Over at Poetix Dominic has an interesting post up responding to Pete’s recent discussion of normativity over at Speculative Heresy. Dominic writes:
The crux here seems to be that “man” is not in himself a normal animal: normative accounts of human being are best taken as descriptions of the commitments we make to ourselves and others as preconditions for various kinds of social being, and the capacity to bear such norms is rather haphazardly instantiated in our animal selfhood.
This split between the normed human being and the ab-normal human animal plays out in Badiou, for example, as a tension between the “de-subjectivising” pull of egoic self-interest and the possibility of constructing a political “subject” which affirms (or “verifies”) egalitarian norms. But there’s a problem here: egoic self-interest is arguably also a normed expression of human being – neo-liberalism explicitly affirms it as a norm, as a precondition for higher forms of social organisation (e.g. those based on competitive markets). The conflict between Badiou’s ethical “good” (tenacity in the construction of truths) and “evil” (de-subjectivation, the saggy victory of the flesh) can be seen as a conflict between rival normative commitments rather than between committed and uncommitted being as such. What Rowan Williams calls the “false anthropology” of neo-liberalism does not merely declare, in social Darwinist fashion, that human beings are intrinsically self-seeking creatures: it also goes to considerable lengths to modify the “soul” of society (its basic normative commitments and symbolic co-ordinates) so that individuals will perceive this to be their true nature and act accordingly.
There’s a good deal more in Dominic’s post, especially with respect to heteronormativity and discussions of heterosexuality coming out of the Christian Right, but I wanted to draw attention to this passage in particular as I think it represents something that is truncated or underdetermined within the framework of critiques of neo-liberal capitalism. While I do not disagree with Rowan William’s thesis that the picture of the human as an intrinsically self-seeking creature constitutes a false anthropology, I have noticed that there is a tendency to treat the core of neo-liberal capitalist ideology as consisting almost entirely of this false anthropology.
read on!
What is missing in this conception of neo-liberal ideology is the legal and normative framework that underlies this way of relating to the world and others. On the one hand, in order for neo-liberal capitalist ideology to get off the ground it requires what what might be called a “pure subject” or a “subject-without-qualities”, not unlike Descartes’ cogito or Kant’s transcendental unity of apperception. At the heart of neo-liberal capitalist ideology (NLCI) is not so much a subject pursuing self-interest, as a legal subject functioning as the substrate of property, commercial obligations and debts, and divorced from social context and conditions of production. If this subject must necessarily be a pure subject or subject without content or particularity of any form, then this is because NLCI must establish the equivalence or identity of all subjects populating the social field. In other words, for this social system to present itself as just– and I am not suggesting that this social system is just, far from it –it must be able to hold 1) that the lowest subject is equivalent to the most privileged and successful subject in both the eyes of the law and how the system functions (i.e., that the lowliness of the low is the result of her failure and is her responsibility), and 2) that distributions of wealth are not systematic effects of social structure and how it is organized, but rather is an effect of the individual industry of agents within the social field. These claims are dependent on the positing of a pure subject or subject-without-qualities as the essence of what social subjects are, ignoring any discourse about fields or milieus of individuation (in Deleuze and Simondon’s sense) out of which subjects emerge or are produced.
Second, for NLCI to function it is necessary that the law have a particular form that governs social relations among agents. While the self-interested or self-seeking nature of neo-liberal subjects is certainly one of the key notes of NLCI, this false anthropology is not, in and of itself, sufficient to establish the NLCI as a (dis)functioning system. Were the system composed only of agents pursuing their self-interest we would not have the NLCI, but rather the state of nature so vividly described by Hobbes and Spinoza. More fundamental than agents pursuing their own self-interest is the normative and legal system that mediates relations between agents in pursuing this self-interest. In its minimal form, this normative and legal system is one that revolves primarily around the attribution of duties and debts. That is, it is a normative and legal system that is particularly focused on the grounds under which contracts are maintained. Just as the subject-without-qualities of NLCI is a subject divorced from milieus of individuation, transcendentalized, and universalized in a false transcendental anthropology, the form of the law as the grounds of contractual obligation and debt is a normative system divorced from any milieu of individuation and premised on a subject-without-qualities whereby the equivalence of all subjects is guaranteed so that the law might effect itself despite the inequality inherent in the functioning of the law at the level of concrete social relations. Likewise, such a structure of legality also underlies the structure of private property. These two features, the form of the law and the subject-without-qualities, are, I believe, the fundamental notes of NLCI, not the picture of social relations defined by the pursuit of self-interest.
