Thinking the Punctum: Gillian Wearing, Self-Portrait at Three Years Old

Fig. 1.

Wearing, Gillian. Self-Portrait at Three Years Old. 2004. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Chromogenic print, edition 5/6, 71 5/8 x 48 1/16 inches (182 x 122 cm).

Let me begin with a personal experience. One day, quite some time ago, in a well known New York museum, I happened on a photograph. The portrait of a young girl – head slightly tilted, blank expression– a pretty straightforward school picture with a slight touch of awkwardness  not uncommon to this category. I wondered why these kinds of portraits often look a bit peculiar. Especially this one. So I scanned the picture to try and find some details, some clues for a possible answer. Was it the old fashioned white blouse with the bow tie? Or the doll-like features, particularly the combination of the blouse and the black hair? Maybe it was what caught my eye in the first place: the indifference of the face staring at me? Perhaps. I was not quite sure. So I continued my investigation.

The card next to it gave me some additional information. I think it said:  “.. Self portrait. By looking through the holes of the little child’s mask, the artist asks questions about time, identity  .. ” (I am sure there was more, but this is all I remember).  When I looked back at the image, I realized it was not a simple straightforward portrait, but a photograph of the artist wearing a mask based on a picture from her childhood. I was looking at a photograph of a mask of a photograph. Knowing it was more than just an old portrait, my perception of the picture had shifted. But at the same time, it had not made that big a difference. After all I was looking at the same picture, only now with some additional interestingly sounding text to think about in relation with the photo. A bit disappointed, I walked away. I liked the concept, but the work had not sparked anything in me, nothing aesthetically thrilling. Just some light intellectual wonder.

This was soon to change. After observing some other artifacts in the exhibition, I returned to the photograph. At first, alternating between the whole of the picture and the eyes of the girl, I still was not too much impressed. Then I noticed  the eyes were sunken abnormally low in the sockets. I noticed a thin grey line on the left side of the left eye: a small shadow marking the difference between the mask  and the artist own eyes beneath. Suddenly it hit me. I realized that the eyes of the little girl, were actually the eyes of the artist. This all happened, like a bee’s sting, very quickly. As if the artist was staring right at me, exposing me. A feeling of being caught. I was fixed on the eyes of the artist, staring back at me through the mask. Of course I had read this in the description, but only now I felt a “real” impact: for a moment it was as if the artist was there in person. An angry look, but scared at the same time – as if she was trapped. For a moment, she or it, or whatever it was, became more real than the photograph itself. My heart rate had sped up. But I was not really scared or frightened by it.  Maybe there was some anxiety, but at the same time there was a strong fascination. Something drawing me closer, rather than making me run away.

When, about a month ago, I read Roland Barthes’s CAMERA LUCIDA for the first time, this memory immediately came back to my mind. Barthes distinguishes between what he calls the studium –   – that what the subject or spectator perceives as the general theme of the photograph, which Barthes denotes with terms like “knowledge and civility”, “politeness”,  “culture”, “the body of information”, “that what generates an average effect”– and the punctum, that what breaks or punctuates this field, as well as “pricks”, “wounds” or “bruises” the particular viewers subjectivity . Whereas the studium, conditioned by social norms and values can be liked, be the object of more or less pleasure, be interestingly talked about, can even be an object of politico-ethical shock and indignation; the punctum is that which distorts both the (signifiers constituting the) studium as well as the subjectivity engaged with the photograph (Barthes 26). Barthes’s description of his encounter with the photograph comes close to the my own experience. Until the eyes of the artist became “real” to me, I dwelled in the order of the studium. I (re)searched for intelligible details, information and knowledge, I learned a bit and this made me like the photograph. But one detail disrupted my cultural undertaking, my bildung.[1] The moment I noticed the thin grey line, I was subjectively “stung” and, simultaneously, my perception as spectator of the studium radically changed. In this sense, It is possible to view the eyes as a detail that constitutes my particular punctum, in the way Barthes has theorized it.

We should, however, be careful with such a quick equation.  What I took to be my punctum (the thin grey line and eventually the pair of eyes) was a detail intended by the artist.  This is important because, as Micheal Fried has suggested, Barthes precludes intended details as constitutive of a punctum. According to Fried, Barthes observed that:“the detail that strikes him as a punctum could not do so had it been intended as such by the photographer”. If Barthes talks about the punctum as a “certain detail”, we can be sure that the artist did not intend to captured it: “The punctum, we might say, is seen by Barthes but not because it has been shown to him by the photographer, for whom it does not exist” (546).  A detail, in other words, can only be a punctum if it was shot without the photographer being aware of it. A photographer in some way always stages a scene that he wants the spectator to see. Details that make up this intended image will have a meaning: the photographer means something with them, something that he wants to convey to his audience (what could be called culture or knowledge). Therefore, intended details are from the start included in the studium. At the same time, whenever a photograph is taken, certain details  will be captured which the artist was not aware of. Barthes’ own example is a photograph of two disfigured children. But the peculiarity of the children is not what interests him, for it is all too obviously staged, intended. Barthes is “pricked” by two details that seem to be contingently captured: the small bandage round the finger of one of the children, and the Danton collar of the other. These details “just happen to be there”, never staged, meant or intended by the photographer. Fried therefore concludes that intended details can never constitute a punctum.

In this way Frieds argues that Barthes can be placed in the tradition of antitheatrical critical thought. In Frieds reading, the punctum is precisely that which guarantees the anti theatrically of the photograph:  “In short for a photograph to be truly antitheatrical for Barthes it must somehow carry within it a kind of ontological guarantee that it was not intended to be so by the photographer . . . The punctum, I am suggesting, functions as that guarantee.”  If we accept Frieds reading, we must conclude that my experience of what I thought was a punctum, could not be one, for the detail that constituted it was clearly intended. The eyes were obviously intended by the artist. They did not “happen to be there”. Fried’s argument ultimately rests upon the assumption that a detail that causes a punctum cannot be intended by the photographer.

Nonetheless, it were precisely the eyes that pricked me. It was as if I saw two pairs of eyes: the ones of the child, which could be counted as ordinary (intended) detail of the studium, and the ones of the artist behind, which would be the “punctual detail”. We could say that this second detail was not directly placed by the artist, not specifically intended by the photographer, and therefore can be thought as the unintentionality that is necessary for a detail to be a punctum. But this would be hard to argue, because the difference between mask and the artist eyes behind it was exactly the point of the work: it was explicitly mentioned in the description next to it. To take a more empirical view, this detail could never be legitimately called a detail, because, in fact, there are only one pair of eyes present (which were clearly intended).  This photographic work of art thus poses a problem. If we take the artwork and its effect (my experience) seriously, it must be possible for an intended detail to cause a punctum. It challenges Fried’s argument, and puts forward the possibility to think the punctum without unintentionality as its necessary condition. On the one hand it forces us to reevaluate Fried’s line of thought, and on the other, it give us a chance to think of the punctum in a different way.

Fried bases his argument for a great part on two related passages in Camera Lucida, both about intentionality. The first one is as follows. “Certain details may “prick” me. If they do not, It is doubtless because the photographer has put them there intentionally” (Barthes 47) and “to recognize the studium is inevitably to encounter the photographer’s intentions” (27).  I agree that if a detail does not “prick” the subject, it is doubtless put there intentionally. This does not violate my own experience: every detail that did not prick me (the bow tie, the hair) was intentionally staged by the artist. I also tend to agree with the second point: when I recognized the studium (when I undertook my investigation, I read the card and I found that it was a photograph of a mask) I inevitably encountered the photographer’s intentions. From this Fried concludes that, for Barthes, a “detail that strikes him as a punctum could not do so had it been intended as such by the photographer” (Fried 546). However, this does not follow from both passages.  In short, Barthes claims that details-that-are-no-punctum are always intentional. But he does not claim the opposite: it is not true that details-that-are-intended cannot bring about a punctum.

The difference consists in the point of departure. If we are not pricked by a detail, this detail is of the studium, because a pricking would constitute a punctum. If we recognize the studium (if we wander about through the details that make up the studium) , we must necessarily encounter the intentions of the photographer, because the studium is defined as the field of culture and knowledge, and this includes what the artist tried to show in his picture. Thus, if we are not pricked, we recognize the studium, and if we recognize the studium, we recognize the artist’s intentions. Starting from the recognition of the studium, we necessarily encounter intentional details.[2] However, it does not follow that if we start with an experience of a punctum, we will necessarily trace it back to an unintended detail. We cannot claim that if we are pricked, the detail must have been unintended. We can only be sure that if we are not pricked, we encounter the artist intentions. To make this clear, let me rephrase Barthes: “certain details may prick me; If they do not, It is doubtless because the photographer has put them there intentionally. If they do, we cannot be sure if the photographer has put them there intentionally. They could have been intended, but probably were not.” If a detail pricks a subject, it would constitute a punctum. The detail is probably unintentionally shot. But f it was later revealed to be an intended detail after all, it would not invalidate this experience. If it was finally revealed that the details that constituted Barthes punctum (the bandage, the collar) were after all intended by the artist, it would not invalidate Barthes description of these details as a punctum. If a punctum hits, a punctum hits: we cannot choose to be hit by one; we cannot be taught to experience a punctum.

