Lenin Shot at Finland Station

Zizek has an interesting review of the latest "what if?" compilation: historians and theorists imagining different possible worlds in the event that certain things might have happened differently.  Noting that this seems to be a conservative revisionist trend, Zizek has this almost "messianic" thought:

"The ‘what if?’ dimension goes to the core of the Marxist revolutionary project. In his ironic comments on the French Revolution, Marx opposed revolutionary enthusiasm and the sobering ‘morning after’: the actual outcome of the sublime revolutionary explosion which promised liberté, égalité, fraternité is the miserable utilitarian/egotistical universe of market calculation. (This gap was even wider in the case of the October Revolution.) Marx’s point, however, is not the commonsensical one, that the vulgar reality of commerce turns out to be the ‘truth of the theatre of revolutionary enthusiasm’ – what all the fuss was about. In the revolutionary explosion, another utopian dimension shines through, that of universal emancipation, which is in fact the ‘excess’ betrayed by the market reality that takes over on the morning after. This excess is not simply abolished or dismissed as irrelevant, but is, as it were, transposed into the virtual state, as a dream waiting to be realised."

Also see Bat's great analysis of this review that compares Kripke's "possible worlds" to Lennin's "counterfactuals." 

Comments

[Jodi]

Alain,
Thanks for the post and the link. I look forward to reading the article and the link to Bat.

Your posting this overlapped with my hearing on NPR a story about the greatness of the GIBill. The reporter said something like, imagine a world without Bill Gates and Microsoft, without the civil rights movement. I nearly wrecked the car because this juxtaposition struck me as so obscene. At the same time, it struck me as a horrible reminder of where we are. The underside seems to be, without capitalism, no freedom, no progress. Or, if one opposes concentrations of wealth, one must oppose racial equality as well. And, to top it off, according to the historian Lizbeth Cohen, A Consumers Republic, the reading of the GI bill offered in the show is simply wrong.

[Amish Lovelock]

Rather than attempting to differentiate between "good" and "bad" counterfactuals, I took Zizek's article (considerably better than some of the others he's been putting out recently) to be talking about something far more interesting.

Here's some thoughts from Ghassan Hage in Framework: the Finnish Art Review that I think resonate with Zz's piece:

"Most works of critical social theory, however, involve an important differentiation between reality and actuality - such as Deleuze’s virtual and Agamben’s potentiality. While actuality is simply ‘what there is’, reality is more complex. It also incorporates ‘what has been’, ‘what is about to be’, ‘what can be’ and even ‘what ought to be’. When I’m speaking, I say ‘I am here’. When I get to ‘am’ I want to remember that I said ‘I’ and I want to remember that I’m about to say ‘here’, or I’ll be stuck with the ‘am’ not knowing where I’ve been or where I’m about to go. This is why, in every moment of our lives we spread ourselves between the ‘what has been’, the ‘what is’ and ‘what is about to be’. But the ‘what is about to be’ is the domain of uncertainty and risk. It can become threatening. This is why the conscripted citizens shield themselves from it and withdraw to live in the domain of the ‘what is’. Actuality becomes their only reality and the foundation for the dominance of neo-conservative confirmationism.

Nevertheless, potential or virtual space does not disappear. It is merely untapped as a resource. It is still there for the critical intellectual and artist to exploit. It also remains the space of the political par excellence, for it is there that the question of ‘what is possible’ can be ‘realistically’ or ‘truthfully’ formulated. From this perspective, the neo-conservatives are ‘actualists’ rather than ‘realists’. They privilege ‘what is’ because actuality is really on their side, and they have the political power to constantly recreate it. But if this actuality is on their side, the space of ‘potentiality’, from where political change emerges, is not. It is therefore in their interest to ensure that actuality is conflated with ‘reality’ and used to suppress the very idea of a truth that speaks to more than ‘what is’: this is where the truth of utopia, fantasy and social change is located."

http://www.framework.fi/3_2005/locating/artikkelit/hage.html

[Alain]

Jodi

Thanks. I think you are right about that being indicative of where we are today. But at least the GI Bill is an example of government involvement (even if the money was largely in the form of low interest loans).

