I received some free tickets to see Bon Jovi last night in Ottawa, and despite the rearview seating, I must say it was a great concert. I'm not particularly a fan of the group, though I absolutely love the Young Guns II soundtrack, and am sympathetic to their glam rock roots. The little I have heard of their recent albums before last night I can say I actively disliked. But anyone who appreciates top-notch musicians and performers, regardless of musical allegiances, would have been pleasantly surprised by Saturday's concert.
The first few songs, even the classic You Give Love a Bad Name, were full of cheese - brie to be exact. But a few beers helped break down the socially-derived inhibitions that make everyone crack a wry smile when they hear the name "Jon Bon Jovi". Quickly, I couldn't help but realize how impressive - in terms of effort, band tightness, technical talent, catchiness, and performance value - the band was. They kept the entire stadium cheering and singing until the very end.
The band spit out song after song, with no break or unnecessary banter for almost 3 hours. A few hilarious fillers, such as the 'time warp' intro to Runaway worked more to put a smile on the faces of the undedicated than to prompt ridicule or disdain. Highlights of the show were Ritchie Sambora singing These Days, and phenomenal versions of I'll Be There, Keep the Faith, Wanted Dead or Alive, and Livin' On a Prayer. Throughout, the band performed at the highest level, far outdoing most bands I have seen. Considering that this show is 25 years into their career, in a time when most of the "classics" are in decline, the effort was all the more impressive.
Say what you want about the flavor of cheese that Bon Jovi exudes, in terms of performance value, there are few concerts that could have been better. The full setlist from the show is available on Bon Jovi's website.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
Call It What It Is...
Canada's RCMP is embroiled in yet another scandal this week after the unprovoked "death" of a Polish traveller by taser. Robert Dziekanski had arrived in Vancouver after his very first flight with instructions to wait in the baggage claim area for his mother to pick him up. Unfortunately, she was unable to gain access to this area and her repeated attempts to make contact with her son fell on deaf ears. After some waiting, she was told by airport staff that her son never arrived and that she should go home (obviously they never bothered to check the passenger list). Nearly 10 hours after his arrival, unable to communicate with anyone around him, Robert became aggravated and began throwing objects around - though as eye witnesses described, not in a threatening or violent fashion. Though bystanders repeatedly insisted that Robert spoke no English and that a translator was required, airport security called the RCMP, who, without even assessing the situation, decided on tasering Robert. They then cornered him, tasered him twice with 50,000 volts, and proceeded to pin his throat down with their knees until he lost consciousness. This incident was captured on video and is available for viewing here.
Although no one in the media, to my knowledge, has come out and said it, we should call this incident what it truly is: murder. These officers willfully disregarded the life of this innocent man by rushing to taser him before even assessing the situation. At the very least this is clearly a case of involuntary manslaughter and should be tried as such, as a spokesperson for the Polish Foreign Ministry has suggested. When RCMP officers are murdered in the line of duty, we give them all the sympathy that they and their families deserve (and more). When they do the same to others in society - a society where every life is supposed to be equal to another - they are defended, or cautiously criticized.
Police brutality has a long history in Canada, most of which has gone unpunished. When individuals with the sanction of the state get away with murder, as happens all too often in Canada, we should be seriously worried. With clear evidence of this, in such a callous and despicable form, we should demand that justice be served on behalf of Robert's family, and our society.
Although no one in the media, to my knowledge, has come out and said it, we should call this incident what it truly is: murder. These officers willfully disregarded the life of this innocent man by rushing to taser him before even assessing the situation. At the very least this is clearly a case of involuntary manslaughter and should be tried as such, as a spokesperson for the Polish Foreign Ministry has suggested. When RCMP officers are murdered in the line of duty, we give them all the sympathy that they and their families deserve (and more). When they do the same to others in society - a society where every life is supposed to be equal to another - they are defended, or cautiously criticized.
Police brutality has a long history in Canada, most of which has gone unpunished. When individuals with the sanction of the state get away with murder, as happens all too often in Canada, we should be seriously worried. With clear evidence of this, in such a callous and despicable form, we should demand that justice be served on behalf of Robert's family, and our society.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Symphony and Sense Redux
I've been informed by a friend of a related question asked by Carrie Brownstein. Personally, my "line in the sand" is quite similar to Carrie's. I'm interested in a musical performance, not a dramatic spectacle with a soundtrack. Other elements that bother me are an avowed apoliticism claimed by the band, reactionary politics interspersed into lyrics, and to a lesser extent, a lack of complexity and originality in the work (i.e.: three chord songs in the key of G with some 'fresh' lyrics).
