From 0ef7289a4d375e6a82ec02436f35bd96643bda76 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Silvio Rhatto Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2018 09:31:46 -0300 Subject: Books: One-dimensional man: chapter seven --- books/sociedade/one-dimensional-man.md | 488 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 488 insertions(+) (limited to 'books/sociedade') diff --git a/books/sociedade/one-dimensional-man.md b/books/sociedade/one-dimensional-man.md index b239661..969c259 100644 --- a/books/sociedade/one-dimensional-man.md +++ b/books/sociedade/one-dimensional-man.md @@ -829,3 +829,491 @@ control. Language not only reflects these controls but becomes itself an instrument of control even where it does not transmit orders but information; where it demands, not obedience but choice, not submission but freedom. + + [...] + + What is taking place is a sweeping redefinition of thought itself, of its + function and content. The coordination of the individual with his society + reaches into those layers of the mind where the very concepts are elaborated + which are designed to comprehend the established reality. These concepts are + taken from the intellectual tradition and translated into operational terms—a + translation which has the effect of reducing the tension between thought and + reality by weakening the negative power of thought. + +### Science and technology of domination + + The principles of modern science were a priori structured in such a way that + they could serve as conceptual instruments for a universe of self-propelling, + productive control; theoretical operationalism came to correspond to practical + operationalism. The scientific method which led to the ever-more-effective + domination of nature thus came to provide the pure concepts as well as the + instrumentalities for the ever-more-effective domination of man by man through + the domination of nature. Theoretical reason, remaining pure and neutral, + entered into the service of practical reason. The merger proved beneficial to + both. Today, domination perpetuates and extends itself not only through + technology but as technology, and the latter provides the great legitimation of + the expanding political power, which absorbs all spheres of culture. + + In this universe, technology also provides the great rationalization of the + unfreedom of man and demonstrates the “technical” impossibility of being + autonomous, of determining one’s own life. For this unfreedom appears neither + as irrational nor as political, but rather as submission to the technical + apparatus which enlarges the comforts of life and increases the productivity of + labor. Technological rationality thus protects rather than cancels the + legitimacy of domination, and the instrumentalist horizon of reason opens on a + rationally totalitarian society: + + “One might call autocratic a philosophy of technics which takes the technical + whole as a place where machines are used to obtain power. The machine is only a + means; the end is the conquest of nature, the domestication of natural forces + through a primary enslavement: The machine is a slave which serves to make + other slaves. Such a domineering and enslaving drive may go together with the + quest for human freedom. But it is difficult to liberate oneself by + transferring slavery to other beings, men, animals, or machines; to rule over a + population of machines subjecting the whole world means still to rule, and all + rule implies acceptance of schemata of subjection.” Gilbert Simondon, Du Mode + d’existence des objets techniques (Paris, Aubier, 1958), p. 127. + + [...] + + The incessant dynamic of technical progress has become permeated with political + content, and the Logos of technics has been made into the Logos of continued + servitude. The liberating force of technology—the instrumentalization of + things—turns into a fetter of liberation; the instrumentalization of man. + + [...] + + No matter how one defines truth and objectivity, they remain related to the + human agents of theory and practice, and to their ability to comprehend and + change their world. This ability in turn depends on the extent to which matter + (whatever it may be) is recognized and understood as that which it is itself in + all particular forms. In these terms, contemporary science is of immensely + greater objective validity than its predecessors. One might even add that, at + present, the scientific method is the only method that can claim such validity; + the interplay of hypotheses and observable facts validates the hypotheses and + establishes the facts. The point which I am trying to make is that science, by + virtue of its own method and concepts, has projected and promoted a universe in + which the domination of nature has remained linked to the domination of man—a + link which tends to be fatal to this universe as a whole. Nature, + scientifically comprehended and mastered, reappears in the technical apparatus + of production and destruction which sustains and improves the life of the + individuals while subordinating them to the masters of the apparatus. Thus the + rational