The pterodactyl cannot be translated!

(http://starrynight11.deviantart.com/art/Pterodactyl-183313531)

"Translation is thus not only necessary but unavoidable. And yet, as the text guards its secret, it is impossible. The ethical task is never quite performed. 'Pterodactyl, Puran Sahay, and Pirtha', one of the tales included in Imaginary Maps, is the story of such an unavoidable impossibility. The Indian Aboriginal is kept apart or othered by the descendants of the old settles, the ordinary 'Indian'. In the face of the radically other, the pre-historic pterodactyl, the Aboriginal and the settler are historically human together. The pterodactyl cannot be translated. But the Aboriginal and the settler Indian translate one another in silence and in the ethical relation." -Spivak, Translation as Culture


Hope some Spivak after midnight lifts spirits and who can forget her message now given the drawing (I didn't do it) above!

Posted for Sang Eon Lee

“The Soul of Man under Socialism”

In his “The Soul of Man under Socialism,” Oscar Wilde presents an argumentative thesis that focuses on the complete development of the individual through a shift to Socialist living. Wilde’s assertion is that “Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others.” The point of this detachment from “living for others” is to allow personal faculties to develop such that individuals may produce something of immeasurable gain to society. Wilde illustrates this point by discussing the impact of people as diverse as Darwin, Keats, Renan and Flaubert. All of these men, according to Wilde, were able to produce something extraordinary because they were isolated and free from the “claims of others.” Given that these men are exceptions, however, Wilde suggests a restructuring of society that will allow for more of this type of personal development and the chief way to achieve that end is by creating an egalitarian society that diminishes the neediness of the have-nots. Ultimately, Wilde’s form of Socialism may not be authoritarian, because that would stifle individual development. Instead, Wilde seeks a loose yoke, a community bound to each other by virtue of being individual, with their chief aim the development of individuality.

That this essay is directed at the whole of society is evident by the tone of the piece. Wilde makes multiple references to the populace, to individuals and to his desire to see a shifting socio-economic order to aid the development of the individual. Though Wilde is speaking directly to his contemporaries, there is every reason to believe that if he were alive today he would think many of the principles he espouses still hold true. As a modern reader in a Capitalist country, I may be one of the target audiences, at least tangentially. Anywhere where individuals are bound by the “sordid necessity of living for others,” there is a need to hear these arguments.

Wilde formed his arguments as a way of demonstrating the untenable position of non-egalitarian societies. In order for individuals to develop and produce meaningful contributions to society as a whole, there must be freedom to develop. Isolation is the precursor to the development of freedom. Obviously, Wilde makes some rather large assumptions in using these arguments. His essay is riddled with the notion that development in meritocratic (as opposed to egalitarian) societies don’t allow for the fundamental creative freedom. He couples that assertion with a belief in the principle of the inherent ability of Socialism to provide for all people and put them on equal footing. Wilde supports these assumptions with the use of anecdotal evidence and applies a literary flourish to each point he makes to send it home with some style.

There are no references to works of social science—perhaps because that level of scholarship didn’t exist in his day—to support his psychology exploration of the individual’s role in socialist society. In order for his thesis to proceed the way he suggests, there must be some mechanism whereby individuals are internally driven to succeed. If this motivation fails to surface, even in the absence of living for others, then Wilde has a real problem on his hands. Consider the role of the Spectator in his work—that individual tasked with absorbing the meaning of an artist’s work. This metaphorical Spectator is rid himself of any prejudice, bias or subjective inclination that might cloud the value of artistic expression. In some way, this openness is to develop both the artist and individual Spectator within a socialist society. Should the Spectator fail to rid himself/herself of any personal preference, however, his/her individuality cannot develop fully. This is an interesting concept of the individual in society, but it might be sobering for Wilde to consider that individual development is extremely unlikely where the individual cannot bring to bear his/her personal experiences, prejudices, viewpoints, etc. to the world around them.

Posted for Daniela Dean

The Abolition of Man

C. S. Lewis’ argues that the path of science is not solely a progressive trajectory. This critique rests on his thesis that the trumpeting of scientific advancement as initially good is a logical fallacy. It is a petitio principii or begging of the question, in which the thing to be proved, that the application of science is always beneficial, is implicitly assumed within the argument for scientific progress. Lewis’ argument addresses an audience familiar with similar philosophical discourse, but he also uses simple imagery to illustrate the basic premise of the critique. He chronicles a dystopian future (a state commonly referred to) driven by these misconceptions that scientific progress can only be good, resulting in a loss of tradition or Tao. Lewis’ states that this petitio principii has developed from man’s abstraction of scientific progress; which is a consequence an abstraction of nature and man. Thus Lewis’ argument is a debunking of the original argument for scientific progress, to call these assumptions into question and alter the discourse.

Lewis’ description of the Tao is the foundation within his critique against the false rationalization that science, or “natural” values, can replace tradition. The Tao is defined as the traditionally shared set of objective values within every culture. Without the Tao, no value judgments can be made at all. Lewis states that the modern attempt to renounce parts of traditional morality, for “rational” reasons, proceed by arbitrarily selecting one part of the Tao and using it as grounds to disprove the others. This rationalization has deterred men from upholding the Tao, resulting in a lack of tradition that will bring less power in a forward direction. This is the distant future in which the values and morals of the majority are controlled by a small group who rule by a "perfect" understanding of psychology, can "see through" any system of morality and rule by whim. The master generation will be one who resists all previous ages and successfully dominates all subsequent ages. Those who attain maximum power over posterity will be emancipated from tradition and leave it’s successors and predecessors with a reduction in power. Lewis names this small group the Conditioners. These Conditioners are men who “have sacrificed their own share in traditional humanity”. They are the ones who decide what “humanity” means on grounds emancipated of tradition, which in turn makes them not men at all but more like robots or artifacts.

Lewis then reveals that man’s conquest of nature is actually a conquest over posterity. He begins by citing ‘typical’ examples of technological advances being used against succeeding generations, such as the contraceptive. The usage of such products created by the advancement of technology is misconceived as an example of “one’s own individual power over Nature”. These products and means of production are essentially owned by other individuals, which can even “be withheld from some men by other men”. For example, contraceptives, as Lewis’ posits, are used as “a means of selective breeding”, a power being wielded by the anteceding generation. The advancements of technology seen as progressive emancipation are in reality a trajectory towards extinction. Lewis also furthers his argument with the examples of eugenics (selective breeding) and scientific education, “the power to make its descendants what it pleases”. For although “we may have put wonderful machines in their hands”, the previous generation has pre-ordained the utilization of such innovations. No matter if the ownership of these materials and means of production is public, private or national, it is a matter of “all long-term exercises of power” of earlier generations over later ones.

Lewis then posits that man’s conquest over nature is an abstraction of nature, which in actuality is the abstraction of man. He states that nature has been turned into something quantifiable with spatial and temporal qualities. Within this action nature is brought to a state of “no consciousness, autonomy or value”. In order to dominate something we must approach it analytically, “the stars do not become Nature till we can weigh and measure them: the soul does not become Nature till we can psychoanalyze her”. Things are thus reduced to the “natural” in order to conquer them. Lewis then states that within the last stages of “man’s struggle with nature” the final victory will be inevitably to conquer human nature.

Lewis thus concludes that an abolition of man will be completed in a surrendering of rational reflection. In surrendering rational reflection the controllers will no longer be recognizably human and the handing off of the Tao will be an act of conditioning the succeeding generations. In my view these assertions are somewhat questionable as one can take knowledge or faith and make the same argument. Of course Lewis’ is stating that the power within technology, fueled by science, is a modern issue that has not yet been properly addressed. The use of these complex metaphors of the Tao and the Conditioners allows readers to comprehend these hidden forces that are at work. Man's conquest, which is in actuality a conquest of himself, will mean the rule of the Conditioners over the conditioned human material, since all nations want to produce and advance, “the abolition of man will be complete”. This is the dystopian future that science is leading us towards, in which eugenics and rationality will be wielded by the few against the many. I would propose that such individuals as the Conditioners is a system of recurring forces that have cyclically played out within human history. The only difference is this new power of technology. However, I believe technology has been democratized and can continue to be if we maintain a well-informed citizenry.