Democracy and the Rule of Law: Reflections on Gerald Frug
Listening to Gerald Frug talk about the concept of rule of law in relation to cities reminded me just how manipulative elites can be. Frug, a distinguished Harvard law professor, is concerned with the deconstruction of the idea of the rule of law as it is popularly understood and disseminated by politicians, businesspeople, and "think" tanks. As Frug points out, this usually is a particular model of market regulation focusing on improving the ability for individuals and groups to engage in capital accumulation. Hernando de Soto has argued in The Mystery of Capital that this, more than any other reason, is why the "third world" is still mired in poverty. In contrast to this notion of rule of law, Frug argues that its importance is in "restraining the excercise of arbitrary power".
This concept seems quite fair, but what exactly might we constitute as "arbitrary"? Fundamentally, Frug points out that arbitrary power is any decision-making authority that is not democratically excercised. This too warrants a definition: for Frug, "democracy is a lived experience" empowering people with greater control over their lives, rather than a simple electoral formula or representativeness in a legislature. Thus, Frug's ideal-type 'rule of law' is one that ensures that everyone's voice is involved in decision-making processes. As potential sources of arbitrary power, Frug cites governments, elite experts and professionals, and relevant to his city theme, neighborhood groups.
Beyond a dichotomous assertion of individuality implicit in Frug's understanding of rule of law, he hints at an essential point: if the legal system is founded, as in any representative democracy, on the arbitrary decisions of an elite minority (via the legislature and judiciary), then just how "legal" is it? Frug looks to the communal norms, customs, and checks on power in shantytowns around the world - in short the 'informal' segments of society - and determines that these arrangements are legal in their own right. The imposition of a formal legal system, especially when it is imported from afar via the WB and other development agencies, is clearly an excercise of arbitrary power that infringes on the legal structures of these state-autonomous regions. Now, the legal system of these informal shantytowns may be highly corrupt, immensely hierarchical, patriarchal, and brutally repressive - but then again, looking back on its historical development, so is our own.
Frug instead insists upon a notion of the rule of law that is flexible, situational and context dependent - one that is dynamic, not relatively static, and one that protects the "weak" from the "strong" instead of institutionalizing the power of the latter. Though he discusses this concept with reference to urban localities, he emphasizes that these local structures must not simply form an addition to the formal [national + subnational] legal structure, but radically transform it.
Elites who have a considerable stake in the particular idea of rule of law that is currently being disseminated (read: the formal liberal-capitalist legal structure) seek only to totalize its presence over society. This expansion, while often cloaked in the language of freedom and democracy, is clearly anti-democratic in the sense that it only empowers a small minority. But it is also opposed to the Frugian spirit of the "rule of law", in the sense that it seeks to bolster the hegemony of arbitrary power. This oligarchical format runs the risk of degenerating to blatant totalitarianism, as even if the content of the laws remain fairly liberal in nature, the structure of the legal system will not. Even Friedrich von Hayek warned us against this in The Road to Serfdom!
The rule of law is a welcome ideal that we must always strive for, if it is employed in the Frugian sense. But we should be intensely critical of this concept at all turns. If the bourgeois, questioning absolutism, asked "Whose rule should we submit to?", deciding among themselves on themselves via nascent "democracy", we the masses should ask the same question. Whose laws do we follow, even if we agree with many of them? Who determines which laws are right and just and which are not? Thinking about these questions for only a little while should reveal a radical disconnect between our "rule of law" and democracy.
This concept seems quite fair, but what exactly might we constitute as "arbitrary"? Fundamentally, Frug points out that arbitrary power is any decision-making authority that is not democratically excercised. This too warrants a definition: for Frug, "democracy is a lived experience" empowering people with greater control over their lives, rather than a simple electoral formula or representativeness in a legislature. Thus, Frug's ideal-type 'rule of law' is one that ensures that everyone's voice is involved in decision-making processes. As potential sources of arbitrary power, Frug cites governments, elite experts and professionals, and relevant to his city theme, neighborhood groups.
