeable in relation to the exchange value, the subject itsel becomes indifferent. It can no longer be distinguished rom language, nature, matter or the unconscious. Goffman might say (c. the introduction) that the dancer dissolves in her different names, hairstyles and ‘tendencies o popularity’. wo years afer Difference and Repetition, Jürgen Becker gave a vivid description o the loss o subjectivity in language: Wol used to make sof sentences when it was still the era o sof sentences. Do the masses expect sof sentences? Suddenly Wol is filled with anxiety because he does not know what sentences the masses expect. Wol knows that he has to know it
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because in the past, when he did not know what the camera and the microphone wanted, the camera and the microphone did not even show up. 55
Both Wol and the dancer know that offer and demand are inextricably bound together and that the aesthetic, moral or political quality o the offer is indifferent. Tis is not, o course, what Deleuze and other postmodern thinkers mean – but they all set out rom this ait accompli. Teir explicit intention is closely linked to the project o Critical Teory. It is a radical critique o dominant subjectivity, identity and conceptuality (in the sense o ‘logocentrism’, Derrida). But insoar as Deleuze imagines the ‘possibility o differences without a concept’ (instead o trying with Adorno to ‘strive, by way o the concept, to transcend the concept’), 56 he can only confirm Derrida’s idea that every kind o repetition (o thoughts, events, text elements) can only subvert identity and subjectivity: ‘It ragments identity itsel’. 57 It eels like reading Derrida when one comes across the ollowing sentence: ‘In other words, every time we encounter a variant, a difference, a disguise or a displacement, we will say that it is a matter o repetition.’58 As in Derrida’s case, this sort o repetition subverts subjectivity – or even prevents it rom coming about. Philosophers o déjà vu might object that all o these arguments can be ound in empiricism and nominalism. Teir objection is not banal: not only because it explains Deleuze’s interest in Hume, 59 but also because it encourages a search or affinities between postmodern deconstruction and the older empiricism. Deleuze himsel evokes these affi nities when, in a discussion with Claire Parnet, he remarks in conjunction with empiricism: ‘A multiplicity is never contained in the components, whatever their number, not even in their unity or totality. A multiplicity is exclusively in the AND [. . .].’60 Like Derrida’s deconstruction, Deleuze’s neo-empiricism is a partly implicit, partly explicit critique o Hegel’s dialectical totality. Commenting on Hume’s scepticism, Hegel observes that ‘one cannot sink any lower in conceptual thought’. 61 He might consider Deleuze and Derrida in the same light. However, a return to Hegel is not an option because Hegelianism would ignore the most pressing problems o our time and overlook the valid arguments o Deleuze and the deconstructionists. Te idea that we are dealing with a problematic consisting o related problems and questions is borne out by the affi nity between Deleuze and Derrida on the one hand and the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo on the other, especially in relation to the subject problem. Like the two French philosophers, Vattimo, who will be compared with R. D. Laing in the next section, starts rom the basic assumption that repetition is a process o differentiation that erodes subjectivity. He speaks o ‘difference as disruption’ (‘la differenza come sondamento’) 62 and argues, ollowing Nietzsche, Heidegger and Derrida, that in our time art and philosophy are marked by a ‘radical hermeneutic’ which deconstructs the subject and thus escapes the constraints o technological domination: Te world o symbolic orms – philosophy, art, culture in general – affirms its autonomy, insoar as it is the place where the subject, empowered by technology to rule the world, is decomposed, dislocated and de-structured: as subjugated subject (soggetto assogettato) and last incarnation o the structures o domination. 63
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At this point, the affi nity between the three postmodern thinkers is as striking as their estrangement rom Critical Teory. Like Lyotard, they sacrifice the individual subject to an ultra-radical (i.e. conormist) critique o capitalism and technology and thus overlook the act that the individual or collective subject is the oundation o resistance and criticism. Vattimo’s affi rmative attitude towards the technocratically organized culture industry and its indifferent pluralism64 reveals the implications o his critique o the subject. Tereore it seems to make sense to conclude this section with a meta- critique that will ocus on the question o repetition in order to avoid losing itsel in the vastness o the postmodern problematic. Te argument can be summed up in a ew words: Individual subjectivity presupposes neither a ‘presence o meaning’ nor a rigid identity (x = x), but should be conceived o (as in the first chapter) as an interaction o permanently changing narrative programmes and as a dialogical process, i.e. as a permanent dialogue with the Other . Individual subjects change and yet maintain their identity, very much like characters in a novel who are perectly capable o distancing themselves ironically rom their past or their ‘I’ without ever renouncing their identity or their narrative programmes. In conjunction with Deleuze, Zourabichvili remarks: ‘Meaning is divergence, dissonance, disjunction.’65 Meaning may include all o this: in everyday lie and in the novel. More ofen than characters in novels, we are daily conronted with contradictions, incoherent contexts and meaningless events some o which may block our narrative programme(s). Te ruitless repetition o an affective, proessional or scientific experiment may sometimes confirm the initial impression o ‘divergence, dissonance and disjunction’. But this need not be the rule – i we are not deconstructionists. For contradiction and contingency can have both destructive and constructive effects – as will be shown in the last chapter. I we are rationalists, we do not believe in iterability and its unending semantic shifs, but preer to rely on iterativity, which the semiotician Greimas defines as ollows: ‘Iterativity is the reproduction on the syntagmatic axis o identical or comparable (identiques ou comparables) units occurring on the same level o analysis.’ 66 In a complementary way, the concept o isotopy is defined as ‘repetition o classemes on a syntagmatic axis which guarantee the homogeneity o a discourse as enunciation’. 67 In this case, semantic shifs, dissonance or disintegration o meaning are not taken into account. But maybe they are implicit? Deleuze and the deconstructionists would certainly dwell upon the ambiguous expression ‘identical or comparable’ and try to deconstruct the rationalist definition by opposing ‘identical’ to ‘comparable’. Units that are comparable are not identical, they might say. With J. Hillis Miller, an American deconstructionist, they might object: ‘Te difference is as important as the repetition.’ 68 It seems easy, however, to integrate these objections into a dialectical semiotic. For in real lie and in a novel, divergences and contradictions can only occur in relation to a coherence brought about by speech and action. In other words, divergences have to diverge rom something , contradictions have to contradict something and hence presuppose a certain amount o coherence. Considered in this context, Greimas’s claim that, ar rom leading to incoherence, repetition as iterativity develops discourse by expansion and innovation, sounds quite plausible.
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Semiotic subjectivity is an analogous case. I it is considered as a dialogical and narrative process, then the ‘presence o meaning’ in a metaphysical sense is not relevant to it because it is based on a narrative and dynamic meaning marked by semantic shifs and contradictions (i we wish to develop our identity we have to expect others to contradict us and cause contradictions in our development). Tis process o identity acquisition is ambivalent in the sense that changes and contradictions can both strengthen and threaten the subject’s coherence. It is one o the tasks o a theory o the subject to relate dialectically the rationalist and the deconstructionist theories o repetition to one another . Deconstruction (in a general sense) is justified in challenging the rationalist and Hegelian postulate o coherence because texts are not unambiguously definable closed totalities, but dynamic structures marked by semantic shifs and contradictions. In the same way, individual and collective subjects owe their scope o action and their creativity to the semantic indeterminacies, contradictions and contingencies inherent in their narrative programmes. However, such inconsistencies can only be understood in relation to a basic coherence all subjects (rom students combining courses to political parties entering coalitions) postulate or themselves. Deconstructionists tend to overlook this act whenever they adopt an extreme point o view and disregard the counterarguments o their rationalist, Hegelian or Marxist interlocutors.
3 From Laing to Vattimo: ‘Divided sel ’ and soggetto scisso Te transition rom Laing to Vattimo, rom the divided sel to the sogetto scisso or split subject – constructed here as a hypothesis – corresponds to the modern- postmodern transitions rom Adorno’s sublime to the sublime o Lyotard’s negative aesthetics, rom the rationalist-hermeneutic repetition to that o Derrida and the deconstructionists. It will appear that the division o the subject in Laing’s psychoanalysis differs significantly rom the analogous concept in Vattimo’s postmodern philosophy where the very notion o subjectivity is contested in the light o Nietzsche’s and Heidegger’s critiques o metaphysics. Tese changes in conceptual meaning will be explained in relation to the transitions rom modernity to postmodernity. It is not by chance that Ronald D. Laing’s two influential volumes Te Divided Sel (1959) and Te Politics o Experience (1967) belong to the same period as Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (1962). Both in Britain and in the rest o Europe it was an era o rebellion against a society considered by many intellectuals as a reified and alienated world in which genuine experience and subjective creativity were hardly possible. It was an era o revolt against a looming one-dimensional social order whose mechanisms o integration were threatening to bar people rom imagining alternatives, rom thinking outside dominant ideologies. Te ‘passing out to another better world’, 69 one o the central themes o Burgess’s novel, is also one o the key topics o Laing’s work, some o which was influenced by Sartre’s existentialism and Marcuse’s Critical Teory. In one o his Edinburgh lectures, Laing argued, using Sartrian vocabulary, that society socializes and disciplines individuals because it is araid o nothingness, o the néant . Te creativity, which it
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denies the individual subject, is inseparable rom the negative principle o néantisation (Sartre) commented on in the previous chapter. In a perectly organized and commercialized society, whose members communicate in stereotypes, this creativity can hardly survive. Laing’s key concept o experience makes him a kindred spirit o Adorno’s Critical Teory which links the continuing decline o individual subjectivity to the gradual atrophy o social, emotional and physical experience. ‘Te marrow o experience has been sucked out; there is none, not even that apparently set at a remove rom commerce, that has not been gnawed away’,70 Adorno writes in Aesthetic Teory . Te affi nity between the two theoretical perspectives becomes obvious in the introduction to Te Politics o Experience where the loss o experience in a reality becoming unreal is commented on: ‘Around us are pseudo-events, to which we adjust with a alse consciousness adapted to see these events as true and real, and even as beautiul. In the society o men the truth resides now less in what things are than in what they are not.’71 Tis means that the subjects’ interaction with their social environment is invariably alienating and precludes experience. Every attempt to orient one’s action towards riendly or less riendly personalities in everyday politics is tantamount to ignoring or misunderstanding political and economic strategies and their consequences. Te semantic opposition between alienation and truth or authenticity, an opposition underlying Laing’s discourse, bears witness to the modernist origin o this discourse. ‘Humanity is estranged rom its authentic possibilities’, 72 we read in the introduction to Te Politics o Experience , where Laing distances himsel rom Marcuse’s book OneDimensional Man because he thinks that in this book truth and despair tend to coincide. It is regrettable that Laing – like Foucault 73 – was not amiliar with all aspects o Critical Teory and thereore misinterpreted this theory as one-sidedly ‘pessimistic’ instead o ocusing on its underlying tension between critique, despair and hope. He nevertheless sets out rom several premises o this theory – without always being aware o their philosophical origins – whenever he considers the division o the individual subject as a consequence o the prevailing alienation between ‘experience’ and ‘behaviour’. In this situation, the individual subject may withdraw rom the realm o alienated and reified social communication into an interior world o experience that is inaccessible to others. Tey are only aware o the reified patterns o interaction that correspond to their own behaviour. At the beginning o Te Politics o Experience, Laing starts rom the phenomenological thesis that other people’s experience is hidden rom my perception: ‘Your experience o me is not inside you and my experience o you is not inside me, but your experience o me is invisible to me and my experience o you is invisible to you .’74 Tis communication o ‘blind spots’ is at the beginning o an alienation process which, as was pointed out beore, suppresses experience to such a degree that only behaviour as a conscious and perceptible actor remains, condemning to oblivion experience: the second dimension o social lie. In this case, even Laing’s dictum ‘yet I experience you as experiencing ’75 is invalidated. For in a society, which covers every idea and every action with a stereotype, experience is banned rom consciousness. What remains is norm-oriented, stereotype behaviour. Institutions such as amily, school and the health system seem to conspire in order to reduce the subject’s experience to a bare minimum. ‘Te amily as a “protection
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racket” ’,76 notes Laing in order to indicate to what extent the amily’s unction o protection is perverted into a unction o tutelage and normalization that reduces the child’s experience to an ‘interior world’ located outside or beyond social communication. Tis ‘interior world’ is obliterated or blotted out by norm-oriented communication. Te unction o normalization ulfilled by the amily is urther strengthened by other institutions such as the school or the clinic to the extent that experience gradually recedes rom the entire social world, as people grow older. One o the consequences o this development is a division o the subject as sel that corresponds to the separation o experience and behaviour. Laing sums up in one sentence the main arguments o his book Te Divided Sel : ‘I devoted a book, Te Divided Sel , to describing some versions o the split between experience and behaviour.’77 What does this split look like? At a closer look it becomes clear that the main purpose o this book is a new investigation o the social gap described by romantics, modernists and avant- garde artists between social appearance and subjective ‘interiority’ (Breton’s éerie intérieure). Te subject’s strategy is once more a tactical retreat rom an alienated social world into a antastic inner world o ‘experience’: Te changes that the ‘inner’ sel undergoes have already in part been described. Tey may be listed here as ollows: 1. It becomes ‘phantasticized’ or ‘volatilized’ and hence loses any firmly anchored identity. 2. It becomes unreal. 3. It becomes impoverished, empty, dead, and split. 4. It becomes more and more charged with hatred, ear, and envy. Tese are our aspects o one process, as looked rom different points o view. James carried this process to the limits o sanity, perhaps indeed beyond it. Tis young man o twenty-eight had, as is so ofen the case, deliberately cultivated the split between what he regarded as his ‘true sel ’ and his alse-sel system.78
Tis ‘detachment rom everyday routines’,79 as Anthony Giddens calls the split described by Laing, is a well-known aesthetic phenomenon in modernism and surrealism. Like Laing’s patient James, Harry Haller, Hesse’s ‘Steppenwol ’, discovers an inner sel standing aloo rom the social world which he hates and condemns. Naturally, Haller cannot in all respects be compared with James who is a clinical case. But like the psychoanalyst Laing, Hesse’s narrator and hero sets out to rediscover a world o experience obliterated by routine and normality: ‘I was living again an hour o the last years o my boyhood [. . .].’80 Te key word here is the verb ‘living’ (‘erleben’ in the original) which evokes the kind o submerged experience Proust’s narrator revives by relying on an involuntary memory rooted in a distant past. Surrealism belongs to the problematic o modernism 81 insoar as it also opposes an authentic world o experience to a social lie perverted by ideological and commercial stereotypes. Breton’s amous dictum ‘existence is elsewhere’ (‘l’existence est ailleurs’) 82 is
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accompanied in the second surrealist maniesto by a regression towards an inner world marked by childhood experience. Te author hints at an ‘ interior airyland ’83 whose magic appears as an alternative to the norm-oriented consciousness o everyday lie and to what Laing calls ‘behaviour’. Te ‘antastic’, ‘unreal’ and hostile attitude o the surrealists towards the bourgeois social order is well known. 84 In some respects, the violence practised by the alienated youngsters in A Clockwork Orange is a revival o this surrealist hostility. Like the surrealists and modernists, Laing considers the schizophrenic split o the ‘I’ as an anomaly and a symptom o late capitalist alienation: ‘It seems to us that without exception the experience and behaviour that gets labelled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation .’85 Like Adorno and Marcuse, Laing pleads in avour o changing the social conditions that are responsible or what Adorno calls the ‘damaged lie’. He nevertheless believes that a psychic recovery is also possible under alienated social conditions and is criticized rom time to time as a representative o ‘conormist psychology’. 86 Tis criticism is gratuitous in the sense that a psychotherapy geared exclusively towards radical social change would lose sight o its primary object: the patient as individual subject. At times Laing describes socially domesticated subjectivity in terms that seem to anticipate postmodern conditions in which subjective autonomy and unity are dismissed as vain chimeras. He speaks o ‘the illusion that we are autonomous egos’87 and adds: ‘We have all been processed on Procrustean beds.’ 88 Such statements are reminiscent o Goffman, with whom Laing seems to agree that, in the course o a therapy, the psychiatric patient is reduced to an object and thus loses his subjectivity as a ‘non-agent’ and a ‘non-responsible object’.89 (In semiotic terms, the patient ceases to be a subject-actant and is orced into the role o an object-actant. Instead o developing a narrative programme o his own, he is integrated into the narrative programmes o others.) Laing’s arguments are also reminiscent o Michel Foucault’s history o the clinic in the course o which humans cease to be subjects because they are reduced to their corporeity. At the same time, they anticipate Gianni Vattimo’s claim that individual subjectivity is dissolved in postmodern society – albeit in a completely different perspective. Unlike Laing, who still speaks o alienated conditions (‘our collusive madness is what we call sanity’)90 that ought to be overcome, Vattimo explicitly renounces overcoming (Überwindung ) as defined in the 1960s and replaces this term by the Heideggerian term Verwindung : ‘Modernization does not come about as tradition is abandoned, but as it is interpreted almost ironically, “distorted” [Heidegger, in a not unrelated ashion, talks o Verwindung ] in such a way that it is conserved, but also in part emptied.’ 91 Vattimo’s discourse o ‘ironic interpretation’ developed in a social and linguistic situation similar to that o German Romanticism as criticized by Hegel. Like romantic irony, the irony o the postmodernists rises above history because it is no longer able to envisage the latter as a process o overcoming the existing social order (c. Chapter II, 2). Afer the ailure o the 1968 revolt, the last large-scale rebellion o the twentieth century, a playully romantic attitude o non-involvement appears to be the only option. Te system seems to have integrated the revolution: ‘Even revolution as
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innovation appears as a act that is automatically contained in the system.’ 92 Te drive towards radical change may have fizzled out. Vattimo’s book about Nietzsche, written in the afermath o the 1968 events, suggests that the subject’s protest against reification and alienation, a protest espoused by Adorno, Marcuse and Laing, is an illusion. Te reason is that its Nietzschean author presupposes the dissolution o truth and the subject along with the decline o (modernist) criticism. Te second dimension, defined as authenticity by Laing and Marcuse, is bracketed out by Vattimo: ‘Tere is no liberation beyond appearance in a so-called realm o authentic being.’93 In a situation dominated by Nietzschean appearance, the individual subject cannot rely on its constant ‘core’ or unchanging deep structure. It is dissolved in an everchanging collusion o masks: ‘Liberated, the Dionysian consciously opts or a multiplicity o masks.’94 In his book on Nietzsche, Vattimo speaks o a ‘disintegration o the subject, which is the consequence o the idea o Eternal Recurrence, i thought through radically enough’.95 Te counter-argument, namely that the eternal return can also be considered as the oundation o a new subjectivity, was put orward in the second chapter (II, 4). Apart rom dissolving the subject in an endless interplay o masks, Vattimo also deconstructs it on a linguistic level where it appears to him as a rhetorical and metaphorical figure. Following Nietzsche’s dissolution o the concept o truth in metaphors and other figures, he speaks o a ‘oundation-dissolution o the subject resulting rom a complex interplay o metaphors’. 96 Tis perspective overlaps with the deconstructionist view o repetition as dissolution o meaning and subjectivity. Within the postmodern problematic, the sublime, the metaphor and repetition appear as subject-negating actors, all o which are related by Vattimo to the static concept o Verwindung – and no longer to the modern and modernist concepts o critique and overcoming ( Überwindung ). However, he contradicts himsel in a crucial passage o Te End o Modernity when he speaks o contemporary philosophers who contemplate an ‘overcoming o the notion o the subject’. 97 Tis means that progress is still possible: but only as a liquidation o the individual subject by the powers that be. Te division within the subject, considered by Laing as a social pathology, is viewed by Vattimo as the human condition o all times: as a finally recognized reality that was until recently covered by metaphysical illusions. Following Nietzsche, he speaks o a ‘undamentally split character o the subject’ (‘carattere costitutivamente scisso del soggetto’)98 and adds that this division is to be considered as ‘the “normal” condition o postmodern man’ (‘condizione “normale” dell’uomo postmoderno’). 99 Te individual subject appears to him as ‘multiplicity’: ‘individualità come molteplicità’. 100 O course, one could object that the psychiatric division analysed by Laing is not comparable to Vattimo’s split as scissione and that ‘split’ and ‘multiplicity’ in the sense o Vattimo are vague notions which are impossible to test on a sociological or psychological level (Laing is, afer all, commenting on the clinically defined state o schizophrenia). It seems important to deal with both objections in order to cast new light on the comparison. o begin with, it goes without saying that only different phenomena can be compared provided that they have certain eatures in common. Division and scissione ( split ) are
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comparable insoar as both authors describe the disintegration o the ‘I’ and analyse the consequences o this disintegration. Tey do differ, however, on a structural level in that Laing analyses a division into two halves (in the sense o schizophrenia), while Vattimo tends to describe a social and cultural process in the course o which the individual subject is dissolved into a multitude o masks and metaphors. In his case we are thereore dealing with a process o disintegration, not with a division in the psychoanalytic sense. Te main difference is at the centre o this section and concerns the change o meaning undergone by the concept o subject between modernity and postmodernity. Unlike Laing, who views schizophrenic behaviour in conjunction with a late capitalist ‘discontent in civilization’ and would like to overcome the system o the ‘alse sel’ 101 in order to reshape the subject’s unity,Vattimo bids arewell to the ‘pathos o authenticity’102 and indirectly accepts postmodern indifference. Peter Caravetta simplifies this context somewhat when he remarks in his comments on Vattimo’s ‘postmodern hermeneutic’: ‘Modern society is witness to the decline and eventual disappearance o the notion o subject and subjectivity.’ 103 It is possible that the individual subject has been moving in dire straits since the end o the nineteenth century. Some structural reasons or its decline were mentioned in the first and second chapter; some social actors will be discussed in the ourth. However, the ‘notion o subject’ is ar rom obsolete because it is being used in sociology and semiotics to explain the actions o individual and collective actants or actors and because it is at the centre o discussions between modernists and postmodernists – along with complementary concepts such as domination, reification, alienation, overcoming and critique. Only those who sincerely believe that they can renounce social criticism may also bid arewell to the concept o subject.
4 From Laing to Goffman and Foucault: Stigmatization and organized experience ‘Gentlemen, we introduce the subject himsel’, 104 we read in A Clockwork Orange, where the word ‘subject’ evokes the subjugated, manipulated and objectified individual. Its meaning hardly changes in the writings o Erving Goffman and Michel Foucault, whose analyses differ rom Laing’s polemics against the existing social order by virtue o their soberly descriptive character. In their case studies, they describe the human ‘existential minimum’ or the ‘damaged lie’105 in the sense o Adorno rather than the ‘better world’ envisaged by Laing and Burgess’s narrator. Reading Laing – who keeps reerring to Goffman – it becomes clear that Goffman’s theory contains critical components in spite o its unctionalist and behaviourist terminology because it makes the voice o psychiatric patients heard, thereby revealing the relative character o psychiatric discourse.106 Something similar can be said o Foucault, who analyses the administrative mechanisms to which individual subjects are exposed in a world shaped by scientific progress. Although his philosophical anthropology is not adequately described by a general concept such as ‘structuralism’ or ‘postmodernity’, it does combine a structural with a postmodern perspective in that it
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reveals the structural determinants that prevent individual – and possibly even collective – subjects rom finishing the ‘project o modernity’ (Habermas) as a project o enlightenment and emancipation. I one had to explain Goffman’s and Foucault’s originality as succinctly as possible, one might say that the truth o their theories coincides with the insight that the Cartesian relationship between mind and matter, subject and object, is reversible. Te subject no longer appears as a sovereign mind, a chose qui pense, but as a subjugated entity: as a chose pensée. It becomes clear how ar the reification o the subject has progressed during the transition rom modernity to postmodernity i one conronts the Cartesian position as sketched in the second chapter with Goffman’s sobering analyses. About Descartes’ subject Christian Link – quoted in Chapter II – writes: ‘ Its reason – absolved rom all indebtedness to the world – is now turned into an instrument used to realize the modern dream o man as “maître et possesseur de la nature”.’ 107 Not much is lef o this lofy dream o early idealism in Goffman’s research. Commenting on the admission o the ‘patient’ into a psychiatric clinic, he writes: Admission procedures might better be called ‘trimming’ or ‘programming’ because in thus being squared away the new arrival allows himsel to be shaped and coded into an object that can be ed into the administrative machinery o the establishment, to be worked on smoothly by routine operations. 108
Te idea that the ‘embodiments o sel [are] proaned’ 109 in the process, as Goffman points out elsewhere, goes without saying. From a socio-semiotic point o view, ‘programming’ appears as a key word because it implies the unity o the narrative programmes which together constitute subjectivity on a linguistic and a pragmatic (action) level. Several o Goffman’s analyses indicate that the integration, subjugation and administration o the individual subject are achieved by the usurpation o its narrative modalities and by its actantial integration into the narrative programme o the clinic as collective actant . From a methodological point o view, it is interesting to observe to what extent two heterogeneous theories – social psychology and semiotics – interlock and shed light on each other. Once he has been defined as ‘patient’ the newcomer is reduced to passiveness both as a speaking and an acting subject and absorbed by the narrative programme o the collective actant ‘clinic’: In short, mental hospitalization outmaneuvers the patient, tending to rob him o the common expressions through which people hold off the embrace o organizations – insolence, silence, sotto voce remarks, un-co-operativeness, malicious destruction o interior decorations, and so orth; these signs o disaffi liation are now read as signs o their maker’s proper affiliation. 110
Here it becomes clear that the narrative programme o the individual subject is re-programmed – both on the level o enunciation and on the level o action – until it fits that o the institution, until it is ‘normalized’. 111
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Te latter’s main goal is the recognition o its programme by the inmates: ‘Inmates must be caused to sel-direct themselves in a manageable way.’112 At this point, a similarity between the socio-psychological realm o individual subjectivity and the political realm o collective subjectivity can be discerned. Like the clinics described by Goffman, occupying powers try to integrate the occupied countries and their populations into their narrative programmes. On an actantial level, helpers (collaborators) are employed who are expected to make the narrative o the invaders seem plausible to their own people. Afer the invasion o Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the occupation o Aghanistan in 1980, the Soviet government showed considerable inventiveness in constructing new (Hegelian-Marxist) narratives in which aggression appeared as raternal aid and the sporadic resistance to Soviet military occupation as a final proo o the historical necessity to crush counter-revolutionary movements. Goffman describes the dialectical relationship between individual and collective actants when he points out in Asylums: ‘Our sense o being a person can come rom being drawn into a wider social unit; our sense o selood can arise through the little ways in which we resist the pull.’113 However, the question remains whether the post-Cartesian, postmodern individual subject is still able to resist the maelstrom o international trusts, organizations and media on which it depends as a subject (c. Chapter V, 1, 3).114 Goffman agrees with Laing and Adorno’s Critical Teory when he shows how the subject’s resistance is undermined in the realm o experience. Once they are defined as criminal, homosexual or epileptic, individual subjects no longer experience themselves, but see themselves with the eyes o others. Te social images imposed on them not only obliterate their sel-perception but also their sel-experience. Whenever they use the pronoun ‘I’ they evoke images promulgated by those who have stigmatized them. Teir well-meant interventions only increase the sel-alienation o the stigmatized rom their experience o themselves. Goffman comments on the ambiguous ates o the stigmatized: ‘Te stigmatized individual thus finds himsel in an arena o detailed argument and discussion concerning what he ought to think o himsel, that is, his ego identity.’115 Tis sentence rom Goffman’s Stigma is a summary o the most important aspects o his study and at the same time reormulates some arguments o Laing’s Te Politics o Experience. It shows how, by way o ‘proessional representation’, the politics o identity are imposed on the subjects, thus condemning their experience o themselves and others to atrophy. Moreover, it reveals the narrative-discursive character o subjective identity by describing how the latter is usurped whenever it is integrated into narrative programmes imposed by others. Te pseudo-subject speaks and acts within narrative programmes it has not devised or understood. Its main object, its identity, is thus turned into an object o the adversary . As in Laing’s case, the subject alls prey to a ‘politics o experience’ defined by Goffman as a ‘politics o identity’. Is it sheer chance that in Laing’s and in Goffman’s discourse, the word ‘politics’ acquires negative connotations whereas words such as ‘experience’ or ‘sel-awareness’ tend to meet with approval? Te main difference between the two authors seems to consist in the act that, unlike Laing, Goffman considers psychiatric control and stigmatization in a unctional context and not as instruments o domination and symptoms o a sick society:
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In conclusion, may I repeat that stigma involves not so much a set o concrete individuals who can be separated into two piles, the stigmatized and the normal, as a pervasive two-role social process in which every individual participates in both roles, at least in some connections and in some phases o lie. 116
Tis passage confirms the unctionalist outlook o Goffman’s Te Presentation o Sel in Everyday Lie . Society appears to him as an interplay o roles or an interaction o ‘rames’117 and not so much as systematic domination generating aggression, alienation and apathy. Nevertheless, similarities can be observed between his studies and those o Michel Foucault. Independently o American unctionalism, Foucault analyses the nexus between rationalism, efficiency and the administrative organization o individual subjectivity as body and psyche. Like Foucault, Goffman describes the links between the rationalized administration o human lie and its atrophy in modernization. Like Foucault, he shows that modern administration does not recognize a habeas corpus and does not respect the integrity o the human body: ‘Just as personal possessions may interere with the smooth running o an institutional operation and be removed or this reason, so parts o the body may conflict with efficient management and the conflict may be resolved in avor o efficiency.’118 It would certainly be trivial to insert Goffman into the steadily growing ancestral line o postmodern thinkers; nevertheless, his work announces a postmodern era: (1) because it reveals the social mechanisms which turn the individual subject into a subjugated instance; (2) because it sheds light – like Foucault’s philosophy – on the irrational and violent character o rationalist reason. But in Goffman’s case one would look in vain or a critique o this type o reason. Tis critique is articulated – in partial agreement with Adorno and Horkheimer – by Foucault, whose work belongs to postmodernity in the sense that it presents Descartes’ universal reason as a particular exercise o power within anonymous structure constellations and discourses. Foucault’s insightul critique is summed up by his amous dictum ‘reason is torture’ (‘la torture, c’est la raison’). 119 Tis extreme diagnosis articulates the postmodern distrust o modern rationality. ‘In a nutshell, modern times were prominent or the ruthless assault o the proane against the sacred, reason against passion, norms against spontaneity, structure against counter-structure, socialization against sociality’,120 declares Zygmunt Bauman in Postmodern Ethics. Tis book pleads or the ephemeral and particular that does not conorm to universal reason. It is at the same time a critique o what Bauman, ollowing Foucault, calls pastoral power : organizing, controlling violence. 121 It is certainly one o Foucault’s basic merits to have pointed out – in a way reminiscent o Laing, Goffman and Critical Teory – the reversibility o the relationship between subject and object, mind and matter as defined by European idealism. o him, the individual subject no longer appears as a undamental given, as part o the divine spirit, but as a socialized corporeity efficiently manipulated by a reason anchored in anonymous power constellations. Te reversibility o the idealist relationship is one o the main topics o Te Order o Tings (Les Mots et les choses , 1966) where man is presented as ‘enslaved sovereign,
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observed spectator’.122 He is not defined as mind but as body: as an object o administration. Foucault adds to Laing’s and Goffman’s theme o ‘normalization’ and ‘stigmatization’ when, in Te Birth o the Clinic , he deduces the normative character o social science rom its orientation towards the older natural sciences (especially biology and medicine): ‘But the very subjects it devoted itsel to (man, his behaviour, his individual and social realizations) thereore opened up a field that was divided up according to the principles o the normal and the pathological.’ 123 Starting rom the normative opposition normal / pathological , the social sciences o the nineteenth century create a normative language in which individual subjects can be stigmatized and normalized as deviant cases. Tis is clearly a somewhat one-sided view o the social sciences that glosses over their emancipatory potential. In this respect, Habermas may be right when he remarks critically in conjunction with Foucault’s approach: ‘From the outset, he is interested in the human sciences as media that in modernity strengthen and promote the mysterious process o this socialization, that is, the investment with power o concrete, bodily mediated interactions.’124 However, Habermas overlooks the truth content o Foucault’s analyses which appears whenever his discourse overlaps with Laing’s or Goffman’s or with that o Critical Teory. Habermas, who continues the Enlightenment tradition in many respects, has a lot o confidence in the emancipatory prowess o the social sciences and tends to ignore their tendency to smother human experience and individual insight . Foucault is interested in precisely these aspects o human subjectivity. He shows – along with Goffman – how patients in hospitals are turned into objects or ‘cases’ o their illness. In the ollowing passage, ‘subject’ clearly denotes a subjugated instance: ‘In the hospital, the patient is the subject o his disease, that is, he is a case; in the clinic, where one is dealing only with examples, the patient is the accident o his disease, the transitory object that it happens to have seized upon.’ 125 At the same time, his research shows to what extent the medical proession o the eighteenth century tended to underestimate empirical evidence and to subsume experience under the general concept. He writes about the ‘purity o essence’: ‘In order to accede to the purity o essence, it was first necessary to possess it, and then to use it to obliterate the excessively rich content o experience.’ 126 At this point, he agrees with the authors o the Dialectic o Enlightenment who also describe the suppression o experience by a classiying and calculating ratio. Te act that this suppression equals identification with death becomes clear in Te Birth o the Clinic where the juxtaposition and interaction o human individuality and death are revealed: ‘From the integration o death into medical thought is born a medicine that is given as a science o the individual. And, generally speaking, the experience o individuality in modern culture is bound up with that o death.’ 127 From the dissector Bichat to Freud, the theoretician o the death drive, the science o man is closely linked to the latter’s death. Roddey Reid continues Foucault’s train o thought concerning the end o the individual subject when he envisages the end o man in ‘medical humanism’ 128 in conjunction with the dizzying speed attained by the progress o genetic engineering . Individuality as socialized corporeity is deleted as soon as it is genetically decoded and
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inserted into the biological continuum. Te perectibility o genetic tests reveals to what degree it can be controlled. Tis nexus o reason, domination and death is seen by Foucault not only as a subordination o the particular to the universal, o the concrete to the abstract, but also as a physical exercise o power. In this respect, his approach differs rom that o Adorno and Horkheimer. His sentence ‘reason is torture’ not only means that an abstract logos subjugates human individuality; it also means that this logos is produced by materially based power structures: ‘In reality nothing is more material, more corporeal then the exercise o power . . .’129 Tis exercise o power produces knowledge: ‘Far rom preventing knowledge, power produces it. Knowledge concerning the human body was appropriated with the help o a certain number o military and school disciplines.’ 130 Knowledge appears as a particular phenomenon linked to particular power structures and is thus opposed to Descartes’s universal reason. Te act that Foucault considers this kind o knowledge, which presents itsel as reason, as violent is not altogether surprising. It appears to him as a reason cut in hal and separated rom its otherness: rom madness, sleep and dream. Foucault’s critique o Descartes, whom he blames or having excluded all o these aspects rom the realm o knowledge, is reminiscent o the Young Hegelian and Adornian critique o Hegel: ‘Descartes puts orward this hypothesis which eliminates all sensual oundations o knowledge and only recognizes the intellectual oundations o certainty .’131 In Madness and Civilization, like in the Dialectic o Enlightenment , Cartesian reason is considered as a reason cut in hal: ‘But the human truth discovered by madness, is the very opposite o what constitutes the moral and social truth o man.’ 132 Tis particular truth is imposed and administered by the state and its institutions: amily, school and clinic. While Foucault shows how the bourgeois amily o the eighteenth century becomes an agent and a criterion o reason (‘un des critères essentiels de la raison’), 133 Jacques Donzelot develops and modifies his argument by revealing to what extent the amily o the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is increasingly subjected to state control . Along with the rise o social security, psychiatry and amily planning ‘the complicity between state and amily is inverted in the sense that the amily is transormed into an object o state intervention and missionary work’.134 Psychiatry and psychoanalysis thus become instruments o the state by contributing to the ‘medicalization o sexuality’ 135 and to ‘social normalization’.136 What matters here is not the question whether Donzelot’s study – which is partly based on Deleuze’s and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipe (1972/73) – departs rom Foucault’s arguments, but the idea that, although reason is considered by Goffman, Foucault and Donzelot as a universal phenomenon encompassing society as a whole, it is at the same time unmasked as particular or even arbitrary because it is linked to particular power structures and negates the individual subject. Tis contradiction – inherent in modern reason itsel – is reminiscent o Hobbes’s plea in avour o a universally recognized sovereign whose will is nevertheless presented as particular in the sense that it varies rom country to country.137 Considered in this context, Foucault’s thought can be defined as critical in the sense o Critical Teory because it presents the submission and mutilation o individual subjects as a skandalon within the tradition o European rationality. However, his
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critique is one-dimensional like all postmodern critiques because it does not raise the question concerning alternatives. At this point, it not only differs rom Critical Teory, in which the second dimension is always present, but also rom the work o Laing and rom Burgess’s novel. Foucault was well aware o his proximity to Critical Teory, which began to have an impact on French intellectual lie in the course o the 1970s:138 ‘It is quite certain that I would have saved mysel a lot o work i I had known the Frankurt School, i I had become acquainted with it earlier on.’139 Tis remark not only bears witness to the philosopher’s modesty, but also to his regret o not having taken notice o a theory so similar to his own. However, this similarity ends where late modern and postmodern critiques o reason and subjectivity part company: at the crucial point where the modernists scan the horizons or a better world beyond reification and alienation, while postmodern thinkers stop at a negative diagnostic. Tey stop at Vattimo’s (Heidegger’s) Verwindung and Zygmunt Bauman’s conclusion that we have to live without alternatives to late capitalism: ‘Living without an alternative.’ 140 Teir critique stops in view o Foucault’s withdrawal into a stylized antiquity, which Christopher Norris aptly describes as ‘private sel-ashioning’.141 His description o Foucault’s philosophy as a work torn between social criticism and a stylized private sphere ocuses on the problem o subjectivity: ‘It swings between the opposite poles o a thoroughgoing determinist creed (the idea that subjectivity is entirely constructed in and through discourse) and an ethics – or aesthetics – o autonomous sel-creation which somehow escapes that limiting condition.’142 Te word ‘somehow’ hints at Verwindung or the lack o alternatives in postmodernity: Foucault’s withdrawal into a realm o ‘private sel-ashioning’ in Te History o Sexuality is a orm o Verwindung and suggests that the idea o ‘overcoming’ is inconceivable within the postmodern problematic. Tis lack o perspectives explains why Foucault – unlike Adorno and Horkheimer, who plead in avour o a mimetic reason, unlike Habermas, who proposes a communicative reason – cannot envisage a rationality evolving independently o power structures. o him, all o reason appears as a atal collusion o mind and power. During the transition rom Adorno to Lyotard, rom Laing to Vattimo and rom Critical Teory to Foucault’s philosophy, the loss o the second dimension, which Marcuse so insistently warned against, becomes a ait accompli. o counter this trend, Critical Teory would have to be reormulated in such a way as to make a new subjectivity emerge in whose perspective an overcoming o the present social order would again seem possible.
5 Ideological reification and ‘normalization’ o the subject: From Foucault and Althusser to ‘normalism’ It should have become clear by now why both thinkers, Foucault and Derrida, the ‘structuralist’ and the ‘deconstructionist’, appear as postmodernists rom the point o view o a theory o the subject. In spite o the incompatibility o their approaches,143
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they agree in one respect: in their eyes, the autonomous subject o modernity is an illusion. While Foucault analyses the elimination o subjectivity by structural constraints, Derrida describes the disintegration o the subject in iterability and différance . In this light, structuralism and deconstruction do not appear as absolute opposites, but as extremes that meet and as signs o postmodern times.144 Naturally, it cannot be the aim o contemporary theory to react to Foucault’s scepticism regarding the subject by insisting on the latter’s central position – as German hermeneutics did in the 1970s.145 Afer all, Laing’s and Goffman’s very different but complementary analyses do confirm the key idea o Foucault’s social philosophy. Te individual subject can appear as a product o power constellations that can be described as discursive compounds. (A case in point is the discursive incapacitation o the subject by the clinic.) It seems thereore important to project the problems o individual subjectivity (as discussed in the previous section) onto the linguistic level in order to show how discursive ormations (Foucault), ideologies (Althusser), interdiscourses (Pêcheux) and normalizing procedures (Link) turn individuals into subjects. Te argument in avour o subjectivity underlying this book presupposes a thorough analysis o those mechanisms that hamper the development o the subject in postmodernity. A rash rejection o Goffman’s, Foucault’s or Althusser’s analyses o ailing subjectivity could only disarm and discredit a theory o the subject. Te latter thrives on a permanent dialogue with theories that contradict it. Like all postmodern critics o modernity who stand between Hegel and Nietzsche,146 Foucault opts or Nietzsche. wo texts, both o which he published in 1971 – ‘Nietzsche, la généalogie, l’histoire’ and L’Ordre du discours – reveal three crucial disagreements with Hegel all o which are o Nietzschean origin. (1) History is not a grand design based on a subjective intention or teleology, but a movement ull o gaps and breaks, a concatenation o power constellations in which particular discursive ormations come about. (2) Te individual subject does not participate in historical subjectivity or rationality (Hegel’s World Spirit: c. Chapter II, 2), but unctions unconsciously within discursive power constellations. (3) ruth is neither a trans-historical orm in the sense o Plato nor an historical telos in the sense o Hegel’s ‘absolute idea’, but a contingent, particular insight linked to the exercise o power. As in Nietzsche’s philosophy (c. Chapter II, 4), subject and truth are linked to power and thereby particularized . Unlike Hegel, who subsumed contingency, chance and particularity to historical necessity, Foucault reassesses the role o contingency and seeks to rewrite history in its perspective: ‘Te orces operating in history are not controlled by destiny or regulative mechanisms, but respond to haphazard conflicts.’ 147 Tis Nietzschean chance o power struggles determines the direction o social evolution. New power constellations can emerge by chance and along with them new truths and subjectivities. In his essay Te Order o Discourse , Foucault emphasizes the role o chance and discontinuity in a Young Hegelian vein and looks or means ‘which would enable us to introduce chance, the discontinuous, and materiality at the very roots o thought’.148 He envisages a ‘theory o discontinuous systematicities’, 149 o linguistic, discursive ormations in which subjects and truths come about in a completely contingent way. About history he writes in an anti-Hegelian, Nietzschean style that its purpose ‘is not to discover the roots o our identity, but to commit itsel to its dissipation. It does
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not seek to define our unique threshold o emergence, the homeland to which metaphysicians promise to return; it seeks to make visible all o those discontinuities that cross us’.150 Not only history in the idealist sense alls prey to discontinuity, but along with it the event and the subject. Both can change their meaning rom power constellation to power constellation, rom one discursive ormation to another. And Foucault, the Nietzschean critic o metaphysics, is in ull agreement with the Nietzschean thinkers Deleuze and Derrida (c. Chapter III, 2) in whose eyes the temporality o event and subject coincides with their dissolution. Similarly, metaphysical truth alls prey to this dissolution process, or it appears to Foucault (Deleuze and Derrida) as multiple, contingent and particular. In Foucault’s case, it is irretrievably linked to time, power and discourse. Each discursive ormation has its truths and makes all subjects recognize these truths whose plurality and particularity are incompatible with the universal character o Cartesian or Hegelian truth concepts. In this context, the individual subject can only be considered as the product o a linguistically articulated power constellation: ‘It is a question o caesurae which break up the instant and disperse the subject into a plurality o possible positions and unctions.’ 151 Unortunately, Foucault does not show how this happens. Since he defines ‘discourse’ primarily on a pragmatic level (as an instrument o power), not in semantic and narrative terms, it remains unclear why the subject cannot attain coherence in language. Its absorption by a discursive ormation or by one o its discourses does not exclude this kind o coherence – on the contrary, it imposes it. In order to make the ‘break-up’ o the moment and the subject plausible, Foucault would have had to develop a deconstructionist theory in the sense o Derrida. It is not by chance that this kind o theory is nowhere to be ound in his work. His thought is primarily geared towards the notion o subjugation o the individual subject by supra-individual language structures, and this kind o subjugation implies identity with the dominant instance, not disintegration . Te historical breaks mentioned by Foucault may well lead to the disintegration o the historical subject in the sense o Hegel or Marx, but not to the disintegration o the individual or collective subject, which owes its identity to its submission . Several o Foucault’s texts show to what degree he sees subjective submission not only as corporeal control (c. Chapter III, 4), but also as a linguistic process. Language, he points out in La Pensée du dehors (1986), is not spoken by anybody: ‘In it each subject merely marks a old o grammar (pli grammatical).’ 152 In another context, he speaks in conjunction with language and its mechanisms o the ‘effacement o the speaker’ (‘effacement de celui qui parle’). 153 He attempts to answer questions, some o which keep recurring in virtually all o his writings and are raised once more in one o his lectures at the Collège de France (‘Subjectivité et vérité’, 1981): ‘How were experience o one’s sel and the knowledge concerning this experience organized within particular schemes? How were these schemes defined, evaluated, recommended and imposed?’ 154 Although Foucault’s answers in his later works differ substantially rom those o his early studies, his discourse does revolve around one and the same problem: the production o subjectivity . Tis problem has also been dealt with in depth by Louis Althusser and Michel Pêcheux. Since Althusser’s theory o the subject was briefly discussed in the first
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chapter, it will now be dealt with mainly in relation to Foucault, to the modernpostmodern debate and as a starting point o Pêcheux’s theory o interdiscourse – which can be understood as a synthesis o Foucault’s and Althusser’s terminologies. Althusser’s (and Pêcheux’s) theories are related to Foucault’s philosophy in that they deduce the individual subject in a ‘Spinozistic’ manner, Annie Guédez would say, 155 rom interlocking systems and structures. According to Althusser and Macherey, 156 Spinoza was the first to map out a philosophy without the subject which they consider as an alternative to Hegelianism and humanist Marxism. Althusser praises Spinoza or having envisaged a ‘process without a Subject’ (‘procès sans Sujet’) 157 and explains why this innovation contributed crucially to a demystification o Hegelianism: ‘Tereby Spinoza discovered or us the secret bond, “mystified” by Hegelian dialectics, between the Subject and its finality.’158 Hence society and science are to be considered as processes without collective or individual subjects. Long beore Luhmann who, in his sociology o science, imagines a process o knowledge accumulation without a subject,159 Althusser tries, rom Lire le Capital (1965) onwards, to ban the concept o subject rom scientific discourse. He argues that, in Capital , Marx distances himsel rom his early Hegelian and Fichtean philosophy o the subject and maps out a science o history without a subject.160 Tis reading o Marx is Spinozistic rather than structuralist, as Althusser himsel points out,161 and overlaps with Foucault’s theory o history and subjectivity in two respects: Hegel’s historical teleology based on a subjective finality is no longer presupposed; the individual subject is neither ree nor autonomous in the historical process without a subject, but is over-determined by the dominant ideology and turned into a subjected subject, a sujet assujetti. Tis is why Althusser considers the concept o subject as the ideological concept par excellence. He observes an affinity between philosophical and legal thought when he writes about the concept o subject: ‘Tis category is nothing more than a redefinition o the ideological notion o “subject” in philosophical terms, and this notion is derived rom the legal category o “subject in law”.’ 162 In short, the subject is a ‘subject’ in the sense o His or Her Majesty’s subject . As such, it has orgotten or repressed the origin o its subjection and unwittingly accepts the ideological illusion that it is ree and autonomous. Althusser’s basic thesis according to which ‘ideology interpellates individuals as subjects’ 163 has a considerable explanatory value because it dissipates the myth o a sovereign and autonomous individual subject. Tus Fichte’s idealist ‘I’ is the product o an emerging nationalism, which ‘interpellates’ the individual as subject without him or her being conscious o this act. In the first chapter it was shown on a biographical level to what extent the National Socialist or Marxist-Leninist ideology can turn individuals into subjects. Like Foucault, Althusser considers the submission o the individual to a power structure like ideology as a material process. Te individual subject indulges in certain rituals prescribed by a particular ideology within an ‘ideological state apparatus’: or example, in religious rituals which Althusser also defines as ideological practices. 164 Among the most important ‘ideological state apparatuses’ are, apart rom the army and the police, the school, the university and even the church, since Althusser considers
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religion (like Marx) as an ideology. 165 All o these ‘ideological state apparatuses’ have their rituals that turn individuals into ideological subjects: a way o greeting, a prayer or an academic ceremony. Te identification o religion and ideology (which, unlike religion, is a product o bourgeois-individualist, secular society) is one o the reasons why Althusser claims with an almost idealist zeal that ideology is ‘trans-historical’, ‘eternal’: ‘I eternal means, not transcendent to all (temporal) history, but omnipresent, trans- historical and thereore immutable in orm throughout the extent o history, I shall adopt Freud’s expression word or word, and write ideology is eternal , exactly like the unconscious.’166 It is by no means certain that the unconscious (as discovered by Freud) is eternal, and ideology as a product o modern, secularized societies has a concrete historical origin. Its rise coincides with that o bourgeois intellectuals who replace the theologians in some cases and construct complex systems o ideas such as conservatism, liberalism, ascism or Marxism-Leninism. Ideology differs rom a world religion such as Christianity or Islam by virtue o its artificial, constructed and relatively ephemeral character. In this particular respect, it resembles scientific theory more than religion because, unlike religion, it emerges rom society’s scientific progress. It is a pseudo-science.167 By claiming that ideology is eternal, omnipresent and unconscious, Althusser endows it with mythical powers and turns it into a mythical actant (addresser) whose status is not altogether different rom that o Hegel’s World Spirit. He thereby calls into question his – potentially revolutionary – thesis concerning the ideological origin o subjectivity. Tis thesis is partly confirmed by Adorno who reers to a late capitalist system ‘in which living people have become bits o ideology’.168 Althusser’s partial mystification o ideology and his rigid separation o ideology and Marxist science have three ar-reaching consequences. (1) Ideology can no longer be analysed and criticized as an historical phenomenon emerging rom a secularized bourgeois society. (2) Te undialectical separation o ideology and science prevents him rom reflecting upon the ideological premises o his own theory and subjectivity. (3) Tis separation obliterates the nexus between theory and practice and discredits the crucial Marxist question concerning the importance o theoretical insights or the revolutionary process. Had Althusser not insisted on the eternal character o ideology in a Spinozistic manner, he could have asked how ideologies come about, how their structures change and how they might be marginalized or even superseded by other mechanisms o integration in postmodern capitalism. Is normalism, a phenomenon analysed by Jürgen Link (c. inra), not a more refined (quantitative) mechanism o control that turns individuals into subjects and could one day marginalize political ideologies? Althusser and his ollowers cannot even raise this kind o question. Tey are also compelled by their mythical premises to bracket out the complementary question concerning the ‘end o ideology’ – raised by Raymond Aron, Daniel Bell and Niklas Luhmann. 169 In Althusser’s ears, the objection that his scientific Marxism is based on ideological premises may have sounded like a sacrilege. But what sounded like a sacrilege in the 1970s is nowadays treated as a commonplace. Althusser’s claim in Lenin and Philosophy (orig. 1972) that Marx discovered the ‘Continent o History’ in analogy to the ‘Continent
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o Mathematics’ explored in ancient Greece and to Galileo’s ‘Continent o Physics’ 170 is likely to meet with the kind o postmodern incredulity evoked by Lyotard in conjunction with the grand ‘meta-narratives’. Te credulous individuals, who were turned into subjects by Althusser’s Marxist science in the 1960s, may have adhered to a different kind o discourse in the meantime – or replaced all adhesions by postmodern scepticism. Te gap between scientific theory and revolutionary practice, which cannot be bridged by Althusser’s distinction o different theoretical levels, 171 was criticized in the 1970s and 80s by British, Dutch and German Marxists. Authors such as ed Banton, Piet Steenbakkers, André Van de Putte and Urs Jaeggi doubted the relevance o a Marxist science whose insights yielded no practical results. Van de Putte aptly points out: ‘Te practical and philosophical dimension o Marxism is not mentioned, what is more, it is even rejected as non-Marxist.’ 172 Te debunking o this ‘simpliying criticism’ by the last Althusserians 173 cannot hide the act that Althusser’s rationalist and scientistic brand o Marxism announces the absence o the subject rom postmodern literature by its attempts to ban subjectivity rom science and to relegate it to the world o ideology (c. Chapter II, 8). Although Althusser cannot be read as a postmodern philosopher because his thought is inseparable rom Marx’s modernity, he writes within the one-dimensional postmodern problematic insoar as he eliminates the theoretical concept o collective and individual subject and thus excludes rom Marxsim the only theoretical and critical instance capable o conceptualizing alternatives to the existing social order. Another actor prevents the Althusserians rom envisaging alternatives and an ‘overcoming’ in the modernist sense: their dominant ideology thesis, which makes them conceive society as a homogeneous (bourgeois) whole, thus making them overlook its pluralist ragmentation that could even be observed in communist countries beore 1989.174 Naturally, particular ideologies – or example, neo-liberalism – can occupy a dominant position in certain phases o history. However, this position does not remain unchallenged and soon comes under attack rom the extreme lef, the extreme right, eminists and socialists. In short, the idea o a dominant ideology is incompatible with the plausible postmodern view o a pluralized and ragmented society.175 Althusser ofen tried to ignore this heterogeneity, and this is one o the reasons why he is not appreciated by many intellectuals in a society marked by postmodern plurality and ragmentation. He writes about the ‘ideological state apparatuses’ that they are homogeneous ‘insoar as the ideology by which they unction is always in act unified, despite its diversity and its contradictions, beneath the ruling ideology , which is the ideology o “the ruling class” ’.176 Tis reduction o theoretical complexity is too drastic. For it is not very likely that, in contemporary French society, socialists, communists, Gaullists, liberals, nationalists, eminists and ‘greens’ could find a common ideological denominator and be subsumed under one ‘dominant ideology’. Even those groupings, which are willing to orm coalitions – socialists, communists, liberals and Gaullists – do not unction jointly as the ‘executive committee o the bourgeoisie’. Althusser can only imagine a subjugation o the individual subject by the ‘dominant ideology’ because he overlooks the political heterogeneity o contemporary society, the historical nature o ideologies and the subject’s scope o action that results rom these acts.
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Althusserians still seem to adhere to the eudal model o Christian hegemony described by Françoise Gadet and Michel Pêcheux: ‘Feudalism maintains the dominant order by “translating” it into ideas and images that are specific or the dominated classes.’177 Tis may be the case; but eudalism is a caste-based, not a class-based society, and the increasingly heterogeneous class societies o the nineteenth or the twentieth century can hardly be compared with the eudal order. Pêcheux takes over Althusser’s dominant ideology thesis whenever he tries to define ideology in analogy to Foucault’s discursive ormation and to his own interdiscourse. Unortunately, the relationship between the ideological and the discursive structure remains unclear.178 About the discursive ormation Pêcheux writes in Les Vérités de La Palice (1975): ‘From now on we call discursive ormation that which decides within a particular ideological ormation and starting rom a particular position determined by the state o the class struggle, “what can be said and should be said ”.’179 Tis definition is undoubtedly useul because it ocuses on what can or cannot be said in a particular social and linguistic situation that partly determines subjectivity. However, the complementary definition o the interdiscourse shows that Pêcheux also ignores the heterogeneity o modern societies and that his basic aim is to redefine Althusser’s notion o ‘dominant ideology’ on a linguistic (discursive) level: ‘We shall call this “complex totality with a dominant” o discursive ormations interdiscourse [. . .].’180 Whatever the complexity o a discursive ormation may be, it is always held together by a dominant. Oppositional, contradicting discourses inside or outside the ormation are never mentioned. Tis explains why Pêcheux’s theory o the subject eventually turns out to be as deterministic as Althusser’s: ‘We can now speciy that the interpellation o the individual as subject o his discourse comes about by virtue o [the subject’s] identification with the discursive ormation that dominates it.’ 181 But what happens when this discursive ormation – e.g. Marxism-Leninism, considered by Pêcheux as a ‘science without a subject’ – collapses on a worldwide scale? What happens i all ideologies collapse and the critically reflecting individual subject becomes aware o new horizons beyond ‘eternal ideologies’? In this case, ideology is simply not eternal and Althusser’s Marxist science not scientific. Tis space beyond ideology, a space inaccessible to Althusserians who have blocked their access by their own dogmas, is being investigated by Jürgen Link in the light o Foucault’s philosophy. His thesis sounds plausible: Afer the Second World War, West European and North American society was not so much held together by ideologies but by a quantiying, statistically ounded flexible normalism which turned individuals into subjects by statistical evidence or insinuation rather than by ideological constraints (c. Chapter I, 2, a). Link is quite willing to imagine a decline o the ‘eternal ideology’: In act, it seems that all ideologies and utopias, including those o the West, are weakened. One o the most telling symptoms o this situation may be the rise o ‘normality’ as an interdiscursive, especially media- political and generally cultural normative concept [. . .]. ‘Normality’ now seems to occupy that position within the interdiscourse, which had previously been held by ideologies and utopias.182
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Instead o announcing rashly183 – like Aron and Bell – an ‘end o ideology’, Link sets out rom thorough investigations in order to show that a highly sophisticated market society disposes o new mechanisms o control,184 enabling it to manipulate individuals discretely (more discretely than any ideology or propaganda) and thus turn them into speaking and acting subjects. He shows to what extent words such as ‘normal’ or ‘normality’ occupy key positions in very different – technical, political, commercial – discourses, thereby producing a normalist interdiscourse (Pêcheux) which finds its way into most layers o our culture. By speciying Pêcheux’s concept o interdiscourse both on the semantic and the narrative level in relation to various normalist narratives, he avoids its original abstractness. 185 But what exactly is normalism? Te concept differs rom the concepts o ‘normativity’ or ‘norm system’ by its negation o a stable or fixed norm. In a society marked by flexible normalism, normality is produced whenever undamentally different discourses spontaneously converge in defining what is normal and what lies outside the norm. However, the limits o this normality are flexible and can be redefined rom one economic or political situation to the next. In this respect, flexible normalism differs rom (ideological?) protonormalism attributed by Link to National Socialism, ascism and (neo-)Stalinism. Protonormalism was ounded on narrowly defined norms which could be redefined by the Party rom time to time. On the whole, however, they were stable: I call the strategy o maximum limitation o the normality zone, which entails its fixation and stabilization, the protonormalist strategy because it was dominant mainly in the first phase o normalism. Te opposite strategy, which is geared towards a maximum expansion and mobility o the normality zone, I call the flexible normalistic strategy .186
Link emphasizes that protonormalism and flexible normalism are ideal types (M. Weber) which may coexist in one and the same society. Serious economic or environmental crises may trigger off ‘protonormalist’ (ideological?) reactions and lead to a limitation o normalist flexibility. It goes almost without saying that the question concerning the social construction o normality overlaps with the question o subject ormation. Tis question was initially raised by Foucault (c. Chapter I, 2, a) o whom Link says: ‘And he obviously recognized in the discursive complex “normalization” an essential actor regulating the production o modern subjects.’187 So how exactly are individual subjects produced within flexible normalism? Tis question can be answered most plausibly in conjunction with Link’s discussion o the American Kinsey Reports. In spite o their seemingly descriptive, neutral character, these reports insinuate: ‘Behave like all the others, then you’ll be one o us, then you’ll be successul.’ Link comments: ‘It seems obvious that these reports are documents o a dynamic, flexible normalism, because they appeal to subjects by encouraging them to raise the level o their perormance.’ 188 Tis sentence evokes Althusser’s and Pêcheux’s idea o ‘interpellation’. However, in Link’s case the discourse about normality, which is simultaneously a normative and normalizing discourse,
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seems to supersede ideology. Te published statistics o psychologists, sociologists, amily consultants and social workers see to it that individuals, who ‘spontaneously’ internalize the statistical average or admire the best perormance, become normal subjects: ‘In this case it is the sel-adjustment o subjects in view o a symbolically marked average which eventually [. . .] brings about a distribution o normality.’189 Like Althusser’s individuals who seem to identiy voluntarily and spontaneously with an ideology, ‘normalist’ individuals accept an invisible and flexible (statistical) norm imparted by heterogeneous discourses within the dominant interdiscourse. Te concept o normalism is relevant to postmodernity because it can explain why a market society marked by indifference (as exchangeability o values: c. Chapter II, 8, 9) is perectly capable o developing mechanisms o regulation that are relatively independent o ideologies. Te ollowing passage rom Link’s book shows to what extent normalism is a quantitative phenomenon that can be deduced rom the omnipresent exchange value: Tis is how the ‘flexible’ unity o the normalist ‘archipelago’ comes about: It is a hegemonic social network in which normalist subjects eel spontaneously that an open day or parents, which reveals an alarmingly disproportional distribution o marks in the English test, as well as the increase o rates or ully comprehensive insurance, the introduction o nursing care insurance, and a magazine article dealing with the relationship between stress and decreasing sexual satisaction are all meant to avoid de-normalization and that a new recommendation by economic ‘gurus’ concerning the risk o an abnormal escalation o the planned public debt is ‘somehow related’ to all o this as well as to the widening generation gap.190
Tree complementary aspects o this text are particularly important here. (1) Te repetition o semantic units ( sememes, Greimas) evoking quantity: distribution, insurance rates, public debt , etc. (2) ‘Normalization’ and ‘de-normalization’ appear as quantifiable actors whose boundaries are not marked by fixed norms, but are flexibly defined by fluctuating statistics, some o which have an impact on public opinion, i.e. on collective and individual consciousness. (3) In contrast to religious, ideological or legal norms, the normality described by Link is flexible in the sense that it adapts to the dynamics o the market. (Tus the rates or ully comprehensive insurance depend on the rising or alling demand, the number o accidents, etc.) It may have become clear why the concept o flexible normalism is important or the analysis o subject constitution in European and North American societies. It shows that late capitalist societies hold mechanisms o sel-regulation capable o producing subjectivities (like religions and ideologies) by ‘appealing’ to individuals who internalize them. Te question is: Did flexible normalism relegate religions and ideologies to the periphery o society or accelerate their dissolution? Te answer is that this is probably not the case and that the concept o normalism was overstretched by its author. Ideology may not be ‘eternal’, as Althusser seems to think, but it is certainly not dead, as various studies show.191 Without it, postmodern movements such as eminism, ecology, pacifism or undamentalism would hardly be possible. Tese movements, which are considered by Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck, but especially
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by Alain ouraine, as salient eatures o contemporary society, rarely observe quantitative criteria – or example, popular statistics – but construct their collective and individual subjectivities by relying on ideological dualisms such as patriarchal / eminist, economy / ecology, aithul / infidel , etc. Tis also applies to the prolierating religious sects. 192 Tey cannot be understood within the context o normalism because they react – like the adversaries o globalization – to the value-indifference o the market and indirectly to flexible normalism that is supposed to stabilize market society by quantitative means. But movements and radical groupings are guided and turned into subjects by qualitative – religious, political – criteria that are not quantifiable. Tereore it seems to make sense to consider flexible normalism as a ‘buffer zone’ between market-based indifference, which dissolves subjectivity, and ideological reaction which is meant to orm and stabilize it. Viewed in this light, the concept o normalism describes a new phase o secularization in postmodern market societies in which subjectivity can come about outside o religions, ideologies and utopias. However, the ideological and religious reactions to this development do not ail to materialize because the market-oriented flexibility o normalism cannot – by definition – guarantee subjective stability .
