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Theory and the Man
Why is it that even the most post of the posties end up caught up in adulation of or resistance to single great thinkers? Why is the hold of a Master so strong even after decades upon decades of critiques of the subject, of agency, of originality, of individuality, of authenticity? Is it precisely because of these critiques? That answer seems too easy.
Perhaps one answer lies more in the structure of the academy, in its patterns of the transmission of knowledge and structures of authentication and validation. If that's the case, should those committed to ideas of structures, systems, contingencies, networks, assemblages, and discourses eschew identifying views with single persons--Agamben, Badiou, Foucault, Lacan, and, why not, Zizek?
Academia, particularly in the non science and non business areas, tends to follow ancient patterns of instilling/installing knowledge through relations to a master. These patterns involve personal, affective, and erotic attachments as well as practices of critical interrogation and response. It's as if the years from graduate school through assistant professor are a kind of apprenticeship where one demonstrates to those who have come before that one has mastered the craft. Only thereafter can one become a Master.
I confess to finding benefit in this system. For one, I like that it is not the same as a corporate, go getter, efficiency model that values profit and innovation. I like the slowness and the transmission of knowledge over time. I even like the disciplinary effects: new assistant professors generally think that they are the only folks to have had an idea; they tend to feel vastly superior to those who hired them. I was that way--completely confident and obnoxious. It's hard to learn when one already knows everything. It's hard to remember that the institution into which one was hired had long done quite well before one's arrival.
The structures of authentication and validation in the humanities and some social sciences also contribute to an attachment to the Master. Who blurbed one's book? Who writes one's letters? Who shares the podium or panel? In a sense, acquiring the validation of more senior people helps one establish to others that one is worth reading, worth taking seriously. Without that, how do we know? There are lots of books and article out there, lots of interesting ideas. It's not easy to make one's way through the thicket without some kind of guide. In effect the words of experts, of Masters, provide these guides. They provide ways for us to group ourselves in tribes, or schools of believers, of adherents and adepts; they provide opportunities to get the endorsements from the Masters.
Yet, if we posties (and this 'we' is rather odd considering I'm not all that postie, but, well, whatever) continue to hang on and propagate the Masters' words, why should we not expect the structures of masterful hegemony to continue? Doesn't it make more sense to try to circulate an idea (the dependence of resistance on that which it resists, the retroactive determination of meaning after an event, the unavoidable stain of drive) not constrainted or held in place by the Master's name?
Perhaps I should have called this post "the parallax of self-criticism."
By Jodi | September 8, 2006 in Postmodernism | Permalink
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I wonder how much this has to do with the marganility of "theory" or "theoretico-empirical" work in the social sciences relative to positivism (counting stuff and reporting what was counted as fact) or empiricism (watching or talking to people and reporting what was observed as interesting)? Part of it, I hope, is that the answer, "Foucault," is a short-hand way of saying what sort of work you do; in this case, theoretico-empirical work in the form of geneaology.
Another part of it has to do with the politics of job advertisements: jobs are rarely advertised as "someone who researches and can teach in the area of political theory." Instead, jobs are, "someone who researches in and can teach in the areas of contemporary political theory from a Continental perspective" - which instantly limits the job to disciples of a narrow few masters: Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Zizek or Heidegger.
Having said that, as I work on my dissertation, I'm increasingly resistant to writing a "Foucauldian" or an "Arendtian" or a "Lefortian" dissertation. I'm happy to draw on each, but I have no fidelity to their body of thought. Or, at least I've convinced myself of that. But, just because I've convinced myself of something, that doesn't make it true.
Posted by: Craig | Sep 8, 2006 3:01:28 PM
Without appearing to suck up too much to the master, this seems to be one of the greatest issues that faces the humanities. Can there be disciplines like "philosophy," "Literature," or "art" without the notion of great masters? This would seem to be particularly vexing for philosophy (and by extension "theory") because it presumes to seek (if not actually find) the truth - however one defines it. If truth is the goal than one would think we could dispenses with both masters and disciples.
