Richard Rorty / Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity
I shall define an
"ironist" as someone who fulfills three conditions: (1) She has
radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses,
because she has been impressed by other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as
final by people or books she has encountered; (2) she realizes that argument
phrased in her present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these
doubts; (3) insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she does not
think that her vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it is in touch
with a power not herself. Ironists who are inclined to philosophize see the
choice between vocabularies as made neither within a neutral and universal metavocabulary
nor by an attempt to fight one's way past appearances to the real, but simply
by playing the new off against the old. I call people of this sort
"ironists" because their realization that anything can be made to look good or bad by being
redescribed, and their renunciation of the attempt to formulate criteria of
choice between final vocabularies, puts them in the position which Sartre
called "meta-stable": never quite able to take themselves seriously
because always aware that the terms in which they describe themselves are
subject to change, always aware of the contingency and fragility of their final
vocabularies, and thus of their selves.
The metaphysician is still
attached to common sense, in that he does not question the platitudes which
encapsulate the use of a given final vocabulary, and in particular the
platitude which says there is a single permanent reality to be found behind the
many temporary appearances. He does not redescribe but, rather, analyzes old
descriptions with the help of other old descriptions. The ironist, by contrast,
is a nominalist and a historicist. She thinks nothing has an intrinsic nature,
a real essence. So she thinks that the occurrence of a term like "just"
or "scientific" or "rational" in the final vocabulary of
the day is no reason to think that Socratic inquiry into the essence of justice
or science or rationality will take one much beyond the Ianguage games of one's
time. The ironist spends her time worrying about the possibility that she has
been initiated into the wrong tribe, taught to play the wrong language game.
She worries that the process of socialization which turned her into a human
being by giving her a language may have given her the wrong language, and so
turned her into the wrong kind of human being. But she cannot give a criterion
of wrongness. So, the more she is driven to articulate her situation in
philosophical terms, the more she reminds herself of her rootlessness by
constantly using terms like "Weltanschauung,"
"perspective," "dialectic," "conceptual framework"
"historical epoch," "language game," "redescription"
"vocabulary," and "irony."
Metaphysicians then go on to
embed this distinction within a network of associated distinctions - a
philosophical theory - which will take some of the strain off the initial
distinction. This sort of theory construction is the same method used by judges
to decide hard cases, and by theologians to interpret hard texts. That activity
is the metaphysician's paradigm of rationality. He sees philosophical theories
as converging - a series of discoveries about the nature of such things as
truth and personhood, which get closer and closer to the way they really are,
and carry the culture as a whole closer to an accurate representation of
reality. The ironist, however, views the sequence of such theories – such interlocked
patterns of novel distinctions - as gradual, tacit substitutions of a new
vocabulary for an old one. She calls "platitudes" what the metaphysician
calls "intuitions." She is inclined to say that when we surrender an
old platitude (e.g., "The number of biological species is fixed" or
"Human beings differ from animals because they have sparks of the divine
with them" or "Blacks have no rights which whites are bound to
respect"), we have made a change rather than discovered a fact.
The ironist's preferred form of
argument is dialectical in the sense that she takes the unit of persuasion to
be a vocabulary rather than a proposition. Her method is redescription rather
than inference. Ironists specialize in redescribing ranges of objects or events
in partially neologistic jargon, in the hope of inciting people to adopt and
extend that jargon. An ironist hopes that by the time she has finished using
old words in new senses, not to mention introducing brand-new words, people will
no longer ask questions phrased in the old words. So the ironist thinks of
logic as ancillary to dialectic, whereas the metaphysician thinks of dialectic
as a species of rhetoric, which in turn is a shoddy substitute for logic. I
have defined "dialectic" as the attempt to play off vocabularies against
one another, rather than merely to infer propositions from one another, and
thus as the partial substitution of redescription for inference.
For us ironists, nothing can
serve as a criticism of a final vocabulary save another such vocabulary; there
is no answer to a redescription save a re-re-redescription. Since there is
nothing beyond vocabularies which serves as a criterion of choice between them,
criticism is a matter of looking on this picture and on that, not of comparing
both pictures with the original. Nothing can serve as a criticism of a person
save another person, or of a culture save an alternative culture - for persons
and cultures are, for us, incarnated vocabularies. So our doubts about our own
characters or our own culture can be resolved or assuaged only by enlarging our
acquaintance.
