By R.C. Smith
The following is a series of essays commenting on among other things: the Occupy movement, a critique of the contemporary left, the concept of ‘systemic change’, an alternative philosophy of social change, the meaning of ‘social progress’, and the importance of developing an alternative anthropology, epistemology and cosmology as integral to the fundamental alternation of the present social order.
I. Living in a post-Occupy world
There is a beautiful phrase from Occupy I heard Michael Hardt mention recently: “our ideas are too big for your ballot box”. This encapsulates the problem the liberal and reactionary media alike had with understanding the Occupy movement. With regards to the contemporary left the same sentiment could be extended to: “our ideas are too big for your bookshelf.” In terms of the latter formation, the reason for the left academy’s bewilderment comes into sharper focus – it was the result of Occupy’s ability to think outside of a pedagogy that had failed the oppressed, and has come to be the mere reproduction of dead thought.”[1]
Understandably, there’s a lot of talk today about ‘social change’ and the ‘need for a revolution’. As I wrote recently, we all hold an idea about ‘social progress’ and how fundamental social change might happen. Some people are dedicated to policy, while others dedicate themselves to grassroots protest and alternative-building. Despite the differences in how we might approach the need for ‘change’, despite the differences in how we might perceive an ‘alternative social order’, the basic fact remains that many us recognise this need in the first place and this recognition means something:
Economic inequality is growing, the environment is being destroyed, education facilities are becoming increasingly corporatized and transformed into instruments of the economy, while social protests are being quelled with increasingly dramatic force and the mass surveillance state, which was once limited to science fiction novels, is now becoming a distinct reality.
In light of these circumstances and with the rise and fall of Occupy, the collective recognition of the need for some sort of fundamental social change is the one truth that many of us can relate to. The past two decades have been defined as ‘anti-capitalist’ for this reason. But in spite of all of the literature being published, all of the academic papers being pushed out, rarely do I read or hear people discuss the notion of fundamental social change from a perspective that captures foundationally the many-sided and truly integrative process of ‘change’: an philosophy of social progress that captures all of the dimensions of social, economic, political, psychological, emotional, epistemic, and existential life. Commonly, what we have are economic theories, political theories, psychological theories, educational theories, gender theories, anarchist theories, geographical theories, Marxist theories, neo-marxist theories, orthodox Marxist theories, socialist theories, communist theories, all of which tend to get bound up in their own terminology and academic squabbling and usually at the cost of the real struggle of ‘everyday life’ becoming lost and concrete viable alternatives being overlooked.
Nothing has been more evident than in post-Occupy political analysis, where many leftist academics seem content on chastising the Occupy movement as an utter failure on behalf of what is essentially their own brand of a theoretical alternative, instead of actually offering further support and initiative to ‘everyday’ people struggling in the midst of an unjust society.
In many ways, the collapse of Occupy revealed which leftist academics continue to cling to an increasingly archaic politics and form of theory, which, as one colleague recently put it, remains bound to the delusion of hierarchies and the cult of the professional revolutionary. This type of politics is one that still believes in the idea of that some great revolution is going to happen and that Occupy is a failure because it didn’t deliver the red flag on parliament hill, as opposed to the true radical academic circles who are more concerned with supporting real people and prepared to normatively engage with real grassroots struggle and a more genuine and honest philosophy of ‘social progress’.
As I recently cited in my essay about the Occupy movement and its emphasis on non-dominant, non-hierarchical organisation: the dismissal of occupy as a failure due to its refusal to replicate traditional forms of political engagement is verging on ideological. Occupy, if anything, should be praised for standing up and refusing under the weight of history to buckle to forces of domination, power and hierarchy.
Let’s be clear about something, the organisational principle Occupy embraced – that is, to reject dominant and hierarchical forms of collectivity in the midst of an alienated social world that thrives via the establishing of circuits of power and the exploitative dynamics of hierarchy – was not the source of its downfall. The manner in which certain academics groups on ‘left’ betrayed and attacked Occupy for its refusal to acquiesce to the dominating structures and systems of history is nothing short of disgraceful. On the contrary, Occupy was systematically destroyed by a highly coordinated attack that spanned several prominent institutional structures and channels of power. It was subject to fierce repression, which includes the use of tactical violence and police brutality.
The question today should not so much be ‘how did Occupy fall’ but ‘to what extent was it pushed?’ The dismal state of much of the ‘left’ and ‘leftist theory’ today is reflected precisely in its failure to support Occupy in the most critical and fundamental of ways. Instead, as a colleague of mine recently commented: the so-called contemporary left “cowers in half-filled assembly rooms,” bickering about the false idealism of a new communist project, rejecting anything that is not deemed valid within the ideological confines of its traditional political structures, attacking ‘everyday’ people for their indifference to an already perverted leftist academic cause. Instead of support the grassroots struggle for change, instead of engaging with people with humility as human beings, the ‘left’ is more comfortable to confront the notion of ‘change’ from the safe distance designated by the role of ‘professional revolutionary’, wielding abstract theory as though it might meaningfully intervene in situations of immense human suffering.
Indeed, what is perhaps most vile about the political analysis emanating from out of many leftist groups today, is how so many tend to implicitly or explicitly treat people engaged in struggle as though they’re chess pieces in some sort of theoretical game: ‘a means toward an end’. There are so many ‘leftist’ theories as to what ‘social change’ might mean or look like, but these theories are often so bound up in an ever rigidifying political or theoretical framework that they tend to treat ‘the alternative’ the same way bureaucrats treat the young men and women who are about to be sent to die in some corrupt war.