Précis: Kafka's "Give It Up!"

I chose to write my précis on Kafka’s “Give It Up!” for a few reasons. For one, it is a text we did not go over at length in class; secondly, because it is a parable, it begs interpretation -- the word that defines this course.

“Give It Up!” treats us to another one of the Kafka’s ostensibly straightforward, yet highly ambiguous parables. At first, summarizing the story arch seems fairly easy: it is simply the tale of a man who, while journeying to the local railroad station, forgets his way and asks a policeman for directions. We might be able to glean some metaphorical meanings based on that summary alone. On the other hand, writing about “Give It Up!” in this manner doesn’t give justice to the textual mysteries revealed upon a close reading. Indeed, like all of Kafka’s work, this parable presents a labyrinth of inverted meanings, enigmatic statements, and cryptic metaphors which require the reader to bestow her or his own interpretation of the text.

The parable begins with an unnamed, first-person narrator of unspecified gender and origin. However, for my convenience and to the chagrin of some, I’ll refer to the narrator as male. The narrator is apparently on his way to “the railroad station” during the early morning when he “compare[s] the tower clock” to his watch, and realizes it is “already much later than he thought.” As a result of this realization, our protagonist becomes “uncertain of the way” to the station; nonetheless, he also claims to be lost because he is “not well acquainted with the town.” The anxiety we feel for our protagonist is enhanced by a highly choppy, staccato prose style, which begins with fragments separated by commas and then transitions into long run-ons. The narrator is then temporarily mollified by the presence of a policeman, whom he “breathlessly ask[s]” for “the way.” The policeman, in Kafka-esque fashion, tells the narrator to give up his search for “the way,” and then walks away “like someone who wants to be alone with his laughter.”

There are a myriad textual roadblocks that prevent easy interpretations of this text. The most glaring of which emerges when the railroad station ceases being a physical destination and instead becomes “the way” – an abstraction that brings many questions. For instance, if the station is just “the way,” does that mean the narrator is merely looking for guidance? Or, because he is presumably late for something, is he looking for “the way” back to socially acceptable standards of living? Furthermore, when referring to “the way” as an abstract concept, we must be able to point to whoever determines what “the way” is. Sadly, neither the narrator nor the policeman can fulfill that duty; as a result, the role of authority becomes seemingly unintelligible.

Therefore, it can be deduced, the policeman only works as a metaphorical authority figure. Unfortunately, this realization comes fraught with more philosophical questions and traps: in what capacity does the policeman, in his refusal to tell the narrator of “the way,” function as an authority at all? From a Marxian perspective, does the policeman represent a bureaucratic oppressor? Is he merely reflective of the narrator’s uncertainty about finding a new “way”? Or is he a nihilist, who has long ceased believing in “the way”? Adding to the frustration created by these inquiries is the fact we cannot determine whether the policeman is laughing at the narrator at all. He could merely be “like someone” that would laugh at the narrator. So, the further we go into the text, Kafka’s didactic purpose becomes more shrouded and distant. Suddenly, all we can definitively say about the interaction between our narrator and his would-be savior is what’s already in the dialogue. Consequently, the very questions we ask in our attempt to understand the text lead us away from it.

Personally, I think that Kafka’s parable works best on an aesthetic level. Like the best of his short stories, it evokes a feeling of the surreal, yet familiar; the ambiguity of his words makes it easy to focus on the experience, rather than the lesson. Nevertheless, its open-endedness makes it enjoyable to analyze from a number of theoretical frameworks. To be sure, its obliqueness only increases its efficacy as a parable, and its refusal to be compartmentalized is part of its literary beauty.

Precis: "A Plea for Earthly Sciences"

“Social connections: identities, technologies, and relationships.”

Bruno Latour begins his speech by referring to a book by James Lovelock, called The Revenge of Gaia. According to Latour, the plot centers around a horrifying war, although it is one that we have yet to recognize – rather than humans fighting against humans, humans are engaging in war with the very Earth itself. He ends this brief summary (and subsequently opens up the rest of the speech) with the question: How can we protect our collective existence either against a war on Gaia that we have no way of winning, or against committing crimes over fellow humans of such mind-boggling magnitude?

Mr. Latour is, of course, directing this question at sociologists, seeing as how this speech is given at the British Sociological Association. To answer this question, he places a particular emphasis on explicitation – that is, history has been portrayed as a process of modernization, but is in fact a process of “rendering more and more explicit the fragility of the life support systems that make our ‘spheres of existence’ possible” (3). In other words, Latour’s main objective with this speech is to re-examine what sociology purports to study in the present day, and to ask that sociologists shift their concerns accordingly with the technological progressions of the 21^st century.

According to Latour, sociology has been traditionally focused on social connections as they relate to modernization and emancipation; however, with the advent of present technology, it is entirely possible that social connections can be examined with two new concepts in mind – explicitation and attachments.  We have not been emancipating ourselves from the chains of nature, as we have been led to believe; rather, we have been blind to the ties, which connect us to the earth, our own source of life. As Latour says, “While we might have had social sciences for modernizing and emancipating humans, we have not the faintest idea of what sort of social science is needed for Earthlings buried in the task of explicitating their newly discovered attachments.”

Latour supports this statement by redefining several terms - “humans” becomes “Earthlings”, to further emphasize our connection to the earth; “we” becomes a collective term that is essential to the social sciences in today’s world; and “social” takes on a number of new meanings. Latour takes particular issue with the term “social”, and elaborates on how it “was useful for focusing on one type of area among several others left in the hands of other specialized domains…” and yet “is completely useless for tracing what should now be common to the other types of domains” (4). Not only are humans connected to the earth, but the social connections we engage in are all attached to other spheres (religion, law, etc) as well.

Perhaps Latour’s main argument can be most aptly summed up when he states, “The duty of sociologists is not to limit themselves to the social connections or, even more absurdly, to explain away the other domains by pretending that, in essence, they are made of social ties, but to follow through which associations so many non-social ties are brought together to form a durable – and maybe livable – whole” (5). Or, as he says a few pages down, “the social sciences have a true object which is not the social per se, but the shifting attachments offered by various non-social modes of connections” (7). He then launches into an extended (and admittedly clumsy) metaphor where Lego bricks stand in for “we” as the collective. The bricks can connect in several ways, which can be considered legal, religious, technical, and so on. Although the various bricks are held in place by various bonds, they come together to form a solidarity that is not easily deconstructed.

Ultimately, Latour’s titular plea is not merely a request for recalibration; it is a grave and urgent argument for us to “be faithful to what is given in experience” (9). Sociologists must learn to expand experience so that it may encompass not only objects, but the relations between them as well. However, Latour is also addressing a collective audience as well by imploring us to realize that there is an entire world of relations and connections that we have been willfully blinding ourselves to until now. Perhaps Latour’s argument hearkens back to Marx’s fetishized commodity as well; we have fetishized ourselves and scientific accomplishment to the point where we can no longer recognize the diverse array of social connections that allow for such accomplishments to be achieved. He ends his speech with a challenge: “Oh I know, you have lived into this strange modernist utterly archaic globe; and suddenly under crisis you realize that all along you have been inhabiting the Earth. It’s as if you had changed space and time, past, present and future. Can we reequip our disciplines so that they meet the challenge?” (9). For Latour, the answer is still yes, although that window of opportunity is extremely short. 

Precis: "The Conquest of Space and the Stature of Man"

"The space age began fifty years ago with the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on October 4, 1957. It was a great technical and political triumph for the Soviet Union. In the United States, the immediate reaction was a swift and harsh self-assessment marked by very public fretting about a 'technology gap.' But a dozen years later, at the climax of the space race, the first men on the Moon were Americans. In the decades since, the civilian space program has largely receded from public attention—even as space has become indispensable to the military and the high-tech industry, and as a promising new private space sector is just taking shape."

