On Walter Benjamin's Historical Materialism

Walter Benjamin worked on his ground breaking reinterpretation of Marx's theory of historical materialism [....] According to Benjamin 'revolution' can only come when through our questioning and insight we bring the blind logic of history to a halt [...] this applies to individuals and [...people] seeking to escape the rigid, oppressive structures of the past. Geoffrey KlempnerWalter Benjamin’s theses On the Concept of History (1) promise a discussion on a new concept of history, and concomitantly on a new concept of the present. A characteristic of the text is that at the center of it there is no discursive explanation, but an image instead. Benjamin’s concept of history seems to do away with philosophy’s conceptual games, and transforms concepts into images, which spoil the promise of truth offered by philosophy of history. For Benjamin, the traditional concepts of history evaporated as he wrote the historical-philosophical theses. He could no longer be convinced that every historical event derives from a linear cause and effect relationship, and that all events together constitute a progressive, continuous motion. In thesis IX this appears as “one single catastrophe, which keeps pilling wreckage upon wreckage,” the “pile of debris” was so vast that it even “grows toward the sky.” According to Benjamin, everything about history has been untimely, sorrowful and unsuccessful. History has collapsed into a “single catastrophe” in which the history of mankind has shown to be a failure. The basis for Benjamin’s image of the pile of debris reaching to the sky, and the catastrophic concept of history in these theses, goes beyond concepts and phrases. For Benjamin, the stigma of philosophical language is that it does not extend to mimesis - remembrance. Only images attempt to gain direct access to mimesis.

The image of thesis IX presents history as Benjamin himself understood it, but we still have to grasp what he hides behind that image: “There is a picture by Klee called Angelus Novus. It shows an angel who seems about to move away from something he stares at. His eyes are wide, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how the angel of history must look.” The image is an allegory of history as natural history. And the angel stands for the “true” historian, the “historical materialist” who has stripped himself of all illusion about human history. In order to use the “weak messianic power” bestowed on us “like every generation that preceded us,” we must perceive history from a materialistic point of view, that is, history as the catastrophic pile of debris that continually “grows toward the sky.” The historical materialist understands the “claim” implicit in accepting this power: “a power on which the past has a claim” (thesis II). “The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed.” Here Benjamin seems to pave the way for the construction of a new “conception of the present as now-time” (thesis XVIII, A).

It is plausible to contend that Benjamin was aware of the explosiveness of historical materialism, which lay in the concept of the incompleteness of the past. In the theses, Benjamin refers to the “past” or “what has been” in general, and in some passages, to “past generations,” the “tradition of the oppressed”, and finally, to the dead and the smashed. Benjamin is not writing history, but developing a new “concept” of history.

No one more emphatically integrated the incompleteness of history into its completeness than Marx did. In the Eighteenth Brumaire (2) he wrote: “The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.” For past revolutions, there might have been some sense in “awaken the dead”, but for the revolution —that Marx thought was imminent— “in order to arrive at its own content” --its own identity-- it “must let the dead bury their dead.” In the same line of thinking, Horkheimer asserted: “The determination of incompleteness is idealistic if completeness is not comprised within it. Past injustice has occurred and is completed. The slain are really slain….” (See, Horkheimer’s letter of March 16, 1937). But Benjamin inveighs against this, and thus he holds his position in a celebrated passage from the Arcades Project (3):
History is not simply a science but also and not least a form a remembrance. What science has “determined,” remembrance can modify. Such mindfulness can make the incomplete (happiness) into something complete, and the complete (suffering) into something incomplete [N8,1].
Succeeding generations cannot simply ratify the fact that what has been lost has been lost for all time, and that the dead have no more access to any praxis, for other praxis is within reach. Thus the history written by the historical materialist takes up a certain “idea of the past” as its cause.

If “the idea of redemption” is inherent to the “idea of happiness,” the same should hold true for the idea of the past. “The past carries with it a secret index by which it is referred to redemption.” But Benjamin does not assign the task of redemption to a redeemer who is to intervene in history from the outside; he also maintains like Marx wrote, “men make their own history.” Benjamin thereby renders the past of history its completeness. “There is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one. Then our coming was expected on earth.” Although all this may sound theological, it has a materialistic intent and content. It is the historical materialist who is “aware” that “the past has a claim” on us, and we will not “settle” this claim “cheaply.” Benjamin does not depend on messianic promises: “Like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a weak messianic power.” That “messianic power” is an impulse, a promise that does not turn it into a fetish of what it promises.

How this power with which mankind is endowed is to be put to work? Benjamin does not treat this question in the theses. But he has no doubts about who is to put it to work - the historical materialist. In thesis II, Benjamin outlines the task of the historical materialist, and in thesis XVII, he describes the procedure. Benjamin first provides a summary of “materialistic historiography,” under which he subsumes his works: it “is based on a constructive principle. Thinking involves not only the movement of thoughts, but their arrest as well.” The “movement of thoughts” seems to stand beside “their arrest.” This shows Benjamin’s characteristic form of philosophizing, which uses “dialectical images” to decode profane existence as the enigmatic form of something beyond existence. Benjamin also combined these ideas in the paradoxical formulation “dialectics at a standstill.” His insistence on the arrest of the flow of thoughts opposes Hegel’s dialectics. Benjamin does not seek to assimilate itself into the temporal course of history through understanding or intuition. The knowledge —exposed by the arrest of the movement— “flashes up at the moment of its recognizability” (thesis V):

Where thinking suddenly comes to a stop in a configuration saturated with tensions, it gives that constellation a shock, by which thinking is crystallizes as a monad. The historical materialist approaches a historical object only where it confronts him as a monad (thesis XVII).
This representation is a construction that distills the rational shape out of the tensions of history. Benjamin’s method seems to be an optical change: the lenses in the historical camera have been replaced. In order to grasp the movement of history, the flow must come to a stop. It must crystallize into a shape and be constructed as something immediately present. Regarding the historical subject, Benjamin writes: “In this structure he recognizes the sign of a messianic arrest of happening.” By virtue of his “constructive principle,” by means of this “shock” which he gives to history, the historical materialist causes it to crystallize into a monad, bringing about the “arrest of happening.” Like Marx, Benjamin also recognizes the sign of “a revolutionary chance in the fight for the oppressed past,” by virtue of this “messianic” arrest.

In other words, thesis XVII deals with the chance of historical materialism to gain possession of history as a unity subject-object, which crystallizes itself by means of an “arrest” into a monad. In thesis VI, this cessation is more precisely described as “a moment of danger”: historical materialism wishes to retain that image of the past, which appears to man, single out by history at a moment of danger. This danger is the political one “of becoming a tool of the ruling classes.” Benjamin accepts the cause of the oppressed as his own: “Every age must strive anew to wrest tradition away from the conformism that is working to overpower it.” The “tradition” becomes then a “tool of the ruling classes” if it is abandoned to “conformism,” and all that because under capitalism the social relations are determined in the same way as commodities. The task of the historical materialist is to wrest tradition away from the ruling classes. As an explanation of this task, thesis VI continues with this sentence: “The Messiah comes not only as the redeemer, he comes as the victor over of Antichrist.” The introduction of these theological concepts cannot disguise the fact that there is no thought in the religious sense. While the Messiah is an image for the historical materialist, the Antichrist is an image for the “ruling classes.”