In opposition to this sort of politics, an alternative philosophy of social change should recognise that sustainable change, at least historically speaking, has never really come as a result of a flash in the night revolution that many seem to idealise today (a la the French Revolution. Rather it is a transitory, integrative and holistic process. For this reason I often see a lot of good in small ‘everyday’ examples of people practicing life ‘alternatively’: from the local farmer who practices more sustainable agricultural methods to the alternative school that takes a more humane, holistic pedagogical approach to the community or organisation that continuously works toward ‘horizontality’ and alternative economic systems. These seemingly small events might not represent ‘the end’ and may even seem miniscule when held up against a globally corrupt system; but they offer in the very least concrete ‘guideposts’ in how we might do things differently in a particular area. In their very existence they contribute toward historical transition, and they do so in spite of facing extreme pressure from the current international political economy and its recent wave of neoliberal policy, which constantly tries to undermine their efforts.
In closing, this is one reason why I personally advocate that Occupy wasn’t a failure. Rather society failed Occupy. With Occupy what we witnessed were real people engaged in real struggle, who, rightly or wrongly, didn’t subscribe to the notion of traditional political engagement: the return of communist party politics, the idea of an almighty revolution as a ‘grand event’, or a new deified politic. It was far more grounded and concrete: formulating in a very human way viable, transitory networks of change like worker coops, participatory economic theories, alternative agriculture. These of course are not the end, but they’re concrete steps toward a more whole systemic alternative in the process of historical change (i.e., the notion of transitory change).
II. An alternative does exist, only not as a replication of the historical left
These are no longer momentous days for the left, as I strongly believe that an alternative would transcend much of leftist narrative as we know it. Furthermore, whether it is orthodox Marxism or democratic socialism, I have a difficult time seeing fundamental social change emanating from out of almost every one of the traditional political movements of the contemporary left and here’s why:
First, while I am a fierce opponent of the right-wing political agenda, I am also highly critical of the more total contemporary political spectrum, which, if we were to follow the trail of historical narrative, is an ideologically conceived arena that has less to do with politics in a genuine sense and more to do with power, hierarchy, exploitation and coercion. In this narrative, where the struggle between democracy and its alternatives saw intense debate between liberalism and fascism and National Socialism in the 19th and 20th Centuries, as well as direct competition between (liberal) capitalism against socialist and communist movements – the context in which these battles were waged was never about the horizon of ‘revolution’ that people tended to purport them to be.
Indeed, from the moment of its conception in the 18th Century,[2] where as the King of France struggled to protect divine autocracy, the Constituent Assembly of 1789-91 split, and the radicals at the time moved to sit together on the president’s left whilst the reactionaries coalesced on his right,[3] “the ideological and spatial positions were already becoming interwoven, and the broad franchise and progressive taxation that became the politics of “the left” was already fundamentally of a limited horizon.[4]
In his truly radical critique of the modern political situation, Theodor Adorno, who was normatively concerned both with the possibility for emancipation as well as domination, displayed an unwavering awareness of this limited horizon of political narrative. While “Adorno’s works faced and sought to provoke recognition of the possibility and reality of social regression as well as regression in thinking”, his stance regarding the student protests in 1960’s Germany exemplify what I take to be a commitment not only to critical theory in the most fundamental sense, but also the idea of a truly emancipatory politics. Although widely misread as a complete and utter denunciation of student protests of the time, Adorno’s fundamental point remains entirely relevant today when dissecting the modern political situation as a whole. The ‘grain of insanity’ that is so deeply embedded in the unreconciled antagonisms of modern thought (modernity) does restrict, on a fundamental level, any attempt to establish an emancipatory movement in practice, leaving us either to recognise this dilemma or else risk repeating a history of coercive and dominating social systems.
Of course, this stance raised concerns among many on the left about Adorno’s Marxism, which I think Chris Cutrone does a fairly good job at illustrating in a recent paper which engages “the possibilities for reconstruction of and development upon the coherence of Adorno’s dialectic, as expression of the extended tasks and project of Marxism bequeathed by history to the present.” For me, my reading of Adorno is one that never see Marx too far behind. But Adorno’s Marxism I claim is, perhaps controversially to some, a more honest and integrative reading that allowed Adorno develop, as Cutrone rightly points out, “a critique of 20th century society that sustained awareness of the problematic of Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky’s Marxism.”[5]
In view of this, the outcome today between my political analysis and that of Cutrone’s is admittedly very different. I do not see any hope for the modern ‘left’ and regularly argue that ‘the left’ must be transcended not for the sake of itself, but for the sake of keeping alive the idea of an emancipatory politics and, perhaps more humbly, the basic concepts of ‘social progress’, ‘freedom’ and ‘justice’.
In turn, I agree with the view that, subject to one’s definition of democracy, capitalism and democracy are naturally in tension with each other. Keeping with Adorno, I think we can easily observe in history that “the capitalist economy formed the basic structure of Western societies whereas democracy was nothing but a surface phenonemon”, and that the integration of social democracy as the utopian veil over capitalism can usually be sustained until in moments of crisis, wherein even the most shallow illusions of democracy are abandoned to safeguard the interests of capital, exposing the truth of contemporary democratic capitalist society.
In terms of the modern political situation, I have not seen any evidence to suggest that the primary political movements on ‘the left’ are, in the total sum of their parts, in any way ‘radical’ enough to break from a history of ‘coercive, exploitative and authoritarian’ society. More fundamentally, I think Horkheimer and Adorno’s thesis in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) continues to uphold the foundations of a critique of the modern left as being anything but fundamentally radical. In their discussion on the relation between positivist science, domination and capitalism for example, the authors penetrate the core of the exploitative and authoritarian catastrophes of the left just as much as they reveal the underlying impetus of the right (fundamentally speaking).