hierarchy merges with the social one. If this is the case, then the + change in the direction of progress, which might sever this fatal link, would + also affect the very structure of science—the scientific project. Its + hypotheses, without losing their rational character, would develop in an + essentially different experimental context (that of a pacified world); + consequently, science would arrive at essentially different concepts of nature + and establish essentially different facts. The rational society subverts the + idea of Reason. + + I have pointed out that the elements of this subversion, the notions of another + rationality, were present in the history of thought from its beginning. The + ancient idea of a state where Being attains fulfillment, where the tension + between “is” and “ought” is resolved in the cycle of an eternal return, + partakes of the metaphysics of domination. But it also pertains to the + metaphysics of liberation—to the reconciliation of Logos and Eros. This idea + envisages the coming-to-rest of the repressive productivity of Reason, the end + of domination in gratification. + + [...] + + By way of summary, we may now try to identify more clearly the hidden subject + of scientific rationality and the hidden ends in its pure form. The scientific + concept of a universally controllable nature projected nature as endless + matter-in-function, the mere stuff of theory and practice. In this form, the + object-world entered the construction of a technological universe—a universe of + mental and physical instrumentalities, means in themselves. Thus it is a truly + “hypothetical” system, depending on a validating and verifying subject. + + The processes of validation and verification may be purely theoretical ones, + but they never occur in a vacuum and they never terminate in a private, + individual mind. The hypothetical system of forms and functions becomes + dependent on another system—a pre-established universe of ends, in which and + for which it develops. What appeared extraneous, foreign to the theoretical + project, shows forth as part of its very structure (method and concepts); pure + objectivity reveals itself as object for a subjectivity which provides the + Telos, the ends. In the construction of the technological reality, there is no + such thing as a purely rational scientific order; the process of technological + rationality is a political process. + + Only in the medium of technology, man and nature become fungible objects of + organization. The universal effectiveness and productivity of the apparatus + under which they are subsumed veil the particular interests that organize the + apparatus. In other words, technology has become the great vehicle of + reification—reification in its most mature and effective form. The social + position of the individual and his relation to others appear not only to be + determined by objective qualities and laws, but these qualities and laws seem + to lose their mysterious and uncontrollable character; they appear as + calculable manifestations of (scientific) rationality. The world tends to + become the stuff of total administration, which absorbs even the + administrators. The web of domination has become the web of Reason itself, and + this society is fatally entangled in it. And the transcending modes of thought + seem to transcend Reason itself. + +### Positive and Negative Thinking + + In terms of the established universe, such contradicting modes of thought are + negative thinking. “The power of the negative” is the principle which governs + the development of concepts, and contradiction becomes the distinguishing + quality of Reason (Hegel). This quality of thought was not confined to a + certain type of rationalism; it was also a decisive element in the empiricist + tradition. Empiricism is not necessarily positive; its attitude to the + established reality depends on the particular dimension of experience which + functions as the source of knowledge and as the basic frame of reference. For + example, it seems that sensualism and materialism are per se negative toward a + society in which vital instinctual and material needs are unfulfilled. In + contrast, the empiricism of linguistic analysis moves within a framework which + does not allow such contradiction—the self-imposed restriction to the prevalent + behavioral universe makes for an intrinsically positive attitude. In spite of + the rigidly neutral approach of the philosopher, the pre-bound analysis + succumbs to the power of positive thinking. + + Before trying to show this intrinsically ideological character of linguistic + analysis, I must attempt to justify my apparently arbitrary and derogatory play + with the terms “positive” and “positivism” by a brief comment on their origin. + Since its first usage, probably in the school of Saint-Simon, the term + “positivism” has encompassed (1) the validation of cognitive thought by + experience of facts; (2) the orientation of cognitive thought to the physical + sciences as a model of certainty and exactness; (3) the belief that progress in + knowledge depends on this orientation. Consequently, positivism