Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels - The German Ideology
29.02.2024
A sociological reading as well, although this time for "classical sociological theories"; I intend to write a Marxist analysis of therapy culture. This particular work of Marx seems suitable to the topic. As of now I have only read the Communist Manifesto and the first chatper of Capital, both for academic purposes. I think it will be intersting to take this deeper step into Marxism in general (although I personally am an anarchist, his theory remains useful).
Really clear explanation of production, consumption, distribution and exchange. Have reached the constatation: production is also consumption,
and can see the root of Baudrillard's (himself at one point a Marx translator) consumption theories.
08.03.2024
Finished the first part in the edition I downloaded: Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy, which from what I understand is something of its own separate work. Very well-written, easier for me to follow than the chapter of Capital I read for something once. I think honestly Capital would be easier to read after having read this, but that's not a task to take on any time soon.
As much as Marx by this point repudiates Hegel, the Hegelian influence is still incredibly evident.
Have now begun the actual "German Ideology" section of The German Ideology. I don't particularly know the first two they critique, but I have a soft spot for Stirner in spite of his insufferability, so we'll see how I think about it. I will keep an open mind.
Although it's not particularly related to the essay for which I'm reading this book, I really like this quote:
This mode of production must not be considered simply as being the reproduction of the physical existence of the individuals. Rather it is a definite form of activity of these individuals, a definite form of expressing their life, a definite mode of life on their part. As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce. Hence what individuals are depends on the material conditions of their production.
I can see some of the Marxist humanist approach so far in the work, but so far it's fairly tolerable as far as humanism goes, mainly relating to humanity being aelf-producing within the restrictions of its environment (which is itself the basis for my posthumanism).
This production only makes its appearance with the increase of population. In its turn this presupposes the intercourse [Verkehr] of individuals with one another. The form of this intercourse is again determined by production.
This could easily be about Crash. (My incredible talent is that I make everything about Crash).
Worth comparing Marx's criticism of Feuerbach's that which is flatly obvious
and true essence
for ignoring the actual production of the sensuous world with therapy culture? Production of mental state as opposed to it being some reflection of an essential mind?
I actually really like the definition of the first historical act as being the creation of new needs. I would be ready to agree with that. (I could make this about the body without organs if I really wanted to, but I won't). Also intersting: the description of language as consciousness. The Hegel influence is still (with apologies to Marx) incredibly clear, although Marx certainly takes a much more sensible approach than did Hegel.
09.03.2024
As much as this is an interesting read, I do find the predictions of a naturally-arising communist movement rather naive (unfortunately).
For all the tension between more orthodox Marxists and Foucault + those who read him, I think that the observation that the new ruling class must present it's ideas as universal is worth considering with the critique of the human sciences.
15.03.2024
Although it is not particularly relevant to my purposes for reading this book, Marx's account of the rise of capitalism is interesting, particularly in its connections to colonialism.
The proletarians created by large-scale industry assume leadership of [the proletarian] movement and carry the whole mass along with them.
Elaborate.
Thus all collisions in history have their origin, according to our view, in the contradiction between the productive forces and the form of intercourse. Incidentally, to lead to collisions in a country, this contradiction need not necessarily have reached its extreme limit in that particular country. The competition with industrially more advanced countries, brought about by the expansion of international intercourse, is sufficient to produce a similar contradiction in countries with a less advanced industry (e.g., the latent proletariat in Germany brought into more prominence by the competition of English industry).
This is only two steps away from being about Tetsuo to me. In that film, however, the contradictions are to be found in the disciplinary apparati, which become articulated to the extreme in the schizoid character of the fetishist. It is contact with this fetishist which produces a similar contradiction in the salaryman.
The transformation, through the division of labour, of personal powers (relations) into material powers, cannot be dispelled by dismissing the general idea of it from one's mind, but can only be abolished by the individuals again subjecting these material powers to themselves and abolishing the division of labour. This is not possible without the community. Only within the community has each individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions; hence personal freedom becomes possible only within the community.
Worth comparison with the relentless anti-community isolation of therapy culture, in which each person is to resolve their problems individually by dismissing neuroses and psychoses from the mind, regardless of the material conditions from which they result, and in which interpersonal reactions do not take part within a community but rather as exchanges of "emotional labor". Marx and Engels go on to mention illusory communities which are restrictive; it is hardly surprising that those living in an experiential world composed of such communities find contact with others alien and threatening. I agree with their concept of the individual only being able to properly self-realize within community. They and Striner would despise this comparison, but in illusory communities individuals become "possessed" by the specter of power.
01.05.2023
Properly picked this up again yesterday, reading the Bauer section and having begun the needlessly lengthy section on Stirner. This is not to say that their criticism of Stirner is not warranted; I read through their criticism of his "Old Testament" and do find it largely warranted. Stirner's grasp of history is weak and by twisting and simplifying it as he did he was idealizing it, and while I am an anarchist I am an anarcho-communist, so I don't agree with his love of property (and Marx and Engels rightfully point out the equivocation he uses to justify it). I merely find this part of the book long-winded.
I did like this quote from the Bauer section:
... the holy father is mightily shocked by the heresy with which Feuerbach transforms the holy trinity of reason, love and will into something that "is in individuals and over individuals", as though, in our day, every inclination, every impulse, every need did not assert itself as a force "in the individual and over the individual", whenever circumstances hinder their satisfaction. If the holy father Bruno experiences hunger, for example, without the means of appeasing it, then even his stomach will become a force "in him and over him". Feuerbach's mistake is not that he stated this fact but that in idealistic fashion he endowed it with independence instead of regarding it as the product of a definite and surmountable stage of historical development.
