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Review of “Revolution at the Gates”
Between Zizek’s eight-page introduction and his 144-page Afterword are the pages of Vladimir Lenin’s most important writings from 1917, the radical kernel from which the meaning of Zizek’s project is derived.
The situation that confronted Lenin and the Bolsheviks a hundred years ago, in which they are faced with a dilemma between political options that actually do nothing more than an attempt to reduce the working-class struggle to reform politics, is in fact the same situation that challenges the left of today: between postmodernism and liberal culturalism, the left is locked between these two dominant discourses which appears as the only opposed alternatives but really constitute as a strategy of the capitalist system. Instead of consenting to the prevailing choices, Lenin rejected and redefined the very meaning of these choices and opened the “third term” from which the working class can truly assert their struggle. This formula from Lenin's "What is to be done?" is the same formula Zizek resurrects, which is aimed to the contemporary opportunists and those who disguise themselves as Marxists. After the demise of the Socialist regimes in 1989, the Third Way discourse emerged in response to it. This theory insists that we 
have approached the "end of history and ideology" and, thus, the end of class struggle, and that the socialist imaginaries can no longer be pushed forward. No more ideologies; no more proletarians. Hence, the left is reduced in a dilemma: either to assert the old socialist ideology or to accept capitalism as "the only game in town." Those previous left who accepted the latter turned into conservative Third Way theorists, or what Zizek calls "the knaves"; the other reds who still assert their "progressiveness," are the so-called "fools", the partisans advancing postmodern political subjectivities – race, class, ethnicity, ecology, etc. Though the latter performs their particular resistances, they actually bear no threat to the whole capitalist system. Their critique of the system only strengthens its ruling discourse preached by the knaves. Hence, in reality, these two figures serve as supplements of the existing order.
In this post-political era of society, the sphere of the economy is depoliticized, naturalizing class antagonism, and translating it to tolerance of differences instead, the ethical gesture of respecting the right of others to their specific enjoyments. Other domains formerly considered as non-political become politicized. Analysis shifted from class politics to identity politics; struggles changed from ideological to cultural. However, in the series of particular contradictions, class antagonism remains as the structuring principle that allows other series of struggles to be articulated. It is not one among the chain of equivalences. All other particular struggles in the series will always refer to class. These are the partial resistances that capitalism tolerates. The real contradiction is always located through the horizon of class which carries the real threat to the capitalist system.
This celebrated “end of history and ideology” and the emergence of contingent postpolitics are what Zizek asserts as leading to the “prohibition on thinking” or “Denkverbot”, that any attempt to overcome the existing order will only let the things end up worse and create a new Gulag. One should challenge this by inverting Wittgenstein from “What one cannot speak about, thereof one cannot remain silent” to “what one should not speak about, thereof, one cannot remain silent.”
Instead of giving in to the temptation of false choices which appears as a deadlock between seemingly antagonistic options, in order to formulate a real political alternative, it is necessary to “think outside the box,” to find the “third element,” to take the most radical gesture of authentic Act, i.e. repeat Lenin’s gesture of redefining the very field through which perceived choices are grounded. It is this spirit of Lenin which continues to speak to the left today, which when performed will challenge the established social relations and disturb the phantasmic core, the doxa of the whole capitalist order. The terrain for class struggle remains open to assert its universality.
Jared Diamond’s work deals with how man’s intrusion in the environment caused some past civilizations to fall into ruin that used to be flourishing and the impending collapse of today’s societies. The book intends to remind its readers to learn from history to minimize the potential for catastrophic failure both in the developing and developed countries.
Diamond relies on five assumptions when he discusses the collapse of societies: societies fail to survive if they damage their environment, if they are adversely affected by climate change, if they have hostile neighbors, if their support by trade partners declines, and if they fail to respond to its environmental problems. The last one is decisive to all failures. Failures may be on the form of: failure to anticipate or to perceive a problem, failure to attempt to solve it, and failure to succeed in problem-solving.
The idea of “collapse” is initially tracked through a number of historical case studies which include the failed Polynesian cultures on Easter Island and in the southwest Pacific, the Anasazi and Mayan civilizations in the Americas, and the Viking colony on Greenland Norse. Besides attributing collapse to deforestation, resource exhaustion, climate changes, wars, Diamond includes in his analysis on the causality of the collapse of ancient societies the link between the environment and culture (e.g. Norse colony on Greenland). For him, societies’ cultural values can be catastrophic in the decision-making and can impede adaptation, thereby leading to extermination. By contrast, the New Guinea Highlands, Tikopia, and Japan during the Tokugawa period provide examples of premodern societies that avoided collapse and achieved environmental sustainability.
The next part is devoted to modern societies: the cases of Rwanda, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, in contrast to the cases of China and Australia. The chapter on Rwanda focuses on the genocide of 1994 and offers an example of what can happen to a poorly governed society that is unable to resolve its population and environmental challenges. The chapter on Haiti and Dominican Republic examines a case where two distinct cultures and political entities, coexisting on the same place and facing similar environmental challenges, achieve different outcomes. Haiti’s future remains unpromising, whereas the Dominican Republic’s future is relatively promising.
Today’s rapid advancement of technology and information, the expansion of modernization, and the deepening globalization are producing its own contradictions – increasing deforestation and habitat destruction, disappearance of tropical rainforests, soil erosion, salinization, introduction of harmful species, etc. Diamond also notes other categories that add to the concern: global climate change, buildup of toxic chemicals in food, soil, and water; exhaustion of energy reserves; and full utilization of the earth’s photosynthetic capacity. And compounded with issues such as full utilization of the world’s fresh water supplies, overhunting and overfishing, the ballooning of population and the increased per capita impact of people, according to Diamond, the earth’s capacity in the coming decades may likely not be able to sustain the next generation.