Benjamin’s language in the historical-philosophical theses invokes anew the theological origin of Marxian concepts; the secularized content of these ideas is always maintained. The Messiah, redemption, the angel and the Antichrist appear in the theses as images, analogies and parables --not literally. Here the question is why Benjamin proceeds in this manner. Maybe, the metaphorical emphasis of Benjamin’s thought leads us to assume that he is playing a game. What then are the rules of this game?

On thesis I, Benjamin offers us an image and its interpretation as well:
There was once, we know, an automaton constructed in such a way that it could respond to every move by a chess player with a countermove that would ensure the winning of the game. A puppet wearing Turkish attire and with a hookah in its mouth sat before a chessboard placed on a large table. A system of mirrors created the illusion that this table was transparent on all sides. Actually, a hunchbacked dwarf --master at chess-- sat inside and guided the puppet’s hand by means of strings.
But Benjamin adds to the interpretation of the image his own interpretation of the figures:

One can imagine a philosophic counterpart to this apparatus. The puppet, called “historical materialism,” is to win all the time. It can easily be a match for anyone if it enlists the services of theology, which today, as we know, is small and ugly and has to keep out of sight.
How then do the dwarf and the puppet, theology and historical materialism, relate to one another? It seems that historical materialism and theology, which is the impulse that sets the apparatus of historical materialism, are by no means identical. There is no identity between the separate figures. But it is the dwarf (theology) who guides the puppet’s hand (historical materialism).
In Benjamin’s interpretation, these relationships seem to be shifted. Historical materialism is in control: it “enlists the services of theology.” Theology is the slave who must do the work. Of course, the tasks undertaken by theology are not prescribed to it; on the contrary, it is the expert. But it can only do anything when it is in the interest of its master. The master-slave relationship is reversed: the living dwarf does not “enlist the service” of the lifeless puppet. This reduces the living being to a mere object of domination and reveals “the puppet” to be, in reality, alive and active.

Although the two figures are clearly separated, they become unified, however, when they make up the image of the automatic chess player. Only when theology and historical materialism have joined forces can the game begin. Only as allies would the two be a match for any opponent on the field of history —the class struggle. It seems that Benjamin seeks a form of cooperation between historical materialism and theology in which they can do more than take up the struggle - they can win. There can be no doubt about the desired outcome of the class struggle for one who has taken up the position of the oppressed classes. But is not it a solely intentional standpoint. Benjamin might respond to the question: if historical materialism “enlists the services of theology”, the victory of the oppressed classes must be objectively produced. Historical materialism “is to win all the time.”

But this question necessarily raises the problem concerning the necessary conditions for winning the historical match. At this point, Benjamin implicitly departs from the discussion of the concept of history to the possible historical praxis. Benjamin’s historical materialism would postulate the unity of theory and practice as has been advocated since Marx. He attempts to develop the theory of a different practice, which might have a chance of winning the match. Indeed this seems to be the intention of the historical-philosophical theses.

Historical materialism once sought to realize philosophy by transforming it. But in the meantime, for Benjamin, it has lost its relationship to reality. So in order to be able to catch up with real history again, historical materialism must return beyond philosophy to theology. But the question remains, was Benjamin’s attempt successful; is the alliance of historical and theology actually able to produce a new unity of theory and practice.

Benjamin’s theses closely connect the theory of historiography –narrative-- with the theory of history –the nature and transformation of human society-- in the same way in which history itself is referred to its political praxis. For Benjamin, it is necessary to have a certain conception of the present that allows us to generate an interrelationship between history and politics. The concept of history intended by Benjamin is meant to improve our position in the class struggle and historical materialism in the process. He immediately begins to develop the conception of an alternate political praxis, which would pursue the cause of historical materialism.

Benjamin’s critical revision of the theory and practice of historical materialism has its starting point as a “criticism of the concept of progress itself” (thesis XIII). Its theory and practice have been formed by a conception of progress, which “bore little relation to reality but made dogmatic claims” (loc. cit.). Here Benjamin criticizes a vulgar historical materialism that “recognizes only the progress in mastering nature, not the retrogression of society” (thesis XI). The vulgar-historical materialist bypasses the question that the concept of “progress” and the notion of “barbarism” are two sides of one and the same thing. Therefore, the task of historical materialism is “to brush history against the grain” (thesis VII).

It would be a mistake to understand that Benjamin is against progress; he is against that man internalizes the logic of progress, and in this way he would indefinitely reproduce it. When the progress turns into the objective of mankind and not mankind the objective of progress, we reproduce a conformist and reified conception of history. In other words, the task of historical materialism then is to blast out the continuum of historical succession, that is, to overcome the concept of “progress.” Benjamin adopts a conception of history as discontinuity, as interruption.

“Historical materialism aspires to neither a homogeneous nor a continuous exposition of history” [N7a,2], rather it “leads the past to bring the present into a critical state” [N7a,5]. The critical momentum of historical materialism “is registered in that blasting of historical continuity” [N10a,1].

Benjamin writes:

The concept of progress had to run counter to the critical theory of history [historical materialism] from the moment it ceased to be applied as criterion to the specific historical developments and instead was required to measure the span between a legendary inception and a legendary end of history…as soon it becomes the signature of historical process as a whole, the concept of progress bespeaks an uncritical hypostatization rather than a critical interrogation [N13,1].
For Benjamin, historical materialism “carries along with it an immanent critique of the concept of progress” [N11,4]. So it must liquidate the continuum of history: it “blasts out ‘the reified’ continuity of history” [N9a,6], and constructs it as a discontinuum. That is, historical materialism does not reconstruct history by repeating the past, but constructing its “interferences” in the present. Its “founding concept is not progress but actualization” [N2,2].

Benjamin attempts to establish “the discontinuity of historical time” as the foundations of the materialistic view of history. This attempt terminates in the concept of history as a “catastrophe”. The catastrophe is the continuum of history. For Benjamin, catastrophe is progress; progress is catastrophe. Thereby, “the concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are ‘status quo’ is the catastrophe” [N9a,1]. That things continue on going is the catastrophe.

However, Benjamin postulates a true concept of progress versus its reified version: “Progress has its seat not in the continuity of elapsing time but in its interferences” [N9a,7]. That is, in its discontinuities. These discontinuities are no less than the outcome of the aporias, the historical contradictions, of the present. In short, the task of historical materialism is to construct an alternative history once it “has annihilated within itself the [reified] idea of progress” [N2,2].

Notes

1. Quotations originate from Walter Benjamin, On the Concept of History, in Selected Writings, vol. 4, ed. Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings, trans. Edmund Jephcott et al., (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003).

2. Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, in Selected Writings, ed. David McLellan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977).