Sputnik inaugurated a discourse of its own and Arendt, if we can bend the 'uncertainty principle,' certainly helped in defining it. "The Conquest of Space and the Stature of Man" compares the assumptions and goals of science and humanism with a predictable disposition to support the latter. Indeed Arendt presents science's foundational assumption as a problem, and a dangerous one especially in the form of a technological instrument. As part of assuming a 'true reality' situated behind the world of sense perception expressed in the 'mysterious messengers' of data research, science considers man a "special case of organic life." Given that humanism situates its concerns in perceptible man and his rationality, science not only clashes with the prevailing view of the humanities, including the gamut of human social configurations and values, but also and most resoundingly 'renounces' normal language due to the limitations which it imposes on what-goes-without-saying as the end-all project, itself.

Before praising a selective old guard of scientists, before arguing why the humanists have won in their own game of catch-up, before issuing some mainstay paradoxes of science, and before ending her subdued rant without providing any strategy for those who cannot think they 'understand' as some scientists may one day do as a ruling few, Arendt argues that the worlds of science and of the senses have in addition to theoretical conflict also entirely lost contact with each other. As an effect, "man can do, and successfully do, what he cannot comprehend and cannot express in everyday human language." It is language, mediating the reality of appearances Arendt assumes humans agree on through a worldwide set of the same five senses, which represents a reality of earthbound, common concerns and consists  of terms of deliberation imbued with meaning such as 'truth,' 'man,' 'life', 'knowledge,' 'simplicity,' 'beauty,' and 'harmony.' The measure of 'man,' and his relation to reality, is, language.

It behooves me, I think, to provide an interpretation of the title. 'The Conquest of Space,' it seems, conforms to our first expectations. Within 'conquest,' we may find an urge for territory as well as a problem within the agent himself that he needs to overcome. Where is the 'who' in the announcement of 'The Conquest..."? Posed with the limitations of the planet, its finite space maybe, then we confront 'space' rather than the 'universe' or another phrase explicit about an area beyond the planet. In 'space,' there is for the humanists in their dictionaries at least: 'a continuous area or expanse that is free, available, or unoccupied.' Sounds like a wonderful frontier. However, "the Stature of Man,' unlike the first part of the title, presents a challenge. Arendt does frame the problem: "Surely the scientist cannot permit himself to ask: What consequences will the result of my investigations have for the stature (or, for that matter, future) of man?" As a parenthetical appositive, 'future' offers clarity to an audience guessing about the last word in the title, but it is neither synonymous to nor can it replace 'stature.'

Stature alludes to anthropocentrism and provides a qualitative measure of the status of man, which is both central to Arendt's concern and behind dire warnings such as "it is much more likely that the planet we inhabit will go up in smoke as a consequence of theories that are entirely under related to the world of the senses." It is due to their 'carelessness' to stature that scientists mislead themselves and come to embody 'danger' altogether to the world of their ignorant counterparts who care to use the cherished tool of the humanities, to speak: "At any event, man, insofar as he is a scientist, does not care about his own stature in the universe or about his position on the evolutionary ladder of animal life; this 'carelessness' is his pride and his glory." Amazingly 'stature' emerges in the title as a term consisting of reputation, conduct, and morality. It is through language, thoroughly entwined with behavior, that the notion of stature continues and the stake for Arendt is stature.

Arendt may not provide too many counterarguments. She fails to credit science much, at all. Yet she does articulate the fractured self of the scientist and the complete evacuation he aspires to. Conceivably among her audience, somewhere, a scientist may be and this subject of 'facts and experiments' may at least be pinched by Einstein's high evaluation of language. Beyond some marginally idiosyncratic words, such as 'stature,' which seem as though they may contain idiosyncratic definitions, Arendt writes in a diction and style that anyone who dares to read her may do so. I would assume that much of the audience had already been skeptical of science and also, many of its members at least,  not too versed in it considering the descriptions of Einstein's paradoxes and comparison of space scientists to 'plumbers' (I have ideas, but more questions as to why). The praise too, 'beauty' as a humanistic requirement was no joke:

"They [Einstein, et al.] were inspired by an extraordinary love of harmony and lawfulness which taught them (Who's doing the teaching?) that they would have to step outside (...step..baby....step) any merely given sequence...to discover the overall beauty and order of the whole, that is, the universe."

Two amusing versions of scientists: 

1) The Astronaut -- "The astronaut, shot into outer space and imprisoned in his instrument-ridden capsule where each actual physical encounter with his surroundings would spell immediate death, might well be taken as the symbolic incarnation of Heisenberg's man--the man who will be the less likely ever to meet anything but himself and man-made things the more ardently he wishes to eliminate all anthropocentric considerations from his encounter with the non-human world around him."

2) Kafka's Fool -- "In terms of the...attempt to conquer space, means that man hopes he will be able to journey to the Archimedean point (a vantage point from where an 'observer poised in free space' detaches himself from an object) which he anticipated by sheer force of abstraction and imagination...with respect to the earth, but once arrived there and having acquired this absolute power over his earthly habitats, he would need a new Archimedean point, and so ad infinitum. In other words, man can only get lost in the immensity of the universe, for the only true Archimedean point would be the absolute void behind the universe."

Since we cannot anticipate much but the stature of man 'destroyed,' we may be best to juxtapose Arendt's ending with an advertisement (try to laugh at the hype, not to mention to deny how alluring it would be, how easy it is to imagine taking that certain key).

"Seen from a sufficient distance, the cars in which we travel and which we know we built ourselves will look as though they were, as Heisenberg once put it, "as inescapable a part of ourselves as the snail's shell is to its occupant." All our pride in what we can do will disappear into some kind of mutation of the human race; the whole of technology, seen from this point, in fact no longer appears "as the result of a conscious human effort to extend man's material powers, but rather as a large scale biological process."


"....it's all about the sky, you are part of the surrounding, part of the landscape...it's a car to enjoy the journey and nowadays that's not something you do...."

"...let's you touch the sky....."

Note: This has been almost total summary. I completed this in the morning, and maybe all the questions I had will return tomorrow, and I hope yours, you decide, to share during class. All citations were from The New Atlantis online's publication of Arendt's essay, which had been featured in the Fall 2007 issue, Number 18, between pages 43-55. You probably read that version too. 

Precis: The Fetish of Techonology

In The Fetish of Technology: Causes and Consequences David Harvey engages in a critical dissection of the origins and implications of the fetish of technology. He uses the concept of the fetish to analyze societies’ outsized and misplaced faith in technology and to demonstrate how it obscures the social realities of capitalist production. He attempts to lift the haze produced by the fetish to awaken people to the “possibilities of conscious political choices” present beyond hoping and praying for advanced technology to solve all significant problems. Written in 2003, the text is situated in the aftermath of the Dot-Com bubble and during the prelude to the Iraq War. The unwieldy, tripartite definition of technology is noticeably indebted to the recent popularization of computer technology. His primary audience is a disillusioned American public very familiar with the new terms. Harvey debunks many false beliefs and biases about technology that are already marred by an opening salvo from the stock market crash and resulting, resurgent media criticism. However, just as finance journalists looking at a market crisis are incapable of moving their critique beyond a certain depth, most critics merely “reflect and replicate” the fetishism of technology even when supposedly critiquing it. They lose “all critical acumen” the moment they fall prey to fetish beliefs about the “causative powers” of technology. They are “blinded” by a misunderstanding of the role of technology within capitalist society. The fact that the fetish is now “institutionalized” within the innovation industry, a new development in capitalism, makes clearing the haze both more difficult and more necessary.

Harvey does not provide his own theory as to the origin of the fetish of technology. Instead he takes a hypothetical scenario suggested by Marx in which one is to “imagine a perfect market” of individual capitalists competing for market supremacy. He traces the logic by which productivity increases mediated by technological advances result in “temporary excess profits” that capitalists treat as a direct result of technology. He writes that, “fetishism arises when it is inferred that productivity is a (or even the) source of profit as opposed to recognizing that profit arises out of a social relation between labor and capital”. The root of the fetish is confusion over how technology impacts productivity and how productivity results in profit. This early misattribution, postulated over a century ago by Marx, results in many more because the fetish gains authority and followers as technology advances. Harvey restates the point that profit is an effect of the social relation between labor and capital multiple times throughout the text. In fact, he comes to use the word fetish to describe any conclusion that ignores this fundamental materialist reality. The fetish precludes this understanding and masquerades as the key to profit and progress. This “very simple materialist explanation” of the origins of the fetish does not try to be exhaustive, but gives Marx’s “general line of thinking” on the subject. It serves as sufficient grounding to “usefully extend” the concept of the fetish to any misunderstanding of how technology fits into a capitalist society.

