Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 18:17:58 +0300 (EET DST)
Subject: re: modernity / Ralph


Ralph,

I was disappointed too, like I said.

Whenever I think I might have gone too far in speculative
direction I take something by good old Umberto Eco. I've
realised he's properly sceptical with matters of claimed
universal, unhistorical nature. At present I've been
re-reading his novel (!) "Foucault's Pendulum", this time in
order to grasp better Eco's jokes on several 'diabolical'
trends in contemporary western culture (how some occultist
and political extremist groups have weird common traits
etc). Novel as such isn't good, but Eco's warning of hubris
of subjectivity is particularly reasonable.

I have had one unrealised idea: to show how Marx's thinking
is triple determined by Enlightenment. Remember old slogan
about English political economy, French socialism, and
German philosophy? But what about French enlightenment
behind socialism? What about German enlightenment at the end
of 18th century and its relation to Kant? Finally, think
about all footnotes in "Capital". Not only Adam Smith, but
John Steuart, David Hume, Adam Ferguson & al. Scottish
enlightenment!

" If there is anything Hegelian about my commentary it is
purely unconscious, since my views on modernism have nothing
to do with anything I might think about Hegel or
Hegelianism. This is my long-standing viewpoint. I usually
don't express it in quite this language, and perhaps my
language is beginning to be influenced by a certain kind of
discourse. "

Parts of your post I cited were beautiful. Although I can't
agree that

"Before modernism, the discovery of self reached
its limits in Diogenes or Taoism or some of the
more advanced forms of esoteric thought, but it
was still impossible to fully realize consciousness
of the artificiality of human institutions and the
non-eternal nature of the world"

because I think Hegel didn't do much justice to earlier
generations. I have in mind ancients at the moment, but I'm
unable to do study on Aristotle and Stoics because of my
elementary Greek. I simply can't do necessary philological
work on that. Nor would I have time just now. Marx once said
that given the society, Aristotle went as far as possible in
his economic analyses. I tend to believe it's about the same
with relation between society/polis and individual. Stoics
criticized but continued aristotelian program in some issues
(and turned to pre-socratics with some another issues) and
that's why I tend to refer them. Another question is how
much we can know about them when enemies and unhappy
circumstances have destroyed nearly all of their writings.
However, I think they've (Aristotle & at least early Stoics)
been quite realistic about individual, self, and being a
subject. Christianity has muddled the issues more than
anything else. Though I might be too anti-religious now.
Perhaps protestants just re-discovered old conceptions and
presented them in a culturally proper way to deliver to
people?

Sorry that unnecessary babble.

" As to the coherence of the self, I don't know what your
problem is, but I'm thinking in practical terms and not just
academic terms. Coherence is more of an ideal than a fully
realized phenomenon. Coherence is what we achieve when we
gain some sense of who we are. "

I'm afraid my practical terms are also 'academic' ones,
partly at least.

There are several problems. I have nothing against ideal of
coherence. I support it but not believe in it as fact.

Throughout Europe there are strong fascist tendencies right
now. A black American basketball player, for example, leaves
peripheral Finnish town because of neo-nazis and racism
around him. Man tells that it was never that awful in L.A.
and flies back to home. Honorable citizens tell it's pity
that youth rebels that way, but times are hard and we have
to understand kids. - Then we'll learn it's their kids who
'rebel that way'.

Now, think about those youngsters (older ones too) who
belong those neo-nazi groups. How would you tell them that
their whole 'world picture' is wrong, that their belief in
'race' (not to mention superior one) is plain fantasy? Their
identity and sense of self is wholly twisted. But literally
they have some kind of coherence of self in their
subjectivity. I don't think one can discuss with them at
all. Either they go away or they kick you to hospital.
That's how it's with right-wing extremists.

But there is also a question of broader public. I believe
it's necessary to study them and to try to inform people how
those fanatics have 'constructed' themselves as fanatics,
how they've become what they are, in order to weaken the
'call' of neo-nazis. Those goups consist of both
working-class and 'middle-class' origin. There's no general
law why some people get involved and some don't. There are
economic, political and cultural as well as psychological
'factors' behind this involvement. Partly it's a question of
psychology, partly of social sciences. Always of politics?

When I referred to Freud I repeated 'forget this-or-that'.
By this I meant that we don't have to buy his theories but
it's reasonable to look how he sees 'psychic process' where
there are impulses of natural as well as of social origin
but which are hard if not impossible to see in
self-conscious, introspective subjective experience. I think
Hegel was basically on the right track when it comes to
subjectivity as such but was unable to grasp real individual
as subject. Marx and Freud are in different ways 'above'
Hegel in that they see that mostly we as individuals simply
cannot reason how that specific psychic process we call
'ego', or experience of self, is 'structured' by several
different factors.

In marxist circles Freud have been too often considered as
some kind of biological reductionist. Result has been
unability to understand dynamic of totalitarian (racist,
fascist etc) movements because of a lack of conception of
'unconscious' transsubjective drives. Those movements have
been reduced into effects of some economic crisis. If
'diagnosis' has been flawed then preventive efforts haven't
been effective. Besides, I like Freud's modesty. He might
have considered himself as new Galileo or Darwin, but there
was some modesty in a way he hesitated when presenting
ideas. I remember how he once wrote that despite of one's
own subjective conceptions of what he has done and how great
it possibly might be, there was reason to be beware because
next empirical fact might crash the whole building.

I'll write more about freudianism sometime later. I think it
nicely sticks to phenomenology: latter concentrates on
subjectivity, former tells something about its psychic
conditions.

Finally: what do you think some euro-neo-nazi thinks if he
takes a look at some of your posts ('worthless French
shits')? He'd be very delighted especially if he'd have
something against France, for example its too liberal
politics towards islam - "oh, American comrade!" I've
understood that this list is public, and all our posts are
downloadable. Sometimes your posts sound like purest racism.
We know well it's not the case. But they don't know it.

Yours, Jukka



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