The idea that liberal societies
are bound together by philosophical beliefs seems to me ludicrous. What binds
societies together are common vocabularies and common hopes. The vocabularies are,
typically, parasitic on the hopes - in the sense that the principal function of
the vocabularies is to tell stories about future outcomes which compensate for
present sacrifices.
To extend the actuarial analogy,
individuals can be thought of as life-insurance underwriters. An individual can
be expected to invest or risk a certain proportion of his own assets in the
life of another individual. He takes into account his relatedness to the other
individual, and also whether the individual is a 'good risk' in terms of his
life expectancy compared with the insurer's own. Strictly we should say 'reproduction
expectancy' rather than 'life expectancy', or to be even more strict, 'general
capacity to benefit own genes in the future expectancy'. Then in order for
altruistic behavior to evolve, the net risk to the altruist must be less than
the net benefit to the recipient multiplied by the relatedness.
Richard
Dawkins -The Selfish Gene.
Τους δε νόμους τοις αραχνίοις ομοίους· και γαρ εκείνα, εάν μεν εμπέση τι κούφον και ασθενές, στέγειν· εάν δε μείζον, διακόψαν οίχεσθαι . -Σόλων
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Σχεδόν ενενήντα χρόνια από την ιστορική, καταφανώς επίκαιρη μελέτη του Walter Benjamin.
Η μαζική «οπτική
κατανάλωση» ή το σταθερό συντηρητικό των ίδιων συστημάτων
(παραλείποντας την
όποια ιδεολογική καλοπιστία στον τεχνο – προοδευτισμό).
Walter Benjamin / The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Panel painting is a creation of the Middle Ages, and nothing guarantees
its uninterrupted existence. But the human need for shelter is lasting. Architecture
has never been idle. Its history is more ancient than that of any other art,
and its claim to being a living force has significance in every attempt to
comprehend the relationship of the masses to art. Buildings are appropriated in
a twofold manner: by use and by perception - or rather, by touch and sight.
Such appropriation cannot be understood in terms of the attentive concentration
of a tourist before a famous building. On the tactile side there is no
counterpart to contemplation on the optical side. Tactile appropriation is
accomplished not so much by attention as by habit. As regards architecture,
habit determines to a large extent even optical reception. The latter, too,
occurs much less through rapt attention than by noticing the object in incidental
fashion. This mode of appropriation, developed with reference to architecture,
in certain circumstances acquires canonical value. For the tasks which face the
human apparatus of perception at the turning points of history cannot be solved
by optical means, that is, by contemplation, alone. They are mastered gradually
by habit, under the guidance of tactile appropriation. The distracted person,
too, can form habits. More, the ability to master certain tasks in a state of
distraction proves that their solution has become a matter of habit.
Distraction as provided by art presents a covert control of the extent to which
new tasks have become soluble by apperception. Since, moreover, individuals are
tempted to avoid such tasks, art will tackle the most difficult and most
important ones where it is able to mobilize the masses. Today it does so in the
film. Reception in a state of distraction, which is increasing noticeably in
all fields of art and is symptomatic of profound changes in apperception, finds
in the film its true means of exercise. The film with its shock effect meets
this mode of reception halfway. The film makes the cult value recede into the
background not only by putting the public in the position of the critic, but
also by the fact that at the movies this position requires no attention. The
public is an examiner, but an absent-minded one.
Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses
without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism
sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance
to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism
seeks to give them an expression while preserving property. The logical result of
Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life.
All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war.
War and war only can set a goal for mass movements on the largest scale while respecting the traditional property system.
This is the political formula for the situation.
The technological formula may be stated as follows: Only war makes it possible
to mobilize all of today’s technical resources while maintaining the property
system.
If the natural utilization of productive forces is impeded by the property system, the increase in technical devices, in speed, and in the sources of energy will press for an unnatural utilization, and this is found in war. The destructiveness of war furnishes proof that society has not been mature enough to incorporate technology as its organ, that technology has not been sufficiently developed to cope with the elemental forces of society. The horrible features of imperialistic warfare are attributable to the discrepancy between the tremendous means of production and their inadequate utilization in the process of production—in other words, to unemployment and the lack of markets. Imperialistic war is a rebellion of technology which collects, in the form of “human material,” the claims to which society has denied its natural material. Instead of draining rivers, society directs a human stream into a bed of trenches; instead of dropping seeds from airplanes, it drops incendiary bombs over cities; and through gas warfare the aura is abolished in a new way.