Posted by: Alain | Sep 8, 2006 4:57:12 PM
An extract from elsewhere:
For English-language readers, the writings of Deleuze, Negri, Althusser et al could only be received by way of translation, through exegeses written in the realist mode of the textbook, and (until the expansion of the internet) within the circumferences of the academic publishing industry. Here, both assertions of distinction and the assembly of imagined communities are at a premium, forming the reigning covenant under which markets (rather: niche markets) are constituted and academic or intellectual labour is put into circulation and valorised.
In other words, the physics of translation functioned here as a deterritorialisation of idioms that were transacted and given expression through acts of re-territorialisation. This marshaling of distinguished communities, of course, finds its political analogue in factions and parties, whose arrangement behind proper names (such as Marx, Trotsky, Negri and so on) and assertions of fidelity to them likewise operate as a form of niche-marketing, as markers of a habitus in which potential readers are also potential consumers/recruits. [...]
Posted by: s0metim3s | Sep 9, 2006 1:02:44 AM
This is wonderful, Jodi. I think you have it absolutely right. What is striking here in particular, it seems to me, is the manner in which we all agree, and yet (and you point the finger at yourself as well) we continue to operate in this manner. The patrilineality of knowledge and perceived competence is so pervasive, so mundane (in the mediaeval sense that it is everywhere) in our field(s) that it is difficult to see past the habits we all partake of. Both Alain and Craig raise the politics of this as well. I think this is crucial. I wonder what i would all look like if we were to evince citation altogether: perhaps it is here - in citing as a structuring principle of academic discourse - that the politics of the master are at work at their most explicit. I wonder if we (especially I) should try doing away with citation for a while - the openness of the blogging format ought at least be able to allow us that. I have heard this termed elsewhere a kind of 'dogma' (in the sense of a chosen constraint exercised in order to change the discourse, like in Danish dogme). Of course this is no simple solution and citation is also a kind of 'siting' (I've always thought those homophones are homophones for a reason). Maybe I have simplified this slightly?
Posted by: blahfeme | Sep 9, 2006 7:33:30 AM
Thanks, folks, for your comments. Blahfeme, the challenge of not citing seems exciting--although I confess to finding it rather scary; I find citation very supportive crutches.
Alain--I keep wondering whether it is possible to do away with a Master if truth is the goal. If we think about some religious practices (I have in mind something like Buddhism or maybe yoga) isn't the way to truth taught by a master to disciples as a kind of practice, a set of lessons to get past monkey mind or something like that? On the other hand, in the Christian tradition extending out of the reformation, the priesthood of the believer is important, each person can individually receive the word of God. This is more democratic, perhaps naive in its effacement of controversy, or perhaps brilliant in allowing for the possibility that there is no unified mind or will of God but a multiplcitiy of possible commandments.
I remain vexed by the problem. Perhaps another way in--besides Blafeme's suggestion--is a kind of vigilance of use and relation such that one is continuously critical and reflective.
Posted by: Jodi | Sep 9, 2006 9:52:10 AM
It's often the case that the first generation students never quote the master, in fact they do anything but quote the master, especially when they are lifting or attacking one of his arguments. And sometimes they don't know his books as well as the later generations because, knowing him personally, reading the books was unnecessary. They were there and attended the lectures.
Posted by: bj48k | Sep 9, 2006 12:19:06 PM
And sometimes they don't know his books as well as the later generations because, knowing him personally, reading the books was unnecessary. They were there and attended the lectures.
Blahhouey. (The two are not synonymous, and some do both.)