3. Quotations in brackets are from Walter Benjamin, Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999).

Alfredo Lucero-Montaño

Karl Marx en el siglo XXI

Durante la década que podemos situar simbólicamente entre 1968 y 1978 del siglo pasado, el marxismo influyó vigorosamente en los países europeos de linaje latino, y paralelamente, en las universidades del primer mundo surgió un nuevo interés, casi sin precedentes, en el pensamiento de Marx; aún en Wall Street lo admiraban: Marx el poeta de las mercancías --quien formulara descripciones precisas de la dinámica capitalista--; el Marx de los estudios culturales --quien dibujara la alienación y reificación de la vida moderna. Pero a finales de la década de los años setenta, un hecho bien conocido tuvo lugar: el marxismo entró en una espectacular crisis y se derrumbó como ideología política, como visión del mundo y como paradigma teórico, creando un imprevisible vacío cultural y político en el mundo contemporáneo.

De la caída del Muro de Berlín a nuestros días, la Unión Soviética y su imperio en Europa Oriental se han colapsado y la estructura económica nominalmente comunista de China ha mutado en una versión del capitalismo agresivamente fascista. En el mundo occidental, los autodenominados partidos marxistas se han vuelto penosamente débiles o han desaparecido como fuerza política. Y el posmodernismo ha desplazado al marxismo como la postura de moda de los intelectuales descontentos. Hoy en día la primera reacción a la idea de reactualizar a Marx es obviamente de desdén.¿Posee actualmente el pensamiento de Marx un valor intrínseco? ¿Qué teorías de Marx se encuentran irremediablemente desfasadas y cuáles persisten como fuente de nuevas ideas y tesis de trabajo? Existen tres criterios para evaluar una teoría. Primero, puede ser inaplicable hoy en día, aun cuando fuese correcta cuando se formuló por primera vez. Dado que los marcos conceptuales cambian, enunciados verdaderos hace 100 años pueden ser falsos hoy en día. Segundo, la teoría puede haber sido inconsistente incluso desde sus orígenes pero no por errores de su autor, sino porque los datos de observación y los juicios analíticos disponibles para la época han sido superados por desarrollos teóricos posteriores. Tercero, la teoría pudo haber sido falsa desde su formulación sobre una base puramente lógica, previamente a su corroboración empírica.

Jon Elster, en Una introducción a Karl Marx (Siglo XXI, México, 1992) --que es la secuela concisa y accesible de su imprescindible trabajo, más extenso y riguroso, Making Sense of Marx (Cambridge University Press, 1985)--, recurre a estos criterios en la evaluación de los elementos del pensamiento de Marx. Para evitar una percepción anticlimática, Elster expone y somete a discusión, primero, aquellos elementos que están muertos o artificialmente vivos y necesitan ser enterrados. Y enseguida revisa aquellos elementos que están vivos o se piensa que están muertos y necesitan ser resucitados. Brevemente, estas son las consideraciones del autor:

¿Qué está muerto?

1. El socialismo científico está muerto. Por un lado, no existe ningún argumento intelectualmente fiable que sostenga que el progreso de la historia está determinado por leyes que operan por necesidad; por el otro, su tratamiento de los valores es deleznable, pues si las leyes de la historia operan con férrea necesidad, entonces la acción política es superflua.2. El materialismo dialéctico está muerto. Este es un eslabón menor en el pensamiento de Marx. Aquí la formulación de la dialéctica es vaga y general, pues sólo equivale a decir que existen interconexiones generales entre las cosas, o bien, se utiliza como un concepto sofisticado para designar procesos de retroalimentación.

3. La teleología y el funcionalismo están muertos. En el pensamiento de Marx, se reconcilian, paradójicamente, una filosofía teleológica de la historia y el socialismo científico. La paradoja consiste en que la teleología explica todo por conexiones regresivas (causas finales), mientras la ciencia procede por conexiones progresivas (causas eficientes). Aquí el telón de fondo es la tradición teológica que presupone la existencia de un sujeto supraindividual dotado con poderes para actuar, ya sea la humanidad o el capital.4. La teoría económica marxista está muerta. El primer pilar de la teoría económica marxista, la teoría del valor-trabajo es una ruina, pues no ofrece un criterio útil para la elección de técnicas socialmente deseables, ni tampoco explica la elección real de técnicas bajo el capitalismo.

El segundo pilar, la teoría de la tendencia a la baja en la tasa de ganancia como consecuencia de un cambio técnico que ahorra trabajo es igualmente insostenible. El error más importante en que incurrió Marx es que despreció el hecho de que incluso el cambio técnico que ahorra trabajo tiene el efecto indirecto de depreciar el valor del capital constante, contrarrestando así y posiblemente equilibrando la tendencia a la baja en la tasa de ganancia.5. La tesis de las fuerzas productivas y las relaciones de producción está muerta. Desde el individualismo metodológico, la objeción principal a la tesis que las relaciones de propiedad ascienden y caen según su tendencia a promover o trabar el desarrollo de las fuerzas productivas es que no tiene ningún microfundamento. Marx no explica cómo la tendencia se convierte en una fuerza social, sostenida por las motivaciones de los individuos. A propósito de esta cuestión, Luis Villoro propone una formulación teórica que apunta a superar esta brecha que corre entre las situaciones y relaciones sociales efectivas y los proyectos colectivos que suponen la aceptación de valores relativos a los intereses particulares de cada grupo social, donde establece una cierta relación causal entre ellos (Véase, “El concepto de actitud y el condicionamiento social de las creencias”, en El concepto de ideología, México, FCE, 1985).

¿Qué está vivo?

1. El método dialéctico está ciertamente vivo. Al menos la versión del método dialéctico influida por La fenomenología del espíritu de Hegel, que ofrece un marco de orientación teórico plausible de las contradicciones sociales, así como de las consecuencias no intencionales de la acción humana.

2. La teoría de la alienación y la concepción de Marx de la vida buena están vivas. Al enfatizar el ideal de la autorrealización del hombre (individualismo ético), Marx quiso marcar distancia tanto frente a cualquier concepción que se centre en la autorrealización de la humanidad (en abstracto), como frente aquella que pone el énfasis de la buena vida en el consumo pasivo. La concepción de la vida buena de Marx es de impronta aristotélica, es decir, una vida donde los hombres hacen realidad sus capacidades específicas, sus potencialidades creativas.

La teoría de la autorrealización de Marx es una buena guía --apropiadamente restringida y modificada--, para reorganizar la reforma industrial y el cambio económico y social a gran escala.

3. La teoría de la explotación y, correlativamente, la concepción de la justicia distributiva de Marx están vivas. Si bien la explotación no es un concepto moral fundamental, sí tiene una función heurística y descriptiva en cualquier caso de análisis real de la injusticia social. La teoría de la explotación de Marx ofrece una sólida guía sobre lo que está bien y mal en un gran número de casos. Estos casos surgen cuando los individuos realizan más trabajo del necesario para producir las mercancías que consumen, por cualquiera de las razones siguientes: coerción física, coerción económica o necesidad económica. El principio subyacente de la justicia distributiva es: ‘A cada cual según su contribución’, principio que admite excepciones que sólo pueden justificarse por necesidades especiales. Aunque Marx no formula claramente ni el principio de contribución ni el principio por el cual las necesidades justifican las excepciones del mismo, sí son útiles como primeras aproximaciones.