The separation of science (and academic research) from values and culture is intrinsic to the fundamental direction of coercive and authoritarian society as a whole, and I do not see the modern ‘left’ free from this critique of epistemology. As scientism, which is symbolic of the ‘analytic structure’ central to Adorno’s critique of late-capitalism and, furthermore, the genesis of instrumental reason,[6] only deals with observable facts and at the same time becomes incremental to social development, society and culture have increasingly adopted a coercive logic that inherently supports the system of capital.
When I review much of the mainstream left, I not only see critique but also general theory end up valorising instrumental reason and its coercive logic, assuming the same ideological structures of thought evidenced in the political right. Considering that the basic mark of ideology is the hypostatisation of the most fundamental epistemological, anthropological and cosmological structures of society, the very cult of the left’s categories today must be challenged so as to ensure that they do not reinforce the systemic structures of antagonism.
While so many leftist intellectuals wear the ‘radical’ badge, the question remains for me whether much of leftist critique today is really that critical? I mean this according to the lack of not only any coherent theory of an alternative epistemology, anthropology and cosmology, but also a coherent systemic alternative and understanding of the process of ‘social change’.
There is a problem, as David Sherman puts it, “which is reflected in certain variants of postmodernism” about “whether there is any concept of philosophy left that has not been completely assimilated by the “totally administered society,” such that philosophy has been abolished by virtue of the very fact that it has ultimately not realised itself.” In turn, the need for a radical new account of philosophy is of paramount importance. As Sherman observes: “[o]f course, theory lives on – but the issue is whether it lives on as critical theory.”[7] Our challenge today is to realise and establish new standpoints of critique, and ultimately ground calls for new norms of critique in a foundational critical theory of society.
As a colleague of mine recently noted in following on from the idea of an uncritical critical theory: “the material reality of the subsumption of the academy and the pacification of critical space – that being the brutal suppression of the anti-fees student movement and subsequent fee increase coupled with increasing pressure on faculty to be “academic producers” and deal with even bigger classes and even smaller wages.” Furthermore, we witness today the process of an uncritical critical theory taking further hold as “much of the left” within our academic institutions have “yet to realise that the marketisation of education means making universities think like markets, not just act like them.”[8]
Out of this, and in direct response to certain strands of contemporary leftist theory, including the increasingly popular philosophy of Slavoj Zizek, the basic goals of 21st Century critical theory should not only be a fundamental, holistic critique of late-capitalism and multidisciplinary account of contemporary capitalist society; it should also directly support the self-empowerment and mutual recognition of people. It requires a fundamentally alternative theory of the subject, one which promotes efficacy and mediation over a theory of internal division (See: The Ticklish Subject: A critique of the Lacanian subject and Zizek’s notion of political subjectivity, with emphasis on an alternative). Moreover, in pushing toward a new alternative philosophy of social change we should return to Marx, who saw ‘history as nothing but real human subjects’ and uphold this form of Marxist thinking, which Adorno wonderfully summarises as follows:
While social forces have a tendency to go over the head of individuals, and while the systemic context of ‘(bad) society’ tends to produce and reproduce in history the same coercive, exploitative, authoritarian and dominating social systems, history itself: “does nothing, does not possess vast wealth, does not fight battles. It is man, rather, the real living man who does all that, who does possess and fight; it is not history that uses man as means to pursue its ends, as if it were a person apart. History is nothing but the activity of man pursuing his ends.” [9]
Furthermore, it is so utterly vital that critical theory today, coupled with an alternative philosophy of social change, “ultimately always points out that whilst systems may act in many supra-human ways and exist in ways very different to our own, they are ultimately human machines. Just as humans made them, humans can transform, change or deconstruct them”.[10]
It is the affirmation of the efficacy of people, who can change their sociohistorical situations that we must build an alternative philosophy of social change around. On the basis of an integrative and holistic approach, taking the best from what already exists as a means in the transitory process of sustainable social (historical) change, revolution should be understood in a ground-up or grassroots sense (Wilding and Gunn) that is in constant dialectical relation with the systems it wishes to put in place. Simultaneously bottom-up and top-down, rooted in a foundational theory of recognition (Hegel) as a many-sided human transformation (Gunn/Wilding) as well as an alternative theory of epistemology, cosmology and anthropology that works down toward a concrete phenomenological ethics – this approach at least glimmers of the theoretical horizon of the best we can take from everything that we know.
Less theoretically, the visions of Marx are also not too far in terms of a truly radical alternative political economy that, I argue, equally transcends the modern left’s fascination with a new communism or the opposite of a completely stateless anarcho-primitivism.[11]
Beginning with practical ‘everyday’ examples of alternatives, such as different alternative agriculture systems, peer-to-peer organisations, worker co-ops, alternative educational facilities, open source movements, horizontal communities – all of these examples are practical illustrations of the alternative systems and structures in affirmation of the notion of praxis. Are they an ‘end’ in themselves? No, they are not. But are they direct channels that can help empower and re-inspire the idea that change is within our grasp? Yes, certainly.
Indeed, while much can and should be criticised of these examples representative of different alternatives in different spheres of life – considering that the process of fundamental critique should never cease – they are nevertheless ‘signposts’ that can guide the beginning stages in the always unfolding, fluid process of transitory change and influence not a ‘new left’ but an alternative form of politics altogether.
III. The problem regarding the concept of ‘systemic change’ in the modern political world
Ultimately, the problem regarding the concept of ‘systemic change’ on a greater social level is simple: in our present political situation, a change in policy is enacted by those in power. We live in a dominant, hierarchical society where political practice is reduced almost entirely to a game of gaining and regaining power. The problem, however, is that truly radical, foundational change would represent a break from dominant, hierarchical society and also the fundamental structures and systems that produce the circuits of power energising the highly distorted form of modern political engagement.