In the following passage, it becomes clear that Barthes never denies that intended details can cause an experience of the punctum . He does not claim that the punctual detail must necessarily be unintentional,  only that it is “at least not strictly” intentional and that it “probably” must not be intentional:

“Hence the detail which interests me is not, or at least is not strictly, intentional, and probably must not be so; it occurs in the field of the photographed thing like a supplement that is at once inevitable and delightful; it does not necessarily attest to the photographer’s art; it says only that the photographer was there, or else, still more simply, that he could not not photograph the partial object at the same time as the total object”(232).

It is possible, while it may not often be the case, for an intended detail to cause an experience of a punctum. But we must also say that, at the very least, every detail  is not strictly intentional. It is also something more. But it is therefore not a completely unintended detail, because it could be intentionally put there. That which we call the detail could be intended by the photographer. What is interesting is that Barthes also speaks about the photographers art. The detail, which might be intended, might also attest to the photographer’s art. The point is only that it does not necessarily  attest to the photographers art. If we read Barthes closely, it seems that it is ultimately not about the unintentionality of the photographic detail. It is something else. If the punctum is not limited to the unintentional quality of the detail, it is, for Barthes, not the unintended detail that is the punctum, and “that what guarantees antitheatricallity” as Fried puts it. For it is always possible for a fully staged, intended photographic work of art, theatrical in every sense, to cause an experience of the punctum.

But what then is the punctum? The artwork under consideration offers a rethinking. First, we are dealing with a photograph of the artist wearing a mask based on a picture from her childhood. It is a photograph of a mask of a photograph. This gives the effect of the double eyes, at the same time of the mask and of the artist behind the mask; it is ultimately what the work is about and therefore we must call this detail intended. In an empirical sense there is only one detail, the eyes, and this detail is intended. But in my experience this detail was not limited strictly to its intention. For it created the effect that  the artists eyes were present at the same time as the eyes of the mask, piercing through it and pricking me. If we take this effect seriously, we can say that the intended detail creates the impression of something more than only the detail which is (strictly) intended. This “more” occurred in the field of the photographed thing “like a supplement.” The artist could not not photograph the eyes that belong  to the mask at the same time as her own eyes piercing through the mask. But the effect of the eyes was intended this way, so we can take out the double negation, and change it to an affirmative statement: the achievement of this work of art is the ability of the artist to photograph the eyes that belong to the mask at the same time as her own eyes piercing trough the mask.

What we should focus on is that the eyes emanate something through the photograph. Something that was always there, trapped, caught behind a mask, but suddenly breaks through. In other words, a punctum that pierces trough the studium.  There is something that is more than the pictorial representation alone, something that  sticks to the image that cannot be cut loose. The eyes that pierce through the eyes of the mask, function as a reminder that something was there, that there must have been more than its representation alone. They remind the spectator that photograph necessarily presupposes a real referent, “behind the mask of representation”. If this realization caused in me the experience of the punctum, the latter cannot be equated with the unintentionality of a detail. And in fact, if we follow Barthes’s central quest for the eidos, the essence of photography,  we will discover that it is not the unintended detail that matters, but exactly the relation between the photograph and its referent.

In his search for essence of photography, Barthes compares the photograph against other forms of image representation, most importantly the painting (76). The question is in what way the photograph is unique in relation to the painting. In other words, why does the punctum only occurs with a photograph, never with a painting? According to Barthes the difference lies in the relation of the image to it referent: “First of all I had to conceive, and therefore if possible express properly (even if it is a simple thing) how Photography’s Referent is not the same as the referent of other systems  of  representation”(76).  The referent is that what the image represents. All images in some way represent something. However, the relation between representation and referent is different for each one of the image forms.  What is represented in a photograph always necessarily points to a referent that once was a real thing: “I call ‘photographic referent’ not the optionally real thing to which an image or a sign refers but the necessarily real thing which has been placed before the lens, without which there would be no photograph” (76).

This is what makes a photograph essentially different from a painting. The latter also points to a referent, but this referent is always cut from its representation. There is no necessary link: “The painting can  feign  reality without having seen it. Discourse combines signs which have  referents, of course,  but  these referents can be and are most often ‘chimeras.’” There is as it were a  gap between the representation and referent, so that the image can deny the existence of its referent. An abstract painting for example, does not point to a really existing referent, certainly not in the way that a photograph does. “Contrary to these  imitations, in Photography I can never deny that the thing has been there. There is a superimposition here: of reality, and of the past.” What is essential for the photograph is thus the relation between representation and referent. “And since this constraint exists only for Photography, we must consider it, by reduction, as the very essence, the noeme of Photography. It is Reference,  which is the founding order of Photography” (76). For Barthes the essence of photograph is thus: “That-has-been,” or the “Intractable: .  This “That-has-been”, in other words “death” (as it is no longer), stands for its necessary relation of the photographic representation to a real referent, a referent that necessarily “has been”. Every photograph has this essence, of course, so the photograph of the masked artist here discussed as well. However, this photograph, is staged in such a way that it, in a way, “pushes the essence  to the surface”, thereby increasing the likelihood of a punctum. In this sense the work “thinks” the punctum: If we take the mask of the child (including its eyes) as the photograph, the eyes of the artist that pierce through the mask are the intractable, stubborn remainder of the referent that has been.

The specific relation between a photograph and its referent is why the punctum can only come about within a photograph. If this relation did not exist, we would never have to care about it necessary “having been”. It is simply not there. It cannot cause a disturbance, because it is not connected with it. There is a cut, a gap between representation and (possible) referent. There is no “that-has-been” that emanates through a painting. As Barthes puts it, “the  photograph  is  literally  an emanation  of  the  referent”. The eyes of the artist piercing through the mask make this connection undeniable. “A  sort of umbilical cord links the body of the photographed thing to my  gaze” (80-81).It is “this is what makes the photograph unique compared to the other “systems of representations” (76).

So what can this tell us about the punctum?  The punctum is that which both disturbs the studium of, and the spectator engaged in the photograph (26). While in the case of the painting, the “studium” and the subject remain safe and intact, with the photograph they are always at risk. The photograph does not safeguard the negating power of the punctum, precisely because of its essence: the sticking of the referent, of the “that-has-been” to the representation. There is a necessary relationship , otherwise there would  not be a photograph. Coming back to our initial question, the punctum is not the unintended detail, but the very essence of photography: the necessary connected referent. Therefore the punctum is actually the same as the essence: the “that-has-been”.  However, it always manifests itself as, at the same time as an experience, and a detail (as immanent to the representation or studium). The punctum is nothing other than the spectators sudden realization of the “that-has-been”. Because of the nature of the relation between what the photograph represents and its implicit referent (which is the ”that-has-been”), this realization necessarily manifest itself as a detail: as a sign in the order of representation.
The punctum is thus the same as the implicit referent, which is the “that-has-been”,  the essence of the photograph. It is a negative category, because it is felt only through the disturbance of the positive categories of the subject and the studium (it does not consist in the positivity of a detail. The punctum is not present by itself: it is only a necessary implication of every photograph). When a punctum hits, the consistency of the symbolic order, that is, the studium, is disturbed. The “fantasy” is broken, which gives rise to a sudden uncertainty. This event always lurks behind the photograph, , it can always strike, because of its essence. However, normally we are, as Barthes says, indifferent to this essence (77) Normally we are  immersed in our culture, knowledge, politeness, in other words: in the studium. But it is always possible that this seemingly closed structure is disturbed, and often this comes about by a “detail”. This, as Barthes recognizes, is most likely to be an unintended detail(not intended to be staged or captured by the photographer): the details that are intentionally shot are much more invested with the studium and therefore do not remind us of the essence of photography: the “that-has-been”. It is thus not the detail that disturbs us, but the realization of “that-has-been”, which we experience as the punctum. The punctum brings about, emanates, the essence of photography. When the punctum hits, we are awakened of our normal indifference. “It  is this indifference which the Photograph had  just roused me from”(77).

The photographic artwork I encountered allowed us to challenge the view that the punctum is caused by an unintended detail. Rather, when we experience a punctum, we encounter the very essence of photography: the necessary relation of the representation to its referent, the “that-has-been”. The eyes of the artist piercing through the mask exemplify the way this referent is implicated in every photograph. The realization of this essence is caused in different ways, of which the unintended detail is one. However, it is not the only way. The eyes that had pricked me, were clearly intended by the artist. Nonetheless they gave rise to a sudden realization of a real thing, trapped behind the mask. They shattered the studium. This was my experience of the punctum.

Works cited

Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York: Hill and Wang, 1981. Print.

Fried, Micheal. “Barthes’s Punctum.” Photography Degree Zero: Reflections on Roland Barthes’s   Camera Lucida. Ed. Geoffrey Batchen. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2009. 141-167. Print.

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[1] Bildung (German for “education”) refers to the German tradition of self-cultivation.

[2] We might object that some detail that did not prick us, could be capture without the photographer being aware of it. But it is Barthes argument that if a detail did not prick us, they were doubtlessly intended. In any case, it does not invalidate the point that details that do prick us, could still be intended.

What is implicit racism? (1/4)

Most of us are staunch anti-racists. We are fiercely against all forms of racism, of whatever shape, type or colour. It just seems so obvious: since we do not even think in terms of race, the idea that one ‘race’ would be ‘superior’ to another is totally foreign to us. When we walk down a busy street we surely do not think “gosh look at those inferior races mingling about.” If someone accuses us of such a thought, that’s an insult.