is a struggle + against all metaphysics, transcendentalisms, and idealisms as obscurantist and + regressive modes of thought. To the degree to which the given reality is + scientifically comprehended and transformed, to the degree to which society + becomes industrial and technological, positivism finds in the society the + medium for the realization (and validation) of its concepts—harmony between + theory and practice, truth and facts. Philosophic thought turns into + affirmative thought; the philosophic critique criticizes within the societal + framework and stigmatizes non-positive notions as mere speculation, dreams or + fantasies.1 + + [...] + + The contemporary effort to reduce the scope and the truth of philosophy is + tremendous, and the philosophers themselves proclaim the modesty and inefficacy + of philosophy. It leaves the established reality untouched; it abhors + transgression. + + Austin’s contemptuous treatment of the alternatives to the common usage of + words, and his defamation of what we “think up in our armchairs of an + afternoon”; Wittgenstein’s assurance that philosophy “leaves everything as it + is”—such statements2 exhibit, to my mind, academic sado-masochism, + self-humiliation, and self-denunciation of the intellectual whose labor does + not issue in scientific, technical or like achievements. These affirmations of + modesty and dependence seem to recapture Hume’s mood of righteous contentment + with the limitations of reason which, once recognized and accepted, protect man + from useless mental adventures but leave him perfectly capable of orienting + himself in the given environment. However, when Hume debunked substances, he + fought a powerful ideology, while his successors today provide an intellectual + justification for that which society has long since accomplished—namely, the + defamation of alternative modes of thought which contradict the established + universe of discourse. + +### Language, philosophy and the restricted experience + + The almost masochistic reduction of speech to the humble and common is made + into a program: “if the words ‘language,’ ‘experience,’ ‘world,’ have a use, it + must be as humble a one as that of the words ‘table,’ ‘lamp,’ ‘door.’ + + [...] + + The self-styled poverty of philosophy, committed with all its concepts to the + given state of affairs, distrusts the possibilities of a new experience. + Subjection to the rule of the established facts is total—only linguistic facts, + to be sure, but the society speaks in its language, and we are told to obey. + The prohibitions are severe and authoritarian: “Philosophy may in no way + interfere with the actual use of language.”9 “And we may not advance any kind + of theory. There must not be anything hypothetical in our considerations. We + must do away with all explanation, and description alone must take its + place.”10 + + One might ask what remains of philosophy? What remains of thinking, + intelligence, without anything hypothetical, without any explanation? However, + what is at stake is not the definition or the dignity of philosophy. It is + rather the chance of preserving and protecting the right, the need to think and + speak in terms other than those of common usage—terms which are meaningful, + rational, and valid precisely because they are other terms. What is involved is + the spread of a new ideology which undertakes to describe what is happening + (and meant) by eliminating the concepts capable of understanding what is + happening (and meant). + + To begin with, an irreducible difference exists between the universe of + everyday thinking and language on the one side, and that of philosophic + thinking and language on the other. In normal circumstances, ordinary language + is indeed behavioral—a practical instrument. When somebody actually says “My + broom is in the corner,” he probably intends that somebody else who had + actually asked about the broom is going to take it or leave it there, is going + to be satisfied, or angry. In any case, the sentence has fulfilled its function + by causing a behavioral reaction: “the effect devours the cause; the end + absorbs the means.”11 + + In contrast, if, in a philosophic text or discourse, the word “substance,” + “idea,” “man,” “alienation” becomes the subject of a proposition, no such + transformation of meaning into a behavioral reaction takes place or is intended + to take place. The word remains, as it were, unfulfilled—except in thought, + where it may give rise to other thoughts. And through a long series of + mediations within a historical continuum, the proposition may help to form and + guide a practice. But the proposition remains unfulfilled even then—only the + hubris of absolute idealism asserts the thesis of a final identity between + thought and its object. The words with which philosophy is concerned can + therefore never have a use “as humble … as that of the words ‘table,’ ‘lamp,’ + ‘door.’ ” + + [...] + + Viewed from this position, the examples of linguistic analysis quoted above + become questionable as valid objects of philosophic analysis. Can the most + exact and clarifying description of tasting something that may or may not taste + like pineapple ever contribute to philosophic cognition? [...] The object of + analysis, withdrawn from the larger and denser context in which the speaker + speaks and lives, is removed from the universal medium in which concepts are + formed and become words. What is this universal, larger context in which people + speak and act and which gives their speech its meaning—this context which does + not appear in the positivist analysis, which is a priori shut off by the + examples as well as by the analysis itself? + + This larger context of experience, this real empirical world, today is still + that of the gas chambers and concentration camps, of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of + American Cadillacs and German Mercedes, of the Pentagon and the Kremlin, of the + nuclear cities and the Chinese communes, of Cuba, of brainwashing and + massacres. But the real empirical world is also that in which all these things + are taken for granted or forgotten or repressed or unknown, in which people are + free. It is a world in which the broom in the corner or the taste of something + like pineapple are quite important, in which the daily toil and the daily + comforts are perhaps the only items that make up all experience. And this + second, restricted empirical universe is part of the first; the powers that + rule the first also shape the restricted experience. + + [...] + + Ordinary language in its “humble use” may indeed be of vital concern to + critical philosophic thought, but in the medium of this thought words lose + their plain humility and reveal that “hidden” something which is of no interest + to Wittgenstein. [...] Such an analysis uncovers the history13 in everyday + speech as a hidden dimension of meaning—the rule of society over its language. + + [...] + + Orienting itself on the reified universe of everyday discourse, and exposing + and clarifying this discourse in terms of this reified universe, the analysis + abstracts from the negative, from that which is alien and antagonistic and + cannot be understood in terms of the established usage. By classifying and + distinguishing meanings, and keeping them apart, it purges thought and speech + of contradictions, illusions, and transgressions. But the transgressions are + not those of “pure reason.” They are not metaphysical transgressions beyond the + limits of possible knowledge, they rather open a realm of knowledge beyond + common sense and formal logic. + + In barring access to this realm, positivist philosophy sets up a + self-sufficient world of its own, closed and well protected against the + ingression of disturbing external factors. In this respect, it makes little + difference whether the validating context is that of mathematics, of logical + propositions, or of custom and usage. In one way or another, all possibly + meaningful predicates are prejudged. The prejudging judgment might be as broad + as the spoken English language, or the dictionary, or some other code or + convention. Once accepted, it constitutes an empirical a priori which cannot be + transcended. + + [...] + + The therapeutic character of the philosophic analysis is strongly emphasized—to + cure from illusions, deceptions, obscurities, unsolvable riddles, unanswerable + questions, from ghosts and spectres. Who is the patient? Apparently a certain + sort of intellectual, whose mind and language do not conform to the terms of + ordinary discourse. There is indeed a goodly portion of psychoanalysis in this + philosophy—analysis without Freud’s fundamental insight that the patient’s + trouble is rooted in a general sickness which cannot be cured by analytic + therapy. Or, in a sense, according to Freud, the patient’s disease is a protest + reaction against the sick world in which he lives. But the physician must + disregard the “moral” problem. He has to restore the patient’s health, to make + him capable of functioning normally in his world. + + The philosopher is not a physician; his job is not to cure individuals but to + comprehend the world in which they live—to understand it in terms of what it + has done to man, and what it can do to man. For philosophy is (historically, + and its history is still valid) the contrary of what Wittgenstein made it out + to be when he proclaimed it as the renunciation of all theory, as the + undertaking that “leaves everything as it is.” + + [...] + + The neo-positivist critique still directs its main effort against metaphysical + notions, and it is motivated by a notion of exactness which is either that of + formal logic or empirical description. Whether exactness is sought in the + analytic purity of logic and mathematics, or in conformity with ordinary + language—on both poles of contemporary philosophy is the same rejection or + devaluation of those elements of thought and speech which transcend the + accepted system of validation. This hostility is most sweeping where it takes + the form of toleration—that is, where a certain truth value is granted to the + transcendent concepts in a separate dimension of meaning and significance + (poetic