In the Zizek piece he quotes Eric Santner's description of symtoms as examples of missed opportunities to act:

"Symptoms register not only past failed revolutionary attempts but, more modestly, past failures to respond to calls for action or even for empathy on behalf of those whose suffering in some sense belongs to the form of life of which one is a part. They hold the place of something that is there, that insists in our life, though it has never achieved full ontological consistency. Symptoms are thus in some sense the virtual archives of voids – or, perhaps better, defences against voids – that persist in historical experience."

It would seem that the NPR story may be an example of such a symptom. We could have done so much more after WWII if we had not been consumed by the cold war. Or the social justice and peace movements of the 60's presented an opportunity for genuine realignment but failed in the face of a massive counter-reaction of the establishment. The contemporary celebration of their failure is perhaps a symptom of that loss?

[Alain]

Amish

Thank you for the link. The quote you provide is very insightful. Being a "realist" has come to mean being fixated on "what is." It largely ignores redemptive appropriations of our past or searching for alternative potentialities.

[amie]

Alain, Thanks very much for the links to the Zizek and Lenin's Tomb articles.
Dare I say that messianism was not absent in Lenin? The Lenin who said -- to quote from memory -- "what is the point of suffering if there is no hope."

The LT post concludes with:
"The Leninist position (...)involves a much deeper conception of intertwined potentiality and actualisation in this world, with time and subjective decision somehow wrapping the two together. I guess this is what Benjamin was getting at with his "theses on the philosophy of history" (which Zizek namechecks)..."

I'm wondering if anyone is interested in discussing, unwrapping "intertwined potentiality and actualization", and "subjective decision"? Perhaps someone from LT?
Perhaps also discussing the "moment of decision", provided that such a thing is open to discussion?

Here is a link to a related Zizek article, called "Seize the Day".
http://www.egs.edu/faculty/zizek/zizek-seize-the-day-lenins-legacy.html

[Alain]

Amie

Thanks for the link. The quote is very suggestive but I am not sure where to go with it. Lenin, from LT, did reference a Benjamin quote in the comments to the post:

"I think the relevance of Benjamin's Theses on the Philosophy of History in this context is Benjamin's insistence that even the dead are not safe if the enemy wins, and he has not yet ceased to be victorious (Benjamin wrote in an incomparably graver time than we do now, but that point still obtains).

Historical materialism, for Benjamin, must involve a messianic conception of time. Time is not linear, but shot through with messianic moments ("chips", Benjamin says) in which the correct action can redeem past and present. He writes:

The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the 'state of emergency' in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the struggle against Fascism. One reason why Fascism has a chance is that in the name of progress its opponents treat it as a historical norm. The current amazement that the things we are experiencing are 'still' possible in the twentieth century is not philosophical. This amazement is not the beginning of knowledge--unless it is the knowledge that the view of history which gives rise to it is untenable.

Historical determinism a la the Second International normalises the emergency in the name of a permanently delayed redemption. Leninism, by contrast, is constantly on the look-out for Augenblick, the unique moment of opportunity, constantly aware that the atrocities of history are forever piling up.

To the question about comparing a Leninist counterfactual with a neocon one, I'd suggest that if the gesture looks the same, it is the ideological constellation in which such an appeal to emergency is uttered that makes it fundamentally different. True, the PNAC makes reference to a unique window of opportunity in which American power can be extended and preserved, thwarting the rise of a potential hegemonic rival. However, the neocon project, in spite of what Hitchens et al think, is not a radical one at all. It seeks to preserve history on its catastrophic train, as this serves the American empire so well. No revolution is entailed by neoconservatism; rather the contrary. Their interventionary stance is about conserving American power. Their Angel of History gazes forever forward not back, and they are happy to continue with the atrocities piling up so long as they do not have to see the victims."

While not definitive, I think it furthers the discussion.

[Matt]

Zizek on Iran, ostensibly (from a couple weeks back):

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2280/

I see he's picked up the "ressentiment" meme; bravo!

Repeating a lot of what Derrida says, erm, as usual, though not so sure about the wisdom of his conclusions.

[Matt]

via here:
http://harlequinknights.blogspot.com/2005/08/i-freely-and-somewhat-embarrassingly.html

[bat020]

That ITT piece starts off okay but ends on a wet note - eg Z seems to take as read that "the global spread of multi-party Western democracy" would be a Good Thing... this is either naivety on his part or a blatant attempt to play to the US liberal gallery. Amusing to see the frothing he nevertheless provokes on the comments thread below tho.

[Alain]

Matt

Thanks for the link. I will check it out.