4. La teoría del cambio técnico de Marx está definitivamente viva. Algunos de los capítulos más interesantes y vigorosos de El capital, I, son justamente aquellos en los que Marx examina la relación entre tecnología, beneficio, poder y derechos de propiedad en el nivel de la empresa.

5. La teoría de Marx de la conciencia de clase, la lucha de clases y la política está viva. En un nivel, se reconoce generalmente que la teoría de clases no ofrece una repuesta completa a la pregunta cómo las clases y los individuos que las forman desean vincular su destino a un nuevo ordenamiento social. Esta teoría fracasa en construir los microfundamentos de la teoría de las fuerzas productivas y las relaciones de producción.

En otro nivel, Marx pensaba que su teoría de las clases explicaba las condiciones bajo las cuales los miembros de una clase podrían convertirse en actores colectivos en el seno de los conflictos sociales. Hizo aportaciones originales sobre la naturaleza del conflicto de clase, de la cooperación de clase y de las coaliciones de clase. También subrayó, entre otras cosas, el aislamiento espacial, las altas tasas de movilidad y la heterogeneidad cultural como obstáculos a la conciencia de clase. Hoy en día acentuaríamos que la lucha de clases también está oscurecida por la presencia de otros conflictos de naturaleza independiente: los sentimientos religiosos, raciales y nacionalistas. No hay duda de que la clase es una fuente importante de conflicto social, pero no es el único elemento o el dominante.Finalmente, Marx quería que la teoría de clases ofreciera una explicación de los fenómenos políticos y, en particular, del comportamiento del Estado en las sociedades capitalistas. La versión más conocida de la teoría sostiene que el ‘Estado moderno no es más que una junta que administra los negocios comunes [de la clase capitalista]’ está históricamente refutada. Ante este hecho, el mismo Marx propuso una ‘teoría de la abdicación del Estado, según la cual el Estado se permite alguna autonomía, pero sólo porque ello conviene a los intereses de los capitalistas’. Una mirada más estrecha a los escritos históricos de Marx --a diferencia de sus escritos más teóricos, por ejemplo, su teoría de la historia--, demostraría que la autonomía del Estado moderno es una piedra de toque. Esta tensión en Marx podría atribuirse a su insuficiente comprensión de la naturaleza estratégica de la política y del hecho de que un sistema político puede asignar cuotas de poder que no corresponden a los recursos políticos de los actores. Sin embargo, estas deficiencias no deberían oscurecer la intuición básica de Marx de que el Estado depende estructuralmente de la clase capitalista, simplemente porque el propio interés del Estado, desde un punto de vista pragmático, le obliga a tomar en cuenta el interés de esa clase.

6. La teoría de la ideología no está particularmente sana ni viva, pero podría ser resucitada. De entre todas las teorías de Marx, ésta es la que ha caído en mayor descrédito debido a los procedimientos arbitrarios adoptados. El primer paso para remediar la situación sería recurrir a la psicología cognitiva y su conocimiento acumulado sobre los procesos motivacionales y cognitivos que distorsionan la formación de las creencias. Aquí podría darse una influencia mutua con la sociología del conocimiento de tradición marxista que podría sugerir algunas hipótesis específicas con vistas a su comprobación mediante procedimientos experimentales rigurosos. La tarea inmediata es el reconocimiento de que la teoría de la ideología debe contar con microfundamentos si quiere superar su estado actual: anecdótico, conspirativo, funcionalista y mágico.En el inicio del siglo XXI, la vitalidad del pensamiento de Marx hace patente que está vivo; vitalidad que nos invita a releerlo no sólo crítica, sino creativamente.


Alfredo Lucero-Montaño

En clave Badiou

En los mundos que recorremos, en las situaciones que habitamos, en medio del entramado de cuerpos y lenguajes que componen nuestra existencia emerge una excepción, un acontecimiento. Su aparición coincide con su desaparición. Pero queda una huella. Una huella mundana que abre la posibilidad de decidir sobre las consecuencias situacionales del acontecimiento. Badiou llamará “sujeto” a la orientación general de estas consecuencias sobre un cuerpo (es decir, sobre una configuración mundana apta para funcionar como suporte del formalismo subjetivo). Lo que está en juego es la producción de un nuevo presente. Cierta figura subjetiva se propondrá ser consecuente con el acontecimiento y su huella. Se trata del sujeto fiel. Otra modalidad subjetiva intentará negar ese presente, negar la potencia inmanente de su posibilidad. Es el sujeto reactivo. Finalmente existirá otra posibilidad subjetiva, consistente en la ocultación del presente detrás de una corporalidad (etnia, raza, nación, comunidad) presentada como plena. Será el caso del sujeto oscuro.

Franco Ingrassia

Matema Existencial

Matema Existencial es un blog cultivado por la maestra Angelina Uzín Olleros, en Paraná, Argentina, dedicado a la difusión de la obra del filósofo francés Alain Badiou: sus libros y ensayos, textos sobre su pensamiento, entrevistas, comentarios sobre su visión filosófica y pensamiento político. El blog está orientado a los lectores de habla hispana. Lo recomiendo plenamente por su compromiso con la claridad y el rigor filosóficos que la empresa exige, por la riqueza de sus fuentes, primarias y secundarias, y las referencias a enlaces interesantes en la red. Ver aquí

Enrique Dussel: Democracia representativa y participativa

La modernidad burguesa, desde el siglo XVII, comenzó a construir la democracia representativa que llega a tener plena hegemonía institucional en el presente. Su fosilización y corrupción siempre despertó el escepticismo anarquista antirrepresentativo, porque alejaba al elegido de la comunidad política de la base, pretendiendo como postulado la realización empírica de la democracia directa. Por su parte el Estado liberal impuso como única opción la democracia representativa, que negaba y temía la democracia directa, que se dieron en la Comuna de París en el 1870 o en los soviet de la Revolución de Octubre. Nació así la falsa antinomia: representación o participación.

Sin embargo, el proceso actual iniciado en el siglo XXI, y que se visualizará con los siglos como una revolución más profunda aún que la de la modernidad, completará la dimensión representativa con una democracia participativa fiscalizadora que se articulará novedosamente, sin eliminarlas, a las estructuras de la mera representación. No será ya representación o participación, sino representación y participación.

Es entonces tiempo de creación de nuevas instituciones participativas. La participación tiene dos caras: el ejercicio del poder directo en la base y la función fiscalizadora de las estructuras de la representación.

El momento que funda la autoridad del ejercicio participativo es la realización de la democracia directa o de la organización institucional de la comunidad en la base, del barrio o aldea, debajo de los municipios, delegaciones o condados. Es el componente intentado por el anarquista, pero visualizado por ello como opuesto a la representación.