When Marx argues that Hegel must be turned on his head or describes Kant as a priest of the State, it is this which Marx is referring to. It was Kant, of course, who theorized the subject-without-content and who transcendentalized the structure of debt and obligation underlying contractual relations in the social field. If Kantian normativity and conceptions of the subject are priestly relations to the State, then this is because it ignores the manner in which these conceptions of normativity and the subject are themselves contingent products of certain modes of production, instead turning these forms of normativity and subjectivity into fetishes (in Marx’s sense) that have effaced their own milieu of individuation in order to effectuate themselves all the more forcefully, unjustly, and insidiously while undermining the possibility of any critique of these structures of normativity by transcendentalizing them and thereby treating them as universal and essential structures of all social relations. Likewise, if Hegel must be turned on his head, then this is because he treats these social relations as issuing from the domain of the ideal, the subject, thought, or spirit, rather than structures of production. In both cases effective modes of critique and engagement are undermined by virtue of these structures being detached in thought from their real conditions of production. This, I think, is part of the reason that a focus on ideology within political theory is such a danger for actual political praxis as it tends to obscure this material base and render it invisible to the theorist, creating the illusion that social organization is merely a matter of ideas, the ideal, or signifiers. It is also the reason I see great promise in something like Vitale’s “mediology” (what I would call onticology) and his networkology as at least these forms of analysis, focusing as they do on material mediations, have hope of getting at the base through which these ideal forms are individuated or come into being.
Larval Subjects . 
November 26, 2009 at 11:13 pm
I think these debates over who is more neo-liberal — OOO or its opponents? — have been a bit stale. However, I agree with some of the things you say here. Certainly, the suspicions which Lukács raised in ‘History and Class Consciousness’ are still good ones. The abstract subject of duties is not just a tempting philosophical category but also a kind of ideological posit of advanced capitalism. We’re right to be wary of the similarities.
This is one of the reasons why I reject the narrowly deontic vocabulary that Pete adopts, which articulates normativity into commitments and entitlements. Similarly, I don’t endorse Pete’s self-constituting transcendental subject and the kind of frictionless anti-realism about normativity it brings with it. Instead, I defend a kind of modest realism about normativity (though not ‘realism’ in the sense familiar around here), which ascribes normative significance to objects, events and situations, and not merely the attitudes of rational agents. This is likely to be objectionable for whole bunch of other reasons, but my point is just a gentle reminder that there are lots of non-Kantian options in the vicinity which may be better placed to answer the specific worries you raise here.
Secondly, if there is an implied criticism of Pete’s position on the genesis of norms here, it may be a little unfair. This is because he only wants to argue for the slimmest of transcendental norms of rationality, whereas the rest of norms are not transcendentally constituted. Instead, they are meant to be socially institued: they are social statuses acquired by people in their dialogical interactions with others. Again, there may be lingering worries that the form of these interactions is somehow prescribed in advance in a quasi-judicial nomialistic fashion. But this form can plausibly be thought to be an achievement of modernity, resulting from the long development concrete social institutions, rather than something imposed a priori by the transcendental subject. At least, that’s what I’d say if I were Pete, assuming you had such a critique of his position in mind, which maybe you didn’t.