Posted by: Matt | Sep 9, 2006 12:23:28 PM
Nice post Jodi. I rant about something similar (which received a rather hostile and idiotic defensive response) in relation to Deleuze that I've observed in my ten years or so working among Deleuzians in various mediums from conferences to anthologies to email lists:
http://larval-subjects.blogspot.com/2006/09/
review-of-hallwards-out-of-this-world.html
I don't see the cult of masters disappearing anytime soon, nor am I entirely convinced that it would be
good for it to disappear. It seems to me that certain strategies can be adopted, however. For instance, one can think things together that are often seen as opposed. In the case of Deleuze, thinking Deleuze with Hegel, or psychoanalysis. In the case of psychoanalysis, thinking psychoanalysis with neuropsychology and cognitive psychology, as Zizek has recently done. Or in the case of much French theory, thinking it in relation to mathematics and analytic philosophy, as Lacan so fruitfully did and Badiou has more recently done. This, at least, helps to desolidify boundaries set up by masters, habits of thought, and push intellectual engagement away from just being scholarship on masters to the formulation of problems where one is thinking with masters. In continental philosophy departments, anyway, (I'm not sure how literature and poli sci departments function, though my impression is that there's a bit more freedom in the lit departments) I also believe there needs to be more an effort to cultivate a focus on problems rather than figures. The advantage of a focus on problems is that it can bring together a vast array of competing conceptual tools that then resonate with one another in unexpected ways in the groping towards a solution. My impression is that deconstruction and heremeneutics have had the effect of turning the object of inquiry into texts, rather than the world. This, in turn, has had the effect of derealizing the world. The text of Deleuze becomes more real somehow-- the only real --than the world it's grappling with. By contrast, a problem poses something as real beyond a text and sets up the possibility of poorly posed problems and poorly formed solutions, rather than endlessly carrying out autoposies on the masters' bodies.
Posted by: Sinthome | Sep 9, 2006 2:14:39 PM
As an additional note, I wonder how much of this cult of the master is a historical accident in American philosophy departments. For many years American philosophy departments geared towards European thought were struggling just to maintain their existence in a country dominated by Anglo-American programs. In many respects, it was the literature programs that are the true heroes in this story, preserving a good deal of European thought in the States and doing genuine intellectual work in relation to these thinkers (especially folk like Butler, Said, Gasche, DeMan, and Spivak), whereas the philosophy departments have tended to focus on scholarship and studies of European thinkers. Somehow the sense was that the best that could be done was scholarship, rather than philosophical engagement, just to insure the presence of these styles of thought and questioning in an American context. The situation seems to be improving, although I still get the sense that most of the genuine work is being done in lit programs. Those interested in doing real philosophical work and not just studies of thinkers, would probably do best either to go the Anglo-American route (which often forces one into the straightjacket of a series of non-pertinent questions, while still allowing one to focus on problems) or enter lit programs.
Posted by: Sinthome | Sep 9, 2006 2:27:44 PM
In the English-speaking world, theologians have typically been more rigorous in their engagements with European philosophers than have lit people -- in part because philosophy has long been an expected part of theological training, as opposed to the random bits thrown together in literature programs. It also comes from the close connection between American and German theology -- to understand the Germans, they had to understand the German philosophers.
For instance, John MacQaurrie, one of the translators of Being and Time, was also one of the most prominent theologians of the 60s and 70s. The Niebuhrs and Tillich also had a big impact in that regard.
Lit theory had its day, but it was just an episode -- at this point, divinity schools and religion departments are going to be the places to study European philosophy, outside of the handful of explicitly continental departments. Look at the reception of Zizek and Badiou, for instance -- his most widely-read book in the US is almost certainly the Paul book. Even Deleuze is starting to get serious attention in religious studies, due to people like Phillip Goodchild and especially the Radical Orthodoxy crowd.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | Sep 9, 2006 3:52:18 PM
One could also remark on how many of the great continental departments are at Catholic universities -- DePaul, Villanova, Fordham, etc., etc.
Plus there has been a ton of work done on Derrida and religion in the last decade or so -- cf. Caputo, Mark C. Taylor, Hent DeVries, (my advisor) Ted Jennings, etc.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | Sep 9, 2006 4:15:09 PM
Adam certainly has a point. But my impression is that it still really depends on the individual "master," spread around by the more or less arbitrary institutional politics as they may be. Many good people are still in lit departments (though it's probably true they don't publish/teach on Badiou or Zizek so much as Barthes or Derrida), and some are well established in language departments (the economic assumption there being, apparently, and among other things, that you will not only learn to translate but also someday teach the rich businessman's daughter how to get along in Europe, or something).
Unfortunately there is as yet no effective lobbying group in the US–Adam's efforts notwishstanding–on behalf of "continental philosophy" (and neither, I think, in the land of tea and creative insults); there is no "continental" Philosophical Gourmet Report, i.e., one even remotely sympathetic to "the French," and as Adam notes only a handful of strong "continental" programs in philosophy.