truth, metaphysical truth). For precisely the setting aside of a + special reservation in which thought and language are permitted to be + legitimately inexact, vague, and even contradictory is the most effective way + of protecting the normal universe of discourse from being seriously disturbed + by unfitting ideas. Whatever truth may be contained in literature is a “poetic” + truth, whatever truth may be contained in critical idealism is a “metaphysical” + truth—its validity, if any, commits neither ordinary discourse and behavior, + nor the philosophy adjusted to them. + + This new form of the doctrine of the “double truth” sanctions a false + consciousness by denying the relevance of the transcendent language to the + universe of ordinary language, by proclaiming total non-interference. Whereas + the truth value of the former consists precisely in its relevance to and + interference with the latter. + +### Philosophy and science + + This intellectual dissolution and even subversion of the given facts is the + historical task of philosophy and the philosophic dimension. Scientific method, + too, goes beyond the facts and even against the facts of immediate experience. + Scientific method develops in the tension between appearance and reality. The + mediation between the subject and object of thought, however, is essentially + different. In science, the medium is the observing, measuring, calculating, + experimenting subject divested of all other qualities; the abstract subject + projects and defines the abstract object. + + In contrast, the objects of philosophic thought are related to a consciousness + for which the concrete qualities enter into the concepts and into their + interrelation. The philosophic concepts retain and explicate the pre-scientific + mediations (the work of everyday practice, of economic organization, of + political action) which have made the object-world that which it actually is—a + world in which all facts are events, occurrences in a historical continuum. + + The separation of science from philosophy is itself a historical event. + Aristotelian physics was a part of philosophy and, as such, preparatory to the + “first science”—ontology. The Aristotelian concept of matter is distinguished + from the Galilean and post-Galilean not only in terms of different stages in + the development of scientific method (and in the discovery of different + ‘layers” of reality), but also, and perhaps primarily, in terms of different + historical projects, of a different historical enterprise which established a + different nature as well as society. Aristotelian physics becomes objectively + wrong with the new experience and apprehension of nature, with the historical + establishment of a new subject and object-world, and the falsification of + Aristotelian physics then extends backward into the past and surpassed + experience and apprehension.15 + +### A funny paragraph + + The neglect or the clearing up of this specific philosophic dimension has led + contemporary positivism to move in a synthetically impoverished world of + academic concreteness, and to create more illusory problems than it has + destroyed. Rarely has a philosophy exhibited a more tortuous esprit de sérieux + than that displayed in such analyses as the interpretation of Three Blind Mice + in a study of “Metaphysical and Ideographic Language,” with its discussion of + an “artificially constructed Triple principle-Blindness-Mousery asymmetric + sequence constructed according to the pure principles of ideography.”17 + + Perhaps this example is unfair. [...] Examples are skillfully held in balance + between seriousness and the joke + +[Three Blind Mice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Blind_Mice) is a crusty rhyme. + +### A suspect language + + Analytic philosophy often spreads the atmosphere of denunciation and + investigation by committee. The intellectual is called on the carpet. What do + you mean when you say …? Don’t you conceal something? You talk a language which + is suspect. You don’t talk like the rest of us, like the man in the street, but + rather like a foreigner who does not belong here. We have to cut you down to + size, expose your tricks, purge you. We shall teach you to say what you have in + mind, to “come clear,” to “put your cards on the table.” Of course, we do not + impose on you and your freedom of thought and speech; you may think as you + like. But once you speak, you have to communicate your thoughts to us—in our + language or in yours. Certainly, you may speak your own language, but it must + be translatable, and it will be translated. You may speak poetry—that is all + right. We love poetry. But we want to understand your poetry, and we can do so + only if we can interpret your symbols, metaphors, and images in terms of + ordinary language. + + The poet might answer that indeed he wants his poetry to be understandable and + understood (that is why he writes it), but if what he says could be said in + terms of ordinary language he would probably have done so in the first place. + He might say: Understanding of my poetry presupposes the collapse and + invalidation of