November 27, 2009 at 1:38 am
Michel Callon is great on this stuff too, and has been criticized for arguing that the neoliberal subject does indeed exist – but only as constructed through a highly specific assemblage. I tend to rather like his point though, and would agree with him. Neoliberal subjects do exist, but they require a massive system to allow them to arise: tools, techniques, computer models, calculating devices, laws, heuristics, etc., etc. If we want to change the form of subjectivity, we need to focus less on the individual or its ideological mystifications, and more on the material assemblages constructing it.
November 27, 2009 at 1:42 am
Callon’s piece in this journal is a pretty good intro/summary of his work: http://econsoc.mpifg.de/archive/esfeb05.pdf
November 27, 2009 at 10:33 am
Quick question from ignorance: exactly where does Marx describe Kant as a ‘priest of the state’? Great ‘quote’, but I can’t find it anywhere …
November 27, 2009 at 2:41 pm
How Satan came into the world, how it transformed us, how we moved through Satans reign and how we could possibly escape him.
Satan has many names and many faces but he is best known under the name Capital. God, the lord of the heavens is dead or gone or at least absent. Satan, the lord of this world is here and acts through all of us. Satan has to be studied in all of his details and properties, with scientific thoroughness, to overcome him.
Hunting Satan is fascinating and you detect his grimace everywhere if your mind is open: this is Satan and this is Satan and this is also Satan … BUT not everything is Satan! There must be hope and people who hope to overcome Satan, who resist Satan, are proof enough that Satan is not everywhere and everything. You are not Satan! Resistance against Satan is like the little spark in our eyes which is light shining from our distant homes.
No god and not God will save us from Satan, but when we all suffer from Satan and when mankind unites in suffering, then within a huge wave of resistance against Satan, we might find a way out of his dark land.
November 27, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Hi Darwin,
I don’t know where exactly it is either and might be running together Deleuze’s descriptions of such philosophers with Marx’s. Marx did, however, portray philosophy as functioning on behalf of the state.
November 30, 2009 at 12:33 pm
[…] and Subjectivity Levi has a post up riffing on Dominic’s response to my piece for the Speculative Heresy/Inhumanities […]
November 30, 2009 at 2:55 pm
This is a strange post that, for me, sorta missed the mark. I’ve always thought that the whole point of using “ideology” as a category of analysis is that it does (attempt to) take into account the material conditions of production of subjective positions. I tend to take this dimension as implicit whenever someone uses the term, unless s/he specifically gives me reason to think otherwise; perhaps that’s why your discussion of the normative and legal framework underlying ideology strikes me as simply restating the obvious. In fact, the very notion that a “false anthropology” could somehow take hold the neoliberal imagination without being directly supported by and reflected in an institutional order seems to hinge on a distinction between theory and practice that has been problematized many times over.
I also think Dominic’s gloss on Badiou passes over the latter’s numerous attempts to theorize evil as something beyond “the saggy victory of the flesh” — cf. the discussion in the last chapter of [i]Ethics[/i] on ‘forcing the Truth’, fidelity to a false Event, etc. I’m not well-versed enough in Badiou’s ontology to explain the theoretical constructs underpinning these notions, but I definitely think he wants to maintain a notion of good that isn’t simply the outcome of “conflict between rival normative commitments”.
November 30, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Benard,
I think you’re confusing ideology with ideology analysis or ideology critique. Ideology analysis or critique does exactly what you’re suggesting it does. However, ideology itself is a sort of false consciousness that misrepresents its own conditions and fails to recognize that upon which they are dependent. Given that we continuously witness political theorists reducing neoliberalism to the pursuit of self-interest while ignoring the legal framework upon which neoliberal capitalism is dependent, I think it’s far from “obvious” that neoliberalism is dependent on a particular normative and legal framework. This point is driven home all the more by the fact that a number of these political theorists employ these same normative and legal frameworks in their own critique of neoliberalism, drawing on things like the Kantian categorical imperative or a pure subject to establish their critique.