Mankind, which in Homer’s time was an object of contemplation for the Olympian gods, now is one for itself. Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order. This is the situation of politics which Fascism is rendering aesthetic.
Unwavering in their pursuit of a final result and honoringonly truth,
they proceeded from one understanding to the next, seeking to grasp each
historical phenomenon based on the sets of assumptions of its own time, thereby
justifying it in its historical necessity. This criticalhistorical method, in
principle common to the scientific community, is, as I claim, the exact
opposite of a dogmatic point of view which demands ongoing self-confirmation:
Mr. N could not overlook this either. His remedy is to revile the
historical-critical method denouncing any aesthetic view that deviates from his
own and blaming an age in which philology in Germany was raised to never before
imagined heights for “completely perverting the true purpose of antiquarian
studies ”
Future Philology! - Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff
ΠΡΙΝ ΤΟ ΣΦΥΡΟΚΟΠΗΜΑ :
Concerning talk about philologist, if it comes from philologists one learns nothing; it is purely chatter-for example Jahn. No feeling for what to defent, what to protect: thus speak people who still haven’t imagined that they can be attacked
Wir Philologen - Nietzsche
Για κάθε διαρροή εφευρίσκουμε
Και την ανάλογη σωλήνωση
Όπως για το μειδίαμα της
σοφίας
Το: let a smile be
your ombrela
Όπως η yoga έγινε γυμναστηριακή
Ό,τι λυγίζει επικρατεί μόνο μετά την κάμψη του
Το Dhammapada λέει
Καλός είναι ο έλεγχος του
ματιού και καλός
Ο έλεγχος του αυτιού, της
μύτης και της γλώσσας
Ήρθε η άνοιξη
Οι υποστηρικτές
της ουκρανικής κυβέρνησης αλληλοσυμπληρώνονται με την θέση της δυτικής
πολιτικής και προπαγάνδας ότι φταίνε πάντα οι απέναντι.
Οι διπλανοί τους πιστεύουν ότι ο Πούτιν είναι ο νέος ορθόδοξος οικουμενικός πατριάρχης, η μετεμψύχωση του Στάλιν, ο αντινεοταξίτης, ο ηγέτης των λαών και ό,τι άλλο μπορεί να διασκεδάσει πάνω απ’ όλα τον ίδιο.
Επηρεασμένοι από λιακοπουλοβελοπουλέους αλλά και τη μοίρα τη μαύρη.
Ας θυσιαστούν λίγοι
ακόμα για το καλύτερο, εφόσον κάθε Ουκρανή μητέρα κυοφορεί και έναν ναζιστή.
Αυτό που εκπροσωπεί
η κάθε προσωπικότητα καίγεται φτάνοντας εκείνο που αποκρύπτει.
Ευτυχώς σε
πολλούς έλληνες έλειψαν οι ευκαιρίες να εξουσιάσουν.
Για να φανταστούμε μια άσπρη
μέρα, οι όποιες αναταράξεις προκύψουν πρέπει να γράφονται κατ’ επανάληψη και καθημερινά, σαν τιμωρία.