If you want to come across as anti-racist today, however, such a clear and explicit rejection of racist beliefs is no longer enough. As soon as you take such a stance, it will quickly be pointed out that by taking such a position, you may overlook another kind of racism: a sly, structural racism that lurks just beneath the surface of our explicit beliefs and positions; a shadowy, non-acknowledged, non-personal set of beliefs, that wander around in our institutions, our history textbooks, our festivals and rituals, our jokes, our cultural archive; a racism almost imperceptible and therefore all the more effective.

But what could we possibly mean when we say that racism is implicit, structural or institutional?

It is quite important to be precise on this point. Many interpretations evaluate the question of implicit racism primarily in terms of individual responsibility, or personal morality – the possibility of an individual to do ‘the right thing.’ However, as the reactions on Wekker’s book White Innocence show, this strategy keeps dragging us into a practical quagmire. Why?

There seems to be a good reason to start with individual responsibility, as this approach worked quite well with traditional anti-racism. The latter presents the individual with a clear commandment: judge a person by the content of their character, not the colour of their skin. In other words, as long as you approach others without taking into account their skin colour (or ethnic background, or whatever ‘irrelevant trait’) you qualify as an anti-racist. If we take into account implicit racism, however, we are confronted with a different, more paradoxical injunction. In the words of black writer Pat Parker: “The first thing you do is to forget that I’m Black/Second, you must never forget that I’m Black.” In other words, in order be anti-racist, you must acknowledge both the existence of skin colour (and thus be a racist in the traditional sense of the term) and forget skin-colour at the same time. Thus, according to Baukje Prins, the notion of implicit racism presents you a vicious double bind. She captures this widely shared sentiment as follows: “whatever you do, you can’t do it right.”

This immediately implies a second worry: if we put (white) people in this vicious double-bind, if they can’t do it right anyhow, does it not imply that they are by definition on the ‘wrong side of history’? We encounter this sentiment under the term of ‘polarization:’ Gloria Wekker and Sylvana Simons are are often charged with dividing up society into two groups, with on the one hand unredeemable, forever guilty white people – caught in a double bind – and on the other hand their resentful victims. This is why Baukje Prins cautions Wekker that: “by repeatedly insisting that the (‘white’) other is on the wrong side of history, Wekker will not find many allies.” Wekker and Simons, in other words, are thought to propagate a divisive mode of anti-racism, which does not allow for a common struggle anymore.

Thus, third and finally, we often hear calls to overcome this ‘polarization.’ For example, Baukje Prins – Lector Citizenship and Diversity at The Hague Universtity – quite nobly urges us to be (again) prepared to believe in ‘certain shared values:

In striving for a less racist, more equitable society, alliances can only arise if, beyond the innocence of denying a problematic history and still existing privileges, we are prepared to believe that we do indeed have certain shared interests and values today.

Prins clearly thinks that Wekker’s view of implicit racism – contrary to her conciliatory suggestion – does not allow for alliances to arise. She implies, in other words, that there is a big, unsurpassable gap between her own anti-racist values (that probably concur with the values of Citizenship and Diversity), and Wekker’s (which are based on her views on implicit racism and which would entail the vicious double-bind and polarization) that preclude the possibility of an anti-racist alliance.

It is here that this quite familiar strategy – from the recognition of the double-bind, to the accusation of polarization, to the renewed appeal for unity – ultimately falters. It clearly cannot work. Prins’ seemingly reasonable intention is to bring back unity in a ‘polarizing’ situation. But the unity she proposes is salient only because she herself sets up another division: between her idea of shared values, and Wekker’s ideas that in Prins’ view endanger those shared values. For her proposal for unity to work, she must herself become divisive: she needs to cast out Wekker’s ‘divisive’ and ‘demoralizing’ views from those ‘shared values’ she asks us to believe in. In other words, behind the seemingly conciliatory plea for a ‘trust in unity’ lies a divisive act of expulsion.

Prins, starting with the evaluation of the possibility of individual responsibility, ends up with a double-bind of her own: in order for us to be prepared to believe that we do indeed have certain shared interest and values, we must be prepared to believe that Wekker does not share those same interest and values. Effectively she claims that in order to unite, we must be prepared to exclude. Her proposed unity is ultimately a false one. If we take this oft-trodden road – double-bind, polarization, plea for unity – it is ultimately us, not Wekker, who create what we wanted to avoid at all cost: an unsurpassable dichotomy, the impossibility to forge alliances.

Does this mean we must reject Prins appeal to be prepared to believe in certain shared values? Should we give up the quest for a certain unity, a common anti-racism?

Perhaps it is better not to shoot ourselves in the foot again by casting Prins ideas aside and thus dividing the situation once again. Perhaps we better hold Prins to her call for unity, and urge her to ‘be prepared to believe’ that Wekker and Prins (and all of us anti-racist that agree with both their worries) in fact do have certain shared interests and values (anti-racism, for example!). The only way to go beyond the current divisions is to insist that another kind of unity might be possible; that some shared battle indeed exists.

What is clear, however, is that this unity will have to be constructed in a different way. It is also clear, is that in order to construct this shared battle we should reject the current strategy, and reevaluate what we mean when we say racism is implicit, structural or institutional.

Perhaps there is an easy and quite obvious way to change the perspective. It’s clear that Prins comes to her contradictory conclusions because she focuses – almost without reflection – on the question of the personal double-bind, and thus on (the possibility of) personal morality, the possibility for an individual to do good deeds. Why? If implicit racism is about structural racism – as Wekker constantly emphasises– is it not very clear that we should start, not with evaluating (the possibility of) individual moral acts, but rather with evaluating structures?

Since the debate on implicit racism is easily overheated, and since it is quickly brought back to a question of individual or collective (cf. Arnold Grunberg) culpability, perhaps it is best to first leave the debate on implicit racism, and first – in a totally different domain – get some sense of what an implicit structure may look like. Thus we bracket both the moralistic question and the question of racism for some time. Only after we have some sense of what an implicit structure might be, do we slowly return to the topic of implicit racism, and then finally to the question individual and collective ethics.

In the next blog-post, we will turn to the The Fantastic Four. There we find a very precise example how implicit structures, or ‘silent orderings’ as Gloria Wekker calls them, come about.

Economic Justice

“That’s the whole point. It’s not a matter of asking the ‘people who work hard’ and because of that earn a high income, to be charitable and compassionate, and give something back to people who do nothing (because they are lazy, sick, disabled, etc. ). Let them keep it.

We’re talking about leveling the income of a different, much bigger group. From the point of view of work, that is work-that-earns-you-a-wage, these people do literally nothing. They include the disabled, the homeless, the unemployed, but also  the very rich. Everyone puts in the same amount of work: nothing. The problem is that in our present system, some people actually earn a lot more money for doing nothing than others. In other words, they get a much bigger share of what doing nothing yields.

Consider this. If you have a certain amount of savings in a bank, you get an annual rent on that amount. For this income, the hours of work you have to put in to earn that rent is absolutely nothing. This is income is literally income that comes from doing nothing – there is no work in the sense of earning wage involved. However: the bigger the amount, the bigger the annual rent. In our society today, some people reek in extremely high benefits, simply because from the start they have owned a much bigger amount then you. So even if you worked really hard your whole life, put all your earnings in a savings account, you couldn’t catch up with them – while they often didn’t put an ounce work into it to get it, they often just inherited their wealth. And the work they put in to get even more money is, again, literally nothing. Every year the money just stacks up, piles up, automatically. And the only reason they get this share is simply that they are the owners of the wealth – they have a little paper that tells us it’s theirs. But what is important, it’s certainly not because they work hard for it; absolutely not – it’s nothing more exhausting than the effort you put in to get your few hundred dollars annual rent on your savings – which is mainly just sitting and waiting.

So if you agree that a just redistribution must be based on the amount of work everyone puts in, you’ll also agree that if in a society some people do more work than others, they should get a bigger share of the total yield.

But then you’ll also agree that if everyone puts in the same amount of work, everyone should get the exact same share of the amount. If you both put in the same amount of work, why should you get a lesser share? Now, in society where in one part of the economy everyone does exactly the same amount of work – namely nothing – shouldn’t everyone get the same share of the benefits that this doing nothing it yields?

Economic-equality is therefore not taking the money from people who work hard, and giving it to those who are lazy and do nothing. It is about redistributing the income from the wealth that comes from doing nothing. Everybody is capable of doing nothing, and if this yields an income, everybody is entitled to it. At the very least, I would say, if nobody put in anymore work than anyone else, than there is no reason for them to be entitled to a bigger share of the income than anyone else.

 A just redistribution would therefore be: those who-do-nothing should get the same share of what this doing-nothing yields.”