Beyond a dichotomous assertion of individuality implicit in Frug's understanding of rule of law, he hints at an essential point: if the legal system is founded, as in any representative democracy, on the arbitrary decisions of an elite minority (via the legislature and judiciary), then just how "legal" is it? Frug looks to the communal norms, customs, and checks on power in shantytowns around the world - in short the 'informal' segments of society - and determines that these arrangements are legal in their own right. The imposition of a formal legal system, especially when it is imported from afar via the WB and other development agencies, is clearly an excercise of arbitrary power that infringes on the legal structures of these state-autonomous regions. Now, the legal system of these informal shantytowns may be highly corrupt, immensely hierarchical, patriarchal, and brutally repressive - but then again, looking back on its historical development, so is our own.
Frug instead insists upon a notion of the rule of law that is flexible, situational and context dependent - one that is dynamic, not relatively static, and one that protects the "weak" from the "strong" instead of institutionalizing the power of the latter. Though he discusses this concept with reference to urban localities, he emphasizes that these local structures must not simply form an addition to the formal [national + subnational] legal structure, but radically transform it.
Elites who have a considerable stake in the particular idea of rule of law that is currently being disseminated (read: the formal liberal-capitalist legal structure) seek only to totalize its presence over society. This expansion, while often cloaked in the language of freedom and democracy, is clearly anti-democratic in the sense that it only empowers a small minority. But it is also opposed to the Frugian spirit of the "rule of law", in the sense that it seeks to bolster the hegemony of arbitrary power. This oligarchical format runs the risk of degenerating to blatant totalitarianism, as even if the content of the laws remain fairly liberal in nature, the structure of the legal system will not. Even Friedrich von Hayek warned us against this in The Road to Serfdom!
The rule of law is a welcome ideal that we must always strive for, if it is employed in the Frugian sense. But we should be intensely critical of this concept at all turns. If the bourgeois, questioning absolutism, asked "Whose rule should we submit to?", deciding among themselves on themselves via nascent "democracy", we the masses should ask the same question. Whose laws do we follow, even if we agree with many of them? Who determines which laws are right and just and which are not? Thinking about these questions for only a little while should reveal a radical disconnect between our "rule of law" and democracy.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Review: The Politics and Aesthetics of The Middle Passage
Good, politically charged films are hard to come by in a world of Hollywood tripe and aesthetic pandering. I recently watched the English version (2003) of Guy Deslauriers' film Passage du Milieu as part of a teaching assignment, and was pleasantly shocked that the spirit is alive and well, if only in somewhat marginalized indie films. The Middle Passage is a brutal indictment of the slave trade and colonialism, while explicitly making the link between the past and present experiences of those of African descent. It combines creative cinematographic techniques, various symbols of West African religion, and a clear and concise political message that is powerful, if not especially visually pleasing.
The Middle Passage tells the story of the experiences of the millions of people (250 million according to Deslauriers!) who were enslaved by West African kingdoms (such as Dahomey), sold to Europeans, and forced over the Atlantic ocean to work in the Americas, through the narrative of a murdered slave who still "haunts" the passage. It is a slow, symbolic, movie that aims for effect via the recurrent imagery of waves lapping against the hull of the boat, rats in the slave hold, and the festering wounds of slaves. The director uses an off-focus lens to blur many scenes, and often frames shots of the French slavers in a very depersonalized way, which works to establish the intersection of history (docu-) and memory (drama). The narrative simultaneously, and somewhat contradictorily, emphasizes the diversity of the African captives while seeking to construct a common continental identity among them by referencing a multitude of religious icons and shared social institutions.
While Deslauriers makes a good effort at this, the artistic aspects of the movie comes across as kind of bland, overdone, and even boring towards the end. The emotional response that he is trying to foster somehow didn't materialize for me - possibly due to the cerebral nature of the script. But the real strength of the movie is not its cinematography, but in the political message it advocates. The contradictory message of diverse "Africans" is laid bare in the final minutes when the narrator states that the middle passage was "a kind of vaccination" for the horrors of slavery to come, and that it created a "new race" of people. Although the temporal reference in the movie is deliberately unclear, The Middle Passage seems to be alluding to the notion of the creation of "race" beginning in the 1500s. References throughout the film suggest that it was the brutality of the Europeans that created a shared understanding of the "African", which obviously did not exist in an era of relatively isolated villages and kingdoms. This is powerful because it links the political claims of those of descendants of slaves in the present wholly to the atrocities of, and interaction with, the Europeans. In other words, the racialized identities of both Europeans and Africans are dependent on the longstanding historical relationship between these two broad groups, and thus any solutions dealing with present problems necessarily require the recognition of this historical interrelationship.