6 From Althusser to Lacan: Te ‘decentred subject’ as a subjugated and disintegrating instance ‘Man is not master in his own house’,193 says Lacan in one o his seminars and in a way continues Althusser’s train o thought which makes the subject appear as a hostage o ideology. But like Althusser, Lacan cannot be read as a postmodern thinker194 because he revives a psychoanalytic tradition whose principal aim is to strengthen the ‘I’. Considering that Freud’s theory emerged in a late modern context, in which philosophers, writers and scientists tried to save the individual subject in extremis, the expression ‘postmodern psychoanalysis’ sounds absurd. For postmodernity is defined here – as in Modern / Postmodern (Zima, 2010) – as a problematic whose representatives tend to renounce or deconstruct the concept o subject. Although Lacan does not drop the concept o subject, he defines it in such a way that it appears both as a subjugated and a disintegrating instance : as decentred subject or sujet décentré .195 In spite o the act that he cannot be claimed by a postmodernity that renounces the subject, he stands at the threshold o an era in which the scepticism towards the notion o subjectivity is steadily growing. Like Althusser and Foucault, he is a structural thinker who, at the beginning o postmodernity, sets out to show how the individual subject is turned into a prisoner o interlocking structures. Anika Lemaire quite rightly presents Lacan as a structuralist (‘Jacques Lacan est structuraliste’); 196 but in order to complete the picture she could have added that he is also a deconstructionist avant la lettre to whom Derrida is indebted in language analysis.197 Lacan differs rom both Althusser and Foucault by combining the ideas o subjugation and disintegration. Tis is why he is so important or postmodern thought, which is amiliar with both ideas, but keeps them apart. He nonetheless thwarts all
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attempts to define him as a postmodern thinker by holding on to Freud’s project o strengthening the endangered subject and by insisting in the 1960s, in a way reminiscent o Adorno’s ‘truth content’, on ‘ “true” speech’ (‘la parole vraie’). 198 (In the original, the adjective vrai is not in quotation marks.) In a postmodernity marked by Nietzsche’s ‘destruction o metaphysics’, the concept o truth alls prey to Lyotard’s postmodern ‘incredulity’ – along with the concept o subject. In what ollows, it will be shown, however, that Lacan’s thought does open onto this kind o incredulity because the ‘language wall’ (‘mur de langage’),199 which he reers to in the 1950s, turns out to be insurmountable. According to Lacan, the development o individual subjectivity moves rom alienation to alienation, so that one cannot assume that, at the end o a psychoanalytic therapy, ‘ “true” speech’ or parole vraie,200 will be heard. Te treatment might be endless because the true word is stifled by the subject’s persisting alienation in language. In some respects, this was also Althusser’s problem. His discourse revolves around the question o a scientific language beyond ideology. He believes that this kind o language can be ound, albeit in a rudimentary orm, in Marx’s Capital and that it can be neatly separated by an ‘epistemological break’ in the sense o Gaston Bachelard rom Marx’s early (humanist, ideological) writings which came about under the influence o Hegel and Fichte.201 Lacan puts orward similar arguments when he locates Freud’s science o the unconscious beyond Hegel’s anthropocentric humanism: ‘Hegel stands at the border o anthropology. Freud has lef it. His discovery coincides with the insight that man does not entirely agree with himsel (que l’homme n’est tout à ait dans l’homme). Freud is not a humanist.’202 In the 1960s and 70s, this kind o remark was read as a compliment in France: as a confirmation o somebody’s scientific seriousness. ‘Te very centre o the human being was no longer to be ound at the place assigned to it by a whole humanist tradition’,203 Lacan adds in another context where he compares the French Revolution with the Copernican. However, the ‘true’ scientific language Althusser associates with Marx’s Capital and Lacan with Freud has long since allen prey to a postmodern incredulity which reveals ideological influence and intererence in a type o discourse that was deemed scientific in the past. But i we find that the pure, scientific language o Marxism or psychoanalysis does not exist because all language is permeated by ideology and its value judgements, then doubts concerning the true word or the parole vraie pronounced at the end o a therapy, emerge. In his article on ‘Freud and Lacan’, Althusser would like to show that the subjugation o the individual by ideology analysed by himsel corresponds, in Lacan’s case, to the integration o the individual into the cultural and linguistic order: Lacan has shown that this transition rom (ultimately purely) biological existence to human existence (the human child) is achieved within the Law o Order, the law I shall call the Law o Culture, and that this Law o Order is conounded in its ormal essence with the order o language.204
However, Althusser glosses over an essential difference between his own and Lacan’s positions: the act that his concept o ideology is invariably accompanied by negative
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connotations and opposed to science, whereas Lacan sees the integration o the individual into the symbolic and linguistic order as a positive aspect o the subject’s development: i.e. as a liberation rom the conusions o what he calls the imaginary stage. Is the development o the subject within the cultural and linguistic order – as described by Lacan – an alienating submission or a liberation? In what ollows, it ought to become clear that this question aims at the basic ambivalence and the crucial flaw in Lacan’s theory. Tis theory sets out rom a triadic interaction between the imaginary , the symbolic and the real . Te inant who, by definition, cannot speak, is reflected in the eyes o the Other (the mother) and thus gains a certain unity without subjectivity. It is only during the transition rom the imaginary to the symbolic order that individual subjectivity comes about thanks to the child’s submission to the laws o language and culture (the ‘symbolic order’). Te ‘real’ might best be compared to Kant’s ‘thing in itsel’ because it never appears as such. It is important to recall that Lacan views the imaginary in a negative light and the symbolic order as the prerequisite or subject ormation. Te subject’s integration into this order is never considered by him – as by Althusser – as blind submission, but as a path to adulthood. Te negative connotations o the ‘imaginary’ have even penetrated into JeanBaptiste Fages’s Lacanian dictionary where it is defined as ‘a relationship devoid o distinctive individuality in a situation where a genuine access to language does not exist.’205 Symmetrically, the ‘symbolic’ is defined as ‘coextensive with the entire order o language’.206 In this context, the ‘I’ as ‘Moi’ belongs to the sphere o the imaginary. It is ‘the instance o the individual as long as he remains on the level o the imaginary. It is opposed to the subject [. . .]’.207 In other words: Lacan’s ‘subject’ is a product o the individual’s integration into the symbolic and linguistic order . Back to the imaginary: How is it defined by Lacan himsel? It is described as ‘mirror stage’, as a narcissistic identification o Moi with the Other , the mother: i.e. as an unstable constellation in which the ‘I’ comes about as a mirror image within the mother’s desire and hopes to oust the ather by becoming ‘phallus or the mother’ – thus bypassing the symbolic order. In this situation, explains Lacan, ‘the desire only exists on the level o the imaginary relationship o the mirror stage, is projected onto the Other and thereby alienated’.208 Tis set-up is described very clearly by Antoine Mooij, who points out that ‘the child identifies in an imaginary way with the object o his mother’s desire’. 209 Lacan himsel sums up: ‘Le moi [. . .] est une onction imaginaire.’210 Tis means concretely that no stable identity can come about in the imaginary state that is dominated by the mirror relationship, because the Moi depends on the ‘mediatization through the desire o the other’ (‘médiatisation par le désir de l’autre’),211 thus turning ‘the I into that apparatus or which every instinctual thrust constitutes a danger’.212 Anika Lemaire establishes a link between this train o thought and philosophical metaphysics when she concludes: ‘Te “I” ( Moi) is that instance which most stubbornly resists the truth o Being.’213 Tis statement may carry Heideggerian connotations, but it should be read in a Hegelian context and related to Hobbes’s critique o the ‘state o nature’. Tose who still remember the second chapter will spontaneously think o the Hobbes-Hegel-Sartre scenario when Lacan says about the imaginary: ‘From this results the impossibility o
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human coexistence.’214 Te imaginary thus appears as a kind o ‘state o nature’ that can only be overcome by the individual’s entry into the symbolic order o language: ‘But thank God (Dieu merci) the subject lives in the symbolic world, that is in the world o the others who speak.’215 When a Paris intellectual o the 1950s or 60s says ‘Dieu merci’ and even has this phrase printed, then he expresses a strong eeling. In this particular case, it reers to the deep structure o Lacan’s discourse: to the semantic opposition between nature and culture to which correspond the secondary oppositions between imaginary and symbolic, maternal and paternal . Lacan continues Hobbes’s, Hegel’s and (in spite o his structuralism) Sartre’s discourse insoar as he ears (like Sartre) a modernist-surrealist ‘transormation o culture into nature’ and the concomitant relapse (rechute: c. inra) into the ‘state o nature’. Naturally, this relapse is not a return to anarchy and civil war, but a return to the imaginary stage, to the motherchild relationship. Lacan’s alternative is a subject constitution within the symbolic order o language . In the course o a successul socialization, the male child renounces his incestuous desire to become phallus or the mother, recognizes his own castration (i.e. the act that he does not yet possess the phallus), acknowledges the ather as possessor o the phallus and identifies with him in the sense that he hopes to acquire the phallus one day. He adopts the ather’s name and enters the symbolic order thereby becoming a subject . In this process o socialization, the ather’s role consists in detaching sexual desire rom the incestuous and narcissistic complex o the maternal and imaginary world: ‘Te true unction o the Father, which is undamentally to unite (and not to set in opposition) a desire and the Law, is even more marked than revealed by this.’216 Apart rom obvious eminist objections concerning Lacan’s patriarchal bias,217 there are sociological ones: Lacan tries to perpetuate in psychoanalysis a social order whose paternal unctions and figures are as historically variable as its language. How are we to imagine socialization by paternal instances in a contemporary ‘atherless society’218 in the sense o Alexander Mitscherlich? It would be ar too simple to blame Lacan or ignoring history and social evolution because he is quite conscious o both. He nevertheless seems to detach the symbolic order rom the social process and to ollow Hegel who considered the Prussian state as the ‘end o history’. In an indirect reerence to Hegel, he would like to find a way out o ‘the dialectical impasse o the belle âme’ (‘l’impasse dialectique de la belle âme’),219 but nevertheless makes the individual subject enter a symbolic order whose alienated and alienating mechanisms he analyses. 220 In this respect, he is more lucid than Hegel, whose Phenomenology o Mind he ofen uses as a starting point. At the end o this work, the ‘being o spirit’ (‘Dasein des Geistes’) is enhanced to such a degree that one is reminded o Lacan’s ‘Dieu merci’: ‘Here again, then, we see Language to be the orm in which spirit finds existence. Language is the way sel-consciousness exists or others; it is sel-consciousness which is there immediately present as such, and in the orm o this actual universal sel-consciousness.’ 221 In short, the unity o subject and object comes about in philosophical language as ‘being o the spirit’. Lacan would agree insoar as he also considers the linguisticsymbolic ormation o the subject as an overcoming o nature (o the imaginary). Tis is the reason why he regularly quotes Hegel: in order to criticize with him the romanticimaginary consciousness o the ‘beautiul soul’.
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In spite o this, Lacan is not a Hegelian, but a thinker between late modernity and postmodernity who defines alienation as division or Spaltung . What does the word division / ente (German: Spaltung , used by Lacan) mean in Lacan’s discourse? In short, it reers to the gap that opens between consciousness and the unconscious afer the individual’s entry into the symbolic order o language. Te subject is split in language; it is divided into a conscious and an unconscious instance which interact and interere with one another in discourse and can hardly be distinguished in everyday language. Only in the course o analysis – considered as a process o differentiation – can they be disentangled. Divided or split between consciousness and the unconscious, the subject appears as decentred because it constantly oscillates between consciousness and the unconscious and thereore does not know rom where it speaks: rom the conscious or the unconscious sphere. Tis ambiguity o the subject is explained by Lacan in conjunction with the dreamer who is rightened by his own dreams to such a degree that he subjects them to censorship: ‘In his attitude to his dreamed desires, the dreamer thus appears as consisting o two persons who are nevertheless held together by an intimate bond .’222 In the ollowing sentence, this idea is summed up by the expression décentrement du sujet .223 It is not really a new idea because it can be traced back to the psychological theories o the multiple personality that were discussed in the first chapter (I, 2, c). Moreover, it is anticipated by modernist writers such as Proust, Svevo and Hesse who analyse ambivalence, slips o the tongue224 and dreams in conjunction with the unconscious. It is also to be ound in earlier thinkers such as Nietzsche and Vischer – or even Hegel, who knew only too well why he banned contingency, chance and dream rom his system. He could not, afer all, let a discourse inspired by the World Spirit run into a division o the subject and a crisis o subjectivity. Tis crisis broke out later on: in the critiques o the Young Hegelians and Nietzsche. Lacan is a Nietzschean and a critic o Hegel in the sense that he analyses the crisis using the language o structuralism – a structuralism, however, which turned into deconstruction long beore Derrida coined this term. For the submission o the imaginary to the symbolic order (the paternal law) leads to the emergence o the unconscious in the course o repression, and the unconscious never speaks rom where the ‘I’ ( je) thinks it is.225 It is the voice o the imaginary: Tere is an inertia o the imaginary, which we observe as it intervenes in the subject’s discourse, which conuses this discourse to the effect that I do not realize that, when I want to do somebody good, I want to hurt him, that when I am in love, it is mysel I love or when I think I love mysel it is precisely somebody else I love. It is precisely the dialectical task o analysis to dissolve this conusion and to give back to discourse its actual meaning. 226
It might have become clear why Lacan can be considered as a structuralist and a deconstructionist at the same time. Te integration o the individual into the order o language, which brings about subjectivity in a structural sense, also leads to the split o the subject and the emergence o the unconscious as a type o language
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that divides, multiplies and subverts the conscious discourse. As a modernist on the threshold o postmodernity, Lacan does not go as ar as Derrida. Although he is aware o the ambivalences o the subject and his discourse, he insists on the possibility and the necessity o finding the actual meaning o this discourse. Te modernist component o his thought is the insight that there is no truth to be ound in a alse language. Uwe Roseneld describes the splitting o the subject in discourse as ollows: Tis second, unconscious discourse, the possibility / necessity to reer to everything in a verbal message except to what is being expressed, erupts in mistakes, slips o the tongue, jokes and interruptions o speech. A discourse thus suraces, which, ‘made unrecognizable by “repression”, doubles the human subject’s chain o discourse’.227
Lacan shows how this happens when, ollowing Saussure and Jakobson, he describes how the unconscious emerges on the level o the signifiers as a network o symptoms, o repressed meanings: ‘Te symptom is here the signifier o a signified repressed rom the consciousness o the subject.’ 228 Te signifiers, whose meaning is uncertain in everyday language, are linked by metaphors and metonymies which Charles Mauron calls métaphores obsédantes229 and which Lacan considers as motivating orces o an unconscious rhetoric. Tis rhetoric is not an ‘expression’ o the unconscious but its very substance. Tis is why Lacan points out in his preace to Anika Lemaire’s book: ‘I mean that language is the condition o the unconscious.’230 Here his argument returns to its starting point. By entering the symbolic order o language, the subject is split into two competing linguistic spheres: a conscious language and a language o the unconscious. Lacan’s well-known ‘Seminar about E. A. Poe’s “Te Stolen Letter” ’ (‘Le séminaire sur la lettre volée’) ollows two basic ideas: (1) in Poe’s story, the stolen letter represents the unconscious and is the main actant: the addresser o all other subject-actants o the narrative, Greimas would say; (2) la lettre – as message, letter, signifier and eminine instance – dominates the subject. Commenting on Poe’s story, Lacan speaks o ‘the supremacy o the signifier within the subject’ (‘la suprématie du signifiant dans le sujet’). 231 In the seminar discussion, which took place in 1955, he explains this interpretation: ‘In other words, i this story is read in an exemplary way, then the letter is or everyone his unconscious. It is his unconscious with all its consequences, and this means that at every moment o the symbolic circuit, everybody becomes a different person.’ 232 Semiotically speaking, each actant ulfils a narrative unction in relation to the letter or to the unconscious whose content he does not know, but whom he obeys at all times. Here Descartes, who identified the subject with the cogito, defining it as a res cogitans, is stood on his head. Not the Cartesian cogitatio, but its Cartesian counterpart, the unconscious, becomes subject – or even addresser o all subjects.233 Tis inversion o roles is commented on by Alain Juranville: ‘Tis subject discovered by Descartes is now defined by Lacan as subject o the unconscious.’ 234 Fages generalizes this statement by adding: ‘Freud’s discovery leads to an inversion o Descartes’ thesis: I think thereore
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I am. Freud’s revolution orces us to say: “I think where I am not, thereore I am where I don’t think”.’235 Te last sentence is a quotation rom Lacan. Lacan’s ‘decentred subject’ is also a reversal o Fichte’s well-known ormula ‘I’ = ‘I’. Te new ormula is: ‘I’ ≠ ‘I’. It also contradicts Hegel’s ‘being as sel’ (mentioned above) that continues Fichte’s efforts to identiy the ‘I’ and the world. At the same time, it confirms Link’s theory o normalism which suggests that mechanisms o ‘normalization’ have an impact on the unconscious and thus produce a subject who is nowhere near the consciously speaking ‘I’. Considering this predominance o the unconscious and the act that Lacan identifies everyday language with alienation, it is hardly surprising that an individual who is turned into a subject by the (alienated) symbolic order is permanently threatened by a relapse (rechute, Lacan) into the imaginary. Tis relapse possibly comes about (but Lacan does not say that), whenever the individual subject is conronted by ‘a languagebarrier opposed to speech’.236 ‘As language becomes more unctional’, explains Lacan, ‘it becomes improper or speech, and as it becomes too particular to us, it loses its unction as language.’237 In this case, argues Philippe Julien, it merely strengthens the narcissism o the Moi. He adds: ‘In short, there is a contradiction between language (langage) and the spoken word (parole).’238 Lacan expresses this contradiction by using his own metaphors: ‘I identiy mysel in language, but only by losing mysel in it like an object.’239 I this is the case, then a relapse into the imaginary stadium becomes inevitable. For it appears that the symbolic order o language is as alienated as the imaginary constellation o the pre-linguistic imaginary stage. Tis oscillation o the subject between two alienations is described concisely by Joël Dor: ‘It is precisely the entry into the symbolic order that makes the subject’s relapse (rechute) into the imaginary possible, which is sealed by the appearance o the Moi.’240 Lacan uses Freudian vocabulary when he speaks o a regression ‘ofen pushed right back to the “mirror stage” ’.241 It is o course true, as Lacan points out, that the neurotic desires ‘the death o the ather’ and (metonymically) o the entire symbolic order: ‘Te neurotic’s wished- or Father is clearly the dead Father.’242 However, the sociological question is: Why is the number o neurotic and psychotic individuals steadily rising, thus turning neurosis and psychosis into collective phenomena? One possible answer is: because the symbolic order as culture and language is being eroded by social differentiation, ideological conflicts and the omnipresent exchange value o market laws. Lacan ofen hints at this process o degradation by various metaphors – but he does not analyse it as a historical and socio-linguistic process. How else could he – as a reader o Mallarmé243 – explain the paradox that neither the patient nor the analyst is likely to find the ‘true word’, the parole pleine, but only the neurotic poet? About him (and an unwitting critic) Adorno writes: ‘Te question is never once broached whether a physically sound Baudelaire would have been able to write Te Flowers o Evil , not to mention whether the poems turned out worse because o the neurosis.’244 Te true word sought by Lacan is possibly elsewhere. And it is unlikely to be discovered in a alse social order into which Lacan would like to integrate the individual as subject . Against this background, Anika Lemaire’s definition o the cure sounds
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naive: ‘Te cure is the transition rom a non-symbolized imaginary to a symbolized imaginary, in other words, it is the access to the personal code o the patient .’245 For a neurosis is due ‘to the loss o the symbolic reerence o the signifier’. 246 Could it not be that ‘the truth o the personal code o the patient’ corresponds to the illness o society and its language? ‘LANGUAGE: In what a ghastly way does language explain, deend, destroy itsel’,247 remarks the postmodern Austrian writer Werner Schwab. Had Lacan considered the symbolic-linguistic order in this light, he might not have decided to define analysis as a (re-)integration into this order. It is not by chance that, in his seminars, the question concerning the interminable character o the therapy kept cropping up. Te possibility that a desperate person can be saved when she or he finds the right interlocutor can never be excluded; but on a collective level psychoanalysis comes up against the ‘language wall’ mentioned by Lacan – and this wall seems to be getting thicker. Since his theory stops at the wall, it points to a one-dimensional postmodernity o Verwindung (Heidegger, Vattimo). As a therapy geared towards the individual subject it thrives on social alienation and on its own inability to overcome it. ‘We are born into a world where alienation awaits us’,248 writes Laing and implicitly queries the rational and human character o the ‘symbolic order’. Tis is not how Lacan sees the matter. He advocates the individual’s integration into this order and makes subjectivity depend on the success o this integration. He thus indirectly accepts Vattimo’s postmodern diagnostic o Verwindung . It is not by chance that he reads Marx’s Capital as an economic science which ‘need not be used as an instrument o revolution’.249 His rejection o the 1968 revolt250 confirms this interpretation. But this revolt was not only an oedipal protest against the paternal order; it was also an attack on a alse society which writers rom Mallarmé to Werner Schwab identified with its alse language. It may have started rom wrong premises, but it revealed the weak point in Lacan’s discourse: the one-sided revaluation o the symbolic order vis-à vis the imaginary. Te collective regression into the imaginary sphere that marked the 1960s and 70s can nevertheless be explained within the ramework o Lacan’s psychoanalysis: as a relapse (rechute) into the narcissistic phase in which the inant’s desire is geared towards the desire o the mother. Te dynamics o this desire o a desire are described by Bernard Ogilvie: ‘o desire does not mean to desire the Other, but to desire the Other’s desire.’ 251 Te ollowing section will show that the postmodern culture o indifference is a narcissistic culture in the sense o Lacan because in it all value systems have been eroded to such a degree that the individual subject sees hersel or himsel as the supreme value. However, in the eyes o all the others, this subject has no or little value and is only valued – i at all – as a means. In this situation, all subjects tend to become exchangeable.
7 Psychosociology o narcissism: Te individual subject in postmodern indifference It is against this background that Christopher Lasch’s narcissism theory will be linked to Lacan’s psychoanalysis and to the indifference postulate o the first two chapters. Lasch is important or the critique o Lacan’s approach because he reveals the actors
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that discredit the symbolic order as a paternal heritage. He explains with different arguments, but in a context that completes the critique o the previous section, why the neurotic regression rom the symbolic order to the imaginary stadium appears as a social and psychic symptom o our time. At the same time, Lacan’s theory o narcissism sheds new light on his perspective. In agreement with the sociological theories o Daniel Bell and David Riesman, 252 Lasch analyses three complementary developments within contemporary society (since the Second World War): (1) the decline o the amily and its values; (2) the decline o paternal authority; and (3) the regression o atomized individuals to the ‘imaginary’ world o narcissism. In the first place he emphasizes that the importance o the amily has been in permanent decline in our society or more than a century and speaks o ‘the supersession o the amily by the state’.253 Parallel to Jacques Donzelot (c. Chapter III, 4), he observes how various unctions o socialization have been transerred rom the amily to peer groups, social workers, mass media and state institutions. It is hardly necessary to explain why this process entails a decline o paternal authority in the long run. Tis decline weakens the symbolic order which differentiates maternal rom paternal roles and perpetuates the generational difference between parents and children: Te emotional absence o the ather has been noted again and again by students o the modern amily; or our own purposes, its significance lies in the removal o an important obstacle to the child’s illusion o omnipotence. Our culture not only weakens the obstacles to the maintenance o this illusion, it gives it positive support in the orm o a collective antasy o generational equality. 254
Lasch states clearly what Lacan could not say without undermining his theoretical construction: the constitution o subjectivity within the symbolic order is only conceivable as long as it is an order and not a process o disintegration in the course o which all established norms are jeopardized. Te question Lasch could have asked Lacan is: Could it be that the individual subject o structural psychoanalysis appears as a subjugated and disintegrating instance, because it enters a symbolic order torn by conflicts and affl icted by anomie? Te alienation in language, so vividly described by Lacan, turns into a major problem mainly because the ‘language o the athers’ sounds hollow and thus exposes itsel to modernist critiques by Baudelaire, Proust and Kaa. 255 In late modernity, this critique inaugurates the rebellious regression to the motherdominated imaginary stadium. What Lasch has to say about this regression (in the Freudian sense) does confirm Lacan’s observations; but it also calls them into question because the American author recognizes the problematic character o the symbolic order: ‘I the designation o contemporary culture as a culture o narcissism has any merit, it is because that culture tends to avor regressive solutions instead o “evolutionary” solutions.’256 Lacan, however, holds on to these ‘evolutionary solutions’ as i he did not see the process o cultural disintegration which makes his approach appear questionable.
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Lasch’s description o the imaginary world is quite similar to Lacan’s except that his construction o the mother-child dyad differs rom that o the Paris psychoanalyst. Te (male) child does not attempt to ‘be phallus or the mother’ (Lacan), but ‘equips [the mother] with a phallus o her own’ (Lasch). 257 In spite o this important difference, which raises urther psychological questions, he arrives at a similar result. Te child takes the view that his mother does not need the ather. From this ‘atherless’ constellation emerges a narcissistic desire which Lacan defines as an absolute desire, as ‘désir de l’autre’258 in the genitive sense: as the Other’s desire, not as a desire or her or him. Te dynamics o this narcissistic desire is aptly described by Moustaa Saouan, a ollower o Lacan, in relation to the incest taboo and to the inaccessibility o the mother rom the child’s point o view: ‘Te greatest good does not exist, the mother is prohibited.’259 Considering that the realization o the incestuous desire or the mother is impossible, the desire detaches itsel rom the object and becomes independent as désir du désir : In other words, the desire or the mother is maintained by the desire or her desire. Since this desire remains hidden rom the subject (it is also hidden rom the mother because it is unconscious), the desire o the desire ( désir du désir ) turns into a desire to be desirable ( désir de demande ).260
Hence it is a desire or love, ‘désir d’être aimé’, 261 says Saouan, which aims at the child’s mirror image in the mother’s eyes and can be called ‘narcissistic’. Tis image is the ideal ego (moi idéal ) in the sense o Lacan (not Freud), i.e. ‘an essentially narcissistic ormation, originating in the mirror phase and belonging to the order o the Imaginary’.262 Giorgio Sassanelli also emphasizes the ‘maternal, primitive and narcissistic origin o the Ideal Ego’. 263 It is this ideal ego that is turned by the narcissistic personality into an object o the Other’s desire. Tis personality’s desire is a restless search or love, recognition, admiration. Although an object relation (a relation to the Other) does exist in this particular situation, it is distorted by the act that the Other is only a means to an end. 264 He is expected to love without being loved. Heinz Kohut concludes: ‘Te antithesis to narcissism is not the object relation but object love.’ 265 At this point Lasch’s theory o narcissism also overlaps with that o the Lacan School. About the narcissistic subject the American author writes that he expects ‘others to confirm his sel-esteem’. He adds: ‘He needs to be admired or his beauty, charm, celebrity, or power – attributes that usually ade with time.’266 In what ollows, it will be shown in conjunction with three models to what extent this attitude o reflecting onesel in the eyes o others has survived the transition rom late modernity to postmodernity: the dandy, Proust’s narrator Marcel and Patrick Süskind’s ‘hero’ Grenouille. ‘Te dandy is a Narcissus’, writes Philippe Jullian in his biography o Robert de Montesquiou: ‘He wants to be reflected in admiring eyes and scans the portrait or compliments o his mirror reflection.’ 267 Te dandy cultivates distance and coldness 268 in order to be in permanent demand . He does not love in order to be loved. He thus recreates the imaginary mother-child situation o the mirror stadium.
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Marcel Proust was not only a ashionable dandy, who reused to leave the imaginary world, but also a novelist o narcissistic desire, who made his hero Marcel pass through all the stages o the désir du désir . It may be sufficient to recall Marcel’s encounter with the fisher-girl in whose eyes he seeks esteem and admiration. By uttering the two ‘magic’ words ‘Marquise’ and ‘carriage and pair’ he succeeds in arousing the girl’s curiosity and in assuaging his desire: ‘But when I had uttered the words “Marquise” and “carriage and pair”, suddenly I had a great sense o calm. I elt that the fisher-girl would remember me.’269 Te Other as object is needed, but only as a pretext, as a source o demand, not as an object o love. Tis narcissistic structure, which characterizes aestheticism and some brands o modernism, is parodied in Patrick Süskind’s postmodern novel and assumes antastic dimensions. His hero, who suffers rom the anomaly o having no body odour, becomes a murderer o beautiul girls whose scent he appropriates. Finally, he succeeds in producing an extremely refined perume that makes him irresistible and guarantees a permanent demand . His discourse, as reproduced by the narrator, bears witness to a disproportionate ideal ego: He was even greater than Prometheus. He had created an aura more radiant and more effective than any human being had ever possessed beore him. And he owed it to no one – not to a ather, nor a mother, and least o all to a gracious God – but to himsel alone. He was in very truth his own God, and a more splendid god than the God that stank o incense and was quartered in churches. 270
I ever an ideal was realized then it was realized in this antastic episode by Süskind’s nasty anti-hero Grenouille, who owes his irresistibility to a particular product, not to his looks or to eatures o his personality. Although the dandy, Proust’s Marcel and Süskind’s Grenouille share the narcissistic desire described above, the model o the dandy differs rom the two other models. Unlike the dandy, who seduces his audience by his habitus (his elegance, his conversation, his esprit ), the heroes o the two novels create demand by appropriating certain desirable values: the words ‘Marquise’ and ‘carriage and pair’ in the first case, the miraculous perume in the second. Naturally, the dandy also appropriates a particular habitus, but the latter is part and parcel o his personality and inseparable rom his talents. Tis difference is o some importance here because it reveals a homology between Marcel’s word- values and Grenouille’s perume on the one hand, and money as exchange value on the other. Unlike the dandy, who offers his admirers physical and linguistic qualities, Marcel and Grenouille offer only exchange values in order to stimulate demand: prestigious words and an acquired perume. Both values correspond to the exchange unction o money as described by the young Marx: Tat which exists or me through the medium money , that which I can pay or (i.e. which money can buy), that I am, the possessor o the money. Te properties o money are my own (the possessor’s) properties and aculties. What I am and can do is, thereore, not at all determined by my individuality. I am ugly, but I can buy
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the most beautiul woman or mysel. Consequently, I am not ugly , or the effect o ugliness, its power to repel, is annulled by money. 271
I the word ‘money’ is replaced by the word ‘perume’, then the crucial scene o Süskind’s novel re-emerges. Te effect o the appropriated perume completely cancels Grenouille’s ugliness. At the same time, narcissistic desire appears as a psychic structure mediated by the exchange mechanisms o market society. Between Narcissus and his admirers an exchange relationship prevails. Like the dandy, like Proust’s Marcel, Narcissus exchanges symbolic capital (name, title, language, voice) or demand as individual or collective admiration. In postmodern societies, admiration is more and more requently geared towards quantitative actors. Te indicator or a successul stimulation o demand on the V screen is viewing figures, the success o a pop star is measured by the size o the ecstatically swaying masses. Quality is seldom discussed because it is narcissistically repressed (also in a psychoanalytic sense) in view o a quantifiable demand, as in the case o ‘Facebook’ where the number o ‘riends’ is crucial. In a situation dominated by the quantitative criteria o the exchange or market value, libidinally invested appearance in the sense o Baudrillard replaces reality (c. Chapter IV, 2). Te perormance o the narcissistic film star must be excellent because it is craved or by many and because numbers, viewing figures and profits o millions cannot possibly be lying. Afer all, nobody is willing to pay or nonsense . . . Lasch comments: ‘In a society based so largely on illusions and appearances, the ultimate illusions, art and religion, have no uture.’272 Te decline o these two illusions undermines the stability o the individual subject. In the indifferent world o the exchange value, it suffers a loss o substance.273 On the level o subjectivity, this indifference maniests itsel as exchangeability. Te dialectic between narcissistic desire and demand, in which the enchanted admirers identiy their ideal ego with that o the admired idol, is marked by emptiness. Te personality o the ‘star’ is as empty as that o the admirer. Te admired subject who appears in the media is a quantifiable actor dependent on public demand, while the public is a statistically recordable figure. rying to relate the success o the media star to a ‘corresponding’ quality would be naive, or the latter is not a prerequisite – although it may exist. In other words, the correspondence between quality and quantity, use value and exchange value is contingent and tends to become even more contingent as the exchange value permeates all layers o society. o the subjective indifference o being-in-demand as idol or star corresponds the intersubjective indifference o exchangeability o individuals . oday’s media star will soon be replaced by a younger successor, but the narcissistic nexus between pure, objectless desire and pure demand need not change. What matters most is the novelty and youth o the new idol. ‘But always, old was out and young was in’,274 explains Lasch and adds: ‘But the dread o age originates not in a “cult o youth” but in a cult o the sel.’275 It is the narcissistic ear o a alling demand; it is the ear o the exiled dandy Oscar Wilde o a lie in the provinces, a lie without the admiring eyes o his London public; it is the ear o Narcissus o losing the mirror.
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In this situation, a different kind o decentred subject appears: one that is turned into an object276 and is ‘other-directed’ by the demand o others. Te mythical Other, who is mediated by the exchange value (as public), becomes his destinateur (addresser ) and his destiny : his addresser who can at any time send him back to nothingness by withholding demand . Te market-oriented ‘existence or others’ excludes a withdrawal to the real ‘I’. It no longer exists, since it was dissolved in the appearances o the exchange value. Tis explains the omnipresent ear o the Other’s indifference – which is, however, inevitable because it is inherent in the exchange-oriented structure o narcissism. Narcissistic ear shows how unstable individual subjectivity is in a hyperindividualist media society. It alls apart because it is pure desire dependent on demand and without any attachment to religious, political or ethical values. Many contemporary artists do not criticize and provoke because they imagine a different society like Breton or Brecht, but in an attempt to attract maximum attention. Some intellectuals adopt a similar attitude when they try to increase demand by a perpetual presence in the media.277 However, in a situation in which everyone points to himsel or hersel in order to stimulate public demand (the desire o others), all participants tend to become exchangeable, indifferent.
8 Feminist concepts o subjectivity between modernity and postmodernity: From Virginia Wool to dialogical subjectivity In some respects, eminist theories o the individual subject can be seen as reactions to a postmodern market society governed by indifference, i.e. by the idea that all cultural values are interchangeable. In this situation, where value hierarchies tend to be replaced by unctional relations, which are by no means neutral but ofen based on traditional (patriarchal) patterns o interaction, some eminist theories reflect upon the nexus between individual subjectivity and collective agency (social movement). Other eminist theories cast doubts on the very concept o subjectivity by revealing the ‘phallocentric’ or ‘phallogocentric’ origin o the subject in the light o Derrida’s deconstruction. Te third option or eminist theory today seems to be a modernist position: not only in the sense o Virginia Wool and Simone de Beauvoir, but also in the more contemporary sense o Judith Butler and Julia Kristeva, all o whom explore the possibilities o an ambivalent, androgynous subjectivity within the context o a critical theory o discourse. How is the coexistence o these three ideal types (M. Weber), which are ofen intertwined in the texts o an author, to be explained? o begin with, it may be useul to recall the act that the eminist movement is not merely a late modern and postmodern phenomenon which questions traditional notions o subjectivity. It is also to be seen as a permanent revival o a modern project rooted in the Enlightenment and designed to oster a new sense o emale subjectivity – a emale prise de conscience in the Marxist and existentialist sense. Tose eminist movements, which identiy with this project, cannot be interested in deconstructing, let alone in giving up the concept o subject. On the contrary, they are likely to attach considerable importance to a re-definition o the concept that might
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prepare the individual woman, and the movement as a whole, or social action. Tis modality o ‘acting’ or ‘being able to act’ (‘pouvoir aire’, Greimas) is reerred to as agency in English-speaking countries. For eminists, who seek to continue the Enlightenment tradition in the social sciences, agency in this sense is the primary ocus. On the other hand, eminists, who adopt a deconstructionist stance by critically analysing and decomposing the concept o subject, are by no means apolitical, as is sometimes assumed.278 Tey are not entirely wrong in reminding their enlightened companions o the historical act that subjectivity is a orm pre-constructed by male actors who dominate the historical process and the political stage: a orm that women ought not to adopt unwittingly. ‘Not unwittingly’ means that women should let themselves be inspired by Foucault’s and Derrida’s analyses o power constellations which, in the course o human history, constitute subjectivity as a male unction, i.e. within an actantial model (Greimas) geared towards masculine role perceptions. Tey emphasize sexual difference and highlight the ideological dangers inherent in every attempt to define the social position, the role and the uture o women unambiguously. But is political action without univocity and a clear definition o goals possible? Does deconstruction o subjectivity not lead to undecidability and eventually to the kind o postmodern indifference which all or most contemporary movements – rom the ecological to the conservative – set out to combat? Such questions are o general importance and their scope cannot be confined to eminism. Te third eminist position, which was initially circumscribed by the notions o ambivalence and androgyny, by the unity o opposites without synthesis in the modernist sense, can be considered as an alternative to ideological univocity and to deconstructionist différance (unending differentiation). Te underlying idea is that it is possible to open up to otherness without dominating it and without being dominated by it. Te possibility o such an ambivalent and dialogical subjectivity was envisaged or the first time by Virginia Wool in Orlando and later on by Simone de Beauvoir, Elisabeth Badinter and Judith Butler in new contexts. Julia Kristeva revealed its psychoanalytic aspects by relating it to Lacan’s notion o the symbolic order. It anticipates the idea o a dialogical subjectivity derived rom the approaches o Bakhtin, Mead and Ricœur. Te three models o eminism outlined here have one common theoretical denominator: the attempt to analyse the genesis o subjectivity and the concept o subject on a historical and sociological level. In the course o this brie interdisciplinary analysis, the idea that late capitalist society is increasingly being dominated by market laws and the exchange value is situated at the centre o the scene. It becomes clear ‘that market and exchange, i.e. the basis o capitalism, are made possible by the subject / object-dichotomy which is part and parcel o the patriarchal set-up’.279 Neither the question whether Marxism explains gender relations in capitalism nor the complementary question whether eminist theory reveals certain shortcomings o Marxism is relevant here, but the idea shared by both theory complexes that the objectification o woman is closely linked to her role as an object o exchange. Luce Irigaray sums up this idea, introduced into anthropological debate by Marcel Mauss: 280 ‘Woman thus has value only in that she can be exchanged .’281 Te exchanging subjects
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continue to be men. Commenting on this key statement underlying the analyses in her book Speculum. O the Other Woman, Irigaray concludes: ‘We shall in act receive only confirmation o the discourse o the same, through comprehension and extension. With “woman” coming once more to be embedded in, enclosed in, impaled upon an architectonic more powerul than ever.’282 I this diagnosis is correct, then the very idea o a eminist movement could turn out to be aporetical. For how can a collective subject-actant in the sense o Greimas come about i the actors283 it consists o lack subjectivity? Tis is one o the reasons why eminists keep raising the question o the social and linguistic development o subjectivity. One o them, Judith Butler, tries to provide an answer by relying on Foucault and Bourdieu: ‘Te subject’s production takes place not only through the regulation o that subject’s speech, but through the regulation o the social domain o speakable discourse.’284 However, what can or cannot be said in a particular situation is decided a priori within those linguistic power relations described by Michel Pêcheux. From a eminist point o view, it is the male rulers who make the rules o language: rom grammar to discourse.285 Tey decide whether a particular discourse is to be considered as legitimate, that is whether it should be given social credit and be endowed with social prestige or not: For Bourdieu, then, the distinction between perormatives that work and those that ail has everything to do with the social power o the one who speaks: the one who is invested with legitimate power makes language act; the one who is not invested may recite the same ormula, but produces no effects. 286
Tis linguistic situation is amply illustrated by the discourse relations in the traditional amily. When ather discussed the economic situation o the amily or the purchase o a new car, children and relatives tended to take every word seriously, while mother’s objections were ofen dismissed light-heartedly. (Tis situation may have changed in the meantime.) It is particularly enlightening to read what Diane Elam has to say about the dialectics o sexuality as a biological and gender as a sociocultural actor. Reerring to Butler, she asks hersel whether emale or male sexuality, usually treated as a biological act or constant, is not in reality a linguistic construction: ‘Instead, gender as a discursive element actually gives rise to a belie in pre-discursive or inner sex. Tat is to say, sex is retrospectively a product o gender so that, in a sense, gender comes beore sex.’287 Tis may be correct insoar as children are born into specific social and linguistic situations where roles are pre-constructed; but they are born with a biological sex – like all other mammals. Elam is certainly not wrong when she argues against those who claim ‘equal rights or women’ that their slogans aiming at equality may very well lead to an assimilation o the emale to the male gender: ‘Feminism is destined to lose the entire argument, since the equal rights to which women aspire turn out to mean the right to be hu-MAN.’288 I one takes into account Foucault’s and Althusser’s thesis about the over-determination o subjects by power structures and ideologies, Elam’s arguments appear to be quite realistic, especially since she adds: ‘Subjects do not define rights or themselves; rather,
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rights produce subjects who can hold them.’289 Tis hypothesis is not only applicable to eudal estates but also to a bourgeois individualist class society. It is nevertheless too deterministic because it obliterates the other side o the problem: the act, or example, that women ought successully or certain rights, the right to abortion, thus enlarging their scope o action (and the whole range o modalities), without having to accept a male over-determination. Tis type o (counter-)argument is adopted by eminists who continue the modern Enlightenment tradition and distrust all approaches which result in weakening or abandoning the notion o subjectivity: approaches geared towards aporia, undecidability or an infinite differentiation in the sense o Derrida’s différance. Tey seem to ear that, in a society marked increasingly by the indifference o the exchange value, all brands o deconstruction will tend to confirm the context o indifference. Françoise Gaspard in France, Sabina Lovibond in Britain and Honi Fern Haber in the United States plead with sociological, modernist and neostructuralist arguments or a strengthening o emale subjectivity, both on an individual and a collective level. Tese arguments are complementary insoar as Alain ouraine’s sociology o action, invoked by Gaspard, is inspired by the late modern (not postmodern) hope that individual subjectivity will be strengthened and restructured by contemporary social movements. Gaspard, who can base her arguments on solid empirical research, 290 starts rom the – originally structuralist – idea that eminist movements can only be understood within the ramework o the gender relations they are trying to change. Her approach is genetic and dialectical in character, insoar as it is an attempt to avoid the unilateral conception o over-determination which conronts women with the unattractive alternative o accepting the status quo or breaking radically with a male-dominated society. Without losing sight o the act that rights, roles and patterns o action overdetermine the individual’s activities, she points out: In the meantime, however, social relations have changed due to women’s activities. Consequently, the sociology o action now has to cope with a vast field o research which not only encompasses women as actors in eminist movements, but also as actors in a general sense, as subjects o history (sujets de l’histoire).291
Unortunately, it is not quite clear in this context how women can act individually, i.e. outside o social movements, as ‘subjects o history’, especially since the Hegelian notion o ‘historical subject’ has increasingly been exposed to criticism and doubt. Although Gaspard tends to repeat Ulrich Beck’s diagnosis concerning the ate o social movements,292 when she confirms ‘that they come and go’ (‘qu’ils vont et viennent’),293 she shows, in her analysis o the French eminist movements, to what extent specific social laws are involved that make it diffi cult to explain such movements within the encompassing context o socio-historical change: ‘On a collective level, women are less active in 1789 than in 1791, less in 1968 than afer 1970.’294 On a European level, the social history o emale protest still has to be written. Gaspard quite rightly points out that ‘the eminist protest has been underestimated by official history’.295
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Starting rom Habermas’s idea that the ‘project o modernity’ is still to be realized, Sabina Lovibond joins Gaspard in pleading or a stronger emale subjectivity in postmodern times: ‘Te pursuit o a ully integrated subjectivity takes the orm o an attempt to rise above our present mental limitations.’ 296 Te idea o a ‘ully integrated subjectivity’ may appear naive in a postmodern context marked by deconstructionist attempts to discard all notions o subjectivity as metaphysical relics. However, it bears witness to the ideological reusal o eminist, ethnic, regional and religious movements to be intimidated by postmodern critics o subjectivity and to be relegated to the archaic enclaves o contemporary society. Such movements react in a rationalist, conservative, nationalist or socialist way to postmodern deconstructions and negativisms, all o which are marked by a tendency towards indifference – even i they pretend to combat the latter. Although Lovibond emphasizes the critical and militant components o eminism, she also embraces an enlightened utopia when she writes that eminism aspires to end the war between men and women and to bring about a situation marked by ‘transparency’ and ‘truthulness’.297 Adopting the stance o a late modern Enlightenment, she turns against the postmodern tendency o pluralization and particularization, arguing – quite rightly – that it weakens the eminist movement and consolidates existing power structures. She dissociates her own position rom postmodernism, which she misunderstands as a theory or an ideology, defines her own point o view as ‘Enlightenment modernism’298 and rejects all attempts to present eminism ‘as one more “exciting” eature [. . .] in a postmodern social landscape’.299 By adopting this perspective, she tends to overlook the act that contemporary eminism is a heterogeneous conglomerate o groups and organizations within a postmodern problematic300 and that it reacts in many different ways to the underlying indifference o this problematic: (1) by an ideological rejection o this market-oriented indifference and by a complementary affirmation o individual and collective subjectivity; (2) by a postmodern deconstruction o this subjectivity which tends to confirm postmodern indifference (as exchangeability o particular positions in pluralism); (3) by constructing a new, ambivalent subjectivity that revives and develops certain modernist tendencies without simply being ‘modernist’. In the United States, an ideological response to postmodern indifference and deconstruction comes rom Honi Fern Haber, who blames Lyotard, Rorty and Foucault or undermining emale subjectivity and solidarity by pleading or pluralism, irony and relativism. She interprets these ‘male’ philosophies as attempts to prevent a emale prise de conscience at a crucial moment o historical development: ‘Postmodern politics is not a viable option on this description or it repudiates the ormation o community and o coherent subjects, both o which are necessary to the identity ormation o otherness.’ 301 Te last statement is undoubtedly true. Every sociologist, every political scientist and every politician will confirm that coherence and a collective or individual eeling o identity are indispensable to political action. But how do deconstructionists react to emotive words such as coherence, subjectivity and identity ? At first, they tend to react like all other theoreticians: with ideological scepticism. Even Adorno, in some respects
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their precursor, dismissed the demand or coherent models by proposing as alternatives negativity and dissonance.302 Here a undamental dilemma, emerging rom the tension between ideology and theory, comes to the ore. Ideology turns individuals into subjects o action, but hardly ever induces them to engage in critical reflection; critical theories encourage this kind o reflection, but are ‘affected by the anaemia o thought’ (Goethe on Hamlet) and hence tend to prevent action. Nobody will blame the eminists or not having overcome this ancient contradiction.303 In any case, it seems to make sense to take Hannelore Möckel-Rieke’s warning about ideological projections o the eminine in Hélène Cixous’s work seriously. Möckel-Rieke blames Cixous ‘or identiying the eminine with the libidinal body, with nature and instinct’.304 She explains: ‘Tis identification is to be seen as a relapse into an a-historical, dualistic and idealist differentiation o the sexes which originally we were hoping to overcome.’305 Te problem seems to consist in the act that ideological dualisms such as true / alse, beautiul / ugly, good / bad can encourage individual and collective action, while the theoretical deconstruction o these dualisms urthers knowledge and criticism – but not action. At this point, the advocates o eminist deconstruction deend the principle in dubio pro cognitione critica. Naturally, they do not admit that they are ‘affected by the anaemia o thought’, but try to mobilize deconstructionist techniques or political goals. Barbara Vinken succinctly summarizes the project o deconstructionist eminism when she accentuates the negative moments o this theoretical approach and simultaneously rejects ideological dualism: Te eminine ‘is’ thus a negative potentiality, a figure o differentiation, o de-acement. Te eminine ‘is’ thereore the instance that cuts across identity; ‘woman’ the place where the fixation o sex is dis-placed, where sex, meaning and identity are both created and undermined.306
She adds the ollowing programmatic remark: ‘Deconstructive eminism aims at a permanent subversion o gender roles as they undoubtedly unction – as illusions, however, not as real phenomena.’307 Unortunately, radical deconstructionists come away empty-handed. o them it is o little value that the metaphysical opposition between the male and the emale is replaced by the Platonic dualism o illusion and reality. How do we find reality? – they will ask in a radical-constructivistdeconstructionist ashion . . . In Speculum, where she embarks on a Lacanian deconstruction avant la lettre, Luce Irigaray can dismiss such questions orthwith. Instead o perpetuating the opposition between illusion and reality, she starts rom the assumption that all o male metaphysics (rom Plato to Freud) perseveres in a kind o ‘specular state’, in which the male subject comes about by mirroring himsel in a negatively defined emale counterpart he systematically seeks to exclude. ‘We can assume that any theory o the subject has always been appropriated by the “masculine” ’,308 she observes and points out elsewhere that male speech is a ‘discourse that denies the specificity o her pleasure by inscribing it as the hollow, the intaglio, the negative, even as the censured other o its phallic
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assertions’.309 Tis is why she believes that Freud assimilates the sexuality o the little girl to that o the boy, attributing a ‘penis envy’ to the girl and generally tending to see woman as an incomplete man, associating her with an opaque nature which the male spirit is at pains to comprehend. (In act, Freud’s explanations o ‘penis envy’ are at best curious, as Juliet Mitchell already pointed out in her lucid critique o traditional psychoanalysis . . . I a word such as ‘envy’ is to be used at all in science, the psychoanalyst should at least reflect on the possible existence o a corresponding male ‘vagina’ or ‘uterus envy’.)310 Irigaray’s critique is deconstructionist avant la lettre in the sense that by using the metaphor o the mirror she re-introduces a systematically repressed emale sexuality which leads to the disintegration o the phallocentric and logocentric system. She thereby negates the apparent autarky o the male idealist system, o what Derrida would call the ‘logocentric closure’311 – a closure designed to exclude the eminine element. Irigaray’s basic intention is to show that the excluded element has always been ‘inside’. Judith Butler develops this idea by asking ‘through what exclusions has the eminist subject been constructed, and how do those excluded domains return to haunt the “integrity” and “unity” o the eminist “we”?’ 312 Te exclusion which produces an ‘outside’ seems to be necessary rom a male point o view, because the male subject could not have constructed himsel – ex negativo, as it were – as a philosophical or psychoanalytic subject without a emale mirror ulfilling a contrastive unction. It might be interesting to pursue Irigaray’s and Butler’s idea by asking whether philosophers such as Descartes, Hegel and Fichte have not constructed their systems by systematically excluding otherness: the body (Descartes), other cultures and nations (Fichte) and nature (Hegel). Te eminist critique o male-dominated ‘phallogocentric’ philosophy has induced authors such as Nancy Fraser and Linda Nicholson to break with the entire philosophical tradition and to envisage a critique o society without philosophy: ‘Social Criticism without Philosophy’.313 Teir project, however, is not only problematical because social criticism has been linked to philosophy ever since Plato, Hobbes and Marx mapped out more or less realistic alternatives to the social orders o their time, but also because these two eminist authors keep reerring to the philosophical approaches o Marx, Foucault and especially Lyotard in order to emphasize the difference between these authors and their own stance. In contrast to Françoise Gaspard, who would like to strengthen the eminine subject as an historical actor, they renounce subjectivity: ‘Finally, postmoderneminist theory would dispense with the idea o a subject o history. It would replace unitary notions o “woman” and “eminine gender identity” with plural and complexly constructed conceptions o social identity’. 314 Fraser’s and Nicholson’s wish to drop the metaphysical notion o ‘historical subject’ is understandable – not, however, their reusal to admit the complementary concepts o individual and collective subjectivity. All o their arguments converge in a deconstruction (critical dismemberment) o the individual subject as a unified whole. In her work on Feminism and Deconstruction, Diane Elam seems to continue this train o thought when she criticizes eminists such as Gaspard by insisting on the metaphysical, repressive aspects o subjectivity:
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Tis achievement o a definitive or calculable subjectivity is, as Derrida points out, not solely liberatory. Indeed, the constraint o subjectivity, even when subjectivity seems to offer agency, is clear when we realize that women become subjects only when they conorm to specified and calculable representations o themselves as subjects.315
Tis is undoubtedly true, and it becomes clear in a eminist context to what extent the authors o the Dialectic o Enlightenment were correct in stressing the act that all aspirations to power imply a large amount o sel-denial and sel-abnegation in the cognitive sense. Diane Elam would like to avoid this cognitive sel-abnegation by deconstructionist means. Parallel to the deconstructionist literary critic Geoffrey H. Hartman, 316 she pleads in avour o a ‘radical indeterminacy’ 317 in politics, quotes Barbara Johnson, according to whom ‘the undecidable is the political’318 and arrives at the conclusion that eminism ought to practise a politics o undecidability: ‘Te specificity o eminism is thus its insistence that the politics o undecidability (among multiple determinations) must be understood rom a standpoint o indeterminacy, o political possibilities.’319 But what does this kind o politics look like? In an attempt to make her position plausible, Elam reers to abortion: ‘o win the debate on abortion would be to allow the undecidable in so ar as abortion would be neither a decision which could be made in advance or made once and or all or all women.’320 Apart rom the act that this method o undecidability cedes the political field to those emale and male groupings, which adhere to dualistic ideologies and clear-cut notions o subjectivity, it is marked – like many other deconstructionist approaches – by a latent tendency towards indifference. At the end o the day, all decisions concerning abortion appear as being so individual and so particular that they become interchangeable. Each o them can be justified and appears to be as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ as any other. Here the kind o postmodern pluralism predominates that is explicitly rejected by Gaspard and Lovibond. All attempts to politicize deconstruction or to combine it with Marxism (e.g. Gramsci’s ‘philosophy o practice’)321 tend to ail because o deconstruction’s negativity and its insights into the logocentrism o rationalist and Hegelian conceptualization which induce it to remain in a destructive or playul suspense. Tis negativity is quite incompatible with Adorno’s reusal to abandon conceptualization or the autonomy o the subject, or it eventually confirms the indifference o the exchange value. It seems possible to overcome this dilemma arising rom the controversies between subject-oriented and deconstructionist eminism by returning to Virginia Wool’s novel Orlando (1928) characterized by Frank Kermode as a ‘antastic “biography” o a man-woman’.322 It is a modernist novel structured by extreme ambivalence defined as coincidence o opposites ( male / emale, war / peace, real / unreal , etc.): an ambivalence that results – among other things – rom the impossibility o Hegelian synthesis in the second hal o the nineteenth century. Te unity o opposites seems to be possible, but not the dialectical synthesis o these opposites constructed by Hegel. In Walter Benjamin’s work, it becomes clear that this unity without a synthesis need not be interpreted as an aporia in the deconstructionist sense, but can be considered as a moment o truth in the dialectical sense: ‘Te presentation o an idea can never be
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successul as long as the virtual circle o its extremes has not been traced.’ 323 Derrida’s deconstructionist disintegration o meaning is not being envisaged here, but the unity o the extremes or the sake o truth. In her stimulating study on Virginia Wool and the Problem o the Subject , Makiko Minow-Pinkey reads Orlando in a post-Hegelian and modernist context when she remarks about Wool’s androgynous protagonist: ‘Te author does not present androgyny as a Hegelian synthesis o man and woman; Orlando lives alteration not resolution.’ 324 Tis is a good example o ambivalence as a coincidence o opposites , o an ambivalence leading to dialogue . Te idea underlying this critical ambivalence is a transormation o the sel by opening up towards the Other – without assimilating, without confiscating the Other’s identity. Makiko Minow-Pinkey quite rightly points out: ‘But intermixture does not mean usion into homogeneous unity, or the difference between the sexes remains “one o great proundity”.’ 325 She also stresses the act that ‘androgyny is the rejection o sameness’.326 Tus Wool’s novel can be read as a text which challenges both the male exclusion strategies and the male incorporation strategies without becoming entangled in aporias. Orlando lives and acts. Standing between the sexes and uniting both o them, heshe acts in spite o all the ambivalences underlying the actions and events o the novel. Love, which is the preoccupation o traditional protagonists, is presented by the narrator as an ambivalent entity, as an unstable coincidence o opposites: For Love, to which we may now return, has two aces; one white, the other black; two bodies; one smooth, the other hairy. It has two hands, two eet, two nails, two, indeed, o every member and each one is the exact opposite o the other. Yet, so strictly are they joined together that you cannot separate them. 327
Disintegration is not the result o this contradictory unit, but tension, dialogue. As in many other modernist novels, as in the novels o Svevo, Musil, Kaa or Hesse, this tension resulting rom ambivalence may become an obstacle to action. Although it urthers critical distance and sel-reflection, it hampers the ability o the androgynous individual to engage in coherent activities. At the end o the day, Orlando considers both sexes with scepticism: And here it would seem rom some ambiguity in her terms that she was censuring both sexes equally, as i she belonged to neither; and indeed, or the time being, she seemed to vacillate; she was man; she was woman; she knew the secrets, shared the weaknesses o each. It was a most bewildering and whirligig state o mind to be in. Te comorts o ignorance seemed utterly denied her. She was a eather blown in the gale.328
Tese ‘comorts o ignorance’ are denied to all o late modern or modernist literature which is marked by ambivalence, sel-reflection, irony and sel-irony. Te sel-reflection inherent in Virginia Wool’s narrative style eventually leads to the transormation o androgynous dialogue into polyphony: ‘For she had a great variety o selves to call upon, ar more than we have been able to find room or, since a
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biography is considered complete i it merely accounts or six or seven selves, whereas a person may well have as many thousand.’ 329 Tis multiplicity o the sel does not prevent Orlando rom acting, but it does lead to a sceptical reflection on the traditional adventures o romances and to the protagonist’s insight that her destiny is neither eros nor action, but literary writing. In this respect, she reminds us o other modernist heroes such as Svevo’s Zeno Cosini and Proust’s Marcel. In her case too, writing turns into a critical reflection on identity and the search or identity. Her experience also seems to announce the work o Simone de Beauvoir which is read by Françoise Réti as a work marked by ambivalence and androgyny.330 As in the case o Wool, ambivalence appears in Beauvoir’s texts as the salient eature and the basic structure o literary modernism. ‘Let us assume our undamental ambiguity’, 331 she writes in Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté and explains: ‘Existentialism has defined itsel rom the very outset as a philosophy o ambiguity; by postulating the irreducible character o ambiguity, Kierkegaard adopted a stance diametrically opposed to Hegel’s.’332 Tese remarks concerning Kierkegaard’s philosophy o existence reveal modernism’s indebtedness to the Young Hegelian critique o Hegel’s system. In this context, Françoise Réti relates Beauvoir to Virginia Wool when she writes about Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté : ‘Man has to reconcile the opposites by preserving them; so he can only “find”, i.e. uniy himsel by moving between the different poles without ever coinciding with himsel. In this case, the concept o ambiguity assumes the ull weight o its etymology.’333 Tis ambiguity (in the present context: ambivalence in the modernist and Bakhtinian sense) appears to Réti as the basic structure o androgyny underlying Beauvoir’s work: ‘Te androgynous is the same and the other, the identical and the different, the masculine and the eminine, all in one.’334 Androgyny as an ambivalent figure o modernism thus appears both as an alternative to the ideology o the subject and to the pathological ‘multiple personality’, as described by Ursula Link-Heer.335 Te androgynous dialogism o Beauvoir and Wool is viewed in a psychoanalytic perspective by Julia Kristeva when she adds to Lacan’s symbolic order a ‘semiotic order’ dominated not by the figure o the ather, but by that o the mother. Tis semiotic order is not made o language, but consists o the non-linguistic signs used by the inant reacting to movements, shapes and colours. Kristeva calls the transition rom the semiotic to the symbolic order the thetic phase (in the sense o Husserl’s transcendental ego), a phase in which the subject constructs itsel as a linguistic agent. In Kristeva’s approach, the thetic constitutes (and this is the major difference compared with Lacan) a permanent link between the symbolic order and the prelinguistic phase o development. Te irruption o the pre-symbolic into the symbolic order is no longer considered (as in Lacan’s case) as a pathological relapse, but as the beginning o a dialogical relationship between two heterogeneous, but equal orders and as a undamental aspect o dialogical subjectivity: However, this semiotic element that we can observe in the significant practices keeps re-occurring afer the symbolic thesis. We are thus dealing with the semiotic element which appears afer the emergence o the symbolic order and which can be analysed both in psychotic discourse and in the practice reerred to as ‘art’. 336
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Kristeva speaks o an ‘explosion o the semiotic within the symbolic’, 337 an ‘explosion’ that can be observed in the pre-linguistic elements o avant-garde art. In act, she joins in Virginia Wool’s and Simone de Beauvoir’s Young Hegelian and modernist critique when she emphasizes that this explosion o the semiotic within the symbolic order is not part o a synthesizing movement in the Hegelian sense, but an open process: the process o subjectivity. On the one hand, this process can be considered as a continuous concatenation o crises, on the other hand, as a ‘subject in process’, 338 as Rosalind Coward and John Ellis put it. Tis construction process can ail at any time: both on an individual and on a collective level (e.g. when social movements disintegrate). However, it can also appear as a creative or productive process in the sense o Virginia Wool’s Orlando. Tis novel and the eminist experience as a whole suggest that subjectivity comes about in a permanent dialogue with others and that identity is inconceivable without alterity.