Diamond neither discusses the limitations of global markets nor problematizes the question of capital accumulation by big corporations. In fact, he asserts that the dilemma can be overcome by privatizing resources and giving owners a long-term perspective. For him, big businesses are not at all bad; without them, the environment cannot be saved. Economy, which he notes with little importance, will explain many of the reasons people conduct themselves wastefully these days.
Diamond’s assumption in formulating his analyses for the contemporary society is the same as the supposition of the Third Way theoreticians such as Giddens: that we are now living in a “risk society”. The perceived consequences brought by environmental degradation are such examples of risks to which Giddens’s theory refers. One crucial feature is that these new threats are “manufactured risks”, meaning, they result from economic, technological and scientific interventions into nature, which disrupt natural processes that it is no longer possible to avoid the responsibility by letting nature itself find way to establish again its lost balance.
Today’s notions of ecological threat – from global warming, the hole in the ozone layer, to the accumulation of toxic chemicals in the food we eat – are, for the most part, directly invisible and undetectable without the diagnostic tools of science. They are, in fact, “low probability-high consequence” risks, meaning, no one knows how great the risks are; the probability of the global catastrophe is relatively small; however, if the catastrophe occur, it will really be terminal. Thus, they are not external risks like a huge comet falling on Earth but the unforeseen outcome of individuals’ technological endeavour to increase their productivity.
How are these environmental risks approach the reality of capitalism? The notion of “risk” indicates a precise domain in which these threats are generated: the domain of uncontrolled use of science and technology in the conditions of capitalism. The sample case of “risk” is that of a new technological invention put to use by private corporation without public democratic debate and control, then generating the threat of unforeseen catastrophic consequences. Is not this kind of risk rooted in the fact that the logic of market is driving private corporations to use technological innovations and simply expand their production without taking account of the effects of such activity on the environment, as well as the health of people itself?
The conclusion that can be drawn in the present global situation, in which private corporations outside public control are making decisions which can affect us all, is that the solution lies in a kind of socialization of the productive process. In this kind of society, global decisions about how to develop and use productive capacities at the disposal of society would somehow be made by the entire people affected by such decisions.
Lacan developed a distinction between “knave” and “fool” as two kinds of modern intellectuals:
“The right-wing intellectual is a knave, a conformist who refers to the mere existence of the given order as an argument for it, and mocks the left on account of its ‘utopian’ plans, which necessarily lead to catastrophe; while the left-wing intellectual is a fool, a court jester who publicly displays the lie of the existing order, but in a way which suspends the performative efficiency [sociopolitical efficacy] of his speech. Today, after the fall of Socialism, the knave is a conservative advocate of the free market who cruelly rejects all forms of social solidarity as counterproductive sentimentalism, while the fool is a deconstructionist cultural critic who, by means of his ludic procedures destined to ‘subvert’ the existing order, actually serves as its supplement.” (PF: 45-46)
In reality, the knaves and fools are more the reversal of the standard figures of Rightist knave and Leftist fool (TS: 355-356; CHU: 325). After the demise of Socialist regimes, the Left is reduced between two choices: either to stick to the old Communist or Social Democratic formulas or to accept global capitalism as the “only game in town” (TS: 353). Today’s “Leftist knaves” (CHU: 325) are more the latter (e.g. Tony Blair of New Labour party who has moved to a more conservative wing) – particularly referring to the “kynical” (those who take advantage of the immediate condition) Third Way theoreticians who insist that we should leave the old ideological division between Socialism and Liberalism, that we have approached the “end of history and ideology,” hence, the end of class struggle, and that the socialist imaginaries can no longer be pushed forward.
In this post-political era of society, the economic sphere is depoliticized, naturalizing class antagonism, and translating it to recognition of differences instead. Hence, the emergence of identity politics – gender, race, ethnicity, ecology, etc. Rather than the political subject “working class” claiming its universal rights, we now have partisans (homosexuals, non-whites, women, environmentalists) advancing these postmodern politics. The latter are the “cynical conservative fools” of today. They resist the existing order in a way that bears no threat to the global capitalist system. Their critique of the system only serves as a supplement to the discourse of the knave.
The knave-fool roles are not contradicting. Both are created by the system and both exist for the system. What sustains each of the two positions is the kind of jouissance they obtain from the Master: they both have the illusion of “freedom.” The fools enjoy the reflexive freedom of lifestyles not constrained by Nature and Tradition.
The jouissance pertaining to the form that the fool and the knave receive as a payment for serving the Master is surplus-enjoyment or surplus-jouissance, which always appear as partial and incomplete, keeping them attached to the Master for “something more.” If the individual reaches the point of complete and full jouissance, the individual would be traumatized and crushed, since this absolute jouissance or the Thing only exists in the Real.
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Recall Žižek’s notion of pre-Oedipal (Imaginary) and Oedipal (Symbolic) stages. In the pre-language Imaginary phase, the individual is “complete” (desire does not exist here), fused to its mother, and “narcissistic” in the sense that the individual feels the world revolves around this being. This narcissism becomes latent in adult life when it is falsely identified with the Other. In the Symbolic phase, the Father (big Other) intervenes prohibiting the incestuous (Oedipal) relationship between the child and the mother. This is the point of the subject’s castration, the formation of “lack/void/hole,” and the development of desire to close this “hole.” The Father (e.g. the Church) is the paternal symbolic authority of the pre-capitalist era which prohibits subject’s incestuous access to the Thing or the impossible object of jouissance.
The decline of paternal symbolic authority (“decline of the Oedipus”) is being decried in the capitalist era. The “dead” father now returns as his Name (Name-of-the-Father) as the embodiment of the symbolic Law/Prohibition. His annihilation presents an illusion that subjects now have free access to the Thing, giving rise to modern individualism.