Ideology / Truth Semiotics

On Truth and Ideology

Since at least the 1960’s, the use, or maybe usefulness, of the concept of ideology has been questioned and even discredited (Bell, Lane, Aron). Parallel to the progressive decline of Marxist thought and practice in the second half of the twentieth century, it seems to have slowly but surely withered away from most of academic discourse, only to be preserved in some obscure, orthodox far-leftist cults. The death, or end of ideology, has been declared at multiple times, by diverse authors, both left and right . Should we accept this almost complete vanishing of a concept – one that once stood at the forefront of debates in arts, politics and the humanities – as a fair reflection of broader social, cultural and political developments? Yes, of course. The becoming irrelevant of the concept is an important development. But we cannot conclude that if a concept disappears from academic or public discourse, the phenomenon goes as well. We may speak less of racism in the U.S., it is questionable that this points to a similar diminishing of the phenomenon itself. The disappearance of the concept of ideology might point to social, cultural and political developments that are precisely of ideological nature.

One could even argue that, paradoxically, the perceived end of ideology is a result of its very success. After fall of the Berlin Wall, liberal democratic capitalism became more or less ubiquitous, and without any serious alternative left, this particular ideology became naturalized to the point of becoming unquestionable. In fact, most Labour parties today accept liberal democracy and capitalism as the reality in which their “socialist” objectives must be pursued. The ‘end of ideology’ then more accurately points to an end of an ideological struggle, and consequently the end of the use of the concept, than the end of ideology itself. It seems that ideology may particularly thrive, exactly the moment when it is ignored: to simply deny that ideology exists, may very well be in the service of it. This is to say that, without an understanding of ideology, we must face the possibility that even our most genuine political endeavours, like that of the social democrats, might be thoroughly ideological. What is certain, is that we cannot really know whether or not we dwell in ideology without a clear concept.

However, a rehabilitation cannot ignore a pressing “postmodern” critique. Generally, it showed that the notion of ideology necessarily presupposes an untenable distinction between truth and “mere” ideology. Without this distinction, it is claimed, ideology loses its critical potential: to judge some discourse as ideological, would then be itself ideological as well, so that in the end “everything is ideological.” According to this argument, the concept of ideology must either stick to an untenable representationalist argument (the concept necessarily presupposes a true world behind the illusory world of representations), or it becomes synonymous with more general concepts as “belief system”, “world view” (which could just as easily be described as “culture”). As Terry Eagleton once remarked: “The theory of ideology would seem to depend on a concept of representation, and certain models of representation have been called into question and thereby also, so it is thought, the notion of ideology” (Zizek 268).
Interestingly, however, it are exactly these positions that theorists of the concept from its very start have tried to avoid. Every notion of ideology, as we shall see, must somehow be able to articulate this apparent contradiction between truth and ideology. To understand this, I will first trace the origin of the paradox and examine how different theorist on ideology have tried to tackle it. I will show that the recurrent difficulties in its conception can be explained with Badiou’s formalization of the dialectic. From this, I will argue that a rehabilitation of the concept of ideology must take its cue, not so much from Marx’s earlier writings on ideology , but rather his theory of commodity fetishism.

Ideology and its limit

Faced with religious and metaphysical philosophers, who held ideas to have a transcendent or transcendental origin, ideology came into being in the eighteenth century as the scientific study that set out to reveal the material basis of thought (material here means, the natural and social world, as opposed to, for example, the religious revelation of the law, Plato’s transcendent ideas or Descartes’s res cogitans). The ideologues – practitioners of the science of ideas called idea-logy – thought that their science could, on the one hand, rid the world of superstitious beliefs, and on the other hand, construct a rational society that would guarantee prosperity: “once the laws of human consciousness were laid bare to scientific inspection, that consciousness could be transformed in the direction of human happiness by a systematic pedagogical project” (Eagleton 65). In this way the concept immediately encountered a paradox: if all consciousness was conditioned by the material world, the science of the ideologues was too. The ideologues presumed an autonomous vantage point from where they could critique false ideas, while they had al already postulated that all thought was materially (socially) conditioned. How could the ideologues distinguish their “true” thought, from the “false” ideas of the philosophers and theologians, if all ideas were of similar origin?

In The German Ideology, Marx comes to understand ideology precisely as the illusion that ideas can somehow rise above the determinations of the material world (45). Ideology does no longer denote a neutral science of ideas, but precisely those theories, or systems of thought, that share the implicit assumptions of the ideologues: that ideas are somehow autonomous with regard to their material conditions. Marx substitutes the contradictory conception that the ideologues implicitly held, with consistent deter-ministic view: ideas are not autonomous, they are embedded in material conditions. But at this point, the concept of ideology seems to lose its critical potential, as all ideas seem equally determined by these material conditions. To save ideology as a proper critical concept, Marx needed a place for truth. However, he could no longer locate it in the realm of (“autonomous”) ideas.

Marx first solution was to claim that, although all ideas or forms of consciousness are determined by material conditions, there is a difference between a practical consciousness that is properly grounded in material production (artisans for ex-ample), and an illusory consciousness that conceives ideas to be somehow autonomous (German Ideology 23) . Illusory, then, are the ideas and theories that ignore the material basis of their thought (notably religion and idealist philosophy). Whether or not this solutions works, Marx recognized that a concept of ideology must take into account the contradiction of which the ideologues were not aware. It must be able to show that ideologies are somehow illusory, or mystifications, but at the same time inextricably bound up with the material world. As Fredric Jameson has put it: “[T]o restore to ‘ideology’ this complex way of dealing with its roots in its own social reality would mean reinventing the dialectic” (263).

I think that the relation between truth and ideology in Marxist thought can be made clear with Badiou’s formalization of the dialectic. For Badiou, the dialectic does not in some way end in a higher synthesis: it is constitutively split. Every “Whole” is “supported by the unity of contraries” (6). This means that we do not go from thesis, to antithesis, to a harmonious reconciliation. On the contrary: the dialectic will never come to rest. Every notion is always split. Badiou proposes the following formula: “With Hegel we thus posit the scission A = (AAp), the effect of the completely veiled conflictual relation between A and the distributor of places to which it is connected. Everything that exist is thus at the same time itself and itself-according-to-its-place” (8). A notion, “A”, is split between “itself” or its “pure being”, “A”, and its “being-placed”, “Ap” (7). Badiou formulates this as A = (AAp) (the p stands for placed, for example, in a discursive structure).

Badiou’s own example is that of the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat: “The true contrary of the proletariat is not the bourgeoisie. It is the bourgeois world . . . of which the proletariat, let this be noted, is a notorious element. as the principle productive force and as the antagonist political pole.” This seems cryptic, but I think can be made clear. The pure notion: the proletariat is, when placed in a world, no longer pure . It is determined by the world. This world is not the bourgeoisie, but the Bourgeois world. The bourgeois world is the space in which the proletariat is embedded. It is “the distributor of places.” It determines what is and what is not. For example, the proletariat is not represented as such, but determined by the bourgeoisie world as the “working class”. For the bourgeoisie, the proletariat “does not exist”. From the point of view of the bourgeoisie there is no real contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat (it does not exist as such for the bourgeoisie). All there is, is reality as determined by the bourgeois world: employers and employees, or “the economy”. However, the proletariat is the locus of the “truth” of the bourgeois class, as it is the primary productive force (it does all the work). It is the very condition for the bourgeois world: without it, there is no bourgeois world. However, the bourgeoisie cannot recognize this. The proletariat, A, is thus split between “itself”, its “pure being” A (not recognized in the bourgeois world), and its “being-placed” Ap (the bourgeois world, the economy, employers and employees) (7).

How does this translate to the dialectical relationship between truth and ideology? I propose the following: truth (ideas are materially embedded, in their social relations), “A”, (which is what Marx was after) is split between itself (A) and its being-placed in a world (Ap). In other words, truth is split between itself and ideology. Ideology is “the distributor of places.” In the world of ideas, truth is not represented as such, but determined by ideology. From the point of ideology, truth “does not exist” (Here we recognize the all-is-ideology thesis). From the perspective of ideology (be it religious, or the science of the ideologues) there is no real contradiction (no class struggle). All there is, is reality as determined by ideologies. Truth (the “ideas are materially embedded” for the early Marx, “social relations” for the later Marx, “Marxist science” for Lenin and Althusser, “totality” for Lukács) is ideology’s antagonist pole. Truth is what conditions ideology (i.e., it is what conditions (its) ideological distortion). However, from the point of ideas, or ideology, one cannot recognize this. One cannot have a positive knowledge of it, because it placed in the ideological world.

This sheds a light on the paradox Marx had to face when dealing with ideology. On the one hand he had shown that ideas are determined by its material conditions. At that point, ideology had no outside: everything was equally (neutrally) determined by the material world, so it seemed that no distinction could be made between true or false ideas. On the other hand, in order to save ideology as a critical category, Marx had to conceive of some truth that did not fall completely together with ideology (i.e. all-is-ideology). He thought that he could show that truth was located in the “real life process”, the embededness of ideas in material production. In other words, he believed that truth could be grasped in a theory, in ideas. However, to the standards of his own theory, ideas could not distinguish between truths and falsities: this was exactly what the ideologues had imagined possible, and at this, Marx initial critique was aimed.

To understand this process we can mobilize Badiou again. In the dialectical process:

“There is the deviation ‘to the right’, which leads back to the objective brutality of the place P in order to deny the possibility of the new inherent in the old. But there is also the ineluctable deviation ‘to the left’, which vindicates the original and intact purity of force while denying, so to speak, the old inherent in the new, that is determination. The schema’s for these two deviations are Ap (Ap) = P, and A (A) = A” (12).