Notes 1 For a more detailed definition o ‘problematic’ c. P. V. Zima, Modern / Postmodern. Society, Philosophy, Literature, London-New York, Continuum (2010), 2012, chap. I. 3. 2 C. P. V. Zima, La Négation esthétique. Le sujet, le beau et le sublime de Mallarmé et Valéry à Adorno et Lyotard , Paris, L’Harmattan, 2002, chap. V. 3 C. R. D. Laing, Te Politics o Experience and the Bird o Paradise, Harmondsworth, Penguin (1967), 1973. 4 P. V. Zima, Modern / Postmodern, op. cit., p. 16. 5 A. Hartman, in: E. Goffman, Stigma. Notes on the Management o Spoiled Identity , Englewood Cliffs (N. J.), Prentice Hall, 1963, pp. 58–9. 6 C. P. V. Zima, La Négation esthétique, op. cit., p. 69. 7 J. abbi, Postmodern Sublime. echnology and American Writing rom Mailer to Cyberpunk, Ithaca-London, Cornell Univ. Press, 1996, p. 77. 8 Ibid., p. 78. 9 P. Valéry, ‘Le Beau est négati ’, in: idem, Œuvres I , Paris Gallimard, Bibl. de la Pléiade, 1957, p. 374. 10 H. Friedrich, Die Struktur der modernen Lyrik. Von der Mitte des neunzehnten bis zur Mitte des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts, Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1970 (3rd ed.), p. 117. 11 J.-P. Sartre, ‘L’Engagement de Mallarmé’, in: Sartre, Obliques (special issue, 18–19), 1979, p. 190. 12 S. Mallarmé, ‘Quant au livre’, in: idem, Œuvres complètes, Paris, Gallimard, Bibl. de la Pléiade, 1945, p. 378. 13 I. Kant, Critique o Judgment , Indianapolis-Cambridge, Hackett Publishing Company, 1987, p. 98. – Gernot Böhme points out in his article ‘Lyotards Lektüre des Erhabenen’, in: Kant-Studien 2, 1998, p. 213: ‘Kant did not consider the sublime as a principle o artistic representation.’ 14 S. Mallarmé, ‘L’Azur’, in: idem, Œuvres complètes, op. cit., p. 38. 15 P. Bénichou, Selon Mallarmé , Paris, Gallimard, 1995, p. 82. 16 P. Valéry, ‘Le Beau est négati’, in: idem, Œuvres I , op. cit., p. 374. 17 P. Valéry, ‘el Quel’, in: idem, Œuvres II , Paris, Gallimard, Bibl. de la Pléiade, 1960, p. 637.
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18 P. Valéry, ‘Léonard et les philosophes’, in: idem: Œuvres I , op. cit., pp. 1240–41. 19 W. Benjamin, Te Writer o Modern Lie. Essays on Charles Baudelaire, Cambridge (Mass.)-London, 2006, p. 210. 20 C. W. Benjamin, Te Work o Art in the Age o its echnological Reproductibility and other Writings on Media, Cambridge (Mass.)-London, Te Belknap Press, 2008, pp. 19–21. 21 . W. Adorno, Aesthetic Teory , London, Athlone, 1997, p. 94. 22 D. Kiper, Individualität nach Adorno, übingen-Basel, Francke, 1999, p. 82. 23 C. . W. Adorno, ‘Individuum und Organisation’, in: idem, Kritik. Kleine Schrien zur Gesellscha , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1971, pp. 83–4. 24 . W. Adorno, ‘Te Artist as Deputy’, in: idem, Notes to Literature, vol. I, New York, Columbia Univ. Press, 1991, p. 106. 25 . W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, London-New York, Routledge (1973), 2000, p. XX. 26 A. Rescio, ‘Sujet et critique du sujet chez Adorno’, in: A. Verdiglione (ed.), Psychanalyse et sémiotique (Actes du colloque de Milan, 1974), Paris, UGE (10/18), 1975, p. 199. 27 . W. Adorno, Aesthetic Teory , op. cit., p. 22. 28 C. M. Moog-Grünewald (ed.), Das Neue. Eine Denkfigur der Moderne , Heidelberg, Winter, 2002. 29 . W. Adorno, Aesthetic Teory , op. cit., pp. 196–7. 30 Ibid., p. 199. 31 Ibid., p. 273. 32 A. Wellmer, ‘Adorno, die Moderne und das Erhabene’, in: W. Welsch, Ch. Pries (eds.), Ästhetik im Widerstreit. Interventionen zum Werk von Jean-François Lyotard , Weinheim, VHC, 1991, p. 47. 33 J.-F. Lyotard, Te Inhuman. Reflections on ime, Cambridge-Oxord, Polity-Blackwell, 1991, p. 93. 34 C. P. V. Zima, ‘Te Subject, the Beautiul and the Sublime. Adorno and Lyotard between Modernism and Postmodernism’, in: A. Eysteinsson, V. Liska (eds.), Modernism, Amsterdam-Atlanta, J. Benjamins, 2007, p. 150. 35 G. Böhme, ‘Lyotards Lektüre des Erhabenen’, in: Kant-Studien 2, 1998, pp. 206–8. 36 J.-F. Lyotard, Lessons on the Analytic o the Sublime. Kant’s Critique o Judgment §§ 23–29, Stanord, Univ. Press, 1994, p. 123. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid., p. 144. 39 J.- F. Lyotard, Te Inhuman, op. cit., p. 127. 40 A. Martinet, La Linguistique synchronique. Etudes et recherches, Paris, PUF, 1968, p. 27. 41 Ibid., p. 28. 42 G. Bataille, in: J. Derrida, Writing and Difference, London-New York, Routledge (1978), 2001, p. 324. 43 J. Derrida, Writing and Difference, op. cit., pp. 328–9. 44 F. de Saussure, A Course in General Linguistics, London, Fontana-Collins, 1974, p. 116. 45 J. Derrida, Writing and Difference, op. cit., p. 29. 46 Tis tendency is discussed in some detail in: P. V. Zima, Modern / Postmodern, op. cit., chap. I-II. 47 J. Hörisch, ‘Das Sein der Zeichen und die Zeichen des Seins’, in: J. Derrida, Die Stimme und das Phänomen, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1979, p. 43. 48 F. Nietzsche, ‘Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn’, in: idem, Werke, vol. V (ed. K. Schlechta), Munich, Hanser, 1980, p. 313.
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49 F. Nietzsche, ‘Aus dem Nachlaß der Achtzigerjahre’, in: idem, Werke, vol. VI, op. cit., p. 627. 50 J. Derrida, Margins o Philosophy , London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982, p. 327. 51 R. Bernet, ‘Derrida et la voix de son maître’, in: ‘Derrida’, Revue philosophique 2 (April-June), 1990, p. 161. 52 G. Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, London-New York, Continuum, 2004, p. 153. 53 Ibid., p. 339. 54 Ibid., p. 340. 55 J. Becker, Umgebungen, Frankurt, Suhrkamp (1970), 1974, p. 72. 56 . W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, op. cit., p. 15. 57 G. Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, op. cit., p. 340. 58 Ibid., p. 341. 59 C. G. Deleuze, Empirisme et subjectivité. Essai sur la nature humaine selon Hume, Paris, PUF, 1993 (5th ed.), chap. V: ‘Empirisme et subjectivité’. 60 G. Deleuze, C. Parnet, Dialogues, Paris, Flammarion, 1977, p. 71. 61 G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. III, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1996 (3rd ed.), p. 279. 62 G. Vattimo, Le avventure della differenza. Che cosa significa pensare dopo Nietzsche e Heidegger , Milan, Garzanti, 1980, p. 9. 63 Ibid., p. 121. 64 C. G. Vattimo, Te ransparent Society , Baltimore, Te Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1992, pp. 69–70. 65 F. Zourabichvilli, Deleuze. Une philosophie de l’événement , Paris, PUF, 1994, p. 39. 66 A. J. Greimas, J. Courtés, Sémiotique. Dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage , Paris, Hachette, 1979, p. 199. 67 Ibid., p. 197. 68 J. Hillis Miller, Fiction and Repetition. Seven English Novels , Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard Univ. Press, 1982, p. 128. 69 A. Burgess, A Clockwork Orange, London, Penguin (1962), 1972, p. 59. 70 . W. Adorno, Aesthetic Teory , op. cit., p. 31. 71 R. D. Laing, Te Politics o Experience, op. cit., p. 11. 72 Ibid. 73 C. M. Foucault, ‘Structuralisme et poststructuralisme’, in: idem, Dits et écrits IV , Paris, Gallimard, 1994, p. 439, where Foucault regrets having encountered Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s Critical Teory so late. 74 R. D. Laing, Te Politics o Experience, op. cit., p. 16. 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid., p. 55. 77 Ibid., p. 45. 78 R. D. Laing, Te Divided Sel. An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness , Harmondsworth, Penguin (1960), 1965, pp. 139–40. 79 A. Giddens, Modernity and Sel-Identity. Sel and Society in the Late Modern Age, Cambridge-Oxord, Polity-Blackwell, 1991, p. 61. 80 H. Hesse, Steppenwol , London, Penguin, 1965, p. 230. 81 Te transition rom Proust and Hesse to surrealism is discussed in: P. V. Zima, Roman und Ideologie. Zur Sozialgeschichte des modernen Romans, Munich, Fink (1986), 1999, chap. II. 82 A. Breton, Maniestoes o Surrealism, Ann Arbor, Univ. o Michigan Press, 1972, p. 45. ( Maniestes du surréalisme, Paris, Gallimard, 1969, p. 64.)
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83 Ibid., p. 162. 84 Ibid., p. 45: ‘Tis world, in which I endure what I endure (don’t go to see), this modern world, I mean, what the devil do you want me to do with it?’ 85 R. D. Laing, Te Politics o Experience, op. cit., p. 95. 86 C. R. Jacoby, ‘Te Politics o Subjectivity’, in: idem, Social Amnesia: A Critique o Conormist Psychology rom Adler to Laing , Boston (Mass.), Beacon Press, 1975, pp. 101–18. 87 R. D. Laing, Te Politics o Experience, op. cit., p. 61. 88 Ibid., p. 62. 89 Ibid., p. 92. 90 Ibid., p. 62. 91 G. Vattimo, Te ransparent Society , op. cit., p. 41. 92 G. Vattimo, Al di là del soggetto. Nietzsche, Heidegger e l’ermeneutica, Milan, Feltrinelli, 1991 (4th ed.), p. 14. 93 Ibid., p. 11. 94 G. Vattimo, Nietzsche. An Introduction, London, Athlone, 2002, p. 196. 95 Ibid., p. 98. 96 G. Vattimo, Al di là del soggetto, op. cit., p. 47. 97 G. Vattimo, Te End o Modernity , Baltimore, Te Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1988, p. 45. 98 G. Vattimo, Al di là del soggetto, op. cit., p. 48. 99 Ibid., p. 49. 100 Ibid. 101 R. D. Laing, Te Divided Sel , op. cit., p. 95. 102 G. Vattimo, Te End o Modernity , op. cit., p. 23. 103 P. Caravetta, ‘On Gianni Vattimo’s Postmodern Hermeneutics’, in: Teory, Culture and Society 2–3, Postmodernism, 1988, p. 395. 104 A. Burgess, A Clockwork Orange, op. cit., p. 97. 105 C. . W. Adorno, Minima Moralia. Reflections on a Damaged Lie, London-New York (NLB, 1974), Verso, 2005. 106 C. E. Goffman, Asylums. Essays on the Social Situation o Mental Patients and Other Inmates, Chicago, Aldine Publishing Company, 1962: ‘Te World o the Personal’. 107 Ch. Link, Subjektivität und Wahrheit. Die Grundlegung der neuzeitlichen Metaphysik durch Descartes, Stuttgart, Klett-Cotta, 1978, p. 47. 108 E. Goffman, Asylums, op. cit., p. 16. 109 Ibid., p. 23. 110 Ibid., p. 306. 111 C. . Burns, Erving Goffman, London-New York, Routledge, 1992, chap. VI: ‘Normalisation’. 112 E. Goffman, Asylums, op. cit., p. 87. 113 Ibid., p. 320. 114 In sociology, there is increasing interest in the sel-adaptation and sel-manipulation o individual subjects, especially in competitive areas o the economy. C. U. Bröckling, Das unternehmerische Selbst. Soziologie einer Subjektivierungsorm, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 2007, chap. IV: ‘Strategien und Programme’. 115 E. Goffman, Stigma. Notes on the Management o Spoiled Identity , Englewood Cliffs (N. J.), Prentice Hall, 1963, p. 124. 116 Ibid., pp. 137–8.
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117 C. E. Goffman, Frame Analysis. An Essay on the Organization o Experience , London, Harper and Row, 1974, chap. II: ‘Primary Frameworks’ and idem, Te Presentation o Sel in Everyday Lie, London, Penguin, 1972, chap. IV: ‘Discrepant Roles’. 118 E. Goffman, Asylums, op. cit., p. 79. 119 M. Foucault, ‘La orture, c’est la raison’, in: idem, Dits et écrits III , Paris, Gallimard, 1994, p. 390. 120 Z. Bauman, Postmodern Ethics, Oxord, Blackwell, 1993, p. 135. 121 Ibid., p. 103. 122 M. Foucault, Te Order o Tings, London-New York, Routledge (1989), 2002, p. 340. 123 M. Foucault, Te Birth o the Clinic. An Archaeology o Medical Perception, LondonNew York, Routledge (1989), 2003, p. 41. 124 J. Habermas, Te Philosophical Discourse o Modernity. welve Lectures , Cambridge, Polity, 1987, pp. 242–3. 125 M. Foucault, Te Birth o the Clinic, op. cit., p. 71. 126 Ibid., pp. 124–5. 127 Ibid., p. 243. 128 R. Reid, ‘Corps clinique, corps génétique’, in: L. Giard (ed.), Michel Foucault. Lire l’œuvre, Grenoble, Millon, p. 126. 129 M. Foucault, ‘Pouvoir et corps’, in: idem, Dits et écrits II , Paris, Gallimard, 1994, p. 756. 130 Ibid., p. 757. 131 M. Foucault, ‘Mon corps, ce papier, ce eu’, in: idem, Dits et écrits II , op. cit., p. 246. 132 M. Foucault, Histoire de la olie à l’âge classique, Paris, Gallimard, 1972, p. 539. (Te text quoted here is missing in the abridged English translation: Madness and Civilization, London-New York, Routledge, 1989, where the last section ‘Le Cercle anthropologique’ has been omitted.) 133 Ibid., p. 104. 134 J. Donzelot, La Police des amilles , Paris, Minuit, 1977, p. 86. 135 Ibid., p. 180. 136 Ibid. 137 C. . Hobbes, Leviathan, London, Penguin, 1985, pp. 380–94. 138 C. J.-M. Vincent, La Téorie critique de L’Ecole de Francort , Paris, Galilée, 1976 and P. V. Zima, L’Ecole de Francort. Dialectique de la particularité , Paris (1974), L’Harmattan, 2005 (augmented ed.). 139 M. Foucault, ‘Structuralisme et poststructuralisme’, in: idem, Dits et écrits IV , op. cit., p. 439. 140 Z. Bauman, Intimations o Postmodernity , London-New York, Routledge, 1992, p. 175. 141 C. Norris, Te ruth about Postmodernism, Oxord, Blackwell, 1993, p. 70. 142 Ibid., p. 47. 143 C. M. Foucault, ‘Réponse à Derrida’, in: idem, Dits et écrits II , op. cit., pp. 284–5. 144 It was shown by Kvĕtoslav Chvatík that these arguments do not apply to Czech structuralism which never discarded the concept o subject as obsolete. C. K. Chvatík, schechoslowakischer Strukturalismus. Teorie und Geschichte, Munich, Fink, 1981, pp. 107–10. 145 C. U. Jaeggi, Teoretische Praxis. Probleme eines strukturalen Marxismus, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1976. 146 C. M. Foucault, ‘Nietzsche, Genealogy, History’, in: P. Rabinow (ed.), Te Foucault Reader , New York, Pantheon Books, 1984, pp. 94–7. Foucault’s critique o Hegel is discussed by M. Gans, Das Subjekt der Geschichte. Studien zu Vico, Hegel und Foucault , Hildesheim-Zurich-New York, Olms, 1993, Part C.
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147 M. Foucault, ‘Nietzsche, Genealogy, History’, op. cit., p. 88. 148 M. Foucault, ‘Te Order o Discourse’, in: M. J. Shapiro (ed.), Language and Politics, Oxord, Blackwell, 1984, p. 129. (In the French original, the key words – hasard, discontinu, matérialité – are in italics: L’Ordre du discours, Paris, Gallimard, 1971, p. 61.) 149 Ibid. 150 M. Foucault, ‘Nietzsche, Genealogy, History’, op. cit., p. 95. 151 M. Foucault, ‘Te Order o Discourse’, op. cit., p. 129. 152 M. Foucault, La Pensée du dehors, Paris, Fata Morgana, 1986, p. 56. 153 Ibid. 154 M. Foucault, ‘Subjectivité et vérité’, in: idem, Dits et écrits IV , op. cit., p. 213. 155 C. A. Guédez, Foucault, Paris, Ed. Universitaires, 1972, pp. 91–2: ‘Le Spinozisme retrouvé?’. 156 C. P. Macherey, Hegel ou Spinoza, Paris, Maspero, 1979, pp. 74–94. 157 L. Althusser, Eléments d’autocritique, Paris, Hachette, 1974, p. 74. 158 Ibid. 159 C. N. Luhmann, Die Wissenscha der Gesellscha , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1990, pp. 346–54. 160 C. L. Althusser, E. Balibar, Reading Capital , London, NLB, 1977 (2nd ed.), Part II: ‘Te Object o Capital’. 161 C. L. Althusser, Eléments d’autocritique, op. cit., pp. 55–64: ‘Structuralisme?’ (‘Mais nous n’avons pas été structuralistes’, p. 64.) 162 L. Althusser, Philosophie et philosophie spontanée des savants (1967), Paris, Maspero, 1974, pp. 93–4. 163 L. Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and other Essays, New York, Monthly Review Press-NLB, 1971, p. 170. 164 Ibid. 165 A distinction between religion and ideology is proposed in: P. V. Zima, Ideologie und Teorie. Eine Diskurskritik, übingen, Francke, 1989, chap. I. 2. b. 166 L. Althusser, On Ideology , London-New York (NLB, 1971), Verso, 2008, p. 35. 167 C. P. V. Zima, Ideologie und Teorie, op. cit, chap. IX: ‘Ideologie in der Teorie: Soziologische Modelle’. 168 . W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, op. cit., pp. 267–8. 169 Te question concerning ‘the end o ideology’ was dealt with by: R. Aron, ‘Fin de l’âge idéologique?’, in: Sociologica I. Ausätze Max Horkheimer zum 60-Geburtstag gewidmet , Cologne, Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1974; D. Bell, Te End o Ideology. On the Exhaustion o Political Ideas in the Fiies, London, Collier-Macmillan (1960), 1967; N. Luhmann, ‘Wahrheit und Ideologie. Vorschläge zur Wiederaunahme der Diskussion’, in: H.-J. Lieber (ed.), Ideologie – Wissenscha – Gesellscha , Darmstadt, Wiss. Buchgesellschaf, 1976. 170 C. L. Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, London, NLB, 1971, pp. 71–2. 171 C. L. Althusser, For Marx , London, Allen Lane, 1969. 172 A. Van de Putte, in: P. Steenbakkers, Over kennis en ideologie bij Louis Althusser , Groningen, Konstapel, 1982, p. 102. C. . Benton, Te Rise and Fall o Structural Marxism. Althusser and his Influence, London, Macmillan, 1984, Part I: ‘Althusser’ and R. Aron, Marxismes imaginaries. D’une sainte amille à l’autre, Paris, Gallimard, 1970: ‘Althusser ou la lecture pseudo-structuraliste de Marx’ (pp. 193–354).
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173 C. M. Pêcheux, ‘Ideologie – Festung oder paradoxer Raum?’, in: Das Argument 139, May-June 1983 and W. F. Haug’s answer: ‘Notiz zu Michel Pêcheux’ Gedanken über den “ideologischen Bewegungskamp”’, in: Das Argument 139, op. cit., p. 389. 174 C. H. Stehle, Nachbar Polen, Frankurt, Fischer, 1963, chap. IV: ‘Der “polnische Weg”’. 175 For a description o postmodernity as pluralism c. W. Welsch, Unsere postmoderne Moderne, Weinheim, VCH, 1991 (3rd ed.), p. 36. 176 L. Althusser, On Ideology , op. cit., p. 20. 177 F. Gadet, M. Pêcheux, La Langue introuvable, Paris, Maspero, 1981, p. 35. 178 Pêcheux does not define ideology as discourse, i.e. as a semantic and narrative structure, but as an instance that influences discourse. 179 M. Pêcheux, Les Vérités de La Palice, Paris, Maspero, 1975, p. 144. 180 Ibid., p. 146. 181 Ibid., p. 148. 182 J. Link, Versuch über den Normalismus. Wie Normalität produziert wird , Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1997, p. 407. 183 C. note 162. 184 J. Link defines ‘normalism’ as a constellation o normalities and as a network o discourses. In some instances, ‘normalism’ seems to usurp the unction o religions and ideologies. 185 C. J. Link, Normale Krisen? Normalismus und die Krise der Gegenwart. Mit einem Blick au ilo Sarrazin, Constance, Univ. Press, 2013. 186 J. Link, Versuch über den Normalismus, op. cit., p. 78. 187 J. Link, ‘Von der Macht der Norm zum “flexiblen Normalismus”: Überlegungen nach Foucault’, in: J. Jurt (ed.), Zeitgenössische ranzösische Denker , Freiburg, Rombach, 1998, p. 260. 188 J. Link, Versuch über den Normalismus, op. cit., p. 95. 189 Ibid., p. 171. 190 Ibid., p. 427. 191 C. I. Mészáros, Te Power o Ideology , New York-London, Harvester-Wheatshea, 1989, pp. 57–8 and Ch. Duncker (ed.), Ideologiekritik Aktuell (Ideologies oday ), London, urnshare, 2008. 192 Te growing attractiveness o religious sects is dealt with in detail by: G. Knörzer, ‘Subjektive versus soziale Identität. Verschwindet das Subjekt in neueren religiösen Bewegungen? – Pastoraltheologische Vorüberlegungen’, in: H. Schrödter (ed.), Das Verschwinden des Subjekts, Würzburg, Königshausen und Neumann, 1994. 193 J. Lacan, Le Séminaire, livre II. Le Moi dans la théorie de Freud et dans la technique de la psychanalyse, Paris, Seuil, 1978, p. 354. (In what ollows, the French original will be reerred to or linguistic and terminological reasons.) 194 Frequently Lacan is defined as a postmodern thinker: C. R. G. Renner, Die postmoderne Konstellation. Teorie, ext und Kunst im Ausgang der Moderne, Freiburg, Rombach, 1988, chap. IV: ‘Postmoderne als Poststrukturalismus’: 4. 4. ‘Die Sprache des Unbewußten: Jacques Lacan’. 195 J. Lacan, Ecrits: A selection, London-New York, Routledge, 2001, p. 87. (Ecrits, Paris, Seuil, 1966, p. 292. Occasionally the original will be quoted along with the translation or terminological reasons – and because the English version is a selection.) 196 A. Lemaire, Jacques Lacan, Sprimont, Mardaga, 1977 (8th ed.), p. 26. 197 C. J. Derrida, ‘Freud and the Scene o Writing’, in: idem, Writing and Difference, op. cit., pp. 246–91. 198 C. J. Lacan, Ecrits, op. cit., p. 283. (Ecrits: A selection, op. cit, p. 78.)
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199 J. Lacan, Le Séminaire, livre II , op. cit., p. 286. 200 In his book Pour lire Lacan, Paris, EPEL, 1990, P. Julien shows that, in his later writings, Lacan gives up the notion o a ‘parole vraie’ or ‘parole pleine’: ‘More and more he doubts the creative power o the word and in 1980 he even claims that it does not exist.’ C. also: J.-P. Cléro, Le Vocabulaire de Jacques Lacan , Paris, Ellipse, 2002: ‘Vérité’. 201 C. L. Althusser, For Marx , op. cit., chap. II. 202 J. Lacan, Le Séminaire, livre II , op. cit., p. 92. 203 J. Lacan, Ecrits: A selection, op. cit., p. 126. (Ecrits, op. cit., p. 401.) 204 L. Althusser, ‘Freud and Lacan’, in: idem, On Ideology , op. cit., p.161. 205 J.-B. Fages, Comprendre Jacques Lacan, Paris, Dunod, 1997, p. 119. 206 Ibid., p. 122. 207 Ibid., p. 120. 208 J. Lacan, Le Séminaire, livre I. Les Ecrits techniques de Freud , Paris, Seuil, 1975, p. 266. 209 A. Mooij, aal en verlangen. Lacans theorie van de psychoanalyse , Meppel, Boom, 1977 (3rd ed.), p. 156. 210 J. Lacan, Le Séminaire, livre II , op. cit., p. 50. 211 J. Lacan, Ecrits: A selection, op. cit., p. 6. (Ecrits, op. cit., p. 98.) 212 Ibid. 213 A. Lemaire, Jacques Lacan, op. cit., p. 109. 214 J. Lacan, Le Séminaire, livre I , op. cit., p. 267. 215 Ibid. 216 J. Lacan, Ecrits: A selection, op. cit., p. 355. 217 For a eminist critique o Lacan c. J. Kristeva, La Révolution du langage poétique. L’Avant- garde à la fin du XIXe siècle: Lautréamont et Mallarmé , Paris,, Seuil, 1974, pp. 61–7 and D. Elam, Feminism and Deconstruction, London-New York, Routledge,1994, pp. 53–6. 218 A. Mitscherlich, Society without the Father , London, avistock Publications, 1969. 219 J. Lacan, Ecrits: A selection, op. cit., p. 77. (Ecrits, op. cit., p. 281.) 220 C. J. Lacan, Ecrits: A selection, op. cit., pp. 316–17. 221 G. W. F. Hegel, Te Phenomenology o Mind , London-New York, Swan Sonnenschein & Co.-Te Macmillan Company, 1910, p. 661. 222 J. Lacan, Le Séminaire, livre II , op. cit., p. 164. 223 Ibid. 224 Te role o the Freudian slip in the modernist novel is highlighted by Italo Svevo’s Conessions o Zeno. In this novel, the marriage between the hero Zeno and Augusta is brought about by a ‘Freudian slip’. 225 C. J. Dor, Introduction à la lecture de Lacan. 1. L’Inconscient structuré comme un langage, Paris, Denoël, 1985, p. 128. 226 J. Lacan, Le Séminaire, livre II , op. cit., p. 353. 227 U. Roseneld, Der Mangel an Sein. Identität als ideologischer Effekt , Gießen, FocusVerlag, 1984, p. 56. 228 J. Lacan, Ecrits: A selection, op. cit., p. 76. 229 C. Ch. Mauron, Des Métaphores obsédantes au mythe personnel. Introduction à la psychocritique, Paris, Corti, 1983, chap. I. 230 J. Lacan, ‘Préace’, in: A. Lemaire, Jacques Lacan, op. cit., p. 12. 231 J. Lacan, Ecrits, op. cit., p. 20. (‘Le Séminaire sur “La Lettre volée”’ has not been included in the English translation o Ecrits.) 232 J. Lacan, Le Séminaire, livre II , op. cit., p. 231.
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233 B. Péquignot, Pour une critique de la raison anthropologique, Paris, L’Harmattan, 1990: ‘J. Lacan et R. Descartes: la division du sujet’, pp. 41–6. Péquignot shows how Lacan separates the two parts o Descartes’ maxim ‘je pense, donc je suis’. 234 A. Juranville, Lacan et la philosophie, Paris, PUF (1984), 1996, p. 112. 235 J.-P. Fages, Comprendre Jacques Lacan, op. cit., p. 50. (C. J. Lacan, Le Séminaire, livre II , op. cit., p. 286: ‘Le sujet ne sait pas ce qu’il dit, et pour les meilleures raisons, parce qu’il ne sait pas ce qu’il est.’) 236 J. Lacan, Ecrits: A selection, op. cit., p. 77. 237 Ibid., p. 93. 238 P. Julien, Pour lire Jacques Lacan, op. cit., p. 76. 239 J. Lacan, Ecrits: A selection, op. cit., p. 94. 240 J. Dor, Introduction à la lecture de Lacan, op. cit., p.156. 241 J. Lacan, Ecrits: A selection, op. cit., p. 77. 242 Ibid., p. 355. 243 C. ibid., p. 48: where, ollowing Mallarmé, Lacan relates alienation in language to the exchange value. 244 . W. Adorno, Aesthetic Teory , op. cit., p. 8. 245 A. Lemaire, Jacques Lacan, op. cit., p. 110. 246 Ibid., p. 276. 247 W. Schwab, Mesalliance – Aber wir ficken uns prächtig , in: idem, Königskomödien, Graz-Vienna, Dorschl, 1992, p. 123. Hermann Lang discusses this problem in: Die Sprache und das Unbewußte. Jacques Lacans Grundlegung der Psychoanalyse , Frankurt, Suhrkamp (1973), 1986, p. 255. 248 R. D. Laing, Te Politics o Experience, op. cit., p. 12. 249 J. Lacan, Ecrits, op. cit., p. 869. (Tis text was not included in the English translation.) 250 C. P. Julien, Pour lire Jacques Lacan, op. cit., p. 86. 251 B. Ogilvie, Lacan. La Formation du concept de sujet (1932–1949), Paris, PUF, 1988 (2nd ed.), p. 105. 252 C. D. Bell, Te Coming o Postindustrial Society , Harmondsworth, Penguin (1976), 2000 and D. Riesman, Te Lonely Crowd. A Study o the Changing American Character , New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1953 (3rd ed.). 253 C. Lasch, Te Culture o Narcissism. American Lie in an Age o Diminishing Expectations, New York, Norton & Co., 1979, p. 187. 254 C. Lasch, Te Minimal Sel. Psychic Survival in roubled imes , New York-London, Norton & Co., 1984, p. 192. 255 C. P. Schärer, Zur psychischen Strategie des schwachen Helden. Italo Svevo im Vergleich mit Kaa, Broch und Musil , Tesis, University o Zurich, 1978: Schärer also examines the ather-son relationship. 256 C. Lasch, Te Minimal Sel , op. cit., p. 185. 257 Ibid., p. 184. 258 J. Lacan, Le Séminaire, livre I , op. cit., p. 341. 259 M. Saouan, ‘De la structure en psychanalyse. Contribution à une théorie du manque’, in: O. Ducrot et al., Qu’est-ce que le structuralisme?, Paris, Seuil, 1968, p. 262. 260 Ibid., p. 265. 261 Ibid. 262 J. Laplanche, J. B. Pontalis, Te Language o Psycho-Analysis, London, Te Hogarth Press, 1973, p. 202. 263 G. Sassanelli, Le basi narcisistiche della personalità, urin, Boringhieri, 1982, p. 53.
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264 Te monologic character o this kind o narcissism is discussed in detail in: P. V. Zima, Narzissmus und Ichideal. Psyche – Gesellscha – Kultur , übingen, Francke, 2009, chap. II. 265 H. Kohut, ‘Forms and ransormations o Narcissism’, in: A. P. Morrison (ed.), Essential Papers on Narcissism, New York-London, New York Univ. Press, 1986, p. 63. 266 C. Lasch, Te Culture o Narcissism, op. cit., p. 210. 267 P. Jullian, Robert de Montesquiou. Un Prince 1900, Paris, Perrin, 1965, p. 64. 268 Te emphasis on distance and coldness, which marks the dandy’s demeanour, is discussed in detail by: H. Gnüg, Kult der Kälte. Der klassische Dandy im Spiegel der Weltliteratur , Stuttgart, Metzler, 1988, pp. 21–6. 269 M. Proust, Remembrance o Tings Past , vol. IV (Within a Budding Grove II ), London, Chatto and Windus (1924), 1972, p. 19. 270 P. Süskind, Perume, London, Penguin, 1987, p. 248. 271 K. Marx, Early Writings (ed. . B. Bottomore), London, C. A. Watts, 1963, p. 191. 272 C. Lasch, Te Culture o Narcissism, op. cit., p. 96. 273 C. G. Debord, La Société du Spectacle, Paris, (1967, 1971), Gallimard, 1992, p. 9. 274 Ch. Lasch, Te Culture o Narcissism, op. cit., p. 217. 275 Ibid. 276 Te subject-object relationship in narcissism is dealt with in detail by: K. R. Eißler, odestrieb, Ambivalenz, Narzißmus , Munich, Kindler, 1980, p. 34: ‘Narcissism is not the energy that flows rom the subject to the outer world.’ 277 C. J. Jurt, Frankreichs engagierte Intellektuelle. Von Zola bis Bourdieu , Göttingen, Wallstein, 2012 (2nd ed.) p. 245. 278 C. D. Cornell, A. Turshwell, ‘Feminism, Negativity, Intersubjectivity’, in: S. Benhabib, D. Cornell (eds.), Feminism as Critique. Essays on the Politics o Gender in LateCapitalist Societies, Cambridge-Oxord, Polity-Blackwell, 1987. 279 H. Möckel-Rieke, Fiktionen von Natur und Weiblichkeit. Zur Begründung emininer und engagierter Schreibweisen bei Adrienne Rich, Denise Levertov, Susan Griffi n, Kathleen Fraser und Susan Howe, rier Wissenschaflicher Verlag, 1991, p. 28. 280 C. M. Mauss, ‘Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés archaïques’, in: Année sociologique, 2e série, 1923–1924, t. I. 281 L. Irigaray, Tis Sex Which Is Not One, Ithaca (N. Y.), Cornell Univ. Press, 1985, p. 176. 282 L. Irigaray, Speculum. O the Other Woman, Ithaca (N. Y.), Cornell Univ. Press, 1985, p. 141. 283 Te relationship between actors and actants is discussed in detail by J. Courtés in his book Introduction à la sémiotique narrative et discursive, Paris, Hachette, 1976, p. 95: ‘Actants et acteurs’. 284 J. Butler, Excitable Speech. A Politics o the Perormative, New York-London, Routledge, 1997, p. 133. 285 Te relationship between gender and speech is analysed by Luise F. Pusch in her book Das Deutsche als Männersprache, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1984. 286 J. Butler, Excitable Speech, op. cit., p. 146. 287 D. Elam, Feminism and Deconstruction, London-New York, Routledge, 1994, p. 49. 288 Ibid., p. 78. 289 Ibid. 290 C. F. Gaspard, Les Femmes dans la prise de décision en France et en Europe, Paris, L’Harmattan, 1997. 291 F. Gaspard, ‘Le Sujet est-il neutre?’, in: F. Dubet, M. Wieviorka (eds.), Penser le sujet. Autour d’Alain ouraine (Colloque de Cerisy), Paris, Fayard, 1995, p. 152.
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292 C. U. Bec Beck, k, Gegengie. Die organisierte Unverantwortlichkeit , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1988, p. 99. 293 F. Gaspard, ‘Le Sujet est-il est-il neutre?’ neut re?’ in: F. F. Dubet, M. Wieviork Wieviorkaa (eds.), (e ds.), Penser le sujet , op. cit., p. 150. 294 Ibid., p. 151. 295 Ibid. 296 S. Lovibond, ‘Feminism and Postmoderni Postmodernism sm’’, in: R. Boyne, A. Rattansi (eds.), (eds .), Postmodernism Postmodernis m and Society , London, Macmillan, 1990, p. 159. 297 Ibid., p. 167: “(. . .) aspires to end the war between bet ween men and women and to replace it with communicative c ommunicative transparenc transparencyy, or truthulness” truth ulness”.. 298 Ibid., p. 179. 299 Ibid. 300 Postmodern Postmodernism ism and Modernism have h ave been defined defi ned as problematics problemati cs in: P. P. V. Zima, Modern / Postmodern. Postmodern. Society, Society, Philosophy Philosophy,, Literatur Literaturee, London-New York, Continuum C ontinuum (2010), 2012 (2nd ed.), chap. I. 301 H. Fern Haber, Beyond Postmodern Politics. Lyotard, Rorty, Foucault , New YorkLondon, Routledge, 1994, p. 130. 302 C. . . W. W. Adorn Adorno, o, ‘Ohne Leitb L eitbild’ ild’, in: idem, i dem, Ohne Leitbild. Parva Aesthetica, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1967, p. 18. 303 Tis dilemma resulting resulting rom the contradiction contradiction between ideology and theory theory is discussed in detail by P. V. Zima in Ideologie und Teorie. Eine Diskurskritik, übingen, Francke, 1989, chap. XII. 304 H. Möckel-Rieke, Fiktionen von Natur und Weiblichkeit , op. cit., p. 24. 305 Ibid. 306 B. Vinken, ‘Dekonstrukt ‘Dekonstruktiver iver Feminismus Femini smus – Eine Einleitung’ Ein leitung’, in: Barbara Vinken (ed.), Dekonstruktiver Feminismus. Literaturwissenscha in Amerika, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1992, p. 19. 307 Ibid., p. 26. 308 L. Irigaray, Speculum , op. cit., p. 133. 309 Ibid., pp. 140–41. 310 C. J. Mitche Mitchell, ll, Psychoanalysis and Feminism, London, Penguin, 1975. 1975 . 311 J. Derrida, Positions, Paris, Minuit, 1972, p. 49. 312 J. Butler, Butler, ‘Contingent Foundations: Feminism Femi nism and the Question Quest ion o “Postmodernism”’ “Postmodernism”’, in: J. Butler, J. W. Scott, Feminists Teorize the Political , London-New York, Routledge, Routle dge, 1992, p. 14. 313 C. N. Fraser, L. Nicholson, ‘Social Criticism Cr iticism without wit hout Philosophy: An Encounter between Feminism and Postmodernism’, in: Teory, Culture and Society, Postmodernism 2–3, 1988, p. 373. Linda Singer shows that Feminism can work perectly well with philosophy in: L. Singer, ‘Feminism and Postmodernism’, in: J. Butler, J. W. Scott (eds.) Feminists Teorize the Political , op. cit., p. 469: ‘Considered in this light, it is possible to construct a narrative o common origins or parentage or eminism and postmodernism in post-Heg p ost-Hegelian elian critical traditions o thought like Marxism, existentialism and psychoanalysis.’ Tis is undoubtedly true, although the authorr seems to overlook the act that eminism and postmodernism are not autho homogeneous entities. 314 N. Fraser, L. Nicholson, ‘Social Criticism without Philosophy’ Phil osophy’, op. cit., p. 391. 315 D. Elam, Feminism and Deconstruction, op. cit., p. 29. 316 C. G. H. Hartman, Criticism in the Wilderness. Te Study o Literature oday , New Haven-London, Yale Univ. Press, 1980, p. 270.
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317 D. Elam, Feminism and Deconstruction, op. cit., p. 59. Feminism nism and Deconstruction, op. cit., p. 82. 318 B. Johnson, in: D. D. Elam, Femi 319 D. Elam, Feminism and Deconstruction, op. cit., p. 84. 320 Ibid. 321 Tis is what Michael Ryan attempts to do in his book on Marxism and and Deconstruction. A Critical Cr itical Articulation, Baltimore-London, Te Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1982. 322 F. Kermode, Kermod e, ‘Biog ‘Biographi raphical cal Prea Preace’ ce’, in: V. V. Wool ool,, Orlando. A Biography , Oxord, Univ. Press, 1992, p. IX. 323 W. Benjmain, Ursprung des deutschen rauerspiels, Frankurt, Suhrkamp (1963), 1972, p. 31. 324 M. Minow-Pinkey, Virginia Wool and the Problem o the Subject , Brighton, Te Harvester Press, 1987, p. 131. 325 Ibid., p. 130. 326 Ibid., p. 9. 327 V. Wool ool,, Orlando, op. cit., p. 112–13. 328 Ibid., p. 152. 329 Ibid., p. 295. 330 C. F. Réti Réti,, Simone de d e Beauvoir. L’Autre L’Autre en miroir , Paris, L’Harmattan, 1998, chap. II: ‘De l’un et l’autre côté du miroir ou l’androgyne réinventé’. 331 S. de Beauvoir, Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté, Paris, Gallimard, 1947, p. 13. 332 Ibid. 333 F. Réti, Simone de Beauvoir , op. cit., p. 60. 334 Ibid., p. 70. 335 C. U. U. Link-Heer, Link-Heer, ‘Doppelgänger und multiple Persönlichkeiten. Persönlich keiten. Eine Faszination der Arcadia ia 1–2, 1996, pp. 294–6. Jahrhundertwende’, in: Arcad 336 J. Kristeva, La Révolution du langage poétique. L’Avant- garde L’Avant- garde à la fin du XIXe XIXe siècle: Lautréamont et Mallarmé , Paris, Seuil, 1974, pp. 61–7 and Diane Elam, Feminism and Deconstruction, op. cit., p. 67. 337 Ibid., p. 68. 338 R. Coward, John John Ellis, Language and Materialism. Developments in Semiology and the Teory o the Subject , London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977, p. 146.
IV
Te Dialectics o Individual Subjectivity rom a Sociological Viewpoint At first, a ew words should be said about the position and unction o this chapter. It is meant to shed light on the social conditions o modern and postmodern subjectivity and at the same time locate the theories and arguments discussed so ar in a social and sociological context. At At this stage, the question arises why why,, in late modern and postmodern debates, the individual subject is increasingly seen as a subjugated or disintegrating instance and not as a basis o thought and action in the metaphysical sense. Te answer is a partial return to the end o the first chapter which touched on some o the social actors responsible or the decline o modern subjectivity: social differentiation, bureaucratization, concentration o economic economi c power, the preponderance preponderanc e o the exchange value and reification, individualization as atomization, ideological submission and the power o the media. Ultimately, all o these phenomena can be deduced rom three basic actors which have always been at the centre o sociological debates: differentiation, market laws and ideology as as a reaction to these laws. Te risk incurred by a sociology o individual subjectivity is due to the danger that the ambivalence o the actors mentioned here is not taken into account, especially i they are considered one-sidedly one- sidedly as obstacles or impediments to the subject’s development. Following Kant, one should bear in mind the antithesis which in the works o Marx, Durkheim and M. Weber accompanies the thesis about the growing constraints o modernity : the historically plausible claim that differentiation, the rise o the market and the ‘power o ideology’ (Mészarós) made modern subjectivity possible . In order to lend more weight to this claim, one could ask whether modern subjectivity is conceivable without social differentiation, a market economy, electronic media and ideological engagement engagement.. As in Kant’s Critique o Judgement , where the question concerning the general validity o o aesthetic judgements judgements leads leads to a dilemma (conronting (conronting thesis and antithesis) antithesis),, an attempt to link thesis and antithesis can help us to overcome the dilemma arising rom the ambivalence o the actors mentioned above. Social differentiation, which sets individuals ree rom the mechanical solidarity (Durkheim) o archaic or eudal societies, eventually threatens their subjectivity; the market, which avours the development o possessive individualism and delivers individuals, collectives and works o art rom the shackles o religious dogma, eventually threatens this modern reedom by subjecting all instances to the heteronomy o the exchange value; finally, 201
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the ideologies o secular market society, which initially strengthen individual subjects in their enlightened struggle against the Church, the absolutist state and the growing power o capital, destroy their reedom as soon as they are exploited by totalitarian parties and other mighty organizatio organizations ns under late capitalism. Te expression ‘autonomy as sel-destruction’ sel-destruction’ coined by Rudol zur Lippe is a air and concise description o the dialectics o modern subjectivity as sketched above. 1 It can be considered in conjunction with Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s dialectic o and will be related in the first section o this chapter to the social actors ac tors enlightenment and threatening subjectivity. It will become clear that neither the ounders o modern sociology nor their successors take the view that the individual subject is bound to perish. Especially Alain ouraine ouraine is confident that individual and collective subjectivity has a uture and thus echoes the confidence o philosophers such as Paul Ricœur, Rüdiger Bubner and Manred Frank. In spite o this, undamental works o Durkheim, Max Weber and Georg Simmel seem to justiy a certain amount o scepticism in the sense that they ofen describe processes o differentiation, bureaucratization and commercialization as trends towards ‘sel-destruction’ ‘sel-destruction’ (zur Lippe) or decline. In institutionalized sociology, Hegel’s idea o a rational synthesis that goes beyond Hobbes’s notion o a civil society based on the sovereign sovereig n’s will has been b een discarded: disc arded: ‘Te egoistic egoi stic association asso ciation o interests in Hobbes’s Hobbes’s society was gradually replaced, right up to Hegel, by the sel-presentation sel-presentation o the bourgeoisie as a rationally organized class.’2 Modern sociology as a whole is imbued with scepticism towards this sel-assessment sel-assessment o bourgeois society in spite o its sympathies with the processes o individualization individualization,, secularization and emancipation. It is no longer clear whether the individual subject is heading or autonomy or seldestruction, and competing or contradictory hypotheses are possible. Among the sociologists whose scepticism is particularly strong is Jean Baudrillard, in whose theory the individual subject is dissolved along with reality in a globally operating exchange mechanism. Although Niklas Luhmann’s theory o social systems differs on virtually all levels rom Baudrillard’s approach, it nevertheless seems to confirm his diagnostic regarding the subject. In Luhmann’s sociology, the concept o subject is abandoned and replaced by the concept o system. Tis is why his sociology sociolog y is discussed here afer that o Baudrillard. Against this background, Alain ouraine’s sociology o action appears as a response to Luhmann. It is based on key notions such as subjectivity, action (agency) and and orms a kind o transition to the last chapter o this book in which a movement and sociological theory o the subject is mapped out. However, even ouraine’s sociology o action cannot avoid the ambivalence sketched at the beginning. Even those eminists who plead in avour o agency point out (c. Chapter 3, 3, III, 8) that a movement which is meant to strengthen individual subjectivity may eventually orce it into submission. It is not by chance that ouraine reuses to call ascist groupings ‘movements’. He seems to reserve this euphorically connotated epithet or ‘good’ movements such as the eminists, the environmentalists, the pacifists, etc. Tis tendency towards one-sidedness one- sidedness in classification is o course an ideological manoeuvre within a theory. His subject-oriented subject- oriented sociology will nonetheless be integrated into the dialogical model.
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1 Te crisis o individual subjectivity in late modern modern sociology In Durkheim’s detailed analysis o the unctional differentiation o society, in the course o which mechanical solidarity – – based on Ferdinand önnies’s community or Gemeinscha – – is superseded by organic solidarity , the dialectic between autonomy and ‘sel-destruction’ ‘sel-destruction’ becomes discernible. Within the mechanical solidarity o lower societies, explains Durkheim, ‘individual personality [. . .] did not exist ’.3 It is the process o social differentiation, o the division o labour , which replaces the ace-to-ace ace-to-ace relations o mechanical solidarity by unctional dependence and increasing anonymity. It leads to an emancipation o the individual subject rom tradition, authority and community control. But this process o emancipation, reerred to as disembedding by by Anthony Giddens,4 is ambiguous and has its price. Shaking off the shackles o tradition does not only increase individual autonomy in a growing urban environment, but also exposes individuals and groups to the imponderables o the market. As producers and consumers,, both are at the mercy o market laws which consumers w hich tend to reduce all participants to their quantitative perormance and value. As a specialist exchanging labour or commodities or money, the individual subject is divided into work and leisure, public and private activities, i.e. into specific roles among which only the exchange value can mediate. Tis situation is described by Georg Simmel who emphasizes the ‘importance o monetary economy or individual reedom’5 in his Philosophie des Geldes (1900), but at the same time points out elsewhere that abstract thought, which tends to ignore individual differences, is modelled on the abstraction o the exchange value: ‘Purely intellectual man is indifferent towards everything really individual because the latter involves relations and reactions that cannot be accounted or by the logic o reason – in the same way as the monetary principle cannot admit the individuality o phenomena.’6 Durkheim’s process o differentiation and Simmel’s monetary economy are related insoar as organic solidarity is not solidarity in the ordinary sense o the word, but a unctional interdependence whose communication system cannot exist without a financial basis. Te latter guarantees punctuality and an orientation towards perormance: Te amassing o so many individuals with so many different interests causes them to relate to each other and to interact in such a multi- layered organism that the whole system would dissolve in an inextricable chaos without an extreme reliability o promises and perormances. 7
Although unctional differentiation may set individual subjects ree rom traditional constraints, it subjects them to the perormance principle and its time pressure. Even more clearly than Durkheim, Simmel draws the nexus between the rise o monetary economy and the process o differentiation. Tis process not only jeopardizes individual autonomy by the unctional and market-oriented marketoriented negation o the subject’s (proessional, cultural, emotional)
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particularity, but by the division o labour itsel. Te highly specialized engineer, lawyer or scientist may have achieved perection in a particular field, but has no competence in other proessional contexts. Tis situation is marked by individualization, isolation and incomprehension rather than by ‘solidarity’ in the usual meaning o the word. Simmel reers to it in his study o social differentiation: ‘In many respects, human nature and the human situation are such that the individual is more isolated the urther the context o his social relations expands.’ 8 However, this is only one aspect o social differentiation that is also dealt with by Durkheim whenever he comments on the consequences o the division o labour such as social isolation, egoism and anomie.9 Te other aspect is the widening gap between subjective and objective culture: between the knowledge individual subjects can acquire in the course o their lives and the collective knowledge accumulated by a whole society (by humanity) in the course o centuries. In this context, Simmel speaks o the ‘atrophy o individual culture caused by the hypertrophy o objective culture cu lture’’10 and adds: ‘In any case, the individual is less and less able to cope with the prolieration o objective culture.’ 11 Elsewhere he explains: ‘Differentia ‘Differentiation tion drives subjective and objective culture urther and urther apart.’ One o the consequences is ‘that the growth o individuals alls ar behind the growth o objects in the unctional and intellectual sense’. 12 In an era o cultural globalization and electronically accelerated communication, these remarks are more relevant than ever. Tis development tends to undermine individual subjectivity which emerged rom the disintegration o traditional constraints and the decline o mechanical solidarity. Subjects are not only threatened by the anonymity o market-mediated market- mediated indifference, but are at the same time conronted by new scientific insights, technical innovations and new types o bureaucracy, bureaucracy, some o which are beyond their grasp. Teir reedom o action is thus dramatically restricted on at least two levels: on the level o speech (as competent commentary) and on the level o competent action . On both levels, the individual subject as subject (Greimas) is threatened by atrophy. subject-actant actant (Greimas) Simmel’s remarks concerning these problems indicate that he is not merely concerned with culture as education but with institutionalized culture as a whole including scientific and technical progress. Tis is also what w hat Alred Weber Weber has in mind when he speaks o the ‘tragedy o the culture process’ and explains ‘that by actively orming culture we create objectifications which eventually destroy us because they develop an existence o their own to which we have to submit instead o shaping it’. 13 According Accor ding to Simmel, the eeling o alienation that overcomes overcomes us in view o this ‘tragedy o the culture process’ is due to the act that our ‘drive towards unity and totality’ 14 is opposed to this ragmentation o lie and the predominance o our own creation creations. s. Tis is probably the case, although there is neither sociological nor psychological evidence that such a ‘drive’ actually exists. More important than the existence o this drive seems to be the act that Max Weber’s view o bureaucracy as ‘legal domination’ can be interpreted as confirming the theories o differentiation commented on here. Weber points out that ‘bureaucracy is technically the purest type o legal domination’.15 Te expression ‘purest type’ as such evokes the processes o differentiation which Weber describes elsewhere as legal and
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organizational orms o specialization: ‘Afer the victory o ormalist legal rationalism, the traditional types o domination are joined in the West by the legal type o domination o which the purest, although not the only orm, was and still is bureaucratic domination.’ 16 Te specializations within this particular orm o domination are another example o the objective culture’s hypertrophy commented on by Simmel. Te citizen who is requently conronted by the ‘competence’ or ‘non-competence’ o an authority, a department or a particular civil servant does not define this situation as effi cient division o labour, but as a strange world reminiscent o Kaa’s novel Te rial . Weber was quite conscious o this ambivalent character o bureaucracy which appeared to him both as rationalization and hypertrophy, as progress and as a threat to society. Tis is why he considered the politician as a counter-orce to the bureaucrat: ‘Whenever Weber describes the proession o the politician, he conronts it not with that o the scientist, but with that o the bureaucrat.’17 Tis means that, in Weber’s view, the politician stands or subjective initiative which, at least in politics, is meant to contain or reduce the hypertrophy o objective culture in the sense o Simmel. It is meant to protect citizens against the bureaucratic ‘shell o serdom’ 18 which Weber keeps warning his readers against. It is most clearly articulated ‘by the charismatic party leader or the charismatic statesman’ in whom Weber sees ‘the most efficient counter-orce conronting the dangers o state bureaucracy’. 19 However, the rationale o charismatic leaders is not necessarily rational, and Weber’s reliance on political charisma bears witness to a Nietzschean, late capitalist irrationalism. 20 It is reminiscent o Hobbes’s attempt to replace universal reason by the exercise o particular power.21 One might add that in most cases charismatic leaders are unable to reverse the trends towards differentiation and bureaucratization. Claus Offe even believes that such trends are historical developments without subjects. In conjunction with Weber he speaks o an ‘historical process independent o will and consciousness’ and o a ‘concatenation o circumstances, an evolutionary process without a subject’. 22 One o the consequences o this reification o social evolution is the scepticism concerning the autonomy o the individual subject. Voiced by Nietzsche towards the end o the nineteenth century in philosophy, this scepticism soon infiltrates psychoanalysis, literature and sociology, whose ounders associate the crisis o society with that o individual autonomy . Hal a century later, sociologists o postmodernity such as Jean Baudrillard and Niklas Luhmann eventually decide to renounce the notion o subject because they tend to agree with Offe’s diagnosis and consider the notion o subject as a myth o the past, not as a viable concept. Other sociologists such as Alain ouraine do not completely reject this type o diagnosis but draw different conclusions. Tey map out a sociology o the actor and o the (individual and collective) subject, which is meant to strengthen the latter and thus ulfil an ideological unction in the general sense (as system o values). Nevertheless, both schools o thought share the belie that subjectivity is becoming increasingly problematical at the beginning o the twenty-first century. At the level o the social institution, this belie was anticipated by Arnold Gehlen between the wars and afer the Second World War. Gehlen deended the somewhat
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irrational thesis that all attempts by subjects to explain the unctioning o society and the processes o institutionalization are utile. Arguing that it is impossible to reflect rationally and critically upon existing cultural traditions, he pleads in avour o a spontaneous acceptance o these traditions. Querying them might entail a relapse into nature and chaos: ‘Chaos in the sense o the oldest myths can be presupposed and is natural , cosmos is divine and endangered .’23 Instead o trying to critically grasp the totality o social and cultural relations, sociologists ought to content themselves with a partial view and accept other partial views as equally valid. Gehlen does not envisage the possibility o relating these partial views to one another in a dialogical perspective. He seems to consider the decline o the subject as a act and all attempts to revive or deliver it rom institutional constraints as involving the danger o a relapse into natural chaos. Tis decline o the subject is dealt with by the sociology o organizations which relies heavily on Marx, Durkheim and M. Weber in a more specific context. Marx’s idea24 that the development o the capitalist system leads to the concentration o economic power in trusts and cartels is applied in the 1960s by Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy to the case o American monopoly capitalism. Tey tend to confirm the idea o Ernest Mandel and Herbert Marcuse, 25 according to which the individualist era o liberal capitalism is coming to an end and is ollowed by the era o monopolies and oligopolies: ‘Te tycoon was interested in sel-enrichment: he was an individualist. Te modern manager is dedicated to the advancement o the company: he is a “company man”.’26 Although this view can be called into question because it does not take into account the new role o highly specialized firms run by tycoons, who discover particular needs o individuals and collectives which large companies cannot satisy, it is nevertheless borne out by recent developments. For the tendency towards usions and the emergence o large conglomerates (e.g. in the steel or car industry) can hardly be overlooked at the beginning o the twenty-first century. Tis tendency may increase the need or improved teamwork and communication but can hardly be expected to strengthen the stance o the individual entrepreneur. In large companies, decisions come about in teams; they are not taken by individual subjects who are used to acting in isolation. Tis shif rom the individual entrepreneur to the team is analysed – quite independently o Marxist theories – by . Burns and G. M. Stalker in their empirical study Te Management o Innovation. It is based on the assumption that unctional differentiation is now the dominant principle in large companies where decisions are no longer taken hierarchically or ‘vertically’, but ‘horizontally’. It is no longer the globally responsible tycoon who has the last say but the unctionally differentiated team communicating with all individuals and groups concerned.27 In France, where Alain ouraine, Michel Crozier, Philippe Bernoux,28 Vincent de Gaulejac29 and other sociologists consider bureaucratization o the economy as a threat to individual subjectivity, this shif rom individual to collective responsibility described by Burns and Stalker is sometimes considered as progress. Crozier sees it as a orm o democratization: ‘But this sovereign independence o the successul man was acquired at the expense o a ar more important submission o all those, whose action was confined to that o subordinates.’ 30 Adopting this perspective, he criticizes
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the American sociologist William H. Whyte Jr. who views the economic weakening o the individual subject as a setback inaugurating the decline o the subject in society as a whole.31 It may very well be that ‘the tolerant and “conormist” director o today is a true model o effi cient action’32 in comparison with the old-ashioned captain o industry, as Crozier would have it. However, this is not the point Whyte wants to make when he considers the decline o individual initiative and creativity in the economic realm as a symptom o the individual subject’s global abdication. What matters in this case is the idea that, along with the abdicating tycoon, even the politician o a nation state is no longer able to oppose the global power o multinational trusts and supranational organizations. I individual political action in the sense o M. Weber is to be meaningul, it has to be effective at both national and international levels. Te globalized economy has long since rendered obsolete the idea o national borders and nation states. It negates both by operating along the lines o differentiation and exchange. Car producers seek usions in order to rationalize their production: they leave less specialized sectors to partners in order to save personnel and to expand in technologically more advanced sectors which are more competitive in the global market. In such cases, political, social and cultural considerations are at best secondary (although they are never absent). Te decisive criterion is economic success, and this criterion makes all other actors and values (society, politics, culture) ade into the background. ‘For money’, writes Simmel, ‘only asks what they all have in common and aims at the exchange value which reduces all qualities and particularities to the basic question o “how much”.’33 However, cultural specificity is the basis o individual subjectivity. Tereore Giuseppe Antonio di Marco is right when he projects Marx’s and Max Weber’s theories back into the Nietzschean context: Te economy thus ollows, both in a reactive sense and in the sense o a positive counter-movement, the development o nihilism. Te completely nihilistic character o the present is its thoroughly economic character. Te economy’s impact on ‘humans and things’ is becoming ever stronger – both Marx and Weber would go along with this idea. 34
Not only Marx and Weber, but even Nietzsche adopted this view when he predicted that nihilism would at one point be overcome by ‘superman’ (c. Chapter II, 4) whose victory would coincide with that o the individual subject. Is Weber’s charismatic leader not a kind o ‘superman’ in the sense o Nietzsche? Tis irrational, voluntaristic turn, which marks both Weber’s and Nietzsche’s thought, should not hide the act that the options open to the individual subject in postmodern society are very limited indeed. Tey are limited because the division o labour and the pervasiveness o the exchange value subvert all kinds o group solidarity35 which orm the basis o individual value orientation and value judgement. Tis situation yields, among other things, what David Riesman calls ‘the lonely crowd’ and the flight o the isolated subject into the kind o narcissism analysed by Christopher Lasch (c. Chapter III, 7).
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Another development which leads both to individual isolation and the ‘narcissistic turn’ is the emergence o a ‘atherless society’ in the sense o Alexander Mitscherlich. It is marked by the decline o paternal authority, the dissolution o the amily and the growing isolation o the individual. It is not by chance that Mitscherlich relates the weakening o the ather figure to two actors commented on here: social differentiation (division o labour) and the disappearance o the liberal entrepreneur (the independent producer). In his well-known study, he writes about the ‘erosion o authority’: Te progressive ragmentation o labour, combined with mass production and complicated administration, the separation o home rom place o work, the transition rom independent producer to paid employee who uses consumer goods, has led to a progressive loss o substance o the ather’s authority and a diminution o his power in the amily and over the amily. 36
Mitscherlich believes that paternal authority as interiorization o values and norms was replaced by peer groups and organizations. Tis change in the realm o primary and secondary socialization leads to a constellation in which the autonomous individual o the liberal era, the inner-directed type in the sense o Riesman, is replaced by the other-directed type. Tis new, one might say postmodern type may be more flexible in the sense o Richard Sennett’s ‘flexible man’, 37 but, as Mitscherlich points out quoting Riesman, he is more opportunistic and his values and aims are more ephemeral: ‘Te other-directed type, on the other hand, “is prepared to cope with airly rapid social change, and to exploit it in pursuance o individualistic ends”.’ 38 His is the lie in postmodern indifference, where all values tend to appear as relative and interchangeable. Te decision to join a certain party and support a particular ideology may be accompanied by the eeling that doing the very opposite might have been just as good. Tis postmodern eeling is described by Alberto Moravia in his novel Il conormista (1951) where the conormism o the hero is seen as a result o the ather’s absence. Everything was ‘preerable to the capricious, tormenting, unendurable reedom o his own home’ (‘paternal home’ = ‘casa paterna’ in the Ital. original),39 the narrator explains the situation and adds that Marcello seeks ‘any kind o order and normality’ (‘una normalità purchessia’).40 He finds this normality in ascist ideology that eventually turns the vacillating individual into a subject which, or a certain period o time, finds his bearings and is able to distinguish Good and Evil. He accepts ideological overdetermination as a solution and a blessing. Moravia’s modernist novel contains a vivid description o the nexus between market-based indifference and ideological engagement. Te unbearable reedom resulting rom indifference makes the flight into ideology appear as the only existential solution available at a particular moment. Not only Italian ascism and German National Socialism, but even post-war ideologies offered a reuge to weak subjectivities. Such ideologies are all but detached rom the social world; they are as socially involved as the apparently ‘ree-floating’ intellectuals invented by Karl Mannheim. 41 For they originate in organizations such as political parties, trade unions and movements, all o which rely on ‘heteronomous intellectuals’ (Bourdieu) in order to construct or adapt ideological value systems which they subsequently use or the mobilization o masses.