One interesting aspect of this text is that both key terms, fetish and technology, remain vague even with expansive definitions. This is fundamental to Harvey’s argument. The fetish is “not purely imaginary and has a very real basis”, but the majority of its value as a conceptual tool comes from outlining its extensions and not its origins. These imaginative extensions are embedded, imbricated, and coextensive with the material reality of capitalist society. This makes decoding the implications of the fetish a colossal task. It also \ wrings much of the life out of the term: it becomes impossible to discuss a causal fetish, to distinguish between fetish and effect, and to avoid the term deconstructing itself. Harvey ends up trying to avoid fetishism as much as he tries to locate it. Harvey writes that this makes “the whole issue of the meaning and impact of technology…immensely more complicated and diffuse”. This is a good thing because it prevents a “narrow reductionism” that generates false certainty. Harvey defines technology to be composed of hardware, software, and organizational components, but than says, “we must learn to elide them and also to recognize each as the internal relation of the other”. Technology has internal relations with itself even as it is positioned at the nexus “between the material reproduction of daily life, our relationship to nature, our social relations, and our mental conceptions of the world”. This unbelievable complexity is “the full import” of Marx and the dialectical perspective. It is better to be in a world where “everything relates to everything else”, and it is hard to keep track of anything, than to live in one with a false, fetishistic certainty.

The explicit bias of this text points to the main argument it advances. To deal with the aforementioned complexity, Harvey turns “in the first instance to Karl Marx for help”. This occurs in the third paragraph of the essay and Marx remains the most prominent authority throughout the text. Harvey knows this is “off-putting” to some of his audience and frequently feels the need to defend Marx. Beyond the specific topical choices of fetish and technology, this text unabashedly advances the relevance and applicability of Marx to contemporary social problems and current events. For example, Harvey uses Marx’s theory on the origin of the fetish to contradict Alan Greenspan five years before the financial crisis did. He also uses it to explain how institutionalized fetishism can yield enormous technological dynamism and predicts that Silicon Valley will innovate, “come what may”. This seems obvious now, but it was far from so nine years ago. Yet, regardless of his capacity for prediction, his arguments will be rejected out of hand by anyone who rejects Marx. Harvey writes that, “One does not have to accept Marx’s conceptual apparatus to see the cogency of his arguments…”, but one does need to accept his authority as a reference for this text to function. The text is itself an extension of Marx’s conceptual apparatus brought to bear on a particular moment in the history of capitalism.  

The fetish of technology leads to a fantastical world where technology is understood to be an autonomous force rather than a product of social relations. People forget that power differentials impact how technology is distributed and what problems are chosen for it to solve. It is thought to “determine social changes”, to be “both inevitable and ‘good’”, and to be politically neutral. Harvey notes that the fetish is destabilizing because it “embodies contradictions” while also obscuring them. This is best seen in the contrast between two prominent figures of futuristic fantasy spectacle: the robot and the cyborg. The former represents the “fantasy of total control over the laborer by technology”; the latter represents the “fantasy of the insatiable consumer totally hooked into the circulation of capital and its endless output of products”. Taken together, the figures serve to embody the irreconcilable dreams of capitalism for both the perfect worker and the perfect consumer. It is the will of the fetish to merge these two impulses.

I would like to conclude this discussion of Harvey’s text by analyzing his mention of the “chicken-and-egg problem” and how it relates to the limits of fetish analysis in supporting social change. Harvey undertakes this analysis to support the goal of conscious social change, but his use of the fetish concept may ironically be impeding as much as it reveals. The concept forces Harvey to engage in a self-referential discourse where he elides and maneuvers around the word, trying not to give it the very power he claims is misattributed. Harvey mentions the chicken and the egg as the generic example of a producer/produced metonymic circularity. It reflects the problem of situating technology within the “schema of internal relations” that constitutes capitalist society. He ends by noting that a “redefinition and demystification” of technology is a “necessary first step towards a more generalized approach to emancipation”. My question is whether he has reached an unproductive conclusion: is more analysis really required for emancipation? It feels like society is overburdened with the ability to diagnose and has been since Marx. The most persuasive aspect of this text is the fact that all of the biases and fetishes are revealed by a Marxist diagnostic analysis. The use of the fetish concept seems to be appealing to the modern, varied definition of the word; it functions like a headline to attract attention, but forces the author to expend a lot of effort justifying its use. Of all the Marxist concepts he uses, I feel I understand the concept of the fetish the least. It seems like the figure of the fetish is one that cannot be made literal, let alone operationalized, without ending up in a chicken-and-egg problem that promotes categorization and diagnosis over the prescriptions and solutions society needs. There seems to be an inherent paradox to fetish analysis that doesn't lead towards emancipation. 

Précis: William S. Burroughs' "On Coincidence"

An author of broad scope and honesty, William S. Burroughs seems to enjoy setting before his reading audience what appear to be philosophical points to contemplate, only to pull them quickly from under a readers nose and turn them on their head. The first line of this essay leaves no doubt about Burroughs' belief in his own strength of expression and experience, as he states: "From my point of view, there is no such thing as a coincidence." 

What is the author's goal here, and who is he writing for? Burroughs' strength is his pointed goal of absorbing a reader into his own experience, not in reaching out to the reader in the hope that we'll "enjoy" the work and want more. He offers something up, and we can take it or leave it. Burroughs has a lot to say, and is conversational and also clear, individualistic, and precise. We're willing to come along with him, and follow his lead. If some are not willing to join in, that is alright too; Burroughs does not write for everyman. He knows his audience. In the author's essay "On Coincidence", Burroughs captures a reader's attention, then keeps it through a stream-of-consciousness flow, made up of twisting parable-type statements describing the nature and oft prejudiced approach of so-called learned men of science, as well as those invested heavily in a search for "Truth". The common man (and woman) is brought along too in this reading journey, as we're all hardly immune to our own beliefs that we hold dear and that we want to be true. 

Burroughs' essay lines twist by, seeming to jump about, but never far from the gravitational center of his talent to put forth earnestly compelling points of view, and then play with a reader's need to feel that they've found, ("At last!") answers to privately held questions. But these answers are fluid, and can change down the page. Of people who do not believe in the overall possible design of life, Burroughs writes of their experience thus: "[These people say] any belief in creators or purpose is wishful thinking. And when you point out that perhaps all thinking is wishful, reactions of intense irritation give evidence that we are dealing not with logic but with faith." Is this Burroughs' ability to let go of control, to get what you want from a reader through expression of what they may not want to hear? And what does he want? I think Burroughs simply enjoys a path through his words, cut with the contradictory placement of both his point of view, and his non-attachment to it. He has a faith that he does not need to defend, and he has objectivity about his own work to keep him balanced. It is the readers assumptions Burroughs is challenging, through his questioning and comments laid out in the text, of man's need for surety at all costs.

Themes and discussion of magic, a larger life experience with truth, God...making a descriptive list through this writing of the failings of men to see a larger reality is much of this of this essay. Burroughs says that coincidence has a stress-reducing effect on men of science, for example: "I do not understand why this assertion of randomness has such a sedative effect." I believe his point here is to show that people in general, when belief is possibly shaken, or something unexplained happens in one's life, Burroughs writing skills plunge in with his over-arching theme of man as unable to contemplate that which he cannot control, understand, or simply leave alone. The great lines he writes, such as, "What is this magic word [coincidence] that exorcises and banishes magic?" shows the author's sharp ear for blunt facts that cut through and roll back on top of the argument: using magic to prove there is no magic in life. Simply because someone does not believe in what has happened to them, does not mean it didn't happen. By this very description here, something has "happened". "Believing" in it is only what would go on in the brain of the observer if they believed, it has nothing to do with whether or not it happened. Burroughs knows that we can experience something and not believe in it. But a person's desire to eschew the reality and fact of any experience is the driving element of any point they subsequently make about their experience as it happened, should they not want to believe in it.