This is again rather cryptic, but what this means for the concept of ideology is that if the dialectic “falls apart”, we are either left with the representationalist argument, or with the all-is-ideology thesis. Truth and Ideology are not mediated. A (A) = A here means that truth exist outside of ideology and can be known. Truth is not completely “saturated”, placed in a world, by ideology, and thus accessible to scientific investigation. On the contrary, Ap(Ap) = P means that all that exist the world of ideology. From this point of view, everything that exists is what is placed in a world, in other words, ideology in the sense of different “world views” of equal value. Truth is lost in the equation.As we saw, Marx oscillated between the two, between A (truth is accessible) and P (all-is-ideology). The concept of ideology thus tends to relapse into a simple contradiction. What the theory of ideology must be able to show is that truth and ideology are dialectically related. Truth and ideology determine each other, and are each other’s limit. “[T]he true terms of all historical life are rather Ap (A) . . . and A(Ap) . . . terms by which the Whole affirms itself without closure, and the element includes itself therein without abolishing itself” (Badiou 12). The Whole that is the dialectic, is affirmed by the limitation of both terms on each other (it is never a closed or harmonious whole). Truth is thus determined, or being-placed, by and as ideology. Just as the proletariat is determined by the bourgeois world, ideology determines, or “places”, truth as ideas, or “world view”. At the same time, ideas are not all there is, there exist a limit, which is truth (truth itself, as “pure being”, which in the realm of ideology, does not exist). Both limit each other: we cannot someday know the whole truth positively (as ideology is always determining), but ideology cannot be all there is either, (because there exist truth). There is no possibility of closure, neither on the side of truth (“someday we will know it all”), nor on the side of ideology (all-is-ideology).

After Marx first attempt to think truth and ideology together, at the end of the nineteenth century the concept of ideology quickly falls back into a representationalist model that implied that truth is accessible (knowable). This is the period of the Second International, in which Marxist works were often aimed at the scientific study of the material word, in order to reveal its truths (Lenin being one of them) (Eagleton 90). Marxism then becomes, by its own standards ideological itself (ideology was precisely defined as the idea that thought can be autonomous from material world). Faced with this relapse, Georg Lukács formulates a new theory of ideology, again trying to tackle the problems inherent in the concept. In History and Class Consciousness (1922), ideology is for Lukács not opposed to some underlying reality (204). In this sense, for Lukács, all is ideological. However, he tries not to fall back into the all-is-ideology thesis, as he distinguishes between false, bourgeois ideology, which cannot but see reality as fragmented, and a true proletarian ideology which is able to see the whole. For Lukács, truth lies in the whole. The bourgeoisie, however, can only see a part as the whole. Rephrased in Badiouian terms: the bourgeoisie can only see the bourgeois world. From the bourgeois point of view, the proletariat does not exist. According to Lukács, the proletariat, on the contrary, can see the totality. It knows that the proletariat exist (through class consciousness) and therefore knows the truth (i.e. it can know the totality, it can now that A=AAp, while the bourgeoisie takes a part, Ap, (the bourgeois world/-ideology), as the whole). Bourgeois ideology is thus fragmented and false, proletarian ideology can see the whole and therefore sees the truth. We can see how Lukács tries to smuggle in truth as positively knowledgeable category, without having to rely on the representationalist argument. Again the problem is how to we can distinguish true ideology from false ideology. The question remains: from which vantage point is this judgment made? The argument is circular: the proletariat knows the truth, because it is the proletariat. Despite his efforts, it seems that Lukács theory presupposes again a knowledgeable truth A(A) = A.
The decisive shift in the concept of ideology occurs, I think, when truth is no longer a positive category, as “totality” or “positive scientific knowledge”, but conceives as negative (in the sense that it cannot be positively known, that is, it cannot be defined in the form of a knowledge). This theory of ideology, I will argue, has the same structure as Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism.

Dialectic of Truth and Ideology as expressed in the logic of commodity fetishism

In Capital, the theory of commodity fetishism is another attempt to articulate this apparent contradiction: “it is a definite social relation between men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things” (Capital 163) Real relations between men, that is, social relations appear as relations between things, that is, the mystified form of that same social relation. The advantage is that ideology is no longer conceived as a product of some creative consciousness cut loose from the material world: the real social conditions, the definite social relations between men, are themselves the origin of the illusion. The ideological illusion is thus part of “objective” reality itself. The mystification is not a result of some consciousness, but a result of the economic functioning of the capitalist system. To formulate it in our dialectical terms, social relations among people (A) appear as social relations among things (Ap). The truth (A) appears as the reality of commodities (Ap). Social relations, the “truth”, “do not exists” from the point of view of the world of commodities. The social relations are not hidden truth behind the “false idea” of commodities. Commodities are very real, they are the relations among things. The relations among things, that is, reality, is limited by the social relations. We thus have the formula A(Ap) and Ap(A). Both terms limit each other: we cannot see (i.e. know) the social relations directly, but at the same time, social reality is not wholly reducible to the relations between things.

To make sense of this: the bourgeois world appears as a relation among things. These relations are not simply illusory in a representationalist sense, they are very real: they determine the social relations. If one person has a huge amount of capital, it is not simply to be dispelled as an error, it has real effects on the real world. (crudely put, he can buy commodities in abundance while the worker must work). The place, that is, the world as it appears to us (as relations among things), determines what is and what is not (i.e. there are only relations among thing), a such determines the “truth” of social relations among men, as relations among things: Ap(A). Just like the bourgeois world determines the proletariat as working class. In other words, truth does not exist as such, as knowledgeable: it is “distributed”, “diffused” or “displaced” in the commodities. However, the relations among things is not all there is, it is not closed, they are in turn limited by the social relations: Ap(A). If the workers strike, production halts, and the capitalist is in trouble. The relations among things is thus not the Whole (as the bourgeoisie conceives it) but is limited by the truth of the social relations among men (in this sense synonymous with class division, and thus class struggle): A(Ap).

We can now understand how the mystification of commodity fetishism functions. In the bourgeois world of commodities, everyone and everything is free and equal before the market, extinguishing any intelligibility of the social relations that produced it. As Etienne Balibar has put it:

The ‘Marxist theory of ideology’ would then be symptomatic of the permanent dis-comfort Marxism maintains with its own critical recognition of the class struggle. … the concept of ideology denotes no other object than that of the non-totalizable (or non-representable within a unique given order) complexity of the historical process . . . it re-quires the articulation of the class struggle to concepts that have a different materiality (such as the unconscious) (173).

The theory of ideology is a result of the Marxist recognition of class struggle. However, it cannot produce a positive knowledge about it. Ideology is symptomatic, it points to something that “does not exist” in the world: it cannot be defined in simple statements. It is like the Freudian unconscious, which can also not be found in the real world. Symptoms, however, point towards its nonrepresentable existence. Similarly, competing ideologies (contradictory in the ways they try to make sense of the world) point towards the disavowed “truth” of class struggle. However, from the point of view of the bourgeoisie world (or bourgeois ideology), class struggle does not exist.

The concept of ideology is now properly dialectic in the Badiouian sense. The truth of class struggle is determined or placed by ideology: Ap(A). But ideology cannot totalize itself, as it is the very result of the class struggle A(Ap). This is precisely how Slavoj Žižeks defines his conception of ideology:

Herein lies one of the tasks of the ‘postmodern’ critique of ideology: to designate the elements within an existing social order which – in the guise of ‘fiction’, that is, of ‘Utopian’ narratives of possible but failed alternative histories – point towards the system’s antagonistic character, and thus ‘estrange’ us to the self-evidence of its established identity.” (Mapping Ideology 7)

The critique of ideology cannot define truth positively. It must, “within an existing social order” (the bourgeois order of commodities for example), designate the “elements that “‘estrange’ us to the self-evidence of its established identity”. These elements are symptoms that points toward the precarity of a certain utopian narrative. A sudden economic crisis, for example, can estrange us from the utopian narrative that, with liberal democratic capitalism, we have reached the “end of history.” This element points “towards the systems antagonistic character” (the “truth”, or as Žižek puts it, “the Real” of social relations, i.e. class struggle). The idea of an “end of ideology”, is thus tho-roughly ideological. [I am aware that this reading needs an update].
Žižek relies heavily on a Lacanian conceptual apparatus. We can now see why: Lacanian psychoanalysis in the Žižekian sense has a dialectical character: “what we experience as reality IS not the thing Itself, it IS always-already symbolized, constituted, structured by symbolic mechanisms” (Mapping Ideology 21). Ideology is similar to the function of the Lacanian Symbolic Order. Just as ideology, the symbolic order cannot close itself of: “the problem resides in the fact that symbolization ultimately always fails, that it never succeeds in fully ‘covering’ the real, that it always involves some unsettled, unredeemed symbolic debt. This real (the part of reality that remains non-symbolized) returns in the guise of spectral apparitions.” The real that eludes symbolization (in the theory of ideology: the unrepresentable class struggle), returns in the guise spectral appa-ritions (the unrepresentable class struggle returns in the guise of Utopian narratives). The Badiouian dialectical formulas, Ap(A) and A(Ap), can thus be formulated in Lacanian terms. The Real is split between The Real and The Symbolic. The Symbolic determines, places, the Real: Ap(A). But the symbolic can never close itself of completely as it is limited by the Real itself: A(Ap).