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Robert Michels was among the first to show, at the beginning o the twentieth century, to what extent these organizations (especially political parties) are prone to ossification and oligarchic tendencies. 42 Te ‘iron law o oligarchy’ he postulates in his book on political parties avours the subjugation o the individual and the collective subject by ideology which cannot be challenged under oligarchic (e.g. Stalinist) conditions. Tis entanglement o ideology and bureaucracy (as oligarchy) is described in detail by Helmut Fleischer, who writes about the unction o ideology in the ormer Soviet Union: ‘However, it was not a power in its own right, but was derived rom the politicobureaucratic power.’43 Robert Michels would say: rom the oligarchic power that is perpetuated by the drive towards sel-preservation. Here the link between Michels’s theory o oligarchy and Sweezy’s and Baran’s notion o oligopoly becomes apparent. More than ever, the individual subject o the twentyfirst century seems to be at the mercy o multinational trusts and party or trade union bureaucracies. In spite o these unavourable conditions, a sociologist like Alain ouraine and the author o this book reuse to abandon the idea o subjective autonomy because they believe that, afer the end o the East-West conrontation and the disintegration o global ideologies such as ascism or Marxism-Leninism, the subject’s scope o action might widen. However, those who adopt this or a similar perspective should not overlook the new threat to the subject’s autonomy which originates in the electronic media and their penetration into all spheres o social lie. In the media world, processes o differentiation, commercialization and ideological involvement interact so intensely that they threaten to become a substitute or reality. Te act is that even politicians and their advisors owe their knowledge o many countries and cultures to the mass media which tend to monopolize inormation. Most o them lack time or reading texts longer than a ew pages, and their flying visits to ‘exotic’ places are hardly conducive to deeper insights. How, in this situation, can a superficially inormed, media-trained politician control highly specialized and well-inormed civil servants? Tis question is a return to the beginning o this section: to Max Weber’s theory o differentiated administration and his hope that the political subject might overcome the inertia o bureaucracy. It cannot be answered here but will be related to the question o the subject’s stance in the media world and its weakening or disappearance in the approaches o Bourdieu and Baudrillard.
2 Te decline o subjectivity in a media world: From Bourdieu to Baudrillard In what ollows, the word ‘medium’ has two meanings: it reers both to the media world (e.g. that o television) and to the mediation by the exchange value (medium o exchange). Far rom being a mere play on words, this ambiguity marks the whole o social reality with its mediations, its statistics and its normalization strategies in the sense o Link. ogether they produce the effect o what Baudrillard calls the total screen (l’écran total ).44 In Baudrillard’s later work, this ‘screen’ turns into the key metaphor or
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a world o inormation mediated by the exchange value, by its equivalence and indifference which in postmodern society tend to supplant reality. Te second part o the title also requires some clarification because, at first sight, there is no obvious link between the theories o Bourdieu and Baudrillard. Unlike Bourdieu who, as a critical sociologist, polemicizes against the commercialization o journalism (the ‘journalistic field’) in order to promote an oppositional subjectivity in the individual and collective sense, Baudrillard avails himsel o various anthropological insights in order to dispose o some ‘old European’ (Luhmann) concepts such as ‘reality’, ‘history’, ‘subjectivity’ and ‘critique’.45 In this respect, he seems closer to Luhmann than to Bourdieu. In spite o this divergence, Bourdieu’s and Baudrillard’s heterogeneous discourses confirm each other in several crucial points,46 especially as ar as the question o subjectivity is concerned. While Bourdieu analyses the linguistic and commercial constraints to which the producing journalistic subject is exposed, Baudrillard describes the decline o the receptive subject (as viewer or listener) in a world so thoroughly permeated by the exchange value that the contrast between use value and exchange value disappears and the latter can no longer be designated. In a one-dimensional world, it becomes the value as such. It should be pointed out en passant that Baudrillard develops some ideas rom Günther Anders’s book Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen (1956) without ever reerring to Anders. In some parts o his work, Bourdieu shows how the dialectic o subjectivity cancels the emancipatory moments o the past by making the individual subject submit to the structures o the institution or the field ( champ). From Language and Symbolic Power onwards, he argues that language is not simply a system or repertoire used by the individual speaker in order to produce a parole (Saussure) or a perormance (Chomsky), but a symbolic power structure that offers ar more reedom to those who have acquired linguistic and symbolic capital. Unlike the privileged speakers, who dispose o the necessary linguistic capital enabling them to say the right thing at the right moment in order to be socially accepted, many others have to all silent because they cannot express their ideas: Te competence adequate to produce sentences that are likely to be understood may be quite inadequate to produce sentences that are likely to be listened to, likely to be recognized as acceptable in all situations in which there is occasion to speak. Here again, social acceptability is not reducible to mere grammaticality. Speakers lacking the legitimate competence are de acto excluded rom the social domains in which this competence is required, or are condemned to silence. 47
In other words: a subject lacking the habitus and competence in the field o politics, law or literature is not recognized and accepted as a subject in these particular social sectors. Te peasant, argues Bourdieu, may say very much the same thing as the preect ( préet ); but he will not be listened to because he does not master the authorized language (le langage autorisé ). One might give a tragic turn to this remark by adding that the peasant will not even be listened to i he puts orward an argument that is ar superior to that o the preect.
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In the case o individual and collective subjectivity, this means that it is subject to certain constraints resulting rom the power constellations o a field (such as politics, journalism, science). It goes without saying that the preect has more linguistic room or manoeuvring than the peasant, but even he has to observe the political, economic and linguistic rules o a particular institution (e.g. the chamber o commerce). Pursuing this train o thought, Bourdieu tries to show, in his analysis o the journalistic field , to what kind o constraints journalists are subject both in the world o the print media and in that o television. In his own specific way he thus confirms Max Weber’s and Arnold Gehlen’s thesis regarding the predominance o social institutions, some o which develop dynamics o their own that seem to be beyond human control. ‘In some sense, the choices made on television are choices made by no subject,’ 48 he points out. Why? Because the journalistic field has turned into a closed or vicious circle, as he puts it: o measure the closing-down effect o this vicious inormational circle, just try programming some unscheduled news, events in Algeria or the status o oreigners in France, or example. Press conerences or releases on these subjects are useless; they are supposed to bore everyone, and it is impossible to get analysis o them into a newspaper unless it is written by someone with a big name – that’s what sells.49
Te reason or this hermetic closure is that the journalistic field is also a social and linguistic situation dominated by particular ideological and (especially) commercial group languages or sociolects which ‘decide’ what can be said about what kind o topic at a particular moment. Tey define the authorized or legitimate language within the ‘field’ or institution. Tis is why Bourdieu can speak o choice without a subject (choix sans sujet ). Although critical and sel-critical reflection is always possible, journalists instinctively eel that, in the long run, they risk losing their jobs i they do not heed the linguistic norms o the dominant sociolect(s). But who exactly authorizes these norms? Bourdieu seems to have no doubts about the role o market mechanisms: Wherever you look, people are thinking in terms o market success. Only thirty years ago, and since the middle o the nineteenth century [. . .] immediate market success was suspect. [. . .] oday, on the contrary, the market is accepted more and more as a legitimate means o legitimation. 50
Tis not only means that the bestseller is considered – independently o the mediation by the exchange value – as a ‘good book’; it also implies that the language o the ‘journalistic field’ is mediated by market laws. Teir domination o society is consolidated by the competition principle that decides which issues, topics and titles are relevant: ‘In short, stories are pushed on viewers because they are pushed on the producers; and they are pushed on producers by competition with other producers.’ 51 Tis is how the autonomy o subjects is reduced to a minimum. Moreover, fierce competition or markets and audience ratings turns television programmes into shows.
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Political developments are hardly ever analysed (although some analysis may be reserved or the late night news), but presented as spectacular events: as ‘sequences o events that, having appeared with no explanation, will disappear with no solution – Zaire today, Bosnia yesterday, the Congo tomorrow [. . .].’52 Tis kind o media impressionism not only destroys meaning but condemns both the producing and the viewing subjects to a eeling o helplessness: the eeling that one is watching ‘an absurd series o disasters which can be neither understood nor influenced’.53 In the case o producers, this eeling o helplessness ofen turns into proessional ‘cynicism’54 which eventually boils down to a hodgepodge o politics, culture and advertising. In the end, everything is geared towards the technique o commercials. Bourdieu concludes that television – more than any newspaper – depoliticizes the public’s thinking thereby ‘dragging down the newspapers in its slide into demagogy and subordination to commercial values’. 55 Unlike Baudrillard, who is content to comment ironically on the disappearance o reality, history and politics in media- and market-based indifference, Bourdieu does not conceal his stance as a critical intellectual.56 More than in his polemical analysis o television, he attacks the ‘heteronomous’, market- and media-oriented intellectuals in Acts o Resistance, arguing that they are responsible or the invasion o the cultural field by market laws. In contrast with all postmodern thinkers, he holds on to the notion o the critical intellectual 57 which is not only dismissed as an anachronism by Baudrillard but also by Luhmann. With Bourdieu’s critical intellectual, the critical subject o late modernity once more reappears on the scene and is expected by the sociologist to join the remaining critical journalists in their struggle against the domination o market laws in their field. Apart rom that, Bourdieu hopes that intellectuals will support social movements, trade unions and organizations o the unemployed with their advice and their competence. His speech beore the Federation o German rade Unions is geared to one basic question: ‘How are the oundations to be laid or a new internationalism among the trade unions, the intellectuals and the peoples o Europe?’ 58 Te act that he considers this internationalism as a European process, at the end o which there is a European state,59 seems to indicate that French intellectuals begin to take European integration seriously.60 Tis view o a critical subjectivity is entirely missing in Günter Anders’s lucid book about the ‘antiquated character o man’ ( Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen ) which anticipates a number o arguments, topics and theses rom Baudrillard’s work. o begin with, Anders deals with some o the most important issues o sociology (in the sense o Riesman and Lasch) whenever he ocuses on the atomization o individual subjects in post-war society: ‘Te type o the mass hermit emerged; and they now sit in millions o copies, each cut off rom the other, but each similar to the other, like hermits in their retreats.’61 elevision penetrates into this retreat and is paid or by the hermit ‘who sells himsel’,62 surrendering to this medium. He sells his independence, his experience and all o his critical abilities: ‘For what dominates the home via V is the broadcasted external world , be it real or fictive, and this world dominates so pervasively that it invalidates the reality o the home, not only that o its our walls and its urniture, but even that o its communal lie, thus turning
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it into a phantom.’63 Anders describes in vivid terms how V replaces the amily table as the centre o amily lie thus becoming itsel a negative amily table 64 which urther decentres the ‘atherless’ amily. Te new ‘interlocutor’ is no longer another member o the amily, but the luminous box which speaks without interruption, thus making us speechless: ‘By speaking or us, the apparatus makes us speechless .’65 Tese considerations complete Bourdieu’s approach in the sense that they reveal to what extent the passiveness o the spectator-listener corresponds to the submission o the producing subject (the journalist, the newsreader). While the journalist has to obey language rules dictated by the market, the spectators and listeners lose their ability to express their ideas and to experience reality. For this reality, in which one had to move, speak and act, is now delivered to the home as a media construction: as a world o incomprehensible sequences o events (Bourdieu), associations, highlights and commercials. Both the producers and the consumers are condemned to aphasia by commercial television.66 Teir subjectivity as linguistic, discursive autonomy is thus undermined. It is called into question by the act that spectators are condemned to onedimensionality by the V-screen. Tey only experience the substitutes o reality that are transmitted to them daily: ‘I [the event] only becomes socially important as image, then the difference between essence and appearance, reality and image is cancelled.’ 67 Tis one-dimensionality avours an attitude o the spectator which Anders calls ‘idealism’. One might also speak o ‘abstractionism’. As consumers o media images spectators tend to ‘orget’ that these images reer to real events, to populations and their problems. Teir experience o reality atrophies, but they are no longer conscious o this loss. In this respect, they resemble the journalists who tacitly ollow certain language rules and patterns o communication without pondering about their behaviour. Eventually, even their ability to reflect atrophies because television makes the consumer o appearances ‘orget what the real actually looks like.’68 At the end o this process o diminishing reflection, experience and autonomy, there is a weakened, disintegrating ‘I’: ‘For the assumption that we, as beings living on ersatz, stereotypes and phantoms, are still I’s with a sel and may thereore be prevented rom being or becoming “ourselves”, is possibly based on an optimism that is no longer justifiable in our time.’69 Tis argument is taken one step urther by Jean Baudrillard, who radicalizes it by adopting an extreme position. For him the disappearance o the subject, o experience, reality and history is a ait accompli. He is ar more radical – and one-sided – than Anders and Bourdieu because, along with the basic contrast between use value and exchange value, he deletes complementary opposites such as essence / appearance, signified / signifier, truth / error and subject / object . Exchange is omnipresent, he argues, and hence no longer discernible. Essence and truth have long since been dissolved into appearance, and the subject has been lost to objectivity. Baudrillard’s radicalism is also due to the act that he does not consider television as a medium among others, but speaks metaphorically o a ‘total screen’ (‘écran total’),70 thus making the V-screen coincide with society as a whole. Since his critique o Marxism in Pour une critique de l’économie politique du signe (1972), Baudrillard queries the basic opposition between use value and exchange value
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without which key concepts o materialist dialectics such as essence and appearance, alienation and critique, subject and object lose their meaning. Concepts such as ‘exchange value’, ‘commodity etishism’ or ‘alse consciousness’, he argues, ‘presuppose the phantom ideal o a non-alienated consciousness, o an objective, “true” status o the object: o the use value’.71 Baudrillard’s work as a whole could be read as systematic attempt to dissolve this chimera o the use value and to deconstruct the contrast between use value and exchange value. In this context, he distinguishes our stages within the economic and social evolution: While the ‘natural stage’ is still dominated by the use value in its different orms, the exchange value gains the upper hand in the ‘mercantile’ and ‘structural’ stages (‘le stade marchand, le stade structural’). 72 ‘Within the ourth stage, the ractal or the viral or even better: the irradiated stage’, explains Baudrillard, ‘there is no point o reerence anymore and the value radiates in all directions, into all niches, without reerring to anything at all, by sheer contiguity.’ 73 In context, this somewhat enigmatic passage means that it is even impossible to speak o an ‘exchange value’ because the entire terminology that could be deduced rom the obliterated ‘use value’ is missing. In the ocean, where everything is ‘wet’, the word ‘wet’ is bound to lose its meaning. Tis is why, in conjunction with the ‘ractal stage’, Baudrillard speaks o ‘the value’ in general. Whatever lies beyond the exchange value can no longer be reerred to. Te one-dimensionality o late capitalist society becomes a ait accompli. In Le Miroir de la production, Baudrillard describes this development towards one-dimensionality as a reduction o use value to exchange value: ‘Tis total reduction o the process to one o its terms whose opposite unctions as a mere alibi (use value as an alibi o exchange value, reerence as an alibi o the code), is more than a simple development o the capitalist mode o production: it is a mutation.’74 In most o his publications o the 1980s and 90s, Baudrillard examines the consequences o this mutation. He abandons the utopia o Symbolic Exchange and Death, a communitarian utopia based on symbolic exchange without profit, 75 and describes a one-dimensional world dominated by equivalence and the indifference o exchange. In this context he speaks o indifférenciation and indistinction des valeurs (indistinguishability o values )76 which efface all differences between the economic, the political and the aesthetic. Hinting at this loss o difference, he uses terms such as ‘transeconomics’, ‘trans-aesthetics’ and the ‘trans-sexual’,77 a kind o prolierating sexuality that can be encountered everywhere and nowhere in particular. Te omnipresence o the exchange value makes differentiation impossible. Tis is why words such as ‘indifferent’, ‘indistinguishable’ and ‘indeterminate’ keep recurring in his discourse.78 However, this indifference as impossibility to distinguish is – like the exchange value – so pervasive that it can no longer be identified. Like the exchange value, the indifferent can only be defined in relation to its otherness – i.e. difference, meaning, ideology – which together orm the basis o subjectivity. But meaning as the opposite o indifference has ceased to exist: ‘We continue to produce meaning although we know that it does not exist.’ 79 Tis is why even indifference can no longer be named (although Baudrillard himsel names it). By effacing all other values, it eventually effaces itsel – like the exchange value: ‘Something else was stolen
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rom us: indifference.’80 What is meant here is the indifference or impassiveness o the thinker which is no longer recognized as such in an indifferent world. In view o this Hegelian ‘ury o disappearance’ (‘Furie des Verschwindens ’)81 that cancels all differences between meaning and nonsense, engagement and indifference, it is hardly surprising that Baudrillard eventually declares that even exchange is impossible. In a world where everything is dominated by the exchange value, the Other that could be exchanged or the One also disappears. Where everything is exchanged or everything else, eventually nothing can be exchanged because every single exchange presupposes qualities and differences: ‘Everything that is meant to be exchanged or something else eventually comes up against the wall o impossible exchange. [. . .] And it is not afer some uture catastrophe, but here and now that the entire scale o values is exchanged or nothingness.’ 82 Without meaning, difference and alterity, individual subjectivity becomes void. Alienation was not overcome, but projected into an identity without alterity: ‘Tis indivisible individual is the accomplished utopia o the subject; the perect subject, the subject without the Other. Without an inner alterity [altérité intérieure] it is condemned to an identity without end.’83 For Baudrillard there is no doubt that such a subject is an empty shell. For him, it is the serial, ‘ractal’, exchangeable mass subject: ‘Te individual as such becomes mass – or the mass is reflected hologrammatically in each o its ragments.’84 Without reerring explicitly to the two thinkers, Baudrillard develops Anders’s and Riesman’s arguments. He differs rom both o these authors by eliminating, along with the use value, all elements which might evoke a world beyond indifference and exchange. History, ideology and political engagement lose their meaning in a society marked by a global simulation that has replaced reality. Anders, who does not speak o simulacra but o phantoms which obliterate reality, asks: ‘Why should those powers which alienate our world reveal themselves to us?’ 85 Tis question is also raised by Baudrillard, whose answer is that in media society alienation is no longer perceived as such because alternatives like meaning, reality and the use value cannot be named . Tis one-dimensional world o simulacra and simulation is metaphorically and metonymically summed up by television insoar as it replaces complex interrelations by images, spots and scenes. 86 About the media in general Baudrillard writes that they are a kind o ‘genetic code which brings about a mutation o the real into the hyperreal’.87 Once more, he seems to echo Anders who also observes the suppression o reality by the V screen, although he uses a clearer language in his analyses. Baudrillard points out: ‘We take note o everything, but we do not believe it because we have become ourselves V-screens , and who can ask a V-screen to believe in what it registers?’ 88 Like Anders, he notes that the television image only points to itsel (‘image qui ne renvoie qu’à elle-même’)89 and that the object disappears: ‘Te real object is destroyed by the inormation – it is not only alienated but abolished.’90 Along with the object, the subject also disappears, because it can only exist as long as it gathers experience in a given, objective reality. Tis obviously implies the end o historical dialectics (in the sense o Hegel and Marx), the end o modern revolutionary overcoming and o historical emancipation. It
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is not by chance that the postmodern91 Baudrillard speaks o a ‘violent implosion o the social’ (‘involution violente du social’), 92 thus ollowing Heidegger’s and Vattimo’s idea o Verwindung – but without reerring to the Italian philosopher. Commenting on the events o May 1968, he remarks: ‘May 68 was undoubtedly the first implosive episode.’93 He also speaks o a ‘saturation o the social’ (‘saturation du social’), 94 and this expression not only implies Verwindung as impossibility o overcoming, but also Baudrillard’s notion o posthistoire (‘notre posthistoire’)95 which is part and parcel o his conception o postmodernity (modernity being marked by historical processes o overcoming, postmodernity by stalemate and stagnation).96 On the whole, it becomes clear that, both in classical sociology and in the works o such different authors as Bourdieu, Anders and Baudrillard, the dialectic o emancipation and subjection (or disintegration) appears as a decline o collective and individual subjectivity. It seems that media technologies have joined other technologies like automation or genetic manipulation in order to arrest the process o emancipation or to reverse it. echnologies o inormation, which were meant to make data more accessible and help subjects to find their bearings in a complex world speedily, are increasingly turning into mechanisms o manipulation, especially when they are abused by secret services and other uncanny organizations. In this respect, the three approaches o Bourdieu, Anders and Baudrillard are complementary in spite o their divergences. While Bourdieu shows how the journalistic field orces upon its actors a particular habitus and a particular media- and market-oriented jargon, Anders and Baudrillard describe – the first in a soberly ironical, the second in an apocalyptic tone – how object and reality are dissolved by media and how the subject ollows suit. Naturally, one is not obliged to agree with Anders’s pessimistic and Baudrillard’s apocalyptic diagnostics. It may be sufficient to remember Bourdieu’s appeal to critical intellectuals in order to realize that the situation is by no mean hopeless, especially i one takes into account some critiques o Baudrillard’s approach. One basic objection is raised by Klaus Kraemer: Goods in general and cultural goods produced by the mass media in particular possess an indelible symbolic use value that only comes about in their daily reception and ‘consumption’. While unctional use value is useul in the concretepractical sense, the symbolic use value serves distinction and the aesthetic selexpression o the consumer.97
Tis argument sounds plausible and makes Baudrillard’s reduction o the use value to the exchange value appear as an apocalyptic radicalization. It goes without saying that Baudrillard’s work owes part o its media success to this kind o extremism which is bound to strike a note with many readers in a society conused by the accumulation o risks and disasters. One ought to add that Baudrillard’s own discourse keeps disavowing his own prognostics, because he keeps reerring to and relying on certain elements such as use value, reality, politics, history and subjectivity which, according to his approach, no longer exist. His deconstruction o the contrast between use value and exchange value, signified and signifier is as problematical as Derrida’s. How can he attempt to distinguish
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the our stages o value development (the ‘natural’, the ‘mercantile’, the ‘structural’ and the ‘ractal’) i the basic concept o the ‘signified’ no longer exists? In one o his books, he speaks o the ‘divine Lef’, ‘la Gauche divine’.98 Could it be that, as a social philosopher, he contemplates with divine distance a medially blinded humanity as it wanders about aimlessly because it has not yet noticed that its reality has disappeared? In Baudrillard’s discourse, the real – rom the signified to ‘Beaubourg’99 – is by no means absent. Where the disappearance o reality, the use value and the signified turns out to be a discursive trick, there is still hope that the subject may not have ‘really’ disappeared either. It might also be possible to consider Baudrillard’s rejection o the concept o action as premature: ‘Everything has slipped into the operational sphere. All categories o action are turned into categories o operation.’100 One would like to know how exactly this happens . . . Te idea is not to discredit Baudrillard or to ban him rom the field o science as a Guru o the Apocalypse, but to read his discourse as the symptom o a society in which subjectivity and subjective autonomy have become more problematical than ever. Within this ‘symptomatic’ context, it becomes clear that this discourse is not merely an eccentric phenomenon, but a sign o postmodern times which ought to be related to other contemporary signs and discourses. Tus Baudrillard’s remark that categories o action have been turned into categories o operation could also be attributed to Niklas Luhmann. Here are the corresponding statements rom Luhmann’s work: ‘From an epistemological point o view, the assumption o a recursively operating system that produces its own observations occupies the position where ormerly the subject ulfilled the task to reflect upon the a priori valid conditions o knowledge.’ 101 Te ollowing sentence is even more explicit: ‘Every operation o this system, as we must admit or the subject, too, produces a difference between system and environment.’ 102 Tis typological comparison between a contemporary French and a contemporary German sociologist is not entirely contingent. It reveals the extent to which postmodern sociologists have internalized the crisis o late modern subjectivity that gave birth to modern sociology (c. Chapter IV, 1). In view o the structural constraints and the illusion-ridden media, they draw the conclusion that the concept o subject is obsolete and ought to be relinquished. It will appear, however, that this concept tends to survive precisely in those theories where it is globally negated. Tis is why its rejection seems to be risky. At the same time, it becomes clear that the interdiscursive consensus between such different authors as Baudrillard and Luhmann does not exclude alternatives in the realm o subjectivity – in spite o the great symptomatic value o this consensus. Sociologies o subjective action do exist outside or even beyond postmodern verdicts about the end o the subject.
3 Te liquidation o the subject by its omnipresence: Niklas Luhmann Te contemporary sociological negation o the subject is not due to purely individual propensities or preerences, but can be traced back to the implicit or explicit subject
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theories o the ounders o sociology whose concepts o differentiation (Durkheim, Simmel), bureaucracy (M. Weber) and institutionalization (A. Gehlen)103 imply a certain scepticism towards the idea o subjectivity. In this respect, Niklas Luhmann may be read as a critical heir to late modern sociology whose representatives tend to consider subjectivity as a process o the subject’s decline. Subjective mechanisms such as domination (over nature), division o labour and bureaucracy eventually yield oppressive social structures to which the subject succumbs. Helga Gripp-Hagelstange quite rightly considers Luhmann’s systems theory as an ‘enhancement o the social and a concomitant devaluation o the individual’. 104 However, this sociological attitude is not particularly new and can already be ound in the works o Durkheim, Mauss and alcott Parsons where the predominance o the ait social and the structure is one o the salient eatures. 105 In this respect, these concepts can be read as symptoms o the social decline o subjectivity. In what ollows, it will be shown that the dialectic o subjectivity cannot be limited to the interrelationship between empowerment and loss o power as sketched above because there is another side to it which has hitherto been neglected. Luhmann’s proposal to abandon the concept o subject does not solve the problem because the simple negation o this concept leads to its mystification on a higher level: on the level o actants (as acting instances). In other words, in Luhmann’s discourse the subject disappears as a transcendental or individual instance, but continues to be massively present as an abstract subject-actant (c. Chapter I, 1, b): as differentiation, system, operation or communication. Te basic problem consists in the act that abstract actants (such as ‘the institution’, ‘the economy’, ‘law’), which cannot be avoided in any theoretical discourse, are turned into mythical actants because, instead o interacting with concrete individual and collective subjects, they replace them, thus obliterating their unctions. Armin Nassehi objects that systems ‘are not actants’, but continues to use Luhmann’s concept o communication, thus ignoring the act that – rom a sociological and a semiotic point o view – communication without actants, i.e. speaking and acting instances, is inconceivable.106 It is perectly possible, o course, to argue that the legal or the economic system admits certain operations and excludes others. It is a truism that a system is not a person and hence can neither think nor act. What is meant here is the linguistic (Saussurian) idea that the elimination o a semantic, syntactic or actantial unction affects the neighbouring unctions and changes them. Whoever renounces the concepts o transcendental, individual and collective subject-actants, has to reckon that the remaining abstract subject-actants appropriate their narrative unctions. Tis means in concrete terms that systems and operations ‘cause’, ‘decide’ or ‘prevent’ something or other while the individual or collective subject-actants, who may be responsible or and interested in these actions, are no longer perceived . In this situation, the question concerning social interests ( cui bono? ) can no longer be asked because the concrete actors and their responsibilities have disappeared rom view. What remains are anonymous processes comparable to those in Robbe-Grillet’s nouveau roman.107 In the end, the reader realizes that the deletion o individual and collective subjectivity, which may seem plausible in conjunction with Durkheim’s, Simmel’s and
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Gehlen’s theories o objective constraints, leads neither to a dissolution o subjectivity nor to a solution o the ‘metaphysical’ problem o the subject, but to a mystification o subjectivity by its projection onto the level o abstract-mythical actants. Tese (semiotic) considerations confirm some o the Marxist criticism o Luhmann insoar as critics such as Sigrist 108 already pointed out in the 1980s that Luhmann’s elimination o the concept o subject means that related concepts such as ‘social interest’, ‘domination’ and ‘violence’ are also discarded. Te consequences are obvious. Te act that Luhmann’s postmodern break with ‘old European’ humanism (similar to Foucault’s, Althusser’s and Lacan’s) leads to an idealist or Platonic revolt against the natural language becomes clear in the ollowing passage rom Social Systems: One o the worst aspects o language (and the entire presentation o systems theory in this book is inadequate, indeed misleading, because o it) is that predication is orced on the subjects o sentences; this suggests the idea, and reinorces the old habit o thinking, that we deal with ‘things’, to which any qualities, relations, activities, or surprises must be ascribed. 109
In the work o a systematic thinker such as Luhmann, whose avourite words are ‘sober’ and ‘rational’, the tone o this passage is quite surprising. His ervour in language matters, which is more typical o poets such as Mallarmé, Ponge or Robbe-Grillet than o any sociologist, is due to the problem o subjectivity. Luhmann is obviously at pains to find a technical language that is not contaminated with the anthropomorphisms o natural language and at the same time eliminates intentionality and social interest inherent in words. Te ollowing sentence may be read as a sample o this utopian language: ‘o this extent the act dimension is universal. At the same time, it orces the next operation into a choice o direction that – or the moment anyway – sets itsel against opposing directions without annulling their accessibility.’ (Te German original is even more anthropomorphic than the English translation: ‘Insoern ermöglicht die Sachdimension Anschlußoperationen, die zu entscheiden haben, ob sie noch bei demselben verweilen oder zu anderem übergehen wollen.’) 110 Te question raised by such sentences is whether Luhmann’s rejection o the notion o subject does actually yield new knowledge or, on the contrary, blurs our vision: or example, o the banal but not unimportant act that only an individual or collective subject can ‘decide’ something, ‘remain’ somewhere or ‘move on’ – according to its interests. Whoever endows ‘connecting operations’ with mythical modalities such as ‘decide’ or ‘wish’ runs into problems which Luhmann himsel seems to anticipate when he considers his own ‘global presentation o the systems theory’ as ‘inadequate, even misleading’. However, it is inadequate or reasons Luhmann ignores because he suppresses not only the entire subject problematic by starting rom the semantic difference between system and environment, but also the nexus o language, ideology and subjectivity. Tis nexus was described by Voloshinov: ‘In actuality, we never say or hear words, we say and hear what is true or alse, good or bad, important or unimportant, pleasant or unpleasant, and so on. Words are always filled with content and meaning drawn rom behavior or ideology .’111 Tis means concretely that language invariably expresses
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subjective intentions and interests. By postulating the undamental semantic difference between system and environment, thus ignoring the social character o language, and by complaining about the ‘subjectivism’ o language instead o recognizing its links with individual and collective interests, Luhmann drastically limits his horizon. An attempt to apply Luhmann’s description o the scientific observer to his own stance might reveal the core o the problem. He asks among other things ‘whether an observer o the second order could not concentrate on observing what the observer o the first order cannot observe, and we know: he cannot observe the difference underlying his observation’.112 Naturally, this also applies to the author o this book who – in spite o being conscious o the partial character o his own perspective – would like to know which blind spots are caused in Luhmann’s discourse by the exclusion o the concept o subject. But first o all another question: How does this exclusion come about? It is due in the first place to the orientation o his entire systems theory towards the Durkheimian concept o social differentiation. I one were obliged to locate Luhmann’s work either in the Durkheimian or in the Weberian tradition, one would undoubtedly have to call him a Durkheimian – in spite o Weber’s influence. For unlike Weber, who also deals with the emergence o different systems o action, i.e. with instrumental, traditional, value-oriented and affective action, Durkheim is primarily interested in social differentiation and its impact on social solidarity.113 Tis shif o emphasis rom subjective action to the systematic differentiation o society also marks Luhmann’s work where it takes on extreme orms. Luhmann seems to deend the Durkheimian against the Marxist tradition when he points out: ‘By describing society as a class society, societal theory in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries obscured the serious consequences o unctional differentiation.’ 114 Naturally, this argument can be inverted, because the theory o social differentiation hides symmetrically (since Durkheim) 115 ‘the serious consequences’ o subjective domination, subjection, violence and exploitation. Te systematic exclusion o this terminology eventually orces Luhmann to apply the concept o action – which he never abandons – not only to individuals and groups but even to the differentiated social systems. Actions appear to him as elements o systems, not merely as attributes o individual or collective subjects. About social systems he writes: ‘Teir basic elements are communicative actions, i.e. events which owe their unity to the act that they choose a certain way o relating to other actions.’116 Te idea that events ‘choose’ something (how does this happen in practice?) will seem strange even to those who adopt a sceptical stance towards subjectivity and the subject. In his comments on Luhmann’s work, Rainer Gresshoff quite rightly points out: ‘However, he does not “plead in avour o renouncing the concept o action in general” [. . .], but envisages its “reconstruction” [. . .] in a way that avoids the deficits.’117 According to Luhmann, these deficits are due to the act that Weber’s theory o action aims at subjectivity. Tus Luhmann breaks both with the Weberian and the Marxist tradition by replacing individual and collective subject-actants (e.g. charismatic individuals and social classes) by an anonymous process o differentiation: by a process without a subject. On a typological level, this view o social evolution is akin to Althusser’s idea
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that Marx’s philosophy o history is a process without a subject:118 ‘Tere is no “Subject o science” except in an ideology o science.’ 119 Luhmann would have almost certainly rejected Althusser’s Marxism, but he might have agreed with this particular sentence. Te arguments put orward by Luhmann, both against the transcendental subject o philosophy and the individual or collective subject o psychologists and sociologists, are quite similar to those o Althusser and his disciples. I one has a closer look at Luhmann’s critique o the transcendental and the historical concepts o subjectivity, one is requently reminded o Althusser’s arguments. Te two thinkers seem to agree that subjectivity is an ideological construct and that the subject has its origins in an anachronistic humanism. o Luhmann, the transcendental subject o the humanist tradition seems problematical: A subject that underlies itsel and the world, and that can recognize and acknowledge no givens [ Vorgegebenheiten ] apart rom itsel, also underlies all other ‘subjects’. Tus each underlies each? Tis can be asserted only i the subject concept is interpreted in transcendental theoretical terms. 120
However, this kind o argument yields a monstrous tautology in the sense o Fichte’s idealist equation ‘I’ = ‘I’: ‘Individuality is conceived o, not individually, but as the most general per se by – in this regard, too – letting subject and object coincide, namely, in the concept o individual [. . .] with the individuals themselves. But in principle this makes any communication superfluous.’121 I the transcendental universal subject actually ounds all individual subjects, then their thought should be based on one and the same pattern. Tis assumption could only be made within the ramework o a generally accepted humanist view o the world: ‘Te flight into the subject was based on humanistic premises; that is to say, on the assumption that natural or later transcendental premises guaranteed a minimum o social congruence in the individual human being.’122 In the last resort, this affi nity as mutual recognition within the sphere o subjectivity is based on ideology because the ‘figure o the subject’, as Luhmann puts it, ‘was used in both liberal and in socialist ideologies, and was thus presupposed on both sides in the dominating politico-ideological controversy o the past century and a hal’. 123 Tis consensus between two dominant ideologies is an equivalent o Althusser’s dominant ideology which turns individuals into subjects. Te individual subject thus appears as a humanist ideological construct even in the context o systems theory. Luhmann’s intention to discard not only the transcendental notion o the subject, but along with it the sociological concept o individual and collective subjectivity, also becomes clear in his Teory o Society . Tere he notes, with one eye on Habermas, that the ‘project o modernity’ cannot be accounted or in conjunction with the notion o subject: ‘It cannot be carried out on the basis o the subject concept i this concept continues to denote only the individual consciousness.’ 124 Tis sentence sounds odd because it calls into question Luhmann’s own remarks concerning the transcendental subject (it seems to imply the existence o subjects other than individual subjects). Moreover, it glosses over the act that in Marxism (as in Habermas’s theory) the
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collective subject (the class) as subject-actant is at the centre o the scene. Is it not the case that collective subjects such as groups, organizations and committees – and not systems – are responsible or actions, operations and communications? Te problem consists in the act that Luhmann does not distinguish the various subjective instances as actants or actors. In most cases, he tends to identiy the concept o subject with the individual or transcendental subject 125 and to overlook the complex interrelations between individual, inra-individual, collective, abstract and mythical subjects. Tis bévue, as Althusser would say, is due to the act that he ocuses on the systemic differentiation process which, in his discourse, supersedes subjective action. For the individual is by no means considered by Luhmann as a ‘micro- system’ or the equivalent o a system. It is divided up among differentiated systems: ‘A human being may appear to himsel or to an observer as a unity, but he is not a system. And it is even less possible to orm a system out o a collection o human beings.’ 126 In order to orm systems, individuals would have to be able to access their physical or psychic systems and observe the physical, chemical or biological processes within their bodies. Luhmann distinguishes three types o systems: the neuro-physiological, the psychic and the social. While the first system is based on biological processes, the second consists o ideas and the third o communications. Although these systems are linked via ‘stimuli’ or ‘irritations’,127 they do not communicate directly with each other – and similarly, the brain does not communicate directly with other organs. In this context, ‘man’ as individual subject appears as antiquated, because he is divided up into a neurophysiological and a psychic system and does not even participate in the social system insoar as he belongs to its environment : as a compound o biological and psychic actors. (At this stage, one may ask onesel what primary and secondary socialization are all about: Are they not processes in which the biological, the psychic and the social are inseparably intertwined?) 128 What matters here is not a critique o this particular systemic construction, which has some plausible and some unny aspects, but the question how this construction affects the concept o subject . Te first answer to this question is that Luhmann’s idea o social evolution as differentiation results in a negation o individual- subjective unity. In view o his thesis that the individual subject is not an autonomous or autopoietic system – in the sense o ‘body’, ‘psyche’ or ‘society’ – but stands between different autopoietic systems, it cannot be defined as an autonomous unit. One should add that social differentiation takes place in the environment o humans (i.e. beyond physis and psyche) and thus appears as a process beyond individual and collective control. One could repeat in conjunction with Luhmann’s sociology what Foucault once said about his ‘archaeology’: ‘Te authority o the creative subject, as the raison d’être o an oeuvre and the principle o its unity, is quite alien to it.’ 129 Very much like Foucault, Luhmann eventually considers the individual subject as ragmented by differentiation, as ‘enslaved sovereign, observed spectator’, 130 i.e. as a unit that no longer deserves to be called ‘subject’. Te second answer to the question how Luhmann’s construction o the differentiation process affects the subject is that it illustrates the dialectic between liberation and
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subjugation o individual subjects. In this respect, the author o contemporary systems theory develops some o the arguments o Marx, Durkheim, M. Weber and Simmel. Te modern liberation o individual subjects rom traditional constraints does offer them – as politicians, artists or scientists – more autonomy, but negates them as human beings by reducing their scope o action to one special task. Social differentiation produces specialists who are estranged rom ‘objective culture’ (Simmel) as a totality o differentiated social systems. Tey conront this culture as an anonymous and opaque whole. At this point, one may ask whether Luhmann’s discourse as semantic and narrative structure is not itsel a product o this differentiated, anonymous totality. In Die Wissenscha der Gesellscha , Luhmann confirms the assumption underlying the present critique o his sociology: namely that the notion o system replaces, along with the complementary notions o operation and communication, the closely related concepts o subject and action.131 From the point o view o discourse analysis, his concept o unction occupies a key position. It indicates that the unction o the actant ‘subject’ is taken over by the actant ‘system’. However, this actant continues to be a subject-actant whom Luhmann systematically endows with the predicates generally attributed to individual and collective subjects. Like these subjects, Luhmann’s ‘system’ can be described in terms o cognition, action and narration in the sense o Greimas: as sujet cogniti, sujet de aire and sujet sémio-narrati .132 Te question is what exactly happens when a concept such as ‘system’ is turned into an abstract subject-actant (it cannot be denied that it unctions as a subject-actant in Luhmann’s discourse) and is endowed with modalities inherent in individual and collective subjects. Te answer is that this leads to a mystification o discourse which is due to the act that an abstract concept usurps, as subject-actant, the unctions o individual and collective actants. Although these actants are ormally eliminated, all o their subjective modalities (knowing, willing, being able to do / savoir, vouloir, pouvoir , Greimas) are attributed to the subject-actant ‘system’ which observes something, knows something and will do something. Tis is what it looks like in Luhmann’s text: ‘A system can condition its relation to the environment and thereby leave the environment to decide when which conditions will be given. [. . .] Tus no meaning-constituting system can escape the meaningulness o all its own processes.’133 Human beings and animals may be able to ‘decide’ or to ‘escape’ – but can we make sense o ‘deciding environments’ or ‘escaping systems’? Te systematic suppression o subjectivity leads to its re-emergence at all levels o Luhmann’s discourse – without him noticing it, because he identifies subjectivity in an impressionist and unsystematic way with the transcendental and individual subject. However, subjectivity is a category underlying the entire language system and human communication – with or without the ‘I’ pronoun. Luhmann himsel must have been aware o that. His desperate polemics against the subjectivism o language can hardly be explained otherwise. However, the problems raised above do not only appear in a semiotic perspective. A sociologist such as Rainer Gresshoff also points out: ‘Luhmann, on the other hand, keeps using “compact expressions” such as “the communication / the system does
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something / produces something”. One gains the impression that this is not ortuitous, but is meant to express a particularity – the emergent autonomy o the social.’ 134 Gresshoff, who is mainly interested in a comparison between Luhmann’s systems theory and M. Weber’s sociology o action, does not mean an ‘emergence o the social’ at the expense o the subjective (like Helga Gripp-Hagelstange: c. supra). But the question remains whether the expression ‘autonomy o the social’ could not also be read as a domination o the social over the individual and subjective in the sense o Gehlen. In any case, Luhmann’s anthropomorphic conception o systems as actants amounts to an anonymous view o social processes or which no subject is responsible. Helga Gripp-Hagelstange’s definition o ‘observation’ shows to what extent this anonymity is typical o literature on Luhmann’s theory: ‘As an operation, observation is virtually blind. It does what it does, i.e. distinguish-and-indicate and nothing else.’135 What disappears is the individual or collective observer – in a way reminiscent o the nouveaux romans in the sense o Claude Simon, Robbe-Grillet and Ricardou in which observation remains anonymous. Along with the observing and acting subject some subjective categories used by sociologists to explain the dynamics o society disappear: intentionality, interest and critique. Luhmann even renounces the ‘old-European’ notion o domination (Herrscha ) without which the antagonisms between intentions, interests and critiques are hard to explain. What is lef o social dynamics when the relations o domination between individual and collective subjects are ignored? Only the ‘mechanisms o auto-regulation’136 mentioned by Lucien Goldmann in conjunction with late capitalism, one could argue. Tese are described in a ew words by Manred Füllsack in an analysis o Luhmann’s systems theory: ‘By increasing their complexity, i.e. their differentiation, systems make it possible to reduce the complexity o their environment, thus assuring their reproduction o this environment.’ 137 At this point, Luhmann’s actantial model comes to the ore. Relying on their key modality o ‘differentiation’, systems as subject-actants oppose the environment as anti-subject in order to perpetuate their control o an object-actant that is vital or their survival: systemic sel-reproduction. However, Luhmann cannot answer the seemingly banal question why systems should be interested in their sel-reproduction because he does not see that, in this case, ‘reduction o complexity’ is a mechanism o domination that can only be understood in conjunction with concepts such as ‘subjectivity’, ‘interest’ and ‘domination over nature’. Systems do not reproduce spontaneously, but are kept alive by groups, classes and individuals and adapted to new developments and interests. One can only agree with Christian Sigrist who blames Luhmann or playing down the antagonism between ‘capital’ and ‘workorce’ and or ‘ignoring the different currents within the workers’ movement’.138 ‘Here too’, concludes Sigrist, ‘the operation o desubjectification, to which social theory is exposed, takes its toll.’ 139 It also makes itsel elt wherever it would be important to explain the hierarchical relations between systems as resulting rom individual and collective interests which culminate in attempts to influence or dominate neighbouring systems. Luhmann quite plausibly argues that or the political system the basic semantic difference government / opposition is relevant, whereas the economic system is based on the difference pay / not pay and the scientific system on the difference true / not true. Unortunately, he
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tends to transorm the multiple links between economics and politics into an idyllic scenario: ‘Partial systems also communicate with systems in their environment (and not only: via their environment). Te economy, or example, pays taxes and thus makes politics possible.’140 Te theoretician who continues to use concepts such as subjectivity and domination could respond with a parody: ‘Te economy, or example, pays bribes and thus destroys politics.’ Te structural economic difference pay / not pay seems to make all the difference even in politics . . . In his critique o Luhmann’s approach, William Rasch aptly points out that the economy enjoys a dominant position in contemporary society: ‘But precisely because it needs these systems it determines these systems; it determines their type o operation.’ 141 It goes without saying that Luhmann is well aware o some o the problems underlying his thesis about the autonomy o systems: ‘Even scientific research finds that its autonomy is called into question’, 142 he points out in Die Wirtscha der Gesellscha . Later on, he adds ‘that external interventions are possible’143 and goes on to comment on the impact o politics on science: It can impose priorities (e.g. peace, women, environment, consequences o technical progress, culture) and encourage science to use corresponding terminologies in applications or presentations. But this does not mean that concepts are ormed, let alone research results manipulated.144
Te last sentence is simply misleading. Tere is no need to be amiliar with semiotics and the linguistic problem o relevance145 in order to realize that the selection o themes and terminologies has a lexical and semantic impact on conceptualization and may even determine the narrative structures o the discourses involved, i.e. the research results. In short, when politicians or businessmen can define the relevance criteria scientists have to observe (e.g. ‘gender studies’ instead o ‘psychology’ or ‘German studies’ instead o ‘German literature’ in a British university), then they influence conceptualization and in the long run also decisions concerning the difference between ‘true’ and ‘not true’. Within the ramework o ‘German studies’ it is easier to call the autonomy o literature into question than within the context o ‘German literature’. In aesthetics in particular, Jean Baudrillard and Scott Lash have observed postmodern processes o de-differentiation 146 which, especially in Baudrillard’s case, are seen in conjunction with market laws and the mediation by the exchange value. Baudrillard speaks o a trans-esthétique marked by regular transitions rom art to advertising and marketing.147 Art, ‘like all vanishing orms’, he argues, ‘tries to multiply in simulation, but soon it will have completely disappeared, leaving behind a huge artificial museum [musée artificiel] and the unbridled advertising industry’. 148 Like Luhmann, Baudrillard ignores the dominant interests o individual and collective subjects and turns operations into mythical actants to such a degree that the encroachments o one system on another cannot be explained in terms o intentions or interests. Te ‘value’ (i.e. exchange value) is all-pervading, but its omnipresence is not explained either.
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Like social differentiation, the process o de-differentiation cannot be understood independently o subjective interests. Luhmann ignores this insight whenever he tries to understand de-differentiation as a consequence o differentiation: ‘But dedifferentiation cannot mean that one can orget differentiations, or the “de” prefix would then be meaningless.’149 Tis is undoubtedly the case, but one should above all bear in mind that both differentiation and de-differentiation cannot be understood without the driving orce o subjective interests. Not only scientific research is subject to heteronomy because political and economic interests manipulate its relevance criteria; even political systems and art institutions eel the impact o heteronomous – especially economic – interests. Te political crises, which are requently provoked by the dubious financing o political parties, are mainly due to economic intererence. Teir persistence suggests that the difference pay / not pay , which is supposed to structure the economic system, is readily recognized as relevant within other systems. Whoever reuses to pay ails to promote his economic interests in the political or his political interests in the economic system. It is naive to speak simply o a ‘coupling’ o systems, as Luhmann does on several occasions. It seems more realistic to speak o a take-over because the latter invariably implies subjective interests. It also turns out to be more realistic in the case o the art system. Baudrillard’s ‘transaesthetics’ is exemplified in the ‘literary field’ where publishers encourage authors to write novels – instead o poems or experimental texts. Authors such as Robert Schneider announce their next bestseller , thus contradicting Luhmann’s idea o an autopoietic and autonomous art system. Te bestseller is not only a genre mediated by the exchange value which disavows Luhmann’s assertion that the art system and the economic system have no ‘common criteria’;150 it is also a market-oriented construction o publishers whose relevance criteria are geared towards bestseller lists. Against this background, Luhmann’s view o artistic autonomy appears as unrealistic: ‘In the course o a prolonged sel-observation, the art system can claim, in questions o composition and style, autonomy vis-à-vis the customer, thus controlling and transorming the criteria o judgement.’151 However, it seems appropriate to ask whether artists have not in act exchanged the heteronomy o the patronage or the heteronomy o the market. Te latter does not operate in an abstract way but through concrete social (institutional) interests. In this respect, Erich Köhler succeeded in adapting and correcting Luhmann’s theory by revealing to what extent the rise and decline o literary genres within a literary system is related to group and class interests. Te eudal epic poem is thus ousted rom its central position in the literary system as soon as the noblesse d’épée is weakened by the rise o absolutism and the bourgeoisie: ‘However, the nationalist ideology, which continues to inspire attempts at a renewal, will not save a genre that cannot cease celebrating the heroic existence o a class whose parasitic existence and lack o unction have become too obvious in spite o its social prestige.’ 152 At this point, it would be tempting but wrong to adopt a unctionalist perspective and to argue (with Luhmann) that the literary system ‘registers’ the changes in the political system and adapts to the new circumstances. Tis mythical way o talking ought to be replaced by the argument that the eudal nobility is no longer able to deend its interests in the art system. Its domination is superseded by the alliance between the monarchy
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and the bourgeoisie in economics, politics and art, and this alliance gives rise to the tragedy as the new genre o absolutism. By renouncing subjective categories such as intention, interest and domination, Luhmann precludes himsel rom finding a plausible explanation. From his point o view, communist control o the arts in the ormer USSR, in China and North Korea and religious control in Islamist Iran must appear either as anachronisms or as anomalies. Unortunately, it is by no means certain that these are anachronisms Europeans and Americans have saely lef behind. Luhmann cannot account or the act that the highly differentiated Roman society, which disposed o an autonomous law system and an equally autonomous art, was later superseded by the heteronomy o Christian eudalism. His attempts to explain this transition are hardly convincing: ‘However, neither the technical conditions or communication nor social structure were adequate or the purpose. Regressive developments delayed this switch or more than a thousand years.’153 But why was differentiation possible rom Greek Antiquity to the Roman Empire? How could new heteronomies (ascism, Stalinism) be imposed on culture and art in the middle o the twentieth century? Tese questions are difficult to answer within any kind o theory (Marx did not have a plausible explanation or the transition rom the Roman to the eudal order either); but all attempts at explaining these phenomena are hampered by a systematic elimination o subjective actors. Systems and operations decide, act or adapt, and the real actors are dissolved in abstractions. Te act that these actors as subject-actants cannot be deleted rom Luhmann’s text is once more revealed by his remarks about the emergence o systems on the basis o double contingency . Social systems come about by virtue o ego’s and alter’s (these terms were introduced by Parsons and Shils) attempts to overcome the contingency which affects both parties by measures o confidence. However, these parties are not simply ‘individuals’ (as in American unctionalism): ‘Te concepts o ego and alter should leave open whether they concern psychic or social systems, and they should leave open whether or not these systems adopt a determinate processing o meaning.’ 154 But in both cases we are dealing with individual or collective subject-actants, whose subjectivity is inherent in the words ‘ego’ and ‘alter’. It is not by chance that ego is defined as ‘a conscious thinking subject’ in the Concise Oxord Dictionary . Tis subjectivity is latent in Luhmann’s postmodern language which does not succeed in convincing the reader o the a priori existence o the system. Te subject underlies this system and keeps reappearing in its gaps. By insisting on the non-subjective nature o the differentiation process and on the specific character o systems, Luhmann only confirms in a sociological context the kind o postmodern particularization avoured by thinkers such as Lyotard, Vattimo or Zygmunt Bauman, all o whom insist on the uniqueness o ‘language games’ (Wittgenstein, Lyotard), ‘cultures’ (Vattimo) and ‘ethics’ (Bauman). Tis social and linguistic situation was anticipated by the modernist writer Hermann Broch, who wrote about the ‘disintegration o values’ and the drive o particular value-systems towards autarky: ‘Like strangers they exist side by side, an economic value-system o “good business” next to an aesthetic one o l’art pour l’art , a military code o values side by side with a technical or an athletic, each autonomous, each “in and or itsel”.’ 155 Tis
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is (critical) systems theory avant la lettre and at the same time postmodernism avant la lettre. Te particularization o systems, which leads to their ‘autopoietic’ seclusion (economics or the sake o profit, art or art’s sake, sport or sport’s sake), orms the basis o Luhmann’s explanation o postmodernity in the sense o Lyotard. Postmodernity ‘as incredulity toward metanarratives’ 156 appears to him as a result o differentiation: In this case, one can invoke the structural and operative autonomy (closure) o the unctional systems, each o which offers its own description o the systemenvironment relationship and, along with it, its own description o society. Tis leads to the loss o a unified ‘métarécit’ (Lyotard) and to a polycontextual description o society. 157
Luhmann not only continues Hermann Broch’s modernist argument – albeit with quite different intentions – but anticipates a postmodernist like Baudrillard, whose book L’Echange impossible (1999) he could not take into account any more. Right at the beginning Baudrillard remarks: ‘Te other spheres, the political, the legal, the aesthetic are marked by the same in-equivalence and hence by the same eccentricity. Tey have literally no meaning outside o themselves and cannot be exchanged or anything else.’158 Here too, postmodern particularization appears as a process o differentiation. However, it is not only due to differentiation but also to the revolt o cultural, political, religious and ideological particularities or undamentalisms discussed by Lyotard, Deleuze and Vattimo (c. Chapter III, 2, 3). Tese are revolts against the indifference o the exchange value which is partly responsible or the absence o a metanarrative that could be universally recognized and mediate between the differentiated systems and particularities. Te only recognized universal mediator is the exchange value as non- verbal communication. Te radical pluralism o postmodern thought (in all its versions) is merely the reverse o market-based indifference as interchangeability o all particularities , all o which appear as contingent and arbitrary in their claim to absolute validity. In spite o his denials, Luhmann is a postmodern thinker par excellence. More clearly than any other thinker o the postmodern constellation, he links a theory o the particularities (the systems) to a theory o value-indifferent universalism: to the abstract theory o ‘world society’. It is a theory which is itsel a product o the differentiation process in that it treats all o the particular systems – cultures, religions, legal systems, economies – as unctional equivalents in a world society dominated by the exchange value. Luhmann himsel describes the relationship between particularity and universality (as unctional equivalence) in conjunction with the concept o postmodernity: A plurality o sel-descriptions needs only to be admitted, a plurality o possibilities in the ‘discourse’ o sel-description that are neither tolerant nor intolerant o one another, but that can no longer take note o one another. We have anticipated this with the thesis that universalistic (sel-inclusive) sel-descriptions do not have
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to be the only right, exclusive sel-description. With an eye to the unction o sel-descriptions, one must add: cannot be exclusive, or the unction o unction is to admit unctional equivalents. 159
Like the differentiated systems, like Lyotard’s particular languages, Luhmann’s seldescriptions no longer take notice o each other, because they take it or granted that all particularities are interchangeable within the indifference o pluralism. Luhmann’s universalistic theory o world society (rejected by Lyotard) is based on this marketmediated interchangeability o all particularities. Kneer and Nassehi quite rightly point out: ‘It is crucial, however, that the notion o a unified world society does not cancel the radical differentiation o modern society.’ 160 It cannot cancel it precisely because the abstract idea o a world society is not only mediated by the exchange value, but also emerges rom the interchangeability o the contingent particularities at the end o the differentiation process. What is missing, however, is the observation o the deep antagonism that opposes the religious, ideological and aesthetic particularities to the universal world society as market society. What is missing is the insight that globalized postmodern society 161 keeps provoking ever more radical reactions rom individual and collective subjects. Where indifference reigns universally, ideology enters the scene with dualistic dogmas that provoke violence. It is not by chance that Luhmann, who ollows Parsons in considering power and money as means o communication, 162 hardly ever uses the word ‘violence’ (unlike Bourdieu). 163
4 Alain ouraine’s alternative: Subject and movement Unlike Luhmann, who tends to rely on Durkheim and Parsons rather than on Weber,164 Alain ouraine continues to develop Weber’s sociology o action, albeit in a critical context. Not only his early Sociologie de l’action (1965) bears witness to this Weberian heritage, but also Pierre Ansart’s analyses which present ouraine as a theoretician who rejects both Parsons’s integration o the actors into the social system and their submission to history and economic laws in Marxism. o these subject-negating approaches, explains Ansart, ouraine opposes ‘M. Weber’s critique according to which the task o sociology consists in reconstructing the meaning “expressed” by the actors.’165 On this level, ouraine’s approach can be grasped as verstehende Soziologie in Weber’s sense and as a hermeneutic o action. ouraine himsel turns, especially in Le Retour de l’acteur (1984), a work debunked by Luhmann,166 against a ‘sociology o order’,167 which ‘hides behind the “natural” development o things’168 – like the ruling class. Opposing all ‘theories o order’, which confirm the abdication o the subject in the course o rationalization, differentiation and institutionalization, the French sociologist maps out a subject-centred theory defined as ‘romantic’ by himsel: ‘Tis is the origin o the new meaning attributed to the concept o subject which aims at the critical distance separating individuals and collectives rom institutions, practices and ideologies. Tis [. . .] view o society can be called romantic.’169
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Such remarks inevitably provoke the question concerning the dialectics o individual subjectivity. How can individual subjects distance themselves rom institutions, social practices and ideologies that are at the origin o their subjectivity? Are we not dealing here with an escapist romanticism and an attempt to locate ‘true subjectivity’ beyond society and its institutions? I this were the case, ouraine would ignore the sociological insight underlying this book and summed up concisely by Martin Rudol Vogel: ‘Although subjectivity is also identity o individuals, it does not originate exclusively in themselves, but is acquired by them in interaction with general social orms.’170 On closer inspection, it appears that, ar rom bracketing out this basic dialogical idea, ouraine develops and specifies it within his approach. At the outset, he dismisses the ‘subject’ as defined by idealist philosophy which – as was shown in the first chapter – identifies the individual subject with Reason or History, thus turning it into an ascetic abstraction and a negation o living subjectivity. ouraine describes a downward movement rom divine omnipotence to human modesty which eventually arrives at real lie – at the basis o subjectivity as defined by himsel: ‘Te notion o subject has undergone a number o mutations, descending rom the heaven o ideas to the realm o politics and subsequently to that o social labour relations; it is now being linked to living experience.’ 171 ouraine mentions Foucault when he reminds us o the act that, in its idealist and political phases, the concept o subject was abused by the ruling classes to make individual and collective subjects submit to Reason, History or the Party o the proletariat.172 His alternative to the ‘strong’ subjectivities o idealism (o Descartes, Fichte, Hegel, but also Sartre) is a ‘weak’ subjectivity in the sense o Gianni Vattimo’s postmodern pensiero debole.173 Tis ‘weakness’ is due to the act that we are dealing with a ‘subject fighting or its survival’ (‘Sujet luttant pour sa survie’) 174 and located by ouraine – as individual subject – between the market and the cultural community (in the sense o Etzioni’s communitarianism).175 Te individual o hyper-modern societies is incessantly exposed to centriugal orces: to the market on the one hand, to the community on the other. Teir antagonism ofen leads to a split o the individual who acts sometimes as consumer, sometimes as member o a religious sect. Te subject maniests itsel by resisting this split, by its longing or individuality (désir d’individualité), i.e. by its wish to be recognized as such in each o its actions and each social relationship. 176
Tis description o individual subjectivity on the threshold o the twenty- first century is characteristic o the contemporary subject discussion which is marked by a general rejection o the metaphysical conception o subjectivity (rom Descartes to Sartre). At the same time, it overlaps with the construction o subjectivity proposed by the author o this book who also tries to explain the dynamics o the subject between the indifference o the market and ideological engagement, i.e. the ‘qualitative values o community’. Tis is the reason why ouraine’s sociology serves as a transition to the last chapter which is closely related to this sociology and to the first chapter.