And this is precisely what Deslauriers unequivocally emphasizes. The narrator reminds the audience that it is not the descendants of those that suffered the horrors of the Middle Passage and beyond, or those who suffered under the ineptitude and greed of corrupt African "princes" that should be blamed for their current plight. Rather, blame should be placed on those who gained from this cruel institution and system of relations - and their descended beneficiaries. The institution of slavery is still with us, embedded in our postcolonial societies. If it is not prevalent in overt practice (though existent), it can still be seen in the inequality, discrimination, cultural denigration and remnants of a genocidal past that still flaunts itself in all of our faces. Deslauriers calls for - quite simply - a meaningful dialogue that actually seeks to address the past, rather than those noncommittal people who hope that the kinks will iron themselves out as time transforms memories into forgetfulness. He is much more critical of those who know, and yet actively seek to silence those memories. Ignorance is complicity, and to be complicit is to actively pick up the muskets and whips that European slavers and African kings wielded against so many human beings.
The Middle Passage is a refreshing political manifesto seeking to bridge historical memory with our present political praxis, and I argue that it does so quite effectively. However, this is likely to be lost on the very people that Deslauriers is trying to reach most, due in large part to the cerebral nature of the script and abstract imagery and symbolism. Moreover, from a purely aesthetic point of view, although the film flirts with genius, in the end it delivers a product somewhere between cliche and monotony. Unfortunately, I fear, the effect of the urgent political message greatly diminishes as a result of these failures. The general lack of interest in the film, though it it is available in both English and French, likely confirms my fears.
The Middle Passage tells the story of the experiences of the millions of people (250 million according to Deslauriers!) who were enslaved by West African kingdoms (such as Dahomey), sold to Europeans, and forced over the Atlantic ocean to work in the Americas, through the narrative of a murdered slave who still "haunts" the passage. It is a slow, symbolic, movie that aims for effect via the recurrent imagery of waves lapping against the hull of the boat, rats in the slave hold, and the festering wounds of slaves. The director uses an off-focus lens to blur many scenes, and often frames shots of the French slavers in a very depersonalized way, which works to establish the intersection of history (docu-) and memory (drama). The narrative simultaneously, and somewhat contradictorily, emphasizes the diversity of the African captives while seeking to construct a common continental identity among them by referencing a multitude of religious icons and shared social institutions.
While Deslauriers makes a good effort at this, the artistic aspects of the movie comes across as kind of bland, overdone, and even boring towards the end. The emotional response that he is trying to foster somehow didn't materialize for me - possibly due to the cerebral nature of the script. But the real strength of the movie is not its cinematography, but in the political message it advocates. The contradictory message of diverse "Africans" is laid bare in the final minutes when the narrator states that the middle passage was "a kind of vaccination" for the horrors of slavery to come, and that it created a "new race" of people. Although the temporal reference in the movie is deliberately unclear, The Middle Passage seems to be alluding to the notion of the creation of "race" beginning in the 1500s. References throughout the film suggest that it was the brutality of the Europeans that created a shared understanding of the "African", which obviously did not exist in an era of relatively isolated villages and kingdoms. This is powerful because it links the political claims of those of descendants of slaves in the present wholly to the atrocities of, and interaction with, the Europeans. In other words, the racialized identities of both Europeans and Africans are dependent on the longstanding historical relationship between these two broad groups, and thus any solutions dealing with present problems necessarily require the recognition of this historical interrelationship.