***
The Thing in the fields of the Imaginary and the Real is traumatic and formless. Individual’s existence is pre-ontological and can never be fully assumed (PF: 48). Žižek defines jouissance in the Symbolic stage as the “disturbed balance [or clinamen] which accounts for the passage from Nothing to Something... which provides the density of the subject’s reality... when he is deprived of it, the universe is empty” (PF: 49). The Thing can only take its form as a surplus in the Symbolic frame. Surplus-jouissance is described as “non-historical,” “neutral,” “free-floating,” “remains the same in all possible symbolic universes” (PF: 50), and always situated in a particular ideological field. The enjoyment the fans have for their favorite rock artist and the enjoyment the priest has in the presence of the Pope are the same; they differ only in their specific phantasmic fields.
Subjects are always-already displaced and decentered (PF: 49), because desire is not autonomous but constituted in relation to the Other. Since the Thing, the ultimate object of jouissance, is impossible to obtain, fantasies are constructed bringing the subjects into contact with “partial” and “incomplete” objects of desire, to make an attempt to close the “hole,” which always fails. So what the subjects receive is surplus-jouissance only, keeping them attached to the Other for “more” jouissance. Ideological fantasy serves as a screen to make the relationship of domination acceptable for the subjects. By “traversing the fantasy,” by recognizing that desires are the desires of the Other, subjects can break the chains of servitude.
***
“Traversing the fundamental fantasy” can be in two gestures: it can be an “empty gesture” or an “authentic Act” (TS: 265-268). The latter is more radical.
In the act of taking the empty gesture, the subject suspends the symbolic Law by choosing the impossible option – one that violates the symbolic Law. It appears first that the individual is free to choose, as if the superego tells: “You should do it if you really want to, if not, then don’t!” Between the lines, the superego further orders to “enjoy” what one has to do. Whatever the individual chooses, one basically is guilty of not taking the other choice. A double-bind actually takes place, which involves the “paradox of the superego” (TS: 268): in following the demands of the ego ideal (offered by the symbolic framework, which retains one’s symbolic identity), the individual is in effect guilty of rejecting his/her (from Butler’s concept) “passionate attachment” to the Thing; the same goes when one follows the fundamental desire (“passionate attachment”), as a consequence, one’s socio-symbolic existence is shattered.
In psychoanalysis, the goal is for the subject to reverse his/her “passionate attachment,” and thus to undergo what Lacan calls “subjective destitution” (TS: 266), because it will always lead to psychosis. Freeing oneself from the constraints of ideology is impossible because nobody can escape from the symbolic order. The desire for a sense of “wholeness” is an illusion to satiate either because as long as one is in the symbolic order, the “hole” can never be closed, it can only be “sutured” by “partial” objects of jouissance. Subjective destitution involves reconstructing the fantasy to give it a more acceptable sense. The problem here is that the same fundamental fantasy remains in effect, the phantasmic core is not really disrupted.
The more radical gesture of “traversing the fantasy” which disturbs the phantasmic core (the doxa of the existing social order) is the authentic Act (e.g. violent revolution, the political act par excellence). The subject to the Act is not the subject of subjectivization (TS: 374). The subject identifies with the symptoms and challenges the existing social relations. The Act always involves the choice of the Worse, something catastrophic to the existing discourse of the universe (TS: 377).
***
In connection to the “decline of the Oedipus,” the fall of the paternal symbolic authority implies the decline of the “ancien régime” – the death of the authoritarian Father which defines the subjects’ desires. The transition from feudalism to capitalism gives rise to a new regime. What the society now has is the “regime of the Little Brother” which supports modern individualism. In this regime, subjects define their desires. No Father-Master imposes what the subjects should do. The problem is that a system exists that has its own logic, so how can the subjects define their desires in this context? Since the Master does not tell the subjects what to do, everybody is hystericized.
In reality, today’s society is being manipulated by an Evil Master which appears in two figures (PF: 63-64; TS: 347-350): on one hand, a “visible” public Master reified by the “big Other” or symbolic institution; on the other, an “invisible” Little Brother who manages himself to appear as being one of us, a secret Master who actually pulls the strings of social life. The latter, “the Other of the Other,” is the one that hystericizes the subjects. This type of Master presents himself as an ordinary person with imperfections and weaknesses, making him appear more like a common peer to his subjects (thus, making it hardly perceptible for the subjects when they are being oppressed), and further supporting his symbolic authority. Žižek describes this as the dialectic of fetishization (TS: 349-350): commodity fetishism (relations between people that assume the form of relation between things) is in fact replaced by its opposite – i.e. it now assumes the phantasmic form of pseudo-personalized “relations between people.”
***
This “self-distance” is the very process – the condition of possibility (PF: 73) – how the ideological edifice effectively works. It always consists of two dimensions: an “obvious” surface (fantasy frame) which serves as an obscene supplement and a screen to conceal the “true” underlying dimension. Ideology sustains itself as long the latter remains hidden; without the phantasmic support, ideology itself will disintegrate. To maintain its control on subjects, they must experience it as not fully in its hold. The fantasy that constitutes reality is what the subjects need to make the Real bearable. (Thus the title, “Love thy neighbour? No, thanks!” For example, in the courtly love tradition, man’s desire for the lady is only sustained if she is observed from a distance, because encountering the horrifying Real of her presence will be traumatic for him).
Ideology discloses its inconsistencies when a subject no longer identifies with the symbolic order and when symptoms start to manifest. To reproduce itself, ideology needs to be supported by an obscene supplement; without the latter, ideology is “sexualized,” it “gets stuck” in a repetitive vicious cycle (PF: 71) of attempting to be consistent.
To understand the structural inconsistency of ideology, one has to do “anamorphic reading” which precisely involves the dialectical reversal of common perceptions (PF: 75-80). For example:
· Instead of perceiving Law as the agency which represses desire, one must perceive it as that which sustains desire.
· Deviance is not something that undermines the Law, it in fact further strengthens it, that when deviance is suspended, the Law itself disintegrates.
· Christ came down to earth not to deliver people from sin; Adam had to fall to allow Christ to come down to earth and save the people.
· Lacan’s reversal of Dostoevsky: Instead of “If God doesn’t exist, then everything is permitted” to “If God doesn’t exist then nothing at all is permitted any longer.”