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At the same time, it is seen as a critique o Luhmann’s systems theory and Marxist philosophy (rom Marx to Lukács) with which ouraine deals in his early work. In what ollows, it will be shown to what extent his alternative emerges rom his critique o systems theory and Marxism; later on, the nexus o historicity, social movement and individual subjectivity will be dealt with. owards the end, ouraine’s critique o modernity as rationalization and subject ormation will be related to Giddens’s and Ulrich Beck’s notions o subjectivity. ouraine’s reerences to Luhmann are as rare as Luhmann’s reerences to ouraine and suggest that contemporary French and German sociologists are only gradually beginning to take notice o each other – i names such as Bourdieu and Baudrillard are not taken into account. (Only a ew o Luhmann’s books have been translated into French.)177 It is not surprising thereore that ouraine, with his eel or the social positioning o theories, locates Luhmann’s work within the problematic o postmodernity, a problematic considered as a chimera by the German sociologist: ‘Postmodernity postulates a radical disjunction between system and actor: Te system is sel-reerential, autopoietic, says Luhmann, while the actors are no longer distinguished with respect to social relations, but by virtue o their cultural difference.’178 Although the second hal o this sentence is not applicable to Luhmann’s work, because systems theory does not know any actors in the sense o ouraine, the statement as such is o some importance, because it confirms the idea o the last section that differentiation without a subject is symptomatic o postmodernity. ouraine, who pleads in avour o a ‘critical sociology’ in Production de la société (1973),179 blames systems theory or being ‘pathological’: ‘But this coexistence o autopoietic systems and utilitarian actors (acteurs utilitaristes) is quite unable to grasp the whole field o sociological analysis and corresponds to a pathological disintegration o social lie.’180 He could have added that systems theory emerged rom the postmodern collision o market-oriented universalism with a tendency towards particularization and ragmentation (already observed by Hermann Broch). ouraine’s critique o systems theory overlaps with the critique in the previous section in one crucial point. It is hard to understand social developments as long as the argument remains at the level o systems and neglects the level o subjects and their actions: ‘Sociological analysis is constantly threatened by the separation o two spheres: the systems and the actions.’181 It is one o ouraine’s basic aims to link them. Tis is why, as early as in the 1960s and 70s, he speaks o a ‘system o historical action’.182 He observes the other way o eliminating individual and collective subjects by abstraction in Hegelian Marxism, whose advocates sacrifice social action to historical laws and party discipline. Te dialogue with Marxism is o undamental importance or ouraine’s sociology o action, because the early ouraine does not consider the social class as an historical subject organized by the Party, but as a social movement – in the sense o the workers’ movement. In Production de la société , he argues: ‘By social movement I mean in principle the conflict-laden action o social classes as actors, who struggle or supremacy within the historical system o action .’183 About two decades later, ouraine drops the concept o class in Critique de la modernité : ‘Te concept o social class accompanied historicist thought. [. . .] For this reason the concept o social
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movement ought to replace that o social class, in the same way as the analysis o action ought to replace that o situations.’184 Te concept o class, introduced into philosophical and economic discussion by the Physiocrats,185 takes on metaphysical (Hegelian) connotations in Marxism. Marx, who considers his philosophy as the ‘head o the proletariat’, engages the revolutionary class (as a mythical actant) to take possession o a mythical object: ‘classless society’. In the process, the working class as a movement is deprived o its autonomy, especially since the Leninist Party subsequently decides what kind o consciousness it should adopt rom situation to situation. Tus the class is subjected to an historical teleology and to the organization interpreting this teleology. ouraine comments: ‘Te role o the party is strongly emphasized by Lenin, and it is the conquest o the state that leads to the subversion o the existing order, not the growing power o a social movement.’186 He adds in Critique de la modernité : ‘Marx’s thought eliminates the social actor (acteur social).’187 At the same time, ouraine distances himsel rom Marx and Lukács, ‘or whom the actor is only important as the tool o an historical necessity’. 188 In short, he dismisses both the systemic unctionalism o Parsons and Luhmann and the historicism o the Hegelian Marxists. He blames all systematic thinkers or ignoring the social actions o individual and collective subjects, thereby depriving themselves o the ability to explain social development in a concrete way, i.e. in conjunction with the needs, interests and intentions o the subjects. His book Le Retour de l’acteur , in which the problem o subjectivity occupies a central position, is an attempt to reconstruct society rom the point o view o acting subjects. ouraine points out that political parties increasingly become ‘political ventures’,‘while social demands are articulated much more directly by social movements that differ rom political parties’.189 As an alternative to systemic thought o Hegelian and unctionalist origin, he maps out his own triadic model o society: Hence the three main elements o social lie are: the subject as an alternative to organized practices; historicity as an ensemble o cultural models – in the cognitive, economic, ethical sense – and as an object o social conflicts; the social movements which fight each other in order to give these cultural orientations a social direction.190
Tis is at the same time the model o a postindustrial or programmed society, which the French sociologist does not define as a predominance o science and the service sector in the sense o Daniel Bell,191 but in relation to three complementary actors: the disappearance o the industrial proletariat and its orientation towards production; the rise o social movements, whose members increasingly ocus on consumption; the decline o the ‘meta-social guarantees o social order’ (‘garants méta-sociaux de l’ordrer social’).192 ouraine means the metaphysical, rationalist and Hegelian-Marxist ideologies which in the past provided the actors with meaning. One can hardly avoid being reminded o Lyotard’s ‘metanarratives’ and realizing to what extent ‘postmodern’ and ‘postindustrial’ views o society overlap. Tey are not identical because, rom ouraine’s point o view, the collapse o ‘metasocial guarantees’ leads to the rise o social movements as collective subjects
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whose scope o action is increased by the disappearance o ideological constraints. In a radically secularized postindustrial society, 193 the actors are able to influence social developments directly and make possible what ouraine calls an ‘action de la société sur elle-même’ .194 Tus the context o historicity changes during the transition rom industrial to postindustrial society. Unlike the industrial class, which derived its consciousness rom a particular situation that was requently defined (in its name) by Marxist intellectuals or a Marxist party as ‘avant-garde o the proletariat’, the social movement defines itsel in actu: as an autonomous actor who is able to influence historicity in accordance with its intentions and interests: ‘But what distinguishes the social movement rom the class is the act that the latter can be defined in relation to its situation, whereas the social movement is action, the action o a subject, i.e. o an actor who calls into question the construction o historicity.’195 But how does this happen in social reality? How do social movements emerge, and what types o social movements are there? Insoar as the social movement loses the character o a class in the sense o the working class, it does not emerge rom a situation-based group or class consciousness, but defines itsel in relation to certain historical, social and political constellations or events: in relation to a concrete need or action. In this context, May 1968 appears to ouraine as the origin o the movement social : ‘In May 1968, the independence o the social movement was proclaimed.’196 Tis is what it means: Parallel to the workers’ movement, its trade unions and its parties, new workers’ movements, students’ movements and movements o intellectuals emerge and dey the established organizations. Tey rebel against particular types o misgovernment, against the state and its elites which they hold responsible or this misgovernment. Te trade unions and the political parties try to break or slow down the impetus o the new competitors or political power who tend to ask or the impossible (‘exigeons l’impossible’) and to dissolve soon afer entering the stage. In this respect Ulrich Beck certainly has a point when he notes: ‘Social movements – mean, taken literally, coming and going. Especially going. Sel-dissolution is their leading member.’197 Although ouraine views the movement as a collective actor with a lot more confidence, he is equally conscious o its instability. In his early writings (in the 1970s) he still distinguishes three phases in the development o movements: ‘the break with the institution, the political conrontation and the phase o growing institutional influence’.198 Tis influence may also assume a ‘Constantinian’ character and turn into a state-supporting power in analogy to the Church under Emperor Constantine. 199 In conjunction with the movement, ouraine points out in Production de la société : ‘It can become Constantinian.’200 However, he also envisages the possibility o a sudden dissolution and the recourse to violence.201 At any rate, he does take a more complex view o movements than Beck, who associates them with decline and dissolution. Tis somewhat hasty association is at least partly invalidated by the rise o ecological and eminist movements whose impact on social institutions cannot be construed as a mere integration into the existing order. Te influence o ‘greens’ and women does eventually change politics and society in an unending dialectical process o social integration and social change . Tis is what ouraine means whenever he speaks o ‘social movements which fight or the direction o
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historical development (direction de l’historicité).’ 202 Te ‘greens’ and the eminists, or example, envisage a different development o market society with a more pronounced emphasis on social actors and a re-definition o the word ‘social’. Tey differ crucially rom the working-class movement as a traditional social movement (‘movement sociétal’, says ouraine) insoar as they do not primarily deend the interests o a relatively homogeneous group, but set out to change society as a whole. Women are not simply interested in equality, but envisage a new definition o gender relations – also in language and culture. Like the eminists, the ‘greens’ cannot be understood as a traditional interest group. For they aim at society as a whole in the sense that they seek to redefine the global relationship between nature and society. Tis is why ouraine distinguishes the old mouvements sociétaux rom the new cultural and historical movements which are not held together by social or class consciousness but by a problem-oriented consciousness. Tey are more akin to the religious movements o the past than to modern class movements: ‘Te most important cultural movements o history were the religious movements; in our world, which emerged rom industrial society, women’s movements and ecological movements are the most important.’203 Both o them act in the field o historicity in order to transorm this field. Social movements, argues ouraine, no longer deend social interests in the narrow sense (political interests, living standards, education), but subjectivity as such, subjectivity as humanity: ‘Te new social movements reuse to be identified with just one social category; they appeal to the subject as such, to its dignity and sel-esteem.’204 Tis statement does allow or ‘deensive’ interpretations. Te collective subjects deend their ‘lie world’ (Husserl, Habermas) and deend themselves against de-subjectification, against their reification by the systems (in the sense o Habermas). I they act in this way at an historical, global level, or example, by opposing commercialization, technocracy and the destruction o the environment, they are called historical movements by ouraine: ‘Te historical movements call into question the rule o an elite rather than that o a class and appeal to the people against the state [. . .]. Te great ecological protests not only turn against the policy o a particular country or a firm, but contest a general evolution.’ 205 In spite o these plausible arguments, which make ouraine appear as a kindred spirit o Habermas, whom he relies on as a theoretician o the lie world ,206 his notion o social movement gives rise to several questions. Can, or example, the movement o the homeless or the illegal immigrants, mentioned by ouraine in Comment sortir du libéralisme? ,207 be compared with the social movements o women or the ‘greens’? Are we not dealing with groups representing very particular group interests that differ substantially rom the universal orientations o eminists and ‘greens’? Can they be subsumed under the same category as the ‘historical movements’? Tis sociological question will not be dealt with here, but the question concerning the difference between movements and anti-movements. ouraine writes about the latter: What distinguishes them undamentally rom social movements is the act that they identiy with a particular historical existence: a group, an ethnic unit, a
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religious community or a different type o community, and the act that they never invoke the notion o subject and the universalism inherent in it. 208
Anti-movements are exemplified by undemocratic nationalist, ascist, undamentalist and Bolshevik groups.209 Te question is, o course, whether the difference between ‘democratic movements’ and ‘anti-democratic anti-movements’ can be upheld in this orm. Can we exclude the idea that undemocratic movements produce and strengthen subjectivity? It is, afer all, a act that Benito Mussolini began his career as a revolutionary syndicalist in Georges Sorel’s movement which combined ideological elements rom the Lef and the Right. Were Bolshevik organizations not at the core o many peace movements whose absence during the Soviet occupation o Aghanistan and during the Yugoslav civil war can hardly be overlooked? It is impossible to deal with these questions within the scope o this section. It is a act, however, that even ouraine’s ‘anti-movements’ ‘appeal to individuals as subjects’ in the sense o Althusser – thereby ulfilling ouraine’s criteria. For it is ouraine’s basic idea that in postindustrial society, the individual subject can and should be strengthened by its links to a social movement . He sets out, as was shown above, rom the impossibility o an idealist subjectivity which is deemed to be identical with itsel as ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’. o him, the individual subject appears as a search: ‘It is a search o the individual sel or conditions that empower him to be the actor o his own history.’210 ouraine does not ignore the obstacles which can make this search extremely taxing: bureaucracies, market laws, communitarian ideologies o hermetic groups. For him, the individual is a subject struggling or survival and torn ‘between instrumental action and cultural identity, relating, in the first case, to the world o commodities, in the second case to the world o the community’.211 However, what matters in the process o subjectivity is keeping aloo rom both the world o commodities with its reiying mechanisms and rom the repressive community and its ideologies. ranslated into the language o this book, one might put it this way: what matters is resisting both the market-based indifference as interchangeability o values and ideological dualism (which is not exclusively associated with communitarianism). In ouraine’s case, this resistance is inconceivable without the support o the movement as collective subject . In Critique de la modernité , he radicalizes his stance by postulating: ‘Te subject exists only as social movement [. . .].’ 212 Later on, this statement is made more concrete with respect to the relationship between the individual and the collective subject: ‘Te link-up between the personal construction o subjectivity and the social movement is the core o this book.’ 213 In a much earlier work, in Le Retour de l’acteur (1984), ouraine already spoke o a ‘transition rom we to I’ (‘passage du nous au Je’). 214 Tis point o view is confirmed in his more recent book La Fin des sociétés (2013) where the acteur social is identified with the social movement.215 Although this argument sounds plausible since individual subjects may very well find their identity in ecological, anarchist or eminist – but also in nationalist or ascist – movements, the question concerning the dialectics o subjectivity returns. It is the question raised by deconstructionist eminism. Could it be that individual subjects give up their reedom when they let themselves be turned into subjects (subjected) by a
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movement? (C. Chapter III, 8.) Here again, the ambivalence o subjectivity as reedom and submission comes to the ore. In his later writings, ouraine tries to solve this problem by imagining an individual subject which turns instrumental reason against the community and the communitarian cultural identity against the instrumentalism o the market: ‘It eludes the community by instrumental reason and the market by its collective and at the same time personal identity.’216 Tis sentence can also be paraphrased in the language o this book: indifference in the sense o an exchangeability o values puts ideological engagement into perspective and allows or a critical distance vis-à-vis one’s own ideology in the sense o Norbert Elias. 217 Te dialectical relationship between engagement and critical distance will be discussed in detail in the last chapter in conjunction with Dialogical Teory. ouraine continues the sociological tradition rom Durkheim and önnies to Simmel by emphasizing, on the one hand, the importance o the market or individual reedom and by replacing, on the other hand, the traditional community by the movement and its value orientation. In this respect, the core o his approach can be defined as ‘late modern’, since the author retains the concept o individual and collective subjectivity, but at the same time tries to avoid a relapse into traditionalist (‘communitarian’) thought by pinning his hopes on contemporary urban movements. Te late modern programme, which he proposes as a remedy or the ‘disintegration o modernity’ in postmodernity, is defined as ollows: ‘Te ormation o new social actors and [. . .] a new economic and social policy’.218 But what exactly does ouraine mean by ‘late modernity’ and ‘postmodernity’? o begin with, he blames the ‘Frankurt School’ – without a valid reason – or its ‘struggle against the idea o subject’ (‘la lutte contre l’idée de sujet’) 219 and subsequently slots Foucault and Baudrillard into a negativist tradition which rejects all o modernity – including subjectivity – as a destructive principle geared towards domination. ouraine turns against this global and one-sided negation o modernity when he writes about French postmodernist thinkers: It is sufficient to realize how ast the radical critique o modernity led to a break with the very idea o modernity, thus destroying itsel by dissolving into postmodernity. Tis was in particular the development o Baudrillard, who attacked Foucault in order to explain his own move rom critical Gauchisme to postmodernism.220
Tis postmodern dismissal o modernity is contested by ouraine in a model o late modernity intended to save the disintegrating modern constellation. He believes that modernity is alling apart into our autonomous spheres: sexuality and consumption on the individual level and nationalism and economic enterprise on a collective level.221 Unlike in the enlightened high modern era, when the nation held these our spheres together, combining the development o the individual with that o the economy, in late modernity the national turns into nationalism, and the our spheres are separated: ‘In sexuality, as in consumption, attrition and destruction set in; in the politics o firms, the drives towards profit and power tend to obliterate the unction o production;
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and the various nationalisms are saturated with war, like all other differentiations.’222 But at the same time, each o these our spheres promises to ulfil the hopes o modernity. According to ouraine, individual and collective subjects are in a better position to ulfil them. o begin with, he opposes the disintegration o modernity: ‘What is generally called postmodernity and what I chose to call the radical disintegration o the rationalist model o modernity, is the very thing the subject revolts against.’ 223 But what exactly can the subject do against the modern process o disintegration? ouraine realizes that it can no longer (as did the nation in the past) hold together the our spheres. However, it can mediate between them independently o all strategies o domination. In Habermas’s words, it ought to deend the values o the lie world against the systems power and money . Tis is how ouraine himsel expresses it: ‘Te subject comes about both in its struggle against the state apparatuses and in its respect o the Other as subject; the social movement is the collective action in deence o the subject against the power o the commodity, the economic venture and the state.’ 224 Te question is o course, whether social movements, which differ rom social classes by their ad hoc emergence and their instability, are capable o ulfilling this integrative unction. Teir structural weakness can hardly be changed by sociologists whom ouraine expects to assist new movements in their actions. 225 Jacques Le Goff may be ar too optimistic when he observes in conjunction with ouraine’s Un désir d’histoire: ‘ Un désir d’histoire expresses the wish that history as reality may once again set society in motion and may lead to the recognition o sociology not as a mere science, but as action.’226 Here sociological theory has turned ull circle rom postmodernity to the sociology o action o the 1960s. Te latter now appears as a sociology that is expected not only to understand social action, but to make it possible. Tis may be asking too much. Even the help o critical sociologists will not enable ephemeral social movements to bring about undamental changes in society, especially i such changes are envisaged within the national ramework. In the last chapter, it will appear that another important actor has to be taken into account in order to increase the relevance o ouraine’s model. ouraine is not the only European sociologist to analyse the situation o the individual subject in late modern society. Apart rom Bourdieu and Baudrillard, whose theories were commented on in the second section, Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck have dealt with this problem. Teir approaches were commented on in the first chapter and will now be compared with ouraine’s sociology o action by way o a conclusion. Te three basic ideas that link Giddens’s and Beck’s works to ouraine’s sociology o action are: (1) that modern and especially late modern society dissolves those traditional values and patterns o action which ormed the basis o individual subjectivity; (2) that industrial society in the sense o Marx was superseded by a pluralized society in which social classes and the labour movement ade into the background and new social movements occupy the centre o the social scene; (3) that individuals are obliged to search or their identity independently o traditions and class memberships.
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A closer look at Giddens’s early work reveals that, mediating between Marx, Durkheim and Weber, he seeks to explain late capitalism both rom a Marxist and rom a liberal perspective,227 although he retains Marx’s class model. Tus David Held can conclude towards the end o the 1980s: ‘Giddens wishes to affirm the centrality o class in the determination o the character o contemporary society while at the same time recognizing that this very perspective itsel marginalizes or excludes certain types o issues rom consideration.’228 At a later stage, these issues move to the centre o the scene, and Giddens ocuses – like ouraine, albeit in a more moderate way – on ‘the role o the social movements’.229 In this context, he speaks (like ouraine and Beck) o ‘the one-sided emphasis upon either capitalism or industrialism’230 and opens up late modern perspectives in which the individual subject appears as isolated and selproducing. Unlike ouraine, Giddens does not establish a link between individual subjectivity and social movements. His basic aim in Modernity and Sel-Identity (1991) is to show how individual subjectivity comes about in late modernity through reflexivity: through ‘identity work’, some German sociologists would say.231 Giddens speaks o sel-identity : ‘Sel-identity, in other words, is not something that is just given, as a result o the continuities o the individual’s action system, but something that has to be routinely created and sustained in the reflexive activities o the individual.’ 232 Tis ‘reflexive activity’ is seen by Giddens as a permanent shaping o one’s own biography which also includes the body: ‘Te body itsel has become emancipated – the condition or its reflexive restructuring.’233 Giddens turns against Foucault’s conception o subjectivity as subjection, pointing to the act ‘that the body has not become just an inert entity, subject to commodification or “discipline” in Foucault’s sense’.234 He may be right, but he does not explain why. Although he keeps mentioning them, he does not view the numerous handbooks and guides that are meant to help disoriented readers find an identity as commercial media and instruments o normalization in the sense o Link. Unlike ouraine, he does not look out or a collective subject capable o strengthening and stabilizing individual subjectivity. From this point o view, his sociology cannot possibly appear as a social theory o subjectivity. For a theory o this type sets out rom the interaction between collective and individual subjects and examines, with Cornelius Castoriadis, ‘the possibility o institutions which avour autonomy’.235 As long as the institutional-political and the actantial contexts (c. Chapter I, 1, b) are bracketed out, late modern sel-identity cannot be adequately explained. Tis argument also applies to Ulrich Beck’s analyses o a risk society which is presented as a world beyond tradition and industrialization. In this world, neither tradition nor class can orm a basis o subjectivity. Like Simmel, Riesman and Giddens, Beck views individualization as a market-based process: ‘Processes o individualization deprive class differences o their relevance or identity in the lie world.’236 Te liberation o individual subjects is at the same time their atomization and their dependence on the market as consumerism and ashion: ‘Te liberated individuals become dependent on the labor market and because o that, dependent on education, consumption, welare state regulations and support, traffic planning, consumer supplies, and on
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possibilities and ashions in medical, psychological and pedagogical counselling and care.’237 Here the ambivalence o reedom in late capitalist society, i.e. o the process o disembedding in the sense o Giddens, comes to the ore. It is inseparable rom the submission to the market, to advertising, ashion and ideology. Against this backdrop, an ego-centred ethic aiming, in Beck’s case as in the works o Giddens and Foucault, at a cultivation o the Sel , seems problematical: ‘Tis value system o individualization also contains elements o a new ethic based on the principle o “duties vis-à-vis onesel”.’238 However, this sel-enhancement is permanently being conronted with the void because the Sel is limited in time as long as it is not linked to a We or a historical project. As in Giddens’s theory, both actors are missing in Beck’s approach, and their absence accounts or the absence o a sociological theory o subjectivity in the sense o ouraine. Tis kind o theory goes well beyond the realm o individual subjectivity. Whatever lies beyond this realm – or example, the dynamics o social movements – is dealt with ar too summarily by Beck who hardly ever examines the nexus o individual and collective subjectivity. Tis is another reason why the last chapter will take up some arguments o ouraine’s sociologie de l’action, which is becoming increasingly important in economics, where Blaise Ollivier raises the question concerning the new economic actor (nouvel acteur économique).239 Tis question can assume a more general orm, or it is equally relevant or politics and society at large, where only new orms o individual and collective subjectivity can ensure a continuation o the democratic process.
Notes 1 C. R. zur Lippe, Autonomie als Selbstzerstörung. Zur bürgerlichen Subjektivität , Frankurt, Syndikat-EVA, 1984. 2 Ibid., S. 62. 3 E. Durkheim, Te Division o Labor in Society , New York-London, Te Free PressCollier-Macmillan, 1964, p. 194. 4 C. A. Giddens, Modernity and Sel-Identity. Society in the Late Modern Age, Cambridge, Polity, 1991, pp. 17–20. 5 G. Simmel, Philosophie des Geldes, Berlin, Duncker-Humblot, 1977 (6th ed.), p. 311. 6 G. Simmel, ‘Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben’, in: idem, Das Individuum und die Freiheit , Berlin, Wagenbach, 1984, pp. 193–4. 7 Ibid., p. 195. 8 G. Simmel, Über sociale Differenzierung. Sociologische und psychologische Untersuchungen, Leipzig, Duncker-Humblot, 1890, p. 59. 9 C. E. Durkheim, ‘Sociology and its Scientific Field’. in: E. Durkheim et al., Essays on Sociology and Philosophy (ed. K. H. Wol), New York, Harper and Row, 1964, pp. 365–8. 10 G. Simmel, ‘Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben’, op. cit., p. 203. 11 Ibid. 12 G. Simmel, ‘Die Arbeitsteilung als Ursache ür das Auseinandertreten der subjektiven und der objektiven Kultur (1900)’, in: idem, Schrien zur Soziologie. Eine Auswahl (ed. H.-J. Dahme, O. Rammstedt), Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1983, p. 118 and p. 123.
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13 A. Weber, Ideen zur Staats- und Kultursoziologie, Berlin, Juncker-Dünnhaupt, 1927, p. 45. 14 G. Simmel, Grundragen der Soziologie. Individuum und Gesellscha , Berlin-New York, De Gruyter, 1984 (4th ed.), p. 69. 15 M. Weber, ‘Die drei reinen ypen der legitimen Herrschaf’, in: idem, Soziologie. Universalgeschichtliche Analysen. Politik (ed. J. Winckelmann), Stuttgart, Kröner, 1973 (5th ed.), p. 153. 16 M. Weber, ‘Einleitung in die Wirtschafsethik der Weltreligionen’, in: idem, Soziologie, op. cit, p. 437. 17 W. Schluchter, Rationalismus und Weltbeherrschung. Studien zu Max Weber , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1980, p. 64. 18 M. Weber, Gesammelte politische Schrien, übingen, Mohr-Siebeck, 1921, p. 151. 19 G. Weipert, in: ‘Diskussion zum Tema: Industrialisierung und Kapitalismus’, in: Max Weber und die Soziologie heute. Verhandlungen des ünzehnten deutschen Soziologentages , übingen, Mohr-Siebeck, 1965, p. 183. 20 C. A. M. Koch, Romance and Reason. Ontological and Social Sources o Alienation in the Writings o Max Weber , Lanham-Boulder-Oxord, Lexington Books, 2006, pp. 33–40. 21 C. T. Hobbes, Leviathan, London, Penguin (1951), 1985, pp. 232–3 and p. 722. 22 C. Offe, in: ‘Max Weber und das Projekt der Moderne. Eine Diskussion mit Dieter Henrich, Claus Offe und Wolgang Schluchter’, in: Ch. Gneuss, J. Kocka (eds.), Max Weber. Ein Symposium, München, DV, 1988, p. 158. 23 A. Gehlen, Philosophische Anthropologie und Handlungslehre, Gesamtausgabe, vol. IV, Frankurt, Klostermann, 1983, p. 132. J. Weiß quite rightly points out in Weltverlust und Subjektivität. Zur Kritik der Institutionenlehre Arnold Gehlens, Freiburg, Rombach, 1971, p. 210: ‘ “Subjectivity” is or Gehlen primarily and undamentally a relapse into the chaos o drives and needs.’ 24 C. K. Marx, Capital. A Critique o Political Economy , vol. I, Te Process o Capitalist Production (ed. F. Engels), New York, International Publishers, 1967, pp. 628–9. 25 C. E. Mandel, Le roisième âge du capitalisme , Paris, Ed. de la Passion, 1997 and idem, Les Ondes longues du développement capitaliste, Paris, Page Deux, 1998 and H. Marcuse, One Dimensional Man. Te Ideology o Industrial Society , London, Sphere Books, 1968, p. 41. 26 P. A. Baran, P. M. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital. An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order , London, Penguin, 1966, pp. 42–3. 27 C. . Burns, G. M. Stalker, Te Management o Innovation , London, Pergamon Press, 1961, chap. I. 28 C. P. Bernoux, La Sociologie des organisations, Paris, Seuil (1985), 2009 (new ed.), chap. VIII: ‘Les nouvelles sociologies des organisations’. 29 C. V. de Gaulejac, La Société malade de la gestion. Idéologie gestionnaire, pouvoir managérial et harcèlement social , Paris, Seuil (2005), 2009, chap. VIII: ‘La Gestion de soi’. 30 M. Crozier, Le Phénomène bureaucratique, Paris, Seuil, 1963, p. 352. 31 C. W. H. Whyte, Te Organization Man, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1956. 32 M. Crozier, Le Phénomène bureaucratique, op. cit., p. 353. 33 G. Simmel, ‘Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben’, op. cit., p. 194. 34 G. A. Di Marco, Marx – Nietzsche – Weber. Gli ideali ascetici tra critica, genealogia, comprensione , Naples, Guida, 1984, p. 119. 35 Te weakening o solidarity by social differentiation and the division o labour is discussed in: J. Neyer, ‘Individualism and Socialism in Durkheim’ and P. Bohannan,
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‘Conscience Collective and Culture’, both in: E. Durkheim et al., Essays on Sociology and Philosophy , op. cit., pp. 47–8 and p. 89. A. Mitscherlich, Society without the Father. A Contribution to Social Psychology , London-Sydney-oronto, avistock, 1969, p. 147. C. R. Sennett, Te Corrosion o Character: Te Personal Consequences o Work in the New Capitalism, New York, Norton, 1998, pp. 46–63. A. Mitscherlich, Society without the Father , op. cit., p. 149. A. Moravia, Te Conormist , London, Prion Books, 1999, p. 24. (Il Conormista, Milan, Bompiani, 1951, Mondadori, 1976, p. 22.) Ibid. C. K. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia. An Introduction to the Sociology o Knowledge , London-Henley, Routledge and Kegan Paul (1936), 1976, chap. V. C. R. Michels, Political Parties. A Sociological Study o the Oligarchical endencies in Modern Democracy , New York, Dover Publications, 1959, p. 377: ‘Democracy and the Iron Law o Oligarchy’. H. Fleischer, ‘Marxismus: Sieg der Ideologie über die Ideologiekritik’, in: H. Fleischer (ed.), Der Marxismus in seinem Zeitalter , Leipzig-Stuttgart, Reclam, 1994, p. 223. C. J. Baudrillard, Ecran total , Paris, Galilée, 1997. C. J. Baudrillard, Le Paroxyste indifférent. Entretiens avec Philippe Petit , Paris, GrassetFasquelle, 1997, pp. 70–1: ‘No, I was never a sociologist in this particular sense.’ Dialogical Teory in the sense o chap. V. 2 ocuses on this kind o overlapping o heterogeneous discourses. P. Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power , Cambridge, Polity, 1992, p. 55. P. Bourdieu, On elevision, New York, Te New Press, 1998, p. 25. Ibid., p. 25–6. Ibid., p. 27. Ibid., p. 28. Ibid., p. 7. Ibid., p. 8. Ibid. P. Bourdieu, Acts o Resistance. Against the New Myths o Our ime, CambridgeOxord, Polity-Blackwell (2000), 2004, p. 74. C. J. Jurt, Frankreichs engagierte Intellektuelle. Von Zola bis Bourdieu , Göttingen, Wallstein, 2012 (2nd ed.), chap. X. C. P. Bourdieu, Acts o Resistance, op. cit., p. 8. Ibid., p. 65. C. ibid., p. 63. He quite rightly proposes the ‘creation o a European state capable o controlling the European Bank (. . .).’ C. A. ouraine, La Fin des sociétés, Paris, Seuil, 2013, ‘L’Utopie européenne’. G. Anders, Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen, vol. I. Über die Seele im Zeitalter der zweiten industriellen Revolution, Munich, Beck, 1983 (6th ed.), p. 102. Ibid., p. 103. Ibid., p. 105. C. ibid., p. 106. Ibid., p. 107. C. P. V. Zima, ‘Wie man gedacht wird. Soziale Aphasie als Entmündigung des Subjekts’, in: J. Wertheimer, P. V. Zima (eds.), Strategien der Verdummung , Munich, Beck (2001), 2006 (6th ed.). G. Anders, Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen, op. cit., p. 111.
242 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86
87 88 89 90 91
92 93 94 95 96
97 98 99
Subjectivity and Identity Ibid., p. 125. Ibid., p. 128. C. J. Baudrillard, Ecran total , op. cit., chap. I-II. J. Baudrillard, Pour une critique de l’économie politique du signe, Paris, Gallimard, 1972, p. 97. J. Baudrillard, La ransparence du Mal. Essai sur les phénomènes extrêmes , Paris, Galilée, 1990, p. 13. Ibid. J. Baudrillard, Le Miroir de la production – ou l’illusion critique du matérialisme historique, Paris, Galilée, 1975, p. 92. J. Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death, London-New Delhi-Singapore, Sage, 1993, chap. V: ‘Political Economy and Death’. J. Baudrillard, L’Illusion de la fin – ou La grève des événements , Paris, Galilée, 1992, p. 136. C. J. Baudrillard, La ransparence du mal , op. cit., pp. 22–42. J. Baudrillard, Le Paroxyste indifférent , op. cit., p. 13. J. Baudrillard, Le Crime parait , Paris, Galilée, 1995, p. 34. Ibid., p. 147. Quoted in German in: J. Baudrillard, Simulacres et simulation, Paris, Galilée, 1981, p. 231. J. Baudrillard, L’Echange impossible, op. cit., p. 15. Ibid., p. 72. Ibid., p. 66. G. Anders, Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen, op. cit., p. 126. Both in Le Crime parait (op. cit.) and in L’Echange impossible (op. cit.), Baudrillard asserts that social criticism is an illusion. In Le Crime parait he speaks o ‘l’illusion de la critique elle-même’ (p. 48) and in L’Echange impossible he denounces critical thought as ‘deceptive’ (‘trompeuse’). J. Baudrillard, Simulacres et simulation, op. cit., p. 54. J. Baudrillard, Les Stratégies atales, Paris, Grasset-Fasquelle, 1983, pp. 122–3. J. Baudrillard, L’Illusion de la fin, op. cit., p. 85. Ibid. Baudrillard uses the adjective ‘postmodern’ on several occasions, or example in Simulacres et simulation, op. cit., p. 229. His position within the postmodern problematic is discussed in some detail in: P. V. Zima, Modern / Postmodern. Society, Philosophy, Literature, London-New York, Continuum (2010), 2012, pp. 54–64. J. Baudrillard, Simulacres et simulation, op. cit., p. 111. Ibid. Ibid. J. Baudrillard, L’Illusion de la fin, op. cit., p. 112. Posthistoire (Gehlen, Baudrillard) and postmodernity do not exclude each other, as Wolgang Welsch seems to believe, or posthistoire can be deduced rom Lyotard’s scepticism vis-à- vis the metanarratives. (C. W. Welsch, Unsere postmoderne Moderne, Weinheim, VCH, 1991 [3rd ed.], p. 152.) K. Kraemer, ‘Schwerelosigkeit der Zeichen? Die Paradoxie des selbstreerentiellen Zeichens bei Baudrillard’, in: R. Bohn, D. Fuder (eds.), Baudrillard. Simulation und Verührung , Munich, Fink, 1994, p. 68. C. J. Baudrillard, La Gauche divine, Paris, Grasset, 1985, pp. 85–104. C. J. Baudrillard, L’Effet Beaubourg , Paris, Galilée, 1977.
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100 J. Baudrillard, ‘Facticité et séduction’, in: J. Baudrillard, M. Guillaume, Figures de l’altérité , Paris, Ed. Descartes, 1992, p. 109. 101 N. Luhmann, Die Wissenscha der Gesellscha , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1990, pp. 690–1. 102 N. Luhmann, Teory o Society , vol. II, Stanord, Univ. Press, 2013, p. 172. 103 Te most important orms o institutionalization are discussed in a sociological context by: A. C. Zijderveld, Institutionalisering: een studie over het methodologisch dilemma der sociale wetenschappen, Meppel, Boom, 1974. More recently, Virginie ournay analysed the dialectic between institution and individual action: V. ournay, Sociologie des institutions, Paris, PUF, 2011, pp. 113–16 and Penser le changement institutionnel , Paris, PUF, 2014, chap. III. 104 H. Gripp-Hagelstange, Niklas Luhmann. Eine Einührung , Munich, Fink, 1997 (2nd ed.), p. 121. 105 C. B. Karsenti, Marcel Mauss. Le ait social total , Paris, PUF, 1994, especially chap. III: ‘De l’individuel au collecti’ and . Parsons, Te Social System, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951, pp. 51–7. 106 A. Nassehi, Der soziologische Diskurs der Moderne, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 2006, p. 300. 107 C. or example, A. Robbe-Grillet, Instantanés, Paris, Minuit, 1962, pp. 78–9. 108 C. C. Sigrist, ‘Das gesellschafliche Milieu der Luhmannschen Teorie’, in: Das Argument 6, November-December, 1989, p. 839. 109 N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanord, Univ. Press, 1995, p. 77. 110 Ibid., p. 76. (Soziale Systeme. Grundriß einer allgemeinen Teorie , Frankurt, Suhrkamp [1984)], 1987, p. 115.) 111 V. N. Voloshinov, Marxism and the Philosophy o Language, New York, Seminar Press, 1973, p. 70. 112 N. Luhmann, ‘Wie lassen sich latente Strukturen beobachten?’, in: P. Watzlawick, P. Krieg (eds.), Das Auge des Betrachters. Beiträge zum Konstruktivismus, Munich, Piper, 1991, p. 66. C. also N. Luhmann, ‘Die Richtigkeit soziologischer Teorie’, in: Merkur 1, January 1987, p. 37: ‘Te other subjects no longer observe the same reality as we do. One thereore observes with predilection what the others cannot observe.’ – In this case, one can observe a contradiction: Luhmann who, in Soziale Systeme (p. 111), dismisses the concept o subject uses it three years later. 113 C. E. Durkheim, Te Rules o Sociological Method , New York, Te Free Press, 1982, chap. V. 114 N. Luhmann, Teory o Society , vol. II, op. cit., p. 179. 115 C. A. W. Gouldner’s critique o unctionalism as a thought geared towards domination: Te Coming Crisis o Western Sociology , London, Heinemann, 1971. 116 N. Luhmann, Gesellschasstruktur und Semantik, vol. I, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1980, p. 245. 117 R. Greshoff, Die theoretischen Konzeptionen des Sozialen von Max Weber und Niklas Luhmann im Vergleich, Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1999, p. 117. 118 L. Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, New York, Monthly Review Press, 1971, pp. 170–1. 119 Ibid., p. 171. 120 N. Luhmann, Teory o Society , vol. II, op. cit, p. 271. 121 Ibid., p. 271–2. 122 Ibid., p. 275. 123 Ibid., p. 274 124 Ibid., p. 344. 125 C. ibid., pp. 272–3.
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126 N. Luhmann, Social Systems, op. cit., p. 40. 127 C. N. Luhmann, Social Systems, op. cit., p. 210: ‘We choose the term “human being” to indicate that this concerns both the psychic and the organic systems o human beings.’ 128 C. Cl. Dubar, La Socialisation. Construction des identités sociales et proessionnelles , Paris, Armand Colin, 2010 (4th ed.), chap. V: ‘Pour une théorie sociologique de l’identité’. 129 M. Foucault, Te Archaeology o Knowledge, London-New York, Routledge (1989), 2002, p. 156. 130 M. Foucault, Te Order o Tings. An Archaeology o the Human Sciences, LondonNew York, Routledge (1989), 2002, p. 340. 131 C. N. Luhmann, Die Wissenscha der Gesellscha , op. cit., pp. 690–1. 132 C. A. J. Greimas, J. Courtés, Sémiotique. Dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage, Paris, Hachette, 1979, pp. 370–1. 133 N. Luhmann, Social Systems, op. cit., pp. 68–9. 134 R. Greshoff, ‘Lassen sich die Konzepte von Max Weber und Niklas Luhmann unter dem Aspekt “Struktur und Ereignis” miteinander vermitteln?’, in: R. Greshoff, G. Kneer (eds.), Struktur und Ereignis in theorievergleichender Perspektive. Ein diskursives Buchprojekt , Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1999, p. 43. 135 H. Gripp-Hagelstange, Niklas Luhmann, op. cit., p. 44. 136 L. Goldmann, owards a Sociology o the Novel , London, avistock, 1977. 137 M. Füllsack, ‘Geltungsansprüche und Beobachtungen zweiter Ordnung. Wie nahe kommen sich Diskurs- und Systemtheorie?’, in: Soziale Systeme 1, 1998, p. 189. 138 C. Sigrist, ‘Das gesellschafliche Milieu der Luhmannschen Teorie’, op. cit., p. 847. Complementary arguments are put orward by Hans-Joachim Giegel in his book System und Krise. Kritik der Luhmannschen Gesellschastheorie (Teorie-Diskussion Supplement 3. Teorie der Gesellscha oder Sozialtechnologie), Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1975, p. 138. He points out ‘that it is the orm o this science which makes the subjects submit to the existing social conditions’. 139 C. Sigrist, ‘Das gesellschafliche Milieu der Luhmannschen Teorie’, op. cit., p. 847. Complementary arguments are to be ound in: E. Bolay, B. rieb, Verkehrte Subjektivität. Kritik der individuellen Ich-Identität , Frankurt-New York, Campus, 1988, pp. 81–2. 140 N. Luhmann, Die Wirtscha der Gesellscha , Frankurt, Suhrkamp (1988), 1994, p. 50. 141 W. Rasch, Niklas Luhmann’s Modernity. Te Paradoxes o Differentiation, Stanord, Univ. Press, 2000, p. 207. 142 N. Luhmann, Die Wirtscha der Gesellscha , op. cit., p. 67. 143 N. Luhmann, Die Wissenscha der Gesellscha , op. cit., p. 622. 144 Ibid., p. 639. 145 C. A. J. Greimas, Sémiotique et sciences sociales , Paris, Seuil, 1976, chap. I: ‘Du discours scientifique en sciences sociales’ and E. Landowski, La Société réfléchie, Paris, Seuil, 1989, especially chap. X: ‘Simulacres et construction’. 146 C. J. Baudrillard, La ransparence du Mal , op. cit., pp. 22–42 and S. Lash, Sociology o Postmodernism, London-New York, Routledge, 1990, especially ‘Part wo: Postmodernist Culture’, where the de-differentiation o cultural production and reception is dealt with. 147 C. P. V. Zima, Der europäische Künstlerroman. Von der romantischen Utopie zur postmodernen Parodie, übingen, Francke, 2008, chap. VIII: ‘Ende der Literatur und der Kunst?’
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148 J. Baudrillard, La ransparence du Mal , op. cit., p. 24. 149 N. Luhmann, Teory o Society , vol. II, op. cit., p. 346. 150 N. Luhmann, Die Kunst der Gesellscha , Frankurt, Suhrkamp (1995), 1998 (2nd ed.), p. 267. 151 Ibid., p. 262. 152 E. Köhler, ‘Gattungssystem und Gesellschafssystem’, in: Romanistische Zeitschri ür Literaturgeschichte 1, 1977, p. 14. 153 N. Luhmann, Teory o Society , vol. II, op. cit., pp. 226–7. 154 N. Luhmann, Social Systems, op. cit., p. 106. 155 H. Broch, Te Sleepwalkers , London-Melbourne-New York, Quartet Books, 1986, p. 472. 156 J.-F. Lyotard, Te Postmodern Condition. A Report on Knowledge, Manchester, Univ. Press, 2004, p. XIV. 157 N. Luhmann, Gesellschasstruktur und Semantik, vol. IV, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1995, p. 174. 158 J. Baudrillard, L’Echange impossible, op. cit., p. 12. 159 N. Luhmann, Teory o Society , vol. II, p. 346. 160 G. Kneer, A. Nassehi, Niklas Luhmanns Teorie sozialer Systeme , Munich, Fink, 1997 (3rd ed.), p. 153. 161 C. G. Lohmann, Indifferenz und Gesellscha. Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit Marx , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1991: Te author examines the relationship between indifference and the economy in Marx’s work. 162 C. N. Luhmann, Die Wirtscha der Gesellscha , op. cit., p. 68: ‘Another step towards clarification is possible i one ollows alcott Parsons and considers money as a symbolically generalized medium which, in this respect similar to language, regulates operations by virtue o a particular code.’ 163 In Luhmann’s Social Systems, op. cit., p. 395, the word ‘violence’ only occurs once: as ‘physical violence’. Tere are more interesting orms o violence. C. H. yrell, ‘Physische Gewalt, gewaltsamer Konflikt und der “Staat” – Überlegungen zu neuerer Literatur’, in: Berliner Journal ür Soziologie 9, 1999, pp. 285–6. 164 In his study Die theoretischen Konzeptionen des Sozialen, op. cit., p. 313, R. Greshoff draws the conclusion that Luhmann’s attempt to separate organic, psychic and social systems ails because ‘the social systems cannot be detached rom the psychic systems (. . .).’ 165 P. Ansart, Les Sociologies contemporaines , Paris, Seuil, 1990, p. 56. 166 C. N. Luhmann, Beobachtungen der Moderne, op. cit., p. 183. 167 A. ouraine, Le Retour de l’acteur. Essai de sociologie , Paris, Fayard, 1984, p. 84. 168 Ibid., p. 85. 169 Ibid., p. 78. 170 M. R. Vogel, Gesellschaliche Subjektivitätsormen. Historische Voraussetzungen und theoretische Konzepte, Frankurt-New York, Campus, 1983, p. 14. 171 A. ouraine, Pourrons-nous vivre ensemble? Egaux et différents, Paris, Fayard, 1997, p. 123. 172 C. A. ouraine, Critique de la modernité , Paris, Fayard, 1992, p. 115. 173 C. A. ouraine, Pourrons-nous vivre ensemble? , op. cit., p. 118 and p. 134. 174 Ibid., p. 146. 175 C. A. Etzioni, Te Spirit o Community. Rights, Responsibilities and the Communitarian Agenda, London, Fontana, 1995, especially the appendix which takes on the orm o a maniesto.
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176 A. ouraine, Pourrons-nous vivre ensemble? , op. cit., p. 134. 177 Te act that E. Durkheim and M. Weber ignored each other is commented on by E. A. iryakian, ‘Ein Problem ür die Wissenssoziologie: Die gegenseitige Nichtbeachtung von Emile Durkheim und Max Weber’, in: W. Lepenies (ed.), Geschichte der Soziologie. Studien zur kognitiven, sozialen und historischen Identität einer Disziplin, vol. IV, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1981, pp. 23–4. 178 A. ouraine, Critique de la modernité , op. cit., p. 290. 179 A. ouraine, Production de la société , Paris, Seuil, 1973, p. 188. 180 A. ouraine, ‘La Formation du sujet’, in: F. Dubet, M. Wieviorka (eds.), Penser le sujet. Autour d’Alain ouraine (Colloque de Cerisy), Paris, Fayard, 1995, p. 44. 181 A. ouraine, Pour la sociologie, Paris, Seuil, 1974, p. 33. 182 A. ouraine, Production de la société , op. cit., p. 404. 183 Ibid., p. 347. 184 A. ouraine, Critique de la modernité , op. cit., p. 282. Tis transition rom the social class to the social movement is announced in the 1980s in Le Retour de l’acteur , p. 114. 185 C. T. L. M. Turlings, ‘De Physiocraten’, in: idem, urgot en zijn tijdgenoten. Schets van de bevestiging van de economische wetenschap, Wageningen, Veenman en Zonen, 1978, p. 132. 186 A. ouraine, Production de la société , op. cit., p. 422. 187 A. ouraine, Critique de la modernité , op. cit., p. 100. 188 Ibid., p. 424. 189 A. ouraine, Le Retour de l’acteur , op. cit., p. 67. 190 Ibid., p. 78. 191 C. D. Bell, Te Coming o Postindustrial Society (1976), Harmondsworth, Penguin, 2000. 192 A. ouraine, Production de la société , op. cit., p. 187. 193 C. A. ouraine, Un nouveau paradigme. Pour comprendre le monde aujourd’hui, Paris, Fayard, 2005, p. 250: ‘Tis extreme class consciousness no longer corresponds to our ideas (. . .).’ 194 A. ouraine, Production de la société , op. cit., p. 189. 195 A. ouraine, Le Retour de l’acteur , op. cit., p. 113. 196 A. ouraine, Pourrons-nous vivre ensemble? , op. cit., p. 176. 197 U. Beck, Gegengie. Die organisierte Unverantwortlichkeit , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1988, p. 99. 198 A. ouraine, Pour la sociologie, op. cit., p. 198. 199 In the 1960s, the ‘Constantinian turn’ o Christianity and Marxism was at the centre o the debates between Christians and Marxists: C. R. Garaudy, J. B. Metz, R. Rahner, Der Dialog – oder ändert sich das Verhältnis zwischen Katholizismus und Marxismus?, Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1966, p. 96. 200 A. ouraine, Production de la société , op. cit., p. 430. 201 Ibid., p. 415. 202 A. ouraine, Le Retour de l’acteur , op. cit., p. 97. 203 A. ouraine, Pourrons-nous vivre ensemble? , op. cit., p. 97. 204 Ibid., p. 180. 205 Ibid., p. 185. 206 C. A. ouraine, Critique de la modernité , op. cit., pp. 390–1, where ouraine blames Habermas or reducing society to a search or consensus, thereby subordinating the subject to intersubjectivity: ‘Te subject, not intersubjectivity, sel-production, not communication are the basis o civil lie and give democracy a positive content.’
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207 A. ouraine, Comment sortir du libéralisme? , Paris, Fayard, 1999, pp. 75–103. 208 A. ouraine, Pourrons-nous vivre ensemble? , op. cit., p. 196. 209 Ibid., pp. 198–204. 210 Ibid., p. 102. 211 Ibid., p. 111. 212 A. ouraine, Critique de la modernité , op. cit., p. 273. 213 Ibid., p. 331. 214 A. ouraine, Le Retour de l’acteur , op. cit., p. 135. 215 C. A. ouraine, La Fin des sociétés, Paris, Seuil, 2013, pp. 494–5. 216 A. ouraine, ‘La Formation du sujet’, op. cit., p. 32. 217 N. Elias, ‘Problems o Involvement and Detachment’, in: British Journal o Sociology 1,1956, p. 252. 218 A. ouraine, Comment sortir du libéralisme? , op. cit., p. 15. 219 A. ouraine, Critique de la modernité , op. cit., p. 201. For counter-arguments c. P. V. Zima, L’Ecole de Francort. Dialectique de la particularité , Paris (1974), L’Harmattan, 2005 (augmented ed.). 220 A. ouraine, Critique de la modernité , op. cit., p. 201. 221 C. ibid., p. 124. 222 Ibid., p. 125. 223 Ibid., p. 292. 224 Ibid., p. 331. 225 Ibid., pp. 419–20 and A. ouraine, Comment sortir du libéralisme? , op. cit., pp. 147–54: ‘Le rôle des intellectuels’. 226 J. Le Goff, ‘Alain ouraine et l’histoire. D’après Un désir d’histoire’, in: F. Dubet, M. Wieviorka (eds.), Penser le sujet , op. cit., p. 97. C. A. ouraine, Un désir d’histoire, Paris, Stock, 1977. 227 C. A. Giddens, Capitalism and Modern Social Teory. An Analysis o the Writings o Marx, Durkheim and Max Weber , Cambridge, Univ. Press, 1971, pp. 243–7. 228 D. Held, ‘Citizenship and Autonomy’, in: D. Held, J. B. Tompson (eds.), Social Teory o Modern Societies. Anthony Giddens and his Critics, Cambridge, Univ. Press, 1989, p. 183. 229 A. Giddens, Te Consequences o Modernity , Cambridge, Polity Press, 1990, p. 158. 230 Ibid., p. 159. 231 C. H. Keupp et al., Identitätskonstruktionen. Das Patchwork der Identitäten in der Spätmoderne, Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1999, p. 65. 232 A. Giddens, Modernity and Sel-Identity. Sel and Society in the Late Modern Age, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1991, p. 52. 233 Ibid., p. 218. 234 Ibid. 235 C. Castoriadis, L’Institution imaginaire de la societé , Paris, 1975, p. 159. 236 U. Beck, ‘Jenseits von Stand und Klasse?’, in: U. Beck, E. Beck-Gernsheim (eds.), Riskante Freiheiten, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1994, p. 57. 237 U. Beck, Risk Society. owards a New Modernity , London-New Delhi-Singapore, Sage, 1992, pp. 130–1. 238 U. Beck, ‘Jenseits von Stand und Klasse?’, in: U. Beck, E. Beck-Gernsheim (eds.), Riskante Freiheiten, op. cit., p. 56. 239 C. B. Ollivier, L’Acteur et le sujet. Vers un nouvel ordre économique, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1995.
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V
Teory o the Subject: owards a Dialogical Subjectivity In view o the multiarious modern projects and postmodern critiques o individual subjectivity, the question dealt with in this chapter can hardly be avoided: Is individual subjectivity still a meaningul concept in spite o the diffi culties encountered by postmodern subjects in their search or identity? Te complementary question is whether it is possible in the present situation to deend the notion o a subject ‘who is aware and in control o himsel, a figure o the person who does not capitulate’ 1 and at the same time avoid an identity jargon, which – or example, in the case o Anthony Giddens – can only be understood as an ideological reaction to the subject’s social crises and to some radical postmodern criticisms.2 One could answer the second question by arguing that only a theory o radical ambivalence can avoid the ideological abuse o concepts such as subjectivity and identity: a theory which continues pleading or individual and collective subjectivity and at the same time reflects ironically and sel-ironically upon the sociological critiques and postmodern deconstructions o the subject. Te answer to the first question, which touches upon some o the key problems o subjectivity, is outlined in this chapter as a pars pro toto o the book as a whole. Its end is not only a return to the first chapter, but a recapitulation o the problematic o post-war Critical Teory3 whose representatives consider negativity and nonidentity as the only guarantees against the manipulation o the individual subject by markets, ideologies and the culture industry. However, rom the point o view o contemporary dialectics, negativity no longer appears as the only solution. In the third chapter (III, 1), it became clear that negation in its pure orm leads to silence and the abdication o the subject because, as Sartre explains in conjunction with Mallarmé’s poetry, all alternatives to the radical negation o the existing order are tabooed. Fortunately, negativity in the sense o Adorno and Horkheimer is not mere negation because it contains a second idea which will be developed here in the first section: the idea that genuine subjectivity is only possible as long as the subject rerains rom dominating and debasing the Other and alterity in general. Tis kind o negativity does not stop at global negation, but leads to an open dialogue with the Other : the other language, the other culture or the other theory. In spite o this openness, dialogue does not exclude, as Bakhtin already pointed out, a critical and polemical attitude towards the Other. Although a Hegelian incorporation or absorption o otherness 249
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is avoided, the latter is viewed in a critical perspective – critical in the sense o Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s Critical Teory.4 Tis critical attitude towards the Other is accompanied by an ironical and critical view o one’s own subjectivity. On a theoretical level, this means that it ought to be possible to revise one’s own stance and theory whenever they turn out to be deficient in an open dialogue. Tis is at the same time the critical-rationalist (Popperian) component o this kind o dialogue: a component appropriated by the author in the course o his debates with Critical Rationalism. Te sel-critical stance prevailing in an open theoretical dialogue yields an ironical and sceptical attitude towards one’s own political engagement. Tis engagement in avour o European political integration will be commented on in the last section where it will be accompanied by a theoretical and sel-critical distance in the sense o Norbert Elias:5 by the idea that any kind o political parti pris may blind a theoretician whose discourse is not primarily geared towards knowledge but towards political involvement. However, this idea should not be separated rom the insight that critical theories o society – in the sense o Critical Rationalism, Marxism, eminism and Critical Teory – would not be possible without political engagement.6 Even Adorno’s plea or negativity is inseparable rom his social engagement in avour o individual subjectivity, autonomy and emancipation. Tis negativity is preserved here in the nonidentity o subject and object and in the openness o the dialogue. Tis dialogue as interaction between heterogeneous subjects and their languages (sociolects, discourses) and as critical testing o theories has nothing to do with Jürgen Habermas’s ideal speech situation. It will become clear that Habermas’s theory o communication suppresses in a universalistic way all particular interests and evaluations (c. Chapter I, 2 and V, 2), whereas Dialogical Teory – conceived as a continuation o Adorno’s Negative Dialectics – seeks to relate the particular to the universal without sacrificing particular interests. As a global critique o one-sided postmodern particularizations and pluralisms, Dialogical Teory will not be content to criticize the tendency towards particularization in Lyotard’s and Derrida’s deconstructions o subjectivity in order to make its plea in avour o the individual subject sound more plausible. Tere are enough such pleas. Tus Calvin O. Schrag queries Lyotard’s extreme particularization o ‘language games’ by plausibly pointing out that between such ‘language games’ links do exist that can be exploited by an individual subject aspiring towards coherence. 7 Finally, he envisages a new kind o subjectivity: ‘our refigured portrait o the sel afer postmodernity’.8 Apart rom the act that this criticism o Lyotard’s postmodern theory is not new, 9 Schrag’s approach is hardly convincing because it remains within philosophy and ignores the hurdles conronting postmodern individual subjects in society and the economy, in politics, language and the media. Tis is why this book is based on an interdisciplinary approach towards subjectivity – in spite o all the diffi culties such an approach may involve. I the scopes and limits o contemporary subjectivity are to be gauged, it is not sufficient to show that Lyotard’s and Derrida’s views o language and communication are too particularistic; at the same time it is necessary to define the position o the individual subject in relation to collective subjects and the historical
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process. Tis will be done in what ollows, especially in conjunction with the ourth chapter.
1 Subjectivity as dialogue Te individual subject, which was defined in the first chapter as a dialectic between individuality and identity (in analogy to Ricœur’s ipséité and mêmeté ), will now be considered as a dialogical instance marked by ambivalence and negation, dialogism and alterity, reflexivity, narrativity and identity construction. All o these traits are ambivalent in the sense that the subject may thrive on a permanent dialogue with the Other and at the same time be challenged and even undermined by alterity, as is shown by authors such as R. D. Laing, Ulrich Beck and Heiner Keupp, all o whom analyse situations o disorientation and disintegration. Tis is why a dialogical theory o subjectivity is a late modern or modernist construct based on ambivalence as unity o opposites without synthesis . Modernist novels such as Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu, Musil’s Der Mann ohne Eigenschaen and Pirandello’s Uno, nessuno e centomila show that the subject’s scope o action is considerable as long as it is able to take advantage o ambivalence, alterity, reflexivity, narrativity, the unconscious and chance. As instruments o criticism, ambivalence and irony can strengthen subjectivity. But at the same time, the three novels remind us o the risks to which the subject as acting and narrating instance is exposed: indecision, hesitation, a speechless narrator and a disintegrating plot.10 Even Bakhtin, whose theory o the open dialogue, o ambivalence and alterity is crucial to the argument o this chapter, was well aware o the possibility that the subject o the modernist novel might disintegrate: ‘What Bakhtin blames Dostoyevsky or, is the latter’s doubt concerning the encompassing exotopy, the stability, the reassuring effect o the author’s consciousness which enabled the reader to see the truth.’ 11 In other words, the theoretician o polyphony and dialogue distances himsel rom his avourite author whose polyphony seems to exceed the limits o subjectivity. At this stage, the dilemma o individual subjectivity maniests itsel: How is it possible to avoid submitting to ideology and nevertheless remain coherent within the ambivalence o values and an open dialogue? Te first (preliminary) answer might be: it is only possible i one remains aware o the act that even collective subjectivities (states, governments, parties) are always balancing acts between sel- assertion and disintegration. Only an actor capable o radically changing, re-thinking and renarrating the entire lie project or political project can ully take advantage o ambivalence, dialogue, alterity and reflexivity by turning them into instruments o identity construction. A radical change o this sort need not lead to sel-abnegation or incoherence. But identity construction cannot mean ‘coherence at all costs’. Tis would entail a relapse into ideology. Tis is one o the reasons why the idea o an ambivalent, dialogical and reflexive subject is incompatible with the immutable transcendental subject o idealist philosophy. Descartes’ cogito was as much an aspiration towards autarky as Kant’s ‘ I think’ (‘ich denke’) and Fichte’s ‘I ’ (‘Ich’) in that it eliminated all traces o alterity. By
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contrast, dialogical subjectivity aims at otherness. In spite o all imponderables and contradictions inherent in dialogue, it thrives on alterity, even on that o its adversaries. (a) Ambivalence and negation
Te subject o the modernist novel (narrator, hero) is not the only instance in late modernity to be marked by ambivalence. Te position o the individual subject within the postmodern problematic, a problematic structured by the indifference or interchangeability o values, is equally ambivalent. Alain ouraine defines this position in his own particular way by imagining postindustrial individuals as moving between the value-indifferent market and the value-based human community. In his more recent works, he sees them as oscillating ‘between instrumental action and cultural identity’ 12 and hopes that the individual and collective actors o late modernity will be able to escape both disintegration in the realm o quantitative instrumentalization and ideological submission to a questionable community (e.g. a sect or an ethnic group). ouraine hopes that the individual subject will be able to play the Scylla o collectivism against the Charybdis o the market and vice versa. 13 Personal identity in the sense o ouraine comes about (as was shown at the end o the last chapter) in an interplay o individual subjectivity and the collective subjectivity o movements. But even movements can orce individuals into submission, and ouraine would have to advise, or example, eminists, who reuse to sacrifice their identity to the collectivism o a movement, to rely on the individualizing mechanisms o the market.14 As was pointed out previously (Chapter IV, 4), ouraine’s idea o an ambivalent subjectivity oscillating between the community and the market corresponds to the construction o postmodernity proposed here. Within the postmodern problematic,15 which cannot be understood as a homogeneous system o values, the individual subject stands between the dualistic dogma o ideology and the value-indifference o the market. Te word ‘corresponds’ suggests that the two constructions are comparable, not identical. For ‘ideology’ as defined here encompasses all dualistically structured discourses rom ‘communitarianism’ and nationalism to ecologism and eminism, and the indifference o the market does not only reer to its quantitative and instrumental aspects, but also – and above all – to its negation o all qualitative (political, ethical, aesthetic) values. Hence ouraine’s conception o subjectivity between community and the market can be incorporated into the more general model o an individual subjectivity oscillating between ideology and market-based indifference. Based on ambivalence as coincidentia oppositorum without (Hegelian) synthesis, this model is closely related to the negative dialectics o the post-Hegelians (rom Vischer to Adorno)16 and to the literatures o modernism which discover, along with psychoanalysis, the ambivalence o individual subjects. It is a modernist model that is proposed here as an alternative to the particularizing and pluralizing models o postmodernism. On the one hand, Adorno’s negative dialectics appears as a Young Hegelian 17 rejection o Hegel’s synthesizing system: ‘Such dialectics is negative. Its idea names the difference rom Hegel. In Hegel there was coincidence o identity and positivity.’18 On
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the other hand, it can best be understood as a thought aiming at the coincidence o opposites and an ambivalence open to experience . In this context, Adorno’s critique o a rationalist ‘intolerance o ambiguity’ becomes more plausible: ‘Tis psychological posture is that o an “intolerance to ambiguity ”, an impatience with what is ambivalent and not strictly definable: ultimately, it is the reusal o what is open, o what has not been predetermined by any jurisdiction, ultimately o experience itsel.’19 Here the transition rom negative dialectics as an open discourse to Bakhtin’s open dialogue is clearly discernible. Te two types o discourse are linked by their common aim to make the experience o particularity and alterity possible . Tis aim is exemplified in Robert Musil’s anti-drama Die Schwärmer where the unmasking o the Other turns into sel-criticism and sel-irony: ‘One finds a riend and it is a traitor! One unmasks a traitor and it is a riend!’ 20 Te drama deconstructs ideological dualism which systematically identifies the traitor with the Other and thus suppresses the ambivalent unity o ‘riend’ and ‘traitor’. However, the dialogue with the Other and alterity in general is only possible beyond ideological dualism. Tis insight is relevant to the ambivalent position o the individual subject in postmodernity. On the one hand, it accepts the necessity o political and ideological engagement, St Augustine’s credo ut intelligam, without which theory and literature would turn into pastime activities; on the other hand, it is aware o the interchangeability o ideological values in indifference, thus enabling itsel to view ideological engagement in a critical and ironical perspective. With Adorno and Hermann Broch, it associates ambivalence with the paradox and is thus able to consider the theory o relativity as an ‘inevitable blessing’. In Broch’s novel Die Schuldlosen, the authoritarian ideologist Zacharias reacts aggressively to ambivalence and paradox: ‘ “Or do you think it makes sense to call the theory o relativity an inevitable evil?” “An inevitable blessing.” “Please, put an end to this waffle. What does that mean?”.’21 It means that a social phenomenon such as social differentiation can also be seen paradoxically as an ‘inevitable blessing’ in the sense that it entails both liberties and limitations: very much like the market, ideological engagement and the theory o relativity. Contemporary sociologists such as Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim also conceive o social evolution as an ambivalent and paradoxical process in which individuals are orced to be ree: ‘Individualization is a constraint, but a paradoxical constraint obliging us to construct, to orm ourselves, to present and promote ourselves.’22 Tis process o sel-construction is structured by ambivalence, and Ian Craib quite rightly praises Freudian psychoanalysis or its research into individual ambivalence.23 Te recognition o ambivalence not only makes experience o the Other possible, as Musil and Adorno knew, but also experience o onesel: or example, in conjunction with androgyny, a phenomenon analysed in Virginia Wool’s modernist novel Orlando (1928) and in contemporary psychological discussions. Commenting on the approach o Elisabeth Badinter, Sophie Karmasin points out: ‘Human beings, who used to be typified as male or emale, have become androgynous beings capable o acting, arguing and thinking in a sexually neutral way.’ 24 Te idea is not sexual ‘neutrality’, but the ability o man and woman to bring about the unity o opposites and to act – according
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to situations – in a male or emale ashion. What matters is not an exchange o roles, bisexuality or transsexuality, but the comprehensive development o one’s own – ever ambivalent – subjectivity. Tis development was possible at times in antiquity and in eudal society, but was suppressed by the asceticism o the bourgeois order. 25 What matters most is the ambivalent recognition o the Other in onesel. It is not only an alternative to Fichte’s repressive monologue that eliminates otherness both on the epistemological and the political level (c. Chapter II, 1), but is also the basis o a ruitul dialogue with the socially Other. In his study about dialogue, Francis Jacques quite rightly points out: ‘Te idea imposes itsel that the very core o personality is relational in character; to the extent that the subject’s most intimate activity is not simply its own, but consists o two poles.’ 26 In what ollows, this – originally Bakhtinian – idea will be developed. (b) Dialogue and reflexivity
In most o his publications, Mikhail M. Bakhtin sets out rom the assumption that the identity o the speaking and acting individual subject comes about in a permanent dialogue with the Other and alterity in general. o him, language itsel appears as an open dialogue o languages, and he anticipates the notion o socio-linguistic situation (c. Chapter I, 1, c) when he emphasizes the linguistic nature o a society marked by the coexistence o antagonistic groups. 27 For him, it goes without saying that linguistic polyphony and dialogue should not be considered as purely stylistic matters because they are also ‘social acts’ (Durkheim) underlying the identity o the individual subject: ‘But Bakhtin begins by assuming that the sel does not coincide with itsel: it ollows rom the dialogic structure o consciousness (the I/other relation) that “experience exists even or the person undergoing it (the ‘I’) only in the material o signs (the other)”.’28 In other words, the individual subject is a product o linguistic polyphony, o the coexistence o heterogeneous languages all o which contribute to the ormation o its identity in the course o primary and secondary socialization. A case in point is the child who grows up in a multilingual set-up in which several natural languages interact (e.g. German, French, Italian in Switzerland or English and Spanish in some parts o the United States) within specific ideological, religious or specialized group languages or sociolects. o Bakhtin, especially the ‘heterogeneity o language genres’, ‘raznorodost rečejnych žanrov’29 seems crucial – and hence the relative heterogeneity o the speaking subject. Unlike Saussure’s parole or Chomsky’s perormance, 30 individual utterance in Bakhtin’s sense is not a neutral realization o the language system, but an expression o interests, intentions and ideologies. Tis is why every single text can best be understood as a metonymy or model o the linguistic polyphony o a particular society and historical period. It is always a reaction to other spoken and written texts which it quotes, imitates or parodies. Bakhtin never attempted to replace society by language; together with Medvedev and Voloshinov,31 he set out to describe ‘linguistic genres’ as articulations o particular social interests. Tis assessment o his approach is confirmed by Goranka Lozanović, who points out: ‘Te word, the utterance, the dialogue as concrete realizations o these
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multiple social layers are evaluative and expressive vehicles o social complexity.’32 Te national language is heterogeneous, and this is why the identity o the individual subject appears as a unity within multiplicity. Tis subject is incessantly conronted by numerous alterities to which it can react positively, negatively or with indifference. In this respect, it is comparable to the dialogical or polyphonic novel in the sense o Bakhtin in which incompatible social positions interact. Te word ‘interact’ is meant to evoke the ambivalent aspiration towards coherence and identity that marks Bakhtin’s work in spite o its rejection o monologue. Far rom endorsing a postmodern negation o the individual subject, Bakhtin underlines the importance o the author’s unitary perspective.33 Could ‘identity work’34 (Keupp) not be considered in analogy to the novelist’s writing which integrates all sorts o languages in order to uniy them in the author’s discourse as the ‘ultimate guarantee o meaning’? Tis question does not aim exclusively at novels such as Proust’s Recherche (especially Le emps retrouvé ) and Sartre’s La Nausée, but also at radically ambivalent and polyphonic novels in the sense o Musil and Kaa. Both endings are conceivable in the modernist novel o ambivalence: the concluding Eureka and the insight into the meaninglessness and utility o the hero’s endeavours. Individual and collective subjectivity can be considered as a permanent oscillation between these two possibilities. Tis oscillation is always accompanied by the ortunate or unortunate coincidence or chance which will be discussed in section (d). Te act is that, within the context mapped out here, identity can only be conceived o as dialogue, as resulting rom the interaction with the Other, with alterity. At this point, the sociologist Castoriadis confirms and completes Bakhtin’s hermeneutics when he explains individual autonomy: I the problem o autonomy consists in the subject’s ability to find a meaning within itsel, which is not its own and which it has to transorm by implementing it; i autonomy means the relationship in which the others have always been present as alterity and selood o the subject – then autonomy, even in the philosophical sense, can only be conceived o as a social problem and a social relationship. 35
Like Bakhtin’s work and the first chapter o this book (I, 3), this passage sketches an alternative to the monologic constructions o Descartes, Kant, Fichte and Hegel. Te individual subject now appears as a dialogical, open unit which thrives on alterity and is at the same time threatened by it . Tis ambivalence o alterity is hardly perceived by Bakhtin and Castoriadis. I can learn a oreign language and absorb a oreign culture in order to expand and enrich my identity; but I can also lose mysel in the complexities and contradictions o otherness and withdraw into my culture o origin because I eel overtaxed. Tis problem is too ofen overlooked in a society whose intellectuals tend to celebrate alterity without noticing its pitalls. But otherness is both: opportunity and danger. Tis also applies to the alterity o theories. A dialogue with them is crucial or the development o one’s own approach – but it can also lead to eclecticism, incoherence and sterility.