And this is precisely what Deslauriers unequivocally emphasizes. The narrator reminds the audience that it is not the descendants of those that suffered the horrors of the Middle Passage and beyond, or those who suffered under the ineptitude and greed of corrupt African "princes" that should be blamed for their current plight. Rather, blame should be placed on those who gained from this cruel institution and system of relations - and their descended beneficiaries. The institution of slavery is still with us, embedded in our postcolonial societies. If it is not prevalent in overt practice (though existent), it can still be seen in the inequality, discrimination, cultural denigration and remnants of a genocidal past that still flaunts itself in all of our faces. Deslauriers calls for - quite simply - a meaningful dialogue that actually seeks to address the past, rather than those noncommittal people who hope that the kinks will iron themselves out as time transforms memories into forgetfulness. He is much more critical of those who know, and yet actively seek to silence those memories. Ignorance is complicity, and to be complicit is to actively pick up the muskets and whips that European slavers and African kings wielded against so many human beings.
The Middle Passage is a refreshing political manifesto seeking to bridge historical memory with our present political praxis, and I argue that it does so quite effectively. However, this is likely to be lost on the very people that Deslauriers is trying to reach most, due in large part to the cerebral nature of the script and abstract imagery and symbolism. Moreover, from a purely aesthetic point of view, although the film flirts with genius, in the end it delivers a product somewhere between cliche and monotony. Unfortunately, I fear, the effect of the urgent political message greatly diminishes as a result of these failures. The general lack of interest in the film, though it it is available in both English and French, likely confirms my fears.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Symphony and Sense
Who doesn't like good music? Although I've met people who are decidedly (and self-describingly) "anti-music" in my life, most people I talk to are passionate about some form of music or other. I spent this morning indulging in song after song of my "favorite" music: metal. But instead of talking all about metal (though that will come shortly on another site), I would rather ruminate incoherently on the personal experiences that we have with music more generally.
Music, like all cultural productions, evokes an emotional response in the listener that depends on a whole host of factors. Contemporary researchers (such as Bourdieu) have focused on the socioeconomic influence on musical taste, but this is hardly the whole story. Certainly, common cultural bonds rooted in geography, 'race', and class play an important role. But alone, this analysis obscures the deeper connections that some people make with music: that is, the meaning that it has in the constitution of people's personal identities.
It is difficult, and dangerous, to separate personal from social identity - the two are as deeply interconnected as structure and agency. However, in our current technological era, with the ability for most people to independently engage with music, what motivates people to listen to what they listen to? Now, Bourdieu's concept of 'habitus' can take us some of the way in explaining this. For many, private musical consumption mirrors public consumption, easily explained by their internalization of the relevant and appropriate cultural norms for musical taste. But what about others who seemingly straddle typical 'determining factors' for musical preference such as socioeconomic status, geography, and historical time period? What about the poor black Georgian who is piqued by Nordic Viking Metal, despite having no prior contact to the subculture? There is something intimate and highly subjective about musical affinity at its point of first contact that cannot be wholly explained with reference to 'objective' social structures, as they are elucidated by Bourdieu.
I can remember well over a decade ago listening to Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz's version of Girl from Ipanema, having had no real prior exposure to anything Brazilian (though I did have a longstanding interest in Venezuela) and immediately feeling an unexplainable rush. "World music" was not a particularly popular genre at the time, Brazil had not then gained the international stature that it has now, and this was long before the advent of internet music (aside from MIDI). Prior to this experience, my interests were in popular alternative music and classic rock, hardly in sync with the off-time of bossa nova. How might I explain this sudden connection with a brand new musical style?
I don't think we should abandon the concept of habitus in explaining musical taste, nor am I arguing for a wholly, or even mostly, subjective relationship between an individual and their musical experience. Clearly, it would be false to presuppose such an autonomous relationship when both individual and music only emerge from within social and cultural contexts. But equally as clearly, there are ambiguous, contradictory, and counter-intuitive cultural currents that must be built into any concept of habitus. Any notion of habitus has to take into account what is at the depths of culture, not just at its surface. But to make a short foray in this direction, let me ask a question. Can you provide an anecdote of a particular musical taste you have come to like personally that does not match your 'objective' social background? Why is it that you like that music, and what made you engage with it in the first place?
Music, like all cultural productions, evokes an emotional response in the listener that depends on a whole host of factors. Contemporary researchers (such as Bourdieu) have focused on the socioeconomic influence on musical taste, but this is hardly the whole story. Certainly, common cultural bonds rooted in geography, 'race', and class play an important role. But alone, this analysis obscures the deeper connections that some people make with music: that is, the meaning that it has in the constitution of people's personal identities.