What this anamorphic reading uncovers is the role of “negative magnitudes” ((PF: 81-82). In ideology, these refer to “obscene supplements” to conceal its Real (the positive dimension) and make it consistent. In subjectivation, these refer to objet petit a or objects of desire which “suture” the lack (the positive dimension) of the subject.
References
The Plague of Fantasies (PF)
The Ticklish Subject (TS)
Contingency, Hegemony, Universality (CHU)
This essay provides a theoretical foundation on the social psychological roots of authoritarian character traits produced by capitalist societies, which have remained consistent up to the present day and which have created the conditions necessary for modern forms of oppression and cruelty.
In the early modern period, the bourgeoisie was defined in terms of its struggle to emancipate itself from the shackles of feudal society and absolute monarchy. The bourgeoisie, weak to win this struggle on its own, was often forced to form an alliance with the lower classes, which also had an interest in overthrowing feudalism and absolute monarchy. The alliance between the bourgeoisie and the lower classes was not an easy one, in that the historical experiences of these groups on the new social order basically differ from the very beginning. The historical development of the bourgeoisie, on the one hand, was characterized as a process of unrestrained pursuit of their self-interest (egoism); the lower classes, on the other hand, experienced the development of capitalism passively and had fewer opportunities to satisfy their material and psychological needs.
In bourgeois anthropology, man by nature is egoistic. In the context of heightened economic and social contradictions, free competition was seen as leading to a state of war between individuals. Morality, then, was promoted and imposed officially by the Church ideally to restrict the ever-increasing free competition. Bourgeois concept of virtues such as self-discipline, self-denial, obedience, and submission were instilled in the masses by coercion and persuasion in favor of the “common good”. The contradictions contained in this bourgeois morality was that it served as a means of domination and a mechanism to further suppress the material interest of the masses, i.e. collective action.
Horkheimer expounds the concept of bourgeois anthropology by providing a genealogy of bourgeois freedom movements – particularly, bourgeois leaders in the medieval Italy (Cola di Rienzo; Savanarola), religious leaders (Luther; Calvin) of the Reformation movement, and the bourgeois leader (Robespierre) of the French Revolution. Each case has a particular dynamic developing between the charismatic leaders of these movements and their mass followers. The intense repression imposed upon the masses in the feudal order produced deep discontent, which was manipulated by bourgeois leaders to further their own ends. Leaders of bourgeois pseudo-revolutions magnified themselves as the “redeemer” of the people. While promising freedom, equality, and justice to the masses whose support they depended, they actually represented the interests of the ruling strata and served to perpetuate injustice. Though leaders were capable of inciting the people to rebel against the prevailing conditioned, they never intended to destroy the masses’ disposition toward blind faith in authority. Their appeals to the masses always stopped short of showing them how they might truly realize their own interests, their class consciousness, since from the very beginning, the bourgeois interests were not identical with those of the lower classes.
The historical situation determines the character of the bourgeois leader. Covertly, his actions correspond to the interests of the ruling sectors; overtly, he presents himself as “one of the masses”. The less his policies coincide with the immediate interests of the latter, the more the leader’s character is magnified into “charisma”. Contradictions contained in the character of a bourgeois leader are inherent for their achievement and historical function in the bourgeois world.
Horkheimer takes Freud’s concepts to show how high levels of repression reinforce certain psychological mechanisms among the masses. The egoism of the bourgeois, the unrestricted utilitarian drive, is the real “destructive drive”; the egoism of the masses for collective action is the universally denounced and disavowed one, manipulated by ideological practices.* Although the masses are prohibited from realizing their own consciousness, they nevertheless are capable to function as a motor to drive the process forward. The masses in the pseudo-revolution are set in motion by the more conscious and alert bourgeois wing. The repressed libidinal energy (repressed aggression for collective action) of the masses does not simply disappear, but is pushed into the unconscious, where its strength grows and develops. This surplus aggression is appropriated by the leaders to strengthen their dominion over the masses. Not only do the leaders encourage the masses to sacrifice themselves for the common good, and to identify with the leaders as the representatives of that community, they also provide the masses with objects for their surplus aggression. Directing their aggression against the “enemies of the people” (e.g. perceived tyrants, dictators) not only provides the masses with targets of their unconscious resentment, it also reinforces their sense of belonging in the community of followers. This sense of belonging, including the illusory “love” of the leaders for the people, provides psychological compensation for the material sacrifices of the masses.
Horkheimer’s concept of the bourgeois mechanisms of domination can be connected to Zizek’s concept of Master: its condition of possibility always depends on its obscene Other. In the context of today’s capitalism, domination is concealed by the superficial independence of subjects. No visible authoritarian Master imposes what the subjects should do. What the subjects now have is an invisible obscene Master which appears as one of its subjects. This Master sustains itself as long as its subjects do not experience as not fully in its grasp, as long as its real dimension remains hidden. The Master will only disintegrate when its phantasmic support breaks.
As the social space comprises a field of social antagonisms, so the media, as a whole, constitutes a sphere of struggle for the representation of social reality. Both fields are sites of contending discourses – the discourse of the dominant and the discourse of the dominated. The construction and presentation of reality are always relative on the person’s position within her/his field of profession and position within the field of society. Thus, when a person constructs a fact, the person’s relationship to the social world is being repeated. Either the constructed reality will serve the purpose of reinforcing the ruling discourse or will serve as an instrument to articulate the suppressed discourse.
It is noteworthy how the local documentary film collective and other forms of alternative journalism are breaking with the mainstream discourse of media, taking part in the politics of truth, and representing what the doxa of the mainstream media has been repressing. What these independent media agents are presenting about the society’s immediate condition are rarely seen or heard on the commercial broadcast media. Why? Because it is against the doxa of the latter to deal with the issue of political struggles and of state repression.