precisely that universe of discourse and behavior into which + you want to translate it. My language can be learned like any other language + (in point of fact, it is also your own language), then it will appear that my + symbols, metaphors, etc. are not symbols, metaphors, etc. but mean exactly what + they say. Your tolerance is deceptive. In reserving for me a special niche of + meaning and significance, you grant me exemption from sanity and reason, but in + my view, the madhouse is somewhere else. + + [...] + + Under these circumstances, the spoken phrase is an expression of the individual + who speaks it, and of those who make him speak as he does, and of whatever + tension or contradiction may interrelate them. In speaking their own language, + people also speak the language of their masters, benefactors, advertisers. Thus + they do not only express themselves, their own knowledge, feelings, and + aspirations, but also something other than themselves. Describing “by + themselves” the political situation, either in their home town or in the + international scene, they (and “they” includes us, the intellectuals who know + it and criticize it) describe what “their” media of mass communication tell + them—and this merges with what they really think and see and feel. + + [...] + + But this situation disqualifies ordinary language from fulfilling the + validating function which it performs in analytic philosophy. “What people mean + when they say …” is related to what they don’t say. Or, what they mean cannot + be taken at face value—not because they lie, but because the universe of + thought and practice in which they live is a universe of manipulated + contradictions. + +### Metalanguage + + Here the problem of “metalanguage” arises; the terms which analyze the meaning + of certain terms must be other than, or distinguishable from the latter. They + must be more and other than mere synonyms which still belong to the same + (immediate) universe of discourse. But if this metalanguage is really to break + through the totalitarian scope of the established universe of discourse, in + which the different dimensions of language are integrated and assimilated, it + must be capable of denoting the societal processes which have determined and + “closed” the established universe of discourse. Consequently, it cannot be a + technical metalanguage, constructed mainly with a view of semantic or logical + clarity. The desideratum is rather to make the established language itself + speak what it conceals or excludes, for what is to be revealed and denounced is + operative within the universe of ordinary discourse and action, and the + prevailing language contains the metalanguage. + +### Ordinary universe of discourse + + The crimes against language, which appear in the style of the newspaper, + pertain to its political style. Syntax, grammar, and vocabulary become moral + and political acts. Or, the context may be an aesthetic and philosophic one: + literary criticism, an address before a learned society, or the like. + + [...] + + For such an analysis, the meaning of a term or form demands its development in + a multi-dimensional universe, where any expressed meaning partakes of several + interrelated, overlapping, and antagonistic “systems.” + + [...] + + in reality, we understand each other only through whole areas of + misunderstanding and contradiction. The real universe of ordinary language is + that of the struggle for existence. It is indeed an ambiguous, vague, obscure + universe, and is certainly in need of clarification. Moreover, such + clarification may well fulfill a therapeutic function, and if philosophy would + become therapeutic, it would really come into its own. + + Philosophy approaches this goal to the degree to which it frees thought from + its enslavement by the established universe of discourse and behavior, + elucidates the negativity of the Establishment (its positive aspects are + abundantly publicized anyway) and projects its alternatives. To be sure, + philosophy contradicts and projects in thought only. It is ideology, and this + ideological character is the very fate of philosophy which no scientism and + positivism can overcome. Still, its ideological effort may be truly + therapeutic—to show reality as that which it really is, and to show that which + this reality prevents from being. + + In the totalitarian era, the therapeutic task of philosophy would be a + political task, since the established universe of ordinary language tends to + coagulate into a totally manipulated and indoctrinated universe. Then politics + would appear in philosophy, not as a special discipline or object of analysis, + nor as a special political philosophy, but as the intent of its concepts to + comprehend the unmutilated reality. If linguistic analysis does not contribute + to such understanding; if, instead, it contributes to enclosing thought in the + circle of the mutilated universe of ordinary discourse, it is at best entirely + inconsequential. And, at worst, it is an escape into the non-controversial, the + unreal, into that which is only academically controversial. -- cgit v1.2.3