It is difficult, and dangerous, to separate personal from social identity - the two are as deeply interconnected as structure and agency. However, in our current technological era, with the ability for most people to independently engage with music, what motivates people to listen to what they listen to? Now, Bourdieu's concept of 'habitus' can take us some of the way in explaining this. For many, private musical consumption mirrors public consumption, easily explained by their internalization of the relevant and appropriate cultural norms for musical taste. But what about others who seemingly straddle typical 'determining factors' for musical preference such as socioeconomic status, geography, and historical time period? What about the poor black Georgian who is piqued by Nordic Viking Metal, despite having no prior contact to the subculture? There is something intimate and highly subjective about musical affinity at its point of first contact that cannot be wholly explained with reference to 'objective' social structures, as they are elucidated by Bourdieu.
I can remember well over a decade ago listening to Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz's version of Girl from Ipanema, having had no real prior exposure to anything Brazilian (though I did have a longstanding interest in Venezuela) and immediately feeling an unexplainable rush. "World music" was not a particularly popular genre at the time, Brazil had not then gained the international stature that it has now, and this was long before the advent of internet music (aside from MIDI). Prior to this experience, my interests were in popular alternative music and classic rock, hardly in sync with the off-time of bossa nova. How might I explain this sudden connection with a brand new musical style?
I don't think we should abandon the concept of habitus in explaining musical taste, nor am I arguing for a wholly, or even mostly, subjective relationship between an individual and their musical experience. Clearly, it would be false to presuppose such an autonomous relationship when both individual and music only emerge from within social and cultural contexts. But equally as clearly, there are ambiguous, contradictory, and counter-intuitive cultural currents that must be built into any concept of habitus. Any notion of habitus has to take into account what is at the depths of culture, not just at its surface. But to make a short foray in this direction, let me ask a question. Can you provide an anecdote of a particular musical taste you have come to like personally that does not match your 'objective' social background? Why is it that you like that music, and what made you engage with it in the first place?
Monday, October 29, 2007
Response: On Realism and Environmental Advocacy
A debate has been brewing over the last few weeks between myself and a colleague of mine on the nature of 'truth' and reality and its extension to environmental advocacy strategies. This debate has been especially interesting, picking up from my post on Manuel DeLanda earlier this month and leading most recently to a comment, which I highly recommend reading, available here. The following is a response to that posting, along with a summary reiteration of my earlier position.
I appreciate the simplification of my point - which I wouldn't call 'postmodernist' as much as a position within 'Critical Theory' - but I think what I was trying to get at was missed in the process. Fundamentally, the two positions you are describing involve truth claims about the world, and it is precisely this that I want to think critically about. First, I’ll explain my ‘philosophical’ (or methodological) position on this, then my ‘political’, and finally, bring the two together.
The points that Manuel DeLanda uses to justify his realism, and the ones you bring up in your posting, are inevitably anthropocentric, as is my own position. But they are also anthropomorphic, something I want to explicitly argue against. Let me ask a simple question - 'What is Art?' Is it art when it appears on a tableau? When it involves patterns? When it is 'consciously' or 'deliberately' created? These are extremely biased questions about what is essentially an anthropocentric concept to begin with. We, socially subjectively, define the limits of what "art" is and determine what qualifies and what does not. DeLanda imputes a thoroughly human (and likely culturally specific) understanding of 'art' onto the birds in his example to make a point about the realm of humans - a blatant display of anthropomorphism. In contrast, I argue that any definitive claims about realms outside the human experience are necessarily anthropomorphic, and thus we should readily disclose that position, instead of making and hiding human concepts, values and beliefs in the secure sphere of a higher authority ('nature'). This is ultimately a question of power: to what extent are aspects of humanity immutable - that is, 'natural'? To what extent do our social institutions, practices and norms, beliefs and values have objectively independent manifestations outside of humanity?
This has important implications for the various politics that we are constantly engaged in, especially the current struggle over human ecology. But I look to history to determine how we might frame and shape it. Marxists and Anarchists have long sought to reorient the terms of their debates with their political opponents by freeing it from the realm of humans, thereby gaining legitimacy and authority to carry out their various projects. In these cases, it was partly idealism, stemming from a higher religious authority, that spurred them to embrace the kind of realism that Mao and Lenin were thinking of when they argued that the dialectic contradiction was an essential characteristic of every unit of matter in the universe. Kropotkin tirelessly appealed to the natural world to shore up support for the ideas that mutual aid institutions are a natural part of humanity, against the realism of disfigured Darwinists.