From a personal observation, political killings and abductions are simply presented and labelled by most radio/television news agencies as individual, unrelated cases, which in reality are widespread and patterned. This is, on one hand, sensible since the major television networks and radio stations are under the monopoly of elite families and corporations. The latter are largely influenced and protected by the State. Thus, by that type of media ownership, they serve the purpose of containing the system by diverting the attention of the larger public from the concrete reality of state repression, increasing poverty and class inequality, to the fantasies of civilian life (such as the fantasy of social mobility). Neferti Tadiar notes that democracy has never existed in our society. The kind of democracy that we have is deceitful, founded on the codes of fantasy in the West – consumer freedom, for instance – which enable the ruling class to maintain its hegemony.
These are the kind of media the State needs in order to survive amidst the current political crisis besetting it. Media are expected to project the government positively and depict social reality from the latter’s position. Any output that would be perceived by the administration as against its (the State’s) standard and a threat to its power are categorized as destabilizing schemes.
Even after the Proclamation 1017 was uplifted, more and more civilians including the members of progressive groups, unaffiliated individuals, human rights advocates, journalists are being killed, abducted, or subjected to arbitrary detentions. The State, desperate to maintain its power, is attempting to sow a culture of fear among the people by making these repressive acts – extrajudicial killings and abductions – explicit in its all-out-war policy against the Left in this country. And if the media agents will continue to be cowed by the containment strategies of the State, truth presentation will always be at stake, distorting or destroying it to secure the State’s survival.
In fact, media have been successful in fulfilling the tasks of serving as a “supplement” to the State to fill the desire to have a firm grip on power and complete control over its constituents (the present administration, well-aware of its illegitimacy and the increasing unrest of the people, has sensed its impending downfall, so another “supplement” or “point de capiton” is needed – i.e. the media – to help avert this perceived event); and as a “screen” to the concrete social reality to make it appear more acceptable to the people, and thus, help them live with it, instead of escaping from it.
In attempting to theoretically explain the issue of rampant human rights violations committed by the State, I would like to use my understanding on Giorgio Agamben’s concept of “state of exception.” These mechanisms was/being used by the State – the Presidential Decree 1017, Executive Order 464, calibrated preemptive response, media censorship, militarization, arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings, etc., which produce a chilling effect – form an impression as if we are living under a revived martial law. Rather than describing a state as under a “martial law” or a “state of emergency”, Agamben prefers to use “state of exception” as a more politically correct term.
As members of a polity, the rights of its citizens are regulated by law as an instrument. The law giver is the Sovereign, who governs its constituents. The Sovereign has the right to define who should be banned from the polity – the lawbreakers or Homo sacer; and has the privilege to take away the rights of its people on certain conditions. There are two ways in which the Sovereign carries out its power: first, by actuality – i.e. actively exercising its power by reverting potentiality, by legislating Executive Order and Presidential Decree, for example; second, by potentiality – i.e. by remaining passive and not acting. In regard to the latter, the Sovereign suspends itself, steps outside, and abandons its people (I am not sure if this can be applied: potentiality by withdrawing the basic social services they need). Compounded by increasing poverty and social injustices, these marginalized sectors establish movements to voice their grievances. The more the Sovereign remains passive to these people, the greater their discontent. With this growing social unrest, the Sovereign later perceives this as a violent threat to its power, thereby declares the “state of exception” or “iustitium,” suspending the law to maximize it (without dictatorship according to Agamben) to preserve the power of the Sovereign. Thus, the Oplan Bantay Laya, a counterinsurgency campaign, is being put into operation against the Left (the perceived Homo sacer) in this country. Hence, the rampant extrajudicial killings, abductions, and arbitrary arrests.
How should we, citizens, break this “state of exception”? According to Benjamin, we need to bring about the real state of exception – i.e. by pure violence to depose the “law.” The constitution to come is the basis of this armed struggle. This is the “authentic act” for Zizek. We should break with the logic of perversion and cut off our reliance from the big Other, the Sovereign.
Sa mga lipunang industriyal kung saan nangingibabaw ang postmodern Superego, kung saan walang malinaw na big Other na nagdidikta kung ano ang dapat gawin, makikita ang pagsulpot ng mga refleksibong sabjek. Sa realidad, may dalawang mukha ang Other, ang isa ay ang Law na malinaw na nakikita, ang isa ay ang obscene Other na hindi nakikita pero ang dimensyong tunay na kumokontrol sa mga sabjek. Ang tingin ng mga ito, sa pagwasak nila sa authoritarian Father, ang tradisyunal na Superego, responsable na sila sa pagpili ng kanilang destinasyon, na may malaya silang akses sa Thing o absolutong jouissance, at kung gayon, wala nang makapipigil sa kanilang ipahayag ang sekswalidad, baguhin ang sarili at iekspres ang identidad. Sa halip na sabihing “No!”, inuudyukan pa ng obscene Superego ang mga sabjek na “You may, because you can!” at “Enjoy!” Ang mga nakikinig sa tawag na ito ng Superego ay ang mga pervert. Sa pag-aakalang ang pagtawid sa Tradisyon ang makapupuno sa desires nila, binibili nila ng ang mga inilalakong partial objet a ng obscene Other, na ang resulta lamang naman ay surplus-enjoyment o surplus jouissance. Resulta, lalo lamang na tinatali ng mga pervert ang sarili nila sa obscene Other na ito, dahil naghahangad pa sila ng dagdag na jouissance sa pag-aakalang ito ang “bubuo” sa kanila. Pero ang totoo, magiging “buo” lamang ang tao, maaangkin lamang nito ang absolutong jouissance sa dimensyon ng Real.
Mayroon din namang mga sabjek na hindi nakikinig sa Superego na ito, ang mga hysteric. Malinaw sa kanila na castrated sila kaya mas pinipili ang celibacy dahil naniniwala silang imposibleng mapunan ang desire nila sa pamamagitan ng sexual transgression, may desire sila na mamentenang hindi mapunan ang kanilang desire. Maaarin rin na pinaniniwalan pa rin kasi nila na buhay ang authoritarian Father, at ang Superego na ito ang pinakikinggan nila.