The intention connected with competition is less that of doing the thing the best, than that of doing it as profitably, as productively, as possible. People study to get a position (study to be a good breadwinner), study groveling and flattery, routine and "business sense," work "for appearances and cash." So while it's apparently about doing "good service," in truth, a person is only looking out for a "good business" and money-making. He supposedly does the thing only for the sake of the thing, but in fact, because of the profit it yields. Indeed, he would prefer not to be censor, but he wants to be-promoted; he would like to judge, administer, etc. according to his best convictions, but he fears transfer or even dismissal; above all things, a person has to –live. So this hustle and bustle is a fight for dear life, and, in a step-by-step progression, for more or less "good living." And yet, all their toil and trouble brings most of them nothing but " bitter life" and " bitter poverty." All the bitter earnestness for this! Ceaseless self-promotion doesn't let us take a breath, to come to a peaceful enjoyment; we don't take pleasure in our possessions. But the organization of work affects only such work as others can do for us, butchering, tillage, etc.; the rest remain egoistic, because no one can, for example, produce your musical compositions, carry out your painting projects, etc., in your place: Nobody can replace Raphael's works. The latter are the works of a unique individual, which only he is capable of achieving, whereas the former deserve to be called "human": because what is one's own in them is of little importance, and just about "any human being" can be trained for them. Since now society can take into consideration only work for the public good or human work, so one who does something unique remains without its care; indeed, he might find himself disturbed by its intervention. The unique one will no doubt work his way out from society, but society brings forth no one who is unique. It is therefore always helpful that we reach an agreement about human works, so that they don't take up all our time and effort as they do under competition. To this extent, communism will bear its fruits. Before the rule of the bourgeoisie, even that of which all human beings are capable, or could become capable, was tied to a few and withdrawn from the rest : it was a privilege. To the bourgeoisie it seemed fair to put back into play everything that appeared to be there for every "human being." But because it was put back into play, it was still given to no one, but rather left to each to grab by his human powers. By this the mind was turned toward the acquisition of the human, which from then on beckoned to everyone, and there emerged a tendency which one hears so loudly complained about under the name of "materialism." Communism seeks to block its course, by spreading the faith that what's human isn't worth so much trouble, and with a sensible arrangement, could be gained without the great expenditure of time and energy that seemed necessary up to now. But for whom is time to be gained? Why does a human being need more time than is necessary to refresh his weary labor power? Here communism is silent. Why? To take pleasure in himself as unique, after he has done his part as a human being! In the first joy at being allowed to stretch out their hands toward everything human, people forgot to want anything else, and competed boldly for it, as if the possession of the human were the goal of all our desires. They've run themselves to exhaustion, and are gradually realizing that "possession doesn't bring happiness." So they're thinking of getting what they need by an easier bargain, and spending only as much time and effort on it as its indispensability requires. Wealth declines in price, and a contented poverty, the carefree pauper, becomes the seductive ideal.
Let's look back again. The world belongs to the children of this world, human children; it is no longer God's world, but the human world. As much as each human being can get of it, let him call his own ; but the true human being, the state, human society or humanity will see to it that each makes nothing else his own except what he appropriates as a human being, i.e., in a human way. Inhuman appropriation is that which human beings don't allow, i.e., it is a "criminal" appropriation, just as human appropriation is conversely a "lawful" one, one acquired in the "legal way." So people speak since the revolution. But my property is not a thing, as this has an existence independent of me; only my power is my own. Not this tree, but my power over it or my capability to dispose of it, is what is mine. Now, how does one express this power in a wrong way? People say I have a right to this tree, or it is my rightful property. So I've gained it through power. That the power must persist so that the tree may also be held, or better, that the power is not a thing existing in itself, but has existence only in the powerful I, in me, the powerful one, is forgotten. Power, like my other characteristics, such as humanity, majesty, etc., is elevated to something existing in itself, so that it still exists long after it has ceased to be my power. Thus turned into a ghost, power is-right. This immortalized power doesn't even expire with my death, but rather is transferred or "bequeathed." Things now actually don't belong to me, but to right. On the other hand, this is nothing more than a delusion. Because the individual's power becomes permanent and a right only by others combining their power with his. The delusion lies in their believing that they can't withdraw their power again. Again, the same phenomenon, that the power is separated from me. I can't take back the power that I have given to the possessor. One has "invested power:' has given away his power, has renounced thinking better of it. A property owner can give up his power and his right to a thing by giving it away, squandering it, and the like. And couldn't we likewise let go of the power that we lend to him? The upright person, the righteous person, desires to call nothing his own that he does not have “by right" or have the right to, thus only rightful property. Who is to be the judge and grant him his right? In the end, really, the human being, who grants him human rights: then he can say, in an infinitely broader sense than Terence, "humani nihil a me alienum puto," i.e., the human is my property. Do what he will, from this standpoint, he won't get away from a judge, and in our time the various judges that had been chosen have set themselves against each other in two persons who are mortal enemies, namely in God and humanity. The one appeals to divine right, the other to human right or the rights of humanity. This much is clear: that in neither case does the individual entitle himself. Seek out for me an action that today would not be a violation of right! At every moment the one side tramples human rights underfoot, while the opposing side can't open its mouth without bringing forth a blasphemy against divine right. Give alms, then you mock human rights, because the relationship between the beggar and the benefactor is an inhuman one; utter a doubt, then you sin against divine right. Eat dry bread with satisfaction, then you violate human rights with your equanimity; eat it with dissatisfaction, then you revile divine right with your reluctance. There's not one among you who doesn't commit a crime at every moment; your speeches are crimes, and every inhibition of your freedom of speech is no less a crime. You are altogether criminals! But you are so only because you all stand on the ground of right, i.e., because you don't even know, and understand how to value, the fact that you are criminals. Inviolable or sacred property has grown on this very ground: it is a legal concept.