Burroughs speaks of belief and truth, religious truth, and technology by saying "I am sometimes asked if technology is good; well, for exactly whom, where, and when?" His shades of Marx show through clearly here; most men simply say, "Ah, yes, technology is good; the march forward, and all that." So instead Burroughs throws out his larger understanding of good vs. bad, not technology. There are no absolute answers, and Burroughs enjoys keeping the reader questioning their own knowing of a thing or of a belief, because you don't know what you don't know, and what if you're sure you know something? How are you sure? This is part of what makes his essay interesting. He asks about faith, and I think: "Oh, Burroughs has faith, he likes magic...cool." For reasons I won't explain here, I like this about him. But soon he goes on to call man a "Ventriloquist dummy" as the offshoot of a God ("Word-God") who first had the "Word". Again, Burroughs asks man to stand alone and separate from his/her beliefs, and do their level best to stand on their own feet, without a mysterious and magical God, yet he says he believes. Burroughs summons up our favorite belief as a society that regards God as real, and a guiding force of productive good, but then, for closer examination, Burroughs discusses the man who releases the Word-God by declaring "'He atrophied and fell off me like horrible old gills', a survivor reported, 'And I feel ever so much better.'" So much for clinging to the way we hope things will be for us, if we just believe enough in what we hope is true. And what scientist could not see the futility of that, or for that matter, what common man? Burroughs points to intelligence, then lets us decide what we're reading, as framed both by our experiences, and what we want to be true. A very confident writer.

Precis on William S. Burroughs' “Immortality”

(written pre-"Immortality" lecture, so read accordingly)

William S. Burroughs' essay on “Immortality” is directed toward a general audience with the purpose of educating it on the ethical depravity capitalistic vampirism, the fallacy of a singular inviolable identity, and the means by which one may obtain immortality, in an often contradictory and unsupported manner. It lacks a discernible thesis as the essay encompasses several tangential topics. However, I would argue that if it had one, it would be similar to the author's purpose that I described above, in that the essay would state for a thesis: Vampirism, an immoral way of life, is founded upon a a flawed and limiting concept of ego that erroneously approaches the goal of immortality.

Burroughs illustrates the baseness of a extractive way of life by providing a picture of a possible dystopian future that lies at the bottom of the slippery slope of an inherently vampiric capitalist society. He provides an image of big executives and warlords being among the few in society who have the means to sustain their health into immortality while the poorer masses live out singular, common lives. The powerful are able to perpetuate the system in which they are on top because they will live the longest lives and thus be the wiser and more intelligent than the hopelessly outcompeted masses. Burroughs argues the selfish depravity of such vampirism as he states that extractive people “take more than they leave by the basic nature of the vampire process of inconspicuous but inexorable consumption. The vampire converts quality-live blood, vitality, youth, talent-into quantity-food and time for himself. He perpetrates the most basic betrayal of the spirit, reducing all human dreams to his shit. And that's the wrongest wrong a man can be.” He explains that at the core of capitalism is an ethos of “success is its own justification. He who succeeds deserves to succeed; he is 'RIGHT.' to gain kill youth's for their body for his ego”. Such a belief allows for all sorts of justified immoral behavior in the name of one's personal success. However, Burroughs exposes that the idea of a singular ego that is required to develop such a ruthless sense of entitlement is flawed.

The second of Burroughs main arguments is that the ego is not a singular and inviolable entity. He relies on the Buddhist concept of a constantly changing shifting ego, and supports his claim with the example that at times, we may be surprised by our past behaviors and wonder “What ever possessed me to do that?” His argumentation gets hazy however when he states “A step toward rational immortality is to break down the concept of a separate personal, and therefore inexorably mortal, ego. This opens many doors. Your spirit could reside in a number of bodies, not as some hideous parasite draining the host, but as a helpful little visitor... The illusion of a separate, inviolable identity limits your perceptions and confines you in time. You live in other people and other people live in you- 'visiting,' we call it.” Burroughs offers no reasoning behind why we should believe that our egos are of a spiritual nature instead of a physical nature, and that the spiritual ego is transient and visits other bodies and gives them your identity just as their ego-spirits visit your body. Furthermore, the author does not explain what one's identity would be, or how one could even identify an ego-spirit as one's own if it is transient. By the nature of his language, the author merely seems to suggest that adopting his idea of identity is less limiting than that of the vampiric capitalists, not that his idea is any more valid.

Upon his concept of ego, Burroughs argues that the vampiric capitalist concept of an unchanging and physical ego cannot support the concept of immortality because “Personal immortality in a physical body is impossible, since a physical body exists in time and time is that which ends. When someone says he wants to live forever, he forgets that forever is a time word. All three-dimensional immortality projects, to say the least, are ill-advised, since they always immerse the aspirant deeper in time.” Burroughs never explains why time is a finite thing “which ends”, as opposed to something infinite and constant. Additionally, if time were to end, then his own alternative of an immaterial and transient ego-spirit would cease to exist as well with the end of time and the halt of all things within it. If Burrough's spirit-egos are somehow identifiable, at least in part, to individuals, then they must end with time as well as they would be dependent on time because they were created alongside the birth of those certain individuals.

Burroughs continues his essay with “But ultimately, I postulate, true immortality can be found only in space. Space exploration is the only goal worth striving for. Over the hills and far away. You will know your enemies by those who attempt to block your path. Vampiric monopolists would keep you in time like their cattle. 'It's a good thing cows don't fly," they say with an evil chuckle. The evil, intelligent Slave Gods.'” Perhaps Burroughs sees the idea of space travel as a means to escape the clutches of vampirism on Earth, but I do not see how vampirism would not follow humans in space exploration if it came from a humanly created concept of capitalist extraction and exploitation. His argument gains a little clarity when he states “Immortality is prolonged future, and the future of any artifact lies in the direction of increased flexibility capacity for change and ultimately mutation... Mutation involves changes that are literally unimaginable from the perspective of the future mutant... There will be new fears like the fear of falling, new pleasures, and new necessities... Mutation is not a matter of logical choices.” I figure that perhaps this may be an argument that through space exploration, humans would constantly be changing and adapting to the infinite variability of extra-terrestrial environments, and thus we can escape the shackles of predictability and long-term planning that would have us continue on the trajectory of the bleak future of transplant-based immortality. But when Burroughs argument begins to gain clarity, Burroughs postulates that “human artifact is biologically designed for space travel.” However, if we accept Burroughs' statement that immortality is achievable through space travel, then by Burrough's definition, humans are physically capable of immortality because we are “biologically designed for space travel” and because the precognitive notions of our dreams implies that we are preparing ourselves for it. This later idea that humans are capable of physical immortality is contradictory to Burrough's earlier and also flawed argument that physical immortality is impossible because of the finiteness of time.

In conclusion, Burrough's purpose for this essay was to educate a general audience on the depravity of vampirism, the error in the belief of a singular inviolable identity, as well as the error of understanding immortality based on those singular terms, and on how one may truly obtain immortality. However, apart from understanding his explanation of how capitalism is essentially an extractive and vampiric social practice that could lead to a dystopia, I am left thoroughly confused in understanding the validity of the premises and conclusions of his arguments.

Precis- "A Cyborg Manifesto"

“A Cyborg Manifesto” can be best summed up as an account of cyborg politics which, “…is the struggle for language and the struggle against perfect communication, against that one code that translates all meaning perfectly, the central dogma of phallotrisgocenm.” Donna Haraway, a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness at University of California, Santa Cruz, writes “A Cyborg Manifesto” through a framework of consciousness. While reading this, it may be worth noting whether or not she is in agreement or disagreement with Freud in regards to her treatment of consciousness. Regardless, her treatment of cyborg politics is a detailed argument signifying the progression of feminism as a movement affinity, rather than as a movement of identity, whereby, “Cyborg imagery helps express two crucial in this essay: first, the production of universal, totalizing theory is a major mistake that misses most of reality, probably always, but certainly now; and second, taking responsibility for the social relations of science and technology means refusing an anti-science metaphysics, a demonology of technology, and so means embracing the skillful task of reconstructing the boundaries of daily life, in partial connection with other, in communication with all our parts.” Haraway illustrates the significance of cyborg politics for the progression of feminism by breaking up her argument into the following sections: An ironic dream of a common language for women in the integrated circuit, Fractured Identities, The ‘homework economy’ outside ‘the home,’ Women in the integrated circuit, and Cyborgs: a myth of political identity. (Keep in mind that this précis adheres to only pages 149-181 of her manifesto). While reading through these sections of her manifesto, it may be worthwhile to pay special attention to her focus on language and informatics.