Posted by: Matt | Sep 9, 2006 4:40:58 PM
I can't speak to what takes place in theology departments, but the philosophy departments you mention (Loyola, DePaul, Fordham, etc), are rife with precisely the sort of problem I mention over at Larval Subjects and which Jodi seems to be discussing here, where it is a question of the cult of the master, rather than philosophy. That is, these programs (and I come from one of them, and worked closely with another), are part of the problem. That is, you attend one of these programs to study the *philosophy of a master*, not to do philosophy yourself. This is night and day from an Anglo-American program, where you go to study a particular problem and, while certainly learning the work of Anglo-American masters, are encouraged to make contributions pertaining to the solution of this problem (thus you attend philosophy of mind, language, science, mathematics, etc. programs, not programs that are strong in Heidegger or Husserl or Nietzsche or Hegel, etc). As for French philosophy, you generally won't find programs that focus on French philosophy at all (with the exceptions of Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Marion), as French thought (Derrida, Deleuze, Lacan, Lyotard, Foucault), is generally understood as the province of literary theory, not philosophy. These programs could thus be understood as intellectual history programs rather than philosophy programs. Perhaps this is the key problem with the idea of "continental philosophy" in general. In the States it inevitably ends up focusing on figures, rather than problems... At least this has been true in philosophy departments. As a result, masters become sancrosant and everything becomes text. The major continental philosophy conferences such as SPEP indicate this problem as well, as they only accept papers *on* masters, not new work being done in the field. Of course, if you do enough studies on the work of masters, you eventually earn the right to do philosophy in your own voice rather than simply doing commentary on the work of others, such as in the case of Edward Casey. Consequently, given that God is dead and that religion is a cancer in our world, one would do well to stay away from the theology programs (are you suggesting one has to be a believer to do philosophy in the States? No thanks!), and given that the philosophy programs are studying the history of ideas rather than practicing philosophy, one would do better to attend a romance or lit program, or just do ones graduate work in Europe.
At any rate, Goodchild is generally held in very low regard by those influenced by the work of Deleuze (Deleuze himself renounced Goodchild's scholarship in the preface to one of his earlier books, _Gilles Deleuze and the Question of Philosophy_ if memory serves me correctly, arguing that he found his picture of his thought unrecognizable, which pretty much made him DOA). I would say that thinkers such as DeLanda, Massumi, and Bogue have played a much greater role in the reception of Deleuze in the States. But once again, with the exception of DeLanda and Massumi's most recent work, most of the work on Deleuze is *history of ideas* not philosophy. As for your claims about Badiou and Zizek, do you have statistical evidence to support your claim that their most well-read books in the States are their books on Paul? I find this surprising, and even if it's true in the case of Badiou, I suspect it's for very different reasons than the one's you would proffer. For instance, I take it that interest in Badiou's Paul book has very little to do with interest in Paul or Christianity, and everything to do with a desire for a vision and theorization of militant engagement that doesn't fall prey to the endless vascillations (and ultimate capitulations) of the whole multiculturalist, liberal tolerance crowd. Zizek was already wildly popular prior to the publication of _The Puppet and the Dwarf_, such that I'm inclined to argue that _The Sublime Object of Ideology_ has been a much more decisive book in his reception. Given the bizarre comment by MDLS over at I Cite yesterday, and a strange tendency among some religious folk to believe that Zizek is advancing Christianity despite all his claims about *atheism*, I often despair that Zizek wrote the books on Christianity.
Posted by: Sinthome | Sep 9, 2006 6:32:35 PM
I have been thinking about this very important question too. I don't think we should be for or against masters. I like masters -- but of course 'master' is a loaded term. If I get a lot out of the thinking of someone who's really bright, is she my master and that then makes me her . . . ? Not slave, certainly. But adept! Or courtier. But if we change it to 'teacher' does the conversation change? That means, I imagine, that the rhetorical use of master, with its unthinking and slavish counterpart in the mastered, is an impediment to the discussion (in my view, that is). But maybe teacher doesn't capture it and we should stick with 'master.' Because there are lots of teachers we benefit from that we don't go on to quote for the rest of our lives. Stick with master for now, then.