Ganito ang lohika ng kasalukuyang kapitalismo. Inilalako nito ang indibidwalismo at reflexivity sa pamamagitan ng obscene Other, ang postmodern Superego. Tingin ng mga sabjek, marami silang mapagpipilian; wala nang Tradisyon na pumipigil sa kanila na gawin ang gusto; inilalako ito bilang absolutong anyo ng jouissance. Ito rin, sa katunayan, ang taktika ng kilusang New Age, na ibinebenta ang nosyon na pwede kang maging “buo” muli, at ina-apropriapriate naman ng sistema ng kapitalismo. Lahat ng mga ito, dumudulo sa pulitika ng identidad, na ang binubunga lamang naman ay perversion pa lalo, at kung may resistances, maliliit lamang na kayang kayang saluhin ng dambuhalang sistema ng kapitalismo.
Nagsisimula ang desire kapag may “lack.” Castrated ang sabjek pagpasok nito sa simbolikong kaayusan at naghahangad itong maging “buo,” kaya may desire, na imposibleng mangyari dahil ang pagiging “buo” ay magaganap lamang sa dimensyon ng Real, kapag nakatapat nito ang Thing (imposibleng objek ng jouissance o absolute jouissance) na siyang makabibigay garantiya ng “wholeness.” Kapag nangyari ito, wala na ang sabjek sa dimensyon ng Symbolic, dahil “traumatic” ang pakikipagtagpo sa absolute jouissance.
Ngayon, anong klaseng jouissance ang gumagawa ng “pag-suture” sa “hole” ng mga sabjek? Bakit temporaryo palagi ang jouissance sa paraang pabagu-bago at walang permanenteng “objet petit a” na nagsasara sa “hole”? Dahil sa loob ng simbolikong kaayusan, ang natatanggap lamang ng mga sabjek ay “surplus-jouissance” bilang katapat ng pagsilbi ng mga ito sa Other. Isa pa, ang desires ng mga sabjek sa Symbolic ay hindi autonomous kundi palaging nakadepende sa desires ng Other. Pantasya lamang ang pag-iisip na malaya ang mga sabjek na idepina ang desires nila; pantasya rin ang pag-iisip na pwedeng maging “buo” dahil hindi pwedeng tumakas sa Symbolic, maliban na lamang kung handa ang isa na mawasak ang socio-symbolic existence nito, at maging psychotic.
Paano maiaaplika ang mga konseptong ito sa kasalukuyang behavior ng mga kabataang Pilipino? Ayon sa huling sarbey ng YAFS, mas maraming mga kabataan ngayon ang nakikibahagi sa pre-marital sex, at kaunti ang gumagamit ng proteksyon. Marami rin umano ang nakikipagtalik sa higit sa isang partner.
Sa ibang bansa, partikular sa mga industriyalisadong bansa tulad ng Amerika, hindi na isyu ito dahil walang “visible authoritarian Other” na nagdidikta sa mga sabjek ng kung ano ang dapat gawin. Bagkus, ang operatibo dito ay ang obscene Superego na nagsasabing “Enjoy!” Sa mga lipunang postmodern lamang makikita ang ganitong karakter ng Superego. Kabaligtaran ito ng lipunan natin. Ang historikal na lokasyon natin ay nasa ang ika-18 siglo pa ng Amerika kung saan buhay pa ang Father, ang paternal symbolic authority na tumutukoy sa dominasyon ng Simbahan. Sa yugto ng kapitalismo, ang patay na Father ay nagbabalik bilang Name-of-the-Father, ang paglabas ng obscene Other. Hindi pa tayo postmodern dahil malaki pa rin ang impluwensya ng Simbahan sa pagdedesisyon ng Estado sa pagpapanukala ng mga polisiya (halimbawa, ang pagpapatupad ng sex education curriculum; ang paggamit ng natural method; pagpapatupad sa anti-abortion bill), gayon din sa pagpapalaganap ng norms ng lipunan, ng paghubog sa karakter ng Superego natin.
Bagaman hindi pa tayo ganap na humahantong sa pagkakaroon ng postmodern Superego, dala na global media, naiaangkop unti-unti ng ibang mga kabataan ang mga elementong postmodern ng Kanluran, kahit na tradisyunal na kultura pa rin ang nangingibabaw. Tignan na lang ang konsepto ng “pag-live in” na tinuturing na taboo noon pero tanggap na tangap ngayon. Ang pagiging batang ina tila malapit na ring sumapit sa ganitong pagtanggap. Sa mga komunidad urban, halos hindi na kinukwestyon ang maagang pag-aasawa, ang pre-marital sex at ang relasyong homosexswal.
Bakit nananatili ang ganitong mga risk behavior na tinatawag sa kabila ng mga pagtatangkang bawasan ang mga kasong ganito? Matatandaan na sa pamamagitan ng mga anyo ng prohibisyon, pinalalakas lamang lalo nito ang desire. Isa pa, may pantasya ang mga kabataan na ang “kabuuan” nila, na ang makapagsasara sa “lack” nila, ay ang pakikipagtagpo sa mga partial/incomplete objet petit a na ito –pre-marital sex, droga, alak at sigarilyo, mga barkada, pag-aasawa. Nagpapatuloy ang mga risk behavior na ito dahil surpuls-jouissance lamang ang nakukuha nila, at hindi ang impossible absolute jouissance na kinatatakutan nilang makatagpo. Ang mga ganitong behavior ng mga kabataan ngayon ay nagpapakita ng pagbabago mula sa perversion sa tradisyunal na Superego, patungong hysteria sa Superego na ito; hinahamon ng mga kabataang ito ang Superego ng tradiyunal nating lipunan.