An ironic dream of a common language for women in the integrated circuit:

In the title of this section, I think it is important to mark “common language for women” because a “world-changing image” through the recreation of “woman’s experience.” From my understanding, the “dream of a common language” results from the utilization of irony as a strategy in social-feminism. Because irony is defined by “contradictions that do not resolve into larger wholes,” I think Haraway is signaling language’s use of irony in dichotomies. But, by utilizing irony in a “common language for women,” social-feminism is able to propagate a “world-changing image” through the recreation of “woman’s experience” by constructing a consciousness which adheres to those abstractions that dichotomy merely masks. If irony is only a system of contradictions, or dichotomies, than what is there to say about that which is undefined in between those dichotomies?

It is through this framework of irony that the cyborg becomes an image of “fiction and lived experience” which allows for liberation through the construction of a new consciousness which recognizes “the imaginative apprehension, of oppression, and so of possibility.”

I found it particularly useful to utilize certain authors previously mentioned in this course to fully comprehend this section of the article. Maybe not verbatim, but Haraway echoes the ideas of Adams, Althusser, and Harvey in this section to emphasize the capacity to establish a “world-changing image.” Because ideologies are ironic in nature, and only exist through our performance of them, utilizing technology as “one ideological space” opens up the possibility for establishing connections across dichotomies. An example of this idea is presented in Haraway’s discussion of animal rights where, “Movements for animal rights are not irrational denials of human uniqueness; they are a clear-sighted recognition of connection across the discredited breach of nature and culture.”

Essentially, the primary purpose of this section is to note that, “Single vision produces worse illusions than double vision or many-headed monsters.” Therefore, the cyborg becomes a metaphor uniting individuals across the male/female dichotomy which allows for a “world-changing image” through the creation of individuals as “parts” rather than as “ideologies.” The reason that the image relies on changing the “women experience” I will detail later.

Fractured Identities:

I think that it may be useful to see “fractured” as another word which signifies “duality.” As a result, would it be reasonable to also title this section as “Ironic Identities” because of irony’s adherence to dichotomies (dualities)?

While the previous section signaled our ability to change the world image by incorporating “double visions,” this section deals with the concept of identity and the usefulness of identity in feminism. Some potential authors to consider while reading this section are Fenon and Solanas.

From my understanding of this section, Haraway is further elaborating her discussion of irony through “informatics of domination.” Our construction of “social realities” is primarily dominated by “informatics,” or signs, perpetuating “social realities” and dichotomies which adhere to patriarchy. By fracturing our identities through “double vision” rather than single, dichotomy based, vision, Haraway argues for the rise against a false consciousness which has forced us into agreement with a system of domination through a “single vision” of language.

I suggest reading this section through a framework of Fenon and Solanas for two reasons:

1)      The idea of a language as an “informatics of domination” signals our bodies as images of ideologies which are consistently being reproduced through our conformity to the dichotomies. The conformity of these dichotomies subsequently gives power to a white-male dominated patriarchal society. But, as Fenon states, “For it is implicit that to speak is to exist absolutely for the other.” Meaning, we submit to these dichotomies in order to be recognized by the other. This idea is the primary objection that Haraway has with MacKinnon because MacKinnon’s view of feminism as an identity, rather than an affinity, forces feminism deeper into the dichotomies which adhere to white-male domination that feminism aims to fight against.  

2)      I suggest a framework of Solanas because Haraway states, “Gender, race, or class consciousness is an achievement forced on us by the terrible historical experience of the contradictory social realities of patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism.” In stating this, Haraway argues for the rise against language dictated by the ironies of historical experience; thus, implementing the use of the cyborg as a symbol which departs from a language dictated from history as Solanas does in her SCUM Manifesto with her deconstruction of gender. But, this is not to say that I propose viewing Haraway’s argument as a deconstruction of gender, but rather as a transgression of boundaries.

The ‘homework economy’ outside ‘the home’

While reading this section, I wondered whether or not it would be useful to think of this section as “Knowledge outside of history?” I’m not saying it would be particularly useful to view this section in this regard, but maybe worth noting.

Anyways, this section defines ‘homework economy’ as specifically “work done by women.” There is a reason for the focus on “women’s work.” The reason is that the role of the women has changed as a result of “new economic and technological arrangements” creating new demands on women. What this means is that women, single mothers especially, are becoming the heads of their respective households—creating a matriarchal system of domination within the home. However, outside of the home women “are excluded generally” from their contribution in the workforce because the “informatics of domination” adheres to a language dominated by patriarchy which endows powers into the image of the male as the dominator, and not the female.

Thus, Haraway uses this section to focus on the changing roles of men and women, but the continued strength of the dichotomy that still exists which separates men from women by making men more powerful than women.

Women in the integrated circuit

So, in all honesty, I was rather lost and confused of Haraway’s argument until this section. As I previously mentioned in the first section, the “world-changing image” must rely on the recreation of “women’s experience” because modern day society is already dominated by blurred boundaries. For example, Haraway mentions the following fact, “In the US gay men and intravenous drug users are ‘privileged’ victims of an awful immune system disease that marks (inscribes on the body) confusion of boundaries and the moral pollution” to signal the confusion of dichotomies during instances where men in homosexual relationships do not assert their domination over women, or when men do not reproduce a moral fiber, which would otherwise dictates their superiority, because of their drug use. Haraway seems to be suggesting, through this scenario, the capacities of claiming power through reconstruction of these blurred boundaries. As a result, Haraway essentially questions why these “informatics of domination,” based on the symbol of the male dominator, still exist?

From my understanding, it is because of our constant reproduction of the dichotomy that reduces the female as less superior to the male which allows for this system of domination to be sustained. Because the boundaries are blurred, as signaled by the actions of the homosexual man or the drug-addicted male, the only way to sustain the “informatics of domination” is through our adherence of the historical experience which has casted the female as less superior in a patriarchal society. Even though, “[Networking] is both a feminist practice and a multinational corporate strategy…” it is men who dominate the corporation, not the females who are credited for practicing the corporate strategy. Thus, the recreation of the “women’s experience” divergent from “historical experience” is paramount for a “world changing image.”

The cyborg, therefore, represents “the awful apocalyptic telos of the ‘West’s’ escalating dominations of abstract individuation, an ultimate self united at last from all dependency, a man in space.” Because every dichotomy has a base in the gender binary, the cyborg, “a creature in a post-gender world,” comes to represent the apocalypse. Therefore, the destruction of the gender binary, which is the basis for a world system of informatics, subsequently exterminates all language, knowledge, etc. As Haraway states, “The only way to characterize the informatics of domination is as a massive intensification of insecurity and cultural impoverishment, with common failure of subsistence networks for the most vulnerable.” By destroying the gender binary masking the “insecurity” of the “informatics of domination,” we perpetuate a “changing world image.”

Cyborgs: a myth of political identity

This is Haraway’s conclusion to her manifesto. In this conclusion, she recognizes the difficulty of creating the cyborg because the creation of the cyborg requires, “the struggle against perfect communication, against that one code that translates all meaning perfectly, the central dogma of phallotrisgocenm.” But, if anything, Haraway helps us to understand the counsciouness “about how fundamental body imagery is to world view, and so to political language” because the “informatics of domination” is based on a series of contrasts from the role of women, resulting in the defining the role of men as signified by what women are not. Thus, the cyborg exposes “our bodies, ourselves [as] maps of power and identity” and moves to “[reconstruct] the boundaries of daily life, in partial connections with others, in communication with all of our parts” through the “cyborg imagery.”

My Conclusion:

So, I recognize that this is long. However, I felt it was necessary to encompass the entirety of Haraway’s argument. Regardless, through this discussion, I feel comfortable in asserting that the intended audience for Haraway is everyone who incorporates an “informatics of domination” in their daily lives, of which I feel a part of. In targeting this audience, Haraway uses a similar strategy as Marx in his “Fetishism of Commodities” by alienating the reader. In so doing, the author reveals truth to the reader which is otherwise masked by a “false consciousness.” As a result, Haraway attempts to progress feminism by alienating the reader in hopes of reconstructing boundaries, and a changing language which ceases to be dominated by gender binaries.