Towards a self-critique of ideology
As we have seen, the concept of ideology is often misconceived as opposing a positive knowledgeable truth to “mere” ideology. However, this was not without reason. In the 1960s and 70s Althusser explicitly opposed a Marxist science to ideology. Without going into detail if the interpretation was correct, it certainly looked like a traditional represntationalist theory. With the advent of Foucauldian discourse analysis, this distinction between truth and ideology became increasingly unconvincing. While it seemed that Althusser still insisted on the scientific study of society in order to reveal its hidden truth, Foucault far more convincingly showed that “truth isn’t outside power” (131). Discourse analysis sought not so much to reveal certain ideas and institutions as true or false, or as functional in sustaining the domination of a certain class, but rather to investigate the horizontal network of power relations. (Vighi and Feldner 142) Since the 1980s, “discourse” seems to have superseded “ideology” as the preferred critical concept. Studies of ideology were still pursued, but no longer aim to reveal a “false consciousness” that sustains and reproduces the oppressive social relations of the bourgeois order. Rather they focus on a more neutral description of “systems of beliefs”, or “world views.”

Of course, to stay true to a Foucauldian insight, this was not a result of a teleological development from a still too confused concept of ideology to a more precise concept of discourse: it was embedded in a particular historical context. After the Second World War, with the reality of Fascism fresh in mind, the “postmodern” critique on totalizing, teleological and grand narratives took off.  Contrary to Althusserian Marxism and structuralism, which tended to be conceived as universalist and ahistorical, Foucault’s genealogical and archaeological methods offered a promising alternative, as it conceived technologies of power as contingent and historically situated (Vighi and Feldner 144). There were alternative histories to be written, not constrained by the Marxist historical dialectic.  At the same time, probably aided by the success of the capitalist welfare states, the Marxist notion of class struggle became increasingly implausible, as fixed class distinctions seemed to disappear and replaced by a multitude of differences and identities. Postcolonial, gender and feminist struggles were experienced as more urgent. Furthermore, knowledge of the atrocities in Stalinist Russia and Maoist China discredited Marxist thought as a whole, and, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the triumphantly claimed victory of liberal democracy capitalism, seemed to have received its final death blow (145). In this particular historical constellation, discourse analysis was far more productive as a critical tool than the Marxist concept of ideology.

However, as Foucault was certainly aware, times change. The situation is no longer the same as thirty years ago. Most obvious is the present economic crisis that has, at least in Europe, engendered a new awareness of the limits and precarity of capitalism. With that, complex and interrelated problems have arisen: ecology, technocracy, widespread cynicism, right wing and neo-fascist politics, increased civil control, to name a few. In contrast to Foucaults time, Marxism has almost vanished. Today, not communism or ideology, but capitalism and discourse analysis are hegemonous in their respective fields.  In this historical conjunction, the concept of ideology might be better equipped to deal with the problems we face.

With our restored, dialectical understanding of ideology, we might even investigate the limits of the concept discourse analysis. As Vighi and Feldner note: “In discours analysis one always starts from the presupposition that it is impossible to draw a clear line of demarcation between ideology and actual reality. (148) As we have seen, this will tend to an all-is-ideology thesis. Discourse analysis then concludes that “the only non-ideological positions is to renounce the very notion of extra-ideological reality and accept that all we are dealing with are symbolic fictions, the plurality of discursive universes never ‘reality’” (Mapping Ideology 17). In short: Ap(Ap)=P.  As we have seen, this position cannot take into account the dialectical process of ideology (Mapping 17). From the perspective of the concept of ideology, discourse analysis remains in the placed space of ideology (it investigates discursive practices) and, as such, has no eye for the Real, or truth, or class struggle that, in the theory of ideology are precisely constitutive of discursive practises (recall that social relations produce the relations among things). Of course, discourse analysis has yielded tremendous insights in the workings of power, but did that at the cost of a dialectical understanding of ideology.

Although I do not think that discourse analysis has become “old fashioned” or “useless”,  it might overlook certain ideological constellations. I want to approach this from the much praised practice of self-reflexivity. In discourse analysis, because it stresses historical contingency and embeddedness, self-reflexivity often amounts caution to be aware of one’s own position in the analysis. For example, I am a white male in a western society with my own particular culture, values and beliefs that will influence my investigations. If I just plunge into the world, thereby making universal, Eurocentric judgements like “capitalism is in crisis”, I forget that these notions make sense only in relation to my particular position. It could well be that there exist countries (if I am allowed another Eurocentric notion) that do not feel the effects of “global” capitalism. This awareness is of course valuable. However, it has its limits.

If we take up the concept of ideology, and use for the purpose of self-reflexivity, we come to other forms of awareness. Our most genuine political conviction, for example, could be thoroughly ideological. Self-reflexivity would then start with a “self-critique of ideology”. Žižek has often points to tolerance (Tolerance 660).While tolerance seems to be a laudable practice, Žižek claims that it obfuscates class relations. It depends on an utopian narrative that implicitly assumes that if we were to tolerate each other’s differences, we would come closer to a harmonious society. However, it would be strange to say that, that feminist want to be tolerated by men. A successful emancipation would not mean that someday, men would tolerate women. Another, example would be the relation between a capitalist and a worker. It would be in the interest of the capitalist, if the worker was to tolerate him. Here we see that our common sense notion of tolerance obfuscates the real of (class) struggle, and is therefore ideological. A self-critique of ideology might thus make us aware of our own ideological presuppositions.

Recently, Lisa Romig has pointed to similar ideological formations in academia. For Romig, queer theory is sometimes blinded by what she calls freedomism. Freedomism is the assumption that certain social problems are the result of hidden forms of oppression, and thus can be cured with more freedom: “The mode of critique employed in this project is almost exclusively rooted in freedomist ideology and in its attempt to cure the current social situation, sticks rigorously to the 1960’s feminist remedy of ascribing more and more freedom” (10). In the “attempt to cure the current situation” we readily recognize a utopian narrative at play. As such, it possibly ignores the reality of class struggle, as freedomism is very much in compliance with Post-Fordist capitalist objectives as flexibility, mobility, individual self-expression and actualization (11). Romig’s account shows how a self-critique of ideology may look like in practice. Especially when we are committed by a seemingly legitimate political projects, a self-reflexivity of this sort can be illuminating.

I think a return to the concept of Ideology can prove productive today. As I have argued, in understanding ideology dialectically, we can avoid a simplistic represtationalist argument. At the same time, we are not forced to adopt a self-defeating all-is-ideology thesis. Truth and ideology are not necessarily to be opposed absolutely. In understanding ideologies as utopian narratives that simultaneously obfuscate and at the same time point to the truth of class struggle, we have an again a sharp critical tool at our disposal. This is not primarily because it can denounce the beliefs of the “other” as delusional, but rather because we can aim it at ourselves. Our most genuine political projects could be flawed, and a self-critique of ideology may help to lay this bare. More generally, a renewed critique of ideology can offer new insight in the workings of the social, particularly in our present historical predicament.

 

 

Jorg Meurkes (University of Amsterdam)
Works Cited:
Badiou, Alain. Theory of the Subject. Continuum International Publishing Group,
2009. Print.
Eagleton, Terry. Ideology: An Introduction. Verso, 1991. Print.
Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke University Press, 1991. Print.
Lukács, Gyorgy. History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics. MIT Press, 1971. Print.
Marx, Karl. Capital Vol 1. Penguin Books Limited, 1992. Print.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. German Ideology, Part 1 and Selections from Parts 2 and 3. 1St Edition. Ed. Christopher John Arthur. Intl Pub, 1970. Print.
Žižek, Slavoj. Mapping Ideology. Verso, 1994. Print.

Economic Growth: For Whom, To Do What?

Foucault’s ethics and its relation to truth

 

I believe too much in truth not to suppose that there are different truths and different ways of speaking the truth.^[1]

What I wanted to try to recover was something of the relation between the art of existence and true discourse, between the beautiful existence and the true life, life in the truth, life for the truth.^[2]

Reading Foucault’s final works, two developments strike me as central. First, while for a long time Foucault considered the subject merely as the after-effect of disciplinary practices – a subject constituted through techniques of domination –  his work from the 1980’s onwards begins to conceive of a different, reflexive subject, constituted through techniques of the self – practices in which the self has a relation to itself. Second, as Gross notes, the 1982 course on The Hermeneutics of the Subject contains a new thinking of truth (525), further elaborated in his very last lectures, Fearless Speech and The Courage of Truth. Here, Foucault explicitly takes up the question of truth, or rather the question of a situated truth-teller: “who is able to tell the truth, with what consequences, and with what relations to power?” (Fearless 170). His conception of a new form of subjectivity thus seems to be related to a rethinking of the question of truth. In a 1983 interview, Foucault claimed that his “problem has always been the question of truth, of telling the truth, the wahr-sagen – what it is to tell the truth – and the relation between “telling the truth” and forms of reflexivity, of self upon self” (Politics 33). This relation between telling the truth and forms of reflexivity (i.e. subjectivity) – the question how true discourse relates to the practices and techniques of the self upon the self –  is a key concern for the final Foucault. “I have tried therefore to find, with Socrates, the moment when the requirement of truth- telling and the principle of the beauty of existence came together in the care of self” (Courage 163).