La segunda cara de la participación es la fiscalización de la representación. Son ejemplo de este segundo aspecto (el fiscalizador) las auditorías o las evaluaciones de parte de un poder ciudadano (nuevo y cuarto poder formulado por la Constitución venezolana actual) de los otros tres poderes tradicionales (el Legislativo, el Judicial y el Ejecutivo). Otros ejemplos de instituciones participativas que transforma el ejercicio de la representación son la revocación de todo mandato, el plebiscito o la presentación de proyectos de leyes con las firmas de un porcentaje del padrón de simples ciudadanos, etc.

Es decir, la representación, por medio de partidos políticos, es el ejercicio delegado del poder. La participación es, por una parte, cumplimiento efectivo por democracia directa de una acto de la comunidad sin partidos en el quinto nivel institucional político (si estos son: 1. Internacional, 2. Estado particular, 3. Estado provincial, 4. Municipio, 5. Comunidad en la base, en el barrio, en la aldea, etc.); y, por otra parte, efectúa una verificación del ejercicio representativo como obediencia al mandato de la comunidad (del pueblo).

La representación, por su parte, da legalidad jurídica a la participación al institucionalizarla. La participación es el ejercicio de un derecho propio de la comunidad, y cuando cumple la función fiscalizadora corrige e impide el fetichismo de la representación, gracias a la evaluación eficaz y permanente, aún coactiva, incluyendo la fiscalización del ejercicio del Poder Judicial (por ejemplo, en Noruega un ciudadano es elegido por la comunidad para vigilar a todo juez, teniendo autoridad de fiscalización de todos los actos de dicho miembro del Poder Judicial).

El error reductivo de la filosofía moderna, desde Hobbes o Locke, y de la tradición liberal, consistió en afirmar que en el momento de la elección del representante la comunidad política había perdido (o permanecía en estado potencial no activo, es decir pasivo) el ejercicio del poder político, por el acto mismo de la delegación o transferencia del poder. Ese poder podía volver a ejercerlo en nombre propio sólo en la futura elección, y que por la selección de los nuevos candidatos juzgaba (o fiscalizaba) el ejercicio de los representantes (y en su conjunto al partido político) que habían concluido sus funciones. Se le atribuía así una mínima participación a la comunidad política. El anarquismo fue siempre sensible a este juego antidemocrático de la representación fetichizada. Se trataría de dar un gigantesco paso adelante. Sería necesario articular la necesaria representación con la perpetua participación actual y fiscalizadora.

¿En qué consiste la fiscalización democrático-participativa? En evaluar la calidad del ejercicio de la representación, incluyendo aún, como hemos indicado, el modo de impartir la justicia por parte del Poder Judicial. Es verificación del cumplimiento recto, justo del ejercicio delegado de actos representativos (en su aspecto material, formal o procedimental; es decir, del contenido de las acciones, de las instituciones; de su legitimidad y la honestidad; de su eficacia). De no cumplir con lo acordado, por olvido del carácter obediencial del mandato [véase 20 tesis de política, México, SigloXXI, 2006], hasta se puede recurrir al voto popular revocatorio de cualquier nivel de la representación: esto indica ya la presencia perpetua de una participación en acto, activa.

La potestad participativa no sólo fiscaliza, sino que, en el quinto nivel del ejercicio delegado del poder como Potentia, la comunidad en la base se pone (en un acto autorreferente) como decisiva y ejecutiva en los quehaceres cotidianos de ella misma (cuestiones de drenaje, agua, comunicaciones, seguridad, educación de la juventud, etc.), contando con recursos asignados. Todo esto garantizado constitucionalmente (como pretendía estipularlo el artículo 184 de la fracasada enmienda de la Constitución venezolana en 2008). Aquí la autoridad puede ser rotativa, sin partidos políticos, extremadamente compartida, cercana a la utopía anarquista de la asamblea permanente (pero institucionalizada e inevitablemente debiendo elegir a los miembros del poder ciudadano, en el segundo, tercer y cuarto nivel político-institucional, fundamento de su legitimidad). La participación, aunque parezca una contradicción, no podrá evadir tener una cierta representación en los niveles que se alejan del ejercicio directo de la base comunitaria. Pero es una representación sin partidos políticos, desde organizaciones más espontáneas de la sociedad civil, de las comunidades o asambleas en la base, etc.

El doble rostro de una democracia representativa y participativa supera así la propuesta unilateral de las revoluciones norteamericana y francesa del siglo XVIII. Ellos actualizaron y organizaron las instituciones representativas. La presente revolución popular mundial, postcolonial, transmoderna y transcapitalista (inspirada en los movimientos obreros del siglo XIX, de las revoluciones socialistas del siglo XX, y de los nuevos movimientos sociales actuales –feministas, antirracistas, de las tercera edad, de los pueblos originarios, de los marginales, etc.), descubre y debe institucionalizar las nuevas estructuras institucionales de una democracia participativa en referencia a actores colectivos políticos más complejos y exigentes en cuanto a sus derechos.

Tomado de La Jornada, 10 de Octubre de 2009

Archivo electrónico de 'Cuadernos Políticos'

Cuadernos Políticos fue una revista que se publicó entre‭ ‬1974‭ ‬y‭ ‬1990‭ ‬por Editorial Era [México].‭ ‬En ella confluyeron toda una generación de intelectuales críticos latinoamericanos que,‭ ‬con el ascenso de las dictaduras militares de la década del 70 en Centro y Sudamericana, tuvieron que exiliarse en México,‭ ‬ante la imposibilidad de ejercer su labor crítica de manera libre y por la amenaza siempre latente de la desaparición y la muerte.

Cuadernos Políticos fue animada por gente como:‭ ‬Bolívar Echeverría,‭ ‬Carlos Pereyra,‭ ‬Ruy Mauro Marini,‭ ‬Neus Espresate,‭ ‬entre otros.‭ ‬Para su publicación,‭ ‬colaboraron escritores tan importantes como:‭ ‬Carlos Monsiváis,‭ ‬Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez,‭ ‬Adolfo Gilly,‭ ‬Michael Löwy,‭ ‬por mencionar solamente algunos de la enorme lista de autores que publicaron en ella.‭ ‬La revista se caracterizó por su perspectiva crítico-marxista desde la cual se avocaron a reflexionar sobre los sucesos políticos más relevantes de América Latina y el mundo de esos años.‭ ‬Además,‭ ‬la revista difundió las reflexiones de otros pensadores críticos de Europa y Estados Unidos,‭ ‬fungiendo con ello como vínculo entre el pensamiento crítico latinoamericano,‭ ‬el europeo y estadounidense.

El archivo electrónico que aquí presentamos,‭ ‬que cuenta con todos los artículos de los‭ ‬60‭ ‬números de la revista,‭ ‬tiene por objetivo dar a conocer a un público más amplio las reflexiones de estos autores,‭ ‬gracias al desarrollo de los medios electrónicos actuales.