Christianity is not destroyed, but the believers are right if they have trustingly assumed up to now that every battle against it could only serve for its purification and reinforcement; because it has actually only been transfigured, and "Christianity exposed" is the-human Christianity. We still live wholly in the Christian age, and those who get the angriest about it are the ones who most eagerly contribute to completing it. The more human, the better feudalism has become to us; because the less that we believe that it is still feudalism, the more confidently we take it for ownness and think that we have found what is "most our own" when we discover "the human." Liberalism wants to give me what is mine, but means to obtain it for me not under the title of mine, but under that of "the human." As if it was to be reached under this mask! Human rights, the costly work of the revolution, have the meaning that the human being in me entitles me to this or that; I as an individual, as this one, am not entitled, but the human being has the right and entitles me. So as a human being I may well be entitled; but since I am more than a human being, namely, an odd human being, it could get denied to just me, the odd one. If, on the other hand, you hold to the value of your gift, keep it at price, don't let yourself be forced to get rid of it below price, don't let yourself be convinced that your product is not worth the price, don't make yourself ridiculous by a "ridiculous bargain price;" but imitate the courageous one who says: "I will sell my life (property) dear, the enemy shall not have it at a cheap bargain''; then you have recognized the reverse of communism as the suitable thing, and then it's not: "Give up your property!” but rather "actualize your property!” Over the gateway of our time stands not the Apollonian slogan "Know thyself," but "Actualize yourself!" Proudhon calls property "robbery" (le vol). But alien property- and he's talking only of this-comes to exist as much through renunciation, surrender, and meekness; it is a gift. Why so sentimentally call for pity as a poor victim of robbery, when you are just a foolish, cowardly gift-giver? Why here again blame others as if they had robbed us, when we ourselves are to blame in leaving the others unrobbed? The poor are to blame for the existence of the rich. No one at all gets worked up over his property, but over alien property. People don't in truth attack property, but the alienation of property. They want to be able to call more, not less, theirs; they want to call everything theirs. So they fight against alienness, or, to form a word similar to property, against alienty. And how do they help themselves in this ? Instead of transforming the alien into their own, they play at being impartial and demand only that all property be left to a third party (such as human society). They claim the alien not in their own name but in the name of a third party. Now the "egoistic" veneer is washed away, and everything is so clean and-human! Propertylessness or pauperism, this then is the "essence of Christianity;"as it is the essence of all religiosity (devotion, morality, humanity), and announced itself most clearly only in the "absolute religion," and became, as glad tidings, a gospel capable of development. We have the most striking development before us in the current fight against property, a struggle that is supposed to lead "humanity" to victory and make propertylessness complete: victorious humanity is the victory of-Christianity. But the "Christianity exposed" in this way is feudalism perfected, the all-embracing feudal system, i.e., perfect pauperism. So, probably, this is once again a "revolution" against the feudal system? Revolution and insurrection should not be looked upon as synonymous. The former consists in a radical change of conditions, of the prevailing condition or status, the state or society, and is therefore a political or social act; the latter indeed has a transformation of conditions as its inevitable result, but doesn't start from it, but from the discontent of human beings with themselves; it is not an armed uprising, but a rising up of individuals, a getting up, without regard to the arrangements that spring from it. The revolution is aimed at new arrangements, while the insurrection leads us to no longer let ourselves be arranged, but rather to arrange ourselves, and sets no radiant hopes on "institutions." It is not a fight against the established, since, if it prospers, the established will collapse of itself; it is only a working of my way out of the established. If I leave the established, it is dead and falls into decay. Since now my aim is not the overthrow of the established order but my rising up above it, so my intention and action are not a political or social intention and action, but, since they are directed solely toward me and my ownness, an egoistic intention and action. The revolution commands one to make arrangements; the insurrection demands that one stand or raise himself up. What constitution was to be chosen?-this question busied revolutionary heads, and the entire political period is bubbling with constitutional fights and constitutional questions, as the social talents too were unusually inventive about social arrangements (phalansteries and the like). The insurrectionist strives to become constitutionless.
Max Stirner - The Unique and Its Property
Underworld Amusements
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