This is an appealing strategy for political action, since it appears to be the ‘easy way out’. By establishing a truth claim that supports your political values, you only need to extend that truth claim to dominate all others, and defend it vigorously against future competing truth claims. Conversely, by orienting human questions around human values, you condition yourself to an endless and grueling battle to assert the "hegemony" (used loosely) of certain values - a constant flux of power-laden ideas, unanchorable within our social vortex. We know the story of the former strategy - realism was coopted (and significantly placed on a pedestal) by those who used it to hide a different set of values within the absolute truths of our time. Pertaining to ecology, realism proved to be highly amenable to the transformation that 'the Great Chain of Being' was to undergo with the loss of its Christian foundations. Carried on in the tradition of Western science, and aided and abetted by scientific Marxism at every turn, what many environmentalists struggle so hard against today has its genesis in the tradition of realism.
Concerning environmental advocacy, the reorientation of debates away from instrumental rationality, though an extremely difficult task, is both necessary and desirable. But how this is done is perhaps my political point of contention. Using realism to achieve this goal - by exclaiming that, objectively, every aspect of non-human nature is "good, in and of itself" - does nothing to challenge the power structure of the human belief system, and is almost certainly to lead to the eventual resurgence of instrumental rationality. In political terms, what is needed is not a change in the government of the governance of the ecological debate, but a regime change that transforms the foundational elements of the way truths are constructed in society.
Thus, I see the philosophical component of environmental advocacy as inextricably intertwined with the political projects that make it up. However, my point was fundamentally missed by equating anthropocentrism with cost-benefit instrumental rationality and with postmodernism (it is not through discourse that we can only understand the world, but as humans, only in human terms, terms which may be fundamentally experiential and non-discursive). What Weber meant by instrumental rationality, and as Habermas has subsequently developed, is not that the the act of valuation is free of 'ends'. I value a tree because it fulfills a psychological and emotional function of my humanity, not because it will become a chair I will sit on. Rather, it is the kind of thought (and really valuation, but a critique of Weber will have to wait), now commonly associated with 'cost-benefit analyses' that need to be rejected. This is inescapably anthropocentric, just as all human action must be - after all, Weber's typology aimed to describe 'social' action. But claiming that this is something that must be 'avoided' only furthers the false dichotomy that 'humans' and 'nature' are separate entities. Rather, it is the combination of anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism with instrumental rationality that needs to be rethought.
All variants of realism seek to covertly extend human values onto nature, thereby claiming an objectively independent basis for their values, which mask the power that they wield. In seeking to circumvent anthropocentrism, we will only further entrench it in the structure of our knowledge systems, something that has been done for far too long in the academy and in 'Western' society. Rather we should embrace our anthropocentrism, and recognize that the range of values and possible actions that we can engage in are endless. This may be a gruelling and thankless task - defeatists might say impossible - but if we are to challenge the Enlightenment project that threatens the world, our world, we must attack it at its roots. Usurpation ultimately never cuts the head off the king. It only holds the place until another usurper, preaching a different message, comes along.
I appreciate the simplification of my point - which I wouldn't call 'postmodernist' as much as a position within 'Critical Theory' - but I think what I was trying to get at was missed in the process. Fundamentally, the two positions you are describing involve truth claims about the world, and it is precisely this that I want to think critically about. First, I’ll explain my ‘philosophical’ (or methodological) position on this, then my ‘political’, and finally, bring the two together.