In history, there have been several notable attempts where a party has believed that its manifesto represented ‘systemic change’ and it either unwittingly reproduced the same ‘(bad) social circumstance’ it sought to overthrow because it was not foundational enough in its theory of alternatives, or it tried to realise its vision of change via the channels of traditional political engagement. In terms of the latter, often what we witness is an emphasis on a new dominant leader, who can push through the ‘radical’ policy and who can therefore reinforce that vision of ‘change’ via traditional circuits of power. Ultimately, every attempt at achieving political change through this avenue has failed miserably, because from the very moment they conceived of power as a means to achieve their ends that acquiesced to the ideological systems in place and perpetuated structures of systemic violence. By trying to force through change by way of traditional forms of hierarchical, dominant political organisation, history shows us that those attempts more often than not end up replicating the fundamental structures, systems and relations of coercive society. These historical movements entered into the arena of power and domination with their soul intact and they left it having betrayed everything ‘progressive’ they thought they stood for.
For me, this is why I believe Adorno appreciated the question of ‘change’ best: he was aware that traditional political engagement was implicitly totalitarian and that ‘systemic change’ would represent a complete break from the concept of politics we presently subscribe. It would be a truly foundational and radical event that was rooted in an alternative epistemology, anthropology and cosmology. Perhaps more fundamentally, it would in the words of Richard Gunn and Adrian Wilding (2013) represent a many-sided human transformation rooted in a shift from contradictory recognition to mutual recognition.
On my reading of Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment, moreover, the very idea of ’emancipation’ resides in a foundational change in how we relate with ourselves, each other and the phenomenal world. In this respect, not only does ‘Systemic change’ represent a many-sided human transformation (i.e., a holistic or multidimensional theory of change), it also represents the process of a true alternation of present social coordinates: economically, politically, ecologically, relationally, epistemologically, psychologically, etc. This approach is not idealism, nor is it another utopian illusion or false Idol because according to this theory of change there is no ‘end point’. Change is a forever unfolding, fluid and working process that is given direction in often the most basic, grassroots and concrete of ways. It represents the telos of history without any final ultimate realisation of utopia, because the truth is that this form of change takes constant work (and reworking) as rooted in what I describe as an alternative anthropology, epistemology and cosmology.
IV. On an alternative philosophy of social change and the vital importance of developing an alternative anthropology, epistemology and cosmology
The concept of fundamental social change as illustrated in this series of essays raises the bar not only theoretically but also practically. I am not speaking simply in the narrowly pragmatic sense. Rather due to the nature and scope of capitalist society in the history of its formation and historical genesis as a dominant social system, the call of the hour is for a correspondingly foundational theoretical perspective. More than ever before, we need theories that challenge the systems, structures, maps of power-constellations, and conceptual apparatus navigating the social, political, and cultural infrastructure of global capitalism. In doing so, we should take what’s good from the old, while developing and engaging with the task of organising a critical theory for the 21st Century.
In a similar spirit to Dennis Redmond, I consider Theodor Adorno’s last completed work, Negative Dialectics, “an indispensable source-text for such a project, a treasure trove of post-national concepts and multinational models capable of decoding the informatic speculations of multinational capitalism, analyzing its developmental states and powerhouse export-platform economies, and intervening in its class struggles.”
To quote in length:
Perhaps Adorno’s greatest contribution … was the insight that any critique of multinational capitalism – what Adorno called the total system, and what we refer to nowadays as “globalization”, that adjective in search of a mode of production – must be as totalizing as the system it wishes to critique: not in order to mimic that system, but precisely in order to break free from its logic. Theory must negate the central mediation of the world exchange-net, namely the category of the totality, down to its innermost core, namely the global commodity form; only by leveraging the Marxian insight into the contradictions of that form, i.e. the clash between the particular use-value and the universality of exchange, can the power of the totality be turned against itself. Most scandalous of all, Adorno insisted that the totality is not a thing, i.e. a single institution, corporation, group of leaders corporations or even a single marketplace, but is rather a social relation – that is to say, a global aesthetic, political, theoretical and economic constellation, all at once. This has the significant consequence that the global Resistance ought to be as complexly socialized as the global division of labor itself – a polite way of saying, the realms of cultural, theoretical and economic praxis must respect each other’s local differences, while cooperating on a global level.
Needless to say, this is not quite what the 1960s activists who streamed in to hear the Frankfurt School’s lectures thought they wanted to hear, and there is no small measure of irony in the fact that Adorno’s greatest work, as initially unpalatable to the counter-cultural Left as it was to the arch-conservatives of the Right, should be one of the rare examples of /… praxis which successfully outlasted that era.
I’ve written much about Adorno’s negative dialectics and how it could be used not only in terms of formulating an alternative politics but also in terms of understanding the greater scope of ‘systemic change’.
Accordingly, I argue that fundamental ‘systemic change’ requires an understanding of the ‘truth context’ of ‘social progress’ to underpin its qualitative and quantitative evaluation: in other words, there needs to be a ‘truth context’ that acts as a backdrop to how we measure holistically the ins and outs of ‘social progress’. To put it differently, we need to ask ourselves: ‘How do we identify whether a certain form of change is truthful to the notion of ‘social progress?’ Here, I totally agree with Adorno. The very concept of ‘social progress’ must remain at all times grounded in the problem of needless social suffering. In formulating the question, we need to ask: what is ‘social progress’ if it does not remain engaged with the problem of needless social suffering and its systematic elimination?