Para el lector de hoy,‭ ‬algunos de los‭ ‬temas y análisis de los artículos de la revista pueden sonar un tanto extemporáneos,‭ ‬debido a que se redactaron en situaciones totalmente coyunturales,‭ ‬aunque por ello no dejan de mantener un importante valor histórico.‭ ‬Hay en cambio otros muchos artículos que mantienen una indudable actualidad.‭ ‬Por ello,‭ ‬hemos decidido reunir todos los textos de la revista para que el lector tenga la posibilidad de juzgar por sí mismo sobre su importancia y con ello se anime a continuar con la labor crítica que cultivaron sus autores.

De manera que,‭ ‬el fin primordial de esta iniciativa es el de fomentar la investigación y el pensamiento crítico,‭ ‬con la firme intención de colaborar a una verdadera democratización de nuestras sociedades.‭ ‬Una democratización que,‭ ‬desde nuestro punto de vista,‭ ‬sólo es posible poniendo en cuestión los fundamentos de la moderna sociedad capitalista‭; ‬sociedad que actualmente no sólo atraviesa por una grave crisis económica,‭ ‬sino que en verdad se encuentra en una profunda crisis civilizatoria,‭ ‬una crisis que si bien es cierto nos puede llevar a imaginar otros mundos posibles‭ (‬lo que para algunos optimistas es ya un hecho‭)‬,‭ ‬no obstante,‭ ‬también nos puede llevar a una nueva época de barbarie.‭ ‬En efecto,‭ ‬nos parece que,‭ ‬no basta con intuir que tal crisis existe,‭ ‬sino se hace necesario comprenderla para poder transformar la realidad,‭ ‬y conformar con ello una verdadera alternativa a la modernidad existente.‭ ‬En este sentido,‭ ‬nos parece que‭ ‬Cuadernos Políticos no sólo contribuyó a esta labor,‭ ‬sino que su lectura la sigue fomentando como algo necesario en nuestro tiempo.

F.‭ ‬Javier Sigüenza R.

Ver aquí

Novedades

Manifesto for Bad Subjects in Cyberspace

Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life es una revista electrónica, con sede en San Francisco, fundada en 1992 por miembros de la Universidad de California en Berkeley. La revista está dirigida por un colectivo con una clara idea del significado del trabajo político organizado, como podemos leer en la presentación de la revista. Así, su Manifesto for Bad Subjects in Cyberspace establece un sólido compromiso con la tesis once sobre Feuerbach de Marx en la esfera cibernética, que bien vale reproducirlo aquí (en inglés).

Introduction

In September of 1993, the Bad Subjects Collective published 'A Manifesto for Bad Subjects,' in which we offered a critique of existing leftist politics. We argued that the Left today is characterized by cynicism, an investment in multiculturalism which emphasizes separatism, and a desire to compensate for its ineffectiveness by celebrating victimization and marginalization. At that time, Bad Subjects was just beginning to establish a presence on the Internet by organizing an e-mail list and setting up a gopher site where an electronic version of our publication is available. Through these avenues, our manifesto reached an audience larger than we had ever imagined possible. We received responses from as far away as Russia and New Zealand; the manifesto was even taught in classes across the United States. It has now become clear that Bad Subjects identity and popularity are largely a result of our on-line presence. While hard copies of the publication continue to be circulated, the vast majority of our readers come to us through the Internet.

In the manifesto, we recommended that leftist politics be more relevant to our everyday lives; in this way, we hoped to suggest a new relationship between personal and political commitments. Because our everyday life as bad subjects takes place largely on the Net, we want to offer an example of how to put this recommendation into practice. Whereas the Internet was once just a way for us to disseminate our articles, it has now become an important social context for the exchange and development of what on-line users have dubbed badsubjectian ideas. In short, cyberspace has become both an organizing tool and meeting place for bad subjects. It has also come to resemble — in some ways — the kind of Utopian community we imagined in our original manifesto. What follows represents our collective effort to explore the radical potential of cyberspace, while acknowledging its limitations.

Cyberspace and Global Capital

Cyberspace is the technological fetish of the moment, just as the telephone, automobile, radio, and television once were. In this sense, cyberspace can be said to represent the next logical step in the expansion of the mass media. Throughout the 20th Century, leftists from the Frankfurt School to contemporary critics such as Douglas Kellner and Todd Gitlin have been debating whether the mass media are a progressive or reactionary force. There has always been a danger that the mass media will only function as propaganda for the ruling classes. But at the same time, independent uses of mass media by radical groups have been cited as examples of the subversive potential of cheap technologies which can help organize and inform the masses.

Popular histories of the Internet generally underscore its chaotic and seemingly unreal structure. An Esquire magazine guide to getting on-line (December, 1994) by Phil Patton is typical, describing a dizzying landscape...whose ruling philosophy is complexity theory — the happy belief that this chaos will all sort itself out somehow, someday, and meanwhile, hey, go with the flow. ARPANET, the seed from which the Internet grew, was one of the US Department of Defenses innumerable Cold-War projects. Pattons history of the Internet parallels that of most other popular accounts in noting that its military origins did not prevent it from being appropriated by civilians. As the net became a means of communication, Patton writes, on its margins, just as beside the railroad or blacktop, a new culture began to sprout. Despite its historical connection to American nationalist politics, the Internet is perceived to be a place where anarchy reigns: state-planning created the Internet, but has now lost control over it.

Discussions of the Internets radical potential have tended to focus on this anarchic quality. Commentators have celebrated the ways in which the Internet has frustrated attempts by centralized powers to steer its development in a particular direction. Understandably, leftists wary of state power have agreed with them. But celebrating the chaos of the Internet comes dangerously close to celebrating the so-called free market of capitalism. The free market is supposed to be a space of productive chaos inimical to regulation. Ideally it functions all by itself without any political or economic steering. The free market promotes individualism; indeed, it is thought to function best when it encompasses a great diversity of tastes and needs. Moreover, the free market is a fiction which disguises the web of unequal social relationships constituting it.

Substituting the word cyberspace for free market in these descriptions allows us to see that what we value about cyberspace resembles what the Left has criticized about capitalism. Like global capitalism, computer networks bring people together in alienation rather than solidarity. People who interact on-line are generally not privy to the way those networks are produced by actual people existing within a concrete economic order. Cyberspace is a commodity in the process of being produced by programmers, paid system operators, and a range of volunteers who parcel out memory to users, generate more complicated interactive data spaces, and maintain order on newsgroups, mailing lists, and FTP sites. The Net is not antithetical to the free market, to consumerism, or to alienated labor. After all, science fiction author William Gibson invented the term cyberspace to describe virtual reality in a future dominated by multinational corporations and wealthy elites who prey on a vast, international underclass.