The points that Manuel DeLanda uses to justify his realism, and the ones you bring up in your posting, are inevitably anthropocentric, as is my own position. But they are also anthropomorphic, something I want to explicitly argue against. Let me ask a simple question - 'What is Art?' Is it art when it appears on a tableau? When it involves patterns? When it is 'consciously' or 'deliberately' created? These are extremely biased questions about what is essentially an anthropocentric concept to begin with. We, socially subjectively, define the limits of what "art" is and determine what qualifies and what does not. DeLanda imputes a thoroughly human (and likely culturally specific) understanding of 'art' onto the birds in his example to make a point about the realm of humans - a blatant display of anthropomorphism. In contrast, I argue that any definitive claims about realms outside the human experience are necessarily anthropomorphic, and thus we should readily disclose that position, instead of making and hiding human concepts, values and beliefs in the secure sphere of a higher authority ('nature'). This is ultimately a question of power: to what extent are aspects of humanity immutable - that is, 'natural'? To what extent do our social institutions, practices and norms, beliefs and values have objectively independent manifestations outside of humanity?
This has important implications for the various politics that we are constantly engaged in, especially the current struggle over human ecology. But I look to history to determine how we might frame and shape it. Marxists and Anarchists have long sought to reorient the terms of their debates with their political opponents by freeing it from the realm of humans, thereby gaining legitimacy and authority to carry out their various projects. In these cases, it was partly idealism, stemming from a higher religious authority, that spurred them to embrace the kind of realism that Mao and Lenin were thinking of when they argued that the dialectic contradiction was an essential characteristic of every unit of matter in the universe. Kropotkin tirelessly appealed to the natural world to shore up support for the ideas that mutual aid institutions are a natural part of humanity, against the realism of disfigured Darwinists.
This is an appealing strategy for political action, since it appears to be the ‘easy way out’. By establishing a truth claim that supports your political values, you only need to extend that truth claim to dominate all others, and defend it vigorously against future competing truth claims. Conversely, by orienting human questions around human values, you condition yourself to an endless and grueling battle to assert the "hegemony" (used loosely) of certain values - a constant flux of power-laden ideas, unanchorable within our social vortex. We know the story of the former strategy - realism was coopted (and significantly placed on a pedestal) by those who used it to hide a different set of values within the absolute truths of our time. Pertaining to ecology, realism proved to be highly amenable to the transformation that 'the Great Chain of Being' was to undergo with the loss of its Christian foundations. Carried on in the tradition of Western science, and aided and abetted by scientific Marxism at every turn, what many environmentalists struggle so hard against today has its genesis in the tradition of realism.
Concerning environmental advocacy, the reorientation of debates away from instrumental rationality, though an extremely difficult task, is both necessary and desirable. But how this is done is perhaps my political point of contention. Using realism to achieve this goal - by exclaiming that, objectively, every aspect of non-human nature is "good, in and of itself" - does nothing to challenge the power structure of the human belief system, and is almost certainly to lead to the eventual resurgence of instrumental rationality. In political terms, what is needed is not a change in the government of the governance of the ecological debate, but a regime change that transforms the foundational elements of the way truths are constructed in society.
Thus, I see the philosophical component of environmental advocacy as inextricably intertwined with the political projects that make it up. However, my point was fundamentally missed by equating anthropocentrism with cost-benefit instrumental rationality and with postmodernism (it is not through discourse that we can only understand the world, but as humans, only in human terms, terms which may be fundamentally experiential and non-discursive). What Weber meant by instrumental rationality, and as Habermas has subsequently developed, is not that the the act of valuation is free of 'ends'. I value a tree because it fulfills a psychological and emotional function of my humanity, not because it will become a chair I will sit on. Rather, it is the kind of thought (and really valuation, but a critique of Weber will have to wait), now commonly associated with 'cost-benefit analyses' that need to be rejected. This is inescapably anthropocentric, just as all human action must be - after all, Weber's typology aimed to describe 'social' action. But claiming that this is something that must be 'avoided' only furthers the false dichotomy that 'humans' and 'nature' are separate entities. Rather, it is the combination of anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism with instrumental rationality that needs to be rethought.
All variants of realism seek to covertly extend human values onto nature, thereby claiming an objectively independent basis for their values, which mask the power that they wield. In seeking to circumvent anthropocentrism, we will only further entrench it in the structure of our knowledge systems, something that has been done for far too long in the academy and in 'Western' society. Rather we should embrace our anthropocentrism, and recognize that the range of values and possible actions that we can engage in are endless. This may be a gruelling and thankless task - defeatists might say impossible - but if we are to challenge the Enlightenment project that threatens the world, our world, we must attack it at its roots. Usurpation ultimately never cuts the head off the king. It only holds the place until another usurper, preaching a different message, comes along.
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