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Julia Kristeva is right in claiming that we are strangers to ourselves: in a cultural, linguistic and psychological sense. 36 However, she overlooks the act that, apart rom ideologies and cultural elements that I can incorporate, there are ideas and customs which are incompatible with my subjectivity: or example, nationalist stereotypes, polygamy, ritual mutilation, human sacrifice – or ox hunting. Alterities in culture, language, ideology or theory have one actor in common: they can stimulate reflexivity and a dialogical attitude. Encounters with the Other prompt a reflexive attitude towards onesel and one’s own subjectivity. In this context, one can hardly agree with Oswald Schwemmer’s apodictic statement according to which ‘the subject is precisely the instance o our thoughts and actions which can turn everything into an object except itsel as subjectivity’. 37 I one can assume in conjunction with the first chapter (I, 1, c) that identity is the object-actant o an individual aspiring to become a subject, then individual subjectivity can only be conceived o as a reflexive process o sel-analysis and sel-construction . Tis also applies – although not on a psychological level – to collective subjects such as political parties, trade unions and governments. Aided by experts and advisors, they observe themselves in order to consolidate their identity. Tus reflexivity is, as Manred Frank aptly points out,38 a prerequisite o subjectivity. Te other prerequisite is dialogue because it conronts the subject with an alterity that triggers processes o sel-reflection. At this point, it is hard to avoid the ofen neglected question o what constitutes the object o reflection. An attempt will be made to answer it in the next section. (c) Identity as semantics and narrativity
Individual reflection can have many objects: emotions, dreams, career prospects, social contacts, etc. Te idea is not to analyse all o these, but to find out how individual and collective subjects structure these objects at semantic, syntactic- narrative and pragmatic levels. Te analysis is based on the concepts introduced in the first chapter: socio-linguistic situation, sociolect, discourse, relevance, classification and narration (c. Chapter I, 1, c). Te question how the (usually undocumented) individual biography comes about can be answered more concretely in this context than within a general theory o narration. Te key concept is the socio-linguistic situation in which subjects interact dialogically, reflect upon their actions or communications and constantly try to avoid submission to collective actants such as the amily, the institution and the organization. ime and again, they rebel against the indifference o consumerism on the one hand and against the dogmatic dualism o ideologies on the other, thus oscillating between the ‘market’ and the ‘community’, as ouraine would put it. Teir situation is marked by a permanent power struggle in which the autonomy o the subject is at stake. Tis power aspect o communication and identity ormation is overlooked by psychologists like Heiner Keupp who imagine biographical narrations as processes o successul or unsuccessul ‘identity work’: ‘Basic biographical narrations result rom the efforts o the individual. Maybe their quality is most clearly discernible i they are
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related to the ideal type o a well-ormed narration.’39 However, such ‘basic narrations’ may also be imposed by ideologies, as the story o Edelgard B. shows (c. Chapter I , 1, c). Keupp and his team quite rightly evoke the problem o relevance criteria: ‘What is essential? Te answer to this question is easy whenever a stable universe o communication with others exists. I it does not exist, one has to tell more or one is not understood because empathy can only be expected on a general level.’40 However, the decision in avour o certain relevance criteria on which a biographical narration can be based does not only depend on the contrast between understanding and not understanding, but also on the power structures into which the individual is born. It can be assumed that, within the sociolect o a middle-class amily, the alternative apprenticeship / university studies is not considered relevant to the narrative programme o the daughter or the son because the decision in avour o university education is tacitly presupposed – unlike in the working-class amily, where the gifed child has to struggle against the tacit assumption that it will opt in avour o a ‘useul’ apprenticeship in order to earn its own living. In this context, Luis J. Prieto points out that the individual subject belongs to a group ‘in which what can be called “symbolic power” endows certain viewpoints with a special legitimacy’.41 Relevance criteria and the related classifications and definitions depend on such viewpoints. In many working-class amilies, it goes without saying that children have to recognize a ‘useul apprenticeship’ as the only option, and in many Mexican amilies it is assumed that studying a philology is a privilege o the upper class (‘estudio para señoritos’). With an optimism that may seem excessive, Pierre Bourdieu suggests: ‘Te dominated can escape the pressure o legitimate classification.’ 42 Te question is how . . . A short answer could be: by reflecting upon their linguistic situation, their sociolect and the dominant relevance criteria. But this kind o reflection is becoming ever more difficult in a society ruled by mass media (by Baudrillard’s écran total ). Moreover, Rüdiger Bubner’s thesis according to which ‘reflection can deeat all kinds o destiny’ 43 seems to be inspired by excessive idealism. In order to answer the question how realistic Bourdieu’s and Bubner’s appeals to subjective autonomy actually are, it seems necessary to examine more closely the subject’s ability to reflect upon its own semantic and narrative decisions. What exactly is being reflected and under what conditions? I relevance in the sematic sense 44 is related to the socio-linguistic situation and the subject’s sociolect, the ollowing scenario emerges: the individual subject may become aware – as an adolescent or a young adult – o the ‘polyphony’ (Bakhtin) o its social and linguistic situation and begin to question the relevance criteria, the classifications and definitions o its group language(s). Tis is one o the reasons why youngsters, who get to know new group languages and their discourses in the course o their studies, ofen discard the entire semantics o their amily. At a later stage, afer the PhD, young scientists may turn away rom the approach o their ormer supervisors. Tis sudden dissent is not only due to the Oedipal ‘anxiety o influence’,45 so thoroughly analysed by Harold Bloom, but also to the competition o relevance criteria and definitions in a polyphonic world in which the sociolects o Critical Rationalism and systems theory may compete with those o eminism, Marxism and psychoanalysis.
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In this case, it seems useul to distinguish with Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson relevance as ‘classificatory concept’ rom relevance as ‘comparative concept’. 46 It stands to reason that the collision o competing sociolects in a multilingual situation turns relevance into a comparative criterion. Individual subjects in search o identity will not only compare natural languages and their semantic potentials, but will also ask themselves what ideological, religious and scientific languages in their social environment can contribute to their identity constructions. In such situations, the initial decision in avour o certain relevance criteria and definitions cannot be dissociated rom the end o the narrative, rom its telos. I a young woman decides to become an engineer, her career is open rom one narrative sequence to the next, but the goal is clearly defined. Te proessional identity as object-actant is fixed – and so is the sender ( destinateur , Greimas), ‘civil engineering’, who shapes this identity, together with various helpers and opponents (university teachers, sceptical men), in a dialogical and polemical process. What matters is the subject’s ability to cling to the original actantial model: consciously and subconsciously. In some instances, a seemingly stable ideological identity is called into question because subjects begin to discover their unconscious and their sexuality. In such situations, existing relevance criteria, the semantic base o the discourse, its actantial model and the corresponding narrative, are ofen revised or rejected. Tis process is illustrated by Victor J. Seidler’s biographical move rom Marxism to psychoanalysis: Tough Marxism is a deeply historical theory, it can ofen discourage a recognition o our personal, sexual and ethnic histories. Te only way that I seemed to be able to come to terms with my history was to acknowledge it more deeply. At this point a historically sensitive ormulation o psychoanalysis can be crucial. 47
In this autobiographical passage, which marks a turning point in the narrator’s discourse, some o the key concepts used in this book are implicit. Te ideological and theoretical sociolect o Marxism, whose discourses are geared towards abstract, mythical and collective subject-actants such as ‘history’ (sender ), ‘proletariat’ (subject ), ‘bourgeoisie’ (anti-subject ) and ‘classless society’ ( object ), prevents the reflecting subject rom developing its sexual and ethnic narratives as crucial components o its identity. Tis insight is made possible in a socio-linguistic situation in which different but related discourses o Marxism ace competition rom other group languages and tend to lose their relevance or individual subject constitutions afer the disintegration o European communism. In this situation, it becomes easier to break out o Marxism, and this emancipatory move avours individualization in the sense o Giddens and Beck. Relying on psychoanalysis as a newly discovered language, the individual subject perceives new relevance criteria, definitions and possibilities on the semantic isotopy o the ‘unconscious’ (c. Chapter III, 2) which may appear as the new sender (destinateur ). On this semantic level, other actantial models come to the ore, some o which are made up o inra-individual instances: the ‘ego’, the ‘id’ and the ‘super-ego’ – along with the ‘unconscious’ that can assume a narrative orm in the analysis o dreams and thus crucially contribute to identity ormation: to the appropriation o the object ‘identity’.
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However, the ‘unconscious’ need not consolidate identity; it may also call into question the coherence o the subject’s narrative programmes by permanent semantic shifs, by iterability in the sense o Derrida (c. Chapter III, 2). Te emergence o coherence as iterativity (Greimas) can be impeded i the discovery o the unconscious invalidates all classifications and definitions o the past by projecting ambivalence and contradiction into everyday lie, into Marxism and ethnicity, thereby removing the object ‘identity’ rom sight. It is conceivable that the subject proves unable to break out o this hermeneutic circle o psychoanalytic reflection. Tis does not seem to be the case o somebody like Seidler who decides to redefine his masculinity,48 thus preserving continuity and coherence. Naturally, radical discontinuities are possible, as is shown in Proust’s novel A la recherche du temps perdu . Te narrator Marcel grows up in the snobbish society o the Faubourg Saint-Germain, whose members cultivate elegant conversation as a status symbol. Te ideal o this society, whose symbolic capital is looked afer by the old nobility o the Faubourg, is the brilliant causeur , the master o conversation. Blinded by this ideal, Marcel goes to great lengths in order to acquire the habitus (Bourdieu) o the causeur and to impress others by witty talk. But gradually he discovers the nihilism o conversation which does not admit any qualitative (cognitive, ethical, political) values or differences because, as empty orm or ritual, it is indifferent to all contents. What matters is the right word at the right moment. Te causeur can contradict himsel as much as he likes as long as he does it in a brilliant way. However, conversation as sociolect does not exist in isolation; it is contested by the discourses o art (o the composer Vinteuil, the painter Elstir and the writer Bergotte) which keep unmasking it as a rhetoric indifferent to all values. Tis polyphony o the pseudo-aristocratic world makes Marcel ponder on the true nature o his social milieu. Eventually, in Le emps retrouvé , he breaks with the Faubourg because, thanks to chance and coincidence that appeal to his unconscious , he discovers the relevant semantic difference between the spoken word o conversation and the written word o literature – along with the semantic isotopy o ‘writing’. Tis is why, at the end o the novel, the hero’s discourse tends to coincide with that o the narrator and the author Proust. In many respects, the last part o the novel reproduces Proust’s language in Contre SainteBeuve and the Carnets.49 Te narrator as author discovers in writing the world o qualitative differences (‘le monde des différences’) 50 which he looked or in vain in the world o conversation. A new semantic relevance inaugurates a new story that is not narrated any more. But Proust’s essayistic, paratactically structured and ragmentary novel shows how problematical subjectivity has become in late modernity.51 Te basic ambivalence o the subject is due to the act that both extremes are conceivable: coherence and disintegration, iterativity and iterability in the sense o the third chapter. Tese extremes orm a dialectical nexus that calls into question both the idealist and monological definitions o subjectivity proposed by Descartes, Kant, Fichte or Hegel and their postmodern deconstructions. Dialogue, alterity and reflexivity are ambivalent because they can both strengthen the subject’s coherence and cause its disintegration. Tis insight does not justiy a general scepticism towards subjectivity, but is meant to yield a dialectical and flexible concept o the subject which is less vulnerable to postmodern critiques.
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(d) Te ambivalence of chance
Concepts such as ‘subject constitution’, ‘identity ormation’ and ‘identity work’ are related to the notion o intentionality and imply that narrative biographical programmes always coincide with the intentions o their authors. However, individual and collective subjectivity is ambivalent: not only because it can be strengthened or weakened by a dialogue with the Other, but also because it is exposed to the contingency o chance. It is a well-known act that chance has always two sides to it: ortune and misortune. One should add that an event, which promises to be a stroke o luck, may turn into misortune a ew moments later. A driver, whose car breaks down in the middle o nowhere, is ull o hope when he hears an approaching vehicle; his hope dwindles when he realizes that the vehicle is driven by his worst enemy. Although this caricature may not be realistic, it shows how easily chance can change the direction o a narrative. But what exactly is ‘chance’? Hermann Lübbe answers: ‘In practical philosophy, we call events or processes “contingent” i they interere with actions independently o the latter.’52 ranslated into the semiotics o narrative, this means that chance as a contingent event is not oreseen within the narrative programme o the narrating and acting subject. Tis does not imply that it cannot be integrated into this programme: or chance as a stroke o luck can promote both individual and collective narrative programmes. Lübbe considers every kind o chance as a challenge to the subject: ‘Chances that jeopardize the meaning o our action [. . .] challenge us to reintegrate them into this meaning.’53 Luck within misortune can yield a completely new narrative programme: ‘An accident ends a normal career as a pianist and inaugurates an extraordinary career as a critic.’54 In other words, the chance-related ailure in one area o lie may lead to unexpected success in another area. Te basic ambivalence o chance seems to consist in the act that the contingent event – very much like dialogue and reflection – can contribute to both subject constitution and subject disintegration. Neither Hegel nor his disciple and critic Friedrich Teodor Vischer took this ambivalence o chance into account. While Hegel tried to ban chance rom systematic philosophy by integrating it into necessity, Vischer insisted on the importance o chance, but considered it mainly as a negative phenomenon. Hegel holds ‘that the World o intelligence and conscious volition is not abandoned to chance, but must show itsel in the light o the sel-cognizant Idea’.55 It is hardly surprising that human action, which is ofen marked by irrationality, envy, orgetulness and alcoholism, alls short o this lofy ideal. A ew decades afer Hegel’s death, Vischer wrote a satirical novel in which this ideal is ridiculed: Auch Einer. Eine Reisebekanntscha (1879). His avourite topic is a situation dominated by chance or the ‘malice o objects’56 and a concatenation o events beyond human control. An anthropomorphic nature and its objects are seen as acting independently o human intentions and projects. Although Hegel tries to integrate chance into historical necessity, whereas Vischer endows it with grotesque and almost mythical powers, both thinkers agree on one point: chance appears to them as something negative and trivial that cannot
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interere with the course o history – or as an element that oils our intentions and actions and eventually makes history appear as a meaningless agglomeration o disasters. However, chance need be neither trivial nor negative. It can be extremely productive: or example, in an examination in which we are asked to comment on a topic we happen to have explored in great detail. Discussing the role o chance in Balzac’s work, Erich Köhler shows that the contingent event contributes crucially to the liberation o the subject rom the constraints o causality, necessity and atality. It extends its scope o action, enhances its autonomy: ‘Moreover, this very chance corrects the causal motivation as an instrument o atality by introducing moments in which autonomous decisions become possible. Chance offers alternatives.’ 57 We are thus dealing with three models o contingency or chance. While Hegel holds that the contingent event is trivial, Vischer tends to demonize chance, and to Köhler it appears as a liberating principle.58 At this point, a return to the second chapter (II, 8) might prove helpul. Unlike in Hegelian and Marxist discourses, which tend to exclude all that is contingent and particular, contingency leads to distress and disorientation in the works o the early Sartre and is experienced as a source o liberation in Hesse and surrealism, where it helps the subject to break out o ideologies and social conventions. Eventually, contingency turns out to be ambivalent ; it is liberation and submission, chance and risk. In this respect, it is structurally similar to alterity, dialogue and reflection which can contribute to the constitution or the disintegration o subjectivity. Te latter appears as oscillating permanently between the pole o construction and the pole o deconstruction. However, chance is not related to alterity in a purely ormal way (i.e. as a strange body in the subject’s narrative programme). It is an aspect o this alterity because, as Vischer knew, it represents nature (the non-rational) within culture. Tis is the reason why it is not only negated by Hegelians and Marxists, but by all ideologists hostile to nature. Tis act is amply illustrated by Camus’s novel L’Etranger (Te Outsider ) in which the narrator Meursault shoots an Arab in a situation dominated by the contingency o nature. Te public prosecutor, who represents a legal system whose discourses are structured by Christian teleology, denies the role o chance: ‘o which the prosecutor retorted that in this case “chance” or “mere coincidence” seemed to play a remarkably large part.’59 Tis ironical remark is meant to insinuate that not chance, but a responsible subject, is at the centre o the scene. However, this subject is defined as such within a Christian and humanist ideology rom which it seeks to escape by invoking contingency and the indifference o nature. Within the ideological discourse, it is defined as a Christian subject responsible to ‘God’ as its sender , because this discourse excludes a contingency originating (as is the case in the novel) in the natural antagonism o fire (sun) and water (sea). 60 Its ‘intolerance o ambiguity’ (Adorno) confirms the Christian origin o Hegelianism and the Hegelianism-Platonism o Christian religion. Te latter are related by their hostility towards nature – a hostility spotted early on by Nietzsche. Teir polemics against ‘chance’ are not aimed at something trivial, but – as Vischer knew – at nature as the Other o Mind or Logos.
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Tis means that an ambivalent and dialectical view, which makes chance appear both as an obstacle and an opportunity in the subject’s development, opens subjectivity to alterity: to inner and outer nature. In this context, the subject as sel-producing identity (c. Chapter I, 1, c) recognizes the individual as its ipse (Ricœur), as the natural basis o its social aspirations. Te biologically contingent character o this basis is clear to everyone, even to those who are not amiliar with Nietzsche’s dictum that ‘most humans are obviously by chance in this world’ (c. Chapter II, 4). At the same time, the subject recognizes the vital unction o nature which is being increasingly exploited and streamlined by a rationalist and Hegelian Logos. Te models o a Dialogical Teory and a dialogical Europe developed in the last sections ought to be read as reactions to this process o streamlining.
2 Te subject o Dialogical Teory Te subject o theory was already discussed in the first chapter (I, 1, d) in order to explain the position o the author and clariy his arguments. Te key argument o the first chapter that will be resumed and developed here can be summed up in a ew words: a permanent dialogue with the Other (the other theory) encourages reflection on the particularity and contingency o one’s own discourse and socio-linguistic situation; at the same time, the ability to reflect upon the ideological basis o one’s theory holds ideological dualism and discursive monologue at bay . In this respect, the subject o theory hardly differs rom the (general) dialogical subject as defined in the last section. But unlike the subject o everyday lie, it pursues a particular goal by seeking to direct theory ormation towards alterity and dialogue. Te point is not to search – with Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas61 – or a transcendental oundation 62 o arguments, but to ask how, in a ragmented and pluralist society, theoretical (scientific) communication is possible in the human sciences. Te preliminary answer is: by reflecting upon one’s own and one’s discussion partner’s social and linguistic conditions o theory ormation. Tis answer could provoke an ironical question: What do we gain i we discover that these conditions are so heterogeneous that they preclude a dialogue? Tis question is too extreme and thus beside the point because what is at stake is not a comparison or interaction o incommensurate perspectives, but o theories constructing similar objects (e.g. ‘religion’, ‘ideology’, ‘art’). More important than this observation is the assumption that all theories as sociolects are – like ideologies or literary texts – secondary modelling systems (in the sense o Lotman) produced within the primary system o a natural language .63 Although they cannot be reduced to this primary system without losing their unction as specialized languages, they can always communicate with each other via the primary system. One cannot but agree with Karl-Otto Apel’s assumption that everyday language unctions as a universal metalanguage.64 However, the subject o Dialogical Teory is not only interested in scanning the scopes and limits o scientific communication in postmodern ragmentation; it aims at turning ragmentation into a theoretical asset and to give the critical testing o hypotheses
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and theory ormation in general a new impulse by introducing a dialogical conrontation o heterogeneous theories. In the process, the individualist and idealist character o the notion o intersubjectivity is revealed. Te ambiguity o this notion consists in the act that it addresses – at least in principle – all scientists involved in a problem, but in reality is only valid within the sociolect o a scientific group. Tus a hypothesis accepted within a group o critical rationalists may not even be understood in a group o systems theorists, let alone accepted. A psychoanalytic hypothesis may not be accepted by critical rationalists because it is not ‘alsifiable’ or reutable – or because it contains concepts which are not deemed scientific. Tis is why the subject o Dialogical Teory aims beyond the criterion o intersubjectivity by adding the inter-collective criterion o interdiscursivity that is geared towards communication between heterogeneous groups o scientists. At present the question is: Which theorems or hypotheses that have been tested on an intersubjective level within a particular group can also claim validity between ideologically and scientifically heterogeneous groups? Te importance o this question or the constitution o the subject o theory is obvious. I one remains within intersubjectivity, which is de acto (in spite o all universalistic declarations to the contrary) always intersubjectivity within a group and its language, then one’s subjectivity is inevitably shaped by a particular ideology. Only a conrontation with heterogeneous groups o scientists and their sociolects reveals alterity and allows or genuine dissent. Only beyond one’s own collective and its language is there subjective liberty: the possibility o authentic scientific experience . (a) Particularism vs. universalism: Lyotard and Habermas
A ruitul conrontation o heterogeneous discourses as envisaged here is possible neither in Lyotard’s nor in Habermas’s models o language. In Lyotard’s case, this is due to the act that ‘language games’ are simply incommensurate; in Habermas’s case, a meaningul conrontation o heterogeneous units is made impossible by his drive towards uniormity which eliminates all particularities. In both cases, individual subjectivity is hollowed out. Lyotard prevents the subject rom crossing the boundaries o its language while Habermas prescribes universally valid language rules to those who participate in dialogue. Although Lyotard calls the concept o subjectivity into question (c. Chapter III, 1), his key works La Condition postmoderne (1979) and Le Différend (1983) could be read both as pleas or the respect o particular subjectivities in language and politics and as deconstructions o individual subjectivity between incommensurate language games. Let us have a closer look at his arguments. He counters Habermas’s accusation that he is an irrationalist by arguing that ‘reason is multiple’65 and that respecting the multiplicity o reasons (in science, law, ethics and aesthetics) is all but irrational. In this respect, one cannot but agree with him. He sets out rom the politically and epistemologically plausible premise that it is both wrong and unjust to judge one kind o language (here: sociolect) within another language. According to him, it would be unjust and misleading to assess the value
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o ethnomethodology, deconstruction or psychoanalysis within Critical Rationalism and debunk all o these approaches because their hypotheses are not ‘alsifiable’ (reutable).66 Starting rom Lyotard’s critique o Cartesian and rationalist universalism, all scientists taking part in scientific discussions ought to realize that their criteria or scientific standards are in the first place their particular criteria and that generally valid criteria based on consensus will possibly crystallize in the course o the debates. Such considerations are beneficial to theoretical dialogue because they invite all participants to respect the Other’s subjectivity. (Tis is o course not how Lyotard, the critic o subjectivity, would express it.) His perspective is so particularistic that he could not even envisage a dialogue o heterogeneous positions as sketched above. When he argues in Te Postmodern Condition ‘that there is no possibility that language games can be unified or totalized in any metadiscourse’,67 he is certainly right because Hegel’s attempt at totalization boils down to a philosophical take-over that cancels dialogue. Francis Jacques comments: ‘Until Hegel, the philosopher speaks or all and in the name o all; he recognizes the other person only as a listener who is to be taught or as an adversary whose argument has to be overcome like an obstacle.’68 As a radical critique o Hegel, Lyotard’s theory o the ‘differend’ certainly contains moments o truth which are anticipated by Adorno’s plea or the particular that is trivialized by Hegel (c. Chapter II, 6). However, Lyotard lapses into the other extreme whenever he views the social world o ‘language games’ as an island world in which each island differs radically rom all the others: ‘Te examination o language games, just like the critique o the aculties, identifies and reinorces the separation o language rom itsel. Tere is no unity to language; there are islands o language, each o them ruled by a different regime, untranslatable into the others.’ 69 Tis particularization o language yields absurdities when Lyotard asserts that the ‘differend’ is inherent in individual discourses which combine heterogeneous phrase systems (originating in ethics, law or epistemology) and when he criticizes the ‘case o one genre being invaded by another, in particular o ethics and law by the cognitive [. . .]’.70 But it is diffi cult to imagine ethics and law without elements o the ‘cognitive’, because ethics and law cannot do without logic and argument. Te ollowing aspects o Lyotard’s critique o language ought to be highlighted: (a) It is certainly true that subjects o discourse (never mentioned by Lyotard) suffer an injustice whenever heterogeneous phrase systems (e.g. sermon and science) are connected in such a way that their differing criteria o truth are distorted. (b) In his zeal to deend the particular, Lyotard seems to have orgotten the second part o his postmodern credo: his plea in avour o heterogeneity and plurality. According to Bakhtin, discourses can never be understood as monological monads which have never absorbed otherness. For each discourse, each sociolect is a secondary modelling system (Lotman) that originates in natural language and communicates with other languages via this primary system. Moreover, almost every sociolect absorbs on the lexical, semantic and narrative levels elements o other sociolects. Marxism is a synthesis o Hegelianism and British Political Economy, Critical Rationalism emerged rom a liberal ideology, the discourses o the Vienna Circle, M. Weber’s sociology,
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etc. Derrida’s deconstruction is inconceivable without Nietzsche’s and Heidegger’s critiques o metaphysics, Saussure’s linguistics, Freudian psychoanalysis, etc. Individual and collective subjects, who are themselves dialogical syntheses o different languages, are responsible or all o these combinations. (c) Tis also applies to Lyotard, who violates the linguistic rules defined by himsel in Te Postmodern Condition and Te Differend , whenever he combines, in his very different publications, heterogeneous languages such as Marxism, psychoanalysis, Kant’s and Wittgenstein’s philosophies and Lévinas’s ethics in order to produce what is generally called ‘postmodern thought’. It is interesting to note that Lyotard uses the idea o linguistic heterogeneity in analogy to the concept o the sublime (c. Chapter III, 1). Eventually, this idea leads to the insight that subjectivity is destroyed by the contradictions inherent in language and that ‘each so-called individual is divisible and plausibly divided into a number o partners.’71 Relying on Lyotard’s extremely heterogeneous intellectual biography and his synthesizing work, one could also look at the matter the other way round: the subject aims at a dialogical synthesis o heterogeneous languages. In the introduction to this chapter, Calvin O. Schrag’s critique o Lyotard was mentioned, especially his argument that there are transitions between the different languages and that, in spite o its linguistic heterogeneity, the subject ‘remains present to itsel’.72 Tis idea was anticipated in Germany by Manred Frank who points out that no ‘differend’ in Lyotard’s sense can be total because only languages which have certain items in common can contradict each other. 73 Tis is why it would be important to examine the dialectic between identity and difference more closely. Habermas does not do this. He accuses postmodern thinkers o being irrational because they dismiss modern universalism 74 and at the same time reinstates this universalism by imposing on the communicating subjects a universally valid language that deletes all (ideological, psychological) particularities. He himsel takes the view that one can only respond to the growing multiplicity o contemporary society by making the rules o communication more abstract (i.e. by abstracting rom particularities): ‘Te greater this multiplicity becomes, the more abstract the rules and principles have to be that protect the integrity and the equality-based coexistence o ever more estranged subjects and ways o lie which insist on their difference and alterity.’75 In short, Habermas would reject the accusation o being repressively universalistic and argue that the high degree o abstraction postulated or the rules o communication in an ideal speech situation is meant to protect the particularities o the communicating subjects. Te question remains how rules, which since Descartes and Kant tend to negate all particularities (c. Chapter II, 1), can at the same time protect them. Habermas’s Teory o Communicative Action can certainly be read as a large-scale attempt to neutralize all psychic, cultural and ideological particularities in a universalistic manner. Tis neutralization o the particular is achieved in two phases: by postulating a homogeneous lie world common to all participants and by reducing individual communications to speech acts as pragmatic orms o sentences . In both phases, the discourse as transphrastic, semantic and narrative structure expressing subjective interests is eliminated.
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Habermas distinguishes a real (social) rom a ormal-pragmatic lie world that corresponds to the ideal speech situation and is defined as ollows: But the lie world does not only have a context- ounding unction. It offers at the same time a reservoir o convictions used by the communicating individuals, who can thus satisy the need or agreement arising in a particular situation by recurring to generally accepted interpretations. As a resource the lie world is undamental in processes o communication.76
Habermas obviously means the ormal-pragmatic lie world he has thoroughly purged o all social strategies, antagonisms and ideological conflicts. It is not altogether surprising that many critics have asked Habermas to explain the consensus-oriented separation between the real and the ormal-pragmatic lie world.77 Even i one assumes (as the author o this book does) that Habermas has never really succeeded in justiying this separation because the very idea o a homogeneous lie world, which obliterates social conflicts, is prone to misunderstandings, it is not diffi cult to understand the unction o the separation in Habermas’s discourse. It underlies the distinction between a real and an ideal speech situation and justifies the argument ‘that in each discourse we mutually presuppose an ideal speech situation’.78 What exactly does this ideal speech situation look like? It can be defined in a ew points. (a) As an idealizing construction it differs radically rom the real communication o everyday lie. (b) It is ree rom social constraints and presupposes the communicative equality o all participants. (c) It presupposes the interchangeability o dialogue roles. (d) Te only constraint it admits is that o the better argument. (e) It is presupposed by all participants in every real communication. In what ollows, it will be shown that this construction is contradictory because it negates what it is designed to urther, namely the communication between heterogeneous subjects. (a) An ideal speech situation which abstracts rom real conditions o social speech is only conceivable as an exchange o hollow phrases. (b) All sociolects and the discourses they produce articulate interests and value judgements that are inherent in the discursive relevance criteria, classifications and narrative sequences, all o which orm the subjectivity o the participants (i.e. the speaking subjects cannot renounce these linguistic elements without negating their subjectivity and remaining speechless). (c) In this context, the ‘interchangeability o dialogue roles’ is impossible because my role depends on my discourse (sociolect). I may be able to ‘play’ the critical rationalist or the ‘Habermasian’ – but without believing in what I say. (d) Te postulate that only the constraint o the ‘better argument’ is acceptable is naive insoar as each sociolect (each ‘paradigm’, Kuhn would say) evaluates arguments differently. Habermas and Apel, or example, would not accept the critical-rationalist argument that their hypotheses are not ‘alsifiable’ (reutable).79 (e) Although one may expect good will and understanding in every real communication, one cannot possibly expect the participants to give up their sociolects and discourses – which constitute their subjectivity. Habermas seems to expect this when he writes: ‘Te communicated meanings are basically identical or all members o a language community.’80 How is such a ‘language community’ to be imagined – and where is it? o the postmodernist or
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deconstructionist reader, the ollowing sentence may sound like a threat: ‘Different speakers may not use the same expression with different meanings.’ 81 Who will prohibit this? Te homogeneous community imposed on the speakers by Habermas? Te ‘ideal speech situation’ that abstracts not only rom all social constraints and power relations o real socio-linguistic situations, but also rom the concrete linguistic subjectivities o the participants? Habermas’s linguistic problem consists in his reliance on the Anglo-American theory o speech acts which ignores the discourse as transphrastic structure in which subjectivity comes about : ‘A speech act produces the conditions in which a sentence can be used in an utterance; but at the same time it has the orm o a sentence.’82 What matters, however, is that it is not sentences which constitute individual and collective subjectivity (because they are polysemous and polyunctional), but discourses as semantic and narrative structures. Since Habermas ignores discourse in its semiotic (transphrastic) orm, he also has to ignore subjectivity in its linguistic orm: as a discourse guided by interests. A complementary aspect o the problem is revealed by Rainer Leschke who points out ‘that linguistic structure is considered by Habermas as an anthropological constant’. He adds: ‘Te historical and sociological dependencies o the construct o a communication ree o domination are completely overlooked.’ 83 In act, we are dealing with an ‘idealization o concrete conditions’, 84 as Leschke puts it. In what ollows, this misleading idealization will be dismissed and it will appear that the concrete or real conditions o social communication offer possibilities ignored by both Lyotard and Habermas. (b) From the particular to the universal: Critical testing
It was shown that both Lyotard and Habermas deprive the individual subject o power: in Lyotard’s case, its identity is lost among heterogeneous language games; in Habermas’s case, it has to submit to abstract language rules. But the real subject o theory, considered as a flexible dialogical instance, has a number o options when acing the multiplicity o languages in a ragmented society. Above all, it sees social heterogeneity as a chance or sel-realization. Starting rom the criticism o Lyotard’s approach and rom Lotman’s idea that all language games or sociolects are secondary modelling systems rooted in the primary system o natural language, the subject o theory attempts to relate heterogeneous languages to one another in a dialogical perspective. At the same time, it views alterity as a catalyst in the process o knowledge and subject ormation. Te act that alterity is not only an inter-individual but also (and above all) an intercollective matter, which appears whenever different groups o scientists try to tackle a concrete problem, was recognized in very different contexts by Maurice Halbwachs and Karl Mannheim. Halbwachs, a French sociologist o the Durkheim group, sets out rom the premise that social differentiation generates different and competing ‘group logics’. He explains: ‘In that way many different logics evolved, each o which is only recognized within a particular group that uses it afer creating it.’ 85 But unlike Lyotard, Halbwachs is not led
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to believe that society and language are incurably heterogeneous and subjectivity a process o disintegration. Te reason: ‘All these partial logics do o course share one and the same origin.’86 Mannheim too, is aware o the heterogeneity o group languages, but he also scans the horizon or possibilities o successul communication. o him, the difference between communication within a world view or ‘perspective’ and communication between world views or ‘perspectives’ appears as crucial. Within a particular perspective, terminology is homogeneous and guarantees a relatively unproblematic – intersubjective – communication. Like Halbwachs, Mannheim discovers that when observers have different perspectives, ‘objectivity’ is attainable only in a more roundabout ashion. In such a case, what has been correctly but differently perceived by the two perspectives must be understood in the light o the differences in structure o these varied modes o perception. An effort must be made to find a ormula or translating the results o one into those o the other and to discover a common denominator or these varying perspectivistic insights. 87
In Halbwachs’s, as in Mannheim’s works, one is struck by the act that their authors acknowledge the heterogeneity o scientific ‘perspectives’ or ‘logics’, but regard them as obstacles to communication that can be overcome by retracing them to a common origin or by translating them into one another. Te model proposed here differs rom the models o the two sociologists in that it makes the heterogeneity o communicating languages or sociolects (‘perspectives’, Mannheim; ‘group logics’, Halbwachs) appear as an obstacle and an opportunity at the same time : as a challenge to the subject o theory to go beyond itsel and the language structures in which it originates in order to become reflexive. ‘Become reflexive’ means: to turn one’s own discourse, sociolect and socio-linguistic situation o origin into objects o critical analysis. At the same time, one’s own ideology and culture are observed rom the outside as it were: through the eyes o a stranger. In the process, one’s own subjectivity is called into question: How does my discourse as semantic and narrative structure come about? What relevance criteria, classifications and actantial models is it based on? How does it differ in this respect rom the discourse o my interlocutor? Which discourses are possible within the sociolects o Marxism, Critical Teory, Critical Rationalism or eminism? Which discourses are excluded and or what reasons? What blind spots result rom these exclusions? Each o these questions may cause a certain discontent within one’s own sociolect and prompt the insight that the objects we reer to are not identical with reality, but constructed by us in a hypothetical manner. For discussions with other scientists sporadically make us realize that outside our own sociolect(s) the same objects are constructed differently. Objects such as ‘political party’, ‘institution’, ‘ideology’, ‘art’ and ‘subject’ are defined differently rom sociolect to sociolect. I, in the ace o this liberating insight, one reuses to ‘escape rom reedom’ (Fromm)88 and submit to an ideological and theoretical group language such as Marxism or systems theory, one will doubt the practicability o intersubjective testing o hypotheses. Te intersubjectivity criterion is based on the idealist premise that, with
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some good will, all individual subjects can somehow communicate, ‘because no subject would come across the idea to communicate signs to another subject i it could not presuppose intersubjectivity’.89 However, as soon as it becomes clear that we are not simply dealing with rational individuals or scientists using a universal language, but (directly or indirectly) with groups and sociolects, which do not always recognize each other’s terminologies and arguments, the idea emerges that intersubjectivity as interindividual testing o hypotheses is only possible within a particular group and its sociolect. Tis idea is hardly ever explicitly ormulated and very ofen ignored in the social sciences. Tus Ronald Kurt introduces his study about subjectivity and intersubjectivity with the ollowing three sentences: ‘Sociology deals with social action. And social action is linked to subjects who synthesize meaning. Tereore, sociology without a subject is meaningless.’90 Within the sociolect o a phenomenological sociology in the sense o Alred Schütz, whom Ronald Kurt relies on, this may be the case. Within Luhmann’s systems theory, matters look very different (c. Chapter IV, 3) because his sociology does not deal with the social actions o subjects and hence makes subjectcentred sociologies appear meaningless. In short, statements based on intersubjective consensus within a particular group language may very well be dismissed as wrong, irrational or absurd in another group language. I, in the social sciences , the validity o intersubjectivity as a criterion or correct or true statements is limited to a particular sociolect, then its claim to universal applicability is lost. In extreme cases, intersubjective criticism or testing merely confirms a collective doxa that the subject o Dialogical Teory cannot be content with. Like the subject o everyday lie that moves between ideologies and languages in order to avoid submitting to one o them, the subject o theory moves between scientific languages in order to gain an overview, enabling it to reflect upon the social and linguistic situation o its time and upon the possibilities it offers scientists to articulate their interests. One o these possibilities seems to be the criterion o interdiscursive (intercollective) criticism and testing o hypotheses that completes and corrects the individualist criterion o intersubjectivity. Far rom being ‘collectivist’, this move rom the interindividual to the intercollective level enhances the autonomy o the individual subject who is no longer prisoner in a particular group language, but able to move critically between sociolects and discourses and to assess their positions within a particular socio-linguistic situation. Tis reflexive and critical stance o the theorist o dialogue is not comparable to that o Mannheim’s ‘ree-floating intellectual’91 because this theorist does not deny a social attachment to groups and their values. But his stance is similar to the position o most subjects between ideology and market-based indifference. Conronting the indifference o the market, which makes all ideological and theoretical positions appear as interchangeable, 92 he is led to reflect upon the contingent character o all (including his own) value judgements and upon their effects on his own discourse and his object constructions. With Luhmann he asks, or example, which aspects o society he ignores (rom the point o view o a second degree observer) i he constructs reality in the perspective o
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the subject instead o constructing it along the lines o a systems theory. 93 He analyses his own and his interlocutor’s ability to engage in dialogue: an ability that not only depends on good will but also on the structure o a discourse. I this discourse is based on a dualist structure in the sense o ideological dualism (c. Chapter I, 1, d), a ruitul dialogue is unlikely to come about because the discourse suppresses ambivalence and the sel-irony that goes with it. Tis means that the perspective opened up by indifference enables the theorist to recognize the relativity o his premises and to view with a certain critical and ironical distance his own value judgements and those o his interlocutors. Tis market-oriented critical distance would open onto a sterile relativism i it were not permanently linked to an ideological engagement . Commenting on this problem, Norbert Elias, who related the concepts ‘involvement’ and ‘detachment’, ‘participant’ and ‘inquirer’ to one another, writes about scientists: Te problem conronting them is not simply to discard the latter role in avour o the ormer. Tey cannot cease to take part in, and to be affected by, the social and political affairs o their groups and their time. Teir own participation and involvement, moreover, is itsel one o the conditions or comprehending the problems they try to solve as scientists. 94 Credo ut intelligam: without a conservative, individualist, ecological, eminist or Marxist engagement, science would degenerate into empty rhetoric. But what does the subject o Dialogical Teory stand or? Te answer might be: or the dialogical overcoming o his own and his interlocutor’s particularity and or a joint search or truth which points beyond all particularities involved. In a debate about Dialogical Teory in the German review Ethik und Sozialwissenschaen (4, 1999), the attempt to link dialectically the particular and the universal led to several misunderstandings. Dialogical Teory was misunderstood both as a postmodern plea or radical particularization and as a rationalist attempt to impose universalist criteria (c. Chapter V, 2, d). It is neither o these two extremes, but an attempt to relate particular theoretical positions to one another in order to make them yield insights in the course o a dialogue which can be generalized as moments o truth located beyond the participating particularities . In other words, it seems meaningul to use the polyphony (Bakhtin) o the real speech situation, the socio-linguistic situation, or theoretical dialogue in order to show that ruitul consensus is only possible among partly dissenting heterogeneous groups and their languages. Te basic idea is that the consensus reached between heterogeneous positions (sociolects) is worth more than an intersubjective consensus within a sociolect because it is accompanied and corrected by dissent . (c) Interdiscursive theorems: Consensus and dissent
It is not by chance that Habermas’s ‘ideal speech situation’ is requently described as consensus-oriented, whereas Lyotard’s ‘differend’ is seen as geared towards dissent. 95 Te dialogical subject, who is neither willing to accept disintegration among a multitude o particularities nor the submission to an abstract universalism, opts in
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avour o a dialectics o consensus and dissent . Te permanent possibility o dissent on the part o my interlocutor helps me to maintain a critical distance towards my own sociolect and to see to it that my discourse avoids dogmatization. Te idea that the subject o Dialogical Teory ought to give up the search or a Kantian transcendental oundation o knowledge (a search pursued by Apel and Habermas)96 and replace it with critical testing originates in Critical Rationalism. Commenting on the latter, Hans Albert writes: In it [in Critical Rationalism] the Aristotelian ideal o knowledge and the search or an absolutely certain oundation o knowledge is abandoned and replaced by a consistent allibilism accompanied by a methodological rationalism in which the requirement o a oundation is replaced by critical testing. 97
Te question which leads rom this observation to Dialogical Teory is: ‘Who tests?’ Te answer ‘competent theoreticians or scientists’ is unsatisactory because, as was shown above, social science is heterogeneous and its heterogeneity is increasing. A sociological hypothesis accepted as ‘useul’ or ‘worth testing’ by the disciples o Alain ouraine may very well be rejected as meaningless by ollowers o Luhmann’s systems theory because it contains the word ‘subject’. Psychoanalysts may go to great lengths in order to give their hypotheses a ‘alsifiable’ (reutable) character and ormulate as ollows: ‘Tere is no socialization without repression.’98 Critical rationalists are unlikely to accept this hypothesis, simply because they reject the concept o the ‘unconscious’ which is inherent in the notion o ‘repression’. In other words, certain statements rom sociolect A are rejected in sociolects B, C or D – not only or ormal, logical, but also (and above all) or lexical, semantic, i.e. ideological reasons. Tis basic problem, which has hitherto been neglected by scientists, lies at the core o Dialogical Teory. Tis theory starts rom the assumption that intersubjective testing within a group o scientists may prove useul, but does not imply a critique o ideology. For this reason it raises the question how statements or hypotheses can be tested among heterogeneous theories and their languages . Tis question not only originates in the discussions between Critical Teory and Critical Rationalism, Lyotard and Habermas, but also in older discussions. Among them is the polemical debate between Russian Formalists and Marxists which was highly politicized and eventually led to the silencing o the Formalists under a totalitarian regime. In spite o its abrupt ending, the debate reveals to what extent the creative reedom o the subject o theory is to be ound between the ronts and not either in Marxism or in Formalism. Te Formalists asked how the literary text is made on a technical and stylistic level, whereas the Marxist ocused on the genetic question why a text is produced in a particular socio-historical situation. In the course o the controversies o the 1920s, but especially during the discussions that took place in Western Europe in the 1970s and 80s,99 it became clear that the question concerning the why had to be linked to the question concerning the how – in spite o the act that the two questions originated in ideologically heterogeneous theories.100 Since then, sociosemiotics, the sociology o texts and critical narratology link the how to the why and search or a sociological explanation o literary (artistic) orms.
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Why did a certain way o writing (style, genre) come about in a particular social and linguistic situation? Tis synthesizing question could never have emerged rom either the Formalist or the Marxist discourse. It is the product o a collision between heterogeneous theoretical languages; it is interdiscursive in character. In conjunction with the Formalism-Marxism debate the question arises: Which theoretical statements are accepted among groups o scientists (i.e. on an interdiscursive level) and which are rejected and why? In the process, a dialectics o consensus and dissent comes to the ore. Given the act that, as secondary modelling systems, even heterogeneous sociolects overlap within the primary system o natural language on lexical and semantic levels, they allow not only or communication but also or partial consensus. However, as soon as arguments are put orward which are particular to the lexical and semantic repertoire o the other sociolect, our own sociolect may react with resistance and dissent. o the question whether their hypotheses are ‘alsifiable’ (in the Popperian sense), Marxists, eminists and psychoanalysts tend to react with polemics. Similarly, critical rationalists will not willingly accept concepts such as ‘surplus value’, ‘androgyny’ or ‘phallogocentrism’ because these concepts are not neutral (unlike concepts such as ‘vertical’ or ‘horizontal’) but articulate interests and values that are linked to particular sociolects. Each theoretical dialogue thus tends to call into question the subjectivity o the participants. Whenever somebody maintains that notions such as ‘androgyny’ or ‘phallogocentrism’ are meaningless words, then gender studies as a whole may be at risk – along with those who identiy with them. In such cases, the only option available seems to be a deence o one’s own sociolect and its vocabulary in discourses using this vocabulary. Commenting on the interaction o scientific paradigms, Tomas S. Kuhn remarks: ‘Each group uses its own paradigm to argue in that paradigm’s deense.’101 Although a paradigm in the natural sciences differs qualitatively rom a sociolect in the social sciences,102 they are both marked by a linguistic, social (ideological) and narcissistic hermetism that stands in the way o communication. Kuhn comments: ‘Like the choice between competing political institutions, that between competing paradigms proves to be a choice between incompatible modes o community lie.’103 In this passage, Kuhn seems to yield – quite unnecessarily – to a postmodern particularization à la Lyotard. For it was shown that some o his ideas concerning paradigms were anticipated by Halbwachs and Mannheim within completely different sociolects and socio-linguistic situations: or example, the idea that each collective system ollows a particular logic and applies this logic to itsel and all other systems. Tis can be considered as an interdiscursive theorem (linking Halbwachs, Mannheim and Kuhn) which shows that gaps between heterogeneous systems can be bridged and that the latter are not as incompatible as Kuhn and Lyotard suggest. A dialogue between them seems possible. One o the results o this intercollective or interdiscursive dialogue could be interdiscursive theorems , i.e. theorems that are not anchored exclusively in the language o one particular group, but are recognized within different groups. Te search or interdiscursive theorems is based on the idea that, in a scientific dialogue, consensus and dissent orm a dialectic nexus and that a consensus within dissent is more interesting than a consensus reached by the members o a relatively homogeneous group. Tis
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means that Dialogical Teory is geared neither towards consensus nor towards dissent, but towards their interaction. In this respect too, it corresponds to a dialogical subjectivity which thrives on a permanent dialogue with otherness. Te construction o the concept o ‘ideology’ in a dialogue between Critical Teory and Critical Rationalism shows to what extent consensus and dissent are related. In both types o theory, ‘ideology’ is defined as dualistic, monological thought that identifies with reality, i.e. with its objects. In this context, Ernst opitsch and Kurt Salamun explain: ‘In conjunction with ideological modes o thought one requently makes the experience that orientation towards the world is based on a rigid bipolar, dichotomous or dualistic scheme that is applied to virtually all social and political phenomena, whatever their complexity.’104 Later on, Salamun criticizes the positivistic tendency towards identiying thought with reality when he asks: ‘o what extent are value judgements presented as such within ideologies and to what extent are they concealed as sel-evident acts that have been seemingly deduced rom actual knowledge with compelling necessity?’ 105 In this passage, both the identiying mechanisms o ideological discourse (discourse = reality) and its tendency towards monologue (discourse = truth) are dealt with. Tus the interdiscursive definition o ‘ideology’ emerging rom a dialogue between Critical Teory and Critical Rationalism could be summed up as ollows: Ideology is a dualistic and monologic discourse whose subject does not reflect upon the contingency o its value judgements, but identifies with reality thereby precluding the dialogue with other discourses (c. Chapter I, 1, d). A dialogue with critical rationalists could prompt Critical Teory to become more interested in strategies o immunization which are discussed in detail by Salamun in conjunction with Popper’s approach: or example, implicit assumptions, empty phrases, ambiguous expressions.106 Tis leads to the question how such strategies can be analysed on a linguistic level. Tese considerations should not be mistaken or an attempt to synthesize heterogeneous viewpoints or – worse – bring about a global synthesis between Critical Teory and Critical Rationalism in spite o their requent conrontations and quarrels.107 Such an attempt could only lead to conusion and ruin the dialogue envisaged here. Te aim is a consensus within dissent , and dissent is revealed as soon as it becomes clear that, within Critical Teory, the alternative to ideology is dialectics – and not ‘alsifiability’ or ‘reutability’ as in Critical Rationalism. Dissent also breaks out when advocates o Critical Teory turn the critique o ideology against the critical rationalists. Could it be that their Weberian attempts to abstain rom value judgements conceal certain social values underlying the relevance criteria and classifications o their discourses and o their sociolect as a whole? What matters is not the answer to this question but the insight that the interdiscursive definition o ‘ideology’ emerges rom a consensus in dissent and thus differs qualitatively rom definitions produced on an intradiscursive level within a particular group language and type o discourse. Te interdiscursive definition has a different social and linguistic status. Reusing to think exclusively within a particular theory and its sociolect, the subject o Dialogical Teory also moves between consensus and dissent. It keeps moving
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between collective languages and communities o scientists. At the same time, it adopts a heretic attitude towards its own theory (i.e. Critical Teory) by directing it towards semiotics and the critical testing o Critical Rationalism. It nevertheless holds on to the values o Critical Teory – especially to its idea o an autonomous subject – and expects its interlocutors to abide by their theoretical positions and their scale o values. For a dialogue only makes sense i our interlocutors maintain their identities, their otherness. (d) Te practice of dialogue: Psyche, language, politics (metacommentaries to a discussion)
Dialogical Teory in its general orm (not as a theory o dialogical subjectivity) was discussed in a special issue o the German review Ethik und Sozialwissenschaen 4. Although Bakhtin was hardly ever mentioned in the course o the debates involving mainly philosophers and social scientists, the discussion as a whole was marked by polyphony in Bakhtin’s sense. Te basic tenets o such a discussion were summed up by Anton Simons: ‘None o the participants has a truth monopoly. Each statement is ollowed by an answer o the Other, and this answer cannot be entirely anticipated. Although we can try to convince the Other, this situation in itsel implies that he may not adopt our viewpoint.’ 108 Te dialogue is open, unending and, in this respect, is structured in very much the same way as dialogical subjectivity whose openness guarantees versatility and an unhampered development. Not all critiques o Dialogical Teory set out rom this consideration. Tey ranged rom approvals and attempts to apply Dialogical Teory to outright rejection. On the whole, they revealed a highly ragmented postmodern communication situation marked by scientific differentiation, ideological antagonisms and group interests. Against this background, it is not altogether surprising that one o the participants writes: ‘One [can] ully agree with Zima’s intention’,109 while another warns his readers ‘against continuing the kind o activities propagated by Zima’.110 Te ollowing contradictory statements can only be understood in the context o a dialogical and polemical plurality: ‘Te project is clear’111 and: ‘I could not understand this text.’112 Tis kind o problem cannot be solved in conjunction with actors such as ‘good will’, ‘linguistic competence’ or ‘level o intelligence’. Tis is why, in spite o its ethical aspects,113 Dialogical Teory is neither an ethic, nor an ‘appeal to good instincts’, 114 nor a theory o individual cognition, but a sociosemiotic 115 aiming at the social and linguistic conditions under which individual actors such as ‘good will’ may or may not maniest themselves. I somebody lacks good will (or psychic, social or ideological reasons), then the best arguments are put orward in vain. Dialogical Teory was not mapped out or this kind o person, but or those who reuse to be turned into subjects (i.e. subjected) by a particular group language – be it that o Critical Teory, Critical Rationalism, systems theory or Marxism. It is intended or those who hope to gain new insights and increase their autonomy by crossing language borders and by getting to know those who are different. What is thus required (apart rom a theoretical competence), is the search or knowledge and truth that cannot be successul within a monologue.