While communities in cyberspace might have radical potential, it is important to keep in mind that such potential is not inherent to the medium itself. Cyberspace is not itself a community; many types of communities exist on computer networks, most of which are nothing more than an extension of the kinds of routine interactions we expect to encounter in capitalism. On Usenet and the World Wide Web, for example, we encounter thinner and thinner boundaries between personal expression, politics, and advertising. There are newsgroups devoted simply to job listings. On World Wide Web, you might click on a word in the middle of an article about progressive politics in Slovenia and find yourself linked to an infoblurb promoting tourism in Eastern Europe. On-line galleries exist in a number of locations for the purposes of selling art, music, or text. Thus, the Internet reflects the economic and social conditions that underpin it.

In our excitement over the Internets potential, we must be wary of buying into the ideology of the free market it mirrors. If we value the Internet because it is chaotic, decentered, and promotes individuality for its own sake, then it is only a matter of time before we start to value the free market for the same reasons.

Democracy Is Not Utopia

Promises of a good society offered by cybernetic communication are familiar to us by now. They come out of what we might call the democratic Utopianism espoused by everyone from techno-anarchists like the staff of Mondo 2000 to self-styled conservative futurist Newt Gingrich. Like the fiction of a free market, on-line democratic Utopianism is heavily informed by a belief that unhindered personal expression is the measure of our social freedom.

In on-line democratic Utopianism, cyberspace community ends up emulating political communities in physical reality. Hence, the drawbacks of actually existing democracy as we know it in the United States are prevalent in computer networks: the middle- and upper-classes constitute the largest and most vocal group, promoting their own interests without having to pay attention to the needs and desires of the underclasses and disenfranchised groups. Much has been made, for example, of the way politicians, local governments, and special interest groups can have town hall meetings in virtual reality and hear from the people. But on the Net, after all, one pays for the privilege of participating in any town hall meeting. Moreover, cyberspace runs the risk of becoming individualist to the point of parody, where personal expression is overvalued so much that it is impossible to assert anything unless it begins with the cyberslang disclaimer IMO [in my opinion].

An overemphasis on the personal has led to many of the problems leftists face today when they try to organize themselves as a mass community once more. Personal or identity politics have led to distrust of all groups which attempt to take a strong, unified stance which might appeal to mainstream society. Multiculturalism has helped Americans to modify their interpersonal relations — making it rude and often illegal to be racist or sexist — but it has also undermined our ability to view the political as political. Lacking a clear vision of politics which go beyond the personal, the Left shies away from any program or set of goals which assert that large numbers of people can change society for the better. Whose society are you talking about? the multiculturalist might ask. Hearing that this society is one we all share, the multiculturalist disgustedly replies, No such society exists, and if it did, it would be oppressive. Certainly this is the case if all politics are merely personal, since no two people can share the same life. But politics go beyond individual experience.

To bring about a more just society, the left must commit to a politics which validate personal identity while at the same time transcending it. For this reason, the potential for political community in cyberspace seems particularly salient. On a computer network, identity as we know it in our daily lives is altered. Because we cannot instantly see each other as races, genders, ages, etc., in a computer environment, peoples impulse to judge one another as such is hindered. We could never argue that these judgments do not occur, and certainly many people on-line make sure to identify themselves somewhere on the multiculturalist spectrum. Nevertheless, it is appropriate to assert that radical communities on-line would not fall out along the same lines as they might in physical reality.

Computer networks are, as many commentators have noted, global, or, at the very least, international. Indeed, since going on-line, the Bad Subjects mailing list and readers have been made up of people from around the world. A radical community in cyberspace would, therefore, be constituted by a population united by their desire to affect more than simply their cultural group or national region. Insofar as people can choose how, or if, to represent their (multicultural) identities on-line, cyberspace may provide the ultimate forum for performative identities. That is, a woman on-line might perform the identity of a man, and vice versa. In some ways, we might be tempted to celebrate this, arguing that such a performance undermines the allegedly fixed nature of race, gender, ethnicity, etc.. Such on-line performances take us, perhaps, a small step beyond multiculturalism as we now know it.

What remains fixed, however, are the sites from which on-line access is made available. E-mail address suffixes such as org [organization], gov [government] and edu [education] locate the user within a system of commercial, state, and educational networks. Outside the United States, users are also identified by a country code in their suffix. Although anonymous servers exist which can erase users addresses, these are not entirely foolproof, and their use is limited. This suggests that while multicultural identities can be temporarily transcended (or reinscribed) in cyberspace, work — or class — identities cannot. Cyberspace identities may suggest a post-multicultural and post-national world, but they do not entirely escape their social context.

The Use of Liberal 'Safe Spaces'

Built into the structure of any radical politics is an injunction to form communities. We know for certain that social change is dependent upon teamwork — and the kind of teams we form as radicals can, ideally, become the blueprints for what a better society might look like. Unfortunately, leftist and other radical communities are notorious for their instability and hypocrisy. In the late 60s, the New Left and civil rights movements spawned the womens movement precisely because, to women and their allies, sexist behavior in these movements seemed so clearly in conflict with their stated goals of equality and social justice. Subsequently, the womens movement and other civil rights groups of the 70s, 80s, and 90s have asserted that the personal is political in order to encourage continuity between political convictions and everyday actions.

The limitations of a multiculturalist position are, in part, the impetus behind our ongoing commitment to Bad Subjects. The project of Bad Subjects has always been to provide a forum for the discussion of leftist politics and, out of that, to build a political community and promote social change. While the hard-copy publication offers a place for people to articulate a substantial and coherent position on an aspect of contemporary culture, the on-line mailing list is a space where people can discuss, more informally, 'political education for everyday life.' On the list, people debate the possible ways in which the Left might be more effective at both understanding and transforming contemporary society. It resembles, therefore, a kind of 'safe space' or 'support group' that allows for the free exchange of ideas and positions. While only a few list members may participate at any given time, the messages are 'bounced' to the 200 or so people who currently subscribe to the list. Even when people do not agree with each other, one result is the on-going production of a 'badsubjectian' position on whatever happens to be the topic at hand. The mailing list, therefore, collectively articulates a position (albeit sometimes a provisional one) on a topic. By participating, list members are acting in ways that suggest the kind of political community the Bad Subjects collective has always tried to work towards.

This kind of free exchange can have its limitations, however. As with any 'safe space' there is a need to be aware of the extent to which containing political discussions within places like the mailing list can give us a false sense of our power to transform society. One problem is that the free exchange of ideas can quickly turn into a debate where every position is considered equally valid. While most people on the list are already committed to leftist politics, discussions occasionally become mired in the kind of individualism mentioned earlier, precluding the possibility of criticism or the articulation of a more coherent, and, ultimately, useful position. While a degree of 'liberal pluralism' — where everyone's opinion is equally valued and respected — is necessary, and the safe space of the list allows for, and, indeed, promotes, such a dynamic, there is a time where a stand needs to be taken in order for any substantial change to be possible.

While discussions on the Bad Subjects mailing list may suggest a kind of collective politics, there is need to distinguish between the feeling of political community that a list can generate, and the ability to make productive use of that community to enact material changes in the world. As with any support group, there is, moreover, a need to leave the group behind and use the techniques and knowledge gained from the list in our lives outside of cyberspace. Indeed, there are many social and political changes that the list makes possible. The exchange of ideas can, and often does, promote a shift in consciousness that contains within itself real material effects. Many people on the list are students, professors, or writers, who use ideas and resources from the list, for example, to change the ways in which they teach and learn in their respective professions.