Although I hinted at several points of discussion throughout the précis, I think that one particularly interesting discussion would be in considering whether or not “A Cyborg Manifesto” functions as an updated version of “SCUM Manifesto” by Valerie Solanas? 

By: James Ringer

Preci- "The Abolition of Man"

The Abolition of man can be seen as a description of what will happen to man if he continues to gain control of nature. To Lewis this control over nature is not man’s domination over nature, but a “power exercised by some men over other men.” He believes that when humanity manages to gain control over itself, it will no longer be man in the sense of the natural world. Instead, man will be “free to make our species whatever we wish to be” and will result in the loss of humanity.

Lewis’s explanation of man’s conquest over nature brings to light various paradoxes. These paradoxes all lead to the result that the more that man tries to gain control over nature the more man will be closer to destroying himself. Lewis supports his claims of man’s control over man, and shows the irrationality of man’s control over nature through the use of the contraceptive. For Lewis, the use of contraception works as a paradox and seems to destroy the very nature of man’s power. While using it man manages to control nature by controlling birthrates, but also manages to diminish its future population; this reinforces the idea that man’s control over nature is man’s control over men by other men.

Another paradox that rises with the thought of man’s control over man, is that even when people try to break free from control, the only guidance and set of tools that they have left to use are those which they borrowed from their predecessors, therefore the more they try to break free the more entrenched they become in using the objects of their ancestors. As Lewis suggests, “they are weaker, not stronger: For though we may have put wonderful machines in their hands we have pre-ordained how they are to use them.”

The Abolition of man seems to be catered to the general population with an emphasis on trying to convince people that the increasing domination over natural things will eventually end in the destruction of mankind. Although he states that he is not writing to judge if “ambivalent victories are a good thing or bad,” he seems to have written the Abolition of man precisely to point out the paradoxical negative effects of our apparent domination. He brings into question the view of treating things as nature in the world, when he says, “The real objection is that if man chooses to treat himself as raw material, raw material he will be: not raw material to be manipulated, as he fondly imagined, by himself, but by mere appetite, that is, mere nature, in the person of his dehumanized conditioners.”  

He describes the conditions that humans will be under, if men are to succeed at conquering nature. But if men are a part of nature, and nature is so intertwined in humans, how do you differentiate between man and nature if man is part of nature? As he states, “the price of conquest is to treat things as mere nature” “we reduce things to mere nature in order that we may conquer them” this is problematic for Lewis, because by considering a thing to be mere nature “objects resist the movement of the mind.” Things become an object ready to be dominated, and become objectified to the point where they become “an artificial abstraction… where something of its reality has been lost.” For Lewis the difficulty arises when humans are taken into account as nature. At that point humans are no longer seen as people but rather as objects ready to manipulate and conquered. He points out that if humans are to be conquered, that there will be people who will have broken free from all judgments and values. Lewis believes that if man ever manages to gain control over nature, that there would have to be people in control called conditioners that “will produce conscience and decide what kind of conscience they will produce.” These people will then create the human race. But by being able to create man, the actual being of man will be destroyed, because by creating them there will be no men, just a hollow creation of people with false ideals given to them. This will eventually lead to the loss of the Tao.

While reading, the definition of the Tao was not so clear, and was rather described with different characteristics, because although he describes the Tao as “a norm to which the teachers themselves were subjects and from which they claim no liberty to depart” he does not explicitly state what this norm is. This Tao is clearly an important part of what he states makes the human different from all other creatures, because by “stepping outside the Tao, they have stepped into the void.” Lewis describes it differently, by mentioning that it teaches us “preference and encouragement” and that “only the Tao provides a common human law of action.. which is not a tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.” 

Throughout the text Lewis uses personifications to describe the paradox of man’s control over nature. He personifies nature as a feminine woman, and states “all of nature’s apparent reverses have been but tactical withdrawals. We thought we were beating her back when she was luring us on. What looked to us like hands held up in surrender was really the opening of arms to enfold us forever.”  The personification  helps illustrate the claim Lewis made by painting a picture of a woman in the action of embracing, which can be misinterpreted just like the act of man’s domination of nature can be misinterpreted.

Lewis makes clear throughout The abolition of man, that a conquest by man over nature would eventually be the end of man. He points out that every conquest that we have over nature is nothing but the exact reversal. When he explains the conditioners will make men what they are by a motive, he means by impulse, “those who stand outside all judgments of value cannot have any ground for preferring one of their own impulses to another except the emotional strength of that impulse” The paradox is that while these men are trying to make men what they want they will also have to become part of nature themselves by going back to instinct.  As Lewis says “Human nature will be the last part to surrender to man” but when it does he explains that it will be the end of man, in the sense of the traditional being. 

Precis: "Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatus"

Published in 1970, Althusser's essay "Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatus" occurs after the May 1968 protests in France: workers occupied factories as students did universities, President Charles de Gaulle fled, and a coalition of communists and socialists through a variety of demonstrations intended a coup d’état for several weeks (Wikipedia). Only months removed from the insurrection, as a professor educated at France’s elite institutions and as a Marxist residing in the milieu of political disenchantment, Althusser likely addresses Marxism with the moment’s recent events in memory. In 1848, Marx and Engels had spurred the workers of the world to action in an intervention of epic proportions. An inevitable revolution was in sight. Advance a century and another intellectual—one of many others—conveys another tone, one not of energy and certainty, but of solemnity and sustained ambiguity in terms of the universal revolution idea. Althusser does not write a manifesto and, one could contend, lacks the spirit do so with any Marxist chutzpah.

Before continuing or embarking in the text, do take a moment if you have not already: search for pictures of “Althusser”—a near majority of your results probably feature a cigarette or a pipe in addition to a face of profound contemplation as well as disturbance. This is the image of the man who does not address workers so much at all but rather intellectuals somewhat disinterested to revolution. In this vein, Marxism is not forestalled but expounded upon as Althusser not only adds to but also to a great extent rearticulates the Marxist theory of state. Explicitly compared to Freud’s unconscious, Althusser’s version of ‘ideology’ implicates the “imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence” with materialist theory (162). Due to this essay’s salience to the course (it attempts to bridge works of two threshold figures) and its fascinating complexity (in my opinion), I will start with terms before arguments and conflicts as the first provide a useful framework. Though Althusser presents a unique ‘ideology,’ many of his terms relate to those of other theorists—such as ‘recognition’ and other traces of Hegel.

Within the title, Althusser distinguishes ‘Ideological State Apparatus’ from ‘Ideology’ to an extent announcing the essay’s goals of defining these terms separately in spite of their substantial overlap. He argues that the theory of the state maintains a dormant status in Marx’s work as “the irreversible beginning of the theory” (138). Much of Althusser’s project consists of “supplementary theoretical development” to as well as disagreement with this descriptive theory and, with the Marxist “spatial metaphor” of base and superstructure, the ‘Ideological State Apparatus’ provides an entry into ‘Ideology’ (141, 135). For Marx, the metaphor consists of the base, or the forces of production, serving as a material foundation for the superstructure consisting of ideas, laws, and religion. The base does not only support the superstructure but also materially causes it. Within Marx’s conception, ‘state’ consists of a repressive apparatus:

“The State apparatus, which defines the State as a force of repressive execution and intervention ‘in the interests of the ruling classes’ in the class struggle conducts by the bourgeoisie and its allies against the proletariat, is quite certainly the State, and quite certainly defines its basic ‘function’” (137). Althusser defines this apparatus as the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) and lists its parts: “the police, the courts, the prisons…the army…the head of State, the government and the administration” (137). Yet the state does not only function through “violence,” as with the RSA, but also through “ideology” (142). It is on the operation of the state apparatus that Althusser concentrates his 'investigation.'  In defining the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA), Althusser lists a host of institutions ultimately achieving a similarly repressive end such as schools, media, religion, and the family but primarily by way of ideology. The ISA also differs from the RSA in two critical ways: 1) the components of the ISA are more private than public, 2) the ISAs are “multiple, distinct, ‘relatively autonomous’” (149).