Ganito rin tumatakbo ang kapitalismo. Nananatili ang dominasyon nito sa mga sabjek dahil surplus-jouissance lamang ang nakukuha nila sa Other. Nakatali sila sa Other na ito para sa dagdag na jouissance, upang i-suture ang desire, na kailanman ay hindi pwedeng maibigay nang absoluto, dahil kawasakan ito ng Other.
Natutunan kong yakapin noon ang pilosopiya ni Nietzsche at ang teorya ng postmodernismo, ang teorya ng pragmatismo, mga teorya ni Rorty, at iba pa na kalapit nito. Sa katunayan, naging bahagi pa nga ng pagtingin ko sa buhay ang konsepto ng ni Nietszche “amor fati”. Sa halip na paghinagpisan ang tadhana, tanggapin at yakapin ito dahil bahagi ka nito, dahil hindi mo matatakasan ang kaayusang ito (maikakabit kay Rorty); lumikha ng sariling naratibo at magkaroon ng “will to power” at hayaan ang sarili na “mag-expand”. Sa tingin ko medyo malapit ito (pero hindi hihigit) sa konsepto ng “lack” ni Zizek, na sa halip na subukang i-“suture” ito sa pamamagitan ng mga “partial objet petit a,” tanggapin na lamang ito bilang permanenteng “sintomas” ng pagiging sabjek ng simbolikong kaayusan. “Enjoy your symptom!” ani nga ni Zizek. Pero kung si Zizek ang tatanungin, “cheap” ang interpretasyong ito ng “amor fati.”
Akala ko rin noon sapat na ang pagpapahayag ng resistances sa sariling paraan. Naniniwala rin ako noon na hindi na angkop ang diskurso ng Marxismo sa kasalukuyang Pilipinas. “Cynical” (sa Zizekian na pagpapakahulugan) ako sa pagtingin sa mundo. Para sa akin, walang patutunguhan ang mga pagkilos dahil maliliit lamang ang resistances na ito kung ikukumpara sa malawak at komplikadong aparato ng estado. Kaya tingin ko noon ilusyon lamang talaga ang sinusulong na communitarian state. Hindi ibig sabihin na sinasang-ayunan ko ang neo-liberal na diskurso. Ang alam ko, may perspektibong kanan, kaliwa, at panggitna, at nakaposisyon ako sa pinakahuli.
Sinumang makakatagpo si Zizek, sasabihing “turning point” siya ng mga taong ito. Hindi totoo na “truth is what works.” May absolutong katotohanan na kinukubli ng kaayusan. May unibersong walang laman na pinupunan lamang ng mga dominanteng elemento. Walang panggitnang posisyon dahil sa realidad may dalawang diskuro lamang na nagtutunggalian: liberalismo at komunitarianismo. Kung akala mong wala kang posisyon, kinakasangkapan ka ng diskurso ng liberalismo nang hindi mo alam. Sabi nga ni John Berger, kumikilos lamang ang babae at lalake sa dalawang direksyon, pasulong o paatras.
Eye-opener nga si Zizek. Sa oras na makilala mo siya, malalaman mong pinapaikot lamang pala ng mga dating iniidolo mo ang pag-iisip mo. Yung mga bagay na akala mong tama, mali pala. Ganito nga kalakas kumilos ang doxa ng nangingibabaw na kaayusan. Kaya pati nosyon ng ideolohiya inaabuso na, hanggang sa parang hindi na ito ganon kaepektibo dahil naiangkop na sa doxa. Kumbaga may “enlightened false consciousness” na ang mga tao: malay na malay ang mga tao sa ginagawa nila, pero ginagawa pa rin nila (commodity fetishism). May sarili ngang lohika ang kapitalismo kaya kayang-kaya nitong pakilusin at ireprodyus ang sarili.
Ang Master palaging may dalawang mukha: may isang dimensyon na malinaw na nakikita (Law) at may isang dimensyon na hindi nakikita (fantasy; obscene Other). Kung wala ang obscene dimension na ito, wasak ang Master. Nagiging operatibo ang dominasyon ng Master sa mga sabjek dahil sa obscene Other nito, kapag hindi nadama ng mga ito na hawak sila ng Master. Ang mga nabanggit ko kanina hinggil sa “dating ako,” ganon patagong kumilos ang obscene Master.
Kaya siguro cynical ako noon dahil naka-angkla ang posisyon ko sa identity politics na ang inihahaharap lamang talaga sa dambuhalang sistema ng kapitalismo ay maliliit na resistances, na magaan na sinasakyan ng sistema dahil wala namang threat. Kaya itong mga knaves at fools na ito, ang mga nagpapanggap na Marxista, ang civil society, ang fundamentalist groups, lahat ay “supplements” ng sistema ng kapitalismong neo-liberal. Ang tunay na makapagpapalaya sa serye ng mga kontradiksyon ay ang uri ng mga manggagawa, ang unibersal na sabjek. Makikita dito na binubuhay talaga ni Zizek ang mga diskursong marhinalisado. Posible pa ang mga akalang imposible. Hindi hiwalay ang Real sa Symbolic. Pwedeng magkaroon ng “glimpse” sa Real sa loob ng Symbolic sa pamamagitan ng Act na tinatawag. Buhay ang pag-asa at hindi dapat isuko ang “Desire.”
Bourdieu, Chamboredon, and Passeron argue that “for the sociologist, familiarity with his social universe is the epistemological obstacle par excellence.” The researcher is very much a part of the world under study and subject to much of the same influences and constructions as the agents involved in the research project. Thus, the investigator tends to take the world for granted by unconsciously internalizing “everyday notions.” Problematics are constituted around preconstructions, demarcating objects of study on salient social problems such as the problem of ageing, the problem of youth, the problem of leisure, etc., which are falsely recognized as scientific objects. This taking over of prescientific definitions of problems has been the characteristic of sociology and the main concern which Bourdieu and his colleagues address.