As a beginning, if there is a problem with capitalism it is because it creates an order of needless suffering: from economic inequality and environmental degradation to the division of labour and the deep psychological afflictions of the mind numbing work week. We can measure the wretchedness or corruption of capitalism precisely in that it produces needless social suffering. Environmental destruction, the adoption of authoritarian systems, the division of labour, the establishing of false needs and superficial psychic paradigms, social and economic inequality, and deep exploitation – all these phenomena are essential to the system of capital and produce situations of needless suffering.
As Robert King recently wrote in his paper on Food Shortages, Social Unrest and the Low-Input Alternative: “Are the realities today, from food to violence not systemically related? Why is there poverty and hunger alongside the rise of global temperatures while polar ice caps melt at unprecedented rates? Why are there, at the same time, violent revolutions throughout the Middle East and uni-directional tendencies toward militarization? Surely, today’s crises are not isolated or random, but flow out in patterned-forms from the deepest structures of our society.”[12]
These structures should not only be conceived on the rationale for the political economy upon which our society is based. These structures should be seen as active across the whole of society: that is, across all dimensions of social, political, economic life. From the systems point of view, the current state of ‘(bad) society’ is a multidimensional problem that is the result of the conditions by which structural antagonisms are produced and reproduced as a more total social system governed by the logic of capital.
“The old idea of the revolution as an event is absurd. How could the entire re-creation of the world be carried by anything shorter than century?”[13] The answer is that we need to develop a new understanding of systemic change. For this reason, I often describe social or systemic change as being a many-sided transformation that is historically transitory. In other words, fundamental social change is not just a political or economic event subject to a flash in the pan revolution. Systemic change, I argue, should be seen as integral and multidimensional: it’s economic and political inasmuch as it is psychological, emotional, existential, relational, anthropological, epistemic, and so on. In other words, it challenges not only the systems and structures of the present political-economy, but the epistemology that operates in-behind the system of capital, the way in which we educate our children, the manner in which we interact with the ourselves and each other, the prominent forms of authoritarian parenting techniques, and the basic social and psychic paradigms we’ve established.
But to further clarify the foundational character of this perspective, let us look to recent comments I made in response to Heather Marsh’s papers ‘Binding Chaos’ (2013) and ‘How to replace democracy’ (2013). In these works Heather puts forth a wonderful and thought provoking argument about how to deal with the conception and implementation of certain aspects of an alternative social system. In our collaborative talks, I argued that while from a systems point of view many of the arguments and theoretical or conceptual alternatives that Heather illustrates warrant serious consideration, there is still a one-dimensionality present in her overall approach to the notion of ‘systemic change’.
Moreover, I argue that it is absolutely imperative that we begin to see systemic change as a many-sided transformation and not just a purely economic or political event. Considering Marsh’s work, for example: I think for an alternative theory of social change to become a concrete, viable alternative it needs to be grounded in both a fundamental theory of the subject (i.e., how to foster a ‘free flourishing subject’ as opposed to a hardened, repressed subjectivity so typical of coercive society) and also an alternative theory of social collectivity, which would ‘naturally’ emerge from out of the former. It would also require a many-sided, holistic or multidimensional view of the very concept of social transformation: epistemologically and anthropologically, as well as psychologically, relationally, emotionally, etc.
In other words, coming from a critical theoretical perspective, my biggest concern whenever one proposes any sort of alternative system is what the structural foundation on which such a system would operate might look like – I mean that in a fundamental, holistic sense. The relational, psychological, emotional, social (etc.) context would need to be quite different than it is now in order to support any social alternative let alone a truly systemic alternative. It would be very difficult to implement Marsh’s alternative to democracy, for instance, without a more foundational understanding of the concept of systemic change, which, I increasingly see as rooted in Hegel’s fundamental theory of recognition (See Gunn and Wilding, 2013).
The very systems in place today operate so differently on an epistemological, anthropological and cosmological level and, in turn, produce highly problematic, antagonistic social forces that go against self-governance (and so on). Alternative systems themselves must be grounded in a deeper foundation. I’ve witnessed so many alternative communities collapse even though their systems were well defined, because they were one-dimensional and – and this is crucial – they ended up perpetuating the same distortions as modern and historic society on a very fundamental epistemological, anthropological and cosmological level (the historical failure of ‘Communism’ applies here).
V. The historical genesis of ‘(bad) society’
Recently I was asked a very simple but interesting question that highlights the depth of the historical genesis of ‘(bad) society’: ‘do people get their politics from their parents and, if so, what impact might this have on understanding ‘systemic change’?’At the outset it was quite straightforward for me to suggest that often in authoritarian social circumstances, it is evident there’s an impulse to shape youth according to established views. The Hitler youth were an extreme example of this, but the coercing of youth can be observed in more ‘everyday’ forms ranging from contemporary education dynamics through to the instrumental techniques of mass media and even in how we parent our children, teach our youth to appreciate ‘capital’ and fetishise consumerist culture.
But what this question does on a far more fundamental level is that it makes us question the deeper process behind the historical genesis of antagonistic social structures and paradigms, and how we might alter the coordinates of society in light of a deep history of exploitative, hierarchical, authoritarian society.
I’ve written a lot about authoritarianism and education, especially in relation to (self-) developmental processes, which may shed some light on this issue. In essence, the authoritarian core of society goes a long way in assuring the continuous reproduction of specific structures in order preserve the ideological coordinates of the present social order. In different studies we see that the general underlying problem of authoritarian dynamics is a certain rigidifying of social structures, belief systems and most crucially basic self-developmental process with regards to youth. In other words authoritarian dynamics, whether in the family, the school, the workplace or society as a whole, have a direct affect not only on a social level but also on psychological, emotional, relational, developmental, etc. levels. Through a broad field of analysis we can see that this ‘rigidifying’ spans political, economic, cultural and religious spectra. And it just so happens that the current political economy owes much of its preference to its germaneness to ‘coercive, exploitative and authoritarian’ structures and practices.