Foucault’s final works thus circle around the constitution of a reflexive, ethical subject and its relation to truth or truth-telling. And yet, while the theme of ethical subjectivity has been taken up in order to promote contemporary “freedom practices”, and to elaborate new forms of subjectivity (c.f. Vintges; Luxon) the role of truth in Foucault’s works on ancient ethics is rarely commented upon.^[3] This is quite remarkable given Foucault´s frequent mentioning of the topic, but is probably due to the widespread idea that Foucault was skeptical of anything related to truth. The reception of Foucault has been dominated by the so-called Foucault/Habermas debate (a debate that took place, as Amy Allen notes, primarily among habermasians (Allen 1)) which portrait Foucault as a relativist or skeptic with regard to any normativity, (universal) truth, and any conception of the good (c.f. Fraser, Habermas, Taylor). This, I think, has obfuscated the importance of the role of truth and truth-telling in Foucault’s readings of Greco-Roman ethics. While it is true that he does not believe in the existence of a universal, metaphysical Truth (and in this sense, the habermasian critique is fully justified), for Foucault, truths are not entirely relativistic (in the sense that they are all of equal value). They can and must have a force in ethical practice. As his final lectures make clear, truth plays an important role in of the constitution of the ethical subject through care of the self. However, because the question has been largely neglected, it remains unclear what precisely is the role and the status of this truth. The question, therefore, is as follows: what is the role of truth in the constitution of Foucault’s ethical subject?

First, I will show that Foucault regarded the subject he described in his middle works as an “objectivized” subject, a subject that was merely the effect of certain techniques and practices of discipline and domination, constituted through the production of supposedly objective knowledge and analytical truths. Second, I move to Foucault’s writings on ancient Greco-Roman ethics, and argue that the subject of the  “care of the self” constitutes itself (i.e. reflexively) through a search for a different relation to truth. Finally, I will argue that Foucault aims to formulate a possibility for the self to constitute itself, rather than being constituted by techniques and practices of discipline and domination.

The objectivized subject and its relation to truth

In his article the Subject and Power Foucault discusses how he regards his early and middle works. He explains that his objective has been to write a history of the different modes by which human beings are made subjects. Up to this point (1982),  his work, he writes, has dealt with “three modes of objectivation that transform human beings into subjects” (Subject 326). The first mode objectivizes human beings through various forms of scientific inquiry (in linguistics, economics or biology, for example, the subject is objectivized, i.e. constituted as an object of knowledge). The second objectivizes them through dividing practices (individuals are divided between the normal and the abnormal, e. g. the mad and the sane) . The third mode of objectiviation Foucault describes is the way a human being turns himself into a subject (the theme of his works on sexuality: “how men have learned to recognize themselves as subjects of ‘sexuality’” (327). According to Foucault, they impose a law of truth that objectivizes the individual as a subject, such that the subject becomes recognizable as a definite object (of law, of biology, of economics etc.): “This form of power that applies itself to immediate everyday life categorizes the individual, marks him by his own individuality, attaches him to his own identity, imposes a law of truth on him that he must recognize and others have to recognize in him” (331).

At this point, we can see that every mode of subjection objectivizes a human being through to a production of a truth: a scientific truth (e.g. a biological truth), a disciplinary or normalizing truth (e.g. the correct way of conduct) or a deep, hidden truth of the individual himself (e.g. a sexual truth to be confessed to the pastor). This truth is linked to a certain technique of power, and produces the “objectified” subjects in various fields. Subjects are constituted through a certain type of knowledge of human beings: “one, globalizing and quantitative, concerning the population; the other analytical concerning the individual” (335). An example of this globalizing and quantitative knowledge would be the mapping of types of races or ethnicities according to a certain standard (what counts and what doesn’t count as a  race or ethnicity) and as such produces a certain “fact’s” about the population that are regarded as objective and true. The analytical knowledge concerning the individual is related to a production of a “truth” concerning the individual himself, for example, his health, his psychological type and his sexual identity (which, in turn, shapes his conduct). This then sums up how Foucault conceived of the subject in his early and middle works: as an effect of techniques of power related to a certain quantitative and analytical production of truth.

The crucial shift in Foucault’s final work is a new conception of the possibility of a subject that can constitute itself through a set of practices, a set of techniques of the self, irreducible to these objectivizing modes of subjection. While techniques of the self can be integrated into techniques of domination, they do not necessarily coincide with them (Subject and Truth 154). Resistance would imply a refusal of the objectified subject constituted through quantitative and analytical knowledge: “we have to promote new forms of subjectivity through the refusal of this kind of individuality that has been imposed on us for several centuries” (Subject and Power 336).  I think that Foucault’s final works make clear that a new form of subjectivity, also implies a new relation to truth; a subject not constituted through techniques and practices in relation to a truth that consist of impartial, analytic objective knowledge (as in the case of the objectivized subject), but a subject constituted through techniques and practices in relation to a truth reached on her own, a reflexive subjectivity that constantly takes into account the context in which this truth is practiced and tested.

Care of the self and its relation to truth

Foucault finds these reflexive techniques and practices of the self in ancient Greco-Roman ethics, gathered under the general name “care of the self.” Interestingly, he locates the origin of these practices of the care of the self in Athenian democracy of the 5th century B.C., precisely at the moment where the question of truth was problematized. Before the advent of democracy, the question who was able to tell the truth was relatively unproblematic: “The parrhesiastes [truth-teller J.M.] spoke the truth precisely because he was a good citizen, was well-born, had a respectful relation to the city, to the law, and to truth” (Fearless Speech 72). However, in the Athenian democracy, where everyone was allowed to speak the truth, it became a problem on what basis one could judge if someone spoke the truth: “The crisis regarding parrhesia is a problem of truth: for the problem is one of recognizing who is capable of speaking the truth within the limits of an institutional system where everyone is equally entitled to give his own opinion” (73). How can one know who is able to speak the truth in a democracy, when truth-telling is no longer guaranteed by one’s privileged status? “The parrhesiastes’ relation to truth can no longer simply be established by pure frankness or sheer courage, for the relation now requires education or, more generally, some sort of personal training” (73).

This training was sought in taking care of oneself, an ethics that tries to find techniques and practices with the aim to be able to relate to truth, to be able to tell the truth, and to be able to distinguish between true and false speech. In order to tell the truth one cannot take recourse to one’s privileged status. Rather, one has to carefully examine one’s relation to truth (do I speak on behalf of my self-interest, someone else’s, or do I tell the truth?), and, through ethical practices, give place to truth as a force in one’s actions. This new ethical subjectivity – the care of the self – was thus directly linked to a new relation of subjectivity to truth.

It was Socrates who was the first model for the techniques and practices related to care of the self. First, Socrates questions his interlocutor on his presumed knowledge and wisdom on topics such as justice and courage. In the case of Alcibiades, for example, it becomes clear that his status as a general is not sufficient for him to know or tell the truth about these matters. The question is thus, is Alicibiades capable of true discourse (logos)?, and if not, Socrates will tell him to take care of himself. This technique of constant questioning if one’s discourse is indeed a true discourse will remain a constant in ancient ethics. Second, the reason the Greeks give why it is Socrates who is capable of true discourse, is that his logos is in harmony with his bios (life). In order to be able to tell the truth, one has to give force to truth in one’s actions. For the Greeks, Socrates was able to talk about courage, because he had shown to be courageous in battle. One can relate to truth only, if one practices it in one’s live, if it relates to one’s moral conduct. According to Foucault: “with Socrates the problematization of parrhesia takes the form of a game between logos, truth, and bios (life)” (Fearless 102). What is important is that the ethics of the care of the self is related to a problematization of truth: truth-telling is no longer self-evident on the basis of its institutional backup, which means that it requires a constant questioning and evaluation. Moreover (contrary to the dominant modern relation to truth), to be able to reach the truth, it is not enough to perform an “disinterested” analytics of truth: one must strive for a harmony between true discourse (logos) and life (bios).

Foucault’s description of the practices of the self of the Stoic philosopher Seneca focuses on this same relation of the subject to a truth. Foucault explains why Seneca uses a set of persuasive arguments, demonstrations and examples (i.e. true discourse) to evaluate his daily moral conduct: it is “a force, the force which would be able to transform pure knowledge and simple consciousness in a real way of  living . . .  Seneca has to give a place to truth as a force” (Beginning 207). Here, Foucault shows that Seneca uses techniques of reasoning (arguments, demonstrations, examples), in short, techniques to come to true discourse (logos). But Seneca’s objective is not to develop merely an analytical exploration of truth. Again, we see that the practices consist in giving true discourse (logos) a force in one’s way of living (bios), and it is the practicing of this relation that constitutes Seneca as an ethical subject.

Concerning the Cynics, Foucaults makes a similar analysis: “In short, Cynicism makes life, existence, bios, what could be called an alethurgy, a manifestation of truth . . . this is the kernel of Cynicism; practicing the scandal of the truth in and through one’s life” (Courage 173). For the Cynics, the test of their true discourse, the discourse that they practice in their way of living, is its scandalous character. In any case, what is clear is that truth plays an important role in the constitution of an ethical subjectivity. This ethical and lived conception of truth is, I think, what Foucault tries to excavate from ancient philosophy. Gross summarizes this nicely: “For Foucault then, truth is not displayed in the calm element of discourse, like a distant and correct echo of the real. It is in the most accurate and literal sense of the expression, a reason for living: a logos actualized in existence, which sustains, intensifies and tests it: which verifies it” (Gross 529).