Isn't it how you use them? (And this approach is also discussed above.) There can be a slavish use and a masterly use. If we set up a spectrum titled 'academic slavishness in relation to masters,' and on the left end is 'less slavish' while on the right is 'more,' we can easily see that a book or essay that only seeks to establish what so-and-so says or thinks, without really employing that thinker or theoretical trend to elucidate and tackle a problem, then that would be placed further to the left on the scale. I do think we shouldn't waste more time than we already do just talking about what someone says; establishing what someone has really said (when that's not done in relation to a problem that normal people can relate to). It's impossible to claim such an effort is always useless, and I'm not saying it should be avoided at all costs.
I have no hesitation saying that I have a lot of heroes and heroines in thinking but I do agree that talking about them publicly in a written way without a 'what for' can be silly or boring. I often post quotations to this blog because I like thinking along with them or because it just seems like a very striking moment that -- call me sentimental and cloying -- I want to share, and then maybe talk about. There are a number of writers whose thinking and writing about a particular theme is highly refined, insightful in surprising ways -- and they represent the gold standard in the field.
Lots of masters (Derrida, Habermas, Deleuze himself) have employed similar approaches in their work, developing their own view through this or that list of masters. When Deleuze writes about Hume or Bergson, one knows it's going to be quite a trip (that, anyway, is my reaction to him). They've got it going on. It's like going to a break dancing contest, and you are just not the best break dancer (so much so that when you dance, you break). Some other person or persons are the 'masters' of it. What 'master' means is "widely recognized as highly skilled practitioner of this activity." Not "unassailable father figure before which we must sacrifice our first-born (book)," so not a master in that sense. We need to be clear what kind of master we're referring to.
Posted by: swifty | Sep 9, 2006 7:02:58 PM
Sinthome,
Thank you for giving the predictable doctrinaire-atheist response, as well as for making a wide range of false assumptions about what theology programs do and what I personally am about. You would do well to review Seminar VII -- no matter how terrible American Christianity is, it's indisputable that the religious authors are a good read.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | Sep 9, 2006 9:20:35 PM
And also, whatever the Deleuzians think of Goodchild, he's indisputably doing his own creative work now. As is Caputo. As is Mark C. Taylor. I could go on -- but there is solid, creative philosophical work going on in religion departments, which escapes the "master" paradigm.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | Sep 9, 2006 9:25:00 PM
Finally, I mistyped in my initial post -- I only intended to say that Badiou's Paul book was Badiou's most-read book. I have no sales data to back that up, since it's not publicly available. I suppose we could compare Amazon rankings.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | Sep 9, 2006 9:29:55 PM
Authoritative Masters may be more central to continental thought than to analytical phil. and/or empiricism; or they have become so over the last few decades, probably starting with Sartre. Marxism as dogma seems to require guru-types to "keep the byatch goin'" as it were (tho JPS may have been anti-guru in some way, or just wrong)) ; tho a Wittgenstein had a guru-like, if not borderline sociopathic character. The charismatic postmodernist then in some ways similar to like a very cerebral, er, Billy Sunday: but even a decent snake oil salesman's gotta have some chops. Marx and Engels themselves, tho quite capable of yellow-journalism and at least a mild form of Zizekianism (Marx writing on les putains de Paris , etc.) were not these sorts of academic celebrity- leftists, and were quite engaged with practical concerns. I wager Marx read (or misread) the financial section of the London Times about every morning, and one suspects that's not on the reading list of the usual "philosophy" or Lit-biz graduate student...
Posted by: Spike | Sep 9, 2006 9:34:20 PM
Adam, I'm not sure what you're responding so strongly to in my comments. Why wouldn't you expect an atheist to generally have a dim view of theology or theology done in theology departments, and to will the end of religion in general? Given the general assault on materialism and what is often referred to as "secular humanism" in the name of spiritualist irrationalism, and with the rise of fundamentalisms in the United States and abroad that have been so destructive, it's important to express this and draw lines. I agree that religious texts are a great read when read after the fashion of Levi-Strauss or psychoanalysis such that any existence claims are bracketed and the aim is the analysis of mythological structures and structures of thought... That is, when they're read secularly as we might read Greek myths.
I have read Goodchild's subsequent work, but you appear to be right in your claim that he's broken out of the master-paradigm.