Crucially, what a study of authoritarianism also highlights is the sheer maginitude of the historical genesis of ‘(bad) society’ across all dimensions of social life: that the current generation, the present and highly distorted institutional structures and social forces, can affect the next generation (and the next, and the next, and so on). This analysis can be applied directly to a critique of capitalism. With respect to the reproduction of the system of capital, we can observe both theoretically and practically that the capital system must continuously, as Robert D. King notes, “convert the bulk of its energy, materials, and information into the following structural components which must be reproduced for the system to perpetuate itself over time (brief list): 1) A structurally enforced inequality between capital and labor. 2) Constant accumulation of capital with expanding profit motive. 3) Property system with private ownership of means of production. 4) An in principle uncontrollable world market with requisite production objectives of capital. 5) Nation-state system as framework of international relations.”[14]
Indeed, King is right to suggest that if one of these components is removed than the capital system basically enters into economic and potentially political crisis. On the other hand, traveling deeper than the capital system itself we can also see that, from a foundational and holistic point of view, there is a whole range of structural components that help reproduce or in the very least reinforce the capital system (or almost any system of domination for that matter): these components span once again from across the educational, psychological, emotional, relational, epistemological, dimensions of individual and social life.
At Heathwood, there appears to be a growing emphasis toward the fact that we need to start perceiving ‘change’ as a very foundational, multidimensional and historical process that flows through and out of ‘everyday experience’ and ‘grassroots engagement’. There are obviously many philosophical and critical theoretical concerns when it comes to speaking about ‘change’ on a great level, such as an alternative theory of the subject or of anthropology, epistemology and cosmology. There are also questions ranging from ‘alternative collectivity’, social recognition, what an alternative legal structure would look like, and even why post-Enlightenment society has failed to realise humanity’s most basic emancipation.
Central to these theoretical investigations should always be the awareness of the problem of ‘needless social suffering’ as being the ultimate grounds of truth when it comes to judging ‘social progress’. As Lambert Zuidervaart writes, critical theory today must be guided by the question of: how could it be that “the progress of modern science and technology, which promised to liberate people from ignorance, disease, and brutal, mind-numbing work help create a world where people willingly swallow fascist ideology, knowingly practice deliberate genocide, and energetically develop lethal weapons of mass destruction?” (Zuidervarrt, 2011).
In this spirit, by approaching ‘systemic change’ as a multidimensional or many-sided transformation that affects all dimensions of social life, we should ask: ‘what would the change that we want to see look like?’ and ‘how do we measure it not just quantitatively but particularly (i.e., qualitatively)?’
Without sounding like a social democrat, it is understandable that many people would answer these questions by suggesting simply that they would like to see a world in which all people could live a healthy and fulfilling life without pressure to be somebody they are not, or to do things that they don’t believe in, or work a job they hate, or have their lives dictated by market forces. It is only understandable that a teacher would say quite practically that: ‘I would like to be able to respond to the needs and interests of students without the pressure corporate education standards, geared toward producing students-as-commodities. I would like to teach students in a horizontal way that diffuses the power relation between myself and the class, something so commonly enforced due to the systems in place which demand I meet set targets and do so within a rigid timetable and structure of petty regulations’.
It is understandable that a doctor might say that: ‘I would like to see a world in which a sick person is able to receive all the support that they need in order to get better and to lead a dignified and healthy life (or death) – not just medication that is controlled by a strict bureaucratic process or dictated by ‘big pharma’, but an holistic and integrated support system which is able to respond genuinely to their needs – whether these be for therapeutic activities such as arts and gardening, person-centred psychotherapy and counselling, a healthy and appropriate diet, good company, a nice environment to get well in, access to information and cultural activities, financial support.’
It is understandable that a mother might say: ‘I would like to see a world in which teenagers didn’t develop anxiety disorders and neuroses about their bodies as a result of the vain and consumeristic pressure so commonly communicated in capitalist society’.
These imaginations of ‘change’ are not those of the professional revolutionary, and that is what makes them most honest and vital. As a colleague of mine recently stated in discussion regarding liberals: “liberals can be more radical than vanguardists” because “while vanguardism is doctrinaire and small-minded, liberalism [in the radical sense] is spacious enough to include heterodoxy which the vanguard tends to stifle (hence why a large portion of’ radical liberals’ can conceive of a post-work world and have solid critique of state power).”[15]
In other words, rather than discounting ‘everyday’ needs or dreams of people regarding how to picture a better world, critical theory should be identifying with these needs as a concrete measurement of whether change is happening on a qualitative, ground-level scale. The real radical political spirit that might power an alternative movement is found here, not in some abstract discussion about why Stalinist communism might still work if only we revise its history of utter failure and bloodshed.
In turn, “the role of critical theory must be to help foster a train of thought capable of attracting all of the imaginations of people, and challenging those imaginations to contend with material and ideological realities.” In coming to formulate how this might be done we can at least begin by noting that it: “will necessarily be a dialectical process in which theory is instructed as much as it instructs. Theory here should be conceived beyond the traditional academic form: i.e., one in which everyone contributes in a critical and academic matter, no matter what they do to live, thrive and survive. Theory becomes the university without walls, a great shared creative space into which ideas are introduced, critiqued and re-imagined by anyone and everyone.”[16] (Additionally, we can see how they might function similarly to Heather Marsh’s idea of ‘epistemic communities’ as introduced in ‘Binding Chaos’ (2013), something which will need to be developed further in the future).