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Te discussion in Ethik und Sozialwissenschaen also revealed the somewhat discouraging act that there are quite a ew scientists who are not interested in crossing borders, but preer to remain within the group language they grew up with.116 Tey resemble individuals who resent conversations in a oreign language (because they threaten their subjectivity) and who thereore show little interest in scientific discussions that take place in other languages and cultures. Te interest in another culture ofen runs parallel to the interest in another group language or another science.117 Te ofen unavowed reusal to leave one’s culture or language bears witness to a narcissistic ear o otherness. In the oreign culture or language, in the other group language and its ‘strange’ terminology, the linguistic oundations o one’s own subjectivity might be threatened. Fortunately, not all participants suffered rom xenophobia. Many o them helped the author to transorm Dialogical Teory into a ‘building site’ 118 that could at one point become a orum or urther discussions. During the debate, our basic questions crystallized which will be commented on briefly because they may have come up in the reader’s mind. (a) How can homogeneous group languages be distinguished rom heterogeneous ones? (b) How can theorems o one sociolect be translated into the language o another sociolect? (c) What impact do collective interests have on the dialogue between groups o scientists? (d) How do discussions in the natural sciences differ rom discussions in the cultural sciences? Te first question can be answered as ollows: theories or compounds o theories can be linguistically homogeneous or genetic or or typological reasons, either because they influenced each other or because they evolved in similar historical and social situations. In this respect, all phenomenological approaches in philosophy, sociology, linguistics and literary theory are linguistically homogeneous and compatible because they emerged rom Husserl’s phenomenology and influenced each other in many cases. In a different context, Critical Teory is related to Freudian psychoanalysis because the latter had a considerable impact on the thought o authors such as Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse and Fromm. On a typological level (i.e. without mutual influence or a common origin), Critical Teory is akin to Alain ouraine’s sociology o action (c. Chapter IV, 4) which was also conceived as a critique o society and designed as a support or individual and collective subjects. Heterogeneous on a typological level are theories emerging rom ideologically different collective languages and using incompatible actantial models (e.g. collective instead o individual actants) which articulate (partly) incompatible social interests: or example, Critical Teory and Critical Rationalism whose attitudes towards liberal capitalism are incompatible. Tis argument also applies to Baudrillard’s social philosophy and Luhmann’s systems theory. Tis is why a dialogue between these our heterogeneous theory compounds is o particular interest because it can yield interdiscursive theorems: or example, the idea common to critical theorists and critical rationalists that ideologies are dualistic discourses whose dualisms are intensified in times o crisis – or the idea shared by Baudrillard and Luhmann that individual actions have been replaced by systemic operations. (It is obvious that this subject-negating idea is also important or Critical Teory and ouraine’s sociology o action.) It may be useul to point out that similarities and divergences are always theoretical constructions . From Luhmann’s point o view, both Critical Teory and Critical
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Rationalism may appear as subject-centred theories o action. Nevertheless, this somewhat unorthodox reconstruction does not make the two theory compounds linguistically or ideologically homogeneous.119 Te problem o translating group languages into one another is difficult to solve because ideological and theoretical sociolects, which emerge as secondary modelling systems rom the primary system o natural language (Lotman), articulate particular points o view and the corresponding interests. Tis is why they differ rom natural languages which do not express particular interests o individuals or groups. Lef-wing and right-wing groupings can translate their maniestos or programmes into all languages; but a Marxist group will reuse to use the word ‘stratum’ or ‘class’ in order to make itsel understood in American Functionalism. At this point, it becomes clear how ideological problems can turn into linguistic and theoretical ones. However, it is precisely this heterogeneity as a source o dissent that appeals to the theoretician o dialogue because it produces a ascinating phenomenon: ideologically heterogeneous theories ofen intersect, and at their intersections theorems emerge which are quite independent o all kinds o collective consensus and collective doxa. Te aim o all this cannot be, o course, to find a scientific language common to all sociolects, a universal language in the sense o Otto Neurath.120 Such a universal language would only level off all the differences that matter and that are crucial or the emergence o scientific languages. Te act is that the psychoanalyst wishes to express ideas which are different rom those o the psychologist and hence needs a terminology that differs rom that o empirical psychology. I, or communication’s sake, psychologists and psychoanalysts decided to express all o their ideas in a natural language (English, French, German), they would give up their subjectivity as scientists. Te natural language is nevertheless, as primary system and as the most general metalanguage, crucial to the communication between heterogeneous scientific group languages. Problems o translatability, o semantic equivalence or non-equivalence can best be ormulated in a natural language. Te act that an equivalence in the logical or mathematical sense is as impossible between natural languages as between scientific sociolects, is confirmed by both semiotics and theories o translation.121 However, what matters is not semantic equivalence (e.g. o the word ‘ideology’ in Critical Rationalism and in Critical Teory), but the agreement on interdiscursive theorems or statements such as: ‘In times o political crisis the dualisms o ideological discourses are intensified.’ During the debates, the Marxist Wolgang Fritz Haug quite rightly emphasized the role o collective interests and o domination in an interdiscursive dialogue. He objects to Dialogical Teory: ‘In outlining the problem, Zima already reduces antagonisms to differences and the antagonists to strangers who are defined as “heterogeneous”.’ 122 He goes on to ask: ‘But are those heterogeneous instances not also antagonistic because they represent antagonistic social groups?’ 123 At this point a misunderstanding has crept in to which semiotic theories ofen all prey in Marxist discourses. Marxists tend to assume that semiotics is an attempt to replace society and its economy with language. Tis is obviously not the case. For it goes without saying that language groups are held together by material interests and that – as was pointed out elsewhere 124 – such interests are articulated in the lexical repertoire o a sociolect, in its semantic and narrative structures. Tis act became maniest during the polemical discussions between
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Marxists and Formalists (c. supra) and is time and again revealed in debates between Marxists and eminists, psychoanalysts and critical rationalists, unctionalists and advocates o Critical Teory. All depends on how objects such as ‘society’ or ‘sociolinguistic situation’ are constructed in discourses. I the constructions are aimed at dialogue because the discourse subject seeks new experience and knowledge, antagonisms tend to become differences. Who can seriously believe that a ruitul discussion with the ‘class enemy’ is possible? In his novel Te Man without Qualities , Robert Musil shows that such discussions end in silence. 125 Haug himsel tells us that several Marxist-Leninists lef a debate on ‘interparadigmatic communication’ organized by him.126 He ought to have realized that constructions o society and language that are based on class antagonisms are prone to ideological dualism. I critical rationalists or advocates o systems theory are light-heartedly defined as ‘proponents o capitalist interests’, then dialogue becomes impossible and subjectivity is petrified in ideology. Te autonomy o the subject coincides with its reedom to move among sociolects and groups without submitting to a particular dualism or an ideological and theoretical linguistic ruling. In this respect, Dialogical Teory is not only a discourse o ambivalence whose subject seeks truth in the discourse o an opponent , but also (and maybe above all) a discourse o individual reedom. In the cultural sciences, this reedom is permanently threatened by ideological engagement because subjects tend to identiy with particular ideological and theoretical (scientific) programmes. Te sociologist Johann August Schülein and the physicist Rudol A. reumann, who took part in the discussion published in Ethik und Sozialwissenschaen , both took the view that natural scientists speak a homogeneous language (e.g. in physics) and that or this reason interdiscursivity was not relevant to them. Tus Schülein points out that natural scientists ‘have a common language (or find it more easily)’ and that ‘the contact between physicists and chemists [. . .] is not as burdened by problems as that between utilitarians and systems theorists within sociology (not to mention the contact between sociologists and historians)’. 127 Tis argument is confirmed by reumann: ‘Naturally, the methodological advantage o the natural sciences is due to the existence o an objective language which makes it possible to test the validity and the quality o a theory. Tis language is mathematics.’128 Tanks to this language, which seems to uniy the subjectivities o all natural scientists, it is not difficult or subjects o natural sciences to revise their opinions, on the contrary. ‘Nothing is easier or him’, writes reumann about the subject o physics, ‘than revising his opinion i conronted with a new observation, insight or theory.’129 Tis may sound like a simplification i one takes into account the paradigmatic hurdles discussed by Tomas S. Kuhn or Karin Knorr-Cetina’s empirical studies which emphasize the linguistic heterogeneity o natural sciences. 130 But on the whole, it can be assumed that the multiplicity o – ideological – languages that marks cultural sciences does not exist in natural science. Unlike in the natural sciences, individual and collective engagement in the cultural sciences shows to what extent subjective identities can be called into question by new insights and new theories (e.g. by psychoanalysis, eminism or deconstruction). I, or example, a social scientist such as Teodor Geiger,131 who sets out rom an individualist ideology, denies the existence o collective
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consciousness, he not only threatens the oundations o Durkheim’s sociology, but at the same time calls into question the Durkheimian moral subject who would like to strengthen the conscience collective and the cohesion o society as a whole. A possible reaction to this ‘threat’ is the ideological monologue whose subject categorically reuses to embark on an open dialogue with the Other. In this situation, interdiscursive dialogue makes it possible or individual subjects to reconsider their engagement critically and to reassess their ideology by trying to look at it through the eyes o others, their interlocutors. It is this kind o critical attitude towards one’s own point o view that preserves the individual subject rom being subjected by an ideological and theoretical compound. Only in a situation where the voice o the Other is still heard is there hope or individual development .
3 ‘Te dialogue or Europe’ Tis epilogue, which is both a conclusion and an outlook, is meant to link dialogical subjectivity to the emerging polyphonic identity o Europe and at the same time return to the topics o the second chapter. In that chapter, Fichte’s subjective idealism appeared as a metaphysical attempt to subsume otherness to the One, the Germanic origin. Te Romance nations were thus presented as Latinized Germanic tribes who had orsaken their native tongues (c. Chapter II, 1). Fichte’s philosophy may not be a model o German and European romanticism, 132 or romanticism as an international phenomenon is – very much like modernism or postmodernism – a complex and contradictory problematic (not an ideology) within which liberal, conservative and even anarchistic tendencies coexist and interact. It will never be possible to relate the works o Shelley, Coleridge, Chateaubriand and Victor Hugo to a common ideological denominator because romanticism is politically and aesthetically too heterogeneous. In spite o this, it can be shown that there is a romantic tendency towards unification, a tendency to oppose the authentic One to the inauthentic Other. Unlike modernism, whose authors have introduced stylistic heterogeneity and literary polyphony (Bakhtin), the romantic discourse is marked by a penchant towards homogeneity, stylistic or aesthetic unity and monologue. Tis penchant is discernible in Novalis’s essay Die Christenheit oder Europa (1799) where the Reormation is not primarily seen as a justifiable critique, but as a threat to the One, to homogeneity. Te first sentence announces a yearning or lost unity: ‘It was a beautiul, magnificent era, when Europe was a Christian country, when One Christianity inhabited this continent ormed by human hand.’ 133 What matters is not the question to what extent the past reerred to by Novalis is a myth, but the theme o the One and Indivisible that runs through his text. In view o this monistic orientation, it is hardly surprising to hear the author conclude: ‘Te Reormation heralded the end o Christianity.’134 Although he shows a lot more understanding or the Protestants than Fichte or the ‘oreign nations’, he never makes a secret o his idea that the loss o unity entails the loss o authenticity. Although he admits that the Protestants introduced important reorms, he blames them or orgetting ‘the necessary result o their process, [or separating] the inseparable
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[or dividing] the indivisible Church and [deserting] the universal Christian community within which alone the real, permanent renaissance was possible’. 135 Te similarity o the argument patterns is striking. Like Fichte, who regrets the separation o the ‘Latinized Germanic nations’ rom the original Germanic tribe, Novalis considers the Protestant secession as a sin, not as an invitation to dialogue. In what ollows, a model o European integration will be mapped out that is not indebted to a homogeneous past but aims at a polyphonic unity in the linguistic, social and political sense. Tis unity could become the basis o a dialogical identity o individual subjects: not only in Europe, but also in other multilingual regions o the world. (a) Language and subjectivity
Te arguments o the first two sections o this chapter are developed here along with the central idea that the interaction with the Other is crucial to the development o one’s own subjectivity. Dialogical Teory starts rom the assumption that the testing o hypotheses should not stop at the borders o one’s own sociolect, but should take place between heterogeneous group languages. What applies to the relations between sociolects as secondary modelling systems also applies to the interaction o natural languages as primary systems. In present-day Europe, in the European Union, the individual subject stands between languages and has the possibility to learn the language(s) o the Other and to experience cultural alterity. From the point o view o another culture, the world ofen looks very different rom what it appears to be in one’s own culture. Whoever reuses to surrender to a ready-made opinion by subscribing to a particular newspaper or by routinely watching a certain national V programme, might look or alternatives in other cultures and languages. A versatile person o this sort might find that the Croatian Jutarnji list and the Serbian Politika (both rich in relevant and questionable reports) present developments in the Balkans in a very different light rom British, German or French media. An even more curious reader, who ventures to cross the Macedonian border into Greece, will experience the verbal battles between a Nea and o Vima which sometimes open up stunning perspectives or Greece, its neighbours and the Balkans as a whole. Within this cultural and ideological multiplicity, an autonomous and critical stance vis-à-vis Balkan history and politics is more likely to crystallize than among the stereotypes o West-European tabloids. Like the movement between scientific sociolects, the polyphonic oscillation between natural languages can widen the horizon o the critical and sel-critical subject. Commenting on Roman antiquity, Bakhtin shows that, ar rom being an abstract utopia, multilingualism is a European phenomenon: ‘Roman literature at the outset was characterized by trilingualism. “Tree souls” lived in the breast o Ennius.’ 136 Habermas remains well below this level when, discussing European unity, he pleads in avour o the universal use o English: ‘Even the necessity o a common language – English as second first language – should not turn into an insuperable obstacle, given the contemporary state o education.’137 Konrad Schröder quite rightly objects that the model o a ‘universal language’, which proclaims English (or rather: international English) the ‘only supranational means o communication in the EU’, 138 reduces the
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other European languages ‘to the level o regional languages or patois’. 139 Tis could entail resentment, nationalist reactions and even the atrophy o languages. Schröder seems to ollow Bakhtin when he proposes a European trilingualism based on the idea that one ought to know one’s neighbour’s language: ‘Tis is why the linguistic and cultural education o the citizens o the European Union ought to ollow the pattern regional language / national language, language o the neighbour (in a general sense), international language.’140 Tis approach is succinctly endorsed by Tierry Fontenelle: ‘Multilingualism is a key element o the European building.’ 141 Tis multilingualism was also a salient eature o medieval Europe whose eudal amilies and clans occasionally used up to six or seven languages. Naturally, this polyglot communication ofen turned into a Babylonian conusion, and Jacques Le Goff explains how medieval scholars attempted to ban the ghost o Babel by using Latin. ‘But what kind o Latin?’ he asks, and answers: ‘An artificial Latin, rom which its authentic heirs, the “popular languages” dissociated themselves.’ 142 Invigorated by popular support, these heirs made up the linguistic situation o medieval Europe because they dominated everyday lie. ‘Te living reality o the medieval West’, writes Le Goff, ‘is the triumph o the popular languages, the growing number o interpreters, translations, dictionaries.’143 Tis multiplicity, which anticipates that o the European Union, was celebrated in 1030 by the Hungarian King Stephen I: Te guests, who come rom different countries, bring along different languages, customs, instruments and weapons, and this great multiplicity is a credit to the kingdom, an adornment or the court and or the external enemies a source o ear. For a kingdom that only disposes o one language and one tradition is weak and vulnerable.144
He might have added that the subjects o such a kingdom are also ‘weak and vulnerable’ because they are prisoners o one language or culture and hence incapable o perceiving alternatives. From this point o view, the European Union, in which ‘all offi cial languages [. . .] are in principle also working languages’,145 appears as a permanent critique o ideological monologue insoar as it offers individual subjects the possibility to consider cultures, languages and ideologies rom the outside as it were, thus depriving them o their claim to absolute validity. Whoever was able to listen to the BBC or to Radio Moscow during the Second World War was not at the mercy o National Socialist propaganda. Even in contemporary European society, those who can rely on the media o other cultures will be in a better position to criticize a nationalist ideology or the policy o a media mogul than somebody who is monolingual and hence more dependent on an ideology or a media monologue. Once more, the ambivalent relationship between individual autonomy and dialogue comes to the ore. A dialogue with cultural, scientific or ideological otherness can conuse us; but it can also strengthen our subjectivity by enhancing its critical capacities. One o the greatest problems o European integration is due to this ambivalence. For many, the cultural and linguistic polyphony o Europe is a chance they will take advantage o; or others, it may turn out to be a risk they cannot cope with. Tereore it
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is the responsibility o the national governments o Europe and o its supranational institutions to improve multilingual education and to create more European schools and universities, especially in border areas. 146 For individual subjectivity also depends on institutions, as Castoriadis rightly points out. 147 Relying on George Herbert Mead’s sociology o interaction, Dragan Sorić shows to what extent European integration has an impact on the ormation o individual identities. Te generalized Other in the sense o Mead stretches across national borders and influences the constitution o subjects on an intercultural level: ‘Te ramework o the so called “generalized other” was extended beyond national borders to cover large parts o Europe and thus became the basis o identity expansion.’ 148 Moreover, the Other may no longer appear as a stranger, but as a European relative: ‘Within the consciousness o every European, it became clear that the other identity has a lot in common with one’s own.’149 More ofen than not, the emergence o a European identity leads to the historical insight that the ormer stranger is closer to us than we think because Europe has always been a polyphonic unity.150 (b) Movement and historicity
In spite o these developments, the polyphonic unity o Europe cannot be the only basis o a new individual subjectivity. Te latter depends to a large extent on social movements in the sense o ouraine (c. Chapter IV, 4) which envisage a united Europe that goes well beyond a ‘common market’. Te ‘greens’, militant women, workers threatened by unemployment and the unemployed themselves are not primarily interested in the completion o the European market (the importance o which is not in doubt), but in a new subjectivity that successully resists reification by market laws and state bureaucracies. Te basic aim o these groups and their members, who in the past were objects rather than subjects o history, is to become recognized actors whose actions have an impact on economic and political developments and on administration. In agreement with ouraine’s theory o social action and the new social movements, Pierre Bourdieu pleads in avour o a European labour movement which would not impede the economic and financial integration process, but give it a new direction by adding a social dimension. Although he tends to exaggerate, Bourdieu is certainly not wrong when he points out that the advocates o neo-liberalism are more interested in economic advantages than in a European ederal state: Only a European social state would be capable o countering the disintegratory effects o monetary economics. But Mr ietmeyer and the neo- liberals do not want either national states, which they see as simple obstacles to the ree unctioning o the economy, or, a ortiori, the supranational state, which they want to reduce to a bank.151
In the end, Bourdieu quite rightly pleads in avour o a ‘European state’ 152 capable o controlling the European Central Bank. At the same time, he asks the members o the Federation o German rade Unions (DGB) to orm, together with other European
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trade unions, a supranational workers’ movement that would protect the employees o Europe against international ‘social dumping’.153 A European trade union o this kind would not only protect its members, but at the same time act at the level o historicity in the sense o ouraine. Completing the projects o big business, which until now has been the driving orce o European integration, it would contribute to the development o a social and political Europe capable o controlling the multinational trusts and the European economy as a whole. Tis development presupposes a new consciousness o workers, employees and the unemployed who would no longer content themselves with deensive actions, but would take the offensive by demanding structural changes. Te expression ‘structural changes’ reers neither to a mythical nor to a real (and ailed) socialism, but to a new subjectivity o employees aiming at a social Europe in which the potential o workers’ control and sel-administration would be re-examined. Te debates about alternative orms o economic organization have not come to an end – yet. In some respects, they complete Alain ouraine’s and Blaise Ollivier’s research into the development o new individual and collective subjectivities in the economy and in society.154 Te analyses o Lore Voigt-Weber reveal the importance o alternative businesses: ‘Alternative businesses see it as their primary political goal not to cut themselves off or to be marginalized, but to have an impact on society and to practise criticism by trying out alternative ways o working and living.’155 Voigt-Weber considers this approach as an alternative to traditional lef-wing policies, which relied heavily on the ‘revolutionary role o the proletariat’, and invokes W. Kraushaar who – like ouraine and Ollivier – emphasizes the role o the subjective actor in an alternative economy: ‘Instead o a direct attack on the structures o the capitalist system, the main objective o the strategies in question is the development o the subjects along with the construction o an alternative economic system.’156 It would be important to ensure that this development o a new subjectivity based on workers’ control is not limited to local experiments, but endorsed by a European trade union movement at the level o historicity. At this level too, Work as the Other o Capital ought to recover its speech. Along with the workorce, in which the oldest movements o Europe originate, women’s movements and ecological movements are having an increasing impact on European politics. Like workers’ movements o the past, they also seek alternatives to a male-dominated economy by adopting the perspective o an exploited nature and an equally exploited emale workorce. ouraine considers them as the most important movements in contemporary society (c. Chapter IV, 4), and their importance is due to the act that a dialogical unity o Europe is impossible as long as hal o its population is disadvantaged and nature continues to be exploited. ogether with movements o workers and the unemployed, women’s organizations and ecological groupings try to influence European historicity in order to make sure that social development takes a different direction on a regional, national and supranational level. It is by no means certain that the direction will change because economic orces continue to dominate events – and the historical process is openended.
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Tis is probably the reason why Françoise Gaspard, who seeks to develop ouraine’s approach, dwells upon the ambivalence o eminist movements. On the one hand, she realizes that these movements are unstable and ofen ephemeral (c. Chapter III, 8); on the other hand, she emphasizes what has been achieved so ar: ‘In the meantime, however, social relations have changed thanks to the activities o women.’ 157 Ideas about the unction o gender in the proessional world have also changed in the sense that the ideological dualism separating rigorously male rom emale proessions is gradually dissolving. ‘Te concept o androgyny as a social and personal strategy o sel-assertion’158 in the sense o Sophie Karmasin has certainly not abolished the traditional role distribution, but stereotype ideas about geology, engineering or science as necessarily male proessions are being eroded by a changing practice. Gradually, society accepts the excluded Other and thus changes its appearance. Te popularization o ‘androgyny’ is a symptom o this structural and unctional change. In an analogous ashion, environment ideologies make themselves elt in the economy. Although not everything is as eco-riendly as producers claim in adverts, ‘nature’ and ‘environment’ are nowadays among the most important economic and political topics. ‘Green’ movements and parties have crucially contributed to this change by criticizing the subjugation o nature by civilization and by pointing to the dependence o culture on nature. For Europe, this insight is crucial because this densely populated continent is about to be suffocated by its economy, its polluting conurbations and its traffic jams. It goes without saying that a rationally ‘green’ environmental policy is in the interest o humanity as a whole. Te question as to what all o these social movements have in common can be answered in in one word: subjectivity . Both workers and the unemployed begin to move in order to cease being objects o administration and to turn into subjects. In a complementary ashion, groups o women have been agitating since the nineteenth century in order to make themselves heard and gain recognition or the excluded hal o society. Te main goal o ecological movements is also subjectivity, or the latter would become meaningless i its biological basis, individuality as corporeity, were destroyed by an environmental catastrophe. Te spirit vanishes i it is abandoned by nature. Repressed and tabooed by rationalists and Hegelians alike, this insight was regained by the Young Hegelians and Nietzsche and put into practice by the ecological movements o Europe. ogether with other groupings, the three movements – workers, women, ‘greens’ – aim at historicity in the sense o ouraine. Tey categorically reject the evaluation o social developments on the basis o purely quantitative criteria. Te exchange value, the market-orientation and the maximization o profit are not decisive to them, but qualitative values such as health, equality, sel-realization and creativity. Tey mobilize ideological potentials against market-based indifference, alterity against reification. Te individual subject o late modernity, who adopts the point o view o ambivalence, will seek to avoid both: indifference and ideology (in the sense o dualism and monologue). Since it seems unlikely that the ephemeral social movements alone will be able to bring about a qualitative change in historicity, the question arises whether a historical instance is in sight that could turn into a driving orce and make this change possible.
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Tis instance can only be a uture European ederal government which takes Pierre Bourdieu’s warnings seriously and sees to it that the European Union does not degenerate into a ‘common market’ dominated by banks. (c) owards European politics
In spite o their heterogeneous character and their instability, the social movements may one day respond positively to the proposal o a European government to act in unison in order to make sure that the European Union will not be reduced to its economy. For this reason Europe not only needs a constitution, as Jürgen Habermas quite rightly points out,159 but also a ederal government capable o relating the ideological projects o the various movements to the economic development o the country as a whole. Te historical importance o the economy or European integration should not be underestimated. Hitherto it has been the driving orce o unification which now suffers rom a political deficit . Balancing this deficit would be one o the main tasks o a European government which, ar rom agitating against the economy or ‘capital’, would deend the Union’s economic interests and the common currency. For it will appear in the course o time that a stable common currency presupposes political integration and that those who believe that a currency union is possible without a political union are wrong. 160 Te expression ‘European politics’ also reers to a common economic and financial policy that would thwart all attempts to reduce the EU to a ‘common market’ and to leave its destiny in the hands o bankers and financial markets. However, ‘European politics’ go well beyond the economic domain. Tey are meant to encourage the aspirations o social movements and strengthen their subjectivities on an individual and collective level. What applies to economic and monetary union also applies to social movements. In view o a progressing economic and political integration, they can only be successul on a European level. A European government could crucially contribute to their success by seeing to it that, in addition to a quantitative, economic historicity, a historicity o cultural values and political aims emerges. Tis is what ouraine means when he reers to the ecological movements and to women’s movements as mouvements culturels.161 In this context, European politics would not only deal with economics and social movements, but also with nations. At first sight, the relationship between the EU and its nation states might appear as antagonistic. It is ofen presented in this light in the media, or example, in Te Economist (6 November 1999), where P. David discusses the question o British unity and identity under the title ‘Undoing Britain’. ‘Is one o the world’s most durable states dissolving itsel?’ 162 he asks, and ponders on the European Union as an identity project that might compete with traditional British identity.163 Te presence o the European Union, he argues, makes Scottish independence seem realistic, because without this presence the nationalist project o the SNP would be ull o gaps and imponderables: How could an independent Scotland be deended? What currency would it use? 164 It may well be that European integration will unleash centriugal orces in some nation states (e.g. in Spain or even in Italy) when a common oreign and deence policy takes shape.
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On the whole, however, European integration looks more like a completion o national projects, not like their negation. Tis is amply illustrated by the EU’s support or young democracies such as Greece, Portugal and Spain and by the national hopes which countries such as Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia project into their European uture – afer decades o subjugation and humiliation. Outside the Union, Albanians, Bosnians, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Ukrainians hope to develop unctioning democracies which will one day enable them to join the European project. Against this background, it seems misleading to postulate an antagonism between European ederation and nation. It seems more likely that the words ‘nation’ and ‘national identity’ will take on new meanings in a European context. National aspirations may very well be linked to European ambitions and projected onto a European level. In 1986, or example, a Catalonian political party asked the European Community to recognize Catalan as one o its working languages: ‘que el català hi os una de les lengues de traball’. 165 A European government amiliar with recent history will take requests o this kind very seriously because they originate in countries which were subjugated and whose populations hope to realize their identities within the European Union. Tis link between national and European identity was revealed in the days o German reunification. Unlike nationalist politicians, who considered this event with mixed eelings, a European ederalist could consider this process o reunification as the geographical, political and symbolic core o European unity. For the two reunifications – the German and the European – coincide, i not chronologically, at least structurally, and announce an era in which European identity encompasses national and regional identity. Subjectivity as a search or identity (c. Chapter I, 1, c) emerges on a collective level within a common project, and this project appears, rom a German point o view, as German-European reunification. In a South European perspective, it appears as a process o democratization. Many inhabitants o Central and Eastern Europe see it as a ‘return to Europe’ – and their point o view is shared by those inhabitants o post-imperial Britain who identiy with a European uture because they realize that the past never returns. Against this backdrop, the task o a European government takes on concrete contours. It would seek to strengthen the collective subjectivities o movements, nations and regions within the ramework o a new, polyphonic historicity . Only i the collective subjects and their languages have a chance to develop is there a hope that the individual subject as a member o a minority or a small nation, as a working woman or an unemployed man, can make sense o the uture within a historical project and escape the atomization o contemporary narcissism. Tis development can hardly materialize as long as institutional and collective support is missing. In this situation, individual subjects will continue to be manipulated by nationalist propaganda, market laws and a growing advertising industry. Tis is the reason why, in this book, individual subjectivity was always considered in conjunction with collective subjectivity and institutional conditions: because the search or identity always takes place in a particular historical, social and linguistic context. Tis context is open and subject to contingency.
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Notes 1 . W. Adorno, Notes to Literature, vol. I, New York, Columbia Univ. Press, 1991, p. 106. 2 C. A. Giddens, Modernity and Sel-Identity. Sel and Society in the Late Modern Age, Cambridge, Polity, 1991. 3 C. R. Wiggershaus, Te Frankurt School. Its History, Teories and Political Significance, Cambridge, Polity, 1995, chap. VII and VIII. 4 C. M. Horkheimer, raditionelle und kritische Teorie, Frankurt, Fischer, 1970, p. 30. 5 C. N. Elias, ‘Problems o Involvement and Detachment’, in: British Journal o Sociology 1, 1956, pp. 234–5. 6 C. P. V. Zima, ‘Idéologie, théorie et altérité: l’enjeu éthique de la critique littéraire’, in: Etudes littéraires 3, 1999, pp. 17–18. 7 C. O. Schrag, Te Sel aer Postmodernity , New Haven-London, Yale Univ. Press, 1997, p. 30: ‘Te slide rom diversity, plurality, and multiplicity to heterogeneity, paralogy, and incommensurability is too hurried (. . .).’ 8 Ibid., S. 32. 9 C. W. Welsch, Vernun. Die zeitgenössische Vernunkritik und das Konzept der transversalen Vernun , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1996, chap. X. 10 Te silence o the narrator in the modern novel is discussed in: P. V. Zima, Roman und Ideologie. Zur Sozialgeschichte des modernen Romans , Munich, Fink, 1999 (reprint), chap. X. 11 . odorov, ‘Bakhtine et l’altérité’, in: Poétique 40, 1979, p. 507. 12 A. ouraine, Pourrons-nous vivre ensemble? Egaux et différents, Paris, Fayard, 1997, p. 111. 13 C. A. ouraine, ‘La Formation du sujet’, in: F. Dubet, M. Wieviorka (eds.), Penser le sujet. Autour d’Alain ouraine (Colloque de Cerisy), Paris, Fayard, 1995, p. 32. 14 Indirectly ouraine does this in his book Comment sortir du libéralisme? , Paris, Fayard, 1999, pp. 116–17. 15 Te idea that late modernity and postmodernity are problematics (i.e. noetic systems dominated by certain questions and problems) and not homogeneous world views is developed in: P. V. Zima, Modern / Postmodern. Society, Philosophy, Literature, London-New York, Continuum, 2010, chap. I. 16 C. P. V. Zima, ‘Ambivalence et dialectique: entre Benjamin et Bakhtine’, in: idem: Téorie critique du discours. La discursivité entre Adorno et le postmodernisme, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2003. 17 C. P. V. Zima, Te Philosophy o Modern Literary Teory , London-New Brunswick, Athlone-Continuum, 1999, chap. V. 3: ‘Mikhail M. Bakhtin’s Young Hegelian Aesthetics’. 18 . W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics (1973), London-New York, Routledge, 2000, p. 141. 19 . W. Adorno, Aesthetic Teory , London, Athlone, 1997, pp. 115–16. 20 R. Musil, Die Schwärmer , in: idem, Gesammelte Werke, vol. VI, Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1978, p. 379. 21 H. Broch, Die Schuldlosen, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1974, p. 147. 22 U. Beck, E. Beck-Gernsheim, ‘Individualisierung in modernen Gesellschafen – Perspektiven und Kontroversen einer subjektorientierten Soziologie’, in: U. Beck, E. Beck-Gernsheim (eds.), Riskante Freiheiten, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1994, p. 14. 23 I. Craib, Experiencing Identity , London, Sage, 1998, p. 55. 24 S. Karmasin, ‘Das Androgyniekonzept als soziale und personale Durchsetzungsstrategie’, in: Österreichische Zeitschri ür Soziologie 3, 1992, p. 4. 25 C. E. Zolla, L’androgino. L’umana nostalgia dell’interezza, Como, Red Edizioni, 1989.
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26 F. Jacques, Dialogiques, Paris, PUF, 1979, p. 6. 27 M. M. Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World , Cambridge (Mass.)-London, M. I. . Press, 1968, chap. II. 28 M. Holquist, Bakhtin and his World , London-New York, Routledge, 1990, p. 49. 29 M. M. Bakhtin, ‘Problema rečejnych žanrov’, in: idem, Estetika slovesnogo tvorčestva , Moscow, Iskusstvo, 1979, p. 237. 30 C. A. Ponzio, Michail Bachtin. Alle origini della semiotica sovietica, Bari, Dedalo, 1980, pp. 175–6. 31 C. M. M. Bakhtin, ‘Discourse in the Novel’, in: idem, Te Dialogic Imagination. Four Essays (ed. M. Holquist), Austin, Univ. o extas Press, 1981, p. 316: ‘We sense acutely the various distances between the author and various aspects o his language, which smack o the social universes and belie systems o others.’ 32 G. Lozanović, ‘Roman i dialogičnost u Bahtina’, in: Umjetnost Riječi 3–4, 1993, p. 211. 33 C. . odorov, Mikhaïl Bakhtine – le principe dialogique suivi de Ecrits du Cercle de Bakhtine, Paris, Seuil, 1981, p. 156. 34 C. H. Keupp, Riskante Chancen. Das Subjekt zwischen Psychokultur und Selbstorganisation. Sozialpsychologische Studien, Heidelberg, Asanger, 1988, pp. 141–51. 35 C. Castoriadis, L’Institution imaginaire de la société , Paris, Seuil, 1975, p. 159. 36 J. Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves, New York, Columbia Univ. Press, 1994. 37 O. Schwemmer, ‘Die symbolische Gestalt der Subjektivität oder Ein altes Rätsel noch einmal bedacht’, in: W. Hogrebe (ed.), Subjektivität , Munich, Fink, 1998, p. 50. 38 M. Frank, ‘Subjekt, Person, Individuum’, in: M. Frank, G. Raulet, W. van Reijen (eds.), Die Frage nach dem Subjekt , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1988, pp. 10–11. 39 H. Keupp et al., Identitätskonstruktionen. Das Patchwork der Identitäten in der Spätmoderne, Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1999, p. 229. 40 Ibid., p. 330. 41 L. J. Prieto, Pertinence et pratique. Essai de sémiologie, Paris, Minuit, 1975, p. 148. 42 P. Bourdieu, Leçon sur la leçon, Paris, Minuit, 1982, p. 15. 43 R. Bubner, ‘Wie wichtig ist Subjektivität? Über einige Selbstverständlichkeiten und mögliche Mißverständnisse der Gegenwart’, in: W. Hogrebe (ed.), Subjektivität , op. cit., p. 246. 44 Different linguistic meanings o relevance are discussed in: D. Sperber, D. Wilson, Relevance. Communication and Cognition, Oxord, Blackwell, 1986, chap. III. 45 C. H. Bloom, Te Anxiety o Influence. A Teory o Poetry , Oxord, Univ. Press, 1973. 46 C. D. Sperber and D. Wilson, Relevance , op. cit., p. 124. 47 V. J. Seidler, Rediscovering Masculinity. Reason, Language and Sexuality , London-New York, Routledge, 1989, p. 101. 48 Ibid., p. 200. 49 C. M. Proust, Contre Sainte-Beuve, Paris, Gallimard, Bibl. de la Pléiade, 1971, pp. 598–9; M. Proust, Le Carnet de 1980 (établi et présenté par P. Kolb), Paris, Gallimard (Cahiers Marcel Proust ), 1976, pp. 97–8. 50 C. P. V. Zima, ‘Von Marcel Proust zur Dekonstruktion: Le “monde des différences” ’, in: U. Link-Heer, V. Roloff (eds.), Marcel Proust und die Philosophie, Frankurt, Insel, 1997. 51 C. P. V. Zima, Roman und Ideologie, op. cit., chap. II. 52 H. Lübbe, ‘Kontingenzerahrung und Kontingenzbewältigung’, in: G. v. Graevenitz, O. Marquardt (eds.), Kontingenz , Munich, Fink, 1998, p. 35. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 G. W. F. Hegel, Te Philosophy o History , New York, Dover Publications, 1956, p. 10.
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56 F. . Vischer, Auch Einer. Eine Reisebekanntscha , vol. II, Wurmlingen, Schwäbische Verlagsgesellschaf, 1879 (reprint s.d.), p. 289. 57 E. Köhler, Der literarische Zuall, das Mögliche und die Notwendigkeit , Munich, Fink, 1973, p. 47. 58 C. ibid., pp. 48–9. 59 A. Camus, Te Outsider , Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1961, p. 96. 60 Te reconstruction o the narrator’s subjectivity in the discourses o ideology are commented on in: P. V. Zima, L’Indifférence romanesque. Sartre, Moravia, Camus (1982), Paris, L’Harmattan, 2005 (revised ed.), chap. IV. 61 C. K.-O. Apel, ‘Die Kommunikationsgemeinschaf als transzendentale Voraussetzung der Sozialwissenschafen’, in: idem, ransormation der Philosophie, vol. II, Das Apriori der Kommunikationsgemeinscha , Frankurt, Suhrkamp (1973), 1976 and: J. Habermas, Te Teory o Communicative Action, vol. II, Te Critique o Functionalist Reason, Cambridge-Oxord, Polity-Blackwell, 1989, chap. V. 62 A critique o Apel’s approach can be ound in: H. Albert, ranszendentale räumereien. Karl-Otto Apels Sprachspiele und sein hermeneutischer Gott , Hamburg, Hoffmann und Campe, 1975, pp. 147–9. 63 C. Y. Lotman, Te Structure o the Artistic ext , Ann Arbor, Univ. o Michigan Press, 1977, chap. II. 64 C. K.-O. Apel, ransormation der Philosophie, vol. II, op. cit., pp. 341–3. 65 J.-F. Lyotard, Postmodern Fables, Minneapolis, Te Univ. o Minnesota Press, 1997, p. 127. 66 C. P. V. Zima, Modern / Postmodern, op. cit., pp. 221–4. 67 J.-L. Lyotard, Te Postmodern Condition. A Report on Knowledge, Manchester, Univ. Press, 2004, p. 36. 68 F. Jacques, Dialogiques, op. cit., p. 10. 69 J.-F. Lyotard, Political Writings, London, UCL Press, 1993, p. 20. 70 J.-F. Lyotard, Postmodern Fables, op. cit., p. 135. 71 Ibid., p. 140. 72 C. O. Schrag, Te Sel aer Postmodernity , op. cit., pp. 32–3. 73 C. M. Frank, Die Grenzen der Verständigung. Ein Geistergespräch zwischen Lyotard und Habermas , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1988, p. 79. 74 C. J. Habermas, ‘Philosophie und Wissenschaf als Literatur?’, in: idem, Nachmetaphysisches Denken. Philosophische Ausätze, Frankurt, Suhrkamp (1988), 1992, pp. 242–7. 75 J. Habermas, Erläuterungen zur Diskursethik, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1991, p. 202. 76 J. Habermas, Vorstudien und Ergänzungen zur Teorie des kommunikativen Handelns , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1984, p. 591. 77 C. J. Alexander, ‘Habermas’ neue Kritische Teorie: Anspruch und Probleme’, in: A. Honneth, A. Joas (eds.), Kommunikatives Handeln. Beiträge zu Jürgen Habermas’ ‘Teorie des kommunikativen Handelns’ , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1986, p. 95. 78 J. Habermas, ‘Vorbereitende Bemerkungen zu einer Teorie der kommunikativen Kompetenz’, in: J. Habermas, N. Luhmann, Teorie der Gesellscha oder Sozialtechnologie – Was leistet die Systemorschung? , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1971, p. 136. 79 Te relationship between sociolects is similar to that between paradigms as described by Tomas S. Kuhn: ‘Each group uses its own paradigm to argue in that paradigm’s deense.’ (. S. Kuhn, Te Structure o Scientific Revolutions, Chicago-London, Te Univ. o Chicago Press [1962], 1996 [3rd ed.], p. 94.)
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80 J. Habermas, ‘Der Universalitätsanspruch der Hermeneutik’, in: idem, Kultur und Kritik. Verstreute Ausätze, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1973, p. 283. 81 J. Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, Cambridge-Oxord, Polity-Blackwell (1990), 1992, p. 87. 82 J. Habermas, ‘Vorbereitende Bemerkungen zu einer Teorie der kommunikativen Kompetenz’, op. cit., p. 103. 83 R. Leschke, Metamorphosen des Subjekts. Hermeneutische Reaktionen au die (post-) strukturalistische Herausorderung , vol. I, Frankurt-Bern-Paris, Lang, 1987, p. 184. 84 Ibid. 85 M. Halbwachs, Classes sociales et morphologie, Paris, Minuit, 1972, p. 150. 86 Ibid., p. 151. 87 K. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia. An Introduction to the Sociology o Knowledge , London-Henley, Routledge and Kegan Paul (1936), 1976, p. 270. 88 C. E. Fromm, Escape rom Freedom (1941), New York, Avon Books, 1965, chap. V. 89 R. Kurt, Subjektivität und Intersubjektivität. Kritik der konstruktivistischen Vernun , Frankurt-New York, Campus, 1995, p. 173. 90 Ibid., p. 5. 91 A critique o Mannheim’s concept o ‘ree-floating intellectuals’ can be ound in: P. V. Zima, Ideologie und Teorie. Eine Diskurskritik, übingen-Basel, Francke, 1989, chap. III. 2. 92 An example o indifference as interchangeability o positions is: S. Fish, Is Tere a ext in Tis Class? Te Authority o Interpretive Communities, Cambridge (Mass.)-London, Harvard Univ. Press, 1982 (2nd ed.), pp. 14–16. Fish’s point o view is criticized in: P. V. Zima, Te Philosopohy o Modern Literary Teory , op. cit., chap. IX. 93 C. N. Luhmann, Die Wissenscha der Gesellscha , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1990, p. 76, where it is said ‘that or all kinds o observation an observer, i.e. a system, is responsible which thereore can itsel be observed’. But who observes systems theory and its blind spots? 94 N. Elias, ‘Problems o Involvement and Detachment’, in: Te British Journal o Sociology 1, 1956, p. 237. 95 C. M. Frank, Die Grenzen der Verständigung , op. cit., p. 10. 96 C. K.-O. Apel, ransormation der Philosophie, vol. II, op. cit., p. 429 and J. Habermas, Erläuterungen zur Diskursethik, op. cit., p. 163. 97 H. Albert, Die Wissenscha und die Fehlbarkeit der Vernun , übingen, Mohr-Siebeck, 1982, p. 48. 98 Tis example is a paraphrase o Popper’s own examples in: Te Logic o Scientific Discovery (1959), London-New York, Routledge, 2002. 99 C. or example: . Benett, Formalism and Marxism, London, Methuen, 1979, Routledge, 1989. 100 Te Hegelian origin o Marxist aesthetics is discussed in: P. V. Zima, Te Philosophy o Modern Literary Teory , op. cit., chap. V. 101 . S. Kuhn, Te Structure o Scientific Revolutions, op. cit., p. 94. 102 Te specific character o paradigms in natural sciences is discussed in: K. Bayertz, Wissenschastheorie und Paradigmabegriff , Stuttgart, Metzler, 1981, p. 110. 103 . S. Kuhn, Te Structure o Scientific Revolutions, op. cit., p. 94. 104 E. opitsch, K. Salamun, Ideologie. Herrscha des Vor-Urteils, Vienna, Langen-Müller, 1972, p. 57. 105 K. Salamun, Ideologie und Aulärung. Weltanschauungstheorie und Politik, ViennaCologne-Graz, Böhlau, 1988, p. 105.
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106 C. ibid., p. 77 and p. 105. 107 C. A. Giddens (ed.), Positivism and Sociology , London, Heinemann (1974), 1978. 108 A. Simons, Het groteske van de taal. Over het werk van Michail Bachtin, Amsterdam, SUA, 1990, p. 9. 109 W. Neuser, ‘Wissenschafliche Kommunikation und wissenschafliche Position’, in: Ethik und Sozialwissenschaen 4, 1999, pp. 635–6. 110 G. Endruweit, ‘Regeln ür interdisziplinäre Forschung statt einer Teorie des Holzwegs’, in: Ethik und Sozialwissenschaen, op. cit., p. 614. 111 H. Bußho, ‘Dialogische Teorie: Bedingung ür Erkenntnisortschritt in den Sozialwissenschafen?’, in: Ethik und Sozialwissenschaen, op. cit., p. 607. 112 W. Nothdurf, ‘Unverständnis und Vermutung – eine trostlose Lese-Erahrung’, in: Ethik und Sozialwissenschaen, op. cit., p. 638. 113 C. P. V. Zima, ‘Idéologie, théorie et altérité: l’enjeu éthique de la critique littéraire’, op. cit., note 6. 114 C. F. Apel, ‘Dialogische Teorie und Kanalbauwesen’, in: Ethik und Sozialwissenschaen, op. cit., p. 597. 115 C. P. V. Zima, extsoziologie. Eine kritische Einührung , Stuttgart, Metzler, 1980. 116 C. Ph. W. Balsinger, ‘Dialogische Teorie? – Methodische Konzeption!’, in: Ethik und Sozialwissenschaen, op. cit., p. 604. Balsinger suggests that Dialogical Teory be replaced by P. Lorenzen’s constructivism. Not much is gained by this move – rom a dialogical point o view. 117 It is interesting to note that English, German and French debates about ideology rarely overlap. C. or example: O. Reboul, Langage et idéologie, Paris, PUF, 1980 and K.-H. Roters, Reflexionen über Ideologie und Ideologiekritik, Würzburg, Königshausen und Neumann, 1998. Te two bibliographies reveal two undamentally different scientific cultures. 118 C. H. Nicklas, ‘Die Dialogische Teorie: Eine Baustelle’, in: Ethik und Sozialwissenschaen, op. cit., p. 637. 119 Object constructions in sociology, psychology or the theory o literature can differ in many respects, but they are never entirely arbitrary and ofen overlap in crucial points. 120 C. O. Neurath, ‘Universaljargon und erminologie’, in: idem, Gesammelte philosophische und methodologische Schrien, vol. II, eds. R. Haller, H. Rutte, Vienna, Hölder-Pichler-empsky, 1981, p. 906. Neurath discusses the possibility o a universal scientific language. 121 C. W. Dressler, ‘Der Beitrag der extlinguistik zur Übersetzungswissenschaf’, in: V. Kapp (ed.), Übersetzer und Dolmetscher. Teoretische Grundlagen, Ausbildung, Beruspraxis, Heidelberg, Quelle und Meyer, 1974, p. 62: ‘A complete, unequivocal (. . .) equivalence does not exist in translation (. . .).’ 122 W. F. Haug, ‘Möglichkeiten und Grenzen interparadigmatischer Kommunikation’, in: Ethik und Sozialwissenschaen, op. cit., p. 619. 123 Ibid., pp. 619–20. 124 C. P. V. Zima, Ideologie und Teorie, op. cit., chap. VII where ‘relevance’ and ‘classification’ are considered as instruments o domination. 125 R. Musil, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaen, Gesammelte Werke , vol. IV, Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1978, p. 1455. 126 W. F. Haug, ‘Möglichkeiten und Grenzen interparadigmatischer Kommunikation’, op. cit., p. 618.
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127 J. A. Schülein, ‘Gegenstandslogik, Teoriestruktur, Institutionalisierung. Vom Problem der Dialogähigkeit zum Problem der Teoriebalance’, in: Ethik und Sozialwissenschaen, op. cit., p. 651. 128 R. A. reumann, ‘Verständigung und Verstehen’, in: Ethik und Sozialwissenschaen, op. cit., p. 652. 129 Ibid. 130 C. K. Knorr-Cetina, Die Fabrikation von Erkenntnis. Zur Anthropologie der Wissenscha , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1984, pp. 271–3. 131 C. . Geiger, Arbeiten zur Soziologie. Methode, moderne Gesellscha, Rechtssoziologie, Ideologiekritik , Neuwied-Berlin, Luchterhand, 1962, p. 427. 132 C. A. v. Bormann (ed.), Volk – Nation – Europa. Zur Romantisierung und Entromantisierung politischer Begriffe, Würzburg, Königshausen und Neumann, 1998. 133 Novalis (F. von Hardenberg), ‘Die Christenheit oder Europa’, in: idem, Schrien, vol. III, Stuttgart-Berlin-Cologne, Kohlhammer, 1983, p. 507. 134 Ibid., p. 513. 135 Ibid., p. 511. 136 M. M. Bakhtin, Te Dialogic Imagination, op. cit., p. 63. 137 J. Habermas, Die Einbeziehung des Anderen. Studien zur politischen Teorie , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1997 (2nd ed.), p. 191. 138 K. Schröder, ‘Dreisprachigkeit der Unionsbürger – Ein europäischer raum?’, in: Zeitschri ür Anglistik und Amerikanistik 2, 1999, p. 156. 139 Ibid. 140 Ibid, p. 159. 141 . Fontenelle, ‘English and Multilingualism in the European Union’, in: Zeitschri ür Anglistik und Amerikanistik 2, 1999, p. 123. 142 J. Le Goff, La Civilisation de l’Occident médiéval , Paris, Flammarion, 1982, pp. 254–5. 143 Ibid., p. 255. 144 Ibid., pp. 256–7. 145 K. Schröder, ‘Dreisprachigkeit der Unionsbürger – ein europäischer raum?’, op. cit., p. 155. 146 Te oundation o European universities in bilingual and trilingual regions such as Catalonia and Istria could contribute to the development o these regions. 147 C. C. Castoriadis, L’Institution imaginaire de la société , op. cit., chap. VI. 148 D. Sorić, Die Genese einer europäischen Identität. George Herbert Meads Identitätskonzeption dargestellt am Beispiel des europäischen Einigungsprozesses, Marburg, ectum Verlag, 1996, p. 107. 149 Ibid. 150 Te Istrian-Croatian author Milan Rakovac presents the trilingual peninsula o Istria (Slovenian, Croatian, Italian) as a possible model o a polyphonic Europe: c. M. Rakovac, ‘Mens sana in utopia histriana’, in: Vjesnik, 27th May 2000, p. 4. 151 P. Bourdieu, Acts o Resistance. Against the Myths o Our ime, Cambridge-Oxord, Polity-Blackwell (2000), 2004, p. 62. 152 Ibid., p. 63. 153 Ibid., p. 62. 154 C. B. Ollivier, L’Acteur et le sujet. Vers un nouvel acteur économique , Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1995. 155 L. Voigt-Weber, ‘Alternativ profitieren? – Strukturen und Probleme alternativen Wirtschafens in der Bundesrepublik’, in: Österreichische Zeitschri ür Soziologie 1–2, 1986, p. 157.
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156 Ibid., p. 158. 157 F. Gaspard, ‘Le Sujet est-il neutre?’, in: F. Dubet, M. Wieviorka (eds.), Penser le sujet , op. cit., p. 152. 158 C. S. Karmasin, ‘Das Androgyniekonzept als soziale und personale Durchsetzungsstrategie’, in: Österreichische Zeitschri ür Soziologie 3, 1992. 159 C. J. Habermas, Die Einbeziehung des Anderen, op. cit., p. 189–91. 160 C. B. Scholten, ‘Euro- visie’, in: Europa in beweging 1, 2000, p. 2: ‘Te EMU will also unction without a political union.’ 161 C. A. ouraine, Pourrons-nous vivre ensemble? , op. cit., pp. 175–83. 162 P. David, ‘Undoing Britain’, in: Te Economist (‘A Survey o Britain’), 6th November 1999, p. 3. 163 Ibid., p. 4. 164 Ibid., p. 7. 165 Quotation rom the election programme o the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya in view o the European elections in June 1986.
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2 Sociology Adorno, . W., ‘Individuum und Organisation’, in: idem, Kritik, kleine Schrien zur Gesellscha , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1971. Adorno, . W. et al., Te Authoritarian Personality , New York, Harper & Brother, 1950. Barcellona, P., L’egoismo maturo e la ollia del capitale, urin, Boringhieri, 1988. Baudrillard, J., Le Miroir de la production – ou l’illusion critique du matérialisme historique, Paris, Galilée, 1975. Baudrillard, J., ‘Facticité et séduction’, in: J. Baudrillard, M. Guillaume, Figures de l’altérité , Paris, Ed. Descartes, 1992. Baudrillard, J., Le Paroxyste indifférent. Entretiens avec Philippe Petit , Paris, GrassetFasquelle, 1997. Baudrillard, J., Symbolic Exchange and Death, Los Angeles-London-New Delhi, Sage (1993), 2007. Beck, U., Gegengie. Die organisierte Unverantwortlichkeit , Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1988. Beck, U., Risk Society. owards a New Modernity , London, Sage, 1992 (2008). Beck, U., ‘Jenseits von Stand und Klasse’, in: U. Beck, E. Beck-Gernsheim (eds), Riskante Freiheiten, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1994. Beck, U., Beck-Gersnheim, E., ‘Individualisierung in modernen Gesellschafen – Perspektiven und Kontroversen einer subjektorientierten Soziologie’, in: U. Beck, E. Beck-Gersnheim (eds), Riskante Freiheiten, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1994. Bourdieu, P., Language and Symbolic Power , Cambridge, Polity (1992), 2005. Bröckling, U., Das unternehmerische Selbst. Soziologie einer Subjektivierungsorm, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 2007. Castoriadis, C., L’Institution imaginaire de la société , Paris, Seuil, 1975. Crozier, M., Le Phénomène bureaucratique, Paris, Seuil, 1963. Daniel, C., Teorien der Subjektivität. Einührung in die Soziologie des Individuums, Frankurt-New York, Campus, 1981. Di Marco, G. A., Marx – Nietzsche – Weber. Gli ideali ascetici tra critica, genealogia, comprensione , Naples, Guida, 1984. Donzelot, J., La Police des amilles, Paris, Minuit, 1977. Dubar, Cl., La Socialisation. Construction des identités sociales et proessionnelles , Paris, Armand Colin, 2010 (4th ed.).