The reflexivity of the self

The topic then forces us to not only given an analytic of the question of truth in Foucault’s writings, but also to raise the question in what sense the ethical practices, the care of the self, would mean for us today, as a praxis. In what sense can the practices of the Greeks be a model for us? I think that we, like the Greeks, should be aware of what kind of relation we have to truth, and in what sense we try to give force to truth in our actions (certainly in our modern democracies where all kinds of opinions, half truths, alternative facts and fake news abound). Today’s ethical self, I think, would refuse to subject itself to the fixed, institutionalized, objective truths that are already given (the objectivizing truths to which techniques of domination and discipline relate). But this does not mean that the self can refuse truth all together. The self can only come into being through techniques of the self, through which she works on herself, in order to create herself in a living practice. She has to act according to true principles (opposed to the principles of discipline and domination), elaborated in a true discourse that is her own, and practice them in her life. She has to come to the truth by herself, instead of subjecting herself to the regime of truth that constitute her as an objectivized subject. This means that she has to relate to truth in a different way. This reflexive relation to truth, in which the self is constituted through the process of finding a new truth that can have force in his practices, is what Foucault called a “political spirituality”: “The will to discover a different way of governing oneself through a different way of dividing up true and false — this is what I would call ‘political spiritualite’”(Method 82), “. . . the search, practice, and experience through which the subject carries out the necessary transformations on himself in order to have access to the truth” (Hermeneutic 15).

We can now understand what the reflexivity of self actually means. If Foucault’s genealogies shows the ways in which the subject is constituted as an object, the question of Foucault’s ethics is: how can the subject constitute itself as a self? The ethical task is to constitute a new subjectivity (in the sense of an active reflexive subject, rather than a fixated objectivized subject). How can the subject constitute itself, on its own terms, rather than being constituted through the techniques and practices that constitute it as an object? The possibility of a proper self-constitution, would imply that the self, through techniques and practices, elaborated in a true discourse that it brings to bear on itself, constitute itself. But what is the nature of this self that is constituted? It cannot be the constitution of another fixed object (i.e. a objectivized subject), because this would entail, not a self-constitution, but an object-constitution. It would mean that the self had again not constituted itself, but something other than itself.

The constitution of the self by the self cannot be the creation of another object in a single instance. Rather, the constitution of the self as self is a continuous process, in which the self continuously examines and tests his own relation to truth (logos) by practicing it in his life (bios). The self that is constituted is precisely this process of self-constitution. This is why it is reflexive: the self relates to itself, and it is this self relating that constitutes the self (and not another objectivized subject). What Foucault aims at with the care of the self, is the possibility of a constitution of a self as constituting. This, I think, is what Foucault means when he says: “The self with which one has the relationship is nothing other than the relationship itself . . . it is in short  the immanence, or better, the ontological adequacy of the self to the relationship” (Gross 533). The ethical self is nothing other than the process in which the self forges a relation to itself.

What is interesting is that Foucault formulates a possibility of a reflexive self, as self that can constitutes itself on its own terms, and, in the process, can distance itself for the objectivizing practices and techniques of discipline and domination. However, it would be not entirely accurate to say that Foucault formulates a possibility of autonomy (auto-nomy, i.e.  giving oneself one’s own law), or the more humble “relative autonomy”: it is not the case that the self can create a distance because it can give itself its own law. It is a process of autopoesis, of self-creation, rather than autonomy. What is truly innovative is that Foucault can conceive of a self that can create itself on its own terms, that can practice freedom, without presupposing a pre existing, autonomous, free subject.

All fine, but what does it mean today, concretely? This ethics of the care of the self dismisses two prevalent postmodern techniques of the self: on the one hand, the subject of identity (the search for the creation of one’s “true identity” through, for example, acts of consumption), and on the other hand, the “nomadic” subject (which precisely tries to relinquish any fixed identity and “dwell in a sea of mobility”). The first practices a technique of the self that constitutes itself merely as a new object: the proliferation of ever new identities, ever new styles of “objectivized subjects”. It does not constitute a self that has a relation to itself, rather it constitutes itself as a new identity, with definite objective qualities, that as such, must be recognized by others. The second postmodern subject practices a technique of the self that is exactly its opposite: it tries to neglect any change of forming a coherent identity. As such, it tries to circumvent every objectivizing practice, and in this way does refuse to subject itself to the fixed, institutionalized, objective truths that are already given. However, the nomadic subject does not try to develop a new relation to truth. It does not examine and develop a set of principles – elaborated in true discourse, tested in everyday practices – in short, is unable to relate logos (true discourse) to bios (life). It does not constitute its self as an ethical self, precisely because it actively refuses to constitute anything. There is no “relation between the art of existence and true discourse, between the beautiful existence and the true life, life in the truth, life for the truth” (Courage 163).

A true model for ethical subjectivity,  I think, can be found in the revolutionary. Take the case of Nelson Mandela. First he refused the individuating and objectivizing practices of South African society (Blacks are inferior to Whites). But that was far from all. He forged new relation to truth, elaborated a true discourse (the discourse of equality), and gave it a force in his political practices (logos + bios). Contrary to dogmatic Marxist, he did not wait for the big revolution. Furthermore, his practices and techniques of revolution were constantly brought back to the question of the truth of his discourse and actions. First he tried peaceful protest, then he used selective violence, and in the end turned towards reconciliation. It shows that his relation to truth was not dogmatic or lawlike, but a constant reflection on the truth of his discourse – a constant evaluation and examination his ethical conduct –  related to the specific relations of power at the particular historical conjunction.

In this paper I have tried to show that truth plays an important role in the constitution of Foucault’s ethical subject. In his early and middle works Foucault conceived of the subject as merely the effect of objectivizing techniques and practices of discipline and domination. Human beings, according to Foucault, were subjected by being objectivized through the imposition of a certain quantitative and analytical conception truth.  In order to conceive of a subject able to constitute itself, rather than being constituted, Foucault turned to ancient Greco-Roman ethics. In the practices of the care of the self, the subject constitutes itself through forging a new relation to truth. This means an elaboration on, and constant evaluation of the truth of his discourse, a discourse that one must practice test in one’s life. What’s truly innovative, is that Foucault’s ethics can conceive of a reflexive subject that constitutes itself as constituting, rather than as another object. He formulates the possibility of true self-creation: the creation of a true life, a beautiful existence, rather than another simple, objective identity. Today, we can take this reflexive, ethical subjectivity that constitute itself as a self through forging a new relation to truth, as a model, in order to distance ourselves from the, objectivizing practices linked to quantitative and analytical truths. In order to grasp the importance, relevancy and radicalism of Foucault’s ethics, we cannot overlook the role that truth plays in it.

Works Cited

Allen, Amy. “Discourse, Power, and Subjectivation: The Foucault/Habermas Debate Reconsidered.” The Philosophical Forum 40.1 (2009): 1–28. Print.

Flynn, Thomas R. “Truth and subjectivation in the later Foucault.” The Journal of Philosophy 82.10 (1985): 531-540. Print.

Foucault, Michel. “The Subject and Power.” Critical Inquiry 8.4 (1982): 777–795. Print.

—. Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings, 1977-1984. New York: Routledge, 1988. Print.

—. “About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self: Two Lectures at Dartmouth.” Political Theory 21.2 (1993): 198–227. Print.

—. Fearless Speech. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e) : MIT Press, 2001. Print.

—. The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1981-1982. New York: Picador, 2006. Print.

—. The Courage of Truth: lectures at the Collège de France, 1983-1984. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Print.

Fraser, Nancy. “Foucault on modern power: Empirical insights and normative confusions.” Praxis international 3 (1981): 272-287. Print.

Gross, Frédéric. “Course Context.” The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1981-1982. New York: Picador, 2006. Print.

Habermas, Jürgen. Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne: Zwölf Vorlesungen. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985.

Luxon, Nancy. “Ethics and Subjectivity Practices of Self-Governance in the Late Lectures of Michel Foucault.” Political Theory 36.3 (2008): 377–402. Print.

Simpson, Zacharia. “The Truths We Tell Ourselves: Foucault on Parrhesia.” Foucault Studies 0.13 (2012): 99–115. Print.

Taylor, Charles. “Foucault on freedom and truth.” Political Theory 12.2 (1984): 152-183. Print.

Vintges, Karen. De terugkeer van het engagement. Boom, 2003. Print.

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^[1]  Politics 51.

^[2] Courage 163.

^[3] Notable exceptions are Flynn (1985), and Simpson (2012).

Author: Jorg Meurkes
MA Course: Foucault, Agency, Governmentality & Ethics
Lecturer: Karen Vintges
19 December 2013 

On Realism

Fair point by Shakespeare on An and für sich.

The Dude Abides: Interpassive Medium

Isn’t the Dude an interpassive medium par excellence?

“The Dude abides. I don’t know about you but I take comfort in that. It’s good knowin’ he’s out there. The Dude. Takin’ ‘er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh. I sure hope he makes the finals.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYsw0KVRjCM

The Unconscious is Structured like Google’s Algorithms