Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2002 20:03:17 +0900
Subject: Re: AUT: Re: RE: Zizek
From: miychi <miyachi9-AT-gctv.ne.jp>


On 2002.03.01 02:07 PM, "cwright" <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net> wrote:

> Hey Louis, thanks for the wonderful opportunity.  (Oh, and next time I will
> remember to spell check when I am being a smart ass.)
> 
> The comment referred to the problem raised by Marx's notion of alienation.
> You see, if we are alienated, we have to be alienated from something, right?
> We are alienated from our humanity.  But what does Marx mean by humanity?
> We have two choices.  A.  Marx posits a positive, already-existing
> 'humanity' that only needs to be found.  This view has two basic problems.
> Firstly, it ascribes to a Platonic (some might say Kantian, but I don't
> think it matters all that much) underlying 'really human', which is an a
> priori construction.  Secondly, it is positivistic and Marx had nothing but
> hostile contempt for positivism.  B.  Marx thinks of humanity as
> possibility, as ek-static (possibly but not yet existing, according to Ernst
> Bloch); or as negative, as the negation of that which exists as oppressed
> and exploited.  From this viewpoint, Marx's reference to alienation is
> grounded dialectically in a not-yet-existing-but-possible humanity grounded
> in the struggles of the oppressed and exploited.  Those struggles signify a
> possible humanity, a humanity which is yet to be, but which rears its head
> in struggle in a variety of ways.
> 
> This second humanity is the only one that Marx could be reasonably referring
> to when he talks of alienation, since it is non-positivistic, non-a priori,
> non-reductive and non-teleological, hence dialectical, notion of humanity.
> 
> So, I am afraid that in the context of a discussion of alienation and Marx's
> notion of the human, my discussion is appropriate and sensible, even if one
> disagrees with it.
> 
> Now, I am not a defender of Zizek in many ways.  His recourse to Lenin
> follows from his dead-end attachment to Althusser and Lacan.  He may think
> himself too clever by half, but compared to you, Louis, he is at least worth
> the effort.  For whatever reason, but like most Leninist dogmatics, you
> refuse to seriously engage with any ideas that don't fit your preconeptions.
> Just please don't pollute our space with your boring, tired, thread-bare,
> but oh-so-personally-offensive bullshit.
> 
> Chris
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Louis Proyect" <lnp3-AT-panix.com>
> To: <aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2002 8:13 AM
> Subject: Re: AUT: Re: RE: Zizek
> 
> 
>>> Angela,
>>> 
>>> Personally, I like Proyect's completely assinine anti-intellectualism and
>>> jackass mentality. Hey Louis, been threatened by those violent News and
>>> Letters economists lately?
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> Chris
>> 
>> Hi, Chris. I meant to ask you. What does this mean:
>> 
>> "Some people have read alienation as 'alienation from what is possible',
> from
>> an ecstatic humanity, a not-yet-but-possible humanity.  Rather than see it
>> as something pre-defined, we could argue that we have had, for the
> entirety
>> of human existence, seen glimpses of this possible, from this humanity as
>> its own end.  In that sense, I think that the humanity underlying
> alienation
>> is a negative humanity, a negation of humanity-against-itslef which does
> not
>> claim to know exactly what humanity for itself will mean just yet, merely
>> that it is possible."
>> 
>> Isn't this just word salad? Here, let me give it a try:
>> 
>> "Only through praxis can the subject transcend the self-negating object.
>> Commodity production in the post-Fordist realm has been articulated with
>> the reified self. But in a post-Lacanian project that transforms
>> *ungespritzlitchzetzen* (a term coined by Adorno that is
> untranslatable--it
>> roughly means existential emptiness bordering on heartburn) into
> libidinous
>> self-actualization, the proletariat can achieve multitudinization."
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> BTW, asinine has one "s".
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Louis Proyect
>> Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>      --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>> 
> 
> 
> 
>    --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>MIYACHI TATSUO
Psychiatric Department
KOMAKI MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL
JOHBUSHI,1-20
KOMAKI CITY
AICHI Pre
JAPAN
0568-76-4131
miyachi9-AT-gctv.ne.jp

Hi Chris, Marx's concept of alienation is always argued in relation to
worker's product. So Alienation is no connection with "humanity"
Marx's position is "The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society;
the standpoint of the new is human society, or social humanity. (Theses On
Feuerbach) in this line " social humanity" means critique of individualism
of civil society. In civil society human-being is private, separate,
non-social individual. Later Marx develop concept of alienation into
critique of fetishism, which Zizek completely can't understand. From
critique of fetishism, we understand why Sachen(commodity, money, and
capital) rules our brain, and not vice versa. Once we understand how sachen
rule our brain, our radical social movement to destroy Sachen, i.e. Civil
society spread.
Below is my short reply to Zizek

According to him, Πthe expanded from of value occurs when the social
network of commodity relations develops such that commodity ŒA¹ can find its
relative and equivalent value in a variety of other commodities. At such a
moment, Marx observes, the commodities becomes Œa citizen of that world¹
Third, in this arbitrary network of exchange these arises a problem. Because
the commodities are all relative to, and Œmirroring¹, each other, the
various types of labor remain specific(rather than existing as abstract
labor in general).  In order to give Œunity¹ and true abstraction to the
system, a third element is needed, a mediator, a single commodity acting as
Œuniversal equivalent¹, representing abstract value in a Œpure¹, symbolic
form (such as gold or money). This Œuniversal equivalent¹ or Œ generalized
Other¹ embodies pure value, reflecting back the value of all other
commodities mediated through its from.  As the Œ generalized Other¹( the
embodiment of abstract human labor), it therefor represents pure difference,
all difference, and as such, it stands in no direct relationship to any
other commodity, even as it gives value and thus meaning to all exchange
relations.  Within this generalized from of value the universal equivalent
can only act as a successful Œmirror¹ because everything specific and useful
has been taken from it(as in the case of gold).  As such, it is an empty
signifier(a pure abstraction), or nonsensical Œ pseudo-subject¹ from of
capital, that nevertheless serves retroactively to give Œsense¹, or assigned
Œvalue¹ to all other commodities( The sublime object of ideology. London:
Verso)

 Firstly he fails to understand Marx¹s analysis on form-of ­value.  Marx
analyzed firstly one commodity  as having two character, use-value and
exchange value, and reduced the latter to abstract labor.  Secondly Marx
analyzed social character of commodity, i.e. from-of- value.  Beginning with
the simple, isolated, or accidental form of value, Ended with money form, he
showed the origin of money-form,  according to tracing the development of
the expression of value contained in the value-relation of commodities from
its simplest, almost imperceptible outline to the dazzling money-form. From
that the mystery of money will immediately disappear.
Zizek  confused relative-value from with equivalent from of value, and put
all commodities  in relative-form-of ­values, so that he failed to trace the
development of the expression  of value to money form.  Hence, he must
introduce Œ¹the third factor¹ separated from expression of value, and this
third 
element is said to be Œempty signifier¹ or Œ pseudo-subject¹, say, the
Other, Symbolic Order.  This is lethal error of Zizek who misread from ­of ­
value.
So, his argument on ideology is based on incorrect interpretation of form
­of ­value sothat it result in invalid understanding on ideology.
              



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