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4 Literary theory and semiotics Adorno, . W., ‘Te Artist as Deputy’, in: idem, Notes to Literature, vol. I, New York, Columbia Univ. Press, 1991. Adorno, . W., ‘rying to Understand the Endgame’, in: idem, Notes to Literature, vol. 1, New York, Columbia Univ. Press, 1991. Bakhtin, M. M., Te Dialogic Imagination (ed. M. Holquist), Austin (X), Univ. o exas Press, 1981. Bartoli, S., Böhme, D., Floreancig, . (eds), Das Subjekt in Literatur und Kunst. Festschri ür Peter V. Zima, übingen, Francke, 2011. Braunbeck, H. G., Autorscha und Subjektgenese. Christa Wols ‘Kein Ort. Nirgends’ , Vienna-Graz, Passagen Verlag, 1992. Briese, O., Der Anspruch des Subjekts. Zum Unsterblichkeitsdenken im Jungen Deutschland , Stuttgart, Metzler, 1995. Bürger, P., ‘Naturalismus-Ästhetizismus und das Problem der Subjektivität’, in: Ch. Bürger, P. Bürger, J. Schulte-Sasse (eds), Naturalismus / Ästhetizismus, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1979. Bürger, P., Das Verschwinden des Subjekts. Eine Geschichte der Subjektivität von Montaigne bis Barthes, Frankurt, Suhrkamp, 1998. Christmann, S., Au der Suche nach dem verhinderten Subjekt. DDR-Prosa über Faschismus im Licht der Frankurter Schule, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann, 1990. Coupland, N., Nussbaum, J. F. (eds), Discourse and Liespan Identity , London, Sage, 1993. Coward, R., Ellis, J., Language and Materialism. Developments in Semiology and the Teory o the Subject , London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977. Dahlhaus, R. (ed.), Subjektivität und Literatur. Sartres Literaturästhetik, Munich, Janus Verlagsgesellschaf, 1986. Floreancig, ., L’incesto nel moderno. Una prospettiva d’analisi su Bronnen, Pirandello, Musil e Nin, Pasian di Prato (Udine), Campanotto, 2004. Frey, Ch., Das Subjekt als Objekt der Darstellung. Untersuchungen zur Bewußtseinsgestaltung fiktionalen Erzählens, Stuttgart, Akademischer Verlag, 1983. Gargani, A. (ed.), La crisi del soggetto. Esplorazione e ricerca del sé nella cultura austriaca contemporanea, Florence, La Casa Usher, 1985. Geyer, P., Schmitz-Emans, M. (eds), Proteus im Spiegel. Kritische Teorie des Subjekts im 20. Jahrhundert , Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann, 2003. Gnüg, H., Entstehung und Krise lyrischer Subjektivität: Vom klassischen lyrischen Ich zur modernen Erahrungswirklichkeit , Stuttgart, Metzler, 1983. Grabner, G. M., ‘Formen des lyrischen Ich im Modernismus: Subjekt-Kult und SubjektAbsage durch die Sprachskepsis’, in: R. L. Fetz, R. Hagenbüchle, P. Schulz (eds),
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304
Index abandonment o concept o subject 32, 45–6, 48 Abel, G. 89 Abercrombie, N. 57 n.122 absolute 'I' 72 absolute Spirit 78 absolute thought 82 abstract subject 18–19, 22, 26, 49, 77, 89, 203, 213, 218, 231 absurdity 115 actantial models 9, 11, 17, 34, 69, 75, 82–3, 90, 106, 114, 180, 224, 258, 275 actants 7–10, 31, 38, 51, 70, 180, 218, 232, 258 action (social) 180, 232, 237, 269, 281 action, concept o 220, 229, 239, 251, 275, 281 actors 5, 11, 15, 32–3, 42, 49, 71, 104–5, 111, 116, 152, 179–81, 205, 218, 221, 227, 229–35, 239, 251–2 adaptation 37, 87 adaptive control systems 40 addressees (destinataires) 9, 67, 82 addressers (destinateurs ) divine addressers 68, 82, 83, 87, 95, 114 and Nietzsche 89 and Other 179 in theories o the subject 7, 8, 11, 16, 34 truth 83 World Spirit as 73–8 Adler Magister 86 Adorno, G. 62 n.245, 100 Adorno, . W. Aesthetic Teory ( Adorno, 1970) 23, 45–6, 65, 100, 138, 139, 148 Authoritarian Personality 103 autonomy 37 and coherence 183–4 and the consciousness o nonidentity 23 contradiction in theory o subject 138
Critical Teory 13, 22, 50, 66, 98–102, 250 damaged lie 150, 152 Dialectic o Enlightenment (Adorno and Horkheimer) 19, 22, 68, 98, 99, 100, 186, 202 and the dogma o idealism 3 essay style 66 and Foucault 157 and Hegel 100, 109 identitarian thought 18 and ideology 162 intolerance o ambiguity 253, 261 and Kierkegaard 85, 86 Minima Moralia 37–8, 66, 102 negative aesthetics 136, 140, 183–4 Negative Dialectics (Adorno, 1966) 23, 29, 46, 50, 100, 138, 250 negativity 249, 250, 252 and Nietzsche 98 particularization 264 Philosophy o Modern Music 118 ‘psychotechnical manipulation’ 117 revised psychoanalysis 41 and Sartre 98 on subjective experience 44 and the sublime 135, 139 and truth 168 aesthetics and the autonomy o the subject 70 de-differentiation 225 and narcissism 176 radical aesthetics 134 and the sublime 135–7 agency 179, 186, 202 Albert, H. 271 Alexander, J. 288 n.77 alienation and alterity 215 and anomie 175
305
306 and A Clockwork Orange 115 and convention 83 and culture 204 Deleuze on 144 as division 171 and language 173 language wall 168 and mass psychology 104–5 and psychoanalysis 173 and stigmatization 154–8 subject-object 78 and truth 148 Allport, G. W. 38 alterity and alienation 215 and Bakhtin 20 and chance 261 and Critical Teory 98–102 and dialogical views o subjectivity 251, 252 and ego 227 and Fichte’s ‘I’ 91 and knowledge 267 and nature 76, 97 and open dialogue 253, 255 and reflexivity 256 and the stranger within 111 Althusser, L. and anti-movements 235 category o the subject 12–13, 14, 26 and the dogma o idealism 3 and ailing subjectivity 159 and Freud 168 hybrid position re late modernity 134 ideological malleability o subject 116, 135 and ideology 162, 221 interpellation 165 and Lacan 167–8, 169 and language 102 and Luhmann 220–1 and over-determination 36 and pluralism 164 and power 181 process without subject 93 production o subjectivity problem 160–1 subjugation 51
Index ambiguity 1–3, 69, 72, 81–2, 88, 134, 141–3, 171, 188, 203, 209, 253, 261, 263 ambivalence ambivalence o nature 108 ambivalence o values 107, 109–15 and bureaucracy 205 and chance 260–2 and dialogical views o subjectivity 251, 259 and eminism 180, 187, 282 in literature 45, 49 and modernism/ postmodernism 51, 171 and multilingualism 280 and negation 252–4 and Nietzsche 86–92 and particularity 82, 85 radical ambivalence 249 and Sartre 93 anachronism 227 anarchism 82, 84, 235 Anders, G. 210, 212–13, 215, 216 androgyny 180, 187, 253–4, 282 animal man 33 anomie 31, 175 Ansart, P. 229 anthropology 168, 267 anti-addresser (anti-destinateurs ) 7, 11, 75, 90 ‘anticipation o reconciliation’ 2 anti-movements 234–5 antiquated character o man 212 anti-social individuals 105, 117 anti-subjects (anti-sujects ) 7, 9, 75, 90, 224 anxious ‘I’ 48 Apel, F. 290 n.114 Apel, K.-O. 162, 262, 266 apocalypticism 216 aporias 46, 50–3, 181, 182, 186–7 arbitrariness o the sign 141, see also signifier-signified Aristotle 92, 271 Aron, R. 165 art and Baudrillard 225 mimetic principle o art 23, 46, 65, 98–102, 159
Index postmodern art 140 and sociolects 259 surrealism 112, 139 artificial actants 7–10 artificial intelligence 9, 24 artificial subjects 9, 24 Arvon, H. 84 Asholt, W. 131 n.295 Aubenque, P. 123 n.54 Auch Einer (Vischer) 50, 65, 81, 109, 260 Aufebung 85 aura 137–8 Austin, J.L. 143 autarchic being 97 authenticity 148, 150, 278 authoritarian personality 102–3 authorized language 210 authorship 47 autobiography 43, 258 autonomous subject 3–6, 26, 29, 37, 46, 48, 77, 140, 159, 274 autonomy artistic 226 and autopoiesis 222 and Bakhtin 255 and beauty 137 and Bourdieu 257 in capitalism 29 vs concessions to heteronomy and submission 65 at cost o nature 65 and the crisis o values 205 and Foucault 47 o unctional systems 227 and heteronomy 70 in historical process, without subject 161 illusion o 150 individual autonomy lost in capitalist systems 30 inner-directed vs other-directed types 208 and innovation 138, 139 and intercollectivity 269 and media market economics 211 in modernism 106 and multilingualism 280 and postmodernism 115 and sel-destruction 202, 203
307
shif rom inner to other-directed individual 28 subjective 12, 16, 25, 26, 36 o systems 225 autopoiesis 222, 226, 227, 231 auto-reflexivity 15 auto-regulation 224 avant-garde 113, 137–8, 139, 188, see also surrealism Bachelard, G. 168 Badinter, E. 180, 253 Bakhtin, M. M. and alterity 20 and ambivalence 188 in definition o subject 3 dialogical views o subjectivity 49 and the dogma o idealism 3 and modernism 82 multilingualism 279–80 open dialogue 254 and the Other 49, 102, 249 and polyphony 270, 274, 278 theory o dialogue 51, 251, 254–6 Balibar, E. 194 n.160 Balsinger, Ph. W. 290 n.116 Balzac, H. de 261 Bannister, R. C. 39 Banton, . 163 Baran, P. A. 206, 209 Barrès, M. 45 Barth, J. 140 Barthes, R. 43, 46, 48–9 Bartonek, A. 129 n.227 Bataille, G. 141 Baudelaire, C. 107, 173, 175 Baudrillard, J. critiques o modernity 51 libidinally invested appearance 178 and Luhmann 32 and the media 52, 209–17, 225, 228 and postmodernism 236 simulacra 29, 30 and sociological views o individual subjectivity 202, 205, 209–17 structural vs ractal stadium 28, 49 Bauman, Z. 155, 158, 227 Baumann, P. 69
308 Baumgartner, H. M. 2 Bayertz, K. 289 n.102 beautiul, images o the 136–7 Beauvoir, S. de 179, 180, 188 Beck, E. 86 Beck, U. 5, 17, 28, 30, 31, 41, 166, 182, 231, 233, 237, 238–9, 251, 253, 258 Becker, J. 121, 144–5 Beckett, S. 46, 102 Beck-Gernsheim, E. 253 becoming, existing is a 86 Beethoven, L. van 117–18 behaviourist theories 38–42, 148 Being 92, 169, 170 Being and Nothingness (Sartre) 93 Bell, D. 28, 29–30, 31, 162, 165, 175, 232 Benett, . 289 n.99 Benhabib, S. 198 n.278 Bénichou, P. 137, 138 Benjamin, W. 45, 100, 137–8, 186 Bentham, J. 84 Benton, . 194 n.172 Berlin, I. 4–5, 13 Bernet, R. 143 Bernoux, P. 206 Bernstein, B. 42 Best, S. 128 n.221 ‘better world,’ concepts o 121, 134, 147 Bichat, M.-F.-X. 156 bilingualism/ multilingualism 51, 53, 254, 258, 279–80 Binet, A. 35 biography 43, 256–7 biological individual 6 Bischo, L. J. 38 Bloch, E. 79, 123 n.60 Bloom, H. 257 body 68, 71, 78, 81, 114, 154, 238, see also corporeity Bogdal, K.-M. 63 n.256 Bohannan, P. 240 n.35 Böhme, G. 71, 72, 139 Böhme, H. 71, 72 Bohn, R. 242 n.97 Bolay, E. 244 n. 139 Bolz, N. W. 98 Borchmeyer, D. 45 Bordoni, C. 57 n.110 Bormann, A. von 291 n.132
Index Bourdieu, P. 104, 181, 208, 209–17, 229, 257, 281, 284 bourgeoisie 53, 83, 157, 161, 163, 181 Bourget, P. 45 Boyne, R. 199 n.296 Braitling, P. 77 Breton, A. 66, 95, 97, 112, 113, 149, 179 Broch, H. 34, 44, 66, 106–8, 109, 227–8, 231, 253 Bröckling, U. 192 n.114 Bruder, K.-J. 4, 37 Bubner, R. 15, 202, 257 Buchanan, K. 43 bureaucracy 204, 205, 206, 217 Bürger, Ch. 62 n.237 Bürger, P. 48–9 Burgess, A. 67, 115–21, 147 Burns, . 206 Burton, A. 59 n.175 Bußho, H. 290 n.111 Butler, J. 179, 180, 181, 185 Callenbach, E. 121 Calvino, I. 50 Camus, A. 22, 23, 50, 88, 97, 101, 114, 261 capitalism, see also exchange values, society based on and the decline o the subject 48, 49, 52 and flexible normalism 166 and reedom 238 and Giddens 237 individualist capitalism 206 liberal to consumer-orientated 29 mass organizations 28, 29, 46, 102, 103, 154, 209 and modernity 28 monopoly capitalism 34, 46, 52, 206 and the sociology o organisations 206 capitalisme d’organisation 28, 29 Caravetta, P. 152 Carrouges, M. 113 Cartesian philosophy, see Descartes, R. Castoriadis, C. 238, 255, 281 categorical imperative 89 Cavell, M. 59 n.157 chain o signifiers 36 chance 50, 82, 96, 97, 114, 260–2 chaos 205–6 character traits 38
Index charismatic leaders 106, 205, 207, 220 child-mother relationship 169, 174, 176 Chomsky, N. 42, 210, 254 Christianity and chance 261 Christian hegemonies 164 Christian teleology 22 and European integration 278 and Kierkegaard 85 metanarrative 34 and Nietzsche 87, 91 revival o 106 Chvatik, K. 193 n.144 civilization 9, 33, 105, 114, 151, 283 Cixous, H. 184 class, social 5, 42, 237 class consciousness 5, 78, 107, 233 class struggle 23, 27, 78 classification 256, 257, 258 classification systems 43 classless society 232 Cléro, J.-P. 196 n.200 client-centred theory 40 Clockwork Orange, A (Burgess) 67, 115–21, 134, 147, 150, 152 closed states 73 coalition governments 10, 17, 51, 163 code, restricted vs elaborated 42 cogitatio 93 cogito (Cartesian) 50, 65, 67–72, 89, 95, 143, 172, 251 coherence 41, 146, 160, 183, 251, 255 coincidence o opposites 111 collective actants 76, 78, 82, 101 collective revolt 116, 119 collective symbols vs individual 113 collective vs individual subjects 3–20 Colville, G. M. M. 97 Combe, D. 61 n.233 commodity etishism 213 communication 8, 24, 98, 223, 226, 250, 256, 265–6, 268, 272, 276 communism 5, 78, 163 communitarianism 230, 235, 236 community 4, 29, 105, 183, 203, 231, 236, 252, 256, 266, 272 community-market conceptions o subjectivity 236, 252, 256 complex adaptive systems 40, 224
309
computers 9 conceptualization 135, 186, 225 configuration vs system 100 conormism 116, 206 conscience collective 278 consciousness collective 52 and essence 92–3 and ‘I’ subjects 72 Marxist 78 o nonidentity 23 o sel 15 and semantics 143 consensus consensus and dissent in interdiscursive theorems 270–4 sociology o 24 consistency postulate 38 Constantinian turn 233 constraint o the better argument 24, 265–6 constructivism 69 contingency 65, 80–6, 108–15, 146, 159, 227, 260–2 contradiction 51, 85, 146 convention, vs nature 83 Cornell, D. 198 n.278 corporeal ‘I’ 48 corporeity 15, 18, 31, 150, 155, 156 counter-addressers 67 Coupland, N. 42 Courtés, J. 54 n.29, 59 n.176, 131 n.307, 191 n.66, 191 n.67, 198 n.283, 244 n.132 Coward, R. 189 Craib, I. 253 creativity 93, 95, 114 crisis crisis o the subject 108–15 ideological subjectivity 13, 32 o social values/ social disintegration 34, 37, 40, 45, 50, 88, 107, 205 critical art 101 critical distance 236, 270 critical narratology 271–2 Critical Rationalism 19, 250, 257, 264, 271, 275 critical reflection 183 critical sociology 231
310
Index
critical testing 271 Critical Teory and Adorno 45, 66 as basis or definition o the subject 2, 3 and the crisis o values 50 and Critical Rationalism 273, 275 and Deleuze 144 and Dialogical Teory 249, 250, 273–4 and the dogma o idealism 3 and experience 147 and Foucault 155, 157 and Goffman 154 vs intersubjectivity 24 and Laing 37 in modernity 80 and nature 65–6 nature-history 22 and one-dimensionality o society 116 outline o 98–102 and postmodernism 145 and psychoanalysis 275 and Sartre 98 and sel-reflection 13 vs structuralism 26 weakness o the ‘I’ 102–8 critique o ideology 271, 273 Crozier, M. 32, 206–7 cult o the sel 178 culture cultural discontent 33 cultural movements 284 cultural specificity 207 Dahme, H.-J. 239 n.12 Dalí, S. 96 damaged lie 150, 152 dandy, the 176–7, 178 Daniel, C. 29, 32 Darwin, Ch. 23 dasein 170 data society 28 David, P. 284 de Beauvoir, S. 179, 180, 188 de Sévigné, Madame 49 De Waele, J.P. 61 n.219 death-drive 26, 156 Debord, G. 198 n.273 decentred subject 167–75 decline o the subject 50–3
deconstruction 11, 35, 138, 145, 146, 151, 158–9, 160, 167, 171, 179, 183, 186 de-differentiation 225 Del Giudice, D. 120 Deleuze, G. 3, 27, 28, 36, 133, 141–7, 160 demeanour 31 democracy anti-democratic anti-movements 235 democratic movements 235 and ecological death 25 de-normalization 166 dépassement 78 dependence o the subject 47 Derrida, J. on authorship 47 deconstructionism 24, 98 and the dogma o idealism 3 and eminism 179 and Foucault 159, 160 and identity 16 iterability vs iterativity 143–7, 259 and Lacan 172 logocentric closure 185 narrative subjectivity 36 and over-determination 36 particularization 250 and postmodernism 159 and power 180 ‘presence o meaning’ 36 repetition o a sign 27, 39, 143–5 and Saussure 142 on structured systems 109 and the subversion o the subject 141–7 Descartes, R. autonomy 48 cogito/ spirit 50, 65, 67–72, 89, 95, 172 and Foucault 157 late modern rejection o 65 and otherness 185 and postmodernism 153 and Sartre 93 subjectivity anchored in thought 3 and subjectivity in philosophy 67–73 universal reason 155, 157 Descombes, V. 15 despairing hope 138, 148 destiny 90 detachment 68, 80, 149, 270
Index determinism 93, 158 D’Hondt, J. 124 n.91 dialectics 22–3, 28, 42, 46–7, 51, 80, 98–100, 138, 160, 180, 201–39, 249–52, 270–3 dialogical subjectivity 8, 27, 36, 49, 52, 251–62 Dialogical Teory 18, 20, 101, 249–85 dialogism 188, 251 dialogue 254–6 dictatorship o the proletariat 78 différance 141, 142, 143, 159, 180, 181 difference 13, 16, 26–7, 98, 109, 141–6, 214–15, 231, 265 ‘differend’ 140, 264, 270 differentiation (social) 146–7, 173, 183, 203, 206, 209, 217, 220, 225, 228, 253, 267 Dionysus 90 disappearance o the subject 2, 33, 48 discontent in civilization 33, 102–8, 114 discontinuity 16 discontinuous systematicities 159 discourse 47, 68–70, 75, 79, 83, 90, 146, 158, 160–6, 172, 180, 219, 223, 228, 253, 256, 258–9, 264–7, 273, 277 discursive ormation 47, 159–60, 164 disembedding 4, 17, 41, 203, 239 disengaged reason 68 disintegration social 34, 37, 41, 44–5, 51, 133–52, 237 o the subject 45, 50–3, 86–92, 102–3, 111 o values 107, 227 dissent 270–4 dissolution o social movements 233 divided sel 147–52, 171 divine addressers 68, 82, 83, 86, 95, 114 division (Spaltung ) 171 division o labour 28, 107, 203, 207 division o the subject 147–52 Djurić M. 88 doing and not doing 70 dominant ideologies 163, 221, 225 domination 19 Donzelot, J. 36, 157, 175 Dor, J. 173 D’Ormesson, J. 47 Dornberg, M. 97
311
Dostoevsky, F. 3, 20, 251 double (literary figure) 110–11 double articulation o language 141 double contingency 227 drama 46 dreams 80, 95, 97, 112, 138, 171 Dreier, V. 57 n.122 Dressler, W. 290 n.121 dualism 18–19, 45, 68, 73–4, 77, 110–11, 133, 183, 235, 253, 262, 270, 277, 283 Dubar, Cl. 244 n.128 Dubet, F. 198 n.291, 199 n.293, 246 n.180, 247 n.226, 286 n.13, 291 n.157 Ducrot, O. 197 n.259 Durkheim, E. collective consciousness 52 constraints o modernity 201 and the decline o the subject 49 differentiation 203, 204, 218, 220 division o labour 28 on individual/ collective subjects 4 mechanical solidarity 3, 105 moral subject 278 sel-destruction 202 social acts 254 and the sociology o organisations 206 on subjugation 31 Düsing, K. 123 n.54 dynamic unit, subject as 9–10, 15, 17, 27, 36, 230 Ebeling, H. 25 Eco, U. 46, 50, 121, 140 eco-eminism 52, 121 ecological disaster 25, 30 ecological movements 52, 166, 233, 235, 283, 284 Edelgard B. 12, 13, 14, 257 effacement o the speaker 160 efficiency 207 ego 8, 104, 104–8, 227 egoism 4, 70, 204 ego-superego-id divisions 8–9, 35, 68, 70, 95, 105, 258 Eißler, K.R. 198 n.276 Elam, D. 181, 185–6 electronic media 209 Elias, N. 4, 102, 236, 250, 270 elimination o the subject 33, 48
312
Index
Ellenberger, H. F. 35 Ellis, J. 189 emancipation 116, 152, 203, 258 emotional stability 39 empiricism 145 empowerment 218 ‘end o history’ 170 ‘end o ideology’ 162, 164 endless repetition 137 Endruweit, G. 290 n.110 engagement, ideological 236, 250, 252–3, 270, 277 Engels, F. 23, 78, 100 English as universal language 279–80 Enlightenment 24, 40, 155, 181, 183 enunciation actants 7 environment ideologies 283 Erikson, E. H. 40–1 erosion o authority 208 escape rom reedom 107, 268 essay 9, 23, 44, 65, 85, 88, 100, 109, 112, 259 essayism 65, 84–5, 100, 109 essence 91, 156, 213 establishment, challenges to 116 estrangement 35 eternal character o ideology 162, 164, 166 Eternal Recurrence 151 Eternal Return 87, 90 ethics and the autonomy o the subject 70 and Nietzsche 89 Ethik und Sozialwissenschaen 270, 274, 277 etymology o ‘subject’ 2–3 Etzioni, A. 230 Europe 278–85 European integration 99, 102, 250, 278–85 European Union 279–80, 284–5 event 11, 42, 69, 90, 144, 146, 160, 211–13, 220, 260–1 evolutionary solutions 175, 213 exchange values, society based on 28, 29, 32, 52, 99, 110, 134, 136, 144, 166, 177, 180, 186, 201–2, 203, 207, 210, 211, 213, 214, 225, 228 exchangeability o individuals 178, 214 existentialism and Adorno 102–3 and Beckett 46
and chance 82 existential minimum 152 and eminism 187 narrative structure as existential act 12 and responsibility 65–6 and Sartre 21–7, 92–3, 94, 97 existing, subject is 86 experience 37, 44, 147, 154, 212, 263 Eysenck, H. J. 39 Eysenck, M. W. 38, 39 Eysenck, S. B.G. 39 Eysteinsson, A. 113 Facebook 178 Fages, J. B. 169, 172 Fähnders, W. 131 n.295 ait social 218 alse consciousness 213 alse sel 152 alse society 174 alsification (reutation) 263, 264, 266, 271, 273 amilies 36, 40, 148, 157, 174–9, 212, 257 ascism 13, 104, 106, 161, 165, 208, 235 ate 8, 90, 120, 261 ather-image 103, 169, 173 atherless society 52, 169, 176, 207 ‘aule Existenz’/ ‘worthless existence’ 77 Faye, J.-P. 12 eedback/ eedorward 40 ‘eeling at home in one’s body’ 31 emininity 91–2, 93, 97 eminism 12, 52, 91, 121, 135, 166, 169, 179–89, 233, 235, 252, 282 Fern Haber, H. 182, 183 Fetz, R. L. 45 eudalism 4, 164, 181, 201 Feuerbach, L. 18, 83 Fichte, I.H. 122 n.36 Fichte, J. G. and Althusser 168 Hegel on 73–4 ‘I’ = ‘I’ 173, 221 idealist ‘I’ 161 and Marx 161 and Nietzsche 91 and otherness 185 and Stirner 83
Index subjective idealism 278 subjectivity anchored in thought 3 and subjectivity in philosophy 69–73 fiction vs perception 93 Fish, S. 289 n.92 Flaubert, G. 22 Fleischer, H. 209 flexible man 208 flexible normalism 165 Fontán, A. 54 n.30 Fontenelle, . 280 Ford, D. H. 40 Ford, M.E. 40 Formalism-Marxism 271–2, 276 Foucault, M. and archaeology 222 and A Clockwork Orange 115, 118 and Critical Teory 148, 158 critiques o modernity 51 and Descartes 157 and the divine addresser 84 and the dogma o idealism 3 and eminism 180, 185 and Goffman 153 and Habermas 156 and Hegel 159 ideological malleability o subject 116 and Lacan 167 and Laing 150 and Link 165 on normality 165 and over-determination 36 on patients 157 and Pêcheux 164 and postmodernism 47, 152, 156, 159, 236 and power 102, 157, 180, 181 and rationality 155, 159 rejection o modernist utopias 134 return to the subject 48 socialization 87 and subjection 238 and subjective submission 160 subjectivity as illusion 36 theory o the subject 20, 25–6 and ouraine 230 oundation (hypokeimenon ) 2, 35 Fowles, J. 121 ractal stage o social evolution 214, 215
313
ragmentation, social 107, 163, 231, 262–3, 267–70 ‘rames’ 154 Frank, M. 6–7, 15, 27, 28, 202, 256, 265 Frankurt School 158, 236 Fraser, N. 185 ree floating intellectuals 208, 269 reedom and aesthetic negativity 138 in capitalism 238 and collective revolt 116 and Dialogical Teory 277 escape rom reedom 107, 268 reedom in context 94 reedom o action 204 ‘reedom to the object 100 in historical process, without subject 161 and indifference 208 individual autonomy 4 and negation 93 negative vs positive liberty 4–5 and Nietzsche 89 and objective necessity 79 and over-determination 47 and Sartre 65–6, 94 and spirit 74, 75–6 and state morality 87 vs subjugation 65 French sociology 27, 32, 49, 206, 217, 231 Frenkel- Brunswik, E. 102 Freud, S., see also psychoanalysis and Althusser 168 and Descartes 173 and the ather-image 103 and humanism 168 ideology is eternal 162 inra-individual actants 8–9 mass hysteria, theory o 104–8 and Nietzsche 35 penis envy 185 and Sartre 95 and socialization 36 superego-ego-id divisions 8–9, 35, 68, 70, 95, 105, 258 and transer 104 Friedberg, E. 32 Friedrich, H. 136 Fromm, E. 41, 103, 107, 268
314
Index
Fuder, D. 242 n.97 Füllsack, M. 224 unction 8, 218, 223 unctionalism 154, 226 undament/ oundation (hypokeimenon, subiectum) xi, 2, 34, 51, 69, 98, 107, 271 undamentalism 166, 235 ury o disappearance 215 Gadet, F. 164 Gans, M. 124 n.92, 193 n.146 Garaudy, R. 246 n.199 Garfinkel, H. 61 n.221 Gaspard, F. 182, 185, 186, 283 Gaulejac, V. de 206 Gehlen, A. 205–6, 211, 218 Geiger, . 277 Geisenhanslüke, A. 63 n.256 gender 180, 183, see also eminism; women gender linguistics 42 genealogy o morals 83 generalized Other 20, 281 genetic engineering 156 Genette, G. 112 genre 43–4, 226, 254 George, F. 97 George, S. 138 Gergen, M. 61 n.219 Gerhardt, V. 90 German idealism 82 German sociology 28, 32, 49, 217, 231 Gethmann, C.F. 54 n.44 Geyer, P. 45 Giard, L. 57 n.107, 193 n.128 Giddens, A. 4, 17, 28, 30, 31, 41, 42, 52, 149, 166, 203, 237–8, 249, 258 Gide, A. 120 Giegel, H.-J. 244 n.138 Ginsburg, G.P. 61 n.219 globalization 166, 207, 228 Gneuss, Ch. 240 n.22 Gnüg, H. 45 God 33, 37, 67, 72, 73–8, 86, 92–3, 261, see also divine addressers Goebbels, J.P. 12 Goethe, J.W. 80, 184 Goffman, E. 49, 84, 135, 144, 150, 153–8
Goldmann, L. 28, 29–30, 33, 38, 47, 48, 101, 224 Gorz, A. 58 n.144 Gouldner, A. W. 24 Grabher, G. M. 45 Graevenitz, G. von 131 n.306, 287 n.52 grammatical subjects 2 Gramsci, A. 186 Greek etymology 2–3 ‘green’ movements 233–4, 283 green politics 12 Greimas, A. J. on individual/ collective subjects 3, 9, 31, 38 and iterativity 146 mission 9 on modalities 42 modalities 79, 223 pouvoir aire 180 and repetition 143 savoir aire 75 on sociolects 12 structural semiotics 7–8 vouloir aire 91 Gresshoff, R. 220, 223 Grimaud, M. 112 Gripp-Hagelstange, H. 218, 224 grotesque, the 82 group conormity 116 Grubauer, F. 6, 31–2 Grujić P. 79 Grunberger, B. 129 n.252 Guattari, F. 157 Guédez, A. 161 Guillaume, M. 58 n.138, 243 n.100 Habermas, J. and Adorno 99 on aporias 46 on European politics 284 ideal speech situation 24–5, 250, 265, 266–7 on individual/ collective subjects 12 intersubjective communication 23, 26, 158 and lie worlds 234, 237 and Luhmann 221 particularism vs universalism 263–7 project o modernity 153, 183
Index on social sciences 20, 156 and ouraine 234 transcendental oundation 221, 250, 262, 271 universal English 279 universal pragmatics 23–4 Hagenbüchle, R. 45 Halbwachs, M. 267–8 Haldane, S. 122 n.20 Hall, S. 16 Haller, R. 56 n.98, 290 n.120 Hampson, S. E. 39 Handel, G.F. 117 Harée, R. 61 n.219 harmony, aesthetic 137 Hartfiel, G. 57 n.122 Hartman, A. 135 Hartman, G. H. 186 hasard objecti 96 Haug, W. F. 276, 277 hedonism 29 Hegel, G. W. F. and Adorno 99 and anthropology 168 and Baudrillard 215 and Being 170, 173 and chance 260–1 and Christianity 261 vs Critical Teory 99 criticised by Prieto 20 critiques o Hegel 80–6 and the decentred subject 171 and Deleuze 145 and Derrida 141 and the end o history 171 and Foucault 159 History 22, 23, 65, 77 hypokeimenon and subiectum 2 individuality 18 and Kierkegaard 188 and Lacan 171 late modern rejection o 65 and Nietzsche 88 and otherness 185, 249 and Sartre 92–3, 95 and sel-destruction 202 and Spinoza 160 subjectivity anchored in thought 3, 51 and subjectivity in philosophy 69–79
315
synthesizing systems 252 totalization 264 World Spirit (Weltgeist ) 73–8 Hegelian Marxism 22, 231 Hegelianism 19, 73–9, 81, 85, 98, 145, 161, 261, 264 Heidegger, M. 15, 25, 91, 98, 134, 150, 169, 216, 265 Held, D. 238 helpers (adjuvants) 7 Henrich, D. 240 n.22 Heraclitus 39 hermeneutics 3, 16, 19, 27, 145, 159, 255 heroes/anti-heroes 18 Hesse, H. 111, 112, 114, 149, 171, 187, 261 heterogeneity 20, 33, 35, 39, 44, 47, 51, 144, 164, 254, 264, 265, 268, 271–2, 275 heteronomous intellectuals 208 heteronomy 28, 51, 65, 70, 135, 144, 212, 226 Hill, S. 57 n.122 Hillis Miller, J. 146 Hillmann, K.-H. 57 n.122 historical movements 234 historical subject, disintegration o 160, 185 historicity 232–3, 281–3 History/ history 10, 22, 23, 49, 65, 90, 92–3, 100, 101, 159–60, 181, 232 History o the World 77 Hobbes, . 18, 25, 34, 83, 105–6, 157, 169, 202, 205 Hodge, R. 43 Höer, R. 60 n.209 Höffe, O. 69 Hogrebe, W. 54 n.44, 55 n.47, 55 n.49, 287 n.37, 287 n.43 Hölderlin, F. 100 Holquist, M. 287 n.28, 287 n.31 homogeneity 47, 72, 116, 163, 267, 275 Honneth, A. 288 n.77 Hook, S. 124 n.91 Hörisch, J. 142 Horkheimer, M. Critical Teory 13, 22, 50, 66, 98–102, 250 Dialectic o Enlightenment (Adorno and Horkheimer) 19, 22, 68, 98, 99, 100, 186, 202
316
Index
and the dogma o idealism 3 and Foucault 157 identitarian thought 18 on nature 19 negativity 249 and Sartre 98 Hove, W. van 57 n.122 Huber, W. 9 humanism 26, 29, 33, 218, 221, 261 humanist Marxism 101, 161 Hume, D. 145 Husserl, E. 93, 188, 234, 275 Huxley, A. 26, 116 hyper-modernity 230 hyper-reality 29 hypertrophy 204, 205 hypokeimenon 2–3 ‘I’ as subject 2, 34, 36, 71–2, 75 Idea 76 Ideal Ego 176 ideal speech situation 24, 250, 266–7, 270 ideal types 165, 179 idealism, dogma o 3, 22–3, 27, 71, 78, 230, 251 id-ego-superego divisions 8–9, 35, 68, 70, 95, 105, 258 identitarian thought 18 identity, definitions 16–17 identity materials 17 identity vs personality 40 identity work (Identitätsarbeit ) 16, 238, 255 ideological identification 19 ideological subjectivity 12–20, 27, 110, 161 Il conormista (Moravia, 1951) 13, 208 illusion, subjectivity as 37, 52, 65, 133 images, celebrity 29 imaginary (l’imaginaire) 35, 87, 140, 169, 171, 173, 174–9 impotence 73–9 incest taboos 109, 169, 176 incredulity 168, 227 indifference 111, 134–5, 144, 166, 174–9, 182, 186, 208, 214, 228, 235, 252 indifferentiation 214 individual and collective subjects 3–20 individual consciousness o cognition (definition o subject) 2
individual subject 3–20 individualism 4, 34, 38, 46, 51, 84, 201 individuality definition 6 individualist capitalism 206 longing or 230 and psychoanalysis 34 and sociology 28 vs subjectivity 14–15 in theoretical discourses 18 individualization 238, 239, 253, 258 individuum ineffabile 100 indivisible subject 16 industrialization 31, 239 inra-individual actants 7–10, 34, 85, 106 in-group identification 104 inhuman, the 118, 136, 139 inner world 149 inner-directed vs other-directed types 29, 208 innocence between opposites 45 innovation 136, 138–9 institutionalization 205, 217 intellectuals 33, 208, 212, 269 intentionality 224, 260, 274 interactionist approach 8, 39–40 intercollectivity 269, 272 interdisciplinary approach 2, 43, 180, 250, 262–78 interdiscourse 164 interdiscursivity between sciences 263, 269, 270–4 interiority 149 internationalism 212 interpellation 165 intersubjective communication 23, 26, 158, 262–78 intersubjective testing o hypotheses 268–9 intolerance o ambiguity 261 involuntary memory 44 involvement 38, 209 ipseity (ipséité: selood) 15, 17, 93, 95, 154, 251, 262 Irigaray, L. 180, 184–5 irony 43, 96, 110, 116, 136, 150, 183, 251 irradiated stage o social evolution 213 irretrievable ‘I’ 48 iterability 141–7, 259 iterativity 141–7, 259
Index Jacoby, R. 192 n.86 Jacques, F. 254, 264 Jaeggi, U. 26, 163 Jakobson, R. 172 Janet, P. 35 jargon, group 117, 249 Jaspers, K. 85 Jauß, H. R. 44 ‘Je est un autre’ (‘I is someone else’) 97 Jeanson, F. 22, 101 Jencks, C. 140 Jespersen, O. 42 Joas, A. 288 n.77 Johnson, B. 186 journalism 209–11 Joyce, J. 50 Julien, P. 173, 196 n.200, 197 n.238, 197 n.250 Jullian, P. 176 Jung, C. G. 34, 35, 111 Juranville, A. 172 Jurt, J. 57 n.109, 195 n.187, 198 n.277, 241 n.56 Kaa, F. 6, 49, 50, 52, 88, 114, 175, 187, 205, 255 Kant, I. corporeity 18 and Hegel 73–4 late modern rejection o 65 and Nietzsche 89 subjectivity anchored in thought 3 and subjectivity in philosophy 69–73 and the sublime 135, 137, 139 ‘thing in itsel’ 169 Kapp, V. 290 n.121 Karmasin, S. 253, 283 Karsenti, B. 243 n.105 Kellerer, C. 113 Kellner, D. 128 n.221 Kermode, F. 186 Keupp, H. 16–17, 41, 251, 255, 256 Keynsian economics 52 Kierkegaard, S. critiques o Hegel 80, 82–6 and the dogma o idealism 3 and existentialism 188 and Nietzsche 88 particularity 22
317
and Sartre 92–3 and submission 65 Kim. .H. 53 n.20 Kimmerle, G. 67, 68 Kinsey reports 165 Kiper, D. 138 Klauß, H. 19 Kneer, G. 229 Knodt, R. 91 Knorr-Cetina, K. 277 Knörzer, G. 195 n.192 Koch, A.M. 240 n.20 Kocka, J. 240 n.22 Köhler, E. 226, 261 Kohut, H. 176 Kolb, P. 287 n.49 Koselleck, R. 63 n.270 Köster, P. 90 Kraemer, K. 216 Kraushaar, W. 282 Kress, G. 43 Krieg, P. 243 n.112 Kristeva, J. 179, 180, 188, 256 Kuhn, . S. 14, 24, 266, 272, 277 Kunyzin, G. 79 Kurt, R. 269 Lacan, J. and Althusser 169 and the decentred subject 167–75 dependence o the subject 47 and the dogma o idealism 3 epiphenomenon o language 102 and Freud 36, 173 and Hegel 171 and history 170 and the imaginary 169, 173 imaginary to symbolic stadium transition 36 and Kristeva 188 and late modernity 134 and narcissism 174–9 narrative subjectivity 36 and Nietzsche 87 and the signifier 171–2 and structuralism 172 Lai, G. 17, 111 Laing, R. D. 36–8, 44, 49, 84, 134, 147–52, 154, 174
318
Index
Lakatos, I. 56 n.101, 251 Lakoff, R. 43 Landowski, E. 244 n.145 Lang, H. 197 n.247 language and Bakhtin 254–6 group jargon 117. see also sociolects homogenous language 24 individual and collective subjects 3–20 individual subject as epiphenomenon o language 102 and Lacan 169 language acquisition 11 language communities 266–7 language games 227, 250, 263–4, 267 language wall 168, 174 and the Law o Order 169 as limits o poetry 136 linguistic capital 210 loss o subjectivity 144 Luhmann on 219 and Lyotard 264–5 and Nietzsche 88–9 and open dialogue 254 and patriarchies 180 and the split subject 171 and subjective submission 160 and subjectivity 279–81 subjectivity as linguistic problem 31 as symbolic power structure 210 and truth 100, 171 languages supremacy o 19 unification o 24 Laplanche, J. 197 n.262 Lasch, Ch. 37, 49, 52, 174–8, 207 Lash, S. 225 late modernity crisis o individual subjectivity in late modern sociology 203–9, 217 and dialogical views o subjectivity 251 and the dilemma o modern subjectivity 92 and Hegel 80 individual subject in 34, 45, 50 nature and contingency 108–15 and negative dialectics 98 and subjugation 134 and ouraine 236
traditional societies 28 universal knowledge 65 Lauble, M. 56 n.87 Lautréamont 113 Lawrence, D. H. 49, 113 layers o personality 113 Le Goff, J. 237, 280 Lecourt, D. 62 n.249 Leenhardt, J. 58 n.131 Leébure, S. 43 Leebvre, J.-P. 78 legal domination 204 Lehmann, G. K. 91 Lejeune, P. 43–4 Lemaire, A. 167, 169, 172, 173 Lenin, V. I. 232 Lepenies, W. 246 n.177 Leschke, R. 27–8, 267 Leviathan (Hobbes) 25, 83, 105–6 Lévinas, E. 265 Levinson, D.J. 102 Lévi-Strauss, Cl. 46, 90, 109 liberalism 28, 29, 38, 46, 83, 103, 111, 161, 206 liberty (negative, positive) 4–5 Lieber, H.-J. 194 n.169 lie world (Lebenswelt ) 12, 24, 234, 237, 265–6 Lindner, B. 128 n.219 linguistics 10–17, 42–50, 84, 100, 141–7, 159, 276 Link, Ch. 68, 153 Link, J. XIV 26, 162, 164–5, 173, 209, 238 Link-Heer, U. 44, 188 Lippe, R. zur 4, 202 literature 3, 42–50, 65, 81, 226, 255, 271–2, see also poetry logocentric closure 185 logos 77, 95, 157 Lohmann, G. 245 n.161 ‘lonely crowd’ 207 Lorenzen, P. 290 n.116 Lorenzer, A. 36 Lotman, Y. 262, 264, 267, 276 love 36, 83, 176, 187 Lovibond, S. 182–3, 186 Löwenthal, L. 29 Löwith, K. 80, 88 Lozanović G. 254
Index Lübbe, H. 260 Lüdke, W.M. 56 n.93, 128 n.219 Luhmann, N. and Baudrillard 210 critical intellectuals 212 and Critical Teory 275 elimination o the subject 49, 205, 217–29 ‘end o ideology’ 162 and Habermas 12 ideological manicheism 18 knowledge accumulation 161 and ‘old European thought’ 120 social systems theory 31–2, 107, 202, 269 and ouraine 229, 231, 232 Lukács, G. 5, 7, 8, 78–9, 85, 107, 232 Lyotard, J.-F. critiques o modernity 51 differend 140, 264, 270 and eminism 185 metanarrative 22, 232 negation o the subject 29, 74 and paradigms 272 particularism vs univeralism 263–7 particularization 227–8, 250 pluralism 135 rejection o modernist utopias 134 sacrifice o individual subject 146 and the sublime 135–40, 144 transition rom Adorno 134 and truth 168 lyrical subject 45 Mach, E. 34, 48, 108 Macherey, P. 78, 161 Macpherson, C.B. 83 madness 109, 150, 157 Magic Teatre 111, 112 malice o the object 81, 260 malin génie 67 Mallarmé, S. 45, 48, 135–40, 174, 219, 249 Man without Qualities, Te (Musil) 16, 109, 277 Mandel, E. 206 manicheism 18 Mann, . 106, 118 Mannheim, K. 208, 267–8, 269, 272 Marco, G. A. di 207
319
Marcuse, H. 37, 107, 116, 134, 147, 148, 150, 158, 206 market orces 52, 134 market societies 4, 5, 83, 110, 165, 173, 177, 180, 201, 203, 225, 228, 231, 235, 238, 252 Marquard, O. 131 n.306, 287 n.52 Martinet, A. 141–7 Marx, K. and Adorno 101 and Baudrillard 215 and the dogma o idealism 3 on exchange unction o money 177 and eminism 185 on individual/ collective subjects 4, 5 and Luhmann 161 misunderstanding o 48 and Nietzsche 207 and the sociology o organisations 206 and subjectivity in philosophy 78 subject-object 80 Marxism and Adorno 100 and Althusser 162–3, 168 and Baudrillard 213 and capitalism 29 and chance 261 criticised by Camus 22 gender relations 180 and Giddens 237 and History 23 humanist Marxism 29, 33 and identity 258 and individual subjects 21 and Luhmann 218, 220 Marxism-Leninism 19, 26, 79, 161 Marxist Hegelianism 79 Marxist science 162–3, 164, 173 neo-Marxism 29, 100, 101 vs Russian Formalists 271, 276 and social class 232–3 social movements 232 and Spinoza 161 and subjectivity in philosophy 78 and ouraine 231 transition rom Hegelianism 73–9 masculinity 91, 93, 135, 180, 183 masks 35, 111, 151 masochism 103
320
Index
mass hysteria 104–8 mass organizations 28, 29, 46, 102, 103, 154, 209 mass psychology 104–5 Masterman, M. 24 Mauron, Ch. 172 Mauss, M. 180, 218 Mautz, K. A. 83, 84 Me 8, 82–4 Mead, G. H. 8, 11, 20, 24, 281 meaning linguistic 141–2 and repetition o the sign 146 mechanical solidarity 3–4, 105, 203, 204 mechanisms o regulation 166 media 28, 29, 37, 49, 51, 52, 102, 104, 107, 178, 209–17, 257 medical humanism 25, 156 Medvedev, P. N. 254 megalomania 72 mêmeté 15, 16, 17, 93, 251 memory 44 Merleau-Ponty, M. 26, 118 Merton, R. K. 31 Mészáros, I. 195 n.191, 201 metanarrative 22, 227–8, 232 metaphysical concepts o subject 1–17, 86–92, 230 meta-social guarantees o social order 232 Metz, J.B. 246 n.199 Meyer, R.W. 123 n.54 Meyer, . 121 n.2 Meyer-Drawes, K. 45 Michels, R. 209 Middleton, D. J. 43 Mill, J. S. 125 n.123 mimesis 46, 65, 98–100 mimetic principle o art 23, 46, 65, 98–102, 158 Minow-Pinkey, M. 187 mirror, and eminism 185 mirror stage 169, 173 Mischel, W. 38–9 misogyny 91, 97 misunderstandings 48, 148, 276 Mitchell, J. 185 Mitscherlich, A. 52, 170, 208 Möckel-Rieke, H. 184 modalities 7, 8–9, 42, 77, 79, 223
modernism 4, 106, 110–11, 114–21, 134–89, 252 modernist art 139 modernity 25, 50–3, 80, 98, see also late modernity money, unctions o 4, 177, 203, 207, 237 monism 71, 278 monologic attitude 18, 49, 71, 79, 92, 255, 259, 264 monopoly capitalism 34, 46, 52, 206 Monsieur este 71–3 Montaigne, M. de 4, 48 Montesquiou, R. de 176 Mooij, A. 169 Moraldo, S. M. 110 Moravia, A. 13, 208 Morin, E. 28, 32 Moroni, M. 62 n.244 Morris, Ch. W. 54 n.25 mother 169 mother-child relationship 169, 174, 176, 188 movement and historicity 281–3 Mukařovský, J. x multiculturalism 53 multilingualism 51, 53, 254, 279–80 multiple identities 41, 45, 108–9, 151, 187 multiple personalities 35, 171, 188 multiplicity o beginnings 112 Musgrave, A. 56 n.101 music 117–18, 119 Musil, R. 3, 16, 18, 23, 49, 50, 51, 66, 88, 108–9, 110, 112, 187, 251, 253, 255, 277 Mussolini, B. 235 mutual understanding paradigm 23 myth 17, 90–1, 162, 278 mythical subjects 9–11, 23, 29, 31, 49, 75, 76, 162, 218, 219, 225, 232 narcissism 37–8, 72, 73, 74, 90, 103, 104, 169, 173, 174–9, 207 narration 256–7 narrative identity 16, 43–8 narrative programme 7–8, 9, 11, 16, 31, 77, 146, 256–9 narrative syntax 43 Nassehi, A. 218, 229 national identities 52, 284–5
Index National Socialism 12, 13, 26, 104, 106, 165, 208 national spirit (Volksgeist ) 76, 77 nationalism 104, 235, 236 nation-states 10, 207, 281 nature and ambivalence 98 as anti-subject 75 and body 68, 71 and chance 261, 262 and contingency 108–15 vs convention 83 and definitions o individual 6 domination over 19, 22, 25, 68 and the dream 80 and existentialism 22 Hesse’s pact with 114 and the id 106 mythical state o 90 ‘natural’ development 229 nature-culture distinction 6, 34, 114, 169 Nietzsche on 90 repression 97 repression o 65 and sel-renunciation 76 and spirit 80 and surrealism 95 and thought 68 néantisation 93, 97, 148 necessity 27, 81, 260 negation 93, 97, 115, 252–4 negative dialectics 98 negative vs positive liberty 4–5 negativity 94, 98–102, 136–7, 139, 169, 186, 236, 249 Nenon, . 69 neo-empiricism 145 neo-liberalism 33, 281 neo-Marxism 29, 100 Nerlich, M. xiii Neurath, O. 24, 276 neurosis 109, 173, 174 Neuser, W. 290 n.109 new economic actor 239 Newspeak 5, 8 Neyer, J. 240 n.35 Nicholson, L. 185 Nicklas, H. 290 n.118
321
Nieden, S. zur 12 Nietzsche, F. ambivalence o values 109 and autonomy 205 and Camus 22 and chance 261 contingency 65 crisis o the individual subject 45 and Critical Teory 98–100 criticism o metaphysical concept o subject 86–92 critiques o Hegel 96 and cultural specificity 207 cultural values 35 and the decentred subject 171 and Derrida 143 and the dogma o idealism 3 doubt o discursive identity o sign and subject 27 and Foucault 159 and Freud 35 and Laing 151 misunderstanding o 48 repetition o a sign 39 and Sartre 92–3 superman 72 truth 84 and Weber 205 nihilation o acticity 94 nihilism 207 nominalism 145 nonconceptual in the concept 23 non-identity 86, 101, 249 non-subjects 12 non-theoretical theory 23, 65, 100 norm (social) 149, 158, 165 normalism 26, 162–6, 173 normalization 26, 36, 148, 153, 155, 157, 158–67, 173, 209 Norris, Ch. 158 Nothdurf, W. 290 n.112 nothingness 33, 94, 147–8, 179, 214 Novalis (F. von Hardenberg) 278–9 Nussbaum, J. F. 42 object actants 7, 16–17 objective chance 96, 112 objective constraints 218 objective culture 52
322 objectivity in science 18 vs subjectivity in culture 52 objet trouvé 96, 112 Oedipus complex 103 Oehler, K. 53 n.8 Offe, C. 205 Ogilvie, B. 174 oligarchy 206, 209 oligopoly 209 Oliva, A. B. 140 Oliver, K. 91 Ollivier, B. 239, 282 omnipotence 45, 73–9 omnipresence and the liquidation o the subject 217–29 one-dimensionality 134, 147, 158, 213, 214 open dialogue 251, 253, 254–6 opponents (opposants ) 7 organic solidarity 203 organisations, sociology o 206–9 organized social systems 31 Orlando (Wool) 180, 186–7, 189, 253 Ormesson, J. de 47 Orwell, G. 26, 116 Other and ambivalence 254 and Bakhtin 49, 102, 249 and body-nature split 71 and Critical Teory 98 and the decentred subject 179 and desire 174, 176 Dialogical Teory 102, 274 and dialogical views o subjectivity 251 and European integration 281 exchangeability o individuals 214 and eminism 187 and the ‘I’ (Hegel) 73 and identity 255 and the imaginary 169 and modernism 115 negation o 92, 97 and negativity 249 and open dialogue 253 and reflexivity 256 Work and Capital 282
Index other-directedness 29, 35 otherness in collective identity 52 and the decentred subject 179 and Dialogical Teory 20 and dialogical views o subjectivity 51, 252 dissolution o the individual in 144 and eminism 185 inner-directed vs other-directed types 208 linguistic 11 and narcissism 72 and nature 80 and negativity 249 opportunity and danger 255 and pure thought 97 overcoming 150, 151, 158, 163, 216 over-determination and autonomy 26, 51 and A Clockwork Orange 120 dominant ideologies 161 and eminism 181 and reedom 14, 47, 65 and heteronomy 135 ideological 44–5 by ideologies 52 and Lacan 36 by media 52 and narcissism 37–8 narrative programme 12 and nature 77 and negation o the subject 47 restricted vs elaborated code 42 revelation o 50 socialization 11 panoptical transparency 26 paradigm 24, 27, 272 paradox 85, 88, 96, 138, 253 paranoia 136 paratactic theory 46, 100 Parnet, C. 145 parole 42, 142, 210, 254 Parsons, . 24, 31, 218, 227, 229, 232 particularism vs univeralism 263–70 particularity 228, 253 particularization 65, 82, 84, 86–92, 100, 142, 159, 183, 227, 231, 250, 272
Index partriarchy 169, 179 Pascal, B. 48 paternal authority, decline o 174–9 pathologies o society 37, 40, 134 Pêcheux, M. 12, 14, 160–1, 164, 165, 181 peer groups 11, 115 Peirce, Ch. S. 24 Péquignot, B. 197 n.233 perception vs fiction 93 persona 35, 111 personality, theory o 8, 38–42, 45, 111, 113, 203 personalized narratives 31 Pervin, L. A. 38, 39 Petropoulou, P. 130 n.285 Pfister, M. 61 n.230, 61 n.231 phallus 169, 176, 179 phenomenological approaches 275 philosophy and ambiguity o subjectivity 2–3 state o the debate 21–7 physis 14, 15, 69, 222 Piercy, M. 121 Pirandello, L. 50, 108, 109, 111, 251 Plato 67, 142, 184, 261 Plotinus 74–5 pluralism 145, 163, 183, 186, 228, 237, 250, 264 Poe, E. A. 172 poetry 45, 100, 101, 136, 173, 226 Pöggeler, O. 75 politics and coherence 183 Dialogical Teory and social movements 102 politics o experience 154 politics o identity 154 and subjective initiative 205 towards European politics 284–5 the undecidable is the political 186 polyphony 20, 187, 257, 270, 274, 278, 279–81 polysemy 143 Pontalis, B. 197 n.262 Ponzio, A. 287 n.30 Popper, K. R. 20, 250, 273 positive reedom 13, 14 positivist theories 38–42 possessive individualism 34, 83, 201
323
possibility o differences without a concept 144 posthistoire 216 postindustrial society and ambivalence 252 and mass psychology 104–5 overlap with postmodern 232 and social movements 235 and sociology 29–30 post-metaphysical world 34 postmodernity and Adorno 98, 100 and ambivalence 252–3 aporias o the subject 50–3 and autonomy 106 and criticism o totalitarianism 104 decline o the subject 50–3 and Dialogical Teory 249–85 disintegration and submission 133–89 and disintegration o the subject 46, 207 and Hegel 80 and ideological stability 41 and individual/collective subjects 5 loss o autonomy as symptom 217 and Luhmann 228, 231 and Lyotard 250, 265 and Nietzsche 87 postmodern literature 49–50 postmodern problematic 252 sociological viewpoint o the dialectics o individual subjectivity 201–39 and sociology 27–33 state o the debate 22, 25–7 and ouraine 236 transition rom modernism 115–21, 134–89 and truth 84 poststructuralism 100 potential, and subjectivity 15 power and anonymity 155 conorming with powers that be 102 and contingency 159 and discourse 159 empowerment vs loss o power dialectic 218 Foucault on 102, 157, 180, 181 and knowledge 157
324
Index
pastoral power 155 and rationality 158 as system 237 pragmatism 23, 159, 265–6 predestination 120 presence o meaning 35, 141, 146 presupposition 17, 34, 146 Pries, Ch. 190 n.32 Prieto, L. J. 19–20, 257 primary socialization 11, 36, 87, 208, 222 private sel-ashioning 158 problematic 51, 65, 80, 82, 85, 108, 111–13, 121, 134–5, 141–2, 145, 149–51, 168, 183, 219, 231, 249, 252, 278 process without subject 205 processes, subjectivity as 27, 36, 40, 189 production o subjectivity problem 160 programmed society 28 programming 153 progressive-regressive method 22 project 12 project o modernity 152, 183 proletariat 5, 78, 79, 101, 232, 282 Propp, V. 8 Protestant ethic 29, 30, 278 protonormalism 165 Proust, M. 8, 44, 50, 108–9, 111–12, 114, 149, 171, 175, 176–7, 188, 251, 255, 259 providence 82 pseudo-events 147–8 pseudo-objectivity 92 pseudo-science 162 pseudo-subjects 26, 50, 109, 154 psyche 14, 71, 103, 222 psychiatry 34, 153, 154, 157 psychoanalysis and ambivalence 252, 253 and breaks in identity 17 and eminism 187 and Fichte’s ‘I’ 72 and Lacan 168, 173 and penis envy 185 and Sartre 95, 114 and Seidler 258 and social psychology 33–42 and surrealism 112, 113 and transer 104–5 and truth 168
psychology 38, 150 psychosis 173 psychosocial moratoria 40 ‘psychotechnical manipulation’ 117 psychotherapy 150 pure thought 71, 97 purified ‘I’ 77 Pusch, L. F. 198 n.285 Pynchon, . 50, 121, 136 qualitative values o community 230 qualities, lack o 16 Rabaté, D. 61 n.233 Racine, J. 48 Rademacher, H. 72 Radical Constructivism 69 radical indeterminacy 186 Rahner, R. 246 n.199 Rakovac, M. 291 n.150 Rammstedt, O. 239 n.12 Rasch, W. 225 ratio 69, 98–102 rationalist discourses 19, 23, 50 rationality and divine work 76 and Foucault 154, 155, 159 and reedom 94 and the Other 98 reason vs nature o subjectivity 65 state reason 77 Rattansi, A. 199 n.296 Raulet, G. 57 n.120, 287 n.38 real, the 169 realizing modalities 7–8 reason Foucault on 157 and Nietzsche 88–9 reason is torture 155, 157 as totalizing thought 73–4 vs understanding 139 Reboul, O. 290 n.117 reflection 14–15, 17, 19, 31, 32, 65, 211 reflexivity 183, 238, 254–6, 268 Reormation 278 reutability 263, 264, 266, 271, 273 regional identities 52 regression 173, 175 Reid, R. 25, 156
Index reification, ideological 158–67 Reijen, W. van 57 n.120, 61 n.226, 62 n.244, 287 n.38 relapse 173 relativism 136 relevance 11, 43, 225, 226, 256, 257, 258 religion Althusser on 161 and the disorientated subject 135 and flexible normalism 166 vs ideology 162 and late modernity 86 Marxist critique o 82 and possessive individualism 201–2 religious spirit 85 and social movements 234 remembering ‘I’ 44 Renner, R.G. 195 n.194 repetition 26–7, 39, 137, 143–7, 166 repression 65, 89, 97, 172 Rescio, A. 138 ‘responsible person’ definitions o subject 2 restricted vs elaborated code 42 Réti, F. 188 return to the subject 48 reversibility 152, 155 Reynolds, M. 35 Ribot, . 35 Ricardou, J. 224 Ricœur, P. 3, 15–16, 17, 28, 93, 94, 251, 262 Riedel, M. 123 n.54 Riesman, D. 29, 30–1, 175, 207, 208, 215, 238 Rimbaud, A. 97 risk society 29–30, 216, 238 Ritter, J. 80 Robbe-Grillet, A. 50, 120, 218, 224 Rogers, C. R. 38, 40 Roloff, V. 287 n.50 Romanticism 34, 75, 150, 230, 278 Rorty, R. 183 Rosen, M. 77 Roseneld, U. 172 Rosenthal, B. 56 n.86 Roters, K.-H. 290 n.117 ruling class ideologies 163, 229 Rutte, H. 56 n.98, 290 n.120 Ryan, M. 200 n.321
325
Saouan, M. 176 Salamun, K. 273 sameness (mêmeté ) 15, 16, 17, 39, 40, 93, 251 Sanord, R. N. 102 sanity 150 Sartre, J.-P. autobiography 44, 47–8 Being and Nothingness (Sartre) 93–4 and Camus 101 contingency and chance 114, 261 critiques o surrealism and psychoanalysis 92–8 and existentialism 33, 36 existentialism 84 reedom 65–6 on Hegel 88 heroic subjectivity 22 and the imaginary 169–70 La Nausée (1938) 66, 93, 96, 114, 255 and Laing 147 as modernist 6 particularization 65 on poetry 136 projet 12 and radical negation 249 Sassanelli, G. 176 Saussure, F. de 42, 142, 172, 210, 218, 254 Sautet, M. 127 n.179 scepticism 205 Schäers, B. 54 n.24, 57 n.122, 131 n.308 Schärer, P. 197 n.255 Schiller, F. 107, 118 Schindler, I. 122 n.43 schizophrenic behaviour 150, 151 Schlegel, A. W. 75 Schlegel brothers 75 Schlette, H.R. 56 n.87 Schlieben-Lange, B. 61 n.212 Schluchter, W. 240 n.17, 240 n.22 Schmidinger, H. M. 85, 86 Schmidt, A. 26, 47 Schmitz, H. 77, 123 n.45 Schmitz-Emans, M. 44 Schneider, R. 226 Schneider, U. 90 Schopenhauer, A, 70 Schrag, C. O. 250, 265 Schröder, K. 279–80
326
Index
Schrödter, H. 53 n.1, 53 n.2, 53 n.23, 195 n.192 Schülein, J. A. 277 Schulte, G. 91 Schulte Nordholt, A. 44 Schulte-Sasse, J. 62 n.237 Schulz, P. 45 Schulz, W. 121 n.1 Schulz-Buschhaus, U. 45 Schütz, A. 269 Schwab, G. 46 Schwab, W. 174 Schwemmer, O. 256 science without a subject 162, 164 scientific language 168 scientific theory and Foucault 46–7 and ideology 162 and individuality 18 normal science 14 and normalism 26 process without subject 27 and semantics 12 as a system 71 universality 19 scientistic ideology 39 Scott, J.W. 199 n.312, 199 n.313 ‘second dimension’ 117, 121, 158 secondary modelling systems 262, 264, 267, 271–2, 279 secondary socialization 11, 37, 87, 208, 222 sects 7, 8 secularism 28, 34 secularization 70, 114, 166, 202, 232 Seidler, V. J. 258–9 Sel 8, 86, 98, 148, 238, 239 sel-abnegation 186 sel-awareness 78, 154 sel-consciousness 75, 170 sel-containment 74 sel-created subject 71, 158 sel-criticism 65, 211, 250, 253 sel-destruction 202 sel-direction 154 sel-empowerment (Selbstermächtigung ) 72, 90 sel-enhancement 239 sel-enrichment 206 sel-ulfillment 52
selood (ipséité ) 15, 17, 93, 95, 154, 251, 262 sel-identity 238 sel-knowledge 76 sel-negation 115 sel-organizing systems 40 sel-perception 154 sel-preservation 24 sel-reflexivity 65, 120 sel-renunciation 76 selsameness 40 sel-suffi ciency 90, 97 semantic isotopy 258 semantics, see also signifier-signified chain o signifiers 36 identity as semantics 256 semiotics 3, 42–50, 153–8 Sennett, R. 208 sensual perception 68–9 sexuality 65, 97, 103, 104, 120, 157, 180, 183, 214, 236, 253–4, 258 Shapiro, M.J. 194 n.148 Shils, E. A. 227 sight (sense) 19 signifier-signified 35, 39, 141–2, 172 Sigrist, Ch. 219, 224 Simmel, G. crisis o the subject 49 on differentiation 107 on economics 207 on individual/ collective subjects 4 on individualization 238 on social differentiation 203–4 on subjective vs objective culture 52 on subjugation 31 Simon, Cl. 224 Simon, J. 127 n.172 Simons, A. 274 Simson, F.H. 122 n.20 simulacra 30, 215 simulation 215 Singer, L. 199 n.313 Sittlichkeit 77, 89 Skadelig, O. 117, 119 Skinner, B.F. 38 slips o the tongue 50 Smith, A. 94 social class vs social movements 231–2 social competence 42
Index social contexts o identity 41 social criticism 152, 158, 185 social differentiation 107 social domination 42 social evolution 253 social movements 182, 202, 212, 231–2, 232–8, 252, 281, 282 social pathology 151 social psychology 33–42, 153–8 social sciences 99, 155, 262–78 social semiotics 14, 26–7 social systems theory 21–2, 31–2, 107, 202, 269 social time 90 social values, theory o 83 socialization 11, 36, 87, 174, 208, 222 society, individual and collective subjects in 3–20 sociolects 11–17, 19, 20, 24, 42–3, 47–8, 117, 211, 256, 257, 258, 259, 263, 264, 268, 271–2 socio-linguistic situation 10–17, 42–50, 254, 256–8, 262, 268–70, 277 sociolinguistics 10–17, 42–50, 256 sociology 3, 4, 27–33, 52, 86, 155, 201–39, 269 sociology o action 220, 229, 239, 251, 275, 281 sociosemiotics 271–2, 274 Socrates 65, 92 sogetto scisso 147–52 solidarities 17, 104–5, 203–4, 220 Sorel, G. 235 Sorić D. 281 Soupault, P. 97, 113 sovereignty 83, 157, 161 Soviet ideology 79 space and time 69, 140 specular state 183 speech, and subjectivity 31 speech act theory 143, 267 Sperber, D. 258 Spinoza, B. 74, 93, 161 Spirit 65 spirit absolute Spirit 77 being o the spirit 170 cogito/ spirit 50, 65, 67–72, 89, 95, 143, 172, 251
327
and language 170 religious spirit 85 and subjectivity in philosophy 283 World Spirit (Weltgeist ) 73–8 spirits o nations 75 split subject 147–52, 171 stability o meaning 141–3 Stalinism 104, 165, 208 Stalker, G.M. 206 state o nature 83, 105, 169 state reason 77, 78 state-amily relations 157 states (nations) 10, 207, 281 Steenbakkers, P. 163 Stehle, H. 195 n.174 Steinwachs, G. 95, 113 Stekeler-Weithoer, P. 55 n.49 stigmatization 154–8 Stirner, M. 65, 80, 82–6, 89, 90 Stockinger, P. 54 n.34 stranger within 111, 256 stream o consciousness 97, 143 structural semiotics 7, 9, 115 structuralism 26, 46–7, 158–9, 167, 171, 181 structure-action distinction 31 subiectum 2–3, 9, 12, 25, 26, 50, 78, 118 subject in process 189 subject o theory 17–20 subject-actant/ actant sujet 7, 204, 218, 220, 223, 227 subject-historicity-social movements triad 232–3 subjection 11, 238 subjective appropriation 76 subjective culture 204–6 subjective stability 166 subjugated vs disintegrating instance 3 subjugation 8–9, 25, 26, 31, 51, 65, 65–121 sublime 135–40, 265 sublime eeling 134 submission 65, 87, 115, 119, 152–88 subversion o the subject 27 sujet assujetti 161 superego-ego-id divisions 8–9, 35, 68, 70, 95, 105–6, 258 Superman 72, 87, 90–1, 207 supra-individual actants 7–10 supra-individual subjects 84, 86, 160
328
Index
supranational states 281 surrealism 65, 95–6, 112, 138, 139, 149, 261 Süskind, P. 49, 120, 176 Svevo, I. 50, 66, 110, 111, 171, 187, 188 Sweezy, P. M. 206, 209 symbolic order 173, 188 symbolic power 257 symbolic violence 169, 172–4, 257 symbolic-imaginary-real triad 169 systematic thought 108 systematization 87 system-environment distinction 12, 31, 222 systems theory 32, 221–2, 231 systems-lie world distinction 12 Szondi, P. 46 abbi, J. 136 albot, M. M. 42–3 taxonomies 19 aylor, Ch. 52, 68 technologies media 209–17 and narcissism 37 television 104, 136, 178, 210–17 television 104, 136, 178, 210–17 esnière, L. 8 theory o dialogue 51 theory o discontinuous systematicities 159 theory o literature 42–50 theory o personality 38–42 theory o relativity 253 theory o science (Wissenschaslehre ) 71, 73 theory o the subject 17–20 thetic phase 188 Tompson, J.B. 247 n.228 thought as negation 93 and Nietzsche 89 reason as totalizing thought 73–4 Tulstrup, N. 85 Turlings, T. L. M. 246 n.185 Turshwell, A. 198 n.278 iedemann, R. 100 ietmeyer, H. 281 iryakian, E.A. 246 n.177 odorov, . 286 n.11, 287 n.33
önnies, F. 4, 28, 203 opitsch, E. 273 total screen 209, 213, 257 totalitarianism 5, 12, 13, 103, 104, 106 totality 73, 73–4, 77, 92, 164, 204 ouraine, A. 3, 5, 28, 32–3, 49, 167, 182, 202, 205, 209, 229–39, 252, 256, 275, 281, 282 trade unions 52, 212 traditional societies 28 tragedy o the culture process 204 traits 38 trans-avant-garde 140 transcendental oundation 221, 251, 271 trans-esthétique 225, 226 transer 104 translation o sociolects 275, 276 transparency, as domination o subject 26 reumann, R. 277 rieb, B. 244 n.139 trilingualism 279–80 truth and Adorno 100, 168 creation o the rue 93 and eminism 183 and Foucault 159 identity o thought 86 and language 102, 171 and madness 157 metaphysical concepts o 84 and Nietzsche 88–9, 151 and objectivity 213 and pseudo-events 148 true word 168, 173 true-not true 225 urner, B.S. 57 n.122 yrell, H. 245 n.163 unconscious and disintegration o the subject 111–12 and division 171 eternality o 161 and the imaginary 171 and language 171 and the liberated subject 97 Musil on 109 nature-thought 80 and normalization 173
Index and psychoanalysis 33, 35 semantic isotopy 258 and surrealism 95 undecidability, politics o 186 undemocratic movements 235 understanding and imagination 140 Ungar, S. 96 Unique, the 90 unity o opposites 51, 251 universal language 276, 279–80 universal pragmatics 23 universal reason 82, 155, 157, 205 universalism 228, 232, 235, 263–7, 270 use values (vs exchange values) 29, 32, 213–14, 215, 216 utilitarian actors 231 utilitarianism 84 utopianism 24, 118, 121, 134, 183 Valéry, P. 3, 45, 48, 101, 135, 136, 137, 138 values ambivalence o values 107, 109–15 crisis o social values/ social disintegration 34, 37, 40, 44–5, 50, 88, 107, 205 in Critical Teory 273 and division o labour 107 exchange values, society based on 28, 29, 32, 52, 99, 110, 134, 136, 144, 166, 178, 180, 186, 201–2, 203, 207, 210, 211, 213, 214, 225, 228 vs unctional hierarchies 179 indifference 111, 134–5, 144, 166, 174–9, 182, 186, 208, 214, 228, 235, 252 indistinguishability o values 214 individual’s supreme value 174–9 and postmodernism 49–50, 207 Sartre on 93 use values (vs exchange values) 28, 29, 32, 213–14, 215, 216 value development 213–16 Van de Putte, A. 163 Vattimo, G. critiques o modernity 51 and the dogma o idealism 3 on Nietzsche 150 particularization 227 pluralism 135
329
rejection o modernist utopias 134 repetition o a sign 27 and repetition o the sign 145–7 and the subversion o the subject 141–7 transition rom Laing 134, 147–52 Verwindung 174, 216 Verdiglione, A. 190 n.26 Verwindung 150, 151, 158, 174, 216 Verzar, A. 123 n.46 Vincent, J.-M. 193 n.138 Vinken, B. 184 violence 115, 119, 149, 155, 157, 218, 229, 233 virtualizing modalities 7–8 Vischer, F. . 50, 65, 66, 76, 78, 80–6, 96, 108, 112, 141, 171, 252, 260–1 Vogel, M. R. 230 Voigt-Weber, L. 282 Volhard, E. 81, 126 n.147 Volkelt, J. 80 Voloshinov, V. 219–20, 254 Warnock, M. 93 Watson, J.B. 38 Watzlawick, P. 243 n.112 weak subjectivity 230 weakness o the ‘I’ 102–8 Weber, A. 49, 204 Weber, M. action, concept o 204, 205–7, 229 and the decline o the subject 49 ideal types 165, 179 on individual/ collective subjects 4 and Nietzsche 207 Protestant ethic 29–31 and the sociology o organisations 206–7, 209, 211, 218 on subjugation 31 Weipert, G. 240 n.19 Weiß, J. 240 n.23 Wellmer, A. 139 Welsch, W. 139 Wenturis, N. 57 n.122 Wertheimer, J. 241 n.66 Weststeijn, W.G. 61 n.226, 62 n.244 Wetz, F. J. 115 wholeness, tendency towards 40 Whyte W. H. 207