Posted by: Sinthome | Sep 9, 2006 10:16:49 PM
Moreover, it's difficult to see how theology (at least in its Christian variant) can avoid this problem. What Jesus says is true *because* he's Jesus (i.e., God). It could be utter nonsense, but would still have to be treated as true according the logic of revelation. If Socrates said something that is true, it's not *because* *Socrates* said it, but because of the reasons given in support of it. That is, philosophy strives to break from any sort of revelation or authority, separating the enunciation from the enunciator. That is, there's always an anti-egalitarian core tied to authority at the heart of Christianity due to its reliance on revelation or what transcends the subject, no matter how hard one tries to put lipstick on it and point to the occasionally nice things it says such as the Sermon on the Mount.
Posted by: Sinthome | Sep 9, 2006 10:26:45 PM
"If Socrates said something that is true, it's not *because* *Socrates* said it, but because of the reasons given in support of it.
Hear, hear. Does that not entail that Socratic methods have more affinities with the history of empiricism construed broadly (including Marx, perhaps) than with crypto-theologians and immaterialists such as Heidegger or Hegelians? It would seem so.
Posted by: | Sep 9, 2006 11:57:46 PM
Tangentially, Lotringer: "The name-of-the-author (of any gender) has replaced the name-of-the-father".
Posted by: s0metim3s | Sep 10, 2006 2:28:51 AM
Here's the sentence I'm reacting strongly against:
Consequently, given that God is dead and that religion is a cancer in our world, one would do well to stay away from the theology programs (are you suggesting one has to be a believer to do philosophy in the States? No thanks!)
I don't see how the death of God makes it any more imperative to stay away from the study of theology, or of theological texts if you prefer. It seems like it would make it safer and less worrisome. Sure, you could worry about "looking like" one of those fundamentalist freaks, but in reality, the fundamentalist freaks hate religion professors -- the only people who assume that religion professors must be believers are apparently... doctrinaire atheists!
There have been plenty of historians of Christianity, biblical scholars, and philosophers of religion who have not been believers -- going back for centuries at this point. If you're going to the Univ of Chicago Divinity School in order to study phenomenology or something, you're obviously not going to have to be producing confessional theology. And the "Paul fad" shows that it is totally possible to study religious figures without oneself being a believer.
Yes, American Christianity is awful. That doesn't make Christianity any less our intellectual heritage, and it doesn't change the fact that religion departments and divinity schools have been, and will continue to be, decisive in getting European thought to US shores.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | Sep 10, 2006 10:42:20 AM
Great catch, s0metim3s! That pretty much sums things up. I've often thought that a journal and conferences need to be created that are devoted to new work done in the world of theory pertaining to philosophy, political theory, and literary theory, done in the continental style, while nonetheless excluding any sort of commentary or secondary studies. I like Blah-Feme's idea of trying to write without c(s)itation, though mostly because I'm the worst when it comes to quotation (generally with regard to things I find striking, as mentioned by swifty, and that I'd like others to read). I wonder if anyone would have anything to say without citation.
Posted by: Sinthome | Sep 10, 2006 10:44:53 AM
Adam, Isn't that a bit like maintaining the study of alchemy, though? I have no problem with studies of religion being in cultural anthropology or classics departments, but it seems to me that theology is a dead discipline. I see the outstanding work that Badiou has done on Paul as being more akin to how Freud approaches the myth and story of Oedipus or how Lacan approaches the story of Echo and Narcissus, than anything having to do with "theology". Certainly I have no disagreement that Christianity is a part of our intellectual heritage, just as Greek and Roman mythology are a part of our heritage. What I object to is the existence claim that inhabits these programs.
I suspect you're right about what's studied in theology departments sharing little relation to those "fundamentalist freaks" that characterize American Christianity... But then again, I also suspect that if you want to know what religion is you don't ask a scholar but go to the people who practice it in a living context. Often I find that Christian apologists speak about Christianity a bit like objet a, talking about something that's "in Christianity more than itself", allowing them to turn a blind eye to all the ugliness that we see about us and thereby perpetuating these very things by fixating on the supposed agalma. I'm not, of course, suggesting that you're guilty of this.
Posted by: Sinthome | Sep 10, 2006 10:58:40 AM
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