I agree emphatically with your point about false anthropology. One of my central gripes with ideology critique coming out of those deeply influenced by Zizek and, to a lesser degree, Adorno, is that they reverse the order of explanation. They treat things like the ideational (the false anthropology you refer to) as the cause of the reigning social order. On these grounds, they seem to hold that the way to overturn that social order is through a critique of the discursive, ideational, etc. But here the order is reversed. That ideational form is not the cause of the social order– though it certainly contributes to it –but is rather the effect of a set of institutions, practices, forms of production, and systems of distribution. It is this latter domain that needs to be changed. I take it that this was the core message of Marx. When Marx claims that Hegel must be turned on his head, he is criticizing Hegel for arguing that the social world issues from “spirit” rather than the reverse. It is thus odd to see folks referring to themselves as Marxists when they entirely ignore this infrastructural framework upon which the ideational domain is based.
Excellent point about Badiou and evil.
December 1, 2009 at 7:59 pm
A whole paragraph is spent saying “neo-liberal capitalist ideology sees people in the abstract, divorced from class and social influences. These abstract people are understood to exist in a legal environment which atomises them, treats them all as equals, and as participants in a system that has no inherent bias, and which treats all people equally.”
THIS is what Marx was complaining about when he said ‘the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.’
But then, I guess as long as there is capitalism, there are going to be academics that style themselves as Marxist, and very carefully ignore that Marxism is a ‘guide to action.’
December 1, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Yep Gracchvs,
I’m always amazed by this. The Sunday Afternoon Paintball Commandos play at being Marxists, treating it all as a question of critiquing texts, media objects, etc., etc., etc., seemingly oblivious to what Marx actually talked about in his analyses, his focus on conditions of production, distribution, availability of resources, infrastructure, etc., while simultaneously using the very categories of the legal system upon which capitalism is based (their fetish for Kantian normativity and deontological thought) ignoring the conditions that allowed law, subjects, and normativity to be thought in this way. I’m as floored as you are that a whole paragraph, post, and many other posts have to be written to state such basic things and that then, when actually discussing material infrastructures, me and my fellow travelers are the one accused of neo-liberal ideology rather than those who think signs and texts are the most real and that change is produced by shifting the sorts of movies, television shows, and commercials are shown.
February 5, 2010 at 1:00 am
I’m late with this, but I know Trotsky definitely denounced Kantian ethics (and religious ethics, normative ethics), even if Marx didn’t himself expressly do so.
From Their Morals and Ours (1938):
“The so-called ‘generally recognized’ moral precepts in essence preserve an algebraic, that is, an indeterminate character. They merely express the fact that man, in his individual conduct, is bound by certain common norms that flow from his being a member of society. The highest generalization of these norms is the ‘categorical imperative’ of Kant. But in spite of the fact that it occupies a high position upon the philosophic Olympus this imperative does not embody anything categoric because it embodies nothing concrete. It is a shell without content.
This vacuity in the norms obligatory upon all arises from the fact that in all decisive questions people feel their class membership considerably more profoundly and more directly than their membership in ‘society’. The norms of ‘obligatory’ morality are in reality charged with class, that is, antagonistic content. The moral norm becomes the more categoric the less it is ‘obligatory’ upon all. The solidarity of workers, especially of strikers or barricade fighters, is incomparably more ‘categoric’ than human solidarity in general.
The bourgeoisie, which far surpasses the proletariat in the completeness and irreconcilability of its class consciousness, is vitally interested in imposing its moral philosophy upon the exploited masses. It is exactly for this purpose that the concrete norms of the bourgeois catechism are concealed under moral abstractions patronized by religion, philosophy, or that hybrid which is called ‘common sense’. The appeal to abstract norms is not a disinterested philosophic mistake but a necessary element in the mechanics of class deception. The exposure of this deceit which retains the tradition of thousands of years is the first duty of a proletarian revolutionist.”
Online source:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/morals/morals.htm