Of course, too, when supporting the fostering of conditions that would allow the imaginations of people to flourish there will remain questions around complex theoretical, practical and policy-related foundations and structures that will have to be worked out. The most important thing to consider here is that change is not just about reducing poverty or increasing access to education – it’s about a holistic and integrated picture of the life, health and well-being of the individual and the family and community context in which they live. And by ‘well-being’ and ‘health’, we should be determined to go beyond the conventional indicators of lack of disease, economic stability, and ability to participate in education and community life. We must challenge ‘liberal’ critique for its inability to identify the causes of social antagonisms to begin with, while also preserving the humbleness of fighting for basic psychological and emotional health, the health of a person’s relationships with themselves and others, the health of the environments in which people live, and whether people are engaged in activities and work which makes them feel happy and fulfilled in a way that is personal and meaningful to them. It is about whether people are able to be inspired, engaged, and have the opportunity to genuinely grow in life according to their interests and not by any means about conventional measures of ‘success’ or capitalist (i.e., market) exploitation that matters.
VI. The question today must be ‘how do we move forward?’
I agree with Althusser’s observation that: the reproduction of the already existing conditions and relations is achieved increasingly through the production and reproduction of suitable human subjects. If the reproduction of subjects takes place in the realm of ‘coercive and authoritarian social circumstances’ and coincides with the reinforcement of ‘instrumental reason’, the outcome is simple: the individual develops and grows in a social world where s/he needs to know how to act in relation to his or her position in the hierarchy. In ‘(bad)society’ one must accept his or her own exploitation insofar that the historical genesis of dominating social systems emphasise the production of the necessary states of mind needed to ensure the continued preservation of the existing state of oppression and exploitation.
But is this theory ‘(bad) society’ enough? Does it capture the more total picture of the reproduction of the core systems, relations and psychology of capitalism? There is undeniable truth to the notion that ‘coercive, exploitative and authoritarian’ structures or dynamics go a long way to supporting the reproduction of oppressive and dominating societies. If history teaches us anything, it is that the most dominating societies were also those whose deepest systems and structures functioned according to ‘coercive, exploitative and authoritarian’ principles. But what this theory of the reproduction of ‘(bad) society’ often misses is a more multidimensional understanding of social change. More often than not, to say that ‘dominating social systems emphasise the production of the necessary states of mind needed to ensure the continued preservation of the existing state of oppression and exploitation’ translates into very one-dimensional political or economic theories of an alternative.
Let me put it this way: isn’t the power of capitalism precisely in that it creates a threat of constant impending economic scarcity? What makes the system of capital so powerful is that it establishes a horizon of experience in which one must exist as though their situation is universally unalterable. Indeed, millions of people across the world might know that climate change or economic inequality are serious problems worth protesting, but to feel threatened at the prospect of losing one’s source of income or means of economic survival as a result of choosing to act against that system is a powerfully repressive instrument that capitalism naturally tends to wield.
Ideology critique is one thing, but understanding the basic experience of systemic coercion is another. For this reason I go against critical theories that treat human beings as mindless subjects that need to be told what is good for them. Ideology critique certainly has a central place in modern critical theory, but it is too easy to go on about how everyone is mindless without doing any justice to the concrete struggle so many people experience in a social reality that produces endless antagonistic scenarios, wherein at times no choice is a good choice.
In history, the general argument on behalf of civilization is that it eliminates the fluctuations of scarcity that accompany the indigenous. Civilisation, for the most part, has also largely been capitalist. But if the question is ‘how do we move forward?’ we must simultaneously understand a foundational critique of ‘coercive society’ while preserving a framework for the potential of society outside capitalist coordinates (Adorno). Conversely, for me, the idea often touted by anarcho-primitivists that the eradication of civilisation is the answer is false. To simultaneously preserve the concept of civilisation (Adorno), while challenging the most basic ideological structures and systems that operate in-behind a history of ‘(bad) society’, is the only hope we have in the midst of an otherwise hopeless state of affairs. To resort to the view that pre-historic society represents some kind of utopia, is to fall victim to the most basic form of false reconciliation. (In passing, it is interesting to note that while Hobbes, among many others, ontologises or universalises corrupt social dynamics as the unalterable human horizon, the primitivist thesis essentialises nature and conflates a critique of dominating social systems with an idealisation of a (false) reconciled human nature, which is just as guilty of ‘hypostatisation’ as Hobbes, albeit in reverse).
While it might be difficult to find historical precedent for peaceful civilisation, one has to begin small. History might be a ‘slaughter bench’ (Hegel), but in the midst of the history of ‘(bad) society’ – hierarchy, coercion, oppression, needless social suffering – it is important to recognise that people have also found a way to create more ‘healthy’ conditions, which, even if on a small scale when compared to an ultimately dark history, offers at least a glimmer of hope in the midst of hopelessness. This must be preserved. The idea of what people could achieve provided the right social circumstances should be the most basic element when developing a critical theory of society.
At the outset, it is clear that an alternative political economy needs to be formulated. Alternative forms of non-dominant, non-hierarchical collectivity need to be developed. A truly foundational alternative requires not only a fundamental change of the systems and structures in place; it also includes a fundamental alteration in how we relate to the world, ourselves, and each other.
Certainly there are many things we can learn from certain indigenous communities, just as there’s a lot we can learn from certain alternative communities across the world or alternative education facilities. The way forward is not therefore to be found in any ‘ism’ or ‘ist’, but through considering all of the good examples available to us that offer us direction in the different realms of social, economic, psychological, relational, epistemic, existential (and so) existence.