In the construction of the object, it is imperative to break with familiar concepts and notions of the world, to move beyond the limits of common-sense problem formulations, and develop an autonomous object area instead, which has systematic foundations and formulates its own questions. The object is determined by conditions of possibility – the researcher’s disposition, and position within the academic field and the society. Being scientific means that the object is free from preconstructions, which requires a scientifically grounded knowledge or faith to the fabricated knowledge. As Saussure puts it, the object is constructed from a particular point of view. The investigator’s view of the object owes to his position in the social space and the scientific field.
The positivist tradition, on the other hand, asserts that the construction of the social fact must be objective and free from the biases of the researcher, who stands above the phenomena under study, because the broad aim is to uncover general “laws” that will predict certain relationships. Weber is critical on this illusion of value-free investigation. The researcher is very much a meaning-giving individual, along with other meaning-giving social agents, and is situated in the process of social life in general and research in particular. In contrast to the lofty positivist scientist, sociologist is necessarily involved in, and not above, the world under study.
Marx notes that the social world, the “real subject” in its “concrete totality,” exists independently outside the mind. The agents’ knowledge of it is mediated through the construction of concepts and categories, which find expression in words. Ideas about reality that words contain are best described as the property of the social agents bonded by common language. Thus, each concept or category – the practical knowledge social agents use to understand their world – are historically and culturally specific, existing as an “abstract one-sided relation within the given, concrete living whole.” Contact with reality, in so far as the agents become aware of it, is contact with a conceptualized reality.
Marx says that “the concrete totality is a totality of thoughts, concrete in thought, in fact a product of thinking and comprehending… The totality as it appears in the head, as a totality of thoughts, is a product of the thinking head, which appropriates the world in the only way it can, a way different from the artistic, religious, and practical appropriation of this world. The real subject retains its autonomous existence outside the head just as before...” Researchers are studying the same object, yet this is constructed in a diverse approach because of their varying frameworks owing to their stances in the field of social space.
In organizing the research problematic, Marx rejects the empiricist approach of taking the concrete totality, for example the population of a society, as the starting point of the research. Scientific investigation cannot begin with the concrete and then move towards more simple concepts until the relationships and connections are reached. For Marx, this is “a chaotic conception of the whole.” This is simple submission to the preconstructions, to the abstractions of common-sense. An illustration of this would include research engaging in the application of standardized survey instruments, taking apart the concrete totalities and replacing them with the set of abstractions such as occupation, income, educational level, etc.
“The concrete... is the concentration of many determinations... [a] unity of the diverse.” Bourdieu says that “the common sense knowledge of the agents, their ‘practical sense,’ is the starting point for any sociological understanding.” This is one step in developing an autonomous object area. The “practical sense” has its own logic, meaning, agents have a better knowledge of the social world under study than the researcher. The prime task of the investigator, equipped with scientific knowledge, is to reconstruct what is “concrete in the mind” of the agents – their conceptualized reality or practical knowledge. This is reconstructing social reality that is historically and socially unique to the agents designated as subjects of research.
For Weber, “total reality” can never be grasped in its entirety because of its infinite characteristics and complexity. Only a finite portion of that infinite reality constitutes the object of scientific investigation. The construction of social fact, which involves the selection of problems, phenomena, and relationships to be studied, is always based to some degree on the values of the researcher, the sponsors, and others. The analyses of social phenomena always depend on “one-sided viewpoints according to which – expressly or tacitly, consciously or unconsciously – they are selected, analyzed, and organized...”
It has been thought in the positivist tradition that the social fact achieves its importance, in the sense that it becomes “worthy of being known,” on the basis of the regular recurrence of certain relationships. These regularities constitute the general “laws,” which contain the “essential” aspect of reality. Individual events that cannot be explained by these “laws” are considered as “accidental” and, therefore, unimportant part of reality. Weber criticizes these assertions. He argues that the attempt to reduce reality to a system of “laws” leaves behind the meaning and significance of the reality in question. In contrast to the repeatability that is characteristic of the artificial constructions of empiricists, social facts are always located in their historical and social singularity.
Given the infiniteness of the social world, how is the researcher able to discern what portion would constitute the object of research? The construction of social fact is based, not on the knowledge of regularities, but on the cultural significance which the object has for the investigator. That small portion of concrete reality is colored by value-conditioned interest and it alone is significant to the researcher. The perception of the reality’s meaningfulness enables the investigator to focus on the characteristic richness and uniqueness of the object. That alone will constitute the object of causal explanation. “Cultural significance” cannot be conceived on the basis of general “laws.” A presuppositionless investigation of the social reality is, therefore, impossible.
To summarize, in constructing the social fact, it is imperative upon the researcher to cultivate awareness of its dispositions and stance within the social space (reflexivity) alongside the field position occupied by the agents to realize the value-relevance of the social reality relative to their positioning, and to sociologically reconstruct and make explicit the practical knowledge of the agents under study using the tools of the researcher’s “craft.”
Reference: Bourdieu, P., J. C. Chamboredon, and J. C. Passeron. (1991). “The Craft of Sociology.” Walter de Bruyter & Co. Berlin. Texts from Marx’s “Grundrisse” and Weber’s “The Methodology of the Social Sciences”
Between Zizek’s eight-page introduction and his 144-page Afterword are the pages of Vladimir Lenin’s most important writings from 1917, the radical kernel from which the meaning of Zizek’s project is derived.
have approached the "end of history and ideology" and, thus, the end of class struggle, and that the socialist imaginaries can no longer be pushed forward. No more ideologies; no more proletarians. Hence, the left is reduced in a dilemma: either to assert the old socialist ideology or to accept capitalism as "the only game in town." Those previous left who accepted the latter turned into conservative Third Way theorists, or what Zizek calls "the knaves"; the other reds who still assert their "progressiveness," are the so-called "fools", the partisans advancing postmodern political subjectivities – race, class, ethnicity, ecology, etc. Though the latter performs their particular resistances, they actually bear no threat to the whole capitalist system. Their critique of the system only strengthens its ruling discourse preached by the knaves. Hence, in reality, these two figures serve as supplements of the existing order.