Althusser does not only define the Ideological State Apparatus in terms of its counterpart. For Marx, ideology is “an imaginary assemblage…a pure dream, empty and vain, constituted by the ‘day’s residues’ from the only full and positive reality, that of the concrete history of concrete material individuals materially producing their existence” (160). Importantly, ideology is conceived of as ‘imaginary’ in a way that removes it from a consequential relationship with material existence. In a word, it is an “illusion” (159). For Althusser, on the other hand, ideology is neither “a pure dream, empty and vain” and nor a concept without history in the Marxist sense. In his view, rather “ideology is eternal, exactly like the unconscious” (161).  This is a problematic analogy between Marx’s and Freud’s critical realms. Nevertheless, ‘ideology’ is a structure without history yet present throughout history.

Since “there is no ideology except by the subject and for subjects” (170),  it is extremely important to fathom Althusser’s concept of the subject. Indeed, when introducing the Ideological State Apparatuses, Althusser describes them as “a certain number of realities which present themselves to the immediate observer” (142). Through ideological recognition, what Althusser also defines as “interpellation or hailing,” individuals are called into existence through continuous obvious statements such as “Hey, you there!” and other rituals (174, 174) Moreover, Althusser argues that through interpellation “individuals are always-already subjects” and provides a host of events, beginning with the mere expectation of an “unborn child,” that assign identity perpetuating obviousness (176).

According to Althusser, a duplicate mirror-structure centers the process of ideological recognition from which a subject emerges from an individual. In Christian Religious Ideology, the example provided, this structure is God. This Subject (capital “S”) is through his own statement “I am that I am” and through his subjection permits subjects (lower-case “s”).  It is in the image of the capital “S” structure that subjects exist. It is within an ideology, in a way enabled by a Subject, that not only there is obviousness to the realities of the ISA, but also specifically there is “guarantee that everything really is so, and that on condition that the subjects recognize what they are and behave accordingly, everything will be all right” (181).

After ‘ideology,’ ‘subject,’ and their closely related terms, the third (not at all in an important order) major term to consider is ‘reproduction.’  For Althusser, the question of ‘reproduction,’ of how to materially produce again and again, is the essay’s central issue, a “point of view” (136).  While the reproduction of the means of production—raw materials, machines, etc—is almost naturally understood by economists according to Althusser, the second fundamental area to production, labour-power, is not quite as simple. Wages, while set by a “Guaranteed Minimum Wage” and a “historically variable minimum,” (131, 131) are not enough to guarantee the reproduction of labor power for various reasons such as needs for a diverse labor skill-set as well as reproduction of “submission to the rules of the established order” (132) . The third area, the relations of production, involves the relations necessary between people and between base and superstructure for production. Like the second, this area implicates ideology—except unlike the second, by definition, ‘relations of production’ suggests ideology.

With these brief overview of terms—do please note any gaps or issues with a comment—consider this list of major arguments:

1.    Site of Class Struggle—The Marxist theory of state’s end goal is summarized as: “the proletariat must seize State power in order to destroy the existing bourgeois State apparatus and, in a first phase, replace it with a quite different, proletarian, State apparatus, then in later phases set in motion a radical process, that of the destruction of the State (the end of State power, and the end of every State apparatus)” (141).  In response, Althusser argues that the goal of a class cannot only be state power but also control of the Ideological State Apparatuses. While diverse, the ISAs are connected through the “ruling ideology” of a ruling class that operates through the ISAs in addition to the RSA (146). This class works (literally, that’s their labor) to create “harmony” between the various apparatuses when, in fact, they merely perpetuate their vast, extensive ideological power.  As a consequence, Althusser argues that the “Ideological State Apparatuses may be…the site of class struggle” (147).

2.    The Dominant ISA—While the Church was once the “one dominant Ideological State Apparatus,” following the French Revolution and its attack, Schools came to compare most to the Church as the dominant “educational ideological apparatus” (151, 152). Althusser argues that Schools represent themselves as ideologically-neutral yet they impart “know-how” as well as “ideology in its pure state” and, significantly, create a hierarchy of production according to ideologically-defined success, not to mention terms of access (155, 155).

3.    Structure of Ideology—Althusser claims: “What is represented in ideology is…not the system of the real relations which govern the existence of individuals, but the imaginary relation of those individuals to the real relations in which they live.” While the relations are imaginary, they can be “interpreted” and their relation to the world found (162). Ideology may seem illusion, yet beneath, it can be found to represent reality.

4.    “Belief is material”—Ideology has a material existence because of the relationship between behaving and thinking. After referring to Pascal’s Pensees, Althusser claims: “where only a single subject…is concerned, the existence of the ideas of his belief is material in that his ideas are his material actions inserted into material practices governed by material rituals which are themselves defined by the material ideological apparatus from which derive the ideas of that subject” (169). What is most important is that ideology indeed has a material existence.

5.    Ambiguity of the Subject—Althusser argues that, due to the duplicate mirror-structure of ideology (God), a subject is caught in ‘freedom’ as well the misrecognition of ‘it has to be so’: “the individual is interpellated as a (free) subject in order that he shall submit freely to the commandments of the Subject, i.e. in order that he shall (freely) accept his submission” (182). This paradoxical freedom and ongoing misrecognition enable behavior integral to the reproduction of relations of production (183).

As for issues - Althusser calls many of Marx’s assumptions into question, yet, at the same, makes his own. One of his most grandiose involves his comparison of ideology with Freud’s unconscious. Freud’s unconscious is a category in a topographic theory of the mind. As a concept, it is critical to psychoanalysis. On the other hand, Althusser’s ideology is cast over subjects not dreams, and it is by way of ideology that subjects construct themselves. While the unconscious is language-less, in a way, ideology is language-dependent. Further there is the fact that the unconscious consists of irrational, inaccessible dreamy matters and has its contours because of a repressive censor, that it can be described as a category - but is ideology defined in relation to a sort of antithetical concept like conscious - isn't it about making 'things' of the world intelligible, so simple as to be unmistakable and unquestionable?

Freud and Pascale appear conveniently in Althusser’s argument. Freud appears due to the ‘unconscious’; Pascale because of one of his inversions in his Pensees. As with figures, historical examples appear too when convenient and, notably, due to their relevance to the French—which suggests that Althusser was influenced by the events of 1968. For instance, the French Revolution may have attacked the church, leading to a change of hands of many ideological state apparatuses. Yet did the revolutions following that of the French attack a parallel institution? What if the Church was not as pervasive in other states?  I am most of all curious about this: If “the formal structure of all ideology is always the same,” then what constitutes a mirror-structure in a secular ideology? What is the unique and absolute subject of the media and other ISAs? What replaced the who-giving-God and since he is not actually replaced what is his name or is it nameless?

Is class struggle fully a contest of who gets to be who? Isn’t the ruling class too oppressing itself even when it continues conditions that lead to members of all other classes maintain their own oppression? Why is it important for Althusser to start a subject-less discourse: “while speaking in ideology, and from within ideology we have to outline a discourse which tries to break with ideology, in order to dare to be the beginning of a scientific (i.e. subject-less) discourse on ideology”? (173)

In conclusion - Why does Althusser claim: “it is extremely hard…to raise oneself to the point of view of reproduction”? (128) For more than one reason, I would argue. Most importantly, Althusser has written about behavior yet he has not hinted, provided a glimmer, that any one person’s may be significantly changed to some broader end than mere intellectual distance and profundity. It is obvious that by virtue of being a subject, individuals are, indeed, subjected to an authority they cannot exist as they imagine themselves to without. Perhaps even for Althusser, the image of his face and his choice of smoke, it is difficult to bear the reality of reproduction because to an extent one may lose or not even have access to one's notion of self and accompanying comforts and stabilizing convictions. As great as the revelation of the site of class struggle within the ISAs may be, it does not clearly lead anywhere forward broadly, such as to a universal revolution. The base and the superstructure, still part of a spatial metaphor, have become more intricately connected, less distinct from each other. Althusser has added words, words, correspondences with reality, matters for interpretation, and maybe what was once a literal, straightforward metaphor of base and superstructure with an accompanying linear agenda has been immersed into metaphorical, linguistic confusion.