We need to create a balance between the liberal pluralism found in places like the mailing list and the kind of radical politics that can effectively transform society. There is nothing inherently radical, after all, about either multiculturalism or liberal pluralism. Indeed, both frequently reinforce — by creating 'alternative' or 'niche' markets — the structures of capitalism that we aim to dismantle. While it is, of course, important to be conscious of many social and political perspectives, we must also self-consciously maintain a position that opposes, rather than validates, the structures and ideology of capitalism.

The kinds of interactive discussions taking place on the mailing list break down the boundary between producers and consumers of ideas and actions. Our desire is not to merely reach a mass audience whom we can educate, in other words, but to encourage people to act in the world to effect real social change. We work to make possible a world in which on-line members are not merely passive recipients of 'badsubjectian' ideas, but active agents helping us to articulate such a position and enact it in the world at large. Self-consciousness about the political potential of cyberspace is, thus, not an end in itself. We must leave the Net behind and use it only as an impetus for social change in the 'real' material world.

A Radical Program for Cyberspace

Cyberspace community is just another form of community, with all its potential pitfalls and triumphs. The form that a community takes is ultimately not the point — but what you do with that community is. And this is why we believe that on-line and real life communities are not in opposition to one another, or in a hierarchical relationship. These communities exist in relation to each other, and are in the process of making each other quite different as a result of their relationship. Real communities may have invented cybercommunities, but at this point there are real communities and relationships which have been forged in cyberspace. Hence, cyberspace and real society are in a dialectical relationship — they mutually create and influence each other.

The materialist dialectic of Marxist tradition is often interpreted to mean a set of relationships in which materiality is the most important factor. This, as many theorists have pointed out, depends on how you define materiality. As much as cyberspace would seem to be the realm of ideas, hence non-material, one needs to remember that there is a materiality to cyberspace. If there were no such materiality, we could not assert that some people have access to it while others do not. Nor could we compare the structure of cyberspace to the structure of capitalism, which is a notoriously materialistic system. Like all raw materials, cyberspace is unequally distributed throughout the world. Hence cyberspace has materiality and an ideology — there are actual ports, machines, and RAM; and there are beliefs we have about it and ways we behave in it. Cybercommunity, like real life community, is a combination of raw materials and human conviviality.

It is therefore reasonable to assume that radical politics in cyberspace do have a relationship to practices in non-virtual reality. A radical political program in cyberspace would recommend actions intended to equalize access to its raw materials and information. It would promote localized and global participation in the maintenance of cyberspace society, or its structure and laws. Finally, it would open up avenues by which anti-capitalist thought might be disseminated and national boundaries eroded. All these actions would have as their intended goal the construction of a future, Utopian society in which human identities are global and people are united by a commitment to justice, shared labor, socialized property, and the peaceful resolution of conflicts.

For the present, cyberspace is in its infancy. In critical discussions, often we speak of potential ways cyberspace might develop as a technology and as a social force. To theorize cyberspace is also to imaginatively project ourselves as a society into the future. Cyberspace is more than just a system of computers; it is also a network of human relationships in the process of emerging. What is Utopian about cyberspace at this point in history is that its structure is obviously not entirely fixed. Perhaps, in deciding how we wish to organize the future of cyberspace, we can teach ourselves that, indeed, the future of human society is not fixed either. We can always choose to be different, and more importantly, we can always choose to be better. Like cyberspace itself, this manifesto is an invitation to remember that, as individuals and as a society, this choice is always ours.

Tomado de Bad Subjects, número 18, Enero de 1995

Gerald A. Cohen (1941-2009)

Las cuatro dimensiones de la filosofía

Para Alain Badiou, el deseo de la filosofía es cuatri-dimensional. El deseo de la filosofía implica fundamentalmente la dimensión de la revuelta, pues no hay filosofía sin el malestar del pensamiento al confrontarse con el mundo tal como está. Implica una lógica, esto es, la creencia en el poder de la razón y la argumentación. También implica la noción de universalidad: la filosofía se dirige a todos los hombres en tanto seres pensantes, racionales. Finalmente, comprende un riesgo: pensar es siempre una decisión sometida a las circunstancias o al azar. Así, podemos afirmar que el deseo de la filosofía posee cuatro dimensiones: la revuelta, la lógica, la universalidad y el riesgo.

El mundo contemporáneo ejerce una gran presión sobre estas cuatro dimensiones de la filosofía. ¿Por qué? Primero, el mundo occidental no está comprometido con la dimensión de la revuelta por dos razones. Este mundo está convencido de que ya es libre; se presenta a sí mismo como el ‘mundo libre’, en un mundo global reducido a la miseria y a la explotación. Pero, al mismo tiempo, estandariza y comercializa el precio de esta libertad, al proyectarla en una abstractificación monetaria con tal éxito que nuestro mundo no tiene porque lanzarse a la revuelta para ser libre, porque este mundo nos garantiza la libertad para el consumo de mercancías. Libertad codificada. Por ello, este mundo ejerce una intensa presión contra la idea misma de que pensar es una insubordinación.

En cuanto a la dimensión lógica, ésta está sometida a un régimen de comunicación profundamente ilógico. La comunicación actual nos transmite un universo de imágenes inconexas y afirmaciones incoherentes. La comunicación masiva desbarata todo principio y relación. Ésta nos presenta el mundo como un espectáculo vacío de memoria, nos presenta una promiscuidad de nuevas imágenes y nuevos slogans que cubren, borran y olvidan las cosas mismas. Así, es un proceso que ejerce una considerable presión sobre la fidelidad lógica del pensamiento.

Nuestro mundo no está en conformidad con la cuarta dimensión de la filosofía, la universalidad. Es mundo especializado y fragmentario. Está dividido en respuesta a las necesidades de las innumerables ramificaciones de la configuración técnica de las cosas, el aparato de producción, la distribución de salarios, la diversidad de funciones y capacidades. Todos estos requerimientos de la especialización y la fragmentación hacen difícil percibir un pensamiento universal válido.

Finalmente, nuestro mundo no favorece compromisos o decisiones riesgosas. La vida está orientada a calcular la seguridad. La existencia se debe al cálculo. La obsesión por la seguridad se opone a la tesis de Mallarmé: ‘Todo pensamiento es un golpe de suerte’. Ciertamente, un pensamiento es como un tiro de dados, de ahí que en el mundo moderno hay una gran resistencia y represión a lanzar los dados de la filosofía.
El deseo de la filosofía enfrenta en nuestro mundo cuatro grandes obstáculos. Estos están en las esferas de las mercancías, la comunicación, la necesidad de una especialización técnica y la necesidad de cálculos realistas sobre la seguridad. ¿Cómo puede la filosofía enfrentar este reto? ¿La filosofía es capaz de tal empresa?