On a purely systems level, the concern will always be how to keep an alternative political-economy normatively ‘ìn-check’ so that structures of power do not re-emerge and policy therefore doesn’t ‘go over the head of the individual’. It would also require a reformulation of the notion of ‘leadership’, a definition that is quite different to what we understand as ‘leadership’ in a hierarchical, coercive social context. Even the ‘epistemic communities’ would take on some form of leadership simply on the basis of their position of knowledge and offering up policy recommendations, etc. The systems would also need to be dynamic, fluid and open to change, constantly adapting or adjusting to new needs so as not to become rigid and oppressive. But I think that this could be built in to the ‘normative critique’ of the system itself. I can think of certain alternative educational environments, for instance, that have developed very practical and functional ways to ensure that the daily practice does not violate the individual and is normatively geared toward fostering a ‘free-flursihing subject’ (i.e., at least certain aspects of an alternative epistemology, anthropology and cosmology that could support an alternative social system from the ground-up).
Moreover, my suspicion is that the most important element when engaging with alternative systems is the manner in which they are rooted in a truly alternative philosophy of life and a fundamental critical theory of society. In constructing a manifesto, for example, one would need to consider whether that ‘alternative’ reproduces in any way the fundamental structures underpinning the means of violence, instrumental reason, the (de)formation of the subject (Adorno), domination, etc.
We need to ask ourselves: How do we incorporate the idea of an alternative that would foster a healthy subject (i.e., a ‘free flourishing subject not inclined to create dominating social, hierarchical systems) and therefore healthy social relations? For instance, as I recently discussed with some colleagues who work in psychology: there is a real emotional component to the idea of change, existentially and psychologically. The observation is very basic: change brings uncertainty, a fear of the unknown, etc. which is such an understandable, human thing. Thus the role of psychotherapy today is to not radicalise people politically, because that would be coercive; but to assist and guide the individual to become more open to both them ‘selves’ and to the world, to open up their subjectivity, sensitivity, etc. This is just one practical way we can help support a fundamental theory of change. Another example can be found in certain alternative educational environments. In both cases, they affirm that a more secure person emotionally tends to be more open psychologically and experientially and therefore politically and philosophically: these environments or therapeutic processes encourage and help support people to be more efficacious and responsive, which is so important not only when it comes to truly practicing an alternative but also affirms the utter depth of what it means to consider a multidimensional theory of fundamental social change.
Notes and references
[1] In discussion with Automnia: http://automnia.tumblr.com/
[2] T. Ball and R. Bellamy (eds.) The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought Lukes, Steven. ‘Epilogue: The Grand Dichotomy of the Twentieth Century’ .p.7
[3] Geoff Eley, Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002) p.17
[4] “Left for Dead”, Automnia, 2013: automnia.tumblr.com/post/54203935812/left-for-dead
[5] Chris Cutrone, Adorno’s Marxism,. Platypus Affiliated Society, 2013.
[6] David Sherman, Dialectics of Subjectivity: Sartre and Adorno. SUNY Press, 2007.
[7] David Sherman, 2007. The Dialectics of Subjectivity: Sartre and Adorno (New York: Suny).
[8] In discussion with Automnia: http://automnia.tumblr.com/
[9] Theodor W. Adorno, 1992. Negative Dialectics (New York: Continuum)
[10] In discussion with Automnia: http://automnia.tumblr.com/
[11] It is interesting to note in passing that one of the many defining problems with anarcho-primitivism is that it completely misses an existential critique of what initially drove civilisation in the first place, and while negating the existential dimension of life it ends up valorising a utopian idealism of ‘nature’ as the welcoming bosom that it is not (hence the concept of ‘rewilding’).
[12] Robert D. King, Food Shortages, Social Unrest and the Low-Input Alternative. Heathwood Press, 2013.
[13] In discussion with Automnia: http://automnia.tumblr.com/
[14] Robert D. King, Food Shortages, Social Unrest and the Low-Input Alternative. Heathwood Press, 2013.
[15] In discussion with Automnia: http://automnia.tumblr.com/
[16] Ibid.
[17] Kurz, Robert. The end of politics: Theses on the Crisis of the Regulatory System of the Commodity Form.
[18] Kurz, Robert. The end of politics: Theses on the Crisis of the Regulatory System of the Commodity Form.
Additional reading
Theodor W. Adorno (and Max Horkheimer). Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford (1992).
Adorno, Theodor W. Marginalia to Theory and Praxis (1969). Also see: Adorno, Theodor W. Negative Dialectics. New York: Continuum (1992)
Debord, Guy. Society of the Spectacle. (Paris, June 1967). Chapter IX: Ideology in Material Form.
Fuchs, Christian. Critical Theory of Information, Communication, Media, Technology. Heathwood Press (2013)
Gunn, Richard and Wilding, Adrian. Recognition or Less-Than-Revolutionary-Recognition?. Heathwood Press (2013).
Gunn, Richard and Wilding, Adrian. Holloway, La Boetie, Hegel. Heathwood Press (2013)
Jameson, F. Late Marxism: Adorno, or, The Persistence of the Dialectic. London: Verso, 1997
Marsh, H. Binding Chaos. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013.
Marsh, H. ‘How to replace your democracy with governance by the people’. http://georgiebc.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/how-to-replace-your-democracy-with-governance-by-the-people/ (2013)
Marx, K. The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. New York: International Publishers, 1994
Marx, K. The German Ideology. New York: International Publishers, 1993.
Smith, R.C. Consciousness and Revolt: An Exploration toward Reconciliation. Heathwood Press (2012)
Torfing, J. (1999), New Theories of Discourse: Laclau, Mouffe and Zizek, Oxford: Blackwell.
Thomassen, L. The Politics of Lack. Essex: University of Essex, 2001.
Zizek, S. The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso, 1989.
Zizek, S. The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology. London: Verso, 2009
Zizek, S. Tarrying With the Negative: Kant, Hegel And The Critique Of Ideology. Durham: Duke University Press.
Zizek, Slavoj Living in the End Times. London: Verso, 2010
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R.C. Smith
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