In a way it does remind me of how mental issues are often regarded. Either they are some transcendental forces from some psychologcal world of ideas having their effects on subjects, or they are internal in a manner which means they ought simply to be got over. This ignores they circumstantial nature and that they may be so pressing "in and over" individuals precisely because of the stage of historical development in which they occur. (One could perhaps also regard their "abnormality" as a result of an ideology which attempts to posit the human nature which exists in relation to capital as The human nature).
I do agree with Marx and Engels that private property, by existing in terms of exchange relations, alienates rather ensurng individuality, as Stirner posits that it does. I found this quote in regards to his equivocation (of personal opinions as "property") good:
For the bourgeois it is all the easier to prove on the basis of his language the identity of commercial and individual, or even universal, human relations, as this language itself is a product of the bourgeoisie, and therefore both in actuality and in language the relations of buying and selling have been made the basis of all others. For example, propriete—property [Eigentum] and characteristic feature [Eigenschaft]', property—possession [Eigentum] and peculiarity [Eigentümlichkeit]] "eigen" ["one's own"]—in the commercial and in the individual sense; valeur, value, Wert; commerce, Verkehr; echange, exchange, Austausch etc., all of which are used both for commercial relations and for characteristic features and mutual relations of individuals as such.
We see such use of langauge in regards to "mutual relations of individuals as such" in today's therapy speak, in which conversations are "emotional labor" and one either has or has not the "resources" with which to engage in them.
04.05.2023
Have now finished the response to Stirner and "modern German philsophy in general". I will dwell for a little bit on some things which stood out to me. Again, I mainly find Stirner appealing in his criticism of state, rights, humanism and not his own ideas, as his political proposals are vague at best and economically do not abolish exchange relations.
I do indeed find it unfortunate that Stirner's "ego" is "a merely conceptual existence", which leads to a certani risk of apologetics for any carnally exploitative situation where the body, material existence, is used in a relationship of utility but the peculiar "ego" is still free of specters. That being said, one has to wonder if the "ego" produced in such conditions finds itself somewhat in the position of a body without organs, from which, seeking to renew its contact with the world and stripped of its automatisms it enters into a new form of relations with it (of course this requires the participation of more than just one "ego").
I did like reading the response to Stirner's criticism of communism for being moralist, as much as I disagree with Marx and Engel's approach to communism (I am a communist because I am an anarchist, and regard anarchy as impossible as long as private property exists). It is good to remember that the "general interest" results from private interests. It is dangerous for the former to be treated as an idea entirely independent from the latter.
[But the mere announcement] that Stirner in general "creates" [his qualities] does not [explain] even their particular form of development. The extent to which these qualities develop on the universal or local scale, the extent to which they transcend local narrow-mindedness or remain within its confines, depends not on Stirner, but on the development of world intercourse and on the part which he and the locality where he lives play in it. That under favourable circumstances some individuals are able to rid themselves of their local narrow-mindedness is by no means due to individuals imagining that they have got rid of, or intend to get rid of their local narrow-mindedness, but is only due to the fact that in their real empirical life individuals, actuated by empirical needs, have been able to bring about world intercourse.
There is, I think, a certain distancing onself which is necessary as well as world intercourse in order rid oneself of narrow-mindedness and create one's qualities. If I am using this page to discuss therapy culture, as that is the topic of the essay for which I am reading this book, then the isolating nature of this phenomenon can certainly be seen as in opposition to world intercourse. Discussing one's feelings requires the emotional labour of another person, and thus takes place only within the realm of economic exhcange and not the world in general.
A line that could almost be something out of an R.D. Laing book: To seek oneself means, therefore, to become something different from what one is and, indeed, to become all-powerful, i.e., nothing, a non-thing, a phantasmagoria.
True enough, and from a psychoanalytic perspective one wonders to what degree this sense of being "all-powerful" as a conceptual ego results particularly from corporeal powerlessness. The following is also interesting the from object-relations perspective:
Since everything that is object for the "ego" is, through the medium of one or other of his properties, also his object and, therefore, his property—thus, for example, the beatings he receives as the object of his members, his feelings and his mind, are his object and, therefore, his property—he is able to proclaim himself the owner of every object that exists for him. By this means he can proclaim that the world surrounding him is his property, and that he is its owner—no matter how much it maltreats him and debases him to the level of a "man having only ideal wealth, a ragamuffin". On the other hand, since every object for the "ego" is not only my object, but also my object, it is possible, with the same indifference towards the content, to declare that every object is not-my-own, alien, holy. One and the same object and one and the same relation can, therefore, with equal ease and with equal success be declared to be the holy and my property. Everything depends on whether stress is laid on the word "my" or on the word "object. The methods of appropriation and canonisation are merely two different "refractions" of one "transformation".
The observation that Stirner moralizes with his preaching of "self-enjoyment" is amusing enough. They are different phenomena, but one cannot help but be reminded of the moralsm of "self-help" or "good vibes only".
I do rather disagree with their response to Stirner's posthumanism, though I suppose Marxist humanism is one of the more palatable forms of humanism. Interesting considerations on humanism (and criticism thereof), more thoughtfully written than Stirner's seem to have appeared later, such as in The Social Construction of Reality, which examined the dialectical process. There is something to this, however:
The positive expression "human" corresponds to the definite relations predominant at a certain stage of production and the way of satisfying needs determined by them, just as the negative expression "inhuman" corresponds to the attempt to negate these predominant relations and the way of satisfying needs prevailing under them without changing the existing mode of production, an attempt that this stage of production daily engenders afresh.
Much discourse about "normalizng" or "accomodating for" certain abnormalities takes for granted a certain inhuman status that they acquire under the social circumstances. Deviant or unproductive behavior is pathologized and uncareful appeals for decency solely on the basis of "one cannot help it if one is that way" imply that if one were able to help it, then one ought to because it is an inhuman state.